with death, He menaced him with that which, in case of transgression, He intended to carry into full and irremediable effect. Is not this clearly established by the result? The prohibition has been violated;-the loss of creature righteousness, and of this present life, has thereby been incurred; and this loss has been, and will to the end of time continue to be, sustained by every individual of Adam's posterity. The threat denounced is thus literally and completely executed. But if spiritual and eternal death had been the amount of the threatening, how could it have been executed consistently with the future happiness of any of the human race? Which of these two systems, then, deserves the preference: that which represents God as threatening what He does not actually execute; or that which shews His veracity to be as untainted in the execution of His threatenings, as it is in the fulfilment of His promises?*

Such, then, briefly, but I hope intelligibly and conclusively, stated, are my leading objections to the ordinary

* The true doctrine of the atonement will be found stated at some length in my work, entitled, the Assurance of Faith, or Calvinism identified with Universalism, volume 2d, pages 100-117. See also Appendix, letters K and L. Christ, it is there shewn, came into the world not to compromise any of the divine attributes, but to shew how all of them might shine forth in their full and genuine lustre, consistently with the enjoyment of eternal life on the part of the guilty. He came, not to save us from any punishment which we deserved to undergo, for salvation, in this sense, would have been inconsistent with the truth and justice of God: but to render our complete endurance of the punishment deserved and threatened consistent with our possession of eternal life. In a word, he was manifested in the flesh, died, and rose from the dead, for the purpose, not at setting at variance, but of reconciling, the otherwise incompatible and discordant attributes of justice and mercy.

doctrine," that Adam by the fall incurred spiritual and eternal, as well as natural, death." These are,-1. Spiritual and eternal death, as implying the loss of spiritual and eternal life, involves in its very nature an impossibility:-2. God can inflict no greater punishment than what he has previously threatened; and having threatened the loss of Adam's pure creature state and earthly existence merely, therefore the loss of these was all that Adam by transgression incurred :-and, 3. as what God threatens, He behoves to execute, the infliction of what is commonly denominated spiritual and eternal death would have rendered the salvation of man utterly impossible.-Perhaps, the conclusion resulting from the whole of these arguments may be thus expressed: As Adam, in the event of transgression, was menaced with the complete and everlasting forfeiture of all that he naturally possessed, it was impossible for him naturally to have possessed spiritual and eternal life; seeing that, had this been included among the number of his natural advantages, it must have been forfeited by him on his own behalf, and on behalf of his posterity, completely and for ever.

My answer to the first question proposed, namely, that natural death, meaning thereby the loss of the life of the natural mind as well as that of the natural body, was the amount, and the whole amount, of the forfeiture or punishment incurred by Adam in consequence of his original transgression, so far from being invalidated, stands thus confirmed and established, by a considera

tion and examination of all the reasonings that can be adduced, as well in opposition to it, as in opposition to the theory commonly maintained. But, as there still remain one or two ways in which my antagonists may. attempt to turn aside the force of the remarks already made, it will be proper to bestow a little passing attention upon these before proceeding to the second question.

1. It may be alleged, "that although Adam, according to the hypothesis in question, was possessed of spiritual and eternal life previous to the fall, the words spiritual and eternal, when applied to him, are used in a sense different from that in which they are when applied to the Lord Jesus." In what different sense, pray? As signifying that which, throughout the whole of these reasonings, I have expressed by the term natural ? If this were admitted, who does not perceive, that it would be on the part of my opponents a virtual, and yet entire, abandonment of their cause? That it would be equivalent to an admission of the correctness of my statements with regard to the life which Adam originally possessed and by transgression forfeited, as well as of the blundering and absurd character of the ordinary system?-But, perhaps, it is not the intention of those who are supposed to make the above concession, to admit the accuracy of my statements. In what sense, then, I again ask, do they allow a difference between the terms spiritual and eternal as applied to Adam, and the same terms as applied to Jesus? Will they venture to assert, that there is a nature intermediate between the creaturely nature of the former, and the divine na

ture of the latter? If so, in what part of scripture is it revealed? If not, in what other sense can they hold the difference in question, except in that in which the Apostle Paul states it, 1 Corinth. xv. 45—49, viz, the difference between what is natural or animal, and what is spiritual P-the very difference for which I have all along been contending.-Let me, for the sake of argument, allow my opponents the benefit of meaning by spiritual and eternal life, as enjoyed by Adam previous to the fall, no more than I myself mean by the employment of a different and a more correct phraseology: even then I must protest, in the most decided manner, against the idea of scripture lending the slightest sanction or countenance to so dreadful a perversion and mis-application of terms, as that of which they are guilty. So far, indeed, is it from doing so, that in all those parts of the sacred writings where Adam and Jesus are treated of and contrasted, the utmost care is taken to distinguish between the former as a creature, and the latter as the Creator; between the former as the source of what is natural, and the latter alone as the source of all that is spiritual and eternal. There is no such thing in the Bible, as the application of the phrases. spiritual and eternal to the life which Adam possessed previous to the fall.-Let it be understood, then, that if my opponents feel any inclination to abandon their unscriptural notions concerning the life forfeited by Adam, in order to take off from their concession the aspect of duplicity, and render it of any value, they must likewise consent to abandon the ambiguous, unscriptural,

and inappropriate language, by which they have been accustomed hitherto to express these notions.

2. I may be asked, "is it not positively declared in scripture, that men as they come into the world are dead in trespasses and sins; Ephesians ii. 1; and does not this, upon your own principle of death implying the loss of life, signify that they are spiritually dead?” Without enquiring into or discussing the exact meaning and merits of the passage quoted, and assuming it, as my antagonists imagine, to be applicable to the natural state of the whole Gentile world, I observe that, upon the system which I advocate, any apparent difficulty that may be involved in it, is with the utmost ease disposed of. It must be abundantly clear, even to the most superficial thinker, that a man may be destitute or in want of that to which he is not dead, or which he has not lost. I am destitute of kingly power and of the rank of nobility in Great Britain, but I am certainly not dead either to the one or to the other, because I have lost neither. Let the foregoing plain remark and illustration be applied to the case and circumstances of mankind naturally. As death uniformly signifies loss, I can perceive that the whole human race are dead to the creature purity and other advantages which their first progenitor enjoyed while in the Garden of Eden; for, these they lost in him: but dead to spiritual and eternal life they cannot be; for, as it has been I trust satisfactorily proved that Adam did not originally possess it, so neither could he lose it. It is not denied that, as Adam's descendants,