THE Views in Theology will continue to be published semi-annually, in May and November, and be devoted chiefly, as heretofore, to discussion on the Doctrines of Religion. Four numbers will form a volume. Those who desire the work will please to give notice to the publisher, at 142 Nassau-street. Ministers and theological students of whatever denomination, will receive it, if desired, without charge. THE CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR'S REVIEW OF BELLAMY ON THE PERMISSION OF SIN. THE gentleman on whose attempts to fortify his views of the nature and cause of sin by the authority of Dr. Dwight and President Edwards, some remarks were offered in a former number, has thought proper, in the Christian Spectator for September 1830, to claim the sanction of Dr. Bellamy for the hypothesis offered by him in his Concio ad Clerum, respecting the reasons of the admission of sin into the universe. As his representations intimately concern the character of that writer,-who has hitherto been ranked in respect to talents, doctrines, and usefulness, among the most distinguished of his day,—and involve, indeed, very essentially the reputation of the clergy at large of NewEngland, both of that and the present time, it is a matter of some importance to ascertain their truth or error. The inquiry is also fraught with interest to those who look inquisitively at the relations of things, by the circumstance that the theory, which the reviewer himself professes to have advanced only as a mere "supposition" or conjecture, without attempting to prove or presuming to affirm its truth, or venturing even to "intimate" that it can possibly be sustained by any "decisive evidence," and the imputation of which to him by Dr. Woods in the form of a" positive assertion," he exhibits as utterly unjust and extremely injurious, he nevertheless represents Dr. Bellamy as having formally taught, highly to the credit of his genius and wisdom, and deliberately sustained through a discussion of great length. To be able to discover in what manner intricacies like these can be successfully threaded by the reviewer, and the sunshine of consistency thrown over such conflicting appearances, cannot fail to yield entertainment to the curious, and gratification to the lovers of logic. What the nature of that theory is, is seen from the following passages from the sermon in which it was first presented to the public, and from the forementioned article in the Spectator, in which the reviewer professedly gives a restatement and explanation of its import. "Do you say then that God gave man a nature which he knew would lead him to sin? What if he did? Do you know that God could have done better, better on the whole, or better, if he gave him existence at all, even for the individual himself? The error lies in the gratuitous assumption, that God could have adopted a moral system, and prevented all sin, or at least the present degree of sin. For no man knows this;-no man can prove it. The assumption, therefore, is wholly unauthorized as the basis of the present objection. "The difficulties on this difficult subject, as it is extensively regarded, result in the view of the writer from two very common but groundless assumptions-assumptions which so long as they are admitted and reasoned upon, must leave the subject involved in insuperable difficulties. "The assumptions are these; First, that sin is the necessary means of the greatest good, and as such, so far as it exists, is preferable on the whole to holiness in its stead. Secondly, that God could in a moral system have prevented all sin, or at least the present degree of sin." |