Crispus. But this is moral liberty.

Gaius. True; but the same reasoning will apply to moral slavery. If an unalterable bias of mind to good does not destroy free-agency, neither does an unalterable bias of mind to evil. Satan is as much a free-agent as Gabriel, and as much accountable to God for all he does.

Crispus. Some suppose man to have lost his free-agency by the fall.

Gaius. Say rather, man has lost his moral rectitude by the fall. All that was entrusted in his hands was lost. But we might as well say he had lost his reason, his conscience, or his memory, as to say he had lost his free-agency; and this would be supposing him to have lost his intellectual nature, and to have become literally a brute.

Crispus. Wherein does your notion of free-agency differ from the Arminian notion of free-will?

Gaius. The Arminian notion of free-will is what I have all along been opposing; the one consists merely in the power of following our prevailing inclination; the other in a supposed power of acting contrary to it, or at least of changing it. The one predicates freedom of the man, the other of a faculty in man; which Mr. Locke, though an anti-necessarian, explodes as an absurdity. The one goes merely to render us accountable beings; the other arrogantly claims a part, yea, the very turning point of salvation. According to the latter, we need only certain helps or assistances, granted to men in common, to enable us to choose the path of life; but according to the former, our hearts being by nature wholly depraved we need an Almighty and invincible power to renew them, otherwise our free agency would only accelerate our everlasting ruin.

Crispus. You suppose, I imagine that the invincible operations of the Holy Spirit do not interfere with our free-agency?

Gaius. Certainly if the temper of the heart does not affect it, neither can any change upon that temper. It affects free-agency no more than it affects reason, conscience, or memory man all along feels himself at liberty to follow what inclination dictates; and, therefore, is a free-agent.

Crispus. Does your notion of free-agency agree with the language of the apostle Paul: The good that I would, I do not; and the evil that I would not, that I do.-Fo will, is present; but how to perform that which is good, I find not?

Gaius. I think we ought to distinguish between a willingness that is habitual and general, and one that is universal and entire. Paul, and every real Christian, generally and habitually wills to be holy, as God is holy; but this volition is not universal and entire. It is not so perfect nor intense as that there is no remainder of indolence, obstinacy, or carnality. Perfection is the object approved, or rather, desired; but that approbation or desire is not perfect in degree: a perfect degree of willingness would be perfect holiness.

Crispus. Then you do not suppose the apostle to mean, that sin operated absolutely, and in every sense, against his will?

Gaius. I do not: it was certainly against the ruling principle of his soul; but to suppose that any sin can be strictly and absolutely involuntary in its operations, is contrary to every dictate of common sense.

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DIALOGUE VI.

ON THE GOODNESS OF THE MORAL LAW.

Crispus. OUR two last conversations on the moral character of God and the free-agency of man, have, I hope been of use to me. I have been thinking since of the great rule of God's government-the moral law, as being the image of his moral char

acter.

Gaius. Your idea is just: God is LOVE. All his moral attributes are but the different modifications of love, or love operating in different ways. Vindictive justice itself is the love of order, and is exercised for the welfare of beings in general; and the moral law, the sum of which is love, expresses the very heart of him that framed it.

Crispus. I have been thinking of love as the band which unites all holy intelligences to God, and one another; as that in the moral system, which the law of attraction is in the system of nature.

Gaius. Very good while the planets revolve round the sun as their central point, and are supremely attracted by it, they each have a subordinate influence upon the other: all attract, and are attracted by others in their respective orbits; yet no one of these subordinate attractions interferes with the grand attractive influence of the sun, but acts rather in perfect concurrence with it. Under some such idea we may conceive of supreme love to God, and subordinate love to creatures.

Crispus. Among the planets, if I mistake not, the attractive power of each body corresponds with the quantity of matter it possesses, and its proximity to the others.

Gaius. True: and though in general we are required to love our neighbour as ourselves, yet there are some persons, on ae VOL. IV.

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account of their more immediate connexion with us, whom we are allowed, and even obliged, to love more than the rest.

Crispus. If we could suppose the planets endued with intelligence, and any one of them, weary of revolving round the sun, should desert its orbit, assume a distinct centership of its own, and draw others off with it, what would be the consequence ?

Gaius. Anarchy and confusion, no doubt, with regard to the system; and cold and darkness and misery, with regard to those. which had deserted it.

Crispus. And is not this a near resemblance to the condition of apostate angels and men ?

Gaius. Doubtless it is; and your similitude serves to illus. trate the evil of sin, as it affects the harmony of the divine government in general, and the happiness of each individual in particular.

Crispus. Is there not a general notion in the minds of men, that the moral law is too strict and rigid for man in his fallen state?

Gaius. There is; and some who ought to know better, have compared its requirements to those of an Egyptian task-master, who demanded bricks without straw; and have recommended the gospel as being at variance with it. Many who would be thought the greatest, if not the only friends of Christ, have made no scruple of professing their hatred to Moses, as they term the moral law.

Crispus. But does not the precept of the moral law require what is beyond our strength?

Gaius. If, by strength, you mean to include inclination, I grant it does; but if, by strength, you mean what is literally and properly so called, it requires us even now but to love God with all our strength. It is not in the want of strength, literally and strictly speaking, that our insufficiency to keep the divine law consists, but in the want of a holy temper of mind; and this, instead of being any excuse, or requiring an abatement of the law, is the very essence of that wherein blame consists.

Crispus. I have thought it might serve to show the goodness of the divine law if we were to suppose it reversed. Suppose, in