his pleasure. What if he were to describe suffering infancy, or a sick and dying child, or the agony of parental sorrow, or manhood in its strength, or matronage in its beauty, broken down under some infliction, touching the mind or the body, to more than infant weaknesswho could bear it? Yes; it is the lot of humanity to suffer. No condition, no guarded palace, no golden shield, can keep out the shafts of calamity. And especially it is the lot of intellectual life to suffer. As man becomes properly man; as his mind grapples with its ordained probation, the dispensation naturally presses harder upon him. The face of careless childhood may be arrayed with perpetual smiles; but behold, how the brow of manhood, and the matronly brow, grows serious and thoughtful, as years steal on; how the cheek grows pale, and what a meaning is set in the depths of many an eye around you-all proclaiming histories, long histories, of care, and anxiety, and disappointment, and affliction.

Now into this overshadowed world, One has come, to commune with suffering-to soothe, to relieve, to conquer it: himself a suffererhimself acquainted with grief-himself the conqueror of pain-himself made perfect through sufferings; and teaching us to gain like virtue and victory. For in all this, I see him ever calm, patient, cheerful, triumphant.

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And what a touching aspect does all this strong and calm endurance lend to his afflictions. For he was afflicted, and his soul was sometimes "sorrowful, even unto death." When I read, that at the grave of Lazarus, "Jesus wept;" when I hear him say, in the garden of Gethsemane, Father, if it be possible, remove this cup from me;" when from the cross arose that piercing cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me;" I know that he suffered. I know that loneliness, and desertion, and darkness were upon his path; I feel that sorrow and fear sometimes touched, with a passing shade, that seraphic countenance.

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But oh! how divinely does he rise above all! What a peculiarity was there in the character of this wonderful Being; the rejected, the scorned, the scourged, the crucified: and yet no being was ever so considerate towards the faults of his friends, as he was towards the hostility of his very enemies; no being was ever so kindly and sionate in spirit, so habitually even and cheerful in temper; so generous and gracious in manner. I cannot express the sense I have of his equanimity, of his gentleness, of the untouched beauty and sweetness of his philanthropy, of the unapproached greatness of his magnanimity and fortitude. He looked through this life, with a spiritual eye, and saw the wise intent and beneficent effect of suffering; he looked up with confiding faith to a Father in heaven; he looked through the long and blessed ages beyond this life; and earth, with all its scenes and sorrows, shrunk to a point, amidst the all-surrounding infinity of truth, and goodness, and heaven.

Thus, my brethren, has he taught us how to suffer. He has resolved that dark problem of life; how that suffering, in the long account, may be better than ease; and poverty, better than riches; and desertion, better than patronage; and mortification better than applause; and disappointment better than success; and martyrdom better than all the honours of a sinful life; and how, therefore, that suffering is to be met

with a brave and manly heart, with a sustaining faith, with a cheerful courage counting it all joy, and making it all triumph.

Thus have I attempted-and I feel that I ought not to detain you longer I have attempted, however imperfectly, to unfold the intent for which Jesus suffered; to unfold the import and teaching of the cross of Christ to human guilt, to human virtue, and to human happiness. May you know more of the truth as it is in Jesus, than words can utter, or worldly heart conceive! And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always. Amen.

CURSORY OBSERVATIONS.

NO. IV. ON THE FIVE POINTS OF CALVINISM.

THE celebrated five points of Calvinism are the following:-total depravity, election, particular redemption, irresistible grace, and the final perseverence of saints. It has been justly observed, that “ the two first only are fundamental doctrines. the three last necessary consequences. The consequences, however, are none the less liable to their separate and particular objections. But as I propose to confine myself to questions at issue between Orthodox and Liberal Christians, I shall not think it necessary to offer anything more than a passing remark or two, on the doctrines of particular redemption, and the saints'

perseverance.

Particular redemption, or the limitation of the atonement, both in its design and efficacy, to the elect, is a doctrine which has long since been discarded by the Congregationalists of this country. Indeed, these churches are about as improperly called Calvinistic, as they are, in common parlance among the mass of our people, denominated Presbyterian. It is worth while to remark, though it be only for the sake of correcting a verbal inaccuracy, that there are not above a dozen or twenty Presbyterian churches in all New England; the word Presbyterian properly standing for a form of church government, not for a faith. And it is more important to observe, for the sake of correcting an error in the minds of the people, that there is probably, in strictness of speech, not one Calvinistic Church in the ancient dominion of the Puritans. Every one of the five points has been essentially modified — has been changed from what it originally was.

But to return; the doctrine of particular redemption deserves to be noticed, as an instance of that attempt at mathematical precision, which, as I think, is a distinguishing trait of Calvinism, and which has done so much harm to the theological speculations of this country. I shall have occasion to refer to this kind of reasoning again. In the instance before us, it appears in the following statement. Sinners, it was said, had incurred a debt to divine justice; they owed a certain amount of suffering. Jesus Christ undertook, in behalf of the elect, to pay this debt. Now, if he had suffered more,-paid more, than was necessary to satisfy this particular demand, there would have been a waste of suffering, a waste of this transferable merit. But there was no such waste; the suffering exactly met the demand; and therefore the redemption was particular; it was limited to the elect-no others could be saved, without another atonement. This was, once, theological reasoning! And to dispute it, was held to be intolerable presumption. Such presumption severed, for a time, the New England churches from their

southern brethren. Such a dispute, with one or two others like it, came near to rending the Presbyterian Church asunder.*

Let us now say a word, on the doctrine of the saints' perseverance. If you separate from this the idea of an irresistible grace, impelling, and, as it were, compelling Christians to persevere in piety and virtue, there is little, perhaps, to object to it. It is so separated in the present Orthodox belief, and therefore, it is scarcely a question in controversy. We all believe, that a man, who has become once thoroughly and heartily interested in the true Gospel, doctrine, character, and glory of Jesus Christ, is very likely to persevere and grow in that interest. I confess, that my own conviction on this point is very strong, and scarcely falls short of any language in which the doctrine of perseverance is declared. I can hardly conceive, how a man, who has once fully opened his eyes upon that "Light," should ever be willing to close them. And I believe, that in proportion as the Gospel is understood and felt-felt in all its deep fountains of peace and consolation, understood in all its yet coming revelations and unfoldings of purity and moral beautythat in proportion to this, the instances of "falling away," whether into infidelity or worldliness, will be more and more rare. I am aware, however, and think it ought to be said, that the common statements of the doctrine of perseverance are dangerous to the unreflecting and to the speculative. The truth is, that we ought to have nothing to do with perseverance as a doctrine, and everything with it, as a fact. Good men shall persevere-good Christians, above all, shall persevere; but let them remember that they can do so, only by constant watchfulness, endeavour, self-denial, prayer, fidelity.

I shall now take up the more important subjects named at the head

of this article.

The first is total depravity, including, of course, the position that this depravity is native.

I shall say nothing, in the few brief hints I have now to offer, of the practical views, which we all ought deeply to consider, of the actual depravity of man. I am concerned at present, then, only with the speculative and abstract doctrine of native, total depravity. And I am anxious, in the first place, to state it, in such a manner, as shall be unexceptionable to its most scrupulous advocate. It is not, then, according to modern explanations, that man is unable to be good; or that he is as bad as he can be; or that his natural appetites, sympathies, and instincts are originally bad. I have known the distinction to be put in this way; that man is totally depraved, in the theological sense of those words, but not in the common and classical sense of them, as they are used in our English literature, and in ordinary conversation:very good distinction, but a very bad precedent and principle for all fair reasoning. For if men are allowed to apply to common words this secret, technical, theological meaning, their speculations can neither be understood, nor met, nor subjected to the laws of common sense. It is not safe in moral reasonings, to admit two kinds of depravity, kinds of goodness. Men will be too ready to find out, that it is easier to be good, according to one theory of goodness, than according to

or two

* At length they have severed it; and we have two General Assemblies contending for precedence before the Civil Courts.

another. And, it has too often come to pass, that regenerated and sanctified (the theological words), have not meant, pure, humble, amiable, and virtuous. And so, on the other hand, a man may much more easily and calmly admit that he is depraved, in the theological, than in the common sense. And in making this distinction, he deprives himself of one of the most powerful means of conviction. There is a great deal of truth in that theory of moral sentiments, though it does not go to the bottom of the subject, which maintains that a man learns to condemn and reproach himself, through sympathy with that feeling of others, which condemns and reproaches him. But of this, by his peculiar and secret idea of depravity, the reasoner in question deprives himself. And hence it is, that such a man can talk loudly and extravagantly of his own depravity. It is because he does not use that word in the ordinary sense, nor feel the reproach that attaches to it. It is hence that congregations can calmly and indifferently listen to those charges of utter depravity, which, if received in their common acceptation, would set them on fire with resentment.

But the distinction does not much tend, after all, to help the matter, as a doctrine, though it does tend so nearly to neutralize it as a conviction; because, it is still contended, that the theological sense is the true sense. When the advocate of this doctrine says, that men are utterly depraved, he means that they are so, in the only true, in the highest sense of those words. And when he says, that this depravity is native, he means to fix the charge, not, indeed, upon the whole nature of man, not upon his original appetites and sympathies, but upon his highest, his moral nature. He means to say, that his moral natureand nothing else, strictly speaking, can be sinful or holy-that his moral nature produces nothing but sin; that all which can sin in man does sin, and does nothing but sin, so long as it follows that tendency which is originally communicated to his nature. He means to say, that sin is as truly and certainly the fruit of his moral nature, as thought is the fruit of his mental nature. And it makes no difference to say that he sins freely, for it is just as true that he thinks freely. In fact, he is not free to cease from doing either. In this view, indeed, depravity comes nothing short of an absolute inability to be holy. For if the moral constitution of man is so formed, as naturally to produce nothing but sin, I see not how he can any more help sinning than he can help thinking. I do not forget that it is said, that man has the moral power to be holy; for I am glad to admit any modification in the statement of the doctrine. But, in fact, what does it amount to? What is a moral power to be good, but a disposition to be so? And if no such disposition is allowed to belong to human nature, I see not in what intelligible sense any power can belong to it.*

I will not pursue this definition of human depravity farther into those metaphysical distinctions and subtilties, to which it would lead. But I would now ask the reader, as a matter of argument, whether he can

I believe that this is still the prevailing view of human depravity: but I should not omit, perhaps, to notice that, since these essays were written, another modification of the doctrine has been proposed. It is, that sin is not the necessary result of man's moral constitution, but the invariable result of his moral condition. There is little to choose. In either case, sin, and sin only, is inevitably bound up with human existence.