the wake of most of those influences, by which our present controversies are incensed and perpetuated.

Let our biblical literature, also, be thus constructed with reference to bringing the subject-matter of Scripture, as disconnected from foreign admixtures, into contact with the mind, on the plan of "comparing spiritual things with spiritual;" and let all hands be employed in bringing to view, in a plain manner, the parts which should bear upon each in a judicious arrangement of topics, suited to cover the whole ground; and there is no conceiving the facili ties for acquiring divine knowledge, which would in a few years spring up around us. It would be a great, and it might be a difficult work, but still it may be so completely accomplished, provided our hearts and our thinking be suitably weaned from the sources that corrupt our theology, and duly restricted to its only legitimate materials, as to make the sense of Scripture too lucid and too much a matter of common reflection to christians, to admit of any serious divergencies of sentiment among them. It is a work that must be done in parts and parcels, and must employ the careful, protracted, and devout researches not only of many minds, but of minds variously gifted and endowed. Books and teachers, by detailing the results of past discovery and placing the whole inspired subject-matter in the form suggested, may and ought to supersede the labor, on the part of the great mass of learners, of appealing directly to the sacred pages, and pushing their way through, on the strength of their own independent exertions. If it be so left, thousands will never attempt it, but will confine themselves to the ordinary course of cursory reading. The plan thus suggested has this to recommend it, if nothing else; that by confining us so exclusively to the inspired sense, it will secure us against those apprehensions, of misleading or being misled, which a tender conscience must always feel in the treatment of religious subjects.

SECTION V.

Manner of securing inspired thoughts-exemplification of the foregoing principles-their tendency to unite christians.

Barren and imperfect as the foregoing hints may appear, they show how small a portion of the whole field of theology is reached, by the subjects at issue between the Protestant sects. And what is a little curious, this portion is almost exclusively confined to those points concerning which we have no possible means of information, aside from the sense conveyed by the words of the revelation. The three personalities under which God displays himself; the existence and all the features of the plan of mercy; as to when it was devised, for whom intended, how it operates, what agents it calls into requisition, what obligations and duties it imposes, and what is to be its final consummation, together with other items of doctrinal truth which are equally inaccessible to our minds without the aid of revelation, constitute the area of our unavailing polemics. In regard to the preceptive phenomena, also, we are united till we come to external rites, or other duties alike dependant on the language of revelation; but upon these we have exhausted ages of debate. And whatever may be said of the indeterminateness of language, it is impossible to account for these unfortunate diversities of sentiment and practice, on any other principle, than that of the disturbing influence of foreign and irrelevant matter. If we were confined exclusively to the materials, upon which our knowledge of them is based, the portentous fires of controversy would go out for want of fuel to feed them.

It is in vain to plead the importance of these points

in the general scheme, as a justification for bestowing upon them an attention so exclusive; for, after conceding all that is demanded on this score, the question would then recur, whether these most important points, can be perceived in their real attitudes and bearings, without taking into account the whole system of truth of which they form parts? Suppose the slope of a mountain, or a craggy eminence, or a meandering stream were altogether the most important objects of a landscape; could a company of painters do justice to it, if their contention about the light in which to transfer these few objects upon their canvass, should lead them to employ their pencil upon them to the exclusion of every thing else? God has not opened upon us the inspired field of vision, that we may confine our attention to a few of its most important features; but that we may embrace all its lineaments in their due and just proportions.

Nor indeed can the truth be subserved even by taking in the whole, if we do it merely to sustain the favorite positions which we have set up in regard to its leading points. It is no uncommon thing for controvertists to distrain and warp every thing that they can collect, from the whole department of inspiration and from all other sources, so as to make it prop their theory upon a given point. That with them is the measure of all truth, and hence, the more ground they go over, the wider is their work of mutilation and havoc.

Those, therefore, who concur with us, will see the necessity of a simple and natural plan for classifying the matter of Scripture, to take the place of our bodies of divinity, our creeds, our organized modes of religious thinking, and every thing that in fact or in form lies at the basis of our present differences. Whatever of excellence these cherished notions and systems may embody, we shall find in the inspired sense, and their darker features and ingredients we

may well afford to lose. Let gold be dissolved to its elements, and however its alloy might suffer, all its genuine particles would we recovered with additional luster, beauty and value. Hence, all who consent to leave their organized modes of religious thought and practice and to unite on the principle of classification, (against which we know not what division of Protestant Christendom could object,) need apprehend the loss of nothing which is worthy of being retained. Having thus met each other on the basis of this principle, a principle which undertakes not to prescribe and pre-judge what they shall believe or disbelieve; but whose sole object is to transfer the entire inspired subject-matter to their mind, heart and character; and having relinquished the design of draughting new tests of orthodoxy, we see no source, apart from existing prejudices, from which new divisions could arise.

And lest it should be supposed that these prejudices, together with the conflicting interests by which they are nourished, would wholly defeat the peaceful tendency of this mode of religious inquiry, we will here explain, that in our subsequent chapters on doing good, and on eminent attainments in piety, we think we establish principles, against which no party could object, whose influence will obviate even this difficulty. They will either annihilate our prejudices, or they will silence controversy about differences that might still exist. We profess no power, however, to convince men who are destitute of reason, or who are incapable of being controlled by well authenticated principles. Perhaps we might think proper to deal with those whom sectarianism has reduced to this low state of intellectual character, as we deal with infants and idiots, passing over as no bar to fellowship many things in them, against which we should strongly inveigh in the more fortunate portions of the church. Whatever lenience we might indulge to

these poor deluded characters, whose sectarian heat has evaporated all the little sense they ever had, we think our work will be done, when we have pointed out a course, in which all Protestant christians cannot fail to agree, that, followed up, must produce between those among them who have any claim to reason, all desirable harmony and coalescence.

In order to see how our principle of classification in religious investigations will operate, and to ascertain its tendency upon the peace of christians, we propose now to carry it out, to some extent, on a single point. We have already made mention of divine influence, as constituting one of the topics under that division of the doctrinal phenomena, which we call the remedial system. By this we mean that influence or energy which God exerts directly upon the character of sinful men, in restoring them to holiness and felicity. The fact of the existence of materials in the Scriptures for such a doctrine, will not be doubted by any portion of the christian world; whatever difference may be seen among them as to the manner of using these materials.

Now, to enable us to contrast our mode of investigating the Scriptures, with those which have hitherto prevailed, it may be well to state a few of the theories of divine influence, which have been adopted by different classes of christians. One class, for instance, take the postion that there is nothing special or extraordinary in this influence; but that it is the same with the common inducements, whether from nature or revelation, which God spreads before the reason and conscience of mankind, leading them to avoid the evil and choose the good. On this principle, therefore, with which they enter upon their investigations, they explain all that order of Scriptural passages which speak of the reproofs and strivings of the Spirit, of resisting the Holy Ghost, of the Spirit witnessing with our spirits, of quenching the Spirit, and too many others to be named.