Saviour, in his poverty, was defpised by the rich and the worldly great! How will it warm the, othwife, frozen heart, to open the hand of liberality, and scatter its refreshing blessings on all around! How will it open wide and stretch out the cheerful, supporting hand to God's minifters-bid them go on, in the strength of the Lord, and seek the falvation of those, who are madly running into ruin, and perishing in darkness! It was this strengthening of the Lord Jefus, Angelina, which fupported and comforted the pious Lazarus, more than any earthly aid could have done, when full of fores, with his wounds all open to the air and the duft, and nothing to cover them, he was laid, at the proud finner's gate, helpless and friendless; "And defiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from his plentiful table." For, the very " dogs," as if more compaffionate than this hardened wretch, "came and licked his fores." Yet Lazarus, friendlessand forlorn, poor Lazarus, whom nobody would pity, ragged and fick, begging for crumbs to relieve his hunger, was fweetly resigned; not a curse proceeded from his heart against the unpitying Dives not a single murmur from his lips, why has God dealt thus with me? He knew how to be abafed. The Lord Jesus ftrengthened him. He was al ready a new-born son of God; and shortly after angels came, and conducted him, to a throne of glory, in heaven, where he shall reign with Chrift, in his kingdom, forever and ever. The strengthening power of Chrift none but faints canfeel. The foul-humbling ener-the sweetness and the glory of divine grace, never can be realiZed by the ungodly. It is therefore, Angelina, no wonder that 1801, at Milford, Maffachusetts, the Rev. David Long. The Rev. Edmund Mills of Sutton made the introductory prayer; the Rev. Walter Harris of Dunbarton (N. H.) preached the fermon; the Rev. David Sanford of Medway made the confecrating prayer; the Rev. Nathaniel Em-> mons, D. D. of Franklin gave the charge; the Rev. Caleb Alexander of Mendon gave the right hand of fellowship; and the Rev. John Cleaveland of Wrentham made the concluding prayer. The agreement of the people in the choice of their Paftor, and the uncommon religious attention now prevailing among them, are grounds of joy to all good people. Donation to the Mithonary Society of Connecticut. 1. POETRY. COMMUNICATED AS ORIGINAL. Thoughts on a thunder Storm. HARK ARK, from the heav'ns th' Al- In awful streams his lightnings fly; 2. Think clouds are for his carpet spread 3. In vain shall frighted Cæfar hide,* And haughty tyrants fly the flame; Terrors surprise the fons of pride, Aghaft at thy tremendous name. 4. What tho' the scenes, which hang the sky, Spread univerfal trembling round, Deifts lie quaking, Atheists die, And all fall prostrate to the ground: 5. These but a faint resemblance are, A feeble fhade, a lifelefs die, To what the final day shall wear, When blazing lightnings sheet the sky; 6. When thunders wake the wasted dead, And flames intense shall fire the pole, Diffolve the earth, like molton lead, And roll the heavens, as a scroll. Yet these profuse displays of God Are but a preface to the day, An herald to proclaim abroad, That Chrift, the Judge, is on his way. 8. When he appears, his guilty foes Shall bid th' inflamed earth, in vain, Deep from its center to difclose, To shield them from a fiercer pain. 9. Buried beneath the molten rocks, And liquid mountains they would lie, Hiftory informs us that one of the Cafars was fo terrified with thunder that be sometimes crept under bis bed thro' fear. In the dark grave he lay, 2. This dawning light doth bring, 3. Come, mortals, learn his will; 4. The watchmen of the Son, 5. On Zion's heights they stand, 6. To faints these courts afford Pleasures more pure than those of fenfe: A. Nathaniel Hubbard of Bolton, 50 Dollars. TO THE EDITORS OF THE CON- ligious people, and is therefore NECTICUT EVANGELICAL MAG AZINE. On the special operations of the Holy Spirit. T GENTLEMEN, HE usefulness of your Magazine exceeds the expectations of its friends. The narratives of the revival of Religion in fundry places, awake the attention of many to the much neglected, tho' all-important truths of the Bible. In these narratives, the doctrine of a special operation of God's spirit on the human heart, is fully supported. This is a doctrine greatly difrelished by the carnal mind, and through ignorance of the nature and extent of moral depravity, perseveringly opposed. It is faid, that all men have the Spirit of God alike-that there is no need of his special influence for a holy life, and that all that is faid in the narratives concerning his extraordinary operations, is mere pretence and delusion. This is faid, not by open Infidels alone, but by fome that are confidered reVOL. II. No. 2. worthy of notice. Being affured, that the attention of fome, heretofore in confiderate minds, has been lately excited to this subject by the narratives you have published; and feeling its importance, while I recollect the folemn observations of a late author in these words : "Fallen creatures have no better " principle than depraved self-love, " and it must be the work of the "Holy Spirit to create them to new " and holy affections. Toresist or " deny the Spirit of God is shut"ting the door of the kingdom of "Heaven, and deftroying to our" selves the efficacy of the gospel. "All those who deny the work " of the Spirit make the gospel as " inefficacious for their own fal"vation as if they were to deny " Christ himself :" I say feeling the importance of this subject, I am earnestly folicitious, that in addition to what appears in the narratives, something may be faid exprefsly upon it. I do not feel as though I should do ample justice to the subject, but I submit the following observations unreferved F It is admitted that all men have natural powers, fufficient to accept of Chrift, and to lead a hely and religious life; and that all men have the Spirit of God, as he is a Spirit, and every where present. Nor will I fay that all men, in a Christian land, have not fome particular awakening influences of the Holy Spirit at one time or another. What I aim at is to oppose the afsertions before mentioned, and to fay something in support of the doctrine of the extraordinary operations of the Spirit in forming the hearts of men to true religion; and in producing all the real holiness there is in any of the fons of men. And here it may be premised, that the moral depravity of every man, evinces the absolute need of such operations, and proves that if ever God faves a single foul, he must exert fome extraordinary power of his Spirit. The renovation of the foul to the love of that holiness which it naturally hates, in all its exercises, is indeed a new creation, and can be accomplished only by that power which raised up Jesus Christ from the dead. And it is obfervable, that all the circumstances attending the beginning, progress, and permanent effects of the late Revival, testify to the same purpose. In fupport of my design, let me call the attention of the reader to the nature of the fin against the Holy Ghost, which shall never be forgiven. As all fins that are against God are against the Holy Spirit as he is one person in the sacred Trinity, and yet all such sins may be forgiven; it must follow that the fin here spoken of is against the Holy Spirit in his distinct office or operations. It is the office of the Holy Spirit to convince of fin, of righteousness and of judgment. This is effected in the awakening, renewing and fanctifying of the foul. Hence, unless, all are awakened, renewed or fanctified, all have not the spirit, and those who are awakened, &c. are the subjects of its extraordinary operations. This confideration, in conjunction with what has been said above on depravity, is, if candidly viewed, sufficient to refute all that is objected against the doctrine. But it may be profitable to purfue the matter further. And here may be noticed what St. Paul says, No man speaking by the Spirit calleth Jefus accursed. But if all men have the Spirit they speak by it, and yet Jews and Deifts are daily calling Jefus accursed; furely they have not the Spirit. Our Saviour once, in a holy rejoicing, faid, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wife and prudent and haft revealed them unto babes. When the things of the Spirit of God are hid from any, it seems to be absurd to suppose that they have the Spirit of God. And the Apoftle intimates the fame thing when he says, The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can be know them because they are spiritually difcerned. If they are ever received, it is not through the powers of the natural man, but through the uncommon operation of the Spirit on the heart. But our Saviour expressly declares, that some wife and prudent men have not these operations, for these things are hidden from them, they difcern not the things of the Spirit of God, and hence it is certain that they have not the Spirit. In the fixth chapter of John, it | Christians as born of the spirit; of appears, that the Jews, who were ready to believe that Jesus was an extraordinary person, were not withstanding deftitute of the peculiar teachings of the Spirit. For not only many things which he preached unto them in righteoufness, were confidered as hard fayings, but he expressly declares verse 63d, that it is the Spirit that quickeneth: Had they the Spirit that quickeneth, they never would have thought that the words which were Spirit and were life were hard fayings. Therefore they had not the Spirit. In the first chapter of John we are told, that the Lord Jesus came to his own and his own received him not, but as many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believed on his name; Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God. His own did not in general receive him, all that did receive him were born of God. How they were born of God is told us in a difcourse with Nicodemus, in which Jesus declares that except a man be born again, of water and of the Spirit he cannot fee the kingdom of God. Baptifm itself, if baptifm is meant by being born of water, does not supersede the neceffity of being born of the Spirit. Consequently, even baptized perfons, though furrounded with the prefence of God so as to be able to say with the Pfalmist, whither shall I go from thy Spirit, yet may be destitute of it, in its peculiar operations towards a holy life, and in need of being born again by it. Here then we find conclusive testimony that all men have not the Spirit. The same thing is confirmed by all those passages which speak of God's pouring out his spirit; of his giving the holy spirit to them that ask him; and of his giving a spirit of grace and fupplication, which leads any to look on him they have pierced and mourn: if any do not look on him and mourn, they have not the spirit. St. Paul says walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lufts of the flesh. Those therefore who fulfil the lufts of the flesh, have not the spirit. He says also Rom. viii. 1, 2. that those who are freed from condemnation, walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and the law of the Spirit of life in Chrift Jefus has made them free from the law of fin and death. Where this Spirit is, there is true religion. If all men then have this Spirit, all men are truly religious; but this is difficult to believe. We read of being led by the Spirit; that the Spirit witnesses with our Spirits, that we are the chil dren of God; that thro' the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body, and that the Spirit is life, and yet men are naturally dead in trefpaffes and fins, and many remain so to the end of life. We read also of the earnest of the Spirit given of God to Christians, that thro' this they look not at the things which are temporal but at those which are eternal: This however is not the case of all men. The Apostle tells us, of fancti. feation of the Spirit, of the gof. pel's coming to believers in demonstration of the Spirit, and in such a manner as that others may no tice it; for the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. This last text has been frequently quoted in proof that every man has the Spirit. But if the word manifestation be not omitted, it will no more prove that all men have the Spirit, than my hold |