ing system; and that the more the Scriptures are restored to the precise words of their writers, the greater is the support which they give to the rational system.

Upon this point a very brief statement will be suffi cient. It is familiarly known, that a few verses of the New Testament have been altered since it was written, and do not read in our copies of the Bible exactly as the Apostles wrote them. A great deal of pains has been taken to ascertain their original reading, and it has been found that some of the principal alterations were made for the purpose of supporting the orthodox faith; that as the Apostles wrote them, they were inconsistent with that faith, and altogether conformable to the rational system. What could be more in favor of that system? The nearer we come to the very words of the sacred writers, the more nearly do they coincide with it. We do not mean that there are many such cases, but what there are, are remarkably to this purpose. And if we choose to take the scriptures as nearly as possible, word for word and letter for letter, as they came from their holy authors, and to reject whatever changes may have been made in them either accidentally or purposely ; then we shall find that the examples I have mentioned, indicate the faith once delivered to the saints to be the faith which we hold.

5. The manner in which this system is for the most part opposed, seems to us to afford another presumption in its favor. It has been by exciting prejudice against it, and preventing free and fair inquiry concerning it.

We of course shall not be understood to say, that this is the only mode of opposition which has been resorted to; for there has been a great deal of profound learning

and manly argument arrayed against it.

But the favor

raise an outcry

ite and prevailing method has been to against it, and hinder men from fairly examining it. Hence it has been urgently recommended in religious publications, as well as from the pulpit and in conversation, that men should avoid the worship of liberal Christians; that they should shun their books as they would poison; that they should not listen to their preaching, or hold any religious intercourse with them. Thus their system is made an object of dread and aversion. But if it were plainly false and erroneous, without foundation in Scripture or fair reasoning, there would be no cause for thus blinding men to it, and preventing their inquiring into its pretensions. This alarm lest men should know any thing about it, this eagerness to keep them in ignorance concerning it, and to fill their mind with an unenlightened and superstitious horror of it; seems to indicate an apprehension that its claims are too powerful to be resisted, when understood, and that the only sure way to keep men from becoming converts to it, is to keep them in ignorance of it.

I do not say this tauntingly. I would not use a taunt upon such a subject. I only state what is forced upon my thought by unquestionable facts. There are many examples of men, who have dared-in spite of precaution, obloquy and discouragement-to read, and hear, and think for themselves; and who, by so doing, have come to discard their prejudices, and throw away their superfluous articles, and rest satisfied and happy in the simple doctrines of the rational system. In doing this they have made great sacrifices, which attested their sincerity and conscientiousness;-they have given up friendships, and

reputation, and livelihood, and whatever earthly good is dearest, that they might secure the truth of God and peace to their own souls. It is such instances, proving how dangerous is free inquiry, which have led its opposers to discourage all acquaintance with it, and to secure by prejudice what they dared not trust to argument.

We are aware that any inferences drawn from conversions of this sort are in general to be little depended upon, for probably every sect can produce examples of them. Still we cannot but think that the instances to which we allude, in the preceding paragraph, were attended by circumstances which demand for them, to say the least, a candid consideration. For they are examples of men-not of worldly lives and no religious pretensions, who had adopted their system without knowing any thing of its grounds of support, and then left it at last in a period of strong religious excitement, when they became convinced, for the first time, of the importance of personal religion. But these to whom we refer, were men of long established religious principle, of extensive acquaintance with scripture truth, of devout habits, and some of them valued and eminent ministers of the Gospel. Yet such men,-while still influenced by their long habitual fear of God and attachment of his word-have giv en up their accustomed faith, and, like the Apostle Paul, have "preached the faith which they once destroyed.” When our minds rest on such examples as these, we cannot help deriving from them a feeling, not to say an argument, in favour of our views of truth. It is but a small thing that a man should abandon a system of which he knows but little, and for which he cares not seriously, and with which, especially, he has none of the holy and dear associations of personal and experimental religion.

But that serious and devout men should leave that faith, which they had studied and loved long, and with which all their deepest sentiments of devotion and hope had always been connected-this is a thing to be accounted for. And can we in any way so reasonably account for it, as by believing that what produces this great effect, is indeed the truth of God-which is mighty and will prevail ?

6. A further presumption that this is the faith once delivered to the saints, may be found in the fact, that it is in truth the system adopted by a great portion of those who are educated in another faith, and who have always had another system preached to them. Inquire of them in friendly and confidential conversation the particulars of their faith, let them talk freely, and throw off the disguise of technical phraseology, and declare in their own language what they believe;-and you find that they have no idea of any different religious principles from those which we have advanced. After all the pains taken to indoctrinate them, they stand fast by the plain primary principles of Gospel truth. Ascertain carefully their opinion respecting the nature of God; and you find, that when they get beyond the words, they have no more notion of three persons in the Deity than you have yourself. Describe to them the doctrines of total depravity, election, reprobation, and the kindred tenets, as they are set forth in the confessions and bodies of divinity; and they count it slander to attribute to them such a faith, they hold it unfair and ungenerous to charge them with maintaining such dogmas. This is a matter of familiar observation. We constantly meet with men who have supposed themselves orthodox, as it is called; but who find, on a careful examination of the christian doctrines,

that they are not so. They have held the name and the phraseology, but never embraced the system in its detail, as laid down in the books. Their actual faith has been that of the rational system. Does not this afford a presumption in favour of the truth of that system? Since even the powerful influence of education and the weekly expositions of the pulpit, have been unable to displace its simple, reasonable, and comforting truths. What divine power must it not possess, thus to vindicate to itself the assent of multitudes, who have been all their lives instructed in opposition to it!

7. We also find a presumption in favour of this system in the fact, that these are the views of christian truth into which men have been prone to settle down wherever inquiry has been left perfectly free, and no persecution or loss could attend their profession. It has been found in many examples, that when society has been at peace, and the churches have rested without disturbance or fear for any considerable period, there has been a natural and inevitable progress toward this system. So it was at Geneva, once the strong hold of Cal.vin himself. Being left to pursue the light of truth wherever in God's providence it might lead them, without dread of consequences, the believers of that city gradually softened down the tone of their doctrines, and became the mild and happy professors of the simpler system. So it was in the school of divinity instructed by Doddridge. Beneath that devout and charitable teacher, the young men read and reflected, without fear of reproach or excommunication, and the minds of many of them were opened to the errors of orthodoxy, and they became advocates of the liberal faith,