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the ultra positions of this compound, being found too unwieldly for all practical effect, have become nearly obsolete. Hopkins and his system are now quite out of the minds of men. He was no doubt a holy man, and long ere this, disencumbered of those unfortunate principles which rendered his labors on earth_unavailable to all purposes of utility, has entered, we may hope, with invigorated powers, upon some other and more successful field of labor under the government of God. But, though the ultra positions of Hopkins are out of date, it is remarkable that the doctrine of necessity, in which they found their germs, still retains its hold, and is thought by some to occupy a highly important place in the science of theology. The more judicious and better balanced mind of Edwards, checked him in his course, somewhat short of those ultra, though legitimate results of his theory, and thus he has secured for the product of his masterly mind a more permanent, perhaps a perpetual control in the intellectual world. For, with the exception of a few attempts to show that it contradicts experience, that the terms necessity, impossibility, and the like, cannot be safely ascribed to moral action, or some such distant skirmishings, he has hitherto been left, and probably ever will be, to the undisputed occupancy of the strong holds which his own genius created for his name and memory.*

This line of reasoning fails of bringing to view all the conditions of moral action. There are, to say the least, three prominent orders of motive, in themselves innocent, one or all of which are concerned in every action which has a moral quality; and these are self-love, benevolence, and conscience. In every case where these principles clash with each other, the question of which should prevail, is to be decided, not by the strength of the passion or motive, in itself considered, but by its nature. Conscience, or the reflective faculty, has a right to control, by virtue of its own nature, whenever it comes in competition with the other principles of action. And actual guilt never arises, whatever may be said of native pravity, except when the agent gratifies his self-love or social affections, at the expense of what he has the means of knowing that his con

But in our view, this whole mode of reasoning, however it may be indulged as a matter of curious speculation, must be felt to be inadmissible as connected with religion, or we shall never see an end to our unhappy divisions. Adverse theories must unavoidably arise, from interweaving the plain matters of faith and duty with a department, in which the materials of knowledge are so uncertain as in mental philosophy and moral causation. It only serves to throw doubt and darkness over a subject, that every man feels to be settled and clear. We would, therefore, exhort christians to confine themselves to those evidences of accountability which God has rendered a part of our natures, which are alike common to all who are capable of moral action, and which can never be strengthened, though they may be greatly weakened, by an appeal to abstract philosophy. Let the authority of such philosophy "be first established in its own province before it ventures to invade the territories of Theology. Its worst errors have arisen from quitting its proper sphere; from presumptuously attempting to pass those bounds which Infinite Wisdom, by limiting the powers, has pleased to prescribe to the researches of reason. Nothing is more certain, than that it has no right to revise truths which have emanated from Truth itself. The word of an unchangeable God is certainly sufficient war

science, acting in view of law, must approve. It would be a useful study, therefore, to trace out all the particular cases of conflict between these several orders of motive, and mark the precise point at which the agent begins to deserve actual praise or blame. The reader is referred to several sermons on this subject, by Bishop Butler, contained in the first part of a Cambridge edition of a volume of his sermons, which every man ought to read, who wishes to understand the precise conditions of moral action. But to run the subject up in a single line, in the manner of Hopkins, Edwards, and divines of that school, is to utterly omit its important practical features. Or, to speak figuratively, though we cannot gainsay the reasoning, we distinctly feel that it leaves out the warp or woof of the moral tissue.

rant for belief; and he who receives His truths simply because they are approved by reason, is still an infidel. Can this philosophy add evidence or authority to the declarations of God? Can it add pespicuity to that system of truth, which comes from the pen of inspiration, and is proposed, not to be the subject of speculation, but simply to command our belief and control our practice?"* "To the law and the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

SECTION VI.

Metaphysical Theology-its present state-results of past theories.

Glad should we be to leave this subject without attempting to trace its influence upon the present posture of Protestant Christendom, did we not fear that the principles which we have endeavored to establish, would fail of the practical bearing which we designed to give them. Pledged as we are to our conscience, to our God, and to you, brethren in Christ, to speak honestly and fearlessly what we conceive to be true, we see not how we can avoid detailing to some extent, the present forms which these old habits of religious philosophizing have assumed. We may err in our views, but who knows but our very errors may be converted, in abler hands, into the means of ascertaining the truth? And as truth is our only party, so far as we are able to understand it, we shall rejoice to have its cause subserved, even though it may be by our mistakes.

*Theo. Review. vol. 2. p. 675,

We

entreat you therefore, brethren, to bear with us, while to the best of our ability, we endeavor to point out the present results and forms of religious philosophizing.

The genius of the present age is too practical, too fond of instant effect, and too adverse to close thinking, for this abstract philosophy to flourish to the same extent as formerly. It is owing to this circumstance, perhaps, more than to any change ofsentiment in regard to the mode of treating religious truth, or the facts of revelation, that these old habits of reasoning are now little in vogue. If the teacher of religion is too indolent for severe intellection, or too much occupied with out-door concerns to admit of his revelling amid the scenes of a dark and remote abstraction, it is certain that his people are too fond of excitement, to relish the dry, cold and indigestible results of such a process. Hence, they mutually agree in giving and receiving a lighter, less elaboratemore pungent and matter-of-fact aliment.

But still, the different systems which are now contending for pre-eminence, are not less based upon false philosophy, nor less remote from the plain facts of revelation, or from our inherent consciousness of duty, than those of former ages. There is none of them, that has not taken its cast, in more points of view than one, from the old debate upon predestination, and the theories of moral causation to which it gave rise; or which has not been concocted, partly from the facts of revelation, and partly from materials variously obtained from other sources.

It is curious to observe the different and opposite uses, to which human ingenuity contrives to convert elements, which are essentially the same. When the supposed necessity of philosophizing upon religion, had carried Hopkins, Emmons, and divines of that school, to so fearful an extent in metaphysics, as to shock all common sense, unhappily the reaction

which followed, did not unsettle the principle which drove them to such extremes; but merely changed the mode of its operation. It seems still to be thought unsafe to sit down to the study of the Bible, as a book of ultimate facts, and make it the exact gauge and limit of our religious thinking, and thus, allow ourselves to be borne forward in whatever direction it may lead. No: it will not answer to adopt the meaning which its words convey, when interpreted according to the ordinary laws of language; but it must be modeled and formed to suit a certain order of conceptions, which we have obtained from other sources. These conceptions we use as Procrustes did his bedsteads, to cut down passages that have too great a fulness of meaning, or, to stretch those that have not enough.

One class of religionists, who pique themselves upon a style of thinking, alike distinguished by its classic elegance and freedom from cant and bigotry, who love to roam at large through the ample fields of thought, unconfined and unrestricted by documentary evidence, have concocted a system, which, we know not whether most to admire for its adaptation to men of letters, or for the limited extent of its indebtedness to the inspired pages. For, though compounded in its staple articles, from various branches of human thought and inquiry, or from the results of past investigation, it is certainly spiced with revealed thoughts, so garbled and diluted, however, that

"when Paul has served us with a text Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully preached.”

Filled with admiration at the splendid achievements of human nature, as seen from the pages of genius, from discoveries in the exact sciences or in the laws and operations of nature, from the records of heroism and valor, or still more from the recent applications of the principles of science to purposes of

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