ndum erat') are accommodations and not
scientific--that is, proper and adequate, not 'per idem', but 'per quam
maxime simile', or rather 'quam maxime dissimile':

Secondly;--because the truths in question are transcendant, and have
their evidence, if any, in the ideas themselves, and for the reason; and
do not and cannot derive it from the conceptions of the understanding,
which cannot comprehend the truths, but is to be comprehended in and by
them, ('John' i. 5.):

Lastly, and chiefly;--because these truths, as they do not originate in
the intellective faculty of man, so neither are they addressed primarily
to our intellect; but are substantiated for us by their correspondence
to the wants, cravings, and interests of the moral being, for which they
were given, and without which they would be devoid of all meaning,--'vox
et praeterea nihil'. The only conclusions, therefore, that can be drawn
from them, must be such as are implied in the origin and purpose of
their revelation; and the legitimacy of all conclusions must be tried by
their consistency with those moral interests, those spiritual
necessities, which are the proper final cause of the truths and of our
faith therein. For some of the faithful these truths have, I doubt not,
an evidence of reason; but for the whole household of faith their
certainty is in their working. Now it is this, by which, in all cases,
we know and determine existence in the first instance. That which works
in us or on us exists for us. The shapes and forms that follow the
working as its results or products, whether the shapes cognizable by
sense or the forms distinguished by the intellect, are after all but the
particularizations of this working; its proper names, as it were, as
John, James, Peter, in respect of human nature. They are all derived
from the relations in which finite beings stand to each other; and are
therefore heterogeneous and, except by accommodation, devoid of meaning
and purpose when applied to the working in and by which God makes his
existence known to us, and (we may presume to say) especially exists for
the soul in whom he thus works. On these grounds, therefore, I hold the
doctrines of original sin, the redemption therefrom by the Cross of
Christ, and change of heart as the consequent; without adopting the
additions to the doctrines inferred by one set of divines, the modern
Calvinists, or acknowledging the consequences burdened on the doctrines
by their antagonist