shines forth in the light of the glorious gospel. We agree with him, that "we ought to proceed on the obvious representations which Scripture gives of the Deity; and these beheld in their own immediate light, untinged by the dogma of predestination. God waiting to be gracious-God not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance-God swearing by himself that he has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that all should come unto him and live-God beseeching men to enter into reconciliation, and this not as elect, but simply and generally as men and sinners;-these are the attitudes in which the Father of the human family sets himself forth unto the world-these the terms in which he speaks to us from heaven." It is precisely in this sublime attitude, and in this transporting light, that we rejoice to contemplate the Father of mercies; and this view, it must be confessed, is wholly “untinged with the dogma of predestination."

CONCLUSION.

A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE PRINCIPLES AND ADVANTAGES OF THE FOREGOING SYSTEM.

There is a lamp within the lofty dome

Of the dim world, whose radiance clear acth show
Its awful beauty; and, through the wide gloom,
Make all its obscure mystic symbols glow

With pleasing light, that we may see and know
The glorious world, and all its wondrous scheme;
Not as distorted in the mind below,

Nor in philosopher's, nor poet's dream,

But as it was, and is, high in the Mind Supreme.

Αποκ.

CONCLUSION.

I.

SUMMARY OF THE FIRST PART OF THE FOREGOING SYSTEM.

THE commonly received systems of theology are, it is confessed by their advocates, attended with manifold inconveniences and difficulties. The habit of mind by which, notwithstanding such difficulties, it clings to the great truths of those systems, is worthy of all admiration, and forms one of the best guarantees of the stability and progress of human knowledge. For in every department of science the great truths which dawn upon the mind are usually attended with a cloud of difficulties, and, but for the habit in question, they would soon be permitted to fade away, and be lost in their original obscurity. Copernicus has, therefore, been justly applauded,* not only for conceiving, but for firmly grasping the heliocentric theory of the world, notwithstanding the many formidable objections which it had to encounter in his own mind. Even the sublime law of the material universe, before it finally established itself in the mind of Newton, more than once fell, in its struggles for acceptance, beneath the apparently insuperable objections by which it was attended; and, after all, the overpowering evidence which caused it to be embraced, still left it surrounded by an immense penumbra of difficulties. These, together with the sublime truth, he bequeathed to his successors. They have retained the truth, and removed the difficulties. In like manner, admirable though the habit of clinging to every sufficiently accredited truth may be, yet, whether in the physical or in the moral sciences, the effort to disencumber the truth of the difficulties by which its progress is embarrassed should never be remitted.

Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i.

The scientific impulse, by which a great truth is grasped, and established upon its own appropriate evidence, should ever be followed by the subordinate movement, which strives to remove every obstacle out of the way, and cause it to secure a wider and a brighter dominion in the human mind. And in proportion as any scheme, whether in relation to natural or to divine things, shall, without a sacrifice or mutilation of the truth, divest itself of the darkness which must ever accompany all one-sided and partial views, will it possess a decided advantage and superiority over other systems. Since this general principle will not be denied, let us proceed, in conclusion, to take a brief survey of the foregoing scheme of doctrine, and determine, if we can, whether to any truth it has given any such advantage. It clearly seems free from the stupendous cloud of difficulties that overhang that view of the moral universe which supposes its entire constitution and government to be in accordance with the scheme of necessity. These difficulties pertain, first, to the responsibility of man; secondly, to the purity of God; and, thirdly, to the reality of moral distinctions. These three several branches of the difficulty in question have been respectively considered in the first three chapters of the first part of the present work; and we shall now briefly recapitulate the views therein presented, in the three following sections.

SECTION I.

The scheme of necessity denies that man is the responsible author of sin. If, according to this scheme, all things in heaven and earth, the volitions of the human mind not excepted, be under the dominion of necessitating causes, then may we well ask, How can man be a free and responsible agent? To this inquiry the most illustrious advocates of the scheme in question have not been able to return a coherent or satisfactory reply. After the search of ages, and the joint labour of all their gigantic intellects, they have found no position in their system on which the freedom of the human mind may be securely planted. The position set up for this purpose by one is pulled down by another, who, in his turn, indicates some other position only to be demolished by some other advocate of his own scheme. The more we look into their writings on this subject, the more