2. That neither a depraved nor holy nature are possible without understanding, conscience and choice. 3. That a depraved nature cannot exist without a voluntary agency.

4. That whatever may be the early constitution of man, there is nothing in it and nothing withheld from it, which renders disobedience unavoidable.

5. That the first sin in every man is free and might have been and ought to have been avoided.

6. That if man is depraved by nature, it is a voluntary nature that is depraved.

7. That this is according to the Bible. 6 They go astray as soon as they be born,' that is in early life,how early, so as to deserve punishment for actual sin, God only knows. Vide Dr. Beecher's sermon on Native Character, National Preacher, Vol. ii. No. 1, p. 11, 12.

II. I charge Dr. Beecher with propagating doctrines contrary to the word of God, and the standards of the Presbyterian church,-on the subjects of Total Depravity and the work of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling.

Specifications. The scripture and our standards teach on the subject of total depravity,

1. That by the sin of our first parents, all their natural descendants are dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties of soul and body.

2. That by this original corruption, they are utterly disabled and made opposite to all good.

3. That a natural man, being dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or prepare Limself thereto.

4. That no man is able either of himself or by any grace received in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God. Conf. ch. vi., sec. 2, 4. Ch. ix., sec. 3. Larg. cat. A. to Q. 25, 149, 190. Short. cat. A. to Q. 101, 103, and scripture proofs.

In opposition to this, Dr. Beecher teaches,
1. That man is rendered capable by his Maker of

obedience.

2. That ability to obey is indispensable to moral obligation.

3. That where there is a want of ability to love God, obligation to love ceases, whatever may be the

7. That no obligation can be created without a capacity commensurate with the demand.

8. That ability commensurate with requirement is the equitable foundation of the moral government of God.

9. That this has been the received doctrine of the orthodox church in all ages.

Vide Dr. Beecher's sermon on Native Character, p. 12, also his sermon on Dependence and Free Agency pp. 11, 21, 19,23.

On the subject of total depravity, effectual calling, and the Holy Spirit in the production of loving faith the Scriptures and our standards teach,

1. The fallen man is utterly disabled, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil by original corruption.

2. That from this original corruption do proceed all actual transgressions.

3. That effectual calling is of God's free and special grace-and a work of God's Spirit; that men are altogether passive therein, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, they are thereby enabled to answer this call.

4. That having a new heart and a new spirit created in them, they are sanctified and enabled to believe.

5. That justifying faith is wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God, whereby he is convinced of his disability to recover himself.

Conf. ch. vi sec. 1, 2, 4; ch. x. sec. 2, chap. xiii sec. 1, ch. xiv sec. 1. Larg. Cat. Ans. to Quest. 72, and scripture proofs.

In opposition to this, Dr. Beecher teaches,

1. That man in his present state is able and only unwilling to do what God commands, and which being done would save the soul.

2. That the more clearly the light of conviction shines, the more distinct is a sinner's perception that he is not destitute of capacity, that is, of ability to obey God.

3. That when the Holy Spirit comes to search out what is amiss and put in order that which is out of the way, he finds no impediment to obedience to be removed, but only a perverted will; and all he accomplishes in the day of his power is to make the sinner willing to submit to God.

4. That good men have supposed that they augment the evil of sin, and the justice, mercy and power of God in exact proportion as they throw down the sinner into a condition of absolute impotency: that he [Dr. Beecher] cannot perceive the wisdom of their views; that a subject of God's government who can but will not obey, might appear to himself much more guilty than one whose capacity of obedience had been wholly annihilated by the sin of Adamı.— Sermon on Dependence and Free Agency, &c. p. 11,

19, 20.

Note. Dr. B. uses the terms natural capacity and natural ability in the same sense. Compare p. 27 with 31. Page 10, he calls it plenary power of a moral agent.

trine of perfection contrary to the standards of the III. I charge Dr. Beecher with propagating a docPresbyterian churches.

Specifications. Our standards teach,

1. That no man is able neither of himself nor by grace received, to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them. See Conf. ch. ix. sec. 3, Larger Cat. Ans. to Q. 149 and proof texts.

2. Dr. B. teaches that the sinner is able to do what God commanded-that the Holy Spirit in the day of his power makes him willing, and so long as he is able and willing, there can be no sin-Sermon Dep. and Free Ag. compare p. 11 and 19.

3. The perfectionists have founded on Dr. B's. theory the following pinching arguments:

Who does not know that theology as renovated and redeemed from the contradictions and absurdities of former ages by such spirits as Beecher, Taylor, and their associates, forms the stepping-stone to perfection? Who, that can draw an obvious conclusion

from established premises, but must see, at a glance, that christian perfection, substantially as we hold it, is the legitimate product of New England divinity? We have been taught in their schools that sin lies wholly in the will, and that man as a free agent possesses adequate ability independent of gracious aid to render perfect obedience to the moral law; in other words, to be a perfectionist. They have established the theory that, by virtue of a fixedness of purpose, man is able to stand against the wiles of the Devil, and fully to answer the end of his being. Now if this system, which the opposers of the New School men were not able to gainsay, teaching man's ability, independent of gracious aid, to be perfect, to answer fully the end for which his Maker created him --if this be orthodoxy, I ask, is it heresy to affirm that by virtue of aid from a risen Savior, superadded to free moral agency, THE THING IS DONE? I see 'no point of rest for the advocates of the New Divinity short of the doctrine of perfection. If they will not advance they must go back and adopt the inability system of their opponents, which they have so often and so ably demonstrated to be the climax of absurdity and folly.' See letter to Theodore D. Weld, member of Lane Theological Seminary, published in "The Perfectionist,' Vol. i, No. 1, August 20, 1834, by Whitmore & Buckingham, New Haven, Connec

ticut.

IV. I charge Dr. B. with the sin of slander, viz. 1st. Specification. In belying the whole church of God.

The Doctor's statements are these: "There is no position which unites more universally and entirely the suffrages of the whole human race than the necessity of a capacity for obedience, to the existence of obligation and desert of punishment.' Again "The doctrine of man's free agency and natural ability as the ground of obligation and guilt-has been the received doctrine of the orthodox church in all ages.-Sermon Dep. and F. Agency, p. 12 and 23.

2d. Specification. In attempting to bring odium upon all who sincerely receive the standards of the Presbyterian Church, and to cast all the Reformers previous to the time of Edward, into the time of ignorance and contempt.

Dr. Beecher says--'Doubtless the balance of the impression always made by their language (language of the Reformers) has been that of natural impotency, and in modern days, there may be those who have not understood the language of the Reformers, or of the Bible, on this subject; and who verily believe that both teach that man has no ability, of any kind or de

to do any thing that is spiritually good, and that the light of God to command and to punish, survive the wreck and extinction in his subjects of the elements of accountability. Of such, if there be such in the church, we have only to say, that when for the time they ought to be teachers, they have need that some one should teach them which be the first principles of the oracles of God.' Serm. Dep. and F. A. p. 27. Again:

It must be admitted that from the primitive age down to the time of Edwards, no one saw this subject with clearness or traced it with uniform precision and consistency. His appears to have been the mind that first rose above the mists which long hung over the subject.' p. 27. Again:

'So far as the Calvinistic system, as expounded by Edwards and the disciples of his school, prevailed, re

vivals prevailed, and heresy was kept back--and most notoriously it was 'dead orthodoxy,' opened the dikes and let in the flood 'of Arminian and Unitarian heresy.' By attending to the whole passage, page 33 same sermon, the presbytery will see that 'dead or thodoxy,' as the Dr. calls it, was the doctrine of man's natural impotency to obey the Gospel.' p. 31. The Dr. attempts to make us believe that from the time of Edwards, the theory of this sermon has been and now is the received doctrine of the ministers and churches of New England. The truth of this I am not prepared to admit, bad as I think of the New England theologians, in general; but I am not prepared to deny it. Be it so, the inatter is so much the worse. Again, the Dr. proceeds, in his strain of calumny--For the greater portion of the revivals of our land, it is well known, have come to pass, under the auspices of Calvinism, as modified by Edwards and the disciples of his school, and under the inculcation of ability and obligation, and urgent exhortations of immediate repentance and submission to God; while those congregations and regions over which natural impotency and dependence, and the impenitent use of means, and waiting God's time, have disclosed their tendencies, have remained like Egypt, dark beside the land of Goshen, and like the mountain of Gilboa on which there was no man, nor fields of offering, and like the valley of visions dry, very dry.' p. 34.

And to complete the climax, the Dr. adds: 'No other obstruction to the success of the Gospel is there so great, as the possession of the public mind with the belief of the natural and absolute inability of unconverted men. It has done more, I verily believe, to wrap in sackcloth the sun of righteousness, and perpetuate the shadow of death on those who might have been rejoicing in his light, than all beside. I cannot anticipate a greater calamity to the church, than would follow its universal inculcation and adoption. And most blessed and glorious, I am confident, will be the result, when her ministry, everywhere, shall rightly understand and teach, and their hearers shall universally admit the full ability of every sinner to comply with the terms of salvation.'—p. 37.

Let the Presbytery compare all this with the history of the church and the doctrine of our standards on original sin, total depravity, the misery of the fall, regeneration, and effectual calling, and say whether there is an Arminian, or a Pelagian, or a Unitarian, in the land, who will not agree with Dr. B. and admit the full ability of every sinner to comply with the terms of salvation,' and unite with him in considering it a calamity for the doctrines of our standards to be universally adopted?

V. I charge Dr. Beecher with the crime of preaching the same, and kindred doctrines contained in these sermons, in the 2d Presbyterian church in Cincinnati.

VI. I charge Dr. Beecher with the sin of hypocrisy: I mean dissimulation, in important religious matters.

1st. Specification. If Dr. Beecher has entered the Presbyterian church without adopting her standards. he is guilty of this sin. This I believe, because I am informed he was received as a member of the 3d Pres bytery of New York, without appearing before them. because he was received by the Presbytery of Cin cinnati, without adopting our standards; and because the installation service does not require their adop tion.

2. That neither a depraved nor holy nature are possible without understanding, conscience and choice. 3. That a depraved nature cannot exist without a voluntary agency.

4. That whatever may be the early constitution of man, there is nothing in it and nothing withheld from it, which renders disobedience unavoidable.

5. That the first sin in every man is free and might have been and ought to have been avoided.

6. That if man is depraved by nature, it is a voluntary nature that is depraved.

7. That this is according to the Bible. • They go astray as soon as they be born,' that is in early life, how early, so as to deserve punishment for actual sin, God only knows. Vide Dr. Beecher's sermon on Native Character, National Preacher, Vol. ii. No. 1, p. 11, 12.

II. I charge Dr. Beecher with propagating doctrines contrary to the word of God, and the standards of the Presbyterian church,-on the subjects of Total Depravity and the work of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling.

Specifications.-The scripture and our standards teach on the subject of total depravity,

1. That by the sin of our first parents, all their natural descendants are dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties of soul and body.

2. That by this original corruption, they are utterly disabled and made opposite to all good.

3. That a natural man, being dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or prepare Limself thereto.

4. That no man is able either of himself or by any grace received in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God. Conf. ch. vi., sec. 2, 4. Ch. ix., sec. 3. Larg. cat. A. to Q. 25, 149, 190. Short. cat. A. to Q. 101, 103, and scripture proofs.

In opposition to this, Dr. Beecher teaches,
1. That man is rendered capable by his Maker of

obedience.

2. That ability to obey is indispensable to moral obligation.

3. That where there is a want of ability to love God, obligation to love ceases, whatever may be the

7. That no obligation can be created without a capacity commensurate with the demand.

8. That ability commensurate with requirement is the equitable foundation of the moral government of God.

9. That this has been the received doctrine of the orthodox church in all ages.

Vide Dr. Beecher's sermon on Native Character, p. 12, also his sermon on Dependence and Free Agency pp. 11, 21, 19,23.

On the subject of total depravity, effectual calling, and the Holy Spirit in the production of loving faith the Scriptures and our standards teach,

1. The fallen man is utterly disabled, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil by original corruption.

2. That from this original corruption do proceed all actual transgressions.

3. That effectual calling is of God's free and special grace—and a work of God's Spirit; that men are altogether passive therein, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, they are thereby enabled to answer this call.

4. That having a new heart and a new spirit created in them, they are sanctified and enabled to believe.

5. That justifying faith is wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God, whereby he is convinced of his disability to recover himself.

Conf. ch. vi sec. 1, 2, 4; ch. x. sec. 2, chap. xiii sec. 1, ch. xiv sec. 1. Larg. Cat. Ans. to Quest. 72, and scripture proofs.

In opposition to this, Dr. Beecher teaches,

1. That man in his present state is able and only unwilling to do what God commands, and which being done would save the soul.

2. That the more clearly the light of conviction shines, the more distinct is a sinner's perception that he is not destitute of capacity, that is, of ability to obey God.

3. That when the Holy Spirit comes to search out what is amiss and put in order that which is out of the way, he finds no impediment to obedience to be removed, but only a perverted will; and all he accomplishes in the day of his power is to make the sinner willing to submit to God.

4. That good men have supposed that they augment the evil of sin, and the justice, mercy and power of God in exact proportion as they throw down the sinner into a condition of absolute impotency: that he [Dr. Beecher] cannot perceive the wisdom of their views; that a subject of God's government who can but will not obey, might appear to himself much more guilty than one whose capacity of obedience had been wholly annihilated by the sin of Adamı.— Sermon on Dependence and Free Agency, &c. p. 11,

19, 20.

Note. Dr. B. uses the terms natural capacity and natural ability in the same sense. Compare p. 27 with 31. Page 10, he calls it plenary power of a moral agent.

III. I charge Dr. Beecher with propagating a doctrine of perfection contrary to the standards of the Presbyterian churches.

Specifications. Our standards teach,

1. That no man is able neither of himself nor by grace received, to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them. See Conf. ch. ix. sec. 3, Larger Cat. Ans. to Q. 149 and proof texts.

2. Dr. B. teaches that the sinner is able to do what God commanded—that the Holy Spirit in the day of his power makes him willing, and so long as he is able and willing, there can be no sin-Sermon Dep. and Free Ag. compare p. 11 and 19.

3. The perfectionists have founded on Dr. B's. theory the following pinching arguments:

'Who does not know that theology as renovated and redeemed from the contradictions and absurdities of former ages by such spirits as Beecher, Taylor, and their associates, forms the stepping-stone to perfection? Who, that can draw an obvious conclusion

from established premises, but must see, at a glance, that christian perfection, substantially as we hold it, is the legitimate product of New England divinity? We have been taught in their schools that sin lies wholly in the will, and that man as a free agent possesses adequate ability independent of gracious aid to render perfect obedience to the moral law; in other words, to be a perfectionist. They have established the theory that, by virtue of a fixedness of purpose, man is able to stand against the wiles of the Devil, and fully to answer the end of his being. Now if this system, which the opposers of the New School men were not able to gainsay, teaching man's ability, independent of gracious aid, to be perfect, to answer fully the end for which his Maker created him --if this be orthodoxy, I ask, is it heresy to affirm that by virtue of aid from a risen Savior, superadded to free moral agency, THE THING IS DONE? I see 'no point of rest for the advocates of the New Divinity short of the doctrine of perfection. If they will not advance they must go back and adopt the inability system of their opponents, which they have so often and so ably demonstrated to be the climax of absurdity and folly.' See letter to Theodore D. Weld, member of Lane Theological Seminary, published in "The Perfectionist,' Vol. i, No. 1, August 20, 1834, by Whitmore & Buckingham, New Haven, Connec

ticut.

IV. I charge Dr. B. with the sin of slander, viz. 1st. Specification. In belying the whole church of God. The Doctor's statements are these: "There is no position which unites more universally and entirely the suffrages of the whole human race than the necessity of a capacity for obedience, to the existence of obligation and desert of punishment. Again The doctrine of man's free agency and natural ability as the ground of obligation and guilt-has been the received doctrine of the orthodox church in all ages.-Sermon Dep. and F. Agency, p. 12 and 23.

2d. Specification. In attempting to bring odium upon all who sincerely receive the standards of the Presbyterian Church, and to cast all the Reformers previous to the time of Edward, into the time of ignorance and contempt.

Dr. Beecher says--'Doubtless the balance of the impression always made by their language (language of the Reformers) has been that of natural impotency, and in modern days, there may be those who have not understood the language of the Reformers, or of the Bible, on this subject; and who verily believe that both teach that man has no ability, of any kind or degree, to do any thing that is spiritually good, and that the right of God to command and to punish, survive the wreck and extinction in his subjects of the elements of accountability. Of such, if there be such in the church, we have only to say, that when for the time they ought to be teachers, they have need that some one should teach them which be the first principles of the oracles of God.' Serm. Dep. and F. A. p. 27. Again:

It must be admitted that from the primitive age down to the time of Edwards, no one saw this subject with clearness or traced it with uniform precision and consistency. His appears to have been the mind that first rose above the mists which long hung over the subject.' p. 27. Again:

'So far as the Calvinistic system, as expounded by Edwards and the disciples of his school, prevailed, re

vivals prevailed, and heresy was kept back--and most notoriously it was 'dead orthodoxy, opened the dikes and let in the flood of Arminian and Unitarian heresy.' By attending to the whole passage, page 33, same sermon, the presbytery will see that 'dead or thodoxy,' as the Dr. calls it, was the doctrine of man's natural impotency to obey the Gospel.' p. 31. The Dr. attempts to make us believe that from the time of Edwards, the theory of this sermon has been and now is the received doctrine of the ministers and churches of New England. The truth of this I am not prepared to admit, bad as I think of the New England theologians, in general; but I am not prepared to deny it. Be it so, the inatter is so much the worse. Again, the Dr. proceeds, in his strain of calumny--For the greater portion of the revivals of our land, it is well known, have come to pass, under the auspices of Calvinism, as modified by Edwards and the disciples of his school, and under the inculcation of ability and obligation, and urgent exhortations of immediate repentance and submission to God; while those congregations and regions over which natural impotency and dependence, and the impenitent use of means, and waiting God's time, have disclosed their tendencies, have remained like Egypt, dark beside the land of Goshen, and like the mountain of Gilboa on which there was no man, nor fields of offering, and like the valley of visions dry, very dry.' p. 34.

And to complete the climax, the Dr. adds: 'No other obstruction to the success of the Gospel is there so great, as the possession of the public mind with the belief of the natural and absolute inability of unconverted men. It has done more, I verily believe, to wrap in sackcloth the sun of righteousness, and perpetuate the shadow of death on those who might have been rejoicing in his light, than all beside. I cannot anticipate a greater calamity to the church, than would follow its universal inculcation and adoption. And most blessed and glorious, I am confident, will be the result, when her ministry, everywhere, shall rightly understand and teach, and their hearers shall universally admit the full ability of every sinner to comply with the terms of salvation.'-p. 37.

Let the Presbytery compare all this with the history of the church and the doctrine of our standards on original sin, total depravity, the misery of the fall, regeneration, and effectual calling, and say whether there is an Arminian, or a Pelagian, or a Unitarian, in the land, who will not agree with Dr. B. and admit the full ability of every sinner to comply with the terms of salvation,' and unite with him in considering it a calamity for the doctrines of our standards to be universally adopted?

V. I charge Dr. Beecher with the crime of preaching the same, and kindred doctrines contained in these sermons, in the 2d Presbyterian church in Cincinnati.

VI. I charge Dr. Beecher with the sin of hypocrisy: I mean dissimulation, in important religious matters.

1st. Specification. If Dr. Beecher has entered the Presbyterian church without adopting her standards, he is guilty of this sin. This I believe, because I am informed he was received as a member of the 3d Presbytery of New York, without appearing before them because he was received by the Presbytery of Cincinnati, without adopting our standards; and because the installation service does not require their adop tion.