“His answer was, that unless some Christians would begin singly to practise their exact duty, and thus set the proper example, the reform would never be begun; that his responsibility was to see to it that he, at least, was not particeps criminis; and that whether others would co-operate, was their concern, not his.”

Thomas J. Jackson

Robert L. Dabney relates the following account of Jackson’s concern to defend the Sabbath Day: “Instances of his conscientiousness have already been given, but many others may be added. His convictions of the sin committed by the Government of the United States, in the unnecessary transmission of mails, and the consequent imposition of secular labour on the Sabbath day, upon a multitude of persons, were singularly strong. His position was, that if no one would avail himself of these Sunday mails, save in cases of true and unavoidable necessity, the letters carried would be so few that the sinful custom would speedily be arrested, and the guilt and mischief prevented. Hence, he argued, that as every man is bound to do whatever is practicable and lawful for him to do, to prevent the commission of sin, he who posted or received letters on the Sabbath-day, or even sent a letter which would occupy that day in travelling, was responsible for a part of the guilt. It was of no avail to reply to him, that this self-denial on the part of one Christian would not close a single post-office, nor arrest a single mail-coach in the whole country. His answer was, that unless some Christians would begin singly to practise their exact duty, and thus set the proper example, the reform would never be begun; that his responsibility was to see to it that he, at least, was not particeps criminis; and that whether others would co-operate, was their concern, not his. Hence, not only did he persistently refuse to visit the post-office on the Sabbath-day, to leave or receive a letter, but he would not post a letter on Saturday or Friday which, in regular course of transmission, must be travelling on Sunday, except in cases of high necessity. And believing, as he did, in the special superintendence of Providence over all affairs, and His favourable oversight of the concerns of those who live in His fear, he delighted to recount the fact, that God had always protected him and his affairs in this particular, so that he had never suffered any loss or real inconvenience by these selfimposed delays. One instance he related with peculiar satisfaction. It was, that proceeding on the Sabbath-day to Divine worship with a Christian associate, his friend proposed to apply at the post-office for his letters, on the plea that there was probably a letter from a dear relative, whose health was in a most critical state, and might, for aught he knew, demand his immediate aid. But he dissuaded him by the argument, that the necessity for departing in this from the Sabbath rest was not known, but only suspected. They went together to church, and enjoyed a peaceful day. On the morrow it was ascertained that there was a letter to his friend, from his afflicted relative, announcing a most alarming state of disease; but there was also a later one, arrived that day, correcting all the grounds of distress, ‘ and stating that the health of the sufferer was restored. ” Now,” said Jackson, ” had my friend causelessly dishonoured the Sabbath, he would have suffered a day of harrowing anxiety, which the next day’s news would have shown utterly groundless ; but God rewarded him for his obedience, by mercifully shielding him from this gratuitous suffering: He sent him the antidote along with the pain.” “

From “Life of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson” by Robert L. Dabney

“In this world of sin the spirit of heroic self-sacrifice is the essential condition of national greatness and happiness. The only sure wealth of the State is in cultured, heroic men, who intelligently know their duty and are calmly prepared to sacrifice all else, including life, to maintain the right.”

“The wisdom of the New South, then, must be in pursuing the sharp line which divides the neglect from the idolatry of riches. If they be pursued as an end instead of a means, they become your ruin instead of your deliverance. If riches when acquired are employed to enervate your manhood with costly pomps and luxuries instead of being consecrated to the noble uses of charity and public spirit, the richer the New South becomes the weaker she will be. The problem you have to learn is how to combine the possession of great wealth with the personal practice of simplicity, hardihood and self-sacrifice. That people  which makes selfish, material good its God, is doomed.  In this world of sin the spirit of heroic self-sacrifice is the essential condition of national greatness and happiness. The only sure wealth of the State is in cultured, heroic men, who intelligently know their duty and are calmly prepared to sacrifice all else, including life, to maintain the right. Well then did the President of the Confederacy utter these golden words, that “the spirit of self-sacrifice is the crown of the civic virtues.” I know that there is a generation, “O, how lofty are their eyes and their eyelids lifted up,” who boast that their cuteness is in pursuing the “main chance,” and who flout this virtue of disinterestedness as a weak folly; and yet for lack of this virtue their prosperity is ever perishing and their material civilization is ever, like the tawdry pyrotechnics of some popular feast, burning out its own splendors into ashes, darkness and a villainous stench of brimstone. The New South then needs wealth, but it also needs men, high-minded men, undebauched by wealth, who, like the “high privates” of the Confederate ranks, shall know how to postpone ease and the delights of culture for the invincible endurance of hardship and danger.”

Installment #4 of the New South, Discussions of R. L. Dabney, Volume 4, pages 18-19.

“But the principles of truth and righteousness are as eternal as their divine legislator. These must be upheld under all dynasties and forms. Here, in one word, is the safe pole-star for the “New South”; let them adopt the scriptural politics, assured that they will ever be as true and just under any new regime as under the one that has passed away…”

“Our best prayer for you is, that out of the present foul transition, a good Providence may cause some new order to arise tolerable for honest men. The changes implied in the introduction of this new order may be accepted by the old confederates as old age, as infirmity, or as a not distant death.  They must be accepted by me as the inevitable. But the principles of truth and righteousness are as eternal as their divine legislator. These must be upheld under all dynasties and forms.  Here, in one word, is the safe pole-star for the “New South”; let them adopt the scriptural politics, assured that they will ever be as true and just under any new regime as under the one that has passed away: “That righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” That “wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation; the fear of the Lord is His treasure.” That “he that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from beholding evil; he shall dwell on high; his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks.” Some of the applications of these unchanging principles are obvious to experience guided by truth.

Permit me briefly to unfold three of these to you, which are shown to be timely and momentous by the special temptations to which a subjugated people are exposed while passing of necessity under a new and conquering system. One of these plausible temptations is to conclude that the surest way to retrieve your prosperity will be to BECOME LIKE THE CONQUERORS. This is an inference as false as it is specious; the fact that your fathers are conquered may ground a good inference perhaps, that you should seek to be in some respect UNLIKE US. May you be unlike us in being more fortunate! But a very brief observation of history will teach yon that violent aggressors, in overthrowing their rivals, also usually prepare their own overthrow. Their calamities are only postponed to the second place. The Jacobins overthrew Louis XVI., but Bonaparte crushed the Jacobins, and Europe crushed Napoleon. Shall this be the best reparation for the miseries of the fall of the Confederacy; that you shall share, for a few deceitful days, the victors’ gains of oppression, to be overwhelmed along with him in his approaching retribution?  Be sure of one thing, “his curses will come home to roost.” In order to escape the fearful reckoning, you must not only make yourselves unlike as but unlike them.  “The North triumphed by its wealth.” Here is the temptation to the New South, to which I already see ominous symptoms of yielding, to make wealth the idol, the all in all of sectional greatness. I hear our young men quote to each other the advice of the wily diplomat Gorstchacoff, to the beaten French: “Be strong.” They exclaim: Let us develope! develope!  develope! Let us have, like our conquerors, great cities, great capitalists, great factories and commerce and great populations; then we shall cope with them.  Now here is a path which will require of you the nicest discrimination, and the most perspicacious virtue and self-denial.  On the one hand it is indisputable that under our modern, material civilization, wealth is an essential element of national greatness. The commonwealth which presents a sparse and  impoverished population, in competition with a rich and populous rival, will come by the worse in spite of her martial virtues,; and may make her account to be dependent and subordinate.  Hence to develope the South is one of the plainest duties of patriotism. To increase its riches is one way to increase its power of self-protection. And a knowledge, and hardy, diligent practice of the industries of production are among the civic virtues which it behooves the New South to cultivate. So much is to be asserted on that side.

But on the other side the deduction that all our section has to do is to imitate the conquering section in that one of its qualities by which it got wealth; to make the appliances of production the all in all; to exclaim as so many do of factories, and mines, and banks, and stock boards, and horse-powers of steam, and patent machines, “These be thy gods, O Israel!” This would be a deadly mistake. Does not history teach that “wealth is the sinews of war?” yes, not seldom; but it teaches at least as often that wealth and material civilization have been the emasculators of nations and the incitements of their enemies at once, only ensuring the deeper destruction for the rich and cultivated people. Our own overthrow is near at hand to teach us this lesson, for we were the richer section subjugated by the poorer, which was shrewd enough to hire on the pauper proletaries of a hungry world upon our wealth as their prey. Do some of you exclaim: “What, the South the richer section?” Very likely many of you are already so indoctrinated in that tuition of lies,- against which I shall have to caution you anon, that this will be news to you. Nevertheless is it true: the South was by one-quarter if not one-third, the richer section, as was proved by the stubborn evidence of the census returns of the government itself, as managed by our enemies.”

Installment #3 of the New South, Discussions of R. L. Dabney, Volume 4, pages 16-18.

“…Our fathers valued liberty, but the liberty for which they contended was each person’s privilege to do those things and those only to which God’s law and Providence gave him a moral right.”

“The government our fathers left to us was a federation of sovereign States. As such they emerged from the war of the revolution, and were recognized by Great Britain, as such they met in convention to devise a “closer union.” As such they debated and accepted or rejected the terms proposed therefore (for some States at first did exercise their unquestioned sovereignty in rejecting the new union.) By their several and sovereign acts they created a central federated government, with limited powers strictly defined, and deputed to this common-agent certain powers over their own citizens, to be impartially exercised for the equal behoof of all the partners.  All other powers, including that of judging and redressing vital infractions of this federal compact, they jealously and expressly reserved to themselves or to their people. To the outside world they were to be one, to each other they were to be still equals and independent partners. Each State must be a republic, as distinguished from a monarchy or oligarchy, but in all else it was to be mistress of its own internal forms and regulations.  The functions of the general government were to be few and defined, its expenditures modest, and its burdens in time of peace light. Such was the form of government instituted for themselves by our free forefathers; and well fitted to their genius and circumstances, as communities of farmers, inhabiting their own homes, approaching an equality of condition, and having upon the whole continent no one city of controlling magnitude or wealth.

But this century has seen all this reversed; and conditions of human society have grown up, which make the system of our free forefathers obviously impracticable in the future. And this is so, not because the old forms were not good enough for this day, but because they were too good for it…

…Our fathers valued liberty, but the liberty for which they contended was each person’s privilege to do those things and those only to which God’s law and Providence gave him a moral right. The liberty of nature which your modern asserts is absolute license; the privilege of doing whatever a corrupt will craves, except as this license is curbed by a voluntary “social contract.”

…Our century has witnessed a general change of social conditions by means of the marvelous applications of science and mechanic art to cheapen transportation and production.  Once the commonwealth owned all the highways by water and by land, and each private citizen might become a carrier if he chose. Now the highways are the property of great carrying corporations, who command more men as their disciplined employes than the government’s own standing army, before whose revenues the whole incomes of commonwealths are paltry trifles; to whose will legislatures hasten to bow. Each of these roads points virtually to New York. To that city, yes, to one corner of Wall Street in that city, center all their debts, their loans, their revenues, their chief management.”

Installment #2 of the New South, Discussions of R. L. Dabney, Volume 4, pages 4-7.

“…in the endeavor to save the liberties transmitted by our fathers, we did what we could. And in proof of this justifying plea, we can point to the forms prematurely bent, and the heads whitened by fatigue and camp diseases, to the empty sleeves, and wooden legs, and to the Confederate graves so thickly strewn over the land.”

In honor of January 3, the anniversary of the death of Robert L. Dabney, the following selections from The New South will be posted over the next few days. Dabney is a prince among preachers and figure worthy of our time and study. His words below are stirring, delivered to a body of students near the end of his life. They remind us of the grand heritage of the Confederacy and of the war that was waged to defend the cause of Christendom against foreign invaders.

“…should not men who have so failed in their charge, who have suffered the glorious heritage of their fathers to be so marred in their hands, cover their faces and be silent? But our sons, whom our weakness, or else our hard fate, has left disinherited, seem not to be ashamed of us! They ask, they encourage us to speak. This is my apology for presuming to speak today to the “New South,” and of the New South.

Our other apology is, that in the endeavor to save the liberties transmitted by our fathers, we did what we could. And in proof of this justifying plea, we can point to the forms prematurely bent, and the heads whitened by fatigue and camp diseases, to the empty sleeves, and wooden legs, and to the Confederate graves so thickly strewn over the land. Our apology is, again, that while we were contending for the rights and interests of the civilized world, nearly the whole world blindly and passionately arrayed itself against us. Such was the strange permission of Providence, that we, while defending the cause of all, should be slandered and misunderstood by all. But why should I say this fearful dispensation was strange? when we see that from the days of the Christian martyrs until now, mankind have usually resisted and sought to destroy its true benefactors. So it was; we had the world against us. There was, after all, little exaggeration in the description which the Confederate soldier at Missionary Bridge, with the humorous exaggeration of his class, gave of his own case. Said he: No misgiving of our final delivery had ever disturbed him until at the early dawn of that disastrous battle, as he was standing post on the advanced picket on Lookout Mountain, just when the stars were beginning to pale before the grey dawn, and all nature stood hushed in expectancy of the coming king of day, the solemn silence was broken by the words of command, rolling from the Yankee headquarters over the forests in these terms: “Attention, World! Nations, by the right flank, forward! Wheel into line of battle.” Yes, we had the world against us.

And this is one item of proof for that fact which completes our apology for failure; that subsequent events have shown we were attempting to defend and preserve a system of free government which had become impossible by reason of the change and degeneration of the age. We did not believe this at the time, for we had not omniscience. Nay, it was, at that time, our duty not to know it, or to believe it, even as it is the duty of the loyal son not to believe the disease of his venerable mother mortal, so long as hope is possible; not to cease the efforts of his love, and not to surrender her to death while love and tenderness can contest the prize. We had received this free government from our fathers, baptized in their blood; we had received from them the sacred injunction to preserve it.  We had witnessed its beneficent results. Of all men it was our duty to feel ourselves most bound by the maxim of the Roman republican, Non fas est de Republica desperate. The changes had silently taken place, which rendered our fathers’ system too good for those who were to execute it; and yet it would have been treason to truth and right for us to despair of the better possibility, until the impossibility stood sternly revealed.  Thus the task which duty and Providence assigned us was, to demonstrate by our own defeat, after intensest struggle, the unfitness of the age for that blessing we would fain have preserved for them. Hard task, and hard destiny to attempt the impossible! but one which has often been exacted by a mysterious Providence from the votaries of duty. Yet it gives us this hard consolation, that inasmuch as the survival of our old system had become impracticable, failure in the effort to preserve it might be incurred without dishonor.

And there is this concurrence in the justification of the Confederates, and the justification to which you, the “New South,” will soon have to appeal for your actions: that both apologies are correctly drawn from the same premise. Because the old free system has become impossible for your times; therefore you will be justified in living and acting under an opposite one. There will be an apparent paradox in this: that you shall applaud and revere your fathers for their determined opposition to forms and principles, which you shall receive and even sustain. But the paradox will be only in seeming. Your justification will be found where we find ours; in the fact that the institutions which it was our duty to defend, because they still existed, it will be your duty to surrender, because you have learned by our innocent calamity that they cannot hereafter exist. “A new South” is inevitable, and therefore it will be right for you to accept it, though it was our duty to fight to prevent it. It may be the son’s duty to-morrow to “bury the dead mother out of his sight,” whom it was the father’s most sacred duty yesterday to endeavor to keep alive.”

Installment #1 of the New South, Discussions of R. L. Dabney, Volume 4, pages 2-4.

“Under all our trials therefore, we must be careful, that no present apparent failure weaken our assurance of the ultimate success of faithful and diligent perseverance.”

“But we must remember also, that present success is not always visible. Apparent must not be the measure of the real result. There is often an under-current of piety, which cannot be brought to the surface. They may be solid work advancing underground, without any sensible excitement…The sick and death bed often gladden our heart with the manifestation of the hidden fruit of our work.  And though something is graciously brought out for our encouragement, yet much more probably is concealed to exercise our diligence, and from a wise and tender regard to our besetting temptations. Indeed who of us may not detect the principle of self mingling alike with depression and exultation, greatly needing our Master’s rebuke for our more valuable effectiveness? Under all our trials therefore, we must be careful, that no present apparent failure weaken our assurance of the ultimate success of faithful and diligent perseverance.” From Charles Bridges, the Christian Ministry, p 74-75.

“The many conversions in camp, the prayer-meetings in soldiers’ tents, of which we have heard, and the letters we have seen breathing emotions of piety that have been awaked by the exposures and sufferings of the army, induce us to believe that this war will lead many a soul to the Cross that might otherwise have perished in impenitency.”

From a sermon entitled God our refuge and strength in this war : a discourse before the congregations of the First and Second Presbyterian Churches, on the day of humiliation, fasting and prayer, appointed by President Davis, Friday, Nov. 15, 1861 (1861)

“But in spite of all these things, I believe, that there has never been an army since the time of Cromwell, in which there was a more pervading sense of the power of God than our own. A brave, but irreligious officer remarked to me a few days ago, we may well adopt the language of the good book, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say, when men rose up against us, they had swallowed us up quick.” And this is the solemn conviction of thousands, even the most wicked. The resources of the mighty organization, whose stupendous gage of battle we fearlessly took up, were so vast in men, money, munitions of war, forts, fleets and armies, that unless God had been with us we must have been crushed. When we saw the bloodless achievements of Sumter, Gosport, Harper’s Ferry, and the river batteries; when we saw an unprotected woman sent forth as it would seem by a Divine impulse to venture alone in imminent peril to give the information that led to the first victory on our soil, which struck the key-note to all the rest; when we saw boys yet warm from their mother’s hearts stand like veterans in the iron sleet of Bethel, and college lads from our quiet lowland homes make the gorges of Rich Mountain a very Thermopylae; when we saw squadrons of volunteers stand, “like a stone wall,” a sweep like an avenging hurricane over the red plains of Manassas and Springfield, or the green hills of Carnifax Ferry, Belmont, and Leesburg; when we saw the very winds and waves, the very “stars in their courses” conspiring to bring disaster on our enemies; when all human calculation must have predicted the exact opposite; we cannot wonder that even ungodly men have been compelled to pause and say, “this is the finger of God.” And we cannot wonder that many a brave man, as he saw these seeming tokens of the ascending and descending angels, and the protecting presence of God, has found these battle-fields to be Bethels, and said: “Surely the Lord was in this place, and I knew it not;” that many a dear child, while pacing his lonely round as sentinel, or standing on his perilous post as picket, beneath the silent stars, has found his place to be a Manassah, “a forgetting” of the wild delusions of sin, and a solemn rising to his memory of words that he has heard, amid the sweet scenes of home, from lips, some of which are silent in the grave, and others of which may be even then, in the deep silence of mid- night, moving in wakeful prayer for the brave and beloved boy who is far, far away. The many conversions in camp, the prayer-meetings in soldiers’ tents, of which we have heard, and the letters we have seen breathing emotions of piety that have been awaked by the exposures and sufferings of the army, induce us to believe that this war will lead many a soul to the Cross that might otherwise have perished in impenitency.”

Rev. T V Moore

“Dr. Moore was a personal friend of General Lee and, it is said, of Stonewall Jackson. You can find his name in the official records of the war in connection with efforts to secure the exchange of prisoners. He was then in Richmond. One case in which he interested himself involved the private exchange of General Lee’s son. However, General Lee would not endorse private exchanges and the effort came to nothing. One of Dr. Moore’s notable sermons while here was a memorial sermon for General Lee. It was preached in this church on October 23, 1870,” the request for it having been made by a public meeting of citizens. Dr. Moore died in the pastorate, August 5, 1871.” from The addresses delivered in connection with the observance of the one hundredth anniversary, November 8-15, 1914, First Presbyterian Church, Nashville, TN

“O how many can be looking their faces in a glass all the morning, but their eyes begin to be sore, when they look upon a Bible! Heathens die in the want of scripture, and these in the contempt of it.”

“Seeing God hath given us his written word to be our directory, this takes away all excuses from men. No man can say, ” I went wrong for want of light.” No, God hath given thee his word, as a lamp to thy feet; therefore now, if thou goest wrong, thou dost it wilfully. No man can say, “If I had known the will of God, I would have obeyed.” No, thou art inexcusable, O man! God hath given thee a rule to go by, he hath written his law with his own finger, therefore now, if thou obeyest not, thou hast no apology left. If a master leaves his mind in writing with his servant, and tells him what work he will have done, yet the servant neglects the work, that servant is left without excuse, John xv. 22., “Now you have no cloak for your sins.” If the Scriptures are inspired “it condemns the slighters of scripture: such are they, who can go whole weeks and months and never read the word. They lay it aside as rusty armour; they prefer a play or romance before scripture, the magnolia legis are to them minulta. O how many can be looking their faces in a glass all the morning, but their eyes begin to be sore, when they look upon a Bible! Heathens die in the want of scripture, and these in the contempt of it. They surely must needs go wrong who slight their guide; such as lay the reins upon the neck of their lusts, and never use the curbing bit of scripture to check them, are carried to hell, and never stop.” Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

“We, the people of these Confederate States, distinctly acknowledge our responsibility to God, and the supremacy of His Son, Jesus Christ, as King of kings and Lord of lords; and hereby ordain that no law shall be passed by the Congress of these Confederate States inconsistent with the will of God, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.”

James Henley Thornwell

“…But, gentlemen, we are constrained, in candour, to say that, in our humble judgment, the Constitution [of the Confederate States of America], admirable as it is in other respects, still labours under one capital defect. It is not distinctively Christian. It is not bigotry, but love to our country, and an earnest, ardent desire to promote its permanent well-being, which prompts us to call the attention of your honourable body to this subject, and, in the way of respectful petition, to pray that the Constitution may be amended so as to express the precise relations which the Government of these States ought to sustain to the religion of Jesus Christ.

The Constitution of the United States was an attempt to realize the notion of popular freedom, without the checks of aristocracy and a throne, and without the alliance of a national Church. The conception was a noble one, but the execution was not commensurate with the design. The fundamental error of our fathers was, that they accepted a partial for a complete statement of the truth. They saw clearly the human side—that popular governments are the offspring of popular will; and that rulers, as the servants and not the masters of their subjects, are properly responsible to them. They failed to apprehend the Divine side— that all just government is the ordinance of God, and that magistrates are His ministers who must answer to Him for the execution of their trust. The consequence of this failure, and of exclusive attention to a single aspect of the ease, was to invest the people with a species of supremacy as insulting to God as it was injurious to them. They became a law unto themselves; there was nothing beyond them to check or control their caprices or their pleasure. All were accountable to them; they were accountable to none. This was certainly to make the people a God; and if it was not explicitly expressed that they could do no wrong, it was certainlv implied that there was no tribunal to take cognizance of their acts. A foundation was thus laid for the worst of all possible forms of government—a democratic absolutism, which, in the execution of its purposes, does not scruple to annul the most solemn compacts and to cancel the most sacred obligations. The will of majorities must become the supreme law, if the voice of the people is to be regarded as the voice of God; if they are, in fact, the only God whom rulers are bound to obey. It is not enough, therefore, to look upon government as simply the institute of man. Important as this aspect of the subject unquestionably is, yet if we stop there, we shall sow the seeds of disaster and failure. We must contemplate people and rulers as alike subject to the authority of God. His will is the true supreme; and it is under Him, and as the means of expressing His sovereign pleasure, that conventions are called, constitutions are framed and governments erected. To the extent that the’ State is a moral person, it must needs be under moral obligation, and moral obligation without reference to a superior will is a flat contradiction in terms. If, then, the State is an ordinance of God, it should acknowledge the fact. If it exists under the conditions of a law superior to all human decrees, and to which all human decrees behove to be conformed, that law should be distinctly recognized. Let us guard, in this new Confederacy, against the fatal delusion that our government is a mere expression of human will. It is, indeed, an expression of will, but of will regulated and measured by those eternal principles of right which stamp it at the same time as the creature and institute of God. And of all governments in the world, a confederate government, resting as it does upon plighted faith, can least afford to dispense with the supreme Guardian of treaties.

Your honourable body has already, to some extent, rectified the error of the old Constitution, but not so distinctly and clearly as the Christian people of these States desire to see done. We venture respectfully to suggest, that it is not enough for a State which enjoys the light of Divine revelation to acknowledge in general terms the supremacy of God; it must also acknowledge the supremacy of His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds. To Jesus Christ all power in heaven and earth is committed. To Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess. He is the Ruler of the nations, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.

Should it be said that the subjection of governments to Jesus Christ is not a relation manifested by reason, and therefore not obligatory on the State, the answer is obvious— that duties spring not from the manner in which the relation is made known, hut from the truth of the relation itself. If the fact is so, that Jesus Christ is our Lord, and we know the fact, no matter how we come to know it, we are bouud to acknowledge it, and act upon it. A father is entitled to the reverence of his son, a master to the obedience of his servant, and a king to the allegiance of his subjects, no matter how the relation between them is ascertained. Now, that Jesus Christ is the supreme Ruler of the nations, we know with infallible certainty, if we accept the Scriptures as the Word of God.

But it may be asked—and this is the core of all the perplexity which attends the subject—Has the State any right to accept the Scriptures as the Word of God? The answer requires a distinction, and that distinction seems to us to obviate all difficulty. If by “accepting the Scriptures” it is meant that the State has a right to prescribe them as a rule of faith and practice to its subjects, the answer must be in the negative. The State is lord of no man’s conscience. As long as he preserves the peace, and is not injurious to the public welfare, no human power has a right to control his opinion or to restrain his acts. In these matters he is responsible to none but God. He may be Atheist, Deist, infidel, Turk or Pagan: it is no concern of the State, so long as he walks orderly. Its protecting shield must be over him, as over every other citizen. We utterly abhor the doctrine that the civil magistrate has any jurisdiction in the domain of religion, in its relations to the conscience or conduct of others, and we cordially approve the clause in our Confederate Constitution which guarantees the amplest liberty on this subject.

But if by “accepting the Scriptures” it is meant that the State may itself believe them to be true, and regulate its own conduct and legislation in conformity with their teachings, the answer must be in the affirmative. As a moral person, it has a conscience as really and truly as every individual citizen. To say that its conscience is only the aggregate of individual consciences, is to say that it is made up of conflicting and even contradictory elements. The State condemns many things which many of its subjects approve, and enjoins many things which many of its subjects condemn. There are those who are opposed to the rights of property and the institution of marriage, yet the public conscience sanctions and protects them both. What, then, is this public conscience? It is clearly the sum of those convictions of right, that sense of the honourable, just and true, which legislators feel themselves bound to obey in the structure of governments and the enactment of laws. It is a reflection of the law of God; and when that law is enunciated with authoritative clearness, as it is in the Scriptures, it becomes only the more solemnly imperative. And as the eternal rule of justice, the State should acknowledge it. Considered in its organic capacity as a person, it no more violates the rights of others in submitting itself to the revealed will of God, than a Christian, when he worships the supreme Jehovah, violates the rights of an Atheist or idolater. What the State does itself, and what it enjoins upon others to do, are very different things. It has an organic life apart from the aggregate life of the individuals who compose it; and in that organic life, it is under the authority of Jesus Christ and the restraints of His holy Word.

That, in recognizing this doctrine, the State runs no risk of trespassing upon the rights of conscience is obvious from another point of view. The will of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, is not a positive Constitution for the State; in that relation it stands only to the Church. It is rather a negative check upon its power. It does not prescribe the things to be done, but only forbids the things to be avoided. It only conditions and restrains the discretion of rulers within the bounds of the Divine law. It is, in other words, a limitation, and not a definition, of power. The formula according to which the Scriptures are accepted by the State is: Nothing shall be done which they forbid. The formula according to which they are accepted by the Church is: Nothing shall be done but what they enjoin. They are here the positive measure of power. Surely the government of no Christian people can scruple to accept the negative limitations of the Divine Word. Surely, our rulers do not desire that they shall have the liberty of being wiser than God.

The amendment which we desire, we crave your honourable body to take note, does not confine the administration of the State exclusively to the hands of Christian men. A Jew might be our Chief Magistrate, provided he would come under the obligation to do nothing in the office inconsistent with the Christian religion. He would not be required to say that he himself believes it, nor would he assume the slightest obligation to propagate or enforce it. All that he would do would be to acknowledge it as the religion of the State, and to bind himself that he will sanction no legislation that sets aside its authority. The religion of the State is one thing; the religion of the individuals who may happen to be at the head of affairs is quite another. The religion of the State is embodied in its Constitution, as the concrete form of its organic life.

Your honourable body will perceive that the contemplated measure has no reference to a union or alliance betwixt the Church and the State. To any such scheme the Presbyterians, and, we think we can safely venture to say, the entire Christian people of these States, are utterly opposed. The State, as such, cannot be a member, much less, therefore, can it exercise the function of settling the creed and the government,of a Church. The provinces of the two are entirely distinct: they differ in their origin, their nature, their ends, their prerogatives, their powers and their sanctions. They cannot be mixed or confounded without injury to both. But the separation of Church and State is a verv different thing from the separation of religion and the State. Here is where our fathers erred. In their anxietv to guard against the evils of a religious establishment, and to preserve the provinces of Church and State separate and distinct, they virtually expelled Jehovah from the government of the country, and left the State an irresponsible corporation, or responsible only to the immediate corporators. They made it a moral person, and yet not accountable to the Source of all law. It is this anomaly which we desire to see removed; and the removal of it by no means implies a single element of what is involved in a national Church.

The amendment which this General Assembly ventures respectfully to crave we have reason to believe is earnestly desired, and would be hailed as an auspicious omen by the overwhelming majority of the Christian people of these Confederate States. Is it not due to them that their consciences, in the future legislation of the country, should be protected from all that has a tendency to wound or grieve them? They ask no encroachments upon the rights of others. They simply crave that a country which they love should be made yet dearer to them, and that the Government which they have helped to frame they may confidently commend to their Saviour and their God, under the cheering promise that those who honour Him He will honour. Promotion cometh neither from the East, nor from the West, nor from the South. God is the ruler among the nations; and the people who refuse Him their allegiance shall be broken with a rod of iron, or dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Our republic will perish like the Pagan republics of Greece and Rome, unless we baptize it into the name of Christ. “Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth; kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.” We long to see, what the world has never yet beheld, a truly Christian Republic, and we humbly hope that God has reserved it for the people of these Confederate States to realize the grand and glorious idea. God has wooed us by extraordinary goodness; He is now tempering us by gentle chastisements. Let the issue be the penitent submission of this great people at the footstool of His Son.

The whole substance of what we desire may be expressed in the following or equivalent terms, to be added to the section providing for liberty of conscience:

“We, the people of these Confederate States, distinctly acknowledge our responsibility to God, and the supremacy of His Son, Jesus Christ, as King of kings and Lord of lords; and hereby ordain that no law shall be passed by the Congress of these Confederate States inconsistent with the will of God, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.” James Henley Thornwell

from Relation of the State to Christ, pages 549-556, The collected writings of James Henley Thornwell, Volume 4 by James Henley Thornwell

“Satan with ease puts fallacies upon us by his golden baits, and then he leads us and leaves us in a fool’s paradise.”

“To present the bait and hide the hook; to present the golden cup, and hide the poison; to present the sweet, the pleasure, and the profit that may flow in upon the soul by yielding to sin, and by hiding from the soul the wrath and the misery that will certainly follow the committing of sin. By this device he took our first parents…here is the bait, the sweet, the pleasure, the profit. Oh, but he hides the hook, the shame, the wrath, and the loss that would certainly follow. Satan with ease puts fallacies upon us by his golden baits, and then he leads us and leaves us in a fool’s paradise. He promises the soul honour, pleasure, profit, but pays with the soul with the greatest contempt, shame and loss that can be. By a golden bait he laboured to catch Christ in Matthew 4. He shows him the beauty and the bravery of a bewitching world, which doubtless would have taken a carnal heart; but here the devil’s fire fell upon wet tinder, and therefore took not.” Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices

“I might admit also that the fates of the Don and of myself have been somewhat similar in at least one respect. If I am not mistaken he encountered a windmill or two. I am not sure but I have done the same.”

William Swan Plumer

“… at the close of the summer of 1837; a new religious paper made its appearance in Richmond, bearing the name of The Watchman of the South. Plumer was proprietor and editor. With a strong pen he upheld the views of the Old School Presbyterians, and in the following year (1838) he was chosen moderator of their assembly.

In the year 1846, a petition was presented to the legislature of Virginia asking the passage of a general law authorizing the incorporation of each congregation and religious society in the state. Dr. Plumer appeared before a committee of the legislature and spoke at length against the proposed law. Two of the most prominent lawyers of Richmond were his opponents, but Dr. Plumer showed himself so well equipped with arguments drawn from the history of the church, from the laws passed by various legislatures, and from the legal opinions expressed by eminent lawyers and judges, that he won his cause with ease. Dr. Plumer’s breadth of liberality in sentiment and his genial, good humor won the favor of all who heard him engaged in this debate.

One of the lawyers who was somewhat pompous in manner charged Dr. Plumer with “imitating Don Quixote.” To this charge Dr. Plumer replied as follows: “Concerning this Don, I am not very bright in my memory. But, if I remember rightly, the Don rode a sorrel horse. In this I do sometimes imitate him; but my horse is not, I think, so lean as Rosinante. I think, too, the Don was far from being a malignant man. If the gentleman intended to say the same of me, I thank him for his good opinion. I might admit also that the fates of the Don and of myself have been somewhat similar in at least one respect. If I am not mistaken he encountered a windmill or two. I am not sure but I have done the same.”

In 1844 Moses D. Hoge was called to Richmond as Dr. Plumer’s assistant. Three years later (1847) Dr. Plumer became pastor of the Franklin Street Church, Baltimore. There the pulpit was still his throne. With great power he continued to preach and to lead large numbers into the Kingdom.

The year 1854 marked Dr. Plumer’s acceptance of the chair of theology in Alleghany Seminary, Pennsylvania. Afterwards, from 1862 to 1867, he was engaged in the work of preaching in Philadelphia and Pottsville, Pennsylvania. In 1867 he was made professor of theology in Columbia Seminary, in South Carolina. In that position he continued to labor with success until 1880. In the autumn of that year (October 22, 1880) he passed away.

Throughout his mature life Dr. Plumer was ever at work with his pen. Many books were written showing sound scholarship; among these were commentaries on the Psalms, the Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Hebrews. A large number of tracts, practical and helpful, were prepared by him and sent out among all of the churches.

The touch of time changed Dr. Plumer’s hair to the color of silver and then to the whiteness of the snow. It fell back in heavy masses from his forehead. His beard was also white during his later years, and fell down upon his breast like a beautiful vestment. To all who looked upon his tall, majestic figure, Dr. Plumer seemed like some ancient Hebrew prophet.

A selection from Southern Presbyterian Leaders By Henry Alexander White, p290-291 found here

“…there is no charity in flattering unconverted people, by abstaining from any mention of their vices, or in applying smooth epithets to damnable sins.”

“Well would it be for the Church ofChrist, if it possessed more plain-speaking ministers, like John the Baptist, in these latter days. A morbid dislike to strong language, an excessive fear of giving offence, a constant flinching from directness and plain speaking, are, unhappily, too much the characteristics of the modern Christian pulpit. Uncharitable language is no doubt always to be deprecated. But there is no charity in flattering unconverted people, by abstaining from any mention of their vices, or in applying smooth epithets to damnable sins.” J.C. Ryle

“God did not require the Hebrews, nor any one else, to keep it [the Sabbath] as a means of ascetic self-punishment, like the papist’s hair shirt, but he required them to keep it intelligently and from the heart, as an appointed and blessed means of grace.”

“The perverted gloss of the fourth point, ” The Sabbath was made for man,” is almost too shallow to need exposure. These writers seem to think that our Saviour meant that God did not design to cramp any man by the Sabbath law, but to allow it to yield in every way to the creature’s convenience and gratification. But what Christ here says is that the design of the Sabbath is a humane one; that is, man’s true welfare. Then it must be settled what that true welfare is, and how it may be best promoted, before we may conclude that God allows us to do what we please with his holy day. If it turns out that man’s true welfare imperatively demands a Sabbath day, fenced with divine authority and faithfully observed, then the humanity of God’s motive in appointing it will argue anything else than this license inferred from it. It may be added that a moment’s thought of the Pharisees’ religious system will show us what ideas our Saviour was exploding by the statement that “the Sabbath was made for man.” The religion of that austere and proud sect was intensely self-righteous and formal, and, to a certain degree, ascetic. It was a religion, not of love and holiness, but of fear and slavish forms. Their idea of a religious observance was not that of a blessed means of grace, but of an ascetic burden, by bearing which a man might imagine he was making merit, and that a merit proportioned to the irksomeness and difficulty of the form he forced himself to go through with. Now, such people as these would very naturally think that the more burdensome they made their Sabbaths to themselves by heaping on particulars of man’s invention the more merit thev would get. Hence they blamed the disciples for their little act of labor. Our Saviour evidently designs by these words to teach them that they wholly misunderstood the purpose of the Mosaic Sabbath. God did not require the Hebrews, nor any one else, to keep it as a means of ascetic self-punishment, like the papist’s hair shirt, but he required them to keep it intelligently and from the heart, as an appointed and blessed means of grace. The pangs of hunger may be a very fit self-punishment if the purpose is that of the self-righteous monk, to make a fancied merit by torturing himself for nothing. But as there is no true religion in bodily hunger, and as it ordinarily interferes with Bible study and devotion, of course God’s idea in giving the Hebrews a Sabbath to sanctify implied that a proper part of that sanctification was for them to eat when they really needed to eat.” R.L. Dabney, Discussions, vol 1, p 515-516.

“Why should insistence upon Sabbath observance be pharisaical or legalistic? The question is: is it a divine ordinance? If it is, then adherence to it is not legalistic any more than adherence to the other commandments of God.”

“We must not, however, fall into the snare of libertinism because we want to avoid the charybdis of pharisaism. The opponents of Sabbath observance and of its complementary restrictions like to peddle the charge of pharisaism when efforts are made to preserve the Sabbath from desecration and to maintain its sanctity. We should not be disturbed by this type of vilification. Why should insistence upon Sabbath observance be pharisaical or legalistic? The question is: is it a divine ordinance? If it is, then adherence to it is not legalistic any more than adherence to the other commandments of God. Are we to be charged with legalism if we are meticulously honest? If we are jealous not to deprive our neighbour unjustly of one penny which is his, and are therefore meticulous in the details of money transactions, are we necessarily legalistic?  Our Christianity is not worth much if we can knowingly and deliberately deprive our neighbour of one penny that belongs to him and not to us. Are we to be charged with legalism if we are scrupulously chaste and condemn the very suggestions of gesture of lewdness? How distorted our conception of the Christian ethic and of the demands of holiness has become if we associate concern for the details of integrity with pharisaism and legalism! … Why then should insistence upon Sabbath observance be legalism and pharisaism? This charge can appear plausible only because our consciences have become insensitive to the demands of the sanctity which the ordinance entails. The charge really springs from failure to understand what is the liberty of the Christian man. The law of God is the royal law of liberty and liberty consists in being captive to the Word and law of God. All other liberty is not liberty but the thralldom of servitude to sin.”

John Murray, “The Sabbath Institution”, The Collected Writings of John Murray (Cambridge: Banner of Truth, The University Press, 1976), p 214-215.

“The keeping of the Lords day forms an important object for their attention who would promote true godliness. Religion never prospers while Sabbaths are trodden under foot.”

“The keeping of the Lords day forms an important object for their attention who would promote true godliness. Religion never prospers while Sabbaths are trodden under foot. No wonder there was a general decay of religion, and corruption of manners among the Jews, when they forsook the sanctuary and profaned the Sabbath. Those little consider what an evil they do, who profane the Sabbath.  We must answer for the sins others are led to commit by our example. Nehemiah charges it on them as an evil thing, for so it is, proceeding from contempt of God and our own souls. He shows that Sabbath breaking was one of the sins for which God had brought judgment upon them; and if they did not take warning, but returned to the same sins again, they had to expect further judgments. The courage, zeal, and prudence of Nehemiah in this matter, are recorded for us to do likewise; and we have reason to think, that the cure he wrought was lasting. He felt and confessed himself a sinner, who could demand nothing from God as justice, when he thus cried unto him for mercy.”

Matthew Henry, Commentary on Nehemiah chapter 13

“The general apostasy of the nations made this duty of visible Sabbath-keeping, which God enjoins on all men of all ages, a badge and mark of those who still fear him.”

“To understand this ‘sign’ [of the Sabbath] we must remember that all the world except the Hebrews had gone off into idolatry, neglecting all God’s laws and also the proper observance of his Sabbath. The covenant which Israel made with him was, to be separate from all the pagans and to obey his law, so neglected by them. Now, the public observance of the Sabbath gave the most obvious, general, visible sign to the world and the church of this covenant, and of the difference between God’s people and pagans. Hence it was eminently suitable as a sign of that covenant. The human race is still divided between the world and the church; and holy Sabbath observance ought to be precisely such a “sign” of the church’s relation to her God now. This simple view relieves the whole question. The general apostasy of the nations made this duty of visible Sabbath-keeping, which God enjoins on all men of all ages, a badge and mark of those who still fear him.”

R L Dabney, Discussions, pages 509-510.

The Sabbath “…must be given to things which take hold on eternity.”

“No man can seriously read and consider this precept [the fourth commandment] without seeing that it is of vast importance. It is a law claiming to regulate a seventh portion of human life. If a man lives twenty-one years, this law claims the entire control of three of them; if he lives fifty years, it disposes of more than seven of them. It is therefore important. But it also devotes this portion of time to religious purposes; and these are the highest ends of life. All other time is secular. This is holy. That may be occupied with things which perish in the using. This must be given to things which take hold on eternity.” William S. Plumer, The Law of God as Contained in the Ten Commandments (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1864), 289-290.

“What a happy life should I here live, could I but love God as much as I would; could I be all love, and always loving! O my soul, what wouldst thou give for such a life?”

“What a beauty is there here in the imperfect graces of the Spirit! Alas! how small are these to what we shall enjoy in our perfect state! What a happy life should I here live, could I but love God as much as I would; could I be all love, and always loving! O my soul, what wouldst thou give for such a life? Had I such apprehensions of God, such knowledge of his word as I desire; could I fully trust him in all my straits; could I be as lively as I would in every duty; could I make God my constant desire and delight; I would not envy the world their honors or pleasures. What a blessed state, O my soul! wilt thou shortly be in, when thou shalt have far more of these than thou canst now desire, and shalt exercise thy perfected graces in the immediate vision of God, and not in the dark, and at a distance, as now!” Richard Baxter from The Saints Everlasting Rest, p 262.

” A fit of music affects for the present, but quickly passes away, and both the music and the man are forgotten; so is it here, people are affected somewhat at a sermon, but sermon and preacher are quickly forgotten.”

“When people hear the preacher, and do not practise what is taught, the word is no more to them than a song, or a fit of music, nor the preacher more than a musician or fiddler unto them. ” Thou art unto them as a lovely song of one that can play well on an instrument, for they hear thy words, but they do them not.” These words are a proof and reason of the former. Should we tell people, You esteem the word preached no more than an idle, amorous, witty, scurrilous song, nor the preacher any more than he that sings such a song, they would think themselves much wronged; but it is so in God’s account, when they hear the preacher, and do not practise what they hear. A fit of music affects for the present, but quickly passes away, and both the music and the man are forgotten; so is it here, people are affected somewhat at a sermon, but sermon and preacher are quickly forgotten.” William Greenhill on Ezekiel 33

“Come apprehensive of the state of your souls…”

“Get acquainted with your spiritual condition. Come apprehensive of the state of your souls, whether it be the state of grace or nature, what your spiritual wants, what your inward distempers, what your temptations are; else you may hear much to little purpose, not discerning what is seasonable ; else many a petition may pass unobserved, when you know not what most concerns you. Oh, if professors knew their soul’s condition punctually, and were throughly affected with it, the word would come in season, it would be like apples of gold, the ordinances would be as rain upon the new-mown grass, they would distil a fruitful influence, and their souls would grow as the lily. Come with hearts hungering after the enjoyment of Christ in his ordinances. This affection has the promise: Mat. v., ‘ He filleth the hungry with good things.’ A Sense of emptiness and indigency brings you under the aspect of this promise, under the sweet and gracious influences of it; whereas conceitedness of our own abundance, senselessness of our spiritual poverty, shuts up the treasury of heaven against us, ‘ The rich he sends empty away,’ Ps. lxxxi. 10. Our souls should stretch themselves wide open, in earnest longings after God; this is the way to be filled with the rich blessings of spiritual ordinances.” David Clarkson on the blessings of public worship, from Public Worship to be Preferred Before Private.