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might enjoy the noblest felicity in himself before creation. All our feelings, all our observations, all our reasonings, teach us, that society is necessary to the felicity of rational beings. Admitting the simple unity of God, no possible society existed for an eternity before creation. The universe was an infinite solitude. No thought was communicated; no affection was exercised; love and goodness were names unknown. Even now, unless a Trinity exist, Deity enjoys society with none, but worms of the dust, or creatures chargeable with "folly" in his sight. But three persons of the same rank, the same designs, the same characters, may know the most elevated joys of rational society, of various powers, of united designs, of benignity and wisdom.

3. Those, who deny the doctrine of the Trinity, do, in fact, reject the gospel. The Trinity are the three agents in the work of redemption. On these golden pillars rests the whole gospel church. The Father elects to eternal life, the Son redeems, the Spirit sanctifies. All the blessings of the gospel are promised" in the name and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost."

4. From the doctrine of the Trinity, we infer, that those, who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, do not worship the true God. Jesus Christ is evidently one of the three, who constitute the eternal Jehovah. He him. self says, he is one with the Father. In view of his hearers, he made himself" equal" with God. He knew this, and did not attempt to remove the impression.

This was claiming equality with God. So would not Paul, nor Silas, nor any honest man have done. Therefore, he was God. The Father also saith unto the Son, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." He is also in the scriptures of truth, 'explicitly, declared to be "the only wise God, our Saviour." Therefore we are required in another scripture "to honour the Son, even as we honour the Father." Were he not the Almighty God, this would be idolatry; but the scriptures never command idolatry, therefore Jesus Christ is the Almighty God; those, therefore, who deny his divinity, do not worship the true God. They are idolators.

5. Those, who deny the doctrine of the Trinity, merely because it is incomprehensible, show they have no confidence, no faith in God.

Because the doctrine is mysterious and incomprehensible,some persons erase it from the articles of their belief. This proves they have little humility and less faith. It requires no faith to believe what is probable, plain, and evident. In such circumstances we should believe our greatest enemy, the most notorious for falsehood. But we show our confidence in our friends, when we believe them, while they assert things improbable, hard to be understood, and incomprehensible. If we believe God, when he declares his existence, this argues no faith God; we probably believe this on other evidence. The things seen, every bird, and flower, and tree, declare the eternal power and godhead. But when God teaches us that he exists in three

in

persons, this being hard to be understood, tries our confidence and our faith in the truth of God. Those, who have faith in God, will believe him, though he says things surprising, mysterious and incomprehensible. They, who, on this ground, reject this doctrine, would, like Pharaoh, have denied that the judgments of Egypt were wrought by the finger of God; like the Jews they would have denied the miracles of Jesus Christ to be effected by his power, because they were incomprehensible. It is not strange that many reject the doctrine of the Trinity, for all men have not faith.

"Now unto him, who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy; to the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory, and majesty, and dominion, and power, both now and forever." Amen. PHILO.

A SURVEY OF THE CHURCHES IN MASSACHUSETTS.

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

THE cause of the Christian church is, of all causes, the most important. It involves the glory of God our Saviour, and the highest interests of mankind. Accordingly good men esteem that cause above every personal and every worldly advantage. They prefer it above their chief joy. For Zion's welfare they are piously concerned. They -rejoice in its prosperity and glo

ry; they labour and pray for its enlargement, and tenderly mourn over its desolations.

The affection, which good men have entertained for Zion, has led them frequently to survey its moral state, to observe its disorders, and to adopt suitable measures to remove them. All this is only a distant imitation of Zion's King. What a gracious

affection did he manifest to the churches in Asia. What a faithful care did he exercise over them. Those seven churches were planted by his own right hand, and for some time enjoyed his favourable presence. But when John received his revelation in the Isle of Patmos, most of them had lost their first love, had fallen from their primitive sanctity, and forfeited all their privileges. In the excellent epistles, which Jesus condescended to address to them by the hand of John, he noticed with approbation, what was commend. able in them, reproved what was blameworthy, and gave them the encouragement and admonition, which their circumstances required. Should it please the exalted Redeemer to address the churches in New England, especially in this Commonwealth, we have reason to conclude, that his language would not be wholly unlike that, which he addressed to the Asiatic churches. He would certainly find as little to approve, and as much to condemn, as he found there. Not a single erroneous opinion or practice existed among them, which does not, in substance, exist among us. Not a single reproof or warning was given them, which might not with propriety be given to us. They

had no kind of criminality, from which we are free, and were subjected to no evil, of which we are not in danger.

Agreeably to an intimation in the last number of the Panoplist, the writer intends, through the medium of that publication, to address the Christian community on this important subject. He proposes to take a careful, though it must be a very imperfect survey of the general state of our churches, to remark on the most hurtful evils, which prevail in them, and to suggest what things are necessary in order to the prosperity of Zion in this part of the land.

Let us,

Such a design cannot be duly executed without much attention and labour; nor can it be of any general advantage, without the practical concurrence of ministers and churches. Christian brethren, seriously weigh this subject, and hear the exhortation of him, who reigns in Zion; be zealous, therefore, and repent; be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, which are ready to die, PASTOR.

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We are very happy to find, that a subject of vast importance to the prosperity of our churches, and the preservation among us of "pure and undefiled religion," is to be discussed in the future numbers of the Pano

plist. We have full confidence in the talents of the writer who has engaged to execute this business, and earnestly invite the attention of our Christian readers, both of the clergy and laity, to a subject, which the aspect of the times renders deeply interesting to all who are concerned for the welfare of Zion. Communications from our Christian brethren, residing in different parts of New England, and particularly in this Commonwealth,

which may enable the writer to give a particular and accurate view of the present state of our Congregational churches, and hints concerning the best mode of effecting a reformation, will be gratefully received by THE EDITORS.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER,

Dated March 5th, 1806, from e Foreign Correspondent, to one of the Editors of the Panoplist.

As

"In every period of the Christian church, the first step toward licentiousness and irreligion has been the denial of some one of those peculiar doctrines of revelation, which cannot be discovered by the light of nature. soon as these great and important barriers to human pride and wickedness are removed, every species of scepticism is introduced, and mankind are left to believe whatever they please, and are no longer confined to that faith which our blessed Saviour has made essential to salvation.

"In pursuance of this plan, that illustrious and eminently peculiar doctrine of Christianity,

THE DIVINITY OF OUR BLESSED

LORD, has been the first attacked. As soon as this corner stone of our holy religion is removed, the whole beautiful fabric falls at once. So intimately are all the doctrines of Christ connected, that they must stand or fall together. And what God hath joined, who shall dare to put asunder?"

THE IDEA OF AN ETERNAL SUCCESSION OF MEN REFUTED.

Ir is an imagination that frequently enters the minds of men, especially of the young,

that this world may have been eternal, and had an eternal succession of men upon it. As this supposition is inimitably refuted by Dr. Bently, a man who has with much dexterity brushed away all the cobweb subterfuges of atheism, I am induced to copy a paragraph from his valuable work, and send it for insertion in your useful Miscellany.

"The opinion of those Atheists, that will have mankind and other animals to have subsisted eternally in infinite generations already past, will be found to be flat nonsense and contradiction to itself; and repugnant also to matter of fact. First, it is contradiction to itself. Infinite generations of men (they say) are already past and gone. But whatsoever is now past, was once actually present; so that each of those infinite generations was once in its turn actually present: therefore all except one generation were once future and not in being, which destroys the very supposition: for either that one generation must itself have been infinite, which is nonsense: or it was the finite beginning of infinite generations between itself and us, that is infinitely terminated at both ends, which is nonsense as before. Again, infinite past generations of men have been once actually actually present. There may be some one man suppose then, that was at an infinite distance from us now; therefore that man's son likewise, forty years younger suppose than his father, was either at infinite distance from us, or at finite. If that son too was at infinite distance from us, then one infinite is longer by forty years

than another; which is absurd : if at finite, then forty years added to finite makes it infinite, which is as absurd as the other. And again, the number of men that are already dead and gone is infinite as they say. But the number of the eyes of those men must necessarily be twice as much as that of the men themselves, and that of the fingers ten times as much, and that of the hairs of their heads thousands of times. So that we have here one infinite number twice, ten times, and thousands of times as great as another, which is contradiction again. Thus we see it is impossible in itself that any successive duration should be actually and positively infinite, or have infinite successions already gone and past. Neither can these difficulties be applied to the eternal duration of God Almighty. For, though we cannot comprehend eternity and infinity, yet we understand what they are not. And something, we are sure, must have existed from all eternity; because all things could not emerge and start out of nothing. So that if this pre-existent eternity is not compatible with a successive duration, as we clearly and distinctly perceive that it is not; then it remains, that some being, though infinitely above our finite comprehensions, must have an identical,invariable continuance from all eternity; which being is no other than God. For, as his nature is perfect and immutable without the least shadow of change, so his eternal duration is permanent and indivisible, not measurable by time and motion, nor to be computed by number of succes.

sive moments: One day with the Lord, is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

* Vol. I. page 27, of a collection of Sermons preached at the Hon. R. Boyle's Lecture.

Let the reader peruse the foregoing extract, and pause at each link in the chain of argument, and if all is sound and irrefragable, let him never admit for a moment the absurd hypothesis of an eternal succession. C. Y. A.

Selections.

(From the London Evangelical Magazine.) REMARKABLE CONVERSION OF A

FAMILY.

ABOUT the year 1712, a worthy and industrious family, of the name of was settled at C. a village nearly in the centre of

shire. In the parents, a moral character, without reproach, was blended with a strict, and perhaps superstitious, regard to the forms of devotion; but they were totally strangers to the religion of the heart. Their confessions were destitute of penitential sorrow, for they knew not the evil of sin; their petitions were mingled with no ardent desires, for they knew not the need nor the value of divine mercy; their praises were not enlivened by grateful love, for they had never learned to " account all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ." To be honest and sober, and to keep to their church, was all the religion they knew; and they were resolutely deter mined that they and their house would know no other: but God, who is rich in mercy, had determined otherwise.

In a few years the family became numerous; and, though several died in infancy, the parents, by the fruits of their indus

try, trained up six sons and four daughters. It became necessary to provide situations for the sons; and the second of them, about the year 1730, received a proposal to reside at C, a market-town in the same county, with a person of considerable respectability, a member and a deacon of a Dissenting church. The religion of the proposed master formed the only objection to his service: this was over-ruled by other advantages, and the offer was accepted. At the youth's departure to his new situation, his father said to him, "Son, you must now faithfully promise me never to enter the meetinghouse at -: on this condition, you go to your place." The son, without hesitation, accepted the condition, and made the re quired engagement. Fixed in his new residence, he soon reaped, in the confidence of his master, the just reward of his own' diligence. The attachment was mutual; and the youth was surprised to find in a man, whose religion he had been taught to reprobate, virtues which commanded his esteem. In the family too, domestic peace and good order were sustained, and crowned by daily devotion: at which

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