So then I tell Edwards, and all agreeing with him, that it is absurd to attempt to prove the moral perfection and attributes of God, if he thereby seeks to reach the HIGHEST EVIDENCE, or if he thereby means to find the PRIMARY GROUND of moral obligation.
Do I then teach that man should not seek the proof there is, of the perfection and attributes of God, in nature and providence? No. I hold that such proof unfolds the meaning of the FACTS declared in the WORD of God, and is all-important, as such expansion of meaning. But I say, by authority of the Master, that the highest proof, the absolute proof, the perfect proof, of the FACTS as to who God is, and what he does, and the PRIMARY OBLIGATION thereupon, is in the REVEALED WORD.
FRED. A. ROSS.
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.