ART. VI. - A Letter to the Editors of the Christian Ex

aminer.

I was lately conversing with a religious friend, not altogether settled in his faith, and somewhat anxious on the point, when, in the midst of the conversation, he exclaimed with strong emotion, "Oh! that there were but one way!" The reflections that arose in my mind, from this expression of feeling, I propose to give you in the form of a letter.

The wish expressed by my friend, might easily lead me to discuss topics of very wide and extensive bearings. I might consider the importance of decision in religion; and of such consequence, indeed, do I hold it to be, that I am inclined to say, that a set of religious ideas, though less pure, is, when connected with this quality, more conducive to earnest piety, than a faith some degrees purer, when weakened by faint-hearted indecision. It is emphatically said of "the double-minded man," "Let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord." To be for ever balancing between different systems and sects, is to be helped by none. Thorough exertion is likely to proceed from nothing but thorough persuasion. This is a consideration of great importance to a sect of professed inquirers, - of professed improvers of their faith. They should take care that their labors for this end should not be so carried on, as to bring upon them the severest and most irreparable of individual sacrifices. I am inclined to think, that the best Christians I have known have been the most decided Christians. And for my own part, I am glad to see any Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant, whether Episcopalian or Quaker, or Methodist or Unitarian, thus joying in his faith and worship.

But here I should have a large proviso to make; I should consider the principle that is to limit and control this confidence, - and that is charity. I believe that these principles are perfectly compatible. Must a man condemn all who differ from him? Must he say that their faith is dead, their worship cold, their piety a vain imagination, and their hope delusion? Shall one weak, ignorant, erring creature dare to say this of another, because he differs from him? Even our Saviour, infallible teacher as he was, did not take such ground; but he rebuked the disciples when they said, "Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not us: but Jesus said, Forbid him not!"

I have said, it must be injurious to any mind to want decision; but surely it must be no less sad a thing to want charity. It must, to any ingenuous and affectionate mind, be a grievous thing to feel obliged to deny all piety, all genuine goodness, all holy joy, to those who differ from it. It is cutting off the larger part of the virtues of the human race from our sympathy and love. It is consenting to lose what is dearer than all the other treasures in the world. I would not take, for one day, the pain of such a state of mind for all the joys even of a just confidence. I had rather be a modest and timid believer, for ever distrusting my own views of religion, unfortunate as that would be, than to be compelled thus to judge my brethren. I have said, it is a grievous thing; and a grievous thing it has been, and still is, for the church of God. Instead of the harmonious company of Christian believers, whose primitive distinction was, that they loved one another, instead of that blessed union among his followers for which Jesus prayed, this principle of mutual judging and condemning has presented, for the scorn of the world, through all ages, the spectacle of a divided and distracted church, broken up into hostile sects; suffering, enfeebled, bleeding, from wounds inflicted by its own members.

The union, then, of decision and charity, I would propose as a healing measure. Christians ask to be decided and earnest, in their respective ways. I would say, Let them be so; though they doubtless ask for more than they are competent to manage; they insist upon deciding more points than they well understand; but, for the purposes of this argument, if I were to carry it out, I would say, Let it be so. Let them decide as many points as they will. And let them be attached to as many things, at least, as they have made the subjects of a reflecting and reasonable choice. Let them, each body of them, love their own church, love their own faith, love their own mode, their own worship. But let them not suppose, that, by this preference of their own way, they are obliged to condemn or denounce all other, or any other Christians for exercising the same privilege. If this must be done, or shall be done, what end is there ever

VOL. XIV. -N. S. VOL. IX. NO. II.

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to be, of our unhappy dissensions? The principle is fatal to church union. The body of Christ can never be what he prayed for, - can never be one in mutual affection and confidence, if the principle is admitted, that decision for ourselves is decision for others, that decision upon our creed is decision upon their characters, that all are to be condemned who follow not after us.

But not to go into this general discussion of the subjects on which I have touched, I propose to narrow the range of my observations down to the point, which I have brought forward in the commencement of this letter. There are many minds that are often very painfully agitated and anxious about the question, whether they are in the right way. Different classes of religionists approach them, and forgetting the principles by which decision and charity are to be combined, each one claims for itself the credit, not only of being right, but of being exclusively right. One maintains that its church, as an outward institution, is the only true church, that its ordinances are the only authorized ordinances, that its clergy have come down in the only line of divinely protected succession from the Apostles. This is the claim of the Episcopalian and the Catholic. Another class insists that it holds the only system of saving doctrines, that the Evangelical doctrines, as it calls them, or as we think, miscalls them, the doctrines of total depravity, and irrespective election, and special grace, and vicarious atonement, and of the Trinity, are the only instruments of the power of God unto salvation. Such are, generally speaking, the Trinitarians and Calvinists of all communions. Others still, rejecting, as they say, all improper dependence upon mere outward institutions and dogmas, require the seeker of religion to look within for the fountain of spiritual life. These are the Friends; and certainly they deliver a doctrine which wants nothing to make it wise and wholesome, but charity, and with many of its advocates, I am happy to believe, it does not want that. I might go on, and mention other classes who lay claim to the only right way. Some found this claim upon a single doctrine, or rather upon a single explication of a doctrine, as those who say that the atonement, in their sense of it, - for all Christians profess to hold it in the Scriptural sense, - - that the atonement, in their sense of it, is the only foundation of hope. Others, as the

Swedenborgians, lay stress upon their mode of interpreting Scripture, and say that no one can enter into the full and blessed light, but by the heavenly science of correspondences.

I say nothing now about the truth or falsehood of these various systems. Let them all be true, if that be possible. The question is not about their truth, but about their indispensableness. I might say, however, that these claims, in their very multiplicity and variety and inconsistency, do, in fact, neutralize and destroy each other, and ought to neutralize and destroy all the power they have, even over the weakest and most timid mind. For all cannot be true, and yet all are alike confident, and I might add, alike deserve confidence, - alike deserve, that is to say, the absolute and exclusive confidence which they demand. I say that these various and confident claims to exclusive perfection and safety, when taken together, neutralize and destroy each other. But the evil is, that they do not come together, and thus drown each other in the clamor of their voices; but they come separately and silently. In the private and affectionate interview, with the tone of holy, and, no doubt, honest solicitude, with a devout sincerity and a devoted zeal, each one speaks, and thus runs the moving tenor of the communication, which he addresses to the religious seeker: " I sympathize with your feelings. You say that you want to feel the power of religion. It is of infinite importance that you should feel it. My very heart is moved to you; for this is the most interesting of all inquiries. I, too, was once a seeker. I have felt all that you feel, all the destitution, the want, the anxiety. But at length I found what I sought. I found I felt the power of religion." "And where," says the anxious inquirer, with an eager and trembling voice, - "where did you find it?" "Oh! I found it," is the reply, and here the reply is various, - "I found it in Holy church," or, " I found it in such and such meetings or revivals," or, "I found it in such and such views of the doctrines of religion," or, "I found it in the secret of my own bosom." One answer, the inquirer receives to-day; another, from a different person, to-morrow; and another still, at some other time; till he exclaims, with the most unaffected solicitude and uncertainty, "Oh! that there were but one way in the world. Oh! that there had never been any controversy about it. What a blessed thing if

there were but one way; then I could be at ease; then I should have nothing to do but enter into it, and pursue it with all my heart."

Let me say to the reader, there is but one way; and that is what I shall undertake to show him. There is but one way, and that way is distinct from all the peculiarities of sects. It is a way "so plain that he who runs may read, and the way-faring man, though a fool, need not err therein."

But I would first address myself more generally to this state of mind. It is a state of indecision, produced, as I have intimated, by the want of charity in the treatment it has received from others. This painful indecision, I say, is created by uncharitableness. For if the language of Christian sectaries to one another had been, "There is light enough among us all to save us; one way may be better than another, but to the sincere and faithful and earnest all these ways are essentially right," - if this had been the language, there would have been, in most minds, no distressing uncertainty about their own particular way. They would have felt, that to the pure all ways are pure, and to the right in heart all ways are right. They might still have been seriously anxious about their fidelity to the way in which they were striving, and this might be very useful, but this would be very different from the indecision in question, - an indecision that causes much suffering, and does much moral harm besides.

To this indecision, then, I would address myself. "Oh! that there were but one way," says the anxious mind, "oh! that there never had been any controversy about it."

Now, the thing desired, in the sense in which it is desired, let me say, in the first place, is impossible. From the very nature of things, from the very nature of the mind, there must be controversy. I do not say, that there must be just such controversy as Christian sects have often carried on, - least of all in the spirit of it; but there must be this thing in fact, if not in the precise form which it has usually taken. For what is controversy? It is the conflict of opinions. And from what does this proceed? From the difference of opinions. But the difference of opinions springs from human imperfection, from education, from society, and is therefore unavoidable. Why, there is controversy in every social circle. That is to say, there are different views