rentage of our Liberty to the warlike ages of the past? Modern Freedom is the child of the Reformation, born not of arms, but of argument, not of the sword, but the word. Marathon, Thermopylæ, Lucretia, these are not the birthplaces, not the nursing mothers of our Liberty. Conscience, the truth, the Lord!-her watchwords are these. She was born in the prison, on the scaffold, at the stake. In the glowing words of Bancroft, "Popular Liberty, which used to animate its friends, by appeals to the example of the ancient republics; now listens to a voice from the grave of Wycliffe, from the ashes of Huss, from the vigils of Calvin."

The first great truth of Christianity is the just and absolute sovereignty of one God. Freedom is born here; in that submission to His authority, which in the fires of the Reformation, cried with Peter: “Whether it be right to hearken unto man, more than unto God, judge ye." Man's felt relations to God resulted in individual acts of resistance to religious tyranny; these paved the way for an admitted freedom of conscience; and this ultimately worked out an acknowledged right of entire independence, religious and civil. Liberty, a historian tells us, was regarded in Greece only" as something which the fortunate might win." We have exchanged the low idea of accidental possession, for this elevated consciousness ;-Freedom is a right.

The conception of Freedom has been modified by a second truth of Christianity, the brotherhood of man. "God hath made of one blood, all the nations of the earth." All are equally His servants— therefore no one is master or lord-but every man alike subject to God and independent of his fellow. Here is no contracted spirit of privilege; here, the birthright of Roman or Athenian citizenship gives way to a more liberal charter. Modern freedom is a human right.

Universal Liberty! yes, it is not the dream of an enthusiast, it is a prophets vision of the better day, yet to attempt to realize it now were worse than madness. The influence of a third great truth transforms this ideal into a practical freedom. To the Roman, liberty was the end, by the Christian, liberty is ranked a means, the grand means of human progess. If the end defines the means, every man would seem entitled to just so much of his natural liberty, as will conduce to his true advancement. More than this were license,— less, slavery. Thus the rights of men adjust themselves to their capacities. Modern Freedom is a relative right.

It would scarcely be an exaggeration to affirm that Ancient and Modern, or rather Pagan and Christian Liberty are as distinct from each other as Slavery and Liberty. The one was an accident-the

other is a principle; the one a privilege-the other a right; the one an end-the other a means; the one exemption from burdens, the birthright of citizenship-the other a free self-development, the right and duty of rational structure.

John Calvin and his doctrines, what bearing have they upon Liberty? Calvinism is the exact counterpart of our Modern Freedom, it is the mould in which it was cast, its thorough, searching doctrines must ever work with power, to break up the spirit of privilege, the spirit of the old Liberty, and to lay down deep in human right, the foundations of a liberal, lasting Freedom.

1. You will be less disposed to doubt that Calvinism smiles upon Liberty, when you have glanced at its frown upon slavery. Intellectual apathy, indolent and satisfied ignorance of truth and rights, insensibility to personal elevation,-in fine, indifference to all else, so long as physical wants are supplied: this, this is the parent and essence of Slavery. How does Calvinism comport with such a servile temper? Responsibility unlimited,-eternal fires,-election from all eternity to life or death. Cast these startling, terrible doctrines into this torpid soul, and you transform the sluggish slave into Macaulay's Puritan, who "caught a gleam of the Beatific vision, or woke screaming, from dreams of everlasting fire." Will this roused intellect long remain in satisfied ignorance of vital rights now? This earnest, fearless, conscientious spirit of inquiry, which searches out and vindicates these hidden and repulsive truths; will it fail to discern the palpable and palatable verity-that Freedom is a human right? Will not this man be unyielding in defence of the truth that gives him liberty, when he clings even to that which strips him of all rights and righteousness?

2. We said our Liberty was the child of the Reformation, and traced its origin to a deep recognition of the first great truth of Christianity, God is the one universal sovereign. Here, in the common subjection of men, is born their mutual independence. Calvinism is the intensest expression of the truth that God reigns. Human inability speaks it in the humble language of entire dependence. Unceasing responsibility groans under the ever present claims of God the Ruler. Election declares the absolute right of God the Owner. Eternal punishment utters the awful sentence of God the Judge. Thus Calvin's every doctrine conspires to educate in his disciple, such a sense of Jehovah's power and majesty, as extorts the unceasing cry, "The Lord, He is God!! The Lord, He is the King!!" Yet this very submission is the school of independence. The vision of the Calvinist is

ever straining to cross the immeasurable interval that separates God from man. Compared with this, in the language of another, "the difference between the greatest and meanest of mankind, seems to vanish." Man, the servant of God,-how is he the lord of his brother? The Calvinist sees men about him bowing to an earthly sovereign; he knows this sovereign is his fellow subject. Conscious of his allegiance and therefore of his independence, he vehemently cries-Freedom is my right. Man, the servant of God, cannot be the servant of his brother. It is written, "Ye cannot serve two masters." The history of Calvinistic Liberty is a sermon from that text. Scotland in the days of Knox is one of its eloquent passages; Plymouth Rock another.

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3. We boasted the liberal charter of our Freedom. In distinction from the Liberty of privilege,-ours is a human right. Here too, Calvinism is its exact counterpart. By revealing the dignity of human nature, it spreads out the platform of human rights. It exalts God, but it elevates man with Him. The great Ruler is not lifted above all interest in His subjects. No! his creed assures the Calvinist, that God feels the liveliest concern in his future. We are told the Puritans felt that the very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged,-a being who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity, which should continue, when heaven and earth, should have passed away." These men were Calvinists. It was this intense faith, that inspired them with such grand conceptions of the loftiness of man's structure and the glory of man's destiny,-with such veneration for the rights of human nature, and such contempt for the privileges of human station. What wonder that they called their king-"Charles Stuart!" This was, to them, his noblest title. This was the man in the naked grandeur of his structure, unbelittled by his earthly relationships. What wonder that such subjects tried and beheaded their faithless sovereign! What wonder that men of such a creed, throughout the world, have broken in pieces the sceptres and the swords of tyrants!

4. The third modification of Liberty, which we have noticed as the fruit of the Reformation, is perhaps the most important. Christianity, by introducing the conception of an ultimate good, has overthrown the idea, so universal among the ancients, and still so pervalent and mischievous, among the political enthusiasts of infidel Europe-that, Liberty is the end. Calvinism is the intensest expression of Christianity and all its wondrous fervor and power centers in this one idea,the glory of God, in the development of man,-this, this is the end.

In the conception of the Calvinist therefore, Liberty will ever take its true relative position, as a means-the right to the free use of all our powers, involving the obligation to employ them, so as to secure our own highest development. The Liberty educated by Calvinism can never lack this regulating element of responsibility. The whole system breathes a spirit of moral obligation, whose depth and power is best measured by its overthrow of the doctrines arrayed against it. Absolute inability declares the absurdity of obligation. Innate depravity protests against the injustice of obligation. Predestination proves the uselessness of obligation. Yet notwithstanding all, there stands this uncomfortable doctrine of unabated responsibility, with all the terrors of eternal fire to enforce it,-abiding in the faith of the Calvinist, distinguishing him from the Arminian, and causing him from the cradle to the grave "to groan being burdened." Can it be, that this man, who all life long has been learning the lesson of obligation, should, after all, fail to discover the first axiom of free agency,-that, a right of self-direction implies a duty of self-development; that the man who frees himself from the control of others, by this very act assumes the responsibility of self-control for self-improvement? No! Calvinistic Liberty is the Liberty we need, a safe, a practical Liberty ; a Liberty that goes hand in hand with responsibility; a Liberty which aspires no higher, than to be a means of man's progress, and therefore submits to be regulated with reference to its end.

5. We have advanced the argument based upon principles. Does any man question its validity? He will find ample confirmation of it in the practical workings of the system. Cast your eye over the map of Europe,-glance at the page of history,-you can not deny that, since the days of the Reformation, Calvinism and Liberty have everywhere advanced, hand in hand, to the conquest of the world. If there be no moral connection between them, how will you account for their actual concurrence?

6. But you are not left to conjecture; the free form of Calvinistic church government supplies just the connecting link of evidence and of influence. Here is evidence tangible, indisputable, that the frequent coëxistence of Calvinism and Liberty is more than fortuitous. Here is an influence acting with all the energy and directness of positive institutions, to educate the desire and the ability for self-government. This popular form of church-government has proved itself a mighty engine of Liberty: despots have learned to tremble at its power. Look at the answer of King James, to the Puritan leaders, asking for the privilege of assemblies and freedom of discussion. With charac

teristic bluntness, the shrewd old monarch interrupted their petition in the midst. "No" said he "I will have no assemblies. You are aiming at a Scot's presbytery, which agrees as well with monarchy as God with the Devil."

In view of what has been advanced, may we not enquire, with some degree of confidence,-who is he, that can seriously question, whether Calvinism be a true nursing-mother of Liberty?

Is the doubter a practical man-some eager, impetuous spirit, incredulous of the power of principles and impatient of the indirectness and slowness of their influence? To this man, we thus address the argument of fact. Calvinism favors the growth of Freedom, for— wherever it has been allowed freely to act out its tendencies, it has framed for the church and organized in the state, a government on the broad principles of republican equality.

To the philosophic historian, the man accustomed to analyze those subtle forces that effect changes in government and society,—we present the argument in this form. Calvinism favors the growth of Freedom, because,-by the startling intensity of its doctrines, it breaks up intellectual apathy:-by its peculiar exaltation of God as sovereign, it suggests vividly the common subjection of men, and their consequent mutual independence :-by elevating man with God, it inspires profound self-respect, veneration for the rights of human nature and contempt for the accidents of position :-by placing a solemn emphasis upon the appointed END of Freedom, it incorporates with Liberty the regulating element of responsibility. Thus Calvinism breaks up the essential condition of Slavery,-tears away the indispensable supports of tyranny,-inspires the soul with every essential element of Liberty, -and fortifies it, with all the checks necessary to its stability.

Yes! Calvinism is the nursing-mother of Liberty-our Liberty; a noble, manly, christian Freedom;-born of a recognition of God's sovereignty,-based upon consciousness of man's dignity,-and regulated with reference to man's progress.