with the first settlers of the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut, that all freemen and civil rulers must be in communion with the Churches, and so promote the interest and spread of Christianity.

This doctrine had an eminent advocate in the celebrated John Cotton, the first minister of Boston.

"The government," says he, "might be considered as a theocracy, wherein the Lord was judge, lawgiver, and king; that the laws which he gave Israel might be adopted so far as they were of a moral and perpetual equity; that the people might be considered as God's people in covenant with him; that none but persons of approved piety and eminent gifts should be chosen rulers." At the desire of the court, he compiled a system of laws, which were considered by the legislative body as the general standard.

The same fact was stated by President Stiles, of Yale College, in 1783. "It is certain," said he, "that civil dominion was but the second motive, religion the primary one, with our ancestors in coming hither and settling this land. It was not so much their design to establish religion for the benefit of the state, as civil government for the benefit of religion, and as subservient and even necessary towards the peaceable and unmolested exercise of religion,-of that religion for which they fled to these ends of the earth. They designed, in thus laying the foundations of a new state, to make it a model for the glorious kingdom of Christ."

Rev. John Norton, in 1661, declared, in an election sermon, that they came into this wilderness to live under the order of the gospel; "that our policy may be a gospel policy, and may be complete according to the Scriptures, answering fully to the word of God: this is the work of our generation, and the very work we engaged for in this wilderness; this is the scope and end of it, that which is written upon the forehead of New England, viz., the complete walking in the faith of the gospel according to the order of the gospel.”

3. The end and operations of civil government to propagate and subserve the Christian religion.

"The Pilgrims," says Rev. R. S. Storrs, "would have held that state most imperfect which contented itself and complacently rested in its own advancement and special prosperities, without seeking to benefit others around it.. They esteemed that pro

gress to be radically wanting in greatness and value which was a mere progress in power and wealth and in physical success; which gained no results of great character and culture, and blossomed out to no wealthy fruits of enlarged Christian knowledge. The moral, to them, was superior to the physical; the attainments of Christian wisdom and piety, above accumulations of worldly resources; the alliance of the soul with God, through faith, above the conquest and mastery of nature. And to these they held the state to be tributary, as they held all things else that existed on the earth,-the very earth itself and its laws. Not a mere police establishment was the state, on their theory, accomplishing its office in protecting its subjects and punishing criminals. It was to them a place and a power of the noblest education; a teeming nursery of all good influences and heavenly growths, from which letters, charities, and salvation should proceed, and in which they should perpetually be nourished. Philanthropic endeavors, and missionary enterprises, were to be its results, the proofs of its prosperity, the real and imperishable rewards of its founders. It existed in order that characters might be formed, commanding, large, and full of light, whose record should make all history brighter, whose influence should link the earth with the skies. And they expected the Millennium itself, with its long eras of peace and of purity, of tranquil delight and illuminated wisdom, to spring as the last and crowning fruitage from the states they were founding, and from others like them."

4. The position and influence of the ministers of the gospel in the civil affairs of the state.

They were consulted on all matters pertaining to the civil affairs of the New England colonies, and had the controlling influence in forming and directing the civil government. The very first written code of laws for Massachusetts, under the charter of 1629, was drawn up by a minister. And the instruction of the civil court, appointed to frame the laws of the commonwealth, was to make them "as near the law of God as they can." "They had great power in the people's heart," says Winthrop. "Religion ruled the state through its ministers."

Ministers were selected as agents to obtain charters and petition the king and Parliament, as well as to direct the character of the civil government at home. "The clergy were generally consulted on civil matters, and the suggestions they

gave from the pulpit on election-days and other special occasions were enacted into laws.”

Before the Declaration of Independence, the Bishop of St. Asaph, in England, published a discourse, in which are found. the following remarkable passages in reference to the North American colonies:

"It is difficult," says he, "for man to look into the destiny of future ages: the designs of Providence are vast and complicated, and our own powers are too narrow to admit of much satisfaction to our curiosity. But when we see so many great and powerful causes constantly at work, we cannot doubt of their producing proportional effects.

"The colonies in North America have not only taken root and acquired strength, but seem hastening with an accelerated progress to such a powerful state as may introduce a new and important change in human affairs.

"Descended from ancestors of the most improved and enlightened part of the Old World, they receive as it were by inheritance all the improvements and discoveries of their mothercountry. And it happens fortunately for them to commence their flourishing state at a time when the human understanding has attained to the free use of its powers and has learned to act with vigor and certainty. And let it be well understood what rapid improvements, what important discoveries, have been made, in a few years, by a few countries, with our own at the head, which have at last discovered the right method of using their faculties.

"May we not reasonably expect that a number of provinces possessed of these advantages and quickened by mutual emulation, with only the progress of the human mind, should very considerably enlarge the boundaries of science? It is difficult even to imagine to what height of improvement their discoveries may extend.

And perhaps they may make as considerable advances in the arts of civil government and the conduct of life. May they not possibly be more successful than their mother-country has been in preserving that reverence and authority which are due to the laws, to those who make them, and to those who execute them? May not a method be invented of procuring some tolerable share of the comforts of life to those inferior useful ranks of men to whose industry we are indebted for the

whole? Time and discipline may discover some means to correct the extreme inequalities between the rich and the poor, so dangerous to the innocence and happiness of both. They may, fortunately, be led by habit and choice to despise that luxury which is considered with us the true enjoyment of wealth. They may have little relish for that ceaseless hurry of amusements which is pursued in this country without pleasure, exercise, or employment. And perhaps, after trying some of our follies and caprices, and rejecting the rest, they may be led by reason and experiment to that old simplicity which was first pointed out by nature, and has produced those models which we still admire in arts, eloquence, and manners.

"The diversity of the new scenes and new situations, which so many growing states must necessarily pass through, may introduce changes in the fluctuating opinions and manners of men which we can form no conception of; and not only the gracious disposition of Providence, but the visible preparation of causes, seems to indicate strong tendencies towards a general improvement."

John Adams, in contemplating the Christian colonization of the American continent, uttered the following views of the design of Providence:-"I always consider," said he, "the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scheme and design of Providence for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."

CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTIAN STATESMEN OF THE REVOLUTION

REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF DIFFERENT AGES-THEIR INFLUENCE-VIEWS OF THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION-OTIS-WARREN-SAMUEL ADAMS-HANCOCKJOHN ADAMS-SHERMAN-WITHERSPOON-FRANKLIN JEFFERSON-MADISON JAY-BOUDINOT― LIVINGSTON TRUMBULL-WASHINGTON, AND OTHERS — THEIR STATE PAPERS-LORD CHATHAM'S EULOGY-WEBSTER'S VIEW-VIEWS OF THE STATESMEN OF THE REVOLUTION ON AMERICAN SLAVERY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S VIEW OF THE BIBLE-GENERAL JACKSON'S VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY-HENRY CLAY'S VIEWS-DANIEL WEBSTER'S VIEWS-CONTRAST OF CHRISTIAN AND INFIDEL STATESMEN.

WISE and good men are God's workmen in laying the foundations and in completing the structures of human society. Every great and important era in history has been distinguished by the providential appearance and the successful labors of superior men, whose minds have been illuminated and whose steps have been guided by divine wisdom, and who have given progress to the interests of liberty and religion. As representative men,-men of God, ordained and prepared for their special mission,-contemplate Moses, the man of Providence, whose wisdom and genius have moulded the civil and religious institutions of all Christian nations; Paul, whose Christian faith, inspired writings, and heroic life have kindled the fires of freedom and truth among the nations of the earth, and exerted a boundless influence upon the intellectual and spiritual elevation and regeneration of the world; Luther, who by his masterly intellect and genius, his invincible Christian faith, iron will, indomitable energy, richness of learning, and earnest devotion to truth, has liberated the human intellect from the shackles of ecclesiastical and civil despotism, and put into ceaseless activity agencies and influences which are working out the emancipation of nations and the moral regeneration of the world; Calvin, the profound thinker and theologian, "who," says Bancroft, "infused enduring elements into the institutions of Geneva, and made it for the modern world the impregnable fortress of popular freedom, the fertile seed-plot of democracy. He spread the fires of freedom in Scotland and