tion to God. Gen. iii. 1-6. ii. 15--18. Now for the first time man's intellect ceased to harmonize with God's intellect, and his affections and will ran counter to God. Man sinned by violating the will of God. He broke God's covenant and fell under his curse; the coeval endowments, in which the image of God consisted, ceased; for, indeed, God left him. That communion with God, on which these principles depended, ceased, because it would have been utterly improper in itself, and inconsistent with the covenant and constitution God had established, that God should still maintain communion with man after he had become a rebel. Man was left involved in spiritual darkness, guilt, and ruin. In the whole of this transaction God exerted no power in occasioning man's fall, or in promoting the temptation that led to it, but he did every thing that he could do to prevent it. Nor did he infuse any principle of sin or corruption into the fallen state of man. By the abuse or improper use of his moral powers, man sinned against God, and broke his covenant; and God withdrew from him in a spiritual point of view, intellectually and morally speaking, left him flesh without the Spirit; and by the change man became naturally mortal. As the light withdrawn from a room leaves it in darkness, so the withdrawal of God from man left him in spiritual darkness and death, imprisoned within the walls of time and sense, under the dominion of animal appetite and passions, and under the sentence of natural death. In this case the natural presence and operations of God's Spirit did not cease; had that been the case, man would instantly have died a natural death, and the human race would have ended. Job xxxiv. 14, 15. These continued, but these do not give spiritual knowledge or religion. They only sustain the natural existence of man so long as it lasts, and his original and native powers and susceptibilities, which render him capable of religion; but I repeat, they do not give religion, or the knowledge of God: this is given by external, verbal revelation. Religion was natural to man's original estate; but it is supernatural to his fallen state.

The process by which we must be brought to God, to holiness, and heaven, is precisely an inversion of the process of our fall. The devil deceived our first parents, and ruined them by darkening their minds and corrupting their affections by falsehood. Our minds must be enlightened, our guilt must be pardoned, and our affections purified by the merciful truth of God, and that is gospel truth. The Word made man first in the image of God, and gave him speech and knowledge upon spiritual subjects. The word, made flesh in his mediatorial character, under the new covenant, again speaks to man through his own blood, and is the light of life, and renews him by knowledge, after the image of him that created him. This is done by giving him the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Through faith in him we are justified and sanctified. The light of this knowledge is the gospel character of God.

I observed that in man's first estate religion was natural to himthat is, the knowledge of God formed a part of the state natural. Agreeably to the caption of this essay, I now observe that the death

of Jesus Christ, in the divine purpose and conduct, and the fact of the existence and agency of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, have been, since the fall of man, intimately connected with, and concerned in, the divine and spiritual communications to, and in the existence of religion in our world.

I designedly omit the terms atonement and trinity, because they are not properly in the New Testament, and have been the subjects of much unprofitable verbal disputation; and I employ the expressions "the death of Christ," and "the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," in their place, as they are connected with the revelation and knowledge of God, and the existence of religion in the world.

What I have now said is chiefly preparatory to what I am now about to advance in proof of the necessity of the death of Christ, and of the truth of the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and' their effects and operations to the existence of religion in our world. By religion I mean a system of truth, affection, and conduct, of which God is the great subject, and supreme object, and which I maintain, since the fall of man, could not exist without supernatural revelation in words.

My method of proof, in this case, will consist in the simple exclusion of the death of Christ, and of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and all their obvious consequences since men fell, in reference to religion, to show that their absence leaves the world without the knowledge of God and religion altogether, and that their existence and operations are necessary to the knowledge of God and of religion in the world.

1. I exclude the death of Christ as it was announced, and promised, and prophesied of, and all its consequences, as it existed in the divine purpose, and was made known by God immediately after the man fell. Gen. iii. 15. By this the promise of the seed of the woman is excluded, who was to bruise the serpent's head, and all the communications and institutions that were made and ordained by God in reference to it. The sufferings of Christ, and the glory that was to follow, of which the spirit of Christ that was in the prophets did speak from the earliest ages of the world, are with the revelations of them blotted out. Abel's offering by feith, and Enoch's prophecies and walk with God, and his translation, and Noah's faith and conduct, and the patriarchal and Mosaical systems and dispensations of religion, and all the bleeding victims and smoking altars, which were typical, are excluded, with every form of worship, and all spiritual ideas, whether true or false, except those which Adam may have remembered of what he knew before the fall, and which he may have communicated to his posterity. In the absence of all that was said and done in reference to Christ, there has been no communication made by God to man intelligibly, since he fled from the presence of his Maker. I will resume the subject of the death of Christ and its effects under the second head of the next division, as it is connected with the existence of religion in the world.

2. To prove the truth and necessity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as they have been, and are known, and emploved in the manifestation and revelation of the knowledge of God, and in the existence of religion among mankind, since Adam fell; I will now exclude the office and agency of each.

1. I exclude the knowledge of the Father, as he has been made known in the system of religion, and all that he has said and done. Then there is no Father so to have loved the world as to give his only begotten Son for its salvation, and no fact has ever occurred in reference to him, or his Son, or this salvation, in word or work, by which the existence of either would be known. No spiritual object of faith, in the scripture use of the term, can be found in the whole bounding circle of human knowledge; within it there is no means of spiritual perception, or discernment without revelation.

2. I exclude the Word, and the word made flesh, who is the Son of God, and all that the scriptures tell us of him, and of all that he did and said before his incarnation and since, and what he is now doing, and will do.

I will not attempt to enumerate all the consequences of this exclusion upon the state of the human mind and the world, in reference to religion or to spiritual light, knowledge, and life; to thought, affection, and conduct. I will mention a few of them. The purpose and grace, given to us in Christ before the world began-the promises and prophecies, made in reference to them--the incarnation of the Word his appearance in the world--the manifestation of his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth--his death and resurrection-the establishment of the new covenant→→→ redemption through his blood, and the forgiveness of sin--his ascension into glory-his exaltation to the mediatorial throne, he being invested with all power in heaven and in earth-the new song sung in heaven to him by all the heavenly hosts, and by all that are in the earth, as the Lamb slain, Rev. v.-his return again to judge the world in righteousness, to raise the dead, and save the righteous, and to destroy the world with fire, and to sentence the wicked to eternal woe--the separate existence of the spirit from the body of those that die, until the resurrection, and the termination of the mediatorial reign-all, all these are extinguished from the minds of men, and from our world!

3. Exclude the Holy Spirit in all that he has said and done, which have been made known in miraculous and supernatural words and works since man fell. There is no spiritual light or knowledge in the world. Before Christ came into the world the testimony of Jesus was the spirit of prophecy; and after his crucifixion and glorification, the office and agency of the Spirit was to glorify him by working miracles in his name, and by speaking in his own words and sentences the things of Christ, and teaching things to come concerning him, and proving that he is in the Father, and the Father in him, and that he is Lord of all, and Saviour of the world--all these are extinguished, and the existence of the Spirit himself, his operations and influ

ences upon the hearts of men, are unknown; for he is not an object of sense that he can be seen, or felt, as existing distinct from our own minds, or from the phenomena or appearances of nature. He is an object of faith, and is only known to exist by revelations made in words and miraculous works.

4. In the last place: Exclude the revelation concerning all these things, which is found in the recorded word of God, and in oral tradition; and all the knowledge derived from it since the fall of man, and since the birth of Christ, whether pure or corrupted, and the world is of necessity involved in atheism, without an idea, a thought, or a feeling relative to God, except, as I before remarked, so far as Adam may have remembered, and informed his posterity, of what he knew in his primeval state before he sinned; there could, however, be no worship derived from such a remembrance, suited to the fallen state of man, no expiatory offerings or sacrifices, such as have appeared in alt the forms of worship that have existed since.

We have now seen what would be the state of man without the death of Christ, and the offices and agencies of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in reference to religion, or the knowledge of God. We see also in what total depravity consists. It is true, that the scriptures assume it as a fact, that the knowledge of God existed in the world at the time they were written; but they never suppose 'hat knowledge to have originated without revelation, but the reverse; and any person, who now may think that it did, is invited to show the process by which the mind can arrive at it from the existence and phenomena of nature, or by analogy, or by the analysis of its own powers. I repeat, that in man's fallen state there is properly no natural religion. The assumption of the truth of natural religion, virtually denies that total depravity, as the loss of the knowledge of God, as well as the love of him, were consequences of the fall. Natural religion also involves the denial of the necessity, and the effects of the death of Christ in the divine purpose and conduct, and the existence and agency of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to the existence of religion or the knowledge of God in our world, since man fell, in contradiction to what is demonstrably true, and to what we have seen to be true. God is an object of faith, and not of sight or of sense, and so is the fact of creation. Sense informs us that the worlds are; but faith, or the revelation of God, teaches us that they were made by the word of God. Under. the light of this knowledge, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work. Ps. xix; and so do the frame and constitution of man. Ps. cxxxix. 14.

1. Notwithstanding all the controversies that have existed about the atonement, or the death of Christ, and about the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all true knowledge, that we have of God and religion, is the effect of these doctrines. The Christian religion can no more exist without them, than light can exist without the primitive colors, or vision without light. The exclusion of either of these doctrines, with all its appropriate consequences, destroys the whole system of religious knowledge. Hence all that appertains to

our salvation is the gift of God, and is given to us in Christ, who is the light of the world, and the life of it.

2. All that can be known of divine truth must be found in the nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, &c. in their own statements and connexions, which compose the word of God, and in the cultivation of the faith, hope, affection, and conduct, which that word is the means of producing and promoting in religion. These parts of speech, in their proper meaning, are ultimate principles in religion. Every individual christian, and every christian society, is equally bound to preserve the phraseology of every passage, and to cultivate the meaning and use of it in understanding, temper, and conduct, as God's means for forming the christian character, and for promoting the union, peace, and happiness of all christians, and for his honor and glory.

3. All christians do agree to the extent, they believe in, and love the Lord Jesus Christ, and ought to cease their divisions and strife, and cultivate mutual affection, good offices, and fellowship towards each other, according to the gospel.

ARCHIPPUS.

Dear Sir,

PHILALETHES' STRICTURES ON JOHN.

THE first remark which Philalethes has to make respecting the communication by John, which appeared in your Harbinger of November last, is, that he is unable to perceive, with any thing like precision, in what your correspondent's objection to the sentiments expressed by Philalethes, in his essay on Matheteuo, consists. John seems to assert that it contains objectionable matter, but certainly fails to state that objectionable matter in such a manner as to render it susceptible of a definite answer. Has John proved or attempted to prove the existence of untruth in a single assertion which Philalethes has made? When John shall have stated his objections with sufficient precision to be understood, Philalethes.will attempt to obviate them, or by his silence acknowledge error.

But, in the mean time, Philalethes takes the liberty of proposing a few questions. Is John prepared to deny that a real scholarship is necessary before scholarship be publicly avowed by immersion? Is he prepared to assert that the person who by immersion declares himself to be one of Christ's disciples, does not act the hypocrite, if he be not previously to immersion a real disciple? Is he prepared to assert that water, or any thing else, applied in any quantity or manner to the body of a sinner, is able to alter the legal, intellectual, or moral-or, in short, the mental state of that sinner? If his answers be affirmative, he is requested to specify the evidence which has engendered in his mind this conviction or belief. Is he prepared to assert that any act performable by a transgressor, can release him from the punishment by law annexed to his transgression?