ward to that world, where we shall see as we are seen, and where the plan of Providence will unfold to our enraptured view, in all its perfection and glory forever.

B.

Toleration and Liberty of Opinion.

From the Preface to Bishop Watson's Theological Tracts. We live in a dissolute but enlightened age; the restraints of our religion are ill suited to the profligacy of our manners; and men are soon induced to believe that system to be false, which we wish to find so; that knowledge, moreover, which spurns with contempt the illusions of fanaticism and the tyranny of superstition, is often unhappily misemployed, in magnifying every little difficulty attending the proof of the truth of Christianity, into an irrefragable argument of its falsehood. The Christian religion has nothing to apprehend from the strictest investigation of the most learned of its adversaries; it suffers only from the misconceptions of sciolists, and silly pretenders to superior wisdom; a little learning is far more dangerous to the faith of those who possess it, than ignorance itself. Some, I know, affect to believe, that as the restoration of letters was ruinous to the Romish religion, so the further cultivation of them will be subversive of Christianity itself; of this there is no danger. It may be subversive of persecutions, of anathemas, of ecclesiastical domination over God's heritage, of all the silly outworks which the pride, the superstition, the knavery of mankind have erected around the citadel of our faith;

but the citadel itself is founded on a rock, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it, its master-builder is God; its beauty will be found ineffable, and its strength impregnable, when it shall be freed from the frippery of human ornaments, and cleared from the rubbish of human bulwarks.

It is no small part of the province of a teacher of Christianity, to distinguish between the word of God, and the additions which men have made to it The objections of unbelievers are frequently levelled against what is not Christianity, but mere human system; and he will be best able to defend the former, who is least studious to support the airy pretensions of the latter. The effect of established systems in obstructing truth, is to the last degree deplorable; every one sees it in other churches, but scarcely any one suspects it in his own. Calvin, I question not, thought it almost impos→ sible that the Scriptures could ever have been so far perverted as to afford the Romanists any handle for their doctrine of transubstantiation, or that the understanding of any human being could have been so far debased, or rather so utterly annihilated, as to believe in it for a moment; yet this same Calvin followed St. Augustine in the doctrine of absolute personal reprobation and election, inculcating it as a fundamental article of faith, with nearly the same unchristian zeal, which infatuated him when he fastened Servetus to the stake. A thousand instances of this blind attachment to system might be taken from the ecclesiastical history of every century; indeed the whole of it is little more than the history of the struggles of different sects to overturn the systems of others, in order to build up their own; and the great lesson which every sect, and

every individual of every sect, ought to learn from its perusal, is-Moderation.

Want of genuine moderation towards those who differ from us in religious opinions, seems to be the most unaccountable thing in the world. Every man, who has any religion at all, feels within himself a stronger motive to judge right, than you can possibly suggest to him; and, if he judges wrong, what is that to you? To his own master he standeth or falleth; his wrong judgment may affect his own salvation, it cannot affect yours; for, in the words of Tertullian, nec alii obest aut prodest alterius religio. This you must admit, unless you think it your duty to instruct him; but instruction may be given with moderation; and considering that the Bible is as open to him as it is to you, you ought not to be over certain that it is your duty to press your instruction upon him; for what is, ordinarily speaking, your instruction, but an attempt to bring him over to your opinion? This principle should be received with great caution, or it may do much mischief; for it is on this principle that the Roman Catholics light up the fires of the inquisition, and compass sea and land to make a proselyte-a proselyte! to what we Protestants believe to be the delusion of Satan, the very canker of Christianity, the grand apostasy from the Gospel foretold by St. Paul. The Catholics however in this point act consistently; for, believing in the infallibility of their church, they have a plea for their zeal in bringing every one within its pale, which can never be urged by Protestants, with any shadow of justice and propriety.

There are many questions in divinity, in the investigating of which the mind fluctuates with an irksome

uncertainty, unable to perceive such a preponderance of argument as will warrant it in embracing as true, either the one side or the other. This hesitation arises, in many cases, from our not understanding the full meaning of the language, be it common or figurative, in which a doctrine is revealed. In some, it proceeds from our attempting to apprehend definitely, what is expressed indeterminately, or clearly, what God hath not thought proper clearly to reveal; in others, it is to be attributed to an indecision of temper, to which some men are peculiarly subject; but let it originate from what cause it may, it is far more tolerable than an arrogant temerity of judgment. A suspicion of fallibility would have been an useful principle to the professors of Christianity in every age; it would have choaked the spirit of persecution in its birth, and have rendered not only the church of Rome, but every church in Christendom, more shy of assuming to itself the proud title of Orthodox, and of branding every other with the opprobrious one of Heterodox, than any of them have hitherto been.

There are, you will say, doubtless, some fundamental doctrines in Christianity. Paul, the Apostle, has laid down one foundation; and he tells us, that other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus, the Christ. But this proposition, Jesus is the Messiah, includes, you will reply, several others, which are equally true. I acknowledge that it does so; and it is every man's duty to search the Scriptures, that he may know what those truths are; but I do not conceive it to be any man's duty to anathematize those, who cannot subscribe to his catalogue of fundamental Christian verities. That man is not to be esteemed an

Atheist, who acknowledges the existence of a God, the Creator of the universe, though he cannot assent to all the truths of natural religion, which other men may undertake to deduce from that principle; nor is he to be esteemed a Deist, who acknowledges that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world, though he cannot assent to all the truths of revealed religion, which other men may think themselves warranted in deducing from thence. Still you will probably rejoin, there must be many truths in the Christian religion, concerning which no one ought to hesitate, inasmuch as, without a belief in them, he cannot be reputed a Christian. Reputed! by whom? By Jesus Christ his Lord and his God, or by you? Rash expositors of points of doubtful disputation; intolerant fabricators of metaphysical creeds, and incongruous systems of theology! Do you undertake to measure the extent of any man's understanding, except your own; to estimate the strength and origin of his habits of thinking; to appre ciate his merit or demerit in the use of the talent which God has given him, so as unerringly to pronounce that the belief of this or that doctrine is necessary to his salvation? It is undoubtedly necessary to yours, if you are persuaded that it comes from God; but you take too much upon you, when you erect yourself into an infallible judge of truth and falsehood.

We, as Christians, are under no uncertainty as to the being of a God; as to his moral government of the world; as to the terms on which sinners may be reconciled to him; as to the redemption that is in Jesus Christ; as to a resurrection from the dead; as to a future state of retribution; nor with respect to other important questions, concerning which the wisest heathen philo