matic exhibition of the doctrines of the Bible, as resting on the authority of a divine revelation; under the latter we should expect to find, what is here presented, a regular evolution from certain radical principles of a code of moral laws. We wish it to be distinctly understood, that we neither deny nor lightly estimate works of the kind just described. There can be no higher or more worthy subject of study, apart from the Word of God, than the human soul, the laws which regulate its action and determine its obligations. Nor do we suppose that these subjects can ever be divorced from theology. They occupy so much ground in common, that they never have been and never can be kept distinct. But still it is very important that things should be called by their right names, and not presented to the public for what they are not. Let moral philosophy be called moral philosophy, and not systematic theology. While we admit that the philosophical and theological element, in any system of Christian doctrine, cannot be kept distinct, it is of the last importance that they should be kept, as already remarked, in their proper relative position. There is a view of free agency and of the grounds and extent of moral obligation, which is perfectly compatible with the doctrines of original sin, efficacious grace, and divine sovereignty; and there is another view of those subjects as obviously incompatible with these doctrines. There are two courses which a theologian may adopt. He may either turn to the Scriptures, and ascertain whether those doctrines are really taught therein. If satisfied on that point, and especially if he experience through the teaching of the Holy Spirit their power on his own heart, if they become to him matters not merely of speculative belief but of experimental knowledge, he will be constrained to make his philosophy agree with his theology. He cannot consciously hold contradictory propositions, and must therefore make his conviction harmonise as far as he can; and those founded on the testimony of the Spirit will modify and control the conclusions to which his own understanding would lead him. Or he may begin with his philosophy, and determine what is true with regard to the nature of man and his responsibilities, and then turn to the Scriptures and force them into agreement with foregone conclusions. Every one in the slightest degree acquainted with the history of theology knows that this latter course has been adopted by errorists from the ages to the present day. Our own age has witnessed what must be regarded as on the whole a very beneficial change in this respect. Rationalists, instead of coercing Scripture into agreement with their philosophy, have agreed to let each stand on its own foundation. The modern systems of theology proceeding from that school give first the doctrines as they are earliest presented in the Bible, and then examine how far those doctrines agree with, and how far they contradict, the teachings of philosophy, or, as they are commonly regarded, the deductions of reason. As soon as public sentiment allows of this course being pursued in this country, it will be a great relief to all concerned. We do not, however, mean to intimate that those who among ourselves pursue the opposite course, and who draw out that system of moral and religious truth, as they sometimes express it, which every man has in the constitution of his own nature, before they go to the Bible for instruction, and whose system is therefore essentially rationalistic, are insincere in their professions of faith in the Bible. It is too familiar a fact to be doubted, that if a man is previously convinced the Scriptures cannot teach certain doctrines, it is no difficult task for him to persuade himself that they do not in fact teach them. Still, there is a right and a wrong method of studying and teaching theology; there is a healthful and an unhealthful posture of mind to be preserved towards the Word of God. And we confess that when we see a system of theology beginning with moral government, we take it for granted that the Bible is to be allowed only a very humble part in its construction.* There is one other general remark we would make on the work before us. We object not only to the method adopted, to the assumption that from a few postulates the whole science of religion can be deduced by a logical process, but to the mode in which the method has been carried out. As all truth is consistent, as some moral and religious truths are self-evident, and as all correct deductions from correct premises must themselves be correct, it is of course conceivable that an à priori system of morals and religion might be constructed, which, as far as it went, would agree exactly with the infallible teachings of the Bible. But apart from the almost insurmountable difficulties in the way of the successful execution of such a task, and the comparatively slight authority that could be claimed for any such production, every thing depends upon the manner in which the plan is executed. Now, we object to Mr Finney's mode of procedure that he adopts as first principles the very points in dispute. He postulates what none but a limited class of his readers are prepared to concede. His whole ground * We were struck with an amusing illustration of Mr Finney's reigning passion, in the last number of the Oberlin Quarterly Review. It seems a physician, Dr Jennings, has written a medical work, which he submitted to Mr Finney for his inspection. The latter gentleman tells the doctor that he has long been convinced that there must be some à priori method in medicine, some self-evident principle, from which the whole science of disease and cure may be logically deduced; and he encourages his friend in his attempts to discover and establish that principle. All patients have reason to rejoice that Mr Finney is not a physician. To be doctored on à priori principles would be as bad for the body as it is for the soul to be dosed with à priori theology. work, therefore, is defective. He has built his tower on contested ground. As a single example of this fundamental logical error, we refer to his confounding liberty and ability. In postulating the one, he postulates also the other. It is a conceded point that man is a free agent. The author, therefore, is authorised to lay down as one of his axioms that liberty is essential to moral agency; but he is not authorised to assume as an axiom that liberty and ability are identical. He defines free will to be "the power to choose, in every instance, in accordance with moral obligation, or to refuse so to choose. This much," he adds, "must be included in free will, and I am not concerned to affirm any thing more."-(P. 32.) "To talk of inability to obey moral law is to talk sheer nonsense." (P. 4.) Mr Finney knows very well that he has thus taken for granted what has been denied by nine-tenths of all good men since the world began, and is still denied by no small portion of them, as we verily hope and believe. This is a point that cannot be settled by a definition ex cathedra. He is guilty of a petitio principii when he lays it down as an axiom that liberty implies ability to obey moral law, and consequently that responsibility is limited by ability. This is one of the assumptions on which his whole system depends; it is one of the hooks from which is strung his long concatenation of sequences. We deny the right of Mr Finney to assume this definition of liberty as a "first truth of reason," because it lacks both the essential characteristics of such truths; it neither forces assent as soon as intelligibly stated, nor does it constitute a part of the instinctive (even if latent) faith of all mankind. On the contrary, it is intelligently denied, not only by theorists and philosophers, but by the great mass of ordinary men. It is one of the most familiar facts of consciousness, that a sense of obligation is perfectly consistent with a conviction of entire inability. The evidence of this is impressed on the devotional language of all churches and ages; the hymns and prayers of all people recognise at once their guilt and helplessness, a conviction that they ought and that they cannot, and a consequent calling upon God for help. It is a dictum of philosophers, not of common people, "I ought, therefore I can; to which every unsophisticated human heart, and especially every heart burdened with a sense of sin, replies, "I ought to be able, but I am not."* Mr Finney would doubtless say to such people, this is "sheer nonsense," it is all a false philosophy; no man is bound to do or to be what is not completely and at all times in his own power. This does not alter the case. Men still * Kant's favourite maxim, Ich soll, also kann ich, for which Julius Mueller would substitute, Ich sollte freilich können, aber ich kann nicht. Müller's Lehre von der Sünde, vol. ii. p. 116. feel at once their obligation and their helplessness, and calling them fools for so doing will not destroy their painful conviction of their real condition. As the doctrine, the very opposite of Mr Finney's assumed axiom, is thus deeply and indelibly impressed on the heart of man, so it is constantly asserted or assumed in Scripture. The Bible nowhere asserts the ability of fallen man to make himself holy; it in a multitude of places asserts just the reverse; and all the provisions and promises of grace, and all the prayers and thanksgivings for holiness, recorded in the Scriptures, take for granted that men cannot make themselves holy. This, therefore, has been and is the doctrine of every Christian church under the sun, unless that of Oberlin* be an exception. There is no confession of the Greek, Romish, Lutheran, or Reformed churches, in which this truth is not openly avowed. It was, says Neander, the radical principle of Pelagius's system that he assumed moral liberty to consist in the ability, at any moment, to choose between good and evil,† or, as Mr Finney expresses it, "in the power to choose, in every instance, in accordance with moral law." It is an undisputed historical fact that this view of liberty has not been adopted in the confession of any one denominational church in Christendom, but is expressly repudiated by them all. We are not concerned, at present, to prove or disprove the correctness of this definition. Our only object is to show that Mr Finney had no right to assume as an axiom or a first truth of reason, a doctrine which nine-tenths of all Christians intelligently and constantly reject. He himself tells us that "a first truth" is one "universally and necessarily assumed by all moral agents, their speculations to the contrary notwithstanding. Now, it has rather too much the appearance of effrontery for any man to assert (in reference to any thing which relates to the common consciousness of men) that to be a truth universally and necessarily believed by all moral agents, which the vast majority of such agents, as intelligent and as capable of interpreting their own consciousness as himself, openly and constantly deny. This is only one illustration of the objection to Mr Finney's method, that he gratuitously assumes controverted points as first truths or axioms. A second objection to his mode of executing his task is, that he gives himself up to the exclusive guidance of the understanding. We do not mean that he neglects the Scriptures or makes them subordinate to reason. On that characteristic of his work we have already remarked. We now refer to the fact that it is not the informed and informing soul of man which he studies, and whence he deduces his principles and * Oberlin is the location of Mr Finney's Theological Seminary.-ED. conclusions. He will listen to nothing but the understanding. He spurns what he calls the "empirical consciousness," and denies its right to bear any testimony in relation to what is truth. It is not easy indeed to determine, by his definitions, what he means by the intelligence, to which he so constantly appeals, and to which he ascribes such supremacy. He tells us at times, that it includes reason, conscience, and self-consciousness. Of reason, he says, It is the intuitive faculty or function of the intellect; that which gives us the knowledge of the absolute, the infinite, the perfect, the necessarily true. It postulates all the à priori truths of science. "Conscience is the faculty or function of the intelligence that recognises the conformity or disconformity of the heart or life to the moral law, as it lies revealed in the reason, and also awards praise to conformity, and blame to disconformity to that law." "Consciousness is the faculty or function of self-knowledge. It is the faculty that recognises our own existence, mental actions and states, together with the attributes of liberty or necessity belonging to those actions and states." To complete the view of his psychology, we must repeat his definition of the two other constituent faculties of our nature, viz., the sensibility and will. The former "is the faculty or susceptibility of feeling. All sensation, desire, emotion, passion, pain, pleasure, and in short every kind and degree of feeling, as the term is commonly used, is a phenomenon of this faculty." The will, as before stated, is defined to be the power to " choose, in every instance, in accordance with the moral obligation, or to refuse so to choose."' "The will is the voluntary power. In it resides the power of causality. As consciousness gives the affirmation that necessity is an attribute of the phenomena of the intellect and the sensibility, so it just as unequivocally gives the affirmation that liberty is an attribute of the phenomena of the will." "I am as conscious of being free in willing, as I am of not being free or voluntary in my feelings and intuitions." -(Pp. 30-32.) Here is an analysis of the faculties of the soul in which the understanding finds no place. It is not included in the intellect, for that is said to embrace only reason, conscience, and consciousness, and reason so defined as to distinguish it from the understanding. Here is Vernunft, but where is the, Verstand? The fact is that Mr Finney has for this once, and for once only, lapsed into transcendentalism. He has taken the definition of the reason from Cousin, or some other expounder of the modern philosophy, without remembering that according to that philosophy, reason is something very different from the understanding. This latter faculty has thus been dropped out of his catalogue. This, however, is only a momentary weakness. Mr Finney is the |