been sent to Boston, but if for Domestic Missions, it ought to have come here; or to the H. M. Society at N. York: if it was intended for the "Assembly's Board of Missions," it must be sent to S. Allen, Esq. Treasurer, No. 34 South 3d Street, Philadelphia. Very respectfully, your obed't serv't, W. G. BROWNLOW." J. T. RUSSELL, Cor. Sec. "OFFICE OF THE A. H. M. S. 144, NASSAU ST., NEW YORK, JULY 28, 1831. 5 "Mr. W. G. Brownlow:-Dear Sir, yours of the 5th inst. was duly received. In reply to your inquiry, whether certain monies collected for the American Home Missionary Society-at the meeting of the Tennessee Synod in October last, have ever been paid to us-I answer as follows: Rev. Darius Hoyt certified to us that $41 had been collected at the Synodical meeting previous-which with $3 in his hands before, made the amount of $44 in his possession, subject to the order of the American Home Missionary Society. In order to avoid the risk of sending it by mail, and for the sake of convenience in drawing for it to pay missionaries in Tennessee, we have chosen to have it remain in Mr. Hoyt's hands. We expect to send an order for it in a day or two. With warm wishes for the spiritual prosperity of Tennessee, I remain yours, &c. A. PETERS, Cor. Sec. A. H. M. S., REMARKS.--The whole matter is now before the reader. Let each one judge for himself, so far as honesty or dishonesty, truth or falsehood, are concerned. But let no one say, that these ministers are excusable, inasmuch as Mr. Hoyt informed Mr. Peters that the money was in Maryville, subject to his order; for, as before stated, the money was not collected for Mr. Peters' board. Besides, if the people had known that their money was to go to the use and support of little Calvinistic home missionaries, as Mr. Horne says in his circular, "it is presumable the amount of contributions would not have been quite so great." I would like to hear Messrs. Hoyt or Peters answer the following questions. When was this money raised? When was Mr. Peters notified? How long is it from October, 1830, till July, 1831? Was not Mr. Peters informed by a correspondent in Maryville, that he would be written to on this subject by some one not very friendly to the Presbyterians? Why was the board at New York notified at all, that this money had been raised? Was it because of the publication of Horne's circular? Or was it because of the publication of Brownlow's pamphlet in the spring following? Why was not an "order" sent for this money'in less than ten months after it was collected? Why "send an order for it in a day or two" after the reception of my letter? And last of all, was "the risk of sending it by mail" greater in 1830, than in 1831? But to me, it seems quite superfluous to multiply questions in reference to this topic. This may be Hopkinsian disinterested benevolence, but it is not the benevolence of the Bible. But benevolence of this kind is unworthy the name: it is nothing better than refined, attenuated, and decrepid roguery. Not an element does the transaction contain, not a quality does it exhibit, which is not directly at war with the spirit and practice of christianity, not to say of common honesty. The moral disadvantages of such conduct, and its manifest tendency, in the hands of such men, to corrupt even the heathen themselves, are evils which cannot be too deeply deplored. The guilt of lying, which attaches itself to the features of this transaction, is that of the most odious kind; it is guilt, the offspring of design, illy reflected on, deeply corrupt, shamefully false, and secretly though badly matured. Oppression, perfidy, malignant passion, restless violation of the rights of others, and rank, hot incense of murder, and inhuman spoliation, all meet in this dark deed. Despair, and death, and misery, manifold and worse than death, have, since this occurrence, followed in their ghastly train; and rioted, as with infernal drunkenness of delight, amidst the scenes of agony occasioned by an improper use of this money. The record of this deep crime is now written on the sands of Africa and Greenland, and stamped on their imperishable rocks! And if, gentlemen, in the plenitude of his compassion, that God, whose majesty you have thus awfully despised, defied, and insulted, shall see fit to confer on you, in token of the pardon of your black offence, the honorable distinction of pardoned sinners, I shall greatly rejoice. A few reflections, gentlemen, and I shall have done with this matter for the present. Let me only call your attention to the object of missions. With this you must be duly impressed, when you consider the evils which prevail where the gospel is not known, and which it is designed to remove. Think, gentlemen, of the degradation and misery of all who are strangers to the blessings of the gospel. Think of millions of immortal beings, bowing down to images, or paying religious devotion to reptiles, or to stones. Think of infatuated mothers, tearing away their smiling infants from their bosoms, and casting them to contending alligators, or offering them a sacrifice upon the altars of gross superstition. Think of the dying agonies of the bereaved widow upon the funeral pile of her deceased husband, and the living woes of the son who lights, and the weeping orphan who surrounds it. Think of the multitudes of infatuated victims annually crushed beneath the wheel of their idol god, and the infinite variety of licentious and sanguinary rites which attend the superstitions that prevail over a large portion of the eastern hemisphere; and then think of this money, and of the supreme excellence of which these unfortunate creatures have been deprived by your conduct. From these turn your eyes to the tribes who inhabit our western wilderness, for whose spiritual good you said this money was in part collected. Mark their degradation of character, their sottish habits of life, and the wretchedness and misery which every where attend them. Look at the condition of those nations, your neighbors, who are struggling for civil liberty and independence. To the true privileges of God's people, and the rich blessings of the gospel many of them are entire strangers. Gentlemen, your duty is plain, and God will require it of you. You have kept back an active missionary from some destitute region. What a pity! Gentlemen, if you hoard up that money, or apply it to the support of home missions, or squander it upon yourselves or your families, and neglect the cause for the promotion of which you declared it was intended, how will you render up an account to God in a coming day? Can you reconcile it with your feelings to see your fellow beings in the judgment, on the left hand of the Judge, and know that a right use of this money, might have been instrumental in their salvation? And yet, gentlemen, you are in danger of this,-if you fail to restore to them their due; aye, and more too;-you are in danger of being found on the left hand with them. But must not such conduct do great injury to the cause of religion, here in our own country? Will not many, upon hearing that ministers act thus, turn away in disgust from all religion. In a conversation, which Napoleon Buonaparte held with his friends at St. Helena, he said, among many other things, "how is it possible that conviction can find its way to our hearts, when we witness the acts of iniquity of the greatest number of those whose business it is to preach to us? I am surrounded with priests who preach incessantly that their reign is not of this world, and yet, they lay hands upon every thing they can get!" May God, the fountain of all good, save the writer and the reader, from ever bringing a reproach, upon the cause of religion! And may God, in the plenitude of his compassion, grant unto the members of this synod, the free and full pardon of this, their almost unpardonable sin, is among the most ardent desires of my soul! PARI IV. The Calvinian and Hopkinsian doctrines, in their true colors, as contained in the writings of Calvin and Hopkins, and also the Westminster Confession of Faith, of the Presbyterian church, in the United States. CHAPTER I. CALVINISM, IN ITS TRUE COLORS, AS CONTAINED IN THE WRI TINGS OF JOHN CALVIN. THE name of Calvinists, was given at first to those who embraced not only the doctrine, but the church government and discipline established at Geneva, by John Calvin, the celebrated reformer. But since the meeting and unwarrantable transactions of the synod of Dort, the name has been applied to all who em brace Calvin's leading views of the gospel. Calvin was born at Noyon in Picardy, July 10, 1509. He first studied the civil law, and was afterwards made professor of divinity at Geneva; and it is a great pity that he did not continue in the study and practice of the civil law. Calvin, although a reformer of Geneva, nevertheless aimed at a revival of Romish tyranny. Agreeably to the spirit of a certain consistorial chamber, or a kind of inquisition, of which he was a distinguished member, he proceeded to most unwarrantable lengths; to which indeed he was but too easily impelled by a natural warmth and unrelenting hardness of temper. Calvin was both in principle and practice, a persecutor. So entirely was he in favor of the persecuting measures, that he wrote a treatise in defence of them, maintaining the lawfulness of them in putting heretics to death!-And by heretics he meant all who differed from himself, such for instance is Servetus and Castellio. The former a physician, having written Calvin some letters upon the mystery of the trinity, which appeared to contain heterodox notions, he actually made them the ground work of a persecution against him; and this persecution did not cease, or stop in its progress, till the unhappy culprit was consigned to the flames! Previous to Servetus's death, upon the recommendation and advice of Calvin, he |