Christianity is a religion intended for general use: it appeals to the common feelings of our nature, and never clashes with the unbiased dictates of our reason. We may therefore rank it among the beneficial tendencies, as well as the peculiar evidences, of such a religion, that the Author of it abstained from all abstruse speculations, &c. DR. SAMUEL PARR: Works, vol. v. p. 507.

While Jesus requires us to believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he has nowhere taught us or required us to believe the learned distinctions respecting this doctrine which have been introduced since the fourth century. The undeserved benefits which they had received from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, were the great subjects to , which Jesus pointed his followers in the passage above cited [Matt. xxviii. 19], and in others; that they were now able to understand and worship God in a more perfect manner, to approach him as their Father and Benefactor in spirit and in truth; that their minds were now enlightened by the instructions given them by the Son of God, who had been sent into the world to be their Teacher, and that their souls were redeemed by his death; that, in consequence of what Christ had already done and would yet do, they might be advanced in moral perfection, and made holy; a work specially ascribed to the aids and influence of the Holy Spirit.... He did not reveal this doctrine to men to furnish them with matter for speculation and dispute, and did not, therefore, prescribe any formulas by which the one or the other could have been excited. — G. C. KNAPP: Christ. Theol., sect. xxxiii. 2.

Jesus is not the author of a dogmatic theology, but the author and finisher of faith, Heb. xii. 2; not the founder of a school, but emphatically the founder of religion and of the church. On this account he did not propound dogmas dressed in a scientific garb; but he taught the word of God in a simply human and popular manner, for the most part in parables and sentences. - K. R. HAGENBACH: Compendium of the History of Doctrines, vol. i. § 17.

There is something most highly interesting and instructive in the manner in which the Saviour adapted his communications to the occasions on which they were to be made, and to the purposes which he endeavored to effect by them. A modern preacher would have carried the metaphysics of theology all over the villages of Galilee, and would have puzzled the woman of Samaria, or the inquiring ruler, with questions about the nature of the Godhead, or the distinction between moral and natural inability. But Jesus Christ pressed simple duty.

The two great elementary principles of religion are these, —

the duty of strong benevolent interest in every fellow-being, and of submission and gratitude towards the Supreme. Jesus Christ has said, that these constitute the foundation on which all revealed religion rests. JACOB ABBOTT: The Corner-stone, pp. 187, 339.

Christ was the divinest of theologians, because he taught not in abstraction, but exemplification; not in dogmas merely, but deeds; in the ardor of his heart, as well as the energy of his mind; in the gentleness of his demeanor, and the beneficent industry of his life.

His ambition was to teach, not so much the new as the true, and the true not as a logical formula or dogmatical proposition, but as a transparent and comprehensive religious sentiment, enlightening the conscience, spiritualizing the heart, elevating the soul, and regenerating the entire family of man, as it swept outward with infinite expansiveness to embrace the world. . . . . . . He knew that the fundamental principles of religion which he taught lay so near to the reason and conscience of mankind, that they needed only to have their attention directed towards them, in order to secure assent. For this reason, Jesus delivered his instructions with such a clearness and simplicity, such an energy and power, that they commended themselves immediately to every ingenuous heart. . . . He realized, in the presence of the human race, an ideal of human perfection level to popular comprehension and within the reach of all. In his person, his demeanor, and his speech, the world saw the infinite brought down to our standard, so realized that we can easily understand it, and feel the majesty and beauty of that love to Christ which is nothing but the imitation of God brought near to the roused intellect and heart. . . . The doctrines of Christ were at the same time the most practical and profound. His precepts were level to the capacities of a child, and yet they contained principles which the most matured and soaring intellect could never outrun. By the representation which Jesus gave of the doctrine of the one only and Supreme God, and of the nature of acceptable worship, very important objects were to be accomplished. He exhibited true religion with such clearness and simplicity, that those of the humblest capacities, even children, might comprehend it.... Christ would teach man, that there is no spiritual progress for him till he discovers that truth is as much a thing to be felt as a thing to be perceived; and that it is only a very small portion of truth that the philosopher's analysis, the logician's syllogisms, theological dogmas, and sectarian creeds, can impart to the immortal soul. — E. L. MAGOON: Republican Christianity, pp. 58, 93, 97–9, 240–1.

SECT. II.

THE PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY SUITABLE TO ALL

CAPACITIES.

My gracious God, how plain

Are thy directions given!

Oh, may I never read in vain,

But find the path to heaven!

Isaac WATTS.

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.-WESTMINSTER DIVINES : Confession of Faith, chap. i. 7.

The Christian religion is, as GREGORY NAZIANZEN says, simplex et nuda, nisi prave in artem difficillimam converteretur: it is a plain, an easy, a perspicuous truth. JOHN DONNE: Sermons, No. VII.

S. T. COLERIDGE, by whom we borrow this extract, beautifully says in his note on it (Literary Remains, in Works, vol. v. p. 90), that "a religion of ideas, spiritual truths, or truth-powers, not of notions and conceptions, the manufacture of the understanding, is therefore simplex et nuda, that iş, immediate; like the clear blue heaven of Italy, deep and transparent, an ocean unfathomable in its depth, and yet ground all the way." Seeing, however, that the representation of Christianity as a religion which may easily be understood by all will naturally lead to Unitarianism, COLERIDGE exclaims, "Oh, let not the simplex et nuda of Gregory be perverted to the Socinian, 'plain and easy for the meanest understandings'!

Because [the] Christian religion was intended and instituted for the good of mankind, whether poor or rich, learned or unlearned, simple or prudent, wise or weak, it was fitted with such plain, easy, and evident directions, both for things to be known and things to be done, in order to the attainment of the end for which it was designed, that might be understood by any capacity that had the ordinary and common use of reason or human understanding, and by the common assistance of the divine grace might be practised by them. The credenda, or things to be known or believed, as simply necessary to those ends, are but few and intelligible, briefly delivered in that summary of [the] Christian religion usually called the Apostles' Creed. SIR MATTHEW HALE: A Discourse of Religion, p. 4.

Considering the wisdom and goodness of Almighty God, I cannot possibly believe but that all things necessary to be believed and practised by Christians, in order to their eternal salvation, are plainly contained in the Holy Scriptures. God surely hath not dealt so hardly with mankind as to make any thing necessary to be believed or practised by us which he hath not made sufficiently plain to the capacity of the unlearned as well as of the learned. God forbid that it should be impossible for any man to be saved and to get to heaven without a great deal of learning to direct and carry him thither, when the far greatest part of mankind have no learning at all! It was well said by ERASMUS, that "it was never well with the Christian world since it began to be a matter of so much subtilty and wit for a man to be a true Christian." ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON: Sermon 44; in

Works, vol. iii. p. 219.

I know not whence it comes to pass, that men love to make plain things obscure, and like nothing in religion but riddles and mysteries. God, indeed, was pleased to institute a great many ceremonies (and many of them of very obscure signification) in the Jewish worship, to awe their childish minds into a greater veneration for his divine majesty. But, in these last days, God hath sent his own Son into the world to make a plain and easy and perfect revelation of his will, to publish such a religion as may approve itself to our reason, and captivate our affections by its natural charms and beauties. And there cannot be a greater injury to the Christian religion than to render it obscure and unintelligible; and yet too many there are who despise every thing which they understand, and think nothing a sufficient trial of their faith but what contradicts the sense and reason of mankind. DR. WILLIAM SHERLOCK: Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Christ, chap. iv. sect. 2.

Whence is it, that, amidst all the obscurities that surround us, God has placed practical duties in a light so remarkably clear? Whence is it that doctrines most clearly revealed are, however, so expressed as to furnish difficulties, if not substantial and real, yet likely and apparent; and that the practical part is so clearly revealed that it is not liable to any objections which have any show or color of argument? My brethren, either we must deny the wisdom of the Creator, or we must infer this consequence, that what is most necessary to be known, what will be most fatal to man to neglect, what we ought most inviolably to preserve, is practical religion. JAMES SAURIN: Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 106-7.

The Christian religion, according to my mind, is a very simple thing, intelligible to the meanest capacity, and what, if we are at pains to join practice to knowledge, we may make ourselves thoroughly acquainted with, without turning over many books. It is the distinguishing excellence of this religion, that it is entirely popular, and fitted, both in its doctrines and in its evidences, to all conditions and capacities of reasonable creatures, -a character which does not belong to any other religious or philosophical system that ever appeared in the world. I wonder to see so many men, eminent both for their piety and for their capacity, laboring to make a mystery of this divine institution. If God vouchsafes to reveal himself to mankind, can we suppose that he chooses to do so in such a manner as that none but the learned and contemplative can understand him? The generality of mankind can never, in any possible circumstances, have leisure or capacity for learning, or profound contemplation. If, therefore, we make Christianity a mystery, we exclude the greater part of mankind from the knowledge of it; which is directly contrary to the intention of its Author, as is plain from his explicit and reiterated declarations. In a word, I am perfectly convinced, that an intimate acquaintance with the Scripture, particularly the Gospels, is all that is necessary to our accomplishment in true Christian knowledge. DR. JAMES BEATTIE: Letters, pp. 67-8.

Every truth contained in divine revelation, or deducible from it, isnot conveyed with equal perspicuity, nor is in itself of equal importance. There are some things so often and so clearly laid down in Scripture, that hardly any who profess the belief of revealed religion pretend to question them. About these there is no controversy in the church. Such are the doctrines of the unity, the spirituality, the natural and moral attributes, of God; the creation, preservation, and government of the world by him; the principal events in the life of Jesus Christ, as well as his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; the doctrine of a future judgment, heaven and hell; together with all those moral truths which exhibit the great outlines of our duty to God, our neighbor, and ourselves. In general, it will be found, that what is of most importance to us to be acquainted with and believed, is oftenest and most clearly inculcated; and that, as we find there are degrees in belief as well as in evidence, it is a very natural and just conclusion, that our belief in those points is most rigorously required which are notified to us in Scripture with the clearest evidence...... Is... the doctrine of revelation abstruse and metaphysical, and