disguised, he would startle, as not only novel, but irrational and false.

Or, they preach these things under restraints, which oblige them to give their discourses the air and character of ordinary instruction, and they preach them to people who rather yield to the fervid zeal and affectionate earnestness with which the speaker urges his peculiar views, than trouble themselves with demanding the arguments and the proofs by which these can be substantiated, and are thus imbued, before they are aware, with sentiments which, in a broader form, they would in all likelihood have at once rejected.

Or, they get themselves invited to domestic parties, which are pervaded by religious excitement, and ready to receive every impression, if it is only conveyed to them in an interesting tone and in spiritual language, and if it only carries them to sublimer heights of faith, and devotion, and joy than they ever reached before; and there, to a willing audience, linked together by intimate and endeared companionship, and panting with expectation of some better and sweeter tidings than what the common herd of teachers are able to convey, and eager to penetrate still farther into those mysteries which have been hid from all beside, they deliver, as the oracles of Divine love, what better informed and more intelligent hearers would, by a process of catechising and rea

soning, have speedily demonstrated to be an emanation of their own misguided and mystic fancy.

Or, they lay hold of susceptible individuals, whose religion is more a matter of feeling than of faith, and, sympathizing with the dark and distressful state in which their ordinary pastors leave them, and dwelling on the insufficiency of all that they yet know to make them what they should desire to be, they lay before them the chart of that royal road to heaven which they have discovered, and, by the help of a few disjointed texts, arbitrary definitions, and loving exhortations, they convert them to the belief of universal pardon, and straightway employ them as disciples for the support and the diffusion of that baneful heresy.

And so much is there of seeming contrivance in all this so much does it look like a systematic plan for gaining proselytes-so much has it the face of intentionally profiting by the constitutional weaknesses, and the amiable dispositions, and the peculiar circumstances of those whose conversion is aimed at or accomplished-that were it not for our conviction of the integrity of those by whom it is practised, we should regard it as the result of a deliberate design, artfully formed and incessantly pursued, to effectuate, by the help of private and cunning influence, what

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formal discussion and open contending would have rendered chimerical and impracticable.

For us, therefore, who view the matter in that light, and who are so situated, nothing remains I but to convert, what it would well suit our opIponents to have continued, a field of peace, into a field of controversy, and to strive, openly, and honestly, and firmly, against the errors which are so zealously disseminated among our population. We act thus, because our Christian and official obligations constrain us to adopt this course. We act thus, because we have no other habile method of counteracting the mischief; we cannot go where its abettors go—we cannot do what they do. We do this, because, in our solemn conviction, the errors they are spreading are deep and deadly. We act thus, not merely because they teach universal pardon, but also because, from the evident connexions and dependencies of that doctrine, they will be tempted to teach other errors, still greater, if possible, and more pernicious

and because they are already far gone in the road that leads to Socinianism. The leaders themselves may not advance so far; but many of their followers will run headlong to Socinianism-acting more consistently than their masters—and beyond that it is but a short and easy stage to infidelity. And we act thus, because were we to remain silent on the subject, and were any of

yourselves, or any of your families, or any within the sphere of our influence to become, through that silence, the victim of those delusions which are abroad in the Christian world, how could we be watching for your souls, as they that must give an account? and how could we answer to him who has appointed us to that office, that we may warn you of your danger? and how could we be free from your blood, and "from the blood of all men ?” I beseech you, therefore, to bear with me, not only as to what we have already done, but also as to what we still find it necessary to do, in order to bring to its right issue this controversy that we have with the apostles of some of the worst heresies that have ever deformed the face of the church.

SERMON X.

SAME SUBJECT.

E heresies we have been considering are not We have occa

w in the Christian church. nally called them novel opinions, because, to a eat. proportion of those who have embraced em, they were absolutely so, and even recomended by that supposed quality, and also beuse they were unknown as matters of actual lief in our day-though well known as matters ecclesiastical history-till sent forth by those gainst whom we are contending. Hundreds of ears ago they were more prevalent than they e now-in what circumstances, and with what fect I will state to you presently. But I menon this now, to undeceive those who, when they ave listened to their propagators, have been truck and attracted by the novelty of their seniments, and partly on that account adopted hem-fondly persuading themselves that it was a light from above which had in these days made