AND ITS CORRUPTIONS. DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES. DISCOURSES DELIVERED IN HOPEDALE, MASS., A.D. 1869-70. BY ADIN BALLOU. ... "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”—John viii. 32. BOSTON: UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 1870. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. OCT 10 1906 CC B21 PREFACE. I FIRMLY believe that Christianity, as taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ and his apostles, is not only the highest and best religion ever promulgated to mankind, but, in its declared essentials, the one true and absolute religion, indispensable to the perfect holiness and happiness of the human race, and destined to final universal acceptance. I also firmly believe that primitive Christianity began to be corrupted toward the close of the first century; that corruptions gradually increased, in several respects, till they became radical at the union of Church and State, under Constantine the Great, in the fourth century; that thenceforth they became chronic, with various fluctuating aggravations, through the dark ages down to the Protestant Reformation; and that, though partially alleviated by that great agitation and subsequent corrective influences, they still remain in such force as to nullify, to a great extent, the excellence of the pure original. In order, therefore, to its final universal tri |