What law of valid testimony can be conceived of, to which the testimony in support of Christianity does not conform? What favoring circumstance can be added to this testimony, to make it more satisfactory or conclusive? And how shall this massy column of testimony be overturned? On what principles can it be set aside? Most assuredly, as it seems to me, he who would set it aside must adopt principles, which would put it out of his power to prove anything from testimony. On the principles he must adopt, he could not prove that there were even such cities as Babylon and Carthage; or such men as Demosthenes and Cicero; or that there are now any places, beings, or things, on the face of the wide earth, which he has not seen with his own eyes, or come to the knowledge of through some one or more of his bodily senses. He must adopt principles which, so far as the evidence of testimony is concerned, would lead to an universal scepticism.

I only add, that if Christianity is true, it is the greatest of all truths. If true at all, it is true in all its parts-its doctrines, its precepts, its warnings, its sanctions. It is true in its various bearings, and far reaching influences. It is truth immediately, and of all others most solemnly, interesting to mortals.

ARTICLE III.

WHAT IS SIN?

By M. Stuart, Prof. Sac. Lit. Theol. Sem. Andover.

[Concluded from p. 294.]

We have already seen, in the course of the preceding discussion, that there is an essential union of all parties in regard to the proper definition or description of actual sin. The question now remains, and it is a question which may be fairly raised and ought to be candidly discussed: Whether there is, properly speaking, any other sin besides actual sin? In other words: Do the Scriptures recognize, and ought we to adopt, the phraseology of ORIGINAL SIN, either imputed or inherent?

Let it be noted here, that this question is one, at least as it presents itself to my mind it is one, which concerns words rather than things. I have all along maintained, and do verily

believe, that among good and enlightened men there is no real question, and there ought to be no dispute, whether our nature, since the fall of Adam, is degenerate and prone to sin; nor, whether all, infants and adults, those born in heathen or in Christian lands, need the regenerating and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. The denial of these positions would, in my apprehension, be a denial of truth which is plainly taught in the Scriptures, and which is fundamental in the system of Christian doctrine.

The dispute that exists, then, if I am correct in these statements, has respect principally, in the first place, to the propriety of calling that SIN which is not voluntary transgression of a known law, and secondly, the propriety of maintaining, that a part or state of our being which is involuntary, a defect of our present original nature in regard to the constitution of which we never had nor could have any voluntary agency nor give any voluntary assent, is matter of just and eternal condemnation, and as really damnable as the voluntary transgression of a known law. I admit that most of those who advocate the form of doctrine that is brought into question, would not be strenuous in maintaining, that what they call original sin deserves animadversion as severe as that which might properly be bestowed upon the voluntary transgression of a known law. It is only now and then, when a writer of warm feelings takes up this subject, that we find original and actual sin ranked under the same category of guilt, and in all essential respects amalgamated together. In the sober discussion of this subject, then, we need not take particular notice of this excess. Some are always to be found, who, from their state of excited feeling, and from zeal against those whom they suppose to differ from them, are prone to make the strongest propositions respecting the matter in dispute, which the power of language will enable them to make. Such would not improbably deem it amiss in me to call their attention to anything which I could say; and I therefore address myself particularly to those who are more seriously, carefully, and candidly inquiring, what they ought to believe and teach in respect to the subject before us.

But before I proceed to the particular examination of this subject, I must beg permission to take some notice of a recent phenomenon in our theological world, which bears the appearance at least of novelty, and is perhaps entitled to some consideration.

Whenever disputes arise among theologians, and come to be carried on with warmth and zeal, it generally happens that there are some, who, actuated perhaps at first by the fear of excess and by a certain love of moderation, or (to give the matter a still more favourable construction) hoping to be peacemakers between contending parties, assume, as the banner under which they desire to enlist, that which bears the old inscription: In medio tutissimus ibis; and while marching under this banner it not unfrequently happens, that they at last become "fierce for moderation," and in fact deal out more indiscriminate censure than most of those who belonged at first to the warmly contending parties.

I will not say, for it would not be true, that there are not many occasions, on which it would be altogether proper to hoist such a flag as that which has just been named. But this is very plain, viz., that the nature of the case must be well considered, before we can safely go forward under such a banner. If the dispute be: Whether there is a God? Whether the Bible is a book divinely inspired and of paramount authority? Whether salvation is all of grace, and not of merit? and so in regard to a multitude of other questions like these; in a word, if the dispute concerns any thing which must be wholly true, or not true at all in any degree; then there is no medium iter, no intermediate region between the land and the water, which is neither land nor water. Any one, therefore, who takes an interest in a contest of such a nature as this, must relinquish the hope that there is in such cases a middle ground on which he can take his stand. If he does not relinquish it, he will at least be in a condition like that, which (as report goes) the late illustrious La Fayette represented the juste milieu as occupying in the house of Deputies at Paris: "One party [extrême gauche] says that two and two make four; another party [extrême droite] says that two and two make six; a third party [juste milieu-the medium iter men] says: No, neither the one nor the other is right; the truth, as usual, lies between the extremes, for two and two make five."

But to the subject immediately before us; which has respect to a peculiar class of theologians, seeking for a station somewhere between what is called the Old School and the New.

There have arisen among us a few, and, so far as my knowledge extends, but a few, who maintain a singular theory in re

spect to the subject of sin, and one that I propose briefly to examine, before I proceed further in the great topic before us. They concede that all sin must consist in the actual and voluntary transgression of law; but they maintain at the same time, that infants, for example, have from the earliest period of their existence some proper knowledge of the divine law; at all events, that they have so much as to render them capable of being sinners in the sense alleged, i. e. in the sense of being voluntary transgressors.

I deem it proper to bestow a few moments' attention on this view of our subject; not so much for the sake of the theory itself, which seems not to have been hitherto regarded with much approbation, and is, as it seems to me, in but little danger of becoming popular, as on account of the principles concerned with this subject, which have an important bearing on our general topic.

We will endeavour to examine this matter, then, by proposing a few definitive questions, and giving, so far as we can, an answer to them.

I. Have infants any proper KNOWLEDGE of the divine law, i. e. such a knowledge as enables them to distinguish between MORAL good and MORAL evil?

In order duly to answer this question, it will be necessary, first of all, to define what we mean by infants. In Greek, the word Pogos, usually rendered infant, means either a child unborn, or a child recently born, i. e. a suckling. In English, the word infant has the same meaning, and corresponds well with the Greek Pogos. The word, in both languages, designates in all cases, when literally interpreted, a child before it comes to such a state as to exercise in any perceptible manner its intellectual and rational faculties.

I admit now, very readily, that it is impossible for men to decide exactly at what point infancy (in the sense now defined) ceases, and youth or childhood begins. But the Searcher of hearts does know; and it is for him to determine, and easy for him to determine, when moral responsibility commences.

Our present object, then, is not at all to aim at deciding exactly when inability to know the difference between good and evil ceases, but to inquire, whether there ever is such an inability, at the commencement of our existence. This inquiry seems to lie within a short compass. I shall make no appeal to our own experience, observation, or consciousness in regard

to a matter of this kind, for we might be easily misled by these in a case so peculiar as the present and so much removed from the actual sphere of observation; but I will appeal simply to declarations of the divine word, which cannot be lawfully set aside in order to make out positions of our own in regard to any speculative theology.

.

In Is. 7: 14-16 the prophet declares, that a child shall be born of a virgin, whose name shall be called Immanuel, and that he shall eat butter and honey until he shall know (in) to refuse the evil and choose the good.' Here then the act of eating butter and honey is specifically designated, as a thing that would take place some time before this child could know the distinction between good and evil. This is rendered quite certain by the verse which follows: "For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land shall be forsaken [i. e. the country of the Syrian and of the Samaritan kings] before whose two kings thou dost now shudder." [I translate the passage according to the proper meaning of the Hebrew.]

Here then is a case so plain and palpable, that it does not seem to admit of being explained away. If by the child Immanuel be meant here, a child which was actually born, at that period, of a virgin, and who was the designed type of a future and spiritual Immanuel, it is plain that there was a period, even after birth, and while he could eat butter and honey, during which he could not distinguish between good and evil. Now as the divine law is good, and what it forbids is evil, so it follows, that this child did not during such a period have any knowledge of the divine law, as the arbiter of good and evil. But again; if by the child Immanuel be here meant only Jesus our Saviour, to be born of a virgin at a future period, then is the passage more to our purpose still; for if the child Jesus could not, in his infancy, distinguish between good and evil, how is it possible that other children, so much inferior to him in all respects, can rationally be supposed to be capable of such knowledge?

Is it kind and candid, now, to pour down-as some have done on this view of the subject which is certainly a simple and scriptural one-a shower of exclamation points, or to pass over it in deep and guarded silence, so as to make one's readers lose sight of it, if this can be done? There are readers, we ought always to remember, who will detect every artifice of this sort; and then, if we have erected our building in such a