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RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS:

THEIR

CAUSE AND CURE.

PRIZE ESSAY.

BY PHARCELLUS CHURCH,
Author of "Philosophy of Benevolence."

It is not profane, says Epicurus, to deny the gods of the vulgar, but it is profane
to apply the vulgar opinions to God.

It is madness to expect that things never yet performed should be effected ex-
cept by means yet untried.-Lord Bacon.

NEW YORK:

GOULD AND NEWMAN, NASSAU STREET.

AMHERST:

J. S. A ND C.

ADAMS.

BOSTON-CROCKER & BREWSTER: GOULD, KENDALL, & LINCOLN:
HARTFORD-CANFIELD & ROBINS: ROCHESTER-
H. STANWOOD, & CO.

1838.

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Entered according to act of Congress by
PHARCELLUS CHURCH,

in the Northern District of the State of New York.

J. S. & C ADAMS. Print.

Amherst, Mass.

ADJUDICATORS' ADVERTISEMENT.

The Committee appointed to award the premium of two hundred dollars, offered for the best Tract or Treatise on Dissensions in the Churches, hereby certify that they have received and examined twenty-seven manuscripts, and among them a Treatise of several hundred pages. This last, they think has the precedence in merit; though it does not perhaps entirely meet the design of the offerer of the premium.

On the whole the Committee, without meaning to express entire concurrence in the views of the author of this manuscript, judge that he should receive the premium, and do accordingly award it to him.

Several of the remaining manuscripts are written with much ability and in an excellent spirit, and the Committee would be happy if they also could in some way be given to the public.

New York, July 11th. 1837.

THOMAS H. SKINNER,
ICHABOD S. SPENCER,
WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS.

PREFACE.

Whoever may peruse these pages, would do well to begin by seeking a spirit kindred to His, who, under the gathering night of his last agonies, offered this comprehensive petition: Neither pray I for these alone; but for them also which shall believe on me through their word: THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE; as thou Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE THAT THOU HAST SENT ME. If our views and feelings accord to this prayer, we shall perceive that no measures can secure its answer, which do not come in collision with at least so much of the present sentiment and conduct of religious men, as constitutes the basis of their divided and distracted condition. Moreover, a heart that truly accords to this prayer will desire peace so much, as to receive with meekness and self-examination, every instance of such collision with its own established habits and convictions. It is the part of humility to suspect that there may be something connected with our own views, feelings or measures to foreclose the answer of this divinely dictated prayer.

The circumstances immediately concerned in bringing this work before the public, will be seen from the advertisement on a previous page. The most of it was written with great haste, to have it

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