and unnatural are many of these sectarian positions, or how remote from a legitimate interpetation of the inspired text, nor did such fields of usefulness, or such means of acting upon the mass of mind even in the dark parts of the earth, open upon their view, as those which now invite our benevolent exertions. Hence, what was proper in them may not be so in us. That we ought to change the course of investigation in religion, or adopt plans of action that shall leave sectarian strife forever out of the question, contains therefore, no implications of indiscriminate condemnation upon those holy and excellent men who have preceded us. In addition to our plan for securing inspired thoughts, and to our reasonings upon an uncontroversial mode of doing good, we introduce in our last chapter, some considerations on eminent attainments. in piety, as a means of healing our dissensions. We suppose that the most of them may be traced to the influence of a low degree of religious faith, feeling and practice in those who are truly pious, or to the introduction of carnal men into the churches, and the prevalence of their spirit and maxims throughout all our ecclesiastical concerns. A higher standard of christian character, would lead to more courteousness in the intercourse between the different denominations, and to more healing measures: it would make a connection with the churches less desirable to unconverted men, and by improving discipline, would tend to remove those who are already among us; and finally, it would diffuse through the atmosmosphere of the church below, those peaceful influences which pervade the heavenly world. By a due use of these few points, we believe our controversies would be healed, and the peace of christians established on a permanent basis. Mistaken notions of the degree of uniformity which the gospel is adapted A fair exhibition, my beloved brethren, of the sources from which our dissensions arise would do much to wrest us from their influence, and to harmonize our views and feelings. When the cause of a disease is ascertained half the battle of its cure is won. Till we learn to what extent our divisions arise from a consistent zeal for the truth, and to what extent they spring from reprehensible causes, we shall be in no condition for the application of any efficient means of their cure. Without clear ideas on this point, we shall be in danger of coalesence with others in cases wherein we should contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints; or we shall sound the tocsin of war where we might better have concluded a peace. In most of the efforts at denominational union, we imagine we can detect either an unjustifiable apathy in regard to the truth itself, confused notions of the points upon which uniformity should be insisted, a lordly desire to extend the limits of a party by decoying others under its control, a disposition to clear one side of the blame of division and charge it all on the other or others, or like indications of narrow views, wrong state of feeling, or a total neglect to trace up the subject to its ultimate principles. That we shall succeed any better, we do not pretend, but only, that in the strength of God we will make the attempt. Be it distinctly understood, however, that every dissentient party is not to be condemned; for there are cases in which the interests of truth can be promoted in no other way. To controvert this position would foreclose the possibility of reform in a corrupt church, and even impeach the conduct of our Saviour and his disciples in interposing their decided opposition to the dominant party in the Jewish nation. Glad would have been the men in power of that nation and of all others to whose designs the darkness is convenient, to silence these notes of dissentious remonstrance. But neither Jesus nor his infant church could yield to such wishes. Their course was an uncompromising one. Death in their view was preferable to passive submission to the dark and dismal influences that were wielding the moral destinies of man. They were intolerant of evil in any of its forms, though entrenched around by all the passions, customs, interests, and circumstances of the social state. To error they gave not subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might be established. Theirs was a war, not of conquest merely, but of utter extermination. And upon the success of their cause they staked life, fortune and sacred honor. In their footsteps also, the intrepid reformers followed. Theirs too was a war of extermination upon existing opinions and institutions. Had the doctrine been believed and acted upon that dissent among christians real or pretended was never admissible, the civilized world would now be slumbering under the deadly incubus of the Roman hierarchy. The point, therefore, which we have in view is not to show that all dissensions, or, we should rather say perhaps, all controversies, among those who bear the christian name, or even those who are christians at heart, are unjustifiable; but to ascertain, so far as possible, when they are so and when they are not, that we may discover the extent to which they are in themselves or in their causes right or wrong. As we have hinted, if all the occult causes which disturb the movements of the church, and all the clogs which divert the different parts of its beautiful and efficient machinery from their proper use to a conflict among themselves, could be laid open, every mind not abandoned to a love of wrangling, would wrest itself at once from their influence. It would doubtless be seen that for one dissension which arises from an honest and consistent zeal for truth, there are ten which proceed from the common source of wars and fightings, even our own heart's lust. It would be seen that after subtracting from them all selfishness, ignorance, party feeling, and sheer malignity, the remainder would be reduced to a mere fraction. It will be conceded on all hands that when we come upon ground where the gospel is not adapted to produce perfect uniformity, there would be no propriety in making a want of it an occasion for dissension. Secession should begin at that point where the gospel makes it criminal for us to harmonize. By extending our requisitions of uniformily beyond the intention or adaptation of the gospel to produce it, we unnecessarily multiply the causes of dissension. And one has only to look over the history of controversies among the people of God, to convince himself that a large proportion of them have arisen from enforcing uniformity upon subjects which cannot be so perfectly settled by the scriptures, as to produce, in all cases, an identity of conviction. They have oftener had respect to deductions from the facts of the bible than to the facts themselves. The point at issue has not been whether this or that fact is stated in the Bible, but whether this or that principle is a legitimate deduction from those facts and statements which are alike clear to all. Take for example the controversies which have existed in reference to the person of Christ, (and who can estimate the extent of talent and labor which from the time of Arius to this day have been exhausted upon it?) and it will be found that they have not so much regarded what the bible speaks, as the use to be made of its testimony. Let a Socinian and Trinitarian of common capacity sit down to the task of reading together the statements of the New Testament concerning Christ, taking them one by one, and their understanding of them, unless previously determined by their systems, would be very nearly the same. That Jesus was baptized of John in the Jordan, that the Spirit in the form of a dove descended and abode upon him, while a voice from heaven proclaimed him the Son of God, that he was tempted forty days and nights in the wilderness, that he raised Lazarus from the dead, and that the words and works ascribed to him by his four biographers were spoken and wrought as represented, they would both agree. But let them undertake to make out from these facts what sort of a being Christ was, whether God, or man, or both, or neither, and they would be instantly thrown into the heat of controversy. In like manner, the passages which relate to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the church, taken in their separate capacity, would convey much the same idea to every mind; but the abstract question whether he proceeded from the Father only, or from the Father and Son, was made between the Eastern and Western church in the earlier centuries of christianity, an occasion for a war of words and weapons, of scandal and carnage, which did infinite discredit to the christian name. Men were then adjudged to |