“But all this pertains to the moral condition of the soul, affording _no evidence that its essence has been changed; that any faculty or constitutive element has been added, any fresh vigor or new principle of existence infused_.” But the most remarkable illustration of self‐contradiction among theologians, involved in every attempt to maintain a depraved nature consequent on Adam’s sin, is found in the teachings of Dr. Taylor, the leader of the New Haven school of divines. In his _Concio ad Clerum_, in 1828, one aim probably was, to meet the charges against himself, of teaching the Pelagian tenet, that man’s depravity consists, not in nature, but in action. In reference to this he writes thus: “Men are entirely depraved by _nature_. I do not thereby mean that their nature is itself sinful, nor that their nature is the physical or efficient cause of their sinning; but I mean that their nature is the _occasion_ or _reason_ of their sinning—that such is their nature, that in all the appropriate circumstances of their being they will _sin_ and _only sin_.” Again— “It is important to say that sin is by nature, owing to propensities to inferior good, with a difference between Adam’s mind and ours—though we can not assert that, in which this difference may consist;—that our propensities are the same in _kind_, though different in _degree_ from those of Adam; that perhaps this distinction may consist in mental differences, or in superior tendencies, compared with Adam’s to natural good, and less tendency to the highest good.” In the above extract, it is as clear as language can make it, that Dr. Taylor taught, in 1828, that in men sin _by nature_ is owing to propensities to inferior good, which are “different from Adam’s,” who was created perfect, and that this is “the occasion or reason” of their sinning, and that “such is _their nature_, that in all appropriate circumstances of their being, they _will sin, and only sin_.” This must mean the _construction_ of mind. He does not claim to describe, certainly, what this difference is between the nature of Adam and that of his descendants; but he maintains that while Adam’s nature was not so created by God at first, the nature of _all_ his descendants is so depraved, that, as the result, they “sin, and only sin,” till regenerated. But, in contradiction to this, is presented the extract below, sent by Dr. Taylor to the author, in a letter in which he was attempting to show that he did not teach the depravity of man in his _constitutional_ faculties. And he claims that what he thus writes is what he has “_always_ taught:”