Part 10

2. Another reason for believing that this doctrine is what we have defined it to be, and involves in it the principles we have charged upon it, is drawn from the terms in which it is expressed, and the manner and circumstances in which these terms are used. The more common terms are _decree, predestination, foreordination, predetermination, purpose_, &c.--These are all authoritative terms, and carry with them the idea of absolute sovereignty. But lest they should not be sufficiently strong and imperious, they are, in this theory, generally accompanied by some strong qualifying terms, such as _sovereign decree, eternal and immutable purposes;_ and without any reference to other bearings, the whole is placed on the ground of God's absolute and sovereign will. These sovereign decrees, however, are not proposed to his subjects in the light of a law enforced by suitable sanctions, and liable to be broken. They are the _secret counsels_ of his own will; and so far from being law, that often, perhaps oftener than otherwise, in the moral world, they are in direct opposition to the precepts of the law. When these decrees come in contact with the law they supersede it. Laws may sometimes be broken, the decrees, never. God commits his law to subordinate moral agents, who may break or keep them; but his decrees he executes himself. It should also be understood that the advocates of this theory, in their late controversy with Dr. Taylor, strenuously maintain that sin, wherever it occurs, is preferable to holiness in its stead, and is the _necessary means_ of the _greatest good_. The idea that God, foreseeing what moral agents would do, under all possible circumstances, _so ordered his works_ as to take up and incorporate into his plan the foreseen volitions of moral agents, and thus constitute a grand whole, as perfect as any system which involves a moral government could be, they discard as rank Arminianism. Now is it possible that decrees like these, concealed in the eternal mind of him that conceived them--dependent solely on Almighty power to execute them, not modified by subordinate agencies, but made to control these agencies with absolute and arbitrary sway; can it be _possible_, I say, that such decrees do not efficiently control and actuate the human will? Must not he who, in this manner, forms and executes the general plan, also form and execute all its parts? Must not he who gives the first impulse to this concatenation of events, linked together by his eternal purposes, follow up the whole with his continued and direct agency, and carry on this work in every mind and through every emotion? Most assuredly he must. His is, undoubtedly, according to this doctrine, that operative, controlling and propelling energy that

"Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Acts undivided, operates unspent."

And that we may be sure not to misrepresent the Calvinists on this subject, let them speak for themselves. Dr. Hill, who is a modern, and is reputed a moderate Calvinist, says:--"The Divine decree is the determination to _produce_ the universe, that is, the _whole series_ of _beings_ and _events_ that was then future." Dr. Chalmers, who has been esteemed so moderate a Calvinist, that some had doubted whether he had not given up absolute predestination altogether, comes out in his sermon on predestination in the following language:--"Every step of every individual character, receives as determinate a character from the hand, of God, as every mile of a planet's orbit, or every gust of wind, or every wave of the sea, or every particle of flying dust, or every rivulet of flowing water. This power of God knows no exceptions: it is absolute and unlimited. And while it embraces the vast, it carries its resistless influence to all the minute and unnoticed diversities of existence. It _reigns_ and operates through all the secrecies of the inner man. It gives birth to every purpose, it gives impulse to every desire, it gives shape and colour to every conception. It wields an entire ascendancy over every attribute of the mind; and the will, and the fancy, and the understanding, with all the countless variety of their hidden and fugitive operations, are submitted to it. It gives movement and direction through every one point of our pilgrimage. At no moment of time does it abandon us. It follows us to the hour of death, and it carries us to our place, and to our everlasting destiny in the region beyond it!!!" These quotations need no comment; if they do not come up to all we have ever charged upon this doctrine, there is no definite meaning in words.

But we have another authority on this subject, which bears more directly on the Calvinists of this country, the Assembly's Catechism. Dr. Fitch, who is certainly as well qualified to judge in this matter as another man, informs us, through the medium of the Christian Spectator, that "the articles of faith prepared by that body, (the assembly of English and Scotch divines at Westminster,) are considered as expressing essentially the views not only of the Presbyterian Church in this country, but also of the orthodox Congregational Churches of New-England." It is known, also, that the Shorter Catechism has been almost universally used by them in their families, and in the religious instruction of their children. Here then we have a standard of faith, which all the _classes_, I suppose, will acknowledge,--and what saith it? After stating that the decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his own will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever cometh to pass, it goes on to say, "God _executeth_ his decrees in the works of creation and providence," and then for farther explanation adds--"God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions." This is certainly an awkward sentence, if I may be allowed to say this of the productions of an assembly which has been characterised as a paragon of excellency in erudition and theology. Its meaning, however, according to grammar and logic, must be, that by his acts of providence God, in a most holy, wise, and powerful manner, preserves and governs both all his creatures, and all their actions. But as it seems to be a solecism to talk about _preserving actions_, we will understand _preserving_ to belong to _creatures_, and _governing_ to _actions_, and then it will be thus: God powerfully preserves all his creatures, and powerfully governs all their actions: and it is in this way he _executes_ his decrees. There are evidently two methods of governing. That control which is made up of legal precepts, and sanctions, and retributions, is called a government; not that all the subjects of such a government always obey its ordinances, but if they violate them, they are subjected to punishment. _This_ is evidently not the kind of government that the assembly contemplated. It was a government by which God _executed his decrees;_ but, as we have seen, his decrees are not his laws, for they are frequently in direct opposition to his laws. Decree and law are not only frequently opposed, in respect to the moral action demanded by each, but even where those demands are coincident they differ greatly in the _manner_ and _certainty_ of their fulfilment. Of course government, by _executing decrees_, is another thing altogether from government by _executing laws_. But there is another kind of government. It is that _efficient control_ of a superior, by which a being or an act is _made to be what it is_, in opposition to _non-existence_, or a _different existence_. Now this appears to be precisely the kind of government alluded to when it said, "God _executes his decrees_ by powerfully _governing_ all the actions of his creatures." That is, he efficiently produces and controls all the responsible volitions, good and bad, of the moral universe. And what is this, but affirming all that the sermon has affirmed on this subject? If any one is disposed to deny that this is a fair exposition of the Catechism, let him reflect that as he cannot pretend that _government_ here means a _legal administration_, it will be incumbent on him to show what other fair construction can be put upon it than the one given above; to show how God can execute a secret decree, by his own powerful act, in any other way than in the one already explained.

In corroboration of the foregoing views it should also be borne in mind, that the Calvinists uniformly use these very same terms, _decree, predestination_, &c, in the _same sense_, in reference to _all events_. They say, God's decrees extend to all events, physical and moral, good and evil, by which they must mean, if they mean any thing intelligible, that his predestination bears the same relation to all events. If then his decree of election embraces the means to the accomplishment of the end, so also must his decree of reprobation. If his decree of election requires for its accomplishment an _efficient_ operation, so also does his decree of reprobation. If Divine agency is directly and efficiently, requisite to produce a good volition, it must follow that it is in the same sense requisite to produce a sinful volition.

To tell us a thousand times, without any distinction or discrimination, that all things are _equally_ the result of the Divine decree, and then tell us that the relation between God's decree and sin is essentially different from the relation existing between his decree and holiness, would certainly be a very singular and unwarrantable use of language. How then, I inquire, does God produce holy volitions?--Why, say the Calvinists, by a direct, positive, and efficient influence upon the will, and in proof quote--"Thy people _shall_ be willing in the day of thy power." Well, how, I ask again, does God execute his decrees respecting unholy volitions? Consistency requires the same reply. But, says the Calvinist, he need not exert the same influence to produce unholy volitions, because it is in accordance with the nature of sinful men to sin. Indeed! and is not this _nature_ the result of a decree? It would seem God approaches his work of executing his decree _respecting sin_, either more reluctantly or with greater difficulty, so that it requires two steps to execute this, and only one the other. It is in both cases, however, equally his work. This will be seen more clearly if we turn our attention to the first sin; for it is certainly as much against a perfectly holy nature to commit sin, as it is against an unholy nature to have a holy volition. Hence the one as much requires a direct and positive influence as the other, and therefore the passage in the 110th Psalm, if it applies at all to a positive Divine influence in changing the will, must have a much more extensive meaning, than has been generally supposed. It should be paraphrased thus:--Not only shall thy elect people, who are yet in their sins, and therefore not yet in a strict and proper sense thine, be made willing to become holy in the day that thou dost efficiently change their will, but also thy angels and thy first created human pair, who were before their fall more truly thine, as they were made perfectly holy, shall be made willing to become unholy in the day that thou dost efficiently change their wills from submission to rebellion. For if Divine efficiency is necessary to make a naturally perverse will holy, it is also necessary to make a naturally holy will perverse.

I am aware that we may be met here by this reply, that although God does efficiently control the will, still it is in a way suited to the nature of mind, and consistent with free agency, because he operates upon the mind through the influence of moral suasion, or by the power of motives. To this it may be answered, that the Calvinists generally condemn Dr. Taylor's views of conversion, because they suspect him of holding that motives alone convert the sinner; whereas they deem it necessary that the Holy Spirit should act directly upon the will; if so, then, as I have shown above, it is also necessary that there should be a direct Divine influence upon the will of a holy being, to make him sinful. And this more especially, since both changes are decreed, and both stand in the same relation to the Divine purpose. But this doctrine of motives leads me to another argument, viz.

3. That the view I have taken of predestination is correct, appears evident from the Calvinistic doctrine of motives, especially when this doctrine is viewed in connection with the Calvinistic theory of depravity.

The doctrine of motives I understand to be this, that "the power of volition is never excited, nor _can be_, except in the presence and from the excitement of motives," (see "Views in Theology,") and that the mind must necessarily be swayed by the strongest motive, or by what appears to the mind to be the greatest good. Dr. Edwards, following Leibnitz, incorporated this doctrine of philosophical necessity with the Calvinistic theology. In this he has been followed by a great portion, I believe, of the Calvinistic clergy. Without stopping here to attempt a refutation of this theory, my present object is to show that it necessarily fastens upon Calvinism the charges brought against it, and sustains the definition that has been given to predestination. For since God creates both the mind and the motives, and brings them together for the _express purpose_ that the former should be swayed by the latter, it follows conclusively that God _efficiently_ controls the will, and produces all its volitions. And this is according to express Calvinistic teaching:--"God," says the author of "Views in Theology," already quoted, "God is the determiner of perceptions, and perceptions are the determiners of choices." The inference therefore is plain and unavoidable, _God is the determiner of choices_. The plea that God does not produce volitions, by a direct influence, but indirectly, through second causes, avails nothing. Although there should be ten, or ten thousand intermediate links, if they are all arranged by our Creator in such order as to produce the intellectual vibration intended, whenever he pleases to give the impulse, what is the difference? In point of efficient agency, none at all. Nor yet will it alter the case to say, that "this effect is produced by God through such a medium as is suited to the nature of the mind, and therefore it cannot be said, that God does any violence to the will, or to man's free agency." God created the _mind_, and the _means_ that were to influence it. He gave to mind its nature, and to motives their influence and arrangement, for _this very purpose_. Hence, unless man can unmake himself, he is _bound by the law of his nature_ to act in all cases as he does. Why talk about a _free_ agency when it is such an agency as _must_, by _the constitution_ of _God_, lead inevitably to sin and ruin! That old, and in the premises, foolish reply, that man could do differently, _if he chose_, does not help the case. It is only saying, the nature of man is such that it is governed by his perceptions, and since "God is the determiner of perceptions, and perceptions the determiners of choices," whenever God pleases to alter the perceptions so as thereby to change the choice, _then_, and not before, man can do differently. According to this doctrine is it possible, according to the very nature of mind, for the choice to be different until the perceptions are changed? And can the perceptions be changed, until God changes them? To answer either or both of these questions in the affirmative, would be to give up the doctrine of motives. To answer them in the negative, would be to entail upon the doctrine all that I have charged upon it. The advocates of the theory may have their choice. Nor yet, again, will it destroy the force of this argument, to say "man has an _unholy nature;_ and this is the reason why the motives presented influence him to sin; therefore the guilt is chargeable upon himself, and God is clear." For, in the first place, this would not account for the first unholy volitions of holy angels and the first human pair.

This argument presupposes that, but for the consideration of man's _unholy nature_, the charge against the Calvinistic theory would be valid. And inasmuch as here are cases in which the argument obviously affords no relief to the system, it follows that in these uses, at least, God is the efficient and procuring cause of unholy volitions--and therefore the charges against predestination are established. But by a little farther attention we shall see that this argument affords as little relief to the system in the case of man as he now is. For this first sin, which was itself the necessary result of the Divine arrangement and of positive Divine influence, threw, if possible, a stronger and a more dire necessity over all the coming generations of men. For this act entailed upon man a depraved heart. Hence this corrupt nature came upon man without his knowledge or agency. We trace it back then, thus:--Man's love of sin was produced by the unholy choice of the first pair--that choice was produced by perceptions--these perceptions were produced by motives--and these motives were brought by God to bear upon the minds which he had made for this very purpose--therefore God, by design, and because he purposed it, produced our corrupt nature; and then, for the express purpose of leading that unholy nature to put forth unholy volitions, he brings those motives to bear upon our minds, which, from the unavoidable nature of those minds, _must produce_ the sin designed. It is thus that, according to his theory, our Creator binds the human mind by the strong cords of depravity with one hand, and with the other lashes it, by the maddening scourge of motives, into all the excitement of unholy delirium; and then, for his own glory, consigns the sinner over to the prison house of wo!! Turn this system, then, as you will, you find this doctrine of predestination binding the human mind, and efficiently producing all the volitions of the moral universe. The strong arm of Jehovah not more directly and irresistibly moves and binds the planets in their orbits, than it moves and controls, in the mysterious circle of his eternal decrees, "all the actions of all his creatures."

I know, as a closing argument, it is urged, whatever may be our inferences, we all know that we are free, and that we are responsible, because _we are conscious of it_. This is a most singular course of reasoning, and seems to have been adopted to reconcile contradictions. If this doctrine be true, I am not _sure_ that I am free, and that I am responsible merely because I feel that I am. I am at least _quite_ as conscious that I ought not to be held responsible for what is unavoidable, as I am that I am possessed of moral liberty. Break down my consciousness in one case, and you prepare the way for me to suspect it of fallacy in another. And if I must give up my consciousness, between two alternatives I will choose that which will not involve the government of God in injustice, and myriads of intelligent beings in unavoidable perdition. Hence, with Dr. Edwards' premises, which he holds in common with Lord Kaimes, I would come to his lordship's conclusion, viz. that God never intended to hold men responsible, and the universal feeling of responsibility is a kind of pious fraud--a salutary delusion, imposed as a check and restraint upon man here, but to be followed by no unpleasant consequences either here or hereafter. But this would be charging our Creator with both deception and folly--deception in the delusive consciousness of responsibility, and folly in suffering Lord Kaimes and others to disclose the secret, and frustrate the Divine purpose! This cannot be. The charge of deception and of fallacy, therefore, must be rolled back from consciousness and from the throne of God upon the doctrine of predestination. And if the reaction should crush the theory for ever, it would doubtless be a blessing to the Church and to the world.

To conclude. For the reasons given, I must still maintain that the charges contained in the sermon against that modification of Calvinism I am now opposing, are just; and the definition assumed, is correct. If the advocates of the system can clear themselves, or their doctrine, let it be done. If not, let one of two courses be pursued--either let the system be abandoned, or _let us have it as it is_.

I have dwelt the longer on this subject, because I am weary, and I believe we all are, of hearing the oft-repeated complaint, "You misrepresent us!" "You mistake our doctrine!"

In the next No., by the leave of Providence, the nature of human agency, and the ground of human responsibility, will be examined.

NUMBER VIII.

MORAL AGENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY.

BY what has been said on the theory of Calvinistic predestination, it will be seen, I think, that this system involves such necessity of moral action as is incompatible with free agency. It is possible, I grant, to give to the terms _will, liberty, free agency_, such a definition as will make these terms, _thus defined_, compatible with the other peculiarities of the Calvinistic system.--Both parties agree that man is a free moral agent; both maintain that he is responsible; but we maintain that what the Calvinists call free moral agency, is not such in fact as is commonly understood by the term, nor such as is requisite to make man accountable. Here, therefore, we are again thrown back upon our definitions, as the starting point of argument. What is that power, or property, or faculty of the mind, which constitutes man a free moral agent? It is the power of choice, connected with liberty to choose either good or evil. Both the _power_ and _liberty_ to choose either _good_ or _evil_ are requisite to constitute the free agency of a probationer. It has been contended that choice, though from the condition of the moral agent it must of necessity be exclusively _on one side_, is nevertheless free; since it implies a _voluntary_ preference of the mind. Hence it is contended that the fallen and the holy angels, glorified and lost human spirits, though some of these are confined in an impeccable state, and the others have a perpetual and invincible enmity to good, are nevertheless free agents. With respect to the free agency of these beings, a question might be started, whether it is such as renders them responsible for their _present acts_, the decision of which might have some bearing on the subject under investigation; but not such bearing as would make it important to discuss it here. If they are responsible for their _present acts_, it must be on account of a former probation, which by sin they have judicially forfeited. Or if any one thinks otherwise, and is disposed to maintain that a being who is not, and _never was_ so circumstanced as to render the choice of good possible to him, is nevertheless a free moral agent, in any such sense as renders him accountable, with such a sentiment at present I have no controversy. Indeed such an opinion is so violent an outrage upon all the acknowledged principles of justice, that to controvert it would be a work of little profit.