especially, that he is unable to will to turn from sin unto God, or to prepare himself for so turning? It seems plain enough that this doctrine is involved in, or clearly and certainly deducible from, that of the complete and entire corruption or depravity of human nature. The doctrine of original sin or of native depravity,in the sense in which it is held by orthodox divines,-implies that man, in his natural condition, has no tendency or inclination towards what is spiritually good,-that all his tendencies or inclinations are towards what is evil,-and that he does and can do nothing which is really pleasing and acceptable to God. If he is wholly averse from all good and wholly inclined to all evil, it would seem that he cannot will any thing good; because the will or power of volition must be determined and characterised by the general tendency or disposition of the moral nature of the being who possesses and exercises it. God can and must always will what is good, because His moral nature is essentially and unchangeably holy. Man in his unfallen state could always will what is good, or as the Confession says, had freedom and power to will and to do what was acceptable to God, because he was possessed of a pure and holy moral nature, endowed with original righteousness. And upon the same ground, because man now has a wholly depraved or corrupted nature, without any original righteousness, he has no ability of will to any thing spiritually good.

This doctrine of the utter bondage of the will of men to sin because of depravity, or of the inability of men in their natural fallen condition to will or to do any thing spiritually good, is not entirely dependent for its scriptural evidence upon its being involved in, or necessarily deducible, from the doctrine of the entire and total, and not merely partial or comparative, corruption of man's moral nature by the fall. For there are scriptural statements about men's natural state which bear directly and immediately upon the more limited topic of their inability to will what is spiritually good. Still the connection between the two doctrines is such as to remind us of the vast importance of being thoroughly decided in our convictions as to what Scripture teaches concerning the natural state of man as a fallen and sinful creature, and thoroughly familiar with the scriptural materials by which our convictions may be established and defended. It was a service of inestimable value which Edwards rendered to sound Christian theology, when, in his work upon "Original Sin," he so conclu

sively and unanswerably established from Scripture, reason and experience, the great doctrine-"that all mankind are under the influence of a prevailing effectual tendency in their nature to that sin and wickedness which implies their utter and eternal ruin.” The conclusive demonstration of this "great Christian doctrine," or the unanswerable establishment of this great fact as an actual feature in the condition of all men, as they come into this world, entitles Edwards' work upon "Original Sin," notwithstanding some measure of obscurity and confusion on the subject of imputation, to be regarded as one of the most valuable, permanent, possessions of the Christian church.

The next stage in the history of the human race with respect to free will, viewed as being virtually the history of a man,—of one man,―at different periods (and this is the light in which the matter is really represented to us in Scripture), is thus described in the Confession.* "When God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by His grace enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good. Yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil." Here, again, there is freedom of will ascribed to man in his regenerate state, that is, an ability to will good as well as to will evil. In the regeneration of his nature the reigning power of depravity is subdued, and all the effects which it produced are more or less fully taken away. One of the principal of these effects was the utter bondage or servitude of the will to sin, because of the ungodly and depraved tendency of the whole moral nature to what was displeasing and offensive to God. This ungodly and depraved tendency is now in conversion, to a large extent, removed, and an opposite tendency is implanted. Thus the will is set free or emancipated from the bondage under which it was held. It is no longer subjected to a necessity, arising from the general character and tendency of man's moral nature,-to will only what is evil, but is now able also freely to will what is good; and it does freely will what is good, -though from the remaining corruption and depravity of man's nature,—it still wills also what is evil. It is not emancipated from the influence of God's decrees foreordaining whatever comes to

* Sec. iv.

pass. It is not placed beyond the control of His providence,— whereby in the execution of His decrees He ever rules and governs all His creatures and all their actions. It is not set free from the operation of those general laws which God has impressed upon man's mental constitution, for directing the exercise of his faculties and regulating his mental processes. But it is set free from the dominion of depravity; and thereby it is exempted from the necessity of willing only what is evil, and made equally able freely to will what is good. It has recovered, to a large extent, the only liberty it ever lost; and it is determined and characterised now, as it had been in all the previous stages of man's history, both before and after his fall,-by his general moral character and tendencies;-free to good, when man had the image of God and original righteousness, but yet mutable so that it could will evil,in bondage, when man was the slave of sin, so that it could will only evil and not good,―emancipated, when man was regenerated, so that it could freely will good as well as evil, though still bearing many traces of the former bondage and of its injurious effects; —and finally, to adopt again the language of the Confession, in closing the admirable chapter on this subject, "to be made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory."

The extract from Sir William Hamilton, on which chiefly we have been commenting, occurs in connection with a discussion embodying some important and valuable truth,-truth which admits of an obvious application to the exposition and defence of Christian, and especially of Calvinistic, doctrines. He declares his satisfaction in being able to show, that his doctrine of "the conditioned" harmonises with the general spirit of divine revelation, by inculcating humility in our speculations in the investigation of truth because of the imperfection and limitation of our faculties, by showing the unwarrantableness and absurdity of making our capacity of distinctly conceiving and fully comprehending doctrines, the measure or standard of their absolute truth, or of their consistency with each other; and the perfect reasonableness of believing upon sufficient grounds, things which in some respects are beyond our grasp, and cannot be fully taken in or comprehended by the exercise of our faculties when brought directly to bear upon them. Now all this is very important truth in connection with the exposition and defence of the great doctrines of revelation, and especially of the profound and mysterious doc

trines of Calvinism. Sir William has not here put forth any thing which is not in substance to be found in the writings of theologians, and which, indeed, has not been brought forward more or less fully, and established more or less conclusively, by every intelligent defender of Calvinism. But it is not very common to find matter of this sort in the writings of philosophers; and Sir William, by giving it his sanction, has done a real service to the cause of truth and orthodoxy. He could not, however, let this topic pass without indulging himself in some characteristic statements to which it may be proper briefly to advert. In his usual spirit he labours to convey the impression, that these views about the limitation of our faculties, and the bearing of this upon the discussion of mysterious doctrines, have not in general been understood and applied aright by theologians. He seems half inclined to insinuate, that these principles were little known till he promulgated them. But this was rather too absurd; and accordingly he feels constrained to make the following concession: "It must, however, be admitted, that confessions of the total inability of man to conceive the union of what he should believe united, are to be found, and they are found not perhaps less frequently, and certainly in more explicit terms, among Catholic than among Protestant theologians."* It is certainly quite true, as is here asserted, that such statements" are to be found,"-and indeed they constitute a perfectly familiar commonplace,-among orthodox theologians. The alleged greater explicitness of Catholics than Protestants in stating these principles, is a mere gratis dictum, which has no foundation in the realities of the case. This statement seems to have been hazarded for the mere purpose of ushering in a quotation from Cardinal Cajetan, which,-though about the best thing ever written upon the subject,-Sir William felt confident was wholly unknown to theologians now-a-days. He described the quotation as "the conclusion of what, though wholly overlooked, appears to me as the ablest and truest criticism of the many fruitless, if not futile, attempts at conciliating the ways of God to the understanding of man, in the great articles of divine foreknowledge and predestination (which are both embarrassed by the self-same difficulties) and human free will." Sir William describes the passage as "wholly overlooked," notwithstanding its

*Discussions, p. 627.

superlative merits. Now it so happens that we remember two instances,—and there are in all probability more,-in which this very quotation from Cajetan had been produced and commended by eminent writers, one of them being no other than Bayle, who so often furnishes passages to "persons of ordinary information." Gisbertus Voetius, one of the best known names in the theology of the seventeenth century,-a man who was, at least, as thoroughly versant in the literature of theology as Sir William was in that of philosophy, and who knew as much of the literature of philosophy as Sir William did of that of theology, has quoted with approbation a part of this passage from Cajetan, in a “Dissertatio Epistolica de Termino Vitæ," originally published in 1634, and republished at Utrecht in 1669 in the Appendix to the 5th volume of his "Selectæ Disputationes." The passage in Bayle is to be found in the second part of his "Response aux Questions d'un Provincial," where the extract from Cajetan is given as quoted with approbation by an eminent Dominician theologian, Alvarez, in a "Treatise de Auxiliis Divinæ Gratia." Sir William, then, was mistaken in representing this passage in Cajetan as "wholly overlooked." We do not suppose, indeed, that it was suggested to him by Voet or Bayle, for we rather suspect,—especially as the passage after all contains nothing very extraordinary, —that it was produced and paraded in the honest belief that no one knew anything about it but himself.

It may be worth while to mention, that the discussion in connection with which this passage is introduced by Bayle, is very similar to that in which Sir William brings it in. Bayle was doing on that occasion just what Sir William did in the immediately following part of his Appendix,-viz., collecting what he calls "Testimonies to the limitation of our knowledge from the limitation of our faculties." Bayle had often spoken very much to the same effect as Sir William has done, about the reasonableness and obligation of believing when we cannot know and fully comprehend. But this, coming from Bayle, was suspected of being intended to undermine the foundations of a rational faith; and to amount, in substance, very much to the same thing as Hume's well-known sneer about our holy religion being founded not on reason but on faith. Bayle defended himself against these

* P. 107.

+ Chap. 161, Euvres, vol. iii. p. 837.