CONTENTS. FOURTH SERIES. ix The influence of Sectarianism-the design of God in permit- Extract from a work, (printed 1514, and dedicated to The Good Presbyterian, concluded from the Fourth Series, 360 An extract of a Letter from the celebrated Gilbert Ten- THE TRIANGLE. No. I. Ir is an old, and perhaps will be regarded as a trite saying, that the decline of morality, in a nation, precedes and ensures the decline of its prosperity. The tendency of the increase of wealth, numbers, and refinement, to a deterioration of morals, is exemplified in the history of the greatest nations, and is too obvious to require proof, and too well known to need illustration. Happy would it be for mankind, if the natural tendency of nations and societies to sink into luxury, extravagance, dishonesty, and all the extremes of immorality, were not, in many instances, aided by the very means and institutions which are professedly established for the opposite purpose. Even religion, descended from Heaven, arrayed in the beauties of virtue, and her head encompassed with the rays of divinity, has been counterfeited, her institutions perverted, her doctrines corrupted, her glories sullied: so that, instead of presenting any barrier to vice, or any check to immorality, she has often become their most efficient auxiliary. It has been the boast, perhaps the felicity of this city, that it abounds more than any other city with institutions designed to favour morality; and while I leave it for the reader to judge for himself, of the effect and success of these institutions, I am concerned to say that, in my opinion, some of the most showy and prepossessing, at any rate, the most noisy means used to promote morality and religion in this city, are amongst the most useless, false, and hollow. I refer to nothing less than the strain of preaching continually and incessantly used in many of the pulpits of this city! I have no controversy with any one, nor do I enter on this subject in any other than a political point of view. I consider morality as the highest ornament and strongest bulwark of society; whatever, therefore, diminishes the motives and weakens the obligations to morality, comes no less under the animadversion of the politician than that of the divine; as it surely no less impairs the temporal than the spiritual interests of the community. There are a few points which go perpetually into the strain of preaching of certain gentlemen; and their scheme may be compared to a Triangle, from which they never depart, and in which, if they step out of one angle, their next step is into another; the succeeding one, into the one from whence they started. The want of variety might be compensated by force and expansion of talents, were their angular scheme laid, both as to its sides and angles, in the great field of truth. ment. Their scheme commences by teaching that the whole human race are guilty of the sin of Adam, independently of their own conduct, and for that sin are truly deserving of eternal punishWe are apt to take our opinions on the credit of venerable names; and very many names deemed venerable, if weighed in the balance of unerring truth, would be found to have derived their importance from a long and industrious propagation of error. Probably no individual man yet had time, candour, patience, and resolution, to examine and substantiate, on proper evidence, the whole mass of his opinions. Few men proceed to any considerable length in this arduous work. They take their opinions, nay, their articles of faith, as they do the fashion of their garments, not upon a careful inquiry, whether they are the best, but upon the testimony of the tailor who makes them, that they are in the fashion, The doctrine of original sin, as just stated, is thus received by its advocates. It has descended from the lumber and trash of the dark times of ignorance and supertsition, mysticism, and bigotry. The great reformers did nobly, but they did not do every thing. They merit the approbation of men, and met with divine acceptance for what they did, and are certainly to be excused for what they omitted, in their great work. I speak as though the reformers held the doctrine of original sin according to the tenor of the preceding statement. Some of them did, others did not; and the truth is, that a candid examination of the C sentiments of the fathers-of the most learned and judicious divines in Europe, before the reformation, and since, will show, beyond all dispute, that the above statement of the doctrine of original sin has never been the general or prevailing opinion of the Christian' church. Yet you shall hear it inculcated from Sabbath to Sabbath in many of our churches, and swallowed down, as a sweet morsel, by many a gaping mouth, that a man ought to feel himself actually guilty of a sin committed six thousands years before he was born; nay, that, prior to all consideration of his own moral conduct, he ought to feel himself deserving of eternal damnation for the first sin of Adam. I hesitate not to say, that no scheme of religion ever propagated amongst men contains a more monstrous, a more horrible tenet. The atrocity of this doctrine is beyond comparison. The visions of the Koran, the fictions of the Sadder, the fables of the Zendavesta, all give place to this :— Rabbinical legends, Brahminical vagaries all vanish before it. The idea, that all the numerous millions of Adam's posterity deserve the ineffable and endless torments of hell, for a single act of his, before any one of them existed, is repugnant to that reason which God has given us, is subversive of all possible conceptions of justice. No such doctrine is taught in the scriptures, or can impose itself on any rational mind, which is not trammeled by education, dazzled by interest, warped by prejudice, and bewildered by-theory.-This is one corner of the triangle above mentioned. This doctrine perpetually urged, and the subsequent strain of teaching usually attached to it, will not fail to drive the incautious mind to secret and practical, or open infidelity. An attempt to force such monstrous absurdities on the human understanding, will be followed by the worst effects. A man who finds himself condemned for that of which he is not guilty, will feel little regret for his real transgressions. I shall not apply these remarks to the purpose I had in view, till I have considered some other points of a similar character ;— or, if I may resort to the metaphor alluded to, till I have pointed out the other two angles of the triangle. INVESTIGATOR. |