INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

TO THE

CONGREGATIONAL CLERGY OF NEW-ENGLAND.

REVEREND FRIENDS,

THE work of the Ministers of the Gospel is not confined to the limits of their parishes: they are appointed, not merely to preach Christ to the people intrusted to their care, but are also "set for the general defence of the Gospel." They, as individuals, are constituted guardians of the public faith, as well as Pastors of the particular churches and congregations over which they are placed. It devolves on them to "walk about Zion, to tell the towers thereof, mark well her bulwarks, and consider her palaces;" to extend a watchful eye over her general interests, to detect and arrest the intrusions of error, guard her purity, and defend her liberties.

This duty is imposed especially on the Congregational Clergy in their individual capacity. Their churches have not, like the Presbyterian and Episcopal, adopted a common Confession of Faith, as a standard of orthodoxy; nor established a common Judicatory, to which those who depart from the faith once delivered to the saints, are amenable. A large proportion of their churches are entirely independent of the others, and at liberty to embrace any system whatever of doctrine, and adopt any peculiarity of rites, without subjecting them. selves to the interference of any judicatory, or the sacrifice of any immunity. Their representative assemblies have no power to enact authoritative laws respecting the faith, rites, and government of their churches; nor to pronounce authoritative decrees of excommunication, or disfranchisement.

They are not invested with executive power. Their voice is only advisory and monitory; and their decisions must be ratified by individual churches, in order to become law.

Thence, the task of correcting abuses and repressing error devolves on the clergy individually, in their private capacity; and the press is the chief medium of accomplishing it. Nor is this the least important duty which their office assigns them. The dignity and influence of religion depend on her purity. Error in doctrine is the worst species. of irreligion; for it attacks religion herself, and endeavours to conquer her dominions by annihilating her truth. The multitude embrace the views of Christianity which are inculcated by their teachers; and if those views are fraught with error, it soon develops itself in practice. The consciences of men are not often more, they are ordinarily less, rigorous than their creeds.

Erroneous exhibitions of Christianity do more than any thing else to create and strengthen her enemies. Explore the origin of the rancour with which her modern opposers have persecuted her; you will perceive it was excited, in no small degree, by the ridiculous rites, the absurd doctrines, and the intolerance and tyranny with which the folly and impiety of men had disfigured her. Search for the cause of the disrespect and prejudice with which she is viewed by many of the intelligent and influential in our country; you will discover that they have been awakened extensively by the distorted views of her which those individuals have been called to contemplate. Robbed of her dignity and consistency by the admixture of what is contradictory, ridiculous, intolerant, and weak, they have not been inspired with that reverence toward her, her native majesty is adapted to awaken; nor yielded her the confidence her unsullied truth is fitted to command.

Erroneous exhibitions of the Gospel encourage its enemies in their opposition. Its enemies identify the true Gospel with those pretended exhibitions of it. They regard their whole aversion to it as just, because they are justified in rejecting the errors appended to it; and when they triumph over those errors, flatter themselves that they have gained a victory over the Gospel itself. Had the Gospel never been taught but in its purity, we persuade ourselves, that Christendom had never been the scene of persecution since the primitive ages of the church; the world had never witnessed the war of modern infidelity; nor our country exhibited the deplorable spectacle of so large a portion of those who are first in intelligence, station, and influence, standing in the ranks of the indifferent, the unbelieving, and the contemptuous. The ministers of the cross, therefore, discharge one of their most sacred and momentous duties, when, in the "meekness of wisdom," they expose and arrest the deviations from truth, to which every age gives birth : and they make their happiest efforts to adorn the walls of Zion with salvation, and her gates with praise, when they labour to bring all into the "unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God."

And the clergy of New-England have not, ordinarily, been negligent to discharge this duty. Her churches have enjoyed a ministry more intelligent, more pious and vigilant, and exerting a more powerful and salutary influence, than those, during the same period, of any other section, not only of our own country, but of the world. Her first ministers possessed more of the apostolic character than modern ages have often seen. The venerable Edwardses, Bellamy, Smalley, Lathrop, the illustrious Dwight, Strong, and several others, would have added strength to any church, and honour to any na

tion. Her clergy have done more than all Christendom beside, to advance our knowledge of those subjects in theology to which they have devoted their peculiar attention. Edwards instructed the divines and philosophers of Europe on the subject of the freedom of the will; and many treatises have been presented by them to the world, which, for philosophical accuracy, force of argumentation, and ardour of piety, are not surpassed by the publications sent forth during the same period by any division of the Church. And no inconsiderable part of their works has been polemical, and specifically designed to counteract the errors with which the churches around them were infested. Such were some of President Edwards's, most of Bellamy's, Dr. Edward's, part of Smalley's, Dwight's, and those of others; and more recently, the Unitarian controversy has called forth several publications from the orthodox, honourable to their authors, and worthy of the churches which they represent.

The intelligence, the vigilance, the promptitude, to meet and check the encroachments of error, for which the clergy of New-England have been distinguished, have excited the hope and expectation that the subject of this Review would, ere this, have aroused to attention, and called forth to controversy, some one of their number, more competent to its refutation, and, from a proximity to the scene of its publication, more immediately interested in it than ourselves. We know not whither to look for the cause, that so novel, and, in our apprehension, so heterodox and pernicious a doctrine, should have so long been permitted to be taught and diffused, almost without an effort to develop. to the churches its character, and arrest its progress. Whether the individuals, on whom the task of opposing it would properly have devolved, have

been diverted from it by other controversies, of which that section of New-England has been the scene; or have been withheld from it by respect for the talents and piety of its author; whether they have been deterred from it by the hope that the truths which are intermingled, and taught in connexion with it, would intercept its dangerous tendency; by the apprehension, that its absurdity would prove a sufficient obstacle to its prevalence and permanency; or whether other causes, in conjunction with these, have hitherto prevented its being subjected to the ordeal of public controversy, which is usually the lot of novelties and innovations, we are at a loss to decide. That it has not arisen from the popularity of the theory we are certain. We cannot but regret, that some one has not appeared to controvert it, both that we might have been released from the task, and that the churches might have enjoyed an earlier and more able vindication of the truth.

We have deemed it our duty, however, to present to the public our views of its erroneousness, and to solicit to them the serious attention, especially of you, Reverend Friends, the Congregational Clergy of New-England, who are set to guard the faith of the churches, and to whom we must look for co-operation, in endeavouring to give supremacy to the truth as it is in Jesus.

We cannot but regard it as claiming your most solemn consideration. Is it safe for the church to slumber, while even the most harmless errors are diffusing their influence? And allow us to ask, whether this theory, if our views of its erroneousness are correct, is not fraught with an alarming share of danger to the cause of the Redeemer ? How had it been viewed had it come from the hands of Antinomians, Unitarians, or Infidels? Would it