pected, as only the effect of fear, or as a state of mind extorted by the prospect of death, without any sincere love to God. pressing and SO affectionate. How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and the fools hate knowledge. Turn ye at my reproof." "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die." Choose you this day, because the whole life ought to be devoted to God, and to serve God is a different thing from determining to commence his service in a future day. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. The night cometh, in which no man can work. Think how much sin and sorrow you may prevent by an immediate dedication of yourselves to God: how many your example may in fluence, how many may be awakened by your determination to serve the Lord. Think.also how many are encouraged to go on in sin by your delay, and how their condemnation as well as yours may be aggravated by your negleet. Choose you this day, because the invitations of heaven are so Choose you now, because to defer is to presume on mercy which has already been abused by delay. To delay any longer is both disingenuous and presumptuous; and the expostulations of Heaven are very affecting. "Be cause I have called and ye have refused, I have stretched out my hands and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh. Then shall they call on me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord." B.. EXTRACT FROM A DISCOURSE ON THE FAILURE OF ATTEMPTS TO PROPAGATE THE GOSPEL AMONG THE HEATHEN. ATTEMPTS to propagate the gospel among the heathen in mod ern times have been attended with less success, than we might seem warranted to expect, when we consider the zeal that has been employed, and the exertions that have been expended on the subject. Particularly has this been the case with respect to the natives of this country. How is this failure to be accounted for? Is it, that no proper means have yet been employed that no suitable messengers have been sent No. 2, Vol. IV. 7 that no previous and concurrent efforts have been made to give them a favorable impression of the tendency and effects of Christianity, and thus to prepare them for its reception, by extending to them the improvements and comforts of civilized life? This will not be said. Neither zeal, nor benevolence, nor discretion, nor activity, in many cases well directed, nor ample means judieiously applied, have been wanting. Yet the savage prejudices have not been overcome. Is there not, then, some other cause, to which we may attribute a part, at least, of our want of success? Are not the best endeavors to give to the natives of the land the comforts of civilized life, and the blessings of the gospel, counteracted by the treatment they receive from us in other respects, and the character in which we appear to them? We offer to them a religion of peace and good will, yet they see us carrying on among ourselves and against them ferocious and desolating wars. We profess and preach a doctrine of purity and self denial, and they witness in us a licentiousness of manners and self indulgence unknown among them, who make no such pretensions. We invite them to embrace a religion of justice and disinterestedness; yet we drive them from their possessions, and take from them their country. While some of us are teaching them the doctrine of eternal life, and offering them the hopes of a heavenly inheritance, others of the same nation and manners, and apparently of the same profession and principles, are cheating them out of their possessions, corrupting their morals, brutalizing their manuers, & driving them to seek safety from our depredations in deeper forests, and remoter wildernesses. We exhort them to embrace a religion, which considers all men as brethren, and teaches humility, mutual condescension univer, sal good will, and the common regards of the universal Parent for all his children, and the common provision he has made for them; yet they find themselves treated by us, as a different order of beings-as a degraded race, not possessing the same nature, not entitled to the same rights as ourselves. Is it wonderful then, that they are not converted? Can we be surprised, that they resist our endeavors for their benefit, when experience has taught them, that whatever may be the designs and views of Christians, the uniform result of an intercourse with those who profess to be Christians, to them has been robbery, corruption, exile and slavery? Are we to be surprised that the most pious, and wise, and faithful missionaries should meet with little success, surrounded by intrepid adventurers, who treat these natives of the soil as beasts of the forest, and are continually embroiling them in quarrels, that they may have a pretence for seizing on their lands;-and by cunning traders, who are ready to defraud them of their rights, to take advantage of their ignorance and their propensities, to spread the worst of corruptions among them; in fact to sacrifice every principle of justice and feeling of humanity to a lucrative traffic? Little reason have we to hope, that even accompanied with the useful arts, and the improvements and comforts of civilization, the gospel will be received by the natives of our country, until those causes shall be removed, which have thus counteracted, and continue to counteract the efforts of piety, and benevolence, and enlightened zeal. In other regions of the world we have indeed heard of better prospects; and we rejoice to hear, that both in Asia and Africa some hopeful symptoms have appeared of a powerful renovating influence. The gospel seems to be finding its way, and sending forth its gentle beams, into the regions of darkness and superstition; and new efforts, prompted by zeal, and aided by ample means, are pushing the triumphs of light and Christian liberty far into the domains of ignorance and moral slavery. We would cheerfully contribute to the benevolent design, and we do offer our fervent prayers for increasing success. We yield to the delightful vision, which seems opening to our eyes, and hail the approach, and, as we fondly flatter ourselves, the commencement of a new and brighter era; and fancy that we see in prospect the nations of the East and the tribes of the South flock ing as doves to their windows, laying down their prejudices, and renouncing their superstitions, receiving with thankfulness the new light imparted to them, and submitting with cheerfulness to the new authority imposed on them. We see the ancient monuments of superstition sinking into ruins, the fabric of ignorance crumbling into dust; and the fair temple of truth rising in its majesty and beauty to be beheld and admired, and to become the resort of the world. But our fancy receives a check, and our expectations are chastened to a soberer character, when a nearer view, and a retros. pect of the past, present to us the obstacles that are yet to be encountered, the causes which yet remain to counteract every good purpose and effort for the conversion of heathen nations. We have heard of the ardent zeal, the incredible labor, and uuconquerable firmness, intrepidity, and perseverance, which carried the gospel two centuries ago into distant regions of the East, and of the power with which it went forth; idolatry, superstition and ignorance falling before it, so that its final and complete conquest seemed to be fast approaching. But where are now the monuments of that success-where the remains, or the descendants of the converts, which were then made? The arts of a worldly policy were seen to mingle with the efforts to propagate Christianity. The designs of avarice and of power were discovered. Aud at the touch of such detection, the splendid vision vanished. Christianity sunk under the supposed hypocrisy, & detected avarice, and love of power in those who attempted its propagation. It would strengthen our confidence in the present promise of extensive spread and prevalence of the gospel, could we discern noue of the same counteracting causes in operation, which have before proved so fatal. But we cannot shut our eyes against facts that force themselves on our notice. The whole intercourse of the nations of christendom, with the southern and eastern hemisphere, has not been calculated to inspire confidence in the disinterestedness of their views and designs. It has not been calculated to prepare them for the reception of their principles and institutions. The miserable Africancan he soon forget that the Christian who now invites him to receive a doctrine of peace, humanity, and mutual affection, is the same that trine, the teachers of a pure mofor two centuries has been stir- rality, the heralds of the glad ring up ferocious wars among the news of salvation, will be heard tribes of his country, and trans- with respect and confidence, and porting his ancestors and his the Christian faith be once more brethren to a cruel and a hope- extended beyond the limits, to less slavery? The wretched Hin- which centuries have confined it. doo sees around him the monu- It is delightful to look forward ments of his country's wrongs with such a hope, and to cherish the permanent records of the ava- the belief that it may not be disrice, and fraud, and violence, and tant. It is delightful to notice rapacity of those Europeans, who and acknowledge the symptoms are now coming with so much of its approach, in any change in zeal and benevolence to impart a national policy-by which the religion which teaches righteous- most flagrant wrongs are in some ness, and truth, and charity. Will measure redressed or preventedhe distinguish between the Chris- by which some check is given to tian teacher and the Christian unchristian rapacity and violence, conqueror, or trader? Will he lis- and thus some better hopes and ten to the words of the missiona- greater facilities are furnishedry, and be blind to the deeds of at least some obstructions removthe unprincipled adventurer?-ed, by which fairer prospects are still more, to what must seem to him, whatever it may be in reality, an authorized system of fraud and pillage, of violence and oppression? opened to those who are ardently looking for the conversion of the heathen world. We see with unfeigned satisfaction, and with admiration, the generous ardor that is displayed, and the honorable efforts employed in the nation from which we originated, to spread abroad the light of the gospel, and impart its blessings and hopes to distant regions. Nor would we refuse the tribute of applause to that zeal, and piety, and charity,which from our own country have sent a tributary stream to join with the larger current which they have supplied, and directed to a remote land. Yet may we not be allowed to bope, that our own efforts, though less splendid, and less adapted to attract the public notice and admiration, may not be less useful-may not be less promotive of the Christian cause, In proportion as a more just and humane policy is pursued by Christian nations in their political and commercial intercourse with heathen nations, and measures are adopted to restrain and prevent individual wrongs, and indications thus appear, that they make the principles of the religjou they offer them in some measure the basis of their own public policy, and the rule of their individual transactions-we may rea sonably hope, that the prejudices which have prevented the spread of the gospel will subside; that past injuries will be gradually forgotten, and the memory of oth er examples effaced; that the messengers of a heavenly doc* This discourse was delivered before the society for propagating the gospel among the Indians and others in North America. or less acceptable to our common Master? While we honor the enlarged charity, which lends its wealth, and the intrepid zeal and piety, which offers its personal services in foreign missions, may we not feel a reasonable satisfaction in our humbler efforts; and believe, that in furnishing religious in struction to the scattered inhabitants of our new settlements, and in offering the gospel to the un. converted savages near our borders, and the half civilized tribes within our own territory, we may do something for our Master, and promote as certainly and as effectually the progress of his religion in the world? We are apt to be dazzled by appearance, and earried away in admiration of that, which is showy and magnificent. That charity seems cold, and mean, and narrow, which goes not beyond the circle of our neighborhood or country, That only appears heroic and praise-worthy, which, leaping over the common limits, that confine our sympathies, and bound our exertions, seeks the objects of its regard in distant climes; traverses foreign regions, and flies over seas to offer the news of salvation to the remotest parts of the earth. But it is not our so berest and correctest judgment, that overlooks and despises the common and useful, to admire the rare and splendid. While thousands of our brethren through poverty and the circumstances of their situation, unprovided with the regular instructions of our religion, are calling for our aid— and thousands more of the natives on our own shores, groping in darkness, and perishing for lack of vision, lay claim to far more of our benevolence, than can be spared from still nearer ob jects, we have little reason to think meanly of that charity, which thus limits its provisions, CHILLINGWORTH'S PLAN FOR UNITING CHRISTIANS. "LET all men believe the scriptures, and them only, and endeav. or to believe them in the true sense, and require no more of others, and they shall find this not only a better, but the only means to restore unity. And if no more than this were required of any man to make him capable of church communion, then all men, so qualified, though they were different in opinion, yet, notwithstanding any such difference, must be, of necessity, one in commun ion. "The presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the gene ral words of God, and laying them upon men's consciences together; this vain conceit, that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God; this deifying our own interpretations and enforcing them upon others; this restraining the word of God from that latitude and generality, and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and his apostles left them, is, and hath been the only foun tain of all the schisms of the church, and that which makes them immortal. Take away these walls of separation, and |
