short Scriptural road to a conclusion, which must have been circuitously reached in any other way. Just and peremptory as these conclusions may be, they commanded no respect out of the pale of the church; nay, they rather excited the scorn of those who naturally said-If these principles could have been established by abstract argument, a thinker so profound as Edwards, and so fond of metaphysics, would not have proved them by the Bible.

Sceptics of all classes (it has ever been the practice and policy of the powers of evil to build with plundered materials), availing themselves greedily of the abstract portions of the inquiry, and contemning its Biblical connectives and conclusions, carried on the unfinished reasoning in their own manner; and when they had completed their edifice of gloom and fear, turned impudently to the faithful, and said-" Nay, quarrel not with our labours; the foundations were laid by one of yourselves!"

Notwithstanding this unhappy and accidental result of the argument for moral causation, as conducted by Edwards, this celebrated treatise must be allowed to have achieved an important service for Christianity, inasmuch as it has stood like a bulwark in front of principles which, whether or not they may hitherto have been stated in the happiest manner, are of such consequence, that if they were once, and universally abandoned by the church, the church itself would not long make good its opposition to infidelity. Let it be granted that Calvinism has often existed in a state of mixture with crude, or presumptuous, or preposterous dogmas. Yet surely, whoever is competent to take a calm, an

independent, and a truly philosophic survey of the Christian system, and can calculate also the balancings of opinion-the antitheses of belief, will grant, that if Calvinism, in the modern sense of the term,* were quite exploded, a long time could not elapse before evangelical Arminianism would find itself driven helplessly into the gulf that had yawned to receive its rival; and to this catastrophe must quickly succeed the triumph of the dead rationalism of Neology; and then that of Atheism.

Whatever notions of an exaggerated sort may belong to some Calvinists, Calvinism, as distinguished from Arminianism, encircles or involves GREAT TRUTHS, which, whether dimly or clearly discerned whether defended in Scriptural simplicity of language, or deformed by grievous perversions, will never be abandoned while the Bible continues to be devoutly read; and which, if they might indeed be subverted, would drag to the same ruin every doctrine of revealed religion. Zealous, dogmatical, and sincere Arminians little think how much they owe to the writer who, more than any other in modern times, has withstood their inconsiderate endeavours to impugn certain prominent articles of the Reformation. Nay, they think not that, to the existence of Calvinism they owe their own, as Christians. Yet as much as this might be affirmed, and made good; even though he who should undertake the task were so to con

It is hardly necessary to say, that the term Calvinism is used without any reference to the particular opinions of the illustrious divine who has given his name to a system of doctrine much older than the age of the Reformation.

duct his argument as might make six Calvinists in ten his enemies.

Yet it will not be affirmed (unless by the advocates of a party) that the treatise on the Will is in itself complete; or that it is open to no reasonable objection on the part of those who refuse to admit its conclusions; or that it leaves nothing to be desired in this department of theological science. Very far, we think, is this from being the fact. Edwards achieved, indeed, his immediate object-that of exposing to contempt, in all its evasions, the Arminian notion of contingency, as the blind law of human volitions and he did more;-he effectively redeemed the doctrines called Calvinistic from that scorn with which the irreligious party, within and without the pale of Christianity, would fain have overwhelmed them:—he taught the world to be less flippant; and there is reason also to surmise (though the facts are not to be distinctly adduced) that, in the re-action which of late has counterpoised the once triumphant Arminianism of English episcopal divinity, the influence of Edwards has been much greater than those who have yielded to it have always confessed.

But if the inquiry on Freedom of Will is regarded, and it ought to be so regarded, as a scientific treatise, then we must vehemently protest against that mixture (already alluded to) of metaphysical demonstrations and Scriptural evidence, which runs through it, breaking up the chain of argumentation-disparaging the authority of the Bible, by making it part and parcel with disputable abstractions; and worse, destroying both the lustre and the edge of the

sword of the Spirit, by using it as a mere weapon of metaphysical warfare. Yet, in justice to Edwards it must be remembered, that while pursuing this course, he did but follow in the track of all who had gone before him. To this ancient evil we must again advert.

But, besides the improper mixture of abstract reasoning with documentary proof, the attentive reader of Edwards will detect a confusion of another sort, less palpable indeed, but of not less fatal consequence to the consistency of a philosophical argument; and which, though sanctioned by the highest authorities, in all times, and recommended by the example of the most eminent writers, even to the present moment, must, so long as it is adhered to, hold intellectual philosophy far in the rear of the physical and mathematical sciences. For the present it is enough just to point out the error of method alluded to, remitting the further consideration of it to a subsequent page.

It is that of mingling purely abstract propositions-propositions strictly metaphysical,* with facts belonging to the physiology of the human mind. Even the reader who is scarcely at all familiar with abstruse science, will, if he follow our author attentively, be perpetually conscious of a vague dissatisfaction, or latent suspicion, that some fallacy has passed into the train of propositions, although the linking of syllogisms seems perfect. This suspicion will increase in strength as he proceeds, and will at length con

The reader is referred also to a subsequent page of this

Essay for a definition of the sense in which the writer employs

the term metaphysics, as distinguished from the physiology of the mind.

dense itself into the form of a protest against certain conclusions, notwithstanding their apparently necessary connexion with the premises.

The condition of those purely abstract truths which constitute the higher metaphysics is, that they might (though no good purpose could be answered by doing so) be expressed by algebraic or other arbitrary signs; and in that form made to pass through the process of syllogistic reasoning; certain conclusions being attained which must be assented to, independently of any reference to the actual constitution of human nature or to that of other sentient beings. These abstractions stand parallel with the truths of pure mathematics.-And it may be said of both, that the human mind masters them, comprehends and perceives their properties and relations, and feels that the materials of its cogitation lie all within its grasp, are exposed to its inspection, and need not be gathered from observation. To such abstractions the artificial methods of logic are applicable.

Not so to our reasonings when the actual conformation of either the material world, or of the animal system, or of the mental, is the subject of inquiry. Logic may place in their true relative position things already known; but it aids us not at all (the logic of syllogism) in the discovery of things unknown. Hence it follows, that if an inquiry, the ultimate facts of which relate to the agency and moral condition of man, be conducted in the method that is proper to pure abstractions, and if, as often as the argument demands it, new materials are brought in, unexamined, from the actual conformation of the human mind, very much may be taken for