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INTERVIEW WITH EMMONS.

view I had never seen him, and hardly thinking it probable that he could continue much longer, I wrote to him in the summer of 1838, respectfully announcing my expectation to journey toward the East in his vicinity, and requesting his permission that, stranger as I was, I might be allowed to visit him. He wrote a reply, courteous and prompt, assuring me that, if he remained "in the body" till my arrival, he would be glad to see me, and that I should certainly find him at home. In company with an intelligent and worthy elder of my own church, Lowell Halbrook, Esq. who had been born and reared in that vicinity, and had ever held Dr. Emmons in very high estimation, I visited him, on Saturday, August 11, 1838, then in his ninety-fourth year, and only about twenty-five months before he finished his course, September 23, 1840.

My plan or design in this visit was, in many respects, variant from what actually occurred in it. To argue with him; to engage in controversy; to be theologically catechized, or impeached, or suspected, never once entered my mind, as I now remember. Almost half a century my senior in life, I felt deeply the awe of his age, his fame, and his approximation to eternity. I desired to see the theological patriarch, to converse with him, and to hear any of his sayings-with no idea of gainsaying. Indeed, I had the idea of his waning strength, his senility, and his subdued consciousness of the hastening transition. Besides, an event that had its place in our conversation, and shall appear in this narration, had just met and affected me. I was requested, before the visit to Dr. Emmons that morning, to make one to a venerable layman, only two years his junior, and then confined on what seemed to be the bed of dissolution. I found him calm, conscious, and humbly happy in his Savior. Indeed, the moral odor of the scene was hallowed, "quite in the verge of heaven." I was edified, delighted, instructed, as the result; and love to this day to remember it. Such intelligence, scriptur

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alness, and practical submission to the will of God, one seldom sees united; where hope at once predominates, and soothes, and purifies the soul; and where patience has a perfect work to the glory of God. Having engaged, at his request, in prayer and thanksgiving, at the bed-side, with its honored. incumbent, I returned, and immediately rode, about eight miles, to the residence of Dr. Emmons, with fresh and happy memories of that solemn spectacle, which Christianity alone could inspire, and which so honored Christianity.

We were soon introduced, and received in a courteous and easy manner by the venerable man. He seemed more vigorous and agile, as well as cheerful and mirthful in his manners, than I could have anticipated. He welcomed us in an honest and open style, inquired after the health of friends. and with considerable vivacity despatched the common topics of the day. I assured him of my regret that I had never before been able to meet him personally, especially when he visited New York,* in May, 1836; adverted to his uncommon age, as probably the oldest clergyman in the country, and ended by saying that, in other respects, he was properly no stranger to me, however I might be unknown to him. Then our dialogue commenced.

2. I have heard of you, Dr. Cox, almost twenty years ago or more; ever since the split in the Young Men's Missionary Society in New York. [It occurred in the autumn of 1816.]

1. Quite a memorable occasion was that!

2. You had some sharp theological shooting on both sides, I think.

1. We had. Those scenes have passed, though not their consequences.

2. Who is your great giant there, since MASON died?

1. We have none, I think, to take his place.

* The only time in his life, as I am informed! I was then in Auburn, New York.

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FEW SOUND PREACHERS, HE THINKS.

2. His views were very different from mine, you know. 1. Yes; and all such differences in general evince, I think the imperfections even of great and good men.

2. The truth is always the same.

1. It is; yet how vary our perceptions of it!

2. I am apt to think there are very few there among you who hold the truth with thoroughness and discrimination. Indeed, I know of one only-just one, who constitutes the exception to my remark.

1. That is, you know, only one! Well, certain it is, my good sir, that your acquaintance with the evangelical ministry there is very remarkably limited, as you admit. Possibly there may be more scholars, intellectual giants, and worthy men, among them, than you imagine; holding the truth with good and clear intelligence; eloquent men and mighty in the Scriptures; faithful pastors, devoted, holy, exemplary, and evidently prospered and owned of God. So I think of them—although, no doubt, there may be one Judas among every twelve of them; since false preachers and heretical corrupters have cursed the Church of Christ in every age, with the costume of a sheep and the spirit of a wolf; and who would deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. Blessed be God, this is, in his guardianship, eventually impossible.

2. I make a great difference between general orthodoxy or generic Calvinism, and that theology which can rightly discriminate; class all its views in a correct system; state arguments and objections in their just relations; and hold all the doctrines in their thoroughness and their consistency, as one great whole, and as exclusively the truth.

1. This, indeed, implies great acumen, and great erudition too. Still, it leaves the question, WHAT IS TRUTH? much at large and undecided. Men might agree in the general description, yet not in the specifications under it.

2. Right. And hence I said that I know only one among you, in New York, who exemplifies the character of thor

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ough, discriminating, and correct, as a theologian and a preacher.*

1. He must be a very Abdiel, according to your eulogium. 2. I learn, Dr. Cox, that you are not well pleased with my theology. Now that you are here, it may be as well to render a reason, if you can, for your difference.

1. My dear sir, I had no such thought in this visit.

2. Still, it is a proper way to spend the time, and I must know your reasons. I shall urge my right to them.

1. Why, doctor? Are you serious? This implies we know not what in the end.

2. Because I suspect they can all be answered. Many have come here with their objections, which crossed my threshold but once. They had none left to carry away with them.

1. I might prove an exception, doctor.

2. Yes, and you might not. If you differ from my theology, you ought to have reasons for it; and if these are stated so as to be known, they might be answered.

1. When I think of the difference of our age, doctor, I feel less courage to meet the encounter. Really your mercurial vivacity surprises me, however, after so many years have gone

over you.

2. Well, be not too modest. Let us have them. You need not think that Franklin is going to New York to learn theology; New York must come to Franklin.

1. So you say, doctor. Well, here I am then, according to your wish, at Franklin, and ready to learn any thing you can teach me, on two conditions only

One, that it is true;

The other, that it can be proved by the Bible, soundly interpreted.

2. Well, I agree to the conditions, though the latter

* The name of the individual I forbear to announce, from motives of courtesy, and lest it might be misunderstood. S. H. C.

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METHOD OF THEOLOGIZING.

may seem a little ambiguous. What, then, are your objec tions?

1. Really I feel at a loss to begin, especially as I had no thought of such a thing in this visit. I may be found in some disarray.

2. Well, let us hear and see them, in due order.

1. There is a primary one, sir, which perhaps I ought to state here. It respects your way or method of theologizing. I object to it as utterly wrong. If so, your other aberrations may be its offspring.

2. What is that way,

think you ?

1. You bring the trained logic of your mind, contemplative, to investigate what you apprehend as the principia of truth. You then get axioms, aphorisms, postulates, synopses, parallelisms, and contrasts of all degrees and sorts; and thus you get topics into system; "make joints," and places for them; behold the congruity and coincidence of all the parts in their magnific façade; and have the whole eclaircised with definitions, illustrations, proofs, objections, refutations, appli`cations, and classifications, until the entire contour is fixed, and finished, and furnished, ready for use. It becomes easy, then, to select a theme, and to construct a discourse from it, on principles of topical homiletics; and as easy to get a text, and fix it in place, so as to make a sermon. Thus, too, all textual or expository preaching is practically precluded.

2. And what great objection have you to such a way? Is it wrong to reason, to investigate, to look at things, to compare, to construct, and so arrange and use the results obtained? or, to make a system?

1. It may be admitted, to some extent, and in a subordinate way, in systematic theology. But as a way, it is neither the first, nor the last, nor the best, nor the main, nor the right way, in my view.

2. Must a man surrender reason in order to begin, then? 1. Not at all, only use it aright. The office-work of rea