mean to say that the great and general principles of religion and natural philosophy are connected, and incorporated with the results of the principles of mathematics, and that it is not possible for a person whose opinions on the principles of mathematics and their results are definite and unwavering, to conceal or dissemble his views or feelings about politics? All this might be understood, for his grand proposition is, that great and general principles are closely connected: which is of the highest kind of universals rendered so by the removal of all notes of particularity, as logicians tell us. But if great and general principles are connected, then the great and general principles of religion and natural philosophy are connected, and so are those of law and physic. But his second proposition is more extraordinary; for he says, that great and general principles are incorporated with the results of these principles: with a different usque ad, he seems here to mean certain principles he had in his eye, but leaves us to conjecture what; therefore, I substitute mathematics, and it will stand thus: "The great and general principles of religion and natural philosophy are connected and incorporated with the results of the principles of the mathematics." His third proposition is a consequence, viz. “Therefore, it is not possible for a person whose opinions on these principles and results are definite and unwavering to conceal or dissemble his views or feelings." But, reader, does fixedness of opinion, concerning any principles and results, offer any apology for repetition, or render concealment or dissembling impossible? The reader may repress his surprise that I dwell on this matter, for certainly if Stephens, or Bentley, or Scaliger, might give a column on a word in Virgil, I may speculate a little on half a page of this preface, "quod, sine dubio, fuit elaboratum industria, et prefectum ingenio." And I shall make bold to offer this as a specimen of the metaphysics of these people. Now, reader, this whole argument is false. Its premises are not true, and, if they were, the conclusion does not follow: and, if it did, it does not answer the purpose intended by it. In the first place, "great and general principles are not necessarily, nor generally, connected," for, if they are, the construction I

have given above is correct. They may be found in the same subject, but are perfectly distinct and independent. In the second place, they are not incorporated with the results of each other, nor with their own results. These words, so connected, make a flourish, but mean nothing. But in the third place: If it be admitted that all general principles are connected, and their results, vice versa, incorporated together, (a most horrid idea!) and if also admitted, that a man is definite and unwavering in his opinion about them, that is no reason or apology for a repetition of the same thought, much less for not concealing or dissembling his opinions.

How much better would have been the author's apology for a perpetual recurrence of a few ideas, had he said, "The man who moves in a triangle has but three short lines to trace, and three corners to turn?" "O ye Corinthians, ye are straitened in your own bowels!"

INVESTIGATOR.

No. VI.

I HAVE before me the Pastoral Letter of the Synod of Philadelphia, dated Lancaster, September 20th, 1816, of which I give the first paragraph.

"CHRISTIAN BRETHREN,

"The Synod assembled in Lancaster, at the present time, consists of a greater number of members than have been convened at any meeting for many years; and from their free conversation on the state of religion, it appears, that all the Presbyteries are more than commonly alive to the importance of contending earnestly for the faith, once delivered to the saints, and of resisting the introduction of Arian, Socinian, Arminian, and Hopkinsian heresies; which are some of the means by which the enemy of souls would, if possible, deceive the very elect."

The third paragraph runs thus: "May the time never comé, in which our ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS shall determine that Hopkinsianism and the doctrines of our confession of faith are the same thing; or that men are less exposed now, than in the days of the apostles, to the danger of perverting the right ways of the Lord."

People of the union, hear this, and feel what gratitude you owe to a good Providence, which shields your religious rights from the persecuting fury of bigotry and intolerance. The tocsin is now blown, and while Truth grasps her sword, and Charity veils her face, let Vigilance light her lamp, and stand at her threshold.

I had closed this series, and sent it to the press, but this extraordinary letter merits immediate consideration. Shall I dip my pen in ridicule, and expose this transaction in the mock robe it merits? Alas! this cloud of darkness throws every object under a shade too mournful to admit of using the livelier colours.

Do we, then, in this Pastoral Letter, hear the voice and the sentiments of the fathers of the church, the central section of the General Assembly-that august body reared by divine grace, in this free and happy country, and by the special blessing of God grown to a size so majestic, in a time so comparatively short? That Assembly, now spreading its branches to the east and west, to the north and to the south, with the prospect of a boundary that may still expand for ages?

Where are the great and benevolent founders of these Synods, and of this Assembly? Has the angel of heavenly love, and charity, and peace, together with them, taken her flight for ever? Ye spirits of Davies, and Witherspoon, and Finley, of Rodgers and M'Whorter, under whose mild and harmonizing influence this tree was planted, unless removed from all knowledge of its prospects and dangers-from all sympathy with this region of sin and death, can you behold a devouring flame kindled in its central boughs, and not feel a momentary thrill of anxiety?

I cannot but indulge in reflections like these, when I advert to the character, the temper, the spirit, the wisdom of the men, who, under God, were the founders of these religious institutions. I mention these men, not because they were the only

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 fu ture 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