36 THANKSGIVING SERMON. blunder,” but as crime, as sin against God and man. If the Church of God may not bear her testimony against such wickedness, what is the design and object of her organization? Is it that her light may shine, or that she may put it under a bushel ? If human governments “frame iniquity by a law;” if, for example, they legalize profanity, dueling, the slave- trade, Sabbath-breaking, theft, murder, must the Church, as such, be silent, simply because sins like these have the seal of her country’s legislation? We have not so learned Christ. There is no form of wickedness against which she is not bound to enter her solemn protest. Christians are bound to do so as Christians. Sessions, presbyteries, synods, and the General Assembly are bound to do so by their public acts. We do not understand the logic, the morality, or the Presbyterianism of imposing silence on ecclesiastical judicatories in matters of such grave moment to truth and righteousness. I would be slow to put into the hands of Congregationalists and Independents so heavy a weapon against our own ecclesiastical organization as to affirm that when “ political questions rise to the sphere of morals and religion,” the rule of action is not to be
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