same truths, which are often remarked, and which form perhaps the most striking difference between us and some of our fellow christians, who feel this anxiety less strongly, than we do. We vindicate this peculiarity by the consideration, that it is required by the constant changes, which are taking place in the force and meaning of all language, and by that obscurity, with which time is ever incrusting the words and illustrations of elder days. It is an obsolete phraseology, we think, which causes many sentiments, essentially true and perfectly simple, to be involved in a dark, scholastick, and, as it seems to us, needless perplexity.* It is the cause why many phrases are so often repeated with no distinct ideas attached to them, and a complete negation of meaning is often wrapped up and concealed, even from ourselves, in a consecrated dialect. Beside these considerations, however, we no doubt think also, that many of the changes we make in the mode of stating certain sentiments give a more strictly correct representation of the true meaning of the scriptures. And it would be strange, if no improvements of this kind had been suggested by all the lights which the learning and piety, which have been employed on the sacred volume for a century and a half, have struck out. It would indeed be passing strange, if it were true, that it was in the middle of the seventeenth century, amidst the tumult and extravagance of a civil war, when every other branch of knowledge was comparatively in its infancy-that this was * Note E. the time, when the statement of every point in theology received its final improvement and perfection.* I freely own, that this assertion, which implies that the human mind-instead of being only in its twilight-then touched its highest point of theological illumination, seems to me scarcely less extravagant, than to say, that the period, when the maxims of civil government were finally settled for all future generations, was in the country and at the height of that revolution, which has recently convulsed the world to its centre. 3. But though the differences between us and our fellow christians are chiefly verbal, there are others, which may be thought to be more real. There are some doctrines, on which many good men lay a great stress, which we do not teach as any essential part of christian faith. These doctrines relate to modes of the divine nature, and divisions of the divine essence; to the theory of the divine attributes, and the grounds and extent of the divine decrees; to the origin and transmission of sin; to the methods of God's operation on the human mind; to the final reasons of the œconomy, and the ultimate results of the government of God. Most of these speculations evidently involve questions of the most abstruse metaphysicksquestions on which mankind have for ages disputed-and in which the most etherial spirits, after vainly excruciating their understandings, have found no end in wandering mazes lost." All that is any way practical with regard to these * Note F. speculations we embrace and teach; for it lies obvious to the humblest mind.* For the rest, we conscientiously think, that much of them will for ever be beyond the reach of the human understanding, till it is enlarged in a higher world; and at any rate, that the scriptures either decide nothing with respect to them, or only indistinctly allude to them, or else decide against such views of them as are often received. We however certainly can never think, that any thing essential to christian faith or practice depends on the decision of these questions. We think it a thing in itself most unlikely, that a religion, designed, like the gospel, to be preached to the poor, the humble and the illiterate quite as much as to the metaphysical and learned, would have any of its fundamental principles connected with these bewildering inquiries.† It seems to us the most beautiful feature of our religion, that it is so perfectly simple, intelligible and practical. We examine the preaching of our Saviour, and find that his addresses to mankind were all of the plainest character-and can we err when we follow his divine example?—We admit in the fullest manner the perfect right of our fellow christians to think otherwise on these points; but we are not able to follow them in what seems to us their perilous and unauthorized speculations. We ask them to forgive us, when we say that the light of revelation seems not to our eyes to extend its guiding rays into these regions of perplexity. We beg them to permit us to remain on the open, plain *Note G. + Note H. and illuminated ground of our common christianity; and rather to thank God with us, that we can go on so far together, than to refuse us their charity, because we advance beyond it more timidly and— may it not be?-more cautiously than they. 4. From this view of the practical character of the gospel, and the consequent absence from our preaching of these abstruse speculations, arises what is esteemed another of our characteristicks. We take the great end of all religion to be, simply, to make men good; to produce, in the language of the apostle, charity out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. The goodness here meant is, indeed, of the most exalted character; including not only the duties of self-government and social benevolence, but also, most assuredly, our supreme duties to God. It is the goodness, which was exemplified in its perfection by our Lord; it is that goodness which is to fit man for the communion of the spirits of the blessed throughout eternity. This moral influence on the human character it is, which seems to us to be the end of all religion. It is that, to which every thing, which revelation unfolds, is only subsidiary and ministerial. The whole substance of christianity, therefore, seems to be contained in three words: the nature of christian duty; the means of performing it; our motives to use them. The whole theory of christian preaching, then, must be to exhort men to christian duties, in the use of christian means, and by the excitement of christian * Note I. motives. We have no conception of the meaning of religion, if it mean any thing different from this. We do confess, therefore, that we feel bound to remember, in its plain sense, the solemn charge of Paul to Timothy: "it is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they that have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works; these things are good and profitable unto men."-It is St. Paul, who is speaking, my friends, not we; and with his warrant, and with the example of a greater than Paul, even his Master and our Master, we ought to think it a small thing to be judged of man's judgment. We must consider the epithet, which is sometimes applied to our discourses, that they are "moral sermons," to be an epithet of honour, not of disgrace. They must share it in common with our Lord's own sermon on the mount. 5. It is another characteristick of our views of religious truth, that they do not lead us to expect single and instantaneous effects from its influence, so much as a gradual and permanent operation. We deny not, that there are real examples of sudden conversions from sin to holiness. We bless God for them. But this is not, we think, the usual history of mankind; nor do the representations of the scriptures lead us to expect it will be so. We do not doubt, that good effects have sometimes been produced on particular persons, by throwing them into a sudden spasm of terrour or agony of remorse. But in general we think, that men become virtuous-as they become wise-by constant and |