of Grace, Original Sin, and Predestination. 45

the Father and the Son, till after the council of Nice.

In the mean time, Arius and his followers, shocked at the doctrine of Christ being of the same substance with the Father, maintained that, though he had pre-existed, and had been the medium of all the dispensations of God to mankind, he was, like all other derived beings, created out of nothing; the opinion of all souls having been emanations from the supreme mind being then generally denied by Christians.

Thus did it please God, for reasons unknown to us, to permit the rise and general spread of the Trinitarian and Arian opinions, as he permitted the rise and amazing power of the man of sin, and many corruptions and abuses of Christianity, utterly subversive of the genuine purity of the Gospel, till the full time for the reformation of this and other gross corruptions of Christianity was come.

II. A concise History of the Doctrines of Grace, Original Sin, and Predestination.

IT was a controversy about the nature and use of baptism that occasioned the starting of the doctrine of the natural impotence of man to do what God requires of him, of the imputation of the sin of Adam to all his posterity, and of the arbitrary predestination of certain individuals of the human race to everlasting life, while the rest of mankind were left in a state of reprobation; and this was so

late

late as four hundred years after Christ.

Before that time it had been the universal opinion of Christians, and of Austin himself, who first advanced the doctrines above mentioned, that every man has the power of obeying or disobeying the laws of God, that all men may be saved if they will, and that no decrees of God will be the least obstruction in the way of any man's salvation.

But Pelagius, a man of good understanding and exemplary morals, in his declamations against some abuses of baptism, asserting that baptism itself does not wash away sin, as was then generally supposed, (on which account it was the custom with many to defer it till near death,) nor could have been appointed for that purpose, because infants, which have no sin, are baptized; Austin in opposition to him maintained that, though infants have no actual sin of their own, they have the stain of original sin in which they were born; though he was far from asserting that Adam was the federal head of all his posterity, and that his sin was properly imputed to them. This was an improvement upon the doctrine in after ages. What Austin maintained was, that men derive a corrupt nature, or a proneness to sin, from Adam.

Also, having been led, in the course of this controversy, to assert that by means of original sin no man had it in his power to attain to salvation, he was obliged to maintain that it depended upon the will of God only who should be finally saved,

and

and that he predestinated whom he thought proper for that purpose, independent of any foresight of their good works, which it was not in their power to perform without his immediate assistance, and in which he must be the first mover.

But notwithstanding this doctrine of the corruption of human nature, of the necessity of divine grace for the production of every good thought or action, and of predestination to eternal life without regard to good works, advanced by Austin, prevailed in the West, chiefly through the authority of his name, it was never received in the Eastern church, and was much controverted, and held with various modifications, in the Western. Also, together with this doctrine of grace, the divines of the Roman Catholic church held the doctrine of human merit, founded on the right use of the grace of God to man. And the present doctrines of grace, original sin, and predestination, were never maintained in their full extent till after the reformation by Luther, who was a friar of the order of Austin, had been much attached to his doctrines, and made great use of them in opposing the popish doctrines of indulgence, founded on that of merit.

III. A concise History of the Doctrine of Atone

ment.

THE doctrine of atonement, or of the necessity of satisfaction being made to the justice of God by the death of Christ, in order to his remitting the

sins of men, arose from an abuse of the figurative language of Scripture, as the doctrine of transubstantiation also did. But for several centuries these figurative expressions were understood and applied in a manner very different from what they now are. It was granted by some pretty early writers, that we were bought (or redeemed) with a price; but then, as we had been the slaves of sin, and were redeemed by God, who ransomed us by the death of his Son, it was maintained till after the time of Austin (the principal author of all the rigid doctrines that are now called Calvinistic), that the price of our redemption was paid not to God, but by God, to the devil, in whose power we were. Of this opinion was Austin himself, who wrote largely on the subject in his treatise on the doctrine of the Trinity. It was long after his time before we find any traces of its being generally thought that the price of redemption was paid to the offended justice of God; and the present doctrine of atonement, founded on the idea of the absolute necessity of an infinite satisfaction being made by one infinite being for offences of an infinite magnitude, as committed against another infinite being, is subsequent to the Reformation. This doctrine was advanced by the Reformers in the course of their controversy with the Papists, about the doctrine of human merit, works of penance, and the power of granting indulgencies. Now can it be supposed that a doctrine of so much importance, as this is

always

always represented to be, should have been unknown

so many ages?

Thus all these boasted ancient doctrines are in fact of late date, either having arisen from the principles of heathen philosophy, or having been started and extended in the course of controversy, one false position making another necessary for its support; and an air of awful and deep mystery has been no small recommendation of them to many of the more ignorant.

The doctrine of the Trinity, having been one of the earliest corruptions of Christianity, will probably be one of the last to be completely eradicated. But the time, I trust, is fast approaching, when, by means of the zeal of truly enlightened and good men in this great cause, this fundamental error, which gives such great and just cause of offence to Jews and Mahometans, will be removed, and all that has been built upon it will fall to the ground.

The Conclusion.

My Christian Brethren, if the reading of this Address give rise to any doubts or scruples in your minds, with respect to some doctrines which you have been used to consider as true and fundamental in the Christian religion, inquire further; and if you be satisfied that you have hitherto been mistaken, dare to avow the truth, and act consistently with it. Dread the consequences of joining, with