1792] J^EV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 359 



of perfection, yet the ministers of Christ's religion are to consider it as 

 the great end and scope of their labors, and to persevere accordingly, 

 with all long-suffering, diligence and patience, unto the end. 



And now to conclude, let us devoutly join in ascribing 



"Glory, thanksgiving and praise to the God of heaven and earth, 

 who in his own good time hath been pleased to relieve our church, in 

 this American land, from the ciistress under which she hath so long 

 mourned and bewailed herself; by supplying us with a complete Episco- 

 pate, and the means of continuing it in a necessary succession without 

 having recourse to any distant or foreign land; being now enabled, 

 under God, on sound evangelical principles, 'to ordain elders in every 

 city ; to send them forth to preach spiritual liberty to the miserable 

 captives held under the powers of darkness; and to open the prison- 

 doors and emancipate into the light of heaven those who are fast bound 

 in sin and the shadow of death.' " 



In this establishment we see the whole Episcopate of the land from 

 whence many of us sprung, the English and Scots, happily united. 



But, my venerable brother, although these circumstances are pleasing 

 to you and to us all, we are not to turn our sight from the ditificulties 

 yet remaining before us: An-! if we behold even hosts of foes encamped 

 in our way, we are to look up to our aid from on high, and the promise 

 often already mentioned, " that Christ will be with us unto the end." 

 Let us never forget that to contribute, and become the chief means of 

 civilizing and evangelizing savage nations, was one of the great pur- 

 poses, indeed among the greatest, for which God planted our fathers in 

 this land, then a wilderness, far distant from European scenes of felicity, 

 and improvements in arts and sciences. 



Should we forget this, and begin to consider that this fertile land was 

 given us merely for our own secular uses — to eat and to drink out of its 

 abundance ; nay, unless we seek to maintain religion among ourselves, 

 to impress it on our children, and to diffuse it among our unenlightened 

 neighbors — all our other works, our zeal and struggles for liberty, civil 

 or ecclesiastical, all our boasted forms of government, the complete 

 establishment of our independence, acknowledged by, and giving us a 

 rank among, the nations of the earth — all these will be in vain ; for, 

 although they are great blessings and highly to be prized, when rightly 

 understood and enjoyed, we must remember that we are not independent 

 of God, who holds the fate of nations r.wfully suspended in the balance 

 of his justice and power, and can clearly see which scale preponderates 

 in virtue or vice — that, if we become remiss or negligent in the duties 

 assigned us on this immense continent. He can punish us for our in- 

 gratitude, by casting us out, as stubble, to be burnt; leaving us neither 

 root nor branch, and raising up other more worthy instruments for tlie 

 accomplishment of His own eternal purposes of love towards these yet 

 benighted nations. 



