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himself commanded the gospel to be preached to every creature,' if but a part of mankind needs its salvation. Watson.

"The doctrine, then, of Scripture is, I think, clearly established to be, that of the natural and universal corruption of man's nature;" but before we dismiss this subject we shall endeavor to answer some of the objections urged against the doctrine of hereditary depravity. I. It is said to be impossible for man to be born in sin, for sin is the abuse of one's powers.

"To this we answer :-The Scriptures uniformly assert, that man is 'shapen in iniquity,' and 'conceived in sin;' that man cannot be clean who is born of a woman;' and that that which is born of the flesh is be born of the Spirit' before it can enter the kingdom of heaven. To contradict this statement is, therefore, to contradict the plainest assertions of Scripture.

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"This objection makes no distinction between a wrong choice and a wrong disposition; between the wrong state and the wrong use of our powers. That man cannot be born with any thing which implies a wrong choice already made is obvious. Perhaps it will be granted that we have no innate ideas, and, therefore, as principles are compounded of ideas, that we have no innate moral principles. But may there not be a disorder of the faculties before those faculties are called into action? We easily grant the possibility of the birth of a human body disordered in any of its senses or members, or in all of them. A human body may be born blind, or deaf, or dumb, or maimed, or lame. Again: A man may be born with a false taste, which exists before either food or poison has been presented to him; and, therefore, before his taste has been vitiated by the use of poison. Now, where is the impossibility of the mental powers being produced in disorder? Why must they of necessity be in proper order and harmony? Why is it impossible that the under

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standing should be naturally blind, and the passions headstrong? What reason is to be assigned in proof that the taste (shall we call it) cannot be naturally false, and give a wrong bias to the subsequent choice ?" -Hare.

2. It is objected that this doctrine of hereditary depravity makes God the author of sin; for it is said that the proper production of the child is from God; and if God produce a child which has sinful dispositions, he must produce those dispositions.

"This argument proves too much. It would prove God to be the author of all actual, as well as original (or hereditary) sin. For it is the power of God, under certain laws and established rules, which produces not only the fœtus, but all the motion in the universe. It is his power which so violently expands the air on the discharge of a pistol or cannon. It is the same which produces muscular motion, and the circulation of all the juices in man. But does he therefore produce adultery,

or murder? Is he the cause of those sinful motions? He is the cause of the motion, (as he is of the fœtus,) of the sin he is not. Do not say this is too fine a distinction. Fine as it is, you must necessarily allow it. Otherwise you make God the direct author of all the sin under heaven. To apply this more directly to the point. God does produce the fœtus of man as he does of trees, empowering the one and the other to propagate each after its kind. And a sinful man propagates, after his kind, another sinful man. Yet God produces, in the sense above mentioned, the man, but not the sin.”—(Mr. J. Wesley on Original Sin.)

3. This doctrine is said to apologise for the actual wretchedness of mankind; for if men are naturally disposed to sin, they cannot be justly blamed for sinning.

"That the natural depravity of the human soul is unavoidable, we grant; but not that the personal wickedness of every man is unavoidable. Nothing but universal depravity can account for universal wicked

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ness; and universal wickedness would be the necessary consequence of universal depravity, if there were no cure for it. But the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men, teaching them that denying (renouncing) ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live soberly, and righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works,' Titus ii. 11-13. Under these circumstances, mankind are placed in a state of personal probation: with this difference, however; Adam was created upright, and was proved whether he would fall; we are born prone, and, under a remediate law, are proved whether we will rise. He sinned voluntarily against the law of innocence; we sin voluntarily against the law of grace. He sinned and induced the disorder; we sin partly by neglecting the remedy, and partly in consequence of that neglect. Our disease is unavoidable; but not so our neglect of the cure."-Hare.

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4. It is objected that this doctrine renders it impossible for those who die in infancy to be saved. But "there is nothing inconsistent between the ruin and depravity of infants by the sin of their parents, and their being finally saved by Jesus Christ. If by the offence of one, judgment came upon them to condemnation ; so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift comes upon them unto justification of life. However necessary it may be that they who, by personal sin, have confirmed the original sentence of condemnation, should seek and accept a personal interest in Christ, it cannot be necessary for those who have committed no personal sin, and who have never been capable of a personal application of the merit of the Saviour. As to their participation of human depravity, they have never, by an unholy choice or deed, given themselves up to its government;

and, therefore, dying in personal innocence, they may be renewed by an operation of the Holy Spirit, which does not require, as in the case of adults, their personal co-operation. Their ruin has been effected without their personal fault; and their recovery is effected without their personal choice..

"As the depravity and ruin of mankind are clearly and decisively demonstrated, in the sacred Scriptures, to be the natural and judicial consequences of the sin of their first parents, the whole Unitarian system must fall to the ground. The rational divines must relinquish their confidence in the infallibility of human reason; grant that a Divine Redeemer and Restorer is necessary; submit to the doctrine of a propitiatory sacrifice; and acknowledge their want of a supernatural influence. on their minds and hearts, in order to their salvation. They must renounce their boasts of the moral dignity of human nature; rank themselves with publicans and sinners; and condescend to be saved by grace. Nor will they hereby lose any thing but their unreasonable prejudices and their destructive sins."-Hare.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ATONEMENT MADE BY CHRIST.

Having shown in the last chapter that man is a sinner by nature as well as by practice, or, in other words, that he is a guilty rebel in the sight of a holy God, we shall now endeavor to establish the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, or, that Jesus Christ has suffered in our stead, being made a curse for us, that we might escape the curse of the violated yet inflexible law of God. This is a doctrine which is denied by all classes of Unitarians, as may be seen by turning to the quotation made from Mr. Yates, on page 16, where, after enumerating

the points on which Unitarians differ, he definitely states that all Unitarians agree "in rejecting the doctrine of satisfaction and vicarious atonement." Mr. Grundy says: "This doctrine converts justice into vengeance. It first plunges its sword into the soul of the innocent; it afterward pursues multitudes of those whose punishment he bore, and relentlessly plunges them into the flames of hell, because they cannot satisfy its demands, which were all satisfied by his suffering in their stead." The same sentiment is held, and the same language used, in substance, by those Unitarians who call themselves Christians, some of whom have exclaimed, "What! wash in the blood of Christ? It would render your garment filthy. It was rotten eighteen hundred years ago!" And one of their preachers (the Rev. Mr. Sanford,) told the writer, in reference to this work, that he need have no fears in setting it down as the faith of their Church, that they denied the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement. This doctrine, then, being generally denied by our opponents, we shall now endeavor to establish its truth, which we might forcibly argue from the necessity of there being such a provision made for the redemption of man, without which salvation could never have been offered to a lost and ruined world; but having extended our remarks on other subjects, beyond our intended limits, we must necessarily be more brief upon this important subject than we otherwise should be. We shall, therefore, appeal directly to the express testimony of scripture, at the same time requesting the reader, who would see a more extensive investigation of the subject, to refer to an excellent work recently published by the Rev. Luther Lee, entitled "Universalism Examined," in which this subject is more largely discussed, and from which some of the following arguments are extracted. But to proceed

1. We argue this doctrine from the fact that the "scriptures teach, directly, that the sufferings and death

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