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indebtedness to him for much of the illustrations of the leading ideas in this communication. They may not be less important, or less interesting to the religious public, because they are not wholly original.

It is an obvious reflection, upon the passage under consid. eration, that whether you translate it by in, or into, it affords a powerful argument, in favor of the existence of the Trinity. In the former case, the authority of the Son and Holy Ghost is placed on the same foundation with that of the Father, and acknowledged by implication to be equally necessary to constitute the validity or acceptableness of the rite of baptism. In the latter, we are marked as the property of a Trinity; we profess to belong to them; to be their disciples; to regard them as the object of our worship. Whatever baptism means with respect to the Father, it means with respect to the Son, and Holy Ghost; they are placed on an equality. No difference is noted by the sacred writer, either in the form of expression, or in the context. If Christ be a mere man, or only a super-an.

gelic being, could he thus be admitted in God's last and most perfect dispensation of his grace, in this world, to share equal hon. ors, and to claim equal importance, with the everlasting God? And if the Holy Ghost be only an attribute of God, like his mercy, or omnipotence, can there be any possible propriety in bap. tizing into his name, and placing it in the same rank as that of God the Father." Or of bap tizing by the authority of an attribute, and not of a person?

When these things are consider. ed, I cannot wonder, that some modern Socinians choose to omit the form of baptizing prescribed by the Savior, and to substitute one, which will keep the doctrine of the Trinity out of view. It is so plainly taught in our Savior's rule, that the body of plain and honest people will ever be led to believe it, so long as this rule is followed in the administration of baptism. This is not the only special care, which is visible in the Scriptures to keep the doctrine of the Trinity in public view. Would to God the eyes of all might be opened to perceive it! M.

MISCELLANY.

[With a view to unite our testimony to that of others, against the increasing and most wicked and abominable practice of DUELLING, we readily give place to the following Memorial of the venerable Convention of Congregational ministers of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To this memorial there was not a dissentient voice, in a body of about one hundred of the clergy. The vote in favor of presenting it was unanimous. We wish other bodies of the clergy, and of the other denominations, would in like manner, or in some other way manifest their disapprobation of this most heinous sin. The Legislature, we presume, in due season, and in the manner which their wisdom shall dictate; will pay a suitable attention to this important subject. EDITORS.]

To the honorable the Senate, and Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Memorial of the Convention of the Congregational Ministers of said Commonwealth, HUMBLY SHEWETH,

THAT the practice of Duelling, which has been known to prevail in other parts of our country, has of late years had the countenance of some examples within this State. That with anxiety and regret your memorialists have observed this symptom of degeneracy from the principles and manners, which formerly distinguished the citizens of this Commonwealth, and have seen instances among us of prac tices, which the influence of religious and moral sentiments, the correctness of public opinion, and the authority of law, have heretofore resisted with almost complete effect. Your memorialists need not say to your honors, that this practice involves a contempt and defiance of the precepts and sanctions of that religion, which you our legislators acknowledge, and what it belongs to your memorialists especially to teach and promote; that it involves the deliberate exposure or destruction of life, at the will of individuals, in utter despite of public authority; and thus a.. mounts to the commission, or an attempt to the commission, of murder; that it claims in behalf of a false and absurd law of hon. or, originating in times of bar. barism and ferocity, and acknowledged to have no other sanction than perverted opinion and corrupt fashion, the power of annulling and superseding the laws of God and men; that in proportion as it prevails, it puts in jeopardy all the peculiar ben efits of the social and civilized condition, making the inter

course of men in the same communities, a scene of danger and bloodshed; and tending torender wholly unsafe the exercise of the liberty of action, and the liberty of debate in public bodies, and of speech in general, as secured to every citizen by the laws of his country. As friends of religion, your memorialists are constrained to pray, that those who have no fear of God, may be awed by the civil arm, and that examples may not be suffered of a species of actions, that is at once an affront to heav. en, and an outrage on the first principles of social order. View. ing the authority of the lawgiver and magistrate, as the safeguard of the public peace, and of indi. vidual right and happiness, they cannot suppress a fervent wish, that this authority may be so exerted, as to protect the subjects of government from the violence of their own passions, and restrain that practice of private revenge, which throws the powers of society into the hands of the unprincipled and the desperate. As friends of humanity, your memorialists cannot contemplate without distressing emotions the domestic terror and suffering, which must be inseparable from the prevalence of the barbarous usage, which they suggest to your present consideration and discountenance.

Your memorialists have not overlooked the care which our laws have shewn to prevent this offence; but they cannot fail to observe with your honors the partial efficacy of the existing laws on

this subject. This insufficiency of the past interposition of government, against the evil in question, they would fain believe, is not wholly to be ascribed to the intrinsic difficulty of the case; they are encouraged to hope that your wisdom may devise laws against duelling, containing more effectual provisions, than now exist, and higher securities for vigilance and fidelity in those on whom their execution depends. Your memorialists especially observe, that offenders calculate on impunity, by making a State or territory under another jurisdiction, the scene of action. Under such impressions; relying on your favorable construction of

this address, your memorialists, with entire deference, to your legislative discretion and fidelity, presume to ask-Is it not possible, that a degree of speedy, certain infamy and suffering may be attached to this practice, sufficient to counteract the influence of that imagined honor, which is alledged by the perpetrators in justification of an offence, which your memorialists, as Christians and members of society, consider incapable of justi fication, and as in duty bound your memorialists shall ever pray. Signed in behalf of the Conven.

tion.

SAML. SPRING, Moder. Boston, June 1st, 1809.

SELECTIONS.

"These that have turned the world upside down, have come hither also.

THE character of seditious, troublesome, and disorderly, hath been constantly given by wicked men to the servants of GOD.

For proof, attend to the following facts.

The first I shall mention is, a passage, as extraordinary in its nature, and as singular in its circumstances, as any that history affords. It is the meeting of Ahab and Elijah, in the time of a great famine in the land of Is. rael. Ahab, that profane prince, had by his apostasy and idolatry brought down the judgment of & righteous God, both on his kingdom and on his house.

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The unbelieving Jews. He had persecuted the worshippers of the true God with unrelenting violence; and, as it was natural to expect, he hated with uncommon rancor, and distinguished by uncommon severity, all the prophets who continued stedfast in the cause of truth. As many of them as he could lay hold of, he had put to death. He had hunted for Elijah, not only through all the kingdom of Israel, but through the neigh. boring nations, as we find related by Obadiah, his principal servant, "As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there ; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee

not."*

After all this severity on his part, when Elijah, by the command of God, went out to meet him, see the form of his salutation; 66 And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?"+ To this the prophet makes the following strong and just reply, "I have not troubled Israel; but thou and thy father's house have troubled Israel, in that thou hast forsaken the commandments of the Lord; and thou hast followed Baalim."

Another instance similar to the former may be found in Jehoshaphat and Ahab's consulta. tion before going out to battle. "And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the "Lord besides, that we may in. "quire of him? And the king "of Israel said unto Jehosha66 phat, There is yet one man "Micaiah the son of Imlah) by "whom we may inquire of the "Lord; but I hate him, for he "doth not prophesy good con "cerning me, but evil." Here, you see, Micaiah was the object of hatred and aversion, because he denounced the judgment of God against the king's wickedness. That vengeance which he him. self not only merited but solicited by his crimes, was attributed to malice in the prophet.

+

See an instance of a general accusation of this kind against all the worshippers of the true God, by Haman in the book of Esther.

And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad, and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom,

* 1 Kings xviii. 10. Ibid. ver. 17. 1 Kings xxii. 7, 8.

and their laws are diverse from all people, neither keep they the king's laws; therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them."§

The prophet Jeremiah met with the same treatment at different times. Neither prince, nor priests, nor prophets, were able to bear without resentment, the threatenings which he denounced in the name of God, "Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets, and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die. Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant, and all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. ¶ Then spake the priests and the prophets unto the princes and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy to die, for he hath prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears."** We find him afterwards expressly accused of treachery on the same account. "And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, and he took Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans.”++

The prophet Amos is another instance, precisely parallel to the last. Because of his fidelity to God, he was invidiously represented as an enemy to the

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king.

"Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos bath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words."*

Our blessed Lord and Savior fell under the same accusation. However plain and artless his carriage, he is called a deceiver of the people. "There was much murmuring among the people concerning him, for some said, he is a good man; others said, Nay, but he deceiveth the people." + His enemies endeavored to embroil him with the civil government by this insidious question, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Cesar, or not?" And that which brought him at last to the cross was the same pretended crime. "And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cesar."+

I shall close this view of the Scripture history, with the passage of which my text is a part. The whole crime of the apostle Paul, and his companion, was preaching the doctrine of the cross of Christ, his great and dar. ling theme. We are told, he opened" and "alleged, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead.” Then the Jews, to whom this doctrine always was a stumbling block, were "moved with envy," and endeavored to inflame the resentment of the idolatrous multitude: they took for their associates the most wicked and profligate, "Certain lewd fel*Amos vii. 10. †John vii. 12. ‡John xix. 12. VOL. II. New Series.

lows of the baser sort:" They "set all the city in an uproar :" And as, no doubt, the friends of Paul and Silas would endeavor to protect them from the inju. rious assault, their enemies very gravely charge them as the authors of the confusion, both there and elsewhere, "They that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also."

Having produced these in. stances from the Holy Scriptures, which are liable to no exception, I shall say but little on the sub. sequent periods of the church. Only in general, the same spirit will be found to have prevailed in every age. Whoever will take the pains to look into the history of the church before the reformation, cannot fail to observe, that when any one, either among the clergy or laity, was bold enough to reprove the errors in doctrine, or the ambition, luxury, and worldly lives of his cotemporaries, he was immediately branded as a factious and disorder. ly person, and often severely punished, as an enemy to the peace of the church.

I forbear to add any more particular examples; but from the deduction above given, it will plainly appear, that worldly men have been always disposed, first to oppress the children of God, and then to complain of injury from them, that by slander they might vindicate their oppression. Their slander too, hath still run in the same strain; troublers of Israel, deceivers of the people, enemies to Cesar, and turners of the world upside down, have been the opprobrious titles generally given to the most upright and most faithful men, in every age and country.

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