the milder characteristics of the Almighty. Indeed, from the idea of absolute perfection, which we attach, and very properly, to every one of the Divine attributes, each of them, when considered minutely and deeply, and without constant reference to the rest, might seem to preclude the exercise, and even the existence of all the others; at least, of those which have an apparent tendency to modify and restrain that particular one, which most strongly and immediately engages the attention. The habit, therefore, of confining the thoughts to any individual excellence of the Deity, will naturally lead to misconception: in the instance we have selected, it will manifestly produce unfounded apprehensions of danger, and will probably end in fixed and deep despondency. It may, however, indulge itself on other parts of the Divine character; and, when it does, it will be attended with different, but equally erroneous, conclusions; though still, for the reason already given, it is never so likely to prevail as on the particular point just specified. It would appear, indeed, as a matter of fact, that men are most likely to run into the very contrary extreme; and to entertain extravagant notions, not of the justice, but of the mercy of God. This, however, we believe to be merely a fallacious appearance; opinions of this kind are seldom the result of theoretical error-they are generally nothing else

than opiates, forcibly administered to an uneasy conscience—they are intended as a pretext, by which the sinner would fain conceal from himself the present flagitiousness, and the future consequences, of a life devoted to the service of the powers of darkness.

To return. We have already seen how a contracted, and therefore erroneous, view of the immutability of God, has given rise to the opinion of necessary agency in man; a mischievous deduction which has likewise been made from a partial consideration of the Divine Providence and Omniscience. The doctrines of necessity and fate, as far as they are grafted on that of God's providential government of events, appear to have been introduced from a misapprehension of that precise point in human affairs where God's intervening agency begins. God certainly governs all events; but it does not therefore follow that He causes them; nor can there be any foundation for thinking that He does, unless it could be shown (which it cannot,) that He overrules the liberty of human conduct in every step and period of the progress by which it advances to the completion of any action. The truth, however, seems to be this: men are suffered to reason, to resolve, and to act as they may think proper; and God only interferes, by interposing new and unexpected circumstances, to prevent men's actions from being effi

cacious to the purposes which they themselves designed, whenever those purposes were contrary to His own. Now such an interference is no infringement whatever on the liberty of moral agents; they have already exerted their liberty to the utmost extent in planning; and, as far as in them lay, in executing their plans, and quite sufficiently to have acquired either moral merit or demerit; and to give room for the just exercise on the part of God, either of reward or punishment. The truth of this representation of the mode in which God carries on His providential government of events, might be confirmed by various passages of Scripture; and it is particularly evident in the history of Joseph, which contains a more minute detail than any other transaction recorded in Holy Writ, of a connected train of providential Occurrences. In the course of that narrative, the patriarch, who is the subject of it, himself refers to the distinction which we have just laid down ;" addressing himself to his brethren, he says: "As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is at this day 1." Joseph's brethren had one plan in view, and God had another; they first executed their own scheme, and then, when that was done, out of it God effected His.

Taking this, therefore, as an instance, which we

1 Gen. iv. 20.

seem authorized to do, of the general mode of God's proceedings in controlling events, the exercise of His providence will be perfectly compatible with the moral freedom of His rational creatures.

The difficulties, however, of a similar kind, depending on the doctrine of the Divine Omniscience, are apt to strike us as much more formidable; for, of these two doctrines, Divine Omniscience and human liberty,—either of them, if assumed, would appear to invalidate and negative the other. The most obvious method of removing the inconsistency would be, by denying one or other of the positions, which, when combined, occasion it; but this is impracticable. In attempting to disprove the free agency of man, we should have reason, experience, and Scripture, all united to oppose us; nor should we be able to succeed any better in adopting the other alternative; for though it might be true that some passages of Scripture, which speak of the prescience of the Almighty, might be interpreted to signify nothing more than a high degree of moral probability, which, in the language of familiar life, we are accustomed to call certainty; yet it must be evident, that the existence of prophecies, and their accurate accomplishment, demonstrate infallibly the prescience of God in some cases; and, if He certainly foresees actions in one instance, He may in all. If, therefore, Scripture be true, both

of these doctrines must be true likewise; and they must be, somehow or other, reconcileable in themselves, whether we have the ability to reconcile them or not. But the point which we are most concerned to establish,-namely, that the foreknowledge of God does not destroy the contingency of events, nor, consequently, the responsibility of man, may be satisfactorily proved from Scripture. When our Lord was denouncing against the cities which had witnessed his miracles, the punishment which their impenitence and infidelity had merited, he expresses himself in the following remarkable terms: "Woe unto thee Chorazin, woe unto thee Bethsaida; for, if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." Here, then, the Deity is represented as knowing what would have been the conduct of persons under certain circumstances, in which, in point of fact, they were never placed; as foreknowing, therefore, an event which, as the result proved, was contingent in the strictest sense of the term. As another instance of the same fact, we see that the crucifixion of our Saviour is uniformly, by the sacred writers, imputed to the Jews as a flagrant crime, which it could not have been, unless they had been free, either to perpetrate or to omit it; and yet that same event is also declared by God to have been