blessed with a perfect immunity from the dreaded evils of metaphysics.

But before I proceed to remark on those particulars, in which our prevailing philosophy seems to be dangerous in its tendency, and unfriendly to the cause of spiritual religion, I must beg leave to guard myself and the Work from misapprehension on another point of great importance in its relation to the whole subject. While it is maintained that reason and philosophy, in their true character, ought to have a certain degree and extent of influence in the formation of our religious system, and that our metaphysical opinions, whatever they may be, will almost unavoidably, modify more or less our theoretical views of religious truth generally, it is yet a special object of the Author of the Work to show that the spiritual life, or what among us is termed experimental religion, is, in itself, and in its own proper growth and development, essentially distinct from the forms and processes of the understanding; and that, although a true faith cannot contradict any universal principle of speculative reason, it is yet in a certain sense independent of the discursions of philosophy, and in its proper nature beyond the reach "of positive science and theoretical insight." "Christianity is not a theory or a speculation; but a life. Not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process." It is not, therefore, so properly a species of knowledge, as a form of being. And although the theoretical views of the understanding, and the motives of prudence which it presents, may be, to a certain extent, connected with the development of the spiritual principle of religious life in the Christian, yet a true and living faith is not incompatible with at least some degree of speculative error. As the acquisition of merely speculative knowledge cannot of itself communicate the principle of spiritual life, so neither does that principle, and the living process of its growth, depend wholly, at least, upon the degree of speculative knowledge with which it co-exists. That religion, of which our blessed Saviour is himself the essential Form and the living Word, and to which he imparts the actuating Spirit, has a principle of unity and consistency in itself distinct from the unity and consistency of our theoretical views. Of this we have evidence in every day's observation of Christian character; for how often do we see and acknowledge the power of religion, and the growth of a spiritual life in minds but little gifted with speculative knowledge, and little versed in the forms of logic or philosophy! How obviously, too, does the living principle of religion manifest the same specific character, the same essential form, amidst all the diversities of condition, of talents, of education, and natural disposition, with which it is associated; every where rising above nature, and the powers of the natural man, and unlimited in its goings on by the forms in which the understanding seeks to comprehend and confine its spiritual energies. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit: and it is no less true now than in the age of the Apostles, that in all lands, and in every variety of circumstances, the manifestations of spiritual life are essentially the same; and all who truly believe in heart, however diverse in natural condition, in the character of their understandings, and even in their theoretical views of truth, are one in Christ Jesus. The essential faith is not to be found in the understanding or the speculative theory, but "the life, the substance, the hope, the love—in one word, the faith—these are derivatives from the practical, moral, and spiritual nature and being of man." Speculative systems of theology indeed have often had little connection with the essential spirit of religion, and are usually little more than schemes resulting from the strivings of the finite understanding to comprehend and exhibit under its own forms and conditions a mode of being and spiritual truths essentially diverse from their proper objects, and with which they are incommensurate.