pound his laws, bestow privileges and execute judgment upon his subjects? And can it be otherwise until the eye of common sense is open to see that the kingdom of Christ has nothing to do with civil government, and that civil government has nothing to do with the church or kingdom of Christ? Let this plain maxim of Christ be adopted; of course that civil institution, about which there has been such an uproar among the Christians of late, will be restored to where it belongs. II. That the abusers of the Bible have betrayed great ignorance and idolatry in assuming the reins of government by the supposed authority of that book, and given great occasion of disgust to the name of Christ, is a truth that every man of good sense will yet acknowledge. Look at the Church common prayer book, established by a mighty defender of the faith, and it will appear that the subject of that kingdom, must either go unmarried or repeat after his priest the following obliga tions to a woman :-" With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly "goods I thee endow : In the name of the Father, and "of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.-Amen." "Come back! Come back," says the Christian! Where?" To the Church-the one Church." Nay, let me rather be a Hottentot, and worship the moon, and have the liberty of giving part of my goods to the poor. 66 22 The Christians say, let us all worship one God," then let them settle the point who it shall be. They say the word of God (i. e. the Bible) tells them so and so. Very well; it says, " Fall down and worship me.' This will not do. I dare not worship a book, and my soul recoils at the idea of worshipping that spirit which originally suggested these words. Therefore, I must worship according to my present faith, tho' it should appear "solemn mockery," in the eyes of all the Christian world. III. I am thankful to the disposer of all human events, that I was not more than seven years old when the American eagle first stretched her pinions and began her ascent toward the air of liberty. And, therefore, the meridian of my temporal life is at a period when reputed fools and fanatics no longer smoke on the altar of Christianity, but every man's religion may be correctly examined of whatsoever kind it is. Surely, if Church officers knew they might as well be still and silent, as to try to croud back and shut up their flocks and cry, Wolves! Wolves! For every man's character must be known in this day, and each one judged not by his good words and fair speeches, but according to his WORKS. IV. For upwards of two years I have studied Shakerism, with as close application as I ever bestowed on the system of Calvin, and at least upon as proper a plan. I have had the documents of it open before me without covering or disguise, i. e. the people who have set out to be righteous and follow Christ, in deed and in truth. And in all their actions at home and abroad, however scrutinized as a test of that faith upon which my salvation was suspended, I never have discovered any thing that could furnish any ground of a cavil; but am bound to say, that the same characteristics of a child of God, which the Christian reads in his Bible, I have been able to read in the daily deportment of this people, and that without a blot. A people blameless and harmless— without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse na→ tion among whom they shine as lights in the world, having their conversation honest, and yet all manner of evil spoken against them falsely. Moreover, their daily fruit has been manifested to my satisfaction, to be the fruits of that spirit which the Christians say, lives in the letters of a book, viz. Love, peace, joy, long-suffering,gentleness goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance, against which there is no law. Therefore I conclude brother Dooley's text, Let them alone, was very pertinent when he came to preach among their neighbouring persecutors had he not added, they be blind leaders of the blind, c. V. It is no matter to me what a tree is called if its fruit is good. If all my neighbours should call my Appletree a Buckeye, and tell me that it grew from the seed of Hemloc, this would not alter the taste of the good apple; no more can any name, destroy my regard to a people that bring forth the fruits of righteousness. But though some may imagine that the name Shaker bears analogy to something very mean and contempti ble, it has never been my conception of it, nor have I used it at all in that sense. The first thing that struck me when I heard that name, was that the universal cry in the revival had been that God would shake the heavens and the earth! Shake out the things that were made, that those things that could not be shaken might remain.-How then was he to do it? He always works by means and instruments. When the nations were to be threshed, he made Jacob his threshing instrument, of course the men of Jacob were his threshers. People talk of the great wars of Bonaparte, and the great sins that the Devil commits, yet a reasonable person will grant that Bonaparte wars with his warriors, and the Devil sins with his sinners. Then was it not reasonable for the subjects of the revival to expect that God would shake the heavens and the earth with his Shakers? Some perceiving this tried to substitute his name Quaker, but as this name was already appropriated to another people, it only ser ved to take the charge of their first light, and suffer that abuse which the name was originally supposed to merit, until it appeared that the contrast between this people and the Quakers in their present standing, rendered it improper to call both by the same name; therefore the general appellation has been finally adopted.—Behold I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they' shall fish them, and after will I send for many hunters and they shall hunt them from every mountain, &c.—Jer. xvi. 16. And again, Saviours shall come up on mount Zion, to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. Obadiah, 21. This is a time of universal liberty work, and for each one to be known and distinguished by his works and has not God a right to work as well as man?-And if he has a work to do with mankind, who can hinder? Therefore, if he sends out many fishers to fish them, many hunters to hunt them, many Shakers to shake them, and many Saviours to save them, let all the people say—Amen.— POSTSCRIPT. SINCE the testimony of Christ has been opened in this western country, by John Meacham, Benjamin S. Youngs and Issachar Bates, many have expressed a great desire to see the principles of the Church fully and clearly stated; besides, it has been the prevailing wish of young believers in general, that every serious enquirer should have their desires fully answered in this respect. This, however, was not contemplated by the present publication. I pretend not to comprehend, much less to state the principles of a people who have been more than twenty years in that work, which is justly denominated a new creation. What we have seen and heard, we testify, but all this in comparison of the light of the Church, are but as earthly things compared to heavenly. It therefore remains with the Church and those who are thence commissioned to open the everlasting gospel, to publish their distinguishing doctrines, &c. when they conceive they are thereunto called of God. And that the period is not far distant, I am authorized to believe from certain information, that a work is now preparing for the press, in which the principles of the Church will be laid open from their proper source and foundation, by those who are in possession of a special gift to that purpose. K POEM-CONTINUED FROM PAGE 72. WHILE carnal antichristians, with their adult'rous eyes, How foolish is this gospel to the aspiring Jew- That full and free salvation, for which ten thousands pray'd, While proud self-righteous hypocrites, eat back their feigned pray 'r. That God that shook mount Sinai, and kindled such a blaze, |