THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN, AND TRACTS ON FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. New-York: PRINTED AND SOLD BY J. & J. HARPER, NO. 327 PEARL-STREET. 1827. 911-26-1923 CONTENTS OF VOLUME IX. I. A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Conyers Middleton, occasion- ed by his late “ Free Inquiry” II. A Letter to Dr. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, oc- casioned by his Tract" On the Office and Operations III. A Letter to a Person lately joined with the People call- ed Quakers, in answer to a Letter written by him IV. An Extract of a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Law, occa- sioned by some of his Writings V. A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Toogood, of Exeter; occa PAGE SECT. 2. The Present State of Mankind investigated 178 PART II. SECT. 1. The Scriptural Method of account- ing for the total Degeneracy of the Human Race 200 SECT. 2. The Scriptures examined which support the An Answer to Question 1, "Is Man, in his present cir- cumstances, such a Creature as he came out of the Question 2, "How came Vice and Misery to overspread Mankind in all Nations and Ages ?” SECT. 2. A particular View of the Miseries of Man 313 PART VII. Extract from Mr. Boston's Four-fold State VIII. Predestination calmly considered XII. Serious Thoughts upon the Perseverance of the Saints 439 1. IN your late Inquiry, you endeavour to prove, first, That there were no miracles wrought in the primitive church; secondly, That all the primitive Fathers were fools or knaves, and most of them both one and the other. And it is easy to observe, the whole tenor of your argument tends to prove, thirdly, That no miracles were wrought by Christ or his apostles; and, fourthly, That those too were fools or knaves, or both. 2. I am not agreed with you on any of these heads. My reasons I shall lay before you, in as free a manner (though not in so smooth or laboured language) as you have laid yours before the world. 3. But I have neither inclination nor leisure to follow you step by step through three hundred and seventy-three quarto pages. I shall therefore set aside all I find in your work which does not touch the merits of the cause and likewise contract the question itself to the three first centuries. For I have no more to do with the writers or miracles of the fourth, than with those of the fourteenth century. 4. You will naturally ask, 'Why do you stop there? What reason can you give for this? If you allow miracles before the empire became Christian, why not afterwards too? I answer, because, “After the empire became Christian," (they are your own words,) “a general corruption both of faith and morals infected the Christian church: which by that revolution, as St. Jerome says, 'lost as much of its virtue, as it had gained of wealth and power," (p. 123.) And this very reason St. Chrysostom himself gave in the words you have afterwards cited; There are some who ask, Why are not miracles performed still? Why are there no persons who raise the dead, and cure diseases? To which he replies, "That it was owing to the want of faith, and virtue, and piety in those times.' VOL. 9.-B |