r near refuge; not only
our unfailing, but our very present help; not only our hope, but our
perpetual joy. The deepest of our joys and griefs, those which it is
most necessary to confide to Him who caused them, are absolutely
incommunicable to all besides; and what is emphatically true of our
self-communings, that 'the heart knoweth its own bitterness,' is yet
more true of spirit worship, 'no stranger intermeddling with its joy.'

Having thus stated the grounds of our dissent from that clause of the
symbol of Pius IV. which declares that 'the Saints reigning together
with Christ are to be honored and invocated, and that they offer prayers
to God for us,' it is needless to notice what follows; viz. that their
relics are to be venerated; 'that the images of Christ and the Mother of
God, ever Virgin, and also of the other saints, are to be had and
retained; and that due honor and veneration are to be given to them.'
Such practices we hold to be utterly inconsistent with the principle
that God is the sole object of religious worship; which principle is
derived from what we have laid down as the first essential doctrine of
Revelation,--the Unity of Jehovah.

The next essential doctrine is,

II. The unlimited extent of the Redemption by Christ.

A large proportion of the differences which have arisen in the Christian
world respecting the doctrine of redemption, proceed from the variety of
meanings which is attached to the term _salvation_. While one party
understands by it an admission to the privileges of the Gospel, and a
consequent emancipation from the penalties of the old dispensation;
another, the state of virtue and peace which will prevail when
Christianity has compassed the globe; and a third, a future state of
perfect bliss in contrast to one of eternal torment; there is little
hope of a mutual understanding respecting the doctrine of Justification.
Our part now is to state our own views, and not to enter on any
discussion of those of others.

We believe that by _salvation_ the Scripture writers commonly signified
the state of privilege into which Christian believers were brought by
their adoption of the principles of holiness and peace which the Gospel
affords. Thus, according to its original meaning, the term was
appropriated to a state of comparative blessedness in this world; but as
the principles of the Gospel exert the most powerful influence over our
spiritual state, over our capacity for happiness in a