SERMON IV.

THE BUILDING OF WASTE PLACES.

"And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations." ISAIAH 61: 4.

THE text predicts the civil and religious order which should succeed the restoration of the tribes from Babylon. During that long exile, many fields lay untilled, and many cities without inhabitant, their walls broken down. The temple and the synagogues of the nation lay, also, in ruins. But "they shall build," saith the prophet, "the old wastes." The fields shall be tilled, the cities inhabited, the temple rebuilt, and the worship of God restored.

The prediction has unquestionably a reference also to the latter day, and announces that great spiritual change which awaits the nations made desolate by sin. In all lands the wastes shall be builded, the wastes of Paganism, the wastes of Mahometanism, the wastes of Popery, the wastes of atheism and heresy. The accomplishment of this universal restoration will include the raising up of decayed churches, as well as the planting of new ones; and will be accomplished, doubtless, by the charities and benevolent exertions of those religious communities which are blessed with the institutions of the Gospel.

The waste places of Connecticut, and the duty of building

them, will be the subject of consideration in this discourse.* That there are desolations in this State, will not be questioned by any minutely acquainted with our circumstances. Not a few societies have ceased to hear those doctrines of the Gospel, by the instrumentality of which the Spirit of God awakens, converts, and sanctifies men. A number of churches have become feeble, and, by hard struggling, prolong from year to year the enjoyment of divine institutions; while some have long since fallen, and are now lying in utter desolation.

The building of these wastes will include the propagation of the truth, the communication of strength to the feeble, and the restoration of fallen societies to the order of the Gospel.

In the illustration of the subject, it is proposed to consider, I. The causes of these desolations.

II. The means of restoring them.

III. The motives to immediate exertion for that purpose. I. The immediate causes are, evidently, the difference of religious sentiment and worship which prevails, connected with a criminal indifference to the institutions of the Gospel.

There is not, in the State, a town or parish unable to support the Gospel constantly, and with ease, provided all the families in the limits of each were of one heart and of one way to serve the Lord. But the property, in many societies, is divided between three or four different denominations, beside a part which the love of money and indifference to the Gospel wholly withdraw from the support of divine institutions. The consequence is, the decline, and, in some cases, the entire subversion, of that religious order which our fathers established.

*The remarks applied to this State are, with slight modification, applicable to New England generally; but it is thought best to preserve the local references.

But by what causes has this change in the religious opinions and habits of the people been accomplished? The fathers of Connecticut came here on purpose to establish and perpetuate that religious order which is still the prevailing order in the State. They were united in their views of doctrine and discipline, were strongly attached to the religious order they had established, and, with singular wisdom, provided for its perpetuity. Believing godliness to be profitable to the life that now is, and ignorance and irreligion to be crimes against the State, they required by law every society to support the Gospel, and every family to contribute its proportion, and to attend statedly upon its ministrations. In the formation of a new settlement, even if it consisted of not more than twenty families, a minister, a meeting-house, and a school-house, were deemed as indispensable as their own dwellings. Thus organized, for more than a century, Zion was a city compactly builded; and friends and foes might, with different emotions, "go round about her, and tell her towers, and mark her bulwarks, and consider her palaces." By what causes, then, have these changes been accomplished? The most efficacious are, doubtless, remote; have operated silently and slowly, and produced their results at periods so distant as almost to elude observation.

In bringing them into view, no unkind feelings are indulged towards Christians of other denominations, and nothing disrespectful or injurious is intended; the importance of the subject requires the investigation to be conducted with the verity of the historian, and the fidelity of the surgeon, who wounds only to heal.

A remote cause of our present wastes is to be found in a very great declension of vital piety in the churches, which For more than one hundred

took place many years ago.

years, the pastors and churches of Connecticut were strictly evangelical; but, at length, different views concerning doctrine began to prevail. This was occasioned by an alarming suspension, for many years, of the special influence of the Spirit, and by the expedients of human wisdom to replenish the churches without the agency of God. One effect of this decline was, the introduction into the ministry of men who probably had never experienced the power of divine grace on their hearts, and who, of course, would be prepared by native feeling to oppose the doctrines of the Gospel. From such, nothing better could be expected than a cold, formal, unfaithful, unproductive ministry, and a gradual approximation to another Gospel. Those precious truths which are the power of God to salvation were first omitted, and at length openly opposed. The consequence was, that "the love of many waxed cold, and the ways of Zion mourned, because few came to her solemn feasts." Alarmed at the declining numbers of the church, and the corresponding increase of the unbaptized, our fathers, with pious intent, doubtless, but with a most unwarrantable distrust of God and dependence on human wisdom, introduced what has since been denominated the half-way covenant. According to the provisions of this anomaly in religion, persons of a regular deportment, though destitute of piety, might be considered as church-members, and offer their children in baptism, without coming to the sacramental supper; for which piety was still deemed indispensable. The effect was, that owning the covenant, as it was called, became a common, thoughtless ceremony; and baptism was extended to all who had either sufficient regard to fashion or to self-righteous doings to ask it for themselves or for their children. As to the promises of educating children in the fear of the Lord, and submitting

to the discipline of the church, on the one hand, or of watchful care on the other, they were alike disregarded, both by those who exacted and by those who made them. Others, alarmed by the same declension of numbers in the visible church, and leaning equally to their own understanding to provide a remedy, discovered, as they imagined, that grace is not necessary to the participation of either ordinance; that there is but one covenant, the condition of which might be moral sincerity; and that the sacrament of the supper, like the preaching of the Gospel, might be numbered among the means of grace for the conversion of the soul. With these views, the doors of the church were thrown open, and all the congregation who could be were persuaded to come in.

These innovations in church order, though resisted by many, and not introduced without considerable agitation, became at length almost universal throughout New England. The consequences were what might be expected, where sinners are countenanced in drawing near to God with their mouths, while their heart is removed far from him, and their fear towards him is taught by the precepts of men: they were, the annihilation of church discipline, and the prevalence of Arminian feelings and opinions, mingled with the disjointed remains of evangelical doctrine. Without an absolute rejection of the doctrines of grace, the preaching, and the feeling, and the practice, to a great extent, were, "Do and live." Good works and the dilatory use of means occupied the fore-ground, while the Holy Spirit waited at humble distance, to accomplish the little which remained to be done as the reward or promised consequence of antecedent well-doing. So alarming had this declension of vital piety become in the days of Cotton Mather, as to occasion the