HIS MIRACLES!!! WHERE IS OUR AARON!!!! Alas! no voice from the burning bush has directed them here."

"New-England, if invaded, would be obliged to defend herself. Do you not then owe it to your children, and owe it to your God, to make peace for yourselves. You may as well expect the cataract of Niagara to turn its current to the head of Superior, as a wicked congress to make a pause in the work of destroying their country, while the people will furnish the means.

"Should the English now be at liberty to send all their armies and all their ships to America, and in one day burn every city from Maine to Georgia, your condescending rulers would play on their harps, while they gazed at the tremendous conflagration. Tyrants are the same on the banks of the Nile and the Potomac-at Memphis and at Washingtonin a monarchy and a republic."

"Like the worshippers of Moloch, the supporters of a vile administration sacrafice their children on the altar of democracy. Like the widows of Hindostan, they consume themselves. Like the frantic votaries of Juggernaut, they throw themselves under the car of their political idol. They are crushed by its wheels.'

To raise army after army to be sacrificed, when the English do all which is possible, to soften the rigors of captivity, by kindness to the prisoners which they have taken by thousands and thousands, restoring them to their families without a ransom, and without their request; is it not the lawless attacks of Goths and Vandals, to carry on such a war after its only avowed cause has been removed, the daring pillage of wild Arabs, a vile outrage on all the principles of christianity, an impious abandonment of divine protection."

"The legislators who yielded to this war, when assailed by the manifesto of their ANGRY CHIEF, established iniquity and murder by law."

"Our government, if they may be called the government, and not the destroyers of the country, bear all these things as patiently as a colony of convicts sail into Botany Bay!!!"

"Those western states which have been violent for this abominable war of murder-those states which have thirsted for blood, God has given them blood to drink. Their lamentations are deep and loud." Discourse delivered April 7,

1814.

Of all the abominations that ever disgraced any country, I know of nothing more deserving of reprobation than the prostitution of the sacred desk for political purposes. It is

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next to impossible to aggravate the hideousness of this sin. And yet, during, before, and after the war of 1812, this was a common practice among the Calvinistic clergy of NewEngland. And what is more humiliating than all, they were violently opposed to the war; while they were the avowed friends and advocates of Great Britain!

The above will serve as specimens of the matter and manner of their inglorious sermons.

Had the middle and western states acted the part of NewEngland, president Madison would have been in a deplorable. condition, when, at the suggestion of congress, he proclaimed war. I shall just say, if these preachers believed all they asserted, what transcendent infatuation! If they did not, what superlatively transcendent turpitude! In both or either of these cases, may I not exclaim, what transcendent profanation of the clerical functions-and of a religion which enjoins upon us, subjection to the powers that be! May kind heaven, of his infinite mercy, grant that no American worshipping assembly, may again ever be so cursed, as to hear two more such sermons!

One of these reverend gentlemen is a Presbyterian, and the other is a Congregationalist. But, it is a truth generally known, that the Presbyterians were once, in a generic term, classed with the Puritans; and it is also true that the Congregationalists, Independents, Presbyterians, and Puritans, as a body, were, and now are, in their fundamental doctrines, policy and leading designs, one people. For further particu lars, I refer the reader to Neal's History of the Puritans.

CHAPTER II.

ADDRESS OF THE "CHARITABLE SOCIETY" OF NEW-ENGLAND.

THIS address was written by a committee of ministers, styled the "committee of supplies," of which Rev. Lyman Beecher of Litchfield, was chairman, and without a doubt, he was the sole writer of it. This committee of supplies, in 1814, consisted of four reverend gentlemen, and one grave esquire, making in all five. On two other committees pertaining to this society, viz. the "committee of appropriations," and the "associational committee," there are sixteen more clergymen; whose business it is to co-operate with Yale and Ando

ver colleges, "to assist in providing for our country a sufficient number of COMPETENT religious instructors."

This, however, is only the professed object they have in view; while in reality, from the sentiments advanced in the address, and intended to be carried into operation, they aim at totally destroying our religious and civil liberties, by bringing about a union of church and state.

That a proper education is essential for the ministry, is allowed; for nothing can be more absurd than for a man to undertake to teach a science he is not acquainted with. It is therefore essential, that in order for a man rightly to teach. the gospel, he should first understand it. But this knowledge I apprehend may be acquired without going to Yale or Andover. Indeed a pious man with talents, may be educated for the ministry, without going to any college, or coming under the care of any particular society. Besides, an essential degree, to be conferred on every student in divinity, is that of the "gift of the Holy Ghost," which degree is not usually conferred by the laying on of the hands" of the president of a literary institution! But what service can we render to the community at large, by our charity in educating young men to preach up Calvinism? For, as the poet saith,

"If all things succeed as already decreed,
And immutable impulses rule us,

Then to preach and to pray is time thrown away,
And our teachers do nothing but fool us..

But if by free will, we may go or stand still,
As best suits each present occasion,
Then fill up the glass, and call him an ass
That preaches up predestination."

But the principles of this address, to which I would call the reader's particular attention, are contained in the following extracts:

There is a STATE of society to be formed, and to be formed by an extensive COMBINATION of institutions, religious, civil, and literary, which never exists without the co-operation of an educated ministry!!"

"Illiterate men have never been the chosen instruments of God to build up his cause. Illiterate men HOWEVER PIOUS, cannot command the attention of that class of the community whose education and mental culture is above their own."

"Now the CIVIL welfare of the nation, and the interests of eternity, ALIKE demand the agency of qualified religious instructors."

"To produce such a combination and such efforts, the WRETCHED state of our country must be known. The information contained in this address may with propriety, it is believed, be communicated on the SABBATH to ALL our worshipping assemblies; and the investigation commenced in it with propriety be continued, until a regular and minute account can be given of the religious state of our land! The newspaper, the tract, and magazine, must disclose to our slumbering country men their danger. The press must GROAN in the communication of our WRETCHEDNESS; and from every pulpit in the land the trumpet must sound LONG and LOUD; the nation must be awaked to save ITSELF BY ITS OWN EXERTIONS, or we are undone. In so glorious a work, we call on the pastors and the churches for their co-operation. Nor do we anticipate that the call will be unwelcome or unheeded. If ministers do not feel in such a cause, and the churches redeemed by their instrumentality, we should despair of EXCITING SYMPATHY or obtaining help. It is our expectation that every church in the state will enlist as an auxiliary to this society."

"OUR NATION IS MORE DEPLORABLY DESTITUTE OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION THAN ANY OTHER CHRISTIAN NATION UNDER HEAVEN."

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It certainly requires no great effort of the understanding, to perceive the ultimate object of the charitable society. We are not to understand that a society was to be formed. No, no; there is a difference between a society and the STATE of that society.

It is a well known fact, that at the time this society was formed, the Congregational religion and the civil government of Connecticut, were blended together by a statute law, and that there never was such a compact in any of the states in the Union, but the New-England states. Therefore to effect a union of church and state throughout the United States, was the sole design of the charitable society. Then should we see those church and state laws executed as rigorously as formerly, and laying aside all rules of toleration, we should hear of those Puritanical saints hanging poor unoffending Quakers at Boston; of Methodist ministers being fined for marrying members of their own church; and of the Baptists being whipped at the tail of a cart, or imprisoned for preaching what they conscientiously believed.

To conclude, I refer the reader, for further information on this subject, to the history of New-England.

"Ye long heads, and strong heads, attend to my strains-
Ye clear heads, and queer heads, and heads with few brains,
Ye thick sculls, and quick sculls, and heads great and small,
And ye heads that aspire to be heads over all.”

CHAPTER III.

EFFECTS OF THE LAWS OF CONNECTICUT.

HAVING, through the course of this work, repeatedly asserted that the church and state laws of the New-England states, in former times, operated to the great disadvantage of both the ministers and members of other denominations, it may not be amiss, just here, to adduce some stronger proof of the truth of my assertions, than simply my ipse dixit. And having seen the frame of these laws, let us for a moment look at its motions, and see how it works. The following extract from the Connecticut Mirror, of 1820, a paper printed in the country where those horrible scenes were acted out, to which I have so repeatedly alluded, and where those decisions were made, of which other denominations have so justly complained.

"TOWN OF GOSHEN US. TOWN OF STONINGTON." "This case came to trial at the late term of the superior court, at Litchfield, held by Chief Justice Hosmer. It was an action of assumpsit, for the support of a female pauper. The plaintiff claimed that her settlement was in the town of Stonington, which was the principle question on the trial. The reputed husband was admitted to be an inhabitant of Stonington, but the defendant denied the legality of her marriage. It appeared that the nuptials were solemnized by the Rev. Mr. Christie, in the town of Cornwall, in Litchfield county. It was proven by the plaintiffs, that the Rev. Mr. Christie, was a clergyman of the Methodist church, a regularly ordained minister of the gospel, a located minister within certain limits, embracing the northern part of Litchfield county, and a small part of the county of Hartford, and that he dwelt in the town of Cornwall. On hearing counsel, the Chief Justice decided THAT BY LAW HE WAS NOT A SETTLED MINISTER,,-had no right to solemnize marriage, and, that this marriage was utterly void to all intents and purposes!