ere now have
passed away, or have been so far transformed as to be a different
religion. It would have been untranslateable; it would have been
untransferrable to any country beyond that in which it originated; it
would have been unintelligible to succeeding generations of even native
inhabitants of that country. It is only in so far as Christianity is
disencumbered of formularies of faith, and emancipated from the
guardianship of Councils, that it becomes the religion of mankind. The
metaphysical clauses of the Apostles' Creed, and the canons of the
Council of Trent, may contain the belief of a few, a very few,
speculative minds. The declaration that God sent Christ Jesus into the
world to save sinners, contains the substantial belief of Christendom,
which will be the faith of the whole world,--because it is Christianity.

It is as impossible for a man to prescribe to himself the faith of his
future years, as for one age to prescribe the faith of a succeeding age:
and for the same reasons. He may in his youth state an opinion in
unambiguous terms, and with perfect sincerity, which, if he still hold,
he cannot state in the same terms ten years after. The opinion may be
substantially the same, and yet have such a bearing upon some other
opinion, or may be so modified by some other opinion that the same form
of words may not express it fully, or perhaps correctly. It is yet more
probable that the conceptions which are now attached to the terms are
enlarged by his improved experience; so that, if he would declare the
same truth, he must change his terms; or if he can conscientiously
retain the terms, he must have modified his opinion. What enlightened,
reflecting Christian understands exactly the same by any one parable,
any one axiom, any one fact of Scripture that he did when he first
admitted its truth? He believed it then; he believes it now; but how
differently since science has brought new evidence to light, since
philosophy has developed its origin and tendencies, since experience has
tested its truth, and faith invested it with a hallowed interest and an
indestructible beauty! How, therefore, is it possible for any one
faithfully to engage that his views even of eternal truth shall never be
modified! Witnessing, as every reflecting man does, the gradual
evolution of truth from the vicissitudes of human experience, and from
the successive dispensations and the progressive course of Providence,
he may with safety de