places to smooth, in the vast dominion over which man was made the princely sovereign! There are other points of interest connected with this particular question, but I leave them for the present, and pass on to another consideration.

Dr. B. asserted that Nature represents both man and God. All the disorder, groaning, and travailing in the world must be attributed to man; while God must be praised for all the existing harmony, perfection, and tranquillity. According to this, the works of God are inter-penetrated and inverted by the voluntary or supernatural sins of man! Think, my friends, of the unutterable absurdity of this doctrine. I askCan the wisdom and omnipotence of the Living Spirit be counteracted and transcended by weak and ignorant mortals? Can the finite overthrow the Infinite? Nay! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth; he is before all things and in him all things consist; the measure whereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. Who hath resisted his will? It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Can man resist the universal Will of the Supreme Being? Dr. B. said, that man is a sinning substance-a power, confusing and disordering nature; because "he does as he was not made to do." This is truly a bold assertion. How does he know whether he tells the truth or not, in this matter? He takes his text from PAUL as a sufficient guarantee or indorsement of his theory. Here, then, I will quote from the same authority to prove (if it be thus valid,) that Man does not and can not act contrary to the wise designs and ordinations of Jehovah. See Romans, x. 10. "Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Further on it is asserted by Paul in substance, that Pharaoh had not committed the so-called supernatural sin: "for unto Pharaoh the Scripture saith, for this purpose

B

have I raised thee up." Now what are the reasons assigned by the Lord for creating the tyrannical and murderous Egyptian king? Was he made to be good, and happy, and to assist others to the acquisition of wisdom? Far from it. The Lord says: "I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth." Now-I ask, if Dr. B. believes that Pharaoh was thus designed to perform a mission,-confessedly to subserve the purposes of displaying God's sovereign prowess and will, and to publish his name throughout the earth,how does he know but that every living king, and tyrant, and pirate on earth, is to-day doing, by express providential design, the sovereign will of God? This is not my impression. But I am now answering the supernaturalist on his own ground. We have Bible assurance that evil is overruled for good. As plain as Dr. B—'s text, are the following passages from Paul: "Who hath resisted HIS WILL? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing say to Him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" What shall we say, then, to all the wickedness and disorder in the world? "Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid." In view, then, of all this plain Bible language: how can Dr. B. assert, with so much scriptural assurance and professional dogmatism, that man "does as he was not made to do?" Or, that Nature undertakes to accomplish more than she is able to perform? How does he know that "the apple-tree puts on more buds than it is capable of developing" properly into healthy fruit? Surely, every thing which grows has a residuum-some refuse materials-to the labor. And why may not the falling apple-blossoms be considered,—like the expenditure of muscular strength which is consequent upon our bodily exercise, as a result of the tree's

effort to produce, (what it succeeds in to perfection,) viz. :the precious fruit which decorates its bending boughs and delights our taste.

I pass on to another point: Dr. B. considered somewhat at length, but in a very unsatisfactory manner, the effect or consequences of sin-first, upon the Soul-second, upon the Body-third, upon Society-fourth, upon Nature. What was said under these respective heads, I am impressed, needs no elaborate review.

In the soUL, it was said, sin laid waste the moral Naturedesolated the creature man; his feelings, passions, and their multifarious dependences. This was only another waya theological way—of saying, that all voluntary or other infringements upon the indwelling conviction of Right, are succeeded by appropriate results and legitimate consequences, from which there was no possible escape-except, by taking internally and eternally the redemptive "compound” which, as you remember, is Dr. B―'s universal panacea for all mental, physical, social, and natural disorders.

In the body, it was said, that sin brought wrong things together—a man and alcohol, &c.—developing pain, contagion, discords, diseases of all kinds, and death! It was distinctly asserted, moreover, that death and disturbance were in the world before man; seemingly in anticipation of the horrid catastrophes which supernatural sin was certainly destined to develop! Friends, do you see the deformity of such an assertion? Do you not see that all the "malformed creatures" and universal "abortions," which Dr. B. alluded to, exist nowhere but in his own darkened affections and beclouded reason? Theology has lamentably distorted his vision, circumscribed his affections, crippled his understanding, and deformed his naturally good powers of judgment. Theology has laid waste his love for man; and his admiration of Nature, also, is contracted exceedingly. His conceptions

of the harmony and unutterable progressive perfectibility of God's works, are exceedingly angular and hugely-fashioned; and, when he looks out upon Nature, from the blistered and stained windows of his theological Zion, he sees only his own malformed cogitations; but he very honestly takes them to be deformed fish, grotesque disorders, and the innumerable "abortions," caused by the workings of supernatural sin upon the physical creation! And as if his mind had not been beclouded and desolated enough by the theology of supernaturalism; he summons to his side the no less equivocal teachings and testimony of another clergyman, Hugh Miller, who, unblushingly, and, to some extent classically, gives in his evidence, that the works of God, are, in very truth, inter-penetrated and inverted or subverted by the freewill crimes of man! What Dr. B. said concerning bodily pain and death, may be found, much better stated, in Combe's book on Man; or, in the phrenological publications of the day, associated with the philosophical exposition of their obvious causes and important uses in the providence of things, and with valuable suggestions as to their final extermination.

Of society, it was said, that sin had laid it nearly in ruins -causing, by its power and propagative tendency, wars, cheating, murder, massacres, ease, power, luxury, and licentiousness-all to be considered as the furniture of sin. In replying briefly to this statement, I would first call attention to the fact, that the most gigantic cruelties, the bloodiest wars, the highest spoliations, and the deepest licentiousness, and the other crimes and vices supposed, are sanctioned in the Old Testament by a "Thus saith the Lord." Does Dr. B. remember how the Lord commanded Moses to "war"

against the Midianites? Does he remember the spolia

tions that were recommended? Does he remember the revolting crimes which the Lord permitted the children of

Israel to commit? In view of this-I ask, did man, according to Dr. B's theory, create and perpetuate these sins? Assuredly not. Man is the victim of an oriental and demoralizing theology; which originally sanctioned war and all the other sins enumerated. What occasioned that stupendous war, known as the Crusades? Did the people generate that war by exercising the prerogative of free-will?-By doing as they were not made to do? Nay; the thirty years' war was a "holy war"-that is to say, an honest and conscientious war-as most all wars are-in which the defenders of the faith signalized themselves as valiant "soldiers of the cross!" Dr. B. should not, therefore, "blame" man for the existence of war, and for analogous evils; because, according to the writers of his theology, there were times when the Lord himself commanded bloodshed, and gave particular directions, through his holy prophets, as to the localities and methods of its accomplishment.

With regard to theft and licentiousness, I can, for the present, only say, that had Dr. B. studied mankind, like a rational philosopher, he would have found, that badlyconstructed and wrongly-situated minds give rise to these transient and transitional evils. Fourier has elaborately considered the social causes of these evils, and has mathematically shown, that a certain organization of Labor, Capital, and Talent, will effect the desired cure. If Fourier's positions be true, (which no church-disciple has as yet been able successfully to controvert,) then we have the plain solution of the problem of evil. Ignorance, improper social alliances, and immoral situations, giving rise to antagonisms of individual interests, these are the simple and self-evident explanations of sin's existence. Dr. B's medicine-the redemptive compound--has been tried for many long, eventful centuries, and has failed to remedy the evils complained of; why not, then, be humanitary and charitable, and let the com