ment of that grand germ of corruption implanted in the heart of man at the fall.

Again, as you allow that Jesus Christ came into the world to repair the ruin of the fall, it is natural to imagine that he would, in the course of his ministry, have made us clearly acquainted with the nature and extent of this ruin. We are assured, that the world was in a state of sin and misery; but the derived corruption of human nature in consequence of the fall, is not intimated by the author of the christian dispensation, nor was it, previously to his appearance. We find no declaration, that he came to save a sinful world from hereditary sin. This doctrine is not mentioned in the commission given to the Apostles to preach repentance and remission of sins; nor do we discover, in the execution of their commission, that they either lament the state of mankind, or upbraid the children of Adam, on account of the depravity derived from him.

Thus it is incontestible, that this article of your creed is not mentioned where it was most natural to expect it; neither is it enforced by those who must have been the best informed, and who alone could possess authority to propagate it.

How, Sir, can you account for so very singular a circumstance? How comes it that a doctrine, deemed so essential to christianity, should have been forsaken or omitted by those, whose peculiar province it was to place it in the most conspicuous point of view?

How comes its foundation to rest solely on the interpretation given to a few phrases scattered in different parts of the Old and New Testament, which from their connexion, and from the manner in which they were uttered, are not only capable of a different construction but demand it? Expressions, some of which were obviously the strong language natural to occasional emotions, some proverbial, some descriptive of particular classes and characters of men, without any reference to the sin of Adam; and some were spoken by persons whom it would be ridiculous to suppose possessed of inspiration.

LETTER III.

Texts of Scripture examined. The Notion of a Total, Hereditary Depravity confuted by Observation and Experience. Stronger Proofs, that Men are upright and perfect, than that they are totally depraved.

SIR,

THE passages you quote, in support of your sentiments, illustrate and confirm the truth of the above observation; for not one of them has the most distant relation to the subject.* They all refer to a state of

*They are the following;

The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. What is man that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman;

actual depravity, without reference to its cause; and they describe, in striking language, those vicious propensities too frequently observable both in individuals and in large communities, which may be the result of perverse education, evil habits, the force of bad example, and other causes which are known actually to exist, and whose influence is universally acknowledged, without insinuating that they are the streams, which necessarily flow from the original transgression of Adam. This propensity to sinful errours is fully expressed by the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth;" and to this is it necessarily confined, if you will not compel it to start from its context in order to support an hypothesis. The phrase is mentioned twice in the book of Genesis. In the first instance it refers to that accumulated wickedness, that acquired corruption, which preceded the flood; when "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." In the

one.

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that he should be righteous? How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water? The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no not Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from sin? The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me. We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. O, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

second instance, it is expressive of the weak and imperfect state of our natures, which, instead of exciting the divine wrath, is a subject of his commiseration. "The Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done."* Your second and third quotations are rather unfortunate; for as it has been judiciously remarked,† they are no revelations from God, but exaggerated representations made of human infirmities by Eliphaz, the Temanite, which provoked even the patient Job to reply, "miserable comforters are you all;-Shall vain words have an end, or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest ?" &c. Again, "ye are all forgers of lies; ye are all physicians of no value; Oh, that you would altogether hold your peace, and it should be your wisdom."

Let this instance, Sir, of the absurdities and inconsistencies which result from an indiscriminate quotation from Scripture be added to those mentioned in a preceding Letter; and let them exert their influence to dissuade you from a practice, which is the fertile every errour; which renders the Oracles of Truth as equivocal and contradictory as the Delphic Oracles or the Sibyl's Leaves.

source of

* Genesis vi. 5. Ib. viii. 21.

See a Review of Mr Wilberforce's Treatise, by T. Belsham, page 43.

Job xv. 14, 16. Ib. xvi. 2, 3.

As all the other passages you have quoted relate merely to the state in which either individuals, or large bodies of men, may be occasionally reduced, they are equally irrelevant to our subject. They express truths which no one has ever disputed, but they give you no assistance in forming your hypothesis explanatory of these truths. They mention facts alone; and it is the hypothetic abettors of an extravagant system alone, that presume to trace the cause to the sin of our first parents.

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You may perhaps still argue, that the declaration of David, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;" and that of the Apostle, we were by nature children of wrath, even as others," are too explicit to be included in the above remark. We will, therefore, pay them more particular attention.

The expression of David is generally allowed to be a part of the penitential Psalm he composed, upon his having been guilty of the sins of adultery and murder. It is manifestly the strong language of contrition and self-abhorrence. He adopted a phrase proverbial among the Jews, by which he intimated, that his vicious propensities were so great, that had he been born with them they could not have been stronger. Such terms are common in all countries, and cannot be mistaken by natives and contemporaries, whatever interpretations they may suffer from the comments of foreigners, or from the changes which