Christian brethren of every name, we entreat you, with the love of a brother, and with the most tender concern that you all may be sanctified through the truth, to consider whether we can have any interest greater than that of transferring to our minds, to our hearts,and to our lives the very conception for moulding the living human elements, which was in the mind of our Redeemer himself, as it is partially disclosed in the record of former dispensations, and as it is fully detailed in the account which we have of his own teaching, example and work, and that of his holy apostles? Can the millenial period ever dawn, till this conception is secured and brought out into life, in all its lineaments of perfection and glory? We speak advisedly when we say, that no single division of us, brethren, has yet secured this conception, and hence, that our sectarian glorying is not good. We all have it in part,-but in the case of each division, it is intermixed with principles and practices obtained from various sources, which are as foreign from the design of our Lord as can well be conceived. Now, brethren, what interest have we to retain these corrupt admixtures? Are we fearful of embarking in plans of investigation that shall occasion their loss? Shall we not be the gainers by such a loss? Would not the lame man rejoice to lose his lamenesss? Are we so bound up in ourselves and our party, as to carry our errors to the grave with us, or transmit the sad inheritance to our children, rather than infringe the established opinions and usage of our denomination? Is our party dearer to us than that great party to which all true christians would belong, if they should allow themselves to be conducted to the same result by the illuminating Spirit and sanctifying word? Before such a party, all earth would quail, all hell would tremble, and our common King would soon add to his many crowns yet one more, "the crown of all the earth."

CHAPTER II.

On doing good

Next to our endeavors to secure with exactitude revealed thoughts, as a means of adjusting our religious differences, may be ranked a course of tender sympathy for the woes of mankind, and efficient labor in the cause of benevolence. We touch upon this subject with the more confidence, because we feel ourselves sustained by the facts of our recent benevolent movement. The work of approximation between the protestant denominations, never progressed so rapidly, as since they entered upon their organized plans of doing good. Distant as they still are from each other, they have learned that there are worse evils against which to turn their forces, than their own differences of opinion. And why should they not? For, after we have magnified these evils to the utmost extent, that a sanguine imagination could desire; still, provided they are of a nature not to impair the saving energy of the gospel, it must be acknowledged that the existence of six hundred millions of immortal beings, to whom the name of Jesus is unknown, is a vastly more fearful and appalling evil. And the suffering from poverty, from sickness, from vice, and from the numberless plagues that infest the human condition, which causes oceans of tears to flow, and produces an amount of anguish exceeding our utmost powers of computation, would seem to be a more befitting field for the exercise of christian philanthropy, than the conquest of the world to any sectarian creed in the universe.

And should we concede to a particular division of our christian brethren, a creed so perfect that it would be the noblest effort of philanthropy to bring all others to its adoption, the question would then arise, how shall this great and good work be accomplished? Were we allowed to express our opinion on this point, we should say to our brethren of this transcendent creed; beloved in the Lord, you have a great work before you, a work in which holy prophets, apostles and martyrs would embark their energies, were they to return again to earth. You need wisdom from above to direct you. You have a formidable array of rival creeds against you, whose hold upon their deluded advocates is so powerful, that you will need an angel's skill and address to explode them. Be assured you never can do it, unless God vouchsafe miracles to aid your cause, in the usual way of dry argument, controversial reasoning, and sectarian attack. Such a mode of procedure will contravene those principles of our nature, bestowed doubtless to ensure tenacity in a good cause, which proportion our resistance to the extent of the power that assumes against us the air of menace and assault. All experience, also, is against proceeding thus. Your best and only method for ensuring success, is to make it manifest, that the beneficent influence of your creed, is decidedly superior to that of all others. What does good-dries the tears of orphan wretchedness and widowed sorrow-penetrates the infected abodes of incarcerated crime to soften the stony pillow of the prisoner-or toils in other ways to unburden human nature of its ignorance and woes, will contain an inherent power of conviction, which no obduracy can withstand!

We think, therefore, that those divisions of protestant christendom, (of which we are sorry that so many should exist to belie the merciful tendency of our common faith,) who have no organized plans of

benevolence, but who are relying upon dry argument and controversial discussion, for the triumph of their respective parties, have utterly mistaken the true mode of succeeding. True as your principles may be, yet, those who live to do good independently of controversy, though theoretically less correct than yourselves, will nevertheless maintain the ascendency over you. All the world will be after the man that heals the sick, preaches good tidings to the poor, and feeds the starving multitude; while the controversial scribe and priest, with every array of logic and power, will be tortured with the pining envy of a sinking cause.

But as we have already conceded the necessity of controversy in some cases, so we would now repeat, that we suppose a man may be engaged in works of mercy, and at the same time in argumentative vindications of truth against the assaults of specious error. Our Saviour and his apostles, in many cases that will occur to the reader, have given us specimens of this union of controversy with philanthropy. The point to be determined therefore, is, what are the truths in whose vindication, and what are the errors for whose overthrow, we ought to embark in controversial labors? Our views on this point have probably been sufficiently expressed in the previous parts of our work. We suppose the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, as a supernatural revelation from God, ought to be vindicated against every form of opposition that may arise. And, inasmuch as they supply to man his only means of virtue and happiness here, and his only consistent hope of another life, the vindication of their divine origin, and the circulation of their truths, deserve to be placed in the front rank of all deeds of mercy.

It was to such positions as these, that our Saviour and his apostles directed their controversial labors. He, to prove his claim as the promised Messiah and only Saviour, and they to attest the same fact in the

face of all opposition, stood forth with a sublimity of courage and a fixedness of purpose, which had no equal, but in their tender, efficient, and self-sacrificing sympathy in the woes of mankind. Indeed, so intimately connected were these two objects in their view, that they rested the former as a point of theoretical debate, almost solely upon the latter, as a source of happiness to the world. And when John

from his prison sent to inquire of Christ, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised. up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."* Thus, it was upon his miracles of mercy, that our Saviour rested his claims to Messiahship. This should teach us, therefore, to make the beneficent tendency of any point in dispute, our grand means of its defence; and never to disassociate controversy from efficient labors for the good of mankind.

In addition to the divine original of the Scriptures, we should maintain at every expense of division and debate, the sense of their language as legitimately interpreted, against every conceivable system of mutilation and distortion. In the defence of this sense, however, even on points that accord with particular features in any one of our present forms of Christianity, (for we have before conceded to them all much inspired truth,) we should study to avoid, as far as possible, the interests, passions and prejudices which have arisen from the clashing of these respective forms among themselves. For the exultation of the party whose side we favor, and the chagrin of the one whose views we oppose, will be found alike detrimental to the cause of truth. It may be difficult to

* Mat. 11: 3, 4, 5.