'i*t*!¥ti""i' 
 
HE SPARKS 
 
 LIBRARY. 
 
 [MISCELLANY.] 
 
 Colleeted by 
 
 JARED SPARKS, LL. D., 
 
 President of Harvard College. 
 
 Purchased by the Cornell University, 
 
 1872. 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92402931 5540 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BT701 .B96 
 
 Discourse on the rectitude of human natu 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 315 540 
 
DISCOURSES 
 
 RECTITUDE OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 GEORGE W.^BURNAP, D. D., 
 
 PASTOR OP THE FIRST INDEPENDENT CHURCH OF BALTIUORE. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS, 
 
 111 Washington Street. 
 
 1850. 
 
ORNE' 
 UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRAFIY .;' 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 
 
 Wm. Crosby and H. P. Nichols, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 METCALF AND COM FAN Yj 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following Discourses were delivered at 
 intervals, during a period extending over two 
 years and a half, in the ordinary course of pul- 
 pit instruction. Half of them were written 
 before any idea occurred to the author of pub- 
 lishing them in a volume. The matter was 
 then distributed with reference to a systematic 
 and comprehensive treatment of the whole sub- 
 ject. The author makes this statement in- 
 order to explain what he is aware will be open 
 to criticism, the repetition of the same argu- 
 ments and illustrations, and what may seem to 
 some the prolixity of the book. 
 
 In revising the Discourses for publication, 
 the author found it impossible to mutUate 
 them to that extent which would have been 
 necessary to avoid the charge of repetition, 
 without essentially disturbing their logical 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 structure. He concluded, therefore, to publish 
 them just as they were delivered. 
 
 The size of the book must find its excuse in 
 the importance of the subject. It underlies 
 all theology, it enters into all preaching. It 
 modifies all Christian enterprise. It makes 
 the basis of every system of religious educa- 
 tion. It determines the type of all piety, it 
 colors all our views of life. It has an im- 
 portant influence on the temper. -It has occu- 
 pied a large space in all theological specula- 
 tion since the days of the Apostles. To have 
 settled any thing conclusively and for ever, the 
 author does not pretend. He merely offers to 
 the Christian public twenty-four distinct ar- 
 guments for the rectitude of human nature. 
 To him they seem to have weight. The views 
 to which they lead seem to him more honora- 
 ble to God, and more hopeful and encouraging 
 to man, than those in which a majority of the 
 Christian world has hitherto acquiesced. 
 
 The author believes that the time has come 
 when the popular theology ought to receive a 
 thorough revision. Theology is altogether be- 
 hind the other sciences. The modes of reason- 
 ing which prevail upon it are such as would 
 be wholly unsatisfactory in any other branch 
 of knowledge. The candid inquirer encoun- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ters at once so much prejudice, obloquy, and 
 denunciation, that he gives over in despair. 
 The attempt has been made by the thinkers of 
 ages past to stereotype their own crude and 
 imperfect speculations for all time to come, 
 and to perpetuate to all ages views of nature, of 
 man, and of the Scriptures, which were formed 
 when metaphysics, ethics, and Biblical criticism 
 were in their infancy. 
 
 Theology will be the last thing to partake 
 of the progress of the age. But its time must 
 come. The doctrines which are thought to be 
 taught in the Bible must be examined anew. 
 It is better that this examination should be 
 made by its friends than its enemies. Justice 
 to the Bible requires that it should be vindi- 
 cated from teaching doctrines not contained in 
 it, and which are as contrary to its general 
 spirit as they are to reason and the moral sen- 
 timents of mankind. 
 
 Baltimore, April, 1850. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 PACE 
 THE DOCTRINE CONCERNING ADMAN NATURE A FUNDAMENTAIi 
 
 DOCTRINE 1 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 HUMAN NATURE RIGHTLY CONSTLTUTED .... 23 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 THE LANGUAGE Of' PAUL CONCERNING HUMAN NATURE . 40 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE RECTITUDE OF HUMAN NATURE DERIVED 
 
 FROM THE STRUCTURE OF UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE . . 57 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE IN MAN 75 
 
via CONTENTS. 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 GOODNESS, AND NOT VICE, IS THE ELEMENT CONGENIAL TO 
 
 HUMAN NATURE 
 
 NATURAL RELIGION 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 91 
 
 108 
 
 DISCOURSE VIII. 
 
 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL MANKIND .... 125 
 
 DISCOURSE IX. 
 
 Christ's language concerning children . . . 140 
 
 DISCOURSE X. 
 
 EXPLANATION OF THE PHRASE, " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF 
 
 WRATH " 156 
 
 DISCOURSE XI. 
 
 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED . . . 174 
 
 DISCOURSE XII. 
 
 man's MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS ARE RECOGNIZED 
 BY THE SCRIPTURES AS A PART OF GOD's LAW, COORDI- 
 NATE WITH THEMSELVES 192 
 
 DISCOURSE XIII. 
 
 EXPLANATION OF THE PHRASE, " THE NATURAL MAN " . 210 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 DISCOURSE XIV. 
 
 THE AFFECTIONS OF MAN AEE NATURAiLY EIGHT, AND LEAD 
 
 HIM TO DUTY 227 
 
 DISCOURSE XV. 
 
 THE SPIRIT 'WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK .... 244 
 
 DISCOURSE XVI. 
 
 THE RELATION OF ADAM AND CHRIST TO THE HUMAN RACE 262 
 
 DISCOURSE XVII. 
 
 SALVATION BY CHRIST 279 
 
 DISCOURSE XVIII. 
 
 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION 297 
 
 DISCOURSE XIX. 
 
 WHAT *IS IMPLIED IN THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHIL- 
 DREN 315 
 
 DISCOURSE XX. 
 
 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM .... 333 
 
 DISCOURSE XXI. 
 
 CAUSES OF HUMAN SINFULNESS 351 
 
X CONtENTS. 
 
 DISCOURSE XXII. 
 
 SIN NOT HEREDITARY 369 
 
 DISCOURSE XXIII. 
 
 NATURAL REMEDIES OP SIN 386 
 
 DISCOURSE XXIV. 
 
 THE ADAPTATIQN OF THE GOSPEL TO MAN AS A SINNER , 398 
 
DISCOURSES. 
 
DISCOURSE I. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE CONCERNING HUMAN NATURE A 
 FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE. • 
 
 AND GOD SAW EVERY THING THAT HE HAD MADE, AND, BEHOLD, IT 
 
 WAS VERY GOOD. — Gen. i. 31. 
 
 There is a noble simplicity in this concluding verse 
 of the first chapter of Genesis. It is a foundation-stone 
 of theology and religion, and it is exceeded in impor- 
 tance only by the first verse of the same chapter : — "In 
 the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." 
 The first verse asserts that God is the Creator of all 
 things ; the last, that all his works are good, and he, of 
 course, as manifested in his works, is clothed with every 
 possible perfection. 
 
 At the head of God's works stands man, to whom' 
 they are all subordinated, and to whom they are made 
 subservient. Man, then, is the highest manifestation of 
 God's perfections, and his structure must exhibit the 
 highest proof of God's wisdom and goodness. Our 
 affections towards God must depend upon our concep-- 
 tions of his attributes. We feel ourselves bound to 
 adore and venerate infinite perfection. The tie whiclu 
 binds all human hearts to God is Religion. The con- 
 1 
 
2 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 ceptions which men actually form, and the opinions they 
 cherish, concerning God, are the real Theology which 
 prevails in the world. 
 
 I do not assert too much, then, when I say, that the 
 doctrine which is taught concerning human nature is 
 fundamental to Theology and Religion. God is made 
 known to us through his works, and it is impossihle for 
 us to believe that he is good, while his works are 
 evil, however positively we may assert his goodness in 
 our creeds. Our opinion concerning man's nature must 
 affect our conceptions concerning God, and thus modify 
 our Theology. Our conceptions concerning God must 
 influence our feelings towards him, and thus affect our 
 Religion. 
 
 It is the doctrine of a portion of the Christian Church, 
 that human nature is essentially evil. It is the object 
 of the series of discourses to which this is introductory, 
 to show that human nature, being a part of God's 
 creation, and his noblest work, is good ; that it be- 
 comes evil only when perverted ; that "God hath 
 made man upright," — or, as it is in the Hebrew, 
 right, — "but they have sought out many inventions." 
 It is my purpose to maintain the rectitude of 
 
 HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 It is admitted by those whose opinions I oppose, 
 that such was the condition of human nature previous 
 to the Fall. They say, that, after God had made all 
 other creatures, " he created man, male and female, 
 with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowl- 
 edge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own 
 image, having the law of God written in their hearts, 
 and power to fulfil it, and yet under a possibility of 
 transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, 
 which was subject unto change." 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 But it is further said, that " our first parents, being 
 seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned 
 in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was 
 pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to 
 permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory. 
 By this sin they fell from their original righteousness 
 and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, 
 wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and 
 body. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of 
 this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and 
 corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity, de- 
 scending from them by ordinary generation." 
 
 " From this original corruption, whereby we are 
 utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all 
 good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all 
 actual transgressions. This corruption of nature during 
 this life doth remain in those that are regenerated ; and 
 although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, 
 yet both itself and all the motions thereof are truly and 
 properly sin." 
 
 " Every sin, both original and actual, being a trans- 
 gression of the righteous law of God, and contrary 
 thereto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the 
 sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God 
 and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, 
 with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal." 
 
 Such is the language of the Westminster Confession 
 Such is the doctrine inculcated in a large majority of 
 Christian churches. 
 
 It asserts, that by transgression Adam and Eve 
 changed the type of their own nature. In this they 
 were an exception to all the rest of God's works. Not 
 only did he create his other works goocj, but made 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 provision that they should continue good, for he made 
 them each to produce " after his kind," that is, he fixed 
 the type of every species of plant and animal, so that 
 it should never change. The offspring of a pear-tree 
 was to be a pear-tree, and the offspring of an apple-tree 
 an apple-tree, to the end of the world. The offspring 
 of two lions was to be a lion, and the offspring of two 
 leopards was to be a leopard. He took especial care 
 that the type of each race should not be cornipted or 
 vitiated, by making the crosses between them incapable 
 of reproduction. 
 
 So have we every reason to believe that it was so 
 with man, — that the type of human nature was fixed at 
 the beginning. It is not a general law that man shall 
 have the power to change the type of his nature, so as 
 to transmit a different nature to his posterity from that 
 which he himself received. All the power a man has 
 is over his character. He has none over his nature. 
 The offspring of two of the most perfect saints that the 
 earth contains has nothing but a human nature, is subject 
 to temptation and trial, to sin and perditiorr. And the 
 offspring of two of the most profligate of human beings 
 has no other than human nature, and under proper training 
 may be prepared for the kingdom of God ; nay, if we 
 are to believe our Saviour, is already in it. 
 
 It is ahogether improbable that Adam and Eve had 
 any such power over the type of human nature. The 
 Scripture says nothing about it, and it is in my opinion 
 a pure fiction of the human imagination. This I shall 
 attempt to show in the following Discourses. 
 
 But, supposing that he had such a power, and exer- 
 cised it, that fact is fundamental to Theology, inasmuch 
 as it wholiji destroys the moral character of God, and 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 indelibly tarnishes the splendor of the Divine perfections. 
 As it is not a power generally possessed, it must have 
 been bestowed on Adam and Eve by miracle, by spe- 
 cial interposition and arrangement. So, after all, it 
 was God, not Adam and Eve, who changed the type of 
 human nature. It is said that Satan tempted him. 
 But Satan could have no more power than God chose 
 to give him. 
 
 What was the consequence of this arrangement, 
 wholly voluntary — indeed special and exceptional — on 
 the part of the Deity ? I quote the words of the West- 
 minster Confession : — " By this sin they fell from their 
 original righteousness and communion with God, and so 
 became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties 
 and parts of soul and body. They being the root of all 
 mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same 
 death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their 
 posterity by ordinary generation. This corruption of 
 nature is, both in itself and in all the motions thereof, 
 truly and properly sin. Every sin, both original and 
 actual, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the 
 sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God 
 and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, 
 with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal." 
 
 What is the meaning of all this .' It is, that the mere 
 inheritance of this corrupted nature is punished by God 
 as a sin, on the posterity of Adam and Eve ; and, 
 without having done any thing, either good or evil, 
 subjects them to " miseries, temporal, spiritual, and 
 eternal." Who has ever fathomed the thought of 
 eternal misery, — a duration of suffering which, though 
 it shall have lasted as many ages as there are sands in 
 the body of earth, will be but begun, and moreover be 
 1* 
 
b INTRODUCTOEY. 
 
 accompanied with the consciousness that it is utterly 
 hopeless of any end ! From this doom, according to 
 the system of theology of which this doctrine makes a 
 part, but very few of the myriads of the human race are 
 exempted. To what actual purpose, then, serves this 
 earth ? Mainly to produce and prepare immortal souls 
 for the black prison-house and the quenchless fires of 
 hell! 
 
 To say that the creation of this world under these 
 circumstances was a failure, is language altogether too 
 mild, if such was the foreseen result. It was an infinite 
 crime, stupendous enough to appall the universe. If it 
 be so, then all Theology is at an end, if the basis of 
 Theology is a perfect Deity. We have no God, but 
 in his place — what shall I say .' My pen refuses to 
 express my thought. 
 
 The doctrine of the total, constitutional corruption of 
 human nature is as subversive of Religion as it is of 
 Theology. Religion depends upon Theology. The 
 very definition of Religion is that which binds. There 
 is no tie by which the human heart can be bound to a 
 Being destitute of moral perfections. The human heart 
 is so constructed, that it cannot love that which is not 
 amiable. It cannot respect that which is not venerable. 
 It cannot forbear to detest injustice. It cannot cease to 
 abhor cruelty. There is this strong testimony, at least, 
 to its natural integrity. The first rehgious duty is, 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." The 
 obligation to obey this commandment does not rest on 
 mere authority, on power to require and to enforce 
 obedience. We cannot sincerely worship that which 
 our own nature compels us to detest. We may pay 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 such a Being an outward homage, under the constraint 
 of fear, but it will be mere hypocrisy. Our hearts will 
 not be in it. This very fact proves the intrinsic integrity 
 of our natures. If it could be demonstrated that God 
 was an Infinite Tyrant, with our present moral constitu- 
 tion we should be for ever absolved from all allegiance to 
 his throne. It is not that God is infinitely great which 
 constitutes our obligation to venerate him, but that he is 
 infinitely good, and " his tender mercies are over all his 
 works." 
 
 The doctrine of the constitutional corruption of human 
 nature is calculated to work serious injury to the piety of 
 those who honestly entertain it ; and I have no doubt that 
 it is the real cause, in a great measure, of the cold, 
 mechanical, and metaphysical prayers to which we so 
 often listen from the lips of those who entertain these 
 sentiments, and still profess to believe that God is good, 
 and elaborate the most extravagant phrases of laudation 
 in their devotions. But they cannot hinder one dark 
 thought from spreading a pall over the universe, and 
 clouding the benignity of the Infinite Father, — that, in 
 this world and the next, evil predominates. Mankind, 
 by the very elements of their nature, belong to Satan, 
 and not to God. With this conviction in the mind, it 
 cannot be otherwise than that the universe should seem 
 to be written all over, like the prophet's roll, with lam- 
 entation, and mourning, and woe. It is no answer to this 
 objection to the Divine goodness to say, that mankind, 
 meaning Adam and Eve, brought this evil upon themselves 
 and their posterity. It cannot but occur to the mind, that, 
 after the Fall, the first pair were no longer fit progenitors 
 of the human race. There was no necessity of their 
 being made so. He who made them could, with infinite 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 ease, have substituted another pair in their place. Wise 
 men do not breed animals from a vicious stock. Men 
 do not use machinery after it has become so impaired 
 that it produces a bad article of manufacture. It would 
 be cruelty to propagate a species of animals which were 
 defective in their organization, and in consequence were 
 subjected to perpetual pain and misery. Better that a 
 thousand successive pairs should have been annihilated, 
 than that one of them should have been suffered to pro- 
 duce a race so defective in their structure as to be in- 
 capable of virtue and holiness, and only capable of sin 
 and suffering, and, in consequence, destined to people 
 to eternity the gloomy abodes of hell ! 
 
 Quite as decisive, in my judgment, is the influence of 
 the doctrine of the constitutional corruption of human 
 nature upon the other main branch of religious duty, — 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," — the duty 
 of benevolent feeling and beneficent action towards our 
 fellow-men. The possibility of performing this duty 
 aright will depend, in no small degree, on our opinion 
 of human nature itself. It makes the greatest difference 
 in our feelings towards any individual, whether we 
 believe him to be thoroughly malignant, or only occa- 
 sionally weak, — whether we suppose his prevailing dis- 
 position to be good, and only accidentally led astray, or 
 suppose him to do wrong by settled purpose and deliber- 
 ate design. The emotion excited by one is pity ; the 
 feeling created by the other is simple indignation. Pity 
 and indignation lead to very different courses of conduct. 
 If mankind are essentially bad and malignant, then they 
 are restrained within those bounds of decency and 
 morality which they now observe solely by fear, the 
 lowest of all motives which lead to good. But if their 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 prevailing disposition is towards kindness, justice, truth, 
 and temperance, then they transgress this general law 
 only when they are overcome by passion and appetite, 
 and are objects of commiseration as well as displeasure. 
 That this last is the case, and that the prevailing disposition 
 is to do right, is proved by the fact, that all evil acts are 
 felt by the person who is guilty of them to be aberrations, 
 that is, departures from that way which his own nature, 
 as a whole, points out ; and are afterwards looked upon 
 with sincere regret. It is unjust to consider the sin only 
 as the indication of nature, and leave out of the account 
 the regret which succeeds. 
 
 That the doctrine of the total constitutional corruption 
 of the nature of man tends to make men harsh, severe, 
 and inexorable to each other, is proved, I think, by 
 what has been seen in the movement that has lately 
 taken place for the relief and improvement of criminals. 
 That movement has risen mainly from the different view 
 which has of late been taken of criminals themselves. 
 The abhorrence which was once felt for them, the 
 neglect with which they were treated, and the despair 
 that was felt concerning them, were based upon the 
 assumption, that human nature in their case was intrin- 
 sically bad, and therefore incorrigible. The case was 
 considered hopeless. All that was to be done, then, 
 was to punish them as a terror to others, and to restrain 
 them from injuring society. 
 
 But of late, another feeling has sprung up. Societies 
 have been formed for the reformation of prisoners, and 
 for their restoration to virtue and to society. On what 
 conviction were those societies founded ? On the con- 
 viction, that in them human nature was not fairly acted 
 out, but perverted. Sin is a transgression of the law. 
 
1 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Independently of revelation, man is a law to himself ; 
 that is, human nature is a law to itself. Human nature, 
 then, must be, on the whole, good, if it constitutes 
 a law which it is sin to violate. It is felt that sin is a 
 disordered action, not the normal action of the human 
 system taken as a whole. If it did not transgress 
 some law in the nature of man, it would not be sin. 
 If it were in accordance with human nature, as a 
 whole, it would be no transgression. Sin is felt to be 
 disease ; and not only so, it is not an organic, it is only 
 afunctional derangement. If it were organic, it would 
 have been incurable. As it appears in the worst of 
 men, it is usually the exception, and not the rule, of their 
 conduct. Many of those who are suffering the hard, 
 yet necessary, retribution of the laws, were faithful and 
 praiseworthy in many of the relations of life. In a 
 majority of the acts of their lives, they were good sons, 
 good brothers, fathers, neighbours, and friends. But in 
 some unfortunate hour they were overcome by tempta- 
 tion, and did that, in one unguarded moment, perhaps, 
 which cost them the punishment of years. All mankind 
 have sinned, and the difference between one and another 
 is only in degree. 
 
 Attempts are made to reform and reclaim such. But 
 what is the nature of those attempts ? Means are adopted 
 to awaken conscience. But this would be vain, if there 
 were no such thing in them as conscience. Endeavours 
 are made to convince them that they have done wrong. 
 But this would be useless, unless there were within 
 them a sense of right and justice, which no wrong-doing 
 can extinguish. Efforts are made to rekindle their 
 good affections, and to direct them to their proper 
 objects. But this would be absurd, if they had no good 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 
 
 aifections. Religious services are established among 
 them, to call into action their devotional feelings. But 
 this would be all superfluous, were there no devotional 
 feelings within them, or no capacity for devotion to be 
 called into exercise. In short, the whole discipline is 
 directed to call forth and strengthen what is good in 
 them, and to enable it to struggle with the evil and 
 overcome it. All these enterprises are flat contradic- 
 tions to the common hypothesis of the constitutional 
 corruption of human nature. They proceed, and are 
 based upon, precisely the opposite view of things, — that 
 a bad man is human nature perverted, instead of human 
 nature developed. They show, too, that the dogma of 
 total native depravity chills all philanthropy, hardens our 
 hearts towards our fellow-beings, paralyzes all effort to 
 reclaim the erring, and renders us less disposed to obey 
 the requisitions of the second table of human duty, 
 summarily comprehended in the commandment, " Thou 
 shalt love ihy peighbour as thyself." 
 
 The doctrine concerning human nature is fundamental 
 to Theology, because it determines the capacity of the 
 human mind for discovering and ascertaining the truth, 
 in Theology as well as other subjects. It settles the 
 value and reliableness of religious faith. In the applica- 
 tion of mathematical science to physics and the arts of 
 life, every thing depends on the accuracy of the instru- 
 ments. If the mariner were to sail by a needle which 
 varied two or three points from the magnetic pole, his 
 course would soon be so far wrong, and his reckoning 
 so false, that he would be dashed on the rocks, or 
 buried in the sands. If an astronomer were to use a 
 telescope whose lenses were warped and untrue, he 
 would see the planets wholly distorted and out of place. 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 So, if human nature is, as it is said to be, in ruins, and 
 all its faculties disordered and impaired, it has become 
 an instrument wholly incapable of ascertaining truth. 
 All foundation for reliance on our own judgment is de- 
 stroyed, and the only rational position which the human 
 mind can take is that of universal doubt, suspense, and 
 skepticism. We cannot be certain even that we are 
 wrong ; for the knowledge that we are wrong pre- 
 supposes the knowledge of what is right. 
 
 Confidence in the rectitude and reliableness of the 
 human faculties is the only ground of confidence in 
 any thing. I am bound to reverence and love God, 
 because he is good. But how am I to know that he is 
 good .'' I must either learn it by the exercise of my 
 own faculties, or I must believe it on the assertion of 
 some other person. If my taste is deranged, I cannot 
 discern what is bitter and what is sweet. If my nature 
 is in ruins, and my moral faculties are so wrecked that I 
 cannot distinguish what is good and what is evil, then 
 my conviction that God is good has no certainty, and is 
 nothing worth. And if I am incapable of arriving at 
 truth by my own powers, I am certainly much more 
 incapable of arriving at it through others ; for this 
 process involves another and still more difficult exercise 
 of the judgment, — whether the person is reliable through 
 whom I derive the information. 
 
 The doctrine which is taught concerning human na- 
 ture is fundamental to Christiatiity as a remedial sys- 
 tem. Christianity, by the admission of all, is a remedy 
 for human sinfulness. Christ came to seek and to save 
 that which was lost. Lost, — in what sense ? If man- 
 kind are lost in the sense of having a corrupt nature, 
 derived from Adam, the mission of Christ did not meet 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 the case. He came too late. He should have come 
 immediately after the Fall, and restored the nature of 
 Adam to the state in which it was before the Fall. But 
 the Fall of man went on producing its disastrous effects 
 for four thousand years. Men were as much lost as if 
 no Saviour had been provided. They were born, 
 sinned, and suffered, and then went to eternal per- 
 dition. 
 
 And when be came, he did not come prepared to 
 remedy the evils of the Fall. The difficulty was in 
 man's iiature. That required to be restored to its 
 primitive rectitude. Christ must have come with a 
 power, not only to instruct and to discipline, but to 
 change, human nature. Indeed, all his teachings would 
 have been in vain, until this preliminary process were 
 gone through. He must not only have furnished light 
 to those who sat in darkness, but must have restored to 
 them the faculty of sight itself. He must not only have 
 exhibited truth, but have conferred the power to discern 
 and appreciate it. Christ came endowed with miracu- 
 lous power, but we never hear of his using it in that 
 direction. It would have been no greater exercise of 
 supernatural power to change human nature, than to still 
 the storm, and raise the dead. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive why the Saviour should have 
 been endowed with the power of working miracles in 
 attestation of his doctrine, if man, in his natural state, 
 were incapable of receiving and being profited by his- 
 doctrine. His miracles were all wrought in vain, until: 
 he had performed the preliminary miracle of changing 
 human nature itself ; and if that miracle had been- 
 wrought, the others would have been rendered un- 
 necessary. But that no such radical, constitutional 
 2 
 
14 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 change took place in those who were brought in the 
 fullest measure under the influence of Christ and his 
 religion, is shown by the fact, that the children of the 
 most perfect Christian parents exhibit human nature, 
 not as it is supposed to have been before the Fall, but 
 as it has been known to be since. It is a universal law, 
 that like shall produce like, parents beget children in 
 their own image. The fact, that the children of the 
 most sanctified Christian parents do not differ from 
 ordinary humanity, is sufficient demonstration, that 
 Christ and Christianity produce no change in human 
 nature, no alteration of its elementary type, no such 
 restoration of its constitutional structure to its primitive 
 integrity, as is supposed in the common hypothesis of 
 the fall of human nature in Adam, and its restoration in 
 Christ. 
 
 The doctrine of the constitutional corruption of 
 human nature is fundamental to Christianity, as it ne- 
 cessitates the teaching of other doctrines in connection 
 with Christianity, which are wholly subversive of the 
 Divine perfections. He who teaches that man by 
 nature is " disinclined, disabled, and made opposite to 
 all that is good," must, if he teaches that any part of 
 mankind are to be saved, preach the doctrine of arbi- 
 trary election and reprobation. When a Saviour is 
 provided, there is no power to embrace him, unless it is 
 supernaturally conferred. Only a part of mankind do 
 embrace him, and the reason why they do so is, that 
 power is specially conferred on them to exercise faith, 
 repentance, and obedience, while it is withheld from the 
 rest of those to whom the Gospel is preached. Ac- 
 cordingly, that symbol of faith from which I have 
 already quoted declares, — " By the decree of God, for 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are 
 predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore- 
 ordained to everlasting death." " As God hath appointed 
 the elect to glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most 
 free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means 
 thereunto. Wherefore, they who are fallen in Adam 
 are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith 
 in Christ by his Spirit working in due season, are 
 justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power 
 through faith unto salvation. Neither are any others 
 redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopt- 
 ed, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. The rest 
 of mankind, God was pleased, according to the un- 
 searchable counsel of his own will, whereby he ex- 
 tendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the 
 glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass 
 by and ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sins, 
 to the praise of his glorious justice." 
 
 It is to be noted, that it is not pretended that there is 
 any reason, in man, why a portion should be saved and 
 not the rest, and as entire an absence of reason why all 
 should not be. The contingency of the human will is 
 made to be no impediment in either case. It is ex- 
 pressly said, in the same symbol, that it is " out of 
 God's free grace and love, without any foresight of 
 faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, 
 or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or 
 causes, moving him thereunto." A Being, who, " for 
 the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures," 
 can pass by and ordain a part of them, by mere 
 arbitrary will, to dishonor and wrath, for original sin, 
 that is, a sin which they never committed, can never be 
 preached as our heavenly Father, for no human father 
 
16 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 can be conceived of as so diabolical as to make su^h a 
 distinction among his children. 
 
 Besides, it makes the offers of the Gospel, as far as 
 the non-elect are concerned, insincere and deceptive. 
 God, through Christ, ostensibly offers salvation to all, 
 but he withholds the power to comply with the terms of 
 salvation from the great majority. Preaching is a nullity, 
 unless God chooses to carry on a simultaneous and par- 
 allel process in the heart of the hearer, — a process which 
 the hearer can neither accelerate nor retard, — by which 
 his nature is changed and prepared to receive and profit 
 by the preached word. Christ said, — " Come unto 
 me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give 
 you rest." But that invitation meant nothing to those 
 whom God, from all eternity, predestinated to everlasting 
 death, and from whom he withheld the influences of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 The doctrine concerning human nature is fundamental 
 to Theology, inasmuch as it determines our views of the 
 nature of sin. The Bible defines sin to be "a transr 
 gression of the law." The system of doctrines of 
 which original sin is the foundation adds to this defini- 
 tion, and says, that " sin is any leant of conformity; 
 unto, or any transgression of, the law of God." This 
 seems to be added and brought in to cover the case of 
 merely possessing a nature that is liable to sin. But 
 this conforms neither to reason nor justice. The mere 
 possession of the worst possible nature cannot be sin, 
 because it is not voluntary. That which is involuntary 
 cannot be sin. Let God make the worst devil in dis- 
 position that can possibly be conceived, — he would not 
 be a sinful being before he had acted. There could be 
 no guilt in being just what God made him, and it would 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 be an act of the grossest injustice, tyranny, and cruelty 
 for God to punish him merely for having the very nature 
 which he himself had given him. It would be equally 
 unjust to punish him for doing evil, if evil were the only 
 thing he was made capable of doing, — if there were no 
 good in him, and no capacity of goodness. It is the 
 very fact, then, that there is good in man, and the capa- 
 city of goodness, which makes his evil actions sin. The 
 revealed law of God could have no binding force, unless 
 the same law were written on the heart of man. God's 
 law commands, " Thou shalt not steal" ; but the very 
 word steal would have been unintelligible to him, were 
 not the instinct of property woven into the very ele- 
 ments of his being, which teaches him that it is wrong 
 to take, without leave, what is the rightful property of 
 another. So, on the other hand, according to our con- 
 ceptions of things, the capacity of evil in man is neces- 
 sary to the merit of his goodness. 
 
 Character, then, desert, either of blame or praise, is 
 the creation of the human will, and cannot precede its 
 exercise. It is necessary, too, that the will should be 
 free, absolutely unbiased, in its choice. Any constraint 
 thrown in, on the one side or the other, destroys the 
 fairness of the trial. Evil must be suggested at the time 
 of choice, or there is no choice between good and evil. 
 Now this suggestion of evil, this liability to transgres- 
 sion, this possession of a nature which is exposed to 
 temptation and to wrong , choice, seems to be the very 
 essence of what is called Original Sin. But when 
 carried out, it defeats and nullifies the hypothesis which 
 it is introduced to sustain, and makes the Fall of Adam 
 to have been no fall at all. If the capacity of sin and 
 the suggestion of evil be Original Sin, then Adam had 
 2* 
 
18 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Original Sin as much before the Fall as he had after- 
 ward. 
 
 He could not have sinned without the capacity of sin, 
 nor could he have sinned unless evil had been sug- 
 gested to his thoughts, nor even if it had been suggested 
 to his thoughts, and no desires arisen, the gratification of 
 which became sin. The very circumstances, then, of 
 the first sin show that Adam was constituted precisely 
 as his posterity are now. If they have Original Sin, so 
 had he. 
 
 The doctrine which is taught concerning human na- 
 ture is fundamental to Christianity, considered as a 
 discipline, an instrument of education, the means of the 
 formation of character, and of training up the soul to 
 holiness here and to happiness herenfter. If every hu^ 
 man soul come from the hand of God pure as was 
 Adam, without, indeed, any decided character, but capa- 
 ble of virtue and holiness, though exposed to temptation 
 and sin, then the training for heaven may commence at 
 once, or as soon as the faculties are so far developed as 
 to enable the child to " choose the good and to refuse 
 the evil." There is encouragement to store its mind 
 with Christian knowledge and Christian principles, to 
 awaken its devotional feelings by hymns and sacred po- 
 etry, to teach it to begin and end each day with prayer, 
 to join in public and private worship. There is hope 
 that such religious discipline will take effect, — that the 
 child, early taught the way in which he should go, when 
 he is old will not depart from it, and experience the ful- 
 filment of the Divine promise, — " They that seek me 
 early shall find me." 
 
 But if human nature is intrinsically and constitution- 
 ally bad, " disabled, and made opposite to all that is 
 
INTKODUCTORY. 19 
 
 good," I see no encouragement whatever for the relig- 
 ious education of children. I see no consistency what- 
 ever in the Sabbath schools and Bible classes which are 
 kept up among those who hold the total depravity of 
 human nature. No real benefit can be secured by them. 
 The difficulty is in their nature. No training can 
 change nature, or affect it in the least. If the child 
 cannot do any thing toward salvation, then teaching can 
 do him no good. If he can do any thing, he is not to- 
 tally depraved." If the child can do nothing, his salva- 
 tion is just as arbitrary on the part of God after he has 
 received a religious education as* it was before. 
 
 The doctrine of constitutional corruption, and the 
 consequent doctrine of human inability, have not only a 
 tendency to discourage parents from making any efforts 
 for the religious education of their children, but to de- 
 stroy the feeling of moral responsibility in the young, and 
 to produce in them an utter indifference and recklessness 
 as to every thing connected with religion. A young 
 person educated in that way is tempted to say to him- 
 self, — "If every thing that I do is sin, then it is of little 
 consequence whether I do one thing or another. One 
 thing is certain, that there is more pleasure in one course 
 of action than another. I will secure the pleasure at 
 any rate, and let the consequences take care of them- 
 selves. I cannot change myself, and I am especially 
 instructed that I can do nothing which will even ' pre- 
 pare myself thereto.' If I am to ' meet with a change,' 
 it will be in the course of events over which I have no 
 control, and which I can neither hasten nor retard. The 
 greatest sinners have become, by the act of Divine grace, 
 the greatest saints. Great sinners are, in fact, according 
 to the theology to which I listen, the very subjects on 
 
20 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 which the Divine sovereignty most delights to display 
 itself. According to this theory, I shall be in no virorse 
 condition by plunging into the v^ildest excesses, than by 
 leading a sober and moral life. When renewing grace 
 comes, I shall be changed- Previous to that, all relig- 
 ious acts, and all attention to the subject, are merely 
 thrown away." 
 
 Such seem to me to be the legitimate results of 
 teaching the doctrine of the constitutional corruption of 
 human nature. 
 
 Finally, the doctrine concerning human nature is 
 fundamental to the hope of the indefinite progress of the 
 human race, through the regenerating power of Chris- 
 tianity. If sin be an organic disease, which is heredi- 
 tary and incurable, it will reappear in nearly the same 
 forms and the same intensity in the successive genera- 
 tions of the human race to the end of time. The future 
 history of mankind will be nearly as dead a level as that 
 of a tribe of the dumb animals. They will arrive at a 
 certain degree of moral attainment, and that a very low 
 one, and then they will remain stationary, or, perhaps, 
 retrograde, and become indefinitely more corrupt. No 
 Millennial day will ever dawn upon the world. 
 
 But if sin be a functional disease, induced upon a 
 healthy and well-constituted nature by voluntary abuse, 
 then it is under the control of the human will, and with- 
 in reach of the remedies which the Gospel provides. 
 Every individual will be free from it in proportion to the 
 care which is taken of his education, and the care which 
 he takes of himself. Each individual has the power of 
 perpetual improvement, and, in so far, the control of his 
 own destiny. Each generation have the power of edu- 
 cating their successors better than the last, and the race 
 must have the power of illimitable advancement. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 21 
 
 That sin is not a fixed, incurable, unchangeable ele- 
 ment in human nature, is proved by the diversities of 
 condition and moral attainment which have already taken 
 place, and which are now exhibited by the different na- 
 tions of the earth. In the absence of Christianity, they 
 are found in every stage of moral debasement or eleva- 
 tion, from cannibalism up to a high state of civilization 
 and refinement. Nations have risen from the one to the 
 other. By what means .' By culture. By culture of 
 what .' By the culture of what is good in their na- 
 tures. But if human nature be totally corrupt, there is 
 nothing good in man to cultivate. If every thing in 
 man is bad, then mankind have been civilized, have 
 been made better, by cultivating that which is bad, 
 — a palpable absurdity. There is no way in which a 
 nation can become civilized, but by the cultivation of 
 justice, forbearance, benevolence, some of the highest 
 virtues of which human nature is capable. Those vir- 
 tues could not be cultivated unless their germs and rudi- 
 ments existed in man originally. 
 
 The constitutional corruption of man has, moreover, 
 this mark of being an error, that it produces the worst 
 effects upon those who are persuaded of it. If jou wish- 
 ed to fix any tribe or people in a low state of morality 
 and civilization, the most effectual way you could adopt 
 would be to convince them that they were a miserable 
 and degraded race by nature, destitute of the average 
 capacities of humanity, and more deeply imbued than 
 others with all bad propensities, — that is, that they had 
 fallen farther in Adam than the rest of mankind. Such 
 a people would naturally give themselves up, in despair, 
 to ignorance, slavery, and vice. And the first step to- 
 wards their elevation would be to disabuse them of their 
 
22 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 error, and persuade them that they were made for 
 something better, that their vices were not constitutional 
 and inevitable, but that they constituted a part of God's 
 creation in the state in which he first constructed it, 
 when he looked upon every thing that he had made, 
 "and, behold, it was very good," 
 
DISCOURSE II. 
 
 HUMAN NATURE RIGHTLY CONSTITUTED. 
 
 TO EVERY THING THERE IS A SEASON, AND A X'lME TO' EVERY 
 PURPOSE UNDER THE HEAVEN. — EccleS. ui. 1. 
 
 There is more wisdom and truth pervading and un- 
 derlying this sentence than meets the eye at first glance. 
 It assumes what must lie at the basis of all rational re- 
 ligion, the essential tightness and integrity of human 
 nature. " To every thing there is a season." This 
 amounts simply to the proposition, that God has made 
 nothing in vain, — there is nothing superfluous in his 
 works. Infinite wisdom cannot make any thing super- 
 fluous. If nothing is made wrong and nothing super- 
 fluous, then every thing, in its proper use, is good ; for 
 the very definition of the goodness of any thing is, that 
 it is well calculated for that particular purpose for which 
 it is made. 
 
 Water, for instance, was declared, by some of the old 
 Greek philosophers and pflets, to be the best and most 
 excellent of the elements. They were led to say so, 
 probably, from its indispensable necessity to animal and 
 vegetable life, its power of being removed from place 
 to place, its constituting the sea, which is the highway of 
 nations, from its capacity of being drawn up in a mysteri- 
 
24 MAN MADE RIGHT. 
 
 ous manner into the atmosphere in the shape of vapor, 
 and then descending in rain where it is needed, and satis- 
 fying a prime want, not only of the vegetable world, but 
 of all who breathe the breath of life. It is a wonderful 
 element, and, when considered with reference to the pur- 
 pose for which it was created, it is perfect. 
 
 Other things were created with the power of develop- 
 ment, as, for instance, the tree. The first seeds of the 
 first trees which God made, contained the elements and 
 the laws of that particular species of trees to the end of 
 time. They would continue to produce the same tree, 
 each perfect in its kind, for ever. One tree might be 
 mutilated by man, or disfigured by disease ; yet it is a uni- 
 versal law, that no such accident shall essentially affect 
 the species. That continues the same, and retains all its 
 powers and capacities. The oak has strength, the pine 
 height and straightness. The apple-tree and most fruit- 
 trees are low, spreading, and accessible to man. These 
 characteristics they preserve from age to age unchanged. 
 So it is with the various tribes of animals. The first 
 pairs of each embodied in themselves, not only the type 
 of the physical form of the whole race to the end of the 
 world, but the instincts which corresponded to those 
 forms, — what element to inhabit, when and where to make 
 their dens or build their nests, what food to select ; and 
 those which were destined to a migratory life inherited 
 a spontaneous desire to flee from the approach of winter, 
 and, again, to follow toward the poles the progress of 
 spring. 
 
 We have no reason to make man an exception to this 
 universal law. We have reason for believing that the 
 first pair of mankind bore the same relation to their pos- 
 terity that the first pair of every other animal bore to 
 theirs. They were perfect humanity, so far as constitu- 
 
MAN MADE RIGHT. 25 
 
 tion was concerned, both physical and mental. No rea- 
 son can be given why God should put any thing into their 
 constitution which was not good or not necessary, or 
 why he should have left any thing out that would have been 
 ood for them or essential to their perfection and happi- 
 ness. They might individually pervert their nature, but not 
 essentially change it, so as to transmit a different nature to 
 their posterity from that which they themselves originally 
 possessed. God made Adam's children just as much as 
 he did Adam. Nothing contradictory to this is even 
 hinted in the Mosaic account of the creation. Every 
 thing that God has made is not only good essentially, that- 
 is, in itself, but good relatively, adapted in its properties 
 to every thing else with which it has any connection. 
 Thus it is with water, air, and earth. Were it not for 
 the atmosphere, the waters of the ocean could UQver be 
 carried over the land. The leaves of plants, like living 
 beings, breathe the atmosphere, and without it they could' 
 not vegetate. There are animals of every variety of 
 structure, yet each precisely adapted to the position it 
 was intended to occupy, — the fish to the water, and the 
 birds to the atmosphere. 
 
 And can we suppose that this system of universal 
 adaptation pervades the elements, the animals in all 
 their various tribes, and stops short at man, the no- 
 blest work of all, the crown and glory of God's crea- 
 tion ? Did not God as clearly foresee the relations in 
 which man was to be placed to his fellow-beings and to 
 God, as he did that the fish was to swim in water, and 
 the bird fly in the air ? Man was created to be a moral 
 agent. It is not probable that an omnipotent, all-wise 
 Being would withhold from him any power or faculty 
 which is necessary to a moral agent. Duties must arise 
 3 
 
26 MAN MADE RIGHT. 
 
 out of mutual relations, — as, for instance, the parental. 
 God foresaw this relation, and is it credible that he, who 
 adjusted the quills of a bird with the greatest possible 
 amount of strength and lightness, left the mind of man 
 without the power to perceive the parental duties, and 
 without the sense of obligation to perform them when 
 they were perceived .'' 
 
 Man was created with the power of speech. The 
 object of speech is the communication of truth. Would 
 he create man with power of communicating truth, and 
 not give him the sense of obligation to communicate the 
 truth alone .'' Surely not. 
 
 Again. He created man to possess property, and 
 made it essential to the well-being of society, that in- 
 dividuals should have the power of appropriating each 
 one something to himself. And did he leave this power 
 unguarded by a sense of moral obligation ? By no 
 means. The same moral sense which teaches me that I 
 may have property myself, forbids me to invade the 
 property of another. " Thou shah not steal'," says the 
 Mosaic decalogue. That commandment did not put the 
 instinct of property into human nature. If it had not 
 been there, then the word steal would not have been intel- 
 ligible. That commandment, then, was only a ratifica- 
 tion of a law which had existed before in the moral na- 
 ture of man. God had made man, in the first place, in 
 such a way as to perceive that to take what belongs to 
 another without his permission was wrong, and men had 
 called it stealing before the promulgation of the Mosaic 
 law. These moral duties of manlsind arose, not out of 
 arbitrary enactment, but out of the relations which men 
 sustain to each other, and God made men to see those 
 relations, and feel the obligations which arise out of them. 
 
MAN MADE RIGHT. 27 
 
 Man IS made to desire the possession of various things, 
 without regard to their owners. Yet, to check and con- 
 trol that desire, God has placed within him the sense of 
 justice, which will not suffer him to appropriate what is 
 another's without an uncomfortable sense of guilt. 
 
 It follows, from all these considerations, that man is 
 made with precisely those powers and faculties which fit 
 him for the place which he is to occupy. The perfec- 
 tion of man consists in the proportionate development and 
 use of all his powers and faculties. Human perfection 
 does not consist in killing or eradicating any part, prin- 
 ciple, desire, or passion of human nature, but in regulat- 
 ing them. If any thing within us were evil in itself, it 
 could not have come from God, for God can have no 
 purpose in creating that which is evil. ^11 evil proceeds 
 from the perversion of that which is good. Human per- 
 fection, too, must be the perfection of the nature which 
 God has given to man, — all its powers and faculties car- 
 ried out into their full development and their legitimate 
 uses, it must be human perfection. What that perfec- 
 tion is depends entirely upon what human nature is. A 
 perfect tree has roots, and branches, and trunk, and 
 leaves. There is nothing superfluous about it, — nothing 
 which, if taken away, would leave the tree perfect. 
 
 So it is with man. There is nothing superfluous 
 about him, — nothing, even those passions which are 
 looked upon as evil, which, if taken away, would leave 
 humanity perfect. Such, according to all theologians, 
 was the condition of man before the Fall. 
 
 But we are told that human nature was ruined by the 
 Fall, and became a totally different thing from what it 
 was before. Man then became an exception to God's 
 other works. A development of human nature afterwards 
 
28 MAN MADE EIGHT. 
 
 produced deformity, not symmetry. The system of 
 checks and balances before established was overthrown, 
 and man developed was no longer a man, but a devil. 
 And this almost infinite change was suspended on a 
 single act of a single individual. Every thing good which 
 any one of the race has done, from that day to this, has 
 been no act of his own, but the act of God, constraining 
 his free agency. Is not this wholly incredible .'' Does 
 the Bible say any such thing ? We read in the sixth 
 chapter of Genesis, after the history of what is called 
 the Fall, and before the call of Abraham, and of course 
 before any express revelation had been made, (this cir- 
 cumstance is material, for it affirmed that all mankind by 
 the Fall lost communion with God,) — "Noah was a just 
 man, and perfect in his generations ; and Noah walked 
 with God." Now, if human nature had become totally 
 corrupt, how could this possibly be ? The word ren- 
 dered "just" has a still wider signification. It is the 
 same word which is usually rendered " righteous," and 
 comprehends not alone those duties which belong to 
 justice, but the fulfilment of every obligation. Not only 
 so, he was " perfect in his generations," fulfilled every 
 social obligation, and, moreover, those of piety, for he 
 " walked with God " ; he was, in short, a better man than 
 ever Adam was, for he fell before the first, and'that a very 
 trifling, temptation. Taking, then, the result into the ac- 
 count, is it not fair to suppose that the moral constitution 
 of Noah was as good, to say the least, as that of Adam 
 was .'' But " Noah was perfect in his generations." 
 If his moral sense were corrupt, how could he know 
 what perfection was .'' and, had he known it, he must 
 have hated and shunned, instead of cultivatiiig it. He 
 " walked with God." How could this be, if it was 
 
MAN MADE RIGHT. 29 
 
 his fallen nature to hate God rather than love him ? He 
 had nothing but human nature to prompt him, nothing 
 but human nature to guide him, and nothing but human 
 nature by which to judge of his own attainments, and 
 yet he " was perfect in his generations." This must 
 have been, therefore, the result of a true development 
 of human nature, — a result which would follow in all 
 cases, if human nature were fairly dealt by. Noah was 
 faithful to his nature. His contemporaries had been 
 unfaithful to theirs. This is precisely according to the 
 declaration of the Scripture concerning that generation. 
 For it says, — " And God looked upon the earth, and, 
 behold, it was corrupt ; for all flesh had corrupted his 
 way." What can be meant by the word "way" in 
 this connection .■' It can mean nothing else than that 
 the way of man, the way which is pointed out by nature, 
 is spontaneously right. There was no especial revela- 
 tion then, and the only guide which man had was his 
 own nature. The only " way " which man then could 
 corrupt was that suggested by his pwn nature. The 
 very assertion that he had corrupted it amounts to a 
 declaration, that it was right before it was corrupted. 
 This rectitude of their nature, as a whole, was the thing 
 which made, and the only thing which could make, any 
 of their actions sin. Sin is the transgression of some 
 rule of right known to the transgressor. The only rule 
 of right which man then had was that suggested by his 
 own nature. That rule must have been a true one, or 
 it would not have been sin to break it. Sin, then, must 
 have been a perversion of human nature ; and if so, 
 human nature, as a whole, must be right, and lead to 
 that which is right. 
 
 From these principles and premises, the most im- 
 3* 
 
30 MAN MADE RIGHT. 
 
 portant conclusions follow as to the nature of (rue 
 religion. These conclusions enter into all speculation, 
 and affect all life. He who regards human nature as 
 essentially wrong and corrupt must look out of human 
 nature for a standard of right, — must look to revelation. 
 Yet how is he to distinguish a true revelation from a 
 false one ? He must examine its evidences. This can 
 be done ojily by human reason. It is by reason only that 
 the examination can be conducted. But if human nature 
 itself be corrupt, then human reason, which is a part of 
 human nature, must be corrupt too, and its results cannot 
 be trusted ; and the man knows no more of the claims 
 of any thing -that professes to be a revelation after ex- 
 amination than he did befoce. And the only consistent 
 course for him to adopt is, to settle down into a perfect 
 skepticism as to every thing beyond the senses. It has 
 been considered; by advocates of all sects and parties, 
 to be a strong evidence of the truth of revelation, that 
 its moral precepts commend themselves to the reason 
 and conscience of mankind. But if reason and con- 
 science are corrupt, then the coincidence of revelation 
 with them is not only no evidence of its truth, but a pre- 
 sumptive evidence against it. A thing cannot be proved 
 to be right by agreeing with that which is essentially 
 wrong. Paul says, that his " inward man " assents to 
 the law of God, that it is holy, just, and good ; but this 
 is no evidence of its goodness, if that " inward man " 
 be itself perverted and corrupt. 
 
 Another practical consequence follows. If nature be all 
 wrong, then religion must consist in being as unnatural as 
 possible. And here is' the point where principles become 
 practical by being carried out in real life. A Christian 
 is a good man, who acts on Christian principles, and a 
 
MAN MADE RIGHT. 31 
 
 good man is human nature developed in its full per- 
 fection. Christianity is not creative, but only disci- 
 plinary. It does not change the essential elements of 
 human nature, but only quickens some of them, and 
 regulates others. It does not put the idea of God into 
 the human mind. Creation is the revelation of a Crea- 
 tor. Revelation only makes this idea more clear and 
 certain. Revelation does not create and determine the 
 nature of duty. Duty depends altogether on the essen- 
 tial and original constitution of man. Revelation makes 
 duty more clear and definite, but it does not create duty. 
 Nature and revelation are coincident, not contradictory. 
 Revelation does not create reason, but only confirms 
 and strengthens it. Revelation does not create con- 
 science, but only enlightens and corroborates it. Nature 
 is a concurrent indication of the will of God with revela- 
 tion. It is more certain that every human being comes 
 immediately from the hands of God, than that any reve- 
 lation does. The spontaneous promptings of nature, 
 which no other part of nature forbids, are a more 
 certain indication of the Divine will, tTian any written 
 Divine precept can be. On this supposition, and no 
 other, can the proposition we have selected for a text 
 be true, — " To every thing there is a season, and a time 
 to every purpose under the heaven." In the enumera- 
 tion of particulars under this general proposition, the 
 wise man declares that there is a time to dance, as well 
 as a time to mourn ; there is a time to weep, and a time 
 to laugh. God has made man to feel and to manifest 
 joy and sorrow. It is a part of human nature to do so. 
 Because this is a part of the constitution of human nature, 
 it is no evidence that it is right, if human nature itself is 
 wrong. Accordingly, those who believe that human 
 
32 MAN MADE RIGHT. 
 
 nature is wrong, generally believe but one side of these 
 propositions. They believe that there is a time to weep 
 and mourn, but no time to dance. Mirth and dancing 
 may do well enough for children, who are insensible of 
 the hard conditions under which they have been brought 
 into being. But when they grow up, and become fully 
 aware of what a world they live in, and what a God 
 they live under, they can dance no more, nor often feel, 
 disposed to laugh. If human nature be all wrong, with- 
 out any power to get right, and to ninety-nine hun- 
 dredths of the race this world is only the vestibule to 
 the dark prison-house of eternal torments, whose inexo- 
 rable doors once closed upon the soul, there is no more 
 return to the regions of light and blessedness, — then, 
 indeed, there is no time either to laugh or dance. All 
 human life is but one time to mourn, — to mourn that God 
 has created the world at all. If nature is all wrong, 
 then a religious man must assume a manner as un- 
 natural as possible, — he must try to be as different from 
 others as he can. If mirth is a sin, then he must be 
 especially solemn and austere. If people are without 
 this special sanctity, and behave naturally, it is the best 
 evidence that they are not religious, and still belong to 
 the world. If they are without it, hbw do they let the 
 world know that they are religious people ? If that is 
 all the religion they have, it is of little consequence 
 whether the world knows it or not. " When ye fast, 
 be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance ; 
 for they disfigure their faces that they may appear 
 nnto men to fast. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint 
 thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not 
 unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret ; 
 and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee 
 openly." 
 
MAN MADE RIGHT. 33 
 
 Asceticism and sanctimony have no part nor lot in 
 Christianity. Christian perfection is human perfection, 
 and human perfection is the full development of human 
 nature, just as God made it, and just as he is making it 
 every day. 
 
 But in opposition to the views I have given, I may 
 be asked if I mean, when I say that every part of human 
 nature is good, and leads to good when properly used, — 
 I may be asked if I mean to say that there is a time for 
 vice, for intemperance, lust, covetousness, and revenge. 
 These vices are in the world, and it may be said that 
 they make part and parcel of it. I answer, that I deny 
 that the vices make any part of God's creation, or that 
 they result necessarily from any part of it, or its legit- 
 imate use. 
 
 I begin with intemperance, and I assert, that there is 
 nothing more artificial and factitious than this vice. The 
 very drinks which cause intoxication are no product of 
 nature. They are a pure invention of man. The sim- 
 ple and natural productions of the earth are obliged to 
 go through a loathsome metamorphosis in order to gen- 
 erate them. And then they are at first distasteful to the 
 human palate. The appetite for them is wholly morbid. 
 They are not tolerated till nature itself has been cor- 
 rupted and vitiated by abuse. It is said that men easily 
 become fond of inebriating drinks. But the very words 
 " become fond," which are used to express the process 
 of contracting habits of intoxication, settle the question, 
 thai there is no natural fondness for stimulating liquors, 
 and that drunkenness, of all things, is the most wanton 
 and needless departure from the simplicity of nature. 
 
 After the habit of drinking is formed, man is no longer 
 in his natural state. Intoxicating drinks are poisons, 
 
34 MAN MADE EIGHT. 
 
 which immediately create disease of body and perver- 
 sion and weakness of mind. Nature has no natural ap- 
 petite for poisons. She instinctively rejects and eschews 
 them all. There are marks set upon most of them, 
 which, make them nauseous to the senses of taste and 
 smell. Tobacco, the most universal, and perhaps the 
 most pernicious, in the aggregate, of all stimulants, is one 
 of the most repulsive and offensive of all the poisons 
 which grow out of the earth. Nature not only remon- 
 strates, but rebels and struggles, against its use. 
 
 And can it be said that gluttony, the parent of diseases 
 and pains and woes without number, is the legitimate 
 result of any dictate of nature .'' I think not. The an- 
 imals seldom transgress in this way. Obeying their in- 
 stincts, they stop at the point where their real wants are 
 satisfied. Man is an animal, and shares with the animals 
 in the conservative instinct of stopping at satiety. But 
 he makes use of his reason, and perverts it, to make 
 himself more brutal than the beasts themselves. The 
 proper limit of indulgence is the point where physical 
 health and strength are secured. To secure this, the 
 taking of food is accompanied with pleasure. But by 
 variety, by condiments, and by stimulating drinks, men 
 pervert the taking of food to the purpose of mere sen- 
 sual pleasure. Nature, thus violated, soon begins to 
 protest by the most significant tokens, suffering, despond- 
 ency, sickness, and finally indignantly escapes her de- 
 grading slavery by sudden death. Appetite for food was 
 intended to sustain life, and thus to minister to the gen- 
 eral and enlarged pleasures of a rational existence, and 
 it is palpably and grossly abused when it is made to min- 
 ister to the narrow, animal, and shortlived pleasure of 
 mere eating. 
 
MAN MADE EIGHT. 35 
 
 The licentious intercourse of the sexes has afforded 
 an endless theme of declamation to the asserlers of the 
 innate depravity of human nature. It has been, and still 
 is, a wide-spread and most destructive vice. But they 
 utter a calumny who charge it on human nature, as mak- 
 ing one of its constitutional developments. Human na- 
 ture, as a whole, has condemned it by applying to it one 
 of the most odious and unmentionable epithets, — lust. 
 The disgusting and hateful passion to which this epithet 
 is applied makes no part of human nature as God first 
 created it, and as he creates it every day. It is the des- 
 ecration of the earthly part of the most sacred tie, which 
 was intended' to l3ind together in one two human beings 
 of the opposite sexes, in the most indissoluble union, a 
 union which alone can make humanity complete. This 
 union is the foundation of society ; and to make the 
 foundation solid and secure, that tie is cemented by the 
 closest bonds both of the senses and the soul. When 
 shut up to this sacred purpose, it causes no shame, no 
 self-reproach, no degradation, no misery. 
 
 But when desecrated and abused, like all things which 
 are best, it becomes the most fatal and pernicious per- 
 version of nature to the individual and to society. It 
 begins by destroying all moral force, dignity, and aspi- 
 ration, proceeds with preventing or breaking up the 
 greatest Divine institution, the sanctity of home and fam- 
 ily, and ends with a total wreck of soul and body. Ac- 
 cordingly, it is guarded against abuse by some of the 
 strongest principles of human nature, by self-respect, by 
 fear of shame, and the most solemn warnings of con- 
 science. And can we say, after this, with any justice, 
 that lust makes a part of human nature, or is a necessary 
 result of the human constitution, taken as a whole .' The 
 
36 MAN MADE RIGHT. 
 
 very fact, that this vice is so despised, is sufBcient proof 
 that human nature, with all its imperfections, is consti- 
 tuted above it. 
 
 It may be said or thought, that covetousness is a vice 
 inherent in the human constitution. We often hear most 
 eloquent dissertations upon the selfishness of mankind. 
 Man, it is said, is a selfish animal. All the acts of 
 fraud, oppression, and robbery that have ever been per- 
 petrated have been appealed to in proof of this assertion. 
 
 Such a definition of man is a libellous misrepresenta- 
 tion. It is partial, one-sided, and unjust. With equal 
 truth it might be asserted that man is a benevolent ani- 
 mal, and in proof of it might be alleged the thousand 
 times ten thousand acts of kindness that are done every 
 day, vphich as far transcend the acts of ill-will, as the 
 perfected leaves of the forest outnumber those which fall 
 untimely to the earth. What, it may be asked, takes 
 care of the multitudes of widows and orphans who are 
 thrown each year destitute upon society .' What has 
 nursed in their last sickness, and then decently buried, 
 the countless millions who now sleep in the bosom 
 of the earth ? Man is both selfish and benevolent. 
 The duties which he owes himself, and the duties which 
 he owes to others, require him to be so. He could 
 be neither happy nor useful unless he were both. And, 
 paradoxical as it may seem, selfishness is the. very 
 repository from which benevolence itself derives her 
 stores. Without the desire of gain strong enough to 
 stimulate enterprise, to nerve exertion, and sustain en- 
 durance, there would be no store laid up for the exercise 
 of benevolence. 
 
 These principles are placed in human nature, in some 
 measure, in antagonism, and are intended to act as checks 
 
MAN MADE EIGHT. 37 
 
 and balances to each other, under the supervision of the 
 intellect. To say that one of them may be indulged at 
 the expense of the other, is merely to say that man is 
 free and fallible, and is, moreover, a creature of habit ; his 
 propensities are strengthened by exercise and weakened 
 by disuse. Benevolence itself must be limited by a 
 sense of justice and a love of self, otherwise it would 
 work out a preponderance of mischief. If the feeling of 
 benevolence were so strong as to prompt the giving of 
 every thing that was asked, so far from leading to good, 
 its exercise would destroy the giver, and operate as a 
 bounty to idleness and vice. 
 
 It may be thought, and is sometimes said, that man is 
 a revengeful being. At least, revenge is said to be a 
 prevailing vice of human nature. I admit that it is a 
 vice to which human nature is exposed, but I deny that 
 it is one of its constituent elements. Il is a perversion 
 of the passion of resentment, which is a constituent ele- 
 ment of human nature, both innocent and necessary. It 
 is necessary to man as a defence, or rather to nerve him 
 to resist injury. The irrational animals have it, and for 
 the same purpose. It is occasional and transitory, and 
 intended to adjust man to a new position, that of repel- 
 ling aggression. That it is occasional and evanescent, 
 is sure testimony that the disposition of man is prevail- 
 ingly good. Were man constitutionally malignant and 
 hostile to his fellow-beings, he would not need any such 
 special passion as resentment to rouse him to needful an- 
 tagonism. And the reason why such an occasional pas- 
 sion is necessary is, that the natural, abiding disposition of 
 man is peaceful and benevolent. In that mood it would 
 be impossible for him to treat the offender in such a man- 
 ner as to defend himself and prevent the repetition of the 
 4 
 
38 MAN MADE BIGHT. 
 
 aggression. Slill, it may continue too long, and maybe 
 voluntarily increased to an immoderate degree, and then 
 it becomes revenge, and sinful in the sight of God. 
 That it may not continue too long, or be voluntarily ag- 
 gravated, God has made it to be a painful, and not a 
 pleasurable emotion. When the ends of justice are 
 secured, it subsides and gradually fades away from the 
 mind. 
 
 Finally, it may be asked, with this view of human na- 
 ture, how I explain the doctrine of regeneration. What 
 explanation is to be given of the stress laid upon it by 
 the Saviour, when he said, "Except a man be born 
 again, he cannot see the kingdom of God " ? I answer, 
 that the regeneration there spoken of has reference, 
 not to nature, but to character and profession. The 
 highest end of man is religion. It is absurd to suppose 
 that God makes men at first incapable of religion, so 
 that it is necessary to make them over again, and amend 
 his own work, before it is capable of the very purpose 
 for which he made it. To be born of water, is to make 
 an open profession of religion. To be born of the 
 Spirit, is to be conformed to the Christian character and 
 disposition. To determine how great that change must 
 be, we must inquire how far the soul has departed from 
 its original innocence and integrity. " Except ye be 
 converted and become as little children, ye shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven." If Christian con- 
 version be a return to the moral condition of childhood, 
 the doctrine of native and constitutional corruption can- 
 not be true. Regeneration, in the sense of the New 
 Testament, is commencing our moral and spiritual life 
 anew, renouncing all the corruptions and perversions 
 which we have contracted, and living for duty, for God, 
 and eternity. 
 
MAN MADE EIGHT. 39 
 
 I am asked, perhaps, since I will not admit that hu- 
 man nature is depraved, whether I will not allow that it 
 is imperfect. I answer, that it receives an imperfect de- 
 velopment in this life. I believe that every human soul 
 comes from the hand of God a perfect germ of spiritual 
 life and immortality. But it is capable of perversion and 
 abuse, and of development in a wrong direction, just as 
 trees may become diseased and distorted. Such distor- 
 tion and disfigurement do in most, perhaps in all cases, take 
 place to some extent. The change which a transition to 
 a Christian life produces is to wither and prune away every 
 diseased development and monsfrous excrescence, and 
 then the tree grows up to its destined beauty and prime- 
 val symmetry. The cicatrices may long remain, and 
 perhaps never become entirely obliterated, but the tree 
 will grow for ever in the garden of God. Humanity has 
 attained its true and perfect development but once, and 
 that was in the person of Christ. Christ is the type of 
 perfected humanity. 
 
DISCOURSE III, 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF PAUL CONCERNING HUMAN 
 NATURE. 
 
 FOR WE KNOW THAT THE LAW IS SPIRITUAL: BUT 1 AM CARNAL, 
 SOLD UNDER SIN. FOR THAT WHICH I DO, I ALLOW NOT : FOR 
 WHAT I WOULD, THAT DO 1 NOT ; BUT WHAT 1 HATE, THAT DO I. 
 IF THEN I DO THAT WHICH I WOULD NOT, I CONSENT UNTO THE 
 LAW THAT IT IS GOOD. NOW THEN IT IS NO MORE I THAT DO IT, 
 BUT SIN THAT DWELLETH IN ME. FOR I KNOW THAT IN ME (THAT 
 IS, IN MY flesh) DWELLETH NO GOOD THING : FOR TO WILL IS 
 PRESENT WITH ME ; BUT HOW TO PERFORM THAT WHICH IS GOOD, I 
 FIND NOT. FOR THE GOOD THAT I WOULD, I DO NOT ; BUT THE EVIL 
 WHICH I WOULD NOT, THAT I DO. NOW IF I DO THAT I WOULD 
 NOT, IT IS NO MORE I THAT DO IT, BUT SIN THAT DWELLETH IN 
 ME. I FIND THEN A LAW, THAT WHEN I W'OULD DO GOOD, EVIL IS 
 PRESENT WITH ME. FOR I DELIGHT IN THE LAW OF GOD, AFTER 
 THE INWARD MAN : BUT I SEE ANOTHER LAW IN MY MEMBERS, 
 WARRING AGAQIST THE LAW OF MY MIND, AND BRINGING ME INTO 
 CAPTIVITY TO THE LAW OF SIN WHICH IS IN MY MEMBERS. 
 WRETCHED MAN THAT 1 AM ! WHO SHALL DELIVER ME FROM THE 
 BODY OF THIS DEATH? I THANK GOD, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR 
 LORD. SO THEN, WITH THE MIND I MYSELF SERVE THE LAW OF 
 god; BUT WITH THE FLESH THE LAW OF SIN. — Rom. vU. 14-25. 
 
 The writings of Paul are most often appealed to as 
 sustaining the commonly received doctrine of the con- 
 stiiutional corruption of human nature, — the doctrine that 
 
LANGUAGE OP PAUL. 41 
 
 there is nothing good in man by nature, and nothing that 
 leads to good ; every thing is evil, and leads to nothing 
 but evil. This doctrine I deem to be false and per- 
 nicious. It tends to make that revelation of which it is 
 taught as making a part essentially incredible. A being 
 created with such a nature would be incapacitated for 
 moral probation, the very purpose for which man is 
 placed in his present state. We are taught by the 
 Scriptures, that " a just weight and balance are the 
 Lord's." But man is not weighed in an even balance 
 between good and evil, if such a preponderating weight 
 is thrown into the scale of evil. 
 
 It tends to destroy all confidence in the Divine char- 
 acter, and of course to undermine all religion. Injustice 
 is the highest moral obliquity. The human mind is so 
 constructed as to make it impossible to have any respect 
 for a moral being who is essentially unjust. It tends to 
 discourage all religious endeavours, by producing the 
 impression that all endeavour is vain. A change in man's 
 nature becomes a prerequisite to any successful religious 
 action. No man can feel any obligation to change his 
 nature, for he knows that it is utterly impossible. Those 
 who are taught that by nature they can do nothing but 
 sin, will sin on without much compunction. 
 
 But it is said that this doctrine is taught by Paul. 
 The longest and most explicit passage in his writings 
 which refers to this subject, I have just recited. I now 
 intend to analyze it, and find out what it teaches. 
 
 Paul was discoursing to converted Jews, who were in 
 a transition state from Judaism to Christianity and who 
 wished still to adhere to the laws of Moses, on the su- 
 periority of Christianity to Judaism, as the means of 
 
 producing a holy life. The law, he says, rather deep- 
 4 * 
 
42 LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 
 
 ened the consciousness of sin, than provided a remedy 
 for it. The man who lived under it feit all the weight 
 of sin derived from the convictions of conscience, be- 
 side the superadded authority of the Divine law. The 
 law offered no additional motive to obedience corre- 
 sponding to the intenser sense of guilt which sin produced 
 under it. It was merely authority. Christianity, on the 
 other hand, though stricter, as a law, than the law itself, 
 furnishes additional motives to obedience, in the immor- 
 tality which is assured by Christ's resurrection. 
 
 Paul calls Christianity a law, as well as Judaism. 
 What are the conditions which render the proposition of 
 a law to man just and reasonable, as well as necessary f 
 Man must have the intelligence to understand it, the 
 moral faculty to perceive its justice and obligation, and 
 freedom of choice to obey or disobey. The proposi- 
 tion of a law supposes temptations to do wrong, or a law 
 would be unnecessary. There must be temptations 
 without, and desires within to correspond to those temp- 
 tations. It does not imply that there is any thing wrong 
 in the desires themselves, or that there was any desire 
 created within man merely to lead him astray, or any 
 temptation placed without him merely to tempt him by 
 improperly exciting his desires. Ml desires are intend- 
 ed to be gratified under certain conditions. All outward 
 things were intended to be enjoyed in certain circum- 
 stances. Law is nothing more nor less than the con- 
 dition under which the desires are to be gratified. Rea- 
 son and conscience are the natural law which God has 
 prescribed for the gratification or the denial of the de- 
 sires. Revelation is a confirmation of this law. 
 
 We will take an example, which the Apostle has 
 given us, — " Thou shalt not covet." This does not 
 
LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 43 
 
 forbid the desire of possession and enjoyment. That 
 would make God contradict himself, for nothing can be 
 more certain than that God has implanted desires in man. 
 They are necessary to his existence, and they corre- 
 spond to his wants. Were they annihilated, or were he 
 forbidden to indulge them, he would perish. All action 
 would instantly cease, and the race would become ex- 
 tinct. The commandment is not " Thou shall not de- 
 sire," buf Thou shall not desire under certain conditions, 
 " that which is thy neighbour's." The desire and 
 instinct of property which lead men to seek property, 
 to labor for it, and appropriate it, must teach them to 
 respect the property of others. 
 
 The law of propertj'', which is indistinctly shadowed 
 forth in the very constitution, the instincts, and the moral 
 sense of human nature, is embodied in a formula of words, 
 which makes it more striking and evident, — " Thou 
 shall not covet." Nothing in all revelation can exceed 
 the deep wisdom of this precept. It is worthy of its 
 Divine original, for it strikes at the root of a large class 
 of social wrongs, and seals up the very fountain from 
 which they spring. It does not say barely. Thou shall 
 not commit the wrong, but Thou shall not indulge the de- 
 sire from which the wrong proceeds. " Keep thy heart 
 with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." 
 
 The desires, the passions, and the appetites, then, 
 making a part, and a necessary part, of human nature, 
 when indulged without the bounds and beyond the 
 bounds prescribed by reason, conscience, and the moral 
 sense, and to the Jew by the law of Moses, lead man to 
 sin, or rather that indulgence is sin. These two parts 
 of man, not only in Scripture, but in profane literature, 
 are described as antagonistic to each other. They are 
 
44 LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 
 
 called the flesh and the spirit^ and are represented as 
 struggling with each other for the mastery of man and the 
 control of his actions. This representation is of course 
 figurative, and is not literally true, nor strictly philo- 
 sophical. The body is not strictly the source of all evil 
 and temptation to man, nor the mind the source of all 
 good. Inordinate ambition, which is the desire of ex- 
 cellence and of possession carried to excess, resides in 
 the mind, and is as liable to lead a man to do- wrong as 
 the appetites which take their rise in the body. Envy, 
 which is a corruption of the desire of excellence, re- 
 sides also in the mind. Yet such was the phraseology 
 which Paul adopted, and it was sufficiently accurate and 
 understood at the time at which he wrote. 
 
 In the extract which we are about to analyze, the 
 Apostle divides himself into two parts, the flesh and the 
 mind ; by the flesh meaning those desires, appetites, and 
 passions which, when improperly indulged, lead man to 
 sin ; and by the mind or spirit, that which restrains the 
 desires, appetites, and passions, and prompts man to 
 that which is good and right. At one time he identifies 
 himself with one part of his nature, his passions and ap- 
 petites, at another with his mind or spirit. 
 
 " The law," says he, " we know is spiritual." The 
 law is wholly on the side of that which is good. " But," 
 says the Apostle, " I am carnal, sold under sin." By 
 this he means to say, that he does not loholly obey the 
 law of right which he recognizes as divine, but sometimes 
 identifies himself with the passions and appetites, and 
 obeys them, acts them out, and thus becomes, for the 
 time being, carnal, the slave of sin. But even this lan- 
 guage, strong as it is, does not assert or imply that hu- 
 man nature, as a whole, is on the side of evil, for the 
 
LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 45 
 
 phrase " sold under sin" is equivalent to " being in 
 slavery to sin." Sin would be no state of slavery, if 
 human nature itself, as a whole, were on the side of 
 evil. There would be no restraint from its commission, 
 for there would be nothing to restrain what is evil. A 
 slave follows not his own will, but the will of another. 
 If slavery be a state of sin, then freedom must be a 
 state of virtue. This expression, then, so far from prov- 
 ing human nature, as a whole, to be on the side of evil, 
 proves precisely the reverse. In sin, it is in a state of 
 slavery. 
 
 This is confirmed by the next sentence, — " For that 
 which I do, I allow not." This of course cannot be a 
 universal proposition, for it was written by Paul long 
 after his conversion to Christianity, when he was leading, 
 on the whole, a holy life. He means to speak of him- 
 self as still imperfect. It cannot refer to all his actions, 
 but to those which were still sinful and indefensible. He 
 continues : — " For what I would, that I do not ; but what 
 I hate, that do I." Is this consistent with the theory 
 that human nature, as a whple, is on the side of evil ? 
 So far from it, the Apostle says that he hates the very 
 evil that he does. And does not the Apostle's experi- 
 ence coincide with that of every child of Adam ? Do 
 not reason and conscience condemn and abhor sin, at 
 the very moment of its commission .'' How otherwise 
 could it be sin, if it were done with the approbation of 
 the whole of man's nature ? " If then I do that which I 
 would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now 
 then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in 
 me." 
 
 According to this representation, so far from the 
 whole of his nature being evil, that which he calls him- 
 
46 LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 
 
 self is distinct from sin, and separable from it. Sin, or 
 what leads to sin, in him, his passions and appetites, 
 usurp a control which does not belong to them. But so 
 much is what he calls " himself " opposed to sin and all 
 its doings, that he is hardly blamable for what he does 
 when under its control. " It is no longer I that do it, 
 but sin that dwelleth in me." 
 
 But although he permanently identifies himself with 
 reason and conscience, yet, when he does wrong, he 
 practically identifies himself with the passions and appe- 
 tites. He goes on to do so in his argument, to the 
 exclusion of reason and conscience : — " For I know 
 that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good 
 thing." Had the Apostle left out the explanatory 
 parenthesis, "(that is, in my flesh,)" he would have 
 contradicted himself, for he had just said that his 
 better self was utterly opposed to sin. But when under 
 the control of the passions and appetites, they force 
 him to do things against his judgment, and prevent his 
 doing that good which reason and conscience suggest. 
 " For to will is present with me ; but how to perform 
 that which is good, I find not. For the good that I 
 would, I do not ; but the evil which I would not, that I 
 do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that 
 do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." Here the idea is 
 repeated in still stronger terms, that his better self is op- 
 posed to sin, and that sin makes no part of that better 
 self. This representation would be utterly false, if hu- 
 man nature, on the whole, were on the side of evil. " I 
 find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is pres- 
 ent with me. For I delight in the law of God after the 
 inward man." Can this be said of a being wholly de- 
 praved, loving all that is evil, and hating all that is good. 
 
LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 47 
 
 — that he delights in the law of God after the inward 
 man ? " But I see another law in my members, war- 
 ring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into 
 captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O 
 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the 
 body of this death ? " Here is the same idea of captivity 
 repeated. The soul is in a state of captivity when in 
 a state of sin. Could this be so, if sin were congenial 
 to the human soul .'' If sin were congenial to the soul, 
 then the soul would be in the state of the greatest free- 
 dom when in a state of sin. " But I see another law in 
 my members, warring against the law of my mind." 
 What stronger declaration could there be made, that the 
 law of the mind is essentially good .'' The evil that he 
 complains of is, not that his nature is all evil, but that 
 the law in his members, the passions and appetites, are 
 sometimes too strong for the law of his mind, which is 
 reason and conscience. 
 
 Now, all these evils of which the Apostle complains 
 are incident, not to a nature wholly evil, but to a state 
 of probation. He complains that, when he would do 
 good, evil is present with him. But if it were not so, 
 he could not be in a state of probation. If evil, as well 
 as good, were not suggested every time we are called 
 upon to do a moral act, there could be no choice be- 
 tween good and evil, the very condition which consti- 
 tutes any act virtue. The absence of temptation is the 
 absence of virtue ; and had we not desires, passions, and 
 appetites, which, when improperly indulged, lead to sin, 
 and objects without us to excite those passions, desires, 
 and appetites, this would not be a state of discipline, — 
 virtue would be impossible. What is the virtue of 
 temperance .' It is the restraint of the appetites from 
 
48 LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 
 
 excess. But temperance supposes the presence of temp- 
 tation. In the absence of temptation, temperance is no 
 virtue. He who habitually yields to temptation be- 
 comes a slave. And that is the kind of captivity and 
 slavery into which all the appetites are continually liable 
 to bring man. Patience is a virtue. But it consists in 
 enduring trials and calamities with calmness and resigna- 
 tion. But the trials and calamities are necessary to its 
 very existence. It could not exist as a virtue, were 
 there not a possibility of falling into irritability and de- 
 spondence. Benevolence is a virtue, but it would not be 
 had it no antagonist principle to struggle against it, — 
 were there no such thing as inordinate self-love. Neither 
 would any degree of self-love be a sin, were there no 
 such principles in man as benevolence and a sense of 
 justice, to define the limit where excess begins. Re- 
 venge would be no transgression, were there not in man 
 a conscience to inform him when just resentment passes 
 over into gratuitous malice. Every virtue must neces- 
 sarily have over against it a corresponding vice. This 
 antagonism of temptation and resistance itself constitutes 
 a state of trial. As Paul has elsewhere expressed the 
 same meaning, " The flesh lusteth against the spirit, 
 and the spirit against the flesh, so that ye cannot do the 
 things that ye would." 
 
 Such was Paul's experience, and such is the experi- 
 ence of every human being in a state of probation. And 
 all this phraseology proves, not that human nature, as a 
 whole, is evil, but that there are parts of it which may 
 lead to evil. This phraseology shows, that man's judg- 
 ment and moral feeling are on the side of good, but he 
 is sometimes tempted to do wrong. Paul declares that 
 the effect of the Mosaic law on him had been, to quicken 
 
LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 49 
 
 conscience, but not to make it entirely predominant ; 
 though his account of his own actual sinfulness under 
 the law must be modified by what he says in another 
 place, when standing on his trial before the Jewish coun- 
 cil : — " Men and brethren, I have lived in all good con- 
 science before God until this day." Notwithstanding, 
 then, the difficulties which Paul represents himself to 
 have encountered, as a moral being, even under the law, 
 they were difficulties not insuperable, but such as had 
 been overcome. However strong the law of sin, which 
 was in his members, he had obeyed the law of his mind, 
 which led him to good. However evil might have been 
 present with him, when he would do good, as it must be 
 suggested to every moral agent in a state of probation, 
 he had done the good and refused the evil, for " he had 
 lived in all good conscience before God." Paul's 
 whole life had been a contradiction of the doctrine of 
 the corruption of human nature, and of human inability 
 to any thing that is good. The only thing with which 
 he ever reproached himself was having persecuted the 
 Church ; and this, he says, he did ignorantly, not know- 
 ing that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Messiah. 
 
 The key of the whole passage is found in the next 
 sentence. After saying, " O wretched man that I am ! 
 who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " he 
 exclaims, " I thank God, through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord." That is, I thank God, that through Christ I am 
 enabled to do what I could not do, or so well do, by the 
 light of nature, or by the Judaic law, that is, I am able 
 to subdue the passions and appetites, and live according 
 to the law of the mind, as he explains it a few senten- 
 ces below: — " For what the law could not do, in that 
 it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own 
 5 
 
50 LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 
 
 Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin con- 
 demned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law- 
 might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, 
 but after the spirit." Christ and Christianity have been 
 more efficacious than the Mosaic law in producing the 
 very righteousness which the law requires. 
 
 Here, then, we perceive that the Apostle has been dis- 
 coursing upon natural conscience and the Judaic law, not 
 absolutely, but comparatively. He does not wish to say, 
 that they are nothing or powerless, but are immeasurably 
 assisted by Christianity, which is precisely the fact. The 
 example and the teaching of Christ make it infinitely 
 plainer what duty is, and life and immortality brought to 
 light by his resurrection add greatly to the strength of 
 the motives which induce us to do our duty. He could 
 not have meant to disparage human nature, and assert 
 that, as God makes it, it is incapable of moral action 
 and incapacitated for a state of probation, for he express- 
 ly says, that " the Gentiles do by nature the things con- 
 tained in the law." Such an assertion would affirm that 
 ninety-nine hundredths of the human beings whom God 
 sends into the world are unfitted for the very purpose 
 for which they were created, a preparation for another. 
 It is admitted on all hands, that the heathen can sin, 
 when they choose to violate the law written on their 
 hearts, and are punished for it. If they choose to obey 
 that law, will not a just God reckon their conduct vir- 
 tue, when its opposite would have been sin .'' To con- 
 stitute men capable of sin, but incapable of virtue, is the 
 very essence of tyranny. 
 
 Neither could he have meant to say, that the only ef- 
 fect of the Mosaic law was to make mankind more sinful, 
 that it increased the light under which they sinned, with- 
 
LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 51 
 
 out increasing their power to resist temptation. For 
 under that supposition it would have been impossible to 
 account for the eminent attainments of the saints in the 
 Old Testament, so far surpassing the attainments of the 
 most virtuous pagans. Under that supposition his own 
 blameless life would have been utterly unaccountable. 
 For the Mosaic law, inefficacious as it was, had enabled 
 him to live " in all good conscience before God." He 
 means to say merely, that they are both imperfect when 
 compared with Christianity. And does not every re- 
 flecting Christian assent to that proposition .'' Where 
 should we have been without Christianity .'' There is no 
 reason for believing that the Northern nations of Europe, 
 from which we sprung, would ever have been any better 
 than they were before the introduction of Christianity. 
 Christ was their salvation, as he is ours. 
 
 And the Jew, what has become of him .'' His relig- 
 ion is entirely outgrown in the progress of the world. 
 Judaism was merely a preparation for Christianity, and 
 those who still adhere to it are retarded, rather than 
 helped onward, in the career of improvement. 
 
 The present state of the world is proof of the precise 
 point which the Apostle asserts and maintains, the im- 
 mense advantage of Christianity in making man good and 
 holy. In the heathen state, which is not the state of 
 developed humanity, but of immature, partially devel- 
 oped humanity, the passions and appetites are exercised 
 out of all proportion to the moral faculties, and in the 
 pagan the Divine image is, in a great measure, obscured. 
 The remnant of God's ancient people still adhere to rites 
 and ceremonies, and are but partially sanctified by what 
 is spiritual in their law. And Mahometanism, a religion 
 which has borrowed some of the most essential features 
 
52 LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 
 
 of Judaism and Christianity, is a great advance on Pa- 
 ganism. But tliey both want the high ideal of Chris- 
 tianity, — what is called, in the peculiar language of Paul, 
 " the spiritual law of life in Christ Jesus." His having 
 been sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, and without sin, 
 has made known to us better than ten thousand verbal 
 laws what is the true glory and excellence of our nature. 
 And his resurrection from the dead " hath begotten us 
 again to a lively hope of an inheritance incorruptible, 
 undefiled, and that fadeth not away." When, therefore, 
 we are victorious over temptation, and are delivered from 
 the dominion of the senses by him, we have the same 
 reason to " thank God, through Jesus Christ." 
 
 In interpreting the language of Paul, such as we have 
 been considering in this discourse, there are certain rules 
 of criticism which must ever be kept in view. The 
 most important is, that there is an essential difference 
 between the language of logic and the language of rhet- 
 oric, the language of the understanding and the language 
 of the heart. The language of logic and of the under- 
 standing is literal and precise. The language of rhetoric 
 and of the affections is figurative, and often exaggerated. 
 The feelings immediately excite the imagination, and the 
 imagination enlarges or diminishes things to suit its own 
 purposes, or casts over every thing a prismatic coloring. 
 Earnest conviction endeavours to impress itself on others 
 by making use of strong expressions. Allowance, there- 
 fore, must always be made for imaginative and rhetorical 
 language. This precaution is especially necessary in 
 deducing religious doctrines from the Bible. There is 
 scarcely any thing, however extravagant, which may not 
 be deduced and maintained from the sacred Scriptures 
 by the literal interpretation of figurative language. This 
 
LANGUAGE OP PAUL. 53 
 
 is, in fact, the real source of most of the unreasonable 
 and revolting dogmas which have been promulgated in 
 the Christian Church. 
 
 Even the language of the Saviour is capable of this 
 species of perversion, and has actually been thus per- 
 verted. " This is my body," said he of the bread of 
 the Eucharist, and straight the doctrine was maintained, 
 that the bread was literally his flesh, and the absurdity 
 follows, that he held his own flesh in his hands, while his 
 body was yet whole and unbroken. " This is my 
 blood," said he of the wine which he gave to the dis- 
 ciples, before one drop had flowed from his veins. And 
 yet it is maintained, that the contents of that cup were 
 literally his blood. Salvation has been made to depend 
 on believing both of these propositions. 
 
 Many of his most touching discourses exhibit the same 
 use of figurative- language. " I am the good shepherd : 
 the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." "I 
 am the resurrection and the life." 
 
 There are, too, instances in his teaching of rhetorical 
 exaggeration. " If any man come to me and hate not 
 his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and breth- 
 ren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be 
 my disciple." This might be literally interpreted, and a 
 catechism might be constructed, drawn from such rhe- 
 torical exaggerations of the Scriptures, one question of 
 which should be, " What is the first and most indispensa- 
 ble Christian duty.' " And the answer derived from this 
 text might be subjoined, — " The first Christian duty is 
 to hate father, and mother, and wife, and children." An- 
 other question of such a catechism might be, "What is 
 man's condition in this world .'' " And a corresponding 
 answer might be given, — "The condition of man in this 
 5* 
 
54 LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 
 
 world is one of almost unmingled misery." And the 
 proof-text might be taken from the fourteenth chapter of 
 Job : — " Man that is born of a woman is of few days, 
 and full of trouble." Would this be a fair account of 
 the Scriptural representation of human life } Is no al- 
 lowance to be made for rhetorical exaggeration ? In 
 interpreting this text, ought it not to be taken into con- 
 sideration by whom it was spoken, and under what cir- 
 cumstances ? — by a man in the very depth of affliction, 
 reduced to abject poverty from the possession of prince- 
 ly affluence, having just buried all his children, and 
 being covered, moreover, from head to foot with a loath- 
 some and painful disease .'' Would it be just to God to 
 make this the only Scriptural representation of our con- 
 dition in this world, and leave out all those cheerful and 
 gladdening descriptions of the present scene of things in 
 which the Scriptures abound ? Would it be consist- 
 ent at all with common candor to make the lamentations 
 of Job the true picture of human life, and pass over in 
 silence such grateful acknowledgments as are found in 
 the one hundred and third Psalm ? — " Bless the Lord, 
 O my soul, and forget not all his benefits : who forgiv- 
 eth all thine iniquities ; who healeth all thy diseases ; 
 who redeemeth thy life from destruction ; who crowneth 
 thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies ; who satis- 
 fieth thy mouth with good things ; so that thy youth is 
 renewed like the eagle's." 
 
 So the character of God might be represented as any 
 thing but amiable, by quoting only those passages of the 
 Scriptures which speak of the necessary discipline which 
 he exercises in the government of his creatures. " For 
 I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God." " For our 
 God is a consuming fire." " It is a fearful thing to fall 
 
LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 65 
 
 into the hands of the living God." If these were the 
 only passages which describe the character of God, our 
 hearts might well be filled with terror and dismay. But 
 such passages are few and far between, and when they 
 occur they admit of an explanation consistent with the 
 Divine perfections. If any thing can be proved from 
 the Scriptures, it is the infinite benignity of the Divine 
 character. " God is love." " The earth is full of the 
 goodness of the Lord." And even amidst the awful 
 manifestations of Sinai, God proclaimed himself, " The 
 Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suf- 
 fering, and abundant in goodness and truth." 
 
 These principles of interpretation are to be applied to 
 tlie language of Paul. If we did not apply them, we 
 should make him commit a great injustice towards his 
 own character, as we should towards human nature. He 
 calls himself " the chief of sinners." In another place, 
 he says that he is " the least of all the Apostles, 
 and not worthy to be called an Apostle." And yet 
 the same Paul stood up in the presence of the supreme 
 council of his nation, of which he had once been a 
 member, and declared before his former associates, 
 " Men and brethren, I have lived in all good con- 
 science before God until this day." On another occa- 
 sion, he writes to the Corinthians, " I suppose I was 
 not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles." The 
 only rational way of reconciling these apparently con- 
 tradictory passages is to consider the first as rhetorical 
 and emotional exaggerations, produced by his deep re- 
 gret for having persecuted the Church. 
 
 The same principles, I have no doubt, are to be ap- 
 plied to the language of Paul concerning human nature in 
 his Epistle to the Romans. It is rhetorical and emotion- 
 
56 LANGUAGE OF PAUL. 
 
 al, and therefore admits of exaggeration. The Epistle 
 is a persuasive address to the converts from Judaism and 
 paganism to Christianity, in the church at Rome. The 
 object is to show them that they. both stood in need of 
 the Gospel. He says many things in disparagement of 
 the Mosaic law. By some expressions, we should be 
 led to believe that he considered the Jewish dispensa- 
 tion a positive injury to the world, that its only effect had 
 been to increase human guilt. " Because the law work- 
 eth wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression." 
 The Jews would seem rather to be pitied than envied, for 
 having received such a gift. But he means no such 
 thing, for he says in another place, " What advantage, 
 then, hath the Jew, or what profit is there in circum- 
 cision ? J\Iuch every way ; chiefly^ because that unto 
 them were committed the oracles of God." 
 
 So, in describing the condition of the Gentile, or the 
 man whose only law is that which is written on the heart, 
 the Apostle must be allowed the same latitude of rhetor- 
 ical exaggeration. He must be allowed to describe the 
 great difficulty of obeying the law of natural conscience 
 — when there is another law in the members warring 
 against the law of the mind — in glowing colors, when 
 it is to be contrasted with the condition of the Christian 
 who possessed the Gospel, " the law of the spirit of life 
 in Christ Jesus, which makes us free from the law of 
 sin and death." 
 
DISCOUESE IV. 
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE RECTITUDE OF HUMAN NA- 
 TURE DERIVED FROM THE STRUCTURE OF UNI- 
 VERSAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 YEA, AND WHY EVEN OF YOURSELVES JUDGE YE NOT VyHAT IS 
 
 EIGHT? — Lukexii. 57. 
 
 I INTEND, from these words of the Saviour, to pur- 
 sue an inquiry in which we have been some time en- 
 gaged, as to the moral structure of human nature, the 
 power of distinguishing right from wrong, the moral 
 feeling with which right and wrong are viewed, and the 
 power which men suppose themselves to possess of 
 choosing between them and the responsibility upon which 
 they are conscious of acting every day of their lives. 
 
 Much light, I believe, will be thrown upon this sub- 
 ject by a consideration of the structure of universal lan- 
 guage. The universal language of mankind is the best 
 exponent of what they find in their own constitution. 
 Languages were formed by those who had no theories 
 to support, either metaphysical or theological, by those 
 who never heard of the doctrine of original sin, who 
 were unpledged to any theory of the fall of Adam, and 
 who never heard of Adam himself. 
 
 The structure of universal language on this subject 
 
58 TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 is the best evidence, because it is wholly incidental and 
 undesigned. What testimony does it bear as to the fact, 
 that man, since the Fall, is created averse to all |ood, 
 and inclined to all evil ? The universal structure of 
 language is the best evidence upon the subject, for " it 
 is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth 
 speaketh." Language is the expression or declaration 
 of the impression that outward things make upon the 
 senses of man, and upon the moral nature within, and of 
 the results of reflection upon them. There is a corre- 
 spondence among all languages, because human nature is 
 everywhere the same, and the relations of man to man, 
 and to external things by which he is surrounded, are the 
 same. Every language has words for cold and heat, for 
 square and round, for bitter and sweet, for father and 
 mother, for sister and brother, because these things are 
 universal. So every language has words for truth and 
 falsehood, for justice and injustice, for virtue and vice, 
 for mercy and cruelty, for gratitude and ingratitude, for 
 fidelity and treachery, for selfishness and benevolence. 
 
 The existence of the words cold and heat, light and 
 darkness, square and round, bitter and sweet, are dem- 
 onstrations that all mankind have senses, sight, feeling, 
 taste. So the existence and universality of the terms 
 which indicate the moral qualities of actions, i-ight and 
 wrong, just and unjust, good and bad, are a demonstra- 
 tion equally strong of the existence and universality of a 
 moral sense, which discerns certain .moral qualities in 
 actions. One action is pronounced good, and another 
 bad. 
 
 How does this great fact agree with the theory, that 
 human nature was wrecked by the Fall, and is now in 
 ruins .' The structure of universal language demon- 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OP LANGUAGE, 59 
 
 strates that the moral faculty survived the ruin, whatever 
 it might be, and is still active and discriminating, per- 
 forms its appropriate office of informing man what is 
 good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, 
 what is meritorious and what is blameworthy. 
 
 We are told, that by the Fall man lost his congeni- 
 ality to that which is good, and his repugnance to that 
 which is evil, and became by nature better pleased with 
 that which is evil, and averse to that which is good. 
 This whole theory is directly contradicted by the very 
 structure of language. It can be true on no other sup- 
 position, than that all mankind had conspired lo form 
 languages directly contradictory to their moral constitu- 
 tion, to call that evil which is agreeable to their moral 
 sense, and that good which is repugnant to it. Such a 
 universal conspiracy is just as incredible as a universal 
 conspiracy to call that bitter which the human palate 
 pronounces sweet, and that sweet which the human 
 palate pronounces bitter. 
 
 Had such a change in human nature taken place, that 
 that which is good afterwards seemed to be evil, and that 
 which is evil seemed to be good, then the law of human 
 nature itself is changed, for we can go no deeper than 
 what seems to us. What seems to us must be taken to 
 be reality, and in the absence of revelation, human na- 
 ture is its own law ; our constitution is the only way in 
 which God makes known his will to us. We cannot be- 
 lieve otherwise than that our senses make a true report 
 to us of outward things, nor can we believe otherwise 
 than that our moral sense makes a true report to us of 
 things which relate to right and wrong. We can be 
 obliged only to go according to appearances, because 
 God made our senses, and made it impossible for us to 
 
60 TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 distrust them, and he made our moral sense, and made 
 it impossible for us to distrust that. Human nature^ as 
 it now is, is our laiv, and not human nature as it was be- 
 fore the Fall, if there ever was such a thing. What 
 seems to us to be good we must take to be good, and 
 what seems to us to be evil we must take to be evil. 
 As far as we are concerned, it makes no difference 
 whether human nature was changed by God or Adam 
 or not, if it has been changed, and the laws which were 
 previously applicable to it are not applicable now, for 
 human nature is its own law. Sin is the violation of a 
 law, the law given to the being who transgresses it. In 
 the absence of revelation, human nature itself is the only 
 law which man has. It is that which points out some 
 things as right and others as wrong. If human nature 
 was changed by the Fall, then the human nature which 
 now is is man's law, and not the human nature which 
 existed before the Fall. If evil has become good, and 
 good evil, there is no help for it. Man must obey the 
 law of that nature which God has given him, and not that 
 nature which a remote ancestor lost. 
 
 -Revelation is no remedy for the evil of the Fall, even 
 if there was such a thing and it consisted in the depra- 
 vation of human nature, if revelation makes known a 
 higher law than that which corresponds to nature in its 
 present state. A law, to be just, must be commensurate 
 with that nature to which it is proposed, and of which it 
 is required. Revelation cannot alter nature. What 
 man wants, if his nature is fallen, is not a higher law, — 
 that only increases his difBculty, — but a restoration of his 
 nature to that condition in which it was before the Fall. 
 Then a higher law would be just and proportionate to 
 his nature. 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 61 
 
 If sin arise from a defect in nature, then revelation is 
 no cure for it, for revelation cannot change nature. But 
 if sin be an abuse of nature, then revelation may be a 
 remedy for it. In one case it depends on the will of 
 man, and in the other case it does not depend upon it. 
 No man by force of will can change his nature, but a man 
 may by the force of will cease to abuse his nature. 
 And this is precisely what revelation induces him to do. 
 
 If there were such an impediment in human nature as 
 the doctrine of original sin asserts, then revelation would 
 be in vain, for there would be no power of rising to the 
 level which revelation proposes. It would be as vain as 
 to command man to ascend to the clouds without wings, 
 or to avoid death, being created mortal. 
 
 I trust that I have made it clear that the structure of 
 universal language proves the universality of a moral 
 sense, and moral perception of the difference between 
 what is right and what is wrong, that these percep- 
 tions were not destroyed by the Fall, that they consti- 
 tute the natural law of human nature, and if they were 
 impaired, they would still, in their imperfect state, con- 
 stitute the law of human nature, because they would be 
 commensurate with its powers. 
 
 If any further proof were wanted of this, it would be 
 found in the relation of language to revefation. Reve- 
 lation did not create language. It used the language 
 previously in existence. At the first call of Abraham, 
 we read that God said to him, — " T am Almighty God. 
 Walk before me, and be thou perfect." Consider what 
 this language implies. What could Abraham under- 
 stand by the word "per/ed"? How could he know 
 what perfection was ? There was no written law at that 
 time, and perhaps writing was unknown. The only per- 
 6 
 
62 TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 fection which Abraham could know was that which 
 reason, conscience, and experience had revealed to him. 
 " Even of yourselves judge ye not what is right ? " said 
 the Saviour. On another occasion God says of him, — 
 " I know him that he will command his children and his 
 household after him, and they shall keep the way of the 
 Lord to do justice and judgment." What is implied in 
 this ? Certainly that Abraham and his offspring would 
 know the way of the Lord, and what justice and judg- 
 ment were, by the natural powers of their own minds. 
 If special revelation were necessary to teach men this, 
 then all mankind not living under the light of revelation 
 would not have been in a state of probation. 
 
 We have the Christian revelation, not in the Hebrew, 
 the ancient language of the people of God, but in the 
 Greek, a language which was formed by a nation of bar- 
 barians while wandering in the forests of southeastern 
 Europe. The Old Testament itself, two centuries be- 
 fore, had been translated into the same language. There 
 is no want in the Greek of words to express every He- 
 brew idea relating to religion and morality. The very 
 words of our text, which express Christ's judgment of 
 the natural powers of man, originated centuries, perhaps 
 a thousand years, before, among the forests or the islands 
 of Greece. The word rendered ^' right" literally 
 means just. How could that word have come into ex- 
 istence in the Greek tongue, were there not in human 
 nature the natural perception of justice ? The existence 
 of that word in all languages is just as necessary and in- 
 evitable as the words night and day, white and black, 
 because it expresses a quality of actions of which the 
 mind has an intuitive perception. 
 
 But one more branch of the subject remains undis- 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 63 
 
 cussed. It may be said that the Fall, although it did not 
 destroy the moral perceptions of human nature, destroy- 
 ed its balance, and gave the tendencies to evil a fatal 
 preponderance. Man, before the Fall, was placed in an 
 equal balance, with an equal inclination to good and evil, 
 so that by a mere exercise of free will he might choose 
 one or the other. By the Fall, a change took place in 
 his nature, so that there is since a constitutional repug- 
 nance to every thing that is good, and a love for every 
 thing that is bad. This proposition we have already 
 refuted by an analysis of the structure of universal lan- 
 guage, in which we showed that all the vices had, in the 
 very names which men have given them, the stamp of 
 their reprobation, and the virtues names signifying their 
 approval. There is another demonstration. All lan- 
 guages have words in them which signify, not only vir- 
 tues and vices, but good men and bad men. And good 
 men and bad men derive their characters, not from their 
 natures, but their actions. If all men were bad by na- 
 ture and constitution, then, without a miracle, there could 
 be no good men in the absence of a revelation. Yet 
 mankind in all ages and nations testify to the existence of 
 good men. Nay, it is expected by society of every man 
 to be good, and the demand is not thought unreasonable; 
 every man is thought very culpable if he is not good. 
 Who are his judges .-' Those who possess the same na- 
 ture themselves. If they felt that their own natures were 
 so evil that good was impossible, or exceedingly difficult, 
 they would readily excuse him. Their condemnation of 
 him shows, that, in their estimation, human nature has no 
 such strong and irresistible tendency to evil ; there is so 
 much good in it, and so much capacity for good, that 
 every man is justly expected to be good ; not to be es- 
 
64 TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 pecially admired and rewarded for it, as if it were a great 
 or a difficult tiling, but rather as a natural and easy thing. 
 Whereas, when he does wrong, he is thought to merit the 
 strongest censure, because he has acted, not in accord- 
 ance with his whole nature, but in violation of one of its 
 highest and most essential laws. 
 
 Men of all nations and languages make laws. Let us 
 consider what facts as to man's moral constitution are 
 taken for granted in this proceeding. Is it not taken for 
 granted that there is a proper balance in man's moral 
 constitution ? Laws are not arbitrary. They are usually 
 conformed to men's sense of natural justice. If they 
 were not, as a whole, they could not be sustained for a 
 single day. Their ostensible object is to promote justice 
 between man and man. If men had no natural sense of 
 justice, they could never know what laws to enact, and 
 if they had no preference for justice over injustice, then 
 no laws could be executed. He who breaks a law which 
 he knows to be right is thought to be justly punished. 
 And upon what is founded the opinion of the justice of 
 his punishment ? Upon the just balance of his moral 
 constitution, that, though he had passions, and appetites, 
 and an immediate, though mistaken, interest to tempt him 
 to disobey, still he had reason to teach him the propriety 
 of the law, conscience to feel its obligation, and a free- 
 dom and power of will to enable him to comply with it, 
 against all the solicitations of the passions and appetites. 
 
 There are exceptions to this, and, as in many other 
 instances, the exceptions prove the rule, and show the 
 reason upon which it is founded, and the justice of its 
 application. There are two, and perhaps three, classes 
 of persons to whom human laws do not apply, — who, 
 whfin they break human laws, are arraigned, and tried. 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 65 
 
 and acquitted of guilt, — idiots, lunatics, and sometimes 
 those who have destroyed their moral nature by deep- 
 seated, habitual vice. Law does not apply to idiots, be- 
 cause they never had those powers of reason and con- 
 science which create a just balance of the human facul- 
 ties. The animal appetites and the passions having their 
 full strength, and reason and conscience not having their 
 proportionate development, the idiot has no fair trial, and 
 the penalties of law, if applied to him, would be in the 
 highest degree unjust. The lunatic once had this just 
 balance, but through disease he has lost it. His reason 
 is so enfeebled or disordered, that he has the most imper- 
 fect or erroneous notions of things ; his appetites are so 
 morbid, that what seems to a person in health but a slight 
 temptation is to him perfectly irresistible ; his passions 
 are so inflamed and excitable, that the slightest provoca- 
 tion rouses him to frenzy. Human justice sees the 
 impropriety of applying the requisitions of law to a be- 
 ing thus disqualified by the condition of his nature to 
 comply with its requirements, and the juror on his oath 
 acquits him of guilt. 
 
 There is another case in which man's fitness for moral 
 probation seems to be overturned, in the case of long and 
 habitual indulgence of the animal appetites, by which 
 they have disordered the animal economy, and by that 
 means impaired the intellectual and moral functions, 
 and themselves, by constant excess, grown to gigantic 
 and disproportionate strength. When such a change as 
 this has really taken place, men do not attach the same 
 censure to each individual immoral act, as at the com- 
 mencement of a vicious career, except in as far as the 
 man is to blame for having brought himself into such a 
 condition. 
 
 6* 
 
65 TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 Now the atrocity of the doctrine of the Fall of man 
 consists in this, that it represents just such a change to 
 have taken place in the human constitution by the fall of 
 Adam as really takes place in the idiot, the lunatic, and 
 the habitual sinner, without any fault of the offspring of 
 Adam ; and yet God, less just than man, treats them as 
 if they were legitimate subjects of law, and punishes 
 them as severely as if they possessed unimpaired all the 
 powers and capacities which are necessary to free, unbi- 
 ased moral action, and which man possessed at his 
 original creation. Such a system of theology ascribes a 
 conduct to the Deity more unjust than the taskmasters of 
 Egypt, who withheld the straw and still required the full 
 tale of bricks from their downtrodden slaves. 
 
 I have accomplished, I hope, the purpose with which 
 I commenced this discourse, that of convincing you that 
 the structure of universal language demonstrates the uni- 
 versality of a moral sense and of moral perception ; that 
 some actions are thought by the spectator and felt by the 
 doer to be right, and to deserve reward, others wrong, 
 and to merit punishment ; that men are everywhere 
 thought good or bad, not according to their nature, but 
 their conduct in the use or abuse of their nature. They 
 form their own characters, either good or bad, by their 
 own voluntary acts. The fact, that there are both good 
 and bad men under the light of nature, is sufficient proof 
 that there is no such fatal bias to evil as is represented ; 
 and, finally, if there were, it would, to the same extent, 
 destroy just moral responsibility. 
 
 Mankind, according to the declaration of the Saviour, 
 " of themselves judge what is right," and they feel their 
 own moral constitution so justly balanced by the Crea- 
 tor, that they can choose the right when they please, 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 67 
 
 and are deeply and undeniably culpable when they do 
 wrong. 
 
 It may be objected to me, perhaps, that I have been 
 arguing against my own cause. 1 have proved that there 
 is a universal perception of the difference between right 
 and wrong, good and evil ; that all men judge what is 
 right, and feel the obligation of choosing the good and re- 
 fusing the evil. Nay, more, they feel their powers to be 
 so justly balanced between good and evil, that they may 
 choose either at will. They blame others, — they blame 
 themselves, — when evil is chosen in preference to good. 
 Yet, after all, there remains the great fact of the univer- 
 sality of sin. The proof of the perfection of mechanism 
 is the manner in which it works. Man cannot be made 
 right if he goes wrong. Man, according to my theory, 
 it maybe said, is made for virtue, and yet he sins. How 
 can this be explained ? Though created in the image 
 of God, and endowed with the capacity of godlike virtue, 
 men in all ages have complained, in the language of the 
 poet, — 
 
 " I see tlie right, and I approve it too ; 
 I know the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue." 
 
 I answer, that mankind, in their present state, are im- 
 perfect. God alone is perfect. He is infinite in knowl- 
 edge, and therefore cannot be deceived. He is perfectly 
 happy, and therefore cannot be tempted. His choice, 
 therefore, is unchangeably fixed on that which is 
 good. It is God's will that man should commence his 
 career at nothing, without positive character, though in- 
 nocent; without knowledge, without experience; weak 
 and subjected to urgent wants and strong necessities ; 
 with passions within and many and mighty temptations 
 without. His ignorance is liable to be deceived, his 
 
68 TESTIMONY OF THE STEUCTUKE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 passions to be excited, his interests to be miscalculated, 
 and of course he is liable to sin. In comparison to God, 
 in his best estate, he has the weakness of infancy. Is it 
 not to be expected that a being thus endowed and thus 
 conditioned should sometimes sin ? All that can be ex- 
 pected of man is that his career should be progressive ; 
 that his choice should be fixed on good after wavering 
 awhile. Man being free, the only way in which his 
 character can be established is by fixing his deliberate 
 and habitual choice on good. Accordingly, this seems 
 to be the whole purpose of the present life. This world 
 is a state of discipline, having in view this very end, — 
 the production in man of a holy character. 
 
 For this purpose, God has arranged a system of re- 
 wards and punishments. He has made suffering to be a 
 natural consequence of sin, and happiness of virtue. 
 Suffering and enjoyment are, as it were, the reins 
 on the right hand and on the left by which our Almighty 
 Father directs the free soul of man along the path of 
 virtue and up the steep of holiness to eternal glory and 
 reward. 
 
 Sin, then, under this view of things, is not necessarily 
 a fatal and irrecoverable error. If it were, then the 
 creation of man with his present constitution, and in his 
 present circumstances, would not have been an act of 
 benevolence. It may be overruled for good. As we 
 see it in others, as we feel its effects in ourselves, it may 
 contribute to fix our choice unchangeably on that which 
 is good. For my own part, I can conceive of no way 
 in which a being like man can be prepared for the sta- 
 ble virtue, the settled character, the secure perfection, 
 and the unfading glory of heaven, except by passing 
 through a state of trial and temptation like this. Some 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 69 
 
 errors would naturally be committed by a being imperfect 
 in knowledge and of limited experience. But God sets 
 his mark upon those errors in the suffering they occa- 
 sion, that we may be warned to commit them no more. 
 
 Reason does not teach us, the Scriptures do not in- 
 form us, that any sin is incurable, any mistake irremedi- 
 able. The soul never ceases to be free. Repentance 
 and reformation, therefore, are always possible. The 
 only loss of freedom which the soul ever suffers is the 
 slavery of evil habit. The soul itself, a spark of celestial 
 fire, can never become wholly corrupted. Conscience 
 can never become totally extinct. The soul, when most 
 enslaved, can never cease to reverence virtue and to ab- 
 hor vice. Sin makes no part of its essence ; it is only a 
 wrong exercise of its faculties. Repentance, then, can 
 never be impossible ; and, certainly, there is no guilt too 
 great for God to pardon. The soul which truly repents 
 is truly changed. It is no longer sinful, but holy, and 
 God can no longer regard it with displeasure. 
 
 But the advocate of the doctrine of constitutional 
 depravity may here press me with the objection, that I 
 admit human imperfection. T. allow the sinfulness of 
 mankind. We both acknowledge the same facts, that 
 all mankind sin, and some are very wicked. What is 
 the difference between his doctrine of constitutional de- 
 pravity, and my doctrine of human imperfection .'' 
 
 I answer, that my doctrine of imperfection is consis- 
 tent with the Divine attributes of wisdom, justice, and 
 benevolence. Imperfection is inherent in all created 
 things, in every thing below infinitude. Man must have 
 been made imperfect, at whatever point he might have 
 been placed of that scale of being which extends from 
 nothing up to Deity. And to whatever imperfections 
 
70 TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 he might have been subjected, those imperfections might 
 have seemed to him as great as those under which he now 
 labors. Such imperfections would seem to be the le- 
 gitimate subjects of a fatherly pity, and not of a vindic- 
 tive punishment. " Like as a father pitieth his children, 
 so the Lord pitieth them that fear him ; for he knoweth 
 our frame, and remembereth that we are dust." 
 
 The doctrine of constitutional depravity, on the other 
 hand, does not put the imperfection of mankind upon 
 the ground of necessity, but supposes this difficulty to 
 have been overcome, and the first pair to have been cre- 
 ated absolutely perfect. Had they maintained their in- 
 tegrity, their posterity would not have been liable to sin. 
 According to the theory of constitutional depravity, the 
 liability to sin has been superinduced upon the whole 
 race by the misconduct of their first parents. To them 
 it is punishment of a fault which they never committed, 
 and of sin of which they are altogether innocent. The 
 doctrine of human imperfection supposes every human 
 being to have the capacity to love God and goodness, but 
 likewise to have the capacity of becoming the enemy of 
 God " by wicked works." The doctrine of constitutional 
 depravity supposes man to be the enemy of God by na- 
 ture, previous to any voluntary moral action. Accord- 
 ing to my theory, man has the power of loving God and 
 goodness, but he may lose that power by misconduct, 
 and justly suffer in consequence of that loss. Accord- 
 ing to the other, he has no power to love God and good- 
 ness, and then is punished precisely as if he had lost it 
 by his own misconduct. 
 
 It may be objected, moreover, to the views I have 
 advanced, that they make light of the evil of sin, and tend 
 to make men easy and contented in the practice of it. It 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 71 
 
 is no more than what is to be expected from our imper- 
 fect nature. It enters into the present arrangement of 
 things. It is the means of fixing the soul more steadfast- 
 ly in the practice of virtue, when once its evil has been 
 felt in its bitter fruits. That cannot incur much guilt 
 for which provision is made in the Divine arrangements. 
 We may do evil that good may come. 
 
 I answer, that it makes no part of the system which I 
 advocate, to palliate the guilt or deny the evil of sin. I 
 rather make it to appear more exceedingly sinful. 
 
 The evil of sin, in this discussion, is an ambiguous 
 expression. It may mean the evil of actual or of original 
 sin. With the evil of original sin we have nothing to do. 
 It is wholly indifferent whether we appreciate it more or 
 less, as no opinion of ours will make it greater or less, 
 or help us to escape the evil consequences of it. It is a 
 fixed quantity, descending down through all ages, and 
 equally affecting all generations. It is to us an arbi- 
 trary infliction, and can be removed only by the arbi- 
 trary will of God. As it was incurred without our fault, 
 so no effort of ours can rid us of it. It makes certain our 
 damnation, unless God is pleased to change our natures. 
 
 But he who holds the doctrine of original sin must 
 regard actual sin in a totally different light from him who 
 holds that human nature is now in precisely the same 
 condition in which it was at the creation. If the doctrine 
 of original sin be true, then man is in a state of damna- 
 tion by nature, before he has done either good or evil. 
 In the language of the Westminster Catechism, — " All 
 mankind are by nature under God's wrath and curse, 
 and so made liable to all the miseries of this life and the 
 pains of hell for ever." No actual transgression, surely, 
 can put them in a worse condition than this. Mankind 
 
72 TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 are by nature in the condition of devils, wholly given 
 over to evil, and no good is to be expected of them. 
 The sin of a devil is no great evil, for he is already as 
 bad as he can be. Man cannot be much degraded by 
 sin, for he is wholly degraded already. The evil of ac- 
 tual sin, then, cannot consist in degradation. Sin is man's 
 appropriate work, the employment to which he is 
 adapted, and the only employment of which he is made 
 capable. Then, as to the suffering it produces, it is diffi- 
 cult to conceive how a human being can suffer more than 
 " all the miseries of this life and the pains of hell for 
 ever." 
 
 But supposing man to come into the world pure and 
 innocent, and to be left to form his own character, instead 
 of inheriting one already formed, the sin becomes a word 
 of the most awful significance. That terrible interest 
 which is made to centre in the single sin of Adam, as 
 determining the condition of his posterity, is diffused 
 over all their actions. Every sin is a fall to him who 
 commits it, just as much, in proportion to its magnitude, 
 as was the sin of Adam. Milton, by the power of his 
 genius, has gathered around that act a thousand nameless 
 horrors. But if every human being were able to see his 
 own sins in their true light, he would be infinitely more ap- 
 palled than he can be by contemplating the sin of Adam. 
 
 Personal transgression is followed by a painful sense 
 of the loss of innocence. What stronger evidence can 
 there be that we were made pure, and intended to con- 
 tinue so .'' Not only is there a painful sense of the loss 
 of innocence, but a strong feeling of self-reproach. On 
 what is that self-reproach founded } On the conscious- 
 ness that we have descended to something beneath us. 
 We have voluntarily abandoned that dignity which be- 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. 73 
 
 longed to us, as free rational and religious, beings. The 
 violent contrast between the dignity of a child of God, 
 created in his own image, and made for virtue and obe- 
 dience, and the humiliation of sin, constitutes the sting 
 and anguish of guilt. The very consciousness that we 
 are not fallen in Adam, but fallen in ourselves, consti- 
 tutes our misery, when we feel that we have done wrong. 
 It would be an infinite relief to us, if, under a sense of 
 guilt, we could practically believe in the doctrine of 
 original sin, — that we are by nature " indisposed, dis- 
 abled, and made opposite to all that is good, and wholly 
 inclined to all evil." Then we might find a cloak for 
 our sins, and feel ourselves excused, in some measure, 
 for our aberrations. It is the fact, that no man can 
 really believe this doctrine, that makes the burden of 
 our guilt lie on us so heavily ; it is the consciousness 
 that we are " created in the image of God, and have his 
 law written on our hearts, and are endued with that 
 freedom of the will which enables us, if we choose, to 
 fulfil the requirements of the law." 
 
 Sin becomes a much sorer evil, when we consider it 
 as imprinting a stain on that which was originally pure, 
 than when considered as only giving a deeper dye to 
 that which is already blackened and defaced. Taking 
 away the doctrine of original sin, actual transgression 
 becomes the only real evil there is in the world. The 
 sins which men are committing every day, and not the sin 
 that Adam committed at the beginning of the world, are 
 the real cause of the multitudinous woes which oppress 
 mankind. By repetition they harden into habits, and 
 finally form character, and thus create the most momen- 
 tous difference between man and man that can possibly 
 be conceived. They separate the sinner from the saint 
 7 
 
74 TESTIMONY OF THE STRUCTUEE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 by a gulf which he cannot pass. They involve him in 
 woes which no man can number, and of which no finite 
 mind can see the end. 
 
 I leave all who hear me to judge, if the views of 
 which -I have now been giving an exposition are cal- 
 culated to diminish our apprehension of the evil of sin. 
 
DISCOURSE V. 
 
 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE THE STRONGEST PRINCI- 
 PLE IN MAN. 
 
 AND WHEN THEY WERE ESCAPED, THEN THEY KNEW THAT THE ISL- 
 AND WAS CALLED MELITA. AND THE BARBAROUS PEOPLE SHOWED 
 US NO LITTLE KINDNESS : FOR THEY KINDLED A FIRE, AND RE- 
 CEIVED US EVERY ONE, BECAUSE OF THE PRESENT RAIN, AND BE- 
 CAUSE OF THE COLD. AND WHEN PAUL HAD GATHERED A BUNDLE 
 OF STICKS, AND LAID THEM ON THE FIRE, THERE CAME A VIPER 
 OUT OF THE HEAT, AND FASTENED ON HIS HAND. AND WHEN THE 
 BARBARIANS SAW THE VENOMOUS BEAST HANG ON HIS HAND, THEY 
 SAID AMONG THEMSELVES, NO DOUBT THIS MAN IS A MURDERER, 
 WHOM, THOUGH HE HATH ESCAPED THE SEA, YET VENGEANCE SVt- 
 FERETH NOT TO LIVE. AND HE SHOOK OFF THE BEAST INTO THE 
 FIRE, AND FELT NO HARM. HOWBEIT, THEY LOOKED WHEN HE 
 SHOULD HAVE SWOLLEN, OR FALLEN DOWN DEAD SUDDENLY : BUT 
 AFTER THEY HAD LOOKED A GREAT WHILE, AND SAW NO HARM 
 COME TO HIM, THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS, AND SAID THAT HE 
 
 WAS A GOD — Acts xxviii. 1-6. 
 
 In ascertaining what are the essential moral and relig- 
 ious elements of human nature, no evidence could be 
 more unexceptionable than that of these barbarous in- 
 habitants of a solitary island, cut off by its position from 
 frequent intercourse with the rest of the world. They 
 were certainly the most unsophisticated representatives 
 of humanity, its religious faith, its intellectual connec- 
 
76 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 tions, its moral sentiments, its native feelings. It is my 
 purpose to make use of this accidental visit of Paul to 
 Melita in our present investigation into the moral consti- 
 tution of human nature. 
 
 It was the purpose of a discourse which I delivered 
 not long ago, to prove, by the structure of universal lan- 
 guage, the universal perception of the distinction be- 
 tween right and wrong, and the universal recognition of 
 the obligation to choose the right and reject the wrong. 
 
 It is the purpose of this discourse to prove that this 
 perception of the understanding is accompanied by an 
 emotion of the heart, and that the feelings excited by 
 what is right are those of approbation, and those pro- 
 duced by wrong those of disapprobation, — the first 
 rising up through the different degrees of pleasure, ad- 
 miration, enthusiasm ; the others descending, through dis- 
 gust and abhorrence, to stern indignation. I shall under- 
 take to show, not only that there is a moral feeling as 
 well as a moral perception in the constitution of man, 
 but that it is the strongest feeling, and demonstrated to 
 be so by its power to overcome and vanquish any other 
 that can be brought in conflict with it. 
 
 It is taught as a fundamental doctrine of theology, 
 that "mankind are by nature indisposed, disabled, and 
 made opposite to all that is good, and wholly inclined to 
 all evil." In the case of these savage islanders, there 
 can be no doubt that they were in the state of nature. 
 And what did they do ? Did they show by their spon- 
 taneous actions that they were " indisposed, disabled, and 
 made opposite to all that is good, and wholly inclined to all 
 evil " .'' Had they been, they would have murdered the 
 Apostle and his companions as soon as they touched the 
 shore. But, on the contrary, what is the testimony of 
 
THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE. 77 
 
 the Evangelist ? " And the barbarous people showed 
 us no little kindness : for they kindled a fire, and received 
 us every one, because of the present rain, and because 
 of the cold." And yet, man in the state of nature is 
 " indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is 
 good, and wholly inclined to all evil " ! So much for 
 theory against fact. 
 
 The character of savage nations has generally been 
 grossly misrepresented. It has generally been drawn 
 by enemies, invaders, oppressors, exterminators. But 
 the universal testimony of experience is, that they 
 are vitiated and depraved by intercourse with the 
 self-styled civilized man. The celebrated traveller, 
 Ledyard, deserves to be heard upon this subject. 
 After having traversed much of the uncivilized parts 
 of the four continents, he thus records his experi- 
 ence of one half the human species: — "-I have ob- 
 served among all nations, that the women are the sg^me 
 kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender beings. I never 
 addressed myself in the language of decency and friend- 
 ship to a woman, whether civilized or savage, without 
 receiving a decent and friendly answer. In wandering 
 over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through 
 honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, unprincipled Russia, 
 and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if 
 hungry, thirsty, cold, wet, or sick, woman has ever 
 been friendly to me, and uniformly so ; and to add to 
 this virtue, so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, 
 these actions have been performed in so free and so kind 
 a manner, that, if I were thirsty, I drank the sweet 
 draught, and if hungry, ate the coarse morsel with a 
 double relish." Is it not a libel on human nature to say 
 
 that it is " indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all 
 
 7 * 
 
78 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 that is good, and wholly inclined to all evil " ? Can any 
 reasonable man believe, that, when the human race stand 
 before their Judge, and he shall say, " I was hungry, 
 and ye gave me meat ; thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; 
 
 a stranger, and ye took me in ; inasmuch as ye did 
 
 it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me," 
 — these poor savages are to be excluded from the sen- 
 tence, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
 kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world," because the circumstances of their birth shut 
 them out from the enjoyment of the light of the Gospel ? 
 The same traveller speaks thus of the Tartars, a race 
 whose name is another word for the wildest barbarity : — 
 " The Tartar is a man of nature, not of art. His 
 philosophy is, therefore, simple, but sometimes sublime. 
 Let us enumerate some of his virtues. He is a lover 
 of peace. No lawyer is here, perplexing the natural 
 rights of property. No wanton Helen, displaying fatal 
 charms. No priest, with his outrageous zeal, has ever 
 disturbed the peace. Never, I believe, did a Tartar 
 speak ill of the Deity, or envy his fellow-creatures. 
 He is contented to be what he is. Hospitable and hu- 
 mane, he is uniformly tranquil and cheerful." The 
 child of nature and not of art, a lover of peace, conr 
 tented and free from envy, hospitable and humane ! 
 And this is that nature which theologians have de- 
 scribed as " indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to 
 all that is good, and wholly inclined to all evil " ! And 
 he thus sums up his experience : — " Upon the whole, 
 mankind have u&ed me well, and although I have as yet 
 reached only the first stage of my journey, I feel myself 
 much indebted for that urbanity which I always thought 
 more general than many think it to be, and were it not 
 
THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE. 79 
 
 for the mischievous laws and bad examples of some gov- 
 ernments I have passed through, I ara persuaded I 
 should be able to give you a still better account of our 
 fellow-creatures. " 
 
 William Penn, when he landed on the shores of the 
 Delaware, did not find the simple children of the forest 
 disposed to hate him, as they were bound to do, since 
 he was a good man. No bow was bent against his 
 breast, no hatchet or scalping-knife raised to shed his 
 blood. He was received as a brother and a friend. 
 All his good qualities were appreciated and esteemed. 
 
 Father White, the early Jesuit missionary, who came 
 over with the first colony which was planted in Mary- 
 land, writes in one of his communications to his spiritual 
 superiors concerning the aborigines, with whom he was 
 daily conversant : — " This race is endowed with an in- 
 genuous and liberal disposition. They keep themselves 
 as much as possible from wine and warm drinks, nor 
 are they easily induced to taste them, except in cases 
 where the English have infected them with their vices. 
 Upon the whole, they cultivate generous minds ; what- 
 ever kindness you confer, they repay.". 
 
 Hear another witness as to the native character of 
 the aborigines of this country. The following ex- 
 tracts were written in Plymouth, New England, the 
 next year after the landing of the Pilgrims : — " They 
 were wont to be the most cruel and treacherous 
 people in these parts, even like lions ; but to us they 
 have been like lambs, so kind, so submissive, so trusty, 
 as a man may truly say, many Christians are not so kind 
 and sincere." The reason of this favorable exhibition 
 of the human character appears in another extract : — 
 " And we, for our part, through God's grace, have with 
 that equity, justice, and compassion carried ourselves 
 
80 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 towards them, as they have received much favor, help, 
 and aid from us, but never the least injury or wrong." 
 " And we find in many of them, especially of the 
 younger sort, such a tractable disposition, both to relig- 
 ion and humanity, as that if we had means to apparel 
 them, and wholly to retain ihem with us, as their desire 
 is, they would doubtless in time prove serviceable to 
 God and man." 
 
 This testimony is confirmed, in the most ample man- 
 ner, by Catlin, the famous traveller among the Western 
 and Northwestern tribes of the Indians of North Ameri- 
 ca. He represents them as possessing many of the 
 noblest traits of the human character. Their vices are 
 few, and those the faults of children, rather than those 
 of moral obliquity and deep-seated malice. But what 
 is most to our present purpose, they are uniformly vi- 
 tiated by intercourse with the whites. Christians though 
 they be in name. The vices of the whites are legion in 
 comparison to theirs. The vices of a large city would 
 be a revelation to these simple-minded .sons of the 
 forest. It is true they have waged bloody and cruel 
 wars with their civilized neighbours, but it has been in 
 defence of right, for the preservation of their lands, the 
 inheritance of their fathers, for their altars and their 
 homes. 
 
 The travels of Mungo Park contain testimonies equally 
 strong to the native character of the African race. He 
 sometimes met with rough usage, but on the whole ex- 
 perienced a hospitality and kindness, which, considering 
 his belonging to another race, from whom the Africans 
 have suffered so much injustice from time immemorial, 
 were truly wonderful. He thus writes of the Mandin- 
 goes, one of the largest and most powerful tribes of the 
 African continent : — 
 
THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE. 81 
 
 " The Mandingoes, in particular, are a very gentle 
 race ; cheerful in their disposition, inquisitive, credulous, 
 simple, and fond of flattery. Perhaps the most promi- 
 nent defect in their character was that insurmountable 
 propensity, which the reader must have observed to pre- 
 vail in all classes of them, to steal from me the effects I 
 
 was possessed of. Notwithstanding I was so great 
 
 a sufferer by it, I do not consider that their natural sense 
 of justice was perverted or extinguished : it was over- 
 powered only for the moment, by the strength of a 
 temptation which it required no little virtue to resist. 
 
 "On the other hand, as some counterbalance to this 
 depravity of their nature, allowing it to be such, it is 
 impossible for me to forget the disinterested charity and 
 tender solicitude with which many of these poor heathen 
 (from the sovereign of Sego to the poor women who 
 received me at different times into their huts when I was 
 perishing of hunger) sympathized with me in my suffer- 
 ings, relieved my distresses, and contributed to my 
 safety. This acknowledgment, however, is perhaps 
 more particularly due to the female part of the nation. 
 Among the men, as the reader must have seen, my re- 
 ception, though generally kind, was sometimes otherwise. 
 It varied according to the various tempers of those to 
 whom I made application. The hardness of avarice in 
 some, and the blindness of bigotry in others, had closed 
 up the avenues of compassion ; but I do not recollect a 
 single instance of hard-heartedness towards me n the 
 women." 
 
 After corroborating the testimony above given by 
 Ledyard, he proceeds to comment on the strict regard 
 for truth which is inculcated by the mothers of these 
 benighted pagans on their children: — "I perceived 
 
82 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 with great satisfaction, too, that the maternal solicitude 
 extended not only to the growth and security of the per- 
 son, but also, in a certain degree, to the improvement of 
 the mind of the infant, for one of the first lessons in 
 which the Mandingo women instruct their children is 
 the practice of the truth. The reader will probably rec- 
 ollect the case of the unhappy mother, whose son was 
 murdered by the Moorish banditti at Funingkedy. Her 
 only consolation in her utmost distress was the reflec- 
 tion, that the poor boy, in the course ^of. his blameless 
 life, had never told a lie." * ■ 
 
 A record of the deep — may we not say^ feligious ? — 
 affection of African mothers for their children, made by 
 the Landers in their journal, is not unworthy of attention 
 in this connection. Far in the interior, beyond any 
 traces of foreign civilization, they write, — " Many 
 women, with little wooden figures of children on their 
 heads, passed us in the course of the morning, — moth- 
 ers, who, having lost a child, carry such rude imitations 
 of them about their persons, for an indefinite time, as a 
 symbol of mourning. None could be induced to part 
 
 with one of these little affectionate memorials The 
 
 mortality of children must be immense indeed here, for 
 almost every woman we met with on the road had one 
 or more of these little wooden images we have before 
 spoken of. Whenever the mothers stopped to take re- 
 freshment, a small part of their food was invariably pre- 
 sented to the lips of these inanimate memorials." 
 
 In these little incidents, related by independent travel- 
 lers, there are certainly beamings of a true, a tender, 
 and a noble nature in these poor African mothers, and 
 they not only tend to refute the dark doctrine of total 
 native depravity, and lead us to think well of the consti- 
 
THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE. 83 
 
 tution which God has given us, but to command our 
 admiration for the wisdom of that Divine arrangement 
 which commits the education of children mainly to the 
 mother. 
 
 I have been thus large in quotations of modern and 
 profane authors, in order to corroborate the testimony of 
 the Evangelist as to the conduct and character of bar- 
 barians, to prove that they are traduced when it is said 
 that they are " indisposed, disabled, and made opposite 
 to all that is good, and wholly inclined to all evil." 
 I gp on to say, that their conduct shows, not only good 
 feelings and humane impulses, but moral perceptions, and 
 not only moral perceptions, but moral feelings on the 
 side of good and opposed to evil ; not only that they 
 had moral feeling, but that the moral feeling was the 
 strongest principle exhibited in their intercourse with the 
 Apostle and his companions. 
 
 We read that, in the midst of this display of humanity 
 and benevolence to the shipwrecked strangers, they see a 
 viper fasten on the hand of Paul. With their imperfect 
 notions of a God and Providence, they take this acci- 
 dent as an indication that Paul is a bad man, which Jus- 
 tice, — not vengeance, as our translators have rendered 
 it, — though he had escaped the perils of the sea, would 
 not suffer to live. Their theology, of course, was a 
 figment of their own minds, but it had been constructed 
 by their own moral and religious nature. The attribute 
 of justice, with which they had invested the deity or the 
 deities whom they worshipped, was nothing more or 
 less than the same attribute as it existed in their own 
 minds. " No doubt," said they, " this man is a mur- 
 derer." This revulsion of feeling against the Apostle 
 is a demonstration, not only ef a moral sense, but of a 
 
84 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 powerful moral feeling, overcoming the strong sentiment 
 of compassion which they had just exhibited. It was 
 that feeling of abhorrence to vice which is native in the 
 human heart. 
 
 From this incident I take leave to say, that the moral 
 feeling which accompanies moral perception, not only 
 exists, but is the strongest feeling in human nature. It 
 may be shown to be so by the fact, that it is often 
 brought in conflict with other feelings, and is always 
 found, in the long run, to vanquish and overpower 
 them. 
 
 We have a natural feeling of benevolence to our 
 species. It is shown by the conduct of these barbarous 
 islanders, and I think I may appeal to the consciousness 
 of all if it be not a fact, that we are not indifferent 
 to our fellow-beings of the human race. Whether it 
 be meritorious or indifferent, we desire their happiness, 
 merely as human beings: Persons who now exist, of 
 whom we only hear, persons who have existed, of whom 
 we only read, — we are glad to learn of them as being in 
 ease and enjoyment. If we have knowledge of them as 
 especially meritorious, we desire that they may meet a 
 corresponding reward ; we are concerned and fdisap- 
 pointed if they do not receive it. We sympathize with 
 them strongly in the injustice they suffer. But, on the 
 other hand, any wrong or immoral conduct immediately 
 turns the tide of our feelings, as the bare suspicion of 
 wrong did in the minds of the savages of Melita. Our 
 sense of justice overcomes our natural feelings of benevo- 
 lence ; we believe that they ought to suffer, and that 
 they will suffer, and that amounts to demonstration that 
 our moral feelings are our strongest feelings, and that 
 they are on the side of right. 
 
THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE. 85 
 
 The next feeling in point of strength to general be- 
 nevolence, is patriotism. We have a sympathy with our 
 own countrymen above the rest of the human race. 
 Wherever they are, we have a prejudice in their favor, 
 and a desire to find them right whenever their conduct is 
 drawn in question. If they are wronged, we feel our- 
 selves called upon to vindicate their rights, and nations 
 are roused to arms by wrongs inflicted on a single indi- 
 vidual. But let it be ascertained that our countryman 
 has been in the wrong, and has been guilty of some out- 
 rageously immoral act, and the feeling of justice, which 
 is a moral feeling, rises up within us, and overpowers 
 the strong prepossession of blood, language, nation, and 
 we abandon him to his fate ; and when we do so, we 
 demonstrate that the moral feeling is the strorigest feeling, 
 — that, so far from its being natural to us to side with 
 wrong and iniquity, our repugnance to them is such, that 
 they sever the ties of language and country. 
 
 To try still further this principle, let us come nearer 
 home. Among our countrymen there is a certain circle 
 which is known to us. The acquaintance and familiarity 
 of many years give us a stronger prejudice in their favor 
 than the bare fact that they have been born- under the 
 same sky, and are members of the same political com- 
 munity. They have been our companions in the various 
 fortunes of the journey of life. So desirous are we to 
 have them right, that we feel almost personally responsi- 
 ble for their characters. But let one of our acquaintance 
 do what is plainly and palpably wrong, and do we take 
 the side of the wro g .' We should do so, if our natures 
 were corrupt, independently of our personal attachment. 
 But we do no such thing. A feeling rises up within us 
 more powerful than the ties of long attachment, that of 
 8 
 
86 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 immutable and eternal justice, and we say, in a phrase 
 which has passed into a proverb for its expression of the 
 spontaneous sentiments of human nature, — " Let justice 
 be done, though the heavens fall." What stronger 
 proof could be given of the strength of the moral feelings, 
 than that, when brought into conflict with other feelings 
 confessedly strong, they are found to overcome them ? 
 A sense of justice and indignation at wrong uproots the 
 firmest friendships, however long they may have been 
 growing, and this demonstrates that man's highest alle- 
 giance is not to his affections, nor to his interests, but to 
 his moral sense, to that which he knows to be right. 
 
 Come still nearer home. Nearer than the ties of 
 friendship are those of blood. These, for wise pur- 
 poses, God has made strong, because the primary rela- 
 tions are the most important to the very existence of so- 
 ciety. The affections which consecrate the primary 
 relations are strong in precise proportion to the impor- 
 tance of the ties they consecrate. They grow stronger 
 and stronger till we come to the first, and that which 
 is the foundation of all the rest, — that which creates 
 almost a personal identity, where two, in the language 
 both of the Old and New Testaments, become one flesh. 
 From this trunk branch off all the domestic affections 
 with diminished dimensions in proportion to their dis- 
 tance, till they end in the extreme attenuation of the 
 remotest twig. These relations, as far as they extend, 
 create a prejudice in favor of the doings of those in 
 whose veins the same blood flows. There is a bias 
 arising from the affections, which inclines us to find them 
 right if possible, to view what they have done with the 
 most favorable eye. How strong the feeling is, we 
 have a proof in the bitter lamentation of David over the 
 
THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE. 87 
 
 ungrateful, rebellious, parricidal Absalom. Still, -there 
 is something stronger than even parental affection, the 
 sense of right, and the moral indignation that springs 
 up against him who wantonly violates it, be it son or 
 brother, mother or sister. This is a distinction which 
 nothing can obliterate, nothing altogether obscure, 
 nothing overcome. The language, then, of the human 
 heart to one that has done wrong, though connected 
 with us by the closest natural ties, is, " I am bound to 
 you by the strongest natural sympathies. I cannot but 
 look on all you do with the greatest partiality. I would 
 be true to you through evil report as well as good report ; 
 but one thing I cannot do, I cannot uphold you in that 
 which I plainly perceive to be wrong. Truth and justice 
 are the highest law. In violating them, you have been 
 false to yourself. In striving against these fixed and 
 immutable principles, you strive in vain ; you can only 
 injure yourself by doing so. In aiding you to do wrong, 
 I am false to you as well as myself. Any temporary 
 triumph achieved against truth and justice is no ultimate 
 and permanent gain. All must finally be reviewed, re- 
 versed, and set aside." Do not these sentiments, and 
 I believe that all must acknowledge that they are the 
 sentiments of the human heart, demonstrate that there 
 are in human nature, not only moral perceptions, but 
 moral feelings, — that these feelings not only exist, 
 but are the strongest of all feelings, and all other 
 feelings, when brought into conflict with them, yield 
 and give way ? 
 
 There is a higher proof still. Every man desires to 
 esteem himself. One of the most depressing and hu- 
 miliating things that can possibly befall us is, to forfeit 
 our self-esteem. Psychologists declare that the desire 
 
88 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 of self-approbation is one of ttie strongest of human dis- 
 positions. Some physiologists have affirmed, that they 
 have discovered a compartment of the hunjan brain, 
 whose especial function it is to exercise and maintain the 
 balance of this sentiment. We all know with what in- 
 genuity the mind labors to justify any thing it has done 
 to itself. And what is meant by the term, " to justify to 
 itself." Certainly, to reconcile with the sense of justice 
 in its own constitution, which the very attempt proves to 
 be supreme over itself, beyond its powers to bribe, to 
 silence, or control. 
 
 And let a man do what is palpably wrong, mean, base, 
 dishonest, and, notwithstanding his strong natural propen- 
 sity to self-esteem, he sinks in his own estimation ; and 
 if his conduct has been very outrageous, he despises 
 himself, though his conduct has been concealed from 
 every human eye. He lurks about in holes and corners, 
 and cannot hold up his head. This I take to be the 
 climax of demonstration. It is the testimony of man 
 against himself, and in favor of his nature. It is the 
 strongest evidence that can be brought, in the case that 
 we are considering. It proves that there is not only 
 such a thing as conscience in human nature, but that it 
 is supreme, enthroned by God over all the other powers 
 and faculties ; — not only that there are moral per- 
 ceptions, but there is a moral sense, — a feeling on 
 the side of good and in opposition to sin ; — not only is 
 there such a feehng, but it is the strongest feeling in hu- 
 man nature. 
 
 Another strong, though undesigned, evidence does 
 the sinner bear to the essential rectitude of human nature, 
 in the fact that he dreads to have his evil actions known. 
 If he felt that human nature were itself wrong, and on 
 
THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE. 89 
 
 the side of wrong, he could have no such dread. If he 
 supposed himself living in a world inhabited by devils, 
 he could have no objection to publishing to them his 
 evil deeds. From them he would not expect reproof, 
 but approbation and applause, because he would know 
 that they were " indisposed, disabled, and made opposite 
 to all that is good, and wholly inclined to all evil." 
 But it is the sinner's knowledge that such is not the 
 character of human nature, that makes him dread to 
 have his evil actions known. He judges other people 
 by himself, he feels that .his own nature makes him 
 detest his own sins, and therefore justly supposes that 
 other men sympathize with him in that detestation. 
 
 Why do men tell of the wrongs they suffer .' It can 
 be for no other reason than the conviction they feel, that 
 those whom they address have a moral feeling in favor 
 of the right, and an abhorrence of injustice. If the con- 
 trary were the fact, and men always sided in favor of in- 
 justice, the injured would never make the slightest com- 
 plaint. What is the foundation of the advocate's elo- 
 quence ? To what does he make his most powerful 
 appeals .'' Is it to the letter of the law ? By no means. 
 It is to human minds, which have an intuitive perception 
 of justice, and to human hearts, which beat with warm 
 emotion in favor of the injured, and in strong condem- 
 nation of the oppressor. Why are there courts of jus- 
 tice at all, if it is a principle in human nature to approve 
 all that is wrong and condemn all that is right .'' If such 
 were the fact, then the practical working of judicial 
 tribunals would be to give the sanction of law to the 
 most flagrant wrongs and oppressive abuses. In fact, 
 society could not exist at all. 
 
 The truth is, that the doctrine of the entire corruption 
 8* 
 
90 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE. 
 
 of human nature, that it is opposed to all good and 
 delights in all evil, is wholly false ; it is one of the great- 
 est extravagances that the human mind has ever con- 
 ceived. The very existence of society is its emphatic 
 and perpetual confutation. 
 
 It is contradicted by the crowds of pilgrims which 
 every year pay their reverence at the graves of the holy 
 and the just. It was proved by every stone which the 
 Jew, as he passed, threw upon the tomb of Absalom. 
 It is proved by the fact, that the wicked " are children 
 of the night and not of the day," — " they love darkness 
 rather than light, because their deeds are evil," — a thing 
 they would never do, if the moral sentiments of mankind 
 were in favor of their evil deeds. " He that doeth 
 truth Cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made 
 manifest that they are wrought in God." The doer of 
 them feels himself approved by his own moral nature, 
 and his nature is human nature, and can pronounce no 
 other verdict than that which rises to the lips of all man- 
 kind. 
 
 The rectitude of the moral sentiments of mankind is 
 proved by the place which Jesus Christ, the only per- 
 fect man, has found in the heart of universal humanity. 
 Nothing can approach him, nothing can pull him down. 
 In him, the human race acknowledge the ideal perfec- 
 tion of their nature. To this sentiment there is no 
 dissenting voice. The moral sentiments of mankind 
 cannot be inherently wrong and vicious, which acknowl- 
 edge him as the only exhibition of perfect humanity. 
 And it is the same moral sentiments of mankind which 
 have exalted him to be king of kings and lord of lords, 
 that have consigned the hollow falsehood and base treach- 
 ery of Judas Iscariot to shame and everlasting contempt. 
 
DISCOUESE VI. 
 
 GOODNESS, AND NOT VICE, IS THE ELEMENT CON- 
 GENIAL TO HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 AND THE LORD HAD RESPECT tJNTO ABEL, AND TO HIS OFFERING : 
 BUT UNTO CAIN AND TO HIS OFFERING HE HAD NOT RESPECT : AND 
 CAIN WAS VERY WROTH, AND HIS COUNTENANCE FELL. — Gen. 
 
 iv. 4, 5. 
 
 In pursuing the inquiry as to the essential nnoral char- 
 acter of human nature, whether it is made for good or 
 evil, much light may be thrown upon the subject by con- 
 sidering the universal law of adaptation, which seems to 
 run through all the works of God. Not only is every 
 part of every thing constructed with perfect wisdom in 
 itself, but likewise perfectly adapted to every other part. 
 And every thing, as a whole, is precisely adapted to 
 the condition in which it is placed. The happiness of 
 the sensitive creation depends upon this adaptation. 
 The atmosphere, the fields and woods, the ground and 
 the waters, are the elements in which the different tribes 
 of animals live, and move, and have their being. To 
 put them into their element, and give them a free range 
 of that domain of nature for which they are formed, is 
 to place thera in a state of enjoyment. The worm is 
 
92 GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 
 
 made to be happy in his dark habitation.. He asks not 
 for the light of day, which he has no eyes to enjoy, and 
 he seems distressed if accident throws him up into the 
 upper world where suns shine and breezes blow, and he 
 hastens back in alarm and trepidation to hide himself in 
 a house which has no chambers and in a night which 
 knows no dawn. There he is quiet and in peace. The 
 happiness he enjoys is an unseen demonstration of the 
 goodness of God, who thus would fill up every corner 
 of his universe with the creatures of his power and the 
 objects of his benignity. Their contentment with their 
 element is the best evidence that God intended them for 
 it, as well as conclusive proof of his goodness. 
 
 The animals which live and feed upon the surface of 
 the earth give the same evidence of adaptation to their 
 place. In the state of nature they are all vigorous, 
 buoyant, bounding over mountain and plain, with ex- 
 pressions of the highest animal enjoyment. These indi- 
 cations leave no doubt as to the element to which their 
 natures are adapted. Moreover, it is demonstrated neg- 
 atively by the distress which they exhibit when acciden- 
 tally placed in another element. Some of these animals 
 are reduced to the necessity of sustaining life for a while 
 in the water. In crossing wide rivers, in being trans- 
 ported over broad oceans, they are sometimes abandoned 
 to the waves. Their want of congeniality is immedi- 
 ately shown by their distress. So ill adapted are they 
 to their new element, that life itself becomes a struggle 
 with death. It is maintained for a little while, and if 
 they cannot reach the land, it is all over with them and 
 they are lost. 
 
 But in that mighty deep, so fatal to the animals cre- 
 ated to live upon the land, there is a class of creatures 
 
GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 93 
 
 made with as nice an adaptation to the water as the others 
 to their peculiar mode of life. Their lungs are formed 
 to breathe the water, so instantly fatal to the lungs of the 
 animals adapted to the atmosphere. Their organs of 
 motion, incapable of affording them any aid on the land, 
 propel them with wonderful ease and velocity through 
 the waters. Their blood circulates at a temperature 
 at which that of land animals would stagnate. Their 
 continual activity, their entire tranquillity, demonstrate 
 that God has made them to be happy in their native 
 element. Once thrown out of it, they are in trouble. 
 They gasp and struggle awhile, and then expire in ap- 
 parent agony. By pleasure and pain, by death and life, 
 they discover the element for which they were created, 
 and to which in every part of their nature they are wisely 
 adapted. 
 
 But the animal kingdoms are not yet exhausted. 
 While the worm is crawling in the earth, the beast 
 wandering in the fields or woods, and the fish glancing 
 through the waters, the bird is flying through the air, the 
 eagle is soaring through the clouds. Here is an adap- 
 tation of another kind, no less wonderful. He who made 
 the atmosphere must likewise have adapted to its density 
 and resistance the size and strength of the wing, which 
 carries the bird in safety and ease through the aerial re- 
 gions. Do you want any evidence that the bird is happy 
 in its boundless liberty ? Its perpetual gayety, its un- 
 tiring activity,' its cheerful notes, bear witness, not only 
 that God has made it for its element, but so adapted, 
 not only its physical constitution, but its disposition and 
 instincts, to that part of his creation which he intended it 
 to occupy, that existence is a pleasure. Do you want 
 any other proof } Entrap and imprison it. Circum- 
 
94 GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 
 
 scribe the broad, illimitable sky into a narrow cage. 
 Cramp the lofty flight of the eagle into a short flutter 
 from his perch to the ground, and he is no longer the 
 same animal. His spirit is broken. His plumage hangs 
 draggled and neglected. The lightning of his eye flashes 
 no more, and his shrill scream of pride and defiance dies 
 away into perpetual silence. 
 
 I have thus gone over the different provinces of ani- 
 mated nature, in order to furnish analogies and illustra- 
 tions for the proposition which it is the purpose of this 
 discourse to demonstrate, that virtue, not vice, is the 
 congenial element of man. As air is the element of 
 beasts and birds, and water the element of the inhab- 
 itants of the deep, so is virtue the element of human 
 nature. It is shown to be so by the fact, that in a state 
 of virtue man is tranquil, contented, cheerful, and happy. 
 But the moment he passes over into a state of vice, he is 
 disturbed, dissatisfied, unhappy. His peace is broken, 
 and cannot be restored till he returns to the state of vir- 
 tue. This, if established, will demonstrate, both posi- 
 tively and negatively, that the common assertion that 
 man, in the state of nature, " is disinclined, disabled, 
 and made opposite to all that is good, and wholly in- 
 clined to all evil," is precisely contrary to fact. 
 
 Let us consider, first, his physical health and his out- 
 ward prosperity. Will any one say that man, in a state 
 of vice, is in as good a condition, in either of these par- 
 ticulars, as when in a state of virtue .' Excess, from its 
 very nature, deranges the physical system, and produces 
 every species of discomfort. Are men born gluttons 
 and drunkards .'' It would be a slander on God to say 
 so. What more simple than the tastes of infancy 
 and childhood, and what more simple than the food 
 
GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 95 
 
 which God has provided for them ? Intemperance, both 
 in eating and drinking, is not a natural development, but 
 SL perversion of human nature, a perversion against which 
 that nature at first promptly, firmly, and stoutly remon- 
 strates. It is only by spices sought from the four 
 quarters of the globe, it is only by the most artful and 
 artificial combinations of those elements of food which 
 God has provided for us, that mankind are gradually 
 seduced into habits of over-indulgence. All stimulating 
 drinks are artificial, and all are at first distasteful to 
 the human palate. And that nauseous weed, which has 
 so strangely become one of the necessaries of life to a 
 large part of the human race, — no one can deny that it is 
 at first one of the most revolting things that is presented 
 to the human senses. 
 
 As regards the relations of the sexes, will any man in 
 his senses stand up and afiirm that a state of universal 
 licentiousness is the natural state of man, — that there is 
 nothing permanent, sacred, and therefore exclusive, in 
 that affection which spontaneously springs up between the 
 sexes, giving existence to the family, that most universal 
 and most divine of all institutions ? Will any one have 
 the hardihood to say, that the human being is happy who 
 leads the vagrant life of those who have spurned all 
 domestic ties, and that they who associate with those 
 who have done so are as happy as those who have the 
 sanctuary of a home .-' Will any one say that woman is 
 as much in her element when an outcast among every 
 thing that is vile in morals and manners, as when presid- 
 ing over an orderly and virtuous family } Let her con- 
 scious shame, her ceaseless regrets, her gushing tears, 
 her gnawing remorse, her early death, bear witness. 
 Will you, can you say, then, that vice is the natural and 
 
96 GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 
 
 congenial element of human nature, where it rests in 
 ease and contentment, as the tenants of the deep sport 
 and revel in the waves ? Is it not rather like the air to 
 those inhabitants of a denser element, the place where it 
 gasps, and struggles, and dies ? Is it not rather as im- 
 prisonment to the eagle, where all its nobleness is tar- 
 nished and lost ? 
 
 Society is but an aggregation of individuals. And is 
 virtue any less the element of society than it is of the 
 individual ? What is the law of intercourse between man 
 and man .'' Truth, integrity, and justice. What is the 
 very purpose of language .'' The communication of 
 truth. Truth is spontaneous. Falsehood is an after- 
 thought, occasions hesitation, demands study, creates 
 embarrassment, is uttered by constraint. In the worst 
 state of things, truth predominates inconceivably over 
 lying, otherwise the business of society could not go on. 
 Justice, too, must generally prevail, or society is broken 
 up. If a majority of contracts were broken, no new 
 ones would be made, and traffic would cease. The ex- 
 istence of civilized society, especially of a nation rich, 
 orderly, and tranquil, is demonstration of the constant 
 exercise of the moral virtues, industry, justice, truth, 
 humanity. Not a human being can be educated from 
 infancy to maturity, without the continued and a thousand 
 times repeated exercise of the highest virtues. Nothing 
 will secure these virtues, as a general thing, but a state 
 of society sound in its primary relations. The laws 
 which men enact are generally in accordance with their 
 moral sense, their instinctive ideas of right and jus- 
 tice, — not in opposition to them. They are intended 
 to secure men in the practice of virtue, against the al- 
 lurements of temptation and the sudden assaults of appe- 
 
GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 97 
 
 tite or passion. Government is itself an alliance of man- 
 kind in favor of goodness, and for the suppression of 
 vice. 
 
 In order that society may exist at all, even in a 
 heathen state, it is necessary that a large majority of all 
 the actions that are done should be morally good. But 
 if all these good actions are done against the strongest 
 inclinations, in obedience to principle alone, then man- 
 kind are really much better than their most strenuous 
 defenders have ever supposed them. But it is contrary 
 to all analogies, to suppose that condition which is most 
 salutary to be the most distasteful to human nature. As 
 well might we expect the fish to be most delighted with 
 forsaking his appropriate element and casting himself 
 tipon the shore, where he pants and dies. 
 
 We now come to the highest test of all. Does the 
 soul of man show that sin is its element by being happy 
 in it ? The whole story is told by the appearance of 
 Cain, the moment he had conceived the first murder in 
 his own mind, or admitted to their full sway those pas- 
 sions which led him to it. " ^nd his countenance fell." 
 Would his countenance have fallen, if sin had been con- 
 genial to his nature .'' Things which are congenial, 
 when they come together, produce harmony and peace, 
 quiet and contentment. But the very conception of sin 
 in the mind of Cain produced disturbance and sadness. 
 This, it must be remembered, was after the fall of man 
 according to the theory had so changed and vitiated hu- 
 man nature, that it had become " disabled, disinclined, 
 and made opposite to all that is good, and wholly in- 
 clined to all evil." Here was not only a fact, but a ■ 
 principle. The same may be said of every sinner from 
 Cain to the present hour: — " And his countenance fell." 
 9 
 
98 GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 
 
 The countenance is, in some measure, the index of the 
 condition of that internal ocean which the mind com- 
 poses. Nothing is so sure to disturb its serenity as the 
 consciousness of having done wrong. Nothing so soon 
 sours the temper as the gnawing sense of guilt. 
 
 Sin must, in its own nature, destroy the harmony of 
 the mind, because it is itself a transgression of one of 
 its fundamental laws. The law which sin- breaks is no 
 arbitrary enactment, imposed by a foreign authority, 
 binding as a mere command, but it is a part of the mind 
 itself, and recognized by it to be reasonable and right. 
 It cannot be broken without a sense of guilt. That law 
 of the mind is repugnant to sin, rebels against it, and 
 condemns it. They cannot in peace inhabit the same 
 mind. Is sin, then, at home in the soul ? O, no ; it is 
 an odious intruder, not a welcome guest. There is not 
 a single faculty which sin does not impair, derange, or 
 embarrass. It is in vain that the vicious man engages 
 in any intellectual pursuit. Such pursuits imply high 
 aims and noble aspirations. Of these, habitual sin ren- 
 ders the mind incapable. The intellectual faculties, to 
 have full and perfect play, must have internal peace. 
 But the mind which is torn by contending and contra- 
 dictory passions can have no peace. It is, moreover, 
 accompanied by a secret but invincible shame, which 
 disheartens all courage, which cramps all freedom, and 
 blunts all force of character. There is something in sin 
 foreign and uncongenial to the human soul, and which 
 operates, not like wholesome food upon the body, to 
 nourish and comfort, but rather like deadly poison, to 
 •convulse and destroy. 
 
 Sin has always caused, from the days of Cain to the 
 present hour, the same internal disturbance which ex- 
 
GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 99 
 
 hibited itself outwardly upon the countenance of Cain. 
 The multiplied employments of mankind, the manifold 
 amusements they have invented, enable them, indeed, 
 either to shake off reflection, or to disguise its depressing 
 influence. But that it is in every soul of man that sinneth, 
 is testified by a thousand melancholy evidences. Most of 
 all is it manifested by the eager rush which the vicious 
 never fail to exhibit to sensual, coarse, and tumultuous 
 pleasures. It is because strong excitement is the only 
 thing which can drown reflection, and because the mind 
 harassed by the sense of ill desert is incapable of those 
 calm and quiet enjoyments which are most congenial to 
 the soul that is at peace with itself. 
 
 But solitude is sometimes the lot of all. Darkness 
 sometimes shuts out every sight, silence sometimes stills 
 every sound, and then it is seen whether sin be con- 
 genial to the soul of man. Does its memory come back 
 with pleasure or with a pang .'' 
 
 During the hours of wakefulness the thoughts may be 
 diverted from their natural channel. But sleep at length 
 comes and restores the mind to those natural laws which 
 were ordained to preside over its operations. Then it 
 is proved by fearful demonstration whether sin be, or be 
 not, congenial to the human soul. The thoughts wander 
 back to deeds of wickedness, which perhaps have es- 
 caped the scrutiny of every human eye, and to the un- 
 veiled sight of the naked soul they appear in their true 
 colors and their hideous deformity, till every sinew 
 trembles and every bone doth shake. 
 
 In sleep the human mind becomes prophetic, and not 
 only remembers the past, but pictures the future. Re- 
 ligion lies deeper in men's souls than they imagine. 
 They believe instinctively in eternal justice, such as no 
 
100 GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 
 
 subtlety can elude, no swiftness outrun, no darkness es- 
 cape, no length of time obliterate or outlast. That ap- 
 prehension of justice rouses to action the passion of /car, 
 and when fear obtains the mastery of the imagination, no 
 tongue can describe the sufferings which that single pas- 
 sion is capable of inflicting upon the soul. Dark is 
 often the path of frail man through this life, but, O, how 
 much darker when he has chosen sin for his companion, 
 destroying his courage, breaking his peace, and filling 
 his prospect with ten thousand shadowy forms of woe ! 
 O, how false and slanderous then it is to say, that sin is 
 the congenial element of humanity ! that man by nature 
 " is wholly inclined to all evil " ! that he is happy in it, 
 as the bird in the air, the fish in the sea, and the beast 
 in the range of field and forest ! The soul does not 
 breathe it as its native element. It is nauseous, pesti- 
 lential, suffocating, as the poisonous vapors which hang 
 over the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. 
 
 And how is that other proposition established, no less 
 slanderous, no less untrue, that man is by nature made 
 opposite to all that is good .'' The very proposition is a 
 solecism, an absurdity, a contradiction. Languages 
 were not formed by revelation, but by unassisted human 
 nature. Epithets were given to things to note the rela- 
 tions in which they stood to human nature, and a certain 
 class of things were called good for no other reason than 
 that they were found to be congenial with human nature. 
 Is it credible, that all mankind should have conspired to 
 call that good which was wholly repugnant and opposite 
 to their nature .'' 
 
 The first impulse is generally to do right, to speak 
 truth, to do justice. It is the second thought usually 
 which leads us astray. Does this look like a nature 
 radically wrong, and made opposite to all that is good .' 
 
GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 101 
 
 Sin is a breach of a fundamental law of human na- 
 ture. How can it be said, that sin is congenial to hu- 
 man nature .' Goodness is obedience to that very law 
 of which sin is a breach. How can it be said, that 
 human nature is made opposite to that goodness which 
 is its supreme law, and which the very terms of the 
 proposition suppose human nature to approve ? 
 
 When a man has done a good act he is not filled with 
 uneasiness and regret, but with serenity and peace. 
 Does not this show that goodness is congenial, not 
 opposite, to his nature .'' In the state of nature, man is 
 in a state of health and prosperity. Does this show 
 that sin, not goodness, is congenial to his nature ? In 
 the state of nature, the soul of man waxes strong, confi- 
 dent, and courageous. His intellect is clear, his judg- 
 ment cool, his conclusions wise, his actions judicious. 
 Does not this show that goodness is congenial, not op- 
 posite, to human nature ? Years revolve, and the good 
 man waxes stronger and stronger, his peace becomes 
 more profound, his integrity more unshaken. Many are 
 the trials which he is called to pass through, which re- 
 quire firmness of nerve, and stoutness of heart, and ful- 
 ness of confidence ; and he is found to pass through 
 them in safety and tranquillity proportioned to his good- 
 ness. At length he approaches the awful spectre of 
 Death. When all are terrified, he alone is calm, for 
 conscious goodness fills his breast with that hope which 
 is full of immortality. O, let, then, the doctrine that sin, 
 not virtue, is the congenial element of human nature, be 
 for ever blotted out ! Let it be for ever discarded from 
 sermon and catechism, hymn and prayer. Let men be 
 no longer taught, that when they sin they conform to the 
 law of their nature, instead of breaking it. Let them 
 9* 
 
102 GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN, 
 
 rather be taught the great truth, that, created in the image 
 of God, virtue is their birthright, and, after the likeness of 
 God, hoUness, not sin, is the soul's natural element for 
 ever and ever. 
 
 To all this, I am aware that it may be objected, that 
 it is giving too favorable a view of human nature. Facts, 
 it may be said, do not confirm it. The actual condition 
 of mankind is the true index of human nature. There 
 is an inconceivable amount of vice in the world. If 
 vice is not congenial to mankind, why do they practise 
 it .' If they are miserable in it, why do they continue 
 in it .'' Why do they not forsake it as soon as they dis- 
 cover its inconvenience and its misery ? 
 
 I answer, that sin has its pleasures as well as its pains. 
 Not as sin, and not that it is any pleasure to any human 
 being to sin, but, on the contrary, it is always painful. 
 But God has kindly accompanied the exercises of our 
 various faculties with pleasure. But we are finite in our 
 natures, and, therefore, are liable to excess. The great- 
 est happiness is found in temperance. In the state of 
 temperance, the body enjoys the greatest strength and 
 capacity to labor and endure. The mind possesses the 
 greatest power of application, the animal spirits obtain 
 their greatest average elevation. Man is not created 
 omniscient, nor perfectly wise. He is fallible, and 
 therefore hable to prefer the less good to the greater, to 
 choose a short-lived pleasure of the appetite, in the 
 place of the more distant pleasure of cheerfulness, 
 alacrity, and energy. This is a trial and a temptation to 
 which every human being is subjected, more than once, 
 every day of his life. With his imperfect wisdom and 
 self-control, is it not to be expected that among so many 
 trials he should sometimes do amiss .' 
 
GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 103 
 
 In order that a free being niay acquire any thing like 
 a permanent and abiding character, it is necessary that 
 there should be such a law as habit ; that is, by frequent 
 repetition and long practice of that which is good, the 
 ease and the certainty with which good is chosen should 
 be greatly increased, till at last the choice of good is 
 nearly uniform and infallible. Thus, the greatest lo- 
 gician, and one of the greatest minds that have ever lived 
 on earth, defined virtue to be " the habit of that which 
 is right." But then this great law, from its very na- 
 ture, operates as decisively to the disadvantage of the 
 sinner as it works to the benefit of the saint. He who 
 over-indulges his appetite to-day, will, so far as the law 
 of habit operates, be more liable to do so to-morrow. 
 Among the millions of the human race who are tempted 
 every day, is it not to be expected that some should be 
 ensnared by appetite and enslaved by habit ? Does this 
 prove that vice, not virtue, is the native, congenial ele- 
 ment of humanity ? But why, if men are made right, do 
 they not always choose right ? The very question is 
 absurd. If men were made in such a manner that they 
 should always choose right, they would not be free. 
 There would be a cause within them which always de- 
 termined their choice. There is no freedom in that 
 which can happen in but one way. The choice is then 
 mechanical ; it is not free. The only way in which we 
 can know that man is free to choose between good and 
 evil, is from the fact, that he sometimes chooses evil. 
 As far as we can see, exposure to evil is the necessary 
 price which we must pay for our free agency. 
 
 But it is said, that mankind in the state of nature are 
 savages, and in the savage state vice vastly preponder- 
 ates over virtue. It is this preponderance which con- 
 
104 GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 
 
 stitutes the savage state. I deny that the savage state is 
 the natural state of mankind. To find out what is the 
 natural state of mankind, we must take into view the 
 whole existence of the race. The savage state is one of 
 its stages, and not the whole. Man, as a species, is a 
 creature of development. Development is the natural 
 order of his being. It is his nature to advance. The 
 elements of advancement are bound up in his very con- 
 stitution. It is as unfair to say, that the savage state is 
 the natural state of man, as to say, that the sapling is 
 the natural state of the oak. It may be as great a wrong 
 to man, to say that sinfulness is his natural state, as to 
 say of mankind, that their natural state is a state of bar- 
 barism. It may be more true to say, that it is the char- 
 acteristic of one stage of his progress. There seem to 
 be some strong and encouraging indications of this. 
 This life is a mere span, when compared with the whole 
 of man's existence. But very few have the probation 
 of even the threescore years and ten, the allotted term 
 of human life. No human being, even the most sinful, 
 loses his allegiance to virtue, and gives himself wholly 
 and hopelessly to iniquity. Conscience, the spark of 
 celestial fire, is never wholly extinguished. The will is 
 created free, and can know no other thraldom but that 
 of evil habit. God is perfectly good, and " not willing 
 that atiy shall perish, but that all should come to the 
 knowledge of the truth." The Apostle tells us, that 
 " the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, 
 but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in 
 hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered 
 from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty 
 of the sons of God." 
 
 But here it may be asked, Do not such speculations 
 
GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 105 
 
 as these lead to the dangerous doctrine of universal 
 salvation ? I answer, that, even if that doctrine be true, 
 God has chosen, for vrise and obvrous reasons, not to re- 
 veal it to us. Christ, our infallible teacher, was once 
 questioned directly on this subject. " Then said one 
 unto him, Lord, are there few saved ? " This was a 
 question of mere curiosity, but Christ might have settled 
 it for ever, and saved all the disputes of modern times 
 upon the subject. He left it unanswered, and, as I con- 
 ceive, by so doing, discouraged, if he did not forbid, our 
 inquiring, and certainly our dogmatizing about it. His 
 answer was, " Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for 
 many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall 
 not be able." 
 
 There has been greater error, in my judgment, com- 
 mitted on the other side, in preaching a doctrine which 
 approaches very near to universal damnation. It is 
 only necessary to press to a literal interpretation a few 
 passages of the Scriptures, and the doctrine is estab- 
 lished. " For whosoever shall keep the whole law and 
 yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." " Without 
 holiness, no man shall see the Lord." " The pure in 
 heart shall see God." It is possible to describe heaven 
 in such a way as to make it seem wholly impossible that 
 any one but the Saviour should seem fitted to find ad- 
 mission into it. Such passages, if literally interpreted, 
 would shut the gate of heaven against all mankind ; at 
 least, in the state in which they go from this world. It 
 is much more easy to describe a saint than to find one. 
 The only true and literal description of a saint is a good 
 man, but still encompassed with infirmities, with much 
 to be changed, and much to be forgiven, before he can 
 be accounted righteous in the sight of God. This must 
 
106 GOODNESS CONGENIAL TO MAN. 
 
 take place in regard to all, or heaven would be absolute- 
 ly empty. How much is to be forgiven, and how much 
 to be changed, or, in other virords, where is the line to 
 be drawn between those who are to be forgiven and 
 changed, and those who are not ? None, certainly, can 
 know this, but the omniscient God. Much is said of 
 the holiness of God, and the consequent holiness of 
 heaven. But heaven, the residence of good men in a 
 future world, must be adapted to the possible attainments 
 of men, as well as the infinite holiness of God. It 
 must take its character from its inhabitants, and not 
 from an ideal perfection unattainable by human beings. 
 All that we can know of it is from the known attainments 
 of the best men when they leave this world. They are 
 not such as to leave a very wide space between them and 
 the next grade of character, and so on through a very 
 large majority of mankind. 
 
 There are, it is true, at the other extreme, a class of 
 persons, who are plainly unprepared to enter any species 
 of heaven that would make a good man happy. Indeed, 
 there is scarcely any punishment which they do not seem 
 to deserve, short of infinite and eternal. 
 
 The language of Christ, it must be confessed, is ex- 
 ceedingly emphatic. " Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
 inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation 
 of the world"; and " Depart, ye cursed, into everlast- 
 ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." " And 
 these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the 
 righteous into life eternal." This would seem to indi- 
 cate a broad separation between the righteous and the 
 wicked, at some point, or rather line, in the scale of 
 merit and guilt. 
 
 But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that 
 
GOODNESS COlJGENIAL TO MAN. 107 
 
 this language is dramatic, and in the highest degree 
 figurative and Oriental. A like distinction is drawn in 
 the Bible between the rich and the poor. " The rich 
 and the poor meet together. The Lord is the maker of 
 them ail." And yet there is no broad line of distinction 
 between them. They shade into each other impercep- 
 tibly, like night and day in the twilight, or like the colors 
 of the rainbow. Our conclusions, drawn from such pas- 
 sages, must be modified by others of a difierent descrip- 
 tion, relating to the same subject. Nothing can be more 
 clearly declared, than that the righteous shall receive dif- 
 ferent degrees of reward, and the wicked different de- 
 grees of punishment. " One star shall differ from 
 another star in glory," and "he .who knew not his 
 Lord's will and transgressed it, is to be beaten with few 
 stripes, and he who knew it and transgressed, is to be 
 beaten with many stripes " ; intimating that all punish- 
 ment is disciplinary, and must have an end. But we 
 leave the judgment of the world in the hands of a just 
 God. 
 
DISCOUESE VII. 
 
 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 WHEN THE GENTILES, WHICH HAVE NOT THE LAW, DO BY NATURE 
 THE THINGS CONTAINED IN THE LAW, THESE, HAVING NOT THE 
 LAW, ARE A LAW UNTO THEMSELVES ; WHICH SHOW THE WORK 
 OF THE LAW WRITTEN IN THEIR HEARTS, THEIR CONSCIENCE 
 ALSO BEARING WITNESS, AND THEIR THOUGHTS THE MEAN 
 WHILE ACCUSING OR ELSE EXCUSING ONE ANOTHER. — RomanS 
 
 ii. 14, 15. 
 
 The investigation of the essential character of human 
 nature naturally brings up a very interesting inquiry as 
 to the relation of the heathen to God and his law. 
 What elements of his nature constitute man a religious 
 being, put him in a state of probation, enable him to 
 know God's will, to comply with that will, and thus at- 
 tain the highest end of his being ? All who believe in 
 religion at all, believe that every human being is created 
 for immortality, is made capable of happiness from hav- 
 ing done right, and is exposed to suffering from the con- 
 sciousness of having done wrong. 
 
 The integrity and justice of the Divine government 
 demand, that beings who are created under such a 
 responsibility should have all those powers and capacities 
 which are necessary to fit them for a state of probation. 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 109 
 
 and, moreover, should know the responsibility upon 
 which they are acting. It would be contradictory to the 
 analogy of the present life to suppose otherwise. 
 
 Man has been furnished with precisely those powers 
 which are necessary to his well-being here. He has in- 
 tellect to understand, ingenuity to contrive, and hands 
 and strength to labor. These things are precisely pro- 
 portioned to the capacities of the earth on which he is to 
 labor, the materials and implements he is to use, and the 
 wants he has to supply. No more is demanded of him 
 in the present world than he has power to perform. If 
 he is destined to an immortal existence, no reason can 
 be given why an Almighty, Allwise, and Omnipotent 
 Creator should not give him moral and spiritual capaci- 
 ties precisely commensurate with his destiny. If good- 
 ness is necessary to the eternal happiness of the soul, it 
 is just as incredible that God should bring the soul into 
 existence destitute of the capacity of attaining to good- 
 ness, as that he should have created man for a condition 
 in which labor was necessary to his subsistence, and 
 brought him into existence destitute of hands, or with 
 such an indisposition and repugnance to labor, that he 
 would rather starve and die than submit to it. 
 
 It follows from this, that religious capacities must be 
 coextensive with the human race ; in other words, that 
 man must be constitutionally a religious being, that he 
 must, by his original powers, know enough of God and 
 duty to place him in a state of fair moral probation. 
 There must, of course, be such a thing as natural relig- 
 ion, in contradistinction to revealed, and the difference 
 between them must be, not in kind, but in degree. Rev- 
 elation can be nothing else than the same things made 
 known with greater clearness and certainty, which are 
 10 
 
110 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 discovered by the light of nature. If you deny this, and 
 affirm that a miraculous revelation is indispensable to fit 
 the soul for a happy immortality, then you affirm that 
 the Almighty has created ninety-nine hundredths of the 
 human race in a condition in which it is impossible for 
 them to attain the highest end of their being, — a suppo- 
 sition which is wholly incredible. 
 
 It is the purpose of this discourse to ascertain what 
 is the sum and substance of natural religion, or, what 
 would perhaps be a more accurate expression, of natural 
 revelation, as it is what is made known to us, through the 
 powers and operations of our own minds and the phe- 
 nomena of the universe, of God, of our relation to him, 
 of our duty and destiny. God is revealed to us by our 
 reason. Revelation does not profess to discover this 
 truth, but takes it for granted, as known to man by the 
 powers of reason. This belief must, of course, be co- 
 extensive with reason, that is, universal. The belief of 
 savages in the existence of a power above nature is more 
 vivid than that of the civilized man. Atheism is a 
 state of mind of which he is in no danger. He is dis- 
 posed to believe too much rather than too little ; to mul- 
 tiply gods, rather than believe in none. 
 
 But, in order to conduct our discussion with more 
 clearness and conclusiveness, it will be necessary to de- 
 fine more accurately what we mean by the term reason. 
 It is one of the most indefinite of words, because it is 
 used in such a variety of senses. In its widest sense, it 
 means that combination of moral, intellectual, and relig- 
 ious capacities, which we possess over and above the 
 most perfect of the animal creation. It is sometimes 
 applied to the intellectual faculties by which we distin- 
 guish truth from falsehood, and ascertain what is, and 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. Ill 
 
 what is not ; what is possible, and what is impossible ; 
 what is probable, and what improbable. In this sense 
 it is used in contradistinction to the moral faculty, whose 
 province it is to distinguish right from wrong, good from 
 evil, and the various measures and conditions of guilt 
 and desert. 
 
 It is used in another sense, still more confined, for the 
 process of reasoning, or a verbal statement of the pro- 
 cess by which the mind arrives at a given conviction. 
 This distinction between reason and reasoning is particu- 
 larly important in our present inquiry. The mind may 
 arrive at a conviction in the twinkling of an eye, which 
 it would require an hour, perhaps, to trace and develop 
 in words, and then the process would be but imperfectly 
 described. Language, at best, is but an imperfect instru- 
 ment of describing intellectual operations, the intellectual 
 powers so run and are so shaded into each other, and 
 are so blended together, and are, moreover, so instan- 
 taneous in their action. The mind arrives at results 
 without being itself conscious of the steps of its prog- 
 ress. Some of the wisest and most judicious men that 
 have ever lived, have been utterly unable to state to 
 another the reasons of their conduct, or the grounds of 
 their opinions. And the difference between a cultivated 
 and an uncultivated mind is not so much in the quantity 
 of reason which they possess, or the truths which that 
 reason reveals, which underlie all life and are the basis 
 of all action, as in the power of detecting and explaining 
 the process by which reason makes those truths known. 
 
 Those powers which constitute the reason of man- 
 kind make known to every human being, as soon as 
 they begin to operate, the existence of God, that is, 
 of a Creator and Governor of the universe. This 
 
112 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 primitive revelation of God, miraculous revelation it- 
 self supposes, for it takes for granted his existence, 
 and assumes it as a doctrine universally known to all 
 mankind. Every human being, in whom reason is at all 
 developed, knows that he is a dependent creature, that 
 he did not create, and doesnot uphold, himself. But he 
 has a Creator and Sustainer, and that being is God. 
 It is impossible for a human mind to exist without going 
 through this process of thought. Reason, then, reveals 
 a God. And precisely the same thing is asserted in the 
 Scriptures. Paul says of the heathen, "Because that 
 which may be known of God is manifest in them, for 
 God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things 
 of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, 
 being understood by the things that are made, even his 
 eternal power and Godhead." 
 
 But there is a revelation of God more intimate still, 
 made to us through the moral faculties. We are con- 
 scious of perceiving a distinction between right and 
 wrong. We are compelled by the laws of our minds, 
 to believe in the real existence of this distinction in the 
 nature of things. We know that we did not create the 
 distinction or the perception of the distinction. But 
 they exist, and therefore had a Creator, the same Being 
 who made us, and they are the supreme and unalterable 
 law of belief which he has imposed upon us. Reason, 
 by a process which is spontaneous, necessary, and 
 probably instantaneous, entertains the conviction that 
 God is a moral being himself, and recognizes the same 
 moral laws which he has imposed on us. 
 
 In every human being is developed the consciousness 
 of moral freedom, that is, of the power of choosing be- 
 tween good and evil. Consequent upon this conscious- 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 113 
 
 ness of freedom of choice, arises a sense of just respon- 
 sibility. The consequences of the one and the other 
 we feel that we deserve. Hence the sense of justice, a 
 sentiment universal, immutable, and inseparable from the 
 nature of man. 
 
 But the doing of right and wrong does not terminate 
 in ourselves, nor relate to ourselves alone. There is 
 another party concerned in it. The law we have broken 
 is not our law. We did not make it. We cannot alter 
 it ; we cannot abrogate or annul it. It was made, there- 
 fore, by some one else. It makes a part of our nature. 
 It was, therefore, made by Him who made our nature. 
 It is God's law, therefore, and not ours. We cannot 
 help feeling, therefore, a responsibility to the Power that 
 made us, whatever that power may be. 
 
 These elements of our moral and religious nature are 
 not matters of teaching and of tradition from generation 
 to generation. They are born in us and with us, they 
 are developed with the other parts of our constitution, 
 and they are coexistent with our intellectual being. 
 They are coextensive vvith the human race, and they 
 place every human being in a state of probation, whether 
 he will obey or violate this law which the Creator has 
 given him. 
 
 That the thing is so, we have the testimony of univer- 
 sal history, the observations of all travellers, the state- 
 ments of all heathen philosophers, that is, of the men 
 among pagans who have observed, and thought, and 
 written. Just as universal and unvarying is a belief in a 
 Providence. It is as much a spontaneous conviction of 
 universal reason that the universe has a Governor, as 
 that it has a Creator. Its order, its changes, its adap- 
 tation of means to ends, prove this to the most hasty 
 10* 
 
114 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 and superficial glance of the h»man intellect. This be- 
 lief is attested by tiie universal prevalence of prayers and 
 oaths. Both of these, and they are coextensive with 
 organized society, demonstrate the existence of a deep, 
 a real, and practical faith in Providence, in the om- 
 niscience and ever-present superintending care of the 
 Deity. 
 
 Indeed, among savage nations, there is rather a super- 
 abundance than a deficiency of this species of faith. 
 Special acts of divine interference in the affairs of men 
 are multiplied, till religious faith degenerates into a tim- 
 orous and unmanly superstition, vphich is terrified and 
 depressed by the slightest variations from the accus- 
 tomed order of nature. 
 
 Connected with this conviction of a superintending 
 Providence is the belief in retribution. To the savage 
 or half-civilized man, a guilty man is a doomed man, 
 and so strong is their belief in retribution, that they can- 
 not divest themselves of the impression that the con- 
 verse of this proposition is true, that a very unfortunate 
 man is necessarily a guilty man. 
 
 To complete the system of natural religion, there is 
 naturally in the soul of man an expectation of immor- 
 tality. It is partly an instinct, — for which no reason 
 can be given, except that it is the will of God that we 
 should entertain such an expectation, — and partly recog- 
 nized as a probability by reason. This natural expecta- 
 tion is itself a species of belief, and its being universal 
 is justly considered as a sufficient proof that it is from 
 God, and caused by him to spring up in the human 
 mind. The veracity of God seems pledged, in a man- 
 ner, to the realization of this natural expectation. 
 
 Analogy, in the eye of reason, confirms this conclu- 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 115 
 
 sion. • There is no other principle, passion, or anticipa- 
 tion of the human mind, which has not something external 
 to us or in futurity to correspond to it. 
 
 The moral nature of man is constituted on the suppo- 
 sition of its truth. The Divine plan of moral govern- 
 ment is not completed here. Death does not close up 
 nor balance the accounts of men at the bar of justice. 
 Our natural conceptions of the Divine perfections will 
 not permit us to believe that such a plan will be left by 
 God unfinished. A God of justice weuld never permit 
 the self-sacrificing saint and the malignant sinner to be 
 extinguished in the same eternal nothingness. 
 
 Then, the soul is conscious of a purely spiritual exist- 
 ence, which seems to be independent of time and place, 
 and abstracted from all material things. Its identity is 
 preserved among all the changes of that portion of mat- 
 ter with which it is connected. Intelligence and will 
 seem wholly above the attributes of matter, and have led 
 mankind universally into the belief in a super-material es- 
 sence, which they have denominated mind, ^or soul. 
 The nature of man, then, has been considered, by the 
 universal consent of all ages and nations, to be constituted 
 of body and spirit, and this persuasion has been sub- 
 sidiary to the belief in immortality. 
 
 It essentially modifies the idea of death. Death is 
 not considered as the cessation of being, as it would be 
 were mind believed to be the result of a mere organiza- 
 tion of matter, and not a separate and independent es- 
 sence in itself. It becomes merely a separation of soul 
 and body, and the superiority of the attributes of mind 
 to those of matter becomes a strong reason for believing 
 in the possibility of its separate existence. 
 
 I do not say, that all mankind have analyzed their be- 
 
116 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 lief of immortality, or have ever made a verbal state- 
 ment of the mental process by which they came to such 
 a conclusion, to themselves or others. The whole pro- 
 cess, like every mental operation, may be so instantane- 
 ous as, with a great majority of persons, to defy obser- 
 vation or analysis. But that these are the real grounds 
 of the universal belief in immortality, I entertain no 
 doubt. 
 
 With the doctrine of immortality follows, of course, 
 that oi future retribution, for it is involved in the con- 
 tinuance of personal identity. The guilty man must con- 
 tinue to be miserable, because his unhappiness proceeds 
 from his guilt, and the righteous man must be rewarded 
 by the very consciousness of his integrity. 
 
 These are the elements of natural religion, which ex- 
 ist, or spring up, in the human soul, independently of 
 revelation. They are not factitious, or the product of 
 education or the fancy of a few, become universal by 
 authority and tradition. They place every human being 
 in a state of moral probation, and put it in the power of 
 every human being to become good or bad. Under no 
 circumstances is man the creature of mere impulse, as are 
 the inferior animals. There is no necessary connection 
 between any passion, appetite, or desire, and any deter- 
 mination of the mind or action of the will. Another 
 faculty of the human mind, the moral sense, comes in, 
 and spontaneously exercises itself upon the contemplated 
 action, and decides whether it is right or wrong. Under 
 this conviction, the will, or the mind through the will, 
 determines to do or forbear the action. A succession 
 of actions, or a habit of action, under the consciousness 
 of right, makes a good man, and the habit of acting 
 against moral conviction makes a bad man. 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 117 
 
 And this is precisely the account given of natural re- 
 ligion in our text by the Apostle Paul. " For when the 
 Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things 
 contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law 
 unto themselves ; which show the work of the law writ- 
 ten in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, 
 and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else ex- 
 cusing one another." 
 
 That this is a true account of natural religion, we 
 have the best of all evidence, that of the heathen them- 
 selves, who wrote from their own consciousness, and 
 from the testimony of those among whom they lived. 
 The whole subject is summed up by Cicero, the wisest 
 and most learned of the Romans, in the following noble 
 sentence, which is so sublime and so true that it might 
 almost seem to be the language of inspiration. " There 
 is," says he, "a true. law, which is right reason, which 
 corresponds with the constitution of universal nature, 
 which pervades all mankind, unchanging, eternal, which 
 commands to duty, and forbids what is wrong. It is 
 not one law at Athens and another at Rome, one thing 
 now and another hereafter, but one eternal and immortal 
 law, which binds all nations in all time. And there is 
 one God, who is the common Ruler and Sovereign of 
 all. Of this law he is the inventor, the framer, the 
 legislator. He who will not obey it is a traitor to him- 
 self, and treats his own human nature with contempt, and 
 by this very fact he subjects himself to the severest 
 penalties, though he were to escape all other punish- 
 ments." 
 
 Plutarch, a Greek, a learned man, and a great travel- 
 ler, testifies of the universality of religious faith and wor- 
 ship in the most unequivocal terms. " If you search 
 
118 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 the world," says he, " you may find cities without walls, 
 without letters, without kings, without money ; but no 
 one ever saw a city without a deity, without a temple, 
 or without some form of worship." 
 
 Cicero, in another place, says of the immortality of the 
 soul, — " That the souls of men survive the dissolution 
 of the body, we may consider as a truth sanctioned by 
 the universal belief of all nations." " In what manner 
 this anticipation of ages to come strikes its root so 
 deeply into the principles of our frame, I pretend not to 
 explain." 
 
 The paintings lately discovered in the catacombs of 
 Egypt demonstrate that the doctrines of the, immortality 
 of the soul, and of future rewards and punishments, were 
 entertained on the banks of the Nile, ages before one 
 word of our Bible was written. 
 
 Park, after his extensive travels in the interior of Africa, 
 thus records the results of his observations : — " Some 
 of the opinions of the negroes, though blended with the 
 weakest credulity and superstition, are not unworthy of 
 attention. I have conversed with all ranks and condi- 
 tions, upon the subject of their faith, and can pronounce 
 without the smallest shadow of doubt, that the belief 
 of one God, and of a future state of reward and punish- 
 ment, is entire and universal among them." 
 
 This testimony dales more than half a century ago. 
 There is one more recent, by the Landers, dated in 
 another region of the same vast continent : — " The 
 priestess and her followers believe in the existence of a 
 God, and a heaven wherein he resides, that this glorious 
 and almighty Being superintends the destinies of men in 
 this life, and in a future one rewards or punishes them 
 according to iheir deserts. Yet of a hell and a place of 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 119 
 
 eternal torment, they have no idea whatever. The 
 souls of good men, they say, are translated into a tran- 
 quil, happy, and beautiful region, wherein but one mon- 
 key is permitted to reside, and where they remain for 
 ever ; whereas the wicked, before they can be permitted 
 to participate in so much felicity and enjoyment, are 
 forced to endure sorrow, pain, and punishment: — a 
 variety of tortures is prepared for them, such as scourg- 
 ing and beating, till it is considered that sufficient pun- 
 ishment has been inflicted for their misdeeds, when they 
 are exalted to a happier state of being." 
 
 And, to ascend from the lowest degree of barbarism and 
 ignorance to the highest elevation of intellectual and moral 
 culture ever attained by an uninspired mind, Socrates, in 
 those awful hours which preceded his drinking of the fatal 
 cup, when no motive could have operated to lead him to 
 misrepresent the inmost convictions of his soul, declared 
 to his friends: — " It would be inexcusable in me to de- 
 spise death, if I were not persuaded that it will conduct 
 me into the presence of the gods, who are the most right- 
 eous governors, and into the society of good men ; but I 
 derive confidence from the hope that something of man 
 remains after death, and that the condition of good men 
 will then be much better than that of the bad." 
 
 It may be objected to this view of things, that it is 
 inconsistent with the doctrine of the Fall of man. A 
 fall which left man in possession of a moral and religious 
 nature, an intuitive knowledge of God, a perception of 
 right and wrong, and the power to choose between them, 
 unbiased by any thing except those, passions and appe- 
 tites which are necessary as stimulants to action, was no 
 fall at all. It leaves every man to form his own charac- 
 ter under fair conditions of free choice and personal 
 
120 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 responsibility. Whereas the doctrine of the Fall asserts, 
 that the character of every human being was formed by 
 Adam ages ago, and formed to evil more unchange- 
 ably than by the longest course of personal transgression, 
 and nothing but an act of Omnipotence can restore him 
 to a condition in which his choice would be free between 
 good and evil. I answer, that this very circumstance adds 
 to the probability of the truth of the view we have been 
 taking, because it proves it to be consistent with the jus- 
 tice of God, as well as the experience and observation of 
 mankind, while the other is not. Besides, the doctrines of 
 the religious nature and moral freedom of mankind are 
 sustained by a plain declaration of Scripture, whereas 
 the doctrine of the corruption of human nature in Adam 
 is an uncertain inference, drawn from language equally 
 capable of another construction. 
 
 It may be objected to the view I have given, that 
 it tends to disparage revelation. It makes the ques- 
 tion of revelation and no revelation to be a question of 
 more or less light upon the same subjects, whereas the 
 very word revelation seems to imply that the truths it 
 communicates were wholly new and unknown before. 
 
 I answer, that revelation, when applied to Judaism or 
 Christianity as a whole, is not a Scriptural term. The 
 Scriptures nowhere claim to be the sole source of re- 
 ligious knowledge. They expressly disclaim it in pas- 
 sages which I have already cited. They merely profess 
 to confirm, by higher authority, doctrines which were 
 already received. The exclusive claim of miraculous 
 revelation to be the only source of Divine knowledge, is 
 fatal to its own claim to be a revelation at all. It is wholly 
 incredible that God should have confined the possibility 
 of attaining to future happiness, the very object of human 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 121 
 
 existence if man be immortal, to the merest fraction of 
 the human race which he has favored with a revelation. 
 
 And it is highly honorable to revelation, that it makes 
 none of these self-destroying claims, which are set up 
 for it by its mistaken friends ; that it freely admits, that, 
 so far from being the only guide to future happiness, 
 it imposes greater requisitions, and demands higher at- 
 tainments, and exposes to more aggravated condemna- 
 tion ; and declares that, at the last day, " many shall 
 come from the east and the west, and the north and the 
 south," and sit down with the patriarchs in the kingdom 
 of heaven. 
 
 With these views it may be asked. What advantage, 
 then, hath the Christian, or what profit is there in the 
 Gospel ? My answer is the same as that of Paul con- 
 cerning Judaism. " Much everyway ; chiefly because 
 that unto them were committed the oracles of God." 
 
 Revelation may confer great advantages, but it cannot 
 be indispensable. If it were indispensable, it would 
 have been given to all. If it were indispensable, it 
 would have been universal. It cannot be a remedy for 
 the effects of the Fall, nor can it have any relation to the 
 Fall. The effects of the Fall were universal, if ever 
 any such thing took place. Revelation is partial, and 
 extends to but very few of those who were affected 'by 
 the Fall. 
 
 Revelation may be of the greatest advantage, to pre- 
 vent or to correct the corruption of natural religion. 
 There is nothing so good that it cannot be corrupted. 
 There is reason to believe that the religion of all na- 
 tions was at first pure and simple. The Bible itself 
 assures us that this was the case. All idolatry seems to 
 have been at first symbolical. The many gods of the 
 11 
 
122 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 heathen were different divine attributes deified. The 
 attribute was at first represented by a symbol, and then 
 the symbol was worshipped by the ignorant as a separate 
 being. It certainly was not unworthy of God, miracu- 
 lously to interpose to remedy such a perversion. To 
 correct idolatry seems to have been the whole aim of 
 the Mosaic revelation. Before the invention of writing, 
 there could have been no such thing as a revelation, 
 embracing many particulars, for tradition could not have 
 preserved it in its integrity, and an uncertain or disputa- 
 ble revelation would have been worse than none. After 
 the formation of distinct languages, there could have 
 been no universal revelation. There was no way left 
 then, except for a revelation to be made to one people, 
 and then made universal by being spread over the earth. 
 
 Revelation was highly advantageous in preventing the 
 abuses of religion. The management of religious con- 
 cerns, from the very nature of things, falls into the hands 
 of a few. The mass are too busy and too unaccus- 
 tomed to reflection to busy themselves with it. Ac- 
 cordingly, every nation has, and has had, its priests. 
 They may make religion a trade by perverting it to their 
 own purposes. They may modify its doctrines with an 
 express purpose to subserve their own interests, either 
 of gain or power. The Jewish priesthood was the first 
 honest priesthood that ever existed. The Jewish tem- 
 ple was the first temple which was not the scene of the 
 grossest vices and the most shameful imposture. The 
 Jewish priesthood could not pervert their religion, for 
 it was written down in the book of the law, open to the 
 knowledge of all ; and, moreover, they acted under the 
 supervision of living prophets. 
 
 A revelation was advantageous in giving the truths of 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 123 
 
 religion a true expression and a perfect development. No 
 uninspired mind could probably ever have arrived at this. 
 It was natural, after the invention of writing and the ad- 
 vancement of mental cultivation, that studious men should 
 attempt the statement of moral and religious truth. Ac- 
 cordingly, in Greece, where the human mind first received 
 a high degree of cultivation, no sooner did philosophers 
 spring up, than they diverged in the widest manner from 
 each other, on the most common and important subjects 
 of truth and duty. This gave rise to sects and parties, 
 to endless and unprofitable disputes, in which the truth 
 was lost sight of in the desire of victory. In the mean 
 time, the common people, who are really the most in- 
 terested, knew not what to believe, and were left with- 
 out instruction or guidance upon the most momentous 
 subjects. 
 
 The advent of Christianity put an end to these sects 
 and disputes, and why ? Because Christ, by the aid of 
 Omniscience, made known the truth itself, so simply, so 
 plainly, and so palpably, that all dispute was at an end. 
 The doctrines of Christ carry conviction to every mind, 
 and seem to all to be self-evident truths, and why .'' 
 Because they are this very universal religion which God 
 has put into all minds and hearts. 
 
 This view of things corresponds, I think, with a re- 
 markable speech of the Saviour to Pilate, when he was 
 asked if he were a king. " To this end was I born, and 
 for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear 
 witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth 
 heareth my voice." It is by the enunciation of truth 
 that Christ exercises his kingly power. Nothing is so 
 irresistible as truth. It is this which has made, and is 
 making, the humble Nazarene the King of kings and 
 
124 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 the Lord of lords. It is this which is making the king- 
 doms of this world the kingdom of our Lord and Sav- 
 iour Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is highly advantageous to the world, that this per- 
 fect enunciation of religious truth should have been sealed 
 by miraculous interposition. For the perfect sway of 
 Christianity over man, not only was conviction wanting, 
 but authority, that the truth might be embraced with a 
 full and efficient faith. And most wisely does it seem to 
 have been arranged, that the principal miracle of the 
 Christian religion should both seal the truth of Christ's 
 teaching and give a practical exemplification of that doc- 
 trine which is most important, and is, in fact, the key- 
 stone of all religious faith, — the resurrection of the 
 dead, and an immortal existence beyond the grave. 
 
 Such miraculous testimonials do no more than corre- 
 spond to the importance of a perfect religion, or, in other 
 words, a true enunciation of natural religion, and one 
 which is destined to spread over the whole earth, and 
 endure as long as time itself. Otherwise, the same im- 
 perfect faculties, which failed to elicit truth from the 
 teachings of nature, might fail to recognize and embrace 
 it when actually disclosed. 
 
DISCOURSE VIII. 
 
 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL MANKIND. 
 
 THEN PETER OPENED HIS MOUTH, AND SAID, OF A TRUTH I PER- 
 CEIVE THAT GOD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS : BUT IN EVERY 
 NATION HE THAT FEARETH HIM, AND WORKETH RIGHTEOUSNESS, 
 IS ACCEPTED WITH HIM. — ActS X. 34, 35. 
 
 The sentiment here expressed by Peter finds a 
 response in the natural sense of justice which God has im- 
 planted in every human souJ, that future happiness ought 
 to be put within the power of every human being alike, 
 that no mere accident of the time and place of our birth 
 ought to work a forfeiture of any thing in man's ulti- 
 mate destiny which he is made capable of attaining under 
 any circumstances. Any other supposition makes God 
 so partial and unjust a being as to destroy all respect for 
 his administration. 
 
 The proposition of Peter, as I understand it, amounts 
 to this, that all mankind knoto enough of God and 
 duty to put them in a state of fair moral probation, and 
 to enable them to form a character acceptable to him. 
 
 This truth was lost sight of and denied by the ancient 
 Jews, in their pride and conceit, in consequence of hav- 
 ing received from God a miraculous revelation. Ac- 
 11* 
 
126 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 
 
 cording to their theology, invented and matured by their 
 Rabbis, but not derived from their sacred writings, it 
 was a settled principle, " that for all Israel there is a 
 part in the world to come." Birth of the. stock of 
 Abraham made them secure of everlasting happiness. 
 This holiness consisted chiefly in abstinence from cer- 
 tain meats and drinks, and the observance of a certain 
 external ritual. The Gentiles they called dogs, uncir- 
 cumcised and unclean, and thought their acceptance with 
 God a moral impossibility. The Jew was intrinsically 
 so holy, let his personal character be ever so defective, 
 that he could not eat or associate with a Gentile, how- 
 ever pure and virtuous he might be as a man. 
 
 So much were the Jews impressed with the indispen- 
 sableness of their faith and ritual to God's favor, that the 
 Apostles, notwithstanding their Master's commission to 
 them before his ascension, " Go and teach all nations," 
 for nearly ten years preached the Gospel exclusively to 
 the Jews. It required a special Divine interposition to 
 set them right on this point. Paul was converted by a 
 miracle, and sent expressly to the Gentiles. Peter was 
 instructed by a miraculous vision, that the distinctions of 
 meats and drinks, which had been the principal means of 
 dividing the Jews from the Gentiles, was done away, 
 and the recognition by God of Cornelius as a Christian 
 by the -gift of the Holy Ghost, made known the fact that 
 there was no intrinsic holiness in a Jew, and that piety 
 and goodness were attainable by every human being of 
 every nation, kindred, and tongue. 
 
 What it required ten years for the Apostles to com- 
 prehend was not fully understood by the converts from 
 Judaism during the whole Apostolic age, and the Jewish 
 division of the Church not only observed the Mosaic 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 127 
 
 law themselves, but insisted on forcing it upon the con- 
 verts from paganism, and compelling them all to become 
 Jews as well as Christians. So difficult is it to free 
 ourselves from the prejudices of education. 
 
 But the Christian Church itself, after it became fully 
 established and amalgamated, relapsed from the liberality 
 of Peter into the old error, that it is impossible for the 
 heathen to please God, and that, by the very fact of their 
 condition as heathen, they are incapable of any thing 
 which may be justly considered either piety or good- 
 ness. 
 
 To this view of the condition of the heathen world, 
 the theological doctrines concerning human nature, which 
 were broached and finally established in the Church in 
 the fourth and fifth centuries, mainly contributed. Au- 
 gustine advanced the doctrine, that human nature became 
 so vitiated by the Fall, that it is of itself incapable of 
 any acceptable religious and moral action ; that the power 
 to do any thing acceptable to God must be specially 
 communicated by him to any individual before he can 
 make any motion toward true piety and religion. The 
 work of Christ procured this especial favor to be be- 
 stowed on a certain portion of the human race, and the 
 rest of mankind, who have never heard of Christ, are 
 left to perish without remedy. The grace bestowed on 
 mankind through Christ corresponds to the loss they 
 sustained through Adam, which was the power to please 
 God. The effects of the fall of Adam were universal, 
 but the effects of the work of Christ are only partial. 
 
 The difficulty by which mankind are prevented from 
 pleasing God is a defect of nature. Nothing that any 
 man can do can change his nature. The mediation of 
 Christ, on this hypothesis, can do nothing for man, except 
 
128 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 
 
 it changes his nature. Accordingly, those who maintain 
 the doctrine of the Fall of man assert that the ministra- 
 tions of the Gospel are accompanied by the operations 
 of God's spirit, or power, which changes the nature of 
 man, and puts it in his power to please God. Regener- 
 ation, according to this theory, is not merely a change 
 of character^ arising from change of voluntary action, 
 but a change of nature, so far as to make virtue and 
 holiness possible, which were impossible before. Noth- 
 ing is said of that agency of God upon human nature 
 extending beyond the preaching of the Gospel. Those 
 from whom it is withheld are inevitably lost. This 
 system, of course, leaves the heathen without the possi- 
 bility of salvation. 
 
 God is a respecter of persons, according to this sys- 
 tem, to an infinite degree. He puts an infinite and 
 eternal difference between two human beings, whose in- 
 trinsic merit is the same, merely because one, in the 
 course of his providence, has been brought into exist- 
 ence in a heathen, and the other in a Christian country. 
 It is not true, then, in its obvious sense, that "in "every 
 nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is 
 accepted with him." If there is a universal defect in 
 human nature, which, without a miraculous change, 
 makes goodness impossible, then a heathen can neither 
 fear God nor work righteousness, nor be accepted with 
 him. The supposition that withholds this power from 
 ninety-nine hundredths of the human race, and thus con- 
 signs them, without any probation, to everlasting misery, 
 is wholly incredible. 
 
 A revelation containing such a disclosure would be 
 essentially incredible, for it could never satisfy those 
 ideas of justice which God has made a part of our nature. 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 129 
 
 But the Bible makes no such disclosure. On the con- 
 trary, it asserts, as in our text, that " God is no respecter 
 of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him, and 
 worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." Paul 
 declares, that " God is not only the God of the Jews, 
 but of the Gentiles," and that he " will render to every 
 man according to his deeds ; to them who, by patient 
 continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honor, and 
 immortality, eternal life ; but unto them that are con- 
 tentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteous- 
 ness, indignation and wrath; tribulation and anguish upon 
 every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and 
 also of the Gentile : but glory, honor, and peace to 
 every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also 
 to the Gentile. For there is no respect of persons with 
 God." 
 
 "Many," said our Saviour, "shall come from the 
 east and the west, and from the north and the south, 
 and sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in 
 the kingdom of heaven." Abraham was faithful to his 
 light, though he knew nothing of Christianity. He, and 
 Isaac, and Jacob, enjoyed only the patriarchal religion, 
 but were good men under it. They will be partakers of 
 future blessedness. So Jesus, when he saw the strong 
 faith of the centurion, who believed that he could heal 
 his son, even at a distance, — a faith so superior to that 
 of his own blinded and bigoted countrymen, — was re- 
 minded of the fact that the heathen might be more faith- 
 ful to their light than the Jew was to his, and, of course, 
 be better prepared for future happiness. 
 
 To this case his parable of the talents is perfectly 
 applicable. It was not the number of the talents which 
 secured the approving sentence, " Well done, good and 
 
130 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 
 
 faithful servant," but the manner in which they had been 
 employed. The parable of the laborers contains an ex- 
 cuse for the deficiencies of the Gentiles. They are 
 thought to be represented by the laborers who were 
 found idle at an advanced hour of the day. They give 
 a reasonable and valid excuse, — "Because no man hath 
 hired us." The. Gentiles cannot be blameworthy for 
 not living according to a revelation that they had never 
 received. 
 
 That the heathen are capable of that righteousness 
 which is acceptable to God, may be shown, not only 
 from the declarations of the Scriptures, but by an analy- 
 sis of their moral and religious condition. 
 
 It is conceded by all, that the heathen can sin. It is 
 maintained that they do sin. Sin is an idea that per- 
 tains to religion ; supposes religious knowledge and a 
 sense of religious obligation ; takes in the idea of God. 
 The human mind is so constructed that it cannot sepa- 
 rate conscience from God, the law written on the heart 
 from the Lawgiver, who is God. If the idea of right 
 could be separated from God, then sin would subside 
 into mere imprudence ; a simple mistake, instead of a 
 crime ; a misfortune, instead of a fault ; an error which 
 might fill us with regret, but could cause no remorse. 
 Were not man created so as to be by nature a religious 
 being, without a revelation he could not sin. Had not 
 the soul a conscious relation to God, it could not regard 
 any of its own actions as sinful. 
 
 The very assertion, then, that all the heathen sin, is 
 equivalent to the assertion, that all the heathen are relig- 
 ious beings, — are capable of virtue and capable of ob- 
 taining the favor of God. What constitutes any act of a 
 heathen sin .-' It is a conscious transgression of God's 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 131 
 
 law. And God's law with him is nothing other than the 
 dictates of reason and conscience. This is done at the 
 suggestion of passion and appetite. A voluntary choice 
 is made between the two. 
 
 When the heathen feels that he chooses what is wrong 
 and evil in preference to what is right and good, he is 
 conscious that he sins. It is not asserted that he always 
 chooses the wrong and the evil. If he did, there would 
 be no evidence that he possessed that freedom which is 
 necessary to moral agency. He sometimes chooses that 
 which is right and good, against the ever-present solici- 
 tations of the passions and appetites. And shall the 
 yielding to temptation be counted to the heathen as a 
 sin, and the successful resistance to temptation not be 
 counted to him as virtue, goodness, an act acceptable to 
 God ? No tongue can describe, no mind can conceive, 
 the atrocious injustice of such a government. If diso- 
 bedience to conscience in a heathen is counted sin, — an 
 irreligious act, — then obedience to conscience under 
 the same degree of light ought to be counted virtue, — 
 a religious act, — or the government of God is not just. 
 And just as far as the good acts of the heathen fall short 
 of being religious acts, on account of their want of light, 
 ought their bad acts to be counted to fail short of sin. 
 
 There is among the heathen the same variety of char- 
 acter which exists among those who have enjoyed the 
 light of a miraculous revelation, — every gradation from 
 the very good man down to the very worst. There is, 
 of course, the same difference of desert. The good 
 man is just as commendable for resisting those tempta- 
 tions to which the bad man has yielded, as the bad man 
 is blameworthy for yielding to the temptations which the 
 good man has resisted. Indeed, the same degree of 
 
132 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 
 
 moral attainment is more meritorious in a heathen than in 
 a Jew or Christian, because he does right with less 
 force of inducement, more out of regard for the right be- 
 cause it is right, and less from hope of reward or fear of 
 punishment. 
 
 Christ, our infallible teacher, has assured us that in- 
 crease of light is followed by increase of responsibility, 
 and greater guilt is incurred by disobedience to a law in 
 proportion to its certainty and authority. " Then be- 
 gan he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty 
 works were done, because they repented not. Woe 
 unto thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the 
 mighty works which were done in you had been done 
 in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago 
 in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be 
 more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judg- 
 ment than for you." 
 
 Such an advance was Christianity upon Judaism, that 
 the guilt of a sinful life under Judaism was as nothing 
 when compared to the same course of conduct under 
 Christianity. " If I had not come and spoken unto 
 them, they had not had sin ; but now they have no cloak 
 for their sin. If I had not done among them the works 
 which none other man did, they had not had sin." 
 
 Neither Scripture nor experience gives us any reason 
 to think that Jews and Christians have been any more 
 faithful to their light than the heathen have to theirs, or 
 have made greater moral attainments in proportion to 
 their degrees of knowledge. 
 
 Is it objected, that no degree of moral and spiritual 
 attainment arrived at by the heathen amounts to right- 
 eousness in the sight of God ? I answer this objection 
 by asking, if any Jew or Christian can claim the favor 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 133 
 
 of God on the ground of immaculate innocence. What 
 is the history of the Jewish people from the day when 
 they commenced their march from the land of bondage ? 
 Did not their prophets always denounce them as a stiff- 
 necked, disobedient people ? Is it not written of most 
 of their kings, that they " did evil in the sight of the 
 Lord " ? David and Solomon, the greatest and best of 
 them all, — did not one of them commit murder and adul- 
 tery, and did not the other fall into the sins of idolatry 
 and the grossest sensuality ? What is the character 
 given of the whole nation of Israel after they had been 
 for more than seven centuries the peculiar people of 
 God ? " Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth ! for 
 the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up 
 children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox 
 knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib : but 
 Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 
 Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed 
 
 of evil-doers, children that are corrupters ! The 
 
 whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From 
 the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no 
 soundness in it." 
 
 And yet the laws of Moses were eminently wise and 
 humane, calculated to enlighten and quicken the con- 
 science, and to keep alive the knowledge and worship of 
 the true God. 
 
 The character of the nation does not seem to have 
 improved in the time of Paul. He evidently considers 
 the Jew of his age to have been a better teacher of the 
 theory of religion than example of the character which 
 Judaism was intended to form. " Behold," says he, 
 " thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and 
 makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and ap- 
 12 
 
134 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 
 
 provest the things that are more excellent, being in- 
 structed out of the law ; and art confident that thou thy- 
 self art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are 
 in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of 
 babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth 
 in the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teach- 
 est thou not thyself ? Thou that preachest a man should 
 not steal, dost thou steal ? Thou that say est a man should 
 not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? Thou 
 that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege ? Thou 
 that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the 
 law dishonorest thou God ? For the name of God is 
 blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is 
 written. For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep 
 the law : but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy cir- 
 cumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore, if the 
 uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall 
 not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision ? 
 Jlnd shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it 
 fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circum- 
 cision dost transgress the law ? For he is not a Jew 
 which is one outwardly ; neither is that circumcision 
 which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew which 
 is one inwardly: and circumcision is that of Jthe heart, in 
 the spirit, and not in the letter ; whose praise is not of 
 men, but of God." 
 
 Is there not a perfect coincidence of sentiment be- 
 tween Peter and Paul, and do they not both carry out 
 the doctrine of Christ as to the condition of the heathen, 
 that they have power to work righteousness, to fulfil the 
 righteousness of the law, and thus become acceptable to 
 God? 
 
 And have the Christians any more reason than God's 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 135 
 
 ancient people for looking down on the Pagans, on the 
 score of having lived up to their light more faithfully 
 than their heathen brethren ? The Christian goes forth 
 to teach the heathen the Gospel of peace, justice, and 
 human brotherhood. And what is the result .'' The 
 heathen, instead of being converted and improved, are 
 poisoned and destroyed by the vices and encroachments 
 of their boasting benefactors. The Christians call their 
 Master "the Prince of Peace," and wage among them- 
 selves the bloodiest wars that ever depopulated the earth, 
 besides carrying fire and sword into the habitations of the 
 unsophisticated sons of the forest. The Christians boast 
 that they live under the administration of just laws, which 
 secure to every man his rights, and straight those very 
 laws are perverted into a cunning machinery to rob and 
 defraud by public authority. The Christian preaches 
 that "no drunkard hath part in the kingdom of God," 
 and yet no Pagan nation that ever existed has been so 
 brutalized by intemperance as those nations which call 
 themseilves by the name of Christ. The Master of 
 Christians has said, " Swear not at all." But in those 
 countries which call themselves Christian, the name of 
 God is oftener heard in oaths and blasphemy than in 
 devotion. 
 
 Are the heathen lands, then, worse than the Christian 
 in proportion to their light? We have no reason to 
 make such a supposition ; and if not, the heathen, on an 
 average, stand just as good a chance for future happiness 
 as the Christians. There is no respect of persons 
 with God ; " but in every nation, he that feareth him and 
 worketh righteousness is accepted with him." 
 
 But here it may be objected, that the theology of the 
 heathen is so very defective, that they cannot be said in 
 
136 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 
 
 any proper sense to fear God. They worship many 
 gods, and therefore their worship is rather offensive than 
 acceptable to the true God, who is but one and indivisi- 
 ble. It may be answered, in apology for them, that they 
 generally hold to one supreme God and several derived 
 and subordinate gods, and that they distribute among 
 several the different Divine attributes which ought to be 
 concentrated in one. But can any believer in the 
 Trinity justly reproach them with this .'' The Trinity 
 presents to the worshipper three objects of devotion, 
 with the functions of Divinity divided between them, 
 creation, redemption, and sanctification. " O God, the 
 Father of heaven, have mercy upon us ! O God the 
 Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy upon us ! O 
 God the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and 
 the Son, have mercy upon us." The heathen, it is 
 true, makes some of his deities to be derived and subor- 
 dinate ; but the same objection lies against the Trinity, 
 for the second and third persons are, in terms, said to be 
 derived and subordinate, the second being the son " of' 
 the first, and the third '■'■ proceeding from'''' the other 
 two. 
 
 The Christian may deny, and probably will deny, that 
 either his religion or his theology is injured by worship- 
 ping three persons, as they all make but one God. And 
 so the heathen may deny that either his theology or re- 
 ligion is injured by worshipping a plurality of gods, as 
 they all together merely represent and exercise the attri- 
 butes and functions which belong to Deity. 
 
 But the conceptions which the heathen entertain of 
 their deities are of so low and imperfect a character, it 
 may be objected, that the religious affections founded 
 upon them are not worthy of the name of piety. But 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 137 
 
 the heathen may defy the Christian to point out among 
 all his gods one who is represented as regarding the hu- 
 man race as " born under his wrath and curse," and 
 previous to all moral action to be exposed to the pains 
 of hell for ever. 
 
 God, though in himself a real being, is to Jew, Chris- 
 tian, and Pagan an ideal being, that is to say, each hu- 
 man mind creates, if I may so speak, its own Deity, 
 forms the idea of God from the materials furnished by 
 its own intellectual and moral nature, from the works of 
 God, and from the words of revelation. The concep- 
 tion of God, therefore, will vary with the capacities and 
 cultivation of each mind, and, in strictness of speech, it 
 may be said, that no two persons worship the same God, 
 and the difference between the true God and the highest 
 conception of the Christian is vastly greater than be- 
 tween his conception and that of the lowest heathen. 
 And if imperfect conceptions of God are to work con- 
 demnation to all who entertain them, all mankind, Jew, 
 Christian, and Pagan, must come short of salvation. 
 And if the Christian's imperfect conceptions of God 
 ought not to shut him out of heaven, so neither ought 
 the Pagan's ignorance to exclude him. 
 
 But the narrow-minded Christian, the stickler for the 
 letter of Scripture, asserts that salvation is impossible 
 without faith in Christ. But what is faith in Christ ? It 
 is faith in God through Christ. " He that believeth on 
 me believeth not on me, but on him that sent me." It 
 is only a stronger and clearer conviction of those very 
 truths concerning God which are made known by the 
 light of nature. The ultimate object of faith is God, in 
 either case ; and that faith in God which is taught by na- 
 ture and reason operates precisely in the same direction 
 12* 
 
138 SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 
 
 with that faith in God which is produced by the teachings 
 of Jesus. But it is objected that no human being can 
 be saved without the Atonement, and how can they be 
 benefited by the Atonement who never heard of it .'' 
 I answer, that if the purpose of the Atonement was to 
 satisfy the violated law, and make it consistent with the 
 honor of the Divine government to pardon the penitent, 
 then it is not necessary that mankind should know any 
 thing of it. It is valid and efficacious, independently of 
 their knowledge. All that is necessary for them to 
 know is, that God can and will pardon the penitent. In 
 short, all that is necessary for them to know is, that God 
 is merciful. And was not that made certain by Judaism 
 ages before Christianity ? Is it not assured by the light of 
 nature in the peace which follows penitence, in the natural 
 placability of man, who is made in the image of God, 
 and in that universal benignity which shines out in all 
 God's works ? If the common doctrine of Atonement 
 would shut the whole heathen world out of heaven, then 
 that fact ought to create serious doubts among its advo- 
 cates, whether their view of it be the true one. There 
 is another interpretation of the doctrine of Atonement, 
 which makes it to be the simple reconciliation of man to 
 God by true repentance, and true repentance is possible 
 to man under any degree of religious light. 
 
 What, then, are the conclusions to which we are con- 
 ducted by this discussion } The last result of an analy- 
 sis of human nature coincides precisely with the declara- 
 tion of Peter : — " Of a truth I perceive that God is no 
 respecter of persons ; but in every nation, he that feareth 
 him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." 
 Piety and righteousness are possible to all mankind. No 
 people are so ignorant as to be without some conception 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE TO ALL. 139 
 
 of God, and none know him so perfectly as to make 
 their knowledge of him any more than the most distant 
 approximation to the truth. 
 
 The capacity to work righteousness is coextensive 
 with the knowledge of right and wrong, and the freedom 
 to choose between them. Right and wrong are essential- 
 ly religious ideas, because they are what they are by a 
 power superior to man, and they exert an authority over 
 man which it is impossible for him to resist. To break 
 the moral law of our being is sin, an irreligious act ; to 
 obey that law must necessarily be, not only a moral, but 
 a religious act. It is goodness, and is acceptable to God. 
 It does not appear that Jews and Christians have been 
 any more faithful to their light than the heathen have to 
 theirs. i 
 
 The substance of all religious faith is the same, that 
 which is by nature and that which is derived from reve- 
 lation. Its object is God and his attributes, his govern- 
 ment and his purposes to man. The Atonement, if it 
 relates to the law of God, is equally valid whether 
 known to man or not, and if it means the reconciliation 
 of man to God, it is possible under the light of nature. 
 In short, future happiness is and must be possible to 
 every human being. 
 
DISCOURSE IX. 
 
 CHRIST'S LANGUAGE CONCERNING CHILDREN. 
 
 AND THEY BROUGHT YOTTNG CHILDREN TO HIM, THAT HE SHOULD 
 TOUCH THEM ; AND HIS DISCIPLES REBUKED THOSE THAT BROUGHT 
 THEM. BUT WHEN JESUS SAW IT, HE WAS MUCH DISPLEASED, AND 
 SAID UNTO THEM, SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO 
 ME, AND FORBID THEM NOT ; FOR OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 — Markx. 13, 14. 
 
 In pursuing our investigations into the essential char- 
 acter of human nature, it becomes a question of the 
 highest importance, how it was regarded by Christ, 
 whom we recognize as the author of our religion, and as 
 our infallible teacher. And I do not know how he 
 could have used language bearing more directly or more 
 decisively upon the point of the integrity and excellence 
 of human nature, than in declaring of little children, 
 "For of such is the kingdom of heaven." Stronger 
 language, as to the moral condition of any human being, 
 could scarcely be used, than to say that the kingdom of 
 heaven, or heaven itself, is inhabited by such. Such a 
 declaration certainly agrees with our natural impressions 
 of things, and is most honorable to the Divine character. 
 Children certainly come immediately from the forming 
 hand of their Creator. Human beings are God's high- 
 
141 
 
 est and most perfect work. As far as we know, they 
 are the only beings created for a moral existence, that is, 
 with natures to know God and duty, to choose virtue, 
 and to be happy in the choice ; by devotion, by obe- 
 dience, by discipline, to advance from one degree of ex- 
 cellence and enjoyment to another, without end. This 
 is universally conceded to have been the condition of 
 man before the Fall. If the fall of man changed hu- 
 man nature, it must have been by a special Divine 
 arrangement, so that the agency of Adam in making 
 human nature what it is was as much a part of the 
 Divine plan as his original constitution. If the whole 
 human race are created in a condition in which they are 
 " indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is 
 good, and wholly inclined to all evil," then this whole 
 creation is a failure. Its highest object is defeated, its 
 noblest work is marred. Instead of being a dawning to- 
 wards a glorious day, this life, to the great mass of man- 
 kind, is a gloomy twilight verging towards an eternal 
 night. This world, instead of being the first scene of 
 discipline to a never-ending career of improvement, is 
 the arena for the development of a combination of evil 
 dispositions destined to go on increasing in malignity 
 for ever and ever. That this is to be the result of such 
 a work of Omnipotence as the creation of this world, is 
 utterly incredible. The foresight of such an issue would 
 have arrested the creating hand of the Almighty. In- 
 finite Benevolence would have restrained the exertion of 
 so much power, which was to end in the production of 
 such an overwhelming preponderance of sufTering. 
 
 But the whole conduct and language of Christ, on the 
 occasion we have recited, relieves us from the horror of 
 any such revolting hypothesis. It is impossible that he 
 
142 
 
 should have been ignorant of the essential character of 
 human nature. He must have known whether the chil- 
 dren he took in his arms were possessed of a nature 
 polluted and vile, whether they were born " under the 
 wrath and curse of God, and so made hable to all the 
 miseries of this life and the pains of hell for ever." 
 Possessed of such a nature as this, as well as destiny, 
 the children which Jesus took into his arms must have 
 been objects of immeasurable loathing as well as com- 
 passion to so holy and merciful a being as Christ. Yet 
 Jesus gave expression to no feeling, either of abhorrence 
 or pity. On the contrary, he took them into his arms 
 and blessed them. How could he, who was one with 
 the Father, bless those who he knew were born " under 
 the wrath and curse of God," " disabled and made op- 
 posite to all that is good, and wholly inclined to all 
 evil".' Not only so; he declared, that " of such is 
 the kingdom of heaven.^' If children are " disinclined, 
 disabled, and made opposite to all that is good, and 
 wholly inclined to all evil," and are " born under his 
 wrath and curse," then heaven itself is to be filled with 
 beings who are " disinclined, disabled, and made oppo- 
 site to all that is good, and wholly inclined to all evil, 
 are under God's wrath and curse, and so made liable to 
 the pains of hell for ever." What difference can there 
 be between heaven and hell ? The inhabitants of the 
 abodes of despair cannot well be worse than totally cor- 
 rupt. 
 
 But the teachings of Christ are still more to our pur- 
 pose. He not only expressed the greatest tenderness 
 and affection towards children, as objects of moral ap- 
 probation, but the most anxious solicitude lest they 
 should become corrupted through the agency of others. 
 
143 
 
 And, moreover, he represents God himself to feel the 
 same anxiety for their innocence, if I may be allowed 
 the expression, which he cherishes himself. "Whoso 
 shall cause one of these little ones that believe in me to 
 offend, it were better for him that a mill-stone were 
 hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the 
 depth of the sea." 
 
 Is not this the very feeling which a benevolent nature 
 would have when looking on a pure and innocent being, 
 who was liable to be led astray ? Could such a concern 
 spring up in any mind for a being already morally 
 ruined .'' There is a species of moral indignation in the 
 language of Christ, concerning the turpitude of one who 
 should be the occasion of sin to a child : — "It were bet- 
 ter for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, 
 and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." 
 
 He represents the same intense interest to be taken 
 in their welfare by God himself. " Take heed that ye 
 despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, 
 that their angels do always behold the face of my Father 
 which is in heaven." This is a strong figure of speech, 
 derived from a fancy of the Jews relating to guardian 
 angels. Kings, in Oriental countries, were accustomed 
 to keep themselves secluded from their people. It was, 
 of course, the greatest privilege to have a friend at 
 court, in the immediate presence of the sovereign, to 
 represent the interests of the absent subject, and to re- 
 mind the supreme power of his wishes and his wants. 
 So the concern of Divine Providence for each human 
 being was symbolized by the imaginary presence of a 
 representing angel in the immediate presence of God. 
 Despise not, trifle not, with the interests of the smallest 
 child, for it is an object of the most watchful care to 
 God himself. 
 
144 Christ's language concerning children. 
 
 That it is so, we have the strongest possible evidence, 
 not only in the words and teachings of Christ, but in 
 what God has done for the welfare of little children. 
 His providence is nowhere more conspicuous. Parents 
 and friends are the real ministering spirits whom he has 
 provided to minister to the wants of the immortal beings 
 which he has introduced into the world. The affections 
 which spring up in their hearts towards these new-born 
 heirs of humanity are the surest indications of his own, 
 because they exist only by his appointment. Is there 
 any thing in this wide creation of which God takes such 
 peculiar care as a new-born babe ? A mother's heart 
 is the most exquisite instrumentality for its end that 
 is seen in the whole range of the Creator's works. 
 It annihilates self, and makes her whole being a living 
 sacrifice to the innocent and the helpless. Is being born 
 to bask in a mother's smile, and to be laid in a mother's 
 bosom, any evidence of coming into being under the 
 wrath and curse of God ? Those very affections which 
 constitute the child's protection and happiness are the 
 gift and provision of God, and are certainly a surer 
 indication of his disposition towards them, than the 
 abstract speculations of a few metaphysical theologians, 
 founded on detached and misinterpreted passages of 
 Scripture. 
 
 The anxiety that they may be preserved from perver- 
 sion, and the exceeding guilt of him who leadeth one of 
 them astray, certainly imply that they commence their 
 career in a condition of moral rectitude. There could 
 not rationally be any great concern for a being totally 
 corrupt by original constitution. That which is wholly 
 corrupt cannot be made any worse, nor can any being 
 be in a worse condition than " under the wrath and 
 
145 
 
 curse of God, liable to all the miseries of this life and 
 the pains of hell for ever." 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of a worse or lower fall than, 
 according to Augustine and Calvin, we suffered in 
 Adam, as it has been expressed by Dr. Watts in his 
 sacred poetry : — 
 
 " Conceived in sin, wretched slate ! 
 Before we draw our breath 
 The first young pulse begins to beat 
 Iniquity and death." 
 
 And yet these are the beings which Christ took in his 
 arms and blessed, and said, " Suffer little children to 
 come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the 
 kingdom of heaven." These are the beings for whose 
 moral safety he expressed such intense solicitude, that is, 
 that they might be preserved in the condition in which they 
 then were. " Whosoever shall cause one of these little 
 ones that believe in me to offend, it were better for him 
 that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he 
 were drowned in the depth of the sea." " Take heed 
 that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto 
 you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the 
 face of my Father which is in heaven." 
 
 But there is a stronger argument still. Not only did 
 he declare that those who are in the moral condition of 
 litde children are prepared for heaven, not only did he 
 represent a state of sinfulness to be a falling away from 
 that condition, but he declares conversion, the moral 
 renovation which it was the great purpose of his mission 
 to achieve in mankind, to be nothing more nor less than 
 a return to the spiritual condition of children. 
 
 " At the same time came the disciples to Jesus, say- 
 ing, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven .'' 
 13 
 
145 Christ's language concerning children. 
 
 And Jesus called a little child and set him in the midst 
 of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, except ye be 
 converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter 
 into the kingdom of God. Whosoever, therefore, shall 
 humble himself as this little child, the same is the great- 
 est in the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 Do not all our hearts respond to this sentiment ? Do 
 not we all look back to the days of childhood as the 
 days of innocence, of deep and true affection, of direct 
 and upright purposes, of quick and tender sensibilities, 
 of joyful, undoubting confidence and trust .'' And is 
 there not still to us a sacredness about the presence of 
 children, which have been kept unspotted from the 
 world .'' So natural is this sentiment, that it has come 
 down to us among the maxims of the ancient heathen 
 world. " To children the highest reverence is due." 
 
 The artful, the vicious, the sophisticated, never fail to 
 feel themselves awed, rebuked, reproved, by the pres- 
 ence of young children. This could never be, if they 
 felt that children were as corrupt by nature as they 
 themselves are by practice. 
 
 " Unless ye be converted and become as little chil- 
 dren, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God." The 
 sense of this declaration can be nothing short of this, that 
 children are in that state by nature to which Christians 
 are to be brought by discipline. Conversion is but re- 
 tracing the steps of departure by which the soul has 
 wandered away from the primitive condition of human 
 nature. In other words, men do not fall in Adam, they 
 fall in themselves. Conversion is not said to restore 
 men to the condition of Adam before he fell, but to the 
 condition of children before they have become cor- 
 rupted. What plainer declaration could there be that 
 
147 
 
 the evil which the mission of Christ was intended to 
 remedy was personal, not constitutional, and, conse- 
 quently, that the doctrine of the depravity of human na- 
 ture is wholly set aside by the language of Christ. 
 
 The language of Christ does not assert, nor imply, that 
 the young child and the aged saint are on an equality in the 
 sight of God, and, though both are prepared for the king- 
 dom of God, that both deserve or are both prepared for the 
 same degree of happiness. There is all the difference that 
 exists between mere innocence and positive merit, all the 
 difference there is between integrity untried and that which 
 has resisted a thousand temptations. This world is almost 
 a heaven to infancy and childhood. It has been made 
 so by God, antecedently to all merit on their part. Chil- 
 dren are proverbially happy, and they manifest it in a 
 thousand ways. There is no greater proof of the bound- 
 lessness of the Divine benignity. To them every thing 
 is new. To correspond to this novelty, there is in them 
 an insatiable curiosity which in its gratification affords 
 perpetual delight. The animal spirits are light, and 
 every exertion of the faculties, both bodily and mental, 
 seems to create a new gush of happiness. To care, 
 which in them would be altogether unavailing, God has 
 made them inaccessible, and their sorrows, which are 
 frequent, he has made of short duration. There is no 
 sense of guilt to depress the mind, to sadden the world, 
 or darken the prospects of futurity. And whatever 
 may be their share in the guilt of Adam's sin, it is not a 
 guilt which ever weighs upon the conscience, and what- 
 ever punishment they suffer for it, it is not a punishment 
 which is accompanied by the consciousness of ill desert. 
 There is no malice rankling in their bosoms, for the 
 Apostle has said, " Brethren, be not children in under- 
 standing ; howbeit in malice be ye children." 
 
148 Christ's language concerning children. 
 
 Now if such be the nature of children, and such the 
 disposition of God towards them, as evinced by the con- 
 dition in which he has placed them here, there is nothing 
 in death surely so to change their constitution as to make 
 them incapable of happiness, or so to change the dispo- 
 sition of God towards them as to make him no longer 
 desire their happiness. Death certainly cannot be im- 
 puted to them as a crime, since they can neither occa- 
 sion, accelerate, nor retard it. The happiness of chil- 
 dren here, therefore, seems a full pledge of their happi- 
 ness hereafter. 
 
 Between the perfected saint and the little child, there 
 are many and strong resemblances. The one has kept 
 the integrity with which the other was endowed, or, hav- 
 ing lost it, has been restored by true penitence and 
 hearty reformation. This view of human nature makes 
 sin to be a disease, not a radical defect of constitution. 
 If it be a disease, then it is curable ; but, like every other 
 disease, it is better to shun it altogether than to experi- 
 ence it and recover from it. It always leaves some mark 
 behind it, some scar or weakness, which mars the moral 
 beauty of the soul, or makes it more liable to the recur- 
 rence of the same malady. That it is not the normal or 
 natural state of the soul, Christ teaches us in the parable 
 of the prodigal son. Repentance Christ calls " com- 
 ing to himself." " And when he came to himself he 
 said. How many hired servants of my father's have 
 bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." 
 
 The perfected saint resembles the little child in frank- 
 ness, simplicity, and candor, and, for the same reason, 
 neither of them cherishes any thing in his heart which he 
 wishes to conceal. Evil dispositions and purposes are 
 corruptions which are introduced as life proceeds. It is 
 
Christ's language concerning children. 149 
 
 they which make the tongue and the heart strangers, and 
 conversation the means of conceaUng instead of express- 
 ing our sentiments. That such corruption is tradition- 
 ary, not constitutional, is shown by the fact, that it 
 prevails most in society, and not in seclusion ; where man 
 is the most artificial, and not where he is the most 
 natural. 
 
 The perfected saint and the little child are alike in 
 their instinctive love for the .truly excellent. Children 
 have a moral discernment exceedingly acute. To them 
 little things are more infallible indications of character 
 than at any succeeding period of life ; and they fly to 
 the kind, the true, the upright, with a cheerful and un- 
 wavering confidence, but they shrink with repugnance 
 from the cruel, the false, and the unprincipled. 
 
 The perfected saint and the little child resemble each 
 other in contentment and humility. It was to rebuke 
 worldliness and ambition in his disciples that Jesus took 
 a little child and set him before them. And what a 
 beautiful trait is this ! The little child plays with equal 
 glee on the broken floor and among the shattered furni- 
 ture of the poorest hut, and on the rich carpet and 
 amid the gorgeous gilding of palaces. To him father 
 and mother are the symbols of every thing holy and 
 revered, though they may be clothed in coarse attire, 
 and get their bread by daily toil ; that morning is most 
 beautiful which breaks upon the neighbouring hills, and 
 that rose the sweetest which blooms before his cottage 
 door. 
 
 The perfected saint and the little child resemble each 
 
 other in undoubting faith and impressible hopefulness. 
 
 What is instinct in one is the result of cultivated reason 
 
 and religious discipline in the other. To both, the past 
 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 and the present are sufficient evidence of what God 
 is, and therefore sufficient pledge of what the future 
 will be. 
 
 The perfected saint and the little child are alike in the 
 simplicity and sincerity of religious emotion. The 
 heart that truly loves an earthly parent will easily turn 
 its affection to that Father in heaven who freely giveth 
 us all things. Hence our Saviour declared, that " he 
 who doth not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little 
 child, shall not enter therein." But how often is relig- 
 ion so mingled with fashion, with interest, with custom, 
 and with the fear of man, that it is impossible to know 
 where one begins or the other ends, or whether religion 
 exists at all. The emotion of a childish heart speaks 
 out undisguised. O that in all that concerns religion 
 we could all be children once more ! 
 
 Finally, how false and unreasonable are the charges 
 which are made on nature>for the faults of the young ! 
 There is scarcely an unjust or improper sentiment that 
 children may not learn in listening to the conversation at 
 their parents' table, and within their parents' doors. 
 
 Parents will complain that their children are artful, 
 secretive, and insincere, when perhaps the whole policy 
 of governing them has been a system of finesse and de- 
 ception from the very dawn of reason. The rich will 
 bring their children up in a supercilious exclusiveness, 
 founded upon the accident of wealth, and then wonder 
 that they are objects of detestation to all, because they 
 are selfish, cold, haughty, and heartless. 
 
 The poor will indulge in an irreligious discontent at 
 their lot in the presence of their children, and then mar- 
 vel to find them eaten up with envy, malice, and all 
 uncharitableness. 
 
151 
 
 Parents will indulge in peevishness and irritability, 
 and then accuse of bad temper the child to which nature 
 has left no articulate way of expressing its wants and in- 
 conveniences but by cries and struggles. Parents will 
 abandon every duty of a parent, all that care and watch- 
 fulness which are the very end of the parental relation, 
 and turn their offspring over to nurses and teachers, — 
 nay, turn them into the very streets, — and then blame 
 poor human nature that the end thereof is misery and tears. 
 
 The doctrine of the damnation of infants for the sin of 
 Adam is so monstrous, so revolting to every feeling of 
 humanity, as well as every sentiment of justice, — is left 
 so far behind in the moral progress of this age, — that it 
 is difficult to believe that it was ever maintained by any 
 rational, not to say Christian man. Yet the evidence 
 that this was the belief of all the earlier followers of Cal- 
 vin is too strong to admit of a doubt. That Calvin 
 himself believed it, we have the proof of his own ex- 
 press declaration. In the second book of his Institutes 
 he says, — " We all, therefore, who spring from a cor- 
 rupt seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin ; 
 nay, before we behold the light of life we are in the 
 sight of God polluted and defiled." " The saying of 
 Paul, that ' all are by nature children of wrath, ',can 
 mean nothing else than that they are accursed from the 
 very womb." " And so infants themselves, as they 
 bring their damnation with them from their mother's 
 womb, are bound, not by the sin of another, but their 
 own. For although they have not yet produced the 
 fruits of their iniquity, they have the seed of it inclosed 
 within them ; nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a 
 seed of sin, so that it cannot but be odious and abomina- 
 ble in the sight of God." 
 
152 Christ's language concerning children. 
 
 " The Scripture- proclaims, that all human beings 
 were in the person of one man given over to eternal 
 death. How has it happened that the fall of Adam 
 hath involved so many nations with their infant children 
 in eternal death, but because it so seemed good in the 
 sight of God ? " 
 
 The same doctrine is taught by implication in the 
 Confession of Faith of the divines at Westminster. 
 " Elect infants," say they, " dying in infancy, are re- 
 generated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who 
 worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth." Non- 
 elect infants, of course, are left in the state of nature, 
 which is, as we have already seen, in a state of damna- 
 tion. 
 
 This doctrine was not only decreed by ecclesiastical 
 assemblies, and proclaimed from the pulpit, but it was 
 sung from the choir. We have already cited one speci- 
 men from Watts. In one of his versions of the fifty-first 
 Psalm, he has the following stanza : — 
 
 " Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin, 
 And born uniioly and unclean; 
 Sprung from the man whose guilty fall 
 Corrupts the race, and taints us all." 
 
 In another version of the same Psalm : — 
 
 " I from the stock of Adam came, 
 Unholy and unclean ; 
 All my original is shame, 
 And all my nature sin. 
 
 " Born in a world of guilt, I drew 
 Contagion with my breath ; 
 And as my days advanced, I grew 
 A juster prey for death." 
 
 It is difficult to conceive how a more fatal blot could 
 
Christ's language concerning children. 153 
 
 be fixed on the character of the Deity than the doctrine 
 of infant damnation. By a benevolent instinct of our 
 nature, the best feehngs of the human heart are called 
 forth by the very sight of infancy. Innocence, helpless- 
 ness, and dependence all appeal to the beholder at once, 
 and it is thought a strong evidence of a hard and cruel 
 disposition, to be indifferent even to the presence of 
 children. 
 
 But what is that hardness of heart compared with the 
 infinite barbarity of plunging them in the quenchless fires 
 of hell ! One of the worst atrocities of savage warfare is 
 the deliberate murder of infants, of which we often read. 
 Our blood runs cold when we read of the sacrifice of 
 helpless babes, torn from the bosoms of their mothers, 
 by the tomahawk or the scalping-knife. But what is 
 that when compared with taking them from the embraces 
 of human affection, and consigning them to endless tor- 
 ment ! 
 
 We read of the horrid idolatry of Moloch, that grim 
 deity of blood, whose offerings were little children, 
 thrown into the fire beneath his image, while their cries 
 were drowned by the sound of drums and the fierce 
 yells of the assembled worshippers. Their pains were 
 short, for their frail bodies were soon consumed by the 
 devouring flames. But what was the cruelty of Moloch 
 compared with that of Jehovah, if he could not only 
 plunge them in the flames, but keep them there to all 
 eternity ! 
 
 Is it not strange that such appalling, not to say ab- 
 surd, consequences of the doctrine of original sin 
 should not sooner have led to its rejection ? Is it not 
 strange that it still holds its place in the symbols of faith 
 of so many and such large bodies of the Christian 
 Church ? 
 
154 
 
 Finally, it may be inquired, if infants are pure and in- 
 nocent, and have no sins to be forgiven, why are they 
 baptized ? How are those texts to be interpreted which 
 assert that regeneration is necessary to all ? What can 
 regeneration mean, when applied to children, if they are 
 already pure and fit for the kingdom of heaven ? 
 
 I answer, that baptism is nothing more nor less than a 
 form of naturalization into the visible Church, the out- 
 ward kingdom of God. It was at first the public ac- 
 knowledgment of conversion to Christianity. It bore 
 nearly the same relation to the Christian religion that 
 circumcision had' bdrne to the Jewish. This rite was 
 enjoined, not only upon Abraham himself, but on his 
 household. " He that is born in thy house, and he that 
 is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised." 
 So, afterwards, on a man's conversion to Judaism, all 
 his family who were under age were supposed to go 
 with him as a matter of course, for the very obvious rea- 
 son that it is in the parent's power to bring up his chil- 
 dren to what religion he chooses. So, when Christianity 
 became the recognized religion, the conversion of the 
 parents was supposed to involve the conversion of their 
 children or households. So it evidently was in the case 
 of Lydia and the jailer. In the first ages of the exist- 
 ence of the Church of which we have any authentic his- 
 tory, infant baptism was the general practice. The sig- 
 nification of it, as applied to infants, may be learned 
 from the institution of godfathers or sponsors. It was 
 not only a public profession of the Christian religion, 
 but an acknowledgment of the obligation of parents to 
 give their children a Christian education. And this is 
 precisely the meaning of the rite at the present day. 
 The parent submits his child to this rite, as a profes- 
 
Christ's language concerning children. 155 
 
 sion that he himself is a believer in the authority and ob- 
 ligation of the Christian religion, and that it is liis pur- 
 pose to educate his child in the same religion. God 
 has made religion more than almost every thing else to be 
 an hereditary matter. " The promise," said the Apostle, 
 " is to you and your children." The most important 
 part of life, so far as religion is concerned, is the earli- 
 est. " Train up a child in the way he should go, and 
 when he is old he will not depart from it." As soon 
 as a child begins to be imbued with Christian truths, 
 principles, and habits, he begins practically to become 
 a subject of Christ's kingdom, and a member of his 
 mystical body. The ceremony of baptism is only sym- 
 bolical of that fact. It therefore properly takes place 
 in infancy. It does not imply that the child has any 
 sins to wash away, either original or actual, or that its 
 nature requires to be changed, but only that it needs 
 Christian instruction and Christian fellowship, that it may 
 be saved from the temptations of the world, and formed 
 in the spiritual image of the Son of God. If Christ 
 could say of them, at the commencement of their career, 
 " Of such is the kingdom of God," all that was neces- 
 sary for them was so to be trained up as never to fall 
 from the purity and innocence in which they were cre- 
 ated, but to "be kept from the evil there is in the 
 world." 
 
DISCOUESE X. 
 
 EXPLANATION OF THE PHRASE, "BY NATURE 
 CHILDREN OF WRATH." 
 
 AND WERE BY NATURE THE CHILDREN OF WRATH, EVEN AS OTHERS. 
 
 — Eph. ii. 3. 
 
 The doctrine which has been drawn from this text, 
 by a large division of the Christian Church has been, 
 that mankind, in the state in which God creates them, 
 are objects of his wrath, " are indisposed, disabled, and 
 made opposite to all that is good, and wholly inclined to 
 all evil," "are born under God's wrath and curse, and 
 so made liable to all the miseries of this life, and the 
 pains of hell for ever." 
 
 It is to be hoped, that those who felt themselves com- 
 pelled to draw such a doctrine from this passage of 
 Scripture did it with reluctance, for no doctrine can be 
 conceived more subversive of our natural ideas of jus- 
 tice, or more contradictory to the rest of the Scriptures. 
 Such a doctrine, if true, would overthrow religion ; I 
 mean as a sentiment of the human heart. God has 
 made us so that we can have no respect for injustice. 
 Whenever it is named in our presence, there rises up 
 
" BY NATURE CHILDREN OP WRATH." 157 
 
 against it within us the greatest abhorrence. So decided 
 is the moral feeling of mankind against it, that the strong- 
 est human government becomes unsafe the moment the 
 fountains of justice become corrupted. All allegiance 
 and submission are at once at an end, when the ruler be- 
 comes unjust. So there is an end to religion whenever 
 you establish the fact that God is unjust. 
 
 How, then, stands the present case ? " And were 
 by nature the children of wrath, even as others." The 
 nature of any thing is nothing more or less than the thing 
 itself, just as God made it. As God made every thing, 
 the nature of every thing must be just what God deter^ 
 mined it should be. God makes all human beings 
 through their parents just as certainly as he made Adam 
 and ■ Eve without parents. If we are individually ob- 
 jects of God's wrath by nature, then he has made us so. 
 But if God is angry with us, he must be angry for some- 
 thing. But the only offence charged in this representa- 
 tion is having the very nature which God has given us. 
 God, then, is angry with us, and punishes us when we 
 have committed no offence. It is impossible to con- 
 ceive of greater injustice than this. And if this be a 
 fact, all religion is at an end. The human heart is so 
 constituted, that it can neither venerate nor love such a 
 being. 
 
 But we are told by grave metaphysicians and pious 
 men, that human nature is odious in the sight of God, in 
 consequence of the sin of our first parents ; that the con- 
 dition of the nature of all mankind, whether it should or 
 should not be odious in the sight of God, was suspended 
 on the obedience of Adam. It is his sin, therefore, that 
 we suffer for, and not our own sins. I answer, that the 
 charge of injustice is not removed from the Divine 
 14 
 
158 " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 
 
 government. Nothing could possibly be mo;e unjust 
 than the suspension of the nature of the countless myri- 
 ads of the human race, whether it shouM or should not 
 be intrinsically odious in the sight of God, on an indi- 
 vidual act of a remote ancestor over which they had no 
 control. As far as they are concerned, the contingency 
 was as fortuitous as the cast of a die. There is nothing 
 analogous to this in God's subsequent dealings with man- 
 kind. JVo parent has since been endowed with the 
 power of permanently changing human nature. 
 
 But it is said, that it is a matter of fact, explain it as 
 we will, that God makes mankind with such a nature 
 that all sin as soon as they become capable of sinning. 
 All sin is odious in the sight of God, and as all men 
 sin, all are created with a sinful nature, and are, in con- 
 sequence, children of wrath, that is, they inevitably sin 
 and suffer the punishment of sin, 
 
 If, under this hypothesis, we interpret " children of 
 wrath" to mean, that God has made men with a nature 
 such that it is impossible for any one to arrive at the age 
 of moral action without sinning, and that every one, in 
 consequence of inevitable sin, is condemned to everlast- 
 ing suffering, then the justice of the Almighty is as much 
 committed as in the other case. The requisition of per- 
 fect obedience from an imperfect being, without experi- 
 ence, and surrounded with temptations, is plainly unjust, 
 because incommensurate with the power bestowed. 
 Common justice cannot require the same uniform obedi- 
 ence from a child as from an adult. Common justice 
 cannot ask from a will nicely poised between good and 
 evil an entire exemption from evil, when it is perpetual- 
 ly surrounded by strong temptations. 
 
 The most that can be expected is, that there will be 
 
"by nature children of wrath." 159 
 
 progression towards uniform goodness, that past mistakes 
 will be corrected, that wilful sins will be reformed and 
 abandoned. And this brings to light the character and 
 the purpose of suffering in the providence of God. It 
 is not vindictive, but disciplinary. If God is a father, 
 there can be no such thing as vindictive punishment. 
 No good parent ever punishes a child vindictively. The 
 sufferings, then, which God has made to be consequent 
 on sin, are not intended merely as punishments ; they 
 are warnings, admonitions to do so no more. Such is 
 the rational government which God exercises over all 
 mankind. The Apostle is here speaking of converts "to 
 Christianity from Paganism. Before they were con- 
 verted, this was the only moral government to which 
 they had been subjected. They had been just as much 
 in a state of moral probation as the Jews or the Chris- 
 tians. For the same Apostle says of them, — "For 
 when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by na- 
 ture the things contained in the law, these, having not the 
 law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of 
 the law written in their hearts, their conscience also 
 bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while ac- 
 cusing or else excusing one another." They were not 
 children of wrath, then, in the sense of not having the 
 power to know the will of God, and to do it ; for if they 
 were not conscious of both these powers, their thoughts 
 could not accuse one another, they could have no feel- 
 ing of guilt. That they were not children of wrath in 
 that sense is abundantly evident from another passage of 
 the same Apostle : — " Who will render to every man 
 according to his deeds ; to them who, by patient contin- 
 uance in well-doing, seek for glory and honor and im- 
 mortality, eternal life ; but unto them that are conten- 
 
160 
 
 tious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, 
 indignation and wrath ; tribulation and anguish upon every 
 soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of 
 the Gentile ; but glory, honor, and peace to every man 
 that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gen- 
 tile ; for there is no respect of persons with God." It 
 does not here appear that the Gentile is subjected to in- 
 dignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, merely 
 for the crime of having a human nature, or that that na- 
 ture inevitably leads to sin, or can do nothing but sin. 
 On the contrary, the Apostle not only speaks of the Gen- 
 tile as being equally with the Jew in a state of moral 
 probation, by virtue of the law written on the heart, 
 which stood in place of the law of Moses, but speaks of 
 him as under that law, " by patient continuance in 
 ioell-doing, seeking for glory, honor, and immortality," 
 and as receiving from God, in consequence of such a 
 course of action, "glory, honor, and peace." 
 
 The Gentiles are not, then, "by nature " children of 
 wrath, in the sense of being constitutionally so depraved 
 that they cannot please God, or do any thing that is 
 good. It can mean nothing more than that the Gentile 
 was less favorably situated than the Jew, more liable to 
 sin and suffer the consequences. He was surrounded 
 by greater temptations, and had less light to guide him. 
 This idea is brought out with great distinctness in an- 
 other part of the same Epistle : — "Wherefore remem- 
 ber, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who 
 are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Cir- 
 cumcision in the flesh made by hands ; that at that time 
 ye were without Christ, Being aliens from the common- 
 wealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of 
 promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. 
 
161 
 
 But now, in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometime were far 
 off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ." 
 
 In consequence of their want of the light of revelation, 
 and living in a community in which morals were at a 
 low ebb, these Christian converts, inasmuch as they 
 had been Pagans, had been comparatively corrupt. 
 Their conversion to Christianity had wrought in them a 
 great moral change for the better : — " And you hath he 
 quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein 
 in time past ye walked according to the course of this 
 world, according to the prince of the power of the air, 
 the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedi- 
 ence. Among whom also we all had our conversation 
 in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilhng the de- 
 sires of the flesh, and of the mind ; and were by nature 
 the childen of wrath, even as others." The deadness 
 which is here spoken of is not natural, but is induced, for 
 they " were dead in trespasses and sins." Their deadness 
 was the consequence, not the cause, of their sinfulness. 
 Had they been constitutionally depraved, then their sin- 
 fulness would have been the consequence of their dead- 
 ness. Their deadness was voluntary, then, not natural 
 and constitutional ; the result of circumstances, and not 
 of innate depravity, — of intellectual darkness and bad 
 example, rather than of a perverse and corrupt will. 
 Such is the meaning which we are led to put upon this 
 passage by the perfection of God's character, by the 
 sentiments of natural justice, and by comparison of the 
 language here used with other passages in which the 
 same subject is introduced, as well as the connection in 
 which it stands. We concJude, that the adverbial 
 phrase ^w« corresponds to our adverb "naturally," in 
 the course of events, by the force of circumstances ; and 
 14* 
 
162 " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 
 
 not to the phrase "by nature," constitutionally, by 
 original structure and endowment. 
 
 As it happens, we have the means of verifying this in- 
 terpretation by the use of the same word by the same 
 writer, on the same subject, and in the same connection. 
 We have an example in St. Paul's Epistle to the Gala- 
 tions, in which he uses this adverb <j)vcrei, " by nature," 
 of those things in which a Jew differs from a Gentile, 
 which cannot be, of course, constitutional, the essential 
 nature of a Jew being not at all different from that of a 
 Gentile. 
 
 In the first planting of Christianity the Church con- 
 sisted of converts from Judaism and Paganism. But the 
 converts from Judaism wholly misunderstood the rela- 
 tion between the old religion and the new. They im- 
 agined that the laws of Moses, instead of being done 
 away by Christ, were of perpetual and universal obliga- 
 tion, and that Christianity, so far from being a separate 
 and independent religion, was only an appendage or 
 supplement to Judaism. Such was the opinion of the 
 Apostles themselves for nearly ten years. They went on 
 observing the laws of Moses, abstained from intercourse 
 with foreigners, and preached the Gospel only to the 
 Jews. At the end of ten years it pleased God, by a 
 special interposition, to correct this mistake. Paul was 
 converted by miracle, and sent by especial commission 
 to preach to the Gentiles, and Peter was instructed by 
 his vision at Joppa, and by the effusion of the Holy 
 Ghost upon Cornelius and his companions, who were 
 Gentiles, " to call no man common nor unclean," and 
 that the Jewish law was abrogated. 
 
 This Divine instruction, however, was not regarded 
 by the whole Church,- and some teachers from Jerusalem 
 
" BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 163 
 
 went round araong the churches which Paul had planted 
 upon more liberal principles, and taught them that the 
 converts from Paganism must be circumcised and keep 
 the law of Moses. This diversity of doctrine causing 
 some disturbance in the Churches, a council was assem- 
 bled at Jerusalem to deliberate upon the point in dispute. 
 It was decided, after deliberation, that observance of the 
 laws of Moses should not be exacted of the converts 
 from Paganism. ' 
 
 Peter, after having consented to this arrangement, in- 
 deed, after having advocated it in the council, afterwards, 
 at Antioch, when associating with some bigoted adhe- 
 rents of the Mosaic law, fell back into the old error, and 
 acted with the Jewish party, separated himself from the 
 Gentile converts, and relapsed into the observance of the 
 Mosaic law. This, of course, was highly improper and 
 unjust, as it compelled all converts from Paganism either 
 to submit to the law of Moses or forego the communion 
 of the Apostle. 
 
 Paul, seeing the liberties, and even the existence, of 
 the Church in danger, undertook at once to apply the 
 remedy, and bring back Peter to the ground which he 
 had abandoned. He publicly rebuked his fellow-apostle 
 for his inconsistency and want of decision. In his Epis- 
 tle to the Galatians he gives an account of the inter- 
 view. " But when Peter was come to Antioch, I 
 withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. 
 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with 
 the Gentiles : but when they were come, he withdrew, 
 and separated himself, fearing them which were of the 
 circumcision. And the othesr Jews dissembled likewise 
 with him ; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away 
 with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked 
 
164 " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 
 
 not uprightly, according to the truth of the Gospel, I 
 said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, 
 livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the 
 Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the 
 Jews ? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of 
 the Gentiles," &c. 
 
 " By nature," in this connection, cannot mean con- 
 stitution, for no one will say that the essential nature of 
 a Jew is at all different from the nature of a Gentile. 
 The only difference between them is, that one is born 
 and is educated and passes his life under the light and 
 enjoying the influences of a revelation, the law of Moses, 
 and the other does not. This is not a difference of 
 nature, but of circumstances. The phrase, "by na- 
 ture," then, does not correspond to the Greek word 
 by which it is translated. There is a word of the 
 same derivation, that does more nearly correspond, and 
 that word is " naturally," in the course of things,-by the 
 force of circumstances. The heathen, not having the 
 law, or a Divine revelation, fell into various vices, idol- 
 atry especially, from which the Jews were comparatively 
 exempt. 
 
 Thus it is that the latter of these two passages fur- 
 nishes a key to the first, and proves that, in the phrase 
 " were by nature children of wrath," Paul had no refer- 
 ence to the essential nature, the original constitution, 
 of men as being either good or bad, and of course the 
 passage neither affirms nor denies any thing with regard 
 to the doctrine of original sin, concerning which it has 
 been so often quoted as a leading proof-text. He speaks 
 only of outward condition and circumstances. 
 
 What the Apostle means to assert is this, — that the con- 
 verts from Paganism, whom he was then addressing, bad 
 
"by nature children of wrath." 165 
 
 been quickened by Christ and his religion from the state 
 of moral apathy and spiritual insensibility in which they 
 had sunk in the absence of the knowledge of the true 
 God, and in the presence of those vices to which idol- 
 atry generally gives rise. While they were in that state, 
 they were "children of wrath," liable to sin and liable 
 to suffer. Paul joins himself with them, and attributes 
 the same things to himself, by a common figure of speech, 
 called by rhetoricians communication, by which men in- 
 clude themselves in a censure, even when undeserved, 
 in order to take off the harshness of a sharp reproof. 
 These things were not literally true of him, for this is the 
 same Paul who declared before the Jewish council, that 
 he had lived in all good conscience till that day, and 
 often declared that he had nothing to reproach himself 
 with, except that he had persecuted the Church. 
 
 By this interpretation, shown by a parallel passage to 
 be the true one, the most shocking imputation is re- 
 moved from the character of God, — that he brings the 
 human race into existence the objects of his wrath, with 
 natures which are intrinsically odious in his sight. As 
 this doctrine is drawn out by the Westminster divines, in 
 their larger catechism, " original sin is conveyed from 
 our first parents unto their posterity by natural genera- 
 tion, so that all that proceed from them are conceived 
 and born in sin. The Fall brought upon mankind the loss 
 of communion with God, his displeasure and curse ; so 
 that we are by nature children of wrath, bondslaves to 
 Satan, and justly liable to all punishments in this world 
 and that which is to come. The punishments of sin in 
 this world are inward, as blindness of mind, a repro- 
 bate sense, strong delusions, horror of conscience, and 
 vile affections ; or o.utward, as the curse of God upon 
 
1 66 " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 
 
 the creatures for our sakes, and all other evils that befall 
 us in our bodies, names, estates, relations, and employ- 
 ments, together with death itself. The punishments of 
 sin in the world to come are everlasting separation from 
 the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous tor- 
 ments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell-fire 
 for ever." 
 
 Where is the soul that does not sicken with the atro- 
 cious impiety of such a representation as this .' This is 
 the God whose nature is love, whose mercy is great, 
 "even as the heaven is higher than the earth," " who 
 pitieth us as a father pitieth his children, for he knoweth 
 our frame, and remembereth that we are dust." Wrath 
 is a human analogy, by which man attributes to God his 
 own imperfections. Because men are so weak as to- 
 correct their children in anger, therefore they imagine 
 that God can do no other. Whereas the fact is, that 
 what we call punishment, or that arrangement by which 
 sin is made to be followed by suffering, is a benevo- 
 lent as well as a wise arrangement. In no other way 
 that we can conceive of could men by discipline be ad- 
 vanced toward perfection. Punishment is medicine, not 
 poison, intended to cure, not to destroy, contrived to ex- 
 pel a greater evil, and restore the system to health and 
 soundness. It is not an angry, aimless visitation, but a 
 kind admonition that we are wandering from the true 
 path, and are liable to go still farther astray. Punish- 
 ment was made for man, not man for punishment. Suf- 
 fering is the mark which God hath placed on sin as the 
 enemy of man, that it may become odious in his sight, 
 and thus lose all its power to allure and ensnare him. 
 It is no manifestation of God's wrath, but rather of his 
 love. Nothing but indifference or malevolence could 
 
\ " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 167 
 
 withhold correction when the child has sinned, for it is 
 the only means of preventing a gradual deterioration, in 
 which every feature of the Divine ihnage would be finally 
 destroyed. 
 
 To the dogma, that mankind are born under the 
 wrath and curse of God, erroneously deduced from a 
 few passages of Scripture, I would oppose innumerable 
 passages of a contrary tenor. I would quote the proc- 
 lamation on the summit of Horeb, — " The Lord, the 
 Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and 
 abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for 
 thousaiids, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." 
 I would quote the Psalmist, — " The Lord is good to 
 all ; his tender mercies are over all his works." I would 
 quote the Apostle, — " God so loved the world, that he 
 gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
 him should not perish, but have eternal life." I would 
 quote the prophet, — " I have no pleasure in the death 
 of him that dieth, but that he repent, return unto me, 
 and live." 
 
 I would not only quote what God's prophets have 
 said, but point to what himself hath done for man. Into 
 what a scene of glory and beauty does he usher him 
 when he brings him into existence ! The love of a par- 
 ent's heart, full, spontaneous, perennial, is nothing else 
 than a manifestation of the love of God. The beauty 
 which clothes every thing like a gorgeous robe is wholly 
 gratuitous, — a gift, superadded to all that was strictly 
 necessary to man. And even the pains and sorrows 
 ot life are the dark shading by which the beauties and 
 glories of the present scene are made more striking and 
 resplendent by the contrast. " O, give thanks unto the 
 Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever !" 
 
168 " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 
 
 But, after all this explanation, it may be said that the 
 objection is not removed. It may be said that the ex- 
 pression still remains, "children of wrath." All are 
 God's children, and some are children of his wrath, that 
 is, with whom he is angry, and whom he punishes. And 
 if we interpret " by nature " to mean circumstances, 
 education, the influence of association, are not these 
 providential .'' If it be a reproach to God to create his 
 children under his wrath and curse, is it not quite as de- 
 rogatory to his character to place his creatures in such 
 circumstances, and under such influences, that they in- 
 evitably or naturally become children of his wrath, be- 
 come vicious in conduct and depraved in character ? In 
 answer to the first objection, I remark, as I have already 
 observed, that the moral revulsion we fee^at the expres- 
 sion arises entirel-y from the anthropomorphism of the 
 language, or its application to the Deity of phraseology 
 which is merely human, and adapted to the imperfection 
 of human nature. 
 
 In our nature God has implanted the passion of re- 
 sentment, or, in other words, he causes a feeling of 
 resentment to rise up within us on the reception of 
 wrong or injury, in order to put the mind in a new atti- 
 tude to meet an altered state of outward circumstances. 
 It is given to us for the purpose of self-defence, and as a 
 check upon the wrongs or insolence which we might 
 otherwise sufier. It is as necessary to society as it is 
 to the individual. Indeed, it is communicated by sym- 
 pathy from one individual to another, till it raises such a 
 general feeling, that the guilty is punished, and society is 
 rescued from the depredations of its unworthy members. 
 It is necessary that there should be such a feeling. 
 Mere intellectual conviction would not have been suffi- 
 
169 
 
 cient. It would not have been sufficiently prompt and en- 
 ergetic to secure its object. Emotion was necessary as 
 a spring to action. Hence the passion of resentment. 
 The natural feeling of man is that of good-will towards 
 his fellow-beings. If it were uninterruptedly the same 
 under injury, mankind would be given up to be a prey 
 and a spoil to the lawless and unprincipled. 
 
 We are told, in the New Testament, to " love our 
 enemies," but this cannot be interpreted in such a way 
 as to forbid resentment, without destroying society. 
 The execution of criminal law would be wholly impos- 
 sible without the passion of resentment. Coolly to 
 punish a criminal for his own good may be an attain- 
 ment possible to man in some stage of advancement, but 
 it never has yet been reached. 
 
 But what is impossible to man is possible to God. 
 God is perfect and independent, as well as omnipotent. 
 No such passion as resentment is necessary to him. He 
 can look on all things in the calm light of eternity. No 
 evil action of men can endanger his throne, or disturb 
 his ineffable tranquillity. He can act always and every- 
 where from the motive of perfect love. His wisdom 
 can do that which requires in man the stimulus of resent- 
 ment. His penal code is the most merciful part of his 
 administration. 
 
 The expression, then, " the children of God's 
 wrath," strictly speaking, has no philosophical propriety. 
 It is merely analogical. We have no reason to believe 
 that there is any more evil in the world than is necessary 
 for the government and discipline of a free being like 
 man. Exerting no immediate influence upon the will, 
 pain and pleasure, enjoyment and suffering, are the only 
 15 
 
170 " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 
 
 means by which God can guide man, in the exercise of 
 his free will, to the highest end of his being. 
 
 Man, in this imperfect state, cannot bear uninterrupted 
 prosperity. His moral welfare suffers. He becomes 
 effeminate, self-indulgent, sel6sh, unfeeling, or he plunges 
 into the vortex of sensual pleasure and is lost. Men 
 complain of poverty as one of their greatest afflictions. 
 But, all things considered, perhaps it may be said that 
 they have as much property as is safe to themselves to 
 possess. A more abundant supply would last them no 
 longer than it would require to expend it in the most 
 foolish and pernicious self-indulgence. 
 
 Sickness is another evil. But mankind enjoy just as 
 much health as their excesses and their mismanagement 
 will permit. The diseases they suffer are generally 
 those which they bring upon themselves, and are usually 
 the kind admonitions of their Heavenly Father that they 
 are transgressing some of those great laws on which the 
 enjoyment of life itself is suspended. There is, then, 
 no such thing as the wrath of God manifested in the evils 
 which men suffer in this loorld. 
 
 But is it not true, that different men are placed in 
 different circumstances as to exposedness to sin and suf- 
 fering, and in conditions apparently of various adaptation 
 to moral and spiritual attainment ? Are there not some 
 so unfavorably situated as to seem to be " the children 
 of wrath," that is, the unavoidable prey to sin and suf- 
 fering ? Has the child that is born among savages the 
 same opportunity for virtue and happiness, as the child 
 born of Christian parents in the midst of a highly civilized 
 and Christian community ? And is not this difference 
 of external condition as inconsistent with the justice and 
 impartiality of God, as bringing all men into the world 
 
" BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 171 
 
 with a nature so depraved and sinful that they are odious 
 in his sight, and are, in consequence, doomed to woe 
 here and hereafter ? 
 
 I answer, that the cases are by no means parallel. 
 In the one case, there is only an increase of difficulty, 
 leaving success possible, and creating a greater degree of 
 merit in case of triumph over untoward circumstances. 
 In the other case, there is no possibility, and of course 
 no opportunity for virtue ; there is no probation. The 
 character is noi formed, but inherited, and defect is pun- 
 ished exactly as if it were the fruit of an agency individ- 
 ual, unbiased, and free. He who is omniscient knows how 
 to make allowances for external condition, and may see 
 in a low degree of moral and spiritual attainment in a 
 heathen as much merit as in a much more perfect char- 
 acter under the light of Christianity. 
 
 These considerations explain the election which is 
 spoken of in Scripture, and make it perfectly consistent 
 with the justice and impartiality of God. The election 
 of the Scriptures is an election to portion, privileges, 
 and advantages, just such as we see, on reflection, that 
 it was unavoidable that the Deity should make. 
 
 For instance, the globe has five zones and many dif- 
 ferent climates. If the whole world was to be inhabited, 
 all men could not enjoy the same climate. God must 
 choose the individuals who were to inhabit each climate. 
 So nations themselves, in the exercise of their individual 
 and their collective free agency, will become more or less 
 enlightened, civilized, and virtuous, or degenerate, bar- 
 barous, and wicked. Who shall be born into each of 
 those nations must be an appointment or election of 
 God. God must exercise this species of election ; and 
 it is of this very kind of election that Paul treats in 
 
172 " BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH." 
 
 his Epistle to the Romans. The Jews were an elect 
 people, elected to receive a miraculous revelation, and 
 ultimately to diffuse the light of the true religion over 
 the earth. God used them for that especial purpose. 
 The Greeks were an elect people, elected to be the 
 most intellectual and cultivated upon earth, and to spread 
 abroad the light of science and the refinement of intel- 
 lectual culture. The Romans were an elect people, 
 elected to subdue the world to the dominion of laws and 
 the softening influence of arts and civilization. But it is 
 not the doctrine of Scripture that the characters of in- 
 dividuals were chosen by God in these various nations, 
 or that belonging to any one of them made a man either 
 good or bad. God chose them for his purposes, and 
 they chose their own characters in the exercise of their 
 own free agency. 
 
 Christ chose his disciples. Eleven of them chose 
 to be good men and true followers of their perfect Mas- 
 ter, and, in consequence, became holy apostles and 
 glorious martyr^, and their names are associated with 
 their Master's to the end of time. Judas Iscariot, 
 though himself elected to be a disciple, chose to be a 
 bad man, to betray his Master, and thus to be consigned 
 to everlasting execration and contempt. 
 
 So God chose the Israelites, and led them out of 
 Egypt. Moses and Aaron chose to be faithful to their 
 mission, and were the instruments of establishing the 
 true religion in the earth. But Korah, Dathan, and 
 Abiram, though belonging to God's chosen people, and 
 themselves elected in that sense, chose to be vile con- 
 spirators, to rebel against God and Moses, and were 
 swallowed up in sudden and awful destruction. 
 
 But the election of God to place all mankind in a 
 
173 
 
 condition of inevitable damnation, in consequence of a 
 sin not their own, and then the election of a few of these 
 arbitrarily, " without regard to any thing seen in them 
 or done by them," to glory and happiness, and the elec- 
 tion to leave the rest, who were no better and no worse 
 than the others, " to all the miseries of this life and the 
 pains of hell forever," is a species of election wholly in- 
 consistent with the Divine perfections, and strips the 
 Deity of every attribute which can command the homage 
 of the human heart. 
 
 15' 
 
DISCOUESE XL 
 
 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 THERE WAS A MAN IN THE LAND OP TIZ, WHOSE NAME WAS JOB ; AND 
 THAT MAN WAS PERFECT AND UPRIGHT, AND ONE THAT FEARED 
 GOD AND ESCHEWED EVIL. — Job i. 1. 
 
 The object of this discourse is to call your attention 
 to the definition which is here given of a perfect man, 
 by one who lived at an age long antecedent to the dis- 
 putes of modern times as to the constitutional character 
 of human nature. The perfect man is one who fears 
 God and eschews evil. Humanity is a part of God's 
 creation, which is subjected to the law of develop- 
 ment. Nothing can be developed which, in its rudi- 
 ments and capacities, is not originally created. De- 
 velopment, therefore, is governed and limited by original 
 constitution. Every species of tree and plant has its 
 type, which exists and is perpetuated in the seed. All 
 its parts are intended to be proportioned to each other, 
 the trunk to the branches, and the branches to the trunk. 
 The leaves and the fruit are proportioned to both. Ac- 
 cident may prevent a full and symmetrical development, 
 or may mutilate the tree in any stage of its growth, but 
 
A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 175 
 
 each seed is designed to produce a tree perfect after 
 its kind. This original type continues the same from 
 age to age. 
 
 So it is with animals. The different species are 
 made what they are by original constitution. The lion 
 and the fox are just what they were five thousand years 
 ago. Their structure and propensities exactly fit them 
 for the place they are intended to occupy, and the life 
 they are designed to lead. The perfect lion is one in 
 which the distinctive characteristics of the lion are fully 
 carried out. 
 
 And so it is with man. He, too, is a creature of de- 
 velopment. There are in him at his creation the rudi- 
 ments of every thing that can ever belong to him. The 
 perfection of humanity is attained when these rudiments 
 are developed in their true proportions. There is this 
 difference, however, between the development of man 
 and that of a plant or an animal. The development of a 
 plant or an animal is directed and controlled by outward 
 circumstances, in which the plant or animal is passive. 
 
 Man's development is in no small degree modified 
 and controlled by himself, by his voluntary employment 
 and direction of his own powers, by his own free will. 
 Yet there is a law or rule of action, to which that free 
 will itself is intended to be subjected, which law, if 
 obeyed, leads to the perfection of human nature of a 
 higher and nobler order, a voluntary perfection, the high- 
 est perfection of which our minds can form any concep- 
 tion. 
 
 The proposition contained, by implication, in our text, 
 is, that the good man, the religious man, is the perfect 
 man, or, in other words, is human nature developed in 
 all its faculties and capacities in their natural and true 
 
176 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 proportions. " There was a man in the land of Uz, 
 whose name was Job ; and that man was perfect and up- 
 right, and one that feared God and eschewed evil." 
 
 The converse of this proposition must be equally true, 
 that a bad man is human nature perverted, human nature 
 wrongly and imperfectly, or disproportionately, devel- 
 oped, — human nature in a state of deformity and mu- 
 tilation. 
 
 This view of things, as I conceive, contains a flat 
 contradiction to the commonly received doctrine of 
 original sin. That doctrine is, that the type of human 
 nature, that is, its elementary constitution, became es- 
 sentially changed by the Fall. Before the Fall, man 
 was created after the image of God, endued with knowl- 
 edge, righteousness, and true holiness, having the law of 
 God written on his heart, and power to fulfil it. He 
 had freedom and power to will and to do that which is 
 good and well pleasing to God. But by the Fall he 
 became wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of 
 soul and body ; became utterly indisposed, disabled, and 
 made opposite to all that is good, and wholly inclined to 
 all evil, wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual 
 good accompanying salvation. 
 
 This amounts to an entire change of the essential 
 type and constitution of human nature. The proportion 
 between the elements of human nature was altered. Hu- 
 man nature developed according to its original type and 
 constitution would have been something entirely different 
 from human nature developed according to its present 
 constitution. A perfect man, according to the type of 
 humanity before the Fall, and by a proportionate develop- 
 ment of the elements of his nature, would have been a 
 good man, a religious man, for he was endowed with 
 
A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 177 
 
 "knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, had the 
 law of God written on his heart, and power to fulfil 
 it." But a perfect man, afUr the type of humanity was 
 changed by the Fall, since he has " lost all ability of will 
 to any thing that is spiritually good, is wholly defiled in 
 all the facuhies and parts of soul and body, is utterly in- 
 disposed, disinclined, and made opposite to all that is 
 good, and wholly inclined to all evil," — a perfect man 
 with this constitution would be a perfect devil. The 
 perfection of any thing, is that thing developed and car- 
 ried out according to the constituent elements of its con- 
 stitution. If this be human nature in its present type 
 and constitution, the good man is not a perfect man, he 
 is a monster. He is human nature disproportionately 
 developed. It is all a mistake to call him a perfect 
 man. The perfection of human nature has been changed 
 by the Fall, just as much and just as far as human nature 
 itself has been changed. To be true to his nature as it 
 now is, and be a perfect man, he ought to hate every 
 thing that is good, and love every thing that is evil. If 
 he loves any thing that is good, and hates any thing that 
 is evil, he acts unnaturally, that is, contrary to his na- 
 ture, and varies just so far from a perfect man. All the 
 chastity there is in the world, all the truth there is in the 
 world, all the fidelity, and honesty, and kindness there 
 are, are unnatural, because man is wholly defiled in all 
 the faculties and parts of soul and body, and nothing can 
 be more unnatural than for an evil tree to bring forth 
 good fruit. 
 
 But the development of man is subjected to a differ- 
 ent law from the development of a tree or an animal. 
 It is, in part, voluntary, and depends on the will. It is 
 analogous to the development of the muscles. They 
 
178 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 are subjected to the will, and grow strong by exercise, 
 or weak by inaction. The sailor, by the constant use 
 of his hands and arms, gains a disproportioned strength 
 ill those limbs, while the confinement of his walks to the 
 narrow limits of a ship prevents the proportionate de- 
 velopment of his lower extremities. The soldier, on 
 the other hand, who is subjected to long marches, and 
 has little to do with his hands, becomes strong to walk, 
 and comparatively weak to handle. 
 
 So there are muscles in the human body which are 
 created to be the antagonists of each other, one set to 
 raise the arm or the foot, and others to bring it down, 
 and they are proportioned to each other. In the same 
 manner there are faculties and propensities in human 
 nature which are placed in a species of antagonism to 
 each other, with this limitation, that there is nothing in 
 the moral constitution of man which, in its legitimate 
 use, is evil, but only by its misuse, or its excess. There 
 is selfishness, counterbalanced by benevolence and a sense 
 of justice. There is resentment, checked and restrained 
 by sympathy and compassion. There is the desire of 
 sensual pleasure, merely as such, counteracted by the 
 sense of shame, which, in its turn, is founded on the 
 conscious ■ dignity of human nature, and the instinctive 
 feeling, that the senses were made to be subjected to the 
 soul. Pride itself is a perversion of this instinctive 
 sense of the dignity of human nature. Directed to right 
 objects, it is good, and to say a man has lost all pride, 
 is equivalent to saying that he has sunk to the lowest 
 depths of moral degradation. 
 
 There are, then, in human nature, all the passions and 
 appetites, which in their excess are liable to lead man 
 into evil, counterbalanced by reason, conscience, and 
 
A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 179 
 
 religious faith and religious affections. There is, more- 
 over, universally in human nature this conviction, — 
 that reason, conscience, and religious faith and affections 
 ought to govern, and that human nature is wronged when 
 their authority is disregarded and the passions and appe- 
 tites permitted to bear sway. Reason, conscience, and 
 religious faith and affection, have a natural supremacy 
 in the human constitution. 
 
 When human nature is harmoniously developed, that 
 is, in its true priportions, reason and conscience and re- 
 ligious faith should be made supreme. But such a de- 
 velopment is made impossible by the Fall, for if by the 
 Fall man wholly and utterly lost all ability of will to any 
 spiritual good, was made indisposed, disabled, and oppo- 
 site to all that is good, and wholly inclined to all evil, 
 there was, of course, an end to the development of hu- 
 man nature in that direction. There was a paralysis of 
 all that part of human nature which leads to good and 
 which checks and restrains evil, just as there is a paraly- 
 sis of a limb or a muscle in the animal economy. The 
 will could no longer move that part of human nature, 
 and it become utterly powerless. 
 
 There is no possibility of the exercise or development 
 of any thing good in man, or of any thing which can re- 
 strain the evil. No man can do any thing good except 
 by miracle. The evil, then, there is in man being the 
 only thing capable of exercise and development, human- 
 ity developed, as it now is, makes a bad man. If nature 
 is bad, that is, in its elements, then nature developed 
 must be bad, and a perfect man must be a bad man. 
 The perfection of any thing cannot, by any possibility, 
 be any thing else than the elements and germs of that 
 thing developed in their true proportions. If every thing 
 
180 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 that there was good in man before the Fall were para- 
 lyzed by the Fall, or what amounts to the same thing, if 
 the will was cut off from all command over that part of 
 human nature, then it is, to all practical purposes, dead. 
 The perfection of human nature, as it now is, must leave 
 it out of the account. It must be the development of 
 those parts of human nature which are still left alive and 
 in connection with the will. If these are all bad, and 
 there is nothing good left alive to restrain them, then the 
 most perfect man must be the worst man. 
 
 Such are the legitimate consequences which necessa- 
 rily follow from the commonly received doctrine of the 
 Fall of man, or the change which took place in the con- 
 stitution of human nature in consequence of the sin of 
 Adam. 
 
 A course of argument which will show that the good 
 man is the perfect man, or humanity developed and per- 
 fected in its essential elements and due proportion and 
 subordination of parts, will go to show that such a fall 
 was a mere fiction, and that the Christian life requires 
 not a preliminary change of the constituent elements 
 of human nature, but a development of human nature in 
 true proportions just as it now is. What is wanted is 
 not the restoration of a part of human nature from pa- 
 ralysis, in which it was cut off from all connection and 
 control of the will, but a voluntary extension of the action 
 of the will to a part of the human constitution always 
 accessible to it and under its control, and capable, not 
 only of being exercised, but of being strengthened by 
 exercise, and not only of being strengthened, but of be- 
 ing established in the government of the whole nature. 
 
 With this view of the constitution of humanity, the 
 perfection of human nature becomes a totally different 
 
A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PEEFECTED. 181 
 
 thing from what it would be on the supposition that all 
 that is good in man, and that leads to good, is in a state 
 of paralysis. His perfection consists in the activity and 
 predominance of that very part of human nature which 
 the theory that we are discussing supposes in a state of 
 paralysis. In deciding which is the true idea of perfect 
 humanity as it now is, — whether it supposes the paraly-- 
 sis or the activity of the moral and religious faculties, — 
 we have three sources of evidence to which we may ap- 
 peal ; the individual consciousness, the general opinion 
 of the world, which is the aggregate suffrages of the 
 whole human race, and the word of God. 
 
 We first appeal to the individual consciousness. 
 Every individual must know the facts of this case, for 
 every individual possesses this very human nature which 
 is the matter of debate. Every person knows what pas- 
 sion and appetite are. Every person knows what the 
 sense of right and wrong is. Every person knows what 
 is good and what is evil. Every person knows what re- 
 ligious faith and obligation are. Every person knows 
 whether it is his conviction that conscience or that his pas- 
 sions ought to govern his conduct. Every person knows 
 whether he always does wrong, and whether he does not 
 sometimes do right. Every person knows, when he fails 
 to do right, whether it is because his moral nature and 
 his rehgious convictions are paralyzed, or whether it is 
 because he voluntarily chooses not to exert them. Every 
 man has a standard of perfection in his own mind, with 
 which he compares himself. Every man knows whether 
 his standard of humanity is a bad man or a good man. 
 His conscience applauds or condemns him as he approach- 
 es or falls short of his standard. If he felt this paralysis 
 towards all that is good, would he feel any self-reproach 
 16 
 
182 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 in his impotence ? If the doctrine of original sin be 
 true, then one half of human nature has been paralyzed 
 since the Fall. But does conscience recognize this 
 paralysis, and alter its standard of human character and 
 attainment accordingly .'' By no means. The only 
 paralysis which conscience owns is the paralysis of dis- 
 'use and neglect. The only predominance of evil is that 
 which has been purely voluntary. The standard set up by 
 every human soul out of the elements of its own nature, 
 which it is conscious of possessing, is that of our text, 
 — " that man was perfect and upright, one that feared 
 God and eschewed evil." 
 
 But men not only judge themselves, but they judge 
 each other. The standard they adopt of excellence or 
 perfection is the measure of human capacities, and what 
 may be reasonably expected of them. Human capaci- 
 ties, again, depend on the essential constitution of human 
 nature, as it now exists, not as it existed before the 
 Fall. That estimate of human nature is made up, not 
 only from that of which every one is conscious in himself, 
 but from what he observes in others. Into that estimate 
 religion and morality enter. The perfect man is not he 
 in whom passion and appetite preponderate and bear 
 sway, as he would be were mankind conscious of a par- 
 alytic impotence to every thing that is good. The per- 
 fect man is the conscientious and religious man, — is he 
 that fears God and eschews evil. And what is this 
 but saying, that it is the'testimony of universal humanity 
 that the moral and religious faculties are, not only not 
 extinct and not paralyzed, but alive and capable of be- 
 ing called by the will into action ; that they ought to be 
 so, and, moreover, ought to be made predominant. 
 
 This opinion of mankind is universal, and has been so 
 
A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 183 
 
 in all ages, as well among nations which have not en- 
 joyed the light of Divine revelation as among those which 
 have. It is not a question between the little sects of the 
 Christian Church, but has been decided in the structure 
 of the languages of all people. 
 
 This universal sentiment of mankind recognizes no 
 such thing as the Fall, and supposes man to be in the 
 condition in which theologians represent Adam to have 
 been before the Fall, — innocent at first, with the law of 
 God written on his heart, endowed with conscience and 
 religious faith, and free to choose whether he will follow 
 their suggestions or. the suggestions of his passions and 
 appetites. 
 
 The other source of evidence is the Sacred Scrip- 
 tures. It is testified in the Scriptures, of Enoch, that he 
 walked with God, that is, in the religious phraseology of 
 those times, that he was a good and pious man. Now 
 Enoch was a descendant of Adam after the Fall, and 
 must have inherited, if there is any truth in the dogma 
 we are examining, the same paralysis of the moral and 
 religious faculties as was entailed upon the rest of his 
 posterity. He had not lost all ability of will to that 
 which is spiritually good, because he had power so to 
 please God that he was translated so as not to see death. 
 It is recorded of Noah, that he " was a just man and 
 perfect in his generations." It is not intimated that he 
 had any different nature from that of his contemporaries. 
 The only difference between them was, that they had 
 corrupted their way, while he had not corrupted his. 
 
 It is written of Abraham, that the Lord appeared to 
 him and said to him, " I am the Almighty God ; walk 
 before me, and be thou perfect." Could a God of truth 
 and justice lay such a commandment on a being whose 
 
184 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 moral and religious faculties he faiew to be paralytic ? 
 — who had lost all ability of will to that which is spirit- 
 ually good ? Why is walking before God connected 
 with being perfect, if to be religious be not the develop- 
 ment of a constituent element of human nature ? 
 
 Afterward God gave a law to the whole nation of Israel 
 and their descendants, one of the fundamental command- 
 ments of which was, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
 all thy mind, and with all thy strength." The mere 
 giving of such a commandment is a sufficient refutation 
 of the theory that man is naturally destitute of the power 
 to use his moral and religious faculties, — is incapable of 
 any good, and only capable of evil, — can only hate God 
 and goodness, and love and practise sin. But it may be 
 asked. If human nature, as it now exists, developed and 
 perfected, makes a good man, what becomes of the doc- 
 trine of regeneration .'' The doctrine of regeneration is 
 a Scriptural doctrine. As it is usually taught, it is made 
 to mean a remodelling of human nature, a change in the 
 moral constitution of man, brought about by the al- 
 mighty power of God, of such a nature as to make holi- 
 ness possible, which was impossible before ; such a rad- 
 ical alteration of the very texture of the soul, as to make 
 virtue congenial, which was distasteful before, and sin 
 odious, which was loved before. 
 
 I answer, that, in my judgment, the doctrine of regen- 
 eration, as it is usually taught, is not only false, but ex- 
 ceedingly pernicious. It is a libel on God and man. It 
 makes God partial and unjust, and man a mere machine. 
 It subverts the very foundations of character and respon- 
 sibility. According to those ideas of justice which God 
 has implanted in all minds, and made the result of the 
 
A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 185 
 
 conscious exercise of those powers which God has given 
 us, character can be formed only by action and freedom 
 of choice. But this doctrine makes it to result from a 
 passive reception of foreign impulse, or passively under- 
 going a constitutional change. The worm becomes a but- 
 terfly, — a much more beautiful insect, it is true, — but 
 no one thinks of attaching any merit or moral character 
 to the change. So, if a sinner becomes a saint by an 
 agency not his own, there is no moral character, no 
 merit, in the change, and no justice in rewarding the saint 
 and punishing the sinner, any more than there would be 
 in tormenting the worm merely because he is a worm, 
 and providing the butterfly with a garden of flowers be- 
 cause it has beautiful wings, and sails with a graceful mo- 
 tion through the air. 
 
 Such representations tend to weaken the faith of men 
 in the pivine origin of the Bible, by setting it at war 
 with the principles of common justice and common 
 sense, and to enlist men's moral feelings against religion, 
 by making it to appear arbitrary and unreasonable. Un- 
 der such an exhibition of the Divine government, the 
 mind is either broken down into a timid and blind super- 
 stition, or driven off into reckless indifference, or open 
 defiance of all moral restraint. 
 
 The two principal Scriptural expressions upon which 
 this representation of things is founded occur in Christ's 
 conversation with Nicodemus, — "That which is born 
 of the flesh is flesh, and that .which is born of the spirit 
 is spirit," and " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
 thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
 cometh and whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born 
 of the spirit." From these two passages it is inferred 
 that man is regenerated by a power foreign to himself, 
 16* 
 
186 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 and that that power is arbitrary in the selection of the 
 persons on whom it is to operate. To be " born of the 
 spirit " is to be regenerated by God's power, and the 
 expression, "the wind bloweth where it listeth," de- 
 clares that the spirit selects its subjects arbitrarily. 
 
 But this is not the true interpretation of this passage. 
 Neither God's sovereignty nor the agent in regeneration 
 was the subject of discourse between Christ and Nicode- 
 mus. The question at issue between them was, what it 
 was necessary for Nicodemus to do in order to become 
 a Christian, — a subject of the kingdom of the Messiah. 
 Nicodemus imagined that his birth of Jewish parents, of 
 the stock of Abraham, made him a fit subject of the 
 kingdom of the Messiah. Jesus assures him that such 
 is not the case. " That which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh." He that is born a Jew is a Jew, and nothing 
 more. The Messiah's kingdom is spiritual. It is com- 
 posed of those who have a certain spiritual character. 
 A Jew has not this character because he is a Jew. A 
 man must be born in a spiritual sense to be a Christian. 
 Christianity refers to the character of the soul, and has no 
 respect to the lineal descent of the body. And not only 
 so, the kingdom of the Messiah has no respect to the 
 Jews, as they supposed. It is equally free to all mankind. 
 Those spiritual exercises which prepare the soul for the 
 kingdom of heaven, and in fact constitute that kingdom, 
 may take place in any human being, and are not confined 
 to the seed of Abraham. These exercises of the soul 
 are as free as the wind, which blows as it lists over the 
 whole earth, without regarding the boundaries of states 
 and nations. 
 
 This exposition, which I have no doubt is the true 
 one, puts a new aspect upon this whole passage, and re- 
 
A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 187 
 
 moves the appearance of arbitrariness from the Divine 
 government, and moral impotence and inability from hu- 
 man nature, which to some it at first seems to teach. 
 This view is further confirmed by the circumstance, that 
 Christ puts being " born of the spirit " into the category 
 of voluntary acts, by connecting it with being born of 
 water. "Except a man be born of water and the spirit," 
 or, literally, of water and spirit, as it reads in the original, 
 he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Being born 
 of water was simply to be baptized, to make an open 
 profession of Christ's rehgion. This was a voluntary 
 act. It is connected, as a condition, with being born of 
 the spirit. If being born of the spirit were not voluntary, 
 then Christ proposed to Nicodemus a condition which it 
 was impossible for him to fulfil, and might be considered 
 as mocking and tantalizing instead of instructing him. 
 
 But is it not presumption to say that regeneration is 
 the work of man .' I answer, that it is presumption to 
 say that man can do any thing without God. He cannot 
 lift a hand, or think a thought, or form a determination, 
 without God. When we speak of all and any human 
 agency, we speak of it under this limitation. Man cer- 
 tainly has the power to change his own character, and an 
 entire change of character for the better is regeneration. 
 He may grow wiser, he certainly ought to have the 
 power of growing better, or the ways of God are not 
 equal. An analysis of the powers of human action will 
 show that a man has power to regenerate himself, with 
 that aid which God imparts to enable us to do any 
 thing. 
 
 In the first place, man has power over his own actions. 
 Of this we are conscious every day of' our lives. We 
 choose to do this or that, or we choose to do nothing at 
 
188 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 all. We are conscious of doing right, and we are con- 
 scious of doing wrong. We have felt regret for having 
 done wrong, we have felt happy in the consciousness of 
 having done right. That regret and that pleasure are 
 founded upon the consciousness of freedom. The Scrip- 
 tures throughout recognize and take for granted this 
 freedom. Moses says to the Israelites, " I call heaven 
 and earth to record this day against you, that I have set 
 before you life and death, blessing and cursing : there- 
 fore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." 
 
 It is spoken of by Isaiah as marking the period when 
 we arrive at the age of reasonable beings, " Before the 
 child shall know to re/wse the evil and choose the good." 
 On another occasion, he addresses the whole Jewish na- 
 tion in these terras : — " If ye be loilling and obedient, 
 ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse and 
 rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword ; for the mouth 
 of the Lord hath spoken it." It is thus throughout the 
 Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament. Abso- 
 lute freedom of the will is taken for granted in all the 
 promises and all the threatenings of the Law and the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Here, then, at the fountainhead, in absolute freedom 
 of choice, virtue and vice, holiness and sin, in short, hu- 
 man character, takes its rise. Like two streams, which 
 originate in the same spring on some mountain-top and 
 run in opposite directions, one to lose itself in the ocean 
 under a tropical sun, and the other among the snows of 
 the polar regions ; so holiness and sin both take their rise 
 in the absolute freedom of the will, and run onward with 
 increasing volume and force, one toward unmeasured 
 happiness, and the other toward inconceivable woe. 
 
 It is vain and unphilosophical to go beyond or behind 
 
A GOOD MAN TS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 189 
 
 this ultimate fact of the freedom of the will, and ask what 
 caused the will to decide one way or the other. The very 
 fact of being able to point out the cause why the choice was 
 thus, would go just so far to show that the will was not free, 
 but that it acted under a bias. For this reason, the very 
 theory of original sin is unphilosophical, if not an absurd- 
 ity. The establishment of the doctrine would destroy 
 the very nature of sin, and mitigate, if it did not entirely 
 take away, its guilt. It would go to show that the will is 
 not free, but acts always under a bias. There is a cause 
 which always inclines it in one direction, and of course 
 takes away all fairness from the trial. 
 
 This freedom of the will to choose good or evil lays 
 the foundation for the greatest possible difference of char- 
 acter and destiny. The Saviour says, — "They that 
 have done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of 
 life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection 
 of damnation." 
 
 Man has power, not only over his actions, but over 
 his habits. It is a law of our nature, that the doing of 
 an action makes us more prone to do it again, under 
 similar circumstances. It is thus that our actions, both 
 good and bad, harden into habits. Not only so, our 
 propensities grow stronger by gratification. Our power 
 of controlling our propensities, on the other hand, is ca- 
 pable of acquiring any degree of strength and confirma- 
 tion. 
 
 There is a bias to which the will becomes subjected, 
 which does, in fact, operate on man precisely as original 
 sin is erroneously represented to do. It is the bias of 
 evil habit and indulged propensity. It is thus, that, 
 from the very laws of our being, the path of the good 
 man is naturally upwards, and the path of the bad man is 
 
190 A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 
 
 as naturally downwards, and it is impossible to place a 
 limit to either. 
 
 Finally, to put our characters completely under our 
 control, our affections are at our disposal. " Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 soul, and with all thy mind." " Set your affections on 
 things above, and not on things on the earth." Here is 
 Divine authority for asserting that our affections are at 
 our disposal, and that we are responsible for the direc- 
 tion they take. To say that we are naturally disposed 
 to love that which is good, is merely to repeat a propo- 
 sition which is nearly identical. The reason why any 
 thing is called good is, that it is agreeable to the human 
 constitution. But to love any thing, we must frequently 
 turn to it our attention, we must meditate on its excel- 
 lences. Thus it gives us pleasure, and we become at- 
 tached to it. Bad men cannot love bad men. They 
 must love good men, or not exercise their affections at 
 all. The only way in which the human heart can be- 
 come alienated from God is by wicked works. He who 
 keeps his heart pure will love God of course. God is 
 our great benefactor. Gratitude is a natural affection of 
 the human heart. Piety and virtue are the natural con- 
 sequences of each other. The good man will love God, 
 and he who loves God will be a good man. Thus it 
 was with one of the most conspicuous examples we have 
 already mentioned : — " Noah was a just man and per- 
 fect in his generations, and Jfoah loalked with God." 
 Man, then, having control over his actions, his habits, 
 and affections, has control over his whole character and 
 destiny. We see the propriety of the command in 
 Ezekiel, " Make to you a new heart." Literally, 
 of course, this is impossible, but figuratively it means 
 
A GOOD MAN IS HUMAN NATURE PERFECTED. 191 
 
 " Change the objects of your affections," for it follows 
 this charge: — ^'■Cast away all your transgressions where- 
 by ye have transgressed, and make to you a new heart 
 and a new spirit." It is in this sense only that the com- 
 mon phrase " change of heart " can have any meaning 
 or propriety. There is no change of constitution, but 
 only a change in the objects of the affections. 
 
 Finally, the analysis of human nature which we are 
 now making summarily disposes of the doctrine of " the 
 perseverance of the saints," or the dogma, that a person 
 once converted and regenerated can never relapse or 
 fail of final salvation. What is to keep him from it .'' 
 He has attained a state of salvation and acceptance with 
 God by the free exercise of his will, by the power he 
 has over his actions, his habits, and affections. His 
 only safety, of course, is the continuance of the same 
 voluntary exercise of all his faculties. It is said, that 
 the saints are kept by the power of God, through faith, 
 unto salvation. It is only through faith that the power 
 of God can keep him. But the very exercise of faith 
 is a voluntary act. I can exercise faith only so long as 
 my moral conduct corresponds. When I cease to obey 
 my Heavenly Father, I cease to trust in him, I cease to 
 have any reason to trust in him. The exercise of faith 
 becomes impossible. There is no such thing, then, as 
 absolute safety, till we come to the land of perfect up- 
 rightness. 
 
DISCOUESE XII. 
 
 MAN'S MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS ARE 
 RECOGNIZED BY THE SCRIPTURES AS A PART OF 
 GOD'S LAW, COORDINATE WITH THEMSELVES. 
 
 HE HATH SHOWED THEE, O MAN, WHAT IS GOOD ; AND WHAT DOTH 
 THE LORD REQUIRE OF THEE, BITT TO DO JUSTLY, AND TO LOVE 
 MERCY, AND TO WALK HUMBLY WITH THY GOD? — Micah vi. 8. 
 
 It is the opinion of some of the profoundest critics 
 and theologians, that this is the answer of Balaam to 
 Balak when he called him out of Mesopotamia to curse 
 Israel. This opinion is not without strong reasons. It 
 follows immediately after this introduction, " O my peo- 
 ple, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, 
 and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from 
 Shittira unto Gilgal ; that ye may know the righteousness 
 of the Lord. Wherewith shall I come before the 
 Lord, and bow myself before the high God ? Shall I 
 come before him with burnt-ofFerings, with calves of a 
 year old .'' Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of 
 rams, or with ten thousandsof rivers of oil ? Shall I give 
 my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body 
 for the sin of my soul ? " Then comes the answer 
 
193 
 
 which constitutes the text, — " He hath showed thee, 
 O man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require 
 of thee, but to do justly, and love mercy, and to walk 
 humbly with thy God ? " 
 
 The latter part of this inquiry seems more in char- 
 acter with a heathen king than with the most uninstructed 
 Israelite, to whom a human sacrifice would have seemed 
 the most impious and horrible of crimes, instead of an 
 acceptable offering to God. And the first part of the 
 inquiry corresponds exactly with what Balak actually 
 did, in offering a profusion of sacrifices to propitiate the 
 Supreme Being and induce him to permit the prophet to 
 curse Israel. 
 
 The meaning will be the same in either case, whether 
 we consider the passage a dialogue between Balak and' 
 Balaam, or between the prophet Micah and the people 
 of Israel. If it be a dialogue between Balak and Ba- 
 laam, the argument will be a little stronger for the pur- 
 pose to which I intend to apply it. It is one proof 
 of what I wish in this discourse to demonstrate, that 
 the Scriptures assume and take for granted the rectitude 
 of the moral nature of man, and recognize the dictates 
 of that nature, the reason, the conscience, and the re- 
 ligious convictions of men, as coordinate and of equal 
 authority with themselves, as a part of the Divine law, 
 that law which God has given to man, and by which he 
 judges his character and actions. Revelation recognizes- 
 the law of nature in those who have no revelation as the.' 
 tehole rule of action which God has given them, and in 
 those who have a revealed law, as the supplement or the- 
 complement of itself, or itself as the complement of the 
 law of nature. 
 
 If this was an address of Balaam to Balak, it was^ a 
 17 
 
194 
 
 declaration that God had shown him what was good by 
 the law written on the heart, that the _^rsi of all duties is, 
 to "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy 
 God." The only reason he gives for the propriety or 
 the necessity of sacrifices is to atone for sin. It is cer- 
 tainly better not to commit the sin, and then sacrifice is 
 unnecessary. And the only possible way in which a 
 heathen can sin is by violating the law written on the 
 heart, that which God by the light of nature showed him 
 was good, even to " do justly, love mercy, and walk 
 humbly with thy God." Sin is the violation of a law. 
 The heathen has no other law than the dictates of his 
 own moral and spiritual nature. 
 
 If it was an address of Micah to the Israelites, then 
 it is a reference to the dictates of their moral sense. 
 The command to do justly is a command to do that 
 which the man himself perceives to be just, in each par- 
 ticular case. The revealed law did not anticipate and 
 specify all possible cases, and direct what was to be done 
 in each, nor could it have done so. It supposes a sense 
 of justice in every man, which will point out to him 
 what is right. The command is to do it. Every man 
 feels that he has this sense of right and wrong, justice 
 and injustice. This, of course, supposes the rectitude 
 and integrity of the moral nature of man. If he does 
 not know what is right and just, or if what seems to him 
 right and just is not so, then the command to do justly is 
 absurd. 
 
 Besides, language must have preceded revelation, 
 that is, a written revelation. It was formed by the nat- 
 ural powers of the human mind. The primitive mean- 
 ing of the Hebrew word pns, rendered righteous, is 
 " straight," that which deviates neither to the right hand 
 
195 
 
 nor the left. Like almost all words, in all languages, 
 which are applied to intellectual operations, it is meta- 
 phorical, and derived from the senses. As the word 
 straight implies the sense of sight to perceive what is 
 straight, so the word righteous implies an intellectual 
 sense which determines whether an action ig right. So 
 the word D3ty, which is translated just, has for its original 
 meaning, as applied to the senses, that which is " level " 
 or equal. So, when applied to the mind, it implied a 
 power of discerning what is equal or just in the transac- 
 tions between man and man. These words were in 
 being long before any written law, and were applied to 
 what men found really existing in the human mind. 
 That words of identical signification exist in all lan- 
 guages, Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, shows that the 
 thing really exists in man independently of all revela- 
 tion. 
 
 So the command, " Thou shalt not steal," did not 
 enact into a crime that which was considered innocent 
 before. The word steal, among the Israelites, had the 
 same meaning before the giving of the law that it had 
 afterward. Stealing was made a crime before the law 
 by the instinct of property, and the sense of justice, 
 which are primary and constituent elements of human 
 nature, whenever and wherever man has existed. So it 
 is with the command, " Thou shalt not bear, false wit- 
 ness." The obligation of truth is as instinctive as the 
 perception of truth, and as universal. There is in the 
 human soul a^natural contempt and abhorrence for false- 
 hood. Its natural impulse is to speak and act the truth. 
 Lying and injustice are naturally hateful to all mankind. 
 
 The first instance we have in the Bible of the recogni- 
 tion of the rectitude of man's moral nature, and of its 
 
196 MAIJf's NATURE GOD's LAW. 
 
 dictates as the law of God, we have in the case of Cain 
 and Abel. They were the first two children born after 
 what is called the Fall. Their history is certainly no 
 evidence of a deterioration of human nature, for one of 
 them was a good man. We do not read that Abel fell 
 at all. Of the first pair, both fell. Of the second pair, 
 one remained upright. God is represented as having 
 said to Cain, " If thou does't well, shall thou not be ac- 
 cepted .'"' literally, if thou doest ivhat is good. Abel 
 was accepted, which proves that he had done what was 
 good. How did he know what was good ? We read 
 of no special revelation made to him, except that which 
 was made through the constitution of his moral nature, 
 the same revelation which is made to all mankind. His 
 obedience to that was the ground of his acceptance with 
 God. 
 
 The dictates of that moral nature, then, must have 
 been God's law, since he recognized it as such, and 
 acted upon it. That moral nature could not have been 
 changed, and deteriorated, and corrupted by the Fall, 
 for God still recognizes it as his law. That Abel did 
 right, is sufficient evidence that there was nothing in the 
 nature of Cain to prevent him from doing right. We have 
 no reason to assume any difference of nature between 
 the brothers. But one chose to do what was good, and 
 the other chose to do that which was evil. The history 
 of Abel is a sufiicient refutation of the common theory 
 of the Fall, and shows conclusively that Adam left hu- 
 man nature just where he found it, and- that he, like 
 other human parents, had no power to change the essen- 
 tial constitution of his ofl^spring. 
 
 It shows, moreover, what is the nature of virtue or 
 goodness in the sight of God. It is doing that which is 
 
man's nature god's law. 197 
 
 good, that which is seen to be good by the agent him- 
 self. Wickedness is doing what the agent feels to be 
 wrong. And this represents the government of God as 
 an equitable government. The common theory of the 
 Fall of man represents the posterity of Adam as created 
 with such a nature that they can and must sin in every 
 act, but are incapable of virtue. 
 
 But not only does this theory involve the Deity in 
 atrocious injustice, but it is philosophically false and un- 
 sound- The very conception of sin takes in a religious 
 idea. It involves the supposition, that the law which 
 sin violates is God^s law. If it is not God's law, then 
 sin is not an act of disobedience, which constitutes the 
 very essence of sin, but an act of imprudence which has 
 no relation to God. What constitutes any act sin is 
 the consciousness on the part of the sinner that he is 
 breaking the law of God, made known to him in his own 
 conscience. When the choice is presented to him, 
 whether he will obey or break this law, the same con- 
 sciousness that it is the law of God ought, in simple 
 justice, to constitute obedience to it to be goodness, 
 which would have constituted its violation to be sin. 
 To obey the law written on the heart, in any human 
 being, is just as far goodness in the sight of God, as its 
 violation would have been sin. Goodness, then, and 
 acceptance with God, are not confined to those who 
 possess a miraculous revelation. They are possible 
 wherever man is man, and has the power, inseparable 
 from his nature, of knowing and choosing what is good. 
 But it may be said, perhaps, that the religious element 
 is wanting in the moral action of a heathen. He does 
 not act with reference to the true God. Then it may be 
 justly replied, that his violations of the law written on 
 17* 
 
198 man's nature god's law. 
 
 the heart are not sin, for the want of the knowledge of 
 the true God. His acts of disobedience must want just 
 as much of sin on account of his deficiency of knowledge 
 of the true God, as his obedience to it wants of virtue 
 on the same account. 
 
 But if want of knowledge of the true God is to vitiate 
 or impair the acceptableness of every act of obedience 
 to the law of God written on the heart of man, or made 
 known to him by miraculous revelation, then who can 
 stand, or be saved .'' How many of the human race, 
 with, or without, a revelation, conceive of God just as 
 he is .-" Idolatry, the worship of images, is not the only 
 thing that misrepresents God. God is a spirit. The 
 idea of him is a combination of attributes. But the idea 
 that men form of him may be as different from his real 
 character as a hideous image is from his spiritual es- 
 sence. Moloch was a horrid idol, bath physically and 
 morally. He was represented as demanding that chil- 
 dren should pass through the fire to him. But there is 
 a Deity who is represented as castings infants into a hell 
 of fire, and tormenting them there for ever ! The cir- 
 cumstance, that one of these deities is conceived of as 
 purely spiritual, and the other was represented by a ma- 
 terial image, is a mere trifle when compared to their 
 moral attributes. And I fear that it may be truly said, 
 that Jews and Christians have wandered as far from the 
 true idea of God, in proportion to their light, as the 
 heathen have in proportion to theirs. And just as fast 
 and just as far as the theology of the Christian Church 
 becomes purified and restored, rises the importance of 
 sending the Gospel to heathen lands. 
 
 The next instance we have of God's recognizing the 
 integrity of human nature, and the natural reason, con- 
 
man's nature god's law. 199 
 
 science, and religious sentiments of man, as his law, is 
 in the history of Enoch. It is recorded of him, that 
 "he walked with God." This cannot mean any^ thing 
 else than that he was a good man, morally and religious- 
 ly. It is said of him in the New Testament, " By faith 
 Enoch was translated, that he should not see death, and 
 was not found, because God had translated him ; for be- 
 fore he was translated, he had this testimony, that he 
 pleased God." We have no evidence in the Scriptures 
 that Enoch had any other than our common human 
 nature. We have no evidence that he had any other 
 law than that written on the heart of universal humanity. 
 We have no evidence that he had any other aid than 
 that granted to us all. Such a life and such a character 
 would have been utterly impossible, if human nature had 
 sustained such a change and deterioration as is denomi- 
 nated the Fall. The only explanation that can be given 
 of it is, that his own moral and religious nature made 
 him acquainted with the will of God, and he had the 
 power to do it, and chose to do it. That knowledge, 
 that freedom, and that power are necessary to the very 
 idea of moral accountability. His character and attain- 
 ments were the measure of human capacity, and they 
 demonstrated that human nature had suffered no change, 
 no wreck, such as is represented as having overtaken it 
 at the Fall. That others did not reach the same stand- 
 ard, was not the fault of their nature, but of themselves, 
 in being unfaithful to their nature. 
 
 The next instance of the recognition of the integrity 
 of human nature is found in the account of the flood. 
 Mankind were punished, and for what ? because "all 
 flesh had corrupted his way." What was that way ? 
 The way, certainly, which was pointed out by the nature 
 
200 man's nature god's law. 
 
 of man, as a whole, for their nature was the only law 
 which God had given them. In this consisted their 
 wickedness, that they had corrupted their way. If their 
 nature had been wrong, then the way pointed out by 
 their nature must have been wrong. To depart from a 
 corrupt way cannot be wickedness. The rectitude of 
 the rule must be assumed, in order to make any depart- 
 ure from it to be sin. Human nature was the only rule 
 they had. 
 
 It is written of that generation, that "God saw that 
 the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that 
 every imagination of the thought of his heart was only 
 evil continually." Evil here does not mean only of 
 injurious tendency in the sight of God, but guilty as it 
 respects men themselves, that is, known and felt by 
 themselves to be evil. A man can know and feel any 
 thing to be evil, and be conscious of guilt in doing it, 
 only so far as it violates and contradicts some rule of 
 right existing in himself. The consciousness that any 
 thing is wrong is a right thought, and proceeds from a 
 right nature. This universal proposition, then, that 
 " every imagination of the thought of his heart was only 
 evil continually," must be taken, like many other univer- 
 sals in the Bible, with limitations ; it is an hyperbole, 
 signifying that mankind had become exceedingly corrupt. 
 
 But their nature was not in fault, for a just God 
 blamed and punished them for it. But if human nature 
 had been wrecked and ruined by the Fall, and become 
 disabled and indisposed to all good, and wholly inclined 
 to all evil, then mankind, in this their worst moral state, 
 would have been in their normal condition, and could 
 not justly be blamed or punished at all. They had not 
 corrupted their way, the way pointed out by their na- 
 
201 
 
 ture, but only carried out the way of nature, acted 
 agreeably to the laws of their nature as if then was. 
 The whole treatment of God to the generation destroyed 
 by the flood, and his language concerning it, suppose 
 human nature to have been just what it was at first in 
 Adam, endowed with the power to know the will of 
 God and to do it, — recognize the law written on the 
 heart as God's law. All this is corroborated by the 
 history of Noah, who was a contemporary of that gener- 
 ation, possessing the same nature, and placed in the 
 same circumstances. It is written of him, " Noah was 
 a just man, and perfect in his generations, and Noah 
 walked with God." It is not intimated that there was 
 any thing unnatural or marvellous in the character and 
 conduct of Noah. The difference between them, as 
 stated in the narrative, is, that the rest of mankind had 
 corrupted their way, and Noah had not corrupted his, 
 that is, was just and perfect in his generations. He was 
 perfect, and they were imperfect. The perfection of a 
 thing is that thing developed according to its true nature 
 and proportions. An imperfect thing is a thing muti- 
 lated or disproportionately developed. Reason, con- 
 science, and religious conviction were intended to rule, 
 and when they do rule, human nature is perfected. 
 Noah enthroned them in the government of his life, and 
 became perfect. His contemporaries dethroned them, 
 and substituted in their place passion and appetite, 
 which were intended to be subordinate, and thus became 
 imperfect and perverted. His virtues were the measure 
 of their capacity by nature, his excellence showed how 
 far they had corrupted their way. 
 
 Their punishment was a recognition of the rectitude 
 of their nature, and declared that the suggestions of their 
 
202 
 
 moral and religious nature were God's law. Noah's re- 
 ward was a proof that his excellence was the result, not 
 of a difference of nature, but of his own free and volun- 
 tary choice. 
 
 The next instance which I shall adduce, in which the 
 natural understanding and conscience of man is made a 
 part of the law of God, and is recognized as the standard 
 of human character, is found in the fifteenth Psalm. 
 " Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle, who shall 
 dwell in thy holy hill .'' He that walketh uprightly, and 
 worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his 
 heart." 
 
 " He that walketh uprightly." The word here ren- 
 dered "uprightly " has a peculiar force in relation to our 
 subject. It means " perfectly," and the root from 
 which it is derived is used to signify any thing that is 
 whole and complete of its kind. A perfect man, in the 
 sense of this word, is a man who has fulfilled God's de- 
 sign in his creation, who has developed the true idea of 
 humanity. The same word is used of Noah, where it is 
 said that he was perfect in his generations. The same 
 word is used of Abraham. " Walk before me and be 
 thou perfect." The English word "whole" comes 
 near it. A whole man is humanity perfectly developed ■ 
 in all Us parts and proportions. Such is the man who 
 walks uprightly. 
 
 The next characteristic is, that he " worketh right- 
 eousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart." Now 
 there is no possible way of knowing what righteousness 
 and truth are, if they are not revealed to us by the natural 
 operations of our own minds. When they are made 
 known to us, the obligation is felt to be perfect to act 
 according to them. There is nothing here said of any 
 
man's nature god's law. 203 
 
 inability, natural or moral, which hinders man from do- 
 ing what he perceives to be right, and speaking what he 
 knows to be true. Man is spoken of as if he were as 
 free to do right as wrong. He is spoken of as being 
 a moral agent, in a state of trial, tempted to do wrong, 
 but having the power to do right. The Divine law is a 
 part of his nature, or rather his nature is a part of 'the 
 Divine law, which could not be the case if that nature 
 were corrupted, warped, distorted, or mutilated. 
 
 In the nineteenth Psalm, the moral nature of man is 
 described as being perfectly coincident with God's law. 
 " The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the 
 soul "; that is, it is seen to be perfect by the unperverted 
 perceptions of mankind. " The statutes of the Lord 
 are right, rejoicing the heart." The heart could not re- 
 joice in them, did it not acquiesce in their wisdom, jus- 
 tice, and benignity. This could not be if there were a 
 natural repugnance between them. In accordance with 
 this, Paul says, " I delight in the law of God after the 
 inward man." 
 
 Finally, the most decisive part of the Scriptures upon 
 this subject is the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel. In 
 that chapter it is declared that there is no such thing as 
 hereditary depravity. All SQjils form their own charac- 
 ters before God. The son of a wicked man may be 
 good, and the son of a good man may be wicked. The 
 wicked man may turn away from his iniquity, and he 
 shall be forgiven ; and the good man may fall from his 
 goodness, and sin, and be punished. Every soul is on 
 trial for itself. God resents, as the most injurious impu- 
 tation cast upon his character, that he had so arranged 
 things, that the fathers had eaten sour grapes and the 
 children's teeth were set on edge, that the son should bear 
 
204 
 
 the iniquity of the father ; and can we believe that he 
 made such an arrangement as would affect the whole hu- 
 man race, and make them suffer for their remote fathers' 
 sin, when the bare accusation of having made such an 
 arrangement for one generation is rebuked as an indig- 
 nity cast upon his justice ? 
 
 " If a man," says he, "do that which is lawful and 
 right." The expression in the original is stronger. " If 
 a man do that which is equal or just and right," — has 
 done what his own nature points out to be right, as well 
 as kept the Mosaic law, abstained from idolatry, and the 
 gross vices forbidden in that institute, — "he is just, he 
 shall surely live, saith the Lord God." Nothing, certain- 
 ly, can be stronger than this, to establish the integrity of 
 man's moral nature, and disprove the doctrine of the 
 Fall. 
 
 One of the chief precepts of Christ is, " All things 
 whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
 even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." 
 Not only does he make it a leading commandment of his 
 religion, but afErms that it is the sum and substance of 
 the former dispensation. And what is it to do unto 
 others as we would have others to do unto us, but to 
 live up to the principles of universal justice which God 
 has made intuitive in all minds .-' Natural and revealed 
 religion are identical in the social duties they require of 
 man. This, of course, assumes the rectitude of human 
 nature in its perception and knowledge of what is right, 
 for it makes that perception to be man's law before God. 
 
 There is another striking passage to the same effect, 
 in the writings of Paul. "Finally, brethren, whatso- 
 ever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, what- 
 soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what- 
 
205 
 
 soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
 report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, 
 think on these things." 
 
 It is the duty of a Christian to pursue all excellence. 
 But what is excellence ? Is every thing specified and 
 set down in the Scriptures, so that we must carry the 
 Bible about with us to compare its precepts and exam- 
 ples with the cases which daily occur ? Christ and his 
 Apostles have enacted our own perceptions of what is 
 right and praiseworthy into a part of the Christian law 
 of duty. 
 
 I leave it to all who hear me to decide, whether I 
 have proved the proposition with which I sat out, — that 
 the Scriptures assume and take for granted the rectitude 
 of the moral nature of man, and recognize the dictates 
 of that nature, the reason, the conscience, and the relig- 
 ious convictions of men, as coordinate and of equal author- 
 ity with themselves as a part of the Divine law which God 
 has given to men, and by which he judges their actions. 
 
 The course of thought which has been pursued in this 
 discourse may, I think, suggest a basis of reconciliation 
 between the rationalist and ultra supernaturalist ; one 
 denying the possibility of a revelation, and asserting the 
 merely human origin of the Bible ; and the other asserting 
 the Bible to be the only authentic and reliable source of 
 knowledge in religious matters, denying that there is any 
 such thing as natural religion, and, of course, denying 
 that man, by the light of reason alone, has any knowl- 
 edge of God, his duty, or his destiny, which can be the 
 source of piety or virtue. 
 
 It must be conceded to the rationalist, that revelation 
 cannot travel beyond the bounds of natural religion, or re- 
 veal any thing wholly unknown to the mind, or unimagined 
 18 
 
206 man's nature god's law. 
 
 in its natural state, or plainly contrary to reason. Such 
 a revelation would be wholly useless. There would be no 
 faculties to receive and appreciate it, and no sphere of 
 life to which it could be applied. It would be like the 
 unspeakable words which the Apostle heard when he was 
 caught up into the third heavens, or like discoursing to 
 blind men about colors, or to a deaf man about music. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be conceded to the super- 
 naturalist, that the phenomena of the Bible cannot be 
 accounted for without the supposition of a supernatural 
 inspiration. The truth of the theological basis, and the 
 wisdom of the superstructure of religious and civil insti- 
 tutions of the Mosaic dispensation, the condensation, 
 force, and beauty of the moral and devotional sentiments 
 we meet with- in that ancient record, so immeasurably 
 transcending those of the literature of heathen lands far 
 more cultivated than the Jews, compel us to refer them 
 to superhuman aid. The character of Christ, the New 
 Testament, and Christianity itself, is so plainly above 
 all the piety and wisdom which have elsewhere been ex- 
 hibited, that every attempt to explain them on natural 
 principles has most signally failed. The variety and in- 
 consistency of the different solutions with which unbe- 
 lievers have attempted to satisfy themselves and the 
 world, are themselves a plain demonstration that no nat- 
 urahstic exposition is satisfactory. 
 
 There is, as it seems to me, a view of inspiration sug- 
 gested by the comparison instituted in this discourse, of 
 the contents of revelation with the dictates of reason, 
 which may be satisfactory to both parties. Inspiration 
 may consist in rendering more intense, vivid, and cer- 
 tain the operation of man's natural faculties, so that the 
 perception of spiritual truth, which is by nature and in 
 
207 
 
 any individual partial, may be, by Divine aid, as far as 
 the matter of revelation is concerned, universal, so that 
 the wisdom usually accumulated in a long life, and elab- 
 orated and treasured up by successive minds in long 
 ages, may be anticipated and conferred by inspiration, 
 vifithout induction and personal experience. 
 
 There must be, of course, such a thing as absolute 
 truth, and duty growing out of it, existing in the nature 
 and relations of things. All knowledge, both natural and 
 supernatural, is only an approximation to this absolute 
 truth. It is fully known to God alone. He may take 
 different methods of imparting it to his creatures, through 
 the senses, by reflection and deduction or by testimony, — 
 why not by supernatural aid rendered to natural faculties .' 
 He makes use of minds of extraordinary power to in- 
 struct those of less endowment or opportunity, on the or- 
 dinary things which it is for man's interest to know ; why 
 not endow some minds with supernatural knowledge, 
 which he intends to use as instructors of mankind in all 
 ages, on that subject which is most important and vital 
 of all, — religion ? 
 
 This view of things, I think, will account for two 
 phenomena, which are most puzzling to the believer in 
 a supernatural revelation. One is the appearance of 
 gross errors on collateral subjects in close connection 
 with the sublimest truths, and truths so strongly and vivid- 
 ly stated as to carry the highest evidence of inspiration. 
 On the supposition of suggestive, universal inspiration, 
 this phenomenon becomes wholly inexplicable. If the 
 immediate suggestion of God becomes responsible for 
 every thing there is in the Bible, then revelation itself 
 must be given up. 
 
 The other phenomenon is, that all sects and parties, 
 
208 man's nature god's law. 
 
 even those who make the most extravagant claims for 
 the Bible, subordinate revelation to reason. The Cath- 
 olic does this, the Protestant does it, the advocate of 
 general supervision, and the stickler for plenary inspira- 
 ration. All Christians, of all sects and parties, are ra- 
 tionalists in this sense and thus far. Though all agree 
 as to what the Scriptures say, yet all undertake to de- 
 cide, on the grounds of reason, what the Scriptures can 
 and cannot mean. All agree in rejecting the literal sense 
 of the Bible, on the ground that it is contradictory to rea- 
 son, in cases in which they cannot be reconciled. Thus 
 all sects and parties, however they may talk, exalt reason 
 above revelation, and trust the plain dictates of that inspi- 
 ration which giveth all men understanding, in preference 
 to a verbal statement of the written word, whenever they 
 come in conflict. And yet reason joyfully accepts the 
 disclosures of revelation when it confirms the suggestions 
 of reason, and goes in the same direction with reason, 
 and even goes beyond its utmost stretch. Is not this a 
 plain indication of what inspiration must be, — a supernat- 
 ural exaltation of man's natural powers, an anticipation 
 of the full development of humanity in knowledge and 
 spiritual perception .' It is the complement of reason, 
 instead of something added to it. 
 
 There remain, then, only miracles and prophecy to 
 be accounted for. There is nothing impossible in a 
 miracle. There is nothing improbable in it, when the 
 end to be obtained by it is worthy of an interruption of 
 the normal course of nature. It remains for every one to 
 determine for himself, vphether the authentication of such 
 religions as those contained in the Old and New Testa- 
 ments constitutes such an occasion. 
 
 Prophecy is certainly one of the fairest tests of a su- 
 
209 
 
 pernatural revelation, as it is capable of being prolonged 
 for an indefinite period, and each age, as it fulfils ancient 
 predictions, may bring new proofs of supernatural knowl- 
 edge possessed long ago. The predictions of MoseS, in 
 the closing chapters of Deuteronomy, so accurately ful- 
 filled more than fifteen hundred years afterwards, are a 
 strong argument for his Divine legation. 
 
 There have been, it is true, some startling alleged de- 
 velopments of psychology, which, if sustained, would go 
 to show that prevision is one of the natural powers of the 
 human mind, under certain circumstances. Some timid 
 people are alarmed by these reports, as if the evidences of 
 a supernatural revelation were shaken by them. For my 
 part, I do not view the matter in that light at all. To 
 my mind it furnishes an analogy which renders supernat- 
 ural prevision more probable, instead of less so. It re- 
 veals powers in the human soul coincident with the pro- 
 phetic function, which make it only necessary that God 
 should put in action faculties constitutionally belonging 
 to the human soul, in order to constitute a fit instrument 
 for the prophetic office, instead of creating them and 
 placing them in the soul for the occasion. It would be 
 only another case of natural powers supernaturally as- 
 sisted, of precisely the same kind as making inspiration 
 to consist in raising to perfect and infallible action the 
 natural intellectual and spiritual powers of man. 
 
 That there is no tendency to skepticism in the be- 
 lief of the powers lately alleged to reside in the human 
 mind, of supersensual vision and knowledge, is proved 
 by the fact, that many have been converted by it from 
 utter skepticism as to all spiritual realities, to a belief in 
 the separate existence and immortality of the soul. 
 18* 
 
DISCOURSE XIII. 
 
 EXPLANATION OF THE PHRASE, "THE NATURAL 
 
 MAN." 
 
 BUT THE NATURAL MAN EECKIVETH NOT THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT 
 OF .GOD ; FOR THEY ARE FOOLISHNESS UNTO HIM : NEITHER CAN 
 HE KNOW THEM, BECAUSE THEY ARE SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED. — 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 14. 
 
 It is surprising to find, on examination, how few pas- 
 sages there are in the Bible on which reliance is placed 
 in proving the commonly received doctrine of the inhe- 
 rent and constitutional corruption of human nature, and 
 for most of them we are indebted to the English transla- 
 tors, who were generally brought up in the Calvinistic 
 school of theology. One of them we have already ex- 
 plained in a previous discourse, — "and were by na- 
 ture the children of wrath, even as others," — in which 
 we proved by a parallel passage treating upon the same 
 subject, that the adverbial phrase (jj-ia-ei does not mean by 
 constitution, but by education and circumstances. 
 
 Another and still stronger case is that of our text. 
 " The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit 
 of God." Every Greek scholar knows that the word 
 
"the natural man." 211 
 
 •^X"«<5^5 translated natural, has no such meaning in the 
 New Testament. Its literal, etymological signification 
 is animal, and represents precisely that part of man's 
 nature which he shares with the brutes. As a proof of 
 this, I refer you to the fifteenth chapter of this same 
 Epistle, in which it is applied to that part of man which 
 is buried in the grave : — " It is sown a natural [i^vxjkiJv, 
 literally, an animal] body; it is raised a spiritual body. 
 There is an animal body and there is a spiritual body." 
 
 There is one case in which our translators have given 
 this word a meaning nearly corresponding to truth. It is 
 in the Epistle of Jude : — " How that they told you 
 there should be mockers in the last time, who should 
 walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who 
 separate themselves, sensual, yjfvxtKol, having not the 
 spirit." Had they rendered the same word in the same 
 way in the text, " The sensual man receiveth not the 
 things of the spirit of God," they would have given the 
 meaning of the original as nearly perhaps as it can be 
 translated into English. They would have made the 
 Scripture say precisely what it does say, and what is 
 most obviously true, that a sensual man, one who has 
 given himself over to his senses and appetites, and has 
 made himself a mere animal, does not appreciate spirit- 
 ual things, — an assertion, the truth of which we witness 
 every day of our lives. 
 
 But by rendering a word which means sensual nat- 
 ural, our translators have interpolated into the Scrip- 
 tures a totally different doctrine. They make the Scrip- 
 ture assert, that the incapacity spoken of to spiritual 
 things is inherent and constitutional, not voluntary and 
 induced by habit. The difference between these two 
 doctrines is fundamental, immense, unspeakable, both as 
 
212 
 
 respects the constitution of man and the character of 
 God. One represents man as coming into the world 
 with a constitution incapable of religion, before he has 
 done either good or evil. The other represents the in- 
 capacity of man for religion to be the result of his own 
 free agency in the abuse of his nature, in the undue in- 
 dulgence of his senses and appetites, till the animal part 
 of his nature has obtained the entire predominance. 
 
 The character of God, too, is involved in this false 
 translation. Man, every man, is what he is constitution- 
 allj^, by the will and creative power of God. God cre- 
 ates every human being as really as he did Adam. God 
 has given man a religion, has attached blessings to its re- 
 ception, and penalties to its rejection. But, if this trans- 
 lation be true, God has dealt falsely with man. He has 
 given him a nature incapable of receiving the things of 
 religion, and then given him a religion, and commanded 
 him to receive it on pain of his displeasure. 
 
 But giving the word its true translation, the very one 
 which the same translators have given it in the Epistle 
 of Jude, " the sensual man receiveth not the things of 
 the spirit of God," every difficulty, both moral and theo- 
 logical, disappears ; and we find the Apostle teaching a 
 doctrine to which there is no objection, and which every 
 man sees and feels to be true. But how many millions 
 of times has this text been quoted to prove a doctrine 
 which is not true, and nowhere taught in the word of 
 God! 
 
 There is an instance of a similar perversion of lan- 
 guage in the seventh verse of the eighth chapter of the 
 Episde to the Romans, — " Because the carnal mind is 
 enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of 
 God, neither indeed can be." It is assumed, without 
 
"the natural man." 213 
 
 any proof, that the carnal mind means the state of the 
 mind by original constitution, as if the Apostle had said, 
 " The mind is by nature carnal and at enmity with God, 
 is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." 
 
 But what is thus assumed to be the constitution of the 
 mind may be shown to be a state of the mind, brought 
 on by voluntary action. Precisely the same words 
 which are here translated the "carnal mind" occur in 
 the preceding verse, and they are there translated, " to 
 be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded 
 is life and peace." Had the translators rendered the 
 same phrase in the two verses in the same way, in the 
 second they would have said, " He that is carnally 
 minded is at enmity with God ; for he is not subjected to 
 the law of God, neither indeed can be." And why is 
 this .'' Because the carnal mind is made to represent the 
 predominance of that part of man, the passions and ap- 
 petites, which is in direct antagonism to the law of God. 
 That law, in a majority of mankind, who are without a 
 revelation, is reason and conscience, which make a part 
 of the moral constitution of man. 
 
 In the proposition, " to be carnally minded is 
 death, but to be spiritually minded Js life and peace," 
 neither of these states of mind is referred to as being nat- 
 ural or constitutional to man, but both are spoken of as 
 being equally within human attainment. The reason which 
 the Apostle gives why one is spiritually minded and an- 
 other is carnally minded, is given one verse farther back. 
 The reason is, that one gives his mind to worldly things, 
 and the other to spiritual things ; " For they that are 
 after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh ; but they 
 that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit." 
 
 There is no allusion in this passage to the constitu- 
 
214 
 
 tional corruption of human nature, there is no such inti- 
 mation as that man by nature is at enmity with God. He 
 becomes so by becoming carnally minded, that is, given 
 up to his passions and appetites. It is assumed as a 
 fact, that he has the power to become spiritually minded 
 just as much as the power to become carnally minded. 
 It is asserted, which perhaps comes somewhat nearer the 
 meaning, that a vicious man, or a merely worldly man, 
 cannot be a religious man, because the very fact of be- 
 ing vicious, or worldly, is disobedience to God's law, 
 inasmuch as God commands all men to be virtuous and 
 spiritual. 
 
 This division of man into flesh and spirit leads me to 
 remark, that the language of the New Testament in re- 
 gard to the moral constitution of man is populai", and not 
 philosophical or scientific. By popular, I mean, con- 
 formed to the common mode of speech which then pre- 
 vailed among the Jews. Neither metaphysics, which are 
 an analysis and classification of man's intellectual pow- 
 ers, nor ethics, which are an analysis and classification 
 of man's moral faculties, had ever been cultivated among 
 the Jews. The only analysis to which human nature 
 had been subjected by them was into mind and body, 
 flesh and spirit. This was the common and popular 
 mode of speech. Our Lord and his Apostles did not 
 attempt to teach a new system of ethics and metaphys- 
 ics, and, as they addressed the masses, they adopted 
 such language as would be intelligible to the common 
 people. 
 
 According to the common modes of apprehension 
 then extant, the mind was the source and seat of all 
 good, and the body the seat and source of all evil. This 
 analysis, though true to a certain extent, is not the whole 
 
215 
 
 truth. The appetites all originate in the body, but they 
 are not all the causes of sin. There are passions that 
 are purely intellectual, which, in their excess, are equally 
 criminal with the over-indulgence of the appetites. Envy, 
 which is a perversion of the natural love of excellence, 
 is as guilty in its character, and is the cause of as much 
 social evil, as gluttony, which is the over-indulgence of 
 an appetite that is in itself innocent. 
 
 Our Saviour, in his teaching, made use of the com- 
 mon analysis of human nature into the flesh and the 
 spirit. " The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is 
 weak." " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and 
 that which is born of the spirit is spirit." To this idea 
 of the body being the seat, the origin, and the cause of 
 sin, we must refer that remarkable discourse of Paul, in 
 the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, in 
 which he represents the antagonism of these two parts of 
 his nature to each, other, and their struggles with each 
 other, while he himself, whom he represents as a third 
 party, sometimes identifies his personality with the one 
 and sometimes with the other. 
 
 " For we know that the law is spiritual ; but I am car- 
 nal, sold under sin "; that is, am a slave to sin. I am so 
 enslaved by my passions and appetites, that I become 
 identified with them. But still, though enslaved, his 
 real self is on the other side, and only obeys the im- 
 pulses of the passions and appetites by constraint. " For 
 that which I do, / allow not ; for what I would, that I 
 do not, but lehat I hate, that do I." Prevailingly, he 
 identifies himself with the better part of his nature. " If, 
 then, I do that which I would not, I consent unto the 
 law that it is good. Now, then, it is no more I that do 
 it, but sin that dwelleth in me." He then takes the 
 
216 
 
 other side, and represents himself as identified with the 
 animal part of his nature. " For I know that in me, 
 that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." Here is 
 the division of man into flesh and spirit, of which I have 
 spoken, carried out, and he says that when he identifies 
 himself with the flesh, which by the whole theory is 
 evil, there dwelleth in him no good thing. " I find, then, 
 a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with 
 me ; for I delight in the law of God after the inward 
 man. But I see another law in my members, warring 
 against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captiv- 
 ity to the law of sin which is in my members." There 
 is a war continually going on between the flesh and the 
 spirit, as the same Apostle elsewhere describes. He 
 tells the Galatians, " Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not 
 fulfil the lust of the flesh ; for the flesh lusteth against the 
 spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are con- 
 trary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the 
 things that ye would." In contemplation of this con- 
 tinual struggle and opposition to that which is good that 
 comes, according to this representation, entirely from 
 the flesh, the material part of man, the Apostle exclaims, 
 " O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from 
 the body of this death } " from the evil influences of this 
 body, which subjects me to sin and death. " I thank 
 God " that I am delivered, " through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord." He then concludes by saying that he lives a min- 
 gled life, sometimes obeying one part of his nature, and 
 sometimes the other. " So then with the mind I myself 
 serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." 
 Such was the analysis of human nature which was re- 
 ceived among the Jews in the time of Christ and his 
 Apostles. To this analysis of man into flesh and spirit 
 
" THE NATURAL MAN." 217 
 
 the language of the New Testament is accommodated. 
 A little examination, however, is sufficient to convince 
 us that the analysis, scientifically considered, is imper- 
 fect. It resembles the analysis that once prevailed, of 
 all material things into four elements, — earlh, water, fire, 
 and air. Subsequent investigation has convinced the 
 world, that only one of these elements is a simple sub- 
 stance. The rest are resolvable into a great number of 
 constituent parts. The flesh, or the body, is not the 
 source or the cause of all evil and all sin. Let us take 
 the Apostle's own enumeration. " Now the works of 
 the flesh are manifest, which are these : adultery, forni- 
 cation, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft,, 
 hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, 
 heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and 
 such like." Now, not more than one half of these vices 
 have any thing to do with the body whatever. Hatred, 
 variance, wrath, strife, envyings, do not originate in the 
 physical system at all, but spring up in the soul. The 
 virtues, on the other hand, are represented -as having 
 their seat and source in the spiritual part of man. 
 " But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suf- 
 fering, gentleness, goodness, faith,' meekness, temper- 
 ance ; against such there is no law. And they that are 
 Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and 
 lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit." 
 It is not certain, however, that the Apostle, by 
 adopting this analysis of human nature, meant to assert 
 any thing positive as to the origin of either virtues or 
 vices, in the mind or body. It may be that he used the 
 words " flesh and spirit " as merely generic terms for 
 the classification of things into good and evil. He often 
 uses the term "flesh" for things which have no con- 
 19 
 
218 
 
 nection with the animal propensities, sometimes for mere 
 worldliness. 
 
 The church at Corinth, which Paul labored eighteen 
 months to build up, and in which he always took a strong 
 personal interest after he left it, became split up into 
 parties on account of the preferences they individually en- 
 tertained for some one of the various teachers who suc- 
 ceeded him in the exercise of the ministry among them. 
 This partisan feeling and conduct Paul characterizes as 
 " carnal " although it had no connection with any thing 
 corporeal. " For ye are yet carnal; for whereas there 
 is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not 
 carnal, and walk as men ? For while one saith, I am of 
 Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal ? " 
 Carnal here does not mean sensual, but only worldly. 
 The sin here reproved did not rise in the body, but in 
 the mind. 
 
 This adoption by Paul of a common and popular 
 mode of speech which existed at his time, with regard 
 to the origin of sin, has been the occasion of introducing 
 into the Christian Church a fundamental and most impor- 
 tant error. From his language the idea has been derived, 
 or at least countenanced, that sin is a real substance or 
 entity, existing in human nature, or rather perhaps in 
 man's physical system, and is handed down from father 
 to son ; that human nature is made up of two parts, the 
 one good and the other bad ; that there are some things 
 put into the human system merely to tempt man and lead 
 him astray. JVb such part of human nature has ever 
 been pointed out, nor ever can be. All sin is abuse. 
 Man was one of the Creator's works, upon which he 
 looked when they were finished, and, behold, they were 
 very good. " God," says the wise man, " has made man 
 
"the natural man." 219 
 
 upright," literally, right ; " but they have sought out 
 many inventions," that is, many perversions of that 
 which is made right. 
 
 Let us examine this subject more closely, that we may 
 discover what the Apostle means by such expressions as 
 this, — " the law of sin which is in my members." What 
 is sin .'' It is clearly defined in the Scriptures. " Sin," 
 says the Apostle John, "is the transgression of the 
 law." In those who have no revelation, the only law 
 that exists is reason and conscience, and among those 
 who possess a revelation, in addition to reason and con- 
 science, the precepts of the written word. These are 
 designed to rule over the whole man. There cannot be, 
 literally, any such thing as a law of sin in the members,' 
 for then there would be two conflicting laws in the same 
 being, which would nullify each other. The law is the 
 supreme authority. There cannot be two conflicting su- 
 preme authorities. 
 
 What is the state of facts ? There are three appetites 
 which rise from the body. They are intended for a 
 good purpose, — the preservation of the individual and 
 the species. Their very existence creates desires for 
 certain things, which are involuntary, and therefore inno- 
 cent. They have no direct control over the will. They 
 do not touch the will, till another faculty has acted in 
 the matter, — the conscience. That instantly decides, 
 in all cases, whether the gratification of the desire, un- 
 der the circumstances, would be right. Under some 
 circumstances it would be right, under others, wrong. 
 So far there has been no sin, and there could be none. 
 Each part of man has performed its function for which 
 it was given. Here commences the trial whether the 
 person will indulge or suppress the desire, after the con- 
 
220 " THK NATURAL MAN." 
 
 science has decided it to be wrong. The appetites are 
 given to men, that, under the guidance of reason and 
 conscience, they may lead him to good, and not to evil. 
 The only evil, then, that there can be in the appetites, is 
 their liability to be improperly indulged. And then the 
 perversity is not in themselves, but in the neglect to 
 use certain other faculties, whose business it is to direct 
 and control them. 
 
 The Apostle, then, speaks rhetorically, and not lit- 
 erally, when he says, " the law of sin which is in my 
 members." He means no more than the liability to sin 
 which arises from the very structure of the appetites, as 
 in themselves being blind instincts, and making no dis- 
 crimination in the objects by which they are excited. 
 The language is just as figurative and rhetorical as it is 
 a few verses before, where he speaks of sin as an abso- 
 lute, personal, intelligent agent within himself. " If I 
 then do that which I would not, I consent unto the law 
 that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, 
 but SIN that dwelleth in me." 
 
 Let us ascend from the body to the mind. The first 
 and most universal desire which is. exhibited by the hu- 
 man being is the desire of property or possession. It is 
 for the benefit of the human race that such a thing as 
 property should exist, as the means of providing for the 
 wants of mankind, and as an instrument of developing 
 and training the faculties, of forming and disciplining 
 character. Accordingly, we see this instinct very early 
 developed. The infant appropriates whatever comes 
 within his reach, and when he has appropriated it, he 
 feels in it the dawnings of the right of property. If the 
 attempt is made to take it away, he resists, not only be- 
 cause his will is crossed, but because he feels as though 
 
" THE NATURAL MAN." 221 
 
 his rights were invaded. It is tills instinct implanted 
 within us by God which creates property, and without it 
 there could be no property, and the very word property 
 would be wholly unintelligible. Were any one born 
 without it, it would be impossible for him to take care of 
 himself. 
 
 It is necessary that it should be not only universal, 
 but strong, in order to overcome the love of ease and the 
 love of pleasure which are, in a measure, antagonistic to 
 it. But as life advances, it is liable to acquire an undue 
 and disproportionate strength. Property being the means 
 of procuring almost every species of gratification, be- 
 comes an object of immoderate desire. Accordingly, 
 two commandments out of the ten, which were made the 
 fundamental principles of the laws of Moses, are direct- 
 ed to the regulation of this desire. I say, the regula- 
 tion of this desire, not its eradication, for that would be 
 a condemnation by God of his own work in implanting 
 this desire in the constitution of man. The first restric- 
 tion is, " Thou shalt not steal." Thou shalt not grat- 
 ify this natural love of possession, which extends to 
 every thing that the eye beholds, by taking that which 
 this very instinct of property, upon which the desire is 
 founded, defines to be another's. Thus the desire is not 
 sin, but the gratification of it under certain circum- 
 stances would be. 
 
 But the decalogue goes farther, and by a prohibition 
 which is purely spiritual, as well as profoundly wise, does 
 much to establish its claims in the minds of all thinking 
 men to a Divine original. It lays the axe at the root of 
 the evil, and prevents the stream from issuing by sealing 
 up the fountain. It says, " Thou shalt not covet any 
 thing that is thy neighbour's." Thou shalt not cherish 
 19* 
 
222 " THE NATURAL MAN." 
 
 nor allow the desire of property to fix itself on any thing 
 that is thy neighbour's. 
 
 There is another abuse of the desire of possession 
 which is condemned in the Old Testament, but which is 
 especially reprobated in the New, and that is avarice, the 
 desire of possessing for its own sake, which sometimes 
 becomes so intense as almost to amount to insanity. 
 " Take heed," said our Saviour, " and beware of cov- 
 etousness ; for a man's life consisteth not in the abun- 
 dance of the things that he possesseth." 
 
 The same principle runs through all God's laws, as 
 well those of revelation, as those of reason and con- 
 science. They condemn no part of human nature. 
 They only forbid its perversion and abuse. They there- 
 fore assume and assert the integrity and rectitude of hu- 
 man nature as it now exists. 
 
 The very first commandment supposes man to be a 
 religious being under all circumstances, supposes him to 
 have religious faculties and propensities, which will be 
 exercised either wrongly or rightly. It supposes, what 
 is perfectly true, that man must have a God. So it 
 proposes to restrain and regulate this universal propen- 
 sity, to call it off from wrong objects and fix it on the 
 right one. And it proclaims the enactment, " Thou 
 shalt have no other gods before me." 
 
 To what, then, does Paul's doctrine concerning hu- 
 man nature amount ? Simply to this, that it is pos- 
 sible for a man, by free choice and free action, to iden- 
 tify himself either with what is sensual or what is spiritual 
 in his nature. The spirit wars against the flesh, and the 
 flesh against the spirit. A man given over to the indul- 
 gence of his passions and appetites becomes indifferent, 
 or even averse, to the things of rehgion. He does not 
 
" THE NATURAL MAN." 223 
 
 perceive the force, propriety, or beauty of religion and 
 spiritual things, for the very reason that they reprove 
 and condemn his state of mind and course of life. It is 
 not for the want of original capacity. It is not because 
 there are not powers and capacities slumbering in his 
 soul, which, if called into exercise and made predomi- 
 nant, would receive, approve, and act upon spiritual 
 truths and religious realities, but in his present state he 
 has no appreciation for them. They are foolishness unto 
 him. 
 
 It is in this manner that Christ explained the indiffer- 
 ence, aversion, and even hostility, with which his all-per- 
 fect and most winning instructions were received by the 
 depraved of that age. " How can ye believe which 
 receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor 
 which Cometh from God only ? " How can you receive 
 the truth, whose minds are corrupted by vanity and am- 
 bition ? Not that truth is not congenial to the human 
 mind, but it is uncongenial and unwelcome to the human 
 mind perverted by the vain ambition of pleasing every 
 body, of being popular with those who are themselves 
 destitute of principle. No man could receive Christ 
 without abandoning ambition and worldliness. It is dif- 
 ficult for an ambitious man to be true to principle of any 
 kind. Not that his nature is to blame for his ambition, 
 but he is to blame for it, because he has suffered his virtu- 
 ous desire for approbation and excellence to become per- 
 verted into a craving and unscrupulous desire of applause 
 and superiority. 
 
 There were some who actually believed on Christ, 
 but still did such violence to their moral convictions, that 
 they made no profession of their belief, for fear of losing 
 caste. " Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many 
 
224 " THE NATURAL MAN." 
 
 believed on him, but because of the Pharisees they did 
 not confess him, lest they should be put out of the syna- 
 gogue ; for they loved the praise of men more than the 
 praise of God." For that preference of the praise of 
 men to the praise of God, they themselves were in fault, 
 and not their nature, for they are blamed for it, and 
 considered by Christ as highly criminal. 
 
 Christ represents his doctrine as meeting variousi re- 
 ception among men. "A sower went forth to sow; 
 and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way-side, 
 some fell upon stony places, some among thorns, and 
 some on good ground." If the difficulty in the way of 
 receiving the Gospel had been constitutional and inherent 
 in nature, it would have been uniform and existed in 
 all alike. But different persons were in different states, 
 showing that their different conditions were the results 
 of their individual free agency. That there were any in 
 a condition to be compared to good ground, shows that 
 they all might have been if they had chosen. The dif- 
 ference is explained by a passage I have already quoted. 
 " And this is the condemnation, that light is come into 
 the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, be- 
 cause their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth 
 evil hateth the light, neither corneth to the light, lest his. 
 deeds should be reproved. But he that ddeth truth coni- 
 eth to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that 
 they are wrought in God." Opposition to the Gospel, 
 or reception of it, came not from nature, but from char- 
 acter, which was the result of the voluntary conduct of 
 each individual. 
 
 But while these various passages of Scripture fully 
 vindicate nature from any original and constitutional bias 
 to sin, they reveal an awful peril and responsibility 
 
" THE NATURAL MAN." 225 
 
 growing out of our constitution, in the power which 
 we have over our characters, by our free choice, and our 
 control over our incHnations, preferences, and affections, 
 arising from the force of habit. 
 
 We are capable of becoming, not only sinful, but, as it 
 were, the partisans of sin, so that our feelings become 
 enhsted on the side of evil, and in opposition to good. 
 And this is the grand difficulty there is in the world, the 
 recklessness with which mankind suffer themselves to 
 form evil habits, and thus become alienated from good, and 
 their feelings enlisted in favor of that which is evil. Evil 
 and good are antagonists to each other, and no man can 
 be on both sides at the same time. It is a great and im- 
 portant truth, that " the carnal mind is enmity against 
 God." A very bad man is always opposed to religion ; 
 he scoffs at it and ridicules it. He has an aversion to good 
 men ; he disparages and speaks evil of them. A very 
 bad man is wholly incapable of the exercises of religion. 
 He dreads, if he does not hate, the government of God. 
 It seems to him severe and tyrannical, because it would 
 restrain him from sinful indulgence. A bad son is always 
 alienated from a good father. 
 
 Another great evil of a sinful life is, that it renders the 
 mind inaccessible to good influences, incapacitates the 
 mind for receiving, comprehending, and appreciating 
 spiritual truths, and enjoying devotional sentiments, and 
 cherishing elevating and ennobling hopes. It is sadly 
 true, that " the sensual man receiveth not the things of 
 the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him ; nei- 
 ther can he know them, for they are spiritually discern- 
 ed." In proportion as a man becomes depraved, he 
 throws aside the Bible, for he becomes insensible to its 
 spffitual beauty. If he reads it at all, it is to find some 
 
226 " THE NATURAL MAN." 
 
 ground for invalidating its authority, or to dwell on some 
 lapse of the servants of God, that he may find something 
 to countenance his own vices. The music of the 
 Psalms dies away on his ear, and the consolations of a 
 holy life seem to him like a tale of romance. But it is 
 in the highest degree unjust to God and man, to charge 
 such depravity on nature, which has plainly been the 
 consequence of a wicked life. 
 
DISCOURSE XIV. 
 
 THE AFFECTIONS OF MAN ARE NATURALLY RIGHT, 
 AND LEAD HIM TO DUTY. 
 
 KEEP THY HEART WITH ALL DILIGENCE ; FOR OUT OF IT ARE THE 
 
 ISSUES OF LIFE. — Proverbs iv. 23. 
 
 Our moral freedom and responsibility are a matter of 
 consciousness. The feeling that we are free and re- 
 sponsible arises from the perception that we have the 
 power of controlling our thoughts and our actions. We 
 can direct our thoughts to any subject we please, we can 
 call them off from any. We can act, or forbear to act, 
 as we please. Our thoughts themselves are subjects of 
 moral judgment, before they result in words or actions. 
 In the language of Scripture, which is, in this case, ex- 
 actly and philosophically accurate, " our conscience 
 also bearing witness, and our thoughts accusing or else 
 excusing one another." Evil thoughts must be sug- 
 gested to all minds, or there could be no moral proba- 
 tion. The appetites and passions are excited by their 
 objects mechanically and necessarily. It is for the moral 
 sense to decide whether their indulgence under the cir- 
 cumstances would be right or wrong. 
 
 Here, then, is the first grand trial to which every 
 
228 THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 
 
 human being is subjected, whether he will cherish, re- 
 call, and dwell upon a thought which the moral sense 
 pronounces to be wrong. Then there is another moral 
 trial, whether the thought shall be permitted to result in 
 action. It is in the power of every human being to dis- 
 miss an evil thought from his mind, and to determine not 
 to cherish it. He who chooses goodness, does so at 
 once. In doing so, he numbers himself among the pure 
 in heart. He obeys the precept, " Keep thy heart with 
 all diligence ; for out of it are the issues of life." He 
 who dwells upon, recalls, and cherishes a thought which 
 his moral sense decides to be wrong, has yielded to the 
 first temptation. By doing so, he suffers the mind it- 
 self to become tarnished and defiled. It becomes fa- 
 miliarized with what is wrong, and when actual tempta- 
 tion occurs, the way is prepared for it to become an 
 easy' prey. 
 
 In this choice which the mind exercises between 
 cherishing or dismissing an evil thought, it is absolutely 
 free. For its choice no reason can be given, except 
 that such is its choice. If we go on to give a cause 
 which moved the will to choose as it did, we go just so 
 far to show that the will was not free, but was influenced 
 in its choice by some preceding bias. If there be a 
 bias in human nature so as to incline the will to one side 
 or the other, either of innate depravity on the one hand, 
 or of special grace on the other, then man is not placed 
 in a condition of fair moral probation. 
 
 The individual consciousness reveals no such bias. 
 If there be such a bias, mankind are imposed upon by 
 the most tremendous and cruel deception. The bad 
 man is haunted by a remorse which is wholly unfounded 
 and unjust, and the peace of the good man is based upon 
 
THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 229 
 
 a consciousness of a voluntary obedience which is total- 
 ly false and deceptive. 
 
 Such is the judgment of the individual consciousness. 
 Such is the judgment of mankind of each other. They 
 judge each other as if they were free to choose either 
 good or evil. 
 
 If this universal moral judgment be correct, then each 
 human being must commence existence in innocence, 
 and have the power to form either a good or a bad char- 
 acter. The inquiry is always made, how a wicked per- 
 son became corrupted. This universal inquiry is the 
 expression of a universal conviction, that every human 
 being has power to choose his own character. The 
 preference of evil to good is not natural and constitu- 
 tional, but induced by voluntary action. By the re- 
 peated choice of that which is evil, not only a habit of 
 evil action is created, but a preference for evil induced. 
 A taste for it springs up, not to be sure as evil, but as a 
 gratification of some propensity under forbidden circum- 
 stances. By the repeated choice of that which is good, 
 not only is a habit of right action established, but a pref- 
 erence for that which is good is formed, the gratification 
 of which is a distinct source of happiness. All good is 
 in every human being, potentially, at his creation, and so 
 is all evil. 
 
 These convictions lie at the foundation of public 
 opinion, which is so large a part of God's earthly ret- 
 ribution of human action. The bad man is censured 
 and condemned by his fellow-men. And what is the 
 ground of that censure and condemnation .'' It is, that 
 having the power to become a good man, he has become 
 a bad man. They are a proper jury to try the case, for 
 they possess the same human nature which they judge 
 20 
 
230 THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE EIGHT. 
 
 him to have abused. They applaud and honor the good 
 man. And why .'' Because that, with the power to be- 
 come a bad man, and the temptations to which all are 
 exposed, he has chosen to hold fast his integrity. 
 
 The justice of the Divine government requires that 
 man should begin the career of existence in innocence, 
 and be allowed to form his own character. He has not 
 a fair opportunity, if he commences his career with a bad 
 character, if a mass of evil is to be thrown off before he 
 can begin moral action upon fair and equitable terms. 
 He would not be weighed in an even balance, if there 
 were an hereditary or any other bias to sin. 
 
 With this universal judgment and consciousness of 
 mankind coincide the general representations of the 
 sacred Scriptures. The teachings of Christ are full 
 upon this point. " And this is the condemnation, that 
 light is come into the world, and men loved darkness 
 rather than light," — why? because their natures were 
 bad.' — no, — but "because their deeds were evil.'''' 
 Their repugnance to the light arose, not from their na- 
 ture, but from their abuse of their nature. Had they 
 been true to their nature, they would not have hated the 
 light. For he adds, " For every one that doeth evil 
 hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds 
 should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh 
 to the hght, that his deeds may be made manifest that 
 they are wrought in God." 
 
 In these sentences, that constitution and those powers 
 which consciousness makes known and universal human- 
 ity recognizes, are taken for granted and supposed to 
 exist. Character is made the consequence, not of na- 
 ture, but of conduct. " For every one that doeth evil 
 hateth the light." He does not do evil because he hates 
 
THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 231 
 
 the light, but he hates the light because he does evil. 
 He is not opposed to the light by constitution, but by 
 practice. Nor does he do evil because he is predisposed 
 to it, for he is represented as having equal power to do 
 right. " But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, 
 that his deeds may be made manifest that they are 
 wrought in God." His nature, on the whole, must be on 
 the side of right, or he would not be ashamed of having 
 done that which is wrong. He who has done right is 
 conscious of having done right, of having acted up to 
 his natural allegiance to the truth. If he is afraid of the 
 truth, it is not because he was naturally opposed to it, 
 but because he has done evil. Character, then, accord- 
 ing to this representation of Christ, is the result, not of 
 nature, but of voluntary action. Opposition to good is 
 not natural, but superinduced by abuse. 
 
 " But those things which proceed out of the mouth 
 come forth from the heart, and they defile the man. 
 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, 
 adulteries, fornications, false witness, blasphemies, these 
 are the things which defile a man." Here is the same 
 representation of the character depending on voluntary 
 action. To utter here means to bring into action. 
 As most of our purposes are carried out by speech, 
 speech is here made to represent the agency by which 
 all evil is carried into practice. As long as they were 
 mere thoughts, unapproved, and not acted on, they were 
 not sinful, because if they were not suggested there 
 could be no such thing as temptation, and no such thing as 
 virtuous resistance, — they did not defile the man. The 
 point at which they began to defile the man was when 
 they proceeded out of his mouth, when he began to act 
 in accordance with them. He did not have them in 
 
232 THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE EIGHT. 
 
 consequence of being already defiled, or because he was 
 defiled, nor was he defiled merely by having them, but 
 became defiled in consequence of indulging and acting 
 upon them. 
 
 Such representations as these are exceedingly signifi- 
 cant, and very decisive of the point which we are now 
 discussing, — the constitutional character of human na- 
 ture. They show that Christ's view of human nature 
 was precisely that which is revealed by consciousness 
 and confirmed by the judgment of all mankind, — that 
 every man's character is created by his own voluntary 
 actions, and that he is free to choose either good or evil. 
 
 Coincident with these representations are many other 
 passages of the teaching of Christ. " A good man out of 
 the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things, 
 and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil 
 things." Good and bad thoughts come alike to all. 
 The good man treasures up the good, and the evil man 
 treasures up the evil. Or, rather, it might be truer to 
 say, as good and evil are put on the same level as to 
 voluntary choice, a man becomes good by treasuring up 
 good thoughts, or becomes evil by treasuring up evil 
 thoughts. " They that have done good shall rise to the 
 resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the 
 resurrection of condemnation." 
 
 This is the doctrine that is indirectly taught in the 
 parable of the prodigal son, that mankind start innocent, 
 and corrupt themselves ; and even when they have cor- 
 rupted themselves, their original nature continues right. 
 Sin is a perversion, which may be thrown off, — a tem- 
 porary insanity, capable of being cured, — a diseased, 
 and not a normal state of the moral system. Mankind, 
 or rather human nature, has two representatives in that 
 
THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 233 
 
 parable. A certain man had two sons, only one of whom 
 went astray. The other always remained loyal and obe- 
 dient to his father. "Neither transgressed I at any time 
 thy commandment." His obedience and fidelity are 
 acknowledged and rewarded by the father. " Son, thou 
 art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." The 
 prodigal, during the period of his aberration, was not in 
 his natural state, was not in his right mind. For Christ 
 says of him, — " When he came to himself, he said. How 
 many hired servants of my father's have bread enough 
 and to spare ! " It is not the prodigal's nature that is de- 
 praved, but his conduct. Had his nature been depraved, 
 he would never have been represented as not in his right 
 mind when in a state of sin ; but as never so much him- 
 self as when behaving in the most outrageous manner. 
 
 Such are the representations which pervade the whole 
 Bible. Paul represents the corruptions of the heathen 
 world to have been, not constitutional, but voluntary and 
 superinduced. " But became vain in their imaginations, 
 and their foolish heart was darkened." Persons whose 
 nature was originally corrupt could not ^'■become vain 
 in their imaginations," nor could a heart which was dark 
 by nature be darkened. The wicked are represented 
 by Paulas "dead," not by nature, but "in trespasses 
 and sins." Their want of spiritual life was the conse- 
 quence, not of a defective nature, but of vicious conduct, 
 an abuse of their nature. They are represented as ene- 
 mies of God. And how .'' Not by the possession of 
 a nature constitutionally opposed to God, but " by 
 iDicked works." 
 
 In the following contrast of good and bad men, there 
 is no intimation that the nature of man is any more in- 
 clined to evil than to good. On the contrary, an equal 
 20* 
 
234 THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS AEE RIGHT, 
 
 power to do either is supposed, and the phraseology 
 embraces all mankind, both Jews and Gentiles. " Who 
 will render to every man according to his deeds : to 
 them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek 
 for glory, honor, and immortality, eternal life ; but unto 
 them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but 
 obey unrighteousness, indignation and w^ath : tribulation 
 and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of 
 the Jew first, and also of the Gentile ; but glory, honor, 
 and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew 
 first, and also to the Gentile ; for there is no respect of 
 persons with God." Here, all mankind, both those who 
 have received a miraculous revelation and those who 
 have not, are represented as having it as much in their 
 power to do good as to do evil, and by doing that which 
 is good, to obtain as a reward "eternal life, glory, 
 honor, and peace." This would not be a true repre- 
 sentation if human nature were intrinsically bad, and had 
 a bad character previous to moral action. Good and 
 evil, in that case, would not be equally in our power. 
 
 Such are the representations of the New Testament. 
 Let us now turn to the Old. In our text we have the 
 commandment, " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for 
 out of it are the issues of life." Now if the heart be 
 naturally and constitutionally bad, keeping it can do us 
 no good. It is only upon the supposition that it is orig- 
 inally good, that keeping it- can be of any use. This 
 precept evidently is given on the supposition that the 
 heart is originally pure, and may be kept so. Keep it 
 .from what .'' From being corrupted, surely. 
 
 The last clause of the verse is still more emphatic 
 than it at first appears. " For out of it are the issues of 
 life." A common reader of the Bible takes this to 
 
THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 235 
 
 mean, out of it are the issues of good or evil, the causes 
 which produce either a happy or a miserable life. ' This 
 is not the meaning. Life here means happiness, a happy- 
 existence. The whole precept is this: — " Keep thy 
 heart pure, and it shall be to thee a fountain of life," it 
 shall prompt thee to all good, and secure to thee all hap- 
 piness. This could not be if the heart were originally 
 corrupt. In the same spirit is conceived one of the be- 
 atitudes, — " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
 see God." 
 
 There are a few passages in the Old Testament 
 which are quoted to prove the opposite doctrine, that 
 the heart is constitutionally wicked and depraved, and 
 which may seem to a superficial observer to express 
 such a meaning. But on examination it is found that 
 this signification is only apparent. 
 
 It is said in the Psalms, " The fool hath said in his 
 heart. There is no God. They are corrupt, they have 
 done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 
 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children 
 of men, to see if there were any that did understand and 
 seek God. They are all gone aside, they are alto- 
 gether become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no, 
 not one." But there are plain proofs here that the cor- 
 ruption spoken of is a corruption, not of nature, but of 
 practice. The fool here spoken of is not the man of im- 
 becile intellect, but one who is chargeable with the folly of 
 doing wrong. He has become an atheist because he has 
 become a bad man. He says there is no God, because 
 he wishes to accommodate his theory to his practice, 
 because he has done abominable works. When God 
 looked down upon the children of men and found them all 
 gone aside, it is implied that they were once in the right 
 
236 THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 
 
 way, or it could not be said that they had gone out of it. 
 They had become filthy. But to become filthy they must 
 first have been pure. There is to man no pollution in 
 sin, unless he be created pure. There can be no crim- 
 inality in being out of the way, if man is created out of 
 the way. The only criminality can be in going out of 
 the way when put originally in it. But we have no rea- 
 son to believe that there ever was a time when this de- 
 scription was literally true. Like many other passages 
 of Scripture, it is a hyperbolical expression for a time 
 of great depravity. 
 
 Much stress is laid upon the account given in the 
 book of Genesis of the flood, as proving the inherent 
 constitutional corruption of the human heart. Let us 
 examine it. " And God saw that the wickedness of 
 man was great in the earth, and that every imagination 
 of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." 
 This may be, and doubtless is, intended as a descrip- 
 tion of deep and almost universal depravity ; but we 
 must consider it hyperbolical, and not intended to be 
 taken literally. If we take it literally, we must consider 
 the Scripture to assert that man had no good thoughts. 
 If they had no good thoughts, conscience had become 
 wholly extinct and annihilated. If so, men were no 
 longer moral agents, and no longer capable of sinning, 
 let them do what they might. It is only by having 
 good thoughts, that we can be conscious of having evil 
 thoughts. The existence of conscience is indispensable 
 to the existence of sin. The meaning then is, that 
 they were perpetually devising evil. But then they had 
 conscience and reflection enough to inform them that it 
 was evil, otherwise to them it would not have been sin, 
 nor would it have been if their propensity to sin had been 
 so strong as to be literally and absolutely irresistible. 
 
TliE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE EIGHT. 237 - 
 
 But we are expressly informed, a few verses farther 
 on, that this depravity was not constitutional, but volun- 
 tary and superinduced. " And God looked upon the 
 earth, and, behold, it was corrupt ; for all flesh had cor- 
 rupted his way." This could not be true, if the way of 
 man was naturally corrupt. Nor could there justly be 
 any blame or any punishment, if that corruption had not 
 been voluntary. 
 
 But not only was that depravity voluntary, but it was 
 not universal. Noah was a contemporary of this genera- 
 tion, and it is recorded of him, " Noah was a just man 
 and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with 
 God." If the rest of mankind had corrupted their way, 
 and Noah had not corrupted his, then the natural way of 
 human nature is good. But it is said of Noah, that he 
 was a just and perfect man. He was human nature per- 
 fected. But if human nature was itself bad, then Noah 
 was a monster, not a perfect man. He washuman na- 
 ture perverted. Those who were wholly wicked were 
 human nature perfected, or, in other words, perfect men. 
 
 The cause of sin in the human constitution is clearly 
 pointed out in the reason which God gives why he will not 
 again destroy mankind by a flood. " I will not curse the 
 ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of 
 man's heart is evil from his youth." Not every imagina- 
 tion, for in that case sin would be impossible. But evil 
 thoughts, from the very nature of things, must suggest 
 themselves to all minds. Man commences his career 
 destitute of experience and of the moral strength derived 
 from the habitual resistance to temptation. It is to be 
 expected that he will sometimes do wrong. Therefore 
 it is that God gives it as a reason why he will not de- 
 stroy man from the earth, that he is subjected to many 
 
238 THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 
 
 and sore temptations, which come to him, as all tempta- 
 tions must, through the thoughts of his heart ; objects of 
 desire present themselves under circumstances in which 
 it would be wrong to indulge in them. If the having 
 evil imaginations were itself sin, then the fact that all 
 men have them would be a reason why they should be 
 punished, instead of being given, as it here is, as a rea- 
 son why they should be spared. 
 
 Another passage is often quoted from the prophet Jer- 
 emiah to prove the constitutional corruption of human 
 nature. " The heart is deceitful above all things, and 
 desperately wicked ; who can know it ? " But this makes 
 a part of a prophecy or warning addressed to Judah, in 
 a time of great corruption, and begins in this way: — 
 " The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and 
 with the point of a diamond. It is graven upon the table 
 of their heart." We have no right to interpret of hu- 
 man nature generally a part of a prophecy directed to 
 Judah especially. So Isaiah says, " The whole head 
 is sick and the whole heart faint"; but we do not inter- 
 pret this of all mankind, because it occurs in a prophecy 
 thus entitled: — "The vision of Isaiah, the son of 
 Amoz, vchich he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem 
 in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, 
 kings of Judah." 
 
 David exclaims, in the agony of his contrition for the 
 crime of adultery, " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, 
 and in sin did my mother conceive me." This is often 
 quoted as proving the constitutional depravity of human 
 nature. But it does not seem reasonable to consider the 
 exclamation of passionate grief a logical and philosophical 
 definition of human nature. We have no reason to be- 
 lieve that this was literally true in any sense. The par- 
 
THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 239 
 
 ents of David, we have every reason to believe, were 
 pure and pious people, and if David was the offipring of 
 sin, there is no difference between holy marriage and va- 
 grant licentiousness. What, then, did David mean by 
 the use of this expression .'' He had the deepest sense 
 of guilt before God. Strong emotion, as it usually does, 
 gave birth to figurative language. So polluted does he 
 feel, that, with poetic exaggeration, he confesses that he 
 began to sin before he was born. As we might say of a 
 very wicked person, that he sinned in his cradle, when 
 we meant no more than that he was a great sinner. 
 
 Such are some of the principal passages of Scripture 
 which relate to the constitutional and original character 
 of human nature. And I do not say too much when I 
 affirm, that their general tenor coincides with conscious- 
 ness and the general judgment of mankind ; that every 
 human being commences existence innocent, without 
 character, and is free to choose either good or evil. 
 Character is formed by voluntary, intelligent action, and 
 never can precede it. It commences in the control we 
 have over our thoughts, to reject and banish those 
 which the moral sense decides to be wrong, and to retain 
 and cherish those which conscience approves ; or to 
 dwell upon, recall, and domesticate those which are evil, 
 and banish those which are good. Another and more 
 decisive step is taken towards good or evil, when we de- 
 cide to carry our good or evil thoughts into action. Re- 
 peated acts of choice, either of good or evil, settle into an 
 habitual preference of the one or the other, and then 
 " the good man out of the good treasure of his heart 
 bringeth forth good things, and the evil man out of the 
 evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." 
 
 Such an arrangement of things is demanded by ab- 
 
240 THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 
 
 stract justice and by the equity of the Divine administra- 
 tion. To have made man guilty previous to moral ac- 
 tion would have involved the injustice of inflicting the 
 most cruel punishment on the innocent. To have cre- 
 ated man with the responsibility of a free agent, and set 
 before him rewards and punishments, as if he were free, 
 and then subjected him to a secret bias by which the scale 
 is made to preponderate towards evil, would have been 
 adding deception to injustice. The justice of God is 
 the foundation-stone of all religion. Take that away, 
 and the moral universe falls into universal ruin. " The 
 Judge of all the earth must do right." 
 
 The view which has now been given will be greatly 
 strengthened by an analysis of the affection of love, and 
 the purposes for which it is placed in the human consti- 
 tution. The heart is the seat of the affections. To 
 keep the heart with all diligence, is chiefly to keep the 
 affections right. But what is it to keep the affections 
 right .'' How are they perverted and destroyed .'' 
 
 The afTection of love is put within us for two main 
 purposes, — to promote our own happiness, and to se- 
 cure the performance of social duty. These two pur- 
 poses are recognized in the Scriptures. The design of 
 love to make us happy is expressed in the deep spiritual 
 philosophy of John. " God is love, and he that dwell- 
 eth in love dvvelleth in God, and God in him." That is 
 to say, he is perfectly happy. To the same effect an- 
 other passage : — " Beloved, let us love one another, for 
 love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God 
 and knoweth God." 
 
 The second purpose of the affection of love is to se- 
 cure the performance of social duty. " Love," says the 
 Apostle Paul, "is the fulfilling of the law." And John 
 
THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 241 
 
 confirms this assertion when he says, " He that loveth 
 his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occa- 
 sion of stumbling in him." And our Saviour, srtkstill 
 higher authority, declared, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
 with all thy mind. This is the first and great command- 
 ment, and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments 
 hang all the law and the prophets." 
 
 Man is not left to the understanding and conscience 
 alone to prompt him to the fulfilment of duty. His 
 affections are made to operate in the same direction, and 
 as a demonstration that this is in part their office we have 
 the fact that they are made to vary in intensity accord- 
 ing to the importance of the duty they were intended to 
 secure. First comes that between the sexes, the most 
 important of all, because it lays the foundation of society, 
 — it constitutes the basis of the family, without which 
 society could not exist nor the race be perpetuated. 
 " Therefore shall a man leave father and mother and 
 cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." 
 Next in strength is that between parents and children, 
 next that between brothers and sisters, and so on down 
 through all the degrees of kindred. The affection be- 
 tween kindred is called, in the language of the world and 
 the language of the Bible, natural affection. Fidelity to 
 it is considered among men, and represented in the 
 Scriptures, as meritorious. " Honor thy father and 
 thy mother, which is the first commandment with prom- 
 ise." Failure to cherish these affections, or to act up 
 to their requirements, is considered, both by mankind 
 and the Scriptures, as highly reprehensible. It is enu- 
 21 
 
242 THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS ARE BIGHT. 
 
 merated as one of the vices of the heathen to be " with- 
 out natural affection." 
 
 There is another natural affection, which corresponds 
 to our relation to the whole human race. It is recog- 
 nized by the moral sentiments and the language of man- 
 kind. A misanthrope is thought, not only odious, but 
 criminal. A man .who is indifferent to the welfare of 
 others is called selfish, and is despised and disliked. 
 The same sentiments are upheld in the New Testament. 
 Christ spake a parable especially to elucidate the duty of 
 loving all mankind, and of acting in accordance with that 
 affection. To the question, " Who is my neighbour } " 
 he spake the parable of the good Samaritan. That good 
 man obeyed the natural affection of universal benevolence, 
 the priest and Levite stifled and repressed it. And this 
 example precisely illustrates our subject. He had kept 
 his heart with all diligence. He had never suffered the 
 warm current of his affections to become chilled by the 
 indulgence of indifference, indolence, selfishness, or 
 avarice. 
 
 So, I have no doubt, there is a natural affection im- 
 planted in the human heart towards God. The Samar- 
 itan did not compassionate and relieve the stranger in 
 distress because he had implanted in his own bosom an 
 affection which was not placed there by God, and then 
 kept it alive by cultivation. He obeyed an impulse 
 which God has made spontaneous in every human bo- 
 som, and whici he created in man for the benefit of the 
 species. 
 
 God is the father of mankind, and mankind are his 
 children, and there is given them a filial affection to- 
 wards their heavenly Parent. That affection is the 
 cause and fountain of all the religions there are in the 
 
THE NATURAL "AFFECTIONS ARE RIGHT. 243 
 
 world. A. virtuous child always loves a good father. 
 It is his nature. A good man always loves God. He 
 who loves God and his fellow-creatures is necessarily 
 happy. A bad man does not extinguish this natural affec- 
 tion by his misconduct ; he only smothers it for a sea- 
 son. Such is the doctrine of Christ, for as soon as the 
 prodigal ^^ came to himself ," he said, ^^ I will arise and 
 go to my father." 
 
 But any admission, of evil into the conduct, into the 
 feelings, or even the thoughts and purposes, disturbs all 
 these relations to God and our fellow-beings, and ren- 
 ders impossible the discharge of the duties we owe them. 
 Hence the admonition dictated by Divine wisdom, 
 " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the 
 issues of life." Keep thy heart right, and all duty shall 
 be plain, simple, and delightful. 
 
 What stronger proof can there be than this of the es- 
 sential rectitude of human nature .'' What higher evi- 
 dence is needed that human nature, developed according 
 to its essential elements and in its true proportions, makes 
 a good and happy man .' Not only will the conscience, 
 if followed and obeyed, guide a man into all duty, but 
 the affections, when cultivated, lead in the same direc- 
 tion, and, if the heart be kept pure, will secure the dis- 
 charge of every social obligation. 
 
DISCOURSE XV. 
 
 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 THE SPIRIT TRULY IS WILLING, BUT THE FLESH IS WEiK. — Mark 
 
 xiv. 38. 
 
 This I believe to be the wisest and the truest, as well 
 as the most compassionate and benignant, statement of the 
 constitution of human nature. It is worthy of the Son 
 of the Father, the brightest ray of his glory, and the pur- 
 est image of his perfections, who " pitieth us as a father 
 pitieth his children, for he knoweth our frame, and re- 
 membereth that we are dust." It does us good to re- 
 peat it from his hps, in this world of irritation, harsh feel- 
 ings, and hard judgments. It is the honest and reason- 
 able apology of human nature, a reproof as well to those 
 who deify as to those who decry it. It is equivalent to 
 saying, what is exactly true, that man is a creature of a 
 mixed constitution ; made up of a soul which is heavenly 
 and divine, and of a body which is of the earth, earthy ; 
 of an intellect which glances over the universe in a mo- 
 ment of time, and a body which is confined to one spot, 
 and can change its place only by the most laborious pro- 
 cess ; of a mind which would be ever active, and of a 
 
245 
 
 corporeal partner which soon becomes fatigued, and must 
 pass a third part of its time in utter insensibility ; of a 
 moral sense which is quick to discern the true, the right, 
 the generous, the noble, and appetites which crave im- 
 mediate indulgence, without respect to the dictates of the 
 higher nature ; of a conscience which discerns the fulness 
 and strength of obligation, and, like the mariner's needle 
 to the pole, ever points to eternity and God, and, on the 
 other hand, of the passions, which, like winds and storms 
 on the ocean, often drive the vessel far, very far, from 
 her legitimate course ; of a spiritual nature whose percep- 
 tions and convictions are always nearly the same, and of 
 a physical frame whose condition varies with the changes 
 of every day, — is now full of hope, energy, and activ- 
 ity, but to-morrow is sick, languid, and dispirited. The 
 legislative power in the little commonwealth of human 
 nature is strong, wise, clear-sighted, and nearly perfect ; 
 the executive is impeded by a thousand imperfections, in 
 the powers through which it operates, the materials with 
 which it has to deal, and the obstacles which it has to 
 overcome. Never was there a truer word spoken than 
 this, that " the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." 
 Such was Christ's explanation of the imperfections of 
 human nature, and of the general fact, that we are always 
 in danger of expecting too much from it. 
 
 I shall first attempt to show how wise and just, as well 
 as merciful, an estimate of human nature this is. It is 
 remarkable for its moderation, its equal distance from 
 the extremes into which mankind are apt to run in their 
 judgments of each other, and of that human nature of 
 which we all partake. In both extremes mankind are 
 liable to err, to think either too well or too ill of human 
 nature, and our opinion upon this subject has an impor- 
 21* 
 
246 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 tant influence on our characters and happiness. One 
 extreme is the representation that mankind are devils in 
 human shape, polluted with the impurities of the beasts, 
 besides being inspired with the malignity of fiends ; alien- 
 ated from all that is good, and inclined to all that is ill. 
 Our Saviour says that "J/ie spirit is willing." This 
 theory of human nature represents that it is not willing ; 
 that it is averse, and obstinately bent on what is wrong 
 and criminal. This theory asserts, that there is an innate 
 and intrinsic disposition in the soul itself to sin. Our 
 Saviour asserts, that there is no such disposition in the 
 spirit of man. He says, " The spirit is willing," in- 
 clined to do that which is right, and that the hindrances 
 are out of it rather than in it. It is the flesh that is 
 weak, and prevents the spirit from carrying out those de- 
 signs which its own dispositions predispose it to form. 
 
 In proof of the innate depravity of the human soul, as 
 well as the human body, is alleged the actual wickedness 
 of the world. And it must be confessed that the world 
 does at times present a spectacle of awful practical 
 wickedness, of fraud, oppression, lying, slander, hypoc- 
 risy, sensuality, cruelty, and malice. There are the 
 most shocking oppressions done under the sun. To 
 possess power is too often to forget right, and power 
 must exist somewhere, to maintain order. The civil 
 governments of most nations, how oppressive, and how 
 miserable the condition of the downtrodden masses ! 
 Time and custom have sanctioned the widest departures 
 from original equity, and human ingenuity is taxed to 
 perpetuate what is, instead of bringing about what should 
 be. Alas ! how much of the labor of the world goes to 
 the support, not of the laborer, but of the idle and the 
 unworthy ! Then, what an inconceivable amount of 
 
THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 247 
 
 suffering is there occasioned by social unfaithfulness ! 
 How many parents make their children miserable, and 
 how many children are the cause of untold wretchedness 
 to their parents ! Can this proceed from any thing but 
 pure malignity ? 
 
 The means of communication are rapidly multiplying 
 all over the world, so that the transactions of every part 
 are soon known to the rest. And what a catalogue of 
 crimes is wafted by every breeze to every quarter of the 
 globe ! Behold the evidences, it is said, that mankind 
 are desperately depraved, — not only weak., but wicked; 
 that the spirit is not willing to any thing that is good, 
 and only inclined to all that is evil. 
 
 I answer, that the relative amount of evil and crime 
 is liable to be exaggerated. Take our own country as 
 an example. It is said that the newspapers, those 
 chronicles of ills, are filled from day to day and from 
 week to week with the records of crime. Horrid 
 murder, brutal outrage, terrible tragedy, stare upon us 
 from every page. Is not this sufficient proof that the 
 world is desperately wicked, that wickedness predomi- 
 nates, and that there is not much beside wickedness in it ? 
 I answer, that these accounts prove the very opposite. 
 They prove that these events are rare exceptions. If 
 it were not so, they would not be published as worthy of 
 note. If vice were the rule and virtue were the excep- 
 tion, then the virtue would be published and the vice 
 passed over as a thing of course. Great crimes are al- 
 ways made the subjects of legal investigation. In this 
 country there are more than twenty millions of people, 
 but how few of their names ever have been or ever will 
 be on the records of a court of justice ! Could this 
 possibly be the case if mankind were as bad as they are 
 
248 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 sometimes represented to be ? These twenty millions 
 of people are doing many hundred millions of actions 
 every day, yet how few of these millions are the subjects 
 of blame, even to the most censorious ! Could that be 
 the case if mankind were so desperately wicked ? Go 
 and visit our penitentiaries^ and the very criminals you 
 will find there will by no means justify the sweeping con- 
 demnation of human nature in which some are disposed 
 to indulge. The ordinary and prevailing actions even of 
 those criminals were not criminal. Many of them had 
 lived a life of labor and self-denial and privation, had 
 been beloved and esteemed, had cherished warm affec- 
 tions, and in turn been the objects of the tenderest love. 
 But in an evil hour they- had been tempted beyond their 
 strength. And such is the inconsideration of the world, 
 that one crime is sufficient, in one instant, to obliter- 
 ate every remembrance of all past good actions. It is 
 not explained, with the wisdom and kindliness of the Sav- 
 iour, as the result of the weakness of the flesh, and con- 
 sistent, at the same time, with the general willingness of 
 the spirit, but of the aversion of the spirit from all that is 
 good, the effect of giving loose to a spirit prevailingly 
 evil. This estimate of things we have every reason to 
 believe to be cruelly unjust. That it is unjust we have 
 reason to infer from the immediate occurrence of bitter 
 repentance. That we do not see, and it all goes for 
 nothing. The deed is taken as evidence of character, 
 and not the repentance. That native -malignity of the 
 human heart, that preponderance of evil in the char- 
 acters and actions of mankind, which is often asserted to 
 exist, would be inconsistent with the existence of the 
 human race upon the earth. Did it really exist, man- 
 kind would long ago have destroyed each other and be- 
 
THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 249 
 
 come extinct. Paul, in the first chapter of his Epistle to 
 the Romans, gives a description of the state of morals in 
 the heathen world. He tells us of the heathen, that 
 they were " filled with all unrighteousness, uncleanness, 
 wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, 
 mui'der, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbit- 
 ers, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors 
 of evil things, disobedient to parents, covenant-break- 
 ers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful." 
 Now, I undertake to say, that this description could not 
 have been literally true of a majority of men in a ma- 
 jority of their actions. Society could not have existed. 
 There was the Roman empire flourishing at that 
 very moment at the height of its glory. The shores 
 of the Mediterranean then sustained a denser popula- 
 tion than they ever have supported since. Coast and 
 mountain and plain are now strewed with the wrecks of 
 its former greatness. The wealth of that empire was in- 
 conceivable, its cities splendid almost beyond imagina- 
 tion. Now what does such a state of things prove .' 
 It proves beyond a question good government and good 
 morals. There will be no industry where there is not a 
 good government, that is, where the rights of person 
 and property are not secure. This fact is demonstrated 
 by the present condition of those very countries. Na- 
 ture is the same, the same the fertility of the soil, but a 
 bad government desolates the whole face of the earth. 
 No nation can flourish without morality, and the least 
 deviation from sound morals impairs just so much the 
 resources of a community. In a prosperous nation the 
 majority of the people must be industrious, temperate, 
 frugal, and faithful to their engagements, — must be good 
 husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, friends, neighbours, 
 
250 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 citizens. Labor must be the rule, sloth the exception. 
 Truth must prevail, and falsehood be rare. Conjugal 
 fidelity must exist in a majority of cases, or families, the 
 very elements of society, must be broken up, and soci- 
 ety itself cease to exist. When the Apostle, then, as- 
 serts that all these vices prevailed, he means to a degree 
 inconsistent with that high standard which Christianity 
 sets up. And he advances no opinion as to the origin 
 of the depravity which he describes, — vi'hether it arose 
 from the weakness of the flesh or the perversity of the 
 spirit. 
 
 But admitting the fact of the actual wickedness of the 
 world, it makes the greatest difference what we consider 
 to be its source. If the spirit be willing and the flesh be 
 weak, then the erring are to be met with pity, tender- 
 ness, forbearance. They are punished severely already, 
 in the fact that their ill doings were not perpetrated with 
 the assent of their whole nature. The spirit, which was 
 willing to good, was reluctant to evil, remonstrated 
 against it and condemned it. The yielding to evil was 
 accompanied by a pang of self-condemnation, the fire 
 that is never quenched began to burn, and the worm that 
 never dieth began to gnaw. And is this torn and lacer- 
 ated being, this sick and fainting soul, a fit subject of 
 harshness and persecution and vengeance ? God forbid. 
 I must treat him as criminal, but I must pity him as still 
 more unfortunate. I will remember Peter's tears, as well 
 as his denial of his Master. I will remember his after life 
 of zealous fidelity, as well as his mean cowardice and 
 reckless perjury. I will believe with his Master, when he 
 turned upon him a compassionate, as well as a reproving 
 eye, that the spirit was willing, though the flesh was weak. 
 
 As a full demonstration of the truth of the words of 
 
THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 251 
 
 Christ, that sin is the result of weakness rather than ma- 
 lignity, and calls for pity quite as much as indignation, 
 may be alleged the fact, that in all sin the sinner is the 
 worst sufferer. The love of happiness is as instinctive 
 as the love of existence. The miserable inebriate is as 
 sensible as any other- man can be, of the wretchedness 
 he is bringing upon himself. Yet habit has made the 
 power of appetite gigantic, while it has reduced the soul 
 to the weakness of an infant. 
 
 In the second place, the words of Christ are equally 
 opposed to those who are on the other side, and are dis- 
 posed to form too high an estimate of human nature ; 
 who, while they justly maintain that the spirit is willing, 
 are disposed to pass over the other fact, that the flesh is 
 weak. They wink out of existence the great and stub- 
 born truth, that man, in the present state of being, is im- 
 perfect. The soul, however pure in itself, is immersed 
 in matter, and, by its union with a gross and material 
 substance, is subjected to strong necessities. Man is 
 here on earth in a state of trial. That of course involves 
 the possibility of sin. The weakness of the flesh is the 
 very trial to which man is subjected. In proportion to 
 the greatness of the temptation is the merit of resistance. 
 If this world were a perfect state, there would be in it no 
 temptation, and of course it would not be a state of trial. 
 Had we no bodies we could have no appetites, and of 
 course all that source of temptation would be cut off. 
 But then there could be no such virtues as temperance 
 and self-control. Had we no bodies we could have no 
 corporeal wants, and no temptation to supply them by 
 means unlawful. But then we could have no such vir- 
 tue as justice. This very fact, then, of our having bod- 
 ies, renders our condition on earth imperfect. 
 
252 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 Our moral condition here is rendered imperfect by the 
 circumstance that our course on earth is so short. We 
 begin our career at nothing. We commence our exist- 
 ence the creatures of sense entirely, without moral per- 
 ceptions and without moral powers. Man commences 
 his being a mere animal. The spiritual man is not de- 
 veloped for a long time after, and then it continues weak 
 and infantile for a large proportion of human life. Do 
 we not feel that children are weak .'' Do we ever expect 
 from them the moral strength of men ? We readily 
 make allowance in the moral responsibility which we 
 require at their hands. Their spirits are willing, they 
 have a keen perception of the right, and a desire to do it. 
 But then they are weak, and easily led astray. And 
 what are all mankind in the sight of God but children, 
 partly grown in spiritual stature, but children still, and 
 liable, like children, to be deceived and to be led into sin ? 
 
 This mistaken estimate of human nature, this over- 
 looking of the universal and invariable element of hu- 
 man weakness, is the source of all the mistaken pro- 
 jects which are from time to time proposed for the im- 
 provement of the condition of our species. The Fou- 
 rierist comes forward and maintains that man's woes 
 arise from causes which lie out of him and not in him, 
 in the unjust and vicious constitution of society. The 
 system of private property makes men selfish, accumula- 
 tion makes men proud, and the power which arises from 
 it makes men oppressive. Break up this organization, 
 and all will go well. Let all live in common, and no one 
 will be tempted. 
 
 The thing has been tried over and over. But does 
 mkn, under these more favorable circumstances, cease 
 to be weak ? He has the weakness of being, like 
 
THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 253 
 
 a child, more fond of play than labor, and of being 
 more fond of idleness than either. This weakness is 
 found to increase upon him, instead of being cured, by 
 having all things in common, because he can then be idle 
 with less immediate and personal responsibility. He 
 has the weakness of being fond of having his own vi^ay, 
 and such are the varieties of men's judgments, that every 
 man has a way of his own. There can be no coopera- 
 tion for a common end where every man is allowed to 
 have his own way. Society requires the different 
 spheres of labor to be apportioned to different individ- 
 uals. But if all choose to do the same thing, there is an 
 end to society. The experiment explodes, because its 
 projectors left out of their calculation the material fact 
 that the flesh is weak, and man, being flesh as well as 
 spirit, is weak too ; and it is found that that weakness is 
 not so well provided against in the new organization of 
 society as it was in the old. 
 
 The non-resistant and no-government man comes for- 
 ward and affirms, that all the evils under which the hu- 
 man species labor arise from the absurd institution of 
 government. Mankind would do their duty, if the at- 
 tempt were not made to force them into it. It is down- 
 right oppression to compel a man to submit to a govern- 
 ment which he did not help to establish, and which he 
 never consented to obey. Men will do right, if you will 
 only let them alone. But, as it unfortunately happens, 
 mankind have several weaknesses which render this liv- 
 ing without government wholly impossihle ; one of which 
 is, and has been ever since man has existed on the earth, 
 that he is not sufficiently prompt to pay his debts. Non- 
 resistance finds here an evil which in itself is absolutely 
 irresistible. It is fundamental to society. If this first 
 22 
 
254 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 demand of justice fails to be complied with, social exist- 
 ence becomes itself a failure, for society supposes a divis- 
 ion of labor and an exchange of products. If contracts 
 cannot be enforced, then exchanges must cease, labor is 
 paralyzed, and society is broken up. 
 
 Men have passions, which are not always under their 
 control, or, at least, they do not always choose to con- 
 tBol them. The strong have a weakness of being some- 
 times tempted to oppress the weak, because they are 
 weak and cannot resist. The weak, without the defence 
 of law and government, would find this a very uncom- 
 fortable world ; indeed, they could not live in it. We 
 must have a government, then, so long as human nature 
 continues to be weak in these particulars, and all at- 
 tempts to live without one must miserably fail. Men, 
 then, though not devils, are yet not angels, and it will 
 not answer to treat them as if they were either the one or 
 the other. Children are not angels, though they show a 
 willingness of spirit which is amiable and encouraging. 
 Still they are weak. They need government, discipline, 
 education, sometimes punishment and correction. They 
 are just commencing their career of knowledge, experi- 
 ence, and self-control. And what is this whole life, in 
 the sight of God, but infancy and childhood ? As those 
 parents most signally err, who, relying on the willing 
 spirit, forget the weakness of the flesh, and attempt to 
 bring up their children without any government, so would 
 this life with us be a total failure, did God withhold from 
 us that discipline and chastisement which we need. Is 
 it asked, why God should have created us with this weak- 
 ness of the flesh, which prevents our perfection in this 
 stage of our existence, no answer can be given except 
 that such is his will. As fruitless an inquiry would it be 
 
THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 255 
 
 to ask, why he did not create us men and women at 
 once, instead of suffering us to pass through the long and 
 tedious preparation of infancy and childhood, with their 
 weaknesses, ignorance, and imperfections. 
 
 Finally, the considerations we have now brought for- 
 ward will enable us to form some idea of that state to 
 which Christendom is looking forward as the JWillennium. 
 The most vague and indefinite notions are entertained 
 upon this subject, and some expectations most evidently 
 erroneous. Some seem to suppose that heaven will 
 commence here on earth ; that there will be no sin, but 
 all will be holiness. This must certainly be a mistake. 
 We have no reason to suppose that human nature will 
 be changed in any of its essential characteristics. Still, 
 though the spirit may be willing, the flesh will be weak. 
 Each human being that is born will be encompassed 
 with temptations, and, having a constitution imperfect, 
 will be liable to sin and will sin ; not to the extent that 
 men sin now, for then there would be no Millennium. All 
 the causes are now in operation to bring it about that 
 ever will be, — human nature and the Gospel. We see 
 what the Gospel has already done, and therefore we see 
 what it is capable of doing. It develops, educates, and 
 renders predominant the spiritual nature of man, and gives 
 it more control over the weaknesses of the flesh. We 
 see how far it has brought the world from the corruptions 
 of Paganism. The advancement is vast. But still how 
 far is the most Christian nation short of perfection ! 
 Take the nation, for an example, which is now evange- 
 lizing the world, and impartial judges declare that her 
 whole civil and religious institutions are one mass of 
 heaven-daring oppression. The ideal of Christianity is 
 still farther in advance of them than they are of Pagan- 
 
256 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 ism. And so must Christianity be for ever in advance of 
 the human race, because, though the spirit is willing, the 
 flesh is weak. No one man, even under the most favor- 
 able circumstances, has ever arrived at sinless perfec- 
 tion. Paul himself was conscious that he had not yet 
 reached the mark ; he still pressed forward, and felt that 
 his warfare would not be over till death set him loose 
 from the weaknesses of the flesh and the temptations of 
 earth. 
 
 But whatever may be the future fate of the world, that 
 is nothing to us. Our business is each one with himself, 
 and we do know that there is no limit set to our individ- 
 ual advancement ; there is no point of spiritual strength 
 at which it will be impossible for us to acquire new 
 power over ourselves, and no bounds placed beyond 
 which we cannot pass in overcoming the weakness of the 
 flesh. Let us hear, then, the admonition by which the 
 declaration of our text is accompanied : — " Watch and 
 pray, lest ye enter into temptation ; for the spirit is will- 
 ing, but the flesh is weak." 
 
 To the doctrine of this discourse I am aware that it 
 may be objected, that it is calculated to lower the stand- 
 ard of the Gospel, to diminish our apprehensions of the 
 evil of sin, to make it less burdensome to the conscience, 
 and to disparage the importance of the mission of Christ 
 as a remedy for the sinfulness of mankind. Serious and 
 religious minds may fear that it tends to the development 
 of such a religious philosophy as that so widely propa- 
 gated of late in Germany by Hegel, which represents 
 sin as not only incident to human nature, but one of the 
 appointed means of its development and perfection. The 
 effect of this philosophy there is represented to be most 
 disastrous. It leads to the most lax conceptions of human 
 
THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 257 
 
 duty and responsibility, to great indifference to religious 
 observances, and in some instances to a loose morality. 
 It overlooks the holiness and the justice of God, and rep- 
 resents him as tolerating sin as a thing indifferent. In- 
 deed, it hardly comports with justice at all for God to 
 punish as a sin that which he himself makes inevitable, 
 and the means of human development and perfection. 
 
 I shall first speak to the point as to what treatment of 
 sin is, and what is not, consistent with God's justice and 
 holiness. It is sometimes said, that, as every sin de- 
 serves to be punished, the' attribute of justice in God 
 compels him to punish it. I answer, that such an inter- 
 pretation of justice excludes mercy from the Divine 
 character altogether. Every sin must be punished to the 
 full. In the common scheme of the Atonement this view 
 is taken. God cannot pardon sin, unless the equivalent of 
 suffering is endured by another party. Christ, since he is 
 an infinite being, has suffered an equivalent for the sins of 
 all mankind. According to this theory, God is not mer- 
 ciful. Or, if he is merciful in his nature and disposition, 
 he is overruled by a principle of justice which renders it 
 for ever impossible that he should exercise mercy. But 
 how and from what source did any human being ever ar- 
 rive at the knowledge that this is the true definition of 
 God's justice .' The representations of Scripture are 
 diametrically opposed to this. The proclamation which 
 God makes of his character amidst the awful thunders of 
 Sinai is, — ■ " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and 
 gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and 
 truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, 
 transgression, and sin." 
 
 Injustice always involves the idea of wrong to some 
 one. If God freely forgives the penitent, who is injured 
 22* 
 
258 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 by it ? Suppose the sinner to have injured a fellow-beiDg, 
 that fellow-being, made in God's own image, is ready to 
 forgive him on the manifestation of sincere repentance. 
 
 But it is said, that the holiness of God demands that 
 every sinner should be punished, in order that his abhor- 
 rence of sin may be made known, and that the dignity of 
 his government may be upheld. It is not honorable, but 
 rather derogatory to the Divine character, to suppose that 
 he maintains a Pharisaic and ostensible goodness, and 
 makes demonstrations against sin merely to exhibit to the 
 universe how holy he is, or that he punishes one being, for 
 reasons of state, as a terror to the rest. Weak human 
 beings and human governments act from such low and 
 imperfect motives, but not the Infinite Father of the uni- 
 verse. If the existence of sin be such a reproach to 
 God, then the question naturally occurs, Why should he 
 have created this world at all, with the certainty that it 
 would be the theatre for the exhibition of so much de- 
 pravity ? And if the apparent impunity of sin be a re- 
 proach to the justice of his government, it is one under 
 which it is likely to labor at least till the consummation 
 of the present system of things. Wicked men are seen 
 to prosper through the whole course of their threescore 
 years and ten. The government of God is strictly pa- 
 ternal and disciplinary. " The Lord is not slack con- 
 cerning his promise, as some men count slackness ; but is 
 long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should 
 perish, but that all should come to repentance." 
 
 It is a false idea of Divine justice to suppose that God 
 is compelled to punish under any circumstance. Human 
 governments may be compelled to do so in order to 
 maintain their authority, but He who upholds all things 
 in being can never want the respect of his creatures. 
 
THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 259 
 
 He can consult ihe good of every one of his creatures 
 just as much as if each one was the only object of his 
 care. Hence it is, that the most false and dishonorable 
 conceptions are entertained of future retribution. It is 
 thought that God is compelled by the demands of justice 
 to punish every sin and every sinner to the extent of 
 his guilt, and in proportion to his sins. Supposing that 
 he chooses to remit the penalty, who is injured by it .'' 
 No good father ever punished a child vindictively. 
 Neither can God punish a human being vindictively. 
 The only possible object of punishment on the part of 
 an infinite, all-powerful, and all-wise Being is the good 
 of the offender, his reformation, and restoration to virtue 
 and happiness. When there is no hope or possibility of 
 this, all further punishment becomes mere vengeance, 
 which is utterly repugnant to the Divine perfections. 
 
 Christ bears the moral image of God, and how did he 
 treat the offending .'' In precise accordance with his 
 language to his disciples, when he reproved them for not 
 being able to watch with him one hour. He said, 
 " The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Peter 
 denied him under the most aggravating circumstances. 
 But did Christ cast him off and renounce him for ever .' 
 By no means. He treated him as if his failing were a 
 temporary weakness, and not the evidence of a character 
 thoroughly depraved. After his resurrection, he sends 
 an especial message to the fallen disciple : — "Go tell 
 my disciples, and Peter, Behold, I go before you into 
 Galilee." To represent that every sin deserves an in- 
 finite and eternal punishment is a monstrous extrava- 
 gance ; and the doctrine that God could doom Adam to 
 eternal death for the simple act of eating an apple, in a 
 state of mental and moral childhood, as he then was, is 
 
260 THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 
 
 representing the Deity as staining the morning of crea- 
 tion by the most stupendous act of injustice, as inflicting 
 a penalty infinitely out of proportion to the crime. 
 
 But it does not follow, because no sin is an infinite 
 evil, and no sin can merit an infinite punishment, that it is 
 no evil at all, and does not deserve any punishment. 
 Nor does it follow, because punishment is remedial and 
 inflicted for the purpose of curing sin, that it is as well to 
 sin and suiFer for it, as to keep the law of God and avoid 
 both the sin and the suffering. Health is the natural 
 state of man. If mankind were perfectly wise and pos- 
 sessed perfect self-control, there would be little sickness. 
 But man being imperfect, both in constitution and self- 
 control, he is liable to disease. But God does not 
 abandon and vindictively punish man for every trans- 
 gression of the laws of health. He has kindly provided 
 pain to warn him that he has transgressed, and to inform 
 him what part he has injured, and thus has stimulated 
 him to investigate the causes of disease. Not only so, 
 he has provided remedies, in the vegetable and mineral 
 kingdoms, which greatly shorten the duration of diseases 
 and render them less painful while they last. Moreover, 
 he has provided in the constitution itself a natural ten- 
 dency to heal and return to the condition of health. But 
 it does not follow from all this, that disease is not an 
 evil, or that it is not better to remain in a state of health, 
 and thus avoid both the disease and the remedy also. 
 
 The condition of man, then, here on earth, as in b 
 state of moral probation, amounts to this. God has 
 given him two chances for happiness; — one, through 
 sinless obedience ; the other, through repentance and ref- 
 ormation, — in short, through moral discipline. Human 
 imperfection renders the first impossible, and therefore 
 God has kindly provided the second. 
 
THE SPIRIT WILLING, THE FLESH WEAK. 261 
 
 The natural remedies for sin are remorse and reproach 
 of conscience, and the physical and social evils which 
 arise from it. In the course of ages, there is such a 
 thing as the progress of civilization, the accumulation of 
 knowledge and experience, the growth of the moral sen- 
 timent, which gains greater and greater power, the devel- 
 opment of religious faith and worship. These all have 
 power to strengthen the moral and the spiritual part of 
 man, and to repress the passionate, the sensual, and the 
 selfish. 
 
 Coincident with this purpose have been the revelations 
 which God has made to mankind, — first the patriarchal, 
 then the Jewish, then the Christian. These were all 
 calculated to restore the balance of human nature, where 
 it had been lost. This is precisely the account given by 
 Paul of the purpose of Christianity, as contrasted with 
 the law of Moses. " For the law of the spirit of life in 
 Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and 
 death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak 
 through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the like- 
 ness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the 
 flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled 
 in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." 
 
 Finally, the doctrine of this discourse is guarded 
 against abuse by another consideration. There is no ne- 
 cessary and mechanical connection between punishment 
 and reformation. Suffering is intended to reform and 
 spiritualize mankind, but it may not produce this effect. 
 It depends on the free will of man. Punishment to the 
 hardened and rebellious may only increase the obduracy 
 of the temper, and drive the soul to sullenness and de- 
 spair. No man can be encouraged by this doctrine to 
 do evil that good may come. 
 
DISCOURSE XVI. 
 
 THE RELATION OF ADAM AND CHRIST TO THE 
 HUMAN RACE. 
 
 FOR AS IN ADAM ALIi DIE, EVEN SO IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE 
 
 ALIVE. — 1 Cor. XV. 22. 
 
 This passage of Scripture brings up a most interesting 
 inquiry, the relation of Christ to human nature, and to 
 the human race. It seems to assert, that mankind owe 
 their mortality to Adam, and their immortality to Christ, 
 but it has been interpreted in a great variety of ways. 
 What ivas it intended to assert ? 
 
 In the first place, it is said that it was intended to as- 
 sert that Adam, by the first sin, had the power to change 
 human nature itself. He was created immortal, and had 
 he not sinned, he would never have died. Is it probable 
 that this was the meaning .'' There are strong objections 
 to this. It does not correspond to the second part of the 
 sentence. " Even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 
 Human nature was not restored by what Christ did to a 
 constitutional immortality. There is not a correspond- 
 ence, in this respect, in what Adam did against mankind, 
 with what Christ did for them. It is not probable that 
 
ADAM AND CHRIST. 263 
 
 Adam's sin made him mortal. Man was created an ani- 
 mal, and subjected to animal law's. All animal life is 
 subjected to the law of gradual growth and gradual decay 
 or sudden death. Birth is a law of animal life, and death 
 is another corresponding law. The first makes the sec- 
 ond inevitable. The power of reproduction would soon 
 fill this world so full, that mankind would be destroyed 
 by famine, did not one generation die as another comes 
 upon the stage. The human body requires food for its 
 support. The power of production in the earth is lim- 
 ited. And even if this difficulty could be overcome, 
 mankind in the course of ages could not even stand upon 
 the earth which is given them to inhabit. This world, 
 then, is not constituted a place for an immortal existence. 
 Flesh and blood cannot inherit immortality, neither can 
 corruption inherit incorruption. And this is the real rea- 
 son, which is given in Genesis by God himself, why man 
 is mortal: — " Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall re- 
 turn." The penalty, then, represented as being inflicted 
 on man for disobedience, isnot death, but expulsion from 
 Paradise, where every thing grew spontaneous, to that 
 part of the earth which required cultivation. The 
 curse was pronounced, not on Adam, but on the ground. 
 "Cursed 66 the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shall 
 thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and 
 thistles shall it bring forth unto thee ; and thou shall eat 
 the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shall thou 
 eat thy bread, till thou return to the ground ; for out of it 
 wast thou taken." 
 
 The sin of Adam did not cause his mortality, even ac- 
 cording to the representation in Genesis. If it were so, 
 there was not a correspondence between what Adam did 
 against mankind with what Christ did for them, for he did 
 not restore man to an earthly immortality. 
 
264 ADAM AND CHRIST. 
 
 It has been represented that it was spiritual death to 
 which Adam and his posterity were condemned in con- 
 sequence of the Fall, — a state of incapacity for good and 
 an irresistible proclivity to evil. "All mankind by the 
 Fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and 
 curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, 
 and the pains of hell for ever." 
 
 But if in this sense there is a correspondence between 
 what Adam did against mankind with what Christ did for 
 them, then the doctrine of Universalism must be- true, 
 and with equal justice. " For as in Adam all die, so in 
 Christ shall all be made alive." All mankind, in conse- 
 quence of what Christ has done, must be delivered from 
 the wrath and curse of God, and restored to the condi- 
 tion in which Adam was before he sinned. Is it the 
 doctrine of the Scriptures that Christ will thus deliver all 
 mankind ? In the representation of the future judgment, 
 in which Christ himself is represented as presiding, the 
 Judge pronounces sentence : — " Depart, ye cursed, in- 
 to everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels." 
 
 Christ, then, does not sustain the relation to all man- 
 kind of the restorer of earthly immortality, nor of the in- 
 nocence of Adam before the Fall, nor does he deliver all 
 mankind from the sinfulness and guilt in which they were 
 involved by Adam's sin. 
 
 Those who hold the doctrine of the Trinity, and the 
 corresponding doctrine of the Atonement, refer this pas- 
 sage to what they call "the covenant of redemption." 
 According to the theology which prevailed a hundred 
 years ago, immediately on the fall of Adam and his hav- 
 ing made himself liable to the punishment of death, tem- 
 poral and eternal, involving all his posterity in his ruin, 
 the Son, the second person of the Trinity, interposed 
 
« ADAM AND CHRIST. 265 
 
 to rescue man from the consequences of his guilt ; he 
 undertook to bear in his own person the punishment due 
 to Adam and all his posterity. In due process of time, 
 he descended and became incarnate, suffered death upon 
 the cross, underwent the penalty of the law, and thus 
 made it possible for God to maintain the honor of his 
 law, and still extend mercy to mankind. In this sense it 
 is said that, " as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all 
 be made alive." 
 
 But this whole hypothesis is dependent on the truth 
 of the doctrine of the Trinity. That is itself a disputed 
 and a doubtful doctrine. And even if it were true, it 
 ought to save all men, and not a part. Otherwise there 
 is no correspondence between the sin of Adam and the 
 merits of Christ. It is expressly said in Paul's Epistle 
 to the Romans, — " Therefore, as by the offence of one, 
 judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so 
 by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all 
 men unto justification of Hfe." This again leads inevita- 
 bly to the doctrine of universal salvation, if it is inter- 
 preted to mean a reversal of the effects of Adam's sin. 
 But such is not the doctrine of Paul, nor of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 What, then, does this celebrated passage mean ? It 
 finds its explanation, as I conceive, in the preceding verse. 
 The two verses are parallel lo each other, and are intend- 
 ed to express the same thing. " For since by man came 
 death, by man came also the resurrection of Ihedead.^'' 
 Not as to its cause, but as to its proof. The death of 
 Adam made certain the death of all his posterity, for 
 they partake of his nature ; so the resurrection of Christ 
 proved the resurrection and immortality of all mankind, 
 for they partake of his nature.' This is agreeable to the 
 23 
 
266 ADAM AND CHRIST. . 
 
 whole scope of the reasoning of Paul in which it occurs. 
 He does not make the resurrection of Christ the cause of 
 the resurrection of the rest of mankind, but only an ex- 
 ample and a proof. " But if there be no resurrection of 
 
 the dead, then is not Christ risen But now is 
 
 Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of 
 them that slept." The first fruits are not the cause of 
 the harvest, but only the evidence that it is coming. 
 
 In this respect, then, Christ does sustain a relation to 
 the whole human race, as the evidence of their immor- 
 tality. As Adam, by being a mortal himself, has entailed 
 an assured mortality to all his posterity, so Christ, being 
 the first to rise from the dead, after having asserted the 
 doctrine of immortality, has made immortality sure to all 
 mankind. 
 
 The Hebrew language was poor in particles. Paul, 
 who had a Hebrew education, used the Greek after He- 
 brew idioms. The Hebrew particle 3, answering to the 
 Greek preposition cv, has a great variety of significations. 
 Sometimes it nearly corresponds to our English particle 
 like. I think it does here, and the sense might be given 
 thus : — "As, hke Adam, all die ; so, like Christ, shall 
 all be made alive." Mankind share mortality with 
 Adam. They share immortality with Christ. 
 
 So much for the physical relations of Christ to the hu- 
 man race. He has also moral relations to a part of man- 
 kind, which are likewise illustrated by a comparison with 
 Adam. " For as by one man's disobedience many were 
 made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many 
 be made righteous." On this text mainly is founded the 
 famous doctrine of imputation, that the sins of Adam 
 were imputed to all his posterity, and, previous to any 
 action of their own, they were liable to sufier the punish- 
 
ADAM AND CHRIST. 267 
 
 ment of his sin, and do in reality suffer it in the fact of 
 being made mortal. So, on the other hand, the obedi- 
 ence of Christ is imputed to all mankind, or rather made 
 available for them, to enable them to recover from the 
 ruin of the Fall. This, hov?ever, is not asserted. It is 
 not asserted that the obedience of Christ has any rela- 
 tion to all mankind. The expression is, many. " So 
 by the obedience of one shall many he made righteous." 
 In what sense is this literally true .'' In what sense are 
 many made righteous by the obedience of Christ .-' 
 
 All the influence that Christ has ever exerted in this 
 world has been upon character, in what he has induced 
 man to do and to become. It was a spiritual regenera- 
 tion which he came to bring about. The means by 
 which he was to produce that spiritual regeneration was 
 teaching. He was to regenerate the world by teach- 
 ing the truth. " Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy 
 word is truth." But his teaching even of the truth 
 would have been powerless, had pot his own personal 
 character corresponded to his doctrine. He not only 
 taught, but lived, Christianity. Any defect in his life 
 would have been fatal to his moral power over the world. 
 " ^ndfor their sakes I sanctify myself, that they may be 
 sanctified through the truth." Christ was not only the 
 perfect Teacher, but " the faithful and the true Witness." 
 " To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into 
 the world, that I should bear witness to the truth." His 
 testimony becomes unimpeachable, in precise proportion 
 to the spotlessness of his character. The perfect obedi- 
 ence of Christ became the ground of faith in his Divine 
 mission, and faith in him was the only means by which 
 he could regenerate the world. 
 
 Again, the perfect obedience of Christ, the spotlessness 
 
268 
 
 ADAM AND CHRIST. 
 
 of his life, according to his own precepts, was the only 
 means of knowing what the requirements of his religion 
 were. Bare rules, without an example, are but imper- 
 fectly comprehended. Naked precepts, without practi- 
 cal illustration, are mere theories, liable to be denied and 
 set at naught as visionary, impracticable, "and romantic. 
 The life of Christ was as much a revelation as his Gos- 
 pel. His life was the model and mould of the Christian 
 life ; his obedience taught the world what obedience was. 
 Thus it was, that, through his obedience, many were made 
 righteous. It induced them to believe on him, and taught 
 them how to obey him. His obedience became the pro- 
 ducing cause of theirs. 
 
 Adam was the first man and the first sinner. He set 
 the example of sin, which was followed by all his pos- 
 terity. Christ was the first perfect man who maintained 
 the holiness in which Adam was created. He was the 
 founder of his Church, the members of which were formed 
 upon the model of his character, and were trained to 
 goodness' by his influence. The very purpose of his 
 mission was the moral transformation of the world. 
 
 Such are the facts of Christ's relation to mankind. 
 He was the evidence of the immortality of man, and the 
 means of the spiritual regeneration of his Church. 
 
 But the question recurs. How are we to interpret the 
 language from which the federal headship of Adam, and 
 of Christ, to the human race, has been inferred, together 
 with the doctrines of original sin and imputation ? I an- 
 swer. It is the language of rhetorical illustration. The 
 Epistles of Paul, and all parts of the New Testament, are 
 to be interpreted by the same rules as any other compo- 
 sition. There is such a thing as illustration as well as 
 positive teaching, even in the Bible. It is not necessary 
 
ADAM AND CHRIST. 269 
 
 to an illustration that the thing employed as an object of 
 comparison should be literally a fact. It is so with all 
 the parables of Christ. The truth taught, and the inci- 
 dent related, are different things. The truth of the one 
 is not dependent on the truth of the other. It is not ne- 
 cessary to the truthfulness of the parable of the prodigal 
 son, that such a personage should have ever really exist- 
 ed. It is not necessary to the instruction intended to be 
 conveyed by the parable of the good Samaritan, that 
 such a robbery as is related in it should have taken place 
 on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It is not ne- 
 cessary to suppose that there were any such things as 
 unclean spirits, because Christ speaks of one, when he is 
 gone out of a man, as wandering in dry places, seeking 
 rest and finding none, and then returning with seven more 
 evil spirits worse than himself and taking possession of his 
 old habitation. It is only necessary to suppose that there 
 was such a superstition prevailing at the time, by which 
 Christ illustrated the fact, that a relapse into sin, after an 
 imperfect reformation, is apt to be attended by worse ex- 
 cesses than existed before any attempt to change the 
 habits. 
 
 Paul tells us, that the Israelites in the wilderness drank 
 of the spiritual rock which followed them. The Bible 
 says nothing of any such spiritual rock. But the Rab- 
 binical writings of the Jews inform us, that there was 
 such a superstition prevailing at that time, of which the 
 Apostle availed himself in illustrating the subject which 
 he then had in hand, the impropriety of Christians par- 
 taking of idolatrous sacrifices at the same time that, by 
 partaking of the communion, they professed allegiance to 
 Christ. 
 
 So It is not necessary to suppose that Paul actually 
 23* 
 
270 
 
 ADAM AND CHRIST. 
 
 believed in the doctrine of original sin, or tiie introduc- 
 tion of death into this world by the transgression of Adam, 
 because he refers to such a superstition in order to illus^ 
 trate the relation which Christ bears to the doctrine of 
 immortality, and his personal character to the character 
 of his followers. It is only necessary to consider him 
 to refer to a common opinion, or even hypothesis or in- 
 terpretation of the Scripture, which was well known at 
 that time. 
 
 The whole Epistle to the Hebrews is constructed 
 upon this mode of argumentation. Christ is made to be 
 superior to the angels, in order to prove the superiority 
 of Christianity to Judaism, because the Jews so inter- 
 preted a few passages of the Old Testament as to assert 
 that the law was given through the ministry of angels. 
 So Christ is proved to be greater than the Levitical 
 priesthood, because he is a priest after the order of Mel- 
 chisedek, and Abraham, the father of Levi, paid tithes 
 to Melchisedek. All these things come under the de- 
 scription of rhetorical illustration, and are not to be 
 pressed to the precision of logical and categorical state- 
 ments. 
 
 Rhetoric and logic are two things, entirely dissimilar, 
 and so are history and allegory. It is by confounding 
 these matters, and interpreting the one by the laws which 
 are appropriate to the other, that almost all the difficul- 
 ties have arisen, which have turned the Bible into a book 
 of riddles, and spread unbelief broadcast over the world. 
 
 The temptation and fall of Adam, or the first pair, is 
 evidently an Oriental apologue, the object of which is to 
 give a symbolical account of the introduction into the 
 world of moral and physical evil, without casting any im- 
 putation upon God. It teaches how Adam fell, and 
 
ADAM AND CHRIST. 271 
 
 how all men fall, not in Adam, but like Adam, in their 
 own persons. He and they have a law given them, in 
 their own consciences, which are the voice of God, say- 
 ing to them, " This thou mayest eat, and from that thou 
 must abstain." The serpent is the suggestions of appe- 
 tite and passion, which say, " Thou shalt not surely die." 
 The punishment of sin is the necessity of labor, without 
 which men's passions and appetites would render them 
 utterly miserable, and therefore is necessary as a moral 
 discipline. The extension of the punishment of Adam's 
 sin to his posterity, any farther than their necessary con- 
 nection with him involves, is a matter of pure fiction, 
 inserted and added to the apologue in after times. 
 
 If it were true, then the reproach cast upon the moral 
 government of God by the Jews at a subsequent period 
 would be perfectly just, — " The fathers have eaten sour 
 grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." So 
 far from recognizing this as a principle of his government, 
 as in truth he must have done, on the most tremendous 
 scale, if he had punished the posterity of Adam for one 
 sin of his with temporal and everlasting death, he repudi- 
 ates it as in the highest degree derogatory to his charac- 
 ter. " What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concern- 
 ing the land of Israel, saying. The fathers have eaten sour 
 grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge ? As I 
 live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any 
 more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are 
 mine ; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son 
 
 is mine ; the soul that sinneth, it shall die The son 
 
 shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the 
 father bear the iniquity of the son : the righteousness of 
 the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of 
 the wicked shall be upon him." Thus you perceive 
 
272 ADAM AND CHRIST. 
 
 that the doctrine of imputation is contrary to the funda- 
 mental principles of the Divine government. Neither 
 righteousness nor wickedness can be transferred from one 
 individual to another. 
 
 Adam was the first sinner, and the first mortal. Christ 
 was the only perfect man, and the first to rise from the 
 dead. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all 
 be made alive." 
 
 Some persons may be alarmed at the admission, that 
 there is such an element in the Bible as the floating opin- 
 ions of the age. It may be thought that it is calculated 
 to undermine the authority of the Scriptures, and to lead 
 to the adoption of such rationalistic opinions as to amount, 
 at last, to the rejection of revelation altogether. The 
 course of things in Germany may be cited as an example 
 of a people gradually conducted by the fatal declension 
 of skepticism to total unbelief. 
 
 What is to hinder the course of things in this country, 
 it may be asked, from taking the same direction, and end- 
 ing in the same result .'' I answer, that the only thing 
 that can save this country is the adoption of this very 
 distinction which is made in this discourse. It is wholly 
 impossible to resist the course of rationalism. Ration- 
 alism, in its true sense, is the only thing which can save 
 the Bible. 
 
 Christianity is now compelled to meet a state of things 
 entirely new. Three hundred years ago, there was a 
 traditionary and superstitious faith in the Bible. It was, 
 moreover, fastened upon the convictions of the people 
 by civil enactment. To call any part of the traditionary 
 opinions concerning it in question, was a civil offence. 
 
 The first rationalistic question which was started after 
 the revival of learning and science in the sixteenth cen- 
 
ADAM AND CHRIST. 273 
 
 tury, was one which arose from the discoveries of as- 
 tronomy. In the Bible, the common opinion is taken 
 for granted, that the sun actually rises and sets. The as- 
 tronomical discoveries of that age, especially of Galileo, 
 left it no longer doubtful that this was an optical illusion. 
 The sun, in fact, neither rises nor sets ; but the earth 
 turns upon its axis, and makes it appear that the sun, 
 moon, and stars pass round the earth once in twenty-four 
 hours. 
 
 The theologians of that age, who had the civil power 
 under their control, considered the honor and credit of 
 revelation to be involved in maintaining the truth of the 
 old opinion, because it is taken for granted in the Bible. 
 Not only so, they prosecuted Galileo before the Inquisi- 
 tion for heresy, and for bringing the Bible into contempt 
 by maintaining that the earth revolves upon its axis. This 
 of course was based upon the supposition, that the rising 
 and setting of the sun was a doctrine of the Bible. The 
 Scriptures do in fact speak of the rising and setting of 
 the sun, in such a manner as to lead us to infer that their 
 writers entertained the same astronomical opinions which 
 were held by the rest of the world. But nothing could 
 be more short-sighted in the defenders of the Bible, than 
 to make it responsible for the truth of the astronomical 
 doctrine, that the sun rises and sets. The investigations 
 of science have established the fact, that the heavenly 
 bodies do not revolve round the earth. Were the Bible 
 made responsible for the opposite opinion, its authority 
 would be lost. Its credit is maintained solely by the ad- 
 mission, that there is such an element in it as the floating 
 opinions of the age, which were alluded to and assumed 
 as true by the sacred writers. But this admission being 
 made, the authority of the Bible stands as firmly as ever. 
 
274 ADAM AND CHRIST. 
 
 In the first chapter of Genesis, the world is related to 
 have been created in six days. Heaven is spoken of as 
 a solid partition betv?een the v^aters which belong to the 
 seas, and that aerial ocean which was supposed to exist 
 in the skies, and from which the rain was poured forth. 
 Science has since discovered that the earth was untold 
 ages in assuming its present form, and while it invalidates 
 the literal interpretation of the six days' creation, it es- 
 tablishes the much more important declaration of the sa- 
 cred writings, that the work of creation was gradual, and 
 that the progenitors of the human race were created im- 
 mediately by the hand of God. 
 
 We are compelled, therefore, to place some parts of 
 the account of the creation among the traditionary opin- 
 ions which the Bible records, but for whose literal truth 
 it is not responsible. There is no other way for those 
 who are most zealous for the honor of Divine revelation. 
 
 The same is true with regard to the demonology of 
 the New Testament. Some diseases were then sup- 
 posed to be occasioned by the possession of devils. 
 Christ is said even to have cast out devils. But the 
 phenomena recorded are all those which have been pre- 
 sented in every age of the world by the natural disease of 
 lunacy. Science has dispelled the superstition that any 
 disease is occasioned hf the indwelling of devils. Yet 
 Christ used phraseology which implied their real exist- 
 ence. He did not attempt to correct the common opin- 
 ion in relation to the agency of wicked spirits. He left 
 that to be corrected by the progress of scientific investi- 
 gation. And we have every reason to believe that he 
 judged rightly. Christianity had enough to do in cor- 
 recting the false ideas which then prevailed on subjects 
 strictly religious. Any attempt to set men right on mat- 
 
ADAM AND CHRIST. 275 
 
 ters of physical science would have created such an op- 
 position to the Gospel, as to have put a stop to its propa- 
 gation at the very commencement. Christ often speaks of 
 a personal devil. But when we analyze his language, we 
 do not find any positive assertion of his existence. So, 
 those who have no belief in his personal existence, at the 
 present day, still continue to speak of the Devil as the 
 personification of evil, just as if they believed in his per- 
 sonal existence. Christ, on a certain occasion,- when 
 speaking of the future spread and influence of his re- 
 ligion, said, " I saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven." 
 This, of course, is a figurative expression for the down- 
 fall of the kingdom of evil. 
 
 Into the same category must fall, as it seems to me, 
 the language of the New Testament, and of the Bible 
 generally, as to the introduction of sin into the world. It 
 is referred to as a tradition, or a floating opinion of the age. 
 The conception that the Devil had any agency in the temp- 
 tation of our first parents, or mankind in general, is one 
 which evidently grew up without any authority from the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 Nothing is said of Satan, or the Devil, or any evil 
 spirit, in the account of the temptation and fall of man, 
 nor in any part of the writings of Moses. And in the first 
 place in which he is mentioned, it is in the same way in 
 which the word is now used by those who have no belief 
 in his existence. In Chronicles it is said, "And Satan 
 stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number 
 Israel." In the Second Book of Samuel, the same 
 transaction is spoken of in the following terms : — "And 
 again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, 
 and he moved David against them, saying. Go, number 
 Israel and Judah." It does not appear that any thing 
 
276 ADAM AND CHRIST. 
 
 more was meant by this, than there was in the New Tes- 
 tament, by John, in spealiing of the betrayal of Jesus by 
 Judas Iscariot, — " the Devil having put it into the heart 
 of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him." The 
 only devil needed in this case seems to have been the 
 evil passions of covetousness and revenge. 
 
 But it may be said, that such doctrines as these will 
 destroy the authority of the Bible. I answer, that such 
 doctrines as these will save the authority of the Bible. 
 
 It has been thought by some, that the best way to pre- 
 serve the authority of the Bible is, to lay down dogmati- 
 cally the plenary verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, 
 and then brand as heretics and denounce as infidels all 
 who call it in question. The next step is to draw up a 
 set of articles of faith, and incorporate them into a sys- , 
 tem of church government, and excommunicate and si- 
 lence all those who do not assent to them. But as light 
 increases, this can have no other effect than to drive away 
 the honest and the well-informed, and to embrace only 
 the timid and the ignorant, till, by demanding too much 
 for the Bible, the Church will procure its rejection alto- 
 gether. The cause of the Bible is weakened when its 
 advocates are seen to fight against facts, or to give expla- 
 nations of them which are wholly unsatisfactory. The 
 truth can do no injury to any honest cause. 
 
 Rationalism must run its course, and the sooner the 
 better. The thing most to be lamented is, that it did not 
 begin earlier. With better principles of Biblical expo- 
 sition, such a man as Edwards would have been of im- 
 mense advantage to the Church and to the world. As it 
 was, his whole life was spent in striving to reconcile with 
 reason and justice doctrines which are plainly contradic- 
 tory to both, merely because, finding them in the Bible 
 
ADAM AND CHRIST. 277 
 
 in the shape of allusions or illustrations, he thought it es- 
 sential to the honor of the Scriptures that they should 
 be . sustained. The force of this man's mind, thus 
 wrongly directed, has kept back the Christian world for 
 half a century. 
 
 It is in vain to represent, as he did, the opposition 
 which the human heart makes to Calvinism as originating 
 in the native depravity of man. It is in vain to say that 
 it is natural enmity of the human heart to God which 
 makes us reject with abhorrence the doctrine of the Di- 
 vine Sovereignty, which means nothing more nor less than 
 the acbitrary choice of some men to salvation, and of oth- 
 ers, of precisely the same character, to everlasting woe. 
 It is not native depravity which leads to the rejection of 
 such a doctrine as this. It is the native rectitude of the 
 human soul, which instinctively abhors injustice. The 
 mind which could acquiesce in such a doctrine would 
 show the highest evidence of deep depravity, — a con- 
 nivance at injustice. And it is a remarkable and a sig- 
 nificant fact, that no one acquiesces in the doctrine of 
 election until after he has reason, in his own estimation, 
 to believe himself among the elect. Then he is ready 
 to acknowledge the justice of a decree which saves him- 
 self, no matter how many millions it condemns. 
 
 Quite as unsatisfactory is the method of disposing of 
 ralionahsm adopted by the German pietists. "A Chris- 
 tian consciousness," say they, "receives the doctrine of 
 the Fall, and its kindred dogmas, because it most natu- 
 rally explains the inward corruption which every Chris- 
 tian feels in himself and witnesses in the world." But 
 this, if it means any thing, must mean, that Christianity 
 teaches doctrines which cannot be believed until a man 
 becomes a Christian. Such a representation is an out- 
 24 
 
278 ADAM AND CHRIST. 
 
 rage, not only on logical consistency, but on common 
 sense. Faith, in Scripture, is represented to be the very 
 agency by which a man becomes a Christian. But this 
 representation makes it necessary for a man to become 
 a Christian before he can have faith. 
 
 Such representations as these afford no effectual bar to 
 the progress of rationalism. For the question immedi- 
 ately recurs. What is human reason ? It is the reason of 
 all mankind in that condition in which God creates them. 
 It is not the reason of a few, who profess to have re- 
 ceived especial illumination. Their judgments can be no 
 legitimate authority to the rest. 
 
 It may be justly said, that the relation which faith 
 bears to reason forbids the subordination of reason to faith. 
 Faith must be founded on reason, or it is mere credulity. 
 Reason is placed as a sentinel at the entrance, to deter- 
 mine what is to be admitted as truth into the mind, and 
 acted on as such. It is one of the chief offices of reason 
 to decide what is to be believed, and what is to be re- 
 jected. It is just as hurtful and just as dangerous to 
 believe too much as too little. 
 
 The consciousness of sinfulness is no legitimate proof 
 that it had its origin in a transgression of Adam thousands 
 of years ago ; and the supposition that it did so is in- 
 consistent with God's justice. Reason objects to such 
 an explanation. But reason makes no objection to the 
 supposition that, being created free and in a state of pro- 
 bation, mankind have fallen from innocence by a misuse of 
 the powers which God has given them. 
 
DISCOURSE XVII. 
 
 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 FOR THE SON OF MAN IS COME TO SAVE THAT WHICH WAS LOST. HOW 
 THINK YE ? IF A MAN HAVE AN HUNDRED SHEEP, AND ONE OF THEM 
 BE GONE ASTRAY, DOTH HE NOT LEAVE THE NINETY AND NINE, AND 
 GOETH INTO THE MOUNTAINS, AND SEEKETH THAT WHICH IS GONE 
 ASTRAY ? AND IF SO BE THAT HE FIND IT, VERILY I SAY UNTO 
 YOU, HE REJOICETH MORE OF THAT SHEEP, THAN OF THE NINETY 
 AND NINE WHICH WENT NOT ASTRAY. Matt. Xviil. 11, 13. 
 
 It is the object of this discourse to inquire into the re- 
 lation of the mission of Christ to mankind and to human 
 nature. One of the titles of Christ is " Saviour." He 
 is called "the Saviour of the world." In our text he 
 declares of himself, that he came " to save that which 
 was lost." 
 
 In most of the theologies which are now extant in the 
 world, the work of Christ is thought mainly to consist in 
 working a change in human nature. The assertion that 
 Christ is the Saviour of the world conveys to most 
 minds the implication that the world was lost. And be- 
 ing lost is supposed to imply, not only that all mankind are 
 sinful in their actions, but that their nature itself is fallen, 
 
280 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 changed, and deteriorated from what it once was. The 
 great office of Christ is the restoration of human nattcre to 
 what it would have been, if Adam had never sinned. 
 This of course amounts to a change in the structure and 
 facuhies of the human soul. Adam ruined human na- 
 ture. Christ has restored it. 
 
 To this view of things there are many weighty objec- 
 tions. In the first place, the sin of Adam is said to have 
 made mankind mortal. If he had not sinned, men would 
 have been either immortal on earth, or they would have 
 been translated as Enoch and Elijah were. Supposing 
 this were the fact, did Christ restore mankind to their 
 primitive condition in this respect .'' Have not all man- 
 kind died, including Christ himself.' 
 
 But did Adam destroy mankind morally, so that they 
 are all lost to virtue and salvation ? Such an arrange- 
 ment would have been the most appalling act of injustice 
 that the human mind can possibly conceive. But that 
 state of things is denied by the express language of the 
 New Testament. Peter declares, that " God is no re- 
 specter of persons ; but in every nation he that feareth 
 him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." 
 Paul declares, that "God will give eternal life to all, 
 both Jew and Gentile, who, by a patient continuance 
 in well-doing, seek for glory, honor, and immortality." 
 If this be so, Christ could not have come to remove any 
 impediment in human nature, in order to make eternal life 
 attainable, for it was attainable before. Mankind then 
 are not lost, in the sense of being in such a condition as to 
 make eternal life unattainable. 
 
 In the second place, I say, that the main office of 
 Christ had nothing to do with changing human nature. 
 The main office of Christ was that of a Teacher. One 
 
SALVATION BY CHRIST. 281 
 
 of his first public acts was to deliver the Sermon on the 
 Mount. "And he opened his mouth and taught them, 
 saying, Blessed are the poor in sph-it, for theirs is the 
 kingdom of heaven." 
 
 Teaching has no power to change human nature. It 
 has power to change character. Nature and character 
 are two things entirely different. The nature of any 
 thing is the constitution which God has given it. The 
 nature of a good man is not different from the nature of 
 a bad man. Character is created by voluntary action. 
 It will be either good or bad, according to the volun- 
 tary choice of what is good or bad. Nature cannot be 
 changed without miracle. Christ wrought miracles, not 
 to change any man's moral character or moral nature, but 
 only to change physical nature. His miracles were in- 
 tended to affect man's moral character indirectly, by pro- 
 ducing faith, belief in what he taught, and consequent 
 obedience to his precepts. 
 
 But the very fact, that the Saviour's main business was 
 teaching, contradicts the hypothesis of moral inability, 
 derived from original sin or total depravity. What does 
 the very fact of teaching suppose in those who are taught ? 
 It implies a perception of that which is right, which ap- 
 proves of what is true and good. It implies a Sense of 
 obligation, which always accompanies the perception of 
 that which is right, or it would be of no use to present 
 truth and goodness to the mind. It implies a power to 
 act according to them, or teaching itself would be vain 
 and absurd. Human nature surely could not have fallen 
 far, if it still possessed the power of being profited by 
 teaching, the power of perceiving what is good and right, 
 the power of feeling the obligation of doing what is right, 
 and the power of actual obedience. 
 24* 
 
282 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 Had there been in man a moral inability to all that is 
 good, it must have rendered preaching wholly vain and 
 nugatory ; and had Christ come into the world for the 
 purpose of remedying the effects of the Fall, furnished 
 as he was with miraculous power, the first thing he would 
 have done, preliminary to preaching, would have been 
 miraculously to restore the moral natures of those who 
 were to listen to him to the condition from which they 
 had fallen in Adam, and in which they might have been 
 profited by his teaching. 
 
 Christ's conduct supposes moral ability. What was 
 his language ■ upon this subject, and what are the im- 
 plications contained in it ? Does his language imply 
 that all mankind were lost, in the sense in which he 
 came to save them ? Let us turn to the words of the 
 text. " For the Son of Man came to save that which 
 was lost. How think ye .'' If a man have an hundred 
 sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave 
 the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and goeth into 
 the mountains and seeketh that which is gone astray ? 
 And if so be that he find it, he rejoiceth more of that 
 sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not 
 astray." 
 
 The 'flock represents mankind, so far as Christ was 
 concerned with them. And can all mankind be said to 
 be lost, when ninety-nine out of a hundred had never 
 wandered, and only one hundredth part was lost ? And 
 the wandering away was an individual act, and no fault of 
 nature. If the doctrine of the Fall were true, then the 
 whole flock were lost, not by wandering away, but by 
 constilutional disease or defect of nature. 
 
 That this is the real meaning of the parable is made 
 certain by an addition that is subjoined to it by Luke. 
 
SALTATION BY CHRIST. 283 
 
 " I say unto you, that joy shall be in heaven over one 
 sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine 
 just persons which need no repentance." 
 
 In further illustration of his office and his relation to 
 mankind, and of mankind to God, he goes on to frame 
 another parable, that of the prodigal son. The points 
 of this parable are exceedingly significant in relation to 
 our subject. Mankind are here represented by tveo sons. 
 Only one of them wanders away and is lost. And he wan- 
 ders away. He is not lost by nature. He became cor- 
 rupted, for all the time that he was in his sinful career he 
 was not in his right mind ; he was beside himself, or, as 
 we say, infatuated. He was not in his natural state, for 
 it is said of him, "And when he came to himself, he 
 said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread 
 enough and to spare .' " If a sinful state bad been his nat- 
 ural state, he never could have been more himstlf than 
 when indulging most extravagantly in the worst of vices. 
 The other brother, who, according to the structure of this 
 parable, represents at least one half of the human race, 
 had never wandered away, had never become corrupted. 
 He avers uncontradicted, — " Lo, these many years do 
 I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy com- 
 mandment." The father, who represents God, admits 
 the claim. " Son, than art ever with me, and all that I 
 have is thine." Both the brothers started alike, not in a 
 state of depravity, but of obedience. One loent astray, 
 and was recovered. " This thy brother was dead, and 
 is alive again, he was lost and is found." 
 
 On another occasion, it is related, — "And it came to 
 pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many 
 publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and 
 his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said 
 
284 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 unto his disciples, Why eateth your master with publicans 
 and sinners ? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto 
 them. They that he whole need not a physician, but 
 they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that mean- 
 eth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice : for I am not 
 come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." 
 
 It is said by those who deny that there are any right- 
 eous, that Christ did not mean to assert that there are or 
 were any such persons as are here denominated the right- 
 eous, but that he intended to cast a sneer upon the self- 
 righteousness of the Pharisees. To me, however, it 
 does not seem to comport with the dignity and ingenu- 
 ousness of Christ's character, to represent him as re- 
 sorting to irony and sarcasm on an occasion so solemn. 
 He did come to call the self-righteous, that is, the hypo- 
 crites, to repentance, as the worst species of sinners. 
 Indeed, his mission was especially to them. He could 
 best appreciate, detect, expose, and cure their hypocrisy. 
 
 In the third place, I inquire. What was the object 
 of Christ's ministry, and its effects upon mankind ? Ac- 
 cording to his own representation, it was not to change 
 human nature, hut to form or change human character. 
 The object of Christ's mission is most clearly stated in 
 his last prayer with his disciples. " Thou hast given him 
 power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as 
 many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, 
 that they might knoio thee the only true God, and .Jesus 
 Christ whom thou hast sent." " For I have given unto 
 them the words which thou gavest me, and they have re- 
 ceived them." At another time, he said to his disciples, 
 — " Now ye are clean through the word which I have 
 spoken unto you." On another occasion, — " I am come 
 a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me 
 should not abide in darkness." 
 
SALVATION BY CHRIST. 2S5 
 
 If there were in mankind such an absence of all good, 
 and such an incapacity of it and repugnance to it, as are 
 represented to have been induced by the Fall, it could 
 not have been the source of eternal life to them to be 
 taught to know God and Christ. If their natures had been 
 essentially depraved, the more they knew of God and 
 Christ, the more they would have hated them. Christ 
 says expressly, that it was his teaching which had 
 cleansed his disciples. It was not by any direct influ- 
 ences upon their nature that they were changed. The 
 means used with them were all moral means. Eleven 
 out of twelve of the disciples became strongly attached 
 to their master. Had it been their nature to hate that 
 which is good, and love only that which is evil, then it 
 would have been wholly impossible for them to have 
 loved Christ at all. Judas Iscariot was the only one 
 who did not love his master, and he, being but one of 
 twelve, must be considered the exception and not the 
 rule. Taking the disciples as the representatives of hu- 
 man nature, we must conclude, as eleven out of twelve 
 of them formed an attachment to Christ, that it is the 
 nature of man to love that which is good. What they 
 want is, not change of nature, but moral culture, perfect 
 teaching and perfect example. 
 
 In Christ's last prayer, the doctrine of moral ability 
 is asserted. " I have given them the words which thou 
 gavest me, and they have received them." Nothing is 
 said of any moral ability imparted to them by which they 
 were enabled to receive Christ's words. If that moral 
 ability were the cause of their reception of Christ's words, 
 then we have a right to suppose that it was uithheld 
 from Judas Iscariot, and if so, he is unjustly censured. 
 
 The object of Christ's mission is variously stated in 
 
286 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 the New Testament, but it is never made to consist in 
 changing human nature. " Thou shalt call his name Je- 
 sus, for he shall save his people," — from what ? from 
 their corrupt nature by changing their constitution ? — 
 no, — but '■'■from their sins." " Him hath God exalted 
 to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give unto lerael," — 
 what? a renovated nature, moral ability? — no, — but 
 ^^ repentance and remission of sins." "The grace of 
 God hath appeared unto all men," — for what purpose ? 
 to give them a new moral nature, to restore the ruins of 
 the Fall ? — no, — but ^'teaching us that, denying un- 
 godliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, 
 righteously, and godly in this present world." 
 
 Finally, we inquire. What were the obstacles which are 
 represented as preventing the efficacy of Christ's teach- 
 ing and the success of his mission ? Were they in hu- 
 man nature itself, or in those Dices which had been super- 
 induced upon human nature ? I begin with a remarka- 
 ble passage in Christ's conversation with Nicodemus. 
 "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into 
 the world, and men love darkness rather than light," — 
 why ? because their natures were bad ? — no, — but 
 " because their deeds were evil." They had no constitu- 
 tional repugnance to light, but that repugnance had been 
 superinduced by evil deeds. In that case, they are to 
 blame for their repugnance ; in the other case they would 
 not have been.' 
 
 " But as many as received him, to them gave he power 
 to become the sons of God." The moral change by 
 which they became the sons of God, that is, good men, 
 did not precede their reception of Christ, but was the 
 consequence of it. If the doctrine of moral inability 
 were true, they would have been incapable of receiving 
 
SALVATION BY CHRIST. 287 
 
 Christ until their natures were changed, and they had 
 become sons of God, — ceased to have a nature which 
 hated all that was good and loved all that was evil, and 
 received a nature which loved all that was good and hat- 
 ed all that was evil. 
 
 "A sower," which was no other than Christ himself, 
 " went forth to sow. And when he sowed, some seeds 
 fell by the way-side, and the fowls came and devoured 
 them up. Some fell upon stony places, where they had 
 not much earth ; and forthwith they sprung up, because 
 they had no deepness of earth ; and when the sun was 
 up they were scorched, and because they had no root 
 they withered away. And some fell among thorns ; and 
 the thorns sprung up and choked them. But other fell 
 into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hun- 
 dred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold." 
 
 This variety of conditions in those who received the 
 word contradicts the idea of human nature's having a uni- 
 form and invincible moral inability. Had such been the 
 case, the only true representation of all the hearers of 
 the word would have been as one uniform, bare, and bar- 
 ren rock, upon which nothing whatever could germinate 
 or grow. There could be no good ground in human na- 
 ture. That there was any, asserts moral ability, the 
 very point which we are endeavouring to establish. Be- 
 sides, Christ himself gives an exposition of this parable. 
 By the fowls which came and devoured it up, he signi- 
 fies the Devil. But the agency of the Devil certainly 
 cannot mean any part of human nature. If human na- 
 ture hates all good and loves all evil, it can want no 
 devil to tempt it. " He that received the'word into stony 
 places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon 
 with joy receiveth it. Yet hath he not root in himself, 
 
288 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 but dureth for a while ; for when tribulation or persecu- 
 tion ariseth because of the word, by and by he is of- 
 fended." It is human weakness which is here made the 
 cause of failure, not a constitutional repugnance to truth 
 and goodness. For this man received the word loith 
 joy. " He also that received seed among the thorns is 
 he that heareth the word ; and the cares of this world, 
 and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other 
 things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh un- 
 fruitful." Here, too, there is no implication of any vi- 
 ciousness of nature. The only phrase that looks at all 
 like it is, "the lusts of other things." Lusts of other 
 things means inordinate desires ; not that the desire is 
 criminal in itself, but the degree of it. Men could not 
 exist without desires, any more than a watch could move 
 without a spring. Appetite is necessary to prevent us 
 from starving. The desire of property is necessary to 
 induce people to provide for their wants. It may become 
 inordinate, and then it becomes sin. 
 
 From these numerous citations, I believe we may 
 safely draw the conclusion, that Christ is not called the 
 Saviour with reference to any thing like what is denomi- 
 nated the Fall in Adam, or the lost and ruined condition 
 of human nature ; but solely with reference to the de- 
 pravity which every man produces in himself by the 
 abuse of a nature which is of itself good. 
 
 His office as a teacher supposes the presence of that 
 moral ability, which the doctrine of the Fall supposes to 
 be lost. Without the presence of that moral ability, 
 which the doctrine of the Fall supposes to be absent, his 
 very office would have been absurd. 
 
 The only impediments which he represents his Gos- 
 pel as meeting in the world are, not constitutional, but 
 
SALVATION BY CHRIST. 289 
 
 voluntary. These arguments are all the stronger for be- 
 ing purely incidental. They are taken for granted in 
 every thing which Christ said and did. They place the 
 Gospel upon a solid and substantial, because a rational, 
 foundation, and free it from the appearance of paradox 
 and extravagance which it wears when encumbered with 
 the dogma of the Fall and its kindred doctrines. We 
 see in what a rational, intelligible sense Christ is the 
 Saviour of the world, in redeeming it from the dominion 
 of sin and from the slavery of evil habit intp the glorious 
 liberty of the sons of God. 
 
 Various relations to mankind have been assigned to 
 Christ by different systems of theology, and according to 
 different interpretations put upon the words of Scripture. 
 A consistent exposition of the Bible, according to the 
 Trinitarian hypothesis, makes Christ to be the Creator 
 of mankind, or at least of Adam and Eve. According 
 to that hypothesis, the Logos, or the Word, in the first 
 chapter of the Gospel of John, is identical with Christ, 
 and at the same time with the second person of the 
 Trinity. There it is said, ^^ All things were made by 
 him, and without him was not any thing made that was 
 made." Adam and Eve were among the things which 
 were made, therefore Adam and Eve were made by 
 Christ. 
 
 But it is not probable that Adam would be made by 
 one being and his posterity by another. It would fol- 
 low, that Christ is the Creator of all mankind. He who 
 creates, naturally preserves and governs all mankind. 
 If so, Christ is all the God we know, and the only God 
 who has any relation to us. 
 
 But this immediately interferes with the scheme of 
 Atonement, which makes a part of the same system of 
 25 
 
290 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 theology. According to that scheme, it is the second 
 person of the Trinity who interposes between God and 
 his offending creatures. But, according to this hypoth- 
 esis, mankind are the creatures of Christ. He there- 
 fore interposes between himself and his own creatures, 
 and must make an atonement to himself. But we have 
 proof positive that the disciples as a body, and John, of 
 course, among the rest, did not regard Christ as the Cre- 
 ator of any thing, for, after the resurrection and the de- 
 scent of the Holy Ghost, we hear them join in such an 
 act of worship as this : — " And when they heard that, 
 they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and 
 said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and 
 
 earth, and the sea, and all that in them is And now, 
 
 Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy ser- 
 vants that with all boldness they may speak thy word, 
 by stretching forth thy hand to heal, and that signs and 
 wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child 
 Jesus." 
 
 Neither could Christ have been the God of provi- 
 dence, for he himself prayed to another Being, who was 
 the God of providence. " Wherefore if God so clothe 
 the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is 
 cast into the oven, how much more shall he clothe you, 
 O ye of little faith." He taught his disciples to say in 
 
 their prayers, "Our Father which art in heaven, 
 
 give us this day our daily bread." The same Being he 
 called his Father. " I ascend to my Father and your 
 Father, to my God and your God." 
 
 After such expressions, it is wholly impossible to sus- 
 tain the proposition for a moment that Jesus Christ was 
 the Creator of the human race. 
 
 Another system of divinity makes Christ to have been 
 
SALVATION BY CHRIST. 291 
 
 a subordinate, though exalted being, who interposed for 
 man at his fall and undertook his redemption, and was 
 the person who appeared to the patriarchs, and was 
 the medium of Divine communication with the prophets, 
 and finally became incarnate and suffered in man's stead. 
 The proofs of this hypothesis, however, are very slight. 
 The person who appeared to Moses, as he fed his flock 
 in the desert, gave his name as " I am," or .Tehovah, the 
 highest, most personal and abstract name of the Supreme 
 Being. He, moreover, says that he is the same Being 
 who had spoken to the ancestors of Moses four centuries 
 before. " I am the God of Abraham and the God of 
 Isaac and the God of Jacob." Christ himself quotes 
 this very passage in the New Testament, and applies it to 
 that Being whom he calls his Father and his God. If he 
 himself were that Being who spake to Moses and the 
 patriarchs, it was certainly great disingenuousness, to say 
 the least, for him to speak of him as another being. 
 
 Moreover, this whole hypothesis seems plainly to be 
 disproved by the language of the author of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews. " God, who at sundry times and in di- 
 vers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the 
 prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his 
 Son." If this hypothesis were true, God spake to man- 
 kind in both instances by his Son. Jesus implies that 
 he did not give the law when he says, " Ye have heard 
 that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not com- 
 mit adultery ; but / say unto you, that whosoever looketh 
 on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery 
 with her already in his heart." 
 
 Another relation which Christ is said to sustain to the 
 human race is, that of atoning for the sins of all man- 
 kind. In proof of this are quoted such passages as this 
 
292 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 from the second chapter of John's First Epistle : — 
 " And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the 
 Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is a propi- 
 tiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins 
 of the whole world." 
 
 The expression upon which the meaning of this pas- 
 sage turns, so far as the subject which we are discuss- 
 ing is concerned, is, " </ie whole world." There are 
 three possible meanings to this expression in this connec- 
 tion. It may mean, that Christ expiated the sins of all 
 mankind, and placed thetn in the same, condition in 
 which they would have been if neither they nor their 
 first progenitors had sinned. In that case, the whole 
 human race, when they appear before God's judgment- 
 seat, have only to plead the atonement made by Christ, 
 and they will be acquitted. In that case, admitting thd 
 representative character of Adam, it would be true in a 
 spiritual sense, " As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive." This, of course, leads to the 
 doctrine of universal, unconditional salvation. Those 
 who hold the highest conceptions of atonement do not 
 believe this. 
 
 It may mean, that all good men, as well they who 
 lived before Christ, or who never heard of him, as those 
 who have received his religion, are saved by his atone- 
 ment. But there is very slender ground for this opinion. 
 The mercy of God to the penitent in the Old Testament 
 is made to depend on no such condition as the atonement 
 of Christ. Various sacrifices were commanded to be of- 
 fered by the penitent in testimony of their repentance, 
 and the Divine pardon is promised them, free and unre- 
 strained by any further condition of an atonement by Christ. 
 
 God is everywhere represented as intrinsically mar- 
 
SALVATION BY CHRIST. 293 
 
 ciful. " God is love." " Thou art a God full of com- 
 passion, and gracious, long-suiFering, and plenteous in 
 mercy." " Who is a God like unto thee, who pardon- 
 est iniquity .-' " There is no impediment in the way of 
 the forgiveness of the sinner, except his own impeni- 
 tence. This is clearly taught in the parable of the prod- 
 igal son. There is no intimation in the Old Testament 
 that the sacrifices which are there appointed had any 
 thing to do with procuring God's forgiveness, for they 
 were appointed by God himself. They could not have 
 procured God's mercy, for they must have originated in 
 his mercy. Nothing can possibly be cause and effect at 
 the same time. So the atonement of Christ, however it 
 may be explained, did not procure the mercy of God to 
 be extended to the penitent, for the whole mission of 
 Christ originated in the mercy of God. " For God so 
 loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." 
 
 There remains a third sense of the expression, " the 
 whole world," which makes it to mean all mankind, both 
 Jews and Gentiles, to whom the Gospel is addressed. 
 The Gospel makes it possible for all men to obtain sal- 
 vation through faith, repentance, and obedience. It 
 seems wholly unnatural and improbable that Christ should 
 have any thing to do with those who never heard of 
 him. This sense of the expression, " the whole world," 
 seems fully corroborated by the fact, that salvation by 
 Christ is always connected with "faith" or "belief," 
 as in the very passage which I have just quoted: — 
 " For God so loved the world, that he gave his only be- 
 gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his 
 Son into the world to condemn the world, but that 
 through him the world might be saved. He that believ- 
 25* 
 
294 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 eth on him is not condemned ; but he that believeth not 
 is condemned already, because he hath not believed in 
 the name of the only begotten Son of God." 
 
 The meaning of the word " world " is limited, as all 
 words are, by the connection in which it stands. " The 
 world " must be restrained, by the words " that whoso- 
 ever believeth on hira," to so many of mankind as, hav- 
 ing the opportunity, should or should not believe in 
 Christ, that is, all to whom the Gospel is preached. 
 
 There is another passage, in which Christ is called a 
 propitiation, which corroborates the view here taken. 
 It is found in the third chapter of Romans. " Whom 
 God hath set forth^to be a propitiation through faith in 
 his blood, to declare his clemency in the remission of 
 sins that are past." The expression in this passage on 
 which its meaning turns, so far as the point we are dis- 
 cussing is concerned, is^ ^^ through faith jrn his blood." 
 Now, no one can have faith in the blood of Christ, what- 
 ever the phrase may signify, who never heard of him. 
 All the sacrificial language of the New Testament is 
 founded on a tacit comparison of the New Testament 
 with the Old. The relation of man to God as a sinner 
 is one of the principal ideas of all religion. The provis- 
 ion for the awakening of penitence in man, and for the 
 assurance of pardon on the part of God to the penitent, 
 must make a part of all religions. Sacrifices, on the oc- 
 casion of making covenants, were common among man- 
 kind long before the time of Moses. The two parties 
 to a treaty made a common sacrifice, and each partook 
 of it. So, in the Jewish ritual, the assurance of the 
 pardon of the penitent was symbolized in the perpetually 
 recurring sacrifices, particularly on the day of annual 
 atonement. One party to the covenant of forgiveness 
 
SALVATION BY CHRIST. 295 
 
 was the people, and the other was God. The nearest 
 representative of God was the Ark of the covenant in 
 the holy of holies, containing the tables of stone on which 
 were inscribed the ten commandmenis, and the book of 
 the law. Accordingly, at the offering of the sacrifice, on 
 the day of atonement, the high-priest went into the holy 
 of holies bearing a part of the blood of the sacrifice, and 
 sprinkled it upon the lid of the ark. As the Ark thus 
 became the symbol of the Divine presence, God him- 
 self was imagined to have his throne there, and the lid of 
 the Ark acquired the name of the mercy-seat, and the 
 very word is used which was afterwards applied to 
 Christ in the New Testament and rendered propitia- 
 tion. 
 
 In the New Covenant, provision is likewise made for 
 the forgiveness of sin. Christ himself came as God's 
 special ambassador of mercy, to offer pardon on the con- 
 dition of repentance and reformation. His death was the 
 confirmation of his mission, and as he died upon the 
 cross, his blood was the seal of the New Covenant. 
 
 When illustrating the New Covenant by the Old, a 
 Jew would naturally say, that Christ himself was the 
 mercy-seat of the new dispensation, Christ's death the 
 great sacrifice of the new and universal Israel of God. 
 Christ himself, as the symbol of God's mercy, bore the 
 same relation to the Christian Church, as assuring them 
 that God was willing to pardon the penitent, that the 
 mercy-seat, annually sprinkled by the high-priest, did to 
 God's ancient people, the Jews. Christ himself, consid- 
 ered as a sacrifice, as he did in fact offer himself up for 
 human good, bore the same relation to all mankind that 
 the sacrifices of the Mosaic ritual did to one particular 
 people. 
 
296 SALVATION BY CHRIST. 
 
 Hence the expression of the Apostle John, " And he 
 is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but 
 for the sins of the whole world " ; referring, of course, 
 not to those who lived before Christ, or to those who 
 never heard of him, but to all that part of mankind who 
 were the subjects of the new dispensation, in contradis- 
 tinction to the Jews, who were the exclusive subjects of 
 the old. 
 
 Such, then, is the real relation which Christ sustains 
 to mankind. He is the pledge of the immortality of all. 
 He is the cause of spiritual life to all who believe on him 
 and obey him. 
 
DISCOURSE XVIIL 
 
 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 
 
 THEREFORE IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATURE: OLD 
 THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY ; BEHOLD, ALL THINGS ARE BECOME 
 
 NEW. — 2 Cor. V. 17. 
 
 The change from Judaism to Christianity, or from 
 Paganism to a belief in Christ, or from a condition of in- 
 difference or irreh'gibn to practical and earnest piety, is 
 spoken of in the New Testament in strong language. It 
 is called, as in the passage I have just quoted, a new cre- 
 ation. " If any man be in Christ," which means, if any 
 man be a Christian, "he is a new crealuri : old things 
 are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 
 In another place, nearly the same language is used : — 
 " For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus 
 unto good works, which God hath before ordained that 
 we should walk in them." In another place) — " That ye 
 put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, 
 which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be 
 renewed in the spirit of your mind ; and that ye put on 
 the new man, which after God is created in righteousness 
 and true holiness." Does such language as this assert 
 
293 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 
 
 a moral or a constitutional change, — a change of nature 
 or a change of character ? It has been asserted, that 
 the change here spoken of is constitutional, not moral, 
 — a change corresponding to that which took place in 
 human nature at the Fall. And of course it asserts, by 
 implication, that human nature is constitutionally de- 
 praved, and must be created anew, in order to have even 
 the capacities for religion. A new creation, it may be 
 affirmed, is the strongest language that could possibly be 
 used. 
 
 There is another manner of speech in the New Tes- 
 tament which may be said to have the same bearing, that 
 by which the change from Judaism to Christianity, and 
 to religion from irreligion, is called regeneration, or being 
 born again. It is conspicuous in Christ's conversation 
 with Nicodemus. " Verily I say unto thee, except 
 a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born 
 of water and spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which 
 is born of spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee. 
 Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it list- 
 eth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
 whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every one 
 that is born of the spirit." From these expressions, the 
 same conclusion is drawn, as to the condition of human 
 nature, of its constitutional depravity. Another idea is 
 added to it, that oi moral inability, — that the change from 
 irreligion to religion is brought about by an agency that is 
 above man, and altogether independent of his will ; as 
 much so as the motions of the atmosphere, which are not 
 only beyond the control of man, but wholly beyond his 
 knowledge. In confirmation of this view, another pas- 
 
SPIRITUAL EENOVATION. 299 
 
 sage is quoted : — " Which were born, not of blood, nor 
 of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
 God." In another passage, the agent in regeneration 
 is said to be the word of God. " Being born again, not 
 of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of 
 God, which liveth and abideth for ever." Paul says to 
 the Corinthians, — " For though ye have ten thousand in- 
 structors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers, for in 
 Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel." 
 
 Now it may be asked, Does not such language as this 
 assert, or at least imply, that the change from irreligion 
 to religion is a constitutional change, a change of human 
 nature itself, and not only a change of its habits and ex- 
 ercises .'' And does it not assert, that this change is 
 brought about by superhuman agency, and one to which 
 man is naturally incompetent ? I answer, in the first 
 place, that there are strong moral objections to this. It 
 seems wholly inconsistent with the moral attributes of 
 God. If God be omnipotent, at the same time that he 
 is wise and just, it was certainly in his power to have 
 created man capable of religion. Religion, as far as 
 we can see, is the highest end of human existence ; and 
 if man be created an immortal being, it is the only thing 
 capable of making him happy here and hereafter. It is 
 not antecedently probable that an almighty, wise, and good 
 Being would have made man immortal, and withheld 
 from him this crowning attribute, the power to love, obey, 
 and please his Maker. Existence, with the capacity to 
 evil, and without the capacity to good, is not a blessing. 
 It dooms man inevitably to misery in this life, and if he 
 be immortal, to everlasting misery in the world to come. 
 Such a proceeding would be an infinite injustice. 
 
 God exercises a moral government over man in this 
 
300 SPIRITUAL EENOVATION. 
 
 life. He does this in several different ways. He 
 directly rewards some actions, and punishes others. He 
 rewards industry, temperance, sobriety, with plenty, 
 health, and peace. He punishes indolence, intemper- 
 ance, and passion with want, disease, and disquiet. Now 
 this is unjust, if there be an essential defect in human na- 
 ture. Man is treated as if he were suspended in an even 
 balance between good and evil. If a weight is secretly 
 thrown into the scale, which turns it always towards evil, 
 then he is not placed in a condition of fair moral proba- 
 tion. Is it said, that Adam was made so at first, and 
 his fall changed human nature .'' I answer, that he could 
 have had no such power of changing human nature, ex- 
 cept by especial Divine appointment, and so through 
 Divine agency. 
 
 God rewards and punishes men in tliis life, through 
 iheir own consciences. " I have done right, when I 
 might have done wrong." He who can make this reflec- 
 tion is made happy by it. "I have done wrong, when 
 I might have done right." He who is conscious of this 
 is made unhappy. But both of these reflections are de- 
 ceptions, unless man be really free to good and evil. 
 This consciousness exists in the human mind by Divine 
 arrangement, and if it is not true, then God himself de- 
 ceives us, — rewards one for that which he did not pro- 
 duce, and punishes the other for that for which he is 
 not to blame. 
 
 Men are rewarded and punished in this life through 
 the agency of each other. One man sees another do an 
 act which he judges to be wrong. He spontaneously 
 condemns both the act and the agent. One he calls. sin, 
 and the other guilty. He does this upon the strength of 
 the supposed identity of human nature. He judges that 
 
SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 301 
 
 his neighbour has the same nature and capacities with him- 
 self. He believes that he has a moral sense, and is 
 free to choose between good and evil. He punishes the 
 guilty under the impression that the guilty deserve it. It 
 is by Divine appointment that he has these sentiments con- 
 cerning his neighbour, and these sentiments are some of 
 the means which God has appointed to punish the sin- 
 ner. If man be not free to good and evil, then these 
 sentiments are unjust, the conduct to which they lead is 
 unjust, and God is the author of the injustice. 
 
 The retribution which men exercise towards each 
 other in this life is based upon the supposition, that they 
 are free to good as well as evil. If freedom is necessary 
 to the justice of rewards and punishments in the every- 
 day morahty between man and man, so must freedom to 
 what is religiously good or evil be necessary to the jus- 
 tice of future rewards and punishments. Man cannot be 
 justly punished for his want of religion, if he has no ca- 
 pacities for religion, and it is necessary for him to be 
 created anew in order to possess religious capacities. 
 All those who are not created anew, having no religious 
 capacities, have no religious responsibilities. 
 
 And yet we are told in the Scriptures, that God will 
 exercise the same retribution in the world to come that 
 he does here. " They that have done good shall come 
 forth to the resurrection of life, and they that have done 
 evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." 
 
 The interpretation, then, which would make the re- 
 creation and regeneration spoken of in the New Testa- 
 ment to be a change of constitution, has against its proba 
 bility the evidence of consciousness, the integrity of the 
 moral government of God in this life, and the unchange- 
 able demands of eternal justice. These considerations 
 26 
 
302 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 
 
 all require that we interpret these phrases figuratively, 
 and consider them to mean a moral change which is vol- 
 untary, — a change of character, and not a change of 
 nature. 
 
 Let us now consider the several passages in which 
 they occur. " If any man be in Christ, he is a new 
 creature. ^^ To be in Christ, in .the New Testament, 
 generally means to be a true Christian. Paul says of 
 himself, " I knew a man in Christ, about fourteen years 
 ago " ; that is, I knew a believer in Christ. On another 
 occasion, " Salute Andronicus and Junia, who were in 
 Christ before me "; that is, were converted to Christianity 
 before me. The meaning, therefore, is, " If any man be 
 a Christian, he is a new creature." And how is he a 
 new creature .' By a change of nature } " Old things 
 are passed away ; behold, all things are become new." 
 What things are passed away ? Nothing within man 
 which is constitutional passes away. Nothing passes 
 away but his views, purposes, feelings, and habits ; false 
 views, wrong, purposes, vicious feelings, wicked habits, 
 pass away, and are succeeded by just views, right pur- 
 poses, religious emotions, and virtuous habits. The test 
 of this interpretation is this. Is this change represented 
 as being voluntary or involuntary ? A new creation 
 cannot be voluntary, a moral change can. Let us com- 
 plete the paragraph. " And all things are of God, who 
 hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath 
 given to us the ministry of reconciliation ; to wit, that 
 God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not 
 imputing their trespasses unto them ; and hath committed 
 unto us the word of reconciliation. Now, then, we are 
 ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you 
 by us ; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye recon- 
 
SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 303 
 
 ciled to God." What is the agency which God is 
 represented as exercising in this case ? Is it direct, 
 and on the nature of man ? Then no intermediate 
 agency would have been necessary. It is through Christ, 
 as an ambassador, and through his ministers, and is to be 
 brought about by persuasion, — " we pray you." Per- 
 suasion and creation are two different things, and incon- 
 sistent with each other. 
 
 I now take up the next passage in which this phrase- 
 ology occurs, — " We are his workmanship, created in 
 Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before 
 ordained that we should walk in them." Here, as be- 
 fore, the agency by which men are created anew is not 
 immediate, such as it would be if an organic, constitu- 
 tional change of nature were meant ; but it is through 
 Christ, and of course is a moral change, and a change of 
 character, brought about through the mediation of Christ. 
 The influence which Christ has exerted in the world is 
 moral, through teaching and persuasion ; is exercised 
 through the will of man, and not independently of it. 
 
 The only other passage in which this phraseology oc- 
 curs is this : — " That ye put off concerning the former 
 conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to 
 the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your 
 mind ; and that ye put on the new man, which after God 
 is created in righteousness and true holiness." Here, 
 again, ^^ putting off the old man," and ^^ putting on the 
 new man," is represented as a perfectly voluntary act. 
 But if God creates a man anew, in a literal sense, his will 
 has no more to do with it than it had with his first creation. 
 The new man is not a new nature, which no man can put 
 on, but the new character which Christians were enabled 
 to form by the aid which they derived from Christ and his 
 
304 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 
 
 religion. For he goes on to say, " Wherefore, putting 
 away lying, speak every man truth to his neighbour." 
 Now if a man was literally created anew, so that his con- 
 duct was the necessary result of an altered nature, instead 
 of the new control which a Christian was able to ejjer- 
 cise over his old nature, there would have been no need 
 for such an exhortation as this. 
 
 An analysis of the passages in which the word create 
 occurs, in connection with the change from irreligion to 
 religion, shows that the word is used in a figurative, and 
 not a literal sense, and therefore that no inference is to 
 be drawn from it to prove the constitutional viciousness 
 of human nature. 
 
 We now come to the figure of " being born again." 
 This mode of speech in the New Testament is derived 
 from the fact, that the Israelites were called " the sons," 
 or "children of God," in virtue of being God's chosen 
 people. Moses says to them, — " Ye are the children 
 of the Lord your God. Ye shall not cut yourselves, 
 nor make any baldness between your eyes, for the dead. 
 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and 
 the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto 
 himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." 
 Accordingly, in after ages, when a proselyte was made 
 from the heathen, he was adopted among God's people 
 or children by circumcision and baptism. He took a 
 new name, and renounced his former kindred and con- 
 nections, and became, by adoption, one of the children 
 of Abraham, one of the children of God. Christ came 
 to institute and propagate a universal religion, which 
 should confer on all mankind who should believe on him 
 and embrace his religion the same privileges which were 
 before restricted to the Jews. The Jews resisted this 
 
SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 305 
 
 extension of tlieir peculiar privileges, and thought it prof- 
 anation. 
 
 This adoption of the Gentiles is first hinted at in the 
 introduction to the Gospel of John. " He came to his 
 own, and his own received him not. But as many as 
 received him, to them gave he power to become the sons 
 of God, even to them that believe on his name, which 
 were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
 of the will of man, but of God." Those who believed 
 in Christ became " the sons of God," in the same sense 
 that the Jews had been, that of being a holy people, 
 not because they were descended from Abraham, not 
 because they had been adopted by the Jews into the 
 number of the chosen people, but because God of his 
 own free will and pleasure had chosen to bring them into 
 the same relation by faith in Christ. But you will re- 
 mark, what is decisive of the point we are considering, 
 that their being born again is the consequerlte, not the 
 cause, of their believing on Christ. "But as many as 
 received him, to them gave he power to become the sons 
 of God." The new birth, then, was a moral and a volun- 
 tary change, not a constitutional one, brought about by 
 their faith in Christ, and not by the immediate act of God. 
 
 The new birth is the main topic of Christ's conversa- 
 tion with Nicodemus. Nicodemus came to Christ by 
 night, without openly professing his faith in him as the 
 Messiah, and acknowledged his belief in his prophetic 
 character. There was something disingenuous in this. 
 But his conduct had its excuses. He was disappointed 
 in the character which Jesus assumed, as an humble, spir- 
 itual teacher, instead of a powerful ruler and triumphant 
 conqueror. As a Jew he considered himself entitled to 
 all the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom, whatever 
 26* 
 
306 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 
 
 they might be, without any external or spiritual change, 
 by virtue of his being a Jew and a descendant of Abra- 
 ham. Jesus immediately proceeded to set him right 
 upon these points. " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
 except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom 
 of God." Christianity is a new religion, separate and 
 independent ; it is not a mere supplement to Judaism. 
 It requires as marked a change for a Jew to become a 
 Christian, as for a heathen to become a Jew. Nicode- 
 mus is astonished at this, and asks, " How can a man 
 be born when he is old ? can he enter the second time 
 into his mother's womb, and be born .'' " We Jews 
 are already the people of God ; we are God's children 
 by birth, by being the descendants of Abraham. How 
 can we be any more the children of God than we are .'' 
 " Jesus answered. Except a man be born of water awi 
 spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That 
 which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of 
 spirit is spirit." The children of God, according to the 
 old dispensation, are those who are of the lineal and 
 bodily descent from Abraham. The children of God 
 under the new, are those whose birth is of the spirit, 
 who are spiritually renewed, and who have become right- 
 eous in the sight of God. 
 
 " Marvel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be 
 born again. The wind," (the same word in Hebrew 
 and Greek signifies both wind and spirit,) " the wind 
 bloweth where it listetb, and thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither 
 it goelh ; so is every one that is born of the spirit." 
 The spiritual part of man is free. His body belongs to 
 a tribe or nation, and his descent is not within his own 
 choice. A man cannot say whether he will or will not 
 
SPlRITtJAL RENOVATION. 307 
 
 belong to the descendants of Abraham, but he can say 
 whether he will or will not become the child of God, 
 by possessing that spiritual character which alone cau 
 make a man a true child of God. If you are sincerely 
 desirous of becoming my disciple, go and be publicly 
 baptized ; make an open profession of my religion. But 
 this is not enough. Baptism of the body signifies noth- 
 ing, without the baptism of the spirit. It signifies that 
 hereafter you are to live a pure and holy life, — the soul 
 is to be subjected to the requisitions of the Gospel. 
 
 It is not the purpose of Christ to assert any natural in- 
 capacity of man for religion, which some foreign power 
 must be called in to remedy, for he puts being " born 
 again," or being " born of the spirit," in the same cate- 
 gory with being baptized, which is certainly a voluntary 
 act, and within the compass of human faculties. " Unless 
 a man be born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter 
 into the kingdom of God." His object is the very con- 
 trary, — to assert ihe freedom of the human soul, a free- 
 dom like that of the wind, which bloweth where it listeth, 
 and that the spiritual qualifications for the kingdom of God 
 are equally attainable by those who are born without, as 
 by those who are born within, the lineage of Abraham. 
 
 Peter states the agent of regeneration to be the word 
 of God : — " Being born again not of corruptible seed, 
 but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and 
 . abideth for ever." But the Aposiles did not maintain 
 that the word of God was irresistible, or that any man 
 was affected by it further than he chose to be. Paul de- 
 clared to the Corinthians, that he was their spiritual 
 father, that " he had begotten them through the Gospel." 
 This, of course, referred to no change of nature, but 
 only to a change of character, produced by a change of 
 
308 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 
 
 religion, — by a conversion from Paganism to a belief 
 in the Gospel. 
 
 We have now examined and analyzed the principal 
 passages in which the spiritual change of becoming a 
 Christian is denominated a new creation, a regeneration, 
 &c., and I submit it to those who hear me, if there is 
 one of those passages which implies that there is intended 
 by that phraseology any constitutional change of human 
 nature, or any change brought about by supernatural 
 agency. It is a change of character, and not of human 
 nature ; a change brought about by the free exercise of 
 the human will, and not independently of it. It is 
 brought about by the moral power of the Gospel, and 
 not by the immediate, supernatural power of God. 
 
 By this exposition, the appearance of the grossest in- 
 justice and partiality is removed from the Divine govern- 
 ment, and the imputation of insincerity from the offers 
 and promises of the Gospel. The grace of God in the 
 Gospel does not cast reproach on the dealings of God 
 with those whom he has left to the light of nature. 
 The gift of Christ and his Gospel to the world was an 
 act of God's free grace, and was an unspeakable privi- 
 lege to those to whom the Gospel was preached, but did 
 not shut out from his favor those who had never heard 
 the Gospel, but had been faithful to the light of nature. 
 But God saw fit to interpose for the benefit of those who 
 had been unfaithful to the light of nature, and had lost . 
 the knowledge of the true God, and gave them another 
 chance of salvation through Christ. Hence the propriety 
 of such language as this, which has caused so much per- 
 plexity in the theological world. " But God, who is 
 rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 
 even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us togeth- 
 
SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 309 
 
 er with Christ (by grace are ye saved) ; and hath raised 
 us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly 
 places in Christ Jesus ; that in the ages to come he might 
 show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness to- 
 wards us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye 
 saved, through faith ; and that not of yourselves ; it is the 
 gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. 
 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus 
 unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we 
 should walk in them." That is to say, our regeneration 
 through Christ is a moral regeneration, whereby we are 
 raised from a state of spiritual death and insensibility ; 
 what is evil in us is subdued, what is good is quickened, 
 and we are raised, by our spiritual resenablance to Christ, 
 to a fitness for the companionship of our Saviour, and 
 the spirits of just men made perfect. 
 
 Such, very nearly, were the doctrines of the universal 
 Christian Church for the first four centuries, in relation to 
 human nature and Divine grace. The modern doctrine 
 of human inability was unknown before it was broached 
 by Augustine, in the beginning of the fifth century. 
 
 The history of this doctrine, in my judgment, is some- 
 what different from what has been supposed by either 
 the defenders or the opponents of the doctrine of original 
 sin. .Qll the Fathers previous to Augustine maintained 
 the freedom of the human will, and the ability of man 
 by nature to choose that which was right. And so did 
 Augustine himself, until he was carried to extremes by 
 his controversy with Pelagius. He says himself that he 
 was induced to change his opinion, and give up the free- 
 dom of the human will, chiefly by the text in the fourth 
 chapter of First Corinthians. " For who maketh thee 
 to differ from another .'' and what hast thou that thou 
 
310 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION, 
 
 didst not receive ? Now if thou didst receive it, why- 
 dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it ?" But 
 any one who examines this passage in its connection will 
 perceive that it has no reference to the human will or 
 human ability. It refers to personal gifts and endow- 
 ments by which one man differs from another, and which 
 led to the formation of parties in the Christian Church in 
 favor of one teacher and in opposition to another. 
 
 " By this argument chiefly," says he, "I was con- 
 vinced, when I held the common error, — when I 
 thought that the faith by which we believe in God is not 
 the gift of God, but of us and in us, and by it we obtain 
 those gifts of God by which we live temperately, justly, 
 and piously in this world. For I did not think that faith 
 was consequent upon the grace of God, that through it 
 we might obtain what is to our advantage, in any other 
 sense than that we could not believe unless the Gospel 
 of truth was preached to us. But / thought that it was 
 in our power to consent to the Gospel, whenever it should 
 be preached to us. Which error of mine not a few of 
 my smaller treatises sufficiently indicate, which I wrote 
 before my elevation to the bishopric." 
 
 But, on the other hand, it is no less true that Pela- 
 gius and Celestius did innovate upon the doctrine of the 
 Church, or rather, it might be more properly said, upon 
 an opinion handed down in the Church from the Jews, 
 but making no part of its essential doctrines. The 
 Church held that human nature had been injured by the 
 fall of Adam, to the extent at least of becoming mortal. 
 This Pelagius denied, in common with those who are 
 called Arminians and Liberal Christians in our own day. 
 It was in combating this innovation that Augustine was 
 led to adopt ultra views on the other side, and to affirm 
 
SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 311 
 
 that human nature was not only injured by the Fall, but 
 so far injured as to lose all freedom of the will to any 
 thing that is spiritually good. In deciding between these 
 two innovators, the Western churches, with Pope Zozi- 
 mus at their head, espoused the cause of Augustine, and 
 adopted his ultra sentiments, and thus entailed them on 
 after ages. 
 
 But it is certain that the Fathers before his day held 
 to no such doctrine. Ignatius, a contemporary of the 
 Apostles, says, — " I do not speak of two natures of men, 
 but that the one man is sometimes of God, sometimes of 
 the Devil. If one be pious, he is a man of God ; but if 
 any man be impious, he is a man of the Devil, being 
 made so, not by nature, but by his own will." 
 
 Clement of Rome says, — " Let us search into all 
 ages, and learn that our Lord has in every one of them 
 given opportunity for repentance to all such as are will- 
 ing to turn to him." 
 
 Justin Martyr, one hundred and forty years after Christ, 
 says, — "And again, if mankind had not the power by 
 free will to avoid what is disgraceful, and to choose what 
 is good, they would not be responsible for their actions. 
 But that man does what is right and what is wrong by his 
 own free choice, we thus prove, — we see the same per- 
 son passing from one thing to that which is contrary to 
 it." In another place, — " Neither do we say that men 
 act or suffer according to fate, but that every one does 
 rightly or sins according to his choice. Because God 
 from the beginning endowed men and angels with free 
 will, they will justly receive punishment for their sins in 
 everlasting fire. For this is the nature of every one that 
 is born, to be capable of virtue and vice ; for nothing 
 would be deserving of praise if it had not the power of 
 turning itself either way. " 
 
312 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 
 
 Tatian, in the year after Christ 172, says, — " Free 
 will destroyed us. Being free we became slaves ; we 
 were sold because of sin. No evil proceeds from God. 
 We have produced wickedness ; but those who have 
 produced it have it in their power again to renounce it." 
 
 Irenaeus, about the year of Christ 178, says, — " The 
 expression, 'How often would I have gathered thy chil- 
 dren together, and ye would not,' manifested the ancient 
 law o{ human liberty, because God made man free from 
 the beginning, having his own power, as he had also his 
 own soul, to use the sentence of God voluntarily, and not 
 by compulsion from God. For there is no force with 
 God, but a good intention is always in him. And there- 
 fore he gives good counsel to all. But he has placed the 
 power of choice in man, as also in angels, for angels are 
 endowed with reason, that those who should obey might 
 justly possess good, given, indeed, by God, but pre- 
 served by themselves." 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 194, — "His will is 
 that we should be saved by ourselves. This, then, is the 
 nature of the soul, to move by itself. Then we, who are 
 rational, philosophy itself being rational, have some rela- 
 tion to it. Fitness, indeed, is a tendency to virtue, but 
 it is not virtue. Ml men, then, as I said, are qualified 
 by nature for the acquisition of virtue." 
 
 TertuUian, A. D. 200, — "Therefore, though we 
 have learned from the commands of God both what he 
 wills and what he forbids, yet we have a will and power 
 to choose either, as it is written, ' Behold, I have set 
 before you good and evil ' ; for you have tasted of the 
 tree of knowledge. Therefore , that which is subject 
 to our own will, we ought to refer to the will of God : 
 he who wills no evil, wills that we have a will." 
 
SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 313 
 
 Origen, A. D. 230, was a strong defender of the free- 
 dom of the will. " This also is settled in the doctrine 
 of the Church," says he, " that every rational soul has 
 free will, and that it has to contend against the Devil and 
 his angels, and the powers which oppose it, because they 
 strive to burden it with sins ; but we, if we live rightly 
 and prudently, endeavour to rescue ourselves from this 
 kind of burden. Whence, consequently, we may under- 
 stand that we are not subject to necessity, so as to be 
 compelled by all means to do either bad or good things, 
 although it be against our will. For if we be masters of 
 our own will, some powers, perhaps, may urge us to sin, 
 and others assist us to safety, yet we are not compelled 
 by necessity to act either rightly or wrongly." 
 
 Cyprian, A. D. 248, — " Nor should any one wonder 
 that a servant of Christ set over his flock is deserted by 
 some of them, since our Lord himself was deserted by 
 his disciples, at the very time when he was performing 
 the greatest miracles, and displaying the power of God 
 the Father by the testimony of mighty works. And yet 
 be did not reprove those who left him, or threaten them 
 severely, but rather, turning to his disciples, said, ' Will 
 ye also go away .' ' preserving the law by which man, 
 being left to his own liberty, and endowed with free will, 
 seeks for himself death or salvation." 
 
 Lactantius, A. D. 306, — " But because God is mer- 
 ciful and kind towards his creatures, he sent him (Christ) 
 to those very persons whom he hated, that the way of 
 salvation might not be for ever shut against them, but that 
 he might give them a free power to follow God, that they 
 might obtain the reward of life if they did follow him, 
 which many of them do and have done, and that, through 
 27 
 
314 SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 
 
 their own fault, they might incur the punishment of death 
 if they should reject their King." 
 
 Eusebius, A. D. 315, — " The fault is in him who 
 chooses, not in God. For God has not madB nature or 
 the substance of the soul bad ; for he who is good can 
 make nothing but what is good. Every thing is good 
 which is according to nature. Every rational soul has 
 naturally a good free will, formed for the choice of that 
 which is good." 
 
 Athanasius, A.D. 326, — " For the knowledge and 
 accurate comprehension of the way of truth, we have need 
 of nothing but ourselves. Not as God is above all 
 things, so is the way which leads to these things remote 
 or extraneous to ourselves, but it is in ourselves, and it 
 is possible to find its beginning in ourselves." 
 
 Cyril of Jerusalem, A.D. 348, — "The soul has 
 free will ; the Devil, indeed, may suggest, but he has no 
 power to compel contrary to will. He suggests the 
 thought of fornication ; if you be willing you accept it, if 
 unwilling you do not accept it. For if you committed 
 fornication by necessity, why did God prepare hell ? 
 If you acted justly by nature, and not according to your 
 own free choice, why did God prepare unutterable re- 
 wards ? " 
 
 Thus it is that the Fathers testify with one voice, 
 down to the time of Augustine. A large volume might 
 be filled with quotations just like these. 
 
DISCOURSE XIX, 
 
 WHAT IS IMPLIED IN THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 OF CHILDREN. 
 
 AND, YE FATHERS, PROVOKE NOT YOUR CHILDREN TO WRATH ; BUT 
 BRING THEM UP IN THE NURTDRB AND ADMONITION OF THE LORD. 
 
 — Eph. vi. 4. 
 
 The patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian relig- 
 ions agree in recommending and enjoining the religious 
 education of children. " I know him," said God of 
 Abraham, " that he will command his children and his 
 household after him, and they shall keep the way of the 
 Lord, to do justice and judgment ; that the Lord may 
 bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." 
 
 Said Moses to the Israelites, — " Hear, O Israel ; the 
 Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, 
 and with all thy might. And these words, which I com- 
 mand thee this day, shall be in thine heart. And thou 
 shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt 
 talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when 
 thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and 
 when thou risest up." 
 
 In the midst of the successful administration of the 
 
316 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 Old Dispensation, the wisest of mankind declares, 
 " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he 
 is old he will not depart from it." Here is the highest 
 testimony to the practical success of the religious train- 
 ing of the young. 
 
 In the New Testament, the same religious education 
 of the young is made a part of Christian duty. They 
 are to be " trained up in the nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord." The power of such education is abundantly 
 testified in the case of Timothy, one of the most emi- 
 nent of the early Christians. "And that from a child 
 thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to 
 make thee wise unto salvation." His father was a Greek, 
 and of course from him he could have received no relig- 
 ious training. But this deficiency was amply made up 
 in the diligence and example of the mother, and, perhaps, 
 the grandmother. " When I call to remembrance the 
 unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy 
 grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice, and I am per- 
 suaded that in thee also." 
 
 Accordingly, in the first ages of the Christian Church, 
 the most careful provisions were made for the religious 
 education of the young in the principles of the Gospel. 
 There were officers in the Church, very nearly corre- 
 sponding to our Sunday-school teachers, called Cate- 
 chists, whose business it was to instruct the rising gener- 
 ation. This was in fact the real reason for the introduc- 
 tion of sponsors, or godfathers and godmothers, in the 
 early Church at the ceremony of baptism. They were 
 considered as additional security for the performance of 
 that which baptism signified and promised, the religious 
 and Christian education of the child. The history of 
 practical religion has borne testimony to the wisdom and 
 
KELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 317 
 
 necessity of this arrangement. Much the largest num- 
 ber of those who have been true Christians, in successive 
 ages, have been religiously educated. 
 
 I have taken up this subject to-day, not only for the 
 purpose of commending the religious education of the 
 young, but to examine the bearing which the fact that 
 such a duty is inculcated has upon the essential con- 
 stitution of human nature, as to its capacity of relig- 
 ion. My object is to inquire if it do not take for 
 granted the essential integrity of human nature, — that it 
 is capable from the first of loving and obeying God. 
 For my own part, I have no doubt on this subject. 
 
 If human nature, in its original state, is incapable of 
 religion, and does not begin to be capable of it till it is 
 supernaturally changed by the immediate power of God, 
 then this arrangement for the religious education of the 
 young, — of all the young, — is absurd on the part of 
 man, and deceptive on the part of God. 
 
 It is taught, over a large part of the Protestant world, 
 that every child that is born into the world is created 
 with such a constitutional corruption of nature, that "he 
 is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all 
 that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, 
 and that continually. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, 
 hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good 
 accompanying salvation." 
 
 Now let us bring the command and the doctrine to- 
 gether. A being who is so corrupt at his birth, that he 
 is " indisposed, disabled, and made .opposite to all that 
 is spiritually good," is commanded, " Thou shall love 
 the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy 
 soul, and with all thy might." How can such a com- 
 mand be possibly fulfilled .'' But the Lawgiver goes on, 
 27* 
 
318 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 — " And these words, which I command thee this day, 
 shall be in thine heart, and thou shall teach them dili- 
 gently unto thy children." 
 
 Such teaching, as long as they retain the nature with 
 which they were born, can do them no possible good. 
 They are ^^ wholly disabled " from complying with the 
 commandment. They are made " opposite " to all that 
 is spiritually good. God is spiritually good, in the highest 
 degree. It is a moral impossibility for them to love that 
 to which they are made constitutionally opposite. There 
 must always be a correspondence between an affection 
 and its object. Teaching a child about God is the most 
 direct way to make it hate him, if it is an essential prop- 
 erty of human nature to hate every thing that is good. 
 But here we have the command, " Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart," " and thou shalt dili- 
 gently feac/i, these words unto thy children." Who does 
 not see that the command is wholly inconsistent with the 
 doctrine ? The command is found in the Bible, in the 
 plainest and most unequivocal language. The doctrine 
 is not found in the Bible. It is made, by great straining 
 and induction, an inference from certain passages of the 
 Bible, which, as we have seen in preceding discourses, 
 in reality teach a very different doctrine. 
 
 But not only is there an opposition of affection, but 
 an impotence of will. " Man by his fall into a state of 
 sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual 
 good, accompanying salvation, so as a natural man, be- 
 ing altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is 
 not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to 
 prepare himself thereunto." "When God converts a 
 sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he 
 freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his 
 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 319 
 
 grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that 
 which is spiritually good." What is the use, then, of a 
 religious education, if it can lead to no practical result, 
 — if the child will not be made by it to commit one sin 
 less, nor to perform one duty more ? The difficulty in 
 him is not any thing that education can touch or remedy. 
 It is a difficulty of nature. Education cannot change 
 nature. It can only develop, train, and discipline na- 
 ture. Religious education is the education of man's 
 religious nature. But if this doctrine be true, he has no 
 religious nature. He had a religious nature before the 
 Fall, but he has^ had none since. His whole nature is 
 irreligious, or anti-religious. All the education you can 
 give a man is to educate what is in him. If his lohole 
 nature is irreligious, the more you educate him in any 
 way, the more irreligious he becomes. A religious edu- 
 cation has no tendency to produce conversion, for it is 
 expressly said, that nothing which a natural man can do 
 has any effect even to prepare him for conversion. It is 
 the prerogative of God to convert the sinner, and to trans- 
 late him into a state of grace. Previously to this, he is in a 
 state of bondage to sin by nature. Education cannot 
 free him from that bondage. God alone, who made his 
 nature, and suffered it to become ruined, can do that. 
 
 And yet fathers are commanded to bring up their 
 children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and 
 the Israelites were commanded to teach the Mosaic law 
 diligently to their children, and Solomon promises, 
 " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when 
 he is old he will not depart from it." 
 
 But without a change of nature, all this training must 
 be wholly useless. It is utterly impossible that religious 
 education should take effect in a nature wholly impotent 
 
320 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 to all good and capable only of evil. We are brought, 
 therefore, to this dilemma, — either the doctrine is not 
 true, or the commands of God are nugatory and decep- 
 tive. We cannot suppose a God of truth to have de- 
 ceived mankind in three successive revelations. We 
 .therefore conclude that the doctrine is not true. We 
 have, moreover, the strongest reasons for thinking that 
 those who have asserted this doctrine did not believe if 
 themselves. Many of them v?ere careful to give their 
 children a religious education, and actions speak louder 
 than words. Whatever may have been their theory 
 concerning human nature in general, they did not believe 
 that their own children were incapable of any good, and 
 capable only of evil. They taught them to pray. But 
 if they really believed their own theory, and had a thor- 
 ough conviction that their children's hearts naturally hat- 
 ed every thing that is good, they would have been con- 
 scious that they were teaching their children to add to their 
 other wickedness the most daring and consummate hy- 
 pocrisy. They taught them to say, " Our Father, which 
 art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Now, if there 
 be a real and bitter opposition in the child's heart to 
 every thing that is spiritually good, it can have no desire 
 that God's name should be hallowed, but rather that it 
 should be desecrated in every possible way. They are 
 taught to say, " Thy will be done." But nothing can 
 be farther from their desire. If there be this constitu- 
 tional repugnance between the human heart and God, re- 
 ligious instruction not only can do no good, but will be 
 . the occasion of stirring up the most violent and malig- 
 nant passions in the soul. 
 
 But these very parents, who profess to believe these 
 theories concerning human nature, endeavour to teach 
 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 321 
 
 their children, while yet in the state of nature, to love 
 God, and in order to do so, they teach them that he is 
 good. But if it is their nature to hale every thing that 
 is good, this is their shortest way to teach them to hate 
 God. 
 
 They teach their children the commandments, but 
 that knowledge of the commandments makes them no 
 nearer to obeying them. Want of knowledge is not 
 their difficulty, it is inability of will.- "Man by the Fall 
 lost all abihty of will to any thing that is spiritually 
 good." Teaching has no power or tendency whatever 
 to remove that inability, or to restore the power of willing 
 what is good. The difficulty is constitutional. There is 
 no power in education to change the constitution. There 
 is no power to change the constitution, short of conver- 
 sion, and God alone, according to this very theory, can 
 convert a man. Nothing that any human being can do 
 can convert himself, or prepare himself thereunto. 
 
 The reason which God gives why he chooses Abra- 
 ham as the father of the faithful is, " I know him that 
 he will command his children and his household after 
 him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do jus- 
 tice and judgment." What is the implication of this 
 language .' It certainly is, that the children and house- 
 hold of Abraham had religious capacities, were capable 
 of obeying his commandment and of keeping the way of 
 the Lord . All they required was being commanded, — 
 was receiving a religious education. There is nothing 
 said of their having a nature at all different from that of 
 the rest of the human race. 
 
 Solomon says, " Train up a child in the way that he 
 should go, and when he is old he will not depart from 
 it." " The way that he should go," means that he shall 
 
322 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 be a religious man. But if man in his natural state has no 
 capacity for religion, this precept is absurd. It is not 
 in any parent's power to train up his child in the way he 
 should go, for it is not in his power to change his nature. 
 He is incapable of going in the right way. He cannot 
 get into it, nor can be put into it, nor continue in it. 
 
 Paul exhorts fathers to " bring up their children in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord " ; but to what pur- 
 pose, if their natures be unsusceptible of good. Is it 
 at all credible that those beings are unsusceptible of good, 
 whom the Saviour took up in his arms and blessed, and 
 declared, that of such is the kingdom of God ? 
 
 What says experience upon this subject .' It has been 
 found in all ages of the iChurch, that a large majority of 
 those who have become members of the visible Church, 
 and, as far as human penetration can discover, members of 
 the true invisible Church, have been those who have re- 
 ceived a religious education. It is sometimes said, that 
 the reckless sinner is nearer the kingdom of God than a 
 pure, moral man. But I scarcely know a saying that 
 is more untrue or more pernicious. Every Sunday 
 school is a contradiction to this doctrine. Are habits of 
 sin nothing .'' Hear the prophet Jeremiah upon this sub- 
 ject : — "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leop- 
 ard his spots ? then may ye also do good that are accus- 
 tomed to do evil." " The promise," says the Apostle, 
 "'-'is unto you and your children." But in no .other way 
 can this be true than by education, 'by bringing them up 
 in the knowledge and practice of Christian principles, as 
 is seen by the event. Even if it were allowed that God 
 makes an arbitrary selection of the heirs of salvation, 
 and supernaturally changes the natures of a part of man- 
 kind, and experience teaches us that he makes the selec- 
 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 323 
 
 tion usually among those who have been religiously edu- 
 cated, there remains the same motive to bring up our 
 children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 
 
 But the necessity of the assertion of such a cruel and 
 unjust doctrine as that of personal election grows en- 
 tirely out of another doctrine, the constitutional corrup- 
 tion of human nature. That doctrine itself reflects as 
 great dishonor on the Divine character as the doctrine of 
 election. We have seen, in the preceding discourses, 
 that it has no adequate support in the Scriptures. All 
 the implications of the Scriptures are against it. This 
 one especially, of the commandment to give our children 
 a religious education. They everywhere suppose the 
 capacity of religious action to commence at once. In- 
 telligent existence is marked in the Bible by the dawning 
 of the power to choose between good and evil. " For 
 before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose 
 the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of 
 both her kings." To choose the good because it is 
 good, is a religious act under all circumstances, and is ac- 
 ceptable in the sight of God. How do we know that .' 
 We know it from the fact, that choosing what we know 
 to be evil is sin under all circumstances. If, when the 
 choice is presented to me to do right or wrong, it is 
 counted a sin to me if I do wrong and not counted a 
 merit if I do right, then God's government is not just. 
 He is a tyrant. He makes me continually run the most 
 imminent peril of my soul, without any corresponding 
 benefit. I am not placed in a state of fair moral proba- 
 tion. I am made capable of sin, but incapable of virtue. 
 I am born totally depraved, under the wrath and curse of 
 God, and liable to the pains of hell for ever, and yet am 
 capable of becoming indefinitely worse, but incapable of 
 
324 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 growing better by any thing that T can do. A more op- 
 pressive and iniquitous arrangement of things cannot pos- 
 sibly be conceived. 
 
 A young man came to Christ, on a certain occasion, 
 and said to him, " Good Master, what good thing shall 
 I do that I may have eternal life ? " What was the Sav- 
 iour's answer ? Did he tell him, that the first thing that 
 was necessary for him, as preliminary to all religious ac- 
 tion, was, that his nature must be changed, as he ought 
 in candor to have done if such were the fact ? No ; he 
 tells him, " If thou wouldst enter into life, keep the 
 commandments.'" A wiser answer was never given. 
 The best religious discipline, the most effectual way to 
 grow spiritually better, is to keep the commandments. 
 Without this endeavour, all other means of religious im- 
 provement are employed in vain. The first step is not 
 to ask God to change your nature, for you cannot make 
 such a request without reproaching your Maker, whom 
 you intend to worship. It is to do faithfully and consci- 
 entiously the first duty that cometh to hand, and resist 
 the first temptation that offers itself. " If thou wouldst 
 enter into life, keep the commandments." 
 
 Finally, what are the objects of a religious education ? 
 They are, in the first place, to quicken religious sensibil- 
 ity. Religion is a" sentiment of the human heart, a feel- 
 ing of awe and veneration for the true, the just, the holy, 
 and the pure. No human being is born without it. That 
 sentiment is cultivated by contemplating objects which 
 possess these moral qualities. It is certain that this ven- 
 eration for what is good is a constituent element of hu- 
 man nature, for it is expressed in the very structure of 
 every language under heaven. It is recognized in all 
 histories in which one man speaks of the deeds and 
 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 325 
 
 character of another. It is recognized in all fictitious 
 literature, which is written to meet the universal senti- 
 ments of mankind, and depends for its success on its be- 
 ing a true copy of what is in man. These qualities of 
 truth, justice, holiness, and purity are concentrated in 
 their perfection and without alloy in the character of 
 God. In the Sacred Scriptures, these qualities are 
 brought out and expressed as they are in no other book. 
 In the character of Christ they are combined as they 
 have been in no case within the compass of history. 
 They were exhibited, in a less perfect degree, in the 
 characters of the eminent saints in the Old Testament 
 and ihe New. The history of the Christian Church is 
 adorned by many examples of high moral and spiritual 
 attainment. 
 
 Religious education brings these high examples to 
 bear upon the mind, and thus calls forth, exercises, and 
 strengthens the religious sentiment in the heart. It is 
 found by actual experiment, that children trained up in 
 this way do conceive a reverence for sacred things, 
 do form a devotional taste, do take pleasure in religious 
 engagements. The religious susceptibility must be horn 
 in man, or it could not thus be cultivated. 
 
 In the second place, religion is a principle of action. 
 There is in human nature intrinsically such a thing as 
 conscience. There is in all souls a perception of duty, 
 and a feeling of obligation. The conscience is capable 
 of any degree of cultivation. In childhood and youth 
 the conscience is especially tender and susceptible of 
 culture. It is cultivated by sympathy. By associ- 
 ating with those who are careful and scrupulous in their 
 conduct, and who are visibly governed by the principles 
 of integrity, the child learns to reverence as sacred what- 
 28 
 
326 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 ever his own conscience assures bim is right. Principle 
 manifests itself in action ; action hardens into habit, and 
 habit consolidates into character. 
 
 Conscience is educated and made more imperative 
 by the experience of life. The dictates of conscience 
 are constituted by God to correspond to the nature of 
 things. But what is wrong appears more atrocious as it 
 is seen in its consequences. The consequences of hard- 
 ened depravity become awfully impressive when exhib- 
 ited to the tender sensibilities of the young. 
 
 One of the chief purposes of revelation is to quicken 
 and enlighten the conscience. Almost the whole of the 
 hundred and nineteenth Psalm is a declaration of this 
 effect, repeated in every possible variety of expression. 
 And such was the flood of light which Christ threw 
 upon human duty, that he said of the Jews, " If I had 
 not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin ; 
 but now they have no cloak for their sin." 
 
 It was by teachings not by changing, men's natures, 
 that Christ was to regenerate the world. "As thou hast 
 given him power over all flesh, that he should give eter- 
 nal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is 
 life eternal, that they might know thee the only true 
 God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." " For I 
 have given unto them the words which thou gavest me." 
 " Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy word is truth." 
 
 There is no power in truth to change human nature, 
 and no power in truth to regenei-ate a nature which is 
 constitutionally bad. I do not go too far, then, when I 
 say, that the precepts concerning the religious educa- 
 tion of children, both in the Old and New Testaments, 
 take for granted the essential rectitude of human nature, 
 and directly contradict and disprove the theory of the 
 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 327 
 
 constitutional depravity of man. They suppose man to 
 commence existence in a state of innocence, and to be 
 capable, by right training and faithful self-discipline, not 
 only of maintaining innocence, but of attaining the high- 
 est virtues, the love and esteem of mankind here, and 
 glory, honor, and immortality in the world to come. 
 
 But in opposition to all this, it may be asked. Is it not 
 a common complaint, all over the world, that it is very 
 difficult to bring up children right ? Do not children be- 
 come vicious under the best training .'' Does not the 
 Scripture say, "A child, left to himself, bringeth his 
 mother to shame ? " How can this be admitted without 
 confessing that there is a greater inclination to evil than 
 to good ? I answer, in the first place, in the language 
 of Cyril of Jerusalem, whom I quoted in the last dis- 
 course, — " If you acted justly by nature, and not by your 
 own choice, why did God prepare unutteraHe rewards .'' " 
 The merit of choosing good seems to arise entirely 
 from the possibility of choosing evil. Moral responsi- 
 bility seems to arise from the nicest balance of the con- 
 stitution between good and evil. Such a constitution, 
 of course, involves great danger, particularly in the form- 
 ing period of life, when the feelings are susceptible and 
 the judgment weak. Children are easily led astray, 6c- 
 cause they are easily led. 
 
 But the same susceptibility that lays them open to bad 
 impressions makes them fit subjects of education, and 
 alive to good influences ; and this is the real reason of 
 the urgency of the Divine commandments, both of the 
 Old and New Testaments, to give children a careful re- 
 ligious education, — that they are capable of deep and 
 lasting impressions. The child, it is true, is easily per- 
 verted, but the very language which is spontaneously used 
 
32S RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 concerning it by people of all opinions, shows that it be- 
 gins life pure. A bad child is usually called a spoiled 
 child, or a perverted child, and the spontaneous declara- 
 tion which is made on seeing an exhibition of immorality 
 in the young is, " That child had a bad education " ; 
 and all the language used concerning it shows that evil 
 is supposed to have been introduced from without, in- 
 stead of springing up unbidden within. 
 
 The first requisite to the right bringing up of a child, 
 is to keep him out of bad company, that is, of those 
 who have become corrupted. This, of course, supposes 
 the child to be pure, or there would be no danger. If 
 the child were depraved by nature, he could be in no 
 worse company than his own. His sympathies are 
 strong, and reflection is not yet developed. The prin- 
 ciple of imitation is active, for the very purpose of mak- 
 ing education easy. It is absolutely necessary, there- 
 fore, that he should be kept from the society of the 
 wicked. But that strong sympathy and active imitation 
 make the child the best possible subject for religious ed- 
 ucation. God has committed this great and momentous 
 office chiefly to the parents, and has provided for its 
 right discharge by the strongest motives of affection and - 
 interest. Parental affection, one of the deepest in our 
 nature, is bound by every motive to inculcate upon the 
 young religious principles, and there are no lips from 
 which religious instructions come with so much power as 
 those which are inspired by a parent's love. And if they 
 are enforced by a corresponding example of Christian 
 simplicity and true piety, they are seldom given in vain. 
 There is no richer or more grateful soil on earth than 
 the religious nature of a child, and the reason why there 
 are no more Samuels in the world is, that there are no 
 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 329 
 
 more Hannahs " to lend theoi to the Lord as long they 
 should live," — to give them a religious education. 
 
 The argument urged by the Augustinians against the 
 Pelagians was wholly invalid, that there must be such a 
 thing as original sin, because infants were baptized. 
 They could have no other sin, it was said, except orig- 
 inal sin to wash away. They could not be regenerated 
 unless their nature required a change. 
 
 But the truth is, that the baptism came to signify 
 something very different in the Church, after Christianity 
 was fully established, from what it did during its struggle 
 with Paganism. The reason why so much stress is laid on 
 baptism in the New Testament, — as where Christ says, 
 " Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he can- 
 not enter into the kingdom of God," and " He that believ- 
 eth and is baptized shall be saved," — was not that bap- 
 tism was any thing in itself, but because it was a form 
 of initiation into the Christian Church, and brought the 
 subject of it within Christian influences, — the society of 
 the faithful, religious teaching, and public devotion ; it 
 commenced a course of spiritual discipline which was to 
 fit them for heavenly happiness. By it they professed 
 repentance for their sins, and the purpose of leading a 
 religious life. But if a man believed and was not bap- 
 tized, the probability was that he would fall back among 
 his old associates, and, resuming his ancient habits of life, 
 would receive no benefit from Christianity. Afterwards, 
 when Christianity became the religion of the Roman 
 Empire, and the Church ceased to grow by conversion 
 from abroad, and received its only accessions from the 
 birth of children at home, one of two things must have 
 naturally taken place, — either baptism must have been 
 given up, or have been administered to children only. 
 28* 
 
330 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 From the beginning, however, there is every reason to 
 believe that the conversion of parents involved not only 
 their own baptism, but that of their children, and, taking 
 the place in the Christian Church of circumcision in the 
 Jewish, it was administered to children soon after birth. 
 Then it began to signify something different from what it 
 did at first, and hence the institution of godfathers and 
 godmothers, persons who became responsible for the per- 
 formance of what the rite of baptism signified, ^</iat 
 the child should have a Christian education. 
 
 The bearing, then, of the rite of baptism, so far as it 
 had any bearing on the doctrine concerning human na- 
 ture, was precisely opposite to the purpose for which it 
 was cited by the Augustinians against the Pelagians. It 
 proved, not that human nature is depraved and incapable 
 of spiritual culture, but that it has from the first religious 
 susceptibilities, and only needs a religious education to 
 secure the end of Christianity itself, a preparation for 
 heaven. 
 
 It is true, that, as the world became darkened by the 
 barbarism of the Middle Ages, a superstitious regard was 
 paid to baptism, as well as the other rites of the Chris- 
 tian Church. Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, 
 imagined that, by putting off baptism to the close of life, 
 he should infallibly obtain the remission of all his sins, 
 and an immediate admission to heaven. 
 
 It may be asked, if it be consistent with God's justice 
 and goodness thus to give early associations a power over 
 the character to form it to gpod or evil, — to give a per- 
 son of immoral character such an influence over the 
 young with whom he associates. I answer, that this 
 peril is more than counterbalanced by the good influences 
 which are exerted upon the young by the example and 
 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 331 
 
 the precepts of the wise and the virtuous. The exam- 
 ple of the bad operates, too, as a warning, for they do 
 not travel far ordinarily without demonstrating that " the 
 wages of sin is death." 
 
 Consider what a cloud of witnesses for God and good- 
 ness have lived and are now alive. Their example 
 has a weight and an authority which a bad man can never 
 attain. The moral influence of Judas Iscariot perished 
 with him, but that of his fellow-disciples endures through- 
 out all ages. 
 
 The education of children is intended doubtless to re- 
 act as a moral discipline and restraint upon parents them- 
 selves. It was a maxim of heathen morality, " The 
 greatest reverence is due to a child." A new motive is 
 added by the birth of children, to maintain a blameless 
 walk and conversation. Some parents may thoughtlessly 
 say, that their children are totally depraved and heirs of 
 perdition, or indulge in kindred phraseology. But they 
 belie their own hearts. They know, when they do wrong 
 in the presence of their children, that they are introduc- 
 ing evil where all was pure before. They know, when 
 they act deceitfully, that they are corrupting the frank 
 simplicity of childhood ; when they give vent to their 
 passions, that they are stirring up feelings in the breasts 
 of their children which would have otherwise slept undis- 
 turbed ; when they indulge their appetites, that they are 
 by their example destroying the admirable balance which 
 God has established in the human constitution between 
 reason and conscience, on the one hand, and the appe- 
 tites and passions on the other. They feel the deepest 
 self-reproach, when, as occasionally it happens, their 
 children, in their simplicity and integrity, remonstrate 
 against their violation of the most obvious principles of 
 
332 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 justice and propriety. They sometimes feel their guilt, 
 and the righteousness of the indignant denunciation pro- 
 nounced by the Saviour on him who leads astray the 
 guileless simplicity of childhood and youth : — " Woe 
 unto him who causeth one of these little ones to offend. 
 It were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged 
 about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth 
 of the sea ! " 
 
DISCOURSE XX. 
 
 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 
 
 WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING ; FOR 
 IT IS GOD WHICH WOEKETH IN YOD BOTH TO WILL AND TO DO OF 
 HIS GOOD PLEASURE. Phil. U. 12, 13. 
 
 In this passage there is asserted a cooperation between 
 the agency of God and the agency of man in the process 
 of spiritual progress and improvement. Throughout the 
 New Testament, and indeed throughout the Bible, God 
 is represented as operating on man to make him better. 
 God made man for present and future happiness. That 
 happiness can be secured only by a life of obedience to 
 the Divine law. God is represented as impelling man- 
 kind to a life of obedience, either by secondary causes 
 or by immediate impulse. 
 
 This representation has been made to have a bearing 
 on the opinion we are to form of the constitution of hu- 
 man nature. The necessity of such influence has been 
 made to argue an imperfection or deficiency in human 
 nature, as if it had not in itself those powers which are 
 necessary to attain to virtue and holiness. The doctrine 
 of spiritual influences has been connected with the doc- 
 
334 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 
 
 trine of the Fall, and, under the operation of the powerful 
 mind of Augustine, in the fourth century, gradually took 
 the form of what was afterwards called the Doctrine of 
 Grace. This system taught that man by the Fall lost all 
 inclination and all power towards any thing that is good, 
 and is capable only of sin. But in a part of mankind 
 God is pleased to supply what is lost in Adam by a mys- 
 terious something which is called grace, whereby those 
 who are favored with it are enabled to choose and to do 
 that which is right and well pleasing to God. 
 
 There are many and strong objections to this view of 
 things. It is thought to be highly honorable to the Di- 
 vine character. The grace of God in the redemption of 
 man ought, it is said, to fill heaven and earth with God's 
 praise. But this must depend entirely on the manner in 
 which mankind got into such a condition as to need such 
 a redemption. If it was by an act of God, by which he 
 subjected the spiritual condition of the whole human 
 race to one act of Adam, and, in consequence of his 
 failure of duty, made them suffer the penalty by inflicting 
 upon them temporal and eternal perdition, the gross in- 
 justice and awful consequences of such a proceeding 
 more than outweigh all the glory to be derived from res- 
 cuing a part of mankind from this condition. Those to 
 whom the grace is not extended are just as much God's 
 creatures as those who are saved, and their helpless and 
 deplorable condition, in a state of eternal condemnation 
 for an act in which they had no participation, is more 
 reproachful to the Divine government, than the happiness 
 of those who are saved is honorable, because those be- 
 ings whom God brings into the world seem at least to 
 have a claim to exemption from an overbalance of 
 misery. 
 
DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 335 
 
 Another strong objection to this view of things is, that 
 immediate influence upon the will of man seems to de- 
 stroy the moral character of the action resulting from it. 
 The motions of man's body proceed from his will, and 
 are therefore considered to have a moral character. 
 But it is possible to introduce a foreign force to act upon 
 the nerves and muscles, in a manner analogous to the 
 action of the will. The actions thus produced have no 
 moral character, from the simple fact that they are not 
 voluntary. They are spasmodic. So any act of God 
 upon the mind, which supersedes the will, can have no 
 character, and merit no praise. The animal instincts are 
 to be regarded as God's inspiration, or as proceeding 
 from his immediate impulse. Birds of passage, at a cer- 
 tain season of the year, are seized with a desire to change 
 their place of abode. They mount up into the air, take 
 a certain direction, and keep it till they arrive where there 
 is a convenient resting-place and appropriate food and 
 climate. Nothing perhaps can be more immediately 
 from God than this. And yet it has no moral character, 
 is neither good nor bad, although it does come from God, 
 because it passes through no intelligent tcill which vol- 
 untarily and understandingly assents and complies with 
 it after due deliberation. 
 
 No such action of God upon the human mind can take 
 place, inducing it to religious action. Any action thus 
 produced would have no moral or spiritual character, — 
 would not make a man either better^or worse. 
 
 Another strong objection to this view of things is, that 
 it would seem to make God a permanent part of human 
 nature. What Adam lost by the Fall is supplied by 
 grace. But grace in this case can mean nothing else 
 than the immediate act and influence of God. This 
 
336 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 
 
 must go with the man wherever he goes, and remain 
 with him wherever he abides. If it is withdrawn, he be- 
 comes incapable of doing any thing that is good, and is 
 capable only of sin. Human nature, or the man him- 
 self, remains the same, and the man is no better than 
 any other man, the moment that grace is withdrawn. 
 Nothing that the man did while assisted by grace is to be 
 referred to his agency, but all to the agency of God. 
 Human nature, then, is not restored by grace to the 
 same condition in which it was before the Fall, for then, 
 according to this system of doctrines, man possessed 
 intrinsically and in himself the power of choosing that 
 which was right and well-pleasing to God without any 
 special Divine assistance. One man, abstracted from 
 grace, is no better than another, and all real and just 
 ground of discrimination between one man and another, 
 in the Divine government, is taken away. 
 
 But the exclusive agency of God in every thing that is 
 good in human conduct, and man's inability to obey God, 
 are proved from certain passages of the Scriptures. It 
 is my intention now to examine thera. 
 
 In the first place, I remark, that if man be a free 
 agent at all, as our own consciousness assures us he is, 
 his actions are the result of the combined agency of God 
 and the human will. Although free, the human will is an 
 agency which God employs to accomplish his own pur- 
 poses. Human agency makes a part of the scheme of 
 Divine Providence. For this reason, the Scriptures are 
 accustomed to speak of human actions, both good and 
 bad, as done by God. Thus God is said to have hard- 
 ened Pharaoh's heart, or rather to have promised to 
 harden his heart. " And I will harden Pharaoh's 
 heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land 
 
DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 337 
 
 of Egypt." The hardness of Pharaoh's heart was one link 
 of the chain of events and causes which made the exodus 
 of the Egyptians so striking and impressive. Had he 
 suffered them to depart at once, there would have been 
 no occasion for those tremendous miraculous manifesta- 
 tions of God's power, which were intended to make a 
 deep and indelible impression upon the minds of that 
 people whom God was to take under his especial guar- 
 dianship, as the witnesses of the true religion to the na- 
 tions of the earth. Nothing more is intended here than to 
 assure Moses of the certainty that Pharaoh would refuse 
 to let the Israelites go, and that his obstinacy, so far 
 from creating any obstacle to the mission on which 
 Moses was about to be sent, would rather help on its 
 main purpose. When it is mentioned first, at the open- 
 ing interview, different language is used. " And I am 
 sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not 
 by a mighty hand." That this is the true interpretation I 
 have no doubt. The other explanation, that he would 
 cause the very obduracy which he was about to punish, 
 is wholly inconsistent and irreconcilable with the equity 
 of the Divine administration. 
 
 In the same manner is mention made of the crime and 
 wickedness of the murderers of Jesus. It made a link 
 of the chain of events by which the greatest benefits 
 were conferred upon the human race. It is, therefore,, 
 said to be done according to God's appointment. Peter, 
 in his first speech to the Jews, says of Christ, — " Him,, 
 being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore- 
 knowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands 
 have crucified and slain," 
 
 We are not to suppose that God caused that act to be 
 done because it made a part of his plan for the salvation 
 29 
 
338 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 
 
 of the world, for Peter denounces that act as one of 
 deep moral turpitude. 
 
 So Christ himself speaks of the treachery of Judas 
 Iscariot. " Those that thou gavest me have I kept, and 
 none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the 
 Scripture might be fulfilled." Christ does not mean to 
 say by this language, that Judas was any less free in the 
 choice of evil than the other disciples were in the choice 
 of good, but only to intimate that the treachery of Judas 
 was to be used by God as one of the means of accom- 
 plishing the purposes of the Messiah's mission. " The 
 Son of Man goeth, as it is written of him ; but woe unto 
 that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed ! it 
 had been good for that man if he had not been born." 
 His crime is even attributed to the influence of the 
 Devil. " And after the sop Satan entered into him." 
 And yet Judas did not feel it to be the act of God or of 
 Satan, for he was filled with the keenest remorse, and 
 said, " I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent 
 blood," and he went and hanged himself. 
 
 John uses a still stronger expression. " The Devil 
 having put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, 
 to betray him." Such language as this is not to be in- 
 terpreted literally, nor do I suppose that it was intended 
 to be interpreted literally. It was, as I conceive, a mode 
 of speech adopted by the Apostle to express the atrocity 
 of the crime of the betrayal of Jesus, and his own abhor- 
 rence of it. It was so enormous, that it seemed to tran- 
 scend all human depravity, and could have originated 
 only in the suggestion of the Devil. 
 
 This mode of speech furnishes an explanation of 
 another class of passages, in which the good actions of 
 men are referred to God as their origin. As bad ac- 
 
DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 339 
 
 tions, on the one hand, are attributed to the Devil be- 
 cause they are done from a bad motive, so good actions 
 are said to be prompted by God because they arise from 
 a good motive. According to this phraseology, all 
 good comes from God, and all evil from the Devil. 
 
 On a certain occasion, after having fed a multitude 
 with a few loaves and fishes, certain worldly and irrelig- 
 ious people were induced to follow Christ from the low 
 motive of obtaining a support, in the hope that he would 
 feed them miraculously, as Moses had fed the Israelites 
 in the desert, and that they might thus obtain their daily 
 bread. He attempted to turn their minds to better 
 views, and to inspire them with better motives. He told 
 them that the only proper motive for following him was 
 to hear his doctrine. That was the true heavenly bread, 
 of which if a man ate he should live for ever. Said he, 
 "I am the bread of life. He that cometh unto me 
 shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall 
 never thirst. But I said unto you, that ye also have 
 seen me, and believe not." Previously he had said to 
 them, " Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, 
 but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." 
 They came to him, it is true, but not in the right and ac- 
 ceptable way. Speaking after the manner of men, he 
 might say that God did not send him such disciples, but 
 their own appetites sent them. "All that the Father 
 giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me 
 will I in nowise cast out " ; or, as he afterwards varies 
 the expression, "No man can come to me, except the 
 Father which hath sent me draw him." No man truly 
 comes to me who does not come to me because I am 
 sent of God and teach men the way of salvation, and not 
 because I satisfy his hunger. 
 
340 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 
 
 In what sense it was that they were drawn or attract- 
 ed to him by God, he goes on to explain. " It is writ- 
 ten in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. 
 Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of 
 the Father cometh unto me." Teaching and learning is 
 a combined operation, involving the action of two wills, 
 that of the teacher and that of the learner. This learn- 
 ing was not conferred by God arbitrarily on those who 
 were prepared by it to come acceptably to Christ. It 
 was voluntary on their part. It was in no other sense 
 God's act than as every thing that is good is sometimes 
 attributed to God. 
 
 He goes on still further to undermine their worldly 
 and temporal hopes, by telling them, first, that they 
 were to " eat his flesh and drink his blood," or, in other 
 words, that the Messiah was to die a violent death. In 
 the second place, he was to be removed from the earth 
 altogether, he was to ascend up as the Son of Man 
 where he was before as the bread of life. But that, he 
 adds, will be of no importance. My bodily presence is of 
 no consequence ; " the flesh profiteth nothing ; the.ioords 
 that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." 
 My doctrines are all. They are the only proper motive 
 for following me. These unworthy and interested fol- 
 lowers, and his language concerning them, reminded 
 him that his own little circle of disciples was not alto- 
 gether free from such characters. He therefore added, 
 "But there are some of you that believe not. For 
 Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that be- 
 lieved not, and who should betray him. And he said, 
 Therefore said I unto you, that tio man can come un- 
 to me, except it were given unto him of my Father." 
 There was Judas Iscariot, who was conscious that his 
 
DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 341 
 
 motives for following Christ were as far from God and 
 religion as the east is from the west. He came to 
 Christ, it is true, in form, but in fact he was drawn to 
 him, not by what was divine in him, but by the money he 
 expected to plunder from the little community. That 
 the wickedness of Judas was considered by our Saviour 
 as intense appears from the close of this conversation. 
 " Have not I chosen you tioelve ? and one of you is a 
 devil." He was bad in himself, and needed no instiga- 
 tion of the Devil. 
 
 The Devil, then, on the one hand, and God on the 
 other, as the authors of the actions of Judas and the 
 other disciples, mean nothing more than the bad or good 
 dispositions, principles, and purposes by which they were 
 actuated. This explanation, which I have no question 
 is the true one, entirely relieves the Scriptures from the 
 appearance of moral inconsistency and injustice, which 
 such language, at first sight, seems to carry with it. 
 
 But in the Epistles of Paul we read such language as 
 this : — "For as many as are led by the spirit of God, 
 they are the sons of God." Does not such language as- 
 sert, or at least intimate, that all good acts in man pro- 
 ceed from Divine impulse } Such would perhaps be the 
 fact if "the spirit of God" were ascertained to mean 
 immediate Divine impulse, and if being led meant the 
 same thing as being driven, neither of which can be 
 shown. This last passage is taken from a. discussion 
 which is so obscure that it is necessary to go over it all, 
 in order fully to understand the subject. It is taken from 
 the eighth chapter of Romans. The subject of which Paul 
 is treating is the substitution of the Gospel in the place 
 of the law of Moses, and the object is to show that the 
 Jews were no losers by casting away the law of Moses 
 29* 
 
342 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 
 
 and adhering to the Gospel, as the Gospel was more ef- 
 ficacious in producing personal righteousness than the law 
 itself. The law had been more effectual in producing 
 conviction of sin, than in delivering men from its domin- 
 ion. The Apostle goes on to state his own experience 
 under it. In doing so he falls into a species of dualism, 
 and divides himself into two parts, one of which he de- 
 nominates first mind, and then spirit ; the other part is 
 called the flesh. One stands for the reason and con- 
 science and the religious affections, — every thing in the 
 human constitution which leads men to good, — and the 
 other for the passfens and appetites, and every thing that 
 leads men to evil. Sometimes he identifies himself with 
 the flesh, and sometimes with the spirit or mind. The 
 law is altogether on the side of the mind or spirit. His 
 obedience is not uniform, and then he identifies himself 
 with the flesh. " For we know that the law is spiritual ; 
 but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do 
 I allow not ; for what I would, that I do not, but what I 
 hate, that do I." But, after all, his real self is on the 
 side of the law. " If, then, I do that which I would not, 
 I consent unto the law that it is good. Now, then, it is 
 no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." If 
 the flesh were all of him, he would find himself incapable 
 of any good. " For I know that in me (that is, in my 
 flesh) dwelleth no good thing ; for to will is present with 
 me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. 
 
 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do 
 
 it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find, then, a law, that 
 when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I 
 delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I 
 see another law in my members warring against the law 
 of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of 
 
DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 343 
 
 sin which is in my members." Here, then, you per- 
 ceive the dualism of which I have been speaking, the 
 law of the mind and the law of the members, — as it is 
 otherwise expressed, the flesh and the spirit. In the 
 Epistle to the Galatians, Paul expresses the same sense 
 in other words. " For the flesh lusteth against the 
 spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are con- 
 trary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things 
 that ye would." Desiring a perfect obedience, Paul 
 felt the influence of the flesh, or, in other words, the 
 passions and appetites, to be a bondage, and he exclaim- 
 ed, " O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me 
 from the body of this death ? " That deliverance he 
 finds in Christ and his religion. " I thank God, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. So, then, with the mind I my- 
 self serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of 
 sin." 
 
 With such an auxiliary as Christ and his Gospel, the 
 law of the mind or the spirit becomes predominant, and 
 carries all before it. The flesh and sin are vanquished 
 and put down. Christianity becomes more potent 
 than the law itself to accomplish the very purpose for 
 which the law was given, — to put down sin and promote 
 holiness. And this is the more remarkable from the 
 fact, that this victory was achieved through the agency 
 of one who partook of human nature himself, — of that 
 double nature, one part of which, the flesh, is the prolific 
 cause of so much sin. 
 
 " There is therefore now no condemnation to them 
 which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, 
 but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in 
 Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and 
 death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak 
 
344 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 
 
 through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the like- 
 ness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the 
 flesh ; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled 
 in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." 
 That is to say, Christians, with the light of reason and 
 conscience, aided by Christ and his religion, are en- 
 abled to attain a righteousness superior to that which 
 prevailed under the law, provided they obey the law of 
 the mind, and not the appetites and passions. 
 
 There is nothing here that goes to show or to intimate 
 that all that men do which is good comes from God or 
 from Divine impulse, and that all that is bad comes from 
 themselves. The dualism which appears here is not be- 
 tween God and man, but between two parts of human 
 nature, — that which leads man to good, and that which 
 leads him to evil, — denominated, but not with philo- 
 sophic accuracy, the body and the mind, the flesh and 
 the spirit ; for there are vices which originate altogether 
 in the mind. He goes on to give a description of the 
 two classes of people which are governed by these op- 
 posite principles, and they are what we call worldly and 
 sensual people, on the one hand, and religious people, on 
 the other. " For they that are after the flesh do mind 
 the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the spirit, 
 the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded is 
 death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." 
 To be carnally minded or spiritually minded is here rep- 
 resented as being equally within the choice of man, and 
 not to flow from receiving or not receiving supernatural 
 impulse. He then goes on to explain why to be carnally 
 minded is death. " Because the carnal mind is enmity 
 against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, 
 neither indeed can be. So, then, they that are in the 
 
DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 345 
 
 flesh cannot please God." Not those who are in the 
 body, for all living men»are in the body, but those who 
 are subjected to the passions and appetites which are 
 supposed to spring from the body. Such a life the 
 Apostle does not suppose his converts to lead. " But 
 ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the 
 spirit of God dwell in you," — that is, if ye are relig- 
 ious men, as appears by the next clause. " Now if any 
 man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." If 
 any man have not a tempenrand character like Christ, he 
 is no Christian. " And if Christ be in you," if ye be 
 true Christians, " the body is dead because of sin," — that 
 part of man which leads to sin is subdued and powerless ; 
 "but the spirit is life because of righteousness," — the 
 spirit, or that part of man which leads to good, is alive 
 and active, and leads to the practice of every thing that 
 is virtuous. 
 
 The next verse is not properly represented in our 
 version. " But if the spirit of him that raised up 
 Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up 
 Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bod- 
 ies by his spirit that dwelleth in you." The meaning 
 here given is, that the same spirit of God which makes 
 them good men will raise them from the dead. But there 
 is an incongruity in this. The preposition rendered 
 " by " more usually means " on account of." Giving it 
 this rendering, it will read, " But if the spirit of him that 
 raised up Jesus from the dead," that is, a pious religious 
 spirit, " dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the 
 dead shall raise you up likewise, on account of your 
 piety and resemblance to Christ." " Therefore we are 
 debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if 
 ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : but if ye through the 
 
346 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FEEEDOM. 
 
 spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." 
 If you yield yourselves to the passions and appetites, the 
 end of it will be wretchedness, but if, in the exercise of 
 piety, you control your passions and appetites, you shall 
 be happy. " For as many as are led by the spirit of 
 God, they are the sons of God." Those who choose 
 to obey the promptings of their spiritual nature, rather 
 than their passions and appetites, show by the very fact 
 that they are the children of God. " For ye have not 
 received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have 
 received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, 
 Father." 
 
 Those who thus live are conscious of cherishing in 
 themselves a filial spirit towards God, whereby they feel 
 that they can call God Father. " The spirit itself bear- 
 eth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of 
 God." The fact that we have this filial spirit is evi- 
 dence to our minds that we are the children of God. 
 
 So it appears that the phrases, "spirit of God," 
 " spirit of Christ," "spirit of adoption," mean all the 
 same thing, and are synonymous with the religious spirit, 
 and represent, not immediate Divine impulse, but all 
 those principles in man that lead him to good, which, ac- 
 cording to the Jewish mode of speech, were attributed 
 to God, the source of all good. 
 
 Thus you perceive there is no ground in the Scrip- 
 tures for the doctrine of human inability, without espe- 
 cial Divine influence. We have no reason for believing 
 that this influence is bestowed on one, and withheld from 
 another, arbitrarily. We have no reason for believing 
 that whatever influence God sees fit to exert on the hu- 
 man mind interferes at all with the free agency of man. 
 Man is never wipked and lost because it is withheld, nor 
 
DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM, 347 
 
 saved by it without his cooperation where it is bestowed. 
 The passage quoted at the comraencement of this dis- 
 course is a fair and intelligible statement of the combined 
 operation of God and man in the process of spiritual ren- 
 ovation. " Work out your own salvation with fear and 
 trembling, knowing that it is God that worketh within 
 you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." 
 
 The highest aim of God is our spiritual good. No 
 sincere and earnest endeavour on our part shall fail to 
 be aided by the gracious furtherance of our Heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 The doctrines of personal election and irresistible 
 grace, which have prevailed in the Calvinistic churches 
 of modern times, were unknown in the Christian Church 
 previous to the time of Augustine, in the beginning of 
 the fifth century. Passages are abundant in the writings 
 of the Fathers of the first four centuries, which show 
 that the early Christians believed that the future free 
 actions of mankind were the ground of God's fore- 
 knozvledge, and not that God's foreknowledge was the 
 ground and cause of the free actions of mankind. 
 
 Justin Martyr says, in his Dialogue with Trypho, the 
 Jew, — " But that those, whether men or angels, who 
 are foreknown that they would be unjust, are not wicked 
 through the fault of God, but that each through his own 
 fault is what he is, I have shown above. But that you 
 may not have any pretence for saying that Christ must 
 necessarily have been crucified, or that in your race there 
 are transgressors, and that it could not have been other- 
 wise, I have already observed, in few words, that God, 
 desiring that men and angels should follow his will, de- 
 termined to make them loith full powers to act justly, 
 with the means of knowing by whom they were made, 
 
348 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FEEEDOM. 
 
 and through whom they were called into existence out of 
 nothing ; and with this condition, that they were to be 
 judged by him, if they acted contrary to right rea- 
 son ; and we men, and the angels, shall be by ourselves 
 convicted of having acted wickedly, unless we make 
 haste to repent. But if the word of God declares be- 
 forehand that some, both angels and men, will hereafter 
 be punished, because he knows that they would persevere 
 to the last in wickedness, he foretold it, but not that God 
 made them such. Wherefore if they will repent, all 
 who are willing to obtain mercy from God have it in 
 their power." 
 
 Tatian says, — " But the power of the Word, having 
 in itself the foreknowledge of what would happen, not ac- 
 cording to fate, but by the determination of free agents, 
 foretold future events, and guarded against wickedness by 
 prohibitions, and commended those who should persevere 
 in goodness." 
 
 Irenaeus says, — " Those who desert the light given 
 them by the Father, and transgress the law of liberty, 
 have deserted it from their own fault, having been made 
 free and endowed with/ree will. But God, foreknowing 
 all things, has prepared fit habitations for both, to thosie 
 who seek the light of incorruption, and run to it, kindly 
 giving that light which they desire, but for others who 
 despise it, and turn away from it and avoid it, and as it 
 were blind themselves, he has prepared darkness suita- 
 ble to persons who dislike light." 
 
 Clement of Alexandria : — " We say that there is one 
 ancient and Catholic Church, collected into the unity of 
 one faith according to its own testaments, or rather ac- 
 cording to one testament, declared at sundry times by 
 the will of one God through one Lord, those who had 
 
DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 349 
 
 been already ordained, whom he predestinated, who he 
 knew before the foundation of the world would be just.'''' 
 
 Origen : — " If therefore innumerable motives to virtue 
 and vice, and to what is becoming and unbecoming, be 
 presented to us, the result must necessarily be known to 
 God with other things before they happen from the crea- 
 tion and foundation of the world, and every thing which 
 God preordained in consequence of what he saw would 
 be in our power, he must have preordained consistently 
 with the exercise of free will in every instance, both what 
 would take place according to his providence, and what 
 would happen from the future relation of things ; the pres- 
 cience of God not being the cause of events which were 
 future, and which depended on our free will." 
 
 Hilary, half a century before Augustine : — " The un- 
 godly are froward even from their mother's womb ; as 
 soon as they are born they go astray, speaking lies. 
 Thus Esau was froward from his mother's womb, when 
 it is announced that the elder shall serve the younger, 
 even before he was born, God not being ignorant of the 
 future will, when the speaking of lies and the error of 
 life are from the mother's womb, he himself rather know- 
 ing this, than any one being born to the necessity and na- 
 ture of sin.^' 
 
 Epiphanius, still nearer the time of Augustine : — "Al- 
 though Scripture declared that Christ was to be cruci- 
 fied, and although the Scripture mentioned the sins that 
 would be committed by us in the latter days, yet no one 
 of us who commit sins can find an excuse by producing 
 the testimony of Scripture, foretelling that these things 
 would happen. For we do not those things because 
 Scripture foretold them ; but Scripture foretold them, 
 30 
 
350 DIVINE INFLUENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. 
 
 because we were about to do them, through the fore- 
 knowledge of God." 
 
 It is likewise certain, that what is now orthodoxy was 
 heresy before the time of Augustine, and that Augustine 
 came round and defended, in his controversy with Pe- 
 lagius, the very doctrines he had attacked in his argu-* 
 ments against the Manichees. It is certain that Man- 
 icheus, Valentinus, and Basilides, advocated a doctrine 
 very nearly resembling the modern doctrines of Calvin- 
 ism. Jerome writes, that " Manicheus says, that his 
 elect are free from sin, and that they could not sin if 
 they would." Origen speaks of certain heretics, "who 
 pervert certain passages, almost tdestroying free will by 
 maintaining that there are abandoned natures incapable 
 of salvation, and that there are other natures which are 
 saved and cannot possibly perish." 
 
 Cyril of Jerusalem writes, — "We will not bear 
 those who put a wrong interpretation upon this passage, 
 ' In this the children of God are manifest and the chil- 
 dren of the Devil,' as if some men were saved and others 
 perish- by nature, — for we come into this holy adoption, 
 not by necessity, but by our own free will." 
 
 Thus it vFould seem that that interpretation of the Bi- 
 ble which is termed Calvinistic dates no farther back in 
 the Church than the time of Augustine, but that some- 
 thing similar was held by those termed heretics for many 
 ages antecedent to that period. 
 
DISCOURSE XXL 
 
 CAUSES OF HUMAN SINFULNESS. 
 
 LO, THIS ONLY HAVE 1 FOUND, THAT GOD HATH MADE MAN UPRIGHT ; 
 BUT THEY HAVE SOUGHT OUT MANY INVENTIONS. EccleS. VU. 
 
 29. 
 
 To the views of human nature which I have been giv- 
 ing in the series of discourses now drawing to a close, it 
 may be objected, that they lead the mind to underrate the 
 sinfulness of mankind, that they make light of the evil 
 of sin, and, instead of rousing men to throw it off, lead 
 them to remain contented under it. I deny that either 
 of these consequences follows from the positions I have 
 taken, the arguments I have used, or the results to 
 which I have been led. I affirm, on the other hand, that 
 the analysis of human nature which I have given leaves 
 the sinfulness of mankind just where it was. It is a pal- 
 pable fact, which I have not for a moment attempted to 
 deny or conceal. I maintain, thai both the evil and the 
 guilt of sin are greater upon the principles laid down 
 than they are upon the opposite system. I affirm, more- 
 over, that the encourag^ents and inducements to resist 
 sin, and to strive for its cure and prevention, are greater 
 upon the supposition of the essential integrity of human 
 
352 THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 nature, than upon the supposition of its constitutional 
 corruption. 
 
 The sinfulness of mankind, no man in his senses has 
 ever pretended to deny. " No man liveth, and sinneth 
 not." No human being, with the exception of the Sav- 
 iour, has ever lived long enough to develop the moral 
 nature, without being conscious of having done wrong. 
 
 The sinfulness of mankind has been demonstrated by 
 the prevalence of ivars, since the first recorded history 
 of our race. War transforms a human being into a 
 fiend, and leads to the commission of every crime, and 
 is itself the greatest of all crimes. The number of peo- 
 ple who have perished in war is perhaps ten times as 
 great as now exists on earth. The quantity of property 
 consumed and destroyed in war is not unlikely more 
 than a hundred times as much as all mankind now pos- 
 sess. 
 
 The sinfulness of mankind has been demonstrated by 
 the fearful amount of sensuality that has existed. The 
 world has always been filled with the wretched victims of 
 intemperance. It may safely be said, that most of the 
 diseases which have afflicted mankind, and shortened 
 human life, have been produced by the unlawful or ex- 
 cessive indulgence of the appetites. 
 
 The sinfulness of mankind has been demonstrated by 
 the social unkindness that has always prevailed, the cruel 
 abuse of power which has reigned since the beginning of 
 time, so pathetically described in the book from which 
 our text is taken. " So I returned and considered all 
 the oppressions that are done under the sun ; and, be- 
 hold, the tears of such as wes||pippressed, and they had 
 no comforter, and on the side of their oppressors there 
 was power, but they had no comforter." So much was 
 
THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 353 
 
 the author's sensibility shocked and his pity moved, that 
 he " praised the dead which are already dead more 
 than the living which are yet alive," and thought it was 
 better never to have been born, than to have an exist- 
 ence in a world so full of injustice. 
 
 The sinfulness of mankind is demonstrated by the ex- 
 istence of laws and courts and prisons and punishments. 
 Their very purpose is to restrain man from sin, and to 
 defend one man from the injustice of another. The evi- 
 dences of man's sinfulness meet us at every turn, in the 
 anger we witness, in the profaneness we hear, in the 
 theft against which we bar our doors, in the conflagra- 
 tions we behold by night, lighted up by the incendiary's 
 torch, in the wretched outcasts whom vice has driven 
 forth to die of misery and want. Such are the over- 
 whelming and undeniable evidences of the sinfulness of 
 mankind. 
 
 But the sinfulness of mankind and the depravity of 
 human nature, though often confounded, are two things 
 entirely different. They are not even consistent with 
 each other. The more depraved you make human na- 
 ture to be, constitutionally, the less guilt there is in the 
 actual transgressions of mankind, and, moreover, the less 
 evil there is in sin. The measure of guilt is the strength 
 and the clearness of the convictions which are violated, 
 and the weakness of the motives which operate as a 
 temptation. The fairness of man's moral trial consists 
 in the balance which God has established between the 
 reason and conscience on the one hand, and the appetites 
 and passions on the other. Now, if by any disease or 
 accident that balance is destroyed, then moral account- 
 ability is impaired, and the guilt of sin diminished in the 
 same proportion. The fall of man, if it had any effect 
 30* 
 
354 THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 upon the human constitution, in rendering man more lia- 
 ble to sin, must have disturbed this balance, must have 
 either weakened reason and conscience, or have strength- 
 ened the passions and appetites. Accountability must 
 have been just so far modified, and the guilt of sin di- 
 minished. If, at the creation of man, the balance of the 
 human constitution was made true, then the fall threw it 
 out of its equilibrium, and human conduct is no longer 
 to be weighed as it was before. Allowance must be 
 made precisely to the extent that the scales have been 
 thrown out of their true balance, and loaded on one side. 
 Human sinfulness has a palliation precisely to the ex- 
 tent of the deterioration of the Fall, or in other words, 
 to the depravity of human nature. 
 
 Then with regard to the evil of sin. The evil of sin 
 consists mainly in the degradation which it causes, in sink- 
 ing the character, in breaking down the will into a slavery 
 to evil habit. It is infinitely worse for an angel to sin 
 than for a devil, because in the one case it involves a 
 fall, a degradation. In the other, it is no fall, but only 
 the manifestation of a disposition already depraved. So 
 if all mankind are depraved by nature, actual sin does 
 not make them much ^orse. Their character in that 
 case does not depend on their conduct, but on their na- 
 ture, and their nature has already been fixed in depravity 
 by an agency not their own. 
 
 But, on the other hand, if character is formed and fixed 
 by conduct and not by nature, sin becomes a thing of 
 much more serious import. All the sins which have 
 been committed by all mankind have constituted the Fall, 
 and not one act of their great progenitor. They have 
 been the means and instruments of the degradation of 
 mankind, and not the manifestation of a degradation that 
 
THE TRUE FALL OFMAN. 355 
 
 had already taken place. The actual sins of mankind 
 become a matter of much more importance, and a much 
 greater evil, than under the view presented by the doc- 
 trine of original sin. To prevent it, or to remedy it, in 
 any particular case, becomes the highest conceivable 
 achievement. It is said, that the view which makes sin 
 individual, instead of constitutional and hereditary, has a 
 tendency to make people contented under it, and to par- 
 alyze their exertions to free themselves from it. I affirm, 
 that precisely the opposite is the fact. No man can 
 change his nature, nor can he feel any obligation to do it. 
 Especially is this the case, when it is maintained that 
 the first impulse towards amendment must come from 
 without. 
 
 But the main purpose of this discourse is to account 
 for the actual sinfulness of mankind. How happens it 
 that miin is a sinner ? A large part of the Christian 
 world has held, that mankind are sinners in consequence 
 of the Fall, narrated in some of the first chapters of Gen- 
 esis. There it is related, that the first pair were placed 
 in a garden where every thing grew spontaneously, and 
 in that garden was one tree, called the tree of knowledge 
 of good and evil. -Of this tree they were forbidden to 
 eat, upon pain of death. But, upon the persuasion of 
 the serpent, they were tempted to eat of this" tree. For 
 this offence they were expelled from the garden, and 
 condemned to a life of toil. Is this to be received as a 
 literal Ijransaction .'' I apprehend not. It has, to my 
 mind, all the features of an Oriental apologue. One 
 strong mark of it is, that the serpent is endowed with 
 reason and speech, in order to enact an important part in 
 it. There is not a particle of probability that any ser- 
 pent ever possessed either reason or speech. We have 
 
356 THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 no reason to suppose that Satan, even if it were granted 
 that there is such a being, ever had power given him by 
 God to change physical nature, and to endow the forked 
 tongue of the serpent with the facuhy of articulation. 
 Still less have we reason for believing that God would 
 have wrought a miracle in order to tempt Adam to the 
 stupendous crime of involving the unborn millions of the 
 human race in spiritual death ! 
 
 Interpreted as an apologue, it becomes a figurative and 
 poetic way of representing the manner in which physical 
 and moral evil loere introduced into the world, with the 
 least possible imputation upon the character of God. 
 And man himself is, in some measure, exculpated from 
 blame, by casting the guilt upon the serpent. 
 
 In that case, Adam becomes, not the responsible and 
 representative agent, not the federal head, but the sym- 
 bolic type, of all mankind ; and the whole transaction is 
 intended to show, not how all men fell in Adam, but how 
 every man falls for himself. The apple represents iem|)- 
 taiion, which is universal, and assails all mankind at 
 every turn. The hunger which the woman felt on see- 
 ing it represents the appetites which make an essential 
 part of the human constitution. The cv,riosily and the 
 ambition which she expressed, to experience and to gain 
 some new good, represent the passions and the desire of 
 happiness, which are constituent elements of the human 
 soul. The deliberation and the choice, which are repre- 
 sented as taking place, declare the fact, that man is made 
 free to choose between good and evil. The expulsion 
 from paradise, and the shame and remorse which follow, 
 represent the physical privations and the mental anguish 
 which always follow the commission of sin. 
 
 Interpreted in this way, which I believe to be the true 
 
THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 357 
 
 one, the first chapters of Genesis no longer teach the 
 fall of mankind in Adam, but set forth, in symbolic form, 
 the moral and religious constitution of man as a species, 
 and his conduct in the use of it. And if we analyze the 
 account, we shall find that there is no change of moral 
 and religious nature intimated ; there is simply a misuse 
 of that nature, which is the very essence of sin. Men 
 now have passions and appetites, and a desire of enjoy- 
 ment ; and so, according to the narrative, bad Adam and 
 Eve. Men now are beset with temptations, and so were 
 they. They are free to choose between good and evil, 
 and so were the first pair. They are comparatively ig- 
 norant, and do not apprehend the full extent of the con- 
 sequences of their actions. The result of their having 
 such a nature, and being placed in such circumstances, 
 is, that they sin. Adam did the same. He sinned as 
 soon as they, and under no stronger temptation. Human 
 nature, then, has undergone no moral change, nor is it 
 represented as having undergone any. The narrative 
 has at first sight the appearance of teaching that death is 
 the consequence of sin. But sin is not given as the rea- 
 son why, man is mortal even there. The reason given is, 
 that man is made of dust, — has a frail and perishable 
 body. " For dust thou art, and Unto dust shalt thou re- 
 turn." That which is made of dust must be mortal. 
 We are now prepared to account for the sinfulness of 
 mankind, according to the representations of the Scrip- 
 tures, and from an analysis of human nature. 
 
 ■ Man is a sinner, in the first place, because he is free. 
 Without freedom he certainly could never sin. Free^- 
 dom is an essential attribute of spirit, as much as exten- 
 sion is of matter. Freedom is not an attribute of mat- 
 ter. The nature of matter excludes freedom, and 
 
358 THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 involves the idea of the incapacity of originating motion. 
 But a spirit without the idea or the attribute of action 
 cannot be conceived. A spirit without freedom is no 
 longer spirit. If the option is submitted to a spirit pos- 
 sessed of freedom, to choose either right or wrong, there 
 must be a possibility of its choosing wrong. Indeed, 
 there is merit in choosing right only where there is power 
 of choosing wrong. 
 
 How this essential freedom of the soul leads to sin, 
 will appear when we consider another essential element 
 of human nature, the desire of happiness. There is no 
 conceivable reason why God should have created man at 
 all, unless it were for happiness. Accordingly, he has 
 provided him with abundant sources of enjoyment. Be- 
 ing created free and capable of enjoyment, and more- 
 over an active being by virtue of his spiritual nature, it 
 becomes a law of his nature to seek happiness by- action. 
 The capacities for happiness immediately become wants, 
 and the power of action is naturally put in requisition to 
 supply them. 
 
 But here comes in a moral element. Action must be 
 restrained and regulated by some law. Our natures are 
 limited, and therefore must be exposed to be injured by 
 excess. Over-indulgence of the passions or appetites 
 becomes excess ; it injures ourselves, and thus becomes 
 sin ; sin against ourselves, as it diminishes our happiness, 
 — sin against our neighbour, because it makes us less use- 
 ful, — sin against God, who created us to be both happy 
 and useful. Hunger and thirst improperly gratified be- 
 come luxury ; immoderately indulged, become intemper- 
 ance. Emulation carried to excess becomes envy, just 
 resentment is liable to be converted into implacable re- 
 venge, justifiable economy may degenerate into sordid 
 
THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 359 
 
 avarice. Every thing has its use, but is liable to abuse, 
 and abuse becomes sin. 
 
 We do not inhabit the world alone. We are connect- 
 ed with beings coordinate with ourselves, and who have 
 an equal right with us to what God has given to all. 
 We may claim more than our share, or that to which 
 they have a better title than we. Hence injustice, and 
 injustice is sin. 
 
 Man is a sinner, in the. third place, because he is com- 
 paratively ignorant. Had he perfect wisdom or infinite 
 knowledge he could not sin, for he could not be tempt- 
 ed. Sin always involves a loss of happiness. It must 
 be seen to be so by a being of infinite knowledge. God 
 alone possesses infinite knowledge, and therefore he 
 alone cannot be tempted. Sin always involves decep- 
 tion. But God cannot be deceived. He. inhabiteth 
 immensity and eternity. To his eye, distance, either of 
 time or space, cannot diminish or obscure or render 
 any thing uncertain. All things, therefore, in time and 
 space affect him according to their true magnitudes and 
 just proportions. Not so with man. To his eye, fixed 
 to one spot, all things in time and space are distorted 
 from their true proportions. That which is near seems 
 great and important and desirable. That which is dis- 
 tant shrinks from its real magnitude, and is liable, though 
 never so important, to be outweighed by a present trifle. 
 
 Man commences his career of knowledge at nothing 
 A considerable portion of his life elapses before he ar- 
 rives at that maturity of his faculties and that extent of 
 knowledge which make him fully responsible ; and in 
 fact, when compared with a being of perfect knowledge, 
 he is a mere child all his days. His knowledge is de- 
 ceived, his steadfastness is overcome at every turn, not 
 
360 THE TRUE FALL OP MAN. 
 
 because he possesses a fallen, but an imperfect nature ; 
 not because he has lost any knowledge that he ever had, 
 but because he commenced his existence in perfect ig- 
 norance. 
 
 The sinfulness of mankind is greatly aggravated, in the 
 fourth place, by the law of habit. In order to lay a 
 foundation for the formation of character, in order to 
 make our acquisitions in time past valuable and available 
 to us in the future, it was necessary that there should be 
 such a law as habit, by which we should acquire a facil- 
 ity of doing that which we have been accustomed to do, 
 and be inclined to repeat, with less reflection and effort, 
 those actions which at first cost us a struggle. By 
 this law, the saint grows daily better, and his soul more 
 ripe for heaven. His daily devotions become as neces- 
 sary to him as his daily bread, the performance of his 
 daily duties as natural as to breathe. Temptation has 
 less and less power to engage a thought or excite an emo- 
 tion. At length he arrives at that degree of security 
 promised by the Saviour. " Behold, I give you power 
 to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the 
 power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means 
 hurt you." 
 
 But the same law operates with equal force to the dis- 
 advantage of him who lias fallen into habits of sin. The 
 force of custom makes it next to inevitable that be should 
 continue his downward career, proceeding from bad to 
 worse, no finite mind can foresee how far. The inex- 
 orable nature of this law is fearfully portrayed in these 
 impressive words : — " Can the Ethiopian change his 
 skin, or the leopard his spots .'' then may ye also do good 
 that are accustomed to do evil." Can those be said to 
 make light of sin, who admit that the human constitution 
 
THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 361 
 
 is subjected to such a tremendous law as this ? Can it 
 be said of us that we make light of sin, when we main- 
 tain that it is the only real evil in the world, because we 
 place our hope in its prevention rather than its cure ? 
 Nor do we disparage the Gospel when we say that its 
 main scope is the prevention rather than the cure of sin. 
 Christ is no less the Saviour of those who are kept by 
 his religion unspotted from the world, than of those who 
 are reformed from the degradation of evil habits. 
 
 Finally, the sinfulness of mankind is greatly aggravat- 
 ed by the laio of development. By the law of develop- 
 ment I mean that property of human nature by which 
 those parts of our physical and mental systems which are 
 constantly used become strong and active, and those 
 which are disused become weak and dormant. Man thus 
 has it in his power to alter the proportions both of his 
 corporeal and intellectual nature. Any of the muscles, 
 by being used, become enlarged and strengthened. So 
 much is this the fact, that the occupations of men may 
 often be discovered by an anatomical examination of 
 their bodies. The seaman's strength goes into his 
 hands and arms, from their perpetual and strenuous use. 
 The soldier, by lengthened marches, gives dispropor- 
 tionate strength to his lower limbs, so that he can endure 
 fatigue of locomotion wholly impossible to a sedentary 
 man. Just so it is with those faculties which are purely 
 intellectual. The memory, the imagination, the judg- 
 ment, the power of calculation, are capable of indefinite 
 development. It is precisely so with the moral consti- 
 tution. Piety, reverence for God and sacred things, 
 conscience, the power which discriminates between 
 right and wrong, the love of goodness for its own sake, 
 may be exercised and cultivated, and, under that culture, 
 31 
 
362 THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 grow Strong and predominant, and able to maintain an 
 entire control over the passions and appetites, so that the 
 man shall live in all uprightness to men and holiness be- 
 fore God. 
 
 On the other hand, the passions and appetites, the an- 
 tagonist parts of his nature, by a free, voluntary choice, 
 may be exercised, and by the very process of exercise 
 will be disproportionately developed. The moral sense, 
 the religious affections, in the mean time, being neglect- 
 ed and unused, will become weak, will shrivel, will 
 finally become destitute of the power to control the con- 
 duct. We see this actually take place in the vicious 
 and depraved. The worst degradation of a bad man is 
 that he has lost the moral control of himself, and, in 
 sight of the clearest convictions of the intellect, will go 
 on, day after day, sinking himself to a lower depth of 
 wretchedness and woe. 
 
 The sinfulness of mankind is aggravated by the very 
 circumstances which make this world a scene of proba- 
 tion ; — in the first place, by the fact, that a state of pro- 
 bation involves a degree of apparent uncertainty as to the 
 result of things, and the necessity, in consequence, of 
 living by faith and not by sight ; secondly, the time which 
 must elapse between the commission and the punishment 
 of transgression, in order that there should be any such 
 thing as trial ; and thirdly, the length of human life 
 which is necessary to give men space for repentance 
 and amendment. 
 
 Some degree of apparent uncertainty must rest on the 
 result of our actions, in order that there may be any such 
 thing as temptation. All sin is suicide, and would be seen 
 to be so, had we the power to see the whole. To put 
 one's hand in the fire is the violation of a physical law, 
 
THE THUE FALL OF MAN. 363 
 
 and the retribution is so immediate that we are never 
 tempted to do it. Were all violation of the moral laws 
 of our being followed as immediately by punishment, this 
 would not be a world of probation. He who is intemperate 
 in eating and drinking, on the contrary, experiences a pres- 
 ent pleasure. The evil comes afterward, at a time so dis- 
 tant that it requires faith to foresee and believe it. But 
 it is sure to come ; and the difference between a virtuous 
 and a vicious man is, that one is affected by a future cer- 
 tainty as if it were a present reality; the other seizes the 
 present pleasure and braves the consequences. We are 
 constituted to walk by faith, and not by sight. And this 
 very fact, while it enables the good man to obtain con- 
 tinually new power over himself, and to go on from 
 strength to strength, allows the bad man to sink deep 
 in corruption and sin before he is overtaken by the only 
 monitor to which he will consent to listen, — the evil 
 consequences of his own misconduct. Thus it happens 
 that the goodness and forbearance of God, which are in- 
 tended to persuade us to repentance and obedience, may 
 be abused by the " hard arid impenitent heart to treasure 
 up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of 
 the righteous judgments of God." 
 
 God gives us a whole life as a scene of probation, 
 " not willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved." 
 " He causeth his sun to shine on the evil and on 
 the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and the un- 
 ,just." And such is his benignity, that a vile sinner may 
 live out his threescore years and ten without being over- 
 taken by any obvious visitations of Divine justice. The 
 Divine government, therefore, is liable to misconstruc- 
 tion, and the very forbearance which is necessary to a 
 
364 THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 fair probation is supposed to indicate indifference on the 
 part of God to the conduct of his creatures. 
 
 Besides, the moral sense of mankind becomes blunted 
 by seeing so httle discrimination made between the 
 righteous and the wicked in the present world. As so- 
 ciety advances, the greatest social inequalities take place 
 among men. Some become so intrenched in power and 
 riches, that they are able apparently to defend themselves 
 against the usual evil consequences of transgression. 
 This, I apprehend, is the true interpretation of that pas- 
 sage in Genesis which has given rise to so much specu- 
 lation, in which it is said that " the sons of God saw the 
 daughters of men, that they were fair ; and they took them 
 wives of all which they chose." And " there were giants 
 in the earth in those days." By this is intimated, in my 
 judgment, not a diversity of stature and dimensions, but 
 the foundation of an aristocracy of wealth and station ; 
 the domination of the few, and the subjection of the 
 many ; the introduction of castes, and the absorption of 
 all property and power into a few hands, which has pre- 
 vailed in the East from time immemorial, and is to this 
 day nearly as firmly fixed as ever. Nothing can have a 
 worse effect upon the morals of a country than this spe- 
 cies of social inequality. It leads to Atheism, a total 
 distrust of Providence, an utter disregard to moral dis- 
 tinctions, to see a part of mankind apparently exalted 
 above all moral restraint, and trampling on God's laws 
 with impunity. 
 
 There is a secret retribution ever going on, but it is. 
 unseen. No man sins without suffering mentally; but he 
 is interested both by pride and- policy in concealing his 
 sufferings. This world is, therefore, really more a place 
 of retribution than is generally supposed. The masses 
 
THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 365 
 
 are apt to consider the means and appearance of happi- 
 ness as pledges of its real existence. The mystery of 
 Divine Providence becomes too dark for their solution, 
 and they abandon the ways of integrity, and take the 
 shortest road to the gratification of their passions and 
 appetites. 
 
 I do not deny, nor have I in any of these dis- 
 courses denied, the capacity of human nature for the 
 most awful depravity. The best things are capable of 
 the greatest perversion. The very freedom of man, and 
 his capacity for development in any direction, his spon- 
 taneous enterprise and ceaseless activity, make it pos- 
 sible for him to go any length in wickedness. All I 
 maintain is, that he begins his course pure, and cannot go 
 wrong without violating the highest law of his being. 
 
 Society, from the same causes, is as capable of be- 
 coming vitiated as the individual, with this more calam- 
 itous consequence, that it reacts upon the individual to 
 make him more depraved than he could have become 
 had he stood alone. Not only so, but the vices of socie- 
 ty are more enduring than those of the individual. The 
 vices of the individual die with him, but the vices of so- 
 ciety are perpetuated from generation to generation. 
 
 No society can exist without a government. A good 
 government is the greatest of blessings. It must be 
 clothed with power, or it can do no good. It must have 
 the power to protect the defenceless, to restrain the 
 oppressor, and to punish the guilty. Government is 
 established to maintain justice. But the government it- 
 self may become corrupt, and take sides with the op- 
 pressor and against the innocent. It may have corrupt 
 interests of its own. This tendency is aggravated by an 
 arrangement which makes government hereditary. In 
 31 * 
 
366 THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 that case an interest in the government grows up adverse 
 to the interests of the people ; laws are enacted for the 
 benefit of the few ; taxation is levied for the grandeur and 
 luxury of the governors, instead of merely providing for 
 their reasonable wants. In Asia, the portion of the 
 world first peopled, government was at first patriarchal. 
 The head of a family became the head of a tribe. He 
 was the priest as well as the sovereign. So long as his 
 government was controlled by the sentiments of natural 
 affection, so long was his government just and paternal. 
 But when the family became a nation, the natural re- 
 straint of affection was removed, and the government 
 which began in justice hardened into a tyranny. Under 
 an arbitrary or a tyrannical government, all motives to a 
 virtuous life are greatly weakened. Virtue has no re- 
 ward, and vice is safe so long as it has the means to 
 bribe the hand of justice. 
 
 It is in vain to expect any high degree of moral attain- 
 ment under a bad government. Take, as an example, the 
 Ottoman Empire. It occupies some of the fairest por- 
 tions of the globe. But the very manner in which the gov- 
 ernment is administered, corrupts and ruins every thing. 
 The whole organizatic • T he state is nothing more nor 
 less than a vast machine for extortion and robbery. The 
 successive governors of the different provinces are gen- 
 erally court favorites, or mere adventurers, whose only 
 hope of wealth and distinction is the favor of their sover- 
 eign, resulting in the opportunity of plundering for a few 
 years one of the provinces of the empire. With this 
 ■understanding, the sycophant takes possession of his 
 government, and under the pretence of taxation, which 
 he levies at his own discretion, the best citizens are 
 sure to suffer the worst spoliation. The very appear- 
 
THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 367 
 
 ance of thrift and wealth is dapgerous, and all motive 
 to industry and economy, to good morals and good man- 
 agement, is taken away. Those who are plundered 
 seek first a refuge in hypocrisy and deception ; or, hav- 
 ing lost all, become the robbers and oppressors of 
 those who are more defenceless than themselves. 
 
 Can it be said that a human being, who is born and 
 passes through life under such a government and in such 
 a state of society, has a fair opportunity for right devel- 
 opment ? No more than a grain of corn thrown into a 
 heap (|$ stones or a thicket of brambles. God has made 
 man upright, but a bad government is one of the inven- 
 tions, one of the perversions, which he has sought out, by 
 which a nature originally true and right, is distorted and 
 deformed. 
 
 I have used the Turkish government, as a strong ex- 
 ample, to illustrate the fact, that the abuses of society re- 
 act upon individual character, and the character thus 
 formed ought not to be made the measure of man's orig- 
 inal endowment. 
 
 Such, then, are the causes of the sinfulness of man- 
 kind. And I ask if they be not ample to account for it 
 all. Do they not obviate any necessity of supposing a 
 lapse in Adam .'' Is it not much more honorable to the 
 character of God to suppose that he gives every human 
 being a fair moral probation, than to suppose that he 
 sends us into the world with a diseased, maimed, and 
 ruined moral nature, wholly disabled, by an agency not 
 our own, to accomplish the highest end of our being, — 
 to love and to obey God, to love and cultivate virtue 
 and holiness .' Is it not calculated to give us higher 
 ideas of personal responsibility, to be taught that all the 
 sin there is in the world is the voluntary production of 
 
368 THE TRUE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 the free will of man ? Is it not more encouraging to be- 
 lieve that sin is not necessary, and therefore may be 
 avoided ? Does it not present a better hope for the 
 w^orld in the ages to come ? 
 
 Does it not better accord v^ith the solemn represen- 
 tations of the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, in which 
 personal responsibility is affirmed and imputed, and he- 
 reditary guilt denied, in the most emphatic terms ? 
 " Behold, all souls are mine ; as the soul of the father, 
 so also the soul of the son is mine." " The soul that 
 sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear.ihe in- 
 iquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the in- 
 iquity of the son ; the righteousness of the righteous shall 
 be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall 
 be upon him." " Therefore will I judge you, O house 
 of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the 
 Lord God." 
 
DISCOUESE XXII, 
 
 SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 BEHOLD, ALL SOULS ARE MINE ; AS THE SOUL OF THE FATHER, SO ALSO 
 THE SOUL OF THE SON IS MINE : THE SOUL THAT SINNETH, IT SHALL 
 DIE. — THE SON SHALL NOT BEAR THE INIQUITY OF THE FATHER, 
 NEITHER SHALL THE FATHER BEAR THE INIQUITY OF THE SON ; 
 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL BE UPON HIM, AND 
 THE WICKEDNESS OF THE WICKED SHALL BE UPON HIM. Ezokiel 
 
 xviii. 4 and 20. 
 
 This, as it seems to me, is a strong and emphatic 
 repudiation of the principle of the doctrine of Original 
 Sin. It is a stern rebuke pf a proverb in common use 
 among the Israelites in the time of Ezekiel : — " The 
 fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth 
 are set on edge." This, it seems, was uttered in such 
 a sense as to reflect on the Divine justice, as if God had 
 established such a connection between parents and chil- 
 dren, that the children were punished for the parents' 
 sins. "The way of the Lord," said they, "is not 
 equal." There is no part of the Bible in which the 
 Divine indignation, so to speak, seems to be so deeply 
 moved as in the refutation of this charge. " As I live, 
 saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any 
 more to use this proverb in Israel." 
 
370 SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 In contradiction to this doctrine of hereditary guilt 
 and punishment, God declares, " All souls are mine," 
 which means, if it mean any thing, that all souls are of 
 Divine, and not of human origin. Coming each from God 
 as their pure original, and passing through no medium of 
 human corruption, they are pure. Bodies produce each 
 other by well-known laws, and there is no little physical 
 resemblance between the parent and the child. Not so 
 with souls. They succeed, but do not produce, each 
 other. Each successive soul comes from God, the soul 
 of every human being as much as of the first progenitor 
 of our race. Each soul is endued with its, own sepa- 
 rate and independent powers and responsibilities, pos' 
 sesses its own freedom to choose between good and evil, 
 with no necessary dependence on the character or con- 
 duct of any progenitor, near or remote. "TAe soul that 
 sinneth^ it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity 
 of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of 
 the son ; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon 
 him, and the wickedness -of the wicked shall be upon 
 him." How can these declarations possibly be consist- 
 ent with the doctrine of Original Sin .'' If that doctrine 
 be true, all mankind have been bearing the iniquity of 
 Adam since the beginning of the world. Not only is the 
 fact to be noted, but the nature of the punishment they 
 endure. The mere suffering of pain is generally a tem- 
 porary affair, and leaves no very lasting injury. If it 
 leave the constitution sound, there will be a recovery 
 from the effects of the punishment, and this good at least 
 will follow, that the state of ease and satisfaction which 
 succeeds will be lightened by the contrast between pain 
 and the state of freedom from it. But the way in which 
 the children of Adam are represented as bearing his in- 
 
SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 371 
 
 iquity is infinitely worse. They suffer in an impaired 
 moral constitution, which incapacitates them for virtue 
 and holiness, and makes them capable only of sin. If 
 the doctrine of Original Sin be true, then God has done 
 to the whole human race that which to have done in one 
 individual case he rebukes as the most atrocious impu- 
 tation on his character. 
 
 Not only is there no such tiling as hereditary responsi- 
 bility, but no such thing as hereditary character. The 
 wicked father may have a virtuous son, and the virtuous 
 father may have a wicked son. Every human being has 
 the power of forming his own character. " Behold, all 
 souls are mine ; as the soul of the father, so also the 
 soul of thcson is mine ; the soul that sinneth it shall die. 
 But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and 
 
 right, hath walked in my statutes and hath kept 
 
 my judgments, to deal truly, he is just, he shall surely 
 live, saith the Lord God. If he beget a son that is a 
 robber, a shedder of blood, and that'doeth the like to any 
 one of these things, and that doeth not any of 'those 
 
 duties, he shall not live : he hath done all these 
 
 abominations ; he shall surely die ; his blood shall be 
 upon him." 
 
 Not only are the vices of parents not hereditary, but 
 they may be turned to a warning, rather than a snare, by 
 the children, and thus made the means of stimulating 
 them to virtue. " Now, lo, if he beget a son that seeth 
 all his father's sins which he hath done, and considerelh, 
 
 and doeth not such like, but hath given his bread 
 
 to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a gar- 
 ment, hath executed my judgments, hath walked 
 
 in my statutes, he shall not die for the iniquity of his fa- 
 ther, he shall surely live. As for his father, because he 
 
372 SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 cruelly oppressed, spoiled his brother by violence, and 
 did that which is not good among his people, lo, even he 
 shall die in his iniquity." 
 
 That character is not Hereditary, we have not only 
 the testimony of God's declaration, but the testimony of 
 history and experience. The children of the pious pa- 
 triarch Jacob were malignant persecutors and cold- 
 blooded murderers, and Joseph seems to be the only one 
 of the twelve who preserved the piety and integrity of 
 his ancestors. Manasseh and Amon were among the 
 most wicked kings of all that reigned over Judah. Yet 
 Josiah, the son of the one and the grandson of the other, 
 was a pious prince, and became a zealous and efficient 
 reformer of the people of God. Thus we see, at the 
 present time, the sons of good men become most profli- 
 gate and abandoned, and the sons of bad men become 
 ornaments of society. Families and generations are in 
 continual revolution. There is an individual freedom 
 which is paramount to all hereditary bias, and even to 
 the more potent influence of domestic education. If it 
 wfere otherwise, this would not be a world of equal pro- 
 bation to all. Constitutional tendency and hereditary 
 disposition are found to be as nothing when broughtin 
 conflict with education, example, and external influ- 
 ences. 
 
 There was ample opportunity afforded to test this, 
 when the European and aboriginal races were brought 
 into contact for the first time on this western continent. 
 There were the children of each, impressed with what- 
 ever differences of structure and disposition the civiliza- 
 tion and Christianity of Europe, acting on successive 
 generations for a thousand years, could produce, on the 
 one hand, and the paganism, barbarism, and ferocity of 
 
SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 873 
 
 savage life, continued through untold ages, on the other. 
 The children of Europeans were, in some instances, 
 carried into captivity at an early period of life. Not- 
 withstanding their European parentage, features, consti- 
 tution, and complexion, they became just as much sav- 
 ages as their captors. They exhibited no disposition to 
 the pursuits and habits of civilization. They became 
 hunters, warriors, idlers, tormentors, just as if their an- 
 cestors for a thousand years had not been peaceful tillers 
 of the soil, and the disciples of the meek and gentle re- 
 ligion of Jesus. 
 
 It sometimes happened that the offspring of the sav- 
 ages were transplanted into the bosom of a Christian and 
 civilized community. They heai'd no more the war- 
 whoop, they saw no more the frantic war-dance, nor 
 were accustomed to witness scenes of cruelty and tor- 
 ture. They drank in the subduing and humanizing influ- 
 ences of Christian sentiments and institutions, and they 
 were savages no more. The savage blood, which had 
 flowed through a hundred generations, lost in one all its 
 ferocity, and the tawny son of the forest differed little, 
 save in the color of his skin, from those who seemed to 
 have an hereditary right to the virtues of Christianity. 
 The experiment on both sides demonstrated how little 
 physical constitution has to do with moral and spiritual 
 character. "That which is born of flesh is flesh." 
 The physical constitution of man is much like that of the 
 plants which spring up out of the earth. Their Consti- 
 tution and ultimate development depend upon the essen- 
 tial type of the original germ. Their structure and pe- 
 culiarities niay be somewhat modified, but not essen- 
 tially changed, by difference of external circumstances, or 
 by voluntary culture. But the soul of man is subjected 
 32 
 
374 SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 to totally different laws. " That which is bora of spirit 
 is spirit." The soul is formed by moral causes. The 
 spirit is subjected to spiritual influences. Souls form and 
 modify and develop each other, by communion and in- 
 tercourse, by direct teaching, by sympathy, by example. 
 The parents of the soul are not always those of the 
 body. The parents of the soul are they who exert the 
 greatest influence over its development, and contribute 
 most to form its character. The natural parents have, 
 it is true, the greatest power to form the character of 
 their offspring. There is between them the closest tie 
 of affection ; there is towards parents the greatest nat- 
 ural confidence, and with them the greatest intimacy of 
 intercourse. But if, as often happens, the parents are 
 early separated from their children, that influence is 
 wholly prevented. In that case, the children of the holi- 
 est parents are just as liable to be led astray and ruined, as 
 the children of the most profligate. The entail of wick- 
 edness, too, may be as effectually cut off. The children 
 of vicious parents, when taken away at an early age from 
 the corrupting influence of their society, are susceptible 
 of being trained by the pure and pious to purity and 
 piety, and prepared for glory, honor, and immortality. 
 
 There are a thousand nameless influences which con- 
 tribute to form the character of the soul. "The wind 
 bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, but canst not tell whence it comelh and whither 
 it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the spirit." The 
 soul ranges over the universe, like the wind over the 
 earth. It is affected by the distant and the past, as well 
 as the present and the near. Its aspirations after the 
 good and the true may be kindled by the example of a 
 man who lived thousands of years ago. Its ideal of ex- 
 
SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 375 
 
 cellence may be formed by the words of a man who 
 spoke or wrote in the most distant regions and the most 
 distant times. The spiritual parentage of the soul be- 
 longs in some measure to the age in which it lives. The 
 moral sentiments of the age float about the soul like an 
 atmosphere. The soul may be said to breathe it, as our 
 lungs do the air. The moral sentiments of this commu- 
 nity are very different from the moral sentinaents which 
 prevailed in England when this country was colonized, 
 and are immeasurably more Christian and humane. The 
 moral sentiments which prevailed in England two hun- 
 dred years ago were wholly different from those which 
 prevailed in Rome at the introduction of Christianity. 
 Christianity had done much for mankind, even in the 
 Dark Ages. It is working yet, and we see no necessary 
 limit to its influence. 
 
 This very fact shows how plastic a thing the human 
 soul is ; that it has not one fixed character, extending 
 urichanged through all ages, and that character one of 
 uniform, unalterable depravity. It is just what culture 
 makes it. It is capable of saintly purity, of unshaken 
 fidelity, of devoted affection, of boundless charity, of 
 dauntless constancy, of entire disinterestedness, of low- 
 liest humility, and of a purity second only to that which 
 bends before the throne of God in heaven. 
 
 It is true, there are capacities, to an equal extent, of 
 sin and depravity. It follows, of course, from the essen- 
 tial freedom of the human will. But that depravity is a 
 depravity of practice, and not of nature. It arises from 
 the abuse, and not from the right use, of nature. And 
 according to the verdict of universal language, which is 
 nothing else than the moral judgment of all mankind, the 
 wicked are those who have become corrupted. This is 
 
376 SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 a tacit confession, that they begin existence pure. Tlie 
 appetites are given us that they may promote our good, 
 but they may be perverted to sensuality and excess. 
 We are made with a strong individual desire of happi- 
 ness. But we have likewise implanted within us a prin- 
 ciple of benevolence. The natural balance of our nature 
 is destroyed when we cherish our own individual desire 
 of happiness, neglect benevolence, and become selfish 
 and hard-hearted. The passions are given us as central 
 forces to keep the whole machinery of our nature in ac- 
 tion, but if not regulated by reason and conscience, they 
 may carry us to perdition. Resentment is given us for 
 self-defence, but it may be perverted to fiendish and im- 
 placable revenge. The power of speech is given us 
 that we may use it in the communication of truth and 
 the expression of kindness, but we may make it the in- 
 strument of base falsehood and cruel malignity. Our 
 tongues are given us to utter God's praise, but we may 
 use them to profane his holy name. 
 
 The only hope of man, as to the progress and destiny 
 of the race, depends upon the fact of the original purity 
 and innocence of human nature. It depends on the pos- 
 sibility of giving each rising generation a better education 
 than the last, and keeping it more effectually from the 
 evil there is in the world. Of those who have already 
 become corrupted, there is not much hope. Such is the 
 force of habit, such the difficulty of bringing back the 
 soul to simplicity when it has once become sophisticat- 
 ed, of softening the heart that has once Become hardened, 
 of bringing back the soul to God when it has once be- 
 come alienated from him, that there is not so much hope 
 of reforming the mature as in training up the young. 
 " They that seek me early shall find me." But genera- 
 
SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 377 
 
 tlons succeed each other with great rapidity. Once in 
 three-and-ihirty years the population of the world is 
 changed, and a new race is seen in the walks of busi- 
 ness, in the scenes of pleasure, and around the altars of 
 God. God is continually sending a new world of souls 
 pure from his forming hand, that the experiment may be 
 tried afresh, whether they may not be kept from contami- 
 nation and preserved for his service. The solicitude of 
 paternal love is awakened anew. All the natural ties are 
 woven afresh, that they may prompt to a more watchful 
 vigilance, and a more effectual discipline of the innocent 
 and inexperienced. New methods of education are de- 
 vised, new means of moral and spiritual intliience are 
 brought to bear on those whose characters are forming. 
 Christianity itself is more studied and better understood, 
 — that dispensation ol heavenly wisdom into which hu- 
 manity is to be baptized. 
 
 I say, then, under these circumstances, that the blame 
 of the actual wickedness of mankind is unjustly thrown 
 upon human nature. The bad example and the bad moral 
 influences under which each successive generation is ed- 
 ucated, are sufficient to account for the actual depravity 
 developed in each generation, without resorting to the 
 supposition of any constitutional taint or bias to sin. 
 When we see the corrupting influences to which the 
 young are actually exposed, and the thoughtless neglect 
 with which they are treated, so far from supposing them 
 to be originally depraved, we are compelled to believe 
 them originally pure, to account for the fact that they 
 become no worse. 
 
 When I compare the language of some of the advo- 
 cates of the doctrine of the constitutional depravity of 
 mankind with their practice, I cannot but feel that hu- 
 32* 
 
378 SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 man nature is grossly wronged, and the most unjust impu- 
 tations cast upon the character of God. On the one hand, 
 you may hear them assert that human nature is intrinsi- 
 cally vile and prone to all evil, and on the other, you 
 may see them renounce the most sacred duties of par- 
 ents, and hand their children over to the care of nurses 
 and servants, of whose integrity they have no assurance, 
 and who may from the first corrupt and mislead them. 
 They are themselves too indolent, or too indifferent, or 
 too much absorbed in the business or frivolities of the 
 world, to watch over the moral development of their 
 children. Their tempers, however originally serene and 
 amiable, may be spoiled before they leave the nursery, 
 by perpetual annoyance and irritation. Or, what is still 
 more frequent, by a thoughtless indulgence of the appe- 
 tites, the physical health may be ruined at an early pe- 
 riod, and then the contortions of pain and the manifesta- 
 tions of irritability are set down to the promptings of a 
 depraved and wicked nature. Children, it is said, begin 
 to manifest a bad temper before they can speak. What 
 greater proof can be required of a nature constitutionally 
 bad? 
 
 Soon reason and observation are developed, and chil- 
 dren begin to be affected by the example of those about 
 them. At first they are, proverbially, all simplicity and 
 truthfulness. Indeed, they often give their parents great 
 annoyance from their disposition to tell the truth, the 
 whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Concealment, 
 prevarication, misrepresentation, are things which must 
 be learnecl. They are not native and spontaneous. 
 And the world would actually be reformed and made 
 better, if parents would consent to be taught truthfulness 
 and integrity by their children, in that moral condition in 
 
SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 379 
 
 which they are created, instead of corrupting the sim- 
 plicity of childhood by their own sophistication. 
 
 They early associate, together with their parents, 
 with friends, neighbours, and acquaintances. And what 
 are the lessons which are taught them by that inter- 
 course .'' Are they sincerity and plaindealing ? Do 
 they listen to the same sort of conversation in the pres- 
 ence and the absence of the friends and acquaintances of 
 their parents .'' Are they not too often taught the most 
 pernicious and practical lessons of dissimulation and hy- 
 pocrisy .'' And is it just and is it fair for parents to 
 charge on nature the falsehood and insincerity which they 
 themselves have taught, but which nature abhorred ? 
 
 They soon are old enough to sit at their parents' ta- 
 bles, and here their moral education begins in earnest. 
 What is the conversation to which they listen ? They 
 drink in some kind of moral influence with every word 
 they hear. Do they there hear the law of kindness, im- 
 partiality, and justice maintained, or do they not rather 
 too often witness the development of the worst passions 
 of human nature, — envy, jealousy, revenge, suspicion 
 thrown upon the purest, and odious epithets afiixed, in 
 mere wantonness, to the names of the most worthy 
 members of society .' A friend has no faults, and an 
 enemy no virtues. They at length imbibe the prejudices, 
 of their parents, and exhibit the same unfairness, de- 
 traction, and misrepresentation. But let God be the 
 judge, if such vices are not justly chargeable on the 
 voluntary perversion of the parents, rather than the con- 
 stitutional depravity of the children. 
 
 From the domestic fireside children go forth and enter 
 the walks of business. I ask, whether they carry more 
 guile there than they find when they arrive. Is it not 
 
380 I SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 proverbial, that the unsophisticated simplicity of youth 
 finds many practices in the business world at which it 
 demurs, as shocking to the natural sentiments of equity 
 and justice, and to which it requires time and discipline 
 to become reconciled ? How, then, are the frauds which 
 fill the records of courts, and occupy the time and atten- 
 tion of the officers of the law, any evidence of the native 
 corruption of man, when they are traditionary, and not 
 spontaneous, and are first practised against the strongest 
 remonstrances of the natural conscience ? 
 
 Let the young man enter one of the professions, and his 
 experience is the same. He commences the study of the 
 law. Ostensibly, it has for its object the promotion of 
 justice between man and man. A nobler purpose could 
 not well be named. Law itself must necessarily have an 
 honest intention, because justice is the abstract interest 
 of all. But human ingenuitycan pervert the best things, 
 and law itself is made the instrument of perpetrating the 
 grossest wrongs and protecting the greatest criminals. 
 But all these perversions are learned in the course of 
 time, and are not prompted by the spontaneous inclina- 
 tion of the inexperienced. 
 
 Medicine lies open to the same reproach. It is ap- 
 parently the most benevolent of all the professions. But 
 it is exposed to the temptation of possessing a science 
 wholly unknown to the masses, and which therefore puts 
 the masses entirely in the practitioner's power, and places 
 them at his mercy. He may make his bread out of the 
 ignorance, the fears, and the best affections of mankind. 
 But such practices are an afterthought. To the honor 
 of human nature, it may safely be said that no young 
 man goes into the profession at first with such base in- 
 tentions. 
 
SIN NOT HERBDITAHY. 381 
 
 Even the sacred calling of the ministry has its tempta- 
 tions. The world has never seen a band of more devot- 
 ed and disinterested men than the early teachers of the 
 Christian faith. They went forth to the world to an- 
 nounce the Gospel of healing and salvation, under the 
 obloquy and persecution of mankind, and by their toils 
 and tears and blood the world was redeemed from idol- 
 atry and barbarism and sin. But Christianity became 
 corrupted by its own success. A real superiority to the 
 world begat power, and power was soon abused to bad 
 purposes. These abuses, however, never originated 
 with the young, nor are they known to exist by those 
 who in early life devote themselves to the cause of re- 
 ligion and human happiness. The abuses of Christian- 
 ity are all traditionary and artificial, and such as are at 
 first revolting to the natural sentiments of mankind. 
 
 I leave it to all who have listened to me this day to say, 
 if I have not shown that depravity is hereditary in a total- 
 ly different sense from that which is asserted by the doc- 
 trine of Original Sin. It does not descend with the blood, 
 nor is it propagated with the physical system. The chil- 
 dren's teeth are not set on edge because the fathers have 
 eaten sour grapes. The son does not bear the iniquity 
 of the father, in the sense of sharing his guilt, or of inher- 
 iting from him an impaired moral agency. But he does 
 suffer by his evil example. He does suffer from his neg- 
 lect to discharge the duties of a parent. All the tradi- 
 tion of sin from which the world suffers is voluntary, not 
 constitutional. 
 
 If it were constitutional, the prospects of humanity 
 would be shrouded in impenetrable gloom. Sin would 
 be a fixed element in human nature, like gravity in mat- 
 ter, like transparency in water, like tenacity in metals. 
 
382 SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 But being itself purely a matter of the will, its transmis- 
 sion is not necessary, and depends on the voluntary 
 choice. The entail may be broken by a careful religious 
 education, and the force of a pure example. 
 
 The power of Christ's religion may go on continually 
 to augment, and the power of sin continually to wane. 
 Every generation, commencing pure, may be kept by 
 the power of God, through faith, unto salvation, to an 
 extent to which no limits can be set. And causes are 
 now in operation which must inevitably introduce the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 The principle of the doctrine of imputation is capable 
 of some illustrations, which ought, in my judgment, to 
 exclude the possibility of its being admitted as a princi- 
 ple of the Divine government. It would have been, 
 doubtless, greatly for the interest of creditors, at different 
 periods of the world, to have had laws passed making 
 debts hereditary. The son inherits his being from his 
 father, and his property, if he has any. Why not make 
 him responsible for his debts .'' The simple reason why 
 such have not been the constitution and laws of states 
 has been, that the moral sense of mankind and their in- 
 tuitive perceptions of equity have repudiated the idea as 
 flagrant injustice. It is an obvious principle of justice, 
 that every generation should be permitted to act upon its 
 own responsibility, — that it should begin life free, and 
 be permitted to contract its own debts. 
 
 But the advocate for the law making children account- 
 able for the pecuniary obligations of their parents, might 
 reply to the objector to the establishment of such a 
 social arrangement, if all parties received as true the 
 doctrine of the fall of man and hereditary depravity, in 
 language like this : — " You admit that the moral nature 
 
SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 383 
 
 of man was wrecked by the Fall, and you say that moral 
 imperfection was entailed by Adam on all his posterity. 
 This was done by the arrangement of God. What God 
 does must be considered by us to be right, whether we 
 can reconcile it to our sense of justice or not. It is 
 much safer to take what God does as our rule of action, 
 than any idea of justice which is suggested by our fallen 
 and fallible natures. It is certainly no more unjust to 
 make children responsible for the debts of their parents, 
 than to make the posterity of Adam responsible for his 
 sin. The same principle must cover both cases." 
 
 Indeed, the case of the posterity of Adam is, in some 
 respects, much harder than that of the son made respon- 
 sible for the debts of his father. Children often have re- 
 ceived the benefit of that for which their parents are in- 
 debted. They have lived upon it, or perhaps have re- 
 ceived their education out of it. The posterity of Adam 
 had no participation in his sin, enjoyed none of the pleas- 
 ures of it, if there were any, and received from it no be- 
 nefit whatever. The case of the son is not hopeless. 
 He may work out the arrear, and stand up in freedom, in 
 the possession of his faculties at least unimpaired. But 
 the posterity of Adam not only inherit guilt, but an 
 impaired moral constitution, whereby they are disabled 
 and made opposite to all that is good. The son, when 
 he died, would transmit at least the hereditary indebted- 
 ness of his father, if he were unable to discharge it, to 
 bis posterity, and thus escape the responsibility. But the 
 posterity of Adam not only transmit guilt and depravity 
 to their offspring, but are themselves condemned to eternal 
 woe, which they cannot without Divine assistance escape. 
 
 The principle of the doctrine of imputation would sus- 
 tain the institution of hereditary slavery, against which the 
 
384 SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 
 
 whole civilized world is now making such an outcry. 
 It is said to be cruelly unjust that the child of a slave 
 should inherit bondage from his parents. What has a 
 slave done that he should be made a slave for life ? 
 What crime has he committed that he should be deprived 
 of his liberty ? He has been guilty of being born of a 
 parent who was a slave. But that certainly was invol- 
 untary, and no fault of his. Yet his parent's misfortune 
 is imputed to him. His parent, perhaps, was taken in 
 war, and as his life was forfeited to the victor, he himself 
 became the property of the conqueror. And his chil- 
 dren, in the language of the Westminster Confession, 
 " descending from him by ordinary generation, were 
 captured in him and became slaves with him in his cap- 
 tivity." The consequences of his captivity upon his 
 posterity are " a forfeiture of all the natural rights of 
 man, a subjection to every species of indignity during 
 life, and the burial of a beast." But the world cries out 
 against this as unjust, and not to be tolerated. If they 
 are Calvinists, they cannot do so without condemning, in 
 the severest terms, their own theology. It is precise- 
 ly as unjust to punish the posterity of Adam for his sin, 
 to deprive them of the power of doing any thing that is 
 spiritually good, — the highest privilege which a rational 
 and accountable being can possess, — and to condemn 
 them to everlasting woe, as to doom a man and his pos- 
 terity to perpetual slavery, because his father had the 
 misfortune to be made a slave. 
 
 Communities suppose themselves to have the right to 
 enslave men for life for crime. If they are convicted of 
 certain crimes, they are deprived of liberty, shut up in 
 gloomy prisons, and made to labor for the rest of their 
 lives for the benefit of the state. But no one thinks of 
 
SIN NOT HEREDITARY. 385 
 
 extending this punishment to their offspring. There is 
 not a human being to be found, who would advocate a 
 proceeding so atrocious. But such a proceeding would 
 be infinitely less revolting to every principle of equity 
 than the common doctrine of Original Sin. The moral 
 sense of mankind would not suffer such an outrage. 
 They would not look on and see the innocent children of 
 the vilest criminal shut up with him in the same prison, 
 and condemned to the same unrequited and solitary toil, 
 without having done any thing in their own persons to 
 merit such a punishment. But if the Assembly of Di- 
 vines at Westminster is to be believed, millions of in- 
 fants, who have never done either good or evil, are to be 
 shut up for ever in hell, for no other crime than having 
 descended from Adam by ordinary generation ; for they 
 tell us that " elect infants, dying in infancy, are regener- 
 ated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who work- 
 eth when and how and where he pleaseth." The rest, 
 of course, not being saved, are lost, and being by nature 
 children of wrath, are "subject to the wrath and curse 
 of God and the pains of hell for ever." 
 
 33 
 
DISCOURSE XXIII. 
 
 NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 
 
 AND WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF, HE SAID, HOW MANY HIRED SER- 
 VANTS OF MY father's HAVE BREAD ENOUGH, AND TO SPARE, AND 
 1 PERISH WITH HUNGER ! I WILL ARISE, AND GO TO MY FA- 
 THER, AND WILL SAY UNTO HIM, FATHER, I HAVE SINNED AGAINST 
 HEAVEN, AND BEFORE THEE. — ' Lake XV. 17, 18- 
 
 In the discourse before the last, we considered the 
 causes of sin in the human constitution, and endeavoured 
 to answer the great and important question, Why is man 
 a sinner .'' It is the object of this discourse to consider 
 the remedies which God has provided for sin indepen- 
 dently of revelation. We before endeavoured to show 
 what in man's constitution and condition malies him lia- 
 ble to sin. Sin we showed in all cases to be a perver- 
 sion of human nature, and not its natural use. The very 
 definition of sin given in Scripture is, that " it is a 
 transgression of the law," — the law, of course, under 
 which God has placed man. In the absence of revela- 
 tion, the only law which God has given to man is in his 
 own nature. " The Gentiles, having not the law, are a 
 law unto themselves." Men are not made that they may 
 
NATUHAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 387 
 
 sin, but that they may obey the law ; yet their obedience 
 to the law would have no moral value were there no 
 capacity of sinning. Men ar'e made for virtue and holi- 
 ness. ' There must, then, be provision made in human 
 nature itself (or the prevention of sin before it is commit- 
 ted, and for bringing men to repentance and reformation 
 when they have gone astray. There must be something 
 in the dispensation of nature analogous to the Gospel, as 
 remedial to human sinfulness, or the Gospel itself would 
 not be credible. The Gospel has been afforded to a 
 very small part of the human race. God is no respecter 
 of persons, and is the God of the Gentiles just as much 
 as of the Jews and Christians. They are designed for vir- 
 tue and happiness in this world, and for holiness and hap- 
 piness in the next. All mankind are hastening to judg- 
 ment and eternity. It is wholly incredible that God 
 should provide ninety-nine hundredths of mankind with 
 no means of attaining to virtue and holiness, and the 
 consequent happiness of heaven. 
 
 We are now, therefore, to consider what is the salvation 
 which God has provided for man in natural religion, or, 
 in other words, in his own condition and circumstances. 
 What natural causes tend to rescue man from sin, and 
 make him holy and happy .'' Were there no such 
 causes, were there no provision made for the prevention 
 and the remedy of sin, were man created with the liabil- 
 ity to sin, with passions to prompt and temptations to se- 
 duce him, without any thing to counteract and obviate 
 them, then the condition and constitution of man would 
 be an unanswerable argument against the perfections of 
 the Deity, his wisdom, his goodness, or his power. The 
 gift of existence to man would not be a blessing. It 
 would be the law of his nature to sin as soon as capable 
 
388 NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 
 
 of moral action, and to go on growing worse and worse 
 for ever. 
 
 But it is not so. Man fs made for virtue, and not for 
 vice, and there are causes placed within.and aroun'd him, 
 which, if maintained in their legitimate operation, will 
 make him a virtuous and a happy being. Virtue, and not 
 vice, is the natural state of man ; just as health, not dis- 
 ease, is the natural state of the human body. There are 
 causes in operation which tend to keep the body in 
 health, and which are continually resisting the approach 
 of disease. And when disease is induced, there is an 
 effort of nature to restore the system to health ; an extra- 
 ordinary process is immediately commenced, which has 
 for its object the healing of the bruised or lacerated 
 flesh, or the reunion of the broken bone. Man has daily 
 and hourly warnings what he is to partake and what he is 
 to refuse, what he is to do and what he is to forbear, in 
 order to preserve his health, and when it is lost, nature 
 points out a regimen to be observed in order that it may 
 be restored. Not only so, the world is filled with medi- 
 cinal agents, which have the power to assist Nature, when 
 she has become disordered, in regaining her normal 
 action. 
 
 These provisions are among the strongest evidences 
 of the goodness of the Creator. But God is not only 
 the Framer of our bodies, but the Father of our spirits. 
 It would be irrational to suppose that he had been less 
 wise and kind as the Father of our spirits than as the 
 Framer of our bodies. There are means provided for 
 preserving and restoring the health of the soul, as well as 
 the health of the body. It is the purpose of this dis- 
 course to consider and to point them out. 
 
 What, then, are the remedies which are provided for 
 
NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 389 
 
 sin ? It will help us to answer this question, if we ask 
 another, — Why do not all men plunge into a full grati6- 
 cation of all their propensities ? Why do not all men sin 
 to the full extent of all their capacities ? Why, indeed, 
 are not all men as bad as the worst ? What restrains, 
 and, of course, saves, them from the worst possible de- 
 pravity ? 
 
 It is, in the first place, plainly reason. It is because 
 man is a reasonable being, that his freedom is not always 
 fatal to him. Having desires to prompt and outward 
 objects to tempt him, he is saved from the danger of in- 
 discriminate indulgence and immediate ruin by reason. 
 That enables him to trace the connection between causes 
 and effects. It enables hira to foresee the consequences 
 of his actions. He sees that sin, though accompanied 
 by present pleasure, will be followed by an overbalance 
 of pain. He arrives at the general conviction, that a 
 greater part of the sufferings of mankind arise from their 
 vices. This conviction of the understanding every day's 
 experience strengthens, till at last the present pleasures 
 of sin are not more closely associated with it in the 
 mind than its consequent suffering. 
 
 Passion and appetite, though strong, are not the rul- 
 ing power in man. They are not the will. The will is 
 a distinct power, and independent of them. There is, 
 too, another power whose assent must be gained before 
 the will can move, — the understanding. The passions 
 and appetites can only suggest. They are not made to 
 govern and give orders. They are the counsellors of 
 the state, but they are not the monarch. The monarch 
 is the understanding, and it is conscious of its rightful 
 dominion. If the understanding abdicates the throne, 
 and gives up to the passions and appetites, it feels that it 
 33* 
 
390 NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 
 
 has deserted its station, and the passions and appetites 
 are conscious that they are usurpers. The passions and 
 appetites themselves are blind, and have no discernment 
 of right or vi^rong, expedient or inexpedient, in their 
 objects. These are qualities which they do not discern. 
 They therefore present every thing indiscriminately, 
 which is so constituted as to minister to their pleasure, 
 as desirable. But they cannot immediately give their 
 orders to the will, and put the executive powers in motion 
 to obtain and enjoy what they covet. The subject must 
 pass through the understanding. But the understanding 
 is endowed with the power to foresee, not only immedi- 
 ate effects, but remote consequences. It can weigh one 
 against the other ; and thus actions, which seem to the 
 passions and appetites desirable, are looked upon by the 
 understanding with horror, and deprecated as the great- 
 est evils and the sorest misfortunes. For there is in 
 the human soul a general desire of happiness, besides the 
 particular desires of specific objects which are calculated 
 to gratify those desires. And when the understanding 
 perceives that any specific gratification of any of the ap- 
 petites or passions would, on the whole, be followed by 
 an overbalance of pain, this general desire of happiness 
 sets itself in array against the particular desire of specific 
 gratification, and, in all well-regulated minds, over- 
 comes it. 
 
 Thus it is that the understanding or reason is one of 
 the remedies which God has appointed for sin, as a 
 countercheck to the passions and appetites, to fix the 
 free will and choice of man on good in preference to 
 evil, and thus to secure his present and eternal well- 
 being. The result is called prudence. It does not 
 stand so high in the catalogue of virtues as some others. 
 
NATURAL REMEDIES OP SIN. 391 
 
 but Still it is a cardinal virtue, and ministers to man's 
 present and eternal good. Tt is commended as meritori- 
 ous in the Scriptures. It is largely insisted on in the Old 
 Testament, under the name of wisdom. The Book of 
 Proverbs regards. it as the sum and substance of all re- 
 ligion, and the consummation of human attainment. 
 " Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain the fa- 
 vor of the Lord." It is said of the wise, that " they 
 shall shine as the light and as the stars for ever and 
 ever." 
 
 Let the wine, then, sparkle in the cup, let pleasure 
 spread her most seductive allurements, if there be an 
 overbalance of evil in indulgence, the understanding says, 
 " Beware ; touch not, taste not, handle not." It utters 
 its cautions in tones of earnestness and deep conviction, 
 and if the present temptation be embraced, it can only 
 be against its advice, its remonstrances, its entreaties, 
 its startling forewarnings and direful prophecies of ill. 
 " He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul : all 
 they that hate me love death." 
 
 I say, moreover, that this remedy which God has pro- 
 vided for sin does operate as such ; that, in the great 
 struggle with passion and appetite, the understanding is 
 ordinarily victorious. The passions and appetites are 
 strong, and violent in their assaults. Their onset is im- 
 petuous, but usually transitory and evanescent in propor- 
 tion to its violence. They produce a temporary illusion, 
 — disastrous, it is true, while it lasts. But it passes 
 over, like a fleeting cloud, which for a while obscures 
 the sky, but soon evaporates and disappears. Reason is 
 like the steady light of the sun. Its light is perpetual and 
 unchanging. Its exercise is the normal and natural state 
 of the mind, to which it spontaneously returns as soon as, 
 
392 NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 
 
 the disturbing causes are removed. " And when he 
 came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of 
 my father's have bread enough, and to spare, and I per- 
 ish with hunger ! I will arise, and go to my father." 
 
 Another principle which God has provided to save 
 man from sin, and from the abuse of his free will, is con- 
 science, or the moral sense. This faculty, though close- 
 ly connected with the last, is distinct from' it, inasmuch 
 as the objects of their perception are different. The 
 office of the understanding is to perceive what is expe- 
 dient, to weigh the good and the evil which will result 
 from doing or not doing an action. The quality which 
 the moral sense perceives in an action is whether it is 
 right. The sentiments which arise in the mind from 
 violating these two principles are different and distinct. 
 To have done an action which the understanding pro- 
 nounces to be inexpedient, gives rise to the feeling of 
 simple regret. In this case, we feel as if we had com- 
 mitted a mistake. When we are conscious of having 
 done an act which the moral sense assured us was 
 wrong, VFC have an entirely different feeling, — the sense 
 of guilt, — a feeling wholly diverse from simple regret. 
 We are conscious, not of having made a mistake, but of 
 having committed a sin. This, then, is designed to be 
 the great preventive and remedy of sin, to which we are 
 exposed by the possession of a free will and the capacity 
 of pleasure from outward things. 
 
 This moral sense is God's immediate revelation to 
 every human soul. No human being of perfect faculties 
 is without it. Its uniformity and universality show it to 
 be from God, the Creator and Father of the soul. If 
 obeyed, in opposition to the solicitations of the passions 
 and appetites, it settles into character, and is attended by 
 
NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 393 
 
 a peace which passeth all understanding. He who obeys 
 conscience is safe and happy, here and hereafter. 
 
 Another remedy for sin, and means of salvation from 
 it, is religious faith. Religious faith is not confined to 
 those to whom God has given a miraculous revelation. 
 God has so constituted man, that religious faith is neces- 
 sarily generated by the exercise of his faculties. " God 
 hath not left himself without witness to any nation," or 
 any human mind. " For the invisible things of him are 
 clearly seen, being understood by the things which are 
 made, even his eternal power and Godhead." 
 
 The structure of conscience necessarily implies the 
 existence of God. The conscience makes us conceive 
 of God as a Lawgiver, as well as Creator, The con- 
 viction is intuitive and irresistible, that God is the Author 
 of conscience. Disobedience to conscience, then, be- 
 comes disobedience to God. It is not only imprudence, 
 but guilt. It not only exposes us to suffering, but to 
 punishment. The natural conviction of the human mind 
 is, that God is eternal and the spirit immortal, and 
 therefore the punishment of every sin is inevitable. Such 
 are the natural impressions of the whole human race. 
 
 This religious faith always rises up in the presence of 
 temptation. The consciousness of the Lawgiver and 
 Witness is never absent from the human mind. This 
 is proved by the fact that no secrecy can obviate the 
 consciousness of guilt. The thought which comes up in 
 every mind, on the presentation of temptation, is, " How 
 can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God ? " 
 This religious faith is a great amulet of safety to man- 
 kind, the most efficient remedyof sin, the most effectual 
 preserver of the innocence and happiness of the human 
 race. 
 
394 NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 
 
 I have now considered those preventives vphich are 
 provided for sin before its commission, and which are 
 intended to guard men from yielding to temptation. I 
 now come to those remedies which occur after sin has 
 been committed, to bring them to repentance and refor- 
 mation, and to warn them against its repetition. The 
 admonitions of God to the sinner are many and emphatic. 
 God has, in mercy, hedged up the path to perdition with 
 thorns. " The way of transgressors is hard." The 
 evil consequences of sin are both physical and moral, 
 and both are appalling. 
 
 The first and most prominent cure which God has 
 provided for sin is the one named by our Lord in the text, 
 and which perhaps found its way into the parable from 
 its prominence. " ^nd he began to be in want." The 
 effects of sin are first felt in the privations which it pro- 
 duces. God exercises a moral discipHne over mankind 
 by means of their wants. Those wants are best sup- 
 plied when man conforms his conduct to the laws of 
 temperance, industry, and justice. The abuse of man's 
 nature is immediately felt in the sources of his happiness. 
 Any act of intemperance is followed by the loss of an 
 equal amount of physical comfort. The animal spirits, 
 having been raised too high, suffer a corresponding de- 
 pression below their natural level. The system, hav- 
 ing undergone an unnatural excitement, is worn and de- 
 bilitated by it, and requires time and care to recover 
 its ordinary tone. No man so effectually cuts himself 
 off from the pleasures of the senses as the grossest 
 sensualist. No man fails to enjoy the world so entirely 
 as he who attempts to enjoy it overmuch, — who, in- 
 stead of using the world, abuses it. 
 
 He, then, who sins by abusing his physical nature, re- 
 
NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 395 
 
 ceives from God an immediate and an emphatic rebuke. 
 God speaks to him^in the language of disease and pain, 
 both pointing him to the abuse he has committed and the 
 sin of which he has been guilty. If the offence has been 
 very great or long continued, God arrests the culprit in 
 his mad career, and withdraws him from the busy scenes 
 of action or the maddening whirl of pleasure, shuts him 
 up in a sick chamber, and lays him on a bed of languish- 
 ing. There he must pause from his downward course. 
 There, in days of weariness and nights of watching, he 
 has a season for reflection. Among the thoughts which 
 then press upon his mind are death and judgment, — 
 the account he must give at the bar of God. If such an- 
 ticipations of solemn realities do not convert him from 
 the error of his ways, it is in vain that human admonition 
 is administered. 
 
 But, short of such physical inflictions, there are moral 
 causes, there are spiritual effects of sin, which visit and 
 punish sin in the soul itself. In the discharge of duty, in 
 acting in obedience to conscience, there is an inward 
 peace, a sense of self-approbation, a feeling of security. 
 Sin robs the soul of this, and makes it feel poor and mis- 
 erable and naked and wretched; It is filled with remorse 
 and self-reproach, a sense of ill desert, an indefinable 
 and overwhelming feeling of approaching ill, " a certain 
 fiery looking for of judgment which shall devour the ad- 
 versaries." The sinner, therefore, must be at war with 
 himself, and be his own worst enemy. The elements of 
 his nature are in perpetual commotion. " The wicked 
 is as a troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast 
 up mire and dirt." There is no remedy but repentance 
 and reformation. 
 
 If the sinner finds himself injured in his moral nature 
 
396 NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 
 
 and his inward peace by sin, no less does he find himself 
 wounded in his affections. In order .to be happy, man 
 wants not only peace within, but peace without. He is 
 bound to his species by unseen, yet strong and innumer- 
 able, ties. One of his most urgent wants is that of lov- 
 ing and being loved, of esteeming and being esteemed. 
 He who is conscious of having forfeited the esteem of 
 mankind is the most desolate of human beings. He 
 wanders about like Cain, Heaven's own mark of unutter- 
 able misery upon his brow, and, in his despair, he is apt 
 to exclaim, like him, " My punishment is greater than I 
 can bear." Peace and good will to men are the natural 
 element of human happiness. But no tongue can tell the 
 havoc that is made by sin among the affections. The 
 natural state of sin is war and strife. All the most 
 tender ties of life are turned by it to bitterness and gall. 
 " He that hateth his brother abideth in death." 
 
 The loss of the esteem of mankind is felt to be the 
 greatest loss ; and he who is condemned at once by God, 
 his own conscience, and mankind, must be miserable in- 
 deed. This fair world loses its beauty and its bloom, 
 and becomes dark, gloomy, and hopeless. The future 
 world, to a depraved mind, becomes as gloomy and 
 hopeless as this. The moral faculty has the greatest 
 control over the imagination. Such is the structure 
 of the soul, that sin ever begets fear. The sense of 
 ill desert ever is disposed to depict in appalling images 
 the punishment which immediately pursues, and never 
 fails to overtake, transgression. The only hope to es- 
 cape these accumulated calamities is by repentance and 
 reformation. This the sinner well knows, and he knows 
 that the door of mercy is ever open . 
 
 Such, then, are some of the preventives and remedies 
 
NATURAL REMEDIES OF SIN. 397 
 
 which God has provided for sin in the structure of the 
 soul and in the circumstances by which it is surrounded. 
 We see that it is not only created pure, but provided 
 with certain principles to keep it so, or to restore it to 
 the path of duty if it have wandered away. There are 
 principles within it to preserve and to restore its moral 
 health. Like the clear element of the all-surrounding 
 oc6an, it tends to cleanse itself from all impurity, and to 
 roll on for ever in sparkling brightness. Or, like the air 
 we breathe, there is ever at work in it the process of 
 purification, so that, though defiled with the pollutions 
 of a world, it breathes again over ocean and mountain 
 the pure and Hfe-giving breath of heaven. 
 
 Such is, in fact, the sum and substance of natural re- 
 ligion, — that dispensation of trial and probation under 
 which God has placed the whole human race. And the 
 conclusion we draw from this analysis of human nature 
 is, not that human nature is fallen, but that every indi- 
 vidual man is liable to fall, and does fall just so far as he 
 sins ; but that God has provided in human nature itself, 
 and the discipline to which it is subjected, the means of 
 deliverance and restoration, and the design of the pres- 
 ent life is to train up man for glory, honor, and immor- 
 tality. 
 
 34 
 
DISCOURSE XXIV. 
 
 THE ADAPTATION OF THE GOSPEL TO MAN AS 
 A SINNER. 
 
 THIS IS A FAITHFUL SAYING, AND WORTHY OF ALL ACCEPTATION, 
 THAT CHRIST JESUS CAME INTO THE WORLD TO SAVE SINNERS. — 
 
 1 Tim. i. 15. 
 
 There remains one more source of argument to show 
 what is the constitution and condition of human nature, 
 to be derived from the adaptation of the Gospel to man 
 as a sinner. This is declared, in the passage just cited, 
 to be the purpose for which Christ came into the world, — 
 " to save sinners " ; or, in other words, to save man from 
 sin. The nature of the evil to be remedied may always 
 be judged of by the nature of the remedy applied. If 
 the main office of Jesus was to administer a remedy for 
 sin, then the cause of sin may be inferred from the na- 
 ture of the remedy which he applies. If sin arises from 
 a badly constructed nature, or from a nature whose 
 structure has been injured, then a saviour adapted to 
 the wants of man must be one who comes prepared to 
 change human nature ; and the work of Christ must have 
 been, when here on earth, that of changing human nature. 
 
THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 399 
 
 or, if he did any tiling else for man, a change of his nature 
 must have been the preliminary step. If the fault be in 
 man's nature, then there is an incapacity to receive any 
 improvement, and nothing effectual can be done till that 
 incapacity is removed. 
 
 What was the chief employment of Christ when he 
 was on earth .'' Was it changing human nature ? His 
 principal occupation was that of teaching. " He went 
 about the cities and villages teaching." This was his 
 first employment and his last. It is said of him, after 
 his temptation in the wilderness, " From that time 
 Jesus began to preach, and to say. Repent, for the 
 kingdom of God is at hand." Teaching, surely, has no 
 power to change human nature. Teaching has power to 
 change human character, but none to change human na- 
 ture. To change human nature requires supernatural 
 power, derived from him who constituted human nature 
 as it is. Christ came among mankind clothed with su- 
 pernatural power, the power of changing nature ; but did 
 he exert if in changing the moral constitution of man ? 
 There is no record of his having done so in a single in- 
 stance. He wrought miracles on men, he healed dis- 
 eases, he restored soundness to the disordered intellect, 
 but there is no record of his having given a new moral 
 constitution to any human being. His miracles had a 
 totally different purpose. They were designed, accord- 
 ing to his own express declaration, to produce or to 
 strengthen faith in him as the Sent of God. When about 
 to raise Lazarus from the dead, that most stupendous of 
 all his miracles, he prayed audibly, in the hearing of the 
 witnesses of that impressive transaction, " Father, I 
 thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that 
 thou hearest me always ; but because of the people 
 
400 THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 
 
 which stand by I said it, that they may believe that 
 thou hast sent me." 
 
 This was the inference which was drawn from the 
 miracles of Christ by Nicodemus, a man whose talents 
 and education made him a competent judge in such mat- 
 ters : — " Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come 
 from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou 
 doest, except God be with him." 
 
 Christ, then, made use of his'miraculous powers solely 
 to authenticate his mission as a teacher, to produce that 
 faith in him which should induce obedience to his in- 
 structions. " I have not spoken of myself, but the Fa- 
 ther which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I 
 should say and what I should speak, and I know that his 
 commandment is life everlasting." 
 
 Now both Christ's teaching and miracles would have 
 been thrown away, if the impediment to man's salvation 
 had existed in his nature by which he was made oppo- 
 site to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil. A mir- 
 acle must first have been wrought upon human nature it- 
 self, before even the capacity to be benefited by Christ's 
 instructions could exist. But Christ commenced his 
 ministry without any such preliminary. " And seeing 
 the multitudes, he went up into a mountain ; and when 
 he was set, his disciples came unto him ; and he opened 
 his mouth, and taught them." Teaching, according to 
 Paul, was the main instrument of the salvation of the 
 world. He says, in his Epistle to Titus, himself a 
 preacher of Christianity, "For the grace of God, that 
 bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, teaching 
 us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should 
 live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present 
 world." 
 
THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 401 
 
 When our Lord had finished his ministry, and was 
 about to ascend to heaven, he gave his Apostles a com- 
 mission to take up his work where he had laid it down. 
 And what was it ? " Go ye, therefore, and teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of 
 the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to ob- 
 serve whatsoever I have commanded you." He fur- 
 nished them with miraculous powers to carry out their 
 mission. " In my name they shall cast out devils ; they 
 shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take up ser- 
 pents ; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt 
 them ; they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they 
 shall recover." 
 
 In fulfilment of this commission, the Apostles went 
 everywhere preaching and teaching. In the Acts, we 
 have a record of their ministrations for thirty years, but 
 in no case do we find any attempt to change human na- 
 ture, and no intimation in their preaching that such was 
 the object of their mission. Christ said of himself, " I 
 am the Zig-At of the world." On another occasion, "I 
 am the light of the world ; he that foUoweth me shall 
 not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." 
 Christ's last prayer with his disciples is almost a contin- 
 uous declaration of the purpose of his mission, and there 
 is nothing said in it of changing human nature. " As 
 thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should 
 give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And 
 this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." He 
 considered his disciples, with on§ exception, to be in a 
 state of salvation. And how were they brought into that 
 state ? Through teaching. " I have manifested thy 
 name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the 
 34* 
 
402 THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 
 
 world ; thine they were, and thou gavest them me ; and 
 they have kept thy word." " Sanctify them through thy 
 truth; thy word is truth." On another occasion he 
 said, " Now ye are clean, through the word which I have 
 spoken unto you." Had Christ's success with his im- 
 mediate disciples depended on an involuntary change of 
 nature, and no change of nature can be voluntary, then 
 the perdition of Judas Iscariot is wholly unaccountable. 
 His nature was as accessible to irresistible transformation 
 as that of the other disciples. 
 
 The Apostles, in their preaching, took no other view 
 of this matter. Peter, in one of the first Christian dis- 
 courses, when addressing his countrymen, the Jews, 
 speaks in this wise: — "Unto you first, God, having 
 raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turn- 
 ing away every one of you from his iniquities." The 
 change here spoken of is not one of nature, but of con- 
 duct and character. That this conversion from iniquity 
 was not a change of nature appears from the agency 
 employed to bring it about. This is defined, in the 
 course of the speech, to be obedience to his command- 
 ments. " For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A 
 prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of 
 your brethren, like unto me ; him shall ye hear in all 
 things whatsoever he shall say unto you." 
 
 It was upon teaching that the Apostles relied in their 
 ministrations to the heathen. At Lystra there was an 
 attempt made to pay divine honors to Paul and Barna- 
 bas, in consequence of their healing a lame man. Paul, 
 in his address to them says, " Sirs, why do ye these 
 things ? We also are men of like passions with you, and 
 preach unto you, that ye should turn from these vanities 
 unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and 
 
THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 403 
 
 the sea, and all things that are therein ; who, in times 
 past, suffered all nations to walk in their own ways." 
 At Athens, Paul commences his ministrations, not by 
 any attempt to change the natures of the Athenians, but 
 by communicating knowledge to their understandings. 
 " Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him de- 
 clare I unto you ; God, that made the world and all 
 
 things therein And the times of this ignorance 
 
 God winked at, but now commandetk all men every- 
 where to repent." 
 
 I deem any further quotation unnecessary to show that 
 the application of the Gospel as a remedy for the sinful- 
 ness of mankind consisted in teaching, in communicating 
 knowledge to the understanding, and offering motives to 
 the will. It was thus adapted to change human charac- 
 ter and conduct, but there is no provision for any action 
 on the constitution of human nature. That is for ever 
 and immutably the same. 
 
 We shall now proceed to show how it is calculated to 
 change human character and conduct, and thus accom- 
 plish the salvation of man. 
 
 In the last discourse, we attempted to point out the 
 natural means which God has provided in the constitution 
 of human nature itself for the remedy and the cure of 
 sin, independently of revelation. We remarked that 
 God has provided such remedies, and that they are anal- 
 ogous to those which he has provided in the Gospel. We 
 observed, that if there were there no such remedies and 
 no such analogy, the Gospel itself would be incredible. 
 The Gospel itself would be incredible in precise propor- 
 tion to its divergence from natural religion, for it is wholly 
 incredible that God would suffer any portion of the hu- 
 man race to pass through life in absolute ignorance of 
 
404 THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOE SIN. 
 
 any truth necessary to salvation. The justice of God 
 cannot be vindicated, if there is a human being to whom 
 salvation is impossible. Christianity can contain no doc- 
 trine absolutely new ; if it did, that doctrine would be in 
 itself improbable. The word revelation, when applied 
 to Christianity, may be considered as in some respects 
 unfortunate. It leads to the conception of something 
 absolutely necessary to salvation, kept concealed by God 
 from ninety-nine hundredths of the human race. It 
 would be more just, as well as more honorable to God, 
 to call it a confirmation rather than a revelation, as its 
 essential doctrines are substantially the same as those of 
 natural religion. The principal difference is a higher 
 degree of evidence of the same truths. The doctrine of 
 immortality would not be probable, if it were confined to 
 those who have received a supernatural revelation. God 
 would not suffer the great multitude of mankind to pass 
 through life under eternal responsibilities, without any in- 
 timation of the fact. Accordingly, by the light of nature, 
 a belief in immortality has been nearly universal. A fu- 
 ture judgment has made an article of belief among all 
 nations. 
 
 In the last discourse, we considered the remedies 
 which God had provided for human sinfulness in human 
 nature itself. These we found to be mainly three, — 
 reason, the moral sense, and religious faith. Christian- 
 ity, to be at all credible as a revelation, must be adapted 
 to quicken, confirm, and strengthen these natural means 
 of salvation from sin, and thus to give reason, the moral 
 sense, and religious faith, that preponderance which is 
 necessary to man's welfare and happiness. 
 
 T affirm, that this is precisely the nature and operation 
 of the Gospel. 
 
THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOE SIN. 405 
 
 The instructions of the New Testament are most ad- 
 mirably calculated to develop, enlighten, and strengthen 
 human reason. The cultivation of human reason makes 
 men wise, too wise to be deceived by the specious ap- 
 pearances and deceitful promises of sin and folly. This 
 was the accomplishment aimed at by all the heathen phi- 
 losophers. All the different schools, — the Stoics, the 
 Epicureans, the Eclectics, and the Academics, — all 
 made it the object of their research to ascertain what was 
 the highest good of man. They were all different from 
 each other, and, of course, all imperfect,, for truth is but 
 one. 
 
 Taken on their own ground, and considered merely as 
 a philosopher, without reference to the source whence he 
 derived his knowledge, Christ was wiser than they all. 
 They arrived only at obscure glimpses and remote 
 guesses at the truth. Christ, with unerring certainty^ 
 saw it all exactly as it was. He saw into the very 
 depths of human nature, as clearly as the human eye 
 looks into the most transparent fountain. The conse- 
 quence is, that his words are all oracles, pregnant with 
 the deepest and most comprehensive truth, yet enunciat- 
 ed so simply that they are intelligible to the most ordi- 
 nary minds. It requires no preliminary education to sit 
 in the school of Jesus. The child is as much edified as 
 the philosopher. 
 
 The superior civilization of modern times is owing, in 
 no small degree, to the superior wisdom of the New 
 Testament. The great moral laws which control all the 
 operations of society are there laid down with a simpli- 
 city and clearness which are level with the most ordinary 
 understanding, and which carry conviction to every mind. 
 The weekly instructions of the pulpit in all Christian 
 
406 THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 
 
 lands do more to uphold civil order and the maintenance 
 of equal rights, than all the courts, the police, and the 
 prisons. 
 
 It is thus that the Gospel has the direct effect to cure 
 or to diminish the sinfulness of mankind. From week to 
 week, those who make, those who administer, and those 
 who obey the laws, are brought within the influence of 
 the teaching of Christ. They hear the precepts of the 
 Gospel announced and enforced, and their reason is con- 
 vinced that they are coincident with human good ; and^ 
 although multitudes never profess any allegiance to 
 Christ, yet there are few in a Christian land whose sen- 
 timents and whose life are not influenced by the truths 
 he taught. 
 
 The instructions of the New Testament are calculat- 
 ed in an eminent degree to quicken the conscience. God 
 has written his laws upon all hearts with such distinct- 
 ness, that no man can be absolutely ignorant of his duty. 
 There is in every mind a sense of justice, of the obliga- 
 tion of truth, temperance, and mercy, yet the conscience 
 is capable of indefinite cultivation. There is every de- 
 gree of quickness in its perceptions, and of authority in 
 its control over the conduct. 
 
 Nothing that the world has ever seen has had such 
 power to quicken and strengthen the conscience as the 
 discourses of Jesus. Nothing uttered by man was ever so 
 searching as the Sermon on the Mount. The conscience 
 of the believer and the unbeliever bends before it as the 
 supreme law, intuitive, irresistible, universal. It strikes 
 all minds as true and obligatory, independently of the 
 autliority on which it is enunciated. " Whatsoever ye 
 would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
 them." "Take heed that ye do not your alms be- 
 
THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 407 
 
 fore men, to be seen of them ; otberwise ye have no 
 reward of your Father which is in heaven." "No 
 
 man can serve two masters ; ye cannot serve God 
 
 and Mammon." The parables are equally pungent and ir- 
 resistible. Nowhere has the duty of impartial and univer- 
 sal humanity received so powerful and touching an expo- 
 sition as in the parable of the good Samaritan. No- 
 where has the vice of selfishness and sectarianism been 
 more sternly rebuked. Sensuality reads its condemna- 
 tion and its doom in the parable of the prodigal son ; and 
 the hard, unmerciful heart sees an image of itself in the 
 debtor who, having been forgiven a debt of ten thousand 
 talents, refused to forgive his debtor an hundred pence. 
 Spiritual pride is crushed at a blow by the contrast of 
 the Pharisee and publican, who went up together into 
 the Temple to pray, one to humble himself before God, 
 and the other to boast, and utter a calumny against his 
 neighbour. The awful end of a merely worldly life is 
 most impressively portrayed in the sudden summons to 
 the unseen world of the man who, on the day before the 
 night of death, said to his soul, " Soul, thou hast much 
 goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, 
 and be merry." 
 
 Thus the whole surface of human duty has been illu- 
 minated by Christ. It is impossible to study the New 
 Testament without having the conscience enlightened 
 and quickened. It is impossible to live in a Christian 
 land and sin, without a stronger temptation and a deeper 
 sense of guilt. The tendency of the whole teaching of 
 Christ is to enthrone conscience in the government of 
 the whole life. 
 
 Finally, the power of the Gospel in redeeming the 
 world from sin lies mainly in the confirmatioD which i« 
 
408 THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 
 
 brings to religious faith. Men, after all, are governed 
 mainly by what they believe. We walk by faith, and not 
 by sight. The inward and unseen is more powerful than 
 the outward and the visible. Religious faith makes a 
 part of the very constitution of man. It is impossible 
 for the human mind to conceive of an effect without a 
 cause corresponding in power and perfection. The 
 universe is full of changes. There must be a power 
 somewhere adequate to their production. The universe 
 is in motion. It must have a Mover. The work of 
 creation is continually going on. There must be some- 
 where a Creator. The wants of all are supplied. There 
 must, therefore, be a Providence. Souls are contin- 
 ually coming into existence. There must be an Infinite 
 Spirit to give them being. 
 
 All these natural conceptions of faith Christ confirms, 
 and concentrates them all in one Infinite Father of the 
 universe, and makes him the Companion of our pilgrim- 
 age, the Witness of our actions, the Inmate of our clos- 
 ets, the Arbiter of our destiny. 
 
 But the sanctions of a life of holiness are not perfect 
 without the expectation of a future life, and the hopes 
 and fears which it creates. There is not, as far as we 
 can see, a just retribution in the present life. The right- 
 eous are not always rewarded, nor the wicked punished, 
 here. The temptations to sin are heightened by the 
 apparent uncertainty which hangs over the Divine gov- 
 ernment. The practice of virtue is discouraged, by the 
 want of that present reward which justice seems to de- 
 mand for the righteous. 
 
 There is in the breast of man a natural expectation of 
 immortality. The evidences of it are seen in the rehg- 
 ions or superstitions of all nations. All have their 
 
THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SIN. 409 
 
 abodes of the blessed, and their prison-house of the 
 damned. But by the light of nature, the future world is 
 too dim and uncertain to exert a controlling influence 
 over the life of man. 
 
 "What the light of nature wanted, the resurrection of 
 Christ supplied. To those who received as literal facts 
 the historical events of the New Testament, a spiritual 
 world became a fixed and unquestioned reality. If 
 Christ rose from the dead, then is immortality sure. If 
 the soul be immortal, then is retribution the most certain 
 and awful of realities. The weight of eternity is thrown 
 upon the actions of the present life, and the mightiest mo- 
 tive is brought to bear upon the soul of man to redeem 
 him from sin. 
 
 Our argument stands thus. Christianity proposes it- 
 self as a remedy for sin. Jesus Christ came into the 
 world to save sinners. There is no provision in the 
 Gospel to change human nature. Christ and his Apos- 
 tles, though furnished with miraculous powers, never 
 exerted them to change the moral constitution of man. 
 The mission of Christ and his Apostles was that of 
 teachers. The New Testament declares that teaching 
 is the means of saving the world. Our inference is, that 
 human nature is constitutionally right, and the spiritual 
 regeneration which Christianity is intended to bring about 
 is a voluntary change of character, and not an involuntary 
 change of constitution. Man is active, not passive, in 
 becoming a Christian. 
 
 THE END, 
 
iiilli"""^ 
 
 lllll!illl!l!liiii!ill!iJii!i;il|i 
 
 ■""■ ''''"HI "lllii'ililiii ;'' 
 
 :i i !h!i;i^Bdil