that they should be called Devils. We easily conceive that to have sinned, must effect a complete change in the nature of a rebellious Archangel, and readily acknowledge that eternal privation of happiness would be the fit pus nishment of such a change. But let us keep in mind, that if man, having come from the hands of his Maker pure, became a sinner, he would undergo as complete a change of nature as Satan; for purity must have been the highest distinction of both. That which most distinguished man in his purity, having sinned, he would poss sess no longer the most striking point of resemblance between him and his Maker would no longer exist; the difference between them, at first only a difference in degree, would now be a difference in kind; the distance. between them would now. be infinite. The same terms would no longer describe the human rebel; à being "a little lower than the angels" would mean nothing, as applied to him, for it was in purity alone that he resembled them, and that he had lost.

When we suppose that men are now suffering in their moral nature for the sin of their forefather, or forefathers, we no more impute cruelty to God, who allows it, than we impute cruelty to him by affirming that he permits children to suffer in their worldly concerns, and in the constitution of their bodies for the offences of their fathers; to inherit their diseases; to feel the evils of finances exhausted, and estates dismembered by those who have gone before them. This analogous case completely does away with the objection, is it possible that an allkind God, should condemn children to suffer for the of fences of their fathers.?"

"

Are we to suppose that God made the human body subject to aches and pains? That he condemned infant children to suffer them, ere yet it had been possible for them to sin in their own persons? This is-imputing far more cruelty to him, than we do by supposing that he has let us bring physical evil on ourselves, and transmit it to our descendants by excesses, which we might have

self subject to some diseases be enough to make his offspring subject to them also, their physical nature suffering for the deterioration of his; let us be told why, to have become sinful himself, may not be enough to make his offspring disposed to sin; their moral nature suffering for the deterioration of his ?

One single abuse might have condemned the first man to transmit to his posterity a changed and corrupted physical nature; why may not one single abuse have condemned him to transmit to them a changed and corrupted moral nature?

On the whole then, I conclude that men come into the world with a corrupt nature got by inheritance; with a propensity to sin which has been acquired for them by their forefathers; with a stain in their nature which they could never have had from the hand of God; with a character of evil which they could not have originally possessed.

And to say that infants at the moment of their birth are actually without sin, proves nothing to the contrary. For a man is no more necessarily by nature other than a sinful animal because he does not come into the world sinning, than he is by nature other than a loco-motive animal, because he does not come into the world running; or other than an eating animal, because he comes into the world without teeth; or than a lion is other than a carnivorous animal, because he is born unable to destroy those creatures destined to become his future prey. So soon as his strength and talons enable him to do it, he devours them; and so soon as man's developed powers.enable him to sin, (let every one's own experience decide) he sins. Let each man's own recollection tell him what struggles he has had to make against the dictates of a pure nature; let each man's own recollection point out to him the

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of a pure nature in our infant children when their (however necessarily) opposes their inclinations. I call to mind with what labour we prevailed on our as boys, to spin cock-chaffers, to hunt cats, or tie 1 to dogs' tails, and how much more we felt disposed than laugh, the first time that we saw these feats per ed by others. Let us observe how unwillingly bo their pockets with apples the first time that they an orchard, and what entreaties are required to make witness a duck-hunt, or the sight of an owl tiec duck's back on the water. *

That the doctrine of original sin has its found in truth cannot be absolutely established by dint of reasoning, but, as I trust, I have at least said enou make it appear that all probability and analogy are vour of its truth, and that on any other hypothesis it s impossible not to doubt God's mercy in the first inst I trust I have said enough to shew that far from sho reason, this is of all doctrines which pretend to assig

* As this latter amusement, suggested no doubt at first by a pu ture ever on the look-out for some innocent mode of diversion, m be known to all my readers, I will explain it. An owl being ti the back of a duck, they are set swimming together. The owl fro begins to shriek violently; the duck no less frightened by the owl's dives into the water, till after a time coming up again, the hooting owl, now more frightened than ever, is redoubled. Down goes the a second time, and this sport is continued as long as the humane spec think fit, or as the owl lives to afford it. I have never myself see diversion, but I have been assured by a lady of fashion, that it is the sport in the world. He who laughs at this description must be pro to tell us either that habit and association have reconciled him to at first excited his indignation and pity, or else that to enjoy for a m in idea the sufferings of two unoffending animals is no indicatio corrupt nature.

cause of man's moral nature being what it is, and of his being placed under those particular circumstances in which he lives, and subjected to those evils to which he is subject, the most rational.

If I have made this appear, then, if there be in existence a book professing to come from God, and declaring that man is "corrupt from his mother's womb,”* we are already furnished with something which should prepossess us in favour of this book; we have discovered one instance at least in which it tells us something which the light of nature and the inferences of reason confirm. Whether we have in our possession such a book; whether it be, or be not of divine origin; and whether it do, or do not declare the doctrine of original sin, we will inquire hereafter.

*If the view which I have all along taken of the nature, state, and reasonable expectations of man be a just one, it follows that a revelation without an atonement would have been mere mockery. To the doctrine of original sin is sometimes opposed our Saviour's exhortation to become as little children. Now this obviously means to resemble them in the "simplicity" of our conduct, for to divest ourselves of the load of committed sin, and to recover the sinlessness (i. e. the exemption from actual sin) of infancy is plainly impossible. That the forsaking of our sins is absolutely necessary I most willingly allow; for on no other terms can Christ's sacrifice avail us any thing; and to enjoin such change of life is all that his injunction intends. It is no sort of declaration that infant children have not in their natures the seeds of evil; that they have not an innate propensity to sin; and to have introduced this propensity into his nature, to have so defaced what God made spotless, is the original sin by which all men stand condemned from their mother's womb.

PART II.

"We happily live in an age when christians can differ in opinion without censuring and condemning each other; when they can oppose each others views and sentiments without any interruption of friendship and brotherly love. The unreserved avowal of what each person thinks right, and its being opposed with equal freedom and firmness by those who think differently, cannot fail to pro ote the knowledge of truth." Mr. Wright to Mr. Jennings, on free Communion.

"there is a degree of evidence by which every fact that is not impossible to have happened at all, or to have happened in the manner in which it is related, may be supported, and ought to be believed: In all cases indeed the weight of evidence ought to be strictly conformable to the weight of improbability; and when it is so, the wiser a man is, the sooner and easier he will believe. To say truth, to judge well of this conformity is what we truly call sagacity, and requires the greatest strength and force of understanding. He who gives a hasty belief to what is strange and improbable, is guilty of rashness, but he is much more absurd who declares that he will believe no such fact or any evidence whatever. The world are too much inclined to think that the credulous is the only fool; but there is another fool of a quite opposite character who is much more difficult to deal with, less liable to the dominion of reason, and possessed of a frailty more prejudicial to himself, and often more detrimental to mankind in general."

Trial of Elizabeth Canning.

"If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin, but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father." St. John, c. 13, ver. 24.

"There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.”—Acts, c. 4, ver. 12.

"Prove all things."—I Thess. c. 5, ver. 21.

"Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of « me."—2 Tim. c. 1, ver. 13.

"Reprobate concerning the faith."-2 Tim. c. 3, ver. 8.

"Who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them."-2 Peter, c. 2, ver. 1.