the Definite Synodical Platform. It shall be my earnest
effort to write in the same christian manner, and my prayer is that the
Spirit of our Divine Master may direct my pen, that it may record
"No line, which dying, I could wish to blot."

In order that our readers may follow, with advantage, the reasonings of
this treatise, it is necessary that we should conduct them to the
proper stand-point, from which the interesting and important subject
before us should be examined. The same object, viewed from different
positions, often presents a very different appearance; but contemplated
from the same point of observation, by impartial observers of sound
vision, it will, by the laws of our organization, appear the same to
all. The questions before us relate to the meaning of certain
documents, which were adopted some centuries ago in a foreign land and
foreign tongue, as a creed or test of membership in the church. A very
brief glance at this church, the authority of human creeds, and the
circumstances under which this one was published, will prepare us for
the more satisfactory solution of the points in question.

The most important visible organization of the human family, is
undoubtedly the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The
political institutions of the world, such as republics, kingdoms and
empires, are instituted to administer the temporal affairs of men; but
the church of the divine Redeemer involves the never-dying interest of
immortal souls. The former are established and conducted by the
ordinary powers of men; the latter is heaven descended, and was founded
by the incarnate Son of God, and his inspired Apostles. The former are
sustained, as far as defensible, by the ordinary evidences of human
wisdom, manifest in their adaptation to secure our material interests;
the _divinity_ of the latter is established by the most stupendous
miracles of Jesus and his Apostles, as well as by internal evidence of
superhuman wisdom, goodness and knowledge, seen alike in the
institutions it embraces and the truths it inculcates.

These _inspired_ Apostles left a _written record of this divine
institution_, of the church with its ordinances, as well as of the
doctrines and duties to be inculcated by its teachers. They also
pronounce this record to be _complete_, and threaten to blot out from
the book of life, the names of those who add to or subtract from it.
Hence it is evident, that the church of this record i