self to be unregenerate may lawfully administer baptism."

5. "Unregenerate persons might lawfully come to the passover, so to the Lord's supper, if they have knowledge to discern the Lord's body.”

6. "It is lawful for unregenerate persons to give testimony to Christ's death. They need to profess what Christians do."

7. "There is no certain knowledge, who has sanctifying grace." 8. "The opposite doctrine, [i. e. that none but the regenerate may come to the Lord's table] hardens man in impenitency."

9. "If unregenerate persons may not come, those who do must have assurance."

10. "No other country neglects the ordinances as they do in New England."

It will be seen that this whole argument is inferential, and much of the data mere supposition.

In 1708, Dr. Increase Mather published a reply to this sermon, which, not having seen, we have made a skeleton of his argument from Stoddard's answer.

1. These sentiments are contrary to many express passages of Scripture. Matt. xxii, 11 and 12; 1 Cor. xi, 27-29; Ezek. xliv, 7 and 9; Levit. vii, 20.

2. Unsanctified men are not fit materials for a church and therefore not for the Lord's supper.

3. When unsanctified persons come to the Lord's supper, they meddle with that they have no right to. 4. If unregenerate persons may come in order to be converted, there would doubtless be some promise urging them to come for this reason.

5. If the Lord's supper be a converting ordinance, then profane persons ought to be admitted.

6. It is an opinion contrary to the practice of primitive churches, and opposed to the sentiments of the most eminent reformers, and agrees with Papists and the looser sort of Protestants.

7. If it be impossible for unregenerate persons, while such, to be worthy communicants, then they have no permission from God to commune at all.

This argument of Mather's is direct, manly and unanswerable.

In 1709, Mr. Stoddard published a reply entitled "An Appeal to the Learned," or a vindication of the right of visible saints, or persons whose outward conduct is good, to the Lord's supper, though they be destitute of a saving work of God's Spirit upon their hearts. He complains in his appeal, that his sentiments had been misunderstood. Dr. Mather said the question was, "whether God required unsanctified persons while such to come to his table, and whether the church may admit to communion those, who are not in the judgment of charity, true believers ?" Mr. Stoddard said the true question with him was, "whether sanctifying grace is necessary to the lawful attending upon the Lord's supper ?” This is a distinction without a differ

ence.

The "Appeal to the Learned," was a small 18mo. of 98 pages, divided into three parts,-(1.) A reply to Dr. Mather; (2.) To Baxter, Vines and Charnock; and (3.) eleven "direct arguments" to prove that sanctifying grace is not necessary to church-membership. The first five arguments and the ninth are the same he gave in the sermon. The remainder are the following.

6. "Unsanctified men may attend other ordinances, and duties, and therefore the Lord's supper."

7. "Some unsanctified persons are in external covenant, and therefore may come to the Lord's supper."

8. "If it is lawful for some unsanctified persons to carry themselves as saints, it is lawful for them to attend the sacrament of the Lord's supper."

10. "Those that convey to their Children a right to the sacrament of

The churches that became Stoddardean, altered their by-laws, but not their creed or covenant. The alteration made in the rules of one church will serve as a specimen of the change that took place in all.

"At a church meeting holden in Westfield, Feb. 25th, 1728, voted, that those who enter full communion, may have liberty to give an account of a work of saving conversion or not. It shall be regarded by the church as a matter of indifference."

In consequence of this change in the by-laws, many persons absented themselves from public worship and communion. When they were called to an account for breach of covenant, they assigned as their reason, that the church denied the power of godliness," and "admitted per sons to the communion that had no grace." In these times of difficulty, some of the churches from time to time observed seasons of fasting and prayer. The disaffected members were in many cases the most devoted and spiritual members. They met by themselves on the Sabbaths, and were called separates. This new doctrine was very offensive to them. Some however, who were opposed to these new measures, remained in the church, and facts show that they took the wisest course. Those that remained were the means, in some cases, and probably in all, of bringing the church back to the true doctrine. The history of the church in East Granville, is a clear illustration of what we have said. It seems to have been saved by the prayers and personal influence of a mother in Israel.

Many of those who separated from the churches were afterwards excommunicated. They became, almost as a matter of course, bitter opposers of Congregational churches. Their children hearing so much said against the churches from which their parents had departed, or had

tical-some embraced universalism, and some turned to infidelity.

These separates in many of the towns in old Hampshire, became the nucleus of Baptist churches, none of which existed in this region, until after the events we have mentioned, took place. Stoddardeanism prevailed in this region fifty years. A death blow was given to it by the controversy that grew out of the publication of "Edwards's Humble Inquiry." It declined from the time of his dismission, until it was num. bered with opinions that had been.

It may be interesting to some, and useful to all, to record a few facts in reference to this controversy. The people of Northampton were very anxious that Mr. Edwards' book should be answered. Two or three persons, who were applied to, declined the undertaking; but in 1751, Rev. Solomon Williams, of Lebanon, Ct., a relative of Edwards, published a reply, in which he exhibited more zeal than logical acumen. In 1752, Mr. Edwards published. a rejoinder, entitled "Misrepresentation corrected, and truth vindicated," 8vo. 166 pages. This silenced Mr. Williams. It was an able and manly defense of an important truth.

The next publication on the subject, which we have seen, was written by Rev. Jacob Green, and published in 1768. It is an able and interesting essay, and worthy of being read by every theological student. It was the aim of the writer to prove from the Bible, that the members of the Jewish church were not admitted as unregenerate, or wicked persons; a point which the Stoddardeans took for granted. Mr. Green showed that persons were not born into the Jewish church by natural generation, but were admitted because they seemed to have love to God in their hearts. If after they entered into covenant, they lived wicked lives,

Residence unknown to the writer.

they were cast off, and in effect excommunicated. God treated the Jews, not according to their real character in his sight, but according to the appearance of grace and goodness they exhibited in their daily walk and conversation. Mr. Stoddard maintained that unregenerate men were admitted to the passover as unregenerate, and that the ordinance was to the Jew a means of grace. He then drew a parallel between the passover and the Lord's supper, and inferred from it, that the unregenerate, known to be such, might come to the table of the Lord, as a means of conversion. Mr. Green's book is an able refutation of this fundamental proposition of Stoddardeanism.

The next pamphlet that appeared was written by the Rev. Moses Mather, of Middlesex, now Darien, a part of Stamford, Ct. It was pub. lished in 1769; it was an 8vo. of 60 pages, entitled, "The visible church in covenant with God." It was against the Edwardean view of the question. The author of it may be regarded as a volunteer, who came forward to take the place of Williams, defeated. The main position of the book is this, that the cove nant which God made with man is two-fold, the external and the internal. The external covenant is the outward or visible profession of religion, and the internal the consecration of one's self to the service of God in regeneration. He asserted that a person may enter into the external covenant, who has never been regenerated, and that the performance of the duties of the external covenant is the means to be used, to secure the blessings of the covenant of grace.

Rev. Joseph Bellamy, D. D., replied to Mr. Mather, in a pamphlet of 80 pages, which was published in 1769. In this essay, he showed that there is but one covenant, and that

"the idea of an external graceless covenant, is unscriptural."

During the same year, 1769, Mr. Mather published an answer, consisting of 84 octavo pages. In the preface he says, "When I received Dr. B.'s book, written with a professed design to show that my sentiments were unscriptural, I expected to meet with an attack upon the reasons I had offered in support of the scheme; but upon reading it, I found myself disappointed; he has played off, and has not even essayed to confute a single argument. He has only given my scheme the bad name of a graceless covenant, and has wholly misrepresented my sentiments."

To this, Dr. Bellamy replied in a volume of 186 pages, which by the carelessness of the printer is without date, and thus the controversy ended. Dr. Bellamy was much the strongest man, and had the best side of the argument. The warmth of feeling elicited in this debate, may be learn. ed from the fact, that the last two disputants wrote and published in about a year, 410 pages, 8vo.

Thus it appears that a single sermon, and a little book about equal in quantity to two sermons, infused an error into the churches of old Hampshire county, and into other parts of New England, which harrassed the churches fifty years, and required many volumes from such men as Edwards, Bellamy and Green, to eradicate. It drew many good men out of the church, made their children sceptics in religion, and prepared the way for introducing into this region Baptist churches. The effects of this heresy are distinctly seen at the present time.

Let good men, and all who can exert an influence upon the public mind, be careful what sentiments they inculcate. In a little while they may do an incalculable amount of mischief.

HISTORY is a record of the thoughts of men. And herein consists its great value. That fifty thousand men, marching from the west, encountered fifty thousand men marching from the east and destroyed one half of them, and dispersed the other half, may be an indisputable fact; and the transaction may have been eloquently described; but who is at all the wiser, for the knowledge of such a fact? If we are to learn any thing from the past, that will aid us in directing human affairs, and advancing human happiness, we must learn it by studying the thoughts of men-those thoughts that have been the germs and irresistible agents of all great transactions. The most important revolutions have been virtually decided by the thinking of thoughts and the grasping of great principles in energetic minds, before a bayonet was fixed, or a banner unfurled. It was a thought that accomplished the American revolution. It was a thought that gave being to the commonwealth in England. It was not strength in their muscles, nor fire in their blood, but it was a great idea in their souls, that gave to twelve thousand men under the Parliament at Naseby, the victory over an equal number of their countrymen under the king.

To a philosophical mind, there fore, that searches into the causes of things, there is ten-fold greater in terest pertaining to the place where men think great thoughts, than to the place where they fight great battles. In the national life of England's stormy day, Westminster Hall was the throbbing heart, while Dun

History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. By the Rev. W. M. Hetherington, author of the "History of the Church of Scotland," "Minister's Family," &c. New York: Published by Mark H. Newman, 199 Broadway, 1843.

bar and Worcester were but the vigorous pulsations of distant arteries. There was more thought, and therefore more power, in the Assembly, than even in the Parlia ment, by which it was constituted. The doings of that Assembly, therefore, not only deserve a place in the history of that most important period, but they reveal the very soul of all the other great transactions of the time. Westminster Hall was the birth place of great thoughts; and those thoughts have been attaining stature, from a fearful, almost supernatural vitality, down to this day.

There are certain periods when the human mind makes great progress in the development of truth, by the promulgation of which soci ety is enabled to take a higher stand in the scale of improvement-when important principles, which have. been gradually unfolding themselves to individual minds, and silently making their way into the heart of a nation, are at length openly avowed, and are suffered to set up their claim to authority over the intellect and conscience of men, and vindicate that claim against the stern rebuffs of long enthroned error. These periods are the Waterloos and Bunker Hills of intellectual and spiritual warfare; where the forces, that have been long gathering from far distant hills and hamlets, and marshalling themselves for the battle, meet at last in the deadly onset, and on the issue of one tremendous conflict, stake the doom of millions.

Such a period of time was that, in the course of which the Westminster Assembly was called to act its part. One hundred and nine years previously to that time, Henry the Eighth quarrelled with the Pope about the arrangement of his domestic relationships, and finding the Pope, for once, committed to the side of right,