2. It should be strictly Christian throughout; containing such and only such propositions as are fairly deducible from the New Testament Scriptures and therein set forth as of vital and indispensable value. It should not magnify mere incidentals, expedients, or temporary features into fundamentals, nor rely on doubtful, obscure, or highly figurative passages as trustworthy vehicles of truth, but on the plain concurrent teachings of Christ and his Apostles, so interperted and applied as to preserve their unquestionable original meaning, spirit, and ultimate purpose.

3. Its affirmed fundamental truths should be such as have a natural, necessary, and positive tendency to induce true righteousness, that is, moral and spiritual likeness to Christ, in those who truly believe in and receive them. Metaphysical abstractions, scholastic substitutes, barren dogmas, and cloudy mysticisms, having no practical value and no definite relation to character, should be excluded.

4. It should assume and declare that a living practical faith in all the essential principles of truth and righteouness is indispensable to the full and perfect salvation and happiness of any and every human being; but it should not assume that such faith in any case is necessary to secure God's love and favor in time or eternity, nor that it is necessary to lower degrees of salvation and happiness, nor to the just approval of any truth or good by whomsoever exemplified, nor to the hope that all human souls however sin-lost and incorrigible will

finally embrace it and enjoy its blessings and delights. And it should peremptorily forbid all persecution, injustice, and unkindness even, to

dissenters and seceders.

5. It should recognize and conform to the law of progress, adapting itself to different degrees and grades of discipleship; no one being required to profess anything of faith or practice which is beyond his or her comprehension, and no one being allowed to imagine or suppose that he or she has mastered the science of divine living as inculcated by Christ while as yet in its rudiments, having attained unto little or nothing more than the first principles of the divine oracles.

6. It should contain the germinal principle or potential substance of all that is to be taught, required, or promulgated in the church which adopts it as absolutely essential to Christian living, but should provide for the largest liberty in all things beside.

7. It should be thoroughly consistent with itself, with reason, with the known facts and laws of nature, and with all the unquestionable verities of science; but it should not deify reason, nature, science, or in any way exalt them above God, Christ, divine revelations, or the eternal realities.

8. It should unequivocally provide for its own re-examination, revision, and emendation from time to time as occasion requires, for re-adjustment to changed conditions and circumstances, needs and exigencies, and never be made a bar to the intel

lectual, moral, and spiritual development and progress of its adherents.

Having thus given expression to my views and well-settled convictions respecting a sound Christian creed or declaration of faith, I am prepared to confront those who reject all such tabulated and acknowledged forms of doctrine or statements of belief as hostile to freedom of thought and opinion and hindrances to the onward march of the individaul soul and of the race toward perfection. My contention with such is reserved for my next discourse. Meanwhile may divine guidance and inspiration direct us in the way that leads towards and into all truth and good.

DISCOURSE VIII.

IMPORTANCE OF A DECLARATION OF FAITH.

"There is one body and one Spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."— Ephs. iv. 4–6.

"Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for he is faithful who promised.” — Heb. x. 23.

Before entering upon the more definite discussion of the subject of the present discourse, I have something to say by way of introduction in regard to my Liberal Christian brethren, who, as a rule, though to a varying extent, are self-confessed anticreedists, both in theory and practice. They not only object to any formal declarations of belief as tests of church membership or criteria of character but also as expressions or formulated statements of their own personal or associated opinions and convictions of truth and duty, however conscientiously and firmly held they may be. Most of those

referred to very likely agree with me upon nearly all important points of speculative theology and personal righteousness as well as upon matters of ecclesiastical polity, though dissenting it may be in a few particulars. But they honestly distrust, disown, and denounce creeds, per se, deeming

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them hostile to mental freedom and true religious. progress.

There are several schools or grades of anticreedists, though they are all of one family genus, and agree in making religious liberty in the church of more importance than unity of faith in definitely declared essentials. The most ultra of them protest against all standards of theological or moral doctrine and all distinctively religious organizations. Such are, at least, self-consistent, albeit they are mere discussionists and iconoclasts, so far as religion is concerned, to whom it would be annihilation to enter into any formal agreement with those most in accord with them or even with each other. Others would consent to a general declaration of recognized truths, provided it were sufficiently flexible and accommodating. Still others concede that an acknowledgement of faith in Christ and Christianity is important, but would leave all interpretations and appliances of the same to each individual judgment and conscience. While yet another, and the most conservative school, perhaps, would take the Bible and especially the New Testament as an all-sufficient basis of church relationship and rule of faith and practice.

Among these multiform orders of anti-creedists have been numbered men and women of high and eminent standing, distinguished for their talents, learning, piety, moral virtues, and philanthropic labors, and as a whole, it may be confessed, no less sincere, intelligent, and exemplary in their walk and conversation than is the average of those who