FESE L109 UNITEJ lowing judicious admonition of Howe: "Take beed," says he, "that we do not oppose the secret and revealed will of God to one another, or allow ourselves so much as to imagine an opposition or contrariety between them. And that ground being once firmly laid and stuck to, as it is impossible that there can be a will against a will in God, or that he can be divided from himself, or against himself, or that he should reveal anything to us as his will that is not his will, (it being a thing inconsistent with his nature, and impossible to him to lie,) that being, I say, firmly laid, (as nothing can be firmer or surer than that,) then measure all your conceptions of the secret will of God by his revealed will, about which you may be sure. But never measure your conceptions of his revealed by his secret will; that is, by what you may imagine concerning that. For you can but imagine while it is secret, and so far as it is unrevealed."*

"It properly belongs," says Edwards, "to the supreme absolute Governor of the universe, to order all important events within his dominions by wisdom; but the events in the moral world are of the most important kind, such as the moral actions of intelligent creatures, and the consequences. These events will be ordered by something. They will either be disposed by wisdom, or they will be disposed by chance; that is, they will be disposed by blind and undesigning causes, if that were possible, and could be called a disposal. Is it not better that the good and evil which happen in God's world should be ordered, regulated, bounded, and determined by the good pleasure of an infinitely wise being, than to leave these things to fall out by chance, and to be determined by those causes which have no understanding and aim? . . . . It is in its own nature fit, that wisdom, and not chance, should order these things."+

In our opinion, if there be no other alternative, it is better. that sin should be left to chance, than ascribed to the high and holy One. But why must sin be ordered and determined by the supreme Ruler of the world, or else be left to chance? Has the great metaphysician forgotten, that there may be such things as men and angels in the universe; or does he mean, with Spinoza, to blot out all created agents, and all subordinate agency, from existence? If not, then certainly God may refuse to be the author of sin, without leaving it to blind chance, • Howe's Works, p. 1142.

† On the Will, part iv, sec. ix.

which is incapable of such a thing. He may leave it, as we conceive he has done, to the determination of finite created intelligences. If sin is to come into the world, as come it evidently does, it is infinitely better, we say, that it should be left to proceed from the creature, and not be made to emanate from God himself, the fountain of light, and the great object of all adoration. It is infinitely better that the high and holy One should do nothing either by his wisdom or by his decree, by his providence or his power, to help this hideous thing to raise its head amid the inconceivable splendours of his dominion.

Such speculations as those of Edwards and Leibnitz, in our opinion, only reflect dishonour and disgrace upon the cause they are intended to subserve. It is better, ten thousand times better, simply to plant ourselves upon the moral nature of man, and the irreversible dictates of common sense, and annihilate the speculations of the atheist, than to endeavour to parry them off by such invented quibbles and sophisms. They give point, and pungency, and power to the shafts of the sceptic. If we meet him on the common ground of necessity, he will snap all such quibbles like threads of tow, and overwhelm us with the floods of irony and scorn. For, in the memorable words of Sir William Hamilton, "It can easily be proved by those who are able and not afraid to reason, that the doctrine of necessity is subversive of religion, natural and revealed." To perceive this, it requires neither a Bayle, nor a Hobbes, nor a Hume; it only requires a man who is neither unable nor afraid to reason.

SECTION IV.

The attempts of Dr. Emmons and Dr. Chalmers to reconcile the scheme of necessity with the purity of God.

As we have dwelt so long on the speculations of President Edwards concerning the objections in question, we need add but a few remarks in relation to the views of the above-mentioned authors on the same subject. The sentiments of Dr. Emmons on the relation between the divine agency and the sin ful actions of men, are even more clearly defined and boldly expressed than those of President Edwards. The disciple is more open and decided than the master. "Since mind cannot act," says he, "any more than matter can move, without a

divine agency, it is absurd to suppose that men can be left to the freedom of their own will, to act, or not to act, independently of a divine influence. There must be, therefore, the exercise of a divine agency in every human action, without which it is impossible to conceive that God should govern moral agents, and make mankind act in perfect conformity to his designs."*"He is now exercising his powerful and irresistible agency upon the heart of every one of the human race, and producing either holy or unholy exercises in it."+ "It is often thought and said, that nothing more was necessary on God's part, in order to fit Pharaoh for destruction, than barely to leave him to himself. But God knew that no external means and motives would be sufficient of themselves to form his moral character. He determined therefore to operate on his heart itself, and cause him to put forth certain evil exercises in view of certain external motives. When Moses called upon him to let the people go, God stood by him, and moved him to refuse. When the people departed from his kingdom, God stood by him and moved him to pursue after them with increased malice and revenge. And what God did on such particular occasions, he did at all times." It is useless to multiply extracts to the same effect. Could language be more explicit, or more revolting to the moral sentiments of mankind?

If God is alike the author of all our volitions, sinful as well as holy, one wonders by what sort of legerdemain the authors of the doctrine have contrived to ascribe all the glory and all the praise of our holy actions to God, and at the same time all the shame and condemnation of our evil actions to ourselves. In relation to the holy actions of men, all the praise is due to God, say they, because they were produced by his power. Why is not the moral turpitude of their evil actions, then, also ascribed to God, inasmuch as he is said to produce them by his irresistible and almighty agency? We are accountable for our evil acts, say Dr. Emmons and Calvin, because they are voluntary. Are not our moral acts, our virtuous acts, also voluntary? Certainly they are; this is not denied; and yet we are not allowed to impute the moral quality of the acts to the agent in such cases. This whole school of metaphysicians, indeed, from Calvin down to Emmons, can make God the author of our evil •Emmons's Works, vol. iv, p. 372. † Ibid., p. 388. ↑ Ibid., p. 327

acts, by an exertion of his omnipotence, and yet assert that because they are voluntary we are justly blameworthy and punishable for them; but though our virtuous acts are also voluntary, they still insist the praiseworthiness of them is to be ascribed exclusively to Him by whom they were produced. The plain truth is, that as the scheme originated in a particular set purpose and design, so it is one-sided in its views, arbitrary in its distinctions, and full of self-contradictions.

The simple fact seems to be, that if any effect be produced in our minds by the power of God, it is a passive impression, and is very absurdly called a voluntary state of the will. And even if such an impression could be a voluntary state, or a voli tion, properly so called, we should not be responsible for it, because it is produced by the omnipotence of God This, we doubt not, is in perfect accordance with the universal consciousness and voice of mankind, and cannot be resisted by the sophistical evasions of particular men, how great soever may be their genius, or exalted their piety.

We shall, in conclusion, add one more great name to the list of those who, from their zeal for the glory of the divine omnipotence, have really and clearly made God the author of sin. The denial of his scheme of "a rigid and absolute predestination," as he calls it, Dr. Chalmers deems equivalent to the assertion, that "things grow up from the dark womb of nonentity, which.omnipotence did not summon into being, and which omniscience could not foretell." And again, "At this rate, events would come forth uncaused from the womb of nonentity, to which omnipotence did not give birth, and which omniscience could not foresee."* Now all this is spoken, be it remembered, in relation to the volitions or acts of men. But if there are no such events, except such as omnipotence gives birth to, or summons into being, how clear and how irresistible is the conclusion that God is the author of the sinful acts of the creature? It were better, we say, ten thousand times better, that sin, that monstrous birth of night and darkness, should grow up out of the womb of nonentity, if such were the only alternative, than that it should proceed from the bosom of God.

• Institutes of Theology, vol. ii, chap. iii.

CHAPTER III.

THE SCHEME OF NECESSITY DENIES THE REALITY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS.

Our voluntary service He requires,

Not our necessitated; such with him
Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how

Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must

By destiny, and can no other choose?-MILTON.

In the preceding chapters we have taken it for granted that there is such a thing as moral good and evil, and endeavoured to show, that if the scheme of necessity be true, man is absolved from guilt, and God is the author of sin. But, in point of fact, if the scheme of necessity be true, there is no such thing as

moral good or evil in this lower world; all distinction between virtue and vice, moral good and evil, is a mere dream, and we really live in a non-moral world. This has been shown by many of the advocates of necessity.

SECTION I.

The views of Spinoza in relation to the reality of moral distinctions. It is shown by Spinoza, that all moral distinctions vanish before the iron scheme of necessity. They are swept away as the dreams of vulgar prejudice by the force of Spinoza's logic; yet little praise is due, we think, on that account, to the superiority of his acumen. The wonder is, not that Spinoza should have drawn such an inference, but that any one should fail to draw it. For if our volitions are necessitated by causes over which we have no control, it seems to follow, as clear as noonday, that they cannot be the objects of praise or blame—cannot be our virtue or vice. So far is it indeed from requiring any logical acuteness to perceive such an inference, that it demands, as we shall see, the very greatest ingenuity to keep from perceiving it. Hence, in our humble opinion, the praise which has oeen lavished on the logic of Spinoza is not deserved.

His superior consistency only shows one of two things