The Relations of the Bible to the Civilization of the Future

ere tin af t Bi to r Gain af th Suture. A SERMON. DELIVERED BEFORE ee NATHANIEL P. BANKS, HIS HONOR ELIPHALET TRASK, LIEUT. Governor, The Honorable Council, THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE ANNUAL ELECTION, WEDNESDAY, January 2, 1861. BY AUSTIN PHELPS, 1 a ARTLET PROFESSOR IN pone THEOLOGICAL SEMINA ae Oe Le OEN:: WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER TO oon) a ae “*eahs , fe, eee i + dedy VAs aa 7 on of the is t te ivan af thy tune SERMON = = DELIVERED BEFORE GOVERNOR, fe . HONOR ELIPHALET TRASK, LIEUT. GOVERNOR, Dhe Honorable Council, AND : THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE * ANNUAL ELECTION, WEDNESDAY, January 2, 1861. BY AUSTIN PHELPS, BARTLET PROFESSOR IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. BOSTON: WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER TO THE STATE. ES.61. EONS os LIBRA pS A by PACIFIC SCHOOL \ cor aeuisis! ; In eee January 5, Lalas + i ED, “That a Committee be appointed to present the thanks of the Senate to * foe Sana her: ‘Dr. Puetrs of Andoyer, for his very able and appropriate Sermon preached 3" re the Government of the Commonwealth on Wednesday last, and to request a ce ad for the press, S. N. GIFFORDs Clerk. Commonwenlth of Massachusetts, a". SraTE Housn, SENATE CHAMBER, Boston, d January 7, 1861. ss Rey. Srr,—By an Order unanimously passed on the 5th instant, the undersigned -_—swere instructed to present to you the thanks of the Senate for the able Sermon preached by you before the Government of the Commonwealth on the 2d inst., and to request a copy of the same for the press. Be assured, Sir, it affords us sincere pleasure to communicate to you a tribute so well deserved, and we trust it will be both agreeable and convenient for you to furnish to the Senate a copy of the Sermon for the press as solicited, at an early day. _ M.S. UNDERWOOD, FREEMAN WALKER, ALPHEUS HARDY, Committee of the Senate. Rey. Dr. Austin Puetps, Andover, Mass. ANDOVER, Mass., January, 8, 1861. GENTLEMEN,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday, communicating to me the wishes of the Senate that a copy of the Sermon, which it was my privilege recently to deliver before the Government of the Commonwealth, be given to the press. — It will give me pleasure to comply with the request, as soon as the manuscript can y be made legible to the printer. : Please to accept my cordial acknowledgment of the courtesy with which you 7 WG have expressed to me the vote of your honorable body, and believe me to be, With sentiments of high regard, Your ob’t serv’t, AUSTIN PHELPS. To the Hon. M. S. Unperwoop, Hon. FREEMAN Waker, Hon. ALPHEUS Harpy, Committee of the Senate of Massachusetts. ° -_ Mg ard at “teeing: é lGCommontuealtl of Massachusetts. In Senare, January The Committee to which was committed the Order of the 5th inst. have attended "to the duties prescribed in the Order, and have received from the Rev. Dr. PHELPS a A -manuseript copy of his Sermon preached before the Government of the Commonoy h on the 2d inst., which together with the correspondence is herewith laid before Senate, and your Committee report the accompanying Order. ‘ For the Committee, - ' M. S. UNDERWOOD, Chairman. S. N. GIFFORD, Clerk. | BIS In SENATE, January 15, 1861. _ QRDERED, That eight thousand copies of the Election Sermon preached by the ~ em s _ Rey. Dr. Austin PELs, before the Government of the Commonwealth on the 2d , be printed for the use of the Legislature. S. N. GIFFORD, Clerk. Ps ¥ ‘ =. ata); PRA A ~ SERMON. PSALMS CXIx. 99, 100. I HAVE MORE UNDERSTANDING THAN ALL MY TEACHERS: FOR THY TESTIMONIES ARE MY MEDITATION. I UNDERSTAND MORE THAN THE ANCIENTS, BECAUSE I KEEP THY PRECEPTS. The custom which we honor in the services of this day, has come down to us from an ancestry, whom history has learned to recognize among the civilizing powers of the world. Their power is, for the most part, latent, like the forces of nature. Like those, also, it is constructive. It has been working now for two centuries and more; yet, to-day, it is going on with its creations, giving birth to States, fashioning institutions, breathing free life into nations, with the same unconsciousness of its own majesty which belongs to gravitation.

Like all such unconscious forces in the moral world, however, it is not the power of the men who represented it, but of certain principles which were in the men. ‘Those principles, as related to the progress of civilization, may be reduced to two, of a very simple character. The one is, their faith in the Word of God; the other, their faith in the world’s future. 10 THE RELATIONS OF THE BIBLE Our Fathers had faith in the Bible. They believed it as no abstraction, concerned rather with other worlds than with this. They embraced it as the most intense reality they knew of; as necessary to their daily welfare as the.daily sunrise. They grounded their domestic, and literary and civil institutions upon it, no less heartily than their churches, and creeds, and pulpits. They would have put a man in the pillory who should have so insulted their consciences, and expressed the degradation of his own, as to deny the obligation of a State to conform to the same standard of right with that which should govern the individual. ‘They consulted the ministers of religion in the framing of their statutes, at the very time when their care against priestly domination was so vigilant, that they forbade the clergy to solemnize the right of marriage. They fought the battles of the State, with Bibles in their knapsacks. ‘They expounded the institutes of Moses, and sung the Psalms of David, on the eve of their victories. …