wrapped up in eternal death, without remedy, to be cast into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. It is a horrible decree, he is compelled to admit, which tears from the mother's breast and precipitates into hell the harmless infant; but then it is a decree nevertheless, and is all to the praise of that glorious Calvinistic justice, which might inflict upon the most innocent creature, the greatest possible tortures, and which is therefore not to be questioned for consigning these little guilty ones, these seeds of sin,' which were odious and abominable in the sight of God before they saw the light of life, to unspeakable torments throughout eternity, where they shall forever burn, yet never be utterly consumed. This is Calvin's doctrine; and to deny the truth of it, or call it cruel, is to blaspheme the God of heaven and of earth; and he who will not detest such blasphemy, says Calvin in another place, may curse me at his will. For I cannot expect to escape the abuse of those, who do not spare' the Almighty.

We have above given all which in the section precedes the passage in question, and it puts the meaning of that passage beyond dispute. But Dr Beecher has given for one continued argument on a subject which Calvin does not even touch, that which in fact is a series of arguments upon quite another question. Had he looked into the original, however, he might have secured himself against these egregious mistakes, if mistakes it is not too much charity to suppose them. But then the original would have compelled him to acknowledge the grossness of his error in respect to Calvin's sentiments on the whole subject, and that would not do. Be that as it may, in the margin of the Latin copies of the Institutes, and directly against the section we have been considering, he might have found the proper key to the true meaning of the whole; for there we have these words, intended to indicate the contents of the section,The objection that it was not decreed by God, that Adam should perish by his defection, is [in this section] done away, multiplici ratione, by many reasons, or, literally, by a multiplex argument, deduced from the end of the creation, from the omnipotence, wisdom, and incomprehensible justice of God.' This establishes the correctness of our interpretation of the context, and the indefensibleness of that adopted by Dr Beecher, in a way which it seems to us there is no possibility of evading.

But we are even prepared to give up all we have hitherto said, and yet, from still another source, redeem our promise to demonstrate, that our rendering of the passage in dispute is the only one that does justice to Calvin's meaning. All that has hitherto been advanced may go for nothing; for we have still in

our possession evidence that is irresistible without it, and which must of itself settle the point forever. We preferred the course we have taken, however, for the simple reason which we have already given; viz. that the public may see what kind of a controvertist we have to deal with.' He writes with an unblushing, uncompromising assurance and dogmatism, of which the force on the public mind has no doubt been well calculated, but the foundations of which, after all, rest upon air, and we should be wanting to the duties imposed upon us by our high vocation, did we suffer them to pass without an exposure of their emptiness. The moral influence upon the community of such unauthorised and overbearing boldness, unsupported, as it is, by the least shadow of right for its pretensions, cannot but be of the very worst character, and it is the duty of honest men to use all honorable means to exhibit it in its true character. It is therefore only that we have chosen to follow our author step by step, rather than to give a merely virtual reply to all he has said, by an independent argument on the main question at issue between him and us.-Let us then see what Dr Beecher tells us in another of his paragraphs, written in the same style of effrontery with all the rest. He is still upon the subject of the disputed passage, and, at the conclusion of his argument upon it, says;

'It should not be forgotten, that the Institutes were published by Calvin both in Latin and in French, and that Allen had the benefit of both, and that the translation was made while a keen controversy about Calvinism was going on, when any prominent mistake would be sure to be detected. Far be it from me to insinuate a suspicion of the Professor's integrity. Much less of his ability to translate an easy passage in John Calvin. I have only to regret the fact, without being required to account for it, that there should be but one light in the text to redeem it from perversion, and that the Professor and the reviewer should both, though in a different manner, put it out; the one by a wrong collocation of the words in his translation, and the other by omitting them altogether.' p. 85.

And this is from Dr Beecher; and that, too, in relation to a sentence of Latin, which the merest tyro would blush to translate in any other way than that which Professor Norton and the reviewer too adopted. No, we have not forgotten that Calvin published his Institutes in French as well as Latin, nor that Allen, as he tells us in his preface, had the benefit of both. But we have yet to be convinced that Allen always made an honest use of his advantages. His translation, it is true, was made when a keen controversy about Calvinism was going on, and when any prominent mistakes would be sure to be detected. They were detected; and we do not hesitate to say, that, upon any offensive point of Calvinism, upon any point which Allen

might think too orthodox,' as Richard Baxter calls those Calvinists who believe in infant damnation, his language does not do justice to Calvin's as his rendering of the very passage before us, in one instance at least, shows. For his rendering of it is not according to Calvin's French translation, of which we too, to say nothing of Dr Beecher,* have had the benefit' as well as he. Calvin's own rendering demonstrates that Allen and Dr Beecher have both mistranslated Calvin,' and that the versions by Professor Norton, Jeremy Taylor, Thomas Norton, Nichols, and ourselves, are all correct. We give Calvin's French, with the old orthography, in the following words;—

'Je leur demande derechef, d'où il est aduenu que la cheute d' Adam ait enueloppé auec soy tant de peuples auec leurs enfans sans aucun remède, sinon qu'il a pleu ainsi a Dieu.'-'Je confesse que ce decret nous doit espouuanter.'†

6

Calvin, then, approves our collocation,' translation, and punctuation, and in so far as absque remedio,'' sans aucun remède, 'without remedy,' is concerned, there is an end of the controversy. If a quibble be raised on the ground that Calvin omits in the French, the words answering to æternæ morti, 'eternal death,' in the Latin, the reply is, that after cutting off all remedy in the case, it was a matter of indifference whether he added the words 'eternal death,' or not, it being as impossible to doubt, what, according to Calvin, was to become of such infants as are without remedy, as it is to doubt to what place Dr Beecher would himself consign them, but for a remedy.

We intended to have finished this article in our present number; but we have already exceeded our limits, and must defer what we have further to remark to a future opportunity. We shall then expose other mistakes of our author's equally glaring with those relating to Calvin's undoubted belief in infant damnation, produce other unquestionable authorities for charging that doctrine upon Calvinism and Calvinists, and take notice of De Beecher's remarkable admissions on the subject, which, to our minds, are as objectionable as the belief he disclaims.

*If, after publishing the Second of the Letters under review, in which he refers to Calvin's French as throwing a light upon the passage in dispute of which Allen had the benefit,' Dr Beecher was aware that Calvin had translated it as we do, would he have frankly acknowledged his mistake,' in his Third Letter, or at least in some subsequent number of the Spirit of the Pilgrims? That he has not made such an acknowledgment we know. Whether he would have done it in the circumstances above supposed, we dare not undertake for him to say. appeared at Geneva after Cal

+ From the edition of 1562, which, of course, vin's last revision and before his death.'

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

divine government both here and hereafter. A note is appended to what is said on the doctrine of election, p. 11, which is so pertinent to the present state of things among us, that we shall quote it entire.

It may be said that we do injustice to our Orthodox brethren, when we either assert or insinuate that they hold the doctrine of absolute or irrespective election-the doctrine that, in electing "some to everlasting life," God had no regard to the works or moral character of the individual elected, because, it may be said, that rier of the doctrine of election is not often taken or exhibited by the Calvinistic clergy of the present day. To this I answer :-first, that which I have given is Calvin's view of the doctrine of election; and they who call themselves Calvinists, and would give the people to understand that they preach Calvinism, will do well seriously to consider whether, when they have renounced a doctrine of Calvin, they ought not also, so far forth, at least, to renounce his name, and the credit that his name gives them: and secondly, I answer, if that is said, and said truly, which in this note we suppose may be said, it only proves that, in regard to one of the "five points," if no more, the Orthodox of the present day have deserted the Calvinistic ranks, carrying their colors with them, and that now they stand on Socinian ground Whether the and tight the Unitarian battle.*

clergy, when they know that, in this respect, they are Socinians, will let others know it, is a question which they will answer for themselves.'