While Wesley and Whitfield, in Great Britain, appealed directly to the people in combatting the Arminian tendency to forms and laxness, Jonathan Edwards addressed the leaders of metaphysical thought in his profound and acute writings. He attempted to meet the universal paralysis consequent on the Calvinistic doctrine of man’s inability, amounting almost to the loss of a consciousness of personal freedom. His aim was to restore to man a sense of ability and responsibility. Thus originated his theory of _natural ability_ and _moral inability_, which amounts simply to this: that man has _natural_ power to obey all that God requires, but that he so lacks _moral ability_, on account of his depraved nature, that it is certain that he never will make a truly virtuous choice till he is regenerated, and regeneration is not to be secured by any unregenerated doings. From this resulted the division into the _old_ and _new‐school Calvinistic_ parties in the Congregational and Presbyterian churches. Lastly, the New Haven divines, while in some of their writings they held exactly the views of President Edwards, and claimed to have made no innovation, in others they came exactly to the Pelagian ground, maintaining that man “has not a depraved nature _in any sense_, nor a corrupt nature, much less a sinful nature,” “but rather that in nature he is like God.” This is the same doctrine as was held by Pelagius, and if it were only carried out consistently and not contradicted, would be the entire elimination, root and branch, of the Augustinian system. From this resulted a theological controversy that has agitated the Presbyterian and Congregational churches for the last thirty years. There are two denominations which all the Augustinian sects agree in excluding from their fellowship as not entitled to the name of Christian sects, which have had great influence in undermining the hold of the Augustinian theory. These are the _Universalists_ and the _Unitarians_.