which will not do so, they maintain is in a state of rebellion against his regal government, and will be overturned "when he cometh out of his place to shake terribly the inhabitants of the earth;" and that therefore they are not entitled to the support of the people of God, as the legal representatives of Messiah upon earth. These are consequences deduced from the atonement, which thousands of Christians admit, but upon which none but the reformed presbyterians lay much emphasis.

A very respectable work on the Trinity has lately been published in Britain, written by a Mr. Kidd. It is replete with curious matter and profound speculation. He attempts to prove the doctrine of the Trinity without the aid of divine revelation. He says that as God cannot impart to his intelligent creatures any power which does not reside in himself, and as he has imparted perception and social powers to all his intelligent creatures, he therefore must have had them himself from all eternity: he must have possessed power to perceive objects exterior to his own per son, and social powers; that these powers cannot be supposed to have existed from eternity without ever having been exercised until the creation of this universe; that they must have had a field to exercise themselves upon, commensurate with their extent; and that these powers of God the Father must have been employed in contemplating the person of the Son; which, from the data before laid down, must be infinite in all perfection. Thus he believes, that he proves from reason, at least the existence of two persons; and the third person, the Holy Spirit, he says proceeds from the Father and the Son, as a necessary consequence of the constitution of the two other hypostases, or persons, and the exercise of their powers. This is not perhaps doing justice to Mr. Kidd. Indeed it is impossible to do justice to such a work in so short an abstract. These views he attempts to establish from the Holy Scriptures. All orthodox divines have maintained that the Trinity was as necessary and natural as the existence of an eternal God, but none, so far as we know, has ever attempted to demonstrate from rea

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son, this necessity. His work has acquired great celebrity in Britain, and, whatever may be thought of his success in the chief object which he sets before him, he must rank high as a man of great powers and profound speculation. As to the qualities of matter, Deity can and does produce all the effects, that proceed from them: the properties of matter are no more than the results of his energetic operations.

Before we take leave of Europe, we must cast a glance at the Roman catholic church. The ground which that church took at the great council of Trent, which met in the early part of the sixteenth century, was utterly subversive of the atonement. All those who deny the efficacy of indulgences, the absolutions of the priests, and various other means of procuring pardon, are anathematized. But the reformation soon operated a very considerable change for the better in the opinions of catholics. In 1641, Jansenius, archbishop of Ypres, published a book on the doctrine of grace, which professes to contain an explanation of the opinions held by Augustine, on the nature of the atonement. In 1653, pope Innocent III. condemned as extracts from Jansenius the following propositions: 1." That there are some commands impossible to the saints, because they have not sufficient grace. 2. That grace is irresistible. 3. That a liberty free from restraint, not necessity, is sufficient to constitute merit or demerit. 4. That the Semipelagian heresy consisted in maintaining, that it was impossible to resist or comply with the motions of grace. 5. That Jesus Christ did not die for all men." As far as this is perspicuous, and as far as it goes, it is the same with the doctrine which Calvin was teaching at Geneva, at the very time when the pope condemned the book of Jansenius. Great numbers of the catholic clergy espoused the cause of Jansenius, and embraced the doctrines which he taught. A very great body of them united in stopping a writ of error, which had issued against his book. The laity of the catholic church are more enlightened than they were previously to the reformation.. The prospect, however, for the interests of truth are in

some respects gloomy. The man of sin whose throne crumbled by the late revolutions in Europe, is again exalted by the combined efforts of all the kings of Europe. While heresy and lukewarmness overspread nearly all the greatest protestant churches, the pope is reinstated in his ghostly empire, and the popish religion, under his auspices, and those of all the kings who have given their power to him, again flourishes, and again threatens to cover Europe with a very dark night of superstition. Again the hopes of salvation, in nearly the whole of that quarter of the world, seem to be directing themselves towards those miserable means, which the catholic church presented, before the reformation. England has had a leading hand in the iniquitous elevation of antichrist. After his late reinstatement in his royal splendours, it is said the Prince Regent of England wrote him a letter, in which he says he puts a carte blanche into the hand of his holiness, and that he will do whatever he commands in relation to the church in his dominions. If this statement is correct, and there is no reason to doubt it, the Prince Regent, by that act, has formally undone all that was done by Henry VIII. in declaring Great Britain independent of the see of Rome; and has formally subjected, once more, the British empire to the dominion of antichrist. Thus, this once covenanted kingdom has in the most effectual, as well as formal manner, given its power to the beast. Notwithstanding all that is doing in Europe to cherish Bible societies and foster missionary efforts, we have little reason to hope that orthodox principles will flourish, while the present state of things lasts. But God will arise and have mercy upon Zion, for the time which he has set to favour her, has nearly come. He will shake down those thrones of iniquity, and amidst their ruins he will build his church on a permanent foundation.

We now invite the attention of the reader to the new world, in which a vast field opens. The first settlers, who established themselves at Cape Cod in Massachusetts, A. D. 1616, were English Puritans, who understood well the doctrines of grace, and adhered to them, with great firmness.

Though they commenced their settlement in New England twenty-three years before the meeting of the assembly of divines at Westminster, yet they embraced the same doctrines which that venerable assembly embodied in their Confession of Faith and Catechisms. It was indeed their attachment to these principles, that induced them to forsake their native land, and encounter all the difficulties of settling in a strange and distant land, among the savages of the wilderness. Heaven had manifested its goodness, in bringing to light a new world in the west, just before the storm of persecution burst upon the reformers, that an asylum might be afforded them, from the violence of their adversaries. The fathers of New England have been represented by many of their ungrateful sons as a rude, ignorant, bigoted and unenlightened people. No representation, however, could be farther from the truth, nor more injurious to their real character. They did not indeed possess that polish, which has been acquired by more modern society, but they had what was of incomparably more value-great piety, zeal for the truth, clear conceptions of what is truth, and resolution to practise the duties which it enjoins. It has always been customary among the New England divines, to publish sermons which were delivered on stated and important occasions; and from all these that we have been able to see, they were harmonious and united in their attachment to the creed of the Genevan school, as explained and embraced by the British reformers.

In 1648, the Westminster Confession of Faith was approved by the clergy of Massachusetts; and in the year 1680, the Savoy Confession of Faith was adopted by the congregational clergy assembled in Boston and its vicinity, as the expression of their own sentiments. The doctrines of this latter system are the same with those of the Westminster confession, and in most instances expressed in nearly the same words. At its adoption, there does not appear to have been one dissenting voice, either among the clergy or laity. Their form of church government rendered it impossible for the association of clergy, who gave it their

sanction, to impose it upon all the congregations under their charge. They could do no more than recommend it, as all their congregations were associated bodies, independent of each other. It would, nevertheless, at that time have been deemed highly improper for any one of the ministers or of their congregations, to have departed from the system of truth which was embraced and recommended by the general convention. This very system of government, if it may be called a system, opened in some measure a door for the introduction of error, and gave to errorists facilities for introducing their tenets, which did not exist in the presbyterian church, in which all the members are directly amenable to the presbytery for those doctrines which they teach. In the New England churches, the clergy were directly and immediately amenable to their own congregations only; and, as the authority of the association over its members was very slight, a minister might exhibit opinions contrary to the analogy of faith, for a considerable time before any account would be taken of him. Those, however, who were found to be chargeable with heresies, might be cited before a council, and if found guilty, deposed from office. This power has, in some instances, been exercised by some of the northern churches.

For a considerable time after the adoption of the Savoy Confession of Faith, by the ministers of Boston, we have the most ample testimony, that the northern people maintained stedfastly the principles which are contained in that excellent compend.

The churches in Connecticut had become very numerous about the beginning of the last century, but the laxness of discipline, the irregularity of the life of many members of the church, and the want of an acknowledged general standard of doctrine, began to excite the fears of many enlightened men. At Gilford a measure originated, intended to produce a better state of things. The civil government of the colony considered themselves as entitled, by their office, to watch over the welfare of their citizens in relation to their religious interests; and in 1703, they invited a convention of