Religion requires the sacrifice of the pleasures of sense, of the boasts of virtue, and, last of all, the pride of reason. In order to exercise our humility by receiving the Scriptures upon his word as little children, let us bring every thing to this standard; lay aside every pretension to reason, where revelation is concerned, and become fools, that we may learn Christ. ON DISSENT. THERE was nothing that appeared to Mr. Hall's mind more unaccountable than the circumstance of some few of his early friends and associates conforming to the church of England, and departing from the pale of dissent. His remarks upon them in the private and social circle were very strong, notwithstanding the esteem he had for their general character and amiable dispositions. He would never admit the possibility of such a change, but from the influence of sinister motives, or being thrown into peculiar local associations and habits of life. So that, next to the safety of the soul in conversion of the heart to God, was his anxiety that all his friends should be consistent dissenters, contending for the purity and simplicity of the Christian faith and worship; unawed and uninfluenced by civil authority or acts of parliament, not to receive the traditions of men for the ordinances of God. "The kingdom of Jesus Christ," he would say, "is not of this world, it is within you; it is a spiritual dominion of the heart, a subjection of all the powers of the mind to the sole authority of one Lawgiver. "The present hierarchy of the church of England is formed, not after the model of the Scriptures, and assumes a power and authority unknown in the first and purest ages of Christianity, inverting the order of the apostolic churches. "When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church at Philippi," Mr. Hall observed, "he first addresses the church, then the bishops and deacons. To all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons. The body of the common people, in primitive times, decided on all weighty matters that arose in the church. It is evident from this salutation, that the term bishops and deacons comprehended all the teachers at that time in the church, and that the distinction arose afterwards between the bishops, or pastors, and deacons; for, certainly, if there had been any other order, they would not have been overlooked or neglected by the Apostle in his epistles to the churches." In a correspondence with a mutual friend, who had previously left the dissenters and conformed, I informed him (Mr. Hall) of the circumstance, that this friend denied the primitive custom of the church choosing its own officers and ministers. Sir," he said," he cannot deny this without flying in the face of all antiquity; for not only the Scriptures, but the early fathers, bear united testimony 66 to the fact of the power and authority emanating from the common people." In 1818, Mr. Hall, in writing to a friend, says, "As it (episcopacy) subsists at present among us, I am sorry to say I can scarcely conceive a greater abuse. It subverts equally the rights of pastors and of people, and is nothing less than one of the worst relics of the papal hierarchy. Were every thing else what it ought to be in the Established Church, prelacy, as it now subsists, would make me a dissenter.” There were four principal things which he set his mind upon, and said, if the Scriptures were true, would surely be accomplished: and my youthful mind, from many of his precepts, sayings, and writings, became deeply imbued with the same spirit. The 1st was, A Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, as unjust towards the dissenters; 2. A Reform in the Commons House of Parliament; 3. The Abolition of Slavery; 4. A Reform in the Church Establishment, to secure to dissenters, not merely toleration, but a perfect equality as to rights and privileges; or, in other words, that dissenters should not be compelled to pay for the support of a church which they conscientiously disapproved, whilst they paid for their own ministers and places of worship. The first of these he only lived to see accomplished; but, had he lived three years longer, he would have found only one more to be achieved. His grand maxim was, “that there can be no perfect religious liberty without natural and political liberty." I never knew a man who had so much of the spirit of martyrdom. "For these principles it was," he would say, 66 our forefathers, the noble army of the puritans, bled and suffered, and took joyfully the spoiling of their goods:" or his other felicitous term, the "celestial nobility." Christian liberty was to him a sacred fountain, in which all the Roman Gentile virtues that immortalized the names of Cicero, Plutarch, Seneca, and all the old philosophers, are baptized and regenerated, and take a new name and nature: dipped in this living spring, they are planted, and flourish in the paradise of God. |