all." If these passages should be adduced as valid arguments for pantheism, what reply could be made, but that which we make to the arguments of Dr. Emmons, viz., that the Bible was not designed, and does not claim, to instruct men in any department of philosophy. And if it did, any metaphysical systems framed upon its unexamined declarations, however symmetrical or well compacted their parts, are liable, unless they can stand upon their own grounds, as matters of pure science, to crumble at the slightest touch of the philologist's wand.

2. Let us examine the main arguments from reason, in support of the theory. One of them is the following: "Since mind cannot act, any more than matter can move, without a divine agency, it is absurd to suppose that men can be left to the freedom of their own will, to act, or not to act, independently of a divine influence. There must be, therefore, the exercise of divine agency in every human action, without which, it is impossible to conceive that God should govern moral agents, and make mankind act in perfect conformity to his designs, vol. IV., p. 372. This may be properly called the argument from moral government; though it has an antecedent premise, viz., that no principle of efficiency is to be predicated of mind, which cannot be of matter. This is the preliminary axiom or postulatum of all Dr. Emmons's philosophy of agency. The necessary consequences of this position will be stated in their proper place. It may be sufficient here to remark respecting it, that it is a naked hypothesis, a mere dictum without a single word of proof; that it is almost universally not granted; that it assumes analogies between matter and mind which have never been discovered, and leaves out of view capital points of difference which are universally admitted; and that by allowing no principle of causation in mind, which it denies in matter, it renders inadmissible the idea of any principle of freedom in mind, which there is not in matter. This was clearly seen by Dr. Emmons himself; nay, his own inference was, that it is even "absurd to suppose that men can be left to the freedom of their own will."

The remainder of the argument contains this enthymeme: God governs moral agents. But this he cannot do without being the efficient producer of all their moral actions. The premise is not denied. But the conclusion supposes that a creature's power to cause his own acts, must be an ungovernable power; as if there were no medium between such power as would make

him omnipotent, and no power at all; whereas the idea of power, as asserted for him by those who deny that he is under a necessity of acting just as he does act, is, that although he is the efficient cause of his own moral actions, yet his causative power is limited both in degree and in the sphere of its operation, and of course never uncontrollable by infinite power. The fallacy of the reasoning, then, as it respects man, lies in the assumption, that efficient power must be absolutely unmanageable power, though derived from God, sustained by him, and subject to him, because circumscribed in every sense that is compatible with free agency. The fallacy of the argument, as it respects God, lies in assuming what he has nowhere revealed, viz., the precise mode of his moral government. It lies in the postulate, that there is no possible way in which he can govern moral agents, without producing their volitions by his own creative will. Why not as well assume the exact mode of his existence, and of all his attributes?

The reasoning is also objectionable, because, though it was intended to illustrate the divine glory, it virtually derogates from it, by limiting the divine operations. For if God can govern mind only by the law of necessity, as he governs matter, he must not create minds above the level of matter, with respect to efficiency. If he can govern moral agents only as he does physical agents, which uniformly operate just as he would have them, he must not give moral agents power to operate as he would not have them. He must not create efficient beings, that is, beings in his own image; for he cannot control them. Every one should regard the fact of the divine government, with true faith and deep reverence, and be content, without knowing all the secrets of its mode. No one should presume that God cannot maintain it but by dint of irresistible efficiency. Let us not limit the Almighty to the creation of inefficient beings, lest he should not be able to govern any other. Let us not narrow the bounds of the Infinite One; but rather cherish the sentiment of the prophet in that rebuking question, "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?" May not the Omnipotent Spirit be competent to control the spirits he has created, in some way not by us metaphysically definable? Need we tremble, lest his government should not be strong enough, unless conceived of under some type of mechanical force? Why should we be afraid to trust God in the dark, or be shy of the movements of his providence, unless we can quite unravel all its complexity, and

unfold all its mystery, so as to tell the world exactly in what manner he touches the springs?

Analogous to the argument already noticed, is that which may be called the argument from divine purposes, and foreknowledge of their accomplishment. "Though God knows that mankind have natural power to act contrary to his designs, yet he knows that he is able to make them willing to fulfil his purposes, and that he has determined to make them willing; and hence he knows that they always will fulfil his purposes," vol. IV., p. 305. We remind the reader, that by men's natural power, Dr. Emmons means power to do a thing, when there is created in them a volition to do it; and that by making them willing, he means " producing right or wrong volitions in their hearts." "He is now exercising his powerful and irresistible agency upon the heart of every one of the human race, and producing either holy or unholy exercises in it," vol. IV., p. 388. "Nor has he ever failed to make his creatures do what he saw necessary for them to do, in order to fulfil his purposes, vol. IV., p. 387. The argument implied in these passages, is this: God knows of a certainty, that all his purposes will be accomplished; but this he could not know without producing all human volitions by an "irresistible agency upon the heart." The premise involves two propositions, viz., God's purposes will be accomplished; and he certainly knows they will. They are both admitted. But does either of them justify Dr. Emmons's conclusion?

One part of the argument is: the purposes of God will be fulfilled; but cannot be, unless he fulfils them by creating in the hearts of men all their volitions. Does not this take for granted the very point to be proved, viz., that it is not one of the purposes of God, that moral agents shall efficiently cause their own acts? If, as most men believe, this is one of his purposes, then, surely, the execution of his purposes does not require, but forbids, that he should be the efficient cause of their acts. Το assume without proof, that this is not one of his purposes, is no better for the argument than a petitio principii.

The other part of the argument is: God certainly knows that his purposes will be effected; but could not know this, without efficiently producing all the creature's volitions. And why not know it? Because, says the philosophy of Dr. Emmons's time, the creature's acts would be contingent in such a sense as not to be foreknowable, for want of connection with cause.

But this is the proper consequence of his own dictum, that "mind cannot act, any more than matter can move, without a divine agency;" and is by no means chargeable upon those who assert that the mind is itself the efficient cause of its own acts. Instead of implying that moral acts are without a cause, they expressly affirm that the moral agent himself is their cause. Their idea of contingence respecting moral acts, is in no sense opposed to the idea of cause, but implies it, and is opposed only to the idea of necessity. They believe that while the falling of a stone, or the decay of vegetation, is the effect of a necessitated cause, every human volition is the effect of a free cause, that is, the free mind. By a necessitated cause, they mean such an one, that, when the conditions of its acting are fulfilled, it would be a contradiction to suppose it not to act, or to act otherwise than it does act. By a free cause, they mean such an one, that, though the conditions of its acting be supplied, yet, whether it acts, in any given case, or in what way it acts, is determined by itself alone. Such a cause, they believe, is the mind of every moral agent. Thus they assign a cause and a well-known cause for every moral act; and their theory never implies that such an act is contingent in the sense that it may or may not take place, as it may or may not have a cause, but that it may or may not take place, simply in respect to its being produced by a free cause.

The

Suppose moral actions contingent in the sense now explained, and where is the ground for saying that they cannot be foreknown for want of connection with cause? The very opposite is demonstrable. For the existence of their cause, that is, of the moral agent, may be as well foreknown to God as that of any other cause, or as his own act in creating their cause. nature of their cause, too, and its relation to its effects, may be as well foreknown as those of any other cause, for it is constituted by the same omniscient mind. If, then, future events in the physical world, are certain to God through their connection with cause, who shall say that human volitions are not certain to him through a medium of the same kind? Why should we imagine that things equally conceivable by us, are not equally intelligible to God? Whoever desires to see that human actions, on the supposition that man and not God is their efficient producer, have a manifest connection with cause, and thus to see that there is evidence by which God may foreknow such actions, may see it in abundance.

But it is an assumption, and a strange one, that God needs evidence, in order to be certain of the accomplishment of his purposes. To us, it is true, many things are known only through the medium of proof; yet some things are known intuitively even by us. And if our faculty of intelligence were not limited, we do not know that any part of our knowledge would depend on evidence. How, then, can the Infinite Intelligence be thus dependent? What is evidence, what can it be, to a mind that can be conceived of only as knowing all things without evidence? What is omniscience, but knowing all things intuitively? Unless we can precisely ascertain the modes and limits of this attribute, it must always be an error to infer necessity from certainty. It assumes that the Omniscient Jehovah holds much the same relation to future events as we, and obtains his knowledge of them by tracing their logical connections, which he himself has established! We might as well agree with Leibnitz, in supposing that all events and all truths being mathematically linked together, the Deity, in order to know them, is eternally working out the geometrical problem, to wit: the state of one particle being given, to determine the past, present, and future state of the whole universe! This is as good logic as is compatible with a philosophy, which confounds one idea of certainty, as implying the divine perception of events, with another, as predicating the absolute futurition of events; which postulates that there can be no causal efficiency of the creature without uncertainty to the Creator, and thus involves the conclusion that there can be no certainty to the Creator, any further than there is necessity to the creature.

3. There remains to be examined the argument from the creature's dependence. "Many imagine that their free agency consists in a power to cause or originate their own voluntary exercises; but this would imply that they are independent of God," vol. IV., p. 384. "Since men are the creatures of God, they are necessarily his dependent creatures, who can act only as they are acted upon by a divine controlling influence," vol. IV., p. 397. Since all men are dependent agents, all their motions, exercises, or actions, must originate from a divine efficiency," vol. IV., p. 366. In order to try this argument, it is only necessary to ascertain whether it implies a true definition of the word dependent. By man's dependence, is commonly understood his condition, as being sustained with all his susceptibilities and faculties by divine power. In this sense, doubtless,