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.

The next passage I turned to, is read in Psalm li. 5. "Behold I was 3 x

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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, pe culiarly 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 observ ing 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

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were cold and barren spirits without capacity, and destitute of invention, that others were unable to compare two ideas together and draw a rational conclusion; that some were as destitute of memory as others of invention, I had seen idiots and creditors with good memories, and poets and debtors with none at all; I had seen souls of fire and souls of ice. Seriously, I accounted for the poetic imagery of David in Psalm li. from the depth of his guilt, the strength of his feel ings, and the radical nature of his penitence, expressed in the figurative language of an highly wrought Eastern imagination.

I knew that there was nothing to be found in the sacred records which David possessed to justify the literal sense of his remark, a sense as contradictory to the tenor of his own writings as to reason. I could not therefore help rejecting that passage considered as a proof of the universal propagation of a radical and corrupt moral nature, derived from the first sinner or the imputation of his guilt to all his descendants. I turned over the pages of revelation till I came to Psalm lviii. 3. There I read that "the wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." This passage I had heard frequently quoted to prove the universal and original depravity of the heart of human beings. I could not accept this as a proof of it; I knew that new born infants had no power to do good or evil, that they were incapable of a moral choice, that they were destitute of the faculty of speech, that they were too helpless to go astray, and that so far from speaking lies, they could not speak at all. I was free to admit that the children of the wicked might be corrupted in early life by the bad example of their parents, that they might go astray from nature and virtue, and thus be estranged from the womb, and I had been often -grieved to see the direful contagion of vice spreading itself, like a fatal plague, infecting the very souls of youth and childhood. I had seen with terror lying, deceit, dishonesty, debauchery, villainy, pride, illiberality and hypocrisy, propagated in the heart's core of the rising generation, by the wickedness and folly of parents. But I was directed also, (blessed be

God for his goodness) to train up a child in the way he should go," and was encouraged by the delightful hope that when he shall "come to be old, he will not depart from it."

I had seen that "a wise son useth his father's instruction and maketh a glad father," therefore I said "My son be wise and make my heart glad that I may answer him that reproaches me:" I said to my neighbour "correct thy son and he shall give thee rest, yea he shall give delight unto thy soul." I read Prov. x. 7, that the just man walketh in his integrity, his children are blessed after him,-that

"even

a child is known by his doings whether his work be pure and whether it he right," ver. 11. I read Psalm cxxxvii. that "Children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward." 1 knew who had said, "Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Except ye be converted, and be. come as little children, ye shall not see the kingdom of heaven.” I therefore began to think that they did not "as soon as they were born deserve God's wrath and eternal damnation."

I now looked around me with pleasure: I thought I had travelled through half my journey, that the prospect was clearing up, the clouds dispersing, light rising out of obscurity, the heart-cheering sun began to spread around me its life-nourishing beams; but a Reverend Gentleman quoted a passage in Jer. xvii. 9, on the deceitfulness of the heart: he asserted indeed that all who did not believe his explanation must be bad men; he seemed to glory in the baseness of his nature; he told me that the will, the conscience, the understanding, all the powers of the mind, and all the propensities of the heart of every man under the sun were by nature deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; he added that whoever denied this fact, proved it by the very denial! I read the passage, and context. There I found, Jer. xvii. 1, that "the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond, graven upon the table of their hearts, and upon the horns of the altar." I saw that the man whose heart departs from the Lord and trusts in man shall be like the heath of the desert, inhabiting the parched places of the wilder

ness, where falls no dew, no former nor latter rain, whose sandy plain yields no nourishment, produces no green thing, and no seed for the support of the famished traveller, no spring, no purling brook to quench his thirst, where only the dry and worthless sand moss, "the heath of the desert," preserved the semblance of vegetation,-like that moss, he shall never partake of the gentle dew from heaven, nor of the blessings of the fertile earth," he shall not see when good cometh." I saw that sinners were ingenious to deceive themselves and others: I saw that the heart of Judah with sin engraved upon it thus must be deeply and desperately wicked, and that the altars upon which sin in its blackest colours was written (altars consecrated to idols) "whilst their children remembered them, and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills," where they worshipped Baal and Moloch and the Queen of heaven, must be an abomination in the sight of God, "who searches the heart, and tries the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." I might err, I was not infallible, my heart might deceive me, but I sought evidence, I think I was not influenced either by hope or fear to reject this passage, like the rest that went before it, as wholly inconclusive testimony when produced to witness the universal, radical, original and moral corruption of human nature.

I went on, I opened the New Testament, I read Christ's Sermon on the Mount: there I found every thing to prove that man was a frail, sinful mortal, but not a vessel filled by nature to the very brim with moral corruption, made under the wrath and curse of God. I read of the pure in heart, of the merciful, of inherent righteousness, of a righteousness that must be produced, very far beyond that of the Scribes and Pharisees, to fit a man for the kingdom of heaven. I read of attainable perfection, of a good tree producing good fruit, and a corrupt tree evil fruit: I read of doing the will of God, and hearing, and doing the sayings of Jesus Christ, that the wise man built his house upon this rock. I read John ix. of a blind man restored to sight by Jesus Christ, and was surprised to hear the disciples asking him "whether this man had

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sinned or his parents that he was born blind," but I wondered not at all, at Christ's answer, "Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents." I read of evil thoughts and evil deeds proceeding out of the heart of man, and I knew that nothing upon earth be sides could produce theni.

I heard the human heart described, Matt. xii. 35, as a treasury. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things." I read in the parable of the sower, Luke xv. of seed "sown in the good ground of an honest and good heart." I saw the man Jesus, the son of Adam, Abraham, Judah, David, Manasseh, one of the wickedest tyrants that ever lived, and traced among his ancestors many great sinners, and I was sure that he derived his nature from his parents, yet I believed that he was "without sin," touched with a feeling of our infirmities, tempted in all points as we are, our brother, partaker of our flesh and blood. Here a good old lady interrupted me; she said that she was satisfied of the existence of corrupt nature, because infants cry when they are born! Good old lady! If you could be literally born a second time, and have all your teeth to cut over again, you would cry too, but they evince passion before they can speak; yes, they are not blocks of marble, they have nerves and feel, they express their sense of uneasiness, hunger, cold and pain: blind puppies, too, whine from the same causes; but if you cannot distinguish between the natural expression of animal feeling, want, and passion, and original sin, neither probably do you see the difference between a sinner and a fool by nature, an unhappy circumstance, which will effectually prevent us from plunging together into this deep subject.

I certainly found nothing in the Old Testament to support this doctrine; but I am again interrupted. A philosophical Calvinist, one of the rational brethren, who accounts for every thing, came forward with his text, "He answered and said, verily, no one can bring a clean thing out of an unclean," Job xiv. 4, and context. "Certainly not, therefore God will not require more of such a creature, than he is capable of performing, nor