he has thus subscribed, either he must not declare it, or he is necessarily absolved from his oath by a higher power, and thus the whole transaction, so awfully solemn, becomes nugatory. Surely in this case a Creed is a most fearful instrument; exercising authority enough to make any man tremble, and rendering it a most dangerous employment to study the Bible for himself.

Let us state a case, which will bring the subject home to every man's bosom; and to decide accurately and promptly on which, will require no philosophic subtlety. We shall not colour it too highly, nor substitute the visions of life for its realities. Our subject seeks no advantage from the use of hyperbole. A young man of acknowledged talents and unfeigned piety, covets employment in the ministry, after having endur-ed all those anxieties which that subject, as a matter of consultation between his own soul and the great head of the church, creates. His early history forms a train of providential circumstances of the most happy character; and every facility had been afforded to qualify him for the work. His believing parents had lent him to the Lord. He lived nigh to the sanctuary, and, like Samuel, as he grew up, he was employed in its service according as opportunities occurred, or his own strength admitted. He cannot be charged with "habitual indiscretion," nor censured on account of "a defect in sobriety of mind." His gifts, as far as he has

been permitted to exercise them, have procured for him the esteem and confidence of all who know him; and effects have followed, which look very much like the master's blessing shed down upon his efforts, and now audibly bespeaking him for himself. His lot has been cast among us: we knew him from his infancy; his education was conducted under our eye; and he has become most affectionately attached to our old men, and our young men. His fathers were labourers in the same vineyard before him, and when they went to their rest, they left Elijah's mantle to their young Elisha: and now a call from the church demands his active services.

Such is the case. What church court would hesitate to license or ordain him? He is a faithful man; he is "able to teach others also." In ordaining him, the Presbytery would not contravene the scriptural statute, to "lay hands suddenly on no man." The way to proceed is perfectly clear, for every thing has been obtained which the scriptures call for. But a difficulty exists. He imagines that our Creed or Confession, is a mere piece of human legislation, and he cannot consent to subscribe to it as obligatory on his conscience. He acknowledges as Lord of his conscience, none but Jehovah. Other ministers of the gospel, he views as his brethren whom he can dearly love, but refuses to know them as the directors of his faith. He judges of the peculiarities of his own social position, and labours according to his ability, to produce there the greatest amount of spiritual effect: but

he shrinks from a proposition, which constitutes. his brethren at a distance, or his fathers, who have long since gone to the dead, and around whose sepulchres he has often walked, his spirit saddened by the multitude of his own melancholy recollections, the overseers of his thoughts and duties. He thinks he must see the word of life with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, handle it with his own hands, and taste it with his own lips. He knows he might keep all this a secret with himself, never whispering to his Presbytery that his mind has been given up to an orbit so eccentric. But he is too ingenuous. He detests vows curtailed by mental reservation, and hidden from unsuspicious presbyters, but seen by the heart searching God. With a guileless heart and an open brow, he frankly confesses the whole, and respectfully, but firmly, claims his RIGHT: a right, which exists independently of the will of the church court at whose bar he stands; and the evidence of whose existence must be sought for in his own spiritual character and ministerial qualifications.

Now what shall be done with this young Apollos, who so dearly loves the scriptures, and who is so jealous of their honour? Shall he be licensed and ordained? If he may, then all is granted for which we contend. If he may not, then the very difficulty exists of which we complain; i e. a Creed is an authoritative rule, prescribing law in God's house: or, in other words, our Confession of Faith is a human Bible, containing doctrines and precepts, which it enjoins

upon the ministry of reconciliation to preach to sinners for their salvation.

It grieves us to say, that such a youth would be rejected by our church courts; for he will not agree to walk with them on their own principles. It will not at all lessen the difficulty, that he may connect himself with any other religious denomination; for that is violently to rupture all the associations of his life, and to insult all the fine feelings of his heart. And besides, all these denominations are but voluntary associations, constructed on the same principle; and he may range through them all, until he meets the Racovian Catechism itself, or some of its shreds, manufactured into a Standard of Faith.

In such a case, what has a church judicatory done? It may be replied, "We have refused to receive an uncomfortable inmate into our voluntary association, even as a head of a family would turn an unpleasant guest out of doors.' But the question is, even admitting the simile, who is the Head of the family in the present case? Is it the Presbytery, who has been making these laws of its own accord, or is it the Father of mercies? And can it be made appear that our heavenly Father has turned off the youth of whom we have been speaking, as an irreclaimable prodigal?-Suffer us to declare our judgment. The Presbytery have turned a living christian, an amiable, consecrated, young servant of the Lord Jesus, out of THE VISIBLE CHURCH OF GOD; they have desecrated a temple of the Holy Ghost, where a purified spirit ministers under

his heavenly impulses, have refused him a right and a privilege to which he is equally entitled with themselves. The cup of ecclesiastical life, which sparkled in his hands, they have cruelly dashed from his lips. They have denied him the crumbs that fall from his father's table, and have sent him out into the wide world, that waste, howling, wilderness, without a christian companion, and as much alone as Elijah among the idolaters of Israel. He must go and seek that sympathy among strangers, which is denied to him among his brethren; or, wail his fate, like David, when the sparrows nestled over the altars of God, whence he was driven by those of his own house. And where is their WARRANT? Let them show us the sign manual of the King of saints. We refuse to justify such proceedings on any other ground. We charge none of our brethren with any intention to do these things: for we believe them to be conscientious men. But such, in our view, is the consequence of the Creed-making system, and therefore do we object

to it.

We are not alone in entering our protest against this ecclesiastical oppression. The Westminster Assembly itself,-that venerated body, which our brethren are so fond of eulogizing, as forming a most beautiful and brilliant constellation in their ecclesiastical hemisphere, clustering on their horizon, and gilding it with the loveliness of the morning, and which had nevertheless its own faults and weaknesses;-the