Will the reviewer say under his own name, "that by doctrines founded on it, (absolute justice,) and which necessarily imply its truth," he did not intend, as one of them, the doctrine of infant damnation, and that it was this doctrine of infant damnation, necessarily flowing from absolute justice, which is "still eagerly inculcated and greedily received," and which so debases and brutifies us that we cannot distinguish between the character of a Calvinistic God and the Devil? And yet he gravely affirms, that the only point of the controversy respected the opinion of writers, not living men, and that he quoted Gale on absolute justice, knowing that it had no relevancy, as evidence of infant damnation, and only to show that Gale on absolute justice agreed with Twiss on absolute justice. We are far from charging the reviewer with falsehood. We only think that, when the irrelevancy and absurdity of his reasoning is pointed out, he really forgets what he did intend, (for certainly he did not intend to reason inconclusively,) and makes explanations without refreshing his memory by a reference to the record of past intentions, which he has left behind him on the unobliterated page, and therefore falls into self-contradiction. If he would keep a memorandum of his intentions when he writes, he might find a way of escape, when pressed with difficulties, without running against himself, or might discover when silence is the least of two evils.

In reply to my former animadversions on his quotations from Gale, the reviewer gives Gale's doctrine of God's absolute justice, applied to the sufferings of Christ as an atonement for sin, in which he says, "that GOD DID, DE FACTO, INFLICT THE HIGHEST TORMENTS ON AN INNOCENT, PUKE, SPOTLESS CREATURE, EVEN THE HUMAN NATURE OF HIS OWN SON, is most evident."* Upon which he thus comments:

"Now in view of this exhibition,' we would inquire whether the 'accredited organ' of any party ever brought himself into a predicament more awkward than that in which our author now stands. Here is a doctrine which lies at the foundation of his whole system, and he not only pronounces it'alarming and offensive,' but is exceedingly shocked, or rather surpassingly astonished,' that a plain statement of a leading principle involved in it, should be so cited as to imply a belief that the author of that statement was in earnest when he wrote the glaring passage' which contains it! From a Uunitarian, who looks with horror upon the light in which the Calvinistic doctrine of atonement puts the character of God, language like this might have been expected. But we confess we were not prepared to hear it from the lips of Dr. Beecher, an Orthodox man and a Calvinist. From him we should have looked for a panegyric rather than a satire upon the glorious' scheme of redemption.' He was taken at unawares, we admit. But this only the more strongly confirms what we have always maintained in regard to Calvinistic views of the character of God, viz. that they are utterly revolting to all the better principles of our nature, and, to an unprejudiced mind, carry their own refutation with them. Our author was in a state of astonishment-a state which does not afford the best of opportunities for the heart to hold close counsel with the

*Court of the Gentiles, Part iv. B. ii. chap. vi. § 1.

head, and he therefore uttered the honest language of his feelings, before he had considered how completely at war it was with the language of his system; and his testimony is a thousand times the more valuable for its very undesignedness."

I am not permitted to think that in giving these views of Gale, as in accordance with my own and those of the Calvinists of New England, the reviewer did not know that he misrepresented us. The views of New England divines on the atonement, differing from those of Gale, have been published for three quarters of a century, and are found in all the most approved New England writers. The difference between these and old Calvinistic writers is often recognized and correctly stated by Unitarian writers, when it is their object to prove that we are no Calvinists, or to excite a jealousy of our alleged Arminian tendencies, or to amplify the efficacy of the Unitarian philosophy in softening down the more repulsive features of our system. Did not the reviewer know that Gale's sentiments of absolute justice, applied to the atonement, do not lie at the foundation of our system? We do not hold that God, in the exercise of absolute justice, inflicted the highest torments on Christ. We hold that Jesus Christ, as the benefactor of the world, and, we doubt not, of the universe, had a right to lay down his life as a propitiation for sin, that God might be just and the justifier of him that believeth-that God was competent to decide whether the substitution of his obedience and death would answer the purpose of maintaining law, while pardon should be offered and conferred upon all of the human race who should repent and believe on him; and seeing mercy and truth, public justice and forgiveness could be secured by the atonement, he had a right to accept the expiation which Jesus Christ had a right to make, and did accept it, and with his consent did lay on him the iniquity of us all—that it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and put him to grief, and to make his soul an offering for sin-that, with his own consent, he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquitiesthat, (according to Lowth,) the chastisement by which our peace was effected was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

Does the reviewer mean to deny that the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah had reference to Christ, or that God, for our sakes, afflicted him? Explain the matter as he may, Christ was innocent, he knew no sin; and yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him—he gave his life a ransom, a propitiation. He tasted death for every man. He gave his life for the world. Whether he saves us, as Calvinists suppose, as a proper atonement, or, as Unitarians suppose, by his example, and his testimony as a martyr, the principle in the case is the same-the just suffering for the unjust.' Does the Unitarian look with horror upon this as absolute justice? Let him answer it to God, to Jesus Christ, to the Bible, to a Christian community. But if it does not include nor rest upon absolute

justice in his own case, the door by which he escapes will leave an open passage for us.

The reviewer accuses me of affecting a knowledge of Augustine by inspection, while I quoted him from Ridgely, and of attempting to conceal the fact by false references. This is quite amiable and charitable, especially, when in the midst of his reprehensions and exultations, he himself says,

"In the Christian Examiner, we inadvertently made, as was acknowledged in a subsequent number, an unwarranted use of this quotation. We have now corrected the error, but retain the quotation, at once as a curious illustration of Calvinism, and as throwing some light upon the passage cited from the con

text.'

So then the reviewer, it seems, inadvertently made an unwarranted use of a quotation.'

But why should his kind heart refuse to me the charitable supposition of inadvertence? May I not be permitted to have frailties, as well as the reviewer? I say that I never thought of affecting the appearance of having consulted Augustine, or of concealing that I took the extract from Ridgely; and it was "inadvertence" only, that prevented a distinct recognition of the fact, as well as the mistakes of references.

In respect to the quotations themselves, as given from Augustine by the reviewer, they prove all which I quoted them to prove, viz. that he had been quoted, as if he believed that infants suffered in hell, according to the common description of it, as prepared for adult sinners. Whereas he did not, as we make him say, believe any such thing, but did believe that, though there would be fire, -the punishment of sense-it would be a “damnation the lightest of all,❞—in respect to which he says, "I do not say that infants dying without Christian baptism will have so great a punishment inflicted upon them that it would be better for them if they had never been born;" (i. e.) the hell of infants may be better than non-existence, and on the whole, rather a blessing than a curse.

V. It appears, as the result of this discussion, that infant damnation has never been a received doctrine of the churches denominated Calvinistic.

To this proposition the reviewer has replied by a mass of irrelevent quotations from Calvinistic authors; as if the proposition were, that no writers of eminence have in any age taught it; and as if the opinions of authors, balanced by contrary opinions of authors, could prove a doctrine to be the received doctrine of the Calvinistic churches. But the proposition does not affirm, that no ancient writers, approved in their day, ever taught the doctrine of infant damnation. It was worded carefully, that I might not be made to say what I did not mean to say, and with perspicuity, that the reviewer might be without excuse should he misrepresent me. It was framed, also, to meet the charge brought against

Calvinists as a body, viz. that infant damnation is inseparable from the Calvinistic system, and that all real, consistent Calvinists believe it, and would preach it, if they dared; and also, to counteract the use so constantly made of it, to prejudice the community against us, and prevent them from hearing evangelical preachers, or uniting with evangelical congregations or churches. To hear a Calvinist was represented as hearing one who believed in the damnation of infants; and this lion was placed, in terrorem, in the way, to prevent persons from leaving Unitarian congregations, and coming over to evangelical worship.

To meet the exigency, I denied that infant damnation is included in the Calvinistic system, or had ever been a received doctrine of the churches denominated Calvinistic. Has the reviewer proved, in any way but by reiterated assertion, that it is a vital, essential, inseparable part of the Calvinistic system? Has he advanced an iota of proof to show that infant damnation ever has been, or is now, a received doctrine of the churches denominated Calvinistic?

A received doctrine, the reviewer ought to know, is something different from the opinions of individual authors, however eminent and approved. It is an opinion in which the entire body of Calvinistic churches have been agreed; and in which, in some authentic form, their agreement has been signified. The usual and only proper evidence of a received doctrine, is the Calvinistic creeds or the unvarying opinion of all writers. The doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the atonement, the entire depravity of man, regeneration by the special influence of the Holy Spirit, election, justification by faith, the perseverance of the saints, and eternal punishment, are doctrines of Calvinism, in which it is believed all Calvinistic creeds and all Calvinistic writers agree. They therefore, are the received doctrines of the churches denominated Calvinistic. But there are other doctrines, and different modes of stating and explaining these, in which neither creeds nor writers have been agreed. These are not the received doctrines of the entire sect; they are doctrines which, as a whole, they do not receive, but concerning which they differ. To quote, therefore, the opinion of commentators and writers to prove a doctrine a received doctrine of the whole church, which all creeds omit, and on which distinguished commentators and writers differ, is as dishonest as it is weak and illogical. For in what manner have the whole body of Calvinistic churches authorized Calvinistic authors or commentators to speak for them, or signified to the public their universal agreement with them on all points? Or in what possible manner could they signify their agreement, when, on many points, the commentators and writers differ, one from another? What Calvinistic church or minister on earth has adopted, and signified the adoption, of all which Calvin taught? Will Unitarians consent that all which Priestley and Belsham wrote shall be quoted as the

received opinion of the whole Unitarian sect? And yet Priestley is as much the apostle of Unitarians, as Calvin is of Calvinists. Thus, while they cut loose from all responsibility for the avowed opinion of commentators and authors and even living preachers of first eminence of their own, calling no man master, they do not hesitate to charge upon Calvinists, as a body, all the offensive opinions which can be scraped together from all the Calvinistic authors, poets not excepted, which have ever written.

The proof then is ample, that the doctrine of infant damnation is not, and never has been, a received doctrine of the churches denominated Calvinistic. It is not a doctrine of the Calvinistic system. The reviewer has been compelled to admit that it is not contained in the doctrine of original sin, and has only re-asserted, without proof, that it is contained in the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. Again we challenge him to prove it. Mere assertions, where argument is demanded, are impotent, and when they come as the only support of slanderous accusation, they do but add insult to injury.

The early Calvinists, as a body, did not, in any form, receive the doctrine of infant damnation. The reviewer himself has furnished conclusive evidence of this fact. The Lutherans, "not content with condemning the Anabaptists, set down the position, that salvation does not depend on baptism, among the false and erroneous doctrines of the Calvinists." That baptism is essential to salvation, had, it appears, by a misinterpretation of John iii. 5, come down from the early fathers, those undoubted Unitarians, as the Examiner would have them, and was the principal argument which went to compel the reluctant belief of infant damnation ; and Calvin, it seems, was the first to explode the false Unitarian interpretation, which shut the kingdom of heaven against infants, and to give the interpretation adopted by his followers, which opens to them wide the kingdom of glory. I do not believe that the Christian fathers were Unitarians; but if they were, as the Examiner contends, why then Unitarians introduced the doctrine of infant damnation into the church, and Calvinists were the pioneers raised up by providence to expel it.

The Reformati, called technically the Reformed, but now as commonly the Reformers, were sometimes Protestants in general, as distinguished from Catholics and heretics, and at others Calvinists as distinguished from Lutherans.' The Reformati were the Calvinists, then; and the testimony of Van Mastricht concerning them is, that "the infants of unbelievers, because the Scriptures determine nothing clearly on the subject, they supposed were to be left to the divine discretion."

But the reviewer, because Van Mastricht says the reformed "think that some infants may be obnoxious to reprobation, as obnoxious to original sin," insists that Van Mastricht asserts that the