ment which are irresistible; or by causing a certainty that the moral actions of men will be what they are.

Is it, then, necessary to suppose that, if God has purposes relative to the moral actions of men, he must, in their execution, employ influences which are irresistible, and which leave no room for freedom or choice on the part of men? We may suppose him to employ two classes of influences, in consequence of his purposes, viz. the common influences of motives, and the special influences of his Spirit. And is there anything in the influence of motives to which God subjects men, inconsistent with their free-agency? They cannot act morally without motives; and if in any case the influence of motives which secures choice be consistent with freedom, then may it be consistent with freedom in all cases. And does any one suppose that when men by motives influence one another to action they thereby impair the freedom of their action? And cannot God influence a man by motives without interfering with his freedom, as well as a fellow-man can? It matters not by whom motives are employed; the nature of their influence is always the same; and if that influence be an irresistible energy necessitating all human action which it secures, then is there no such thing as free-agency in the universe, and no such thing is possible; and therefore it is idle to object to the doctrine of divine decrees on the ground of its inconsistency with the doctrine of free-agency, since there is, and can be, no free-agency for decrees to interfere with.

But such is not the nature of motives. They are necessary to all choices, but choices are never a necessary consequence of them. They influence the will, but do not compel it. Men yield to motives, but they yield freely, and might in all cases and ought in many cases, to resist them. The perfect consistency of motive-influence with moral freedom is attested by the consciousness of every man. There is nothing, therefore, in those ordinary influences which the decrees of God may be supposed to cause him to employ in securing their fulfilment which in the least degree sustains the objection we are considering.

The same is true of whatever special influences God may be supposed to exert upon men in consequence of his decrees. Such influences he doubtless does exert in securing right moral action, whether it be in consequence of his decrees or not. But do these special influences of the Holy Spirit subvert human freedom? Are they irresistible and compulsory? There is no more evidence that they are than there is that the influences of motives are. We may, for aught that appears to the contrary, act as freely under the special influences of the Holy Spirit, either yielding or resisting, as we do under any other influence. The immediate, no more than the mediate, agency of God can be shown to conflict, in the slightest degree, with the free agency of those who are the subjects of it. And if those special influences which God actually does exert on men may consist with their freedom, the case is not altered by supposing those influences exerted in the execution of decrees. The influences themselves are precisely the same in kind and degree, whether they emanate from decrees or not. They may, therefore, emanate from decrees, and yet leave the free-agency of man uninfringed.

If, then, the divine decrees do not interfere with human freedom, by causing God to exert on men any irresistible influences, do they, by causing a certainty that men will act as they do?

That the divine decrees do, through the divine agency in their execution, render the moral acts of men certain, is involved in our statement of the doctrine, and is explicitly maintained in our discussion. But is the certainty of a moral act thus secured, inconsistent with the freedom of the act? How inconsistent? Why may not the freedom of the act be made certain as well as the act itself? This we believe to be the case. The freedom of all moral acts is one of the things decreed and made certain. God has eternally determined that nothing shall interfere with man's free-agency. But still many cling to the belief that certainty does somehow prevent a moral act from being free, that is, necessitates its existence. But the mere fact that an

event will take place, has no causal relation to the production of that event, and exerts no influence whatever that tends to bring the event into existence. The fact that a man certainly will act in a given way, does not necessitate his acting thus, nor influence his will in the least. He acts just as freely as if there were no certainty in the case. Certainty is not necessity, and does not produce necessity. Here is where this objection takes its rise. Things radically diverse, are confounded, or are supposed to be inseparably connected. Let the real distinction between certainty and necessity be clearly apprehended and held fast; let it be seen that there is a wide difference between a will be and a must be, and all ground for the supposed interference of divine decrees with free-agency will vanish.

But if the certainty of moral acts is inconsistent with their freedom, then the difficulty is one which others have to encounter, as well as the advocates of the doctrine of decrees. All events prophetically announced were certain to occur. A prophecy or prediction of an uncertain event would only be a guess or surmise. But the conduct of men was repeatedly foretold. The Jews' rejection and crucifixion of Christ, for example, was announced by Isaiah centuries before the advent. Were not the Jews, therefore, free and responsible in their shameful treatment of the Saviour? So, likewise, if certainty renders events necessary, then all foreknown events are necessary, whether they are foretold or not, for all foreknown events are certain. Foreknowledge does not make an event certain, but proves it to be already made certain. Its future existence cannot be known, if it be at all uncertain. Every possible future event is either certain or uncertain. If it is uncertain, it cannot be certain, and therefore cannot be known to be certain. In other words, its certainty must be a fixed reality, before its future existence can be an object of foreknowledge. Whoever, therefore, holds that God foreknows the moral acts of men, must either believe that they are not free, or else admit that their certainty does not interfere with their freedom. Nor is the difficulty avoided even by a denial of foreknowledge in

respect to moral acts; for events are certain, whether they are known or not. With reference to events which have taken place, we can conceive of a point in the past when they were future, and when it was certain that they would take place. So if any events shall hereafter take place, their future existence is, by the very supposition, now certain: they will be. This is as true of events in the moral as in the natural world. If, therefore, certainty causes or implies necessity, all events are necessary, and there is, and can be, no such thing as moral freedom, or free-agency, in the whole created universe; yea, and God himself is no more free than his creatures are; for surely his own acts are certain, and are foreknown, and therefore on this supposition necessary, so that the whole universe, the Creator included, is under the iron dominion of relentless fate. There is no logical escape from bald fatalism, if we take the ground that certainty and necessity are identical, or are inseparably connected. If we shrink from the conclusion, let us abandon the premise. And if it once be conceded that moral actions may be certain without being necessary, then the objection against the doctrine of decrees which we are considering falls to the ground. If certainty is ever consistent with free-agency, it is none the less so when it results from a divine decree. men can freely choose, as they do, while there is a previous certainty that they will thus choose, then can they choose freely while there are divine decrees, which render their choices certain.

If

Thus we find no evidence, either from the nature of freeagency or from the nature of decrees, that the two doctrines are inconsistent one with the other. Why then should an inconsistency be supposed, of which no proof can be found? We need not attempt to prove that they are consistent; still less to show how they are consistent; it is enough that there is not a shadow of proof that they are inconsistent.

A third objection often brought against the doctrine of divine decrees is drawn from its supposed bad practical influence. It is charged with a tendency to discourage effort and prayer, and to induce those adopting it to lead a care

ence.

less and inactive life. Some rejecters of the doctrine go no further than to deny that it has any good practical influThus Archbishop Whately says of one aspect of this doctrine, election: "When thus explained, it is reduced to purely speculative dogma, barren of all practical results ;" and of this and kindred Calvinistic doctrines he observes: "It is not contended that the doctrines in question have a hurtful influence on human conduct, and consequently are untrue; but that they have, according to the soundest exposition of them, no influence on our conduct whatever; and consequently that they are not to be taught as revealed truths." But how can we be sufficiently sure that a doctrine has no practical influence, to be warranted in deciding on this ground alone that it is not scriptural? A doctrine, though it may not directly point to and enforce any duty, may yet have a moulding influence on the entire character, and constitute one of those inward moral forces which shape the whole outward life. We are all daily influenced by truths to which we do not often have any conscious reference. They are not so much objective as subjective motives. Held among our fixed convictions, they may be ever silently working out their legitimate and beneficent results, although we may be unable to trace those results to their cause. It is not safe, therefore, to set aside a doctrine either as untrue, or unscriptural, simply because we cannot see that it exerts any good moral influence.

But most of those who reject the doctrine of decrees, go further than Whately does, and assert that it exerts a positively hurtful influence on those who hold it; or at least that its legitimate tendency is pernicious, though it is often escaped by a happy inconsistency. In reply to this objection we would observe:

(a) It cannot be shown that the doctrine generally exerts a hurtful influence on those who embrace it. If an appeal be made to facts, or rather to the character and lives of men, Calvinists need not shrink from the test. Without any disparagement of others, it may confidently be affirmed that

Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul, Essay 3.