real characters which we meet and mingle with on the stage of life. The world contains no such beings as the saints and sinners described in many sermons and painted in many tracts and magazines. They are as unlike the actual men and women around us, as if the one were described as having no senses, and the other as having no souls.

But of what use is any description of mankind which wants a counterpart in nature and life? It cannot be true-for a glance at the world as it is, belies it. Look abroad for yourselves, brethren, and tell me if you can discover among the good, one who has ceased to be frail, and incapable of becoming evil. Take the accounts which men give you of themselves—take their own judgments of their own characters-will you conclude that any are totally holy? But is it fair to pronounce all who may be sinners, totally depraved, when you dare not pronounce all who are saints, totally pure? There is as much evidence of a partial depravity in the one case, as of a partial holiness in the other. There are as many proofs of a little remaining good in those who pass for wicked men, as of some remaining corruption in those reputed pious men. It is as correct to esteem the latter entirely holy, as to esteem the former entirely depraved. The fact is, there are no unmixed characters among men. The best are not perfect in virtue, the worst may still be capable of a recovery from vice. There are degrees of goodness, and degrees of sin; the former ascending from a very low, to almost angelic virtue, the latter descending from simple failing to the deepest guilt. However, to my narrow view it may seem that no vestige of what is good 1*

VOL I.

remains in some of my fellow-beings, or even that their capacity of goodness is extinct, yet there is an eye which discerns more clearly, and may discover symptoms of reviving health, where all to me wears the aspect of death. I dare not, I never will say, that there slumbers not beneath the ruins, on which I gaze with despair, a spark of virtue, which shall be kindled yet into a celestial flame. I leave an abandoned sinner, hopeless of restoring him myself, but remembering that what is impossible with man is possible with God. And as to the doctrine that we are all totally depraved, I must consider it as I should a proposition which declared that all men were fools, or all men were giants, all men were monsters. We are not totally any thing whatever, for be the quality what it may, there are ten thousand chances that we have a little of its opposite too. Some are wise; but not always, nor in all things. Some are timorous generally; yet on an occasion can be bold as lions. Some are indolent generally; yet, for some desired end, will rouse themselves to the most vigorous activity. Where nothing is fixed and permanent, but all in progress, pressing onward, it is rash to attempt nice definitions and descriptions, for the object may change under your hand. So it is, to affix such characteristics as denote completeness in good or evil, to mutable men. The only just and true account of human character is that which represents it as mixed and imperfect in all its forms.

The Scriptures are often quoted to prove the total depravity of mankind. But there are two very obvious principles of interpretation, which ought to be applied to the passages thus employed, and which remove at once

all pretence for using them in evidence of such a doctrine.

1. What is declared in universal terms is not always to be received without limitation. We often affirm absolutely, and in the most unqualified language, what we know to be true, only for the most part and with some exceptions. All books contain more or less examples of such propositions as the author designs his readers should understand, not to the full extent of their literal import, but as general truths. When God was about to destroy a guilty generation by the deluge, it is recorded, "And God looked upon the earth; and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way." "All flesh" is a universal term, including every man alive. But there was, at least, one exception; for "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Paul, in his address to the Lystrians, says, that "God had, in times past, suffered all nations to walk in their own ways." But he had not so suffered the Jews, who had enjoyed a revelation and been subjected to peculiar restraints. John tells the early converts, "Ye know all things." We are compelled by the very nature of the case to put a limitation on the word "all," which reduces the meaning of the pas sage to the bare affirmation, that they knew whatever they needed as Christians to know. The proposition, as it stands, ascribes omniscience to them.

In like manner, although some passages of Scripture, which speak of the degeneracy of mankind at certain periods, are so expressed, that we might suppose not an individual remained, who had the least goodness in him, we learn from sacred history, that there was always a

remnant of righteous men in periods the most degenerate. The first chapter of Romans describes the character of the nations in the darkest colours, and of Gentiles and Jews affirms, "they are all under sin." But corrupt as were the great body of the Jews when Messiah came, we are made acquainted in the Gospels and Acts with many excellent characters. Of Simeon we read, "He was a just and devout man." Nathaniel was 66 an Israelite indeed, without guile." Anna " served God with alms and prayers." The Baptist's parents "were righteous before God, and walked in his ordinances blameless." Among the Gentiles, the Roman Centurion and Cornelius, with "devout Greeks not a few, are worthy examples and vindicate us in the assertion, that there was, doubtless, a large portion of society, who had not shared that depravity which Paul so vividly describes. Indeed,

if you will go over the catalogue of crimes of which he accused the heathen, you will see that it is utterly impossible for such wickedness to have been universal. He himself allows us to make an extensive exception, for he speaks of Gentiles "who did by nature the things contained in the law." From Psalm liii. Paul quotes a passage, and accommodates it to his own description. That passage applies to men at a particular period, and not to the race. It is misunderstood for want of a little fairness and attention; "Every one of them is gone backthey have altogether become filthy-there is none that doeth good, no, not one." The persons here intended were then living or had lived previously. There is nothing which justifies us in including all the human beings who shall ever live. Besides, not even all that genera

tion is comprehended; for it is added immediately after these words; "have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people?" It seems, then, there were some who were good enough to be called God's people, in opposition to the workers of iniquity, notwithstanding it was affirmed that not one of the children of men did good, no, not one. If we persist in giving an absolute acceptance to all general propositions, we shall get into difficulties from which nothing can relieve us. There is obviously no justice in our interpreting passages which speak in the strong language of eastern hyperbole of the corruption of men, as if they were strict philosophical statements. We must take these passages as they were meant to be taken, as vivid representations of a fact, not exact definitions of a doctrine.

2. The second rule to be applied to those parts of Scripture, which relate to the moral condition of particular persons, communities, or generations, is this; All which was true of them, may not be true of us;—we have been educated with all the benefits of Christian light, and under the influence of Christian institutions. It would be false, and no credit to the Gospel, to say that a very great difference is not perceptible between Christian countries and others, a difference, which af fects the whole population of such countries, and not merely the body of professed believers. Now to take phrases, employed to represent the moral character of ancient heathens, and apply them with no modification to all people of all ages and climes, Christian as well as Pagan, is unjust to the last degree, if not palpably absurd. Just so far as we resemble the characters de