that this consequence does not take place, only because one or the other of these doctrines is not really believed, or because one or the other of them is not adapted at all in its nature to become incorporated with the inward life of the spirit as a principle of living action. But I affirm, now, that this is not the case. The doctrines may dwell together as practical_sentiments in the same mind, without any sort of conflict. In this view, they give rise to no difficulty whatever.

We sometimes hear it said, that the doctrine of election is not practical. The speculative difficulty that grows out of it is admitted to have no bearing upon practice, and so it is inferred that. it is no matter whether people hold it or not. It is looked upon as a mere notion or metaphysical abstraction. But this is a wrong view of the case entirely. The difficulty that occurs from a comparison of this doctrine with the doctrine of human liberty, is indeed only in speculation, and has nothing to do with practice; but both of the doctrines themselves are practical in an eminent degree, and the one not more so than the other. It is as an object of sentiment mainly that the doctrine of election is important: It is only when it becomes incorporated with the interior feeling of the soul, that it can be said to be properly realized at all.

Both the doctrines now under consideration are practical, we say, in the highest degree; and they are found, at the same time, to harmonize under this character, in the most perfect manner. They can be felt by the same mind, and at the same time, without any attending sense of opposition or discord whatever. The one feeling has no tendency at all to destroy the other. They can live together, and stand out with equal distinctness upon the consciousness of the spirit, without bringing into it any sort of distraction or disunion. No schism is experienced in the inner man, under the presence of two forces, which speculatively regarded seem so hard to be reconciled. The soul feels it perfect. ly possible to admit in its living experience both the one and the other, without the least sense of violence done to its moral nature, or the smallest confusion of its moral views and feelings. The two articles of its faith subsist together in perfect agree.

it, and are not found to have the slightest disposition to clash with each other in their authority. And in fact, they impart vigor mutually one to the other. The sentiment of personal free agency is never so full, as when men have the deepest impression upon their spirits of the sovereignty of God; and the more truly they realize their moral accountability, and the necessity of their being active themselves in the business of their salvation, the more entirely will they feel their need of help from on high, and enter into the meaning of the declaration, that no man cometh unto the Saviour except the Father draw him.

The two sentiments sustain each other in the soul in which they dwell; and their influence, accordingly, upon the activities

of life, is the combined action of harmonious principles tending to the very best results. The idea of absolute sovereignty on the part of God, has been represented to be inimical to righte ousness on the part of men: as tending to destroy the sense of personal responsibility, and to inspire the mind with presumptu ous hope, on the one hand, or presumptuous despair, on the other. But however it may seem in theory, the operation of the doctrine, where it is practically felt, is in fact widely different. The two ideas create no schism within, and are attended with no conflicting operation in the forms of action to which they give

.rise.

In support of all that I have now been saying upon this point, I appeal to facts which are open to the observation of all. His tory is full of confirmation on the subject. Have the holders of the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty, in different ages of the world, been doubters on the question of their own free agen cy? or have they showed themselves less diligent than others, in the cultivation of all that pertains to virtuous character? Quite the reverse. The doctrine has ever stood in close union with high ideas of responsibility, and severe views of duty. Even when it has degenerated into an extreme, bordering upon fatalism itself, as it has often done, it has still been found more friendly far to the interests of morality, than the idea which makes man independent of God in order to make him free. It always enter. ed as an element into the best of the heathen systems of philoso> phy, and was that which, more than any thing else, seems to have given them whatever power they had. The sect of Zeno, among the Greeks, was vastly better in this respect than that of Epicurus. The Pharisees, among the Jews, with all their hypocrisy and formality, had a greater zeal for righteousness than the Sadducees. The Catholic Jansenists were immeasureably better Christians, than the Jesuits. And disguise the matter as men may, it cannot be denied that the faith of election has been connected with some of the brightest exhibitions of piety the world ever saw, among the ancient "witnesses for the truth," and the protestant churches of modern times.

And then, there are living this day, thousands of honest and intelligent persons, who assure us, that they have in their minds the most distinct consciousness of both the sentiments of which I have been speaking, without any sense of collision between them; while their own excellent lives bear witness that no relaxation whatever of the claims of religion is suffered in consequence. Shall we not give credit to what they say on this subject?

But I may go still farther. I appeal to every man's own consciousness for proof of my general statement. Whose mind is set at war with itself, by admitting the sentiment of God's abso lute sovereignty, at one and the same time with the sentiment of its own moral liberty? I venture to say, such a mind cannot be

found. The speculative contemplation of these things, may cre ate embarrassment; but the felt presence of them in the human spirit, never did. The vivid idea of dependence upon God, thus realized, never paralyzes the proper energies of the soul, though the absence of that idea is found lulling them into a deadly torpor every day. Every child of God, in remembering the history of his own conversion, will bear me witness to the truth of this assertion. And you, that have never yet yielded yourselves to God! ye can bear me witness too. Is it a deep and awful feeling of the sovereignty of God, that holds your spirits inactive in this mighty interest? Or rather, is it not just because you have no sentiment of this sort upon your souls at all, and because you flatter yourselves that you have it in your power to turn to God when you please, even though it should be upon a dying bed, that you are able to dream away life as you do? Let conscience answer.

Now we can have no more conclusive evidence of the harmony of the doctrines we have been considering, than this that I have now stated. We saw, a little while ago, that the doctrines might be in fact consistent, though the speculative difficulty attending them should be wholly insurmountable; and now we have the most satisfactory proof, that they are consistent. Whether we can solve the problem in its abstract form or not, we have it verified as an indisputable fact in the constitution of our own nature; and that is a better ground of trust immeasurably than any speculative argument can possibly be. And here we ought to plant our reason, rather than upon any other ground, when assailed with objection on this subject. Let the caviler speculate as he may, he cannot overthrow an ultimate sentiment in our nature. That is of more account in the eye of true philosophy, than all his abstractions; and when he has reasoned to the uttermost, we are stronger than he, if we can turn to our own moral constitution, and there show him FALSE TO FACT.

5. IT CAN BE SHOWN, THAT EVEN WHEN contemplated in the ABSTRACT, THE DOCTRINES UNDER CONSIDERATION DO NOT COME INTO

ANY REAL CONFLICT WITH EACH OTHER. We do not mean to say, that the mode of their ultimate reconciliation, as it takes place far back in the original ground of all being, can be made plainly apparent to the human mind; but we may see even in specula. tion, that the difficulty is only in appearance, and not real. We may see, that the two great ideas to which it relates, do not come into contradiction; that they are distinct and independent forms of truth, either of which stands entirely and eternally clear of the proper range of the other.

The doctrine of God's decrees in relation human actions, involves no other consequence, in regard to the actions themselves, than that they are CERTAIN; or, in other words, that they will take

place in one way, and in no other. The principle of this certain ty, the particular manner of it, the constitution on which it may be found to depend, is not at all touched by the fore-ordination out of which it takes its rise. We can conceive of different con⚫ stitutions of life, equally compatible with the idea of absolute cer tainty, in all their results. A series of events may take place in conformity with one kind of law, or it may take place in conformity with another kind of law, and be in both cases equally certain. Mere certainty is not affected by the way in which things are brought about; and the decrees of God, in rendering human actions certain, need not interfere, and do not interfere at all, with the principle of moral liberty in accordance with which they take place. Actions may be absolutely certain, and yet ab solutely free. Nay more; in order to be free at all, it is indispensably necessary that they should be certain.

Actions, I say, may be certain, and yet perfectly free. Certain ty and freeness are not in opposition to each other at all, and do not in fact touch upon the events to which they belong, under the same aspect in any degree. To say, that an action is certain, has nothing to do with the question whether it be free or other. wise; it may be so, or it may not be so, and yet be equally certain in both cases. The will is free when it acts according to its own constitutional laws, though in thus acting its movements are just as certain, that is, just as sure to take place in one particular way and not in another, as any of the changes which are occurring in the material creation, under the different kind of laws to which it is subject. And the greater the determination with which, in any given instance, the results of volition may be brought about, the more conspicuously free will they appear. We may sometimes calculate with absolute certainty, how a particular individual will act in certain circumstances; but we never feel as if the certainty of the result that is to take place in such cases, stood at all in the way of its being morally free. We are sure, that a certain course of conduct will take place, we calculate upon it with as much confidence as we do upon the rising of the sun the next morning; and yet we are perfectly satisfied all the time, that not the smallest constraint will be put upon the will of the person by whom it is to be exhibited, and never dream for a moment of questioning the liberty with which he is about to act. And we find no difficulty whatever in holding these two ideas, at one and the same time, in our minds. We can think in this case of an action being perfectly certain, and yet perfectly free, without the least embarrassment in our feelings, or the most distant thought of the metaphysical contradiction, that rises so imposingly into view, when the subject of the divine decrees is brought into consideration. And if our foreknowledge of men's actions extended to all that they will ever do, so that we could in any particular case predict with absolute certainty a whole series

of volitions, purposes, and deeds, still future, it is plain that we should have no difficulty still on the question of human liberty, any more than we have without this knowledge. In other words, we could on this supposition admit all the actions of a man's life to be certain, as otherwise they could not be matter of foreknowledge or calculation at all, and consent at the same time to their being regarded as free in the fullest sense of the term. We should not feel, that certainty and freeness stood in any sort of contradiction to each other whatever. And in fact, this sort of foreknowledge, though not possible on our part, is allowed actually to have place in regard to human actions, by all who have any proper notion of God. Even those who reject the doctrine of decrees, are ready to admit the doctrine of divine foreknowledge. But foreknowledge implies certainty in the things which it respects. Whatever the principle may be on which this certainty is secured, the certainty itself must have place in order to any knowledge being had previously of what is to come to pass. Here, then, we are brought at once to a living exemplification of the thought which we have just been presenting in the form of a supposition. There is one mind, to which all the actions of men are revealed before they take place. The foreknowledge of God extends to all moral events. I do not raise any argument at present on this ground, in support of the opinion that God has decreed all that ever comes to pass; I do not infer eternal purpose from eternal foreknowledge, as being the only sufficient foundation for it to rest upon. All I care to have established from the fact at present is, that the actions of men are certain, before they take place. Whatever theory we may embrace relative to the grounds on which that certainty ultimately rests, the certainty itself cannot be denied. And thus we must admit, that the actions of men may be certain on the largest scale, and are in fact certain as to God, without having their freeness in any measure brought into question at all. Whatever we may conceive necessary to constitute an action free, we must allow that it. may be absolutely CERTAIN before it takes place, or else deny entirely the foreknowledge of God.

h If after all any doubt should be felt in relation to this point, it may perhaps be relieved by another view of the subject. No actions can be more certain than those which are already past, yet who imagines that this certainty has any thing to do with the question, whether they were free or not? But if the actions of yesterday may be looked upon as free actions, notwithstanding this certainty, it is hard to say, why the freeness of those which are to take place to-morrow, should be considered at all affected by the supposition of their being equally certain. If certainty is compatible with liberty in reference to past time, I know no reason for holding it incompatible with the same in reference to e time that is to come. In the mind of God both are equally