After this kind and gentle introduction, Mr. Badger proceeds to take up the chief arguments which his father had, in other years, employed for the support of the system,--arguments from general reason and from Scripture. He then attempts to show the origin of the system in human causes, and its disagreement with the plain teachings of Revelation, and with the spirit and genius of the Christian experience and life. Such is the plan of his treatise. The period to which these arguments belong, was one in which there was a strong controversial clash of theories, each one of which was undoubtedly a fragmentary and imperfect statement of some essential truth in religion; and as Calvinistic reasoning was then generally in the ascendant, as its bold premises were the main foundation of the plea of its opposite extreme,--the Universalian statement,--the subject seemed to take a fresh interest in the hands of one who approached it from an intermediate region of thinking. "One of your favorite and powerful arguments in favor of this doctrine is, that in the beginning the soul of man was a part of God, and therefore cannot be defiled, condemned or punished, as Deity will not sentence a part of himself to misery. All the Scripture I ever heard quoted in favor of this view, is that 'God breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living soul,' which carries a very different idea from the one you derive from it. It does not say that the soul is a part of God, or that God breathed into man a part of himself. It means just this, that God breathed into man the breath of life, and that, as a result of this, he became a _living, active, intelligent creature_. "Let us further reason on this subject. Can a part of God be ignorant of another part of himself? Yet are we not ignorant of what passes in the breast of our neighbor? Does not one drop of a fountain possess _all_ the qualities of the fountain from which it was taken? But who will say that mortal man has all the qualities and qualifications of his Maker, God? If the soul is a part of God, where lies the propriety of those Scriptures wherein he threatens to punish the sinner? Would he threaten to banish a part of himself from himself forever, or say to a part of himself, 'Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity?' "The supporters of this theory, arguing on the old Calvinistic, fatal plan, say that 'God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass;'--a popular and highly esteemed idea, from which I must dissent for the following reasons."