all consultation with the Professor or each other, touching their common sentiments or the precise topic to be treated throughout; whence the substantial coincidence of the whole, may be viewed as more remarkable as well as more valuable. We are under no necessity studiously to inquire for THE MINISTRY WE DO NOT NEED comparatively; since to open our eyes on the present disgracefully contentious and deplorably lacerated condition of some certain and once exemplary portions of our own church and our own ministry, is to learn enough for piety and too much for consolation. VERILY THERE IS A FAULT SOMEWHERE, AND THAT A GREAT ONE. To whom it properly belongs— there is ONE who knows. May we all learn to say sincerely, LORD, IS IT I? The church has no enemies like those in her own bosom; and she can more hurt herself, than all external enemies combined can hurt her. Why is it that we defer nothing to each other, forbear nothing? Why do we so systematically elaborate our own weakness, as if a better and happier and holier course of practice could not consolidate our forces and augment our strength tenfold? It would be only a vile affectation here to compliment the motives of the disturbers, impeaching only their education and intelligence. We cannot see that godliness is so absurd; or that the dogmatism and the love of power, which are universal characteristics-not in equal degrees-of the natural man, might not better account for the disciplined policy of the class in question, whose intolerance seems

to wax prodigious just in ratio as their influence and their numbers progressively wane. We do not mean by this to deny them all claim to piety, but simply to utter veræ voces ab imo pectore our conviction that genuine piety sustains only a passive and afflicted relation to their strife-exciting ways. It is time the public saw them, as they will not till afterward see themselves. Our cause bleeds with the wounds of their infliction. Our judicatories are to be tormented, and our churches torn, for future years, with the reckless prosecutions now conducted against some of our worthiest and most distinguished ministers-by men whose chief distinction in the church or the nation has arisen signally from that origin. This is a cheap way to become distinguished—perhaps not so easily liquidated in the end! The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with. It is an honor for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling. Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbor hath put thee to shame. One of the six things which Jehovah hates, yea, one of the seven that are an abomination unto him, is he that soweth discord among brethren. When shall terminate this fratricidal civil war in our spiritual Israel? Then Abner called to Joab, and said, SHALL the sword DEVOUR FOR EVER? KNOWEST THOU NOT THAT IT WILL BE BITTERNESS IN THE LATTER END? An infidel philosopher could make the sane reflection, 'It is an un

profitable contest to see which can do the other the more harm.' But all this may affect nothing those resolute and committed propugnators of a shell of doctrine, to whom the kernel of goodness is held in less estimation. Perhaps those who cause divisions and offences, are they who think the least practical forbearance with their brethren, on almost any points of faith, smaller or greater, to be no virtue at all, but only a sin against their beau ideal of orthodoxy. Let such ponder more largely the cONSTITUTION of our church; the general concessions in which it was adopted; the catholic spirit of its former history ;* as

* I extract the following from the ESSAY of the late Dr. Wilson, (James P. of Philadelphia, a truly learned, enlarged, and venerable man,) page 101.

When the Westminster Confession and Catechisms were received by the Presbyterian Church in America, and adopted by a Synodical act, in 1729, it was with this proviso; "And in case any minister of the Synod, or any candidate for the ministry, shall have any scruple, with respect to any article or articles of said Confession, he shall, in time of making said declaration, declare his scruples to the Synod or Presbytery; who shall, notwithstanding, admit him to the exercise of the ministry, within our bounds, and to ministerial communion, if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruples not essential or necessary, in doctrine, worship, or government."

"The act of Synod in 1729, was the basis of union," in 1758. But the discretionary powers of a Presbytery, in trying those whom they are to ordain are secured to them by the word of God, and can neither be taken away nor abandoned.

well as passages like the following, to which they are referred: Form of Discipline, Chap. IV. 4. Chap. V. 5. 7. 13. 14. 15. Yet even these considerations will be too probably disregarded by men who appear to make "the standards" of all possible truth to be, the facts of theology as THEY understand them, with THEIR philosophy on those facts, and THEIR phrascology on that philosophy: without seeming to know that possibly the want of evangelical virtue, rather than the possession of it, in a remarkably great degree, may be quite too intimately connected, with all their error-scenting notoriety, as the standing accusers of their brethren, the lynx-eyed detecters of heresy, and the fomenters of unceasing discord in the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To the Friends and Patrons of Evangelical Institutions in our Country and our Church; more especially, to the PRESBYTERIANS of this large and prosperous STATE, in all the extent of which AUBURN is the only SCHOOL OF THE PROPHETS connected with our own denomination; and most especially, to those few and far-thinking, as well as generous individuals—our gratitude is forbidden more directly to allude to them, or the public should read their names together with their deeds, whom we must ever thank God for promoting as the Benefactors and Distinguished Supporters of this Seminary: to all the favorers on principle, of a pious, sound, educated, scriptural, and accomplished ministry, in the church of God and throughout the whole world, as THE MINISTRY WE NEED; this little

volume, designed alone in subserviency to such a cause, IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, with affectionate salutations in our glorious Redeemer, and prayers for his blessing to attend its course,

By its editor,

Their friend and brother,

And servant in the Gospel,

Auburn, August 3d, 1835.

SAMUEL H. Cox.