divine, whose notions were sufficiently orthodox, asks, "Where can the church be found which is thoroughly purged from these abominations? Some churches may be more pure, and may have proceeded farther in a reformation, than others; but none are wholly clear of an antichristian spirit, and the fruits of it." See " A Treatise on the Millenium, by Dr. Hopkins, Pastor of the first Congregational Church in Newport, Rhode Island." Good Dr. Hopkins could not exactly satisfy himself, any more than Bishop Newton, as to the time when the Millenium shall commence : for, as he observes of the Bishop of Rome, "As this beast rose gradually, from step to step, till he became a beast in the highest and most proper sense, this involves the subject in some degree of uncertainty." But he had a very clear percep tion of its blessings, apparently suggested in some par. ticulars by present inconveniences. Thus he complains of the "nuisance" of "huge rocks and stones," which would then be applied to mending the roads. "Then, in a literal sense, the valleys shall be filled, and the mountains and hills made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways smooth, to render travelling more convenient and easy." Another of his anticipations is of a more professional nature. "Then public teachers will be eminently burning and shining lights,-and the hearers will be all attention." The work commences with a very friendly address "to the people who shall live in the days of the Millenium," to inform them what is now thought of them, and he very properly and modestly assures them "all is humbly submitted to your better judgment." NOTE ()-Page 13. This remark occasioned an attack upon the author by an "Unitarian Baptist," whose letter, with some observations in reply, appeared in the Monthly Repository for Nov. 1818. The offence probably originated in some misapprehension, which the appearance of the whole passage, exactly as delivered from the pulpit, may correct. The General Baptists have done good service to the cause of religious liberty, and but few of them can be implicated in, or offended by, a condemnation of Dissenting imposition, pronounced by one who is proud, on this subject, to be a disciple of that illustrious ornament of their denomination, Robert Robinson. He felt, strongly enough, the degradation of those who, having renounced the splendid vassalage of the Church, could submit to the exaction, by societies, or individuals, of creed, ceremony, or experience, as a necessary pre-requisite to those privileges which Christ designed for all his followers. Ibis sub furca prudens, dominoque- O toties servus! Quæ bellua ruptis, Cum semel effugit, reddit se prava catenis? This subject is more fully discussed in Lecture III. NOTE ()-Page 18. Ben Mordecai, in his "Thoughts on the Grand • Apostacy," introduces a selection of miracles, attested by the Fathers, which is not unamusing: "St. Jerome tells us, that as St. Anthony was travelling through the deserts of Egypt, he espied a satyr approaching towards him; or a little man with goat's feet, a crooked nose, and a forehead armed with horns, who, in token of peace, offered him the fruit of the palm-tree, and being asked presently by St. Anthony what he was, gave this answer; I am a mortal, and one of those inhabitants of the desart, whom the deluded Gentiles worship, under the name of fawns, satyrs, and incubi, and am now deputed as an ambassador from our whole tribe, to beg your prayers and intercession for us, to our common Lord and Master; whom we know to have been sent for the salvation of the whole world.' "The same learned father informs us of a great dragon that could suck up whole oxen and sheep, with the herdsmen and shepherds, and swallow them down at once, and that Hilarion commanded him to ascend a pile of wood, which he obeyed, and was burnt to death. And that this same Hilarion could tell what particular devil any one was subject to, by the smell of his body or clothes, or any thing he touched. "Gregory Nazianzen informs us, that Gregory Thaumaturgus not only cast out Satan from a temple where he was worshipped, but afterwards wrote him the following billet, Gregory to Satan, Enter:' which was accordingly done. Sulpitius Severus tells us how a person was dispossessed by some of the straw which St. Martin had lain upon; and how, after dispossession, he saw the devil upon a cow's back. ap-s "St. Martin himself tells Severus, that the devil peared to him very splendidly arrayed, and pretended to be Christ; but the Holy Spirit revealing it to him, that it was the devil, he declared he would not believe that Christ was come, unless he appeared in that form and habit in which he suffered; upon which the devil vanished like smoke, and filled the cell with such a stink, as left unquestionable evidence that he was the devil. "Another time St. Martin said, he saw a horrible devil, in the porch of a house, who being ordered to be gone, seized one of the family, and running open mouthed at the saint, as if he designed to bite him, St. Martin thrust his fingers into his mouth, and bid him eat them; upon which the devil, fearing to pass by his fingers, as if they had been red-hot iron in his jaws, went out at the other end, leaving "Ephraim, bishop of Cherson, tells us, how the body of Clemens Romanus being thrown into the sea, was received into a temple built by God, three miles from the shore; and how a boy lived there a year under water. "St. Austin asserts of his own knowledge, several miracles wrought by the reliques of Stephen; and how the bodies of saints, which were discovered to St. Ambrose in a dream, two hundred years after their deaths, cured a blind man and a maiden was brought to life by a gown brought from the place of St. Martin's martyrdom, whither she had sent it. ; "What shall we say to the tales of Johannes Diaconus, in his life of Gregory? Of a child that was brought to life by the buskin of abbot Honoratus? Of a monk who ordered a serpent to watch the kitchen N garden? How Fortunatus, by the sign of the cross, tamed a wild horse? How Sabrinus sent a written message to the river Po, not to overflow, which was obeyed? And how Eutychius, wanting a shepherd, set a bear to lead out and bring home the sheep of the monastery at appointed hours, who did it exactly as long as he lived?" NOTE (4) Page 33. Forgery, that unpardonable crime in the state, does not seem to be so black an offence in the church, which 5as not only protected such interpolations of Scripture as 1 John v. 7, to which even the early English Bibles affixed the mark of suspicion; adopted creeds all of which vary from their genuine forms, and one is undoubtedly spurious, and is supposed by some to have been intended as a burlesque on the opinions of Athanasius, whose name it bears; but even asserts her authority, and rivets her fetters, by a warrant which there is strong reason for thinking was surreptitiously obtained. The evidence relative to the spuriousness of the commencement of Article xx, "The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith," is as follows: 1. This clause does not exist in the MS. copy of the Articles in Latin, presented to Bennet College, Cambridge, by Archbishop Parker, dated Jan. 29, 1562, and subscribed by the two archbishops, eighteen bishops, and about a hundred of the clergy: |