subject, the intrigues of the Devil often signally triumph over the efforts of Divine grace, and his deluded votaries frightfully outnumber the disciples of the Redeemer. Such extremely unworthy and disgraceful notions of the spiritual thraldom of mankind, must exercise a most prejudicial influence on the cause of morals; for man, taught to be thus lamentably depraved and virtually undone, can readily be made to believe himself to be delivered over, body and soul, into the power of the Devil, a most malignant being, of almost unlimited power and consummate cunning, we are told, that the consequences of Adam's sin and man's corruption, may be, it seems, the more effectually elaborated and developed to their dire, ultimate results.* Instead of habitually fostering such puerile and absurd ideas in the minds of men, the vastly better way would be to undeceive them of their superstitious belief in the existence and wily practices of the Devil, and to teach them that our moral nature is, notwithstanding Adam's sin, uncorrupted and exuberant in its original integrity, and that, according to the inherent principles of our constitution, we can choose between good and evil; cultivate virtuous and useful lives; that if we sin, it is solely our fault, or the unavoidable result of a primarily finite nature; and that we are responsible only for our voluntary misdeeds. By the diligent and faithful diffusion of such sound, ethical principles, we should soon hear no more silly excuses for an evil and

In the fourth chapter and seventh verse of his Epistle, St. James teaches a much more sensible doctrine than that inculcated by the advocates of total depravity, when he says: "Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you;" an advice implying unimpaired free-agency in man!

shameful life, by charging it to the influences of Adam's sin, or the devices and instigations of the Devil.*

True Christianity-Christ-Christianity, which consists essentially, according to Jesus, Matthew, xxii. 36–40, in love to God and love to man, not in the bastard and unprofitable Christianity of most Church-creeds, would have had far better success in promulgating and establishing its simple and admirable principles, and hence in permanently advancing the highest and best interests of mankind, if such visionary and baneful notions, as those in the preceding paragraphs, respecting the Devil and human depravity -the disgraceful and monstrous offspring of the hallucinations of a dark and superstitious age, had not persistently hindered and marred its natural, genial tendency, or vitiated and debased its benignant and exalted genius. Who is responsible for such flagitious deterioration of the Gospel of Christ, or the propagation of such glaring fallacies, so highly injurious to the health, the usefulness, and the prosperity of the Church? Who, but the conceited, haughty priest,† who seeks to rule by adulterating simple truths, and foisting the spurious production upon the unsuspecting and, alas, too often, credulous Church? If the Gospel is designed to be the religion of all men, as it is asserted and generally believed, then all men must be allowed to interpret it as they are able or as seems good to them, and priests and synods or councils should no longer

* Whatever may have been the nature or the extent of diabolical influences in the infancy of the Church, modern pneumatology refuses to recognize an Evil Principle or Being in man probation and development.

I honor the Christian minister-as I stated in this Book on a former occasion, but the Christian priest, I abhor.

be suffered to dictate to man the religion which he is to believe, or insolently to demand subscription to bigoted sectarian creeds.* "Who art thou," exclaims the judicious and indomitable Apostle, "that judges another man's servant?" Religion is the thrice holy child of the soul, sacred to conscience; amenable to no one but to God; and hence it peremptorily declines the busy, sinful intermeddling of man.

Thank God, the Gospel everywhere, though tacitly yet unmistakably, repudiates and condemns the odious doctrine of man's utter moral imbecility, and therefore we find that on every suitable occasion, it inculcates the necessity of works or the assiduous practice of the precepts of the Gospel, as the very essence and core of Christianity; the only valid means to attain to the final acceptance of the Judge of the World. Hence future happiness is emphatically described as the legitimate consequence and fruit of works or the faithful observance of the moral law, and not as the prize of a boasted, limping orthodox Shibboleth. Hence too the elevating and impressive petition, taught in the Lord's prayer: "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven;" and this will, I may add, it is premised without a single exception, man is eminently competent to carry out in the various relations and duties of life. To deny this, is in effect to say that Christ most egregiously trifles with mankind, in claiming obedience which it is not in their power to yield. And this obedience to the requirements of Christ, it may be remarked, is not only possible

Such conduct as that which is reprehended in the text, is nefarious and criminal, and should be prohibited by statute.

under Gospel influences, but in the pre-Christian state of the soul, as the following examples will demonstrate: "Come unto me;" "follow me;" "learn of me;" "let him deny himself and follow me;" "let him take up his cross and follow me," etc. The reward of the Christian is thus based, not upon confessions of faith or nice sectarian distinctions, but upon works or deeds enjoined by the precepts of the evangelical law of the New Testament. fact, which might easily be verified by numerous instances everywhere to be met with in the Gospel, but it is presumed that the few following will suffice: The penny, Matthew, xx. 1-16, is given, not to the idlers in the market, but to the laborers in the vineyard; the servants in Luke, xix. 12-19, who made a wise use of the loan intrusted to them, instead of being cast into outer darkness like their slothful companion, were signally promoted to posts of honor and emolument; those that hear the Word and keep it, Luke, xi. 28, are blessed; to hear the Word without doing it, according to St. James, is to deceive ourselves, while, again, the doer of the work shall be blessed; the Christian that patiently continues in well-doing, as appears from the teaching of St. Paul, Romans, ii. 7, shall have eternal life; the followers of Christ shall be known by their fruits, Matthew, vii. 16; he that hears the Word and does it, is likened by Christ, Matthew, vii. 24, to a wise man that builds his house upon a rock; finally, the dispensers of charity, Matthew, xxv. 31-46, will be greeted as the blessed of our Father in heaven, and inherit the kingdom, while the selfish-indolent pretenders will be doomed to everlasting shame and disappointment!

CHAPTER V.

The Doctrine of Original Sin and Total Depravity rests on Mythic Ground, and must be renounced as no longer Tenable.

THE idea that Christ is the Sole Savior of mankind, and that he is qualified as such, by the endowment of supernatural gifts, besides being, as some affirm, clothed with Divine attributes, because, owing to the existence of the terrible blight of total depravity in the human family, man's redemption cannot be accomplished without miraculous help, which is, accordingly, vouchsafed to him in the person and mission of Jesus Christ, is fast fading away into the mist of past ages, amid the irrefragable evidence of modern science. But if this assertion is based—as is claimed, upon undoubted facts, what will become of the dogmas of inspiration; of the authenticity of a great part of the sacred canon; and of the soundness of ChurchChristianity? I answer, that they too are doomed soon to disappear from the time-honored pages of human creeds, before the rapid diffusion of knowledge and the decisions of mature intellect. For the present we can hardly do better than to be guided by the very appropriate and opportune advice of the learned and far-seeing rabbi Gamaliel to the Jews, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, v. 38, and which applied to the case under discussion, may be contemplated under the following aspect: If the assumed old orthodox views on this subject, are well-founded, they will abide, if not, they must "come to naught." It is true, they have for many ages enjoyed undiminished credit, and