ing from it as the natural philosopher does from gravitation, all is obvious and satisfactory. Our reasonings then prove the world to be as it really is. God is proved holy, just, and merciful, the author of all good, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift. Devils and corrupted men are the authors of all moral evil, and, as such, are responsible to the great Judge, who will judge the world in righteousness and the people with truth.

We cannot wonder at the partiality which a distinguished French writer betrays for the doc. trine of those ancient sects who held the existence of two opposite principles of good and evil.* Ridiculous as the doctrine became in their hands, when obscured by their numerous ab

• This doctrine, as every body knows, was prevalent long before the time of the Manichees and other heretical sects in the early ages of Christianity. The older writers taught it more clearly and consistently, and it might not be difficult to trace it up to the traditions derived from our first progenitors. Not to mention other authors, every scholar recollects the celebrated passage in the Odyssy.

Ω τοποι διον δη νυ θεους βροτὸι αιτιώνται

Εξ ήμεων γαρ φασι κακ' έμμεναι· οι δε και αυτοι

Σφησὶν ἀτασθαλίησιν υπερ μόρον ἀλγε έχουσιν—Lib. I, 32, 34.

"How strange," says Jupiter," that mortals accuse the gods; for they say that we are the cause of evil, while they suffer the punishment of their own folly contrary to fate." If we understand by fate the will of the Almighty which governs the moral universe, and which was originally expressed by the creation of man as a perfect moral being, the doctrine is strictly true. All evil is contrary to fate in this sense.

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surdities, it is nothing but that of the sacred Scriptures, corrupted and disfigured; and with respect to the origin and prevalence of evil in our world, it is practically correct. Since the creation of man there has been a good and an evil principle constantly at work, and a continual warfare maintained between them. The evil principle has been hitherto most prevalent, and has sometimes almost succeeded, as at the deluge, in expelling virtue from the earth. And even now the god of this world-the prince of the power of the air-the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, has the advantage in the conflict, and reigns absolute sovereign over the great majority of mankind, who are led by him captive at his will. It shall not however be so for ever. The author of evil is but the creature contending against the almighty Creator. Though Satan has hitherto prevailed, God has not been permitting sin, but waiting to be gracious, willing that his unhappy victims should come to repentance and obtain salvation, and when this merciful design is accomplished, vengeance will no longer tarry. There is a day appointed in which He will judge the world in righteousness, by Him whom He hath ordained. Then shall the wrath of God be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of devils and of men, and in sweeping for ever moral evil and its authors from the universe,

the Deity will give an awful proof to all his intelligent creatures, that though sinners have rendered Him and his works the occasions of evil, He is not its author, by any direct or secret purpose inconsistent with his revealed will; and the real authors of it will then at length be convinced, that they, and they only, were the criminal perpetrators of the crimes for which they suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.

SECTION VII.

REVIEW OF PRESIDENT EDWARDS' ACCOUNT OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL.

THE brief, but not, we trust, altogether unsatisfactory illustrations of some of the most important questions, involved in the inquiry respecting the liberty of man, which have been now offered, may serve to protect us from the belief of the fate of the Stoicks on the one hand, and of Epicurean contingency on the other; and enable us to form our conceptions of the human agent as he really exists. It has not appeared necessary to refute a multitude of opinions which are entertained respecting some of the topics, or to answer a number of objections which may be started; which, indeed, were as idle as, in the present age, to bring forward a formal refutation of the philosophy of Aristotle, or of the hypothesis of the vortices of Descartes. To guard us, however, still farther against some of the practical consequences into which certain views of the subject necessarily lead, it may not be unacceptable to examine a few of the principal opinions held

by writers on both sides of the controversy. And as President Edwards and Dr. Whitby may be justly considered to stand at the head of the writers of the opposite parties, we now propose to present some observations on the celebrated works of these distinguished authors. President Edwards' work first claims attention.

Before proceeding to examine the leading principle of this work, it may not be amiss to observe how judiciously the author has given us the true account of the mode of the determination of the will. "The will," says he, "always is as the greatest apparent good is," or as "what appears most agreeable." He prefers this mode of expression to the more common phraseology, justly observing, that the " appearing most agreeable or pleasing to the mind, and the mind's preferring and choosing, seem hardly to be properly and perfectly distinct." He then enumerates a number of circumstances, both of the external motive and of the mind itself, which tend to render any action the most agreeable, and concludes the argument in support of his principle with the following powerful passage. "However, I think so much is certain, that volition, in no one instance that can be mentioned, is otherwise than the greatest apparent good is, in the manner which has been explained. The

* Part I. Sect. II.