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afraid of urging it. We grow lukewarm about it; and, with an appearance of judgment and caution, (as the world will call it,) confess that "to rest the claims of our Clergy on an Apostolical Descent is an unsafe and inexpedient line of argument; that it will not convince men, the evidence not being sufficient; that it is not a practical way of acting to insist upon it, &c."—whereas the utmost that need be admitted, is, that it is out of place to make it the subject of a speculative dispute, and to argue about it on that abstract logical platform which virtually excludes a reference to conduct and duty. And indeed, it would be no unwise caution to bear about us, wherever we go, that our first business, as Christians, is to address men as responsible servants of Christ, not as antagonists; and that it is but a secondary duty, (though a duty,) to "refute the gainsayers."
And, as on the one hand it continually happens, that those who are most skilled in debate are deficient in sound practical piety, so on the other it may be profitable to us to reflect, that doctrines, which we believe to be most true, and which are received as such by the most profound and enlarged intellects, and which rest upon the most irrefragable proofs, yet may be above our disputative powers, and can be treated by us only with reference to our conduct. And in this way, as in others, is fulfilled the saying of the Apostle, that "the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us, who are saved, it is the power of God ... Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? ... The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."
