MRS. ANN HUTCHINSON. "THERE came over with Mr. Cotton, or about the same time, Mr. Hutchinson and his family. His wife, as Mr. Cotton says, was well beloved, and all the faithful embraced her conference and blessed God for her faithful discourses.' After she came to New England she was treated with great respect, and much notice was taken of her by Mr. Cotton and other principal persons, and particularly by Mr. Vane the governor.—Countenanced and encouraged by Mr. Vane and Mr. Cotton she advanced doctrines and opinions which involved the colony in disputes and contentions, and being improved to civil as well as wi religions purposes had like to have produced ruin both to church and state.-Mr. Wheelright a zealous minister, of character and learning, was her brother-in-law and firmly attached to her and finally suffered with her. Mrs. Hutchinson thought fit to set up a meeting of the sisters -where she repeated the sermons preached the Lord's day before, adding her remarks and expositions. Her lectures made much noise, and sixty or eighty of the principal women attended. At first they were generally approved of. After some time it appeared she had distinguished the ministers and churches through the country, a small part of them under a covenant of grace, the rest under a covenant of works. The whole colony was soon divided into two parties, and however distant one party was from the other in principle, they were still more so in affection. The two capital errors with which she was charged were these:-That the Holy Ghost dwells personally in a justified person; person; and that nothing of sanctification can help to evidence to believers their justification. The ministers of the several parts of the country, alarmed with these things, came to Boston whilst the general court was sitting. They conferred with Mr. Cotton and Mr Wheelright upon those two points. The last they both disclaimed, so far as to acknowledge that sanctification did help to evidence justification. The other they qualified at least by other words; they held the indwelling of the person of the Holy Ghost, but not strictly a personal union, or as they express it, not a communication of personal properties. # 66 "The governor not only held with Mr. Cotton but went farther, or was more express, and maintained a personal union. Mr. Winthrop, the deputy governor, denied both, and Mr. Wilson the other minister of Boston and many ministers of the country joined with him. A conference or disputation was determined on, which they agreed should be managed in writing, as most likely to tend to peace in the church. When they could not find that the scriptures nor the primitive church for three hundred years ever used the term PERSON of the Holy Ghost, they generally thought it was best it should be forborn as of human invention. "Upon the other question Mr. Cotton in a sermon, the day the court met, had acknowledged that evident sanctification is a ground of justification. "The town and country were distracted with these subtleties, and every man and woman, who had brains enough to form some imperfect conceptions of them, inferred and maintained some other points, such as these-A man is justified before he believes; faith is no cause of justification; and if faith be before justification it is only a passive faith, an empty vessel, &c. And assurance is by immediate revelation only. The fear of God and love of our neighbour seemed to be laid by and out of the question. All the church of Boston except four or five joined Mr. Cotton. Mr. Wilson the other minister and most of the ministers in the country opposed him.” "A synod was appointed to be held at Newtown the 30th of August, where were present, not only the minister and messengers of churches, but the magistrates also. Three weeks were spent in disputing pro and con, and at length above fourscore points or opinions, said to have been maintained by some or other in the country, were condemned as erroneous. truth in that honourable way as were to be desired. My ground is this. They will be chief agents in the synod who are chief parties in the cause; and for them only who are prejudiced in the controversy to pass sentence against cause or person, how improper! how unprofitable." "Mrs. Hutchinson was next* called to her trial before all the court and many of the elders.Her sentence upon record stands thus -Mrs. Hutchinson the wife of William Hutchinson being convented for traducing the ministers and their ministry in this country-She declared voluntarily her revelations and that she should be delivered and the court ruined with their posterity, and thereupon was banished, and in the mean while was committed to Mr. Joseph Weld until the court shan dispose of her.". -Hutchinson's History of Mass. Bay. The historian also informs that after these troubles, the husband of Ann Hutchinson sold his estate and removed to Rhode Island with his wife and family, that he died about the year 1642; that she with her family removed from Rhode Island to the "Dutch country beyond NewHaven," and the next year she and all her family which were with her, being sixteen children, were killed by the Indians except one daughter whom they carried into captivity."-" Some writers mention the manner of her death as being a remarkable judgement of God for her heresies. Her partizans charged the guilt of her murder upon the colony." "Mr. Hooker at first disapproved determining the points in controversy by a synod. He writes thus to Mr. Shepard of Newtown." For your general synod I cannot yet see either how reasonable or how salutable it will be for your turn, for the settling or establishing the *Mr. Wheelwright had been previously "disfranchised and banished." THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. WHAT is dearer to God the Father than his only Son? And what diviner blessing has he to bestow upon men than his holy Spirit? Yet has he given his Son for us, and by the hands of his Son he confers his blessed Spirit on us. Jesus having received of the Father the promise of the Spirit, shed it forth on men. Acts ii. 33. How the wondrous doctrine of the blessed Trinity shines through the whole of our religion, and sheds a glory upon every part of it! Here is God the Father, a King of infinite riches and glory, has constituted his belovSon the High-treasurer of heaven, and the holy Spirit is the divine and inestimable treasure. What amazing doctrines of saered love are written in our Bibles! What mysteries of mercy, what miracles of glory are these! Our boldest desires and most raised hopes, durst never aim at such blessings: there is nothing in all nature that can lead us to a thought of such grace. The Spirit was given by the Father to the Son for men; for rebellious and sinful men, to make favourites and saints of them this was the noble gift the Son received when he ascended on high; and he distributed it to grace his triumph. Was it not a divine honour which Jesus our Lord displayed on that day, when the tongues of fire sat on his twelve apostles; when he sent his ambassadors to every nation to address them in their own language, to notify his accession to the throne of heaven, and to demand subjection to his government? When he conferred power upon his envoys to reverse the laws of nature and imitate creation? To give eyes to the blind, and to raise the dead? All this was done by the Spirit' which he sent down upon them in the days of Pentecost. But is the Spirit given to none but his apostles and the prime ministers of his kingdom? Was that rich treasure exhausted in the first ages of the gospel, and none left for us? God forbid! Every one of his subjects have the same favour bestowed on them, though not in the same degree: every humble. and holy soul in our day, every true Christian is possessed of the Spirit, for he that has not the Spirit of Christ is none of his. And wherever the Spirit is, it works miracles too; it newcreates his nature; it raises the dead to life, and teaches Egypt and Assyria and the British isles to speak the language of Canaan. It is the gift of the Spirit which the Son sends down to us continually from the Father, that is the original and spring of all these strange blessings. The Father has a heart of large bounty to the poor ruined race of Adam; the Son has a hand fit to be Almoner to the King of Glory; and the Spirit is the rich alms. This blessed donation has enriched ten thousand souls already, and there remains enough to enrich ten thousand worlds. The Father, what a glorious giver! the Son, what a glorious medium of communication! and the Spirit, what a glorious gift! We bless and adore while we partake of these immense favours, and gratitude is ever overwhelmed with wonder! O let our spirits rejoice in this blessed article of our religion! And may all the temptations we meet with from men of reason, never, never baffle so sweet a faith.- -Remnants of Time by Dr. Watts. We wish our readers to attend seriously to this account of the character of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, and inquire whether it is not scriptural. THE PIETY AND SELF-DENIAL OF CHRIST AN EXAMPLE ΤΟ CHRISTIANS. The following striking remarks are extracted from a sermon of Cappe. "THE piety of Jesus was not merely the piety of devotion, of prayer and praise and thanksgiving. His religion was not merely the religion of retirement and secrecy; it was not merely the first and the last moments of the day, and besides these, one day in seven, that he devoted unto God; every hour of every day he consecrated unto him. "He set the Lord always before him, and in all his ways he acknowledged God." Was his doctrine excellent and amiable? They were not his own words that he spake, but the words of the Father who sent him. Did his miracles excite the wonder and reverence of the beholders? It was not he, it was the Father that did the works. Did he call upon the world to believe his doctrine and obey it? It was not his own honour that he sought, it was that his Father might be glórified. "It were superfluous to allege any particular instances of his piety; it shines in every thing he says, and is displayed in every thing he does. The in variable tenor of his conduct is that of a man determined at every hazard, at every expense to himself, to do whatever is well-pleasing in the sight of God. To explain his will, to assert his providence, to magnify his excellences, to set forth the vast importance of his favour or displeasure, to correct every error that he met with concerning these interesting subjects, to engage men to consider these things, to awaken in their hearts those sentiments and affections which ought to be excited by them there, and to per*suade them to submit their conduct to the influence of these things, Jesus was continually attentive. His glory, is the service to which he is appointed, and his joy, the interest he possessed in the friendship of him who sent him. His diligence in the work of God bespake the high esteem in which he held his service, and the pleasure it was to him to conform to his will. His content and cheerfulness amidst all his privations and wants; his patience and resignation under all his various dangers and afflictions, which never could deter him from his duty, nor damp his zeal in the discharge of it, declare unto the world in the most credible and affecting language, that his confidence in God was not to be shaken, and that he Joved his Father better than his life. "Such, Christians, was the piety of Jesus; such the honour that he did to God and to religion in his intercourse with mankind. Compare your piety with his; does it show itself in your conduct, as well as your devotions ? If it does, you are worthy of your name. But will any man call himself a Christian, will any man pretend that he has the spirit of Christ Jesus in him, who does the work of God with a reluctant mind, and bears the will of God with an impatient spirit? Will any man usurp these saered appellations, and assume the hopes that belong to his disciples, who despises the word of God, who profanes the day of God, who forsakes the assemblies of God's worship, and neglects the ordinances of religion? Can any man think himself a follower of Jesus who is afraid or ashamed to confess the truth, and discharge his duty before men; frighted out of his religion by the frown of power, or laughed out of it by the jests of folly? It was not thus that Jesus had his conversation in the world: this is not the piety that will glorify your heavenly Father, and adorn your Christian profession. True piety is a purer, a nobler, and a steadier principle; which arising from just ideas of the nature, the character, and the government of God, and from true of conceptions of the obligations that we owe to him, thinks well of all that he appoints, takes pleasure in all that he commands, reverences every thing that comes from him or relates to him, and delights to hold communion with him, in the contemplation of his works, in the perusal of his word, in the celebration of his ordinances, in the prayers and praises and thanksgivings of his sanctuary, as well as in the sacred exercises of devout retirement. It is a principle, which, remembering that God is every where as well as in his temple, carries with it a reverent sense of the divine presence into company, into business, into scenes care and pleasure, no less than into scenes of leisure and devotion; which, perceiving or believing the goodness of God in all things, does all unto his glory; which, esteeming his favour to be life, and preferring. his loving-kindness to all that life can give, looks with a jealous eye on every thing that will endanger its interests with God; which, glorying in his service, abhors the very thought of denying God, or of dissembling its relation to him ; which, rejoicing in the hopes and consolations of that service, would have all men to lay hold on this happiness and honour; which, sensible that its obligations to the great Ruler of the world are continually increasing, embraces with joy and gladness every opportunity that occurs to serve the cause of truth and virtue among men, and thus to promote their present and their future happiness, and so to ex |