as we find embodied in the thirty-nine Articles. This result might seem to be anticipated with undue confidence, this conclusion to have been presumed too hastily and too universally, if the language of our Articles had been less general and less liberal than it is. A complaint might have been raised with justice, that the Church of England expected that the same deductions would be drawn from the Bible by all her ministers, if the wording of this confession did not meet the varieties of human views by the moderation of its own positions; and harmonize in this respect, as well as in others, with the book from which it is drawn.

No better proof, indeed, can be given of the singular felicity with which the Articles of the Church of England are framed, than the obvious fact, that faithful men, both of the Arminian and Calvinistic school, have signed them with equal sincerity; and just as they have agreed

in supposing that their own peculiar doctrines were the doctrines of the Bible, have agreed in admitting that these articles contained a proper and satisfactory exhibition of their views. No doubt, if either party, in later times, when controversy had sharpened the temper, and quickened the acuteness of men, had attempted a modification of their language; it would have become more specific, and might have suited the taste of individuals more exactly. But there is good reason to fear, that just as the language ceased to be general, it would have ceased to be scriptural; and that any alteration would have ended by excluding many, whom it was manifest that God had received.

Such as they are then, the Articles of the Church of England are offered to every one who undertakes the office of its ministry, as a body of conclusions, to which it is supposed he will arrive by the study of the Holy Scripture; nor is there any thing violent or unjust in the suppo

sition, whatever may be its appearance at first. The general harmony of the Articles with the whole tenour of the Bible; their precise and definite accordance with it, in all points of obvious necessity; their caution on those which are mysterious; their reserve on those which are not essential; their general acknowledgment of the sovereign authority of the word of Scripture, render them a summary of religious truths, which the experience of thousands and tens of thousands of men, eminently qualified for pronouncing such a judgment, has agreed in considering satisfactory; and from which, few indeed have revolted, who have not equally revolted from the wider standard of truth in the Bible. In things fundamental, or of essential necessity therefore, the Articles offer that degree of certainty which man is capable of attaining, and at which man is bound to aim. In minor points, less exactness is required and less exactness is attempted;

but in these, wherein the unity of faith, the reality of religion consists, precision is attempted, for precision is desirable, and doubt would be intolerable.

The result which it would be most agreeable to observe, would be to see the student arriving, through the study of the Bible, at those very conclusions which he finds laid down in the articles; and to observe the satisfaction with which he would discover those inferences which he had drawn for himself from the Scriptures, embodied and expressed in the language of his church.

It is not too much to believe that this has continually been the case; and the very same conviction which satisfies us of the truth of the Bible, and leads to the hope that every honest and diligent inquirer will at last be satisfied of the fact; encourages an equal expectation, that the same inquiries, carried on in the spirit of humility and prayer, will end by conducting to a similar uniformity of senti

ment with regard to the doctrines contained in it.

The Articles considered in themselves, as the standard principles of the Church of England, include the three Creeds, which have been, from the earliest period of ecclesiastical history, the standards of Christian belief. As such, as well as from the place which they bear in the formularies of our church, they also must be considered as statements of divine truth, received by the man, and professed by the man, who ministers in its offices; and must form part of his introductory studies. Of these, the creed of the apostles presents, in the simplest form and with the least of technical language, the truths which seem essential to the Christian faith. That of Nice exhibits the same, with a little more of the phraseology of religion, and some of those explanations and cautions which the growth of error had rendered necessary. The creed which bears the name of Atha