"It seems, therefore, that every spirit in the universe, as such, is endued with understanding, and, in consequence, with a will, and with a measure of liberty; and that these three are inseparably united in every intelligent nature. And observe: liberty necessitated, or overruled, is really no liberty at all. It is a contradiction in terms. It is the same as unfree freedom, that is, downright

nonsense.

"It may be farther observed, (and it is an important observation) that where there is no liberty, there can be no moral good or evil, no virtue or vice. The fire warms us, yet it is not capable of virtue; it burns us, yet this is no vice. There is no virtue but where an intelligent being knows, loves, and chooses what is good; nor is there any vice but where such a being knows, loves, and chooses what is evil."-Sermon on 1 John, iii. 8. See also Sermon on 1 Cor. x, 13.

If, as the reviewer asserts, Mr. Wesley maintains the doctrine charged upon him, that sin is for the best good of the universe, more clearly even than Hopkins, Edwards, or West, then does the reviewer more grossly still misrepresent those worthies than he misrepresents Mr. Wesley. How this is we do not trouble ourselves to inquire. We ignore the task of defending against their Calvinistic assailant those very subtle but very unsound divines. Even if they were clear on this point, their systems are plentifully condemnable for other heresies. But we suspect him to be mistaken in placing them on a level with Wesley. We apprehend that he quotes those divines fairly and correctly. We apprehend that the discourses which he specifies really discussed the subject in question, and that the passages to which he alludes express the sentiment attributed. apprehend he has not, in their case, wrenched their words from their true application to a false. We have little doubt that those Calvinistic doctors maintained the anti-Wesleyan doctrine that sin 18 not only useful, but necessary to the best sort of world.

We

Equally false and more is the level assigned to Wesley in the following passage: "If Wesley then did in some passages testify a high and just appreciation of human freedom, so did Edwards and West of the most decided kind." That Edwards maintained "human freedom," we reply, is just as true as that ebony is topaz. Edwards was a firm, unflinching necessitarian, and necessity is the contradictory of freedom; and every line of Edwards, presupposing, as it does, the truth of his system, is with inflexible consistency on the side of the contradiction of freedom. Will this reviewer pretend that Edwards maintained the doctrine of "the power of contrary choice?" On the contrary, did he not profess to demonstrate that such "power," under the name of "self-determination," is impossible, involving infinities of infinities of absurdities? Did he not "In words of many a winding bout,

Of linked sophism long drawn out,"

pretend to expel free-will from possible human thought and from the limits of possible existence? If Edwards and his followers are

the asserters of human freedom, who in all the world and in all history are the deniers? If necessity be not the contradictory of freedom, please tell us what is? If this reviewer knows anything of the rise of Wesleyan Methodism, he knows it took its definite doc trinal shape in a dispute of which a main issue was the existence of "free-will;" that on the affirmative were Wesley, Fletcher, and Sellon; and on the negative Whitefield, Toplady, and the whole Lady Huntington party, taking Edwards for their stronghold. Wesley and Fletcher maintained foreknowledge and free-will; their Calvinistic opponents maintained foreordination and necessity. Edwards and the great body of New England Calvinists have been with the latter. Whether this Reviewer happens to be aware of it or not, the reality of human freedom is the great point of division between Arminianism and Calvinism. It was in behalf of this reality that Arminius dissented from Gomarus, that Episcopius protested against the Synod of Dort, that Wesley and Fletcher opposed Toplady and Edwards, and that American Methodism has ever taken issue with American Calvinism. Calvinists have uniformly denied free-will, or affirmed a pseudo-freedom, which is bound by necessity or decree, or both. When, then, this reviewer says Wesley "testified in some passages of freedom," he insinuates the falsity that Wesley's maintenance of freedom was not fundamental and uncontradicted, but slight and variable. He could just as sensibly say that Edwards testified "in some passages" of necessity, whereas every theologian knows, or ought to know, that it was a fundamental part of his system, just as the reverse doctrine of freedom was fundamental with Wesley. To the uniform consistency of Edwards we bear willing testimony. Every syllable he ever wrote in relation to the subject is stiff with fatalism. At no moment of his existence did he ever affirm unnecessitated free-will any more than Euclid affirmed that every triangle contains three right angles. Dr. West did, we believe, exceptionally among New England Calvinists, maintain free will. And upon that point our Reviewer may have heard that West and Edwards were at issue. And yet he couples their names just as if they agreed! Dr. West, like Dr. Taylor, and in opposition to Edwards the fatalist, did maintain "the power of contrary choice." But Dr. West, like Dr. Taylor if we mistake not, nullified his maintenance of free-will by adopting the doctrine that God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass. He made God's decree hem in the freedom of the agent, so as to render it completely latent, and incapable of moving a single ultimate particle of soul or body. Free-agency thereby was a dead corpse wrapped in an eternal iron shroud.

We now move the question, Is the doctrine that sin is not necessary to the existence of the best possible system, consistent with Dr. Taylor's scheme of theology? We affirm that it is not. We do not charge that Dr. Taylor intentionally held the necessity of any sin to the best good; but we charge that his system, as represented by the reviewer, involves it. On the subject of foreordination the reviewer thus states Dr. Taylor:

"Evil being connected with the system by no necessity of the system itself, and by no connivance of God or preference of it to holiness, not only this providential permission of evil, but the most complete and universal foreordination of it, are explained and vindicated. If sin is to occur, then, as Edwards argues, it is doubtless better that the time and manner of its occurrence should be under the guidance of Infinite Wisdom, in order that this element of evil may be reduced within the narrowest limits. Such arrangements of motives and influences as will most effectually check its spread, and contribute to the recovery of those infected by it, become in the highest degree desirable; and thus the complete foreordination of events, the universality of the divine decrees, stand above all serious objection."-N. Englander, vol. xvii, p. 962.

God foreordains, then, every sin. He foreordains not only its limitations, but its particular place and moment of existence. But sin being not a thing but an act, to foreordain its place and point is to foreordain its commission, its origination in every particular instance, with all its motives, malignities, and atrocities. But foreordination is volition, and God therefore wills every sin just where and when and as it is. And just as he wills it, so is it, on the whole, and, as the nature of men and things is, for the best possible good of the universe. Not only Adam's sin, but every individual sin, just as it is and just where and when it is, is necessary for the best possible good. Otherwise God has willed what is not necessary for the best good of his system. Every transgressor is authorized to say, "I commit just that sin, and at that place and time, which God has determined to be on the whole for the best good of the universe.

Some of the peculiarities of this reviewer, his pedagogue criticisms, his pretenses of misunderstanding our language, and his minute quibbles, are hardly worthy a reference; his real misunderstandings, his claims for his master to imaginary originality, his adventurous "misrepresentations," his imputations upon others of holding doctrines which it was part of their mission and of their system to oppose as held by the reviewer's own theological section, are the gravamina, important enough to attract our notice and correction. It is not true, as he asserts, (p. 475,) that Wesley held that "God lays upon his creatures the necessity of resting in lower forms of holiness and happiness, if perfectly obedient, than they may reach by incurring the guilt of sin." It is not true that Wesley affirmed "the fall of man to be indispensable to our highest bless

edness." (P. 477.) It is not true that Wesleyan theology holds that the sin of Adam was "necessarium," as expressed in the monkish stanza quoted by the reviewer. And as to his closing flourish about "the Romish and the Wesleyan theology," if the reviewer knows as little of the Romish as he does of the Wesleyan doctrines, our friendly advice is that he perform a full Pythagorean novitiate of silence and study before he hazards any farther public utterances concerning either.

ART. X.-FOREIGN RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.