The argument I first empioyed is founded upon this statement. If those who are lost never perceived the meaning of the Holy Spirit, or never felt the force of truth in the con science and heart, to what was it owing? Not for want of natural powers to understand and feel the argument, for in that case they could not have been renewed, or been guilty for not being renewed. But if the natural enmity of their hearts to holiness and to God hindered their perception and their feeling of the arguments, then they were indeed guilty. If there be any natural defect in the understanding, or any physical obstacle to prevent a conformity to the will of God, it is an excuse. Every one perceives, who chooses to perceive, that there is an essential difference between that kind of inability which is independent of the will or disposition, and that which has its origin altogether in the disposition. But how is this state of mind to be changed? I believe that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is his to give a new heart. The scriptures always ascribe the work to the Holy Spirit.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

REPLY TO MR. LYND.

PRAY where did Mr. C. say that God possesses no other kind of power than physical power? Quote the passage, Mr. Lynd!—and save your comment for the text. We can conceive of no other power. But he that infers God can have no other power reasons illogically. Let him, however, who, in his theory of conversion, introduces any other power, explain it; or let him not call upon us to admit it. This is our proper ground.

care.

Mr. Lynd, in the second paragraph above quoted, especially directs the reader's attention to one point; because, he says, "it will clearly prove that Mr. Campbell is exceedingly embarrassed by my arguments;" and then refers to the dialogue on the Holy Spirit, &c. The reader will please read this part of Mr. Lynd's letter with especial This really deserves a smile rather than a serious reply.— Exceedingly embarrassed, truly!—with what I know not, unless with the misstatements and blunders of Mr. Lynd. Gentle reader, believe me, I have just now, for the first time since the controversy began, glanced over the aforesaid dialogue to see if it were possible that I could have done myself so much injustice as to have made such statements, and given such views as those Mr. Lynd would have you think I am now avoiding the discussion of by changing or shifting the meaning of the words, &c I felt confident I could not; but still I was determined to Inake "certainty more sure," and so examined. I have arisen from the examination with much less respect for the judgment or candor, or something else of my friend Mr. Lynd, than I could have wished; and I boldly affirm that I am grossly misrepresented in the above paragraphs. Mr. Lynd has been straining and constraining, and sometimes torturing my words. I will, however, let the dialogue speak for itself. Austin in the dialogue represents an inquirer, and Timothy the editor. Touching this distinction of physical and moral power, of

REPLY TO MR. LYND.

451

which Mr. Lynd says so many crude things, and things that I have never said, my reasons for using the words at all are thus given:

"A.-I have one fault to your reasonings upon this subject. You speak of moral and physical influences, and sometimes of spiritual operations. The Bible speaks not in this style. It is owing to these humanisms that you are so much misrepresented and misunderstood.

"T.-It is a fault; but hear my apology. I never introduced these distinctions; I only adopted them. For the sake of argument with those who oppose reformation, I used their own style; I reasoned with them on their own concessions. It is not my style; it is their style. And he that thinks that I used these terms with approbation, forgets what I have written about them.

"Were I to sketch a philosophy illustrative of the views which human reason can apprehend, I would have intellectual, moral, and physical power. But to suit your nomenclature, we combine intellectual and moral; and call every thing which is argumentative, which imparts either light, knowledge, disposition, or motive, moral;' and this power may be displayed either in words spoken or written, addressed to the eye or the ear, to the mind, either in signs, suggestions, or tokens, internal or external. But the Bible neither teaches the one philosophy nor the other; and it would be better, incomparably better, to speak of Bible things in Bible terms, if men would not pervert our words, and abuse the public mind with a phraseology neither scriptural nor philosophic."-C. R. p. 377.

The above hints one would think would have suggested both candor and caution to a reader of the dialogue, and have prevented him from using these words as if I had introduced and defined them for my own convenience. But notwithstanding all this, Mr. Lynd repeatedly misconceives and so perverts my use of these words. In the paragraph before us, for example, Mr. Lynd says, "Is Mr. C. then prepared to abandon his position that physical power cannot operate upon mind?” Where in the dialogue is this position found? No where! On the same page quoted above, will the reader examine the following periods?

"A.-You might as justly, I think, take exceptions to the popular misrepresentation or misconception of physical as of moral power. When you allege that spirits cannot operate upon spirits as a hammer operates upon metal, it is to show that moral disposition cannot be produced by a spirit operating upon a spirit-moulding it into dispositions good or evil, as a smith fashions a horse shoe; that moral effects cannot be the result of physical causes. But this does not lead to the conclusions which some infer. Suggestions or temptations, by presenting any sort of motive, may be so far physical as sound or speech is physical; but yet it is the end proposed and achieved which designates the power. All moral means are physical, if we take into view the tongue that speaks, the sound uttered, or the impression made upon the eye, the ear, or the heart. In this confounding of things, there is no power purely moral in the universe. Power is properly denominated either from the agent which acts, or from the object accomplished. Thus we

speak on other subjects. We have steam power, water power, horse power, human power, spiritual power, satanic power, and divine power. Thus is the name derived from the agent. The tendency or result of the power is sometimes chosen to designate it. Thus we have moral power, physical power, political power, pecuniary power. These are sometimes so denominated from the agent, and sometimes from the object or the termination of the power. Human, spiritual, satanic, and divine power, are general terms, and may denote all varieties of power, which these agents can, or do employ.

"T.-Grant all this, friend Austin; but what is the use of these distinctions with the great mass of men? If some theologians do not understand what we mean in opposing the popular notions of physical operations-if they suppose we are framing a new theory, because we take their terms and phrases, and show that their system is discordant with itself, of what use is it to talk or write upon such distinctions? If I could make myself understood-if I could speak or write to the apprehension of this speculating age, I would say, that a spirit, and of course the human spirit, cannot be shaped, or disposed, or new created, or new modified by another spirit working upon it, as we operate upon material things; and that it can only be moved, disposed, new created, by truth apprehended and embraced: and whether this truth, real or supposed, be presented by spirits or men, by God or Satan; physically, by words, signs, tokens, suggestions, temptations, it can operate only morally or by motive upon the soul. If I could explain myself at all, without the imputation of theorizing, or the terrible sin of denying the Holy Spirit, I would merely suggest this to those who are teaching the people to expect touches, impulses, operations of some naked spirit upon their naked souls, regenerating them in a moment, as lightning rives an oak, or shatters a tower in an instant of time. This is all I mean-all I would teach upon this subject—and not even this much, if men would preach the gospel, and talk of the Holy Spirit as did the Apostles."

Mr. Lynd is fighting with a man of straw, one of his own creation; and yet he says "Mr. C. is exceedingly embarrassed" by Mr. Lynd's arguments!! Timothy, or Mr. Campbell, grants in the passage quoted that all moral means are physical in some sense: hence, in some sense, physical power operates upon the mind, which is just the reverse of the position which Mr. L. has made for me. This is truly embarrassing. I have never so much as said that angels or spirits may not naturally, or, as we call it, physically operate upon one another. I think it quite possible-nay, probable, that by impulses, or some way, they can operate upon each other without argument or moral means. Nor have I ever taught that God or his Spirit could not thus operate upon the human mind; nay, in this very dialogue it is admitted in the case of spiritual gifts. But in the dialogue physical and moral power are contradistinguished as respects the change of a sinner's mind, spirit, or heart, and in no other sense; and because theologians have so used them. Indeed, if the reader will carefully read Mr. Lynd's reasonings and objections, and compare them with the extracts given, he cannot

fail to see, I humbly think, how perfectly gratuitous this whole affair is on the part of Mr. L. I then leave the dialogue itself to refute Mr. Lynd.

The quotations above made are from the close of the dialogue. I will also quote from the beginning of it to show that we guarded the subject from such perversions both at the beginning and end:—

"T.-My dear sir, if you were to distribute and classify power into animal, mechanical, physical, moral and spiritual, and could define your own distinctions with all logical and rhetorical accuracy and eloquence, it affects not the nature of the great question on which you proposed an interview, viz.-the influence of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men. The present salvation is not a change of body, nor of perception, memory, judgment, imagination, reason; nor of the intellectual and animal, but of the moral nature of man. Christ came not to make new men and redeem them, but to redeem and save such as we are by nature. Our ruin is not in our senses, nor in our intellectua! faculties, but in our moral character and relations. The enlargement of our powers, physical, animal, or intellectual, would neither contribute to our purity nor our happiness. It is a moral revolution, a moral reformation, a moral change, which is essential to the salvation of men. The means must therefore be moral, unless we can think that physical causes can produce moral effects."

In speaking specially of moral power, we say

"From such premises we may say, that all the moral power which can be exerted on human beings, is, and must of necessity be, in the arguments addressed to them. No other power than moral power can operate on minds; and this power must always be clothed in words, addressed to the eye or ear. Thus we reason when revelation is altogether out of view, And when we think of the Spirit of God exerted upon minds or human spirits, it is impossible for us to imagine that that power can consist in any thing else but words or arguments. Thus in the nature of things we are prepared to expect verbal communications from the Spirit of God, if that spirit operates at all upon our spirits. As the moral power of every man is in his arguments, so is the inoral power of the Spirit of God in his arguments. Thus man still retains an image of his Creator: and from such analogy Paul reasons when he says, For the things of a man knows no man, save the spirit of a man which is in him; even so the things of God knows no man save the Spirit of God.' And the analogy stops not here; for as he is said to resist another whose arguments he understands and opposes, so they are said to resist the Holy Spirit, who always resist, or refuse to yield to his arguments."

With these premises before him, how an ingenuous mind could mistake our meaning I confess I cannot see.

I am sorry I did not notice the omission quoted above, and have it inserted in its proper place. The curious reader will turn over to page 400, and after the first paragraph ends, 16th line from top, insert the omitted words, Mr. Lynd, I have already observed, has denied this to

be the proposition before us. I have said that it is, because he attacks and impugns the dialogue; and what says the dialogue? Reader, mark the following words:

"The difficulty always was about the influences necessary to produce faith; about regeneration anterior to faith, or the infusion of some pre. vious holy principle."

This, then, is the subject of the dialogue, as is evident, not only from the words quoted, but from its whole drift. In oppasing the doctrine of the dialogue, Mr. Lynd must, of necessity, maintain the contrary positions. If he do not, there can in truth be no controversy.

Mr. Lynd is quite a controversialist indeed. He has given us some six massive columns upon the proposition "to be fully convinced is to be fully disposed." What Mr. Lynd says about his candor being put to the utmost stretch, &c. is very sincerely reciprocated upon all the premises. I am conscious of no uncandid treatment of Mr. Lynd's reply, first, middle, or last. Had Mr. L. more carefully considered the subject before he commenced, he would have prevented so many of those corrections which place his discrimination or his candor sometimes in jeopardy.

Now I put it to his candor whether these six columns were called for after the exposition I had given him on pages 58 and 59 of this volume; whether this was not seized as an occasion for other imputations more obnoxious to the reprobation of a party. "I maintain," says Mr. Lynd, that to be fully convinced and to be fully disposed are two different things: common sense says the same: Mr. Campbell says the same.” Why then write six columns against Mr. Campbell on this point, if Mr. C. says what he says! He then exclaims that his "argument is untouched." And why? Because it is intangible! You might as easily bind a colt by a gossamer as seize either end of it. "The sinner looks at truth, perceives his duty, and hates to do it." I wonder if Mr. Lynd is not such a sinner as this, even yet. According to his expositions, Paul was just such a man when he wrote the 7th chapter of the letter to the Romans!

To be convinced with me is not to be convicted. To be convinced is sometimes merely to perceive a truth or a duty-at another time, to be convinced is to be persuaded to do something-and yet at another time, to be convinced is to be reconciled, disposed, converted, &c. just according to the nature of the object proposed. If I were now convinced that Mr. L. had abandoned all humanisms for the gospel, I would be fally disposed to receive him most cordially as one who loved my Master with an attachment paramount to all earthly associations. The actual meaning of such words depends upon the things with which they are