FOR THE SABBATH RECORDER. MESSRS EDITORS;-It may be thought to be ill manners for 2 third person to put in his oar, where two others are engaged in a controversy. But to tell you the plain truth, I know not how to hold my peace, when I see the truth lie bleeding in the street, crippled and smothered almost to death with metaphysics. I long to speak, that I may be refreshed. If it is as you say, that God fixed and established, or decreed, all the actions and conduct of all men from the beginning to the end of their life, and then makes them eternally miserable for doing nothing but what He eternally intended they should do, I cannot see for my life but that it would make him out to be the wickedest being in the universe, two fold worse than the devil himself, for the devil never had it in his power to do anything half so bad as that. The devil may wish all mankind in hell, but he cannot send them there; he can tempt men to be wicked, but he cannot make them so. But, according to your doctrine, God makes men wicked and then puts them to death, and sends them to hell for being so. I suppose you would not be willing to say it in just so many words, but it does not alter the case any to go in a long round about catalogue of metaphysical arguments, about moral ability and moral necessity. Facts are stubborn things, and if it is a fact that God from all eternity foreordained cr decreed whatsoever comes to pass, then it is another fact, that whatsoever comes to pass is right, or else God did wrong in decreeing it. This is plain logic and cannot in truth be denied. If God from all eternity decreed that Professor Webster should kill Parkman, as we hear he did, then it is another fact that he did the will of God in doing it, and did no wrong, unless God did wrong in decreeing it. These are plain and simple facts; and it is one of the most astonishing things in creation that men of common sense can be made to believe such a doctrine. Why I think I could much sooner be an atheist and conclude there is no God, than I could believe such a doctrine as that. But then, after all, if God from all eternity decreed that brother Brown should believe such a doctrine, I certainly ought not to blame him for it; for surely under such circumstances he could not help it. And I do not believe that any man is to blame for doing or believing what he could not avoid. So I calculate to love and esteem brother B. still, although I believe him to be in a most monstrous error in that particular; but it is a maxim with seventh day Baptists not to reject a brother merely for what he thinks-especially if he could not avoid thinking so, being forced into it by a kind of moral necessity, that is, if I understand it, the irresistible power of his own choice. For it is impossible for a man at one and the same time to choose directly contrary to his own choice; although I do not say he could not alter his choice after a few moments of reflec tion. A wise man doubteth often and changes his mind, but the fool is obstinate and changeth not. If you should lay down a half dollar piece and a fifteen dollar piece of gold, and tell me I might have my choice of the two, we all know it would be natural for me to choose the fifteen dollars; and this I suppose is what you call moral necessity, for if I rightly understood the matter, you thought it was impossible for me to choose the half dollar, on account of my predominant disposition. But let me tell you if I, like a wise man, upon mature reflection, discover that taking the fifteen dollars would lead to ruinous consequences, the predominant disposition you tell of would soon give way, and I should take the half dollar, if either. But again, if from all eternity God decreed that I should write to you just such an article as this, word for word, you certainly ought not to blame me, or love me any the less for doing it, because in that case I could not avoid it, unless I was stronger than He, and had power to make void his decrees, and thus destroy his omnicience. I reckon that plain dealing is as good as any. In yours, to bro. Hull's insinuation that your argument was more specious than solid, you ask the following question: Can an unregenerated man keep the law of God?" You then say, read Rom. 8: 7, and then answer. do not know how brother H. would answer that question, but I do not hesitate to answer it in the affirmative, if he has natural ability enough to do it, which you own that he has. Perhaps you will say as some others have said: "I admit that he could if he would, but he could not would." I answer, if he cannot will, he is not a free agent and is not to blame that he does not will, for I insist upon it that no man is to blame for not doing what he could not do. This is a truth so plain and simple that every child that runs in the street knows it to be so; whether you apply it to will or to the deed makes no odds. By your reference to Rom. 8: 7 I did not know m but you thought that a regenerated man never more possesses a carnal mind. But I should have thought that your own experience had taught you a very different lesson from that, long before now. And I guess Paul thought they did, when he said to his own dear brethren, ye are yet carnal; and again are ye not carnal and walk as men? Or did you think the carnal mind in a regenerated man was not opposed to the law of God? Now I should think the carnal mind in a believer, so far as he possesses it, is no more subject to the law of God than it is in the unregenerated; in short I see not how that passage helps your cause at all. But, once more. In your article on truth and error you say; "the Bible does not impose the Calvinistic system on one man, and the Arminian system cn another." But if God decreed whatsoever comes to pass, as you say he did, then he certainly intended that one man should be a Calvinist and another should be an Arminian; for that you see has already come to pass. And don't you think, seeing it is so, that is a pity that the Bible has not told so? I say he intended it should be so, or else he intended that some things should come to pass that he had not decreed; and if he intended that some things should come to pass that he had not decreed, then your doctrine that all things were decreed is false, and is down as flat as a flounder. But you say he could not foreknow it if it was not first decreed, and what you will do about that I do not know. WM. STILLMAN. Now only behold what confusion you make, |