to warn. But there is nothing in man which may not, by his faithfulness, under that blessing which is never denied, be made conducive to his present and his eternal welfare. Human nature therefore is just what a being, possessed of that free will which alone makes him capable of virtue and immortality, must have; and therefore, just as it is, with all its weaknesses and exposures about it, it is the great and perfect gift of God for which eternity will not afford too ample a time for our gratitude. We start then upon our career with God's full blessing with us. He throws us for our own sakes, upon ourselves. On ourselves depends the result of our great enterprise. It is for us freely to choose whom we will serve the God who made, or the devil that tempts us— the God in us, or the powers of darkness. O, we know full well, in our inmost souls, that at our own door lie the sins we commit with and against this nature! And what is there that encourages us so much as the thought that there is nothing between us and a return to our duty, but a voluntary weakness? and what gives such sharp. ness to the tooth of remorse, as the feeling that we have brought our sorrow on our own heads by our own folly?

And now with what an opiate to the conscience, with what a premium upon complacency, does an erring theology here step in to take the blame off the individual soul and lay it upon our federal head, upon our corrupt nature and the Author of that nature. Depraved as our nature is asserted to be, will it not all the more take advantage of this doctrine, to lull its own upbraidings. If our nature is wholly corrupt, would not God in mercy have concealed it, that the deceitfulness of the human heart might not be tempted to use the doctrine to its double damnation? Constituted as man is (corrupt or incorrupt the

fact is not changed) he cannot feel remorse for any guilt which he has not perpetrated. He may with agonies desire to escape a doom, which for no fault of his own, he is taught hangs over him; but he cannot feel the justice of the Being who threatens it; nor can he escape the confusion which such a theory introduces into all his conceptions of right and wrong. Does not the popular view of human nature, the origin of sin, and our total or natural corruption, vitiate the common conscience? Does it not create that very disgust of religion which it is called to account for, and create the rebellion against God which it quotes as an argument for its truth? Does it not, with all its consequences, of election, irresistible grace, and the final loss of all unregenerate souls, whose name is legion, does it not raise every natural, generous, and chivalrous emotion of the common soul in us, in sturdy opposition to its assertions, and thus mislead men into the dreadful and wretched mistake, that they and their Maker are on different sides? And what is the final influence of this doctrine upon the character? Does it tend to create, even in those who overcome their disgust for it, a free, independent, filial, and cheerful love for God and duty a mutual respect and confidence among men? or does it fill the world with jealousy and distrust; with sanctified extravagance and spiritual pride, on the one hand, and abandoned and reckless folly and self-contempt, on the other; or, with what is as bad as either, stupid indifference and melancholy despair? Such I believe to be the tendency of the popular doctrine of natural depravity. It creates the sin it supposes; as we often create in others the jealousy, suspicion, or meanness, with which we charge them as yet innocent. I say 2* NO. 206.

VOL. XVIII.

nothing of the character in which the Almighty Father appears in the light of this doctrine; but ask how such a theory favors our hope of human emancipation from ignorance, sin and sloth?

Again; compare the Unitarian and the Orthodox views of redemption, of the means of salvation. We say that repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, are the Gospel terms of salvation. That sin is the only thing standing between man and the forgiveness and acceptance of God; that saving faith, is that belief in our Savior, as a messenger from God, which leads the individual soul to confide in his declarations, accept and apply his precepts, to see his character in the light of his holy Gospel, and lament and forsake the sins, which it brings to view in the soul, while it emulates the graces and cherishes the affections and principles which Christ has illustrated in his own person. Personal reformation, not merely of manners and habits, but of principles and affections; a change not in appearance, but in deed and in truth; in the heart, at the centre, and not on the surface or at the extremities; this is the regeneration of the Gospel, the new birth which is followed by divine forgiveness for past errors and sins, and by present and future acceptance. In this greatest of all works, after creation itself, how glorious and sublime is the office of Jesus Christ! who comes to sinful men with a message of love from an unknown Father; who re-awakens faith in the abandoned and desperate, by the inviting and encouraging tones of his sympathizing voice; who comes not to condemn the world but to save it, by speaking as never man spake of an immortal world, of a holy and yet all loving Father, of the majesty of conscience, the glory of virtue, the degradation of sin, the beauty of holiness. Ah! is he

not indeed the Savior of the world, who calls a world of souls, dead in trespasses and sin, into newness of life! What was the resurrection of Lazarus itself, (except as an attestation of the superhuman commission of Jesus,) compared with the conversion of the woman that sat and bathed our Savior's feet with her tears? Sin is a more fatal power than death, and a regeneration of character a diviner event than a resuscitation of the body. What then can be so precious in the sight of God as the revival of moral and spiritual life in his offspring! What mission could the Almighty send his best-beloved son upon, so important and so glorious as this? And what office can Jesus himself regard with so much satisfaction, as that which he still fills, while his truth and his character are continuing to operate upon the latest posterity of those among whom he walked on earth.

What character is so honorable to God, as that in which he appears with no other disposition than that of promoting the triumph of his own moral attributes in the hearts of his rational children? and what so inspiring to man, so favorable to individual responsibility, so persuasive to the affections and moving to the conscience, so entirely in accordance with our main position and central fact, as the doctrine that repentance and reformation, to forsake evil and learn to do well, are the sole conditions of Christian salvation?

And now, am I compelled to contrast with this view the prevailing opinion of the Christian church?

We are first referred back to a poetical or symbolical account in the antediluvian world, of the fall of our whole race, in the person of Adam, - a being created in perfect holiness, who succeeded in involving his whole posterity in ruin, by yielding, in his upright state, to a temptation

proper subordination, the blissful exercise and enjoyment of our nature; originally made in the divine image, and therefore the greatest gift God had it in his power to make to man. ''The kingdom of heaven is within you,' our Master has said; and we believe that no one finds it, in time or eternity, any where else. To secure the ascendency of godlike principles, of heavenly affections, of divine aspirations in our souls - this is the endless work of life, and this is life eternal. The process and the result, the journey and the goal, the effort and the reward, are one and the same. To pursue virtue and to enjoy the pursuit; to do good and to be good; this is the Christian life, and this is Christian salvation. It is independent of time or place. All worlds are the home of the pure in heart, and death has no power to change the essential peace and blessedness of a true disciple of Jesus and child of God.

If for these views we substitute an external view of salvation; if we make it to consist in the blessedness, not so much wrought into as conferred upon the faithful soul; if we present to human hopes a world of unalloyed enjoyment; a place of rest and rapture, prepared for struggling spirits who have kept the faith, as a reward for their obedience, do we not at once degrade our conceptions? Are we not introducing Mahometan notions into Christianity?

Do not the popular ideas of heaven (which I suppose is usually meant when salvation is spoken of), that is, of getting to a safe and happy place, where the Christian harness can be laid aside, and something like comfort be enjoyed; do not these popular ideas cast a sad reproach upon the glory and sufficiency of goodness? Do they' not tacitly own the vrituous or religious life to be a life