tion by a law of necessity. This the Doctor knows. I hold that when the Bible requires doing, it requires that the specified act shall be done with a benevolent intention; that the spirit of the requirement regards the intention; that God does not accept the outward doing unless the intention is right. But if the intention is right, God accepts the will as the deed where the outward act or deed is impossible. The doing will and must follow the willing unless something renders the outward act impossible. But where there is a right willing or intending, and the outward performance is rendered impossible, God accepts the intention as obedience. So of sin-if the willing or intending evil exists, God regards the crime as already committed although the outward performance or doing should be prevented. What reader of the Bible does not know that this is every where taught in it? Does Doctor D. deny this? He appears to do so. Nay if he does not do so, why does he find fault? Where is the issue between us upon this point? What does the Doctor mean by doing when he says that this doing alone is accepted as obedience. Does he mean the muscular action, or the willing, or both? If he means the first, I deny it and call for proof. Does the Doctor really intend to teach that the Bible represents God as accepting as obedience nothing but the doing, and that he does accept the doing as distinct from the intending? I deny that the Bible does teach this, and affirm that if it did, the human intelligence would and must reject its divine authority, by a law of necessity.

2. The Doctor says,

"But the Bible teaches that sincerity in error, good intention in wrong deeds change not the character of the act."

To this I reply that the Bible no where teaches or implies that wrong deeds can proceed from good intentions, or that good deeds can proceed from wrong intentions. But the Bible every where teaches that the character of the deed is as the intention is. The doctrine of the Bible is that the intention gives character to the deed; that good fruit can not grow upon an evil tree, nor evil fruit upon a good tree; that the intention is known by the deed; that the outward life reveals the nature of the intention. What? Does Doctor D. and does the Synod of Michigan believe that the outward or muscular act can be right or wrong per se in opposition to the intention? Certainly you will not gravely assert this. And yet the Doctor has charged this absurdity upon the blessed Bible!

I omit quotations from scripture, on points so plain, to save space, and because every reader of the Bible will readily supply them from memory.

But can it be that a D.D. should gravely assert that the Bible teaches or implies that moral character belongs, not to the intention, but to mere muscular action, in such a sense that the muscular action can be right or wrong irrespective of or contrary to the intention? Really such teaching merits the deep rebuke, rather than the sanction of a Synod. And the churches must be gravely warned against the dreadful error that moral character belongs to the intention that necessitates muscular action, and not to the muscular action itself! If much of the teaching of this "Warning against Error" be not itself the most pernicious error, I know not what it is.

But the Doctor labors to show that the Bible requires more than good intention, that it requires good deeds. Now does the Doctor mean or expect to make the churches believe that I deny this? He knows that I do not deny it, but that I hold it as strongly as he does. I repeat that I hold that good deeds or outward actions are connected with good intention by a law of necessity. If I will or intend to move my muscles and to do a certain thing, the action follows by necessity unless the established connection between willing and muscular action, is by some means suspended. When the Bible requires outward acts, the spirit of all such requirements is that the subject shall will that which he is required to do, and if the outward or muscular action does not follow the act of the will, but fails on account of inability in the will to cause the outward act, God in this case, accepts the will for the deed. "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not accord ing to what he hath not." If the will or intention exists, the outward act follows of course and of necessity, unless it has by some means become impossible for the will to cause or perform the outward act. In all such cases the act of the will or the intention is regarded as complying with the spirit of the requirement. Similar things are true of sinful intention. Does the Doctor deny this? Who does not know that this is the doctrine of the Bible, of common law, of equity, of all schools of philosophy and of theology? I am distressed with the Doctor's affecting to prove so often by scripture, either what nobody denies or what no body believes. If the Doctor does not really deny what I have

taught in this paragraph and the same in my theology, what does he mean by pretending to differ with me upon this point? I should lose all respect for the Doctor's theological ability and even for his common sense, if I supposed that he really held that moral character belongs to the outward act as distinct from and opposed to the intention. But if he does not hold it, but admits, as he must or deny both reason and revelation, that the commands of God respect directly in their spirit, the intention, why does he profess to differ with me and cry heresy?

V. The fifth issue which the Doctor takes is as follows, pp. 27, 28:

THE SPIRITUALITY AND EXTENT OF THE MORAL LAW.

"The system of error, against which we warn you, teaches, that moral law requires nothing more than honesty of intention,' and 'that sincerity or honesty of intention is moral perfection.' By this rule it graduates the claims of the law of God, so as to make it a most convenient sliding scale, which adapts itself to the ignorance and weakness of men. It utterly perverts men's notions of that high and absolute perfection which the law demands, and makes moral perfection a variant quantity, changing continually, not only in different persons, but in the same individual. It reasons as follows, namely-Moral law respects intention only. Honesty of intention, or sincerity, is moral perfection. But light, or knowledge of the ultimate end, is the condition of moral obligation. Consequently, the degree of obligation must be just equal to the mind's honest estimate of the value of the end!! Thus, to love God with all the heart, soul, mind and strength, means nothing more than that the thoughts shall be expended in exact accordance with the mind's honest judgment of what is at every moment the best economy for God.'

"But the Bible teaches plainly, that the law of God reaches further than the ultimate intention, even to the actings of the moral agent, in the exercise of all the various faculties of the mind, in all the purposes, choices and purposes of the will, in all the inclinations and desires, the passions and affections, of the heart, and in all the members of the body. So far from making obligation to vary with light or knowledge, and the moral ability of the individual, the law and word of God hold men responsible for their ignorance; and attribute the deeper degrees of depravity and obnoxiousness to punishment, to those who have blinded their minds and hardened their hearts, so as to have

destroyed or lost all power of perceiving and feeling the truth. It is a people of no understanding, therefore, He that made them will not have mercy on them, and He that formed them will shew them no favor.' That servant which neither knew, nor did his Lord's will, was beaten, it is true, with fewer stripes, than was he who knew it and did it not,' but he was beaten. His ignorance did not render him innocent. 'The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of Christ, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of faith." "

I sum up my teachings upon this subject as follows: 1. The Bible requires no natural impossibilities.

2. Honesty of intention, with those states of mind, and those outward acts that are by a natural law connected with, and consequently flow from it, is all that is naturally possible.

3. All acts and mental states that are directly or indirectly under the control of the will, are proper subjects of command or prohibition, and are accordingly either commanded or prohibited.

4. But no act or mental state is either required or prohibited by the Bible, which in no sense is either directly or indirectly under the control of the will. These truths I have argued at length in the work reviewed; but upon this, as on most other points, the Doctor takes no notice of my argument. He finds it convenient to pass my proofs and ar guments by in silence and keep his readers in ignorance of my reasons in support of my opinions, and even treats my opinions as if they were mere dogmatical assertions without even an attempt on my part to support them by reason or scripture. He merely quotes some single sentences and parts of sentences from my work, and seldom more in any one place, and then affects to array the scriptures against me. But in no instance does he show that my opinions as I hold and teach them, are inconsistent with the Bible.

But does the Doctor deny the truth of the above proposi tions? If he does, let him say so. But if he does not, why does he profess to disagree with me and cry heresy? But as is usual, the Doctor quotes the Confession of Faith. He quotes from your Confession as follows, page 25:

"Good works, or holy obedience are only such as God hath commanded in his holy word; not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretence of good intentions.'"

I have italicized this just as I find it in the pamphlet before me. In reply to this, I would say that I fully accord with this sentiment, as I do with most of the sentiments, of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. But what does it teach on this point?

1. Not that the Bible has no regard to the intention. 2. Not that the character of an outward act can be op posed to the intention.

3. Not that the character of an act is not invariably as the intention is.

4. But it does teach that good works are not those that are devised by men without a warrant from the word of God under the pretence of good intentions. Now why does not the Confession say, as the Doctor will have it, that good works are not always such as flow from good intentions, instead of carefully saying a pretence of good intentions?

The framers of the Confession knew that good works must flow from good intention, but that evil works flow from a mere pretence of good intention. The plain teaching of the passage is this: Works to be good must have the sanction of the Bible, and not a mere pretence of good intentions. Have I taught that a pretence of good intentions can justify any course of conduct whatever? No indeed, but as far from it as possible. This the Doctor knows. What then has his quotation from the Confession of Faith to do with my teaching? I hold that intention must be honest, that is, that it must be such intention as God requires, and that when the intention is as God requires it to be, the outward deed must follow by a necessary law unless something is interposed that renders the outward act impossible, in which case God invariably accepts the will or intention for the deed. I might support this teaching by abundant quotations from scripture and from the wisest and best of men, as the Doctor ought to know. It is truly remarkable that the Doctor should so often quote scripture and the Confession of Faith with no just application to the point in debate. In the present instance the Confession does not at all support his position, but implies the position which I hold. To hold his position it should read, "good works are only such as God has commanded in his holy word, not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men out of blind zeal or from good intentions." But instead of this it says, “upon pretence of good intentions," plainly implying that works that have not a warrant in the word of God can only proceed from pretended good intentions. This is what I teach. Does the Doctor deny this? If so, let him say so. If not, why does he pretend to differ with me?

VI. The Doctor's sixth objection is as follows, pp. 29, 30:

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD.

"By the divine sovereignty, the supreme authority and right of God to govern, has been generally understood by Presbyterians. The entire constitution of nature is referred, by the Bible, to the sovereign will of God as its proper cause. It is as it is, because God so ordained it should be; who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.' Why angels and men, and other creatures, with all their varied powers, exist, is to be resolved into the Sovereign will of God. Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.' Why this man, wise and prudent, perceives not, and is left to reject the truths of salvation and the overtures of mercy, and the other man, simple and ignorant as a child, receives them, believes, and is saved, is referred by our blessed Redeemer to the same adorable sovereignty of God. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee oh Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes, even so Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."