The same remarks are applicable to the resolutions of the General Assembly concerning certain benevolent societies. Towards the American Home Missionary Society and the American Education Society, in their incipient stages, and considered merely as organizations for doing good, there was for a number of years the greatest cordiality. This is evident from the fact that they were repeatedly recommended by the General Assembly. But when it was found that their operations within our bounds, besides interfering with the free action of our own Boards, were made the instruments in the hands of those who managed the various Presbyterian auxiliaries, of increasing and extending our difficulties, and rendering them more unmanageable-the one by furnishing young men for our pulpits whose sentiments did not accord with our Standards, and the other by directing and sustaining them in their fields of labour-the Assembly of 1837 withdrew

to complain. Instead of there being eight Presbyterian and eight Congregational churches as reported by me, there are, he said, but six Presbyterian churches and ten Congregational.

their former recommendations and requested them to cease operating in our churches. As in their action concerning the Plan of Union and the four Synods, so in regard to these societies, the ground of their proceedings was, that they believed them to be (to use their own language) "exceedingly injurious to the peace and purity of the Presbyterian church" and while they "hoped and believed that the Assembly would not be behind the protesters, [the patrons of those societies] in zeal for the spread of divine truth, they desire that in carrying on those great enterprises, the church may not be misled to adopt a system of action which may be perverted to the spread of error."

It is not true, therefore, that the controversy has little or no respect to doctrines. On the contrary, the principal and primary ground of it, has been a discrepancy in doctrinal sentiments. Its origin may be traced to the opinion so prevalent of late, among certain classes of men, that we ought to expect as great improvements in theology as have been made in the arts and sciences -that those formularies of Christian faith, which have been received for centuries as

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containing a correct statement of Scripture doctrine, are too antiquated for this enlightened age; and if received now, are to be explained agreeably to certain philosophical principles which were unknown in the days of our ancestors-and that the Bible itself is to be so expounded as to accord with those theories of mind, of free agency, and of moral government, which have been introduced by the new philosophy. It is this which gives to their theology the denomination of new. Considered chronologically, it is far from being new. Similar sentiments were advanced on most of the points in dispute, as long ago as the time of Pelagius, and they have sprung up and flourished for a while at different periods since. Were this the proper place, we could easily substantiate this remark by a reference to documents.

The principles upon which these modern improvements in theology profess to be based, appear to me to be radically erroneous. If the doctrines of religion were as difficult to be discovered by a diligent reader of the sacred Scriptures, as the laws and motions of the heavenly bodies are to an observer of the planets, the march of mind might be expect

ed to be as visible in the development of new theological truths, as in the new discoveries of astronomy. But the Bible, I have always supposed, has recorded truth in order to reveal it; and not to place it so far beyond the reach of common observation, as to require the aid of a telescope to enable us to discern its character and proportion. Truth is immutable. The Bible is, therefore, not to be interpreted by a set of philosophical dogmas, which vary, it may be, with every successive age: but by a careful examination and comparison of its several words and phrases. These obvious way-marks were the same in the time of Augustine and Calvin, and the Westminster divines, as they are now; and it is by a faithful adherence to these, that so much uniformity has been preserved among Christians of every age, in regard to the doctrines of our holy religion. Abstruse metaphysical speculations have now and then held out their false lights, and led portions of the church into error; but whenever the pride of intellect and learning has been humbled by the Spirit of God, and there has been a return to that simple hearted piety, which is willing to receive the plain teachings

of the Bible, without stopping to inquire whether they are consistent with certain new modes of philosophizing, it has uniformly resulted in the revival of those old and venerable doctrines, which have been the stability and glory of the church in every period of her history.

We do not intend to convey the idea, that all who are now denominated New School, or who have united in organizing the new Assembly, embrace the new doctrines. Various reasons have operated to produce in the minds of some, so much sympathy for those who maintain these sentiments, that they have taken sides with them, and hence have received their name, though they disclaim all affinity for their peculiar views. Others receive the new divinity in a modified form; and a third class adopt some of its dogmas, while they reject others. These last remarks apply to some of those from whose productions we design to make extracts in the following pages.

How large a proportion of the new Assembly embrace the New Theology, we will not undertake to say. We might state a number of facts, which appear to show that it is