was a greater loss than the other, and both united will restore the original design and harmony of creation, by which nature was subjected to man, and man to his Creator. M PART THIRD. The Advancement of Religion at Home. I. Difference in the Condition of Jews and Christians. II. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Latter. III. Utility of Association. IV. Best Form of Societies. V. District Division. VI. General Correspondence. VII. Newspapers. VIII. Reviews. IX. Schools. X. Libraries. XI. Home Missions. XII. Bible Society. XIII. Advancement of Religion at Home and Abroad mutual. PART THIRD. I. THERE are two empires in the world: that of force and that of truth; and as their nature, so their means are different. But brute force is of small avail, unless moral suasion accompanies it; and most dominations that have existed, have been mixed of both; employing force to gain, and opinion to retain the empire they had acquired. On the other hand, what has been gained by the persuasion of truth, has been sought to be retained by force; and the power over the mind which the early Christians obtained by their own sufferings in the cause of truth, the Christians, falsely so called, sought to retain by the sufferings of others, who dissented for conscience sake. the difference, however, of these two influences over the mind, an essential difference is point From ed out in the mode of their operations, and in the situation of those external circumstances which afford facilities or hindrances to either. To take. the case of the Jews:-When a single nation was selected to become the priests of that pure worship which had been neglected or forgotten by the rest of mankind, a number of national rites were established, as the symbols and initiation of that priesthood, which had at once the double office of separating them from the nations, and being the emblems of a future dispensation. This priesthood, or this nation, for here they are synonymous, had to uphold their laws by the sword against external or internal violence; and the Jews were congregated into one territory, and embodied into a peculiar people, being as yet only the witnesses of a forgotten truth, or, at best, but the prophets of a future, and not the apostles of a present revelation. But when the times of the Gentiles were come, and truth, by its own peculiar weapons, was to subdue the world, that national force which was requisite for the maintenance of national rites was discarded, and the sceptre departed from Judah, when the King whose sceptre was truth, and whose dominion was in the mind, came to reign over the family of They were thus unfit man. As a transition to this new dominion, the Jews were, by their captivity in the east, and their emigration through the west, gradually removed from their country, and scattered among the nations of the world. ted to support a national system of rites, and fitted to spread a universal system of opinion. They were missionaries without moving from their birthplace; and, before the coming of the Messiah, OCcupied the stations among the Gentiles whence they could most easily and efficaciously proclaim his advent, and demand obedience to his universal authority. II. What the situation of the Jews was then, upon a larger scale and with greater resources is that of the Christians now. In every nation there are men who fear God and follow righteousness; though there is no nation who make the law of God their law, and who might claim with Israel to be God's peculiar people. It is thus that true Christians are witnesses for the truth in the world at large, as the Jews were among the Gentiles; their abode becomes a station for proclaiming the truth; they are constituted missionaries by the constitution of society around them, and they have not the heathen to seek in distant |