Our desire, therefore, for ourselves and our brethren would be that, rejecting human opinions and the inventions of men as of any authority, or as having any place in the Church of God, we might forever cease from further contentions about such things, returning to and holding fast by the original standard, taking the divine Word alone for our rule, the Holy Spirit for our teacher and guide to lead us into all truth, and Christ alone as exhibited in the Word for our salvation; and that by so doing we may be at peace among ourselves, follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Then follows a statement of the purpose and program of the association: To form a religious association for promoting simple and evangelical Christianity, under the name of the “Christian Association of Washington”; to contribute a certain sum to support a pure Gospel ministry and supply the poor with the Scriptures; to encourage the formation of similar associations; to consider itself not a church, but as a church reformation society; to countenance only such ministers as adhere closely to the example and precept of Scripture in conduct and teaching; to entrust the management of the association to a standing committee of twenty-one; to hold two meetings a year; to open each meeting with a sermon; and to look to the friends of genuine Christianity for the support of their work. This is followed by the address, with the following dedicatory heading: “To all that love our Lord Jesus Christ, in sincerity, throughout all the churches, the following address is most respectfully submitted.” After an arraignment of the evils of divisions and an indictment of sectarianism, he pleads with his “dearly beloved brethren” of “all the churches” “to unite in the bonds of an entire Christian unity—Christ alone being the head, the center, his word the rule; and explicit belief of and manifest conformity to it in all things—the terms.” Thus to “come firmly and fairly to original ground, and take up things just as the apostles left them.” In this way they could become “disentangled from the accruing embarrassments of intervening ages,” and stand “upon the same ground on which the church stood at the beginning.” “Here, indeed, was the startling proposition to begin anew—to begin at the beginning; to ascend at once to the pure fountain of truth, and to neglect and disregard, as though they had never been, the decrees of popes, cardinals, synods and assemblies, and all the traditions and corruptions of an apostate church. Here was an effort not so much for the reformation of the church as was that of Luther and of Calvin and of Haldanes, but for its complete restoration at once to its pristine purity and perfection. By coming at once to the primitive model and rejecting all human imaginations; by submitting implicitly to the divine authority as plainly expressed in the Scriptures, and by disregarding