LIBRARY 
 
mifS':^®^ 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 TRINITARIANS AND CALVINISTS, 
 
 -"OCCASIONED BY 
 
 DR. WOODS' LETTERS 
 
 TO UNITARIANS. 
 
 BY HENllY WARE, D. D. 
 
 Hollis Professor of Divinity iu the University at Cambridere. 
 
 SKCOND EDITION. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HILLIARD AND METCAtF. 
 Solil also by Cummuigs & Hilliard, IJoston. 
 
 1820. 
 

 DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT : 
 
 District Clerk's Office. 
 
 BE it remembered, that on the twenty-eighth day of August. A. D. 1320, and in the 
 tbrty-fifth year of the Independence of the United Stiites of America, Hiliiard ¥i Metealf 
 of the said'ilistrict have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they 
 claim as proprietors, in the words following, viz. 
 
 '• Letters addressed to 1 rinitarians and Ca'vinists, occasioned by Dr. Woods' Letters to 
 Unitaiiaiis. By Hem-y Ware, D. D. Mollis Professor of Divinity in the University at Cam- 
 bridge." 
 
 In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " An Act for the 
 encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of ma|)s, charts, and books, to the iithors 
 and piopric tors of such copies, during the times therein mentioi:ed ;" and a'so to an Ac* 
 entitled, " An Act siiisp'.emintai^ to an Act," entitled, "An Act tor the encouragement 
 
 and piopric tors of such copies, during the tunes therein mentioi:ed ;" and a'so to an Act, 
 entitled, " An Act siiisp'.emintai^ to an Act," entitled, "An Act tor the encouragement of 
 learning, by securing tlie copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietoi-s of 
 
 ■such copies durin"- the times therein mentioned ; and extending the benefits thereof to the 
 arts of desiguiiig, engraving aud etching historical and other prints." 
 
 J, W. DAVIS. 
 Qkrk oft/ie District of Massachiisettf. 
 
 332.7 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 LETTER I. p. 4—9. 
 
 Occasion of the following letters. — Controversy useful. — Im- 
 portance of the points at issue. 
 
 LETTER n. 9— ir. 
 
 Propriety of a creed. — Charges of misrepresentation consider- 
 ed, as to the unity of God, — as to his moral perfection. 
 
 LETTER in. 17—53. 
 
 Natural character of man. — Doctrine of the Orthodox changed. 
 — Imputation. — Total depravity. — The writer's view on the 
 subject. — Defence of it — from observation and experience, 
 — character of children, — scripture. — General views from 
 scripture. — Particular texts from the Old and New Testa- 
 ment considered. — Depravity not a humbling doctrine. 
 
 LETTER IV. 53—80. 
 
 Election. — Alleged misrepresentation considered. — Westmin- 
 ster Confession. — Dr. Woods' explanations, — inconsistent 
 with the moral character of God, — with scripture, — General 
 scope, — particular texts considered. — Reprobation. 
 
 LETTER V. 80—109. 
 
 Atonement.—Alleged misrepresentations. — Language of the Or- 
 thodox not to be understood literally. — Redemption. — Sac- 
 rifice. — Atonement. — Two natures and one person in Christ. 
 — Ground of forgiveness. — Value of good works. — Salva- 
 tion of grace. 
 
*v 
 
 LETTER VI. 110—124. 
 
 Divine influence. — That which is peculiar to Calvinism to be 
 distinguished. — General doctrine. — Indirect influence by 
 instiuments and means. — Irresistible grace. — Objections. — 
 Unitarian views. 
 
 LETTER VIL 125—150- 
 
 Tendency and moral influence of Unitarian and of Trinitarian 
 views, — generally, — as respects piety to God, — regard for 
 Jesus Christ, — reverence for the Scriptures, — benevolent 
 exertions, — spread of the Gospel. — Motives to activity. — 
 Conclusion. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 AUSRESSED 
 
 TO TRINITARIANS AND CALVINISTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 -« 
 
 CHRISTIAN ERETHREN, 
 
 1 HE Letters of the Rev. Dr. Woods to Unita- 
 rians, which have now been for some time before 
 the public, suggest to me the propriety of address- 
 ing the few following pages on the same subjects, to 
 Trinitarians and Calvinists. I feel the greater 
 readiness to do it, and enter upon the task the more 
 cheerfully, as the discussion of the interesting sub- 
 jects, about which they are concerned, seems to be 
 taking a character of moderation, temperance, and 
 urbanity, which promises a favourable result. It 
 assures us, that the great end, which, on each side, 
 we propose to ourselves, will not be lost sight of 
 in the ardour of debate, and the desire to maintain 
 subordinate opinions, in which we differ from each 
 other j and that we are not going to sacrifice the 
 spirit of religion to any of its forms, or its dogmas. 
 I am far from thinking religious controversy to 
 be universally an evil. It becomes so, only when it 
 is improperly conducted. It is bad, and produces 
 bad effects, only when the discussion of interesting 
 questions of faith or duty is carried on with an in- 
 temperate spirit, or with sophistry ; and when the 
 
disputants^ ranged on each side, manifest more of a 
 spirit of party, than of the love of truth. So far 
 indeed is the public discussion of those questions, 
 about which Christians hold different opinions, from 
 being a thing, that should be discouraged as hiy't- 
 ful ; that we ought rather to rejoice in it, as an 
 evidence of a prevailing interest in the subject of 
 religion in general, as a symptom of religious life in 
 the community, and as a means of preserving that 
 life, of awakening a deeper interest, of turning the 
 public attention still more to the subject, and thus 
 furnishing opportunities for impressing upon the 
 minds of men a sense, which they might otherwise 
 not have, of its high value and importance. These 
 desirable effects it may produce in a considerable 
 degree, however imperfectly and defectively the 
 controversy may be conducted, and although great 
 faults of manner, and even of temper, may mingle 
 themselves in the debate. But if there be a rea- 
 sonable degree of exemption from bad passions, 
 party views, the arts of controversy, and offensive 
 personality ; the effect of bringing the subject into 
 view, in the various lights in wliich it may be pre- 
 sented, can hardly fail to be highly favourable to the 
 cause of Christian truth. 
 
 The book, which has given occasion to the present 
 pamphlet, and upon which some remarks will be 
 made in the course of the discussions which follow, 
 is entitled to more than common attention on sev- 
 eral accounts. The subjects of which it treats are 
 in themselves highly important ; and being those, 
 about which the Christian community is at the pres- 
 
ent time much divided, they have excited a pecu- 
 liar interest of late by being brought more frequently 
 than common before the public mind. It comes 
 from a gentleman of acknowledged talents and 
 learning, and of high standing among his brethren 
 as a scholar and a theologian. It professes to 
 speak with authority, as it speaks in the name of 
 that part of the Christian community, for whom it 
 claims the very honourable distinction of " the 
 Orthodox of New England,'' and is designed to 
 explain and defend the opinions, by which they are 
 distinguished, for the purpose of guarding them 
 against misapprehension, and in order to do away 
 the effects of misrepresentation. 
 
 The writer of the following sheets hopes to per- 
 form the duty he has assigned himself, whatever 
 may be its defects in other respects, in a spirit, 
 which shall not be liable to exception. It is his 
 design to make such remarks, as occur to him, on 
 the opinions and reasonings of the pamphlet before 
 him, and to give a free exposition of his own views 
 upon the several subjects treated of by Dr. Woods^ 
 together with the reasoning, by which he has been 
 led into those views. But he wishes it to be un- 
 derstood, that they are his own views only. He is 
 not authorized, nor does he profess, to speak in the 
 name of any party or body of Christians. How 
 far his opinions on the subjects in controversy, and 
 his manner of explaining and defending them, may 
 agree with those of his friends, he knows not. He 
 is willing to avail himself of this opportunity of ap- 
 pearing before the public on these subjects, belie v- 
 
8 
 
 ing that the cause of Christian truth cannot fail of 
 being promoted by unreserved freedom in the 
 discussion of controverted doctrines ; and by indi- 
 viduals communicating the result of their study and 
 thought, without any reference to the opinions of 
 the party or sect, to which they may be considered 
 in general as belonging. 
 
 With respect to the points at issue between those, 
 who are called Unitarians on the one hand, and 
 Trinitarians and Calvinists on the other, it is of 
 some importance that you should know in what 
 light they are viewed, and what degree of impor- 
 tance is attached to them by Unitarians. Upon 
 this subject, there is probably with us, as with you, 
 some diversity of opinion ; though I am persuaded 
 that no intelligent Unitarian can think them unim- 
 portant, and practically a matter of indifference. 
 It cannot be imagined, that the constitution of 
 things is such, as to render truth and error on any 
 subject perfectly indifferent, and equally salutary. 
 And it is believed, as I shall have occasion to show 
 in the sequel, that the doctrines for which we con- 
 tend, and which are the subject of controversy 
 between us, are calculated, as far as their effects 
 are not prevented, nor counteracted by other causes, 
 to have a better moral influence in forming the 
 character, than the opposite doctrines ; and that 
 their reception and prevalence cannot fail to have 
 great influence on the reception and spread of 
 Christianity in the world. At the same time, it is 
 not maintained, that any one of the doctrines, about 
 which we differ, is fundamental in such a sense, 
 
that tlie opposite is incompatible with the Christian 
 character, and forfeits the Cliristian name for him 
 who maintains it. It is not doubted, that all the 
 best influences of Christian faith may be felt, and 
 the Christian life acted out, and the consolations 
 and hopes of the Gospel enjoyed by those, whose 
 speculative opinions, upon each of the several points 
 of controversy, which lie between us, are in opposi- 
 tion to each other. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 I SHALL confine myself to a few passing remarks 
 on what is contained in some of the first letters of 
 Dr. Woods, wishing to draw your attention chiefly 
 to the important articles of doctrine, which are 
 discussed in the remaining ones ; since, with the 
 exception of the doctrine of the divine Unity, they 
 involve the most interesting questions, that lie be- 
 tween us and you. 
 
 With respect to what is implied in no equivocal 
 manner in the beginning of the second letter, I would 
 only observe, that as to the propriety of having a 
 creed, no doubt, I believe, has ever been enter- ^ 
 tained. Unitarians have always claimed the right ^ 
 of every individual to have his ow^n particular creed. \|/ 
 What they have sometimes had occasion to object 
 to is, not that each of the several sects and denom- 
 inations of Christians should have its own creed, 
 nor, that any individual should have one ; but that 
 
10 
 
 any, whether an individual or a body ^f Cliristians, 
 should insist upon their creed being the creed of 
 others ; either as a title to the Christian name, or 
 as a condition of their being admitted to the parti- 
 cipation of any Christian privileges. 
 
 In the concluding part of the same letter, and in 
 the two following. Dr. Woods proceeds to charge 
 Mr. C banning with a gross misrepresentation of 
 the opinions of the Orthodox upon two points, the 
 Unity of God, and his moral perfection ; and of 
 injustice in claiming these as distinguishing articles 
 of the Unitarian Faith. Now, in respect to the 
 first of these, the Unity of God, it is to be recol- 
 lected, that the question is not, whether the Unity 
 of God be asserted by Trinitarians. This is not 
 denied them ; but the true question is, whether 
 opinions are or are not held by them in relation to 
 this subject, which cannot be reconciled with the 
 divine Unity. It is with this, and not with the 
 other, that they are charged by Unitarians. Full 
 credit is given to their word, when they declare 
 their belief in the Unity of God, and when they tell 
 us ^* it is asserted in all their systems of Divinity, 
 and all their Confessions of Faith." Nor is there 
 any thing that I can perceive in Mr. Channing's 
 Sermon, that contradicts this. But until more 
 than this is done, and until something more satis- 
 factory, than has yet been said, can be alleged by 
 them to show, that the commonly received doctrine 
 of the Trinity is reconcileable with the proper Unity 
 of God, we must be allowed to consider the charge 
 as still lying in its full force. Of this the most 
 
n 
 
 respectable Trinitarian writers seem not to be 
 insensible. How much they are pressed with this 
 difficulty, and how impossible they find it to extri- 
 cate themselves from it, appears in the variety of 
 explanations which have been successively resorted 
 to, and the dissatisfaction expressed with every 
 attempt that has been made for the purpose. The 
 last expedient, indeed, that of rejecting the use of 
 the phrase "three persons," as applied to the 
 Deity, and substituting for it that of "three dis- 
 tinctions,'" if by distinctions be meant any thing 
 short of separate persons or agents, may be consid- 
 ered as restoring the divine Unity. But it reduces 
 the Trinity to a mere unmeaning name, and were 
 it not an abuse of language of mischievous tendency, 
 would leave nothing on the subject, that need be 
 thought worth contending about. 
 
 Professor Stuart (p. 23) expresses regret that 
 the term person had ever come into the symbols of 
 the churches, sensible, as it appears, that it cannot 
 be used in any intelligible meaning, without infring- 
 ing on the Unity, and running into palpable Trithe- 
 ism ; and the late President Dwight, though he 
 contends for the propriety of the term, (vol. ii, 
 p. 137,) as a convenient one for expressing the 
 things intended by the doetrine, yet confesses, that 
 if he is asked what it means, he must answer, I 
 know not. But Vk^hat is the particular convenience 
 of the use of a term, which expresses no meaning, 
 not even in the mind of him that uses it, we are left 
 to conjecture. 
 
12 
 
 Upon the otlier charge, which relates to the 
 moral perfections of God, the course which Dro 
 Woods has pursued seems to me liable to objection. 
 In his fourth Letter, in stating what was necessary 
 on his part, and the mode of reasoning proper to be 
 pursued, in order to relieve the system he has un- 
 dertaken to defend, from the charge of inconsistency 
 with the moral perfections of God, he says, "we have I 
 nothing to do with the inquiry, whether the common « 
 doctrine of depravity can consist with the moral \ 
 perfection of God, nor with any difficulty whatever -^ 
 in the attempt to reconcile them." This is cer- 
 tainly a very extraordinary thought, that in de- 
 fending his system against an objection to which it 
 is thought liable, he should have nothing to do 
 with the very objection itself, nor with the difficulty 
 it involves. Did the question relate to the simple 
 fact, whether the doctrine of depravity, as main- 
 tained by the Orthodox, were a doctrine of scripture 
 or not, its consistency or inconsistency wdth the 
 moral perfections of God would indeed make no 
 part of the ground, on w^hich the argument should 
 proceed. But the question he had to consider was 
 a different one from this. The doctrine of deprav- 
 ity, together with the associated doctrines, has a 
 place in the system of Orthodox faith. It is upon 
 the ground of these doctrines, as Dr. Woods ex- 
 pressly admits, (p. 25,) that Mr. Channing has 
 used the language, wiiich he understands as imply- 
 ing the charge under consideration, viz. ^'that the 
 Orthodox deny the moral perfection of God." ^ Now 
 it certainly does belong to him, who w^ould relieve 
 
the system from that imputation, to show, not only 
 nOiat the doctrine of depravity, but that all the dthcr 
 doctrines connected with it in the Calvinistic sys- 
 tem, are consistent w^ith the moral perfection of 
 God. This is the very point at issue, and the only 
 point, so far as relates to this charge, with which 
 . he had any concern ; and all that he hfs said to 
 show, that he maintains many views respect* i..^ the 
 divine government and purposes in common with 
 Unitarians, and which are consistent with the moral 
 perfections of God, vt^ill do nothing toward proving 
 that he does not maintain other opinions, which are 
 not reconcileable with it. He was required, there- 
 fore, in undertaking to repel this charge, not only 
 to prove, which I shall afterward show he has not 
 done, that the scheme of doctrine, which he defends, 
 is taught in the scriptures, but also to prove that it is 
 in itself consistent with the moral perfection ot God. 
 But this he has not attempted to do. He has, on 
 the contrary, said that, which implies, that what- 
 ever the fact may be, the consistency demanded 
 cannot be seen to exist. Now if he, who believes 
 the doctrines in question to be taught in the scrip- 
 tures, is yet unable to perceive how they are 
 reconcileable with the moral perfection of God ; 
 ought he to be greatly surprised, or much disturbed, 
 that another, who cannot find them taught in the 
 bible, and who sees them therefore only as human 
 opinions, without autliority, should represent them 
 as irreconcileable with that moral perfection, vs^hich 
 he does find there clearly and constantly taught ? 
 
14 
 
 There is another consideration also, not to he 
 overlooked, to show that he had something to do 
 with this inquiry. If the doctrine of depravity, as 
 it is maintained by the Orthodox, cannot be per- 
 ceived by us to be consistent with the moral perfec- 
 tion of God, the presumption is very strong, that it 
 is not true ; since, if it actually be inconsistent, it 
 certainly cannot be true. In proportion then to the 
 difficulty of reconciling it, the proof of it from scrip- 
 ture anc' our experience ouglit to be clear, and not 
 liable to objection. The neglect, therefore, to re- 
 move this fundamental objection to the whole sys- 
 tem, you perceive, must have its influence upon all 
 the reasoning employed in the direct proof of its 
 several parts. Nothing but the most clear and sat- 
 isfactory proof will be sufficient for the support of a 
 doctrine, which labours under the weight of so much 
 intrinsic incredibility, confessedly incapable of being 
 removed. 
 
 I have one other remark to make in this place. 
 Dr. Woods has stated correctly, (p. 26) " That in- 
 dependently of revelation, and well known facts, we 
 are incapable of judging, what the goodness of God 
 will require, as to the condition of man ; or what 
 man's character and state must be under the gov- 
 ernment of a being infinitely wise and benevolent." 
 But the inference he would draw from this, I think 
 you will perceive, is not warranted by tlie premi- 
 ses. For although it be conceded, that from tlie 
 limitation of our faculties, we are incapable of say- 
 ing what the goodness or justice of God would in- 
 quire : we have faculties capable of deciding witli 
 
15 
 
 certainty, what they will not admit. We can pro- 
 nounce without hesitation with respect to some 
 things, that they are absolutely irreconcileable with 
 those attributes. To say that we have not faculties 
 for this, is to say, not that our knowledge is limited 
 and imperfect, but that it is actually nothing. 
 There may be a thousand cases, like those stated 
 by Dr. Woods, which, previous to experience, we 
 could not have foreseen, nor should have expected, 
 which when first proposed present difficulties, but 
 which are yet capable of being accounted for in a 
 satisfactory manner, and reconciled with that justice 
 and goodness, with which they seem at first to be 
 at variance. But other cases, it is evident, may 
 be supposed, which would admit of no such expla- 
 nation. And what I contend is, that the orthodox 
 doctrine, as to the natural " character of man, and 
 the manner in which God designates the heirs of 
 salvation," (p. 25) is of this kind ; and that Dr. 
 Woods' assertion, (p. 27) "that the facts he has 
 there stated, and which are known to all, are as far 
 from being agreable to what we should naturally 
 imagine the infinite goodness of God would dictate^ 
 as the fact that men are subjects of moral deprav- 
 ity," cannot be supported. There is no such 
 analogy between the cases, as to warrant the 
 conclusion. For we can see, with respect to the 
 former, how they may be consistent with the moral 
 perfections of God ; but we can make no supposi- 
 tion, upon which we shall be able to perceive, that 
 the latter can be so. The reason is, that, with 
 respect to all the former cases, such as the promis- 
 
16 
 
 cuous suffering and ruin brought upon men by 
 plaguesj hurricanes, and earthquakes, — the cruelties 
 and horrors of the slave-trade, — and the darkness 
 and ignorance to which so large a portion of the 
 human race are by the inevitable circumstances of 
 their condition subjected, — the evil is not final and 
 remediless, but is partial or temporary, and may be 
 considered as inflicted for the purpose of discipline ; 
 and the single consideration, that it makes a part 
 of human probation, and that the subject of it may 
 yet, by the manner in which he conducts under it, 
 be an infinite gainer in the whole of his existence, 
 relieves it from all objection arising from any sup- 
 posed inconsistency with the justice or goodness of 
 God. But the doctrine of the native depravity of 
 man, taken in its connexion with the whole scheme 
 of which it is a part ; personal unconditional 
 election, a complete atonement made for those, who 
 are thus ordained to eternal life, and their regen- 
 eration by a special irresistible influence of the 
 spirit of God ; and what is the necessary and 
 infallible consequence of all this, the equal uncondi- 
 tional reprobation and final and everlasting ruin of 
 all the rest of the human race, certainly admits of 
 no such reconciliation with any notion we can have 
 of the moral perfection of the Author of our being. 
 As Dr. Woods, however, makes no attempt to 
 show how they arc capable of being reconciled ; as 
 he has virtually admitted that they are incapable 
 of being perceived by us to be consistent with each 
 other; and has contented himself with endeavouring 
 to prove the several doctrines as matters of fact, 
 
17 
 
 upon the principle, that if he can clearly prove 
 them to be doctrines of scripture, he is not bound 
 to show how they can be consistent with the divine 
 perfections, it is unnecessary to say any thing more 
 to show, that the imputation of which he complains 
 is not removed. I shall therefore proceed directly 
 to the consideration of the evidence upon which 
 the several doctrines in question rest as matters of 
 fact. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 The discussion introduced by Dr. Woods in his 
 fourth Letter, and pursued through the fifth and 
 sixth, relates to "the natural character of man." 
 As the question, "what is the natural character of 
 man," lies at the very foundation of the controversy 
 between Unitarians on the one hand, and Trinita- 
 rians and Calvinists on tlie other, it will prepare 
 us for a fair discussion of it, to examine in the first 
 place what is the precise difference of opinion 
 between them on the subject. 
 
 Heretofore, those who claimed the title of Ortho- 
 dox, and professed to follow the doctrine of Calvin, 
 were satisfied with the language used by the 
 Westminster Divines in the Catechism and Confes- 
 sion of Faith, in which the doctrines of that reformer 
 are expressed with remarkable precision and 
 distinctness. In them the doctrine, which respects 
 
18 
 
 the natural state of man since the fall, and in conse- 
 quence of that event, has two parts. They repre- 
 sent the first sin of our first parent, as imputed to 
 all his posterity, who are said to have simied in himy 
 and to have fallen xvith him ; and they teach the 
 entire corruption of man's nature, that he is utterly 
 indisposed^ disabled^ and made opposite to all that is 
 spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, — 
 under the displeasure and curse of God, and liable to 
 all punishments in this world and that which is to 
 come. 
 
 It seems that the first part of this account, 
 though it was formerly reckoned one of the principal 
 tests of Orthodoxy, more zealously maintained than 
 any other, is now given up. It is wholly omitted 
 in the Creed adopted by the Theological Institution 
 in Andover. It is expressly given up by Dr. 
 Woods. "•The Orthodox in New England at the 
 present day,^^ he tells us, p. 44, " are not charge- 
 able with the erroneous opinions held by their 
 predecessors. The imputation of Adam's sin to 
 his posterity, in any sense, which those words 
 naturally and properly convey, is a doctrine which 
 w^e do not believe." This change in the opinions 
 of the Orthodox, and advance toward what we 
 believe to be right views, we are glad to witness ; 
 and have no doubt that the same correct mode of 
 thinking and reasoning, which has led to it, wdll 
 lead also to the rejection of the other part of the 
 doctrine, which has heretofore been considered as 
 inseparably connected with it. We think that 
 further reflection will convince them, that they are 
 
I 
 
 19 
 
 inseparably connected — that if the imputation of 
 Adam's guilt is a solecism, and inconsistent with 
 the moral character of God, it is equally so, that, 
 in consequence of it, all his posterity should come 
 into being with a nature so totally corrupt and in- 
 clined to sin, as to be incapable of any good. 
 
 I could have wished that Dr. Woods had given 
 a more distinct and compact definition of the doc- 
 trine he meant to defend on this point, that there 
 might be no mistake of the question between us. 
 From scattered expressions, however, and from his 
 having made no exception with respect to this part 
 of the doctrine, I think we are to conclude, though 
 he chooses to express it in somewhat softened and 
 qualified language, that he holds it in its full extent. 
 By such expressions as the following, (p. 31) "by 
 nature men are subjects of an innate moral depravi- 
 ty ;" "while unrenewed, their moral affections 
 
 and actions are wholly wrong." (p. 43) " All, 
 without exception by nature, or in consequence of 
 their natural birth, are in such a state of moral 
 impurity, as disqualifies them for the enjoyments of 
 heaven, unless they are renewed by the Holy Spirit." 
 And (p. 46) " Adam's transgression had such a re- 
 lation to his posterity, that in consequence of it, they 
 were constituted sinners, and subjected to death, and 
 all other sufferings, as penal evils ;" he means all 
 that is meant by the following expressions in the 
 Assembly's Catechism and Confession of Faith. 
 " The corruption of his nature, by which he is utter- 
 ly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all 
 that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all 
 
evil, and that continually — and thai men are thus 
 by nature, as they are horn, under the displeasure 
 and curse of God ; justly liable to all punishments 
 in this world and that which is to come." 
 
 I am fortified in this by recurring to the Creed 
 of the Institution with which he is connected, in 
 which I find the following passage. " That in con- 
 sequence of his [Adam's] disobedience, all his 
 descendants were constituted sinners : that by nature 
 every man is personally depraved, destitute of holi- 
 ness, unlike and opposed to God, and that previously 
 to the renewing agency of the Divine Spirit, all his 
 moral actions are adverse to the character and glory 
 of God ; tliat being morally incapable of recovering 
 the image of his Creator, w hich was lost in Adam, 
 every man is justly exposed to eternal damnation." 
 
 The doctrine respecting the natural condition of 
 man, which I shall now state, and endeavour to 
 maintain in opposition to this, may be expressed in 
 the following manner. 
 
 Man is by nature, by which is to be understood, 
 as he is born into the w^orld, as he comes from the 
 hands of the Creator, innocent and pure ; free from 
 all moral corruption, as well as destitute of all posi- 
 tive holiness ; and, until he has, by the exercise of 
 his faculties, actually formed a character either good 
 or bad, an object of the divine complacency and 
 favour. The complacency and favour of the Creator 
 are expressed in all the kind provisions that are 
 made by the constitution of things for his improve- 
 ment and happiness. He is by nature no more 
 inclined or disposed to vice than to virtue, and is 
 
21 
 
 equally capable, in the ordinary use of his facultiesj 
 and with the common assistance afforded him, of 
 either. He derives from his ancestors a frail and 
 mortal nature ; is made with appetites, which fit 
 him for the condition of being in which God has 
 placed him ; but in order for them to answer all the 
 purposes intended, they are so strong, as to be very 
 liable to abuse by excess. He has passions implant- 
 ed in him, which are of great importance in the 
 conduct of life, but which are equally capable of 
 impelling him into a wrong or a right course. He 
 has natural affections, all of them originally good, 
 but liable by a wrong direction to be the occasion 
 of error and sin. He has reason and conscience to 
 direct the conduct of life, and enable him to choose 
 aright ; which reason may yet be neglected, or per- 
 verted, and conscience misguided. The whole of 
 these togetlier make up what constitutes his trial 
 and probation. They make him an accountable 
 being, a proper subject to be treated according as 
 he shall make a right or wrong choice, being equally 
 capable of either, and as free to the one as to the 
 other. 
 
 That this, and not the scheme of innate moral 
 depravity, is the truth, I shall endeavour now to 
 show by arguments drawn 
 
 1. From observation and experience, and 
 
 2. From the Scriptures. 
 
 It is to my purpose, previous to entering on this 
 discussion, to observe, what the Orthodox will not 
 hesitate to admit, that judging beforehand, the 
 scheme of total moral depravity, or of any original 
 
^2 
 
 bias to evil rather than good, is something different 
 from what we should expect, and involves great 
 difficulty in reconciling it with the moral perfections 
 of God. This, as I have before observed, is implied 
 (p. 29) by Dr. Woods himself. I admit, with him, 
 that this is not a sufficient reason for rejecting it in 
 opposition to the evidence of fact, and of scripture^, 
 and for the reason which he gives, viz. that we are 
 finite, and cannot so comprehend the purposes and 
 conduct of an infinite being, as to be certain, that 
 what seems to us inconsistent with his moral charac- 
 ter, is so in reality. But it is a good reason for 
 yielding our assent with caution, not till we have 
 examined with care, and not without very satisfac- 
 %0YY evidence. It is a reason for suspending our 
 assent, and reexamining, so as to be entirely satisfi- 
 ed as to the fact. I have another remark also to 
 make. The doctrine, it is confessed, is repulsive. 
 The mind naturally revolts at it. It seems at first, 
 to all men, universally, to be inconsistent with the 
 divine perfection. But the first impression is made 
 upon us by the nature which God has given us ; and 
 I think we should be slow to believe that a nature, 
 thus given to all, is intended to mislead and actually 
 does mislead all, on so important a question. It is 
 certainly an extraordinary fact, if a fact it is, that 
 God should first give to man a corrupt nature, wholly 
 averse to good and inclined to evil, and at the same 
 time endow him with a moral discernment and feel- 
 ings, which lead him instinctively to deny that God. 
 can so have made him, because inconsistent with 
 justice and goodness ; that is, that he has given him 
 
a natural sense of right and wrong, which leads him 
 to arraign the conduct of the Being who made him. 
 I proceed now to the inquiry, what observation 
 and experience teach us, as to the fact of human 
 depravity. And here we must not forget, that the 
 question is, not whether there is a great deal of 
 wickedness in the world, but what is the source of 
 that wickedness ; not whether mankind are very 
 corrupt, but how they became so ; whether it is a 
 character born with them, or acquired ; whether it 
 is what God made them, or what they have made 
 themselves. All that is said of the prevalence of 
 wickedness in the world may be true, and yet none 
 of it the effect of an original taint, which men 
 brought into the world with them ; none of it making 
 a part of their original nature. I may acquiesce in 
 the mournful and humbling representations given of 
 the violence of human passions, the brutal excesses 
 that follow the unrestrained indulgence of the appe- 
 tites ; the intemperance and self-indulgence of in- 
 dividuals ; the wrongs, violation of the rights, and 
 neglect of the duties of domestic life ; the injustice, 
 and fraud, and violence, prevalent in every form in 
 all the transactions of social life ; the pride, and 
 selfishness, aud regardlessness of the rights and 
 feelings of others, appearing in a thousand forms ; 
 the wars which desolate the earth, the abuses of 
 government, and the oppression and tyranny, that 
 are exercised by some over the rest of their fellow- 
 beings. All these representations may be true, and 
 no more than a just account of what actually takes 
 place, and yet the whole be fairly accounted for. 
 
24 
 
 without any original and natural bias to sin. All 
 may be but the effect of neglect to restrain appe- 
 tites, in themselves useful and good, to control and 
 give a proper direction to passions designed to be 
 useful and capable of the very best effects, and in 
 general a failure to exercise properly, in tempta- 
 tions and trials, the powers of direction and resist- 
 ance, which were in themselves sufficient. 
 
 But, although this reply may be made, were the 
 representation usually given of the human charac- 
 ter, and of the prevalence of wickedness, correct in 
 its fullest extent ; I am satisfied that I am not called 
 upon by truth to make that concession. I insist, 
 that the account usually given of human wickedness 
 is exaggerated. It is a partial account, and such 
 as gives a very wrong impression. Men are not 
 the mere brutes and fiends, which it would make 
 them. There is much of good as well as of evil in 
 the human character, and in the conduct of man. 
 Indeed, I hesitate not to say, that as much as there 
 is of wickedness and vice, there is far more of virtue 
 and goodness; as much as there is of ill-will, un- 
 kindness, injustice, and inhumanity, there is incom- 
 parable more of kindness, good disposition, pity, 
 and charity. I insist, that if we take a fair and full 
 view, we shall find that wickedness, far from being 
 the prevailing part of the human character, makes 
 but an inconsiderable part of it. That in by far 
 the largest part of human beings, the just, and 
 kind, and benevolent dispositions prevail beyond 
 measure over the opposite ; and that even in the 
 worst men, good feelings and principles are predom- 
 
25 
 
 inant, and they probably perform in the course of 
 their lives many more good than bad actions ; as 
 the greatest liar does, by the constitution of his 
 nature, doubtless speak many truths to every lie he 
 utters. One grelat source of misapprehension is, that 
 virtues and good qualities are silent, secret, noise- 
 less ; vices are bold, public^, noisy, seen by all, felt 
 by all, noted by all. 
 
 But whether this be so or not, the ground for 
 rejecting the doctrine of innate original moral de- 
 pravity will not be materially affected. It is not 
 supported by observation and experience, as we 
 have a right to demand of a doctrine so apparently 
 inconsistent with the moral attributes of the Deity. 
 
 What I assert upon this point, and think to be 
 very obvious and capable of being made out to entire 
 satisfaction, is, that observation and experience are 
 altogether favourable to the view I have stated of 
 the human character and condition, and that without 
 revelation there is nothing that would lead a reflect- 
 ing man to the thought of an innate moral ^eprav- 
 
 It is easy to bring together into one picture, and 
 place in a strong light, with exaggerated features, 
 all the bad passions in their uncontrolled and un- 
 qualified state, all the atrocious crimes that liave 
 been committed, all the bad dispositions that have 
 been indulged ; but the picture, though it contain 
 nothing, but what is found in men, will be far, very 
 far, from being a just picture of human nature. Let 
 all that is virtuous, and kind, and amiable, and 
 good, be brought into the picture, and presented in 
 
26 
 
 their full proportions, and the former will be found 
 to constitute a far less part of it, than we were ready 
 to imagine. 
 
 Our most correct ideas of human nature will be 
 drawn from the characteristics of* infancy, and the 
 earliest indications of disposition, tendency, and 
 character in the infant mind ; and if the nature of 
 man be corrupt, inclined to evil, and evil only, it 
 will appear there with its unequivocal marks. But 
 do we find it there, and is it the common, untaught 
 sentiment of mankind, that it exists there ? Far from 
 it. Innocence, and simplicity, and purity are the 
 characteristics of early life. Truth is natural ; 
 falsehood is artificial. Veracity, kindness, good- 
 will flow from the natural feelings. Duplicity, and 
 all the cold, and selfish, and calculating manners of 
 society are the fruit of education, and intercourse 
 with the world. We have marks enough of a feeble, 
 helpless nature, calling for sympathy, assistance, 
 support, kindness ; but we see no proofs of depravi- 
 ty, of malignity, of inclination to evil in preference 
 to good. How early does the infant discover afiec- 
 tion, attachment, gratitude to those from whom it 
 receives kindness ! How universally is it an object 
 of interest to those about it ! Would it be so, if it 
 manifested such tokens, as the orthodox doctrine of 
 depravity supposes, of an inclination, disposition, 
 and tendency, wholly directed to evil, and if it ap- 
 peared to possess nothing good, and no tendency to 
 good ? Instead of this, must it not naturally be the 
 object of aversion and disgust, and especially so to 
 pious and virtuous persons, who can only love and 
 
27 
 
 approve those, whom God loves and approves ; and 
 who therefore can see in little children, only objects 
 of the divine displeasure and wrath, beings wholly 
 averse to God and all that is good, and who deserve, 
 not sympathy and affection, but all punishments of 
 this world and the world to come ? 
 
 It is often said, that children are naturally in- 
 clined to falsehood and deception, and that they 
 early lie and deceive, rather than speak the truth. 
 But this charge needs proof; and I apprehend it 
 will be found that evidence is abundantly against it, 
 and in favour of the natural veracity of children. 
 It will rarely be found, that children disregard the 
 truth, till by example, or bad education, or peculiar 
 circumstances of temptation, they have learned to 
 overcome and counteract the tendency of nature. 
 That they are so proverbially simple, unsuspicious^ 
 and easily imposed upon, arises from their judging 
 others by themselves. It is because they themselves 
 are conscious of no thought of deceiving, that they 
 never suspect others. Great differences of character 
 in this, as in other respects, appear at an early age 5 
 but what I have stated, I am persuaded is the gen- 
 eral character, until the disposition and tendency of 
 nature has been changed by education, example, 
 and circumstances. 
 
 It is alleged, also, that children are naturally 
 cruel ; and in proof of it, the pleasure they seem to 
 take in torturing insects and small animals is some- 
 times mentioned. But the pleasure, which the 
 convulsions and throes of a tortured insect or animal 
 give to a child, arises from another source than 
 
28 
 
 cruelty, or the desire of giving pain. It is wholly 
 to be attributed to the love of excitement, and the 
 pleasure it takes in rapid and violent motion ; and 
 is wholly unconnected with the idea of suffering in 
 the creature, with whose convulsions it is delighted. 
 The same pleasure would be derived from the power 
 of producing the same convulsive motions, and the 
 same appearance in any inanimate substance. In 
 proof of this, let a clear idea of the suffering of the 
 insect be communicated to the child, and it will no 
 longer take pleasure in its convulsions. A sentiment 
 of compassion will be raised. It will be as eager to 
 rescue it from its suffering, as before it was to inflict 
 that suffering. This I am persuaded will usually, 
 if not always, be the case. But if it were from native 
 cruelty, the love of inflicting pain, or from any de- 
 pravity of nature ; instead of ceasing from it the 
 moment it was made acquainted with the suffering 
 of the animal, that knowledge would be a new motive 
 to proceed ; as it would give it the satisfaction of 
 knowing, that its malignant purpose was effected, its 
 cruel design accomplished. The same account is 
 to be given of what is often called a mischievous 
 ilisposition in children. It is not the love of mischief, 
 but an exuberant love of activity. The mischief or 
 inconvenience which they occasion to others is no 
 part of the motive, but simply the love of action and 
 strong excitement ; and it may be accompanied with 
 the kindest feelings, the most sincere desire of giv- 
 ing pleasure to others, and as sincere an unwilling- 
 ness to give pain or to cause uneasiness or dis- 
 pleaeure. 
 
d9 
 
 Indeed I know not a single mark of early de- 
 pravity, common to children in general, which may 
 not, as these are, be fairly traced to causes, which 
 imply no degree of depravity, and no fault of char- 
 acter, or of disposition. Individuals there may be, 
 who give very early tokens of great perversity of 
 mind, and corruption of heart. But these are ex- 
 ceptions from the general character of human na- 
 ture, and, as such, have no place in the present 
 argument ; and if they had any, would be decisive, 
 not in favour of the orthodox doctrine, but against 
 it ; as the exception, in its nature, proves the oppo- 
 site rule. If great depravity is the exception, ex- 
 emption from depravity must be the rule. 
 
 No man, I am persuaded, was ever led by per- 
 sonal observation and experience to the thought of 
 an original depravity of human nature, according to 
 which, by the bias of nature, all, without exception, 
 who come into the world, are from their birth 
 inclined wholly to evil, and averse to good. 
 
 And as little, I am persuaded, would any one be 
 led to such an opinion by the general current of 
 scripture. I am led to think so by a general view 
 of the commands, precepts, exhortations, promises, 
 -and threatenings of religion, and by the whole his- 
 tory of the divine dispensations to men ; and also 
 by attending to a great number of particulars, each 
 of which, separately, seems to me to imply, that 
 mankind come into the world innocent and pure, the 
 objects of the complacency of the Creator, and no 
 more inclined, by the nature God has given them, to 
 sin, than to virtue ; no more disposed to hate and 
 4 
 
30 
 
 disobey, than to love and obey their Maker. I shall 
 instance only in one, but that alone, in my opinion, 
 is decisive of the question. I refer to the manner 
 in which little children are, on two occasions, spoken 
 of by our Saviour, and on one by the Apostle Paul. 
 (Matt. xix. 14) *^ Suffer little children to come unto 
 me — for of such is the kingdom of heaven." These 
 appear to have been infants, or at least very small 
 children, for he took them into his arms and blessed 
 them. There is no intimation of any thing peculiar 
 in them ; no evidence that they were a few, selected 
 from among many ; nothing to suggest that they 
 were different from other children ; but rather, that 
 they were like other children. There is not the 
 slightest intimation that these particular children 
 had become the subjects of any great moral change. 
 But if they were depraved, destitute of holiness, 
 averse from all good, inclined to all evil, enemies of 
 God, subjects of his wrath, justly liable to all pun- 
 ishments, could our Saviour declare, respecting 
 them, ^^ of such is the kingdom of God ?'' And could 
 he, on another occasion, say, (Matt, xviii. 3) '' Un- 
 less ye be converted, and become as little children, 
 ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God ?" And 
 again, (Mark x. 14. Luke xviii. 16) " Whosoever 
 shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little 
 child, he shall not enter therein ?'' 
 
 Could the Apostle Paul recommend to the Co- 
 rinthians, (1 Cor. xiv. 20) " Be not children in 
 understanding, but in malice be ye children, but in 
 understanding be men ;'' that is, in understanding, 
 in the power of distinguishing right and wrong, and 
 
31 
 
 perceiving the truth, show yourselves to be men ; 
 but in your dispositions, in your moral characters, 
 manifest the gentleness, and mildness, and purity of 
 children ? I know not how these passages are to be 
 explained, so as to consist with the doctrine of innate 
 depravity, rendering those who are the subjects of 
 it enemies to God, &c. until renewed by the special 
 influence of the spirit of God. I have never seen 
 them satisfactorily explained upon that supposition, 
 nor do I believe that they admit of such explanation. 
 They most clearly imply, until turned from their 
 obvious meaning, that young children are objects of 
 the Saviour's complacency and affection ; that their 
 innocency, gentleness, and good disposition are the 
 proper objects of irritation ; that they are, what men 
 are to become by conversion or regeneration. 
 
 But there are, as I liave said, a few texts, from 
 which the doctrine I am considering is inferred ; and 
 these have been brought forward, and placed in all 
 the strength of which they are capable, by those 
 who believe and defend the doctrine, and particu- 
 larly by the able advocate it has found in the author 
 of the pamphlet before me. 
 
 It is not pretended, I believe, by any of the 
 defenders of the native, hereditary depravity of the 
 human race, that the doctrine is, any where in 
 scripture, expressly asserted. It is not a matter of 
 direct assertion, but of inference. It i^ considered 
 as implied in several passages. Now I admit that 
 a doctrine, no where expressly taught, may yet be 
 so clearly and constantly implied, may so enter into 
 the whole texture of the sacred writings, and appear 
 
32 
 
 in every part, as to be as reasonable an object of 
 our foith, as those doctrines, which are the most 
 distinctly and formally enunciated. But examples of 
 this kind are usually (I will not affirm always, but 
 usually) such as are presented, not a few times only, 
 and then in a doubtful form, but such as appear 
 constantly, and enter as it were into the very sub- 
 stance of the whole. Such, for instance, is the being 
 of God, no where asserted, but every where implied. 
 Such is the moral freedom of man, upon which 
 rests his accountability as a moral being ; and such, 
 in my apprehension, is the doctrine, that men be- 
 come sinners, guilty before God, and objects of his 
 displeasure only by their personal acts, and not by 
 the nature with which they came into being. 
 
 The first text adduced, as implying innate total 
 depravity, is Gen. vi. 5. A few remarks will show 
 how little it is to the purpose, and how far from 
 supporting what is made to rest upon it. For, in 
 the first place, it relates not to mankind universally, 
 but to the degenerate race of men of that age, so 
 remarkably and universally corrupt, beyond all that 
 had gone before, or have followed since, as to call 
 for the most signal tokens of the vengeance of 
 heaven. In the second place, were it said of all 
 men in every age, instead of being confined, as it is, 
 to the inhabitants of the earth at that particular 
 time, it would still be nothing to the purpose, for 
 which it is brought. There is no assertion of native 
 derived depravity, none of a corrupt nature, no 
 intimation of hereditary guilt, no reference to innate 
 aversion to good and inclination to evil. It is the 
 
33 
 
 mere assertion of a state of great corruption and 
 wickedness^ which no one denies ; and not only of 
 external actions, such as " the world heing full of 
 violence/' but of purposes and dispositions of the 
 heart, implying deep-rooted and radical wickedness, 
 expressed by " the imaginations of the heart." But 
 this is all perfectly consistent with their coming into 
 being, innocent and pure. It is not what they are 
 by nature, but by habit ; not what they were as they 
 came from the hands of the Creator, but what they 
 have become in the use or rather abuse of his gifts, 
 and of the condition in which he placed them. 
 
 It is said that the language here is universal, as 
 also when it is used again in the viii. chapter ; and 
 that its application to man universally in all ages 
 and nations, is confirmed by the passages quoted 
 by Paul, in the iii. chapter of Romans from Psalms 
 xiv. liii. V. cxl. x. xxxvi. and Isaiah lix. where he 
 describes Jews and Gentiles of that age, in passages 
 borrowed from the Old Testament, and applies 
 them as descriptive of the character of mankind 
 without exception. But in each case the argument 
 wholly fails of proving what it is brought to prove ; 
 because it depends for its force on an interpretation 
 of language, which" cannot be adopted without lead- 
 ing to consequences, which the advocates of univer- 
 sal original depravity would be as slow to admit, as 
 its opposers. ~-~~-^ 
 
 It goes on the supposition that the sacred writers j 
 used words, as no other writers ever did use them, ' 
 with perfect philosophical exactness, instead of the \^' 
 popular sense ; and that their writings were to be 
 
34 
 
 interpreted by rules, to which no other writing* 
 will bear to be subjected. 
 
 Universal expressions, like those in the texts in 
 question, are so far from being always used in their 
 strict literal sense, that they are usually relative^ to 
 be understood and interpreted in relation to the 
 subject and occasion. Thus when it is said, (1 Tim. 
 ii. 4) " God will have all men to be saved and come 
 to the knowledge of the truth," it relates to the 
 question, whether any class or nation of men are 
 excluded from the favour and good-will of God, and 
 therefore ought to be excluded from a share in the 
 benevolent regards and prayers of Christians ; so 
 that all men means, not every individual, but all 
 ranks, descriptions, and conditions of men. In the 
 unlimited sense of the words it is not true. It is not 
 true that God wills every individual to come to the 
 knowledge of truth, i. e. of the Gospel ; for thou- 
 sands are precluded from the possibility of it by 
 the circumstances of their being. Nor is it true, 
 that he wills all men to be finally saved ; but only 
 all of every rank, and every nation, who are 
 penitent, obedient, and faithful. He wills none 
 to be excluded from having the truth proposed, 
 and salvation offered to them. And that all, 
 w^ho receive and obey it, shall actually obtain 
 the salvation offered. So also (Tit. ii. 11) when 
 it is said, " the grace of God bringing salvation 
 hath appeared to all men,*' the meaning cannot be, 
 every individualj for it never has been published to 
 all in that sense. But, as in the other case, to 
 men of every nation, age, rank, condition, and in the 
 
35 
 
 same sense in which Paul (Col. i. 23) spoke of the 
 Gospel, as " preached to every creature under 
 heaven/' 
 
 It is in a similar, popular, qualified sense, a 
 sense never leading men into mistakes upon other 
 subjects and common occasions, that Moses, speak- 
 ing of the general wickedness and corruption of 
 manners, which were the occasion of the flood, uses 
 language, which in its strictly literal import might 
 be understood to mean, that there was no virtue 
 remaining on the earth ; though he immediately 
 tells us, that Noah was an exception to the prevail- 
 ing wickedness, that ^^ he found favour in the eyes 
 of the Lord, (ch. vi. 8, 9) being a just man, perfect 
 in his generations, and one who walked with God.'' 
 
 The same remark occurs with equal force in 
 respect to the passage so much relied on in the xiv. 
 Psalm. Not only is there no intimation as to the 
 origin and source of the evil, no intimation of an 
 inbred, innate, hereditary depravity, but only of 
 great and general corruption of manners ; but, 
 though a verbal universality is expressed, the very 
 Psalm itself takes care to teach us with what quali- 
 fications it is to be understood. For while it asserts, 
 in the strong language of emotion and eastern hy- 
 perbole, " that all were gone aside, all together 
 become filthy, none that did good, no, not one,^^ the 
 writer seems wholly unconscious of a design to have 
 his language understood according to its literal 
 import ; for he immediately goes on with expressions 
 absolutely incompatible with such a meaning. He 
 goes on to speak of a ^^ people of God, a generation 
 
36 
 
 of the righteous, whose refuge was God.^' The same 
 is the case with each of the other Psalms, quoted by 
 Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. 
 
 But it is of little comparative importance, 
 whether the authors of the Psalms, or the Apostle in 
 quoting them, meant to be understood as expressing 
 a general truth in popular language, or as expressing 
 themselves with literal philosophical exactness. 
 Understand them in the most unlimited, unqualified 
 sense, of which their words are capable, they ex* 
 press only what no one will deny, that all men are 
 sinners. The question will still be open, as before, 
 how this universality of sin and great corruption of 
 manners are to be accounted for. Whether, as the 
 advocates of Orthodoxy contend, men come into the 
 world with a corrupt nature, prone only to wicked- 
 ness, and utterly incapable of any good thought or 
 action, till renewed by an influence of the holy spirit, 
 which they can do nothing to procure ; or as Unita- 
 rians believe, this corrupt nature is not what they 
 received from God, but what they have made for 
 themselves. That they were not made sinners, but 
 became so by yielding to temptations, which it was 
 in their power to resist ; by obeying the impulse of 
 the passions, and the calls of appetite, in opposition 
 to the direction of reason and the notices of con- 
 science ; by subjecting themselves to the dominion 
 of the inferior part of their nature, instead of put- 
 ting themselves under the guidance of their superior 
 faculties. 
 
 Questions may be asked upon this statement, 
 which cannot be answered, because we have not 
 
37 
 
 faculties which enable us in any cases to trace things 
 up to the first cause and spring of action. But no 
 difficulty so great and insurmountable meets us, as, 
 on the opposite theory, is the moral difficulty in 
 which it involves the character of the Author of our 
 being. When we have traced back the wickedness 
 of men, as it actually exists, to the voluntary neg- 
 lect, and perversion, and abuse of the nature God 
 has given them, we can go no farther. 
 
 It is asserted, (pp. 38, 39) " that when we read 
 in the Bible the highest descriptions of human wick- 
 edness in the old world, in Sodom, in Canaan, in 
 Jerusalem ; or of the wickedness of individuals, as 
 Pharaoh, Saul, Jeroboam, and Judas ; it is perfectly 
 just and natural for us to reflect, such is human na- 
 ture, such is mem ; and orthodox writers reason in 
 an unexceptionable manner, when they undertake 
 to show, what hmncm nature is, from the description 
 which is given of the wickedness of man in the Old 
 Testament.'' 
 
 The writer, I think, must perceive that he has 
 expressed himself rashly or carelessly, when he 
 considers clear'y the force and bearing of what he 
 has said in the above paragraph. Are we to con- 
 sider those places, which, singled out and distin- 
 guished from all others, are expressly declared to 
 have been destroyed for their enormous and incor- 
 rigible wickedness, as fair representatives of the 
 usual state and character of the human race ? Peo- 
 ple, who were ordered to be wholly extirpated for 
 the very purpose of stopping the contagion of their 
 
 viceS; preventing the spread of the infection, and 
 5 
 
38 
 
 serving as a warning to other nations to prevent 
 their becoming like them ? Are Pharaoh, Jeroboam, 
 and JudaSj fair examples and representatives of 
 human nature ? Men, singled out in a history of 
 two thousand years, as instances of uncommon 
 wickedness, visited with as uncommon tokens of 
 retributory justice ? Let it be asked, why the 
 cruelty and obstinacy of Pharaoh, rather than the 
 humanity, and piety, and meekness of Moses ; why 
 the idolatry, and unprincipled ambition, and selfish- 
 ness of Jeroboam, rather than the piety, tenderness 
 of conscience, and public spirit of Josiah ; why the 
 single wretch, who was so base and sordid as to sell 
 and betray his Master, rather than the eleven, who 
 were true and faithful to him, should be selected as 
 specimens of the race to which they belong, and the 
 great community of which they make a part? 
 
 Would you select the period of seven years' 
 famine, as an example of the usual fertility of 
 Egypt? The desolating pestilence in the days of 
 David, as a fair specimen of the salubrity of the 
 climate of Israel ? Would you go to a lazar- house 
 or hospital, rather than to the fields, the wharves, 
 and the factories, to know what is the usual state of 
 human health and activity ? Is an ideot or a mad- 
 man a just specimen of the human intellect? Or 
 are we to find in our prisons, and at the gallows, 
 in highwaymen, pirates, and murderers, a true 
 index to point out the general morals of the com- 
 munity ? 
 
 It is unnecessary to multiply remarks on the 
 next text brought to prove human depravity. (Jer. 
 
39 
 
 xvii. 9) '^ The heart is deceitful above all things, 
 and desperately wicked." Admit that it relates to 
 a prevailing trait in the human character ; do we 
 not well know, that, in the common use of language, 
 such general expressions are seldom to be under- 
 stood as universal in their application ? They are 
 to be understood in a limited and popular sense. 
 What is more than this, though the text were intend- 
 ed to express a trait of character absolutely uni- 
 versal, it has no more relation to the question res- 
 pecting the source of human wickedness, whether it 
 be natural or acquired, than any other descriptions 
 of prevalent wickedness in the world. But the total 
 irrelevancy of the text to the purpose, for which 
 it is brought, appears best by considering the sub- 
 ject matter, about which it is introduced. The 
 prophet is stating the safety of trusting in God, and 
 the insecurity of trusting in man. The reason is, 
 that men are deceitful, and not to be depended on. 
 Now this reason would be good, and support the 
 prophet's conclusion, though deceit and treachery 
 were not the universal, though they were not even 
 the general character of men. Were there many 
 to be found, who would deceive and betray, it 
 would be sufficient to justify the prophet, in with- 
 drawing men from their confidence in man, and 
 teaching them to place it in him, who can never 
 fail, and will never deceive. And it would suf- 
 ficiently account for his adding in the next verse, 
 " I the Lord search the heart." However deceitful 
 men may be, and able to impose on men, there is 
 
40 
 
 onej who is able to detect, and will not fail to pun- 
 ish. 
 
 From the New Testament, the first passage se- 
 lected, as implying the doctrine under consideration, 
 is the answer of Christ to Nicodemus, (John iii. 3) 
 ^^ Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
 kingdom of God." It is contended, (pp. 42, 43) 
 that the universal necessity of regeneration, expres- 
 sed in this text, implies universal depravity. "^That 
 this necessity of a moral renovation arises from the 
 character man possesses in consequence of his nat- 
 ural birth ; that all must be born again, because, 
 and only because, all without exception are, by 
 nature, or in consequence of their natural birth, in 
 such a state of moral impurity, as disqualifies them 
 for the enjoyments of heaven, unless they are re- 
 newed by the holy spirit." 
 
 A single consideration convinces me, tliat the 
 inference is without foundation, and that the uni- 
 versal necessity of regeneration may consist with 
 original innocency, and exemption from any pre- 
 vailing tendency, as we are born into the world, to 
 vice rather than virtue. By their natural birth 
 men only become human, reasonable, accountable 
 beings. ^^ What is born of the flesh is flesh. '^ They 
 receive by their natural birth only the human 
 nature. They receive no moral character, but only 
 the faculties and powers, in the exercise of which a 
 moral character is to be formed. The formation of 
 this character introduces them into a new state of 
 being, and by whatever means, and at whatever time 
 it takes place, it may be called, by no very remote 
 
41 
 
 or unusual figure, a new birth ; and those, who have 
 thus acquired a moral character, and received the 
 principles of a spiritual life, in addition to the 
 natural human life, may be said to be born again. 
 Now if this was what Jesus meant in what he said 
 to Nicodemus, it will no more imply original sin, 
 than original holiness. It will only imply the ab- 
 sence or want of that, which was necessary to be- 
 coming a subject of the kingdom of God. The terms 
 nexv birthf horn again^ bom of the spirit^ i'e?2ewed, 
 become a new man, are applied with as much pro- 
 priety to those, who receive the influences of the 
 Gospel, and acquire the character, which it is in- 
 tended to form, on the supposition of original inno- 
 cence and purity, as upon that of native depravity 
 and original sinfulness. In each case alike, it ex- 
 presses a great moral change, and implies the 
 formation of a new character, not possessed before. 
 On the supposition, therefore, that this passage 
 refers, as is generally supposed by interpreters, to 
 that great moral change, which the religion of the 
 Gospel is to produce on those who embrace it, in 
 order to their being fit members of the kingdom of 
 heaven on earth and in glory ; it will be seen to be 
 nothing to the purpose of those, who attempt to build 
 upon it the doctrine of a moral depravity, with 
 which all men are born into the world. It will only 
 imply, that they do not possess by birth that char- 
 acter of personal holiness and positive virtue, which 
 is necessary to their being Christians, fit subjects of 
 the present and future kingdom of God. 
 
43 
 
 The passage, (Rom. v. 12) " Wherefore, as by 
 one man sin entered into the world, and death by 
 sin, and sol death passed upon all men, for that all 
 have sinned," is of another kind, and to be shown 
 to have no relation to the subject by other consid- 
 erations. The whole force of this passage, (if it 
 have any, as relates to this subject,) lies in the last 
 clause, ^* For that all have sinned." Now if this 
 clause be understood in a sense, which shall prove 
 any thing to tlie purpose, it will prove the genuine 
 old Calvinistic doctrine, the imputation of Adam's 
 sin. It leads back to the notion of a federal head, 
 of Adam's acting not only on his own responsibility, 
 but for all his posterity ; acting in their stead, so 
 that his action was theirs, and they '^ sinned in him 
 and fell with him in his first transgression." They 
 are all sinners by the sin of him, their representa- 
 tive, federal head. The myriads who die in earliest 
 infancy, before it is possible for them to perform 
 any act, or to have any volition, either sinful or 
 virtuous, yet die because they are sinners. They 
 are sinners then by the sin of another, by the im- 
 putation of sin to them ; and this is the true doctrine 
 of Calvinism ; and this, it seems to me, is also the 
 doctrine of Dr. Woods, notwithstanding his explicit 
 rejection of it, as stated in words. For, besides 
 that he acquiesces in the qualified statement of 
 Stapfer, (p. 45) (which, after all, must mean the 
 doctrine of imputation in its full extent, if it have 
 any intelligible meaning ; since God's giving Adam 
 a posteritij like himself, if it mean any thing to the 
 
43 
 
 purpose, must mean shiners like himself;) besides 
 this, he asserts, that the Apostle's reasoning goes 
 on the ground, that (p. 46) " Adam's transgression 
 had, in the plan of the divdne administration, such a 
 relation to his posterity, that in consequence of it^, 
 they were constituted sinners, and subjected to 
 death and ali other sufferings, as penal evils.'^ Now 
 if the posterity of Adam being constituted sinners, 
 and subjected to all sufferings, as penal evils, that 
 is, as punishments, in consequence of his transgres- 
 sion, mean any thing to the purpose for which it 
 is introduced, and yet short of the common Calvin- 
 istic notion of imputation, I am unable to perceive 
 what it is, and it needs explanation, and a more 
 definite statement, than I have seen. 
 
 But I am persuaded the passage has no suck 
 meaning. It is a single phrase taken away from its 
 connexion, and what is more, out of the middle of 
 an argument. Did it therefore, as it does not, ex- 
 press distinctly our original native depravity, it 
 would give very little satisfaction alone ; for there 
 is no sentiment so absurd, that it may not be sup- 
 ported by single sentences, thus detached from the 
 connexion in which they are used. But I have 
 observed that in its most obvious sense it expresses 
 no such native corruption. Understood literally, 
 the only assertion it contains with certainty is that 
 of a fact, which none will deny, the universality of 
 sin, that all have sinned. Now the nature of the 
 universality intended to be asserted, in this, as in 
 every case, is to be learned from the circumstances 
 of the case. All who are capable of sinning, all as 
 
44 
 
 sooji as they are capable of it, all as soon as they 
 are moral agents. Such limitations of the sense of 
 universal expressions in other cases are constantly 
 occurring. Were all the inhabitants of a country 
 required to take an oath of allegiance to the govern- 
 ment ; the requisition would be considered as com- 
 plied withj though no infants and small children had 
 taken the oath, and all would be considered as in- 
 cluded under its obligation. But there is another 
 consideration, which ought to prevent this text 
 from being considered of any weight on the subject. 
 The whole passage in which it stands is one of the 
 most intricate and difficult in the New Testament. 
 The phrase,* on which so much is made to depend, 
 admits equally well of several different translations, 
 each of which will give it a different meaning ; and 
 its connexion with the passage in which it stands is 
 not such, as to help us, to any degree of certainty, 
 in determining by which version its true sense is 
 expressed. Dr. Woods himself, " allows it to be 
 in some respects very obscure.'' He will doubtless 
 admit then, that the support derived to a doctrine. 
 
 * 'E0' a, in our translation, "for that,''^ has been rendered 
 by the several phrases, because, inasmuch as, as far as, in 
 whom, unto which, after whom, on account of ivhom. When 
 meanings so various are assigned to this text by Schleusner, 
 Eisner, Taylor, Doddridge, Whitby, and Macknight, I am 
 justified in attributing to it a degree of obscurity and uncer- 
 tainty, which should prevent it from being alleged with much 
 confidence in proof of any doctrine, which it may be supposed 
 to express. 
 
45 
 
 depending on any particular translation of this 
 textj or any particular meaning assigned to it, will 
 be of very little value ; of none indeed any farther, 
 than it receives support itself from, other plainer 
 passages. 
 
 Ephesians ii. 3, ^^ And were by nature children 
 of wrath, even as others.'' The connexion and 
 circumstances of the case show the meaning of this 
 verse, and that it furnishes no proof of inbred moral 
 corruption, but only of corrupt and wicked habits. 
 It refers to the former state of Jews as well as 
 heathen, before their conversion to Christianity. 
 In that state, they were all alike children of wrath, 
 deserving of wrath, not as they came into the world, 
 not as they came from their Maker's hand, but as 
 they became by the habits, and customs, and prac- 
 tices of that state into which they were born ; which 
 was a state of nature, as compared with the state of 
 grace, into which they were introduced by Chris- 
 tianity. What they were before they became 
 Christians, they were by nature ; what they became 
 afterward, v/as by the grace of God, which appear- 
 ed bringing salvation. The state of nature was 
 that, into which they came by their birth ; as dis- 
 tinguished from the state of grace into which they 
 came, when they embraced Christianity. When 
 they received Christianity, they were born again, 
 born of water by their baptism, born of the spirit 
 by receiving the spirit of Christianity, by being 
 renewed in the temper of their mind. Then they 
 were no longer children of wrath, when the new 
 
46 
 
 birth was completed, and their religion had pro- 
 duced all its moral effects. 
 
 According to this view of the subject, the state 
 of nature has no reference to what a man brings into 
 the world with him, but it stands opposed to a state 
 of grace. It is that state in which all are, Jews as 
 well as Gentiles, before they become Christians. 
 This language of the Apostle, like much of that in 
 the Epistles, referring to the same subject, relates 
 to men, as bodies of men, not as individuals. It 
 compares them together as bodies, not as individuals. 
 It speaks of them generally, as in their heathen and 
 Jewish state, and then in their Christian state. In 
 the former " dead in sin,'' in the latter " quickened, 
 and raised up," and (v. 5, 6) " made to sit together 
 in heavenly places." 
 
 The former, (12, 13) "Strangers, aliens, without 
 God, without hope, afar off;" the latter, "^^ made 
 nigh by the blood of Christ." 
 
 The former, (19) " Strangers and foreigners;" 
 the latter, " fellow-citizens with the saints, and of 
 the household of God." 
 
 The former, (3, 1) "children of wrath, having 
 their conversation in the lusts of the flesh, dead in 
 trespasses and sins ;" the latter, (4, 5, 10) " by the 
 rich mercy of God, quickened, saved by grace, 
 created by Christ Jesus unto good works." 
 
 The whole of this refers to the same thing ; not 
 to the personal condition of individuals as such, but 
 to that of the whole body of Christians, as quicken- 
 ed and raised from the moral and spiritual death of 
 
47 
 
 their original Jewish and heathen state ; as deliver- 
 ed from the state of wrath, in which they had lived 
 from their birth ; and, by the rich mercy of God 
 and the faith of the Gospel, made to sit together in 
 heavenly places, that is, to enjoy all the privileges 
 and hopes of Christians. 
 
 It has no reference therefore to the state in 
 which persons are born into the world in all ages. 
 Those now born into the world, in Christian lands, 
 are not in the same sense that these Ephesians 
 were, children of rvrath by nature, but as these 
 same Ephesians were, after their conversion to 
 Christianity, saved by the grace of God, quickened, 
 raised from the dead, made nigh by the blood of 
 Christ, fellow -citizens with the saints, of the house- 
 hold of God. 
 
 All this language was applied to the Ephesians 
 universally after their conversion, and all of it is as 
 applicable universally now to those, who are Chris- 
 tians by birth, as distinguished from those, who are 
 heathen by birth. 
 
 The phrase we are considering then must be 
 seen to be wholly inapplicable to the purpose for 
 which it is alleged. 
 
 We are called upon by the advocates for the 
 doctrine of depravity to show, that it is inconsistent 
 with the moral perfection of God ; that it is not 
 taught in the scriptures ; and that all the wickedness 
 in the world may be accounted for without admitting 
 the doctrine. 
 
 With respect to the first, I might satisfy myself 
 with saying, that it belongs to those^ who maintain 
 
48 
 
 the doctrine^ to prove its consistency with the moral 
 perfection of God. But I have no wish to avail 
 myself of the rights which every one has, who is 
 called upon to prove a negative^ of throwing back 
 the burden of proof. It is one of the cases in which 
 the negative is susceptible of satisfactory proof. 
 
 When we charge the common doctrine of de- 
 pravity with being inconsistent with the moral 
 character of God, it is, as taken in connexion with 
 the rest of the system, of which it makes a part. It 
 is the whole system together, that we maintain is 
 incapable of being defended in consistency with 
 the moral attributes of the Author of our being. 
 AVhatever the nature of man be, it is such as he 
 received at the hand of his Maker. Whatever 
 tendency and proneness to evil there may be in him, 
 as he is born into the world, it is no greater than 
 his Maker gave him. We assert then that no guilt, 
 no fault can be attributed to him by his Maker for 
 such proneness. If God be a just being, he cannot 
 be displeased with him for being what he made him. 
 If he be a good being, he cannot punish him for it. 
 To subject him to penal evils for a propensity to sin, 
 born with him in consequence of his descent from a 
 sinful ancestor, is not the less cruel and unjust for 
 his being voluntary in following that propensity, 
 unless he had also the natural or communicated 
 power to resist it. If he have that power, then he 
 becomes guilty and deserving of punishment, so soon 
 as in the indulgence of the propensity he actually 
 becomes a sinner, but no sooner. Till then, even 
 on the supposition above, no guilt is incurred. The 
 
49 
 
 propensity itself is no sin, and implies no guilt. 
 And afterward the justice of his subjection to penal 
 evils depends on his power of being and acting 
 ■otherwise than he does. Had he no power to be, 
 to feel, and to act otherwise than he does, he could 
 not be guilty and deserving of punishment for con- 
 tinuing in his present state. But according to the 
 scheme, which assumes to be that of Orthodoxy, 
 those who are the subjects of this innate moral 
 depravity, inclination to evil, and wholly " wrong 
 state of the moral affections and actions," (p. 31) 
 are utterly incapable of doing any thing toward 
 producing in themselves a moral change, or which 
 shall be a reason with God for granting to them that 
 grace, which is necessary to their regeneration 
 and sanctification. It is only the irresistible influ- 
 ence of the spirit of God, which can renew and 
 change their nature. Now we assert, that until 
 this grace has been imparted and resisted, there 
 can be no blame-worthiness. Beings so situated 
 may be the objects of pity to the Author of their 
 being, and his pity may be manifested in bringing 
 suffering upon them in the way of discipline, for 
 the purpose of promoting their renovation, and 
 bringing them to a state of holiness : but it cannot be 
 inflicted by a just being as punishment. Now, if I 
 rightly understand the scheme of Calvinism, divine 
 punishments are not, according to that scheme, 
 disciplinary, but vindictive. God punishes his 
 offending creatures, not to reform them, but to 
 vindicate his authority. The sufferings of the 
 wicked have no tendency to reform, but rather to 
 
50 
 
 harden and confirm them in their opposition to God 
 and their duty. 
 
 Now, however consistent with justice may be 
 the infliction of vindictive punishment, where it is 
 in the power of the subject of it to be different from 
 what he is, and to act otherwise than he does ; it is 
 contended that it cannot be so, where the guilt to 
 be punished is inbred, a part of man's original na- 
 ture, such as he came from the Creator's hands ; 
 where, in fact, the sinner is as his Maker sent him 
 into the world, not as he has made himself by his 
 own act, by the abuse, or neglect, or perversion of 
 his power, and his faculties and affections. 
 
 That the doctrine is not contained in the scrip- 
 tures I have endeavoured to show, by showing the 
 insufficiency of the several texts from the Old and 
 New Testament, on which Dr. Woods relies for its 
 support ; and that they admit of a satisfactory in- 
 terpretation, which gives no countenance to it. I 
 know very well, that these are not the only texts 
 which are supposed to relate to the subject ; but I 
 do not know that any others are thought to have 
 more weight, or to present greater difficulties. I 
 have limited myself to these, solely from a wish not 
 to extend the discussion beyond what was rendered 
 necessary, by the course pursued by Dr. Woods ; 
 and presuming that the texts, which he has selected, 
 were those on which he would place his chief reli- 
 ance. 
 
 When the extent and prevalence of wickedness 
 in the w^orld are urged as indicating an original in- 
 herent corruption, and we are called upon to ac- 
 
51 
 
 count for it in a satisfactory manner, without ad- 
 mitting the orthodox doctrine of depravity, I shall 
 think it sufficient to refer you to the account which 
 I have given of our moral constitution, and the 
 state of trial in which we are placed. Being, by 
 the whole of our nature and condition, equally 
 capable of virtue and of vice, of a right and of a 
 wrong course ; it is no more difficult to account for 
 the actual existence of the highest, than of the lowest 
 degree of either. But I have also another consid- 
 eration to suggest. It will not, I suppose, be pre- 
 tended, that our first parents were, previous to 
 their fall, subjects of the same moral depravity, 
 which is attributed to their descendants. It will 
 be admitted that they were created innocent and 
 pure, ^^ in the image of God in righteousness and 
 holiness ; yet they became sinners. Now it belongs 
 to him, who urges the wickedness of mankind as a 
 proof of innate original depravity, to account for 
 the sin of our first parents, who are admitted to 
 have been created, not only in a state of innocence, 
 but of positive holiness. 
 
 I have one only remark more, which I wish to 
 make in conclusion upon this subject. The doctrine, 
 which I have been considering in this letter, Dr. 
 Woods styles, (p. 31) his " humbling conclusion.'^ 
 In this he intimates, what is often more distinctly 
 expressed by orthodox writers, that the doctrine is 
 of a more humbling nature, more expressive of self- 
 abasement, and of a sense of human demerit and 
 unworthiness, than that which declares our nature 
 to be originally pure, innocent, free from enmity to 
 
52 
 
 God, and from an inclination only to evil. But 
 with how little justice this is claimed, I am persuad- 
 ed you will be convinced, by a moment's reflection. 
 Can that be thought a more humbling doctrine, 
 which traces all our wicked actions up to an original 
 constitution, given us at first by our Maker, and a 
 depravity of nature which he gave us when he gave 
 us being ; than that which attributes all our sins to 
 our own neglect, and abuse, and perversion of the 
 gifts of God ? We have certainly no cause to feel 
 ourselves humbled under a sense of any thing that 
 we are by nature. We have occasion to be ashamed 
 only of what we have become by practice. For the 
 nature God has given us no sentiment but that of 
 gratitude is due. Humility and self-condemnation 
 should spring only from the consciousness of a 
 course of life not answering to the powers, and fac- 
 ulties, and privileges of our nature. What God 
 has made us, we should think of with unmingkd 
 satisfaction ; what we have made ourselves, we 
 cannot think of with too deep regret, and sorrow, 
 and shame. 
 
53 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 In the system of Orthodoxy defended by Dr. 
 Woods, the doctrine of Election stands in immediate 
 and close connexion with that of the total depravity 
 of human nature, and is brought forward by him 
 the next in order. He seems to enter upon the 
 discussion of this subject with the impression, that 
 he has strong prepossessions to encounter, and that 
 these prepossessions are not without foundation. 
 " I acknowledge,^' he says (p. 52) " that orthodox 
 writers and preachers of high repute, but deficient 
 in judgment, have, in some instances, exhibited the 
 doctrine in a manner, which has given too much * 
 occasion for these prepossessions ; and too much 
 occasion for this author [Mr. Channing] to think, 
 that the doctrine is inconsistent with the moral 
 perfection of God." Again, (p. 63) '^ orthodox 
 writers have not unfrequently made use of expres- 
 sions, which, at first view, may seem to furnish 
 occasion for some of the heavy charges brought 
 against us by our opposers. But for the rash, 
 unqualified expressions of men, who have become 
 hot and violent by controversy, we are not to be 
 held responsible. We here enter our solemn pro- 
 test against the language, which has sometimes been 
 employed, and the conceptions which have some- 
 times been entertained on this subject by men, who 
 have been denominated Calvinists." Again, (p. 79) 
 '' I am willing to concede, that those viexvs of the 
 doctrine of Election, against which Whitby and 
 7 
 
54 
 
 many other respectable writers direct their princi- 
 pal arguments^ ^.re justly liable to objection.^' From 
 these passages one might be led to suppose, that 
 those, whose opinions Dr. Woods professes to rep- 
 resent, maintain the doctrine of Election in some 
 qualified sense, and not as it is to be found in the 
 popular writers, and confessions. And in this he 
 would be confirmed by the statement at the close of 
 the discussion, (p. 81) " You now see what we mean 
 by the doctrine of Election, and in what manner we 
 believe it. ^s the result of his own unsearchable 
 wisdom and grace, and for reasons which relate to the 
 great e?ids of his administration, God eter?ially pur- 
 posed to save a great number of our race, and pur- 
 posed to save them precisely in the ma?iner in which 
 he actually does save thcmP From this form of the 
 doctrine, I presume no Unitarian would dissent; 
 and were there nothing in the Letters of Dr. Woods 
 to show that the orthodox faith is something more 
 than is here expressed, one would have supposed 
 he might have been spared the labour of any formal 
 defence of it against objection, and all that solicitude 
 which he seems to have felt, ^' in disclosing to his 
 readers with the utmost frankness his inmost 
 thoughts upon the subject." (p. 82.) 
 
 If this is a complete statement of the doctrine of 
 Election, as it is understood by the Orthodox, and 
 if Dr. Woods and those whom he represents, and 
 for whom he professes to speak, do not maintain the 
 opinions against which the Sermon of Mr. C ban- 
 ning is directed, there seems to have been no good 
 reason, why he should feel himself concerned at all 
 
55 
 
 ill the charge. Calvinists only, who do maintain 
 them, can fairly consider their opinions as attacked, 
 and themselves called upon to defend them. 
 
 But Dr. Woods has no where informed us, who 
 those " orthodox writers of high repute" are, who 
 have exposed the doctrine to objection by their 
 injudicious exhibitions of it ; nor has he told us in 
 what respects they have given a false representa- 
 tion of it. It is to be regretted that he did not think 
 it necessary to do this, as he must perceive how 
 much it is calculated to perplex, and how much it 
 may mislead, his readers. For, as a simple state- 
 ment drawn from the several parts of his letters will 
 show, it cannot have been his design to express his 
 dissent from the doctrine of Election as expressed 
 in the strongest language of orthodox writers ; but 
 only to guard against the impression, which he 
 supposes the strong and naked statement of it may 
 be likely to make. 
 
 The following is the statement of this doctrine 
 by the Westminster Divines, as it stands in their 
 Confession of Faith, and more briefly in the As- 
 sembly's Catechism. 
 
 '^ God did from all eternity freely and un- 
 changeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.'' 
 
 '^ By the decree of God some men and angels 
 are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others 
 fore-ordained to everlasting death." 
 
 ^^ These angels and men, thus predestinated and 
 fore- ordained, are particularly and unchangeably 
 designed, and their number so certain and definite, 
 that it cannot be either increased or diminished.'' 
 
56 
 
 ^^ Those of mankind that are predestinated unto 
 life, God, before the foundation of the world was 
 laid, according to his eternal and immutable pur- 
 pose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of 
 his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting 
 glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without 
 any foresight of faith or good works, or persever- 
 ance in either of them, or any other thing, in the 
 Creature, as conditions or causes, moving him there- 
 unto." 
 
 " As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, 
 so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose 
 of his will, fore-ordained all the means thereunto. 
 Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in 
 Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually 
 called unto faith in Christ, &c. Neither are any 
 other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, &.c. 
 but the elect only." 
 
 *^* The rest of mankind God was pleased, ac- 
 cording to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, 
 whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as he 
 pleaseth, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour 
 and wrath for their sin." 
 
 I will now place before you, in the best manner 
 I am able, such a view of Dr. Woods' opinions upon 
 the subject, as is to be found in scattered passages 
 through his seventh and eighth letters. 
 
 *^ The Father has given to Christ a part of the 
 human race, and those, who have thus been given 
 to Christ, are the persons, who shall have eternal 
 life ;" (p. 54) and this, he goes on to prove at large, 
 ^^ denotes all who shall finally he savedP (p. bb.) 
 
57 
 
 " In every case, a person's being given to 
 Christ secures his coming to Christ ; and, when 
 Christ speaks of those, who were given him of the 
 Father, he includes the whole number that shall be 
 saved." (p. 56.) 
 
 ^' God has a purpose, choice, xvill, and good 
 pleasure, respecting those who are saved ; a purpose 
 or choice, which was in the mind of God before they 
 existed ; a purpose, which does not rest upon any 
 personal merit in those, who are its objects ; of 
 grace, excluding all works of righteousness from 
 having any concern in this subject." (p. 57.) 
 
 '' Nothing is effected by the efforts of man, but 
 every thing depends on the mercy of God." (p. 59.) 
 
 " The sovereign purpose of God relates to 
 man's eternal interests, to their religious character 
 
 and salvation." ^*^ I could, as I think, make it 
 
 appear, that the doctrine of God's sovereign Election 
 is the only doctrine, which accounts satisfactorily for 
 the actual difference, rvhich exists between true 
 believers, and the rest of the xvorldP (pp. 61, 62.) 
 
 " We hold it as a fact, universally, that impeni- 
 tent, unrenewed sinners do no good work, which 
 God regards as a condition of their being renewed, 
 or on account of which he has promised them re- 
 generation : that, in all cases, he calls and renews 
 them according to his own purpose and grace." 
 (pp. 67, 68.) 
 
 " We believe that those, who are chosen of God 
 to salvation, are not chosen because they were, in 
 themselves, more worthy of this blessing than 
 
58 
 
 others, that God looked upon their moral feelings 
 and conduct with the same disapprobation, and had 
 the same view of their ill desert, and that he chose 
 them, as we may say, for reasons of state ; for gen- 
 eral reasons in his government, which he has not 
 revealed.".../' The purpose and administration of 
 God are, in this respect, different from what our 
 wisdom would dictate, or our affections choose ; 
 they cannot be accounted for by any principles 
 known to us, but result from the infinite perfection 
 of God, and are conformed to reasons, which he has 
 concealed in his own mind." (p. 74.) 
 
 If you will compare these passages with those 
 before quoted from the Westminster Confession, 
 you will find that they differ from each other only in 
 the degree of clearness and explicitness, with which 
 the same doctrine is expressed. 
 
 I shall now endeavour to show, that the '^ method 
 of designating the heirs of salvation," which this 
 doctrine implies, can neither be reconciled with our 
 natural notions of the moral character of God, de- 
 rived from the use of the faculties he has given us, 
 and our observation of his conduct in the govern- 
 ment of the world ; nor with what he has made 
 known to us of his character, and purposes, and 
 government in the christian revelation. 
 
 How repugnant this doctrine is to our natural 
 reason. Dr. Woods himself seems to be fully sensi- 
 ble. '' If it were put to my natural reason," he 
 says, (p. 54) " to judge by its own light respecting 
 what is called the doctrine of Election, my judgment 
 
59 
 
 might agree with the judgment of those, who reject 
 the doctrine. If the question were, what difficulties 
 attend the doctrine, I might perhaps bring forward 
 as many as others/' 
 
 Now, as God is the Author of our being, and as 
 that portion of reason, which we have, was given us 
 by him for our guide, it is certainly very remarka- 
 ble, and what we should not expect, that instead of 
 indicating to us truly his character, and dispositions, 
 and purposes, so far as it gives us any information, 
 it should universally mislead us respecting them. 
 Following the light of our reason, and the natural 
 impulse of our feelings, we find it impossible to 
 imagine, that the Author of our being, the common 
 Parent of all, can regard and treat his offspring in 
 the manner, which the doctrine in question attrib- 
 utes to him. That, without any foreseen difference 
 of character and desert in men, before he had 
 brought them into being, he should regard some 
 with complacency and love, and the rest with dis- 
 approbation, and hatred, and wrath ; and, without 
 any reference to the future use or abuse of their 
 nature, should appoint some to everlasting happi- 
 ness, and the rest to everlasting misery ; and that 
 this appointment, entirely arbitrary, for which no 
 reason is to be assigned, but his sovereign will, 
 should be the cause and not the consequence of the 
 holiness of the one, and of the defect of holiness of 
 the other. A man, who should do what this doctrine 
 attributes to God, I will not say toward his own ofT- 
 spring, but toward any beings that were dependent 
 
-50 
 
 on him, and whose destiny was at his disposal, 
 would be regarded as a monster of malevolence, 
 and cruelty, and caprice. It is incredible that the 
 Author of our being should thus have formed us 
 with an understanding and moral feelings to lead us 
 without fail to condemn the measures and the prin- 
 ciples of the government of him, who so made us. 
 Will it be said that this repugnance which we 
 feel to the doctrine in question is one of the proofs 
 of the corruption of our nature ? Yet whatever that 
 nature may be, it is such as he gave us. And how- 
 ever imperfect our reason, it is what he gave to be 
 our guide. It is the only immediate guide he has 
 given us ; and it is that, which must be the ultimate 
 judge of the evidence, and of the nature and value, 
 of any notices which he may give of his will and 
 purposes, by his providence or his word. Can it 
 have been the design of the Apostle to put down 
 our reason, our moral feelings, and natural con- 
 science, as seems to be intimated in the pamphlet, 
 " by the appalling rebuke, Who art thou that re- 
 pliest against God ?'' But who is the man, that in 
 the truest sense is chargeable with replying against 
 God ? Is it not he, who would set aside, as false 
 and dangerous, the guide he has given to all for 
 the direction of life ? Is it not he, who refuses to 
 listen to the voice, by which he speaks to all ? 
 Who calls in question the notices he gives of him- 
 self and of the principles of his government, in the 
 only universal revelation that he has made of him- 
 self? He, it seems to me, replies against God, who 
 
61 
 
 rejects or undervalues the notices, which he has 
 in any way given us, of himself or of the principles 
 of his government. Not less he, who refuses to 
 follow reason and natural conscience, than he, who 
 will not submit to the demands of a written revela- 
 tion. Not less he, who turns his back upon the 
 works of God, than he, who closes his eyes against 
 his written word. 
 
 But my objection to the orthodox doctrine of 
 Election is grounded not solely on its being irrecon- 
 cileable with our reason and moral feelings ; I find 
 it not more easy to reconcile it with the instructions 
 of the holy scriptures. I look to the general scope 
 of the sacred writings, as regards the disposition of 
 the Author of nature toward his creatures, and the 
 principles of his government ; and I find nothing to 
 support this doctrine, but much with which it seems 
 to be wholly incompatible. I ask how this sovereign 
 appointment of the everlasting condition of men, 
 ^^ excluding all works of righteousness, as having 
 any concern in it,'' and with reference to which 
 " nothing is effected by the efforts of men," can be 
 shown to consist with all that we find in the scrip- 
 tures so clearly implying, that something is depend- 
 ing on the exertions men will make, and the part 
 they will act ; for, according to this doctrine, what 
 they are to be and how they are to act is determin- 
 ed beforehand, without any reference to such ex- 
 ertions ; with all that implies the influence oi 
 motives, since it is no such influence of motive, but 
 ^' God's sovereign election, that is to account for the 
 actual difference between true believers, and the 
 8 
 
62 
 
 rest of the world ;" with all that implies guilt, ill 
 desert, blame-worthiness in the unholy, disobedient, 
 and impenitent ; for how can men be guilty of being 
 what they were made to be ? How are they de- 
 serving of blame for remaining in that moral state, 
 in which it was determined by the sovereign ap- 
 pointment of God, that they should remain ? With 
 all those promises, threatenings, warnings, admoni- 
 tions, exhortations, and entreaties, which imply in 
 those, to whom they are addressed, a power of being 
 influenced ; with all that implies, that men are 
 capable of duty and obligation, and are the proper 
 subjects of praise and blame, and of reward and 
 punishment ? 
 
 This charge of inconsistency with the general 
 scope of the scriptures, and the doctrine every 
 where taught or implied in the sacred writings, has 
 never been removed ; nor can it be, I am persuaded, 
 but by violating the plainest principles in the inter- 
 pretation of language. 
 
 There is another view, in which this doctrine is 
 at variance with what the scriptures every where 
 present to us. I mean the righteous and benevolent 
 character of the Author of our being. It represents 
 him to us as a cruel and unjust being, exacting 
 endless punishment for sins committed in following 
 the nature he had given, and acting in pursuance of 
 his decree. It represents him, as arbitrary and 
 partial in his distributions ; making a distinction 
 the most momentous that can be imagined in his 
 treatment of those, between whom there was no dif- 
 ference of character or of desert as the ground of the 
 
63 
 
 distinction ; from his mere sovereign will and good 
 pleasure, ordaining these to eternal blessedness and 
 glory, and appointing those to endless and hopeless 
 misery. That it is the righteous only, who will thus 
 be raised to glory, and the wicked only, who will be 
 the subjects of condemnation, will make no difference 
 in the case ; since, according to the doctrine we are 
 considering, it is not merely an absolute appointment 
 to salvation on the one hand, and to condemnation 
 on the other ; but also to the different dispositions, 
 character, and course of life, which are to have 
 these opposite results. Those, and those only, who 
 are ordained to eternal life, are also ordained to be 
 effectually called, to be regenerated by irresistible 
 grace, and thus to be brought, not by any thing 
 they do, or can do themselves, but solely by the 
 immediate power of God, out of that state of sin, in 
 which they are by nature, to that holiness, which is 
 to qualify them for salvation. The rest of mankind, 
 ^^ passed by, and ordained to dishonour and wrath 
 for their sins," have that effectual and irresistible 
 grace withheld from them, which was necessary to 
 their regeneration, and without which it was impos- 
 sible for them to attain to holiness and salvation. 
 To say, that those who are appointed to salva- 
 tion, are chosen from among mankind ^^for reasons 
 of state, ^^ (p. 74) is to say nothing that is intelligi- 
 ble. But to say, that they are chosen (ib.) "for 
 reasons, which God has not revealed ; — reasons, 
 which he has concealed in his own mind ; such as 
 cannot be accounted for by any principle known to 
 us," is something more. 
 
64 
 
 It is a position, I think, unsupported by proof, 
 and confuted distinctly by what we constantly meet 
 with in the New Testament. In the appointment 
 to privileges, means, and external condition, God 
 has indeed given no account of his motives ; nor 
 assigned his reasons for the infinite variety that 
 appears. He has exercised an absolute sovereignty, 
 of which no account is given, and the reasons of 
 which we are not competent to understand. But it 
 is clearly otherwise as to the final condition of men. 
 So far is that from being determined by 7'easons of 
 state J which he has not revealed, that the reasons, 
 upon which the final salvation or condemnation of 
 every man is to take place, are distinctly assigned 
 by our Saviour and his Apostles ; not once only, but 
 as often as they have occasion to speak of the final 
 distinctions that are to be made between men. 
 Those distinctions, we are again and again told, are 
 to be wholly according to the difference of moral 
 character. It is that these are righteous, and those 
 wicked ; these have done well, and those have done 
 ill ; these have been faithful, and those unfaithful. 
 So far are the reasons of the final distinction to be 
 made between those who are saved, and those who 
 perish, from being concealed in the divine mind, 
 that nothing is more distinctly made known. The 
 New Testament is full of it. 
 
 Nor is it with any better reason said, that, *' in 
 this respect, the purpose and administration of God 
 are different from what our wisdom would dictate, 
 or our affections choose.*' They are precisely what 
 the wisdom and the affections of every man in their 
 
65 
 
 uncorrupted, imperverted state, would approve and 
 concur in. And they are accounted for by principles 
 well known to us ; principles of eternal and immuta- 
 ble justice. Not reasons which he has concealed 
 in his own mind, but such as he has made us per- 
 fectly capable of understanding ; and such as he has 
 clearly revealed to us in his word. 
 
 But, though the general tenor of scripture seems 
 so foreign from the doctrine we are considering, and 
 not easily reconciled with it, there are particular 
 texts in which it is thought to be expressly tauglit, 
 or so clearly implied, that their force cannot be 
 evaded. 
 
 The first text alleged by Professor Woods, in the 
 pamphlet before me, is (John xvii. 2) '' That he 
 should give eternal life to as many as thou hast 
 given him," and (John vi. 37, 39) " All that the 
 Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that 
 Cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And this 
 is the Father's will, who sent me, that of all which 
 he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should 
 raise it up at the last day." 
 
 With respect to the first of these, it cannot have 
 been our Saviour's intention to declare, that a cer- 
 tain, definite number of mankind were appointed by 
 the Father to receive the benefit of his mediation 
 and sacrifice, and obtain salvation, exclusive of all 
 others ; and without any thing in them, as the 
 ground of this preference and choice, for the reasons 
 that follow. 
 
 In the discourse with his disciples, (ch. xv.) 
 which stands in immediate connexion with the 
 
66 
 
 prayer, of which this text is a part, he addresses 
 the same persons, of whom he here speaks as 
 '' given him of the Father," in language implying, 
 that they might '^ abide in him, and bring forth 
 much fruit," or, failing to abide in him, might be 
 ^^ taken away, cast forth, cast into the fire and 
 burned." As those who, though chosen and or- 
 dained, might or might not keep the commands, 
 and abide in the love of him, who had thus chosen 
 and ordained tliem. But, according to the doctrine 
 in question, there could be no such contingency in 
 the case. All who are thus given, chosen, ordained, 
 and those only, are to bring forth fruit, to keep his 
 commands, to abide in his love, to have eternal life. 
 In this same discourse, again, (ch. xvi. 27) we 
 meet with the following sentence. '' For the Father 
 himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and 
 have believed that I came out from God." Here 
 the love of God is represented, not as the cause, but 
 the consequence, of the faith and love of the disci- 
 ples, and the plain and obvious meaning of the 
 texts in question, in their connexion with this is, 
 that they were given to Christ, not by an arbitrary 
 selection of them from the mass of Jews, without 
 any thing in their character and disposition leading 
 to the choice ; but, because they were seen to be 
 fit subjects for the kingdom of God, ready to receive 
 the faith of the Gospel when offered to them, hav- 
 ing already something of the christian disposition 
 and character, already manifesting an obedient 
 temper, as expressed (ch. xvii. 6,) they were already 
 children of God, and were given to Christ, and 
 
67 
 
 eame to him, because they were God's in a sense, 
 in which the rest of the world were not ; and were 
 then chosen, and ordained to partake in the final 
 benefits of the Gospel, because of their faith and 
 fidelity. This interpretation renders the whole 
 discourse, and the following prayer, consistent 
 throughout in the several parts, and consistent with 
 the moral character of God, and the moral state of 
 man, as a free and accountable being. With the 
 other interpretation, I do not perceive how the texts 
 that have been mentioned can be fairly reconciled. 
 If, by those given to Christ, we are to understand, 
 as Dr. Woods asserts, (p. 54) " a certain part of 
 the human race, who are to have eternal life, and 
 those, denoting all, to whom Christ will actually 
 give eternal life," and as his argument requires, 
 and as he elsewhere states with sufficient distinct- 
 ness, this choice and appointment to Christian faith, 
 obedience, and eternal life, is wholly independent 
 of any thing in them as the ground of this distinc- 
 tion from the rest of the world, it is impossible to 
 see with what propriety it could be said, that 
 " God loved them, because of their faith and love 
 to Christ," for his distinguishing love was, by that 
 supposition, the cause of their faith, &.C.; or how 
 any intimations could be given, that something was 
 yet depending upon themselves ; that it yet de- 
 pended on themselves, whether they should abide 
 in Christ, keep his commandments, continue in his 
 love, and share in the great salvation ; for the ap- 
 pointment to all this was absolute, and without any 
 condition on their part, as the ground of it. Besides, 
 
1 observe that other language of our Saviour in the 
 discourses recorded by this same Evangelist, is 
 equally favourable to the supposition, " that coming 
 to Christ, believing on him, and having eternal 
 life, are events, not flowing from a sovereign uncon- 
 ditional appointment, but the result of a faithful 
 use of means, in the exercise of a right disposition ; 
 and that the difference of character thus appearing 
 between them, and others who neglect to come, who 
 refuse to believe and obey, and fail of eternal life, 
 is the ground and not the consequence of their 
 being chosen, given to Christ, and ordained to 
 eternal life. Thus, (John iii. 19) the ground of 
 men's condemnation is, not an irrespective decree 
 of God, " but their hating the light, loving the 
 darkness, because their deeds are evil." It is their 
 being in character and disposition opposite to those, 
 who escape the condemnation, because they do the 
 truth, and willingly come to the light. 
 
 Thus it is, that the reason assigned, and, as is 
 clearly implied, the criminal I'eason why the unbe- 
 lieving Jews rejected the Gospel (John v. 40) was, 
 hot that they were ordained to this condemnation 
 without any thing in them, by which they were dis- 
 tinguished from those, who accepted the invitation ; 
 but because they wilfully rejected the Gospel, and 
 refused the eternal life it offered. ^' Ye will not 
 come unto me, that ye might have life." Again, 
 the same great moral ground of distinction ap- 
 pears in the declaration, (John vii. 17) '* If any 
 man will do his xvilL he shall know of the doctrine, 
 whether it be of God." Those, who are given to 
 
69 
 
 Christ, chosen, ordained, who are to know of his 
 doctrine, to believe in him, and thus to obtain 
 eternal life, are those, who are well disposed to it, 
 who have an obedient temper, who are willing to 
 do his will. 
 
 The observations which have been applied to 
 this text are equally applicable to the other text 
 under consideration. (John vi. 27) '^ All that the 
 Father giveth me shall come to me ;'' tliat is, those 
 only are given to him of the Father, those only are 
 to receive the final blessings of the Gospel, who 
 come to Chi'ist. It was so when the Gospel was 
 first promulgated. The humble, the pious, the 
 teachable received the Gospel ; all those who were 
 of God. The proud, the irreligious rejected it ; 
 those who were not of God, but of the world. It 
 has been so in every subsequent age. 
 
 And none of those who thus come, bringing with 
 them the spirit of the Gospel, abiding in it, and 
 bringing forth the fruits of righteousness, none of 
 tliese will he cast off. Of all those, thus given to 
 him, thus coming to him, thus abiding in him, thus 
 bringing forth fruit, it is the Father's will that he 
 should lose nothing. 
 
 From this expression in the text, however, as 
 well as the other, an unwarrantable inference is 
 probably drawn ; that of the absolute certainty of 
 the final salvation of all those persons, concerning 
 whom it is spoken. But this form of words was 
 evidently intended to express, not the particular 
 decree, but the general purpose of heaven ; not the 
 specific effect, which is without fail to be produced, 
 9 
 
70 
 
 but the object and design of the divine dispensa- 
 tion ; to be understood with similar limitations with 
 those, which we apply to the expression, (1 Tim. ii. 
 4) '^ who will have all men to be saved.'' Not that 
 every human being will be actually saved, in the 
 sense in which saved is here used, but that the sal- 
 vation of all was the object and design ; that the 
 offer of it was made to all, an offer which yet might 
 be rejected. Again, (Col. i. 23) " the gospel, 
 which was preached to every creature which is un- 
 der heaven." Here the literal meaning of the sen- 
 tence is not the true meaning. The Gospel had not 
 been preached to every living creature. But the 
 direction of the Saviour to his disciples was to preach 
 it to every creature, that is, to all men. It was intend- 
 ed in general for all. None were excepted in the 
 commission ; none were passed by in the execution. 
 As far as the design of the commission had been 
 accomplished, it had been done agreeably to the 
 direction of the Saviour. To these instances many 
 others might be added to show, that expressions of 
 universal import are often, as in the text in question, 
 to be interpreted only in a general sense ; and that 
 they are frequently used to express, not an absolute 
 decree, but a purpose or design depending on con- 
 tingences, and which may in fact be either univer- 
 sal or only general. And that the example we are 
 considering is clearly of this kind, and that it does 
 not warrant the use, that has been made of it, we 
 have the farther positive proof in this circumstance ; 
 that notwithstanding this unqualified expression, one 
 of the persons given to Christ had been lost. " Those 
 
71 
 
 that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them 
 is lost, but the son of perdition." The son of per- 
 dition, it is here clearly implied, had been given to 
 Christ in the sense of the passage, and yet had been 
 lost. The declaration then, " It is the Father's 
 will that he should lose nothing," is manifestly de- 
 signed to express, not a specific personal decree, 
 but the general purpose and design. 
 
 The next passage quoted by Dr. Woods to prove 
 an absolute personal election to salvation is Ephe- 
 sians i. 3 — 11. " Blessed be the God and Father," 
 &c. To all the observations made by Dr. Woods 
 on this passage, I give my entire concurrence ; yet 
 have no hesitation in asserting, what I hope satis-- 
 factorily to prove, that it has no relation to the doc- 
 trine, which he has brought it to support. 
 
 It refers not to individuals as such, but to the 
 Christian community. Not to final salvation, but 
 to Christian privileges. In the first place, the 
 Epistle is addressed to the whole Christian commu- 
 nity at Ephesus, without any intimation, that any 
 expressions in it are applicable to some and not to 
 others. The terms saints and faithful in Christ 
 Jesus, (ver. 1) are applied alike to all, and are evi- 
 dently to be understood as terms which designate 
 the whole company of believers, and external pro- 
 fessors, without any reference to the personal char- 
 acter of any, as individuals. It is again, in the 
 name of the whole Christian community, Jews and 
 Gentiles, that the Apostle speaks, when he says, 
 that " God hath blessed us with all spiritual bless- 
 ings, chosen us in him [that is, Christ] before the 
 
72.' 
 
 foundation of the world, predestinated, us to thtf 
 adoption of children, predestinated us according to 
 the purpose of him, who worketh all things after 
 the counsel of his own will.'' (ver. 3, 4, 5, 11) 
 That this choice or predestination was not that of 
 individuals to eternal life, but of all, who received 
 the christian faith, to the profession and privileges 
 of the Gospel, (besides its being thus generally ad- 
 dressed, and in the name of Christians at large and. 
 universally) appears still further from other ex- 
 pressions, addressed in the same manner. It is for 
 these same persons, saints, faithful, chosen, predes- 
 tinated, that the Apostle thought it needful very 
 devoutly and earnestly to pray to God, '^ that they 
 might be strengthened with might by his spirit in 
 the inner man, that Christ might dwell in their 
 hearts by faith, that they might be rooted and 
 grounded in love ;'' very suitable to be addressed 
 to professed believers as a promiscuous body : but 
 such as we should hardly expect, if the persons de- 
 signated were by the very designation understood 
 to consist only of persons certainly chosen to eter- 
 nal life, and were already certainly grounded in 
 love, were already strengthened in the inner man, 
 had already Christ dwelling in their hearts by love. 
 Further, these same persons, he thinks it proper 
 to exhort, (ch. iv. 1) '* to walk worthy of the voca- 
 tion with which they were called," ^'to walk hence- 
 forth, not as other Gentiles walk," (ver. 17) "'but to 
 put off, concerning the former conversation, the old 
 man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful 
 lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of their mind^ 
 
73 
 
 and to put on the new man, which after God is creat- 
 ed in righteousness and true holiness,'' and ^* not to 
 grieve the holy spirit of God." (ver. 22, 23, 24, 
 30.) Implying that they are liable to retain still 
 their heathen character, notwithstanding their 
 Christian profession ; that they may still pursue 
 the former conversation, which, by their pro- 
 fession, they have renounced ; that they are in 
 danger of failing to put off the old man, and to be, 
 as their Christian profession requires, " renewed in 
 righteousness and true holiness ;" that they finally 
 may, instead of following the guidance of the spirit 
 of God, grieve it. Very suitable, therefore, to be 
 addressed to the promiscuous body of professing 
 Christians ; very suitable if by saints, chosen, pre- 
 destinated, this only were meant ; but certainly not 
 so, if by these terms were designated persons chosen 
 from eternity to final salvation, and already saints 
 and faithful in the highest and literal sense of the 
 words. Such, as distinguished from the rest of the 
 world, are not the proper subjects of exhortation to 
 walk worthy of their Christian vocation ; for the very 
 terms applied to them imply that they cannot fail 
 to do so ; being certainly predestinated to life, they 
 are as certainly predestinated to that character and 
 state, to which life is promised. They cannot be 
 exhorted to be renewed and to put on the new 
 man ; — for by the supposition against which I am 
 contending, their renewal is already certain. It is 
 what they have no power, either to prevent, or to 
 bring about, or even to accelerate. Their renewal 
 has indeed already taken place ; for they are ad- 
 
74 
 
 dressed, not only as chosen and predestinated, but 
 as saints and Christians, which, according to the 
 scheme under consideration, they were not, till they 
 were renewed. And with what propriety can such 
 he exhorted "^ not to grieve the holy spirit of 
 God?" 
 
 The next, and only other passage, to which Dr. 
 Woods has referred for the direct proof of the doc- 
 trine of sovereign personal election to eternal life, 
 is that contained in Romans ix. 11 — 24. A similar 
 method of investigation to that, which was applied 
 to the passage in Ephesians, will convince you, I 
 think, that this is as little to the purpose as the oth- 
 er ; and that it has no relation to an election to 
 eternal life, but only to the privileges of the Gospel. 
 
 This will appear to you in the first place by an 
 attention to the general scope and design of the 
 Epistle, the subject of which was suggested by the 
 great controversy of that age, respecting the exten- 
 sion of Christianity to the Gentiles, and their ad- 
 mission to its privileges and hopes, without being 
 subjected to the observance of the Mosaic ritual. 
 The Apostle combats the exclusive spirit of his 
 Jewish brethren, by showing them, that those dis- 
 tinctions, on which they so valued themselves, as 
 the chosen people of God, were done away ; that 
 Gentiles were admitted to the same rights, and to 
 the opportunity of securing the final favour of 
 Heaven on the same terms with them. 
 
 The Jews, as descendants of Abraham, disciples 
 of Moses, children of the covenant and of the prom- 
 ises, enjoyed a high distinction and valuable privi- 
 
75 
 
 leges. But these privileges were no security of 
 their final acceptance with God. They were disci- 
 plinary and conditional. The knowledge of the 
 law would be of no avail to those, who did not 
 faithfully observe it. The sign of the covenant 
 would not save those, who should violate it. The 
 oracles of God, which were committed to them, 
 would but enhance the guilt and the condemnation 
 of those, who, with all their superior light and mo- 
 tives, lived no better than ignorant heathen. 
 
 On the other hand, the Gentiles, without the 
 light of the written law, and without the sign of the 
 covenant, the external mark of being the people of 
 God ; if, guided by the light they had, (Rom. ii. 
 26, 27, 29) they fulfilled the law by a virtuous life, 
 thus showing practically " the work of the law 
 written in the heart,'* (ver. 15) would secure that 
 acceptance of God, of Him, " with whom is no 
 respect of persons," (ver. 11) and " who will 
 render to every man according to his deeds,'' (ver. 
 6) which the Jew must lose, who being " a Jew out- 
 wardly" only, (ver. 28) and relying on the letter and 
 circumcision, was emboldened to neglect its moral 
 design, and to live as a heathen. The final condi- 
 tion of every individual, whether Jew or Gentile, 
 was to depend on individual personal character, 
 (ver. 5 — 10) ^' Indignation and wrath to every soul 
 of man that doth evil : glory, honour, and peace to 
 every man that worketh good, to the Jew, and also 
 to the Gentile." 
 
 Now with this general scope and design of the 
 first part of the Epistle, that interpretation of the 
 
76 
 
 ix. ch. which refers ^^ tlie purpose of God, according 
 to election/" (ver. 11 et seq.) to an unconditional 
 election of individuals to eternal life, seems to be 
 wholly irreconcileable : whereas, that, which refers 
 it to an appointment, free and unconditional, to the 
 participation of privileges, not only comports well 
 with the general design of the Epistle, but makes 
 the latter part of it a continuation of the former, 
 and a completion of the design, that prevails in the 
 whole preceding part. 
 
 This appears again not less clearly, when we 
 come to a separate examination of the passage itself. 
 
 The first instance mentioned of the accomplish- 
 ment of ^^ the purpose of God according to election," 
 is that of the appointment of Isaac, and pretermis- 
 sion of Ishmael and the other children of Abraham. 
 But what purpose of God was accomplished by this? 
 Not the salvation of Isaac, but the fulfilment of the 
 promise to Abraham in the whole series of dispensa- 
 tions for promoting the knowledge of God and true 
 religion in the world ; and especially in raising up 
 one from among his descendants, in whom '^^ all the 
 families of the earth were to be blessed." 
 
 The next instance is the choice of Jacob in 
 preference to Esau, a choice which preceded their 
 birth, and could therefore have no respect to their 
 good or ill desert. And this, the whole reasoning 
 of the Apostle assures us, is applied, not to Jacob 
 personally, but to the race descending from him ; 
 and not to them in their personal character, but 
 solely to their designation, as a people, to a certain 
 part in accomplishing the great purposes of heaven. 
 
77 
 
 }n this appointment, the same free, sovereign, un- 
 controlled will was exercised, .which is seen in the 
 appointment of all the other circumstances, which 
 make up the state of trial of every human being. 
 It is " the power of the potter over the clay, of the 
 same lump to make one vessel to honour, and 
 another to dishonour." Upon this interpretation 
 there is room for the appeal, (ver. 20) "^ shall the 
 thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast 
 thou made me thus ?" Upon that interpretation, 
 which supposes a reference to the final lot of indi- 
 viduals as determined by a decree that has no respect 
 to different desert, the appeal could not be sustained. 
 
 In each of these cases we perceive a peculiar 
 propriety in the expressions, which the Apostle 
 applies by way of reflection, (ver. 16) '^ So then it 
 is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, 
 but of God that sheweth mercy." It was the wish 
 of Abraham, that the blessing might be given to his 
 eldest son Ishmael. It was the desire of Isaac, that 
 it should descend with his eldest son Esau. But 
 the will of neither of them was permitted to prevail ; 
 nor yet the prompt obedience of Esau, by which he 
 hoped to secure it to himself. 
 
 I am ready to admit, with Dr. Woods, that this 
 reflection of the Apostle implies a general principle ; 
 but it is a principle to be applied to similar cases 
 only, not those that are dissimilar. Now similar 
 cases are those, and those only, which relate to 
 privileges, opportunities, blessings, which are dis- 
 ciplinary in their design, temporal in their duration, 
 and make a part of human probation. That which 
 10 
 
78 
 
 relates directly to final salvation is dissimilar, and 
 the same principle is not to be applied. 
 
 The case of Pharaoh is as little to the purpose 
 as either of the others. For when it is said, (ver. 
 17) ^'' For this same purpose I have raised thee up, 
 that I miglit shew my power in thee, and that my 
 name might be declared throughout all the earth ;" 
 whether by the phrase, raised thee up, be meant, as 
 some suppose, his recovery from the effects of the 
 preceding plague, which had been inflicted o/z his 
 person and his people ; or as others understand it, 
 his being exalted to high power, and placed in a 
 situation to act so important a part ; in either case, 
 there will be no reference to his final personal desti- 
 ny. For how did God actually show his power in 
 him, and make him the instrument of his glory ? It 
 was by giving him the opportunity to act out his 
 character, by allowing full scope for displaying the 
 incorrigible obstinacy of his disposition, and by then 
 inflicting upon him exemplary punishment, for the 
 instruction and warning of mankind ; thus making 
 him the instrument of promoting some of the best 
 purposes of heaven, in the free and voluntary 
 exercise of his power. 
 
 I should have passed by what is said (p. 72) on 
 the doctrine of Reprobation, as expressing no other 
 sentiment than what all Unitarians, as I believe, hold 
 on the subject, but that I think it calculated (unin- 
 tentionally I am persuaded, as respects the writer) 
 to mislead the reader, as to the opinions of the 
 Orthodox on that point. Dr. Woods has in fact 
 given us, not as he professes to do, the doctrine of 
 
79 
 
 the Orthodox, as to the decree of Reprobation ; but 
 only his opinion of the character of the doctri?ie. He 
 says, " it is the determination of God to punish 
 disobedient subjects yor their sins, and according to 
 their deserts.'' Now this, I observe, is not a state- 
 ment of the orthodox doctrine, but his opinion of 
 the character of that doctrine. What it belongs to 
 him to state and defend is, not an opinion upon the 
 subject, which he holds in common with all Chris- 
 tians, but that, by which the system he defends is 
 distinguished from others. That opinion I will now 
 state in the language of one of the most approved 
 symbols of Calvinistic faith ; and it is such as fol- 
 lows very clearly from his own statement of the 
 counterpart of the doctrine. ^^ The rest of man- 
 kind," i. e. all but the elect, ^^ God was pleased, 
 according to the unsearchable counsel of his own 
 will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy 
 as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power 
 over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them 
 tp dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise 
 of his glorious justice." Again, '' Others, not 
 elected, though they may be called by the ministers 
 of the word, and may have some common operations 
 of the spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, 
 and therefore cannot be saved ; much less can men, 
 not professing the christian religion, be saved in 
 any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent 
 to frame their lives according to the light of nature, 
 and the law of that religion, which they do profess : 
 and to assert and maintain that they may, is very 
 
So 
 
 pernicious, and to be detested." f JVestminster 
 Confession.) 
 
 I am very willing to believe that the doctrine, as 
 thus stated in the orthodox confessions, does not 
 make a part of Dr. Woods' faith ; though I am 
 unable to perceive with what consistency he can 
 reject it, while he retains the other parts of the 
 system that are connected with it. 
 
 If the doctrines of original hereditary depravity, 
 absolute personal election, effectual calling, and 
 special irresistible grace be true, that of reprobation, 
 as stated above, follows of course, and must be true 
 also. Whether it be that Dr. Woods, with a fair 
 and inquiring mind, actually shrinks from this 
 doctrine, because he finds it cannot be defended 
 consistently with the moral character of God : or 
 only thinks it desirable to keep out of view a fea- 
 ture of Calvinism, which shocks our moral feelings 
 more than any other ; in either case, I deem it an 
 auspicious circumstance, a favourable omen. Men 
 will not long continue to hold an opinion, after it 
 has got to cause a painful struggle with their moral 
 feelings, such as to dispose them to endeavour to 
 keep it out of sight. They will not suffer themselves 
 to be long encumbered with that, which they are 
 unable to defend or unwilling to avow. Besides 
 this, it cannot fail to open the eyes of men to the 
 difficulties of the other parts of the system, which 
 are intimately connected with this, which necessarily 
 flow from it, and are in fact no better supported by 
 scripture nor by reason than this. 
 
81 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Following the arrangement adopted by Dr. 
 Woods, the next subject to which I am to call your 
 attention is that of the Atonement. It is a doctrine 
 on which great stress is laid by orthodox writers 
 generally. The author of the Letters addressed to 
 Unitarians says, ^^ If there is any one doctrine of 
 Revelation which the Orthodox distinguish in point 
 of importance from all others, it is the doctrine of 
 Atonement." It must accordingly be thought, that 
 the importance of having clear conceptions and just 
 views on the subject will bear some proportion to 
 the importance of the subject itself. After such an 
 introduction, therefore, to a letter devoted expressly 
 to the discussion of that subject, it was certainly 
 reasonable to expect a distinct statement of the 
 orthodox explanation of the texts of scripture, in 
 which it is supposed to be taught, and a defence of 
 the interpretation by which those texts are under- 
 stood to express the meaning that is assigned to 
 them. More especially was this to be expected of 
 one, who complains that the opinions of the Ortho- 
 dox are misrepresented, and who, in their name, 
 disclaims the opinions, which are attributed to them. 
 But in this expectation I am disappointed. There 
 is much complaint of misrepresentation, but I find 
 no distinct statement in what the alleged misrepre- 
 sentation consists, nor what are the precise opinions 
 maintained by the Orthodox on this subject. I am 
 able to collect but a very imperfect and indistinct 
 
82 
 
 idea, what the scheme, which claims to be Orthodox 
 on this subject, is. It is asserted, that the language 
 used by orthodox writers on this subject, like that 
 used by the sacred writers, is highly figurative, 
 (p. 86, Sec.) that it is not to be understood literally, 
 that it does not mean, what it seems to express. It 
 would have greatly assisted us, and possibly put a 
 period to all controversy on the subject, had the 
 writer seen fit to explain the figures, and give the 
 true interpretation of the metaphors, which it is 
 complained have been so misunderstood, and have 
 thus laid the foundation for misrepresentation. 
 
 The first charge of misrepresentation is, that 
 the author of the Sermon makes it a part of the 
 orthodox system, *^ that God took upon him human 
 nature, that he might pay to his own justice the 
 debt of punishment incurred by men, and might 
 enable himself to exercise mercy'' — " that he might 
 appease his own anger toward men, or make an 
 infinite satisfaction to his own justice." The un- 
 fairness alleged in this representation is, that it does 
 not recognize the distinction of persons in the Deity, 
 which is maintained by the Orthodox, and it is 
 implied, that if no such distinction do exist, the 
 representation would not be liable to objection, for 
 no objection is made to it it on any other ground. 
 It was incumbent then on Dr. Woods, not merely to 
 assert this distinction as an article of the orthodox 
 faith, but to explain -what it is, and to show its 
 foundation in the language of scripture. The former 
 he has declined, as not being within the scope of 
 
83 
 
 our limited mitids (p. 84), the latter, as not falling 
 within his purpose (p. 85), in the discussion of the 
 subject. But until both are done, I can see no 
 ground for complaining of the absurdity charged 
 upon the doctrine. It is a legitimate and necessary 
 consequence of the orthodox faith, that Jesus Christ, 
 whom the Father sent into the world, is the same 
 being with the Father who sent him ; that Christ, 
 who interposed and made an atonement for sinners, 
 is the same being with that God, who, it is alleged, 
 (p. 65) "would never have saved them without such 
 an interposition." It was the same God, the same 
 being, who sent, and was sent, who made the atone- 
 ment, and whose anger was appeased by the atone- 
 ment, who made satisfaction to offended justice, and 
 whose justice was satisfied. It is not enough to assert, 
 (p. 64) that '^ the Father and the Son are two as 
 really as Moses and Aaron, though not in the same 
 sense, nor in any sense inconsistent with their being 
 one." It belongs to him, who asserts this, to state 
 intelligibly, what is the nature and import of the 
 distinction here intended ; to explain in what sense 
 two, and in what sense one. No man knows better 
 than Dr. Woods, that until he has done this, he has 
 done nothing to the purpose. He uses words with- 
 out meaning, and merely casts a mist, where he is 
 bound to shed light. 
 
 The next imputation on the orthodox faith^ 
 which Dr. Woods endeavours to remove is, that it 
 conveys to common minds the idea, that " Christ's 
 death has an influence in making God placable, or 
 
84 
 
 merciful, in quenching his wrath, and awakening 
 his kindness towards men.*' Now to vindicate the 
 system, and those who support it, from this charge, 
 it was necessary to show, that the language, in 
 which the doctrine is expressed and enforced by 
 the Orthodox, is not calculated to produce this 
 impression. But has this been done ? By no means. 
 The contrary is frankly admitted. It is conceded 
 that the literal sense of the orthodox writings 
 amounts to this. It is asserted, indeed, that the 
 doctrine of the Orthodox is the very reverse of this, 
 ^^ that the mercy of God, not the interposition of 
 Christ, was the origin and moving cause of the work 
 of redemption ;" (p. 68) " that the mercy or placa- 
 bility of God could neither be produced nor increas- 
 ed by the atonement of Christ.'' These are noble, 
 correct, scriptural views. We are delighted to find 
 on this point an opinion so highly important, in 
 exact coincidence with that of Unitarians, and one 
 to which they attach a very high degree of impor- 
 tance. We are glad too to find a strong sensibility 
 expressed to the honour of the divine character, 
 and horror at the thought of an opinion, so deroga- 
 tory to it, as that which is attributed to the influ- 
 ence of the language they use on the subject. But 
 why then does he go on to defend the use of that 
 language, instead of correcting it ? Since it is 
 admitted not to be the language of scripture, and 
 that understood literally it does convey the ideas 
 objected to ; that it does make the impression at 
 which so much horror is expressed, does express a 
 
85 
 
 'doctrine acknowledged to be false and unfounded ; 
 why is it not given up ? Especially as it would, on 
 this point, put an end to all controversy. And why 
 complain that the opinions of the Orthodox arc 
 misrepresented, when it is acknowledged that the 
 opinions attributed to them are the literal and 
 obvious meaning of the language they employ ? 
 
 It is to little purpose to say, that the figurative 
 language used on this subject, though not the same, 
 resembles that employed by the sacred writers in 
 reference to the same subject. Dr. Woods admits 
 that the language of the sacred writers is highly fig- 
 urative. He admits too that such boldness of meta- 
 phor is peculiar to the Eastern, and particularly to 
 the Hebrew idiom ; (p. 88) and that it is not so con- 
 sentaneous to our language, (p. 99) Why, then, 
 will orthodox writers use it without explanation, 
 when it serves to mislead readers and hearers who 
 are not aware of this character of the Eastern 
 languages ; and lead them into so great an error ? 
 And if orthodox writers, instead of explaining the 
 metaphors, so that their true meaning may be un- 
 derstood, ^^for the purpose of strong impression,'' 
 use them as if they were to be understood literally ; 
 and not only so, but further sanction that interpre- 
 tation by the use of other similar language of the 
 same literal import ; especially if they charge Uni- 
 tarians with denying or explaining away the doc- 
 trine for the very reason, that they explain the lan- 
 guage in question as figurative ; can he be surprized 
 that the Orthodox should be supposed to hold the 
 11 
 
86 
 
 opinions, which the language literally expresses ? 
 Could it be imagined by a plain, honest man, un- 
 der these circumstances, that while this strong im- 
 pressive language is constantly used and insisted on, 
 something very different is all the time meant from 
 that which strikes the ear ? And, let me ask, does 
 it enter into the minds of common hearers of such 
 language, that, correctly interpreted, it expresses 
 no ideas, which would be " objected to by Unitari- 
 ans ?" (p. 92) It is to be hoped that in future the 
 opinions of Unitarians on this part of the subject 
 will be viewed with less aversion, when we are told 
 from so high authority, that " the language used by 
 orthodox writers is to be understood as highly fig- 
 urative ; that, taken literally, it would impute a 
 character to God, which would excite universal hor- 
 ror ; but understood according to the legitimate 
 principles of interpreting metaphors, it teaches the 
 simple truth, that the death of Christ was the 
 means of procuring pardon, or the medium, through 
 which salvation is granted.'' (p. 93) Dr. Woods is 
 right in supposing, '^ that no objection will lie in 
 the minds of Unitarians," against the doctrine 
 thus expressed. It is the very manner of expressing 
 the influence of the Atonement ; which has been 
 adopted by unitarian writers. 
 
 Dr. Woods proceeds to the notice of several 
 other modes of expression, the use of which by the 
 Orthodox he supposes to have been misunderstood, 
 in a similar manner, and from the same cause, the 
 misinterpretation of figurative language. When 
 
87 
 
 it is said that Christ bought us, redeemed us by his 
 blood ; when he is said to have paid our debt, to 
 have satisfied divine justice, to have redeemed us 
 from the curse of the law, being made a curse for 
 us, and that our sin was imputed to him ; when 
 these and other figurative forms of expression are 
 employed to set forth the design and influence of 
 Christ's death, we are told " they are to be in- 
 terpreted as metaphorical language, according to 
 the nature of the metaphors used, and that against 
 the literal sense, there are many objections." 
 (p. 95) So far there will be no controversy on the 
 part of Unitarians, and it gives us no small satis- 
 faction, that we have here a ground upon which we 
 can stand together. And we are not without hope, 
 that agreeing in this principle on which to proceed, 
 we shall gradually approach nearer together in the 
 result, till there shall no difference remain worth 
 contending about. 
 
 But when Dr. Woods proceeds to explain the 
 figures, he seems to have fallen into the same 
 error ^'^ of mixing a degree of the literal sense with 
 the metaphorical," which he afterwards mentions, 
 and to which he traces some important mistakes, 
 into which other writers have been led. To per- 
 ceive this, you have only to compare together the 
 passage (p. 94), in which he professes to explain 
 what is meant by our being bought, redeemed, 
 our debt paid, and divine justice satisfied ; with 
 that (p. 96), in which " the notion, that if Christ 
 has made a perfect atonement and satisfied divine 
 
88 
 
 justice^, those for whom he has done this are no 
 longer under the same obligations to obey the law, 
 and punishing them for their sins would no longer 
 be just, is attributed to something of a literal sense 
 being applied to the figurative language of Scrip- 
 ture and of orthodox writers. And it is admitted, 
 that '' if Christ paid our debt, or the price of our 
 redemption literally, as a friend discharges an insol- 
 vent debtor, or purchases the freedom of a slave 
 by the payment of money ; it would certainly be 
 an unrighteous thing for us to be held to pay our 
 own debt, or to suffer the evils of servitude." For in 
 the passage referred to, this is the very represen- 
 tation that is made. ^^ As the debtor is freed from 
 imprisonment by the friend who steps forward 
 and pays his debt, so are sinners freed from pun- 
 ishment by the Saviour who shed his blood for 
 them." The payment is as literal in the one 
 case as in the other ; and I see not how the con- 
 sequence, consistently with what is admitted above, 
 is to be avoided. The same may be said with 
 respect to the other terms. The consequence is 
 not to be evaded, if our redemption by Christ 
 means, as is there stated, '' his delivering us from 
 the punishment of the law by suffering an evil 
 which, so far as the ends of divine government 
 are concerned, was equivalent to the execution of 
 the curse of the law upon transgressors." (p. 94) 
 The ends of the divine government are answered, 
 the demands of the law are fulfilled. It has no far- 
 ther demands. When Christ has done and suffered 
 
89 
 
 that which answers the ends of justice in the di- 
 vine government, the necessity of punishment, so 
 far as those ends are concerned, is superseded. 
 The sinner then is free ; exempt alike from obli- 
 gation, and from danger of punishment. The 
 debt is paid ; justice is satisfied ; the ends of gov- 
 ernment are answered by the voluntary substitute. 
 These consequences certainly follow from the 
 manner which Dr. Woods has adopted of ex- 
 plaining the figurative language of the sacred 
 writers. 
 
 But the language in question certainly does 
 admit of a fair and unstrained interpretation, which 
 leads to no such consequences. We are declared 
 to have " redemption, the forgiveness of sins, by 
 the blood of Christ." It will help us to the true 
 • interpretation of this language to attend to the 
 use of the word redemption by the sacred writers 
 in other analogous cases. Literally to redeem is 
 to relieve from forfeiture, or captivity, or slavery, 
 or to rescue from punishment by the payment of 
 a price, and the price thus paid is the ransom. 
 When, by a price paid by some friend, a captive 
 is restored to liberty, or the punishment of a crim- 
 inal is remitted, whose life was forfeited to the law ; 
 in each of these cases there is a redemption in the 
 original meaning and literal sense of the word. In 
 the same manner also, if " Christ delivers us from 
 punishment by suffering an evil, which was equiv- 
 alent, so far as the ends of the divine government 
 are concerned, to the execution of the curse of 
 
90 
 
 the law upon transgressors/' (p. 94) that is a literal 
 redemption^ and that and the other correspondent 
 terms, such as bought and ransomed, are applied, 
 and are to be understood, not in a metaphorical 
 but a literal sense. And here I cannot but observe, 
 that the error complained of, that of mixing a 
 literal with the metaphorical sense of such phrases, 
 consists, not as intimated, (p. 95) ^^ in the manner 
 of reasoning upon them," but in the interpretation 
 of the language itself. 
 
 Now it is not difficult in this case to trace the 
 passage of the term in question from its original 
 literal meaning to its metaphorical use. For as the 
 deliverance from captivity or punishment was the 
 principal thing, and the price paid as a ransom only 
 a secondary consideration in making up the complex 
 idea of redemption, it is easy to see how the term • 
 came to be used to denote the principal thing alone, 
 where this accessory circumstance was wanting ; 
 and thus any kind of deliverance, by a very common 
 change in the use of language, was called a re- 
 demption. Examples occur in the sacred writings 
 as well as in our constant use. The deliverance of 
 the Israelites from Egyptian bondage is called a 
 redemption, and God is said on this account to 
 be their redeemer, to have redeemed them from the 
 house of bondage, and out of the hand of Pharaoh 
 the king of Egypt. 
 
 But how was this redemption effected? Was 
 a ransom paid as the price of their deliverance, as 
 an equivalent for their services, as a consideration, 
 
91 
 
 for which their oppressors were to let them go r 
 Let the sacred historians and prophets answer this 
 question. (Exod. vi. 6) ^' I will redeem you with a 
 stretched out arm, and with great judgments." 
 (Deut. ix. 26) " Destroy not thy people, which 
 thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which 
 thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty 
 hand." (Neh. i. 10) ^^Now these are thy servants 
 and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy 
 great power and thy strong hand." The nation of 
 Israel then was redeemed, not by a ransom paid to 
 their former oppressors, as the price of their eman- 
 cipation, but by the mighty power and strong hand 
 of Jehovah, stretched forth in those signs and won- 
 ders in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, 
 by which the Egyptian monarch was compelled to 
 suffer their departure, by which they were protect- 
 ed and avenged, when pursued by their oppressors, 
 and were conducted in safety to the promised land. 
 
 The terra is applied also in a similar manner to 
 the deliverance of that nation from the Babylonian 
 captivity. (Micah iv. 10) ^''Thou shalt go even to 
 Babylon ; there shalt thou be delivered ; there the 
 Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine 
 enemies." It is applied in many instances also to 
 the deliverance of individuals from danger, captiv- 
 ity, slavery, or any great calamity ; and the pro- 
 priety of the term is sufficiently maintained, where 
 something important is done, though nothing is 
 literally paid, to procure the deliverance. 
 
 These examples of the use of this terra raay lead 
 us to some just notions of its meaning, as applied to 
 
92 
 
 express the benefit we receive, when it is said we 
 have redemption by the blood of Christ. It is not, 
 that his death was a price literally paid, either to 
 God, to satisfy the demands of vindictive justice, or 
 to the enemy of God and man, as the purchase of 
 our release from his power. He was our redeemer 
 in the same sense, in which God was the redeemer 
 of the children of Israel ; and he redeemed us by 
 his blood, as they were redeemed by the mighty 
 power, and the strong arm of the God of Israel. 
 As God was the redeemer of Israel by the miracles 
 of Egypt, so Christ was our redeemer by those 
 miracles which proved him to be a messenger and 
 teacher from God ; by those instructions and that 
 example, which were to remove our ignorance, and 
 deliver us from the slavery of sin, and bondage of 
 corruption ; by those high motives to repentance 
 and holiness, which are found in the revelation of a 
 future life and righteous retribution ; and especially 
 by the confirmation his doctrine and promises 
 received, and the persuasive eflicacy given to his 
 example, by his sufferings, his voluntary death, 
 and his resurrection. He v/as our redeemer by 
 doing and suffering all, that was necessary to effect 
 our deliverance from the power of sin, to bring us 
 to repentance and holiness, and thus make us the 
 fit objects of forgiveness and the favour of heaven. 
 This view of the subject will enable us to correct 
 an error, into which we are liable to be led by lan- 
 guage, which we frequently meet with ; as when it is 
 said in the Letters to Unitarians, that "when Christ 
 is said to pay our debt, it is simply signified, that 
 
93 
 
 by means of his sufferings, he delivers us from 
 punishment." (p. 94) Christ delivers us from pun- 
 ishment not directly by his sufferings. It is not 
 that his sufferings are in any sense a substitute for 
 ours. It is not that satisfaction is made by his 
 sufferings to divine justice, so that the sinner es- 
 capes, because ^^ there is no further need of punish- 
 ment.*' It is not that our sin was so imputed to 
 Christ, that he '^'^ suffered, in some sense, as he 
 would have suffered if our sin had been really 
 imputed to him,'' and that we are directly in con- 
 sequence of this vicarious suffering exempted from 
 the punishment. But his sufferings are the means 
 of delivering us from punishment, only as they are 
 instrumental in delivering us from the dominion of 
 sin. They are the grounds of our forgiveness, only 
 as they are the means of bringing us to repentance, 
 only as they operate to bring us to that state of 
 holiness, and conformity to the will of God, which 
 has the promise of forgiveness, and qualifies us 
 for it. 
 
 There is another term also used by the sacred 
 writers to express the efficacy of Christ's death, 
 which admits of a satisfactory explanation somewhat 
 similar to that which has been given of redemption, 
 and is to be understood as having passed to a 
 similar metaphorical sense. The whole of that, by 
 which the benefits of redemption are procured for 
 us, whether it be the active obedience, or the suf- 
 ferings and death of Christ, or both together, is 
 spoken of as a sacrifice, (Heb. ix. 26) ^'He ap- 
 peared to put away sin bv the sacrifice of himself." 
 12 
 
94 
 
 The meaning of this is rendered perfectly intelli- 
 gible, and is freed from the insuperable difficulties 
 that attend any explanation, in which is contained 
 ^^a mixture of the literal with the metaphorical 
 sense," by attending to a change from a literal to 
 a metaphorical sense of the term sacrifice, similar 
 to that, which has been noticed in the terms redeem 
 and redemption. 
 
 A sacrifice, in its primitive meaning, is an of- 
 fering made to God, as an acknowledgment of 
 dependence, as an expression of gratitude, or for 
 the expiation of sin. It is thus applied to the 
 various offerings appointed in the Jewish ritual. 
 But as the effect to be produced is the principal 
 thing, and it is of little comparative importance 
 in what manner it is produced, and by what cir- 
 cumstance or act it is brought about ; any other 
 act, by which a similar effect is produced, though 
 no proper sacrifice be offered, is familiarly called 
 by the sacred writers a sacrifice. We find the 
 term thus applied to prayer and thanksgiving. 
 (Psalm cxli. 2) '^ Let my prayer be set before 
 thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as 
 the evening sacrifice." (Psalm cxvi. 17) "I will 
 offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving." (Heb. 
 xiii. 15) '' By him let us offer the sacrifice of praise, 
 that is, the fruit of our lips." It is applied to a 
 holy life. (Rom. xii. 1) " That ye present your 
 bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God." 
 It is finally applied to an act of kindness and 
 relief. (Phil. iv. 18) '^\ have received the things 
 \yhich ye sent, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing 
 
^5 
 
 to God.'' It is by a use of the terra similar to 
 what we find in these examples, that sacrifice is 
 applied to whatever was done by Jesus Christ for 
 our benefit, especially to the labours and mortifica- 
 tions of his life, and the sufferings that attended his 
 death ; and that he is said to have " put away sin 
 by the sacrifice of himself." 
 
 It may further help us to correct notions on 
 this subject, to be reminded of what a change the 
 word Atonement itself has undergone. This term 
 is now more used than any other to express the 
 popular doctrine of an expiation for sin procured 
 by the death of Christ, a satisfaction made to 
 divine justice, the Deity thus rendered propitious, 
 his anger appeased, his .mercy conciliated, and 
 forgiveness obtained for those, for whom this atone- 
 ment was made. 
 
 But it is evident, I think, that this was not 
 the original meaning of the word. It occurs but 
 once only in the New Testament, (Rom. v. 11) 
 ^' By whom we have now received the atonement.'' 
 And in that case it is translated from a word, 
 »ocTu}\.Ka>y7]t which in every other instance is ren- 
 dered reconciliation. The same is undoubtedly 
 the meaning of the word also in this place. And 
 we have reason to think, that it was understood to 
 be its meaning by the translators, and that they 
 meant to use the word atonement in that sense only. 
 This is rendered probable by the formation of the 
 word itself. It is a compound word, and in some 
 early English writers the composition of the word 
 is indicated, and thus its meaning pointed out in 
 
74 
 
 the manner of writing it^, at-one-ment^ at-one. 
 Atonement then expressed the condition of being 
 at one, in a state of agreement, reconciliation ; 
 and to atone was to produce reconciliation, to 
 bring parties to agreement, so that they shall be 
 at-one. 
 
 Dr. Johnson has mentioned two instances of 
 this use of the word in a writer of the next age 
 preceding that, in which our translation of the 
 Bible was made. 
 
 *' He and Aufidus can no more atone. 
 
 Than violentest contrariety." — Shakspeare's Coriolamis. 
 
 That is, can no more agree, be reconciled, be at 
 one. Again, 
 
 " He seeks to make atonement 
 
 Between the Duke of Gloster and your brothers." 
 
 That is, to produce a reconciliation between them, 
 to bring them to agreement. 
 
 Now, when we thus consider the change of 
 meaning, which this word has undergone, from 
 expressing simply the state of agreement, the fact 
 of a reconciliation, to express that, by which the 
 agreement is produced, the reconciliation is effect- 
 ed ; we find in the use of the word itself no support 
 of the doctrine it is usually understood to express. 
 The term has evidently a different meaning as 
 used by St. Paul, and probably as understood by 
 his translator, from what it has in modern books of 
 controversial theology. 
 
 According to the explanations which have now 
 been given, of the language of the New Testament 
 
97 
 
 on this subject, it will be seen, that those Unitarians 
 who reject the popular doctrine of the Atonement, 
 yet attribute an important eflicacy to the sufferings 
 and death, as well as the instructions and exam- 
 ple of Jesus Christ, in procuring pardon and sal- 
 vation. But this efficacy consists, not in their 
 appeasing the anger of God, and disposing him 
 to be merciful, but in their moral influence on 
 men, in bringing them to repentance, holiness, 
 and an obedient life, and thus rendering them 
 fit subjects of forgiveness and the divine favour. 
 The sufferings and death of Christ are thus rep- 
 resented as being not in our stead, but for our 
 benefit; and intended to render the forgiveness of 
 sin consistent with " the honours of the divine law, 
 the character of the lawgiver, and the interests of 
 his moral kingdom," (p. 102) — not by satisfying jus- 
 tice, but by subduing the spirit of rebellion, restor- 
 ing the authority and power of the law, and making 
 men obedient subjects. 
 
 And these explanations meet in a satisfactory 
 manner the true meaning of the two texts, which 
 Dr. Woods has introduced for the purpose of illus- 
 trating (p. 101) the ^'bearing which the death of 
 Christ has on the moral government of God, and 
 how it secures mercy to penitent sinners." Accord- 
 ing to this view of the subject, ^^ Christ was made a 
 curse for us," not in our stead and as our substitute, 
 but for our benefit. And his being made a curse 
 for us redeemed us from the curse of the law, from 
 the punishment due to us as transgressors of the law, 
 by its influence in bringing us back ta repentance 
 
98 
 
 and subjection to the law. And when this was done, 
 the sinner reconciled to God, brought to repentance, 
 subjection to the law, and a life of holiness, the 
 purposes of God's moral government are answered, 
 its authority is supported, his law is vindicated, 
 *^ God is justified, is seen to be just, is perceived to 
 have a regard to justice, in justifying him, who 
 believes in Jesus." It is' seen that in extending 
 pardon to the penitent believer, he has not yielded 
 up the authority of his law, nor subjected his gov- 
 ernment to contempt. 
 
 The question which Dr. Woods here asks him- 
 self, (p. 102) " what hindrance there is in the way 
 of God's showing the same favour to transgressors 
 as to the obedient,'' is incorrectly stated, so as to 
 give a deceptive view. The question is not, whether 
 God can consistently with his character of moral 
 governor, and the honour and safety of his govern- 
 ment, show favour to transg7'essors, but whether he 
 can extend forgiveness to \he penitent, to those who 
 have ceased to be transgressors, and have returned 
 to their allegiance. The answer to this question 
 would be very different from what the other re- 
 quires. None of the consequences, which it is 
 readily admitted must follow on that supposition, 
 would have any place on this. God's readiness to 
 show favour to those who repent and return to 
 virtue, does not show, " that the authority of 
 the law is set aside, and that no distinction is 
 made between virtue and vice." Nothing indeed 
 can show in a stronger light than this, God's love 
 of virtue, and desire to encourage it by encouraging 
 
99 
 
 the first return to it. No other expedient, which 
 the wisdom of God could devise, certainly not that 
 which consists in an atonement by the substitution, 
 either literal or figurative, of the sufferings of an 
 innocent person in the place of the guilty, will show 
 better than the necessity of repentance and holiness 
 and their ejficacy in order to forgiveness and the 
 divine favour, ^"^ that God does and for ever will 
 make a distinction between holiness and sin." 
 
 I have next to make some remarks on the de- 
 fence of the orthodox faith against the objection, 
 that it " lowers the value of Christ's sacrifice, and 
 robs his death of interest ;" because consisting, 
 according to this scheme, of a divine and human 
 nature united together, the human nature only 
 could suffer and die. So that, instead of the infinite 
 atonement made by the sufferings and death of an 
 infinite being, it is in fact only the sufferings and 
 death of a man. The defence is made on the common 
 ground of the " human and divine nature in Christ 
 constituting but one person, so that all his actions 
 and sufferings belong to him as one person." As 
 this is the only defence that is, and the only one 
 that can be, set up, let us examine a little its value 
 and force. It is admitted, that if the premises are 
 true, the conclusion does follow; if Jesus Christ is 
 both perfect God and perfect man in one individual 
 person, the defence is complete. 
 
 But in the first place I remark, that the possi- 
 bility of two distinct intelligent natures makirg but 
 one person, has never been shewn to the smallest 
 degree of satisfaction ; especially of two natures so 
 
100 
 
 distinct and distant as the divine and human, a finite 
 and an infinite mind. No Trinitarian can deny, 
 that in Jesus Christ are two perfectly distinct minds, 
 two perfectly distinct, intelligent natures, as distinct 
 as any two intelligent beings can be. But two 
 distinct minds, two distinct intelligent beings, with 
 each its separate consciousness, knowledge, capaci- 
 ty, will, and action, cannot be other than two distinct 
 persons. But all these the trinitarian doctrine 
 attributes to Jesus Christ. Separate consciousness, 
 for the divine nature by the supposition was not 
 conscious of any of that sufi'ering, by which the 
 atonement was made ; — separate knowledge, for it 
 is alleged, that the divine person knew that, of 
 which the human person was ignorant ; — separate 
 capacity, for the human nature of Christ could in- 
 crease in wisdom and knowledge, while the divine 
 nature, being omniscient, was incapable of increase ; 
 — separate will, for the human person most earnestly 
 prayed for that to take place, which it could cer- 
 tainly be no wish of the omniscient mind should 
 take place ; — separate action, for while the human 
 nature of Christ was limited to the labours only of 
 a man, and confined to a narrow space, the divine 
 nature was extending its influence to all beings and 
 events, and producing its effects over worlds and 
 systems throughout the universe. It is impossible 
 for any reasoning to show more clearly, than this 
 simple statement, the absolute incredibility of this. 
 But this is not all. The identity of person is not 
 only shown to be impossible, upon the trinita- 
 j'ian hypothesis. The only ground upon which 
 
101 
 
 Some of the strongest objections to the trinitariau 
 doctrine, that part of it, which consists in the 
 supreme Deity of Jesus Christ, can be evaded 
 is, by the assumption of two distinct persons in 
 Jesus Christ : by assuming that he sp..ke, and 
 acted, and suffered, and was spoken of in two 
 different characters. And this assumption has 
 been made, ss far as I have seen, universally by 
 trinitarian writers, not in words indeed, but in 
 fact. ''Hercy it is asserted, no argument lies against 
 his divinity, for he is speaking not as God, but as 
 man. Of this indeed he was ignorant as man, but 
 he knew it as God, and this he might truly say he 
 was unable to do as man, though as God he could 
 do all things." This, I observe, is the answer on 
 which Trinitarians have rested, and it is the only 
 one they have offered to all those texts, and they are 
 very numerous, in which inferiority to the Father, 
 limited knowledge, and limited power are expressed 
 or implied. And this goes on the supposition of 
 two distinct persons, and is utterly absurd on any 
 other supposition. It is indeed a palpable contra- 
 diction to say, that the same person knows and does 
 not know the same thing at the same time ; can do 
 and cannot do the same thing at the same time. 
 And this contradiction, and worse than trifling, is 
 attributed to the Saviour in some of his most solemn 
 declarations, by the supposition in question. With 
 these brief hints I am willing to leave the reader to 
 make up his judgment, ^' how far the views of the 
 Orthodox in this case are capable of being defended 
 
 in a satisfactory manner,'' 
 13 
 
102 
 
 1 would gladly have passed unnoticed what I 
 find on the last page of the Letter respecting the 
 Atonement, as it is unpleasant to be obliged to 
 express the censure, to which I think a charge of 
 so serious a kind, as is there brought against those, 
 who reject the doctrine of the Atonement, is entitled 
 to. This subject, it seems, is one, which it is dan- 
 gerous to discuss, and on which it is not safe even 
 to inquire. For certainly, if the rejection of the 
 doctrine is in itself " a plain indication of the dis- 
 position of the heart, and a proof of a temper of 
 mind, which is in total contrariety to the humble 
 spirit of Christian faith," it is not a subject on- 
 which it is safe to trust ourselves in speculating. 
 The only safety is in believing without inquiry, 
 receiving implicitly without examining. For if we 
 allow ourselves to inquire, the result may be, that 
 we shall reject, and rejection will indicate " a dis- 
 position of heart, inconsistent with the humble 
 spirit of Christian faith." 
 
 But this, I am persuaded, cannot have been the 
 intention of the author of the Letters. The expres- 
 sions must have been used in haste, without well 
 considering their import and bearing. It cannot 
 have been his design, to deter those whom he ad- 
 dresses from examining the evidences of a doctrine, 
 respecting which Christians have been so little 
 agreed, and which has been so variously understood 
 and explained, by those who receive it. 
 
 A doctrine which we cannot deny, without in- 
 curring the charge of wanting the humble spirit of 
 Christian faith, and about which it is therefore 
 
103 
 
 unsafe to allow ourselves to inquire, we have cer- 
 ' tainly a right to demand to find either distinctly 
 and intelligibly expressed in the scriptures, or 
 clearly stated and explained in the writings of those, 
 who propose them as essential parts of the Christian 
 doctrine. But where, I ask, are we to look for a 
 clear and distinct statement of the orthodox doc- 
 trine of Atonement? The genuine doctrine of 
 Calvinism is indeed stated by the early writers of 
 that school in a manner sufficiently clear and intel- 
 ligible. But every feature of that is denied as a 
 misrepresentation of the orthodox faith. We are 
 told that the language of the orthodox, like that of 
 the scriptures, is metaphorical, not to be understood 
 literally ; and I in vain seek for such an explana- 
 tion of the metaphors, as to enable me to understand 
 what is the distinct doctrine, which is intended to 
 be maintained. A fleeting and shadowy image is 
 presented to the view, which eludes every attempt 
 to fix its shape, and dimensions, and features. And 
 can it be, that my inability to receive a doctrine, 
 expressed in words, of which I am only told what 
 they do not mean, and not what they do, is to be 
 regarded as " an indication of a disposition of heart 
 and temper of mind, which is in total contrariety to 
 the humble spirit of Christian faith." 
 
 There are some other sentiments in this para- 
 graph also, which must not be passed without 
 notice. It is asserted, '^ that God, having sent his 
 Son to be a propitiation, has told us, that we must 
 rely upon his atoning blood, as the sole ground of 
 forgiveness J'^ I would ask where God has told us. 
 
104 
 
 that ^^the atoning blood of Christ is the sole ground 
 of forgiveness.'"' 
 
 I find the prophet Isaiah, without any reference 
 to any kind of atonement, referring the forgiveness 
 of sin solely to the mercy of God, by which he is 
 ready to accept reformation and a return to virtue. 
 (Is. Iv. 7) **Let the wicked forsake his way, and 
 the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him 
 return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon 
 him, and to our God, for he will abundantly par- 
 don." I find David, in the depth of his sorrow 
 and distress in the consciousness of deep and aggra- 
 vated guilt, by which he had incurred severe tokens 
 of the divine displeasure ; in pouring forth his 
 humble supplications for pardon, placing his hope, 
 in no sacrifice, or atonement, but solely in the 
 mercy of God, and the evidence he should give of 
 true repentance. (Psalm li. 1, 16, 17) ^^ Have 
 mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving 
 kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender 
 mercies, blot out my transgressions.". ...'•Thou 
 desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. The 
 sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken 
 and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." 
 I find John the baptist announcing the approach of 
 the kingdom of heaven, with the call to repentance, 
 and intimating nothing else as requisite, preparatory 
 to being the fit subjects of it, but that men should 
 *' repent'" and *^ bring forth fruits meet for repen- 
 tance." (Matt, iii. 2, 8) I find Jesus Christ himself 
 declaring, (Matt. vi. 14) "If ye forgive men their 
 trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive 
 
105 
 
 you." And I find it the object of one of his most 
 beautiful and touching parables (Luke xv.) to teach 
 his followers^ not tliat God demands with unrelent- 
 ing severity full satisfaction "in the atoning blood 
 and perfect righteousness" of another, as the found- 
 ation of hope, and ground of forgiveness ; but pro- 
 claiming the essential mercy and placability of our 
 heavenly Father, and his readiness, not only to 
 receive and restore his penitent children, but to 
 meet with joy the first workings of ingenuous 
 sorrow and a sense of guilt, and the first symptoms 
 of a disposition and wish to return to duty. "When 
 he was yet a great way off, the father had compas- 
 sion on him, and ran to meet him." To this com- 
 passion and reconciliation he was solely moved, as 
 far as we are informed, by the return of the 
 penitent to a sense of his guilt and his duty ; "Fa- 
 ther, I have sinned against heaven and in thy 
 sight, and am no more w^orthy to be called thy 
 son.''...." This, my son, was dead, and is alive 
 again, he was lost and is found." I find it was the 
 prayers and alms of Cornelius that "came up into 
 remembrance with God," and that "in every nation 
 he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, 
 is declared to be accepted with him." (Acts 
 X. 4, 35.) 
 
 These declarations, and numerous others of the 
 same import, must surely have been out of the mind 
 of the writer, when he asserted, in the words I have 
 before quoted, " that God has told us, that we must 
 rely on the atoning blood of his son, as the sole 
 ground of forgiveness. 
 
106 
 
 I must take leave also to correct some other 
 expressions, standing in close connexion with this. 
 It is implied in a manner not to be misunderstood, 
 in the paragraph in question, that Unitarians, or 
 those who reject the doctrine of the atonement, 
 *^ hope for heaven on the footing of their own virtue 
 or good works," (p. 105) that they *^ think them- 
 selves entitled to future happiness on their own 
 account, and rest their hopes of heaven on their 
 own goodness. '^ But is there no alternative between 
 '^ relying on the atoning blood of the son of God, 
 as the sole ground of forgiveness," and relying on 
 our own merit, as the sole ground of acceptance ? 
 Unitarians, as far as I know, and as far as I can 
 learn from their writings, are equally distant from 
 each of these extremes. Their dependence is wholly 
 on the mercy of God, for they believe that all men, 
 on account of their actual sin, stand in need of 
 mercy, and are wholly incapable of meriting salva- 
 tion, and claiming it as a matter of right ; that 
 mercy, they believe, is promised to all who repent : 
 yet that the salvation of the best of men is of grace, 
 and not of debt, what they cannot demand as a 
 right, yet may claim on the ground of the divine 
 promise. A promise, too, not in consideration of 
 satisfaction having been made by the vicarious 
 suffering of a substitute, but originating in free 
 sovereign mercy, and contemplating the change of 
 character implied in repentance, as alone a sufficient 
 reason for this exercise of it. 
 
 But though Unitarians, in rejecting the ortho- 
 dox doctrine of atonement, do not maintain the 
 
107 
 
 opinion attributed to them of the worth and suffi- 
 ciency of human merit ; yet they will certainly not 
 acquiesce in the opinion, so strongly expressed by 
 the author of the Letters, of the entire worthless- 
 ness of all the works of rigliteousness and good 
 dispositions of men. They think such expressions 
 equally inconsistent with truth, and of pernicious 
 tendency. For if human virtue be thought of no 
 value, and of no estimation in the sight of God, the 
 motive for its practice is weakened, if not destroyed. 
 We shall feel little interest in seeking high attain- 
 ments in that, which is of so little consideration, or is 
 so offensive, that it must not be named in the presence 
 of God. But let me ask, where we are to find the 
 inhibition so confidently asserted. Where ^Mias 
 God taught us, (p. 105) that no works of righteous- 
 ness which we have done, and no accomplishments 
 or dispositions which we possess, must ever be 
 named in his presence ?'' I find instances innumer- 
 able, in which the reverse of this is expressed in a 
 very clear and unequivocal manner. It is expres- 
 sed by Paul, when he said, (Rom. ii. 6, 10) " God 
 will render to every man according to his deeds,'' 
 and has prepared " glory, and honour, and peace, 
 for every man that worketh good.*' And as he 
 thus believed that the good deeds of good men were 
 regarded with approbation and complacency by 
 their Maker ; so he was certainly not aware that it 
 was either criminal or improper to 7mme them hi his 
 presence, when he so exultingly appealed to the 
 course of his past life, and expressed his so strong 
 assurance of the future rewards of virtue : (2 Tim. 
 
168 
 
 iv. 7) '^•1 have fought a good fight, 1 have finished 
 my course, I have kept the faith ; henceforth there 
 is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
 Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that 
 day.'' 
 
 Such a thought must have been far from the 
 mind of our Saviour, when he directed his disciples 
 to plead their good deeds in their supplications to 
 God for his mercy ; (Matt. vi. 12) '• Forgive us our 
 debts, as we forgive our debtors," with the express 
 assurance, that this plea will not be disregarded, 
 ''* for if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heav- 
 enly Father will also forgive you." Such a thought 
 seems wholly inconsistent with the declaration, 
 ^^That the son of man will come in the glory of his 
 Father, and will then reward every man according 
 to his works;" (Matt. xvi. 27) for such a declaration 
 implies, that the works of men are of some account 
 in the mind of Him, who will be their judge, are to 
 be brought into solemn account, and to furnish the 
 grounds of the decisions of the great day. 
 
 I would request you also to compare with the 
 assertion under consideration, '^ that God has 
 taught us that no works of righteousness ' which 
 we have done, and no accomplishments or dispo- 
 sitions, which we possess, must ever be named in 
 his presence 5" the parable of the talents in the 
 XXV. chap, of Matthew, and the representation of 
 the final judgment in a more direct form, which 
 immediately follows it. To whom and upon what 
 ground, in the former case, was the eulogy pro- 
 nounced, and the reward assigned; '*Well done 
 
109 
 
 good and faithful servant, thou hast heen faithful 
 over a few things, I will make thee ruler over 
 many things ?" And in the latter, to whom was 
 tiddressed the welcome, ^^ Come, ye blessed of my 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
 from the foundation of the world ?" It was in each 
 case the faithful, the humane, and the obedient; 
 and in each case it was the good deeds they had 
 done, ^' the good dispositions they had manifested, 
 the fidelity with which they had nsed the talents 
 entrusted to them, the kindness with which they 
 had conducted in the relations in which they were 
 placed, that recommended them to the approbation 
 of the judge, and procured for them the rewards 
 he had to distribute. No allusion is made to a 
 ^^ perfect righteousness, which God has provided 
 for them" to supersede their own personal right- 
 eousness, or to render it valueless. Indeed noth- 
 ing can be more clear, than that if it be of no 
 value, of no account, and not to be named in the 
 presence of God, it is not worth our pursuit, and 
 those are the truly wise, who place their whole 
 dependence on the worthiness of Him, who was 
 righteous for them, and trouble not themselves 
 about the attainment of personal righteousness, 
 which being of no account, can be of no use. 
 
 I know that this consequence will be rejected 
 with abhorrence by every serious believer in the 
 doctrine ; but I know, too, that it does not follow 
 with the less certainty from it. 
 14 
 
110 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 The subject to which I would next call your 
 attention is that of divine influerwe ; the discussion 
 of which occupies the tenth letter of Dr. Woods. 
 Upon this subject we must keep carefully in mind 
 the distinction between the general doctrine, and 
 that which is peculiar to Calvinism. It is with the 
 latter only that we are concerned as a subject of 
 controversy. To the indistinctness and obscurity, 
 which arises from confounding them together, we 
 owe much of the difficulty, in which this subject is 
 usually involved. 
 
 As to the general doctrine of divine influence, I 
 observe, there is no controversy. It is implied in 
 the government of providence, in the acknowledg- 
 ment of dependence on God, and in every prayer. 
 We may suppose it to be direct and immediate, or 
 only such as reaches us through the instrumental- 
 ity of those means, by which common effects are 
 usually produced, and thus not distinguishable from 
 the common course of nature. None, I suppose, 
 will deny the possibility of a direct access to the 
 human mind by him, who gave being and all its 
 powers to that mind; and the reality of it will 
 always be a fact, depending like every other fact 
 upon evidence ; to be received or rejected as the 
 evidence is perceived to be satisfactory or not. 
 
 It will not, I presume, be pretended, that the 
 direct influence of the spirit of God upon the mind is 
 of such a nature, that men can be conscious of it at the 
 
Ill 
 
 time, so as to distinguish it with certainty from the 
 natural operations of the mind under the influence of 
 external circumstances, and the variety of motives, 
 which are presented to it. There can then be no 
 evidence of it in any particular instance. Our proof 
 of the doctrine must be drawn, not from experience 
 or observation, but solely from those texts of scrip- 
 ture, which are supposed to assert it ; and those 
 are to be subjected to just rules of interpretation, 
 in order to ascertain, whether that, and that only, 
 can have been the meaning of the spirit that dic- 
 tated them. 
 
 But without any immediate and direct influence 
 upon the mind, the most important effects may be 
 produced, and changes brought about within us, by 
 a variety of instruments and means, in a manner 
 analogous to that, in which all the great purposes 
 of God are accomplished in the natural and moral 
 world. God is to be acknowledged, his hand is to 
 be seen, the operations of his spirit appear in all 
 the events that take place. Yet not a direct and 
 immediate agency is to be perceived. Instruments 
 and means are employed, but the hand that employs 
 them is unseen. Not seldom a long and circuitous 
 train of them, the connexions and combinations of 
 which it is not in our power to trace, conceals from 
 our view the spirit that guides, and the power that 
 eflects the whole. 
 
 Nor is it only great events, and the accomplish- 
 ment of great purposes, that we are to trace to the 
 agency of the spirit of God. It extends not less to 
 the common provisions and constant occurrences of 
 
112 
 
 life ; to the food by which our life is supported, and 
 every provision by which it is made comfortable. 
 These are the gift of God ; not directly, not inde- 
 pendently of our exertions, nor without the exer- 
 tions of others, but by employing them both. God 
 is also the preserver of our lives, and is to be so 
 acknowledged in all the common, as well as the 
 uncommon exigences of our being. Not, however, 
 by immediate acts of power, and a direct agency, 
 is this done, but by the instrumentality of an iniin- 
 » ite variety and complicated system of means. Of 
 these means, our own exertions, and the assistance 
 of others, constitute an essential, and a principal 
 part. If they are neglected or withheld, the pro- 
 tecting care of heaven is withheld. We perish. A 
 miracle is not wrought to save him, who takes no 
 care to save himself. 
 
 It is in a similar manner, by instruments and 
 means, not by a direct action upon the mind, that 
 the spirit of God produces its great eifects in 
 bringing men to repentance, holiness, and virtue. 
 Among these, the most important are the instruc- 
 tions of the holy scriptures. *^ The word of God 
 (1 Pet. i. 23) is the incorruptible seed, by which 
 men are born again." Whatever good influences 
 are produced by it, are influences of the spirit of 
 God. The same may be said of Christian institu- 
 tions, religious assemblies, public worship. The 
 usual course of providence, but especially deviations 
 from it in remarkable events and uncommon phe- 
 nomena, are means for accomplishing the same 
 purposes. The same also is to be said of the priest- 
 
113 
 
 hood^ religious rites, and prophetic office under the 
 former dispensation, and the Christian ministry, 
 and the whole system of written and oral instruc- 
 tion under the present. And those who are thus 
 employed in '^ converting sinners from the error of 
 their ways, and turning many to righteousness," 
 are represented as ^^ ambassadors of Christ.'' They 
 are his agents, act in his stead, and, whatever effects 
 are produced, they are the proper fruits of the 
 spirit, and may be considered as the work of that 
 spirit, which projected the great scheme, and which 
 provides for and directs its execution. 
 
 Now, were there nothing more direct and imme- 
 diate, than those influences, which have now been 
 mentioned, there would be enough to answer to 
 most of the language of the Bible on the subject ; 
 enough to give a fair and important meaning to all 
 the texts alluded to by Dr. Woods, (p. 107) Those 
 are the instruments and means by which God 
 is constantly ^* working in men both to will and 
 to do j creating in them a new heart and a new 
 spirit ; opening their eyes, drawing, turning, re- 
 newing, sti'engthening them, helping their infirmi- 
 ties." 
 
 All that is said to show, that a divine influence 
 upon the mind may be consistent with human liberty 
 and proper activity, is to no purpose ; for neither 
 the reality of a divine influence, nor its consistency 
 with human liberty and activity is denied. That 
 is not the question in dispute between Unitarians 
 and Calvinists. The question is, whether the 
 doctrine of divine influence, in the peculiar sense in 4 
 
114 
 
 which it is held by Calvinists, is consistent with 
 human liberty and activity. Nor is it whether 
 they affirm it to be so, but whether it can be shown 
 to be so in reality. 
 
 It is in vain that Dr. Woods has blended to- 
 gether and confounded the general doctrine of divine 
 influence, which is held by Christians in common, 
 with the peculiar doctrine of Calvinism respecting 
 special irresistible grace. In vain has he softened 
 down the offensive features of the system, and 
 explained away, or endeavoured to give an unex- 
 ceptionable meaning to the terms irresistible, over- 
 powering, invincible, used by the Orthodox in rela- 
 tion to the subject. The import of these terms is 
 to be found in the known and avowed doctrines of 
 Calvinism, as they are stated by the most approved 
 writers, and in the Confessions of Faith deliberately 
 drawn up by Councils, and received by churches, 
 which profess to make the Calvinistic faith their 
 standard. 
 
 Now, according to these, *^^ all those, whom God 
 hath predestinated to life, arid those only, he is 
 pleased in his appointed time, effectually to call by 
 his word and spirit, out of that state of sin and death 
 in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation 
 by Jesus Christ." — " This effectual call is of God's 
 free and special grace alone ; not from any thing at 
 all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive 
 therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the 
 holy spirit, he is tliereby enabled to answer this 
 call.'' — *• Elect infants, dying in infancy, are re- 
 generated and saved by Christ, so also are all other 
 
115 
 
 elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly 
 called by the ministry of the word.'" — '• Others not 
 elected, although they may be called by the ministry 
 of the word, and may have some common operations 
 of the spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, 
 and therefore cannot be saved. Much less can men, 
 not professing the Christian religion, be saved in 
 any other way whatever, be they never so diligent 
 to frame their lives according to the light of nature, 
 and the law of that religion they do profess.'^ 
 (Westminster Confession.) 
 
 In the above extracts from an instrument of high 
 
 authority, we have a clear and distinct statement of 
 
 the orthodox doctrine respecting that influence of 
 
 the spirit, by which regeneration is effected ; and 
 
 by which alone men can be brought out of that state 
 
 of sin and death in which they are by nature, and 
 
 brought into a state of salvation. It is an influence 
 
 confined to the elect ; granted exclusively to those, 
 
 who are predestinated to eternal life ; granted to 
 
 them also in a perfectly arbitrary manner; not 
 
 being on account of any thing foreseen in them, still 
 
 less on account of any thing already in them ; since^^ 
 
 until it takes place, they are, according to this 
 
 scheme, in a state of sin and death, wholly inclined 
 
 to evil, and indisposed to all good. In those, upon 
 
 whom this influence is exerted, its effects take place 
 
 without any agency or cooperation of theirs, for 
 
 they are wholly passive in it. It is the irresistible 
 
 and unaided work of the spirit of God, which man 
 
 can do nothing either to assist or to prevent. In all 
 
 those, who ai'e the subject of it, it is effectual, and 
 
116 
 
 their regeneration and final salvation are sure. 
 Those to whom this influence is denied, or from 
 whom it is withheld, are not elected : and they can 
 never be regenerated, and consequently their salva- 
 tion is impossible. 
 
 It will be objected, perhaps, that the Orthodox, 
 though they receive in general and substantially 
 the doctrines contained in the Westminster Con- 
 fession of Faith and Catechism, yet they are not 
 satisfied with them in all respects, and do not 
 subscribe to all their language. 
 
 'To this objection they have an undoubted right, 
 and Dr. Woods, as their representative, has a right 
 to be judged upon a fair construction of the language, 
 which is used in the Creed of the Theological Insti- 
 tution wath which he is connected ; and that which 
 he has himself used, as far as he has proceeded in 
 giving a statement and explanation of the doctrine. 
 
 But little, I think, will be gained by this toward 
 relieving the doctrine, which he means to maintain, 
 from the charges which are brought against the 
 orthodox system on this point. 
 
 In the following extracts from the Creed of the 
 Theological Institution at Andover, I think you will 
 find every important idea expressed or implied, that 
 is to be found in the passages before given from the 
 Westminster Confession. ^' By nature every man 
 is personally depraved, destitute of holiness, unlike 
 and opposed to God, and previously to the renewing 
 agency of the divine spirit, all his moral actions are 
 adverse to the character and glory of God ; being 
 morally incapable of recovering the image of his 
 
117 
 
 Creator, which was lost in Adam, every man is justly 
 exposed to eternal damnation ; so that except a man 
 be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ; 
 ....God, of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity 
 elected some to everlasting life.... no means whatever 
 can change the heart of a sinner, and make it holy 
 ....regeneration and sanctification are effects of the 
 creating and renewing agency of the holy spirit." 
 A cursory reading of Dr. Woods' Letter on this 
 subject might lead to an impression of something 
 short of the doctrine expressed in these extracts ; 
 but the following sentence, taken in the connexion 
 in which it is used, and in connexion with the other 
 doctrines defended in his Letters, will be found, I 
 think, to express or imply all that is contained in 
 the fuller and more naked and undisguised state- 
 ment of the Westminster Divines. He is speaking 
 of the meaning of the words irresistible, overporver- 
 ing, as used by orthodox writers, in reference to the 
 divine influence upon the minds of men, when he 
 says (p. 116,) " What the nature of the disorder is, 
 God knows, and is perfectly able to apply a suitable 
 and efficacious remedy. Now, when this almighty 
 Physician kindly undertakes the cure of our souls, 
 the obstinacy of the disorder yields ; its resistance 
 is taken away : that is to say, the heart is effectually 
 cleansed from its pollution ; love of sin, enmity to 
 God, pride, ingratitude, and selfish, earthly desires 
 are subdued, and man is induced to love God, and 
 obey his commands." He had before explained the __ 
 orthodox faith in general by saying (p. 108,) " We j 
 believe, that all virtue or holiness in man is to be , [/' 
 15 4 
 
118 
 
 ascribed to the influence of the divine spirit, and 
 that without the effectual agency of the spirit, man 
 would have no holy affections, and perform no acts 
 of holy obedience." 
 
 Now what is the disorder, to which the effica- 
 cious remedy is to be applied ; and for which, as 
 we shall see, there is no other cure ? If we look 
 back to the fifth and sixth letters of Dr. Woods, we 
 shall find it described. It is a state of entire moral 
 corruption, in which every man is born into the 
 world, and in which every man continues until he 
 is renewed by the holy spirit. It is, that men are 
 by nature, that is, as they came first from the hand 
 of the Creator, destitute of holiness ; not only so, 
 but subjects of an innate moral depravity, from the 
 first inclined to evil, and while unrenewed, their 
 affections and actions wholly wrong. This is the 
 disease, as to its nature and extent. 
 
 Passing to the next letters, seventh and eighth, 
 we are told to whom, and on what ground, a cure is 
 applied. Those, who are to be delivered from 
 this moral bondage, this original state of depravity, 
 to be regenerated, renewed, and saved, are selected 
 from the mass of mankind by a sovereign act of the 
 divine will, without any thing in them, as the reason 
 why they were chosen, rather than the others, who 
 are passed by, left to remain in sin, and to perish 
 for ever. 
 
 Being thus elected, thus predestinated to eternal 
 life, they become the subjects of the efficacious, 
 renovating influence, under consideration. And 
 when this " almighty Physician undertakes the cure, 
 
119 
 
 the disorder yields." He cannot be defeated. He 
 cannot be resisted. The fact then is, that all, 
 whom God undertakes to renew, all to whom he 
 applies that effectual influence, which is to subdue 
 the obstinacy of the disorder, are in fact renewed. 
 The love of sin and enmity to God are subdued, 
 and they are brought to the love of God and obe- 
 dience. And this effect is produced, because he 
 who knows the disorder has known how to apply a 
 remedy ; and has applied one, which must produce 
 a cure. 
 
 It follows, then, that this remedy has been 
 applied to no others. Those who are not renewed 
 have none of this influence employed upon them ; 
 for if they had, they also would have been renewed, 
 since this influence is efiicacious, cannot be resisted, 
 cannot be defeated. Their failure then is for the 
 want of that, which is granted to the others, and 
 without which it was impossible for them to be 
 renewed and saved. " All virtue, all holiness in 
 man is to be ascribed to this efficacious influence ; 
 without it man would have no holy affections, and 
 would perform no acts of holy obedience." (p. 108) 
 Those, then, who have holiness and virtue, have it 
 solely in consequence of their having this influence, 
 which makes them, and cannot fail to make them 
 holy j and those who have none, but remain unholy, 
 sinful, enemies to God, are destitute of it solely 
 because they have not that influence, which, if they 
 had, could not fail to produce the same effect in 
 them, which it has produced in others. This is but 
 a fair and full, unexaggerated development of the 
 
120 
 
 doctrine, according to Dr. Woods' own statement 
 of it. And whether it he not in every point the 
 same as that which is more clearly stated in the 
 Westminster Confession, every one can judge. 
 
 From the doctrine, thus stated. Unitarians, I 
 helieve, generally dissent, and maintain a very 
 diiferent opinion on the subject. They dissent, 
 because they think it inconsistent with all the rep- 
 resentations we have in the scriptures of the moral 
 character of God, and with the condition of man, 
 as a free and accountable being ; — inconsistent with 
 all those texts, which complain of the sins of men ; 
 because, by the supposition, they act only accord- 
 ing to the nature given them, and could not act 
 otherwise without assistance and influence, which 
 are not given to them ; — inconsistent with all the 
 commands of the Gospel to believe, repent, be re- 
 newed, and to love God with the whole heart ; since 
 they have no ability to do any part of this, till 
 almighty power is exerted to make them willing ; 
 and it is equally impossible for them not to do it, 
 when this power is exerted ; — inconsistent with the 
 sincerity of all exhortations, encouragements, and 
 promises to the exertions of men, since it supposes 
 them incapable of willing to perform either of these 
 acts ; that it is not of themselves to will any thing 
 good, but they depend for it on an influence, over 
 w hich they have no control, and which they can do 
 nothing to procure. 
 
 Taking this doctrine of an efficacious influence, 
 without which there can be no holy affection, and 
 tio act of holy obedience, in connexion with the 
 
121 
 
 whole scheme of doctrine, of wliich it makes an 
 essential part ; we are unable to reconcile it with 
 the paternal character of God, or a righteous gov- 
 ernment, or to perceive how it can consist with a 
 moral accountability. We are unable to see how 
 the character of God can be vindicated, in creating ' 
 beings with a nature totally depraved, inclined only 
 to evil, demanding of them holiness, which they 
 are utterly unable to exercise, without an irresistible 
 influence in renewing their hearts, and giving them 
 right dispositions and desires ; which influence he 
 grants to some, and denies to others, without any 
 difl'erence in them as the ground or reason of the 
 distinction ; and punishing those for not exercising 
 this holiness, to whom he had never granted the 
 assistance, without which it was never possible to 
 them. And we are equally unable to see how those 
 could be accountable for their actions, and the 
 subjects of reasonable blame for their unholy and 
 wicked lives, who were brought into being with 
 hearts totally corrupt, inclined to evil, and evil 
 only, and from whom that efficacious renovating 
 influence has been withheld, without which it w^as 
 never possible for them to be renewed, to ^^have 
 any holy aff'ections, or to perform any acts of holy_ 
 obedience.'' The sinner seems upon this scheme \ 
 to have a perfect apology to offer for his continuing 
 in sin ; a complete and satisfactory excuse for every 
 defect and for every crime, however numerous, and 
 however great. 
 
 It may be useful to give you a distinct statement 
 of the several points, in which our views upon this 
 
122 
 
 subject are at variance with those, which we find 
 advocated by Dr. Woods. In the first place, a 
 difi"erent account of the moral nature of man, and 
 his character and disposition, as he comes from 
 the hand of the Creator, leads to a different opinion 
 correspondent to it, of what is necessary, in order 
 to his becoming holy, and a fit subject of the appro- 
 bation and favour of the Author of his being. Not 
 seeing in him a nature wholly corrupt, inclined 
 only to evil, and an enemy of God, we perceive no 
 necessity for an almighty, irresistible influence to 
 be employed for the purpose of producing an entire 
 change of nature, opposite inclinations, dispositions, 
 and course of action from those, to which he was 
 directed by his natural constitution. Believing 
 him to possess faculties and affections, equally 
 capable of a right and a wrong direction, neither 
 morally good nor bad by nature, but equally capable 
 of becoming either, we see a moral discipline under 
 which he is placed, adapted to such a nature, such 
 capacities, and such dispositions. The influence 
 and agency of the spirit of God is to be acknowl- 
 edged in the whole of that discipline which is in- 
 tended to improve, exalt, and perfect our nature, 
 or to correct any wrong tendencies it may have 
 acquired, and restore it to a right direction, and its 
 previous purity. 
 
 In this light are to be viewed all the means and 
 the motives of religion, the institutions of society, 
 the course of providence, events calculated to lead 
 to reflection, to produce seriousness, to give us 
 just views of our nature, condition, duty, prospects, 
 
123 
 
 and hopes ; what we are, and what we ought to be, 
 or are designed to be. Whatever is adapted to 
 subdue the power of sin, to control the bad passions, 
 and to bring us to the love of holiness, and the 
 practice of every virtue. In all this the agency of 
 God is to be acknowledged, as the purposes of God 
 are to be perceived. Not a direct and immediate 
 agency, but such as we see exercised in every thing 
 else through the universe ; God bringing about his 
 ends by a variety of means, and employing in them 
 the subordinate agency and instrumentality of his 
 creatures. 
 
 It is by such means, that the spirit of God pro- 
 duces its great moral effects, operates on the minds 
 and hearts of men, reconciles them to God, works 
 in them to will and to do his good pleasure. These 
 influences are distributed to men in very unequal 
 measure, and with infinite variety, as to kind and 
 degree. The impartiality of the common parent is 
 manifested, not in employing the same means with 
 all, and exerting upon all the same influence, but 
 by rendering to all according to the manner in 
 which they act under the influence that is employed 
 upon them, whatever that may be, as to kind and 
 degree ; not in giving to all the same number of 
 talents, and of the same value,for use ; but render- 
 ing to all according to the use they make of their 
 talents, whether few or many. And here they find 
 room for the particular and perhaps direct and 
 immediate influence of the spirit upon those, who 
 have made a good use of common privileges, upon 
 the principle, that " to him that hatlij more shall be 
 
124 
 
 piven." More shall be given to him, who has made 
 a good use of that which he haS;, whether much or 
 little. 
 
 Accordingly, Unitarians generally do not reject 
 the notion of a direct and immediate influence of 
 the spirit of God on the human mind. They believe 
 that there may be circumstances of great trial, 
 strong temptation and peculiar difficulty, that call 
 for extraordinary assistance, and that those who 
 have manifested a disposition to make a good use 
 of the ordinary means afforded, will have further 
 aid suited to their exigences, and sufficient by a 
 proper use to ansv.er to their necessities. They 
 suppose also that any extraordinary assistance will 
 be granted only to those, who ask it ; that it will 
 be granted to previous good disposition, and a sense 
 of need and dependance. That God will give the 
 holy spirit to them who ask, to them who have 
 already right feelings, are sensible of their weakness 
 and wants, and ask the mercy of God to supply 
 them- 
 
125 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 I now follow Dr. Woods in calling your attention 
 to a few remarks on the injiuence and moral tendency 
 of the Unitarian compared with the Trinitarian 
 and Calvinistic scheme ; premising however the 
 caution, that we must not confound, in our exam- 
 ination, as is too apt to be done, the moral tendency 
 with the effects actually produced ; and that even 
 when this error is not committed, too much weight 
 is not to be given to any argument drawn from such 
 a comparison on either side. The reason is, that 
 mankind are less influenced in their conduct by 
 their speculative opinions, and the character of 
 their faith, than we are ready to imagine. Were 
 we purely intellectual beings, governed wholly by 
 reason, there would be no such uncertainty or falla- 
 cy in our deductions. We could calculate with 
 certainty how men would act, by knowing what they 
 believed ; and on the other hand, what was the 
 character of their faith, by their course of life. 
 But men have also passions and affections, on the 
 one hand ; and these not only serve to corrupt 
 and pervert the understanding, but where they fail 
 to do this, they yet are able to overpower the will, 
 so as to lead them to act in opposition to reason 
 and faith ; — and on the other hand they have con- 
 science and a moral sense, which, however the 
 understanding may have been blinded, or misled, 
 or perverted, will sometimes preserve them in a 
 right course of conduct, in defiance of an absurd or 
 16 
 
126 
 
 a corrupting faith. Still there is a general influence 
 of right views and a pure faith, which is not incon- 
 siderable, nor uncertain. 
 
 But when we come to speak of the practical 
 influence of different forms of christian faith, we are 
 to take into our consideration, that there are cer- 
 tain great principles, and those the most fundamen- 
 tal, and influential upon the conduct of life, which 
 the several sects of Christians hold in common. So 
 that great as the difference is between the Unitarian 
 and the Trinitarian faith ; on account of the funda- 
 mental principles held in common, the difference 
 of their practical tendency is less, probably, than 
 ardent and zealous partizans on either side are 
 ready to imagine. Still, however, it is believed 
 that the difference in several respects cannot be 
 very small. 
 
 I am ready to accede to the statement implied 
 in what is said by Dr. Woods, pp. 135 — 141 ; that 
 the practical influence of a scheme of faith will bear 
 some proportion to the exhibition it gives, ^^of a 
 being of infinite perfection as the object of worship; 
 a moral government marked with holiness and 
 righteousness throughout ; and the manner in which 
 mercy is exercised toward offenders under this 
 government." 
 
 These are the great points, upon which the 
 Unitarian and Calvinistic doctrine are at variance, 
 and with this difference in view, Dr. Woods en- 
 deavours to show the favourable influence of the 
 tatter above the former in several respects. 
 
 In the first place, with respect to love to God, 
 
127 
 
 Now it will be sufficient to remark on this point, 
 that the practical influence of a doctrine will de- 
 pend, not on the words in which it is expressed, 
 but on the images, which are presented to the mind. 
 However we may speak in words of the perfect 
 justice, benevolence, and mercy of God ; our feel- 
 ings and affections will wholly follow the images in 
 which he is presented to us in the dispositions 
 towards his creatures, and the actions respecting 
 them, which are attributed to him. If those are 
 such, as in any other being would be thought arbi- 
 trary, or unjust, or cruel ; it will be in vain for us 
 to speak of them in words, that express all the 
 kindness and benignity of the paternal character. 
 The question then will be, not what are the epithets 
 which the two systems apply to God, for they both 
 apply the same ; but what are the actions they 
 attribute to him, what the images, under which 
 they present him, what the principles and measures 
 of his government ? In these respects enough has 
 before been said to show how the comparison will 
 stand. 
 
 Love to Christ, and the value at which we esti- 
 mate the benefits we receive through him, will 
 depend on our view of the nature and value of those 
 benefits, and not at all on the rank he holds in the 
 scale of being. Unitarian views indeed ascribing 
 to him only what he claimed himself, derived excel- 
 lences, and a subordinate agency, will not allow us 
 to give him the supremacy of affection, any more 
 than the glory, which was due to God only. It 
 teaches us to love him^ to be grateful to him, and 
 
128 
 
 trust in him, as him who was appointed by the 
 Father to execute his purposes of benevolence ; 
 and who voUintarily did and suffered all that was 
 necessary to procure for us the forgiveness of sin, 
 reconciliation with God, and eternal life. These are 
 "benefits, with which nothing that is done by any 
 other finite being can bear any comparison ; they 
 are such as entitle him to affection, and gratitude, 
 and trust ; such as we owe, and can owe to no 
 other being, but to " his Father and our Father, his 
 God and our God." 
 
 Unitarians are unable, indeed t/> express these 
 sentiments in the language applied by Dr. Woods, 
 p. 145. Such expressions of confidence and trust 
 they can apply to God only. They have but one 
 object of supreme trust and dependence. Were 
 they to make Jesus Christ that object, they would 
 fear to incur the rebuke, which the prophet received 
 from the angel before whom he fell down to worship, 
 ^^ See thou do it not, I am thy fellow-servant, wor- 
 ship God." I am ready therefore to answer to the 
 questions, with which Dr. Woods closes the para- 
 graph which relates to faith in Christ, (p. 165) 
 ^^ Does the Unitarian system teach any thing like 
 this ? Does such a faith spring from the principles 
 which it inculcates?" to say no ! Most of what is 
 there said. Unitarians would apply to God, but not 
 to Christ. We find nothing in the Bible to justify 
 us in transferring our supreme confidence and trust 
 from God to Christ. It is accordingly the power 
 and wisdom and goodness of God, which inspire 
 us with humble and joyful hope 5 and which put 
 
129 
 
 our hearts at rest respecting the important con- 
 cerns of the creation. It is to his care, that we 
 cheerfully and entirely commit our interests, tem- 
 poral and eternal. It is in him that we trust for all 
 that is necessary to purify our hearts, to guide and 
 protect us during our pilgrimage, to comfort us in 
 affliction, and to give us peace and triumph in the 
 prospect of death. In these great interests and 
 concerns, we cannot consent, and we do not find 
 ourselves taught, to leave our heavenly Father 
 wholly out of the account. 
 
 The tendency of any scheme of doctrine to pro- 
 duce the dread of sin, and a watchful care to obey 
 the divine -precepts, will depend essentially on the 
 view it presents of the rewards and punishments 
 prepared for men in another life, the heaven it pro- 
 vides, and the hell it reveals. Now it is not a little 
 remarkable, that Dr. Woods should claim an advan- 
 tage, in point of moral influence to the orthodox 
 faith, on the ground that '^ it contemplates a state 
 of higher perfection and purer and more elevated 
 enjoyment, than the Unitarian describes." (p. 146) 
 And " that the contemplation of a future reward, to 
 be obtained by virtuous efforts, must evidently tend 
 to excite those eiforts, very much in proportion to 
 the greatness and excellency of that reward.'' 
 
 For, besides that the claim of higher perfection 
 and greater purity is without any foundation to 
 justify it; upon what ground can he speak of a 
 future reward to be obtained " by virtuous efforts?^' 
 The reader has not forgotten, that the sinner has 
 no encouragement to virtuous efforts : " That no 
 
130 
 
 works of righteousness, and no accomplishments or 
 disposition must ever be named in the presence of 
 God.... that the only righteousness, which is to be 
 the foundation of hope to men, is a perfect right- 
 eousness which God has provided. ...that we must 
 rely on the atoning blood of Christ as the sole 
 ground of forgiveness." 
 
 Unitarians may be allowed to speak of the mo- 
 tives to virtuous efforts arising from the future 
 rewards to be obtained by them ; but with what 
 propriety can the Calvinist do this, who believes, 
 that the future condition of men is determined from 
 eternity by an irreversible decree ; that by nature 
 they are totally depraved and inclined only to evil ; 
 that they remain so till brought out of that state by 
 regeneration, and that regeneration is effected only 
 by the special irresistible influence of the spirit of 
 God, granted only to the elect, and to them, not on 
 account of any disposition or efforts of theirs, which 
 have any tendency to produce or to procure it ? 
 
 And as to the influence of the different views of 
 future punishment ; — it might at first be thought, 
 that the advantage were on the side of those of 
 Calvinism ; but there are two considerations that 
 convince me to the contrary. For, in the first 
 place, the punishments, as well as the rewards 
 provided by that scheme, are administered on the 
 principles of a sovereign, unconditional election ; 
 the desert of punishment, and consequently the 
 punishment itself, not being subject to any human 
 efforts, but following necessarily the divine decree. 
 !Pad men may be expected to avail themselves of 
 
131 
 
 the plea of a moral inability, which, to all practical 
 purposes, is in fact the same as a natural inability, 
 or physical coercion. They may be expected to go 
 on quietly in the course of vice in the persuasion, 
 that if they are not predestinated to holiness and 
 eternal life, no efforts of theirs can avail them ; and 
 if they are, God will, in his own time, draw them to 
 him by his effectual, irresistible grace ; that nothing, 
 which they can do, till thus regenerated, will have 
 any tendency to bring about this effect, or prepare 
 them for it ; on the contrary, that they are as 
 likely, I believe they are sometimes told more likely, 
 to be thus arrested by sovereign grace in the full 
 career of wickedness, than when using endeavours 
 to recover themselves out of the hands of Satan by 
 their own strength. This reasoning, and I cannot 
 see that it does not proceed fairly on the acknowl- 
 edged principles of Calvinism, must check, instead 
 of encouraging the efforts of wicked men to disen- 
 tangle themselves from the snare of the devil. 
 
 In the second place, we are to look for the 
 efficacy of punishment and its moral influence in 
 preventing sin, or reclaiming men from it, not to the 
 degree of its severity and duration only, but to its 
 certainty, and the evidence brought home distinctly 
 to the minds of men of its certainty. Now, if you 
 endeavour to enhance the fear of punishment, by 
 representations of its severity, or of its duration far 
 disproportioned to what can be the apprehension 
 of the demerit, to which it is to be applied ; if you 
 carry it beyond the bounds of probability, that the 
 threat will be executed ; if it be such, that to 9 
 
132 
 
 reflecting mind it is impossible it should be executed 
 by a just, and good, and merciful being, the Parent 
 of the creation ; you weaken its effects as a motive, 
 you lose in probability, and the firmness of faith, 
 more than you gain in the force of fear. You excite 
 a vague and indistinct terror and dread ; but so 
 mingled with incredulity, arising from a natural and 
 unconquerable sense of the essential kindness and 
 benignity of the Author of nature, as to impair, if 
 not destroy its practical effects. 
 
 The surest and highest, the purest and most 
 permanent influence will be that, which arises from 
 such views of the future punishment awaiting the 
 wicked, as are consistent with the character of a 
 Sovereign of the world, who has nothing vindictive 
 in his nature, who adjusts punishment to the degree 
 of demerit, who inflicts it solely for the purpose of 
 promoting holiness, and accomplishing the purposes 
 of his moral government, and only to the degree 
 which these purposes require, and so long as they 
 require it. 
 
 From these considerations, I am persuaded that 
 the moral influence of the views of future reward 
 and punishment, maintained generally by Unitarians, 
 is far more certain, and powerful, and salutary, and 
 purifying, than that which is the result of the 
 orthodox views on this subject. And I am persuaded 
 of this by another consideration still. It is this : — 
 the virtue that is produced by cheerful views, and 
 by the contemplation of kindness, benevolence, and 
 iuercy in God, is of a more pure, generous, and 
 elevated kind, than that which arises from cold, 
 
133 
 
 austere, and gloomy views, and the contemplation 
 of severe, unrelenting, vindictive justice, and the 
 execution of eternal wrath. 
 
 Unitarians believe that the representations in 
 scripture of the future punishment of the impeni- 
 tent wicked are, for the purpose of impression, 
 highly figurative ; but they believe that the figures, 
 like all others used by the sacred writers, are in- 
 tended to mean something, something of vast mo- 
 ment ; that in degree and duration it will be such, 
 as is calculated to produce the highest practical 
 influence. In either respect we can have clear and 
 distinct conceptions only to a certain degree. All 
 beyond that, therefore, can add nothing to the 
 effect. 
 
 Dr. Woods proceeds to a comparison of the 
 different influences of the systems in question, as 
 respects reverence for the word of God. To show 
 that Unitarians have little reverence for the scrip- 
 tures, and treat the sacred writings with little 
 respect, he asserts (p. 148,) that, " the grand 
 maxim of the Polish Socinians was, that reason is 
 our ultimate rule and standard, and that whatever 
 in religion is not conformed to this, is to be rejected. 
 This maxim, as they understood it, gave them per- 
 fect liberty to alter or set aside the obvious sense 
 of the bible, whenever it did not agree with the 
 deductions of reason. Unitarians, in general, have, 
 with more or less decision, adopted the same 
 maxim." The impression intended here to be 
 made on the reader must be, that " Unitarians, 
 generally, think themselves at perfect liberty to 
 17 
 
134 
 
 alter or set aside the obvious sense of the bible, when- 
 ever it does not agree with the deductions of rea- 
 son. '^ Dr. Woods has not seen fit to refer us to his 
 authority for the assertion, as respects the Polish 
 Socinians. This it was his duty to do, in laying 
 against them a charge of so serious a nature, that 
 the reader might be able to judge of its justice. 
 What authority he may be able to produce, I know 
 not. But I presume it must have been derived 
 from a passage, which I shall subjoin, which is 
 found in the Racovian Catechism, which contains a 
 summary of the Socinian doctrines, as drawn up by 
 the celebrated Polish Divines. But if this passage 
 be the only authority to which he will appeal, the 
 charge is made with less care, than were to have 
 been expected of one, so frequent and loud, as he is, 
 in his complaints of the misrepresentations and 
 unfairness of adversaries. The passage is this — 
 
 ^' By what means may the more obscure passa- 
 ges of scripture be understood ? 
 
 '^ By carefully ascertaining in the first instance 
 the scope, and other circumstances, of those passa- 
 ges, in the way which ought to be pursued in the 
 interpretation of the language of all other written 
 compositions. Secondly, by an attentive comparison 
 of them with similar phrases and sentences of less 
 ambiguous meaning. Thirdly, by submitting our 
 interpretation of the more obscure passages to the 
 test of doctrines, which are most clearly inculcated 
 in the scriptures, as to certain first principles ; and 
 admitting nothing that disagrees with these. And, 
 lastly, by rejecting every interpretation, which is 
 
135 
 
 repugnant to right reason, or involves a contradic- 
 tion/' 
 
 The reader is now requested to compare this 
 with the assertion of Dr. Woods, and to judge of 
 the fairness of the representation. The principles 
 of interpretation, as here stated, are such, as no 
 Divine of any school will at the present day call in 
 question. They are such as Dr. Woods himself, 
 I will venture to affirm, continually applies in 
 practice. The difference between him and the 
 Polish Divines is only as to the cases, to which the 
 principle is to be applied, and not as to the princi- 
 ple itself. A thousand instances may be brought, 
 in which Dr. Woods will apply the principle with- 
 out hesitation. No one will reject with more 
 decision than Dr. Woods the obvious meaning of all 
 those passages, numerous and frequent as they are, 
 in which bodily organs and human passions are 
 ascribed to God. He will exercise his reason in 
 the interpretation of all those passages, which will 
 teach him to set aside, as inadmissible, the plain, 
 obvious, and literal meaning of the words that are 
 used. 
 
 Luke xiv. 26. Our Saviour says, ^^ If any man 
 hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and 
 children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his 
 own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Dr. 
 W^oods, I trust, will be slow to insist on the plain 
 and obvious sense of this text, as the true meaning 
 of it. He will doubtless make reason his guide, in 
 its interpretation ; and applying his knowledge of 
 oriental idioms, will set aside, as utterly inadmissi- 
 
136 
 
 ble, the literal and obvious meaning of the words ; 
 not suspecting that he is thus exposing himself to 
 the harsh censure from some less enlightened and 
 liberal interpreter of scripture, of taking the liberty 
 to alter or " set aside the obvious sense of the 
 Bible." 
 
 Matt. xxvi. 26, 28. Our Saviour says, ^^ This is 
 my body, — this is my blood ;" and John vi. 53, 
 '^ Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye eat the 
 flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye 
 have no life in you." Dr. Woods, I suppose, will 
 be as much shocked as any Polish Divine of the 
 whole Socinian school, or any English or German 
 Unitarian, at the idea of adopting the obvious sense 
 of these expressions, as the real meaning of him 
 who uttered them. Nor will he much regard the 
 honest Catholic, who, pressing him with the literal 
 meaning of the words, charges him with perverting 
 the scriptures, and destroying their authority by 
 thus subjecting them to reason in their interpreta- 
 tion. But why thus shocked, and why not adhere 
 to the literal sense with the Catholic, unless the 
 principle be admitted, that reason is to be employed 
 in the interpretation of scripture ? Unless calling 
 to its aid all the resources of learning, experience, 
 and common sense, it may authorize us to set aside 
 the obvious sense by supplying us with proof, that, 
 in any given case, the obvious sense cannot be the 
 true sense ? This is quite a different thing from 
 such an arbitrary alteration of the word of God, 
 or setting aside its true meaning, as is implied in 
 what Dr. Woods has laid to the charge of the Polish 
 Socinians and modern Unitarians. 
 
137 
 
 But who, let me ask, is the man that manifests 
 the truest reverence for the word of God ? Is it he, 
 who indolently and carelessly takes the meaning 
 that first presents itself, however absurd, or con- 
 tradictory, or even impossible that may be ; or he, 
 who, when the meaning that first presents itself is 
 attended with difficulty or doubt, sets himself with 
 patient and laborious study to ascertain, whether it 
 be the meaning intended by the writer ; a meaning, 
 which, if it be the word of God, will certainly con- 
 tain neither an impossibility, a contradiction, nor 
 an absurdity ? Is it he, who, without suffering his 
 reason to judge in the case, accepts the meaning, 
 which has been assigned to it in an age of ignorance 
 and superstition, and which ecclesiastical authority 
 has sanctioned, enforced, and perpetuated ; or he, 
 who, using his own reason, instead of trusting that 
 of another, applies all the helps that time, and 
 industry, and learning, have furnished, to the dis- 
 covery of its true meaning? 
 
 We not only avow the principle, that reason is 
 to be our guide in the interpretation of scripture, 
 but we declare that we know not a higher act of 
 disrespect and irreverence to the word of God, than 
 he is guilty of, who, rejecting the free use of rea- 
 son in its interpretation, exposes it to contempt by 
 attributing to it communications, which could not 
 have been made by the same God, who is the Au- 
 thor of our reason. We profess none of that loyalty 
 of faith, which consists in implicit subjection to the 
 creed of a master, which is expressed by degrading 
 and undervaluing our reason, or refusing its use. 
 
138 
 
 and thus becoming prepared to receive absurdities, 
 contradictions, and impossibilities for divine instruc- 
 tions. We think it to be doing no honour to our 
 sacred books to be ready to believe both sides of a 
 direct contradiction, because we think that we find 
 them there. We are satisfied, from the very cir- 
 cumstance that it is a contradiction, or an absurdity, 
 that we must have misunderstood what we there 
 read. We suspend our faith, and apply ourselves 
 with all the aids that reason, learning, industry 
 supply to ascertain the source of our error, and to 
 discover the truth. We believe that Unitarians, by 
 doing this, have done much toward relieving our re- 
 ligion from articles of faith, and the scriptures from 
 opinions attributed to them, which they never taught, 
 which have been a reproach to our religion, and the 
 occasion of its being rejected by many ; who would 
 gladly have received all that it has taught, had it 
 been presented to them unmixed with the absurdi- 
 ties and impossibilities, with which they have seen 
 it associated in popular creeds. 
 
 In order to estimate the relative tendency of the 
 two systems, as respects benevolent action, whether 
 in relation to the common interests of life, or that 
 highest kind of it, which is directed to the spread of 
 the Gospel J and the salvation of men, we have only 
 to compare together the views which have been 
 given of the leading doctrines of the two systems ; 
 ])articu]arly as they relate to the character and 
 dispositions of the Author of nature, his moral 
 government, and the moral nature of man, and his 
 condition, as a state of trial and probation for an 
 
139 
 
 endless being. — To this comparison I confidently 
 invite you, in the assurance that no further illus- 
 tration is necessary ; and that you cannot fail to be 
 convinced, that no opinions on these subjects can 
 be better calculated, than those which we maintain, 
 to purify and exalt our best affections, and to 
 strengthen the motive to every kind of benevolent 
 exertion. 
 
 I am persuaded too, that upon a fair comparison 
 Unitarians will not be found in fact to be behind 
 other Christians in their benevolent exertions. 
 Neither in Europe nor America are they liable to 
 any peculiar reproach for the want of activity and 
 engagedness in promoting humane and benevolent 
 designs. In accomplishing all the great purposes 
 of christian charity, as relates both to this and 
 another life, it is believed they have taken their full 
 share of interest, and have contributed their full 
 share of exertion with their persons and their 
 property. 
 
 In proportion to their numbers, no denominatiou 
 of Christians has furnished more distinguished ex- 
 amples of ardent and disinterested zeal, personal 
 sacrifices, and active exertion in the cause of truth, 
 for the advancement of pure religion, and to pro- 
 mote humane and benevolent objects. None have 
 contributed more largely to some of the most valua- 
 ble institutions, by which the present period is dis- 
 tinguished. They have taken an active and leading 
 part in promoting the great ends of the Bible 
 Society, and the Peace Society. In each of these 
 they have united together with Christians of all 
 
140 
 
 Other denominations. Their exertions and their 
 contributions to the purposes of christian charity 
 have been less the subject of public notice, than 
 equal and similar exertions of others, for reasons 
 which are obvious. They have not been exclusive. 
 They have not been made separately. They have 
 usually been thrown into a common stock. They 
 have had no desire to be distinguished from other 
 Christians, — have been willing to act with them, 
 and wherever the object proposed, and the means 
 for attaining it were such, as they could approve, 
 to unite with others in promoting it. They have 
 done what every one, who regards the great inter- 
 ests of religion more than personal reputation, or 
 the advancement of a party, ought to do. They 
 have exercised their judgment in selecting the 
 objects, to which they should lend their aid ; not 
 always choosing those, which would excite the 
 admiration of the world, or contribute most to 
 give consideration or power to a sect, or serve 
 to distinguish them from others. They have 
 accordingly been less engaged than some other 
 denominations of Christians, in projecting and sup- 
 porting foreign missions, which, though the most 
 splendid and imposing, they have thought to be one 
 of the least useful of the achievements of christian 
 charity. For this apparent backwardness and 
 lukev^armness, with which they are sometimes 
 reproached, reasons may be assigned, which are not 
 inconsistent with their taking as deep an interest 
 in the cause of Christianity, and the salvation of 
 their fellow-men, as others ; and being ready to 
 
141 
 
 contribute as nuich, and as cheerfully to extend the 
 knowledge, the influences, and the blessings of our 
 holy faith to all lands and to every people. 
 
 The imaginary cases, which Dr. Woods has 
 allowed himself to state, (pp. 154, 155) are wholly 
 gratuitous. He would have spared himself and the 
 reader, had he reflected for a moment, that a Uni- 
 tarian might invert the picture he has drawn, and it 
 would be entitled to the same consideration as that, 
 which he has presented ; that is, to none at all. 
 Were it even in his power, instead of a mere suppo- 
 sition, to produce an example, he must perceive, 
 that it would prove nothing to the purpose, for 
 which it was alleged ; since that would not be in- 
 consistent with an opposite example at the same 
 time. Were it a fact, instead of a mere unag'mationf 
 that an individual Unitarian by becoming orthodox 
 had become more zealous and engaged, both in per- 
 sonal religion and in benevolent exertions ; and 
 that an individual Calvinist, on the other hand, had 
 lost much of his piety and zeal in becoming a Unita- 
 rian ; it would not prove that others might not 
 experience an equally salutary change of character 
 in passing from the orthodox to the unitarian faith, 
 — or one equally unfavourable by passing from the 
 unitarian to the orthodox. I may have as good 
 reason for believing that the one event would take 
 place, as Dr. Woods has for the probability of 
 the other. And our opinions are each alike of no 
 value. 
 
 I have observed that satisfactory reasons could 
 
 be assigned, why Unitarians are not seen, as distin- 
 18 
 
142 
 
 guished from others in those '^•remarkable move- 
 ments,*' which in Dr. Woods' opinion '^ present the 
 only prospect we have of the salvation of the world." 
 (p. 153.) Some have had the opinion, in common 
 with intelligent and pious Christians of other de- 
 nominations, that little hope was to be entertained, 
 of any important benefit from missionary exertions 
 in heathen countries. So little success has attended 
 all endeavours in modern times to extend the bounds 
 of Christendom by missions for the conversion of 
 barbarous pagan nations, that some have been 
 ready to think, that no hope was to be entertained 
 from human exertion, until it should be accompa- 
 nied, as it was in the apostolic age, with some visible 
 supernatural aid ; until those, who are sent forth to 
 carry the Gospel to the heathen, should have the 
 power given them to propose its doctrines with 
 the same authority, and accompanied with the same 
 miraculous evidence, as it was when presented by 
 its primitive teachers. Nor has this opinion been 
 confined to Unitarians. 
 
 Others again, who have had more confidence in 
 the efRcacy of human exertions, and who believe 
 that Christianity will finally triumpli universally 
 through the instrumentality of ordinary means; 
 have yet not been satisfied with the means they 
 have seen employed. They have believed that 
 direct endeavours for the conversion of the heathen 
 to Christianity have been premature; and have 
 been wasted by being ill-timed and misapplied. 
 They have thought that no permanent or extensive 
 good was to be expected, except where the arts and 
 
143 
 
 some of the liabits of civilized life, and some of the 
 human literature of Christendom have been first 
 carried, to prepare the way for its reception. They 
 have thought that those, to whom the Gospel is sent, 
 must be prepared to understand it and to feel its 
 value by some previous education ; and some have 
 been disgusted, no doubt unjustly, by thinking that 
 they saw, in the remarkable movements alluded to 
 above, too much of ostentation and worldly motive ; 
 too much that seemed like a call upon an admiring 
 world, ^^ Come and see my zeal for the LordP 
 
 By some it has been thought, that to bring men 
 from the grossness and absurdities of paganism to 
 pure Christianity, the progress must be gradual. 
 The transition is too great, and would give too 
 violent a shock, to take place at once. They must 
 pass to it through several intermediate steps. Light 
 must be thrown in gradually, as they are able to 
 bear it. Christianity is more likely to be received, 
 if it be first introduced in forms mingled with con- 
 siderable degrees of superstition ; with pomp, and 
 form, and ceremony, and even with corruptions of 
 doctrine, which bring it nearer to the faith to which 
 they have been accustomed. Polytheists, for exam- 
 ple, it has been supposed, may be more easily 
 reconciled to Christianity, and more ready to em- 
 brace it in that form, which leaves them a threefold 
 God, or three Gods, (for they will be able to under- 
 stand none of those nice distinctions, which exercise 
 the wits of learned theologians and acute meta- 
 physical divines on this subject,) than that, which 
 reduces the object of human worship to a perfect 
 unity. 
 
144 
 
 With such views and such impressions, they 
 have seen their duty, so far as respects exertions in 
 the Christian cause, lying in a different course ; not 
 in sending Unitarian missionaries into barbarous 
 nations, but in studies, and labours at home to 
 purify the Christian doctrine, and restore it to its 
 primitive state. They have believed, if the Unita- 
 rian doctrine is to be sent any where abroad, it is 
 to the Jews, and the followers of Mahomet, among 
 whom all attempts to introduce Christianity have 
 been defeated by the corruptions, with which it 
 has been accompanied ; and where better success 
 may be reasonably expected, when it shall appear 
 stripped of those appendages, which constitute their 
 objection to it. 
 
 Other reasons also are to be assigned for that 
 appearance of apathy, want of interest and want of 
 exertion, with which Unitarians are sometimes 
 charged. As has been said before, they have never 
 been forward to distinguish themselves as a sect 
 from the rest of their fellow Christians. They have 
 never united their exertions together for the pur- 
 pose of establishing a separate interest. They 
 have felt no separate interest. They have been 
 willing to remain, as long as they were allowed to 
 remain, mingled together with their fellow Chris- 
 tians, undistinguished from the general mass, 
 throwing in their contributions both of money and 
 of personal exertion with theirs. They have thus 
 contributed to swell the amount of charities and 
 exertions, for which they have had no share of 
 the credit. 
 
145 
 
 To this course of conduct they have been 
 induced in part by the love of peace, a desire to 
 escape odium, and to avoid disturbing the public 
 tranquillity and order. But neither the purity of 
 their motives, nor the peaceful and silent course 
 they have pursued, was sufficient to shield them, 
 from reproach. This very quiet and silence were 
 brought against them, as an evidence of lukewarm- 
 ness, and heartlessness, and indifference to the 
 cause of religion ; and their alleged inactivity 
 was attributed to an opinion, that Christianity 
 was of little value, and that men might do well 
 without it. 
 
 They have accordingly found, that the reasons 
 for their former course no longer continued ; and- 
 they have changed that course. They have been 
 convinced, that the state of things called upon them 
 to use those exertions in the maintenance, defence, 
 explanation and propagation of their opinions, from 
 which only a regard for peace had hitherto res- 
 trained them ; since the same peaceful and silent 
 course could no longer shield them from reproach, 
 nor prevent the mischiefs that they wished to avert. 
 And now what is the consequence of this change of 
 measures ? They are reproached with that very 
 activity and zeal, with those very exertions, which 
 but a short time since, it was their reproach not to 
 make. 
 
 These exertions are accompanied with the hap- 
 piest effects. Tliey have awakened a spirit of 
 inquiry, which will go on and increase. They 
 appear not yet, and it may be long before it will 
 
146 
 
 be proper that they should appear, in some of those 
 particular things, in which they are reproached 
 with being deficient. They have much to do at 
 home, before it will be in their power advanta- 
 geously to the Christian cause to extend their ex- 
 ertions abroad. They have to awaken a livelier 
 interest in the cause of Christianity and the pro- 
 gress of rational and just views of its doctrines in 
 their own body ; to excite a deeper tone of religious 
 feeling in that part of the Christian community, to 
 which they have access, whether from the press or 
 the pulpit ; to engage the wealthy to cooperate with 
 them, by bringing home to their feelings, the great 
 good they have it in their power to do, and to their 
 consciences the solemn responsil)ility connected 
 with every talent, and every opportunity and pow- 
 er of doing good. They have to excite literary 
 men to give more of their studies and labours, and 
 more of their zeal to the promotion of so great and 
 desirable a purpose. They have to induce enlighten- 
 ed and liberal men, who by their professions or public 
 stations have an opportunity of exciting a salutary 
 influence in the community, to a more open and 
 manly avowal of their opinions, and to unite with 
 them in all fair, and moderate, and temperate 
 measures, with the Christian spirit, yet with ardour 
 and lively interest, to promote and extend them. 
 It is not doubted that throughout our count^'y, 
 a very large proportion of those men, who for their 
 talents, and learning, and virtues have the most 
 influence in the community, and have it in their 
 power to do the most toward giving a right direction 
 
147 
 
 to the public feeling or public sentiment, are dis- 
 satisfied with the Calvinistic and Trinitarian form, 
 in which they have had religion presented to them ; 
 and if they have been led by circumstances to free 
 inquiry on the subject, are Unitarians. But vari- 
 ous causes prevent them from making a public avow- 
 al of their opinions. Among these, not the least 
 is, usually, an unwillingness to encounter opposition 
 and obloquy, and the loss of confidence, and of the 
 power of being useful. It is among the encourag- 
 ing prospects of the present time, that the reasons 
 for reserve are ceasing to operate with all the force 
 they have done in times past, and that the reluc- 
 tance to an undisguised avowal of Unitarian senti- 
 ments is in a great degree overcome. 
 
 It is asked, by what motives Unitarians are 
 influenced in their endeavours to disseminate their 
 peculiar opinions. The answer is easy, and I think 
 such as to justify at least all the zeal and earnest- 
 ness they have yet discovered in the defence or the 
 publication of their views of Christianity. They 
 are earnest and active then, because they have a 
 firm faith in the truth and the importance of their 
 opinions, and that it is their duty to bear their tes- 
 timony to the truth, and to leave no proper means 
 untried, to cause it to be attended to, and under- 
 stood, and respected. And they are fully persuad- 
 ed, that the course they are pursuing in this respect 
 is in fact attended with very salutary eff'ects. One, 
 to which they attach no small importance, is the 
 well known fact, that, wherever the unitarian doc- 
 trine prevails, and the rational views with which it 
 
148 
 
 is accompanied, a very important portion of society, 
 the most elevated, intelligent, and enlightened be- 
 come serious and practical Christians, who, in 
 catholic countries, or where Calvinism prevails, are 
 oftener unbelievers and sceptics, and treat Chris- 
 tianity with neglect at least, if not with disrespect. 
 The reason of this is obvious. Men of cultivat- 
 ed minds and enlarged views are often so engaged 
 in the business, and engrossed by the interests and 
 cares of the world, as to depend for their views of 
 Christianity wholly on what they hear from the 
 pulpit, and what they find in the popular creeds 
 and catechisms, which, they take for granted, ex- 
 hibit fairly to them the Christian doctrine. Find- 
 ing the system, as it is thus presented to them, such 
 as their understanding and moral feelings will not 
 admit of their receiving, they reject Christianity 
 without further examination ; not thinking them- 
 selves bound to inquire into the evidence of a system 
 of faith, which carries in itself, in their view, 
 intrinsic marks of incredibility. When to persons 
 •of this character and in such circumstances unitarian 
 views of the christian doctrine are afterward pre- 
 sented, their attention is arrested by their reasona- 
 bleness, and their consistency with what the light of 
 nature teaches of the character and government of 
 God. They are induced to examine the claims of a 
 religion to their faith, which is presented to them in a 
 form, so agreeable to the reason God has given them, 
 and to the natural notions that arise from what they 
 see of his character and dispositions in the government 
 of the world : and the effect of examination is a firm 
 
149 
 
 conviction, that the newviews, in which Christianity 
 has been presented to them, are the result of a fair 
 and just interpretation of the scriptures in which it 
 is contained ; and that the religion itself is as well 
 supported by evidence, as it is worthy of the faith, 
 and approbation, and affection of a wise and en- 
 lightened mind. 
 
 The time has been, within the memory of men 
 now living, when in that class of society now alluded 
 to, the most elevated, enlightened, and influential 
 in giving the tone to the public sentiment, and the 
 direction to the manners and practice of society, 
 infidelity and contempt for religion were far more 
 prevalent in this vicinity, than they are at the 
 present day ; and at that time the religion which 
 issued from the pulpit, and which was the only 
 faith that reached them, was Trinitarian and Calvin- 
 istic. I hazard nothing.in asserting, that in pro- 
 portion as those views of religion, which are gener- 
 ally adopted by Unitarians, have become prevalent, 
 infidelity and contempt of religion have become less^ 
 and less frequent ; and our most enlightened men, 
 with scarcely any exception, are among its most 
 efficient friends and serious and practical professors. 
 
 I have now said all that I meant to say upon the 
 doctrine of Christianity, as held by Unitarians, its 
 comparison with the Trinitarian and Calvinistic 
 faith, and its tendency and moral influence. I have, 
 endeavoured to express myself with the most p^rliect^' 
 freedom and plainness; yet with, the decpniW an<l , 
 respect due to the solemn and interest j.rtgjsu3}ect.5 ' 
 which have come before me, to the author of the 
 19 ' : :'-' ' ; ■' "'. 
 
150 
 
 book which I have had so much occasion to notice, 
 and to those fellow- christians, who may dissent from 
 the opinions and views which I have expressed. 
 
 For the declaration made with emphasis by Dr. 
 Woods at the close of his book, " that in his honest 
 and serious apprehension, the Unitarian system is 
 indeed aiiother Gospel,^^ I was not wholly prepared ; 
 though it is one which we have before been accus- 
 tomed to hear in different forms from other sources, 
 for whieh we have less reason to feel respect. We 
 are consoled, however, with the thought, that an 
 excommunication, though pronounced ex cathedra, 
 carries not with it now the terror, which it once did. 
 Christians will venture to judge between the rival 
 systems, and will take the liberty to decide, each 
 one for himself, whether the gospel, as it is held by 
 Unitarians, or as it is held by Trinitarians and 
 Calvinists, be the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 r. 47, 1. 3, for " by Christ," read in Christ. 
 
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