perfections, those constant attendants on human fallibility, I must, in common with all other writers, throw myself on the candour of the reader. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Preparatory to the general Subject; and pointing out to notice, the progressive Tendency of SCHISM. WHEN it is considered, that in pursuance of a plan laid in the divine councils, for the recovery of fallen man from his lost condition; the second Person in the Godhead, by a voluntary humiliation, took upon himself our nature; that from Him, as the Head of his Church, that spiritual influence might be derived to the Members of it, necessary to qualify them for admission into the divine favor: whilst the atonement made by his blood, was intended to remove the stumbling block which sin had thrown in man's way; and to open for him an access to the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Ghost, on the prescribed conditions of the evangelical Covenant; it will, it is presumed, be concluded, that any opposition to, or derangement of, so gracious a plan, occasioned either by the pride, perverseness, or self-willedness of the parties intended to be be benefited by it, cannot fail to be in the highest degree offensive to its divine Projectors. When it is considered moreover, that this mighty work of human Redemption, that great mystery of Godliness, was by them to be conducted on the stage of this world, through its successive scenes to its final accomplishment; when the fulness of the Gentiles shall be come in, and all the Israel of God shall be saved; such a correspondence between the several parts of this wondrous design is to be looked for, as might be expected to mark the production of the same divine mind. Such is the ground on which the subject is placed, which is now proposed to be handled; considered as the only ground on which, consistently with the general tenor of the divine Revelation, it can be made to stand. For in trying a subject, in which the wonderful effects of |