do whatever, under the influence of the predominant motive, we are inclined, disposed, or willing to perform.

Calvinists of the old school deny the natural ability of the sinner to turn to God, and do his duty. He is utterly inca pacitated for the performance of right actions. His very nature is sinful, and must be changed, before he can do anything that God shall approve.

From views such as these, Hopkinsian writers dissent. They assert, as strongly as any others, the entire sinfulness of the natural man; but his sinfulness does not destroy the faculties of moral agency, but rather implies them. He is still a free, moral, responsible agent, and as such is naturally capable of doing his duty. His inability to perform it is wholly of the moral kind—the same which Joseph's brethren felt when they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him;" the same which Peter and John were under, when they "could not but speak the things which they they had seen and heard."

It is objected to what we have called natural ability that, if possessed at all, it must be a useless, worthless endowment; since, unless united with moral ability, or a moving, concurrent will, it accomplishes nothing in a way of action. It is admitted that mere natural ability, or faculties alone, accomplish nothing. Still it does not follow that this kind of ability is of no importance. Are not our faculties of body and mind important to us? What could we do, or how subsist as moral beings, without them? If mere natural ability accomplishes nothing, in a way of action, it is certain that nothing can be accomplished without it.

Besides, this kind of ability constitutes the ground and the measure of our moral obligation. We are morally bound to do, and God justly holds us responsible for doing, all the good which he has given us the natural ability, the capacity, to accomplish. We may not do this, or any part of it; but our neglect does not release us from the bonds of obligation. As God has given us our faculties, he may justly require us to exercise them all in his service. And this is all that he can justly require. Should he command us to exert powers

which he had not given us; should he command us to love him with more than all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, the requisition would be unreasonable.

It may be further remarked, that natural ability is essential to free-agency, and is the ground of it. We must have the power to choose and refuse, to turn this way, that, or the other, to act differently from what we do, or how can we be said to act freely?

There are others who would exclude moral ability and inability, at least from the nomenclature of theology. If the moral cannot is no other than a will not, then why not drop it altogether, and use will not in its stead?

To this we answer, first of all, that the moral cannot is found in all parts of the Bible; so that without recognizing the distinction between natural and moral inability, the Bible cannot be rightly interpreted or understood.

Nor is this phraseology peculiar to the Bible. It is found, as we have said, in all languages and in all books. It occurs continually in common conversation, and in reference to all subjects. Hence, to exclude it altogether from theology, would be to render the language of theology entirely different, in this respect, from any other language.

Besides, there is a propriety in this peculiar phraseology. This is evident from the general currency which it has obtained. It is also evident from the facts of the case. A moral inability is a real inability; very different in its nature from a natural inability, but not the less real. In every case of moral inability, though there may be the requisite faculties, there is wanting the predominant motive and the concurrent will, without which no action will be performed.

It should be further remarked, that the moral cannot is not altogether synonymous with will not. It expresses indisposition, aversion, unwillingness, with much greater emphasis and strength. It is sometimes said of sinners that they will not come to Christ; but when their criminal aversion to him is to be set forth in all its energy, the moral cannot is used: "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." It would but feebly set forth the moral

perfection of an angel, to say that he will not sin against God. We rather say, he cannot. It would be an equally inadequate use of terms to say of Satan, that he will not submit to God, and return to his duty. He cannot. Yet in both these cases, the cannot is altogether of a moral nature.

We have the strongest use of the moral cannot, when it is applied, as it often is in the scriptures, to the Supreme Being: "Your new moons and solemn assemblies I cannot away with " (Isa. i. 13). "In hope of eternal life which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world be gan" (Tit. i. 2). "He abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim. ii. 13). In each of these cases, the cannot expresses, not the want of natural ability, but the infinite aversion of the mind of God to everything that is wrong. It would be no honor to the Supreme Being to deny his natural ability to do wrong; for if he has no natural ability, or (which is the same) no faculties, no capacity, to do wrong, he has none to do right, or to do anything of a moral nature. But we do honor God, when we deny his moral ability to do wrong; for this implies that, though naturally able, as a moral agent, to do wrong, he never will do it; he is infinitely and immutably averse to it.

Hopkinsians attach a high importance to the maintenance. of the distinction here insisted on, and that for several reasons. In the first place, without a knowledge of this distinction, the case of the sinner under the gospel cannot be rightly understood. He is represented in scripture as being, in some sense, unable to come to Christ and to do his duty. But how unable? If naturally unable, then he has a sufficient excuse for not doing his duty; the same that he has for not lifting the mountains or creating worlds. But if his inability is altogether an aversion of will, constituting a rooted disinclination to come to Christ and do his duty, then he has no good excuse. An inability of this kind is obviously criminal; and the greater it is, the more criminal.

Again, without maintaining the distinction here insisted on, it is impossible, with any show of consistency, to give the right directions to the inquiring sinner. Those who

regard his inability as natural, one which he has no power of any kind to overcome, can only direct him to read and pray, and use means with such a heart as he has; while those who take the other view, will feel no hesitation in directing him, as God does, to make to himself a new heart and a new spirit; to repent of sin, and believe the gospel.

It may be further said that, without understanding the distinction in question, our need of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of his operations, cannot be rightly understood. We need the Holy Spirit, not to increase our natural ability, or to give us any new faculties or natural powers. Our difficulty lies, not in the want of faculties, but in the abuse of them. We need the influences of the Holy Spirit to overcome our moral inability - the natural aversion of our hearts to God. We need these influences to make us willing in the day of God's power-willing to use the faculties which God has given us, in his service and for his glory.

We only add that the distinction here illustrated requires to be understood, since without it, it is impossible to refute the cavils of the captious, or to justify the ways of God to man. Not a few of these objections which are urged against God and the claims of his gospel, owe all their plausibility to a confounding of the distinction between natural and moral ability and inability. "I knew thee, that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strewed;" requiring more of creatures than they have any power to perform, and then punishing them for not fulfilling a requirement so unreasonable. Now what shall be said to objections such as these? How shall they be met and answered, but by recurring to the obvious distinction between natural and moral ability? God does not require of his creatures beyond what they have the natural ability, the capacity, the faculties to perform. He justly blames them, and will punish them, unless they repent, not for failing to perform impossibilities, but for the perverseness of their hearts, which renders them morally unable to submit to his will and obey his gospel.

REGENERATION AND THE MEANS OF IT.

Those persons who believe in the active nature of sin and of holiness will also believe, if they are consistent, in the active nature of regeneration; and this constitutes another peculiarity of the Hopkinsian theology.

The advocates of a passive sinful nature make regeneration a passive change. It is a change wrought in the soul by the new creative power of the Holy Spirit, with which the subject of it has no active concern. It is a change, too, without which no duty can be acceptably performed, and nothing really good can be done. By the very nature of his depravity, the sinner is entirely disabled, and can only wait, either stolidly or anxiously, as the case may be, for the Spirit's power to be exerted, to take away the heart of stone and give the heart of flesh.

From such views of regeneration, Hopkinsian writers dissent. They regard the heart-in the moral, spiritual sense of the term as belonging, not to the substance or faculties of the soul, but to its affections. The sinful heart is made up of sinful exercises or affections; the holy heart, of holy affections; and a change of heart is a change in the affections, from those which are sinful to those which are holy. Of course, it is an active change. It is the first yielding of the sinner to the motives and influences of the gospel; the first turning of his heart from sin to holiness, and from the power of Satan unto God. The change is wrought in the soul by the power of truth and of the Holy Ghost, but in perfect consistency with the free and natural actings of the human mind; so that, while it may be truly said that God gives the new heart and the new spirit, it may be said as truly that the sinner makes to himself a new heart and a new spirit, and comes, of his own accord, into the embrace of the gospel. -The arguments by which Hopkinsians maintain these views of regeneration are the following:

1 We use the word regeneration here in the larger sense, as synonomous with the new birth, a change of heart, conversion, etc.