morality as the highest ornament and strongest bulwark of society; whatever, therefore, diminishes the motives and weakens the obligations to morality, comes no less under the animadversion of the politician than of the divine: as it surely no less impairs the temporal than the spiritual interests of the community. There are a few points which go perpetually into the strain of preaching of certain gentlemen: and their scheme may be compared to a triangle, from which they never depart, and in which, if they step out of one angle, their next step is into another; the succeeding one, into the one from whence they started.

The want of variety might be compensated by force and expansion of talents, were their angular scheme laid, both as to its sides and angles, in the great field of truth.

Their scheme commences by teaching that the whole human race are guilty of the sin of Adam, independently of their own conduct, and for that sin are truly deserving of eternal punishment. We are apt to take our opinions on the credit of venerable names, and very many names deemed venerable, if weighed in the balance of unerring truth, would be found to have derived their importance from a long and industrious propagation of error. Probably no individual man yet had time, candour, patience, and resolution, to examine and substantiate, on proper evidence, the whole mass of his opinions. Few men proceed to any considerable length in this arduous work. They take their opinions, nay, their articles of faith, as they do the fashion of their garments, not upon a careful inquiry, whether they are the best, but upon the testimony of the tailor who makes them, that they are in the fashion.

The doctrine of original sin, as just stated, is thus received by its advocates. It has descended from the lumber and trash of the dark times of ignorance and superstition, mysticism and bigotry. The great reformers did nobly, but they did not do every thing. They merit the approbation of men, and met with divine acceptance for what they did, and are certainly to be excused for what they omitted, in their great work. I speak as though the reformers held the doctrine of original sin according to the tenor of the preceding statement. Some of them did, others did not; and the truth is, that a candid examination of the

sentiments of the fathers-of the most learned and judicious divines in Europe, before the reformation, and since, will show beyond all dispute, that the above statement of the doctrine of original sin has never been the general or prevailing opinion of the Christian church.

Yet you shall hear it inculcated from Sabbath to Sabbath in many of our churches, and swallowed down, as a sweet morsel, by many a gaping mouth, that a man ought to feel himself actually guilty of a sin committed six thousand years before he was born: nay, that, prior to all consideration of his own moral con. duct, he ought to feel himself deserving of eternal damnation for the first sin of Adam. I hesitate not to say, that no scheme of religion ever propagated amongst men, contains a more monstrous, a more horrible, tenet. The atrocity of this doctrine is beyond comparison. The visions of the Koran, the fictions of the Sadder, the fables of the Zendavesta all give place to this :-Rabinical legends, Brahminical vagaries, all vanish before it.

The idea, that all the numerous millions of Adam's posterity deserve the ineffable and endless torments of hell, for a single act of his, before any one of them existed, is repugnant to that reason which God has given us, is subversive of all possible conceptions of justice. No such doctrine is taught in the scriptures, or can impose itself on any rational mind, which is not trammelled by education, dazzled by interest, warped by prejudice, and bewildered by theory. This is one corner of the triangle above mentioned.

This doctrine perpetually urged, and the subsequent strain of teaching usually attached to it, will not fail to drive the incautious mind to secret and practical, or open infidelity. An attempt to force such monstrous absurdities on the human under. standing, will be followed by the worst effects. A man who finds himself condemned for that of which he is not guilty, will feel little regret for his real transgressions.

I shall not apply these remarks to the purpose I had in view, till I have considered some other points of a similar character ;-~or, if I may resort to the metaphor alluded to, till I have pointed out the other two angles of the triangle.

INVESTIGATOR.

No. II.

WHETHER it may be termed a disposition, or passion, or called by any other name, there is something in some men which may be denominated an humble pride. I fear, could it be analyzed, it would not be found to want any of the most virulent qualities of the true and old-fashioned pride, known in the world ever since the fall of man, and which, indeed, threw a morning star from heaven, before it inflamed man to rebellion. It seems to be the pride of the gentlemen alluded to in the preceding number, to plunge down human nature as low as possible. They are by no means satisfied with laying the whole human race under the ban of eternal damnation, for an act which was committed before any of them existed; they go much farther. And this brings me to the second angle of the true diagram of their scheme.

They teach, and strenuously insist, that all men labour under a true and physical incapacity to do any thing which God requires. To this total and universal inability they deny all figurative or metaphysical import, and contend that men are as truly, and in the same sense, unable to obey the law of God as they are to overturn the Andes, or drain the ocean. What do we hear next? They turn immediately round, and exhort their hearers, with great pathos, to do every thing which God requires, and denounce their disobedience as meriting eternal damnation. Nay, this inability and thraldom, in its whole extent, they carry back to the original fountain of their guilt and condemnation, and say that it was all done in Adam ;—that all the human race were made guilty, and were wholly incapacitated to do any good act, in their first father. Nevertheless, they go on with mighty eloquence to exhort them to do every duty,

Had I not already said that their notion of original sin contained the most monstrous error ever advanced in any scheme of religion, I should be tempted to say the same of this. But I will venture to say I think them both infinitely distant from the truth. But, says the advocate of these truly tremendous and detestable tenets, "This is Calvinism; and dare you dispute CAL

VIN?" To which I reply, If Calvin believed in these doctrines, which we deny, he must have derived his light therein, for aught I know, from the flames of SERVETUS; indeed, they more resemble the light of infernal than celestial fire.

This doctrine of man's inability is an insult to every man's unbiassed understanding-to the light of his conscience. It is contrary to the whole current of the sacred scriptures: and, in. deed, its warmest advocates are tempted to contradict themselves every moment; and when they preach best, this temptation is effectual; or, to say the least, their contradictions are seldom farther apart than the improvement from the sermon. Their preaching often reminds me of the mode of writing used by some ancient nations, which was from left to right, and from right to left, alternately crossing the page in opposite directions.

These gentlemen, however, might be laid off into different sections. Some of them, aware of the inconsistency, frankly own that wicked men are under no obligation to love or obey God: and thus, for the sake of theory and system, plunge still deeper in error. Others boldly deny all moral agency to mankind :others again contend that men are moral agents to do wrong, but not to do right; evincing still more ignorance of the philosophy of the human mind than of the word of God.

Is it wonderful that there should be so many Gallios in this city? That so many should with scornful smile turn from this monstrous jargon, and cry out, "Wretched mysticism!-Riddles!-contradictions!-What, was I rendered, by Adam's first act of sin, a criminal deserving endless torments? Was I, at the same time, totally incapacited to yield obedience to the Almighty Ruler? Was I bound had and foot six thousand years ago, and rocks of adamant laid on the seal of my eternal perdition? Impossible! The glorious volume of nature itself contradicts all this, and shows me a far different character of my Creator and Preserver."

INVESTIGATOR.

No. III.

WE come to the third and last great point of their system of theology, which makes out the triangle, from which, as I said, they do not depart. They tell you there is a remedy for a part of mankind; Christ has died for an elect number. They, and they only, enjoy an offer of salvation; and for them alone is provision made. On the contrary, they plumply deny that "Christ has tasted death for every man," they will by no means allow that "He is a propitiation for the sins of the whole world:" they abhor the idea of going "into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature." They would tell you, that if they could distinguish who the elect are, in their assemblies, they should preach the gospel only to them; they should tell them that Christ died only for them: but, as for the rest, they should preach nothing but the certainty of eternal damnation.

Nor does this, though it gives the lines of the triangle, display the worst features of their scheme. They go on to state, that even the elect are not bound to believe in the Saviour, or to love and obey him, till he has convinced them, in a supernatural way, that he died for them. Thus, to the grossest error in doctrine adding the basest selfishness in heart and practice. Nothing of fends them so deeply as the assertion, that the perfection and glory of the Saviour are the highest motives of love and obedience to him. Yet, as for the non-elect, they assure them that their condemnation will be vastly aggravated for rejecting salvation by Christ.

The whole of their doctrine, then, amounts to this, that a man is, in the first place, condemned, incapacitated, and eternally reprobated for the sin of Adam: in the next place, that he is condemned over again, for not doing that which he is totally, in all respects, unable to do; and, in the third place, that he is condemned, and doubly and trebly condemned, for not believing in a Saviour, who never died for him, and with whom he has no more to do than a fallen angel.