with being guilty of Adam's sin, either in deed or by acquiescence, before they had power to act, or to testify consent?

Will you say they sinned by imputation? This is impossible, for sin is a personal act; and were it possible, the imputation itself would be a greater injustice in the imputer, a greater violation of rectitude, than could be committed by the much injured innocent, even after he had acquired the power of actual transgression. But your hypothesis states, that the heart itself is depraved, rotten to the core! Can this statement be qualified by the idea of imputation?

The utmost, that can possibly be ascribed to the human mind, is, that it is so formed as in certain circumstances it will indicate itself prone to the commission of evil. But such a conformation in itself: has no more culpability, than the calamity of impaired intellects. Let the natural propensity be ever so strong, the subject must be as innocent of guilt, as the embryo of a tiger is void of cruelty, before it has acquired the instinctive ferocity of the dam. Virus itself is innoxious in an inert state. Nor could the inert virus of sin, supposing it to exist, be charged with demerit. This title must be suspended until it shall burst forth into actual transgression.

But the same mind is so formed, that in certain circumstances it shows itself prone to good also; and why may not this fact be admitted with equal propriety, as an evidence of the universal excellence of

our natures? Why may we not expatiate upon all the good observable in man, and pronounce him perfect, in consequence of his approved moral qualities, as legitimately as you stigmatize him with the character of universal depravity, from his bad ones? Let this statement convince you, Sir, that the singular conformation of our natures cannot be, of itself, an indication of either virtue or vice, that it is equally void of merit or demerit, claims no reward, and deserves no punishment.

Does not the above examination fully prove that the doctrine of hereditary mental depravity, considered either physically or metaphysically, is an absolute impossibility?

We shall now briefly show, that it is equally inconsistent with some other theological tenets, which are also deemed sacred by its supporters. For instance;

If hereditary corruption be admitted, it will totally destroy all the subsequent temptations of Satan. If man be so depraved that he can neither think a good thought, nor perform a good action; if his very best deeds are only splendid sins, there is no place left for the seductions of the evil one. His whole business must have been completed by the success of his first enterprise. He and his agents would be idling away their time, in employing arts of seduction upon those, who are already prone to every kind of iniquity; or endeavouring to captivate those, who are already in their chains.

The doctrine of original depravity opposes with no less force, that of the true and proper incarnation of the Son of God. If it be true, that our natures are universally corrupt, when the Godhead became man in the person of Jesus Christ, he must have taken our corrupt natures upon him; that is, he must also inevitably have partaken of this original hereditary depravity. If he remained untainted with original sin, it could not be our nature, which he took upon himself. Admitting that the union of the Divinity with humanity may have preserved the latter from actual transgression, may have checked and subdued every evil propensity, or may have prevented any from rising, yet the propensity must have been radically inherent in the person of Jesus Christ, as much as in ourselves. The divine nature must inevitably have taken the human, as it actually exists. Christ Jesus, therefore, as Man, however perfect in character and in conduct, yet being a child of Adam, he was, equally with those he came to save, "liable to the wrath of God, and the pains of hell for ever!" The pen trembles as it traces these consequences; but they inevitably flow from your extravagant hypothesis ! The idea might be enlarged upon, were not the subject too revolting.

The position, that our Saviour was born out of the course of ordinary generation, does not solve the difficulty, unless it can be proved that Adam's depravity ran in the male line alone, notwithstanding that Eve

was first in the transgression. Mary, the mother of Jesus, being born of parents naturally depraved, must have partaken of their depravity, and this must have been communicated to all her descendants, whether according to the course of ordinary generation or not. It is maintained by our opponents universally, that our Saviour was of the seed of David, alone in consequence of his having been born of Mary; but as you apply the declaration of David, that "he was born in sin, and in iniquity did his mother conceive him," to the pollution derived from Adam, Mary must also have partaken of, and communicated its dreadful effects to her son.

Thus it appears, without a possibility of evading the force of the argument, that if the doctrine of hereditary depravity be true, and if the Son of God be also the Son of Man, being descended from Adam, in the female line, he "sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression."

LETTER V.

The Notion, that Men are punished for Sin inherited from Adam, is extravagant, irrational, and unscriptural. Shown to be absurd, and the Arguments in its Favour examined and confuted. It is in Opposition to the Attributes of God.

SIR,

THE other branch of your doctrine relates to the punishments, to which the hereditary sinner is exposed. These, as represented in creeds and confessions, consist in miseries, which it is not in the power of imagination to exceed. They state that "the offspring of Adam have, by his fall, lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever." The only mitigation of this dreadful sentence is, "God having out of his mere good pleasure from all eternity elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and bring them into an estate of salvation through a Redeemer."

The objections against the tenet of hereditary sin were simply, that it is unscriptural, irrational, and, physically and metaphysically considered, impossible; as well as inconsistent with other doctrines held to be of equal importance. The charges against this part