which the Creator had established in the empire of mind were continued; nor can any one prove that the attributes of the Most High required him to change them, any more than the laws of matter; so that Adam should not perform the act which he chose, or not choose to perform the act which seemed agreeable to him, or not perceive the meaning of the proposition, ye shall not surely die, or remember at that moment the declaration of his Maker, in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, or not judge that the serpent uttered the truth, or not feel such love for Eve as should be the motive for choosing a participation with her in disobedience. By the predestination of Heaven, the laws according to which the faculties of the mind operate, were the same before the state of trial commenced, and at the moment of temptation, that now are deducible from consciousness and observation.

One of these laws of mind is, that the will shall never operate except in consequence of some motive. That which we truly assign as the reason of any act of the will, (of any volition, or choice), is the motive to that act. Motives to volition are always some previous operation of the mind; such as a conception of something desirable, a judgment that the contemplated action will afford pleasure, or is a duty; a feeling; or the remembrance of some former sensation, or emotion, or determination. Of an insulated operation of the will, which depended not upon any previous act of some other faculty of the mind, no one was ever conscious; and should any such volitions spring up in the mind, the man, as an intelligent moral agent, would not be accountable for them. It is a law of mind, to which there are not so many exceptions as to the physical law of gravitation, that the will shall always be dependent on, and regulated by, some one or more of the

other faculties of the spirit. This philosophy of the human mind will explain the Calvinistic doctrine concerning the will of man since the apostacy, of which many of the following pages treat.

Neither the holy nor the unholy intelligent creature has ability, or is free to choose, or determine, or purpose, or (in other words, which express the whole,) to will, independently of such motives as are suggested by his understanding and his feelings. After Adam transgressed, the same faculties of mind which before subsisted, first in a state of holiness, and then of trial, had their being in a state of guilt, and such consequent misery as was the infliction, in part, of the punishment merited by sin. The misery of this state consisted, in a great degree, in the want of such positive gracious influences of Jehovah, and of such communications of light to the understanding as were the divine sources of man's original righteousness. In the same state into which Adam fell, all men are born; and in the same state they continue, until God brings them into a state of saving illumination by his word and spirit. While the natural man sees nothing lovely in Jesus Christ, it would be as contrary to the universal laws of mind for him to choose Jesus Christ as one altogether lovely, for his Saviour, as it would be contrary to the laws of matter for the stones on the surface of the earth to ascend, unmoved, to the moon and without the counteraction or suspension of the laws of God, one event would be as impossible, yea, as naturally impossible, as the other. Until a fallen man has some right operation of the understanding, or some right feelings, in relation to that which the divine law pronounces good, he is no more free in choosing that which is good in the estimation of the same law, than he has liberty, if he

should think it possible and will it, to cease from thought, or fly away in empty space. Yet so long as his understanding is darkness in relation to divine things, and so long as his feelings are sinful, he is free to choose that which seems good to him, but which is really evil. This doctrine of Calvinism is as philosophical as it is scriptural.

The statement of another law of mind may be of service to the reader of this volume; which is this, that our feelings, whether pleasant or painful, whether they be sensations or emotions, and whether they be passions or affections, are all consequent upon some prior operation of some other faculty than that of feeling. The consciousness of all men of observation will evince this; and with one voice they will declare, that they never love or hate, except in consequence of the perception or conception of something which to them appeared lovely or hateful. When we see a beautiful lawn, hear melodious symphonies, smell the fragrance of new mown hay, taste an orange, or touch the soft vestment of the timid hare, the pleasant feeling which we have in each case, is dependent on the preceding perception of the mind through one of the five bodily senses; and without the act of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or touching, the feeling would not be experienced. This is the true reason why it is naturally impossible, without the introduction of some other laws of mind, or a miraculous counteraction of those which exist, (which we think is never wrought,) that the sinner whose native condition is one of blindness to divine things, should love the true God and Jesus Christ, before he is brought into a state of gracious illumination by the Holy Spirit.

To those who examine these laws it will be manifest, that the faculty of feeling, sometimes called the heart, is, in the natural order of mental operations, which our Maker has established, dependent on the understanding, which includes those constituent parts of the spirit, called the consciousness, the perception, the conception, the judgment, the conscience, the reason, and the memory : that the will in acting is dependent on the understanding and the heart; and that the finite efficiency which man has, called by the Editors of Reid's works the faculty of agency, is immediately dependent on the will, and through it, ultimately on the heart and understanding. In the last the moral destruction of man commenced; for Adam had no unholy choice or feeling, until he had a wrong judgment concerning Satan's proposition: and in the understanding must the rectification and regeneration also of man commence; or he will never become an intellectual, holy, moral agent, under the regimen of that God who is light.

Philada. Jan. 17, 1817:

TO HIS GRACE

THE

LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

MY LORD,

I BEG leave to approach your Grace with all the respect due to your high and important office. To go beyond this, and use language even bordering on adulation, would be equally abhorrent to my feelings to offer, and unbecoming your character to receive.

I am aware that it is unusual for your Grace to be thus addressed through the medium of the press, by an individual who has not the honour of being known to you, either personally or by name. But I trust the nature of the subject will either furnish a sufficient apology, or render apology altogether unnecessary.

The possession of the same common nature* has ever been considered sufficient to interest every thoughtful and benevolent man in any event that can affect the happiness of mankind. And surely, no man who aspires to something beyond the mere name of Christian himself, can think any apology necessary for the meanest of his bre

* Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. Terentii Heautontimor,