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You know your writers all admit that it is owing to something within man that all his acts are sinful. We say that it is owing to a will that is depraved. But if you utterly deny that volition is the act of any thing constitutional in us, pray what do you make the will?"

"Well, sir, it is a kind of abstract power by which we are capable of volition, just as we are of memory."

"But," said I," do its acts take place without any volition of ours to that effect, or do we heed another will to set it in motion ?"

"Its acts take place without any volition of ours to that effect, and no volition of ours determines their moral character for this would be absurd."

"And is not volition an act of this power?" "It is," said he. "Then," added 1," how does it differ from that will or heart which we have just described? It acts spontaneously, and volition must be an act of this power, if volition is an act of the will; indeed volition is nothing but the will or this power in operation."

The clergyman replied, "I have little objection to granting the existence of a will, provided you will allow that it can never be the subject of any moral depravity; for we are determined to admit none back of acts. The will, sir, is the moral or inner man, and our fundamental principle is that man himself cannot be sinful. Let the will itself be perfectly pure, and I care not at all how bad you make its acts. Let the man be innocent, and put as much depravity as you please into his volitions, but be careful to admit none back of them."

"But," says the young Eugenio," my worthy uncle, once admit a will whose acts are volitions and you make all sin the acts of a mere constitutional principle inherent in our nature, and introduce physical depravity at once. God himself has put this principle into us."

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But," says I," the will is necessary in order that we exercise acts of will, but it is the character of the will or man himself which determines the character of the acts. The fact that a person has a will does not make sin necessary to him."

"Well, sir, I admit it," said Eugenio, "but it makes sin or holiness necessary to him. It is a constitutional power; without it, he cannot have a single volition, and with it, he must have them; he cannot help it, sir, do what he will;

they will come up, without any volition of his to that effect, and notwithstanding all the artful expressions of our writers, it is not at his option whether these volitions shall be holy or sinful; it is either the nature of the will, or something else as little in our power, which determines their nature. You may make this will an abstract power, but, as we cannot will till this power is pleased to move, no volition of ours can set it in motion, and when it pleases to move, then, forsooth, we must will, for our volitions are nothing more than its acts. You may talk as much as you please about voluntary agency, I hold it as demonstration, that if man has a will, he can never have any freedom. It makes him a mere machine. Volition is merely the activity of a constitutional principle placed within us by God himself."

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"Our friend Eugenio," said I, seems to be in the same difficulty of all your writers; he cannot conceive how any activity can possibly be exercised in acts, or any freedom or virtue in free or virtuous acts. You all seem to believe it impossible that these qualities of activity, freedom and virtue, should exist in any acts that God has commanded; but if you can find them any where else, except where he has placed them, it will satisfy all your difficulties. In our last interview, you seemed to me to destroy volition as well as the will. You make volition nothing more than a purpose to gratify self-love. Pray do you not think that you assign to man a very ridiculous task in making it his whole business to gratify his worthless desires, making it his sole business to seek happiness? To be sure, sometimes it will gratify selflove to pursue the happiness of others, but then you are careful to tell us that this happiness can be desired and pursued only so far as it gratifies self-love."

"But," says the clergyman, "we hold that man is able to gratify which of these worthless desires he pleases, and herein consists his liberty, and his virtue or sin."

Here Eugenio interposed. "As for that liberty of contrary choice I could never compel my professor to explain himself fully when he said, I might have chosen otherwise; but he said this much, that he did not mean that I might have had a different choice if I had willed to have it: hence I conclude if he meant any thing, it must have been this, I might have chosen different if I had chosen different, and this is all the meaning I can find attached to this boasted power of contrary choice. For my part, I believe we are the best judges

of what gratifies self-love, and I hold that we can have no true liberty, unless we may seek happiness where we can best find it."

"But, Rev. Sir," said I, "when we choose or prefer an object, must there not be some inward delight in that object, or moral affection towards it? By saying that we are indifferent to all moral objects except as they excite our selflove, you make choice nothing more than an intellectual decision as to the question which object is best calculated to gratify self-love, does not this confound the will with the understanding?"

"It does," said he, "but our writers have all decided that delight in the moral excellence of spiritual objects themselves, differs not at all from any pleasing emotion, as for instance, delight in pleasant food, and have classed them all under the title of emotions. But I am disposed to grant that volition is itself a moral delight in the objects themselves which are chosen. We must feel complacency for them in the act of choosing them. The act of choosing them is but the exercise of moral complacency in them."

"Well," said I, "you before admitted the existence of a will whose acts are volitions. Did not this power exist, there could be no acts of it, and consequently no complacency in any of those objects upon which volition fixes.'

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"But this," said my instructor, "would be bringing in the old constitutional taste or relish for spiritual or moral objects. It is nothing but a relish for certain objects fitted to gratify it."

"But," said I, "is there no virtue in delighting in God? Has he not placed all virtue in this? Is it no moral excellence in my nature, that such objects as his moral perfections are fitted to afford me delight? What do you mean by this relish for spiritual objects but the man himself? When you speak of exercising love to God, do you not say I myself love him? It seems to me that your writers have imposed on the world, and I hope on themselves, by the artful use of terms."

Here Eugenio took up the conversation. "The old Arminians," said he, "did not go to the bottom of the matter; they insisted that if the will only determined what its volitions should be, this was enough. They allowed the existence of a will, and made volition, after all, the act of a constitutional principle. Now, I say, that if I cannot will till God has in

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serted a constitutional principle in me, and then must will at all events, and these acts too are my acts, and have rewards or punishments attached to them, I say I have no proper activity, and am nothing but a machine, which is so curiously constructed as to produce volition, but yet is nothing but a machine."

"Eugenio," says the divine," shall hear Professor Tappan's new theory of self-determination. He has found means to give to man an activity in producing his volitions. without supposing a separate causative act. Hear him. But how do we conceive of cause as producing phenomena? By a nisus effort, or energy. . . Where then do we observe this nisus? Only in will. Really, volition is the nisus or effect of that cause which we call will.' you see. The will makes a nisus, and that is the way we come by volition."

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"I see; but he tells us that this nisus effort or energy is volition itself. Is this all the activity that he gives to the man? does he give him no activity except in volition?" "None," said he. "Then the only difference that I can see between him and the old Arminians is, that they believe that the will determines itself, and he that the will itself determines. He has discovered that the will itself acts in its volitions, and pretends that Edwards denied it. To speak plainly of Mr. Tappan, 1 grant he may have a very pretty skill in transcendental infidelity, but he is a very indifferent metaphysician. I could not mention above a dozen places where he has misrepresented his author with any tolerable ingenuity, and as for skill in using ambiguous language, in making garbled quotations, and confounding the established use of philosophical terms, I believe that Dr. Beecher would do more in one page than he generally makes out in ten. I wish he had let President Edwards alone. Mr. Tappan grants that we have a will, and of course, we must, on that principle, always be compelled to do as we please; and so we have fatalism at all events. A pretty pickle we are in, if we must always do just as we please. For one, I am resolved to assert my freedom, if I die in the attempt. I am determined that I will not always do just as I please, and I challenge all the old school men in the country to make me." Here our interview closed. Adieu.

LITERARY

AND

THEOLOGICAL REVIEW.

NO. XXIV.-DECEMBER, 1839.

ART. I. MARYVILLE THEOLOGY.

By JOSEPH I. FOOT, Knoxville, Tenn.

"Seven Conversations between Athanasius and Docilis on Theological Subjects, founded principally on the four following propositions. I. God a Moral Governor. II. Man a Moral Agent. III. God the Efficient Cause. IV. Man a Passive Recipient, or Man a Creature capable of being acted upon by another agent. Questions on the System of Didactic Theology taught in the Southern and Western Theological Seminary. By Rev. Isaac Anderson, D. D. Maryville, 1833.

THE theological course of a minister in an ordinary station is a matter of comparatively little importance to the community. If he depart from the received doctrines, there are constitutional means, by which he is readily reclaimed, or removed from the ministry. But if he occupy an important position in the church, the aspect of the case is entirely changed. His errors may thus infect multitudes, before an ecclesiastical process can reach him. His station itself gives him a control so extensive, as to mould into his own form the theology of others, and to draw around him an army sufficiently powerful to overawe the advocates of truth and to protect himself from censure, or deposition. It often occurs, VOL. VI.

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