exercise reason during the time that the faculty is suspended. If by the misconduct, of a parent a child is born an idiot, or is after its birth made an idiot, he is under no obligation to act as a rational being. To love God with all the understanding and all the strength, is all that is required of any one. The blind are not required to see, nor the deaf to hear; nor is the man who is destitute of hands required to do all that would have been his duty, had he not been subjected to this privation.

We may hence infer, that if it be a truth that on account of Adam's sin, his posterity are born with an evil or sinful nature, by which they are rendered incapable of knowing or of doing the will of God; they are of course excusable in proportion to the extent of the disability or privation. If in the way supposed in the popular theory, men have now but half the understanding or the ability to perform the will of God, which they would have possessed had it not been for Adam's offence; the remaining half is all they are required to improve all that they can abuse, and all for which they are accountable. But if it be, as has been asserted, that God has so subjected our race to "his wrath and curse" that they suffer "the corruption of their whole nature, whereby they are utterly indisposed, disabled and made opposite to all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to evil and that continually, "* it seems to be a clear case, that they are as wholly excusable in respect to doing the will of God, as they could have been had they all been born idiots. For this is strictly a constitutional defect or "disa

*Larger Catechism of the Westminster Assembly.

bility;" and such a disability" is ever a constitutional excuse, so far as the "disability" extends, be it greater or less. If the "disability" be perfect or entire, the excuse is of the same extent.

I verily believe that this doctrine of " disability," resulting from Adam's sin, or God's displeasure, to be false; but whether true or false, he who believes it to be true, must naturally, if not necessarily, regard it as an excuse for his transgressions. He may indeed feel much affected with his wretched condition, and be deeply concerned about the consequences: but just so far as he accounts for that condition by the sin of Adam, or by God's displeasure, he will regard his case as calamitous, and not as criminal.

The language of God to the posterity of Jacob was not this" O Israel, thou" wast destroyed by Adam's apostacy. Nor was it this. Thou wast destroyed by my displeasure on account of Adam's transgression. But this was his language. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thy help." The same language he might address with propriety to every impenitent sinner, with no other change than that of the name. It is one thing for a person to feel and confess that he has been destroyed by the act of another person or being; but a very different thing to feel and confess that he has destroyed himself. The former he may feel and confess as a great calamity; the latter he may justly feel and confess as a crime.

There is perhaps no other dictate of reason or conscience more common to intelligent men of all countries than this, that natural, hereditary or

constitutional defects or disabilities render men objects of pity, but not of blame. The biographer of the late Dr. Payson has two remarks which are directly in point. They are the following: "Nervous irritability and consequent depression was an ingredient in Dr. Payson's nature.” This is one

remark; the following has reference to the fact here asserted. "To censure a man for constitutional infirmity is as unjust and inhuman, as to censure him for bodily deformity, which he had no hand in producing." Memoirs, p. 428.

I admit the correctness of the sentiment here expressed; but it is perhaps applicable to an extent which the writer hardly suspected. For on the same principle that it would be "unjust and inhuman" to censure Dr. Payson for his " nervous irritability and consequent depression," it must be unjust and inhuman to censure mankind for any "ingredient" in their "nature"- any "infirmity," defect, or disability, which is to them "constitutional," or, "which they had no agency in producing." This seems to be a plain dictate of common sense. May we not then safely infer one or other of the following things? Either first-That Christians have been under a great mistake, in supposing that the posterity of Adam are born with a nature wholly sinful:- Or second. That this hereditary evil is a species of sinfulness, which it would be " unjust and inhuman" to censure" in any of our race.

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Besides, if the "nervous irritability and consequent depression" which was an "ingredient in Dr. Payson's nature," will excuse words or actions

which would otherwise have been censurable; is it not obvious that the supposition of a constitutional "sinful nature," will of course be regarded as some excuse for such words or actions as are supposed to proceed from that evil source? That it should be otherwise in the view of those who adopt the hypothesis, seems to me impossible; and in making this remark, I speak from experience, as well as from observation.

CHAP. IV.

Necessary cautions and illustrations.

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In the last chapter, I approved the sentiment, that "to censure a man for constitutional infirmity is unjust and inhuman.” Nervous irritability and consequent depression" were the infirmities then under consideration. Some caution seems to be necessary in applying the sentiment.. For " vous irritability" is not an uncommon disease; nor is it confined to good men, nor to men of studious and sedentary habits. Vicious men are liable to the disease, and it may often occur as the effect of dissipation. The disease is not in itself sinful, whether constitutional or not. But when it is produced by vicious indulgences, we are not to excuse the causes of the disease, because the effect is not in itself sinful. Besides, there is in many healthy persons a constitutional irritability of temper. Though

this constitutional property, by which some men are much more liable to be irritated than others, is not in itself sinful,-yet it exposes men to temptation and sin, as frequently, perhaps, as any property of our animal nature. The more of it that any one possesses, the more occasion he has to watch and pray, lest he be overcome by temptation. In applying the sentiment of Dr. Payson's biographer, we should be careful not to impute to disease our own criminal neglects to obtain a due government of our appetites and passions: When disease renders self-government to us impossible, or so far as such is the fact, we may be excusable, but no farther.

Having suggested these cautions, I may now ask, what has ever been seen in little children, prior to moral agency, which has been so commonly regarded as a proof that they are all born with a nature wholly sinful, as the evidence which they give of possessing an irritable and resentful temper? Others may still ask, On what other principle can such a temper be accounted for?

There may be various causes assigned of irritability in little children, without resorting to the hypothesis of a derived sinful nature. Much of it may be ascribed to disease; and nothing perhaps is more sure to render persons irritable than hunger. Yet neither disease nor hunger is of a sinful nature. It will, however, be said, that children might possess an irritable passion, or they would not be liable to be excited by such causes; and what is the irritable passion but a sinful nature? I answer, it is strictly an animal passion, and as com