minutely to define or
explain them.

"All Orthodox Christians believe in the doctrine of the Trinity,
or that the one God exists in a threefold distinction, commonly
called persons,--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. They
believe this as a revealed fact, and as an essential part of the
Christian doctrine. But how differently has this fact been stated
by different individuals! What different explanations have been
put upon it! While not a few have preferred to leave the
subject--as God seems to have left it--altogether unexplained.

"All Orthodox Christians believe in the universality of God's
eternal purposes, in the certainty of their execution, and that
they are so executed as not to obstruct or impair the free agency
of man. But respecting the _manner_ of God's executing his
purposes,--whether by the instrumentality of motives, or by a
direct efficiency,--persons having equal claims to the appellation
of Orthodox, have not been agreed.

"All the Orthodox believe in the natural and entire depravity of
man; or that, in consequence of the sin of his first progenitors,
and previous to regeneration, every thing within him, going to
constitute moral character, is sinful. But how many theories have
been framed to account for the connection of our sin with that of
Adam! And how many explanations have been put upon the doctrine of
entire depravity! Some have made this depravity to extend to all
the powers of the soul; others have restricted it to our voluntary
exercises and actions; while others have confined it chiefly to a
moral taste, disposition, or instinct, which is regarded as back
of our voluntary exercises, and the source of them.

"All the Orthodox believe in the doctrine of atonement; but all do
not state or explain this important doctrine after the same
manner. Some suppose the atonement of Christ to consist wholly in
his obedience, others wholly in his sufferings, and others in both
his obedience and sufferings. Some hold that Christ suffered the
penalty of the law for sinners, and others that he only opened a
way in which, on condition of repentance, this penalty may be
remitted. Some think the atonement made only for the elect, while
others regard it as the propitiation for the sins of the whole
world.

"The doctrine of instantaneous regeneration by