spirits; the same in kind, we mean, though perhaps not in force. Do ardent spirits produce intoxication? So do fermented drinks. Do they produce diseases and lead to the grave? So do the others. Do they injure our intellectual and moral faculties? The others also. Do they involve a long train of expense to the individuals and to the nation? The others still more. Look at the soil occupied in producing the material, the time and labor consumed upon them, the fruits and grain destroyed. It is, equally with the other, an unproductive investment of capital and industry. It is a drawing upon the resources of the country, and contributing nothing to its improvement in any form. Let our orchards be converted into grain fields, or let the fruit be given to the cows or swine, to increase the amount of human sustenance: let our barley serve the same purpose: let the farmer, brewer, vintner, turn their labor to profitable production, and they help to reduce the expense of living, and to bring the means of comfortable subsistence within reach of a larger class of the population. In short, I find no single argument against ardent spirit that may not be brought against fermented drinks. And they all apply with still greater force, when it is considered that in proportion as spirits are less used, the others, if they be not both abandoned, will be proportionately more used; so that it will only be a transfer of the evils from one agent to the other. The effects which have heretofore been produced by brandy, rum, and gin, will hereafter be produced by wine, cider, and ale.

even more.

The question then would occur, Should we gain any thing by the change? Now on a comparison of the two, it is probable that we should. Fermented drinks do not burn out the constitution, brutalize the man, and destroy life as rapidly as ardent spirits. Consequently there would be less loss of life or time, labor, and wealth by their means, even admitting the article itself cost as much or We think this sufficient for making and keeping up a distinction between the two classes. But though such are our views, yet there is one thing we assert which is all important to our purpose. It is this, that though there is some difference, yet that difference is so slight it is not worth contending about. They who cite wine and beer-drinking countries in order to prove a very wide distinction, are, we apprehend, under two mistakes. The first regards the amount of intemperance in those countries. This is much greater, in England and France, for instance, according to the accounts of recent travellers, than is generally supposed. The second regards the causes of intemperance. If any difference exist in their favor, it is not so much owing to the article employed, as to the difference which exists between them and us in condition and manners. Let us adopt their drinks, and we shall soon find ourselves much below them in point of ebriety. If, therefore, all the time and toil bestowed upon the work were only to convert us from a nation of brandy topers to a nation of wine bibbers or beer guzzlers,

""Twere like an ocean into tempest toss'd
To waft a feather or to drown a fly."

If, therefore, we do not banish the whole, we might as well abandon the enterprise, and let things take their natural course.

We proceed to notice another topic. On what ground does our obligation to abstain from intoxicating liquors rest? On this point, some difference of opinion exists. On the ground of morality, say some; on that of expediency, say others. Let us observe, here, that whichever be assumed must be applied equally to either class. For it is useless and gratuitous to apply one principle to one class of liquors, and another to the other. Intoxication is the same: the nature and consequences of the act are the same, whether produced by brandy or by porter; and it is useless to judge the agents or the acts by different standards. But the controversy itself is altogether useless, and grows out of a wrong view of the distinction which exists between morality and expediency. The terms do not indicate, any difference in the amount of obligation arising: they only indicate different modes of getting at a knowledge of that obligation. Let us explain. A moral duty I think is used o signify what depends directly on revelation or divine authority; as, "Thou shalt do no murder;" "Drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God." These, therefore, are universally and invariably the same. A duty of expediency is one that we infer by our own reason from circumstances. The latter, therefore, is as variable as the circumstances on which it depends. A thing may be expedient in one time, place, or person, that under other circumstances would be entirely inexpedient. But, whenever a thing is really inexpedient, and proved to be so, to do it would be sin, just as much as though it had been positively forbidden. For instance: God has nowhere forbidden me to eat fruit. But if, on fair trial, I find it injure me, it is as much my duty to abstain as if God had enjoined abstinence. The reason is plain. It makes no difference whether God teach us by revelation, or by the constitution and course of things. All we have to ascertain is, the will of God; and this, once ascertained, is equally binding, in whatever form the knowledge of it may come. Moral and expedient, therefore, seem only to designate the mode of attaining a knowledge of duty, but do not qualify the amount of existing obligation. Now God has nowhere said that I shall not eat meat. Yet the apostle has intimated that circumstances may arise which would make it wrong to eat it: for "if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world standeth," not because it would be malum per se, but morally inexpedient. So God has nowhere said that I shall not take a glass of brandy and water, or drink a glass of wine with a friend. But, if it is proved to my conviction that it is morally inexpedient, I am as much bound to abstain as though positively commanded.

A careful application of this principle.will enable us to decide the contested question, Is it as sinful to drink fermented liquors as ardent spirits? Now, as both rest upon the same ground, and that is expediency, it must depend upon circumstances. If the arguments are equally strong in either case, it is the same; otherwise, it is not. If any man be as fully convinced of the impropriety in one case as in the other, to him the obligation is equal, otherwise not. Here, then, we find a difference. The public is more satisfied on one point than on the other; a larger amount of information and evidence has been brought out on one point, and this makes some difference in individual culpability.. A man is less excusable for VOL. VIII.-January, 1837. 7

drinking spirit, because there is more light thrown upon that branch of the subject. As soon as we can convince men that all the evils which flow from ardent spirits will flow from fermented drinks, unless both be abandoned; as soon as one subject shall take as strong a hold on the public mind as the other, the individual obligation will be alike in both cases. And this is the point which the temperance societies have now to establish.

The same principle may be applied to the sacramental question. If it be doubted whether our Saviour have given any positive decision in the case, we may resort to the expediency. Has the use of wine at the sacrament given rise to as much evil as its discontinuance would produce? Is the necessity so strong as to counterbalance the confusion, the party spirit, the injury in many ways that would arise in the church? Now, for myself, I have never seen sufficient evidence of such necessity; and, from the very nature of the case, particularly if the total abstinence principle generally prevail, such necessity is scarcely possible. That one sip of wine, taken once a month, or once a quarter, should form a habit, should create a passion, is contrary to the laws of habit, is unphilosophical, nay, is absolutely absurd; to say nothing of the security arising from the hallowed associations of the ordinance.

There still remains one point on which we desire to say a word, but in reference to which we feel more delicacy than on any other. Ought temperance societies to incorporate fermented drinks in their pledge of abstinence? If all would agree to it, we should have no difficulty in answering; but we are to take things as we find them, since we cannot make them as we would have them. The question, therefore, is, Would it be judicious to do it at present? The experience of the past is the only light by which we can read the future. And what says the past? Why, that the progress already made has been under the old pledge, which only excluded spirits. There is sometimes as much danger in running too far before public sentiment as in lagging too far behind. Had the old pledge excluded wine and cider, it would have met with little favor or success. It went sufficiently far to accomplish important ends, without going so far as to awaken an opposition that would have crushed it. Meanwhile it has been doing more than was at first proposed or anticipated. Without including the other class by name, it has included them by implication; it has produced strong conviction in reference to them, and, in many cases, led to the entire abandonment. Now, it seems clear that, for the present, at least, it would be better to pursue the same plan. By doing so, many will be brought to take an important step, and be led under an influence that may carry them farther than they intend. More converts will be made to the total abstinence principle, by delaying, for a time, their insertion. By the premature insertion of fermented drinks, the following evils would arise. First, Many individuals would be lost, who may be induced to sign the one, and, by so doing, be led into a course that would probably result in the abandonment of all. Secondly, The friends of temperance would be divided, and would be wrangling among themselves, instead of uniting their force against the enemy. Thirdly, Many members who are not fully convinced, but will, no doubt, become so in a short time, would withdraw, and their coun

tenance and influence would be forfeited. The conclusion, therefore, is, that though the insertion would be desirable, yet it would be premature at present. The públic mind is not prepared for it-even the friends of temperance are not. The better mode, therefore, will be to retain the old pledge, but to keep the total abstinence principle before the mind of the public, and render it as operative as possible. And without making it a term of membership, let as many as can be prevailed on, avow the principle, and, if they will, pledge themselves to its observance. Thus the cause will retain all the force it has, and be constantly gaining more, until the whole may be included with safety, and, finally, the power of public sentiment silence every opposing voice.

ART. VI.-REVIEW OF THE MEMOIRS OF EPISCOPIUS. MEMOIRS Of SIMON EPISCOPIUS, the celebrated pupil of Arminius, and subsequently Doctor of Divinity, and Professor of Theology in the University of Leyden; who was condemned by the Synod of Dort as a dangerous heretic, and, with several other ministers, was sentenced to perpetual banishment by the civil authorities of Holland, for holding the doctrine of general redemption. To which is added, a brief account of the Synod of Dort; and of the sufferings to which the followers of Arminius were exposed, in consequence of their attachment to his opinions. By FREDERICK CALDER. New York. T. Masón & G. Lane, for the M. E.Church. 12mo. pp. 478.

WE Congratulate our church upon the presentation, from our press, of an excellent biography of this eminent pupil of the illustrious Arminius. If there be any thing ennobling in the contemplation of resplendent character, any thing grateful to the feelings in rescuing from undeserved obscurity, or cruel imputations, names to whom the world has long been unjust, or any thing praiseworthy in the gratitude we delight to render to the names of champions, who, in the hour of disgrace, danger, and death, stood forth the defenders of truth and liberty,-dear to our hearts, assuredly, should be the fame of one of the noblest spirits which a land rich in the glory of her sons has produced-SIMON EPISCOPIUS.

Never more painfully than in perusing the biography and works of Episcopius and his compeers, the Arminians of Holland, have we felt how much the literature of the theological world has been under the influence of an Antiarminian partisanship. When we move the glance of our mind's eye along that line of noble characters who held a pure and mild creed, in an age of bigotry and intolerance; who illumined that creed with learning, eloquence, and logic, in a time of prejudice and scholastic jargon, and who shrunk not to attest the pureness of their piety and the loftiness of their faith by years of suffering and deaths of martyrdom, we have cherished the hope that our own denomination, whose creed is the fac simile of that faith for which they suffered, and who may claim, in fact, to be their moral descendants, would redeem the justice of history and enlarge the range of our theological reading, by well executed biographies of their lives, and editions of their works. Their names, were they but redeemed from the dimness which an adverse influence has malignly flung around them, would emblazon

with a new lustre the noblest cause; and the products of their intellects, were they but judiciously used, would constitute an armory of theological equipment, which, in any cause we should expect to be mighty, but in the cause of truth, resistless. We are gratified with the evidence furnished by this and some other works, that, across the water, some competent pens are inclined to lead the way; and we trust that time is not very distant when we shall be prepared not only to receive and appreciate, but to emulate and superadd to the products of their labors.

Episcopius may justly be said to have been the child of troublous times and eventful destiny. Distinguished even when a boy for his precocity of intellect, he was sent by his native city of Amsterdam, as its vesterling or fosterchild, to be educated at the public expense at the celebrated university of Leyden. The university at that time was the seat of theological commotion. James Arminius, the Divinity Professor, then in his prime of life and talents, was reviving and sustaining with all the weight of his "acute wit, solid judgment, and great learning," those doctrines which, though entertained by the Christian Church for the first three centuries, by the purest and noblest spirit of the Reformation, Melancthon, and by the main body of the Lutheran Church, had been supplanted in Holland by the theology of Geneva. By the influence of Arminius the mind of young Episcopius was fascinated, his principles formed, and his future career shaped. The contest at the university which the master sustained against his unsparing adversaries at the expense of an anxious life and an early death, the pupil found too perplexing for endurance; and he was induced to transfer his connection from Leyden to the university of Franeker.

It is curious to remark that, such was the reputation of the youthful scholar, he was awaited at Franeker with public expectation, and his arrival produced a general excitement. The resolution which, by the advice of Arminius, he had formed, to be silent on theological topics, he found it impossible to observe. He was obliged to stand out, “faithful among the faithless," the champion of the tenets of his beloved Arminius, in the then hot bed of ultra Calvinism, not only against his fellow students, but in public debate with his professor, Dr. Sibrand; and it would seem that neither in temper nor in argument was he worsted in the encounter, and Sibrand himself, equally in excuse for himself and compliment to Episcopius, affirmed that, "in point of force of mind and argumentative powers, Arminius was a mere child to him." This, however, was not the candid confession of an ingenuous mind, for Sibrand, worsted in argument, for the purpose of ruining Episcopius, resorted to arts which happily were as unsuccessful as they were infamous.

With laurels untarnished, and perhaps with humility undiminished from these rencounters, Episcopius, having finished his preparatory studies, entered upon the sacred duties of the ministry, in which his talents and piety soon acquired for him a commanding popularity. As if born to contention, from having been an actor in polemic strife, he now became the subject of an amicable contest between the different cities of Bleiswick, Utrecht and Rotterdam, each claiming him as their minister. The strife was, however, settled by his election, at the early age of twenty-nine, to the highest