Incompatible, however, with truth, as the writer the following pages conceives this doctrine to be, would never have troubled the public with a line up the subject, had he not been convinced that it is, in effects upon society, the most deteriorating and per cious. Human nature has been systematically abus and misrepresented. Those who have placed the selves in the high seats have supposed men to be nature averse to all good, and inclined to all ev and that continually! What is this, but the represen ing of men, to be by nature, devils incarnate? Is possible, that misrepresentations of human nature, su as these, can fail to be productive of consequences th most appalling? If any man is so far bewildered, as believe the doctrine of total hereditary depravity, mu he not be discouraged from every attempt at reform tion? Why should he try to reform, when he believ that all the workings of his whole nature are but th workings of a mass of depravity? This doctrine i therefore, directly calculated to chain men down in sin and to perpetuate, as well as to produce, every abom nation:-hence, its refutation becomes indispensabl necessary.

We said that this doctrine is the chief corner ston of Arminian and Calvinistic sectarism. The teacher of these systems take it for granted that human na ture is totally depraved; and, hence, that men canno believe, evangelically, from the force of the divine tes timonies. The Bible is of course represented as a seal ed book to the unregenerate; and as necessarily re maining so, until the Holy Spirit opens their minds Thus, the gospel of the book is inefficacious, until the gospel of the Spirit gives it access! The book is, as the result of this teaching, neglected. The doctrine of essentials and unessentials is also presented, and strenuously advocated; and the effect of all this parade of noisy error is, to draw the attention of the people from the Bible, and to fix it upon those things which constitute the distinguishing peculiarities of Arminianism or Calvinism.

Whereas, if the truth in relation to hu

man nature were in the first instance known, the conclusion would be that the human mind can be operated upon by testimonies divine as well as human, written as well as oral: and that the effect of divine or evangelical testimony, is divine or evangelical faith: And this conclusion would also lead to so high an appreciation of the divine testimonies, as would exclude the doctrine of unessentials. By annihilating that metaphysical figment-physico spiritual operation in order to faithand recommending the divine testimonies, the Bible would be the more examined, and faith, saving and evangelical, the spontaneous result. These facts, however, will be made more obvious in the sequel.

The reader'must not suppose, that the writer of the following pages intends to deny, either human depravity, or the operations of the Spirit:--he believes in both, and merely denies that depravity is total, and that the spirit operates abstractly, and physically in order to faith! Now, if he prove that depravity is not hereditary and total, it will follow that men may believe savingly through the efficacy of testimony;-and, so soon as this shall have been proved to any person, the whole superstructure, whether of Calvinism, Arminianism, or Fullerism, which had been reared in his mind, must fall to the ground,-its foundation having been removed.

The writer intends to consider his reader as a rational being. He has learned, by painful experience, that with the bigot and the creature of prejudice, argument is useless. Such persons have no mind of their own;-they are the mere automata of those who think for them! He is thankful, however, that in our comparatively enlightened country, there are thousands who readthink-judge, and conclude for themselves. To those persons, then, he will consider himself as speaking in this little volume. He hopes in the Lord Jesus Christ, that his labour will not be in vain. If he shall contribute a mite to the melioration of the condition of his species, he will be amply compensated. The doctrine of total hereditary depravity was, he thinks, brought

into vogue among christians, by gloomy philosopher in the dark ages; and it is certainly more congeni with the minds of croaking ascetics, than with the e lightened cheerfulness with which Heaven born christ anity inspires its votarists. He trusts, therefore, th the following pages will be instrumental in wiping thi foul blot from the fair face of christianity, and causin many to become enamoured with her charms. Th unprejudiced reader will, he thinks, be fully convince by a careful perusal of the following pages, that hered itary depravity, has not placed him in a state, which renders it as impossible for him to believe savingly, a it was for Lazarus while dead to ascend from the grav in which he had lain four days; or, as it is for a dead man to communicate life to his own body.

A DEFINITION.

"Depravity" means moral corruption: "Total" signifies wholly, complete: and "Hereditary" signifies descending by inheritance. The definition, then, of the phrase, "total hereditary depravity," as used in the following pages, is, as follows:-total moral corruption, descending from Adam, through all parents, to their offspring; so that all Adam's posterity have been wholly corrupted by his first sin. We design to present to the public a thorough refutation of this doctrine.

REMARKS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF TOTAL HEREDITARY DEPRAVITY.

This doctrine, most probably, originated with the oriental philosophers. This philosophy is said to have originated in Chaldea, or Persia: whence it passed through Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt; and mixing with other systems, formed many different sects. The oriental philosophers, though divided into a great number of sects, seem to have been generally agreed in believing matter to be the cause of all evil; and as the human body is composed of matter, it was supposed to be corrupt and vitiated-the source of every depraved passion and appetite. When, therefore, either these philosophers, or their disciples, were converted to christianity, they brought into the church with them many of their peculiarities; and hence, in the very infancy of christianity, we find the Gnostics propagating the doctrine of the depravity of matter. This led them to deny the humanity of Jesus Christ; or, that "Jesus had

come in the flesh." The apostle John alludes to th doctrine of the Gnostics, when he speaks of the "man deceivers that had gone out into the world:" and whe he declares to his brethren, that "every one that denie that Jesus had come in the flesh, was a deceiver and a antichrist." The Gnostics taught that Jesus seemed have flesh, but that he had none; that he seemed t have had his blood shed, but that he had no blood They were, in short, incorrigible spiritualizers! "The looked upon all other christians," says Mr. Buck, "a simple, ignorant, and barbarous persons, who explaine the scriptures in a low, literal, and unedifying signif cation." Thus, having spiritualized, or rather gnost cized the scriptures, they proceeded to spiritualize th Aesh and blood of Jesus Christ!

Here, then, was laid, by these Gnostics, the broa foundation for all the subsequent corruptions of chris tianity. Their philosophical refinement, as no doub they vainly imagined it to be, was too great, to admit o their submitting themselves to the rational doctrine o Jesus and his apostles. This doctrine must, therefore be mysticized, until made to accord with their vain im aginings; and, finally, with the dreams of every subse quent visionary. In a short time, as a consequence o the doctrine of the total depravity of matter, and the ne cessity of spiritualizing the scriptures, innumerable metaphysical vagaries were superinduced. "Free will, "free grace," "original sin," &c. became the topics o angry controversy: "and this controversy," says Mo sheim, "was the commencement of those unhappy con tests, those subtle and perplexing disputes concerning grace, or the nature and operation of that divine power which is spiritually required in order to salvation, that rent the church into the most deplorable divisions thro the whole course of the succeeding age; and which to the deep regret of every true and generous christian have been continued down to the present time." Vol. 1, Pa. 336.

The eaons, or emanations of the Gnostics, seem to be very nearly the prototypes of modern revelations, and