ART. V.-LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE LATE DR. RICHARDS.

Lectures on Mental Philosophy and Theology. By JAMES RICHARDS, D. D., late Professor of Christian Theology in the Theological Seminary at Auburn, New-York. With a Sketch of his Life, by SAMUEL H. GRIDLEY, Pastor of the Presbyterian Congregation, Waterloo, New-York. Published by M. W. Dodd, New-York, 1846.

THE time has been when it was supposed hardly possible for the American Church to produce a book on any branch of divinity, which might be regarded as a standard. Everything American must, per se, be dwarfish. Even religion was doomed to live on exotics. A domestic imprint was enough to prejudice irreparably any work on the higher themes of theology or philosophy. If it were not authenticated by a European stamp, it could be scarcely worth reading; so that, if the manuscript were made in this country, the author must needs cross the Atlantic to publish it, or he might calculate with certainty on utter neglect. The minister, the student in theology, and the private Christian, were alike adjudged safe only when walking in the light of some European rabbi.

But matters are undergoing-if, indeed, they have not already undergone a most pleasing revolution. Religious books of American origin, and many of them of a very high character, are rapidly multiplying. There is, indeed, scarcely any branch of Christian theology upon which home authorship has not poured additional light. Biblical criticism, sacred geography, archæology, history, astronomy, and the like, have all come in for their share of attention, and have been treated with distinguished ability. Commentaries, bodies of divinity, and essays on particular points of Christian doctrine, experience, and duty, have been flowing out from the American press, and adding to our stock of theological literature. In all this we rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.

Cherishing these views and feelings, we hailed with great satisfaction the publication of the volume named at the head of this article. And though an earlier notice might have been in many respects desirable, we deem it better to give our readers some account of the book and its author at this late period than not at all. The author of the Lectures was evidently a man of deep piety, sound sense, and considerable learning. In mental philosophy and Christian theology, especially, his friends would, we suppose, claim for him the greatest distinction. Herein, doubtless, he chiefly excelled.

It was a reasonable presumption on the part of Dr. Richards'

friends, that the Christian public would wish to know something of his personal history. Preliminary to these Lectures, therefore, and as an appropriate introduction to them, the Rev. Samuel H. Gridley, of Waterloo, N. Y., has furnished a very simple and concise memoir of their lamented author. He was born in New-Canaan, Conn., Oct. 29, 1767, and was the eldest son of James Richards and Ruth Hanford, who, though in humble life, were blessed with a numerous and somewhat distinguished progeny. Ruth Hanford is represented as a woman of "vigorous intellect, of consistent piety, and of uncompromising faithfulness in all matters of social duty." The subject of this biographical sketch, though a weak and feeble boy, was remarkable for his studious habits. His fondness for study and his activity of mind procured for him the place of commonschool teacher, when only about thirteen years of age. Still, however, his friends, probably from inability to support him, seem to have cherished no early design to give him a public education. His father allowed him, when only fifteen years of age, to leave home and seek such employment as might suit his own inclination—an example which we should not think it very safe to follow. In the present instance, however, it seems to have led to no unfavourable result. James apprenticed himself to the cabinet and chair-making business, and was successively employed in Newtown, Danbury, and Stamford, in his native State, and in the city of New-York. While in Stamford, and in the nineteenth year of his age, he was made the subject of a gracious change, and immediately commenced a new life. A paragraph occurs here in the Memoir, over which we cannot pass in silence. Taken altogether, it is one of the most remarkable with which we remember to have met in the whole course of our reading. Referring to this early part of Dr. Richards' Christian experience, his biographer says:

"In speaking of his feelings previous to his conversion, and in connexion with it, he once said in substance as follows to one of his classes in the lectureroom in the Theological Seminary at Auburn :- I had long cherished the idea that I could be converted when I pleased, that faith preceded conversion, and that, by exercising it, I could lay God under obligation to give me a new heart. The time for the experiment at last came. My sins found me out, and I attempted to believe according to my cherished notions of faith, and thus induce God to give me the grace of regeneration. For several days I struggled and struggled in vain. I began to see my own impotency, and consequently my dependence on the sovereign interposition of God; and the more I saw, the more I hated. I became alarmed in view of my enmity, and began to feel I had passed beyond my day of grace, and was rapidly sinking to hell. But at length my soul melted, and the method of salvation I had hated became my joy and my song.' In accordance with the foregoing, (continues Mr. Gridley,) he was accustomed more familiarly to say, 'I was born an Arminian, and lived an Arminian; but, obstinate free-willer as I was, at length by sovereign power

and mercy I was brought to lick the dust of God's footstool, and accept of salvation by grace."-Pp. 12, 13.

Though this extraordinary paragraph relates to the early religious experience of Dr. Richards, it is not the language of an untutored young man, in the nineteenth year of his age. Were it so, we could readily excuse it. But it is the language of a learned professor of Christian theology, and the President of the Auburn Theological Seminary. It is, if the biographer have reported correctly, the deliberate utterance of the class-room, where the lecturer, free from excitement, was imparting. instruction to candidates for the Christian ministry. Viewed in this light, we repeat it, the paragraph is most extraordinary. It would seem utterly impossible that a man of Dr. Richards' attainments could entertain such ideas of Arminianism as those which are developed in the preceding quotation. With one single exception, it is, from beginning to end, a tissue of misrepresentation. The candid examinations of the learned theological professor at Andover, the Rev. Moses Stuart, conducted him to the conclusion, that had Arminius himself lived in the present age, he would have been considered "a moderate Calvinist." But the character imputed to Arminianism by Dr. Richards would make it incomparably worse than even the worst possible form of Socinianism. Did Arminius teach, do any of his accredited followers now teach, that a sinner may be converted just when he pleases, and that, by the exercise of faith, he can lay God under obligations to give him a new heart? We ask for specification-for book, chapter, and verse—which, we are quite sure, will never be given us. We know that certain modern divines have taught the doctrine of selfconversion, and have maintained, or rather attempted to maintain, that sinners have "natural ability" to change their own hearts. But, surely, these are not Arminians. So far from it, that they would probably consider themselves slandered were their names forced into such a category. Whether Dr. Richards would sympathize with these divines, we know not; and certainly have reason to hope he would not. But as to his being a "free-willer," we know not how he could ever have been a more obstinate" one than he was at the time of delivering these Lectures. In the three which professedly treat upon the will, he everywhere maintains its perfect freedom; and in the one entitled "Ability and Inability," he asserts the same thing in almost every possible form of expression. Take the following examples :

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"All who sit under the sound of the Gospel may come [to Christ] if they will: a thousand and a thousand times have they been invited and commanded to come, and receive the gift of eternal life."

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. II.-6

Nor, in the next place, is it the want of natural powers:-by which I mean those powers and faculties that belong to them as men, and which are necessary to constitute them moral agents, or free and accountable beingssuch as an understanding, to perceive the difference between right and wrong; and a will, to determine their own actions in view of motives. Destroy either of these faculties, and they would no longer be accountable, nor their actions subject to any moral regulation. Without understanding, they would hold no higher place in the scale of being than the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; and without will, or the faculty of determining their own actions, they would be incapable of freedom, and bound by no law. We want no proof of this statement; the bare mention of the case is sufficient."-P. 482.

It seems, then, that the sole reason why the sinner does not come to Christ, is, that he wants the will to come. And yet the will is perfectly free, that is to say, the sinner can, at pleasure, "determine his own actions." He can, of himself, determine to come to Christ-repent, believe, and obey. Now it would, we apprehend, be impossible for the doctor to find an evangelical Arminian on earth who has such extravagant notions respecting the freedom of the human will. And if the doctor himself were ever a more "obstinate free-willer" than he was at the time he delivered this lecture, it would certainly be difficult to conceive terms adequate to express his obstinacy. But let us see how this same subject is regarded by Arminians-those "obstinate free-willers."

Our eighth article of religion, entitled, "Of Free Will," runs thus:-"The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will." Such were the deliberately expressed views of the early Reformers, and such are the views of the Methodist Episcopal Church. We hold that man, in his fallen condition, is weak and powerless; so as to be utterly incapable of taking even the first step in his return to God. In the language of the late Dr. Fisk, "It is not pretended that any intellectual faculties are lost by sin, or restored by grace; but that the faculties that are essential to mind have become corrupted, darkened, debilitated, so as to render man utterly incapable of a right choice without prevenient and co-operating grace. As muscular or nervous power in a limb, or an external sense, may be weakened or destroyed by physical disease; so the moral power of the mind, or inward sense, may be weakened or destroyed by moral disease. And it is in perfect accordance with analogy, with universal language, and with the representations of Scripture, to consider the mind as susceptible, in its essential nature, of this moral deterioration. The simple state

ment of the matter is, the soul has become essentially disordered by sin; and as no one can prove the assertion to be unphilosophical, or contrary to experience; so I think it may be shown from Scripture that this is the real state of fallen human nature. And it may also be shown that this disorder is such as to mar man's free agency. There is a sense, indeed, in which all voluntary preference may be considered as implying free agency. But voluntary preference does not necessarily imply such a free agency as involves moral responsibility. The mind may be free to act in one direction, and yet it may have so entirely lost its moral equilibrium as to be utterly incapable, of its own nature, to act in an opposite direction, and therefore not, in the full and responsible sense, a free agent. The understanding may be darkened, the conscience seared or polluted, the will, that is, the power of willing, may, to all good purposes, be enthralled; and this is what we affirm to be the true state and condition of unaided human nature."*

All of this the writer might affirm with the utmost confidence, for it is the exact teaching of the inspired volume. By nature, we are “without strength," being “dead in trespasses and in sins.” “Without me," says the great Teacher, "ye can do nothing." And elsewhere, on the same principle, he affirms, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." "It is God," says St. Paul, "that worketh in us both to will and to do." In the common fall we lost both the ability and the inclination to serve God, and for both we are dependent on him. This is Arminianism; certainly a very different thing from what Dr. Richards—provided he be correctly reported-would represent it to be.

We have intimated, that, in one single point, the doctor does no injustice to Arminians. They do, so far as we are informed, universally hold that "faith precedes conversion;" understanding conversion to be equivalent to, or identical with, regeneration. The word has not, we know, as used by our Calvinistic brethren, a very fixed and definite signification; as they sometimes use it in one sense, and sometimes in another. But as Dr. Richards speaks, in the same connexion, of "inducing God to give him the grace of regeneration," and to "give him a new heart," it is probable that he uses the two words as signifying the same thing. If so, we suppose we must infer that the doctor did 'really hold that a sinner is regenerated before he believes! We know that he holds to justification by faith, -that is, to justification consequent upon faith; for he maintains the doctrine, strongly and clearly, in his two admirable lectures on the subject. We should be glad to know, then, what relation the

* Calvinistic Controversy, p. 160.