rials of their piety and zeal which the hand of their associates or friends has reared, have made them objects of deeper and juster interest to all who revere what is great, or love what is good, than any others that have offered themselves to the sympathy and admiration of the world.

Thus firmly established in the general confidence, and giving birth daily to new proofs of their usefulness, and new incidents adapted to sustain and strengthen their hold on the public interest, they will under a wise and skilful direction, and the accustomed blessing of heaven, continue to go on in their career of usefulness and success, with perpetually accumulating power and accelerating rapidity, until they shall at length have fully accomplished all the great objects at which they aim.

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REV. E. R. TYLER'S SERMON

ON THE

PREFERABLENESS OF HOLINESS TO SIN.

THE unhappy intermixture of error, which this discourse exhibits, with many obvious and important truths, fits it to be an instrument of evil as well as good, and entitles it to public animadversion. I am prompted to solicit attention to it by the consideration also, that a noticeable resemblance of some of its phraseology arguments and doctrines to those which characterize the tracts on its subject, which were offered by myself to the public several years since, may possibly betray its readers into the impression, that its erroneous representations, as well as those which are just, are in accordance with the views which I then advanced, and their natural results,-a conclusion at obvious variance with truth, as the observations I am about to offer, will render sufficiently apparent.

I shall not pause to construct a refutation of all the exceptionable statements that may be detected on its pages, nor offer a commendation of every sentiment that may deserve approval, but shall restrict myself to the notice of the

most essential of its errors on the one hand, and of such of its truths on the other, as are of chief importance in the discussion.

The object of the discourse is primarily to determine what the desires are of the Most High, in respect to the actions of men, and the reasons of the admission of sin into the universe. To a useful or intelligible discussion of either of these topics, it is obviously essential that a clear apprehension be carried in the mind, of the distinction between the events of his own agency, and those of the agency of men, as objects of his desire. All the events with which this discussion is concerned, are the effects either of his own efficiency, or of the efficiency of men. In regard to those to which he himself gives existence directly, such as the creation of worlds and beings, and the acts of his moral and providential administration, no room is left for question whether he desires or chooses they should exist, as the fact that he gives them being, proves his choice of their existThe only question open for discussion in regard to them, respects the ground or reason of that choice.

ence.

In regard however to the events to which men give existence, there is room both for the inquiry whether he desires that they should exist,—whether they are objects of direct and absolute preference to others in their place; and for question also in regard to the reason of his permitting them to be such as they are, if he desires the exertion of a different series in their stead. There are thus throughout this wide field, but two topics of legitimate inquiry. What are the desires of the Most High in respect to the voluntary conduct of mankind in the condition in which he places them? Does he desire the exertion by them of precisely that series of actions to which they in fact

give existence, or in all instances prefer obedience from them in place of sin? And what are the reasons of his pursuing a course of agency toward them by which they are permitted to exert their present series of sinful actions, instead of efficaciously influencing them to exert obedient ones in their place?

In respect to the first of these questions, the views that men have adopted, have depended on the relation which in their estimation, the events of human agency sustain to the agency of God. Those who, like Emmons and West, represent God as their efficient cause, and exhibit men as virtually their mere passive subjects, of course regard God as desiring their existence in preference to other actions in their stead. They consider the fact that they are brought into being, to be as decisive proof that he prefers their existence in place of others, as his having called into being the worlds and creatures that constitute the universe, is that he desires their existence. And it is clearly a necessary inference from their doctrine respecting divine efficiency. Thus Emmons, with the daring that forms the chief peculiarity of his theological speculations, affirms that "if God meant to display all his goodness in creation, he was obliged to bring objects into being, upon whom he might display both his justice and his mercy." That "the glory of God therefore required, that just such sinful creatures as mankind are should exist, that they might be both the monuments of divine justice and of divine grace." On what ground, however, according to his scheme, God can be supposed to desire sin, or of what instrumentality it can be capable, neither he nor any of his followers seems to have taken the trouble to inquire. It cannot occupy the station of a second cause, nor be in any sense the means of an effect; as there are no se

To

cond causes according to that system, and no effects whatever come into existence but such as God creates. suppose, therefore, that he desires the existence of sin, in order that it may be employed as an instrument of displaying his aversion to it and love of holiness ;-in other words, that it may be made the means of exerting a moral influence on his intelligent subjects, is an obvious solecism; as by the terms of the theory, no such influence ever is or can be exerted. How can sin be imagined to give rise to such an influence? It cannot give birth to any perception or feeling in the minds of dependent beings. The fact that it has been created in the minds of one world of creatures, cannot produce any effect in the minds of another. They can never become aware of its existence unless God create a perception of it in their minds. The sin itself therefore can never exert any influence on them. Whatever effect may take place in respect to it, must arise solely from the perception of it which the Most High creates-not from the sin itself. But that perception he might obviously as well create without the existence of the sin, as with it, as they have no possible connexion with each other, as cause and effect.

But it is a still more formidable objection to this system, that the perception itself cannot, according to its representation, contribute any instrumentality to the excitement of reverence, love, or any other affection toward the Creator, in the minds of his creatures, nor exert on them any influence whatever. Perceptions have no agency, according to its doctrine, in the production of convictions in the judgment, or feelings in the heart, nor motives any influence in giving birth to affections or choices; but they, like perceptions themselves, are the immediate effect of divine efficiency,