and our need of an atonement of infinite value, for the purpose of making that satisfaction."

As I know of no human authority higher than Edwards, on this very important point, I will venture another quotation. "The mind of man is naturally full of enmity against the doctrines of the Gospel, and this produces a powerful disadvantage as to those arguments which prove their truth. But when a person has the transcendent excellency of divine things manifested to him, his enmity is destroyed, his prejudices removed, and his reason sanctified. Hence arises a vast difference as to the force of arguments in convincing the mind. Hence arose the very different success which attended the miracles of Christ in convincing his disciples, from what they had in convincing the Scribes and Pharisees. The minds of his disciples were not more CULTIVATED, but they were SANCTIFIED."

It is plain, then, that when an educated man, and especially one who has had the advantages of a Christian education, finds "those holy and divine doctrines" to be "foolishness unto him;" if they are strange and unwelcome to him, especially if he finds his mind full of "enmity" towards them, ready to give them a sly thrust, or ready to join in the laugh when others ridicule them, and to run after and praise the treacherous reviler, it is plain that such an one must be yet, like Simon the Sorcerer, "in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." How can it be otherwise, if the doctrines are, as we have shown, the very Beginnings, the Producing Causes, the Vital Principles of the system of grace!

I know it will at once occur to the reader that many persons, who think very little of doctrinal principles, appear to be very pious and active Christians; they are fervent in prayer, zealous in service, and often all alive to the interests of their church or denomination. I admit that great allowance must be made for mental and educational peculiarities and deficiencies. Some real Christians have in their hearts what they cannot express in language, and what they would not recognize in expression, and even what, in terms, their prejudices would lead them to repudiate. I fully subscribe to the language of Coleridge in his introduction to "Aids to Reflection."

"That a man may be truly religious, and essentially a

believer at heart, while his understanding is sadly bewildered with the attempt to comprehend and express philosophically, what yet he feels and knows spiritually. It is indeed impossible for us to tell, how far the understanding may impose upon itself by partial views and false disguises, without perverting the will, or estranging it from the laws and the authority of reason and the Divine Word. We cannot say to what extent a false system of philosophy and metaphysical opinions, which in their natural and uncounteracted tendency would go to destroy all religion, may be received in a Christian community, and yet the power of spiritual religion retain its hold and its efficacy in the hearts of the people. We may perhaps believe that, in opposition to all the might of false philosophy, so long as the great body of the people have the Bible in their hands, and are taught to reverence its heavenly instructions, though the Church may suffer injury from unwise and unfruitful speculations, it will yet be preserved; and that the spiritual seed of the Divine Word, though mingled with many tares of worldly wisdom and philosophy falsely so called, will yet spring up, and bear fruit unto everlasting life. But though we may hope and believe this, we cannot avoid believing, at the same time, that injury must result from an unsuspecting confidence in metaphysical opinions, which are essentially at variance with the doctrines of Revelation. Especially must the effect be injurious where those opinions lead gradually to alter our views of religion itself, and of all that is peculiar in the Christian system."

While therefore we would yield to none in the importance of discriminate charitable judgment, we cannot allow charity to become a blind fool. We are constrained to see that many persons have naturally amiable and ardent dispositions, combined with a rather obtuse indiscriminating intellect, which may deceive themselves and others into the pleasant belief that they are the veritable spiritual successors of the apostle John. They are very charitable and very goodish. The language of the Scriptures and the views and judgments which God pronounces, sound rather harsh to them, and they think must have been specially intended for earlier and less cultivated ages.

"Love is the great thing. When men come up to judgment,

it will not be asked them what particular views they held, but how much they loved Christ and their fellow-men." They do not believe there can be any serious danger from error. "Who should want to promote error? If men say they are orthodox, and mean to be orthodox, why they are orthodox, and we can not away with these suspicions of false doctrine which are only calculated to trouble Israel and hinder our denomination."

What should hinder such persons from being deceived, even though they occupy high positions and possess peculiarly popular talents. We cannot wink out of sight the serious fact that unconverted Paul was a very sincere and correct man, a very zealous denominationalist, a champion of Judaism. An unregenerate heart may ardently love, and zealously serve an imaginary god and a false gospel. How then are we to distinguish, and what shall be signs of an unrenewed state, unless secret hatred, (that deep, instinctive antagonism which will now and then break through the forms of restraint and concealment,) of the principles of the Gospel, or at least the foolishness of those principles to them, be a very dark one?

Dr. Thomas Scott discovered his unrenewed state years after he entered the ministry. In his "Force of Truth," he attributes his delusion and blasphemous course to false doctrines, and his recovery to the correction of his doctrinal belief. "Being, however, an utter stranger to the depravity and helplessness of fallen nature, I had no doubt but I could amend my life whenever I pleased." . . . "A Socinian comment on the Scriptures came in my way, and I greedily drank the poison, because it quieted my fears, and flattered my abominable pride. The whole system coincided exactly with my inclinations and the state of my mind, and approved itself to me. In reading this exposition, sin seemed to lose its native ugliness, and appear a very small and tolerable evil; man's imperfect obedience seemed to shine with an almost divine excellency; and God appeared so entirely and necessarily merciful, that he could not make any of his creatures miserable, without contradicting his natural propensities. These things influenced my mind so powerfully, that I concluded that, notwithstanding a few little blemishes, I was, upon the whole, a very worthy creature. Then, further, the mysteries of the Gospel being explained away, or brought

down to the level of man's comprehension, by such proud and corrupt, though specious reasonings; by acceding to these sentiments, I was, in my own opinion, in point of understanding and discernment, exalted to a superiority above the general run of mankind; and amused myself with looking down with contempt upon such as were weak enough to believe the Orthodox doctrines."

As to his recovery, every means failed to shake his vain confidence till he resolved" to search the Word of God with this single intention, to discover whether the articles of the Church of England in general, and this creed (the Athanasian) in particular, were, or were not, agreeable thereto. . . . And the first passage, as I remember, which made me suspect that I might be wrong, was James 1: 5. If any of you lack wisdom," &c. Shortly after I meditated upon, and preached from, John 7: 16, 17. My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me: if any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." "

Substantially the same is true of Dr. Chalmers. It was fatal mistake in regard to the principles of the Gospel that made the first seven years of his preaching a profitless and impenitent ministry. Says his biographer, "Over the central doctrine of Christianity, which tells of the sinner's free justification before God through the merits of his Son, there hung an obscuring mist. . . . More than a year of fruitless toil, hard to be described, ere the true ground of a sinner's acceptance with God was reached, and the true principle of all acceptable obedience was implanted in his heart.”

Is it not apparent, therefore, that principles must ever hold a prominent place in religion? Should not the conviction be deep and abiding, both with clergymen and laymen, that there is a vital necessity for the earnest and unremitting study of the Beginnings, the Producing Causes, of Christian character and life?

Is it not essential that the great, supporting and guiding facts of the Gospel system should hold the central position both in the preaching and reading of Christians? If they have been the means of opening the eyes, changing the whole character and life, of unrenewed clergymen, why would they not have a similar effect upon self-deceived laymen? In what other way could

false professions be prevented and detected so effectually? May not this subject help to explain the low state of piety in many a proud and worldly church? In one thing, at least, Mr. Finney is right. He says, in his "Lectures on Revivals," "a minister will never produce a revival, if he does not indoctrinate his hearers."

We are as sure that a minister will never make his churchmembers steadfast if he does not indoctrinate them. How can they come to act from religious principle rather than feeling and impulse, if they have little knowledge and appreciation of the principles of religion? Of the three thousand souls that were added to the Church on the day of Pentecost, it is said, They continued steadfast in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship," and in Christian duty. And the reason is manifest. They were converted under emphatically doctrinal preaching. In the brief account of Peter's sermon, five or six of the distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel are pointedly presented. The special and efficient agency of the Holy Spirit; foreordination and decrees; free-agency in guilt; the resurrection; and the exaltation of Christ. According to the inspired record, Peter does not at all exhort the people to repent until after they are "pricked in their heart," by the clear presentation of doctrines.

It has ever been, to us, one of the strangest facts, that many ministers who profess to believe and value the doctrines, should yet argue against the preaching of them.

Perhaps this is the clearest mark of distinction between the new and the old theology, at the present time. The friends of the former, upon one plea or another, either openly or practically, deny the necessity and utility of preaching many of the doctrines; just as it was in the beginning of the apostasy to Unitarianism. They have an easy, inoperative belief of them; and "credulity is the gate of error." They can state the doctrines, and give the common proofs for them, but they seem to have no deep experience of their vitalizing power. They do not seem to possess the doctrines in their hearts; or, rather, the doctrines do not seem to possess them with any strong and controlling grasp, and so they make very little use of them in preaching. "The doctrine which enters only into the eye or the ear, is like the repast that one takes in a dream.”