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III.
THE THREE CHIEF SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY.—CONSIDERED IN A SERMON AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JULY 6, 1851.
“Righteousness exalteth a nation.”—Proverbs xiv. 34.
This is the first Sunday after the anniversary of the
national birth-day. It seems proper, on this occasion, to
go beyond matters merely personal, and affecting us only
as individuals. I will speak of the duties of man in a
wider sphere; of political affairs. So I ask your attention
to “A Sermon of the Safeguards of Society.” I choose
this subject because some men profess a fear that American
society is in danger, and because some persons are busily
teaching doctrines which seem hostile to the very design
of society itself. I shall not speak of politics as economy,
but as morality, and look at the affairs of State from a
religious point of view.
We are often told, that human society is of Divine appointment; society meaning the mass of men living together in a certain fellowship. If this means that man is by nature a social being, and in their progressive development men must unite and form societies, then, it is true, society is of Divine appointment. But so is a farm; for man is by nature and position an agricultural being, and in their progressive development men make farms and practise agriculture. Agriculture is as necessary as society. But it does not follow from this, that the Egyptian, the Flemish, or the American mode of agriculture is of Divine appointment, and men bound by God to practise that, or to limit themselves thereto; and it no more follows that the
