or compromising my own most sacred convictions of truth. To conceal my opinions would have been fruitless hypocrisy; and I can only hope that I have not suffered them to betray me into any defect of candour or violation of charity. I have not attempted to treat of the Roman-catholic tenets in the character of a Romanist, or of Mohammedism in that of a Mussulman; nor have I scrupled to speak of sects as sects, or of heresies as heresies. The Searcher of Hearts knows, however, that my earnest desire and steady aim have been, to vindicate the catholicity of Christ's Church,-to harmonize the creed of its true members, rather than to exasperate our mutual dissensions, to show that the religious differences among Christians chiefly arise from causes extrinsic to the common Rule and supreme Arbiter of Faith,— and to lead to the practical conclusion, that, as Christianity is demonstrably the only true religion, so no one needs despair, with the Bible in his hand, of ascertaining for himself, under its various disguises, the genuine lineaments of true Christianity.
