NOTE. The division of this work into chapters, the titles affixed to the paragraphs, the table of contents, the index, and the foot notes, are to be attributed to Thomas Whitte more. PREFACE. A PART of what is contained in the following work has been before published in the Universalist Expositor.. very extensive circulation, the author had a desire of bringing his views on the subject treated on, more extensively before the public, and that in a treatise by itself; by which means it might be more likely to become a subject of general consideration and investigation. But as that work never had a The whole, as it is now embodied, will make the reader pretty well acquainted with the views of the author, on the general subject, and the principles on which he founds them. If the views maintained in the following essay are any more in accordance with truth, than those doctrines which oppose them, there is every good reason for laying them before the public, which can be required for so doing. We cannot allow that truth ought not to be advanced if it conflict with long established opinions, and tend to give offence to pious persons, who have long been established in the popular doctrines of the day. If we consent to such argument, we thereby pass censure on that Divine Teacher, who warned his disciples to beware of the doctrines of the Scribes and Pharisees; and not only do we thereby charge him with fault, but justify his revilers and persecutors. In so doing we should take the position occupied by those, in our Saviour's time, who shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; and who would neither enter themselves, nor suffer others so to do. If the master spirits who led in the reformation, in the sixteenth century, had yielded to the fear of giving offence to a church which was imbued with error and corruption, the moral darkness which characterized that age might have continued a protracted night; and the benign light, which has made such salutary advances, might have been excluded from the Christian world.. Whatever may be said to justify Galileo for abjuring the Copernican system, when his life. was menaced, the same could not be urged in extenuation of the impropriety of withholding important truth from society, in times which are not disgraced with offices of inquisition. Should the reader object to the foregoing remarks, as giving any countenance to the publishing of doctrine so erroneous as he may believe is maintained in the following pages, he is reminded that such an objection constitutes himself as odious an inquisition as ever was nourished in the bosom of popery. The times in which we live, and the happy government which guarantees and defends the right of every individual in community, not only justify the honest confession of our religious sentiments, but call on us to discharge such a duty. In addition to this call, at paramount one is recognized from truth itself. To this call the writer of the following essay has been conscientiously devoted for more than forty years; and he has endeavored faithfully to discharge the duties which it embraced, notwithstanding the many painful conflicts through which they have carried him. Not that he would boast of having advanced nothing but truth; for experience has often enforced on his mind the truth of the maxim, that "to err is human." But such experience has been useful; as by exposing his mistakes to the investigation of stronger and more enlightened minds, they have been corrected. One consolation he has constantly enjoyed, in reflecting that his mistakes were errors of the head, never of the heart. It has always remained his fixed resolution, to keep a mind open to conviction; always active in investigating religious truth; constantly ready to profess and hold forth any opinion when convinced of its truth however unpopular, and however opposed by divines, by the schools, or by his dearest friends. This course has led him to give up many religious tenets, which were taught him in his youth, and not a few which were embraced by the denomination to which he has from his youth belonged. Pursuing this course, he early renounced the doctrine of endless punishment; the doctrine of the trinity; that of native depravity; that of the imputation of sin and of righteousness; that of the vicarious sufferings of Christ; and nearly eighteen years ago, the doctrine of punishment in the future state. It has been his lot to meet with much opposition on most of these points, from various denominations, and not the least strenuous from those of the denomination with which he has been happy to hold connexion. For the painful travail endured from all this opposition, he has been abundantly compensated by seeing the rapid advance of the doctrines which he has embraced, and endeavored to advocate. |