Jcc 
 
f 
 
 V 
 
 tr 
 
 
 
* 
 
DIFFERENCES 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL 
 
 PRESBYTERIANS : 
 
 BY REV. LEWIS CHEESEMAN, 
 
 Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, in connection with the 
 General Assembly, Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, 
 BY JOHN C. LORD, D. D. 
 
 Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, N. Y. 
 
 " That they all may be one ; as thou Father art in me, and I in 
 thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe 
 that thou hast sent me." — John xvii. 21. 
 
 ROCHESTER : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ERASTUS DARROW, 
 
 CORNER OF MAIN AND ST. PAUL STREETS, 
 
 1848. 
 

 Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1848, 
 By Lewis Cheeseman, 
 
 in the Clerks Office of the Northern District of New York. 
 
 * 
 
 Harris on & Luckey, Printers. 
 
 I* 
 
I 
 
 Rochester, October 1847. 
 Rev. Mr. Cheeseman : 
 
 Dear Sir — Having listened to your several lectures on the differences 
 between what is termed "Old and New Divinity," with no little degree 
 of interest, and believing that their publication at this time, will do great 
 good to the cause of truth in Western New-York, — we would therefore, 
 very respectfully, ask of you the same for publication. 
 
 While we remain, 
 
 Truly and Respectfully, Yours. 
 
 gabriel longmuir, donald campbell, 
 
 alex. longmuir, ira cook, 
 
 robert penney, robert finley, 
 
 angus Mcdonald, david hutchinson, 
 
 james hutchinson, e. darrow, 
 
 t. b. forsyth, m. baldwin. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 At your request, I send you the discourses on the differences between 
 Old and New School Presbyterians, and as they were at first prepared for 
 the pulpit and not for the press ; I have concluded to omit the formalities 
 with which they were delivered, and to present them in an abridged form, 
 lest they should occupy too much space to be patiently read. 
 
 With an earnest desire that they may provoke examination and promote 
 the peace, unity and purity of the Church, 
 
 1 remain Gentlemen, Respectfully, 
 
 Yours in the best bonds, 
 LEWIS CHEESEMAN. 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OLD AND NEW 
 SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 The secession — Its causes — Changes in Church government and operations 
 by the New School no improvement — Separation necessary to a refor- 
 mation. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OLD AND NEW SCHOOL 
 PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 Sufferings of Christ — The New School deny their penal nature — They 
 were penal. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 Imputation — What intended by it — Denied by the New School — The doc- 
 trine defended — New School views of faith exposed and refuted. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 The Atonement — Its sufficiency — The New School limit it in its nature— 
 The differences respect its nature, not its extent. 
 
 
4" CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 Natural depravity — Denied by the New School — Its importance — Its denial 
 dangerous. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 The despensation of the Spirit — The New School by their views of ability 
 and depravity, make the Spirits despensation void — They make truth an 
 agent. — The Spirit the only agent in regeneration — They place infants on 
 a level with mere annimals. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 Revivals of Religion — Views of the Old School on this subject — Differences 
 respecting their nature and genuineness. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 Tendencies of the new divinity — The new divinity rests upon one or at most 
 two assumptions, both of which are false — Tends to infidelity. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BASIS OF UNION AMONG PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 What it is — The New School have departed from it — A return necessary to 
 a union. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PLEA FOR UNION AMONG PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 A union desirable — Division among Christians an evil — The true remedy 
 proposed. 
 
 «> 
 
 m 
 
 * 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ~™ ■ 
 
 In the following work, the Rev. Mr. Cheeseman has 
 designed to give a brief account of those doctrinal differences 
 which separate Presbyterians of the Old and New School. 
 Not that these differences are peculiar to Presbyterians, for 
 the same contest between truth and error, is developed in 
 some form in all those protestant denominations in which vi- 
 tality enough remains, to resist the progress of error and 
 spiritual decay ; not that the questions between the adherents 
 of the old and new divinity, are of modern origin ; novelties 
 now for the first time considered and debated, but because 
 the ancient heresies which have been privily brought in and 
 which have corrupted so large a portion of the Presbyterian 
 communion, are still artfully concealed under various dis- 
 guises from the eyes of multitudes of pious persons who could 
 they be made to see them in their true deformity, would not 
 tarry a night under their shadow. The adherents, of the 
 new Theology, sometimes represent, that there is really no 
 substantial difference between their system and old divinity ; 
 that it is a meres logomachy, a difference in mode of expres- 
 sion and in philosophical explanations ; again, with a strange 
 yet characteristic inconsistency, they caricature the doctrines 
 of grace and of the confession of faith as though they em- 
 bodied all that was inconsistent, perverse and monstrous. 
 Could it be made to appear to that large and respectable body 
 of members of the Presbyterian Church, who though sound 
 in the faith, yet remain in the New School connexion, that 
 the principles for which the General Assembly contend and in 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the defence of which, they intended to bear their testimony 
 in the excision act of 1837, are the same maintained by Paul 
 the Apostle against the gainsayers of his day, the same after- 
 ward defended in the fifth century by Augustine, against 
 Pelagius, and the same which were revived by Luther, and 
 with which, as with a battle axe, he smote the gates of the 
 great apostacy, they would not and could not give support 
 and countenance, aid and comfort to the enemies of the truth 
 by remaining an hour within the ecclesiastical walls of the 
 the New School General Assembly. Yet if there be any thing 
 clear which may be determined beyond all doubt, it is that the 
 theological contest between the Reformers and the Romanists 
 in the sixteenth century, is the same now waged between 
 Old and New School Presbyterians. No intelligent reader 
 can peruse the controversy between Luther and Dr. Eck, the 
 champion of the Papists, without perceiving this. No degree 
 of prejudice or blindness can conceal the fact, it is written as 
 with a sunbeam, it is graven as with the point of a diamond 
 in the face of a rock. 
 
 The ability for which Eck and the Romanists contended 
 against the Reformers is precisely both in form and substance 
 the same as that insisted upon by the new school divines. — 
 The doctrines maintained by all the reformed churches have 
 been rejected by them for the theological tenets of the Papa- 
 cy. Nothing can be demonstrated by history if D' Aubigne's 
 account of the Reformation does not establish this. Here 
 was the cause of the division in the Presbyterian church. 
 
 The act of the General Assembly, whatever may be said 
 of its regularity or expediency, as to form, time and place 
 was prompted by a love of the truth, and was believed to be 
 necessary to a suitable defence of the faith once delivered to 
 the saints. The Presbyterian Church has ever manifested a 
 Catholic Spirit, she claims no divine right to leave other 
 churches to the uncovenanted mercies of God, which are 
 no mercies at all. She admits the validity of the ordinations 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 and ordinances of all evangelical churches who defend the 
 doctrines of grace, even when that defence is confined to a 
 remnant after the election of grace. She stands and has 
 ever stood, both in Scotland and in the United States, for 
 the truth, and wherever she finds it she loves and fellowships 
 all who receive and maintain it. She acknowledges that the 
 church Catholic and Universal is composed of all true be- 
 lievers by whatever name called or in whatever ecclesiastical 
 connexion * found. It was upon doctrinal questions deemed 
 fundamental, that the Presbyterian Church consented to the 
 dismemberment of nearly one half her entire connexion. — 
 On the one hand were numbers, wealth and power, on the 
 other the truth. For Christ's cross and crown she hesitated 
 not to make the sacrifice. The Presbyterian Church might 
 have- struggled along, as have other denominations, holding 
 together by her government, without any real agreement in 
 doctrine and order, and it is sufficiently evident that the 
 division in this great communion, was the result of the main- 
 tainance on the one hand and the rejection on the other, 
 of the doctrines of the Reformers and of the Reformed 
 churches. It would be easy to show how the same defence 
 of the faith is perpetuating in other churches a conflict, the 
 bitterness of which has been greatly mitigated among Pres- 
 byterians by their division into two bodies. Those who 
 differ on radical points, can love each other better across a 
 denominational division than when bound in the same yoke ; 
 for the " contentions of brethren are like the bars of a castle/' 
 and "how can two walk together except they be agreed.*' 
 
 The great questions at the Reformation were human de- 
 pravity and ability. Says, the eloquent Historian, of the 
 Reformation, " The inability of man and the Almighty pow- 
 er of God were the two truths Luther sought to reestablish." 
 
 "A man," says Luther in one of his first propositions against 
 the Romish Theology, " who is a stranger to the grace of 
 God, cannot keep the commandments of God. The will of 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 man without divine grace is not free but enslaved and will- 
 ing to be so." 
 
 " The Papists with Pelagius," says D'Aubigne, " assert- 
 ing man's freedom would keep him in slavery, the Reformers 
 showing him his fetters and how they may be struck off, 
 were the true advocates of liberty, the questions were be- 
 tween A LIBERTY PROCEEDING FROM Man's NATURE and a 
 
 liberty that cometh from God." Such was the contest says 
 this historian, in St. Paul's time, in the days of 'Augustine, 
 and again in those of Luther ; and such we may add is the 
 controversy now between the old and new theology. De- 
 nying the representative character of Adam and the con- 
 demnation of mankind in him ; rejecting the doctrine of the 
 innate universal moral alienation of our race from God ; 
 giving to fallen man the power of obedience to the broken 
 law, of self recovery, and of self regeneration; the adherants 
 of the new divinity are upon the ground of the Romanists, of 
 Eck their champion, and of Pelagius. The foundation of 
 the atonement is subverted, the work of the Holy Spirit is 
 despised, and man is brought to himself and to his own efforts 
 and works for salvation rather than to God and to Christ. 
 
 The doctrines received by the reformers and contained in 
 sacred Scriptures may be resolved into five points. 
 
 1. Apostacy, original sin, and human ability. 
 
 2. Grace in conversion or regeneration the sole work of 
 God. 
 
 3. Justification by faith through Jesus Christ, who was 
 made sin for us whose righteousness is imputed to the believer 
 and received by faith alone. 
 
 4. The eternal election, and, 
 5 Perseverance of the saints. 
 
 All these truths stand related to and are dependant upon 
 the first proposition ; hence the controversy between the Re- 
 formers and the Papists, was first upon this point, "Whether 
 man possessed in his own nature the power of loving God and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 doing righteousness.' 1 '' The very first proposition of Luther, 
 which made the ears of men to tingle ; the first blow struck 
 upon the walls of Rome, whose reverberations resounded 
 through Europe, was a denial of this docrine. Who stands 
 with Luther now? Surely not the New School Presby- 
 terians, .who in general, are abhorent of the sentiments of 
 Luther and take ground with the Romanists, with a vio- 
 lence and denunciation almost equal to theirs. They hold 
 up to scorn and contempt this very proposition of man's ina- 
 bility to any spiritual good in the mouths of their Old School * 
 brethren, and seem to think the whole gospel is in the 
 dogma of human ability, as though the atonement was a 
 free, full and sufficient sacrifice, not in its own nature, 
 but in the nature and ability of man himself. 
 
 As in Germany, France, Switzerland, and England the for- 
 mulas of the Reformation are still professed by churches 
 which are either Arminean or Socinion, and have long been 
 known to be such ; so the Westminister confession is still 
 retained by those who reject its distinctive features and 
 doctrines. There are two reasons for this : the one is, error 
 does not appear well in the consecutive order of a confession 
 of faith ; it does not bear the exposure and so shrinks from 
 the light. The other is found in the advantages gained by 
 assaulting truth under the shelter of an orthodox creed. At 
 the beginning " they privily brought in damnable heresies.'' 
 No stab is so sure, so effectual, as that which is given in the 
 disguise of a friend ; no open war is so dangerous or so dead- 
 ly as household treason. Enough has been heard of human 
 ability in the popular preaching of the present day rung on 
 innumerable changes ; enough has been seen of the ridicule 
 attempted to be cast on the doctrine of original sin and native 
 depravity ; enough of that hortatory and empty sermonizing 
 which instead of exhibiting the great doctrines of the gospel, 
 is ever declaiming upon human ability and human powers ; 
 enough of that kind of faith which is made to terminate in what 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the creature can do, rather than what God can do and has 
 done; enough of this wood, hay and stubble which is destined 
 to the fire, has been manifest to render it an unnecessary 
 labor to extract from the sermons, discussions and controver- 
 sies of the day, further proof of this departure from the faith. 
 But that all may see that we are dealing with realities and 
 speaking of things not of a former age or among another gen- 
 eration, the following account of the recent examination of a 
 candidate in Thelogy, is extracted from the Presbyterian. 
 
 "It has happened to me lately to attend an ordaining council 
 in Massachusetts, and as the views of theology, developed by 
 the examination of the candidate, are generally understood to 
 be the same as now taught at Andover, indeed one of the 
 Professors of that Institution was a member of the council, and 
 as it was publicly declared, that this young man was as sound 
 as half the ministers of the State, it is certainly proper that 
 the Christian public should know what these views are. 
 
 1. There was a full denial of original sin. Sin was defined 
 to be actual transgression exclusively. The term original sin 
 might be used, but altogether in an another sense ; signifying 
 only such a disordered state, that the first moral act would 
 be sinful. But this bias is not transgression, is not sin, and 
 does not expose to eternal punishment. And indeed, what- 
 ever original sin is, God is its author. No such thing as 
 desert can be predicated of a creature before moral action. 
 
 2. He asserted, that nothing in original sin infringed a man ? s 
 liberty to do good as well as evil. Every man has the same 
 full and perfect ability to obey the whole law of God, that 
 the questioner had to walk to the door. It is only to form 
 the same determination of the will in the one case, as in the 
 other. " There is no foundation of evil back of the will."' 
 
 3. He denied the vicarious atonement. Christ did in no 
 sense obey the law for us : nor did He suffer the penalty for 
 our sins. The law of God will stand for ever a broken law, 
 having never received the obedience which it demands, nor 
 
 i 
 

 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 the penalty which it denounces upon the transgressor. The 
 work of Christ had no respect to this, but was a something 
 else substituted for it. And men are justified, not by the 
 righteousness of Christ imputed to them, but "in consequence 
 of the sufferings of Christ :" the phrase of Dr. Dewey and 
 the Unitarians. 
 
 4. He denied any direct and immediate influence of the Holy 
 Spirit on the heart in regeneration. Regeneration is through 
 the truth, and cannot be without the truth, and a mind capa- 
 ble of understanding it. Faith and repentance are produced 
 by a knowledge of the truth, and are themselves regeneration. 
 There is no direct act of the Holy Spirit upon the heart apart 
 from the presentation of the truth : i. e. " moral suasion." 
 
 However, he would not say, that an infant could not be 
 changed before becoming a sinner ; L e. before actual trans- 
 gression. God can create a new spirit ; and so he supposed 
 it not beyond His power to change one already created. — 
 But he did not know how such a change could be effected, 
 nor did he think such a change probable. If so changed, it 
 would not be holy, but only have the tendency to holiness. 
 The first act of such an infant would be holy : it would never 
 become a sinner, and would never need a Saviour from sin : 
 nor could it be saved from actual sin. 
 
 He said also that as regeneration consisted in the change 
 of faith and repentance, there might be fifty different modes 
 of effecting it. 
 
 I submit this bold denial of the faith without note or com- 
 ment, only saying that such views as these are alarmingly 
 prevalent in New England, and on some points are known 
 with certainty to be entertained by the new Professor of 
 Theology at Andover." 
 
 The Romish doctors who resisted Luther, never departed 
 so far from the truth. The theology of the Council of Trent, 
 is hardly so corrupt or so barefaced a denial of the doc- 
 trines of the gospel. Yet with some reservations, evasions 
 
 # 
 
« 
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and apologies, the New York Evangelist, the organ of the 
 New School Presbyterians, substantially vindicates this 
 denial of " the faith once delivered to the saints," and cari- 
 catures after the manner of the Romish divines the very 
 doctrines which are plainly taught in the confession of faith, 
 which every Presbyterian minister subscribes at his ordina- 
 tion ! 
 
 If we are not able to bring the questions before the Chris- 
 tian public in the usual controversial way, we can yet appeal 
 to the piety of all who love our Lord Jesus, and receive him 
 as the " the author and finisher of their faith," the " end of 
 the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." It 
 is one of the arts of errorists, to cover with the mantle of 
 charity, the false opinions by which they undermine the gos- 
 pel, to talk about the bitterness of controversy, (which they 
 have provoked) to lament over divisions which they have 
 made, and so if it were possible to deceive the very elect. 
 
 In the following, I think Mr. Cheeseman has presented his 
 subject in a manner which appeals to the pious feelings, to 
 the Christian emotions of every renewed heart. He may 
 not have avoided all the severity which controversy engen- 
 ders, but he has succeeded beyond my expectations in giving 
 a practical character to the work. There is an application 
 of the great principles of the gospel as he passes along, a 
 flow of devotion, a kindling of the religious sensibilities, 
 which must lead those who commence its perusal to the con- 
 clusion of the work. He makes the practical power of the 
 doctrines of grace and redemption, so manifest, that the eyes 
 of all unprejudiced persons can hardly fail to be opened, and 
 if I mistake not, there will be left upon the mind of every 
 reader, an impression of the importance of these great truths 
 for which we stand in a day of darkness and rebuke. 
 
m 
 
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN 
 
 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL 
 
 PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 # 
 
 • 
 
 if 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OLD AND NEW 
 SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 The secession — Its causes — Changes in Church government and operations 
 by the New School no improvement — Separation necessary to a refor- 
 mation. 
 
 The divisions which exist between Old and New School 
 Presbyterians, are calculated to produce any thing but plea- 
 surable emotions in the bosoms of those who have been 
 wont to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And whatever 
 can be done to unite in one body, those who are already 
 united in their views of church government and of doctrinal 
 and experimental religion, ought to be done by the friends of 
 Zion. 
 
 The disowning act of 1837, has been extensively misunder- 
 stood. It has hitherto been represented, as an act by which 
 four Synods were excommunicated for heresy, and that with- 
 out a trial ; when many individual ministers and churches and 
 even whole Presbyteries, thus unjustly and summarily con- 
 demned, were sound in the faith, But when that act is care- 
 fully examined, it will be found that it excommunicated no 
 one, and that it really separated no single Presbyterian minis- 
 ter or church from the General Assembly. While it disowned 
 as unconstitutional, organizations compounded of Presbyterian 
 and Congregational churches, it made provision for all who 
 were truly Presbyterian, and gave them specific directions as 
 to the course, which under their peculiar circumstances it was 
 
 2 
 
 

 18 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 expedient for them to pursue. An act of dismemberment so 
 suicidal as this is represented to have been, has no precedent 
 in the history of the church. And while the desire of church 
 extension remains so distinguishing an element in all denomi- 
 national effort, it cannot be reasonably believed, that so large 
 and respectable a body as the General Assembly of the Pres- 
 byterian Church, could so deliberately violate every principle 
 .of self love, and ecclesiastical policy, as is implied in this 
 groundless imputation. 
 
 The subsequent secession of a large and respectable body 
 of ministers and churches ; the organization of a New Gen- 
 Assembly ; their claim to be the Constitutional General 
 mbly ; the suit at law instituted by them to obtain the 
 name and the funds of the church, and its final decision 
 against them, are events which belong to the history of past 
 roversies and alienations, which, it is to be hoped, will 
 never be renewed. 
 
 The act of 1837, cannot be believed to have been the cause 
 of that secession. Had there existed no other causes, this 
 ted act, even though regarded as unconstitutional, would 
 r have formed in the minds of reasonable men, a justifia- 
 ble foundation for a course so extraordinary. Had there 
 been no other causes in operation, the secession, it is believed, 
 would never have taken place : but such causes were in opera- 
 tion. These causes had embarrassed the church for years in 
 all her assemblies and in all her efforts. The secesion was not 
 impulsive but deliberate ; men had grown weary of debate, and 
 I become chilled and alienated in their affections, by serious 
 differences in ecclesiastical policy and in doctrinal and prac- 
 tical Christianity. The bond that united them to the Presby- 
 terian Church was not of the heart, and could not be. while 
 th y entertained views fundamentally at variance with her 
 standards and her interests, and which brought them in per- 
 petual conflict with their brethren. This frail bond, therefore, 
 v as easily cast off, and that without regret, and for a very 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFERENCES. 19 
 
 insufficient ostensible reason. A new organization has been 
 the result. 
 
 This new organization has termed itself triennial. It does 
 not meet annually, as does the General Assembly of the 
 Presbyterian Church, whose sessions have always been 
 annual, and are found by long experience, not to be too fre- 
 quent for a proper supervision of the churches, and for a vig- 
 orous and effective prosecution of the great work of educa- 
 tion and missions. The seceders have at length discovered 
 their error, and have endeavored to remedy it by annual 
 conventions, and finally by an annual adjournment, which 
 last step has involved them in controversy among themselves. 
 While professing to improve by introducing a new order of 
 things, they have found that change is not improvement. 
 
 Their assembly is not an appellate court ; and the case of 
 the Rev. Mr. Graham, who appeared before them for the re- 
 dress of grievances, at their late meetings at Philadelphia 
 and at Cincinnatti, has discovered the imbecility of a body, 
 which could not do what it was so desirable and proper it 
 should have done : it having formally abandoned so excellent 
 a provision of the constitution. The man who ought to have 
 had the judgment of the whole church in her collective wis- 
 dom on his case, was compelled, either to be condemned by 
 one court, and justified by another of the same grade, or to 
 abandon an organization which contained in itself the ele- 
 ments of its own dissolution. 
 
 The great head of the church has committed to her, in her 
 organized capacity, the solemn and momentous work of 
 evangelizing the world. " Out of Zion shall go forth the law, 
 and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Go ye therefore, 
 into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." 
 And the church can never cast off this obligation, by commit- 
 ting the hi^h and sacred trust to voluntary associations, which 
 have neither ecclesiastical existence or responsibility, and 
 which are to take the whole work out of her hands and to 
 
ft 
 
 20 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 do it for her. These views have been opposed by the 
 New School, and they could not be satisfied until they had 
 made experiments on a different plan. 
 
 . The American Board, through which their charities have 
 hitherto flowed, belongs no more to them than to us ; and as 
 they have no organizations of their own, and do next to noth- 
 ing in their own appropriate capacity as a church of Jesus 
 Christ to spread the gospel ; and as they witness amfong them- 
 selves, a growing apathy on the subject of missions, and are 
 feeling the fatal drain from surrounding and enterprising de- 
 nominations, they are beginning to think soberly of a change, 
 and will probably ere long, retract all they have ever said 
 against ecclesiastical organizations. 
 
 The recent attack of some of their leading bodies on the 
 American Tract Society, for mutilating the works of Dr. D' 
 Aubigne, had no other origin in the judgment of many, than 
 a desire to cover their retreat, and to create at once, organi- 
 zations of their own. One of their leading men said to me 
 not long since, " The Old School on this subject were right. 
 and we were wrong." This opinion must ultimately prevail 
 among them, or their growth and success is at an end. The 
 American Board is falling back for support on the New Eng- 
 land churches, where it originated and where it belongs. — 
 The Presbyterian Church is increasing in her efforts and con- 
 tributions, in a degree wholly unprecedented in any former 
 period of her existence. Other denominations, by appealing 
 to the just attachments of their own communicants to their 
 own principles, are increasing in strength and effort ; and 
 unless the New School, abandon their position on this ques- 
 tion, they will gradually weaken their own denominational, 
 bonds, and ultimately dissolve them altogether. Mutual affini- 
 ties, social and religious, require to be cherished and strength- 
 ened by opening for them their natural and appropriate chan- 
 nel- 
 
 What, then, after a fair and unmolested experiment of ten 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFERENCES. 21 
 
 years'? what great and good end has been attained by thesf 
 various novelties in Presbyterianism ] and what can we ex- 
 pect to gain by that other proposed novelty, an independent 
 Synod in Western New York l If brethren are dissatisfied 
 with their present connection with the Synod of Genesee, 
 why do they not at once unite with the Synod of Buffalo 1 
 What call is there for covering this same field with a third 
 fraction of the Presbyterian Church 1 If, as they affirm, they 
 differ in no respect from the Old School body, but prefer it 
 to all others, why not unite with it 1 They judge very in- 
 correctly, if they regard the transition, which would be made 
 by forming a union with a body to which the churcrfcs once 
 belonged, and to which they now legitimately belong, as more 
 abrupt than would be a transition to independency, a transition 
 which with all their efforts, they have not been able to make, 
 and which I am confident with an intimate acquaintance 
 with all their plans and tendencies they never will make. 
 
 Neither will they ever join us in a body. If they wait for 
 that period to arrive, they will always wait ; if they ever re- 
 sume their connection with our church, they will do it as 
 others have done it : they will do it as individuals and as 
 churches. Have the churches of the sixteenth century 
 which fell off into Socinian error, yet returned to their for- 
 mer orthodoxy 1 Three hundred years is a long period to 
 wait. Have the churches of Massachusetts, which fell into 
 the Unitarian error, yet returned 1 Those who have waited 
 there, are now conscious that they have waited too long, and 
 are beginning to awake from their delusive dreams ; and if 
 these brethren wait until the Rochester Presbytery, or any 
 other Presbytery in the Synod of Genesee, shall as a body- 
 correct its errors, abandon its Pelagianism, and resume its 
 connection with the General Assembly, they may wait till 
 their cold remains and mine shall moulder underneath the 
 clods of the valley. 
 
 I do not contend for mere organizations. Organizations 
 
 O C3 
 
22 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 can be of but little account except as they are a Scriptural 
 means to an end ; in this respect, some are greatly to be 
 preferred above others. Among; these the Presbyterian holds 
 the first rank in our esteem, and Presbyterians should be the 
 last to distrust or forsake it. It is valuable to me, not simply 
 as it is an organization, but as it is authorized by the word 
 of God, honored by his providence, blessed by the inhabi- 
 tation of his spirit, and has always borne the testimony of 
 Jesus. 
 
 When the minority of a body become unsound, there is no 
 remedy but excision. When the majority become unsound, 
 there it no remedy but secession. Error desires nothing, 
 demands nothing but toleration. It is sure of ultimate suc- 
 cess if let alone. Its advocates, to prevent alarm, maintain that 
 the differences are but slight, perhaps merely verbal, or at 
 most philosophical, and frown at suspicion and inquiry as cal- 
 culated to disturb the peace of the church. They are the 
 friends of union, but break up its foundations and "mine on 
 in darkness." Error is more congenial than truth ; the 
 love of it is the normal state, and its power of assimilation in 
 this world is greater than that of truth. The gospel wins its 
 way, and maintains its advantages against the current. Er- 
 ror floats with it, and gains its destination without lifting an oar. 
 Truth in this world is an exotic. Error is indigenous. The 
 former cannot live but by constant protection ; the latter 
 thrives without it. Error, therefore, needs nomine- but toler- 
 ation in any communion, for its spread and success. The 
 only successful preventative is excision or secession. To this 
 rule there can be found no exception in the history of the past 
 
 Our Lord when he appeared in Judea, found the Jews in 
 a state of apostacy, and after a brief call to repentance and 
 reformation, that people were abandoned to their fate, or 
 rather, were excommunicated from the church of God. The 
 decree is contained in the following statement ; " The king- 
 dom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFERENCES. 23 
 
 people bringing forth the fruits thereof." This is an example 
 of high antiquity and of great authority, and every subse- 
 quent experiment has justified its wisdom. 
 
 The Church of Rome was long acknowledged by her 
 friends to be in a state of alarming declension, and the 
 efforts in favor of a reformation were numerous, w T ide-spread, 
 and long continued. The celebrated Council of Constance 
 assembled for no other end than to reform it ; yet that Coun- 
 cil dissolved without effecting its object. • The learned 
 Erasmus sought the reformation of the Church of Rome as 
 an end ; he condemned separation from it, he would not 
 secede, but reform ; his whole life was wasted in worse- 
 then useless controversy, and he died at length disappoin 
 and broken hearted. The early reformers sought at first 
 a change in the church without a separation ; but they came 
 to a better judgment in time to prevent another and a total 
 failure. They acted upon the model left them by their Lord, 
 and their success began with their imitation of that model : 
 with their total separation from the Church of Rome. 
 
 Organizations give to principles a formal existence, and 
 bring them at once within the range of a possible propagation 
 and succession. But without them they are as spirits with- 
 out bodies ; they awaken no sympathies among men ; they 
 are not felt, because they are not known ; they have no 
 general and permanent visibility, and therefore can exert no 
 general and permanent influence. Whitefield visited this 
 country and labored with unexampled popularity and succc 
 yet he has left no permanent imprint of his opinions on the; 
 character of the American people. They expired with his 
 personal ministry, because he gave them no existence in an 
 organization. Wesley, who appeared here at the same time, 
 was far more provident, and gave to his opinions a permanent 
 home in the bosom of an organization ; and though his voice 
 is no more heard, his venerable form no more seen among 
 his followers, yet he continues to direct their labors, and to 
 
24 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 fix and control their sentiments. Dr. Witherspoon engaged 
 in an effort to reform the Church of Scotland, but gave up in 
 despair, and came to America. He united with our body, and 
 preached the sermon at the organization of the General 
 Assembly in 1789. Reform measures have more or less ex- 
 isted since his day, in the Kirk which he felt it his duty to 
 abandon ; and during the last twenty years, the controversy 
 has received new life from the opposition made to the godly 
 and earnest endeavor after a thorough reformation. The 
 middle party took their usual position between truth and 
 error, and became the most efficient supporters of the lat- 
 ter. Dr. Witherspooiis ecclesiastical characteristics are as 
 descriptive now, as they were ninety years ago of these 
 moderate, no-party men, who become "fierce for modera- 
 tion/' The sound portion of the church, however, have after 
 a long and failing struggle, at length resorted to the true 
 and only remedy, separation ; and by this movement have 
 put themselves hi the way of the most wonderful reforma- 
 tion in modern times. United with the Kirk, thev were the 
 Nazarite shorn of his locks ; separated from it, the pillars 
 of Erastianism already quake at their approach. 
 
 The necessity and utility of an organization, under our 
 own control, to -contain and to continue our doctrines, is ursjed 
 upon us then,- by the entire experience and wisdom of the 
 past. Those Presbyterians, who remain- in the New School 
 organization to reform it, or who unite with it from our body 
 for that purpose, are worse than dead to us, and to the cause 
 of reform. Neither their wisdom nor power to manage 
 and control unsound bodies, can be believed to surpass all 
 those who have gone before them, and who have invariably 
 failed in the same effort. It is useless to urge that the pres- 
 ent case is an exception to the rule ; it has not proved itself 
 an exception hitherto, and it never will. Those therefore, 
 who fall into the snare of these abortive policies, need no 
 prophet to assure them of the inevitable result. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFERENCES. 25 
 
 It must be painful, also, to occupy a false position, to 
 disguise our real designs, and to practice on a confidence 
 which would be withheld at once from us if we were thor- 
 oughly understood, if we were as transparent as we ought 
 to be, if we were "an epistle known and read of all men."' 
 Services so equivocal, not to say disreputable and sinful, are 
 not required of the ; ' children of the light and of the daw"' 
 and though they may acquire a temporary popularity, they 
 must end in shame. There is withal a most undesirable 
 habit formed, under circumstances so unfavorable to the 
 culture and exercise of candor and integrity. We become 
 
 O ml 
 
 practiced in the low arts of cunning, deception, and manage- 
 ment, and weaken and destroy a most lovelv trait in Christ* 
 
 ml » 
 
 ian character. But aside from the impropriety of the course 
 itself, in its own nature, no enlightened friend of our church 
 can pursue it long, with an honest design to benefit our cause; 
 for he places himself at once in opposition to it by his posi- 
 tion, his efforts, and his influence. 
 
 His position is that of an antagonist. 
 
 His efforts weaken our existing organizations, by drawing 
 from them our ministers and members. They become 
 necessary to his success, his most reliable auxiliaries in his 
 revolutionary movement ; and, should he find us on the 
 alert, and unable to appreciate either his wisdom or his ill- 
 advised friendship — if he do not at length become restive, 
 and give us hard names, and prejudice our cause in the very 
 quarter in which he went to strengthen it, he will prove 
 the first exception with which I have ever met. I know no 
 one as yet who has been captivated by these ambiguous pol- 
 icies, who has not ultimately been ensnared in this manner, 
 and done more to alienate our friends, weaken our cause, 
 and provoke opposition, than those who were always open 
 and avowed in their enmities. 
 
 Those also who are retained in an unsound connection by 
 . this influence will remain there from the same cause ; and 
 
26 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 their names, their property, and their offspring, will be lost 
 to our church. In a few more years, the present incumbents 
 of these pulpits will be no more ; and however useful they 
 may have been in their personal ministry, they cannot 
 control the succession. That is in other hands, and will be 
 much more likely to take its complexion from the living than 
 from the dead ; from the body in which they have left their 
 churches, than from the pastor's remembered wishes.* 
 
 In whatever light, then, this policy is examined, whether 
 with reference to the past or the present, its character or 
 tendency, it but strengthens our position — that the true rem- 
 edv against error, is the maintainance of the gospel in sep- 
 arate organizations ; and that the expectation o'f success, in 
 any other way, will invariably end in disappointment. 
 
 The churches here have listened to one side of the question 
 only. We never have been permitted to plead our cause 
 before them, and many of them, therefore, are made to 
 believe themselves to be in the very body by which they 
 were originally organized. Did they know that they were 
 not ; that they had been kept in the dark by interested indi- 
 viduals ; had, without a fall and sufficient examination of the 
 question, without a fair and impartial presentation of it in all 
 its aspects, been drawn off into a new organization ; an or- 
 ganization scarcely ten years old ; an organization changed 
 in its forms, and changed in its doctrines ; there are many 
 
 * I little expected when this was penned, that before it would be in type, 
 my best friend, and most reliable counselor, the Rev. Norris Bull, D. D. 
 would be no more. His piety, integrity, perseverance, skill, and courage ; 
 his great intellectual endowments, and his remarkable power over delibera- 
 tive assemblies, qualified him preeminently for success in the difficult cirjum- 
 etanees in which he was placed All eyes were turned toward him as tho 
 leader of a forlorn hope in the Synod of Genesee. And when one by one 
 his friends forsook him, because they deemed the contest in which he was 
 engaged, hopeless, and yet saw him almost alone and with unbroken reso- 
 lution, still battling with his destiny, they could not but admire, and some- 
 times hope for partial success from his singular perseverence. But now thai 
 he rests from his labors, every expectation of reforming even a single Pres- 
 bytery, is buried with him. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFERENCES. 27 
 
 decided Presbyterians who would not long remain where 
 they are, but would avail themselves of the earliest favora- 
 ble opportunity of carrying out the provisions of the act 
 of 1837, and would resume their connection with our 
 church. 
 
 I know men who tremble in their places lest the truth 
 should be known on this subject, whose whole efforts are di- 
 rected to suppress inquiry by scandalous imputations, or by 
 bringing up false issues, and who look upon a fair discussion 
 as calculated to benefit any but themselves. If, however, 
 our cause is to be defended by such weapons, it shall not 
 be by our hands. It is of God, and it will stand. If it is 
 not of Him, let it perish ; it is not worth preserving. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OLD AND NEW SCHOOL 
 PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 Sufferings of Christ — The New School deny their penal nature — They 
 were penal. 
 
 The published works of leading divines, give character 
 to their respective communions. The published works of 
 Arius and Arminius, not the creeds which they respectively 
 subscribed, and which were sufficiently sound, but their 
 own expositions of their creed, are the sources to which we 
 resort to ascertain their opinions and those of their followers. 
 And in like manner, not the creed alone of the New School 
 body, but their explanations of that creed as contained in the 
 widely circulated writings of their leading and influential di- 
 vines, are another and an ultimate criterion, to which we 
 must resort to ascertain what is really their denominational 
 theology. To shrink from this most reasonable test, or to at- 
 tempt to evade it by denying its correctness, is not only sus- 
 picious, but prima facie evidence of conscious weakness and 
 guilt. It is in effect to resolve society into its original and 
 independent elements, and to destroy the very principle of 
 associated responsibility. 
 
 The declaration of independency on the part of the Roch- 
 ester Presbytery, so long as it is a mere declaration, can 
 form no exception in their favor. If it had been carried 
 out ; if they had broken connection with the New School 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 29 
 
 body, and formed an organization under their own control, 
 they would have secured our confidence. But for them to 
 affirm that they are independent, and not responsible for the 
 New School errors, and at the same time to remain as they 
 do in the New School connection, is, to say the softest thing 
 we can of it, disingenuous and calculated to deceive. Were 
 not the members of the Rochester Presbvterv grenerallv 
 present at the late session of their Synod, and did they not 
 hear the Moderator,* in his Synodical Sermon, distinctly, 
 solemnly, and with emphasis, declare that " Jesus Christ did 
 not suffer the penalty of the law nor any part of it ]" And 
 what has that Presbytery done, and what has that Synod done, 
 to rebuke this bold denial of the Gospel 1 And can these 
 brethren be ignorant of the tolerated Pelagian and Socinian 
 errors which infest the whole body 1 Surely the claim to 
 orthodoxy and independency under such circumstances, is a 
 claim which few can respect but themselves. If I could 
 possibly understand their position as they appear to under- 
 stand it, I should be happy to make an exception in their 
 favor ; but as it is, they must be held to the proposed test in 
 common with the rest of their brethren. 
 
 Dr. Beman, whose work on the Atonement, is hailed by 
 the last Moderator of the New School General Assembly, 
 Dr. Cox, " with devout salutation, commendation, and bene- 
 diction," maintains that Christ did not endure the penalty of 
 the law ; that his sufferings were in no sense penal ; whereas 
 the Scriptures affirm that the " chastisement or punishment 
 of our peace was upon Him ;" that the M Lord did lay 
 upon Him the iniquity of us all ;" Isaiah 53. — and that 
 " Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
 made a curse for us." Galatians hi. 13. 
 
 "That Jesus Christ did not die in. the strict and literal 
 sense, as the substitute of His people, or in the room of those 
 
 Rev. Wm. F. Curry. 
 
30 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 who will finally be saved, may be established beyond all rea- 
 sonable doubt — beyond all enlightened controversy." * * * 
 " The law can have no penal demand except against the of- 
 fender. With a substitute it has no concern ; and though a 
 thousand substitutes should die, the law in itself considered, 
 and left to its own natural operation, would have the same 
 demand on the transgressor which it always had. This claim 
 can never be invalidated. This penal demand can never 
 be extinguished." * * * * " The penalty of the law, 
 strictly speaking, was not inflicted at all." # * * * "The 
 whole legal system has been suspended," at least, for the 
 present, in order to make way for the operation of one of a dif- 
 ferent character." (Dr. Bemanon Atonement, pp. 96. 133.) 
 Whereas, the Scriptures affirm that it is not suspended at 
 all ; that " till Heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one 
 tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled ;" 
 Math. v. 18. — and that Christ who " was made sin for us 
 who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness 
 of God in Him ;" 2, Cor. v. 21. — " is the end of the law for 
 righteousness to every one that believeth." Rom. x. 4. 
 " He hath magnified the law and made it honorable." Isa. 
 xlii. 21. 
 
 Dr. Beman can see no point in Dr. Priestley's objections 
 against the doctrine of atonement, as against his own views, 
 for he fully agrees with Dr. Priestly, that there could be no 
 mercy in acquitting the guilty, when justice had already been 
 fully satisfied by a substitute. (See Beman on the Atone- 
 ment, p.* 138.) 
 
 The error of Dr. Beman, and his Unitarian friend, must 
 be obvious to the most ordinary capacity. It assumes that 
 satisfaction, even though it proceed from the offended party 
 himself, would be no exhibition of mercy to the offender. 
 If this satisfaction, however, had been made by v some 
 being extraneous to the law giver, the objection might have 
 force, but proceeding as it does from the bosom of the 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 31 
 
 ever-blessed God himself, who both finds and gives the ran- 
 som, and who in His infinite pity does not spare His own 
 Son ; the objection is unscriptural, and rests upon a false 
 assumption. If a friend of an insolvent debtor, were to sat- 
 isfy the firm to which he was indebted, their release of him, 
 would not be an act of mercy, but of justice. But if the 
 partners of that firm were themselves, by paying their equal 
 proportions, to liquidate the claim against him, it would give 
 a new aspect to the whole affair, and it would be idle to say 
 that there was no mercy shown towards him by his creditors 
 in thus themselves satisfying the claims of the firm. Satis- 
 faction, therefore, to the justice of God, does not determine 
 the question whether mercy is exercised or not in the sin- 
 ner's pardon. That is to be determined by another and dis- 
 tinct inquiry, viz : Who rendered that, satisfaction 1 The 
 answer is, "God so loved the world, that He gave his only 
 begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life." John iii. 16. 
 
 The notes of Mr. Barnes are extensively circulated, and 
 have supplanted Henry, Scott, and the Catechism, in all the Bi- 
 ble classes and Sabbath schools here. They load the shelves 
 of our book stores, and have become the pocket companions of 
 religious teachers in the New School body. Mr. Barnes does 
 more to form the religious opinions and characters of the rising 
 generation among them, than all their ministers collectively. 
 He is more cautious than Dr. Beman ; more skilled in 
 indirection and circumlocution ; there is a blandness and 
 sanctity in his manner that puts you off your guafd when 
 you read him ; his blows are more in the dark, and then he 
 says so many kind things afterwards, and makes so many 
 concessions, you can hardly believe it was he. But still, 
 after a careful and thorough examination, I am prepared to 
 say, that Mr. Barnes and Dr. Beman teach the same doc- 
 trine on the subject of the atonement. 
 
 On 2 Cor. v. 21, " He hath made him to be sin for us." In 
 
• 
 
 32 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 his third inquiry, his language is, " Can it mean that he was r 
 in any proper sense of the word, guilty] For no one is 
 truly guilty who is not personally a transgressor of the law ; 
 and if he was in any proper sense guilty, then he deserved 
 to die, and his death could have no more merit than that of 
 any other guilty being ; and if he was properly guilty, it 
 would make no difference in this respect whether it was by 
 his own fault or by imputation." Again, on Gal. iii. 13 : — 
 " Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
 made a curse for us." In his fourth remark, he declares 
 that, " It cannot be meant that the Lord Jes±is properly bore 
 the penalty of the law ; His sufferings were in the place of 
 the penalty, not the penalty itself." And in his notes on 
 Isai. liii. 5 : " The chastisement of our peace was upon Him." 
 (After stating that the word, chastisement, does not of neces- 
 sity denote punishment, though he admits that it is frequently 
 used in that sense.) he declares that " here it cannot properly 
 mean punishment ;" and thus, on every proof text on this 
 subject, he evades and denies the usual interpretation, and 
 gives another. If he has any skill as a polemic, any know- 
 ledge of the original Greek or Hebrew, whatever he has of 
 learning or of skill, it is brought to bear against these time 
 hallowed turrets of an orthodox faith. While he professes 
 not to write for the critical, but for the common reader, he 
 puts forth all his strength on these passages, and leaves not 
 a single expedient untried to dissatisfy us with the usual inter- 
 pretation. That interpretation is never correctly given, or 
 given as it would have been by a Presbyterian. And finally, 
 we are told that whatever else the passage may mean, it 
 does not teach the doctrine contended for from it. 
 
 Take one instance, among many, to illustrate his tact at 
 indirection. On Rom. viii. 7 : " Because the carnal mind is 
 enmity against God : for it is not subject to the law of God, 
 neither indeed can be." He states that "the apostle does 
 not express any opinion about the metaphysical ability of 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 33 
 
 man, or discuss that question at all." Again : " The affirma- 
 tion does not mean that the heart of the sinner might not 
 be subject to God, or that his soul is so physically depraved 
 that he cannot obey, or that he might not obey the law. 
 On that subject the Apostle here expresses no opinion ; that 
 is not the subject of discussion." Here we are told substan- 
 tially, that the very thing which the Apostle did say, he did 
 not say, or at least that he did not mean to say it ; yea, that 
 he expressed no opinion on that point, selecting the very 
 point on which the Apostle expresses himself in the most 
 decided terms, and contriving to contradict him without 
 seeming to do so, and that by an adroit introduction of the 
 words metaphysical and physical. But with all that singu- 
 lar evasiveness which pervades his whole manner, he obvi- 
 ously agrees with the New School on every material question. 
 
 I need not pause here to show that these views of the 
 death of Christ, are Unitarian, not Presbyterian ; that they 
 are the former, and not the latter, is quite certain.* But the 
 great objection to them, is, that they are not scriptural. — 
 Presbyterianism is nothing to me as it is Presbyterianism, but 
 as it is the gospel, as it contains, and exhibits and defends if, 
 in that respect, it is to me everything. Were not the mat- 
 ters at issue between us, of the most serious nature, if these 
 errors were not mining at the very foundations of our hopes 
 for eternity, I should not have adventured before you in this 
 form. Not to be tenacious of peculiarities, to be yielding 
 and pliant in all that does not interfere with truth and right- 
 eousness, is a lovely trait in christian character, a grace 
 which should be sedulously cultivated, that we may be both 
 more agreeable and useful ; but carried too far, we may, and 
 often do, mar where we intend to beautify, and ruin, when 
 we intend to save. Influenced by these considerations, I 
 
 * Christ "felt and bore the weight of God's wrath." Lar. Cat. Ans. 40. 
 "Endured most grevious torments immediately in his soul." Con. of Faith, 
 chap, viii: sec. 4. 
 
 3 
 
34 OLD AND NEVV r SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 cannot pass these bold denials of Bible truth, without indulg- 
 ing in further animadversions ; without attempting to send 
 the antidote with the poison. 
 
 What proof has Dr. Beman given beyond his own asser- 
 tion, " That the penalty of the law was not inflicted at all V 1 
 or Mr. Barnes, " that if Christ were properly guilty by im- 
 putation, his death could have no more merit than that of 
 any other guilty being]" These are naked assertions, wholly 
 unsupported by the word of God, and I have not yet, in all 
 they have said, met with a single attempt formally to prove 
 them from the scriptures by the quotation of a solitary passage 
 containing such an idea. Indeed, the scriptures contain no 
 such statements, but throughout present the opposite view. 
 Hence the controversy between us and the New School, 
 resembles that with the Universalists. We bring direct proof 
 texts. They bring none. We attack. They parry. We 
 bring the witnesses. They assail them. The Bible never 
 brought their system a single shred to cover its nakedness ; it 
 is in their way, and involves them at once, and at every step, 
 in a debate with its obvious meaning. Oh ! what a contrast 
 is there between the two following statements : — " Christ 
 hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a 
 curse for us." Gal. iii. 13. " The penalty of the law, strictly 
 speaking, was not inflicted at all." Beman on Atonement, 
 p. 133. And how weak and repulsive the following abortive 
 attempt to obscure and pervert the obvious meaning of this 
 text : " Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." " Does 
 the law say the soul that sinneth it shall — hang on a tree — It 
 is a curse, but not the curse of the law." Beman on Atone- 
 ment, p. 112. Yes, truly it was a curse. His death by the 
 civil law was penal. "If he had not been a malefactor."' 
 said his accusers, " we would not have delivered him to 
 thee." He was judged worthy of death, and that death was 
 a judicial infliction. The passage in Deut. xxi. 22, 23, here 
 referred to, is not cited by Paul, to prove that Christ endured 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 35 
 
 the penalty of the civil, but of the divine law. Hence, 
 the apostle selects that part of it which relates exclusively to 
 the latter, and not to the former, to wit : " He that hangetii 
 on a tree is accursed of God." He was suspended between 
 heaven and earth ; he was not admitted to either, he was 
 excluded from both. While his being lifted up, expressed as a 
 a symbolic action, the ignominious light in which he was 
 viewed and treated by the court on earth ; it also expressed 
 with equal significance, the ignominious light in which he 
 was viewed and treated by the court in Heaven. But the 
 ignominy of hanging on the tree, was too great an honor for 
 one who was " accursed of God." He must not hang all 
 night upon the tree. ' That were " an eye-sore for heaven to 
 look upon." God was now become party to the quarrel 
 against his life, and the wretch must be hid at once in the 
 earth. " Thou shalt in any wise bury him the same day." 
 in Gal. iii. 13, the discussion is of the divine law, whose 
 terrific curse pealed in thunder from the burning mountain, 
 and the passage cited is in proof that Christ endured it. His 
 hanging on a tree is the public evidence and manifestation 
 of the penal nature of His sufferings under the divine law. 
 to wit : that he was " accursed of God." The manner of* 
 his death was previously and deliberately arranged, that the 
 evidence of its nature might be full, public and conclusive. 
 It was " by the determinate counsel and fore -knowledge of 
 God." Acts ii. 23. And it was by the concurrence and 
 choice of Jesus Christ. Of his life he says, " I lay it down of 
 myself." John x. 18- Except for the evidence that his 
 hanging on a tree would furnish of the nature of the trans- 
 action, his death could as well have been by the axe, or by 
 strangulation, as by the tree. But the manner of his death, 
 together with the supernatural earthquake, the strange 
 commotion in the grave yard, the midnight darkness that 
 gathered on the face of the frowning heavens, the confession 
 of the Centurion, and the remorseful gesture of all who. 
 
3G OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 came together to that sight — mingled their testimony with 
 the expiring groans of the Son of God, and called the atten- 
 tion of every intelligence in heaven, earth and hell, to the 
 tree, to the public evidence of a penal infliction, to the hor- 
 ror, despair and woe of Him who was " the accursed of God.'' 
 And yet Dr. Beman can discover no evidence, that the suf- 
 ferings of Christ were penal, even from the highest possible 
 evidence which could be afforded him of that fact. And his 
 denial of it is too gross a contradiction of the word of God; too 
 gross a violation of all the principles of correct and satisfactory 
 interpretation, to challenge either respect or confidence. — 
 His assertion that the penalty of the law was " immensely 
 another kind of death in form, duration and circumstances:*' 
 " that the penalty of the law was damnation, or eternal 
 death,." is a puerility unworthy of a grave and learned di- 
 vine. The damned have not suffered eternally, and yet 
 their sufferings are penal, and their entrance upon their final 
 state, by death, whether by violence or by lingering disease, 
 is the hopeless commencement of them. Every lost sinner 
 also suffers according to the deeds done in the body ; but 
 these deeds are not the same in number or aggravation. 
 The suffering must, therefore, vary in every instance. 
 Fallen angels, also, who have no bodies, do not suffer 
 precisely in the same manner as do those who are "cast 
 both soul and body into hell." Math, x. 28. The penalty 
 is death, and that must adapt itself to the nature and dignity 
 of the being on whom it falls. Creatures can never remove 
 their obligations to endure it because they are finite. The 
 eternity of their woe is incidental ; i. e., it arises not from 
 the law, but from their natures. The duration of the suf- 
 fering is not necessary to the proper infliction of the penalty, 
 (by whomsoever endured,) but necessary to it when endured 
 by creatures. But the Son of God was not a creature, and 
 could exhaust a penalty in a limited period, which a creature 
 could never exhaust. It assailed him, and bruised his body, 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 37 
 
 and bore him down to the very gates of hell ; but his 
 divinity consumed its strength, and bore it back, and broke 
 the arm of its power. It cried out for blood ! its cry was 
 remorseless and unceasing. Along the flight of weary 
 centuries, it had made the place of worship the place of 
 continued slaughter ; it had forever wasted the precious 
 life, and still had demanded blood. It could not be satisfied 
 with the blood of beasts, it also kindled on the souls of men, 
 drank up their spirits, and burned, and burned forever. But 
 when it reached the Son of God, its rage was spent; its 
 triumphs ended ; its power destroyed. It could not long 
 grapple for the mastery with an uncreated arm ; it kindled 
 fiercely on his humanity, and wasted it ; it burned towards 
 his divinity, and expired. Death simply considered, is not 
 necessarily the penalty of the law, as the death of plants 
 and animals. The penal nature of the infliction is to be de- 
 termined from the grounds and reasons of it ; not wholly 
 from its " form, duration, and circumstances," but, also, and 
 mainly, from the judgment and design of the court in pro- 
 nouncing the sentence, and the actual execution of the culprit 
 in pursuance of that judgment. Christ was adjudged to 
 death by the Father for our sins. " He hath made him to 
 be sin for us." 2 Cor. v. 21. And that judgment was exe- 
 cuted both by his providence and by his agency. " It pleased 
 the Lord to bruise him." ~ ii Thou hast put him to grief." 
 Isaiah liii. " He was delivered for our offences." Rom. 
 i\fc 25. In every scriptural explanation of the death of Christ 
 is invariably included the punishment of sin. 
 
 The attempts of the New School in any other way to 
 prove that Christ did not suffer penally, arc equally a failure. 
 It is not a question of reason, but of revelation, and above 
 the reach of mere reason. The moment they leave the Bible, 
 the proofs which would be required, lie beyond the vision 
 of men and of angels. " Canst thou by searching find out 
 God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? 
 
38 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 It is high as heaven; what canst thou do? deep as hell; 
 what canst thou knowl" There is "a more sure word of 
 prophesy; ** a light that shineth in a dark place," to which 
 we do well to take heed; and to abandon it, is not to multiply 
 the facilities for correct and satisfactory investigation, but to 
 be left " alone, at midnight, on a dark and moonless sea." 
 Who can show, and by what process of reasoning, that God 
 the Father and the Son, could not so transfer the obligation 
 to suffer the penalty of the law for the sins of his people to 
 Jesus Christ, as to make those sufferings really penal, in the 
 judgment of Him whose judgment is according to truth ? 
 What though we grant, for the sake of the argument, that all 
 analogy fails us here 1 The same is true of the incarnation. 
 And it is not a question of analogy, but of revelation, in a 
 matter with which analogy can have but little to do, when we 
 have once forsaken the Scriptures and their analogies. We 
 are, in that event, borne by it beyond where "eye can see N 
 or glass can reach," to scan the ways of Him, " whose ways 
 are not as our ways, and whose thoughts are not as our 
 thoughts," whose purposes are hid from us in the midnight 
 of eternity, where roll the clouds of an appalling darkness, and 
 where mysterious thunders utter their voices. How, then, 
 can we, having left the Bible testimony — to examine in the 
 abstract what it is possible for God to do — how can we, 
 how dare any mortal say, that "If Christ were properly 
 guilty by imputation, he deserved to die ; and [that] his 
 death could have no more merit than that of any otbfcr 
 guilty being f 
 
 These objections of the New School, against the penal 
 nature of Christ's sufferings, are not scriptural, but philo- 
 sophical. And the philosophy is obviously false, because 
 it assumes what cannot be proved, and because it flatly 
 contradicts the analogical and the direct testimony of the 
 word of God. The innocent invariably suffered in the place 
 of the guilty under the law of Moses ; the whole proceed- 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 39 
 
 ing was upon legal principles ; and it is abundantly and 
 directly affirmed, that Christ suffered on legal principles. 
 The Son had power over his own life, and for the all-suffi- 
 cient reason which the Scriptures assign : He was God. 
 As such, he was not subject, necessarily, to those rules in 
 the regulation of his conduct, which must bind and govern 
 the creature. As a condition of nature would exempt angels 
 from the obligations which govern us in our domestic rela- 
 tions, so the Son of God is exempted, by his infinite deity, in 
 disposing of his own life, from the obligations imposed upon 
 all others. I understand our Lord to convey this idea, when 
 he says: " No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down 
 of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power 
 to take it again/' John x. 18. He frequently asserts his 
 absolute power and unbounded mastery over life and death. 
 k 'I am the first and the last ; I am he that liveth and was 
 dead ; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and have 
 the keys of hell and of death." Rev. i. 17, 18. 
 
 What is true of the Son, is equally true of the Father ; 
 and for the same reasons : He is God. This is the ultimate 
 ground of all obligation ; the ultimate reason given by him 
 for, all his commandments, and for all his wonderful and 
 mysterious dispensations. It is appended to all the cove- 
 nants, and throughout the old and new Testaments, is the 
 high and ultimate warrant for every rite and every institution. 
 God said unto Moses, say unto the Children of Israel, " Thus 
 saith the Lord." If his commission was challenged, he was 
 to prove its divinity by miracles ; but still to insist on this 
 one ultimate ground of obligation, submission and obedience : 
 u Thus saith the Lord." God, then, as the Governor of the 
 Universe, could do what no human government could, 
 because he had in reserve vast and incomprehensibly great 
 and glorious prerogatives ; prerogatives which he would 
 never give to another, and in the exercise of which he 
 accepted the obedience and death of his Son, voluntarily 
 
40 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 offered, and inflicted upon him the punishment due to the 
 sins of his people. It is, therefore, because he is God, and 
 not man, that we are not consumed. This is not only true 
 with respect to his compassion, but also with respect to those 
 inexhaustible resources in his own blessed nature, for its 
 constant and sufficient development and exercise. He is 
 God ; God in three persons ; God above all law ; and, there- 
 fore, able to obey it ; to satisfy its claims ; to inflict its curse ; 
 to deliver from it; and to shed unbounded glory on the 
 institution of his justice, while he justifies the trembling 
 believer in Jesus. 
 
 The right which a man might have to give up his own 
 life, in the place of that of his friend, in order to satisfy the 
 civil law; and the right which any earthly tribunal might 
 have to accept the substitution, are both highly questionable ; 
 because neither of the parties have any authority, other than 
 that which is derivative. That the proceeding might be 
 made perfectly clear and satisfactory, they would be required 
 to show that they possessed an original and underived right 
 to- act in the premises, or, at least, a warrant from God, the 
 original fountain of all law and justice. And as men, 
 respected as individuals, or as associated under conventional 
 laws, do not possess the one, and cannot produce the other, 
 so the right, by consent of parties, to substitute the innocent 
 for the guilty, in the inflictions of criminal justice, docs 
 not appear obvious. But, this cannot be true of the high 
 contracting parties in the sacrifice of atonement. Both 
 possessed a right, which was original and underived. The 
 infinite God is not to be circumscribed and chained within 
 narrow limits, as though he were a creature of yesterday. 
 Human laws, and the right to administer them, are grants, 
 adequate to the necessities of our present state, and limited 
 by the divine will; but the source of all justice is infinitely 
 free, and He hath done whatever pleased Him, and gives us 
 the highest possible reasons for his conduct, when he assures 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 41 
 
 us, that it " seemed good in his sight." As time is a point 
 thrown from the cycles of eternity, to be speedily absorbed 
 and lost in its source, so human governments are appointed 
 to answer their temporary end, and pass away, or be lost 
 in their source, that "God may be all in all*" Christ, then, 
 we maintain, was made a curse for us, and it was possible 
 for God to do what he in fact did, when he inflicted upon 
 him the punishment of our peace. Christ was the master 
 of life, and had an original and underrved power over his 
 own life, in a sense in which it could not be true of any 
 created intelligence. He had a right to lay it down in 
 blood, for the sins of his people, to the justice of the Father, 
 and to resume it again at his pleasure. This right he also 
 exercised, when he "made his soul an offering for sin." 
 
 The crucifixion of the Son of God is seen and felt by all, 
 to have been an event unparalleled in the records of martyr- 
 dom. And when its penal nature has been denied, the 
 demand for some other plausible explanation has been felt 
 to be imperious. Hence writers of this class have dwelt 
 largely on its moral influence. " He stood (says Mr. Barnes) 
 in the centre of the universe, the sun grew dark, and the 
 dead arose, and angels gazed upon the scene, and from his 
 cross an impression went abroad to the fartherest part of the 
 universe." Notes Gal. ii. 16. "We may very naturally 
 suppose that it was the design, or purpose of God, in saving 
 sinners, to make a deep aud grand impression on the uni- 
 verse." See Beman on Atonement, p. 42. The Unitarians 
 seek relief for their system in the same way. " The cross 
 (says Dr. Dewey) sets a darker stamp upon the malignity 
 of sin, than the table of the commandments ; and it demands 
 of us, in accents louder than Sinai's thunder, sympathetic 
 agonies to be freed from sin." Controversial Discourses, p. 
 82. The moral influence of the sufferings of Christ, on the 
 whole intelligent universe, we believe to be inconceivably 
 great and glorious, because they are seen and felt to be the 
 
42 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 righteous inflictions of legal justice. The angels, who kept 
 not their first estate, are "set forth for an example, suffering 
 the vengeance of eternal fire." Jude, vi. 7. The suffer- 
 ing is not just, because it is impressive, but impressive, 
 because it is just. And if Christ's sufferings, were not 
 merited by the sins of his people, which were set to his 
 account; if he did not suffer, "the just for the unjust; (1st 
 Peter, hi. 18.;) if he was not "bruised for our iniquities," 
 (Isa. lv. 5.,) then there could arise out of them no desirable 
 moral influence whatever. If God did not " make him to be 
 sin for us," (2d Cor. v. 21.,) how could his sufferings impress 
 us with the evil of sin 1 For " who ever perished, being 
 innocent]" Job, iv. 7. And what good could come of it, 
 if any ever had ; if such foul wrong had ever been perpe- 
 trated by the ever blessed God] Could it "please the Lord 
 to bruise him, and put his soul to grief," to administer the 
 cup of trembling in the garden, to smite the Shepherd, and 
 forsake him on the cross? when justice had no claims to 
 vindicate, the law no demands to satisfy 1 And could the 
 holy universe behold the fearful spectacle, without a thrill 
 of horror and despair 1 
 
 This attempted explanation is no explanation. It encum- 
 bers the system with additional dfflculties, and leaves its ad- 
 vocates to grapple with an objection which they can never 
 remove. The restraining moral influence of the death of 
 Christ is not with us its principle, but rather we would say, 
 its incidental end. Christ did far more than impress the 
 universe with the evil of sin. He did all " for man" or in 
 his place, that needed to be done " in things pertaining to 
 God," whose justice, was the great obstacle in the way 
 of salvation. The innocent need no substitute : no one to 
 represent them. Their communications with God are always 
 acceptable and direct. " I am Gabriel, that stand in the 
 presence of God," he stands there, without a mediator, be- 
 cause he is not an offender. But we are guilty; are his 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 43 
 
 banished ones, and can no longer act for ourselves, in those 
 high and holy things that respect the justice of God. Id this 
 great work, impossible to be done by a sinner or a creature, 
 the Son of God stands alone, in solitary greatness, sharing 
 his sacerdotal work and glory, with no other. All the sig- 
 nificancies of the priestly office were in the high priest. He 
 alone represented Christ, and went alone into the most holy 
 place to make atonement for sin. And Christ stood alone, 
 and of the people there was none with him. He went alone 
 into the mountain, to be tempted, " to distrust, devil-worship, 
 and self-murder." He was not supported in his agony in the 
 garden, by his disciples : they could not watch one hour. 
 He stood alone in Pilate's judgment hall, abandoned by all, 
 defended by none. He hung alone on the cross, derided by 
 thieves, and forsaken of God. He descended alone into the 
 grave, pursuing the last enemy and vanquishing him, single 
 handed, in his last and gloomy retreat. And if he has left any- 
 thing undone, that needed to have been done, that unfinished 
 work, *can be finished by no other. If he has not done «//, 
 the fate of his church, would be the same as though he had 
 done nothing. If then, among all the great things he has 
 accomplished, he has omitted to bear the penalty of the law, 
 if it never has been inflicted at all on him, its infliction must 
 inevitably fall upon his ruined people, and they must sink 
 to hell for " God will by no means clear the guilty." Exodus 
 xxxiv. 7. "He abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself." 
 2 Tim. ii. 13. But he has not omitted to bear it, neither has 
 the Father omitted to inflict it. for " It pleased the Lord to 
 bruise him." " Thou hast put him to grief." " He made his 
 soul an offering for sin." On these passages in the 53d of 
 Isaiah, Mr. Barnes has bestowed much learned labor, to no 
 good purpose. They mean more, than that Christ was deli- 
 vered up to outward providential sufferings; they represent 
 those sufferings, to have also proceeded from the Father in 
 direct and subjective inflictions. This, it is true, would prove 
 
44 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 them penal; and they were such. This, which is the com- 
 mon interpretation, and the manifest sense of the words of 
 the prophet, receives collateral support also, from the narra- 
 tive given of the wonderful event. His courage and fortitude, 
 his personal purity and peace of conscience, and every other 
 element of greatness and glory, that ever entered into the na- 
 ture or adorned the character of man, stood pre-eminent in 
 him, and placed him above all others. But when did ever 
 martyr, spend a night of gloom and despair and bloody agony, 
 comparable with that, in which Jesus was betrayed 1 Paul 
 sang at midnight, when his back was sore with stripes, and 
 his feet made fast in the stocks. He remained unmoved amid 
 bonds and afflictions, and was ready to be offered up, and 
 cheerful in the immediate prospect of a violent death. But 
 Christ was " sore amazed and being in agony, sweat as it 
 were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." It was 
 not the mere dread of whips and thorns, of treason and cru- 
 cifixion, that could have had power to baptize in blood, one 
 so truly great and good. There were other and higher causes 
 in operation, and to these he repeatedly refers. When the 
 bitter cup was pressed to his fevered lip, it w T as seen and ac- 
 knowledged by him to have been administered by the Fath- 
 er's hand ; and though he prayed that it might pass, yet he 
 submitted to him who would not suffer it to pass; for the cup 
 which his heavenly father gave him to drink, should he not 
 drink it 1 There are no out cries, when he is scourged, and 
 crowned with thorns, and nailed to the cross ; during this 
 entire period of intense bodily pain, "he opened not his 
 mouth." But when at length, it pleased the Lord again to 
 bruise him ; when God himself drew the sword, and again 
 directly smote the shepherd; then a loud and plaintive voice, 
 wails out mournfully from the cross: "Why hast thou for- 
 saken me ?" Mat. xxvii. 40. It is an expostulation not with 
 man but with God, and directs our attention to the source of 
 his woe, and helps to finish and explain, the mournful tragedy 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 45 
 
 recorded by the prophet Isaiah. May this bitter curse never 
 fall on us, for who can abide it ? Who can dwell in devouring 
 tire. Who can dwell with everlasting burnings? Isa. xxxiii. 14. 
 Inflicted on Christ, it could not last ; it approached his divin- 
 ity, and perished from the way. Inflicted on creatures, it 
 must last forever ; empty upon their devoted heads the vials 
 of its wrath: a wretchedness, concentrated and interminable. 
 ! how gloomy and hopeless that prison, in which it con- 
 fines the final enemies of God. The walls are never scaled, 
 the bolts are never drawn, the horrors never end. Who 
 then can abide it ] Fall somewhere, it must ; if you neglect 
 Christ and die in your sins; it will claim you for its prey, 
 drink up your spirits, soak like oil into your bones, and fill you 
 with an intense misery, like to that which sore amazed the 
 son of God, and pressed him to the ground, and moistened 
 the weeping turf w T ith his blood. It exhausted itself on him: 
 He was divine. It never will on the lost: They are crea- 
 tures. " Their worm dieth not, their fire is not quenched.*" 
 Mark ix. 44. Are you yet in your sins 1 escape to him at 
 once, for how shall we escape if we neglect so great sal- 
 vation. As a Saviour, he stands alone, and of the people 
 there are none with him ; there is no other eye to pity, no 
 other arm to save. Neglect him, and whatever else you 
 may do, to whomsoever else you may go, you cannot es- 
 cape ; you must bear the curse yourself. It is not sufficient 
 to regard him as a good man, as a suffering martyr, nor even 
 as divine. If his sufferings were but an expedient, or any 
 thing else whatever you may be pleased to make them, and 
 yet not the curse of the law, you err on the main point: and 
 as his satisfaction can benefit you only as it is accepted, it 
 cannot benefit you in respect of the curse, for that you be- 
 lieve was not endured by him. He cannot then save you from 
 it, and how can you escape ? Your error here is most fatal. 
 If you believe that God can safely and with honor give up the 
 curse, since Christ has suffered, though he did not suffer it, 
 
46 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 yet that faith cannot save you : God is true and just and 
 " cannot deny himself." 2. Timothy ii. 13. He will inflict 
 the curse. And if the Saviour has not borne, he cannot 
 bring you out from under it. It must in that event abide on 
 you forever. And can you abide it 1 O ! turn not away 
 from him who hung upon the tree, with this ruinous evasion 
 of his proffered grace. " He that believe th on the Son hath 
 everlasting life, but he that believeth not the Son, shall not 
 see life but the wrath of God abideth on him." John iii. 36. 
 Or can you have a heart thus to slight the grace of Him, who 
 in his infinite pity, took your place under the broken cove- 
 nant. An interest in this wonderful event is felt every where 
 else. Hell is moved from beneath and, devils cry, " we know 
 thee, who thou art ;"' angels bow from their bright princi- 
 palities, in the heavenly places and " desire to look into the 
 mysteries of his love ;" the vail of the temple is rent in 
 twain from top to bottom ; the earth quakes ; the dead 
 arise; the rocks cry out; and can you, you who are most of 
 all concerned — can you remain unmoved amid the awakened 
 sympathies of surrounding worlds ? Oh ! what is this which 
 has thus availed " to harden all within?' Is not such depra- 
 vity total ? Shall the scene on calvary affect the universe 
 and break the very heart of marble, and wilt thou shed no 
 tear, nor treat even with common decency the overtures of 
 grace 1 
 
 "I asked the heavens, — "What foe to God hath done i 
 
 This unexampled deed ? — The heavens exclaim, 
 
 " 'Twas man ! and we in horror, snatch'd the sun 
 
 From such a spectacle of guilt and shame." 
 I asked the sea ; — the sea in fury bojl'd, 
 
 And answcrd with his voice of storms, 'twas man ! 
 My waves in panic* at his crime recoil 'd, 
 
 Disclosed th' abyss, and from the centre ran. 
 I ask'd the. earth ; — the earth replied aghast, 
 
 " 'Twas man ! — and such strange pangs my bosom rent, 
 That still 1 groan and shudder at the past." 
 
 — To man, gay, smiling-, thoughtless man, I wen 6, 
 And asked him next : — He turn 'd a scornful eve, 
 Shook his proud head, and deigned me- no reply." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 Imputation — What intended by it — Denied by the New School — The doc- 
 trine defended — New School views of faith exposed and refuted. 
 
 The doctrine of Imputation, is distinctly taught in the word 
 of God. " To him that worketh not, but believeth on him 
 that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him, for 
 righteousness : even as David, also, describeth the blessed- 
 ness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness, 
 without works." Romans iv. 5, 6. In this passage God is 
 said to account a man legally just, who is not so in fact. — 
 He justifieth the ungodly. The term, justifieth, is forensic. 
 It relates to the judgment of a court, in the case of an accu- 
 sed person, who is pronounced just according to the law. 
 But in this instance the person justified, is confessedly un- 
 godly, he is counted to be in law, what he is not in fact, and 
 this by imputation. God imputes to him righteousness with- 
 out works. This righteousness is a reality. He does not 
 impute to him what does not exist. And if it does not exist 
 in the person justified, it must exist somewhere else. To 
 impute a nonentity is both absurd and impossible. This 
 righteousness was wrought out by the obedience of Jesus 
 Christ " By the obedience of one, shall many be made 
 righteous." Romans v. 19. The son "was made under 
 the law, to redeem them that were under the law." Gda- 
 tians iv. 4, 5. "He became obedient unto death." Phil. iL 8.. 
 
48 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 •• Fulfilled all righteousness/' Mat. iii. 15. " And is the end 
 of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." 
 Romans x. 4. This righteousness is called the righteousness 
 of God. ki Therein (in the gospel) is the righteousness of God 
 revealed," Romans i. 17 — not his " method, or plan," as Mr. 
 Barnes will have it, but his righteousness. It is called the 
 righteousness of God, because wrought out by God the Son, 
 brought- savingly to the knowledge of the believer by God the 
 Holy Ghost, and provided and imputed by God the Father. 
 In Romans v. 13, 14. sin is declared to have been in the 
 world, from Adam to Moses, a period of twenty Sve hun- 
 dred years, and death is represented to have reigned, even 
 over those who had not sinned after the similtude of Adams 
 transgression. He reared his gloomv throne and reigned, 
 in that remote antiquity amid the habitations of men, and 
 strewed the earth with bones. His war was on the race, 
 remorseless and exterminating; nor age, nor sex, escaped. 
 Even the helplessness of unoffending infancy, was no protec- 
 tion ; and as they had not sinned actually, violated no law T 
 known to them ; and, as sin is not imputed where there is no 
 law r , w T hy were they treated as sinners, and subjected to the 
 dreadful penalty of death 1 It was by imputation. It was 
 by the offence of one. That offence was adjudged to be the 
 offence of the race, and by it they were all, accounted guilty. 
 Thus in entailed estates, the heirs at law, w r ere all from gen- 
 eration to generation, disinherited by the rebellion of the 
 original colonist against the crown. It was his act at the 
 time when he committed the offence, which forfieited the 
 estate to his unborn descendants, because he w r as their legal 
 representative. By this one man's offence, many w r ere made 
 poor and they rebelled in him, and fell with him from the 
 favor of the king, not by their own subsequent acts of rebel- 
 lion, but by that of a distant progenitor. And in like manner 
 " the covenant being made with Adam, as a public person, 
 not for himself only, but also for his posterity, all mankind 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 49 
 
 descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, 
 and fell with him, in his first transgression." Shorter Cate- 
 chism, Question 10th. "In Adam all die ;" (1 Corinthians 
 xv. 22 ;) die by virtue of a federative, as well as by a natu- 
 ral relation, even also as Levi, long before he was born, paid 
 tithes in Abraham, and compromised the integrity of his 
 claim to supremacy in the priesthood, by an act of his illus- 
 trious ancestor five hundred years before Aaron was called 
 and consecrated, " for he was yet in the loins of his father, 
 Abraham, when Melchisedec met him." Hebrews vii. 10. 
 
 This doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin, illustrates 
 the parallel doctrine of the imputation of Christ's right- 
 eousness. " For as by one man's disobedience, many were 
 made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made 
 righteous." Romans v. 19. 
 
 As Adam was a public person, so Christ was a public 
 person. As Adam acted for others, so Christ acted' for 
 others. As Adam's disobedience was imputed to others, who 
 had not been personally disobedient, so Christ's obedience, 
 is imputed to those who have not personally obeyed. And as 
 the offence of one, adjudged the " many" to death, so the 
 obedience of one, adjudged the "many" to life. The truth, 
 wisdom and equity of that court, from whence this judg- 
 ment proceeds, cannot be questioned. "It is God that justi- 
 fieth." Romans viii. 33. We believe then that "justification, 
 is an act of God's free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our 
 sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only, for the 
 righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith 
 alone." See Shorter Catechism, Answer 33. 
 
 This doctrine of the Bible, and of our standards, has no 
 place in the new divinity. Among its opponents, Mr. Barnes 
 holds a conspicuous place, as a standard authority, and by 
 his Notes, in permanent and portable manuals, widely en- 
 dorsed and circulated among the New School, he is rapidly 
 forming the opinions and characters of the rising generation. 
 
 4 
 
50 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 He is far more guarded and prudent in expressing himself on 
 this point than some who are reported to have said " imputed 
 righteousness, is imputed nonsense." His high sense of 
 propriety, and his strong desire to render his works acceptable 
 to all, has led him to convey the same thought in less offen- 
 sive terms. His own language on this subject is, " A few 
 (expressions) that have given offence, have been changed, 
 because without abandoning any principle of doctrine or 
 interpretation, I could convey my ideas in language more 
 acceptable, and less fitted to produce offence * * * with a 
 desire to do all that can be done without abandoning princi- 
 ple, to promote peace and to silence the voice of alarm." 
 (Notes on Romans, 9th edition, note to first preface.) This 
 is amiable, but it does not prove that because the gentleman 
 has changed his manner that he has therefore changed his 
 sentiments, or that even he regards imputed righteousness as 
 any other than imputed nonsense. A few quotations, will 
 show that the latter impression is incorrect. " It is not that 
 his righteousness became ours. This is not true, and there 
 is no intelligible sense in which that can be understood." — 
 Notes, Romans i. 17. Here the denial is less abrupt, less 
 fitted to produce offence, than it might have been, but it is 
 equivalent to the very worst form in which it has ever 
 been made. Of our view, he says, "it is not true," and in 
 the place of the word " nonsense" he uses the sentence 
 " there is no intelligible sense in which that can be under- 
 stood." That is (if bluntly said) there is no sense in that 
 statement ; it is nonsense. Again, " to sin by imputation is 
 unintelligible and conveys no idea." Notes, Rom. xiii, 14. 
 Here he docs not say it is " nonsense" but that the statement 
 conveys no idea, i. e. it is void of sense, it is nonsense. Those 
 therefore who claim that he has changed or even modified 
 his views, or that he differs from the very worst enemies of 
 imputation, do him injustice. The difference is not in his 
 views, but in his style and manner. 
 
DIFFERExNCES ON IMPUTATION. 51 
 
 All the quotations which I make from Mr. Barnes, are 
 from the latest editions of his notes, and in these his language 
 is sufficiently strong and explicit, to be readily understood. In 
 the following statement, he defines his position, with an exact- 
 ness which defies misapprehension. " If he (Christ) was in 
 any proper sense guilty then he deserved to die and his death 
 could have no more merit than that of any other guilty being, 
 and if he was properly guilty, it would make no difference 
 in this respect whether it was by his own fault, or by impu- 
 tation." All other passages relating to imputation, are ex- 
 plained by him, in perfect accordance with these views. — 
 When it is affirmed that " what the law could not do, in that 
 it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in 
 the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in 
 the flesh ; that the righteousness of the law, might be fulfilled 
 in us." Rom. viii. 3. We understand the apostle to say, 
 that the fulfilling of the law. in our nature by the Son of 
 God is the fulfilling of the law in us ; and that " there is there- 
 fore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." 
 That "he who will by no means clear the guilty," (Exodus, 
 xxxiv. 7,) does not respect us as guilty. "He beholdeth 
 no iniquity in Jacob, and no perverseness in Israel." Num. 
 xxiii. 21. Yet Mr. Barnes, makes the fulfilling of the law's 
 righteousness, to be our obedience to its precepts. The ex- 
 pression, " fulfilled in us," signifies according to him, " that 
 we might be obedient, or comply with its demands." 
 
 The following statement is equally singular: "God sent 
 forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to re- 
 deem them that were under the law." " Made under the 
 law" as one of the human race, partaking of human nature, he 
 was subject to the law of God. As a man he was bound by 
 its requirements, and subject to its control." Gal. iv. 3, 4. He 
 however, who was sent forth was the Son of God, his son 
 prior to his incarnation, and equally his son after that event. 
 His human nature never was a person ; never had a personal 
 
 
52 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 existence, separate from his divine. His two natures were 
 from the first instance of susception, " indissolubly joined 
 together in one person." As a man, then, simply considered, 
 in his legal relations, and personal responsibilities, he never 
 existed ; but only as the Son, uniting the human and divine 
 natures in one person forever. His subjection to the law, 
 was voluntary, not necessary, not the inseparable condition 
 of his humanity : he was not under the law, but was made 
 under the law. Nor was he made under the law, because 
 he was made of a woman, but to redeem them that were 
 under the law." To the law he owed no obedience on his 
 own account. It was made for creatures; they were neces- 
 sarily bound by its requirements and subject to its control. 
 But the Son was not a creature. He was the Creator of the 
 ends of the earth. He was made under the law, to render 
 an obedience, that he did not owe as a natural obligation : 
 an obedience which the law (made for the finite) could not 
 demand from the infinite-; that he might restore that which 
 he took not away, work out a righteousness ; a righteous- 
 ness, which was not an essential quality, but a public treasure, 
 not essential to the son, respected simply as the son, but 
 external to him, or mediatorial, and therefore, capable of 
 imputation. Had he owed obedience to the law, as a man, 
 his obedience would have been no more than the measure 
 of his duty, as its natural subject, and imputation would 
 have been an impossibility. But his obedience did not alter 
 his moral character ; he was in this respect, as righteous 
 before that obedience was rendered by him, as afterward, 
 " the same, yesterday, to day, and forever." Heb. xiii. 8. 
 It was not required, by the necessities of his nature, but by 
 the necessities of his people, and was wrought out purely 
 for their benefit. If the Son had ceased to be God, when 
 he became man, then his being made under the law, would 
 have been the necessarv condition of his incarnation ; he 
 would have been placed there, not by choice, but by a 
 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 53 
 
 necessity of nature. But the Scriptures represent it to have 
 been not an act of duty, but of voluntary humiliation. — 
 " Being in the form of God he thought it not robbery to be 
 equal with God ; yet made himself of no reputation and took 
 upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness 
 of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled 
 himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of 
 the cross." Phil. ii. 6, 8. Here, his whole obedience, active 
 and passive, is included in the sum of his voluntary humili- 
 ation. If this obedience was demanded by a law of his nature, 
 it was his duty to render it, and his rendering it could not be 
 plead in evidence of his most wonderful condescension. What 
 he owed and paid on his own account, proved him a dutiful 
 subject, but not a condescending benefactor. The Son 
 moreover could not have been bound by the law, respected 
 as the son, otherwise he could not have been " made under 
 it," for on this supposition, he was already under it. If then 
 he remained divine, when he became human, his whole 
 obedience was a gratuity, — a condescension, — a humiliation. 
 The law had claims, claims which were infinite, claims which 
 none could satisfy in the circumstances in which man was 
 placed except God himself ; but they were upon his ruined 
 people, not naturally upon the Son, and he therefore took 
 their place under the violated covenant, " to restore that 
 which he took not away." Ps. lxix. 4. Moreover the obedience 
 of death, was confessedly not that which he could owe on 
 his own account ; that obedience the law could not demand 
 of the innocent, but only of the guilty, and as he had no sin 
 in himself, he deserved not to die ; this act of obedience the 
 law could not require of him ; in offering it, he was not subject 
 to its control ; he had perfect power over his own life; over 
 it the law had no legitimate power but by his own consent; 
 his obedience therefore, was not necessary but voluntary, 
 an instance of infinite condescension, and strictly vicarious. 
 Those beasts whose daily sacrifice bathed the sides of 
 
 
54 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 Mount Zion with the unceasing waste of life, were neither 
 the transgressors of the law, nor its natural subjects. And 
 in this as truly as in other respects, they were the shadows 
 of the heavenly Lamb, who was neither a sinner, nor a 
 natural subject. They were sacrificed by the law of a 
 typical imputation ; He by the law of a real one. Their 
 innocence was no obedience ; their death no satisfaction. 
 " Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith sac- 
 rifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou 
 prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou 
 hast had no pleasure. Then said I, lo I come in the volume 
 of thy book it is written of me to do thy will O God. (I come 
 of my own free will, to offer that obedieifte, in the place of my 
 people, which will take away every defect in them.) By the 
 which will, we are sanctified, through the offering of the body 
 of Jesus Christ, once for all." Heb. x. 5, 10. 
 
 Imputation, is not to me an unintelligible idea ; not a meta- 
 physical subtilty of the schools ; not the ever erring philoso- 
 phy of man concerning unrevealed mysteries, in providence 
 and redemption. It is as intelligible to me, as the assump- 
 tion of the debt of Onesimus by Paul ; I have but to change 
 the actors and the law; Christ assumes and pays the debt of 
 love and obedience I owe to God and his law, and bears the 
 penalty due to my offences. God accepts the substitute and 
 sets his righteousness to my account. This is not unintelli- 
 gible. It is plain to me,' and plain to all, even to those most 
 "unlettered in all that proceeds from halls and colleges." 
 It is to me and is to every believer a fact, not " the mere 
 philosophy of a fact ; of a fact that cannot be explained and 
 that admits of no explanation." The imputation of the sin of 
 Adam, and of the righteousness of Christ, are facts as clearly 
 revealed, as the offence of the one, and the obedience of the 
 other. If it is revealed as a fact that Adam offended, so it 
 is also that that offence belongs to the race in the judgment 
 of God. " The judgment was by one unto condemnation." 
 
+ 
 
 DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 55 
 
 Rom. v, 16. So also, if it is a revealed fact, that Christ 
 obeyed the law at all, it is also, that that obedience, is made 
 in the judgement of God, the obedience of his people. "He 
 is made of God, unto us righteousness." 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 
 Be not deceived by the clamor, raised concerning the 
 imputation of Adam's sin. The misrepresentations with 
 which it is assailed, should not divert your attention from 
 their effects upon another and a kindred question, viz: Upon t 
 the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. The eye that 
 mocks at the one, mocks at the other. The hand that rends 
 and scatters the first covenant, rends and scatters the second. 
 While it affects but to overturn a gloomy dogma of the 
 schools, it overturns both the altar, and the sacrifice of our 
 High Priest, " for as by one man's disobedience many were 
 made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made 
 righteous." Rom. v. 19. The principles are analogous, they 
 stand or fall together. Hold fast then the " form of sound 
 words," and consider the exceeding riches of that grace 
 exhibited by them. They contain no doctrine of a stinted 
 and impoverished Redeemer, who owed all for himself, and 
 could give nothing, because he had nothing to give. " For 
 it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." 
 Col. i. 19. " The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness 
 sake, he hath magnified the law and made it honorable." — 
 Isaiah xlii. 21. " There is an abundance of grace, and an 
 abundance of righteousness." Rom. v. 17. And if he has 
 enough and to spare, why is it absurd to believe that it is 
 imputed to his people; that out of his own ample sacerdotal 
 robe is made that " clean white linen which is the righteous- 
 ness of the saints V* Rev. xix. 8. The sum of his righteous- 
 ness is greater than that of all creatures. If all had proved 
 obedient, and for ever obedient, in heaven, earth, and hell, 
 the whole, gathered together, and regarded in its mightiest 
 aggregate, could never have equaled in value, and glory 
 and fullness, that single righteousness wrought out by the 
 
56 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 Son of God. The righteousness of creatures however great 
 still has its degrees, but that of the eternal Son has no degrees 
 it is and must be infinite. " His righteousness [is] as the 
 waves of the sea." Isaiah xlviii. 18. All the navies of the 
 world appear like specks upon the bosom of the sea. So the 
 righteousnesses of all creatures, in all worlds, are but dark 
 spots on the bosom of our Lord's righteousness. His righte- 
 ousness, is vast, like the sea, a sea whose healing and re- 
 freshing waters, fill immensity and eternity. Let us there- 
 fore " count all things but loss, that we may win Christ, and 
 be found in him, not having our own righteousness which is 
 of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ the" 
 righteousness which is of God by faith." Phil. iii. 8, 9. 
 
 Presbyterians, believe that "it is not the grace of faith, 
 nor any act thereof, which is imputed to us for our justifica- 
 tion;" (Larger Catechism Ans. 73,) " that justification is an 
 act of Gods free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, 
 and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the right- 
 eousness of Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith alone." 
 (Short Catechism, Ans 33.) But Mr. Barnes, in opposition 
 to this affirms that the act itself, is imputed to us for right- 
 eousness. On Romans iv. 3 : "It was counted unto him for 
 righteousness," he remarks, " It here evidently refers to the 
 act of believing. It does not refer to the righteousness of 
 another, of God or of the Messiah. Faith is always an act 
 of the mind, it is not a created essence which is placed within 
 the soul. It is not a substance created independently of the 
 soul and placed within it by Almighty power. It is not a 
 principle. For the expression, a principle of faith, is as 
 unmeaning as a principle of joy, or a principle of sorrow, or 
 a principle of remorse. God promises, man believes, and 
 this is the whole of it." * * * * " The word (impute) 
 is never used to denote imputing in the sense of transferring, 
 or of charging that on one which does not properly belong 
 to him. The same is the case in the New Testament. The 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 57 
 
 word occurs about forty times (See Schmiciius' Concor.) and 
 in a similar signification. No doctrine of transferring or of 
 setting over to man what does not properly belong to him, 
 be it sin or holiness, can be derived therefore from this word. 
 Whatever is meant by it here, it evidently is declared that 
 the act of believing is that which is intended both by Moses 
 and by Paul." And again on the 21st verse, "It was impu- 
 ted unto him for righteousness," he remarks: "He was tried 
 and he had such confidence in God that he showed that he 
 was supremely attached to him and would obey and serve 
 him. This was reckoned as a full proof of friendship, and 
 he was recognized and treated as righteous, i. e. as the friend 
 of God." And on Romans i, 17, " For therein is the righte- 
 ousness of God revealed from faith to faith," he remarks: 
 " It does not say that it is on legal principles." Hence Mr. 
 Barnes obviously teaches that faith is an act demonstrable 
 of love to God, and to which God is graciously pleased to 
 promise pardon, though it receives not, as indeed it cannot, the 
 " righteousness of God or of the Messiah." Mr. Finnev states 
 that " Jesus Christ was bound to obey the law for himself 
 and could no more perform works of supererogation or obey 
 on our account than any body else." * * * " Abraham's 
 faith was imputed to him for righteousness, because it was 
 itself an act of righteousness, and because it worked by love 
 and therefore produced holiness. Justifying faith is holiness, 
 so far as it goes, and produces holiness of heart and life, and is 
 imputed to the believer as holiness, not instead of holiness.'' 
 (See Lectures to professing Christians, pp. 215, 216.) From 
 this it will be seen at once that the opposition of many of the 
 New School, to Mr. Finney, cannot be because he differs 
 from them on this question. He may express himself with 
 less caution, with less of circumlocution and tergiversation, 
 and in a way more calculated to awaken " the voice of alarm," 
 but on this point he certainly teaches substantially what they 
 teach. 
 
58 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 When opposing sects hold some principle which is com- 
 mon to them all, their modes of explanation and defence are 
 usually similar. That the sufferings of Christ were in no 
 sense penal, is a principle received in common by the New 
 School and Unitarian divines ; and hence their views of jus- 
 tification strikingly resemble each other. " Faith (says Dr. 
 Dewey) is not some metaphysical and technical condition of 
 salvation. It is simply a Christian grace. It is essentially 
 a right heart. It is the old, the everlasting, the universal 
 condition of happiness and of God's favor here and hereafter 
 — a right heart. And this is prevailingly represented in the 
 New Testament as putting itself forth in the act, in the form 
 of faith. * * * * * It is opposed to a sense of merit 
 founded on the moral law. * * * * It is the method 
 of justification, or of acceptance with God. * * * # It 
 works by love, but it is opposed to a proud claim of God's 
 favor and of heaven set up on the ground of complete 
 obedience. * * # * * He (Paul) takes them on their 
 own favorite ground — justification: he takes up their very 
 word: he shows them that they cannot be justified in the 
 way they propose: he tells them that the only justification 
 possible is of another kind — a gratuitous one, being treated 
 as if just; and this through faith in the mercy of God." (See 
 Dr. Dewey's Controversial discourses, pp. 322, 323, 326.) 
 How striking the coincidence ! Faith (says Mr. Barnes) is 
 an act, demonstrable of love to God. It is a state of mind 
 to which God is graciously pleased to promise pardon. It 
 has no reference to the righteousness of another, of God, or 
 of the Messiah. God promises — man believes; and this is 
 the whole of it. It is (continues Mr. Finney) itself a right- 
 eousness. It is reckoned for just what it is. " It is (says Dr. 
 Dewey) the old, the everlasting, the universal condition of 
 happiness and God's favor here and hereafter — it is the 
 method of justification or of acceptance with God." It is 
 "God's plan of justifying men." Barnes' N. Rom. i. 17. 
 
\ 
 
 DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 59 
 
 If, then, faith, respected simply as an act of the mind, is 
 itself imputed to us for righteousness, then God has "denied 
 himself;" (2 Tim. ii. 13;) truth falls by his own hand, and 
 the reputation of his justice perishes forever. For, according 
 to this, the sufferings of Christ were not just; they were not 
 legal; they were not the penalty of sin; and hence impress 
 us, not with the evil of sin, but with the evil of innocence, 
 under the government of that God who cuts off the right- 
 eous in his righteousness, and reckons and treats the guilty 
 as though they were innocent, when it is well understood, 
 that the reckoning is thoroughly false, and the treatment, an 
 abandonment of his law, and a violation of his word. If 
 faith is at last the condition of salvation, without the 
 righteousness, it would have been far more creditable, also, 
 that it should have been the condition, without the sufferings 
 of the Messiah; for these were not the penalty of our sins: 
 they were not required by the justice of God. If they 
 were, then they were penal: but, as they were not penal, 
 justice did not require them; and there can be no assignable 
 justification for this unearthly murder. It is a shame to 
 speak of it as defensible on any ground, when it does not 
 comprehend in it the curse of our sins. Take this away, 
 this cause everywhere assigned in the Scriptures, as the 
 cause of the sufferings of Christ, and his death is taken, at 
 once, out from among all other instances of criminal violence, 
 and made to stand out alone, as the greatest outrage ever 
 perpetrated under any government. It was the unnecessary 
 expenditure of unforfeited happiness ; the criminal waste of 
 the innocent blood. If, then, faith, as it is an act, is made 
 the condition of salvation, with the sufferings of Christ, it 
 would have served that purpose far better without them; for 
 they serve only the more deeply to embarrass and disgrace 
 the whole transaction. It is surely shame sufficient, to 
 represent God as " denying himself," and abandoning his 
 law, after all the pledges he had given, that he would not 
 
 
60 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 do it, without adding the additional infamy of death, inflicted 
 by his own hand and providence, on the loveliest person in 
 the universe ; " That be far from thee, to do after this 
 manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the 
 righteous should be as the wicked. That be far from thee. 
 Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right 1 " Gen. xviii. 25. 
 If justice is dishonored — if the law is cast out, this is all- 
 sufficient, without adding more — without destroying every 
 other remaining lineament of moral beauty in the character 
 of the ever-blessed God. 
 
 We conclude, therefore, that the New School make void 
 the law of God, and make void the death of Christ ; for, if 
 he did not bear our sins, as he had no sins of his own, he 
 hung upon the tree to no good purpose, so far as we can 
 discover ; and it had been better that the sorrowful tragedy 
 had never been enacted. So that this error involves in 
 it several great enormities. It represents God as commit- 
 ting violence, both upon his justice and upon his Son, — as 
 weak, and fickle, and false; in making a law which he could 
 not maintain, in uttering curses which he is forced to 
 reverse, and in reckoning men to be righteous, when there 
 is no single respect in which that reckoning can be true. 
 
 But I have not done with this prolific error. It makes 
 punishment unnecessary to the proper vindication of the law: 
 punishment, according to it, is not required by the justice of 
 God. Those who escape its penalty are reckoned righteous 
 by a fiction. Justice has had no satisfaction, and requires 
 none ; for if it did, they would not have escaped without its 
 being rendered. Justice, moreover, having required no sat- 
 isfaction of the redeemed for their sins, does not necessarily 
 require it of any; for that which would make satisfaction 
 necessary for the sins of any, would make the same satisfac- 
 tion necessary for the sins of all. Justice cannot dispense 
 with a necessary quality; for that would be to destroy its 
 very nature. But it has dispensed with the penalty of 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 61 
 
 the law, and that without satisfaction, in the case of the 
 redeemed ; therefore, that penalty is not necessary to it : 
 it is not required by the justice of God to be inflicted on 
 any: and if inflicted at all, it is not demanded either by the 
 law of God or by the justice of his nature. And, if neither 
 law nor justice demand the infliction of the penalty, it will 
 never be inflicted on any. " Shall not the Judge of all the 
 earth do right 1 " So that, whichsoever way we turn, this 
 error meets us with an aspect every way dishonorable to 
 the character of God, and effectuallv and forever subverts 
 his moral government. 
 
 How can we, then, regard the matters which divide us as^ 
 in their own nature trifling; as questions in the mere philoso- 
 phy of religion; as no sufficient justifiable cause for division 
 and separation? Is it, then, of no account whether the 
 righteousness of Christ or our own state of mind is imputed 
 to us for a justifying righteousness] Is it of no moment to 
 us, whether faith has reference to the righteousness of God 
 or of the Messiah, or whether it has not ? whether justice is 
 treated as an attribute, and the law as an institution, or 
 whether their claims are set aside by an act of divine sove- 
 reignty; and "the whole legal system suspended to make 
 way for the operation of one of a different character]" (See 
 Beman on Atonement, p. 133.) No; it cannot be. The 
 principles involved in this controversy, are too sacred, and 
 too momentous, ever to be relinquished, while faith, as a 
 grain of mustard seed, lingers in the church, or a singles 
 throb of gratitude is felt among the redeemed. Who that 
 loves God, would not rather that heaven and earth should 
 pass away, than that one jot or tittle of the law should fail 1 
 Who could be pleased to see the eternal Son making com- 
 mon cause with rebels and conspirators against the law, and 
 employing his infinite power and skill, in not satisfying, but 
 in evading its claims ; banishing it from the fire and darkness 
 of Sinai — from the glory of heaven — from the face of the 
 
62 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 eternal throne, and sullying its fleecy robe of infinite purity, 
 with the sins of men unrequited. Who that delights " in 
 the law of God after the inward man," could be gratified 
 with "such a spectacle of guilt and shame]" 
 
 I am aware that Mr. Barnes and the New School divines 
 often express themselves in language inconsistent with these 
 views of their sentiments. But when Mr. Barnes uses 
 orthodox phrases, he takes occasion, with commendable 
 frankness, ultimately to explain himself, as not intending 
 thereby to contradict, or invalidate, or modify his opinions 
 or sentiments, but as intending thereby to " silence the voice 
 of alarm." A similar course was pursued by Arius and 
 Arminius. They softened their statements, and avowed 
 their belief in an orthodox creed, " to silence the voice of 
 alarm." Dr. Dewey, also, avows his belief in atonement, 
 satisfaction, propitiation, depravity, regeneration, and justi- 
 fication. " It was (says he) a bitter and a bloody propitia- 
 tion ; it was a death endured for us. Ah ! sinful being that 
 I am, that such an one should suffer for me ! It is I that 
 deserved to suffer : but God hath made him a propitiation 
 for mv sins. Could nothing else set forth before me the 
 curse of sin — no other hand bear the burden of my redemp- 
 tion]" Controversial Discourses, p. 99. The legitimate 
 inquiry, then, is, not what statements the New School have 
 made, or what forms of phraseology they sometimes use, 
 which appear inconsistent with the errors charged upon 
 them ; but what is finally the real explanation, which they 
 themselves furnish, of their own language. 
 
 Error is engraven on the face of truth. If it stood alone, 
 in its own naked deformity, it would at once circulate the 
 feeling of alarm. This is well understood by its advocates, 
 and hence indirection is commonly resorted to, to gain prose- 
 lytes. " By good words and fair speeches, they deceive 
 the hearts of the simple." Rom. xvi. 18. Prof. Stewart 
 is greatly annoyed at the course pursued by his former 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 63 
 
 pupil, Dr. Dewey, in this respect. He finds fault with his 
 saying one thing when he means another. " It merits [in 
 his view] the scorn of every upright and honest man." See 
 Dr. Dewey's Controversial Discourses, p. 54. Yet venera- 
 ble men, who set the example, and lead the w T ay, have the 
 greater sin. If the advocates of the new divinity, in oppos- 
 ing the old, may consistently say one thing and explain 
 themselves to mean another, then they should suffer Dr. 
 Dewey to remain in the unmolested enjoyment of the same 
 privilege, and to avail himself of all the advantages accruing 
 to his cause from chicanery and indirection in controversy. 
 But we have not so learned Christ. He is a God of integ- 
 rity, and has not called us to walk in cunning craftiness, and 
 to practice our arts on the unsuspecting. A system that 
 requires such a method of defense, is not from him ; and 
 those who have resorted to it, will find it anything but a 
 pleasing reminiscence upon a dying bed. 
 
 All that, then, which is said of the righteousness of God 
 revealed, in the gospel Rom. i. 19; of Christ as the Lord our 
 righteousness, Jer. xxiii. 6; of the believer's resolution to 
 make mention of his righteousness and of his only, Ps. lxxi. 
 16.; of Christ's being made of God unto us, righteousness, 
 1 Cor. i. 30; of winning Christ and being found in him, 
 not having our own righteousness, Phil. iii. 9; all that clear 
 and abundant testimony contained in the gospel, that the 
 righteousness of Christ is made ours in the judgment of God 
 and received by faith alone, is made to signify, a mere act 
 of our own minds. "This is the whole of it." "As this is 
 not a matter of law, as the law could not be said to demand 
 it, as it is on a different principle, and as the acceptance of 
 faith or of a believer cannot be a matter of merit or claim, 
 so justification is of grace or mere favor." See Mr. Barne's 
 Notes, Rom. iv. 3. Again, (Rom. iv.) in the same place : 
 " As the law did not demand this, and as faith was some- 
 thing different from the demand of the law, so- if a man 
 
64 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 were justified by that, it was on a principle altogether dif- 
 ferent from justification by works ; it was not by personal 
 merit ; it was not by complying with the law." Faith, then, 
 as it is a mere act of the mind, regarded alone and by itself, 
 separate from obedience to the law, and from the reception 
 of the " righteousness of God, or of the Messiah," is reck- 
 oned to us for a righteousness ; reckoned for precisely what 
 it is not, and what it cannot be, according to the reasonings 
 of this enemy of imputation. '• God (says he) reckons things 
 as thev are, and not falsely, and his imputations are all 
 according to truth." See Notes, Rom. v. 19.. But in this 
 instance the reckoning is false; the thing is reckoned as it 
 is not, and the imputation is not according to truth. It i3 
 wholly arbitrary, false, and without the least foundation in 
 truth, in law, or in justice. And yet, we are assured, that 
 "God does not esteem men to be different from what they 
 are." See Notes, Rom. i. 17. God reckons things as they 
 are, and not falsely, and his imputations are all according to 
 truth :" i. e.: the believer is reckoned to be just by a "plan," 
 by a "method," by an arbitrary determination, when he 
 is not so in fact. " It was not by personal merit ; it was not 
 by complying with the law ;" not by the " righteousness of 
 another." Indeed, the whole reckoning is both false and 
 farcical. In the language of Dr. Beman, " the whole legal 
 system is suspended." Justice is abandoned; the law is 
 civen up ; and truth and righteousness, in the salvation of 
 believers, are doomed to have no further share in the moral 
 government of God; of that God whose "imputations are 
 all according to truth." Oh ! how fraught with self-contra- 
 diction and pitiable imbecility, is this whole starvling imita- 
 tion of the gospel. It is a city broken down and without 
 wails; a kingdom full of darkness. On it, no radiance falls 
 from the sun of righteousness ; across its fearful solitudes, 
 no godly man can find his weary way. "It is a land of 
 droughts, and pits, and snares, and of the shadow of death." 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 05 
 
 The gospel itself is full of sweetness : "With honey out 
 of the rock have I satisfied thee." It presents to us no mere 
 act of arbitrary pardon. The atonement of Christ is a 
 finished work : it makes ample provision for the believer ; 
 and the definition given of it by the law-giver himself, shows 
 that it was composed of several parts, all of which went to 
 make up a complex act, called the Atonement. The high 
 priest, in the confession of the sins of the whole congregation, 
 laid them on the head of the scape-goat, and he was lead 
 away into a land uninhabited ; commonly thrown from a 
 precipice, that he might never return. This is the imputa- 
 tion of atonement. " The Lord did lay upon him the iniquity 
 of us all. Isa. liii. 6. The other goat was killed and sacri- 
 ficed on the altar. This was the sacrifice of atonement, and 
 represents the "offering of the body of Christ once for all;" 
 (Ileb. x. 10;) and the fires of justice, which kindled upon the 
 sacrifice, mounted up in the lifting up of smoke, and filled 
 the heavens with the frown of God, representing that dread- 
 fid frown which fell upon the forsaken Son, on the accursed 
 tree ; which wasted his soul and consumed his life, and which 
 filled heaven and earth with terrific darkness. The blood, 
 taken and sprinkled seven times before the throne, in the 
 innermost sanctuary, was the intercession of atonement, 
 and represented our High Priest in the heavens, before the 
 throne of God on high. "For Christ is not entered into the 
 holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the 
 true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence 
 of God for us;" (Heb. ix. 24;) and that "with his own 
 blood;" (Heb. ix. 12;) "ever living to make intercession for 
 us." Heb. vii. 25. The subsequent sprinkling of " all the 
 people and all the vessels of the ministry, (Heb. ix. 19, 20, 
 21,) was the reconciliation of atonement, and represents 
 "God, in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not 
 imputing their trespasses unto them." 2 Cor. v. 19. Not 
 any one of the several parts of this complex transaction, is 
 
 5 
 
66 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 the atonement, but all of them put together were necessary 
 to fulfill the meaning of the word, as used by the law-giver. 
 We turn, then, to Christ, as the world did to Joseph from 
 the reign of a universal famine, not only for some one of the 
 means of subsistence, but for all of them. They are to be 
 found, absolutely, none of them, any where else. If we 
 need righteousness, we come to him; faith — "it is the gift 
 of God; (Eph. ii. 8;) repentance and pardon — "he is exalted 
 * * to give repentance unto Israel, and the forgiveness of 
 sins;" (Acts v. 31 ;) indeed, "it pleased the Father that in 
 him should all fullness dwell, and out of his fullness have all 
 we received, and grace for grace." John i. 16. "Jesus 
 has received of the Father the promise of the spirit." Acts 
 ii. 33. "He giveth not the spirit by measure unto him." 
 John iii. 34. Every grace, therefore, which invests the 
 moral nature of his disciples, whatsoever things in their 
 characters is lovely and of good report, if there be any 
 virtue, any thing worth)?' of praise, it is wrought in them by 
 his spirit, and according to the ample provisions of the 
 atonement. We- turn, then, from the cold systems of phi- 
 losophers, to the more genial ones of the Prophets and 
 Apostles of the Lamb; from a world of chaos, to a world of 
 harmony and beauty — to the living melodies of Zion, to its 
 gorgeous heavens, its sun of righteousness, its softened 
 landscapes, and its milder skies; where youth is given to 
 age, and feet to the lame, and where decline and death 
 cannot abide. God in Christ can do that which is far more 
 desirable than to pronounce us just, falsely, than to save by 
 an arbitrary acquittal of the guilty ; can do better than thus 
 to break the pillars of his own throne, and cover its eternal 
 glories with sackcloth. He can do more, by the atonement, 
 than to acquit or pardon : " He can have compassion on the 
 ignorant, and on them that are out of the way." Hcb. v. 1, 2. 
 " Dunamenos" literally, He is able. The ability is acquired 
 by the atonement. .The compassion existed in his own 
 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 67 
 
 bosom, bat it could have no egress. It was a pent-up ocean 
 of pity, that sought a channel for its refreshing streams, that 
 they might moisten the rock and renovate the desert. Christ 
 opened that channel for the Father's pity, and his own. And 
 (" Metrwpqthein" Heb. v. 2,) he has the ability in the suf- 
 ficient measure, or without limit. It had limits in Moses ; 
 he could not carry the people across the wilderness, in a 
 bosom that could always put a perfect restraint upon its just 
 resentments. " Have I conceived all this people ] have I 
 begotten them, that thou shouldst say unto me, Carry them 
 in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, 
 unto the land which thou swearest unto thy fathers'? Whence 
 should I have flesh to give unto all this people 1 for they 
 weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh,, that we may eat. I 
 am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too 
 heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I 
 pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight ; 
 and let me not see my wretchedness." Num. xL 12, 13, 14 
 15. But Christ does "not fail ;' r he is never "discour- 
 aged;' 7 (Isa. xlii. 4;) his capacity to bear with his people is 
 always full and sufficient. The long-suffering of our Lord 
 is salvation, (2 Pet. iii. 15 r ) because it never gives way to 
 provocation. If it were the patience of a mere creature, it 
 would : but it is the patience of the Son. He " will in no 
 wise cast out" (John vi. 37.) those that come, those that 
 sin not against the remedy itself, by their unbelief. The 
 natural mother's place can never be supplied by a step- 
 mother. However great her conscientiousness and efforts, 
 nothing can supply the absent principle of maternal love. 
 Solomon, by appealing to this principle, distinguished the 
 true mother from the false. Christ is not defective in this 
 respect : the tie of consanguinity is established ; for, foras- 
 much as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he 
 likewise took part of the same. Heb. ii. 14. Not human; 
 nature^, under imputed guilt, as, a lineal descendant #f tbe? 
 
68 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 iirst Adam ; it was not by ordinary generation. It was the 
 nature created by the Holy Ghost, — not with its moral 
 infirmities ; for moral infirmities would he impossible to God 
 the Son ; but human nature, in its otherwise fallen state, — 
 "compassed with infirmity." With a delicate frame, our 
 Lord sat down in weariness and hunger, at the side of 
 Jacob's well, while his more robust disciples could go on 
 their way. He was susceptible of friendship, and loved the 
 amiable John. He was susceptible of painful impressions, 
 from the unkindness and cruelty, the falsehood aud treach- 
 ery of those who could practise on his confidence and abuse 
 the privilege of intimacy. His look, that broke the heart of 
 Peter, was that of injured love : and his complaint in David, 
 when he was betrayed by a false-hearted dependant, shows 
 how deeply his pure and holy soul was stung by that act of 
 baseness. " For it was not an enemy that reproached me ; 
 then I could have borne it : neither was it he that hated me 
 that did magnify himself against me ; then would I have hid 
 myself from him : but it was thou, a man, mine equal, my 
 guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel 
 together, and walked unto the house of God in company." 
 Ps. lv. 12, 13, 14. " Yea, mine own familiar friend, in 
 whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up 
 his heel against me." Ps. xli. 9. To be forty days without 
 food, amid the solitudes of a desert, to be tempted by the 
 devil, to be the houseless child of want, to be despised for 
 his poverty and rejected in his testimony, to be proved at 
 length, a malefactor by false witnesses, and to be hung in 
 ignominy on a tree. These were some of the evils which 
 he endured, and which show him "able to be touched with 
 a feeling of our infirmities." Hob. iv. 15. "Can a mother 
 forget her sucking child ? Yea, she may forget, [it is pos- 
 sible, some have done it,] yet will not I forget thee. I have 
 graven thee on the palms of my hands." Isa. xlix. 15, 16. 
 They were nailed to the cross for thv sins. I have 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 69 
 
 answered thy prayer: ''Set me a seal upon thy heart." 
 Sol's Song, viii. 6. It was done with the soldier's spear, 
 when its murderous point reached the fountains of salvation. 
 And can I forget] No, never! But " Metriopathein" not 
 only measures his ability to bear patiently, but to relieve, 
 actively and effectively, and in the greatest extremities of 
 unworthiness and peril. While the verb is in the passive 
 voice, it has an active signification. He sent his gospel first 
 to Jerusalem to be preached to his murderers. As they 
 were in the greatest danger, so they needed his pity most. 
 He laid hold on Saul of Tarsus, between Damascus and 
 Jerusalem. He snatched the dying thief from the very 
 gates of hell. Nothing could stand between him and the 
 objects of his love : the everlasting mountains would in an 
 instant be scattered. "All that the Father hath given to 
 me, shall come to me." John vi. 37. Is repentance neces- 
 sary to David? He sent repentance to him, and David 
 brought before him the " sacrifice of a broken and a contrite 
 heart." Does Peter need it] He sent it to him, and "he 
 went out and wept bitterly." " He is the surety of the 
 covenant;" (Heb. vii. 22;) he seals it with his blood, fulfills 
 all its conditions, and by his providence, and spirit, and 
 agency, carries out all its merciful provisions. He loses 
 not one among all that the Father gave him. " Behold I. 
 and the children that God hath given me." Heb. ii. 13. Not 
 one is missing, even among those most feeble or most 
 exposed amid the dangers of the way. " The bruised reed, 
 he did not break ; the smoking flax he did not quench." It 
 was a great and a difficult task, and it needed to be in the 
 hands of one who could bear and pity, and relieve, in an 
 infinite measure. His atonement, then, is composed of 
 several parts, all of which perfectly correspond with each 
 other, and secure and cover the same interests. Those whose 
 sins are borne away in the imputation of atonement are in- 
 cluded in its sacrifice, its intercession, and its reconciliation. 
 
10 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 The blood of Christ was not a mere appeal, to make a 
 great impression. It was " the blood of a covenant ;" (Heb. 
 xiii. 20;) a covenant established upon "better promises " than 
 one that could be broken. It secured the reconciliation: "It 
 put his laws in the heart ; it wrote them on the mind ; and it 
 conveyed an infallible mercy even to the unrighteousness of 
 his people." Heb. viii. 10, 12. It provided an High Priest who 
 " could have compassion on the ignorant and on them that 
 were out of the way," with a patience that could never be 
 provoked, and with a pity that could never grow weary of 
 its troublesome charge. Where a mother's love would fail — 
 all human kindness fail ; where both men and angels would 
 be discouraged ; in every possible extremity of weakness, 
 perverseness and guilt -among his ever erring disciples, he is 
 equal to his work, and will as assuredly accomplish the 
 reconciliation, as he has already the sacrifice of atonement. 
 He did not make salvation merely possible, but certain. He 
 does not merely open the way, but also the heart. There 
 is not only virtue in him for the helpless, but it goes out of 
 him, and their feet and ankle bones receive strength. His 
 atonement not only provides a possible pardon, but an active 
 and an efficient remedy. It is an ever welling tide, " the 
 streams whereof make glad the city of God." It removes 
 not only one obstacle, but every obstacle. It is as broad 
 and beautiful, and sufficient in every part of it, as it is in 
 any part of it. Nothing shall be wanting to complete its 
 glory, and to awaken the halleluiahs of ransomed millions. 
 " Unto Him that loved us, and that washed us from our sins 
 in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto 
 God and his Father, unto him be glory and dominion forever 
 and ever, Amen." 
 
 Faith can never turn away its eye from the perfect work of 
 Christ, to admire a mere act of arbitrary indemnity, that 
 falsifies every principle of truth, that suspends every tittle of 
 the law, and excludes every element of justice. It is not 
 
DIFFERENCES ON IMPUTATION. 71 
 
 Christ. It hath not flesh and bones as we see him have. It 
 is a fearful apparition, calculated to awaken horror, rather 
 than confidence. The conjurations of philosophy, not the 
 inspirations of heaven. It is at war with heaven, with its 
 " mercy and truth," with its " righteousness and peace." It 
 is at war with Zion; it takes away the sheaf from the hungry, 
 and causes her naked to lodge without clothing. To lean 
 upon it, is to lean upon a shadow that declineth, and to die in 
 its embrace, is to perish from the way. 
 
 " Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in thee : 
 Let the water and the blood, 
 From thy wounded side which flowed, 
 Be of sin the double cure ; 
 Cleanse me from its guilt and power." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 The Atonement — Its sufficiency — The New School limit it in its nature- 
 The differences respect its nature, not its extent. 
 
 It is usual for opposing parties to misunderstand, and to 
 misrepresent each other. Knowledge is limited, language 
 an imperfect medium of communicating our ideas, and hence 
 we are often called upon, to explain and vindicate our exact 
 opinions. When an error has been successfully impaled, its 
 advocates sometimes also lose their temper and assail our 
 characters. We are not however in such an event, required 
 to abandon the point at issue, to go out in our personal vin- 
 dication. The public will do us ample justice in the end, and 
 also the cause which we oppose, and which demands from 
 its advocates so malicious a defence. 
 
 In matters moreover of a private and personal nature, few, 
 will feel interested, while those which relate to our peculiar 
 religious opinions, are of general interest, affecting the hopes 
 and fears, the wants and woes which are common to all men. 
 These, it can seldom be inappropriate in the spirit of charity 
 to explain, discuss, and vindicate, and it often becomes a duty 
 to do it. " Let not your good be evil spoken of." 
 
 It has occurred to me that in closing these chapters 
 respecting the work of Christ, something ought to be said on 
 those points, in the atonement, in which our views as Presby- 
 terians are misrepresented, especially as in them, misrepre- 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 73 
 
 sentation, addresses itself to the popular prejudice, which it 
 awakens, to the iujury of the cause of truth and righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 We are said to believe that the atonement is limited in 
 its nature : it being sufficient for the salvation of the elect, 
 but if any more should believe or be included it would re- 
 quire additional sufferings on the part of Christ to save them. 
 " Those in general who hold the theological system which is 
 called generically Calvinistic, and who hold it perhaps with 
 equal decision and sincerity in common, though palpably not 
 with equal correctness in degree are divided here, some 
 holding the fullness of the atonement for all men. others the 
 limitation of its nature, as atonement to all the finally saved." 
 * * * u \y e therefore contend for the fullness of the 
 atonement." (Introduction to Beman on the Atonement by 
 Dr. Cox, p. 16.) " The whole question respecting limited 
 or general atonement is settled by the notions which we 
 entertain of its intrinsic nature. If the atonement consisted 
 in Christ's suffering the amount of misery due to all those 
 who will be saved ; if it were a transaction regulated by the 
 principles of commutative justice, then we might with pro- 
 priety talk of its being limited to the elect. In this case, the 
 sufferings of the mediator, must have been measured accor- 
 ding to the number of individuals who were to be saved. — 
 (Beman on Atonement p. 142.) 
 
 Such representations are common and the impression crea- 
 ted is injurious because it is false. # We do not believe that 
 the atonement is limited in its nature. Its limitation in this re- 
 spect is impossible and absurd. It has a limit. All men are 
 not included in it or saved by it ; but this limit is in the pur- 
 pose of God, not in the nature of the atonement ; that would 
 remain the same, whether the number of the saved, should 
 
 * Though the New School are fond of representing us as limiting the 
 Atonement in its nature, yet I am acquainted with no author who maintains 
 this view of the subject, but Ezra Stiles Ely, D. D. a member of the New 
 School General Assembly. 
 
74 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 be more or less. The same is true of the mercy of God — 
 it is infinite, because it is divine. It cannot be limited in its 
 nature, but still it has a limit beyond which it does not extend; 
 fallen angels and lost spirits are not included in it or saved by 
 it : the limit, however, is not in the intrinsic nature of the 
 divine mercy but in the determinations of the divine will. 
 
 The " worth and efficacy" of the atonement arises out of 
 the divinity of Christ, its adaptation from his humanity, and 
 its limitation from the terms of the covenant which it seals. 
 "It was requisite that the Mediator should be God, that he 
 might sustain and keep the human nature from sinking under 
 the infinite wrath of God and the power of death, give worth 
 and efficacy to his sufferings, obedience and intercession, and 
 to satisfy God's justice, procure his favor, purchase a peculiar 
 people, give his spirit to them, conquer all their enemies, and 
 bring them to everlasting salvation." "It was requisite 
 that the mediator should be man, that he might advance 
 our nature, perform obedience to the law, suffer and make 
 intercession for us in our nature, have a fellow feeling of our 
 infirmities, that we might receive the adoption of sons, and 
 have comfort and access, with boldness unto the throne of 
 grace." (Larger Catechism, Ans. 38, 39.) 
 
 Christ is God. This gives " worth and efficacy" to his 
 atonement ; its worth and efficacy are measured by his divin- 
 itv; no circumference can be found to it. Like the horizon 
 which we approach, it widens, and widens, and widens, for- 
 ever. Like the extreme points which terminate the distances 
 of the east and the west; their separation is immeasurable ; 
 ages which never begin and never end roll between. An ocean 
 which rests upon no bottom, is bounded by no shore. Such 
 is the atonement in its fullness. We are conversant with no 
 objects within the whole range of immensity and eternity, 
 excepting those which are absolutely infinite, which can give 
 us any adequate illustrations of its glorious sufficiency. 
 
 " Forasmuch also as the children were partakers of flesh 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 75 
 
 and blood, he likewise took part of the same," obeyed and 
 suffered, arose and ascended in our common nature; and 
 hence arises the adaptation of his atonement to all human 
 sinners. His human nature bears a common relation to all 
 who possess humanity. Hence the atonement in its suffi- 
 ciency and in its adaptation would require no alteration were 
 any imaginable number included in it. 
 
 This view of the subject is not a novelty among Presbyteri- 
 ans, an alternative to which we have been recently driven in 
 sheer self-defence. This will be seen by recurring to the 
 above quotation from the catechism in which the sufficiency 
 of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ, is referred to his Deity. 
 Calvin also held " that Christ suffered sufficiently for all men, 
 but efficiently for the elect alone." 
 
 " To the honor then of Jesus Christ our Mediator, God 
 and man, our all sufficient Redeemer, we affirm, that such 
 and so great was the dignity and worth of his death and blood 
 shedding, of so precious a value, of such an infinite fullness 
 and sufficiency was this oblation of himself, that it was every 
 way able and perfectly sufficient to redeem, justify, reconcile 
 and save, all the sinners in the world, and to satisfy the 
 justice of God for all the sins of all mankind, and to bring them 
 every one to everlasting glory. Now, this fullness and suffi- 
 ciency of the merit of the death of Christ, is a foundation 
 unto two things, viz : 
 
 The general publishing of the gospel unto all nations, with 
 the right that it hath to be preached to every creature, (Mat. 
 xx. 6. Mark xvi. 15.) Because the way of salvation which 
 it declares, is wide enough for all to walk in ; there is enough 
 in the remedy it brings to light, to heal all their diseases, to 
 deliver them from all their evils : if there were a thousand 
 worlds, the gospel of Christ might, upon this ground, be 
 preached to them all ; there being enough in it for the salva- 
 tion of them all, if so be, they will desire virtue from him by 
 touching him in faith, the only way to draw refreshment from 
 
76 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 this fountain of salvation. That the preachers of the gospel 
 in their particular congregations, being utterly unacquainted 
 with the purpose and secret counsel of God, being also for- 
 bidden to pry or search into it, (Deut. xxix. 29,) may from 
 hence, justifiably call upon every man to believe, with assur- 
 ance of salvation unto every one, in particular upon his so 
 doing." (Owen's Death of Death, p. 204.) 
 
 " The ground on which the universality of the gospel offer 
 proceeds, is the all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement. This 
 the universal gospel message supposes and affirms. It is not 
 said in the gospel, that Christ died with the intention that all 
 should be saved, but his atonement is a sufficient ground of 
 salvation to all, and that all who rest on this ground by faith 
 shall be saved. This is all that the gospel asserts ; and there 
 is nothing here but what is true, and fit to be made known 
 to all. Nor is any thing more requisite to vindicate the uni- 
 versality of the gospel offer from the charge of inconsistency 
 or insincerity. The atonement of Christ being sufficient 
 for all, possessing a glorious, infinite, all-sufficiency, it is with 
 propriety made known and offered to the acceptance of all. 
 There is, in this case, no natural impossibility in the salva- 
 tion of any man. The secret design of God, by which the 
 application is restricted, has no causal influence in producing 
 unbelief. The obstacles to salvation are all moral, that is to 
 say, are such only as arise from the native rebellion and hard- 
 ness of man's own heart. A sufficient ground of salvation 
 exists ; the appropriate means of salvation are provided ; and 
 of course, a proper foundation is laid for man's accountability, 
 so that, in rejecting salvation by Christ, he is absolutely with- 
 out excuse. 'He that believeth not shall be condemned.' ' 
 (Symington on the Atonement, pp. 199, 200.) 
 
 Thus from the days of Calvin, to the present day the same 
 view is taken of the sufficiency of the atonement. Dr. Jun- 
 kin, who has been represented in this region, as one of our 
 most ultra men, holds the following language on this point : 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 77 
 
 " I must also think, that the sufferings of Jesus have nothing 
 to do with the number of the finally saved. The penalty of 
 the law is the same, whether one or two, or a thousand per- 
 sons are concerned. Whether the Father gives ten millions 
 to his Son as the reward of his service — or ten million times 
 ten millions, the obedience and sufferings of Jesus are the 
 same. It was for him to meet the claims of law. But the 
 demand of law was obedience and death. This obedience to 
 the precept, and this meeting of the penalty is the same, 
 whether one man or the whole race are to be saved. I have, 
 therefore, no sympathy with the doctrine, that the sufferings 
 of Jesus must have been graduated according to the number 
 of the saved : so that if the number were increased, there 
 must be a pro rata, increase to his sufferings." (Junkin on 
 Justification, pp. 212, 243.) But it is quite unnecessary to 
 pursue these quotations farther. I have adverted to this 
 kind of testimony simply for the purpose of indicating suf- 
 ficiently our precise position on this question. 
 
 While, moreover, we believe in the fullness of the atone- 
 ment ; we also believe that it is definite : that its blood is 
 the blood of a covenant, and hence is called " the blood of 
 the everlasting covenant ;" that apart from that covenant 
 which it ratified and sealed the death of Christ would be 
 without significance or efficacy. It would be no atonement. 
 The covenant which the blood sealed is a part of the atone- 
 ment, entering into the very nature of the transaction. The 
 one is essential to the very existence of the other, because 
 they are the componant parts of a complex action. If they 
 are separated both are destroyed. Christ suffered in view r 
 of the promises which secured to him definitely " the travail 
 of his soul," and " this He shall fully and infallibly realize 
 and be satisfied." The covenant comprehends all that his 
 death purchased — his death comprehends all that the cove- 
 nant promised. The one exactly measures and defines the 
 other. 
 
78 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 Great errors often arise from small causes and a wrong 
 definition of the word atonement, may be one of the proxi- 
 mate causes of the prevalent errors on this subject. When 
 a term is used, and carefully defined by God himself, it is 
 always safest and most reverent, to adhere to that definition 
 in the use of it. If we will recur to the definition given to 
 the word atonement on the day of the great annual atone- 
 ment, we will at once discover that it consisted not in one, 
 but in may things, that it was not a single, but a complex 
 action. The laying of the sins of the whole congregation 
 on the head of the scape-goat was not the atonement, but the 
 imputation of the atonement. The sacrifice of the other 
 goat was not the atonement, but its sacrifice. The sprink- 
 ling of the blood seven times was not the atonement, but its 
 intercession. The subsequent sprinkling of all the people, 
 and of the place, and of all the vessels of the ministry, was 
 not the atonement, but its reconciliation ; not any one of 
 these symbolic actions constituted the atonement, but all of 
 them together. When atonement was made, it was not 
 completed until all its several parts were completed. It was 
 a complex action, all the several parts of which were fulfilled 
 by Jesus Christ, who was not many; but one; uniting in him- 
 self the scape-goat, and the goat for sacrifice, the altar, and 
 the Priest. 
 
 But the New School while they profess. to believe in the 
 fulness of the atonement, in its universality, that Christ 
 tasted death for every man, practice a deception upon them- 
 selves and others, by the terms which they employ and do 
 not really believe that Christ died for any man. Indeed, they 
 speak in the most depreciating style of his death, and finally 
 resolve it into a mere indemnity against future rebellion. 
 " Commutative justice was not satisfied by the atonement. 
 * * * Distributive justice was not satisfied by the 
 transaction. * * * The penalty of the law strictly 
 speaking, was not inflicted at alL • * * JM that the 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 79 
 
 atonement has effected for the sinner is to place him within 
 the reach of pardon. * * *' It merely prepared the 
 way for the proclamation of mercy, to rebels and the ex- 
 tension of actual pardon to every believer in Christ Jesus. 
 * # # But if the atonement merely rendered pardon 
 compatible with the glory of God and the public good, if it 
 did not require but merely permitted God to extend forgiv- 
 ness to sinners. * * * If the atonement consists not in 
 cancelling the demand for any man or for all men, but in 
 opening the door of hope in rendering the pardon of sin- 
 ners consistent with the character, law and universe of God, 
 then the question of extent is settled at once. * * * 
 The atonement does not of itself save a single soul. It 
 barely opens the door for the accomplishment of this object 
 by the free and sovereign grace of God." (Beman on 
 Atonement pp. 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 141, 142, 155.) 
 Here, in these few short quotations, there are at least 
 seven instances in which the language of depreciation is used 
 respecting the atonement ; and one instance in which it is 
 said that " in itself it does not save a single sow/," and in 
 another, that it does not cancel the demand even " for one 
 man,''' and in any event it merely does this and it barely 
 effects that ; so that the New School while they contend for 
 the extent of the atonement and profess to believe that 
 Christ died for every man, limit it to a mere nothing, and 
 deny in the progress of the controversy that he died for any 
 man. 
 
 Mr. Barnes also makes the atonement a very insignificant 
 matter. According to him the text in Rom. i. 17, does not 
 say that justification was on legal principles, and he labors 
 hard every where to show that we are not justified in this 
 way, because Christ did not obey for us, nor suffer penally 
 for us, that our sins were not imputed to him, nor is his 
 righteousness imputed to us, but we are justified by a plan 
 in which faith as it is an act of the mind and as it does not 
 
80 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 receive, and as indeed it cannot either the righteousness of 
 God or of the Messiah, is reckoned to us for righteousness. 
 All that the death of Christ effects, is to make this course 
 consistent and safe. 
 
 In his preface to Butler's Analogy, he vindicates what he 
 terms " the main principle of atonement," in the following 
 manner : " The toil of a father is the price by which a son 
 is saved from ignorance, depravity, want, or death; the tears 
 of a mother, and her long watchfulness save from the perils 
 of infancy and an early death. Friend aids friend by toil. 
 A parent foregoes rest for a child, and the patriot pours out 
 his blood on the altars of freedom, that others may enjoy the 
 blessings of liberty, that is, that others may not be doomed 
 to slavery, want, and death." 
 
 But the instances here named, do not vindicate any princi- 
 ple of the atonement, i. e. they do not distinguish it from 
 paternal love, humanity, friendship, patriotism, martyrdom, 
 and, therefore, the analogies are no analogies ; they do not 
 reach, strictly speaking, any principle peculiar to the atone- 
 ment ; they exhibit the toils and trials of paternal love, friend- 
 ship, patriotism, and this is all. In the atonement the inno- 
 cent suffers for the guilty on legal principles. Christ takes 
 the sinner's place under the broken law of offended heaven, 
 and bears its bitter curse and puts away sin, by the sacrifice 
 of himself; and as he redeems us from tha curse of the law, 
 so he suffers upon legal principles and any other sufferings 
 of parents, patriots, and martyrs, are not of the nature of 
 atonement; i. e. they are not sufferings inflicted by the law- 
 giver on the innocent for the sins of the 'guilty, and in accord- 
 ance with the principles of justice. 
 
 The principle of atonement vindicated by Mr. Barnes, is 
 strictly Unitarian. i: He certainly is mistaken when he 
 says that Unitarians deny all such substitution. We deny 
 the Calvinistic explanation of atonement or substitution. 
 We might reject the author's hypothesis, too, if we knew 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 81 
 
 what it was. But does it follow that we deny all substitu- 
 tion — on the contrary we especially hold to such substitu- 
 tion." (Dewey's Controversial Discourses pp. 13, 14, Note.) 
 And he is certainly mistaken likewise, if he thinks to pass oft' 
 on enlightened Presbyterians the self-denial of parents, 
 friends and patriots for the main principle of atonement — 
 to restrict the atonement in its main principle to a point so 
 insignificant not only limits but destroys it altogether. 
 
 Thus, then, the New School limit the atonement with re- 
 spect to the obedience of Christ, it was for himself ; with 
 respect to the death of Christ, it does not save a single soul; 
 it does not meet the penalty of the law ; it barely opens 
 the door to a possible pardon ; it is not on legal principles ; 
 its main principle is self-denial ; it is indeed, in every respect 
 limited and in almost every possible way made contemptible. 
 The true defenders, therefore, of an atonement limited in its 
 very nature, are to be sought for among the New School 
 themselves. They limit it effectually, because they take from 
 it every ingredient that could make it either sufficient or 
 efficacious. According to them, the death of Christ is suf- 
 ficient and efficacious in one respect and in one only ; it ren- 
 ders pardon consistent, permits its exercise, places it within 
 reach, and this is all. 
 
 But the death of Christ comprehends in it the entire re- 
 demption of his church. It is the vast foundation on which 
 it rests, the living source of its origin, progress and triumph. 
 We are chosen in him before the foundation of the world, 
 and he finished the work given him to do, removing every 
 obstacle out of the way of the salvation of his people, and 
 procuring for them eternal life; "for by one offering he hath 
 perfected forever, them that are sanctified." Heb. x. 14. — 
 All is now secured to him, all is now a joyful waiting for the 
 redemption of the purchased possession. It has been already 
 conveyed by promise, and secured by price. It remains only 
 
 to be redeemed by power. 
 
 6 
 
82 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 His obedience unto death makes him the Lord our righte- 
 ousness and delivers us from the curse of the law. His me- 
 diatorial throne and triumphs rest upon his mediatorial humi- 
 liation. Phil. ii. 9. The u purpose and grace" of effectual 
 calling are "given us in Christ Jesus." " The washing of 
 regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, are shed upon 
 us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord." " For our 
 sakes he sanctified himself," with " the blood of the cove- 
 nant" and offered himself without spot to God. The Father 
 also acted in a manner becoming himself as the first cause 
 and final end of all things, " in bringing many sons unto glory, 
 by making the captain of their salvation perfect through suf- 
 fering*" "It pleased the Father that in him shoiuld all full- 
 ness dwell." And thus his death instead of effecting barely 
 one thing, effects every thing. The New Testament is given 
 us in his blood. The sabbath commemorates his triumph 
 over death. The supper shows forth his death. The strength 
 of the law is broken, the sting of death destroyed and the 
 victory given us over every enemy and finally over the last, 
 " through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1. Cor. xv.. 57. Christ is 
 not in one way effective only, but in every way, " Christ is 
 all, and in all." When the passage is read " he was led as 
 a lamb to the slaughter," and the inquiry is made, of whom 
 speaketh the prophet this, of himself or of some other man? 
 we '•' begin at the same scripture and preach Jesus ;" we 
 hold him up to the understanding as the object of faith, and 
 the spirit begets him in the heart the hope of glory. The 
 sun shines to light his ransomed people on their way. The 
 rain falls and the earth yields her increase for their refresh- 
 ment. " The heathen are his inheritance and the uttermost 
 parts of the earth are his possession ; when they obstruct 
 the progress of his kingdom and it suits his will, he breaks 
 them with a rod of iron ; the strongest governments are 
 dashed as a potters vessel." Ps. ii. He shall come at length 
 m his. kingdom purchased by him on the cross,, sit upon the 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 83 
 
 throne of his glory, raise the dead, and judge the universe-. 
 To this throne and ^lorvhe was raised, because '*he humbled 
 himself and became obedient unto death even the death of 
 the cross." This was the price agreed upon in the covenant. 
 It was not to be silver or gold, these though the most durable 
 and valuable of metals, are comparatively corruptible things. 
 It was " the precious blood of Christ." This lifted the incum- 
 brance from the forfeited inheritance, overthrew the house 
 of bondage, broke the strength of the law and the head of 
 the dragon, and went forth in much assurance and in the Holy 
 Ghost and in power, to subdue the people under him, lifted 
 him up above the stars and made him as mediatory Lord over 
 thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers. In 
 a word, the death of Christ is the comprehensive and sole 
 efficiency in the work of redemption. 
 
 Thus, it is clearly an error, and one of no ordinary dimen- 
 sions to limit the atonement to the bare possibility and the 
 consistent exercise of pardon. " Christ is made of God unto 
 us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemp- 
 tion." " He is the author and finisher of faith." His atone- 
 ment procured the dispensation of the spirit and purchases 
 and conveys every blessing to the redeemed. It compre- 
 hends their calling and perseverance, thek faith and righte- 
 ousness, their resurrection and glory. 
 
 As it is the source of all good to the redeemed from the 
 original purpose in the Lamb slain from before- the foundation 
 of the world, down to the last drop of dew that falls to cool 
 the fevered lip of the weary pilgrim in his way, and upward 
 to every ray which he sheds among the stars forever and 
 ever: So it also comprehends every one among all the re- 
 deemed. It sroes backward to the fall and onward to the 
 end of the world. It opens its fountain in the house of David,, 
 for sin and uncleanness, but that sweet river which make& 
 glad the city of God, cannot be confined to Judea alms. — 
 It breaks over that narrow boundaxv and fkr$r& (MUJ, 
 
84 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 widening and widening until it reaches the utmost bounds 
 of the everlasting hills. " Rejoice, thou barren that barest 
 not, break forth and cry thou that travailest not, for the deso- 
 late hath many more children than she that hath an husband." 
 It was the cross that broke down the middle wall of par- 
 tition between Jew and Gentile, and slew the enmity. But 
 the barriers of earth and time are too narrow for its ultimate 
 range and mighty development. It breaks over them and 
 pours an ocean of blessedness around the Father's throne, 
 and upon the bosom of eternity. And as it is the living cen- 
 tre and source of all good to the redeemed, so its memorials 
 meet us every where. When we leave this world and 
 enter upon the heavenly state, by faith, we are permitted, 
 even here, to gaze upon those memorials amid the abundant 
 revelations which present them. There in the midst of the 
 throne, in the central point of dignity and glory, visible every 
 where, the grand object of wonder, love and praise is a lamb 
 as it had been slain, wearing the memorials of his sacrifice 
 and carrying every recollection back to the price of redemp- 
 tion. The melodies which are always sweetest and which 
 forever return upon the delighted ear, are gathered from the 
 garden and the cross. " Worthy is the Lamb, for he was 
 slain, and hath redeemed us to God by his blood." A 
 mighty host are seen advancing over the plains of Paradise, 
 with crowns on their heads and palms in their hands ; and in 
 in answer to the inquiry, '* Who are these arrayed in white 
 robes, and whence come they!" responsive choirs reply. 
 " These are they who have come up out of deep tribulation. 
 and have washed their robes and made them white in the 
 blood of the Lamb." There is there a pure river of the water 
 of life, clear as crystal, flowing and sparkling from the eternal 
 throne. We go back upon its source and trace it downward 
 to this world and backward along the track of centuries till 
 we reach again the garden and the cross ; here were opened 
 its healing fountains and from hence they flow and cheer and 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 85 
 
 refresh forever. Between the terrace walk and that river 
 on a plat of perrenial verdure stands there the tree of life. 
 The flaming sword of the cherubim who guarded it, that 
 waved forever there, and warned us back from its blessed 
 vicinity, was quenched in the blood of the Lamb. It awoke 
 against the shepherd and the man that was the fellow of the 
 Father's throne. It awoke to consume its fire and to smite 
 for the last time : henceforth that tree is forever accessible 
 to the redeemed : its leaves are for the healing of the nations. 
 There, too, all tears are wiped from all faces : the soft hand 
 extended in that act of availing pity, wears a scar ; it was 
 nailed to the cross for our sins. 
 
 And as its memorials meet us every where, so the inheri- 
 tance purchased by it, shall last forever. The kingdom of 
 providence extending over the angels who never sinned, is 
 not mediatorial, and, therefore, sheds and perpetuates its 
 blessings directly upon the innocent ; but the mediatorial 
 kingdom rests upon the sacrifice of Christ: "the government 
 shall be upon his shoulders." " I, saith he, bear up the pillars 
 of it." These pillars rest upon Mount Calvary, and are 
 strong to sustain his heritage, because they are moistened 
 forever with the sacrifice of life. Hence, this kingdom shall 
 never be destroyed. Because he lives, we shall live also ; 
 i. e. because he lives as the Lord of life, in virtue of his being 
 the master and the destroyer of death, when he vacated its 
 throne, and burst its cerements and terminated its gloomy 
 reign ; therefore we shall live also. On this foundation the 
 church rests. It is the sea of glass mingled with fire, on 
 which the ransomed are gathered. If it were taken away, 
 the church would be instantly destroyed ; but the angels 
 who never sinned would remain uninjured. They stand 
 upon the merits of their own obedience, the saints upon the 
 merits of Christ's obedience, and as he ever lives to make 
 intercession, so his kingdom can never be destroyed. War 
 and famine and pestilence may spread their ravages over 
 
86 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 •whole countries; and voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, 
 and great hail, may carry disaster every where, and fill whole 
 kingdoms with lamentation, and mourning, and woe ; yea, 
 the sun may forget to shine, the earth forget to roll, the 
 shock of death smite the centre of harmony and motion in 
 the planetary system, and shake down the stars, and bury 
 the material universe in the oblivious deep, from whence it 
 originated ; but no such disasters shall ever reach the king- 
 dom of the Messiah. It is the bright spot in the centre of 
 immensity and eternity, lifted up in striking contrast with the 
 ruin that has marred the bowers of Eden, the temple of 
 Zion, and the principalities in the heavenly places that kept 
 not their first estate. Over it no cloud ever gathers, no 
 thunder ever rolls; in it there is no more death, neither sorrow 
 nor crying for the former things are passed away. 
 
 Thus we collect our testimony from prophets and apostles, 
 from earth and heaven, against this restriction of the atone- 
 ment to the mere permit to exercise pardon on the ground 
 of divine sovereignty. This attenuated theory is not the 
 atonement. It does not lift up the shadow of its palm upon 
 the churches. It begins with spreading a robe over the 
 whole world and ends with drawing its wasted shreds 
 through the eye of a needle. This side of naked Unitarian- 
 ism, there is no system more bald and meagre, more strait- 
 ened and forbidding. Dr. Hodge characterizes it as " the 
 parings of our system." It is singular that it should ever 
 pass off for any thing more among Presbyterians. Yet still it 
 has passed for more ; for the gospel itself, and for the gospel 
 entire. It has s\s ept away the true theology and occupied 
 its place with a famine of the bread of life. Like the lean kine, 
 it has devoured the fat and well favored, and left us noth- 
 ing but its own shadowy and hunger-bitten carcass. 
 
 Can it be said, that the atonement "does not of itself save 
 a single soul V The statement is a libel on the sacerdotal 
 power and glory of him "who hath redeemed us to God by his 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 87 
 
 blood." Can it be said that "all the atonement has effected for 
 the sinner, is to place him within the reach of pardon." " It 
 perfects forever by one offering all them that are sanctified." 
 
 To say, that " commutative justice was not satisfied, that 
 the atonement paid no debt," is an error. Christ paid our debt 
 of active obedience by his own, " by the obedience of one 
 shall many be made righteous," bought us with his blood, 
 " redeemed us to God by his blood," and delivered us from 
 the debtor s poverty and from the debtor's prison. His blood 
 has an appreciable value. It is heaven's high currency, is 
 weighed in the balances of the sanctuary there, and its value 
 cannot be gainsayed or made void. Foul indeed, must be the 
 robe which has not been '-washed and made white in the 
 blood of the Lamb ;" and poor and naked and ruined, the 
 soul not invested with it. " Friend, how earnest thou in hither 
 not having on a wedding garment V 
 
 To say that distributive justice is not satisfied, is an error. 
 The atonement is both distributive and commutative. It is 
 distributed to every one that believeth. The death that Jesus 
 tasted was for every son. Faith appropriates him " as our 
 Lord Jesus Chrisl," "made sin for us" The atonement was 
 made for men, as individuals, and ends the demands of a law 
 which distributes to every man according to his works, by 
 distributing to him that very righteousness, demanded by the 
 law. There is therefore, now no condemnation to them 
 who are in Christ Jesus, for in him God hath condemned sin 
 in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be ful- 
 filled in us. Rom. 8. And as it is not made for some gen- 
 eral distant metaphysical purpose, lying without the bounds 
 of individual wants, and human sympathies, so all the saved 
 must share as individuals in the gracious distribution. The 
 ministerial commission authorizes us to say to each man, " he 
 that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall 
 be damned." 
 
 That "the penalty of the law, strictly speaking, was not 
 
88 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 inflicted at all," is also incorrect. " Christ hath redeemed us 
 from the curse of the law being made a curse for us." He 
 satisfied the moral and ceremonial law and every kind of jus- 
 tice. There is no ingredient which can possibly enter into the 
 nature of justice which he did not honor and satisfy. " The 
 Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake, he will mag- 
 nify the law and make it honorable." Isa. xlii. 21. 
 
 That the death of patriots and martyrs vindicates the main 
 principle of atonement, is also erroneous. There are analo- 
 gies, but they are found pre-eminently in the sacrifices of the 
 Levitical law ; under that law, the innocent and the guilty 
 changed places and responsibilities, but these analogies strictly 
 speaking, are not found in the whole history of friendship and 
 patriotism and paternal love. Here we find self-denial, but 
 self-denial is not " the main principle of atonement," or any 
 principle of it. True it is, that Christ denied himself and it is 
 equally so, that he was born and that he was crucified ; 
 and all this is likewise true of Peter, but was Peter crucified 
 for us, or did he carry out a single principle of the atonement 
 in his life or death 1 Surely not; he was a mere martyr. — 
 But God sent forth his Son made of a woman, and made 
 under the law, to redeem them that were under the law ; 
 and therefore the birth of Christ, the self-denial of his weary 
 life and the agonies of the garden and of the cross, were all 
 of the nature of atonement. If his humiliation had not been 
 on "legal principles," it would not have partaken at all of 
 the nature of atonement : he could not have redeemed us 
 from the curse of the law, except as he was placed under 
 it in our stead, and except, as his sufferings comprehended 
 in them the curse of our sins. Aside from this fact, no suffer- 
 ings of friends, patriots and martyrs can be said to partake 
 of the nature of atonement, in the least degree. Where the 
 law and justice of God are not somehow positively and truly 
 satisfied there is no atonement. Christ hath suffered on legal 
 principles, hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, be- 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 89 
 
 ing made a curse for us, and hath thereby exhibited and vin- 
 dicated the entire principle of atonement, so that through the 
 blood of the everlasting covenant we are made perfect to do 
 his will. I conclude, therefore, that men who attempt to 
 show -how little Christ has done, and who speak of his work 
 in the most depreciating manner, ought not to be regarded 
 as being the great and almost only advocates of a full and 
 sufficient propitiatory sacrifice. 
 
 That though, like the Unitarians, they attempt to hide 
 their weakness by multiplying the consequences of the 
 atonement in its fine impressions and grand results, yet so 
 long as they deny that it includes in it an actual satisfaction 
 to law and justice, and the actual and necessary redemption 
 of every heir of glory, and maintain that the atonement 
 cancels no demand, even for one man, nor saves a single 
 soul, they do not relieve their system from the full and 
 crushing weight of all the objections that fall upon it. 
 
 Great consequences grew out of the discovery of Moses 
 by Pharaoh's daughter ; and great consequences grew out 
 of the sale of Joseph into Egypt; and also out of the 
 treachery of Judas ; yea, all events reach onward forever. 
 As the motion of a finger vibrates along the whole atmos- 
 phere, so the most insignificant event may be felt far beyond 
 the stars. But we are to do in this matter with the great 
 and comprehensive fact of atonement, not alone with its 
 incidental results. Did Christ die for our sins according to 
 the Scriptures, and did he, by one offering, perfect forever 
 all them that are sanctified? Are believers really redeemed 
 from the curse of the law by Jesus Christ, or are they still 
 under it ? Is the law satisfied, or are its claims simply sus- 
 pended by an act of divine sovereignty? These are the 
 questions at issue ; and so long as the New School deny that 
 Christ obeyed unto death, as the legal representative of his 
 people, so long their system must be regarded as substantially 
 Unitarian. 
 
90 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 The atonement destroys no man. As the ark, which was 
 a type of it, was made to save, and drowned no one, so 
 Christ came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them ; 
 to seek and to save the lost. Let the sinner flee to him : his 
 sacrifice was not made to exclude, but to save men. It is 
 not a rule, but a remedy. If you are lost, it will be by your 
 own fault. This is their condemnation, that light is come 
 into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than 
 light, because their deeds are evil. 
 
 That the New School believe in the fullness of the atone- 
 ment, and that the Old School do not, is to me a most singu- 
 lar misrepresentation. It is a great mistake : it completely 
 changes the position of parties, and it is difficult to under- 
 stand how it could ever gain currency in the Churches. Yet 
 so it is : the very men who believe that Christ died sufh- 
 ciently for all men, and distributively and effectually for the 
 elect alone, are represented as denying the fullness of the 
 atonement. 
 
 While those who do not believe that the atonement has 
 any distributive relation whatever, or that "distributive 
 justice is satisfied at all by it;" "that it does not consist in 
 canceling the demand [even] for one man," or, "in itself 
 save a single soul," are represented as believing in the full- 
 ness of the atonement : that Christ died for all men. 
 
 It is highly probable, however, that the false impression 
 has been created by an improper use of terms in the contro- 
 versy. The word extent has been used instead of the word 
 indefinite. The latter term being the one which most exactly 
 describes the New School opinions. They do not extend 
 the atonement in its provisions, in the least degree beyond 
 the bare possibility of pardon. "It rendered it not improper 
 for the law-giver to pardon the transgressor." " It merely 
 prepared the way for the proclamation of mercy." "It 
 merely rendered pardon compatible." "It canceled no de- 
 mand for one man, or all men." " It does not in itself save a 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 91 
 
 single soul : it barely opens the door for the accomplishment 
 of this object." Here is the boundary line ; beyond this it does 
 not extend. It does not reach (to use the catch phrases of 
 the New Divinity) commutative or distributive justice, or the 
 penalty of the law, or an individual soul. Restricted by its 
 very nature, it is bound within narrow limits, by a law of 
 necessity. " Oh, ye Corinthians, ye are not straitened in us : 
 but ye are straitened in your own bowels." 
 
 " There is a third sense in which the term justice is fre- 
 quently used, and the consideration of which will lead us 
 directly to the nature of that satisfaction which Jesus Christ 
 has made for sinners. We mean what is commonly denom- 
 inated general or public justice. In order to distinguish it 
 both from pecuniary and legal justice, it has been called 
 moral justice. In this acceptation it has no direct reference 
 to law, but embraces those principles of virtue or benevo- 
 lence by which we are bound to govern our conduct, and by 
 which God himself governs the universe." (Beman on 
 Atonement, p. 132.) The satisfaction of Christ, according 
 to this account of it, propitiates general or public justice ; 
 not pecuniary or legal justice, but moral justice ; not a 
 justice that has any direct reference to law, but it embraces 
 the principles of virtue or general benevolence. Here, 
 then, we are brought to an abyss, without form and void, 
 where all correct distinctions are abandoned and confounded, 
 where justice is made benevolence, and the atonement its 
 manifestation, — where metaphysical fallacies gather their 
 mists, and all that is substantial in the satisfaction of Christ 
 vanishes into air. 
 
 The New School, then, do not extend the atonement : 
 they limit and destroy it. Their general justice, which their 
 atonement satisfies, has no existence, because no general 
 person exists to whom it can belong, or toward whom it 
 could be exercised. Justice is an attribute of God, every 
 way definite and infinite ; and the law is an institution which 
 
92 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 it creates and maintains, as it distributes to every man 
 according to his works. 
 
 We are not bound to govern our conduct by some indefi- 
 nite principles of benevolence, for there are no such prin- 
 ciples ; by the love of being in general, for there can be no 
 such being to love ; but by the law of God, from whose 
 terrific curse we are delivered by a life of faith. The whole 
 theory of disinterested benevolence, of general justice, and 
 the love of being in general, is mere theory : it has amused 
 and bewildered long enough. Its very friends begin to shun 
 it, as one that is " waxen poor, and fallen into decay." To 
 say that the Redeemer satisfied its claims, is to say that he 
 satisfied no claims whatever. It is not only to limit the 
 atonement to a most insignificant point, to take away all 
 that is full and definite and substantial in it, but to destroy it 
 altogether. 
 
 When, therefore, the discussion originates between us 
 and our opponents on the passage in Hebrews, " that he by 
 the grace of God should taste death for every man," (Heb. 
 ii. 9,) and on other similar passages, it is not a question as to 
 the fullness of the atonement, but as to its definiteness, which 
 is in debate. They contend for a meaning so universal as 
 to include the whole race numerically, to show that Christ 
 died as fully and as intentionally for Judas as for Paul ; that 
 his death relates as much to one man as to another ; and 
 that, therefore, it can have no definite relation to any man, 
 because that view would result in Universalism : and that 
 hence it was not a satisfaction " for one man or all men," 
 but rather a manifestation of the evil of sin, and an impres- 
 sion in favor of virtue, or a governmental expedient. 
 
 We, on the contrary, maintain that the death of Christ 
 was not a vague and indefinite transaction, but that it was 
 endured for individual men, — includes in it the proper pun- 
 ishment of their sins, and includes in it also their inevi- 
 table redemption. Hence, it is that the New School, in 
 
THE ATOxNEMENT. 93 
 
 contending for a general atonement, array themselves against 
 those passages which declare it to be personal, distributive 
 and efficient ; and we are found, on the contrary, defending 
 their plain and obvious meaning. " I lay down my life for 
 the sheep" Christ "loved the Church, and gave himself for 
 it;" was "made sin for us; was delivered for imr offences ;" 
 " redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a 
 curse for us;" "is the end of the law to every one that 
 that believeth." The Scriptures abound in passages of this 
 kind, in which Christ is represented to have died for men, for 
 us, for the Church; but I can find no passage in which it is 
 said that his atonement does not of itself save a single soul, 
 but that it barely opens a door to a possible pardon. That it 
 opens such a door, we do not doubt. But this is not all 
 which it effects ; and the Scriptures no where countenance 
 this restrictive and depreciating language to which the jNew 
 School are obliged to resort in self-defence. 
 
 They also array themselves against all those Scripture 
 testimonies which affirm that Christ suffered penally for us, 
 and that justification is on legal principles. The text, 
 "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
 made a curse for us," is a passage much in their way, 
 because it states what Christ did in particular, beyond the 
 bare opening of a door of hope in a general or indefinite way. 
 That over and above this, he suffered penally and definitely 
 for us, and that his sufferings were on legal principles, — 
 were the curse of the law, — were an actual, an effectual, a 
 completed redemption, — a redemption finished already by 
 promise and by price, — and hence placed in its blessed 
 results beyond the reach of every possible contingency. 
 This text, therefore, they assail and torture, "and serve it as 
 Saul of Tarsus did the early Christians ; they compel it to 
 blaspheme." And for the same reasons, the 53d chapter of 
 Isaiah is made a perfect auto dafe. Here a whole group of 
 witnesses are given over to the executioner. All the sacrifices 
 
94 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 of the law of Moses, — all the significancies of the priest- 
 hood, — all those passages in the 5th of Romans, on impu- 
 tation, and all elsewhere on justification, are alike doomed 
 by the inquisitors. 
 
 They array themselves also against all those numerous 
 passages elsewhere which represent Christ as a Redeemer. 
 and his blood as the price of redemption, by which he lifted 
 the encumbrance from the forfeited patrimony, and by virtue 
 of that full and sufficient price, puts every one of his impover- 
 ished kinsmen in full and final possession of their share in 
 the estate. The blood of Christ is represented as a currency 
 under the divine, as silver and gold are under the civil law. 
 We are redeemed not with corruptible things, as silver and 
 gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. But though 
 the passages are very numerous, both in the Old and New 
 Testaments, in which Christ the great Redeemer is repre- 
 sented as thus purchasing a possession, redeeming his peo- 
 ple, and as having already paid the full priee of their 
 redemption on the cross. Yet they must all be assailed in 
 like manner with the others, and it must be maintained 
 that " the atonement paid no debt, canceled no demand for 
 one man or all men," because, to admit it, would be to 
 admit that Christ's death and precious blood-shedding has 
 an inevitable efficiency in the salvation of his people ; that 
 it not only opened the door to pardon r but that it adminis- 
 ters it, and justifies the soul, and opens the heart to receive 
 Christ, and the grave to liberate the dead bodies of his 
 saints, and the gate of glory to his ransomed people. — 
 And as this would make too much of the atonement, so 
 it becomes necessary to show that " the atonement paid 
 no debt, canceled no. demand.' 1 That to maintain such 
 a view of the subject would be quite profane. " The august 
 business which involved the honor of the divine government, 
 the death of the Son of God, and the redemption of im- 
 mortal man, is degraded to. the level of a pecuniary transact- 
 
 
THE ATOMEMENT. 95 
 
 ion, is brought down to a mere matter of debt and credit. 
 The declaration ought to be repeated, and the truth con- 
 tained in it never forgotten, that commutative justice has 
 nothing to do with the affair." (Beman on Atonement, p. 
 129.) Thus they fall upon the witnesses and attempt to slay 
 them one by one. 
 
 But is it degrading to represent the atonement as paying 
 a debt, when the Holy Ghost leads the way in the represen- 
 tation. And why cannot justice have debts of one kind as 
 well as of another 1 if pecuniary claims are of the lower kind, 
 that does not prove that there are no higher claims, which are 
 as really demanded by justice to be liquidated as those claims 
 that fix simply upon our silver and gold. If a man sold into 
 slavery could be redeemed by gold, as the valuable consider- 
 ation under the Jewish law r so may we be redeemed from 
 bondage under the moral law, by the precious blood of Christ 
 which is the valuable consideration paid for our ransom. I 
 can see nothing degrading to God in this plain account given 
 in the Scriptures of our redemption. There are surely other 
 equivalents besides money. An eye may be taken for an eye, 
 and a tooth for a tooth, as truly as one dollar for another. 
 And there may be a debt for which no ransom short of blood 
 shall be received. Thou shak take no ransom for the mur- 
 derers life. For whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his 
 blood be shed. 
 
 Our lives were in this manner forfeited under the divine 
 law. The inquiry had been made by the prisoners, "where- 
 withal shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before 
 the high God, shall I come before him with burnt offerings, 
 with calves of a year old, will the Lord be pleased with thous- 
 ands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil! shall I give 
 my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for 
 the sin of my soull" Micah. vi. 7, 8. But alas the price of 
 redemption required by the law was greater than all these. 
 It was the blood of the Son of GocL No other could, deliver. 
 
96 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 could redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him, 
 no price less in value 'than this would suffice. 
 
 If the reader will carefully attend to the above passages 
 in the word of God, and to the views of the two parties res- 
 pecting their meaning, he will not fail to see that the nature 
 of the atonement is the real point in debate. If we say 
 Christ died to save men. They reply, he died to make sal- 
 vation possible. If we say, he suffered the punishment due 
 to our sins, they reply, he suffered no punishment at all. — 
 If we say, he bought us with his blood and paid the price of 
 our redemption ; this in their view degrades the atonement 
 to the level of a pecuniary transaction. Indeed, so soon as 
 we attempt to pass their open door — their bare possibility of 
 pardon views — and begin to represent the Son as shedding 
 forth the grace of effectual calling and final perseverance — 
 as distributing the clean white linen, which is the righteous- 
 ness of the saints; as purchasing and communicating a full and 
 certain redemption, we at once encounter our New School 
 brethren and find ourselves in the wide open field of debate 
 and controversy. According to them, the atonement has no 
 intrinsic efficiency whatever in our salvation. According to 
 us it comprehends in it every particular in the entire redemp- 
 tion of the Church. The one offering not only opens the 
 door but also perfects forever all them that are sanctified. 
 All for whom Christ shed his blood upon the cross as the 
 efficient price of their redemption shall in the dispensation of 
 the fullness of time, wash their robes and make them white 
 in the blood of the Lamb. None of them shall be found 
 among the damned ; no one in that dark world of horror 
 and despair, will ever claim that he was redeemed to God by 
 the blood of Christ. His people shall never perish. Go, at 
 the final consummation of all things into heaven, take up the 
 book of life and read aloud every name which was contained 
 on that vast muster roll of the Kins: of Kin^s, " ere sin was 
 born, or Adam's dust was fashioned to a man," and none of 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 97 
 
 his redeemed shall fail to respond, He calleth his own sheep 
 by name, he knoweth them that are his ; he shall see the 
 travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied ; by his knowledge 
 shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear 
 their iniquity." 
 
 The death of Christ comprehends in it absolutely all the 
 redeemed, whether believers or not, whether already brought 
 or of those he must yet bring, John x. 16 ; whether the much 
 people he has in the city are already penitent or are still his 
 enemies, Acts xviii. 10 ; whether already believers or of 
 those who shall believe through the preached word. He 
 hath loved them all with an everlasting love. John xvii. 20. 
 The relationship has already been begun, by the susception 
 on the part of the redeemer, of the flesh and blood of the 
 children, with the full purpose of consumating the union thus 
 established, by the inhabitation of his spirit, by imputing to 
 them his righteousness, and by imparting to them his holiness; 
 so that each one shall personally know the blessedness of that 
 man, whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 
 Not that the atonement, because thus distributed is there- 
 fore divided into parts, so much being appropriated to one, 
 and so much to another, but each one needs a full atonement 
 for himself, and has it all, and leaves it all to every other to 
 be forever appropriated, and for ever used, and to remain 
 forever undiminished and unchanged. As the light of day 
 is appropriated by all, and remains to all the same, so Christ 
 fills his own blessed kingdom, with his own " gracious full- 
 ness, to be appropriated by each, and to remain all, to all. with- 
 out consumption and without end. 
 
 Our differences with the New School are not then as to 
 the extent, but as to the fullness and definiteness of the atone- 
 ment as a comprehensive and effective covenant transaction, 
 we affirming, they denying, we making it a full redemption 
 to God of all his people — they denying " that of itself it saves 
 a single soul," — we extending it to every particular in our 
 
98 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 redemption — they restricting it to a solitary point — we mak- 
 ing it definite and personal respecting every one of the ran- 
 somed — they denying its personal relation to any man. 
 
 When therefore they contend that the atonement is indefi- 
 nitely extended, we must understand them to mean that it is 
 restricted to a definite and single point. When they contend 
 that Christ died for every man, we must understand them to 
 mean that he did not die for any man ; when they maintain 
 that Christ shed the blood of redemption for souls in hell, as 
 well as souls in heaven ; we are to understand that they 
 intend to say hereby that his blood canceled no demand and 
 saves no soul in heaven, earth or hell ; that it is the surety of 
 no covenant, but that our Lord died to satisfy the claims of 
 a mental abstraction, called general justice. 
 
 This general justice is not the justice of God ; for his jus- 
 tice is not general but a personal attribute inseparable from 
 his very nature, and definite in its action rendering to every 
 man according to his works. '"-General justice moreover 
 has no direct reference to law," for legal justice is likewise 
 personal. It takes hold upon the individual man for his per- 
 sonal delinquencies, saying, " pay me that thou owest." It 
 curses " every one" that " continueth not in all things which 
 are written in the book of the law to do them." Christ there- 
 fore, according the to New School, died to satisfy a justice 
 which is not the justice of God, or the justice of his law. 
 
 To what being this public or general justice belongs, or 
 whether to any being whatever, we are not told, as it is a 
 very mysterious thing, living, in general every where, but 
 gaining individuality no where ; being neither an attribute of 
 God, or of any other being, or belonging to any known law 
 human or divine, so like all mysterious things, it is described 
 by negatives. It is not commutative justice, nor distributive, 
 it is not the justice of the law, it has no direct reference to 
 that ; it is general or public justice, i. e. it embraces those 
 general principles of virtue or benevolence by which we are 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 99> 
 
 bound to regulate our conduct, and by which God governs 
 the universe." We are bound to regulate our conduct by 
 the law of God ; as it is written, " Do we make void the 
 law through faith 1 God forbid, yea we establish the law." 
 This we can understand, but we are assured that this general 
 justice has no direct reference to law. It is something else 
 distinct from every thing which exists in God, in his law, or 
 in his creatures, and this mere mental abstraction of which 
 we can gain no notion and of which no one ever yet had a 
 distinct idea, this is that personified nonentity which Christ 
 died to satisfy : and when a general atonement is contended 
 for, this is what we are to understand by it, viz : That it is 
 indefinite with respect to the justice which it satisfies, for 
 that is so indefinite, no one can tell us what it is, indefinite. 
 with respect to men, it has no relation to any man, indefinite, 
 with respect to its results, it secures nothing, saves no soul, 
 opens an indefinite door of hope, — throws out an indefinite 
 possibility of pardon and awakens an indefinite feeling of stu- 
 pid wonder in all who hear of it. This is that unsubstantial, 
 unscriptural view of the atonement against which we do most 
 solemnly bear our testimony. 
 
 There are three views taken of the death of Christ, and 
 these in reality comprise all others. 
 
 1. The Calvinistic : That Christ died sufficiently for 
 all men, efficiently for the elect alone. 
 
 2^ The Universalist : That He died sufficiently and 
 efficiently for all men. 
 
 3. The Unitarian: Which denies either sufficiency or 
 efficiency to the death of Christ, and to this latter belong the 
 New School views of the subject. In common with the 
 Unitarians, they deny that Christ's obedience was vicarious, 
 that his sufferings were penal, or that his death has in itself 
 any efficiency in the matter of our redemption, and they 
 maintain that man is not justified "by the righteousness of 
 another., of God, or the Messiah," but by faith which is simply/ 
 
100 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 an act of the mind " or a right heart," ' Here are all the 
 elements essential to Unitarianism but one, that one relates 
 to the doctrine of the Trinity, in every other essential par- 
 ticular, the two systems are strictly coincident and truly 
 identical. 
 
 In these circumstances the controversy between Old and 
 New School Presbyterians respecting the extent of the atone- 
 ment is quite absurd. It would arise legitimately enough 
 between us and the Universalists, whether such passages as 
 state that Jesus " tasted death for every man," that " he is 
 the propitiation for our sins and not for our ours only but 
 for the sins of the whole world," that " he gave himself a 
 ransom for all to be testified in due time," relate to a uni- 
 versal redemption of the human race, or whether they fairly 
 admit of a different interpretation, but as between us and the 
 New School, there can be no ground for debate respecting 
 the extent of the atonement, our differences with them re- 
 spect not its extent at all, but its nature and reality. Even 
 our controversy with the old fashioned Hopkinsians, who 
 hold a general atonement and a particular redemption, does 
 not, strictly speaking, relate to the extent of the atonement, 
 or to the fullness and sufficiency of the death of Christ as an 
 effective purchase, but to the correctness of the distinction 
 which they take between atonement and redemption. Our 
 differences with all, then, on the atonement, except with the 
 Universalists must relate not to its extent, but to its nature 
 and reality. All, with this exception, limit the atonement in 
 its saving benefits, to a part of the human race, as truly as we 
 ourselves do, and hence I regard the time spent in discussing 
 the question on the extent of the atonement with New School 
 Presbyterians as time wasted on a false issue. We are called 
 upon in this discussion, to defend the very doctrine of atone- 
 ment itself, for this it is, which is assailed in its essential 
 nature and its very existence wholly destroyed by the new 
 divinity. 
 
 
THE ATONEMENT, 101 
 
 But if Christ died sufficiently for all men and efficiently for 
 the elect alone, would not the nonelect believe a lie were 
 they to believe that Christ died to save them ] How then 
 can you consistently call upon all men to believe on Christ 1 
 The reply is obvious. The first act of faith has respect to 
 the sufficiency of the atonement to save the chief of sinners 
 and whoever finds himself to be such is required to believe on 
 Christ as the only Saviour of the ruined and the lost. This 
 Christ Jesus truly is, the only and the all sufficient Saviour for 
 the cheif of sinners : and no lost sinner filled with remorse and 
 fear, and fleeing to Christ, could possibly believe a lie, were 
 he to believe it with his whole heart. This belief moreover 
 is of the nature of saving faith, the earliest exercise of this 
 grace, and is the very thing required of the awakened and 
 convinced sinner. Grace is always feeble in its beginings, 
 " the bruised reed," " the smoking flax," the faintly defined 
 parting line between daylight and darkness, are the inspired 
 illustrations of its primary actings in the human heart. But 
 when Christ shall have first been received, by one who thus 
 esteems himself the chief of sinners, as the only and all suffi- 
 cient Saviour of such, then after that he can rise to higher 
 acts of faith, and at length attain unto its full assurance. 
 
 The argument of poor Joseph as related by Dr. Calamy, 
 was the incipient demonstration of faith in its first struggles 
 into life. Jesus Christ came to save the chief of sinners ; 
 poor Joseph is the chief of sinners, therefore Jesus Christ came 
 to save poor Joseph. " But what say you of your own heart, 
 Joseph] Is there no token of good about it? No saving 
 change there 1 Have you closed with Christ, by acting faith 
 upon him V* " Ah no," says he, " Joseph can act nothing — 
 Joseph has nothing to say for himself, but that he is the chief 
 of sinners ; yet, seeing that it is a 'faithful saying' that Jesus 
 he who made all things, came into the world to save sinners, 
 why may not Joseph, after all, be saved V 9 
 
 The change required in order to our salvation is not in the 
 
 #''* 
 
102 OLD AND SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 nature of the atonement but in us. If by the spirit of God, 
 we are led to renounce our own righteousness, and from a 
 full and penitent conviction of our sin and misery, do trust in 
 Christ alone for salvation, we shall be saved, whoever we 
 maybe, and whatever our guilt. " Whosoever shall call 
 on the name of the Lord shall be saved." " Though your 
 sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool ; red like crimson, 
 they shall be as snow." Whoever, then, in the whole 
 world, who possesses our common humanity, and perceives 
 his guilt to be great, his depravity total, and that he must 
 perish, without Christ, let him believe on him without hesi- 
 tation ; for such an one has all the qualifications of the pub- 
 lican, and him our Lord holds up for our imitation. Go, 
 then, having these prerequisites, go into the presence of 
 the Master, and smite upon your breast. We preach Christ 
 crucified, " to the Jews, a stumbling-block ; to the Greeks, 
 foolishness, but to every one that believeth, the power of 
 God and the wisdom of God." We venture on him as an 
 all-sufficient Saviour. If all the sins of all men were our 
 own, it would not weaken our confidence in his infinite 
 ability, or if we had ten thousands souls to save, we should 
 want no other arm to save than his who hung upon the tree. 
 Were the load of our guilt heavier than the whole universe 
 of material things, it would not break the grasp of his pity, 
 or pluck us from the hand of his mediatorial power and 
 grace. 
 
 But again : It is objected, that we are inconsistent, in 
 making an indiscriminate offer of salvation to all men, foras- 
 much as we believe that the atonement is so perfectly 
 discriminating, personal and definite. And to this we reply, 
 that we never make an offer of salvation wholly indiscrim- 
 inate. It is indiscriminate and indefinite with respect to the 
 nations, communities and individuals addressed ; but it is in- 
 variably and sufficiently discriminating in the very terms in 
 which the offer is conveyed: "He that believeth shall be 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 103 
 
 saved." The offer is here limited by the faith which it re- 
 quires. u Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
 every one that believeth." Here again the terms are definite. 
 " Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be sa- 
 ved." Here also the terms of the offer define and limit it. 
 The offers of salvation are never made to men respected 
 simply as unbelievers, or as those who shall remain such, but 
 invariably have respect to the grace of faith, which they sup- 
 pose or require ; and they are in no instances made to any 
 man, without this accompanying limitation, either expressed 
 or implied. Believe, then, on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 thou shalt be saved. 
 
 But how can the New School make the offer of salvation 
 to any man, since, according to them, he did not die for any 
 man, but for some other purpose. If a man should believe 
 that Christ died for the chief of sinners, and, therefore, for 
 him, and that, because he finds himself to be the chief of 
 sinners, would he not, then, believe a lie, since Christ did 
 not die for any sinner, as such? Would he not believe a 
 lie, were he to believe that Christ redeemed him from the 
 curse of the law? since, "though a thousand substitutes 
 should die," the claims of the law could never be invalidated ; 
 and since, as Christ did not bear the curse of the law, so he 
 could bring no one out from under it 1 If the sinner were 
 to receive Christ as the end of the law for righteousness 
 to every one that believeth, would he not receive an impos- 
 ter to his arms ; inasmuch "as the sufferings of Christ have 
 no direct reference to law, but to those general principles of 
 virtue or benevolence," which are the attributes of no being, 
 and belong to no law, human or divine 1 
 
 How, then, can the New School, with the least show of 
 consistency or propriety, offer the atonement distributively 
 to every man, since distributive justice is not satisfied by it, 
 and since it was not made for man as an individual, and 
 since it is not true, that Christ tasted death "for one man, 
 
1Q4 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 or all men ?" There can be no truth in the offer ; for he 
 offers to a sinner an atonement not made for him. There 
 can be no sincerity in the offer ; for he knows, when he 
 makes it, that the atonement was made for something he 
 calls general justice, and not for the sinner. There can 
 be no use in the offer; for he offers (when he comes to 
 explain himself,) really nothing. The sinner is not under 
 general justice, — has not offended general justice, and seeks 
 no deliverance from this personified nonentity. He is under 
 the law of God. This law he has broken : from its curse, 
 he would be freed ; and, if the New School atonement has 
 no direct reference to this law, then the convinced sinner 
 can have no direct interest in hearing any thing about it. 
 He is in a particular difficulty with the law and justice of 
 God. All here is definite and terrible ; and he needs an 
 atonement that will meet definitely his wants, and deliver 
 him from the pollution of his sin, and from the misery of his 
 condemnation. The gospel we preach meets precisely his 
 wants ; but when the New School attempt to preach Christ 
 on the indefinite principle, no one can understand what they 
 mean. As their views are indefinite, so their preaching is in- 
 definite, and the impression created is indefinite ; and the be- 
 wildered worshippers are in the dilemma of Mary, when she 
 sought her murdered Lord. He was taken away, and she 
 could not tell where they had laid him. She had gone to the 
 wrong place to find him : he was not in the sepulchre any 
 more, nor yet is he to be found any more in the matured 
 New School divinity. Those who seek him there, seek for 
 him in vain. The -alarm felt on the part of godly Presbyte- 
 rians, scattered among the New School, increases daily. 
 They are beginning to hear "a voice behind them, saying, 
 This is the way; walk ye in it." "Thus saith the Lord, 
 Stand ye in the way, and see, and ask for the old paths, 
 where is the good way?" The old paths are becoming 
 more and more obvious, — the way of escape more and 
 
THE ATONEMENT. 105 
 
 more plain. Duty to God and his cause, to themselves and 
 their families, will lead them back again to the bosom of the 
 Presbyterian Church, from whence they have been decoyed, 
 The day, I believe, is not far distant, when their eyes shall 
 be fully opened, and when they shall make their escape from 
 these pestilent errors. May the great Head of the Church 
 bless his people, and lift them up forever. Amen. 
 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 Natural depravity — Denied by the New School — Its importance — Its denial 
 dangerous. 
 
 In, John iii. 7, it is said : " Ye must be born again." Must, 
 is emphatic in this sentence, it being the intention of our 
 Lord to assert the necessity of regeneration, as it is created 
 by the positive contrariety of man's moral nature to that of 
 God's. " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that 
 which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said 
 unto thee, Ye must be born again." A sinful nature unites 
 with sinful objects ; a holy nature with holy objects. Their 
 affinities are opposite. Flesh is flesh, — unites with it, and 
 resists, jwith its entire tendencies," the spirit. Spirit unites 
 with spirit, and resists, w r ith its entire tendencies, any union 
 with flesh. Those differences which lie in the very nature 
 of the things themselves, are the greatest possible ; and such 
 are the differences which actually separate unregeneratc 
 man from God. These differences are in man's moral 
 nature. This is very clear, not only from the 3d of John, 
 but from many other passages of inspiration. From among 
 these, I select one, in Rom. viii. 7, 8 : " Because the carnal 
 mind is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law 
 of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the 
 flesh cannot please God." This statement is sufficiently 
 definite and positive. No sentence could be constructed 
 which could more fully corroborate the view I have taken. 
 
• NATIVE DEPRAVITY. 107 
 
 The impossibility is absolute. The moral nature of unre- 
 newed man, and the moral nature of the ever-blessed God, 
 are positive enmities ; and, if left to the uninterrupted elec- 
 tion of their own opposite affinities, the separation between 
 them is hopeless and endless. Fire can unite with fire, and 
 increase the reciprocal heat. Water can unite with water, 
 and swell its kindred drops into seas ; but, constituted as 
 they are, they resist, with destructive violence, all union 
 with each other. If it were even possible, by some new 
 chemical combination, to modify, in some degree, their 
 mutual antagonisms ; yet it could not be true of sin and 
 holiness, flesh and spirit, the carnal mind and the law of 
 God. No new natural combinations can ever destroy, or 
 even modify, the total and infinite enmity, — whatever may 
 have been the intellectual and moral culture received by the 
 carnal mind. However strikingly it may have simulated 
 every virtue and every grace, it is still enmity against God. 
 And the absolute impossibility remains. " They that are 
 in the flesh cannot please God." 
 
 Presbyterians, accordingly, believe that " the sinfulness of 
 that estate whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam's 
 first sin ; (see the explanation and defence of this point in the 
 first part of the 3d chapter ;) the want of original righteous- 
 ness, together with the corruption of his whole nature, which 
 is commonly called original sin." Original righteousness is 
 wanting in fallen man. In his primeval state, the possession 
 of it was his perfection and his glory. It was the image of 
 God, — a mirror on which he lifted up the light of his coun- 
 tenance, and in which reposed a miniature resemblance of 
 himself, — his own image in knowledge, righteousness, and 
 true holiness. Regeneration is the restoration of that image 
 in its inception. Man in it is "renewed in knowledge, 
 righteousness, and true holiness, after the image of Him 
 that created him," and begins to wear, in some small degree, 
 the early glory of his nature. When our first parent fell, 
 
 
108 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 this original righteousness was lost to the race : " In Adam 
 all die." God departed, withdrew his image, and left the 
 soul in moral ruins. As the setting sun leaves the earth in 
 darkness, not by shedding darkness upon it, but by with- 
 drawing his beams, so God left the soul in sin, not by infus- 
 ing sin into it, but by withdrawing from it, its original 
 righteousness. The law required this righteousness in all 
 created intelligences ; and whenever it was wanting in man, 
 he fell into all evil. 
 
 This privation of original righteousness was the point at 
 which commenced the corruption of his whole nature, — 
 " whereby he was utterly indisposed, disabled, and made 
 opposite to all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined 
 to all that is evil, and that continually." His mind, losing 
 all its high and holy affinities, became at once carnal, and 
 enmity against God. It was no longer subject to his law, 
 and, indeed, it never can be, but by an act of creation as 
 difficult and as wonderful as that which created his original 
 righteousness. God, who created it, took it from him, and 
 he alone can restore it, when the sinner is " born, not of 
 blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
 but of God. John i. 13. 
 
 Depravity is called natural, because it is conveyed by or- 
 dinary generation. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. 
 John iii. 6. Children are like their parents in their whole 
 nature, body and soul, tendencies and developments. " Be- 
 hold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother 
 conceive me." Ps. li. 5. " Who can brine a clean thing out of 
 an unclean V Job xiv. 4. Shall clean animals, as sheep and 
 kine, proceed from wolves and hyenas % The law that binds 
 each distinct race to itself is uniform and universal. In the 
 vegetable kingdom every plant, and every shrub, and every 
 tree multiplies from itself, and after itself; the original germ 
 lives, and bears, and spreads every where, after its own kind. 
 Throughout the whole animal kingdom, the same law pre- 
 
NATIVE DEPRAVITY. 109 
 
 vails ; like produces like ; all the races, in all ages, retain 
 their original natures, and are preserved from amalgamation 
 by necessity. The first remove is the last which it is possi- 
 ble to make ; the unnatural variety is barren. Their very 
 characteristics are propagated with a marked uniformity and 
 universality. Not only the muscle and form of the lion and 
 tiger, but the courage of the one, and the cruelty of the other, 
 are equally common and striking evidences of their origin 
 and nature. Man is not an exception to this uniform and 
 universal law, which governs the progress and propagation 
 of every living thing besides. He begets a posterity in his 
 own likeness : his body and soul, his whole nature physical 
 and intellectual, social and moral, is contained in the first 
 man, and it multiplies itself from generation to generation. 
 " He hath made [them] of one blood." " He fashioneth their 
 hearts alike." The making and the fashioning belong to both 
 body and mind. The infant child possesses the carnal mind 
 of its parent, when first it lives and breaths, as truly as when 
 in subsequent manhood, it embodies its enmity in words and 
 actions. The lion's whelp, harmless and impotent to destroy 
 in the period of its incipiency, is, nevertheless, a lion still. 
 All is there, which afterwards renders him terrible to both 
 man and beast, when he " roars after his prey, and seeks his 
 meat from God." The same is true of man. The infant is 
 the yet immature, but real enemy of God. Maturity, only, is 
 needed to prove him earthy, sensual, devilish ; thus, the 
 doctrine of native depravity is fully sustained, by all the anal- 
 ogies in nature, meets us every where, in the whole world, in 
 every living thing. In the hour of calm and unbiassed reflec- 
 tion, the belief of it, forces itself upon our soberest convictions. 
 It is clearly taught in the word of God. But, if revelation 
 had been wholly silent On the subject, yet it is so obvious, the 
 evidence of it lies around us in such vast profusion, it would 
 require a special revelation to induce a contrary belief. No 
 one would be able to show why the human race should prove 
 an exception to a rule otherwise universal. 
 
110 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 Yet the New School have adopted a different view of this 
 whole subject. " Neither a holy nor a depraved nature are 
 possible without understanding, conscience, and choice. To 
 say of an accountable creature, that he is depraved by nature, 
 is only to say, that rendered capable by his maker of obedi- 
 ence, he disobeys from the commencement of his accounta- 
 bility." (See sermon on the native character of man, by Dr. 
 Beecher.) "Is only to say," what the Dr. does not say ; it 
 is in fact to contradict expressly and in the very next breath 
 his own statement, to take back his own words ; to declare 
 that that which is natural is merely voluntary, and not na- 
 tural ; that the water in the fountain is bitter, that is to say, 
 the stream from it is bitter, but the fountain itself is sweet, 
 it is not bitter. " It is a question alike pertinent and impor- 
 tant, whether in the incipient period of infancy and childhood, 
 there can be any moral character whatever possessed, * * * 
 properly speaking we can predicate of it neither sin nor holi- 
 ness." (Duffield on Regeneration, pp. 377. 399.) But the 
 question is, in my judgement, as improper as the conclusion 
 is incorrect. There can be no pertinency in questioning a 
 revealed fact, nor propriety in denying it. 
 
 Mr. Barnes remarks, in his Notes on Romans, v. 14: 
 " The passage here states a great and important principle, 
 that men will not be held to be guilty, unless there is a law 
 which binds them, of which they are apprized,, and which 
 they voluntarily transgress." " If it should be said that the 
 death of infants would prove that they were sinners also, I 
 answer, (a) that this was an inference which the Aapostle 
 does not draw, and for which he is not responsible. It is 
 not affirmed by him. (b) If it did refer to infants, what 
 would it prove ? Not that the sin of Adam was imputed, 
 but that they were personally guilty and transgressors/' 
 But infants surely, are not apprised of the law of God, 
 neither can they voluntarily transgress it. And as accord- 
 ing to Mr. Barnes r knowledge of the law, is essential to guilt, 
 
NATIVE DEPRAVITY.. Ill 
 
 so is it also to holiness. Infants then have no moral charac- 
 ter whatever. They are neither good nor bad. They are 
 mere animals. This last it is true, is an inference, which 
 Mr Barnes does not draw ; yet it is legitimate, and for it, 
 his system is responsible. Mr. Barnes after rejecting every 
 other explanation of Rom. v. 19 ; " By one mans obedience 
 many were made sinners ;" and almost conceding all a pres- 
 byterian could wish on native depravity, finally throws off 
 the mask, and from the 8th Rem. to the end of his remarks 
 on that verse, defends the Unitarian explanation. " The 
 facts here stated accord with all the analogies in the moral 
 government of God. The drunkard secures as a result com- 
 monly that his family will be reduced to beggary, want and 
 woe. A pirate or a traitor will whelm not himself only, but 
 his family in ruin. Such is the great law or constitution on 
 which society is now organized, and we are not to be sur- 
 prized that the same principle occurred in the primary organi- 
 zation of human affairs." * # * " If it exists now it ex- 
 isted then." * * * " The doctrine should be left there- 
 fore simply as it is in the Scriptures. It is there the simple 
 statement of a fact without any attempt at explanation." * 
 * * * " How this is, the Bible has not explained ; it is a 
 part of a great system of things." 
 
 The Bible, however, does explain how depravity is con- 
 veyed ; it is by " ordinary generation." " I was shapen 
 in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." ' ; That 
 which is born of flesh is flesh." M And were by nature, 
 children of wrath." In these and similar passages, the ex- 
 planation of the manner in which depravity is conveved, 
 finds melancholly utterance, but nevertheless, that explana- 
 tion is clear, direct and sufficient. Mr. Barnes, however, 
 has no eye to see it, no ear to hear it. It meets him every 
 where; but he meets it no where, and his profound reverence 
 for the Scriptures, leads him to discourage all attempts at 
 the explanation of a fact, whose only obscurity and myste- 
 
112 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 riousness, have their origin in his singular denial of its exis- 
 tance. Then, as is usual with him, in similar dilemmas, he 
 furnishes an explanation as unsound as it is, laboured and un- 
 satisfactory, and that also, after solemnly assuring us that it 
 " should be left simply as it is in the Scriptures, it is there the 
 simple statement of a fact without any attempt at explana- 
 tion." * * kt The drunkard secures commonly as a result that 
 his family shall become beggard, and the pirate and traitor 
 whelm themselves and families in ruin ; such was the pri- 
 mary organization of human affairs." Such is the explana- 
 tion of a fact, by Mr. Barnes, in regard to which the Scrip- 
 tures according to him, are silent, and where we should all 
 reverently leave it, to its repose, without any attempt at ex- 
 planation. 
 
 We are to understand then, that as the families of drunk- 
 ards and pirates are not drunkards and pirates by nature, 
 but by the corrupting influence of a bad example ; that 
 as a different education would have secured a different result, 
 and that as this is the great constitution under which we are 
 placed ; therefore, depravity proceeds not from a bad na- 
 ture, but from a " social liability." This is precisely the 
 faith of Unitarians. " It is not the depravity of nature in 
 which we believe. Human nature, nature as it exists in the 
 bosom of an infant, is nothing else. but capability. Capability 
 of good as well as evil. The more likely from its exposures to 
 be evil than good. It is not depravity then, but the depra- 
 vation of nature in which we believe." (Dr. Dewey's Con- 
 troversial Discourses, p. 18.) Such strikingly evident coin- 
 cidences in opinion, between Mr. Barnes and the Unitarians, 
 led one of their writers in the Christian Examiner, to say in 
 his review of Mr. Barne's notes : " That while our ortho- 
 dox brethren publish and circulate, and receive with favor, 
 such books as these, we most cordially extend to them the 
 right hand of fellowship." And, indeed, I can perceive no 
 substantial differences between Mr. Barnes and his liberal 
 
NATIVE DEPRAVITY. 113 
 
 friends on the subject of native depravity. This I admit 
 would not of necessity prove his views erroneous, but it 
 would prove that they were not presbyterian. 
 
 The system of Mr. Finney also is a kindred drop in the sea 
 of error. " All depravity is voluntary, consisting in volun- 
 tary transgression ; Oh, the darkness and confusion and utter 
 nonsense of that view of depravity, which exhibits it as 
 something lying back, and the cause of all actual transgress- 
 ion. (See sermon on important subjects p. 139.) 
 
 The New School then, believe that children are depraved 
 when they knowingly and willfully violate the commands 
 of God. Back of this period, according to them, moral dis- 
 tinctions cannot obtain. Many of the New School hold with 
 Dr. Dewey that in infancy there is simple capability to good 
 and evil. But Mr. Barnes admits an antecedent certainty, 
 Rom. v. 19. " There is something antecedent to the moral 
 action of his (Adams) posterity and growing out of the re- 
 lation which they sustain to him, which makes it certain that 
 they will sin as soon as they begin to act as moral agents." 
 " The renewed man is exposed to temptation from his strong 
 native appetites, and the power of these passions strength- 
 ed by long habit before he was converted, has traveled over 
 into religion and distress him." Rom vii. 14. "A man who 
 was an infidel before his conversion, and whose mind filled 
 with skepticism, and cavils, and blasphemy, will find the 
 effects of his former habits of thinking, lingering in his mind, 
 and annoying his peace for years." Rom. vii. 15. And verse 
 19 ; "in his heart, and conscience, and habitual feeling, he did 
 not choose to commit sin, but abhorred it." And verse 18 ; 
 " The obstacles arc not natural, but such as arise from long 
 indulgence in sin, the strong native propensity to evil." 
 
 Among the New School, these two opinions prevail. The 
 first is, that infants are equally capable of good or evil, and 
 yet, always sin as soon as they become moral agents. It is 
 
 sufficient to say of this opinion, that it contains the doctrine 
 
 8 
 
114 OLD AXD NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 of a uniform effect, without a sufficient cause. If it main- 
 tained, that moral beings, capable of good and evil, had been 
 sometimes good and sometimes evil, it would change its 
 aspect of absurdity. It is the uniformity and universality of 
 sin among all men. The want of a single exception for six 
 thousand years, and the admitted certainty, that there never 
 will be an exception, which mocks at this opinion. If it be 
 urged that Adam fell and that angels fell ; I reply, Adam 
 also obeyed for a season, and holy angels obey still. In these 
 instances the capabilities work in both directions, but in this 
 they forever work in one direction only. In every instance, 
 in every age, under all circumstances, the first moral act is 
 invariably evil when it could as well have been good. The 
 opinion cannot be correct ; it not only contradicts revelation, 
 but aside from that consideration, it wears* the air of a total 
 improbability. 
 
 The opinion that something prior to moral action makes 
 it certain that our first moral acts will be evil, is a more plau- 
 sible account of our depravity. But to say that that some- 
 thing is not itself sinful, involves an absurdity of another kind, 
 equally great with the former. That mental state which 
 makes sin inevitable, must be in its own nature sinful, 
 even more sinful, than the sinful acts themselves that proceed 
 from it. These acts are transient, leave their stain, and pass 
 away. But their source is permanent, and embosoms and 
 issues them all. It is the father of lies, and the mother of 
 abominations. It makes the throat an open sepulcher, and 
 the feet swift to shed blood. It gives the tongue to evil, and 
 pours the poison of asps under the lips. It fills the eyes with 
 adulterv, and blinds them to the fear of God. It must there- 
 fore be sin ; sin in its concentrated odiousness, vitality, and 
 strength ; the giant sin among the sins of men. The ser- 
 pents poison is in his tooth, he carries it with him, even when 
 he does not bite. He may never kill, yet he has enough in 
 *tare to slay thousands; this makes -him dreadful, and arms 
 
NATIVE DEPRAVITY. 115 
 
 the world against his life. Our actual transgressions are 
 many but they appear not in infancy, and they are intermit- 
 ted when we faint or while we sleep. But the sin of nature 
 is an inexhaustable poison always with us and ready on every 
 occasion and is the principle cause of the wrath of heaven. 
 The grapes of Sodom are bitter, but the vine of Sodom is 
 principally in fault. " Make the tree good and the fruit will 
 be good. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" 
 "Oh, Israel, wash thv heart from wickedness how lone shall 
 thy vain thoughts lodge within thee." " For from within, 
 from the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, for- 
 nications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, 
 laciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness." — 
 " Create in me a clean heart, Oh, God." Maternal love is 
 the same whether it be in a state of activity or in a state of 
 repose. Evil thoughts are the activities of an evil heart and 
 they are both alike evil. All actions good or bad are not 
 only so in themselves, but in their source. We iud^e of the 
 one by the other. That something in the soul, which makes 
 us sin, is itself sinful, the two possess a common character 
 and give complexion to each other. To deny this, softens no 
 stern feature of truth, removes no difficulty out of the way in 
 understanding it ; but introduces an error which contradicts 
 the word of God, is at variance with all analogy and confounds 
 the distinctions between good and evil. 
 
 The belief in native depravity promotes repentance and 
 humility. Its denial hardens the heart. David had com- 
 mitted two great evils, but they were only drops of bitter- 
 ness, compared with the fountain itself. That fountain must 
 be healed, or all was lost. He would confess his sin, — the 
 great sin, the sin of nature, the one most odious and most to 
 be dreaded. "I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my 
 mother conceive me." He would prevent another fall, but 
 that he never could prevent, while the sin of nature reigned ; 
 its power must be broken. " Create in me a clean heart, O 
 
116 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 God/' His views of native depravity filled him with self- 
 loathing, and brought him to God for help. He could 
 indulge in no views of self-complacency. He had grieved 
 away the spirit, and his fall was nature, unrestrained, unas- 
 sisted nature, acting out its desperate wickedness. The 
 restoration of the Holy Spirit, for which he prayed, was not 
 only necessary to his mental peace, but to his future safety. 
 The adversary, that had reigned within, was too mighty for 
 man's unaided strength. Hence his prayer, — "Uphold me 
 by thy free spirit." Had he rejected the doctrine of native 
 depravity, he could have said, These evil deeds are the 
 result of a strong temptation, not of a bad nature. And he 
 could have felt, as all bad and blinded mortals usually do, 
 that his actions had been sinful, but still he was good at 
 heart, and was not naturally destitute of purity and hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Paul, when he would awaken among the Ephesians emo- 
 tions of humility and gratitude, assures them, that they were 
 quickened when dead in sin, and that they were, by nature, 
 children of wrath. They were delivered from something 
 more than a life of impiety and immorality. These were 
 but the effects of a cause far more dark and damning ; and 
 the greatness of the disease enhanced the greatness of the 
 cure. Evil habits might be broken off, but nature could not 
 cure its sinful tendencies ; this was the v ork of grace alone, 
 and must awaken, in the highest degree, both their humility 
 and gratitude. The qualifying language of Mr. Barnes, — 
 " He did not use, he did not say [Phusei,] ' By birth, or before 
 you were converted.' * * * * I do not affirm when 
 you began to be such, or that you were such as soon as you 
 
 were born ; * * whether by a corrupted soul, or by im- 
 puted guilt ; whether you act as a moral agent as soon as 
 you v^ere- horn, or at a certain period of childhood. I [Paul] 
 do not say." (Barnes' Notes, Eph. li. 3.) Such ideas were 
 not in Paul's mind ; such lai.^ r '* was not to his purpose- 
 
NATIVE DEPRAVITY. 117 
 
 It was not the habit of the Apostle to say one thing and 
 mean another, — to say that they were, by birth, the chil- 
 dren of wrath, and not mean what he said. He was not 
 afraid of leading the Ephesians to carry their moral distinc- 
 tion too far back, even to the very origin of their being ; for 
 it was the very thing he did. and intended to do, — the very 
 fire with which he would kindle their gratitude. — the very 
 climax at which he aimed in his eloquent contrast. 
 
 Nicodemus was an awakened and inquiring sinner, but he 
 was not told that he had sinned from the commencement of 
 moral agency, and that his nature needed no change ; that 
 he had but to change his principles, objects, and pursuits, — 
 an affair of no great difficulty, and within his power at any 
 moment. There was no softening of the terrible aspect of 
 things now gathering in gloom around the stricken-hearted 
 ruler of the svnacroLaie. But he wCfe assured that, above and 
 beyond his saddest revery. was his necessity great, and his 
 condition dreadfuL He was born of the ilesh, and was flesh. 
 Nature and habit both united him to evil ; he sought it as 
 sparks go upwards, or as water flows from the fountain. 
 and seeks its accustomed channel. That the birth which he 
 needed was of the Holy Ghost, and this alone could com- 
 mence his return to God. 
 
 Saul of Tarsus never fully closed with Christ till he was 
 wholly persuaded of his total depravity by nature. Then 
 he could say, " I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwel- 
 leth no good thing. I was alive without the law once, [0 ! 
 dreadful life of a most deplorable darkness and spiritual 
 insensibility!] but when the commandment came, sin revived 
 and I died/' The sin of nature did not appear sin before. 
 It dwelt in him, and he knew it not, but aroused now into 
 life, it appeared sin, and wrought in him 'all manner of con- 
 cupisance. The instructions of inspired men are nowhere 
 on this subject apologistical and explanatory. They did not 
 draw out the spirit's naked blade, and then amuse their 
 
118 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 audiences by an exhibition of their skill in breaking it in 
 pieces before their eyes. Native depravity was hell's dark 
 citadel in the heart of man. A conviction of its existence 
 was necessary to saving repentance and faith. They knew 
 it themselves, and others must know it, or be lost. Their 
 attack was open and direct. They gave utterance to a 
 truth which oppressed them with alarm for the safety of 
 their hearers. They sang no syren song to lull men into a 
 "feeling of false security, amid the shoals and breakers of the 
 sea of Sodom. Theirs was the midnight cry ! It struck a 
 chord whose vibrations went to the inmost soul, and con- 
 vinced sinners came trembling and astonished, and said, — 
 Sirs, what must we do to be saved ? Can it be said, then, 
 that our differences with the New School are merely philo- 
 sophical, relating only to the mere theory of religion'? What ! 
 when we teach, and youflbelieve, that your nature must be 
 changed before your actions can be acceptable to a holy 
 God] can it be of no account whether we are followed by 
 commentators and ministers who affirm that our habits are 
 bad, our conduct sinful, but that our nature is not itself 
 depraved 1 If our instructions were correct, were leading 
 you to repentance, to prayer, to faith, then theirs would 
 lead you back again into your former state of false security, 
 away from the spirit's regeneration, and from a Saviour's 
 bleeding side. 
 
 These erroneous teachings meet and embarrass us at 
 every point. It was a maxim of Luther, that the Scriptures 
 could not be understood but by a portion of that spirit by 
 which they were originally inspired. It is taught by us, 
 that man wants his original knowledge, as well as righteous- 
 ness, and true holiness. It is taught by the Apostle, that 
 " the natural man deserneth not the things of the spirit of 
 God, — neither can he know them; for they are spiritually 
 discerned;" (1 Cor. ii. 14;) that the "understanding of man 
 is darkened, and that he is alienated from the life of God, 
 
NATIVE DEPRAVITY, 119 
 
 through the ignorance that is in him, because of the blind- 
 ness of the heart." Eph. iv. 18. And. if, under these 
 instructions, your perceived impotence and awakened fears 
 lead you to cry to Him that "commandeth the light to shine 
 out of darkness, to shine into your hearts, to give you the 
 light of the knowledge of the glory of God as it is in the 
 face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. iv. 6. How most unhappy 
 would be the effect, if you were to read and believe the 
 following statement from Mr. Barnes on the same proof 
 texts, — Eph. iv. 18: It is not that God has enfeebled the 
 human intellect, by a judicial sentence, on account of the 
 sin of Adam, and made it incapable of perceiving the truth ; 
 it is not that there is any deficiency or incapacity of natural 
 powers ; it is not that the truths of religion are so exalted 
 that man has no natural ability to understand them ; for they 
 may be as well understood as any other truths. * * It 
 follows, too, that as man has debased his understanding by 
 sin, it is needful to make an exertion to elevate it again ; 
 hence, the necessity of schools at missionary stations." 
 When we assert the inability of the understanding, he 
 asserts its ability. When we present to you the divine 
 teacher in his immediate and subjective illumination, he 
 presents to you a company of ministers and school teachers. 
 When we point you to the Holy Ghost, whose office-work 
 it is to take the things of Christ and show them unto you, 
 and endeavor to bring you near, that you may read and 
 hear amid the attractive and subduing effulgence which he 
 sheds upon the understanding and the heart. Mr. Barnes 
 interposes with a lens of ice, and chills the warm current of 
 the soul, by assuring us " that divine truths are not so 
 exalted that man has not natural ability to understand them, 
 and hence the necessity of schools at missionary stations." 
 
 But whether the understanding or the conscience, the will 
 or the affections, are made the subjects of examination, the 
 result is the same. Native depravity is denied to exist in 
 
120 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 the soul, or in any faculty of the soul. You will find these 
 denials summarily presented in Mr. Barnes' Notes on 2 Cor, 
 viii. 12. "He requires a service strictly according to our 
 ability, and to be measured by that. He demands no 
 more than our powers are fitted to produce, no more than 
 we are able to render. Our obligations in all cases are 
 limited by our ability. This is obviously the rule of equity, 
 and this is all that is anywhere demanded in the Bible, and 
 this is everywhere demanded. Thus our love to him is to 
 be in proportion to our ability, and not to be graduated by 
 the ability of angels, or other beings." " And thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." 
 Mark xii. 30. " Here the obligation is limited by the ability, 
 and the love is to be commensurate with the ability. So of 
 repentance, faith, and of obedience in any form. None but 
 a tyrant can demand more than can be rendered, — and to 
 demand more is the appropriate description of a tyrant, and 
 cannot appertain to the ever-blessed God." The above 
 precept quoted by Mr. Barnes, from Mark xii. 30, cannot be 
 to his purpose, unless it is a question already settled in his 
 mind, that a change of heart by the Holy Ghost is unneces- 
 sary previously to the exercise of holy affections ; that the 
 heart is good enough as it is, and needs not to await the 
 work of the Holy Ghost upon it, in order to holy love ; that 
 the moral nature of man is all right in itself, wrong only in 
 its exercises and habits ; these are under our own control, 
 and we can change them at our pleasure. For if he intended 
 to maintain that God did for man in regeneration what he 
 could not do for himself; that a change, inward, spiritual and 
 supernatural, must necessarily precede all holy exercises, then 
 all he has said about ability is mere rhapsody., But if he 
 intended to deny the necessity of such a change altogether, 
 then he is at least consistent with himself, but alas ! he is at 
 war with the word of God, and with the faith of his people. 
 
NATIVE DEPRAVITY. 121 
 
 Mr. Barnes in his notes on 3d chapter of John, appears to 
 hold a different view of this subject. But I find there, a ref- 
 erence to his notes on John xiv. 4. and here again he appears 
 quite correct. But I am still referred for further explanation 
 to Rom. v. 19. and here the mask drops, and (from his 8th note 
 to the end, which see) he fully explains himself. The text in 
 2 Cor. viii. 13. however, is a favorite one with men of this 
 class. Mr. Finney having asserted that the Bible was full of 
 the doctrine of plenary natural ability ; finally, makes one 
 quotation in proof of it, and that proof is this same text in 2 
 Cor. " For if there be first a willing mind it is accepted accord- 
 ing to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." 
 Indeed, this is the only passage in the Bible, on which they 
 seem to rely. Elsewhere the Bible is full of the doctrine of 
 natural depravity and human impotence. "We are without 
 strength.'' Rom. v. 6. " Not that we are sufficient of our- 
 selves to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency 
 is of God. 2. Cor. iii. 5. " For the flesh lusteth against the 
 spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary 
 the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye 
 would." Gal. v. 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God ; 
 for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 
 Rom. viii. 7. The natural man discerneth not the things of the 
 spirit of God, neither can he know them,* for they are spirit- 
 ually discerned. 1 Cor. ii. 1. "No man can come unto me 
 except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him." John vi. 44. 
 " Without me ye can do nothing." John xv. 15. "Except 
 a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 John iii. 3. Thus the testimony is not a solitary drop oozing 
 out reluctantly from a violently compressed sponge, but it 
 breaks around us in the swellings of Jordon. 
 
 The Scriptures are consistent with themselves, and the 
 passage in 2 Cor. viii. 12, is not a contradiction of their cur- 
 rent testimony. It does not deny native depravity at all, 
 nor does it assert that man is able to obey God without a 
 
122 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 previous change in his moral nature. If we should grant 
 that the doctrine is contained in the Bible, it surety is not 
 contained id this text. The text simply states a rule of duty 
 among Christians, to regulate them in their charitable con- 
 tributions. And the rule is applicable to all Christians in all 
 their services. They are accepted in the beloved ; " they 
 are not under the law but under grace.'* God " beholds no 
 iniquity in Jacob, and no perverseness in Israel." And be- 
 cause he accepts his people who are not under the law, and 
 does not require of them as a condition of acceptance per- 
 fect obedience to it, an obedience which they were not 
 able to render ; does it hence follow, that the same rule 
 applies to the unrenewed who are still under the law? It 
 cannot be. Believers make the law their rule, but do not 
 make perfect obedience to its precepts the condition of their 
 acceptance. From that bondage they are delivered. Under 
 it, all others are held ; and except they believe in Christ will 
 be required to do what it is impossible for fallen man to do — 
 to keep it perfectly, or perish under its curse. Faith in Christ 
 is the only remedy, because obedience to the law is a perfect 
 impossibility. " For if there had been a law given which could 
 have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the 
 law." Gal. iii. 21. Dr. Duffield maintains that the sinner is 
 not utterly unable by his own unassisted powers either to 
 believe or repent to the saving of his soul, (and that) it might 
 as truly be said that he cannot rise up and walk by his own 
 unassisted powers, (vide Duffield on Regeneration p. 342.) 
 And Mr. Finney maintains " that if the sinner ever has a new 
 heart, he must obey the commandment in the text and make 
 it himself." (Sermons on important subjects, pp. 18 to 38.) 
 Now, on a most careful examination and comparison of the 
 views of the New School, of Mr. Finney, and of the Unita- 
 rians on this subject, I am fully convinced that they are one. 
 Not indeed in their philosophy and methods of defence ; but 
 one in their results. They all by their different routs arrive 
 
NATIVE DEPRAVITY. 123 
 
 at the same conclusion, viz : that the doctrine of the natural 
 moral depravity of man is a mere figment, and the necessity 
 of regeneration by the Holy Ghost, in order to holy obedi- 
 ence, the idle philosophy of the schools. 
 
 These errors are of a very serious and dangerous character. 
 Wherever they prevail, they dry up the fountains of repen- 
 tance, quench the life of faith, and harden the hearts of men. 
 No true and great work of grace can be expected to com- 
 mence until they are exposed and rejected. They array 
 themselves like Judeism against the gospel. Not as they are 
 an organized system of persecution, but an organized system 
 of false opinions. They are more disguised than Unitarian- 
 ism. Yet equally a denial of man's ruin by the fall and 
 equally opposed to the spirits glory and work. They are 
 the tares of the field, which must be ploughed under. The 
 teeth of the dragon sown broadcast on the churches, they 
 must be ground to powder. We are no lovers of contro- 
 versy ; but we have reached a point where forbearance is no 
 longer a virtue, necessity is laid upon us, and for Zion's sake, 
 and Jerusalem's sake we cannot hold our peace. When Paul 
 would promote true religion, he also assailed the false. He 
 disputed in the school of one Tyrannus ; he disputed with 
 the Stoics and philosophers and Judeaizing teachers, and in- 
 sisted in opposition to their views upon the truths of Christi- 
 anity. In like manner we feel called upon to dispute this 
 whole system of theological error, and " philosophy falsely so 
 called." To declare to you that depravity is natural and 
 regeneration essential. A change in objects and pursuits or 
 in governing purposes will be of no avail. A supernatural 
 change must pass upon your moral nature. " Do men gather 
 grapes of thorns or figs of thistles 1" " Make the tree good 
 and the fruit will be good." That which is born of the flesh 
 is flesh ; its work is manifest fornication, uncleanness, witch- 
 craft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strifes, seditions, 
 heresies, envyings, murders, drunkeness, revelings. Its 
 
124 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 nature is manifest, hatred, wrath, heresies, envyings, belong 
 not to the animal propensities but to the moral nature of man, 
 and show us what that nature is. Its true character cannot 
 be mistaken. Listen not then to smooth and flattering words, 
 believe not that there is no danger ; that there is no such 
 dreadful depravity, deep, damning and universal, bearing a 
 ruined world to a sea of fire ; listen not to those, who cry 
 peace, when there is no peace ; ability when there is no 
 ability. Freedom from the the depravity of nature, when 
 its abiding taint dries up y/)ur marrow, throbs along every 
 artery, and gathers a film on the eye of reason, and turns 
 the manly brow to brass, and the heart to an adamant stone. 
 These sad results are not the results of a bad example but 
 of a bad nature. Not inveterate because habitual, but invet- 
 erate and habitual and universal, because they are natural. 
 " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean." That 
 which is born of flesh is flesh. " Verily, verily I say unto 
 thee, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom 
 of God," (John hi. 3.) neither here nor hereafter, "for there 
 shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither 
 any thing that worketh abomination or maketh a lie." Rom. 
 xxi. 29. Let no man deceive you with vain words for be- 
 cause of these things cometh the wrath of God on the children 
 of disobedience. Eph. v. G. 
 
 • 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 The dispensation of the Spirit— The New School by their views of ability 
 and depravity, make the Spirits dispensation void — They make truth an 
 agent. — The Spirit the only agent in regeneration — They place infants oil 
 a level with mere animals. 
 
 The necessity of the spirit's renovating agency has ita 
 foundation in natural depravity. In the beginning the earth 
 was without form and void, and darkness was on the face 
 of the deep ; and in this condition it would have remained 
 forever, but for the interposition of Him who created all 
 things for himself. The fall broke in upon the laws of har- 
 mony and motion in the moral World, precipitated it into a 
 second chaos, in which its early beauties were blighted, and 
 its glory lost. And in this state it must forever have 
 remained, except " He who commanded the light to shine 
 out of darkness had shined into our hearts to give us the 
 light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
 Jesus Christ." We can as safely dispense with the work of 
 the Son, as with the work of the Holy Spirit, in the matter 
 of our redemption ; and hence it is that the dispensation of 
 the spirit is so distinctly marked and so prominently set 
 forth in the word of God. The annointing oil was an 
 appropriate and beautiful emblem of his sweet and gracious 
 influences. With this, in most solemn and significant for- 
 malities, the high priest was annointed, the tabernacle and 
 all the vessels of the ministry. It was poured on Aaron's 
 
 
126 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 head, and ran down his beard, and flowed even to the skirts 
 of his garments. From these authenticated shadows of 
 heavenly things, we turn our favored eyes to the heavenly 
 things themselves ; to our great High Priest, as he stands on 
 the banks of the Jordan, where the shadow is lost in the sub- 
 stance, where the spirit descends in form like a dove and 
 rests upon him. And from him, the great Head of the 
 Church, it flows to all the members of his mystic body. It 
 is the oil of gladness, and wins the reluctant heart to cheer- 
 ful obedience. It is the unction from the Holy One, and 
 the same annointing teacheth the ignorant and them that 
 err from the way, the wisdom and the way of the just. 
 Jesus came to obey and to die in the room of his people. 
 It was not in the economy of redemption, committed to him 
 personally to furnish the New Testament Scriptures, or to 
 gather the New Testament Church. By him not a single 
 line was written, not a single church was formed. These 
 events followed his ascension, and he assured his disciples 
 that »they were, by previous arrangement, and according to 
 the determinate council of God, to occur in this order and 
 manner ; that when he had finished the work given him to 
 do on earth, the glorious economy most be arrested forever 
 at that point, and never be issued and completed, except he 
 should ascend up where he was before, and prepare the 
 way for another comforter, who was the Holy Ghost, and 
 whose designated work could be accomplished by no other. 
 " It is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not 
 away the comforter will not come unto you. And when he 
 is come he wall reprove the world of sin and of righteous- 
 ness and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not in 
 me ; of righteousness, because I g# to my father, and ye see 
 me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world 
 is judged. John xvi. 7, 11. No preaching was to be 
 attempted, no Scripture written, no churches gathered. 
 "Tarry ye in the cily of Jerusalem [was the direction,.] 
 
REGENERATION. 127 
 
 until ye be endued with power from on high/'' " And when 
 the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one 
 accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound 
 from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all 
 the house where they were sitting ; and there appeared unto 
 them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, 
 and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to 
 speak with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance." 
 Thus " this Jesus," * # " being by the right hand of God 
 exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of 
 the Holy Spirit, he [said Peter] hath shed forth this which 
 ye now see and hear." And from this blessed hour, God the 
 Holy Ghost, writes out the Scripture canon by his inspira- 
 tion, — gives the Apostles a mouth and wisdom which none 
 of their adversaries were able to gainsay or resist, and, by 
 an instrumentality denominated the weakness of God and 
 the foolishness of preaching, an instrumentality totally inert 
 in itself, and wholly inadequate to the production of the 
 wonderful result, gathers the church out of the ruins of the 
 fall, and builds it on the " foundations of the apostles and 
 prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." 
 
 The advent of the. Son, was not more distinctly marked 
 than was the advent of the Holy Ghost. The Son came and 
 then ascended up where he was before. The Spirit came 
 not to finish the short work of a miraculous testimony and 
 then to depart, but to abide in the church forever, to enlighten 
 the darkened understanding in the things of Christ, to renew 
 the heart and to sanctify the moral nature of man. The 
 union of the human and divine natures in one person forever 
 gave to the atonement its value. But the Holy Spirit pro- 
 ceeding from the Father and the Son, inhabited the human 
 nature also, and filled the human soul with gracious affec- 
 tions, and powerfully acted and infallibly guided that nature 
 in all its ways. If the Son was possessed of a human body 
 and soul, it was created by the Holy Ghost ; if led up 
 
 
128 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, it was by the 
 Spirit ; if he returned into Galilee, it was in the power of the 
 Spirit ; if he cast out devils, it was by the Holy Ghost ; if 
 he groaned and was troubled at the grave of Lazarus, it was 
 in the Spirit ; if he preached the gospel and spake as never 
 man spake, it was because the Spirit of the Lord God was 
 upon him, because the Lord had annointed him to preach 
 glad tidings to the meek ; if he, after his resurrection gave 
 commandment unto the apostles, whom he had chosen, it 
 was by the Holy Ghost ; in fine, as his entire humiliation 
 was vicarious, so every part of it partook wholly and only of 
 that character, he did nothing of himself, or for himself, but 
 by the Holy Ghost and for his people. Our Lord had wisdom 
 and power and every excellence in an infinite degree as the 
 Son of God, coequal and coeternal with the Father, and could 
 have instructed and commanded the disciples in all wisdom 
 and righteousness without the Spirit, but for the peculiar 
 economy under which he acted. This rendered the inter- 
 vention of the Holy Ghost necessary. The first man Adam 
 was a living soul, and rendered obedience in his own strength. 
 When he fell, the second man Adam took his place, with the 
 intention of restoring to him, and to vast multitudes of his 
 posterity their lost righteousness and ability, and as the 
 former was to be imputed, and the latter imparted, his whole 
 work must be regarded as vicarious, and all his endowments 
 as new, peculiar, and as bearing directly on the grand result. 
 He was filled with the Holy Ghost for our sakes, that he 
 might create a spiritual kingdom, to rest upon a mediatorial 
 basis, to be sustained by the Son, and be beautified by the 
 spirit forever. Every other department of God's moral king- 
 dom rests upon a natural basis, and is happy or miserable 
 according as is the natural character of moral beings, con- 
 tained within its limits, good or bad. But it is not so with 
 Messiah's kingdom and reimi in this the righteousness is not 
 natural, but external to the subject, and becomes his, only 
 
REGENERATION. 1*29 
 
 in the judgment of God. and here also the strength and holi- 
 ness of the subject is not natural, but spiritual and imparted by 
 the Holy Ghost. If then, the Son of God wrought all his 
 miracles, not by that power which was natural to him, but by 
 the Holy Ghost, and loved, obeyed, and suffered, and rose 
 again by the power of the same spirit, and after his resurrec- 
 tion gave commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen 
 by the Holy Ghost, and after his ascension continued to order 
 and to establish, gather, and edify his glorious kingdom by 
 the same blessed agent, then how can men, mere men, fallen 
 and sinful men, expect to render acceptable obedience in their 
 own strength, or indeed any spiritual obedience .whatever, 
 without the spirit 1 never was there an opinion more unscrip- 
 tural, never was there an expectation more fallacious. The 
 doctrine of natural ability is at war with every feature in the 
 covenant of grace, with the whole economy of redemption. 
 The obedience which we are able to render of ourselves, is 
 merely natural; that which God requires under the new cov- 
 enant is purely spiritual, and as many as are led by the Spirit 
 of God, these are the Sons of God, and are built on the founda- 
 tion of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
 the chief corner stone, in whom all the building fitly framed 
 together groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord. The 
 Church is called spiritual, because the human nature of her 
 Lord was created by the Spirit, inhabited by the Spirit, and 
 quickened by the S] jirit ; when he ascended he shed forth the 
 Spirit on the church to make a miraculous testimony, to finish 
 the record concerning God's dear Son, to renew and sanctify 
 the saints ; and thus the whole church is placed under the 
 ministration of the spirit, is born of the spirit, enlightened by 
 the spirit, quickened by the spirit, led by the spirit, sanctified 
 by the spirit, and is become the habitation of God through 
 the spirit, and God halh made us able ministers of the New 
 Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter 
 killeth, but the spirit giveth life." 2 Cor. hi. 6. 
 
 9 
 
130 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 There is a just and obvious distinction between a natural 
 and a gracious ability. The former is that which we possess 
 in common with all animated nature. " In him we live and 
 move and have our being." The latter is an ability flowing 
 from the Holy Spirit, whereby we are raised from our death 
 in sin, and disposed and enabled to render evangelical obe- 
 dience. By the former we are enabled to attend to all the 
 duties of a natural religion. By the latter we are enabled 
 to attend to all the duties of a supernatural religion. Mere 
 nature cannot originate anything different from itself; in 
 all its changes it remains what it was ; flesh is flesh ; the 
 stream never rises above its fountain. The Jews employed 
 natural ability and it produced religion in abundance, but it 
 was like its origin, it was not spiritual, but natural. The 
 law of moral necessity which binds a sinful moral nature 
 to its perpetual identity is as mighty as that which binds the 
 planets in their revolutions and motions ; it never can be 
 resisted or overcome by anything contained within itself. 
 If this is not true, (as the New School affirm that it is not,) if 
 fallen man is as able to do that which is spiritually good as he 
 is to " arise and walk,'' or as he is to perform any other 
 natural actions, then there can be no necessity for the spirit's 
 supernatural work, and all the probabilities are against the 
 existence of such a work. If the present universe could 
 have rolled itself from the bosom of a primeval chaos, and 
 by its own laws of chemical action, could have covered it- 
 self with verdure, and beauty, and life, then the account of 
 Moses is at once discredited, for he assigns for its existence 
 a supernatural cause, when one merely natural was suffi- 
 cient. And in like manner, if fallen man has an ability ap- 
 propriately his own, and sufficient to all the ends of a spirit- 
 ual obedience, no other ability can reasonably be prayed for, 
 or expected. That which can create itself, furnishes by its 
 existence no evidence or display of divine wisdom, or Om- 
 nipotence. If the new heavens and the new earth, wherein 
 
REGENERATION. 131 
 
 \ 
 
 dwelleth righteousness, are but Jewish allegories and could 
 create themselves, then the wonderful agency of the Holy 
 Ghost was not demanded, either to originate or to garnish 
 them. There must be a necessity for the work of the spirit 
 immutably fixed in the very nature of the things to be done, 
 or else no such work is to be expected from him. To declare 
 the contrary, to deny this necessity for the spirit's influence, 
 is, as to all ultimate purposes, a denial of its existence and 
 exercise. It is a truth, which lodges itself in the mind bv 
 irresistable deduction, that God never puts forth his power 
 in the performance of any work which could as well succeed 
 without him. That would be a folly which infinite wisdom 
 could not enact ; a display of power unbecoming himself, 
 and without a parallel in the works of his hands. The au- 
 thor of the vestiges of creation, by maintaining that the 
 universe assumed its present form and filled itself with beau- 
 ty and life, by the concurrence of accidental chemical affini- 
 ties, has indirectly maintained that God did not create the 
 world according to the Mosaic account : because the power 
 of God was not required to do what nature # could do without 
 it, and hence, the inference is irresistable that God did not cre- 
 ate the universe. For if the extravagant hypothesis be once 
 admitted, that matter had a natural ability to take the shape 
 of worlds, and to engender animal and vegetable life upon 
 their surfaces, then as no other power was necessary, so no 
 other power was exercised. As the phenomena can be 
 explained on natural principles, it is absurd to go beyond 
 them into that which is supernatural for an explanation. — 
 Hence if God has given to man a natural ability to obey with- 
 out the Holy Spirit, then that is sufficient, then anything 
 farther would be uncalled for and absurd, then the spirit is not 
 given, and there can be no assignable reason why he should 
 be given. 
 
 The ability of man to " repent and believe to the saving 
 of his soul without the aid of the Holy Spirit, is precisely 
 
132 OLD AND SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 the same, according to Mr. Duffield, with his ability to arise 
 and walk" without the aid of the Holy Spirit. And as the 
 Holy Spirit is not given to aid men to " arise and walk" for 
 the plain reason that they are already able to perform these 
 natural actions, so for the same reasons we must conclude he 
 is not given to aid us to repent and believe. We cannot 
 accordingly be dependent on his agency for repentance, faith 
 or regeneration, and it would be absurd either to pray for it, 
 or expect it. Would the man in good health, who had the 
 fear of God before his eyes, dare to pray for the special 
 descent of the Holy Spirit to enable him to " arise and walk?' 
 God has given him power already to perform these motions, 
 and man would be guilty of profaneness, were he to pray 
 that God would additional to this, send down from heaven 
 the third person of the blessed Trinity, in a special and distinct 
 ministration, to enable him to " arise and walk." And if 
 saving repentance and faith are equally within our power, then 
 to pray for the Spirit's aid in their origin or exercise would 
 be profanity, and an expectation of his presence madness. 
 These conclusions are irresistable; they force themselves 
 upon us, and lead us to tremble for the safety of those who 
 crowd the vestibule that leads to them. They shroud the 
 future with a night, whoso terriffie gloom it requires more 
 than ordinary daring and hardness to encounter; and ah, 
 what shall be the end of those who are captivated and led 
 astray by them 1 Many are already quite fallen — lost in 
 skepticism and infidelity, they sport with their own deceiv- 
 ings, and their steps take hold on hell. That course of 
 instruction which throws man back upon his own resources, 
 takes him off in the same degree from all dependence on 
 those which are spiritual and divine. He may be thankful 
 for his ability, but he will not be very likely to pray for help 
 while he remains conscious that he can help himself. The 
 practical issues of this belief are invariably the same; prayer 
 is abandoned. The cry to heaven for help breaks from the 
 
REGNERATION. 133 
 
 deck of the ship when the ship itself is broken by the waves. 
 In that dark hour of peril and despair, when one cannot help 
 another and no one can help himself, even heathens cast their 
 final hope on the everlasting arm. " Arise ! Call upon thy 
 God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish not." 
 Jonah i. 6. Sincere and earnest prayer for help comes from 
 the helpless, not from those who can help themselves. 
 
 The denial of the doctrine of native depravity also invades 
 and vacates the work of the Holy Ghost, by denying the 
 existence of the very thing to be removed by his blessed 
 agency. For what can be more obvious than that if there 
 is no natural depravity in existence, then there can be no 
 call for the Spirit's agency to remove it. The war 'made 
 upon native depravity, is the indirect war upon the Spirit's 
 necessity. If native depravity be mere theory, mere philos- 
 ophy, a mere figment, then the Spirit's agency in removing 
 it, is mere theory, mere philosophy, a mere figment. The 
 hand therefore, that wipes out the deep polluting imprint of 
 the fall from the cheek of nature, is extended in the same act 
 to blot out the record and the glory and the work of the 
 Spirit's ministration. For if there is no natural depravity in 
 the soul or any of its faculties, if men can understand the 
 truth as it is in Jesus, and choose and love God, of themselves 
 and without the aid of the Holy Ghost, if there are no native 
 defects to be removed by the Spirit, to enable man to obey 
 God, then it is not true that "He opens the understanding that 
 we should understand the Scriptures," (Luke xxiv. 45) re- 
 news the will and heart that we should love God; for a 
 good argument, a strong motive is all that can be required 
 to these ends. 
 
 When Peter preached the Gospel to the Gentiles, it was 
 according to this view, not the " Holy Ghost which fell on 
 them that heard the word," (Acts x. 44) but the inspired 
 argument of Peter, which effected their conversion. And 
 when Lydia heard the word, it was not required that the 
 

 134 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 " Lord should open her heart to receive the things spoken by 
 Paul," (Acts xvi. 14) as the things spoken were sufficient of 
 themselves to sway her mind and change her governing pur- 
 pose, without any direct action upon her heart by the Holy 
 Ghost. And this is the precise alternative to which the New 
 School resort. Regeneration is to be by moral suasion. — 
 This Dr. Duffield attempts through several pages to prove, 
 and Mr. Gilbert, the permanent, clerk of the New School 
 General Assembly in 1838, published a pamphlet by request 
 of his brethren in the ministry, entitled "Moral Suasion," or 
 " Regeneration no miracle." 
 
 Whatever may be said by these men concerning the neces- 
 sity and power of the Spirit in regeneration, so long as the 
 Spirit is nevertheless, carefully and fully excluded from the 
 performance of any direct work on the heart itself, in impart- 
 ing to it any new principle of spiritual life, it is all the same 
 as though they had said nothing concerning the Spirit at all ; 
 for if his power is arrested by the argument and expends 
 itself upon it, and does not touch the guilty soul by a direct 
 and creative energy and impart to it spiritual life, then re- 
 generation is the act of the sinner, and not the act of God. 
 Let the infinite motives, if you please, be drawn from three 
 worlds, and pressed, it matters not how, or by whom, since 
 this is all, for df the sinner's heart is changed by the presen- 
 tation of motives, then he changes it himself. He who is 
 induced to change his mind by a strong persuasion, still does 
 the act himself. It is appropriately his act, and cannot be 
 said in that case to be the act of any other. But this is not 
 regeneration at all. The entire doctrine is abandoned and 
 rejected by such a definition of it. Regeneration is an in- 
 ward spiritual and supernatural work of the Holy Ghost, 
 impossible to be done by man. It is in no respect the act of 
 man, but in every respect the act of God. The sinner does 
 not beget himself but is begotten of God. He is wholly 
 passive in regeneration. He does not in it perform but re- 
 
REGENERATION* 135 
 
 ceives an action, as when the woman was healed by the 
 virtue that went out of our blessed Lord, though active in 
 touching his garment, yet the act of healing was his, not 
 hers. She was wholly passive with respect to that act. — 
 Neither was it by any words spoken by the Redeemer, 
 but by a virtue that went out of him that she was healed. 
 (Mark v. 30.) Thus, in regeneration, though active in the 
 use of means, though putting forth every effort that we may 
 but touch the hem of his garments and draw virtue out of 
 him, yet the life which we receive is from him. It is not 
 self-originated, but divinely imparted. This is too plain to 
 be misunderstood, too conclusive to be evaded. It is usual, 
 however, to object that the mind is not an agent that acts or 
 that receives an action in a state of passivity, but is in itself 
 essentially active, and therefore active in regeneration. It 
 will not be necessary to a successful defence of our position, 
 to discuss this new theory concerning the nature of the mind. 
 We have only to say that there is a just and natural distinction 
 between life and the motions of life. Though these may not 
 be distinguishable in the order of time, yet they are in the or- 
 der of nature. Say, then, that the activities of the sinner as a 
 moral being are not for mi instant suspended, either before or 
 after regeneration, that even at the very moment of it, his 
 whole soul was roused into a state of most intense activity, 
 yet this cannot affect the question of his passivity with re- 
 spect to the acts of an agent wholly extraneous to himself. 
 Those acts are not his, he does not perform them, and hence 
 when the Holy Spirit imparts to him a new kind of life, a 
 life which he never had and could not originate in himself, 
 imparts it at once, and diffuses it through all his soul, he 
 receives an action from without himself, and that action is in 
 no respect his own. When the new life is given, he of course 
 puts forth its motions; the motions of the new life are his, 
 but the life itself is communicated. So that whatever view we 
 may take of the mind, of its successive states or essential ac- 
 
136 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL TRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 tivities, it is all the same with respect to the question at issue : 
 and we therefore repeat the charge, that the entire doctrine 
 of regeneration is abandoned and rejected by the New 
 School definition of it : I speak not of professions, but of 
 facts. They retain the word but destroy its meaning, turn 
 it into an apple of Sodom, fair without but within full of 
 cinders and ashes, give us pewter for silver, and brass 
 for gold, pervert and darken a plain question, and then 
 ask us if we cannot see clearly that the whole dispute "is not 
 about a fact, but about the mere philosophy of a fact?' Not 
 whether we are regenerated, but how we are regenerated 1 
 when at the same time the dispute is about the great fact of 
 regeneration itself, whether indeed spiritual life is imparted 
 to the soul, or whether it is not. Whether indeed, any prin- 
 ciples are imparted by the Holy Ghost, new, spiritual and 
 supernatural, wholly unlike any thing we ever had before, 
 and which we could not originate in ourselves, or whether 
 this old doctrine of the Church and of the Bible is the relic 
 of a dark age. For, whether motives are or are not presen- 
 ted to sinners in the gospel call, is not a question in contre-, 
 versy, and it never has been. We all believe they arc. and 
 
 3 a mere evasion to talk about them in the discussion of a 
 totally distinct matter. But is regeneration the act of God 
 the Spirit, does he perform it upon us, does he " take away 
 the stony heart out of our flesh and give us a heart of flesh." 
 (Eze. xxxvi. 2G) are we born of the Spirit, "not of blood, 
 not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
 God?" (John i. 13.) In a word, is the new heart "cre- 
 ated" (Eph. ii. 10) by the Holy Spirit, or is there no such act 
 of creative omnipotence required or exercised] The ques- 
 tion is as to this fact: and if it does not exist, as our opponents 
 maintain it does not, then there is no such thing as regenera- 
 tion as understood by the Church, and the New School are 
 convicted of denying the doctrine altogether. 
 
 They in effect make truth an agent;- this is the necessary 
 
REGENERATION. 137 
 
 result of their philosophy. " The power which God exerts 
 in the conversion of a soul, is moral power ; it is that 
 kind of power by which a statesman sways the mind of a 
 senate, or by which an advocate moves and bows the heart 
 of a jury." (Finney's sermons on important subjects, pp. 21, 
 27, 28, 30.). '-Shall we suppose that God cannot do with 
 sinners, in reference to himself, what one man has done with 
 another ; that a physical efficiency is necessary to make the 
 sinner willing to confide in him. * * "It would be, in effect, 
 to say that man can subdue his foe, and, by an appropriate 
 moral influence, convert him into a friend, but that God 
 cannot convert his enemy, and bring him to believe, except 
 he puts forth his physical power, and literally creates him 
 over again." (Duffield on Regeneration, pp. 492, 493.) I find 
 Mr. Barnes referring in different placos of his Commentary 
 to his Notes on 2 Cor. v. 14. '-If any man be in Christ, he 
 is a new creature : old things are passed away ; behold, all 
 things are become now." And here I find the following 
 statements : " The mode or manner in which it is done, is 
 not described, nor should the words be pressed to the quick, 
 as if the process were the same in both cases;" (i. e.) ' ; a 
 change, so to speak, as if the man were made over again." 
 * * -"If a drunkard becomes reformed, there is no impro- 
 priety in saying that he is a new man." * * " There is such 
 a change as to make the language proper, and so in the 
 conversion of a sinner." And in Rom. v. 19, he teaches 
 that man is plunged in sin by the first Adam, in the same 
 way that the families of drunkards and pirates are ruined ; 
 by a social organization. "And by the same organization 
 he shall, through the second Adam rise to life, and ascend 
 to the skies," i. e., by gospel truth and christian example ; 
 for in Rom. iv. 3, he further explains himself : " Faith is 
 always an act of the mind ; it is not a principle, * * * 
 "God promises, man belie ves, and this is the whole of jt.' ? 
 Faith, then, according to Mr. Barnes, is no principle of liv- 
 
138 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 ing union to Christ. Nothing imparted to the soul by the 
 Holy Ghost, but simply an act exercised in view of a mo- 
 tive. The New School, therefore however unwilling they 
 may be to admit it, make the truth an agent, und invest 
 it with a delegated omnipotence. They take the Spirit's 
 work and glory from him, and give it over to eloquent 
 harangues and mighty appeals. Their error is a reproduc- 
 tion of reason in her triumphal car, and surrounded by her 
 worshippers ; there is a pretender on the throne, an usurper 
 of the prerogatives of God. 
 
 The gospel is not an efficient cause ; it is " the weakness 
 of God " and " the foolishness of preaching." It has no 
 power in itself, or by communication to it, to raise the dead 
 in sin ; and because of its innate and necessary weakness 
 in the matter of our regeneration, it is the chosen emblem 
 of the power of God, who employs it. It is full of persua- 
 sions, but they are poured upon the ears of dead men ; the 
 excellency of the power resides in God; (2 Cor. iv. 9;) and 
 at every step in the progress of expostulation and appeal, 
 the admonition should reach our ears and affect our hearts. 
 ."It is not by might, or by power, but by my spirit, saith 
 the Lord.^ Ezek. iv. G. " The gospel to the believer is not 
 in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and 
 in rrfcch assurance." The power is in the Holy Ghost, and 
 he does not delegate it to words and sentences. He exer- 
 cises it himself, and does not give his glory to another, 
 nor his praise to motives. He teaches us "what is the exceed- 
 ing greatness of his power to us- ward, who believe accor- 
 ding to the working of his mighty power, which lie wrought 
 in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at 
 his own right hand in heavenly places." Eph. i. 19, 20. The 
 resurrection of the body of Christ from the tomb of Joseph, 
 was a wonderful event, and the effect of a direct act of om- 
 nipotence. It was not words ; It was the spirit, which cre- 
 ated that blessed body at the first, out of nothing, which now 
 
REGENERATION. 139 
 
 quickened its mangled and mortal remains. If words are 
 uttered when the dead are raised, they have no efficiency, 
 but serve to warn us of the outgoings of omnipotence, in its 
 direct and reproductive energy ; the power flows out of 
 the spirit — not out of his words. In th^ same record in which 
 we are told that God said, "Let the waters under the heaven's 
 be gathered into one place." (Gen. i. 9.) It is also stated that 
 " the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Gen. 
 i. 2.) The word spoken was not an efficient cause ; it did not 
 move on the face of the waters, nor gather them together in 
 one place. The sentence " Lazarus come forth." (John. xi. 
 43 ;) indicated the will of Christ, but in itself it had no power, 
 as it echoed through the dreary vault, to startle the ear sealed* 
 up by the finger of death; the power was not communica- 
 ted to the words, but to the body of Lazarus, and hence he 
 obeyed the summons of his maker. There could be no pow- 
 er in the sentence itself, nor in the frequency of its repetition ; 
 if ever since the moment it fell from the lips of our blessed 
 Lord, it had continued to be repeated by him, unaccompanied 
 by his divine power directly acting on the body, the sleep 
 of Lazarus would never have been broken. Nor could it 
 reside in its loudness ; a thousand parks of artillery discharg- 
 ed over him could not have waked the dead ; earth's internal 
 fires might have been kindled, and rolled their mightiest thun- 
 ders underneath his resting place of quaking marble, and rock- 
 ed the surrounding mountains in their beds, but Lazarus 
 would have still continued to sleep on, in the total unconcious- 
 ness of death. And in like manner, the gospel, is in itself 
 powerless, and holds the same relation to the resurrection of 
 the soul, dead in sin, that it or any other words would, to the 
 resurrection of a body mouldering in the grave. The power, 
 the creative and subjective power, is the same in both cases. 
 Life is life, whether spiritual, or natural, and the one, is as 
 difficult to originate as the other. As it is written the resur- 
 rection to spiritual life, is " according to the working of the 
 
140 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 mighty power of God," (Eph. i. 19.) in the resurrection of 
 our murdered Lord, from the dead. The power, we therefore 
 conclude, resides not in the gospel : neither in its nature nor 
 by communication to it. "It is the spirit that quickeneth," 
 (it is) by my spirit saith the Lord." He is the agent, the 
 great agent, and the only agent, in the act of regeneration ; 
 we are " born of the Spirit." 
 
 When Peter, I insist therefore, preached the gospel in the 
 call of the Gentiles, it was not the word that fell on them, that 
 brought them to Christ ; but it is stated that the Holy Ghost 
 fell on them which heard the word." It was not the Scriptures 
 which opened the understanding of the disciples, but it is 
 , written, li then opened he their understandings, that they 
 should understand the Scriptures." The things spoken by 
 Paul did not open the heart of Lydia to attend to the gospel 
 call, but the " Lord opened her heart." In all these instances 
 truth is powerless, and the gospel the " weakness of God." It 
 has no sweet voice to " charm the deaf adder." (Ps. iii. 3, 5.) 
 No motives to sway "an iron sinew." (Isai. xlviii. 4.) No 
 eloquent appeal to melt " an adamant stone." (Zech. vii. 12.) 
 Its tears fall upon a rock, its call is lost upon the wind, except 
 the Holy Ghost, first, give the ear to hear and the heart to 
 understand. Isai. xlviii. 8. Native depravity then exists as 
 a melancholy fact and human impotence as a humbling reality. 
 These sad results of Adams fall, are no mere chimeras of 
 the brain, no imaginary streams whose fountains were never 
 opened, and whose waters never flowed, t they prevail every 
 where, and all the high hills which are under the whole 
 heaven arc covered. No mere words can gather them back 
 again to their beds and restore life to the bosom of a perished 
 world ; the spirit of God must first " move upon the face 
 of the waters." 
 
 While the means of grace are not to be made to occupy 
 the place and perform the work of the spirit, they are still 
 neither to be dispised nor neglected, for they are inseparably 
 
* t 
 
 REGENERATION. 141 
 
 connected with the end by divine appointment. The prophet 
 in the valley of vision, did not neglect to call upon the dead 
 to live, though their bones were dry and marrowless, and 
 though they had for ages, encumbered the field of the slain. 
 And by this striking and well known example, we are taught 
 to use the means, not because they are efficient, but because 
 they are appointed, and to expect in the diligent use of them, 
 the glorious outgoings of divine power, in the resurrection of 
 the ,; whole house of Israel." Ez. xxxvii. 1, 14. 
 
 Fire is a natural cause, efficient from its own properties, to 
 destroy combustible materials. Its action on them is uni- 
 form; whatever will burn when thrown into it, it invariably 
 consumes. The Gospel is no such cause ; it does not act 
 uniformly, nor from its essential properties. • Peter preached 
 it, and three thousand were brought to repentance: Stephen 
 preached it to men of like passions, with equal sweetness and 
 fidelity, but his exasperated hearers stoned him to death. — 
 " It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." 
 
 The gospel is not a moral law but a gracious remedy, and' 
 assumes as it comes forth from the presence-chamber of the 
 great King, that the world is a lost world, a spiritual charnal- 
 house, in which sin has gathered and piled the whitened bones 
 of ruined generations. It comes to break the strength of sin, 
 and to terminate'the reign of death; its voice is that of the Son 
 of God, i: the dead hear it, and they that hear live." (John 
 v. 25.) It assumes that sin is an incurable disease, extending 
 its dreadful ravages to the whole race, and spreading from 
 joint to joint and limb to limb ; no soul escapes, and no 
 member of the body; " the whole head is sick and the whole 
 heart is faint;" and from the bosom of suffering huumanity the 
 inquiry is wafted on every breeze, ; 'Is there no balm in Gilead, 
 is there no kind physician therel" And when " there is no eye 
 to pity and no arm to save," no voice to break the fearful 
 silence, the Gospel comes, swift as the roe, or the young hart, 
 on the mountains of Bether, bearing an invaluable remedy, 
 
142 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 and proclaiming a balm for every wound, and a physician who 
 never lost a patient. 
 
 In this manner the Gospel every where assumesthe helpless, 
 hopeless ruin of the whole world. The dead are already 
 perished; the sick are already past all cure, except by mira- 
 cle. Whatever, then, falsifies or weakens this assumption, 
 operates in the same way on the remedy itself: it brings it 
 into disrepute; " the whole need not a physician, but they 
 that are sick." (Math. x. 12.) On the contrary, whatever 
 tends to increase the knowledge and conviction of its truth, 
 tends, in the same degree, to bring the great remedy into de- 
 mand. Hence the prophets and apostles were every where 
 full in their instructions on this point. They asserted its truth, 
 assumed it on all occasions, and illustrated it in every possi- 
 ble way. According to them, the sinner's bones are dry, 
 his disease incurable, his eyes are blind, his feet are lame, 
 his strength is weakness, his wisdom foil v, his righteousness 
 filthy rags, the imagination of every thought is evil, he is 
 altogether become unprofitable, his ear is the deaf adders, 
 his mind and conscience defiled, his heart an adamant stone. 
 This is the uniform image of ruin, and the dark picture is no 
 where relieved, no where softened,with a lighter shade.by the 
 inspired writers. And when the Spirit operates on the sin- 
 ner's heart, his first work is in perfect correspondence with 
 this,his testimony. The secure sinner, whose heart is touched 
 by the Spirit, finds himself lost — the pit into which his con- 
 victions plunge him, is the horrible sepulcher of his righteous- 
 ness and strength: both are decayed at once, and God alone 
 can help him in his need. He, therefore, who denies this 
 truth, belies this Bible testimony, and the Spirit's convictions, 
 and veils the remedy from the eyes of ruined men. I know 
 of no one thing, more contrary to all the instructions of the 
 word of God, or more highly calculated to do an awakened 
 sinner infinite harm, than this fatal error. The assurance 
 of strength in ourselves, is invariably accompanied by the 
 
\ 
 
 REGENERATION. 143 
 
 feeling of security. If that feeling of security is taken from 
 us, and our ruin is seen and felt to be complete and appalling, 
 in every aspect of it, then alone we betake ourselves to the 
 cross with a loud and bitter cry: restore it again, and we 
 become secure in sin. There is death, in this error on de- 
 pravity ; it stupifies and destroys the soul ; it heals the 
 hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, and leaves the 
 disease to work our final ruin at its leisure. I warn you, 
 therefore, against it. You need to know the nature, and ex- 
 tent of your ruin, rather than that it should be hid from your 
 eyes by flattering words. If you would ever avail yourselves 
 of the remedy, your necessity must be felt; for if you are not 
 dead, you cannot be brought to life, not lost, you cannot be 
 found, not born in sin, you cannot be born again. The phy- 
 sician heals no one who can heal himself; no one shall glo- 
 ry in his presence. As total depravity is a reality, so the 
 conviction of our guilt and impotence must be real and conclu- 
 sive, and the praise unhesitating; "Unto him that loved us and 
 washed us from our sins in his own blood, and made us kings 
 and priests unto God, and his Father, unto him be glory and 
 dominion forever." No tongue shall falter in that song in hea- 
 ven, or fear to ascribe too much of the great work to the Son 
 and Spirit, and too little to themselves. Grace began, and 
 continued, and completed, the entire redemption, and faith 
 places the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and crowns are 
 cast down and dominions bow in adoring wonder there. No 
 one is there, who does not wear the bridegroom's robe, "the 
 clean white linen, which is the righteousness of the saints." 
 No one is there, who could or did redeem himself, or who 
 could, or did prepare himself thereunto. In that vast assem- 
 bly of ransomed sinners, the recollections of past guilt and 
 impotence are the same in all. There is no dust of human 
 ability or righteousness in the balances of that sanctuary ; 
 the " righteousness -and strength of all are in the Lamb alone." 
 (Isaiah xlv. 24.) In the ascriptions of that song, " Worthy is 
 
144 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 the Lamb, for he was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by 
 his blood, out of every kindred and tongue and people and 
 nation, " the voices are many, but united, the harmony per- 
 fect, the melody subduing, the sound vast and comprehensive 
 as that of many waters. There are none round about the 
 throne among all the host of the redeemed, who cannot now 
 unite in ascribing all to grace. And there shall in no wise 
 appear there, hereafter, any thing whatsoever that worketh 
 abomination, or that loveth or that maketh a lie against this 
 truth. He that does not partake of the ruin cannot partake 
 of the remedy, nor join in the praises of the deliverer who 
 said, "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repent- 
 ance;" " the whole need not a physician, but the sick." 
 
 The New School then deny the necessity of the work of 
 the Holy Spirit in regeneration and make that work improb- 
 able and superfluous by asserting the natural ability of man. 
 without the spirit's aid, to do in and for himself, all that God 
 requires in his word. They render his work also an impossi- 
 bility, by denying that death in sin, or that natural depravity, 
 which alone calls for the spirits supernatural agency. He 
 cannot quicken a soul dead in sin, when no such death in sin 
 exists. He cannot remove a depravity of nature, when there 
 is no such depravity to remove. And finally by their doctrine 
 of moral suasion, they take the spirit's work and glory from 
 him and give them to another. They treat the Holy Spirit 
 as the Papists do the Son ; they occupy his place with a 
 strange God Rome has done it with a wafer; they have 
 done it with a motive. These splendid discoveries have 
 called forth the praises of Unitarians, but have filled the 
 ( hurch of Christ with strife and alienations. " And the third 
 angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, bur- 
 ning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the 
 rivers, and upon the fountains of waters ; and the name of 
 the star is called wormwood : and the third part of the waters 
 became wormwood ; and many men died of the waters, be- 
 
REGENERATION. 145 
 
 cause they were made bitter." Rev. viii. 10, 11. There is 
 another aspect to this subject which I desire distinctly to 
 bring before your minds. It teaches the annihilation of 
 infants: first, it denies that infants have any moral character, 
 and as our Lord Jesus was an infant once, he is distinctly 
 included. " Things inanimate, have, in Scripture parlance, 
 sometimes been called holy, as the inmost chamber of the 
 temple was called the Holy of Holies, But then it was be- 
 cause of some especial and peculiar relationship, it had 
 to God. He dwelt in it; it was set apart as preeminently 
 and exclusively appropriated to God. In this sense, the yet 
 unconscious human nature of Christ, may be denominated 
 holy, for it was the habitation of God, and singularly and ex- 
 clusively appropriated to him, differing, in this respect, essen- 
 tially and entirely from that of any of the descendants of 
 Adam." " It is obvious, that in infancy and incipient child- 
 hood, when none of the actions are deliberate, or the result 
 of motive operating in connection with the knowledge of the 
 law and of the great end of all human actions, no moral 
 character can properly be predicated;" "properly speaking, 
 therefore, we can predicate of it, neither sin nor holiness, 
 personally considered," (see Duffieldon Regeneration,pp. 377, 
 378, 379, 353.) From the above extracts, among other 
 things, we are taught that the human nature of Christ was 
 once holy in the same sense in which the most holy place was 
 holy, not really, but relatively, or in the same sense in which 
 a linen curtain or a board is holy, (i. e.) was not holy at all. 
 But the Scriptures teach that Jesus was created and born 
 holy; " the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power 
 of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy 
 thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of 
 God." (Luke i. 13.) To deny that this nature was holy in 
 reality, contradicts the above text, and takes away the prin- 
 cipal glory of the nature itself, and the principal glory of the 
 Spirit, in its creation. The views of Mr. Duffield, in com- 
 
 10 
 
146 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 mon with the New School, on native depravity, lead irresist- 
 ably to this conclusion, to wit: that the human nature of the 
 infant Jesus was not at first holy, a conclusion not only obvi- 
 ously erroneous, but wanting in every feature of propriety 
 and religious veneration. 
 
 And again, if infants have no moral character, they can 
 have no moral nature, for these are inseparable from each 
 other, and then, by necessary consequence, they are in no 
 respect moral beings, and are not the subjects of the moral 
 government of God ; they die by the same law by which 
 a brute dies, and perish as the brutes perish. "Animals are 
 not subjects of the moral government of God, neither are 
 infants, previous to moral agency, for what has moral gov- 
 ernment to do with those who are not moral agents: animals 
 and infants, previous to moral agency, do therefore stand on 
 precisely the same ground in reference to this subject." (See 
 Christian Spectator for 1829, p. 173.) The above reasoning 
 is conclusive, if the premises are admitted, to wit: that intelli- 
 gent preferences to good and evil are essential to the existence 
 of moral character; for if they are, then they are equally 
 so to the existence of a moral nature, for a moral nature 
 cannot be separated from its character, just as a rainbow 
 cannot be separated from its colors; and hence infants, pre- 
 vious to moral agency, are mere animals. Mr. Barnes evi- 
 dently holds, with the others of this School, that infants; are 
 not " moral agents" as soon as they are born, but that they 
 become such at some subsequent period. (See his 9th remark 
 on Rom. v. 19.) Against this doctrine we urge the follow- 
 ing objections. 
 
 First, it denies our Lord's testimony; "of such [is his em- 
 phatic language,] of such is the kingdom of God," (Mark x. 
 14: and verse 16,) "and he took them up in his arms, put his 
 hands upon them and blessed them." This kingdom of God, 
 of which they are so solemnly recognised as members, is a 
 kingdom of "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy 
 
REGENERATION. 147 
 
 Ghost;" (Rom. xiv. 19.) and none can belong to it who are 
 mere animals — mere animals are not redeemed sinners. And 
 as millions of our race pass the gateway into the other world 
 in infancy, and as mere animals, their nature and their end 
 must be the same with all other animals, they must be anni- 
 hilated; and this falsifies the solemn statement of our Lord, 
 when he said they belonged to the kingdom of God, and 
 turns into absurdity his solemn benediction, when he laid his 
 hands on them and blessed them. It robs him of his reward. 
 He shed his blood for sinners, not for mere animals, and as 
 infants are not sinners, they cannot be washed from their 
 sins in a Saviour's blood, they can have no part nor lot in that 
 matter. It robs the Spirit of his glory, in renewing the na- 
 tures of infants, for they cannot be renewed by the Holy 
 Ghost: " the washing of regeneration" is applied only to a 
 defiled moral nature, and as there is no such defilement, it 
 cannot be washed away — no such moral nature, previous to 
 moral agency, it cannot be made the subject of renewing 
 influences. 
 
 It denies the Abrahamic covenant,, and falsifies the signifi- 
 cance of both its seals. At the age of eight days the seal of 
 circumcision was applied to the decendents of Abraham, and 
 baptism is authorized at an equally early period. In this 
 solemn transaction, children are recognized as moral beings, 
 possessed of a moral nature, and as sustaining moral relations 
 which reach to the fall of Adam, to the redemption by Christ, 
 and to the sanctification by the Spirit. Such relations belong 
 not to the brute creation, and therefore they are never 
 brought within the provisions of the everlasting covenant, 
 nor profanely baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost. Over them no gracious conveyances 
 are suspended in the promises, and no prayers are offered to 
 bring them down. In relation to mere animals, such cere- 
 monies would be an abomination, and the consciousness of 
 this fact, has occasioned a growing neglect of infant baptism 
 
148 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 among the New School. Their apathy has not found formal 
 utterance, but it is the result of their views; for how can they 
 but question the propriety of baptizing, in the name of the 
 Trinity, a mere animal, which may be annihilated in an hour, 
 or praying for the justification and sanctification of a nature 
 wholly free from sin 1 
 
 This doctrine is odious. Those who first openly avowed 
 it, have found that it would not be borne, and have blenched 
 from the withering gaze of an insulted church. Some how- 
 ever, still privately assert their belief in it, and others yet 
 meet us with the evasions noticed by Dr. Spring in 1833. 
 '• They were not prepared either to affirm or deny ; but 
 their minds seemed to be in a painful state of hesitation and 
 skepticism. They could not tell ; they did not know what 
 the Bible taught in relation to the native character of our 
 fallen race. Ask them whether we were born sinners, and 
 they will tell you ; We do not know. Ask them whether 
 infants possess any moral character, and they would relpy ; 
 we do not know. Ask them whether they are accountable 
 beings ; and they would tell you ; we do not know. Ask 
 them whether they need the washing of regeneration and 
 the renewing of the Holy Ghost ; and they answered ; we 
 do not know. Ask them what becomes of infants when they 
 die ; and they said, we do not know. Ask them whether death 
 in relation to infants is by sin ; and they still say, we do not 
 know.'- (See Dissertation on Native Depravity, by Gardner 
 Spring, D. D. pp. 3, 4.) By others again it is suggested 
 that though incapable of regeneration here, yet when they 
 are in heaven, and old enough to choose God, they do so in 
 the first moral and voluntary act. But this places infants in 
 heaven without their ever having sinned, and independently 
 of the work of the Son and Spirit, either in atoning for their 
 sin, or in cleansing them from it, and brings against the whole 
 theory the original objections in all their force, with additional 
 ones, equally formidable, which doom this error of the 
 
REGENERATION. 149 
 
 schools, this offspring of a false philosophy, to its own place. 
 This doctrine, has no consoling words for those " Rachel's 
 who weep for their children, and refuse to be comforted be- 
 cause they are not ;" it assures them that they shall never 
 meet them more. No attractions for those parents who with 
 cheerful gratitude and believing hearts, have dedicated their 
 infant offspring to God in baptism, for it assures them that 
 the link which unites their children to the common nature of 
 the domesticated cat and dog, is yet to be broken. Nor can 
 it either find favor with the unsofisticated ministers of Jesus ; 
 it teaches them that that child was an animal for which 
 they prayed at its baptism. They prayed that it might now 
 be washed in the blood of atonement, when it had no sin to 
 wash away ; they prayed that it might now be renewed by 
 the Holy Ghost, when it had no moral nature to be renewed, 
 no stain to wipe out, no disease to cure. Indeed an error so 
 uncongenial can find little favor any where, and it would 
 soon cease to be known, except to history, but for its con- 
 nection with its source, the error on native depravity, out of 
 which it grows and of which its very existence is a sufficient 
 refutation. Of this the New School themselves appear pain- 
 fully conscious and are hence very unwilling either to admit, 
 or deny any thing on the subject of infant regeneration, and 
 when the charge of believing in their annihilation is fairly 
 established by inference from their premises, or by quota- 
 tions from the open avowels, of some of their less wary 
 champions, they shrink instinctively from the spectre which 
 their wretched philosophy has conjured up, and has placed 
 before their theological chair. 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 Revivals of Religion — Views of the Old School on this subject — Differences 
 respecting their nature and genuineness. 
 
 An impression prevails that Presbyterians of the Old 
 School, do not believe in revivals of religion, but this is erro- 
 neous. The differences between them and the New School 
 are not as to the fact of revivals, but as to the evidences of 
 their genuineness. Religion from various causes may decline 
 in the visible church. Her enjoyment of the means of grace 
 may for a season be partially or wholly interrupted ; false 
 teachers, and a corrupting example may surround them ; very 
 unfavorable changes mav occur in their external circumstan- 
 ces, and from various other causes operating simultaneous- 
 ly, and generally, a declension in vital godliness may come to 
 prevail to an alarming and melancholy extent. And when 
 God changes this state of things revives his work, brings again 
 the captivity of his people, restores to them the means of 
 grace and sheds his spirit upon them, it is a revival — life 
 from the dead — a time of refreshing from the presence of 
 the Lord, and Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. 
 
 A great decline in true religion prevailed among the Israel- 
 ites in Egypt. Their religious privileges were taken away, 
 oppression interrupted their public worship, and their Sab- 
 baths were forgotten. A corrupt literature, a false religion, 
 and an abounding immorality, combined to produce a sad 
 assimilation of the sieve to his master, and in the abscence 
 
REVIVALS. 151 
 
 of all counteracting influences, vital godliness lost its visibil- 
 ity, and almost its existence. At this time, Moses was raised 
 up to be a deliverer. Yet so blinded were his brethren ; so 
 brutalized by ignorance and oppression they knew not 
 their friend from their foe. Moses was rejected, and for 
 forty years, remained in the wilderness, maturing in piety, 
 wisdom, and experience, to fit him for the great part he was 
 to act in the approaching reformation; and when the time 
 had fully come, he, under the divine direction, entered on 
 his work. God was with him in outward signs, and in in- 
 ward influences. The people were delivered, grew in 
 knowledge, and in grace, and the young and rising generation, 
 were made the subjects of a glorious work of grace, and 
 were ultimately settled in the land of Canaan, in a state of 
 great prosperity. The solemn profession of their faith at 
 Gilgal, when Joshua rolled away their reproach, and their 
 religious character, as contrasted with that of the Israelites 
 at any other period of their history, furnishes a gratifying 
 evidence of the genuineness of that great change which had 
 been wrought in them by the Holy Ghost, and of which 
 their circumcision at Gilgal, was the solemn and external 
 avowal and symbolical exhibition : that their circumcision 
 was not merely in the flesh, but also in the heart, whose 
 praise was not of men, but of God. This godly generation, 
 however, soon passed away, and were succeeded by others, 
 among whom, the truly spiritual held an increasingly dimin- 
 ished proportion to the increasing numbers of the people. 
 The children did not grow up from generation to generation 
 in the fear of God, but grew up an increase of sinful men, 
 to augment the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel. 
 
 After six centuries had passed away, false prophets had be- 
 gun to make their appearance in great numbers, and ultimate- 
 ly, by corrupting the true religion, and by introducing a false 
 one, they succeeded in producing a great declension in vital 
 godliness. This state of things was held in check, from time to 
 
152 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 tim?, by oartial revivals. One of these interesting and mer- 
 ciful visitations occurred during the reign of the good king, 
 Hezekiah. (2 Chron. xxx.) The king being divinely in- 
 fluenced established a decree, to make a proclamation from 
 Beersheba even unto Dan, throughout all Israel, that they 
 should come to the passover unto the Lord God of Israel, at 
 Jerusalem, for they had not done it of a long time in such 
 sort as it was written. So the posts went with the letters 
 from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, 
 and according to the commandment of the king, saying, 
 " ye children of Israel turn again unto the Lord God of 
 Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and he will return to the remnant 
 of you that are escaped out of the hands of the king of 
 Assyria. And be not ye like your fathers and like your 
 brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their 
 fathers, who therefore gave them up to dessolation, as ye 
 see. Now, be ye not stiff-necked as your fathers were, but 
 yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into his sanctuary 
 which he hath sanctified forever ; and serve the Lord your 
 God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from 
 you. For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren 
 and your children shall find compassion before them that lead 
 them captive, so that they shall come again unto this land, 
 for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not 
 turn away his face from you if ye return unto him. So the 
 posts passed from city to city, through the country of Ephraim 
 and Manasseh, even unto Zebulon." But so lost were the 
 people to the power of true religion, so blinded had they 
 become in sin, and so hardened in a way that was not good, 
 that they treated the message with contempt, and insulted 
 the messengers. " They laughed them to scorn, and mocked 
 them." This was, however, not universal, for "divers of 
 Asher and Manasseh, and of Zebulon, humbled themselves 
 and came to Jerusalem ; also in Judah the hand of God 
 was to give them one heart to do the commandments of the 
 king and of the princes, by the word of the Lord." 
 
REVIVALS. 153 
 
 The assemblage at Jerusalem was very great, the reform- 
 ation very thorough. Those who, amid abounding impiety, 
 had neglected too long, their ceremonial cleansing, to be fully 
 prepared, in this respect, for the eating of the passover, 
 were, nevertheless, permitted to partake, because if they 
 had experienced the inward cleansing, the ceremonial could 
 not be of such indispensable moment. And, accordingly, 
 Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, " the good Lord pardon 
 every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord 
 God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to 
 the purification of the sanctuary ; and the Lord hearkened 
 to Hezekiah and healed the people, and after seven days had 
 been spent in this delightful manner, the congregation found 
 themselves unwilling to separate — they could linger there 
 forever, and they kept other seven days with gladness. — • 
 and all the congregation of Judah with the priests and the 
 Levites, and all the congregation that came out of Israel, 
 and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel, and 
 that dwelt in Judah, rejoiced. So there was great joy in 
 Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon the son of David, 
 King of Israel, there was not the like in Jerusalem. Then 
 the priests and the Levites arose and blessed the people and 
 their voice was heard and their prayer came up to his holy 
 dwelling-place, even unto heaven." This is an inspired 
 record of a glorious revival of true religion. It was pro- 
 moted by using the means which God had appointed. In 
 the diligent and reverent use of these means the people were 
 blessed with the pardon of their sins, their souls were healed, 
 the whole congregation filled with spiritual joy, and all 
 abounded in the exercise of gracious affections. Such a 
 work of grace had not occurred before in two hundred and 
 eighty-eight years. The divine influences were abundant 
 and refreshing. The time to favor Zion, yea the set time 
 had come. 
 
 After this blessed manifestation of God's favor to his 
 
154 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 people, true religion again greatly declined, so that at the 
 end of seven hundred years it appeared almost extinct on 
 earth. External washings, the blood of bulls, and of goats, 
 and a strict attention to outward forms, were regarded as of 
 more avail than the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart. 
 The Pharisees, especially, were very exact in the observ- 
 ance of numerous rites and ceremonies, both of divine and 
 of human institution. They labored mainly for effect, not 
 on the heart, but on the imagination, through the use of 
 imposing ceremonies, and by the display of an ostentatious 
 wisdom and sanctity. They made broad their phylactaries, 
 and enlarged the borders of their garments, were ever ready 
 to pay tithe of mint, annise, and cummin, but corrupt at heart 
 and entirely neglecting the weightier matters of the law, 
 judgment, and the love of God. The notions of heathen 
 philosophers, together with adulterated theories of their own 
 religion were the husks with which they fed the multitude. 
 Such were the blind guides of the people, such were the char- 
 acters of the most learned and influential in the visible church. 
 The wretched inhabitants of Judea had imbibed their errors 
 and were bewildered in the valley of the shadow of death, 
 but spiritual blindness was not confined to Judea alone, 
 throughout the vast empire of Rome, and throughout all the 
 earth, the demon of darkness exerted an uncontrolled in- 
 fluence, and his deluded votaries were led captive by him 
 at his will. Philosophers, whose intellectual cultivation and 
 endowments gave them a noble elevation, taught that all 
 crimes were equal ; that theft and adultery were lawful ; 
 that it was right for parents to roast and eat their children, 
 or for children to roast and eat their parents : yea, inasmuch 
 as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, they 
 thought that the Godhead was made like unto wood and 
 stone graven by art and man's devise, and from a corrupted 
 religion issued a corrupted moral and social condition. The 
 work of desolation was complete, everything noble in the 
 
REVIVALS. 155 
 
 character of man was prostituted. All around, and in every 
 circle, among the highest as well as the lowest, among Jews 
 as well as Gentiles, the darkness was visible and might be 
 felt. It was at this time, when true piety seemed to have 
 left the earth forever, it Was at this time of utter desertion 
 and despair, that the day-spring from on high began to dawn 
 and the sun of righteousness arose above the horizon of the 
 moral heavens. The Redeemer of sinners stood on the 
 earth, and looking around on the benighted nations, rejoiced 
 in the spirit and said, "I am the light of the world, he that 
 followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the 
 light of life." After the resurrection of Jesus the Apostles 
 were endued with power from on high ; evangelical truth 
 spread in every direction ; the spirit was shed forth in his 
 quickening influences ; an awakened interest, attended and 
 followed the gospel testimony ; many thousands were pained 
 on account of their sin, and were led by faith to behold the 
 Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. But 
 not among the Jews alone, the revival spread also among the 
 Gentiles; "of a truth, cried the astonished Peter, God hath 
 granted unto the Gentiles repentance unto life." It was a 
 favored hour — a time of refreshing from the presence of the 
 Lord, when he was made known unto them that, sought him 
 not; and was made manifest unto them that asked not after 
 him. The infinite and hopeless distance between a holy 
 God, and the polluted and degraded Gentile, was at once 
 traversed by the footsteps of bleeding mercy; the long and 
 dreary silence was broken, and the wilderness and the soli- 
 tary place became glad for them, and the desert did bud and 
 blossom as the rose. 
 
 It is true that this was an age of miracles, and. these were 
 to answer their end and pass away, but there were blessings 
 in this age which were not to be transcient but permanent. 
 These were the blessings of inward and supernatural grace 
 with which the asre abounded. Though the healing of the 
 
 / 
 
156 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 sick, the raising of the dead, and the gift of tongues were 
 not to be the ordinary and perpetual concomitants of the gos- 
 pel, yet he who was exalted to convince the whole world of 
 sin, because they believed not on him, by the effusion of his 
 Holy Spirit and to give repentance unto Israel and the for- 
 giveness of sins, was exalted to do it in every age as truly as 
 in the early out-goings of a primitive Christianity. Other 
 sheep, said he, have I, which are not of this fold, them also 
 must I bring, and they shall hear my voice. The ministry 
 received a commission to preach the gospel to all men and to 
 all ages even to the end of time. If it can be said in any 
 age, in any place, as it once was, " I have much people in 
 this city," there, a faithful ministry shall preach the gospel, 
 there, men hitherto indifferent, shall become solicitous con- 
 cerning their salvation, and shall inquire what they shall do 
 to be saved. Gifts of healing in a supernatural way, were 
 not to be continued except as they were connected with the 
 gospel testimony and with the quickening power of the Holy 
 Ghost, on the soul dead in sin. In this respect a constant 
 miracle was to distinguish the blessed gospel and that in all 
 ages. Glorious things are spoken of thee, Oh, thou city of 
 God. It shall be said of this and of that man, they were 
 born in Zion and the highest himself shall establish her. 
 
 True revivals, then, result from a divine and supernatural 
 agency ; in Judah, when the memorable passover was cel- 
 ebrated by Hezekiah, the hand of God was to give every 
 one a heart to execute the commandments of the Lord. By 
 Ezekiel it is said, in reference to a glorious'event of this kind, 
 "then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be 
 clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I 
 cleanse you; a new heart, also, will I give you, and I will 
 take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give 
 you an heart of flesh." When Peter preached the gospel 
 00 the day of Pentecost, three thousand were pricked in the 
 hctrt, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should 
 
REVIVALS. 157 
 
 be saved: according as it is written, and thus it behooves us 
 to acknowledge the Holy Ghost in his official and blessed 
 work, and to say "not by might, or by power, but by my spirit 
 saith the Lord." " To as many as received him, to them gave 
 he power to become the sons of God, even to them that be- 
 lieved on his name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the 
 will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. When 
 the Gentiles were called, the Holy Ghost fell on them which 
 heard the word. 
 
 True revivals occur in connection with means divinely 
 appointed. Hezekiah employed the passover, a divinely 
 appointed festival, to promote a work of grace, and the 
 Apostles went everywhere preaching Jesus, as they were 
 authorised to do, making the Old Testament scriptures the 
 basis of their instructions; the first day of the week, ordin- 
 arily the time for communicating their message ; baptism, 
 the outward sign of an inward grace, the seal of the coven- 
 ant, and the pledge of love and fidelity ; the Lord's supper, 
 the commemoration of the Lord's death, and the means ot 
 comfort and support, the outward and solemn declaration of 
 faith in a Saviour's sacrifice. 
 
 When true revivals occur, believers, some of them at. least, 
 are greatly quickened and divinely led to seek after them as 
 blessings inexpressably great and desirable. Moses never 
 lost sight of the great end which he sought, when he refused 
 to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, but preserved it 
 among the most cherished wishes of his heart, during his 
 voluntary exile of forty years in the wilderness. "For all 
 these things will I be inquired of by the house of Israel to 
 do it for them." The disciples tarried at Jerusalem and 
 continued with one accord in one place, in prayers and sup- 
 plications, until the day of Pentecost was fully come. 
 
 The means which promote revivals, are not natural causes 
 working uniformly, and invariably, producing the same re- 
 sults, but are week and wholly inefficient in themselves and 
 
158 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 dependent for their efficacy on the divine will. The gifts of 
 the Holy Ghost are always " according to his own will." 
 "God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound 
 the things which are mighty." The gospel is the weakness 
 of God, the excellency of the power is of him; hence the 
 ministry is accountable for its fidelity, not for its success. 
 
 True revivals are attended with alarming apprehensions of 
 sin and misery. "Felix trembled." The sermon of Peter 
 sent a pang to the hearts of thousands. The inquiry, "men 
 and brethren what shall we do?" expressed a strong emotion 
 common and simultaneous among awakened sinners in that 
 vast assembly. The jailor of Philippi, also, came trembling 
 and astonished, and said, " sirs, what must 1 do to be saved." 
 Though the outward expressions of inward emotions are 
 modified by circumstances, and depend much upon the de- 
 gree of knowledge, and upon the peculiar temperament of 
 different individuals, yet, in all instances, the conviction of 
 sin and misery is the same; every returning wanderer is led 
 to smite his breast with the publican; to feel his want and 
 to see that he must perish without a deliverer, and to return 
 and to confess with tears, his unworthiness and poverty, with 
 the prodigal; whatever attainments may have been made 
 in piety and morality before, all, in any event, learn with 
 Paul, to count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
 knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, for whom they are 
 ready to suffer the loss of all things, and they do count them 
 dung, that they may win Christ and be found in him; not 
 having their own righteousness, which is of the law, but that 
 which is of the faith of the Son of God, the righteousness 
 which is of God by faith. 
 
 The Mosaic ritual subserved its end and passed away. — 
 Miracles were wrought, and confirmed the testimony which 
 they were sent to establish, and ceased in the church ; but there 
 are other things inseparable from the uniform condition of 
 our common humanity, and which are essential to the nature 
 
REVIVALS. 159 
 
 and perpetuity of the Gospel, and which must continue to the 
 end of time: as for instance, man's ignorance of divine 
 things, even when he has an intellectual acquaintance with 
 them. Of the natural man, it must ever remain true, that 
 he discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they 
 are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because 
 they are spiritually discerned." Whenever the natural man, 
 therefore, receives from the Holy Spirit, that illumination 
 which discovers to him his sin and misery, and his need of a 
 redeemer, this discovery must invariably be attended with 
 emotion; he must become tremblingly alive to his guilt and 
 danger, and the vast question which agitates him, must, in 
 the very nature of things, take precedence of all others. — 
 When we are threatened with the loss of property, or of 
 kindred, or of liberty, whatever may be those calamities, 
 merely temporal, which surround us, we can discover some 
 alleviation, and gather courage from the hope of better days; 
 but when the Holy Spirit convinces of sin, of righteousness, 
 and of judgment, the evils which threaten us have neither 
 measure nor mitigation; we fear and quake before a burning 
 mountain, and the voice of unearthly words; we stand ap- 
 palled and condemned in the presence of an offended God, 
 and in view of the wrath to come. If we could pity our- 
 selves as simply unfortunate, then we could remain strong 
 amid unavoidable afflictions, and feel that we had merited a 
 better fate; but when conscience turns accuser, and institutes 
 a terrible scrutiny of the past, and brings up appalling visions 
 of judgment and eternity, natural fortitude and resolution 
 are of no avail There is no waste, like that which wastes 
 the supplies — no drain so exhausting, as that which exhausts 
 the fountain — no blow, like that which smites the heart. — 
 The spirit of a man can sustain his infirmity, but a wounded 
 spirit, who can bear 1 
 
 The miraculous changes, which a true revival of religion 
 supposes, must be common to the church in all ages. They 
 
160 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 may extend to a few individuals, every month, for several 
 years, as in the gathering of the churches of Coiinth and 
 Ephesus, or be a sudden and simultaneous influence upon 
 thousands, in a moment, as in the great revival at Jerusalem; 
 but all true revivals are the work of the Holy Ghost, who 
 operates, in conjunction with the means of grace;" " whereby 
 convincing, [either one, or thousands,] of their sin and mis- 
 ery, enligntening their minds in the knowledge of Christ, 
 and renewing their wills, he doth persuade and enable them 
 to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered in the gospel." 
 
 Tradition affirms of Paul, that when he fulfilled his pur- 
 pose of making a journey into Spain, he passed from Italy, 
 on the old Roman road, across the Alps, which led him through 
 Piedmont, where he paused and preached the gospel, and 
 established a church. This secluded spot, remote from the 
 corrupting influence of cities and false teachers, retained the 
 primitive simplicity of the apostolic faith, unchanged, amid 
 surrounding defection and apostacy. The churches which 
 grew up here, were kept alive, from generation to genera- 
 tion, by influences graciously shed upon them from on high, 
 until the seventh century, when they received accessions from 
 other quarters. True Christians, throughout the Roman 
 Empire, weary with remonstrating in vain against the cor- 
 ruptions of an apostate and a doomed church, and discouraged 
 by opposition and persecution, retired, according to Moshiem 
 into an obscure place in the valhVs of Piedmont. From the 
 seventh to the twelfth centuries, we have repeated notices of 
 them from their enemies; by them they are represented as 
 maintaining a church state, separately from the church of 
 Rome, and as existing and increasing, until they filled the 
 beautiful and secluded vallies that lie embosmed amid the 
 Alps and Pyrenees, with immense multitudes of believers in 
 their unchanged and primitive creed. Though distinguished, 
 from age to age, by the life and soundness of their Christi- 
 anity, yet we know of no great movement among them, until 
 
REVIVALS. 
 
 161 
 
 near the close of the twelfth century. At that period, 
 they were remarkably revived and spread themselves, and 
 their peculiar opinions throughout the world. Intimately con- 
 nected with the early progress of the primitive church, was 
 the remarkable conversion of a young man, whose name was 
 Saul, and whose education and position fitted him, preemi- 
 nently, to be a chosen vessel, to be sent far from Jerusalem, 
 among the Gentiles, to preach the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ. A similar event was connected with the great work 
 of grace, to which our attention is now turned. A rich 
 merchant of Lyons, talented and educated, was present at a 
 convivial meeting among his boon companions, when one ol 
 his friends, without any previous warning, suddenly expired, 
 and went from the place of merriment to his last account. — 
 The death of that man was a warning, never forgotten by 
 the young tradesman — he became another man; he gave up 
 his mercantile pursuits, distributed his property to the poor, 
 and found peace in believing in that gospel which he discov- 
 ered in his Latin testament. This he translated into French, 
 and was soon surrounded by large congregations, and associ- 
 ated with other, and able ministers of Jesus, who, in con- 
 junction with him, preached Christ with great earnestness and 
 with great success. This merchant was Peter Waldo. — 
 The Archbishop of Lyons, hearing of his doctrine and suc- 
 cess, denounced him, and Pope Alexander the third, excom- 
 municated him, devoting him and his followers to fire and 
 sword. From Lyons he fled into Dauphiny, where he and 
 his associates preached, and won great numbers to the faith. 
 Driven from thence, he went into Picardy: a great revival 
 attended his ministry, in that place; but assailed again by 
 persecution, he fled into Germany, and finally settled in Bohe- 
 mia. Through this beautiful country, his principles became 
 speedily prevalent, and here, twenty years from the time of 
 his conversion, he died in the triumphs of faith. During this 
 period, the churches in the valleys were all in motion, partak- 
 
 11 
 
182 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 ing largely of divine influences, and their ministry penetrated 
 into Spain, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Scot- 
 land, Ireland; in a word, into every nation of the Roman 
 Empire, and spread their principles, and made converts ev- 
 ery where. Reinerius Saccho declares in his report, as a Ro- 
 man inquisitor, " that the sect was universally diffused, that 
 there was no country in which they were not found in great 
 numbers." Above a million were put to dejxth, in France 
 alone. The prisons were so crowded with them, other 
 methods were devised and resorted to, to thin their ranks. The 
 Inquisition was originated and established, to aid in their more 
 speedy destruction; its infernal court followed them into ev- 
 ery country, and wasted them under the forms of law. But 
 even this process was too slow: crusaders, in vast armies, 
 were employed by Pope Innocent the third, to exterminate 
 them at once; these fell upon them in a war of indiscriminate 
 cruelty and carnage: and the great revival was arrested in 
 blood. 
 
 In the year 1503, a poor and comparatively friendless 
 young man, the son of a miner, in the twentieth year of his 
 age, and thirsting for knowledge, stood alone in the library 
 of the University at Erfurth, and, while examining the title 
 pages of books, he at length met with one entirely new to 
 him. It was the Bible. This book he read with awakened 
 interest ; his frequent visits at the library were for the pur- 
 pose of becoming acquainted with its contents. He is at 
 ■ngth taken sick, and during his sickness, is filled with 
 dreadful apprehensions of the wrath of God. He recovers 
 and as he walks alone in the open field, he is overtaken by a 
 storm — a thunderbolt plunges at his feet — he recoils from 
 the smouldering chasm, falls upon his knees, and vows that 
 if God will spare his life, he will devote it to his service. 
 See him, then, according to the ideas of that day, fulfilling 
 his vow in the habit of a monk, becoming a mendicant, and 
 a recluse, and here, to use his own language, " I tormented 
 
 mk 
 
REVIVALS. 163 
 
 myself to death, to procure for my troubled heart, and agi- 
 tated conscience, peace in the presence of God," but in vain. 
 The text, "the just shall live by faith," was deeply impress- 
 ed upon his mind, and as he crossed the Alps, on his way to 
 Rome, he fell sick, and, when at the t point of death, the text 
 again occurs to him, a great mental struggle ensues; he 
 gains some faint knowledge of the great doctrine of justifi- 
 cation — the battle-axe afterward in his hand against the 
 walls of papal Rome — he recovers, and visits Italy, still 
 intent on justification by the merit of good works. Here, 
 while ascending Pilate's stair-case on his bended knees, a 
 voice reaches his startled ear, the text occurs to him in a 
 thunder peal, "the just shall live by faith." It was the voice 
 of an effectual call; his will was renewed, his mind enlicht- 
 ened in the knowledge of the Redeemer, and he was enabled 
 to embrace Jesus Christ, as he was freely offered in the gos- 
 pel. Every monkish austerity had been essayed; he had 
 fasted, prayed, and mortified his soul and body until, on one 
 occasion, the light of his eye was quenched, and his worn 
 and attenuated frame fell back lifeless on the floor of his ceW. 
 he was, with great difficulty recalled again to life, and hence 
 he could say, if ever a monk went to heaven by his good works, 
 I more; for where they fasted four weeks, I fasted seven, 
 and excelled all in self-denial and in prayers, and in bodi- 
 ly mortifications. This man was Luther, an eminent 
 preacher of total depravity; human impotence; effectual 
 calling by the subjective and creative influence of the Holy 
 Ghost; imputation, justification by faith in the righteousness 
 of Christ; election and predestination. The light spread 
 over all Europe, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Swe- 
 den, Denmark, Norway, England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
 received the faith; whole nations threw off the Papal 
 yoke, and vast multitudes continued to experience the power 
 of that gospel which brought Luther to Christ. This is 
 called the great reformation of the 16th century. Let us 
 
 -*' * 
 
164 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL TRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 not, however, amid the controversies, and convulsions, and 
 revolutions, of that age, lose sight of the great work of the 
 Holy Ghost, whose gracious influences imparted, as we have 
 seen, to Luther, were also .imparted to thousands, and pro- 
 duced the same great results in them: they were in great 
 numbers, convinced, as he was, of their "sin and misery, 
 their minds were enlightened in the knowledge of Christ, 
 their wills renewed, and they were persuaded and enabled 
 to embrace Jesus Christ, as he was freely offered ih the gos- 
 pel." The reformation of the 16th century began and was 
 spread by the Holy , Ghost in the hearts of men; an 
 irresistable spiritual influence descended in e\ T ery country 
 upon the people — men were everywhere pricked in the 
 h^art, awakened, convinced, and led to believe in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. The churches of the valleys hearing of the 
 great revival, visited the reformers, and found, on a com- 
 parison of their respective views, that their opinions of church 
 government, and of doctrinal and experimental religion, were 
 the same ; found that they were the same people, being per- 
 fectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same 
 judgment. Calvin took his model of Presbyterianism from 
 the Bohemians, which, two hundred years before, had been 
 left them by Peter Waldo. Knox carried it into Scotland, 
 and its General Assembly sent it into America. The 
 churches of the valleys, are believed by Newton, Faber 
 Scott, and many others, and also by Old and New School 
 Presbyterians generally, to be those witnesses in the wil- 
 derness who are referred to by St. John, in Revelations; and 
 who are said by him, to have the word of God, and to bear 
 the testimony of Jesus. The revival was according to this 
 view of it, obviously divine — the great work of God. And 
 in it, we may notice the following characteristics. 
 
 It was a revival of sound opinions — a return to the ancient 
 faith. It was not a new discovery; a progress in the 
 knowledge of God, such as had never been before enjoyed, 
 but a return to the faith, once delivered to the saints. 
 
 H 
 
REVIVALS. 165 
 
 It was in the next place a revival of their views in the 
 way; not only of an intellectual conviction, but of an experi- 
 mental acquaintance with the truth, so that the faith of the 
 converts stood not in the wisdom of man, but in much assu- 
 rance and in the Holy Ghost and in power. The advice of 
 Luther to Spalatin, when he asked him what was the best 
 method of studying the Scriptures, discovers to us the true 
 secret of their confidence in the truth of their principles and 
 why those principles became so generally prevalent and so 
 mightily operative. "Hitherto worthy Spalatin, (said 
 Luther) you have asked only things I was able to answer. 
 But to guide you in the study of the Holy Scriptures is be- 
 yond my strength. However, if you insist on knowing my 
 method, I will not conceal it from you." 
 
 "It is most plain we cannot attain to the understanding of 
 Scripture either by study or by strength of intellect ; there- 
 fore your first duty must be to begin with prayer. Entreat 
 the Lord to deign to grant you, in his rich mercy, rightly to 
 understand his word. There is no other interpreter of the 
 word of God but the author of that word himself ; even as 
 He has said, ' They shall all be taught of God.' Hope noth- 
 ing from your study, or the strength of your intellect ; but 
 simply put your trust in God, and in the guidance of his Spirit. 
 Believe one who has made the trial of this method." 
 
 Men instructed and satisfied in their scruples, and enlight- 
 ened in their knowledge, after this example, could not hold 
 the truth in uncertainty, or in unrighteousness, but must have 
 received it from the Spirit and under his purifying and sub- 
 duing influences. A knowledge of the gospel, wherein the 
 understanding and the heart, are fully pursuaded of its truth 
 and sweetness, by the Holy Spirit, presupposes that the sub- 
 jects of it, are already spiritual, that they have not only the 
 form but the life and power of godliness. " Blessed art thou 
 Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
 thee but my father who is in heaven." 
 
166 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 The means of grace in use were primitive. From the in- 
 finitely multipled new doctrines and new measures of Popery; 
 all, turned back to the word of God, contained in the Scrip- 
 tures of the Old and New Testaments, for their only and ever 
 infallible rule of. faith and practice ; and in this manner the 
 Reformers became the propagators, not of a new religion, 
 but of a faith once delivered to the saints, in its simplicity, 
 purity and glory. No well informed New School man will 
 pretend for a moment that the great revivals of the 13th and 
 of the 16th centuries, were revivals of Pelagian opinions. — 
 Luther and Melanchton, Zuingle and Calvin, yea the whole 
 host of worthies from Peter Waldo to John Knox, condemn- 
 ed the errors of Pelagius, as included among the Papal abom- 
 inations to be rejected and abhorred by every convert to the 
 gospel. The confession of faith drawn up by the assembly of 
 divines at Westminister, contains a beautiful epitome of their 
 united testimony on the subject of doctrinal and experimental 
 Christianity ; and hence we infer that a revival of Pelagian- 
 ism is not a revival of true religion, but an apostacy from it. 
 
 The millenium, shall be a resurrection of the souls of those 
 witnesses who were beheaded for the word of God and for 
 the testimony of Jesus, in the same sense in which Elijah, 
 arose from the dead, in the reproduction of his testimony and 
 spirit, and power, in John the Baptist. As John was the fac- 
 simile of that ancient and venerable prophet in his austerity, 
 preaching, zeal and faith, so the great reformations appear- 
 ing at intervals, from the 13th to the 16th centuries, shall 
 reappear, and the reformers long since dead, shall rise again, 
 in the vecy countries moistened with the blood of their tes- 
 timony, and renew their witness bearing in men who shall 
 truthfully represent them, and successfully vindicated their 
 honor and spread their opinions. • The millenium, in other 
 words, shall be a great revival of the doctrines, zeal, love, 
 and piety of the martyrs and witnesses of Jesus. It shall 
 differ in no respect, from the revivals of other days, but in 
 
 

 REVIVALS. 167 
 
 one : they were partial and confined to small portions of the 
 earth ; this shall be universal — extend to all nations, and com- 
 prehend them all, in its blessed and transforming influences ; 
 all shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest. The 
 religion of the millenium shall not be new in its doctrines, 
 nor in its experimental nature and effects, but the same an- 
 cient faith received, experienced, and spread by the apostles, 
 and reproduced and spread by a divine continuity and suc- 
 cession in doctrinal and vital godliness, and carried down to 
 that blessed day, and then at once, or in a very brief period 
 made universal. 
 
 True progress, I conclude therefore, will be backward to 
 the old Christianity of the primitive churches, and to their 
 identical faith, as set forth in the catechisms and primers and 
 confessions of faith, of the martyrs and reformers and wit- 
 nesses of Jesus in subsequent ages. The apostles, shall be 
 enthroned in every true revival, in their despised and hated 
 creed, and the rejected and murdered witnesses, shall be had 
 in universal honor. ' The new divinity, being a most glaring 
 and wide departure from the ancient faith, is undoubtedly an 
 apostacy, not a progress — is a revival of false religion and 
 not of the true, and it will never receive countenance, when 
 Paul again rises from the dead, in the renewal of his testimo- 
 ny to the Romans, to the Galatians, to the Hebrews ; when 
 Waldo, and Wickliff, and Huss, and Luther, and Calvin, and 
 Knox, when Latimer and Ridley and Rogers, when the whole 
 armv of the reformers rise again from the dead, and begin 
 again effectually to spread those doctrines of grace, in the 
 faithful propagation of which, they counted not their lives 
 dear unto themselves. Finney, and Barnes, and Beman and 
 Beecher, will surely make but a sorry appearance in the 
 hands of these sons of Abraham. In them we shall see again 
 exalted in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assu- 
 rance, the great doctrines of election, of irresistable grace, 
 of vicarious atonement, of original sin, and natural depravity, 
 
168 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 of justification, imputation and of human inability. In like 
 manner as the Pharisees, received no countenance from Elijah 
 when his principles, purity, and zeal, had a resurrection in 
 John the Baptist, so shall the new divinity, receive no coun- 
 tenance when a revival of true religion shall appear again in 
 the churches. 
 
 Many of these ancient worthies, have in Scotland, already 
 broken the slumber of ages and the lids of their coffins ; have 
 thrown aside their winding sheets, have renewed the vital 
 current of their blood, and the vigor of their youthful days, 
 and are again abroad to revive the testimony of the martyrs, 
 and witnesses, of Jesus, and therefore mighty works do show 
 forth themselves. Not only Erastian, but Pelagian error is 
 fully condemned ; the gospel is preached in its primitive free- 
 dom and simplicity, the effect is truly cheering ; the dead 
 hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear, live. 
 It is indeed a revival of religion, in its truth, spirit, and pow- 
 er. The old Puritans of New England, also have broken the 
 dreary silence of the church-yard ; they cannot rest in their 
 graves. The liberalism and Pelagianism of their degenerate 
 sons, make their bones ache in their coffins. Some have 
 already made their appearance among the living, and the re- 
 vival of their glorious gospel testimony is begun. The cry 
 that their views are antiquated and that they are men far 
 behind the age, is calculated to make them prominent and to 
 arrest the attention of the church ; because the progress of 
 the age is seen to be, not upward towards the mountain of 
 the Lord's house, but downward from the blessed elevations 
 of Mount Zion. And in our own beloved church, the revival 
 has also commenced, the testimony of Jesus is extensively 
 reproduced, the witnesses revive even in their recorded ex- 
 positions of the faith, and their living voice is likewise ex- 
 tensively heard and honored. The new philosophy and new 
 divinity have generally fallen into disrepute, and the inquiry 
 now is for the old paths and the old way. No prospects of 
 
 
REVIVALS. 169 
 
 increasing numbers and wealth, will lead the Presbyterian 
 Church to regret her solemn " act and testimony/' and to 
 take back again her disowned Synods, until she is previously 
 convinced, that they have solemnly repudiated their errors 
 and returned to the faith once delivered to the saints. 
 
 This revival is to a great extent, experimental, as well as 
 doctrinal. I am acquainted with many in the ministry, who 
 having been led partially astray by the new divinity, have 
 again returned and have received the truth in greater assur- 
 ance, than before their temporary wandering from the way, 
 and I do certainly believe, that to as great an extent as in 
 any church on earth, the ancient doctrine is received and 
 preached, because its truth and beauty are seen and its sanc- 
 tifying power is felt among us. If revivals of religion ori- 
 ginate in connection with this blessed gospel, Old School 
 Presbyterians, I confidently affirm, will be the last to ques- 
 tion their genuineness. 
 
 But Mormonism has its revivals; Christianism has its 
 revivals ; Popery has its revivals. False religion comes 
 with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and we 
 are forced to discriminate: not to believe every spirit, but 
 to try the spirits, whether they are of God. And if any 
 man, as a professed teacher, come unto us, and bring not 
 this doctrine, we are to inquire no farther; we are not to be 
 influenced by the excellency of his character, or by the 
 greatness of his parts; for Satan is talented, and transformed 
 into an angel of light: no marvel, then, if his ministers are 
 transformed, as the ministers of righteousness. If, therefore, 
 anv man come to us and brine: not this doctrine, even the 
 doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are not to receive him 
 into our houses of worship, as a religious teacher, nor to bid 
 him God-speed, as such, for he that biddeth him God-speed, 
 by countenancing him, and furnishing him with credentials, 
 is partaker of his evil deeds. We cannot believe that a re- 
 vival of old heresies, a resurrection of Cerinthus, Arius, Pe- 
 
170 OLD AND SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 lagius and Socinus, in living representatives, in the churches, 
 can be a revival of true religion. However much they may 
 boast of their new discoveries, and superior sanctity, though 
 they may compass sea and land to make proselytes, and 
 surround themselves with new measures, and new converts, 
 in great numbers, yet we have not so learned Christ, and 
 are not to be deceived by specious appearances. When we 
 see the Spirit undervalued and set aside, except in name, 
 and the Son dishonored in his reconciliation, and depravity 
 denied, and human ability, and men and measures exalted; 
 the work of religious reformation, however wide-spread and 
 imposing, is not of God, but is a fearful apostacy from a 
 primitive Christianity, and will end in popery, or infidelity, or 
 in some other form of ultimate evil, to which it tends. 
 
 If it be urged, that during these seasons, there have been 
 hitherto several genuine conversions to Christ, I reply, that 
 it is because of the truth preached by faithful ministers, scat- 
 tered among the false, and because of the soundness of the 
 communicants, generally, in their prayers, experience, and 
 conversation, during the progress of the excitement; and 
 if these had been men of a different character, and had 
 all taught and prayed in the true spirit of the new divinity, 
 from the first commencement of the religious awakening, it 
 w r ould have been, from the beginning, worthless in its fruits. 
 As soon, therefore, as a separation has been effected between 
 the friends of the old, and new opinions, there has appeared 
 also, an entire change in the character of the converts: the 
 churches have became speedily filled with unrenewed men, 
 who decry the gospel and its godly and conscientious defend- 
 ers, and heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. — 
 The declension was never greater, in vital religion, than at 
 the present moment, among ail those who fully receive, and 
 understandingly endorse the new divinity. It is the ele- 
 ment of growing discord, and of inevitable decline and con- 
 sumption. A true revival began here, eighteen years ago, but 
 
REVIVALS. 171 
 
 the new divinity revived with the old, and swept, like the 
 mournful simoom, over the churches; before it — was the gar- 
 den of Eden; behind it — life and verdure lie buried in the ob- 
 livion of a spiritual desert. 
 
 Neither in the apostolic ministry of the primitive church, 
 nor among the witness-bearers in the wilderness, were there 
 found, any, deemed good men and true, who affirmed that 
 " Christ did not suffer the curse of the law, nor any part of 
 it:" that imputed righteousness is a phrase which con- 
 veys no intelligible idea:" that "justice, in its common and 
 appropriate sense, was not satisfied by the atonement;" that 
 faith, irrespective of its relation to " the righteousness of the 
 Messiah," is reckoned for our righteousness: that original 
 sin is false philosophy, and native depravity, an error of the 
 schools: that man has ability to keep the law of God, with- 
 out divine aid, can make himself a new heart, and does do it, 
 whenever it is made: that subjective and almighty influences, 
 in regeneration, break in upon the established laws of a mor- 
 al government, and destroy its very nature, and that hence, 
 regeneration is neither a miracle nor a mystery, but the simple 
 persuasion of a man to correct his mistakes, and live a re- 
 formed life, and that, too, just in that degree in which these 
 things lie within the compass of his natural, unassisted abil- 
 ity. No such doctrines were taught in the first century; but 
 they were testified against, as destructive errors, by the Holy 
 Apostles of the Lamb. No such doctrines were held by the 
 witnesses of Jesus, in the wilderness; the three angels, who 
 flew successively through the midst of heaven, having the 
 everlasting gospel to preach to the slumbering nations, cried 
 aloud against these ruinous delusions, until the shaft of per- 
 secution reached their hearts, and they folded their golden 
 pinions, and sank down on Mt. Zion, with their eloquent voices 
 choaked in blood. And whenever a revival of true religion 
 agaih occurs, in any age, or country, they will again come to 
 life, and rise, and fly, and bear again, unchanged, the same 
 blessed and quickening evangelical testimony 
 
172 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 The new divinity then, is another gospel, an apostacy 
 from the faith, and the revivals connected with its progress, 
 are revivals of a spurious Christianity. However true it may 
 be, that individuals do truly experience a saving change, 
 during their temporary sway, yet the conversions were not 
 wrought by the Holy Spirit, in view of the eroneous teach- 
 ings, but in spite of their lethargic and soul destroying pow- 
 er. Did ever an apostle in language like the following, 
 undervalue the work of the Spirit and say, " Not much less 
 deluding, are the systems and tactics of those w T ho fearing 
 to invade the province of the Spirit, are careful to remind 
 the sinner that he is utterly unable by his own unassisted 
 powers, either to believe or to repent, to the saving of his 
 soul. It might as truly be said that he cannot rise and walk 
 by his own unassisted powers." (DuffiekTs work on Regen- 
 eration, p. 542.) Sentiments, such as these, they never 
 uttered, nor did they countenance those that did, but with 
 solemn awe and deep felt self abasement, they confessed, and 
 denied not, that of themselves, they could do nothing, that 
 to will was present with them, but that how to perform that 
 which was good they found not, that when they were with- 
 out strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. — 
 And as revivals of religion are produced in connection 
 with the means of grace, by the supernatural power of the 
 Holy Ghost, we may conclude justly, that those who make 
 light of his indispensable agency, and maintain that men are 
 fully able to repent and believe without it — decry those who 
 revere his power and glory in the new creation, and that 
 too, because they fear to take his glory from him, fear, "to 
 invade the province of the Spirit" — that such men are far 
 from resembling the apostles of the Lamb, and do as truly 
 undervalue their views, as they undervalue ours. 
 
 Revivals of religion promoted by the utterance of such 
 sentiments, in which men are told that, " if the sinner ever 
 has a new heart, he must obey the command of the text, and 
 
REVIVALS. 173 
 
 go and make it himself." (Finney's sermons on important 
 subjects, p. p. 18, 38.) That God " requires a service strictly 
 according to our ability and to be measured by that, (that) 
 he demands no more than our powers are fitted to produce, 
 no more than we are able to render, (that) our obligations in 
 all cases are limited by our ability," (Barnes' notes, 2 Cor. 
 8, 12.) Revivals of religion advanced by such instructions 
 if they correspond in their character with the character of 
 this new and strange gospel, will be revivals of natural reli- 
 gion merely, the work of man alone and not at all the work 
 of the blessed and insulted Spirit. If faith is not the gift of 
 God, not a principle implanted in the mind by the Holy Ghost 
 by which we receive the righteousness of the Messiah, but 
 an act of the mind, "If God promises, man believes, and this 
 is the whole of it ; (Barnes' notes) then the faith begotten in 
 the revival, if it correspond with this view of its nature, is 
 also the work of man ; a merely natural, mental action. 
 And this is equally true of repentance, and every other 
 grace, if they are not the gracious productions of the Holy 
 Ghost, but are the mere exercises of the natural heart, then 
 the religion possessed by the new converts, is not spiritual, 
 but natural, and it is as true of them as it ever was, that 
 they are natural men still, and discern not the things of the 
 spirit of God, and except they are born again, cannot see his 
 kingdom. When men are told that they are not to get reli- 
 gion, not to experience it, not to get a new heart, but to love 
 God with just such a heart as they now have, (i. e.) with the 
 natural heart," that God requires a service strictly according 
 to our ability and to be limited by that ;" it is absurd under 
 such a gospel to call the conversions, the work of the Spirit, 
 the converts, spiritual and the revival, the work of the Holy 
 Spirit, and for the plain reason, that its very promoters and 
 the authorized expositors of its nature, convey a totally dif- 
 ferent idea, and maintain substantially, that it is the work of 
 man, performed and limited by his natural ability. 
 
174 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 When awakened sinners ask, what thev shall do to be 
 saved, and they are not told to seek for a new heart; for a 
 supernatural change to be wrought in them by the Holy 
 Ghost, and to connect them by faith with the justifying 
 righteousness of Christ, but to resolve to serve God; and 
 this resolution, or this governing purpose, is said to be a 
 change of heart, and to be all that is required; ginners them- 
 selves are amazed at the breadth of the gate that leads to 
 life, and the ease with which they can become christians. 
 They had supposed before that the gate was strait, but this 
 was in their simplicity, and under the old fashioned theology. 
 They had been looking and praying for assistance from him, 
 without whom, they had once been taught, " they could do 
 nothing," but this they now have discovered was a great er- 
 ror, for they have now accomplished their regeneration with 
 the utmost facility. They had hitherto looked beyond mere 
 nature for help, and had depended on the Holy Ghost to 
 enable them to repent and believe, but they have now learn- 
 ed that it might as truly be said, " that man could not arise 
 and walk by his own unassisted powers," they could do, and 
 had done, both the one and the other, in their own strength, 
 they were really natural actions and easily put forth. Hence 
 the revival is, in this aspect of it, not a revival of true reli- 
 gion, but a revival in men of an extraordinary self-compla- 
 cency and self-reliance, and of contempt for the aid of the 
 Holy Spirit. The inquiry room and the anxious seat, suffi- 
 ciently harmless in themselves, and when employed for the 
 sole purpose of convenient access to those who desire per- 
 sonal instruction and conversation, become, in these seasons, of 
 spurious religious excitement, the principal places for effort 
 against the doctrines of grace. Every objection raised by the 
 awakened sinner, on the ground of his inability to change 
 his own heart, is met by a denial of its truth; every objection 
 raised on the ground of his dependence on the Holy Spirit, 
 is met by a denial of such dependence, and he is required 
 
RIVIVALS. 175 
 
 then, and there, to change his governing purpose, or to submit 
 to God, which means in the mouths of these teachers the 
 same thing, and when he consents to do it, the poor deluded 
 creature is dedicated in a formal prayer, and in a most solemn 
 manner to the Father, Son, and Spirit, as a child of God. 
 and sent out in the capacity of a new convert, to convert 
 others to the same delusion, to wonder at the great discove- 
 ries of modern times, at the width of the gate, and the 
 breadth of the way, that leadeth unto life; and to be amazed 
 at the stupidity of old-fashioned Presbyterians, and at his 
 own former ignorance, in which he had erroneously supposed 
 regeneration to be a supernatural change, and not a mere 
 natural action, and performed with the utmost facility, and at 
 a moment's warning by the creature himself. 
 
 Out of this view of the subject arises another, viz : that 
 the ministry is responsible for its success, and that, if men 
 had as much leisure all the year as they enjoy in the winter sea- 
 son revivals might be perpetuated throughout the year, and in 
 any event, they can be produced at pleasure by the church ; 
 and with these low views of revivals the opinion is, doubt- 
 less, correct. It needs, but to commence a protracted meet- 
 ing for the purpose, and then systematically to assail the old 
 theology, respecting human inability and depravity, and to 
 convince the hearers that a resolution to serve God is regen- 
 eration, and that each one can change his heart as easily as 
 he can rise and walk, and if the community have not been 
 too frequently assailed and deceived in this way, the usual 
 phenomena will follow, and protestants will abound in all 
 the outward semblances of religion, and work as earnestly 
 to enter heaven in the use of the new measures, and by their 
 own righteousness, as the Romanists. But great revivals of 
 religion in which the work of the Son and Spirit are set 
 aside excepting in name, and men and measures are exalted and 
 made to occupy their places — are not the blessed, and power- 
 ful, and purifying workings of the Holy Spirit; and in the midst 
 
176 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 of them it behoves us to attend to the Apostolic admonition' 
 " Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits wheth- 
 er they be of God, for many false prophets are going out 
 into the world." 
 
 It will bo seen, then, that our objections are not against 
 the New School, because they hold meetings which last 
 several days. The meeting of Hezekiah was protracted. 
 Protracted meetings are very common among Old School 
 Presbyterians, at their sacramental services, and have fre- 
 quently been attended with revivals of a marked and desir- 
 able character — Revivals, in which the doctrines of total 
 depravity, human inability, imputation, atonement, election,, 
 and, in fine, in which all the leading doctrines of the gospel 
 were fully and ably exhibited and defended. It is not the 
 continuance of a meeting through several successive days, 
 against which we object, but it is the denial of the gospel, and 
 the spread of error, and the ruin of souls by this means, which 
 awakens our regret, and calls forth our solemn remonstrance 
 against those whose deceived heart hath turned them aside. 
 
 Old Schoolism, and a Laodecean indifference to all religion, 
 have come in many quarters to signify substantially the same 
 thing. It is not, however, the zeal of those who compass 
 sea and land, to make proselytes, but the errors which they 
 so industriously spread, against which we testify. It is good 
 always to be zealously affected in a good thing, but great 
 talent, zeal and effort expended in subverting whole church- 
 es, and in the dissemination of fatal error, is a melancholy 
 spectacle to look upon, and he that loves the master and 
 the souls of men will not be able to hold his peace, even 
 though he may be sure, for years, to be extensively misun- 
 derstood by his friends, and bitterly denounced by his enemies. 
 
 We, then, are not opposed to zeal in the cause of Christ. 
 The love of Christ constraineth us: a friend may bear with 
 a friend's infirmities, and die in his defence, but Christ bears 
 with his imbittered foes; bears with their vile reproach, 
 
REVIVALS. 177 
 
 encounters their scorn and rage, and sinks with a broken 
 heart, and in bloody agony to the grave, to deliver them 
 from death and hell; and can we, whose sins were laid upon 
 him, be indifferent to a love like this? Even the hardened 
 Saul was overcome by the kindness of David; and can we 
 remain indifferent to a love which infinitely surpasses the 
 love of David? Can we turn, in cold neglect, from the gar- 
 den and the cross, from scenes which affected the material 
 universe, and made the stones to cry out; and act in accord- 
 ance with those laws of spiritual life which are implanted by 
 the Holy Spirit deep in the christian nature 1 Nay — the 
 emotions of love and gratitude are spontaneous and irrepres- 
 sible; they swim in the moistened eye, and throb in the 
 strong sympathies of the renovated heart. Who among us, 
 therefore, believing, as we do, respecting the love of Christ, 
 can enter the desk, and exchange the inspiration of the 
 christian, for the coolness of a philosopher, and deliberately 
 show how little Christ has done for us, when we believe that 
 he meets every want, relieves every difficulty, bears every 
 burden, and comprehends, in his finished work, our eternal 
 redemption. Others may do this — may speak disparagingly 
 of him — may represent that, he "merely" did this, and 
 "barely" did that — may move on without emotion, in every 
 discourse respecting Jesus, be as dull as lead and as cold and 
 cheerless, to listening disciples, as the moonlit shadows of the 
 cemetery that steal into the vaults and sleep upon the pale 
 faces of the dead; but can we, who make Christ. all, and in 
 all, pursue a course so inconsistent with our views of his 
 wonderful and affecting relations to us, and of our infinite 
 debt of gratitude to him ] Others may deny that he bore 
 the curse of the law; that he wrought for us a justifying 
 righteousness; may deny original sin and natural depravity; 
 discourse of human ability and measure obligation by it; 
 represent a change of heart, to be a change of purpose; 
 Christianity to be purely intellectual, a stranger and an 
 
 12 
 
178 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 enemy to the emotions; and may depend upon exciting tales, 
 and measures, and human appliances, and the fears of hell, 
 to ensure success, and to surround themselves with followers; 
 hut God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. Those who depend upon human ability, 
 and the horrors of hell, without the cross, may make con- 
 verts, but will they be instrumental in making men christians'? 
 Ham, was not restrained from making a mock at sin by a 
 wrath that swept fifteen cubits above the loftiest mountains. 
 The shower of fire, enraged with brimstone, did not make 
 the daughters of Lot chaste. Idolators, were not restrained 
 from their infernal orgies, and sacrifices, and re veilings; 
 even when Sinai was all on fire, and the everlasting mount- 
 ains were scattered, and the perpetual hills did bow. The 
 tents of Cushan were in affliction; the curtains of the land 
 of Midian did tremble; the lips of even the hardened Pha- 
 roah quivered at the voice of God, and rottenness entered 
 into the bones of the brave around him, amid those appall- 
 ing visitations which filled a kingdom with alarm and despair, 
 yet still omnipotence is pursued by these very men and de- 
 fied, in the very heart of that sea, which had uttered its 
 voice at the awful presence, and lifted up its hands on high. 
 The bolt of heaven may plunge upon the face of the rock, 
 'On the mountain's brow, and send its smo.uldering fragments 
 to the vale below, but though broken, it will remain adamant 
 still : terror may break the courage, but it cannot melt the 
 heart. Popery can open the crater of her purgatory and 
 bring back the death wail of the departed to the ears of the 
 living, and drain the coffers of princes, and the purses of the 
 peasantry, among otherwise enlightened nations; but it can- 
 not close the door of the brothel, nor purify and elevate a 
 kingdom which is full of darkness. Men will go from their 
 gloomiest reveries of hell to sport with their own deceivings, 
 to kiss the mouth of the pit, and to wanton with fire and 
 death: nothing will avail except Christ be created in them 
 
REVIVALS. 179 
 
 the hope of glory. They may be trained to part with wealth, to 
 sleep in sackcloth; to ascend Pilate's staircase on their knees; 
 to go on pilgrimages; to take the vows of celibacy, and of 
 poverty; to take the anxious seat; to kneel in the mire; and 
 to compass sea and land to make one proselyte; but a reli- 
 gion without the cross, whether Papal or Protestant, is a 
 body without a soul. We, therefore, preach Christ "cruci- 
 fied; to the Jews, a stumbling block; and to the Greeks, 
 foolishness; but to every one that believeth the power of 
 God, and the wisdom of God. The gospel is indispensable; 
 without it the law can be of no avail. It is not our complaint, 
 therefore, that the New School have too much zeal in 
 preaching Christ; on the contrary, we are often oppressed 
 with the painful apprehension that they do not preach him 
 at all. If they preached Christ everywhere, spake with the 
 tongues of men, and of angels, and moved the stones to cry 
 out from the walls of their churches, and the beam from the 
 timber to answer it, and to shame the moral insensibility of 
 their hearers, and if thousands were pricked in the heart, 
 and cried, men and brethren, what must we do to be saved, 
 and repented and believed the gospel, let our right hand for- 
 get its cunning, and our tongue cleave to the roof of our 
 mouth, if we would gainsay them. 
 
 Nor do we believe that ministers can watch with too great 
 diligence, and with too tender a solicitude for the souls of 
 their hearers, as those that must give account. When we 
 have respect to the worth of the soul, and see unrenewed 
 multitudes, just at the parting point between two eternities; 
 some constantly ascending to the ravishing delights of 
 Eden, and others constantly descending, "to groan, where 
 their groanings end not, to sigh, where their sighs do always 
 sigh, and to weep where their tears do always fall and al- 
 ways weep; but not in mercy's sight," we may well have 
 "great heaviness and continual sorrow in our hearts," and 
 "warn every man, night and day, with tears." If accused 
 
180 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 of fanaticism, or madness, it would be a sufficient vindication 
 to say, "if we are beside ourselves at the danger encounter- 
 ed by those who sport on the crumbling verge of the bottom- 
 less pit;" it is for your sakes, because we know you cannot 
 abide the wrath you provoke; because we would win you 
 back from gaining such infinite harm and loss. Other losses 
 may be repaired — this never. The winding-sheet of a ruined 
 soul is made from the iron folds of a miserable eternity. 
 The grave of a lost spirit is a yawning hell; its companion, 
 despair; its worm, dieth not; its fire is never quenched. 
 Xerxes beheld his army in living masses, crowding the plains 
 around him, and stretching far as his eye could reach, and 
 wept when he thought how soon that mighty host would be- 
 come powerless, and their formidable ranks be broken and 
 buried in the oblivion of the grave. And a greater than he 
 beheld the city, beautifnl'for situation, and teeming with life 
 and thought how soon it would be wasted without inhabi- 
 tant, and its guilty children buried underneath its subverted 
 walls, and descending towers, and wept, and said, " oh, that 
 thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things 
 that belong to thy peace, but now they are forever hid from 
 thine eyes;" and may we not have tears to shed, and consist- 
 ently join in the lamentation over the millions who are ready 
 to perish ? 
 
 It is not, then, because men weep over the ruins of the 
 fall, and abound in warning their hearers of approaching 
 wrath, and in expostulations, and appeals, and efforts to turn 
 them from their destrctive ways; this is a course justfiable 
 when properly regulated, and highly commendable in every 
 minister of Christ; "Knowing, therefore, the terrors of the 
 Lord, we also persuade men:" but when, in their zeal to 
 save, they destroy, grieve and dishonor the Spirit, in his 
 work, set aside the institution of justice, and the principal 
 glory of the cross in honoring it, their very successes give 
 us pain, and we cannot but regard their instructions, and 
 
REVIVALS. 181 
 
 their highly popular works or* regeneration and atonement, 
 and their notes on the Bible, as a sad aggregate of evil influ- 
 ences, destined to operate widely and permanently, in 
 strengthening and perpetuating the very woes, which their 
 misguided authors intended to prevent and remove. The 
 course of error is ever progressive; its successive converts 
 ultimately turn its early twilight into intense darkness. The 
 generations that rise, and become educated in the opinions of 
 Duffield, Beman, Barnes, and Finney, will not tarry long 
 in the sight of their more sober masters, but will find their 
 way to a distance from the gospel, far more dreary and 
 hopeless than they. The evil is already at work, and will 
 mark out for itself its own highway of ruin. Those who have 
 given it its origin and tendency, cannot control or direct its 
 progress: error is the loosened avalanche; it will reach the 
 vale below, and those who put it in motion, however much 
 they may subsequently regret the course they have taken, 
 cannot arrest it. midway, till the endangered and trembling 
 villager can make his escape, — its plunge is downward, ac- 
 celerated and remorseless, — its resting-place is in blood. 
 
 It is not, then, matter of regret with us, to see the votaries 
 of ambition, and wealth, and fashion, and pleasure, pause, 
 and turn pale, and become filled with remorse for the past, 
 and fears for the future, and quit their pursuits, for days to- 
 gether, to attend to the interests of their souls. A king did 
 this, and his courtiers and his subjects followed his example, 
 in a solemn fast of three days, because God had said, " in 
 forty days, and Ninevah shall be destroyed;" and we should 
 rejoice to see cities and nations again follow that example, and 
 men forget to labor, and forget to eat their bread; and ships 
 ride at anchor, unmaned, and shops close along the streets 
 of crowded cities, and the plough and the spade lie still, and 
 the hum of business, and the song of the reaper, over whole 
 countries, become hushed in a Sabbath stillness, and nations 
 be born in a day. It is not in the fact, that men attempt to 
 
182 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 flee from the wrath to come, but in the fact that their souls 
 are in peril, when they do flee, in consequence of the instruc- 
 tions which depreciate the only remedy, and throw them 
 back upon their own resources for salvation; it is not be- 
 cause they are pointed to the bleeding cross, as prisoners of 
 hope, but because they are turned away from it: it is not 
 because they are assured, that they must be born again, but 
 because they are assured that they do not need a change of 
 nature, but only a change of purpose. It is, in a word, be- 
 cause upon all the vital questions of Christianity, the truth is 
 mixed with fatal error, that we cannot experience those emo- 
 tions of unmingled joy, which w e should have felt, were men 
 to abandon their philosophy, and to preach the gospel. This 
 would awaken confidence in their labor, and joy unspeakable 
 over their success. 
 
 We object then, to the revivals under the preaching of the 
 new divinity, not because they are revivals of true religion, 
 for in these we sincerely rejoice, but because they have so 
 many marks of spuriousness — so many evidences that they 
 are the mere result of exciting measures and anecdotes — the 
 work of man, and not the work of God. The reasons for 
 this judgment have been already given, I will now close 
 with a summary statement of them. 
 
 1. They are a revival of old heresies, against which the 
 spirit testified in the apostolic ministry, and in the martyrs, 
 and reformers, who had the word of God, and the testimony 
 of Jesus. They revive the heresy that "Christ did not suffer 
 the curse of the law, nor any part of it, and that he has not 
 obeyed the law vicariously." This is an old Jewish heresy, 
 revived afterward by Arius, in the north, and by Mahomet 
 in the south, and by Socinius, in the sixteenth century. 
 
 2. They deny original sin, and native depravity, and main- 
 tain the ability of man to keep the law of God in his own 
 strength and without the aid of the spirit, and thus revive 
 the old heresy of the Pharisees, and of Pelagius and of the 
 
REVIVALS. 183 
 
 Papists, on these points. The scroll on which these errors 
 are written, never had the image and superscription of the 
 Son ; it is destined to the flames ; the Lord shall consume 
 it with the breath of his mouth, and destroy it with the brigt- 
 ness of his coming. The revival of these heresies is not of 
 God, but a sad apostacy ; and however they may be for a 
 time sustained, by all power, and signs, and imposing appear- 
 ances, they will in the end, increase unto more ungodliness. 
 
 3 They are not the result of divine influences ( ; because 
 God does not renew and sanctify by means of error, but with 
 the truth as it is in Jesus; and because the authors of them, 
 in several ways, indirectly at least, teach us, that they are, 
 or may be, the work of man, as for instance : — 
 
 First. In teaching that a supernatural agency is not neces- 
 sary to produce them. " God," says Mr. Barnes, "requires 
 a service strictly according to our ability, and to be measured 
 by that." Duflield teaches that the sinner no more requires 
 the Holy Spirit to enable him to beleive and repent, than he 
 requires his agency to enable him to arise and walk. Mr. 
 Finney says that " if the sinner wants a new heart, he must 
 go and make it himself." A revival of religion originated 
 and conducted on these principles, is human, because it brings 
 man to himself, — to his own resources for redemption, and 
 not exclusively to God in whom alone is his help. 
 
 Second. In maintaining that regeneration is neither " a 
 mystery, nor a miracle," but that it is effected by moral sua- 
 sion, in which God does nothing for man, that he cannot and 
 is not finally persuaded to do for himself; the change is easily 
 and readily wrought, it is effected by the sinner in view of 
 motives, and without any more, or other assistance than is 
 given him in the performance of any natural action. There 
 are no new principles imparted by the Spirit other than there 
 is to a drunkard when he is made into a sober man; he is a 
 new creature; the change is sufficiently great to justify 
 this language, and so it is in this new kind of regeneration. 
 
184 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 A new divinity revival is therefore wholly the work of man, 
 or it is as much so, and in the same sense as plowing, sowing, 
 reaping, and joining temperance societies, is the work of man. 
 Men are induced to do these things in their natural strength 
 and in view of motives, and in the same manner they are in- 
 duced to regenerate themselves. 
 
 Third. In teaching that faith, and repentance are not the 
 gift of God. That no new heart is communicated, no life 
 imparted to the sinner, the principle of which he did not have 
 before, and could not originate of himself, and at any time 
 without the aid of the Holy Spirit, for this according to them 
 would be to hold that man was physically depraved, physi- 
 cally unable to obey God and therefore under no obligation 
 to do it " and none but a tyrant" could demand it of him. A 
 revival in which these errors revive, and that fashions itself 
 according to these instructions cannot be the work of the 
 Spirit, but is a revival of old heresies, the result of natural 
 ability for which we can feel no veneration, in which we can 
 repose no confidence, and which carries on all its features 
 the signs of its antichristian origin, of its earthly, sensual, and 
 ruinous tendencies. Beloved, believe not every Spirit, but 
 try the spirits whether they be of God. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES CONTINUED. 
 
 Tendencies of the new divinity — The new divinity rests upon one or at moat 
 two assumptions, both of which are false — Tends to infidelity. 
 
 Great apostacies are not the growth of a day ; they do 
 not reach their maturity at once, but like the leprosy com- 
 mencing at the extremities, and farthest from the seat of 
 life, they spread gradually until they extend through the 
 whole system. About two hundred years before the begin- 
 ning of the Christian era, the belief became prevalent that 
 Moses delivered two codes of laws, from Mount Sinai to the 
 Hebrews. One in writing, and the other orally. And when 
 our Lord appeared on the earth, the oral had come to be re- 
 garded as of higher authority than the written law. The 
 insignificant tradition had in two centuries obtained a giant 
 growth, and had " made void the law of God." Math. xv. 6. 
 
 The celibacy of the clergy was introduced gradually, and 
 from the smallest beginnings. It was at first voluntary ; 
 then it came to be admired as the highest evidence of per- 
 sonal purity ; the brightest ornament of Christian character. 
 Afterward it passed into a law and the ministry were " for- 
 bidden Jo marry." 
 
 The merit of good works, that vast mint of Rome, in which 
 she coins all her gold, and by which she opens a drain upon 
 the wealth of nations, is a dogma which arose from her doc" 
 trines of ability, and uncommanded duties. Her saints did 
 all, and even more, than was required in the word of God, 
 
186 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 and then followed penances, pilgrimages, purgatory, absolu- 
 tions, and indulgences, until a rapacious priest-hood kept 
 guard, in the imaginations of the people, at the gates of Pan- 
 demonium, and shut up, or liberated at their pleasure the 
 souls of the departed. 
 
 ' I need not however, multiply instances, to show that the 
 decline of churches is gradual, and their apostacy insidious 
 and unexpected. It is like the breach of waters, drop by drop 
 it oozes out, and frets and wears and widens its channel, un- 
 til its rush is like the sea. 
 
 We have met with a treatise on the nature of virtue, in 
 which the venerable author attempts indepenently of divine 
 revelation, to build up a theory on this subject, which by its 
 correspondence with the word of God, would discover to us 
 the reasonableness of the divine law. In this theory, he 
 teaches, that disinterested benevolence is the sum of all vir- 
 tue, and selfishness, the sum of all sin, and here he left it, 
 and died without discovering that it was a theory at vari- 
 ance with every other part of his own most excellent system 
 of theology. 
 
 Dr. Hopkins, and Dr. Emmons, took up this error, as- 
 suming it to be a primary and incontrovertable truth, and 
 followed it out in some of its affinities, and instead of teach- 
 ing according to the blessed gospel, that " God was in Christ, 
 reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their tres- 
 passes unto them," (2 Cor. v. 19.) taught that God required 
 disinterested benevolence, or such a love to God as would 
 lead us to be willing for his glory to be his enemy forever, 
 and such a love for our neighbor, as would lead us to be 
 willing to take his place in hell. Along these extreme lines 
 of separation, from the simplicity of truth, many have in con- 
 sequence frequently wasted a worse than barren ministry, 
 and have taught themselves and their hearers, that these 
 hideous metaphysical creations, were of the very essence of 
 true religion, whereas scarcely any thing could have been 
 
TENDENCIES OF ERROR 187 
 
 conceived, which could have been more directly opposite to 
 its glorious nature. The Apostles taught, that men should 
 believe in a God, reconciled in Christ ; but they taught that 
 men must submit to an absolute God. The former taught, 
 that men must be willing to be saved through a Redeemer, 
 but the latter, that they must be willing to be damned in or- 
 der to salvation. 
 
 Dr. Edwards, the younger, took up the same original er- 
 ror, on the nature of virtue ; and dividing justice into three 
 parts, distributive, commutative, and public, made the atone- 
 ment of Christ to meet the claims of the latter only, and to 
 be a mere matter of governmental utility and safety, or. a 
 grand manifestation of disinterested benevolence. 
 
 Dr. Taylor and Mr. Finney, starting also at the same 
 point of departure, and following out the same error, into the 
 new affinities of which its prolific nature is capable, are be- 
 ginning to wander on the frigid confines of Socinianism, and 
 have already entered into some of the worst forms of that 
 apostacy. 
 
 After this manner, an error apparently harmless at the first, 
 and scarcely one hundred years old, and originating with a 
 sound divine, and one of the greatest and best of men, has 
 been gradually, and in various directions, evolving different 
 and cardinal errors, which have ultimately mingled and 
 spread into vast systems, and which now float, with their 
 dark, pestilential vapors, upon Mount Zion, distributing every 
 where the elements of decline and death. 
 
 Take, for example, the New School errors on atonement, 
 and turn back upon their source, and we find them all flowing 
 from a single fountain. They all have a metaphysical, not a 
 biblical origin ; they grow from philosphy, falsely so called, 
 and not from the inspirations of the Holy Ghost. " There 
 is a third sense in which the term justice, is frequently used, 
 and the consideration of which, will lead us directly to the 
 nature of that satisfaction which Jesus Christ has made for 
 
188 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 sinners. We mean, what is commonly denominated general, 
 or public justice. In order to distinguish it, both from pecu- 
 niary and legal justice, it has been called moral justice. In 
 this acceptation, it has no direct reference to law, but embra- 
 ces those principles of virtue or benevolence, by which we 
 are bound to govern our conduct, and by which God himself 
 governs the universe." "In introducing this system of mer- 
 cy, which involved a suspension of the penal curse, God has 
 required a satisfaction to the principles of public or general 
 justice." (See Beman on atonement, pp. 132 — 133.) 
 
 The atonement, according to Dr. Beman, therefore, satis- 
 fies, not the law of God, but the principle of benevolence, 
 and this principle, he affirms, has no direct reference to law. 
 On this point, the whole system of the new divinity hinges 
 and swings. Through this gateway, it pours its legions on 
 the church of God. The system has found, in the doctrine 
 of disinterested benevolence, a first principle, an eternal and 
 an immutable truth, and it boasts and swaggers, and hardens 
 itself against the testimony of Jesus. Its visitations are drea- 
 ful; the out pourings of ever accumulating evils. It loses all 
 veneration, and as it is endorsed by a great name, and claims 
 to be a first principle; it assumes that it cannot be wrong, and 
 it assails, without any misgivings, whatsoever may fall in its 
 way. Violated law, and injured justice, according to it, and 
 in direct contradiction to the views of President Edwards, 
 its original author, are never satisfied. Over the dishonored 
 precepts of the one, and the broken sceptre of the ether, the 
 truly guilty are permitted to pass with impunity, and to pro- 
 fane with their unhallowed presence, the diamond pavement 
 that glitters around the throne of God. The garden, the 
 cross, the resurrection morn, are turned by it, into the endu- 
 ring memorials of a successful conspiracy, in which justice 
 was evaded, and the penalty of her holy law suspended for- 
 ever: in which righteousness and peace parted, to meet no 
 more — truth and mercy, to embrace no more. They were 
 
TENDENCIES OF ERROR. 189 
 
 separated at the fall by the sin of man — at the cross by a con- 
 spiracy, and in glory, by a dispensation. " The law can have 
 no penal demand, except against the offender ; with a substi- 
 tute it has no concern, though a thousand substitues should 
 die, the law, in itself considered, and left to its own natural 
 operation, would have the same demand on the transgressor, 
 which it always had. This claim can never be invalidated 
 this penal demand can never be extinguished;" (Beman on 
 Atonement, p. 99.) To the heavenly blessedness, Paul has 
 no title, and no right; justice has claims still upon him, and 
 forever fixes on him her consuming gaze, and forever demands 
 his blood. Truth is also offended at his guilty presence, and 
 utters against him her dreadful maledictions, and forever de- 
 mands his exclusion from that holy place; and there is war 
 in heaven, not between obedient and disobedient angels, but 
 in the very bosom of infinite purity itself Paul is saved, 
 but the attributes of God are set at perpetual variance with 
 each other. " Behold how great a matter a little fire kin- 
 dleth." 
 
 If the "love of being in general;" or benevolence is the 
 sum of all virtue, and selfishness the sum of all sin; then no 
 moral distinctions can exist back of intelligent mental pre- 
 ferences, and neither holiness, or sin, can belong to the nature 
 of a moral being, but must always belong to his acts. And 
 then nature loses nothing by ordinary generation, gains 
 nothing by regeneration. Sin, therefore, is disobedience in 
 all instances, and can in no case be a mere "want of con- 
 formity to law;" and regeneration is obedience, and not the 
 implantation of a new principle in the soul; and faith and re- 
 pentance and love do not proceed from any such new princi- 
 ple created by the Holy Spirit, but they are acts performed 
 by ourselves in view of motives. Love to God, also, flows 
 not from a new heart, but from the natural heart; the same 
 heart, in all respects, with which we loved sin. The direc- 
 tion and the object of the love are changed, but not the 
 
190 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIAN8. 
 
 heart; and faith is an act of man, not "the gift of God," not 
 a principle implanted in the soul by which we are brought 
 into a living union with Jesus Christ, but the same exercise 
 in every respect, with which we believe any proposition, dif- 
 fering, specifically in nothing, but in the things believed. 
 
 And this, according to the theory which we oppose, is 
 made to be true of all the graces of the spirit; they are 
 purely natural actions; the simple unchanged outgoings of 
 those natural qualities with which we are born and enter the 
 world. Regeneration is, hencC, neither a mystery, nor a 
 miracle, but purely an exercise of the natural heart, per- 
 formed in the ordinary manner, and with the carnal mind; 
 and the natural man discerns the things of the Spirit of God, 
 and the carnal mind loves God, and that which is born of 
 flesh is faultless in itself, and can please God. Infants, also, 
 can have no moral character, because they have not yet put 
 forth those intelligent preferences on which the moral char- 
 acter depends, and hence they cannot be as yet the subjects 
 of the moral government of God. They cannot be renew- 
 ed by the Holy Ghost, for they have no sinful nature to be 
 renewed, not washed in the blood of Christ, for they have 
 no sin to wash away; they are mere animals, die by the 
 same law, and perish in the same oblivion. God is the God 
 of Abraham's seed in their infant state, in the same sense in 
 which he is the God of the offspring of the beast that perish; 
 for infants are not moral agents, and there is nothing in the 
 ordinance of baptism, or in the promises to believing parents, 
 which can possibly raise them in the scale of being to that 
 high dignity, before they shall have put forth an intelligent 
 moral preference : a moral being cannot be created even by 
 omnipotence, he must create himself. 
 
 Accordingly, the church has, in all past ages, been involv- 
 ed in a great error on this subject, and has attributed to the 
 Holy Spirit far greater part in the matter of our redemption 
 than he ever performed, and a power and glory which were 
 
TENDENCIES OF ERROR. 191 
 
 not his due. Indeed, the reasons for his special dispensation 
 are not very obvious, since all which he ever accomplished, 
 could have been effected without his agency altogether, or 
 at least he merely persuades men to do what ihey could have 
 easily done before, and which things they at length actually 
 do accomplish themselves, and that, without previously re- 
 ceiving from him any new principle of spiritual life. And 
 when this point is gained, is the next step in the departure 
 from the truth either singular or difficult 1 To deny his per- 
 son altogether 1 For if we can take away from him all his 
 appropriately official work, and cover his glorious ministration 
 with dishonor, will it be at all astonishing if, finally, we do 
 not so much as know "whether there be any Holy Ghost V 
 
 But the error denies the holiness of God's nature also, and 
 degrades him from the glory of his eternal thrown to the 
 condition of a mere subject. The law by which his conduct 
 is regulated, and his character determined, is that of benev- 
 olence. This law, as it is reported, graduates its requirments 
 by the abilities of moral beings. While it requires no more 
 than they can render, it still requires all that they can ren- 
 der, and of God it requires infinite benevolence, because he 
 is infinite; he never can exceed its claims, neither in himself, 
 nor in the person of his Son, for "Jesus Christ was bound to 
 obey the law for himself, and could no more perform works 
 of supererogation, or obey on our account, than any body 
 else." (See Lectures to Professing Christians, pp. 215, 216.) 
 Imputed righteousness would, therefore, be an impossibility, 
 because that which Jesus Christ owed for his own justifica- 
 tion, as a natural subject, could justify no one but himself. 
 
 Thus, by the issues of a metaphysical subtlety, is the 
 church deprived of the Spirit's inward and purifying graces 
 and of a Saviour's outward and justifying righteousness. 
 In following it, the only infallible guide has been abandoned, 
 the only spot on earj:h, in which the new creation reposes in 
 living verdure ; and as we advance, the rose of Sharon and 
 
192 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 and the lily of the valley lift up their beautious heads no more 
 beneath the sunny skies of a perpetual spring. The regions 
 which we approach, grow dreary and more dreary still, until 
 spiritual life itself becomes extinct and a perpetual winter 
 asserts its gloomy reign. 
 
 The doctrine of man's ability to keep the law of God per- 
 fectly in this life, appears also to hold an affiliated relation to 
 the original error on the nature of virtue, for it allows no 
 character to a moral nature, but only to an intelligent moral 
 preference ; nature, therefore, must be mere capacity : and 
 obligation, must be measured by its strength, and character 
 determined by its actings: and as the law requires perfect 
 obedience, the ability must necessarily exist to obey it ; 
 in the language of Mr. Barnes, " our obligations in all cases 
 are limited by our ability." (Notes 2 Cor. viii. 12.) The 
 ability must be plenary, or else it is not an ability ; if there 
 is the least defect in it, if every element which appropriately 
 enters into the idea of ability, does not exist in fallen man, 
 then it cannot be said of him, that he is able to keep the law 
 of God, for the ability to keep the law, to be any thing at 
 all, must be altogether, and in every respect, adequate to 
 that end. "None but a tyrant demands more than can be 
 rendered, and to demand more, is the appropriate descrip- 
 tion of a tyrant." (Notes of Mr. Barnes, 2 Cor. viii. 12.) 
 
 Accordingly what' can be more legitimate than the con- 
 clusion at which Mr. Finney has at length arrived. That 
 men really do that which they are perfectly able to do : at 
 least some of them keep the law of God perfectly in this life. 
 Would it not be a most singular and most unaccountable re- 
 sult, that among the millions of our race not one had yet been 
 found who had done what each individual amonsx men could 
 as easily have done without supernatural aid as he could 
 have used his power to "arise and walk?" Granting the 
 premises, assumed in the New School divinity to be correct, 
 then Mr. Finney's conclusion is also correct, and he is far 
 
 # 
 
TENDENCIES OP ERROR. 193 
 
 more consistent, than those who start with him in his premises 
 and then refuse to follow him in his just and irresistable con- 
 clusions. The starting point of Mr. Finney, and his New 
 School antagonists, is the same. The self same dark stream 
 which bears his barque, bears theirs to the same stygian 
 pool ; and though they may pause in terror and tie up their 
 boat, and cry out against him for his temerity, in keeping on 
 his way, yet whenever they break from their own moorings, 
 they must inevitably follow in his wake* While they main- 
 tain that man in his natural state, and without supernatural 
 aid can at any moment, keep the law of God perfectly, Mr. 
 Finney, should not be decried by them and excluded from 
 their pulpits, for maintaining the very logical conclusion, 
 that some men at least, do keep the law of God perfectly, 
 inasmuch as they have confessedly the additional aid afford* 
 ed them by the infinite motives of the gospel. Moreover, if 
 obligation and ability, limit and govern each other, if the law 
 does not require of man, in his fallen state, all that it did re- 
 quire of him, in his state of primeval innocence and purity, 
 but is modified in its claims, and adapts itself to the weak- 
 ness of his present condition, if the command, " Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength," — 
 (Mat. xii. 30,) signifies merely that you shall love God with 
 your heart as it now is, and does not have respect both to 
 the purity of the principle from which the love is required 
 to flow and to the act itself— if in a word, the claims of the 
 law are to be regulated by the existing and ever fluctuating 
 ability of sinners, then the following positions can be main- 
 tained : * 
 
 Saul of Tarsus, who thought verily that he ought to do 
 many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth," 
 (Acts xxvi. 9,) was not sinful for being in that state and for 
 acting accordingly, but for those sinful and voluntary acts 
 
 which brought him into it. And his subsequent sorrow and 
 
 13 
 
194 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 deep repentance, and many tears, on account of his persecu- 
 tions of the church, were rather the evidences of a weak 
 conscience, than of a truly gracious state. 
 
 The same is true, also, of the inebriate; the several acts 
 which bring him into a state of beastly insensibility, are sin- 
 ful, but the state itself is not; for in it he has lost the ability 
 to be holy, and when ability is lost, the obligation is destroy- 
 ed. It cannot, therefore, be affirmed that drunkenness 
 is itself sinful, on this theory, any more than extension and 
 impenetrability can be said to be the sins of a board. It sure- 
 ly will not be maintained that the drunken man can now, on 
 the instant, throw off his lethergy, and put forth " the gov- 
 erning purpose" of sobriety— and of consequence he has for 
 the time being, succeeded perfectly in destroying the claims, 
 of the divine law. This state he can perpetuate at his plea- 
 sure, and can cease, for years, to be a subject of the mor- 
 al government of God; for "our obligations, in all cases, are 
 limited by our ability; this is obviously the rule of equity." 
 "None but a tyrant ever demands more than can be render- 
 ed, and to demand more, is the appropriate description of a 
 :yrant." (B. Notes, 2 Cor. viii.) 
 
 The same is true, with regard to fallen angels and lost 
 spirits in the prison of woe ; in that dark abode, love is ex- 
 cluded by perfected enmity, and hope, by perfected dispair; 
 there the inability to love God, is entire and unending, and 
 capable of being overcome by omnipotence alone. And if 
 the law, measures its claims by the ability of its subjects, it 
 certainly can have no claims upon the damned, and they 
 likewise, are absolutely and forever, released from the moral- 
 government of%God. All the millions belonging to the 
 period of infancy, must be included in the same catagory, 
 with all those who have by their subsequent voluntary acts, 
 placed themselves in a condition of real inability to keep the 
 law by either the temporary want or the final loss of all abili- 
 ty to obey it. 
 
TENDENCIES OP ERROR. 195 
 
 In this manner does this single error make void the law of 
 God, not only by admitting sinners to the glory of heaven, 
 without meeting and magnifying its righteous claims through 
 the vicarious obedience of Christ, but also by measuring those 
 claims by a rule, as false in its nature, as it is demoralizing 
 in its tendencies ; a rule which makes obligation to decrease 
 with the increase of actual wickedness, among all the guilty 
 beings that people the universe. 
 
 The doctrine of ability, as held by the New School, cannot 
 be maintained, even by the very analogies to which thev so 
 confidently resort, in its illustration and defence ; for what has 
 the inability of a man to lift a mountain, to do with his ina- 
 bilitv to love God? The former was never a moral obli^a- 
 tion, and never could be one; the latter is a moral obligation, 
 and its strength can never be impaired. The inability in the 
 two cases resemble each other only in their degrees^ but they 
 differ wholly from each other, because they differ in their na- 
 tures. The one belongs to physics, the other to ethics; the 
 one is an inability of bones and sinews, the other of a moral 
 nature. But take an instance more strictly analogous, to 
 wit: the inability of a debtor to pay his debts, and does this 
 inability, though equal in degree with his inability to lift a 
 mountain, cancel his obligations V no, certainly not, for it dif- 
 fers from the former in kind; man was never under moral ob- 
 ligation to lift a mountain, but he was always under obligation 
 to fulfill his covenant engagements ; the latter obligation is 
 moral, and perpetuates itself by a necessary law ; it can nev- 
 er be impaired by any loss of ability, whatever, and hence 
 the whole system is seen to be essentially false, and cannot 
 plead a single appropriate analogy in its defence.. 
 
 The reiterated assertions of Mr. Barnes and others, that 
 an inability is physicial, whenever it is real, is calculated to 
 deceive those who cannot comprehend their meaning, but no 
 others. The inability of fallen angels and of fallen man, to 
 love God,, in their own unaided strength, is as real, and as 
 
196 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 oreat in degree, as their inability to create a world ; but these 
 two kinds of inability differ totally and infinitely from each 
 other. The reality of the inability to love God, does not 
 make it physical, any more truly, than it makes it chemical, 
 or agricultural ; the inability of God to lie, is real and sub- 
 stantial; in other words, it is absolute and infinite; but is not 
 therefore physical, and as destitute of moral character, as the 
 inability of the sun to shed darkness on the earth. The ina- 
 bility, in both instances, is equally a reality; but they differ 
 infinitely from each other, because the former is the inability 
 of a moral being to do evil, and the latter, the inability of 
 matter to violate the laws which are impressed upon it. — 
 Our inability to create a world, belongs to our physical con- 
 stitution ; our inability to love God, to our moral constitu- 
 tion. The former has no moral character, whatever, the 
 latter is wholly sinful. The absoluteness of the inability to 
 create a world, renders criminality impossible ; the absolute- 
 ness of the inability to love God, renders criminality infinite. 
 In the former instance, the inability is an excuse ; in the lat- 
 ter, a crime. 
 
 God is one, and his law is one, presenting forever the same 
 unvarying aspect, and putting forth forever the same high 
 and holy claims ; no weakness of depraved nature, can pos- 
 sibly weaken its original integrity. The trembling "debtor, 
 to do the whole law," (Gal. v. 3,) the" mere wreck of what 
 his nature once was, hears the same voice from the burning 
 throne, which rings in the ear of a seraph, "pay me that 
 thou owest ;" and the same finger which traced its precepts, 
 amid fire and darkness, on the enduring rock, writes out the 
 doom of inability on the gates of hell, "verily I say unto 
 thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast 
 paid the uttermost farthing," (Math. v. 20.) Inability can. 
 among no intelligences, no where, in no worlds, deliver from 
 its stern dominion, or break the arm of its power, and hence 
 we can say with peculiar emphasis and truth, "mans inabili- 
 
TENDENCIES OF ERROR. 197 
 
 ty, is God's opportunity ;" for if there had been a law given, 
 which could have given life, verily, righteousness should have 
 been by the law, (Gal. iii. 21.) 
 
 Again, it is maintained, as another result, that if ability to 
 obey is essential to obligation, and intelligent preferences es- 
 sential to character, then the moral government of God is 
 exclusively a government of motives, and omnipotence can- 
 not prevent sin. " Free moral agents can do wrong under 
 all possible preventing motives," (See Christian Spectator, 
 Sept. 1830, p. 503.) "His law is moral, not physical, a gov- 
 ernment of motive and not of force. It is vain to talk of 
 his omnipotence preventing sin; if infinite motives cannot 
 prevent it, it cannot be prevented, under a moral government, 
 and to maintain the contrary, is to maintain a contradiction," 
 (Finney's Sermons on important subjects, p. 58.) 
 
 Hence no faith can be exercised in the omnipotence of God 
 by his praying people ; in a moral universe, omnipotence has 
 no potency; it cannot prevent sin; it cannot renew the wills 
 of men. Omnipotence has been resisted by men and angels, 
 and can be again. If men are unwilling to be saved, Omni- 
 potence cannot make them willing. Omnipotence is alto- 
 gether out of the question, in saving men; if God cannot 
 gain the consent of men to be saved, by strong arguments, 
 the effort must prove abortive; he cannot save them at all; he 
 cannot "make them willing in the day of his power," but 
 only in the day of their power, and when they are pleased to 
 exercise it aright. 
 
 Saints may not persevere, they are not "kept by by the 
 power of God, through faith, unto salvation," but by motives, 
 and motives are, in their own nature resistable, have been 
 resisted, and may be resisted again; and the saint may resist 
 them, and perish. 
 
 Elect angles, and the spirits of just men made perfect, are 
 moral agents held in obedience, not in the least degree, by 
 Omnipotence, but by motives alone, and they too can rebel, 
 
198 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 and may at any time break away from every restraint, sun- 
 der every holy tie, falsify every solemn covenant, rob Christ 
 of his reward, the Spirit of his glory, and heaven of its in- 
 habitants. If Omnipotence cannot prevent sin, if the heav- 
 enly hosts can thwart the will and power of Almighty God, 
 if they choose to do so, who can tell but that the period may 
 come when they will all abuse this dangerous power, and si- 
 lence at once the hallelulias of heaven, and turn their backs 
 upon the blessed Lamb, and leave the magnificent courts of 
 Jehovah's temple desolate and s forsaken ? Oh, how profoundly 
 dark and repulsive is this cheerless theory, when it thus unset- 
 tles the deep foundations of the everlasting covenant, and 
 commits the perpetuity and glory of the heavenly state to a 
 mere contingency. 
 
 These errors are all concatinated; they all arise from one, 
 or, perhaps, two naked assumptions, viz. : first, that all 
 holiness consists in the love of being in general, or in disin- 
 terested benevolence ; and, secondly, that obligation, is in all 
 cases, limited by ability v The former commences all moral 
 distinctions, with the commencement of moral preferences, 
 and turns mere nature into mere capability. The latter ex- 
 cludes the work of the spirit, and makes man independent of 
 his maker in the work of obedience. 
 
 They are by no means self-evident propositions ; they 
 rest on no support from the word of God, and the system^ 
 therefore, which arises legitimately out of them, is woven, 
 warp, and woof, from the imaginations of men. Though 
 relied upon as primary moral principles, too clear to need 
 any proof, yet, they are a mere begging of the question, 
 mere assumptions, which never have been proved, and which 
 never can be. Nay, their very results, prove them false, 
 and stamp them with infamy, and give them up to reproach, 
 show them to be, not the first principles of eternal truth, but 
 the first principles in a connected tissue of error and false 
 philosophy. These grapes never grew on Mount Zion, they 
 are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. 
 
TENDENCIES OF ERROR. 199 
 
 In their incipiency, these propositions, and the speculations 
 concerning them, produced but little alarm, and few compre- 
 hended their tendencies. Good men held them as axioms, but 
 left them to their repose, as containing matters too meta- 
 physical for the common mind, and continued to preach the 
 gospel : but since they have become matured into system, 
 the vampire is at the seat life, it fastens itself on the jugular 
 vein in the neck of the church, and drains the vital current 
 from all its members : it must be destroyed or it will destroy 
 the church. Error has affinities for nothing but itself, and 
 whenever it attains to entire self-consistency, in all its parts, 
 it will have rejected every evangelical truth. The rapid 
 growth of universalism, deism, and skepticism, around us, 
 is traceable directly to this source, men have learned to 
 depend upon reason, not upon revelation. Religious teach- 
 ers have appealed almost exclusively to common sense to first 
 principles and to the nature of things in proof of their posi- 
 tions. Their hearers have learned also to do the same, and 
 the word of God has been brought into great contempt ; so 
 that to prove a doctrine by the Bible, is become of no avail 
 with many professing Christians ; if it cannot be proved by 
 reason it cannot be proved at all. 
 
 Exposition has, to an alarming extent, also been supplant- 
 ed by moral essays and philosophical speculations. " The 
 people see not their signs ;" The house of prayer is sadly 
 neglected, and the halls of false teachers thronged by the 
 children of the church. Few seem to comprehend the 
 cause of the deep and dreadful declension. But when im- 
 putation, atonement, depravity, and regeneration — these 
 great pillars of Christianity, exist only in name, or expire 
 upon the rack of metaphysical inquisitors, or, at the least, 
 are withheld from having utterance in the house of God, 
 then there is a cause, a great and sufficient cause. The 
 shield is upon the face of the sun, and it darkens the whole 
 world. And when the gospel testimony is silent, or ex- 
 
200 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 hausted of its meaning, in the very church itself, is not this 
 the time for error to set in from other quarters also, and to 
 pour out its dark tides from the mouth of the dragon, and 
 from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the 
 false prophet, and to bear away everything " lovely and of 
 good report 1" 
 
 Is this the time, then, for the cry of peace, and for the 
 feeling of security 1 Is this the time 1 when error is already 
 matured into system, and occupies the high places of Zion, 
 and Deists, and Unitarians, are hailing its champions over 
 the broken walls of the city of God. Nay, if it were some 
 "time hallowed absurdity" which was made the object of 
 assault, we might well be silent, but it is the faith once de- 
 livered to the saints. Not that faith as it exists in forms of 
 government, and in forms of worship, but as it exists in its 
 inmost sanctuary, arrayed in its sacerdotal robes,and sheding 
 forth its spirit's blessed ministrations. And is this the time, 
 then, for the witnesses to be silent and to suffer obscurity, to 
 break their courage, and reproach to break their hearts 1 
 No, verily, there are principles involved in this controversy 
 too sacred to be abandoned without a struggle, and which 
 will never be abandoned by the friends of Zion. " If I for- 
 get thee, oh Jerusalem, let my right hand forget, if I do not 
 prefer thee above my chief joy." 
 
 The errors which now assail the old-fashioned theology 
 and impress upon the minds of the rising generation, a refin- 
 ed and philosophic infidelity, have been insidiously introduc- 
 ed and spread. They come from the most unexpected 
 sources and take us by surprise ; we cannot believe our eyes, 
 or ears, nor listen to our uncharitable suspicions, we fear 
 we may be doing injustice to men much better than our- 
 selves, and await the result, till the most favorable period 
 for successful resistance is already past, and the Son of 
 Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. The professions 
 arc sound, but the teachings are false and deceptive ; creeds, 
 
TENDENCIES OF ERROR. 201 
 
 sacred to the memory of reformers and martyrs, are in cur- 
 rent use, but the philosophy of Christianity, it is contended, 
 is the wide open common which lies between truth and 
 error, the neutral territory between Christ and Belial ; this 
 is the place for the tournaments, and here it is where hel- 
 mets are broken, and the sword of the spirit vilely cast 
 away. Nothing must be said, lest we should disturb the 
 peace of Zion and arrest the progress of revivals. Alarm is 
 uncalled for as no evil is intended; and none can accrue to 
 the church from these innocent speculations ; until, at length, 
 the speculations have been turned into doctrines, and " truth 
 has fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter." 
 
 For the last ten years, it is claimed, that correct views 
 have revived and made great progress among the New 
 School, and that, because the new measures have nearly dis- 
 appeared from among them. But the new measures are but a 
 small portion of the evils of which we complain, the doc- 
 trinal errors with which they were connected, and which they 
 served to spread, were the germ of the apostacy, and they 
 alone rendered them formidable. Error is usually cold and 
 philosophical and cannot long continue to feed any excite- 
 ment, good or bad ; its first outporings are the melted lava 
 which soon ceases to flow and lingers into rock ; the reli- 
 gion which has succeeded to the new measures is, to a sad 
 extent, a religion without revivals, and without the gospel. 
 It is the new divinity, therefore, thus rapidly and silently 
 diffusing itself everywhere, which awakens alarm and calls 
 for kind but determined expostulation. The slumbers of the 
 church must be broken, and that at anv hazard. No mere 
 managing of a few sound men, to outmanage their more 
 wily foes, will avail aught in this struggle. " The children 
 of this world are wiser in their generations, than the chil- 
 dren of light." No cunningly devised method of preaching 
 orthodoxy in terms so soft, and sweet, and ambiguous, as not 
 to offend Pelagian hearers, will suit at all the exigencies of 
 
202 OLD AXD NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. , 
 
 this evil day. The gospel must be preached as it was, and 
 as it is ; we are not sent to bury its lustre under velvet 
 cushions, or to turn its edge with the down of thistles ; we 
 may keep our places by our pliancy, but we shall betray our 
 trust and offend the master. "For do I now persuade men, 
 or God ; or do I seek to please menl" for if I yet pleased 
 men, I should not be the servant of Christ." (Gal. 1 — 10.) 
 
 Reader, has curiosity led you to keep me company thus 
 far, and are you yet in the broad and thronged way which 
 leads to death ? Think not then that error in the church di- 
 minishes in aught the guilt of your own unbelief, or delays for 
 a moment your approaching doom. Justice, eternal justice 
 demands your blood, and no arm can save you, but his who 
 hung upon the tree. Your inability to obey the law is not 
 your excuse, but the evidence of your guilt and deep neces- 
 sity, and the harbinger of approaching ruin. Offended justice 
 has no reluctant heart and no reluctant hand to punish. — 
 " God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairv 
 scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his tresspass." (Ps. 
 xviii. 21 ;) darker still, and darker is the hue of guilt, deeper 
 still, and deeper is the frown of injured heaven at the con- 
 tinued slight, put by your continued impenitence upon the 
 only redeemer of God's elect. " Oh, if the word spoken by 
 angels was steadfast and every transgression and disobedi- 
 ence received a just recompence of reward ; How shall 
 we escape if we neglect so great salvation." Heb. ii. 2, 3. 
 
 We call upon you therefore, by the truth of your total de- 
 pravity, and by your righteous and hopeless condemnation 
 in your present state ; by the blood of atonement so long 
 neglected, and by the expostulations of the Spirit so long re- 
 sisted ; in view of the resurrection morn, the judgement 
 scat of Christ and the retributions of eternity, to awaken at 
 once to righteousness and to cast yourself to day upon the 
 bosom of your blessed and only Redeemer. The law con- 
 demns ; justice demands your blood ; conscience accuses, 
 
TENDENCIES OF ERROR. 203 
 
 and your adversary the devil, seeks to devour. But Christ 
 is the trembling sinners friend — kind to her taken in the very 
 act of sin, and accused by all — near to him, who stands afar 
 off, and smites upon his breast ; he upbraideth not — no bitter 
 reproaches salute the ear of the prodigal ; his return lends 
 speed to aged limbs, and grey locks stream upon the wind to 
 meet him, while yet afar off — the words of self reproach are 
 stifled "by embraces, and the tears of bitterness are kissed 
 away ; as it is written, " before they call I will answer, and 
 while they are yet speaking I will hear." Isa. lxv. 24. — 
 " Now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God 
 did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye 
 reconciled to God for he hath made him to be sin for us, who 
 knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God 
 in him." 2 Cor. v. 20. 21. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BASIS OP UNION AMONG PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 What it is — The New School have departed from it — A return necessary to 
 a union. 
 
 The Holy Spirit is represented as building a spiritual tem- 
 ple upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets in which 
 Jesus Christ occupies the place of the chief corner stone. — 
 Eph. ii. 20. The foundation is doctrinal, and the distinguish- 
 ing doctrine is that of the atonement of Christ, on this the 
 whole superstructure ultimately rests. Every one also who 
 reaches his destined place on this foundation, reaches it by 
 an agency external to himself. The marble blocks repose in 
 total insensibility in their native beds, here they are found by 
 the architect, broken from the quarry, polished after the 
 similitude of a palace, and borne to their place in the edifice. 
 It occurs not to them to throw off their natural deformity 
 and to go forth in beauty and usefulness. " They are buil- 
 ded," are wholly passive in taking their shape and in reaching 
 their places. 
 
 The building is gradually completed. "Forty and six 
 years was this temple in building," said the Jews of theirs. 
 That of Diana, say s6me, was four hundred years in build- 
 ing ; but that of Jehovah has been in progress six thousand 
 years, and ages yet to come, will roll away before the last 
 elected stone shall be broken from natures quarry, and fitted 
 
BASIS OF UNION. 205 
 
 and carried up "with shoutings of grace, grace unto it." Zech. 
 iv. 9. 
 
 The doctrines of the gospel are as essential to a church 
 state, as foundations are to a building. " If the foundations 
 are destroyed what can the righteous do." The invisible 
 church comprises in it the whole family of believers in heaven, 
 and on earth of every nation and of every name ; the visible 
 church comprises in it, the various organizations of professed 
 Christians who receive the doctrines of the gospel in a suffi- 
 cient degree to enjoy a church state. A building may be sup- 
 ported by an imperfect foundation : the chief corner stone may 
 be there, and many more of great utility, while the places of 
 others may be supplied by wood, hay, stubble, and other 
 worthless and combustable materials and yet the building 
 may stand; its safety and durability is indeed greatly endan- 
 gered, but its existence is not destroyed. 
 
 Some portions of the family of Christ are more visibly 
 and sufficiently on this foundation, than others ; and while 
 a general fellowship should exist among ihese, yet none should 
 be required to abandon their conscientious views of truth 
 for the sake of union. A union effected in this manner 
 would be unscriptural and injudicious. It is expected of 
 Christians that they be honest men, and that they hold con- 
 nection with that denomination whose peculiarities resemble 
 most in their judgment the apostolic model. Their position 
 in the visible church should be expressive of their conscien- 
 tious convictions, and it can be no violation of the principles 
 of an enlightened charity in them to require all who unite 
 with them to embrace their denominational peculiarities. 
 
 As a portion of the church of Christ, we have expressed 
 our views of the gospel in a compendious way. They are 
 contained in our confession of faith and form of government, 
 and in the larger and shorter catechisms of the Westminster 
 Assembly of divines ; while we do not maintain that we are 
 the church of Christ exclusive of all others, we still insist 
 
206 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 on an honest subscription to our standards, on the part of all 
 those who unite with us, and we believe our course, in this 
 respect, to be in accordance with common usage r with en- 
 lightened charity, and essential to our existence as a Christ- 
 ian church. 
 
 A union of all denominations in one body, while each one 
 should be permitted to maintain its peculiar views, would 
 awaken bitter controversy, and result in mutual alienation. 
 Socialism has not yet proved that one house is large enough 
 for more than one family, and the enlightened lovers of har- 
 mony in the churches will not attempt to prove it. 
 
 A union, also, in which a silent abandonment of mutual 
 differences in opinion should be agreed upon, would involve 
 in it a criminal dereliction of principle, and a total abandon- 
 ment of the gospel. Churches are bound to a solemn and 
 earnest testimony to what they believe to be the truth, and 
 they cannot be released by any conventional arrangements 
 whatever. The differences which separate believers into 
 denominations, are various, and, though each communion 
 may receive a sufficient amount of evangelical truth to pre- 
 serve the integrity of their church state, yet, when each 
 one shall have relinquished all their differences with every 
 other, the denomination which would be the result would 
 have but little to distinguish it from an association of free 
 thinkers. Take, for example, those differences which sep- 
 arate Old from New School Presbyterians, alone, for an 
 illustration of this point.. One believes that Christ endured 
 the penalty of the law; another, that he did not. One that 
 he obeyed it for his people ;. the other that he obeyed it for 
 himself. One that his righteousness is imputed to believers ; 
 the other that it is not,, but that the act of faith is imputed. 
 One that faith receives the righteousness of Christ ; the other 
 that Christ needs it for himself. One that regeneration is 
 an act of God ; the other tftat it is the act of man.. One 
 that it is a change of nature ; the other that it is a change; 
 
BASIS OF UXIOX. 207 
 
 of purpose. One that man can do nothing, of himself ; the 
 other that he can do every thing, which is required, of himself. 
 And thus we might proceed to include other denominations, 
 and to show, .that if we should agree to relinquish our re- 
 spective differences for the sake of a common union with 
 each other, we should, in that event, agree to relinquish 
 every evangelical truth, everything held dear and sacred by 
 any. We might retain the names of christian doctrines, but 
 no explanation could be attempted of their meaning without 
 breaking the principles of the compact. The points on which 
 we differ are so numerous, extending so, to every doctrine 
 of the gospel, and so, to every explanation of every doctrine; 
 no one thing would more effectually destroy our entire 
 Christianity than an amalgamation, on such conditions- 
 every minister would become silent, every pulpit vacant ; 
 every church empty. Such an union ought never to be 
 proposed,' or if proposed^ ought, promptly and unanimously, 
 to be rejected. 
 
 As Presbyterians, therefore, we have but one course left 
 for us to pursue — but one basis of union to present. Our 
 infallible rule of faith and practice, is the Bible, our epitome 
 of it, is the confession of faith. In that instrument our views 
 of Christianity are fully stated, without reserve, and without 
 ambiguity; and if the New School desire a union with us, they 
 ought first to retract their errors, and to make an honest sub- 
 scription to our standards. We ought to exact no less from 
 them ; they ought to expect no less from us. A condemna- 
 tion of the act of 1837, on our part, would not restore the 
 breach, for the plain and sufficient reason, that it did not 
 make it. «To approve or condemn it, is not, with us, an arti- 
 cle of faith, or a condition of union. We do not believe in 
 the infallibility of Ecumenical Councils, or of General Assem- 
 blies ; we believe that the plan of union, because never con- 
 sented to by the several Presbyteries, was unwise, and uncon- 
 stitutional, and that from, its injurious operation, its abroga- 
 
208 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL TRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 tion was imperiously demanded, by every principle of self 
 preservation. Bat whether our views on this subject, are 
 correct or not, can be of but small moment, since, whether 
 the act of '37 was wise or unwise, it could not dissolve our 
 organization, or separate any one from the Presbyterian 
 church ; each one has but to comply with the order and di- 
 rection of the Assembly, and avail himself of the provisions 
 made for him in the act itself, by uniting with the nearest con- 
 tiguous presbytery, and every difficulty is overcome. The 
 declaration of war with Mexico, may have been an error of 
 the administration, but the effect of it was not a dissolution 
 of the Federal Compact. On the war question, our citizens 
 will hold different opinions, and will remain good citizens 
 still ; and with respect to the plan of union and its abroga- 
 tion we may entertain very different opinions, and be good 
 Presbyterians still. Our particular opinions concerning the 
 acts of the general assembly, have as little to do with the ba- 
 sis of union among Presbyterians, as the Mexican war has 
 to do with the general confederacy. We are not to expect 
 perfection in any administration, but we ought to expect loyal- 
 ty on the part of every subject. Secession is rebellion. An 
 honest subscription to our standards, is therefore, most rea- 
 sonably required, and most certainly expected. To talk or 
 think of any other method of union, is idle. The door is al- 
 ready thrown open, as wide as it ought, and as wide as it 
 can be. 
 
 The New School have seceeded from the church, denied 
 to her, her distinctive missionary character, and changed her 
 form of government. But above all their leading men. Dr's. 
 Cox, Beman, Beecher, Duffield, and Mr. Barnes, have denied 
 the great doctrines of the gospel as understood and explained 
 by Presbyterians, and these denials have taken a permanent, 
 popular form, and have obtained a wide circulation ; com- 
 municants and their children are alienated from the church 
 of their fathers, and have learned to speak lightly of the 
 
BASIS or UNION. 209 
 
 faith of the martyrs, and of the witnesses of Jesus. Impu- 
 tation, original sin, native depravity, regeneration and atone- 
 ment, are beginning to have existence only in name; all that 
 these great doctrines imply, is treated by many, as the idle 
 philosophy of the Schools. In these serious and fundamen- 
 tal questions, they have departed from us ; and if they desire 
 a union, let them first restore the breach they have made. 
 The evidences that they are the offenders against union, and 
 that they renew the offence, and keep up the feud, meet us 
 every where. Their protection of errorists, and the wide 
 circulation which they are still giving to their dangerous opin- 
 ions, prove that, whatever else they may be, they are not 
 Presbyterians. Their unwillingness to separate from the 
 General Assembly, by compromise — their abrupt breaking 
 off of kind negotiations, and their suit at law, which origina- 
 ted wholly with themselves, prove their spirit to have been 
 any other than brotherly or peaceable, at the time. The 
 decision of the court, that they were not the General As- 
 sembly of the Presbyterian Church, in the United States, 
 and their failure to prosecute their appeal to a higher court, 
 prove that the laws of our country, and their own ominous 
 failures, are against the justice of their claims ; — intimates 
 that their cause is wanting in integrity, is wholly indefensible 
 on its own merits, and, on this account, needs to be supported 
 by the war of prejudices, raised upon false issues. So that 
 in every aspect of the whole question, they are evidently 
 the aggressors ; and if they sincerely desire, or expect a un- 
 ion with us, they should at once return to the point at which 
 they commenced their separation. They have departed, let 
 them return. They have made the breach, let them restore 
 it. , They have entered the bosom of our peaceful family, 
 and bred heresy, strife and debate, in it. They have entered 
 our well-tille/l garden, and trodden in the dust the rose of 
 sharon, and the lily of the valley there. They have broken 
 down our hedges, led away our children, and decoyed ourpeo- 
 
 14 
 
210 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS.. 
 
 pie. They have done the evil,.thorefore, to make reparation^, 
 belongs to them. The basis of union remains as aforetime*. 
 The confession of faith, and the form of government, and 
 the longer and shorter chatechisms of the Westminster As- 
 sembly of Divines, are not altered. 
 
 But if the New School have improved upon the old basis 
 and taken away some of its bad principles, and supplied their 
 place with better ones, then it behooves us to follow them 
 as they more perfectly follow Christ. In this conslusion we 
 concur. But is it an improvement to destroy the appellate 
 jurisdiction, and missionary character of the General As- 
 sembly 1 To deny that Christ obeyed the law and bore its 
 curse for his people ? To maintain that the act of faith, and 
 not the righteousness of Christ, is imputed to us, for our 
 justification 1 That God's immutable law is changed? that 
 he does not require of fallen man, what he did require of 
 him in his state of primeval innocence 1 That men are able 
 to keep the law, to repent and believe the gospel, without 
 the aid of the Holy Ghost 1 That human nature is not de- 
 Draved l That infants are not the subjects of moral, 
 government ] And that God does nothing for man in re- 
 generation, that he cannot do for himself? These are al- 
 terations of our creed, but are they improvements simply 
 on that account 1 That is to assume the very thing to be 
 proved, or to assume that the gospel is, in its own nature, a 
 progressive development of truth, and that change is prima 
 facie evidence of desirable amendment and progress. 
 
 The works of creation are finished works, they remain 
 just what they were six thousand years ago, the face of the 
 heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, the revolutions of the 
 earth, the changes of the seasons, the atmosphere, the 
 clouds, the wind, the dew, the rain, all remain just what 
 they were when they were first made. They are incapa- 
 ble of change for the better, as they are already beautifully 
 adapted to their end — the perfected works of God, ; and any 
 
BASIS OF UNION~ 211 
 
 alteration of their constitution would endanger the safety of 
 the world. The gospel, also, in like manner, is a finished 
 testimony. The heavens that now overhang the new Jeru- 
 salem, are just what they were eighteen hundred years ago. 
 They have not changed, and they never will while time 
 shall last. The balmy atmosphere which at first surround- 
 ed Mount Zion, surrounds it still, unchanged. The dew that 
 glitters like a shower of diamonds there, falls and shines and 
 refreshes as aforetime. And the sun of righteousness still 
 looks down from the same spot in the firmament, and bathes 
 the city of the great king in the same softened effulgence as 
 at the first. All things here retain their primevaL sweetness 
 and glory, unimpaired and unimproved. The doctrines of 
 the gospel are as incapable of change for the better as are 
 the works of nature ; and any alteration of them endangers 
 the welfare of the souls of men. 
 
 But, if it be said, that although the gospel cannot be im- 
 proved, yet that this is not true of the confession of faith, — 
 J reply, then, that this may be true, and, as the New School 
 profess to have made great improvements, why have they not 
 incorporated them in their new confession of faith 1 I find 
 some changes in church government in that instrument, but 
 they are themselves already out of patience with these very 
 changes. These, then, cannot be intended,, and as they have 
 made no formal changes in our doctrinal standards, wherein 
 have they made any improvement at all 1 They profess to be- 
 lieve the confession of faith ; that it is strictly in accordance 
 with the word of God ; that it requires no change, and that 
 their improvements are in the mere philosophy of Christianity; 
 that these are wholly unimportant in their nature, and should 
 not alienate us from each, other. Why, then, in the name 
 of charity, do they make such a great ado about so great a 
 trifle, and finally rend the church from Maine to Texas for 
 a mere figment, the mere moonshine of philosophy? "Why 
 did the best beloved Brutus stab if not for justice?" If it be- 
 
212 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 not for Christianity itself, then abandon it at once. If this 
 mere philosophy, be a mere nothing, it will cost them 
 nothing to forsake it; to remove In the true spirit of 
 christian conciliation, and condecension, this abomination 
 that maketh desolate, and to restore union, and harmony, 
 and confidence among alienated brethren. Thus the very 
 defences set up by the New School, are the evidences of 
 conscious weakness, and resemble the excuses and subterfuges 
 of a defeated party, and of a failing cause. 
 
 A church is a company of living witnesses to the truth, 
 and her creed is one of the forms in which she embodies and 
 exhibits her testimony. If she simply declared her belief in 
 the scriptures, and did not state definitely, what she under- 
 stood the scriptures to teach, her testimony could not be 
 distinguished from that of errorists ; for all Protestant de- 
 nominations of every grade, believe that the word of God, 
 contained in the scriptures of the old and new testaments, 
 is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. The line of 
 demarcation, between a true and a false Christianity, com- 
 mences with formal statements of our faith — with distinct, 
 and clear definitions of our views. Here, at this point, it is 
 that the church emerges from the confusion of tongues, and 
 makes her sound and sanctifying testimony. To profess that 
 she believes the scriptures, and to do no more, would not be 
 a mark of fidelity, would not make her either conspicuous or 
 useful, — " a city set on a hill which cannot be hid." She 
 must declare what the scriptures teach, as to " what we are 
 to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of 
 man." Her creed, her catechism, her living ministry, must 
 keep back nothing deemed " profitable for doctrine, for re- 
 proof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness." 
 
 In this duty the Presbyterian Church has been remarkable 
 for her firmness and fidelity. She has a creed, and one very 
 difficult either to prevert or misunderstand. It is not rejected 
 because its true meaning, lies deeply hid among metaphysical 
 
BASIS OF UNION. 213 
 
 mists and antiquated theological technicalities ; because friged 
 as the poles and "dark as Erebus and old night" and its 
 meaning impossible to be comprehended. It is rejected be- 
 cause it is understood too well — because it is warm with holy 
 fire, and filled with unearthly majesty and uncompromising 
 truth. It is hated and rejected for the same reasons that the 
 gospel, of which it is a beautiful epitome, is hated and rejec- 
 ed, — because it embodies and presents that gospel in its well 
 defended and admirable proportions. 
 
 Our testimony is one, with that of the apostles, and one, 
 with that of their successors. We teach the same gospel 
 which Paul taught to the Roman's, to the Galatians, to the 
 Hebrews, — we unite with the church in the wilderness in 
 reiterating her testimony, and with the subsequent army of 
 reformers and martyrs and witnesses of Jesus, in theirs. We 
 do not regard Christianity as a progressive science, but as a 
 perfected revelation ; we promulgate no new doctrines ; we 
 usurp no authority over the conciences of men ; we maintain 
 the ancient gospel and the headship of Christ over his own 
 house. 
 
 The church in all ages is the same, and her testimony is 
 the same. That testimony has been as well understood, as 
 clearly stated, as deeply loved, as highly valued, as ably de- 
 fended by the witnesses of Jesus in other days, as it now is. 
 We have gained nothing by time and distance, by progress 
 in commerce, in arts, and arms over them. They gazed upon 
 the same heavens that we gaze upon, inhaled the same at- 
 mosphere, were informed by the same spirit, and were built 
 upon the same foundations: "seeing then that we are com- 
 passed about by so gfeat a crowd of witnesses, let us lay 
 aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us, 
 and let us run with patience the race set before us, looking un- 
 to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." Brethren other 
 foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus 
 Christ, in his penal sufferings, imputed righteousness and spirits 
 
"214 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 ministration: and to be rooted and grounded in the truth, as 
 it is in Him, is no ordinary blessing. But to be separated 
 from it — to be ever learning and never able to come to the 
 knowledge of the truth, is an affliction grevious to bear, a sad 
 ingredient in the cup of bitterness. To break from our moor- 
 ings here, is to wander about at all uncertainties, the sport 
 of every unquiet wave and contrary wind; back to this point 
 we shall look with a tearful eye and with an aching heart, 
 remembering the days of an uncorrupted simplicity, and of a 
 settled faith. Then a false philosophy had not as yet spread 
 out her dark pall upon the bosom of our perished hopes, nor 
 filled the sunny sky with a perpetual gloom ; but since we 
 have listened to that wily foe, who hath cast down many 
 strong men, wounded, our eyes are darkened, and we can- 
 not say that we have a lie in our right hand. 
 
 But if we have wandered, there is a pathway of retun> 
 Those however, who reach the foundation are built upon it. 
 No native strength or righteousness can build us on that foun- 
 dation. Without the Spirit's aid we can neither find it, nor 
 reach it, if it were found. The Holy Spirit breaks the rock 
 from the quarry, and fits and polishes and bears it to its place 
 on the foundation, none shall make any progress toward that 
 place of security and repose, without a sufficient knowledge 
 of this blessed truth. The more fully we understand and 
 appreciate our inability and our entire dependence on the 
 Holy Ghost, the brighter is the hope of a successful return. 
 " Work out, therefore, your own salvation, with fear and 
 trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and 
 to do of his good pleasure." Amen. # 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PLEA FOR UNION AMONG PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 A union desirable — Division among Christians an evil — The true remedy 
 proposed. 
 
 Our Lord prays for a union among his followers in all ages, 
 u neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which 
 shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be 
 one, as thou Father art in me and I in thee, that they also 
 may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast 
 sent me." The union is desirable. The prayer for it was 
 offered up by our Lord, just before he was betrayed. It is 
 his dying request ; a-nd this fact presents the subject to us, 
 with additional solemnity, and impressiveness. The union 
 for which he prayed included at least the following par- 
 ticulars. 
 
 A union in nature. — That the church might possess in com- 
 mon, " the divine nature," (2 Pet. i. 4. ) The holiness of God, 
 not in degree, but in kind, being " renewed in righteousness 
 and true holiness, after the image of Him who created man. 
 
 A spiritual union. — The same spirit renewing, sanctifying, 
 and dwelling in them all, making the whole church one, by 
 distributing to each one the inhabitation of the same Holy 
 Spirit. * 
 
 A union in the affections of the heart, and in the views of 
 the mind; they "being perfectly joined together in the same 
 mind, and in the same judgment." 
 
 It was desired that this union should be visible, and tend 
 
216 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 to the conversion of the world: "that the world may believe 
 that thou hast sent me." 
 
 There are popular virtues, which, when seen in the church, 
 secure the confidence and respect of mankind, and have a 
 bearing on their conversion. " Let your light so shine before 
 men, that they, seeing your good works, may glorify your 
 Father who is in heaven." Union among believers is one of 
 these, because so opposite to the spirit of the world, and so 
 delightful an exhibition of the harmony af heaven. Behold, 
 how good, and how pleasant it is, to see brethren dwell to- 
 gether in unity: it is like the dew, that descended upon 
 the mountains of Zion : for there the Lord commanded the 
 Messing, even life for evermore. Psalm cxxxiii. 
 
 Wars and fightings are in the world; men are hateful, and 
 hate one another; each one would be greatest. An equal, 
 a superior, a rival, cannot be endured. Men are " desirous 
 of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another;" 
 but when we meet with those who are united in a church 
 state, and have fervent charity among themselves- — united in 
 one heart and one mind — the contrast is striking, and we 
 meet it wkh an agreeable surprise. We turn often to it, as 
 weary mortals turn from the heartless glitter of wealth and 
 fashion, from the pride of cultivated intellect, from the rage 
 for gold and preferment, to the period of youthful innocence, 
 the sweet recollection of happier days, and desire to dwell 
 in a spot so hallowed, in which Heaven has blotted out the 
 animosities of the past, and opened upon the ravished sight, 
 the delightful visions of the future. 
 
 Union among Christians, in their testimony, gives that tes- 
 timony greater credibility and force. The Church is a com- 
 pany of witnesses to the truth, and it is desirable that that 
 testimony should, in no respect, be conflicting or contradic- 
 tory. " We are his witnesses of these[things, and so is also 
 the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to all them that obey 
 him." This testimony began, at the first, to be spoken by 
 
PLEA FOR UNION. 217 
 
 the Son, and was confirmed unto us, by them that heard him. 
 They confirmed the testimony of Christ, by repeating it 
 without contradiction or alteration, and to verify the truth 
 of their testimony, another witness also appeared, " God also 
 bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and di- 
 vers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his 
 will." Paul multiplies the witnesses to the same Gospel, that 
 he may increase the force of his own testimony. In the xi. 
 chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, he unites himself with 
 all the intermediate witnesses to the Gospel, back to the time 
 of Abel. He calls out the stars, one by one, till at length 
 they are gathered, and mingle in a vast galaxy, and surround 
 the city of the living God, with a subduing and refreshing 
 brightness. Thus he places the city on a hill; it shines from 
 afar, over whole countries, and along the flight of ages; the 
 mellow light in which it reposes, attracts us away from the 
 evanescent glare of all earthly glory, to gaze upon its sur- 
 passing and attractive loveliness; " beautiful for situation, 
 yea, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides 
 of the north, the city of the great King, God is known for a 
 refuge in her palaces." 
 
 The divisions of the Church of Christ, therefore, into sep- 
 arate organizations, each delivering its separate and conflict- 
 ing testimony, tends greatly to weaken the force of that tes- 
 timony, and to obscure its lustre. Her testimony is stronger 
 or weaker in proportion as she is more or less united in it. — 
 Her want of union is an evil to be deplored, and in every as- 
 pect in which it can be viewed, it is an evil. God brings 
 light out of darkness, and good out of evil — He overruled 
 the wickedness of Joseph's brethren to good, and the murder 
 of his Son, to the salvation of men; and he overrules the 
 divisions in the Church, to a more full examination, and a 
 more perfect understanding of his word, and to various other 
 desirable ends. But these acts of his providence do not in- 
 terfere with the nature of evil actions: they remain evil still; 
 
218 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS, 
 
 no good results growing out of divisions in churches, can 
 prove that they are in themselves innocent, or that they 
 ought to be desired on their own account. 
 
 These divisions are not modern; they originated with a 
 primitive Christianity, and will continue till the fullness of the 
 Gentiles be come in; then shall the Jews return, and there 
 shall be but one fold and one Shepherd. Our Lord did not 
 regard division as innocent, but as inevitable, in the present 
 state of knowledge and holiness: "it must needs be that offen- 
 ces come, but woe unto him by whom the offence cometh." 
 Judaizing teachers formed large parties and corrupted and 
 divided the primitive churches. Their conduct met with se- 
 vere reprehension from the Apostle Paul — " Mark them 
 which make divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine 
 ye have learned, and avoid them, for they that be such 
 serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own lusts, and by 
 good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the sim- 
 ple." At Ephesus, he called for the elders of the church, 
 and said. " after my departure, shall grievous wolves enter in 
 among you, not sparing the flock, and of your own selves 
 shall men arise, speaking perverse things, and leading away 
 disciples after them." The spirit of Antichrist had also be- 
 gun to operate, even in his day, " whose coming was after 
 the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying 
 wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in 
 them that perish." 
 
 But the power which preserved the bush unconsumed, amid 
 the flame, preserves the church likewise, amid the rage of 
 conflicting opinions. The arm which sustained the bride in 
 the wilderness, sustains her still. "The sea has come up upon 
 Babylon" — Tyre. Sidon and Ninevah, have disappeared 
 with her beneath the angry wave ; there the crescent 
 is sinking fast, and there, in the eddies of the same mael- 
 strom, appears the mother of abominations, hurrying with 
 increasing violence, toward the devouring gorge. But the 
 
PLEA FOR UNION", 219 
 
 church, though frail as a helpless woman, abandoned in her 
 light shallop, on the crest of the thundering surge, shall ride 
 securely amid the war of elements, and play with the main of 
 the sea, and out-live the fearful storm, in which steamers are 
 wrecked, and navies dismasted. Christ is with her, and how- 
 ever great her perils, she can never be engulfed and lost. 
 
 Two remedies have been alternately tried to cure the evils 
 of disunion. The one has dispensed with persuasion, and in- 
 sisted on uniformity by pains and penalties. The other has 
 made its seductive appeal to the law of a false charity. The 
 former has procured a union as heartless and false, as the 
 means resorted to were cruel and unscriptural. The latter 
 has made a fair show in the flesh, but has tended to apostacy. 
 It has required us to abandon our differencs, and to love one 
 another, to care less about doctrine, and more about union — 
 in other words, to care less about Christianity, and more 
 about harmony ; for Christianity is not Christianity, without 
 its doctrines. No reformation, however, which has been 
 finally acknowledged to have been from heaven, has ever 
 taken this direction. The Holy Spirit never leads us to be in- 
 different to the truth, in order that we may return to God, 
 and imbibe more of the love and harmony of heaven. 
 
 The great revival of religion among the Israelites, when 
 they came out of Egypt, was a revival of knowledge, and gra- 
 cious affections. They had fallen into great ignorance, and 
 irreligion, in Egypt, and for a whole year divine knowledge 
 was shed upon them from the burning mount. The reforma- 
 tion went in the direction of truth, and toward God. A re- 
 vival of indifference to truth, in the churches, is the work of 
 satan, and the harmony, which is the result of it, is that 
 which pervades the palace of "the strong man armed;" he 
 is the ruler of the darkness of this world, or of its spiritual 
 ignorance ; it is his appropriate domain ; here he erects his 
 gloomy throne, and sways his infernal scepter, and reigns ; 
 for if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom 
 
220 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that 
 believe not, lest the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
 Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." 
 
 The great revival which commenced the Christian era, 
 was a war upon error, accompanied by the propagation of 
 truth in spirit and in power. Judaism, and Paganism, and 
 every form of false philosophy, and of false religion, met 
 in Christianity a determined antagonist. It sent not peace 
 on earth, but a s^ord — it broke the harmony of hell, 
 to introduce the harmony of heaven. The revival was a 
 revival of truth and purity, not of union, produced by a com- 
 promise with errorists, and by indifference to the word of 
 God. Christ came to break in upon the kingdom, supported 
 and swayed by erroneous opinions, and to turn mankind from 
 darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. 
 
 The revival of the sixteenth century, was not a compro- 
 mise between conflicting sectaries, but a revival of the great 
 doctrines of Christianity, long buried beneath the errors of 
 Pelagius, and the consequent superstitions of Rome. The 
 reformers recovered and reopened the word of God, and 
 revived the long neglected testimony of Jesus. The result 
 was glorious and the gracious work abiding. 
 
 Whenever any great religious movement is from heaven, 
 it will inevitably be attended with an increasing attachment 
 to the gospel, to its peculiar spirit, and to its peculiar truths ; 
 for by this instrumentality hath it pleased God " to save 
 them that believe." In a genuine revival of religion, men 
 " will not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, nor be dis- 
 posed to undervalue any of its doctrines, "for it is the power 
 of God unto salvation, unto every one that believeth." To 
 unite by compromise, would be to give up all that would make 
 a union valuable — indeed, it would be to relinquish the very 
 union itself, for the sake of a union, to agree to remain in 
 perpetual disunion, by agreeing never to discuss our differ- 
 ences. No such union exists between the Father, and Son, 
 
PLEA FOR UNION. 221 
 
 and Holy Spirit; nor did our Lord pray for such a union 
 among his disciples ; neither can it be shown that he com- 
 mands, or approves it. u Come out from among them and 
 be ye separate, saith the Lord God, and touch not the un- 
 clean thing, for what communion hath light with darkness, 
 or what concord hath Christ with Belial, or he that be- 
 lieveth with an infidel. The remedy proposed, is indeed, 
 worse than the disease it is intended to cure. It will be far 
 better that we should remain as we are, than that we should 
 abandon the gospel for the sake of a union which would ex- 
 ist only in appearance and not in heart. If we should 
 correct our errors, and become of one heart, and one mind, 
 then a union would be real, and of a most happy tendency. 
 That such a union should be created and maintained, was the 
 desire of our blessed Lord, when he said, " That they all 
 may be one as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that 
 they may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou 
 hast sent me." 
 
 The grand remedy, then, for division, is to elevate among 
 ourselves the standard of orthodoxy and piety. True Christ- 
 ianity is not many, but one, in her nature, spirit, and affinities. 
 Let each division of the church, therefore, approximate this 
 common standard, more and more ; and in this manner will 
 all their mutual differences vanish gradually, and ultimately 
 disappear altogether. " Those things which are equal to the 
 same thing, are equal to one another." This is an axiom? 
 whose truth would be beautifully illustrated, by the perfect 
 conformity of all denominations to the scripture model, then 
 like kindred drops they would be one — equal to the same 
 thing, they would be equal to one another. The union of 
 Christians, therefore, into one body, will be sure to prove 
 impracticable, and unprofitable, in the present condition of 
 the churches. This blessed period must be postponed till 
 our mutual differences vanish, by our more perfect approach 
 and conformity to the common standard, then, when all 
 
'.J22 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 shall see eye to eye, and lift up a united testimony, the 
 church will wield the sword of the spirit, with greater ener- 
 gy and success, against the rulers of the darkness of this 
 world, than in any former period of her history. 
 
 All denominational boundaries ought to be regarded as 
 sacred ; every minister, and every communicant ought to 
 express, truthfully, their respective views, by their position 
 in the visible church. It is not, alone, a question of useful- 
 ness, or policy, but also of common honesty, which is to be 
 attended to in the profession of our faith. No man can, 
 without a change in his sentiments, be an Old School Pres- 
 byterian, in one end of the state, and a New School Presby- 
 terian in the other, and be an honest man. How can he if 
 so flexible, expect to be either trusted, or respected among 
 his brethren 1 He will be regarded as in the market to be 
 bought for a piece of bread. It is to be hoped, that these 
 pliable consciences will diminish in number ;. they are spots 
 in our feasts of charity. 
 
 Those Old School men, who come into places where the 
 New School have the majority, in wealth and influence, and 
 unite with them, on that account, must expect to lose cast 
 with their former brethren ; if they claim that they have 
 • •hanged their friends only, and not their sentiments, they 
 publish their own shame. If they cannot endure affliction 
 with their suffering brethren — if Presbyterians are not the 
 same to them, whether in linsey woolsey, or in broad-cloth ; 
 whether in rags or robes, they are not to be trusted any 
 where, can be no great acquisition to any party ; and it is a 
 blessing to any denomination, to be quit of all such unstable, 
 not to say, unprincipled adherents. 
 
 Each denomination has a fixed character — that character 
 belongs to all its members. We cannot give character to the 
 denomination to which we belong, it must give character to 
 us ; if we unite with the N&w School body, or remain in it, 
 and expect to be regarded, as Old School, men, our expecta- 
 
PLEA FOR UNION. 223 
 
 lion is no compliment, either to our understanding, or to our 
 integrity ; our motives will be duly appreciated in the end 
 and our moral worth weighed in the balances. This view 
 of the conduct of such triflers, is not peculiar to us ; it is 
 common to all denominations, and to the New School amono- 
 the rest. We can respect the man whose position expresses 
 his true convictions — whose "eye when turned on empty 
 space, beams keen with honor" — who is an an epistle known 
 and read of all men, even though we may esteem him to be 
 in error ; but " if he is not faithful in the unrighteous mam- 
 mon, who will commit to him the true riches?' 7 who can re- 
 spect or trust him 1 
 
 The third party which claims to be of no party, but to 
 stand aloof, both from the New and Old School divisions of 
 the church, are not believed to be what their professions im- 
 ply. They are regarded as imbittered partizans, and they 
 have become too zealous for neutrality, to be thought neutral 
 any longer. Their tendency has never been to the union of 
 Presbyterians, but to a new division of the church. There ii 
 however, no demand for a new division ; all can find a home 
 now, either with New or Old School bodies already organized, 
 and occupying the same fields. These brethren must be 
 difficult indeed to please, if a new denomination must be cre- 
 ated on purpose, to make the greatest enemies of all division, 
 a home by themselves. Their great disinterestedness, their 
 great love of peace, should not turn them into a faction, so 
 violent in its animosities, as to lead to a new rent in the seam- 
 less garment of the Master. If there had been no call for 
 former divisions among Presbyterians, then surely there can 
 be no call for the organization of an independent Synod in 
 Western New York. I say this to take away the apology, 
 from those who profess to be Old School Presbyterians, and 
 yet refuse to unite with us, because they expect to have a 
 third organization I do not say it, to prevent such an organ- 
 ization — it needs nothing to prevent it, for it will never exist. 
 
224 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 The very idea itself has almost ceased to amuse the fancy of 
 any sober man, in the shape of a rational probability. 
 
 Finally, the opinions of other denominations, can never be 
 our standard of truth and righteousness. We are not requi- 
 red to conform to them, but to the word of God, and how- 
 ever wide it may make the breach between us, and those 
 who differ from us, we are nevertheless to walk by the same 
 rule, to mind the same things. Paul would never have ben- 
 efitted the church, if he had modified the truth to please men, 
 nor shall we, if the great doctrines of the gospel which we 
 receive, are not distinctly stated and defended. If the lust of 
 numbers, shall at length prevail over the love of truth, and 
 a union should be agreed upon, to any great extent, between 
 the Pelagian and the Calvinistic bodies, there are thousands 
 who would sit down and weep when they remember Zion, 
 and look upon that period as the darkest, which the Ameri- 
 can Presbyterian church ever witnessed. But this period 
 will we trust never arrive, there are no tendencies that way, 
 each division of the church is becoming more homogeneous, 
 more alike among themselves, and more perfectly unlike each 
 other. These tendencies, are silently, but constantly opper- 
 ating, and the result is becoming more and more palpable. 
 It is a relief to know, that we are not to be called upon to 
 fight over again the battles already so honorably won, to 
 know that we may now pursue our high vocation as a church, 
 without further or serious molestation. May we all "follow 
 the things that make for peace and the things which edify 
 one another." " How can two walk together except they 
 be agreed," our plea then for union is for one, not simply in 
 form, hollow and heartless, but for such a union as that de- 
 sired in the prayer of the Master, "that they all may be one, 
 as thou, Father art in me and I in thee, that they may be 
 one in us." Amen. 
 

Ill 
 
 IBI 
 
 i|:fjf|;.{j 
 
 If Jrf [$ jj 
 
 III 
 
 IIH 
 
 II 
 
 ■ I \ I 
 IIH 
 
 III 
 
 IJ^I 
 
 ■ 
 
 W i 
 
 B 
 
 1 1 
 
 j:| 
 
 : 
 3 
 
 f)jj|| 
 
 
 
 
 - ' i ! t 
 
 
 1 
 ■ 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 ; ; 
 
 • '■■\'\ 
 
 
 nTnTmn^^^B