sec 
 

 ]\ 
 
 \ see.) ii?\ns.oMs pc:^ mph . 
 LETTERS 
 
 <C^ -.rj - rn//^ 
 
 A:f 
 
 ^. 
 
 REV. PROFESSOR STUART, 
 
 sv-: 
 
 COMPRISING 
 
 REMARKS ON HIS ESSAY ON SIN, 
 
 PUBLISHED IN THE 
 
 AMERICAN BIBLICAL REPOSITORY FOR APRIL AND JULY, 1839. 
 
 BY DANIEL. DANA, D. D. 
 
 MINISTEK OF THE GOSPEL IN NEWEURYPORT. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 PRINTED BY CROCKER & BREWSTER, 
 
 47, Washington Street. 
 
 Ib39. 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 Introduction. — The point in debate explicitly stated. 
 Plan of discussion. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 I have perused and re-perused, with much care, your Essay- 
 on Sin, in both its parts ; together with the letter of explanation 
 with which you have favored me. I now sit down, agreeably to 
 my promise, to offer some comments. To this task I come 
 with unaffected reluctance. To find myself in conflict with a 
 beloved and honored Professor in that sacred Seminary with 
 which, from the first, I have held a responsible connection ; and 
 this, too, on points which, on all reflection, I cannot but view as 
 fundamental and vital, gives me more pain than I can possibly 
 describe. Nothing, let me aver, but the interests of sacred truth, 
 and the imperious demands of apprehended duty, could possibly 
 reconcile me to such a position. 
 
 I begin by repeating my thanks for your kind and candid re- 
 ception of my first letter, plain and unceremonious as it was. 
 This kindness of yours combines with a thousand other consid- 
 erations, to inculcate a similar spirit on myself. Indeed, every 
 feeling of my heart recoils from the thought of unkindness to a 
 
Christian brother, long loved and valued ; while fidelity to the 
 truth bids me treat his statements and reasonings with the utmost 
 freedom. 
 
 The object of your Essay seems to be, to disprove and explode 
 the doctrine of original sin, or of native depravity ; taking 
 these terms in their ordinarily received, and well understood 
 sense. It is true, that you occasionally employ expressions 
 which, taken by themselves, might be viewed as not materially 
 exceptionable, by the friends of the doctrine in question. Birt 
 I appreciate too highly your independence and integrity, to sus- 
 pect that you intend to be equivocal. There is an affluence in 
 the English language which supplies appropriate terms for all 
 our ideas ; and of this affluence you are amply possessed. 
 When you intimate an opinion that the whole debate may be 
 resolved into a difference in terminology, I can only express my 
 surprise ; or rather I can only avow a surprise which it is out of 
 my power to express. 
 
 If, in the remarks which I shall offer on your theory, I shall make 
 it appear that the philosophic principle on which it is built, is 
 erroneous — that the celebrated author whose support it claims, 
 gives it no support at all — that the theory itself is in conflict with 
 the scriptures — that it is inconsistent with your own repeated 
 admissions and statements — and finally, that it stands opposed to 
 your publicly avowed opinions ; you will doubdess admit that it 
 should be abandoned. On the points thus indicated, I will ven- 
 ture no confident promises. All I ask is, to be favored, in this 
 discussion, with the candid attention, and the critical scrutiny, of 
 yourself, and of my readers at large. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 rillLOSOPIIV OF THE THEORY IN QUESTION. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 Your denial of the doctrine of original sin is based on the ap- 
 prehended fact, that all sin consists in voluntary transgression 
 of known law, and in nothing else; in a word, that properly 
 speaking, there is no other sin beside actual sin. Thus you 
 
would seem to exclude propensities, dispositions, habits, from 
 the possession of any moral character whatever. 
 
 Here I observe that your error, if it is an error, is, in strict- 
 ness of speech, philosophic, rather than theological. And this 
 circumstance gives me leave to remark on the infinite danger of 
 introducing into religious subjects, philosophic principles which 
 are in the least degree doubtful. Here, for instance, is a very 
 simple, and, as some would think, a very innocent maxim ; that 
 all sin consists in action. And yet this maxim, so simple and 
 so innocent, is made a lever by which to overturn a great doc- 
 trine of the gospel which the Christian church has, from the first, 
 regarded as not only unquestionable in its evidence, but as lying 
 at the foundation of the whole system of religion, theoretic and 
 practical. 
 
 Permit me another remark. When we undertake to philoso- 
 phize in religion, the utmost caution is needful. Shall we as- 
 sume a philosophical dogma, and make the scripture bend to it ? 
 Or shall we not rather take our stand by the sacred oracle, and 
 modestly consent that all our preconceived philosophical notions 
 shall bov/ and fall before it? In other words, shall we confident- 
 ly determine for ourselves what the Bible ought to say ; or shall 
 we humbly inquire what it has actually said ? 
 
 Excuse me, my dear Sir, in declaring my apprehension, that 
 to an error in this very point, are to be traced the perplexities 
 and disputes which have recently infested the church on the 
 subject of original sJ7i. The doctrine, it is assumed by its op- 
 posers, is at war with the philosophy of the hu?nan mind. It 
 cannot therefore be found in the Bible ; and whoever undertakes 
 to defend it, must do it at the expense of his reputation for 
 scholarship and philosophy. It is but too true, that the church 
 does not abound with those heroic spirits that can encounter a 
 peril like this. 
 
 I readily, indeed, admit that if you can satisfactorily establish 
 the theory, that all sin consists in action, you effectually subvert 
 the doctrine of original or native depravity. And from this fact, 
 I infer with confidence, that the theory is untenable and false, 
 since the doctrine is found in the Bible ; intimately wrought into 
 its whole system, and constantly meeting us on its very face. 
 
 But I will not stop here. I unhesitatingly join issue with you 
 on the philosophic point in question, and will give it a momen- 
 tary discussion. 
 
 And here let me inquire : In estimating the characters of men, 
 do we regard their actions merely j or do we search for some- 
 
thing beyond — their dispositions, their propensities, their habits, 
 their governing principles of action ? Unquestionably the last. 
 Actions are of no farther importance than as they indicate and 
 deternaine the principles from which they spring. It is princi- 
 ples, then, and not actions, which give the decisive stamp of 
 character. 
 
 Will you say, that these principles belong to the class of vol- 
 untary action ? In this case, you touch the very core of the 
 difficulty, and furnish the means of its solution. No one will 
 contend that pride and humility, that generosity and meanness, 
 that benevolence and selfishness, are actions. They are prin- 
 ciples of action. And to prove that this is their distinctive and 
 simple character, it is needful only to remark that they exist and 
 remain, when the action to which they naturally give birth, is 
 entirely suspended. The generous man cannot always be per- 
 forming generous actions. But he is not the less a generous 
 man still. Surely, my dear Sir, you will not contend that the 
 Christian ceases to be a Christian, whenever the exercise of 
 grace is suspended. No. The principle of grace remains. It 
 is enduring and imperishable. And what is the inference ? 
 Neither holiness nor sin consists exclusively in action. 
 
 While discussing the philosophy of your scheme, I must ad- 
 vert to another point. In explaining the actual sinfulness of 
 human beings, you trace it to certain native susceptibilities ; a 
 term which you abundantly employ, and which I cannot but wish 
 you had explained. Concerning these susceptibilities you de- 
 clare that they are adapted to lead and excite us to sin, (p. 52.) 
 You even declare that they certainly lead to si^i, and only to sin, 
 (p. 44.) Yet these susceptibilities, you strenuously contend, 
 are innocent — altogether innocent. Here, your common-sense 
 readers are much perplexed, and ask to be enlightened. That 
 a disposition to commit sin is a sinful disposition, they perfectly 
 understand. They were taught it in the nursery. The lesson 
 they can never forget, nor renounce. But how suscepti- 
 bilities altogether innocent should tend to sin, and even ccr- 
 tainly lead to it, puzzles them extremely. Yet this is the vital 
 principle, the grand support, of your theory. Take it away, 
 and the whole fabric falls at once. I am constrained to add, that 
 while it remains, it will press on your system, like an incubus, 
 fatal to its energies, and ultimately fatal to its existence. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 You have introduced into your Essay, several passages trans- 
 lated from Vitringa ; and this mainly, it should seem, for the 
 purpose of proving that all sin consists in action. Will 
 you excuse me in remarking that the passages introduced afford 
 your theory not the shadow of support ; and that on the princi- 
 pal point attempted to be proved, your favorite author abandons ; 
 and even contradicts you ? Vitringa recognizes and ratifies the 
 distinction between the hahit of sin, which he denominates vi- 
 tium, and the act, which he styles peccatum. And he expressly 
 declares that "habitual sin, in the order of nature and time, 
 precedes sin in the action." On these views of Vitringa, you re- 
 mark that his " vitium appears to be nothing more nor less than 
 the frequently repeated, i. e. habitual desire to sin, which leads 
 to the commission of what he calls sinful acts." You afterward 
 declare that " nothing will be found plainer or more certain, than 
 that his vitium is as really a transgression of the divine law (and 
 of course an act of the mind) as h\s 2) eccatu7n. 
 
 How then stands the case ? You quote a writer as of high 
 and commanding authority, to prove a favorite point. Having 
 quoted, you contradict him, as not understanding the meaning of 
 his own terms. And in virtue of this contradiction, you claim 
 his support in behalf of the very theory which he rejects ! I feel 
 myself, then, not only warranted, but constrained to add, that the 
 statement of Vitringa, far from proving that all sin consists in ac- 
 tion, proves directly the reverse. Indeed, he asserts, in so 
 many words, and this, in the very face of your theory, that " all 
 sin is not act. Neglect of duty is sin." Such being literally 
 the state of facts, I cannot help imagining that I see the venera- 
 ble Dutchman smile (not to say frown) at your attempt to enlist 
 him in such a cause. 
 
 I have not Vitringa at hand ; and I sincerely regret that I 
 have not. Yet I cannot withhold one additional remark. Should 
 any inference be drawn from your quotations and comments, 
 that this celebrated author espouses and defends the modern 
 
8 
 
 theory which denies original sin, it would, I strongly apprehend, 
 be a most unjust inference ; wounding to his high reputation, 
 and injurious to the cause of truth and piety. You do not your- 
 self intimate that in the passages quoted, he had any immediate 
 reference to the case of infants. Is it not altogether probable 
 that he had principal reference to the case of adults ; and that 
 in discussing the nature of sin, he uttered, as the most accurate 
 writers are apt to do, in a similar case, some things which belong 
 exclusively to adults, and do not touch the case of infants ? Even 
 the Saviour, in his final charge to his Apostles, relative to their 
 preaching of the gospel, declares, He that helieveth shall be 
 saved ; hut he that helieveth not shall he damned. The declar- 
 ation may seem, at first view, to embrace the whole human 
 family. But on a moment's reflection, we perceive that it refers 
 exclusively to adults, and can have no reference to infants, who 
 surely are not debarred from salvation by their incapacity to ex- 
 ercise faith. 
 
 Permit me, on this point, to appeal to one authority more — an 
 authority of no little weight; I mean your own. In the second 
 part of your Essay, you explicitly state that in certain cases, 
 disposition, hias, inclination, propensity, may be properly spoken 
 of as sinfiil, and as themselves sinful. True, you admit this, 
 only where they have been strengthened or augmented by vol- 
 untary sinful indulgence. Still, your statement proves, at least, 
 that there are some cases in which propensities, dispositions, Sic. 
 are truly and properly sinful. And what more than this is need- 
 ful to prove that your favorite maxim, that all sin consists in 
 action, is a sheer mistake ; and that the theory you have built 
 upon it, is founded in error ? 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 the theory compared with scripture. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 Let us now repair to the Heavenly Oracle, Let us con- 
 sult that supreme and infallible Judge whose decisions alone 
 can give satisfactiou to the mind in a case at once so momen- 
 
tous and perplexing. Unquestionably, if the point is ever to be 
 ultimately settled, we shall be indebted for the consummation, 
 not to human ingenuity and argument, but to a meek, humble, 
 implicit submission to the word of God. 
 
 And here, suffer me to remark ; if the theory which denies 
 infant or native depravity, is found in the Bible, it is, as it regards 
 the Church, a discovery of very recent date. You will find it 
 difficult to deny that the Church, as a body, has, from the first, 
 maintained the opposite doctrine. And can it be, that on a funda- 
 mental point of our religion, the mind of God has remained 
 latent and undiscovered, till the nineteenth century ? Has the 
 Oracle uttered no response till now ? Has a grand and vital 
 truth of Inspiration eluded the researches of the greatest and the 
 best of former times, and revealed itself to the piety, the learning 
 and the profound investigation of our own time ? Credat Ju- 
 dcRus Apella. You, my dear Sir, will not readily believe it. 
 And certainly I shall not. 
 
 I will ask your attention to a kw passages of Scripture. If 
 these shall be found to speak a language altogether precise and 
 unequivocal, as I trust they will, these {e\v will be as decisive on 
 the point, as a thousand. Several of the passages in question 
 you have yourself introduced, with comments designed to show 
 their incompetency to prove that children are chargeable with 
 actual transgression from their birth. But I must request you 
 to consider them with care in another light ; I mean in their 
 bearing on the doctrine of a proper native depravity, as it re- 
 gards the whole human race, 
 
 Jn Gen. 5, 1. it is declared, "In the day that God created 
 man, in the likeness of God made he him." In a verse almost 
 immediately succeeding, it is added, "Adam begat a son in his 
 own likeness, after his image," The contrast is equally simple, 
 obvious, and affecting. How could words more significantly 
 declare that the son of the fallen Adam was the opposite, in 
 character and disposition, to the un-fallen father? And is it not 
 equally clear that he received this depraved character by inher- 
 itance, by birth ? Here, too, a question arises, which looks to 
 you for a solution. How do these strong and unbending ex- 
 pressions comport with your soft and pliant theory of a mere 
 difl:erence in Xhe proportion o( susceptibilities in regard to sinful 
 excitement, as possessed by innocent Adam, and by his poster- 
 ity ? Does not the contrast instituted between these classes of 
 susceptibilties, or rather of dispositions and propensities, obviouslv 
 2 
 
10 
 
 respect their very nature, and not merely their degree and pro- 
 portion? Yet this is the very thing which you strenuously 
 deny. 
 
 I shall not view it as un-critical (borrowing your own expres- 
 sion) to resort, in the next place, to Job 15. 14 ; especially as 
 the quotation to be introduced is in perfect keeping with the 
 uniform language of Scripture. "What is man, that he should 
 be clean ; and he that is born of a woman, that he should be 
 righteous ? " This passage gives us to understand that every in- 
 dividual of the human family, without exception, is born in a 
 state of moral depravity. It does more, indeed than make the 
 assertion in direct terms. It takes the fact for granted. It im- 
 plies that it is not only true, but self-evident and undeniable. It 
 implies that the contrary doctrine is not only false, but grossly 
 and palpably absurd. It implies that every human being is origi- 
 nally impure in a moral sense ; that every individual born of 
 woman is, by nature unholy and depraved. 
 
 My next quotation is from Psalm 51. 5. "Behold I was 
 shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," 
 This acknowledgment of David was uttered in the view of gross 
 actual transgressions of the divine law. And his meaning and 
 design are perfectly obvious. He traces the bitter streams of 
 evil to the more bitter and overflowing fountain of a corrupt 
 heart. Far from pleading, as some have done, his inbred cor- 
 ruption as an excuse for his actual sin, he recurs to it as an 
 aggravation. The consciousness of this corruption, he seems 
 to say, should have rendered him more watchful against tempta- 
 tion, more guarded against every approach to actual transgres- 
 sion. And what is the doctrine which every unsophisticated 
 reader perceives on the very face of this remarkable passage ? 
 It is simply this; that the royal suppliant commenced his exis- 
 tence in a state of moral depravity ; that the first moment he 
 became a human being, he became a sinful being ; that in this 
 respect, he was a sample of the race ; and that of course, every 
 individual of the human family commences existence in the same 
 moral condition. 
 
 Let us now turn to the New Testament, and listen to the 
 divine Teacher, while he declares to Nicodemus (John 3. 6.) 
 " That which is born of the flesh is flesh." This assertion imme- 
 diately follows his assertion of the necessity of regeneration. To 
 those acquainted with the use of the term flesh, in the New Tes- 
 tament, there is one construction of the passage, and one only, 
 
11 
 
 which appears unforced and natural. It is this ; That which 
 proceeds from depraved and sinful parents, is, like themselves, 
 sinful and depraved. No other sense forms a proper and intel- 
 ligible antithesis between the former and latter clauses of 
 the verse. In this view, it appears that the Saviour builds on 
 the native depravity of human beings, tlie necessity of their re- 
 generation. And reason itself declares aloud, that if human 
 beings are naturally sinful and corrupt, they must be renewed and 
 sanctified, in order to enter a holy heaven. You repeatedly 
 admit, my dear Sir, the absolute necessity of regeneration, even 
 as it regards those who die in infancy. But do you not, by deny- 
 ing their proper depravity, virtually deny the necessity of their 
 regeneration. For to wliat purpose is the verbal admission of a 
 doctrine, if the fact on which it rests, the fact on which our di- 
 vine Teacher rests it, is denied, and its foundation of course, en- 
 tirely removed ? 
 
 Let us attend, for a moment, to that remarkable and appalling 
 declaration of the Apostle to the Ephesians, in the second chap- 
 ter of his Epistle : "And were by nature the children of wrath, 
 even as others." Your remark on this passage is worthy of 
 notice. You are anxious to have it considered as designating 
 simply the natural and unregenerate state of man, in distinction 
 from a regenerate state. Thus you would deprive it of all direct 
 reference to the time when, and the manner in which, sin com- 
 mences or exists. Suppose this point to be yielded ; and how 
 will your cause be served by it? Suppose the Apostle to predi- 
 cate the wrath of God upon a state of unregeneracy. Is not 
 depravity likewise necessarily impUed in the case .'' Can there 
 be wrath where there is no sin } Will a God of infinite benev- 
 olence denounce his anger on beings, the work of his hands, on 
 account of their innocent susceptibilities ? Will he punish their 
 future sins with present vengeance ? — Alas, your scheme, while 
 it promises us light, pours the horrors of an Egyptian darkness 
 upon the whole scene. 
 
 Finally, on this point, let us recur to Romans 5. 12 — 19. This 
 is a passage of unspeakable interest. Were it expunged from 
 the Book of God, the information it gives would be fully sup- 
 plied in no other part. It pours a flood of light on the topic of 
 our native depravity and guilt. It asserts both the one and the 
 other, in terms absolutely impossible to be evaded. True, you 
 declare that the exhibition, considered in this light, comes quite 
 too late ; since the Apostle, in the three first chapters of the 
 
12 
 
 epistle, had completed and closed his proof of the guilt, both of 
 Jews and Gentiles. Really, my dear Sir, I cannot but regret 
 these remarks. They are a specimen of a priori reasoning 
 altogether peculiar. That the proof of human depravity and 
 guilt, exhibited in the chapters named, was most luminous and 
 convincing, I readily confess. But that the subject admitted no 
 farther illustration, is a discovery entirely your own. Should 
 we not, in candor and deference to the Apostle, submit the whole 
 matter to his own judgment, and consent to receive any addi- 
 tional illustration in his own time, and his own way ? Indeed, 
 is it not perfectly natural, that when the Apostle proceeds, as he 
 does in the last part of this chapter, to unfold the analogy be- 
 tween our ruin and our recovery^ we should perceive liglit re- 
 flected by the latter on the former, which could arise from no 
 other source ? And this is literally and undeniably the fact. 
 
 Suffer me to fasten your attention, for a moment, on the 12th 
 verse. " Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, 
 and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that 
 all have sinned." In the last sentence of this verse, as connec- 
 ted with what precedes, you perceive two things most unequivo- 
 cally asserted ; first, that sin and death in the human family, are 
 alike universal. Secondly, that death is the fruit or consequence 
 of sin. Now consider, if you please, this inspired assertion in 
 its application to infants. In every age, infants die by millions ;* 
 and as death is the fruit of sin, their death is either the punish- 
 ment and proof oi their personal depravity, or God visits on them 
 the penalty incurred by their first progenitor. This is the pre- 
 cise dilemma which meets you. And is not either aspect of it 
 fatal to your system ? 
 
 I have not time to multiply remarks ; nor is it needful. I 
 will simply recite the 18th and 19th verses. "Therefore, ashy 
 the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemna- 
 tion ; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came 
 upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's 
 disobedience, many were made sinners ; so by the obedience of 
 one, shall many be made righteous." Are we not here taught, 
 and unequivocally taught, that the sin of Adam involved the 
 whole race in condemnation ; that by his disobedience, the 
 whole human family are constituted sinners, and treated as such? 
 
 *I have no objection at all to that larger view of the cW</t intended in this verse, which 
 you have given in your Commentary on Romans. It is sufficient to the purpose of 
 my argument, that temporal death is included 5 and this you of course admit. 
 
13 
 
 In other words, are we not taught that God dealt with the first 
 parent, not as a mere insulated individual, but a public person; 
 the head and representative of all his unborn offspring ; by 
 whose obedience or disobedience, in one grand instance, iheir 
 character and their destiny were to be determined ? 
 
 But this, you will say, perhaps, is neither more nor less than 
 imputation ; and from every approach to this doctrine, you 
 shrink with horror. For myself, 1 have no apprehension that 
 ihefate of the church depends on the retention or abandonment 
 of a word. But suffer me to ask ; Is not the question, in this case, 
 in reality a question of fact ? Has the Most High actually treat- 
 ed the human family in accordance with the conduct of their first 
 parent? Do they endure substantially the same consequences, 
 as if they had personally participated in his original transgres- 
 sion ? And does all this take place according to the divine plan ? 
 Does it comport with the arrangement made by the God of heaven 
 with the great father of the human family ? If all these questions 
 must be answered in the affirmative — and I can see no room for 
 hesitation here — the controversy which has so long agitated the 
 church on the subject of imputation, may cease and determine. 
 Its friends ask nothing but the admission of the few simple facts 
 which have been stated. And its enemies cannot easily deny 
 them. 
 
 Let me not be understood as defending the doctrine that hu- 
 man beings are subjected to eternal suffering, or indeed to any 
 suffering, as innocent, and irrespectively of their personal sin. 
 From the commencement of their being, they are personally 
 depraved and sinful, and, in this view, obnoxious to the displeas- 
 ure of God, and all its dreadful consequences. Indeed, how 
 can the fact that they commence their existence in this state, be 
 explained, but on the principle of a constituted connection with 
 their apostate parent ! Would a just and benevolent God inflict 
 so tremendous an evil for no cause, or as matter of pure sover- 
 eignty ? 
 
 Nor is it any part of the doctrine, arising from the scriptural 
 passages last quoted, that human beings, dying in infancy, are 
 necessarily lost. The conclusions they naturally suggest, seem 
 to be directly the reverse. Infants, without consciousness, and 
 without personal transgression, partake in the deleterious effects 
 of the apostasy. And may they not, without consciousness, and 
 without the actual exercise of faith, partake in the redemption 
 and salvation of Christ ? We believe they do. It is natural to 
 entertain the delightful thought, that all who die in infancy are. 
 
14 
 
 through that grace of Heaven which abounds and super-abounds 
 — washed, sanctified and everlastingly saved. Yes, the thought 
 is natural^ as well as delightful. Nothing in Scripture stands 
 plainly opposed to it. While, at the same time, as the fact is 
 not plainly revealed, we should speak on the subject with that 
 diffidence which becomes us on every subject where the mind 
 of God is noL distinctly and decisively declared. 
 
 You are now in possession of my grand objection to your 
 scheme. Unless I grossly mistake, it is at war with the Bible ; 
 with its spirit, and its letter ; with its general design and tenor, 
 and with [)articular passages almost innumerable ; for the pas- 
 sages briefly discussed are but a mere specimen of what the 
 Bible contains. It is a sufficient objection against any religious 
 theory, if it fails to find support in Scripture. What then shall 
 we say, if it brings us into direct and constant collision with it ; 
 if it can be maintained only by putting the Bible to a species of 
 torture? — You are a Christian and a philologist. And you will 
 pardon me in saying, that the process by which your pure and 
 accurate mind has been brought to its present views of a multi- 
 tude of inspired passages, is to me perfectly inexplicable. 
 
 I have, indeed, admitted, and with pleasure I repeat the ad- 
 mission, that your Essay contains many passages on the subject 
 of native depravity, which are not materially exceptionable ; by 
 which I mean, that they are not obvious departures from Scrip- 
 ture doctrine. That I may be sure of doing you full justice on 
 this important point, I will group together, in a single view, sev- 
 eral of the most remarkable expressions to which 1 allude. In 
 page 27, you speak of " our nature, since the fall of Adam," as 
 " degenerate and prone to sin." You declare (p. 43,) that " the 
 dominant susceptibilities of infants are those which lead to sin." 
 In p. 45, you speak of "the predominant tendency of the sus- 
 ceptibilities of infants born since the fall," as " reversed, and so 
 much reversed, that as soon as they come to moral agency, the 
 doing of evil will always take place, in regard to every moral 
 action." In p. 48, you state that " the susceptibility of impres- 
 sion from sinful objects is innate, connate, original," &,c. and 
 " will develope itself in persuading and influencing men — all 
 men — to sin." In p. 49, you declare your belief that " Adam, 
 by his transgression, made or constituted all men sinners." In 
 the same page, you emphatically claim to be "a believer in the 
 native, original depravity of man, in the only sense in which this 
 is an intelligible proposition." Now, my dear Sir, whatever I 
 
15 
 
 may think of the philosophy involved in some of these forms of 
 expression, 1 should cordially rejoice to give them credit for 
 substantial orthodoxy. But from this gratification you have 
 yourself entirely precluded me. If you ask me, how ; I reply 
 at once, that you have effectually neutralized, not to say, retract- 
 ed and reversed, the statements which I have recited above, and 
 which wear so imposing an appearance of orthodoxy. You as- 
 sert that those very susceptibilities which in fallen man, are so 
 pregnant of evil, existed substantially in Adam while innocent, 
 and in the fallen angels, while in their originally pure and holy 
 state. You even declare (though my pen almost refuses to re- 
 cord the declaration) that " the Lord Jesus Christ himself had a 
 susceptibility of feeling the power of enticement to sin ; like 
 that which Adam had before his fall." The only difference, in 
 the two cases, consists, as you assert, in the different degree, 
 proportion and predominance of susceptibilities. Hence you 
 reason in this style : " That which Adam possessed, as a con- 
 stituent of his very nature before his fall ; that which the Savibr 
 himself possessed when he was tempted in all points as we are, 
 should not be called sin." And again ; " That thing in the 
 Saviour and in Adam, which was not sin, when existing in 
 one degree, is not sin, when existing in ten degrees or 
 more, at the present day, in all our race, while in their 
 native state or condition." — So then we are brought to the con- 
 clusion that those innate susceptibilities which so invariably lead 
 to sin ; and even that native, original depravity in which you so 
 firmly believe, are in themselves innocent — perfectly innocent. 
 If this reasoning does not confute itself, we may at least pause 
 and inquire : Does the Scripture account of man's apostasy per- 
 mit us to consider it as consisting in his susceptibilities of good 
 impressions being paucified, and his susceptibilities of evil im- 
 pressions being multiplied ? Does the account it gives of regen- 
 eration represent it as a turning of the balance, or reversing of 
 the weights in the respective scales ? If this last is the case, we 
 must be content to remain sadly ignorant of what is meant by a 
 renovation, by a new creation, by beins; born again, by passing 
 from death to life. True, these expressions are metaphorical. 
 But are they metaphors without meaning ? Are they designed 
 to pour darkness, and not light, on the subject ? Are they in- 
 tended to perplex and bewilder the mind, instead of guiding it ? 
 
16 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 the theory charged with some material errors. the term 
 
 susceptibility equivocal and perplexing. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 If your theory, as I think I have shown, shrinks from some of 
 the most natural tests to which it can be brought, is there not 
 reason to apprehend that it embraces some latent defects ; some 
 vital, pervading errors ? I verily believe it does. 
 
 Will you then indulge me your candor, while T advert to a 
 few points which appear to me to be unsound spots — -funda- 
 mental errors in your system? 
 
 First. While in the introductory part of your Essay, you seem 
 to pay deference to the law of God, as the grand test of charac- 
 ter, and the only standard of duty, you seem, in your subsequent 
 remarks, to express views materially different. You freely ad- 
 mit that there are such things as dispositions, inclinations, propensi- 
 ties in men. Doubtless too you will admit that the law of God, 
 while it requires of human beings, holy volition and action, equally 
 requires that their dispositions, inclinations and propensities be 
 holy. Nor will you deny that this law is, like its Author, unchange- 
 able and eternal. What it required yesterday, it requires to day, 
 and will require forever. What it required of Adam in paradise, 
 it equally requires of all his posterity, sinful and utterly depraved 
 as they are. Have you, my dear Sir, kept this constantly in 
 mind ? Or does the whole course of your reasoning, in its bearing 
 upon human beings, go to prove that they are under no obliga- 
 tion to be entirely holy from their first existence, and are charge- 
 able with no guilt on account of their unholiness ? In other 
 words, does it go to prove that human apostasy, human depravity, 
 have repealed the law of God ? — It has been, with some great 
 divines, an axiom, that nearly all the errors which have been 
 broached in religion, mav be traced to erroneous or defective 
 views of the law. Is it not at least possible that an error of this 
 kind may lie at the foundation of your system.? If so, may it 
 not vitiate the whole superstructure ? 
 
 Farther ; you seem to acknowledge nothing as properly sin- 
 ful, which does not partake of the nature of positive transgression. 
 
17 
 
 This 1 infer from your general train of reasoning, and from a 
 particular passage, (p, 293) in which you declare that " omis- 
 sion always amounts to the doing of something which God has 
 forbidden, under present circumstances, instead of doing one's 
 duty." You add, with emphasis, " The acts, tl)e voluntary 
 acts of men, are those things for which they are either rewarded 
 or punished." But may you not be in error here ? Doubtless 
 you are well acquainted with that definition which the venerable 
 divines of Westminster give of sin, and which makes it consist in 
 want of conformity to God's law, as well as in positive transgres- 
 sion. And is not this the verdict of reason and common sense ? 
 How shall we fix the charge of guilt, of constantly accumulating 
 guilt, on thousands and millions of the race, who live in the habit- 
 ual performance, at least of the externals of moral and social 
 duty, and whose lives are stained by no vice, or crime, but by 
 shewing them their grand, vital defect — the want of love ; that 
 love to God which his law requires first of all ; that love which 
 should have constituted the animating soul of all their external 
 performances? And how shall we evince the depravity of the 
 youngest of the race, but by showing that naturally they have 
 no love to God, and no particle of disposition or inclination to 
 love him ? Here is the grand defect ; and here the grand evi- 
 dence of their depravity. But if the fact be overlooked or de- 
 nied, or the evil of it be overlooked or denied, their depravity is 
 overlooked and denied of course. 
 
 Again ; your theory maintains the doctrine that human beings 
 may exist without any character at all. Infants, you contend, 
 are innocent ; but innocence, you declare, does not qualify them 
 for heaven. Something positive must be done for them. They 
 must be regenerated ; they must be rendered positively holy, or 
 they cannot enter heaven. And can these things be so ? Do 
 there exist on earth, or indeed in any region of the universe, 
 rational, moral beings, who have no moral character ? Are there 
 found members of the human family, who are neither pure nor 
 impure, neither holy nor unholy ? What relation then do they bear 
 to God, to his law, to his government ? What relation do they 
 bear to eternity ? They are not fit for heaven ; and they are 
 not fit for the world of despair. 
 
 Permit me then to remark, that would you sustain your the- 
 ory, you must furnish substantial and irrefragable evidence on 
 three points. You must prove, first, that the law of God claims 
 no control over propensities and dispositions ; secondly, that it 
 3 
 
18 
 
 cannot be violated by mere ontiissions of duty ; and thirdly, that 
 hunian beings may exist in a slate of entire neutrality in regard 
 to the law of God, and possessing no moral character at all. If 
 you fail to prove either of these points, your system is under- 
 mined and overthrown. 
 
 You must excuse me, my dear Sir, if I express in this con- 
 nection, my strong apprehension that there is much in your favor- 
 ite term susceptibilities, which is calculated to perplex, and even 
 to mislead. Not that I suspect you to have intended any thing 
 of the kind. I have perfect confidence in the candor of your 
 mind, and the simplicity of your intentions. Yet I must confess 
 for myself, that with the most earnest desire to ascertain your 
 meaning, I have been as effectually baffled, as if you really in- 
 tended not to be imderstood. 
 
 At times I have supposed that by susceptibilities, you intend 
 simply those instincts, appetites and passions which are neces- 
 sary and constituent parts of our nature. These, you maintain, 
 are in themselves innocent ; and here I have nothing to object. 
 But I soon perceive that according to your representation, these 
 innocent susceptibilities certainly lead to sin, and only to sin. 
 Here commence my perplexity and surprise. You then inform 
 me that these susceptibilities are precisely the same in nature 
 with those possessed by Adam in paradise, and by the spotless 
 Saviour himself. And here my perplexity and surprise, to say 
 nothing of my regret, arise to the highest pitch. 
 
 Hence 1 am compelled to resort to another supposition ; or to 
 consider the appetites and passions in question as having gained 
 an unnatural ascendency, and as spurning the control of reason 
 and the divine law. On this supposition, I can satisfactorily ac- 
 count for all the sins of individuals, and all the moral disorders 
 of our world. But here I am perplexed again, and find a new 
 abyss opening before me. Is it possible that these fertile sources 
 of evil, these effective causes of sin, can be themselves perfectly 
 innocent .'' Can they have existed, in the very smallest degree, in 
 Adam while un-fallen, in the angels, in the Saviour himself? 
 These are suppositions from which reason revolts, and the heart 
 recoils. 
 
 You think, indeed, that to admit the innocence of these in- 
 stincts, appetites, he. originally implanted in man, is inconsis- 
 tent with the ordinarily received doctrine of original sin. And 
 you maintain that President Edwards, by this admission, aban- 
 
19 
 
 dons the ground of a depravity which is innate or contemporane' 
 ouswith our being. In your commentary on Romans (Excur- 
 sus 6.) you represent him, in this point, not only as inconsistent 
 with himself, but as virtually giving countenance to your own 
 views. Yet I cannot but apprehend that you mi-take this 
 great divine. His doctrine is, that " the absence of positive 
 good principles, and the withholding of special divine influence 
 
 leaving the common natural principles of self-love, natural 
 
 appetite, &,c. which were in man in innocence — leaving them 
 to themselves, without the government of superior divine princi- 
 ples, will certainly be followed by the corruption, yea, the total 
 corruption of the heart. Thus," he declares, " the corruption of 
 nature came on Adam immediately on his fall." He main- 
 tains, likewise, that all Adam's posterity commence tlieir exis- 
 tence ^recwe/y in this state ; "they come into the world mere 
 Jlesh, entirely under the government of natural and inferior prin- 
 ciples, and so become wholly corrupt, as Adam did." This 
 is his representation. How then can he be said to abandon the 
 ground of a depravity which is innate, and contemporaneous 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 the theory undermined and destroyed by its own 
 
 concessions. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 In discussing your theory thus far, I have aimed to show that 
 it is hostile to sound philosophy, and the word of God. Pardon 
 me if I proceed, and attempt to point out some of its inconsis- 
 tencies with your own repeated admissions and statements. On 
 this ungracious part of the subject, I will endeavor to be as brief 
 as possible. 
 
 First. You admit that infants have no holiness. Here, then, 
 is a defect. And let me ask, what is the nature of this defect? 
 Is it innocent, or the reverse .'' On your principles it is innocent ; 
 for infants themselves are innocent. Yet for this defect of holi- 
 ness, this innocent defect, they are, upon your theory, excluded 
 
20 
 
 by a just and benevolent God from heaven. And more than 
 this (for I do not suspect you of holding to an intermediate or 
 purgatorial state) they must be consigned to hopeless and ever- 
 lasting misery. 
 
 Secondly. From this holiness, so necessary to save them from 
 eternal woe, and to bring them to heaven, they are, by your 
 theory, hopelessly debarred. You hold that sin consists in vol- 
 untary Iransgression of known law, and that nothing else is sin. 
 Now from this principle, I have the clearest right to infer that 
 holiness, the opj)Osite of sin, consists in voluntary obedience to 
 known law. But of this voluntary obedience, and of the knowl- 
 edge implied in it, infants are equally and entirely incapable. 
 And thus that becomes absolutely essential to their salvation, 
 which is absolutely impossible. 
 
 Thirdly. You assert that there is, in our very nature, a germ 
 which, when developed, renders a// the motives to virtue insuffi- 
 cient to overcome the force of enticement to sin. This germ, you 
 declare, must, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, be regulat- 
 ed, changed, modified, eradicated even [if it must he so.) Yet 
 this ge7'm is, on your principles perfectly innocent. Do you not 
 then assign to the Holy Spirit, a work perfectly new, and per- 
 fectly needless'' Is there any doctrine better understood in the 
 Christian church than this, that the Holy Spirit, in his work of 
 renovation, subdues and eradicates nothing but sin ^ 
 
 Fourthly. While you assert the necessity of regeneration for 
 infants, you certainly will not deny this necessity as it regards 
 the adult. Here, then, are two species of regeneration, entirely 
 distinct, and essentially different; one, for those who have not 
 one particle of real sin; another, for those in whom the princi- 
 ples of sin are deeply radicated, and awfully matured. Does 
 the Scripture any where explicitly recognize this distinction, or 
 even remotely hint at it ? Does common sense, does reason, 
 does soimd philosophy give it countenance ? Does not your 
 own discerning mind, on cool reflection, repudiate it ? 
 
 Fifthly. That regeneration which, in one view of your sys- 
 tem, seems inexplicable and needless, appears, in another view, 
 absolutely impossible. I have shown that if, as you state, there 
 can be no sin without an explicit knowledge of the law, it direct- 
 ly follows, tliat without the same knowledge, there can be no 
 holiness. And I think you will admit that the arginnent is strictly 
 a fortiori. For if it is clear that the law of God must be known, 
 in order to its being transgressed, it is still more clearly needful 
 to be known in order to its being obeyed. If, then, holiness 
 
21 
 
 consists in obedience or conformity to the law, and if regener- 
 ation consists in restoring human beings to hoHness, it follows that 
 the infant mind, being incapable of a knowledge of the law, is 
 equally incapable of being regenerated. 
 
 1 must touch one point farther. Yoti explicitly declare that 
 infants, if saved at ail, must be saved by Christ. But in what 
 sense are they saved by Christ ? Does he make atonement for 
 them? This you deny. He does not make atonement, you 
 say, (p. 47,) " for their actual s'm, for the simple reason that they 
 have committed none; and atonement for a non-entity is impos- 
 sible." The doctrine of original sin you discard. From these 
 principles it would seem to follow that infants are not sinners in 
 any sense. But for this, we are not left to mere inference. 
 You have very intelligibly signified (p. 41,) that " children can- 
 not be characterized as sinners in any sense which comports 
 with Viiringa's definition of sin " — and this you contend is 
 the true definition. This is going far indeed. But must you 
 'not go farther siill ? Must yuu not prepare fur these spotless 
 beings — saved, but not from sin — saved without atonemetit — 
 saved without a real regeneration — saved, indeed, without sal- 
 vation, an appropriate 50J7O-, and a very different song, from that 
 which has hitherto echoed through the arches of heaven ? For 
 how is it possible that the beings described can unite in the hum- 
 ble, soul-stirring acknowledgment " to Him who loved us, and 
 ?vashed us ftoni our sins in his own blood ? " 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 the theory compared with the publicly avowed opinions 
 of its author. theology of new-england. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 The stage of the discussion at which I have arrived, admon- 
 ishes me to subject your theory to one additional test ; to com- 
 pare it, I mean, with your own publicly avowed opinions. It is 
 known to the Churches of New-Eniiland, and to the community, 
 that you have solemnly declared your faith in the doctrines of 
 the gospel, as expressed in the Shorter Catechism of the West- 
 
22 
 
 minster Assembly. Of course the expectation has been exten-» 
 sively cherished, that your instructions as a minister of the gos- 
 pel, and as one employed in preparing future ministers for the 
 churches, would be in accordance with the principles embraced 
 in the instrument mentioned above. ' 
 
 Concerning this celebrated formulary, I may remark, that no 
 enlightened mind attaches to it either inspiration, or infallibility, 
 or perfection. By a great portion of the most judicious and im- 
 partial, it has been regarded as a plain, faithful, and, generally 
 speaking, felicitous exposition of the leading doctrines of Revel- 
 ation. 
 
 Its views of human depravity and guilt will be found in the 
 following quotations. 
 
 " The covenant being made with Adam not only for himself, 
 but for his posterity ; all mankind descending from him by or- 
 dinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first 
 transgression." 
 
 "The sinfulness of ihat state whereinlo man fell, consists in the 
 guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and 
 the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called 
 original sin; together with all actual transgressions which pro-' 
 ceed from it." 
 
 If, to some, a portion of these expressions may seem strong, 
 and even exaggerated, {ew will deny that these very expressions 
 receive much countenance from the language of Scripture. 
 While they represent all the posterity of Adam as "sinning in 
 him," and " falling with him," the Bible declares, in its own 
 simple and energetic language, that " in Adam all die." In both 
 cases, doubtless, there is metaphor. And in both, there is a 
 solemn and appalling meaning. In regard to the phrase, "guilt 
 of Adam's first sin," it is well known that many great divines 
 have considered guilt as intending simply exposure or liability 
 to punishment ; and this, either for one's own sin, or that of 
 another. Dr. Watts, who was certainly no bigot, remarks on 
 the expression in view, that it must at least signify our interest in 
 that sin, so far as to be exposed to pain and suffering on account 
 of it. And you yourself, my dear Sir, readily admit that 
 Adam's sin has actually brought on his posteiity the bitterest 
 consequences, and even exposed them to everlasting ruin. 
 Thus it appears that this expression, so startling in the view of 
 some, and so much denounced by others, is susceptible, and not 
 unnaturally susceptible, of a construction from which kvi who 
 believe the Scripture, can dissent. 
 
23 
 
 But I forget that it belongs to you, rather than to myself, to 
 defend the venerable Assennbly in this case. Still I am under 
 the necessity of subjoining the following quotations from your 
 Essay. 
 
 " The advocates for native sin do not seem to me to be sufficiently 
 aware, that with the very same principles of interpretation which they 
 defend, and carry into practice, conclusions might be made out from the 
 Scriptures, exceedingly diverse from those which they undertake to es- 
 tablish, or would be willing to admit." pp. 38, 39. 
 
 " I do not believe in the expediency or propriety of making hvo sorts 
 of sin." p. 49. 
 
 "That thing in the Saviour, and in Adam, which was not sin, when 
 existing in one degree, is not sin when existing in ten degrees or more 
 at the present day, in all of our race, while in their native state or condi- 
 tion." p. 51. 
 
 " If our native propensities are themselves a sin, then the conclusion 
 seems to be plain and inevitable, that God is the author of sin." p. 52. 
 
 "Even in this inferior, fallen, degraded condition, sin, in the proper 
 sense of this word, viz. a voluntary transgression of divine law by a ra- 
 tional, moral and free agent, is not a thing in its own nature necessary, 
 nor strictly inevitable. It can be committed only by an act of choice, 
 p. 56. 
 
 " What, after all that has been said and written on the subject of 
 original sin, has been satisfactorily advanced to show that the Scriptures 
 recognize two sorts of sin ? p. 57. 
 
 " What kind of a sin is it, which admits of neither contrition nor 
 amendment?" p. 57. 
 
 "It (i. e. original sin) is plainly a sin, if it be one, which no effort, no 
 prayer, no repentance, no amendment of life, no elevated piety, no con- 
 formity to God, can in any manner abate, change, or avoid. It is one, 
 therefore, with which practical and experimental piety would seem to 
 
 have little or nothing to do Our guilt as to actual sin .... is 
 
 all that we are practically concerned with," &c. &c. p. 62. 
 
 " The reprobation topic of the early Reformers has been going 
 
 by degrees out of the circle of topics in the later theology, or if handled 
 at all, it is treated with much circumspection and moderation. Along 
 with this, a sin which is no sin, i. e. no transgression of any law, has been 
 gradually disappearing also. Both views, in due time, will, as I fully be- 
 lieve, diappear from the horizon of current theology, and be considered 
 only as belonging to the history of the past. The progress of sentiment 
 is a pledge of this." p. 62. 
 
 These quotations T have introduced with some reluctance, 
 and shall pass with very little comment. It would be obviously 
 gratuitous, though perf{;ctly easy, to show how materially they 
 disagree with the Westminster formulary. Nor would it be 
 less a work of supererogation to demonstrate that the framers of 
 that instrument had no idea of a corruption which has no moral 
 
24 
 
 evil in it, nor of a depravity which is innocent, nor of an original 
 sin which (to use your own emphatic, though unguarded expres- 
 sion,) is no sin. But I forbear. 
 
 1 must, however, remark, and with all freedom, that T think 
 you rather unceremonious with those ministerial brethren who 
 are backward to adopt your present views on the subject in 
 question. They may have great respect for your learning and 
 talents. Nor is it impossible that this very respect may have 
 lent its aid to confirm them in their old-fashioned sentiments. 
 For certainly there was a period when they contemplated you 
 as pledged to maintain and vindicate the very same views ; and 
 they rejoiced in the thought that your fine powers and acquisi- 
 tions were enlisted in the defence of what they deemed impor- 
 tant gospel truth. The tnovements of tiieir minds may, like- 
 wise, be less rapid than yours. And does not this afford a natu- 
 ral exercise for your patience and candor? Perliaps, too, they 
 may perceive in your theory less of maturity than it may here- 
 after attain, and may therefore think it safe and expedient to 
 wait for such an issue. Indeed, they may view it as among 
 conceivable possibilities that you may abandon your present the- 
 ory for another not less questionable. In this case, it will be 
 surely an unpleasant dilemma, to find themselves compelled 
 either id forsake tlieir guide, or to follow him in the dark. 
 
 In a word, my dear Sir, I cannot but apprehend you are far 
 too sanguine in anticipating the speedy disappearance of the doc- 
 trine in debate — the doctrine of original sin. Unquestionably, 
 it is one of the grand pillars on which the Andover Institution 
 rests. Can that which was true in 1808, be false in 1839? 
 Rather let me ask, can a doctrine wliich the church of Christ, 
 from its first existence, has defended with such energy, and 
 cherished with such ardor, be ever blotted out and lost. I have 
 confidence that it will not. Nor will I resign the hope that you 
 yourself may yet be foimd among its friends and champions. 
 
 There is one topic upon which I must emphatically express 
 my surprise. You seem utterly unaware that any essential 
 errors are abroad in the church, and indeed, that any novel opin- 
 ions of considerable importance have been broached in our day. 
 On my part, I will admit that, many, if not most of the religious 
 theories of the time, which make pretensions to novelty, ar-e but 
 resurrections of ancient and long-buried errors. But that false 
 opinions in religion abound, some in a form of arrogance, others 
 of insinuation, and a third class assuming each form alternately, 
 
25 
 
 according to circumstances, is, I think, undeniable. As you are 
 a careful observer of human nnture, I have no doubt you will 
 readily grant me one point. There is danger, real and great 
 danger, lest those very attempts which have been made to sup- 
 press error, and which to many appear unauthorized and unjust, 
 should excite prejudice against the truth. That the opposition 
 made to the progress of false principles, is generally factitious, 
 or needless, the offspring of an overbearing or litigious spirit, I 
 cannot believe. Least of all can I believe that the debate which 
 is now pursued by two very considerable parties in the Chris- 
 tian church, on the subject of native depravity, is a debate of 
 small importance. 
 
 That you should consider yourself as contending, in this de- 
 bate, for what may be properly called New England views of 
 theology, as you seem to intimate, p. 268, is to me, not only 
 surprising, but astonishing. The very reverse of this, I think, is 
 evident and undeniable. If, however, you demand my reasons, 
 let me offer a very brief statement. 
 
 If, among the great and good men who have blessed New 
 England, in the course of the last hundred years, there was one, 
 who, more than any other, gave a character and stamp to its the- 
 ology, it was doubtless the first President Edwards. To almost 
 every important subject in religion, he gave, in its turn, his mas- 
 terly mind and pen. Among the topics which engaged his spe- 
 cial attention, was that of original sin. He defended the doc- 
 trine, as you know, against Dr. John Taylor, a celebrated cham- 
 pion of Arminianism and Socinianism in England ; and his de- 
 fence, though characterized by some minor peculiarities, is 
 grounded on the grand principles of orthodoxy. You have dis- 
 cussed the same subject in nearly eighty pages ; and if I have 
 any understanding of your drift and meaning, you agree much 
 more nearly with Taylor, than with Edwards. You certainly 
 dissent from Edwards on the grand and vital point of his argu- 
 ment, namely, that the propensity to transgression which is found 
 in all human beings, is an evil, depraved, sinful propensity. Nor 
 is it less certain that you adopt, and endeavor to enforce, not a 
 few of the very same objections against the doctrine of original 
 sin, which are employed by Taylor on the subject. Such being 
 the case, I am utterly unable to perceive the validity of your 
 claim, as the professed champion of New England divinity. 
 The fact, I would hope and believe, is entirely the reverse. At 
 least, you can then, and then only, prove that you speak the sen- 
 4 
 
26 
 
 timents of the Christians and ministers of New England, when 
 yoii shall prove that the Christians and ministers of New Eng- 
 land have abandoned the views of Edwards. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 objections against native depravity considered. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 To your objections against the doctrine of native depravity, I 
 will now pay a brief attention ; not, however, without one or two 
 prefatory remari<s. 
 
 When a doctrine claims to be drawn directly from the Scrip- 
 ture, and has clearly established this claim, all objections against 
 it are out of place. The reason is equally obvious and conclu- 
 sive. Such objections must necessarily be false. They may 
 be plausible and imposing, and they may seem unanswerable. 
 Still ihey are false. If we may not consider the word of God as 
 sufficient to settle any point, however previously doubtful or dis- 
 puted, we may as well close the book at once. We are all of 
 us in the habit of believing a multitude of truths concerning 
 which we must confess ourselves unable to refute every objec- 
 tion which ingenuity or sophistry could bring against them. On 
 no other terms could the business of common life proceed, even 
 for a day. And shall we stumble at those truths of religion 
 which, however plausibly opposed, still come to us with the force 
 of demonstration, and the stamp of heaven? 
 
 But truth shuns not the light. It shrinks from no test to which 
 it can be fairly brought. To your principal objections in the 
 present case, I will attempt a brief reply. 
 
 You allege the Saviour's declaration (Mat. 18, 3.) "Verily I 
 say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little chil- 
 dren, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven ;" and ap- 
 parently to prove that little children are sinless ; for you inquire 
 afterwards, " What parent, what guardian of little children ever 
 thought of taxing them with crime, or of alleging real sin, as a 
 matter with which they stood chargeable?" Butyou well know 
 that most divines, and most intelligent readers, have viewed this 
 
27 
 
 passage as simply signifying that children are comparatively 
 harmless ; and that in their infantile state, the usual exhibitions 
 of pride, ambition, &;c. are not witnessed. But this is no proof 
 that they have not the seminal princi|)les of these evils. And 
 this is clearly itnplied in your own remarks. *' 'J'he Saviour," 
 you say, " refers to them as examples of persons in whom the 
 wicked passions are yet quiet, inactive, unexerted, undeveloped, 
 and who therefore commit no actual or active sin." Do not 
 these expressions obviously imply that the radical principles of 
 such wicked passions exist in them, an I will in due time be de- 
 veloped. This admission of yours is all whirh the advocates of 
 naiive depravity require. Perhaps the adn^ission itself is an ex- 
 emplification of the maxim which you have quoted from Horace 
 (though not with your usual accuracy,) 
 
 Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret. 
 
 There is another remark, too important to be omitted. While 
 illustrating the estimate which the God of heaven places upon 
 little children, you quote the Saviour's declaration (v. 10) "I 
 say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the 
 face of my Father which is in heaven " And had you proceed- 
 ed to the very next verse, you would have found him saying, 
 " For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.''^ 
 Here, then, in the very same passage in which the Saviour 
 speaks in terms of such tenderness concerning cl)ildren, he de- 
 clares that they are lost. Of the meaning and force of this tei tn, 
 as used in Scripture, you are well awaie. It intends nothing 
 less than a state of moral depravity and ruin. 
 
 I now pass, with some reluctance, to consider another objec- 
 tion. It is this : that if our native propensities are sinful, the 
 conclusion is inevitable, that God is the author of sin. In avow- 
 ing my reluctance to meet this objection, 1 do not admit that it 
 is either pertinent or formidable. My grief is, to meet it pos- 
 sessed of your sanction. That it has been the favorite resort of 
 thousands of infidels, of errorists, and impenitent self-jusiifiers, 
 you know full well. And though 1 do not suspect you of in- 
 tending {o give encouragement to these unhappy beings, 1 am 
 not the less convinced that they will take it. Every individual 
 of either of these classes who reads your pages, will find a pa- 
 tronage which he never enjoyed before, and probably never an- 
 ticipated. 
 
 het me say, in the first place, suppose the objection could not 
 be satisfactorily met and answered ; what then ? You will ad- 
 
28 
 
 mlt that there are many truths, or, if you will allow the ex- 
 pression, duplicates of truths, which have never yet, by any arts 
 of retisoning, been saiisfactorily reconciled. You believe in the 
 universal agency of God, and the entire dependence of man, as 
 it regards every action, word, thought, volition and feeling. You 
 equally believe in the perfect liberty, and undiminished responsi- 
 bility, of yourself and your fellow-beings. But your powerful 
 mind has never yet removed the darkness, the apparent incon- 
 sistency, which hover around these seemingly incompatible truths. 
 How easy to draw from the perfect benevolence, holiness and 
 power of God, an argument apparently conclusive and unan- 
 swerable, that in a universe of his creation, neither sin nor mis- 
 ery can possibly exist. Yet in despite of this seeming demon- 
 stration, we have but to open our eyes, to perceive that sin and 
 misery exist ; and we have but to believe the Bible, to learn that 
 they will exist to eternity. 
 
 The point to which I come is this. If two doctrines, or facts, 
 seemingly incompatible, meet us in the book of God, we are not to 
 institute a quarrel between them, nor to take sides with one 
 against the other ; but cordially to receive them both, believing 
 that the inconsistency is of our own making — imaginary and not 
 real. Nor is there any other method in which we can possibly 
 treat the Bible with the respect which it claims. 
 
 In the present case, you believe that if our native propensities 
 are sinful, it follows of necessity that God is the author of sin. 
 But on this point, thousands of great and good minds, thousands 
 of reasoning and philosophic minds, are against you. And if the 
 great mass of the Christian chun^h, from the earliest times, has 
 rightly interpreted the sacred records, the word of God is against 
 you. 
 
 You doubtless recollect the reply of an Apostle to an ancient 
 objector ; and this, in a case which has many points of similarity 
 to that under consideration. "Who art ihou, O man, that re- 
 pliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him that 
 formed it, why hast thou made me thus ? " Should you, for a 
 moment, suppose that the doctrine you have impugned, is true, 
 you would of course believe that every objection raised against 
 it, merits as little deference, and would meet from the Apostle, 
 were he alive, a similar rebuke. 
 
 But though we may not arrogantly object, in a case so awfully 
 profound, we may, at least, humbly inquire. And is it not a 
 question worthy of your serious consideration, whether the ob- 
 
29 
 
 jection you have introduced, is not a pure mistake ; a flagrant 
 petiiio principii ? 
 
 President Edwards, the powerful and unbending advocate of 
 the doctrine of original sin, repelled wiih utmost decision the 
 thought that this doctrine makes him who is the Author of our 
 being, the Author of our depravity. Permit me to commend 
 the language which he holds on this subject to your serious 
 and candid consideration. " To account," says he, " for a sin- 
 ful corruption of nature, yea, a total native depravity of the 
 heart of man, there is not the least need of supposing any evil 
 quality infused, implanted, or wrought into the nature of man by 
 any positive cause or influence whatever, either from God or the 
 creature ; or of supposing that man is conceived and born with 
 z fountain of evil in his heart, such as is any thing properly pos- 
 itive The absence of positive good principles, 
 
 and so the withholding of a special divine influence to impart 
 and maintain those good principles, leaving the common natural 
 principles of self-love, natural appetite, &c. (wiiich were in man 
 in innocence) leaving these, I say to themselves, without the 
 government of superior divine principles — will certainly be fol- 
 lowed by the corruption, yea, the total corruption of the heart, 
 without occasion for any positive influence at all." In a subse- 
 quent passage, having referred to those unhappy beings who are 
 abandoned by the Spirit of God, and given up to vile affections 
 and lusts, he thus reasons : " Now if the contivuance of sin, and 
 its increase and prevalence, may be in consequence of God's 
 disposal, by withholding his grace, that is needful, under such 
 circumstances, to prevent it, without God's being the Author of 
 that continuance and prevalence of sin ; then, by parity of rea- 
 son, may the being of sin, in the case of Adam, be in conse- 
 quence of God's disposal, by withliolding his grace, needful to 
 prevent it, without his being the Author of that being of sin. ^^ 
 
 He adds afterwards : " That the posterity of Adam should be 
 born without holiness, and so with a depraved nature, comes to 
 pass as much by the established course of nature, as the contin- 
 uance of a corrupt disposition in a particular person, after he 
 once has it ; or as much as Adam's continuing unholy and cor- 
 rupt, after he had once lost his holiness." 
 
 Such are the suggestions and reasonings of one who has been 
 considered by the best judges on either side of the Atlantic, an 
 able reasoner, a profound philosopher, and a truly scriptural di- 
 vine. I am aware that you freely and repeatedly charge him with 
 
30 
 
 inconsistency. But perhaps the charge is more easily preferred 
 than proved. Others, who have studied his treatise on the sub- 
 ject in question with great care, have found it replete with sober, 
 discririiinaiive thought, and sound reasoning ; and have regard- 
 ed the Author, with some few exceptions, as an eminently safe 
 and scriptiu'al guide. 
 
 But suppose that we turn our back on Edwards, and on all 
 our ancient, long-tried, and long-trusted guides. Suppose that, 
 abandoning the road w[)ich has been trodden by the muliitude 
 of the faithful, for eighteen centuries, we follow some modern 
 theorist into liis labyrimh ; can you secure us from being lost in 
 its endless mazes .'' Should we even surrender ourselves to your 
 own favorite theory, may it not possibly conduct us to the same 
 "yawning gulf" from which you shrink with so much horror? 
 You greatly mistake, my dear Sir, if you think that the orthodox 
 scheme of human depravity is the only scheme encumbered with 
 difficulties. Difficulties of the most appalling kind throng around 
 your own. In the very point where it confidently promises to 
 give us relief, it gives us no relief at all. While it confesses that 
 the race is suffering in)mense and infinite evils through its first 
 progenitor, it denies that constituted connection which alone es- 
 tablishes and illustrates the equity of such a procedure. It en- 
 dues every individual of the human family with susceptibilities 
 which certainly lead to sin, and only to sin ; and these very 
 susceptibilities it traces directly to the creative power of God. 
 It maintains that they are altogether innocent ; while yet it main- 
 tains that they exclude their subjects from heaven, and expose 
 them to interminable woe. 
 
 There is another difficulty still, and of the most serious kind. 
 You advocate a species oi regeneration altogether novel ; a re- 
 generation loaded with the same odium wliich you so freely charge 
 on that of your opponents ; a regeneration s\\\c\\y physical. For 
 how can it be otherwise, when it operates on the innocent sus- 
 ceptibilities of the mind ; susceptibilities which are essential to 
 the human being ; susceptibilities which, as you state, the Saviour 
 must have possessed, or he could not have been properly man .'' 
 
 And when shall these perplexities cease? When shall the 
 inquiring, anxious, and almost tortured mind find repose ? — I 
 answer, then, and then alone, when it simply repairs to the 
 heavenly oracle ; when it surrenders itself without reserve to the 
 teachings of infinite wisdom. The Bible lets us know that man 
 is his own destroyer ; that the race, once pure and holy, has be- 
 
31 
 
 come awfully and universally degenerate ; that this degeneracy 
 commenced with the first parent, and was transmitted by him 
 to all his progeny ; and that God, the Author of our being, and 
 the Sovereign Controller of our destiny, is no;; the Author of our 
 sin. These things are all plain. With these the humble Chris- 
 tian is content. If, beyond these, perplexities and troubles arise, 
 they are the gratuitous, self-inflicted perplexities and troubles of 
 scholars and philosophers. The plain good man, who simply 
 believes his Bible, who can follow where it leads, and pause 
 where it stops, effectually escapes them. 
 
 There is one point of no small importance, which, though 
 perplexed to philosophy, is perfectly plain to common sense. 
 To this point, I ask, for a moment, your particular attention. 
 Your scheme takes it for granted that no propensities or disposi- 
 tions which are born with us, can be, properly speaking, sinful; 
 and that for such propensities or dispositions, no man can condemn 
 himself, or be condemned by others. I cannot but apprehend 
 that on a moment's consideration, you will perceive this to be 
 an entire mistake. 
 
 Take a man who is avaricious, or impure, or malicious, or 
 revengeful. What do we require, in order to fasten guilt upon 
 him, but the simple fact, that he possesses a character of this 
 kind ? When was it ever pleaded, in mitigation of the guilt of 
 such an one, that he possessed and exhibited the cliaracter (ram 
 childhood, or from infancy, or that his father was so before him ? 
 On the contrary, tlie earlier the period to which the vice can be 
 traced, and the stronger the evidence that it was inborn and m- 
 bred, the deeper, in the general estimation, is the stain of guilt. 
 If two men have been equally concerned in the same murder, 
 and one only is to be selected for punishment, will not the selec- 
 tion naturally fall on him who gave the earliest evidence of a 
 malicious, miu-derous disposition ? These are principles on which 
 the sober and thinking part of mankind are perfectly agreed. 
 And nothing is requisite, but the admission of these principles, 
 in their full extent, to the entire subversion of your theory. For 
 it is of the very essence of that theory, that native^ inbred de- 
 pravity is a thing either perfectly innocent, or absolutely impos- 
 sible. 
 
 1 perceive that my remarks are in danger of being extended 
 to a very undesirable length. If, hitherto, I have been some- 
 what diffuse, you, my dear Sir, who are well acquainted with the 
 difficulties of the case, will indulge me your candor. In what 
 
32 
 
 remains, I shall study great brevity. And as the leading prin- 
 ciples pertaining to the subject have been discussed, I hope my 
 attempt inay not be unsuccessful. 
 
 You seem to object (p 58,) to the doctrine of original sin, 
 that the thing itself is forbidden by no law. But you certainly 
 will not deny that the holy and unalterable law of God requires 
 of all his rational creatures, holiness in the inward part ; holi- 
 ness of principle and disposition, as well as of action ; holiness 
 in every period of their existence. 
 
 The objection above named, you follow up by remarking ; 
 " It has often been said, that sin inherent is z punishment for the 
 sin of Adam, which is ours by imputation.'''' And you inquire : 
 " If the sin is merely putative, would not a common law of jus- 
 tice demand that the punishment should be merely putative ? 
 How can we unite, as par cum pari, putative crime and verita- 
 ble danmation ? — If, in these suggestions, your object was to 
 amuse a certain class of readers, you have probably succeeded. 
 But the subject is too grave for ridicule. It is difficult to meet 
 a sportive remark with a serious reply. I therefore refer back 
 the whole matter to your more solemn and chastised reflections. 
 
 Another of your objections against original sin is, that none of 
 its advocates have been able to show that it is a sin which can be 
 repented of. But is not the whole force of this objection de- 
 rived from the unnatural use of a term ? Suppose that in the 
 place of repentance, you substitute humiliation. Will not your 
 objection, in this case, lose even its plausibility ? And here, 
 permit me to remark, you have touched a point of great practi- 
 cal importance; a point of Christian experience; a point of 
 fact ; a point which, I am constrained to say, you cannot have 
 considered with the deep attention which it claims. 
 
 Far be it from me to allege the experience, fancied or real, 
 of an individual, in opposition to any established principle of 
 truth. Its weight would be lighter than a feather. But the ex- 
 perience of the church of God, of the pious, the heaven-taught, 
 of every age and clime, is a serious affair. You cannot dispose 
 of it in n paragraph. And I affirm with confidence, that the 
 experience of the church of God, of the pious of every age and 
 clime, stands in direct opposition to your theory. 
 
 Your assertion that original sin, the native depravity of the 
 heart, is a thing " with which practical and experimental piety 
 would seem to have lilUe or nothing to do," needs much seri- 
 
33 
 
 ous re-consideration. It is something with which the children 
 of God in every age, and especially the most devoted and pious 
 among them, have had much, very much to do, through life, to 
 their dying day. 
 
 The language of David, that great model of piety, in the 
 fifty-first psalm, is perfectly explicit and intelligible. It is a 
 humble, heart-broken acknowledgment of native corruption ; of 
 deep, inbred depravity. So the pious of every age have viewed 
 it. And they have found in it, a description but too accurate, of 
 their own bitter experience. Their hearts have echoed in re- 
 sponse to its tones of sadness. 
 
 The complaints of the Apostle Paul, in the seventh chapter 
 to the Romans, I am constrained to consider as of the same 
 general character. Your arguments, designed to remove this 
 remarkable chapter out of the pale of Christian experience, are 
 more ingenious than convincing. The most learned and judi- 
 cious divines are against you. And those plain Christians who 
 have little to guide them, but the dictates of common sense, and 
 the teachings of heavenly wisdom, will continue, as before, to 
 receive humiliation and comfort from the experience of the Apos- 
 tle. Indeed, I think you have committed precisely the same 
 mistake here, with that which I have before noted, in the fifth 
 chapter of the epistle. You have made the previous discovery 
 that this was not the proper time and place for the introduction 
 of Christian experience. And hence you have argued that the 
 Apostle's explicit and strong expressions on the subject (as oth- 
 ers have viewed them) must certainly have reference to some- 
 thing else. I readily admit, my dear Sir, the importance of ac- 
 curately marking, in the sacred writers, their design and scope, 
 with the connection and bearing of the points introduced. And 
 you will as readily admit that this is an affair requiring much tact 
 and skill, much deep reflection, and, I will add, much submission 
 of mind to the holy Oracles. For want of these requisites, 
 many a learned Commentator, apparently in pursuit of the truth 
 of God, has embraced a cloud : and while he has excited a 
 smile in his intelligent readers, has sadly misled the injudicious 
 and unreflecting. 
 
 As an objection against the doctrine of original sin, you urge 
 the fact, that " its advocates are far from being agreed, what 
 sort of punishment it requires or deserves." This objection you 
 attempt to enforce by presenting a long array of learned divines, 
 ancient and modern, who have speculated and conjectured vari- 
 5 
 
34 
 
 ously on the subject, and most of them not very wisely. By 
 most of your readers, you will be considered as aiming, in this 
 procedure, to throw obscurity, not to say ridicule, on the subject 
 at large. But let me seriously ask you, where is the doctrine 
 in the whole compass of theology, which can stand a test like 
 this ? Where is the truth, however clearly stamped with the 
 seal of Inspiration itself, which has not given occasion to the 
 whims and vagaries, even of learned men ? To me, the varie- 
 ty of opinions you have detailed, afford one instruction, at least. 
 It is this : that when men abandon the simple guidance of Scrip- 
 ture, and undertake to explore a path of their own — learning 
 and ignorance, wisdom and folly, stand on much the same level. 
 Our only real wisdom and safety lie in speaking with the Bible, 
 and in being silent with the Bible. This is a lesson which I 
 have been learning all my life ; and I respectfully invite my 
 Christian and ministerial brethren to learn it with me. 
 
 You object that if actual sin must be traced to a predominant 
 disposition to sin, it is impossible, on this principle, to explain 
 the sin of apostate angels, and of the first progenitor of our race. 
 Your argument seems to be, that if the angels and Adam sinned 
 without this disposition or propensity, so may all mankind. But 
 where is the force of this reasoning ? Are not the cases thus 
 compared, entirely dissimilar ? The apostasy of Adam was a 
 single, transient event. And though in many respects inscruta- 
 ble, it certainly does not need to be accounted for by any fixed 
 and permanent cause. The apostasy of the angels who sinned, 
 was likewise, in a sense, a single and transient event ; for al- 
 though great numbers were involved, they all apostatized at the 
 same period, and, as it may well be supposed, under one com- 
 mon impulse. This event, then, requires no fixed and perma- 
 nent cause for its explanation. But how entirely different from 
 this is the case of the great human family. Here are millions 
 and millions of beings, successively rising into existence, in all 
 climes, countries and ages, and all pursuing the same course of 
 disobedience and rebellion against their Maker and Sovereign. 
 Not a solitary exception occurs. Now for this uniform and 
 universal effect, must there not be assigned a cause equally uni- 
 form and universal ? If all these countless millions are under 
 the influence of one common inclination or propensity to evil, 
 the cause inquired for is discovered. And it is discovered no 
 where else. 
 
35 
 
 You object again, that the theory of original sin " maintains 
 the necessity of a nature, a taste, or faculty, which is physiolog- 
 ically a new creation by the act of the Holy Spirit in the regen- 
 eration of the soul." You compel me, my dear Sir, to com- 
 plain of you for encumbering our very simple theory with so 
 many hard words. In pointing our fellow-mortals the way to 
 heaven, we urge on them the necessity of a neiv heart, or a new 
 disposition, such as God alone can impart. We sometimes de- 
 scribe this change as a passing from death to life. And here, 
 we have not only the spirit, but the letter of the Scripture on our 
 side. The idea of a new faculty we discard. To the terms 
 nature and taste, in this connection, we have no bigoted attach- 
 ment, though we should rejoice that all our beloved iiearers 
 should " taste and see that the Lord is good; " nor, indeed, can 
 we be content unless they are partakers of a nature not only 
 new, but divine. As to the terms physiological, or psychological, 
 in reference to the new creation, we wish to address plain truth 
 to plain understandings ; and we therefore let these hard words 
 alone. But we claim the right to make the freest use of the 
 representations, the thoughts, and the very terms of Scripture, 
 whoever may oppose, or whoever pervert them. Non-, my 
 dear Sir, permit me to ask, do you not yourself pursue the same 
 general course ? Such, I know, were eminently the character- 
 istics of those lucid, energetic and evangelical discourses of 
 yours, to vvhich I have listened with delight, in years that are 
 past. And such, I would hope, is the general character of your 
 preaching now ; for I can scarcely conceive that to change, 
 would be to improve it. Why, then, with such authorities, and 
 such guides, should we not be permitted to pursue in peace our 
 old-fashioned and straight-forward way of preaching ? 
 
 You object, finally, to our theory of depravity, that it makes 
 the soul a kind o{ moral ov psychological machine; and you have 
 nmch to say of water-wheels and wind-wheels, Sic. But these 
 are matters which somewhat elude my comprehension. And 
 were it otherwise, I should think it the kindest part to you, to 
 myself, and to the reader of these pages, to pass them entirely 
 in silence. 
 
■36 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 concluding remarks and suggestions. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir, 
 
 In ihe preceding letters, I have, with great freedom and plain- 
 ness, endeavored to detect and expose what I cannot but regard 
 as important errors in your Essay. I have likewise attempted 
 to remove your leading mistakes, and refute your principal 
 objections, in reference to what is usually considered the ortho- 
 dox theory of human depravity. I would here willingly lay- 
 down my pen. But the great importance which my mind at- 
 taches to the subject, constrains me to offer a few additional 
 remarks. 
 
 I am anxious, in the first place, to remove an impression which 
 your Essay seems calculated to leave on the minds of readers, 
 and which I think equally unjust and pernicious. You labor 
 much to show that the old theory of depravity is at war with 
 sound reason and philosophy ; and while you anticipate its 
 speedy passage to oblivion, you would have us think that it is 
 already discarded by men of enlightened and liberal minds. 
 Your representations on this subject need much correction. 
 You cannot be ignorant that many of the ancient heathen phi- 
 losophers and poets had deeper (I had almost said, more scrip- 
 tural) views of human depravity, than some modern preachers. 
 
 " We are born," says Seneca, " in such a condition, that we 
 are not subject to fewer disorders of the mind, than of the body. 
 All vices are in all men, though they do not break out in every 
 one." The poet Ovid feelingly exclaims, 
 
 I see the right, and I approve it too, 
 Detest the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue. 
 
 Is not this the complaint of one who feels an innate hios to evil, 
 overbearing the dictates of reason, and of conscience itself. -* 
 
 While I am grieved to see some Christian divines rejecting 
 with scorn, what I firmly believe to be the Scripture doctrine of 
 man's apostasy and depravity, I am consoled to think that there 
 are great and eminent statesmen who receive it in simplicity, and 
 cherish it as the only true philosophy. You will admit that 
 
37 
 
 WiLBERFORCE vvas 110 bigot. Listen to him, if you please, a 
 moment, and then judge for yourself what part this exalted man, 
 if now living, would take in the great contest respecting human 
 depravity. " How," says he, " on any principles of common 
 reasoning, can we account for it," (i. e. the prevalence of un- 
 godliness and vice in the world,) " but by conceiving that man, 
 since he came out of the hands of his Creator, has contracted a 
 taint, and that the venom of the subtle poison has been commu- 
 nicated through the race of Adam, every where exhibiting in- 
 contestible marks of its fatal malignity ? " And afterward ; " All 
 other solutions are unsatisfactory, whilst the potent cause which 
 has been assigned does abundantly and can alone sufficiently 
 account for the eifect. Thus it appears that the corruption of 
 human nature is proved by the same mode of reasoning as has 
 been deemed conclusive in establishing the existence, and ascer- 
 taining the laws of the principle of gravitation ; that the doctrine 
 rests on the same solid basis as the sublime philosophy of New- 
 ton ; that it is not a mere speculation — an uncertain but ingeni- 
 ous theory — but the sure result of large and actual experiment, 
 deduced from incontestable facts, and still more fully approving 
 its truth, by harmonizing with the several parts, and accounting 
 for the various phenomena, jarring otherwise and inexplicable, of 
 the great system of the universe." 
 
 I cannot more properly close this quotation, than by repeating 
 a line which the excellent Author borrows from the great Eng- 
 lish Poet : 
 
 How charming is divine philosophy ! 
 
 The views of Wilberforce on the subject of native depravity, 
 you well know, were substantially the views of the great multi- 
 tude of pious and learned divines of the two last centuries, who 
 were lights of the world while living, and whose memory is eoi- 
 balmed in the hearts of the pious. They were the views of 
 Owen, and Baxter, and Bates, and Howe, and Flavel, and 
 Watts, and Doddridge, and Scott. They were the views of Ed- 
 wards, and Bellamy, and Davies, and Dwight. It will not be easy 
 to convince the world that these men were shallow reasoners, or 
 sour-minded bigots ; or that the doctrine which they laid as the 
 foundation of solid theology and vital piety, was mere fancy and 
 delusion. 
 
 In opposition to the views you have repeatedly expressed, I 
 must declare my decided conviction that the doctrine in ques- 
 
38 
 
 tion is a doctrine of fundamental importance, and vital to the 
 whole scheme of theoretic and practical Christianity. If, indeed, 
 as you seem to suppose, it is an affair of mere terminology, then 
 I have a right to inquire, why so much zeal for a new terminol- 
 ogy ? If no new doctrine is to be taught, and of course, no new 
 light given, why should mere words be made the occasion of 
 convulsing the church, and pouring contumely on its ministers ? 
 Suppose that the advocates of native depravity are even extreme- 
 ly tenacious of the old phraseology, believing that to part with it, 
 is to hazard the loss of scriptural truth, may they not claim the 
 forbearance of their brethren in opposition, who, upon their own 
 principles, can allege no adequate motive for imposing a new 
 phraseology ? Must a sacrifice be made, and a danger incurred, 
 without the shadow of compensating advantage ? 
 
 But that this is a mere verbal debate, or a debate of small 
 importance, is confidently denied. It cannot be believed that 
 moral purity and moral impurity, that innocence and siri, are 
 convertible terms. 
 
 All who read the Bible find it much occupied in delineating 
 the character of man. Most readers have perceived in this de- 
 lineation, a character of real, sinful depravity. Others assume 
 the position that this depravity is innocent ; and they are very 
 confident that a doctrine of this kind will answer all the purposes 
 of religion. But are they sure of this ? May they not mistake ? 
 May not that which they declare to be a mere modification of 
 a truth, be a real denial of a truth ? May not the truth thus 
 denied be a point of essential importance ? May it not have 
 aspects and bearings which they have never discovered, nor so 
 much as suspected ? Such is the infirmity of the human mind, 
 that no man who denies, or expunges from his system, or even 
 modifies, a single truth of Inspiration, can be assured that he is not 
 corrupting the ivhole system of religion, doctrinal and practical. 
 What a tremendous responsibility does he then assume — espe- 
 cially if the truth in question belongs not to the superstructure 
 of religion, but to its very foundation. Such is unquestionably 
 the case with the doctrine we are considering. By most di- 
 vines, and by most Christians, it has been thought hitherto, that 
 the man who is essentially wrong in his views of human deprav- 
 ity, can be right nowhere in religion. 
 
 A word, here, on the subject of Pelagianism. I despise the 
 thought of confuting a system by affixing to it a bad name. The 
 name just mentioned, I should certainly not have introduced, had 
 
39 
 
 not you, my dear Sir, invited it, and almost made it necessary. 
 You disclaim, for your system, the character of Pelagianisra. 
 But what are the facts ? The grand question respecting human 
 depravity is simply this ; Is it native, or is it svjierinduced? It 
 is not native, but superinduced, say the Pelagians. The same, 
 precisely, says the system which you maintain. 
 
 The practical bearing of the system in view is too plain to be 
 mistaken. On this subject, let us listen a moment to the Au- 
 thor just now quoted. Speaking of human corruption, he says, 
 " It is here, let it not be forgotten, that our foundation must be 
 laid ; otherwise our superstructure, whatever we may think of it, 
 will one day or other prove tottering and insecure. This is 
 therefore no metaphysical speculation, but a practical matter. 
 Slight and superficial conceptions of our state of natural degra- 
 dation, and of our insufficiency to recover from it ourselves, fall 
 in too well with our natural inconsiderateness, and produce that 
 fatal insensibility to the divine warning to " flee from the wrath 
 to come," which we cannot but observe to prevail so generally." 
 
 These are the dictates of reason and common sense. If the 
 gospel comes to us as the grand remedy for a moral malady, 
 who but must see, that not only our estimate of its worth, but 
 our experience of its sanative power, will be much in proportion 
 to our sense of the malignity of the disease ? None but deep 
 views of our utter and awful depravity can generate real humili- 
 ty. And humility is the all in all of religion. It is likewise the 
 only soil in which all other Christian virtues take root and grow. 
 A religion which does not make and keep us humble, is no re- 
 ligion at all, A religion which ministers nutriment to our pride, is 
 worse than none. 
 
 What the great Roman Orator says of the liberal arts, is true 
 of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. They are linked to- 
 gether by a common bond. Indeed, the mutual connection and 
 dependence are far closer in this case, than in the former. 
 Strike from the Christian system a single link, and soon the 
 whole chain falls asunder, and disappears. Remove the radical 
 depravity of the heart, and you have no place for any other 
 truths of the gospel. And if you materially modify this doctrine, 
 you soon find that the modifying process must^o through. Re- 
 generation becomes another thing. Repentance assumes a new 
 aspect. The Christian conflict is dispensed with. The atone- 
 ment loses half its value. And the song of salvation by grace 
 becomes an empty sound. 
 
40 
 
 Are you not alarmed, my dear Sir, at the entire revolution 
 which the new theory respecting original sin is introducing into 
 the whole system of Christian doctrine, and Christian practice ? 
 Does it not wrest from the Supreme Being the sovereign con- 
 trol over his own world, by denying that he could have exclu- 
 ded sin from his system ; by denying, too, that he can exercise 
 any such influence over free moral agents, as will effectually 
 secure them from disobedience ? Does it not substitute in the 
 place of a change of heart, a mere change of purpose ; a change 
 of which man is the author, rather than God ? Does it not, 
 while verbally acknowledging the agency of the Holy Spirit in 
 conversion, reduce that agency to a mere suasive influence, and 
 deny its direct and efficient control over the heart ? Does it 
 not, by discarding the fact of permanent dispositions, discard 
 the certainty of the saints' perseverance ? Does it not, in the 
 same way, discard that inward, spiritual warfare which is so 
 much the uniform experience of Christians ? Does it not sub- 
 vert the doctrine of election, by resolving it into a mere certainty 
 in the mind of God, whether the sinner will voluntarily turn, or 
 voluntarily persist in impenitence ? In a word, does it not divest 
 the Supreme Being of his sovereignty and omnipotence in the 
 work of human salvation, and almost transfer the same attributes 
 to man ? 
 
 I might speak of those errors of the scheme which are more 
 immediately practical. But I am unwilling to enlarge on so 
 painful a subject. Still, there is one point which is too impor- 
 tant to be omitted. The theory in question lays the foundation 
 of all moral obligation in self-interest. It declares that " of all 
 voluntary action, the happiness of the agent, in some form, is 
 the ultimate end." It declares that " self-love, or the desire of 
 happiness, is the primary cause or reason of all acts of prefer- 
 ence or choice, which fix supremely on any object." A most 
 comfortable doctrine this, to every sinner upon earth ! For 
 where is the sinner who does not love himself? Where is 
 the sinner who does not desire his own happiness ? But 
 what becomes of those passages of Scripture, so continually 
 recurring, which call us off from these low propensities and aims, 
 and which place all real virtue in supreme love to God, ^nd 
 REGARD to HIS GLORY ? And what follows, but that the princi- 
 ple in question goes directly to annihilate all moral distinctions; 
 to reduce the good and the bad in the human family to one com- 
 mon level ; in a word, to banish not only all piety, but all virtue 
 from the world ? It is not too rpuch to say, that a theory em- 
 
41 
 
 bracing this principle, bears instamped on its very front, the deep, 
 indelible brand of error and falsehood. 
 
 These strong expressions, my dear Sir, are the result of 
 strong and decided conviction. To have said less, would have 
 been treachery to the dictates of my understanding, my con- 
 science, and my heart. At the same time, I am far from in- 
 dulging the thought that the error just mentioned, has been adop- 
 ted by you. Indeed, I must cling to the belief that many of the 
 others which I have specified, are rejected by you, as cordially 
 as by myself. Still, they belong to a system, an important and 
 fundamental part of which, you have, to my unspeakable regret, 
 undertaken to support. 
 
 Nor have I the least desire to cast reproach upon others who 
 maintain the system in view. Many of them I know to be ami- 
 able and respectable men — irreproachable in life, and apparent- 
 ly devoted to the cause of God, and the interests of his church. 
 1 would hope, and this most sincerely, that the errors of their 
 system have not reached their hearts, nor incorporated them- 
 selves with their practical judgment. Many of them, no doubt, 
 are pursuing an object which appears to them both important 
 and practicable. They would divest the doctrines of the gospel 
 of what have been regarded as their harsher features. They 
 would disencumber religion of what has been repulsive. By 
 giving to the one, and the other, a modified and apparently phi- 
 losophic character, they would recommend them to a more gen- 
 eral acceptance than they have hitherto gained. In all this, it 
 is my duty to judge charitably of their designs ; while it is my 
 right to consider them in a very great mistake. All history, all 
 observation, all experience, unitedly declare that every attempt 
 of the kind has proved abortive. The doctrines of the Bible 
 are altogether imperious and unbending. They claim to be 
 seen by their own light, and to be judged by their own evidences. 
 They require from all an implicit, unquestioning submission. 
 They hold no compromise, either with the demands of an arro- 
 gant philosophy, or the demands of sin. And whenever the 
 professed friends of truth are disposed to make concessions, it is 
 uniformly found, that there is less of gratitude for what is yielded, 
 than of discontent at what is withheld. Every concession serves 
 but to open the way to new demands. The work is hopeless 
 and endless. Shrewd and calculating Unitarians are looking on 
 the recent experiment with deep attention and interest. They 
 perceive that much has been conceded. But they demand 
 6 
 
42 
 
 much more. Indeed, they expect much more. They argue, 
 and with no httle plausibility, that much more must and will be 
 conceded. 
 
 While, then, I impeach not the motives of those who support 
 the theory in question, and while I unfeignedly lament their 
 error, it is both natural and allowable that I should glance at 
 some of the tendencies of the theory itself. 
 
 It affords countenance and strength, I cannot but apprehend, 
 to infidelity itself. For more than seventeen centuries, the 
 world has been blessed with the Bible. It addresses us on sub- 
 jects of everlasting moment. It claims to speak a language which 
 all may understand. But according to the theory in view, its 
 language has not been understood. More than this, even on 
 the fundamental points of religion, it has been, by the great mass 
 of readers, egregiously misunderstood and misconstrued. " Can 
 such a book," asks the infidel, " be from the Father of lights — a 
 book which, century after century, has been pouring, not light, 
 but darkness on the human mind — a book which has not only 
 failed of its design, but accomplished the direct reverse ? " — The 
 objection is plausible, at least, and not easily answered. 
 
 It is an evil reserved for our day, that even on the fundamen- 
 tal points of religion, ceaseless and acrimorious debates should 
 arise among those who claim to be evangelical Christians. 
 Modes of interpretation, and systems of theology, both leading 
 to the most opposite results, are alternately defended and assailed. 
 The church becomes an arena of unholy strife. Christians and 
 Christian ministers, ranged into parties, direct against each other 
 that opposition which should have been concentrated against the 
 common foe. What cause of self-congratulation and triumph 
 does this afford to sceptics and infidels. " You call us," say 
 they to Christians, " to agree with you, but with whom shall we 
 agree ? You call us to believe ; but what shall we believe ? 
 We find that doctrines which, twenty years since, were consid- 
 ered as undisputable, are now, not only disputed, but denounced. 
 And how do we know that the doctrines which have taken their 
 place, may not, in half another twenty years, share the same 
 fate?" — Here is another imposing difficulty. For who can 
 expect that the scepticism and infidelity of the world shall cease, 
 while another species of scepticism and infidelity finds a place 
 within the church ? 
 
 The theory in view, while it tends to strengthen the infidel, 
 tends not less to confirm many of the irreligious in their irapen- 
 
43 
 
 itence. And here, no doubt, I shall be charged with an egre- 
 gious mistake. " Does not this theory," it will be asked, " pow- 
 erfully urge the sinner to action ? Does it not strip him of the 
 old' plea of inability ? Does it not rouse him from the torpor of 
 despondence ? Does it not, by promising him success, furnish 
 irresistible motives to exertion ? And is it not a fact, that it has 
 roused thousands of our countrymen to religion, who, under the 
 former methods of instruction, treated it with entire neglect ? " 
 
 To these questions, there is an obvious reply. Men will never 
 be truly in earriest about religion, till they deeply realize their own 
 depravity. Till the maladies of the heart are seen and felt, the 
 divine Physician will be neither prized nor sought. Superficial 
 views of sin produce nothing but superficial conviction. False 
 views of sin do but deepen and protract the fatal slumber of the 
 soul. Never does the sinner welcome and embrace the Saviour, 
 till, convinced of his guilt, and ruin, and helplessness, he is re- 
 duced to a species of self-despair. 
 
 Such are the j)rinciples which belong to the case. And now 
 what are the facts'? 
 
 For years, there has prevailed, in various regions of our coun- 
 try, a species of preaching which has dealt little with the diffi- 
 culties of religion, little with the depravity of the heart, little with 
 the sinner's absolute dependence on the sovereign mercy of God. 
 He has been urged to repentance by arguments derived princi- 
 pally from the extreme facility of the work, from the competen- 
 cy of his own powers, and the certainty of success. Such in- 
 structions have produced marked effects on great numbers, who 
 may be distributed into various classes. 
 
 The first class is that of those who have gone about the work 
 with some earnestness, and with greater confidence ; have dili- 
 gently employed means, and taken some real pains with their 
 own hearts. But in those hearts, unsuspected reluctances, un- 
 conquerable aversions were soon manifest. The unpleasant, 
 hopeless work was abandoned ; and the unhappy beings, disgust- 
 ed with themselves, and disgusted, perhaps, with their spiritual 
 guides, sunk into a kind of sullen despondence, from which no 
 ordinary means may be expected to rouse them. 
 
 A second class, delighted with the new views given, of the 
 facility of the work, and the sufficiency of their own power to 
 accomplish it, have found in these views an effectual shield, both 
 from conviction and alarm. Under this delusion, they have 
 coolly resolved to defer the unpleasant, easy affair of religion to 
 
44 
 
 ^ more convenient season; a season which never has arrived, 
 and with thousands never will. 
 
 With a third class, the new mode of instruction has been ap- 
 parently more successful. Since religion has been promised to 
 their efforts, they have been determined not to fail for want of 
 them. In their way, they have been animated, diligent and 
 persevering. The result of all has been a religion of their own 
 making — a religion which quiets conscience, and banishes fear — 
 but which has in it no true love to God, no genuine repentance, 
 no faith that sanctifies and saves. 
 
 But is there not, it may be inquired, a fourth class ? I verily 
 believe there is. The instruction to which I have alluded, though 
 chargeable with essential defects and errors, has, by its very 
 novelty, excited attention. Attention has led to inquiry ; and 
 doubtless, in multitudes of instances, to serious, anxious, faithful 
 inquiry. The inquirers have sought instruction from the word 
 of God, and from the Spirit of God. And what they sought, they 
 found. Thus by the wonderful mercy of Him whose preroga- 
 tive it is to elicit light from darkness, and to bring the blind by 
 a way which they knew not, they have been safely and effectu- 
 ally guided to Christ, and to a life of piety. 
 
 Still, it cannot be denied that this new species of instruction 
 is, in itself considered, a source of infinite peril to the souls of 
 men, and a dire calamity to the church. It would be prepos- 
 terous indeed to believe that ordinarily the preaching of error 
 will prove so much as the occasion of leading men into truth ; 
 or that there will be found a better religion in the pew, than is 
 inculcated from the pulpit. 
 
 My last objection, then, to the new theory is, that it tends to 
 fill the church with a superficial and false religion. It is readily 
 admitted that the religion in view is often splendid, active and 
 imposing. But what does it do for the heart '^ What triumph 
 does it achieve over its depraved and hateful propensities ? 
 
 It does but skin and film the ulcerous place, 
 While rank infection, mining all within. 
 Infects unseen. 
 
 I would by no means overlook the exuberant goodness of 
 God to his American churches. 1 doubt not that He has gath- 
 ered into them, of recent time, great numbers who shine as lights 
 in the world, and who will shine with the lustre of stars in other 
 worlds. But are there not sad mixtures ? Is not the gold in 
 
45 
 
 many, many instances, become dim ? Is there not, in many 
 Christian professors, an evident want of a deep, pervading, con- 
 trolling spirit of piety ? Are they not grossly deficient in the 
 lovely virtues of spirituality, humility, meekness and mutual 
 love ? Is there not within the church, a spirit of ambition, pride, 
 vanity and worldliness, which threatens to consume the very 
 vitals of religion ? Are not many professors, instead of stemming 
 the torrent of fashionable frivolity and dissipation, too evidently 
 carried away with it ? 
 
 I have no pleasure in thus lifting the veil. Indeed, I have ex- 
 pressed nothing not too well known before. The animadver- 
 sions uttered are but the echo of the language of thousands. It 
 remains to inquire : IMay not the evils in view be traced, in part 
 at least, to an altered style of public religious instruction ? May 
 not the depressed standard of living be traced, in part, to a de- 
 pressed standard of preaching ? It is a grand Christian maxim, 
 that the truth, and the truth alone, sanctifies. Nor is any fact 
 better ascertained, than that wherever the gospel is in any meas- 
 ure adulterated, it loses just so much of its power to purify indi- 
 viduals, and to purify the community. Especially, if, as I think 
 has been shown, the system in view fails to strike an effectual 
 and fatal blow at the root of human pride, the defect is radical ; 
 is vital. Human corruption, strong in its intrenchments, will 
 deride and defeat every attempt to expel it from the citadel of 
 the heart. — But the subject is too painful to be pursued ; and 
 here I leave it. 
 
 I cannot, however, conclude, without adverting to one point 
 in your Essay, which has not yet been touched. You seem to 
 apprehend that the great evil in the church, at this day, is an 
 intolerance of error ; an extreme sensitiveness to every depart- 
 ure from truth. But others are of a difiierent opinion. They 
 think that a " wide-spread and increasing indifference to sound 
 doctrine is the present great sin of the Christian church." And 
 you yourself, I think, will not be backward to admit that " there 
 can be no surer sign of degeneracy than the peaceable progress 
 of error.'''' For myself, I have no disposition to defend any ar- 
 bitrary methods of suppressing heresy. It is the truth which, 
 in this case, is the sufferer. Yet if there is not, in this age, an 
 unusual and alarming insensibility to the progress of error, and 
 to the duty of opposing it ; if many Christians have not too much 
 forgotten their obligation to " contend earnestly for the faith once 
 delivered to the saints," then am I utterly unacquainted with the 
 signs of the times. 
 
46 
 
 Suffer me to add, that to me it appears not only unjust, but 
 preposterous, that those should be stigmatized with the odious 
 character oiheligerents. who are acting purely on the defensive, 
 and simply wishing to maintain what they believe, and what the 
 church has ever believed, the grand and vital truths of the gos- 
 pel ; and that those should claim to be the exclusive friends of 
 j)eace, who are directing against these precious doctrines, an 
 incessant and uncompromising hostility. 
 
 Tn view of the existing state of things, it is impossible adequate- 
 ly to describe the importance of our Theological Seminaries. 
 From the very nature of the case, they must possess and wield 
 an immense power, either for good or for evil. While they are 
 faithful to God, and to his truth, the church will not fail to 
 cherish them as her choicest hope, her richest, dearest treasure. 
 But what if they should prove recreant to their high destination ? 
 What if the streams which issue periodically from these foun- 
 tains, should become impure and polluting ? Alas, words can- 
 not paint the bitter disappointment, the deep-felt grief, the dis- 
 astrous, wide-spread, and almost interminable evils which must 
 ensue. 
 
 I have thus, my dear Sir, given utterance to some of the 
 many thoughts occasioned by the perusal of your Essay on Sin. 
 If these letters are pervaded by a style of plainness and freedom 
 which may seem not quite congenial to your character and sta- 
 tion, my apology must be found in the deeply interesting nature 
 of the subject, and the imperious demands of truth. Nor has it 
 escaped me, that I address one who obviously holds the freest 
 expression of thoughts and feelings to be no crime. Never did 
 I more sincerely deprecate a beligerent spirit in the church, 
 than at the present moment. Never did I cherish a more ar- 
 dent desire to live in peace with all who love the Redeemer and 
 his cause. But peace itself, if purchased at the expense of 
 essential truth, is too dearly bought. 
 
 Humbly commending what I have written to your candor, 
 and that of the Christian public, and above all, to the patronage 
 and blessing of the great Head of the church, I subscribe 
 myself. 
 
 Very affectionately and sincerely, your friend and brother, 
 
 DANIEL DANA, 
 
 Mwhuri/port, August 20, 1839. 
 
 The Rev. Professor Stuart.