of Scripture, or in judging of a single feature of the religion which it teaches. That sin is action in view of motive, also, or that sin may exist without the power of acting in view of motive, or any similar proposition, which is not in such form presented in the words of Scripture, whether true or false, cannot furnish a basis of reasoning whose results it would be safe to use in determining our conception of documentary christianity. Of what use would such modes of reasoning be in their application to our Federal Constitution or other state documents? Could they be of the least service to a man who wished to acquaint himself with our laws, or with the genius of our government? Though our government as well as the government of God as revealed in his word, are both based on the principle that men are accountable; yet, inquiries concerning the ultimate causes of accountability, it seems to us, cannot greatly facilitate our acquaintance with either. At all events, they are precarious guides in settling questions regarding a religion, which is conveyed to us through the medium of written documents. If we invert the order, however, and after acquainting ourselves with such religion by a just interpretation of its documents, we then proceed to trace out, as far as we can, its harmony with other departments of truth, no mode of inquiry can be more legitimate. It is founded in the obvious principle, that, as the same God who determined all that is true in those departments, taught us the religion of his Word, so there must exist between them, a perfect harmony and coincidence. And such works as Butler's Analogy and Edwards on the Will, derive their chief value from the extent to which they may be used in tracing out this harmony and coincidence. And it is our opinion that this line of Inquiry opens to our future Edwardses and Butlers, a wide field of yet unexplored truth. On this point we trust we shall not be mistaken. We would be explicit also on another point; that so far as our knowledge of truths in departments foreign to the sense conveyed by the words of Scripture, or so far as the previous furniture of our minds from whatever source derived, do necessarily impart their hues to our idea of that sense, we suppose the error, if such it may be called, is venial; and due allowance is made for this species of influence in our chapter on the degree of uniformity which the gospel is adapted to produce. We conceive, however, that these foreign influences should be guarded against, in forming our idea of the religion taught in the Bible, instead of being resorted to, as they generally are, in determining that idea. We use the terms in question, therefore, with reference to the results which have followed from proceeding in due form, as if it were a legitimate mode of inquiry, to institute processes of reasoning on these foreign premises, and then shaping our conception of revealed religion, so as to have it accord to the conclusions to which we have in this way been conducted. It seems to the writer, that not a few of the positions which now divide christians, have their basis in this mode of procedure. 2. We use these terms with reference, also, to attempts to generalize the statements of Scripture, so as to embody their meaning and scope in a concatenation of propositions to be used as the tests of orthodoxy and fellowship. Though the facts of the Bible are the primary elements of truth and it is our privilege to reason on their basis; yet, we can never so fully exhaust the matter which it contains, as to be able to determine all the combinations of thought which it is adapted to awaken. As our knowledge of revealed religion as a whole, advances, its specific truths must needs be viewed with new relations and appendages. Hence, all attempts at transferring to schedules of christian doctrine the same power to command the belief and control the convictions of mankind, which belong to inspired documents themselves, are utter failures, and involve an assumption as dangerous in itself, as it has proved disastrous to the peace of the spiritual family. Specific deductions may probably create all the obligations of belief with the sacred premises from which they are derived. But when we come to a concatenation of deductions, under the notion of embodying in it every feature of the religion of the Bible which is now in the view of Christians, or which shall come to light in all time to come, the case is widely different. It is then that they assume the objectionable form which we have in view in the use of the terms in question. We employ these terms,therefore, with reference to those attempts which are made, both, to adjust the religion of the Bible to something extraneous to its language as legitimately interpreted, and to generalize its teachings into the form of propositions to guide the thinking and control the convictions of mankind. The two are for the most part united, and our creeds or schedules of christian doctrine are compounded of materials partly from the Bible and partly from other sources. CONTENTS. Object of these pages-Reverie. To whom the subject relates-new basis of mor- SEC. III. Brief view of the field of controversy-portion SEC. II. SEC. III. 109 Modifying the facts of revelation by those of nature. 105 Metaphysical Theology--Origin and danger of the practice of involving questions of faith and du- ty in the results of abstract philosophy. SEC. IV. Metaphysical Theology.-Theories of moral causation-their tendency illustrated from facts, 127 SEC. V. Metaphysical Theology.-Tendencies of Ed- wards' theory in the hands of his successors. SEC. VI. Metaphysical Theology-its present state-results SEC. VII. Resting our understanding of the Bible, not up- on philological investigation, but upon our idea THE CAUSE AND CURE OF DISSENSIONS. INTRODUCTORY TOPICS. SECTION I. Object of these pages-Reverie THE difficulties of the subject before us are felt by the writer to be above what any mortal, unguided by dive light, can surmount. Nor under any circumstances can more be expected, than the suggestion of trains of thought that may lead to other trains of a more lucid character, and so commence the process of approximation to that most desirable state when all the family of God on earth shall be of one heart and of one mind. Nothing in our view short of a miracle upon human nature, can promise such a result, but the clear exhibition of those causes of dissension which all parties and sects have only to see to reprobate, together with those principles, the practical adoption of which, without interfering with any one of their present honest convictions, would in the end produce all the harmony that can be expected among imperfect beings. Bare exhortation to union, though eloquent and forcible as an angel could use, till some method is pointed out which will lead to it without contravening what different portions of the church feel to be sacred and inviolable, will be powerless and vain. To array ourselves also against the spirit and measures of any specific portion, as the sole or principal cause of dissensions, when it may perhaps embody as much that is pleasing to God as |