is to prove that there is no absurdity in carrying our views of guilt beyond the voluntary agency of men to (we know not what,) the nature of man, the seat of the affections. But as this view of the heart which assumes the whole thing in debate was to be made so wonderful an engine in the hands of the reviewer for overturning the whole fabric of the argument, it is singular that he should have evaded the question, by slipping over my definition of sins of heart in utter silence. Was he unwilling to confront the question, and let his views of the heart stand or fall with the arguments which evince the proposition to be true? If the proposition were evinced to be true, was he not obliged, as I have remarked already, to shape, in accordance with it, his views of sins of heart? Must they not be transgressions of law?

Again: In regard to sins of omission. These, he thinks, can never be reconciled with such a view of the nature of sin as is maintained in the proposition. "We had supposed that there was no act in bare omission; and that the fault of the agent consisted in not acting." "Its nature consists in failing to act as the law requires." Very well: if so he pleases. But then, he either applies this language to the voluntary agent who knows God, and does not love Him; who knows the given duty and omits it; or else he does not. If he does; then it can amount to no more than this very harmless truism; that the omission of a duty is not actually performing it; that the want of love to God is not actually loving Him. But I ask, whether this voluntary being, before whom duty is placed, the chief good as well as subordinate, has no active preference in the case? Whether he is not preferring natural good to the welfare of others and glory of God? Whether he is not preferring the doing of other things, to the doing of the specific duties? Whether the preference of one does not in itself involve the refusal of the other? If so, the fact of sinful omission is traced to the voluntary agency of the being. "He acts," as was remarked in the Discourses," in ways which dif

fer from the positive requirements of duty." But if, on the other hand, he does not apply his language to the voluntary agent who knows duty; then is he begging the very question in debate and I ask his authority for carrying the sin of omission out of such limits. Until he gives it, I ask him to weigh, and inwardly digest, the following queries.

1. Is it a sin extending to animals, vegetables, and bare substances, that they perform not the specific duties of benevolence, truth, justice, &c.; and that there is in them a want of love to God? If it is not, why is it not? Or, if it must be confined to intelligent beings who have a sense of duty then I inquire,

2. Is it the sin of any of our race that they omit to perform things which they are not capable of performing, and in reference to which there can exist in them no choice or preference whatever? For instance: of an infant, that he does not pray, or give alms, or meditate on God; or exercise towards Him the love of gratitude or esteem? or of an idiot, that he does not speak unto edification, or provide for his own necessities, or employ himself in useful offices among men, or aid in the public and social worship of God? Or, if this sin must be confined to intelligent and moral beings, and to such things as are matters of choice to them: then I inquire,

3. Is there any way, when necessity is thus laid upon a being to prefer one of two moral opposites, in which he can omit the preference of either one of them except by the actual preference of the other? any way of forsaking and neglecting either one of the two known masters that call for our service, God and the world, except by preferring the other and cleaving to his service? any way of evading known duties except by refusing their performance and preferring and following other pursuits? And is not this voluntary action?

Indeed it would seem scarcely necessary to reason on so elear a truth, which so distinctly pervades the whole letter

and spirit of the Scriptures, as that, with moral and accountable beings, neutrality is impossible; that they are placed by their Creator under the affecting responsibility of a choice as momentous as that of the chief good or a subordinate; the thing required by their Judge, or the thing forbidden by Him; His favor, or His wrath; heaven or hell. The reviewer and others who may believe with him, therefore, I cannot but think, confound the metaphysical nature of sin, which is the object of inquiry, with the moral evil involved in it, when they oppose such a definition of it as is given in the Discourses. The extent of obligations violated, by him who prefers the world to God, is not our inquiry; but whether there is any omission, chargeable on such being, which is not resolvable into his voluntary agency? The following remark of the reviewer therefore, on the guilt of omission, seems totally irrelevant to the question of moral agency. 'It will not do to attempt to evade this, by saying that the sin really consists in loving something else, as the world for instance, more than God; for it is plain that we cannot disobey the law of God more directly and essentially, than by neglecting to perform the chief duty which it requires." What is this but saying, that in preferring the world to God, the guilt of such a preference lies, not so much in the folly of cleaving to broken cisterns, as in the ingratitude, the impiety, the rebellion involved in forsaking the Fountain of Living Waters?

Thirdly In regard to sins of ignorance. The reviewer will have it, that the proposition allows not any distinction between sins of knowledge and ignorance; because it declares known obligation essential to sin. But I never supposed that there are, or can be, any sins of ignorance, which involve an actual ignorance of all the great and ultimate ends of duty; but only of some specific things, of the requirement or prohibition of which we are ignorant while possessed of the means of knowledge. There is no description or case of such sin, in the Scriptures, involving in it any

other ignorance.* I ask then whether one may not carry into such acts, as are done in actual ignorance or unbelief of the specific requirement or prohibition, all that disregard of the ultimate end of duty and that preference of subordinate good, which involves, in it, rebellion against God? But the reviewer refers to the case of Paul; and reasons from it in this manner. "In all these acts [of persecuting the Christians and causing them to blaspheme Christ] did Paul commit sin? Yes: according to our author, in not making himself acquainted with his obligation; but in these acts of persecution, blasphemy, and murder, there was no sin at all, 'for sin is the violation of known duty." But does this consequence follow? I have yet to learn, that what has been advanced by me is opposed to the fact, that the guilt of Paul virtually comprised blasphemy, injury, persecution, according to his confessions, as well as the guilt of unbelief—an example that I had often and fully contemplated before writing the Discourses. I say then, that the evidence which had been exhibited in Judea that Jesus was the Christ, the Lord of Israel, and the opportunity which was given Paul of ascertaining it and which rendered his obligations towards Jesus knowable, brought guilt upon him, not only for his unbelief, but for all the acts, which in his unbelief he did, contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. He must have received erroneous ideas, indeed, who considers the Discourses to reduce a train of conduct in violation of knowable obligations, to one act simply. At each step, all the known general obligations of morality attend upon the agent as well as the known obligation to ascertain the truth respecting the specific duty; and at each step, he takes the responsibility of acting on the given case-a responsibility which he knows to rise in degree, accordingly as the conduct on which he enters rises in its bearings on the welfare of others. The language of the Discourses, is, "sins of ig

* The cases, mentioned in the Scriptures, are these: Luke xxiii. 34: Acts iii. 17, xiii. 27: 1 Tim. i.

norance are those acts in which the moral agent transgresses the known obligation to acquaint himself with the laws that were applicable, or some known general obligation of morality," &c.—a definition which contemplates the given acts themselves surely as being sins. Whether the definition be the best and the fullest which could have been given, in consistency with the general proposition, is not the inquiry: but, whether the general proposition itself, and every definition of sins of ignorance which can be given in accordance with it, is inconsistent with the case of Paul. And such an inquiry seems resolved at once, by another: whether the sin of his conduct rested on the mere fact of his actual ignorance and want of conviction; (which he himself declares to have mitigated his guilt ;) or, on the ground of obligations involved within his knowledge? The fact that Paul, in his conduct towards Jesus and his followers, was not obeying the known obligations of love toward the God of Israel; but, like his brethren, the Pharisees, was seeking rather the applauses of his countrymen; is obvious, from that promise of Christ: "if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine," [concerning his own Messiahship;] as well as from the reproof which Christ gave the Pharisees, as a body: "How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?"* For the sake of illustrating the consistency, I will substitute the person of Paul in the case, which I have put in the Discourses: viz., that of a criminal arraigned on some

* What Paul says before Agrippa, (Acts xxvi. 9,) respecting the opinion he entertained, while persecuting the Christians, that he was performing his duty, is not an affirmation that he was truly obedient to God, or a denial that he was really seeking his own honor as his chief good, through a zeal for religion: for he virtually acknowledges both these things in the accounts of his Pharisaic life. His entertaining an opinion of himself, so contrary to truth, is resolved into that self-deceit which men, voluntarily and obstinately, practise upon themselves, when, through a zeal of religion and forms, they are in reality seeking their own selfish ends.