4. That the impotency of sinners, with respect to believing in Christ, is not natural, but moral for it is a plain dictate of common sense that natural impossibility excludes all blame. But an unwilling mind is universally considered as a crime, and not as an excuse, and is the very thing wherein our wickedness consists. That the impotence of the sinner is owing to a disaffection of heart, is evident from the promises of the gospel. When any object of good is proposed and promised to us upon asking, it clearly evinces that there can be no impo tency in us with respect to obtaining it, beside the disapprobation of the will; and that inability which consists in disinclination, never renders any thing improperly the subject of precept or command. 5. That in order to faith in Christ, a sinner must approve in his heart of the divine conduct, even though God should cast him off for ever; which however neither implies love to misery, nor hatred of happiness.* For if the law is good, death is due to those who and firmly laid in the first principles of Calvinism. To support our theory we need no first principles, except those which Calvinists have adopted and improved against Pelagians and Arminians," See Spring's Moral Disquisitions, p. 40. The Hopkinsians, however, would wish to be considered as Calvinists, only because they suppose that the leading principles of that denomination are taught in scripture, and were believed by the first christians: and they suppose that, when the doctrines of grace were attacked by Pelagius, in the fifth century, the celebrated Augustine, bishop of Hippo, strenuously asserted the depravity of human nature since the fall of the first man, the necessity of a spiritual interposition of divine grace, to enable us to do any good action; and consequently, that none could obtain salvation, excepting those whom God has thought fit to elect, and upon whom he bestows his grace. The whole of the earliest reformers maintained these opinions of Augustine. They assumed under Luther a more regular and systematic form than they bad formerly exhibited : but, as the Lutherans afterwards abandoned them, they are now known by the name of Calvinistic doctrines. See Encyclopadia, vol. xv. p. 469. 1 As a particle of water is small, in comparison of a generous stream, so the man of humility feels small before the great family of his fellowcreatures. He values his soul; but when he compares it to the great soul of mankind, he almost forgets and loses sight of it: for the governing principle of his heart is to estimate things according to their worth. When, therefore, he indulges a humble comparison with his Maker, he feels lost in the infinite fulness and brightness of divine love, as a ray of light is lost in the sun, and a particle of water in the ocean. It inspires him with the most grateful feelings of heart, that he has opportunity to be in the hand of God as clay in the hand of the potter; and as he considers himself in this humble light, he submits the nature and size of his future vessel entirely to God. As his pride is lost in the dust, he looks up with pleasure towards the throne of God, and rejoices with all his heart in the rectitude of the divine administration. have broken it. The judge of all the earth cannot but do right. It would bring everlasting reproach upon his government to spare us, considered merely as in ourselves. When this is felt in our hearts, and not till then, we shall be prepared to look to the free grace of God, through the redemption which is in Christ, and to exercise faith in his blood, who is set forth to be a propitiation to declare God's righteousness, that he might be just, and yet be the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. 6. That the infinitely wise and holy God has exerted his omnipotent power, in such a manner as he purposed should be followed with the existence and entrance of moral evil in the system. For it must be admitted on all hands, that God has a perfect knowledge, foresight, and view of all possible existences and events. If that system and scene of operation, in which moral evil should never have existence, was actually preferred in the divine mind, certainly the Deity is infinitely disappointed in the issue of his own operations. Nothing can be more dishonourable to God than to imagine that the system which is actually formed by the divine hand, and which was made for his pleasure and glory, is yet not the fruit of wise contrivance and design. 7. That the introduction of sin is, upon the whole, for the general good. For the wisdom and power of the Deity are displayed in carrying on designs of the greatest good: and the existence of moral evil has, undoubtedly, occa sioned a more full, perfect, and glorious discovery of the infinite perfections of the divine nature, than could otherwise have been made to the view of creatures. If the extensive manifestations of the pure and holy nature of God, and his infinite aversion to sin, and all his inherent perfections, in their genuine fruits and effects, is either itself the greatest good, or necessarily contains it; it must necessarily follow, that the introduction of sin is for the greatest good. 8. That repentance is before faith in Christ.-By this is not intended that repentance is before a speculative belief of the being and perfections of God, and of the person and character of Christ; but only, that true repentance is previous to a saving faith in Christ, in which the believer is united to Christ, and entitled to the benefits of his mediation and atonement. That repentance is before faith in this sense, appears from several considerations. : (1.) As repentance and faith respect different objects, so they are distinct exercises of the heart; and therefore, one not only may, but must be prior to the other.-(2.) There may be genuine repentance of sin, without faith in Christ; but there cannot be true faith in Christ, without repentance of sin and since repentance is necessary in order to faith in Christ, it must necessarily be prior to faith in Christ. (3.) John the baptist, Christ, and his apostles, taught that repentance is before faith. John cried, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; intimating that true repentance was necessary in order to embrace the gospel of the kingdom. Christ commanded, Repent ye, and believe the gospel. And Paul preached repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. 9. That, though men became sinners by Adam, according to a divine constitution, yet they have, and are accountable for no sins but personal: for, (1.) Adam's act, in eating the forbidden fruit, was not the act of his posterity; therefore they did not sin at the same time he did. (2.) The sinfulness of that act could not be transferred to them afterwards; because the sinfulness of an act can no more be transferred from one person to another, than an act itself.-(3.) Therefore Adam's act, in eating the forbidden fruit, was not the cause, but only the occasion of his posterity's being sinners. God was pleased to make a constitution, that if Adam remained holy through his state of trial, his posterity should in consequence be holy also; but if he sinned, his posterity should in consequence be sinners likewise. Adam sinned, aud now God brings his posterity into the world sinners. By Adam's sin we are become sinners, not for it; his sin being only the occasion, not the cause of our committing sins. 10. That though believers are justified through Christ's righteousness, yet his righteousness is not transferred to them. For (1.) personal righteousness can no more be' transferred from one person to another, than personal sin. -(2.) If Christ's personal righteousness were transferred to believers, they would be as perfectly holy as Christ; and so stand in no need of forgiveness.-(3.) But believers are not conscious of havingChrist's personal righteousness; but feel and bewail much indwelling sin and corruption.--(4.) The scripture represents believers as receiving only the benefits of Christ's righteousness in justification, or their being pardoned and accepted for Christ's righteousness' sake: and this is the proper scripture notion of imputation. Jonathan's righteousness was imputed to Mephibosheth, when David shewed kindness to him for his father Jonathan's sake. The Hopkinsians warmly advocate the doctrine of the divine decrees, that of particular election, total depravity, the special influences of the Spirit of God in regeneration, justification by faith alone, the final perseverance of the saints, and the consistency between entire freedom and absolute dependence; and therefore claim it as their just duc, since the world will make distinctions, to be called Hopkinsian Calvinists.* HUSSITES, a denomination in Bohemia; so called from John Huss, one of their principal teachers, who about the year 1414 embraced and defended the opinions of Wickliff. See Wickliffites. HUTCHINSONIANS, so called from the late John Hutchinson, esq., who was born in 1674. This laborious writer was a layman of Yorkshire;` and being of a studious turn, assisted by a proper education, he made many valuable discoveries in the philosophy of nature, which he afterwards applied to theological disquisitions, and had the pleasure to find an exact conformity between those two great constituents of human knowledge. The number of those who embrace his opinions is considerable; but they have never formed themselves into any distinct church or society. It appears to be a leading sentiment of this denomination, that all our ideas of divinity are formed from the ideas in nature that nature is a standard-picture, and scripture an application of the several parts of that picture, to draw out to, as the great things of God, in order to reform our mental conceptions. To prove this point they allege, that the scriptures declare the invisible things of God from the formation of the world, are clearly seen; being *Hopkins on Holiness, pp. 7-202. Edwards on the Will, pp. 234289. Bellamy's True Religion Delineated. p. 16. Edwards on the Nature of True Virtue. Bellamy's Dialogues between Theron and Paulinus, p. 185. West's Essays on Moral Agency, pp. 170-181. Spring's Nature of Duty, p. 23. Moral Disquisitions, p. 40. Manuscript by Dr. Emmons. + Brandt's History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 18. This is the point which Mr. Henry Lee endeavours to prove in his Sophron, or Nature's Characteristics of the Truth. In a course of meditations on the scenes of Nature, he shews their analogy to what he supposes are scriptural truths. See also Jones's Lectures on the Figurative Language of Scripture, understood by the things which are made; even his eternal power and Godhead. (Rom. i. 20.) The heavens must declare God's righteousness and truth in the congregation of the saints. (psal. lxxxix. 5.) And in short the whole system of nature, in one voice of analogy, declares and gives us ideas of his glory, and shews us his handy work. We cannot have any ideas of invisible things, till they are pointed out to us by revelation: and as we cannot know them immediately, such as they are in themselves, after the manner in which we know sensible objects, they must be communicated to us by the mediation of such things as we already comprehend. For this reason the scripture is found to have a language of its own, which does not consist of words, but of signs or figures taken from visible things: in consequence of which the world which we now see becomes a sort of commentary on the mind of God, and explains the world in which we believe. The doctrines of the christian faith are attested by the whole natural world: they are recorded in a language which has never been confounded; they are written in a text which shall never be corrupted. The Hutchinsonians maintain, that the great mystery of the trinity is conveyed to our understandings by ideas of sense; and that the created substance of the air, or heaven, in its three-fold agency of fire, light, and spirit, is the enigma of the one essence, or one Jehovah in three persons. The unity of essence is exhibited by its unity of substance; the trinity of persons by its trinity of conditions, fire, light, and spirit. Thus the one substance of the air, or heaven, in its three conditions, shews the unity in trinity; and its three conditions, in, or of one substance, the trinity in unity. For (say this denomination) if we consult the writings of the old and new testament, we shall find the persons of the Deity represented under the names and characters of the three material agents, fire, light, and spirit; and their actions expressed by the ac tions of these their emblems. The Father is called a consuming fire; and his judicial proceedings are spoken of in words which denote the several actions of fire. Jehovah is a consuming fire-Our God is a consuming fire. (Deut. iv. 24. Heb. xii. 29.) The Son has the name of light; and his purifying actions and offi ces are described by words which denote the actions and offices of light. He is the true light, which lighteth every man |