rational creation, and specially of His Church. All events take their origin in Him as the great first executive cause; and are continued, in a connected chain of causes and effects, from first to last. Every second cause has the Divine Will as the author and first cause. CHRIST is the subsisting as well as the existing and original cause of all good things; and by Him, the power of the first cause is continued to the last effect. Yet this connexion of causes and effects is carried on, through the responsible and free agency of man. Indeed, to this freedom of action, do the moral motives, by which mankind are influenced, derive their efficacy in accomplishing the predetermined Will of our heavenly King. Deprive man of his freedom of action, in performing what he wills, and the engine of Providence would be unable to accomplish its appointed work. An end must be taken by the agents employed, and the means selected for its accomplishment, in the exercise of

their mental powers; although, in this exercise, they may be influenced by a natural bias of the will, or by foreign and spiritual influxes.

This activity, in agents influenced by final causes, is as absolutely necessary, as the passiveness of matter, to its being governed by efficient causes, And, the certainty of the accomplishment, in responsible agents, influenced by final causes, or moral motives directing to a particular end, is as sure and determinate, as the necessity of motion, in passive matter, by the application of efficient causes, or external force.*

Hence the freedom of human agency consists in the power of carrying into effect what the will has determined on, after it has been directed to the choice of some end, and to the selection of those means, which are best calculated for carrying the design into effect.

This argument is more fully developed in Bishop Horsley's Sermon on Matt, xvi: 21; of which I have here availed myself.

This freedom, then, consists in the power to perform or forbear any parti cular action, according to the previous preference of the will.* Our wills must be either pleased, or displeased with the objects that may be presented: The natural will inclines to evil, as apparently presenting a greater advantage at hand; and the freedom of fallen man consists in the power of effecting this preference only of the perverted will. Man, therefore, is not free "to refuse the evil and choose the good," unless his will has been previously inclined, by grace, to prefer good to evil. As freedom of action follows the inclination of the will; and since, by nature, this will inclines to evil as its greater good: it is evident, that the unregenerate man is free to work evil, but not free to do good. Human agency, then, follows the inclination of the will, whenever it may be within its power, and not obstructed by the

*This is according to Locke's definition of freedom, in his Essay on the human understanding.

overruling Providence of GoD. Man's will may be controlled by many internal influxes, or external and independent causes; according as the Providence of GOD sees fit to direct all things, to the accomplishment of His designs. Thus does Providence act by final causes, through the faculties of free and responsible agents; and yet, by influencing the will through the understanding, He so directs this freedom of action, that all things must happen, as He foreordained and purposed, before the foundation of the world.

Having now endeavoured to show, that the sovereignty of GOD, and the responsibility of man, involve no contradiction; I proceed to explain, more particularly, the ability of man's will.

In considering the ability of man's will, I'shall, in the first place, regard him in his primitive state of innocence.

Man, in his unfallen condition, was in a state of trial and probation. His Creator placed him in Paradise, in a

condition free to fall or to stand.

It

mattered not what might be the test of his fidelity. Will you obey God; - or will you not obey Him? This was the trial. -And in order that this might be a trial, it was necessary, that, in the moment of temptation, the measure of the grace of GoD's SPIRIT, attracting him to obedience, should exactly counterbalance the suggestions of Satan, seducing him to disobedience. Or, in other words, since the will is inclined by the strongest motive, there must have been a momentary equilibrium in the understanding, between opposite motives.*

To prevent misapprehension, it is necessary here to observe, that I consider the understanding of unfallen man, only when under the influence of spiritual influxes, as in a momentary state of equilibrium in respect of motives to good and evil. For man in his primitive state of innocence, possessed that moral perfection, which would always *Vide Appendix E.