the devil there utterly alone." 3 The opinion that the whole
population of Hades was released, is found in the lists of ancient
heresies.4 It was advanced by Clement, an Irish priest, antagonist
of Boniface the famous Archbishop of Mentz, in the middle of the
eighth century. He was deposed by the Council of Soissons, and
afterwards anathematized by Pope Zachary. Gregory the Great also
refers in one of his letters with extreme severity to two
ecclesiastics, contemporaries of his own, who held the same
belief. Indeed, this conclusion is a necessary result of a
consistent development of the creed of the Orthodox Church, so
called. By the sin of one, even Adam, through the working of
absolute justice, hell became the portion of all, irrespective of
any fault or virtue of theirs; so, by the voluntary sacrifice, the
infinite atonement, of one, even Christ, through the unspeakable
mercy of God, salvation was effected for all, irrespective of any
virtue or fault of theirs. One member of the scheme is the exact
counterpoise of the other; one doctrine cries out for and
necessitates the other. Those who accept the commonly received
dogmas of original sin, total depravity, and universal
condemnation entailed upon all men in lineal descent from Adam,
and the dogmas of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Vicarious
Atonement, are bound, by all the constructions of logic, to accept
the scheme of salvation just set forth, namely, that the death of
Christ secured the deliverance of all unconditionally. We do not
believe that doctrine, only because we do not believe the other
associated doctrines out of which it springs and of whose system
it is the complement.

1 Doederlein, De Redemptione a Potestate Diaboli. In Opuse.
Theolog.

2 Catechesis xis. 9.

3 De Festis Paschalibus, homilia vii.

4 Augustine, De Haresibus, lxxix.

The reasons why we do not believe that our race fell into helpless
depravity and ruin in the sin of the first man are, in essence,
briefly these: First, we have never been able to perceive any
proof whatever of the truth of that dogma; and certainly the onus
probandi rests on the side of such an assumption. It arose
partially from a misinterpretation of the language of the Bible;
and so far as it has a basis in Scripture, we are compelled by
force of evidence to regard it as a Jewish adoption of a pagan
error without authority. Secondly, this doctrinal system seems to
us equally irreconcilable with histor