Dr. Emmons was laid in his grave. The late Father West, of New Bedford, was in the habit of saying that it should have been named Emmonianism. But admitting it had been thus called, its ephemeral existence could not, on the whole, have added much to the satisfaction of the man whose name it briefly honored, but has so totally failed to immortalize.

But by what causes was the progress of Hopkinsianism arrested? Why did so "bright a morning turn to a dark and cloudy day?" We will mention two. We will mention two. First; it was shaken and debilitated by schism; second; it was unfitted for durable popularity. The schism was threefold; three branches springing from the same trunk; "The Exercise Scheme," the "Taste Scheme," and the "Obedience Scheme of Atonement." Of the first scheme Dr. Emmons was the pioneer; of the second, Dr. Burton, of Vermont; of the third, David Sanford, of Medway, Massachusetts.

The Hopkinsians were addicted to inquiry and speculation. Many points of their doctrine could be explained and defended only by making subtle distinctions; by spinning hairs and then splitting them. By reason of use, they had their senses exercised" and trained to the work of discrimination. In their controversy with the Arminians, on the subject of predestination and free will, they were obliged to resort to the nicest distinctions for the detection of a flaw in their adversaries' argument, and for the confirmation of their own. Thus was their eyesight sharpened. And a man with sharp eyes sometimes looks at himself. In due time, the Hopkinsians began to look at themselves; to examine their own positions. The spirit of inquiry had always been rife among them. Unlike Catholics and Jesuits, they had never taken the vows of implicit faith and unquestioning obedience. It was a principle with them, to receive and defend truth because it was truth, and not merely because it was orthodoxy. The Hopkinsian system had too many weak points to endure close examination; to stand hard racking. It could not itself bear the severe scrutiny which it was in the habit of exercising upon other systems. When, therefore, without prejudice, they examined certain of their own dogmas, dissent and schism was the consequence.

We have said that Dr. Emmons was the pioneer of the "Exercise Scheme." In the Arminian controversy, the point frequently came up, what relation does the human soul sustain to the great First Cause? The Arminians regarded the soul. VOL. XXXIII. - 3D S. VOL. XV. NO. II.

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of man, which was man himself, as a real structure ; something endowed with a constitution, possessed of certain powers both of action and susceptibility. The Orthodox, though they did not expressly deny this, yet in maintaining their positions of entire dependence on the part of man, and of absolute predestination and sole efficiency on the part of God, did, in effect, annihilate all human ability. Dr. Hopkins was understood to maintain the doctrine, that God was the author of sin. And he inferred the doctrine from the assumed fact, that all power is in God, and none in the creature. Still, however, he did not repudiate the sentiment, so generally entertained, that the human soul is, in itself, a creation, and has an existence prior, at least in the order of nature, to the acts and affections of which it is the subject. Dr. Emmons became aware of the inconsistency of allowing the soul to be a constitutional structure, and yet disallowing it any real power. He, therefore, boldly renounced the common-sense doctrine of the soul's being a previous structure, and maintained that ideas, exercises, impressions, were themselves ultimate facts in man; that nothing stood between them and the Almighty First Cause; that the human soul, itself, was nothing other than a series of exercises proceeding from God. Such was the Emmonian psychology. On this ground it was easy to maintain the dogmas of universal predestination, entire human dependence, the sovereignty of God, and all others which belong to the Calvinian system. And though it conflicted most inveterately with every man's consciousness of individuality and responsibility, yet this theory was extensively adopted and defended. Dr. Emmons's pupils, almost to a man, and with them many others, regarded it as sound doctrine, and employed it as a powerful engine both to make assaults and to parry off the attacks of their adversaries.

Dr. Asa Burton, of Thetford, Vermont, next to Dr. Emmons, was the most popular theological tutor in New England. In ingenuity and fearlessness he did not come up to the stature of his rival, but in depth and caution, far exceeded him. He took a broader and correcter view of the relations which one thing bears to another, and examined a doctrine on its own separate merits. If it could not stand on these, let it fall to the ground. It has then "gone to its own place."

A palpable distinction had long been made, in the Hopkinsian school, between natural and moral power; that Man, in

his natural state, possessed the former, but not the latter; that he was physically able to repent of sin and to become holy, but not morally. This distinction served a great purpose. It was, therefore, asserted and urged with the utmost earnestness and zeal; for without it Orthodoxy could not be successfully defended. Without it, the cause became hopeless and lost. But the discriminating mind of Dr. Burton saw that it was a distinction without a difference. That it was verbal not real. The power in question was not, in any case, available, and therefore it was nothing. An unavailable power is no power at all.

There was, in bygone days, a favorite story which circulated on the tongues of the learned and Orthodox in New England. It told that Dr. Chauncy, the cotemporaneous antagonist of President Edwards, was heard to say; "I read Mr. Edwards's new book on the Freedom of the Human Will, and though I believed that the conclusion at which he arrived was erroneous, yet I could not detect the spot where the error lay. I therefore determined to review the whole treatise, having this object constantly before me, to find out where the wrong step was taken. But after doing all this, I am still in the dark. I feel sure that there is a great error somewhere, but it is not in my power to detect it." So much for the story. We come now to a matter of fact. Dr. Burton did detect the great error in President Edwards's celebrated work. It consisted in employing the term, will, in two senses, so materially different the one from the other, that two distinct faculties of the mind are denoted by it. President Edwards, like other psychologists of his own times and of all former time, had distinguished but two general powers of the human mind, which they named the Understanding and the Will. Both these general powers performed various offices; had different modifications of action. To the Will was referred all such mental phenomena as desire, inclination, appetite, taste, tendency, affection, passion, and choice. To love a thing, and to choose a thing, was the same. Whatever a man loved, he chose to love; and whatever he hated, he chose to hate; he both loved and hated because he chose so to do. This was the doctrine of the schools. But it never was the doctrine of the common sentiments and dictates of men. They all could feel the error, but it was not easier for them, than it was for Dr. Chauncy, to unravel the web and pick the knot. This service, perhaps, had

never been done in a clear and philosophic manner, until it was accomplished by Dr. Burton. He discriminated between the sensibilities and the will. The power of feeling, and the power of choosing, were distinct faculties. No man can love a thing merely by choosing to love it. He must possess the previous and requisite sensibilities. Hence, in a moral agent, such as man, there must be three distinct, general faculties; Understanding, Sensibilities, and Volition. Dr. Burton called the sensibilities, taste. Hence his theory of three general faculties, and of the distinction between the will and the affections, was called "The Taste Scheme." The doctrine was rather psychological than religious. Its element was an important truth in mental science, but a great heresy in Hopkinsian Divinity. It exploded the fondly cherished and the much depended-on sentiment, that a perfect natural power in constitutional man was consistent with his entire moral inability. Dr. Burton, being an honest and consistent Calvinist, acknowledged that natural man did not possess the faculties requisite to enable him to love God and become holy. Others, besides the pupils of Dr. Burton, embraced his doctrine. And thus came up the first schism in the ranks of the "Spartan band," of which Dr. Samuel Hopkins once, when near his decease, felicitated himself that he was the leader and the head.

Nor was this the only evil of its kind. Another came up simultaneously with it, on the subject of the atonement. The Hopkinsian mind had a strong tendency to generalization. Thus they had reduced all moral holiness to the principle of benevolence; and all moral evil to that of self-love. With them there must be some one simple thing, which rendered a being, or an action, either good or evil. And there must be some one thing, which constituted the Atonement necessary and effective. But in studying the standard works of Protestant Doctors, Calvin, Turrentin, Petavius, and others, they found that the doctrine of the Atonement was made strong on two principles, merit and satisfaction. The obedience of Christ was meritorious, and was passed over to the account of the believer. The death of Christ was expiatory, making satisfaction to Divine Justice, and thus released the believer from his dreadful debt; from condemnation. Hence, the distinction between the active and the passive obedience of Christ. But this twofold principle did not fulfil the demand of the Hopkinsian mind for simplicity. It would have but one of the two; and the question was,

which of them? Is it merit or satisfaction? Either of them alone is sufficient to answer the purpose. Satisfaction, by removing guilt and the wages of sin, of course, places the believer in perfect safety. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Merit, also, alone, will accomplish the same object. What has a person to fear, to whom is accounted the merit of having perfectly fulfilled all the law of God? There is, certainly, no need of both merit and satisfaction. For what does a man owe who has paid up every demand? And what has a man to fear who has, by his substitute, borne the penalty of every transgression? The subject of the Atonement standing in this light, it is no matter of wonder that some should make their election of one principle, and some of the other. The majority adopted the satisfaction doctrine. A minority preferred the principle of merit. The leading man of this division was David Sanford, of Medway, in Massachusetts. Mr. Sanford was a clergyman of great dignity and excellence of character; in his personal appearance and manner of preaching, much more popular than either Dr. Emmons or Dr. Burton. He, as well as they, had Divinity students. Others, also, embraced the sentiment. Mr. Remely, of Newport, New Hampshire, composed and published an ingenious argument, expounding and defending "the Obedience Scheme of the Atonement."

We have said that it was not strange, in view of the circumstances of the case, that this division should have arisen. But, did we not know the unreasonable tenacity of the sectarian spirit, we might be surprised at the zeal with which the "Obedience Scheme" was resisted by its opponents. Emmons and Sanford, members of the same [the Mendon] Association, would at their meetings assault each other with the vehemence of antagonist knights. Yet they were both men of much Christian mildness and forbearance; and neither of them could justly accuse the other of, even constructively, making void any part of the work of Christ, our Redeemer. For according to the one, the Saviour's passive obedience, his death, went in full to the enhancement of his merit; and according to the other, all the active obedience of Christ went to the enhancement of the expiation made by his death. Both parties were agreed in respect to all the facts included in the great work of redemption. The parties, however, especially the abetters of expiation, thought the difference to be a matter of