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There are certain facts with which we are all acquainted that fill us with dismay, if this popular objection be the doctrine of revelation: That the great majority of human beings have not lived up to the acquirements of Christianity That sensuality and selfishness (the true original sin of nature) have generally prevailed That natural evil (of which our native passions and appetites are the greatest beyond all estimation) has universally produced moral evil: That the Scriptures seem to say that there are few that be saved, and if only those be who have completely overcome animal nature, the language of Scripture appears to be correct. Now when we take into the account the original strength of human appetites, and the unfavourable circumstances in which men are placed for their innocent gratification, the final lot of mankind becomes a most tremendous question. There is so much misery in this life, that it is a momentous question whether, considering this life alone, it be right for a man to become the father of a human being; but if the popular doctrine concerning futurity be true, no man that exists should in any case or circumstances become a father. This is the one moral duty, which must swallow up every other. And that men become fathers, professing this belief, shews that no one does indeed believe it to be true; for a man believing it true, and becoming a father, is a monster, little better, though not indeed so bad as the God whom he professes to worship.

Unprejudiced reason tells us, that although it may be right that the obtaining of eternal felicity should be very difficult, yet that the escape from eternal misery should at least be very easy, if in any case a Creator could be justified in making it possible for any being to involve himself in such a calamity. Besides what is this world and what are its enjoyments? Taken singly and of itself it is what no human being would have on such a condition, and very few would have it upon no other condition, than what their present circumstances impose.

It may be proper that very few should be saved, but it never can be just, that any should be damned, if by that be meant any thing more than destruction. A human legislator can

only punish, a divine can reward and to an extent more than equal to any difference of character. How can then the popular doctrine stand-and if it be Christianity-how can that religion be defended. All other objections are as dust in the balance, this is first, last, amidst, around and above them all, and I should hope that your publication would ever keep it in its eye, for the time will soon come, that this doctrine must be otherwise explained, or Christianity will be unis versally discarded.

SIR,

S

SENEX.

July 30, 1816.

truth ought to be the sole object of religious as well as philosophical inquiry, men who pretend to be friends to the human race, will not be permitted by those who really are so, to impose their conjectures on the world as so many facts. The art of thinking justly on interesting subjects, especially on religion, is nevertheless generally speaking, but little understood. The multitude are dazzled too much by authority and prejudice, to view with steadiness, or to measure correctly the perfect symmetry of unveiled truth. They are used to think as they have been taught, and believe what they have been told; thus many things which are received, as obvious and essential truths, concerning na tural and revealed religion, are cer tainly no better than vulgar preju dices;- often, pernicious errors, as dishonourable to God as they are con tradictory to the concurring dictates of reason and revelation. Commonly these errors lie at the root of a system, consequently the data being false, the reasoning from them is sophistry, and its moral tendency often detrimental to the interest of virtue. Such, I am fully convinced, are the popular opinions concerning original sin. In this paper I purpose with your per mission to lay before some of the occasional readers of your Miscellany who hold that doctrine, my reasons for rejecting it. Educated as I was in the Established Church, where the Calvinistic articles of that Church were constantly enforced, as well in the domestic circle as from the pulpit, it was natural that till I began to examine for myself, I should receive them as others do, without hesitation. I supposed that they were believed by

all people who had any title to the Christian name. Time however convinced me, chiefly by study of the Scriptures, that amongst the rest this doctrine of original sin, was not to be found in revelation. Experience and observation, equally led me to feel, and think, that its tendency was very bad, dishonourable to God, and productive of much evil to men; that it was not merely a doctrine on which Scripture was silent, and that there fore it might be true, but that it was an error which both Scripture and reason condemn. I would advise my friends, who are the subjects of relí gious depression, arising out of this soul-harrowing doctrine, to take the method that succeeded with me: if they can find a better I shall not object to it. My method was this: I took the sacred volume and determined to abide by its dictates whatever they might be; I kept my mind as indifferent as I could to every thing except the decision of truth; I would not admit during the investigation for a moment, that the belief or rejection of this doctrine was of any consequence whatever with respect to my future state, for had interest or fear prevailed while the question was pending, the decision would have been dictated not by reason, but passion. I kept all my thoughts together, as much as possible, upon the one point I was investigating, and I tried to dismiss every thing foreign to it. I had no business with the existence of moral evil, nor with the universal mortality of creatures, nor with the frailties, follies, and imperfections of mankind. I had nothing to do with catechisms, creeds, the opinions or impertinences of fathers, priests or expositors. I cared as little for the mere assertions of those about me on either side: when they quoted texts, I compared them with others, and suffered no hypothetical explanation to contradict plain evidence; I was to see and examine for myself; I prayed to God as a believer in Jesus Christ, for his assistance and blessing, and opened the Bible. I began with the Mosaic account of the creation of man. There I read, Gen. ii. 7, that "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul," and that he placed him in circumstances suited to

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his nature. I read of a tree of life, and a tree of knowledge which grew in the garden of Eden, that to the former man had free access, and that from the latter he was prohibited; but I read nothing of the natural immortality of his creature, made of the dust, nor of any powers, either of body or mind, that he possessed in a superior degree over many of his descendants. He appeared to me to be the same frail, fallible and peccable creature in his original state that his posterity have ever been. My reason told me that he could have but few wants, few ideas, very limited knowledge, that his language must have been barren, that he could have no acquaintance with either science or arts, that without a miraculous communication of ideas from the fountain of intelligence, he would have continued in this state of imbecility and ignorance, till he slowly, and by degrees, acquired ideas. I saw that his positive duties were but few, and that as his nature was frail, the test of his obedience was simple. I conceived of him as a youth whose capacity is indeed good, whose pas sions are strong, whose experience is nothing. His passions prevailed, his reason was vanquished, he took the forbidden fruit, he sought happiness, more happiness, a higher degree of glory, he fell, and found death; he was told by his Creator the consequence of his disobedience, he was capable of understanding what he was told, but in an evil moment he transgressed. Were a man to be found with an equal simplicity of nature, and placed in the same circumstances, he would doubtless act in the same manner, and precisely the same consequences would follow. Reason weak,

passion strong, temptation urgent, the man falls, and the sinner dies. "All die for that all have sin

ned." "It is appointed to all men once to die." It appeared to me therefore that death is an ordinance of nature and that it is only an evil to an accountable creature, who has broken the laws of God. "Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return." As I read nothing of the death of the soul in this account of the fall of man, I found nothing there to support the modern doctrine of destruction or that of eternal future torment, nor indeed could I gather from any thing in that history, the evidence of a future state,

and I saw nothing there to induce me to think that a just God would impart any moral incapacity, or radical and inherent depravity to Adam's descendants, much less the imputation of his sin. By a necessity of nature, 1 perceived, that the first man must produce creatures in his own image, by which I understood frail, fallible, and peccable beings like himself, liable to sorrows and death, but possessed of equally high mental powers of reason and conscience, the image and superscription of God; and therefore accountable like their original parent for their moral actions, and in many instances more than he was, because placed in different and more favourable circumstances. I therefore think, that to represent, as some have done, the venerable parent of the human race as the greatest of all sinners, is an instance of the folly of hypothesis, and of shameful disrespect to the first of men, nor is it at all calculated to give glory to God his Creator. Josephus says well, that Moses spake philosophically concerning the fall of man, he meant I suppose figuratively. Many truths historical and moral were thus according to the eastern wisdom, given to the world by the ancient sages. To take the story literally, is to receive a fable without its moral, the account would be very lame and absurd. It is indeed a description of the triumph of passion over reason and conscience, and thus the birth of sin, misery, and death. Read the subject in this light, and it is intelligible, the imagery awfully sublime, well adapted and beautiful, and the moral in the highest degree impressive. Let our sons contemplate Adam, and our daughters their first mother, in their happy state of simple and satisfied nature, before the riotous passions began their wild uproar, before irregular desire awoke in their bosoms, before reason quitted her throne, and sensation assumed the sceptre. Then let them consider these parents of the world the victims of remorse, dissatisfaction, guilt and death. And let them fly with horror the pursuing and fascinating serpent, the first temptation to vice. Child of

the dust! to taste is death. Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men, avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."

I then proceeded to the examination of such other passages of Scripture, as I knew were advanced with a view to establish this doctrine of original sin. The next I considered was that awful one recorded in Gen. iv. 8, 9, the murder of Abel, the fruit of envy and revenge; but I hear the Creator exhorting Cain to do well, and promising him acceptance on that condition; and I read, Heb. xi. that Abel obtained witness that he was righteous: he believed and obeyed-"God testifying of his gifts;" yet both were the sons of the same parents, consequently both partook of the same nature. I supposed that both had the same moral capacity, and were therefore liable to the same degree of responsibility. I saw no difference in the brothers in the eye of God, beside moral difference evinced by their conduct; hence I concluded that not nature but habits made one brother a murderer and the other a righteous man. The next portion of Scripture I considered was the account of the moral state of the world before the flood-Gen. vi. 5, 11, &c. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." This passage I knew was advanced as a stock text, to prove the radical and inherent corruption of human nature, derived from the fallen Adam; yet, while I admitted all this strong language, as giving a just description of universal degeneracy of manners and corruption of hearts, I saw nothing in it to prove the original and radical corruption of nature; I knew that bad habits deprave the heart and imagination, and that if partial corruption of principles existed, universal corruption might also prevail, that men might become desperately wicked, that the voice of conscience might be stifled, and a moral death ensue. I knew that when men "like not to retain God in their knowledge," he might "give them over to a reprobate mind." knew that "what may be known of God is nevertheless manifest in them,"

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for "God hath shewed it to them." I knew that "the invisible things of him from the creation of the world (before and after the fall of man) are elearly seen being understood by the

things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuse." I was convinced therefore that the Antediluvians could not lay their sins to the door of Adam, or their Creator, by pleading the original and radical corruption of their nature as the cause why "their foolish hearts were darkened, and every imagination evil continually." I found also that Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and a just man before God even in these bad times.

I read in Gen. viii. 2, that "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," (not from his birth or nature,) a sad proof this of human frailty and the proneness of man to degenerate, like Adam, from that nature, at an early period of his existence. Accordingly this is assigned as a reason not for judgment, but for mercy, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, neither will again smite any more, every living thing as I have done." I suppose the most ancient portion of the Bible except Genesis is the Book of Job. Some have quoted a passage in the fifteenth chapter of that poem, to prove the doctrine of the total depravity of nature. "What is man that he should be clean, or he who is born of a woman that he should be righteous, behold he (God) putteth no trust in his saints, yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight, how much more abominable and filthy is man who drinketh iniquity like water." Thus speaks Eliphaz, and the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite," my wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends, for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right as my servant Job hath." Job xlii. 7. It would be therefore highly improper to exalt the reveries and dogmas of this man into the language of unerring revelation; but suppose his assertion to be strictly true, we are not attempting to disprove that all men are sinners, but to know whether all men are so by a necessity of nature, whether they are born one entire mass of moral corruption derived from Adam. If a man "drink iniquity like water," the poisoned beverage is no part of his nature, and to drink is a voluntary act. In this instance we have an old trite proverb verified.

is

The next passage I turned to, read in Psalm li. 5. "Behold I was

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shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." I always thought that "sin was any transgression of or want of conformity to the law of God." I knew that this definition was totally inapplicable to the condition of a new born infant, or to the conception of a human being. I knew that God "made us and not we ourselves." I read Job x. 8, 12, that "God's hands had made and fashioned him, granted him life and favour, and that his visitation had preserved his spirit." I heard the same man asking (Job xxxi. 15,) concerning the poor slave,“ did not he that made me in the womb, make him, and did not one fashion us in the womb?" I shuddered at the idea that God was the author of sin, I considered the situation of the man who used the language quoted in Psalm li. I supposed it to be David, an adulterer, a murderer, but an humble penitent, and I could not think that he was seeking to palliate the enormity of his crimes. I knew nothing of the character of his parents, but I supposed that all he derived from them, with his animal nature, were a human soul subject to constitutional frailty and strong passions, peculiarly prone to excess, peculiarly susceptible of certain impres sions, which if not restrained by reason and conscience, were liable to carry him away from the path of rectitude. I read his history; I saw this man a potent and ambitious monarch, with a great soul, but I never saw him so great as when he humbled himself before God, and confessed, and forsook his sin. I was sure that he knew better than to excuse it by condemning the nature of his parents, much less the nature of man formed by that God "who fashioneth the hearts of men alike," who hath done whatsoever he pleased, "and whose tender mercies are over all his works."

In the strong, and figurative language of Eastern poetry, the Psalmist describes the constitutional weakness which plunged him into guilt, and he justly censures himself, but not his parents nor his God. I had not lived so long in the world, without observing that human beings constitutionally differed, that one man was heavy, phlegmatic, and stupid, a second sanguine, a third irritable, a fourth a mean, poor and timid animal, some