"

forth in opposition, the talents of Francis de Petra, a Jesuit of Lyons, and Theodore Crinsoz de Bionens. He was also engaged with the famous Buddeus of Jena, in an amicable controversy concerning God's being the sole author of miracles, and concerning the witch of Endor. But his health was now visibly declining, so that he was forced to desist from all publick exertion. His last work, De immortalitate animæ," was issued from the press only a few days before his death.

Of his last moments we hear little, except that they were rendered happy by the exercise of the same holy affections which had marked his

life.

His works are commonly published in three volumes, 4to. and consist of his "Orationes Inaugurales & Rectorales," which are comprised in a single volume; his "Dissertationes," or Treatises upon important Doctrines of Natural and Revealed The ology; which fill two volumes. In separate tracts we have a number of minor works, including his compend, and his French sermons.

None of his writings are more worthy of careful study than his incomparable dissertations upon Natural Theology. They are distinguish ed by just views of doctrine, ingenuity and force of reasoning, variety of information, chasteness and grace of ornament, and a flow of language pure and sonorous, and not unworthy, in point of Latinity, of the most polished modern writers.

His critical works have also been much admired; and in all which has

ever come from his hands, we see the man of letters, the benevolent Christian, and the candid inquirer after truth.

In comparing him with his father, we find them both learned, both honoured with the love and confidence of their fellow citizens, both zealous opposers of popery; but in many points they differ toto cœlo. In the character of Francis Turretine we see the love of truth preponderating over all other considerations; in Alphonso, the love of peace. The former may be said to have desired the purity of the church, even though gained by the sharpest conflict; the latter its tranquillity, though at the expense of doctrines not fundamental. And their talents were distinguished in the same manner. In the father, we have the unyielding dialectician, proposing, and defining, and distinguishing, so as to leave his adversary no subterfuge; and then dealing his blows with an exactness of aim, and a resistless vigour which ensure a conquest. In the son, all the graces of rhetorick are brought in aid of a logick, not defective, but still informal: to conceal, and not to display, the correctness of his ratiocination seems the object; and so nicely polished is the weapon, that the falling adversary, feels that he is won by persuasion rather than subdued by might.

In the facts stated above, we are indebted to the history contained in the Bibliotheque Raisonneé, vol. xxi. and the Groningen Miscellany.

VOYAGEUR.

FOR THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.

THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH A

NATIONAL CONCERN.

Mr. Editor,-The desire of being like the other nations of the earth was the bane of the ancient chosen people of God. It led them to idolatry, provoked the just wrath of Jehovah, and issued in the destruction of their temple and holy city, the desolation of their country, and the captivity of their whole nation, for the period of seventy years. Among the other evil effects of their idolatry, was their disregard and violation of the Sabbath of the Lord. This is explicitly and emphatically mentioned by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel: and in the historical record of the captivity of the Jews and their removal to Babylon, there is a most instructive and impressive declaration of the design of Jehovah in that event. It was to show his people, and to show the world, that as the nation that he had taken into covenant, and to which he had given the land of Canaan for an inheritance, would not, in obedience to his command, cease from worldly occupations and pleasures on the Sabbath, he would give that land her Sabbaths, by taking away its wicked population, and making the country silent, and free from unhallowed employments and pleasures, by an awful desolation of seventy years continuance:-"To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. "*

The citizens of the United States of America have often, and in my apprehension with great justice, been represented as a people peculiarly favoured of heaven. They have been represented, not only by clergymen and other religious speakers and

* 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21.

writers, but sometimes by those who professed no particular regard to religion-by statesmen and politicians -as a people, whom the God of heaven had distinguished above all the other inhabitants of the earth. We had, for the most part, a pious origin. Our forefathers fled from religious persecution in the old world; and in the establishments which they formed in the new world, religion entered deeply into all their views and all their institutions. Let infidels and philosophists boast of their superior intelligence and sagacity as they please, they never yet have founded states like the United States, and there is no reason to believe that they ever will. It is no exaggeration to say, that our happy country may trace its enviable civil institutions, its unparalleled freedom, in union with peace and order, to the spirit and influence of the Christian religion.

But truly, Mr. Editor, I greatly fear that as our nation has borne some resemblance to the ancient Hebrews, in enjoying the most favourable allotment and the peculiar smiles of the Ruler of the Universe, so that we are likely to resemble them also, in forgetting the Lord God of our fathers; in disregarding his ordinances and commandments, and in drawing down upon ourselves his righteous and marked displeasure. Do not suppose by this, Sir, that I look for miraculous displays of the divine indignation. I do not.-But it is the established order of God's moral government, that vice and impiety shall produce wretchedness and ruin, both in individuals and nations; and I do believe, in addition to this, that a nation peculiarly favoured of heaven, will be peculiarly visited with providential' chastisements, when the requisitions and appointments of the God of heaven are generally disregarded and set at nought.

It would not be difficult to point

out a variety of instances, in which the citizens of the United States, of the present generation, manifest less regard to divine institutions, than was manifested by their progenitors -even by those of whom they so often and justly boast, as having effected the independence of our country. But it is my purpose, in this paper, to speak particularly of the violation of the day of sacred rest-of a disregard to the Christian Sabbath. In this we are following fast in the track of the nations of the old world. Like the Jews, we seem to be determined, at every hazard, to resemble other nations, in disregarding the revealed will of God; at the very time, too, that we value our selves ou not being like them, in our political systems and civil institutions. While I live, I will honour the man-and it seems he was a foreigner too-who, as the publick papers inform us, not long since opposed the opening of the Atheneum in Philadelphia on the Lord's day; and who, when the usages of Europe were pleaded against him, admitted those usages to be as stated, and yet made this the very reason why he would act differently.-It was, he said, a national trait of this country, that it was a Sabbath keeping country; and he wished this trait should never be defaced; he wished that foreigners should see, when they came among us, and wished that our own citizens, on returning from their foreign travels, should see, that this country was distinguished from all the nations of the old world, by an observance of the Sabbath. What ever were the opinions of this gentleman on the subject of religion and they are unknown to me-I honour him for having spoken as a wise man and a true patriot.

It is worthy of notice, by what gradual and wary advances those who wish to set aside the religious observance of the Sabbath, endeavour to carry their designs into effect. They cautiously feel the publick pulse, to find what it will probably bear. They take their first step only VOL. III.Ch. Adv.

a little beyond the lawful boundary, or in such manner as to render it disputable whether they have transgressed it at all. They wait to see how this will be borne, and repel with vehemence all attempts to drive them back. When the publick mind has become accustomed, not to say reconciled, to one innovation, they then make another-and then another-Proceeding in this manner, they have already put us in a fair way to be no longer a Sabbath keeping people, but as regardless of the fourth command of the decalogue as any nation of Europe. It is mournful to think that our national legislature has, in some measure, taken the lead in this career of impiety-I hesitate not to call it so-by the arrangements made by law, for carrying the mail and opening the post offices on the Sabbath. There was nothing of this during the American revolutionary war; when, if it had been ever necessary, there was ten times as much necessity for it, as there can be in a time of profound peace. But while our liberty and national independence were in jeopardy; while we were contending for all that we held dear and sacred, we felt and acknowledged our dependance on our Maker; we earnestly implored his interposition in our behalf, and we were in some good degree careful how, as a nation, we regarded his institutions. But now that he has given us the desire of our hearts, we forget him, and requite him with base ingratitude. The sacra fames auri-the accursed thirst of gain-seems to have swallowed up every other consideration. To give the earliest intelligence how foreign markets are going; how cotton, and tobacco, and pot ashes sell in England and France; what news the last arrivals have brought at our several sea-ports-for these important considerations the Sabbath of the Lord is to be desecrated by publick authority, and the whole community to be corrupted by the pernicious example. It is not long since the regular printing of a news

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paper on the Lord's day-for years ago we had occasional hand-billsand the advertisement, in a publick newspaper, of a travelling vehicle to start on that day, would not only have been considered as an outrage on publick sentiment, but would probably have produced a prosecution, for a transgression of the laws of the land; for such a transgression these practices certainly are. But for some time past, a Sunday newspaper has, it seems, been regularly pub lished in the city of New York; and it appears by the newspapers of Philadelphia, that the steam boats of that city advertise for Sunday parties, as unblushingly as for any other day of the week. What good reason, I pray, can printers and steam boat proprietors assign, why they should pursue their secular business on the Sabbath, more than those who follow other occupations? Why should not the merchant open his store, and the carpenter, and mason, and blacksmith, and porter, go on with their several businesses on the Sabbath, as well as printers and steam boat owners? There is certainly no more moral evil in the one case than in the other. And it is by no means. clear, that as fair and strong a plea, in regard to pub lick advantage and accommodation, could not be made out in the case of merchants and mechanicks generally, as in the case of those who have ventured on the licentious practices we have mentioned.

It is, probably, the only abatement of their pleasure, which the religious part of this community has experienced in the late visit of General La Fayette-and this has been a real abatement-that in his journeyings from one part of the country to another, and in the gratulations which he has every where received, the Lord's day has, in several instances, been grossly profaned. In this, the General himself is to be far less charged, than any of the other parties that have been concerned. Besides the military habits in which a considerable part of his life has been

past, and the known customs of the French nation, in which he was born and educated, both of which were calculated to make him regard the Sabbath with less reverence than is its due, he came among us with a manifest design to conform to our usages, just as he should find them. He did so in all respects.-Where the Sabbath was observed, or there was a manifest desire to observe it, by those who showed him attention, he observed it with them; and, if influenced by no other consideration, I doubt not he would often have rejoiced to find it a day of rest and retirement for himself. In a word, if he had always seen the Sabbath sacredly regarded by others, there is every reason to believe that he would never have disregarded it himself; and if this had been realized, it would have done us honour in the eyes both of God and man. Among all the features of national character, which his visit to this country is calculated to present in a striking view to the nations of Europe, none, more than this, would have been admired and praised by the wise and the good among all these nations; and there certainly is not one, on which the eye of Him who orders the destinies of nations according to his sovereign pleasure, would have looked down with more approbation.

But you will probably think, Mr. Editor, that enough has been said in the way of complaint and censure; and will be ready to ask, if no remedy is to be proposed for the evils which have been made the subject of remark. Yes, Sir, something is to be proposed; and something which would be effectual, if publick sentiment were not already in a great measure perverted, by the prevalence of the very evils against which I remonstrate. Yet whatever may be the issue, there is a sacred duty incumbent on all who possess an enlightened love to their God or their country, in relation to this interesting concern. They ought to make a strenuous and a combined effort to save themselves and their fellow