ment of Christian liberty. No church has a right to debar any disciple of Christ from his table; but every church has a right to adopt such terms of membership as shall best conduce to its own harmony and usefulness, though they may amount to the exclusion of some true Christians from its association. In existing circumstances, this may still be expedient.

But while doctrines should not be left out of a creed simply from a regard to the opinions of others, there should be a true catholicity in the statement of them. They should be stated as matters of fact, and not theoretically. For example, we may state the fact that all mankind are sinners, and also that they are such in consequence of the fall of Adam. For this we have scriptural authority. But the theories of federal headship, of imputation, of seminal propagation, or of constitutional susceptibility, or any of the attempted philosophical explanations of these facts, having no necessary connection with the facts themselves, should not be made a part of the doctrine of depravity in a creed. The doctrines of regeneration, the Trinity, and the atonement, should be stated clearly and concisely as matters of fact, without any of those theoretical explanations of them which are still among the high and vexed questions of theology. The statement of any doctrine should embrace that and that only which is essential to the integrity of the doctrine. There should be room for all that diversity in the modes of explaining a doctrine, which is consistent with an honest belief of the doctrine itself. Theoretical explanations and minute details should be introduced only where the omission of them might furnish occasion for misunderstanding and error. This is a cardinal

The Lord's Supper is not an institution for organized churches merely. Missionary bodies, associations of ministers, &c. frequently observe it.

principle in framing creeds. The disregard of it either in the construction or interpretation of confes. sions of faith, has provoked controversy among brethren, and given to it much of its acerbity. It is violated in every extended confession of faith; though the saving clause, "for substance," or "as a system,' is commonly introduced into the formula of assent. Almost every modern theological war has been about theories rather than facts, points rather than principles. In some of these contentions, the authority of creeds has been brought to bear in a manner never contemplated by their framers, and utterly inconsistent with that infallible standard by which creeds themselves are to be judged.

It is on this ground that we object to extended, theoretical confessions of faith. They defeat the very design of a creed, to unite men on the basis of a common understanding of the Scriptures. Few men can conscientiously assent to the ipsissima verba of a voluminous confession, and the phrase, "for substance," or "as a system of doctrine," admits of too much latitude and equivocation for a bona fide agreement. Let a creed be a short, categorical declaration of fundamental truths, and while it will be a surer test of heresy than an elaborate confession, in which the simple doctrines of the Bible are enveloped in the mist of human philosophy, it will be far less available as an instrument of spiritual oppression.

The folly of attempting to make adhesion to an extended and philosophical confession of faith the test of orthodoxy, may be illustrated by the following anecdote. A candidate for licensure in the Presbyteri. an church, who was suspected of heresy, was asked by the moderator, whether he could state the distinction between original and actual sin.

The young man replied that the Scriptures declared sin to be

"the transgressing of the law," and made no such distinction. "And yet," said the moderator, with awful solemnity, "you have assented to a confession of faith which clearly recognizes this distinction !"

"True, sir," rejoined the candidate, who had already avowed his belief in the total depravity of all mankind, "I have assented to it, as the book itself requires, 'as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures;' we are not under the Scottish formula, which requires assent to the whole doctrine contained in the confession,' but have a reasonable latitude in regard to these minor points."

"Do you then," asked the moderator, assent to this article, (chap. vi, sec. 6,) every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God,' &c.?"

66

"Most certainly I do," rejoined the candidate; "I have already said that all sin, however it may be designated philosophically, is a transgression of the law of God."

The moderator had the good sense to yield a point for a principle, and the young licentiate preached the same day in his pulpit. But how often is some such metaphysical dogma set up, in the place of a simple doctrine of the Bible. Dissent from the dogma is denounced as heresy; and "from that pretense," those who can invoke the state to aid them,

"Spiritual laws by carnal pow'r shall force On every conscience; laws which none shall find

Left them enrolled, or what the Spirit within

Shall on the heart engrave. What will they then

But force the spirit of grace itself, and

bind

His consort liberty? What, but unbuild His living temples, built by faith to stand, Their own faith, not another's? for on earth,

Who against faith and conscience can be heard

Infallible?"-(Paradise Lost, book xii.)

A creed should be constructed
VOL. IV.

35

and interpreted according to the principles of Christian union and Christian liberty. It should not be the creed of a mere party in theology; not a mere aggregation of the dogmas of a school; but a statement of the leading doctrines of the Bible, in brief and unambiguous terms. "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations." The object of a creed should be always kept in mind. It is simply to furnish a key to one's views of revealed truth, and that so far only as is necessary to secure mutual confidence and cooperation, in the same society of believers. Of course, then, a creed should be regarded neither as infallible, nor immutable. But the less it is encumbered with philosophical theories, the nearer it approaches to a mere categorical enunciation of a few leading truths, the more absolutely and unchangeably may it be relied on, to secure both soundness and harmony in the faith.

To sum up all in a single sentence, a creed should be brief, concise, comprehensive, and perfectly intelligible; a compendium of the Gospel in simple words. It should avoid those cant or technical phrases, which are not easily understood, or which have lost their significance through familiarity. should state the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion, so that all can understand them. Mere matters of order or of institution should not be insisted upon in a creed.

It

We have already said that creeds have been called forth by digcpmstances. They may always continue to be useful; but we think the necessity for them will be less and less apparent, as sound biblical learning increases, and the spirit of the Gospel prevails. Creeds, as they have often been constructed, have served only as barriers between different branches of the family of Christ. Dogmatism has resisted

union. The tide of Christian love, however, now swelling and heaving across the broad Atlantic, threatens to overthrow these unnatural barriers. Christians, every where, are finding out that they have common interests, common sympathies, and a common faith. They are giving to each other the hand of fellow ship, saying, "though we are not yet perfect, or of one mind, never theless, whereto we have already attained, so far as we are in fact agreed, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing." This minding of the same thing, this united, heartfelt devotion to the same great cause, under the guidance of the same infallible rule, interpreted by the same spirit, will it not bring them at length together, upon the same broad platform of truth, the word of God-believed, loved, and obeyed alike by all?

In the expression of this hope, we have been anticipated by Dr. Chalmers, in his eloquent introduction to the series of essays on Christian union, published at Glasgow. He exults in the "brilliant perspective" before the church. He looks forward to the time when men shall every where come to "a profounder recognition of the authority of Scripture, as paramount to all other authority," and to a greater "moral fairness" in the interpretation of it. "The provocations to controversy,' he says, "will then be done away. The theologia eleuctica, after having accomplished a most important tem

porary service, will then be dispensed with. Its technology will fall into desuetude; because, framed as it was for the special object of neutralizing the heresies which then will no longer exist, its employment will be uncalled for. God's own truth, expressed in God's own language, will form the universal creed of intelligent, and harmonized and happy Christendom. Men's faith and their affections, when this intermediate and temporary apparatus is at length taken down, will come into more direct contact with Heaven's original revelation; and the spirit of good will to man, which prompted Heaven's message, will be felt in all its freshness and power-when the uproar of controversy is stilled, and its harsh and jarring discords have died away into everlasting silence. There will be system and generalization still, but founded on the generalizations of Scripture ; and the doctrines in which many now terminate as the ultimate truth of the record, will be found themselves to be subordinate to the one and reigning expression of Heaven's kindness to the world, by which the whole scheme of our redemption is pervaded.

'I'm apt to think, the man That could surround the sum of things, The heart of God and secrets of his empire,

and spy

Would speak but love. With him the bright result

Would change the hue of intermediate

WE Suspect that these two pamphlets have awakened, at first sight, in minds not a few, a feeling not very

* First and Second Reports of the Society for promoting Collegiate and Theological Education at the West. 1844, 1845.

remotely allied to impatience. Must the claim of another benevolent society be annually pressed upon the attention of my people? has been involuntarily ejaculated, by many an intelligent and faithful pastor, as he has received the first two in this

new series of "annual reports," which has just been added to the more than half a score, that pay their annual visits to the pastor's study. Is there no end to the multiplication of such voluntary associations? And how is it possible to make room for another annual presentation to my people, without wearing out their patience, and interfering unwarrantably with the ordinary ministrations of the sanctuary? These are questions we shall not attempt to answer at this time, any farther than by entering our protest against that way of disposing of them, which rejects any new mode of doing good to the world without the trouble of examining it, and contents one's self with saying that the church has already as many objects of benevolence as she can properly provide for. Such a mode of disposing of such a question, ill befits the position occupied by the American churches, with respect to the forming communities and nations of the West, and the great enterprise of evangelizing the world.

Perhaps a weightier topic never has been, perhaps till the end of time never will be, presented to the Protestant Christians of these United States, than that involved in their relations to the cause of freedom, learning, religion, and indeed every department of Christian civilization, among the swarming millions of the great central valley of the North American continent. The case is, so far as we can recollect, peculiar in the history of the world, and seems a marked and striking dispensation of divine Providence. For nearly two centuries of our his tory, the unique elements of our political and religious civilization were confined to a narrow belt along our Atlantic coast; while the gigantic forests of the West resounded not to the stroke of the axe, and the wild flowers of her ten thousand prairies were

-" born to blush unseen,

And waste their sweetness on the desert air."

In this long period, our fathers had time and scope to reduce to prac tice those principles of civil and religious freedom, which exiled them to our shores. Society organized on this continent after a new model, had time to pass through the fermentation, which is inseparable from any great social experiment, and to become firmly settled upon its first principles, which are now no longer mere theories, but the results of the experience of several generations.

Their institutions of government, education and religion had all become consolidated, and reached that maturity, which marks an advanced state of civilization.

Thus had divine Providence mysteriously and wonderfully brought the fundamental principles of our civilization to these shores-tested them in practice-confirmed them by the experience of nearly two centuries, and made them to be the foundation stones of a government, over a nation of equal brethren-of a system of education for a nation of freemen-and of a church which knew no priest but the one Mediator, no authoritative creed but the divine word, and no head but Christ.

No sooner are these grand results achieved, than the barriers are removed which had hitherto confined us to the Atlantic coast, and in the lapse of a single half century, our border is removed from the Hudson and the Alleghanies, to the Colora do and the borders of the great American desert. In that brief period we have been spread over a territory not inferior, in the extent of its capabilities of sustaining hu man life, to the whole of Europe. Over all this vast region states are coming into being, and advancing in all the physical elements of pros perity, with a rapidity unparalleled in history, and undreamed of in ro mance. Nor has this work of ex

tension yet ceased, or been checked in the smallest degree. The tide is still sweeping on with accelerated velocity, and the wisest of us has not the forecast to predict, within what limits divine Providence shall ultimately confine it.

And yet it is an indispensable condition of our well-being both here and hereafter, that through all this wide-spread and teeming mass; there should be diffused the great original principles of our civilization-that these principles should become the fundamental laws of society, from the Atlantic to the going down of the sun, and from the lakes to the southern gulf. We do but dream if we indulge the thought, that we can long enjoy the civil and political institutions of our fathers, or that we can diffuse them over the "great valley," if we apostatize from their religious freedom, or abandon their free and universal education.

Most clearly then has the finger of God pointed out the calling, the mission of the American patriot, philanthropist, Christian. Our fathers brought the seeds of our peculiar civilization across the ocean, and planted and nursed them at the expense of home and kindred and life. For them they gave their prayers, their tears, their blood. God heard their prayers, he accept ed their offering. Those principles were precious in his eyes, and he made the social edifices reared upon them, to be the admiration of the world. Our work is the diffusion of these same principles, over all that vast region which God has given us to possess. He says to every genuine son of the Pilgrims, go plant the principles of your fathers wherever, on this continent, the jurisdiction of your country extends, or the English language is spoken. The North American continent is now to be peopled with swarming millions. Forest and prairie are to be converted into cornfields, and cities are to rise amid the solitudes

of six thousand years. The principles of civil and religious freedom have been evolved-they have been planted and taken deep root on our soil, and it is the high calling of patriotic and Christian men, to diffuse them through all these millions, and make them the central principles of society, over regions of the earth not less important to the destinies of the human race than all Europe combined.

This work is essentially organic. It consists not mainly in preaching a doctrine, or a scheme of doctrinesnot even though that scheme of doctrines be the Gospel itself, but in founding institutions; such institutions as embody the Gospel and become its living instruments, to secure its publication in perpetuity, not only to the present but to all coming generations. Many seem to have a very defective view of the work of Christian benevolence in our new settlements. They seem to imagine that our main object is to communicate, to the greatest possible number of individuals, so much of Gospel truth as may be barely sufficient to save the soul. This is certainly a mistake. This is not a nation of heathens: and it is matter of devout gratitude to God, that few of our population can avoid, even if they would, knowing enough of the Gospel to save the soul, if all that is known were received and believed.

The case of our home missionary enterprise is but very slightly analogous to the missionary enterprise of the Apostles, or to our own foreign missions. The leading idea of both of these is, to obtain for Christianity a lodgment among the elements of society; it is to sow the seed; to mingle it with the soil in which to vegetate, and, when it shall have received the early and latter rain, bear the ripe fruits of a Christian civilization. But our domestic missionary enterprise takes up the work at a very different stage. The seed has already been sown broad