manifest, God does no more. Either then it is the truth clearly seen which changes the mind by effectual control, or the mind changes itself in view of motives, and that is the self-determining power. The former the gentlemen deny; the latter of course they must maintain. No, they say, it is God that produces the change by an instrument. He sends in the truth as a man thrusts in a sword; and no one would ascribe the execution to the sword, but to the man who wields it. Then the action is on the truth, and not on the mind otherwise than as the truth affects it. But Dr Taylor denies that the action is on the truth; and I hope to show in another place that there is no sense or meaning in such a supposition. Further, if the truth, in one instance, is the instrument in the same sense that the sword is in the other, then the mind has no more of the freedom pleaded for than the body when pierced with a sword. The freedom set up consists in a power to be slain by the truth or to repel the truth at pleasure; which would exclude every external agent and every instrument wielded by him. Were a man to present a sword which the body could receive or reject at pleasure, and it chose to receive it and die, and gave it this effect after the agency of the man had ceased, (after, in the order of nature,) the man could not be said to have produced that death even by an instrument. But to avoid all dispute about the meaning of the self-determining power, I once more announce, that when I use the phrase, I mean no more than a power that actually turns from sin to God without divine efficiency, in view of motives illumined by the Spirit but not absolutely controlling.

!

Our brethren start with this assumption, that they can look far enough into the mysteries of nature to see decisively that if God makes me "willing" in the day of his "power," I am not free though I am willing. Now I protest against this assumption, and affirm that no mortal man can look far enough into the secrets of nature to see this to be a fact. I doubt whether Gabriel could, even if it were a fact. I protest also against this bold scrutinizing into the mode of divine operation. This fault is not chargeable upon us. "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." We ask no questions about the mode, and are satisfied to know that he willed it to be and it was. "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." We ask no questions about the mode, and are satisfied to know that he willed their resurrection and it took place. We are not of those who, after such a report, complain of a "physical change" which destroys freedom. From our own consciousness we know that we are free: and the man who has been regenerated is the last to complain that his liberty is abridged. Our freedom consists in a faculty to will under the dictates of the understanding, and in actual willingness. If we are willing we are free. No higher idea of freedom can be conceived. it is possible for God to make us willing by a direct act upon the mind, his efficiency must be consistent with our liberty. This dream of the incompatibility of efficiency with freedom, is one of those errours of judgment which grow out of the casual association of ideas. In other cases where power enforces a thing, we say, the subject is not free. And you transfer that idea to a case where power

e;

If

*

only makes us willing. If I am willing, I know you cannot look far enough into the secrets of nature to see that I am not free, even though made willing. What more do I want? I have complete faculties and a willing soul. But you say, what are faculties that cannot move unless moved by another? This word cannot is constantly used delusively in these discussions. A faculty to move that, physically speaking, cannot move, is a contradiction in terms. It is a faculty which is not a faculty. But there may be faculties to move which, in point of fact, will not move in such a manner but in him in whom they have their being. By power, as applied to the human mind, we mean nothing more than the proper basis of obligation; and it consists in the faculties of a rational soul; faculties not necessarily independent in their exercises. Rational creatures are bound to love God even though he does not efficiently make them willing; else the wicked could not be punished. We ascribe to them therefore a power irrespectively of the action of God upon them; because it is the dictate of common sense that no one can be bound to to do a thing for which he has not natural ability, for instance, to carry that mountain. If you can prove from this obligation that there is no divine efficiency, prove it. But I know that you cannot penetrate far enough into the mysteries of nature to see that it must be so. You must refer the decision to divine revelation, the plain tenour of which we must believe whether it crosses what we call our reason or not. And all revelation is against you, as I hope to show in its proper place. Assuming this at present, we say that * Acts 17, 28.

rational creatures have a capacity to love God without his efficiency, but that, as a matter of fact, they never will. Nor does this arise from their perverseness; for we apply the same assertion to the holy angels. And if we are charged with inconsistency in asserting a power, (meaning only a basis of obligation,) where there is no independence, we take shelter in the utter incapacity of man to decide this question by his own unassisted reason, and appeal confidently to the word of God, which plainly and very often asserts what we affirm. And if that word supports divine efficiency in respect to man, none will doubt that it is true in respect to angels: for those who make our depravity the only occasion for the interposition of the Spirit, and thus limit his operations to men, deny efficiency altogether, and make that interposition a mere matter of moral suasion. If the Bible asserts this dependence in reference to a part, it does in reference to all. On that word we cast ourselves. To the plain and uncontradicted meaning of several hundred texts we submit, whether we can see the consistency of what they assert or not. This we must do in all cases. If the Bible tells us that there are Three in One, we must believe though we cannot comprehend. If it tells us that men and angels are bound to love God, and so have power, without divine efficiency applied, and at the same time informs us that they are not independent, we must believe it all though unable to reconcile the parts. If God is not to be believed when he tells us of those facts, relative to matter or mind, which lie too deep for creature comprehension, he cannot make a credible revelation of necessary truths; for there are many such truths whose

modes and relations we cannot comprehend. We cannot tell how our will moves the body, how the grass grows, nor even, according to Locke and Stewart, how motion is communicated by impulse. If we are to believe nothing whose modes we cannot comprehend, we must stand universal skeptics in the midst of a world full of wonders, and must constantly reject the testimony of our senses. If it can be proved from the Scriptures that God did hold Judas bound to love him, to whom he never applied his efficient power, and that he did apply that power to Peter, we must believe, whatever difficulties lie in the way, that Judas had natural power, (meaning by power the basis of obligation,) and that Peter was made to differ from him by the immemediate operation of the Spirit upon his heart. I believe this because I find it in my Bible: and while it is there, I will lie down upon it and hold it as with the grasp of death, even though as unable to understand it as to understand how God could exist without a beginning or a cause.

Why should liberty be impaired by divine efficiency? It is agreed on all hands that the Christian's new exercises are his own, as much as they possibly can be his own. They are acts, not of God, but of his own mind, as fully as they can be acts of that mind,-as fully as God's acts are acts of his mind. God never created his own mind, nor, as far as we can conceive, his own exercises. All are selfexistent, without succession, in one eternal now, inseparable from his self-existent nature. But in the highest possible sense he exercises the feelings he has. And in a sense equally perfect the Christian exercises his feelings. They are the real exercises of his own mind. Mind is