present. He looks upon the events of the future, as he looks upon the events of the past. They are beheld under precisely the same aspect of absolute certainty, and this certainty has as little to do with the question of moral liberty in the one case as in the other. There is really just as little reason, why people should be embarrassed about the freeness of their actions, when they are seen to be certain before they take place, as there is that they should be thrown into doubt on the same point, by seeing them to be certain after they have taken place. The mere fact of men's actions being certain, either before or after their taking place, does not stand in contradic. tion at all to the supposition of their being morally free.

I have said more than this. I have said, that in order to be free at all, it is indispensably necessary that our actions should be certain. There can be no such thing as moral liberty without this kind of certainty. To act freely, is to act according to the principles of our moral nature; to act as the nature of our minds directs. But this nature has its own fixed constitution, and all the operations of will that grow out of it, either in the way of choosing or of refusing, are in conformity with it. They cannot be this or that indifferently, but in the same circumstances exactly, must always be the same thing. To suppose any thing else, would be to suppose that the human mind is without all rule or order, and that it acts only by accident or caprice at all times, and without any reason whatever. If such a supposition were true, could there be any such thing as moral liberty in its actions? No more surely than there is in the tossing of a feather, that is made the sport of every wind that blows. The perfection of our moral being is, that it is subjected to law; and the very idea of liberty must perish just so soon as this kind of subjection is thrust out of view. To be free at all, our actions must have their reason in our own nature. They must take place according to some constitutional princi ples established in our moral being. And this is but to say in other words, that they must be certain. If we had the power of acting in any different way, so that we could do things without the consent of our own nature, or in direct violation of the principles of thought and feeling in which our moral existence is grounded, it would deserve to be called any thing rather than liberty.

In fact, however, the very idea of a system of being of any sort in which all certainty might be wanting, is out of the question. Let any man attempt to imagine a constitution of things, in which events might follow one another without law or reason of any kind, and he will find the thing utterly inconceivable. In the very act of imagining a system of any sort, the idea of plan and law forces itself into the scheme. Let it be stripped as far as possible of all resemblance to the existing order of life, and re

moved as far as possible from all ordinary conceptions of fitness or reason, so as to comprehend all the confusion and chance that ever entered into the wildest dream of the philosophy of Epicurus; still will it be felt, that in the very act of being conceived, the conception has embodied in itself the notion of some law, some principle of certainty, pervading the entire scheme with its presence, and constituting the groundwork of all its fancied action. It is impossible to form the idea of a merely material system from which all notion of law shall be excluded; and to form the idea of a moral system, a system comprehending the action of spirits endued with the capacities of thought and will, is if possible more impracticable still. The mind refuses altogether to admit the notion of a world without law, and even when it tries to dream of chance or a self-determining faculty in its own nature, is perpetually thrown back in its feelings upon the idea of some original constitution lying beyond, and giving certainty to every thing that takes place.

It appears, then, that actions do not cease to be free by being certain; but that, on the contrary, they cannot be free without being certain, and in fact must be certain whether free or not. But if all this be true, the whole difficulty that is supposed to have place in reference to the doctrines of God's absolute sovereignty and man's free agency,falls to the ground. The sovereignty of God in this case is simply the ultimate groundwork of that particular constitution of life out of which the actions of men proceed. The question, whether that constitution be one of strict moral liberty, is not affected at all by the nature of the reason or cause in which it may be found to be originally grounded, but must be determined by simply considering the character of the constitution itself. If this be such as to do violence to the attributes of thought and volition, it must be pronounced incompatible with moral liberty, whether grounded in the will of God or not; and so, on the other hand, if found to furnish all the proper conditions of free agency, it must be held strictly compatible with moral liberty, wherever. the ultimate reason of it may lie. The mere circumstance of its being established by divine decree, or by the eternal reason of things, or by some blind fatality, or by strange unaccountable chance, has nothing to do with the moral nature of the constitution itself. That must be judged of irrespectively altogether of the groundwork in which it has its being. It is a fact, a phenomenon, in nature, the character of which must be determined just by an observation of the thing itself, and for the clear perception of which it is not necessary that we should first trace it to its fundamental reason, and determine on what bottom it rests in the scheme of universal being. It is what it is, and should be tried on its own merits.

The only question, then, that is left for consideration in regard to the general subject, is, what is the proper groundwork of the

constitution to which I have been referring? The constitution makes it certain that the actions of men will take place only in one particular way. Whether it be in strict accordance with the principles of moral liberty, must be determined by considering its own character. We take it for granted that it is so in all respects. Under this aspect it may be thought of as having the ultimate reason of its certainty laid in different grounds; it may be thought of as being grounded in the sovereign purpose of God, or it may be thought of as being grounded in something else. The question now is, where is it most reasonable to look for its groundwork, or where most desirable to find it? Surely this must be answered alike by all. God is the only proper groundwork of life under all its forms. He is the first cause of all things, and by him all things subsist. The constitution of the universe can have no other reason ultimately but his wise and holy purpose to have it just what it is. The whole scheme of life must be grounded in his will. His own glorious plan is the pattern, according to which all things take place. They take place according to the nature of the particular system to which in different cases they belong; the changes that belong to the material world according to the laws of matter, and the activities of the moral world according to the laws of mind. But whatever may be the constitution out of which they take their rise, whether material or moral in its order, it is all grounded in the divind Mind, and upheld by a constant energy from God still clothing with effect the bright idea of the whole which was with him from the beginning. And who would have it otherwise? Who would have the course of nature grounded, if the idea were possible, in chance or fate, and not in the design of an infinitely wise, holy, and benevolent God!

If it should be felt by any, that this part of the discussion has been metaphysical and abstract, I have only to say it could not be helped. Contemplated practically, as I have before attempted to show, the subject is not surrounded with any great difficulty; both doctrines are susceptible of overwhelming proof, and may stand together in the mind, and be acted upon, without its being felt that they come into collision at all. But in its speculative form the subject is one that is in its very nature abstract in a high degree; and if persons allow themselves to be perplexed with it in this form at all, they must not complain, if in endeavoring to satisfy their minds, we lead them into the world of pure thought, in stead of trying to entertain them with representations drawn from the sensible world, or from the rich domain of fancy.

PRESBYTERIAN PREACHER.

VOL. II. PITTSBURGH, AUGUST, 1833.

No. 3.

SERMON XVI.

BY JOHN M.MILLAN,* D. D.

OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PA,

THE MORAL LAW ESTABLISHED BY FAITH IN THE GOSPEL.

ROMANS 3:31. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

To understand the harmony that subsists between the law and the gospel, and how the one confirms and establishes the authority and glorious holiness of the other, is of great importance, and is that to which the passage before us directly leads. In the preceding verses of this chapter the apostle had been teaching the doctrine of justification freely by grace, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God: to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and yet the justifier of him which believeth on Jesus." And yet by this doctrine God is glorified; all boasting being excluded from the creature, he can plead no merit or righteousness of his own, as though by his own good works he had obtained the favor of God, for by the deeds of law no flesh shall be justified in his sight. Mankind have lost all the power to yield that obedience to the divine law which is necessary in order to their obtaining life thereby: therefore he concludes that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law: and then proceeds to show that this privilege belongs not to the Jews only, to whom the law was given, but to the Gentiles also: for, says he," is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? yea, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision

*The author of the following discourse is in the 81st year of his age, and in the 59th of his ministry.

through faith." The apostle foreseeing how prone the Jews, and with them every unrenewed person, would be to reject this precious doctrine, as if it did nullify the law, which they knew came from God; in order to prevent this, in the words of our text, he states their objection, and rejects it with abhorrence. The objection is, that this doctrine of justification by faith alone without the deeds of the law, renders the holy law of God void and of none effect, and destroys all obligation to yield obedience thereunto. To this he answers" God forbid” that we should say any thing dishonorable of the holy law of God; no, it is a perfect and perpetual rule of righteousness, and though we deny it a power to justify us, yet so far are we from saying that it was given in vain, or that it is now made void, that by this doctrine of faith we establish the law and maintain its honor.

By the law here, is certainly meant the moral law, which alone can be established by this doctrine of justification by faith in Christ; for the ceremonial law, which consisted entirely in types of of things to come, when Christ the great antitype appeared, of consequence ceased, and became void, and of none effect.

When the moral law was first delivered to man in innocence, it was both as a rule of life enforced with a penalty, and as a covenant having a promise of eternal life annexed, upon condition of perfect obedience being yielded thereunto. But as soon as sin entered, the law was broken, and as a covenant had no more power to justify; it became weak through our default: this the same apostle plainly teaches, in Rom. 8:3, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh," that is, it became unable to justify us because we, by reason of our depravity, are incapable to yield that complete and perpetual obedience to it which it requires. In this sense, therefore, it is made void, as appears from Rom. 7:4, "Wherefore, Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." And again, verse 6, "But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held." Wherefore it must be as a rule whereby to order our lives and conversations before God, that in our text he affirms it to be established, made to stand more firmly, and its honor maintained by faith. From the scope of the apostle's reasoning in this place, it seems evident that by faith here is meant the doctrine of justification by faith, of which he had been treating in the foregoing verses; but if it be taken to mean the grace of faith, simply, yet in this sense also it establishes the law, as shall be shown hereafter. The words plainly contain the following doctrinal proposition.

THAT BY THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION THROUGH FAITH, THE MORAL LAW, AS A RULE OF LIFE, IS SO FAR FROM BEING MADE VOID, THAT IT IS FARTHER ESTABLISHED.

In treating this subject, I shall, I. Endeavor to show that the moral law, as a rule of life, is perpetually binding, and can never be made void.