are essential, only those parts of revealed truth which must have access to a sinner's mind, in order to his regeneration? But who is able to determine how small an amount may contribute to this result? If we retain only so much as was in the mind of that person, to whose conversion the lowest possible degree of divine knowledge contributed, our essential or substantial christianity would, we imagine, be compressed into exceedingly narrow limits. How few and simple must have been the inspired truths which effected the conversion of the thief upon the cross, and the thousands of others, who, in the first age of christianity, believed and were baptised, upon hearing their first sermon from apostolic lips. But even admitting such to be our definition of essential truth, how indeterminate must be our conceptions, since it lies not within the province of any man to fix the lines of religious knowledge, below which a saving effect cannot be produced.

And equal uncertainty will attend our thinking, if we make it consist in those points which are common to the evangelical sects. To ascertain the points which they have in common at this moment, would be a most difficult task; and even if it were done, we should be left at any future period in great doubt concerning the changes which the fluctuations of opinion in those sects may have produced. Our standard of orthodoxy, being the points of doctrine and practice which are common to these sects, would be subject to all the mutations which are so characteristic of poor, erring, human nature. Such a definition of substantial christianity, would suspend the revelation of heaven and the last hope of man, upon the brittle thread of our own dark and misguided

reason.

If we mean, however, by substantial or essential christianity, not only that portion of inspired truth which is necessary to the conversion of a sinner, but

also, to perfect the work of his sanctification, then, we see not how we could exclude any part of that to which God has affixed the seal of inspiration. Is it not all essential to the perfecting of the saints, to the edifying of the body of Christ? Dare we omit any thing which God has not omitted? If our idea of essential or substantial, therefore, as applied to God's truth comes any thing short of the whole revealed subject-matter, it will have an effect to increase rather than diminish the obstacles to union among christians, and at the same time, will impose the hazardous task of determining what portion of that to which God has affixed his own infallible impress, we must retain, and what portion we may sacrifice. We confess our fear of going an inch in this direction.

But we imagine that the distinction of essential and non-essential, has been introduced into this subject, either with reference to the opinions of men, or to the different degrees of importance which attach to the different portions of inspired truth. Now, if it be applied in the former sense, then we say, that all merely human opinions, or all over and above the meaning conveyed by "the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth" as legitimately interpreted, are alike non-essential, while the whole of that meaning is essential. This is an easy distinction, so long as we make no reservations for merely human opinions, and no exclusions of the inspired subject matter. Or if we apply this distinction to the different degrees of importance in the truths dictated by the Spirit, then we have only to say that the terms which we employ to express our meaning are not well chosen. Because one inspired truth is less important than another, is it therefore unessential?

But we confess that it is easier to show what will not unite the spiritual family, than to obviate the barriers to this most desirable object. Nor do we con ceive it possible, as before hinted, for the ingenuity of

man to devise any other than prospective measures for their removal. It must be done by turning christian feeling, investigation, and effort into channels that shall produce an ultimate confluence. The view of this difficult subject, upon which this work is constructed, is very nearly embraced in the following outline.

We suppose that the Author of our redemption had in his mind a definite conception of the plan according to which the living human elements-including sentiment, feeling, motive, practice and whatever enters into the idea of man as a tenant of this world or the expectant of another-should be formed and modeled. We suppose this, which we call the primitive christian conception, was "hid in God" from everlasting, but with holy inspired men it was a growing conception, being gradually developed to suit the ability of our race to receive it, till its lodgment among the human elements in all its perfection was completed by the example and teaching of "Him who was appointed heir of all things."

We suppose, moreover, that the sole medium through which this primitive idea for modeling living human nature, whether as regards individual character, the domestic state or more extended associations, is transmitted from God's mind to our minds, is that of recorded revelation, or the Old and New Testament Scriptures.* The period of unwritten inspiration having passed, so as to foreclose the hope of further light from this source, we are thrown exclusively upon the sense of what is written and hence our idea of the primitive christian conception will be perfect or imperfect, clear or confused, determinate or indeterminate, ex

* The light of nature, besides being too feeble to constitute a medium for transmitting this divine scheme to our minds, is all included in the revealed subject-matter While, therefore, it may be necessary to study it as furnishing collateral support to certain features of the revealed sense, it must never be studied with a view of modeling that sense or supplying its supposed deficiences.

actly in proportion as we perceive the actual thought or subject-matter of the inspired text in its bearings upon life and conduct. And inasmuch as this is a department of knowledge perfectly distinct from all others, as much as the ideas of sight are distinct from those of sound, having for its sole basis the sense conveyed by the words of the revelation, the only effect of modeling that sense by mental philosophy, natural religion, human science, determining what is from our ideas of what ought to be, or by any thing in fact extraneous to "the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth," is to confuse and pervert our conceptions,and to produce in different minds diverging and conflicting results. Hence, this work proceeds upon the assumption that nothing can be done towards harmonizing christians till we separate from our theological investigations all these disturbing influences. The manner in which we propose to do this will be explained in our notice of other topics embraced in the work.

We use the term form of christianity with reference to the various modifications which the primitive christian conception, or at least portions of it, has received in the hands of different sections of the spiritual family, by admixtures wholly extraneous and foreign to itself. What we call sects, denominations, or systems of belief are nothing more or less than certain plans of thinking and acting which are so far dependent upon the revelation of God's own scheme for moulding the human elements, that without it they could not exist. Hence, they are the forms which that scheme has received in the hands of man, through various methods of perverting the inspired sense, or they are the compounded result of materials obtained. partly from the word of God and partly from other

sources.

There is not in our view a form of christianity in the universe that answers to the primitive model. We

do not allude to the imperfections common to human nature of those who hold them, but to the principles and practices which are component parts of these systems themselves, and which a man must adopt, if he makes them his guide in matters of faith and duty. That some of them do not accord to the primitive conception all admit, but every one would make an exception in favor of his own denomination. He believes that his denomination, or at least the basis of its organization, is a perfect fac-simile of the primitive model, that all others must come and bow down to it as the family of Jacob did to young Joseph in Egypt, before the latter day glory can dawn; and hence, he is fired with the zeal of an apostle to proselyte all other portions of the christian world to his own measure of thinking. Thence arise endless wars; the laboratory of christian thinking is made the armory of pointless and ineffectual polemics; the press groans under a burden of controversial lore; those woes of afflicted, ignorant, degraded humanity which the church is required to relieve are left unmitigated; the enemies of the heavenly kingdom make the welkin ring with joyful acclaim at the civil commotions with which it is rent; and the ferment which is kept up in the social state is most dismal and disastrous. And all for what? Why, simply, to secure the perpetuity and preemience of certain combinations of religious thought and practice, all of which, we pledge ourselves to make appear, are as remote from the primitive christian conception as they are from each other. Dark and portentious would be the glare of the millenial church if its model should correspond to the best of them!

Now, sectarianism, according to our idea of it, consists in this devotion to a specific form of christianity, or in being so warped and controled in our decision upon questions of truth and duty, by these human combinations, as to foreclose the introduction to our