LAST THOUGHTS.

PART I.

MAN'S LIABILITY TO SIN.

CHAP. I.

Preliminary Observations.

- as

In the Bible God is represented to us as a just and merciful Sovereign, and a tender Father slow to anger, ready to forgive, and one who does good even to the evil and unthankful. In a word, "God is love." We may hence safely infer, that the doctrines and precepts of the gospel, when correctly understood, will be found consistent with this benign character.

In all our inquiries, however, it is proper that our minds should be deeply impressed with these truths, that "God is greater than man,"—that his government is of universal extent and unlimited duration, and that the wisest of men are very liable to misjudge in regard to what it may be proper for God to do in governing the universe. Humility and caution, therefore, ever become us, in our researches, and in judging of such facts and

doctrines as have been supposed to be revealed in the scriptures. Still, as God condescends to reason with us as intelligent beings, and sometimes even appeals to our consciences, as to the equity of his conduct, it seems proper that we should employ our rational faculties in humble endeavors to ascertain what doctrines he has revealed, and the reasonableness of them. Two considerations occur to enforce this duty.

1. The doctrines of Scripture are motives for submission and obedience to the divine will. It is hence desirable that we should understand these doctrines, that they may have a due influence on our minds.

2. Since the Christian world has been divided into sects, the children of different sects have been taught different and even opposite doctrines. Many of them must of course have been educated in some serious errors of opinion; nor is it improbable that such has been the fact in every denomination. What then can be more obvious than that it is the duty of adult persons, carefully to inquire for themselves, whether they have not received by tradition erroneous opinions for divine truths. To make such inquiries implies no disrespect to the Bible. On the contrary, true love to God and the scriptures will dispose us so to do. To refuse to do it, from a respect to a traditionary creed, or its authors or abettors, is to prefer the words of man's wisdom to the oracles of God, or to degrade our own understanding by a servile reliance on the dictates of others, who are fallible like ourselves.

Such doctrines as seem to us to imply that God

is not so benevolent as he has declared himself to be, may, in a special manner, demand a solemn inquiry, whether they did not originate in misinterpretations of the scripture. For while they appear to us to ascribe to God a vindictive or revengeful character, they can be of no force to excite in us the spirit of love and cheerful obedience. Their tendency must rather be to diminish or prevent that love which would otherwise flow from a pious and grateful heart. Besides, so far as God appears to our minds of a stern, unpitying or revengeful character, we shall be in danger of forming a similar disposition. For it is hardly to be expected that any one will feel under obligations to cultivate in his own breast a more kind and forgiving spirit than that which he habitually ascribes to his Maker.

From childhood I grew up with deep reverence for the scriptures, as the oracles of God, and as containing the words of eternal life. I was also taught to venerate the shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, as containing a correct view of the principal doctrines of the gospel. For the greater part of my life two doctrines of the Catechism occasioned me much embarrassment, as often as I made them the subjects of serious reflectionbecause they appeared to me to ascribe to God such a character as is inconsistent with perfect benevolence. During that period, however, I was disposed to account for my embarrassment on the ground of my own imperfection my want of a full view of the whole ground. But the more I reflected, the more I was embarrassed, till I sought relief by a laborious examination of the scriptures. Two

questions will suggest the grounds of my embarrassment, and the doctrines of the Catechism from which the queries arose.

1. Admitting that our first parents did eat of forbidden fruit, could it be on that account, consistent with the character of a merciful Father, for God to cause all our race to come into existence under "his wrath and curse," and with a nature wholly sinful?

2. Admitting that the Messiah so loved us as to sacrifice his life for our salvation, could it be consistent with forgiving love and mercy, that God should inflict on his Son the punishment due for our offences, that the penitent might be pardoned?

Prior to entering on the work of the ministry I had relinquished several ideas which are contained in the Catechism, relating to the fall and the atonement, and had embraced the Hopkinsian views of these subjects. Still the embarrassing questions occurred. Nor can I doubt that these questions have been embarrassing to many others, as well as to myself.

66

The result of my inquiries relating to vicarious punishment, was published in the work entitled The Atoning Sacrifice, a Display of Love, not of Wrath." Scarcely had I completed that work, when my mind seemed to be in a special manner turned to the subject of the first of the two embarrassing questions. For on this point I had not then obtained very satisfactory views. That mankind have been to a great extent a depraved race of beings was in my view too obvious to be denied. But that this depravity, or man's liability to sin,

should be ascribed to God's displeasure, on account of Adam's offence, was to me a dreadful idea-one which I could not reconcile with either benignity or justice. Yet in one form or another this seems to have been the popular belief for ages. The effect supposed to be produced by divine displeasure was ever shocking to my mind. And why should it not be so? What can be more shocking than the idea that God should, on account of the first sin of the first man, doom all his posterity to be born with a nature wholly sinful? Is this consistent with being "slow to anger, long-suffering, and ready to pardon?" Could such an act display the heart of a merciful Father?

Though prior to engaging in the ministry I had discarded the doctrine that Adam's posterity" sinned in him and fell with him," and also the doctrine of imputation, I still retained the Hopkinsian idea of an "established connexion" between the sin of Adam and the first moral exercises of his posterity. My views at that period were very similar to those more recently published by Dr. Taylor and his New Haven associates. Subsequent inquiries, however, had in some respects modified my views of the consequences of Adam's sin, before I wrote the work on the Atoning Sacrifice. On inquiry I could find no proof of the supposed "established connexion." But the universal liability of mankind to sin was too obvious to be questioned; and how to account for this but by the displeasure of God, was still to me an insurmountable difficulty. With this difficulty on my mind I commenced a series of inquiries relating to the sources of human depravity, and the im