all the jangling and fighting, all the throes of mind and convulsions of society, that creed-making has cost, yield no benefit to the common christian? Shall he pretend, that he wants learning or capacity to understand the articles and terms which erudite theologues have taken such pains to make the exact mirrour of divine truth; or shall he think he can know enough of his religion to be safe without the help of their exquisite and distinctive phraseology? You will not, however "plain and unlearned," make a plea of this kind against being initiated into the mysteries of the orthodox faith. Therefore study, comprehend, and believe not only the scriptures, not only plain summaries of christian doctrine, expressed in familiar language, but the Calvinian confessions and creeds, and particularly those parts of them which are disputed and condemned as doubtful, false, absurd or pernicious, and whilst you believe, endeavour to believe in the orthodox acceptation, if you can possibly ascertain it.

If you will be a competent umpire, between the parties, whose christian character is put on this issue, you must not only examine the grace mentioned in the scripture, which bring eth salvation, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously and godly, but you must consider well the graces of the schools, with the epithet annexed, marking the signification of common grace and special grace, preparatory or preventing grace, sufficient, resistible and irresistible grace. You may not pass over the intricate controversy about the nature of the will, divine foreknowledge, and predestination; and though the subject give you many a head-ache, and heart-ache too, you must find some way to reconcile the dark and dismal doctrine of irrespective decrees with the mercy and equity of the su preme Father, and with the freedom and accountability of man. As the perfect righteousness and infinite satisfaction of the Saviour constitute the sole and sufficient ground of justification, and as faith, a supernatural gift, and not partaking of the nature of a work, is the instrument, it becomes a nice point to know what place to assign, in the affair of our salvation, to the obedience of the subject. It must require no little perspicacity to perceive how it can be true, that the debt incurred to divine justice by man's sinfulness has been paid and is still due; and how there can be any goodness in good works, which, according to one branch of the Calvinistick theory, seem to be set down as good for nothing. You must naturally inquire whether this intricate system contains two opinions, irreconcilable, and whether you are to choose between them that which appears to you the best; or whether you can keep both your reason and common sense at the same time.

You may easily strike a panick into your orthodox friends by using an improper, but, at first view, harmless word, to signify the importance of personal righteousness; for example, calling good works, or a sincere obedience the condition of salvation. A rashness of this kind occasioned Wesley to be denounced by his old friends. He ventured to speak of the moral exercises of the subject as a condition, and said, moreover, he feared the dispute concerning the value of works was a dispute about words. Take a specimen of his vindication from the pen of the

devout Fletcher, his apologist, and judge how far it is safe to call the difference verbal. "He says," observes his apologist, "I am afraid we have disputed about words; perhaps he might have said, I am very sure of it. How many disputes have been raised these thirty years among religious people about those works of the heart, which St. Paul calls repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ? Some have called them the only way or method of receiv ing salvation; others the means of salvation; others the term of it. Some have named them duties or graces necessary to salvation, others conditions of salvation, others parts of salvation, or privileges annexed to it; while others have gone far round about, and used I know not what far fetched expressions and ambiguous phrases to convey the same idea. I say the same idea; for if all maintain, that, although repentance, and works meet for it, and faith working by love, are not meritorious, they are nevertheless absolutely necessary, that they are a thing sine qua non, all are agreed; and that if they dispute, it must be, as Mr. W. justly intimates, about words. A comparison,' says he,' will at once make you sensible of it. A physician tells me that the way, the only way or method in which we live, is abstaining from poison and taking proper food. No, says another, you should say, that abstaining from poison and taking proper food are the means by which our life is preserved. You are quite mistaken, says a third; rejecting poison and eating are the terms God hath fixed upon for our preservation. No, says a fourth, they are duties, without the performance, or blessings, without the receiving of which, we must absolutely die. I believe, for my part, says another, that providence hath engaged to preserve our life, on condi. tion that we shall forbear taking poison, and cat proper food. You are all in the wrong, you know nothing at all of the matter, says another, (who applauds himself much for his wonderful discovery) turning from poison, and receiving nourishment are the exercises of a living man; therefore they must absolutely be called parts of his life, or privileges annexed to it; you quite take away people's appetite and clog their stomach by calling them duties, terms, conditions; only call them privileges, and you will see nobody will touch poison, and all will eat most heartily. While they are neglecting their food, and taking the poison of this contention, he that had mentioned the word condition, starts up and says: 'Review the whole affair; take heed to your exertions; I am afraid we dispute about words. Upon this all rise against him; all accuse him of robbing the Preserver of men of his glory; or holding a tenet injurious to the fundamental principles of our constitution."

Upon the scripture doctrine concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, you are required to employ terms not used in the scriptures, in order that you may be safe in the perusal of the sacred writings, and may not read the pages indited by the Spirit of God, and think you have ideas, when you have none. With a view to express the truth on this subject, as they supposed it was intended to be understood, or perhaps rather as they chose it should be expressed, the framers of creeds have put into your mouth certain words of alleged high import, but not applied to the explication of this point in the scriptures. They instruct you to speak of Trinity, person, sub

stance, essence, subsistence, one and three, in reference to the Supreme Deity. In order to judge whether you have distinct conceptions, or whether you employ a sign, by which nothing is signified, you must endeavour to put the thoughts, which you imagine you derive from this language, into other words. You must inquire, what is meant by a person that is not a being, or a being that is in the same respect one and many. You will naturally ask, whether you believe, with Sherlock, that three persons mean three minds, which some of the orthodox consider as tritheism; or whether, with Dr. Wallis, that there be three somewhats, called persons, making one being; or that the distinction is modal, and the Trinity is a trinity of names; and whether you can admit this, and escape being branded as a Sabellian. You may wish to think that the divinity of the Son is derived and dependent, and in fact the divinity of the Father; and bishops Bull and Pearson will seem to countenance this hypothesis, when they speak of the Father as the sole fountain of Deity; and Dr. Burnet also, who men- . tions one self existent and two dependent Beings. But you cannot well use such language, even with a reserve for the union and equality of the three, without being liable to be confounded with the unitarians. Further, you must ask, whether it is not orthodox to deny any intelligible signification to the words in which this doctrine is expressed. If this can be done with propriety, nothing will be more convenient; for it will oblige the person disposed to cavil, to confute he knows not what, and to undertake to controvert what he cannot understand, which is certainly obliging him either to be silent, or, if he will argue, to take his labour for his pains.

In order to settle these questions of technical theology, so as to feel justified in hereticating all anti-Calvinists, we think you will find it necessary to consult books not a few, and have a stock of time and patience not easily exhausted. "Commentators, systematists, paraphrasts, controvertists, demonstrations, confutations, apologies, answers, defences, replies, and ten thousand such like," belong to this investigation. Again; the argument for Calvinistick orthodoxy is rested on the alleged opinions and practice of the primitive church; and it is attempted to be shown, that the apostolick fathers were the Calvinists of their day, and that these tenets were received during the times of the church's virgin purity. Now it has been well observed, that ecclesiastical history is an enchanted land, where it is hard to distinguish truth from false appearances; and a maze, which requires more than Ariadne's clue. To send you here for your orthodoxy is sending you into a wilderness, where possibly you may wander all your life without coming to any certainty. At any rate, if you mean to make any use of this kind of evidence, you must make a fair use of it. Although Dr. Jamieson and Mr. M'Farland can find ecclesiastical antiquity on their side, others, every way entitled to be heard, find no such thing. They give substantial reasons to show, that the post-Nicene fathers are no more to be regarded in the principal of these controversies, than the moderns, and that of the anti-Nicene, few of their writings remain; that, of those which pass under the name of the apostolick fathers particularly, some are rejected as spurious, and others disfigured and rendered

precarious as to the points which are subjects of debate, by interpo lations. They urge, that these ancient writers contradict themselves, and contradict the modern orthodox in some great points. In order to have the whole testimony of the confessors of the primi tive church, it is necessary to attend not merely to their direct assertions, but to consider the evidence concerning the faith of the great body of christians, derived from the inadvertent concessions of the writers in question; the evidence of incidental remark, of complaint, of caution, of affected candour, of apology, of inference. If any man desires truth on this subject, and not merely confirmation in his preconceived opinions, he will feel obliged to read Priestley as well as Jamieson; and besides the Bulls, and Horsleys, and Waterlands, the Clarkes, and Whitbys, and others who have treated of christian antiquity will require his perusal.

These suggestions concerning the extent of the field of inquiry, which is opened to the common christian by such a book as the View of Heresies, are not intended to discourage curiosity or damp the spirit of investigation. You are not to feel easy in ignorance or doubt, because information or certainty will cost labour, and pains, and time. Are the questions important, and are they determinable, not merely are they abstruse and difficult, make the points on which the duty, to read or not to read, turns. Propositions offered to your acceptance or rejection, which appear to you connected with a moral temper, and with final safety, which you have capacity and oppor tunity to examine, which you can reasonably expect to be able to decide upon, and which you can study without neglecting acknowledged truths and duties, have an undoubted claim to your attention. Perhaps, however, you will think the course of reading and study pointed out by the Historical View of Heresies is not among the necessaries of your intellectual and christian life; that you have enough to learn and to do as a man and a christian, without entering into a labyrinth for the sake of finding your way out, in which many wander,

"Till, by their own perplexities involved,
They ravel more, still less resolved,
But never find self-satisfying solution."

It may appear to you unnecessary, or impracticable, or hurtful to go to school to so many learned masters, who may impose harder tasks than you can learn, and you apprehend it may appear that you have relinquished the daylight of simple practical christianity for a "Double night of darkness and of shades."

If you shall come to this conclusion, we dare not say that you will be guilty of despising instruction, or that you ought to be more ashamed of not knowing why a Calvinist brands the oppugners or doubters of his distinctive tenets with damnable heresy, than of being incurious to examine minutely the pretensions of a papist to fix the same stigma on every protestant; or how the ancient Donatists justified their separate communion; or what there is in Sandemanianism to authorize its monopoly of all the true christianity there is in the world. The scriptures afford you a guide to your judg

ment of character, far more plain and safe, than any which you can find in the bulky or extravagant systems of artificial theology. Even the orthodox doctors, with all their zeal for the mysterious and the mystical, have a salvo for the limited views of an honest believer. St. Austin is produced as saying, that it is "no reproach to a christian to confess his ignorance in abundance of cases; and the famous Witsius observes, "sometimes divine grace does join the elect to Christ by a very slender thread, and yet the brightest flames of love to God and the most sincere desires to please him may be kindled in those souls, that have but a very poor knowledge of articles of faith. And who is he, that, without the determinations of God, can himself exactly determine the least single point in each article, by which the divine tribunal is indispensably obliged to proceed."

Having offered these cautionary hints, we might leave the reader to search for the rule of his faith and practice on the subject of heresy in the little volume under review, without any further assistance from us. But some persons may wish to see our general principles applied in some detail; and be referred to those features of the work, which show its character, and may enable them to judge of its value. It is distributed into a preface, ten chapters, and a conclusion. The titles of the chapters follow:

General principles by which heresy may be known. All heresies are known by the same general character. The scripture account of the character of Christ. The faith of Christians in the primitive times. The conduct of the primitive christians towards those persons who denied the divinity and the atonement of Jesus Christ. Of the Arian Doctrine. Of the Pelagian Doctrine. Doctrines of the Reformation. Revival of the Ancient Heresies after the Reformation. In what respect, and how far do those systems of doctrine which have been exhibited, come within the general description of Heresy:

The Preface acknowledges the author's obligations to Dr. Jamieson's Vindication of the doctrine of scripture and of the primitive faith, concerning the deity of Christ, for suggesting the design and furnishing the principal materials of his work. The preface speaks of "some who have been accustomed to consider religion as consisting in the exercise of a pretended charity, which confounds truth and errour, and who will consider it as very illiberal to advance any decisive opinion respecting heresy." "This will indeed be consistent," continues our author," with their views of the nature of charity, for, if the sentiments men embrace will have but small or no influence in determining their character and moral state, or if it be of no material consequence to men what they believe, there is no such thing as a heresy, which destroys the soul." This character we suppose is meant for those professors of christianity of every church, who deem it catholick to recommend to their brethren a greater mutual forbearance upon points of difference, than our author's system admits. They will however disclaim his account of their principles. It is the comment or inference of a controvertist, not the simple statement of a historian. It expresses not their sentiments, but the writer's opinion of their sentiments. Were they to be their own reporters of their views of charity or catholicism, they would probably say, that they consider religion, though not entirely "con

Wits. in Symb. Apost. Exercit. II. p. 15.