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Southern District of New York, ss.

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the 23d day of December, A. D. 1826, and in the fifty-first year of the Independence of the United States of America, Henry Devereux Sewall, of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:—

"A Discourse, preached at the Dedication of the Second Congregational Unitarian Church, New York, December 7, 1826. By William Ellery Channing."

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned," and also to an Act, entitled, " An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, 'An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned;' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

JAMES DILL,

Clerk of the Southern District of New York.

In delivering this Discourse, the author was obliged to omit large portions; and these are now published, at once to give some new views of the subject, and to unfold more fully those which were then exhibited.

MARK xii. 29, 30.

And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord:

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment.

We have assembled to dedicate this building to the worship of the only living and true God, and to the teaching of the religion of his son, Jesus Christ. By this act we do not expect to confer on this spot of ground and these walls any peculiar sanctity or any mysterious properties. We do not suppose that, in consequence of rites now performed, the worship offered here will be more acceptable, than prayer uttered in the closet, or breathed from the soul in the midst of business; or that the instructions delivered from this pulpit will be more effectual, than if they were uttered in a private dwelling or the open air. By dedication we understand only a solemn expression of the purpose for which this building is reared, joined with prayer to Him, who alone can crown our enterprise with success, that our design may be accepted and fulfilled. For this religious act we find, indeed, no precept in the New

Testament, and on this account some have scrupled as to its propriety. But we are not among those who consider the written word as a statute book, by the letter of which every step in life must be governed. We believe, on the other hand, that one of the great excellencies of Christianity is, that it does not deal in minute regulation, but that, having given broad views of duty, and enjoined a pure and disinterested spirit, it leaves us to apply these rules and express this spirit, according to the promptings of the divine monitor within us, and according to the claims and exigencies of the ever varying conditions in which we are placed. We believe, too, that revelation is not intended to supersede God's other modes of instruction; that it is not intended to drown, but to make more audible, the voice of nature. Now nature dictates the propriety of such an act as we are this day assembled to perform. Nature has always taught men, on the completion of an important structure, designed for public and lasting good,. to solemnize its first appropriation to the purpose for which it was reared, by some special service. To us there is a sacredness in this moral instinct, in this law written on the heart; and in listening reverently to God's dictates, however conveyed, we doubt not that we shall enjoy his acceptance and blessing.

I have said, we dedicate this teaching of the gospel of Christ.

building to the But in the pre

sent state of the christian church, these words are

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