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contempt; and it would be easy, were it consistent with our Saviour's rules of Christian contention for the truth, to encounter him with his own weapons. But it is not. Besides, our present circumstances, and past polemical habits forbid us to make use of insult in the place of argument. When we received his pamphlet, and read it, a beloved child was dying beside us. After the caption of this article was written, we followed that child to the grave; and have resumed the pen, with a full conviction that death, judgment, and eternity, are before us. We write from an earnest desire to promote a knowledge of the truth, for our own happiness, the welfare of our fellowmen, and the glory of God. Our opinions may be erroneous; but we think them correct; and will thank any man to expose any contrariety in them to common sense, or the Bible. If our antagonists should have a little playfulness of wit in their compositions, we should like them the better, and should think their writings likely to be read, even by some who hate metaphysics.

In reference to our polemical habits, we ask, when have we treated any one of our Hopkinsian opponents with personal abuse, or contempt? It has been thought by some, doubtless because they were suspicious of our motives, that we intended some irony, when we styled Dr. Hopkins, "the Saint of Newport:" but never have we thought the term Saint a reproach, nor have we ever associated with those who use it as such. We verily thought, and still think, Dr. Hopkins was a holy man; and we have carefully exonerated him from the legitimate consequences of his own doctrines, and from a multitude of "metyphysical speculations which have taken their origin from his writings." We called him the Saint of Newport, because, if we except the pious people of the denomination of Baptists, we deem him the most eminently pious man of the place. Beside himself, if we may believe the testimony of the Doctor, and of others, there were very few apparently godly people in Newport. Yet while we think Dr. Hopkins was personally pious, we must say, that he preached his congregation almost out of existence. It is a notorious fact, that at his death, and even when the Rev. Caleb J. Tenney became his suc

cessor, the church with which he had spent the greater part of a long life, consisted of less than half a dozen communicants, and the congregation of little more than twice that number of people.

The Doctor is reported to have said, (but while we believe it, we cannot vouch for the truth of the report,) that he did not know that his own personal preaching had ever been instrumental in converting a single sinner; but he thought his writings had qualified many other ministers for those labours which had been blessed to the salvation of many.

We hope to meet Dr. Hopkins and the Rev. Mr. Anderson in heaven; but really, we cannot persuade ourselves, that God ever made the peculiarities of Hopkinsianism, the power of God to the salvation of any one. Blessed be God, many good and pious Hopkinsians, and Arminians, preach a great portion of the truth, which is owned of the Lord to the conviction and conversion of their hearers, while he mercifully prevents their peculiar errors from producing all those moral evils to which they naturally tend. The Calvinists too, may have their censurable peculiarities; and if they have, God still will make his gospel, and that alone, the instrumental cause of conversion. " Of his own will begat he us, with the word of truth;" so that we are "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God." James i. 18, and 1 Pet. i. 23.

It is not expedient for us doubtless to glory; but if the Rev. Mr. Anderson could bear with us a little, in this confidence of boasting, we would inform him, that although he despises our youth, yet on the 12th of December, 1804, the author of the Contrast was licensed to preach the gospel; and since that time, has reason to conclude, from their profession of saving faith, and pious deportment, and in not a few instances, from their triumphant deaths, that his preaching has been blessed to the saving conver sion of not less than four hundred persons. This might entitle him to courteous treatment from a brother-minister, of the same section of the visible church to which he belongs, if his writings do not.

The Letters before us are principally employed in at

tempting to answer two brief Notes in the Contrast, relative to the love of being in general, and disinterested benevolence. After giving an account of the meaning of the words disinterested benevolence, Mr. A. observes,

"Nor do I know an unexceptionable writer who uses these words in a different sense.-I do not consider a book lately published by a Mr. Ezra S. Ely, called the Contrast, an exception to this assertion. That production is puerile, uncandid, and in every sense unworthy an answer. And this is the true reason why it has not been answered long since. The men, whose sentiments he has traduced and misrepresented, are men of honourable feelings; and such men as are particular in their choice of an antagonist, as they are in their choice of a bosom friend; and would feel as much above having it said, they have entered the lists with an unworthy opponent, as that they associated with improper characters. I know of more than one answer in manuscript to this Contrast. One of which I hope will be published, merely for the sake of the good people of this country, who have no opportunity of detecting his book: and not with a view of contending with a very child." p. 21.

Once, Mr. Anderson informs us, he thought of answering "Ely's Contrast. But it is more than probable I shall decline it, for reasons that may appear in this answer." p. 9. These reasons, and all of them, we have just transcribed, unless the following sentence contains one. "If Doddridge may be heard, when he is in opposition to such imposing authority as Ezra S. Ely, hear him." p. 15.

Our reply to the Rev. Mr. Anderson is this: no writer but a divinely inspired one ought to be deemed "unexceptionable:"-men of honourable feelings should candidly answer even a puerile and an uncandid production, if it is likely to do harm to good people, from disinterested benevolence to those good people:-and, it is strange, if the Contrast is such a weak work of a very child, as our letter-writer imagines, that it should have attracted general attention; that he himself should have written a pamphlet in reply to a few paragraphs contained in it; that the Rev. Gardiner Spring should have written an octavo volume said to be in answer to the chapter on the Christian Graces, without once naming the Contrast; and that Dr. Worcester, Mr. Holley, and Mr. Wilson, of Providence, besides the authors of certain manuscripts, should all have employ

ed their pens against it; while not less than twenty eminent men have thought it worthy of their defensive aid. That the author of the Contrast has traduced or misrepresented the sentiments of any man he denies, and hereby publicly challenges any man to prove that he has done it. If he has misquoted, let the instances be shown. He knows of but one, and that is not from a Hopkinsian. On 186th page of the Contrast, a sentence is imputed to Dr. Lathrop, which should have been ascribed to Sandeman; a writer not celebrated for his orthodoxy, but who frequently delivers most important truths. The preface to that work contains the following sentences:

"Should any class of men say, that they are impeached in the following work, the writer has forewarned them that he has simply charged to individuals what they have individually written. If any writer has been misrepresented, it will be a matter of regret to the author, when convinced of the fact; and he pledges himself to make, so far as possible, reparation.-No individual of them is charged with supporting every doctrine which appears under the caption of Hopkinsianism.-Hopkins would have recoiled himself from what is now considered the perfection of his system. In like manner, many divines who maintain one or two principles of Hopkinsianism, utterly disclaim the body of divinity with which these members are connected. The writer has no disposition to accuse those persons, whose errors are opposed, of wilfully dishonouring God and his testimony of grace. Neither would he attribute to them the inferences which they disclaim."

Let the Rev. Mr. Anderson show, if he can, that we have violated these honourable principles of all polemical writers of honourable feelings, in any one page of the Contrast, and now when thirty two years of age, we will offer a public apology for the said indiscretion, inadvertency, or puerile misrepresentation, committed when "a very child" of twenty-five.

How old the Rev. Mr. Anderson is, we do not know; nor shall we at present inquire whether he is "a book-making. man,-so modest as we might expect from a young mi nister," or so "kindly affectioned" and "courteous," as we might expect an old minister to be. We think him pious, and charitably conclude, that he thought it would be do ing God service to vaunt over us, a little as Goliah did over the stripling of Israel. We will, therefore, very

briefly examine some of his metaphysical, and as he thinks, scriptural peculiarities; to ascertain whether they are of the God of truth or not.

He asks, "is God the author of sin?"-and answers, "no." But mark the meaning which he attributes to the word author. It is such, we verily believe, as no man ever thought of attributing to it before him. "By author, I choose to understand an agent, whose agency directly and immediately produces an effect or event of any kind, the nature of which he approves." p. 4. Approbation of a thing done, then, is requisite to constitute an author of that thing! A potter forms an earthen vessel, just as he chose to fashion it; but having done it, he does not approve of it, and therefore, he was not the author of it! A man in the enmity of his soul, writes blasphemous expressions against God, but the instant he has finished. them, he is convinced of sin, and does not approve of what he has just done; therefore, he did not do it! Now, if a being is not the author of any thing of which he does not approve, it will follow, that when he ceases to approve of any of his past works, it will become true, that he never was the author of those works. It will follow too, that if God should by his direct and immediate agency produce sin, WITHOUT APPROVING OF ITS NATURE, however he might approve of it as the occasion of glorifying himself, he would not be THE AUTHOR of that sin. We affirm, that it is immaterial whether the effect produced be approved or disapproved, when we enquire into the nature of authorship; for an author of any effect is that being who, by the exertion of his agency produces it.

Of sin, we are glad to find that Mr. A. makes man the author, in some sense, even while he appears to make God the author, in another."Sin," he tells us, "is in the exercises, volitions, or tempers of the heart. Hence, it is evident, that there can be no agency between the exercise of the human heart and sin, to produce the sin. Then sin belongs to the sinner entirely; it is his own act and deed; and no other being's in the universe." p. 5. If by heart he means the whole soul, and under its exercises includes thoughts and actions, as he must feelings

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