of subjects, and those views are expressed, and advocated, and opposed; and that is controversy. There is controversy in every body politic, in every learned society, in every village debating society, in every meeting of neigbours by the wayside. Between friends and acquaintances, concerning business, trade, agriculture, labor, there is a perpetual canvassing of different and conflicting opinions; and this, again I say, is controversy. And this is unavoidable. It belongs to human nature and to the human condition. There is nothing peculiar to religion in its being the subject of controversy, but the idea, the mistaken idea that the vital spirit, the essential interest of it, depends upon these controversies. In all other subjects we are accustomed to say, that discussion does good, that it helps to set men right, that imperfect beings thus assist one another to arrive at the truth. And so we should say in religion, if it were not for this grand mistake by which personal character is implicated in the discussion, by which salvation is made to hang on the issue. At this door come in fear, and anxiety, and anger, and strife, and evil-speaking, and persecution. Yes, it has been the very door to the Inquisition, the gate-way to its darkest dungeons. Men have been imprisoned, tortured, killed, for their honest opinions, because their opinions were held to be fatal to the soul. And was not this imprisoning, torturing, killing, a legitimate conclusion from that one grand error? For, according to that error, opinions became crimes, and the public good required that they should be punished as such. If to deny the supremacy of the Pope, or the doctrine of transubstantiation, was to advance an opinion that threatened to be fatal to the souls of millions, why should not the heretic, avowing such opinions, be destroyed for the public good, as well as the traitor, who only disseminates an opinion likely to be fatal to some thousands of lives in a single country?

But I am wandering from the point. I say that controversy about religion is unavoidable, and not only so, but that it might do good. Nay, and I am inclined to say, that it has done good after all; that the earnest spirit of piety has really risen with rising controversy, through all its difficulties; that there has been most religion, precisely in those parts of the world, where there has been most controversy. Better is a mistaken and misdirected action of religion, than

no action. Better life of almost any sort, than the deadly stupor of implicit faith and universal acquiescence.

It may relieve the suffering, then, which indecision causes the anxious inquirer for the right way, to reflect, that differences of religious opinion are unavoidable, that they spring from the evident ordination of Heaven, that no strange thing has befallen religion, or befallen him, in this matter; and that the thing which has befallen him, the state of controversy, that is to say, however trying, is generally useful. The revelation from heaven might have consisted of a certain number of separate, select, simple sentences, which could not have been misunderstood. But how much more abstract would it have been; how much less interesting; how much less action of mind would it have called forth. And mental action elicits light; and the light, in fact, has been growing brighter through ages of controversy. So political light has advanced; so the light of philosophy. Why should it not be so with the light of religion?

I have said that controversy, with all the evils that have attended it, has done good. Let me dwell a moment longer on this point. And to make it clear to the reader's apprehension, let me ask, What would be the effect in society, if, on every possible subject of conversation, all men were of one opinion, if all men thought precisely and exactly alike? Their thoughts, their opinions, it is evident, could not be perfect, for they are imperfect creatures. And how unlikely would they be to improve, how unlikely to suspect the need of improvement, if no one ever heard from his neighbour the voice of dissent. Suppose a single class of persons privileged, as they might consider it, privileged never to hear that voice, never to have their opinions questioned. This is what some so earnestly desire in religion. But would such an exemption be found favorable, in the general relations of life, to the cultivation of a manly intellect, or of modesty, forbearance, and humility? It would be just as fatal in religion. Let no body of religious men, therefore, no church, nor priesthood, laying any claim to wisdom, desire any such exemption from that reasonable distrust, which not only must attach, but which, for its own improvement, ought to attach to its religious opinions. Let no seeker of the right way desire, in the sense in which so many do desire, that there might have been but one way,

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one way, that is, of opinion, of institutions, of doctrines, or of discipline; for such a uniformity, it is obvious, would have been a bond and a check upon all improvement, if it were not even, what it doubtless is, an absolute impossibility.

There must be controversy, then, I repeat once more; there must be different opinions, there must in this sense be different ways, and there cannot be the one way desired. And this necessity, of Heaven's ordaining, cannot be, in itself, an evil. It is evil only as man, by passion, prejudice, and uncharitableness, makes it evil. That which makes controversy an evil, I still insist, must be something wrong. How evidently wrong, then, is that assumption of various sects, that, in the essential point, the point of saving efficiency, each one is the only one right! For this assumption, more than any thing else, tends to make controversy an evil. He who holds a principle which must rob one of the great dispensations of God, controversy, of its chief uses, may well look to it, and consider, whether he is not more manifestly fighting against God, than any body whom he dares to condemn as the enemy of God.

This grand error, of Christian sectarism is every way to be regretted. It not only occasions great suffering to individual minds, it not only deprives them of much comfort and steadfastness, leading them to hesitate and hang about minor points, when they ought to press forward in the manifest way of Christian zeal and fidelity; but it deprives Christian sects of the mutual aid and counsel which they might render to one another. As Christian denominations, we want one another's help. Each one, perhaps, has taken hold of some good point, and is very honestly, that is the liability of human nature, very honestly pressing that point too far. And instead of helping, moderating, controlling one another, they all now stand in an attitude which is pushing each one to the greatest excess. I regret it, I say it frankly, - I regret it for the sake of our own denomination. I believe that we might derive some good from the example of our brethren around us. I believe, too, that they might derive some good from us. When shall Christians thus sit down together, in the acknowledgment of common frailty, and learn to love one another, and bear with one another, and help one another? God, in his mercy, grant it in due time!

But, in the next place, I maintain, that the great interest of the mind, its life, light, and purity, does not, and cannot essentially depend on any of these controversies. To sustain this position, I shall ask the reader to look, first, at the Orthodox creed itself, not, at present, to see whether it is true, but whether it touches the essential grounds of piety.

In what, then, does that life, of which we speak, that life, light, purity, happiness of the soul essentially consist? Í answer, and surely no religious man will gainsay me, it consists in the love of God, and of goodness; it consists in the love of our fellow-men. These are the two great commandments of Jesus, and on these, he declares, hang all the law and the prophets. But look now at some of the prominent questions in Christian controversy, with reference to the piety, virtue, happiness of the soul. Can I not love God, without deciding upon the mode of his existence, whether it be a trinity, or a unity, in the metaphysical sense of those words? Can I not love God, without believing in the atonement, as some one particular class, or some other particular class of divines explain it? Suppose it were true that some one particular explanation exhibited the atonement as a greater favor, and a stronger claim upon our gratitude. Yet can I not love God for that blessed display of his goodness which I do see, and which is all that I can see, in the death of Jesus? And can I not love him, for all the other innumerable reasons, which universal nature and life, which ten thousand mercies of my existence, and ten thousand glories in heaven and earth, press upon my heart, compelling me to love him? Again, can I not love my fellowbeings, without believing in their total native depravity, and in special grace and favor extended to some of them, in the sovereign election of a part to heaven, and in the sovereign, purposed, and awful passing by of others, as they are struggling in their sins, and sinking to perdition? These views, to be sure, seem to me far enough from being fitted to awaken love, either to men or to God. But suppose that they were adapted to that end; the question is, Can they be necessary to it? Let me appeal to the heart of the Christian of whatever sect or creed. Do you never love your fellow-men, do you never feel your heart warm and melt in kindness to them, without thinking of total depravity, and sovereign election, and special grace? And when you feel the love of God in

your heart, when your whole soul is kindling and glowing with that fervent and blessed affection, are you always, at the same time, thinking of the Trinity, and of the atonement? I will answer for the Christian, and I believe I might almost indignantly answer, No. But then I say to such a man, if you can sometimes, nay, oftentimes love your God, and your fellow-beings, without being moved to do it by those doctrines, why can I not always love them without such aid? The truth is beyond all doubt, for experience testifies to the truth, that no such aid is necessary.

If

"Nevertheless," says some one, "the doctrines of the incarnation and atonement, of the incarnation of God, and an atonement by the word made flesh, are very moving doctrines. Nothing ever effectually moved my heart but these; nothing else sustains the life of religion in me. Without the incarnation, the very idea of God vanishes away into obscurity, and loses its power. And all piety, without this, is fast verging into a vague, cold, inefficient abstraction of mere sentiment. We shall soon," says he, "hear the rejecters of the incarnation, talking about the anima mundi, the soul of the world, and the worship of nature." To this I have two replies to make. In the first place, he who testifies concerning matters of experience, can testify only about his own. any one says, that his mind can be thoroughly moved by nothing less than the doctrines of the incarnation and atonement, I am very sorry, I was ready to say, I am very sorry for the state of his mind; but this I may without offence say, that although the exclusive power of those doctrines to move his mind, may be a great consideration with him, it can be nothing to me any farther than I see a reason for it. Now, my reply is, in the second place, that I see no reason for it whatever. Indeed, it amazes me to hear any reflecting man lay the stress that some do, upon the circumstance of incarnation. Must the idea of God be a powerless abstraction to me, unless I can see him through a weak human body; nay, unless I see him holding a mysterious connexion with that body? For I do see him manifested in all men, yet more in good men, far more, most of all, in Jesus Christ. And what is all nature, but a kind of incarnation of God, a material manifestation, that is to say? And what more, except in degree, can a human body be? What we want, is manifestation; and all nature, all life, all

VOL. XIV.N. S. VOL. IX. NO. II.

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