ARTICLE LXII:

Simplicity of Moral Action. No. 5.

BY THE LATE REV. WM. COCHRAN.

ANOTHER modification of this intensity theory, confounding moral action with other phenomena, sets forth that we are responsible for the same amount of love and service which we might have rendered had we never sinned, and thus debilitated our powers, and for all which we might have rendered had Adam never sinned, and our constitution been derived from a perfectly healthful and holy ancestry, reaching back to the birth of time-that consequently the capability of the unimpaired powers of Adam in Paradise is the true measure of perfect obedience, and that, in so far as we fall short of this, we are convicted of the law as transgressors.

66

*

Of this theory, we need say but little in this place. For, if it is impossible to make intensity of choice and its sequents a test of right action where reference is had to our own powers alone, a fortiori, it must be impossible, when we have to pass over the gulf of six thousand years, and compare ourselves with an ideal man whose capability exists for the eye of fancy alone, and when we can form no rational conjecture how much debility we have inherited from Adam, and how much it has been increased by numberless actual transgressions." How great were the powers of Adam? How great would ours have been, had he persevered in holiness? How much of our present infirmity is owing to our own wickedness? To all these questions, absolute silence, or a frank "I know not," is the only answer an honest mind can make. But, if we were able to answer them explicitly, could we meet the demands of the law? No; for, by hypothises, we are incapable of doing what Adam could, and nothing short of this is perfect obedience. We are thus under the twofold difficulty of not knowing what the law requires, and of not being able to obey it if we did! But we must terminate these remarks, or we shall be in danger of violating a positive * See Geneva Presbytery on Oberlinism,

injunction of Scripture; for it seems clear to us that if a case can be found when the fourth verse of the twenty-sixth chapter of Proverbs is imperative, it must be when such utterly unreasonable and God-dishonoring dogmas are uttered in the name of Christ, and as a part of his glorious gospel.

Another phaze of the intensity theory, or else an indepen dent one, informs us that "some remains of corruption, derived from Adam," lie back of all volition, and will still continue to mingle their taint with our most holy performances till they have been consumed in the crucible of death, or separated in the alembic of the grave. For the present we will content ourselves with commending this theory to the attention of physiologists and chemists, and when the scalpel, or the tests of the laboratory have detected this sinful residuum of inherited depravity, if we still survive, we shall honor the discovery with a humble recantation of our present position that all sin consists in voluntary action!

Still another theory maintains that, not our perceived, but our real relations to God and the universe, are the measure of our obligations. We might here say much of the obscure and confused notions of moral law and moral obligation which begot such a misshapen monster as this; and might show that something consequent upon the absolutely ultimate object of choice was before the minds of its authors, and not the eud itself; and we might enter into a formal argument to prove it false, unfounded, and absurd. But it forcibly strikes us. that the same defectiveness, or perversion of intellect, that at first enables any one to embrace a theory which requires as perfect a knowledge of men and things of an infant as of a man, of one man as of another, of all of us as of angels, and of men and angels as of God, and damns them eternally for the lack of it, is proof against all argument that would conduct them to a more rational faith.

There are other tests of the character of an intention whice differ in words, but none, we are persuaded, after a careful examination, which differ in reality from our own. We may therefore assume it as demonstrated that whenever an intention terminates upon the right object, and on nothing else, it is wholly free from moral delinquency, or perfectly right. There remain but two additional questions to be discussed, viz:

1. Can the will choose any part of the end which the moral law requires us to will, without choosing it all? or, in other words, whenever there is any choice of it, must it not be universal?

2. Can the same will, at the same time, choose both this end

and its opposite?

The full discussion of the first of these questions we shall adjourn until we have discussed the second. The reason of this adjournment will be seen as we proceed. All we deem it expedient to add here is, that so far as we know it is no question between us and orthodox divines of any school. In what are deemed standard authors of both the Old and New School, the position is most unequivocally taken that no true piety at all exists where there is not respect for all God's commandments. Says the venerable Stoddard-"If there be a great change in a man's carriage, and he be reformed in several particulars, yet if there be one evil way, the man is an ungodly man: where there is piety there is universal obedience." (Stoddard's Way to know Sincerity from Hypocrisy.) This position plainly rests on the supposition that there is some one end, the choice of which will, while it continues, inevitably draw after it the choice of all means and conduct deemed wise and possible to promote its realization. On this supposition it is true that if any one duty is neglected, or means of doing good unimproved, "the man is an ungodly man," since, were there a choice of the right end, this neglect of duty and misimprovement of means would be impossible. But on the supposition that there is no common ligament which binds all choices to one central choice, this statement is wholly gratuitous. For, in that case, the neglect of one duty by no means proves total hollowness of heart, and destitution of all right purpose.

With equal clearness Prest. Edwards expresses the same sentiment "What makes men partial in religion is, that they seek themselves, and not God, in their religion, and close with religion, not for its own excellent nature, but only to serve a turn. He that closes with religion only to serve a turn, will close with no more of it than he imagines serves that turn; but he that closes with religion for its own excellent and lovely nature, closes with all that hath that nature: he that embraces religion for its own sake, embraces the whole of religion."-(Religious Affections.) This is explicit. The neglect of any known duty, proves that the agent is self-seeking; since were he otherwise, this neglect would be impossible.

Says Prest. Davies-"Another distinguishing characteristic of the new birth, is universal holiness of practice, or conscientious observance of every known duty, and an honest,

zealous resistance of every known sin. There is no known duty, however unfashionable, disagreeable, or dangerous, but what the true convert honestly endeavors to perform: and there is no known sin, however customary, pleasing, or painful but what he honestly resists, and from which he labors to abstain. This necessarily follows from what has been said; for when the principles of action are changed, the course of action will be changed, too."-(Sermon on the nature and Author of Regeneration.) Among the Old School divines we know of none who hold a different view on this subject.

Let us for a moment turn our attention to the New School divines. Says Prof. Tappan-"All good purposes are comprehended within one great purpose and that is,to fulfil the great law of God, the great law of love to God, and man."--(Moral Agency p. 261.) This he calls the governing purpose of the regenerate. It would seem that this author agrees with Kant that the immediate object of this all-embracing purpose is the law itself. Or that it consists in making the law our maxim for all future time. If this is the case, there is one central life-which runs through all duties. And even if his opinion be different from Kant's in regard to the immediate object of the governing purpose of the regenerate, his language does not allow us to suppose that he ever so much as dreamed of laws and duties which like bricks of the same kiln, or beads of the same string, have no necessary connexion with each other.

With this view the New School divines universally seem to agree, for they every where and invariably represent conversion as consisting in a change of the governing purpose [ultimate intention] of the mind. We need not therefore trouble the reader with any additional quotations.

And with both Old and New School agrees the Bible in relation to this point. "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."(Jas 2, 10.) This passage cannot mean that he who violates any one command of the decalogue, the 4th for example, does at the same time violate in form the 6th, and all the rest. This were absurd. But on the supposition that the law is an absolute unity, of which all the commands of the decalogue and all moral precepts in the Bible are only applications to particular relations of moral agents, or that the end which it requires us to make ultimate, is but one, for the sake of which all other objects which we are required by any moral precepts to choose are to be willed and valued, this absurdity is

avoided and the text is perfectly intelligible-Example, let that object be the well-being of the universe: the whole meaning the whole law is exhausted in the command, choose the wellbeing of the universe. Now while such a choice exists, it is plain that all other choices required by the decalogue must be made, as from time to time circumstances shall seem to us to demand them. They require the application of means to secure that end. Consequently if one yields an external obedience to all the commandments (for this is possible for impenitent and selfish men) save one which he violates, he has broken the whole law, because he has not willed the well-being of the universe. Neither murder, nor adultery, nor covetousness, nor theft, can spring from such a choice, and be regarded as fit means to promote such an end. Consequently, the choice of this end does not exist, and the whole law is transgressed.

Hence, it appears that on this first question we have no issue with either Old School or New School Divines, and can have none with any others who will allow the sacred writers to be competent judges of truth and falsehood in relation to moral subjects.

No farther investigation therefore, however much demanded by strict science, could place us in better circumstances to argue the second question with all such persons, than we now Occupy.

Can then, the same will, at the same time, choose both the end which the moral law requires to be chosen, and that which it forbids?

Preliminary to a correct answer to this question, let it be observed,

1. That a choice is the will's preference of one thing rather than its contrary. Thus says Prest. Edwards-"In every act of will whatsoever, the mind chooses one thing rather than another, it chooses something rather than the contrary." When we move the foot we prefer its motion to its rest, and vice versa.

2. Whenever therefore we choose one thing, we do at the same time refuse the opposite. So says Prest, Edwards—" So in every act of refusal, the mind chooses the absence of the thing refused, the positive and the negative are set before the mind for its choice, and it chooses the negative." If I choose the motion of my foot, I refuse its rest, and vice versa; and the like must happen in every case of opposition of ends or objects of choice.