Columbus Whig. (Columbus, Miss.) 1843-18??, 1844-04-04

- - H~AA&tVAA IA GWC1 IuGH0 WAS QUO
calculated to assume entire possessions both Of
the heart and soul. And envy not that in.
difference offeeling and that calousuess of soul
which can contemplate the boundIess benevo.
Ience and love Of God,and His tender kindness
and regard for men, with No outburst of feeling
and no silent transport Of gratitude and joy.
This influence of the Bible upon the chris.
tians character. and these ebulIitions of feeling
from the christians heart, are, therefore, far
from being either strange or unnatural, land
require no mysterious influence and no third
God in heaven to account for them. The
child, whose character anGdestiny are formed
and shaped by the. advice and adnlonit,ons of
his parents, is subject to an influence similar
to this. His judgment is enlightened, his mind
instructed and his life directed by their coun-
sels, whilst the warm and grateful feelings of
bis nature are, also, often touched and called
forth by the manifestations of their kindness
and affection for him. Ind especially If he be
absent from home and receive a comInunica.
ton from them breathing spirit of tender.
ness and love, it will uhock the fountains of
his feeling and his emotions will come forth
either in unconceaIsd or silent transport. And
how dare wesay TINT the written wcrd of God,
cannot exercise similar influence upon the
character and heartofthe christian?
The next subject to which invite your
attention is the doctrine Of original and total
depravity.-A doctrine by which the human
mind, the last and the most perfect work of the
Deity, created in his own image and endowed
with attributes, in some respects. similar to
his own, is utterly degraded and stripped of all
moral power, whilst the same time it is
weighed down with the urden of its moral OBJ
legations. Its advocate seem unconscious
that whilst they deprive.he soul, by nature, of
every seed ofvirtue, they make its corruption
the result of necessity, AID cast the response
biIity back upon him VIII made it. For ifmy
will and my conduct, WHITTIER good or bad, are
the result of necessity, then the author of
that necessity, and not Lis responsible for it
effects.
But some of the believers of this doctrine at
tempt to remove this difficulty. And / have
heard it remarked, by way of argument, that
"as darkness is the absence of light, so sin Is
the absence of holiness; and, therefore, having
no positive existence, but being the mere alb.
sence of active good, it canno: properly be
said to have an author, and hence God is not
for it." If this be true, both God
and man are Invested of its responsibility. For
then man is not more sinful than a block of
wood; but indeed, less SO. because less desti.
tute of "active good" But the great argument
in this defence is, that we were created orig
inally, with good nature. in Adam, our feder-
al head" and that he, our representative, and
acting for us, forfeited that nature; and receiv-
ed for US one in its stead, totally corrupt. In
reply to this, il might be said that Adam, when
he sinned, acted in his individual capacity, and
could not have been authorized. either by con-
sent or implication to act for the whole human
race. But indeed this verg nature which we
now possess, Adam must have had original
", or else he could not have sinned; For the
choice was given him between good and evil,
and it seems that his heart preferred evil, and
he slnned: Therefore, if mans proneness to-
sin be an evidence of his original and total de-
pravity, even Adam must have been created
from the first, with this depravec nature.
But whether true or not, this does not re-
move the responsibility from God. The whole
human race was in review before him when
he created Adam, and notwithstanding the
physical dependence and relations existing be-
tween man and man, He IS the creator Of
them all, and holds each one individually AMI
directly responsible to himself. And it is
clearly impossible that the mere act Of Adams
sin could have changed the nature OF the hu-
man soul Nothing less than the will and pow
er 6God, or creating power, could have done
it. God, therefore, is the author OF man and
the author of his nature, and if that nature be
one Of unmixed depravity, If it be incapable OF
good, it is mans misfortune. and not his fault.
Ii il true that the defenders of this doctrine
pretend to find authority for. it in the Sacred
Scriptures. But the passages which they
quote, # interpreted as they understand them,
either prove too much, or nothing. ! know OF
no passage which speaks of the total depravity
of men which does not include also the chris
liam. Thus the two following, which are much
relied on; "The thoughts Of men are ev4
continually and "thee is none that doeth
good. nc, not one, ''-includes all men without
one exception, whether heathens, infdels or
christians. And the consequence Inevitably
follows either that every man, whether
christian or not, whether regenerated or not
recenerated, is totally depraved, and incapable
of any good thought or deed, or else these pas
sages like many others, were not intended to
be taken in their unlimited sense, and do not
establish the doctrine Of total depraylty. But
even II the Bible had drawn distinction.
which il does not. between the regenerated
and the unregenerated and applied this lam
0uare to the last excIuyively, it could not even
then have been taken in its literal meaning
because il would have denied that which We
know 10 true. We know that there are good
deeds done BY men. and good feelings existing
IN The hearts of men, who have never been
am verted TO the christian religion. And pity
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