good, and, in consequence of that, an incapacity to engage successfully in the prosecution or performance of any good thing." (p. 22. l. 19.)-" Because of his (man's) inveterate inclination to evil and aversion to what is good, he cannot bring the powers of his mind to bear on the prosecution of any thing that is truly and spiritually good." (p. 23, l. 2.)—“ We say of man that he is altogether destitute of every thing that is truly and spiritually good, and altogether prone to evil, though, in respect of the visible fruits of evil, there is a considerable difference between one and another." (p. 24, l. 3.)—" It has been already shewn that we are altogether born in sin, and corrupt in all our faculties." (p. 34, l. 10.

NOTE 3.-to p. 7, l. 29.—" aversion and disgust."—As Mr. Simeon does in p. 12. l. 15.

NOTE 4.-to p. 8, note 1.-" When, therefore, we say that man is by nature altogether helpless, and incapable of doing any thing that is good, we wish it to be borne in mind what the incapacity is, of which we speak. Were it an incapacity that rendered all exertion nugatory, man's responsibility for his actions would, as far as relates to that point, be at an end, but our incapacity arising altogether from the inveteracy of our love to sin, and the total alienation of our hearts from what is truly good, it ceases to be an extenuation of our guilt, and becomes rather an aggravation of it." (p. 23. 1. 19.)-In this extraordinary paragraph Mr. Simeon endeavours to remove a difficulty, which presents itself, to him apparently no less than to others, as a most formidable objection to the accuracy of his system, and that is, the aspect it bears on the free-agency of man. He says in another place: "It were to be wished that our opponents would content themselves with statements that may be found, but they far exceed the wildest reveries that have ever issued from any ignorant enthusiast, and represent those, who maintain the total depravity of our nature, as reducing men to the condition of stocks and stones." (p. 18, l. 22.) -True, we do so represent them; and, in proof of the correctness of that representation we will content ourselves, not

merely with statements that may be found, but that may be found too in those very sermons, wherein Mr. Simeon expresses this wish, and in the very passage, where he undertakes to refute what he considers the calumnies of his opponents, and to establish his own idea of the doctrine of original sin. Mr. Simeon allows, (see note 2,) that man labours under "an incapacity to engage successfully in the prosecution or performance of any good thing," and that "he cannot bring the powers of his mind to bear on the prosecution of any thing that is truly and spiritually good :" and what else is wanting to reduce him to a mere machine, as far as all moral and religious purposes are concerned? But, as if what he had already done were insufficient to demolish his own theory, Mr. Simeon proceeds to employ a more expanded train of reasoning, the whole force of which is directed decidedly against himself. He goes on thus:" if he (man) had the inclination and the desire, his exertions would be proportioned to the extent of those desires; "but, (as he adds shortly afterwards,) "it is the want of these pious inclinations that keeps us from looking unto God for his effectual aid, and consequently from attaining that strength, whereby alone, we can subdue and mortify our natural corruptions." (p. 23, 1. 6 and 14.) Let us sum up this reasoning, and observe the result :-man is utterly in want of pious inclinations; that want keeps him from looking unto God; and consequently from attaining that strength whereby alone he can do any thing that is good, or 'restrain himself from doing any thing that is evil. Hence man is utterly incapable either of the one or the other, that is, he is compelled to pursue one necessary course of action; and consequently the charge brought against Mr. Simeon's doctrine, that it "reduces men to the condition of stocks and stones," is most thoroughly evinced by his own argument.

We have seen then the manner, in which Mr. Simeon uses the arguments he advances for the purpose of warding off this serious accusation: let us now very briefly examine on what those arguments are grounded. The source of them ais a

certain distinction, which Mr. Simeon lays down as most essential to be observed in the question. He has stated that distinction under some diversity of language, and we mean to discuss the substance of it under each of the forms in which it appears. Mr. Simeon in one place denies that man's responsibility is on his system destroyed, because "our incapacity arises altogether from the inveteracy of our love to sin, and the total alienation of our hearts from what is truly good." (p. 23. 1. 25.). No matter what it arises from, if it only be from causes independent of ourselves, and this Mr. Simeon most amply acknowledges in attributing it to the original corruption of our nature. It is the necessary existence of this disability without our causation or concurrence, and not the mere proximate origin of it, or the particular mode of its operation, which alone creates the difficulty, and which alone therefore is to be taken into account in solving it.—Mr. Simeon's distinction is also more abstractedly stated in the following very surprising terms:-man's "incapacity to do any thing that is good, is a moral and not a physical incapacity. A man is not under the same kind of incapacity to stop the progress of his corruptions that he is to stop the sun in its course." (p. 22. l. 26.) Who can explain even the terms of this most unaccountable position, and tell what is meant by a physical incapacity, as distinct from a moral one, of regulating the affections of one's own mind? The word "physical" when opposed to "moral," as it is here, relates to the properties of matter as contradistinguished from those of mind; and it is in this sense, (its only proper one,) that Mr. Simeon uses it, if we at all comprehend his illustration taken from the sun. The sum total then of the information which he here gives us, and which forms the nucleus of all his arguments in refutation of the charges brought against his doctrine, is this-that the incapacity, of which he is speaking, to controul the mind, arises from some thing wrong or defective in the mind itself, and not in the body; whence it would seem that he is acquainted with some theological school, which holds that the moral and intellectual powers of men are in proportion

to the size and strength of their bodies. But to have done with this trifling;-who ever doubted that the incapacity in question is a moral one; what other have both he and his opponents had in view all along; and what other is applicable to questions concerning moral liberty and necessity, vice and virtue? We agree with him most fully that it is a moral incapacity, and there lies the mischief; and there too lies the whole strength of the objection of his opponents.-If however Mr. Simeon intends. in this passage to give to the word "physical" a sense, which indeed it can never bear, but which is the only one that will serve his purpose, by making it equivalent to "final" or "total," aud if he consequently means to assert that the incapacity, for which he is contending, is not insuperable on the part of man, we have only to remark that the contrary has been already proved on his own authority in the former part of the present note.

As examples of the strange inconsistencies into which people must fall, when they undertake to defend unreasonable opinions, the reader may compare together respectively, the following extracts from Mr. Simeon's Appeal," relating to the point now under consideration, as they stand, side by side, frowning unutterable defiance and irreconcileable hostility at each other. "We concede that persons may be morally good, not merely in comparison of others, but to a certain degree really and substantially so." (p. 19, 1. 19.)

"We say of man that he is altogether destitute of every thing that is truly and spiritually good, and altogether prone to evil." (p. 24, l. 3.)

Therefore a person may be "really" good, and yet not "truly" so.

* Perhaps the hypothesis, here obliquely hinted at in Mr. Simeon's distinction, may tend to explain a sentence in the Speech delivered in the Senate House last Commencement, (July 1816,) by the late Deputy Regius Professor of Divinity, which in the opinion, both of those who heard it, and of those who have subsequently heard of it, loudly called for explanation, though the learned Doctor himself has not thought proper to give any.

Again:

Mr. Simeon allows, that man labours under "an incapacity to engage successfully in the prosecution or performance of any good thing," (p. 22. l. 23.) and that he cannot bring the powers of his mind to bear on the prosecution of any thing that is truly and spiritually good." (p. 23. l. 4.)

He admits, that this moral incapacity is not one "that renders all exertion nugatory." (p. 23. l. 23.)

Therefore, though a man is utterly incapable of exerting himself for a particular purpose, and though his labour would be necessarily unsuccessful even if he could employ it, yet he may exert himself for the self-same purpose, and his exertion will not be nugatory.

Once more:

"Even the discourses of our blessed Lord and Saviour, notwithstanding his confirmation of them by miracles unnumbered, could not convince those who did not choose to be convinced." (p. 13. l. 13.)

Therefore they might, if they had pleased, have opened their eyes and been convinced. But, in the sentence immediately preceding that on the opposite side of the page, we read that "we are all, by nature, blind to the things of God."

Therefore incapacity of a particular kind may be both voluntary and involuntary at the same time.

Mr. Simeon concludes his own account of original sin with asking "Is there any thing extravagant in this statement?" (p. 24, l. 24.) Let the "men of wisdom" judge, to whom he has made his " Appeal," from the specimens already produced.

NOTE 5.-to p. 12, l. 10.-" affections and desires.”—Mr. Simeon has an excellent sentence towards the conclusion of his second Sermon, (p. 30.) but one which is destitute of any force or propriety on his own principles. He asks "What ought we