As to distilled spirits, we are all agreed that the right to use them as a beverage does not, and never did exist. We have no warrant from Scripture to that effect. The testimony of the most competent judges, and their effects when used as a beverage, unitedly demonstrate that they are every way unfit for use as one of the aliments of the human body. The unqualified and absolute obligation to put them away, may be asserted without scruple. A pledge to that effect can be made with perfect safety, for it will not, directly or indirectly, nearly or remotely, impinge on any article of faith, or rule of duty.

Lest any one should infer that we have given an undue prominence to one side of the question about fermented liquors, and that what we have said on the lawfulness of using pure wine may be perverted to a bad end by those who desire a cloak for their luxury and excess, we distinctly and emphatically declare, that out of regard to those who are in danger of falling a prey to drunkenness by means of wine and other fermented liquors, as well as by distilled spirits, WE THINK IT TO BE OUR DUTY, AS WHOLESOME

MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY AND AS CHRISTIANS, TO ABSTAIN FROM ALL FERMENTED DRINKS AS A BEVERAGE. But in order that our example in this case may be blameless on all sides, we deem it of special importance to state, without ambiguity or concealment, the grounds of our belief and practice. We would not confound things that differ, nor sanction opinions which militate against the perfection of the word and ordinances of Christ, or which expose the temperance system to the contempt of judicious and experienced men.

Having in this manner, as we hope, foreclosed all objections drawn from the sacred Scriptures on the intrinsic lawfulness of using pure wine, on all proper occasions, we cannot close this address without lifting our warning voice against the gross wresting of the Scriptures by "unstable men"" to their own destruction," which so fearfully prevails. Under cover of the Bible, as they most profanely pretend, how many there are, in the circles of wealth and fashion, as well as among multitudes of our youth, who are rioting in 66 excess of wine!" Without all contradiction, immense quantities of counterfeit liquors are freely made, and sold, and drank, which are more deadly than even unadulterated spirits. No man is safe from the poison of the drugged and counterfeit wine, ale and cider, who drinks at all at the bar

of taverns, or who sends his vessel to be filled at most of the wine-selling shops. At this juncture we are called upon to beware of every thing of the kind. Persons in health will suffer no inconvenience from the disuse of fermented liquors altogether. The cases wherein they are necessary are so few, and the amount required so small, that by a little painstaking they may be procured in a pure state, and all danger and offence be avoided.

We flatter ourselves that the foregoing views will be acceptable to the great body of sober and benevolent men in our State. Let us then cultivate harmony, and with united hearts and hands go forward with our great and necessary work, looking unto God," the giver of every good and perfect gift," for his presence, protection and blessing. In behalf of the committee, N. HEWIT, Chairman.

Bridgeport, Oct. 9th, 1836.

ART. V.-REVIEW OF DR. Griffin's SERMONS.

By Rev. JOHN WOODBRIDGE, D. D., New Hartford, Conn.

Sermons by the late Rev. Edward D. Griffin, D. D., to which is prefixed a Memoir of his Life, by William B. Sprague, D. D., Minister of the second Presbyterian Church in Albany. Volume I. and II., New York. Published by John S. Taylor, Theological and Sunday School Bookseller, Brick Church Chapel, 1839.

We have been refreshed by these volumes. The beau tiful portrait, the diary, the incidents narrated, the style, the spirit, the weighty truth, the not unfrequent cogency of argument, the pungent application, and the sweet, tender and powerful eloquence of numerous passages, have called forth many a tear, many an ejaculation of gratitude, from the vivid recollection they have awakened of one whom we have long venerated, and whose memory we love to cherish, among the most dear and hallowed of our associations. We could almost fancy ourselves in company with the honored dead, soothed by his gentle tones, comforted by his sympathy, instructed by his wisdom, charmed by his illustrations of evangelical subjects, as though we listened to some seer

of the olden time, and carried now to the foot of the cross, and now to Pisgah's top, in the effusions of his affectionate heart before that throne of grace, which was for so many years his loved retreat and resting place. Dr. Griffin was, we confess, one to whom we felt the strongest partiality of friendship-whose countenance, when lighted up with a smile, cheered us like a serene summer's sky-whose warm-hearted welcome seemed like a father's to a son, and whose faithfulness, amidst all the fickleness and dishonesty of a moneyloving, honor-seeking generation, we never found the smallest occasion even to distrust. There was in him something -perhaps it was a nobleness of disposition, a disinterested magnanimity, or the reverse of every thing like bye-ends in his professions of regard-which attached his friends to him, as with hooks of steel, or which rather fixed them, spellbound, in a circle of mysterious influence, that they had as little will as ability to overleap. Like other persons of great strength of character, and individuality of feeling, he had his enemies. His motives were often misunderstood; his actions were misinterpreted; he was sometimes made an offender for a word; yet we believe that the time is near when there will be but one opinion among evangelical men respecting his great worth, and the high intellectual rank he deserved to hold among his contemporaries.

The following facts coucerning this great and good man, we learn from the interesting memoirs prefixed to his Sermons, by the Rev. Dr. Sprague, who has himself acquired no mean reputation among the writers and preachers of our country.

EDWARD DORR GRIFFIN, was born at East Haddam, Connecticut, January 6, 1770. His father, GEORGE GRIFFIN, was a wealthy farmer; and his mother, EVE GRIFFIN, whose family name was DORR, and who was niece of the first Governor GRISWOLD, "is said to have been distinguished for her lovely and engaging qualities." Edward was named from his uncle, the Rev. Edward Dorr, of Hartford, who, had his life been spared, would, it is supposed, have furnished his nephew with the means of education. His parents, though they then made no profession of religion, yet designed him for the ministry from his birth, and possessing a constitution which incapacitated him in his youth for severe manual labor, he was kept almost constantly at school up to the time of his entering college.

His preparatory studies were chiefly under the direction. of the Rev. Joseph Vaill, of Hadlyme. In September, 1786, he became a member of Yale College, where he distinguished himself in every department of study, giving unequivocal indications of a commanding and splendid intellect, and where he was graduated in 1790, with the highest honors of his class. During one of his college vacations, he well nigh lost his life, by a fall from a spirited horse, that no one had been able to subdue. All signs of animation were for some time suspended, and his friends supposed that he was actually dead.

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From an account of his religious exercises, which he wrote a short time before his death, he seems to have been the subject of occasional serious impressions in his earliest childhood. "In later life," he observes, "I have often been affected at the condescension of Him who frequently visited a poor, ignorant, wicked child, and forced him into the secret corner to pray. I remember some instances in which my prayers were so earnest that I thought I should prevail, and was determined to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. Once, in a time of sickness, my distress of mind was suc. ceeded by a hope; but I was full of self-righteousness, saying to others, Stand by thyself, I am holier than thou.' I remember that in looking around among those I knew, I could see none whom I would allow to be Christians. They all fell short of the standard which I had erected. With all those motions of conscience, I know not that any person supposed that I was other than a thoughtless, light and playful child." Memoir, p. 3.

He dated his conversion from a time of sickness, with which he was visited, in Derby, Connecticut, where he had previously spent nine months as principal of an Academy. Of these months, preceding the permanent change which took place in his views and affections, he says that they were the "gayest of his life."

He studied theology with Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards, then of New-Haven, and afterwards President of Union College, well known as a divine, and as a most acute disputant. Mr. Griffin united with the Congregational Church in Derby, in the spring of 1792; and was licensed as preacher, by the West Association of New-Haven county, October 31, of the same year. His first sermon was preached November 10, at Hadlyme, in the pulpit of Mr. Vaill. In January followVOL. VI.

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ing, he commenced his labors at New-Salem, a small village about seven miles from his father's house, where a powerful revival began by his instrumentality, and a church was gathered on the spot, in which none had before existed for more than forty years. In that place and in the adjacent parts of East Haddam and Lyme, about one hundred were hopefully added to the Lord.

Thus commenced his career of successful labors in promoting revivals of religion, a work in which he peculiarly delighted, and in which, while he carefully avoided the errors, extravagances and manifold disorders of fanatical excitements, he was enabled by grace to accomplish more than almost any other man of his day. No one had a greater abhorrence than he of the bitterness, superficial views of the gospel, radicalism, and pharisaical ostentation, sometimes connected with extraordinary religious movements; yet he never lost in any measure his conviction of the unspeakable importance of those special seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, those vernal showers of mercy by means of which the garden of Christ is made to assume its richest verdure, and bloom in its fairest beauty. With an exception, in favor of very few persons, we are prepared to concur in the opinion of his biographer, expressed in the following sentence: "The history of his life seems little less than the history of one unbroken revival, and it would perhaps be difficult to name the individual in our country since the days of Whitefield, who has been instrumental of an equal number of hopeful conversions." Vol. 1, pp. 258, 259.

In the early part of June, he commenced preaching in Farmington as a candidate for settlement; and concerning his labors there, we have the following testimony, from the Rev. Noah Porter, D. D., then a member of the society to which Mr. Griffin preached, and now its minister. There are few men whom I remember with more affection than Dr. Griffin. He was the first minister of Christ of whose preaching I have any distinct recollection, or from whom I received any deep and permanent sense of divine things. I was twelve years old when he preached in this town; and I remember his person, attitude, dress, modulations of voice, and some of his texts and illustrations, as though they were presented but yesterday. Simplicity and impressiveness you know were remarkable characteristics of his preaching. All was on a level with the capacity of a child.