that it has a more immediate and impressive effect on not a few. It is much as a man is educated. Some have learned to locate power in the arms, and others in the head and heart.

THE DOCTORS DIFFER:-the literary ones we mean, just now. It has, for instance, grown into a rule with the critics, that two thirds of the success of a book or an article depends upon its first very few sentences. So we are inclined to think, especially as to contributions to periodicals. A neat and taking portico is a great recommendation to a house. But the successful essayist of the "Concernings" expends some of his mild wit upon the inexperienced writers who rack their brains for something to set out with'; being over 'anxious to make a good impression at first.' He considers this well, if not quite indispensable, in a sermon, but that a good piece of writing for the printer can easily get over the disadvantage of a bad start-witness (he says) "Adam Bede." Still it is better, one would judge, to avoid the bad start; though a mental as well as a material rail-car may not be able to run its first mile as quickly as its fortieth. In spite of the "parson's" theory, however, we observe that his commencements are generally careful and catching.

The writer of a "Letter to a Young Contributor," in the "Atlantic" for April, is decidedly out against those choice scraps which scholarly littérateurs find it so natural and agreeable to slip into their English particularly from the classic tongues. "Deal cautiously in Latin.” Certainly we do not want the mongrel dialects of the "Anatomy of Melancholy" restored to our current authorship; and possibly "Horæ Subsecivæ" carries this antique fashion too far. But we must let the gentle medico of "Spare Hours" speak a word for himself, and for us too just here:

"With regard to quotations—and the much Latin and some Greek, the world of men, and especially of women, is dead against me. I am sorry for it. As he said, who was reminded in an argument that the facts were against him, 'So much the worse for them,' and I may add, for me. Latin and Greek are not dead-in one sense they are happily immortal; but the present age is doing its worst to kill them, and much of their own best good and pleasure."

The letter-writer aforesaid gives excellent advice to those whose pens run too easily into exclamation points, italics, and the like ways of intensifying the thought or making up for the want of it. We wish the whole tribe, also, of capital letters, dashes, and parentheses could be reduced in as heavy a ratio as that by which Gideon sent home his

soldiers. They are nuisances as now scattered over printed pages as if from a dredging-box. We like the ostracism also of foot-notes as far as possible, though "Biddy" might find it a little difficult to work into this "bread-pan" all "the outlying bits of dough till she has one round and comely mass." We have had some of this kneading-over to do, and the loaf has been invariably the gainer by it. Yet, as in the matter of quotations, too stringent a rule is the next bad thing to no rule at all. A foot-note that has in it some good corroborative, elucidating, recherché reference, relieves the monotony of the solid text. So, in a reasonable variety, we stand up for the inverted commas with our friend John Brown- not the one whose "soul is marching on." Mosaics are rich and beautiful if well executed. And out of the exhaustless wealth of our own and other literatures to select, here and there, a genuine piece of pietra dura and set it in a good place to be looked at and enjoyed, is a liberty and a luxury, to forego which is asking quite too much.

AMONG the many commendations which our Review receives, none please us more then those which educated and intelligent laymen give it. On them chiefly rests the responsibility of guiding our churches, deciding in our councils, and sustaining our benevolent institutions; and it is an omen of good that they find a theological and literary Review "thoroughly readable," as well as "adapted to meet the pressing wants of the times." They need not fear that we shall be drawn into the shallow tide of eclecticism. This is a charlatanry which we detest both in medicine and theology, We once saw a Presbyterian minister called to account for allowing a Universalist preacher to occupy his pulpit. He replied that he thought it well for his people to hear all sides. The Presbytery was by no means satisfied with this answer, but decided that it was neither right nor politic to admit even an Arminian to present his peculiar errors in their pulpits, on the principle that it is often "the little foxes that spoil the vines," and, moreover, that if we let in the little ones we must expect to find big ones there after a while.

QUOTING from memory is a little uncertain (vide our last number, p. 139); but if Shakespeare's preference could be consulted, we fancy he would as soon that his laurels should be worn by the "gentle Elia" as by any other.

BOSTON REVIEW.

VOL. II-JULY, 1862.-No. 10.

ARTICLE I.

REGENERATION NOT BY RESOLUTION.

REGENERATION is the restoration in the heart of what was lost from the heart by the apostasy. It is a restoration incipient, not total. The heart is not by the act made at once as holy as was Adam's before the fall, but a beginning is made, and a complete repossession is made certain. The kingdom of heaven, the grain of mustard-seed, is implanted, the germinating, growth, and maturity of which, are made sure by the gracious power that implants. The regenerating act is the formal transfer of the subject of it from the kingdom of darkness and doom to the kingdom of God's dear Son. So regeneration draws a line distinct and thoroughly separating, dividing men into two classes, those for and those against God. A particular, special act, draws the line. It is not done by a variety of processes. As this one act constitutes one a Christian, so the act of constitution is alike with all.

Much of the blindness, confusion, and error clustering about the doctrine of regeneration arises from mixing it up with other things that in reality are totally distinct from it. Superficial views have grouped together several distinct acts, some of them God's, and some man's, and the sum total has been called regeneration. This unscholarly process has given a loose theology. Regeneration is a single, isolated, instantaneous act.

Ordinarily certain things precede it, and certain follow it; but they are not a part of it. The act has fruits; but they are not the tree itself.

We shall best be able to see what this kernel of holiness is, that is implanted by regeneration, and whether it is human or divine, and whether a human or divine hand implants it in the earth and dust of our humanity, if we inquire in what department of the soul the regenerating act takes place.

The human soul, about to be regenerated, presents itself under three manifestations. There is the soul in its substance or attributes, the soul in its moral disposition, taste or propensity, the soul in its exercises. The first is the soul as constituted of God, with all the elements, faculties, and powers necessary to make a person intellectual, moral, emotional, and immortal. The second view contemplates this soul as having a moral taste, principle, propensity or disposition, lying back of the moral acts and exercises of the man, and giving character to them as holy or sinful. The third is this soul in exercise, filling the offices and assuming the responsibilities of an agent or person. We have reference to this second manifestation of the soul when we say of man, that he has a selfish disposition, a benevolent heart, a relish for spiritual things, a principle of hostility to God, a taste for holiness. This manifestation is distinct from the substance and essential attributes of the soul, as it is also from its acts and exercises. Properly it holds a place between the soul as an organism and the soul as an actor, and gives a moral quality to all its acts that are susceptible of it. President Edwards says that a good choice proceeds from an antecedent good disposition, temper or affection of the mind. "This is the general notion, not that principles derive their goodness from actions, but that actions derive their goodness from the principles whence they proceed, and so that the act of choosing that which is good is no further virtuous than it proceeds from a good principle, or virtuous disposition of mind; which supposes that a virtuous disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of choice." Original Sin, Part II., chap. 1, sect. 1. President Dwight is equally clear and explicit on the same point :

"When God created Adam, there was a period in his existence after he bega so be, antecedent to that in which he exercised the

first volition. Every man, who believes the mind to be something besides ideas and exercises, and who does not admit the doctrine of casualty, will acknowledge, that in this period the mind of Adam. was in such a state, that he was propense to the exercise of virtuous volitions rather than of sinful ones. This state of mind has been commonly styled disposition, temper, inclination, heart, &c. In the scriptures it usually bears the last of these names. I shall take the liberty to call it disposition. This disposition in Adam was the cause, whence his virtuous volitions proceeded; the reason why they were virtuous and not sinful." Theology, II., 419.

So Dr. Dwight taught that every child of Adam has this disposition, antecedent to choice and action.

Bellamy presents the same views most clearly and abundantly of a moral disposition in man antecedent to choice. He first shows, that by "the image of God" in which man was created, is meant the moral image. So originally man "had a perfect moral rectitude of heart; a perfectly right temper of mind, and so was perfectly disposed to love God with all his heart." This disposition was lost in the apostasy, so that now we

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are born into the world not only destitute of a conformity to the law, but we are natively diametrically opposed to it in the temper of our hearts." "These are the earliest dispositions that are discovered in our nature; and although I do not think that they are concreated by God together with the essence of our souls, yet they seem to be the very first propensities of the new-made soul. So that they are, in a sense, connatural; our whole hearts are perfectly and entirely bent this from their very first motion." "Hence it is become customary to call them natural, and to say that it is our very nature to be so inclined; and to say that these propensities are natural, would, to common people, be the most apt way of expressing the thing." "This disposition, which is thus evidently natural to all mankind, is directly contrary to God's holy law, is exceedingly sinful, and is the root of all wickedness." Works, I., 135–142, (Edition of the Cong. Board.)

way,

This disposition, or propensity, it will be noticed, is not an attribute of the soul. It is no essence or entity, but a quality, and so variable. It is not necessarily active, still the man has it, as a man may have an irritable disposition, or a taste for music, even when he is asleep or in a swoon. All the old-fash