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some excuse for his offence; and that it would be unreasonable in his father to punish him for an offence, which resulted from his own arrangements, to render disobedience certain? And, should the case be brought before an impartial court, would not the father be deemed the more blamable of the two?

"What then, my friend, will be the natural effect of teaching mankind, that their heavenly Father, to express his displeasure on account of Adam's sin, caused all his posterity to be placed in such circumstances as make it certain that they will all sin and become totally sinful, as soon as they become moral agents? A little reflection may lead you to doubt whether your hypothesis is a revealed truth. If God had intelligence to form such a plan as your scheme asserts, and a heart to execute it, is it not reasonable to believe that regard for his own character would have disposed him to keep the affair a profound secret in his own breast?

My doctrine of a sinful nature, or an invincible propensity to sin, you regard as placing mankind in a state of 'overwhelming misfortune.' But is being born with such a nature or such a propensity a greater misfortune' to children than, after being for a time innocent, to be placed in such circumstances as insure that they will sin and become totally sinful as soon as they are moral agents? But, sir, is it not a dreadful doctrine, — whether it be mine or yours, which precludes all encouragement for pious parents to use means to save their children from total depravity? If holy Adam could sin without a previous sinful nature, or an arrange

ment of such circumstances as would render his fall certain, why should we resort to such hypotheses to account for the common and early transgressions of little children? I have become convinced that what I once called a sinful nature consists in such lusts of the flesh, such animal senses, appetites, propensities and passions as exposed Adam and Eve to transgress. These properties are not in themselves sinful; nor were they implanted to render it certain that children will sin as soon as they are moral agents. They are favors, bestowed by God to render us capable of enjoyment and usefulness; but they are like other favors which expose mankind to temptation. When abused or unlawfully indulged, they are occasions of sin.

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Intelligent and reflecting men of the present age are in the habit of considering the different circumstances under which different children are born and educated, when called to estimate the nature of their actions, or the degree of criminality attached to such actions as appear odious or reprehensible. If, in consequence of the vices or the imprudence of his parents, a child is born blind, diseased, deformed, imperfect in his intellects, or the subject of any natural defect, allowance is made for such omissions or defects in his conduct as are supposed to result from misfortune, or the wickedness of his parents. So if by the ignorance or the wickedness of his parents, a child is denied the advantages of religious instruction, and trained up in ignorance of God, and under the influence of vicious examples, so as to be made to believe that revenge is noble and praiseworthy, it will readily be said that nothing good can be expected of him.

If at seven years of age he should kill a brother, a sister, or one of his playmates, to revenge some wrong, when the affair is brought before a court, inquiry will be made in regard to the character of his parents, and the disadvantages under which the child had been placed; and great allowance will be made on the ground of those unfortunate circumstances. If it shall appear that his parents were capable of teaching the child the path of duty, but did not, a great share of the blame will be ascribed to them. From such facts you may readily infer, that your hypothesis, as well as mine, is very far from being adapted to impress the minds of children or of men with correct views of their sinfulness, or of the real nature of sin; that it tends to furnish an excuse for early transgression and depravity. Though I once had an unfavorable opinion of such Christians as denied or doubted the total sinfulness of little children, as a consequence of Adam's sin, I am now convinced that the more the minds of children are impressed with a belief that this doctrine is true, the more confused their ideas will be as to what sin is, the more they will see themselves as objects of pity, and the subjects of 'overwhelming misfortune'; the more too they will excuse their real transgressions, and impute the blame of them either to Adam or to God. If you wish men or children to feel what an evil and bitter thing it is to sin against God, forbear to impute their liability to sin to the displeasure of God on account o Adam's transgression; and do what you can to make them feel that their sin consists in an ungrateful abuse of the kindness and manifold favors of the Lord."

NO. XVI.

Dr. Spring's Theory of Native Depravity.

A Dissertation on Native Depravity, by the Rev. Gardiner Spring has recently been presented to me for examination. It is of a date more recent than Professor Stuart's Commentary on the Epistle to Romans; and it appears to have been written for the purpose of disproving the hypothesis of Professor Stuart and Dr. Taylor, relating to the time when infants begin to sin. He seems to agree with them as to the nature of sin, and as to the faculties which are necessary to constitute a person capable of sinning. On these particulars he takes fair and scriptural ground, as may appear from the following passage.

In

"The Bible affixes a definite idea to sin, and a well defined character to the term sinner. In one place it declares, All unrighteousness is SIN. another it says, "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is SIN. And in another it says, sin is a transgression of law. It is obvious. that sin is predicable only of an intelligent being, and that in such a being it consists in the transgression of law. It bears relation to some standard. Where there is no law, there is no transgression. is not imputed where there is no law.'

p. 6.

Sin

On first observing this paragraph, I was wholly at a loss what ground Dr. Spring had adopted in opposition to Professor Stuart. Soon, however, I found that he had advanced the hypothesis that infants are born moral agents, or with all the know

ledge and faculties which are essential to obedience and disobedience; -that in fact each child as soon as it is born "KNOWETH TO DO GOOD, AND DOETH IT NOT," and hence is a sinner. Such is the fact if I have not misunderstood him; and whether I have misunderstood or not the reader may judge from such passages as the following:

"Our illustration of the doctrine of Native Depravity, therefore, will not, we think, be misunderstood. We mean by it that every child of Adam is a sinner, and from the moment he becomes a child of Adam. He may not be a sinner in the sight of men; but he is so in the sight of God. He sins not in deed nor in word, but in thought." p. 10.

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p. 11.

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"So far as we have any thing to do with the soul in moral science, and especially in the present discussion, it consists of natural faculties and moral dispositions. Its natural faculties are Perception, Reason, Conscience and Memory. The moral dispositions are those internal operations or emotions of mind, which can be compared with a rule of action, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong. "Now these rational and moral properties are essential to the soul's existence. They belong to the infant of a day old, as really as to the man of eighty." p. 12. Every infant that has attained to maturity enough to have a soul, has such a soul as this. It is a soul which perceives, reasons, remembers, chooses, and has the faculty of judging of its own moral dispositions. Conscience belongs to the soul as well as perception and reason. "The youngest human soul possesses this, as the immediate gift of the Creator. pp. 12, 13. "We are ready to grant that if the soul of an infant has no conscience, no moral sense, he has no accountability, and we might add, that he has no soul. But if infants have a conscience and

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