a man's conformity to the truth of the gospel, without endangering the peace of christians and the integrity of their principles. Obstinately as we should contend for the subject-matter of what God has revealed, as ascertained from the language of his own choosing, and uncompromising as we should be with those who would add thereto or diminish therefrom, there is always a degree of insecurity in transfering the same tenacity to any instrument that comes to us in the shape of a brief or schedule of recorded revelation. For God has invested no man or body of men with the power of arriving at unerring conclusions in their use of inspired statements. So far as such an instrument may be necessary to indicate the judgment which an organized company of believers have formed of the great outlines of revealed truth, (for the things that give tone to our entire habits of religious thought and action may be brought into a very narrow compass,) it may be not only admissible, but useful to assist others in determining their religious associations.

But in the light of a guage or measure of belief and investigation, they are about as useful as a clog would be upon the heel of a man in running a race. The question is not, what saith this or that creed, but what is written? how readest thou?

It does not comport with our design to trace up the influence of an undue tenacity about mere opinions to all its minute ramifications. The only effect of attempting it would be to incense the feelings, by intruding upon their favorite positions, of those dear brethren for whom Christ died, and whose benefit we have at heart more than any thing else in these investigations. We will venture, however, upon one or two illustrations from the points of controversy which have been rife in the church for several centuries, in order that the folly and danger of leaving the simple statements of the Bible, for the pur

pose of setting up and defending our own deduced positions, may more fully appear. And to be perfectly impartial, we will select a point upon which the writer has his favorite opinion as well as his 'brethren.

There are a large class of christians who have set up this position, for instance, that truly regenerated persons may so fall from grace as finally to lose their souls; and another class have set up directly the opposite; that the regeneration of a person involves the certainty of his final salvation to whatever extent he may afterwards relapse into sin. The talent and labor which have been exhausted upon the defence of these belligerent positions, against the mutual attacks of their respective opponents, have probably been sufficient to convert to christianity, and endow with the unspeakable blessings of civilization and refinement, an entire nation of pagans. Doubtless more or less good has been done by this controversy, in the way of eliciting truth. But has not the acrimony with which it has been carried on, and the sacrifices of brotherly feeling and fellowship which have followed in its train, more than counterbalanced this advantage. And would not the labor expended upon it, in addition to converting a pagan nation, have been sufficient to elicit much more truth than has grown out of this controversy, if it had been directed to the investigation of the sacred pages untrammelled by any such positions?

But the chief objection to them is, that neither the one nor the other, expresses the true spirit and force of the passages of scripture, that bear upon the point to which they relate. Nor do we conceive it possible to embody their spirit into any general statement of which human language will admit. The reason is, that the subject of the christian's exposure to hell or security of heaven, is no where contemplated by inspired men in the precise light of either of these

statements. And we have no evidence that it ever came up to their view in the form that it has assumed in this controversy. They never wrote a syllable in defence of the abstract proposition, either that regenerated persons may go to hell, or that they are secure of heaven.

And admitting it to be true, that such persons may be finally lost, it is not so in a sense to preclude the most unequivocal assurances of salvation to those who evince by their lives the reality of a filial relationship to God. "I know in whom I have believed," was the confident language of Paul," and that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day." "All things shall work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

"Who

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Or, on the other hand, suppose it be true that regenerated persons cannot be finally lost, it is not so to preclude exhortations to faithfulness, the same as if that were indispensable to turn the scale in favor of their salvation. "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for IF ye do these things ye shall never fall." therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection; LEST that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be cast away." 29 * Thus, exhortations are interspersed through the Scriptures which evidently imply a certainty, that all will be finally lost who do not continue faithful unto death, and that clearly

* 1 Cor. 9. 26, 27,

countenance the idea that the question of our salvavation is settled, only so far as we give diligence by holy living to make our calling and election sure.

From which it appears, that the inspired writers have said many things, that the warm advocates of neither of the foregoing positions would dare to pen, and which have cost them on both sides no small share of labor to counteract and explain away. Hence, it could not have been their design, nor that of the spirit by whom they wrote, to hold up the subject in the abstract form which it has assumed in this controversy. Nor do we see any thing to be gained by throwing it into this form, except that of embroiling good men in dissensions.

Suppose it should be thought, on the one hand, that the absolute security of salvation in the mind of true believers is necessary to their consolation and support amid the scenes of sorrow and temptation which they are called to encounter; still they cannot claim it, as all agree, any farther than they evince by their holy lives the certainty of being true believers. It is presumption to have our security of salvation rise at all above the evidence which our conduct furnishes, of the justness of our claim to the promises in which that security is founded. And a holy life will bring consolation, whether with or without a belief of the abstract position, that regenerated persons are secure of salvation. The willing and the obedient can never fail of access to the rich pastures of religious joy, peace and hope.

On the other hand, suppose it be thought necessary to a christian's continued obedience, that the fear of hell should be ever present to his mind, would it not exhibit a gloomy picture of his character? Slavish fear in that case, would be an essential element of piety; a position that must admit of great doubt in its application to the holiest men. Nothing can be more remote from such men than apprehen

sions of wrath. Divine love is with them the governing motive, and would determine their choice of a holy life, if the idea of future punishment had never entered their minds. Hence, while the one of these positions is unavailable as a source of consolation to any but such as have already the joy of faith and obedience; the other, though it may deter from outward sin those who are not in heart devoted to God, cannot approach the man who really has the true principles of faith and piety as the basis of his character.

And the conclusions to which we are thus theoretically conducted, precisely accord to matters of fact in the history of piety. It has flourished about in equal degrees in those who have embraced the one and the other of these positions. Hence, they appear to have done little more than produce divisions and dissensions in the family of God; and the time will come, we imagine, when belief and unbelief upon this subject, instead of settling upon these abstract points, will be directed to the collected statements and facts of revelation in regard to it. In this respect it will occupy a position like that of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the church, which is felt to be one of the most important facts of her history and present experience, although the old controversy on the question whether it proceeded from the Father alone, or from the Father and Son conjointly, which once divided the people of God, is now wholly out of the minds of men.

Moreover, would not an unprejudiced mind who should take an impartial view of the whole subject, be instinctively impelled to admit, that neither of these positions in its controversial aspect, would be adapted to include all the revealed phenomena that it professes to give? The belligerent attitude in which they and their respective advocates stand to each other have an effect, like the collision of two elastic balls,