considerable degree above the savage state, in knowledge and refinement, a class of men whose grand aim has been to prevent the progress of truth, and obstruct all free inquiry. They seem to envy mankind the right and privilege of thinking for themselves. As they arrogate to themselves the dignity of being the sole arbiters of religious controversy, they resort to the most summary method, which is, to bind up people's eyes, and keep them in total ignorance; and in that way are guilty of the most cruel, destructive, and atrocious invasion of human rights and privileges which ever entered the conception of man. The tyrant who enslaves the body does nothing in comparison with this. He may clothe his captive in chains, and lay him low in a dungeon; but the soul, freer than air, more rapid than light, regards no chains, is limited to no dungeons.

"The thoughts, that wander thro' eternity,"

defy all bolts and bars; over its volitions monarchs have no power; its desires can wing their way to heaven, and its internal operations mock at all created force.

Such are the soul's inborn powers and native freedom-nay, more, it can soar above all outward forms of danger, can triumph over death and the grave, and looks forward upon eternity as its own.

Happy would it be for mankind did every soul know its power, and enjoy its freedom; feel its dignity, and appreciate its privilege! But who could imagine that one man could enslave the soul of another? There is a keener. ambition than that which aims to control our external freedom; an ambition to enslave and bind fast in fetters the immortal intelligence within us; an ambition to direct our thoughts, opinions, volitions, and faith; an ambition to interfere between the soul of man and his God; to estrange the soul for ever from the foutnain of light and glory.

It is almost too painful and humiliating to be spoken—but, since it is a truth which the day of God will make manifest before all creatures, it cannot be concealed, that a set of men, who claim to be ministers of religion, have, in every part of the world, and in

every age, been the agents and instruments in this horrid work. They have set themselves up as the lords, or, rather, the tyrants of men's consciences; and on a reputation for holiness, under the garb of hypocrisy, have built up a system of tyranny and religious oppression, in comparison with which, all temporal tyrannies and usurpations seem perfect freedom. The ministers of religion have not all been of this description; God has never been without true and faithful witnesses to maintain his truth, and honour his name. But when Elijah was the only prophet of the Lord in Israel, there were four hundred prophets of Baal, and four hundred prophets of the groves.

When the sun of righteousness rose upon the world, and the gospel kingdom was established, whose foundations had been laid of old, could it have been imagined that the meek and holy, the pure and peaceful, religion of Jesus Christ would be transformed into the bloodiest and most monstrous system of tyranny ever seen on the earth? That the corruption, cruelty, and crimes of Rome Heathen, would be thrown into the shade, and scarcely remembered, in comparison with the surpassing and incomparable wickedness of Rome Christian? It was so and this march of wickedness began by binding the conscience, and resisting the progress and the happy results of free inquiry. When it was perceived by worldly men that the Church, to use a common phrase, was become an object of ambition, they poured into it in swarms, like the locusts that plagued Egypt; and the gospel, whose genuine spirit was perfect meekness, peace, and love, was, by degrees, perverted, and heard to speak the language of pride, haughtiness, and revenge. These proud and selfish spiritual tyrants could not rest; rites and ceremonies, pomp and splendour, grew apace, and what was at the bottom of it all was, that all right of private judgment and free inquiry was suppressed, and every man must tamely and silently submit his opinions and his conscience to these spiritual guides, who were, generally, as ignorant as they were impudent.

The abominable and ridiculous claim to infallibility was the last step; which was but the full surrender of the opinions and faith of all the world to one lordly and ridiculous wretch, more worthy of Haman's gallows than of a triple crown.

But, reader, there is a tincture of this extravagant claim visible in our days; indeed, every where visible where you find a little spiritual tyrant. The Reformation did not cure this enormous pride; and the reformers themselves, as soon as they had doubled the cape, began to lay their course back again from whence they started. Nothing is more difficult than for a man, stiff with spiritual pride, and full of the idea of his own importance, to believe, that a people are entitled to think for themselves. The reformed churches, at first, all started from this ground, and fell with fury to persecuting heretics; and where people were not willing to be converted, the zeal of their spiritual guides was promptly seconded by the civil magistrate, using fines, imprisonment, confiscation, banishment, and death, as hopeful means of convicting the sinner, and purifying the Church. I, therefore, said, the Reformation was incomplete..

O, how unlike the gospel! How abhorrent from the spirit of Christ! And though it surely will not be denied, that the power was generally in the hands of better men, yet those persecuting churches were, in the sight of Heaven, as truly ecclesiastical tyrannies as the church of Rome. The homage paid by many in this country to those churches, in connexion with the spirit and temper they evince, shows, but too plainly, in what respects they desire to see those times restored. Yes, when they see Calvin assembling the people of Geneva, and imposing upon them a religious test, causing them to swear to maintain his doctrine, and forms of church order and worship, their eyes, no doubt, fail with longing to see this city encircled with the same hopeful barriers against error and innovation.

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These men have lately set themselves up as the exclusive admirers and disciples of the reformers. One of them closed a statement of the affairs of his church, for the last year, before the late synod held in this city, by declaring, in a very pompous manner, that his people had been hearing THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMATION." Did he mean, by the doctrines of the Reformation, the doctrine which Luther preached? No. Yet Luther's doctrine was certainly a doctrine of the Reformation. Did he mean the doctrines which Melancthon preached? No. Did he mean the doctrine of the English, or French re

formers? No: for among all these, as to the points in controversy in this city, there was great diversity, and they were generally against him. Did he mean the doctrines which Calvin preached? Hardly for Calvin did not teach the doctrine of original sin, as some now preach it. And I ask that man, or any man, to show the public where Calvin taught a limited atonement. All that is nothing; there was a hook in that pious declaration, which many an honest fish greedily swallowed; it was a hoax, and deserves no better name; and that, one of the lowest and basest kind. Who does not preach the doctrines of the Reformation? It is a term of no definite meaning, but calculated to mislead the ignorant and the simple. The reformers were not agreed in doctrine. Calvin was scarcely known in the group of the first reformers, and to such of them as he was known, his particular notions of predestination and grace were generally offensive, however correct they might be in themselves.

The Reformation of the sixteenth century is regarded by the protestant part of Christendom as a grand event-an event in which many millions of people take a deep interest. What member of the church of England, or Scotland, or Holland, or of all the protestant Germanic provinces, or of the protestants in France, or America, is there, who does not regard the Refor mation as a glorious era in the Christian Church? Yet each one of this immense mass of people, who have the means of information, view the reformers, and their doctrines, not without discrimination. They see much to admire and revere, and much left, as the work of subsequent reformations.

But, people of New-York, there has been another reformation; a reformation in our days, in which we have a deeper interest; a reformation not less extraordinary in its nature, or glorious in its consequences: We have seen a nation rise into a state of perfect freedom and civil liberty. Even this event, and going no farther, is beyond all parallel in history. There is a marked providence even here, which I fear many, calling themselves Christians, have not regarded with the attention it demands, nor the pleasure that might be expected. Is it nothing that, from the discordant chaos of European aristocracy

and despotism, a government should spring up in the new world, founded in all the essential rights, and guarding all the rights of man? Is it not worthy of notice, that thirteen independent states should amicably unite in this grand project? Was there any thing like it in ancient Greece-was there ever a parallel? But it is said, in reply, that this was all a civil or political transaction. Be it so: and was there nothing civil or political in the Reformation of the sixteenth century? What severed England and Scotland from the Roman see? Doubtless, the most ambitious prince and greatest tyrant that ever filled the British throne began that work. And Germany was more reformed by states than by individuals. In fact, the Reformation consisted externally in throwing off the yoke of the Roman pontiff; which, partly by spiritual, and partly by temporal claims, he had fastened on the most powerful states in Europe, and had, for ages, maintained by the sword; by which all tyrants maintain their dominion. It was, in a great degree, a political revolution.

But has this country witnessed nothing but a political revolution? Has not a phenomenon marked that revolution which indicates juster notions of religion, and of the true character of Christ's church, than were entertained by Luther, Melancthon, or Calvin-by Knox, Cranmer, or Ridley ?-or, I add, by any, or all, the reformers put together? By some surprising influence, the American people, when severed from the British empire, came to the knowledge of the grand truth, that all men are naturally free, and have equal rights; among which liberty of conscience, and the right of inquiring after truth, and worshipping God, are the first. Connected with this, another truth of equal importance was discovered, viz. that the church of Christ, being a spiritual body, has no right to enforce her censures by temporal penalties, or by the arm of civil power. Here, reader, perished, not only the first, but the last, the greatest, the grandest, pillars of popery. Or, to vary the figure, "the tree whose height reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the ends of the earth," had been, indeed, cut down by the "watcher;" but, in the language of the same prophet, "the stump of the roots was left, with a band of iron and brass,