the reigning philosophy of the day, as to be in the popular apprehension identified with it and are made odious and repellant by its errors, as if these philosophical theories were the fundamental doctrines of the bible. There is no end to the mischief which false philosophy, employed in the exposition and defence of the doctrines of the reformation, has in this manner accomplished. Good men have contended for theories, as if they were vital to the system, and regarded as heretical those who received the doctrine of the bible and only rejected their philosophy. They have cried out against and renounced philosophizing, when it was their own philosophizing which divided and agitated the church. In this manner the church has been filled with controversies, and feuds, and jealousies—and intelligent men offended alike by absurd philosophy aud unchristian controversies about it, have in the conflict of opinion become discouraged and disgusted—and have either adopted heretical opinions or become sceptical. It is my deliberate opinion that the false philosophy which has been employed for the exposition of the Calvinistic system, has done more to obstruct the march of Christianity, and to paralyze the saving power of the gospel, and to raise up and organize around the church, the unnumbered multitude to behold, and wonder, and despise, and perish, than all other causes beside. There is no subject which so moves my compassion or fills my soul with regret, or my heart with the feeling, "Oh that my head were waters,

and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people."

Nor is it to be expected that the gospel will ever be attended with its primitive power in sudden and numberless conversions-till it is again, as it then was, preached in demonstration of the spirit, and of power unobstructed by the clouds and darkness of a false philosophy. The points especially affected by this philosophy are vital to the principles of moral government, and adverse to the constitutional perceptions of truth, the universal dictate of common sense, and the unequivocal elements of accountability as recognized in human government, and recognized and sanctioned in the bible, and as employed by the holy spirit in convincing men of sin, and of God's justice in their condemnation. If they are not absurd, nothing is absurd, and if they are not false, nothing is false, and if according to them the conduct of God is not indefensible and unjust, it is only because what God does is right, simply and only because he does it, and that nothing which he does can be unjust.

The points to which I allude as violated by a false philosophy, are the principles of personal identity, by which the posterity of Adam are distinct from or confounded with their ancestor, and the principles of personal accountability and desert of punishment, as men are made accountable and punishable for his conduct, or become. liable to sin and misery, as a universal conse

quence. The nature of sin and of holiness considered as material qualities or the substance of the soul, or as instincts, or as the spontaneous action of mind under moral government, in the full possession of all the elements of accountability. And above all, the doctrine of the decrees of God-and the universal certainty of all events to his fore-knowledge-as they are either unexplained or explained by a false philosophy.

To which may be added the nature of the atonement and its extent, and the doctrines of election and reprobation as they shine in the bible or through the medium of a perverting philosophy. Whatever of these philosophical theories appertained to the system during the arduous conflict for civil and religious liberty against the Papal despotism of modern Europe, men endured, even swallowed them unhesitatingly, almost unthinkingly, in the presence of a greater evil; but since the conflict has passed away, and the nature of mind and moral government is better understood, and the numbers who think and will think for themselves multiply, these repellencies of false philosophy have steadily increased, and will increase, till that which is adventitious and false is relinquished—and the truth is preached in its purity and unbroken power.

These evils of philosophy have however been greatly aggravated by the caricatures of Calvinism, which on all sides have been multiplied.

I have never seen or heard a correct statement of the Calvinistic system from an oppo

nent. Consult almost any oracle of opposition as to what is Calvinism, and the response will be, Calvinism is that horrible system which teaches that God has fore ordained and fixed, by irresistible omnipotence, whatsoever comes to pass; that he has made a very small number of mankind on purpose to be saved and all the rest on purpose to damn them; that an atonment by weight and measure has been made for the elect only, but which is offered to the non-elect on conditions impossible to be complied with, and they are damned for not accepting what did not belong to them and could not have saved them if they had received it, and that infants as well as adults are included in the decree of reprobation, and that hell no doubt is paved with their bones.

It is needless to say that falsehoods more absolute and intire were never stereotyped in the foundery of the father of lies, or with greater industry worked off for gratuitous distribution from age to age.

False conceptions of the nature and prerogatives of reason have been another abundant cause of confusion and scepticism.

Reason considered as a faculty is the mind itself acting upon evidence and moral fitness, and reasonable is whatever the mind perceives to be conformed to some acknowledged standard of truth or rectitude.

In the presence of competent testimony belief is reasonable. In natural philosophy what

ever accords with the laws of matter is reasonable, and in moral government and theology whatever accords with the nature of mind and free agency and the principles of law and moral government is reasonable, and in relation to the comprehensive purposes of God that plan is reasonable which will best develope his power and wisdom and goodness in the creation and government of the intelligent universe.

While correct conceptions of reason as a faculty prevail and a correct standard of what is reasonable is maintained, the decisions of the mind within the sphere of its competency may be relied on, and the maxim that nothing is to be believed which is contrary to reason is true, meaning only that nothing is to be believed, which contradicts our consciousness or our intuition or our senses or without evidence, or which is contrary to the known laws of the natural or moral world, or to those principles of order which God himself has rendered too obvious to be mistaken or controverted.

But the fact is that loose and incorrect conceptions of reason, as a faculty of mind, prevail-and also concerning what is the external standard of what is reasonable and unreasonable.

By some, reason is deified and clothed with a sort of unerring omniscient intuition, in respect to all sorts of matters and things. So that one of these sagacious philosophers has only to turn his sapient eye on any subject whatever, and howeve recondite and profound, he sees with the slightest