DEAR SIR,

      Having passed over several objectionable matters in the discussion of the subject in my last letter, which are deserving of some attention, and which, though they might have been incidently brought into that discussion, yet I [134] thought it most advisable to reserve them for another letter. On these topics my remarks shall be as brief as possible, that I may not exceed my intended limits.

      The first thing I shall notice is your denial of any covenant having been made with Adam before his fall. "That the covenant with Adam was the moral law, you say, is directly contradicted by Moses--Deut. 5. 2-3. "The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us who are all of us here alive this day." This does not prove the point, nor is it at all applicable to the subject. This was the Horeb or Sinai-covenant which was made between God and Israel under the strict notion of his being their political king: it was a national, temporary covenant of peculiarity, relation only to temporal blessings of this life, and prosperity in the land of Canaan. It was between God and the Jews, as their political king. and they as his national subjects; and to that nation it was delivered as a body politic, under the form of a covenant of works, upon the fulfilling of which they were to inherit that land. This is the covenant that God made with their fathers, when he took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt. But with their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it was not, it could not be made personally. Being made with Israel, as a nation, it could be violated only by public authority. It contained their charter of national blessings and privileges, which has long ago been forfeited. It was decaying and waxing old when Paul wrote to his Hebrew brethren, and was then ready to vanish away. (Heb. 8. 13.) For a plain and satisfactory account of this matter I refer you to Dr. Scott on Exod. 19. 5, and Dr. Guise on Heb. 8. 6, in a note there. But "the law entered that the offence might abound." True; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law entered, which implies its prior existence. It was re-edited on mount Sinai, and published with awful sanctions, that the knowledge of sin, of man's offence, of his fall and corruption might about, and therefore it was added because of transgression. But to prove your point you allege further, that "the gospel was preached to Abraham 430 years before the law;" surely not before the existence of the law, for without this there could be no sin, for where no law is, there is no transgression, [135] consequently no need of gospel. The gospel preached to Abraham was this: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 22. 18. Gal. 3. 8.) which could not be disannulled or set aside by the law promulgated on Horeb, so many years afterwards. One of the very texts you have quoted in your favour, is one that I would have selected to prove directly the reverse; "until the law sin was in the world." Ah! how could sin be in the world without law? Its very existence is an evidence of the prior existence of law, for the violation of law gave birth to sin, the wages of which is death; and how long death existed as another evidence of violated law, the apostle will inform us: "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses." This matter is completely established by the further affirmation of the apostle, that by ONE man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that (in whom) all have sinned. But how could all men sin and die in Adam, if he acted not in a public capacity as their representative, covenant head? It were impossible, and never can be accounted for otherwise. But what caps the climax of your philosophy on this subject, is the following argument: "If this law, or covenant, was given to Adam, he must have been a sinner when it was given; for Paul says, "The law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, 1 Tim. 1. 9." Here is false reasoning founded on a perversion of Scripture. The apostle here is fully satisfied that the moral law, as still continuing in force, and made the law of Christ's kingdom under the gospel state, is not designed to condemn by its damnatory sentence the justified believer in Christ, and therefore says, "the law is not made against (ou xeitai) or does not lie against a righteous man." This is a fair translation, and is, no doubt, the apostle's meaning, and the application of it to the wicked is easy. But admit your intention in the use of the text as it stands in the common version, and what is its amount? It is this; that Adam, before he was a sinner was under no law, for the law is not made for a righteous man, but Adam being a righteous man before he fell, therefore no law was made for him; and the same will apply to saints on earth, and saints and angels in heaven; all are exempt from [136] moral obligation, for the law is only made for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners. It is to be hoped, that you are the only person who has ever perverted this text, and although it is indeed a very singular one, yet it is not strange that the word of God should become so flexible, as to prove any thing that human invention, and human folly might devise, when in the hands of such a fertile genius and skilful interpreter.

      That the law was not made for a righteous man, is evidently true, as it relates to its not being made to condemn him; that it really is made for such an one, as well as others, to be the rule of his obedience, and to restrain him from transgression, is also true, and entirely reasonable. "The divine Creator united in man the spiritual and corporeal natures; he formed him upright in his soul, and made ample provision for the comfort of his body; and as it would have been inconvenient to have brought all of the human family, which were to be in every generation, upon the earth at one time, and still more so, that, every one standing or falling for himself, the earth should be the common habitation of beings perfectly holy, happy, and immortal, and also of cursed perishing beings, he constituted the first man a representative of his race:" he was the type, or figure of him that was to come, which related to the public capacity which both sustained, and to the conveyances that were made by the actings of both to their respective seeds, as comprehended in, and placed under them severally, as appears fully evinced by the apostle's reasoning in Rom. 5. 12-21. and 1 Cor. 15. 22, 47. In the latter place, he tells us that, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ, all, that are to be raised to eternal happiness, shall be made alive: And he there speaks of Adam and Christ, as the first and second man; as if no other man had lived in the world between them; and in the whole connection, he sets out the resemblance of their public character and influence, though to contrary effects, on those that stand under them respectfully. That a covenant was made with "the last Adam," in whom life is regained, there is no doubt; (Ps. 89. 3. Isa. 42. 6. Heb. 10. 5-7.) the inference then is fair, that a covenant was made with the first Adam, in whom life had been lost. [137]

      We proceed a step further, to examine your theory respecting the condition of man after his fall. It affirms, that "Adam's disobedience brought condemnation to temporal death on all the world." (p. 72.) But how could Adam's act do this, any more than any other individual's act, if there was no law made for him before he sinned, and if you allow him not to have sustained a federal relation to his posterity, but to have acted in an individual capacity only? It is added, "Christ's obedience brought justification from that death upon all the world, by raising them from the dead--to answer for their own deed and not for the deeds of Adam." If I understand this sentence, the import of it is, that justification and resurrection are the same thing. This is the more evident, because it is well known that your scheme forbids any merit to be attached to the obedience of Christ in behalf of sinners; it is not therefore, his obedience that justifies, but the act of raising them from the dead. Besides, the idea of all the world being justified by their resurrection from the dead, and then going to stand their trial before the judgment seat, is such a novelty in divinity, that I confess it is beyond my comprehension. The difficulty and absurdity of the thing is increased by the following declaration; "Adam, himself, suffered all the penalty law required, or justice demanded;--law had its full demand, and justice was satisfied with his death, seeing it was all that was demanded;--to talk of Christ as surety, paying the debt of temporal death, in the room of Adam and his posterity, is strange indeed, seeing Adam has paid it himself, and so has his posterity who are dead. He died not to pay the demand of law, but to free them from its curse already inflicted, which is death." (p. 68.) How absurd to talk of Christ dying to free Adam and his posterity from the curse or penalty of law, when justice was satisfied with their death, being all that was demanded. How unmeaning to talk of Christ freeing upon our race from the curse of law, when all who are dead have actually freed themselves, by paying in their death, the "full demand of law and justice," and all the rest are in a fair way to do the same. Poor Enoch and Elijah, who died not, are placed in a very unpleasant situation by such divinity, as their debt must remain ever [138] unpaid. And, moreover, if such visions as these can pass for sound divinity, then verily Christ is dead in vain, for the human family paying all the demands of law and justice, can surely stand in no need of his interposition. You "grant this death, (temporal death,) would have been eternal, had not Christ the resurrection interposed." But, pray, Sir, how, if law and justice have their full demand, are fully satisfied by the temporal death of Adam and his posterity who are dead; and especially seeing that debt was paid, law and justice amply satisfied and consequently their release obtained, before that interposition you talk of, actually took place? Why talk any more about men going to judgment, who have fully satisfied all the demands of law and justice, who have no more debt to pay? Or why talk of an interposition by Christ in their behalf, when his suretyship and vicarious interposition are denied and ridiculed/ Why any more dream of the eternal perdition of any of Adam's posterity, seeing they can all claim their release, and God's government cannot refuse it, upon the ground of their having satisfied all demands against them. But let us examine the foundation of this theory, which is borrowed from Taylor, the Socinian writer before mentioned. It is this: that temporal death was all the penalty threatened by the law; "For God had said in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die--or more literally, dying, thou shalt die. (Marg.) For the very day he sinned, death (temporal death) seized on him, and preyed on the strings of life, till the last was cut, more than eight hundred years after he began to die." (p. 68.) The sentiment here maintained is this: that there was no other penalty or curse annexed to the law, but temporal death, which began, according to the marginal reading, and continued to be inflicted on Adam for more than eight hundred years, and then was satisfied by his death. How Adam became subjected to this penalty when he was under no law, (as we have before seen,) while a righteous man, and consequently could not violate any, you have not yet accounted for. But probably it will be done in your next edition, as you seem to be in a progressing way in the acquisitions of new light in your theological career.

      To suppose, as you do, that the phrase, dying thou shalt [139] die, signifies only temporal death, is not only destitute of force in reasoning, but likewise, it contradicts the scriptures in other instances, where it is used unquestionably to signify eternal death. "When I say unto the wicked man, thou shalt surely die," it is in the original, dying thou salt die, the very form of expression which God used in the threatening of Adam, and the very same words are used again in Ezek. 33. 18. In chap. 18. 4. it is said, the soul that sinneth it shall die, and to the like purpose in chap. 3. 19, 20. and 18. 9, 13, 17-21, 24, 26, 28. and 33. 8, 9, 12, 14, 19, in all which places temporal death is not meant, because it is promised most absolutely, that the righteous shall not die the death spoken of: chap. 18. 21, He shall surely live, he shall not DIE: see ver. 9, 17, 19, 22, &c. &c. The phrase therefore can argue nothing concerning the nature of the thing intended; for it is evident that such repetitions in the Hebrew language, are designed only to put a strong emphasis on the word to signify the importance of it, or the certainty of it, and therefore, the repeating or doubling a word, we are told was in common usage among the Hebrews, the more to impress the mind of the hearer. When God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, it is in the original, eating thou shalt eat, which will go to establish what has just been observed respecting Hebrew usage.

      The inquiry now must be, what that death is, which was the threatening given to Adam in case of disobedience; what that death is, which the scripture every where speaks of as the proper wages of sin? To use the language of Dr. Bates; "Death in the threatening is comprehensive of all kinds and degrees of evils, from the least pain, to the completeness of damnation." It was doubtless a deprivation of that excellent state which men enjoyed, and principally it signified the separation of the soul from God, who is the fountain of felicity. A universal change of moral qualities in Adam, necessarily followed his transgression, and instead of the rectitude and holiness of his nature, there succeeded a permanent viciousness and corruption. His soul degenerated from its purity; the faculties remained, but the moral qualities wherein the brightness of God's image was most conspicuous were lost; and [140] in an instant, from the image of God, he became transformed into the image of the devil. The body became a prey to all diseases, and feels the strokes of death a thousand times before it can die once. Life at length is swallowed up of death, and the first death transmits to the second. Adam in innocence possessed a natural life, resulting from the union of his soul and body; he had a spiritual life, resulting from the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, and consisting of the image of God, and a ravishing sense of his love; and he was formed for immortality in body and soul, and so was in a capacity of eternal life and blessedness, in glorifying God, and enjoying him for ever. Here then he was capable of a natural, a spiritual, and an eternal death; to have soul and body rent asunder; to be forsaken by the spirit of God, and given up to the power of sin and Satan for ever; and to have God become his everlasting enemy. All this he deserved; and therefore, God meant all this, in the first threatening; and what makes it still more certain, is, that God has since very expressly threatened eternal death, and nothing less, in Rom. 1. 18. Gal. 3. 10. Mat. 25. 46. In Rom. 6. 23. and 3. 13. the word DEATH itself, is plainly used to signify eternal death and misery. None will deny, that the life which would have been Adam's reward, if he had persisted in obedience, was eternal life. Now as obedience and disobedience are contraries, as threatenings and promises, that are sanctions of law, are set in direct opposition; and as promised rewards, and threatened punishments, are properly taken as each other's opposites;--then it must be true, that the death which stands opposed to that life, is manifestly eternal death, a death widely different from the death we now die.

      On this subject, you profess yourself "to be of the same mind of some of the Greek fathers. They believed that many were made sinners metonymically, that is, by being made subject to mortality and death, the effect of Adam's sin." This was also the opinion of Chubb, a name once famous on the list of infidel fame, and likewise of Socinian Taylor, who has been fully exposed, and ably refuted by President Edwards, in his unanswerable production on Original Sin. But the very sentiment refutes itself when [141] applied to the scriptures, as may be readily seen by a short trial. In the following passages, let the word mortality, meaning, as you have expressed it in another place, temporal death, be supplied in a parenthesis, instead of the word death, and the absurdity will be seen at once. "We know, that we have passed from death (mortality) to life, because we love the brethren: he that hateth his brother abideth in death (mortality.) (1 John 3. 14.) Again; (John 5. 24.) "He that heareth my word, and believeth, &c. hath everlasting life; and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death (mortality) to life." To follow your metonymical notion, of putting the cause for the effect, we must change the common reading of a number of scriptures, thus: "By one man mortality entered into the world, and death by mortality; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all were become mortal. Until the law, mortality was in the world, but mortality is not imputed where there is no law.--Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not been mortal, after the similitude of Adam's mortality.--But not as the mortality, so is the free gift, for if through the mortality of one, many be dead, &c.--You hath he quickened, who were dead in mortality." The like unpertinancy will be found in all those passages which describe man's apostacy and depravity; the mere representation whereof, is a sufficient refutation of such a trifling construction. But let the figure be set aside, and refer your theory (of temporal death being all that was comprehended in the original threatening.) to the following texts, and behold its inconsistency. John 6. 50. "This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." Chap. 8. 51. "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." Chap. 11. 26. "And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." Do you believe the Saviour here meant that believers shall never see temporal death? Again, when Moses says to the children of Israel, "See, I have set before you this day, life and good, and death and evil--life and death, blessing and cursing." (Deut. 30. 15, 19.) Is the life and death here to be understood as temporal only, and eternal? One question more: What does the Saviour mean in Mat. 8. 22, when he says, "let the [142] dead bury their dead?" Can those who are literally dead, bury each other; or is it not more rational to suppose that in this case, he allowed those who were spiritually dead, to bury those who were corporeally dead. That spiritual death makes no part of your creed, would appear from your declaration, that man only became mortal and subject to temporal death, and yet strange indeed, either through inadvertency, or that inconsistency which so often appears in your writings, the very thing is admitted, and described too, in language as strong as I could want it; "Spiritual death is an alienation of soul from God--having no love to him nor his ways--no desire after him--no delight in him--dead in trespasses and in sins." (p. 68.) This is the truth for once, if no more; and really it looks like something more than natural death had befallen mankind, notwithstanding your denial. But what is still more strange, is the reasoning you attempt to found on it. "To talk of spiritual death as due to law, and demanded by justice is awful when rightly understood." Having thus described it as above, you exclaim, "Could a holy God, or a holy law, require this of a creature, without requiring sin? Could justice demand it, or be satisfied without sin? Could a holy Jesus pay this debt, without really being dead in sin?" Is this reasoning, or only the ravings of insanity? Can a man in his senses, be guilty of such a gross departure from the established laws of exegeses, and the sober dictates of common sense. Did you not know that this was sophistry when you wrote it? Do you believe in the eternal damnation of the finally impenitent? If you do, what will then be their moral condition? Will they not still continue in a state of "alienation from God--having no love to him--no desire after him--no delight in him;" &c. what then will be the demands of law and justice? What then will be the requirements of a "holy God, or a holy law?" Will depravity and rebellion be demanded as a debt to law and justice, or their punishment only? A man who is either unable or unwilling to discriminate between the obligation of an innocent creature to render obedience to the lawgiver, and the obligation of a guilty creature to suffer punishment for disobedience,--between depravity as a crime, and its punishment as a debt, [143] demanded by justice, is indeed a very little hero of a party, and poorly qualified to write for them a system of theology, as a standard for their faith.

      But from the language of your book, it appears to me that you neither hold the doctrine of spiritual, nor eternal death. "We grant this death, (temporal death,) would have been eternal, had not Christ, the resurrection, interposed;" and as we have seen, that justification is an universal as the resurrection; therefore, the interposition of Christ, must, on your plan, prevent the eternal death of any of the human family. As for spiritual death, or human depravity, though you have correctly told us what it is, yet in that masterly piece of reasoning respecting your two artists, the thing is flatly denied. An artist "forms the complete image of a man,--he superadds the faculties of seeing, hearing, understanding, believing, &c." (p. 91.) Wonderful artist! Michael Angelo, Raphael, Canova, Wedgewood, and Bentley, with all the group of Grecian and Roman painters and sculptors, were but fools, when compared with your artist. They were celebrated for making images, busts, &c. but they never found out the art of making a live image, or of turning ana image into a rational creature, or an intelligent being. But let us see the manoeuvres of this novel thing. The artist "speaks to his image--it hears and understands him. He relates to it a fact--it believes him. He calls it to come to him--it obeys him." This is a very tractable "it," of the neuter gender, much more so than a he or a she in the masculine or feminine, which would not so well apply to an image. But now for the application: "This image, I consider a true representation of mankind. God has made them capable of hearing, understanding, believing, and obeying." That man in the very depths of depravity, possesses natural capacities for doing these things, is granted, for they were never lost by the fall; but that he possesses spiritual capacities to do these things when in a state of wrath and enmity we deny; and adduce the following texts out of hundreds to prove it: "The natural man receiveth NOT the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither CAN he know them, because they are SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED." (1 Cor. 2. 14.) "Because the carnal [144] mind is ENMITY against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, NEITHER INDEED CAN BE. So then they that are in the flesh (carnal state) CANNOT PLEASE GOD." (Rom. 8. 7. 8.) Moreover the Saviour says of the stubborn Jews, "now have they both seen, and hated, both me and my Father;" (John 15. 24.) And again; "ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." (John 5. 40.) "I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded," &c. (Prov. 1. 24.) Now, it is evident that your image wages direct war upon these passages; denying human corruption, or that there is any defect or moral obstacle in the way of fallen man's compliance with the commands of heaven; holy angels and saints in heaven can do no more than your image can.

      The other poor artist and his image which you have conjured up to give your opponent's doctrine a ludicrous and horrifying aspect, are not quite so respectable nor wonderful. The image is made, but alas! its author has not the magic power of transforming it into a living being, He "forms the complete image of man, with eyes, ears, and mouth, and every feature and member in perfect symmetry.--He speaks to his image--it cannot hear.--He relates to it a fact--it cannot understand nor believe him. He bids it come to him--it cannot move nor obey. He becomes enraged at his lifeless image, and stamps it in pieces with great fury." Poor lifeless image! Wicked artist! Irrational madman, and as fit a subject of mockery as ever were Baal's prophets, but unlike them, thou hast turned thy fury upon a poor, lifeless, dumb thing, instead of venting thy vexatious spite and disappointed ambition upon thyself. But now for the application. "What could the spectators conclude, but that the man was irrational, to be thus engaged at a dead image? Shall we impute such conduct to the holy God? Yet I am certain I have heard it done." Pardon me, Sir, if I deny that you ever did. That you may have dreamed it,--or that in your haste and great anxiety to fix a mark of ridicule and contempt upon the sentiments of those who oppose you, you may have imagined such a thing, I will readily grant. But that you can find any such abominable absurdity in those "creeds and standards" to which you gave a solemn pledge to the [145] public to confine your animadversions;--that you can find it in any book but your own, unless it may be from the pen of some disingenuous opponent like yourself;--that you ever heard it from the pulpit, or from the mouth of any Presbyterian clergyman during the whole time that you studied or preached with them; I take upon myself most positively to deny. And if you ever publish a third edition of your so much desired work, and repeat this charge, we do earnestly ask that it may be followed by proof: that if such a moral monster is found in our denomination, he may be a subject and example of ecclesiastical censure. It is also requested of you to point out the page, the sermon, or the paragraph that contains the blasphemous sentiment charged upon us, in the 84th page of your book, which puts it into our mouths to say, that by sin, "we have lost our right to obey" God. A man who could say as you have in your introduction, "I am well assured that every sentence I write will be read with a critical eye;" and yet, under that beacon, could publish to the world such unfounded charges and gross misrepresentations as these, and many more with which your work abounds, deserves to be plainly dealt with by sharp rebuke and honest reprehension.

      After what we have seen of your notions respecting the state and condition of man being subject only to mortality, and liable to temporal death, it excites but little surprise to hear you deny that sin is an infinite evil. "To magnify its evil to infinity, transcends divine authority." This declaration is found on the following proposition: "To say, that God gave finite creatures an infinite law, is the same, as that he laid them under an absolute necessity of committing sin, seeing they have not infinite capacities to fulfil it." This kind of logic goes to prove that saints and angels in heaven are either under no law at all, or that if they be, it is only a finite, limited law, that does not require them to love God, who is infinite, throughout an infinity, that is, an endless duration; for this is the simple meaning of the the term, when applied to the obligation of creatures to love God, or to their punishment for transgression. As it can be proved that the obligations of the creature to love and obey the blessed God, are derived from the OBJECT, and [146] are therefore INFINITE: so it is capable of strict moral demonstration, that the violation of those obligations is infinitely criminal; sin, objectively considered, that is, with respect to its object, is an infinite evil. Sin, therefore, deserves an infinite, or an everlasting punishment. The nature of this punishment is not an arbitrary infliction, but a necessary consequence of moral evil. This proposition can be denied on no other principles but such as are subversive of the government and perfections of God; or principles virtually atheistical.

      But the idea of sin's being an infinite evil, you assert, will "destroy the distinction of greater and lesser evils:" but to this it may be replied, that the least sin may be an infinite evil, because of the infinite obligation we are under to do otherwise, and yet all sins not be equally heinous. To be forever in hell, is an infinite evil in respect of the duration; but yet the damned are not equally miserable: Some may be an hundred times as miserable as others in degree, although the misery of all, is equally in point of duration. That God is infinitely holy and amiable, and deserves to be, and actually is, the moral centre of the intelligent system, cannot be denied. It is equally undeniable, that consequently, we are under infinite obligation to love him. We are infinitely to blame if we do not; and does not infinite blame deserve an infinite punishment? Will not justice be satisfied with the infinite, i. e. endless punishment of guilty rebels? And is not justice fully satisfied with the temporary obedience and finite suffering of the sinner's surety, when he was made a curse, which, though neither in quality nor quantity like the curse which the personally guilty endures, yet, owing to his transcendant dignity and infinite worth, was rendered amply equivalent and accepted in his place? This, I trust, we have abundantly proved in a former part of this work, respecting the sacrifice of Christ.

      For the sake of some of those good "Calvinists and Arminians," that you boast of having in your communion, it may be necessary to present the real views of the sufferings of Christ according to your scheme: for, verily, there are some who profess to be your admirers, who will not believe that you deny the doctrine of vicarious atonement and [147] satisfaction. Probably they gather this from the following declarations: "It is not a mere man that suffers and dies," and yet he is not God-man. He suffered pain, persecution, and death--not because, or on account of his sin, but for, or on account of ours." (p. 53.) This looks a little like substitution or vicarious suffering--like the very thing we want from you all this time. Let us examine a little further. "In bearing the burden of our iniquity, Christ suffered not only in body, but in soul." Ah! he has got a soul now it seems, and surely it cannot be an unreasonable one. But now the whole secret comes out. "As the prophets, seeing the miseries, pains, and distresses, coming upon the wicked nations around, are said to bear their burden; the effects of this burden were, that the prophets' loins were filled with pain; pangs took hold of them, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth; they were bowed down at the hearing of those calamities, and dismayed at the seeing of them." And now, lo! the solemn conclusion follows: "So Jesus bore in his soul the sins of the world." Not in a way of actual burden and suffering to expiate them. No, but just like some of the prophets and other good men who suffered before him, the affections of sympathy, terror, dismay, consternation, persecution and death. And if you can assign a reason why one of these suffering prophets could not have answered the purpose of burden and suffering on account of iniquity, just as well as the creature Saviour you have brought into your system, eris mihi magnus Apollo. Can you tell me how sympathetic sufferings could affect, or in any way benefit those who had died before he came into the world? According to the representation you have given, all the sufferings of a Saviour, had only a prospective reference, and were occasioned by the miseries, pains, and distresses coming upon the wicked nations around. And further; if he suffered only as a pattern, or example, of heroic virtue, or whatever it might be, so he were not a substitute, of what benefit under the heavens could it be to those whose existence had ceased before his advent, and consequently before he suffered? Upon the principle of a real and proper sacrifice for sin by the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, and who was the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever, in the dignity [149] of his person, and in the virtue of his sacrifice, and extending from the fall of man to the end of time, no such difficulties can arise. Surely upon such a plan as yours there can be no retrospective reference in the sufferings of Christ. How could he bear in his soul the sins of that part of the world who were dead at the time? How could the blood of Christ be a price, a ransom for those who had by temporal death suffered all the penalty law required, or justice demanded? A scheme so visionary, and fraught with so much difficulty and inconsistency as this, ought never to have seen the light.

      According to your theory, the word redeemed, bought, purchased, ransomed, are all to be understood not literally, but metaphorically and figuratively. By the same construction we ought to be consistent, and carry it out to make our salvation a figurative salvation, and our redemption only metaphorical. What weight, however, this has in the argument, I cannot see; for it must still be acknowledged that a price or ransom was paid some how or other, and that this price was Christ himself, or his blood. There is on sacred record an instance of a person's paying a sum of money, as a ransom for his life, when it was forfeited, (Exod. 21. 29, 30.) and if such a consideration, when exacted as a price of redemption, be styled a ransom, then one person laying down his life for another, may, with equal propriety, be so called. Christ having bought us with a price, by giving his life a ransom for many, may therefore well be styled our Redeemer. There is no redemption without price. The word would be unmeaning without price. True, we read of Israel being redeemed out of Egypt, and Babylon; and Jacob speaking of his deliverance from evil by the angel, styles it his redemption from all evil, and oftentimes in scripture, deliverance from evil is called redemption; but this is done with reference to that ransom which Christ was in the fulness of time, to pay for his people, and this is confirmed by the fact, that no deliverance that God wrought for his enemies, and the enemies of his people, is ever called by the name of redemption.

      As for your comparison, by which you would represent our view of the means of redemption, by setting our government to negotiate with the Dey of Algiers, for the [149] recovery of American citizens detained by him in slavery, by paying to him a stipulated sum of money; it is too gross to deserve a serious reply, and savors too much of the sentiment you published some years ago respecting the devil getting the blood of Christ as the price of our redemption. This obnoxious thing, I know you profess to disavow, and shift it upon St. Augustin and his disciples: you also deny that your writings, if "fairly construed, speak any such sentiment." I declare to you, that I feel no pleasure, not the smallest gratification, in reiterating this subject, nor would I do it but for two reasons; the one is, because to me your disavowal has never appeared satisfactory, but rather carries with it a contradiction, in renouncing the words your first used, but continuing to retain and vindicate the sentiment; particularly in your late letter to Mr. Moreland. The other is, that I think you pervert the apostle's meaning, in Heb. 2. 14, which you have quoted from the first, to make him father the sentiment. In your two letters on Atonement, published in 1805, you write thus: "I now inquire, what was the price given for our redemption?" You answer yourself: "The blood of Christ is every where in scripture declared to be the price given, Acts 20. 28. Rev. 5. 9," &c. Then you proceed: "It may now be asked if Christ, or God in Christ, redeems from the devil and sin, and if he gave his blood as the ransom or price, who got the price? The apostle to the Hebrews, 2. 14. answers: For as much as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil! Here we see that the devil had the power of death, and he got the price, which was the death of Christ." (Letters on Atonement, p. 24.) Now, you must pardon my blindness, if I am unable, by fair construction, to put any other meaning on the words, than what they literally and plainly express. When you undertook to explain yourself "a little more fully" on this subject to Mr. Moreland, I really confess I was disappointed. "The devil and wicked men thirsted after the blood of Christ." This is true, but they did not thirst after it as the price of our redemption, any more than they did for the blood of Stephen and the other holy martyrs. But "they [150] saw if Jesus were permitted to live, all men would go after him, and the kingdom of darkness would be ruined." So they desired the death of the apostles, lest they should defeat their interests and turn the world upside down. "They thirsted for his blood, and at last obtained, or got it on Calvary.--This blood was the price of our redemption." But did the devil obtain and receive it as such,--did he know it at the time,--was it stipulated to him, or could he make any more of it than the blood of a holy martyr? Especially too, when, according to you, it was only a figurative price, or a figurative redemption. But it is further added, to express "the idea in the very words of inspiration--for through death Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and delivered them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Was Jesus under the power of death, and subject to bondage, in the same way that sinners are? Was he under the same kind of necessity of dying that they are? Had the devil the power of death over the Saviour, as a subject of his kingdom? Did he who said "the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me;" and of whom it is said, that, "it was not possible that he should be holden of death;" did he subject himself to the devil, to suffer death as a thing unavoidable? No, thanks to heaven, the power of laying down his life was his own. I lay it down of myself, I deliver it as my own act, and deed, for I have power to lay it down, and to take it again. He did not fall into the hands of his persecutors, because he could not avoid it, but because his hour was come. No man taketh my life from me. He laid it down voluntarily, as a matter of right and of choice, and not of necessity, which he could not prevent. He felt no the sting of death; nor did he enter the territories of death as a subject, but as a conqueror. Satan had the power of death over the human family, because he first seduced them to sin, and sin was the procuring cause of death; he may be said to have the power of death, as he draws men into sin, the wages whereof are death,--as he terrifies their consciences with the fear of death,--as the executioner of divine justice, and as being their tormentor forever and ever. Jesus destroyed him; not his existence, but his power and dominion from the souls of [151] his people, who are freed from the sting of death and the power of the grave. Seeing therefore, your sentiment is erroneous, untenable and offensive, at least suspicious, and evidently calculated to excite justifiable animadversion, and probably censorious reflection, would it not be the better way, by explicit disavowal, and manly boldness, to renounce it altogether, and thereby remove all ground of suspicion, and cut off all occasion of cavillation for ever?

      It now only remains to make a few strictures on your notions of faith, to bring this discussion to a close, which has already been too long. "The bible," you say, "plainly teaches that the whole work of regeneration and salvation from sin, is the work of the Spirit." (p. 82.) To this I most heartily subscribe. But what the spirit is, or what he has to do, in your system, really, I cannot see; as temporal death is all that justice demands of the sinner, and mortality is all that ails him. As for regeneration, that means the same as atonement, which is such a prolific term, that it found capable of engendering, and bringing forth a whole litter of words at a time, not of rich variety of definition, not possessing any due combination of powers to generate more, but all of the same family, and all speaking the same language; so that if atonement and regeneration be the same thing, then the former is as much the work of the Spirit, as the latter. "It is also plain that God begins, carries on, and perfects this work by means of his word,--believed by us." Ordinarily this is true, but not always, nor can means answer in the place of direct agency, which God can, and I have no doubt, often does employ on the souls of heathens and idiots, to qualify their natures for heaven; they are capable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word, and therefore God, "who worketh when and where, and how he pleaseth," can save them by Christ, through the agency of his Holy Spirit, without means. But upon you plan, no such effect can be wrought, seeing you deny any operation of the Spirit prior to believing. "The bible gives us no ground to expect these operations, while we abide in unbelief." (p. 83.) Who then does the Spirit reprove of sin? Who are they that "resist the Holy Ghost," that quench the Spirit, and stifle his holy suggestions? Does not [152] the Spirit strive with, and powerfully stir up, the minds of many who are not born again? Are not the natural powers of men strongly excited, and conscience influenced in part of perform its office, notwithstanding the strongest opposition of the carnal heart? Did the Holy Spirit never operate on your heart, to convince you of sin, before you believed? Did you obtain religion when you were "in the labyrinth of Calvinism," or since you fell into the vortex of Arianism? Probably the following statement will shew us how you got religion. "Suppose God, having handed me the bible, should thus speak: Take this book,--in it are all things necessary for you to know, believe, and do--believe them as the truths of heaven, and come to me and ask, and I will give you the Holy Spirit, and every promise of the New Testament; on this plan, I should be encouraged to activity in every duty, in the confident expectation of help and salvation." (p. 84.) All this may do for one who is a disciple of Christ, a child of grace, and one who desires to do his master's will; but apply it to the infidel,--to the heart of enmity,--to those who are naturally God's enemies, and withhold every other influence but that arising from the mere objective force of the declaration made, and will any of the this tribe be saved? The fact is, we have here another evidence of your denial of human depravity--here is no moral inability or hindrance--no lack of holy disposition;--the rebellious heart is not here,--the sinner is as docile and obedient as the living image, we saw a while ago;--he believes and comes to God, it seems, without the Spirit,--first saves himself, and then comes to God for salvation. Such divinity may soothe carnal hearts, and bolster up the false hopes of deluded souls, but to the thoroughly convinced, and deeply awakened sinner, it is like the friends of Job, a miserable comforter.

      A great outcry is made against the doctrine of the inability of the unregenerate to believe the gospel. "To say that God requires sinners to believe, when they have not capacities to believe, amounts to the same thing," i. e. "eternal damnation." What you mean by "capacities," I am unable to see; if the sinner does not lack spiritual capacity to see things which cannot be seen otherwise than [153] by spiritual discernment, then it is admitted he lacks none at all. But this admission cannot be, while God's word opposes it. (1 Cor. 2. 14.) You and all those who can so readily, and so boldly rise up and call in question the sovereign and unalienable right of God, to command apostate beings to perform obedience, which, from their unholy condition, they are morally unable to do, forget that you are not only trampling on divine authority, but likewise take part with such rebels in denouncing it as an act of tyranny and injustice in their sovereign to command them to do what they are unable to do; and verily, it argues little respect and reverence towards the divine Being for worms of the dust to say he must do so, or be arraigned as "a God of matchless cruelty, tyranny, and injustice." Does God command any natural impossibility of his creature? I believe he does not. Does he command any moral impossibility, i. e. any thing he is morally unable to do? I believe he does. Well, you say then, that I make him a God of matchless cruelty, tyranny, and injustice." The quarrel is not with me, but with God himself; if it be so, it is not my fault. Ezek. 18. 31. Make you a new heart and a new spirit. Isa. 42. 18. Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind that ye may see. Jas. 4. 8. Cleanse your hands ye sinners, and purify your hearts ye double minded. Eph. 5. 14. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead. Jer. 4. 4. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts. Now here are things required of sinners, which they are certainly unable to do; but there is no difficulty in accounting for the kind of inability they are under in all these cases; it is certainly of that description which implies a deep criminality, as the conditions described, and the rectifications called for in the texts fully evince. Yet I find no inconsistency here; for I believe there is a point, though I pretend not to demonstrate it, where the duty and the dependence of the sinner united;--where divine and human agency meet. I see it in the valley of dry bones. (Ezek. 37. 1-10.) I see it in Phil. 2. 12. 13. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will, and to do, of his good pleasure. I see it in 1 Cor. 2. 9. For we are labourers together with God. [154]

      Faith is not a discretionary compliance on the part of the creature, with mere invitation. God gives you the Bible, saying, "believe the truths of heaven, and come to me and ask, and I will give you the Holy Spirit:" Can you do this without "will, inclination or disposition;" and if so, will God accept of it, and be pleased with it as an act of obedience? But the illustration is as unfortunate as the position: "Were I from home, and a messenger should come and inform me that my wife was dead, I should believe it, not because I was willing, but because of the testimony of the messenger. Now, I should suppose there was a difference between the testimony as you warrant, and that act of your mind upon that warrant in receiving it was true. The proclamation of Moses to the dying Israelites calling upon them to look to the brazen serpent for healing, was one thing; and complying was another thing;--the former [155] was their warrant, and really I cannot believe they complied without will, inclination or disposition. Cyrus' proclamation throughout all his kingdom, was a sufficient warrant to every Jew to return to the land of Israel, yet none went but those "whose spirit God raised to go up;" (Ezra. 1. 1-5.) The warrant itself was as good for one as for another, nor was it by any means invalidated by those who did act upon it. We see, likewise, the agency of God, both when he "stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, to make the overture, and also by a simultaneous divine movement on those "whose spirit he raised to go up." Just so, I believe, he now acts by means of the gospel proclamation, (not without his own divine energy,) in bringing his people from a foreign dominion to the New Jerusalem above. Moreover, I would observe, that your belief respecting your dead wife, is entirely inapposite, and by no means justifiable, as going to establish the true notion of gospel faith: for instance; the objects of faith are as widely different as a dead wife, and a living Redeemer. Belief in the former case, no way relates to salvation, or involves spiritual concerns; not so the latter. The former is a mere physical act of the natural understanding, with reference to a physical object, with its appropriate results, but the latter is a complete exercise of the understanding assenting, and the will consenting, the one being persuaded of, and the other embracing the object, so as to believe in Christ with all the heart, as one who is precious to all who believe. The faith that you preach in your book, is certainly not gospel faith, either as to its nature or object, its warrant or exercise.

      To the question, "How does God give faith?" You make the apostle Paul answer in Rom. 10. 17; "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." If you can prove by this, that hearing gives faith, you can also prove by the same text, that the word of God gives hearing. The proper meaning is, that God gives faith, by the word as a mean, or an instrument which he ordinarily employs in his moral kingdom, to save the souls of men; in which view it might be said also, that salvation cometh by hearing, by the word, &c. But your illustration is quite luminous: "Should I relate to my neighbour an incident in my knowledge, and he believe me, I surely am the [156] author and giver of his faith." (p. 86.) This is not true: You only gave him the warrant, but that act of the mind which received your testimony as true, was not in your power to give. A little onward, you call faith an "act of the mind," (p. 89.) which you distinguish from its "objects and effects," as being "very different." Can you then be the author and the giver of an act of the mind of another man? But if he should not believe you, agreeably to such a theory, you must also be the author and the giver of his unbelief.

      But "the sinner is dead indeed; yet he can hear and believe unto eternal life." But how is the sinner dead, since we have been told he is subject to temporal death only? You quote for proof, John 5. 25--"The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." But why talk about the dead living, if they are not dead? The above declaration is akin to the following: "The scriptures assert that God justifieth the ungodly that believe." I deny that the scriptures assert any such thing. Every sinner is ungodly prior to justification, but the man whom God justifies has not the existing character of an ungodly man at the time of the justifying act, nor does he believe as an ungodly sinner, but as one who is actually born of the Spirit. You say, that "regeneration, salvation, justification, and sanctification are the works of the Spirit." (p. 85.) But in this discussion, we found according to you, that regeneration and sanctification meant the same as atonement, and justification the same as the resurrection; and what salvation is, or what the work of the Spirit is, who, or what the Holy Ghost is, we are left to conjecture. A theory so visionary, so contradictory, and so unscriptural, as you have sent out to the world, may pass with you and your disciples for the "old unsullied light which shines in the bible;" it may be admired and adopted by those who wish not to be beholden to the merits of redeeming blood for salvation; and by the simple hearts of others who are deceived by good words and fair speeches; but the honest and cautious inquirer after truth, the true follower of the good Shepherd, will flee from the voice of the stranger, and rejoice that, though "many deceivers are entered into the world," and "false teachers among the people," [157] who privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them," yet, "the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his."

[LBWS 134-158]