ORIGINAL SIN.

THERE is no subject in theology on which it is more difficult to speak with clearness and accuracy, than concerning the effects of the fall on the posterity of Adam, and the condition of the human mind before it arrives at the point of developing its intellectual and moral powers in actual sin. Nor is it wonderful, because neither intuition nor philosophy, nor personal communion with infant mind, makes us acquainted with its attributes. For this reason, when I have spoken on the subject, I have confined myself uniformly to the facts in the case revealed in the Bible, and discarded pertinaciously all theorizing.

What the precise errors are, which I am supposed to hold, I do not know; but from the evidence relied on, and the general course of the argument, it would seem that I am supposed to hold the Pelagian doctrine on the subject; that I deny that Adam was the federal head and representative of his race; that the covenant was made not only with Adam, but also with his posterity; that the guilt of his sin was imputed to them; that there is any such thing as native depravity; or that infants are depraved. That on the contrary, I hold and teach, that infants are inno

Error of faith denied.

Circumstantial evidence.

cent, and as pure as Adam before the fall; and that each one stands or falls for himself, as he rises to personal accountability; and that there is no such thing as original sin, descending from Adam by ordinary generation; and that original sin is not sin, or in any sense deserving of God's wrath and curse.

Now every one of these assumed errors of my faith, I deny to be my faith. They ascribe to me opinions which I have never held or taught, and, as I shall show, there is no evidence that I ever taught one of them.

There is no more evidence of my holding or teaching the doctrines of Pelagius on original sin, than there is of my holding the doctrine of Mahomet, or the Brahmins, or the Pope. And though I doubt not that my direct evidence will be satisfactory, I will not omit that which is collateral and circumstantial. My religious education was superintended by pious Calvinists of blessed memory; and was as orthodox as the Assembly's Catechism, committed to memory, could make it. My convictions of sin were in accordance with my educational belief, and were deep and distressing, to the cutting off of all self-righteous hope from native excellence, or acceptable obedience in any action, social, civil, or religious, and laid me low in an agony of self despair, at the footstool of mercy, as unholy, totally depraved, justly condemned, and hopeless of regeneration and pardon but through the infinite sovereign mercy of God, through the merits of Christ. And the change which led me to hope, and has sustained me in my ministry, and

Theological education-authors studied.

holds up my hopes of heaven, was, I full well know, 'not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God;' so that if I am a Pelagian now, in my faith, few men can be more inexcusable in obliterating the teachings of a pious education, or the teachings of God's holy Spirit in my own distressing experience. But I have not gone back. I remember the horrid pit, and have also in fresh recollection the wormwood and the gall; and it is knowing the terrors of the Lord, and the love of Christ in my deliverance from them, which, if I am not deceived, have sustained and animated me in the work of the ministry. My theological education was under Dwight; and the authors which contributed to form and settle my faith, were Edwards, Bellamy, Witherspoon, Dwight, and Fuller. With such favorite authors for my guide, I have perceived in myself no retrocession from my early convictions. The doctrines which have constituted the body and power of my preaching, so far as it has had any, have been-the doctrine of God's decrees, the fall, the native and total depravity of man, election, effectual calling, or regeneration by the special influence of the Holy Spirit, justification by the merits of Christ through faith, and the perseverance of the saints; doctrines not commonly, I believe, found in alliance with Pelagian notions of native excellence and regeneration by moral suasion: and my preaching, if Pelagians or Unitarians have claimed me, has never seemed to satisfy them, or the results of it to correspond with what they claimed to be the proper fruits

Antinomianism and Pelagianism, both avoided.

of correct preaching; they have been the results of Calvinistic preaching, in convictions of sin and apparent conversions to God; such as Pelagians ridicule and denounce as fanaticism, instead of the fruits of the Spirit.

I have never been ultra Calvinistic, pushing my opinions towards antinomian fatality; nor have I at all more leaned to the doctrine of Pelagain free will and human self sufficiency; and in doctrine I am what I ever have been, having gained only the more accurate and comprehensive knowledge which use and study afford, and the facilities of presenting to every man his portion in due season, as the result of experience. All this however is nothing against positive evidence of defection. But no such evidence has been produced. The chief evidence relied on, is contained in my sermon on the native character of man. But that sermon was not designed to teach, and does not teach professedly, the doctrine of original sin. It has no direct respect to that doctrine. There is not a word in the sermon designed to state, explain, prove, or apply, that doctrine. The subject of the sermon is, THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF ADULT Man, and affords not the least evidence of what my opinions are on the subject of original sin. By the laws of interpretation, therefore, you are not permitted to travel out of the record, and apply to infants and original sin, the language I have held with express and exclusive reference to the total depravity of adult man. It was occasioned by a local exigency in my congregation, the restiveness of a man of talents

Analysis of sermon on native character of man-title.

and learning under the preaching of the doctrine of total depravity, especially in its denial of the native virtues and acceptable doings of unregenerate men. It was Pelagianism, in substance, that rose up against me, and the sermon was purposely constructed so as by explaining and proving the doctrine of total depravity, to put it down. The correctness of this representation, will be sustained by an analysis of the sermon.

ANALYSIS OF THE SERMON ON THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN.

Its title precludes any reference to original sin; it is, the native CHARACTER OF MAN; meaning, of course, not his native constitution, but the character which all men first form who come up to personal action. Native, as applied to character, is sanctioned by correct theological use, and means the character which all men first sustain, in the exercise of their own powers, under the perverting influence of the fall.

The text has exclusive regard to adults, to regenerated man: "Whosoever loveth is born of God.'

It is regarded in its exposition as holy love-the fulfilling of the law-the principle of evangelical obedience-religion-does not belong to men by nature -is never a quality of his heart by natural birth, and is the result of a special divine interposition which makes him a child of God. Both the text and introduction, therefore, respect regeneration in adult man.

It is the object of the sermon to prove, that man is not religious by nature-meaning by man, the race; and by "not religious by nature,' that there is nothing