of Germany, our last state might not possibly be worse than the first.

We need scarcely add, that our remarks derive whatever weight they may possess, from their applicability to future works, of which we look for more than one from the same authoritative quarter. There is one thing which we wish to see Professor Gibbs at work upon-an original and independent lexicon, upon the larger scale. Original, we mean, in reference to matters, upon which he is as competent to legislate as Gesenius himself; independent, as to form, plan, manner, and disputed points. The public would be glad to hear such scholars speaking in their own voice, and uniting firm consistency of doctrinal belief with a becoming deference for critical authority. We do neither say nor think that these are not united in Professor Gibbs; but we do say that the fact is not apparent in his writings. We are therefore the more impatient for a work which shall distinctly tell us what so competent a judge does, or does not, himself believe. We wish it for the sake of his testimony in behalf of truth, and for the sake of those whose first impressions, as to some important principles of biblical philology, may be derived from him.

The work before us we can honestly commend, both to students and to scholars. To the former it is almost indispensable; to the latter it must needs be very welcome. Aside from the faults which we have shown it to have in common with its celebrated model, the one merely formal, the other merely negative, and affecting scarcely half a dozen articles,

a the plan is a good one and admirably executed. This, we believe, is the first specimen of Hebrew printing from the New Haven press. May the streams of this fountain be perennial,

. copious, and, above all, pure!

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ART. X.-THE NEW DIVINITY TRIED.

Review of “ The New Divinity Tried;" or, An Examina

tion of the Rev. Mr. Rand's Strictures on a Sermon delivered by the Rev. C. J. Finney, on making a new Heart. Boston. Pierce & Butler, 1832. pp. 44.

We learn from this pamphlet, that the Rev. Mr. Finney delivered, sometime last autumn, a sermon on making a new heart, founded on Ezek. xviii. 13. The Rev. Mr. Rand, being one of his auditors, took notes of the discourse, which he published, attended with a series of strictures, in a periodical work of which he is the editor. As these notes, in the judgment of Mr. Finney's friends, presented an imperfect view of his sermon, one of their number obtained the outline used by the preacher himself, and sent the requisite corrections to Mr. Rand, who availed himself of the aid thus afforded. The notes and strictures were afterwards published in a pamphlet form under the title, “The New Divinity Tried.” It is the review of this pamphlet, by an anonymous writer, of which we propose to give a short notice.

We are not prepared to justify the course pursued by Mr. Rand, in thus bringing Mr. Finney before the public without his knowledge or consent. The considerations which evince the general impropriety of such a step are obvious, and are forcibly stated in the Review. That there may be cases in which the evil produced by a popular preacher constantly presenting erroneous views in his discourses, is so serious, that the usual etiquette of literary proceedings should be sacrificed in order to counteract its influence, we do not doubt. Nor do we question that Mr. Rand felt the present to be such a case. As the publication has not only been made, but noticed by the friends and advocates of Mr. Finney, there can be no impropriety in our calling the attention of our readers, for a few moments, to the contents of this Review. It is an elaborate production, distinguished both by acuteness and research, and pervaded by a tone of moderation. These are its favourable characteristics. On the other hand, it is lamentably deficient in open, manly discussion. Instead of a clear and bold statement of the distinguishing principles of the New Divinity, and a frank ayowal of dissent from the Old Divinity of New England, there is an anxious attorney-like mincing of matters; a claiming to agree with every body, and an endeavour to cast off his opponent into the position of the solitary dissentient, and overwhelm him with the authority of great names. The evidence on which this judgment is found will appear in what follows, of its correctness the reader must judge.

We gather from the review itself, (for we have in vain endeavour to obtain, in season, a copy of Mr. Rand's pamphlet) that the leading objections to the New Divinity are those which have been urged from various quarters against some of the doctrines of the Christian Spectator. Indeed, the reviewer, to show that Mr. Rand was not obliged to publish the notes of an extemporaneous discourse, in order to bring the opinions which it advocated, before the public, tells us the doctrines of the sermon are those which have been repeatedly presented in the Spectator, and elsewhere. We need therefore be at no loss for the distinguishing features of the New Divinity. It starts with the assumption that morality can only be predicated of voluntary exercises; that all holiness and sin consist in acts of choice or preference. When this principle is said to be one of the radical views of the New Divinity, neither Mr. Rand nor any one else can mean to represent the opinion itself as a novelty. It is, on all hands, acknowledged to be centuries old. The novelty consists in its being held by men professing to be Calvinists, and in its being traced out by them to very nearly the same results as those which the uniform opponents of Calvinism have derived from it. Thus Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich, presents it as the grand objection to the doctrines of original sin, and original righteousness; and in desending these doctrines President Edwards laboriously argues against this opinion. Yet it is in behalf of this radical view of the new system, that the authority of Edwards, Bellamy, Witherspoon, Dwight, Griffin, Woods, as well as Augustine and Calvin, is quoted and arrayed against Mr. Rand. Almost every one of these writers not only disclaims the opinion thus ascribed to them, but endeavours to refute it. Thus President Edwards, after stating Dr. Taylor's great objection to the doctrine of original sin to be, “that moral virtue, in its very nature, implieth the choice and consent of the moral agent,” and quoting from him the declaration, “To say that God not only endowed Adam with a capacity of being righteous, but, moreover, that righteousness and true holiness were created with him, or wrought into his nature, at the

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same time he was made, is to affirm a contradiction, or what is inconsistent with the very nature of righteousness," goes on to remark, “with respect to this, I would observe, that it consists in a notion of virtue quite inconsistent with the nature of things and the common notions of mankind.” That it is thus inconsistent with the nature of things, he proceeds to prove. In the course of this proof we find such assertions as the following: “The act of choosing what is good is no further virtuous, than it proceeds from a good principle, or · . virtuous disposition of mind. Which supposes that á virtuous

å disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of choice, and that, therefore, it is not necessary there should first be thought, reflection, and choice, before there can be any virtuous disposition.” - There is no necessity that all virtuous dispositions or affections should be the effect of choice. And so, no such supposed necessity can be a good objection against such a disposition being natural, or from a kind of instinction, implanted in the mind at its creation."* Again, p. 409, in showing Dr. Taylor's inconsistency, he says, "If Adam must choose to be righteous before he was righteous," then Dr. Taylor's scheme involves a contradiction, &c. A mode of expression which clearly shows the position against which he argues. Again, “Human nature must be created with some dispositions; a disposition to relish some things as good and amiable, and to be averse to other things as odious and disagreeable

* * *** But if it had any concreated dispositions at all, they must have been right or wrong;" and he then says, if man had at first a disposition to find happiness in what was good, his disposition was morally right—but “if he had a disposition to love most those things that were inferior and less worthy, then his dispositions were vicious.” “This notion of Adam's being created without a principle of holiness in his heart, taken with the rest of Dr. Taylor's scheme, is inconsistent with” the history in the beginning of Genesis, p: 413. It would, however, be an endless business to quote all that might be adduced to prove that Edwards did not hold the opinion which the reviewer imputes to him. There can, it would seem, be no mistake as to his meaning. These are not mere casual expressions, which he afterwards

retracts or contradicts. Neither is there any room for doubt as to the sense in which he uses the words disposition, principle, tendency, &c.

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*

Because he carefully explains them, and characterizes the idea he means to express by every one of the marks which the reviewer and others give, in describing what they spurn and reject under the name of “principle,” “boly or sinful taste.” They mean something distinct from, and prior to, volitions; so does President Edwards; it is that which, in the case of Adam, to use his own word, was “concreated;" it was a disposition to love--not love itself—a relish for spiritual objects, or adaptation of mind to take pleasure in what is excellent; it was a kind of instinct, which, as lo this point, (i. e. priority as to the order of nature to acts,) he says is analagous to other instincts of our nature. He even argues long to show, that unless such a principle of holiness existed in man prior to all acts of choice, he never could become holy. Again, the “principle,” or “ disposition” which they object to, is one which is represented as not only prior to voluntary exercises, but determines their character, and is the cause of their being what they are. So, precisely President Edwards, “it is a foundation laid in the nature of the soul, for a new kind of exercises of the faculty of the will."* This he assumes in the case of Adam to have existed prior to his choosing God, and determined his choice; what in the case of men since the fall he assumes as the cause of their universally sinning; and in those which are renewed, as the cause of their holy exercises. If President Edwards did not hold and teach the doctrine which the reviewer rejects and denounces, then no man ever did hold it, or ever can express it. The case is no less plain with regard to Dr. Dwight, who also gives the two characteristic marks of the kind of disposition now in question, viz. its priority to all voluntary exercises, and its being the cause of the character of those exercises. Both these ideas are expressed with a frequency, clearness, and confidence, which mark this as one of his most settled opinions. Take a single specimen: “ There is a reason,” he says, “why one being is holy and another sinful.” This reason, or “cause of moral action is indicated by the words principle, affections, nature, habits, tendency, propensity.” That he does not intend by this cause of moral action,” an act, exercise, volition, is plain; first, because he says, “these terms indicate a cause, which, to us, is wholly unknown;" secondly, because he expressly and repeatedly asserts the contrary.