forbearing, and compassionate Father; they believe, therefore, that God, in his love and pity towards his children, sent his Son to instruct them, to preach righteousness, to bring a Gospel of precepts and principles, to set before them, in his own person, a living and complete example of embodied, perfect, sinless excellence, of virtue and holiness, righteousness and piety, a faultless character; and above all, when the ingratitude and selfishness of men rejected and crucified this Saviour, then to die, willingly and calmly, both in triumphant vindication of his truth, as the seal of his sincerity, and as a visible and affecting pledge, that he who could thus give up his own Son to death for our sakes will freely forgive our sins whenever we repent and return to him in prayer, —a pledge, that he who so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son for it will also give us pardon in our penitence. These are two forms of the doctrine of the Atonement. The question now is, Which is the lax, the easy form of it, most likely to quiet the conscience and let the careless sleep? Which is it? Is it that which teaches that the difficulty in the way of our acceptance rests with God, and must be removed there, or that which teaches that it lies always with man himself, and must be removed from his selfish and worldly heart? Which is most likely to encourage men in stupid inaction, and continue them in sin, the doctrine that tells them to rely on the blood and the merits of another, or that which tells them that unless they repent, and bring forth the fruits of repentance, and work the works of righteousness, they shall "all likewise perish"? If it were your express desire and design to divest them of solicitude, to furnish a pillow for their self-complacency, and an opiate for their sense of responsibility, which message would you carry them, that they must only look to Christ for an example, a helper, a guide, and an ex

pression of the Father's promise to forgive them on condition only of their hearty penitence and consistent exertions; or that the substitute for their transgressions had been offered, the sinner bought off, the account settled, and the inexorable Judge satisfied in his claim? Which falls in most readily and most dangerously with mortal passions, mortal weakness, and mortal procrastination? Which is the more adapted to persuade men to put off conversion, and trust to a death-bed paroxysm, — the view which flatters them with the hope that this completed sacrifice can be accepted and availed of, by a mysterious operation of the mind, in a moment, at any time; or that which warns them that even the redemption of Jesus will be of no avail, except the character and life are conformed to his spirit, and their whole fabric built upon his principles? In one word, which puts men at ease? Which is the lax doctrine?

It is pleasant to believe, that, owing to the counteracting influence of other sentiments, and of some grains of common sense lurking at the bottom of every mind, notwithstanding the presence there of an irrational and mischievous creed, the practical effects of the wrong side of this doctrine are not so ruinous as they would be if it were left wholly to itself. Many Christians are better than their articles of belief. When the faith that is precious and sacred to us, however, is exposed to obloquy unjustly and injuriously, it is at least fair to show that the blame does not rest on the truth, but on the error; that Christianity is not accountable for the absurdities that cause heathens to reject it, but superstition; that the Gospel of Jesus is not to be compromised by the mistakes of some of its misguided or partially informed disciples. It was quite justifiable, and a loyal as well as witty service to truth, for the friend of Coleridge, when the latter wrote, upon a pile of Unitarian tracts, "Salvation made

easy, or every man his own redeemer," to write upon a pile of Calvinistic pamphlets in return, “Salvation made easy, or one man redeemer for all other men."

Look next at two opposite forms of the doctrine of regeneration or conversion, and judge which is the easier. Both parties agree that all men, being sinners, need a change, need conversion, need to be renewed. On this point there is no difference; they differ only with regard to the method, the means, and the time. Now is it not plain that they who hold that every man must set about this great work himself, immediately, using only his natural powers, sustained by his faith and prayers, to accomplish it, and then continuing the work, repeating the repentance, renewing the renewal, and reviving the holy impression every day and every hour through life, or till the regeneration is entire, and the holiness without spot, is it not plain that they who hold this view enjoy an evident advantage, on the score of evangelical strictness, over those who represent the changé as supernatural, sent from a sphere beyond man's power, carried on only by a wholly peculiar process, and, done once, done for life and for ever? If any thing in the compass of knowledge is obvious, it must be obvious that the former view presents the harder task, and the longer. The one bids us wait and expect, the other bids us rouse ourselves and act. The one bids us watch for the important hour to come; the other, to go out and meet it and bring it on. The one assures us that we are regenerated only by the mysterious spirit coming to us, we know not how or when, like a whirlwind on the mariner in tropical seas, suspending our free will and seizing possession of us by no law of mental action that we can fathom; the other, that though we must of necessity depend on God for all our strength and all our help in this, precisely as in every other effort and purpose

of our lives, yet it is a step as intelligible as any other, as simple as any other, as much within the limits of our famil iar knowledge and experience as any other. The one lays unqualified stress upon the phrase that we are to be converted; the other sounds in our ears the inspiriting admonition that, God willing, we must convert ourselves ; - and we know that God is always willing.

And now, in the name of reason, and sense, and Scripture, which of these two representations of the Christian doctrine of the new birth belongs to an easy, and which to a difficult, system? Which is lax? That which sends forth the ringing appeal to be up and doing, or that which slumberously enjoins us to stand still in passive preparation ? That which says that the whole work is done once for all, or that which says it is never done below, but must be evermore, and evermore diligently, striven for and wrought upon, while we struggle on higher and higher, from virtue to virtue, in unending and untiring progress in the path that shineth brighter and brighter towards perfect day?

The transition is natural, in the same train of thought, from the doctrine of regeneration to the doctrine of human nature, from the second birth of the soul to its first birth. For the question immediately arises, What are we to be regenerated or converted from? One section of Christendom replies, From our original nature; the office of the second birth is to neutralize the moral quality of the first, and carry us out of the condition into which the first brought us. Another section dissents from this, maintaining, that, as the same God is the author of both creations, one cannot be intended to undo or contradict the moral result of the other. They must be consistent and harmonious parts of one plan. Accordingly, this portion suppose that it is the office of con

-version to carry us forward, through the renunciation of our wrong propensities, through the humbling of our pride, the abasement of our self-sufficiency, the softening of our ungodly and voluntary indifference, into that renovation of the inward man, the image of God in which God created us, and that spiritual consciousness, which is the new life of the soul. We believe, that is, that the original nature was free, with mixed tendencies, void of offence, unstained by ancestral guilt, responsible for no hereditary corruption, however prone to evil; not sent into the world morally chained and handcuffed, and then commanded to work in the Maker's service, nor with the feet tied, and then commanded to run on his errands; but having an unfettered capability to perform in this life, and just in the conditions we are surrounded by, exactly what is required, —to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. Here, again, we have the two systems contrasted. Observe, I do not allude to the innumerable other objections, Scriptural and logical, to the dogma of total and innate depravity. I speak of it now solely with reference to its ease or difficulty. To me it appears the laxest theory in the whole circle of theological possibilities. Convince me that I was created impure and vicious throughout, and, knowing that God was my creator and designer,—not Adam, nor any ancestor, nor myself, but God, I have no longer the least doubt that sin was the design of my creation, that transgression is the law of my being, that wickedness is my appropriate destiny. My nature must indicate the purpose of my formation. Why should I resist it? I have no further quarrel with my appetites and passions. I am ready to fol. low wherever inclination leads. My nature being totally bad, of course conscience, a faculty of my nature, is bad; why, then, should I obey its dictates any more than those of