God, the conscience of man, and the harmony and power of divine truth, require us to define. Now as an individual who was placed in the office of expounding and defending the truths of the Gospel to intelligent and thinking youth, I undertook to discharge the obligation in my own case, in these Discourses, by giving them a definition which in my opinion the truth required. Is it just therefore, in this writer, because I have advanced something positive on the subject, merely to carp at my statement, and to hazard no opinion or statement of his own? Is he unwilling, in addressing so large a body of intelligent and pious men, through the medium of the Christian Advocate, as the Presbyterian Church, to discharge the obligation in his own case, and state to them, positively, the nature of sin? Is he content to say nothing, and to leave them without any definite views, if so be they only reject the statement in the Discourses? Is this faithful? Is it just? I have attempted to show that there are not only materials in the providence and word of God, from which the definition is clearly made out; but that the definition itself is expressly given in the Scriptures: was it becoming, in him, seemingly to array himself against this testimony of God, with bare denials of any thing positive in its meaning? Does he fear positive statement? Does he think he can make none which is safe and tenable ? Does he imagine that if he hazard one, it will be liable to still greater objections even, than he can muster against the one in the Discourses?

But, to show that I complain reasonably of this writer, in not hazarding a positive statement of his own, I will take the only direct positive assertion which he has ventured to make; and examine whether it can be considered justly, as any candid attempt to give me and his readers a substitute for the views contained in the Discourses; which a man should do, whose object it is honestly and positively to ineulcate truth. "The plain doctrine of the text," he says, "is one that all agree in holding-that where there is no

law there is no sin: but this determines nothing respecting the nature of sin-nothing in regard to the point whether it must necessarily consist in nothing but acts." But is not this mere evasion? Is not this throwing his readers upon the bare language of the Scriptures, and hazarding nothing concerning the meaning of that language? Is it not more? Is it not positively asserting that it has no definite meaning? We all agree in holding that "where there is no law there is no sin; but then, this determines nothing concerning the nature of sin!" Indeed! How did he make this very convenient and seasonable discovery? We all agree in holding the language of the Scriptures; but then this determines nothing concerning the nature of the things of which it treats! We all agree in holding what God says; but then his sayings determine nothing! We all agree in holding that "the Word was God;" but this determines nothing concerning the nature of Christ the Word! We all agree in holding that "these shall go away into everlasting punishment;" but this determines nothing concerning the future punishment of the wicked! This is as broad a principle of liberality and latitudinarianism as can well be wished to serve all the purposes of error in this revolted world, that holds itself so little subject to the word of God: and it becomes this writer to ask himself, whether on this principle, he is not acting inconsistently in binding himself to any creeds and confessions which speak definitely on the nature of the things treated of in the Scriptures.

Or, if he admit that this given declaration does determine something concerning the nature of sin, but not that particular thing concerning it which I have stated; and that this was all his meaning: then, I ask, why does it not determine that particular thing? Has the word, law, no definite meaning? Does Paul mean, by law, a rule which prescribes what the constitutional powers and capacities of created beings shall be? or what, in distinction from these, their voluntary agency shall be? Which of these two? For,

the particular thing which I stated was, that sin is confined to the latter, in distinction from the former; and, in view of such a distinction, does the term law determine nothing? Or has the assertion, which confines the extent of sin to the extent to which the law applies, nothing to do in determining its nature? To whom does law apply? To them who have not the law, or to them who have? Is any law applied, that is not published, or made known by the lawgiver, to his subjects? What then, I ask, should I yield up my definition of sin, am I to receive as a substitute for it, from this reviewer, which I may hold as the truth?

In opposing my statement, is he, after all, to be considered as maintaining, that it is not essential to the nature of sin that it be transgression of law? Then is he at variance with his own creed and confession, which says; “all sin, both original and actual," is "a transgression of law:" and how shall he guide the Presbyterian church into the truth? Then is he at variance with the express declaration of God: and how shall he demand a hearing from those who seek the truth of God?

But if he believe, with the apostle, that "sin is the transgression of law," why does he oppose my statement? He has in one place reduced the whole ground of his dissent from me, to a single thing: "The single point in debate is, whether that nature of the soul from which a continual succession of evil thoughts proceeds, is sinful?" But I ask him, and I wish the question to be pondered; is there a nature in the soul which is the thinker of evil thoughts? or does the soul itself think evil thoughts? The question then should read, "whether that soul from which a continual, &c. :" which is much like asking; whether he who continually sins, is a sinner; he who continually lies, is a liar; he who constantly steals, is a thief; &c. :-questions about which, I think, there is little occasion for debate, with me or any one else. And I see not how he can make such a question furnish any ground for dissent from my statement: unless he

holds the monstrous absurdity, that a soul which never has an evil thought, never sins, never transgresses, but which will do this, is sinful before hand: which were as much as to say that Adam and all the evil angels were always sinners. This I take to be his position; on which he denies that all sin consists in action, and by which he makes sin begin with the conception of the fœtus in the simple essence or nature of the soul. What then, I ask, is the sin? For my object was to ascertain the nature of sin; not to inquire, who are sinful, but what is the sin with which they stand chargeable. No act of the soul, he must reply, but the soul itself! The sin, previous to action, consists in the essence of the soul itself! The being himself before he transgresses in any act, is in his very structure a transgression! This is making out a very different species of sin, to be sure, from that which is comprised in action. But as he must acknowledge transgression in the case in order to make out sin, and has nothing to show as sin in the case but the bare soul itself which has never acted morally; I must accuse him of supporting the strange nonsense, that the soul of man, at its origin and before moral agency, is itself a transgression!! And so, it turns out, that his definition of sin, comprises the transgression of law which consists in one's action, and the transgression of law which consists in one's being! But if the soul itself is a transgression of the law, who, I' desire know, is the transgressor? Who gives birth to such a transgression as a human soul?

And was it, for so absurd a view of sin as this, that this writer had the confidence to show such heat of spirit in opposing my statements; that he had the face to tell his readers that, if such were my preaching, every judicious friend of Yale College must deplore its want of a better religious instructer; that he took upon himself the magiste rial airs of a father confessor, requiring of me the magnanimity or rather the humility of retracting and refuting such errors as I had ventured to advance? Really, there appears

a want of courteousness and meekness, and a supply of selfesteem and self-boasting, in language like this, which I know not well how to describe; proceeding as it does from one who has backed it with so sorry a substitute for the views advanced in the Discourses. He need not concern himself about "honor, interest, consistency all being pledg ed" by me to retain my views: until he can offer views himself, containing in them more solid sense, I shall adhere to my own on the simple ground of their superiority to his; to say nothing of their truth!

CHAP. IV.—THE REVIEWER INTERWEAVES SEVERAL MISREPRESENTATIONS INTO HIS STRICTURES.

THE injustice of misrepresentation, always great, is much enhanced when it affects important interests, and the circumstances allow not the opportunity of correction. How far such considerations go to enhance the injustice in the present case, others may judge. My purpose, at present, is simply to substantiate the fact of misrepresentation; not to pourtray its injustice.

1. The first specification which I make relates to moral disposition. He expressly affirms that I deny "the disposition of the soul" to be "sinful."

For my own part I am unable to find any such denial, express or implied, contained in the Discourses, and he has helped his readers to no instance of it, to confirm his affirmation. The subject, indeed, led me to discuss the question, whether disposition were not rightly resolved into the internal willing of the being, viewed in distinction both from his fundamental powers of agency and his external doings: yet it were