COMPOSED BY DIFFERENT AUTHORS, BY ORDER OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION OF UNIVERSALISTS OF THE NEW-ENGLAND STATES Adapted to Public and Private Devotion, * * "As in Adam all die, even so, in Christ, shall ST. PAUL. "O, praise the Lord, all ye people-for his Copy right secured. WALPOLE, N. H. DAVID. PRINTED FOR THE COMMITTEE THE GENERAL CONVENTION of the New-England States and others, professing the gospel of the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world; being in the full belief of the Universality of Gospel Salvation, did on the 17th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1807, appoint brothers HOSEA BALLOU, ABNER KNEELAND and EDWARD TURNER, approved labourers in the ministry of reconciliation, with discretionary powers, to furnish a HYMN Book suit. able for the various occurrences in public and private devotion; from the following causes and motives. VIZ. Dr, ISAAC WATTS, in the opinion of the Convention, has, in almost every instance extended the idea of the punishment of sin, infinitely beyond the design of the inspired authors: and has thereby sorely wounded the divine theme of devotional Psalmody, and this work being the principal one in use in the country, rendered it necessary that another should be introduced which might be free from the difficulty above mentioned. The various collections which have been heretofore made by particular societies, or brethren of the univer salian order have never had so general a circulation in the country as to accommodate but few of the many believers. And those collections containing many pro ductions from those who possessed, not only LIMITED views of the great salvation, but ideas of the tenure of atonement contrary to the divine oracles, were not, in that particular, altogether acceptable. The error, that ATONEMENT was necessary to reconcile our heavenly Father to his offspring, in room of reconciling his unreconciled offspring to himself, is found in almost all the authors of divine hymns. It was a thing much desired by the convention that the rising generation might learn to sing the praises of the captain of our salvation, without mixing the alloy of dishonor in the sacred song. The inconsistency of calling on every thing that hath breath to praise the Lord, and at the same time representing the wisdom of the Deity as laying his divine plan to the reverse of this UNIVERSAL JOY, was con sidered sufficient reason to justify a disuse of D |