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propensity in the nature of all mankind is a very evil, depraved, and pernicious propensity, making it manifest that the soul of man is in a corrupt. fallen,and ruined state, and did he mean that this propensity is not in itself sinful and deserving of punishment?

T. R. is anxious to prove that Edwards does not maintain the doctrine of physical depravity, which is ; "that there is concreated with man a substantial property or attribute of his nature, which is in itself sinful and deserving of punish But the method pursued does not appear to me to be warranted by Edwards's language. Edwards, in my view, endeavours to shew that men are so connected

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with Adam, that they personally and voluntarily sin with him, or have a personal, sinful disposition like his, and with him; and for this personal voluntary sin, or personal sinful disposition, they are condemned; but such he supposes to be the connexion between Adam and his posterity, that his sin and their first sin are one and the same sin, his sinful disposition, and their first sinful disposition, are one and the same disposition.

This is incomprehensible to me; but whether intelligible or not, it ought to exonerate Edwards from the charge of maintaining the doctrine of physical depravity. I believe that man is created a moral agent, that is, with moral faculties, and he instantly acts as a moral agent, and his first disposition, feeling, or action, is as much his own, as any disposition, feeling, or action through his whole existence. This first disposition, &c. Edwards would represent as the same thing with Adam's sin. Surely then he does not hold to the doctrine of physical depravity.

I do not know an uninspired writer from whose works I have derived so much profit as the writings of Edwards. With intense delight and

wonder I read his work on the Freedom of the Will. It gave me views of God's omnipresence and power, which astonished and transported me. When I read of God's having a choice about the positions and movements of every atom of matter; and of his knowing all the volitions of all creatures, I could not but pause and shut up the book, and indulge in contemplation on the perfections of Jehovah. His work on Original Sin gave me clearer views than I had ever before had of the corruption of mankind; and his work on the Affections produced an effect more powerful and more permanent than any other human production I ever examined. But i do not believe that the science of theology stopped short where Edwards left it. He had himself no wish to be to theologians, what Aristotle was to schoolmen, and Augustine to Catholic divines. His works never perhaps will be out of date; and even if they should be forgotten, all future ages will be deriving benefit from them: future divines will sow and reap where he broke ground. The men who survive a up the battle, who gave the last stroke, and who gather the spoils, often owe the victory to those who met the first shock, and died in the front ranks. Edwards, Owen, Calvin, and Augustine were great men, but their perfected spirits do not stand at the point of knowledge at which they left the earth; but their minds are expanding in their conceptions of the Deity. The church on earth too, will go onward in theological science, and it will be the glory of these and other men, that they led on the church to heights of knowledge, of which we cannot now conceive, and which they did not themselves reach.

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TO J. P. W.

E. M.

IN perusing Thomas Hooker's Discipline," which, though not often Survey of the Summe of Church

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I quoted, is yet regarded as the work of one who by his wisdom and skill in the Scriptures is claimed to be the father of congregationalism, I find a quotation from Ambrose, which follows.

Apud omnes ubique gentes honorabilis est aetas, unde et synagoga, et postea Ecclesia seniores habuit, quorum sine consilio nihil agebatur in Ecclesia, quod quâ negligentiâ obsoluerit, nescio, nisi forte doctorum desidiâ, aut magis superbiâ, dum soli volunt, aliquid videri.

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This passage is translated and commented on in your "Lay Presbyters, No. XII." (Christian Spectator for 1825, p. 183,) where the commentary on the Epistles of Paul, from which the passage is taken, is ascribed to Hilary. In remaking on the passage, you say, "This comment, like the text on which it was made, relates solely to old men who are not presbyters." The text is 1 Tim. v. 1. I am not fully satisfied that either the text or the comment relates only to old men who are not presbyters." First, as to the text: The reason assigned is, that they are contrasted with young men. But in 1 Pet. v. 5, the same word as in the text, perBUTεpo, is contrasted with young men. And yet plainly elders there means presbyters. See Robinson's Lexicon, and Ros. in 1 Pet. v. 5. And why may it not here? There is only one passage in the New Testament, where the term is necessarily to be referred to age, and there it is used as an adjective, with its substantive expressed, Luke xv. 25. Unless we add Acts ii. 17, which is a quotation from the prophet Joel. As to the circumstance of there being "no mention made of office or order," I ask if it is common for the apostle Paul, when speaking of "Elders" to say "the order of elders?" I see not why the text does not as properly refer to office as 1 Pet. v. 5, which un

doubtedly has this reference. So that it is by no means taken for granted that "the idea of an order of presbyters in the comment would have been a departure from the text."

Secondly, Of the comment : But if this were true. it is perhaps not an unsupposable case that the comment should be a departure from the text." In bringing forward this ancient commentator, whoever he was, as a witness, we are to inquire, not what he ought to say, as a commentator, but what he does say, as a witness. To me it appears plain, that if “ he does not speak of an office or order of men, he speaks of a class of men who used to be consulted in all the affairs of the church, and whose usefulness (if we must not say office) had grown obsolete by the sloth and pride of the teachers. The teachers would make themselves alone eminent, by disannulling the importance of others. Even admitting that the persons spoken of were old men," majores aetate," yet they are not spoken of simply as old men, but as certain seniors in the church, who used to have a voice in all church acts. And the preachers had suffered their agency to grow into disuse, in order to increase their own influence and importance.

Are we then to conclude that either Paul or his commentator treated of a third order in the church? Not at all. These elders who were not teachers, were the deacons. By adopting this view, I believe all the difficulties are obviated in regard to these and a multitude of other passages in which the officers of the early churches are spoken of. All the varieties of office are to be ranged under these two general heads, of bishops and deacons.

I am happy to confirm, in general, my view of Rom. xii. 7, 8, by the opinion of so scriptural a divine as Hooker, Part II. p. 9.

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"So that Prophecie and Ministery are here put as common heads, unto which the rest are referred, and under which they are ranged, and that's the reason why the apostle in this enumeration changed his phrase: The first distinction he expresseth in the plurall: The second, in the singular. Beza in locum.”

Though the view which he gives of the division of duties differs in some particulars from that proposed in the article on Deacons, yet it goes to confirm the idea of the various subordinate officers of the church being all included in the general office of the deaconship. Whether in this passage there is an allusion to the services of the deacons in teaching and exhorting or not, yet it seems to me there is evidence in the other passages there quoted, that the deacons were so employed in early times.

But the main idea of the piece is, that the office of deacons is properly a spiritual office, and includes all

the various services, which are needed in the church, and are not provided for by the ministry of the word. And the passage in Am

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brose, or Hilary, whoever is the author, is valuable as shewing the opinion of this ancient deacon, both of the importance of his office, and of the manner in which it had sunk from its primitive utility, through the negligence and self-sufficiency of the clergy. The subject is important, and I should like to learn the views of so skilful a Christian antiquary as the learned J. P. W. Perhaps the result will be the discovery, that the first step of usurpation was the degradation of the second order of church officers, and that the most effectual blow at the root of all the evils of church gov ernment will be the restoration of deacons to their primitive dignity and usefulness.

This, as I conceive, will be most effectually done by establishing the position that "lay presbyters" and "deacons" have the same office, and that the government of the church, so far as it is separate from the pastoral care, belongs to the diaconate.

J. L.`

DR. OWEN ON ANTINOMIANISM.

IN speaking of some of the first heretics, Dr. Owen has this observation, which is the more worthy of notice because from some of his pe

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culiar views respecting atonement, many Antinomians have been fond of quoting his authority.

"Instead of Christ, and God in him reconciling the world to himself, and the obedience of the faith thereon according to the Gospel, they introduced endless fables, which practically issued in this, that Christ was such an emanation of light and knowledge in them as made them perfect; that is, it took away all differences of good and evil, and gave them liberty to do what they pleased without sense of sin, or fear of punishment. This was the first way that satan attempted the faith of the church; namely, by

ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE SAME BE

substituting a perfecting light and WHEREBY HE WILL ENDEAVOR THE knowledge, in the room of the person of Christ; and for aught I know,

IT MAY BE ONE OF THE LAST WAYS

SIGN.

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MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

ON THE PRIVILEGES OF INVALIDS.

I'r seems to me that persons of delicate or sickly constitutions, whom for the sake of brevity I shall designate by the term, invalids, are a privileged class of people. As mere animal beings, they are indeed excluded from much of what is termed enjoyment; but man is a rational being,

The situation of the invalid, with the concomitant appendages of pain and sickness, the pill and bitter draught, solitary days and “wearisome nights," the restrictions necessarily imposed, and the privations to which he is subject, has very little to excite the envy of a world, which "places its bliss in action," or luxurious "ease," in parade, and noise, and bustle, and

-"a creature holding large discourse, (may I not add?) in vanity. But the Looking before and after;"

capable of moral and intellectual attainments; and every moral attainment is a degree of happiness in kind, far transcending aught of which mere animal nature is susceptible. The invalid, therefore, who feels "how much the soul is superior to the frame that is influenced by it," though he may sometimes find occasion to lament the influence in turn, of a disordered frame on the mind that inhabits it, has no cause to be dissatisfied with his lot.

Without attempting a methodical dissertation on the privileges of invalids, or even an entire enumeration of those privileges, I shall name only those which more immediately occur to my mind, and shall express, in my own homely manner, a few such thoughts as are naturally suggested by the subject. These privileges are neither few nor unimpor

tant.

I sometimes think they are of a more exalted nature than those appertaining to any other situation in life. In one respect, at least, they are to be prized, viz. that they excite not the envy of the world.

world knows little of what may be enjoyed, even under all those seeming disadvantages. There are circumstances which can alleviate the sufferings of a sick bed-there are seasons of mitigation-there is that, which can sustain the soul, the nobler part, and give us strength to bear whatever an all-wise Providence sees meet to lay upon us. What reflecting invalid would exchange situations with one individual in the world, or barter his own little stock of comforts, for all the specious joys the world can promise? True he has a little world in himself a host of enemies within to contend with-numberless petty fears and anxieties, and sometimes, alas! secret murmurings and distrusts of Divine Providence(these, however, all belong to the reverse of the picture) and he is apt too, to be "forecasting the fashion of curious uncertain evils." On survey.ng the bright side of the life of an invalid, we find enough to overbalance all these, and that if such a "life has its weakness," it has "its comforts too." The pleasure of restoration from a fit of illness to a comparative degree of

health, to breathe again the freshness of the pure air, and look abroad once more on the green fields and all the smiling scenes of nature, arrayed it would seem in a thousand new charms-to taste a rain the sweets of society, and to feel one's self no longer in need of the kind exertions of friends, endeared far more than ever by their numberless labors of love, and patient, sympathetic listening to the tedious "tale of symptoms."-to be enabled to return again to accustomed, loved pursuits and duties-these, with the emotions of gratitude they excite. are enough to compensate for all the little train of sufferings, and afford a delight more exquisite than the enjoyment of uninterrupted health. Is it not gratifying to the best feelings of the human heart, to be placed in a situation, which though a privileged, and in many respects a happy one, is such as to excite nothing of that baneful passion, envy, in the breast of any beholder?

The invalid is also happily exempted from the ordinary cares and bustle of life, and "keeps the noiseless tenor of his way along its cool, sequestered vale." The circumstances in which he is placed, are friendly

"to virtue and to manly thought, And to the noble sallies of the soul;" nor does he

-"think it solitude to be alone."

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his elegant epistles, "If what Waller says be true, that

The soul's dark cottage, battered and and decay'd,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made,

then surely sickness, contributing no less than old age to the shaking down of this scaffolding of the body, may discover the inward structure more plainly." "Sickness," he further observes, "is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a sort of diffidence in our earthly state, and inspires us with hopes of a future, better than a thousand volumes of philosophers and divines. It gives so warning a concussion to those props of our vanity, our youth, and our strength, that we think of fortifying ourselves within, when there is so little dependence on our outworks."

In this school of moral reflection, the invalid learns too, that his is not a detached, a separate interest; that the world, though made for him, was made "for others too." He perceives, that as a member of the great family of mankind, who are mutually dependent, however feeble, he is bound by the ties of consanguinity at least, to do good to all, and to promote the welfare of every individual so far as may be in his power. Feeling his own dependence, and absolute need of friends, he has an additional inducement to shew himself friendly." His own bodily and mental infirmities, and the knowledge he acquires of human nature, tend to soften his heart, and inspire him with the gentle virtues of compassion and forbearance. He "feels some generous joys and generous cares beyond himself." True, he finds his usefulness in active life somewhat limited, but is there nothing for him to do? Will the example of his life and conversation have no influence on those around him? Can he devise no schemes, and

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