Nor

posed on the churches, either by the sophistry of great men, or the decisions of ecclesiastical courts. is truth likely to lie long concealed. Free minds are ever vigorously at work to discover it; eager, yet patient of labor and thorough investi. gation.

We present not this contrast to prejudice the minds of our readers against the work before us, and its excellent author. The love of truth is sufficiently strong and disinterested in some minds, to carry them to greater purity in faith and profession than the creed of their sect. But how violent and subduing is the temptation to conformity and silent acquiescence, in a church where subscription to a minute confession of faith is required and rigidly enforced! where the leading minds are never refreshed with the incense of veneration and gratitude, except for defending the received creed!

Dr. Peck undertakes in this volume to describe and defend Wesleyan perfectionism, a doctrine of his sect. He tells us what he thinks it is; represents it to be a doctrine of the Bible; and states and refutes to the best of his ability, the adverse opinions of Christendom. The work is written in a clear and vigorous style, with more candor than is common in controversial books, and with admirable comity. The plan, on the other hand, is exceedingly faulty. Instead of making the work strictly either historical, or polemical, or practical, the author has brought forth a mongrel production, not worthless, but of little worth, either as a history of perfectionism, a defence of the Wesleyan theory, or a "help" in the divine life. The other principal faults of the work, are prolixity and indefiniteness. The amount of matter introduced into the volume without any advance of thought, the omission of which would be a decided improvement, is more than a moiety of the whole. This the reader might pardon, if in the Vol. I.

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midst of so much superfluity, he could find clear and full definitions of the principal points in controversy. We do not say that he can not ascertain from it what Wesleyan perfectionism, the main subject of the book, is; but he can not find it in any single definition, nor in any single series of propositions. He is obliged to resort to a collation and comparison of a multitude of imperfect statements-some positive, some negative-from which to infer, rather than out of which to construct, a complete definition of the doctrine.

According to Dr. Peck, if we understand him, a man is a perfect Christian if he loves God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength, and his neighbor as himself-and is free from all sinful passions, desires and appetites.

The Wesleyan theory of perfection, he tells us, "simply asserts the attainableness, in the present life, of a state of holiness truly denominated Christian perfection. This Christian perfection implies loving God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength."

In answer to the question, what is Christian perfection? Wesley says, "The loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. This implies that no wrong temper, none contrary to love, remains in the soul; and that all the thoughts, words and actions are governed by pure love."

Dr. Clarke furnishes another definition to the same effect: "The whole design of God was to restore man to his image, and raise him from the ruins of his fall; in a word to make him perfect; to blot out all his sins, purify his soul, and fill him with holiness; so that no unholy temper, evil desire, or impure affection or passion, shall either lodge or have any being within him; this and this only is true religion, or Christian perfection."

Our readers will probably consider this to be a definition of absolute moral purity-a sinless character.

Not so Dr. Peck. The philosophy of Wesley puts upon this language a much more limited sense than naturally belongs to it. The perfection defined is Christian perfection, sometimes called evangelical to distinguish it from legal perfectionsomething inferior to the perfection which even a Mohammedan or a deist may have in his mind's eyesomething imperfect when compared with the perfect law of God! The perfect Christian, they say, loves his Maker with all his power, and his neighbor as himself; yet less than is required of him by the perfect or Adamic law! He is free from all sinful passions, desires, and appetites, yet he is still in need of daily forgiveness for his unavoidable offenses! pp. 292-3.

To understand distinctly what this notion of "evangelical perfection" is, and what right it has to be considered a doctrine of the Bible, it is necessary to take a view of the leading tenets of the Wesleyan theology, connected, some more and some less immediately, with this feature of their system.

The starting point of Wesleyanism, is the natural inability of man to keep the Divine law. Human nature lost by the fall the capacities of a free moral agent. This is the uniform representation of the writers of this school. They scout the distinction between natural and moral ability and inability, and interpret those texts of Scripture which affirm the inability of man to serve God without Divine aid, to mean that he is destitute of natural power to obey the laws of his Creator.

In this condition of impotence the Gospel finds man, and imparts to him a measure of that ability to do right which was annihilated by the fall. Full ability to obey God is not imparted in advance; but barely enough to enable man to begin to seek after his entire recovery from sin. Nor when he is converted fully to Christ, has he power given

him to do his whole duty. Bishop Hedding asserts, "that the sinfulness of our nature, or original sin, may remain in the new-born soul independent of choice, and even against choice." Fletcher teaches, that "we can not help breaking the Adamic law in numberless instances, even after our full conversion." Nor at length when a Christian has attained to a state of evangelical perfection, has he power to be and to do all that the perfect law enjoins upon us. The restoration to man, by this gradual process, of a measure of his primitive power of right moral action, is held to be a work of grace. All the power of right action possible to man, since the fall, is derived from Christ. "The ability," says Dr. Peck, "to avail ourselves of these provisions (for human salvation) is a gracious ability."

This ability derived from Christ is only sufficient to enable man to comply with what the Wesleyans call the law of love, the evangelical law, not with the more extensive and rigid demands of the perfect law. This brings us to the main peculiarity of their scheme-the basis of their doctrine of perfection, which, therefore, needs to be well understood-namely, the substitution in the place of the perfect law of another rule of moral obligation-a rule corresponding exactly in its demands with the present capacities of man. The grace of the Gospel, as they teach, consists in part in the abrogation of the Adamic law, and in reducing the claims of God on man's obedience to the measure of his fallen powers. "The standard of character," says Dr. Peck, "set up in the Gospel must be such as is practicable by man, fallen as he is. Coming up to this standard is what we call Christian perfection." p. 294. "Each alike (the original law of perfect purity and the law of love) requires the exercise of all the capabilities of

the subjects." p. 292. He adds in substance, that allowing the same formulary, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," 'to be used both by the angelic law and the law of love, the whole heart implies less in the latter case than in the former.'

Dr. Peck shrinks from a fair interpretation of the language of Wesley, and the other standard writers, on this point; and he takes Dr. Pond, a very cautious and discriminating writer, severely to task for saying, that Wesley "held to the repeal of the Adamic law, and thought it very consistent with perfection that persons should fall into great errors and faults." We will enable our readers to judge between them. Wesley says: "No man is able to perform the service which the Adamic law requires." "And no man is obliged to perform it; for Christ is the end of the Adamic as well as of the Mosaic law. By his death he hath put an end to both; he hath abolished both the one and the other, with regard to man; and the obligation to observe either the one or the other is vanished away. Nor is any man living bound to observe the Adamic more than the Mosaic law. (I mean it is not the condition either of present or future salvation.)" The justice of Dr. Pond's representation turns on the meaning of Wesley in the words in the parenthesis. Did he simply mean, that perfect obedience to the law is not now the condition of salvation? Then he does not differ from his Calvinistic brethren. They hold that man is no longer under law in this sense, but under grace. The sins of all penitent believers are freely forgiven. This however was not Wesley's meaning. For he says, in the same connection, that "the whole law under which we now are is fulfilled by love, [a love inferior to that demanded by the perfect law.] Faith working or animated by love, is all that God now re

quires of man. He has substituted (not sincerity but) love in the room of angelic perfection." His theory seems to be this: Man can not possibly be saved, even by Christ, if, as a condition of salvation, he must love God and serve him, according to the perfect law. He can not become a Christian, if to be so implies loving God as he is bound by that law to love him. He has not power to love to that degree; nor to walk according to that standard. And moreover, a perfect God can not accept, pardon and glorify a sinful being, or one that falls short of entire obedience to his law. He can not, therefore, save us, unless he repeals his law, so far as we can not even by the aid of Divine grace obey it; and consents to accept of a less degree of love, and of a fitful conformity to the original law, as perfect obedience. Accordingly he has made this change. Thus he has set up a new standard of holiness, in order that man may be able to comply with the conditions of salvation.' That this was Wesley's philosophy, falsely so called, must be perfectly plain to every impartial reader of the work before us.

Perfection he held to be an indispensable condition of salvation.

The Wesleyan writers themselves appear not unconscious of a diffi culty attending this doctrine. Bishop Hedding asks, "what would be the fate of a soul born of the Spirit, but not fully sanctified, called to die in that state?" His answer, in effect, is, that he is not fit for heaven, but Christ would fit him. Wesley himself answers the question whether a man must be perfect in his sense, or be lost, by saying that he must be either perfect or pressing after perfection.' This "pressing after," we suppose, he considered necessary to secure his perfect sanctification by the Spirit, in the moment of death. In this way, the condition of salvation, or perfect

obedience to the law of love, might be fulfilled. But salvation under a stricter law, such as the Adamic, he thought, would be impossible, because obedience would be impracticable; and unless man becomes perfect according to the standard of rectitude, he can not be saved. Therefore, though Wesley could say with propriety, "I mean it (the law) is not the condition either of present or future salvation," he means more. Hence he denies disobedience to any law but the law of Christ, to be sin. "Such transgressions," he says, p. 63, "you may call sins, if you please: I do not, for the reasons above mentioned." Why not acknowledge them to be sins, since he allows them to be transgressions of the perfect law, if he did not also hold that that law was abrogated by Christ as a rule of moral obligation, as well as a condition of salvation?

The very remarkable conceit that God by the constitution of things disables all the descendants of Adam from obeying his law, and then in a measure repairs the injury by restoring to them the power of imperfect obedience, is made more remarkable still by the notions of the sect respecting the transgressions of the perfect Christian. They will not confess them to be sins in the proper sense of the term. They are, says Wesley, "no way contrary to love; nor, therefore, in the Scripture sense, sin." p. 65. Still, he else. where insists that these acts will not bear the rigor of Divine justice; and that they are blotted out by the atonement. Many of them, indeed, are what other Christian sects, comparing them with the perfect law, consider "great faults;" but why the Wesleyans should deny them to be sins-insist that they are unavoidable-and yet call in the atonement to cancel them, is for them to explain.

This confusion of ideas is owing to an hypothesis peculiar to the sect,

namely, that there are four distinct kinds of sin-the first two kinds real sins, the other two sins in "a certain sense," not in the Scripture sense; the first two opposed to Christian perfection, the other two perfectly consistent with it. The first is original sin, or the corruption of human nature; the second, actual sin, or voluntary transgressions; the third, unavoidable shortcomings in keeping the Adamic law; the fourth, such transgressions as are due to unavoidable errors of judgment. "The Wesleyan Methodists," says Dr. Peck, p. 251, “do not hold a perfection which exIcludes the infirmities of human nature, (the third and fourth kinds of of sin,) and which implies perfect obedience to the Adamic law; but the perfection they hold excludes the turpitude of human nature (original sin) and implies loving God with all the heart," that is, it excludes all actual sin or voluntary transgressions.

It is only in the light of this singular classification of sins, that the doctrine of Wesleyan perfection can be intelligently comprehended.

"The difference," says Bishop Hedding, "between a justified soul who is not fully sanctified, and one fully sanctified, I understand to be this:

"The first (if he does not backslide) is kept from voluntarily committing known sin; which is what is commonly meant in the New Testament by committing sin. But he yet finds in himself the remains of inbred corruption, or original sin; such as pride, anger, envy, a feeling of hatred to an enemy, a rejoicing at a calamity which has fallen upon an enemy, &c.

"Now, in all this the regenerate soul does not act voluntarily, his choice is against all these evils; God has given him a new heart, which hates all these evils, and resists, and overcomes them, as soon as the mind perceives them. The regenerate soul wishes these evils were not in his heart, yet he has in himself no power to destroy them. Though the Christian does not feel guilty for this depravity as he would do if he had voluntarily broken the law of God, yet he is often grieved and afflicted, and reproved at a sight of this sinfulness of his nature.

"Though the soul in this state enjoys

a degree of religion, yet it is conscious it is not what it ought to be, nor what it must be to be fit for heaven.

"It seems that the sinfulness of our

nature, or original sin, may remain in the new-born soul independent of choice, and even against choice.

"The second, or the person fully sanctified, is cleansed from all these inward involuntary sins.

"He may be tempted by Satan, by men, and by his own bodily appetites, to commit sin, but his heart is free from these inward fires, which before his full sanctification were ready to fall in with temptation, and lead him into transgression. He may be tempted to be proud, to love the world, to be revengeful or angry, to hate an enemy, to wish him evil, or to rejoice at his calamity, but he feels none of these passions in his heart; the Holy Ghost has cleansed him from all these pollutions of his nature. Thus it is that, being emptied of sin, the perfect Christian is filled with the love of God, even with that perfect love which casteth out fear." pp. 79, 80.

From this passage the reader will see, that every Christian is perfect in the evangelical, or rather Wesleyan sense, except in one respect -one kind of sin, inconsistent with perfection, still clings to him, namely, original sin, a corrupt nature. From actual or voluntary sin, he is as free as an angel. And his shortcomings, although they may be greater, and his sins of ignorance more numerous, than are predicable of a perfect Christian, are of the same nature with his-mere infirmities-not sins in the Scripture sense.' He loves and serves God according to his present light and strength. He is not yet perfect, because original sin, against his choice, is still rankling in his bosom. When this depravity, which he has no power to destroy, shall be entirely subdued by Divine grace, his love to Christ will reign without a rival in his heart; all his actions will be dictated by that love; and he will be perfect, except that his love can never in this world equal the demands of the perfect law, nor can he ever be entirely free from sins of ignorance-of mistake. But then these short-comings and

errors, are not sins in the Scripture sense, since he is not bound to obey the Adamic law, but only the milder law of Christ, which is perfectly fulfilled by loving God to the extent of his present power. He is perfectly holy in the light of a law adapted by Divine grace to his enfeebled capacities; but in the light of the perfect law originally given to man, he is imperfect and sinful.

Our aim thus far has been to show from the volume before us, what Wesleyan perfectionism is. A lucid description of the thing will be to many minds, a sufficient refutation of its claim to be a doctrine of the Bible. There seems to us to be little need of framing an argument against it. What hypothe

sis in the whole system, of which this doctrine is a constituent part, has the least support from the word of God? Not, that man lost by the fall the capacities of a free moral agent. Not, that all the ability man has to do his duty is a gracious ability. Not, that man is unable, even by the aid of Divine grace, to obey the perfect law. Not, that Christ has abrogated the perfect law, and introduced a laxer rule of moral obligation. Not, that man must be perfectly holy before his soul leaves the body, as a condition of salvation. Not, that any act of omission or of commission, absolutely unavoidable, may be a transgression of a divine law, so that it can not bear the rigor of Divine justice, and needs an atonement. Not, that a perfect Christian may transgress the Divine law by mistake, and do so without sin. Not, that a Christian can not commit a voluntary sin, without ceasing to be a Christian, falling from grace, and forfeiting his salvation. Not, that sin may remain in a Christian, independent of his choice and against choice. None of these things are asserted in the Bible. On the other hand, much may be alledged against them, both from the word