fleshly birth. But where is the propriety of this, if the flesh is naturally free from stain ?

And finally, the catholic church has ever held an opinion contrary to the one which is now opposed. Augustine, in his second book against Pelagius and Cœlestius, expresses most explicitly what we maintain: "Whosoever," says he, "contends that human nature, in any age, does not need the second Adam as a physician, on the ground that it has not been vitiated in the first Adam, does not fall into an error which may be held without injury to the rule of faith; but by that very rule by which we are constituted Christians, is convicted of being an enemy to the grace of God."

It is again disputed, whether concupiscence, or that disease of our nature which renders us prone to sin, is itself of the nature of sin. This the papists deny; we affirm.

They allege that whatever exists in us necessarily, and is not from ourselves, but from another, cannot be of the nature of sin; but this is the fact in regard to concupiscence, ergo, &c.

Answer. In a merely political judgment this may be correct, but not in that which is divine. And if the principle here asserted was sound, it would prove too much: it would prove that even the acts of concupiscence are not sinful: for there is a sort of necessity for these, supposing the principle of concupiscence to exist in the soul.

It is next objected, that that which is wholly the work of God, as is the whole nature of man, cannot be corrupt, and therefore whatever belongs to this nature as it comes from the hand of God, cannot be otherwise than free from sin.

If there were any force in this argument, it would prove that there could be no such thing as sin in the universe, for all creatures are not only dependent on God for existence at first, but for continuance in being every moment; and if the power of God could not, consistently with its purity, be exerted to bring into existence the children of a corrupt parent, in a state of moral corruption, neither could it be to continue their being, which equally requires the exertion of omnipotence. But the truth is, so far as human nature or human actions are the effect of divine power, the work is good: the essential faculties of the mind and members of the body are good, and the entity of every human act is good; but the evil of our nature is received by natural generation, and is the consequence of the fall of our first parent, and the sinfulness of our acts must not be ascribed to God, "in whom we live and move," but to the perversity of our own wills.

But they allege that God inflicts this depravity on the race of men, and therefore it cannot partake of the nature of sin, without making God its author.

To which it may be replied that God inflicts it, as it is a punishment, but not as it is sin; that is, he withdraws all divine influence, and all the gifts of innocence with which the creature was originally endued in just judgment. Does not God in just displeasure

for obstinate continuance in sin, often send blindness of mind as a judgment: in the same manner he can inflict that pravity of nature which we bring into the world with us as a punishment for the sin of our first parents: that is, he withholds all those gifts and all that influence which are necessary to a state of moral purity. The texts of scripture which might be adduced to establish the doctrine which has been advanced, have already been cited, and need not now be repeated. But Albert Pighius asserts, that the divine law only prohibits vicious acts, not the latent qualities of the mind: the command says, "Thou shalt not covet," but it does not say thou shalt not have a disease which may induce you to covet. It is true the act only is mentioned in this prohibition, but the disposition is doubtless included: as in the sixth commandment it is only said, "thou shalt not kill;" and in the seventh, "thou shalt not commit adultery;" but we know from high authority, that in the one case the law is violated by sinful anger, and in the other by a wanton desire; so in the eighth commandment the act of theft only is forbidden expressly, but we know that to covet our neighbour's goods is sin; and in like manner, although the tenth commandment only prohibits expressly the act of concupiscence, yet undoubtedly the disease, or corrupt disposition from which the act proceeds, is included by implication in the prohibition. And this will appear very clearly by considering the preceptive part of the law this requires that we should love God with all our heart, and mind, and strength; and of course whatever in us that is opposed to a compliance with this command is forbidden, but such an obstacle is this disease of concupiscence, therefore this being forbidden by the holy law of God is sinful. Infants, therefore, are children of wrath, because they have in them a disease of irregular propensity, although it has not yet been exerted.

:

Pighius still urges the objection already refuted in another form, that no law can prohibit equitably what it is impossible for the creature to avoid; but the infant can no more avoid being born with a proneness to irregular indulgence, than it could avoid coming into the world with the sense of touch or taste; he concludes, therefore, that concupiscence is not prohibited in the tenth commandment.

Now we answer, as before, that if it is true that nothing is forbidden which cannot be avoided, then sinful acts are not forbidden, for with a nature labouring under the disease of concupiscence, sinful acts cannot be avoided; and so the argument is not sound, since it proves too much; nay, the renewed themselves cannot avoid sin in this life, as Paul abundantly teaches in the 7th of Romans; therefore God does prohibit what we cannot avoid, and does command what we cannot perform.

The author then proceeds to refute the opinion of the Flaccians, that original sin corrupted the substance of the soul; an opinion industriously propagated by Flaccius Illyricus, one of the most learned of the reformers; and which was embraced and pertina

ciously maintained in several places in Germany. But as this error is not now maintained by any with whom we are acquainted, we do not think it necessary to exhibit the elaborate and conclusive arguments by which Sohnnius refutes it.

As we stated before, our object in giving an abstract of this treatise, is not so much to defend the doctrine of hereditary depravity, as to give a correct view of the state of opinion on this subject at the time of the reformation and afterwards. And it cannot fail to occur to the intelligent reader, that none of the objections now made to this doctrine are new, or supported by any new arguments. The whole ground of controversy now occupied by the various discordant opinions has been gone over before. And the result will probably be as before, that while those who adhere strictly to evangelical doctrine will continue to maintain the old doctrine, its opposers will deviate further and further from orthodoxy. There has never yet been an instance in the history of the church of the rejection of any doctrines of the Gospel, where the opposers of the truth have been contented to stop at the first step of departure from sound doctrine. If they who first adopt and propagate an error are sometimes restrained by habit, and by a lurking respect for the opinions of the wise and good, as also by a fear of incurring the censure of heresy, from going the full length which their principles require; yet those who follow them in their error will not be kept back by such considerations. Indeed, the principles of self-defence require, that men who undertake to defend their opinions by argument, should endeavour to be consistent with themselves: and thus it commonly happens that what was originally a single error, soon draws after it the whole system of which it is a part. On this account it is incumbent on the friends of truth to oppose error in its commencement, and to endeavour to point out the consequences likely to result from its adoption; and to us it appears that nothing is better calculated to show what will be the effect of a particular error, than to trace its former progress by the lights of ecclesiastical history.

ESSAY VI.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMPUTATION.*

In a previous Essay (No. IV.) we presented our readers with a condensed view of the early history of Pelagianism. In the course of that article it fell in our way to express our belief in the doctrine of Imputation, our conviction of its importance, and of its being generally received among orthodox Christians. This doctrine, our readers are aware, has long been, nominally at least, rejected by many of our New England brethren. Without much argument on the subject, it has been discarded as intrinsically absurd; and it has not unfrequently been presented as an unanswerable argument against other doctrines, that they lead to all the absurdities of this exploded dogma. We have long been convinced that the leading objections to this doctrine arose from an entire, and to us, an unaccountable misapprehension of its nature as held among Calvinists. We therefore thought it proper, and adapted to remove prejudices, to state the common views on this subject, that our brethren might see that they did not involve the absurdities which they imagined. Unfortunately, as far as the author of the article under review is concerned, our object has not been answered. The writer, who signs himself A Protestant, is evident. ly much dissatisfied with our opinions. His object, in his communication to the Spectator, is to impugn several of our statements, and to present his difficulties with regard to the doctrine itself. To our surprise, these difficulties are almost all founded on the very misapprehension which it was our object to correct. Although our readers, we think, will sympathize with us in our regret at many of the statements of this author, and feel hurt that he should have allowed himself to make the unguarded imputations contained in his piece, we are not sorry that we are called upon, by this direct appeal, to state more fully our views on this subject, and the grounds on which they rest.

Published in 1830, in review of an article in the June number of the Christian Spectator, entitled, "Inquiries respecting the Doctrine of Imputation."

Before proceeding to the doctrine of imputation and of the Protestant's difficulties, there are one or two subjects on which we would make a passing remark. This writer attributes to us great subserviency to the opinions of the fathers. Such expressions as the following clearly convey this imputation. "Can any one inform me to what age this orthodoxy' belongs; and where the history, of it is to be found among the fathers whose authority is so much relied on by this historian?" P. 340. "Can the historian honestly say, with all his attachment to the fathers, &c." "Last of all, I would particularly request, if any writer should favour me with an answer to these inquiries, that reasons, and not names, may be given in support of his statements. If it be suggested that none but a heretic could ask such questions, I would reply that there are minds in our country which are not satisfied that calling hard names is argument; or that the argumentum ad invidiam is the happiest weapon which a meek and humble Christian can use. Men are apt to suspect that such arguments would not be employed, if better ones were at hand in their stead. I only add that I am A Protestant." And so are we, however unworthy that gentleman may think us of the title. We would not knowingly call any man master upon earth. We profess to believe, with him, that the Bible is the religion of Protestants; and that it matters little what men have taught, if the word of God does not support their doctrines. As we agree with him in these leading principles, we hope that he will agree with us in certain others. While we hold that the opinions of men are of no authority as to matters of faith, we at the same time believe that much respect is due to uniform opinions of the people of God; that there is a strong presumption in favour of any doctrine being taught in the Bible, if the great body of the pious readers of the Bible have from the beginning believed and loved it. We are free to confess, that it would startle us to hear that there was no antecedent probability that the doctrines of the deity of Christ, atonement, native depravity, are really taught in the word of God, if it can be made to appear that the church, in all ages, has believed these doctrines. And we think that a man places himself in a very unenviable situation, who undertakes to prove to the men of his generation, that the great body of the good and pious before him were utterly mistaken, and that he alone is right. Here is a phenomenon, which any man who assumes this position is bound at the outset to account for, that the Bible, a plain book as Protestants call it, should have been utterly misunderstood for more than a thousand years, by its most careful and competent readers. It will not meet this case, to tell us that this man or that man has held this or that absurdity; or that whole ages or communities of men, who neither read nor loved the scriptures, believed this or that heresy. This is not the question. It is simply this, is it not probable that what the vast majority of the most competent readers of a plain book, take to be its plain meaning, really is its meaning? We take it for granted, that the Pro