ever reconciling christianity with reason and common señse, unless this be admitted as a fundamental truth. On this subject Mr. H. says,

a

I can scarcely conceive it necessary to adduce proof of so plain proposition. In the nature of things, the right to command is clearly corelative and proportionate to the capacity to obey; since the employment of capacity in the way of obedience is the only thing to which the command can be intelligibly referred. If it were not so, but if, on the contrary, a right to command might be supposed to extend to beings not capable of obedience, then it might, without inconsistency comprehend insane persons, and even the brute creation; a stretch of authority, not so much unrighteous as absurd. Let it only be asked, for what reason God has limited his precepts to the human race, and has set up no claim of service from the beasts of the field. Can any answer be given to such a question but this-that they have no capacity to serve him? Why is an insane person exempt from obligation, but because his capacity for duty is destroyed? Or let us refer to matters of common life. What equitable master carries his requirements from a servant beyond his capacity for labor or makes the same demand from him in sickness as in health-after the amputation of a limb as before it? Would any servant think himself justly treated in such a case? And would not every honorable mind sympathize with his indignation at the wrong?

In order to set aside the force of this reasoning, it has been said that the case is different when a man destroys his own power of doing what is required of him: then, it is alleged, his obligation remains though his power is gone. Now, to say nothing of the inapplicability of this illustration, (for whatever we may have lost by the fall of our first parent, it is not we who have thrown it away,) the principle of it is wholly untenable. Try it by a familiar example. Suppose that you have engaged a person to keep your accounts; and that, by intemperate habits he impairs his sight to such degree as to incapaciate himself for writing. When you are informed that, on this account, he can no longer serve you, would you exclaim-" "But he shall, for he has destroyed his own power for the performance of his duty, and I have still a right to his services?" Such a reply could be taken only as the language of insanity or of passion." pp. 24-26.

What, then, is the scriptural evidence in behalf of the sentiment that mankind, as fallen, have not a capacity equal to their duty? Does such a sentiment lie at the foundation of scriptural appeals to them? Does a righteous God refrain from commanding their service, and from blaming their disobedience, and thus authorize us to conclude that they have no power? Far from it. The bible deals as freely in precepts and exhortations as it possibly could if men had the most extensive powers ever belonging to their nature, and evidently founds its appeals upon the principle that they actually possess them.

I may be asked whether the foregoing views do not tend to supersede the office and work of the Holy Spirit;--a most afflicting tendency,

truly, and decisively condemnatory of any sentiment in which it really existed. But, perhaps, I may be excused for asking in return, and with some surprise, whether the office of the Holy Spirit is any where stated to be that of giving us capacities? The scripture speaks of our being made willing; of the heart being opened to attend to the things spoken; of our being brought to receive the love of the truth; for which, opening the blind eyes, giving an understanding, giving a new heart, quickening the dead, and similar phrases, are the appropriate metaphors. It it can be shewn according to the scriptures, that the office of the Spirit is to give us capacities, I shall be bound to acknowledge the force of the evidence; but if it cannot (and I apprehend it never can be done, and only by a very few would it be attempted.) then there is plainly no force in the objection brought against me. pp. 43, 44.

So entirely does the sentiment here asserted, commend itself to the common sense of mankind, that it is only with extreme difficulty, and after long training, that the mind is ever brought to admit, even in name and form, the opposite doctrine. There have been many who maintained the distinct and unqualified inability of mankind to obey the law of God: but there has also been a manifest tendency in those who have thus believed, to measure their actual obligation, rather by what has been called, with wonderful inconsistency, the grace of God-grace received, or grace proffered-than by the law itself. As to all

practical purposes, they have considered their obligation as resulting from a superinduced aid, imparting the requisite ability; and not simply from their relations to God as the accountable subjects of his moral government. It would be easy to illustrate this remark by a reference to the history of the church, or the common observation of men. We do not wonder at the evasion. A living, practical sense of our obligation to do that which we are unable to do, is impossible. We therefore entirely agree with Mr. H. in the remark, that the subject of man's capacity deserves our special regard; not only as it refers us to the true measure of our obligations, but also because much ignorance and misunderstanding, have existed respecting it, together with erroneous notions, of extensive and injurious influence.

We now proceed to the less pleasing task of pointing out some unguarded statements in this work. Mr. Hinton, speaking of the moral government of God, says;

The wickedness of the wicked, is foreseen and permitted, but it is not predestinated, nor are its consequences. No man is foreordained, either to sin or to misery: sin is nothing but man's own act, and misery nothing but its inevitable companion. p. 92.

Some very peculiar ideas, we presume, are attached by Mr. H. to the phrase "foreordained to sin and misery." He must mean

by it, something very different from the simple notion of a divine purpose respecting a scheme of government, under which sin and misery are its foreseen and certain results. Would he deny, that sin and misery do in fact take place, in consequence of the work of God in the creation and government of the world? That their existence, in all their frightful extent, was by him distinctly foreknown, when, by witholding his creative power, he might have prevented them; that still he determined to proceed in his work; and in this sense may be said to bring them to pass according to the "counsel of his own will?" Generally, would he deny that the only wise God, has a plan in the government of the world; that with the certain fore-knowledge of all the results of his arrangements, he carries it forward; and in this manner has "foreordained whatsoever comes to pass?" He cannot doubt this. No consistent deist would deny it. Much less can any enlightened believer in the scriptures. It would be easy to multiply quotations from Mr. Hinton's own book, directly involving this doctrine. The whole difficulty, then, with Mr. H. in this case, lies in the use of the term foreordain. We presume he feels with Baxter, that this term implies a direct act on God's part, in the production of sin; or at least a choice of its existence in preference to holiness in its stead ;-suppositions which are equally abhorrent to the rectitude of God as an avenger, and his sincerity as a lawgiver. But, as we intimated above, a being is said, in the strictest sense of the term, to predetermine or foreordain the existence of a thing, if,-knowing that thing to be the certain result of a given system of measures on his part, he still decides to pursue those measures. Thus a watchmaker, in the act of determining to make a watch, determines also that friction shall exist somewhere, in the mechanism which he is about to produce. It makes no difference, plainly, as to the fact of the predetermination, whether the thing thus decided on, (as known to be involved in the measure chosen,) be desired or not in preference to its opposite. The measure is desired; and is chosen, determined upon, "foreordained," with all its known results; and these results, of course are embraced in the act of foreordination. If a given result, (as compared with its opposite,) is not desired but deprecated, then the choice is made on other grounds; and the measure is adopted notwithstanding this certain and foreseen result. Sin, plainly, in Mr. Hinton's view, is such a result; and he need not hesitate to say, in conformity with scripture and common sense, that it takes place "by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," or in other words, is foreordained.

In the same connection, the author says, "Whatever mystery there may be in the abstract question, how a being can be created so as to act independently of the Creator, it is certain that our Maker considers us, and that we feel ourselves, to be so constituVOL. V.

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ted." But in what sense can we be said to act independently of the Creator; when, as on the preceding page, the author says, "this individual, confused and often resultant action, voluntary and involuntary, is comprehended within the controlling power of the Almighty;" and when also, "he has a plan to which all this is subservient?" Manifestly not in the sense that we are personally independent of God; but only that when sustained in being and in the possession of our appropriate faculties, we have in ourselves the powers of action; so that our actions, though "subject to the controlling power of the Almighty," are yet properly our own and not his. So, indeed, he explains his meaning. "Closely linked as the Creator and creature must be," he adds, " since in him we live and move and have our being, whatever measure of independence is necessary to render our actions our own, God has given us, so that he is not the doer of our deeds."

There is yet another exceptionable form of expression, too important to be left unnoticed. In a part of the preface which we have already quoted in another connection, the author says, "you find the lover of sin arguing-that, whatever his crimes may be, it is clearly unreasonable to keep him everlastingly in the fire as a punishment for them." Were this all, it might be construed as only bringing forward an objection of "unreasonable and foolish men." But in the same sentence are grouped other complaints which the author manifestly considers to be founded in truth. He thus gives the sanction of his approbation to this. Accordingly in the Essay on "the Elements of Future Happiness and Misery," he has the following remarks.

It has been extensively conceived that the sufferings of the future state will be occasioned by fire. This idea has been eagerly caught at by infidels and other irreligious persons, as one entirely incredible and monstrous, and it has been made the occasion of turning the whole subject into derision. I confess that on this point I feel with the infidel ; and although, if it were contained in a well authenticated revelation from God, that transgressors of his law should be tormented in everlasting fire, I would bow to its authority, I should undoubtedly regard it as an inexplicable and awful mystery. I do not conceive such a sentiment, however, to have any place in the oracles of God. On the contrary, I am fully convinced that it is a popular misunderstanding of their phraseology, and that, according to the scriptures, hell is not fire. pp. 181, 182.

But in what respect would he be understood to sympathize with the infidel on this subject? In the sentiment that everlasting fire, as the punishment of the wicked, would be unreasonably terrible? Not in this surely; for having explained what he conceives to be the real sources of future misery, he says; "He must have slender ideas of the anguish of the soul, who imagines that he says something more adapted to excite alarm, when he speaks of being

burnt, than when he tells of the anger of his maker. Happy indeed might sinners be, if they could exchange the one hell for the other, and find their coming woe to be nothing worse than flames." It is obviously making a more powerful use of the term "fire," to take it as a metaphor for the illustration of something more awful than itself, than to understand it literally; and of nothing more awful or more appropriate can it be an emblem, than the wrath of God. It would seem then, that he considers a literal interpretation of the phraseology of the scriptures on this subject, unreasonable, not because the punishment of everlasting fire would be disproportionate to the sinner's desert, but because it is inconsistent with the character of the future state as exhibited in other scriptural representations. Our complaint, then, is the same as before, that he has adopted language which is suited to convey a false and dangerous impression. He plainly does not "feel with the infidel" on this point; for the quarrel of the infidel is not with a literal interpretation of the metaphor, but with the truth itself, which the metaphor is so terribly suited and designed to convey.

After all, however, we fear that Mr. Hinton's views of this subject are much too loose. In the Essay on Moral Government, he has the following remark.

The sources of misery to the disobedient are not constituted by gratuitous penalities, expressly invented or created for the crime; but in things which would have equally existed, and have been equally felt, whether employed for this purpose or not. Sin will be punished in part by the pain which cherished iniquity inevitably produces in the breast; and in part by the sense of God's disapprobation, which also, from the necessity of his holiness, must inevitably have been expressed. Hence, therefore, the moral government of God may be said to have no aspect of severity at all; since it creates no additional source of suffering, but merely employs, for the purpose of salutary discipline, such as already and inevitably exist. pp. 120, 121.

From such views of the punishment of sin we dissent. Whether the penalty of law, must consist or not, in something beyond the miseries inherent in transgression, it is certain that additional inflictions are declared by the supreme lawgiver, to be the actual expression of his displeasure at transgression. Such is the representation which the scriptures give of the subject. When our Savior brings before us the scenes of the last judgment, in that parable where the form of parable so impressively loses itself in a description of what nothing earthly could shadow forth, the terms of the sentence which, as he declares, the Judge "These shall go away,' will pronounce upon the wicked, are, not into everlasting misery-anguish-torment-but" into everlasting punishment." And what is the notion of punishment, but that of suffering directly inflicted for crimes, and by the authority offended, turned upon the person of the offender? And when we