considerations of the mind determining it to will and act, even when urged by the Spirit of God, he denies, and professes himself unable to understand what it can mean.' But the fact is too well established for his philosophy to gainsay or resist. He may flout and sneer as he pleases, at the idea of a causal influence determining the will; but the Bible everywhere assumes it-human consciousness affirms it-and universal Christian experience confirms the averment of the apostle, that "it is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure."" There are causes immediate and ad intra, and there are others remote, ab extra, which often together operate to induce the mind, thus and thus to will. If our author denies it, and maintains that liberty of will is will wholly uninfluenced, exclusively self-determined, absolutely self-originated, then does he shut out the mind or soul of man from being affected by any determining influence and motive power or sway whatever, whether human or divine. The mere objective presentation of truth, which, if we understand our author, is all that he believes the Spirit of God does for the conversion of men and curing of their depravity, is not per se a motive power or influence. Our author, as we have seen, under other circumstances, is constrained to admit that motive power is something more than objective presentation of truth, and that on the part of our Redeemer, consists in so presenting truth, so revealing Christ" that He as really reigns in our will, and consequently in our emotions by our own free consent, as our wills reign in our bodies." We desire no stronger language to express the causal power of an influence or agency brought to bear upon the mind to determine its will-what we have called efficient influence, motive power, power that excites and moves and determines to act. Notwithstanding all his professions of ignorance, and of inability to understand the efficiency of motive power excited on the mind, he has himself defined it with sufficient accuracy to enable us to cite himself in proof of the very thing he denies. "It is efficient in the sense of being a prevailing influence." Such language is absolutely unmeaning, unless it be understood, as commonly it is, to imply that there is some connection between the motive influence or objective consideration or truth presented to the mind, and the mind's being affected by it, so as to determine its volition, and which connection being of like nature with that which exists between the cause and its effect, justifies men in saying, the one produced or caused the other. It is mere trifling evasion, and wholly unworthy of the subject, to claim that the word cause, when applied to moral themes, must be understood to mean a physical necessity. We have never supposed that Edwards either believed or taught the doctrine of a 'Finney's Reply to "Warning against Error," p. 44, 45. Phil. 2: 13. III. p. 273.

HI. p. 298.

necessitated will," as our author affirms. His moral certainty is not a physical necessity; and when he illustrates that certainty, by a reference to things physically necessary, he traces the resemblance, not in the mode of operating, but in the certainty with which one event gives rise to or causes the other. It is no more his idea, as we have ever understood him, that the true and proper freedom of the will, which characterizes man as a responsible creature, is destroyed by the certainty superinduced on choice, than is it our author's-if he admits any efficiency in the Spirit's influence-that its liberty is destroyed by "a prevailing influence," the determining power of motive.

Whatever there may be in the particular mood or state of mind itself, adapting it to the impressions and motive influences, either from external objects or inward suggestions, inviting, inclining, or urging to wrong, i. e. to selfish or sinful acts, must not be overlooked, in estimating the causes which may have a determining influence on its choice or volitions. Our author, in his philosophy, assumes that the habitude, the mood, the adaptness or prepared state of the mind for being affected agreeably or disagreeably, when moral subjects are presented to it, depends on simple will, on previous choice, or ultimate intention. If the ultimate intention and choice are right, by a law of necessity it carries the whole will with it. Intellect and sensibility alike are obsequious to it. The will is absolute, and has supreme controlling power. Here is the very point on which we think he needs most carefully to review his philosophical theory of the laws of mental operations. Dogmas and ambiguous definitions may bewilder and divert attention from the report of consciousness. But no one can calmly and dispassionately attend to what passes in his own mind, without discovering that the will has no such supremacy-is not so absolutely independent and selfdetermining in its power, as to control both intellect and sensibility by its volitions. On the contrary, both intellect and sensibility exert an incessant power on it; and when the ultimate choice or intention of our author, on which he confers such omnipotent energies, is carefully examined, it will be found, that there enter into it other elements than simple choice. Both intellect and sensibilities operate, in determining, or contribute to form the choice.

Why do some objects and thoughts affect pleasurably, and others painfully, so as to excite instinctively, desire for the one and disgust for the other? Not always nor mainly because of the ultimate choice. Certain sensations or emotions at first involuntarily excited, are pleasurable or painful, independently of any ruling purpose or ultimate intention. It is not the ultimate choice, the supreme intention either to gratify self or to glorify God, that adapts the mind for pleasurable and painful emo

tions. There is something in objects themselves, and their suitableness to affect the mind, and to excite various passions and affections, in themselves pleasurable or painful, that must not be overlooked. This power of objects, in exciting and affecting, may be greatly promoted and strengthened by indulgence, or weakened by resistance; but it depends not, primarily and mainly, on the mere state of the will.

The mind is not a simple existence without properties. Its susceptibilities or capability of being affected and roused to action by various feelings and emotions, and of putting forth its energies in various ways, conformably with the nature of external objects and circumstances, or internal suggestions exciting its passions and affections, have ever been an interesting region for observation and research, and legitimately afford the foundation of metaphysical science. It is foreign from our purpose and unnecessary in this review, to enter into the details of different psychological systems that have, in different ages, found favor among the learned. We are mainly and only concerned with the facts on which such systems rest. To the susceptibilities or capability of being affected, conformably with the nature of external objects, in the various emotions or feelings they excite, some have given the generic name of taste, which they have sometimes called a faculty, and regarded it as that which they understand the Scriptures generally to mean by the word heart. Others have given them the generic name of disposition, in like manner. Both have distinguished them from the ultimate choice or intention, although they have spoken of them as intimately, and often, inseparably connected with different states of the will.

These emotions and susceptibilities, in their natural developments in man, are universally found in a disordered state. He is not affected pleasurably by what ought, and was originally designed of God thus to affect him. The knowledge of God in whom his soul should take delight, and for the enjoyment of whom he was created, does not naturally so affect him but contrariwise. The apostle says of the pagan world, that "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." The senses, appetites, passions and affections, as they are excited by innumerable objects, lead away from God; and the thought of Him gives trouble. The love of God does not arise spontaneously in the heart; nor is it certain to be awakened by the contemplation of His character. The restraints of His fear are cast out: and, instead of choosing Him as their portion, and seeking to promote His honor and glory, men naturally choose that which God disapproves and forbids. From the earliest period of man's accountable existence, it is so. "The wicked go astray from the womb, speaking lies." "Every imagination of the thought of man's heart is only evil,

and that continually."" This is the Scriptural account of the

race.

If asked why it is so, we must, from the word of God, reply, that "by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners."" It has been the result of the sin and apostacy of our first parents; the certain and invariable consequence of the moral depravity of the first pair, eventuating uniformly in each successive generation, according to the operation and provisions of that moral system, technically called the law of the Covenant of works, ordained as the original and natural constitution for the race. The tendency of fallen man, in his natural state is ever to sin. Of this tendency orthodox standards and divines predicate moral depravity as of a property, appropriate to, and characteristic of the race. They mean not a physical necessity to sin, but a state of mind and heart appropriate to, and characteristic of man as a fallen creature-as the descendant of a fallen and apostate parent, which, naturally, from the first period of moral individual accountability he refuses to submit to, or be directed by God, or, if our author pleases, in which he acts out his natural selfishness. Our author is constrained to use language inconsistent with his theory or philosophy, which is eminently calculated to mislead his reader, confounding choice with disposition, yea, identifying the import of these terms, which do not, and are not used generally to designate precisely the same mental state, or state of the will. Thus, in his definition of selfishness, with his characteristic want of precision, he says, "selfishness, be it remembered, consists in a disposition or choice to gratify the propensities, desires, and feelings." The choice and the disposition, the consent of the will, and the passion, affection, emotion, or feeling, determining choice in any given case, are characteristically different. Choice is the selection or election between two or more objects or ends regarded as good or evil. Consent is the yielding to some present impulse, before the attention may have summoned an opposing thought, motive, or object to the mind. To both these distinguishable states of mind and will, feeling may be related. Our author identifies them, and them again with disposition, defining selfishness as above, to consist in the merest abstraction; a generic choice to gratify the affections, passions, and propensities, irrespectively of any moving influence of the particular objects, suggestions, or considerations exciting them and tending to determine the will in its choices specifically in detail, and irrespectively also of any foundation or reason, in the natural adaptedness of the mind or soul to be thus affected and moved rather than otherwise. Why the actings of mind and will should uniformly and naturally in man, from the very first moment of moral agency, be selfish and opposed to God, is a question of esRom. 5: 19. * II. p. 451.

1 Gen. 6:5

2

sential importance, which ought not to be lost sight of in an attempt to explain the native moral depravity of our race.

We attempt not to explain this phenomenon. Philosophy fails us here, as it does in a thousand other things, when we inquire into the rationale of the fact. The fact itself, as reported by consciousness, and confirmed by Scripture and observation, is sufficiently humbling and alarming. Our author's theory or supposition, that moral depravity is to be traced to that state of physical depravity in which men are born, is not new, but may be traced under a different phase in the old Manichean philosophy. That he should be so bitter against "old school" theology, on this subject, is to us a matter of no little surprise, since we question whether any of that class of theologians whom he stigmatizes as teaching the philosophy of a "necessitated will," would go farther than he does himself. "As the human mind," says he, "in this state of existence is dependent upon the body for all its manifestations, and as the human body is universally in a state of greater or less physical depravity or disease, it follows that the manifestations of mind, thus dependent on a physically depraved organization, will be physically depraved manifestations. Especially is this true of the human sensibility. The appetites, passions, and propensities, are in a state of most unhealthy development. This is too evident and too much a matter of universal notoriety to need proof or illustration. Every person of reflection has observed that the human mind is greatly out of balance in consequence of the monstrous development of the sensibility. The appetites, passions, and propensities have been indulged, and the intelligence and conscience stultified by selfishness. Selfishness be it remembered, consists in a disposition or choice to gratify the propensities, desires, and feelings. This of course and of necessity produces just the unhealthy and monstrous developments which we daily see." If this is not tracing moral depravity to physical, as its appropriate and proximate cause, we know not how language could more certainly express it. We may misunderstand his meaning, but we certainly do not his language. If he will make disposition and choice synonymous; if he will not discriminate between the different states of the will itself, or rather the mind in willing, over all which moral law rightfully claims authority to direct and control, as the mind passes from the initiatory excitement or movement of appetite or feeling that obtains consent, through prolonged and increased excitement, choice, and purpose, till it ripens into determined will and act; and if he will make all and every degree of voluntariness identical with choice or ultimate intention, he must not expect others to receive and respect his teachings, or that his brethren shall be held obnoxious to his censures for misunderstanding him. The word 1 1IL p. 451.