to tread, circumspectly, these paths of opinion, in which they are but just emerging from the mazes of ancient error. One further remark; when I speak of errors in the church, surely no one will do me the injustice to interpret this into disrespect for Christianity itself. Surely not; it may well argue esteem and reverence for the christian religion to desire, that the abuses of this heavenly gift should be exposed to view.

We are now prepared to trace, though it must be very rapidly, the sources of our opinions. The stream of revelation, as we all believe, does not come to us pure and untainted, as when it sprung from the uncorrupted fountains of truth. It has passed on through various countries, and has brought with it some qualities from every soil and climate. There has been a time, in the former dark ages, when it was swelled with earthly contributions-when revelation was loaded with traditions, from the Fathers and from men's own fancies; there has been a time, when the moral heaven was vailed with clouds, and all the powers of nature darkly struggled together, when the rain descended and the winds blew, and the storm beat upon the river of life when it deluged the soil, it was intended to fertilize, and threatened to bear away the landmarks of truth and virtue. This we all believe. We believe, too, that its waters have been purified. But are we prepared to say, after all, that the stream has come to us pure as at the first? It would be the very excess of presumption to think so. To be unsuspicious in such a case would be thoughtless or childish in the ex

treme. No: the rivulet that has been impregnated with the ores of an hundred mines may lose its taint more easily the sea may be blanched to whiteness, sooner, than moral impurity can be washed away from the streams of life. inveterate as habit in the soul. The stain of prejudice is deeper than the Ethiopian's skin or the leopard's spots; or the everlasting hue of the green wave. If I were to describe the religion of the ages before the reformation, I should say, that it was, to a very great degree, the religion of fear, of form, of mystery, of dogmatism, and more than all, it was a religion, that was always inventing something as a substitute for piety, and was as sure to make every thing, that it could invent, essential. It was the religion of fear; not filial but slavish fear. The people trembled before the priest, and the priest trembled before his God. such a mental bondage known on earth. not to think, and scarcely dared to pray for themselves. There was excommunication in the church; and there was anathema out of it. There was penance in this world, and purgatory in the next, and terror in all.It was the religion of form. Rites, and ceremonies, and services grew into a monstrous accumulation and weighed down and oppressed every faculty of religious life. It was the religion of mystery. The more absurdity, the more faith. The more ignorance, the more devotion. Religion was removed from the paths of common life, and from the judgment of common sense. It set aside the proper use of the human facul

There is nothing in nature half so

Never was

Men dared

ties. It was all preternatural, and mysterious and awful. It was the religion of dogmatism. Inquiry was driven from the church, and decision was the order of the age. Nothing could involve so much discredit and hazard as a doubt. Ah! a doubt it was, that became the prey of suspicion and power and hatred-which men hunted to disgrace and to death. A doubt it was, that wore a darker hue than every monstrous crime—darker than cruelty and profligacy and murder. The meekness and forbearance of Jesus, and the gentleness of his precepts were all forgotten, and confidence and assurance and infallibility were the tests of wisdom and piety.In fine, it was a religion which was always substituting something for piety, and making every thing it could substitute or could invent, essential to piety. Men were not willing to walk in the plain and obvious paths of christian morality, but they must needs find out many devious ways to heaven. There were rites and forms, there were masses and pilgrimages,-there were saintly relics and sacred waters; there were largesses and donations to the church; the building of cathedrals and monasteries, the keeping of feasts and the observance of penances. Piety-inward and living piety was very much left out of the question. Every thing else was made a substitute; and every thing but this, was made essential.

The reformation broke the spell of this unholy enchantment, well denominated Anti-Christ, and well predicted to come "with lying wonders and all deceivableness of unrighteousness." The power of "the man of

sin" was broken, but it was not annihilated. You might as well expect an instantaneous and total change in the intellectual and moral habits of an individual, as in the intellectual and moral habits of a world. Nay, impossible as it is, the former change were much sooner to be expected; for we do witness, to say the least, very rapid changes in individuals, but the world is far too unwieldy a body ever to undergo any rapid transformation. Some portion, I venture to say, of the religion of fear, of form, of mystery, of dogmatism, and of substituting indifferent things in the place of piety and making them essential, survived the reformation; and surely no reasonable and reflecting man will think it too much to suspect that some portion of it still has come down to our own times.

ment.

If any is inclined to vaunt the glorious doctrines of the Reformation, and to think that this event did away all error from the Church; let him listen to this plain stateSince the reformation, it has been the current belief of a large portion of the christian world, that the sins of Adam were literally imputed to his posterity, so imputed, that without any faults of their own, they all deserved to go down to everlasting destruction. It has been the current belief, of the christian world, that myriads of infants, for this imputed sin-sin which they never committed, nor felt, nor thought of,—that myriads and myriads of helpless infants, as soon as they had opened their eyes on the light justly deserved the same everlasting misery. And then came in, the doctrines of human inability, of eternal decree and uncondition

al election, of reprobation and effectual calling, and threw their lengthening shadows over the christian world, and passed before the terrified imaginations of men, like a funeral procession to celebrate the extinction and death of human hopes. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not go to the extreme of believing nothing about these doctrines, to which the abuse of them is liable to lead us. But let it be remembered, to justify these remarks, that according to former notions, inability, was total incapacity, either to do, or even to understand the will of God, that decree was fate, that election was the singling out of a few to be saved from the human family, without any foresight of good works in them; that reprobation was the unconditional casting off, and dooming the rest to destruction; that effectual calling was the irresistible influence of God's spirit upon the elected few; and to crown all, that these few, without one sympathy for the unhappy millions of their lost brethren, will rejoice in their ruin-yes, "that the sight of hell torments," as one says "will exalt the happiness of the saints forever." This last, too, is the language of one* who is prevailingly styled the greatest of our American Divines. Oh! says he, speaking with rapture of this sight which the saints will have of their miserable fellow beings-"Oh! it will make them sensible how happy they are!" This is coming very near to our own times. And it needs but little information for us to understand that if these

*Edwards.