tian's.God? No, we answer, it is not the christian's God, but the God of the Assembly's Confession of Faith. The Deity represented in the New Testament, is the Father of all his creatures. He made this fair world, covered with his bounties and blessings; and it is but the dim image of his paternal care. The deity of the Assembly's Confession of Faith, is what that work describes him. Pardon us, if this seems horrible. We do not wish to shock any one; but we are discussing these doctrines, and must therefore tell what they are. And that we may shock. no one, we have chosen to state them in the weighed, and measured, and revised, and calm language of those who believe them. But it may be said, that no one believes them. All that we can say is, that every clergyman and every elder, in the Presbyterian church, in the most selemn and formal manner, adopt the confession of faith, as their creed, and therefore, of course, believe it. Further than this, we have no right to go, and I go no farther. We do not say that any one believes it, who does not publicly profess to do so. This we say, as an excuse to those who might condemn us for dwelling on doctrines, which to them may seem. obsolete the worn out errors of the dark ages. They are not obsolete, but professedly taught as fundamental, in more than two thousand churches of our land. But let us further add, that though this creed is believed, we cannot but think, that it is very often believed, as we believe, what we are taught in childhood-the words being assented to, with no very definite idea of what they mean. Many have probably hardly read the confession of faith; with few do its doctrines become .actual principles of the mind, and all believe other truths, many others, which counteract what little influence these may have. All believe in the paternal providence of God; all believe in the necessity of a virtuous life. The question is not about these. But are the peculiar doctrines of the Westminster Assembly's Confession of faith taught in the scriptures? To us, it seems, not one of them. We find Presbyterianism in the catechism, not in the bible. We will dismiss this general review of the confession of Faith, with an illustration which may serve to show its character. A parent has a child. During its youth it disobeys some injunction of the parent, and the parent, as a punishment, puts out the eyes of his child. After this he has many other children. As they are born, he, successively puts out their eyes, on account of their elder brother's sin. But his laws require that they shall be constantly occupied in business that requires the use of sight. Of course they can do nothing, that he requires them to do. They must necessarily violate his laws every moment. But his justice requires that his laws should be avenged, and his own character glorified; and to accomplish this object he places his children on the rack every day, and strains it to the extremity of torture. Some of his children, he would however liberate, if he could consistently with justice. They are chosen, without reference to their characters, while one of them offers, on condition that his father will liberate them, to bear their punishment in their stead. The father assents. He releases some of his children, but inflicts their punishment on this one, while the rest of his children, he still dooms to this perpetual torture. Thus he vindicates his parental mercy and justice. Were a human parent to do so, all human punishments would seem too light for such demon-like barbarity-a barbarity so monstrous, so beyond all name, that human laws could not reach it. But this parent might defend his course, thus. Man is commanded to imitate God. Did not he quench, not merely the outward eye, but the eye of the soul, in Adam, on his first sin? And has he not, on account of that sin, quenched that inward eye, of the soul, in every one created since? Does not his law require, what they cannot do? And to vindicate the authority of his law, does he not doom all, not to this light punishment of the rack, which touches not the soul, but to the flames and tortures of hell-tortures, which like tongues of fiery serpents, dart through the body, and through the soul. Some he saves from this, as I have done, but he saves them, as I also have done, only because another has suffered the punishment in their stead. Am I wrong when I imitate God? Is mortal man more just than his Maker? We have given a general view of this system of doctrines. The question is-is there such a system in the scriptures? Is this the gospel, the good news that Christ brought from the Father-the blessed system heralded by angels, proclaiming peace and good will to men? This question, it is important for us to have answered correctly, and according to the truth. We now leave the general view of the confession of faith, and come to its particular doctrines. The first and most important, is that of man's natural depravity. This doctrine lies at the foundation of the whole system. Remove it, and the fabric falls. We have already quoted the Assembly's Confession of faith as to this point. It reads, that the guilt of Adam's sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation; and that from this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. In the Heidleberg catechism, of scarcely less celebrity than the Westminster, it is stated, that we are prone to hate God and our neighbor, are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness, unless regenerated by the spirit of God. The Andover creed states, "That Adam, the federal head and representative of the human race, was placed in a state of probation, and that in consequence of his disobedience, all his descendents were constituted sinners, that by nature, every man is personally depraved, destitute of holiness, unlike and opposed to God, and that previously to the renewing agency of the Divine Spirit, all his moral actions are adverse to the character and glory of God; that being morally incapable of recovering the image of his Creator, which was lost in Adam, every man is justly exposed to eternal damnation. This doctrine has been variously modified-no one more so. The mildest form it has assumed, has been this: It is said that man, at birth, is innocent, and free to do right or wrong. But that as soon as he is old enough to perform the first moral action, he sins, and in every action sins, till regenerated by the influence of the Holy Spirit. This is but a different mode of arriving at the same result. The broad, all-important fact is equally asserted here as before, viz: that on account of Adam's sin, man is so constituted, that his moral nature produces sin, and nothing but sin; that all which can sin in man, that is, his moral nature, does sin, and does nothing but sin, so long as it follows that tendency originally communicated to his nature. Both assert, that man never does any thing morally good, till regenerated by the power of God. Man is like the poison tree of Java: As soon as it sprouts up and opens its leaves, it begins to diffuse its poison. Soman, as soon as he begins to perform moral actions, he begins to sin, and always sins, till God changes him. The only difference between the opinions we have quoted, is this, one says that man's nature is corrupt with poison, from the outset; the other, that it is not, till it begins to manifest the poison. But the great result is the same. Both view man's nature equally poisoned, they only differ about its condition, during the time in which it is not manifested. It is a mere verbal dispute. Having stated what the doctrine of depravity is, we shall, in the next number, state our reasons for rejecting it. ART. VII.-WESTERN POETRY-No. II. What constitutes a Western literature? It is not enough to make a Western literature, that men should write of wilderness or prairie, of log cabins, or scalping knives. They may write of these matters, and still, in sentiment and in form, in all that gives character and soul to literature, be servile imitators of the hack-writers of the London press. That will form a Western literature, which is written by Western men, out of thoughtful minds, and full hearts-their own thoughts, and their own emotions, amidst the scenes and circumstances by which they are surrounded. Undoubtedly there are peculiarities in the condition of those, who people this new world, and their peculiarities must, in some degree, modify their feelings and views of things. And when they write, if they write out of their own souls, their thoughts coming up like fountains from the earth's heart, with the tinge and taste of the soil, through which it has worked its way up to the light; (and so far as poetry is concerned, he who writes not thus, is not a poet, a maker, but a mere copier of the poetry of others,) the same influences, that give a peculiar coloring to the character, will give a distinctive coloring to the productions of their minds. This difference in the circumstances influencing character, made the literature of Greece differ from that of Rome, and gives to every modern nation of the civilized world, its own national literature. It matters not what subjects are dwelt upon; that will be a Western literature which is written out of Western mind, and colored by Western character. We do not suppose that what is written west, will differ much from what is produced east of the Alleghanies. A similarity in all the circumstances that mainly affect the character, must, from the necessity of the case, give much the same tone and color to the writings of the West, the South, and the North. Indeed we have no Western, nor Southern, nor Northern literature, as such-no provincial literature, but an American, a national literature. But whatever the situation of writers in the West may be, if there be any peculiarities in the face of nature, or in our social relations, let them see with their own eyes, think with their own minds, feel with their own hearts, and write what they see, and think, and feel, and we shall have originality, and a literature of our own, so far as either is worth seeking." L We have before us a neat pamphlet of forty-eight pages, containing "The Emigrant, a Poem.". This was published a couple of years back, and is from the pen of Mr. F. W. Thomas, of this city. "The Emigrant" is a poem of a desultory nature-touching upon a variety of themes-rather fragmentary in its character and without a perceptible connection between the different parts, other than that arising from the regular numbering of the consecutive stanzas. It contains, however, passages of a high order of poetry, and shows its author to be a man of fine talents, but whose poetical powers want cultivation. His mind, indeed, is an intellectual garden; but the wholesome plants are strangely scattered about-without any order whatever-completely helter-skelter-and the flowers of poesy are sadly choked up with weeds. When you find a flower, and get it nicely separated from the worthless stuff with which it was surrounded, it is well worth preserving. Take the following apostrophe to Love, and put it in your book of choice extracts. LOVE. O, Love! what rhymer has not sung of thee? "The Emigrant" was written, according to the preface, "as the author was descending the Ohio river, to become a citizen of the West;" and consists principally of reflections suggested by the scenery through which he was passing, the history of the country, and the complexion of the times. The following is fine. ELOQUENCE. How deeply eloquent was the debate, Drawn from the sky above him, or the ground Beneath his feet; and with unfalt'ring zeal, He spoke from a warm heart, and made e'en cold hearts feel. And this is Eloquence. "Tis the intense, |