When we come to inquire into what constitutes these ten, or these thirty degrees of difficulty, we find them' motives,'' biases,' sensations going with that amount of force in a particular direction. And when we analyze the man's twenty degrees of strength for resistance, we find nothing but contrary sensations; for the man's will has no power of going against a definite current of influences, except as it feels the impulsive force of contrary influences. Between these clashing currents of influence or of sensation, therefore, the will comes to just nothing at all. As a faculty it can have no separate existence. All that can be said about it is, that when one current becomes strong enough to master the other, the effect which ensues we are accustomed to call a volition. This volition, however, is merely the name by which we signalize the triumphant sensation.

The doctrine of necessity, therefore, seems to be a virtual reduction of the moral, to a level with the physical government. Sensations in themselves considered are as involuntary as the wind, and as destitute of a moral character. Nor is it possible, without introducing into connexion with them some principle radically different in its character, for moral obligation to result from their exercise. No matter what degree of strength or intensity a sensation might acquire, still it could not give a moral result without the superadded influence of a principle in its nature different and more exalted. That principle is found in the faculty of will. We have only to fix in our minds correct notions of such a faculty, to see how impossible it is that it should become the passive tool of the sensations. Though it cannot exist without them, more than a king can be a king without subjects, as we before said, yet the existence of both being admitted, we have then two distinct classes of powers, as different from each other as morals are from physics, and a virtue from a circle.

There is something in the voluntary powers so peculiar, as to render all reasoning concerning them, which is derived from the analogy of physical cause and effect, extremely doubtful and unsatisfactory. Perhaps some radical element of difference between the laws of moral and physical causation may hereafter come to light. At all events, the difficulty which we feel with the doctrine of moral necessity, has been felt by minds of such compass of thought, as to give great weight to their opinions. Says Sir James Mackintosh, "It is impossible for reason to consider occurrences otherwise than as bound together by the con

nexion of cause and effect; and in this circumstance consists the strength of the necessitarian system. But conscience, which is equally a constituent part of the mind, has other laws. It is composed of emotions and desires, which contemplate only those dispositions which depend on the will. Now, it is of the nature of an emotion to withdraw the mind from the contemplation of every idea but that of the object that excites it." "The ear cannot see, nor the eye hear. Why, then, should not the greater powers of reason and conscience have different habitual modes of contemplating voluntary actions? How strongly do experience and analogy seem to require the arrangement of motive and volition under the classes of causes and effects? With what irresistible power, on the other hand, do all our moral sentiments remove extrinsic agency from view, and concentrate all feeling in the agent himself! The one manner of thinking may predominate among the speculative few in their short moments of abstraction; the other will be that of all other men, and of the speculator himself when he is called upon to act, or when his feelings are powerfully excited by the amiable or odious dispositions of his fellow-men." "It may be well to consider whether the constant success of the advocates of necessity on one ground, and of the partisans of freewill on another, does not seem to indicate that the two parties contemplate the subject from different points of view, that neither habitually sees more than one side of it, and that they look at it through the medium of different states of mind."+

4. Our subject shows the true philosophy of mental and moral discipline. Discipline consists in giving power to the will over the other faculties to hold them to a definite issue. It is voluntary in its inception, voluntary in its progress, and voluntary in its consummation. Nor can there be mental or moral discipline, where there is not an exertion of will. The occasions and opportunities for it may exist, but they can accomplish nothing, till there is an effort of will in taking advantage of them. The philosophy of discipline in its details is an unoccupied field, upon which needs to be written the ablest work in the English language.

*This is precisely our idea of the passions, affections, and intellections of real life, as depending on the will

† Ethical Philosophy, pp. 393, 396, 397, 398.

5. It is a mistake to suppose that effort of will to attain the ends of a holy life should diminish a sense of dependence on God. It has directly the contrary effect. None feel their own inherent incompetency, so much as those who strive most to be holy.

Finally, it is difficult to conceive a contrast greater than that of a well disciplined and a neglected will. Compare the will of Carey, holding him to his object through a forty years' exposure to the inhospitable customs and burning suns of India, with that of one of our fashionably educated daughters. He is a being of stern will, an unbending soul, while she is a mere budget of sympathies. To dance, sport, feed her fancy from the delicious pages of the latest novel, go into convulsions over the corpse of her favorite canary, while she is cruel as a vulture towards the real sufferings of her own species, and thus, to make it the end and glory of her life to be, as well as seem to be, a mere aggregation of ungovernable feelings, is the height of her ambition. She is not involuntary in it, or she would not be to blame; but she prides herself in merging her voluntariness in her feelings. Who can estimate the difference of the two characters?

ARTICLE V.

THE CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS.

By Rev. Enoch Pond, D. D., Professor in the Theological Seminary, Bangor, Me.

Signification of the term Sacrament.

THE word sacrament is not found in the New Testament; and in entering upon a consideration of the subject before us, it is important that the proper meaning of this word be ascertained, and the manner of its introduction into the current phraseology of Christians should be pointed out. The word in question is from the Latin sacramentum, which in classic use has two significations. First, it denotes the sum of money which each of the parties in a law-suit was required to lay down at the commencement of the trial, and which, being forfeited by the party SECOND SERIES, VOL. XI. NO. II.

9

Hence it was called sa

But,

beaten, was devoted to public uses.* cramentum, a sacred deposit. Between this and the Christian use of the term, I can discover no obvious affinity. secondly, the term was used by the Romans to signify jurejurandum, an oath; and more especially the oath by which the Roman soldier bound himself "to obey his commander in all things; to attend whenever he ordered his appearance; and never to leave the army but with his consent." In this sense, the word is continually used by Cicero, Cæsar, Livy, and all the best Latin writers. And many have supposed that the Christian use of the term was strongly analogous to this, and in fact borrowed from it; that in receiving the sacraments, the Christian binds himself by oath to Christ, as the Roman soldier bound himself to obey his commander. But we have two objections to this supposition. In the first place, there is no evidence that the early Christians regarded themselves as sworn into the service of Christ, and bound to him by the solemnity of an oath; or that they ever used the word in question in such a sense.f And, secondly, this supposition is contradicted by another view of the subject which is altogether more probable. The peculiar, Christian sense of the word sacramentum seems to have been derived, not from either of its classical significations, but from the ancient Latin versions of the Bible. These versions began to be made very early; some of them in the Apostolic age, and others at a later period. And when we look into these versions, we find sacramentum used in altogether a peculiar sense. It denotes any thing secret, recondite, incomprehen

* Ea pecunia, quæ in judicium venit, in litibus, sacramentum dicitur, a sacro. Qui petebat, et qui inficiabatur, de aliis rebus uterque quingentos æris ad Pontificem deponebant : de aliis rebus item certo alio legitimo numero assium. Qui judicio vicerat, suum sacramentum a sacro auferebat: victi ad ærarium redibat.-Varro.

Pliny uses the word in this sense, in his celebrated letter to the emperor Trajan. The Christians, he says, were accustomed to meet together on a stated day, and sing a hymn to Christ as God, and bind themselves (sacramento) by an oath to commit no crime," etc. But Pliny was probably mistaken as to the sense in which the Christians used this term. He had heard of their taking a sacrament in their meetings, and supposed, of course, that this meant an oath.

sible, and is synonymous with the Greek uvorýgior, or mystery. In the sense of these old Latin versions, any thing which might properly be called a mystery, was a sacrament. Thus Nebuchadnezzar's dream, of which we have an account in the second chapter of Daniel, and which was hidden from himself, is, in the Vulgate, repeatedly called a sacrament, or secret. In place of Paul's language, "Great is the mystery of godliness," we have in this version, "Great is the sacrament of godliness." Also, where Paul, speaking of marriage, says, "This is a great mystery; but I speak of Christ and the church;" the Vulgate has it, "This is a great sacrament," etc.* And so in the Revelation, "The mystery of the seven stars" is rendered, “The sacrament of the seven stars." Why the early translators of the Bible into Latin adopted this peculiar sense of the word sacrament I pretend not to say. Of the fact that they did so, there can be no doubt. Now these Latin translations were the common Bibles of the first Latin Fathers, as Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and others; and these were the men who introduced the word sacrament into the phraseology of the church. It was natural, in their circumstances, that they should do so; and the supposition is irresistible, that they would use the word in the sense in which they found it used in their Bibles. Accordingly we find Tertullian, when speaking of the doctrines of the Trinity, and of the incarnation of Christ, calling them alternately (mysteria et sacramenta) mysteries and sacraments. Indeed, he and some other of the Latin fathers, use the word sacrament to denote the whole Christian doctrine ;† just as Paul sometime calls the doctrines of religion mysteries. "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." 1 Cor. 4: 1.

The word sacrament is used by Tertullian, and by most of the Latin fathers, in reference to baptism and the Lord's supper (sacramentum aquæ et eucharista). Nor is it difficult to see how these rites came to be denoted by this term, in accordance with the sense which the Fathers gave to it. For in both these rites, there is an outward sign, and a thing signified. There is the form of the rite, which is obvious to the sense, and the

* From this passage, so translated, the Romanists have come to regard marriage as a sacrament.

†Thus Prudentius, "Nolite verba, cum sacramentum meum erit canendum, providenter quærere.