LITERARY AND THEOLOGICAL REVIEW. NO. XXII.-JUNE, 1839. ART. I.-REVIEW OF WAYLAND ON THE LIMITATIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY, AND JAMES WOOD ON OLD AND NEW THEOLOGY. THOSE of our readers, who have looked over our first and second articles, and are disposed to follow us through this, will excuse us for a brief recapitulation. In his views of practical ethics, we in the main concurred with Dr. Wayland, though we have objected to his principles, as defective, obscure, or erroneous. In all moral precepts, the ground of obligation is expressed or implied. However practical then a writer may propose to be, his counsels result from his principles: these constitute the true basis of his system. While we agree, therefore, with the Doctor, that the streams are bitter, the fruit evil, and the lump sour, we consider his radical, and fatal defect, as a Christian casuist, in this attempt, to be a superficial view of the evil and a mistake of the remedy. Moses sweetens the bitter fountains, Exod. 15. 23-26. John Baptist lays the axe at the root of the tree. Math. 3. 10. Paul purges out the old leaven, and our Lord traces evil conduct to evil principles. Matt. 15. 19, 20. Matt. 16. 6. 11, 12. We do not say, that a writer on practical morality, is bound to discuss principles: but the attempt will be futile, to reform moral obliquities, civil disorders, and religious fanaticism in action VOL. VI. 19 which leaves untouched the true causes that have generated the evil phenomena. It is vain to cast out devils while Beelzebub is left in quiet possession of the body. Vol. 5. 523-532. The radical error of the enterprising and glorious piety of this "enlightened age" is, in supposing that the true religion for man is one of ACTION, a work of good, a problem of beneficence; so that the appropriate vocation of her subjects is to" do good," to eradicate the evils, and promote the good of mankind, in all their various relations, moral, intellectual, domestic, civil, political and spiritual; tolerating no rest from this magnanimous and comprehensive work of good, 'till all nations shall conform in their customs, worship, and institutions, to her pattern of perfection. The above scheme implies in the subject a knowledge of good and evil; virtue to design the good, wisdom to devise the means, and power to accomplish it.* It is a religion for holy beings, and it is natural for proud men to believe it to be his; but the true system for fallen beings is a not doing religion. As every imagination, and deed of man is wicked, so far as he is the efficient actor. Gen. 6. 5. Gen. 8. 21. Rom. 3. 12, the form in which he receives the law of action, is thou shalt "not do," it is a veto law. Thou shalt have no other gods; thou shalt not bow down to idols; thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain; thou shalt not work on the Sabbath;† thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery: thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lie; thou shalt not covet; and even love, in a renewed breast, is represented by the apostle, not so much as an *We think the language of the writer hardly sufficiently garded on this subject. We regard the great object of advancing the Redeemer's kingdom by spreading the word of God, and evangelical tracts, and sending missionaries to the destitute portions of our own and heathen lands as dear to the heart of every true Christian, and the subject of express commands. As to the means of accomplishing this object Christians differ, and the progress of the New-Haven heresy has further involved the subject, has put hundreds upon getting information, whether they were giving funds for the spread of the gospel, or the most subtil and fatal heresy which has ever infested the church. The positive precept to honor father and mother is perhaps because of the principle of natural affection. active and doing principle, as one that is passive and suffering. Charity suffereth long, and is kind, envieth not; vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but in the truth; heareth, believeth, hopeth, and endureth all things; now the popular charity of modern religion is the direct contrary of all the above, and DOETH ALL THINGS. Believing that men are never doing worse, than when zealously doing the most upon the principles of natural religion and action; and that many of the practical evils, which are the topics of consideration by Dr. Wayland, result from the deplorable prevalence of "new divinity;" we stated what seemed to be the three elementary or constitutional laws of natural religion and action. Vol. 5. p. 534, 535. We believe that to be the human system. We glanced at the history of man in connection with these prinples. 1st. Politically. To "do good" is to promote the welfare of the sovereign; for whether one, few, or the majority, the sovereign is practically the state, and all the public power, moral, intellectual, pecuniary, and physical, is kept in action, to do good for the state or the public. That which constitutes good in foreign correspondence, varies according to the circumstances and character of the sovereign, whether a savage, a feudal chief, a religious bigot, or a financier, Vol. 5. p. 537---539, and so that which is good in the domestic economy and administration of the state varies with the changing views of the times. Vol. 5. p. 539-543, We have seen the result of the principles of action, viewed politically, to be the discovery that the public welfare is not promoted by "doing good" but by doing nothing, or not doing. The state is before the church in this discovery, the children of this world being wiser in their generation than the children of light. Luke. 16. 8. See Vol. 5. p. 539–544. We introduced our second article by stating the paternity of the human triangle to be the devil's square; in other words that the primary law and constitutional basis of the kingdom of Satan was identical with that of the kingdom of man; or of this world, both being anti-Christ, that the father of lies is the father of the human system; and hence the universality of the Divine precept to repent and believe in the Redeemer's work, truth, power and grace. Vol. 6. p. 23— 25. Having sketched in our first article the operation of the human triangle in the state, we proposed to notice the history of the same principles of action and religion as developed by individuals and the church. We are here some embarrassed by the fact that the thread of our discourse in passing through the press was broke into many fragments, many of which are lost; we shall however tie together, the best we can, the pieces at hand, though it will make but a knotty continuity. From the religious history of several persons recorded in the Bible, as Cain, Ishmael, Esau, Pharaoh &c, we endeavored to shew they were confiding in Satan's square. They believed and acted upon his principles, as 1. That they had life in themselves. 2. That their eyes were open to see the truth. 3. That they were as Gods in respect to sovereignty and dominion. 4. That they knew good and evil. This system all men naturally believe to be true: they intuitively perceive its tenets to be elementary, and to rest upon a universal mental and moral consciousness. If this be so. then the above is the natural religion of fallen man. The fatal poison of these satanic delusions consists in denying the true nature of the curse and the blessing. In lying against God. For the devil is not only the father of lies, but a murderer from the beginning, John 8:44. What has ever been received among mankind with more universal acquiescence and admiration, as containing the substance of all human obligation, than the three celebrated precepts of Justinian: 1. Live honorably. 2. Hurt nobody. 3. Give every one his due. Inst. 1. 13. And this is atheistic. From individuals we proceeded to trace the history of these principles in the visible church, and we discover the same ignorance and delusion as to the import of the curse and the blessing, and the means whereby the latter was to be realized. The gospel was first preached in the hearing of Adam and Eve thus: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." When Cain was born, Eve probably thought him the promised seed, Gen. 4, 1; but Cain was not manifested to destroy the works of the devil, 1 John 3: 8. As the great blessing was to be born of a woman, the constitutional laws of propagation presented the only possible media to the antediluvians whereby they could be instrumental in the consummation of a beneficence which was the subject of an ignorant but universal anticipation. At the time of the Exodus, the form of the blessing was |