No. 1.].

TO THE PUBLIC,

THE Publishers, in commencing another volume, deem it their duty to express their thanks to those who have patronized the Journal, as Subscribers and Agents. At the same time, they are under the necessity of stating, that, unless the subscriptions are all punctually paid, they will sustain a considerable loss. The price of the Journal is so exceedingly low, that a large subscription list, and punctuality in payment, will be necessary to defray the expenses.

They are induced, however, to attempt to continue the Journal at its present low rate, from an earnest desire to diffuse religious information particularly useful and interesting to Episcopalians, as extensively as possible. They are aware of the difficulty of so conducting the Journal as to make it satisfactory to all descriptions of readers. Its literary selections recommend it to some; while others would prefer its devotion solely to religious information. But, independently of all other consider. ations, the Publishers presume to think, that the religious documents which the Journal contains, particularly in relation to the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country, should recommend it to the patronage of all Episcopalians. It conveys, in a speedy manner, and in a cheap form, information relative to the Church, which all Episcopalians should receive; and which it may be of importance to them to preserve. The Publishers will be grateful for original communications; and, influenced as they are in this publication, solely by an earnest desire to promote the interests of the Protestant Episcopal Church, they trust that all the friends of that Church will extend their patronage to the Journal, and endeavour to promote its circulation. VOL. II.

[VOL. II.

BRIEF NOTICES of the LIFE and CHARACTER of the REV. JOHN BowDEN, D. D. Professor of Moral Philosophy in Columbia College.

THE Rev. Dr. BowDEN was the eldest son of Thomas Bowden, Esq. an officer in his Britanic Majesty's 46th regiment of foot. This regiment was stationed in Ireland at the time of his birth, which was in January, 1751. His father came with his regiment to America upon the breaking out of the French war, and he soon after followed him, under the charge of a clergyman of the Church of England. On his arrival he studied for, and was entered at Princeton College, where he remained but two years; his father returning with his regiment to Ireland, he went with him. After remaining some time there, he came to America in 1770, and entered King's (now Columbia) College, where he graduated in 1772. Soon after he left college he commenced the study of Divinity, and went home to England, where he was ordained Deacon by the Right Rev. Dr. Keppel, Bishop of Exeter, in 1774. He was ordained Priest by the Rev. Dr. Terrick, Bishop of London.

In the summer of 1774 he returned to New-York, where he was settled as an assistant minister in Trinity Church, in conjunction with the late Bishop Moore. Soon after the revolutionary war broke out the churches were shut up, in expectation that the British troops would take possession of the city: he retired to When the Norwalk, in Connecticut. British troops took possession of LongIsland and New-York he returned; but, on account of the weakness of his voice, he declined preaching in Trinity Church, and retired to Jamaica, on Long-Island, where he occasionally assisted the Rev. Mr. Bloomer, rector of that parish. Upon

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the evacuation of this city he went to Norwalk, and took charge of the church in December, 1784. He continued there until October, 1789; when, owing to the weak state of his lungs, he accepted an invitation to take charge of the church at St. Croix, in the West-Indies. After remaining in that island about two years he found that his voice was no better, and that the climate had debilitated and weak

ened his constitution. He was under the painful necessity of relinquishing preaching altogether. He returned to the United States, and settled at Stratford, in Connecticut. After residing there some time, he took charge of the Episcopal Accademy in Cheshire, Connecticut, in 1796, where he continued until he was appointed, in the year 1805, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Belles Letters in Columbia College. In this situation he remained, discharging its duties with exemplary fidelity, until the summer of 1817, when his declining health induced him to take a journey to Ballston Springs, where he departed this life, July 31st, 1817.

Dr. Bowden was distinguished as an able advocate and defender of the Church; for which duties he was eminently qualified by his extensive acquirements in theology, and by his powers of clear and forcible reasoning. He considered the Church of which he was a minister as pure in her doctrine, apostolic in her ministry, and primitive and evangelical in her worship; and, therefore, she possessed his warmest attachment; and her prosperity was the object that occupied his labours and his prayers. Having derived his opinions on the subject of the constitution of the Christian Church from the writings of those early ages, when, under the ministrations and government of dio cesan bishops, her visible unity was preserved, he opposed, with equal zeal and ability, the encroachments of papery on primitive episcopacy, and those separations from the orders of the ministry, constituted by Christ and his apostles, by which Protestants are rent into sects al. most without number. He advocated and defended episcopacy, as that apostolic and primitive bond of visible unity, by which alone Christians can maintain the unity of

the Spirit. He was, indeed, a Churchman of the Old School, which ranks among its leaders Hooker, and Taylor, and Hammond, and, in more modern times, Horne, and Jones of Nayland; men distinguished by the union in their writings of evangelical truth with apostolic order, and, in their lives, of fervent piety with deep humility. After the model of these masters of theology, he enforced the peculiar truths of the gospel, unmixed with the dangerous speculations of Calvinism, which he exposed in many of his writings, with great keenness and strength of argument; and, while he strenuously insisted on salvation through the merits of the Redeemer and the grace of the Holy Spirit, he checked the excesses of enthusiasm and schism, by maintaining that the merits and grace of Christ are applied to the soul of the penitent believer, in union with the Church for which the Redeemer shed his blood, and which the Holy Spirit animates, by the regular and devout participation of its duly administered ordinances. His sermons were remarkable for weight of matter, and great simplicity and conciseness of style; and, before his voice failed him, his delivery was forcible and interesting. Simplicity and dignity were those traits of his character which distinguished and adorned all his deportment and actions, and rendered impressive and interesting all his conduct as Christian and a man. Unaffected in his piety, sincere and disinterested in his friendships, amiable and benevolent in social intercourse, he was beloved and revered wherever he was known. A fund of useful and entertaining information rendered his conversation a source of pleasure and instruction. His character, however, is so justly delineated in the annexed extract, as to render unnecessary our longer dwelling upon it. In his writings Dr. Bowden has left a valuable legacy to the Church; and to them, we trust, her sons will often have recourse for information as to her principles, and for the means of defending them.

The following is a list of his writings: 1. A Letter, from John Bowden, A. M. Rector of St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, to the Rev. Ezra Stiles, D.D. EL.D.

lessly faithful to all the duties of its various relations, of husband, father, friend; in social life, righteous, benevolent, candid, and kind, in a degree which places him beyond the possibility of reproach, and defies even that ingenuity of malice, whose favourite subject is the fairest virtue: into what influence but that of the faith, which lifting the soul above the world, and the things thereof, brings it where the spirit that is from above becomes its animating principle, can we resolve the character? There are those, I am confident, in this assembly, who will bear me witness, that I am not uttering the language of unfounded panegyric. I know that I speak from my own heart, to those of some present at least, the just tribute of affection, to the memory of one whose excellence in all Christian virtue was as rare as it was admired. Of the intellectual and literary character of the deceased, this is not the place or the occasion for the eulogium which it claims of his survivors. Yet, on this, were I permitted, I could dwell with fondness and delight. He was, indeed, in this view, a burning and a shining light, and we were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. Of his character, however, in this respect, we may here speak the praise, which we know is all that he would value. His studies, laborious as they were, were sanctified by the faith which makes the glory of God, and the advancement of his truth, the true end of all human pursuits; and all his attainments in science were but the materials of usefulness to the cause in which the supreme delight of his life was placed, the cause of God and virtue. In him the ambition of human favour and distinction (alas! how rare an excellence is this of the eminent in human learning) was the last motive of exertion. I say not that he was insensible to the praise of men this had been, perhaps, no virtue. But it was evident enough to those who knew him, to make him -the object of their affectionate admiration, that in him the sensibility to the praise of men, considered as a motive, was lost and absorbed in the

solicitude he felt to be, to the utmost that his powers and influence admitted, an instrument of good to the Church of the Redeemer, and the family for which he vouchsafed to bleed. Faithfulness to conscious obligation, as a member and minister of the Church of Christ, was, in a word, in all the stations which he filled, in all the employments of his mind, and all the exertions of its powers, the predominant principle of his conduct. And while the tribute of respect, for the ability and learning he had so honourably manifested, was brought him from every quarter of our communion, it was valued by himself only as a testimony that he had not failed of his purpose; that of contributing of the resources God had given, to the interests of truth, and the prevalence and stability of principles, which he considered indispensably essential to the welfare and integrity of that kingdom of Christ on earth, through which he was labouring to pass to the treasure, which, laid up in Heaven, constantly attracted thither the best affections and the warmest solicitudes of his heart. Through a life of labour and of care, thus characterised in all its periods, and through all its varying scenes, by the purifying and elevating influence of the Christian hope of eternal life, and the correspondent estimate and use of all earthly things, our venerable and beloved brother has passed, through a peaceful and tranquil death, to join, we believe, the great compeny of the just, whose names are written in Heaven. We have cause, as a Church, to mourn his removal from us, although he had so well filled up the usual measure of human days. For even amidst the infirmities which the severity of his mental labours*

*The last work of Dr. Bowden's pen

given to the press, was " Observations, by a Protestant, on a Profession of Catholic Faith, by a Clergyman of Baltimore, and with the authority of the Right Rev. Bishop

Carroll." This work was undertaken un

der the influence of an apprehension, perhaps unnecessarily indulged, that the Protestant Faith might be shaken in some minds, by some recent instances of defection and delusion of a somewhat ex