how we will be affected by moral objects: such a power could be of no avail. They produce effects which have a moral character in themselves; which have all the voluntariness and moral good or ill desert conceivable in themselves; which are the fulfilment of the law or worthy of its curse. The infinite perfections of God will excite no neutral feelings, but either love or hatred, and it depends on our moral nature of what class these volitions shall be; it depends on those moral affections inherited from Adam, or implanted by grace, whose action is excited by a moral cause. But, after removing the doctrines of original righteousness and original sin, to make room for this self-determining power, the advocates of this system are still obliged to resort to an innate constitutional affection to account for volition. They have to resort to something back of choice: and their volitions, as they have given up moral affections, always prove to be only determinations to gratify constitutional propensities: they terminate on bare action or a course of action; they have removed the moral affections, and we have left only naked purposes and resolutions. The most common definition they give of the will, is that it is "a fixed purpose or settled preference of the soul." It is then, according to them, an act of the mind, and absurdly said to have a permanent existence. They artfully couple purpose with preference; for though a mental act, a purpose may be said, in a sense, still to exist, as our first belief that three and two make five, always continues; a preference is palpably a momentary act. This fixed purpose or preference, then, is a power of the mind and an act of the mind; the cause of choice, and choice itself. We regard this system as substantially the same with that of Pelagius and Celestius; but it is unfolded and defended with far less subtilty and elegance than were displayed by its first supporters; we think this system, as it now appears, has little original but what is also absurd. President Edwards, that surpassing genius, who does such honour both to our country and race, had unfolded the laws of the moral world with the same skill with which Newton investigated those of the material; like him, he carried the light of demonstration through all his reasonings; he has left nothing new to be said on the subject. We regard it as presumptuous in any, to suppose that his conclusions will be relinquished, till his arguments have been formally examined and answered. We are happy, however, to hear that a reaction has commenced in New-Haven itself. We learn that President Day, with his peculiar powers of metaphysi cal analysis, has fully exposed the absurdity and licentiousness of this system, but with that caution and tenderness which might be expected, both from his disposition and his connection with those who have taught these opinions. We have seen only a few extracts from this work, but we regard it as high evidence of a forgiving spirit, that the Christian Spectator, has spoken so kindly of a book which is said to have given a death-blow to its favourite opinions. If it be that these divines are exerting their influence to bring the great doctrine of original sin into discredit; to teach that man inherits no sinful affections from Adam, and that God implants no holy ones; that all the passions and affections of human nature are innocent; if they make selflove the basis of all voluntary action; that God and mammon are both loved for the same reason; if they make religion consist only in a mysterious power of restraining the natural propensities, in mere purposes and resolutions; if the sinful heart be only a temporary purpose formed by man himself, and reversed by him alone in regeneration; if they make the heart or will to be a mere momentary act of the mind; and above all, if they represent these opinions as the orthodoxy of New-England, we are sure that we have not spoken on these subjects with undue severity. LITERARY AND THEOLOGICAL REVIEW. NO. XVIII.-JUNE, 1838. Assor ART. I. THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. By NATHANIEL HEWITT, D. D. WHEN good works are done on wrong principles, the labourers forfeit the reward of well-doers; "for he that striveth for the mastery is not crowned except he strive lawfully." The faults of the workmen, moreover, soon spread like leaven to the works themselves, and they are spoiled also. The propagation of the Gospel in the world, or, in the words of inspiration, "the edification of the body of Christ," in which "men are workers together with God," is a work where principles enter into the moving, instrumental, material and final causes of all that is done. Here erroneous principles vitiate the whole. If there be any thing amiss in the builders, it will reappear in the building; and as the disciple is not above his master, if teachers err in doctrine, the taught must err likewise. Hence the necessity of sound principles in all who take part in any way in the advancement of the Gospel. In order that the kingdom of Christ in this world may be promoted on sound principles, the true nature of it must be understood. The messengers of Christ, are not like the VOL. V. 1 |