men concerned in that great and benevolent work; there were many others equally engaged, and perhaps some equally useful. The reader will now perceive the justice of the remarks made in the former series, concerning the opposition made to the strain of doctrine called Hopkinsian. In this number I shall call his attention to a few remarks on this Pastoral Letter of the Synod of Philadelphia. 1. It is impossible not to perceive that Hopkinsianism is the grand error aimed at in that letter. They declare in the same letter that there never was but one Socinian Society within the bounds of the Synod, and it could not be thought necessary to send a circular letter to all the congregations in the Synod, and, in fact, to all the continent, on account of one Antitrinitarian Society. An act so official and formal, for a single congregation, and that, perhaps, a very small one, would scarcely appear decorous. As to Arianism, it is doubtful whether they have an individual of that heresy in all their bounds. They certainly have not a congregation of that order. Nor did I ever know till now, nor was there ever a solitary instance, as I have heard, of any public body, in the United States, publishing a formal denunciation of Arminianism as heresy. The term Arminian is variously used and understood, and is applied to various shades of difference, from Arminius, the founder of the sect. Few, if any, of the protestant churches have chosen to censure Arminianism as a damnable heresy ; and it has never been done, before the present instance, in this country. The Philadelphia Synod seem to have forgotten that very large and respectable bodies of Christians, in our own country, such as the Episcopalians, Methodists, and several others, are usually denominated Arminians. All these they have condemned, in the severest and strongest terms, as heretics; have held them up to public odium and abhorrence. Whatever that Synod may think, I cannot but esteem them Christian churches, comprising many members of great piety, and having many divines of distinguished eminence. It has pleased God to make the church of England, or the nation professing that faith, the grand barrier of the Protestant cause in Christendom for ages past, and many of their divines are among the brightest ornaments of the church of Christ; God forbid that I should call them, or think them, heretics. 2. Had this language been held in some anonymous publication; had it appeared in the writings of some individual, as his own private opinion; had it appeared in a public journal; had it been delivered in a sermon from the desk, the individual might have been thought overheated in his zeal, and carried beyond the bounds of his own cool reason. But what is it? In what form does it meet our eye? It is the act of a great number; the act of professed ministers of Christ and ambassadors of God; it is the act of an ecclesiastical court, the central Synod of the union; it is in the nature of a law, or rule, and set as a precedent for all other ecclesiastical courts, and for all future time. 3. It condemns, at one stroke, an immense body of Christians in New-England, where, it is well known, this strain of sentiment prevails almost universally, and that whole body, in its various sections, are amicably represented in the general assembly; and their representatives, from year to year, set on the same seats by the side of members of this Synod. Moreover, the assembly is, also, represented in the various conventions, or associations, of the New-England churches, whenever they assemble. But this would be a small consideration in comparison with another: Many ministers and churches, who actually belong to the general assembly, perhaps one third, perhaps one half, are full in this strain of doctrine, and are condemned as heretics by this pastoral letter. 4. The sentiments usually denominated Hopkinsian were never considered as heresy by the founders of the Presbyterian church in America, nor by the wisest and ablest divines who differed with them, in any subsequent period, in Europe or America. Nothing was ever further from their thoughts than any idea of making them at all a breaking point in church communion and fellowship. Candidates for the ministry were never impeded in their progress, or censured for holding them. Ordination, or licensure, was never refused to a man who professed them, nor was any bar laid in the way of his acceding to any vacant church which had given him a call. Names, suf ficient to fill this paper, are now in my recollection of ministers and licentiates coming from New-England, and settling within the bounds of the general assembly, who are full in these sentiments; and of ministers and licentiates going from the bounds of the general assembly, to settle in the congregational churches of New-England. No test, abjuration, or oath of purgation, has ever been imposed or taken in either case; no dark suspicions or jealousies; no whisperings or calumnies resorted to in the general operation of these removals in this wide extent of country. The trustees of Princeton College did not start and shudder with horror at Jonathan Edwards when they called him to the high and honourable station of president, although the heresies of his sentiments had been long promulgated and known. But I shall not descend to names, otherwise I might introduce a list of great length and equal respectability, which might have cooled this fervid ebullition of ecclesiastical censure and proscription. 66 HERE 5. The measures taken by the Synod of Philadelphia are pregnant with mischief, misery, and ruin; and, all circumstances considered, I question whether the annals of the Christian Church afford a greater instance of rashness, imprudence, impolicy, or injustice. Do they, indeed, imagine that this watchword will be taken from them, and that all the Synods in this connection will ring with this dreadful denunciation, SY, and the means by which, if it were possible, the enemy of souls would deceive the very elect?" What are we to expect next, provided this Synod act in character with their sentence and injunction? What is the rule of the everlasting gospel? "A heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject." What is to be the regular operation of this business, provided all who differ from Hopkinsianism shall condemn it as heresy ? Individual members are to be hurled out of churches; churches are to be rent with disputes and divisions, and some of them severed from Presbyteries; Presbyteries are to be turned out of Synods, and Synods divided; and, by this time, what becomes of the Assembly itself? Its full orb will wane, and present a fading and sickly crescent; "will become a proverb and by-word, a reproach and astonishment" to all mankind. 66 And what impression will this measure make on the public mind? How will it appear to this young and rising nation, whose struggles for her own independence and freedom are not yet forgotten? How will it strike at the feelings of the great and highly respectable fraternity of the Episcopal institution, who are carelessly anathematized as heretics, merely for a handsome pretext to lengthen out the rod over their shoulders to reach others? For it is not to be doubted that that form of speech, "Arians, Socinians, Arminians," &c., was resorted to merely to make the bundle of heretics as huge as possible, that, by a kind of indiscrimination, the censure, the single censure on the heads of the Hopkinsians might not seem solitary and partial; in short, that it might appear one sweeping stroke at all heresy. But I asked, in a former paragraph, whether we were to understand this as the voice and sentiment of the fathers and counsellors of the Presbyterian church. I rejoice to say, for the honour of my country, and for the religion I profess, that nothing is farther from it. I recognise, in this act, the features of some fierce and furious spirits, who, in an inauspicious hour of darkness and incaution, gained so much the ascendant in that body as to procure this abortion of a Bull, who has faintly roared once, and will never be heard again. I have no doubt that its authors, ere this, do, even in their closets, shudder before the bar of public sentiment; that they, severally and individually, wish that, at that moment, they had been a day's journey from that Synod, and employed in a manner, if it would not promote, that would not endanger the prosperity and existence of the church. INVESTIGATOR. DEDICATION TO THE THIRD SERIES. TO THE LEARNED, AND LONG-LIVEd, JOHN DOE AND RICHARD ROE, ESQUIRES. GENTLEMEN, It is well known that every artist and handicrafts-man is desirous of having his work approved, both as a source of emolument and reputation. This principle operates, probably, with greater force on the minds of authors than any other class of men. For, aside either of profit or reputation, with which most writers have little to do, there is a great pleasure in knowing, that we have power to engage the attention of gentlemen of learning and leisure, or ladies of beauty and fortune, even though they may dislike our productions. To know that our works circulate through the finest parlours, where the pictures of heroes and princes, nobles and beauties, may gaze silently upon them;-to know that they sometimes repose on the marble, beneath mirrors of the greatest value and purest reflection, by which their number is doubled, or on the purple sofa with the lap-dog, whence they may be lifted with the fairest hand, and their titles read, though their leaves are never turned over, or, perhaps, on the elegant piano, mingled with leaves of musick, where, had they but ears, they might hear strains sweeter than the harp of Orpheus, or the melting voice of Sappho; and thence come to their long quietus, behind the folding glasses of the book-case, where they enjoy perpetual and dignified repose, till, overhaled by executors, the ministers of the dead, and, perhaps, go thence to auction; this, I say, Gentlemen, is food to the innocent and noble ambition of writers. And even at the auction, honour still pursues them: for, perhaps, the auctioneer holds up a book, and says to the admiring rabble," Here, Gentlemen, here is a book from the select library of Lord Mumble: see it-the leaves are as bright as though they had never seen the sun." And, perhaps, Jack Fribble bids it off, and, without tarnishing its pure |