HERESY This word signifies sect or choice; it was not in its earliest acceptation conceived to convey any reproach, since it was indifferently used either of a party approved, or of one disapproved by the writer. See Acts 5:17; 15:3. Afterwards it was generally used to signify some fundamental error adhered to with obstinacy, 2 Pet. 2:1; Gal. 5:20. According to the laws of this kingdom, heresy consists in a denial of some of the essential doctrines of Christianity, publicly and obstinately avowed. It must be acknowledged, however, that particular modes of belief or unbelief, not tending to overturn Christianity, or to sap the foundations of morality, are by no means the object of coercion by the civil magistrate. What doctrines shall therefore be adjudged…

ERROR A mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that which is not true. Mr. Locke reduces the causes of error to four. 1. Want of proofs.--2. Want of ability to use them.--3. Want of will to use them.--4. Wrong measures of probability. In a moral and scriptural sense it signifies sin.

SUSPICION Consists in imagining evil of others without proof. It is sometimes opposed to charity, which thinketh no evil. "A suspicious temper checks in the bud every kind affection; it hardens the heart, and estranges man from man. What friendship can we expect from him who views all our conduct with distrustful eyes, and ascribes every benefit we confer to artifice and stratagem? A candid man is accustomed to view the characters of his neighbours in the most favourable light, and is like one who dwells amidst those beautiful scenes of nature on which the eye rests with pleasure. Whereas the suspicious man, having his imagination filled with all the shocking forms of human falsehood, deceit, and treachery, resembles the traveller in the wilderness, who…

LIBERALITY OF SENTIMENT A generous disposition a man feels towards another who is of a different opinion from himself; or, as one defines it, "that generous expansion of mind which enables it to look beyond all petty distinctions of party and system, and, in the estimate of men and things, to rise superior to narrow prejudices." As liberality of sentiment is often a cover for error and scepticism on the one hand, and as it is too little attended to by the ignorant and bigoted on the other, we shall here lay before our readers a view of it by a masterly writer. "A man of liberal sentiments must be distinguished from him who hath no religious sentiments at all. He is one who hath…

ASSENT That act of the mind whereby it takes or acknowledges any proposition to be true or false. There are three degrees of assent:--conjecture, opinion, and belief. Conjecture is but a slight and weak inclination to assent to the thing proposed, by reason of the weighty objections that lie against it. Opinion is a more steady and fixed assent; when a man is almost certain, though yet some fear of the contrary remains with him. Belief is a more full and assured assent to the truth.

EVIDENCE Is that perception of truth which arises either from the testimony of the senses, or from an induction of reason. The evidences of revelation are divided into internal and external. That is called internal evidence which is drawn from the consideration of those declarations and doctrines which are contained in it; and that is called external, which arises from some other circumstances referring to it, such as predictions concerning it, miracles wrought by those who teach it, its success in the world, &c. Moral evidence is that which, though it does not exclude a mere abstract possibility of things being otherwise, yet shuts out every reasonable ground of suspecting that they are so. Evidences of Grace are those dispositions and acts which prove a…