“Again: persons may disagree, to a certain extent, at least, in their statements and explanations of the most essential doctrines, and yet be properly and equally Orthodox. In illustration of this remark, several examples will be given. “All Orthodox Christians believe in the full inspiration of the sacred Scriptures; or that the holy men, through whose instrumentality the world originally received these Scriptures, spake and wrote ‘as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’ They believe in this as a _fact_ of the utmost importance. But there have been various modes of stating, explaining, and illustrating this fact. Some, for instance, have spoken of two or three kinds of inspiration; others have insisted that there can be but one kind; while others have thought it better to state the subject in general terms, without attempting very 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.