whether or not the formula of "baptism" was
expressed in the general terms some maintained it was. Several
Unitarians had a clear recollection, that in several places the
authority of manuscripts, as estimated in Griesbaeh's recension, was
decidedly against the common reading; while the Trinitarians
maintained that Griesbaeb's recension in those instances had left
that reading undisturbed. An Episcopalian began to bare his doubts
whether the usage in favor of the interchange of the words "bishop"
and "presbyter" was so uniform as the Presbyterian and Independent
maintained, and whether there was not a passage in which Timothy
and Titus were expressly called "bishops." The Presbyterian and
Independent had similar biases; and one gentleman, who was a
strenuous advocate of the system of the latter, enforced one
equivocal remembrance by saying, he could, as it were, distinctly
see the very spot on the page before his mind's eye. Such tricks
will imagination play with the memory, when preconception plays
tricks with the imagination! In like manner; it was seen that, while
the Calvinist was very distinct in his recollection of the ninth
chapter of Romans, his memory was very faint as respects the exact
wording of some of the verses in the Epistle of James; and though
the Arminian had a most vivacious impression of all those passages
which spoke of the claims of the law, he was in some doubt whether
the Apostle Paul's sentiments respecting human depravity, and
justification by faith alone, had not been a little exaggerated. In
short, it very dearly appeared that tradition was no safe guide;
that if, even while she was hardly a month old; she could play such
freaks with the memories of honest people, there was but a sorry
prospect of the secure transmission of truth for eighteen hundred
years. From each man's memory seemed to glide something or other
which he was not inclined to retain there, and each seemed to
substitute in its stead something that he liked better.

Though the assembly was in the main most anxious to come to a right
decision, and really advanced an immense way towards completing a
true and faithful copy of the lost original, the disputes which arose,
on almost every point of theology, promised the world an abundant
crop of new sects and schisms. Already there had sprung up several
whose names had never been heard of in the world, but for this
calamity. Amongst them were two who were called the "Long Memories"