alone in an apostate world, or which apprehends that, because Quintus or Titius is engaged in a subordinate skirmish, no watchmen are left upon the walls of Sion. There are, God be praised, many thousands besides ourselves in Israel who have never bowed the knee to Baal; and while we are occupied in the assertion of any portion of Divine truth, we may trust without difficulty to the Lord of all, that defenders will not be wanting to the general interests of his

cause,

Η και εμοι ταδε παντα μελει

was the answer of Hector to the proposal of Andromache, that he should concentrate his forces to the defence of what was most valuable in Ilium; and their apprehensions, who suppose that in the din of controversy the Scæan gate will be taken by surprise, have more of feminine weakness than of that soldierly watchfulness, which is content to maintain with unshaken courage the post allotted to his particular care, and commits the rest to that great Captain of his salvation whose eye embraces every part and region of the battle,

The

The second assertion, that it is best to be silent on the subordinate features of difference among Christians, lest the heathen or the infidel should hesitate to listen even to those positions in which we are all agreed, may be sufficiently answered by the admission, that, in controversy with the heathen, we by no means recommend an undue or unseasonable protrusion of controverted points; and that it may be, doubtless, wise to establish firmly the elements of Christianity, before we call on our convert to agree with us in the consequences which, according to our opinion, those elements involve. But though the being of a God, the truth of the Mosaic history, the miracles of Christ, his death and resurrection, are positions which are primarily necessary to the profession of Christianity, yet are they first in succession, not first in consequence; first as the foundation of the rest, not first as of more practical importance than that superstructure for whose sake the foundation itself, in fact, is laid.

And, though it may be inexpedient to introduce such topics out of their place,

place, it would be a lamentable want both of candour and courage to deny them when imputed to us; or, when called on to give an account of our Faith, to soften away its peculiarities for the sake of cheating mankind into a nominal Christianity. All which is implied in St. Paul's expression of milk for babes in Christ, is no more than the necessity of advancing first the simplest propositions in a chain of argument; and the same St. Paul, who, of all men, had a spirit most truly catholic, and whose converts were of all Christian teachers the most numerous, was not more active in extending the limits of the faith, than in repressing the domestic errors of those who had already embraced it.

What is, indeed, (we may reasonably inquire,) what is the practice which these zealots for universal Christianity recommend to the several sects who call themselves by the name of Jesus? The suppression, on one part and on the other, of truths which we severally believe to be divine; the admission of practices or opinions which our hearts regard as contrary to the Gospel which we profess to teach!

And

And of such a sacrifice what is to be the object or the end? To impose on a few ignorant Deists, (if any Deists are indeed so ignorant as to be thus imposed on,) by the appearance of a false unanimity among ourselves, and to recommend to their acceptance, as the common faith of Christians, a mutilated and disfigured Religion, deprived, (as it must be if we reject or pass over whatever is contested by any single sect of believers,) deprived of every peculiar feature which can distinguish it from natural Deism,. every discovery of God's will or nature which could furnish an adequate motion s for the preaching or sufferings of his Son!

It may seem, then, if it be truly asserted, (which, however, has never yet been proved,) that unbelievers are chiefly deterred from Christianity by the mysterious features of our system-it may seem the best and wisest (as it is surely the most candid) method of addressing them, instead of softening down those obnoxious truths, which are not less true because they are obnoxious, to state with calmness

and

and sincerity the grounds on which we ourselves have been induced to believe them.

The result of such a statement must be committed to that God who will not suffer his altars to be approached with unhallowed fire; in whose eyes deceit is no more a justifiable method of conversion than violence; who rejects alike the forgery of pretended miracle and the dissimulation of pretended candour; and who has pronounced an equal curse against those who add to and those who take away from the words of his Book, the system of his Revelation!

Not even, therefore, for the sake of converting an unbeliever, not for the sake of saving a soul, (if it were possible that a soul should by this means be saved,) is it lawful to dissemble our Faith. Still less, however, can their cowardice or indolence expect a pardon, who, for the sake of repose, or in the hope of popularity, are content to purchase the forbearance of their adversaries by the abandonment of doctrines which they still believe to be

true,