by prayer that in his name, all acceptable worship must be offered up-that the rejection of him, is the rejection of God that they who despise him, despise him who sent him. And we hope, that they who believe thus in Christ, will, here, long enjoy a holy and happy communion, through him, with the Father of their spirits that their faith will here receive new strength-their good principles be confirmed and settled-their virtuous habits established -their devout affections enlivened and purified-that this house will indeed be to them the house of God, and the gate of heaven.

We lay this stone-in a belief of the Christian doctrine of a resurrection from the dead, and of a state of righteous retribution beyond the grave-in the belief, that all they, who, according to the light they have, lead virtuous and devout lives, shall, through the infinite mercy of God, declared in Jesus Christ, be received to eternal life and joy-and that the unjust-all they who despise the riches of the goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering of God, shall be reserved unto the day of judgment, to be punished.

We lay this stone-as believers in the divine authority of the Sacred Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. We believe these books to contain the whole will of God, as it was revealed to the Jews by his prophets; and to the world, by Jesus Christ his Son. The Bible is the rule of our faith: its chapters and verses are the articles of our creed-the Bible is the rule of our conduct-the Bible is the charter of our immortal hopes. With this volume open in our hands, and reading as we go, we walk fearlessly through the world; sure that it will guide us right in the midst of duty and trial, and lead us at last to the desired haven. We rejoice in our possession of this blessed book-we thank God for its gift-and it is our fervent and constant prayer, that the time may soon come, when all men in all parts of the earth shall possess it, understand it, and obey it.

We begin this church, as practical believers and defenders of the great Protestant principle of the right of private judgment in matters of faith. We yield up our right to understand and interpret the Sacred Scriptures for ourselves, and to believe as we see evidence to preponderate this way or that, to no man or number of men, to no Church or Council, Synod or Assembly. We think we are answerable to God alone for the faith we adopt, or the

faith we reject, and that man has no power to meddle in the case. And we trust, that, from this place no man or woman will be denounced for their faith in Christ, be that faith what it may. And ere one such anathema should be uttered within these walls, we pray God that they may crumble to their foundations.

We build this church in perfect charity, we hope, with Christendom and the world for we build it as Christians; and Christians should love not only one another, but mankind. We wish, indeed, that our own peculiar opinions should every where prevail, for we believe them to be the pure, undoubted truth of God; but we would not make one convert by violence, or the sacrifice of peace. An overheated zeal has been a principal source of the miseries the church has endured. Christian sects have been willing to propagate their opinions at any cost, from mistaken ideas of their importance. They have forced, not followed Providence. May we avoid their error; and, though persuaded that our opinions are true, and important as true, and must ultimately prevail, let us not hasten too fast, but wait the fit concurrence of times and circumstances. God watches over his truth as he does over his material creation, and, in his own time and in his own way, will raise it to honour and a universal empire.

but

And now, brethren, I use the words of another, on a similar occasion:-Let us depart from this spot-from this moment holy ground, set apart henceforth from ordinary uses, and consecrated to things divine. Where the heavens now swell above us, declaring their Maker's glory, shall soon be interposed a roof of human workmanship, beneath which shall be declared the bright glory of his redeeming love. It shall intercept the light of yonder sun, whose beams shall no more fall upon this place; the more reviving beams of the sun of righteousness shall rest here without a cloud. The dews of night shall come down upon this spot no more, and the winds of the ocean shall henceforth be excluded; but the dews of divine grace, as we trust, shall plenteously visit it, and the gentle breathings of the Holy Spirit, shall never cease to shed upon it life and peace. And from this place, where now, perhaps for the first time, the voice of Christian worship has ascended to Heaven, there shall go up, generation after generation, to the end of time, incense and a pure offering from multitudes of humble and believing hearts.

REVIEW.

(BY DR. CHANNING.)

A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone, by John Milton.

THE discovery of a work of Milton, unknown to his own times, is an important event in literary history. The consideration, that we of this age are the first readers of this treatise, naturally heightens our interest in it; for we seem in this way to be brought nearer to the author, and to sustain the same relation which his cotemporaries bore to his writings. The work opens with a salutation, which, from any other man, might be chargeable with inflation; but which we feel to be the natural and appropriate expression of the spirit of Milton. Endowed with gifts of the soul, which have been imparted to few of our race, and conscious of having consecrated them through life to God and mankind, he rose without effort or affectation to the style of an apostle:-" JOHN MILTON, TO ALL THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST, AND TO ALL WHO PROFESS THE CHRISTIAN FAITH THROUGHOUT, THE WORLD, PEACE, AND THE RECOGNITION OF THE TRUTH, AND ETERNAL SALVATION in God the Father, and IN OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST." Our ears are the first to hear this benediction, and it seems not so much to be borne to us from a distant age, as to come immediately from the sainted spirit, by which it was indited.

Without meaning to disparage the "Treatise on Christian Doctrine," we may say, that it owes very much of the attention which it has excited, to the fame of its author. We value it chiefly, as showing us the mind of Milton on that subject, which, above all others, presses upon men of thought and sensibility. We want to know, in what conclusions such a man rested, after a life of extensive and profound research, of magnanimous efforts for freedom and his country, and of communion with the most gifted minds in his own and former times. The book derives its chief interest from its author, and, accordingly, there seems to be a propriety in introducing our remarks upon it, with some notice of the character of Milton. We are not sure that we could have abstained from this subject, even if we had not been able to offer so good an apology

for attempting it. The intellectual and moral qualities of a great man, are attractions not easily withstood, and we can hardly serve others or ourselves more, than by recalling to him the attention, which is scattered among inferior topics.

In speaking of the intellectual qualities of Milton, we may begin with observing, that the very splendour of his poetic fame, has tended to obscure or conceal the extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and attainments. To many, he seems only a poet, when, in truth, he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass of thought, imbued thoroughly with all ancient and modern learning, and able to master, to mould, to inpregnate with hls own intellectual power, his great and various acquisitions. He had not learned the superficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagination shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious age; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest it should oppress and smother his genius. He was conscious of that within him, which could quicken all knowledge, and wield it with ease and might; which could give freshness to old truths, and harmony to discordant thoughts; which could bind together by living ties and mysterious affinities, the most remote discoveries; and rear fabrics of glory and beauty, from the rude materials which other minds had collected. Milton had that universality, which marks the highest order of intellect. Though accustomed almost from infancy, to drink at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing of the pedantry and fastidiousness which disdain all other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, on whatever soil, or in whatever age, it burst forth and poured out its fulness. He understood too well the rights, and dignity, and pride of creative imagination, to lay on it the laws of the Greek or Roman school. Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of genius. He felt, that poetry was as a universal presence. Great minds were every where his kindred. He felt the enchantment of Oriental fiction, surrendered himself to the strange creations of "Araby the blest," and delighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, and in the tales of wonder in which it was embodied. Accordingly, his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which adds to its own boundlessness, contributions from all regions under heaven. Nor was it only in the

department of imagination, that his acquisitions were vast. He travelled over the whole field of knowledge, as far as it had then been explored. His various philological attainments, were used to put him in possession of the wisdom stored in all countries, where the intellect had been cultivated. The natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, history, theology, and political science of his own and former times, were familiar to him. Never was there a more unconfined mind, and we would cite Milton, as a practical example of the benefits of that universal culture of intellect, which forms one distinction of our times, but which some dread as unfriendly to original thought. Let such remember, that mind is in its own nature diffusive. Its object is the universe, which is strictly one, or bound together by infinite connexions and correspondences; and, accordingly, its natural progress is from one to another field of thought; and wherever original power, creative genius, exists, the mind, far from being distracted or oppressed by the variety of its acquisitions, will see more and more common bearings and hidden and beautiful analogies in all the objects of knowledge, will see mutual light shed from truth to truth, and will compel, as with a kingly power, whatever it understands, to yield some tribute of proof, or illustration, or splendour, to whatever topic it would unfold.

Milton's fame rests chiefly on his poetry, and to this we naturally give our first attention. By those who are accustomed to speak of poetry, as light reading, Milton's eminence in this sphere may be considered only as giving him a high rank among the contributors to public amusement. No so thought Milton. Of all God's gifts of intellect, he esteemed poetical genius the most transcendant. He esteemed it in himself as a kind of inspiration, and wrote his great works with something of the conscious dignity of a prophet. We agree with Milton, in his estimate of poetry. It seems to us, the divinest of all arts; for it is the breathing or expression of that principle or sentiment, which is deepest and sublimest in human nature-we mean, of that thirst or aspiration, to which no mind is wholly a stranger, for something purer and lovelier, something more powerful, lofty, and thrilling, than ordinary and real life affords. No doctrine is more common among Christians, than that of man's immortality; but it is not so generally understood, that the germs or principles of