in its various phases, was propagated by Hopkins, Smalley, the younger Edwards,Emmons, and their associates. The logical process was brief, and simple, and the conclusions inevitable. If the creatures be no cause if God is the immediate and only cause, he is the sole cause of sin, both in Adam and us. If there be no powers in man's nature-if the phenomena of his existence and life be the immediate effects of the power of God, there can be no native dispositions or tendencies, of which to predicate holiiness or sin; these can consist in nothing but acts. If Adam's nature was not the cause of his posterity, he was not the cause of their depravity; God, the only cause, produces it in them. If there is no real identity possible in things which exist at different times, and in different places; if we are one with Adam only by "constitution" and legal intendment, then his sin is not truly ours, and its punishment may not be exacted of us. God may in sovereignty act toward us as he would toward sinners; but the inflictions which are visited upon us, on account of Adam's sin, are without privitive character. Again, for the same reason, Christ could not so become one with us, as to be held really accountable for onr sins, or be truly responsible for their penalty. Nor, on the other hand, can we be so united to him, as to acquire a strictly proprietary right in his righteousness. The consequence is, that Christ's atonement is viewed as made in general for sin, and not distinctively for the sins of his people; and that his work was not determinate of the redemption of any one; but only opened the way for the salvation of those to whom God should give faith. Such were the positions maintained by the earlier disciples of Edwards. They at once rejected his untenable appeal-untenable upon his principles-to the distinction between a positive and a puritive cause, to account for God's agency in the production of sin; and did not hesitate to attribute all sinful actions to the efficient agency of God. But falling back upon the optimistic principle, they held that since God was bound to produce the best possible system, we are shut up to the conclusion that the present is the best; and sin being found in this system, it is inferred that sin is an incident of the best system, and necessary to it. Sin, therefore, thus viewed, upon the whole, is not an evil; and hence it is consistent with God's holiness and goodness, to produce it. It is only evil, in that the sinner is not actuated by any such apprehensions, but the reverse. Retaining the old forms of speech, these writers rejected utterly the old doctrines of original sin, and justification.

So stood the "orthodox" theology of New England at the rise of the school of New Haven. And it is a significant fact that the first public announcement of the organization of a new school of theology, by the professors in that institution, contained a challenge to the optimists of the prevailing school to justify themselves

in assuming that God could prevent sin in a moral system. Thus did the revolting fatalism, which was involved in Edwards' theory of causation, induce a recoil to the opposite extreme, in the assertion of Pelagian free will. The divines of New Haven found in the very heart of Edwards' system some of the fundamental and most frightful features of the doctrine of Pelagius-that Adam was not the cause of his posterity-that of consequence they were not really in him in the covenant-that his sin is not theirs, nor its punishment visited on them-that depravity is not derived from Adam by his posterity-and that all sin consists in exercise or action. Accepting these as unquestionable propositions, and recoiling with just abhorrence from the idea that God is the author of men's sins, they adopted the other alternative deducible from the principle, and concluded that men are created without moral character; and that their depravity is the result of example and circumstances. Boldly repudiating the system of constituted relations and fictitions intendments, by which the Hopkinsians had kept up a semblance of orthodoxy, they utterly denied any federal union between us and Adam, or any vicarious relation between us and Christ. Every man comes into the world in the same moral and legal attitude as did Adam. Each one sins and falls by his own free will. Christ died-not as a legal substitute for us-a vicarious satisfaction for our sins--but as an exhibition of the love of God to sinners; and a display of the evil of sin; so that God may, consistently with the welfare of the universe, forgive sin. The sinner is pardoned, not justified-sin is forgiven, not taken away and justice is waived, not satisfied. Again, supposing man's free will competent to sin in spite of God, it followed that the same power could cease to sin, independent of the spirit of God. Regeneration is therefore to be wrought by means of moral suasion, and the exercise of the unaided powers of man's own will.

Such is the New Haven system-in some of its features broadly distinguished from old Hopkinsianism; but essentially a proper outgrowth from the stock of Edwards. The radical peculiarities of the Edwardian system were all incorporated into the divinity of New Haven. The rejected features had their origin in the impossible effort to reconcile these peculiarities with the principles of the orthodox faith. Consisting in the preposterous doctrine respecting identity-the theory of "constitutions" established by God, contrary to the essential reality-and the revolting doctrine concerning God's efficiency in producing sin-their effect was to create an odium against the Reformed system, of which they were supposed to be essential elements. Thus the way was prepared, for the rapid and universal prevalence of the unadulterated Pelagianism of New Haven.

We have not paused to trace the process of defection to Socinianism, which the earlier part of the present century witnessed

in the east. Strange and incongruous as may seem the association with the name of the venerated Edwards, the relation of that apostasy to his principles, is unquestionable. The intelligent reader need but study the systems above delineated, and notice the progress of passing events in the same region, "to understand the process. It is a fact of no little significance, that after the younger Edwards had been employed more than twenty-five years,indoctrinating the people of New Haven, in the new theology, he was constrained to resign his pastoral charge, by reason of the prevalence among his people, of the "liberal Christianity" of Priestley. The system of New Haven recognizes indeed the doctrine of the Trinity. But the Son and the Spirit are thrust into a corner; the one to exhibit a dramatic display, and set an example of perfect humanity, to which the demigod of Arius were abundantly adequate-the other to testify for the truth, with a demonstration which is already perfect, in the word. As there is no room for an omnipotent Renewer and Sanctifier, so there is no need of an infinite vicarious sacrifice, to justify. If the leaders in the Socinian defection were foremost in opposition to the orthodoxy of Edwards, it was in a manner perfectly in accordance with the similar course of the New Haven school. Entrenched in the false principles of Edwards' philosophy, they assailed with fatal effect that system of grace, which nourished the faith, and stimulated the labors of that man of God.

A due regard to the facts here presented, is necessary to a just apprehension of the present state of the question, as between the friends of the Reformed theology, and a large class of the advocates of error. They constitute a most instructive admonition, of the exceeding caution with which the deductions of philosophy are to be admitted to authority, in the sphere of theology; even though researches of profoundest acumen be tempered and sanctified by the most eminent grace. We cherish the utmost respect for the teachings of a sound philosophy, in its proper place. But in all sacred science, the infallible touchstone, to which every thing must be brought, is "the more sure word of prophecy." "To the law, and to the testimony!"

It is not an uncommon mistake, to suppose that a given opinion, because opposed by the enemies of sound doctrine, must therefore be true. We have known writers, claiming to be "orthodox," who, finding the idea of a constructive and technical headship rejected and denounced by Pelagians, have been induced to embrace it, under the apparent impression that it is the alternative to the unscriptural system of New Haven. Such is not the alternative. With perfect consistency we repudiate alike the Pelagianism of that school, and the "constitutional" orthodoxy of the Edwardians. Whilst the one denies altogether any moral relation between us and A'dam, and the other contrives a relation which is unreal and

constructive, we, in opposition to both, assert a headship which is real, and not constituted; native, and not superimposed; a responsibility on acconnt of the sin of our great father, which is criminal and not technical merely; and the derivation from him of a corruption which flows to us, immediately and by necessity of nature, from him the corrupted source of our being.

ART. V. BRECKINRIDGE'S THEOLOGY.

The Knowledge of God, Objectively Considered. Being the First Part of Theology considered as a Science of Positive Truth, both Inductive and Deductive. By ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE, D. D., LL. D., Professor of Theology in the Seminary at Danville, Kentucky. Non sine luce. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 530 Broadway. 1858. 8 vo., pp. 530.

In the general notice which we have already taken of this book, we promised, in our present number, to make it the subject of a more distinct consideration. That promise we proceed to redeem.

Dr. B. has been so eminently a man of action, and the impression so widely prevails that action and speculation demand intellects of different orders, that a very general apprehension was entertained, when this work was announced as in press, that it was destined to be a failure. Few could persuade themselves that the great debater was likely to prove himself a great teacher-that he who had been unrivalled in the halls of ecclesiastical legislation should be equally successful in the halls of theological science. There was no foundation for the fear. Those qualities of mind which enable a man to become a leader in any great department of action are precisely the qualities which ensure success in every department of speculation. Thought and action are neither contradictories nor opposites. On the contrary, thought is the soul of action, the very life of every enterprise which depends on principle and not on policy.* It is the scale upon which the thinking is done that determines the scale upon which measures are projected and carried out. Bacon was none the less a philosopher because he was a great statesman, and the highest achievements of Greek genius were among those who were as ready for the tented field as the shades of the Academy. The small politician, the brawling demagogue, the wire-worker in elections, the intriguing schemer and the plausible manager can never succeed in any walk of meditation; not because they are men of action, but

*Non viribus aut velocitatibus aut celeritate corporum, res magnae geruntur, sed consilio, auctoritate, sententia. Cic. de Senect. c. 6.