We all do well to remember, that God is greater than man. His ways are above our ways as the heavens are higher than the earth. We cannot originate any existence, no, not the least particle of dust; but shall we argue hence, that God cannot do this, when we see that he has originated a world? From materials which the Creator has put into our hands, we can form many curious pieces of mechanism; but we cannot form any thing which shall have reason, or approach towards it; but the Creator has made an innu merable multitude of rational creatures, who are endued with all the faculties necessary to constitute them free and accountable agents. If we act upon a fellowcreature, to cause him to move, we destroy the freedom of his action; for we cannot act upon his will, to cause him to choose; but God can act upon our heart with as much ease as upon our body; he can work in us both to will, and to do.*

This part of our subject will reflect light on the case of "the stern judge," introduced by Mr. B. pp. 19, 20, 21. He has endeavored to make our doctrine of Divine Decrees, and Divine Agency in executing the Decrees, appear to be glaringly absurd, by introducing a criminal who stands trembling before the bar of a stern judge, expecting to be condemned for committing a murder, which the judge himself had planned, and which he secretly influenced him to execute. To remove this seeming difficulty, let us remember, there is an infinite disparity between God and man in this thing. In the treatment of a character already formed, the resemblance is great between a human judge, and the Judge of all the earth. The Supreme Judge is bound by his holiness, to pass sentence according to his law, and according to the character of his creatures. He is no respecter of persons, and is a perfect pattern for all who sit in the judgment seat to pass sentence on their fellow men.

But with respect to creating rational beings, and determin ing and forming their characters, there is no resemblance between a human, and the Divine Judge. It is no part of the work of a human judge to create rational beings, and form their characters: Yet the Supreme Judge claims this as his prerogative. Concerning one he says, "I will harden his heart" and to others he says, "I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh." As far as men are said to do any thing towards forming a wicked character, it is meant, that they take the part of wickedness. Thus it is said concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he sinned, and made Israel to sin, His feelings, his laws, and his example, were all in favor

But some man will say, it is not my choice, unless I choose this choice. To this it may be replied: This plan will make you no more free, unless you had a previous choice, which chose this choice.

On this

of idolatry. But nothing like this is intended, when the Divine Being is said to form evil characters. When he is said to harden the hearts of men, we do not obtain the idea that he has any hardness in his own heart; or that he has made any laws, or given his creatures any examples, in favor of wickedness. Still he is represented as having a design and agency in forming the character of his creatures, as much as a potter has in giving shape and size to his vessels.

We have already intimated that there is nothing among men, which can be compared to the great I AM, in giving existence to moral agents, and in governing that agency itself; yet the impropriety of our finding fault with our Maker for forming our character as he has, is forcibly inferred from the shocking idea which would be excited in our minds, by hearing the child complain to his parents for bringing him into existence such a child; or the thing formed complain of its former for making it thus. "Wo unto him that striveth with his maker: let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth: shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou or thy work, He hath no hands? Wo unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?" Isa. xlv. 9, 10. The same ideas are very fully expressed in the following passage: "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? for who hath resisted his will? Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? Rom. ix. 1821. What can give a more striking idea of the absolute dependence of created intelligents for all their devices conceived and executed, than the following interrogations: "Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against him that lifteth it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Isa. x. 15. The Assyrian monarch who is here represented by the axe, the saw, and the staff, was as completely in the hand of God, as these tools are in the hand of the workman. If he died with the same character which is ascribed to him in this chapter, he will stand as a trembling criminal before the bar of the supreme Judge. Murder, wilful murder will be proved; not the murder of one man, but of "nations not a few." (See v. 7.) The Judge will not pretend that this man did not depend

scheme you are carried back forever in search of the freedom of the will, and you will never find it, unless you can discover that you had one choice, before the first choice, which may be considered as the parent of all the rest. If you are not willing to consider yourself a free moral agent, as soon as you find that you have a rational soul, and that you are choosing and refusing the objects which are presented to you, without you can also find what has caused you thus to will, I am persuaded it will be impossible for you ever to become satisfied as to your free agency.

If the question should be asked, why has God made creatures perfectly dependent on him for all their mor al actions, as well as for every thing else? I would an swer, He has made them so, because he could not make them otherwise. We can make a machine, which when it is completed, will go without our aid, because we take the advantage of the laws of nature, i. e. of the stat ed and known operations of the great first cause. Thus, in the clock we take the advantage of the law of gravi tation; and in the water mill, of the law of fluids. The Supreme Agent can keep our works in operation, when they have gone out of our hands; but who is there to keep his works in operation, after they have gone out

on him for his existence, and for all his actions. He will not pretend but that he had an cbject to answer by the dreadful murders which this man committed: He will not even pretend but that he sent him to Jerusalem, to tread down the hy pocritical inhabitants like the mire of the streets. (See v. 5, 6.) The Judge will feel concerned for the honor of his own name, to make it appear to the whole intelligent creation, that this wicked man was like the axe and the saw in his hand, and that all the mischief which he did, was made use of in his hand to promote good; so that by him, the Lord performed his work. (See v. 12.) And notwithstanding all this, the holy Judge will not hesitate to pronounce sentence, and execute it by punish ing the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria. If the criminal should reply against the Judge, saying, Who hath resisted thy will? Did I not, as an instrument, help to fulfil thy decrees, and promote thy declarative glory? The Judge will reply; Howbeit thou didst not mean so, neither did thy heart think so, but it was in thy heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few. (See v. 7.) All the friends of divine government will say, "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus."

of his hands? It requires Divine power, as much to uphold, as to create ;-to keep in motion, as to set in motion; and to keep the will in motion, as much as to keep the body in motion. This is agreeable to the scrip ture representations concerning the perseverance of the saints in holiness. They, considered as saints, are said to be kept by the power of God; just as they were first made willing, that is, made saints, in the day of his power. To the above question I could reply, 2dly, If God can make creatures free, and at the same time perfectly dependent agents, it is infinitely desirable that he should make them all dependent, even if it were possible for him to make them otherwise. If free agents are perfectly dependent on God for all their moral actions, then while they are free, God can at the same time do all his pleasure, because their hearts are in his hand; and as the rivers of water he can turn them whithersoever he will. See Prov. xvi, 1.

Let us now see, whether the doctrine of divine decrees will destroy the agency of man. Mr. B. seems to view this as indisputable. Among the many sentences which are scattered through his whole work, I need quote but one to show his sentiment on this subject. "For the doctrine of foreordination, and universal and irresistible decrees, is totally subversive of free agency." p. 25. But why is foreordination totally subversive of free agency? It is because it gives an absolute certainty to the yet future actions of moral agents? It is evident from many things said in the Letters, that the absolute cer tainty and fixedness which a decree gives to future events, was one thing which made the author think, that the doctrine of decrees was subversive of free agency. But did he not know, that the same objection lay against his doctrine of prescience? What the omniscient God foreknows will be, most certainly will be. If his prescience is perfect, there will not be the smallest variation from that, in any thing which will ever take place. The author of the Letters was aware of the same difficulty attending his scheme which he charged upon ours: He suggested the difficulty, without doing any thing to remove it. In his preface he says, "Whatev er mysteries therefore, there may be in the science of human nature, and however difficult it may be to obyî

ate the objections which may be urged from prescience, there is no fact more certain than this, that man is a free agent, as it respects his moral conduct." So say we: However difficult it may be to obviate the objections which may be urged from foreordination, there is no fact more certain than this, that man is a free agent, as it respects his moral conduct. If our antagonist had stopped to obviate the objections which may be urged from prescience, he would have furnished us with the means of obviating those which may be urged from foreordination; at least so far as the absolute certainty of future events is concerned. Is it not strange that he should so easily glide over this difficulty with a single sentence, and then write several hundred pages, in which he should be continually charging the scheme of his opponents with absurdity and falsehood, when if he had only removed the difficulties out of the way of his own system, he would have removed them out of the way of theirs. It is a leading idea in Mr. B's. book, that decrees concerning moral actions, make those actions necessary, and necessary actions he thinks cannot be free actions. "And to have made man a necessary agent would have been to make him any thing besides an intelligent creature." p. 59. An action made necessary by compulsion, it is acknowledged, cannot be a free action. For example, if another man who is stronger than I, puts a knife into my hand and forces me to kill my neighbor, while I meant to do no such thing, I have not murdered my neighbor, I have not in the exercise of moral agency killed the man. But if Mr. B. means, that actions which are made perfectly certain, are necessary actions, then necessary actions may be free, else he must give up the doctrine of God's certain foreknowledge of the actions of moral agents. What would our author say about the state of the inhabitants of heaven after the day of judgment? Are they liable to change? Can the holy become filthy? And does this fixedness in holiness destroy their free agency, and make them something else besides intelligent creatures ?

If it be not the mere fixedness of future events which is supposed to destroy free agency, but because it is God who has fixed these events, and determined to