THAT the practice of Duelling, which has been known to pre. Vail in other parts of our country, has of late years had the countenance of some examples within this State. That with anxiety and regret your memorialists have observed this symptom of degeneracy from the principles and manners, which formerly distinguished the citizens of this Commonwealth, and have seen instances among us of practices, which the influence of religious and moral sentiments, the correctness of public opinion, and the authority of law, have heretofore resisted with almost complete effect. Your memorialists need not say to your honors, that this practice involves a contempt and defiance of the precepts and sanctions of that religion, which you our legislators acknowledge, and what it belongs to your memorialists especially to teach and promote; that it involves the deliberate exposure or destruction of life, at the will of individuals, in utter despite of public authority; and thus a. mounts to the commission, or an attempt to the commission, of murder; that it claims in behalf of a false and absurd law of hon or, originating in times of bar barism and ferocity, and acknowledged to have no other sanction than perverted opinion and corrupt fashion, the power of annulling and superseding the laws of God and men; that in proportion as it prevails, it puts in jeopardy all the peculiar ben efits of the social and civilized ondition, making the inter

course of men in the same communities, a scene of danger and bloodshed; and tending to render wholly unsafe the exercise of the liberty of action, and the liberty of debate in public bodies, and of speech in general, as secured to every citizen by the laws of his country. As friends of religion, your memorialists are constrained to pray, that those who have no fear of God, may be awed by the civil arm, and that examples may not be suffered of a species of actions, that is at once an affront to heav. en, and an outrage on the first principles of social order. View. ing the authority of the lawgiver and magistrate, as the safeguard of the public peace, and of individual right and happiness, they cannot suppress a fervent wish, that this authority may be so exerted, as to protect the subjects of government from the violence of their own passions, and restrain that practice of private revenge, which throws the powers of society into the hands of the unprincipled and the desperate. As friends of humanity, your memorialists cannot contemplate without distressing emotions the domestic terror and suffering, which must be inseparable from the prevalence of the barbarous usage, which they suggest to your present consideration and dis. countenance.

Your memorialists have not overlooked the care which our laws have shewn to prevent this offence; but they cannot fail to observe with your honors the partial efficacy of the existing laws on

this subject. This insufficiency of the past interposition of gov. ernment, against the evil in question, they would fain believe, is not wholly to be ascribed to the intrinsic difficulty of the case; they are encouraged to hope that your wisdom may devise laws against duelling, containing more effectual provisions, than now exist, and higher securities for vigilance and fidelity in those on whom their execution depends. Your memorialists especially ob. serve, that offenders calculate on impunity, by making a State or territory under another jurisdic. tion, the scene of action. Under such impressions; relying on your favorable construction of

this address, your memorialists, with entire deference, to your legislative discretion and fidelity, presume to ask-Is it not possible, that a degree of speedy, certain infamy and suffering may be attached to this practice, sufficient to counteract the influence of that imagined honor, which is alledged by the perpetrators in justification of an offence, which your memorialists, as Christians and members of soci ety, consider incapable of justification, and as in duty bound your memorialists shall ever pray. Signed in behalf of the Convention.

SAML. SPRING, Moder. Boston, June 1st, 1809.

THE character of seditious, troublesome, and disorderly, hath been constantly given by wicked men to the servants of GOD.

For proof, attend to the following facts.

The first I shall mention is, a passage, as extraordinary in its nature, and as singular in its circumstances, as any that history affords. It is the meeting of Ahab and Enjah, in the time of a great famine in the land of Is. rael. Ahab, that profane prince, had by his apostasy and idolatry brought down the judgment of a righteous God, both on his kingdom and on his house. We are told, "That he did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger, than all the kings of Israel that were before him,"

⚫ 1 Kings xvi. 33.

The unbelieving Jews. He had persecuted the worshippers of the true God with unrelenting violence; and, as it was natural to expect, he hated with uncommon rancor, and distinguished by uncommon severity, all the prophets who continued stedfast in the cause of truth. As many of them as he could lay hold of, he had put to death. He had hunted for Elijah, not only through all the kingdom of Israel, but through the neighboring nations, as we find related by Obadiah, his principal servant, "As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee

not."*

After all this severity on his part, when Elijah, by the command of God, went out to meet him, see the form of his salutation; "And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?"+ To this the prophet makes the fol. lowing strong and just reply, "I have not troubled Israel; but thou and thy father's house have troubled Israel, in that thou hast forsaken the commandments of the Lord; and thou hast followed Baalim."

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Another instance similar to the former may be found in Jehoshaphat and Ahab's consulta. tion before going out to battle. "And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the "Lord besides, that we may in. quire of him? And the king "of Israel said unto Jehosha66 phat, There is yet one man "Micaiah the son of Imlah) by "whom we may inquire of the "Lord; but I hate him, for he "doth not prophesy good con "cerning me, but evil." Here, you see, Micaiah was the object of hatred and aversion, because he denounced the judgment of God against the king's wickedness. That vengeance which he himself not only merited but solicited by his crimes, was attributed to malice in the prophet.

See an instance of a general accusation of this kind against all the worshippers of the true God, by Haman in the book of Esther.

And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad, and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom,

* 1 Kings xviii. 10. Ibid. ver. 17.
1 Kings xxii. 7, 8.

and their laws are diverse from all people, neither keep they the king's laws; therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them." §

The prophet Jeremiah met with the same treatment at different times. Neither prince, nor priests, nor prophets, were able to bear without resentment, the threatenings which he denounced in the name of God, "Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets, and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die. Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant, and all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. I Then spake the priests and the prophets unto the princes and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy to die, for he hath prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears. 11** We find him afterwards expressly accused of treachery on the same account. "And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hana. niah, and he took Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans."++

The prophet Amos is another instance, precisely parallel to the last. Because of his fidelity to God, he was invidiously represented as an enemy to the

Esther iii. 8. Jer. xxvi. 8, 8. ¶Ibid. ver. 11. **Jer. xxxvii. 13. See also chap. xxxviii. 4.

king. "Then Amaziah

the

priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words."*

Our blessed Lord and Savior fell under the same accusation. However plain and artless his carriage, he is called a deceiver of the people. "There was much murmuring among the people concerning him, for some said, he is a good man; others said, Nay, but he deceiveth the people." His enemies endeavored to embroil him with the civil government by this insidious question, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Cesar, or not?" And that which brought him at last to the cross was the same pretended crime. "And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cesar's friend : whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cesar."‡

I shall close this view of the Scripture history, with the passage of which my text is a part. The whole crime of the apostle Paul, and his companion, was preaching the doctrine of the cross of Christ, his great and darling theme. We are told, he "opened" and "alleged, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead." Then the Jews, to whom this doctrine always was a stumbling block, were "moved with envy," and endeavored to inflame the resentment of the idolatrous multitude: they took for their associates the most wicked and profligate, "Certain lewd fel

*Amos vii. 10. †John vii. 12. ‡John xix. 12. VOL. II. New Series.

lows of the baser sort :" They "set all the city in an uproar :" And as, no doubt, the friends of Paul and Silas would endeavor to protect them from the inju. rious assault, their enemies very gravely charge them as the authors of the confusion, both there and elsewhere, "They that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also."

Having produced these instances from the Holy Scriptures, which are liable to no exception, I shall say but little on the subsequent periods of the church. Only in general, the same spirit will be found to have prevailed in every age. Whoever will take the pains to look into the history of the church before the reformation, cannot fail to observe, that when any one, either among the clergy or laity, was bold enough to reprove the errors in doctrine, or the ambition, luxury, and worldly lives of his cotemporaries, he was immediately branded as a factious and disorder. ly person, and often severely pun. ished, as an enemy to the peace of the church.

I forbear to add any more particular examples; but from the deduction above given, it will plainly appear, that worldly men have been always disposed, first to oppress the children of God, and then to complain of injury from them, that by slander they might vindicate their oppression. Their slander too, hath still run in the same strain; troublers of Israel, deceivers of the people, enemies to Cesar, and turners of the world upside down, have been the opprobrious titles generally given to the most upright and most faithful men, in every age and country.

"Doth Job serve God for nought?" Satan.

THEY who are disposed to represent the most blameless profes. sors of godliness, as hypocrites, or mercchary; to put a bad con. struction upon harmless or even good actions; and to insinuate some suspicion or objection, in

order to detract from the com. mendations bestowed upon pious and useful men, may easily know whose children they are, whose example they follow, and whose work they do. For they resemble in every feature, Satan, the envenomed slanderer and ac. cuser of the brethren. It is indeed true, that God will not suffer his people to serve him for nought. Their best interests are secured: no good thing they do shall lose its reward. Yet they serve GoD from love, gratitude, and zeal, and delight in his holy commandments. When called to it, they will part with every temporal possession for his sake. But untried faith is not much to be depended on; if case, wealth, and pleasure uniformly attended piety; if there were no cross, self-denial, or temptation, serve as a touchstone, or a fur. nace, it would be difficult to dis. tinguish the believer from the hypocrite; and therefore Satan is often allowed to sift and prove the people of GoD, that he and his children may be the more confounded. He means to destroy, to defile, or distress them: but the Lord intends to demonstrate the reality and power of

to

his grace in them for his own glory and their important good. -Little do we know what plots are forming against us in the invisible world.-Blessed be the Lord, his power limits the operations of these malicious foes they who love him are assured of his protection. Their enemies can never break through the hedge, which the Almighty Gon hath made around them; and even when he permits them to be tempted, neither the Devil nor his emissaries can transcend the limits assigned them. Scott.

A LESSON OF HUMILITY.

How vain a thing is man! How ready to be puffed up with every breath of applause, and to forget that he is a creature, and a sinner? He that can bear to be surrounded with approbations and honors, and yet keep the same air and countenance without swelling a little at heart, hath passed an hour of temptation, and come off conqueror. As the fining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold, so is a man to his praise, Prov. xxvii. 21.

Eudoxus is a gentleman of exalted virtue, and unstained reputation: Every soul that knows him, speaks well of him; he is so much honored, and so well beloved in his nation, that he must flee his country if he would avoid praises. So sensible is he of the secret pride that has tainted human nature, that he holds himself in perpetual danger, and maintains an everlasting watch. He behaves now with the same modesty, as when he was Unknown and obscure. He receives the acclamations of the world with such an humble mien, and with such an indifference of