boy and the wolves. They have in fact, so often, and so long, heard the cry of wolves: they have heard the cry of Tyranny! Tyranny! from all quarters, from all parties, till they have grown callous to the cry; yet wolves will come at last.

The people ought to be apprised, that the points of doctrine, so recently censured by these men as heresy, have never been considered, in any part of this country, as a bar to communion, or as a wall of separation between Christians, as individuals or as churches. They are not so considered in the churches of England or Scotland, nor, indeed, by any of the protestant churches in Europe, except where mingled with other matters which involve religious order and discipline.

Is it a happy omen-does it promise well to the Christian. church, in this country, that such a bigoted and intolerant spirit should now begin to show its deformed features and cloven foot? Is it best for individuals, and churches, and Presbyteries, and Synods-nay, for different denominations and sects, to begin to hurl their censures and anathemas at one another? Shall Bible and Missionary Societies, generally embracing denominations of different sentiments, turn from their great object, and fall upon their own members with base invectives and furious anathemas? Yes :-this, it seems, is now to be done, and a grand specimen was recently given, as already noticed, in which a young licentiate of most unblemished morals, exemplary piety, and promising talents, was rejected as a missionary, and condemned as unsound in the faith.

This hopeful business was managed, and violently carried through, though one third of the members of the board agreed in doctrine with Mr. C. by the same man who aided, or rather was principal, in D.'s expulsion. I ask the candid and well-disposed of all denominations, of all orders, whether such a man can be regarded in any other light than as a blind, haughty, and furious bigot? I ask the disinterested reader what sort of ministry, that will be, trained up in his maxims, formed from his precepts and examples? nor will they need to wait his falling mantle, to imbibe a double portion of his spirit: For that is a spirit, into which "Non docti, sed nati, non instituti, sed imbuti sumus.”

There is no privilege, it would seem, no honour, no publie nor private advantage, to be derived from that equal consideration, reciprocity of iudulgence and charity, equality of rank and immunity, which all religious sects hold in the eye of our free and excellent constitution, and are thereby required to hold in the eye of each other. From this soil of liberty and justice, watered by the blood of patriots, is now to spring up, not a crop of warriors, where dragon's teeth had been sown, but a race of stern, unrelenting, religious despots, who are to change the order of things in this country. And as property and lucrative stations are primary objects with them, they will seize, if possible, on the great cities, and fix their triangular iron box on every pericranium they can allure, flatter, babble, or frighten into it; and if any one throws it off, ah! a heretic! a heretic!"unsound in the faith!" "rotten at the core !" And could they have but the syndics and civil magistrates to second their pious endeavours, and carry home their holy censures, what reformations we should have! we should quickly see the days of the Reformers return; and there would be none of the "northern storm" in all this. No! but frequent blasts from a hotter and more murky region.

Whoever shall read this number, and shall judge that the severity of the remarks are disproportioned to the requisition of the occasion, will do well to consider the grand theme repeated by the voice of the union herself, at every anniversary of our independence. Why did our forefathers leave the shores of Europe, and encounter the perils of the deep-the dangers and privations of the wilderness? Liberty of conscience was one grand motive. Here, under a guiding providence, they planted the TREE OF LIBERTY, and by the suns and showers of heaven, it has grown to a majestic size. Whoever opposes the censures of the church to freedom of opinion and private judgment, in the manner these men have done, is a religious tyrant, and sins against the highest privilege of the nation; and had our civil rulers no more discretion and virtue than he has, our land, from being a land of freedom and happiness, would become an Aceldama-a field of blood.

Reader, you hear, in these pages the voice of a single, obscure, unknown, individual. You can, with ease, slight and spurn it. With ease can you tear the unfinished page, or hurl the book into the flames, as the infatuated king of Judah did the message of the prophet. But you will perceive that that rash act did not save his country, nor himself; neither will a similar act prevent or procrastinate the evils which impend. Had public bodies a consciousness, and could the religious community of this vast country speak, as saith the prince of orators, “Si illa, una voce, loqueretur," she would bewail, with tears, the ingratitude of her children; she would express her indignation, in a language suitable to her dignity, at those who envy others the blessings they derive from her; and her contempt at the impotent ambition which claims powers which she never granted. But she would perceive these daring attempts, generally made by strangers to her blood, and aliens to her free and noble spirit:-exotics, which, withering in their native soil and climate, have been transplanted hither, to fatten on the credulity of the simple, to prove the virtue of the upright, and to punish the ingratitude of the wicked.

INVESTIGATOR.

No. III.

I HAVE said, in the preceding number, that the people in this city, who listen to a certain strain of preaching, which I have styled triangular, are not well instructed in the great doctrines of Christianity. I do not say this without a due consideration of the allegation it imports; and I am fully aware, that to the candid mind of persons at a distance, or to the incautious on the spot, it may appear too severe. It shall be the business of this number to make good the ground here assumed.

The instructions given are incorrect in their nature, deficient in their extent, and tend to extinguish rather than excite inquiry.

Two volumes of sermons have lately been published in the city.* These sermons I offer as documents to prove the first part of this charge, viz. that incorrect instructions are given. When a man comes out in two large volumes of sermons, in a great and polished city, we have some reason to believe he has selected his ablest productions.† The third sermon of vol. I. is entitled "The glory of a nation." Page 104—5, this writer observes:

"We shall first examine their laws, (the Hebrew) confining ourselves, however, to a few general notices.

"In these laws, the great principles of moral duty are promulgated with a solemnity suited to their high pre-eminence. Love to God, with unceasing solicitude, and love to our neighbour, as extensively and forcibly as the peculiar design of the Jewish economy, and the peculiar character of the Jewish people would permit, are enjoined."

On these two commands, says Christ, hang all the law and the prophets; and they doubtless comprise the soul and essence of all religion; "for," saith the Apostle John, "he that loveth is born of God: and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him."

But was ever such a definition given of the law of God as our divine here gives?-a definition so poor, so meagre and wretched? —a definition which tarnishes, nay, abolishes the divine law? I think a common school boy will perceive its hollowness: a person nourished from youth on the amor sui will even be shocked to read it. Who ever heard of loving God with "solicitude?" The first and grand import of solicitude is anxiety, which consists in a perturbed, depressed, fluctuating, fearful, and painful state of mind. Never was there a more ill chosen term to delineate the holy and glorious affection of perfect love, which God's law requires. "Perfect love casteth out fear:" "And herein," says John, "is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment." But does not

* Dr. Romeyn's.

A great writer says, that a man must be tall at 20, beautiful at 30, rich at 40, and wise at 50; or else never tall, beautiful, rich, or wise. The author of the sermons ought not to be far from wise.

the law require perfect, supreme love to God, an affection free from all solicitude?

Selfish love to God is indeed full of solicitude-full of anxiety, because it is grounded on nothing but an expectation of benefit; and as the selfish man has no certain evidence that God will continue to do him good, nothing is so faint, so wavering, so full of anxiety, as his love to God.

But the second part of this definition is still, if possible, more extraordinary. This writer tells us, that the law requires a man "to love his neighbour as extensively and forcibly as the peculiar design of the Jewish economy, and the peculiar character of the Jewish people would permit. It seems, then, that a man's love to his neighbour is to be regulated by two considerations, 1st. The peculiar design of the Jewish economy, and 2d. The peculiar character of the Jewish people. In the name of all that is marvellously absurd, I desire to know what connexion a man's love to his neighbour has with the peculiar design of the Jewish economy, and which way this wonderful definition points? If any definition or exposition of the spirit of the moral law ever merited for a man the epithet of Antinomian, surely this definition does for its author. For the peculiar design of the Jewish economy being long ago accomplished, that economy was brought to an end; and with it a man's obligation to love his neighbour, according to this profound expositor.

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But even while that economy lasted, what does this definition make out concerning the extent and force of a man's love to his neighbour?" As extensively and forcibly," says the writer, as the peculiar design of the Jewish economy would permit." Captain Cook sailed as far south as the fields of ice would permit: they stopped his progress. So, it seems, the Jews were not allowed to love one another any more than their peculiar economy could permit. In their peculiar economy they found a barrier, at which they might tack about, from love to hatred, as suddenly as Cook did when he met the fields of ice. If the expression does not imply this, it implies nothing. But, alas! since the Jewish economy is abolished, and its peculiar designs accomplished, men may now love as much or as little as they please; and love now makes no part of religion.