10. That the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper are not ordinances commanded by the word of God.

11. "That the baptism of infants is unlawful and void, and that such persons ought to be baptized again.

12. "That the observation of the Lord's day, as enjoined by the ordinances and laws of the realm, is not according, or is contrary to the word of God.

13. "That it is not lawful to join in public or family prayer, or to teach children to pray.

14. "That the churches of England are no true churches, nor their ministers and ordinances, true ministers and ordinances; or that the church government by presbyteries is antichristian or unlawful.

15. "That magistracy, or the power of the civil magistrate by law established in England, is unlawful.

16. "That all use of arms, though for the public defence, and be the cause ever so just, is unlawful."

After reporting this antichristian ordinance, Mr. Neal has the following paragraph:

"This black list of heresies was taken from the speeches or writ

ing of the Papists, Arminians, Antinomians, Arians, Baptists, and Quakers, &e. of those times. The ordinance was a comprehensive engine of cruelty, and would have tortured great numbers of good Christians and good subjects. The Presbyterians of the present age are not only thankful that the confusion of the times did not permit their predecessors to put this law into execution, but wish also that it could be blotted out of the records of time, as it is impossible to brand it with the censure equal to its demerits."

If such a law were to be fully executed in our land at the pres ent day, would not one half the adult persons of the United States be put to death, and three fifths of the other half commit ted to prison? What reason then have dissenters from the creed of the Westminster Assembly to be thankful to God, that the punishment for dissent has been changed from a destruction of life to ruin of character! In former times the sixth commandment afforded no more security to a dissenter's life, than the ninth commandment now does to his reputation.

The third article in the list of heresies made it death for a man to deny that Jesus Christ was the "one eternal God." The sixth exposed him to the same punishment if he denied that Je sus Christ was the Son of God. By comparing the two articles together, it must be evident, that a man was exposed to be put to death for denying either part of a palpable contradiction, or that in the sixth article, that

the word "Son" is used in a sense, for which we have no analogy in the use of language.

As the Presbyterians of Mr. Neal's day wished the sanguinary ordinance of their ancestors "could be blotted out of the re

cords of time;" so it is probable that the posterity of some persons of the present day, may wish the same in regard to a number of things which have been done in

our age.

"BUT higher ground is taken by the opponents of this bill, than the practicability of converting the Hindoos to Christianity. The principles of the Hindoos are so good, their morals are so pure, it is said, that this conversion is not desirable; that to attempt to communicate to them our religion and our morality, is, to say the least, a superfluous, perhaps a mischievous, attempt.

"This is no new doctrine. It sprang up among the French sceptical philosophers, by whom it was used for the purpose of discrediting Christianity, by shewing, that in countries which were wholly strangers to its light, the people were in general more gentle, and peaceable, and innocent, and amiable, than in those countries, which had for the longest period professed the Christian faith. But, sir, have not moral causes their sure and infallible effects? Is it not notorious that the natives of India, from the very earliest times, have groaned under the double yoke of political and religious despotism? And in truth, we find the morals and manners of the na

tives of India just such, as we might have been led to expect, from a knowledge of their dark and degrading superstitions, and their political bondage.

"But honorable gentlemen have read us passages from their religious books, some of which breathe a strain of pure, and even sublime morality. But I ask such of our opponents as urge this argument, whether they did or did not know, that which is an undeniable fact, (1 refer to Mr. Halhed's translation of the Hindoo laws,) that if a Soodra should get by heart, nay, if he should read, or even listen to the sacred books, the law condemns him to a most cruel death?

"Let me quote to you, sir, some general opinions of the moral state of the Hindoos, which have been given by authors of established credit, as well as by per sons who have for many years held high stations in the company's service, and who must be supposed to have been perfectly acquainted with their real charaeter.

"The traveller Bernier, whose work was received as evidence

at Mr. Hastings' trial, places the character of the people in general, and especially of the Brahmins, in the most unfavorable light. I only refer in general to his high authority. Bernier travelled in India about one hundred and fifty years ago. And Mr. Orme, the excellent historian of the Carpatic, leads us to form a still lower estimation of their moral qualities. He speaks of the Gentoos as 'infamous for the want of generosity and gratitude, in all the commerce of friend ship; a tricking, deceitful people in all their dealings.' 'Every offence is capable of being expiated, by largesses to the Brahmins, prescribed by themselves, according to their own measures of avarice and sensuality'

"Still worse is the character of the East Indian Mahomedans. A domineering insolence towards all those who are in subjection to them, ungovernable wilfulness, inhumanity, cruelty, murders, and assassination, perpetrated with the same calmness and subtlety as the rest of their politics, and insensibility to remorse for these crimes; sensual excesses, which revole against nature; unbounded thirst of power, and a rapaciousness of wealth, equal to the extravagance of his propensities and vices! This is the character of an Indian Moor.' Orme on the manners &c. of the Indian Moors, vol. iv. 4to. p. 423

434.

"Governor Holwell, to say the least, was not in any degree biassed by his attachment to the Christian system, as compared with that of the natives of India. But he calls them, a race of

people who, from their infancy, are utter strangers to the idea of common faith and honesty. The Gentoos in general are as dangerous and wicked, as any race of people in the known world, if not eminently more so; especially the common run of Brahmins. We can truly aver, that during almost five years, that we presided in the Judicial Court of Caleutta. never any murder, or other atrocious crime came before us, but it was proved in the end, that a Brahmin was at the bottom of it.'

"Says Lord Clive, the inhab, itants of this country, we know, by long experience, have no attachment to any obligation,'

"Lord Teignmouth paints their character in still darker colours. "The natives are timid and ser vile. Individuals have little sense of honor, and the nation is wholly void of public virtue. They make not the least scruple of lying, where falsehood is attended with advantage. lie, steal, plunder, ravish, or murder, are not deemed sufficient crimes to merit expulsion from society.'

To *

"And four hundred years ago, said Tamerlane, their great conqueror, 'the native of Hindostan has no pretensions to humanity, but the figure; whilst imposture, fraud and deception, are considered by him as meritorious accomplishments!

"The moral standard of the natives of India, has even deteriorated of late years. Sir James Mackintosh, it is well known, lately presided on the bench of justice in Bombay; and in a charge to the grand jury at Bom,

bay, in 1803, he thus expresses kimself: I observe that the accomplished, and justly celebrated Sir William Jones, who carried with him to this country a prejudice in favor of the natives, after long experience, reluctantly confessed their general depravity. The prevalence of perjury, which he strongly states, and which I have myself already observed, is perhaps a more certain sign of the general dissolution of moral principle, than other more daring and ferocious crimes, much more horrible to the imagination, and of which the immediate consequences are more destructive to society.'

"A woman, who was a witness in the court of Sir James Mackintosh, and who, it was ob vious, had very greatly prevaricated, was asked by the record er, whether there was any harm in false swearing? She replied, that she understood that the English had a great horror of it, but that there was no such horror in her country. See the Bombay Law Reports, Asiatic Register for 1804.

"Lord Wellesley, when governor general, applied to the judges of circuit, and also to magistrates permanently settled in the different provinces, for infor. mation of the general character of the natives. The result was, that 'perjury was so general, as to produce a total distrust of human

testimony. No rank, no caste, is exempt from the contagion. Their minds are totally uncuttivated; of the great duties of morality they have no idea; and they possess a great degree of that low cunning, which so generally accompanies depravity of heart. They are indolent, and grossly sensual; cruel and cowardly; insolent and abject. They have superstition, without a sense of religion; and all the vices of savage life, without its virtues. No falsehood is too extravagant or audacious to be advanced before a circuit court. A Brahmin, who had circumstantially sworn to the nature, and number, and authors of the wounds of two men, whom he alleged to have been murdered, scarcely. blushed when the two men were produced alive and unhurt in court; and merely pleaded, that had he not'sworn as directed, he should have lost his employ.'

"God forbid that we should sit down in hopeless dejection, under the conviction, though these evils exist, that they are not to be removed; and were all considerations of a future state out of the question, I hesitate not to affirm, that a regard for their temporal well being, would alone furnish abundant motives for endeavoring to diffuse among them the blessings of Christian light, and moral instruction."

THE first reflection to be made

-How strong must have been their persuasion of the truth of their religion; how powerful must have been the first preaching of the apostles; how irresistible the evidence of their early miracles. How shall we account for the early and prodigious increase of the Christian church, immediately after the death of its founder and the apparent extinction of its hopes; except on the supposition of the truth of the story, and the perfect disinterestedness of the first preachers of the religion. Was there a class of people in the world, where Chrisiianity was less likely to suceeed, than at Jerusalem? Where could the first prejudices against Christianity be imagined to be stronger, than where the founder of that religion had been publicly crucified; in the sight of those very people who had seen him expiring on the cross in ignominy; the victim of the ruling powers, the execration of those men whom they had been most accustomed to reverence, and to whose authority, especially in matters of religion, they had been taught implicitly to submit? Yet a few preachers, such as Peter and John, men of common life and no extraordinary talents, not only collect in a very short time, a community of several thousands of professors, who acknowledge the truth of the miraculous resarrection of Jesus, and gave their names to his cause; but of men of all ranks in life, rich as well as poor, all animated by one spirit of faith and charity; men who sold their possessions, and contributed their fortunes to the relief of those whom they had pro

1

bably never before known;-men who could have no common bond but this new and most extraordinary belief in the resurrection of a despised Master-a Master whom his earliest followers had joined, with the hope of some temporal advantage; men in fact, whose hopes had all been blasted by the crucifixion of their Leader. Yet we find them rising up, like a new creation in the midst of Jerusalem, with principles, feelings and habits, more like heaven than earth;-ready to sacrifice life, fortune and reputation, for the support of one another and their common faithwithout any object on earth to allure them, without any hope of recompeuse, but in the promises of a crucified Savior, and in the visible protection of a God, who seems to have taken them under his peculiar patronage.

Surely this is a state of things for which nothing will account, but their firm persuasion of the truth of the resurrection of their Master. But if he was yet dead, whence this astonishing, this unaccountable persuasion? Did God interpose to infatuate the minds of these men, in the belief of a palpable falsehood? or do you suppose the world of wicked spirits was for a time let loose to take possession of the minds of thousands of people, and transform them into new, pious, and disinterested creatures? Certainly not. Nothing more is necessary to account for it than their knowledge of the facts, of which they were witnesses, and their certainty of the miraculous powers with which the apostles were endued. New views were opened to their