National Literature the Exponent of National Character [pp. 201-225]

National Literature, the
We can have little sympathy, we confess, with a disposition
which we have observed of late among nominal Protestants,
not of our denomination only, to disparage the great divines of
the Puritan school. They are had in derision by men "whose
fathers" these despised Puritans. "would have disdained to
have set with the dogs of their flock." These are the men
who can sneer at the theology of Howe and Owen, as meager
and contracted, one-sided and uncatholic,-as a partial exhibition of the gospel of the grace of God! The egregious incongruity of the thing, the extravagant absurdity of the assumption, would be simply amusing, if all sense of mirth were not
extinguished by the stronger sentiment of moral condemnation.
We would judge nothing rashly and before the time; but to us
it is by no means clear that the exemption of England and
America from the fate of unhappy France-from perpetual
change-from obstinate and unscrupulous factions contending
together, not for the good, but for the destruction of their
common country-from despotism succeeded by anarchy, and
anarchy exchanged for despotism-and last of all, and worst
of all, a country which, having forsaken God, he in righteous judgment seems to have forsaken —may not be ascribed to
the prayers and pious labours of these, his faithful servants.
When we hear the champions of divine truth, and of liberty
civil and religious, vilified by the avowed subjects of a foreign
despot-the acknowledged members of an apostate church-all
is natural, consistent, intelligible. But when we see them
jeered at and pointed at with the finger of scorn, by men who
profess to receive the recorded and inspired Scriptures as the
supreme directory of faith and practice, and to venerate the
free institutions of our country as the wisest and best, we
own it passes our comprehension. It is our deliberate convic
tion, that to no class of uninspired men are the world and the
church more indebted, than to those despised but devoted
Christians; and that toward none has the debt been so reluctantly and inadequately acknowledged. It is our deliberate
conviction, that they did more for knowledge, freedom, and
piety-more to convert sinners from the error of their ways,
and save souls from death-more to multiply jewels which shall
shine for ever, in the glorious crown of our exalted Redeemer,
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