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agents; the whole of the human race, in the great majority of their actions, both before and after their conversion to God, are free agents;-because their actions are not compulsatory. They are under no physical constraint or restraint. Their conduct is in accordance with volition, or the result of it. They are not constrained to act in opposition to volition. If the physical energies of any being are laid under restraint by an act of power, so that he cannot do the things which he would, he is not a free agent. But, if he is at liberty to do what he chooses, he is a free agent, whatever, in point of fact, he may choose to do. No bias of the will, consequently, however powerful, to any particular mode of conduct, interferes with the free agency of any being; since freedom, as we have seen, is not properly predicated of the will of an agent. Were the case otherwise than we have now stated, Jehovah could not be a free agent; for, so entire and powerful is the bias of his mind towards holiness, that he cannot do that which is evil. The devil could not be a free agent; for, in consequence of an opposite bias, he cannot do that which is good. Now if Jehovah is a free agent, though morally unable to it is certain that the devil is a free agent, though morally unable to do good, it cannot surely be denied that man may be a free agent, although the actual bias of his mind should be towards evil, only evil, and that continually.

do evil, and if

It is of vast importance to form clear conceptions of the meaning of the term freedom, or, as it is otherwise denominated, free agency, or free will, in its application to a moral agent. It is essential to remember the statements just made, that it is a property of the agent himself, and not of his will; and that the term expresses merely a negative idea,—exemption from physical constraint or restraint. There are some Calvinists, even, whose conceptions on this subject are exceedingly obscure. Adam, they think, was possessed of freedom in a moral sense when he came from the hands of his Maker, but he lost it, they imagine, by transgression,—thus evidently identifying free agency with freedom from a bias to sin, and ascribing it to the will, and not to the agent himself. But, if the reader has gone along with me in the previous statements,

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he will at once see that Adam was as truly a free agent after he had lost his primitive holiness, as while he retained it; because he was equally free from all physical constraint or restraint in his actions, and invariably did the things that he would. And this is in reality the only sense in which freedom can be ascribed to man.

I do not forget that Arminians are in the habit of attributing a different, and, as they imagine, a higher kind of freedom to man than that which has been alluded to above. They commit, in short, a double mistake. They ascribe freedom to the will itself, and not to the agent, and they attribute to the will what has been called a self-determining power. When the strongest motives are presented to the view of an individual, and are even properly appreciated by the mind, his will, they say, may choose to be influenced by them, or the contrary. And this power-the power of submitting to motives, or of resisting them-they consider essential to moral freedom. It is not enough that a man is free as to his actions; his will also must be free, or he cannot be a free agent.

Every one who has reflected much upon this subject must be aware of the ambiguity which lurks in the terms, "power to choose," &c., "the will must be free," &c., employed by our opponents; and how much the difficulty of grappling with them is increased by that ambiguity. In presenting a few remarks upon this subject to the reader, I will then,

First, endeavour to clear away somewhat of that ambiguity. The will must be free, say our opponents; the determination must not be a forced determination; the choice must be free, as well as the action. Now, it is manifest, that language is here used in reference to volitions, which can only be properly applied to actions. An action may be free, or forced, but volition is by its very nature essentially free. A forced volition is an incongruous idea. It is compulsatory voluntariness. And when it is said the choice must be free as well as the action, we ask whether the term free, in its application to the choice, is intended to express the same meaning as in its application

to the action.

Supposing them to reply in the affirmative, we say that a

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free action is a voluntary action,-an action which is the result of choice. A free choice must, accordingly, mean a voluntary choice;—a choice which results from a previous choice. But, then, according to their principles, this previous choice also must, in order to be a free choice, result from a prior choice; that again from a former one; and thus we may go backwards till we reach the first choice, which could not possibly be free in this sense, because not preceded by a previous choice. And if the first act of choice be not free, this unfortunate circumstance vitiates all the subsequent acts of choice; not one of them is a free choice, and consequently, the man is not, on their principles, a free agent.

Supposing them to reply in the negative, i. e., to affirm, that they understand the term free, in its application to the choice, in a sense different from that which it bears in its application to the action; I ask them to clear away the ambiguity, which they have never done yet, and to inform us what is the precise sense they attach to the term. A free volition, or choice, we have been told, is an unforced volition, or choice. But that, I reply, is coming back again to the sense of the words free, and forced, which is now, byhy pothesis, abandoned. *Perhaps they will say they mean, by a free volition or choice, an uncaused volition or choice. In that case I would answer, first, that even the action is not free in the sense of the word; it is caused, in the only intelligible sense of the term, caused by the volition, i. e., it is immediately and invariably subsequent to the volition. I would answer, secondly, that the notion of the volition being uncaused contradicts one of those first principles on which we rest our confidence of the existence of the Divine Being himself. Nothing can exist without a cause. The universe exists, therefore there is a God. But, if volition may exist without a cause, why not the universe itself? This notion, then, of free choice leads directly to Atheism. Thirdly, I answer, that it becomes the objector to show-since an action may be a free action, though it has a cause-why a volition may not be a free volition, though it also has a cause. I mean, of course, free in any sense which the Arminian can attach to the term; and I can conceive of two senses only—

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voluntary volition, and uncaused volition. If it should be said that, though an action must have a cause, yet it may nevertheless be accounted a free action, because that cause is internal, or in the actor himself, I answer, that, on the same ground, volition may be accounted free, since the proximate cause of volition in every case is also internal; it is not the external good, held up to view by the moral Governor, but the conception which the mind forms of that good. Hence the same revelation, and of the same good too, operates differently upon different minds, because different apprehensions of it are entertained by those minds. I am utterly unable to conceive that precisely the same view of an object adapted to awaken volition should, in the case of two individuals, lead to different results. I cannot but think that there are laws of mind, as well as of matter; and that the operation of the former is as uniform and unvarying as that of the latter, though, as we know comparatively little of the laws of mind, we are apt to think that there are no laws, or that they are very irregular in their operation. Now, if the motive (understanding by the term motive not the external good merely, but the view which the mind takes of it) do not produce the volition, or stand in the relation of cause to it;-if the mind be so constituted as that it can choose, determine, &c., and, in point of fact, does determine not only in harmony with the motive, as explained above, but in direct variance with it, then is it not manifest that there are no laws of mind, -that mind is entirely beyond Divine control?—that God has formed a being over which he possesses no power, and has no possible means of causing it to fulfil his purposes? I challenge any Arminian, any philosophical Libertarian, to show how his opinion that the motive does not cause the volition, that the mind submits to be influenced by it, (an expression the absurdity of which becomes apparent the very moment it is attempted to be explained,) can be reconciled with the notion of moral government. Moral government is to be understood in contradistinction from physical and instinctive government. The term indicates the nature, not the end or intention, of the government. It is not called moral government because it is adapted to promote morality, as I cannot

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but think Bishop Butler has erroneously represented it,for there might be moral government under the empire of Jehovah, if it were possible to conceive of the Governor's being a malevolent and an unholy being, (as there actually is moral government amongst the legions of fallen spirits, who are under the immediate, though subordinate, dominion of Satan,) i. e., there might be a government carried on by the influence of motives, in contradistinction both from physical force as in the world of matter, and instinctive tendencies as in the world of animals. Moral government is, in short, the sway of motives, -the dominion which God exerts over intelligent beings to secure his own ultimate purposes in their creation, though these purposes are secured, as we shall afterwards see, in different ways. Now if motives, as explained, have no influence upon the mind, if they do not produce volition,-if volition arise without a cause,God has no rule, no authority, no power over the mind. The certain influence of motives is an essential ingredient in moral government; and a man who fancies himself obliged, on account of the difficulties which appear to him to embarrass the opinion, to deny the certain influence of motives, must, to be consistent, abandon with it his belief in the existence of moral government.

I avow these opinions in the distinct and full view of the great and serious difficulties which press upon them. Now let not an opponent begin to triumph at this my confession, that the side of the keenly controverted subject which I feel compelled to take is not free from difficulty. If he should tell me that his side presents none, I should think him unworthy of being argued with. He cannot have examined the subject. He does not understand it. No candid man, competent, from native power of mind, and from a thorough and searching examination of the point in dispute, to pronounce an opinion, will venture to say that, in reference to it, there is left for us any thing more than a choice of difficulties. Am I wrong in avowing this, in reference to the opinion which I have formed? If I were writing merely for party purposes -merely to obtain a triumph over an opponent, perhaps I should be so. But the interests of truth can never be injured by the confession of a difficulty; nay, they are likely to be pro