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Constantinople and the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, who happened to be then in the city. Mr. King's letter was read, and discussed at length, in that meeting. The long neglected Bible was produced in the conclave, and the references consulted. The consequence was, a division in the assembly, and a warm discussion of the practices of their own church. But eventually several resolutions were passed, which clearly show that strong convictions of truth had seized on the minds of a major part; and that light has dawned, even upon the ecclesiastics of the Armenian Church, which must, ere long, subvert the fabric of their superstition. The substance of the resolutions is, that the Patriarch should dismiss the monks and priests from the Convent at Jerusalem, and appoint a few persons in their places who have been married but are widowers; that no new monks or priests be appointed for twenty-five years; that no women or boys go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; that men who go should not be permitted to remain there more than four days; and that they no more witness the pretended miracle of the holy fine."

This Mission has been established little more than six years. Levi Parsons, from this country, was the first that went out professedly with that object.

SOUTH SEA ISLANDS.-Information has recently arrived, that the natives of these Islands, are afflicted with a species of plague, "extremely virulent and fatal in its nature, and rapid in its progress. Of this disorder, many of the inhabitants of Tahaita and Ulietea had been carried off, and others were dying daily. Capt. B. was informed by two English gentlemen, who had just arrived from the last mentioned island, that the distemper was then raging in an extraordinary manner; that at Taheita there were ten dead bodies found in one house. As soon as one member of a family was attacked, the others abandoned the unfortunate victim to his fate. This distemper did not affect the white residents. Although the contagion had not reached Hubeina, the natives were apprehensive of its approach.

A similar distemper, we believe, says the editor, many years since, nearly exterminated the Indian population of Nantucket."

LIBERIA.-Letters from Liberia to the 6th December, furnish authentic intelligence of the prosperous state of the colony, its increasing usefulness, and of the pacific disposition of the natives. The Brig Doris, is to sail immediately, with from 80 to 90 passengers. The whole number, is said to be industrious and promising, and calculated to be useful to the colony. About one half of them, have been under the care and protection of the Friends, who contributed $800 to the expedition.

View of Public Affairs.

Our notices of foreign affairs are crowded out; they are however, unimportant, and much the same as in our last.

AMERICA.

The population of Upper Canada, according to the census lately taken, is 164,000, not equal to the population of New-York city, by several thousands. SOUTH AMERICA.-The southern states, (says Niles' Register,) with the exception of Mexico, in which things are not altogether quiet, are much disturbed-business is unsettled and property insecure. They are all feverishthrough factions,-producing revolts, rebellions or revolutions. The war between brazil and Buenos Ayres continues. Chili and Peru are said to he exceedingly exhausted, through the indolence or mis-management of the people. We are anxious to learn what is the present condition and probable fate of Colombia, in consequence of Bolivar's resignation. Bad, indeed, must be the state of a people when so much depends, or seems to depend, on the conduct of one man. It certainly shows us that republican principles are but little understood. We yet hope that Bolivar is honest; but think that he ought not to have retired just now. There is a "crisis."

UNITED STATES.-The appropriations made by Congress, during its last session, as appears from official documents, amount to $11,315,568 94.

State of New-York. MORGAN.-Governor Clinton has issued a third proclamation, offering $1,000 reward for the discovery of Morgan, if alive-and, if murdered, $2,000 for the discovery of the offender or offenders, and a free pardon to any accomplice or co-operator, who shall make a discovery of the offender or offenders. The committee appointed by the Assembly, on the pe tition from the west relative to the Morgan affair, reported on the 6th inst.They state that they have, after a full examination of the subject, felt themselves surrounded by embarrassments on every side. The report which is too long to publish, concludes thus:

Aware that this transaction has called forth the deep and merited indignation of a people jealous in the protection of those liberties so dearly bought, and that are so firmly guarded by the constitution and laws of our country, as sacred in the humble citizen as in those clothed with the highest powers that freemen can bestow, your committee have anxiously endeavoured to recommend such means as in their view would most conduce to the arrest and conviction of those who have been actors in this scene which we hope is and will remain unparalleled in the history of our country.

They therefore introduce the following resolutions:

לי

Whereas it appears that one William Morgan a citizen of this state, was in the month of September last, forcibly and unlawfully taken from the village of Canandaigua, in the county of Ontario, since which period all attempts to discover the fate of said Morgan, have proved unavailing. Therefore: Resolved, if the honourable the Senate concur herein, That the person administering the government of this state be requested to issue his proclamation, offering a reward of five thousand dollars, for the discovery of the said William Morgan, if living; and a like sum of five thousand dollars for the murderer or murderers of said Morgan if dead, to be paid on conviction.

Resolved, if the honourable the Senate concur herein, That a joint committee of the two houses be appointed, consisting of five members, two to be taken from the Senate and three from the Assembly, whose duty it shall be to visit the several counties of Ontario, Monroe, Livingston, Genesee, Erie, Niagara and Orleans, or such of them as they shall think proper, with full power to send for persons and papers, to inquire into the facts and circumstances. connected with the abduction, detention and disposition of the said William Morgan, and to report their proceedings to the next legislature; that such other and further proceedings may be adopted as the nature of the case and the liberty and safety of our citizens may require.

After considerable debate in the house, both of the above resolutions were lost. The objection urged against the first, respecting which the house seemed nearly unanimous, was, that offering so large a sum, in addition to that offered by the Governor, would be a strong temptation to perjury, in consequence of which, in the present excited state of the public mind, the innocent might be brought te suffer with the guilty. It was objected to the second, that it was unnecessary the existing laws being sufficient, that it would increase rather than allay the excitement in the west, that they could not clothe the committee with sufficient power to make it efficient, and if they could, it was questionable whether it would be wise and prudent to do it, &c. and so it was lost. This will unquestionably prove a great disappointment to the people in the west, and will in all probability tend to still greater excitement. We regret the failure of the second resolution, as we think the object proposed by it better calculated than any thing else, to elicit the truth respecting this dark and mysterious affair.

On the 19th of March the grand jury made a presentment to the court of Oyer and Terminer for the county of Monroe, stating that they had given their most serious and industrious investigation to the subject of the abduction of William Morgan, but from all the testimony before them, they did not think themselves warranted to find a bill of indictment against any individual. It has been stated on the floor of the Assembly, that the grand jury, in that county, a fortnight after, found bills of indictment against seventeen individuals, as being concerned in the abduction of this man, who are to have their trial in May.

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Having attempted a review of the Dr's. language, on this subject, we shall now attend to the subject by itself; and we assert,

1. That it is a sentiment unauthorized by the scriptures, which declare, that we are "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God,"-and that-" of his own will, begat he us, by the word of truth,"-passages which can have no meaning, but by applying them to regeneration, properly so called, or the new birth;-which call the gospel "the power of God unto salvation," because it begins the work, as well as promotes the work begun, under the direction of the Spirit of God;-which call it "the rod of Christ's strength," by which he makes a willing people come to him, in the day of his power;→ which call the word, "the ingrafted word of God, which is able to save the soul;" for this reason, that as a good and fruitful graft, united to a tree of a different quality, produces a change in the fruit it bears, so the Spirit by the word, as virtually united to the soul, produces a change upon it, which is followed with much good fruit. They also call the word, "the sword of the Spirit," by which he overcomes the enmity of the heart, when he implants the gracious principle which is put into it, in regeneration, and assert, that the weapons of our warfare are mighty through God for pulling down strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of Christ in the heart; which weapons, are the word of the law and gospel, in the hand of the Spirit, wielded by a gospel ministry, and made the means, instrumentally, of all that the Spirit does in regeneration.

VOL. III.

46

And, to set forth the nature of the Spirit's work in regeneration, it is compared to the casting of the metal into the mould, which comes out in the exact form or shape of the mould into which it is cast, as in Rom. vi. 17.—“ Ye have obeyed from the heart, that form of doctrine which was delivered you," or as it has been, and may with propriety be, rendered, "the mould of the doctrine into which ye were delivered;" intimating, that the obedience the believer gives to the word, as the rule of his good conversation in the world, is the fruit of the Spirit's work upon the heart, changing the man into its own image, or making him a living copy of itself, which is done in regeneration. It is also set forth to us, as "a writing of the law in the heart," as in Jer. xxxi. 33. so as that the believer becomes, by regenerating grace, a counterpart of the written word, and has that done by the Spirit's bringing home the word with power, for that purpose. And in 2 Cor. iii. 18. we are said, "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, to be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." By that very word, by which sanctification is carried on, regeneration is effected; for we are changed into the same image, in every measure or degree of that image within us, by this sight of the glory of the Lord, through this glass. I know that it will be said, by those who are favourable to the Dr's. sentiments on this subject, that the passages alluded to, refer to the Spirit's work in sanctification only, and not at all to his work in regenerating the heart of the sinner.— But how can regeneration and sanctification be distinguished, either as to the worker or the instrument by which they are wrought, since they are the same work, in only two distinct considerations of it, as begun and as advancing in the believer? Regeneration, is sanctification begun, and as really is the image of Christ, in the regenerated soul, in the first stages of a divine work, as after it has for years been progressing in the person. It is an outline, if we may so speak, of the divine image drawn upon the soul, which a subsequent work of sanctification is filling up. And who, then, shall say, this being the case, that the passages referred to, do not apply to regeneration, as well as to after sanctification? But this, we hope, we have sufficiently answered, in our review of the Dr's. language, on this subject.

2. It is a sentiment disavowed by the Reformed churches in general, and by all approved writers. By our public standards, in particular, it is declared, that regeneration is effected by the Spirit and word together, so as that the Spirit acts not, in producing the change which is effected in regeneration, but by the word in those who are capable of being outwardly called by the gos

pel: as in the Westminster Confession of Faith, under the chapter on effectual calling. "All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call by his word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation in Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their hearts of stone and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good; effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet, so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace:" with which, agree the Reformed churches in general, on this subject. And in the Larger Catechism, answer to question 67, it is declared, that "effectual calling is the work of God's almighty power and grace, whereby he doth, in his accepted time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ, by his word and Spirit, savingly enlightening their minds, renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so as they (although in themselves dead in sin) are hereby made willing and able, freely to answer his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein." Also, in our Shorter Catechism, in answer to the question, “What is effectual calling?" we are told, "Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit whereby, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered unto us in the gospel." It embraces, according to that Catechism, the illumination of the mind and renovation of the will, and the word being the instrument of the mind's illumination, must be also the instrument of the will's renovation; and in short, of that change which wholly passed upon the soul, in regeneration. The Associate Reformed church, by her Constitution of Principles, is the same in sentiment with the Westminster Confession, on this subject. The Reformed Presbyterian church seems also to be of the same mind, as under the article on regeneration, she declares, that "the holy Spirit (in this work) applies the benefits of redemption to all the elect of God, renewing the soul after the image of God, enlightening the understanding and directing the affections of the heart to God in Christ Jesus;" which implies more than a simple principle implanted, to prepare for receiving and obeying the word; namely, an illumination of the understanding and a direction of the affections to Christ, through the word discovering him as an object amiable and worthy of the affections being placed on him. And in the Testimony of the Associate church, under the article, "Of the work of

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