A Sermon Delivered Before the Government of Massachusetts

H131s A SERMON DELIVERED BEFORE HIS EXCELLENCY NATHANIEL P. BANKS, GOVERNOR, HIS HONOR ELIPHALET TRASK, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR, The Honorable Council, AND THE GENERAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE ANNUAL ELECTION, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 5, 1859. BY EDWARD E. HALE, MINISTER OF THE SOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, BOSTON. BOSTON: WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER TO THE STATE. 1859. H1315 Commonwealth of Massachusetts. IN SENATE, January 10, 1859. ORDERED, That Messrs. Parker and Knight, be a Committee to present the thanks of the Senate to the Rev. EDWARD E. HALE, for the able and effective Sermon preached before the Government of the Commonwealth, on Wednesday last, and request a copy for the press. S. N. GIFFORD, Clerk. SENATE CHAMBER, 13th January, 1859. Rev. EDW. EVERETT HALE:- DEAR SIR,-In behalf of the Senate, we take great pleasure in presenting our acknowledgments and thanks to you for the sermon preached before the Government of the Commonwealth on Wednesday last, and request a copy of the same for publication. None who heard it we think could fail to be impressed with the fervent and spiritual tone of its eloquence and the powerful and practical treatment of its topics. Receiving its suggestions in the same kindly spirit in which we feel they were given, we have the honor to be, very respectfully, Signed, Your obedient servants, EDW. G. PARKER. HORATIO G. KNIGHT. BOSTON, January 14, 1859. GENTLEMEN, -I am truly glad that my sermon meets the approval of the honorable body at whose invitation it was delivered. I enclose a copy for the printer. With great respect, Truly yours, EDWARD E. HALE. Hon. EDWARD G. PARKER, Hon. H. G. KNIGHT, Committee, &c. SERMΟΝ. ROMANS XII. 6, 7, 8. "HAVING THEN GIFTS DIFFERING ACCORDING TO THE GRACE THAT IS GIVEN TO US, WHETHER PROPHECY, LET US PROPHESY ACCORDING TO THE PROPORTION OF FAITH; OR MINISTRY, LET US WAIT ON OUR MINISTERING; OR HE THAT TEACHETH, ON TEACHING OR HE THAT EXHORTETH, ON EXHORTATION. HE THAT GIVETH, LET HIM DO IT WITH SIMPLICITY; HE THAT RULETH, WITH DILIGENCE." This text describes the duties of the different officers in a Christian community, and the way in which they discharge them. It shows that the inspiration of rulers, of preachers, or of the administrators of charities, is one and the same spirit. It belongs thus to this service. For this service is the public and formal proclamation, for this Commonwealth of Massachusetts, of the relation which here connects the officers of the State and the officers of the Church. The careless political speakers, and speakers from the pulpit as careless, are, indeed, apt to say, that under our system, the Church and the State are entirely divorced from each other. This careless proposition, however, is radically false, and every corollary drawn from it is false, as well. It is true, that, in that profound philosophy which has ordered both our system of political government and our system of religious administration, the place of every officer is quite distinctly defined. And therefore, we do not have bishops usurping the functions of judges, nor Secretaries of State usurping the functions of preachers, any more than we have judges usurping the functions of Secretaries of State, or major-generals usurping the functions of every body. But we might as well say, therefore, that there is no intimate relation between the Judiciary and the Legislature, as to say that there is no intimate relation between the Church and State. When, in 1848, the new revolutions of Europe had spread general enthusiasm among all the young liberals of the world, I happened to express that enthusiasm to one of the most learned statesmen of our time, himself an exile from Germany. I spoke, with a young man's eager hope, of the work of that Constituent Assembly in France, which had been summoned at the bidding of Lamartine. But my older and more learned friend replied, "What have you in France for a foundation? What will your new constitution stand upon?" It could not stand upon any well-drained and compacted basis of old village, town or province administration. France knows no such system. Not upon any mass of traditions regarding ancient customs, making a great unwritten constitutional law, -than which "the memory of man goes not to the contrary," -like that of England. France knows no such traditions. The prairie fires of the last century have burned every straw and shred of them from her soil. Not upon the well-knit force of a landed or a learned aristocracy. The same prairie fires have destroyed these growths as they have those of humbler herbage. Not upon the sense of right. The French people, as a people, have no such adequate sense of the higher law. Not upon the belief in God. The French people, as a people, have no adequate sense of God. "The only existing reality in France," said my philosophic friend, "strong enough to bear up the weight of a government, and so serve as its foundation, is the army. The constitution of France must be based upon its army." And his prophecy proved true. Our fortune in Massachusetts, our blessed good fortune in Massachusetts, is, that when Winthrop and Johnson and Dudley and the other sainted statesmen, or statesmen saints, of the beginning, had to build the constitution of what was even then the independent Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and what they meant should continue such forever, they had something to build upon. They had the sense of justice or the love of right, as the spirit of God planted it new each day in the hearts of godly Englishmen. And they had the pervading, overwhelming sense of the God who so communes with His children. On this belief in God they built their Commonwealth. They believed His Church to be essential and eternal, and they built their State upon it. They knew what was the Rock against which the gates of hell should not prevail. …