Huntsville, Ala., April 3, 1857.
N.B.--In notice of last Witness's extract from Erskine, I remark that
Thomas Erskine was, and may yet be, a lawyer of Edinburgh. He wrote
_three works_:--_one_ on the _Internal Evidences_, the _next_ on
_Faith_, the _last_ on the _Freeness of the Gospel_. They are all
written with great ability, and contain much truth. But all have in them
fundamental _untruths_. There is least in the Evidences; more in the
essay on Faith; most in the tract on the Freeness of the Gospel,--which
last has been utterly refuted, and has passed away. His _Faith_ is,
also, not republished. The Evidences is good, like good men,
notwithstanding the evil.
Letters to Rev. A. Barnes.
Introduction.
As part of the great slavery discussion, Rev. A. Barnes, of Philadelphia,
published, in October, 1856, a pamphlet, entitled, "The CHURCH and
SLAVERY." In this tract he invites every man to utter his views on the
subject. And, setting the example, he speaks his own with the greatest
freedom and honesty.
In the same freedom of speech, I have considered his views unscriptural,
false, fanatical, and infidel. Therefore, while I hold him in the highest
respect, esteem, and affection, as a divine and Christian gentleman, and
cherish his past relations to me, yet I have in these letters written to
him, and of him, just as I would have done had he lived in France or
Germany, a stranger to me, and given to the world the refined scoff of the
one, or the muddy transcendentalism of the other.
My first letter is merely a glance at some things in his pamphlet, in
which I show wherein I agree and disagree with him,--_i.e._ in our
estimate of the results of the agitation; in our views of the Declaration
of Independence; in our belief of the way men are made infidels; and in
our appreciation of the testimonies of past General Assemblies.
The other letters I will notice in similar introductions.
These letters first appeared as original contributions to the Christian
Observer, published and edited by Dr. A. Converse, Philadelphia.
I take this occasion to express my regard for him, and my sense of the
ability with which he has long maintained the rights and interests of the
Presbyterian body, to which we both belong; and the wise and masterly way
in which he has vindicated, from the Bible, the truth on the slavery
question. To him, too, the public is indebted for the first exhibition of
Mr. Barnes's errors in his recent tract which has called forth my reply.
No. I.