not what they could not do, and conceiving that men cannot do any thing spiritually, but only externally good, they hold that men are not blamable for not doing spiritual things, such as believing in Christ.

It is pleasant to see the force of truth in any measure admitted by antagonists in argument, and we may fairly set this concession down as no trifling confirmation of the principle we have maintained, namely, that blameworthiness is commensurate with power. But to what an extraordinary position have our brethren thus been driven! There is nothing blamable in any spiritual wickedness, they affirm, because man has no power to do any thing spiritually good. By things spiritually good or evil, we suppose we are to understand things good or evil in disposition, or in the state of the heart; so that the idea entertained is, that there is no blameworthiness in any state of the heart, however evil. Wonderful imagination! Nothing blameable in pride, lust, hatred, malice, revenge, love of sin, enmity to God, contempt of salvation, rejection of Christ, or in any of the dreadful evils of heart which might be added to the catalogue! What then is the bible, but a

mass of awful fictions, falsely representing that on account of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience? Is it not strange, too, that, while there is no blameworthiness in these inward evils, there should be so much in the outward expression of them? There is harm, it seems, in fornication, but none in lasciviousness; it is censurable to strike a blow, but not so to be in a rage; it is wrong to commit sin, but not so to love it. Yet why should this be? Does not the law of God look into the inmost soul, and require purity there? Has not our Lord declared that whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart; and the apostle, that whoso hateth his brother is a murderer ? Matt. v. 28. 1 John iii. 15. Besides, if these outward acts of iniquity are held to be blame

worthy, it must, upon the principles of our brethren themselves, be because they have power to avoid them: but what power has any man over his conduct, except by having power over his heart, out of which the conduct actually and inevitably springs? They seem startled by our maintaining that men can regulate their conduct by their dispositions

but really it is we who have the greater cause to wonder, when we find them affirming that a man man can regulate his conduct without his dispositions. They would be hard task-masters, if the government of the world were in their hands. The yoke of our Maker is easy indeed in comparison with theirs.

Our readers will probably agree with us in thinking that nothing can be more futile than the attempt to withdraw spiritual evils, that is, evils of the heart, from deserved blame. And if they are deserving of blame, upon the principles of those with whom we are arguing men must have power to avoid them; because, as they allow, God blames us for not doing only what we have power to do. How delightful would it be to find persons of such amiable candour, and of clear views too to a certain extent, scattering, by a vigorous effort, the perplexities which yet surround them!

F

CHAP. VI.

Whether the possession of power is not implied in the divine commands:-The argument from moral obligation.

"Re

IT is an obvious, but remarkable circumstance, that the same things which are described as wrought by the Holy Spirit, and as indispensably requiring his influence, are elsewhere made the subject of divine command, and enjoined to be performed by men. pent and be converted," said the apostles, Acts iii. 19. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts," said the prophets, Isa. lv. 7. "Come unto me," said the Saviour, Matt. xi. 28. "Wash thy heart from wickedness," said Jehovah, Jer. iv. 14. What are we to understand by this?

The issuing of commands is a thing of perpetual occurrence among men; but it implies always a peculiar condition in order to give it propriety. One feature of this condition, and the only one immediately pertaining to our present argument, is, that the power of the

persons commanded should be proportionate to the obedience required. This is a point of obvious and indispensable necessity. Whether it may be just or not that any commands at all should be addressed to me from a given quarter, may perhaps be questioned, but it is at all events unjust that I should be commanded beyond my strength. It may be possible that all the power I have should be rightly at the disposal of another; but what would any one have more? Or what could a claim for more result in, but absurdity and ridicule? Authority in him who commands is strictly correlative to power in him who obeys. Who thinks of commanding the dead; or of requiring the living to do what they have not power to perform, as the lame to walk, or the deaf to listen?

One would naturally infer, therefore, that when God issues his commands, the very fact of his doing so, as a being of adorable justice, implies an appropriate condition on the part of men, to whom they are addressed; they must have power to do whatever God enjoins upon them. To issue commands under any other circumstances is unjust and absurd, and cannot be ascribed to the most blessed.