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is under obligation to prefer holiness to sin only because there is greater "prospective happiness to be obtained by the agent as a consequence of holiness," than as a consequence" of sin; just as a broker is under obligation to prefer ten per cent. to five per cent.; and of sinners, he who finds the "highest happiness" in sinning, has the least guilt, and is deserving of everlasting punishment, only on account of the deficiency of his happiness. Again, if "prospective happiness is to be obtained," and "prospective misery to be incurred" by the agent," be the only ground of obligation, then, by losing the happiness and incurring the misery, is not the obligation cancelled? Are not the fallen angelscancelling their obligations?

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So far then from seeking the origin of obligation in rewards and punishments, or happiness and misery, the justice of rewards and punishments must depend upon previous obligation. Punishment is for violation of existing obligation. The punishment, or misery, of the wicked does not create their obligation to obey God, but is a consequence of violating this obligation. If there were no obligation violated, there would be no justice in the punishment. The penalty supposes and enforces obligation, but does not create it. So the promises and threatenings of the Scriptures suppose obligation to love God, and enforce this obligation. But is not a man under obligation to regard his own happiness? This may be true, and the happiness of the agent be neither the source, or the measure of obligation. The question of right and wrong, of obligation, is a previous question, and a different question, from that of the happiness and misery of the agent. If, as Mr. Sawyer remarks, p. 175, "All men are gainers by virtue and losers by vice," it does not follow that "these gains and losses" are the grounds of all obligation" to pursue virtue rather than vice. The happiness or misery of the agent is the consequence of duty discharged or violated.

Mr. Sawyer strenuously maintains, that "the prospective happiness and misery of the agent" are the only possible motives to voluntary action, as well as the ground of all obligations. "God is a subject of obligation in the same sense that other voluntary beings are. He is obliged to do some things and not to do others, by a regard to his happiness." p. 179. ("Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee" Psalm 50: 7. "Thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee."

Psalm 50: 21.) “All voluntary action is in pursuit of pleasure and escape from pain. This is the case now, and must ever be, in every possible condition of voluntary agents." "The suspension of our pleasures and pains upon our voluntary action, is necessary to the production of such action. It must prevail, therefore, in respect to all voluntary agents, not excepting God himself." p. 303. "Animals, equally with men, are subjects of choices, purposes, and volitions," and, "the laws of the animal are similar to those of the humun will," only "their knowledge, and the sphere of their einotions, are more limited than those of men." p. 303.

Is it true then that the actions of all beings in the universe, holy and unholy, are performed with the same ultimate end in view," the pursuit of happiness and escape from pain?" --that all the conduct of God towards his creatures, and of his creatures towards him, is merely in pursuit of pleasure and escape from pain?"-that obedience and disobedience, love and hatred, murder and revenge, the songs of the redeemed, and the curses of the lost, all proceed from the same motives," happiness to be obtained," and misery to be incurred" by the agent? Are all motives drawn from the character and relations of God, the holiness of his law, and the provisions of his gospel, ineffectual except as appeals to our love of "pleasure," and dread of " 'pain?" Are the pleasures of holiness, and the pains of sin, the only conceivable motives for pursuing holiness rather than sin? “Be ye holy for I am holy." Are the pleasures of repentance, faith, and self-denial the only motives to practise these duties? When we appeal to a man's benevolence, can we hope for success, only as we succeed in convincing him, that giving "is pursuit of happiness and escape from pain.'

Do we find nothing to approve and admire in the character of such men as Moses, and Daniel, and Paul--of Howard and Martyn, except that they were more "sagacious" than other men in the pursuit of happiness and escape from pain? And is there nothing to condemn in the conduct of the wicked except "BAD LUCK" in "calculating" loss and gain, considered with respect to happiness?' If it be true as Mr. Sawyer asserts, p. 286, that "when we judge correctly, our choices will be correct," then, to induce sinners to love God, it is only necessary to assist them to form correct judgments, instead of erroneous ones, and they will love God for the same reason that they now hate him.

We make one more quotation from this work, to show how, in Mr. Sawyer's opinion, sinful beings are to determine the moral character of their hopes and fears, desires and affections.

"Those hopes which relate to future possible events as directly advantageous to ourselves and indirectly to others; or directly advantageous to others, and indirectly to ourselves are right." "The same is true of fears." p. 264. So of desires, "Those which relate to objects viewed as pleasurable directly to ourselves and indirectly to others; or directly to others and indirectly to ourselves, are right." p. 271. "The affections of moral agents are either morally good or evil, according as they tend to promote or destroy the happiness of their subjects and other beings." p. 253. Who then is to be the judge of this "tendency," the creature or the Creator? "The affections agree with other mental actions in being right or wrong, according as they are VIEWED by THEIR SUBJECTs, as conducive to their own happiness and that of other beings; or as inconsistent in some degree with their own greatest ultimate happiness, or with the happiness of other beings." p. 263. Do not the sinful desires of the wicked always "relate to objects viewed as pleasurable directly to themselves," and are these desires sinful merely because the objects are not pleasurable to others? Does not the command, "Thou shalt not covet," suppose that men will desire objects, "pleasurable directly to themselves," and does the sin of coveting consist in a deficiency of pleasure "to the subjects and others?" Mr. Sawyer makes susceptibility to pleasure, in a sinful being, the test of right and wrong desires, when it is the highest crime of sinners, that, they take "pleasure" in sinful affections and desires." He seems to suppose, that there can be nothing sinful in the nature of the desires or affections, since they are merely "pleasurable emotions," "dependent on our ideas of objects," that, as "just and adequate ideas of knowledge lead us to desire. knowledge," so "just and adequate ideas of the favor of God lead us to desire the favor of God,"-that, if men are so "unlucky" as to become "backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, and inventors of evil things," it arises from inade. quate "ideas of objects considered as adapted to afford the subject pleasure or pain,"-and, to be consistent, must place depravity in the "ideal faculty." According to Mr. Sawyer too, men have a perfect right, to love sin, and hate holiness, VOL. VI.

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provided these affections "are viewed by their subjects as conducive to their own happiness and that of other beings." We forbear further remarks on the quotations.

ART. VIII. LETTERS TO A SOUTHERNER.

POWER OF CONTRARY CHOICE.

LETTER V.

My last interview with the good clergyman was interrupted before I had time to propose several difficulties which had occurred to my mind in the course of the conversation. At our next meeting, I began, "My good father I am charmed at the dexterity with which you have attacked the doctrine of original sin under the name of natural inability; but a difficulty has arisen in my mind which I must see resolved before I can derive full consolation from the doctrine. It is this. You assure me that it is not enough for freedom and accountability that I have the power of choice simply-I may be able to choose, nay, may most cordially love God, prefer his service to that of the devil; I may love my neighbor most heartily, and cordially prefer the welfare of my enemies to their sufferings, and yet, unless I have this power of contrary choice, there is no freedom and no virtue in these acts. You seem to deny that acts of holiness or sin are either free or possess in themselves any qualities which make them worthy of praise or blame; you seem to suppose that freedom is exercised not in the act of choice, but in the manner in which choice is caused to exist; and that the moral character of volitions, depends not on their nature but their causes."

"Exactly so. We utterly deny that choice is a free act: we are absolutely astonished, sir, when we hear men assert that there is freedom, where there is ability to choose, that choice is, in its own nature free, and the source of our ideas of freedom. There is no more freedom in choice itself than in the motion of a wheel or blowing of the wind. Sir, if

choice were an act in its own nature free, it would be enough for us to have the power of choice without any thing further. If volitions are in their own nature free, and have any moral quality in themselves, what should we answer those who say that they spring from a holy or sinful heart, and those who hold that they are produced in us by motives? Once establish that there is any moral character in what we call moral acts, and our theology is overturned from the very foundations. We say there is no freedom or moral character predicable of choice (by which I mean all that the law of God commands or forbids), unless a man possess also a power of contrary choice."

"It seems strange to me," Rev. Sir, "that mankind should have inhabited the earth near 6000 years before this mysterious power, which gives freedom and moral character to acts which have none in themselves, was discovered. I know very well what is meant by 'capacity of choice,' but when you add a "power of contrary choice," my conceptions are confused. I find it difficult to exclude the idea of two distinct powers. If men have this complex power of choice, with capacity of contrary choice, pray tell me if they ever use it? Does a man possess it at any given time? can he, at any given moment, choose contrary to what he does choose? We need to see some act of this complex faculty, to infer its existence. Is the power of contrary choice ever actually exercised? Do you possess the power of willing in opposite directions at this present moment?

I grant," said he, "that when we speak of capacity of choice with power of contrary choice' one would suppose we mean something more than the simple power of choice and contrary choice; we might very naturally be supposed to teach the existence of two distinct powers; but this is not the fact. Were there two distinct wills, a person might, for all that I can see, have opposite volitions at the same time: but we believe only in the existence of the complex power of choice and contrary choice, and we never speak of it as exercised at any given moment. If you look narrowly you will observe that we never speak of it at all in the present time." serve," said I," your writers never speak of this power as possessed at the present time, or that the power of choice and contrary choice is ever exercised at all, at one given and definite instant: the fact is, you always tell us, that the contrary choice never actually is made, but only that it might have

"I ob