Sunday law opposed.

Influence

of Christianity on secularism.

Influence of on secularism.

Reformation

Benefits of a Christian

civilization.

And be it further resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested to use their exertions in opposition to any measure that may tend to retard the transportation of the mail.

JAMES PENN,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

SAMUEL B. MOORE,

President of the Senate.

GABRIEL MOORE.

Approved: December 31, 1830.

1 Although for the sake of prejudicing Christian people, many religiopolitical agitators stigmatize our secular form of government as "atheistical" and the secularist as a "political atheist," yet it nevertheless remains a fact that the words of Christ, "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's," probably had more influence in the adoption of our secular theory of government than any other one thing. Those words were made the texts of sermons by ministers in all parts of the land; they were used by statesmen, conventions, and legislatures; they were repeated in political disquisitions, until Christian people everywhere thoroughly understood that the Christian theory and the secular theory of government were one and the same theory. Ex-president Madison had occasion to recall this fact in an address in which he says:

“It is a pleasing and persuasive example of pious zeal, united with pure benevolence, and of cordial attachment to a particular creed, untinctured with sectarian illiberality. It illustrates the excellence of a system [our secular polity] which, by a due distinction, to which the genius and courage of Luther led the way, between what is due to Casar and what is due to God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations.

“The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of corrupt usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity."

With this positive assertion on the part of Madison that our secular government is the direct outgrowth of that great religious movement the Reformation—and his reference to the words of Christ, we may well take pride in the fact that liberalism and secularism are among the great institutions produced by a Christian civilization.

Variety

of sentiment

Proposed innovation a dangerous precedent.

Whereas, A variety of sentiment exists among the good people of the United States on the subject existing. of the expediency or inexpediency of stopping the transportation of the mail on the Sabbath day; and inasmuch as Congress has been and is still urged to pass an act restricting the carrying of the mails to six days in the week only, by petitions and memorials from various quarters of the Union; and inasmuch as it is believed that such an innovation upon our republican institutions would establish a precedent of dangerous tendency to our privileges as freemen, by involving a legislative decision in a religious controversy on a point in which good citizens may honestly differ and whereas, a free expression of sentiment by the present General Asssembly on the subject may tend, in a great degree, to avert so alarming an evil as the union of church and state; therefore,

Resolved by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That the able report made by Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, in the Senate of the United States, on the 19th January, 1829, adverse to the stoppage of the transportation of mails on the Sabbath or first day of the week, meets our decided approbation.

Resolution of Illinois.

Colonel Johnson's resolutions approved.

Resolved, That the Governor be requested to transmit copies of the foregoing preamble and resolution to our Senators and Representatives in Congress, with the request that they use their exertions to prevent the passage of any bill which may, at any Assembly. time, be introduced for such purpose.

Sentiment of the

Certificate.

Donatist arguments.

Apostles did

We certify the foregoing to be a true copy of a resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois at their present session.

་་

JESSE B. THOMAS, JUN.,

Secretary of the Senate.

DAVID PRICKETT,

Clerk to the House of Representatives.

The arguments of the Donatists are of interest in this connection, and are in striking contrast with those of many professed Christians of to-day: 'Did the apostles ever persecute any one?" they inquired, "or did not persecute. Christ ever deliver any one over to the secular power? Christ commands us to flee persecutors. Matthew x, 23. Thou who callest thyself a disciple of Christ oughtest not to imitate the evil deeds of the heathen. Think you thus to serve God-by destroying with your own hand? Ye err, ye err, poor mortals, if ye believe this; for God has not executioners for his priests. Christ persecutes no one; for he was for inviting, not forcing, men to the faith; and when the apostles complained to him of the founders of separate parties (Luke ix, 50), he said to them, 'He who is not against us, is for us;' and so, too, Paul, in Philippians i, 18. Our Lord Christ says, 'No man can come unto me, unless the Father, who hath sent me, draw him.' But why do you not permit every man to follow his own free will, since God, the Lord himself, has bestowed this free will on man? He has simply pointed out to man the way to righteousness, that none might be lost through ignorance. Christ, in dying for men, has given Christians the example to die but not to kill. Christ teaches us to suffer wrong, not to requite it. The apostle tells of what he had endured, not of what he had done to others." - Bishop Petilian.

Why not leave men free?

Interference

of man with God's plans.

"God created man free, after his own image. How am I to be de prived of that by human lordship, which God has bestowed on me? What sacrilege, that human arrogance should take away what God has bestowed, and idly boast of doing this in God's behalf. It is a great offense against God when he is defrauded by men. What must he think

of God, who would defend him with outward force? Is it that God is unable to punish offenses against himself? Hear what the Lord says: 'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you.' The peace of the world must be introduced Christianity among contending nations by arms. The peace of Christ invites the willing with wholesome mildness; it never forces men against their wills. The Almighty God employed prophets to convert the people of Israel; he enjoined it not on princes; the Saviour of souls, the Lord Christ, sent fishermen, and not soldiers, to preach his faith."— Bishop Gaudentius.

does not

force men.

To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled:1

New Jersey

The undersigned, memorialists of the town of Newark, county of Essex, and State of New Jersey, remonstrance. being apprized of the numerous petitions presented to your honorable body, praying a repeal of the present laws for the transportation of the mails and the opening of the post-offices on the first day of the week, beg leave (in accordance with their sense of duty) humbly to memorialize your honorable body, and pray that no such repeal be made, nor any law be enacted interfering with the Post-office Department, so as to prevent the free passage of the mail on all days of the week, or to exclude any individual from the right to receive his papers on the first, as well as on the seventh day.

Notwithstanding your memorialists have the fullest confidence in the wisdom and integrity of our national Legislature, they are induced to memorialize your honorable body at this time, from a fear lest the reiterated efforts of bigotry and fanaticism should finally prevail on your honorable body to legislate bigotry. upon a subject which your memorialists consider. is, by the Constitution of these States and the laws of nature, left free; and which, for the welfare of

1 "American State Papers: Documents, legislative and executive, of the Congress of the United States," class vii, pages 238, 239. Selected and edited, under the authority of Congress, by Walter Lowrie, Secretary of the Senate, and Walter S. Franklin, Clerk of the House of Representatives. Published at Washington, 1834.

Repeated efforts of

Surprise invoked.

mankind, should be maintained so. Nor can they at this time refrain from expressing their astonishment at, and their disapprobation of, the reiterated and untiring efforts of a part of the community, who, through misguided zeal or ecclesiastical ambition, essay to coerce your honorable body into a direct Violation of violation of the principles of the Constitution, by the enactment of laws, the object of which would be to sustain their peculiar tenets or religious creeds to the exclusion of others; thereby uniting ecclesiastical and civil law, and leading ultimately to the abhorrent and anti-republican union of church and state.

the Constitu

tion.

Perseverance shown.

Love for religion.

Your memorialists would not presume to remonstrate, were it not that their opponents (after a most signal defeat in last Congress) have renewed their petitons with a vigor increased by disappointment, and a spirit as perseveringly determined as their premises are illiberal and unwarrantable.

Your memorialists approve of morality, reverence religion, and grant to all men equal rights, and are governed by the principles of our Constitution and Deprecation the laws of our land; but we deprecate intolerance, abhor despotism, and are totally opposed to all attempts of the religions of any sect to control our consciences.1

of intolerance.

Liberty of Sunday

abridged.

Nor can your memorialists perceive wherein their observers not opponents are deprived of their liberty of conscience by the uninterrupted course of the mails, for if it be right for them to travel on the first day of the week, it cannot be wrong for the mails; if it be consistent

Ground of remonstrance.

1 It will be seen from this that the reasons for the opposition of these petitioners to Sunday legislation were not on account of any opposition to the Christian religion, but like Madison's memorial in Virginia in 1785, these memorials were prompted by reverence for, and interest in, that religion. There is no doubt whatever that the religious denominations are in a much better condition morally in the United States, unaided by government, than they would have been had they all these years received assistance from the civil power.