a benevolent society, or editor of a periodical or newspaper, could not openly deny the Augustinian tenet but under the penalty of the loss of reputation, position, influence, and the income that sustains himself and family. Our largest and best theological seminaries demand an avowal of belief in this dogma as a condition of holding any professorship, and in some of them it must be renewed by all the professors every few years. At the same time, this dogma of a depraved mental constitution transmitted from Adam, [much more this of endless punishment,] is inwrought into all the standard works of theology, the sermons, the prayers, the sacred poetry, the popular literature, and even the Sunday School and family literature of childhood." [Common Sense and Religion, p. 312.]

As it respects our learned friend, good man as he is, and we say it with great personal respect, the manner of his using Scripture throughout his lengthy Argument," clearly evinces to the careful reader that he comes to the Bible with the dogma he advocates all in his mind, imbibed from these other sources described by Miss Beecher.

The New Witness.

We come now in course to our friend's call to the witness stand of Rev. Theodore Parker, whose witness is in these words:

"To me it is quite clear that Jesus taught the doctrine of eternal damnation, if the Evangelists-the first three I mean-are to be treated as inspired."

We have commented already, somewhat, on this expression of opinion by Mr. Parker, and Dr. Adams' use of it. We do not think the latter evinces his accustomed wisdom in this device. He acknow

edges that Mr. Parker was driven to reject the Bible partly for the very reason that he supposed it contained the doctrine of endless punishment. Here then is a good man, with large benevolence, but not much reverence, accustomed from childhood to a jingle of certain Bible phraseology in connection with the notion of an after death judgment, and endless punishment, and the doctrine outrages all his rational and moral conceptions of honor and right in God, and represents him as a Being unworthy of confidence, reverence or love. He concludes that a book fraught with such doctrines cannot have come from the teachings of God's spirit; and having not much reverence for mere antiquity and old authority, he spares himself the labor of a de novo study of the Bible to disentangle it of that horrible doctrine, by the short cut of throwing it all away together. And now our friend calls in the false educational opinion of this wronged and injured man, in proof of the truth of that very oppugnant theory.

But where, my esteemed friend, will the testimony of your chosen witness carry you? If his mere uncriticised educational opinion on the meaning of certain Scripture phraseology, with the prevalent usage of which he has floated along, is evidence of the correctness of that usage, much more is his deliberate moral judgment, formed against the prejudices of his education, of the moral corruptness and falsehood of the sentiment which such usage palms upon that phraseology, and of the book which contains it, to be accredited by you as having the weight of evi

.

dence. Will you put in the testimony of your witness on these points? If not, then permit him to leave the stand altogether.

But you will say that, while human judgment may be legitimately exercised on the meaning of language, it has nothing to do in the way of judging on the principles of honor and right in God, or with what purpose it is proper for him to govern. How then are we to appreciate and adore the moral principles of Jehovah's government, if we are to excercise no moral judgment as to the rectitude of his ways and works? But it is within the province of our manhood, and our relations to God as his moral creatures, to exercise such judgment, and this according to your own showing. You present yourself as an example of it. Supposing that certain Bible language which you had quoted means future endless punishment, and objecting to the more comfortable hypothesis of some Christian divines whom the moral aspect of the affair had repelled from the belief of it as a reality, and who have suggested the thought that though God had threatened it for a present wholesome influence, he will contrive some way hereafter to deliver all his children from it, you speak thus freely

"But I now respectfully ask the attention of the reader when I say, that if I did not believe in there being a state of future punishment which justifies such language, I fear that I could not stop short of the boldest infidelity. I might even assail the Bible as unfit to be read. It is no relief to tell me that the language does not mean all which it would seem to convey. I should reply,

this is bad language, unless there be something which language of this sort only can express. But if it be an exaggeration of a truth, or if, for the sake of impression, an idea is conveyed which is false, a man may as well apologize to me for a profane blasphemer, saying that his oaths do not really mean all which they express, as try to reconcile me to the belief that such words as these are inspired. It is not the truth which offends me, but the untruthfulness of the language. The words are not decorous, my moral sense is abused, when I read such expressions, unless substantial truth requires them. The sin is not against my faith, but against my understanding."-Argument, pp. 29, 30.

Here, dear Sir, you assume for your own practice Mr. Parker's position in full. You state certain conditions affecting the character of the Bible teachings in their relation to God's government, which should lead you to reject the Bible as Infidels do, for the reason that it would abuse your moral sense, and do violence to your understanding.

Well, Sir, your theological system, from beginning to end, presents the threatenings of the Bible, in relation to actual intentions and facts of the Divine government, in the same farcical attitude which you allege, in the foregoing extract, should be cause for your rejecting the Bible. It represents that God published his law to man, with the penalty or threat of endless punishment for all or any sin; and that yet he meant no such thing in relation to an elect portion, designing to punish himself as their substitute, and thus nullify the threat as it applies to them. Again, in relation to the other and major portion of his offspring, it construes the Bible as pretending that God has made provision for their salvation, and

calls and desires them all to come and be saved, while it also represents that there is no way of salvation but through a preternatural conversion by the Holy Spirit, which shall never be wrought on this nonelect mass of humanity, for whom, of course, there is no possible way of salvation provided. And it furthermore represents that God will not judge and punish his children during the day of grace, or time when reformation is possible, but puts retribution off until the door of reformation shall be barred forever, when punishment shall be made the means of increasing wickedness and woe to all eternity. And so, throughout, your theory makes the teachings of the Bible delusive and farcical, and the spirit of the Divine government to be fiendish. Thus your theory presents a vastly stronger case of indecorum of sentiment and untruthfulness of language, than the hypothesis on which you presume to justify a rejection of the Scriptures.

But our case is a happy one; for it is only your untruthful and farcical theology, and not the Bible, by which "our moral sense is abused," and the sin perpetrated" against our understanding." We reject the corrupt theology, and hold, and love, and revere the Scriptures.

Dr. Adams quotes the words of John Foster, the celebrated English Baptist divine who embraced Uni