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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 202040

APTOR, LENOX IND TILLEN FOUNDATIONS. R 1900. L

A. Forbes, Printer, No. 37 Cornhill, Boston.

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THE former Editor of the OBSERVATORY having felt himself called, in the providence of God, to return to the discharge of pastoral duties, a number of pastors have been requested to undertake with him the editorship of the work, and have consented to assume that responsibility. A few words may be expected from us, as to our principles and aims. This work has never been designed as a rival to the larger quarterlies, which are conducted with so much learning and ability. It is designed rather to be eminently practical, and to act directly on the doctrinal and spiritual interests of the churches, and their ministry, by short articles which all, who will, can find time to read. It is designed to be an organ, through which our denomination. can utter its voice, and make known its views on the great questions of the age.

As a body we occupy a vantage ground from which we cannot be driven, and of which it is our duty to avail ourselves to the utmost.

Among the influences that mould and control the destinies of nations, none are more powerful than those emanating from the principles, and examples of an illustrious ancestry. And no nation can boast of an ancestry more illustrious than the Puritan Fathers of New England. But of these Fathers, we are the legitimate successors and representatives.

Others have departed from their doctrinal views, but we hold them fast. Other modes of Church government have, since their day, been introduced among their descendants; but we still retain

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the mode established by them, -a mode which they preferred to all others, and valued above all price, as deduced directly from the Word of God, through long continued and prayerful study. Whatever influence, then, the natural reverence for antiquity may confer, is legitimately ours. In the old world, the Romish Church derives very great power from this source. True, the antiquities of the Scriptural Fathers, that is, of inspired prophets and apostles, are not hers. But to many principles of the Nicene Fathers she can appeal as sustaining her system, and the Fathers of the Middle Ages are hers. In like manner, the architecture and the literature of these ages are hers. All the old cathedrals and universities of England lead the mind back to Rome. Such an influence is fearfully powerful for evil. No one can tell how great a curse to the world those portions of the works of the early fathers have been, from which are still derived the seeds of Puseyism and of Popery, for all nations. Equally great is the blessing to us, that from such pollutions our Fathers had been thoroughly purged, before they became the fountain heads of influence for the present and future millions of this land. Their doctrines, their ecclesiastical polity, and their lives, were pure. They were trees of life, on the banks of the river of the water of life flowing from the sanctuary of God; and the fruit of these trees is still for food, and their leaves are for the healing of the nations.

A work was assigned to them by God, great beyond conception. It was, in few words, to extricate vital religion from the formalism of the old world, to dissolve the unholy and corrupting alliance of the church with the state, and through religious, to establish civil liberty. Our conceptions of the vast importance of their relations to the destinies of the human race, are becoming every year more elevated, as the principles introduced by them are pervading and shaking the world. Such were our Fathers, such their work, and such is the vantage ground on which we stand. We do not say these things to excite pride or boasting, but to affect our minds with a deep sense of responsibility. We are called in our generation to sustain and extend these great principles, and to transmit them unimpaired to future ages. We are called on to do our part of the work that is involved in executing those vast designs of God, which he commenced through them. And who is sufficient for these things? Who has the

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