HKB
compared without undue partiality, and the simple question of the truth of each may be determined by that calm and persevering reflection, which alone can determine questions of this sort.
If the system here taught be true, then it will follow, not, be it observed, that our religion is necessarily wrong, or our essential faith erroneous, but that the philosophical grounds, on which we are accustomed to defend our faith, are unsafe, and that their natural tendency is to error. If the spirit of the Gospel still exert its influence; if a truly spiritual religion be maintained, it is in opposition to our philosophy, and not at all by its aid. I know it will be said, that the practical results of our peculiar forms of doctrine are at variance with these remarks. But this I am not prepared to admit. True, religion and religious institutions have flourished; the Gospel, in many parts of our country, has been affectionately and faithfully preached by great and good men; the word and the Spirit of God have been communicated to us in rich abundance; and I rejoice with heartfelt joy and thanksgiving, in the belief, that thereby multitudes have been regenerated to a new and spiritual life. But so were equal or greater effects produced under the preaching of Baxter, and Howe, and other good and faithful men of the same age, with none of the peculiarities of our theological systems. Neither reason nor experience indeed furnish any ground for believing that the living and life-giving power of the Divine Word has ever derived any portion of its efficacy, in the conversion of the heart to God, from the forms of metaphysical theology, with which the human understanding has invested it. It requires, moreover, but little knowledge of the history of philosophy, and of the writings of the 16th and 17th centuries to know, that the opinions of the Reformers, and of all the great divines of that period, on subjects of this sort, were far different from those of Mr. Locke and his followers, and were in fact essentially the same with those taught in this Work. This last remark applies not only to the views entertained by the eminent philosophers and divines of that period on the particular subject above discussed, but to the distinctions made, and the language employed, by them with reference to other points of no less importance in the constitution of our being.