LETTER I.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

THAT We have embraced different religious sentiments, and that our views of some of the fundamental points in the gospel scheme are essentially diverse, is a fact as disagreeable as it is true. Both cannot be right. Opposite extremes can never be united in a common centre: nor is it the part of Christian candour, but of sceptical liberality, to depreciate sentiment, confound distinctions, and reconcile contradictions. Place the door on this hinge, and it will open immeasurably wide. Once admit that it is of no consequence what the man's religious sentiments, if he but believe sincerely and practice according to his creed, and you will have nothing to reserve ;-no such thing as truth in the moral world;-the religion of Jesus would claim no preeminence to the wisdom of Plato or Seneca; and the arms of charity expand alike to encircle the Christian and the infidel, the moral and the profane.

On this point, I need not dwell. We both believe there is such a thing as truth; and that it can suffer no variation from the perverse humours of mankind;— but, like its author, is immutable and eternal.

This gem, whose price is above rubies, is attainable to the honest dispassionate inquirer. We are professing to seek it. Let us do it with such views; and may the Blessed Spirit of all truth direct and succeed our inquiries. Let us be serious in so serious a cause ;for, the result of the proposed discussion, may be no less important, than our eternal salvation.

I begin then by remarking that there are some important distinctions which you do not make, besure, to any practical effect, and are thence, led into mista

ken views of divine truth. You do not, as I think, correctly distinguish between moral being and moral character-between the love of benevolence, and the love of complacence-between abhorrence and enmity;-between the holy anger of God, and the passionate anger of men ;-between natural and moral ablity;-between the conscience and the heart;-between the agency of God, and that of the creature ;-between restraining, and sanctifying grace ;-and between the natural affections of the human mind, which are as various as the countenance, and the moral affections, which are invariable and uniform. And can you say that here are no grounds of distinction? not a real but merely verbal difference? If so, there can be no religious system formed;--if otherwise, yours must embrace principles which will forever wage war with each other.

That we may fully know each other's ground, I shall in the first place sketch an analysis of some of the essential points in the scheme of doctrines, which I embrace as divine truth. The way will then be prepared for a more intelligent and useful discussion of those parts of it, in which we are disagreed.

Our first inquiry, then must be, what is our moral condition by nature; or the character and state, in which we are born? Here is a point to be determined, that will materially affect the issue of the grand question between us. It is, I conceive, a cardinal point, upon which the whole argument must eventually turn. And I recollect with pleasure, the candour with which you made this fair and honest concession at our parting interview, that, the merits of the whole dispute were poised in this scale--Are infants possessed of moral purity?--Your scheme stands or falls, with the affirmative position--mine, with the negative. Let us then attend closely to the investigation of this pointfor here I join issue, and stake the whole controversy on the result.

That, mankind are naturally, in a depraved and unholy state, appears to me a truth confirmed by the united testimony of scripture and experience ;--and I hesitate not to say, that wherever any right notions of De

ity, and of our relation and obligation to him as creatures are known and realized; this doctrine will be embraced, as an obvious and important article of religion.

An impartial examination of the exercises and affections of our own minds--together with a view of the external displays of divine justice, in the infliction of natural evils, may be sufficient, to convince us of our want of original uprightness of our being in a state of guilt, and under the power and condemnation of sin. From the Scriptures we learn that all mankind have descended from one common parent-that he was created in innocence and after the moral image of God ;that with him God entered into a covenant of life, as it is called, because eternal life was the good promised, "upon condition of his perfect obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil upon the pain of death." See Gen. ii. 16, 17.

Thus was the first man upon probation, in a state of holiness, unconfirmed; and his will, though liable to change, yet attempered to the divine will, and capable of rendering a perfect and persevering obedience to all the divine commands.

In this covenant made with Adam, all mankind were interested, as he was by divine appointment constituted the head and representative of his race-so that they should all take their moral characters from him. Not that Adam's sin by any transfer of guilt should be our sin-or that the perfect obedience of Adam had he stood, would have been in itself more than sufficient for his own justification;-but, that, upon condition of his obedience, his children should be brought into existence, in a state of holiness confirmed.

Now as this moral image of God, was an absolute gift of the Creator, and superadded to the work of creation, none may pretend to say, that God might not justly and consistently, either withhold or grant the same, to whom, in what manner, and upon what condition he saw fit. God was under no obligation to have conferred it upon Adam, any more than upon his posterity since the forfeiture ;-for Adam sinned and lost the covenanted blessing.

Thus mankind by Adam's forfeiture of the moral image of God, became fallen depraved creatures. Adam we read, "begat a son in his own image, after his likeness." This cannot intend, merely that Seth was born, in the bodily shape and figure of a man; but that he was born possessed of the same moral character with his father-a true copy, or fac simile of the original. It is explained by the account of Adam's creation, and has the same extent of signification as the same terms which are there used-" And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness.”And Adam's son begat his son in his own image after his likeness-and so has every succeeding generation, down to the present day.

The general fact being established, let us next inquire into the kind and degree of human depravity. 1. The kind.-In what does human depravity consist?

The moral rectitude of an intelligent being, which stands opposed to his depravity consists in his conformity to the Divine Being, who is the only standard of perfection; or in other words, it consists in a love to the divine excellence as such. Hence our depravity is of a moral nature, and lies only in the will;--the understanding being distinct, is not the seat of depravity, nor but mediately affected; and that in proportion to the degree of its subjection to the influences of the former." Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of the heart." (Eph. iv. 18.) By heart, here, as in all other places of scripture, where the word is used in a spiritual sense, is meant the affections. These are the exercises of the will. And the blindness of the heart, which is but another word for hardness or insensibility, as the original Greek, might most fitly have been rendered, is assigned, by the apostle, as the cause of that ignorance, through which the understanding became darkened. This expresses the disaffection and enmity of the heart, and is directly opposed to the idea, that mental ignorance is the essence of human depravity, and that all we need in order to love the true char

acter of God, is to see it. According to this text, that ignorance of God which there is in mankind is the effect and not the cause it arises from the contrariety of the heart--they are alienated from the life of God→→ this means estrangement of affection-a contrariety of moral temper. It is concluded, therefore, that the fall of man, consists in the change of his affections from the supreme love of God, to the supreme love of self; and that the perverseness of the will constitutes depravity.

2. The degree of depravity.-On this point, there is a diversity of opinions. Many are disagreed in the thing itself; and many who are professedly agreed in the doctrine, draw different consequences from the same premises; and build different superstructures upon the same foundation.

For myself, I hesitate not, to embrace it as a prime article of faith and to build upon it as a foundation stone of Christianity, that, by natural birth, mankind are utterly destitute of holiness, or the moral image of God that the earliest exercises of infants, are the same in kind, as in adult years of impenitency;-that is to say, evil without mixture; or, in other words, that by nature, there is nothing in us morally good.As degrading as this is to the human character, I cannot recede from the sentiment, without resisting the conviction of truth.

A candid attention to the nature of the will, joined to a comparative view of the nature of sin and holiness, were there no other proofs in the case, will, I think, to the unbiassed mind, establish the doctrine beyond the reach of doubt.

The nature of the will is to be active, always in exercise; and it is certain that it cannot love and hate, choose and refuse the same objects, at the same time, and that for the same perceptible qualities. Neither of two objects perfectly dissimilar, and in their natures opposed, can it view both with complacence. It will necessarily choose the one and refuse the other. Now sinning or self gratification which is the direct object of choice to the depraved mind, being diametrically