"The atonement is coextensive with the fall." "Infinite wisdom saw it best that redemption should not extend to all mankind." After all then the atonement really amounted to nothing. All might have been sentenced to hell, as many are, notwithstanding all Christ has done for them. God merely displayed his wrath against sin, by punishing an innocent person, and so it would seem that devils have really as much interest in the atonement, as men, and that devils as well as Christ, contribute to make it. It is impossible to make the various parts of his system consistent with each other.

In his discourse on the mode of preaching the gospel, he takes great pains to prove, that the preacher should press upon the sinner faith and repentance only, while he insinuates that prayer and other duties should not be performed by the sinner until he is converted. Others have followed the system out fully, and declared that all prayer should be abstained from, until after conversion. When this is reduced to practice, it really amounts to this, that a man must know himself to be regenerated before he may dare to pray or perform any duty,-a most mischievous tenet.

Many of those opinions are given with much explanation, and many salvos, such as, "in this sense,”—“with these explanations,"-"thus understood," &c. as if the author advanced with hesitancy and trembling anxiety. He appears to have been naturally a sensible man, and his works abound with pious traits. But led away by the opinions of others who had gone before him, by errors of education, and bewildered by metaphysical subtilties, he destroys the simplicity of gospel truth, and weaves into the web of his speculations gross errors, which when fairly disentangled and followed out, would destroy the covenant of works, the covenant of grace, and the work of redemption. He would himself have shuddered at the consequences drawn from his writings.

Dr. Emmons has succeeded him, and pretty fully developed his system, which is still evolving itself, and more and more displaying the extent of its deleterious power.

Dr. Emmons asserts "That God is possessed of affections which change, as the objects of those affections change," that he is "constrained to reject the eternal generation of the Son, and the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost," that "the fall has not disabled men, but that they can love God, repent of sin, believe in Christ, and perform every religious duty as well as they can think, or speak, or walk:"-that "by immediately acting upon the human heart, with energy to produce the volition, God produces every sinful act:"-that "it is out of the divine power so to impute guilt or disobedience, as to transfer either from Adam to his posterity, or from Christ to his people; so that Christ's righteousness is never in this sense imputed." He denies the existence of a covenant of works, and says that God by a secret constitution had determined if Adam should eat the forbidden fruit to make him a sinner.

To all this, West, Spring, and other divines of New England accede. There are shades of difference among those who are called Hopkinsians, hardly any two of them agreeing fully on those points; but generally it may be said of them all, however pious and excellent men many of them may be, that they have inaccurate notions of the object of worship, of the medium of worship, and of the character of the worshipper. 1. They have wrong conceptions of God' the object of worship, as they make him to be the author of sin-as they represent him as decreeing hypothetically-as possessing changeable affections-of the generation of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Ghost, as not eternal-as doing all things out of benevolence, with a view to promote created happiness, and not from a regard to his own glory,and as the avenger of sin, not of the sinner. 2. Of the medium of worship, Christ Jesus, as dying without any definite object, except it be to promote the good of the whole:as not standing in the capacity of surety for his people, nor sustaining a representative character-and as instituting ordinances that are not means of grace. 3. Of the character of the worshipper, man, as possessed of natural power to obey all the divine commands; as bound not to love himself;

as bound to seek the good of the whole only; as never acting from any original corruption; as liable by nature to no punishment for Adam's sin; as not having the righteousness of Christ imputed to him; as regenerated in his will only, and not in all his faculties; as being compelled to sin by a positive influence from God; and as being a mere machine operated upon by his Maker.

It was not without many throes, that the New England churches brought forth these heresies. Bellamy tells us, that the revival of Whitefield gave occasion to the most vio lent contests; produced many evil passions, and factions among professors, all which he attributes to the agency of Satan, for defeating a glorious work. It was impossible that any society of good men, such as were formed in orthodox times, should without agitation, forsake the paths of truth, and wander so far into the mazes of error and false philosophy. The discussions on theological subjects were managed with considerable warmth of temper, but the writers on the side of innovation were much more numerous, than those on the side of truth. The friends of truth were never roused to general and vigorous action, not even when the citadel was taken. All are not, however, quite turned aside; although none of the opinions which we have exhibited wants advocates, among divines who are highly esteemed to the eastward; but those divines do not harmonize among themselves. Dr. Emmons, Dr. West, and Dr. Spring are among the most distinguished leaders in the new philosophy and divinity, which pervade generally almost all the denominations of Christians in Rhode Island, in the District of Maine, in the eastern part of Massachusetts, in Vermont and New Hampshire. We have every shade, from the genuine disciples of the Genevan school, to the thorough paced Socinian, though the former among the clergy is much more rare than the latter. The Rev. John Godman of Dorchester, indeed, is the only clergyman of Massachusetts, whom we know to be a thorough Calvinist. Much division has long existed between what are called the high-toned Hopkinsians, and the moderate Calvinists, or

semi-Arminians in Massachusetts. They are now said to be in a successful train of amalgamation, and that many of the most strong and offensive features of the Hopkinsians are softening; and among others that which exhibits a willingnesss to be damned for the glory of God, as the most decisive evidence of conversion. Still it is common in the revivals, to demand this "unconditional submission," as they are pleased to call it, to the will of God.

The clergy of Connecticut have made an honorable stand against the Arians and Socinians, whom they immediately degrade from their pastoral charges, as soon as they can establish their heresy. The consequence is, that there is probably not one of those heretics in the whole of Connecticut. The opinions of the ministers are generally in harmony with each other. They all believe in the trinity, the divinity of Christ, the divine decrees, Messiah's atonement, a particular election, the agency of the Holy Spirit in conversion, and other cardinal doctrines of the system of grace. On the subject of natural ability, they agree with the Hopkinsians in saying that man by nature labours under a total, but not a universal depravity, meaning a total depravity of the will alone; and that he possesses natural but not moral power to do all those moral actions that God enjoins. He wants the will they say, to choose the way of holiness, which he cannot do, but by the agency of the Holy Spirit. This defect in the will, they style “moral inability," and thereby do not seem to rank the will among the natural faculties. They maintain Bellamy's opinion relative to general atonement, and particular redemption, and may be called semi-Arminians.

Nearly all the congregational clergy of this state have been educated at Yale College, in the city of New-Haven, an ancient and very respectable seminary, which was founded about the beginning of the last century. It has always been an excellent institution, justly celebrated for its discipline, the talents of its professors, and the industry and morality of its students. Though it is not so rich as Harvard, yet it has been well supported. It was many

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years under the care of the late Dr. Timothy Dwight, a most amiable and excellent man, who during the four years' course of study for each class, delivered a course of lectures on theology to all the students. In this course he taught the doctrines of the Calvinistic school, except on the two points, mentioned above; and of course the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin, and of Christ's righteousness, could not have such a prominent place in his system, as in that of the Genevan doctors. His influence was deservedly great in the northern churches, and his reputation high, not only in America, but in Europe. He was a vigorous opposer of the Boston heresies, from which he had great influence in preserving the church in Connecticut, and in the west of Massachusetts. If the church in those parts did not retrace any of its steps during the time of his presidency, it may be safely affirmed, that it did not recede farther from the truth, into the paths of delusion. The college under his administration generally had nearly three hundred students, an unusually large proportion of whom, devoted themselves to the ministry, and preached the doctrines which he had taught them. What influence this school will have hereafter upon the state of the church in New England, will depend much on the character and opinions of its next principal. The people of Boston call this a Calvinistic school and New-Haven a Calvinistic city, on which account many of them make it an object of ridicule, and would wish to see its character sink.

While there are many points about which the congregational clergy of New England, who are opposed to the Socinians, cannot agree, they have all united in the support of a theological seminary at Andover, in Massachusetts. This school was opened in 1808, and as to numbers and influence, has flourished probably beyond the expectation of its founders. In the village, where it is located, there had been long established a literary institution, called Phillips' academy, one of the most respectable of its grade in the state. In order to found a divinity school Samuel Abbot,