of the Gospel in preference to others, but intended to recommend the whole Gospel, the whole religion of Jesus Christ, in distinction from Judaism and Gentile philosophy. The dangers of the Corinthian Christians required that he should employ every effort to secure their fidelity to the simple Gospel of Jesus. Having been educated in the Jewish or Heathen religions; living in the midst of Jews and Heathens; hearing perpetually, from one class, that the Messiah was to be a triumphant prince, and that without submission to the law of Moses, no one could partake his blessings; and hearing, from the other, perpetual praises of this and another philosopher, and perpetual derision of the Gospel, because in its doctrines and style it bore no resemblance to the refinements and rhetoric of their most celebrated sages; the Corinthian Christians, in these trying circumstances, were strongly tempted to assimilate the Gospel to the prevalent religions, to blend with it foreign doctrines, to keep the humiliation of its author out of sight, and to teach it as a system of philosophy resting on subtile reasoning rather than on miracles and the authority of God. To save them from this danger, a danger which at present we can hardly es timate, the Apostle reminded them, that when he came to them he came not with "excellency of speech and with enticing words of man's wisdom," but in demonstration of the Spirit and of miraculous powers; that he did not comply with the demands of Greek or Jew; that he preached a crucified Messiah, and no other teacher or deliverer; and that he always insisted, that the religion of Jesus, unaided by Judaism or philosophy, was able to make men wise to salvation. He also reminded them, that this preaching, however branded as foolishness, had proved divinely powerful, and had saved them from that ignorance of God, from which human wisdom had been unable to deliver them. These remarks, I hope, will as

sist common readers in understanding the chapters under consideration.

We are too apt, in reading the New Testament, and particularly the Epistles, to forget, that the Gospel was a new religion, and that the Apostles were called to preach Jesus to those, who, perhaps, had never before heard his name, and whose prejudices and passions prepared them to contemn and reject his claims. In these circumstances, they had to begin at the very foundation, to prove to the unbelieving world that Jesus was the Messiah, or sen. from God to instruct and save mankind. This is often called "preaching Christ," especially in the Acts. — When converts were made, the work of the Apostles was not ended. These converts wished to bring with them a part of their old religion into the church; and some of the Jews even insisted that obedience to Moses was essential to salvation. These errors the Apostles resolutely opposed, and, having previously established the Messiahship of Jesus, they next proceeded to establish the sufficiency and perfection of his religion, to show that faith in him, or reception of his Gospel, was all that was required to salvation. This is sometimes called "preaching Christ." These difficulties, which called the Apostles to so much anxiety and toil, are now in a great measure removed. Christian ministers, at the present day, are not often called to preach Christ in opposition to the infidel, and never in opposition to the weak convert who would incorporate Judaism or Gentile philosophy with Christianity. The great foundation, on which the Apostles spent 30 much strength, is now firmly laid. Our hearers generally acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah, sent by God to be the light of the world, and "able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him." We are therefore seldom called to preach Christ in the senses which have just been considered, and our preaching must of

course differ in a measure from that of the Apostles But there is another sense of preaching Christ, involved in both the preceding, in which our work precisely accords with theirs. Like them, we are to unfold to those who acknowledge Jesus as their Lord, all the truths, motives, and precepts, which he has left to guide and quicken men to excellence, and to prepare them for a happy immortality.

WAR.

DISCOURSE

BEFORE THE

CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS OF MASSACHUSETTS

Вовтон, 1816.

ISAIAH ii. 4: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

I HAVE chosen a subject, which may seem at first view not altogether appropriate to the present occasion, the subject of war. It may be thought, that an address to an assembly composed chiefly of the ministers of religion, should be confined to the duties, dangers, encouragements of the sacred office. But I have been induced to

select this topic, because, after the slumber of ages, Christians seem to be awakening to a sense of the pacific character of their religion, and because I understood, that this Convention were at this anniversary to consider the interesting question, whether no method could be devised for enlightening the public mind on the nature and guilt of war. I was unwilling that this subject should be approached and dismissed as an ordinary affair. I feared, that, in the pressure of business, we

might be satisfied with the expression of customary disapprobation; and that, having in this way relieved our consciences, we should relapse into our former indifference, and continue to hear the howlings of this dreadful storm of human passions with as much unconcern as before. I resolved to urge on you the duty, and I hoped to excite in you the purpose, of making some new and persevering efforts for the abolition of this worst vestige of barbarism, this grossest outrage on the principles of Christianity. The day I trust is coming, when Christians will look back with gratitude and affection on those men, who, in ages of conflict and bloodshed, cherished generous hopes of human improvement, withstood the violence of corrupt opinion, held forth, amidst the general darkness, the pure and mild light of Christianity, and thus ushered in a new and peaceful era in the history of mankind. May you, my brethren, be included in the grateful recollection of that day.

The miseries and crimes of war, its sources, its remedies, will be the subjects of our present attention.

In detailing its miseries and crimes, there is no temp. tation to recur to unreal or exaggerated horrors. No depth of coloring can approach reality. It is lament able, that we need delineation of the calamities of war, to rouse us to exertion. The mere idea of human beings employing every power and faculty in the work of mutual destruction, ought to send a shuddering through the frame. But on this subject, our sensibilities are dreadfully sluggish and dead. Our ordinary sympathies seem to forsake us, when war is named. The suffer ings and death of a single fellow-being often excite a tender and active compassion; but we hear without emotion of thousands enduring every variety of woe in