BY AARON BANCROFT, D. D. FASTOR OF THE SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN WORCESTER. www WORCESTER : Printed by William Manning & Son. MAY, 1822. F.P. PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit: District Clerk's Office. BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the sixth day of May, A. D. 1822, in the forty-sixth year of the Independence of the United States of America, AARON BANCROFT, D. D. of the said District, has depos ited in this office the Title of a Book, the Right whereof he claims as Author, in the words following, to wit: "Sermons on those Doctrines of the Gospel, and on those Constituent Principles of the Church, which Christian Professors have made the Subject of Controversy. By AARON BANCROFT, D. D. Pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Worcester." In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned :" and also to an Act entitled "An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned; and extending the Benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving, and Etching Historical and other Prints." JNO. W. DAVIS, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. INTRODUCTION, BY THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE. THE discourses contained in this volume are presented to the publick by an association of gentlemen, belonging to the Second Congregational Society in Worcester, of which their Reverend Author is Pastor. Having solicited and obtained the manuscripts, to be disposed of at their discretion, some explanation of their views of the importance of the publication seems to be demanded by the occasion. At no period in the history of New-England, has there existed so active a spirit of inquiry on subjects of religion, as at the present time; a spirit, not confined, as formerly, to men of science and leisure, but pervading almost every grade and condition in society. The advantages of education, which have been so long enjoyed, in common, at our publick schools, by all classes of citizens; the increasing facilities for obtaining literary distinction in our Academies and our Colleges, and the perfect security guarantied by our laws, to the right of private judgment and of publick discussion, have produced an obvious change in the intellectual as well as the physical state of our country. There are now comparatively few individuais, capable of moral distinctions, who do not esteem it their duty as well as their privilege to examine the doctrines proposed for their belief, and to form opinions for themselves, in the all-important concerns of a future life. Doctrinal discourses from the pulpit are now seldom heard with satisfaction, or even with patience, if the preacher proposes to do more than to aid the inquiries of his hearers. They will hardly suffer him to prescribe a creed for their adoption, or to denounce them for the independent exercise of their Christian liberty. Every man, indeed, who has much reputation to preserve, as a divine and a scholar, finds it necessary to be cautious in stating opinions to be adopted by others, which cannot be defended by the soundest expositions of scripture, and the fairest deductions of enlightened reason. In the prevalence of this disposition in the community to investigate the grounds of the principal systems of theology, the friends of Christianity have much cause for congratulation. It is an obvious principle of our nature, that the sentiments we profess can have no good practical effect, unless we have a rational and impressive conviction of their justness and their value; such a conviction as can result only from a careful and industrious research into the evidences upon which they are founded, and not from the confidence we repose in the intelligence and piety of any mere human being from whom we have received them. It is really inconceivable, that any one, who feels the importance of religious truth, who would wish to see it triumphant, and would witness, with joy, its purifying influence in the lives of men, should feel any reluctance to encourage that freedom of examination, that personal application to scripture in the full exercise of the strongest energies of mind, by which alone it is most likely to be obtained. It is true, there have been but few sectarians among Protestants, who have not professed their willingness to yield to others those rights of conscience which they have claimed as sacred to themselves, and which they have exercised in their fullest extent. But, unfortunately, this concession has been but little more than profession. They have generally discarded from their fellowship all who have not subscribed to their views of the doctrines of the bible, charging them with insincerity, moral corruption, and enmity to the truth. With peculiar inconsistency, they have recognized the right of Christians to think and judge for themselves, and yet have insisted that a departure from established theories of human origin was ground sufficient |