infinite, each of whom you affirm to be God, and to each of whom, as to the Lord your God, you pay divine worship. Yet you fay there is but one infinite God. And you say well: but you miferably contradict yourself: and (however good your intention may be) you greatly dishonour the eternal deity, who is one infinite agent.

The doctrine of original fin, (according to you, fir) seems to consist of two parts:-In the first place, guilt derived from Adam's tranfgreffion upon all his pofterity, whereby they are brought under the wrath and curfe of God, and are made liable to the torments of hell for ever* :—and, fecondly, the total corruption of their nature; which is fuch, that it renders them finners by nature, and dead in trefpaffes and fins; fo dead, that they are no more able to do any thing truly good, than a dead corpfe is able to arife and walk.

With

I believe, fir, this is a true representation of this part of your doctrine, which indeed you do not very much infiit upon: but I beg leave to enquire why you do not? Why don't you preach feveral entire fermons to afcertain, illuftrate, and enforce it; that fo your hearers may know the value of it, being convinced how worthy it is of the infinitely good God to torment the pofterity of Adam in hell fire for ever, not for their own, but for Adam's trangreffion? For my part I think you are obliged in confcience thus to do, as you often protefs that you account it your duty to declare the whole counsel of God.

With respect to the first of these articles, I would obferve, that if we know any thing whatsoever, we know that it is not just to punish one man for the fin of another. If it be afked, "How do you know this?" In return, I afk, how do you know that there is any thing wrong, or inconfiftent with justice, in oppreffions, murders, maffacres, perjuries, blafphemies? Suppofe any one should affirm that these things are very innocent. If you thought he deferved any notice, I doubt not you would eagerly contradict him. Yet you could not do it without fhewing your inconfiftency for that fame reafon which declares these things to be effentially unjust, is equally clear, full, and pofitive in declaring the injuftice of punishing one man man for the fin of another. If this be right, there is not the shadow of a reafon for thinking those horrid crimes to be really criminal. But we know affuredly, that oppreffions, murders, maffacres, perjuries, blafphemies, are really and effentially criminal: and, in the fame manner, and with equal certainty, we know that to punish one man for the fin of another, neither is, nor can be just*. And, therefore, most fincerely

do

fir,-you do not believe But if they are punish

I have heard you say, that infants are fent into hell. able for the fin of their firft father, and if they are actually punished in fome degree why should they not receive the full punishment which is due to them? And why was it, when we were talking of this matter, that

you

do I abhor the doctrine which ascribes fuch a conduct to that righteous Being, whom I would always venerate and adore.

With refpect to the second article in this doctrine, (viz.) the entire corruption of the human nature, whereby men are rendered finners by nature, and utterly incapacitated to do any thing which is truly good, I would obferve, that, if we confider what fin is, it will be found a contradiction to fay a man is a finner by nature. You may as well fay that it is finful for a man to have two hands, or two feet, as to say it is

finful

you feemed unwilling to be thought a believer in the damnation of infants? I apprehend you were shocked [for you started] at the impious tenet. It was well. The great God intended you fhould be fhocked: and not at this tenet only, but alfo at feveral others which you believe and promulge. Indeed, he doth permit it to be otherwife. He endowed us with liberty (i. e. freedom of will) that we might be accountable. I would just take notice, here, that if we have no liberty, if nothing but actual fin can proceed from our nature, as nothing but an impure ftream can proceed from an impure fountain; then are actual finners (as you term them) and infants, upon the very fame footing in refpect of guilt; for thefe laft were juft as able to prevent the fin of their first father, as the others were to prevent what you term their own actual fins. I cannot give them that name; becaufe as actual fin cannot fubfift without agency, fo neither without liberty can agency poffibly

fubfift.

finful for him to have human paffions, or any thing But then may

elfe which belongs to him as a man. fin be charged upon him, when he has knowingly and wilfully done the evil which he might have avoided, or omitted to do the good which he might have done. Till you can affirm either one or the other of him, you have no authority to call him a finner. And when through his negligence or bad conduct, he has corrupted himself, and acquired evil habits, you may fay he is a finful and a wicked creature then, and not before. If this be the true account of fin and finfulness, a finful nature, as fuch, is plainly a contradiction. And can you, fir, prove that it is not the true account? If you can, I really think there is nothing too hard for you.

But even though it were not impoffible in itself, that the human nature, as fuch, fhould be morally corrupt and finful; yet, as it is the work of God, it must certainly be pure from all finful ftain, You will tell me, perhaps, that it is not the work of God: but furely all nature, without exception, is his work. However, you infist upon it, that the first man corrupted himself, and all thofe who defcend from him' in the course of nature. But what, I beseech you, is the course of nature? Without God it is nothing. By the powerful will of God all things were made : and that will is as needful for their prefervation, as it was for their production. "Hitherto the Almighty worketh :" his energy is felt throughout the universe, and the course of nature is the effect of that energy. Summer

Summer and winter, feed-time and harveft, the fucceffive generations of plants and animals, with all the infinite variety of events which take place in the natural world-All these are the refult of that divine operation which never ceases. Adam could never have left any pofterity, if he had not been empowered by the will of God to propagate his species. If, then, he communicated a finful nature to his children, he was empowered by the divine will so to do. The truth is, every child receives its being and its nature from God, who conveys it by the instrumentality* of the parents; and the divine energy is as much concerned in producing the nature of every child which is born, as it was in producing the nature of the first man. Suppose this energy to cease, and you certainly cannot imagine the courfe of nature to continue. Seeing, then, the human nature is the work of God, it cannot be a finful nature. And it is worthy of your confideration, fir, that the bible tells us it is

the

* If a man has done an action which is finful, it cannot be denied that he was empowered by the divine will fo to do: yet furely he dares not affirm, that, with respect to this finful action, he was nothing more than the inftrument in God's hand. It depends on a man whether the nature of his actions fhall be finful or otherwife. It depends not on him, whether the nature of his children fhall be finful or otherwife. The nature of his action is his own work; the nature of his child is God's work.