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Not only so, but the simple extinction of party nomenclatures, would, in a vast multitude of cases, produce immediate coalescence on points now debat. ed with the greatest warmth and bitterness. And the practice of dealing in the primitive elements of christian truth, as found in the language of God's own selecting, instead of dealing so constantly in the various sectarian compounds of those elements to which we have become attached, would sweep from the area of controversy nearly all the remaining points of dispute. Shall we not, therefore, gain every thing, and lose almost nothing, by confining our discussions chiefly to those subjects, and conducting them in that manner, at which no consistent sectarian feeling could take umbrage and no other rivalry be excited, than two minds might consistently feel who are in the eager pursuit of the same object?

We are aware, that acting on the principles here suggested, might throw those public caterers out of employ, who live merely by the ebullition of sectarian feeling, and whose fountain of thought would be unavailable for any other purpose than controversy. Unhappily, the religious press and every other means of contact between the denominations, are too much controlled by men of this stamp, who have too little

dom from foreign influences, which are necessary to view all the features of the heavenly religion which it teaches, in their due and just proportions. Hence, it will not appear surprising, that, with this settled conviction, we should treat with serverity and contempt, the measures which are employed by our sectarian partisans, to induce their successors, to drag through all future time, in defiance of the remonstrances which arise from the increasing effulgence of truth, all the lumber and luggage with which their respective systems have come down from previous ages! These efforts to securely lash upon the back of posterity, this odious mass of errors, which our luckless predecessors have accumulated, appears to us precisely of a piece with the Pope's war upon Galileo for his invention of the telescope. If we err in our radical principle, and these systems are all or the most of them, a true pattern of the religion of the Bible, and this can be made to appear, we will then recant the severity of our remarks,

calibre for drawing truth from its primeval sources, but just thoughtless daring enough to explode the wind-guns of sectarian warfare. Could they be wielded by men competent to deal more largely in revealed thought, men whose energies should be directed to the triumph of christianity itself, and not merely to sectarian interests, we might hope for the dawn of a better day upon the christian world.

But controversial writing is no more prolific in dissensions, than the matter in which it deals. Did it confine itself to the materials which truly relate to, and bear upon the point in dispute, it would soon exhaust itself, and so, like a wrestler who has no remaining force to renew the charge, would sink to a peaceful repose. But when every possible field of thought is ransacked, on a simple point, whose relevant matter might be grasped by a child in half-adozen lessons of his Sunday School, what ground is there to expect an adjustment? It is curious to observe in what a vast compass of foreign matter, every subject of debate in christendom has been buried. The various parties have gone on drawing from history, the fathers, the metaphysics, and every imaginable source of inquiry, the means of increasing the foul accumulation,till more than Herculean strength would be necessary to cleanse the Augean stable. Three quarters of the points in dispute have no more to do with the main one at issue, than whether the moon is inhabited by giants or dwarfs. And the battle often waxes hottest, at points the most remote from the principal seat of the conflict.

We have an illustration of these remarks, in the extent to which controversialists have dipped into the writings of the mis-named fathers of the church. The repose of these ancient fathers has been disturbed, and their skeleton forms are stalking to and fro in the earth, in the shape of testimony for and against the sectarian positions, which now agitate the chris

Can we rely

tian world. But what is it worth? upon witnesses, who we know, would deceive us on so many points! If we may judge from their writings, these fathers were men in whose minds existed only a most corrupted form of christianity, and no party would gain half so much by attaching importance to their testimony, as the Pope and his minions. Indeed, the germs of "the mystery of iniquity," of which the apostle speaks as having begun to work in his day, are most distinctly visible in their productions, owing either to the sentiments of these men themselves, or to the dishonesty of their transcribers.

What certainty have we that the fragments of literature, which have been transmitted to us from the three or four first centuries after the apostles, were not from pens less competent or less disposed to give a fair representation of their times, than most others! Perhaps the bleat we hear is from the meanest sheep in all the flock. Should our present literature be subject to the same disasters for fifteen hundred years to come, with that of the period to which we allude, what security should we have that the fragments that would remain, could be relied upon to give a fair representation of our times? Perhaps some document might survive to tell our story, that would be condemned as weak, puerile and contemptible, by the universal suffrages of the present generation. It might be garbled by some future monk, so as to favor another system of tyranny like that of the papal supremacy, and so fail to be a faithful organ of the mind from whom it should profess to come; or it might come from one least competent to the task of representing our sentiments. We could enumerate not a few documents, which, should they alone survive to tell our story, would give a view of us as wide from the truth, as can well be conceived. So long, therefore, as any question, whether it relate to ordinances, church polity, or doctrinal tenets, is sus

pended, in any degree, upon the decision of the fathers, it will lead to endless jangling. These waters are too turbid to admit of an extract, that shall be clear and conclusive.

We might enumerate other measures common among christians, which in our view tend more to strife than to intelligence, piety and godly edifying. But the foregoing may perhaps be sufficient, to set this part of our subject in a light to answer all the purposes which we have in view. We hope our brethren in Christ, will not too soon lay down our work in disgust at its plainness, or at the mistakes into which they may think us betrayed. Perhaps our failure even, may serve as a spur to ascertain the real causes which contribute to the conflicts of God's earthly family, and so our errors may abound to the upbuilding of truth. If so, much as we regret them, we shall rejoice at the result to which God makes them subservient.

CHAPTER V.

Prejudice of Education.

The

Ir requires but a few years, to remove from the stage of life all the inhabitants of this globe. men who figure in political factions or religious controversies, play only their brief hour, before the curtain is drawn and hides them forever from our view; when others take their place to share the same fate. The earthly existence of human nature, as to its physical, intellectual and moral elements, is as fluctuating as the ocean's surface, when winds make it their sport. It yields to the subtle principle of mutation, to which all things here below are subject; man goeth to his long home,—the mourners go about the streets,-dust to dust returns, while the spirit mingles with the spirits of a higher world.

There is no calculating the extent, to which the solid or fluid matter of this globe, has been animated by ethereal spirits.

"Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors,→
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep;
While buried towns support the dancer's heel.
The moist of human kind the sun exhales,
Winds scatter through the mighty void the dry;
Earth re-possesses part of what she gave,
And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;
Each element partakes our scattered spoils;
As nature, wide, our ruin spreads: man's death
Inhabits all things but the thought of man!"

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