in a measure loft, and their hopes of usefulness in the ministry greatly disappointed. This is an evil fo frequent, and of fuch extenfive influence, that it calls for the attention of every man, who has any concern in training up young men for the ministry. And it is conceived, that no man could do fo much towards curing this extenfive evil, as a learned and pious Profeffor of Divinity. Connected for feveral years with youth, when their minds are most pliable, their temper moft ingenuous, and their curiofity moft eafily excited, he might, through divine favour, lead them to confider the weight of the gospel miniftry, and the neceffary qualifications. He might do much to prevent them from rafhly affuming an office, for which they have no adequate fitnefs. He might direct and aid their inquiries after theological knowledge, and help to fill the gofpel vineyard with workmen, who need not to be afhamed.* The late amiable Profeffor was not infenfible of the evil above defcribed, nor wholly inattentive to the means of removing it. But it admits a query, whether he ufed, for that purpose, all the influence, which might have been derived from his office, his talents, and the high place he poffeffed in the affection of minifters and ftudents. In fome other ways, the energy of his character was exhibited to much greater advantage. His usefulness to the caufe of "The greatest good that any one can hope to do in this world, is upon young perfons, who have not yet taken their ply, and are not spoi ed with prej udices, and wrong notions. If mat ters that are amifs can be mended or fet right, it must be by giving thofe, that have not yet fet out, and are not yet engaged, truer views and jufter ideas of things." BURNET. divine truth, it is thought, might, in fome inftances, have been promoted by a higher degree of refolution, and by measures more decifive. It is doubted, whether he uniformly fhowed in what high eftimation he held the distinguishing doctrines of the gofpel. The fenfibilities of his nature made him very reluctant to adopt a measure, or fuggeft an opinion, which did not meet the approbation of others. And, if he ever gave occafion to fay, that he did not exprefs the truths, which he embraced, with fufficient perfpicuity and fulnefs; if he ever left room to queftion, what his fentiments, on any important fubjects were; if, in fome inftances, he was too careful to accommodate himself to opinions, which he disapproved, and to prejudices, which he believed pernicious; it was no greater failing, than has, alas, been found in the best of mortals. During his profefforfhip he was frequently invited to preach in the neighbouring focieties, and fometimes in diftant places. Wherever he preached, he was remarkably popular. There was not wanting in his performances fomething to command the refpect of the immoral, to please the tafte of the polifhed, and to refresh the fouls of the pious. He willingly laboured in the ministry, even above his ftrength. It was his highest wish to ferve God in the kingdom of his Son. He gladly embraced every opportunity to preach the unfearchable riches of Christ, and to spread the favour of pure religion. He was indeed a burning and fhining light. But that fhining light is extin guifhed. When his amiable charbecome acter had generally known; when his profpect of use fulness was growing brighter; when the sphere of his influence was extending, and the energies of his mind and heart were moft constantly and most intenfely exerted; his profpect was fuddenly overfpread with clouds, and his useful life closed. When minif ters are the best qualified to do good in the world; then are they often moft ripe for the kingdom of heaven. To replenish the heavenly mansions, the excellent ones of the earth are taken away. Let us then turn aside, and behold that scene, where the good man's character is tried. Though doctor Tappan's fickness was short; it was long enough to display his humility and faith, to confirm the truths he had preached, and to glorify the Saviour, in whom he had believed. The notice of approaching diffolution, though very fudden, did not difcompofe him. With many expreffions of humility and felfabasement intermingled, he declared his hope in the infinite mercy of God through the atonement of Chrift. At the beginning of his fickness, his fpiritual profpect was clouded. He had such a sense of the evil of fin, and of his own ill defert, that nothing could afford him the leaft hope of eternal life, but the all-fufficient grace of the Redeemer. In that he found reft to his foul After fuch folemn and prayerful examination of himself, as becometh a man haftening to the bar of eternal justice, he found reafon to hope, that he was the subject of faving religion. At the laft, though he showed in a remarkable degree, the spirit of a penitent, he had strong confolation. A full account of his dying exercifes will not be attempted. But there are a few particulars, too ftriking to be concealed, When his wife, with unutterable tenderness, expressed fome of the feelings, which were excited by the thought of parting with him, he faid; "If God is glorified, I am made for ever. Can't you lay hold of that? Can't you lay hold of that?" To his fons he expressed his forrowful apprehenfion of the religious ftate of the college. On being told, that the students were more attentive, than they had been, to the bible, he replied; "Well, the bible ever has been, and ever will be the beft guide for young men." He charged his children to be very attentive to their mo ther, adding; "It is in the pow er of children to plant a thousand daggers in the hearts of their pa rents." In the fame interview, he faid; "I charge you to love God fupremely, and to love your neighbour, as yourselves. For without thefe, there is no true religion." Youthful ge Doctor Tappan's death was no common calamity. To the surviving partner and children, and the other near connections, no tongue can defcribe the greatness of the affliction. nius and virtue mourned the deceafe of a friend and patron. The church and nation loft one who had fought and prayed for their welfare. The univerfity felt, that one of her pillars was fallen. Religion herself wept over the tomb of TAPPAN, who had pleaded her caufe, lived for her honour, and rejoiced in the hope of her approaching triumph. It is rarely the cafe, that the death of any man is fo extenfively felt, fo generally noticed, and fo tenderly lamented. (To be continued.) From the Christian Observer. [Continued from page 96 ] THE venerable Pothinus having fallen a victim to the rage of his enemies, Irenæus, as was ftated in the last number, fucceeded to the epifcopal charge of the church at Lyons. This event took place about the year of our Lord 179, while the perfecution, which had commenced under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, ftill proceeded with undiminished violence. The patience, meeknefs, and fortitude, displayed by Irenæus at this trying juncture, prove him to have been eminently qualified for the station which he was called to fill. It pleafed God, however, foon after his appointment, to grant to the afflicted church a confiderable interval of repofe. In the year 180, Marcus Aurelius dying was fucceeded by his fon Commodus, who, though one of the most profligate characters that ever lived, revived thofe merciful edicts of his grandfather, by which the party accufed of chriftianity was ordered to be acquitted, and the accufer made obnoxious to punishment. To this humane conduct Commodus is faid to have been determined by the influence of a woman named Marcia, one of the partners in his guilty pleasures, who had been led by fome unknown circumftance to entertain a particular partiality for the christian name. We have, in this inftance, a ftriking exemplification of the providential power and goodnefs of God. "He maketh foolish the wisdom of this world." He It may be proper to obferve, that Mr. Milner, places this event in the year 169: but Baronius, and the learned Cave in his chronological table, affign to it the date mentioned above. fhews us, in the cafe of Antoninus, how little the utmost extent of worldly wisdom can accomplish in rectifying the heart. He overrules alfo the wickedness of the wicked, to the accomplishment of his own gracious purposes. Even the vicious pursuits of Commodus are made the means of fecuring the peace of the church : and while the grave, the decorous, the philofophical, and, in fome fenfe, the beneficent, Antoninus, continues through life one of her moft inveterate enemies; his licentious and abandoned fon ftems the tide of perfecution, and employs his power in her protection. This remarkable fact, may, perhaps, ferve to illuftrate that paffage of fcripture, in which the publicans and harlots are reprefented as more acceffible to the force of truth, than the arrogant and felfsufficient Pharifees, the Antonini of Judea. Inflated with pride, and with a conceit of their own fuperior fanctity; fins peculiarly offenfive to God, inasmuch as they have a stronger tendency than perhaps any other to lead men to count the blood of the covenant a thing of no value, and to do defpite unto the spirit of grace : thefe men not only contemned the humbling doctrines of the gospel, but hated them and they teftified that hatred by perfecuting to death the Lord of glory, as the Roman emperour afterward did his faithful followers. The fame fpirit seems to have actuated both. The external peace, which was thus unexpectedly granted to the chriftians, continued with scarcely any intermiffion till the ninth year of the reign of Severus, in the year of our Lord 202. We are not, however, to fuppofe from this circumftance that, in the dif charge of his epifcopal functions, Irenæus had no difficulties to con- unreasonableness of the arguments which fuch perfons employ would be very evident, if we were only to confider, that the multiplication and diverfity of errour, instead of detracting from the importance of truth, ought rather to enhance its value, and to excite them to diligence in its purfuit, and to care and candour in its investigation. But a blinded and deceived heart turns men afide; otherwife they would difcover, in the very fact which arms them against the belief or the influence of christianity, a fatisfactory confirmation of its divine original. "It must needs be," faid our bleffed Lord, "that of fences come;"* evidently meaning thereby thofe impediments which are thrown in the way of men's falvation, either by the doctrinal errours, or the unholy lives, of his profeffed followers. And with this faying of our Lord, the declaration of St. Paul perfectly harmonizes, "For there must be alfo herefies (or, as it is in the margin, fects) among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you."t The prediction of St. Peter is ftill more explicit and particular. "But there were falfe prophets alfo among the people, even as there' fhall be falfe teachers among you, who privily fhall bring in damnable herefies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and tend with. On the contrary, the dangers which threatened to undermine the church from within, were scarcely lefs formidable, than thofe which had affaulted her from without. Herelies of various defcriptions, and of the most peitilent kind, had early begun to disfigure the fair proportions of the chriftian church; and in the time of Irenæus, fottered perhaps by the tranquillity that prevailed, they had reached a height which excited the fears of the faithful for her fafety. Irenæus perceived that little would be gained to the church by immunity from external violence, if the fhould be betrayed by her own fons. He therefore applied himself, with zeal and affiduity, to defeat the machinations of her internal enemies, employing the utmost circumfpection and vigilance in detecting their defigns and confuting their errours, till their folly and wickedness were made fully manifeft. To the unwearied exertions of this holy man, in expofing the complicated abfurdity and blafphemy of the different fyftems by which hereticks and fchifmaticks attempted to disturb the unity of the church, it may doubtless in part be afcribed, under God, that none of those systems, though fome of them were afterward revived with various modifications, obtained at that time a permanent footing, but either entirely difappeared, or gave place to other forms of erroneous doctrine. The herefies which have arifen in the christian church, and the various fects to which these have given birth, have, in every age, furnished the careless with an excufe for their indifference, and infidels with a fruitful topick of declamation or ridicule. The bring upon themfelves fwift deftruction. And many fhall follow their pernicious ways, by reaion of whom the way of truth thall be evil fpoken of." But while fuch paffages fufficiently cftablish the perverfenefs of thofe, who would derive, from the divifions fubfifting in the chriftian church, an argument against the truth of chriftianity; they no lefs clearly point out the criminality, which attaches to the authors of fuch divifions. May this confideration have its due weight, and may all, who call themfelves by the name of Chrift feel, more powerfully than ever, the obligation under which they are laid to "hold the faith," as our excellent liturgy expreffes it, "in unity of fpirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteoufnefs of life." The length of this digreffion will, it is hoped, be pardoned, on account of the importance of the difcuffion which it involves, and which feemed to arife naturally out of the narration. It is time that we should now advert to the means, which Irenæus employed to oppofe the prevailing herefies. He is faid to have convened a provincial fynod at Lyons, for the purpose of authoritatively condemning them; but the truth of this statement, though highly probable in itself, refts on too light evidence to be admitted. Abundant teftimony, however, remains of the zeal with which he laboured, both by word and writing, to preferve the purity of chriftian doctrine from the influx of herefy and fchifm. Thefe evils had made their way into his neighbourhood and infected even his own flock. The opportunity, which he thus enjoyed of converfing with the leaders of different fects, of perusing their works, and of carefully examining fuch individuals as having been feduced by them from the faith were afterward brought back to the bofom of the church, enabled him to acquire a minute acquaintance with the precife nature and effects of the prevailing corruptions, and qualified him for the talk, which he was induced to undertake of writing a treatise against herefies. This elaborate work, the only work of Irenæus, which is now extant, fufficiently proves him to have been a diligent inquirer, and an acute reafoner, as well as a faithful fervant of Chrift, and a zealous defender of evangelical truth. It was written between the years 180 and 192. The herefies, which Irenæus chiefly oppofes in this volume are thofe of Valentinus, Bafilides, Marcion, the Gnofticks, &c. In reading it, one is almoft tempted to regret, that he fhould have beftowed fo much time and labour on the expofure and confutation. of opinions, thofe particularly refpecting the nature of God and the perfon of Chrift, fo abfurd and monftrous, that they feem to require only to be ftated, in order to their being rejected, as utterly irreconcilable to reafon and fcripture. We are very incompetent judges, however, of the effect, which even fuch extravagant notions, as were then industriously propagated, were calculated to produce, on minds prepared for their reception by the debafing fuperftition of pagan worship, and the wild reveries of pagan mythology. Nor do we perhaps, in eftimating the value of Irenaus's labours, fufficiently appre |