OF THK AT PRINCETON, N. J. x» c» i« a. T i « ^f cj ii- SAMUEL AONEW, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. G4Z. ? >S7< elf, Section .. ../. W.?* J*?. * f Jtoo/r, t v. ..' A ,/ X . / UNITARIAN ISM p&ifo.tfojrfjicaUp and ^Tljcologicallp <£jramincb . IN A SERIES OF PERIODICAL NUMBERS ; COMPRISING A COMPLETE REFUTATION OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLES OF THE UXITAUIAJC ^ft'rEM. Videte, ne quis vos decipiat per Pliilosophiam et inanem fallaciam, secundum traditionem hominum, secundum elementa mundi, et non secundum Christum : quia ia ipso inhabitat oir.nis pleoitudo Divinitatis corporalitei." Beware, lest any man impose upon you by Philosopliy and Vain fallacy, according to the tradition of men, according to the rudiments of the World, and not according to Christ: For in him dwelleth all the fullness oi the only suits lucubrations like this, which are intended to pre- sent to the reader a concatenation of principles and logical inferences necessarily connected together. In a performance of this nature, the object is to set the truth in as clear a light as possible, to adapt it to every capacity, to show, at one glance, the stress of the argument, and the logical conclusiveness of the whole argumentation ; with a view of attaining this object, the writer thought it preferable rather to sacrifice beauty of diction than, perspecuity and the intuitive perception of the stress and force of the argument. It is no small satisfaction for the author to reflect, that, whilst he is vindicating the. cause of the Catholic church, of which he glories to be a member, he is, at once, pleading the cause of Christianity at large, and asserting the grand interests of all religious so- cieties. The author, once for all, solemnly protests, that it is, by no means, his intention to have any thing to do with the personal character of the professors of Unitarianism : lie attacks principles, not persons ; those he considers as inconsistent with sound logic and divine revelation ; these are entitled to his highest consideration for their superior talents and other most valuable qualifications. If, therefore, in the sequel of this work, the reader should happen to meet witli any ex pression or epithet, which might appear to him too severe, or too harsh, let it fall upon Unitarianism — not upon the Uni- tarian. It is likewise far from the intention of the author, to elicit eontrovesy by the present publication, being as averse to it by disposition as by his professional duties ; if, however, con- trary to his expectation, any one should deem it proper to attack any part of the present work, he is hereby politely re- quested, to step forward after the fashion of a fair and honest Vlll antagonist, and to follow the writer step by step, " pede pe?, densysque viro vir." In a word, let him oppose position to position, reason to reason, logic to logic, authority to authori- ty, and not set about empty and vague declamation, foreign to the question, and which is only calculated to divert the attention of the reader from the main controversy at issue. If any other mode of warfare were adopted, the writer of these sheets would not deem himself bound, by any rule what- ever, to reply, as he would not consider himself to be attack- ed, " Hanc veniam petimusque, damusque vieissim.'''' Every new position, argument, or objection, throughout the whole work, is marked with a marginal number, with a view of bind- ing down any writer that should feel disposed to answer this work, to point out the number which he means to attack. UNITARIANISM PHILOSOPHICALLY AND THEOLOGICALLY EXAMINED, NO. I. On the first and fundamental principle on which Unitarianism is hinged : viz. l \That man cannot reasonably believe, what is above the sphere of reason; and that, of course, all mysteries are (o bf, expunged from the code of Christianity." Preliminary Remarks on the Unitarian System. I. The first and most essential thing in every discussion, is to fix the state of the question with accuracy, and to ascertain with precision the principles which we mean to discuss? This I consider to be indispensably necessary in the present contro= versy, lest, after having gone through much trouble, we be in the end piously told, that, in the heat of our investigation, we have mistaken the meaning of the system, and, of course, said nothing to the purpose. To preclude the very possibility of a charge like this, I thought, it would not be amiss to transcribe here, word for word, the chief views of the Unitarian system, such as 1 find them delineated by a zealous advocate of tin; sect, in a late periodical publication.* ABSTRACT OF UNITARIAN BELIEF, 1 . "As Unitarians consider the Bible the only proper summary of religion, they do not profess to comprise their sentiments in any system of articles or forms of human inven- tion. They consider the language of Scripture sufficiently plain : their creed is the Bible." * See Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor, No. J, passes 9— ?0 published in Baltimore, by J. Webster. No. T. 2 10 2. '• Unitarians believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New-Testament, contain authentic records of the dispensations of God, and of his revelations to men : we think the evidence of the truth, and divine authority of these books, to be abun- dant and convincing." 3. " We believe that the revealed truths of the Scriptures are in conformity with the principles of right reason, and consistent with one another. We hoid it to be impossible, in the nature of things, that any truth, which God has revealed, should be irrational or contradictory among themselves." Without proceeding on the principle, that the Scriptures have every where a consistent and intelligible meaning, it is no won- der, the inquirer is perplexed with mysteries, absurdities, and contradictions. 4. " Unitarians believe one of the great doctrines taught in the Scriptures to be the unity and supremacy of God. Our reason tells us that there can be but one God : the Father.'''* 5. u Unitarians believe, that Jesus Christ was a messenger commissioned from heaven to make a revelation, and commu- nicate the will of God to men. They agree that he was not God, that he was a distinct being from the Father, and sub- ordinate to him ; and that he received from the Father all his wisdom, power, and knowledge. They believe Christ to have been authorized and empowered to make a divine revelation to the world. We believe in the divinity of his mission, but not of his person. We consider all, that he has taught, as coming from God ; but we do not pay him religious homage, because we think, that this would be derogating from the honour of the Supreme Being." 6. " Unitarians believe that Christ was one Being, and that he possessed one mind, one will, one consciousness. W^ maintain that two natures, that of God, and that of man, must necessarily make two Beings. The notion, that two natures can constitute one person, we take to be unintelligible and absurd." * The Unit. Miscellany and Christ, Monitor, No. 1, p. 2. 11 7. " We believe the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, was thr spirit of God, and not a person, or being, or substance distinct. from God." 8. " We have only room to state, that we do not believe the guilt of Adam's sin was imputed, and hJs corrupted nature conveyed, to all his posterity, or that there is in men any ori- ginal corruption. This doctrine makes God the author of sin, and the punisher of crimes, in men, which he has rendered it impossible, they should commit." 9. " We do not believe that Christ has once offered him- self up a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God ; because this is making the innocent suffer for the guilty, and appeasing the wrath of a Being, who, in his ^cry nature, is necessarily benevolent, merciful, and good." 10. " We believe men have, in themselves, the power of being good or bad, of meriting the rewards, or deserving the punishments, of a just God." 11. Such are the prominent features of Unitarianism. " We well know, says the above writer, that the more Unitarianism is examined, the more it will be approved. We wish to have it submitted to the understanding of every one ; we wish to have it encountered by fair argument, and canvassed by open discussion : this is one of the best modes of proving its truths." A declaration like this does much honour to the professors of the system, as it betrays, on their part, a strong confidence in the truth of their principles, and a candid desire, that it be fully known to all mankind. From this unfeigned declaration I inferred, that it would prove as gratifying to the Unitarians, as to Christians at large, were any one to undertake the task, -of" encountering it by fair argument, and of canvassing it by open discussion." It is under these impressions, that (he pre- sent work has been undertaken, in which it is intended to pass in review, the said principles one after another, and to inves- tigate, whether they are as consonant to sound reason, and to the Unitarian creed, "the Bible," as Unitarians serm to believe, and whether they can stand the test oi '< logi< . i he im- partial reader will decide on the resuit of our undertaking. 12 Hi* Before \ enter upon the subject, 1 must be permitted to make a general reflection, and it is this, that it would be no small error to imagine, that Unitarianism is a new system, a masterpiece of the astonishing improvement of the human in- tellect : for it is a fact, that this sect has not even the merit of invention or novelty, (if novelty, in matters of religion, can be called merit,) and that it has existed before either my reader or I were thought of in the world : for in running over the above sketch of the Unitarian doctrines, it is obvious that Unitarianism is, with very little shades of difference, nothing more than a revival of ancient heresies, which, (even in the Apostolic age,) began to break out, and which, at that time, were boasted of, not unlike the said system, as wonderful im- provements of the human mind, because devised by the very same grand principle, on which the Unitarian builds his system, I mean, reason. For the truth of what I am here advancing, the reader has nothing else to do, than to turn to the ac- count, which the primitive Fathers of the church, and, among others, Tertullian, St. Irenasus, and St. Epiphanius, have left us of the errors of the Simonians, Cerinthians, the Ebionites, the Valentinians, &c. &c. and there he will find, that most of those heretics rejected the very same mysteries of religion which the Unitarians reject and on the very same ground, too, on which the Unitarians do, viz : because they appeared unintelligible to their understanding. Arius, in the third cen- tury, denied the divinity of Jesus Christ: Eunomius, in the following century, the divinity of the Holy Ghost ; Pelagius, the existence of Original Sin and of Supernatural Grace ; Eu- tythes, the distinction of the two Natures, or two Wills, in Christ, and so on ; and when all these opinions had long since been forgotten, Socinus, in the sixteenth century, arose to amalgamate them all into one body, and to obtrude them on his followers as the most rational and consistent creed of the reformation : his system was exactly that of the Unitarians : his grand principle, (and such is the Unitarian's,) was, that, whatever is unintelligible to human reason, is to be rejected : ted, of course, were all these mysteries which the Unita- 13 lians reject: and when Socinianism itself had nearly vanished away, the dying spark- of this expiring sect * ere caught by the British infidels and French sophisters, who undertook, (with what success, the world well knows.) to shake the foundations of Christianity itself by the very same engines of sophistry, which, both Socinus and the Unitarians make use of lo erase from the divine system of Jesus Christ the above mysteries, which are its very basis and ground work. IV. There is another reflection which must necessarily offer itself to every reflecting mind, and which will ever form a strong and almost insuperable presumption against the Unitarian system. " Is it possible, (it is thus, that every sober man will reason with himself,) is it possible, that the whole Christian world, for the space of not less than eighteen hundred years, should have been involved in more than Egyptian darkness, in the grossest idolatry, in adoring a mere man as the true God? Is it possible that Jesus Christ, 'the Divine Messenger of the Father, authorized and empowered to make a Divine Revelation to the world,' should have so utterly forgotten his solemn promises to his Church,* and, contrary to them, should have permitted her to fall into a worse kind of Idolatry than that, from which he came to rescue mankind ? What, on that supposition, must we think of Jesus Christ himself? What of his wisdom, of his veracity, of his fidelity in keeping his promises ? Is it possible, that Christ suffered millions of martyrs to be butchered for the sake of an idolatrous wor.-hip ? Is it possible that a handful of men, men of yesterday, men who are neither Saints nor Thumaturgusea, should, within the eighteenth century, be better informed of the Divine Re- ligion of Jesus Christ, and of the true meaning of the Scrip- tures, than the Church of God, instructed by the Apostles and their immediate successors ? Is it possible, that these few men can be wiser than the whole Christian world ; wiser than the glorious Martyrs; wiser than the Holy Fathers, these prodi- ■ Si. Matthew, xviii. " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build mi Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.*' And St. Matt. R*viii. " And behold ! I run with' you, nil days, even to the end of the world. ' : 14 gies ot learning as well as of sanctity ; wiser than those eighteen venerable Assemblies in which the whole Church A' Christ was collected '?" Any man, capable of reflection will readily answer in the words of the Roman bard, " Credai Ju- dceus Apella, non ego" " Apella, the Jezc, may believe this, but not /." But stop, may say the Unitarian, this is not yet touching the question : to do any thing to the purpose, you must be able to show, by fair argument, that our doctrine is false, in- consistent with scripture and reason, and, of course," inadmis- sible. Perfectly right : let us, therefore, come directly to the point, and, in order to proceed methodically, let us proceed to the grand principle, on which the whole structure of the Uni- tarian system is hinged. " Man cannot reasonably believe what is above the sphere of reason; and, of course, ailmyste- ties are to be expunged from the code of Christianity." As this principle is all-important, and, as essential to the establishment of their system, as the foundations are to an edi- fice, it is, in the nature of things, to expect that they will light for it as " pro aris et focis," conscious as they are to them- selves, that, if this one principle be overthrown, Unitarianism must needs fall, and Christianity triumph ; the reader must, therefore, be prepared to encounter all, that human ingenuity and philosophic wit could possibly invent in support of a prin- ciple which is the primum mobile, and the conditio, sine qua non, of the Unitarian cause. Their process of reasoning on this subject, like an impregnable battery, is found in the following syllogism : V. " The Scriptures, being expressly intended for our in- struction, edification, rule of life, and means of happiness, must have every where a consistent and intelligible mean- ing."* Unitarian major. But the mysteries of original sin, of the redemption of man- kind by Jesus Christ, of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, the necessity of * See the above Abstract of Unitarian Belief. 15 supernatural grace, are unintelligible to the human under' standing: Unitarian minor. Therefore the) are not revealed in the scripture?, and, of course are not to be believed. Unitarian conclusion. If the major proposition be correct, Unitarianism triumphs : if false and groundless, Unitarianism must needs be crushed under its ruins. Acquainted as we are with the position and ground, which the enemy has taken, let us try, if we cannot storm his batteries and drive him out of his entrenchments. In reconnoitering the place, it will require, methinks, no great degree of learning, to make it appear to the most ordinary capacity, that the above major proposition, understood in the sense and meaning of the Unitarian system, is utterly false, irrational, and absurd. VI. Before I proceed to my demonstration, it is proper, for the sake of avoiding confusion, clearly to state the point in question between the Unitarians and the Christians : for, if by the position, " The Scriptures must have every where an intelligible meaning," nothing more is meant, than, that God in the Scriptures is to speak to men after such a manner, and in such language, as to make them sufficiently understood what he has revealed and what they are to believe, without however, giving them a right to dive into the intrinsic nature of the revelation ; after nearly the same mariner, as a servant, has a right to know clearly the commands of his master, (as otherwise he could not comply with them,) without having a right to know the reasons which his master may have to im- pose them on him ; if, I say, no more is meant than this, the Unitarian will speak plain, good sense, and the whole world will agree with him : for, it is obvious, that, unless men have some idea of what God reveals, they cannot be bound to be- lieve it. But if this principle, "the Scriptures must have every where an intelligible meaning," is understood to imply, that men have a right to examine the very intrinsic nature of the object revealed, to compare it with the natural ideas of their reason, and that, if found to be unintelligible, this alone is a sufficient reason to reject that mysterious and unintelligi- 16 blc meaning, and, of course, all divine mysteries, which are essentially incomprehensible to human reason ; the position, thus understood, is utterly false, irrational, and absurd. I do not presume, that any Unitarian will call it in question, whether this latter meaning be the identical position of the Unitarian creed : for this is undeniable, from the very abstract of the Unitarian belief above quoted ; next, from all the writers that have stept forward in vindication of that belief; and, in fine, from the total rejection of all mysteries, which the Unitarians reject, on no other ground, but, because they are unintelligible to their understandings.* * Since the known enemies of Christianity, such as Bolingbroke, Hobbes, Shaftsbury, Toland, Bayle, Voltaire, Rosseau, Thomas Paine, &c. &c have always considered this principle, " Men cannot reasonably believe, what they cannot comprehend/' or, what is nearly tantamount, " What is above reason, is against reason,'' as the most powerfi 1 engine against Revelation, we need not be surprised when we find our Unitarian friends utterly averse from ac- knowledging, that they have adopted the said principles. But let Mr. Sparks, (minister of the First Independent Church of Baltimore,) in his sixth Letter to the Rev. William E. Wyatt, D. D. page 2vj0 — 202, and his other Unitarian friends, openly disclaim the adoption of the above maxims, as long as they please, still it will not be less a fact, to any one that is conversant with their writings, thnt the principles under consideration are, in reality, the very basis, of the whole Unitarian system. The reader will scarce have perused a page, either in Mr. Sparks 1 Letters, or in the Christian Disciple, or in the Unitarian Miscellany, when he will be made sensible, that, in the Unitarian language, unintelligible, absurd, irrational, inconsistent, and contradictory, are all syno- nymous expressions; and that mysteries and absurdities, inconsistencies, contra- dictions, signify one and the same thing. The same is clearly apparent from their mode of investigating the mysteries; for, instead of inquiring into the motives of extrinsic credibility, as reason directs, when we set about to as- certain Divine Revelation; or, instead of inquiring, whether God has actually revealed them or not, they, on the contrary, follow a method quite the re- verse : their first and only care being, not to examine whether God has actually revealed them, and whether, of course, they are to be believed without further ado, whether intelligible to reason, or unintelligible, but to examine into the intrinsic nature of the mysteries, in order to discover, whether they be concord- ant with the natural ideas of reason, or, what is the same, whether they be intelligible to reason, and, in case they are not, as it always falls out in mys- teries, they are sure to reject them as inconsistencies, absurdities, contradic- tions, irrational notions, for no other reason, but, because reason cannot comprehend them. What is said here, shall be substantiated, if necessary by copious extracts from Unitarian productions. 17 The meaning of the principle being thus clearly slated, let us come to the point under consideration. In order to main- tain that "the Scriptures must have every where an intelligi- ble meaning," that is to say, a meaning void of mystery, and such as reason may penetrate, the Unitarian must needs sup- pose, that either God has no right to reveal mysteries im- pervious to reason, and to exact from men the tribute of their implicit belief in those mysteries ; or, if, absolutely speaking, he has a right to do this, still, it is not consistent with, or worthy of, his wisdom, to do so ; or, in fine, that it is repug- nant to the very nature of the human understanding, and dero- gatory to its dignity, to believe what is above it, or what it cannot conceive. Now, I maintain, that these three suppo- sitions are equally untenable ; therefore, the Scriptures may have a meaning unintelligible to the human mind, a myste- rious meaning, a meaning above the reach of reason, and such as reason cannot fathom. SECTION I. VII. God has a right to reveal to men impenetrable mysle~ ries, and to exact from them an implicit belief in the same. And how can this be, asks the Unitarian, and how can God require, that a rational being should believe, what he cannot conceive ? The Unitarian will permit mc to reply, with equal freedom, and, I trust, with reason on my side. And who are you, (so I would argue with my Unitarian friend,) who are you, a little being of yesterday, that you dare dispute the rights, which your God has over you ? Who are you, who presume to call your master to an account for his conduct towards you, and to set limits to the infinite claims which he essentially possesses over the whole creation ? Who are you, who pre- tend to prescribe laws to your God, respecting what he is to exact of you, and what not? What! you have the edacity to say to the Sovereign Lord of the universe. " Thus far thou No. r. 3 18 shalt come and no further :"* thou hast a right to reveal to me what I can conceive, and nothing more : thy oracles shall be respected when approved at the tribunal of my reason, and disregarded when above my understanding. What language t It is your's, when you deny your God the right of revealing mysteries to men. Whence do you come ? Who made you all that you are? Is it not God ? Are you not, therefore, born his servant? Are you not, essentially and perpetually, depending on him, as the only author of your existence, both as to body and soul ? Are you not the work of his hands, and has he not, therefore, an infinite right over your whole being, over all your faculties, corporeal as well as intellectual ? Is it not, therefore, his province to dictate to you, not your's to dictate to him, how and after what manner you are to worship him? Is not God, in virtue of your creation, your sovereign master, and does not reason dictate that it belongs to the master to command, and to the servant to obey ?t Does the vessel say to the potter, Why hast thou made me so ? Has not the potter an indisputable right to do with his vessel, the work of his hands, what he pleases, and to employ it for whatever use he thinks proper, and that for this very reason, because he has made it? How much more, are you and I under the infinite control of our common Maker, and how much more right has he, to dispose of us, at his divine pleasure, than the potter can have to dispose of the work of his hands, and to exact from us such a determinate kind of worship, and no other ; to de- mand, in fine, that we should not only honour his infinite dominion, by a perfect submission of our will to his divine * " Usque hue procedes, et non amplius." Job. t St. Paul's Epist. ad Rom. ix. ver. 20, et seq. " O, man, who art thou, that thou repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ? Or has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour ?" And Isaiah, ch. x. ver. 15, " Shall the axe boast itself against him, that cutteth with it ? Or shall the saw exalt itself against him, by wbom it is drawn ? As if a rod should lift itself up against him that lifteth it up, and a staff exalt itself, which is but wood." 19 commands, but also his infinite veracity, in captivating oui understanding to the belief of mysteries which we cannot comprehend ?* VIII. But, continues the Unitarian, why should I be bound to believe that, of which I do not conceive the reason ? Would not this look like blind stupidity ? Why ? Because God is your master, and you are his servant: he is not obliged to tell you the reasons, he has to enjoin you such and such orders : or, let me ask you, would you put up with the insolence of a servant, who would unceremoniously tell you, that he is determined not to obey you, for no other reason, than because he cannot conceive the motives you may have for giving him such a command ? What would be 3/our reply to such a servant ? You, no doubt, would check his ef- frontery, and answer : I am your master, you are my servant : it is my business, not your's, to know the reasons for which I command you to do this or that : do your duty and ask no more. Now, who has greater claims, God over his crea- ture, or you a mortal man, over your servant ? Who is more a servant, you to God, or your servant to you ? How much more right, then, has your Maker to oblige you to adore and to bow down to the unfathomable mysteries of his wisdom, although he does not give you his reasons for doing so ? Are you not, therefore, a worse rebel against your God than your insolent servant is against you, when you, with so much presumption, dare reject the mysteries of revelation, for no other reason than because you cannot fathom them ? Again, suppose, your son were to tell you: I will not obey you, sir, because I cannot conceive the reason, why you command this; your command appears to me irrational, because unintelligible to my mind : Do you think that such reasoning would be correct and ad- missible in your child '! And still this is your language to your God, when you, who are but a little child when compared to * i Corinth, ch. x. ver. 5. " And every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding to the obe- dience of Christ.'' 20 the infinite wisdom and knowledge of God, dare say : I will not bf'ieve what God reveals to me, because I cannot under- stand, it. section 2. IX. If God cannot reveal mysteries to men, then God cannot communicate himself, at all, to them ; and if men dannot rea- . sonably believe what is above the sphere of his reason, he can believe nothing. The Unitarian asks the question : How can God, the so- vereign reason, reveal to reason what is unintelligible to rea- son ! Would not this seem to imply a strange absurdity ? My answer is this : If God cannot do this, then you must, at once, deny the very possibility on the part of God, of commu- nicating himself to men: you must adopt the impious paradox, that it is out of the power of God, to make known to men any thing, that has a relation to his divine nature, and to his ineffa- ble perfections : for God is essentially infinite and incompre- hensible, and, of course, essentially unintelligible, not only to human reason, but to all created understandings. Now, sir, permit me, to assure you, that, of the whole unhallowed host of aucient and modern infidels, there was scarce ever any thai would dare go to such lengths. What has been hitherto advanced against the principle, which we are here discussing, admits, it would seem, of no solution, because, our reasoning till now, rests altogether on the very nature of things, and on the immutable attributes of the Deity itself. Still our Unitarian friend, is far from being converted, and appears to be determined not to believe mys- teries, because he conceives it derogatory to the dignity of a rational being to believe what he cannot conceive. X. Is it then true, is it correct to assert, that the belief of mysteries is degrading to the dignity of a rational being ? To any one that would be under this impression, I would simply reply : You cannot believe what you cannot comprehend ; then, sir,, believe nothing at all, nothing of what you see, nothing of what is within you ; believe not your very ex- istence : and, to complete your Unitarian creed, believe not 21 Hie very existence of the God who made you, for of all this you understand nothing.* I say, first, that you understand nothing of what you see : this world, which you inhabit, and of which you arc a com- ponent part, is incessantly exposed to your view ; it exists : you can no more doubt of its existence than of your own ; still I maintain that you cannot comprehend how it exists : for, permit me to ask you, is it very intelligible to your rea- son, how the world, being not as yet in existence, and being as yet nothing both as to matter and to form ; how, I say, the world issued out of nothing int:> existence, at the very lirst nod of its omnipotent Maker 1 Do you conceive, Sir, how, in one instant, and by one act ©f his divine will, God made the heavens, the earth, the seas, with all that they contain I No, Sir, you have no idea of the creative power, and the infinite efficacy of the will of God. It is not given to a created un- derstanding to conceive the necessary relation that exists between the eternal act, by which God decreed, that the world should exist in time, and its actual existence : you can- not comprehend, how, in virtue of these two words, %i Jiat /ux," " let there be light," the light was : and as you cannot con- ceive this, you must, of course, deny the \cry existence of the world, of the light, and other creatures. You conceive not how the world exists : let us see now if you have a better conception of the Jaws by which it is governed. The world, says the Scripture,! which God made, as it were, in sport, is a problem which he has set up to men. This pro- blem, Sir, has never as yet been solved, nor will it ever be. * Lest Mr. J. Sparks should be tempted to affix to this phrase the same in- congruous meaning, which he attached to nearly a similar sentence of .Mi. William Burg, (J. Sparks'vi. letter, page 203,) I thought proper to determine the meaning of the above assertions. By the above expression, therefore, die author means not, that we can have no idea at all of the objects under con- sideration, for this would be absurd ; but, that we can have no more idea of '.iie mode or of the intrinsic nature of those objects than we have of mysteries. + Ecclesiastes, 3. v. 11. " He has delivered the world to their consideration, so that man cannot find out the work, which God has made from the beginning to the end. 1 ' 22 Each philosopher took it into his head to build a world of his own, but all these worlds tumbled down like so many edifices built on the sand. Will you succeed better in withdrawing the sacred veil of the unsearchable conduct of God in the government of this universe ? Alas ! how should we be able to comprehend the world, weak mortals as we are, since the least and most insignificant of the objects, that compose it, far exceeds our intelligence ? Pray, Sir, what are those beams which enlighten us ? What that air which we breathe ? What the earth which supports us ? These are so many mys- teries, to you, to me, and to all mankind. Here, Sir, is a drop of water, a grain of said, a blade of grass : you see that 1 do not mean to embarrass you, and that I seize, as it were by chance, whatever falls under my hand : tell me, Sir, what is that drop of water, that grain of sand, that blade of grass ? Make me comprehend, if you can, its intrinsic nature, and all its properties ; enable me to say : I comprehend this drop of water, this grain of sand, this slender herb. Would you have an age to work and to reflect upon these mighty objects ? Would you have two ages? Would you have a thousand? Agreed, Sir, you shall have them, and still I defy you to suc- ceed ; and I bid the same defiance to the whole body of the philosophical school.* It is then true, Sir, that you conceive nothing of what you behold with your eyes ; what then will it be, if 1 force you to confess, that you do not conceive even yourself, nor any thing of what is within you? Are you ready, Sir, to inform me, how your body was fram- ed in the womb of your mother ?t How your soul eutered into your body ? How these two beings, so disproportionate in their nature, so seemingly opposed to each other, could * "The judicious reflections of one of the greatest astronomers of the last age, is worthy of notice ; "Hinc oritur ilia animorum in indagandis rebus na- tura; peiplexitas, mentisq ; stupor, quo perculsa, quanto in intirna rerum inda- gine plus so profecisse ratio videt, tanto a veritatis limine remotiorem adhuc se esse deprehendit. v Kirker, M. S. t Lib. 2, Machab. vii. v. 22. " She, (the mother of the Machabees) said to then; : I know not how you were formed in my womb, for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life ; neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you, but the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man," &c. 23 unite so closely as to constitute one and the same whole i what is you soul ? Where is it? How does it subsist? By what sort of tie is it united to the body ' Is that tie spiritual, or corporeal ; and, in either case, how can it affect either of the. two substances ? How can your soul command your hand or foot, which, being of their own nature, without sense or feeling, cannot understand its orders ? How does your soul put in motion the nerves and muscles, which it knows not? How did your tongue, a mere lump of flesh, learn the astonish- ing art of beating the air to such advantage, as to form the most rapturous concerts, and to convey, by the distinct arti- culation of its sounds, your most secret thoughts to my mind ? You possess the faculty of thinking: What is thought, Sir? At one time you feel pleasure, and at another pain : What is pleasure, what is pain ? Your eye sees colours : Why does your eye see? What are the colours which it sees? What do you know of all this ? Why, no more than what the most stupid know, that is to say, nothing, nothing at all : And still you exist, Sir, and you never doubted of the existence of what surrounds you : therefore, not to comprehend, is not always a reason not to believe. What ! the world is a mystery to you : every creature that composes it, is a mystery to you : You are jourself, a mystery to yourself, and you pretend to compre- hend that supreme and eternal majesty that made the world, and that drew you out of nothing ?* Did you ever take notice, Sir, of that wonderful stillatory which is within you, by which the nourishment, you daily take, is converted, some into your blood, some into flesh, some into bones, some into chyle, &c. ? Could you explain to me the secret of this astonishing mechanism, and who he is that pre- sides over it ?t Is it the soul ? but your soul is spiritual, and * Prov. xxv. v. 27. " He that is a searcher of majesty, shall be overwhelm- ed with glory.'' And Book of Wisdom, ix. v. 16. "And hardly do we aright at things that are upon earth : and with labour do we find the things that are before us. But the things that arc in heaven, who shall search out ?" t St. Chrysostom de incorap. Dei nat. " Cibos comedo, quo pacto autem di- vidantur in petuilain, sanguinem, humorem, ignoio. Hctc, cjuue quotidie com<*- dentes videmus, ignoramus tamen ; et Dei substantia™ curiose scrutaraujv' 24 has nothing to do with perishable food. Is it your body ? bu' your body has neither reason nor feeling of its nature. Is it chance ? but how can chance (a word invented to cover our ignorance,) be the author of so admirable a work, of such constant and uniform operations ? You do not comprehend this wonder, and because you do not, is it less true, less real i Could you explain to me, Sir, how one and the same mois- ture of the earth, insipid as it is tasteless, and without an\ smell or colour whatever, can bring forth such an infinite va- riety of plants, of herbs, of flowers and fruits, as various and different in their shape, size, colours, taste and smell, as the faces of men are from each other ? Can you explain, how the same simple and apparently insignificant cause can produce such an enchanting and variegated scenery, as your garden or your verdant meadow exhibits ? It is a mystery to you and to me, and yet neither of us doubts the fact. Lastly, have you sagacity enough to inform me, by what magic art it happens, that by opening your eyes, the im- mense expanse of the skies is suddenly depicted, in most dis- tinct and lively colours, in the retina of your eye, which is not bigger than the head of a pin ? To form that admirable min- iature in your opick nerve, and to embrace, as it were, the immensity of the heavens in so imperceptible a space, it is necessary, that, from every sensible point of the firmament, a ray should come to strike the retina : Well, is it very easy for you to conceive, how such an infinity of rays, parting at once, from all the points of the heavens, can meet in so small a focus, without being thrown into confusion, and retrace in one instant in your eye, a landscape as distinct as delightful of the majesty of the heavens ? Reason can admire this won- der, but never comprehend it : still you believe it, and in doing so, you follow the very dictates of your reason : it is therefore reasonable, at times, to believe, even what we can- not conceive. By this time we might with reason expect to find, our Uni- tarian friend more inclined to give up the principle under con- sideration, since he cannot but sec to what strange straits if 23 reduces him. But, as this principle is the cardo rei, on which the whole system turns, he cannot prevail upon himself to relinquish it. If so, then willing, or unwilling, he must needs launch out into downright atheism, and say with the impious : Non est Deus : there is no God. Psalm, xxx. v. 1. He shudders at the idea of denying that God, who made him : but still rea- son will force him to admit this horrid consequence, as long as he insists on the unhallowed principle ; for, is there any thing more unintelligible, more incomprehensible, more above all created understanding, than God ? Is not incomprehensibility the most prominent attribute not only of God himself, but also of all his works ?* Can the Unitarian comprehend a Being, that has neither beginning nor end, and that lives throughout all eternity ? Can he conceive, how, by the omnipotent act of his will, he can create myriads of worlds, and annihilate them with as much facility as he called them forth from nought ? Can he conceive, how a being can be, at once, infinitely free and still be essentially immutable and unchangeable ? How a being can be present in all places, whole and entire, and co-exist whole and entire, in every point of space, and yet be infinitely simple and essentially indivisible? If he could comprehend this, he would be God himself, because he would possess an infinite intellect: he, therefore, cannot compre- hend God, and yet there is a God : either, therefore, he must renounce his principle, and with it, Unitarianism, or his creed will be simply this : ' there is no God.'' Unitarianism and Atheism will be synonymous terms. XII. It is quite natural to expect, that we should be interrupt- ed by our Unitarian friend, at this last conclusion, and that we 9hould be candidly told, that our logic carries us too far, and that, in fine, to be called " Deists in disguise," as they have * Job, xi. M Peradventure thou wilt comprehend the steps of God, and fiml out the Almighty perfectly ? He is higher than heaven, and what wilt thou do ? He is deeper than hell, and how wilt thou know? The measure of him is higher than the earth, and broader than the sea : if he shall overturn all things or shal press them together, who shall contradict him ?" No. I. 4 26 been termed by some, is sufficiently illiberal, but, to be styled sltheists, is not to be borne with. To this, 1 answer, that it is far from me to fix this most odious appellation upon any professor of Unitarianism ; nay, I should not do justice to my own feelings, were I not solemnly to declare, that I conceive them to have as great an abhorrence of this last link of human depravity, as I myself do feel. I have already remarked, that I have nothing to do with personalities, but with principles only, and I still maintain, that, consistent with them, the Unit- arians must turn out real Atheists, or bad reasoners. Their principles, by a necessary connection, lead to the denial of God. If, then, they do not admit this horrid consequence, they, indeed, will not be Atheists, but they will be inconsist- ent logicians.* * It is a subject of surprise to the writer of these tracts, to see the Unitarian? repel with so much indignation the appellation of Deists, and to think them- selves unjustly dealt with, when they are denied the name of christians. For. if the definition of the Unitarian sect, given by a most venerable character, in a letter published with his permission in a Unitarian periodical review,t be correct, then assuredly they cannot, with any appearance of reason, lay claim to the name of Christians, nor term it illiberality, when they are styled by their proper names, Deists. The definition of the Unitarian church, given in the letter alluded to, runs thus, "There is, my dear Doctor, at present, exist- ing in the world, a church philosophic .... The philosophic church was ori- ginally English. Voltaire learned it from lord Herbert, Hobbes, Morgan, Col- lins, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, &c. You may depend upon it, your exertions v/ill promote the Church Phiosophic, more than the Church Athanasian, or Presbyterian." Assuredly, a Philosophic Church, a Church established by the English Apostles of Infidelity, and propagated by the Patriarch of Incredulity, throughout France and the rest of Europe, cannot, with any appearances or* good sense, be called any other than the Church of Deists. And, what is still more to the purpose, have not the public, since they have been made acquainted with the strange correspondence of the Unitarians of England, with the ambassador of the mighty Emperor of Fez and Morocco, good reasons to doubt, whether our Unitarian friends themselves set much va- lue on the name of Christian ? Men, who hesitate not heartily to salute and congratulate the followers of the Asiatic Impostor Mahomet, as votaries and fellow worshippers; who style themselves as their nearest fellow champions; who profess, that the Supreme God has raised Mahomet to defend the faith of t See the Christian Disciple, No. 1, v. 3. page 43, 44. 27 XIII. Before we proceed further, it is proper to take no- tice of an apparently plausible objection, that may be made against what has been said in this paragraph, but which, il properly examined, will turn greatly to our advantage, and throw new light on the matter before us. The Unitarian might say : you have done your best to convince the public, by a variety of instances, that reason itself obliges us to be- lieve what we cannot comprehend, and that, of course, the incomprehensibility of mysteries, is, of itself alone, not a suf- ficient reason for rejecting them ; but you will permit me to observe, that there appears to be a vast difference between the cases adduced above, and mysteries. To this I reply, that, if there be any. I „ it be pointed out. Here it is, says the Unitarian : " It is true, Sir, that I cannot conceive, how this world could or should rush into existence, by the simple act of the will of God, but after all, I behold this world, I dwell in it, I enjoy it, and its existence incessant- ly strikes all my senses. I must agree, likewise, that I do not know the very essence and intrinsic nature of any of the be- ings that compose the world : but I am constantly environed by them : they are before my eyes, and under my hands : they are subservient to all my wants and conveniences. I am, too, I must confess, in deep darkness as to the nature of my own being, as^ well as to what passes within myself, but I am con- one Supreme God, with the sword as a scourge on those idolizing Christians ; Men, who seem so much concerned for Mahomed glory ; men of that character, who so openly court the friendship and fellowship in faith with the sworn ene- mies of the Christian name, leave, assuredly, serious doubts on the public mind, whether they value themselves much for the title of a Christian. The authority of the above correspondence is set beyond the possibility of a doubt, in the very interesting pamphlet published by the Rev. Henry J. Feltus, Rector of St. Stephen's Church, N. Y. under the following title : " Historical Documents and Critical Remarks on Unitarianism and Mahomedanism," printed by W. A. Mercein, 1820. The same Rev. Author makes it appear, from unques- tionable authority, that " Mahometanism, in many respects, has much stronger claims to orthodox Christianity, than Unitarianism ; and that the Mahometans have much more exalted sentiments of Jesus Christ, than the Unitarians have." See flir Trpct above quoted, 28 scious of my own being and of its modifications. In a word, I have no intimate or adequate knowledge of any of these things, but, to supply this want of adequate and intuitive know- ledge, I have proofs of fact, proofs of sentiment, proofs of ex- perience, aud these more than suffice me. Let any one pro- duce me such or like proofs in support of the mystery of the Trinity, or of any other mystery, and I am ready to believe them. ' This reflection does honour to the understanding of our opponent; it is that of a man of good sense ; and, in con- sequence of it, I do assure him, that if he be sincere, before long we shall perfectly agree in our belief. He will believe the mystery of the Trinity, and all other mysteries as firmly as I do; and, though he smiles, I shall proceed to my demon- stration, and reason thus : XIV. You grant, and you cannot but grant, that the mystery of the Trinity, is simply incomprehensible. You agree, likewise, that there is a variety of things which are unintelligible to us, and which, nevertheless, we are forced to believe, because, if, on the one hand we cannot conceive the possibility of them, we have, on the other, certain proofs of their existence: itison these two grounds you promise to believe in the mystery of the Trini- ty, for instance, how incomprehensible soever it may be if I am able to afford you certain proofs of the said mystery. Well, sir, I am going to give you a certain and infallible proof of the existence of the mystery of the Trinity ; a proof which is equivalent to a direct demonstration. — Rere is my proof; Are you not convinced, that God is to be believed by men upon the unerring authority of his own testimony, respect- ing his own nature, his own Being, his manner of existing, and in fine, his own works ? Assuredly, you are convinced of this principle ; for, in order to deny it, you must needs suppose, either that God does not know himself or his own works, which would be a horrible blasphemy ; or, that God may give a false evidence to men respecting his own nature, or that of his works, which would be a blasphemy still more horrid ; or, in fine, that men, although convinced of the infi- nite veracity of God, have, notwithstanding, a right, not to ad- 29 mit the evidence, which God gives concerning his own nature; or his own works, unless he give them clear and intuitive ideas of the objects revealed, and unless he make them clear- ly understand them — which would be, at once, the height of impiety, and the last degree of folly. But now, God has declared to men, in the most authentic form, that he exists in three persons, perfectly distinct, in a perfect unity of essence, nature, or substance j therefore, you ought to believe this mystery, how incomprehensible soever it may be, after the same manner as you believe ) our own ex- istence, or that of the world, because, although you have no intrinsic or intuitive evidence of either, still you have other extrinsic irresistible proofs of the said truths. The irrefraga- ble arguments, in support of this mystery, will form the matter for a distinct number. SECTION III. XV. The assertion, that the mysteries of Religion involve con- tradiction, is itself a contradiction in the very terms. Is there not a manifest contradiction, says the Unitariau, in the mystery of the Trinity ? How can one, for instance, be three, and three be one ? To this sophism, borrowed from the school of incredulity. we answer thus : One can be three and three can be one, after the same manner neatly, (without pretending, however, to exact com- parison, which is not to be found in created things,) as our soul, considered in its nature as a spiritual substance, is essen- tially one, and, at the same time, essentially three, when con- sidered as to its powers, memory, understanding, and/ree will. These three powers subsist in one and the same individual soul, and partake of its nature, and yet, when viewed in their formal capacity, and their peculiar operations, they are dis- tinct from each other; for he, that simply remembers, cannot be truly said to reason or to will, any more than he, that simply wills, can be said either to remember or to reason. Or, to 30 use a more familiar comparison, our Congressmen are at once, many and one ; many, when considered in their indivi- dual capacity — one, when considered as a legislative body : as such, they constitute one indivisible government, and pos- sess one common and indivisible power. Thus, you see, sir, that the same thing may, at once, be one and many — one in one respect, and many, in another : and this is exactly the case with regard to the Trinity, in which there is Unity and Trinity — Unity in nature or substance, and Trinity in persons. There is, therefore, no contradiction. What then, sir, will be absurd, continues the Unitarian, if this mystery be not so ? My answer is : It will be your mode of reasoning ; for you suppose a contradiction where it is impossible to discover any. for the very reason, that this mystery is above your compre- hension. How is it impossible, (you will ask,) to discover a contra- diction in the Trinity, or any other mystery ? To make my answer as plain as possible, we must distin- guish three kinds of propositions : evident propositions, absurd and contradictory propositions, and incomprehensible proposi- tions. A proposition is evident, when the mind clearly per- ceives, that the two ideas, of which it is composed, agree with each other, and are, to use the very terms of the school, iden- tified. Such are these propositions : God is good : God is just : the whole is greater than any of its parts, severally taken. A proposition is absurd and contradictory, when the mind clearly perceives, that the two ideas, of which it is composed, are jarring with one another, and mutually exclude each other. Such are these propositions : God is unjust : the part is greater than, or equal to, the whole. A proposition is in- comprehensible, when it is impossible for the mind to discover the accord, or identity, of the two ideas that compose it. Such are these propositions : A being that has never existed, may receive existence. A being that is in existence, may return to nought. Such would likewise certainly be for you and for me, this proposition, if we had always been out of this world 31 and out of our bodies : A being composed of a soul and a body, is possible. Now, it is no more in our 'power to give our assent to an absurd and contradictory proposition, than to refuse it to an evident one. As to propositions which are simply incompre- hensible, two things are certain : the first is, that we are not obliged to admit such propositions as true, unless we have proofs elsewhere of the truth of them, equivalent to in- trinsic evidence, which is wanting. The second is, that we have no right to deny them, absolutely, unless, in want of intrinsic evidence of their falsity, we derive elsewhere certain proofs of their falsehood. The reason of this is obvious : for who does not see, that, because we do not per- ceive how two ideas agree, and are identified with each other, it does not follow, that they are contradictory to each other, or that they destroy each other ? And, likewise, because we do not perceive that two ideas oppose and exclude each other, it does not follow, that they are compatible and identified with each other. Now, I maintain, that this proposition : there exists one God in three distinct persons, or any other pro- position relating to mysteries of faith, are propositions of the third kind, that is to say, propositions simply incomprehensi- ble, which, of course, you cannot absolutely deny, unless you have proofs elsewhere that they are false ; nor can you help admitting them, when, in defect of intrinsic evidence, )ou have, from some other source, undoubted arguments that they are true. Were you told that " three Gods make but one Godf or that " three persons make but one person^ these two propo- sitions would be contradictory and absurd, because either of them would join together two ideas, which manifestly exclude each other. Three Gods and one only God : these propositions would be of the same kind as this : " the whole is not greater than its part :" but what you are told by Christians, viz. that " three persons make but one God, 1 ' is vastly different from the above propositions ; and I defy any man in the world to point out a contradiction in this, or in any other like proposi- tions, that express mysteries of faith : for contradiction 32 poses a clear and adequate notion of the two ideas, that are joined together in a proposition ; and, of course, a clear and adequate notion of the opposition or incompatibility that ex- ists between them. Now, can the Unitarian, can any man, boast of possessing a distinct and comprehensive knowledge of what relates to mysteries ? Do you, for instance, sufficiently know the intrinsic nature of the divine essence, so as to be able to pronounce with certainty, that it cannot comport with three persons ? Or, have you an idea sufficient^ clear of per- son, as far as it relates to the Divine Being, to affirm without fear of mistake, that three persons are repugnant to the same divine Being ? Let the same be applied to all other myste- ries : you assert, for instance, that original sin, and two na- tures in one and the same person of Jesus Christ involve contradiction. And whence do you know this ? Did you ever penetrate the adorable essence of the divine nature ? Do you clearly know, how far the rights of the infinite justice of God, and of his sovereign dominion, extend, in regard to man, his creature ? Have you a clear idea of original sin, as far as it is propagated in the descendants of Adam, and as far as it affects them ? Are you sufficiently acquainted with the divine na- ture, and the properties of a divine person, with their intrinsic relations and bearing, to decide with full assurance, that the two natures cannot be united in one and the same Christ ? No, sir, you have not ; you cannot have, in what relates to divine mysteries, a clear, distinct, and adequate idea, for the very reason, that they are above the sphere of reason. It is, of course, utterly out of your power to discover any contra- diction in them. Thus, mysteries are incomprehensible ; to deny them on 310 other ground, but because they are incomprehensible, would be to suppose, that God cannot reveal to man what ex- ceeds the sphere of his understanding, which is downright im- piety : but when it is demonstrated, by indubitable evidence, that God has revealed them, it is both folly and irreli- gion to reject them. Such are the principles of Christians — principles sanctioned by reason. We Christians follow th« 33 example of a man born blind, whom we all resemble so much, especially in tilings that relate to God. This blind man see9 neither the skio. nor the majestic luminary which the Lord has placed therein: all, therefore, that he can say of himself, is, that he sees neither the sky nor the sun : he would be rash, were he to say any thing more, and were he to pronounce, absolutely, that there is neither sky nor sun ; but when those around unite in telling him that there is a sky and a sun; that they sec both, and are ravished with the spectacle pre- sented to their view, he believes them on their word, though he has no idea of what they tell him, and he would act like a fool, were he not to believe them. Yes, were the blind man obstinately to maintain, that there is neither, sky nor sun, because he does not see them himself; nor colours, be- cause he cannot form an idea of them ; you would consider him as blind in his mind as in his body. And is not this ex- actly the procedure of Unitarians? li Mutato nomine, d? 1* fabula narraiury SECTION IV. XVI. tVJial is above reason is not always against reason. After all, is it not a maxim generally admitted amongst philosophers, that, "what is above reason, is against reason? To this anti-christian principle, I answer: If, what is above reason, is always against reason, then the existence of this universe, our own existence, and, finally, the very existence of God, arc against reason ; for they are certainly above rea- son, as has been demonstrated. This maxim is borrowed, not from wise men, but from fran- tic sophisters, who, finding nothing wherewith to attack reli- gion with success in those ancient principles, which were admitted at all times, and by all nations, and which are the common light of rational beings, and the very foundations of reason, formed the scheme of contriving arbitrary principles: from these principles they draw such inferences as they wish to draw : as it is for the very purpose of drawing No. I. 31 such consequences, they invented them ; whence it happens, that tiie principle originates in the consequence, whereas the consequence ought to follow from the principle. Those so- phisters proceed exactly like one that would define man to be, "an animal with two legs, and without feathers," in order to be able to conclude, that a goose, devested of its feathers, is a man. Can there be any thing more extravagant ? This, their pretended axiom is, in the main, but empty wit, which signi- fies nothing ; for when they say that all that is above reason is against reason, they mean to speak either of the reason of man, or of the sovereign, uncreated, and infinite reason of God. If they mean the reason of man, this proposition is disgustingly absurd, as it is self-evident that the world pre- sents to men an infinity of mysteries which are above reason, and which this same reason is nevertheless forced to admit : and if they mean to speak of the reason of God, this proposi- tion is equally absurd ; because they then must suppose, that there are things which are above the sovereign reason of God ; a supposition the most revolting to the very first notions we have of the Supreme Being, and I must add, the most im- pious, as it necessarily implies, that nothing is true but what is demonstrated as such to man, that is to say, but what he can comprehend; and, of course, that what man cannot com- prehend, God himself cannot comprehend. XVII. Our Unitarian friend is not yet done ; reason, says he, is one, and, of course, the reason of God and the reasou of man, are not two reasons, but the same reason, and by a ne- cessary consequence, what is according to the reason of man, is according to the reason of God, and what is against the rea- son of man, is against the reason of God. This is marvellous reasoning indeed : it is exactly as if you were to say : the wa- ter of a fountain is the same as that of the ocean ; the light of a ray is the same as that of the sun ; therefore, with the water of a fountain, I can water and fertilize as large a tract of land, as with all the waters of the ocean ; and with one ray of the sun, I can see as many objects, and as distinctly, as I can with all the light of the sun. The comparison, however, is far 35 from being exact ; for there is some proportion between one drop of water, and all the waters of the seas ; between the light of a ray of the sun, and that of the sun itself: both these objects being essentially of a limited nature — but between the reason of a man, which is essentially finite, and the reason of God, which is infinite, there can be no proportion at all. Reason is one : that is to say, that, what has been demon- strated to be true by an evident principle, cannot be demon- strated to be false by another evident principle ; because prin- ciples do not contradict each other : whence it results, that faith is not contrary to reason ; because for the very reason that a doctrine is evidently revealed by the God of infinite veracity, it is self-evident that it cannot be false or contrary to reason. In any other point of view, there exists an infinite difference between the reason of man and the reason of God. God knows all things ; man knows almost nothing. God knows all the relations which things have to one another ; man per- ceives but (ew of those relations, and scarce ever otherwise than in a confused manner. God judges infallibly of the na- ture of those relations in which things stand with each other: man may be mistaken, and is, indeed, often mistaken, in his judgment about the relations of the things wiiich he knows. Thus man rushes into a thousand errors, suffers himself to be deluded by a thousand prejudices, draws at every turn false and rash inferences ; in a word, man, that rational animal, is every moment at variance with reason and good sense. What then must we think, when, to use the language of the Apostle, we behold that pitiful animal insolently rising up against the infinite knowledge of God ? When we see man argue with his God, and maintain that, what he has revealed, is not, or can- not be? when we see him demand of God his proofs, and so- lemnly protest to God, that he will not believe him, unless he see and comprehend what lie reveals ? Is it possible to unite so much rashness with so much weakness ?* * Let the insolent creature, who pretends to have a right to dispute with his Cod, and to call him to an account at the bar of his haughty reason, turn over to the 38tb.39tb, 40th, and 41st chapters of the book of Job : " Then the Lord- 36 Why, then, (so goes on our Unitarian frtend,) do Christians '•say, that in order to believe the mysteries of religion, man must renounce his reason ? If they be not against reason, why, in or- der to believe them, should he be obliged to give up his reason ! This objection obviously rests upon nothing but a piti- ful equivocation. Christians say, that in order to believe the mysteries of religion, man must renounce, not reason, but kis reason; that is to say, not the light of reason, but the cu- riosity of his reason, which claims a right to know and to fathom every thing; the pride of his reason, which affects a ridiculous independence ; the rashness of his reason, which persuades him, that, what he docs not comprehend and clearly conceive, cannot be true. Thus, in renouncing, not reason, but my reason, it is reason itself that guides me. How so ? Because my reason dictates to me, that, as God on the one band comprehends infinitely more things than a created being can understand ; and as on the other he has a right to be be- lieved on his sacred word in what he is pleased to reveal to men, how incomprehensible soever it be to them, the best and most noble Use I can make of my reason, is that of submitting it to God's infallible oracles : the submission, therefore, with which I believe the most impenetrable mysteries, is, to use the words of the Apostle, a rational submission, rationabile obseqvium, that is to say, a submission, for which reason it- self furnishes me the motives, and motives not only probable and plausible, but altogether evident. What I believe, is ob- answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said: Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskilful words? Gird up thy loins like a man : I will ask thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the loundations of the earth ? Tell me, if thou hast understanding, who has laid the measure there- of, if {hou knowest? or who has stretched the line upon it? Upon what are its ba$es grounded ? or who laid the corner stone thereof? When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody ? Who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth, as issuing out of the womb ? When I made a cloud a garment thereof, and wrapped it in a mist as in swaddling bands? I set my bounds around it, and made it bars and doors ; and I said : hitherto shalt thou come, and shalt go no further ; and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves. Didst thou know then that thou shouldst be born, and didst theu know the number of thy days? &c. &c. 37 -cure for me, but I see clearly that I ought to helievc it. I do not see what 1 believe, but I know that God has revealed it; and this alone is a sufficient reason lor me to believe it as firmly as if I saw it : for I am convinced that the word of God has more weight of itself alone, than all demonstrations taken together. Accordingly, when I renounce my reason, in order to believe the mysteries of religion, I renounce it because reason commands me to do so.* I make use of my reason, to examine the proofs of revelation : I discuss the facte, and compare them with one another ; 1 ponder and appreciate the evidences ; I carry every where the flambeau of the severest criticism; and when, from this investigation, it irrefragably results, that God has actually revealed to the world the mys- teries of the Christian religion, I unhesitatingly determine to believe them ; for it is assuredly the duty of man to listen, when God speaks; to believe, when God reveals; to adore and obey, when God commands.! Is it possible to proceed * " The more I endeavour to contemplate the infinite essence of God,'' says one of the brightest geniuses of the past age, " the less I conceive it; but it exists, that suffices me. The less I conceive it, the more I adore it. I humble myself, and say to him: Being of Beings! lam, because thou art. To medi- tate thee is to remount to my source. The most worthy use of my reason, is to annihilate myself before thee. My mind is delighted, and my weakness charmed, when I feel myself pverwhelmed by thy greatness." Pens. Maxim. Esp. de J. J. Rosseau. t " I shall therefore say to the haughty philosopher," says a judicious writer of the last century, "Do not rail against those mysteries, which reason cannot possibly fathom ; attach yourself to the examination of those truths which may be easily approached, and which you may, as it were, touch an * handle, and which answer for all the rest. These truths are striking and sen- sible facts, in which religion has, as it were, intrenched herself entirely, in ui der to strike equally the learned and the unlearned. These facts are given over to your curiosity, to your severest scrutiny. These are the foundations of your religion ; dig, then, around thein ; try to shake them ; gn dow n with the flambeau of philosophy, till you reach that very antique stone whit li ha ; been so repeatedly rejected by unbelievers, and which has crushed them all. But when, after having come to a certain depth, you shall have reached the hand of the Most High, who, since the commencement of the world, sustaii this grand and m.ijes-tic edifice ; an edifice strengthened and consolidated by the »ery storms and torrents of years — stop, and dig not down to the very abj hell. Philosophy cannot guide you further, without leading you astray ; you- 38 more wisely ? I follow the voice of my reason as far as it can guide me, and when 1 leave it, it is by its advice that I da so, and in order to place myself in the hands of a guide in- finitely more sure, and who cannot lead me astray. Reason, after having conducted me, according to the above procedure, to the very sanctuary of Religion, struck with religious awe, seems to hold forth to me this exalted language : 1 have hi- therto guided thee, but henceforth thou shalt be guided by a surer and a higher authority : it is no longer a dim ray, but the sun itself, in all its splendour, that will direct thy steps: It is no longer man, but God himself: no longer reason, but the uncreated wisdom that will dictate to thee its oracles. My last advice is, Believe and adore. section v. XIX. It is most worthy of Gocfs infinite wisdom and good- ness, to reveal mysteries to men. The Unitarian opens another battery — why, says he, should God oblige men to believe impenetrable mysteries, and bring their reason into such hard captivity ? What use is there in believing mysteries ? I answer, in the first place, that God was not bound to call our Unitarian friend to his council, nor to take his advice on the laws which he was to give him; that he, himself, knows the reason why he would bring his reason under the yoke of faith, and that it ought to suffice him that he knows it ; that he is his creature, and not his judge ; that he ought to adore the conduct which he holds in his regard, and not rashly scru- tinize it : that all that he commands, ought to appear wise to him, for the sole reason, that it is he who commands it, since he is wisdom itself, and that, if he does not obey him but because that which he commands appears to him wise, enter upon the unfathomable abyss of eternity ; Philosophy must here veil her eyes, as well as the vulgar, and entrust man with confidence to the hands of faith." P Guenard, Discours sur Veeprit Philosophique Courronne a Uacca, Franc, en 1775. 39 then he sets himself above his Creator, and he obeys, in re- ality, not his God, but himself. XX. I answer, in the second place, that it was for his glory that God would have men believe impenetrable mysteries ; for it became the infinite greatness of God, to prescribe to men what they were to believe, as well as what they were to prac- tice, and to hold its sway over their reason, as well as their will. In fulfilling, notwithstanding, the repugnances of their heart, and the revolts of their senses, the precepts which God has given them for the rule of their actions, they honour God as the Supreme Sanctity: in believing, notwithstanding the oppositions of their reason, the mysteries which God has re- vealed to them, they honour him as the Sovereign Truth : thus, in the Christian religion, the whole man is, as it were, im- molated to God : he immolates his understanding by faith, his heart by love, his will by the acceptation of the divine precepts, his body by the practice of all kinds of good works. The clear result of all this, is, that a religion which holds out to the be- lief of men incomprehensible mysteries, is more worthy of God than a religion that would propose no such mysteries, and that, of course, the former religion is more perfect, and has a character of Divinity more than the latter, whence, in the ul- timate analysis, it follows, that the incomprehensibility of mysteries, so far from being a reason to reject the Christian religion, is, on the contrary, a reason the more to receive it. God is incomprehensible, not only in his own nature, but also in all bis works : a religion, therefore, that emanates from God, and is, of course, the most noble work of God, must needs be marked by the first and most illustrious attribute of the Deity. Mysteries, therefore, far from being a solid ob- jection to a religion, are rather one of the most striking cha- racteristics of the true religion: A religion that consecrates but one half of man to God, is not worthy of God, since it is the office of religion to consecrate the whole man, with all his powers, to the service of his creator. Now, a religion devested of mysteries, consecrates but half the man to the honour and glory of God, viz. the will, whilst it leaves the 40 most noble part of man, namely, his understanding, free and independent : for how can the understanding of man pay its tribute of honour to God, as the eternal truth, unless it be by captivating itself to the obedience of faith 1 XXI. Thirdly, Since God deigned to make himself known to men, mysteries became unavoidable, it being altogether im- possible for God to reveal to men his essence, his designs, the plan of his providence, the economy of his works, &c. without revealing to them things incomprehensible, and, of course, mysteries. We are much better entitled to ask : of what use would religion itself be, without these august objects of faith? It would soon be reduced to what it was in the hands of the ancient philosophers, a code of paradoxes, and problematic questions. It is by mysteries that God has fixed the faith of his people, and sheltered it from the attempts of a restless and ever-varying philosophy. When Jesus Christ appeared on earth, Philosophy, by its interminable disputes, had shaken every truth, and spared neither dogma, nor morality, whilst it called in question the most evident principles. Mysteries were necessary to impose silence on that proud and restless reason, and to make it submit to the yoke of faith.. XXII. Fourthly. The whole system of the Christian dispen- sation being grounded on mysteries, it is obvious, that these are as essential to the edifice of religion, as the foundations are to any superstructure. Take away, for example, the dogma of Original Sin, and of the blessed Trinity, and the whole edi- fice of religion will instantly tumble to the ground; for if there is no Original Sin, there is, manifestly no need of the mystery of the Incarnation ; and by denying these, you must necessarily deny those that essentially depend on them — I mean the mystery of the Redemption, the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ into Heaven ; and, if there is no Trinity; it is as impossible to conceive those mysteries, as it is to con- ceive the coming of the Holy Ghost. He, therefore, that de- clares against mysteries, by a necessary consequence,overturns at once,the whole august and magnificent structure of Religion. 41 SECTION VI. XXIII. Mysteries, far from being dry, and useless specula- tions, are, on the contrary, the very basis of, and the strongest incitement to, the observance of Christian Morality. But, continues the Unitarian, must it not be confessed on all hands, that " revelation is expressly intended for our in- struction, edification, rule of life, and means of happiness ?"* What then have mysteries, those barren, metaphysical, and unintelligible notions to do with a religion, which ought to be essentially practical ? Such is the idea, the Unitarian has formed of the mysteries of religion, in general, nor ought we to be surprised at this ; since, on the contrary, it would rather appear strange that men who have accustomed themselves to view religion more as a human, than a divine institution, and who are determined to disbelieve, whatever soars above the reach of their understand- ing, should possibly perceive in mysteries any thing else but dry and empty speculations. But characters of this descrip- tion are not competent judges to decide on a subject like this. Let us rather listen to the Fathers of the Church, to the Saints of God in past ages, and to the true faithful, who, with a lively faith, contemplate the said mysteries, and let us see whether they appeared to them as barren and uninstructive as they do to the Unitarian. And, to begin with the ineffable mystery of the adorable Trinity, what a source of Heavenly joy opens to the faithful, in beholding in his God and Sovereign Good, that ineffable and eternal union, love, and joy, that exists between the three divine persons, equal and consubstantial to each other! What a noble, what a perfect pattern discovers itself in the same union,. of that tender and constant love, which ought to unite all the children of men into one and the same family — a pat- tern proposed by Jesus Christ himself for our imitation. John, xvii. v. 1 1 . " That they all may be one, as thou, Father in rue, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." * Miscellany. Abstract of Unitarian Belief, No. L 6 42 Even in the fall of man, what great and practical truth? does not the attentive believer discover ? For if he is struck with awe in considering the extent of the divine justice, and the terrible consequences of one mortal sin, he is likewise enrap- tured in beholding the tender mercies of God breaking forth from the dark cloud of this mystery, in the cheering tidings of a future Redeemer, with which the Lord presently erected and consoled sinful man after his fall. How much does he admire the wisdom and goodness of his God, when he comes to reflect, that that very sin, which was to have been the cause of his eternal ruin, is made, in the gracious designs of God, the very occasion of the most astonishing and amiable myste- ry of the incarnation, by which, as St. Leo observes, sinful man was to gain much more than he had lost by his guilty parent. But if these bright prospects, if the bare promise of a Saviour, was such a source of delight and comfort to all the righteous of the old law, what raptures will not be excited in the breasts of men by the accomplishment of this solemn promise, the actual incarnation of the Son of God. and his temporal birth at Beth- lehem ! O, what great things does not faith lay open to the faithful soul, at the astonishing spectacle of a God made man, of a God annihilated under the form of a servant, of a God under the amiable shape of an infant, of a God born in a sta- ble, and laid in a manger ! O, it is here the faithful begins to know his God, and the admirable inventions of his tender love towards him. " God so loved the world, (it is thus he exclaims in a transport of extacy, with St. John,) as to give his only-begotten Son, that, whoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting." John ii. v. 1G. Here the Christian soul, prostrate before this Divine Infant, in pro- found adoration with the shepherds, and the wise men of the East, is amazed at the wonderful designs of the Most High upon men, at the admirable contrivances of his wisdom and love for the reparation of mankind. It is here he beholds the majesty of God displayed in all its infinite greatness, seeing him, in the person of Jesus Christ, adored by an adorable God-man : Hence he 43 conceives the meaning of the sublime canticle, "Glory be to God in the highest, and, on earth, peace to men of good will."* It is here, he becomes able in some measure to comprehend with all the Saints, what is the breadth, and- length, and height, and depth, to know also the charity of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge.! It is here, he learns more wisdom in a few minntes with St. Bernard, than all the philosophers could teach him during ages, for he, contemplating his Saviour in the manger, reasons thus : either the Incarnate Wisdom of God i= deceived, or the world. But Jesus Christ cannot be deceived, therefore, the world is mistaken — the only-begotten Son of God, born in a stable, in extreme poverty and suffering, des- pised by, and unknown to, the world : what does that mean ' what else but what man could never hitherto understand, aud what it was most important for him to know, viz. that the end and happiness of man do not consist in the goods of fortune, nor in sensual pleasures, nor in the esteem of men, nor in ex- alted stations amongst them ; but rather in a generous con tempt of all the empty goods, which the world so ardently pursues. It is here, the Saints of God, by the example of an humble, poor, annihilated, and suffering God, learnt the ex- alted science of despising riches, pleasures, and honours : it is here, they became enamoured with hardships, poverty, and all kinds of sufferings, in seeing them courted, esteemed, and loved, by the Incarnate Wisdom of God. It is here, that hu- mility, patience, and self-denial, are enforced by an example, the force of which it is impossible to resist. For, if the Son of God, became a man of sorrows, who shall refuse to suffer / and if the infinite majesty is thus annihilated, will it not be an intolerable impudence in a (ilthy worm of the earth to be pull- ed up with pride and haughtiness ?j If from the stable of Bethlehem, the Christian with the flambeau of faith in his hand, repairs to Mount Calvary, what a great and exalted spectacle presents itself to his view ! An affectionate look at the crucifix teaches him more than vo- ■ St. Luke, ii. v. 14. t Ephes.iii. v. 14. ± St. Bernard. 44 lumes could do : Yes, in this great book he reads in flaming and indelible letters the excess of divine love towards men, the infinite sanctity and justice of God, which cannot be satis- fied but by a victim of infinite dignity, the grievousness of mortal sin, the infinite importance of salvation, since the for- mer could not be effaced, nor the latter be procured but by the death of a God-man on the cross. Here the poor is con- soled, in beholding his God fastened naked to the cross ; the sufferer is comforted, by beholding in his God, " the man of sorrows," expiring in torments; the proud is confounded in viewing the God of Majesty satisfied with reproaches. Here, a sublime and heavenly philosophy is delivered, sup- ported by the greatest examples that were ever exhibited — here the Apostles, the Martyrs, and other Saints of God as- siduously studied, and learned those exalted lessons which none but a God-man could teach, and which, reduced to prac- tice, struck the world with so much astonishment. What shall I say of that most amiable of all mysteries, which, by way of excellence, maj be justly styled the mystery of love, and in which the eternal Son of God, not satisfied with communicating his divine nature to one inividual hu- manity, as he did in the mystery of the Incarnation, gives himself, his sacred flesh and blood with all his Divinity, in the most lovely manner to every one of his faithful children, and thus makes them partakers of his divine nature? O, it is here the divine love truly triumphs in all its lustre ! It is here the divine power with a profusion truly divine, pours out in- finite treasures to enrich man. What exalted, what generous thoughts, what transports of admiration, of gratitude, of love, of heavenly gladness, must not be exalted in a Christian soul, at the contemplation of so high an esteem, of so tender a kindness of God towards men I What powerful incitements to purity, to sanctity, to a noble-minded generosity, and to a kind of divine life must not the Christian feel, in that most in- timate union, in that divine alliance, which he contracts with his God, the sole fountain of all sweetness and of all good, by the participation of his adorable Body and Blood ? 45 In the mystery oi' the Resurrection, the faith of the Christian is confirmed by one of the most astonishing miracles, and his hope strengthened by a most illustrious pledge of his own future resurrection, whilst, in the mystery of his glorious as- cension, his charity is inflamed, and his heart drawn to the regions of eternal bliss, whither his Saviour has ascended to prepare him a place. Mysteries, therefore, are not what the Unitarian imagines them to be, viz: mere metaphysical speculations, or empty notions, but they are the very foundations of the whole fabrick of Religion, the most powerful, practical lessons on the infi- nite perfections of God, the duties of men, and on the most heroic virtues': They are inexhaustible sources of heavenly knowledge, delight, and comfort. It was, therefore, most worthy of God to reveal them j and, to reject them, is to de- prive men of what is most august and sublime in religion, and what is most instructive to men either learned or unlearned. I cannot better conclude this whole dissertation, than by sub- joining the following beautiful passage of a learned and pious Prelate of France. " Religious dogmas when abandoned to reason, or, to speak with more truth, to the depravity of men. as was the case amongst the Pagans, Mere, what they must have been expected to be, the corruption of morality. But let us turn to another side. Let us consider that revealed doctrine, which disbelievers reject as indifferent and foreign to conduct and practice. We shall find that that doctrine is the very foundation of the observance of the soundest morality. Amongst us it is the belief of mysteries that engages men to fulfil their religious duties. Unbelievers, take a view, we entreat you, of all the truths which the Author of Christianity has taught mankind, and which you consider as merely specula- tive, and such as are only calculated to embarrass the mind and 1 to overburthen it with a useless yoke ! Examine, not only their perfect accordance with each other, which makes of them ;. connected system, a complete summary of doctrine ; but also their intimate relation with morality, and you will discover, that there is not one amongst them, which does not sen » 46 either to fan our love and gratitude by some benefit ;. or to gratify our desires by some gift ; or to support our courage by some hope; or to prompt us to virtue by some promise; or to reclaim us from vice by some menace ; or to direct our morals by some example. If you examine our sacred dogmas, you will not find one, that is not a fecund principle of moral consequences ; not one that does not shed its influence on our duties towards God, as well as towards our fellow-men ; not one that does not present either some object, or some means, or some motive to what is good and virtuous. No, he that renders useful whatever he ordains, ordains nothing use- lessly." Instruct, Past, de M, UEveque de Langres sur la revelation. UNITARIANISM PHILOSOPHICALLY AND THEOLOGICALLY EXAMINED NO. II. ** Propterea sicut per unum hominem peccatum in hunc mundum intravit, et per peccatum mors, etitain omnes homines mors pertran* siit, in quo omnes peccaverunt." Epist. ad Rom. cap. 5, v. 12. " Wherefore as by one man Sin entered into this World, and by Sin death : and so death passed upon all men, in whom all hare tinned." ON ORIGINAL SIN. This important dissertation on Original Sin, may very pro- perly be reduced to the following heads, which comprise all we have to say on this subject. In the first place, I shall give a short historical sketch of those that, in former times, im- pugned Original Sin ; next, I shall investigate how far the light of reason alone, unaided by Divine Revelation, concurs to the establishment of this fundamental Dogma of Religion, and what the ancient philosophers, guided by the dictates of reason alone, and men in general have, at all times, thought of Original Sin. Finally, I shall conclude by demonstrating the existence of Original Guilt from the highest authority upon earth, viz : the Divine Scriptures, and the exalted and irre fragable authority of the first ages of the Church. SECTION I. Brief historical sketch of those ancient heresies, that impugned Original Sin. XXIV. Pelagius, a Scottish Monk, was the first, who, as early as the fourth century, dared openly to deny Original Sin. No. TT. ? 00 It is from the rejection of original guilt, as from their poison- ous source, all the other errors of this famous hieresiarch na- turally flowed. Accordingly, he taught, 1st. that the sin of Adam and Eve did damage to them only, but not to their descendants, and he thought, that he had sufficiently varnished over this absurdity, by saying that the sin of Adam had, indeed, caused damage to his posterity, but only by way of example, and that they had really become guilty, but only by way of imitation, and that it was only in this sense, it was written, that all men have sinned in Adam. 2dly. He, of course^ maintained, that the death of all men, who draw their origin from Adam, is the natural condition of man, and that Adam, although he had not sinned, would have died. 3dly. That men are now born such as Adam was created; that is to say, as Pelagius contended, without virtue and without vice. 4thly. He asserted that Baptism was necessary for infants, not, indeed, in order that Original Sin, (whose existence he denied.) be remitted to them, but in order that by it the chil- dren may be consecrated to God, who makes those children, whom he had made good in their creation, still better, by their renovation in Baptism. 5thly and lastly. He asserted that those children, who die without Baptism, although excluded from the kingdom of Heaven, are, notwithstanding, on account of their original innocency, to enjoy a certain kind of a bless- ed and eternal life. And these were the chief heads of the Pelegian heresy, in regard to Original Sin. We learn from St. Augustin,* that the same sectarians, when pressed by the arguments of the Catholics, admitted, at last, that Adam would not have died, had he not sinned, and that, after his sin, he had become mortal, and had begotten children, like unto himself, mortal. And thus, in fine, they admitted, that the death of the body was drawn from Adam by the way of generation, but not the death of the soul or sin. This Pelagian error, long since crushed by St. Augustin, and by the authority of the Catholic Church, has been revived by some innovators of lat- ter times, the Albigenses, Zuinglians, and, in the last ages, by * St. Aug, lib. 4, contra duas Epistolas Pelag. cap. 2, c4 4. m ihe Socinians, whose system was the same with that of our Unitarians, so that in drawing the picture of Socinianism, you have, at once, the perfect resemblance of Unitarianisra. SECTION II. Original Sin examined by the light of reason alone, unassisted by Divine Revelation. XXV. By Original Sin is meant a certain stain, which so defiles, at the moment of his origin, every man descending from Adam, through the natural way of generation, as to ren- der him displeasing to God, subject to death, and the other miseries of this life, and which, if not washed off by Bap- tism, excludes man from eternal bliss ; or, if you chose, in other words, it is the divine displeasure, in which all men are born, and which the sin of Adam, as the head and representative of all mankind, has brought down upon his children, the descen- dants of a guilty parent, and which chiefly consists in the pri- vation of sanctifying grace, and in the subsequent exclusion from eternal life, (unless that grace be restored by Baptism, received, either indeed, or in desire,) and lastly in the subjec- tion of mankind to death, rebellious concupiscense, and a long train of other calamities. Now, the question at issue between the Christians of all past ages, and the Unitarians of our days, is to know, whether men are actually born in such a privation of grace or not, and whether the sin of Adam has actually hurt not only him personally, but also his posterity. If we inter- rogate revelation, we may truly say with St. Augustin, the hammer of the Pelagians, " concerning this cause, two coun- cils, (of Carthage and Milevis,) have been sent to the Apos- tolic See, from whence also the answers have been returned ; The cause is at an end : would to God that at length an end were put to the error."* Be hac causa duo concilia, (Cartha- ginense et Milevitanum,) missa sunt ad Sedem Apostolicam, inde etiam rescripta venerunt : Causa Jinita est : utinam ali- quando Jiniatur error." But as we have to do with gen- tlemen, who are eternally boasting of having the. whole * Seimone, exxxi. alias ii. de Verbis Apostoli 52 strength of reason on their side, and who are in the habit oi obtruding their erroneous opinionson the public, as so many ir- refragable dictates of reason, it will not be amiss to see, what, upon the whole, reason says of Original Sin ; does it proclaim or at least insinuate, its existence, or does it contradict it? A moment's reflection will determine this interesting question. , XXVI. First. In entering into myself, andlisteningto the dic- tates of reason, I find, that we have duties to comply with towards God, towards ourselves, and towards our fellow crea- tures : we know them, we understand them, we approve of them, and still we do not fulfil them, and not only do we not fultil them, but we moreover feel a certain abhorrence, when there is question about putting the hand to the work to accom- plish them, we experience a certain inclination of doing quite the reverse of what we ought to do, and of what we know and acknowledge, ought to be done : this is one of those truths, to know which, it is enough to enter into one's own heart and to analyze it. He that has studied his own heart, will, if can- did, readily acknowledge, within his own nature, the truth of those lines of the poet.* *"Excute virgineo conceptas pectore flammas Si potes, infelix. Si possem, sanior essem ! Sed trahit invitam nova vis : aliudque cupido, Mens aliud suadet. Video meliora, proboque, Deteriora sequor." Lib. 7. Metam. v. 17. Wretch, from thy virgin-breast, this flame expel, And soon, O! could I, all would then be well; But love, resistless love, my soul invades, Discretion this, affection that persuades. I see the right, and I approve it too ; Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue. Drvdex. The same bard graphically expresses the same melancholy truth in the fol- lowing verse : " Quod licet, ingratum est : quod non licet, acrius urit." "We hate what is lawful, and pursue with eagerness what is forbidden." Catullus perfectly agrees with Ovid in the following distich : " Odi et amo, quare id facio, fortasse requiris ? Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." "I hate and I love, you perhaps may ask, why I do so? I know not, but I feel it to be the case, and I am wretched." 53 Let us exemplify this striking truth : It is an undoubted principle, that it is the essential duty of man, to seek the ho- nour of God in all things, at all times, and in all its extent ; and still it is a fact, that man aspires, in all things, at all times, and with every possible effort, to his own honour ; and that he aims at it, without any relation whatever to the honour of God. And not only he strives to cause himself to shine above others, but he feels, moreover, a natural and uncommonly strong pro- pensity and desire, that all around him may be darkened, in order that he only may be blazed forth into notice and esteem. Observe man attentively ; observe him with a sharp eye, and you will find, that, in all his words, in all his actions, in all his qualifications, he betrays inadvertently, and, at times against his own will, a certain fund, a certain inclination and inward impulse, which tends unjustly to lessen his own known mise- ries, to make boast of himself, and to enhance those qualities, which make him appear great and praise-worthy. This is not all : you will discover, that he secretly plumes himself upon many things, and appropriates them almost entirely to him- self, and wishes and does all he can underhandedly to make men believe that they are, in some measure, the fruit of his own industry, although he be convinced in his mind, that he has received them entirely from God, and that, which seems to me I know not what to call it, either more foolish or more wicked, is, that this man puffs himself up with extravagant self-conceit, and despises and tramples upon those to whom the hand of the Creator has been less kind, and less liberal. Turn now over to some man of the class of those whom we call learned, that is to say, less ignorant than others, and tell him, u you, indeed, are a man of knowledge, you possess such information as raises you far above the greater part of your fellow-men: you are universally respected as a scholar, but recollect, that, had the sovereign dispenser of every good gift not bestowed on you that penetration of genius ; if he had no! placed you under such and such circumstances; if he had not afforded you, inyour career, so many favourable opportu- nities, with the goods of fortune, and a proportionate state of health, you would be as ienorant as other nvu." This ccr- 54 tainly will be a language, which, at most, will extort a specu- lative approbation, but not an inward assent : this language will be known to be consonant to reason, but will not be re- lished. Man would wish that all be traced back to his own in- dustry, to his own attentions and efforts, and, in fine, solely to his own will ; and since God's benefits cannot be denied, he at least could wish, that they be dissembled, and impious- ly passed over unnoticed. But suppose, after all, that this same man, yielding to reason, determine to humble himself, and to offer violence to himself, he still will always meet within himself a contrary tendency, a natural inclination, which he will not be able to root out altogether, or to master after such a manner, as that it should not, at times, rise up, throw him down, and overcome him. XXVII. Let us continue our observations, and accost that ether man, surrounded with the goods of fortune, and with the insignia of honour and dignities ; but, who, at the same time, is destitude of all personal merit ; let us penetrate a little into his heart, and let us make him understand, that, prior to his existence he had, and could have nothing at all, by which he could have merited to be born of such noble and rich parents ; and that, of course, all his riches, his honours and the other dignities of his family, have been, in every respect, bestowed on him, by Almighty God, as well as poverty and distresses come from God, on the greater part of mankind. Will he relish this discourse ? Assuredly, he will not. Will he be able to refuse his approbation ? Certainly not : but he will always feel a secret repugnancy to grant it; therefore,.... therefore, he will not make much account of such a discourse, he will dissemble the kindnesses of his God, and make you in a certain manner understand, that he considers as due to himself, the splendour of his extraction, and his greatness in the world. What, therefore, must we infer from this ? That man does not do what he ought to do ; and why does he not do it ? Because he experiences a strong inclination not to do it ? But how did he come to have that inclination ? Who has pfiven it to him ? We know net. 50 XXVIII. Secondly. Next I thus reason with myself, if man be the work of an eternal and most wise artist, he must have been created with a proper proportion, a certain apt- ness or fitness, for the attainment of those ends, for which his Creator designed him. This self-evident truth, founded on God's infinite perfection, diall be the fundamental basis, the directive principle of all our researches. Let us give a glance at man ; let us observe him in some, I know not what direction to his ends. Man has a natural tendency to preserve his physical ex- istence ; his own individual being. If man has a natural tendency to preserve his physical ex- istence, his own individual being ; he must have some pro* portion ; some natural aptness for that end. Man was created for happiness ; for that perfect happiness, which he cannot find but in God : man, therefore, was created for God, and was directed towards God: Behold a truth, which both reason and experience conspire to render self- evident. If man Avas created for God; if the, heart ot man was designed for its Creator; man, then 1 say to myself, must have a certain proportion, a certain natural aptness towards acquiring the knowledge of that Creator, he must have a strong tendency, and a strong inclination, which not only should directly impel him towards God ; but, which should likewise, turn aud direct him towards all that is to serve as a means to compass this his end, this his destination, this his all ; and which, of course, should withdraw and remove him, without any disagreement with his free will, from ali that which may prove to him an obstacle to and a deviation from his last end. This being established, let us again observe man : Man naturally tends to preserve his physical existence ; his own individual being : Behold the end! Man has a certain inclination, and a natural fitness lor tak- ing food, for moving himself by corporeal exercise- and foi defending himself against any outward insult : Benold the means !. Behold thp proportion ! 5G Man was created for God, and directed towards God : but where are the means, the inclination, the proportion, the na- tural aptness for that end ? If man has means, if he has a natural proportion for an end, which, comparatively speaking, is but of a trifling con- sequence ; why has he not likewise, such proportionate means for the principal end, for the end of all his ends, for the ob- ject of his love, of his felicity, of his interminable beatitude, for God ? Why, of course, has he not a natural and easy apt- ness to know him, as far as it is sufficient for him, and to love him as much as he can, and to pant after him as far as he is bound ? Or, what ! Is it possible, that the sovereign Author of the Universe, after having given to men such proportioned means, such strong tendencies to an end so circumscribed a» is that of preserving, for a short time, their physical existence, should have denied the same, the proper proportion, fitness, and inclination, for an end, which he gives them to under- gtand, is their only, true, last end 1 For an end, to which they are so incessantly brought back by the most intimate voice of their nature ? And still man has not this inclination, the natural aptness for God . . . But it is repugnant to reason, that God should act after a manner so different, so preposterous, so contradictory .... Man, therefore, is not the work of God : but this is not possible, and we have a thousand demonstra- tions to the contrary .... Therefore .... SECTION III. Man has no natural and sufficient aptness to know God as far ar it is sufficient for him to know him. XXI X. Let us for a moment figure to ourselves a certain class of men, who finding themselves in the midst of crea- tures, know scarce any more than that they exist : their mind arrives at a state of reflection and judgment : they naturally look around and observe the creatures, by which they are surrounded. When they come to examine themselves, cer- i>7 tain features, which cannot escape them, fill them with ad- miration and amazement. What rue we, say they, and what are all these things? Certain it is, that some great Being, I know not whom or what, has made this beautiful and enchanting spectacle. But next, who, and what is that great being whom I know not ? They have a desire to be informed of him ; they feel a great inclination to know and to worship him : but they do not seem to be willing to put themselves to great pains to find him. They cast, therefore, their eyes around ; some one, perchance, will observe certain creatures, which most strike his imagination, as for instance, the Sun, which dazzles him with his splendour, which cheers him with his light, and which benefits him by his influences. He will reflect, and re- flect over and over again, and finding throughout the whole creation nothing at once more majestic, and more beneficial ! this, will he say, is the Creator of the Universe ! Behold how he sparkles with rays all around, how majestic he is ! How he preserves and maintains himself! Bow down, O, man ! your head before the sublime majesty of this Supreme Being, of this Monarch of the Universe ! Another, imagining that he ought to form to himself more ample, and more ex- tensive ideas of the Deity, will raise his eyes to the skies, spangled with brilliant stars ; this expanse, he will say, is that great one, whom 1 know not, who created us, and whom we are searching after. Some other, perhaps, still more gross, and more stupid, will stoop before the very beastss and look for his God among metals, plants, animals : prostra- ting himself, and tremblingbefore those, to whom he was assign- ed by nature itself, as sovereign lord and master. This is the lot of humanity .... poor and miserable man that thou art : to what length wilt thou carry thy stupidity ? Why dost thou not. rise above the metals, the plants, the animals ? Why dost thou not soar above the heavens, the stars, the sun, to find out him, who made the metals, the plants, the animals, thr. heavens, the stars, the sun? But, how is he to do this I How can he pretend to it? Where are the proportionate means Where the natural aptness ? No. H. H 58 SECTION IV. XXX. Man is not such as he ought to be : The man, that does not enter into himself, with a philo- sophical and scrutinizing eye, the man, that is not able to feel in a lively manner that he has no natural aptness for the ac- quirement of that knowledge of God, which will suffice for him, finds himself naturally wrapped in darkness, and confu- sion, and cannot but wish that this truth may be presented to him in a clearer light. Let him then come to experience ; let him consult, for a moment, the history of every people, of every age, and of every nation ; and he will find, that the state of all men, even their primitive state, that is to say, that state, in which nature rather than art spoke to men, is perfectly conformable to the ideas, which we have hitherto advanced. He will find men in a very imperfect society, and in the vilest state of misery and degradation ; he will find, that, either they do not care to think of God, at all, or that they have placed on the throne of the most high, some wretched crea- ture. The sun, the moon, the skies, the stars, the herbs, the plants, the beasts ; nay, the most wicked and impious men, were the objects of the adorations and homages of all nations, who were, without exception, naturally ignorant and blind. But, if men were so far from that knowledge of the true God, in that state, in which nature spoke and operated with all its force and energy, I conclude, that, they had not a natural and sufficient fitness to know him ; for had they been endowed with a natural and sufficient fitness to know him; they would assuredly have known him in a slate, in which na- ture spoke and acted with all its energy ; but they have not known him, therefore, they had no natural aptness to know him. On the other hand it has been demonstrated, and is of itself evident, that the heart of man was made for God ; man, therefore, ought to have a natural aptness to know God; bat man has not that natural and sufficient aptness; therefore, man is not such as he ought to be : but it is re- 59 pugnant and impossible, that the work of a God, infinitely wise, be not. such as it ought to be ; therefore, . . . therefore, . . . section v. XXXI. Man is not such as he was created by God. We have now made gigantic strides in a very winding, intricate, and arduous road. We have discovered, and not without delight, many truths, but the most difficult and the darkest part of the road remains yet, perhaps, to be encountered. Wc have to reconcile two truths, which are equally as incontestible, as they seem to be opposite, repug- nant, and incompatible with each .other. Man is the work of God : man is not such as he ought to be. Man is the work of God; therefore, he was created such as he ought to be : but to be such as he ought to be, he ought to have been created with a natural and sufficient aptness to know God, because he was created for God, and still man has not that natural and sufficient aptness to know God ; man, therefore, is not such as he was created by God. This truth, which presents itself to us with so clear and res- plendent an aspect ; this truth, which, beaming all on a sudden on our mind, forms a most admirable connexion of ideas, and lays open to us in full sight, as it were, the whole nature of man ; this truth, I say, will perchance not be equally under- stood by all. Let us then try some other method ; let us call men to their own heart; let them feel this humiliating truth, which they have not as yet known by their understanding. SECTION VI. XXXII. Two most intimate and opposite natural tendenciet in the heart of man, demonstrate that man is not such as he was created by God. To a man of an upright and candid mind, to a man that it sincerely disposed to listen to the language of his own heart, I here present a prospect worthy of his attention. He has 60 nothing else to do, but to place it before himself, and, after having, devested himself of every selfish view and prejudice) to give ear to the inmost, natural, and sincere voice of his heart. O MAN! In all thy actions have nothing else In all thy actions, and at all times, in view but virtue only. Let this be have nothing else in view but thy own the principle, the means, and the end, self. Let thy personal interest be the of all thy undertakings. means and the end. The love, which thou owest thy Pain and pleasure shall be the pri- Creator and thyself, shall be the sole mum mobile of all thy actions ; pro- spring and mover of all thy actions ; vided thou escapest the former, and and nothing but rectitude, justice, and attainest the latter, do not mind the equity, will lead thee to the fulfilment means, of the one and the other. Remember that one single act of The enjoyment of even the smallest virtue, is preferable to all the treasures pleasure, is preferable to anything and pleasures of the world. Man was created for virtue; virtue alone constitutes his felicity. else that is not pleasure, Man was created for pleasure ; sen- sible pleasures are the object of his heart. Love thy fellow-men as thy breth- Love, indeed, thy fellow-creatures. ren in God and for God ; and let thy but take heed never to love fruitless- love be sincere and pure, upright, dis- ly, or uselessrv. This principle, " Do interested, benevolent, and constant, not do to others what thou wouldst Do not do to others what thou wouldst not wish that others should do to thee, not wish that others should do to and do to others what thou wouldst thee ; and do to others what thou wish others should do to thee," this wouldst wish others should do to principle, I say, thou must wish to see thee. deeply stamped upon the heart of all other men, but as to thyself, regulate everything according to thy own per- sonal interest. Forget injuries, and avenge thy- Cause, if thou canst, all those that self upon thy enemies, by a generous oppose thy will, to feel the effects of forgiveness. thy resentment. Compassion for thy enemies would be weakness. Thy enemies thwart thy felicity: they deserve no pardon. Let thy present happiness make Let thy felicity consist in putting the happiness of thy brethren ; and, down thy fellow-men ; and let the vice versa, let the happiness of thy putting down thy fellow-men const) brethren constitute thy own happi- lute thy felicity. aess. 61. If, first of all, we set about examining these principles, so opposite, and so contradictory to each other, we shall certain- ly discover in the one, the character of virtue, and in the other, that of vice ; we shall discover, that those form the very basis of social order and mutual love, and that these, by des- troying the one and the other, raise upon their ruins a selfish- ness, which is deservedly detested by all other men, and we shall, finally, comprehend with the most certain and clear evi- dence, that man was, and is naturally, designed to follow the first, and to fly from and abhor the second, chiefly because he is de- signed to practice virtue, not vice, to preserve social order, not to overturn it. This once granted, let us simply pro- pose these principles to our heart, and we shall see, that, notwithstanding the favourable prepossession of our reason in behalf of virtue, our heart discovers, both in the one and the other, something good and something beautiful ; we shall find that something pleases it both in the one and the other, and that it feels two attractions, two natural inclina- tions, which incline and draw it, the one to these, the other to those. Nothing can be more reasonable than these truths. If, therefore, man has two natural inclinations opposed to each other ; one to virtue, the other to vice ; if man feels himself drawn to follow, not only what he ought to follow, but also what he knows and conceives ought not to be follow ed, I conclude that man is not such as he was created In Almighty God : and I prove it. God, who is the fountain head of all virtues, who naturally abhors all that is not beauty, that is not perfection, that is not virtue, cannot, assuredly, form a creature with an internal natural inclination to vice, with an internal natural inclination to that, which the creature itself infallibly knows, and natu- rally conceives, it ought not to follow : therefore, God has not created man with an internal inclination to vice, with an internal inclination to that which he infallibly knows and na- turally conceives he ought not to follow : but man actually feeh such an internal natural inclination, to what \\o infallibly 62 knows and naturally conceives^ he ought not to follow : there- fore, man is not such as he was created by God. Any man, that reflects but a moment on the infinite per- fection of the divine essence, cannot, I am sure, entertain the least doubt of the first and fundamental proposition, viz: that God cannot give to any of his creatures a natural and wicked inclination ; and no man in his senses can find difficulty in the proposition which contains the conclusion: fer if God cannot do it, it certainly follows that he has not done it. As to the minor, or second proposition, to wit: that man feels a natural internal inclination to vice, I hold it for certain, that no one can deny it, except he who is determined to stifle the voice of his own nature, and to give the lie to all other men, who naturally experience within themselves two natu- ral opposite inclinations, two contrary tendencies. What, then, shall we say ? We shall say, that it is certain, self-evi- dent, and altogether undeniable, that man is not such as he was created by God. W r e shall not, however, stop here, but in holding out to our heart again the above view, we shall search for other proofs, for other evidences, in confirmation of so striking and important a truth. Behold us here at opposite principles : if we try to put in practice either the one or the other, such an experiment will make us feel, in a most lively manner, a certain intrinsic repugnancy, a certain, I know not what abhor- rence, a very great difficulty with regard to those principles, which invite us to perfection and to virtue, and, on the contrary, an easy adhesion, a tendency, which draws us, and, as it were, forces us to those principles which form the character of a wicked man. This is another most intimate truth, which needs no proof; every man feels it within himself. Resum- ing, therefore, with more strength, with more evidence, and with more conclusiveness, than ever, our argument, let us rea- son thus : God is the principle, as well as the end, of all crea- tures : God created them within himself, for himself, and according to his divine essence : therefore, all creatures were 63 created for God, not against God ; they were adorned with nothing but beauties, and perfections, and virtues, because they were created to the image of the most perfect essence of God, and they could not be created otherwise ; but if all creatures were formed for God, and not against God ; if they were endowed with nothing but beauties, perfections, and virtues, the i man was created for God, not against God. — This truth again is self-evident to every reflecting mind. But at present, man is not such ; therefore man is not such as he was created by God. Man is not such, because he is against God ; because man has a natural and internal abhor- rence of those means, which lead him to virtue, God being the very original virtue. Man is against God, because he has an easy and natural attraction to all that is against beau- ty, against perfection, and against virtue, God being perfec- tion and virtue itself: but if man be against God, then he is not only not such as he w r as created of God, but he is quite the reverse of what he was created of God, the reverse of the most perfect essence of God, naturally against God; and on the other hand it is most certain that he was created for fJod, and to the image of the beauties and perfections of God. SECTIQN VII. XXXIII. The conclusion is, that the nature of man is viti- ated and corrupted. If man naturally bears within himself a strong inclination opposite to virtue, and opposite, of course, to the most per- fect being of God, he, assuredly, is not such as he was created of God ; and next if it be true, that this wicked inclination is stronger than that which man feels for virtue, it must be like- wise true, that not only he is not such as he was created by of God, but that moreover he is the very reverse of what he was created of God. There is no medium, no escape, here. He only, that is obstinately determined to deny the most in tuitive and incontestible truths ; he, that wishes wilfully it> blind himself and to give Hie lie to the common »rn«e of man- 64 kind, in boldly maintaining that he is such as he ought to bc 5 and that, if he feel some tendency contrary to virtue, this tendency is nothing more than the effect of his free will, such a man may, perchance, impose upon some or other person, hut he is, I am sure, mistaken, if he imagines that, because this is one of those intimate truths that are felt, the same can never be demonstrated by reason. I call him to experience ; let him answer 5 here is what I shall ask him : Do men, men I say, of all times, of all nations, of all countries do what they know they ought to do ? Do they apply to virtue, for the prac- tice of which they feel themselves to have been infallibly de- signed ? Do they recoil with horror from that which they natu- rally know they ought to fly ? Certainly, the bare shadow of sincerity will force any one to confess, that too many, or almost all men, do what they know they ought not to do, and that they plunge themselves into disorders, into vices, into iniqui- ties, which they likewise abhor and detest in others, and at times, when they come to reflect, even in themselves. — But now, if men were naturally inclined to virtue, as they ought to be, they all, or nearly all, would, in fact, love their fellow-creatures ; they would be just, sober, liberal, and closely attached to those virtues, which form the character of a man of principle, of an honest and social man, because, then an unusual effort of perverseness and malice would be required to overcome that blessed, innate, and natural inclina- tion for order and virtue. Suppose, moreover, it were possible, which is certainly not the case, that God could have created man, and designed him for a certain end, and afterwards have left him in a per- fect indifference, nay, even in opposition to that same end ; although it were conceived not repugnant, that God might have done this, still, 1 maintain it to be evident that he has not acted so, and that men are far from being found in that per- fect indifference for vice and virtue ; for it is an undoubt- ed and infallible rule, that if all men, of all ages, of all na- tions, of all countries, were found to be in a perfect indiffer- ence for virtue and vice, at least the half of mankind woulc 5 6-3 be or would have been at some time virtuous and moral, but. this is far from being the case at present, as experience sets it beyond a doubt ; nor was it ever the case, as the annals of the world, in conjunction with all the monuments of antiquity, attest : man, therefore, was not created in that indifference. But if it be demonstrated by facts, that man is most certainly not in that perfect indifference for vice and virtue ; if it be demonstrated by facts, that man has not within himself that inclination, that intimate tendency proportionate to virtue, the very same facts of all nations, of all ages and countries, as we have seen above, furnish an unquestionable and experi- mental proof, that man experiences a strong tendency and violent inclination, which carries him to disorders and wick- edness ; disorders, which he knows to be such by the light of his reason, which he abhors in his fellow-creatures, and which, when he considers abstractedly, and in themselves, he cannot refrain from detesting. Man views those disorders in their na- tive wickedness ; he approaches them, takes pleasure in them, and, like a passionate lover, he dissembles them, and fall- ing at last asleep over them, loses himself. Poor man ! how well dost thou know this humiliating truth ! Or wilt thou, perhaps, for a greater demonstration of thy misery, and of thy blindness, obstinately deny it ? But tell me : is it not true, that if you were naturally inclined to what is good, you would have to make a great effort to abandon virtue ? And is it not true, that precisely, because you are naturally tending to corruption, to evil to iniquity, you stand, on the contrary, in need of a very painful effort to soar up to virtue, and to become familiarized with certain indispensable acts of virtue ? Will you, indeed, be able to deny so certain, so evident a truth, a truth which you every day feel in the inmost recesses of your heart ? Is it not likewise true, that a perfect indifference to both vice and virtue, would naturally carry with it an equal facility for the practice of the one as well as the other ? And, in fine, is it not true, that the road of virtue is of itself very difficult, and that of vice, on the contrary, plain, sweet, and ca*y, for wo other reason, assuredly, but beGanse No. H. 9 66 your corrupt and depraved nature tends to this with pleasure* and shrinks from the former with horror ? Let us, therefore) unhesitatingly conclude, that man, in his nature, is not such as he ought to be, because he has not a natural and sufficient apt- ness to know God, for whom he was created, and for whom he was designed ; that man is not such as he ought to be, because he has not naturally a proportionate inclination for virtue, for which he ^vas unquestionably designed, and in behalf of which reason speaks to man with such concern and energy ; that, in fine, man finds himself naturally in a state opposite to that, in which he ought to be, because, besides his not tending or being inclined to good, to virtue, he experiences a secret inclination that pushes him on, and urges him, as it were, to evil. But if man be not what, he ought to be, he is certainly not such as he was created by God, and if he be not such as he was created by God, it necessarily follows that the nature of man is depraved, vitiated, and corrupted. This truth, therefore, stands demonstrated by reason ; it causes itself to be felt by the intimate sense of the soul ; it is confirmed by facts, and carried to the highest degree of evi- dence by an undeniable personal experience. Can we ask for more ? XXXV. First objection against the above truth. If we attentively observe the nature of man, we shall find that it is not virtue be abhors, but the difficulty which the practice of virtue carries with it. Now, why should man, be- cause he abhors the troublesomeness of virtue, be said not to be such as he ought to be ? This objection would carry some weight, if I had pretended to maintain, that man naturally abhors virtue ; but, on the contrary, I say, that he is well pleased with it, that he delights in it, that he remains charmed and enraptured in beholding it; and that this is precisely a vestige of that first beauty, in which he was created ; a vestige, which brings to his memory a hap- pier state, viz : that of his original integrity. Nor do I denv 67 that man naturally abhors the trouble, which is annexed to the practice of virtue — and thus far we perfectly agree. Yes, man has no abhorrence of virtue, but only of the trouble, the difficulty, the labour, which the practice of it brings along with it. But I ask, why should the path of vir- tue itself be so rugged, so arduous, so almost impracticable to man, to man created for virtue, to man incessantly called to virtue by his reason, and, at times, by a certain weak, it is true, but most deep and secret impulse of his heart ? This difficulty, this trouble, this labour, does not certainly originate in virtue itself, it is not intrinsically interwoven with its na- ture : virtue, in its true aspeei, in its irue point of view, points out an amiable, a desirable, and a most practicable road ; therefore, this difficulty, this labour, and this trouble, resides in the nature of man. If the path of virtue be difficult to man, it is so, because man is too weak ; if it be troublesome, it is so, because his nature is not proportioned to it ; if, finally, he find it arduous, it is so, because his being was not naturally made for it : but it is certain, it is self-evident and demon- strable, that man was made for virtue, that he was created by that Supreme Being, who can, in no manner whatever, make use of means which are disproportionate to the end ; man, therefore, ought not to have been too weak for virtue, his na- ture ought not to have been formed out of the proper proportion for the same virtue ; but if man be, at present, too weak ; if, within himself, he discovers scarcely any proportion whatever for the exercise of virtue; he is not such as he ought to be* and, of course, he is certainly not such as he was created by £od. XXXVI. Jlnothcr Objection. All the great evils of man, all the astonishing contrarieties, which he imagines that he experiences in his own being, arc, in fact, but so many natural effects, which must necessarily flow from a nature, which was created after such a manner as that of man was. What wonder, therefore, that man should • 6& have such different wills and tendencies, since he is composed of two different substances, viz. a soul and a body. No doubt but those pretended contrarieties, which you term contradic- tions, are the necessary ingredients, which enter into the composition of man, who, like the rest of nature, is what he ought to be. Behold here an objection, which must be cleared up. In order to penetrate thoroughly into its fallacy and maliciousness, I ask, what is my soul ? It is that being which thinks in me. What is my body ? It is that matter which is united to my soul, and through which the same soul receives all its impres- sions. The reason, therefore, of my different tendencies, will be found in my soul as well when she acts by her own intrinsic and spiritual activity, as when she suffers herself to be drawn and acted upon by the impressions which corpo- real objects make upon her through the means of the senses. This point once settled : God has formed man of a soul and of a body, and thus has naturally subjected him to diverse tenden- cies. If by this word, diverse or different, we mean that man was made so as naturally to experience different tendencies, which should lead him, although by different ways, to the same end, I shall feel no difficulty in granting it. But this is not the point in question : the point under consideration is to see, whether there be in man diverse and opposite tendencies, which drag him along to diverse and opposite ends. If this be the case, and if we most intimately feel, that the spirit lusteth against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit, if we prove this arduous and continual combat within ourselves, certainly there can be no reason whatever to persuade an upright man, that he is such as he ought to be, and, of course, such as he was created by his Maker. Man was formed of matter and of spirit; but he ought assuredly to have been created in a state, in which perfect harmony would exist between matter and spirit. Man was directed to an end : but both the spirit and the matter ought, unquestionably, to have been directed by his Maker to the same end. This striking disorder, this inward discord, this eternal disunion, these different and opposite inclinations to- G9 wards different and opposite ends, cannot assuredly be the work of that supreme and most perfect Being, who is the very uncreated centre of order, of harmony, and of virtue. Here we find a repugnancy which we discover from the con- sideration of the very nature of God, and it is as absurd that man is such as he was created by God, as it is that God in the act of his outward productions, can deviate from his most perfect essence. SECTION X. XXXVII. Another moral proof, that man is not such as he ought to be ,• he is not such as he 7vas created by God. I know not to what lengths a voluntary blindness, a de- plorable obstinacy may be carried. Is it possible, that an upright man can refuse his assent to such a stream of light, to such strong and intimate demonstrations ? Is it possible that he should be obstinately bent upon maintaining that man is such as he ought to be, and as he was created ? Could it ever come to pass, that one, upon considering himself thus corrupted, thus vitiated, thus contradictory to himself, rather than admit such a truth, should set himself to doubt of his being the work of God ? If this were the case, and if a man were to adopt this paradox, I assuredly should not take the trouble to persuade him of the contrary, and I should look upon him with an eye of compassion, as a man imper- vious to conviction, as one voluntarily blind. All natural theology is but a continued demonstration that man was ere ated by God ; that man is the work of God. Laying aside, therefore, so great an extravagance, I pro- ceed to set forth the last demonstration, and to make each one experimentally feel his own corruption, his own intrinsic perversity. I say to this man : Are you not, indeed, na- turally bound to love your fellow-creatures, to rejoice at their felicity and prosperity, at least when their felicity and prosperity do you no damage whatever ? Tell me, then, 70 candidly, how did your heart feel, when you heard, that « person altogether unknown to you, and several thousand miles distant from you, was raised by his merit to the highest rank, loaded with honours and wealth, made an object of venera- tion to a whole nation, and, in fine, an idol to all the world ? When you have reason to believe, that such a state of exalt- ation and public applause is not to be of a short duration, but to pass, with the blessings of his ancestors, to his posterity, from generation to generation, tell me, O man, but tell me sincerely, how was your heart then affected ? Did you, indeed, experience, as you ought to have done, a secret complacency, an inward delight, at the happiness and satisfaction of one of your fellow-men ? Or rather did not some, I know not what involuntary gnawing, cause itself to be felt in your heart, a gnawing which disapproved of your fellow-man's felicity, and which also caused you to wish that such good luck had not befallen him ? And still what harm did that do you ? Could you ever have expected to aspire to so brilliant a post, to such an universal and well established fame, and that in so remote a country ? By no means. What, then, means that inward gnawing, which disapproves of the good of your bro- ther, and which would wish it had not fallen to his lot ? What is the reason, that that corroding worm does not listen to ad- vice, nor give ear to reason, and that it should not cease tor- turing you inwardly, naturally, incessantly ? Is it not, in- deed, a fatal germ of an inward distemper, of a connatural perverseness ? What is, moreover, the meaning of that secret pleasure which you experienced at the successive disgraces of that stranger, who is altogether unknown to you, and who lives at such a distance from you ? What does this indicate ? O, man ! who art the sovereign of the world, the lord of the earth ; man, who art a spiritual, a free, an immortal being ; man, who art an object of love and tenderness to thy Creator, to thy Supreme Being; man, who art formed by God, created for Cod, linked to God, and destined for God; how imposing is thy majesty ! how striking thy greatness ! O. man ! to whom the knowledge of thy first principle and 71 of thy last end proves to be so difficult a task, to whom the practice of virtue is so arduous; man, who fliest from Cod who usurpest the honour of God ; O, man, who art naturally forgetful of thyself, who debasest thy spirit, who levelest thy- self with the beast of the forest, who engulfest thyself with- out hesitation in matter, man who feelest within thyself a coutinua! warfare, which inwardly contradicts thee, tosses thee to and fro, lacerates thee ; man, who experiencest such an intrinsic power of thy passions, which agitate thee, entice thee, and, at times, drag thee, as it were, to such vices, and, to such iniquities as thy reason, at the same time, disap- proves of, and condemns ; man, who art what thou oughtest not to be ; man, who art no longer the same that thou for- merly wert ! O ! how much do I feel dejected at thy debase ment ! How much am I moved at thy degradation ! I CTION XI. XXXVUI. Vanity and want of reflection connatural to iiu Shall we stop here? Or shall we advance further? Shall these be the boundaries of our interesting discoveries ? The nature of man is not such as it was created by God : it is depraved, it is vitiated. Well, what benefit accrues to us from so humiliating a knowledge, from a truth which de- jects, which villilics, which fills us with despair? Shall we not discover something, that will afford us comfort? Do other men stand in need of the same consolation, which we feel so necessary for ourselves ? There is no doubt, but the generality of men are, partly from sentiment, partly from reasoning, and partly from other means, intimately persuaded of this' melan- choly truth, and still the generality of men are gay, sportive, and pass their days in mirth. This is a most astonishing spec- tacle. Accost that man and tell him: sir, you are not, what you ought naturally to be, you are not such as you were made by God : your being is in a state of repugnancy tnd contrariety to the mo«t perfect essence of its creator ■ 72 your perfections, your beauties, are stained and corrupted, you are the sport of the most stupendous contradictions, you are far from God, opposed to God, fugitive from God .... Observe how that man will humble himself, how pensive, and how desirous he will grow to find out some remedy for this great- est of his evils. He conceivesand knows from certain features, what his original beauty ought to have been : he observes and he feels all the weight of his debasement, and of his degradation. These reflections mus-t naturally throw him into a state of the greatest discouragement and confusion. But wait a little, re- tire for a moment, and behold the same man gay, merry, and full of sport .... But make him again enter into the know- ledge of his own being, and, behold him again cast down, but not as much as the first time. He falls back to his wonted jovialty and joy : you repeat to him the same lesson, but your words will not have the effect which you perhaps anticipated, you will perhaps make him sad, but that sadness will be of short duration : observe him well, and you will take him for the very souiof happiness : Set about to prove to him another time the same truths : and, take my word for it, he will, although intimately persuaded of the truth, although feeling the humiliation and infelicity resulting from them, laugh you in the face, and take notice neither of his own sentiments, nor of your words, and moving to and fro among the sensible objects that surround him, you will behold gladness on his counte- nance, smiles on his lips, sport and festivity in his whole per- son ; now what do you say of a conduct so preposterous ? Has there been any change either in the truth or in the con- viction of it ? By no means : if we consider matters attentively, we will discover that the truth is the same, and that he is equally convinced of it, and that, in fine, all the change consists in the reflection. This man in the beginning retired within himself, and, of course, felt the whole force of your expres- sions ; what wonder, therefore, if you found him so sad and so afflicted ? And if, in the second instance, his sadness, his affliction, his dejection, were less, it was because his reflec- tion was less, and if, in the end. he was not moved at all 3 73 it is, no doubt, because there remained on his side neither re- flection nor sentiment. It would seem that this man derives an uncommon blessing from his want of reflection ! But it is still more surprising that this blessing does not originate in the temper of a particular individual, but, naturally extends to all mankind : all men, generally speaking, would be unhappy if they were to reflect ; and if they are seen to be habitually gay, cheerful and elated, it is to be ascribed to no other cause, but to their total or partial want of reflection. Let us continue our observations, and ask any man in cold blood, how he does, and how the world goes with him ? If we put such a question, alas ! what a train of evils and miseries shall we presently see pass in review before us ! Impetuosity and violence of passions, wild and irregular desires of a false good,. excess of hunger and thirst, of heat and cold ; hatreds, jealousies, suspicions, frauds, treasons, calumnies, injuries, damages, thefts, rapines 3 murders, earthquakes, conflagrations, tempests, droughts^ pestilence, wars, and other miseries ; one of which alone is sufficient to embitter all our enjoyments, all our pleasures* Yes, if we ask men, we shall find, that every one esteems him- self unhappy, every one is lamenting and wailing; . . . princes, subjects, noblemen, plebeians, old and young, strong and weak, learned and unlearned, healthy and sick of every country, of every age, of every condition, and still. . .still every man, the prince and the subject, the nobleman and 1 the plebeian, the old and the young, the stout and the weak, the wise and the igno- rant, the healthy and the sick of every age, of every country, of every condition, every man, I say, is sporting, laughing, and spending his time with an air of jovialty that is really sur- prising; this, no doubt, is the dismal effect of a want of reflec- tion : man is unhappy only when he reflects on himself, and the want of reflection leads him to his happiness. Wretched happiness ! Delusive, imaginary, false felicity! which, instead of freeing him from his evils, only hides them, and which in some respects, makes him more blind, more miserable, more unhappy. This is the truly pitiful condition of the son* of men, to be miserable and unhappy, and to meetwilh no solace No, II. 10 74 no femedy or comfort, except in not thinking on the misery of their wretchedness ; and this comfort, to he sure, is a most miserable one, as it only hides from man his evils, and in hiding them, renders them irremediable. It cannot happen but through a strange disorder of the nature of man, that to think on himself, to concentrate himself into his own being and to observe his own miseries, although considered by the common class of men as the greatest evil, should be, in reality, his greatest good, as that which prompts him to seek after some remedy, and some real redress of his «vils, and that, on the contrary, diversion and want of reflection, which man considers as his greatest good, should be in reality his greatest evil, as which makes him remove from the true re- medy and from a solid consolation, and which lulls him asleep as to his own miseries.* * On this subject I find very solid reflections in the thoughts of the celebrated Paschal. "Choose," says he, " whatever condition of life you please, let all the goods and satisfactions, which seem to be calculated to render man perfectly happy, be united together in that condition ; if he that is placed in that post, be left without diversion and amusement, and if you leave him likewise to reflect upon what he is; this languid felicity will not be capable of keeping up his spirits ; he will fall upon the torturing thoughts of futurity, and if his mind be not taken up with some external thing, from that moment, I pledge myself, he is necessarily unhappy. Is not the royal or imperial dignity of itself great enough to constitute him happy, who possesses it? Will it be necessary to divert him like the rabble from the thought of his exalted situation? I am aware that, what renders a man happy, is to withdraw him from the sight of his domestic miseries, in order to fill his mind with the concern to dance well ; but will this likwise be the case with a sovereign ? And will he be more happy, in at- taching himself to such insignificant vanities and trifles, than at the sight of his greatness ? What more satisfactory object could be held out to his mind ? Would it not be to disturb his joy, to occupy his mind, in adapting his steps' to the beating of an arietta, and striking a ball with address instead of letting; him enjoy in peace the glory and majesty that surrounds him ? Let the trial be made, let a king be left alone without any gratification of the senses, without any chagrin in his mind, without company, leave him all the leisure to think on himself, and to occupy all the activity of his mind in this thought, and it will be found that even a king is a man full of misery and that he feels it as much as any other man. Hence it is, that so many persons take pleasure in games, h,u.n,tin§ ? and other pastimes, which occupy their whole soul : not, indeed. 75 SECTION XII. XXXIX. Reflection is natural to man, and it is one oi ihose sublime prerogatives, which embellish and distinguish him from the rest of the sublunary creation. Man thinks, and he is naturally led to reflect, on all the creatures that surround him, on all beings, on which his senses can any- wise grasp, he feels himself naturally impelled, to search after, to see, to observe and examine every thing that is upon earth or in heaven, even the immensity of space, as far as the ac- tivity of his mind can possibly extend. Man wishes to see every thing, to undertake every thing, to know every thing : but man wishes to see every thing, except himself, to observe every thing, except his ozonnature ,"wishes to know every thing, except his own heart. Man is delighted and takes pleasure at every sight, at every discovery, at every outward observation: but as to himself, he hates even to behold himself. Such a truth, to be discovered, does not stand in need of reasoning. It is enough to observe man, and to observe him even super- ficially, in order not to be able to doubt of it. Present man with the most frivolous object of diversion or entertainment, with an object which can draw him from the consideration of himself, and behold ! how he is taken with it, how he rivets himself to it, how he is lost in it ! Again, present him to him- self, and behold ! How he is disconcerted, how he turns himself every way, how he is wearied ! Is not this the voice of nature, an undeniable sentiment of his misery ? He cannot bear to behold himself, because when he views himself, he does not find himself conformable to that innate idea of order which he carries within himself indelibly impressed on his as if, in fact, there were any felicity in what one may gain at such gan.es, nov as if any one were to imagine, that there is any true happiness in what is at stake ; no, if such a thing were advanced, it would immediately be re- futed and gainsayed : men love bustle, tumult, distraction, because it keeps fhern from reflecting on themselves; but this kind of diversion would be, assuredly, incapable of occupying the mind of man, if he had not lost the sentiment and taste of the true and real good, and if he were not full of basc» 'jess, Tanity, and levity." 76 soul. Is it not a fact, that he feels disgusted at' discordant music ? Is it not likewise true that every deformed object, every object out of all proportion, causes in him such a dis- agreeable sensation, that it makes him turn aside with horror and shut his eyes ? Thus he hates to see himself, he flies from seeing himself more than from hearing the most disagreeable cacophony, more than from looking at any object however ugly, deformed, and disproportioned it may be : why so ? Be- cause his nature is more deranged, more disproportioned, more discordant, and more out of order, than any other dis- cordance, disproportion, or deformity. Let us take things rightly, I repeat it, that man recoils with horror from behold- ing himself, for no other reason, but because he cannot bear the sight of his own miseries. Let us dive into the matter, and we shall find that this is his only motive, and that man, properly speaking, feels no abhorrence to see himself, but to see himself such as he is : miserable and unhappy. — Get this man to contemplate those traits of beauty, which make known to him his greatness and sovereignty over other creatures, make him sensible of the elevation, of the penetration and the strength of that being, that is thinking within him, show him that he is the most astonishing work of the Supreme Creator, and that his soul is designed not only to have the sway over many creatures, but moreover, that it is superior, by its very nature, to the whole material universe : tell him that he was immediately created by God, and that the same God pre- serves and protects him as his darling, as the object of his tender love and complacency, tell him, in fine, that he is and shall always be immortal, and you will see that man pay the greatest attention, you will see him delighted, interrogating himself and full of interest. But when you come to leave him alone amidst darkness and confusion, when you cause him to feel the state of his degradation, it is then, you will read in his countenance a certain ennui, a weariness, a dejection, and you will see him looking out for diversion to rid himself of so disagreeable an impression : he is, therefore, miserable and if there were no other proof to show his miseries, this 77 very unnatural alienation from himself, this secret abhor- rence he experiences at seeing himself, would be an argu- ment sufficiently strong, a too sincere and too convincing a voiee, that he is miserable, naturally disordered, and unhappy. SECTION XIII. XL. Conclusion. From this general inclination to vanity, perceivable in all men, and from the general want of reflection on the state of their nature, from the abhorrence they have, and which is so natural to them all, to view themselves and their interior, we, by our observations, have been led to deduce their mise- ry. Man, therefore, is miserable, and such he is proved to be, not by certain strained exaggerations, which might be attribut- ed to some sad or melancholy humour, or by some trifling de- tails of his extrinsic evils, which, at times, either are not real, or may be avoided ; but, by the very nature of the spirit that is in man, and which, whilst it abhors the view of itself, knows and discovers itself to be void of real good, and full of misery and vanity. Any man, that is gifted with a sufficient penetra- tion, feels thoroughly the whole strength and weight of such a demonstration ; but we cannot say as much of so many other men, who do not possess such an extent of understanding, nor so refined a taste. Shall we say to these, and, by making a new effort, prove to them, that man is miserable ? They would not understand us, they would not feel the force of our demon- strations. Shall we then be under the necessity of causing that long train of intrinsic evils, which infest the very essence of human nature, that natural ignorance, that torpor, that effer- vescence and impetuosity of those unbridled passions, those interior conflicts and contradictions, that strong tendency to vice, and that abhorrence from virtue, to pass in review before them? Shall we be obliged to display before them the evils which surround them, plagues, famine, war, earthquakes, burnings, and tempests; those painful sensations to which, in such a variety of ways their bo Jy is subject, and so many other, 78 and so great evils ; so many and so great dangers? This would be a very long way, and would be, in part at least, superflu- ous for those who are already convinced by the above demon- strations, and irksome to all, because this would be treating of evils, which men in general experience, which they would wish not to experience, or which, at least, they would wish not to know that they Buffer. Let us, therefore, accommodate our- selves both to the one and to the other ; let us strike out a middle road, and let us try to make them feel, as it were, with their hands, the unhappiness of all men. XLT. We shall single out, from the numberless evils that afflict all mankind, only one, but one that is great, that is ge- neral and common to all, and that is inevitable; which, because great, is of itself alone sufficient to lay open to view the de- gradation, the misery of man, and which, because general and common to all, will admit of no exception, and which, in fine, because inevitable, will teach us, that man is not only misera- ble, but that he is so by nature, because he is, in no manner whatever, able to escape his miseries. This great evil con- sists in the necessity of the right of property ; that is to say, of ihemine and thine, those cold words which, according to the say- ing of St. John Chrysostom,* cause to rush in upon the world, all the evils that afflict it. If we show that this evil is truly great, truly general, truly real, and, if we make it appear, that, in order to take away this evil from the world, it would be ab- solutely necessary to change the very nature of man, then we shall have demonstrated that man is miserable, and miserable by nature.! * In Oratione de S. Philog. torn. 3. + In order to leave no manner of doubt of our sentiments on a subject, which, at this day, justly demands a very great circumspection, I thought proper to forewarn my readers to this effect, that, whilst I am about to treat of the goods of fortune, he may not begin to think, that I have a mind to destroy those natural rights, which, in the present state of man, must be considered as sacred, inviolable, and necessary, as sanctioned, too, by Almighty God, in a particu- lar manner, from those words of the Decalogue, " furtum non facies," " thon shalt not steal." I shall make it appear, it is true, that, according to the exigency in the orignal state of man, property is against the right, which na- l u're gives to every man ; that the said property is the sole and only true source 79 SECTION XIV. X'LII. Man is out of his true and natural state* Does not the dignity of man, bis dominion over the earth, his sovereignty over all terrestrial and inferior creatures, a sovereignty of all others the most natural, the most worthy, and the most deserved, belong to man by nature, and precisely because he is man, and for no other reason but because he is man ? If this be the case, then every man is, by na- ture, born the sovereign of innumerable inferior beings which surround him. Every man was invested by the com- mon Creator with this most honourable and useful sovereign- ty, and every man has a right to the homage and services of those creatures that are placed below him. But if the extent and right to this natural sovereignty does belong to man, for no other reason but because he is man, then the extent and right to this sovereignty belongs, and is equally due, to all men. Therefore, all men are actually and in reality so many equal sovereigns, established to preside and rule equally and indifferently over the inferior creation.* Behold a truth, which opens to our eyes a scene trul x tensive, truly charming, and truly new ! Behold a truth, r I :h displays a perspective, that raises, that enlivens, that asto- nishes our mind ! But if all men be equally sovereigns and lords over the in- ferior creatures, then all men have an equal right to the ser- »f almost ali those evils, which constitute the unhappy lot of allmai I shall likewise show, that this great evil is without remedy, because it origi- nates in a disorder that is intrinsic to man. I shall prove that, to take away the right of property in the goods of fortune, would be the baneful source of evils infinitely greater, of evils almost incalculable : it would be the utter destruction of society, and would totally overturn all order, and the politico-moral state of man. This necessary forewarning, which will not stop my readers at the fol- lowing paragraphs, will set the rectitude of my intentions beyond the possibil- ity of a doubt or suspicion. * " And he [God] said: Let us make man to our image and likeness : and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the lo Is ol the air, and the jjeasts, and the whole earth, and ei dog creature that moves upon the earth " Genesis, i. 26. CO vices of them, an incontestable right, founded on their very nature, a right of which they cannot be deprived by any one, except that Supreme Being that has bestowed it upon them. Such a truth, which awakens man from bis lethargy, and which equalises the slave in chains to the proud and triumphant ty- rant upon the throne, directly leads to an equal participation of the fruits of the goods of fortune, which are nothing else but the services of inferior creatures. This equal distribution of the services of inferior creatures, not only because it is con- formable to the fulness of the rights of man, but also because it establishes all mankind in a kind of natural and becoming felicity ; this equal distribution, I say, is according to the na- tural exigency of man ; for man was assuredly Created and es- tablished in the fulness of his rights, and in a state of natural and competent felicity. But if this equal distribution of the •ervices of the inferior creatures be according to the natural exigency, or, what is tantamount, be the true and natural state of man, and if men neither do nor can enjoy, (as we shall see,) at present, this equal distribution, men, therefore, are not, at present, according to their natural exigency, or, what is the same, they are not in their true natural state, to which the Author of Nature raised them. That state which places men under a true and real impo- tency to enjoy, in all their extent, those rights which belong to men as men, is not the true and natural state of man. But the state which excludes an equal distribution of the services of the inferior creatures, or an equivalent to that dis- tribution, puts man under a true and real impotency of enjoy- ing, in their full extent, those rights which were given to him as man. Therefore, the state which excludes an equal distribution of the services of inferior creatures, or an equivalent to the same distribution, is not the true and natural state of man. Again, a state which does not establish man in a certain na- tural felicity, is not the true and natural state of man. But the state, which does not admit of an equal distribution of the services of the inferior creatures, or of an equivalent 81 to the same, does not establish man in a certain natural felici- ty, as far as it is attainable upon earth. Therefore, this state is not the true and natural state of man. Now I ask you, is man in that state, in which he ought naturally to be ? Or, is he in his true and natural state? Let us observe, for a moment, the political, the moral order of men. I see that many have raised themselves above great num- bers of their fellow-creatures, and that they arrogate to themselves a true and exclusive dominion over the inferior creatures. That is mine, say some, pointing out immense quantities of grain, and stock : the services of all these creatures, says another, belong to me only ; these forests are mine, and no man besides me has a right to the crop of those fields. On the other hand, I find almost a countless multitude of men, who have neither woods nor fields ; who see them- selves reduced to drag out their lives amidst want, privations, and distress, and to humble themselves before others, to beg, to work hard, and to run eternally after those who enjoy do- minion over the inferior creatures, and who proudly rule the earth. This is the state, in which all mankind are really placed ; but this state does not admit of an equal distribution of the services of the inferior creatures, therefore, man is not in his true and natural state. If, by an hypothesis only abstractedly considered, a beggar were to reclaim his natural and primitive rights, and were to maintain, that he has as much claim to the services of subor- dinate creatures, as the rest of mankind, he would establish his cause upon the ground that his nature is in nowise differ- ent from that of all other men. The rich and the possessor, might, indeed, answer, that th*'se possessions and this produce of their lauds, are the price of the sweat and industry of their ancestors, and that the forefathers of those, who arc now deprived of them, had to- No. IK H 82 (ally relinquished all their rights, and that, of course, they lawfully hold possession. But, to tell the truth, if the matter be considered in its ori- gin and in itself, (prescinding always, as above observed, from the actual state of man,) we shall find, that justice and right would manifestly be in favour of the beggar, for he might re- ply to the rich possessor, From whom did you get the pro- prietorship of these possessions ? From my ancestors. But who were these your ancestors ? They were men. But man was not placed upon earth to be the lord thereof, but for the time only he was to live upon it ; how then could they who had but the ususfmctus, transmit to you a right of property which they had not ? This was done by a reciprocal agree- ment among men. But who made such an agreement ? Our forefathers. And how could they make it? How could they deprive their descendants of a right which belongs to them as men ? Or were the first men, indeed, designed to be the perpetual lords of the earth ? I do not see that the Sjoreme Being and Creator has anywise distinguished the first from the last ; therefore, I repeat it, reason would seem to be on the side of the poor, and the right of property in the goods of fortune against the natural and primeval rights of man. SECTION XV. XLIII. Continuation. Let us continue our observations, and for a moment inves- tigate the effects produced by this disorderly and unjust right of property in the politico-moral state of man. Here, then, we have arrived at a multitude of combinations, at an exten- sive and deep investigation of numerous experimental truths. What do we discover ? What benefit does this right of ex- clusive property bring to mankind ? Does it even render one part of men happy ? I evidently perceive, I experimentally understand, that this system of exclusive property is the occa- sion and baneful cause of almost all the evils, which afflict mankind. Let us penetrate to the very bottom of things, and not stop at their surface. Whence originate cabals, in- trigues, frauds, deceits, enmities, hatreds, strifes, murders ?* From what source do fears, pretensions, wars, and so ma- ny other evils spring, which render mankind miserable and unhappy at all times, in all places, in all situations ? Most unquestionably, for the most part, from this system of the right of property in the goods of fortune. Men hope, fear, flatter, hate, mistrust, intrigue, quarrel, kill, wage war, for no other purpose, but to add a trifle to their pro- perty, and to raise themselves a little higher above other men. This man has one means, that man has another ; this one makes use of this pretext, that of another; this one hides his covetousness, and that one shows it openly ; and in the in- terim they injure each other, supplant each other, and run all headlong to the same end, which all cannot possibly ob- tain, and which, finally, renders them all miserable and un- happy ; thoi-e, because they have not compassed it, and these, because they have. SECTION xvi. XLIV. The conclusion is, that man is out of his true and natural state. We have viewed the true and real state of the politico-moral order of men. What is it but a prospect of injustice, of confu- sion, of disorder, of misery ; a prospect which opens to our view the blindness, the wanderings, and the universal corruption of mankind. If, therefore, we have found men in a state, which *" From whence are wars and contentions among you ? Come they no 1 bence ? From your concupiscences, which war in your members ? You covet, and have not: you kill, and envy, and cannot obtain : you contend and war : and you have not.' 1 St, James, iv. ] 84 excludes an equal partition of the services of the inferior creatures of the world, or an equivalent of this partition, we have, therefore, not found them in their true and natural state, because we have not found them in the possession of their rights. If we have found men in a state which does not establish them in a kind of natural felicity, we have not discovered them in their true ai.d natural state, because we have not found them as happy as they naturally ought to be. Nay, if we have found them in a state opposite to that equal partition of the services of the inferior creatures, or to an equivalent of such an equal partition ; if we have found them in a state of misery and trouble, far distant from, and opposite to, that na- tural felicity which is due to them, we have consequently found them in a state far distant from, and opposite to, their competent and natural state, and, of course, out of their pro- per order, out of their natural collocation, in a state of injus- tice, of ignorance, of ruin, and of misery. SECTION XVII. XLV. Man, even if he wished, cannot return to his true and natural state. Since all men are so wretched, and since the great mass of their miseries is occasioned by this system of exclusive pro- perty, it seems to me I hear them say, why do you not, ye sovereigns of the world, ye philosophers of the earth, unite to find out means of banishing this ill-fated property, and of restoring all men to that equality, which naturally is due to them ?* * We are here speaking of an equality of the fruits of the goods, called the £,oods of fortune, or of the services of inferior creatures, but, by no means, of an equality, which takes away all dependence and subordination The true unci natural stute of man, which requires, tlnzt ull men should, according 8.5 Why do you not raise your voice, employ your reason and your force, to regenerate entirely all mankind ? Was there ever a project formed more useful, more just, more glorious ? Jt is perhaps impossible, but how impossible!* Let us suppose, for a moment, that all men, some by threats) some by reasoning, others again by force, be finally prevailed wpon to return to their true natural state : behold then all men equally receiving the homage of the inferior creatures, and congratulating each other on their common sovereignty. Meadows, fields, fisheries, animals, &c. no longer belong to one man only, but to the whole society at large ; behold beg- gary and superfluity at last banished, and all men placed under a system of reciprocal assistance, of concord, of love, and of peace ! What a beautiful prospect ! But what! Is it not true, that all individuals are bound to contribute honestly, and as far as they are able, to the general good of society, and to the particular welfare of their own department ? But what is the reason, that in this system, that judge, who is charg- ed to watch over the good order of the community, is softly prolonging his sleep more than his office will allow, and more than he was used to do before ? What is the reason that that husbandman, that farmer, or planter, who had an hundred eyes, and an hundred hands, to gather the harvest, and is now in the same line of business, yawning all the day, loitering away his time in idleness, and seemingly unwilling to put his hands to any thing ? The reason is manifestly this, because to their wants and employments in society, equally enjoy the services of the inferior creatures, requires likewise that, among them, as social heings, there should reign proper order and reciprocal dependence, without which, it does not seem possible, that any society whatever could subsist. * We shall not find, at any lime, in all the revolutions of states, in all the most terrible popular seditions, that any one in his senses ever attempted 01 prjjected to abolish the right of property, because every one is sensible oi the impossibility of such a project. Let us not confound matters. I'lie Agrarian laws, which were once projected, but not executed, subdivided the pi iperty, but did not annul or abrogate its claims. 80 the judge, in the former system, hoped to advance and in- crease his own property, through the applause of his fellow- men, and to live with more comfort than others; but now he i^ satisfied with saving appearances, because he is sensible that his comforts will increase but little or not at all, whether he fully discharge his duty or not; because the comforts, which he now enjoys, he enjoys for the most part, because he is man, not because he is judge. And that husbandman, who formerly was so busy and so indefatigable, when he was supported by the hope of procuring a better livelihood for his family, and of increasing his own substance above his neighbours, deems it now enough for him to save appearances, because he is aware that, if he can make it appear to the community that he does what he is absolutely bound to do, the mediocrity of his plea- sures, and of his comforts, will not be curtailed. But the judge is much concerned that the cultivator should do his duty, in order to enjoy more abundantly the fruits that are collected in the society, and the cultivator of lands is not less concerned, that the judge should fully comply with his charge, in order that, in proper time and place, he may re- ceive that portion of emoluments, that falls to his lot in the society. But neither the one, nor the other, w r ould wish to do his own duty ; and, if they do it in part, they do it against their will : they set about it for form sake, but they do not feel a strong inclination to do it. But the principle of duty, that principle which should govern all rational beings ? The principle of duty has scarcely any influence whatever on the heart of man : the law of personal interest is what rules him, what masters him. But how does it come to pass, that the principle of duty has scarcely any power on the heart of man, and that the law of personal interest governs and masters him altogether? This is a subversion of natural order ; but, pray, let us not lose sight of our survey. What do we behold ? We behold, that most men reciprocally act, as we have seen the above judge and husbandman act: In a word, they would wish that 87 ftvery body else should do his duty, because they feel in- terested that this should he so, but they do not wish to com- ply with their own, because they find no interest in complying with it ? What is the result of this ? The result ? — I see that, by- little and little every one retires — society is disbanded — and men have again returned to their former state, to a state of personal and exclusive property, to a state of corruption and misery ; therefore there is no medium, no remedy : man is necessarily and naturally miserable. But why is he thus mise- rable ? The reason of it is, because he cannot remain in the felicity of his true and natural state. But w r hy can he not remain in the felicity of his true and natural state ? Because the law of personal interest, contrary to all order, domineers in his heart, over the rule of duty ; because man is cor- rupted and disordered, and it is, precisely, because he is cor- rupted and disordered, that he cannot remain in his true and natural slate, and he is, of course, by necessity, in the midst of misery and degradation, of injustice and oppression. All the systems of philosophers, all the efforts of the united sovereigns of the earth, in fine, the unanimous consent of mankind, will never be able to re-cstabiish and consolidate all men in their true natural state, or even in a due state of fe j licit). We have, moreover, seen, that in the present hypothesis however this system of the right of property be contrary to the natural state of men, still it cannot, in any manner whatever. be abolished, and if men were to attempt to abrogate it, the evils, that would thence ensue, would be incomparably greater than those which it produces, and, of course, it is needful to make use of it as a necessary preservative against an infinity of mise- ries, the first of which would be a total dissolution of society: but from this it does not follow, that it is not an evil, and an evil the more sensibly felt, because unavoidable. The only means of establishing mankind in their primitive order, would be to prevent the law of personal interest from prevailing over the rub' of duty .and to cause the file of duty to SB be in unison with the law of personal interest. They should naturally support each other after such a manner, that every duty of man should always terminate in the evident interest of the same man, and every interest of man should terminate in the performance of his duty. Then all mankind would happily move in their true and natural state : but to re-esta- blish such an equilibrium is impossible, except to Him alone, who can change the heart of man and regenerate it. This disorder, this inward corruption is, therefore, the sole reason of the greatest part of the miseries of man. [To be continued.] UNITARIANISM PHILOSOPHICALLY AND THEOLOGICALLY EXAMINED No. III. SUBJECT CONTINUED. Section xvnr. XLV. What has brought this great evil on Mankind.' I reflect, whence so great a corruption, such a dismal disorder, so universal and total a derangement should have come upon all mankind ; but I find nothing positive that can tranquilize and satisfy my mind. One thing I clearly un- derstand, and it is this : that I have not assuredly received this corruption, this ruin from my Creator, from God ; first, be- cause I clearly perceive the basis of that happy, true, and na- tural state, which is proper to man, and which nature does not cease, although in vain, to reclaim and to point out ; and next, because it is evidently repugnant, that rational beings created by God, should have received from the same God an intrinsic corruption and perverseness, which, besides its being contrary to order, vilifies man, degrades him, and withdraws him from God, and makes him, in a certain measure, opposed to God, and contrary to the essential perfection of God. But if it be not from God, I cannot conceive, how a created being of a different nature can act upon another external independent being, and thus ruin the work of the Supreme Creator; or next, why the disastrous consequences ought not rather to fall back upon the mischievous corruptor than upon innocent man. I cannot, I say, reconcile these things ; and much less can I reconcile the justice and providence of a Supreme God with the innoccncy and misery of man. No. III. n 90 God, provident and just, and man, miserable and innocent : these two ideas cannot stand together, they evidently con- tradict each other. It is certainly clearer than noon-day, that God rules and governs all his creatures with an admirable providence ; it is clear likewise, that God, the uncreated justice itself, can neither intend nor permit, such afflictions and penalties to befal his creatures, as are inevitable and con-natural to them, when those creatures are innocent. It is proved, to a demonstration, that man is necessarily and inevitably in the midst of troubles, of labours, of miseries ; it is, therefore, likewise certain and self-evident, that man is not innocent. But how ! Man not innocent ? Behold here another rock ! Man is corrupted ; and, precisely because he is corrupted^ on account of that corruption, as we have seen, he is miserable. He, therefore, is not innocent, in this his corruption ; he, therefore, must have had no hand in that natural disorder, in that inward derangement of himself; but I know, for certain, that I have not, in any wise, contributed to this my corruption ; and I know, too, that I have brought this corruption, and the penalty and chastisement of it, together with my existence into this world : how, then, am I, how are all other men, guilty of this corruption ? Every action necessarily supposes an agent. If, therefore, I — if all other men, my fellow-creatures, did not existprior to this general and individual corruption, how is it possible that we should have concurred in it ? How, then, does it come, that man is not innocent? XLVI. I well perceive, that a state of the pre-existence of our souls, before our bodies may be supposed, it might perhaps be said, that, in such a state, our souls had lost their innocence, and concurred to their natural ruin.* But besides the con* * So thought many ancient philosophers, and, generally, all those of the Platonic and Pythagorean sects. They, penetrating to the inmost recess of human nature by dint of their deep meditations, and clearly discovering that man was not such as he ought to be, could not extricate themselves in any other way, than by forming and maintaining the above supposition. St. Aug. &c. 91 sideration that the hypothesis is hut a mere gratuitous suppo- sition, I conceive it to be very improbable ; because, it seems to me altogether impossible, that all these souls, without ex- cepting a single one, should have lost their innocence, and should have co-operated towards the intrinsic ruin of all man- kind, and that not only all should have lost their innocence, and concurred to that common ruin, but that all should have lost it, and that all should have co-operated towards it, in the same degree, and after the same manner, because it is obvious, that all men, of all ages, of all nations, and of all climes, are born substantially the same, with the same tendencies, with the same passions, with the same corruption. How, then, and after what manner, does it come to pass, that man is not in- nocent ? I know not : every thing presents itself wrapt up in an impenetrable obscurity, my ideas are bewildered and con- founded. I, therefore, raise my voice and exclaim : man is not inno- cent ! How was thy work spoiled, O ! Lord ? What share had I in my corruption ? When did I lose my innocence ? Is there any remedy for me ? What shall become of me ? Of whom shall I ask the unravelling of mysteries so obscure, so impor- tant, so decisive of my eternal lot ? Nature is silent, and I find myself in obscurity and confusion. But whilst thus surrounded on all sides with awful darkness, a divine ray, suddenly breaking through the dark cloud, beams down upon my depressed soul, and informs me, that it is reve- st. Augustin thus relates their opinion : (Lib. 4, contra Julian, cap. ult.) " Hujus evidentia niiserice, Gentium philosophos, nihil de peccato piimi hominis sive scientes, sive credentes, compulit dicere, ob aliqua scelera suscepta in vita superiore poenarum luendarum causa nos esse natos, et animos nostros corrupti- bilibus corporibus, eo supplicio, quo Hetrusci proedones captos arfligere consu- everant, tanquam vivos cum rnortuis esse conjunctos." '* The sight of this undeniable misery of man, brought the Gentile philoso- phers, who were either ignorant of the sin of the first man, or who believed nothing of it, to say, that we are born for the purpose of atoning for the crimes committed in a former life, and that our souls are united to corruptible bodies, and thus are punished with nearly the same kind of chastisement, as the He- :rusians were used to inflict on hi»hway-men, in tying them alive to dead ho. 92 lation only that can furnish men with the clue to this mystery ; a mystery, the existence of which, reason alone, manifested by divine revelation, as we have seen hitherto, establishes nearly beyond the possibility of a doubt, but the develop- ment of which is reserved to the religion of Jesus Christ only : reason proves, I might almost say, to a demonstration, that man is not such as he was created ; that he is not such as he ought to be ; that he is not in his true and primitive - state ; and, what is still more, that he cannot possibly return to it 5 that he is miserable and necessarily, and inevitably miserable, and that, of course, his nature has been disordered, spoiled, and corrupted. Revelation steps in, and, favouring us with a light, which in vain we expected to derive from nature, clear- ly points out to us, after what manner this universal disorder, the source of all our evils, was brought upon the unhappy children of Adam. " Wherefore, (says she by the mouth of the Apostle,) as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death : and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned." St. Paul, Epist. ad Rom. cap. 5, v. 12. XLVII. General objection against the above dissertation, deriv- ed from the possibility of the state of pure nature. I see not what can be objected against the above disserta- tion, except it be, that, from the mode of reasoning, which runs through the whole, there would follow too much, and, of course, according to the maxims of the schools, nothing : for the preceding observations might seem to show, that, what is called by divines, the state of pure nature, that is to say, that state in which men would not have been elevated to a super- natural end or felicity, is impossible, and that God could not have created man such as he is at present. This objection, however plausible it might appear at first sight, will dwindle away by the following explanatory remarks : 1st. Therefore, we maintain, that, from the preceding mode of reasoning, it can, by no means, be inferred, that God could not have created man in the state of pure nature, and that it is so far from our intention to deny the possibility of that state, 93 vhat, on the contrary, we solemnly make profession of believ- ing, that the present elevation of human nature, to a superna- tural destination, to the possession of God by the beatific, vision, was no wise due to human nature, and that it must be consi- dered as a special and gratuitous benefit of the divine bounty, not as a natural appendage due to the exigency of the nature of man ; accordingly, we most readily believe and grant, that God, instead of creating man immortal, and exempt from miseries, such as he created Adam, might have created him subject to death and to the other miseries of this life ; nay, we go still farther, and sincerely declare it to be our firm impres- sion, that we do not conceive it to be, absolutely speaking, re- pugnant to the perfections of God, even to create man subject, in some degree, to rebellious concupiscence, which the creator might permit in the nature of man, for the wise purpose of affording him an opportunity of increasing his merit ; but what we deny with the best philosophers and divines, and what sound reason itself denies, as appears from the above discus- sion, is this : that God, consistently, not only with his absolute power, but also with his infinite wisdom, goodness, and sanc- tity, could have created man, such as he is now, viz : not onlv subject to death and to the other evils of this world, but also and chiefly such as he ought not to be, and in a manner opposite to what he ought to be, that is to say : with such a mass of mo- ral corruption and disorder, as he brings with him into the world, with such a violent inclination to evil, and such an utter abhorrence from the practice of virtue ; with such a furious re- bellion of the flesh, which, as the Apostle laments, (Epist. ad Rom. 7, v. 7,) drags him, as it were by force, to do the evil which he would not wish to do, and not to do the good which he would wish to do. With such a contradiction to himself, with such an opposition to his last end, in fine, with such a mass of intrinsic corruption, man, we think, could not come from (he hands of that Supreme Creator, who is wisdom, sanc- ty, and purity itself.* *The degradation of man is more strikingly discoverable in such as are de- prived of tin- 1 ighl of religion, audits salutary lessons. In the savages, ' '•■ 94 ORIGINAL SIN (continued.) Its yccf xudxpos ecrrxi azjo gvzsu ; aXX'«0«s-, Eav Kj (jlix ■nfj.t^ac o 0ios avtc £ct< ms y*s. Job, ch. xiv. ver. 4, 5. For who shall be free from filth ? Not one, indeed, even should his life be but one day upon the earth. SECTION I. XLVIII. Original Sin irrefragably demonstrated from Re- velation. From our preceding remarks and observations on the cor- rupted state of human nature, in which the light of reason alone was our only guide, our readers will now be able to form their judgment of the correctness of the Unitarian sys- tem, which solemnly professes not to believe " that the guilt of Adam's sin was imputed, and his corrupted nature convey- ed to all his posterity, nor that there is in men any original corruption, whereby they are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil."* In the present discussion we shall examine this important mat- ter in the sanctuary of religion, and attentively (logic always in hand,) inquire, whether the voice of revelation be not as loud in proclaiming the existence of original sin, as we have ob°crved that of sound reason to be in support of it. example, who are naturally and almost insuperably stupid and wicked. Do not children every moment give sensible marks of their natural and innate per- versity? "I have seen, says St. Augustine, a child, who could not yet talk, and who, already with a pale countenance and sparkling eyes, looked at the infant, who suckled with him at the breast. There have been children seen to die of hatred and jealousy, because they perceived the family increased by a brother or a sister. If man is born good, how did he become wicked ? By bad ex- ample, they will say, by bad education ; but this supposes the corruption already existing. In fine, look at those brutal debaucheries, those monstrous refine- ments of crime, those horrid furies followed by the waste of the body and death, &c. and you will be forced to confess, that man is not such as he ought to be, or as he came out of the hands of his creator, but such as he made himself by sin. * Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor, No. I, page 19. 95 FUNDAMENTAL DOGMA OF REVELATION. There exists an Original Sin, which is transfused by way of natural generation, from Adam into his posterity. This fundamental tenet, on which the whole system of di- vine revelation is hinged as upon its basis, is irrefragably de- monstrated, 1st, from the divine scriptures of both the old and new law ; 2d, from the authority and uniform consent of the holy fathers and ecclesiastical writers of the primitive ages of the church ; 3d, from the universality of the death of Christ for all men ; 4th, from the constant and uniform belief and practice of the church of Christ, which is evinced, 1st, from the councils which condemned the Pelagian heresy in the fourth century ; 2d, from the nature of baptism ; 3d, from the necessity of baptism ; 4th, from the ceremonies of baptism. In adducing and developing these proofs, I shall endeavour to be as brief as possible. -SECTION II. XLIX. Original Sin proved from the sacred volumes of both the Old and New Dispensation. FIRST PROOF FROM THE DIVINE SCRIPTURES. In the book of Job we read these words : " Who can make him clean, that is conceived of unclean seed ? Is it not thou who only art ?"* This text is thus rendered by the Septua- gint : " For who shall be free from filth ? Not one, indeed, even should his life be but one day upon the earth." I" The He- brew text has manifestly the same meaning with the version of the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, for thus we read in the Hebrew: "Who shall give a clean from an unclean? Not one." That is to say, not one is clean. Whence I thus argue : The holy prophet does certainly not mean to be here * " Quis potest lacere imindum, de immundo conceptutn seniine? nonne tu qui solus es?" Job, xiv. 4. T Tis yxp Kx§a.gos i~xi xtia pvvts ; *?.A' ovSaiy, F.xv xxt (mx yphet i&io; xvrov hrl rys y? y , Versio Sept. Interp. 96 understood of the bodily uncleanness of children, which can be washed away by men, but of the filthiness of sin ; not of personal sin, of which infants, from the want of the use of rea- son, are incapable, but of original sin, which filthiness God alone can cleanse ; therefore, all men are born in original sin. L. The second passage is taken from the fiftieth Psalm, (fifty-first, Protestant Bible,) 7th verse : " For behold ! I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me." The Greek text literally agrees with the Vulgate ; whence we may form this argument : the holy prophet does not assuredly speak of the sin which his parents had commit- ted in begetting him ; for David was born neither of an adul- terous connexion, nor by fornication, but in lawful and holy wedlock ; and no one, I am sure, will pretend that the right use of lawful matrimony is in any wise sinful. David, therefore, cannot be understood to allude to any sin of his parents, but to a sin which he contracted in his very conception, and which he received with his very nature. The very drift of this whole Psalm evidently shows that no other interpretation can here be admitted : for it is obvious, that the object of the prophet throughout this whole Psalm, was to allege all the motives he could find, by which he might appease his God, and incline him to have pity on him. Now, for that purpose, it is not, assuredly, the sins of his parents he ought to have recounted, but rather his own misery, and, of course, the sin in which he was conceived. Add to this, that the Hebrew text repels any interpretation, that would distort this passage from the meaning of original sin, to the sin of parents, for the Hebrew word cholalli, in the first member of the text, by no means signifies the moment of his first conception, but the formation of the body in the mother's womb, or the anima- tion of the foetus ; and it is of this vital and formal concep- tion, or what is tantamount, of the infusion of the soul into the body, David speaks, when he says, that he was conceived in iniquities. Next, the other Hebrew word, yechemathni, in the second member of the text, does not properly mean, beget, or 97 generate, but to warm, to foster, to nourish, which can only ap- ply to the action of the mother, who warms, fosters, and nou- rishes the child, after its conception. The native significa- tion of the original text forces us, therefore, to admit that David is by no means here speaking of the sins, his parents might have committed in the use of marriage, but of the sin which he contracted at the moment he began to be a man, a child of Adam; that is to say, at the moment his soul was united to his body, in which union, it is obvious, parents can have no share. To him that would feel disposed to cavil on the words, sins, iniquities, being expressed in the plural number, we would answer, that original sin, although one in its origin, is as multiplied as the children of Adam themselves are, and that that sin may be very properly called sins, iniquities, for two reasons, first, because not one only, but several sins, such as pride, infidelity, disobedience, occurred in the sin of our first parents ; and next, because this sin is the source of so many others in his descendants. In fine, the Hebrew text, at once, solves the difficulty, if there were any, by putting sin and ini- quity, in the singular number, as it appears from the inspection of the text just quoted. Secondly. Let us now open the sacred volumes of the New- Testament, and see whether the Unitarians can possibly resist that flood of light which they throw upon this important truth. Many, and most conclusive, are the testimonies which the sacred writings of the new law afford in support of original sin ; but, for brevity's sake, we shall confine ourselves exclu- sively to what the great Apostle of the Gentiles has left in his Epistle on this subject. LI. In his Epistle to the Romans, 3d chap, verse 23, he speaks thus, " For all have sinned, and do need the glory of God."* If all have sinned, infants must have assuredly sin- ned too ; but infants could not have done, by their ownphysi- * " Omnes cnim peccaverunt et egent gloria Dei, 1 ' Vulgi No. ITT. 1 3 9a cal will, any thing, either good or bad, as the same Apostle observes in his Epistle to the Romans, 9th chapter ; they must, therefore, have sinned, because they are the children of him " in whom all have sinned." Epis. ad Rom. v. LII. In the same Epistle, 5th chap, verse 12, " Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death : so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned."* — Whence I argue thus : All have sinned in one man, Adam ; therefore, also, children : not actually, of course, originally. Again : by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin, death ; and so death passed upon all men, that is to say, that sin made all men subject to death ; therefore, as children are as subject to death as other men, they have sinned with all other men in Adam ; otherwise, how could death have passed upon them, which " did not enter the world but through sin," according to the Apostle ? which is also confirmed by these other words of the Apostle, 6th chapter, verse 23, " For the wages of sin is death."! If so, then children have also sin- ned, for children also die. If they had not sinned in Adam, how could they receive the wages of sin, death ? LIII. The following passage, from the second Epistle to the Corinthians, 5th chapter, verse 14, is not less pointed: " Judging this, that if one died for all, then all were dead, and Christ died for all. "J The argument of the Apostle is this: If Christ died for all, then all were dead, and, of course, also infants ; but Christ died for all, therefore all were dead, and, consequently, infants also : but they were not dead by personal or actual sin, of which they are incapable ; there- fore, by original sin. And let no one say, that the Apostle in the above passages is speaking, not of the death of the soul, but of that of the body ; for nothing can be more contrary to the meaning of * " Propterea sicut per unum hominem peccatum in hunc roundum intravit, et per peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines mors pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt." Vulg. t " Stipendium peccati mors est." % " Quoniam si unus pro omnibus mortuus est; ergo omnes mortus sunt, et pro omnibus mortuus est Chrislus." 99 ihe Apostle, than such an arbitrary interpretation, as it will be obvious to any one that will give himself the trouble to read the whole 5th chapter of St. Paul to the Romans, quo- ted above, in which the Apostle forms a perpetual antithe- sis between the death, that passed upon all men by the disobe- dience of Adam, and the life, which men receive through the obedience of Christ; as, therefore, the life, which is through Christ, chiefly and directly relates to the life of the soul, or to sanctifying grace, so likewise that death, which is through Adam, chiefly and principally regards the death of the soul, that is to say, sin. L1V. The last quotation I shall adduce, is from the Epis- tie to the Ephesians, 2d chapter, 3d verse : " We were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest."* Why, by nature children of wrath, but because from our very birth, or from the nature of our first parents, defiled by sin, we contract the guilt of 6in, by which we become subject to the divine wrath ? SECTION III. LV. Original Sin evinced from the authority and uniform consent of the Holy Fathers, and other ecclesiastical writers of the primitive ages of the Church. The following testimonies are extracted from such fathers as have flourished before the rise of the Pelagian heresy, which denied original sin, and which Unitarianism, in these and other particulars, revives. They exhibit, therefore, the undeniable evidences of the faith in the primitive ages of Christianity. St. Justin Dialog, cum Tryph. post med. " We know that it was not, because Christ stood in need of baptism, or of the spirit which descended in the figure of a dove, that he came to the waters of the Jordan. Nor did he suffer himself to be born and crucified, because it was necessary for himself ; but it *"Eramui natirra filii ir», sicut et cceteri." a oo was for the human race, who, by Adam, had fallen into death, and the stratagem of the serpent, and who act wickedly by their own individual guilt."* St. Irenaeus, in his fifth book against heresies, 19th chapter, has these words : " He (Christ,) has destroyed the handwri- ting, our debts, hanging it upon the cross, in order that, as it was by the wood, we have been made debtors to God, by the wood likewise we may receive the remission of the debt."t Tertullian, another learned father of the second century, expresses himself thus : " Every soul is reckoned to be in Adam, as long as it is not enrolled in Christ ; as long unclean as it is not enrolled: and a sinner, because defiled. "J St. Cyprian, the learned and eloquent Bishop of Carthage, and martyr, who illustrated the Church in the third century, writes thus, in his 59th Epistle to Fidus : " An infant newly born is guilty of no other sin, except that being born accord- ing to Adam, by way of natural generation, it has, from its very first birth, contracted the contagion of the ancient death. "§ St. Hilary, in the fourth century, writes thus of David, in his explanation of the 118th Psalm: "He (David,) knows that he was born under the origin of sin, and under the law of sin."|| St. Ambrose, in his Apology of David, or writing on the 50lh Psalm, is not less explicit : " Before we are born," says * Kxi ay^ us t y^sx acvrov rn fix-BrtaQyvxt, y ra ecteXSovtoj tv ei^ti trtftars^xs 7rviv(j.a,ros, ot^xfx.ty xvrov t\y\v6svxi tzrt Toy zjorx(A.oy wszjtg u$e to ytyrnQyvxt xvrov vy arxvgvOyvxi, us ey^jijs Tovruy^VKtyuHyty, aXVf «7£f t« ycyvs t« ruv xy9punjuy, azjo t» aS«/a vao (Ixvxroy kxi zrXxvnv ryvru otytus iZJtzyrwH.il zjxfx t»)v ioixv xi^txv snxcrru uvrtuy ■ETov^svtja/xEve. i " Delevit, chirographum debita nostra, affigens illud cruci, ut quemad jnodum per lignum fdcti sumus debitores Deo, per lignum accipiamus debit! remissionem." J " Omnis anima eousque in Adam censetur, donnec in Christo recenseatur : tamdiu immunda, quamdiu recenseatur : peccatrix autem, quia iminunda." } " Infans recens natus nihil peccavit, nisi quod secundum Adam carnaliter natus, contagionem mortis antiquae prima nativitatecontraxit." fj "Scit se sub peccati origine et subpeccati lege es^p nantni.** 101 he, " we are already defiled by contagion, and before we re* ceive the benefit of the light, we receive already the injury of our origin ; we are conceived in iniquity."* St. Gregory Nazianzen shall close the list of the holy fa- thers, with what he says in his third Oration on Peace : " I, the whole man, have fallen, and have been condemned by the disobedience of the first man, and by the artifice of the ser- pent." Passages similar to these will be found in St. Athana- sius's Sermon on the text, " All thbigs are given over to me ;" in St. Basil's Homily on Fast, and in his Exposition of the 32d Psalm ; in St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, 1 1 Catech. in St. Siricius, 1 Epist. ad Himerium, 2d chapter ; in St. Jerome's Comm. in cap. 6, Oseae ; in St. Chrysostom, Homily ad Neo- phytos, &c. &c. It is then with much reason, St. Augustin, the scourge of the Pelagians, has written, (lib. 3. de peccat. meritis et remiss, cap. 6.) "This, and nothing else, (on origi- nal sin,) since the church of Christ has been established, has been written by those that explained the divine Scriptures ; this and nothing else have they received from their ancestors ; this and nothing else have they left to their posterity. "j: SECTION IV, LVI. If the fathers of the primitive ages are unanimous in attesting the uniform and constant doctrine of the Church on original sin, the same tenet is not lessirrefragably attested by the decrees of holy Pontiffs, and of the Councils held in the four first ages, which were issued against the impugners of original sin. The Pelagian error was proscribed by St. Inno- * " Antequam nascamur, maculamur contagio: et ante usuram lucis, origi- tf is ipsius excipimus injuriam, in iniquitate concipimur." X " Non aliud, ex quo Christi Ecclesia constituta est, divinarum scripturaruni »ractatores scripserunt, non alind a majoribus accepetunt, non aliud posteris radiderunt." 102 centius I. in his Epistle to the Fathers of the Councils of Carthage and Milevis ; by St. Zosimus, in his Epistle to the Bishops of the whole world a fragment of which is extant in St. Augustine's 190 Epistle to Optatus, cap. 6, num. 23; in St. Prosper, lib. contra collatorem, cap. 5 ad Nicetam Aquileensem ; by St. Gregory the Great, lib. 7, Epist. 53, ad Secundinum. The constant and universal belief of the primitive church with regard to original Sin, is likewise incontestably evinced by numbers of councils, in which the dogma of original Sin was confirmed, and the contrary error condemned : this was done in the Synod of Palestine, and in that of Diospolis, in which Pelagi us at least outwardly abjured his errors; in the council of Carthage, composed of sixty-eight Bishops, in the year of our Lord 416 : in that of Milevis, by sixty-one Bi- shops ; in that of Constantinople, under Atticus ; in that of Antioch, under Theodotus, Bishop of the same city ; in the numerous council of Carthage, under Aurelius, consisting of two hundred and seventeen Bishops, A.D. 418 ; in the Oecu- menic council of Ephesus, A. D. 431 ; in the sixth council of Toleto, Can. 1 ; in the second council of Orange, Can. 2. He that may feel an interest in seeing the very texts and for- mal decisions of the said councils, is referred to the second dissertation of John Garner, on the councils held in the cause of the Pelagians, during the lifetime of St. Augustine: he may, in like manner, satisfy his curiosity, by consulting the collection of the councils, by F. F. Harduin, or Labbe. SECTION V. LVII. The doctrine of Original Sin proved by the universality of the death of Christ for all men. Christ is the Redeemer and Saviour of all men, also of children. This proposition is clearly deduced from the 1st Epistle to Timothy, chap. 2. — "Who (Christ) gave himself a 103 redemption for all."* Epist. ad Rom. C. — " He that spared not even his own Son, hut delivered him up for us o//."t 1st Epistle to Timothy, 4. — "Who is the Saviour of all men."\ And, in fine, from the 1st Epistle of St. John, 2. — "And he is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, hut also for those of the whole world. "|| Therefore all, and children also, are dead ; all, therefore, are defiled by sin. as sin only can bring on the death of the soul ; but children are not, cannot be contaminated with personal sin ; therefore with original sin. Hence, St. Augustine rightly says, ( lib. i. de peccat : merit et remiss. — cap. 23.) " Who shall dare to say, that Christ is neither the Saviour nor the Redeemer of in- fants ? From what, then, does he save them, if the disorder of original sin be not in them? From what, then, does he re- deem them, if by their origin from the first man, they have not been made slaves to sin."§ SECTION VI. LVIII. The dogma of original guilt is invincibly demonstrated, 1st, from the. nature of Baptism — Indly, from the necessity of Baptism — 3rdly, from the ceremonies of Baptism. First. Original Sin evinced from the nature of Baptism. Baptism, by the divine institution of Christ, washes away, wipes off, cleanses from sin. In support of this truth, I might adduce the clearest evidence, both from scripture and perpe- tual tradition ; hut for brevity's sake, I shall confine myself to the common form of Baptism, which was used at the Baptism of infants, as well as of adults, and which was worded thus in the time of Pelagius, " / baptize thee unto the remission of sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of thr. * " Dedit scmetipsum redemptionem pro omnibus. 1 ' t " Qui proprio filio suo non pepcrcit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit ilium." \ "Qui est Salvator omnium hominum." || " Ipse est propitiatio pro peccatis nostris, non pro nostris autern tantum, sed etiam pro totius mundi." § " Quis audeat dicere, non esse Christum infantium Salvatorem, nee Rc- demptorem ? unde autem salvos facit, si nulla in eis est originalis aegritud>< peccati ? unde redtmit, si non sunt per originem primi hominis venumdati sub peccato ?" \0i Holy Ghost. Amen."* Whence I draw this argument :— » from this formula it follows, that, when infants are baptized, they are delivered from sins, but they are not freed from ac- tual sins, into which, for the want of the use of reason, they cannot fall ; they, therefore, are freed from original sin, or else the church would tell a lie, when she baptizes infants unto the remission of sins, which is as impossible for her to do, in matters of faith and morals, as it is that the solemn pro- mises made to her by Christ of his perpetual assistance, should fail. To preclude all Pelagian cavils against this proof, the celebrated council of Carthage, held in the year 418, made its second Canon, which is as follows : " It has pleased (the Council ) that, whoever denies that the infants newly born ought to be baptized, or says, that they are, indeed, baptized unto the remission of sins, but that they do by no means draw from Adam original sin, which should stand in need of being effaced by the water of regeneration ; from which it would follow, that, in regard to them, the form of Baptism unto the remission of sins, would not be true, but false, let him be anathema."! Secondly. The existence of original sin is irrefragably in- ferred from the necessity of Baptism. All infants, as well as adults, stand in need of Baptism, in order to enter into the kingdom of Heaven, and to arrive at life everlasting; as ma- nifestly appears from the words of Christ, in St. John, 3rd chap. — "Amen, Amen. I say to thee, unless a man be born again, of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."| That these words were always under- stood by the church to imply the absolute necessity of Bap- * "Ego te Baptizo in remissionem peccatorum, in nomine Patiis, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen." t " Placuit, ut, quicunque parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum Baptizando9 negat, aut dicat, in remissionem quidem peccatorum eos baptizari, sed nihil ex Adam trahere originalis peccati, quod lavacro regenerationis expietur ; unde fit consequens, ut in eis forma baptismatis in remissionem peccatorum, non vera, sed falsa intelligatur, anathema sit." $ u Amen, Amen, Dico tibi : nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et 5pij itu Sunoto, non potest introire in Regnum Dei." 105 tism, undeniably appears from the very practice, which &L Augustine mentions, of both the parents, and the ministers of the church hastening with all possible speed, to the baptismal font, when children were in danger of death. Children, there^ fore, prior to their baptism, are subject to a sin, which excludes them from eternal life ; but they are not subject to any per- sonal sin, therefore, to original sin. That they must be subject to sin, cannot be denied, or else they could jiot be excluded from eternal life ; for in the present state of things, no one is excluded from eternal life and the kingdom of God, but for sin alone ; whose " wages, (as the apostle Paul speaks,) is the death" of both body and soul. As, therefore, infants dying without baptism are excluded from the kingdom of God, we must necessarily infer that they are defiled by sin. Thirdly. The very ceremonies of Baptism necessarily suppose original sin in those that are baptized. The universal church of God, made use, since the very age of the Apostles, of exorcisms and of the ceremony of expelling the devil by breathing [exsufflationes,] at the baptism of adults and infants ;■ by which, the Unclean spirit is driven out from those that are baptized; as St. Ccelestine, in Epist. i. ad Episcopos Galli- arum, cap. 12 — St. Augustine, lib. G, Contra Julian, cap. 2, et lib. 2, de peccato tirig. cap. 40, teach* The church, there-* fore, believed that children, before their baptism, are stained by sin, and placed under the power of the devil; for we are not made the slaves of devils, but by sin. Hence, St. Au- gustine, lib. 2, operis imperf. numb. 171, writes thus :-- " Wherefore, children too, when they are baptized, are res- cued from the power of darkness, or else, as we have already said, and as it must often be repeated, the image of God can- not, Without a signal insult to God, be exorcised and expelled, since it is the prince of the world who is there exorcised and driven out, in order that the presence of the Holy Ghost may take its place."* Therefore, according to the perpetual and * " Propter hoc et infantes cutn baptizantur, erUuntur de potestate tenebra* rum ; alioquin cum magna injuria Dei, sicut jam diximus et sape dicendum est, exorcizatur et exsufllatur imago Dei, si non ibi ille exorcizatur et exsufflatur princeps mundi, qui mittititr foras, ut sit illic habitatio Sriritus Sancfi.'' , No. III. 1 I 106 constant belief of the universal church, children are born, in- fected with original sin. There consequently exists Original Sin. SECTION vn. LIX. Unitarian objections answered. After having, as we imagine, solidly established the dogma of original Sin, and entrenched it with impregnable bulwarks, it is now time to reconnoitre the position of our polemical foes, and to see by what engines they mean to break through and overturn our batteries. First Objection. " We look with suspicion, (say the Unita- rians,) * on the decisions of councils, synods, and church dig- nitaries, because all men are subject to error and prejudice: and the history of eighteen centuries has abundantly taught us that few have been less free from these imperfections than the rulers of the church." Answer. This is, indeed, a commodious way of evading diffi- culties, and of ensuring to oneself the palm of victory, whatever may be his cause, or with whatever strength it may be opposed. Should you ever be attached in a court of justice, be your case as desperate as it may, yet in order to come off victori- ous, you have nothing else to do but to imitate the Unitarians in their manner of proceeding, with regard to the important affair that is agitating between them and the rest of the chris- tian world. We demonstratively prove, from the divine scriptures, the various dogmas which they deny : they admit the titles, The Scriptures, — " Unitarians believe that the scrip- tures of the Old and New Testament contain authentic records of the dispensations of God, and of his revelations to men."t But what then ? They deny that we take them in their true sense. Thus the scriptures are the authentic records of the revelations of God to men ; but, observe, only when taken in the Unitarian sense. Then next, Unitarian-like, ac- knowledge the authenticity of the title which is produced against you in the court, and which you cannot deny, * The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor, No. 1, page 9. t Ibidem, page 11. 107 but be sure to deny the meaning which the adverse party affixes to it. — If we again tell the Unitarians, that the whole christian world, the primitive fathers, and the councils of the church, for the space of eighteen hundred years, • have uni- formly understood the scriptures in the sense in which we christians understand them, they calmly and modestly reply, that they " look with suspicion on the decisions of councils, and synods, and church dignitaries;" and that, of course, you are to understand that they conceive their own importance (although but a handful of men — although but of yesterday,) amply sufficient to outweigh the authority of all ages, and of all Christendom. In the same manner, if you are told by your judges, that the titles produced against you, have uniformly been understood by other tribunals and other judges, in a meaning that is contrary to your cause, the way of ending the difficulty is, gravely to tell your judges, that you do not take them in that sense, and that you think your judgment is as good as that of all the courts in the world ; or rather, to gain your cause at once, that it is vastly better. — If, in fine, we press the Unitarian, and clearly demonstrate, that reason it- self, the reason of all former ages and christians, decides in our favour, they again, with their wonted reserved ness, an- swer — And what is that to us ? Have we not reason too ? Why should we not deem ourselves wiser, and understand matters better than the universal church, during the lapse of numerous ages ? Thus, if you happen to see all your former exceptions overruled by your judges, on the ground that rea- son itself declares in favour of your adversary, you may cut the matter short, by plainly telling the court, that their reason, in- deed, and that of other men, may judge so, but not your's ; and that you think your own reason is as sound, nay sounder, than that of all the courts or inhabitants in the country. And, if our Unitarian friend be correct in his mode of attack or de- fence against the christian dogmas, you must, believe me, be also right in your process against the adverse party, and must undoubtedly gain your cause. But if, on the contrary, you should be looked upon as a madman, (as you most deservedly 108 would,) by such a mode of defending your cause, in what light tfnust the world view the Unitarian system, which pursues exactly the same line of conduct, in attacking the christian mysteries ? LX. After this short digression, let us endeavour philoso- phically to investigate the weight which we are to give to the above objection. Is it then enough, in order to invalidate a dog- ma of religion, to reject indiscriminately the accumulated autho- rity of all preceding ages, of the holy fathers, and councils of the church, of the universal christian world ? Is it enough, in order to enervate the most decisive scripture evidences in support of christian tenets — tenets sanctioned by the constant practice and belief of all the faithful all over the globe, barefacedly to declare that they do not understand the scriptures like the rest of the world ; and that, of course, their own reason, as contradistinguished from the reason of all other men, either of former ages, or of the present, must be considered as the only ultimate standard by which the world is to determine what is right, and what is wrong ; what is to be admitted or reject- ed, in matters of religion ? This grand trial pending be- tween the christian world and the Unitarians, is of the deep- est importance; for the fate of both parties must needs de- pend on its final issue. If the Unitarian mode of proceeding against the christian truths, be sanctioned by reason, then adieu to Christianity; if, on the contrary, reason and plain good sense give in their verdict against the Unitarian system, then Unitarianism is undone. Whilst, therefore, we are dis- cussing the merits of both parties, let mankind be the judge ; let good sense, severe criticism, and inflexible justice preside over the momentous decision. Suppose, therefore, you have a most important suit with a few individuals, who, on a sudden, begin to call in question come of your rights, or who, for example, dispute your claim to the tenure of a certain tract of land ; the primary object ©f the court will be to examine the titles of both parties ; then, to examine the witnesses, for and against; afterwards, to listen to the reasons alleged on either side ; and lastly, to give their decision,. Let us next suppose, that the case stands thus — 109 ASSAILANT. 1. The assailant maintains, that numerous errors have been committed in former times ; and that, immemorial possession of property, can be of no service to the defendant. 2. The assailant cannot, and does not deny the authenticity of the titles of the defendant, but he reserves to himself the privilege of making them epeak, contrary to the highest authorities and the rules of sound criticism, whatever he pleases, as we shall have fre- quent occasion to observe. 3. The assailant pretends that no regard whatever ought to be paid to the evidence of witnesses, how numerous and respectable soever they may be; that he is by no means disposed to be governed by other men, in determining the meaning of an instrument; and that his own meaning ought to be adopted, in pre ference to any other. 4. As to the public records, and decisions of divers courts, " he looks upon them with suspicion, as having been made by men, subject to error .and prejudice," DEFENDANT. 1 . The defendant proves to the fullest satisfaction of the court, that he has had a peace- able and undisturbed posses- sion from time immemorial, of the said property in question 2. The defendant produces his clear and indisputable ti- tles to the same property ; ti ties acknowledged authentic by the very confession of the adverse party. 3. The defendant produces a great number of the most reputable witnesses, who., both by word of mouth and in writing, unanimously testify,, that his titles were at all times understood in the sense and meaning which he gives to them, 4. The defendant substan- tiates the fixed and invariable meaning of his titles, by pub- lic records ; by the public, and solemn decisions of se- veral tribunals of judicature ; in fine, by the united testi- mony of the country at large, there being found not one dis- senting voice. 110 .Now the case being thus stated, it will not be difficult to anticipate the decision of the court ; and, methinks, I see the judges scarce able to contain their indignation at the unblush- ing impudence of the assailant. — What, sir, ( so they would deservedly address him,) are you in your senses ? Can you dare pretend that immemorial possession, the deposition of witnesses, the solemn acts of public tribunals, are to be no longer noticed ; and that all differences and causes ari- sing amongst men, are no longer to be determined by pre- scription, by the authority of witnesses, or public acts of the established authorities, but by the private meaning, which the litigating party is pleased to affix to the law ? If im- memorial possession be no longer a title to the possessor, how few will remain unmolested, in the possession of their estates; how uncertain will the possession of most property become. If the evidence of witnesses is to be disre- garded, how, sir, shall private and public affairs be settled ? How shall justice be administered, innocence protected, or crime punished ? If suits are to be decided, not by the laws, interpreted by judges appointed for that purpose, but by the private interpretation of the parties, what suit will ever come to an end, since each party will make the law speak, willingly or unwillingly, in such a manner as to favour his pre- tensions ? You lay claim to the property of the defendant, but every thing speaks against you ; and, on the contrary, every thing declares in favour of the defendant himself; his immemo- rial possession, his authentic titles, the number and respecta- bility of his witnesses, public records, and the decisions of courts : depart, therefore, from this court, sir, and beware of troubling us, henceforward, with such unreasonable preten- sions. Such would be the decision of any well-regulated court of justice, in the case alluded to ; such, therefore, must likewise be the sentence which good sense and sound logic will pro- nounce, in the trial which is brought by our Unitarian assail- ants, against the christian defendants : for the two cases are perfectly parallel ; and, if th ;re be any shade of difference Ill between them, it is altogether in favour of the latter, as will be seen by the following sketch. LXI. Sketch of the respective grounds on which both Christians and Unitarians rest their cause, and on their respective mode of pleading it. First. The christians demonstrate, beyond* the possibility of a doubt, that those fundamental dogmas, which are denied by the Unitarians, such as the existence of Original Guilt; of the Trinity ; of the Divinity of Christ ; of the Mystery of the Redemption ; of the Necessity of Supernatural Grace : were constantly, uniformly, and universally believed, all over the christian world, since the time of the apostles down to us, for the space of eighteen hundred years ; that, of course, they have been in the quiet and undisturbed possession of said doc- trines for eighteen centuries. They corroborate this their assertion, First, by the most authentic monuments of the remotest antiquity. Secondly, From the very constant and uninterrupted prac- tice and worship of the universal church, from the very era of Christianity to this day ; the above doctrines not being merely speculative tenets, but practical mysteries, interwoven with the very nature of their divine institute, with the use of their sacraments, with their discipline, ceremonies, and divine wor- ship. Thirdly, They reason thus : — If the above doctrines did not emanate from Jesus Christ himself, and if they had not been taught by the apostles, then they must have been intro- duced after the apostolic age ; and if so, it will then be in the power of the Unitarians to point out, first, who it was that ushered these dogmas iuto the world; secondly, in what age they were first forged and palmed upon mankind ; thirdly, in what country the innovation began ; by what Pontiff, or in what council they were first promulgated ; who they were that opposed the daring innovator, and who they were thai adhered to him : for ecclesiastical historv bears witness, that 112 not even the smallest innovation ever took place in the church, but the said circumstances can be clearly pointed out* If, then, the above doctrines had, at any period posterior to that of the apostles, been broached, it would be an easy task for the Unitarians to fix with precision on their origin, the name of their author, the place of his birth, the number of his adher- ents, and of those that impugned the impostor. But christians, without the least fear of contradiction, defy the Unitarians to show the least vestige of such an innovation, with regard to the said mysteries ; or to point out any of the circumstances just alluded to ; therefore, they maintain themselves with rea- son in the enjoyment of the full possession of the said dogmas, against any invaders, who, after an eighteen hundred years' prescription, rise up, without any title or right whatever in hand, to dispute the sacred inheritance. Christians go further, and triumphantly assert, that, had the above dogmas not been revealed by the God of truth, and handed down by the very founders of Christianity, it would ne- ver have been in the power of any man, or of any number of men, to palm them, at any given posterior period, upon the whole christian world, and to cause them to be believed so con- stantly, so uniformly, so universally. For, even, aside from the solemn promises of perpetual assistance, made by Christ to his church,* such is the nature of men, such their pride and love of independence, such, in fine, their natural abhorrence of all kind of restraint, either mental or corporeal, that it would have been morally impossible for any impostor, or any number of impostors, tamely, and without an obstinate * "Thou art Peter, (the Rock,) and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her." — Math . xvi. 18. " Behold ! I am with you all days, even to the consummation of time." — St. Mat. xviii. " He that heareth you, heareth me ; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me .>J — Luke x. 16. " The holy Ghost, the comforter, will teach you all truth, and lead you into all truth, and will abide with you for ever." — John xvi. 13. " The church of God is the pillar and foundation of truth."— 1st Tim. iii. 13 ; from all which scriptural evidences, it is clearer than noonday that the church of Christ can as little err, as Christ, the only begotten Son of God can be want- ing to his sacred word- 1 13 resistance, to captivate the minds of the christian world, into the firm belief of dogmas, of which, on the Unitarian suppo sition, they had never heard before, and which, by their unin- telligibility, were so repugnant to the pride of human reason* An attempt of this nature would have thrown the christian world into combustion, and would have met with universal op- position ; as was actually the case, when, as early as the third century, the Divinity of Christ was impugned by Arius, and Original Sin, together with the Necessity of Grace, in the fourth century, by Pelagius ; when the whole christian world rose up with indignation against these profane novelties* Let Unitarians show that the supposed posterior introduction of the said doctrines, excited any thing like disturbances of that nature ; but, there is not even a shadow of such troubles discoverable in the annals of the church ; therefore, the said doctrines, being traced up through an uninterrupted possession to the very Apostolic ages, were not posteriorly introduced, but were received from the very mouth of Jesus Christ ; and, of course, they are divine. Indeed, the public will readily grant, that, if lawful prescription has at all times, and is now consi- dered in all the courts of the world, as the best title to the pos- sessor, there was never produced, in any human tribunal, a prescription as immemorial, as universal, and as illustrious a9 that, which christians produce against Unitarians, in vindica- tion of their divine doctrines. LXII. The Christians next exhibit their titles, (the scrip- tures,) which are so authentic, so indisputable, and in fine, so venerable, that their very adversaries, the Unitarians, are for- ced to admit them as incontrovertible. And the grand ques* tion here arises, how these titles are to be understood. The Unitarians maintain that these titles ought to be taken in their sense; and that thus interpreted, they do not contain the doctrines for which christians contend. Christians, on the other hand, make it clearly appear, that they cannot, agree- ably to reason and good sense, be distorted to any meaning different from that in which the whole christian world has hitherto understood them. They prove their assertion, No. III. 15 114 First. By the irrefragable argument of prescription, after this manner: When, a few years ago, the Unitarians set up their new system, by which they deny the fundamental doc- trines of Christianity, they found the whole christian world in the possession and uniform belief of the said doctrines. If, from our time, we gradually remount from age to age, till we arrive at the very establishment of the church, we find, in every age, exactly the same uniform belief; therefore, we conclude that, that constant, that uniform, that universal be- lief was derived from the Apostles •, therefore, it contains the true and genuine meaning of the scriptures, respecting the said doctrines ; therefore, the doctrine of the Unitarians, a doctrine not yet as old as I myself am, and diametrically op- posite to that constant and uniform belief of all Christendom, cannot be conformable to the Scriptures. This reasoning is in perfect unison with the celebrated rule of St. Augustine — a rule founded on the common sense of mankind : " That, which the whole church holds or practises, and which has not been instituted or introduced, either by some Pontiff or council, must be considered as descending from Apostolical tradition : "* which perfectly coincides with this other maxim of Vincent of Lerins,t " What has been be- lieved in every place, in every age, and by all, is incontro- vertibly catholic doctrine." And, indeed, reason dictates, that a doctrine which is common to all christian nations, which embraces all times and all countries, must have had a com- mon origin ; and that it cannot be traced, but to the founders of Christianity itself, the Apostles of Jesus Christ. For, as this doctrine is coeval with the christian era, it cannot have had an author posterior to the Apostolic age; and, as it is uni- versal all over the christian world, it must have had an univer- sal source, viz. the preaching of the Apostles, all over the * " Quod universa tenet ecclesia, nee conciliis institutum, sed semper reten- tum est, non nisi auctoritate Apostolica traditum rectissime creditur." St. Aug. de Bapt. cont. donat. lib. 4, cap. 24. t " Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus crcditum est, hoc est verc pro-pneque Catholicum." St. Vincent. Lyrin. Commonit. lib jlobe. Hence, it evidently follows, that the present uniform belief of all christians, touching Original Sin, the mysteries of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Redemption of man- kind, comes down to us in a lineal descent from the Apostles, and through them from Christ himself. This being a decisive point in the famous controversy, in which the church of God is engaged with our Unitarian friends, I beg leave to set this argument in a still clearer point of view. Christ charged his Apostles with this solemn commission : " Go ye into the whole world, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." — Math, xxviii. They had been instructed by their divine Master in all the mysteries of the kingdom of hea-. ven, the church,* and of the scriptures, whilst with him during his mortal life ; and, after his resurrection, he gave them a full knowledge of what they did not understand of his divine dis- courses ; for St. Luke informs us, " that he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures" — St. Luke,xxiv. 45. On the other hand, the Apostles faithfully discharged the high trust committed to them : they, there- fore, instructed their hearers, that is to say, the christians of the first age of the church, in the true meaning which Christ our Lord had attached to his own words. They did so, es- pecially, with regard to the fundamental points of his gospel ; such as the mysteries of the Trinity, and the Divinity of Christ. The Apostles, therefore, clearly explained to their primitive converts, whether their divine Master understood by these words, " in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," three distinct subsisting persons in God ; and whether, of course, they were to be worshipped as true God or not : whether Jesus Christ was no more than a mere creature, or whether he was true God and true man, and so on. Had the Apostles not done this, they would mani- festly have been deficient in the discharge of their divine com- mission ; they would have exposed their own and all future * " Because to you it is given to J; now the mysteries of the kingdom of Hea- ven, but to them it is not piven." Matt, xiit. 7. 116 generations to the danger of going astray about the very ob- ject of their worship ; to the danger of a monstrous idolatry, in adoring three persons in God, instead of one; or a mere man, in Jesus Christ, instead of a God. The Apostles, of course, explained to the primitive christians the true meaning of those passages ; which the christians of the present and past ages, have invariably understood to imply, the mysteries of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Christ, of Original Sin, &c. &c. ; and which our Unitarian friends labour so hard to force into the service of their new system. Now, let me ask, how did the Apostles explain the passages under considera- tion ? What meaning did they affix to the oracles of their di- vine Master, and to their own writings ? No other, unques- tionably, than that which was delivered by the first generation of Christianity, to the succeeding ages ; and which, was thus uniformly and invariably handed down to the present time. Now, I ask again, what meaning of the scriptures, respecting the above doctrines, did the Apostolic age transmit to the suc- ceeding generations ? It can be no other than that, in which the christian world, at all times to this very day, has under- stood the said scriptures; no other than that which imports the dogma of Original Sin, the mysteries of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Christ, &c. The inference, therefore, is ine- vitable : christians have the true meaning of the scriptures, in this respect ; because they have the meaning given by the Apos- tles. This sense of the scriptures, thus determined and deli- vered by the college of the Apostles to the church formed by them, is infallibly correct — is a revealed truth : not only be- cause the Apostles, as all must grant, could not err in the in* terpretation of the scriptures, but also because, whilst they were explaining and delivering the true sense of the sacred writings, the Lord confirmed their preaching by wonders and prodigies, and thus stamped upon it the seal of his divine ve- racity and approbation. The doctrines, therefore, of the Trinity, Divinity of Christ, &c. uniformly believed and main- tained to this present day, by all Christendom, are divine doc- trines — doctrines delivered by infallible interpreters, and 117 sanctioned as such by Heaven. Whence, it further follows, that, as two opposite doctrines or meanings cannot be both true, the Unitarian meaning or doctrine, diametrically oppo- site to the meaning given by the Apostles, cannot be true, and that Unitarians explain the scriptures, in this regard, in a sense directly opposite to that in which the Apostles explained it. From the unanswerable force of this argument, christians have a well-established right to reject the Unitarian explanation of the scriptures, even without examining or refuting it in detail, as an illegitimate and profane novelty, for this plain reason, that it contradicts the interpretation of the Apostles. And, indeed, may not the christians of our age, address our Unita- rian friends in the same dignified language, in which the true believers of the second century addressed the innovators of their time ? — " Who are you ? when and whence did you come? what are y ou, strangers, doing on my property? bv what right, Marcion, do you cut down my woods ? by what right, Valentin, do you disturb my fountains ? by what privi- lege do you remove my boundaries, Apelles ? The possession is mine — why do you sow here and pasture at your pleasure ? The possession is mine — I am the old possessor, I am the first possessor, I have the sources, uncorrupted, from the persons themselves from whom the estate was originally derived ; 1 pull the heir of the Apostles ; according to the provisions of their will, according to their charge of its execution, accord- ing to the solemnity of their oath, I claim the right of my in- heritance."* In a word, our Unitarian friends come eighteen hundred years too late to teach us the true meaning of the scriptures ; this meaning has been given by the very founders of the church of God, and sanctioned by Heaven ; for of them * " Tertull. lib. pracser. cap. 37. " Qui estis? quando et unde venistu quid in meo agitis non mei? Quo denique, Marcion, jure sylvam nieam ccedis .' qua Ucentia, Valentine, fontes meos transvertis? qua potestate, Apelles, limi • res meos commoves? Mea est possessio : quid hie coeteri ad voluntatem ves- trani seminatis et pascitis ? Mea est possessio : olim possidoo, prirr possideo, babeo oiigines firmas, ab ipsis auctoribus quorum fuit res. Ego sum ba^res* Apostolorum. Sicut caverunt testamento suo, sicut fidei commisserunt, siciu aHiqravenmt, ita teneo, 1 ' 118 we read, " But they going forth, preached every where, the Lord co-operating with them, and confirming the word with signs that followed. — St. Marc, ult°. verse ult°. The meaning given by the disciples of Christ to the scrip- ture passages relative to our controverted doctrines, is in di- rect contradiction to the Unitarian doctrines. That this is actually the case, is a public, solemn, and interesting fact, a fact which is substantiated by the present universal belief of all Christian churches all over the globe, however divided they may be in other doctrinal points among themselves ; next, by the concurrent testimony of all preceding ages down to Christ; by the writings of the first apologists of Christian- ity ; by the unanimous evidence of the primitive fathers of the church ; by the solemn decisions made in eighteen (Ecu- menic Synods, held for the space of eighteen centuries ; by even the universal practice, ceremonies, and public worship of the church. A fact of this description is indisputably true, or else there is no truth at all in the annals of history. An attempt, therefore, to overturn this fact by a bold tone of as- surance, by vague declamation, by metaphysical quibbles, by suppressing, transposing, or substituting one preposition or pronoun for another in the same text, contrary to all the edi- tions extant, by changing the adjective to the substantive, by altering the punctuation at pleasure, by cruelly torturing the text till it submit to speak whatever our Unitarian friends wish it to declare ; in fine, by unmercifully cutting off from the body of the scriptures, or rendering doubtful such passages as are too hard a bone even for the free and independent inter- pretation of our opponents, such an attempt, I say, is a des- perate measure, which sound criticism may smile at or scorn, but from which it has nothing to fear. LXIII. Secondly. Next Christians support their as- sertion by witnesses. But what witnesses ? Witnesses the most unexceptionable, the most respectable, and the most respected, in all ages, and in all countries ; witnesses of the highest moral probity, of known integrity, of unparalleled wisdom, and moreover the best qualified to give evidence on 110 the meaning of the sacred scriptures : for who are those wit- nesses ? They are, in the first place, the first age of the Church, consisting chiefly of Christians who were saints, and, for the greater part, martyrs. These Christians received the sacred volumes immediately from the very hands of the Apos- tles, together with the true and genuine meaning of them. They lived with them, conversed with them, listened to their preachings, in which they more diffusely explained, what they had consigned to their writings ; in short, they had every opportunity afforded them to be informed by the Apostles of the true and genuine sense of the sacred scriptures. This first age, thus instructed and formed in the very school of the Apostles, faithfully delivered to the succeeding generation the faith of the above doctrines, once delivered to them, and so from age to age down to this present day. LXIV. Thirdly. The second class of witnesses produced by Christians in vindication of their contested doctrines, con- sists of the most illustrious characters that ever adorned the church of God, I mean the Holy Fathers who either lived in or closely followed the age of the Apostles, down to the fourth century, both in the Greek and Latin church. This long suc- cession of apostolical men, the greater part of whom sealed their faith with their blood, and all of whom have not less illustrated the church of God by the lustre of their sanctity, than by the admirable productions of their genius, all, with one voice, depose in favour of the Christian dogmas against the Unitarians. LXV. Fourthly and lastly. They have in their behalf the solemn judgments, and public decisions, which have been ren- dered in synods and councils, held at different times, and in various countries, and by which the Christian faith has been solemnly confirmed. They add to this the perfect agreement of the present Greek church with the Latin church, with re- gard to the doctrines under consideration, which perfect con- cordance must assuredly be considered of decisive import- ance, when we reflect, that the Greek schismatical church, having been now divided upward.- of eight or nine hundred no years, cannot be supposed to have borrowed her faith from the rest of the Christian world, on whom she looks with a jealous eye, as her rivals. The Greeks, then, have received the above doctrines from their ancestors. LVI. But what do the Unitarians offer, in reply to all this ? Any thing like argument ? By no means ; for that ia impossible. Why, such answers as would be rejected with feelings of contempt, mingled with indignation, in any court of justice. They tacitly reply : We cannot, indeed, deny, but the Christians have the immemorial possession of the above doctrines, in their favour, and that such was the uni^ form and constant belief of all Christendom, through all past ages, at least from the third century ;* but the whole Chris- tian world, and all past ages, were in error ; we only are right; we are wiser than the whole world, and all preceding generations ; we understand matters better, although but a few men,t although but the offspring of yesterday, although * If our Unitarian friends should happen to deny that such was the constant and uniform belief of all former ages, let them turn their attention to the irre- sistible arguments, by which this public and solemn fact is substantiated, in this and the following numbers. But from a slight acquaintance with the Unitarian writings every one may satisfy himself, that our opponents, in gene- ral, are \ery little concerned about the belief of past ages, and that all they oppose to the weight of authority, is that they are not to be ruled by the creeds of others, but by their own reason. The answer, therefore, which we have placed here in the mouth of our opponents, is correct*, and in perfect conformity with their general principles and professions. t Although Unitarians in general do not seem to pay much regard to number and authority, still, from the anxiety which they manifest in their writings, of exaggerating the number of their followers, it is clearly perceivable that they would consider it no small recommendation for their system, to count a great number of votaries. Hetice the frequent mention made of their Congregations, Bible Societies, Colleges, and other public institutions. But notwithstanding all this, they will not, I trust, consider me disrespectful or incorrect, when I maintain, that, in every respect, they are still but tew: few, if contrasted with the whole Christian world ; few, if compared even with other religious Societies severally taken : few, if viewed in regard to the number of those that seem to profess their principles ; for as there exists so close an alliance between the process of the Unitarians and the Deists in the investigation of religion, and as unrestrained reason, their only guide, leads them nearly to the same result or creed, which consists in admitting but one single dogma, which is even known 121 at a distance of eighteen hundred years, we understand mat- ters better than those primitive Christians who lived so near by the light of reason alone, viz. the unity and supremacy of one enly God, it will not be easy, even for the Unitarians themselves, to discern with accuracy to what class numbers of those belong that frequent their assemblies, whether to that of the Unitarians, or to that of the Deists. True it is, that the Unitarian professes to revere revelation, and to receive the sacred Scriptures, and the Deist does not : but allow once the Deists, as the Unitarians do, to reason away all the mysteries of revelation, and they will, believe me, make very little dif- ficulty to believe all the rest, and even to show some respect for the moral pre- cepts of the Gospel, a circumstance which we read to have been observed by the Pagans themselves. Indeed, when we hear Unitarian preachers breakout in loud censure upon the courts of justice for their endeavouring to stop the circulation of Deistical works ; when we are told " to listen to the Deist's ar- guments, when he argues against the holiest doctrines of faith, and if they be valid, to allow their force ;" when, in fine, we see sermons eulogized, in which sentiments like these are boldly expressed, we can scarce refrain from suspect- ing that there exists a more than ordinary friendship between the Unitarians and the Deists. See a Sermon preached at (he Unitarian Chapel, on the Duties of Christ ia7is towards Deists, by W. T.Fox, in the Christian Disciple, 2d num- ber, vol. 3, page 202. But suppose the number of Unitarians as large, or even much greater, than they would fain make it appear, would this be a test of the truth of their sys- tem .' If so, then Deism will have strong claims to truth, for it is a fact, that in this pretended age of reason, the number of Infidels far exceeds that of our Unitarian friends. Number, indeed, is a test of truth, when that number is composed of enlightened and sanctified characters, when the doctrines profess- ed are as humiliating to the pride of reason as they are repugnant to all the darling inclinations of man, and when the professors of those doctrines are at all times ready to seal them with their blood. Such was the multitude of the faithful, who, during the three first ages of the church, bled and died for the Christian law, a law incomprehensible in its mysteries, and most severe upon flesh and blood in its morality. But when a religion is held out which pro- claims the reason of man to be independent, which tells man that he has an inalienable right to think and to act for himself as he pleases, and which at once frees him from all restraint, from painful duties, from humiliating exer- cises, and leaves him complete master of his faith, both as to the theory and practice; such a religion is too congenial to all the passions and feelings of corrupt nature, not to be cordially received by numbers, who will naturally pre- fer a plain and easy road to heaven, to a strait and rugged one. Such, we all know, was the baneful effect of Mahometanisin, a religion of flesh and blood, upon the effeminate inhabitants of the East. Number, in such cases, proves nothing in favour of the system, but only becomes an additional proof of the depravity of human nature. No. in. in 122 the apostolic age. They were all wrong ; for us only it was reserved to discover the truth : our single individual reason sees better than the general and collective reason of all former ages. As to the Fathers of the Church, both Greek and La- tin, whose testimonies you cite against us, we reject them all in a lump, as " men subject to error and prejudice." Let the world revere them, as it always did, for their sanctified character, let it extol and admire their genius : those great men were involved in darkness with the rest of the world. We are the only true illuminati ; and our authority we con- ceive to be greater thpji that of the whole Christian world through eighteen centuries ! ! ! All this is, and must be, at least virtually, implied, in the answers which they return to the arguments which fall upon them with the overwhelming weight of the whole Christian world, and all past generations. Surely I need not advert any further to the inconsistency of such a reply, on which, I am confident, every reader has al- ready passed his judgment. LXVII. However, before I dismiss this matter, I cannot refrain from making a supposition, which will make my reader touch, as it were, with his hand, the folly of the Unitarian pretensions. Suppose, therefore, that, at some very remote period, say eighteen hundred years hence, a handful of men should rise all on a sudden in these United States, and gravely tell the American nation : Hitherto you have been totally mistaken in the true meaning of the American Constitution ; all past generations understood nothing at all of it ; it must- be taken in a sense quite opposite to that, in which our fore- fathers hitherto took it. Pray, in what light would the then existing American generation look upon this new and strange kind of political demagogues ? How would they treat this un- heard of parodox ? Why, their plain good sense would make them reply with one voice : What ! gentlemen, you mean as- suredly to insult both our reason and our feelings. No one hitherto understood the American Constitution ! No, not the very generation which was coeval with the very first estab- lishment of our Federal Government, nor the Americans that 123 4 lived and conversed with the very framers of the Constitution^ nor all the national councils which were annually held for these eighteen centuries past, and who, in their deliberations;, in their debates, and in the exercise of their legislative power, were eternally guided by the Constitution as by their polar star; nor all the tribunals of judicature throughout the Union, whose solemn decisions were constantly based on the Consti- tution ; nor all the learned men that have preserved in their works the precise and determinate meaning of it given by -the very framers of it ; nor, in fine, all the American States, which have constantly understood them exactly as we do at this very day ! ! No ; no man, to this present age, understood them rightly ; the American Constitution signifies the reverse of what was hitherto believed : we, after the lapse of eighteen hundred years, come to inform you, that we are the first, and the only men, that have unravelled its true meaning, the mean- ing intended by those who framed it! ! What would be the surprise of any future generation if such language were to be held out to them ? and what then ought to be our feelings, when we behold a small number of men, in the eighteen hun- dredth year after the Christian sera, gravely tell the world, that hitherto they did not understand the Scriptures relative to the dogmas in question, and that they are the first and only ones, that have discovered their right sense ? Never were there two cases more parallel than that which I have just now supposed, and that of the Unitarians against Christians at large. The mode of reasoning and proceeding is identically the same on both sides ; whether equally absurd or equally correct, let the reader determine. Nothing could have induced the author of these sheets to give a more than ordinary length to the above digression, but its great importance towards the complete vindication, not only of the dogma of original guilt, but also of the Trinity, Divinity of Christ, and all other doctrines which arc at issue between Christians and Unitarians. For once for all, let it be remembered, that the same ancient possession and pre- scription of eighteen hundred years, the same divine and au^ 124 thentic titles, the Scriptures, the same mass of evidence, the same solemn judgments and universal practices of the church, which we have produced in support of original sin, are equally applicable to every other doctrine which Christians con- tend for. Had we nothing else to offer in vindication of the ancient faith against modern philosophy, this argument alone would be sufficient to decide the question ; for we are confi- dent, that there is no court of justice in the world, in which a cause, supported with such irresistible arguments as the above are, would not carry off the palm of victory. SECTION VI. SECOND OBJECTION FROM REASON. LXVIII. Can man sin before he exist ? Could the infant, that is born six thousand years after Adam, consent or dissent to his prevarication ? How could a just God impute a sin to those who had no share in it ? ANSWER. 1. To these, and other like difficulties, I shall here pre- mise a general answer, which is this : It is a maxim received by all true philosophers and divines, and grounded on the very essence of things, that when a fact or proposition is de- monstratively proved to be self-evident, it cannot possibly be false ; from that moment, whatever difficulties may be alleged against the said fact or proposition, and how unanswerable soever they may seem, the said fact or proposition ought to be considered as most certain and incontrovertible, and the objections urged against it as empty sophisms, void of weight and conclusiveness. Thus, as the existence of God, the im- mortality of the soul, rest upon intrinsic and most evident demonstrations, the few objections of some libertines against them, although you were gratuitously to suppose them irre- fragable, can, in no ways, affect the absolute certitude of those fundamental truths. This maxim is founded on this first principle of all sciences : the same thing, considered in the 12,0 same point of view, cannot at once be and not be, cannot be trut and false at the same lime. As, therefore, original guilt is proved beyond the possibility of a doubt, (as are likewise the other Christian doctrines,) the objections advanced against it cannot be of any weight whatever. But lest this general observation should induce our oppo- nents to conclude that their arguments are unanswerable, we shall immediately proceed to their examination. First, we are asked : Can a man sin before he exists ? Could an infant, that is born six thousand years after Adam, possibly consent to, or dissent from, his prevarication ? LXIX. Answer, These, and the like objections, copied from the anti-christian sophisters, and founded on a pitiful equivocation on the word sin, confound actual and original sin with each other : and setting out with these confused no- tions, the disputes against religion are interminable. " Can a man sin before he exists ?" No, assuredly he cannot sin actually, by his own actual and physical zoill, before he actually and physically exists. But it is not thus man sinned in Adam : Adam alone personally committed original sin, by his own free physical will ; or rather, what we call original sin, was in Adam an actual and personal sin, but not so in his posterity, who are not guilty of the sin of Adam, but in as far as they are the unhappy children of a guilty parent, in whom they were all morally contained, as in the moral head, the parent and representative of all mankind. Adam was ap- pointed by the Almighty, head and representative of all men, with regard to the observance of the commandment which he imposed on him : Adam, as such, prevaricates, by his own personal free will, in consequence of which he is disgraced for his own personal guilt, and with him, all his descendants, not for their own actual guilt, but because they are the child- ren of a rebellious parent, in whose fall and disgrace, as be- ing in a moral sense, one person with him, they are involved. Thus original sin, in the first man, is a true, personal, actual guilt, but as far as original sin relates to the unhappy children "f Adam, it is by no means a personal and actual sin, but ra- 126 ther a moral and habitual guilt, transmitted by their first pa- rent, their moral head ; it is an original sin, because physi- cally committed by Adan, the very origin and principal of the human race, and contracted by his descendants in deriving their origin from him ; it is the sin of human nature, because committed by the will of him who was its parent and its prin- cipal. As actual sin renders the whole man a sinner, so the sin of Adam rendered all human nature sinful, in every one that belongs to it, insomuch that God, having established Adam the principal of the human race, and entrusted him, as such, with every thing for his own person and his posterit- , by his prevarication the whole human race became in him, as it were, one culprit, after nearly the same manner as the de- cay of the root suffices to blast the whole plant. This sin, considered in the descendants of Adam, chiefly consists in the privation of the sanctifying grace, and, (in case this be not restored by baptism received either in fact or in desire,) in the exclusion from eternal life. It is thus original sin, when considered as existing in the children of Adam, is explained by the fathers of the church, and the most able theologians : " A newly born child, (says St. Cyprian,) has sinned no other- wise, except that being born according to Adam, after the flesh, it has contracted the contagion of ancient death in its first birth."* LXX. Objection. But how can God, consistently with his justice, punish the children for the guilt of the parents, which they did not physically, but only morally, commit ? Anszoer. Nearly after the same manner, we see the same done every day among men, without any one censuring such a procedure. Does not human justice itself punish the children for the crimes of their parents ? and are there not laws in almost every government, which degrade from the btate of nobility, not only the criminal, but also all his pos- terity ? These laws do not appear to men unjust. Or, would * " Infans recens natus nihil peccavit, nisi quod secundum Adam carnaliter natus, contagionem mortis antiquae prima nativitate contraxit." St. Cypria«U'5 ? Epist. 59 ad Fidum. 12? yoii deem it unjust in a sovereign to act after tins or such like manner, with one of his subjects : " If you be loyal and faith- ful to me, and take my interest to heart, I shall raise you to the first degree of nobility, make you my prime minister, and bestow on you an extraordinary pension ; my favours shall not die with you, but pass to your descendants from genera- tion to generation*. But, on the contrary, if, instead of being ioyal to me, you turn out a traitor, or rebel against me, then not only you in person, but all your posterity, shall be for ever deprived of the above advantages." Now this is, after our manner of considering things, nearly the way in which God proceeded with Adam, our head and representative, and who, of course, in this respect, was morally all men : " If thou obey my voice, (such we conceive was the covenant which God made with Adam,) and abstain from the forbidden fruit, then not only thou shalt remain in the possession of sanctifying grace, of immortality, and be free from rebellious concupiscence, and the other miseries of life, but thou shalt transmit the same exalted privileges and munificent gifts to thy whole posterity : but if thou prevaricate, not only thou, but thy whole posterity, shall be stript of the same glorious endow- ments : for I have established ihce their head and represent- ative, and placed, as it were, their future fate in thy hands." Now, I ask, is there any thing blameable in this conduct ? LXXI. There is, replies the Unitarian, for how could God make my fate depend on the free will of another? He could do it, nearly after the same manner as the sove- reign, in the above example, causes the fate of the children to depend on the loyalty of their parents ; and after the same manner as the law considers the will of the guardian, as the moral will of his pupil, insomuch that whatever the guardian does in his capacity of guardian, is deemed to be done by the pupil himself. LXXII. But how does it comport with the justice of Go3 to strip, in punishment for the guilt of the sinful parent, all his children, who had but a moral share in it, of sanctifying grace, of immortality, and. unless reborn in Christ of eternal life " 123 This agrees as perfectly with the justice of God, as it agrees with the mortal sovereign abovementioned, to deprive the children of a rebellious subject of those gratuitous favours, which he had designed for them, had he continued faithful and loyal to him. And why is there not even a shadow of injus- tice in this ? The reason of it is obvious : because justice is then only violated, when you withhold from another that which is strictly due to him, and to which he has a strict claim. Now does the sovereign under consideration, by depriving the disloyal subject and his children of the promised favours, strip them of any thing that was strictly due to them, and to which they had an unalienable previous right ? By no means: for it is manifest, that the said sovereign was in no wise bound to promise or bestow such extraordinary gifts upon his subject and his posterity, that he might have refused them, without the smallest violation of justice, even if his subject had al- ways given him the strongest marks of his loyalty, because those favours are mere gratuitous gifts, they are privileges, and the free effects of royal benevolence, to which no one can lay a strict claim, with how much more reason then can he refuse them when the subject rebels against him ? This example in some measure explains the case before us : for I ask, does God, by depriving men, in punishment of the crime of their first parent, of sanctifying grace, of the state of im- mortality, and the other appendages of original integrity, de- prive them of any thing that is strictly due to them ? No, the exalted prerogatives of original justice were so many gratu- itous gifts and extraordinary privileges, which God no wise owed men. and which He might have refused, even if man had never sinned : so little were they due to him, so little was their requisition proportioned to the natural exigency of his nature. If God, then, without deviating from the dictates of his justice, might have refused these gifts to man when inno- cent, how much more so, to man when guilty ? But that the prerogatives of the state of original innocence, were mere gratuitous gifts of the infinite liberality of the Creator, is the constant doctrine of all Christian philosophers and divines. 129 who unhesitatingly maintain that God might have created man, without elevating him to a supernatural state, and of course, without adorning him with sanctifying grace and other supernatural gifts ; that moreover he might have created man mortal, and subject to the evils of this world : for man has nothing in his nature that can strictly entitle him to a super- natural destination, or to an exemption from those miseries which are the connatural appendages of his nature. LXXIII. Granting, continues the Unitarian, that there is nothing in this mystery incompatible with the justice of God ; still does not reason discover in it something irreconcilable with his bounty : how could a God, infinitely good, annex the destiny of all mankind to the free will of their first parent, when he foresaw that he would fall 1 In order to vindicate the equity and the bountiful views of Divine Providence upon mankind, suppose, for a moment, aH men had been actually present, when God was about to place their destiny in the hands of Adam, by appointing him to re* present all mankind on this occasion, so that his will should be deemed, in a moral sense, the will of all men, and his fate morally the fate of all men. Now I ask, would we not all, had we been then in actual existence, have hailed such a de- sign as most desirable and advantageous to us, and as most worthy of the infinite goodness of our Creator ? Would we not, in case God had left the matter to our own free option, have accepted the proposed condition with feelings of the liveliest gratitude and admiration ? For when we take it into consideration on the one side, how richly Adam was endowed by the liberal hand of God with the most extraordinary gifts both of nature and grace, and on the other the easy condition which God exacted, viz. his obedience to one single precept, and that a most easy one, there was not a shadow of proba- bility, that Adam, on such a solemn occasion, on which he well knew the infinite importance of what was at stake, should not keep so easy a commandment. Thus, instead of blasphem- i«g his infinite goodness, we have reason to admire the excess of his paternal love towards mankind, in annexing to so d*- No. III. 17 130 sirable a condition the transmission of original justice ; the more so, as the prerogatives of original integrity were by no means due to men, and that he might in justice have re- fused them, even if Adam had not prevaricated. LXXIV. Men, indeed, replies the Unitarian, if actually existing then, would have had reason gladly to accept such a. proposal on the part of God, because every thing would have led them to believe, that Adam would undoubtedly keep so easy a precept, and thus merit for them original justice ; but how could God propose it, He who infallibly knew that Adam would not keep it, and thus render himself, with his posterity, unhappy ? God could propose this condition, although he had an infal- lible foreknowledge that Adam would not fulfil it, for the very same reasons for which he grants liberty or free will to men, although he foresees that men will abuse it. Does free will, thus bestowed upon them with the certain foresight of the future abuse thereof, cease to be a gift of God, does it cease to be a true benefit ? It does not, and the reason of it is this : because God, notwithstanding the future abuse of the free will of men, bestows free will upon them, not to the end, that they should make an ill use of it, but with a most sincere desire, that they should make use of it for the advancement of his glory and their own salvation. God, indeed, has it in his power to prevent the abuse of free will, and, of course, sin, by de- priving man of his liberty, but as on that supposition man would not be able to give any degree of glory to God, or to acquire any merit for himself, he deems it more consonant to his infi- nite wisdom and justice, (as St. Augustine observes,) not to prevent evils, than not to draw greater good from them. — Therefore, when he permits sin to be committed, it is always with a view of drawing greater good from it, viz. a greater manifestation of his infinite perfections, a thing which none but an infinite power and wisdom are able to do. What has been said here on sin at large, is perfectly applicable to ori- ginal sin in particular. The prescience which God had of the fall of Adam, does by no means lessen the infinite kindness 131 of God towards men, in proposing so easy a condition to merit for us such extraordinary and gratuitous favours ; because when God attached the fate of men to the accomplishment of so easy a condition, it was with a most serious and sincere in- tention, that Adam should keep the commandment, and thus bring on his posterity the same supernatural gifts, with which the liberal hand of God had so copiously and so gratuitously adorned him. LXXV. But would not he have shown greater kindness to men, if he had hindered the downfall of Adam, and, of course, that train of evils, which, in consequence of it, rushed in upon his race ? It might appear so to men, who are in the habit of consider- ing the fall of Adam in itself, and insulated from the admirable designs which God, in the secret counsels of his infinite wisdom and goodness, had conceived for the, restoration of fallen man: but the Christian philosopheV, who knows it to be a bad me- thod of judging of the merit and beauty of a painting, to con- sider each part in itself, and as unconnected with the other parts or with the whole ; the Christian philosopher views the memorable event of the fall of Adam, not insulated, but con- nected with the whole order and plan of the bounteous dis- pensations of Heaven, and thus embracing at once the tout ensemble of the admirable counsels of the Most High on fallen man, his mind is enlarged, astonished, enraptured, at the wonderful inventions of the eternal love of God towards man, he is lost in admiration, at the most perfect symmetry, har- mony, and beauty, which reign through all the works of God ind through all the plans of his all-wise and bountiful provi dence ; in fine, thus contemplating the dispensations of Hea ven in their totality and connection, he discovers at every step the strongest motives to admire the mercy of his God, in the very permission of that original fall, which has been here- tofore the object of anti-christian sarcasm, and is now made an object of censure by the Unitarian. Yes, I am bold to assert, that there is scarce a mystery in the Christian code, in which all the perfections of the A4- 132 mighty, and especially his infinite mercy and goodness, are displayed with more lustre than in the very permission of ori- ginal sin. For why, and with what views, did God permit it ? With views most worthy of his infinite wisdom and mercy ; with a design of drawing from that sin infinitely more good, and of raising fallen man to a state of glory and bliss incom- parably higher than that which he would have enjoyed in the condition of his original justice. No sooner was the preva- rication committed, than God made known his gracious de- signs to fallen man by this memorable and solemn promise of a future Redeemer, " I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed : she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."* Thus God graciously designed from the beginning of the world, to send a Redeemer, " in the plenitude of time," for the redemption of mankind. But what species of redemption ? a redemp- tion which has astonished heaven and earth, and which will fill men and angels with rapturous admiration, for all eter- nity ; a redemption the most glorious to God, the most plen- tiful, the most honourable, and the most advantageous to guilty man. For this gracious promise, after the lapse of four thousand years, was accomplished by the ineffable mystery of the incarnation, in which the eternal word, the only begot- ten Son of God, the second person of the adorable Trinity, was made flesh, and uniting to his divine nature, the very na- ture of fallen man in the unity of his divine person, was true God and true man, and as such paid to the divine justice, by the death of the cross, that rigorous and condign satisfaction and atonement for sin, which guilty man of himself was un- able to pay. From that moment heaven is reconciled with the earth, hitherto accursed,! mercy and justice meet in the kiss * "Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum ct semen illius : ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus." The Hebrew, xpsum, the seed, or as others read, ipse, the son of the woman, have exactly the same meaning. ■f u And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that arc in Heaven. Coloss. i. 25, 133 of peace,* the gates of heaven are expanded to all men : from that moment all the attributes of God blaze forth with an unparalleled splendour ; his infinite mercy, in not aban- doning sinful and ungrateful man in his forlorn condition, but in rescuing him from all his miseries, and in restoring him to his former rights,! his awful justice, in receiving by the bloody sacrifice of the cross, an infinite satisfaction, a satis- faction strictly commensurate to the injury offered to God by sin ; his infinite love towards men, " in so loving the world as to give his only-begotten Son, that every one that believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting;" his infinite liberality, wisdom, and power, in contriving for the restoration of mankind, so ineffable a mystery as that of the incarnation,| in consequence of which one and the same per- son is capable of suffering as man, and of giving infinite digni- ty to his sufferings as God, and likewise in inventing such a mode of redemption, as should be at once the most painful and ignominious to the Redeemer, and the most lenient and most glorious to guilty and ungrateful men. From this mo- ment God is honoured and adored after such a manner as would never have taken place in the state of original justice ; for he is honoured and adored by a God-man ; he receives infinite adorations in him that adores him as man, and who gives infinite dignity to his adorations as God. From this moment the nature of man is exalted to the very throne of the divinity, in the person of the incarnate word, and man being incorporated and united with the word made flesh, as a * " Mercy and truth have met each other; justice and peace have kissed. 1 " Psalms, Ixxxiv. 11. t " He has received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy. 1 ' St, Luke, i. 54. " But God, who is rich in mercy, through his exceeding charity with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ, (by whose grace you are saved.)" Ephes. i. 4, 5. If. " But when the goodness and kindness of our Saviour God appeared, no: by the works of justice which we hare done, but according to his mercy be saved us, by the laverof regeneration, and the renovation of the Holy Ghost. 1 ' Titus, iii. 5. " He has showed might in hh arm. 11 St. Luke, i. 5!, 134 member with the head,* and as the branch with the vine,! contracts an infinite dignity from that intimate alliance, and is made capable of honouring God as much as his infinite per- fection deserves ; his actions, even the most indifferent, when performed in union with Christ his head, are actions of infi- nite merit, and are entitled to a degree of glory and bliss, to which man in the state of innocence could never have been entitled, because they are not so much the actions of men, as the moral actions of Christ, their mystical head, being per- formed through the influence of his grace and of his spirit 5 being offered to God by him, and finally through him ac- cepted. I Now all this would not have taken place in the state of original justice ; God would have been far from ob- taining the same degree of glory, and man from being eleva- ted to the same degree of honour and of bliss. Have we not, therefore, great reason, with heart-felt gratitude to acknow- ledge and adore the depths of the infinite wisdom and know- ledge of God in permitting a sin, which was to be the occa- sion of such immense benefit to mankind? At the sight of the admirable counsels of God for the redemption of mankind, the church cannot contain her inflamed sentiments, but giving way to the rapture of her transports, she breaks forth in the following sublime strain : " O wonderful condescension of thy mercy towards us ! O inestimable love of charity ! thou hast delivered up thy Son to redeem the servant ! O, truly neces- sary sin of Adam, which was cancelled by the death of Christ ! O, happy guilt, which was to have such and so great a Redeemer !"§ * "And he is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may hold the primacy." Coloss. i. 18. t "I am the vine ; you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit." John, xv. 5. % " By whom (Christ) he hath given us very great and precious promises ; that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature." 2 Cor. i. 4. § "O mira circa nos tuae pietatis dignatio ! O inestimabilis dilectio charita- tisl ut servum redimeres, filium tradidisti. O certe necessarium Adas pecca- tum, quod Christi morte deletum est ! O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum rnerui* habere Redemntorem !" InBened. cerei Pasch. Sabb. P. 13S Objection. But the Unitarian has not yet done : " This doctrine, (says he,) makes God the author of sin, and the punisher of crimes in men, which he has rendered it impos- sible they should not commit."* LXXVI. Ansiocr. By confounding ideas, the Unitarians endeavour to throw dust in the eyes of their readers. No, God is not the author of original sin, whether we consider it in Adam our first parent, or in his posterity. And first, God is not the author of original sin, as far as it relates to Adam himself, for as such it is manifest, that it had no other cause than the free will of Adam, who, contrary to the positive prohibition of God, committed it by his own free choice and determination. Nor is God the author of original sin, as far as that sin exists in and affects the posterity of Adam. For what is original sin, when considered in the posterity of Adam ? It is assuredly not their actual sin, i. e. not a sin committed bv their own physical free choice, but by the physical will of Adam, which was morally their own, and which chiefly con- sists in the privation of sanctifying grace, and in the exclusion from the kingdom of heaven, if this grace be not restored. Now this privation of sanctifying grace, for the very reason that it is a privation or negation, does not require a certain, determinate, efficient, and positive cause ; it is sufficient, thaf God, in consequence of the sin of Adam, cease to preserve the supernatural habit of sanctifying grace in man ; and this is all God does in regard to original sin in the children of Adam ; he, therefore, can with as little reason be said to be the author of that sin, as of all other sins, merely because he permits them. LXXVII. Objection. But is it not cruel in the extreme, to doom poor innocent children, who happen to die without baptism, to eternal torments, and that for a fault, which they could not help committing ? Answer. And who damns these children to everlasting tor- ments ? Christians, indeed, hold it as an undoubted doctrine.. " that unless those children be reborn of water and the holy Ghost, and thus recover the sanctifying grace, which in the • Unitarian Miscellany, No. 1, vol. 1, page 19. 136 present order of things is a means absolutely necessary to en- ter the kingdom of heaven, they cannot enter it, and thus suffer what is called the pain of loss, which consists in the exclusion from the beatific vision of God, which being an ex- traordinary favour, altogether undue to man, God might have refused him, even if he had never sinned. As to sensible and corporeal pains, which God has designed for the punish- ment of actual sins, of sins committed by the ill use of our senses, it is the general opinion of the best divines, and the common persuasion of all Christians, that they do not suffer them. This dissertation being already too prolix, it is time to close our observations. The Christian philosopher discovers in this mystery of original guilt, and in the bountiful designs of the Most High, which are connected with it, the reason of all the evils of his condition, an astonishing display of the divine goodness, and the elucidation of most of his doubts. This mystery cheers his drooping spirits by the most sublime hopes, inflames his gratitude towards God, and confidence in him, and presents man with such an order of things, and such a concatenation of events, since the beginning of the world, down to this present day, as raises him above himself, as sa- tisfies his reason and all his desires, at the same time that he knows it to be superior to all the lights of reason, and to all the researches of the philosopher. Why do you, Unitarian, separate these great truths ? Why do you erase from the his- tory of religion, that which constitutes its chief beauty and comfort ? that mystery, which is the clue to all others, with- out which, as Paschal remarks, religion becomes an inexplica- ble enigma, and man a more inconceivable mystery to himself than this mystery is to him"?* Original sin is a folly in the eye of the profane sophister, but this folly is wiser than all the wisdom of men : " That which appeareth foolish of God, is wiser than men." 1 Cor. i. 25. * Pensees'de Paschal "Quod stultutn est Dei, sapientius est homimbus." UNITARIANISM PHILOSOPHIC ALLY AND THEOLOGICALLY EXAMINED, NO. IV. Dissertation on the adorable Mystery of the Blessed Trinity. ' Euntes ergodocete omnes gentes, Baptizantes eos in nomine Pa= tris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." Matt. 28, v. 19. " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, Baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." SECTION I. LXXVIII. With a view of proceeding with order and perspi- cuity on a Mystery, which, of all others, is the most abstruse, and the most impervious to all created understandings, we shall follow the same method which we pursued in the preceding dissertation on Original Sin, and bring the whole matter un- der several distinct heads. The subject divides itself natural- ly into the following chapters : CHAPTER I. In this chapter we shall give a brief account of the errors, which have been broached, during the lapse of these eighteen hundred years, against the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity. CHAPTER II. Next, we shall investigate, what reason itself, without the aid of Revelation, says on this ineffable Mystery, and whether the Unitarian, without even resorting to the Scriptures, be not forced, by the dictates of reason alone, to admit, not only the possibility of this Mystery, but also its propriety. No. IV. 'l8 138 CHAPTER III. In this chapter we shall establish this fundamental dogma of the Trinity, 1st. By plain Scriptural evidence. 2dly. By the concurrent and uniform testimonies of the Fathers of both the Greekand Latin church, especially of those thatflourishedbefore the general Council of Nice. 3dly. By the authority of Coun- cils and Symbols of Faith. 4thly. By the constant and per- petual practice and belief of the Church. At the conclusion of which, we shall meet the superannuated sophisms which have been advanced against the Mystery of the Trinity by the Arians ; next, in the sixteenth century, by the Socinians ; in the seventeenth, by the anti-christrian Sophisters, and, at last, in the eighteenth, by the Unitarians. CHAPTER IV. Shall be taken up in establishing the Divinity and Person- ality of the Holy Ghost, and in exploding the objections of the Pneumatoma.xis xi^etreuv xxiiot- s^^swy, vnoppeaauv xet tuv zjportpwv, xxi us zjoXv rpotjas xxi z^oKv(j.cpZas iCnxs xK'Aore xXXws (pO^po/xivuv zjpcviei (Toy xv^rxriv k, (s.tyeQos, xei y.xra tx xvrx ■>£. uaxvTus tyxax, v Tys xaOoA« kxi [A.ovns xXriOtis iukXyktixs Xx/j.zjpoT7)s, to s tv8eti zjoXithxs ts xxi (p/Ao