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Rev. Mellish
Irving Motte (1801-1881) was originally from Charleston, South
Carolina. He obtained a Bachelors of Arts from
Harvard in 1821 and became pastor of the South Congregational Church in Boston on May 21, 1828.
In this 1840 sermon, Rev. Motte encourages
Christians to fully engage the culture, especially in the political arena. He
decries politicians acting out of self-interest and greed rather than making
decisions based upon what is morally right and wrong. Motte
insists that religious morality is the very first manifestation of true
patriotism and "Public virtue is the strongest spirit of national
vitality." He reminds his listeners that nations must be judged in the
present since they do not exist in eternity and national ruin awaits national
unrighteousness. Rev. Motte states that America's Fathers founded the country on
Christian principles and intended for the United States to be a Christian
nation. According to Motte, the realization of this
goal is to be found in individual piety and allegiance to righteousness over
any political party.
The
Christian Patriot
A
Sermon
Delivered at the
South Congregational Church,
Boston, July 5,
1840
By M. I. Motte
Psalm 144:15
Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord
One of the most common of mistaken and false forms, into which religion is
apt to run, is an isolated piety, and abstract and independent devotion;
religion separated from the business of life, instead of being woven up,
conscientiously, with all its concerns. For convenience' sake, we have a
particular day, and place, and order of men, and class of exercises,
especially devoted to the consideration of the great topic; but it is that
its influence may be made to run through all days and places, all
intercourse, every subject and employment. Yet the church has every been
prone, even more than it conscious of, to sever itself from the world,
instead of leavening it to its own spirit; and the same man, in his church
relations, is a Christian, or would grieve not to be considered and to
consider himself so, who, in some of his worldly interests and pursuits, is
absolutely an atheist, living without God in his thoughts.
On no subject us thus more obvious, than on the one, from which it is most
unfortunate in our country religion should be driven off, seeing it is that
which agitates more people here than any other, viz. the whole business of
politics. Religion and politics are spoken of as opposite poles, the positive
and the negative as the acknowledgment of God is concerned. We hear it said,
politics are of no particular religion; and it is too often true, in a more
absolute sense than is intended. It would seem, at first, as if both subject
were so important, so exciting, that the human hear is hardly large enough
for both. (3) When we speak of a man as a politician preeminently, one
enthusiastically absorbed in the affairs of the nation, or more probably of a
party, we do not expect to find him in a church. And when a zealot for
churches is invited to the polls, he seems to answer to the purpose, when he
replies, "My Master's kingdom is not of this world." If he is a
clergyman, the professional response expected from him is, "I have
nothing to do with politics;" and only those object to this, who
suppose, if he voted at all, he would vote with them; to all others he seems
to have made the natural and legitimate reply. Both of these men are wrong,
but they both point the direction in which public prejudice blows.
Our festivals, again, are either political or
religious; not both together. There would seem to be something incompatible
and profane, or absurd, in making them both. Such an anniversary as yesterday
is not strikingly a religious day; as tomorrow's published list of its
outrages and truculent mishaps in all our cities will attest. Early in the
morning, trains may be seen leaving the city by every outlet, anxious to
escape the celebration of the National Independence. And, when the day of the
month falls upon the first day of the week, its celebration is postponed till
Monday; as if confessedly impossible to bring its spirit to into harmony with
the Christian Sabbath.
All this shows, not the politics and religion are necessarily inconsistent, -
for the former, I suppose, is a duty as really as the latter, and all duties
should be performed in the fear of God, - but it shows, that the spirit of
politics which prevails is not the right one. The good of our country should
be provided for, as in the sight of God, and in sacred love to our
fellow-men; and then it is a holy service, and need not be dissevered from
the solemnest ministrations of devotions. It is one of the modes of worship
with which the Universal Father is well pleased; one of the forms of his
appointed ceremonial of religion pure and undefiled, which consists in going
about doing good for his sake. But, if it is only a selfish, headlong, intemperate
scramble for preeminence, if it is mercenary, not moral, in its spirit, a
question of interest, not of right, the Sabbath is too good a day for it, and
so is every other day.
Interest is to be regarded as well as right; but do not all political parties
appeal too exclusively to the former? A reverence for right is not held high
enough, as the guiding polar star for the opinions of the people. The people
think, morality is a matter of home and neighborly intercourse, not involved
in the vote they cast, and the opinions they express, on the acts of
government, encouraging or condemning. How seldom is the guilt of upholding
iniquitous public measures reflected on, as good men reflect on private
violations of the ten Commandments. They may do infinitely more mischief than
an individual's misdemeanor, and yet many deem it a little thing. Men seem to
think they may hold what opinions, and belong to what parties they please,
without regard to their truth or effects, except as affecting themselves; as
if politics were a lawless region, always out of Christendom, and from which
even conscious was excluded by general consent. Look through the community
and the world, and see how, on almost every question, you may draw a line
between parties, accurately coinciding with the line between their interests.
You need not ask, on which side a man's convictions lie, if you only know on
which side his wishes lie. The coincidence is certainly remarkable; and
melancholy it is to reflect on the wide heartlessness it indicates. Here we
see men fair-minded in every other concern, men of severe religious sanctity,
of nice honor, of scrupulous integrity in their personal transactions, where
the welfare of a few immediate connections or acquaintances is at stake; but,
when millions lose though the prevalence of an opinion, the first and only
thought that seems to occur to them is, How will it affect us, and I our
lowest interests? And, if it promise to be lucrative, forthwith they adopt
that opinion, and if their soul's salvation hung upon it.
They adopt that opinion, I said; But can it be possible, that men always do
really believe as if for their interests? Can they be conscientious, in such
innumerable cases, arriving, through the careful and dispassionate
examination, at precisely the result that happens to favor the views and
wishes? I allow a great deal for the blinding power of self-interest; but
this uniform concurrence of hope and belief is astonishing still. These same
people will reason as clearly as daylight on any argument which comes within
the tenth of an inch of their own concerns without touching it; but, the
moment it touches, their light is darkened, their logical acumen is blunted,
their perceptions evince a certain unfortunate obliquity, which is sure to
twist their notions in one invariable direction. Can this be right? Can it be
honest? We know, or we might know, if we chose, that truth and justice cannot
always, and on every accidental question and measure, be in our favor. We are
bound, at any rate, not to take it for granted. Let us inquire. Let us make
up our minds to lose so many dollars, relinquish a few prejudices, and
partialities, and expectations, rather than lose probity, the approbation
that speaks within, all generosity of soul, and the smiles of God. Let us not
be satisfied to be guilty, because the guilt is shared with a multitude. Away
with injustice and ungenerosity, though only in
thought, however popular, however fashionable. So shall we do our part to
bring into currency a more elevated and uncompromising tone of political
honor and conscience; and the whole regions of politics be no longer but as
the Barbary States of moral geography, outlawed lands and piratical seas,
from which are excluded all faith and virtue, all laws of God and man.
Politics should be but one form of that charity which is the end of the
divine law. One more of benevolence, one of the ministrations of
philanthropy; and "Holiness to the Lord" be
inscribed over the portals of its halls of state and the chambers of its
social festivals, as over the church door. Especially with us should this be
aimed at on triple grounds. For, if political
parties with us cannot be Christian parties, then
are we a godless nation; there can be few Christians throughout the length
and breadth of the land; since he, who is no politician under our
institutions, is a solitary rarity.
Then, if they believe their own declamations, puffing up so unweariedly the national vanity, we are the most favored
people on which the sun shines, at least, as regards all that God has done
for us; and the Giver of all good should, least of all, be ungratefully
overlooked by us. All the flights of rhetoric, that yesterday glittered over
this continent, all the floods of panegyric that were sounded forth upon
ourselves and our institutions and advantages, should they not all reecho, at
least in and undertone whisper in reason's ear, as if saying, To whom much is
given, of them much will be required?
And, then, to make all that is given to us safe for us, and to expect a
blessing continuance, we must remember God, and insist on a religious
morality as the very first manifestation of a true patriotism. Ay,
patriotism, that most abused words. Alas! That it is every vaunted and bravadoed by the scoffer and the profligate, not knowing,
that blessed is that people, and that alone, whose God is the Lord. Without
him they may speak great swelling words of vanity; but bombastic professions
and oratorical displays are not the disinterested self-denial and sober toils
of a virtuous citizen, who fears God and honors government, and serves and
saves the state without boasting. He alone is a patriot. By such alone the
country stands.
The Ruler of nations hath uttered the decree. From beginning of time his
world has illustrating it. As surely as he is just and the King of nations as
of individuals; as surely as there is truth taught by experience, and the
unvarying certainty of the same effects from the same causes, according to
the natural constitution he has impressed on his universe, the past, in all
quarters of the globe, bids us look well to it. You may be the traitor within
the garrison, though treason to the country be
furthest from your thoughts. You may invoke ruin upon it when you are
shouting, louder than any, the glory of its institutions. You may be the
deadly enemy, though you shed your blood for it. Look into the nature of
things. When hath a righteous nation perished? Where is there one doing
justice and judgment, and it is not well with it? Public virtue is the
strongest spirit of national vitality; and private virtue is the life-blood,
coursing through every artery and vein, large and small, of the public
institutions.
On the other hand, is it not undeniable from reason, scripture, and
experience, that predominance of selfish principles and corrupt morals is the
unfailing cause of calamities, perplexities, and ruin in a country? Reason
tells us, that the character of the Judge of all the earth is the pledged to
have it so. Vice, in the individual, may not always meet its retribution, nor virtue its reward, in this world, because there is to
be another, of more perfect retribution for individuals. But nations exist
here alone. Unlike the soul, they are annihilated at their temporal
dissolution. Therefore, if their fortunes and fate be subject of the Divine
Providence, to their present existence, which is the only one, must be
applied the principle of its moral rule.
The scriptures confirm this rule, and do not restrict it to the theocracy of Israel. They
say; "O Israel, thou hast fallen by thine
iniquity; your iniquities have turned away good things and withheld them from
you." But it is not of Israel
alone, (of whom it might be said, God was, in a peculiar way, a Governor by
temporal sanctions,) that he announces this principle of legislation. His
declarations are general. "At what instant I shall speak concerning a
nation and concerning a kingdom, to build up and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I
will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. In the hand of
the Lord, there is a cup, and the wine is red. It is full mixed, and he poureth out of the same. As for the dregs thereof, all
the ungodly of the earth shall drink them."
And the experience of mankind puts the impressive truth beyond dispute. What
is history but, on this account, like the Prophet's, a scroll written, within
and without, with lamentation, and mourning, and woe. Pity weeps as she
unrolls its venerable annals. Its oldest records present the Cities of the
Plain set forth for an example of the national ruin, that full surely awaits
national unrighteousness. "Ten righteous men could not be found in
them," and they perished. Even to an earlier page the genius of history
points, and sighs over the ravages of the flood. "All flesh had
corrupted their ways before the Flood." And we stand aghast at the
sweeping catastrophe. Turn over a few pages onward, and direct your attention
to the chosen people. See them, at one time, visited with pestilence, famine,
conflagration, tempest; at another, falling under
the sword, or languishing in captivity, feeling before the scourge of war, or
terrified with awful phenomena of nature, and all these proclaimed the retributory angels of the Lord, the ministers of his
justice for their sins. The wisdom of their wise men was taken away, and the
understanding of their prudent men hid; and it was moral debasement that did
it. Their cities, the places of their fathers' sepulchers, were laid waste,
and the gates thereof consumed with fire; and, in all the seasons of their
affliction, mark the moral shade running though the history in proportioned
intenseness; mark idolatry and its bitter fruit, general profligacy, tempting
them to forget their God.
Read of a later day, travel among the scenes of profane chronicles, if you
would see, that national vice is national suicide. Stand upon the moldering
ruins of a thousand cities, once great and fair, and seek, - you will seek in
vain, - for trace or even site of many others; and ask where are they, and
why have they vanished from the earth? Roam through the desolated territories
of empires, once splendid and mighty, and, as you brood over the gloomy
vestiges of their decay, cannot find an inhabitant for many a mile, where
throngs were loud and busy once, ask yourself, if integrity, industry,
humanity, temperance, piety, and purity were rife there, when the besom of
destruction came to sweep a tomb under those wide-spread ruins.
Thus history or travel will conduct you over the globe, and everywhere teach
the same salutary lesson. They will point to empire after empire, and dynasty
after dynasty, shriveling and shrinking with the imbecility of moral
corruption; and it is not more sure, that the palaces of their pride, and the
monuments of their perverted might, are crumbling into dust, than that other
empires and other dynasties, now treading in their steps, will follow them to
decay and desolation. O that our beloved land may be wise from the lesson!
And the lesson is more pertinent under our republican polity, than under any
other. If righteousness exalteth a nation, and sin
is a reproach and ruin to any people, most speedily of all must it prove so
to a people without the restraints of a strong government. Liberty and licentiousness roll trippingly
off the tongue together; they flow, unseparated,
from the lips of many, with easy alliteration and commonplace proverbialness, as if they were almost the same thing, or
one inevitably followed the other. But, if it does, it is as commonplace a
maxim of history, that it will follow it speedily to ruin. Liberty licentiousness, - it is the tritest of proverbs, - cannot coexist lastingly. The free
people is the last that can afford to be vicious.
The slave may throw off the restraints of virtue, and yet be kept in order by
the restraints of despotism. But, when a freeman does not govern himself, he
is ungoverned, so to speak, and careering to perdition; like the uncurbed
wild ass of the desert, rushing to the precipice he tosses his head too high
to see.
Therefore, every immoral republican is a traitor and conspirator against his
government, as much as if, being the subject of a king, he pointed a dagger
against his life. He is spreading stratagems and snares for the feet of his
sovereign; for public virtue is his sovereign. He is seeking to blind, and
deafen, and lame, and cripple, and make wholly inefficient, and worse than
inefficient, he is seeking to corrupt, into tyrannical wantonness and
cruelty, the most beneficent monarch that ever sat upon a throne.
So that you see, my brethren, in addition to every other motive for being
good Christians, patriotism should be one. After we have turned away from the
voice of God; after we have steeled our hearts to the claims of him who died
upon Calvary, the just for the unjust, the he might bring us to God; after we
have besotted our minds to act the fool's part of blindness to our own
interest; there is yet one appeal which may not be lost upon our generosity,
one consideration that should be sufficient; public spirit, the love of our
country. Its welfare is resting on our individual virtue. For as drops of
water make up the ocean, and grains of sand constitute vast continents, so
the personal character of the humblest individual among us adds something,
for weal or for woe, to that national character, by which the land of our
love, the government which has cherished us, will stand or fall. Our native
soil, the scene of our happy childhood, the land of our fathers, the land
where we have enjoyed so much, where we expect so much, and from which the
world expects so much, shall it realize these expectations? Shall it become,
as has been so fondly anticipated, the glory of the nations, has the
perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth, showing what man can do with
unshackled energies and faculties ripely developed
in the wholesome air of liberty? Or shall it be one more byword and mockery
of the aspirations and pretensions of freedom.
Think of this, when tempted to any wicked or base act. Above all, think of it
when tempted to into any of the peculiar and besetting snares, and betraying
exaggerations and caricatures of liberty; to vicious license, to lawlessness
and recklessness of restraint, to inebriate zeal, party prejudice, bigoted
factiousness, mob-rioting, passionate reviling of the powers that be, or the
powers that are to be, and all bitter or mercenary partisanship. Remember,
when tempted to any of these, you are tempted then to disappoint so many
noble souls, the lovers of their kind, in every quarter of the globe, the
enthusiasts for the advancement of the human race to a pitch of excellence
and enjoyment yet unrealized, but the guaranty for which they look for in the
great experience of self-government now trying on these shores.
The old world may be said to be leaning, with feverish anxiety, over the
ocean to catch every symptom of the success or failure of his experiment.
Have pity on the last hopes on man. Let is not be said again, as it was by
the dying Brutus, after he had sacrificed all to realize a patriot's dream;
"O virtue, I have worshipped thee as a reality, and found thee but a
shadow." Let it not be said, again, as it was by the noble-hearted
Madame Roland, as, on her way to the guillotine to lose her head for
continuing a virtuous enthusiast for freedom amidst the herd of vicious, she
passed under the statue of Liberty; "O Liberty, how they have played
thee! What crimes have been committed in the name!"
Ay, how it has been played in the world, historionized,
juggled! What crimes have been committed, what crimes have not been
committed, in its sacred name? It is assuredly the cloak of boundless evil,
when not guarded with most scrupulous probity; for the best things,
corrupted, always become the worst. The precious diamond may be blackened into
a worthless coal. The sweet name of liberty has become a sound of ill omen
and nauseous associations to many of the readers of history, from want of
virtue in its votaries. Patriotism has been characterized as the last
resource of a villain. Revolutions, said Napoleon, are not made with
rosewater; but it were well if blood, and seas of
it, were the dearest price paid. Moral corruption is what renders revolutions
worse than vain.
Our fathers have made one more trial, knowing that past failures were from want
of Christian principle, and that they had settled these shores expressly in
obedience to Christian principle, and therefore they might hope. In faith and
prayer they struggled; for they felt, that with God all things are possible
in the cause of righteousness, and they hoped their children would feel this
too. From the first, they set out with the idea of making this community that
happy people, whose God is the Lord, - a Christian nation, - what the world
had never yet seen, but what all its experience concurred in testifying it
must seem or it would never see the amount of prosperity man is capable of
attaining on earth. A Christian people! Not merely a sober, industrious
people, without religion, if such could be expected, but distinctively a
Christian people. Bright and glorious idea, far-seeing wisdom, true friends,
and see its kingdoms prospering at this time just in proportion as they come
near realizing this idea, other elements of their greatness being the same.
Begin from the effete East, and come to the infant West. The nominally
Christian are more thriving than the Pagan Mahometan;
the Protestant than the Catholic; the praying and Bible-reading, than the
ceremonial and formalist; and, so long hypocrisy could be kept out, that
people would prosper most, who should require, as the settlers of these New
England colonies did, that none but members of the church should be rulers in
the state. Such a regulation is a bait for
hypocrites, a trap for the consciences of the ambitious, and, therefore, it is
not to be enforced after the primitive virtues of the settlement have been
corrupted. But, is there were not fear of hypocrisy, verily and indeed happy
would be that people, with whom God was effectively their Lord through the
strict observances of such a rule. Then might we see such a phenomenon as a
Christian people.
As it is, let us, - and it seems more incumbent on us than on any nation that
lives in the sun's more expressive, than as a mere geographical term. When we
are called a Christian nation, let us allow more the meant, than that we are
not savages or barbarians, or only semi-civilized, as all those nations are
in which Christianity is unknown. Christian should be more than European or
American, as distinguished from Asiatic or African. It should be more than
latitude and longitude; more than eastern or western, northern or southern;
more than tropics and zones, equator and ecliptic, arctic or antarctic.
And how can we make a Christian nation? To become so, must be an individual,
not a collective act. Legislation cannot do it, if legislation would.
Resolves of majorities, in caucus or in Congress, in towns or by states, or
even unanimous votes, is not the way to affect it. The simple and sole
process is for each person privately to resolve, for his single part, no
influence in legislative deliberations, no political name or fame whatever, -
nay, the shrinking woman and child, whose deliberations look not beyond the
homestead, or who can legislate only over their own hearts, - these can add a
stone, as truly as the mightiest statesman or the loudest demagogue, to build
up the national temple to the Lord. Public opinion is the life-breath of our
own government, and therefore to Christianize that, we have but to
Christianize ourselves. O what it is ye may achieve! No such power as this is
possessed by the subjects of any government but yours. They cannot regenerate
their sovereign. They cannot even pray for his conversion with hope, the
assurance, of the prayer being granted if sincere, which may warm your
breasts.
And is there a consideration of earth or heaven, that
is not present and potent to move us to this prayer? Pour it out to God, if
righteousness would have but the promise of the life that now is. If a
majority of the citizens were sincere followers of Jesus Christ, is it not
evident, the councils of this nation would be wiser and mightier, its
progress more glorious, its dominion even more potent than any the world has
ever seen? The day when it shall be resolved, that the same evangelical
principles shall govern states that govern churches and gospel professors in
their private relations, would be the true jubilee of freedom. That will be
the mind's and the soul's declaration of independence. That will be breaking
every yoke at length from body, and heart, and spirit. Thenceforth slavery,
in any form, would be but a tradition and a name; whereas now it is the
commonest of conditions, and to the mass liberty is
but a name; for he that serveth any sin is the
slave of sin. That day will come, when the people choose.
Choose it, resolve it, O my brethren, as the first of civil duties. Whatever
your party predilections, sacrifice them all for the party of righteous men.
Support no administration, and oppose none, but one the ground of moral principle.
Go with them as far as Jesus Christ would go, and no further. Read the
constitution by the light of the Gospel. The Savior be
your paramount leader.
And now I see his communion table before me this day, and I fear all that has
been said will seem out of keeping with its solemn associations; so
desecrating, as I began with intimating, seems any allusion to the
politician's trade. But let me hope I have not spoken all in vain. Follow it
in the spirit in which you come here to the house of the Lord himself. You
are performing a solemn act of worship then, if you feel it aright. You
should enter upon office, you should deposit your vote for office, with a
religious sense of accountableness, like that which makes you so serious when
you handle the emblems of the Savior's body and blood.
Approach his table because you would be good citizens, among the other
reasons of the act; because you love, and you serve and save, your country;
because you would have it long free; because you would be truly free yourselves.
Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. If his Son shall make your
free, ye shall be free indeed. Where he is not the deliverer, men may clamor,
and boast, and carouse, and with bacchanalian revelry call themselves free
but they are the bondmen of corruption, the thralls of Satan. O be ye, unlike them, the freedmen of the Lord, whose
service is perfect freedom.
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