own.

And wherever there is this intolerant spirit, it needs but the occasion and the power, to produce actual persecution.

Turn we then, for a few moments, to history, in proof of my position. The spirit of the gospel is that of peace, forbearance, and love. Oh, how was this spirit inculcated by our Saviour, and the sacred writers. How much was it insisted on by the apostle John, that we love one another. This spirit of love prevailed very much among the primitive Christians, insomuch that the world took notice of them on this very account, and recommended them as patterns of beneficence and kindness. But in the second century, the spirit of intolerance began to prevail in the church of Christ. A great dispute arose as to the day on which the festival of Easter should be celebrated; and many of the minority were actually excommunicated for their non-conformity to the faith of the dominant party. This was, I believe, the commencement of persecution in the Christian church; and from that time to the establishment of popery, the church enjoyed but little rest. Every difference of opinion among the ecclesiastics, was swelled into a matter of great importance; and the majority were pretty sure to use all their power to enforce their own opinions on the consciences of others; not only to censure, excommunication, and deposition-but when the civil power could be made to co-operate with ecclesiastical intolerance, to imprisonment, banishment, and death. What horrors have been committed by the papal power, in lording it over the consciences of men! What rivers of blood have been shed, you well know. But the persecutions in protestant times, and in protestant countries and churches, are not so well known. It is useful for us sometimes to look at that which is very painful for the eye to behold; to recall to memory facts which prove to us the corruption of human nature, and how that nature acts out itself, when men lose the temper of the gospel. Even John Calvin-the great, and I will call him the good Calvin, notwithstanding this one stain on his character, was accessary to the death of Servetus, for heresy. Calvin doubtless believed he was doing God service. He may

have thought that this was the way in which Christians are to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. He believed that a man was punishable for heresy, even by taking away his life. He was countenanced in this principle. not only by the practices of the popish church, but by almost all the fathers and bishops of the church, since the commencement of the fourth century, who esteemed heresy as one of the worst of impieties, and believed it the duty of the civil magistrates to employ their power for the advancement of the orthodox faith. The execution of Servetus was approved by Melancthon, and the pastors of the church at Basil. At Zurich, a pecuniary penalty was enacted by a public law, against such as should suffer themselves to be re-baptized, or should withhold baptism from their children. The law enacted further, that those who openly opposed that order, should be yet more severely treated. A man by the name of Felix was actually drowned at Zurich upon the sentence pronounced by Zuinglius, "Qui iterum mergit mergatur"" He that immerses again, let him be drowned." Were it not for the instruction to be derived from history-yea, from the history of the crimes perpetrated by even the great and the good, we would fain wish that the mantle of oblivion could be thrown over those transactions in Switzerland, of which the above are only a sample-and much more would we wish to blot from the page of history what has been done in the land of our own Dutch ancestors. Nor do I now select the deeds of our own forefathers, because they were more heinous than the deeds committed in other countries, under the impulse of religious intolerance; but the selection is made, the more clearly to show the propensity of the human mind to persecution for conscience' sake; by showing the principle to have been in full exercise among those whom we have been in the habit of esteeming the wisest and best of the human species; namely, the successors of the reformers in Holland itself. The church in that country had reduced to the form of a confession of faith their views of the sacrament of baptism, and expressed their detestation of the errors of the Anabaptists, who re-baptized such as had received that ordi

nance in their infancy, denying the right of baptism to infants. (See our own constitution, page 37, art. 34.) The arm of the secular power having been secured in aid of the dominant church, the Anabaptists were prohibited from preaching, by the imposition of fines, and banishment from the country. All persons were forbidden from letting their houses and grounds to them, under penalty of a large fine, or confinement to bread and water for fourteen days. If they offended the third time, they were to be banished. Whoever was discovered to re-baptise any person, should forfeit twenty dollars, and upon a second conviction, to be put to bread and water, and then banished. Unbaptised children were made incapable of inheriting; and if any one married out of the Reformed church, he was declared incapable of inheriting any estate, and the children were declared bastards.

Deplorable as the above facts are, history records that still deeper guilt has been contracted in the land of our forefathers, by means of persecution for religious opinions, than fines, banishment, and disinherison. The controversy with the Arminians was more furious still than that with the Anabaptists. The Arminian tenets were condemned by a synod very famous in the history of the church, (the synod of Dort,} and in the canons which we find embodied in the standard of our own church. We do not find the whole of the proceedings of that synod in the volume containing the constitution of the Reformed Dutch church in America. The synod of Dort at the same session in which they condemn the Arminians or Remonstrants, and profess to fix the articles of their own faith, exhort the provincial synods to take particular care that they admit none into the ministry who shall refuse to subscribe or promise to preach the doctrine asserted in these synodical decrees. And they most humbly and earnestly beseech their GRACIOUS GOD, that the civil rulers might suffer and ordain this wholesome doctrine, which the synod hath faithfully expressed to be maintained alone, and in its purity. The states of Holland acceded to the request of this ecclesiastical body, so full of what they believed to be holy zeal. For as soon as the synod was concluded, the aged Advocate Barnevelt was

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beheaded for having adhered to the Remonstrants; Grotius was condemned to perpetual imprisonment; and, because the offensive Arminian ministers would not promise wholly and always to abstain from the exercise of their ministerial functions, the states general of Holland passed resolutions for the banishing of them; on pain, if they did not submit, of being treated as disturbers of the public peace. A few days respite, to put their affairs in order, and provide for their families in their banishment, was unmercifully denied them, and they were hurried away next morning by four o'clock, as if they had been enemies to the country, and not for a moment to be endured in it.

A small specimen has thus been given of the effects of that inordinate religious zeal which succeeded the reformation in the countries of Switzerland and Holland. Other countries. partook of the same spirit, and the dominant parties persecuted their opponents. By whom were these persecutions set on foot; by the laymen or the clergy? I answer, unhesitatingly, and without the fear of contradiction, by the clergy. Recur we again to Holland. The history of the preparations for the synod of Dort, and the oppressions and bloodshed following it, are distinctly to be traced to the intolerance of the clergy, and to their influence in getting the civil magistrate into their views. "The prince of Orange and states of Hol"land were not for confining their protection to any particular "set of principles or opinions, but for granting an universal "indulgence in all matters of religion,-aiming at peace and "mutual forbearance,-and to open the church as wide as "possible for all Christians of unblameable lives: whereas "the clergy, being biassed by their passions and inclinations, "for those masters in whose writings they had been instructed, "endeavoured, with all their might, to establish and con"ciliate authority into their respective opinions; aiming only "at decisions and definitions, and shutting up the church by "limitations on many doubtful and disputable articles. So "that the disturbances which were raised, and the severities "which were used upon the account of religion, proceeded "from the bigotry of the clergy." Beza, one of the reformers,

had written a treatise in Latin, to prove the lawfulness of inflicting punishment on heretics. This treatise was afterwards, but preceding the meeting of the synod of Dort, translated from the Latin into the low Dutch language, by Bógerinan, with a dedication and recommendation of it to the magistrates. The same Bogerman was afterwards chosen president of the synod of Dort, and, without all doubt, most cordially united in the prayer of the synod, so strange in our ears, that the gracious God would move the hearts of the states of Holland to tolerate no other doctrine than that declared by the synod. Not only in Holland, but generally throughout the world, the clergy have generally been the promoters of persecution. The laity have other objects of pursuit to occupy their minds, besides the concerns of the church and of religion, which almost exclusively take up the thoughts of the clergy. Laymen do not generally acquire that confidence in their religious opinions, as to be willing to persecute others for not embracing the same. Let me be indulged in another remark. In protestant countries, the animosities of the clergy, and the consequent persecutions, have been mostly directed against their clerical brethren, while the laity have escaped the sufferings, and by the very means have been exempted from one of the strongest inducements to persecute others. Let me not be understood as saying, that we have no laymen in our church of an intolerant spirit; nor that clergymen must necessarily be persecutors in principle. Very far from the truth are both these propositions. All I maintain is, that from the nature of the occupations of both, our clergy are more in danger of imbibing this hateful principle than our laymen.

The office of a minister of the gospel is highly valued by our people, and justly so. Without a ministry, religion would soon be banished from the world; and we have reason to bless the Lord, that we have in our connection so many in the holy office, that evince by their works that they have a commission from their Master. But that evils exist, no one will deny. To expose these evils without the prospect of benefitting the church, would be wanton indeed. I do hope to benefit the church, by holding up to view, matters not gene