ease, to render it incurable." The Synod of Dort teaches that all men become depraved through "the propagation of a vicious nature." The later Helvetian Confession says, "We take sin to be that natural corruption of man, derived or spread from those our parents unto us all," &c. The Confession of Bohemia says that original sin is "naturally engendered in us and hereditary, wherein we are all conceived and born into this world." The French Confession says of man, "His nature is become altogether defiled, and, being blind in spirit and corrupt in heart, hath utterly lost all his original integrity, — making every man (not so much as those little ones excepted, which as yet lie hid in their mother's womb) deserving of eternal death before God." An article of the Church of England says, "Original Sin is the fault and corrup tion of the nature of every man that is naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam." The Confession of Belgia says, "Original Sin is a corruption of the whole nature, and an hereditary evil wherewith even the very infants in their mother's womb are polluted." The Confession of Augsburg calls it "that very corruption of man's nature derived from Adam." The Moravian Confession calls it an "innate disease which is truly sin, and condemns under God's eternal wrath," &c. The Westminster divines teach that "a corrupted nature was conveyed from our first parents to all their posterity. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions." Such are the testimonies, thorough enough, in all conscience.

After doing, in the sketch of which we have just given a brief summary, the most full justice to the doctrine of man's corrupt nature, our author presents the terrific power of evil as exhibited in the social and organic relations of man, in governments, in cities, families, society, and business. Then he adds, that we are informed “in the word of God that this world is the abode and theatre of action for hosts of fallen spirits, who, whilst the gen erations of men die, live and plan, and acquire malignant wisdom, from age to age," plotting and scheming in all sorts of ways against man.

We must intimate here, that this last suggestion is an

unnecessary aggravation even of the theory of Orthodoxy; though it is but right in the author to present it as it enters into the old-fashioned Orthodoxy. Only a very few passages of the Bible, at best, can be adduced in its support, and those evidently metaphorical. Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil,- that is, devilish or wicked works; but he could not have meant really to sayas he did in words that Peter, his disciple, was the Devil, nor that the Jews, or children of Abraham, were literally the sons of Satan, "Ye are of your father, the Devil." Paul's warfare with the hosts of darkness will not support the orthodox inference.

But we return to our author, who sums up his positions thus far by reminding us that as to these principles of right and honor, and as to these facts of depravity, all Christians accord, the Unitarians demurring only about the antecedent causes of the development of depravity. Now, he says, Christianity, as a system, can never operate harmoniously and powerfully except on the two following conditions: first, that it shall include all that belongs to these its two great moving forces, the prin ciples and the facts; and secondly, that it shall give am ple room for the full and consistent development of each. Each is sustained in its radical elements by its own independent and indestructible evidence, but, "as Christianity is at present adjusted, there is no possibility of a full and harmonious development of them both, for one constantly conflicts with and tends to repress, and even to destroy, the other." (p. 80.) The result of the inves tigation thus far shows us that man, born with a ruined nature, subjected to a corrupt and corrupting social system, and set upon by malignant spirits, has not been treated by his Creator as the principles of honor and right demand. A terrible conflict ensues in the mind that seeks to entertain both the principles and the facts that have been set forth. One who holds that God is the author of these facts of depravity is driven to an evasion or a denial of the principles of honor and right; one who holds to the principles will be driven to an evasion or a denial of the facts. Nearly all, if not in fact all, the writers who hold to both the principles and the facts, as Dr. Beecher says, have flatly contradicted them. selves.

The second division of this most able and thorough volume is filled with details to illustrate the Conflict, and to prove that, as it now presents its conditions, it is interminable. The controversy thus opened is a most sublime and affecting one. Persons of a superficial mind, or a heart engrossed by the world, may not realize its profound and momentous interest, as it moves the depths of all earnest souls, as it concerns, not a philosophy, but an inspired message relating to the realities of life and practice in view of both worlds.

The author proceeds to describe six different Experiences which have arisen from the existing misadjustment of the system of the Gospel, and to present some of the reactions which they have called forth:-1. An experience in which the facts of depravity have been so intensely realized as to suspend, or to produce a disbelief or an essential modification of the principles of honor and right. 2. An experience involving such a sense of the sacredness and momentous importance of the principles of honor and right in their relations to God, and giving to them such an ascendency, as to lead to an entire denial and rejection of the alleged radical facts of deprav ity. 3. An experience in which both the principles and the facts are retained, whilst the mind seeks relief in the system of ultimate universal salvation. 4. An experience in which both the principles and the facts are retained, while the principles are allowed to modify the facts in order to a removal of the conflict between them. 5. An experience which retains both the principles and the facts, without conceiving of any mode of reconciling them; the result of which is an awful sense of being under a system that cannot be defended, and of having a God that cannot be worshipped or loved. 6. An experience which allows the retention of both the principles and the facts through force of a new adjustment of the system. The author presents the reactions attendant only upon the first four of these experiences, as the fifth of them is too terrible to be ever formally set forth, and the sixth is so suited to harmonize all difficulties as to avert any reaction.

The first Experience involves a review of the deep religious exercises of such men as Edwards, which results in the profound conviction of the facts of depravity, the

basis of orthodox doctrines. Yet it has caused a powerful reaction against it. "It has never been able to prevent, or successfully to repel, a most powerful assault, prompted, not by human depravity and carnal reason, but by the divinely revealed principles of honor and of right. And to this assault its advocates have never made a reply which has had any decisive power." (p. 98.) The orthodox have seen this result, and have taken the ground of defence, "that all men, even before knowledge or action, and, indeed, before existence, have forfeited their rights as new-created beings, and have fallen under the just displeasure of God; and that the existence in them of a depraved nature, and of inability to do right, is a punishment inflicted on them by God, in accordance with their just deserts." "THEIR WHOLE DEFENCE OF GOD TURNS ON THIS ALLEGATION." (pp. 99, 100.) If this can be made out, the defence is valid; but if it fails, the failure is an awful one, involving God's justice: nor can relief be found by regarding man's ruin as the consequence, instead of the penalty, of Adam's sin.

Our author visits his keenest and sharpest censure upon those who here take the ground that this terrible doctrine is a mystery seeking to be received through implicit faith. He makes terrible havoc with the mean evasions and subterfuges of those who cry out against "the subtlety of human reason," or "metaphysical reasoning," or "unsanctified philosophy," for the purpose of averting the honest inquiries of the human mind as to a system which shocks a sentiment implanted by God. To say nothing about the fact that these cowardly charges can be retorted against orthodox reasoning, they are unavailable for any honest purpose, as our instinctive judgments of the right are a revelation from God to us, his voice in the soul. Dr. Woods grants that the theory of our having in Adam forfeited God's favor, and that his act, though done thousands of years before our birth, is our act, is against our natural instincts of honor and right. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says, "It cannot be explained on the commonsense principles of honor and right." Abelard, Pascal, and some others, says our author, took the only consistent ground, when they boldly confessed, in accordance with their theory, that God did condemn innocent beings to endless misery for Adam's sin, and that our ideas of

right and honor about the matter were not to be trusted, because not common to God and us. Pascal allowed that nothing could appear "so revolting to human reason." Dr. Beecher therefore concludes, that something better than this plea against carnal reason must be found. God cannot fear to have his system judged by man's own sense of what is right. "There is reason to believe that he has allowed these principles to be embodied as at present they are in the Unitarian body, with a view to this result." (p. 115.)

The treatment of the second Experience involves a reference to Unitarianism, which, as our author rightly says, assails not only the doctrine of the Trinity, but the whole scheme of doctrines connected with it, as devised in view of the facts and the principles in the great Conflict. He exposes the shallowness and poverty of that reply to Unitarianism which ascribes it to "the depravity of the heart and an aversion to the humbling truths of the Gospel," and he says that the great movement of Unitarianism will not be understood till it is recognized as produced in part by a desire to vindicate an important truth relating to God. "The existence of the Unitarian body is a providential protest in favor of the great principles of honor and of right." (p. 124.) He warns every man against despising the argument raised on this point by Unitarians, as if it came from human pride, or carnal reason, or hatred to the truth." It is," he says, “an argument adapted to operate with immense power on a rational mind." "It has in it a principle of vitality which cannot be destroyed." With full candor he confesses that their argument has not been met by the orthodox system as at present adjusted. Considering the source whence this honest and manly decision comes, it awards a triumph to Unitarians worthy of the patient waiting and the earnest pleading on their part which have marked them before this community. The testimony of such men as Dr. Channing, President John Adams, and Justice Story, is candidly given by Dr. Beecher. But he adds, it may be asked, why Unitarianism, with such strength on its side, does not carry with it the whole body of Christians. The answer is, Unitarianism is reacted upon by the facts of depravity, to which it does not give a full solution. He alleges passages from Dr. Channing to show that he