The Central Presbyterian

For the Central Presbyterian

"We Ought to Obey God, Rather than Man,"—Acts v: 29.

It is no new thing, that religious liberties should be involved in the contests for civil rights. It was so in the wars of the English Revolution, of the Huguenots, and of our fathers. It is especially so now. Nor is the assault on our liberty of conscience made by the Federalists any the less direct and wicked, because its motive is the lust of money and power, and zeal for a false theology is not even pretended. Here we have only the true motive of every religious persecution unmasked. And never were the rights of conscience bought with divine blood, and committed as a sacred trust to Christ's church, more outrageously assailed. Churches are desecrated, and sacred property despoiled. Ministers are dragged from the very pulpit. Intrusion upon the rights of God's people to select their own spiritual guides is committed upon a wide scale, and with a heaven-defying violence, unexampled among all the popes, inquisitors and tyrants of the old world. Apostate Judases, in the garb of priests, travel about the country, with military orders, ejecting God's ministers, and installing heretics over an unwilling people, to whom His word forbids them to listen. Many languish in dungeons, at this hour, for opinion's sake. And the crowning impiety is committed, of attempting to chain the free aspirations of the soul and to dictate to the heart the very desires we are to offer to God in prayer!

Now the point which we call Christians to solemnly consider, with reference to this spiritual tyranny, is this: That God forbids our acquiescing in it, by the holiest sanctions of our Faith. He entrusts to his Church the defence of the rights of Christ's crown and spiritual kingdom; and we must be true to them, at the peril of our souls. To betray them, is to betray our allegiance to Him, in whom our souls live; it is apostasy; it is to betray Christ, to crucify him afresh, and put him to an open shame. We must testify for his rights, and those of his ransomed people, by our words, if needs be, by our sufferings, and by our death, rather than surrender them. If our rulers cannot protect us in them by that weapon which God has appointed for their hands, the sword; then we Christians must overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of our testimony, and by not loving our lives unto the death. No alternative is left to us, God's people, save this, or to deny Christ, and be denied of Him and forever damned. If others submit, we cannot; if our soldiers capitulate, there is no capitulation for Christ's sacramental host; for the cause is not theirs, but His; and when they can no longer fight for it, they must die for it.

If the miserable, apostate churches of the United States have forgotten this duty of upholding Christ's cross and crown, then so much the more pointed is God's call to us to uphold them, lest truth and spiritual liberty be banished from the land. If those churches have witnessed the most outrageous invasions ever made on Christ's rights, with a recreancy and cowardice more appalling than any other church has ever exhibited in the hour of trial: if instead of speaking for their Master's honor, they have had no voice, save to hound on the miscreants who were trampling it in the dust; then so much the more urgent is the duty for us of watching that our consciences be not benumbed by the spectacle of this horrible defection, and that the world may not suppose principle, and faith, and courage are gone from among God's people. If the civil government cannot protect us, then we are called to martyrdom.

Let the people of God in the Confederate States then see what is the interest they have in sustaining the defence our rulers are making for us, while there is yet time. Of all men, they should be most loyal, most courageous, most intelligent, in their defence of the independence of their country. Of all soldiers, Christian soldiers should be most staunch. Of all citizens, Christians should be most public spirited, to endure all the burdens which the duty of self-defence may impose, with cheerful devotion. The pulpits of the whole land should give no uncertain sound. God's ministers should call all his people to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty. One and all should perform the duties appropriate to their stations, with a determination like that of soldiers who know that there is no quarter to be given to the vanquished. For, to Christians there are, literally, but three alternatives; victory, or martyrdom, or God's everlasting curse.