truth. This outline may serve to give the attentive reader, a general idea of the doctrines which have been held on the subject of the fall and recovery of mankind, by some of the most distinguished writers and divines of the Church of England; and those who wish to see the several arguments which have been employed to establish them, detailed with perspicuity, and pressed with much power of writing, should consult the "Supplementary Dissertation on some of the principal Doctrines of the Christian Religion," inserted by Bishop Gleig in the third volume of his Stackhouse.

"That Christ died, "says he," to restore mankind to that life which had been forfeited by the fall of Adam is as certain as that the Scriptures. of the New Testament are the word of God; and since we are assured that as by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead; and that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, it is equally certain that he died for all men without exception. For, as St. Paul informs Timothy, there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Redemption therefore in its original sense, as promised to the fallen parents of the human race, has been, or rather will be, universal and unconditional. The stupendous plan into which even the angels desired to look, was formed by the Divine wisdom and goodness, and carried into complete effect without any co-operation of ours; but not as was the offence, so also is the free gift. For, if through the offence of (the) one (the) many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by (the) grace which is by (the) one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto (the) many. And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift; for the judgment was of one (offence) to condemnation; but the free gift is of many offences unto justification (dxalapa.) For, if by the offence of the one man, death reigned by (the) one; much more, they who receive the abundance of the grace, and of the gift of (the) righteousness (dixaerón)-shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore as by one offence judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so, by one righteousness—di śvas dixasõμars-the free gift came upon all to justification of life-s dinaiwo (was. Through the whole of this passage, our loss by the fall of our first father is contrasted with our gain by the cross of Christ; and as we were subjected to the consequences of Adam's sin, not willingly or by ourselves, so have we contributed, and can contribute, nothing to that justification of life, which hath come upon all men by the free gift of God; for as Christ was freely "delivered" by the compassionate goodness of God, for our offences, so was he raised again for our justification. With respect to this redemption and the bondage from which we are redeemed, we are therefore justified: i. e. treated as if we had never come under any condemnation-neither for our faith nor for our works, but by the free grace of God, who sent his son into the world to take upon him our nature, and in that nature to die as a lamb to take away the sin (Taxpría) not sins-but that sintof which the consequences have fallen upon the whole world." The

death, therefore, to which all men are subjected by the sin of Adam when considered in connexion with the resurrection of all at the end of the world, is very far from being an evil; and as the gift of eternal life is held by a much surer tenure under the Christian dispensation than it was, or could have been, under the paradisaical, it follows, that, in this point of view, the second or Christian covenant of life possesses in fact all that superiority over the first or paradisaical covenant, which St. Paul on every occasion attributes to it." 1989:

The reasoning in the above passage is singularly forcible and conclusive, evolving a wonderful co-adaptation between the theory which the author espouses, and the train of thought which seems to have been followed out by the great Apostle, in his discourse on the Christian redemption. It is not, indeed, the first time that this view of the subject has presented itself to our minds; and but for one circumstance connected with it, we know not that any portion of systematic theology would better stand the test at once of reason and of ScripThe circumstance to which we allude, and which has also struck Mr. Wilkinson under the same objectionable aspect, is, that the misery of those who shall fail to obtain salvation will be greatly increased by their being rendered immortal. Had the human race never heard of a Saviour, every man would filthe course of this life have enjoyed the share of happiness due to his merits, or suffered the allotment of evil awarded to his crimes, and thus, after passing their days under a retributive and equal Providence, the sons of Adam would have sunk into the grave

without the hope or the fear of the hereafter. But life grave

mortality being brought to light, the effects of the deeds done in the body will be visited upon the soul of man throughout all eternity; and, as there is reason to apprehend that the number of bad men greatly exceeds that of the good, and knowing that strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it, the gift of immortality is so far from being a pearl of great price to the majority of human beings, that it can be regarded in no other light than the means of securing a perpetuity of torment. It will be said in reply, we know, that salvation is offered to all, that the grace of God is given to all who sincerely pray for it, and that it is sufficient for all; that it gives sight to the blind, strength to the weak, steadfastness to the wavering, and cleansing to the polluted; but, viewing the destiny of mankind, not according to their means and encou ragements, but according to the use they shall make of them; not according to the case of the journey, but the number Who shall actually perform it; not according to the value of the prize, but according n reality obtain it, we have much difficulty in perceiving i What

to the proportion of those value of the

As to the charge of Pelagianism, which has been brought against the the author of the essays for such we may venture to cal them now under our consideration, we do not perceive very clearly upon what ground the writer of the sermon, already so frequently alluded to, has undertaken to substantiate it. It can not surely respect the opinion, so truly incontrovertible, that Adam was not naturally immortal, that he held his existence as a conscious being, at the pleasure of his Maker, and that a word from the mouth of God would have been sufficient to render extinct as if it had never been, his soul as well as his body. Be instan sides, this was not the doctrine of Pelagius. He taught, not only that Adam was susceptible of death, but that he would have died, after a limited period of time, whether he had sinned or not.

Bishop has no where said so: he rather seems to think that, if our first parent had not violated the divine command, he would have been translated like Enoch and Elijah, and thereby removed to a scene where the enjoyment of happiness is never disturbed by the fear of losing it. Nor does Dr. Gleig any where maintain, in opposition to the orthodox tenets of our church, that the effects of Adam's transgression were confined to himself On the contrary, he states explicitly, as an article of faith, that by the sin of one, or by one sin, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; and that it is only by the mediation of esus Christ that the free gift came upon all to justification of life. He does not, indeed, go quite so far as t the high Calvinist, and maintain that for which he has no evidence whatever in the

Bible, that the death we incurred in Adam was eternal torment in hell-fire; but we imagine that, in order to be an orthodox son of the church of England, or of any church which regulates its belief by our thirty-nine articles, it is not necessary to hold this most repulsive of all the tenets which compose the Calvinistic creed. In relation, again, to the characteristic doctrine of the Pelagian heresy-independence of the grace of God in working out our salvation-no charge was ever more groundless than that which Mr. Wilkinson has been pleased to insinuate on the present occasion: for, if we understand aright the views which are set forth in this edition of Stackhouse, the whole history of human redemption, every act on the part of Almighty God, from the first promise of a Redeemer made to Adam and Eve in Paradise, till the ascension of our Blessed Lord into heaven, where he carried captivity captive, is founded in free grace; whilst at the same time, the necessity of the co-operation of the Divine Spirit, in order to render that redemption effectual, is most distinctly recognised. Speaking of justification, for example, by which he means our acquittal or absolution from the effects of the first transgression, and our restoration to that life with all its privileges, which was forfeited by the fall of our first parents, he says that it is an act of the Divine philanthropy, proceeding through Christ, and performed without any co-operation of ours, either by our faith or by our obedience; that it is wholly of grace, and depends not in the smallest degree on the faith, or piety, or virtue of men; "it is the gift of God."

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"Our present state," he likewise observes, "is but a state of bation in which we have a steady course to pursue, though we are liable to deviate from it both to the right hand and to the left. To encourage us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, we are assured that the Comforter, even that Blessed Spirit whom our Lord sent from his Father on the apostles, shall remain with the church for ever,' to enable every individual member, who in earnest endeavours to obey the gospel, to work and to do according to his good pleasure; that to every Christian who devoutly asks his aid, that aid will be granted by our heavenly Father more readily than any one of us gives good gifts to his children; that the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, dwelleth with the church, and is in every good Christian; and that it is by the influence of the Holy Ghost that we are received in the spirit of our minds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.' We are taught by God," he continues, "externally in the Holy Scriptures and internally by the Holy Ghost, speaking in the still small voice to our minds, as well to enlighten our understandings as to purify our hearts. Even faith itself is the gift of God, for as one of our old divines (Pearson) well observes, Christ is not only given unto us, in whom we may believe, but it is also given us on the behalf of

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Christ to believe in him; and this last gift is the gift of the Holy Ghost working an assent unto that which by the word is propounded unto us. But we, he further observes, are not only enlightened by the Spirit of God operating on our intellectual powers, but also directed by the same Spirit in our conduct; for we are assured that as many, and only as many, as are led by the Spirit of God, are the sons of God; that the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; and that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his?" 918 It is impossible to express more explicitly, or in stronger terms, the necessity of Divine grace to enable the human being to perform his duty, and to work out his eternal salvation; and it is only because Mr. Wilkinson published his sermon before he had seen more than one half of the performance which had suggested his strictures, that the idea of Pelagianism could have occurred to his thoughts. We do not, however, invest ourselves with the office of eulogizing or defending Bishop Gleig. On the contrary, We have no hesitation in saying, that in several instances, he has shown too little deference to the phraseology of our Articles, guiding himself rather by the meaning or object of the compilers, than by the strict letter and grammatical acceptation of the words. We will confess, too, that in regard to the taint or pollution which children bring with them into the world, he seems not to have written with his usual openness and precision; and, indeed, according to the direct bearing of his hypothesis, we know not well how that taint can be accounted for, or of what it could be said to consist. On all theories, we grant, this is a very difficult point but it is very obvious that our church, in her baptismal offices, and in other parts of her Liturgy, proceeds upon the ground, that some infection or pollution attaches to every infant at its birth the language put into the mouths of her ministers carrying in it an immediate and unequivocal reference to such a predicament. But, whatever may be said of the Bishop's opinions, we are certain that they do not symbolize with the doctrine of Pelagius, that new-born infants are in the same state in which Adam was before the fall;' for Adam before the fall, at least when placed in the garden of Eden, was in possession of a conditional immortality, which he afterwards forfeited; whereas new-born infants, we should imagine, agreeable to the views we are now considering, are regarded, prior to baptism, as being liable to the death which was denounced upon our first parent a complete extinction of conscious existence. In fact, it is on this very ground that the Bishop would find it most difficult to sustain the attacks of an opponent, equally qualified with himself in respect of talents and logical acumen. For example, he admits, or rather avowedly declares it as his fixed opinion, that