the council, the chair, or the Congress. We are not fighting against the name of a king, but the tyranny; and if we suffer that tyranny under another name, we only change our master without getting rid of our slavery. Take heed, therefore, my brethren, and stand fast in that liberty wherewith you have been made free. Let no single individual, let no collective body exalt itself above measure, and assume to itself powers that do not belong to it, and with which it has never been entrusted, neither implicitly nor expressly. Now is the golden opportunity for banishing tyranny as well as royalty out of the American states, and sending them back to Europe, from whence they were imported.

I might enlarge, but must forbear. 'Tis expedient and opportune, however, to mention that, would we have our independency perpetuated, let us repent of our sins, attend to religion, and live the doctrines of Christianity; then may we reasonably expect that future generations will joyfully commemorate this anniversary, and that the names of those who boldly stood forth in the cause of liberty, and acted a consistent and uniform part, will be blessed.

My honorable audience, I am as much tired with speaking, as you can be with hearing me; but I must take a little notice of what strikes the ear of my imagination, from one oppressed with the difficulties of the day—if these are the fruits of independence, better be dependent as before. My honest friend, they are not the fruits of independence, but of Britain's trying to enslave us. They originate truly and properly from those we were before dependent upon. Blame them, therefore, for all your difficulties, and

hate more than ever being brought into bondage to them. Your difficulties are great, but don't mistake the cause; charge them to the real authors. I pity you under them, and recommend it to every man to ease you of them as far as he is able. But, my friend, have you ever read the history of your own country, wrote by Mather? If not, you have heard of it; let me recommend it to your perusal, you will then find that your difficulties are vastly short of what your forefathers endured. And let me further tell you that I do not recollect reading of any people since the creation, that ever secured their liberties without undergoing far, far more than what we have experienced. I see, or fancy I see, a distant dawning that indicates we are not far from the end of our troubles. But if not, be of good courage, the horrors of slavery, after having exasperated our enemies by so animated and brave an opposition, are more to be dreaded than greater difficulties. Look upon your little ones, the darlings of your souls, and consider what will be their lot should the arms of Britain prevail. They will be forced to cry out: "O that we had been born Africans instead of Americans!" I now leave it with your good sense, and have done, my friend. I cannot but hope that the Lord will save us for his own name's sake.

NATHANIEL WHITAKER, D. D.

AMONG the preachers of the revolutionary period no one manifested a stronger dislike to the usurpations of the British crown than Doctor Whitaker. Possessed of great biblical learning and commanding powers of elocution, which he used upon every opportunity for the service of his suffering country, he exercised a wide influence among the people, and was looked upon as a "great political counsellor." He was a native of Long Island, New York, and was born on the twenty-second day of February, 1732. At the age of twenty, having passed his college life with marked attention to his studies and the cultivation of letters, he graduated at Princeton, and soon after was engaged in the ministry at Norwich, Connecticut. the twenty-eighth of July, 1769, having agreed with the Third Church in Salem, Massachusetts, "that he would become their minister without public instalment, and that they should be under Presbyterian order, until they saw cause to alter," he preached a sermon and entered upon the duties of that church. Here he continued to labor with increased reputation. In the early part of 1775, his church was destroyed by fire, and his people were obliged to worship in a school-house. A letter of Doctor Whitaker, written

On

at this time mentions the separation of many of his congregation from his church. This circumstance arose from a preference on the part of the seceders for the congregational form of government, under which Doctor Whitaker refused to preach. This spirit of dissension continued to increase until 1783, when the Third Church expressed a desire to return to congregationalism, and Doctor Whitaker retired from the pulpit. Soon after he visited Virginia, where he died. The records of his life are scanty, but enough remains in his printed sermons to entitle him to the name he has received, "an uncompromising man, pious, learned and charitable." His sermon " An Antidote against Toryism," was delivered at Salem, Massachusetts, and printed in 1777, with an extended dedication to General Washington.

66

ANTIDOTE AGAINST TORYISM.

Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty.-JUDGES, V. 23.

THE sum of the law of nature, as well as of the written law, is love. Love to God and man, properly exercised in tender feelings of the heart, and beneficent actions of life, constitutes perfect holiness. The gospel breathes the same spirit, and acknowledges none as the disciples of Christ but those who love not their friends only, but even their enemies. Bless and

curse not, is one of the laws of his kingdom. Yet the aversion of men to this good and benevolent law prompts them to frequent violations of it, which is the source of all the evils we feel or fear. And so lost are many to all the tender feelings required in this law, as to discover their enmity to their Creator, by opposing the happiness of his creatures, and spreading misery and ruin among them.

When such characters as these present themselves to our view, if we are possessed with the spirit of love required in the law and gospel, we must feel a holy abhorrence of them. Love itself implies hatred to malevolence, and the man who feels no abhorrence of it, may be assured he is destitute of a benevolent temper, and ranks with the enemies of God and man. For, as God himself hates sin with a perfect hatred from the essential holiness of his nature, and sinners cannot stand in his sight, so the greater our conformity to him is, the greater will be our abhorrence of those persons and actions which are opposite to the divine law. David mentions this as an evidence of his love to God: "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am I not grieved with them that rise up against thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies."* True benevolence is, therefore, exercised in opposing those who seek the hurt of society, and none are to be condemned as acting against the law of love, because they hate and oppose such as are injurious to happiness. But the weakness and

*Psalms cxxxix. 21, 22.

Even God's hatred of sin, and the punishment he inflicts on the wicked, arise from his love of happiness, from the benevolence of his nature.