neous fervor with Whitefield and the Wesleys and go speeding to the sun.

In view of what has been said it is easy to infer that the strictly denominational life of the various sects expresses the truth only in part and imperfectly. Each stands chiefly as the symbol of certain truths, or principles, or methods, which others are supposed to ignore or unduly subordinate. Most of them hold the great central truths in common, while the denominational differences often have respect to the less essential characteristics of doctrine and polity. Or the differences may largely result from the different degrees of prominence given to the various elements of denominational life. One exalts a sentiment to the first rank and the controlling position which another puts into a very inferior and uninfluential place; and so the results are various. Nitric acid and atmospheric air are composed of about the same elements, but the different methods of mixture give us quite dissimilar products. So religious denominations, appearing radically unlike when seen in their concrete character and life, often differ very little in the elements which enter into them. One has an abundance of oxygen, and so exhibits a powerful and active vitality; another has a larger percentage of azote, and so is passive, speculative and dreamy.

No denominational life can be properly understood, nor its value fairly estimated, until something at least is known of its origin, history and providential mission. It must be seen in its relation to the special necessities which it seeks to meet, to the errors against which it comes forth to wage war, and to the truths which it undertakes to vocalize and exalt. Its special doctrines will be true or false, in the broad sense of those words, in proportion as these doctrines needed a strong and faithful assertion and secured it; and its polity will be really a right one just as far as it wisely organizes Christian sentiment and energy for an effective service in the field where that polity appears. Luther's tenet of justification by faith, which quickened despairing Europe into a hopeful and energetic life, and threw off the oppressive burden of popish ceremonialism, would have been a poor rallying sentiment for a people festering with the vices of pharisaic antinomianism. Colonial and State Rights might

opment; and its doctrines and polity will not be su estimate unless we comprehend their special relati sphere and era, as well as their general adaptation to of aiding Christianity in its struggle to win the ma world. Only a few words can be said upon either the limits of this essay will allow almost nothing in setting forth the doctrines and polity themselves in sophic form. They are not the result of any careful ied attempt on the part of the founders of the Bod a system of divinity, or to produce an elaborate ecc The theology grew up under the influence of a vital in, rather than by successive accretions from withou thers of the denomination were chiefly occupied in do veloping and defending the separate truths, rather th them to each other in a body of doctrine; and the d ments of what is now a well-defined church polity we adopted without any clear apprehension of their logic Necessity stimulated their search: needing a me found or invented one. Experience subjected ead ment to the real test; if it worked well it was retain ly, it was abandoned, or modified till it served i They hardly knew that they were aiding to fashion doctrine or a scheme of polity; they only felt assured were bringing out the real teachings of Scripture false interpretations, and providing a genuine New Church life for the hearts which could find no tr fellowship in the ecclesiastical bodies around them. lected the materials; it was left for their successors

and build them into harmonious and goodly structures.— In the main, Freewill Baptists hold views of the nature and attributes of God, of the divine manifestations, of the Scriptures and their authority, of the spiritual world and the future life not materially different from those generally avowed by other denominations known as evangelical. So far as there are points of divergence, they appear where God and man are brought into moral relations with each other. Though there may not be thorough uniformity in detail among Freewill Baptists, as there cannot be among any considerable number of independent and thinking minds, the following statements are believed to express the settled convictions of the great mass of Freewill Baptists on the points to which they relate.

THE FALL OF MAN AND ITS MORAL EFFECTS.

Without attempting to decide how thoroughly literal the account in Genesis respecting the temptation and fall of Adam may be, the Scriptures are held as teaching plainly and unequivocally the fall of the human race from the state of innocence and the fellowship with God which were originally enjoyed. In the ordeal through which every moral being must pass, in order to develop a personal and settled moral character, Adam failed and fell; and with him began the human experience and the mischief of sin, which have swept down the whole course of time and affected the life of the whole race. But it is not believed that, in consequence of Adam's representative character or federal headship, all his posterity sinned in him or with him, or that they share any portion of the guilt or responsibility of his transgression. He sinned for himself, and each and every other human being sins for himself. Nor is it believed that any human being is guilty for any depraved tendencies that may be inherited in consequence of Adam's sin. Strictly speaking none are born sinners, nor are any exposed to the just retribution of God in consequence of the fall of Adam. Real sin and just condemnation pertain to acts of known and voluntary transgression against moral law. Every human being is put, as Adam was, face to face with the law of God on the one side, and the temptation to evil on the other; and so he must individually

and death, God and Satan. temptation and fall of man Adam's failure did not cheat

decide between good and evil, life Hence, in an important sense, the are repeated all through history. any of his posterity out of an opportunity for a moral trial, nor bring to them a condemnation before they had made a failure.

True, Adam may have had fewer and weaker inward impulses and outward pressures to evil; and he may also have had more and stronger aids,-inward and outward aids,-to a life of obedience. Standing, too, at the very fountain-head of the stream of life, his obedience or disobedience may have sustained more important moral relations to the race than the obedience or disobedience of any other human being. He struck the first discordant note in the psalm of moral life, he made the first divergence from the true path, he gave the first wrong impulse to the human will,—he paid the first act of homage to selfishness which was required by duty,—and so he set in motion the evil forces that now gather about every soul for its overthrow. Sensual appetites, quick and strong passions, active desires that centre in self, these are now the sad inheritance to which each succeeding century has made a contribution,—this is the increasing burden beneath which souls are so ineffectually summoned to walk upward. Add to this the corresponding stupidity and weakness of the higher powers of the mind that make us conscious of God and bind us to his service, and the moral effects of the fall stand out in rational and impressive clearness.

DEPRAVITY.

The fact and the significance of depravity are therefore brought out by the view already stated. But the use of the phrase "total depravity," though susceptible of an explanation that makes it allowable and actually preferred by some Freewill Baptists to any other phrase of similar import, is freely and quite generally objected to, on account of its ambiguity, its false implications, its need of verbose definition, and in view of the extreme and false sentiment of which it so long stood as the symbol. In spite of this hereditary depravity, whatever may be its nature or extent, the Reason and Understanding act legitimately, the Con

In spite of inward depravity and outward evil, th tains the power of free volition, and the ability to de own choices. It is not passive and helpless in th of good. It is not governed by motives addressed governs itself in the presence of motives. It is n in any given direction; it chooses its own path freely the exercise of a power which made a contrary choic It lacks no essential element of ability to will in the d God's claims, and in opposition to the depraved tender in itself, and the pressure of evil influences from witho

THE ATONEMENT.

But in view of what sin has done in violating the d in depraving the soul; in view of the opposition it has ed and multiplied and brought to bear against a right w and in view of the personal transgressions of which m guilty, there was the most pressing need of some pro dispensing pardon without robbing moral government of of some added gracious influences from God to secure t victory and safety of the tempted and perilled soul, and method of bringing the assurance of pardon and the tion of faith to the guilty and despairing transgressor. effected by the work of Christ, who has come to make a ment, and thus effect a reconciliation between men an He does this by furnishing, in his own sacrifice for us, an ground for our faith in God's forgiveness of sin on the c of our penitence. He thus exalts the holiness of the lav