very fatiguing and dangerous journey Mr. Bacon and his companions arrived at Detroit the 9th of May laft. At Fairfield a town on the north fide of Lake Ontario, he found a fettlement of Moravians and fome civilized and chrif. tianized Indians. and appearances ftrongly encour= age us to think that the prefent are the first fruits of Bengal to Chrift. We take the liberty to prefent to you a copy of the gospel of Matthew in the Bengalic language, at the end of which are fome fmall tracts and hymns, which we have difperfed pretty widely. Our dear brother Williams, of New-York, will prefent it to you as a token of our hearty concurrence with you'ving occafion'to mention the name in your work, and as a motive of praife and thanksgiving to God on our behalf. 2 W The following anecdote of two Squaws whom he found at this place is extracted from his letter. "Ha of Mr. Brainard, who was formerly a Miffionary to the Indians, the Moravian minifters told me 'that they had two Squaws in their fociety, who were baptized by him; and that one of them had 'fhown them a bible, a few days before which she said he gave her. Recollecting that, Mr. Brainard ' visited the Delawares, and that We are your affectionate breth-thefe Indians were a part of that ren in the kingdom and patience of nation, I credited the report; Christ. We take our leave-pray for us -we pray for you. May we all be ftedfaft, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forafmuch as ye know that our labour will not be in vain in the Lord. Signed in behalf of all the Mif- WILLIAM CAREY. Our readers will recollect we informed them that the Rev. David Bacon, foon after his ordination laft winter, commenced a journey to detroit with a view of laboring there as a Miffionary, and of learning the Chippeway language, that! he might go as a Miffionary among the western Indians. No intelligence has been received from him till within a few days. He got no further than Bloomfield, in the State of New-York, by fleighing. There he was detained feveral weeks and then proceeded on his journey with his wife and her brother, a young man who is to learn the Chippeway language, that he may qualify himself for an inftructor among the Indians. After a ' and was pleased to find that fome 6 'converted under Mr. Brainard's miniftry. May God be praifed for his merciful care of them!" Mr. Bacon is now at Detroit where he preaches to the people of that place, and will probably be very ufeful as a minifter, there being no Prefbyterian Minifter within feveral hundred miles. There is a probability that a church will foon be formed in that place. Mr. Bacon alfo keeps a school, and under the inftruction of the public interpreter he and the young man with him are learning the Chippeway language. He has frequent opportunities of feing fome of the Indian chiefs, and there is a pleaffing profpect that he will foon be made an inftrument of communicating the light of the gospel to fome of the poor benighted Indians. Donations to the Miffionary Society of Connecticut. From Rev. Dr. Trumbull, Two Strangers, Mary Stone, Dolls. IT. which God created and made."* On the Scriptural foundation for cel- | he had refted from all his work, ebrating the first day of the week, as the Chriftian Sabbath: Christians are ALTHOUGH Chians the generally agreed, From the Mofaic relation refpecting the manna,' it appears that the holy rest of the fabbath was known to Ifrael before the promul belief of a divine warrant for the obfervation of the Chriftian fab-gation of the Sinai law. That it The following brief statement of the arguments is, therefore, prefented to their confideration. fe The obfervation of every venth day, as a season of religious and holy reft, to man, was inftituted from the beginning, as amemorial of the completion of the work of creation, and the divine well-pleafednefs with it. When the work of the fixth day was completed, "God faw every thing which he had made and behold it was very good. And on the feventh day, God ended his work which he had made, and he refted on the feventh day, from all his work, which he had made. And God bleffed the feventh day and fanctified it, because that in it, VOL. II. No. 5. was known to other nations, is evident from feveral ancient writers.t This divine inftitution was reground and reafon of it again af newed in the Mofaic law, and the certained, in the following words: "Remember the fabbath day to keep it holy. Six days fhalt thou labour and do all thy work. But the Lord thy God. In it thou the feventh day is the fabbath of fhalt not do any work. For in fix days the Lord made heaven and earth, the fea, and all that in them is, and refted the feventh day. Wherefore the Lord bleffed the fabbath day and hallowed it."‡ In the facred writings of the old teftament, we find frequent refertution of God, and the proper celence to the fabbath, as an instituebration of it, as an effential part of practical religion. It feems to be defigned as a day of religious and devout rest from the labors and purfuits of the prefent world, and of thanksgiving to God for all his favors, especially for the work of creation; and as an expreffion of faith in the gracious intimations of God to his church, of a ftate of holy rest and joy, in his eternal. kingdom, for all the redeemed, through the promised Meffiah. With a view to the fame important object, was the inftitution of the rest of the feventh month, (which was almoft wholly confecrated to religious folemnities) as also of the seventh year, and of the great year of jubilee after the completion of feven times feven years. This laft was a feafon of abundant reft and joy, and was eminently typical of the gospel fal vation, and that bleffed reft, which remains for the people of God, in the heavenly state.. God, manifefted to man, to which all his other works are fubordinate. This new state of things was to confift efpecially in a new fyftem of rules and ordinances, refpecting the worship of God, from which (as alfo from other sources of argument) it appears that the inftitutions and ordinances of worship in the old teftament, and especial ly in the Mofaic fyftem, were not generally defigned to be perpetual, in the church of God on earth; but, to be typical of that new ftate of things juft mentioned, and introductory to it. So that weare to view the whole Mofaic economy as a fhadow of good things to come,of which the body is Chrift and Chrif tianity, or the institutions of the gofpel.* This great and general change, in the ordinances of religion, by no means implies any alteration in the nature and object of divine worship or of religion in general, but only in the mode of exempli fying that religion. And as might be expected,. the fubftance is more perfect than the fhadow, or there is an advance from the imperfect ftate of things, under the old tef tamént, before the incarnation of the Meffiah, to a more perfect state under his reign, in the days of the gofpel. Indeed, the fabbath of the feventh day, and all the fabbatical inftitutions which have been mentioned, together with the poffeffion of the land of Canaan, given to the feed of Abraham as the earthly, promifed reft, were altimately defigned for the fame end. As it pleafed God, through all ages after the apoftacy of man, to intimate his defigns of mercy to finners through a divine Redeemer, foretold in prophecy, as "the feed of the woman, and as the feed of Abraham of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of David; fo the old teftament abounds with predictions and representations of a new and more glorious ftate of things, which fhould fucceed his appearance in our nature and world. And the work of redemption, which he was to accomplish by his obedience and death, is reprefented * See Coloff. ii. 17. Heb. viii. 5. and as the greatest of the works of x. s. et paffim. Thus, inftead of the natural feed of Abraham, and the earthly Canaan, there are his fpiritual feed, and the Jerufalem which is above. For the priesthood, and the blood of flain beafts offered in facrifice, we have the Lord Jefus Chrift, with his eternal priesthood, and the offering of himfelf unto God, in the fhedding of his own blood, which alone is fufficient to take a way fin. he makes all days, it must undoubtedly mean that he has confecrated Similar obfervations will apply to all other ordinances of the ancient difpenfation, when contrafit for the ufe to which the infpired ted with the new. From the analogy of divine difpenfations, we fhould be led to look for a change of the day of facred reft, that in future it might celebrate the work of redemption, by the confecration of the day in which God refted from that work, which was the great object of creation, and to which that, and all his other works are evidently fubordinate. But we must not affect to be wife beyond what is written in the holy fcriptures. writer fays it fhall be applied; even to rejoice and be glad, or to keep it as a day of facred reft and thanki̇giving for the great work of redemption-from which Jefus refted on this day, by his refurrection; as God refted on the feventh day from the work of the first creation. The paffage may therefore be juftly confidered as a direct prediction of the change of the fabbath; or that the first day of the week thould be celebrated in the Chriftian church as a fabbath in grateful commemoration of the refurrection of our Lord Jefus Chrift. Letus then inquire whether there is any evidence from the prophecies of the old teftament, that there The other prophetic fcripture, fhould be a change of the Sabbath from the old teftament, which inat the commencement of the gof-vites our attention, is in the folpel difpenfation. In this examina- lowing words, viz. tion we fhall attend to two fcripture paffages only. Behold I create new heavens and a new earth and the former fhall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be you glad and rejoice forever in that which I crẻate: for behold I create Jerufalem a rejoicing and her people a new earth import the new creation, and are defigned to represent the effects of the work of redemption, in the state of the redeemed church, from the incarnation of the Saviour to the final confummation in the heavenly reft. That the old In the first of them we find thefe words, "This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it."* That a great part of the pfalm from which these words are taken, re-joy. The new heavens and the fpects the Meffiah, appears not only from the fubje&-matter, but, from its application to him in various paffages in the new teftament.t This is particularly evident concerning the words quoted, and thofe which immediately precede and follow them. That the refurrec-heavens and earth fhall not be retion and exaltation of Chrift is the fubject, appears from the words, in their connection; that the day of his refurrection is referred to follows of courfe. So that thefe words are directly to the purpose of the prefent argument. For if the Lord hath made this day, in any fenfe different from that in which membered or come into mind can mean nothing more than that they fhall not be celebrated by the standing memorial of the feventh day fabbath, which was the only way in which the old creation ever had been ftatedly celebrated. The religious rejoicing predicted in the latter claufe of the text on account * Ifaiah lxv. 17, 18. † See Ifaiah Ixvi. 22. 2 Peter iii. 13. Rev. xxi. 1. |