oppressive to those who give not willingly, but of necessity. Truth itself is oppressive to those who delight in falsehood. And this, or any other requirement of the Gospel, demanding self-denial, will be too much for one who has not faith. GoD requires us to put our whole trust in Him, and only so is the cross pleasant, or even tolerable. But trusting in Him, we shall be the gainers by it. The one tenth, given in faith, will sanctify and multiply the whole; but withheld, in distrust, will shrink and shrivel all the rest. "Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed Me, (in tithes and offerings,) even this whole nation," are the words of the prophet Malachi. "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts." "Again, "Honor the LORD with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine." And again, in the book of Ecclesiasticus, though not canonical, yet read for "example of life and instruction of manners," "Give the LORD His honor with a good eye, and diminish not the first fruits of thine hands. In all thy gifts show a cheerful countenance, and dedicate thy tithes with gladness. Give unto the Most High, according as He hath enriched thee; and as thou hast gotten, give with a cheerful eye. For the LORD recompenseth, and will give thee seven times as much." All of which is more than borne out by the declarations of the New Testament. What can be stronger than those striking words, "It is more blessed to give than to receive;" or more positive and certain than that direction and promised blessing of St. Paul, read at our offertory, "Charge them who are rich in this world, that they be ready to give, and glad to distribute; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may attain eternal life." Paying the tithe, therefore, is not to our loss, but to our present and eternal gain. God bids us prove Him-try Him, and see whether it is not so. And if we will not trust Him with a tenth Who gave us all, how can we complain if He takes from us all that *Mal. iii, 9-12. + Prov. iii, 9, 10. Eccl. xxxv, 8-11. He has entrusted us with? So that we cannot be far from right, when we say, that the man who is convinced of his duty in this respect, and yet does it not, must have some covetousness lurking about his heart, which leads him to rest on human means and his own exertions for his prosperity in this world, rather than on the promises of the Lord of hosts-to walk by sight and not by faith. May we not therefore conclude, in the words of the judicious Hooker, after he had summed up the provision that God made for His priesthood under the elder dispensation, "GOD, by way of special preeminence, has undertaken to feed the clergy at His own table, and out of His own proper treasury to maintain them, that want and penury they might never feel, except God Himself did first receive injury. A thing most worthy of our consideration is the wisdom of God herein; for the common sort being prone unto envy and murmur, little considereth of what necessity, use, and importance the sacred duties of the clergy are, and for that cause hardly yieldeth them any such honor without repining and grudging thereat; they cannot brook it, that when they have labored and come to reap, there should so great a portion go out of the fruit of their labors, and be yielded up unto such as sweat not for it. But when the LORD doth challenge this as His own due, and require it to be done by way of homage unto Him, whose mere liberality and goodness had raised them from a poor and servile estate, to place them where they had all those ample and rich possessions; they must be worse than brute beasts, if they would storm at any thing which He did receive at their hands, and for Him to bestow His own on His own servants, (which liberty is not denied unto the meanest of men,) what man liveth that can think it other than most reasonable? Wherefore no cause there was, why that which the clergy had should in any man's eye seem too much, unless God Himself were thought to be of an over-having disposition." 考 ART. V.-IMPRISONMENT AND PETITION OF BISHOP SEABURY. THE following curious document has never before been published. It is the Petition of the Rev. SAMUEL SEABURY, to the General Assembly of Connecticut, in December, 1775, complaining of the unjust and illegal cruelties inflicted upon him. It appears that a letter was also received by the General Assembly of Connecticut from the President of the New York Congress on the subject, which letter we have not been able to find. That Bishop Seabury was thus imprisoned and mal-treated on account of his religion, we think admits of no question. There is certainly no breach of charity in such a supposition, when we consider the intolerance of the Puritan Laws of Connecticut, and the undeniable fact that persons were fined and im prisoned for no other crime than that of being Churchmen. Here are specimens of the Colonial Laws of Connecticut : "This Court orders that henceforth no persons in this Jurisdiction shall in any way embody themselves into Church estate, without consent of the General Court and approbation of the neighboring Churches." 1657.-(Trumbull's Colonial Records of Connecticut. 1636-1655. p. 311.) "This Court orders that there shall be no ministry or Church administration by the inhabitants of any plantation in this Colony, distinct and separate from, and in opposition to, that which is openly and publicly observed, and dispensed by the settled and approved minister of the place, except it be by approbation of the General Court and neighboring Churches."-1657. (Ib. p. 3i1.) For behaving contemptuously "towards the word preached or the messengers thereof"it was ordered-" And if a second time they break forth into the like contemptuous carriages, they shall either pay five pounds to the public treasure, or stand two hours openly upon a block or stool, four foot high, upon a lecture day, with a paper fixed on his breast, written with capital let ters, AN OPEN AND OBSTINATE CONTEMNER OF GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCES."-1650. (lb. p. 524.) "It is ordered and decreed by this Court, and authority thereof, that whereBoever the ministry of the word is established, according to the order of the Gospel throughout this jurisdiction, every person shall duly resort and attend thereunto respectively upon the Lord's day, and upon such public fast days, and days of Thanksgiving, as are to be generally kept by the appointment of authority. And if any person within this jurisdiction, shall, without just and necessary cause, withdraw himself from hearing the public ministry of the word, after due means of conviction used, he shall forfeit for his absence from every such public meeting, five shillings."-(Ib. p. 524.) For the support of this Puritan establishment, it was ordered as follows,"And do order that those who are taught in the word, in the several plantations be called together, that every man voluntarily set down what he is willing to allow to that end and use: And if any man refuse to pay a meet proportion, that then he be rated by authority in some just and equal way; and if, after this, any man withhold or delay due payment, the civil power to be exercised as in other just debts."—(Ib. p. 545.) How these laws should have been binding on the Rev. Mr. Seabury, who, for many years, had been, and then was, an inhabitant of another Colony, is another question. The HON. MR. SEWARD, of the U. S. S., lately delivered a glowing eulogium upon the Early Puritans of Massachusetts, at the recent "Plymouth Rock" celebration, in which he emphatically commended them for their establishment of "Free Toleration in Religion." Mr. Seward's language is, for we would not do him an injustice: "The Puritans thus persisted and prevailed, because they had adopted one true, singular, and sublime principle of civil conduct, namely, that the subject in every State has a natural right to liberty of conscience." And again he says-and it is a strange compound of irreverence and absurdity-" The Puritans came into the world to save it from despotism; and the world comprehended them not." ! ! Thus far Mr. Seward. Now let us see what these Puritans in Massachusetts really meant by this "natural right to liberty of conscience." Their Laws certainly are a fair expression of their opinions and principles on this point. Here are specimens: "It is ordered that henceforth no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this Commonwealth, but such as are members of some of the Churches within the limits of this Commonwealth." May, 1631.-(Mass. Bay Col. Laws, Ch. xlix, Sec. i.) "It is therefore ordered by this Court, and the authority thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending, shall pay for every such offense, five shillings, as a fine to the County."-(Ib. Ch. 1, Sect. 2d.) "This Court doth order and enact that every person or persons of the cursed sect of the Quakers, who is not an inhabitant of, but found within this jurisdiction, shall be apprehended (without warrant, where no Magistrate is at hand) by any Constable, Commissioner, or Selectman, and conveyed from Constable to Constable, until they come before the next Magistrate, who shall commit the said person or persons to close prison, there to remain without bail until the next Court of Assistants; where they shall have a legal trial by a special jury, and being convicted to be of the sect of the Quakers, shall be sentenced to banishment upon pain of death." "Every inhabitant of this jurisdiction, being convicted to be of the aforesaid sect, and refusing to retract and reform the aforesaid opinions and practices, shall be sentenced to banishment upon pain of death.”—(Ib. Ch. li., Sec. 9.) The method of executing the banishment was as follows: The Quaker was to be "directed to the Constable of the town wherein he, or she, is taken, or in absence of the Constable to any other meet person, be stripped naked from the middle upwards, and tied to a cart's tail, and whipped through the town, and from thence immediately conveyed to the Constable of the next town towards the borders of our jurisdiction, as their warrant shall direct; and so from Constable to Constable, till they be conveyed through any the outwardmost towns of our jurisdiction."-1661. (Col. Laws. Ch. li, Sec. 10.) We may add that this law was soon after made much more intolerable. "Any Quaker, after the first conviction, if a man, was to lose one ear, and the second time the other; if a woman, each time to be severely whipped; and the third time, man or woman, to have their tongues bored through with a red hot iron." --(Haliburton's Rule and Misrule, p. 102.) Hildreth also gives an account of "the young husband of one of them, following the cart to which his wife was tied, and from time to time interposing his hat between her naked and bleeding back and the lash of the executioner !"-(Hildreth's United States, vol. i, p. 473.) "And if after this, he or she shall return again, then to be proceeded against as incorrigible rogues and enemies to the common peace, and shall immediately be apprehended and committed to the common gaol of the country, and at the next Court of Assistants, shall be brought to their trial, and proceeded against according to the law made Anno. 1658, for their punishment on pain of death." Col. Laws, Ch. li, Sec. 2.) . * * every "It is therefore ordered and decreed by this Court, that if any Christian within this jurisdiction shall go about to subvert and destroy the Christian faith and religion, by broaching and maintaining any damnable heresy, as denying ** that Christ gave himself a ransom for our sins, * such person continuing obstinate therein, after due means of conviction, shall pay to the common treasurer, during the first six months, twenty shillings a month, and for the next six months, forty shillings per month, and so to continue during his obstinacy."-(Ib. Ch. li. Sec. 13.) "It is ordered and enacted by authority of this Court, that no Jesuit, or spiritual, or ecclesiastical person, (as they are termed,) ordained by the authority of the Pope, or see of Rome, shall henceforth at any time repair to, or come within this jurisdiction; and if any person shall give just cause of suspicion, that he is one of such society or order, he shall be brought before some of the Magistrates, and if he cannot free himself of such suspicion, he shall be committed to prison, or bound over to the next Court of Assistants, to be tried and proceeded with, by banishment or otherwise, as the Court shall see cause. And if any person so banished, be taken the second time within this jurisdiction, upon lawful trial and conviction, he shall be put to death.”—(Ib. Ch. liv.) We cannot but be surprised that the HON. MR. SEWARD allowed himself to give utterance to such opinions concerning the tolerance of the Puritans. It was an easy matter for him to lend his influence to banish the Bible from the Common Schools of New York, in 1841, and so to play into the hands of a man who calls himself "Archbishop Hughes." It may be an easy matter, now, to praise the Puritans at "Plymouth Rock" for virtues which they publicly repudiated. Hutchinson says, "Toleration was preached against as a sin in rulers, which would bring down the judgments of Heaven upon the land." (Hutchinson, Vol. I, p. 75.) But we do think it high time that even the warmest eulogists of Puritanism, should begin to pay some little regard to historical fidelity. We do think it high time, that they who write and they who speak, of |