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Excerpt from Forty Years' Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander, D.D, Vol. 2 of 2: Constituting, With Notes, a Memoir of His Life; Edited by the Surviving Conrrespondent I think we are at cross-purposes about the old sort of preachers. I meant such Presbyterian pastors and preachers as were known to our fathers. I would not demand that any of us should adopt those peculiarities which belonged to the age and fashion of the Puritans; their pun-divinity, as Charles Lamb called it. Nor do I deny that they sometimes introduced inconvenient niceties of distinction. Yet even in respect to these, I believe it may be taken as universally true, that every distinction arises from some new error to be opposed. The Apostles' creed sufficed, till Arianism arose. Sabellius made other distinctions necessary, and so 011 to the end of the chapter. Some of the distinctions of the Reformed Theology, and even of our Confession, have become obsolete, but new ones have taken their place, and the number does not seem to be lessened. But the technical formulas of these nonconformists and Scotch Presbyterians are not the things I would imitate. One good char acteristic, however, of this whole class, I do wish we had in greater measure; they not only held Scripture truth, but they associated it with Scripture language. Their writings teem with Bible phrase and Bible figure a necessary result, in any age, of affectionate devotion to the book. For this Ilove them; and, in my best moods, in this I feel myself sliding into imitation of them. I do own it, think even the Puritan writers, as a body, chargeable with overlaying the truth, or complicating its simplicity. True, they pursue doctrines into minute ramifica tions the necessary consequence of their dwelling so profoundly on them. The general statement of a doctrine is, I know, true it is, also, more intelligible, and more fit for a beginner but the fault of modern divinity is that it too seldom gets beyond these generalities. Jay represe