A.J.Lielinski CIDI PREFACE. Since the full development of the great apostacy foretold by prophets and apostles, numerous attempts at reformation have been made. Three full centuries, carrying with them. the destinies of countless millions, have passed into eternity since the Lutheran effort to dethrone the Man of Sin. During this period, many great and wonderful changes have taken place in the political, literary, moral and religious conditions of society. The Protestant Reformation is one of the most splendid eras in the history of the world, and will long be regarded by the philosopher and the philanthropist as one of the most gracious interpositions in behalf of the whole human race. That the nations composing the western half of the Roman empire have already been greatly benefited by that effort, scientifically, politically and morally, no person acquainted with either political or ecclesiastical history can reasonably doubt. Time, that great arbiter of human actions, that great revealer of secrets, has long since decided that all the reformers of the papacy, have been public benefactors. We Americans owe our national privileges and our civil liberties to the protestant reformers. They achieved not only an imperishable fame for themselves, but a rich legacy for their posterity. When we contrast the present state of these United States with Spanish America, and the condition of the English nation with that of Spain, Portugal, and Italy, we begin to appreciate how much we are indebted to the intelligence, faith, and courage of Martin Luther and his heroic associates in that glorious reformation. He restored the Bible to the world, A. D. 1534, and boldly defended its claims against the impious and arrogant pretensions of the haughty and tyrannical See of Rome. But, unfortunately, at his death, there was no Joshua to lead the people who rallied under the banners of the Bible, out of the wilderness in which Luther died. His tenets were soon converted into a new state religion, and the spirit of reform ation which he excited and inspired, was soon quenched by the broils and feuds of the protestant princes, and the collisions of rival political interests both on the continent and islands of Europe. While protestant hatred to the Roman pontiff and the papacy continued to increase, a secret lust in the bosoms of protestants for ecclesiastical power and patronage worked in all the members of the protestant states, and ultimately introduced a swarm of protestant popes, who gradually assimilated the new church to the old. Creeds and man. uals, synods and councils, soon shackled the minds of men, and the spirit of reformation gradually forsook the protestant church, or was supplanted by the spirit of the world. Calvin renewed the speculative theology of Saint Augustine, and Geneva in a few years became the Alexandria of modern Europe. The power of religion was soon merged in debates about forms and ceremonies, in speculative strifes of opinion, and in fierce debates about the political and religious right of burning heretics. Still, however, in all these collisions, much light was elicited; and had it not been for these extremes, it is problematical, whether the wound inflicted upon the Man of Sin, would have been as incurable as it has since proved itself to be. Reformation, however, became the order of the day; and this assuredly was a great matter, however it may have been managed. It was a revolution, and revolutions seldom move backward. The example that Luther set was of more value than all the achievments of Charles the Fifth, or the literary and moral labors of his cotemporary, the erudite Erasmus. It is curious to observe how extremes begot extremes in every step of the reformation cause, to the dawn of the present century. The penances, works of faith, and of supererogation of the Roman church, drove Luther and Calvin to the ultraism of "faith alone." After the protestants had debated their own principles with one another till they lost all brotherly affection, and would as soon have "communed in the sacrament" with the catholics as with one another; speculative abstracts of christian Platonism, the sublime mysteries of Egyptian theology, became the bond of union and the apple of discord, among the fathers and friends of the reformation. The five great dogmas of the Geneva reformer were carried to Amsterdam, and generated in the mind of James. Arminius in 1591, five opposite opinions; and these at the synod of Dort in 1618, formed a new party of Remon strants. Into Britain, with whose history we are more immediately concerned, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Arminianism, were soon imported; and like all raw materials there introduced, were immediately manufactured anew. They were all exotics, but easily acclimated, and soon flourished in Britain more luxuriantly than in their native soil. But the beggarly elements of opinions, forms, and ceremonies to which they gave rise, caused the "Spirit alone" to germinate in the mind of George Fox, in little more than half a century after the introduction of the Leyden theology. In Lord Chatham's days, the Episcopal church, as his lordship declares, was a singular compound;-"a Popish liturgy, Calvinistic articles, and an Arminian clergy." But every few years caused a new dissension and reformation, until the kirk of Scotland and the church of England have been compelled to respect, in some good degree, the rights of conscience even in dissenters themselves. Abroad, it was no better. The Saxon reformer had his friends. John of Picardy, lived in the grateful remembrance of the Geneva family; and James of Amsterdam, speculated in a very liberal style amongst all the Remonstrants, at home and abroad. In Sweden, Holland, Germany, England, Scotland, the debate varied not essentially: the Pope and the Protestants;-the Lutherans and the Calvinists; the Calvinists and the Arminians;-the Bishops against the Presbyters, and the Presbyterians among themselves, until by the potency of metaphysics and politics, they are now frittered down to numerous parties. While philosophy, mysticism, and politics drove the parties to every question into antipodal extremes;-while justification by catholic works originated justification by metaphysical faith alone;-while the forms and ceremonies of all sects begat the "Spirit alone" in the mind of George Fox; -while the Calvinian five points generated the Arminian five points; and while the Westminster creed, though unsubscribed by its makers, begot a hundred others;-not until within the present generation did any sect or party in christendom unite and build upon the Bible alone. Since that time, the first effort known to us to abandon the whole controversy about creeds and reformations, and to restore primitive christianity, or to build alone upon the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself the chief corner, has been made. Tired of new creeds and new parties in religion, and of the numerous abortive efforts to reform the reformation; convinced from the Holy Scriptures, from observation and experience, that the union of the disciples of Christ is essential to the conversion of the world, and that the correction and improvement of no creed, or partizan establishment in christendom, could ever become the basis of such an union, communion, and co-operation, as would restore peace to a church militant against itself, or triumph to the common salvation,-a few individuals, about the commencement of the present century, began to reflect upon the ways and means to restore primitive christianity. This led to a careful, most conscientious, and prayerful examination of the grounds and reasons of the present state of things in all the protestant sects. On examination of the history of all the platforms and constitutions of all these sects, it appeared evident as mathematical demonstration itself, that neither the Augsburg articles of faith and opinion, nor the Westminster, nor the Wesleyan, nor those of any state creed or dissenting establishment, could ever improve the condition of things, restore union to the church, peace to the world, or success to the gospel of Christ. As the Bible alone was said and constantly affirmed to be the religion of protestants, it was for some time a mysterious problem;-why the Bible alone, confessed and acknowledged, should work no happier results than the strifes, divisions and retaliatory excommunications of rival protestant sects. It appeared, however, in this case, after a more intimate acquaintance with the details of the inner temple of sectarian christianity, as in many similar cases, that it is not the acknowledgment of a good rule, but the walking by it, that secures the happiness of society. The Bible alone in the lips, and the creed in the head and in the heart, will not save the church from strife, emulation, and schism. There is no moral, ecclesiastical, or political law, that can effect any moral, ecclesiastical or political good, by simply acknowledging it in word. It must be obeyed. In our ecclesiastical pilgrimage we have occasionally met with some vehement declaimers against human written creeds, and pleaders for the Bible alone, who were all the while preaching up the antiquated opinions of St. Arius or St. Athanasius. Their sentiments, language, style, and general views of the gospel were as human, as auricular confession, extreme unction, or purgatorial purification. The Bible alone is the Bible only, in word and deed, in profession and practice; and this alone can reform the world and save the church. Judging others as we once judged ourselves, there are not a few who are advocating the Bible alone, and preaching their own opinions. Before we applied the Bible alone to our views, or brought our views and religious practices to the Bible, we plead the old theme,-"the Bible alone is the religion of protestants." But we found it an arduous task, and one of twenty years labor, to correct our diction and purify our speech according to the Bible alone. And even yet, we have not wholly practically repudiated the language of Ashdod. We only profess to work and walk by the rules which will inevitably issue in a pure speech, and in right conceptions of that pure, and holy, and celestial thing, called Christianity-in faith, in sentiment, and in practice. A deep and an abiding impression that the power, the consolations and joys-the holiness and happiness of Christ's religion were lost in the forms and ceremonies, in the speculations and conjectures, in the feuds and bickerings of sects and schisms, originated a project many years ago for uniting the sects, or rather the christians in all the sects, upon a clear and scriptural bond of union; upon hav. ing a "thus saith the Lord," either in express terms, or in approved precedent, "for every article of faith, and item of religious practice." This was offered in the year 1809, in the "Declaration and Address" of the Washington Association, Pennsylvania. It was first tendered to the parties that confessed the Westminster creed; but equally submit. ted to all protestants of every name, making faith in Christ and obedience to him, the only test of christian character, and the only bond of church union, communion, and co-operation. It was indeed approved by all, but adopted and practised by none; except the few, or part of the few, who made the overture. None of us who either got up or sustained that project, was then aware of what havoc that said principle, if faithfully applied, would have made of our views and practices on various favorite points. When we take a close retrospective view of the last thirty years, (for we have a pretty distinct recollection of our travel's history for that |