they admit a diftinction between the good and the evil." My reader, perhaps, will think that Mr. O. fhould have inverted his order of writing on this occafion, by beginning where he has concluded; by fetting out hypothetically, and concluding ́ definitively; by faying, in the first place, that if fuch a pofition be maintained, fuch must be our judgment upon it; and then proving (if it was to be proved) that fuch pofition, for which the divines in queftion are condemned, was actually maintained by them. But Mr. O. has thought proper to begin with a decided unqualified charge, and after taking up fome pages with his endeavours to establish it quocunque modo, his attack upon the profeffional character of his brethren at length terminates in his retiring as it were from the field, which he begins to feel himfelf unable to maintain, by leaving the matter in a manner open to be determined by his readers, whether the charge under confideration has ground to ftand upon, or not.

At the fame time, in the true Parthian mode of fighting, with the view of giving the parting wound to his adverfary, Mr. O. concludes with leaving an impreffion on his reader's mind, built on the fuppofition, that the charge, which it was the professed object of this Chapter to fubftantiate, had been clearly and incontrovertibly made out. "In reference then," concludes Mr. O., "to the whole which has been advanced in this Chapter, we appeal to all

competent judges to fay, whofe teaching moft refembles that of the Church, and her Reformers, on these subjects; ours, who make Christ and his peculiar doctrines the foul which animates the whole body of our divinity, or theirs, who make fo little ufe of the SAVIOUR, and thefe doctrines; ours, who thus infift upon internal and practical Chriftianity, or theirs, who rest fo much upon mere externals, and ufe the language which has been exhibited?"

The cause Mr. O. has at length fubmitted to the proper tribunal; and we readily fubmit to the verdict, which competent judges fhall pronounce on the contents of the foregoing Chapter; taking leave only, on my own account, to remark, that, admitting that Mr. O., for want of attention to the fubject to which the quotations from my writings immediately refer, might unintentionally misreprefent them; ftill, on the fuppofition that he read for himself, paffages were to be found in my books, of a nature sufficiently decided to have convinced him, that the meaning for which he has thought proper to make their author responsible, could not poffibly be the meaning intended to be conveyed by him. One paffage taken from the "Guide" fhall fpeak for the reft, because it contains, in a small compafs, a full refutation of all Mr. O. has attempted to prove against the author of it, in the Chapter before us. Defcribing what the character of Chrift's difciples ought to be, I proceed thus-" Admitting faith in Chrift to be, if we

may fo fay, the grand germinating principle of the whole fpiritual creation, they (Chrift's difciples) must not only abide in him, but his spirit must also abide in them, if they would become what Christianty was defigned to make them. The Shadow in this cafe will not be taken for the fubftance. As members of his Church, we may, in fome fenfe, be faid to be in CHRIST; but being dead, not living members of it, we are, in such case, those unfruitful branches of the vine, which the husbandman taketh away."-Guide, p. 294, 295.

And when Mr. O. has read, should he think pro

per fo to do, a set of doctrinal discourses on the connection between the Old and New Teftament, lately published by the author of "the Guide to the Church;" it is poffible, though these discourses may not be exactly to his tafte, that they may bear fufficient teftimony for their author, even with Mr. O., to induce him to wifh, that what he has fo uncharitably and inconfiderately advanced in this Chapter, together with what he fcruples not to fay, in p. 378, of the divines in question," that they are great enemies to the doctrine of falvation by grace," had never been committed to the public.

CHAPTER IV.

The Inquiry pursued with regard to the Doctrine of Original Sin, and the consequent State and Character of Man in this World as a Sinner.

WERE

ERE I to follow Mr. O. ftep by step throughout his multifarious publication, my book must neceffarily be extended to an unmeasurable length; there being but few pages of it, comparatively speaking, which do not prefent either fome affertion to be contradicted, some statement to be corrected, or some misrepresentation to be pointed out. But besides the charge of incorrectnefs, to which Mr. O. is justly obnoxious, he abounds in that indecent and unqualified cenfure on the parties who are the immediate objects of attack, that no clergyman, defirous of preserving the dignity of his character, can answer it as it ought to be answered. On this account it may continue to boaft of a title by which its approvers distinguish it, namely, that of its being unanswerable.

These confiderations have determined me to confine my attention to the more prominent features of Mr. O.'s work; concluding that a fufficient fpecimen

To

of his method of quoting and reafoning has been seen, to render a more particular examination of it unneceffary. The object of the Chapter on which we are now entering, is to prove, that the divines, on whofe profeffional character Mr. O. fits in judgment, are equally defective in the doctrine of original fin, as they are in every other part of the Christian fyftem. establish this point, according to his ufual manner of proving, fome few individuals are brought forward, in the character of the foreman of a jury, to speak for the body. But Mr. O. feems to forget through his whole performance the principle, on which alone the foreman of a jury speaks the sense of the body he represents. Without regard to this principle, Mr. O., by way of preparing his readers for the application which he has in view, lays before him the expreffions of Bishop Law, Dr. PALEY, Bishop WARBURTON, Bishop WATSON, Dr. TAYLOR, and others, on this doctrinal point; and after occupying many pages on stating, in his own way, the sentiments of fundry other writers, at different periods, on the same subject, he draws, in p. 140, the evidence he has collected from all quarters, as it were, into a focus; by faying of the divines, on whom his publication is immediately meant to bear, that it is the doctrine of nearly the whole body, that the will of man is free to choose what is good." P. 140. For the confirmation of this charge Mr. O. appeals to the 5th discourse of the "Guide,"