one of whose objections against the doctrine is, that it is unfriendly to the purpoles of piety and holiness, and embraced by few who have religion at heart. Praying the Lord may fucceed all your labour from the pulpit and the prefs, for the advancement of true and undefiled religion in the world, and promote the cause you so laudably defend, and the love, purity, and usefulness of all that befriend it, I remain, Greenock, Sept. 3 } 1801. Dear Sir, Your cordial friend and brother, in the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, N. DOUGLAS. AN Antidote against Deism. LETTER I. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ—I am set for the defence of the gospelStand fast in one spirit, with one wind, ftriving together for the faith of the gofpel-Rom. i. 16. Phil. i. 17. 27. DEAR SIR, THE perfon to whom properly belongs the honourable character of a Chriftian, will deem the knowledge and poffeffion of divine truth the moft valuable of all treasures. Actuated by this perfuafion, the acquifition of truth will be a main object of his daily prayers and purfuit. So far as this object is attained, he will not let it go, but hold it faft, whatever this may coft him. Neitber will he walk in craftiness, nor handle the word of God deceitfully, artfully concealing or disguifing it; but rather, by a faithful manifeftation of the truth, commend himself to every man's confcience, as in the fight of God. Viewing things in this light, he will not receive any thing in religion upon truft, but will examine the doctrines of men by the light of fcripture, knowing if they fpeak not according to the law and teftimony, it is because there is no truth in them, at least fo far as they recede from that unerring ftandard, be they ever fo found in the faith in other points. He that is of God heareth God's words. We may refine upon the oracles of truth, by changing the plain meaning of words and expreffions, till they lofe their original import, or are brought to convey a quite different fenfe. This is often done, and may discover no small addrefs in the art of what is called expounding fcripture. But we may admit. it as a general rule, fit to be adhered to in every cafe, that when any word or phrafe is to be taken in a fenfe different from what it literally means, there is something in the text or context, or in the use of that word or phrafe elsewhere in fcripture, to direct to the proper fenfe. Were not this the cafe we would be left quite at the mercy of every pretender to fcripture-criticism, and there would be nothing more vague and uncertain than the language of infpiration, which would render it of no effect to regulate and establish our faith. But no man can admit this, who believes the neceffity and reality of a revelation of the will of God to men, as the unerring and unalterable ftandard of their faith and practice. If one may take the liberty to explain away this paffage of fcripture, another that, and a third fome other paffage, to accommodate them to their own views, at this rate what fhall become of the facred volume; for every one may explain the whole as may beft fuit his own peculiar fyftem, and thus the word of God is made of none effect by this arbitrary mode of interpretation. A C cording to the views men entertain of the character and administration of the Moft High, will be their difpofitions and carriage towards him and their fellow creatures; for wrong views on that fubje&t have been the fertile fource of much fuperftition, mifchief, and irreligion in the world. Perufing, dear Sir, your Magazine of May laft, I find a review of a late fermon, which has acquired fome celebrity, and of which you exprefs your cordial approbation. Having yet feen no more of the fermon but the extracts you have given, I can form no just opinion of the merits of the whole; these, however, fhew the author to be a perfon of talents, and not unworthy of the fame he has acquired in the circle of his religious acquaintance. our own. My object in writing you is not to animadvert on the fermon itself, as that would be unfair, without having coolly examined the whole performance; I fhrall however beg leave to remark, that the peculiar tenet of those whom the Doctor oppofes, refutes the firft lie as effectually as that which he defends, fo far as the facred text is concerned, to which we have no right to make any addition of The falfe and bold affertion of Satan to Eve, upon which the difcourfe is founded, "Ye fhall not furely die," Gen. iii. 4. refers evidently to the divine threatening, Gen. ii. 17. "But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eateft thereof thou shalt surely die," or, as the margin renders it, dying theu fhalt die. Thofe that hold the doctrine of the Refloration maintain, as well as the author, that the foul that finneth fhall die; that the wages of fin is death, even the second death; and that there is no deliverance from it, but by the exercife of repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jefus Chrift; and fo far they have no particular concern in Satan's lie. Candour required the acknowledgement of this, that the reader might not be impofed upon by a fhew of unfounded reasoning, pushcd beyond its due limits, where there was no difference of fentiment. The death threatened in the prohibition doubtlefs implied the lofs of God's moral image, which immediately fucceeded Adam's firft tranfgreffion; the miferies confequent on the fall in this life; and the diffolution of the human frame by natural death: But that it imported any thing beyond this will be difficult, if not impoffible, to prove from fcripture. As by the firft Adam came death to this extent; fo by the fecond Adam, the Lord from heaven, came also the refurrection of the dead; fo that the refurrection, even of the wicked, is a fruit of his mediation, 1 Cor. xv. 21. Without the refurrection of the body, man could not be fubje&ted to the fecond death in his complete perfon, which feems to be the condemnation peculiarly attached to the rejection of the gofpe!. That fe and immortality, which are brought to light by the gofpel, had not been revealed to Adam prior to his fall; and we have therefore no reason to think that God would threaten and judge him, by the laws of a difpenfation which, in relation to him, did not then exift. The Judge of all the earth will always do right, though his guilty creature man will feldom do him the honour to allow this. The univerfaldoétrine does not fay to the wicked and impenitent, Ye fhall not tely die, as is generally infinuated. It threatens them with a mifery beyond the grave, commenfurate to the degree and aggravations of their guilt, and with a loss that can never be repaired; though it represents Christ as the refurrection and the life from every death and grave to which fin exposes, before he termi nate his reign. Thus, fo far was the death threatened from including mifery without end in the next world, it does not seem to me to have intended the mifery of that ftate at all. Infants are thus far concerned in the penalty threatened for eating the forbidden fruit, which shews their need of a Saviour in common with the adult, and we see them daily paying the forfeiture; but does this oblige us to admit, that he will vifit the effects of the first tranfgreffion upon them to all eternity, as many maintain, or beyond what can be proved to be included in the fentence, as attached to Adam himself? Before men venture to make this a part of the Divine plan, they fhould be very certain they have sufficient authority for it in the holy Scriptures. If the word of God does not authorise us to fay, that all who die in infancy shall be faved, I am certain that it gives us no authority to maintain, that they fhall be all eternally damned, merely for Adam's first fin, a very few excepted. On fuch a fubject, men should have the modefty to be filent, if they cannot produce exprefs authority to pronounce decifively on the face of fo great a proportion of their fellow creatures; or if they speak, it should be on the fide of mercy, if there is nothing in the character or word of God to forbid it. Thus they who make the effects of the curfe, entailed by the first fin, to pursue infants beyond the grave, and even for ever, do not seem to me to have a fingle portion of Scripture, properly understood, to support their hypothefis; for the second death appears to be the confequence only of actual tran{greffion, unrepented of and unpardoned in the prefent ftate. It is truly amazing, that any who have access to read that God is love, and the Father of mercies, who is full of compaffion, and in whom compaffions flow, fhould entertain and inculcate fuch fentiments of his character and adminiftration, as a matter to be believed, while they maintain that there is mercy with him for the chief of finners, and that he is no refpecter of perfons *. Some object to the above view of the nature and extent of Adam's firft tranfgreffion, and its effects with regard to infants, as denying original fin. With them, that fin chiefly conffts in fubjecting all infants, without exception, to eternal death, merely on account of Adam's firft tranfgreffion, from which they fuppofe none delivered that die in infancy, but a few elect infants. To deny this they repute a denial of the doctrine itself, though there are no two things more diftinct. We may admit and maintain original fin, fo far as the fcriptures reveal its nature and effects, and yet deny fuch to be its confequence. Those who maintain that confequence, let them produce one fingle proof of it from the word of God, our only rule of faith in fuch cafes. That word fays, that we must all appear before the judgment feat of Chrift, to render an account of the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad, and to receive accordin to them--that as we now fow we shall hereafter reap, and give an account of the talents committed to our trust, to occupy till he come; none of which can apply to thofe who die in infancy. But will not the Judge of all the earth do right? Will he condemn them to endless woe, without the formality even of a trial? Such a conduct be far from him. It has The application of that paffage, Pfal. cxxvii. 3. to this purpefe, has been objected to- Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward." been objected, that this is the heritage and the reward he gives to his faithful people (a forced fenfe of the text) not a heritage and reward which he receives from his heavenly Father. Have not many good people been childless? and do not the wicked often abound in childre. I was ftruck with one of the arguments urged in the extracts, in proof of the eternity of future punishments, viz. God's infinite hatred of fin. This argument is much more conclusive, if I mistake not, when urged by the opponents of the common doctrine, as a reafon for the total and final deftruction of all moral evil. God is as eff ntially prefent in hell as in heaven; and hell is faid to be naked before him, and deftruction to have no covering. Does not the total deftruction of fin out of the univerfe, if in a way that magnifies the Lord Jefus, and glorifies every attribute of Deity, ferve much more to evince his infinite abhorence of it, than his permitting it to exift for ever before his eyes, though it should be 66 But if we view children, even all the fruit of the womb, as given to Chrift, as an heritage and reward for humbling himself so far as to pass through childhood and youth, in order to purchafe and reclaim these to himself, we see in the paffage a glorious and extenfive grant, confirmed by other parts of feripture. God hath in these last days fpoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things." Heb. i. 1, 2. Here is a more extensive grant, which neceffarily includes the former. If children are an heritage of the Lord, or Meffiah's inheritance, even the f uit of the womb his reward, though unbelief may for a time alienate this in the adult, and fin corrupt it, does this oblige him to relinquith his right in that inheritance to the devil, and fo violate his Father's appointment of him to be heir of, or to inherit, all things! He would be ahamed to be called their heir, or to accept an appointment for that purpofe, did he mean always to have the greatest part of the nobleft of them under the dominion of fin, Satan, and the fecond death. On the extent of the effects of original fin, the Author made up his mind many years ago. A fermon of Dr Doddridge, preached on the death of one of his own children, and alfo a fermon of Mr Newton in his Meffiah, first led him to examine the common view of that subject, and to embrace that which both these worthy men plainly approve, as agreeable to the fpirit of the gofpel, and no where contradicted in the word of God. The laft of thefe authors fays, that for his part he is willing to believe the falvation of all who die in infancy till the word of God for bid him." That eminent man, Dr Watt, in his lofs and recovery of mankind finners, the title I think of the work, not venturing to go fo far, rather than admit that any who die in infancy fhall be miferable in the world to come, throws out a fuppofition, that all the non-elect infants fhall be annihilated. But the liberal and benevolent plan of God makes no fuch fuppofition neceffary, though the narrow schemes of men may. The Author published his view refpecting the future ftate of infants, in his Miffionary Sermon on Meffiah's glorious reft, and never heard that that view gave offence to any, though his favouring the doctrine of the Reftoration makes it now offenfive to fome. He was glad to find, on perusing M'Lean's defence of the doctrine, of original fin lately published, that the respectable body of Chriftians, with whom that author ftands connected, view that doctrine in the fame light in which he himself has been led to understand it. But the damnation of infants is the natural consequence of abfolute predeftination. Nor is the damnation of infants more unjust than that of the adult, if the common creed be true, which makes that to turn on the imputation of a fin committed many ages before they exifted. According to the common doctrine, every child of Adam is born under a sentence of condemnation to eternal death, fo that the fentence of the last day, with regard to the wicked, only confirms it, furcharged with the guilt of actual fins. If uone can be faved but the elect, then, according to fome, all that die in infancy muft perish, as they cannot poffefs the fcripture characters of the elect. These are faith, they are chofen to falvation through belief of the truth; they are to make their light fhine before men; they are to put on bowels of compaffion as the elect of God; they are to act here in fome meafure as kings and priests, as an earnest of what they are to be and do hereafter; and they are faid to be a peculiar people, zealous of good works. If none can be numbered among the elect who do not answer to thefe feripture characters, it it evident that none who die in infancy or non-age can be the elect in that fenfe, and that all who are not the el: fhall not perish, if we would not give up all that die in non-age to the wicked ore. Extenfive and fatal as the fruits of the firft apoftacy are, we would however gladly fing, with the poet on the fame fubject, Yet mighty God thy wondrous love Can make our nature clean, The tempter, death, and sin The second Adam shall restore The ruin of the first; Hosannah to that sov'reign Fower That new-creates our dust, |