pleasure, to do that which we have no power to do,"-&c. &c., p. 361. Now Dr. D. ought certainly to know that among those who uphold the doctrine of the entire depravity of man, are some, not to say many, who regard with the deepest disapprobation the dogma he thus undiscriminatingly imputes; men who have grown gray in protesting with all the emphasis of language, against confounding this with the evangelical system; men who have pursued the error which he here seems to charge upon them, through every possible evasion; and who have received for their earnest toil an abundant and thankless requital. Nay, the honor of that improvement in the popular theology has been already won.

Aiming to identify this repulsive tenet with the doctrine of depravity, he argues that the two are most intimately connected—that “ if a man is totally depraved he can have no freedom to be good-if he has no freedom to be good he is indeed to tally depraved."-p. 359. We crave the indulgence of our orthodox readers for detaining them with even the briefest reply to this charge. What possible depravity can exist in a mind which has really "no freedom to be good?" Such a man is no more depraved than the animal creation-has no more obligation or responsibility than a maniac. What sin can he be justly charged with, who can do no better than he does?

On the other hand, nothing would be easier, were we in the humor for such trifling, than to show that Dr. Dewey has himself taught a philosophy utterly at variance with moral freedom. Virtue is in his system as truly necessary as sin can be in any other. For the mind, on his view of it, necessarily forms "the idea of moral rectitude," and the idea he tells us implies the previous exist ence of "the feeling of rectitude" -and this feeling of rectitude he esteems virtuous, he says it is "right."

Every man therefore is by the most stringent necessity virtuous in some degree; though what species of rectitude that is, which exists in the mind antecedently to the very "idea" of rectitude, Dr. D. is perhaps safe in not attempting to specify.

In quite a kindred strain he proceeds in his review of Wardiaw, (an author whose teachings some Calvinistic writers have earnestly repudiated, but whom, nevertheless, Dr. D. chooses to consider the exponent of Calvinistic opinions,) to deny to Calvinism any genial or kindly tendencies. "What sort of practical ethics," he asks, “would follow from this system?" Then picturing our world as a depraved and doomed one, he inquires, (p. 387,)" Under the dread shadow of this system, what can remain to its consistent votary? What can be his ties to society at large? can he have friendship? can he wish for intercourse with unregenerate men, bad men, utterly bad men? Why should he? What is there in them to love? If he must be connected with them by business or kindred, yet what are these circumstances compared with the great ties of moral relationship? And the moral relationship on the part of the regenerate can be nothing but that of superiority, and pity, and prayer; not of friendship.' We pause in a wonder that deepens into amazement at the hardihood of this most grievous charge. Firmly believing all that is here charged as so odious and repulsive in the orthodox faith, we have had occasion to utter many a mournful assertion of human sin. fulness, but such a statement as this, never.

Many a denial have we felt constrained to frame of the natural holiness of the human heart; but the natural sympathies and affections which bind man to man, we never had the heart to deny to any thing that breathes. Often have we felt constrained to question the reality

Charles and Alva, whose are the sufferings and the heroism which these names recall? This western shore, for religious freedom and religious power, the glory of all lands, to whose indomitable love of freedom and of truth does it owe the glorious career it is but beginning to run? To whose faith did approving heaven vouchsafe that sublimest conception of their age, here through all toil to hew out of the wilderness the future home of civilization, hither through all peril, to bear the seeds of liberty and piety for all the generations?

And in our own day, whose charity that "never faileth," is bearing abroad the everlasting Gospel ? Whose love is it that has consented to share each privation, each hardship, each peril under which nature can subsist? Whose noble contempt of danger has braved and tamed the cannibal ferocity of savage tribes, confronted the capricious tyranny of Indian despots, and penetrated through sands and snows, where the foot of civilized man had never trod, in the heavenly purpose "to seek and to save that which was lost?" What system is that which leaning on the very arm of the Almighty, has made its way into every haunt of heathenism, and reared, all unconscious of the glory which was gathering over it, in all lands which encompass the earth, monuments of its attachment to the human soul, to the truth, to the kingdom of God? Let it not be said that these men. whose deeds have shed a new lus ter upon the Gospel itself, are not the "consistent votaries" of Calvinism.

Naught else under heaven than these views of the utter depravity and hopelessness of mankind, ever nerved the fortitude of manly piety and the tenderness of woman's love, for this work of love.

We might retort this inquiry. We might ask what are the deeds of Unitarian benevolence, that it should feel entitled to take us thus to task;

but we forbear. Trophies like these need no contrast to heighten them, and we spare Dr. Dewey the humiliation of a reply to any inquiry for the achievements of Unitarian heroism and devotion. These are the works-and human history records none nobler-into which our system has "breathed its spirit;" we bid Dr. D. look at them, as the wide world is learning to do, and blush to remember, what we feel with pride we can afford to forget, that he has suffered himself invidiously to ask what Calvinism has done in the earth, and what are the ties which bind the Calvinist to his race?

With our, author's views of depravity, his idea of conversion maintains a melancholy consistency. He not only doubts the reality, but he denies the possibility, of any sudden change in the essentials of charac ter. He admits indeed that “religion has a beginning," and that there are great "epochs" of improvement which mark its progress; but the possibility of any thing like a sudden and radical change of charac ter, such as the current theology in. sists upon, he utterly denies."No change of the inward mind and character can be sudden. 'The very laws of the mind forbid it." Let us test this alledged impossibility.

A company of profane and intemperate men, hardened by years of dissipation against all healthful influence from without, are led by some unusual course of their own thoughts, to forswear for all coming life the base appetite which has enslaved them; and go from their accustomed haunt of vice, never again to gratify by one moment's indulgence, what has hitherto been the ruling passion of life. The spend. thrift whose debaucheries have at length exhausted his estate, sits in unwonted thoughtfulness for hours, and rises from his meditations, strong in purposes which control and sup plant each previous impulse of his being. On the very lowest account

of facts like these, we must see in them, an absolute and sudden victo ry over some of the strongest impulses which form the character; and even supposing them to be but changes from the control of one sin or passion to that of another, yet if impulses erroneous and false, can so subdue and change the habits and passions of all previous life, what may not be hoped for from truth and wisdom, in the hands of omnipotence and love? Why then is it to be deemed a thing impossible, that grace from on high should suddenly work even a radical and entire change of character?

But the rashness of this assertion rises even to recklessness, when we compare it with the unquestionable facts of the Gospel history. What was Paul's conversion but a most sudden change of the "inward mind and character?" Or will it be maintained that the Apostle was "inwardly" the same persecuting bigot after that event that he was before? And who needs to be reminded that Christianity has achieved similar triumphs in every year of its existence since? Who that has read the narrative of a conversion like that of Col. Gardiner, or the early history of Methodism, or the religious history of our own country, needs any argument for the possibility of radical and sudden changes of character? Erroneous how. ever as the position is that we are controverting, one truth it may well be supposed to convey to us. Dr. D. could never have maintained the impossibility of such results, had he ever witnessed them. Had he ever known in his familiar ministrations, the sensual and profligate mind suddenly arrested, subdued, purified by the doctrine which it was his work to unfold-had he seen the vain and thoughtless spirit, suddenly awed into a seriousness deep and permanent-had he ever beheld a man who delighted in expressing his profane contempt for every ordinance of piety, in ensnaring youth and se

ducing innocence, changed at once into a soul breathing only penitence and self-abasement, no sophistry could have blinded his mind to these signal attestations of the power of his faith. Let him not then be surprised if the evangelical body should find in an argument like this, confirmation of all its previous convictions of the inefficiency and worthlessness of his system; and should on the strength of these concessions, pronounce it utterly alien from that gospel, which every age has proved to be "the power of God unto salvation."

The religion which this work en. forces, and the skepticism which it repels, would amply repay examination. They indicate, the one in theory, and the other in practice, defects of the most serious nature. All religious philosophy which is not absolutely perfect, has its opposite tendencies, its points of repulsion as well as of attraction, and stands in relation to unbelief as well as to faith. The type therefore of unbelief against which any religious system contends, is often highly significant of the true character of that system. Thus the superstitions of the papal church are by almost all Protestant writers alledged to tend powerfully toward infidelity, and even atheism; and Unitarians have not been slow to adduce similar results from the errors of the orthodox faith. But the skepticism against which Dr. Dewey contends, is little else than the most cheerless and wretched negation even of immor. tality itself. Yet of this abandoned scheme he says, with a tenderness which contrasts strangely and significantly with his bitter reprobation of Calvinism, "I do not wish to speak harshly." On the edge of this dismal abyss he assumes his position, and courteously contends with this grim skeleton of unbelief, that God and immortality are realities; or at least if some doubts do necessarily mingle with our faith in them, doubting is ever a salutary process,

and meanwhile it is far more reasonable to believe than to deny.

But defective as are his views of religious philosophy, his exhibition of practical religion seems yet more so. He seems resolved on cutting off the soul from all those truths which yield it most effective influence, from all those modes of action which afford it the most profitable culture. Religion is in his view of it, wholly subjective; it has no great and sublime relations to any out of the mind itself. Personal elevation and dignity of no inferior kind indeed, still, merely personal, is all that he enforces with any earnestness. Do not be a bigot, or a hypocrite; do not dwell in sottishness or vice; remember your immortal nature and do for heaven's sake be something generous-this seems the whole burden of his exhortation. Without doubting the truth or the importance of this scheme of instruction, we must yet question whether all that human nature calls for, and all that the word of God supplies, will come within the compass of this. It is destitute of all the elements which are most powerful to move our moral nature. We can not barter for this the system which presents as the grand objects of religious thought, the attributes, the character, the government of God. We can not barter for this, the boundless love and tenderness of our divine Redeemer, and the reclaiming and renewing grace of the Holy One-love and grace which are able to subdue more of human sinfulness than Dr. D. is able to be. lieve in.

Stili less can we accept the teaching which declares, that "brotherly love and hope and faith derive from the circumstances of the early age, a prominence and peculiarity which ought since to have passed away;" which instead of enforcing with all emphasis the earnest study of the heavenly word, tells us that this "formal and forced perusal of obscure chapters with a sort of demure

reverence tends to throw dullness and doubt and obscurity over all our conceptions of religion;" which discourages all personal religious effort as calculated only to "distress and terrify" men, and as "planting in the mind the seeds of superstition which a whole life often is not sufficient to eradicate ;" and which quotes only to stigmatize as "odious and offensive freedoms of speech," the simple and modest expressions in which affection terms the Savior "dear" and Christ "precious."

We offer no comment in terms of pious horror upon these pregnant and promising statements; we utter no "sepulchral tones of awe and lamentation." They might check Dr. Dewey in the wholesome work to which he has put his hand; and we would have him by all means carry it on. Let him show how many Christian affections he can repudiate upon how much of Christian effort he can cast reproachupon how much of the language and the sentiment of the Bible he can pour contempt. It will be a salutary disclosure. When the popular mind shall come to understand, that Unitarianism esteems "brotherly love and hope and faith" as obsolete, that system will be itself far on the way to the oblivion to which it is destined. Let it proclaim the idea that while "the most abandoned of men only (!) make vice odious," parental faithfulness" makes virtue so;" and it will instantly be spurned as an outrage upon all that binds the parent to his offspring. Let it pronounce all ardent personal attachment to Christ, fanciful and visionary, and the humble and scriptural expression of it, "odious and offensive," and we can not for one moment doubt, that when all this is fully understood, whatever piety may exist among men, will pronounce its philosophy a melancholy delusion, and its Christianity a melancholy abandonment of all that is peculiar and all that is precious in the Gospel of our salvation.