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sertion that the sanctification of the sabbath was voted down; to prove that "thousands," or even hundreds, or one "of our citizens did publicly declare," what he states.

But admitting that the author could justify what he has said of the transactions at the meeting, we desire to know with what truth or propriety they can be charged upon the city, as such." We appeal, upon this whole subject, to the conscience of the author, as a man, as well as to his sense of responsibility as a preacher, denouncing divine wrath upon the whole community, charging it with the most awful and heaven daring acts of impiety, ever perpetrated upon earth, and finally comparing the sabbaths of the deserted locality to sabbaths in hell! İf such is the language of truth and soberness, if it is in the spirit of the Gospel, if it speaks forth the meekness and gentleness of Christ, then indeed have we altogether misconceived its import.

We cannot refrain from two or three additional remarks concerning the meeting upon which so much stress is laid. We suppose it is by no means clear, and should deem it highly presumptuous to decide, that the guilt contracted upon that occasion by those who opposed the well intended measures that were brought forward, was greater in the sight of God than that of numberless other acts of the same persons in the course of their lives. We have no scale by which infallibly to weigh their motives, feelings and intentions. We believe that "every sin deserves God's wrath and curse for ever." But whether it is more sinful in the sight of God to violate a positive institute, than to hate the author of it, to reject the Gospel, &c., we are not required to say. The least sin unrepented and unforgiven will be fatal to the soul. But we would ask our author how the closing of the churches, in a small district of the city, was any punishment to the persons above alluded to? Does he imagine that any of them belonged to any congregation, or were in the habit of going to any church? If not, what difference did it make to them whether the churches were shut or opened? But suppose some of them occasionally went to a church, is it not notorious that there was still room enough and to spare, in those churches in the city which were not shut up? And we would respectfully ask one farther question in this connexion, viz. Where were the ministers of the closed churches during the continuance of the fever? Did they follow their flocks to the suburbs of the town, and zealously endeavour to improve what they deemed so awful a crisis? The second cause of the judgment, adduced by the author, is "th inordinate appetite for gain which has pervaded almost all classes of the community." He supposes that the judgment punished this iniquity by falling on a locality of business, and imagines that the avaricious desires and projects of the population were blasted by this means. Now, admit this second charge to be true, in all its length and breadth; suppose the avarice and iniquity of the merchants and traders here to be even ten times greater than he imagines it; and the extreme weakness and futility of his argument will not be the less apparent. 1. The business of the city was but partially interrupted, and that only for six or eight weeks. 2. It is by no means clear that as much business was not done in the six months ending with December, as would have been done had no fever or other interruption taken place. 3. But if less has been done, the parsies concerned would tell the author, that as much has been done by the VOL. IX.

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community as would serve the cause of avarice; that what they had to fear was too much business being done; that a check was calculated rather to favour than to hinder the ultimate acquisition of gain. We believe it is, in fact, a general opinion, that business has been rather overdone; that too much has been done for the aggregate and ultimate pecuniary interest of those concerned. Yet the author writes thus: "The pestilence was sent upon the theatre of our commercial life: it covered the business part of our city: it touched the very heart's core of our commercial wealth. Now, my hearers, if I had no other evidence, this alone would be to my mind conclusive proof that something is radically wrong in the system of business pervading this city."

The third topic, viz. " that love of pleasure, that spirit of dissipation, that general profligacy of morals, to which our city has been addicted;" and the fourth; viz. "a spirit of political feeling at war with the authority of God:" our limits will not permit us to remark on. We pass also the 3rd general head, respecting the "design of God in the punishment ;" and on the 4th, viz. that "If we are not reformed by these things, we shall be yet more awfully punished," we would merely observe, that from the author's remarks, he evidently supposes that the dispensations of Providence do now proceed upon the principle of retributive justice.

The following passage we have reserved for more particular consideration. It is taken from that part of the discourse in which the author treats of the sins of the church, and more particularly of that branch of it with which her ministry is connected. After descanting on the decay of zeal for what he denominates the old fashioned Gospel, and censuring a propensity to hear the preachers of false doctrine, he proceeds as follows:

"Has there not flowed in upon this city, from the eastern section of our country, a flood of error, which, under the semblance of great benevolence in endeavouring to unite the various classes of Christians, has been gradually undermining the bulwarks of the truth-a new divinity that would supplant the old Gospel-a new system of making Christians, that would supersede the plan of God's regenerating grace-a system of feeling which places very little, if any, value upon the peculiar doctrines of Christ, and has very little, if any, connexion with sound, substantial, and well-informed picty? Have not the advocates of this system established themselves in many parts of the land? Have they not made inroads upon our own church; and is not to be feared, that too many of our people have not guarded as they ought against the poison of their creed, and the seeming liberality of their conduct? Is it not true, that, in some missionary transactions during the past year in this city, there has been manifested by many members of our own 'Reformed' church, a spirit of unwarrantable compromise with this 'disinterested' system of 'benevolence' and 'union,' which, if allowed to gain the ascendency among us, we may bid farewell to our reformed Zion? Is is not too true, that neither our ministers nor our people have co-operated, as became them, in endeavours to advance the prosperity of the church? Is there not, in consequence of listening to the cant of the day, a disposition in too many, altogether to abandon our independent interests as a separate section of the church of Christ, and join with any denomination that might better subserve their individual views?”pp. 23,24

While we do not feel the slightest apprehension that this passage will have the effect apparently intended by it, we cannot help expressing our. surprise, that any man in his sober senses could have penned it. It seems to us that a man who could honestly and sincerely advance these senti

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ments, and who upon such an occasion felt it his duty to advance them as disclosing one cause of a judicial and retributive dispensation of Divine Providence, and as a cause of still impending and more tremendous visitations of the same nature; it seems to us that such a man would have spared all insinuations and inuendo, and spoken out plainly. From the professions of the author (pages 7 and 8 of the sermon,) we must conclude that he would advance nothing which he was not perfectly certain was correct, and that no consideration would deter him from stating, in the most unequivocal form, what he felt called upon to affirm. Yet there is an obscurity in some parts of this passage, and an air of insidiousness and surmise, which has a far more injurious and more powerful effect than any plain and positive statement. It would almost seem that the author did not dare to speak out in explicit terms, and tell his hearers who and what he meant; and that he appealed rather to their fears, their imaginations, and their prejudices, than to their knowledge of facts and doctrines; and finally, that he deemed obscurity, insinuation and surmise, the only safe and probable means of producing the required effect. We wish he had spoken in positive and explicit terms. It had been more creditable to him. Truth fears not the light, and those who tell it need

no other shield.

We proceed to state what we understand from this passage. 1. It is very evident that the author does not refer to any other denomination than the Presbyterian. His characteristics cannot be applied to any other, and least of all to the Socinian. 2. We are satisfied that his censures are directed against those Christians, comprising, we should think, at least four fifths of all the members of the Presbyterian churches in this city, and a still larger proportion of the members of all the Presbyterian and Congregational churches in the country; of whom, as professors of religion, the most distinguishing characteristic is, that they approve of revivals of religion, and of that system of means, and that kind of preaching, which are divinely sanctioned, and succeeded to this end by the effusion of the Holy Spirit. These Christians profess "benevolence." Their religion subdues their selfishness, and makes them benevolent; and they desire that all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who love his cause, and whose benevolence prompts them to do something to promote it, should unite their efforts for this purpose. They agree in these things; and they agree in the faith of the essential doctrines and in the fellowship of the Gospel. In this city, many of them, and especially of those who came "from the eastern section of our country," are, ignorantly by some, and abusively by others, denominated Hopkinsians; a name at which ignorance, prejudice, hypocrisy, and ecclesiastical quackery, start and turn pale; but which, among those who have any candour as Christians, or as men, who have some knowledge of facts, and who have no purposes to serve by a reproachful and undefined epithet, has lost its influence. That the author did not aim his charges against those only whom ignorance or prejudice might designate by this epithet is evident. 1. Such have not been exclusively, nor chiefly conspicuous in endeavouring to unite Christians of different sections of the church, especially in the case named by the author, of the missionary transactions in this city during the past year. 2. If he meant such only, it would follow that he meant to reproach by this epithet members of the Reformed Dutch Church, which we are persuaded he would

not venture to do, and which the situation and relations of the writer enable him to say would be deemed not less insulting than unjust. We are bold to say that there is not the slightest foundation in truth for the author's insinuation, that the Reformed Dutch Church has become infected by Hopkinsianism, or by any other error, or system of error, imported from the eastward; unless he chooses to mean by Hopkinsianism the approbation of revivals of religion, and of the means connected with them; and can show that this is poisonous and deadly error, and has been derived from the source which he specifies, and not from the Gospel. 3. But the author includes in his censures 66 many members" of the Reformed Dutch Church; and we know that very many of them do approve of revivals of religion, and agree with their brethren of other churches in their "benevolence" and other qualities above mentioned. We conclude, therefore, without hesitation, that the author means Christians of this description, the leading characteristic of whom we have given above. Let us see then, in few words, what are some of the charges brought against them; and without quoting again from the passage, the reader will observe that their creed, or system, is described as poisonous, as "undermining the bulwarks of the truth," as "a new system of making Christians that would supersede the plan of God's regenerating grace,a system of feeling which places very little, if any, value upon the peculiar doctrines of Christ, and has very little, if any, connexion with sound, substantial and well informed piety."

Now, if such are the deliberate opinions of the author, and he is willing to abide the issue of them, we have only to say "to his own master he standeth, or falleth." If as a professor and preacher of the Christian religion he finds it in his heart to oppose and denounce such efforts towards a union of Christians for benevolent purposes as those which he so pointedly censures, we would only say that, with our views and feelings, we cannot help commiserating the subject of, what appears to us, the height of infatuation and inconsistency. We entreat him to reconsider at least this part of his discourse; and we would say to him and others, who, with the like weapons have opposed and condemned the same description of Christians; "Brethren, ye see how that ye prevail nothing. Take heed therefore to yourselves what ye say as touching these men for if this counsel or this work be of God, ye cannot overthrow it refrain from them lest, haply, ye be found to fight against God.” We suppose that there is displayed in the revivals of religion, so frequent in the churches above mentioned, evidence as palpable and as conclusive of the effusion and agency of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of men, as there was in the days of the apostles; and that, on the part of those who oppose such revivals, there is as much danger now as there then was of committing the unpardonable sin, by ascribing this influence to another agent, and contemning the work of the Holy Ghost.

We have only room to add, that this sermon does not appear to us calculated to promote the reformation of those who heard, or may read it. Besides the defects we have pointed out, there is a strain of cold denunciation, dogmatism and sneer runs through it. There is no appearance of sympathy with a subject so melancholy and awful, or of tenderness towards those against whom the language of terror and vengeance is dealt out. We hope it is no fair sample of the author's sermons, and that it is the last of an expiring species.

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Entelligence.

ENGLAND.-HOME MISSIONS.

Ar page 177 of this volume, we gave an account of the annual meeting of the London Home Missionary Society, and stated some particulars of the report, and the progress of the institution. The anniversary drew together an immense concourse of people, so that three very large rooms were crowded to excess. Upwards of thirty ministers and laymen addressed the assemblies, which, together with the interesting details of the report, excited a deep concern for the great number of people who, in that favoured isle, are destitute of the Gospel. The society was established in August, 1819-it has 22 missionaries, 47 Sunday schools, in which 177 teachers are engaged, and has distributed 200,000 tracts. The missionaries labour in 159 villages, among a population of 80,000 souls, out of which they have about 15,000 hearers; and yet there remain, in their respective neighbourhoods, 145 villages, "with an awfully ignorant population of 60,000 souls, where they either cannot gain access, or have not time to" preach. The society has established a mission to the Gypsies, and taken measures to ascertain their routes, numbers, habits, &c., and have paid some attention to the ignorant multitudes in the city of London.

We shall present one or two extracts from the report, which show the great need and importance of this institution.

During the last summer the committee established tent preaching in Camden town, where multitudes had spent the sabbath in the fields, instead of consecrating it to the worship of God in his temple. The mission was continued sixteen weeks. The hours of worship were in the morning before breakfast, and in the afternoon and evening. Forty-nine sermons were preached during the season, and it is calculated that about 15,000 hearers have been thus favoured with the Gospel, numbers of whom would probably never have heard the word of salvation had not this means been adopted.

"None but those who have taken the trouble to explore the village population, can possibly conceive of their wretched state of ignorance, and of the degree of vice that prevails among them.

"One of the missionaries, on entering on his station, remarks: 'If numbers greatly increased,-if moral degradation unusually deepened, if ignorance with insensibility be united,-if wickedness, blended with every vice, and heightened into barbarity of manners, constitute the importance of any station in your combined judgment,surely the station of your missionary must be important.'

"Another tells the committee that his station exceeds every thing he ever witnessed for wickedness, for cockfighting, bullbaiting, quarrelling, drunkenness, and lewdness generally prevail. These are a few out of many facts that are to be gathered from the journals of the missionaries.

.

"A correspondent (not a missionary,) also writes: I have travelled over the greatest part of Worcestershire, my native place, and here I beg leave to attempt a description of the very deplorable state of the people in that dark county, which puts me to my wit's end to