A

COMPENDIUM

OF

THE PRIMARY DOCTRINES

EXHIBITED IN

THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH.

1.

THE Salvation of Man, is that, which includes, and constitutes, all his Religion, Excellence, and Felicity, for both worlds*.

*While we readily admit, that, "supposing the christian Revelation to be of divine origin, the Doctrine contained therein is the only Religion, which justifies the ways of eternal Providence, renders the Deity amiable to his creatures, reconciles all his moral Attributes-and, in fine, that the holy Scriptures are the most sublime System of Theology, and Philosophy, concerning God and Nature;" we affirm, that their grand leading Idea, their most prominent Feature, is, The Salvation of Man: which is one of those complex phrases, that must be analytically explained, before it can be clearly and fully understood.

G

2.

Salvation is by Grace.

3.

Salvation is through Faith.

4.

The Faith, by which we are saved, is the special Gift of God *.

*As it is a main object with us, to teach, by preserving just and important distinctions-Qui benè distinguit, benè docet may it not be proper to remark here, that, when the Author of the celebrated Essay on human Understanding" is agitating the topic, of Faith, he discusses it, as it more immediately respects the Intellect, and in a way of appeal to rational evidence? This may be called, if you please, the philosophy of Faith. But, Christianity proceeds in a totally different mode-and always enforces it upon us, as a Grace of the Heart-or, the vital Principle of all true Religion, Virtue, and Peace; as we hope to make appear to the unbiassed Enquirer: not by addressing his passions, but by the force of cool, decisive argument.

It may be of use too, to subjoin another remark; that, if there be no other way, to Reason and Faith, more ex

5.

Salvation is not of Works, lest any

should boast.

6.

Man

Real Christians are the Workmanship of God, in a very sublime and exclusive

sense.

77.

There is no true Happiness, but what is founded upon the Principles, and derived from the Sources, of Christianity *.

peditious, and less obscure, than that, which this great Philosopher and Logician has prescribed, the Mass of society must for ever remain irrational, and unbelieving.

"So that, he, who will take out his portion in this life, must lose it in the next. What then, against our nature, and against our reason, hinders us from prosecuting our chiefest Good? Want of Faith. All is resolvable into that alone. For, indeed, the supreme Happiness and Misery of rational Beings, through all variation of circumstances, and through every period of their existence, is of a pieceor of the same kind. What then are the good and bad, but the wretched and happy? I like not a certain modest

8.

The habitual practice of Piety, and Virtue, is the grand Evidence of our being in a State of Grace, and Salvation.

9.

A supernatural Agency is indispensably necessary to form the Christian Character *.

10

All the divine Favours and Blessings, which relate to their supreme Excellence

Faint-heartedness in the friends and advocates of what is Truth and Virtue. A Christian should let see what an Animation there is in Christianity, above all that the world may admire besides. Christianity should be the Boast, as well as the Comfort, of our hearts."

* There can be no stronger proof, that the Character itself is entirely unknown, where the necessity of this Agency is disputed. If the time and talents, which have been wasted in some polemical contests, had been applied to the maintenance and establishment of this great practical Thesis, Mankind might have been much better informed in theologic Science, and christian Virtue.

and Bliss, are communicated to the human Race, through the great Mediator, and Redeemer. He is the central Point of union between God and Men. 1 Cor. i. 29-31. Eph. i. 3-10.

11.

It is a principal Design of the Godhead, in the Economy of Redemption, most illustriously to display the exceeding riches, or, the glory, of his Grace*.

It is therefore requisite, that we should be acquainted with the whole of that Economy; so far, I mean, as it is revealed in the sacred Volume. "Nothing, it has been said, is so rare, as a Genius comprehending at once the whole of any subject. As nothing in the military art is so rare as that self-possession, which enables a General to pervade a whole army, and to be present, and to speak, in every part of the field of battle-so, in the sciences nothing is so uncommon, as that comprehensive kind of attention, which enables a man always to think, and speak, in perfect harmony with himself; and so to avoid destroying one part of his Thesis, while he establishes the

other."

To us, however, it does not seem to require any thing, like a Genius so extraordinary; otherwise, we should have been the last person to have engaged in such an en