apply to a something with which religion has little or nothing to do. How this impression has become so very general, it may not perhaps be very easy to determine; but that such an opinion has obtained a wide circulation, no one, who is much conversant with the opinions of men, can possibly doubt.

But, notwithstanding this opinion may have become popular with many, and its influence may be widely spread and extensively felt; it is an opinion which, we fear not to declare, has its basis in the est error.

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This error may perhaps have partly originated from the practice, which is very prevalent in states, of appointing persons to places of distinction and trust who are totally destitute of the recommendations of religion and virtue. When such appointments frequently take place; and, when it appears that money and interest, rather than true merit, have been the causes which produced them, men are very apt to conclude that wealth, however it may be procured, and that interest and influence which wealth commands, are of more advantage to promote any one to honour in the state, than that religion which teaches us to fear God and to do good to our fellow men. Were the practice of appointing to offices of state, therefore, different, in those political communities into which mankind are divided, we have little doubt but that the associations of men also, in regard to the connexion of religion and politics, would naturally undergo a similar change. Were those of sound sentiment and inflexible integrity invariably stationed at the helm of public affairs, men would be apt to conclude, that there was indeed some connexion between that principle which binds us to worship and reverence our Creator, and that conduct which we ought to observe when we are promoted to situations of trust in that country or nation to which we belong. They would then

be led to see that a true saint and a genuine patriot were not two distinct characters, but that patriotism was but one feature of that character which constitutes a genuine saint.

Another cause, probably, which has given rise to this very destructive error which we are now endeavouring to trace to its origin, is that very prevalent mistake, which exists among many of the pious, of conceiving that there is a kind of opposition between religion and the common duties and affairs of life. Many seem to think, that nothing deserves the name of religion, except those acts of devotional worship by which we are supposed to pay our respect immediately to the Deity. All other actions, they appear to imagine, ought to be ranked under a very different head than that of religion. We think this conception, wherever it may have had its origin, exceedingly absurd. Devotional exercises are not religion; they are only expressions of it, and may be viewed as calculated, like any other of our actions, to have a reciprocal influence on the principle from which they spring. Religion, which consists in rectitude of heart and purity of principle, produced by a sound faith in the doctrines of the gospel, prompts us to worship God; but, when we have continued to worship God for some time, the influence of the habit, which repeated acts of this kind naturally generates, is felt in strengthening the principle which gave them birth. The exercises of devotion, consequently, may be considered in one sense as a proof of our regeneration, and in another as means of grace, appointed by God, to aid our progress towards heaven.

From these remarks, then, it will appear obvious, that acts of worship can only be considered as ranking among the other good works which may be denominated the fruits of religion. When one loves and does good to his neighbour, therefore, in

obedience to the will and commandment of his God, he certainly endeavours to honour him, as well as when he bows the knee before him in the attitude of devotional homage. The one of these acts, consequently, cannot be justly viewed as opposed to the other. They spring from the same principle-tend ultimately to the same point-and derive their difference of aspect from the circumstances merely in which the actor is placed when he performs each. When he engages in any devotional exercise, he approaches God immediately, and tenders to him the homage of his heart; but when he does a good action to his neighbour, his conduct does not seem to point so immediately to God; and therefore, this latter action is considered as having far less connexion with religion than the former. But this idea is entirely wrong. For he who does not love his brother whom he hath seen, cannot be supposed to love his God whom he hath not seen. 1 John, iv. 20. Hence, so far are the devotional acts of religion and the common duties of life from being opposed to each other, that it appears evident, on strict and proper examination, that he who does not carefully attend to the performance of both, cannot, according to the doctrines of Biblical religion, be reckoned among the spiritual children of the living God.

Another circumstance, which has tended, in these times, to separate the character of the saint from that of the politician, in the judgment of men, may be found in that ecclesiopolitical system, which seemed to grow out of Christianity, a few centuries after its first appearance. Many have thought, and many do still think, that religion ought not to be much encouraged in any state, because it once seemed to lend its aid to such a fabric as that to which we have at present alluded. Those who thus judge, however, must be regarded as having formed their opinion from a partial view of the

case. They do not consider that the very circumstance for which they contend, namely, a separation between the characterof a saint and politician, was the very thing which led to that chief mischief, against which they pretend, by their wise politics, to guard themselves and their proselyted disciples. The separation of saint and politician, soon produced separate interests in the church and state; the clergy, therefore, endeavoured by craft to secure their interests; and the statesmen, by means not more honourable, strove to fortify theirs; but as the former appeared to have the air of religion on their side, they by degrees obtained an advantage over the latter. Hence the ecclesiastical interest rose completely above that of the state, and consequently proved, in the hand of a designing and worldly priesthood, the means of entirely subjugating the political powers of Europe.

The power which the clergy thus obtained, made the secular princes glad to court their notice and influence. Princes were afraid to incur their displeasure, because the excommunication of the church was felt to be a visitation of a most awful kind. Thence sprung that slavish fear and abject superstition which, for a long time, involved the European states in the grossest ignorance and most degrading barbarism. Thus did both clergy and laity, by their mutual jealousies, become divested of those religious principles which, if their influence had been felt, would have restrained them from pursuing those schemes, which brought upon the states to which they belonged so much darkness and misery.

This overwhelming evil, then, might have been prevented, had the statesmen of those times been men

of enlightened piety; men influenced by those principles which teach governors and legislators to regard, in all their transactions, the rights and comforts of the people; and men willing to throw the weight of

their influence into the government of the church, so as to have balanced correctly the ecclesiastical scales, and prevented the preponderance of clerical power. Had statesmen and clergy thus amalgamated their influence in the management of ecclesiastical government and discipline, the rights of private conscience, and the political liberties of mankind, might have been secured, while the interests of religion and morality would neither have been impeded nor destroyed.

Having therefore thus endeavoured shortly to trace the steps of that false reasoning, which seems to have led to the popular opinion that religion and politics have no necessary connexion, we shall now proceed to show, more directly, that the latter cannot really exist, in a sound state, without the former.

The term politics, if rightly understood, must certainly be considered to mean that science which teaches how to frame judicious laws and regulations for promoting the internal comfort and good order of any particular state or community. These laws, therefore, that they may be effective, should have, in their formation, regard to the natural principles of those beings for the government of whose conduct and proceedings, they are framed. If it be found then that no legislative enactments are sufficient to deter men from vicious conduct without the aid and influence of certain constitutional principles; and that these constitutional principles cannot be brought to bear with much force upon human action unless called into operation by the assistance of a certain species of religious education; it must be granted, we should think, that all the labours of the statesman, if unaided by the influence of religion, will be inadequate to construct a code of laws sufficiently effective to answer the great and important object at which he pretends to aim. That this is not a mere gratuitous assumption

the whole history of man and of states fully attests. More has always been effected, in states, by those habits which are generated under the influence of an enlightened piety, than by all the threatening enactments and pompous pro-. clamations, which have ever been issued from the combined wisdom of a host of mere politicians. No state has ever long maintained its comfort and its peace when its subjects began to lose on their minds the influence of piety. Even the ancient states, which possessed not the knowledge of the true God, found it more for their advantage to use the mythology of their poets than to be destitute altogether of the image of religion.

If the fact now stated be founded in truth, what are we to think of that sentiment which goes to establish the opinion, that the safety of a state grows in proportion to the increase of the distance which is produced between religion and the political creed of its statesmen and legislators? Is a state really safer, when its governors and lawgivers are without the fear of God and those honourable principles which the religion of the Bible teaches, than when its rulers and legislators, actuated and influenced by correct motives, become a terror to evil doers and a praise and protection to those who do well? Let the consciences of those (if they have any conscience) who are continually guarding states against the influence of godly and upright rulers give a categorical answer to this question. If they are disposed for the sake of consistency to answer it in the affirmative, we demand of them to show us, in the whole annals of political history, an instance of a single state, which has stood stable and respectable, for any length of time, under the guidance of a government such as that which they recommend.

But those, who espouse the sentiment which we are now combating, may endeavour perhaps to evade the

force of our argument by asserting, that our doctrine would go to maintain the necessity of every country having an ecclesiastical establishment. We do not see, however, that this is a necessary consequence of the doctrine which we are endeavouring to inculcate. We have already attempted to show, that, by leaving the government of the church entirely to the management and control of the clergy, much mischief accrued to the political communities of Europe, which might have been prevented, had a mode of government more presbyterial been pursued. We have also endeavoured to establish the fact, that religion does not consist in mere external pomp and ceremony, but in rectitude of heart and principle; and, hence, we cannot see, that when statesmen are required to exemplify and recommend such a religion by their conduct and practice, that they are necessarily required to make laws to support and sanction any particular set of ecclesiastical rites, which would have a tendency to give any class of worshippers more weight and stability in the state than another. We contend not for rites; but we contend for principles. We say, let no grant be given, by the state, to support any society of worshippers merely because they assume a particular name and perform their worship in a particular way; but we say, at the same time, let not statesmen become so irreligious and immoral as to make the other subjects of the state suppose, that corruption and profanity are the best qualifications to procure promotion; and that all honest principle and worthy conduct are to be disregarded as the degrading effects of cant, superstition and priestcraft. Statesmen, and the teachers of religion and morality, should never be so completely separated in their principles and operations as never to appear to meet on the same ground. They should each, in their respec

tive spheres, give evidence, by their proceedings, that they do indeed desire to promote the temporal and eternal comfort of those over whom their doctrines and their laws may have any influence.

If then this doctrine be allowed to be correct, it must at the same time be admitted, that it is the incumbent duty of the statesman to lend the aid of his influence to the demolition of all those establishments, in the community, which may have a direct tendency to corrupt the principles and destroy the morality of his fellow subjects. The mere interest of individuals should have no influence in preventing him from engaging in such an operation. Ought the religious and moral principles of a whole community to be endangered for the temporal advantage of a few? This would be to sacrifice the comfort and stability of a whole state, to gratify a few who care not to promote its general interest, unless it can be done without requiring them to make a single relinquishment of any thing which they consider productive to them of any temporal advantage. Are those, then, who seem to be so destitute of every generous and patriotic feeling, so much entitled to countenance and patronage, that the safety, honour and peace of the whole community must be risked, rather than they should be disturbed in any one point where their worldly interest may appear to be concerned? Can it be sound policy, on the part of the statesman, to view with indifference the conduct of those individuals who, thus to enrich themselves, are continually opening places of allurement and erecting vehicles of amusement, to entice away the youth of the state from those places of moral improvement which have been established, in Christian communities, for the worship of God and the inculcation of lessons of sound religion and correct morality. Ought the youth of

the state to be taken from their usual employments, on the first day of each week, merely that they may become the dupes of such designing men, and be led by them into the demoralizing scenes of vice and dissipation, and be induced to spend in such debasing pursuits that property which may have been procured by the sparing parsimony of their parents, or the hard labour of their own hands? Of what use are governors and legislators, if they do not employ their exertions to preserve the youthful subjects of the state from ruin? If immoral, dissipated, and sickly youth are likely to become the ornaments of a state, then stigmatise religion and morality-demolish all moral institutions-open, in every quarter, places of dissipation-erect, every where, vehicles for Sabbath days' amusement-and let the Sundays, instead of being appropriated to the worship of God, be devoted to the worship of demons; and we say, that such precious ornaments to a state, where such practices are encouraged and sanctioned, will not be wanting. But, if such subjects would be regarded as a disgrace to any community in which they might be found, we hope it will appear to be the duty of all statesmen to pursue a contrary course to that which is so well calculated to produce such characters.

But, when statesmen attempt such a work of reformation as that to which we have now alluded, their own moral conduct should be such as to give weight and authority to their proceedings. He who makes laws against immoral practices, ought not himself to be the first transgressor of these laws. The true patriot ought to show that he does not wish to be instrumental in imposing laws upon others, to which he himself would be unwilling to render obedience. Hence we naturally infer, that the very circumstance of any one's being a legislaVOL. I.

tor should lead him to conclude, that his own conduct ought to be virtuous and exemplary. We cannot see, therefore, how an unworthy and immoral statesman should be tolerated in a state that regards its own safety and respectability, any more than an ungodly clergyman should be continued in the possession of his office. Why are clergymen so much condemned when they act improperly, while the immoralíties and profanities of statesmen are past over with such indulgent eye? We do not pretend to apologise for the misconduct of unworthy clergymen; but we certainly do not hesitate to declare, that the immoral behaviour of an ungodly and unprincipled statesman, is as dangerous and as destructive in its influence as that of an unworthy clergyman, and ought consequently to be branded with a stamp not less odious. The ruin of that state is hastening on apace, where wickedness walks with an unblushing face in high places. But much good may be augured of that community where the rulers do, by their enactments and example, countenance the side of virtue, and strive to stem the current of irreligion and vice. For the fear of the Lord, and the observance of morality, in any state, have always been found to be the safeguards of its stability. This fact, no wise and unprejudiced observer will deny. The downfall of all states may traced to the want of those principles in the rulers, which true religion requires them to possess. We venture, therefore, to conclude our present remarks with this unqualified, and, in the estimation of some perhaps, too sweeping a declaration, that that man, who is destitute of those principles which the religion of the Bible inculcates, is not a character whose political proceedings will long be attended with much real advantage to the state or community to which he belongs. T. G. M'I:

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