man is to be trained up for immortality. His course may be arduous. His trials many. But they are regulated by a wise and benignant providence, who will impart all needful succor, when it is sought and deserved. God helps them who help themselves; and what an affecting spectacle, what a divine triumph, when man is seen, in the courage and strength of religious principle, rising above them all; and, in the midst of trials the most severe, coming out unhurt; as the shipwrecked mariner when cast upon the shore, where the waves roll high, is sometimes seen now rising, now sinking, and when at last hope is almost gone and we fear he has fallen to rise no more, he presents himself on the very crest of the wave, with a courage unspent, and reaches the shore in safety. Examples are not wanting of such triumph; and the Christian, while he looks to the author and finisher of his faith, who was touched with the feeling of human infirmities and tempted as we are, yet without sin, has always before him one who has taught him how to conquer; and calls upon him in the language of triumph and consolation, be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Man has the power of doing the will of God; his sins are his own; the blame must rest upon himself. Let him not say when he is tempted I am tempted of God. God cannot be tempted with evil; neither tempteth he any man. But if he will still resist these plain teachings of reason, experience, and religion; let him consult his own breast, that will decide the question. There sits upon the throne of his heart, a judge, whose decisions, if he will hear them, will be against him. His own conscience, if he permits it to speak out, will teach him that he is amenable for his sins; and that no man ever yet committed a voluntary wrong without incurring a proportional guilt.

SERMON XXIV.

VALEDICTORY,

ON RESIGNING THE PASTORAL CHARGE OF THE CHURCH IN BARTON

SQUARE, SALEM. DEC. 4, 1831.

LUKE, xiii. 5.

PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE.

THIS was the ancient salutation of kindness and affection, both when friends met and when they separated. What it precisely implied, as it was then used, cannot be ascertained. Perhaps it was only the expression of common courtesy and good will. It may be a prayer for those in whose behalf it was offered that they might have peace with themselves, peace with men, and peace with God. In this respect it was a most benevolent wish. But be its meaning as extensive as it may be, let it include all of good which this world can afford, and all of happiness in a better world, to which faith and hope can aspire, I adopt it, in truth, as my own most hearty desire and prayer in respect to every family and every individual belonging to this Christian household. Peace be to this house. The peace of God be poured into your bosoms.

My great desire is for your religious welfare; for your

prosperity as a Christian community. It is now seven years since you united yourselves as a Christian society, on the great principles of religious liberty, free inquiry, personal independence, and universal charity. These are the true principles of the gospel; they will be better known as that shall be more studied; they will prevail more widely as the temper of the gospel is more widely diffused; and they will last as long as that shall endure.

Pardon me, if, in the next place, I speak of myself; an occasion like the present seems to establish its propriety. It was at that time that I was honored by your appointment to become your religious teacher and pas

tor.

The acceptance of this office was to me the greatest trial of my life; and I sought to enter upon it with that diffidence and self-distrust, which such a duty was suited to awaken; with a reliance upon your candor and kindness, which has been fully met; with an uprightness of purpose, which often seems to compensate for the consciousness of inability and the distrust of one's own fitness; and with an entire confidence in God to aid the honest performance of duty and the diligent use of those talents, be they greater or less, which he has committed to any of his servants.

Under a consciousness of most imperfect and limited conceptions on subjects where the Deity may charge even his angels with folly, I have never presumed to speak with authority; but as a fellow-learner, I have with diffidence sought to stimulate and assist your inquiries. A subject of such universal concern as religion, as far as it is matter of practice and duty, I have considered as universally intelligible to men of unperverted and sound understandings. The Gospel was addressed to plain and honest minds, and plain and honest

minds can understand its important and practical lessons. The great principles of natural religion, are so simple, that our Saviour thought that men could gather them from the birds of the air, the flowers of the field, and the clouds of heaven; and he demanded of those who stood around him, "why they did not of themselves judge what is right." The Gospel was.addressed to the poor, the uneducated; and it was committed to unlettered men to teach it to others. It would be most strange, therefore, if only the learned could understand or explain it. In truth, its great and practical principles and character, are most simple, as those will find it, who study it in the teachings and example of Jesus, rather than amidst the confusion of tongues, the hypercriticisms, the presumptuous, or the frivolous conceits of uncompromising, prejudiced, bigotted, infuriate polemics; and enveloped in all the mystery and metaphysical abstruseness of theological controversy. Under these impressions, I have spoken to you with a confidence that you were as competent as myself to determine what is true; and have called upon you, 66 as wise men, to

judge what I say."

I have urged you to seek for religious knowledge, as the most important of all others; and as the best attainment of the human mind. I have called upon you to seek it in nature; this is God's earliest revelation; the heavens declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his skill; and to study the sacred scriptures, as containing a revelation from God, where by symbols and allegories, by the history of nations and individuals, by the suggestions, and counsels, and experience of many wise and good men of different ages and countries, by the lessons and predictions of those ancient seers, to whom he partially unsealed the book of human destiny,

and by the teachings of a special and divinely illuminated messenger and his apostles, he has taught us his will, his providence, his moral government; his just demands in regard to human duty, his righteous constitutions and laws in regard to human happiness, and his benevolent and glorious purposes in respect to man's immortal destiny.

I have called upon you to pursue your religious inquiries with entire freedom and independence; to make truth your only object; to follow what appear to be its leadings, wherever they may conduct you; waiting calmly the results of such inquiries, with minds as far as possible uninfluenced by prejudice, uncorrupted by passion, unawed by fear, unbribed by hope, unperverted by skepticism; holding your conclusions with a just distrust of the infallibility of all human judgment, a proper respect for the opinions of other men, and a determination to keep the mind open to any new light which may approach it. I have called upon you to believe on evidence, but not against evidence; not to receive without reason, but never to outrage reason; to apply to the sacred scriptures, the same rules of candid and wise interpretation, which you would apply to other writings of equal antiquity; and to exercise your own reason, enlightened by the best and all the extraneous aid which you can procure, as the proper umpire of your faith, and the just interpreter of the scriptures to you; but never to regard your reason as the umpire of other men's faith, and as the interpreter of the scriptures for those who have reason and the inalienable right to judge for themselves as well as you.

I have urged you to study the New Testament, as the particular directory of Christian faith and duty. The Old Testament scriptures are Jewish scriptures, and