head, so as to render them one with him in the relation in which he stood to God? I have named natural generation as the bond; your Confession and catechisms conspire to name it frequently; and they name no other. This your Presbytery have noted as a heresy; and I call upon this Synod to chastise their error."

There is a little good humoured superciliousness in this passage, arising from too great security respecting the strength of his fortress. It turns out, however, in this case, that Mr. Craig was the philosopher. I have proved that Mr. M'C's. principle of union is shadowy, but I cannot dilate: I pledge myself, however, to prove, on a moment's notice, that the natural relations of man, and their moral obligation, though exact correlates, are distinct systems. I shall show you every natural relation, without its correlate moral obligation; and every moral obligation without its correlate natural relation.

The covenant of grace, on the contrary, was a remedial law. If the principle of a law be found wrong, or totally useless, through some change in the state of society, the statute is abolished. But if the principle of the law be good and useful, and yet its operation injurious, by reason of some change in society, a remedial statute is introduced; which always allows the principle of the original law to continue in all its ori ginal and unmodified force; and provides a remedy against the evils, and means to secure all the good effects of the original institute.

Now, the principle of the law of works was, that its righteousness wrought out by an individual, should be transmissible to all other individuals. This principle is not once touched, changed, or modified by the covenant of grace.

But, owing to a change in the state of society, this principle must have produced the most tremendous effects; it would have left God without a worshipper among a whole race of rational creatures; and would have entailed wrath and destruction on every creature that ever should come under the law, This is the evil to be remedied by the remedial law. what means it is effected.

Let us see by

1. A new covenant head must be found, and he must possess human nature, because the covenant was made for human nature; but he must not be a human per.. son, because every human person under that covenant is condemned to death on his own account. But "O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God-how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." He sees that his own Son, uniting himself to human nature, and voluntarily placing himself under the broken law of the covenant of works, could fulfil its righteousness, which must be a transmissible righteousness.

2. It is determined that a seed, definite in number, and known to both parties by name, shall be brought to him by the father, and become heirs of this righteousness, and of the life which is its reward: these the father promises; and these Jesus accepts as the travail of his soul.

3. Power over all flesh, yea, power over the whole universe is given to the Son of God, that he may give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him.

This is the remedial covenant; The condition of it was, on the one hand, that the Son of God should fulfil the broken covenant of works-and on the other, that he should receive the elect as his reward-And power

over the universe, that he may collect these beloved objects at the respective times agreed upon by him and and his Father. Now it has always been customary to consider Jesus as bearing a relation to those elected ones, which he does not bear to the non-elect; as knowing them, delighting in them, coming into the world to save them; while no such language is used of the others. The texts are not rightly interpreted, which are brought to prove that he knew all men alike as his from all eternity, loved all alike, and came into the world with the design of bringing them all to glory.

The reader, by turning to page 43, will find me pledged to put down the spectre of imaginary representation, on its own proper field. This is that field. The two covenants have been viewed as distinct original institutions of similar parts, and proportions, and something must be looked for in the one exactly similar to what is in the other; and hence as Adam's guilt is imputable, because of his representation, so of course must Christ's righteousness be imputable, in consequence of his representation. But the former covenant only is an original institution; and therefore its radical principle must be peculiar to itself, and must be supposed, not enacted in the remedial law.

Mr. M'C has now the means put into his hands of disabusing himself of a mistake which must have given him a prodigious deal of trouble. And perhaps I might safely trust the matter to his own industry. But knowing, as I do, the strong parental storgè that throbs and yearns in the bosom over those children of the brain, how we admire their every feature, mark their bone and muscle, anticipate their future achieve

ble many a troubled preacher to expound many a text; which will quench the fiery darts of the devil in many a wounded conscience; which will hammer down the towers of error, that overlook the walls of our Jerusalem; when I consider all these things; and that several others are beginning to contract a fondness for this smiling and promising babe, I beg to be indulged in a little more slow and cool investigation of its merits.

Such investigation has satisfied me, that this is a mere metaphysical deception, and that, like all such, it is at bottom only a word, without any real meaning, and therefore just fit to pick up with some stroll of error on the first occasion.

Let us again tread metaphysical ground. It is very true that Adam represented his own person; and that we then existed substantially. But I apprehend that this is true only in respect to these mortal bodies: begging pardon of the physiologists for trespassing on their grounds, I must deny that our souls existed in Adam in any sense. My soul refuses to acknowledge any father but the Creator of angels and of men,* the God and Father of Jesus Christ. How little then did actual. ly exist in Adam, only the germs of these animal structures; how much have we by natural generation from him, only the germs of these animal structures, miris

* Avegwv]ɛ Oewvle • walng, or something like it, says Homer.

in modis; but soon to be a feast to the worms. And this is another proof that I did not decide erroneously, that it is not natural generation that is the bond of our union to Adam in the covenant-for on that supposition he could have represented only our bodies, our souls he could not represent; and then, on the one hand, bodies without souls were not worth representing, and were incapable of either guilt or righteousness -And, on the other, our souls are perfectly free from Adam's guilt, have no interest in Christ's righteousness, never were under the law of works, nor the law of grace, nor any other moral law. It is therefore a mere figure to say, we substantially existed in Adam. I grant that it is a fair figure, for the Scriptures use it; there was a material unity established by the law of creation, between our bodies and his-And there was a moral unity established between our souls and his, by the law of the covenant. It is, therefore, only figuratively true that we all substantially existed in Adam, that we all are no more than Adam evolved. The proper use of figurative language should be known.

By figurative language only can mental conceptions or general ideas be conveyed to human beings. The philosophy of the human mind has already reached to such a degree of maturity, that we might expect that a system of theology would not be founded on mistaking a figurative term. Yet true it is, that the new system is nothing less or more, than a mistaken figure of speech. I repeat it again, we did not substantially exist in Adam, (using the literal sense of the phrase) for our souls did not exist in him, and therefore we were not represented by him, because we existed in him substantially. And O, that I had time to prove, what I have time only to throw out, probably to