maintained, that in men's consciousness of the evil of sin, they viewed it only as a voluntary act of their own, without any reference to its cause. To prove that God might be the author of sinful acts without destroying their moral character, Dr. Emmons argues, that as he can work in men both to will and to do good, without destroying the moral goodness of the exercises thus produced, so he can work in men to will and to do sinful acts, without destroying their sinful nature. On this argument we remark, that the question is not whether God can, by his omnipotent agency, produce sinful exercises in the mind; but whether he can do this consistently with his holiness. And again: the possibility of a thing does not prove its existence. But the conclusive answer to this argument is, that while it is admitted that God produces holy exercises in the minds of his creatures, by his special agency, they are bound to ascribe all the praise to God for his grace in thus enabling them to will and to do; and therefore, when he works in them to will and to do evil, they should lay all the blame on him; the assertion of which is blasphemy. From his own writings, and from the testimony of Professor Park, Dr. Emmons seems to have adopted the philosophy of Berkeley; or, rather the entire consequences of Berkeley's principles, as carried out by Hume; for he will admit nothing to exist in the soul, but what we are conscious of; and as no man is conscious of any thing but his exercises, that is, his thoughts and feelings, therefore we have no right to assert that there is any thing in the soul but these various exercises; in other words, that the essence of the soul is its acts. It is true, that we are not conscious of any thing but exercises, taking the word consciousness in its strictest sense, but we intuitively know that we exist, and that we have a soul which produces these acts; and we have the same intuitive certainty that there are dispositions in our minds, which give rise to acts of a certain kind. To deny these first principles precludes all reasoning; for all reasoning rests on first principles. It would be as reasonable to deny our own existence, or to deny that we have any thoughts, as to deny that there is a soul which thinks; and the absurdities which flow from such denial are numerous and palpable. According to this philosophy both personality and accountableness are cut off; for a mere succession of thoughts cannot constitute a person. As all which precede the present exercise are extinct, there can be no such bond of union

as makes personality. All accountability is also necessarily destroyed; for it would be superlatively absurd, as well as unjust, to visit upon one thought or exercise, all the guilt of every former evil thought, in producing which it could have had no agency.

This strange philosophy, it will be found, had a mighty influence on other novel doctrines propagated by Dr. Emmons. For example, the doctrine of original sin, so odious to mere rationalists, is by him utterly discarded. He not only rejects the imputation of Adam's first sin to his posterity, but repudiates innate depravity; that is, the doctrine of a sinful nature derived from our first parents. There is a sense indeed in which he admits native depravity, for one of his biographers records among his pithy but paradoxical aphorisms, that natural depravity is the truth, original sin the lie.' What he believed was, that all men's thoughts are naturally sinful, because God by his power makes them such: what he denied was, that men derive a sinful nature from Adam, or that their sins have any thing to do with his, as their cause. In his sermon on Original Sin, he says: "Nor can we suppose that Adam made men sinners by conveying to them a morally corrupt nature. Moral corruption is essentially different from natural corruption. The latter belongs to the body, but the former belongs to the mind. Adam undoubtedly conveyed to his posterity a corrupt body, or a body subject to wounds, bruises and putrefying sores. But such a body could not corrupt the mind, or render it morally depraved. There is no morally corrupt nature distinct from free, voluntary, sinful exercises. Adam had no such nature, and consequently could convey no such nature to his posterity. But even supposing he had a morally corrupt nature, distinct from his free, voluntary, sinful exercises, it must have belonged to his soul, and not to his body. And if it belonged to his soul, he could not convey it to his posterity, who derive their souls immediately from the fountain of being. God is the father of our spirits. The soul is not transmitted from father to son by natural generation. The soul is spiritual; and what is spiritual is indivisible, is incapable of propagation. Adam could not convey any part of his soul to his next immediate offspring, without conveying the whole. It is, therefore, as contrary to reason as to scripture, to suppose that Adam's posterity derived their souls from him. And if they did not derive their souls from him, they could not derive from him a mo

rally corrupt nature, if he really possessed such a nature himself."*

The above is a specimen of Dr. Emmons's mode of reasoning, which is nothing else but a string of bold, connected assertions. Such and such is the truth. Unless, however, you take his word for sufficient authority, there is no proof of any one of the assertions. This may be taken as a just

sample of his manner.

The reader may observe that another radical principle in the new divinity is here taken for granted, namely, that all sin consists in positive voluntary action. Dr. Ide, biographer of Dr. Emmons, seems disposed to give him the credit of discovering this important principle. Alas! it is as old as Pelagius, of whose system it formed an essential part; nor can it ever be consistently held, without leading to Pelagianism. Upon this hypothesis, a corrupt nature is a thing impossible. The vilest criminal, who has spent a long life in sinful acts, has a nature as pure as that of Adam, when he came from the hand of his Maker. And, according to Dr. Emmons's philosophy, a sinful nature prior to acts, or behind the exercises of the mind, cannot exist, because there is no such thing in man, as nature or disposition, distinct from his acts. It is truly wonderful how ignorant all the New England writers of that age appear to have been of the theology of the standard Calvinistic writers whose names we have already cited, such as Turretine, Pictet, Van Maestricht, and Marck. The account of sin and its propagation, given by these theologians, is not only not refuted by the admirers of the new divinity, but is never alluded to. All who are acquainted with the history of theological opinion, know, that not only the Calvinistic, but the Lutheran divines, as well as the soundest of the Romanists, considered the fountain of sin as privative. They viewed the first sin, and every other sin, as originating in a defect of what the law of God requires. They held that Adam by his fall lost that original righteousness, that holy nature, in which he was created, and what is expressed in scripture by the image of God.' Now, supposing his posterity in virtue of their natural and federal union with him, to be born in a state of destitution of this image, they are born in a state morally corrupt: for the want of this original righteousness of heart is the real source of all

* Volume iv. P. 490.

the streams which from the beginning have filled the world with iniquity and misery. Humanity, deprived of this original endowment, a holy nature, must be in a state of moral corruption: if light is removed, darkness necessarily ensues; or if health is taken away, disease is the necessary consequence. Now, according to this old and universally received opinion among the orthodox, there is no difficulty in conceiving the propagation of a corrupt nature; because to bring souls into existence without the image of God, is to bring them into existence in a positively corrupt state. Nor need we determine any thing as to the origin of the soul; further than that while nothing can come into being but by the creative power of God, he can nevertheless exert that power, in such a way, as to bring the posterity of Adam into existence as his offspring, both as it relates to soul and body. Upon this hypothesis, the old and common one, all that Dr. Emmons has said, is inconclusive.

All sin, Dr. Emmons further asserts, consists in selfishness. Dr. Hopkins has defended this opinion at great length; and as far as we know, it has been held by all who have adopted his system. Yet it is hard to see whence it has been derived; or why it has been so strenuously defended. After making all virtue to consist in disinterested benevolence, it should seem logical, inasmuch as sin is the opposite of virtue, to make it consist in malevolence. In selfishness, considered abstractedly, there is nothing of moral obliquity. Selfishness can be an evil only when a less good is preferred to a greater. When the love of God ceased to be a governing principle in man, the desire of gratifying the inferior appetites, and the desire of self-exaltation no doubt took possession of the mind. As all actual sin involves the exercise of the will, and as the will is moved by the desires which exist in the heart, all sin may in that sense be said to be selfish; for in committing it some gratification of some appetite or desire of our own is the motive. But to make the formal nature of sin, or its essence, to consist in selfishness, is, in our opinion, superlatively absurd; and it receives as little countenance from scripture as from sound reason. There is, as far as we recollect, but one passage, where selflove is spoken of as sinful, and it is then given merely as one specification of sin, and not as comprehending all conceivable acts of transgression. In describing the depravity of times yet future, Paul says, "Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, disobedient to pa

rents," &c. &c. Nor have we seen any benefit which this opinion confers even upon New Divinity; except that it gratifies an ensnaring rage for simplicity, which induces certain theologians to put a force upon the common meaning of words, in order to reduce all virtuous acts to a single principle. To us it seems evident, that there are implanted in our constitution affections, which are the very opposite of selfishness, such as the love of offspring; which though not of a moral nature abstractedly considered, require to be morally governed and directed. When the love of offspring becomes excessive, it is a sin; but it would be a solecism to say that it is a selfish affection. Yet the abettors of this opinion would, to maintain a favourite opinion, insist, that even this was a mere selfish affection, although its tendency is to self-denial, and even to the sacrifice of self.

Among the most zealous and able defenders of the new divinity in its most ultra points, may be named Judge Niles of Vermont. At length, however, he pushed his consequences so far, that running into the opposite extreme, he maintained that men, in their holiest acts, are governed only by selfish feelings; since whatever they love, is loved as agreeable to self, and whatever they choose is chosen only as most strongly recommended to our own hearts, that is to ourselves. In his old age, therefore, he wrote a pamphlet, directed principally against Dr. Emmons, in which he maintained something like the fore-mentioned opinions.

In regard to the imputation of Adam's first sin to his posterity, Dr. Emmons, and all the new divinity men, not only reject the doctrine, but speak of it in the same contemptuous manner, as did the Pelagians. In the sermon before quoted, we find the following remarks; "Guilt is a personal thing, which belongs to him alone who does a sinful action. The guilt of an action can no more be transferred from the agent to another person, than the act itself.”

"It was unjust in the nature of things that the Supreme Being should transfer Adam's guilt to his posterity. And no constitution which he could make, could under such a mode of conduct be consistent with his moral rectitude."

"It is beyond the province of his benignity to transfer the guilt of an action from the proper agent to an innocent person-hence, we may conclude that the guilt of Adam's first sin was never transferred from him to his posterity, by the authority or appointment of God.".

Here again, let it be well noted, we have nothing but as