ficient, they nailed up two thieves, one on his right hand one on his left, in order that by implication and inference, his memory might rank along with that of the most infamous malefactors.

against them by JESUS CHRIST, was his reprobating their extortions; for this they plotted against his life, and for this they finally effected his death, by means of a series of atrocities, the least of which would, in the words of the pro- Such were the transactions of the day phet, have made them everlastingly "in- which we are now assembled to comfamous." They resorted to the means memorate. Every human being must never made use of but by the basest feel it to be a duty to speak of those and most cruel of tyrants: first, they transactions with abhorrence; but I am bribed one of his followers to betray here addressing myself to CHRISTIANS; him into their hands; next, they got to all those of my countrymen, who, the aid of the despot and his soldiers; under whatever denomination, profess next, having brought him before the to be of the religion of JESUS CHRIST. judge, they brought, by means of bribes, All these profess to believe, that their perjured witnesses to swear against him; salvation will be owing to the merits of having procured his condemnation, in Jesus Christ, whom, therefore, we emspite of the judge's conviction of his phatically call " OUR SAVIOUR." They innocence, and evidently, therefore, by believe that he suffered death in order bribery here also, they put him to the that they might have eternal life. DEISTS death, at once the most cruel and most deny this; and yet affect to believe in degrading. Having obtained the sanc-a future state of life. They shudder at tion of the base and corrupt heathen the thought of annihilation; they canjudge, who, while he called him "a not endure the idea of becoming so just person," and declared that he many clods of earth; and yet, if not in "found no fault in him," and "washed the GoSPEL of CHRIST, where do they his hands" of the murder, scourged find any ground for believing, that to him, and gave him up to be murdered; become a senseless clod is not the doom having obtained the sanction of this of man ? bribed and unfeeling hypocrite, and However, I am not speaking to unhaving the swords and pikes of hardened believers, but to professors of CHRISTIsoldiers to protect thein against the in- ANITY, whose belief is, that no one can terference of the just and humane part be saved on his own merits; that all of the people; thus sanctioned and must be saved, if saved they be, on acthus protected, the malignant and cow-count of the merits of JESUS CHRIST; ardly persecutors, not content with in- that the atonement for them was made flicting death, accompanied the infliction by him; that it is their duty to obey with every addition that innate, invete- his precepts to the utmost of their rate, and hellish cruelty could suggest. They put, in mockery, a crown of thorns upon his head, a royal robe over his shoulders, and a reed for a sceptre on his hand; they buffeted him, spat upon him, jibed and reviled him; and But the obligations which are imhaving exhausted their ingenuity in the posed on us by the transactions of this infliction of indignities, and in cannibal-memorable and awful day, are not conlike exultations over the meek, patient, fined to cold and formal expressions of unoffending, and unresisting victim of gratitude, to mere outward ceremony, their malice, they dragged him without to the mere use of voice and gesture, or the city, and fixed him on the cross by the putting on of particular garbs: a nails driven through his hands and his mourning coat or cloak may cover a feet, there to suffer, amidst their still-body containing a soul as far from being continued mockery and scoffing, all the a Christian, as those of the Jews thempains and anguish of the most cruel selves, even while they are in the perdeath; and, as if all this were not suf-formance of their blasphemous rites,

power; and that, above all things, it is their duty to be grateful to him for the sufferings which, for their sakes, he endured on the day of which this is the anniversary.

and defending, by fair implication, the fiance, not only the law of God, but bloody deed, for which their race has every moral precept and principle been condemned to wander throughout known amongst men, and must mark

the earth.

us out as lost to every feeling, not only of gratitude, but of common shame, and of common humanity: and this great and sound obligation is, that we do nothing that can by possibility be interpreted to mean, that we do not abhor the conduct of those who crucified HIM, on whom we rely for salvation. It is not enough, that we express, in words, our abhorrence of the murder and the murderers; we must, by our deeds, whenever the occasion offer, prove the sincerity of this abhorrence. The actual perpetrators of the bloody deed have, to be sure, long ceased to exist; but, if the earth be still polluted by their descendants in mind and heart as well as in their natural bodies; and if these still persevere in the utterance of their blasphemous calumnies; if they persevere in giving the lie to the prophets and evangelists, can Vain is evangelists, can those be Christians who join in fe'lowship with them? Nay, who do not do their utmost, as far as is consistent with justice and hu manity, to prevent these descendants of the murderers of CHRIST from possessing the means of doing mischief in the world?

No: we are called upon to show our gratitude by our acts, to prove the sincerity of our belief, not by words but by deeds." It is not he that crieth, "Lord! Lord! but he that doeth my will, "that is my disciple." And, what is "his will? Why, that we should not only abstain from doing evil, not only do no injustice, commit no act of extortion, commit no crime of any sort, but do as much good as we are able to do; to endeavour to make our country happy, to repress injustice when in our power; to defend feeble innocence against powerful guilt; to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, harbour the harbourless, visit the sick, lift up the humble and unjustly depressed, and pull down, if we have the power, haughtiness and insolence, and oppressive influence of every description. Vain is the imagination of those who believe, or, at least, whose conduct would seem to say that they believe, that they please God by their melancholy tone and air, and by being in incessant misery. Man was not made to live a life of wretchedness. If this were so, the infliction of tyranny, stripes, extortion, starvation, would be This is a momentous question, dito be commended; and justice, mercy,viding itself into two parts: first, as reand charity, would be subjects for relating to RELIGION; and, next, as reprobation. No it is not a mournful lating to TEMPORAL GOOD: and, let us and lazy despondency that bespeaks the now view the matter in these two disCHRISTIAN; but a cheerful and active tinct lights and vigilant discharge of all the duties stated and enjoined in the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST. And the transactions of this day in particular ought to revive in us, if we stand in need of such revival, a sense of our duty to encounter any hardships, and to make any sacrifices, that justice and mercy and charity may call on us to encounter and to make; for, what were the hardships for us endured, what was the sacrifice for us made on this ever-memorable day!

With regard to the first, the case stands thus: This is a Christian nation; Christians believe, that Christ was the Son of God; that he died to save them from perdition; that, without this sacrifice, they could not have been saved. This is the Christian belief; and we believe, further, that he rose from the dead; and that he now sitteth on the right hand of God. And, what say the Jews? They assert, that he was an IMPOSTOR; that he deserved But there is one duty, which, above all the cruel death that was inflicted on others, is suggested and enjoined by the him; that he did not rise from the dead; recollection of the transactions of this and that our faith and hope rest on a day; there is one obligation, a disre-contemptible fable. For eighteen hungard of which would be to set at de-dred years they have been asserting this ;

in some

and, during that time, the Gospel has And wherever such relaxation has spread over nearly the whole earth, taken place, the punishment of both while they have been dispersed over that rulers and people has speedily followed. earth, agreeably to the words of the The harvest has not been tardy, when prophets, over and over again repeated. the seed has once been sown. Deism, The whole of their conduct and fate atheism, all restraints from religious was foretold by the prophets; the bribe consideration, have immediately followwhich they gave to Judas; their mock-ed: the "goddess of reason ery of JESUS; their hardness of heart; their shedding of innocent blood; and, the strongest of all the proofs of the truth of our religion is to be found in the clear and repeated prophecies, that they should be dispersed amongst the nations, should be wanderers over the earth, and should have no inheritance, except the possession of their own bodies, or, as the prophet EZEKIEL describes it, the monopoly of their own "filthiness; " that is to say, that they should, in no country on earth (as long as they adhered to their blasphemy), have any immunities, any privileges, and possessions in house, land, or water, any civil or political rights; that they should, everywhere be deemed aliens'; and always at the absolute disposal of the sovereign power of the state, as completely as any inanimate substance, thrown on the land by the wind or the

waves.

:

cases, and "death's eternal sleep" in others; these, with all their accompanying enormities, and all their rivers of blood; these, or something nearly resembling them, have been invariably, as they were naturally, the fruit of every attempt thus to thwart the decree of God by human means. To be sure, it must of necessity be thus for to do any act which puts a Jew, in point of credence and confidence and honour and power, upon a level with Christians, what is it but to declare that he who proclaims JESUS CHRIST to have been an impostor is as good a man, and as worthy of belief, confidence, and trust, as a man who adores JESUS CHRIST? And what is this but to declare, that to adore JESUS CHRIST is of no use? And what is this but to declare, that the doctrines of Christianity are false?

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That Christian teachers should, above This was the judgment passed on all men living, have been remiss in them by God himself, and on them this warning rulers against relaxations of judgment has been executed. Some- this pernicious description, is an intimes, indeed, careless, foolish, profli- stance of abandonment of duty, and, in gate, and above all, oppressive rulers of fact, of apostacy, not to be thought posChristian nations, have from some mo- sible, if, unhappily, the fact were not tive connected with the aptness and but too well known. For why do we power of those blast hemers to aid them have teachers of Christianity; why in their oppressions; in some few in- preach JESUS CHRIST. crucified;" stances, and from such motives, a relax- why, above all things, call men ation of their doom has taken place; verend," and give them money for and in one or two instances, the basest teaching a belief in CHRIST as the Son of tyrants have bestowed titles of "ho- of God; why honour and pay men for nour "upon them, as a reward for as- doing this; why call them your pas→ sistance given by them in oppressing tors; why have them for any such and plundering their unhappy subjects; purpose, if the man who declares but these are mere exceptions to the CHRIST to have been an IMPOSTOR, universal rule; while the nations of the worthy of an ignominious death; if earth, with undivided voice, and for the such a man be as worthy of credence unbroken period of eighteen hundred and trust and magisterial and all other years, have proclaimed the truth of authority, as man who worships the holy prophets, and the just judg- CHRIST as his SAVIOUR? To be conments of God evinced in the doom of sistent and decent such teachers ought, these perverse blasphemers of his name at any rate, to resign their offices, and

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forego their gains; for, of all the in-prey get fat in time of pestilence. St. stances which the world has produced GREGORY calls usury, even in private of audacious profligacy, who ever wit- cases, felony and parricide;" what nessed one equal to that of declaring a must it be, then, when it spreads its Jew blasphemer to be as good as a deadly wings over the property of a Christian, and, at the same time, de- whole nation? mand money for teaching the Christian faith! But the truth is that these are not Christian teachers: they are those wolves in sheep's clothing, foretold by CHRIST himself and, as was JUDAS ISCARIOT, SO are they: he betrayed his master for thirty pieces of silver; their price may have been somewhat higher, but their acts and their motives are the same ; and let us leave it to God to unite them in their fate.

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This race appears always to have been the instruments in the hands of tyrants for plundering their subjects; they were the farmers of the cruel taxes, in the reigns of Louis XIV, and Louis XV.; and naturally, and, indeed, necessarily, the enemies of all Christians they lend a support to despotism, which it could not otherwise obtain; and we see, accordingly, that the wisest and bravest and most just and humane of the With regard to the TEMPORAL GOOD kings of England, and in the times of of a nation, what can be more perni- England's greatest happiness and recious than to give countenance and en-nown, have invariably treated this race couragement to a race, whose god is of blasphemers and usurers with the gain; who live solely by money-chang- greatest rigour, merely permitting their ing; who never labour in making, or existence here during the pleasure of causing to come, anything useful to the sovereign. In POLAND, HUNGARY, man; who are usurers by profession, and divers parts of Germany, they have, and extortioners by habit and almost by at times, until banished (as they freinstinct; who, to use the words of the quently have been), totally ruined a prophet, carry on usury and increase, great part of the people. In some of "and greedily gain of their neighbours the territories on the Rhine, the main by extortion?" This propensity they part of the people are, in fact, their appear to have in their very nature; it slaves. In KENTUCKY, one of the seems to be imborn with them to be states of America, a band of Jews had continually drawing to themselves the not long ago, amassed so large a part of goods of all around them. In all the the property of the state, that the peostates, where they have been encou- ple rose upon them in a body, and drove raged, they have first assisted to rob and them out of the territory. enslave the people, and, in the end, to A great historian has remarked, that destroy the government. A neighbour- this race always becomes of importance ing nation, which was, at last, plunged in a country, that it always becomes into all the horrors of anarchy, they numerous and thriving, in proportion as were the agents in bringing into that the country is on the decline and in a state of misery, which finally produced state of distress, just as vermin increase the lamentable catastrophe. They every- and thrive on the body of a diseased where are on the side of oppression, assist- animal; and that, as to more modern ing tyranny in its fiscal extortion; and times, "it would have been impossible everywhere they are the bitter foes of" to carry on fiscal oppressions to the those popular rights and liberties, which" extent that we have beheld, without are not more necessary to the happiness "the aid of these people," who, with of the people than to the stability and their loans, their usury, and their vadignity of the sovereign power; be- rious contrivances, assist mainly in cause, as long as those rights are in drawing the substance from the people, force, there is no room for a full dis- which they share with their protector; play of their talent at accumulation: it on whose side, therefore, they always is amongst masses of debt and misery are. No question that the murderers of that they thrive, as birds and beasts of CHRIST were sharers, in some way

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other, in the tribute paid to the Ro-accusing them of horrible bribery, and Dians. "Then went the Pharisees, and foretelling their chastisement accordtook counsel how they might entangle ingly. "Forasmuch, therefore, as your "him in his talk. And they sent unto" treading is upon the poor, and ye take "him their disciples, with the Herodians" from him burdens of wheat; ye have (Herod's people), saying, Master," built houses of hewn stone, but ye we know that thou art true, and" shall not dwell in them; ye have "teachest the way of GOD inplanted pleasant vineyards, but ye "truth, neither carest thou for "shall not drink wine in them. For I any man; for thou regardest not the" know your manifold transgression and "6 person of men. Tell us, therefore," your mighty sins: they afflict the "what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to "just, they take a bribe, and they turn "give tribute to Cæsar or not? But" aside the poor in the gate from their "JESUS perceived their wickedness, and "right." (Amos, chap. v. ver. 11). "said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Again, in the next chapter, ver. 4, " Ye "Show me the tribute money. And swallow up the needy, making the they brought him a penny. And he " poor of the land to fail; ye make "saith unto them, Whose is this image" ephah small, and shekel great, falsifyand superscription? And they say un-"ing the balances by deceit, that ye to him, Cæsar's. Then said he unto" may buy the poor for silver and the them, Render unto Cæsar the things" needy for a pair of shoes." "that are Cæsar's, and unto God the Oh! how justly descriptive of their things that are God's." So that these character and conduct! What, then, wretches, who had been conquered by shall we, disregarding the united voice the Romans, and who were paying of the prophets, though confirmed to tribute to the conquerors, had the in-the very letter by all subsequent hisfamy to go, along with HEROD's people, tory and by our own sad experience; to endeavour to obtain evidence against shall we, disregarding all these, pass him, and to put him in the power of this memorable day over without bearthat very man that was exacting the tribute from their unhappy countrymen How exactly like those spies, whom tyrants employ when they suspect that their power is in danger, and who, in the words of the Psalmist, "lie in wait to shed innocent blood." These Jews took the Herodians with them! This is so like the practice of the spies of tyrants: they had Herod's soldiers ready to pounce upon him! Beyond all doubt they were sharers in the tribute; and in all human probability had betrayed their own countrymen into the hands of the conquerors; verifying therein the words of the prophet, that they should barter their freedom" for bits of silver." Do I call upon you to destroy them The propensity to bribe and corrupt, or to hunt them from the land like so notorious in this people, as described beasts of prey? By no means: and denounced by the prophets, and as principles of Christians, the principles evinced in the case of ISCARIOT, ought of Him against whom they utter their never to be lost sight of! Notwithstand-blasphemies, are their sure protection. ing the example made of Samuel's sons; But, to abstain from punishment, and and notwithstanding the denunciation to give encouragement, are two things that "fire shall consume the habitations widely different; by the former, we of bribery," we find the prophet Amos leave the blasphemers to repent; by

ing testimony against all those, who, whether by acts of commission or omission, would imply that this race, thus denounced by God for their outrageous wickedness, for their bribery, their corruption, their subornation of perjury, their usury, their deceit, their frauds, their oppressions of the poor, their murders and their blasphemies without end; shall we pass over this memorable day without protesting against those who imply that this race, who, to crown all their other abominations, revile Jesus CHRIST as an impostor, are as good, as worthy of credence and trust and honour, as Christians!

the