Undaunted, turnings, they their work began: Cold in their veins the life-blood often

ran,

f

For they had humau feelings; yet to be Heaven's ministers, and work upon its plan,

Breathed through their souls resistless energy,

And the world heard their voice- The
Negro SHALL be free!""
Pp. 32, 33.

The poet binds a wreath around the heads of Clarkson and Wilber

force, whose true honour it is to be revered and loved by the purest and most amiable of their species.

The moral of "The Vision" is explained in the two concluding stanzas : "O thou who read'st! whose heart has felt the glow

Of warm benevolence; whose untired

feet

and amongst them the "Address to

Deity," [see Mon. Repos. Vol. XIII. p. 62,] which fin all that iconstitutes the excellence of sacred poetry yields only to Mrs. Barbauld's lines bearing the same title.

ART. III-A Treatise of Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton. (Continued from p. 613.)

CHAP

HAP. III. is "Of the Divine Decrees." These Milton distributes "God's

into General and Special. General Decree is that whereby he has decreed from all Eternity of His own most Free and Wise and Holy Purpose, whatever he willed, or whatever He himself was about to do."

The Decree is not absolute, the author argues, in any thing which is left in the power of free agents. He maintains the theory of contingent much the same success that has atdecrees with great subtlety, but with tended all disquisitions on this difficult subject, the writers of which have resembled Milton's own metaphysical angels, who

"reasoned high

Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,

Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,

And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."

Having referred to some of the decrees of God in the Scripture, which are put conditionally, he says,

"It is argued, however, that in such instances not only was the ultimate purpose predestinated, but even the means themselves were predestinated with a view to it. So indeed it is asserted, but Scripture nowhere confirms the rule, which alone would be a sufficient reason for rejecting it. But it is also attended by this additional inconvenience, that it would entirely take away from human affairs all liberty of action, all endeavour and desire to do right. For the course of argument would be of this kind-If God have at all events decreed my salva tiou, whatever I may do against it, I shall not perish. But God has also decreed as the means of salvation that you

should do rightly. I cannot, therefore, but do rightly at some time or other, since God has decreed that also,-in the mean time I will act as I please; if I never do rightly, it will be seen that I

was never predestinated to salvation, and that whatever good I might have done would have been to no purpose."-P. 34. Milton's reason as well as feelings led him to assert the libertarian hypothesis, and to look with no friendly eye upon the opposite doctrine. It must be admitted, however, that he treats the subject in a religious, more than in a philosophical sense.

"To comprehend the whole matter in a few words, the sum of the argument may be thus stated in strict conformity with reason: God of his wisdom deter. mined to create men and angels reasonable beings, and therefore free agents; at the same time he foresaw which way the bias of their will would incline, in the exercise of their own uncontrouled liberty. What then? Shall we say that this foresight or foreknowledge on the part of God imposed on them the necessity of acting in any definite way? No more than if the future event had been foreseen by any human being. For what any human being has foreseen as certain to happen, will not less certainly happen thau what God himself has predicted. Thus Elisha foresaw how much evil Ha

zael would bring upon the children of Israel in the course of a few years, 2 Kings viii. 12. Yet no one would affirm that the evil took place necessarily on ac count of the foreknowledge of Elisha;

for had he never foreknown it, the event would have occurred with equal certainty, through the free-will of the agent. So neither does any thing happen because God has foreseen it; but he foresees the event of every action, because he is acquainted with their natural causes, which, in pursuance of his own decree, are left at liberty to exert their legitimate influence. Consequently the issue does not depend on God who foresees it, but on him alone who is the object of his foresight. Since, therefore, as has before been shewn, there can be no absolute decree of God regarding free agents, undoubtedly the prescience of the Deity (which can no more bias free agents than the prescience of man, that is, not at all, since the action in both cases is intransitive, and has no external influence) can neither impose any necessity of itself, nor can it be considered at all the cause of free actions. If it be so considered, the very name of liberty must be altogether abolished as an unmeaning sound; and that not only in matters of religion, but even in questions of morality and indifferent things. There can be nothing but what will happen necessarily, since there is nothing but what is foreknown by

God.

"That this long discussion may be at length concluded by a brief summary of the whole matter, we must hold that God has not decreed them all absolutely: lest foreknows all future events, but that he all sin should be imputed to the Deity, and evil spirits and wicked men should be exempted from blame. Does my opponent avail himself of this, and think the concession enough to prove either that God does not foreknow every thing, or that all future events must therefore happen necessarily, because God has foreknown them? I allow that future events which God has foreseen, will happen certainly, but not of necessity. They will prescience cannot be deceived, but they happen certainly, because the divine will not happen necessarily, because pres cience can have no influence on the object foreknown, inasmuch as it is only is to happen according to contingency and the free-will of man, is not the effect of God's prescience, but is produced by the free agency of its own natural causes, the future spontaneous inclination of which foreknew that Adam would fall of his is perfectly known to God. Thus God own free-will; his fall therefore was certain, but not necessary, since it pro. ceeded from his own free-will, which is incompatible with necessity."-Pp. 40—

an intransitive action. What therefore

42.

The following quotation will explain Milton's drift in his argument, and also the zeal with which he maintains it:

"There are some who in their zeal to oppose this doctrine do not hesitate even to assert that God is himself the cause and origin of sin. Such men, if they are not to be looked upon as misguided rather than mischievous, should be ranked among the most abandoned of all blasphemers. An attempt to refute them, would be nothing more than an argu ment to prove that God was not the evil spirit."-P. 43.

Milton opens Chap. IV., which is entitled, "Of Predestination," with a definition of the "principal special decree of God relating to man." This, he says, is termed "Predestination, whereby God in pity to mankind, though foreseeing that they would fall of their own accord, predestinated to eternal salvation before the foundation of the world those who should believe and continue in the faith; for a manifestation of the glory of his mercy, grace, and wisdom, according to his purpose in Christ.”

these alternatives be conceded, there is no mode of escaping from the absurd consequences that follow, such as that one essence may be the third part of two or more."-P, 89,

He proposes to discard reason or human hypothesis, and to follow the doctrine of Holy Scripture exclusively. He forbears to "introduce all that commonly-received drama of the per-sonalities in the Godhead;" since it is most evident from numberless passages of Scripture "that there is in reality but one true, independent and supreme God," and, "according to the testimony of the Son, delivered in the clearest terms, the Father is that One True God, by whom are all things." Having quoted and explained Mark xii. 28, &c.; Deut. vi. 4; John viii. 41, 54, and iv. 21, he concludes,

"Christ therefore agrees with the whole people of God, that the Father is that one and only God. For who can believe that the very first of the commandments would have been so obscure, and so i understood by the Church through such a succession of ages, that two other persons, equally entitled to worship, should have remained wholly unknown to the people of God, and de

barred of divine honours even to that very day? especially as God, where he is teaching his own people respecting the nature of their worship under the gospel, forewarns them that they would have for their God the one Jehovah whom they had always served, and David, that is, Christ, for their King and Lord. Jer. XXX. 9: They shall serve. Jehovah their God, and David their King, whom I will raise up unto them. In this passage Christ, such as God willed that he should be known or served by his people under the gospel, is expressly distinguished from the one God Jehovah, both by nature and title. Christ himself therefore, the Son of God, teaches us nothing in the gospel respecting the one God but what the law had before taught, and every where clearly asserts him to be his Father. John xvii. 3: This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. xx. 17: I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God: if therefore the Father be the God of Christ, and the same be our God, and if there be none other God but one, there can be no God beside the Father."-Pp. 90, 91.

He next produces many passages from the apostolic writings to prove

the sole Deity of the Father, and then remarks,,

"Though all this be so self-evident as to require no explanation, namely, that the Father alone is a self existent God, and that a being which is not self-existent cannot be God, it is wonderful with what fatile subtleties, or rather with what juggling artifices, certain individuals have endeavoured to elude or obscure the

plain meaning of these passages; learing shift, attempting every means, as if their no stone unturned, recurring to every object were not to preach the pure and unadulterated truth of the gospel to the poor and simple, but rather by dint of vehemence and obstinacy to sustain some absurd paradox from falling, by the treacherous aid of sophisms and verbal distiuctions, borrowed from the barbarous iguorance of the schools."-Pp. 93, 94.

He examines John x. 30, and explains it, not of unity of essence, but only of intimacy of communion; and also 1 John v. 7, the spuriousness of which he suspects, but which he shews, after Beza, may be interpreted "of an unity of agreement and testimony."

66

In answer to those that assert that the name and attributes and works of God, as well as divine honours, are habitually ascribed to the Son, he proceeds to prove, Ist, That in every passage each of the particulars above-mentioned is attributed in express terms only to one God the Father, as well by the Son himself as by his apostles. Secondly, that wherever they are attributed to the Son, it is in such a manner that they are easily understood to be attributable in their original and proper sense to the Father alone; and that the Son acknowledges himself to possess whatever share of Deity is assigned to him, by virtue of the peculiar gift and kindness of the Father; to which the apostles also bear their testimony. And lastly, that the Son himself and his apostles acknowledge throughout the whole of their discourses and writings, that the Father is greater than the Son in all things."

The gloss of the "orthodox" commentators upon our Lord's answer to the mother of Zebedee's children," that when he said, It is not mine to give, he spoke in his mediatorial capacity, draws from Milton the following admirable remarks:

"But questionless when the ambition

of the mother and her two sons incited them to prefer this important petition, they addressed their petition to the entire nature of Christ, how exalted soever it might be, praying him to graut their request to the utmost extent of his power, whether as God or man; Matt. xx. 20, Worshiping him, and desiring a certain thing of him, and ver. 21, Grant that they may sit. Christ also answers with reference to his whole nature,—It is not mine to give; and lest for some reason they might still fancy the gift belonged to him, he declares that it was altogether out of his province, and the exclusive privilege of the Father. If his reply was ineant solely to refer to his mediatorial capacity, it would have bordered on so. phistry, which God forbid that we should a tribute to him; as if he were capable of evading the request of Salome and her sons by the quibble which the logicians call expositio prava or æquivoca, when the respondent answers in a sense or with a mental intention different from the meaning of the questioner. The same must be said of other passages of the same kind, where Christ speaks of himself; for after the hypostatical union of two natures in one person, it follows that whatever Christ says of himself, he says not as the possessor of either nature separately, but with reference to the whole of his character, aud in his entire person, except where he himself makes a distinction. Those who divide this hypostatical union, at their own discretion, strip the discourses and answers of Christ of all their sincerity; they represent every thing as ambiguous and uncertain, as true and false at the same time; it is not Christ that speaks, but some unknown substitute, sometimes one, and sometimes another; so that the words of Horace may be justly applied to such disputants: Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo ?"-Pp. 101, 102.

"With regard to divine honours,” he shews, p. 105, that "as the Son uniformly pays worship and reverence to the Father alone, so he teaches us to follow the same practice."

His interpretation of the word Elohim, and his exposition of various passages commonly adduced in this controversy, prove him to be an erudite, sagacious and sound biblical critic. Take for example his observations on Thomas's confession, John xx. 28:

"He must have an immoderate share of credulity who attempts to elicit a new confession of faith, unknown to the rest of the disciples, from this abrupt exclamation of the apostle, who invokes in his

surprise not only Christ his own Lord, but the God of his ancestors, namely, God the Father; as if he had said, Lord! what do I see-what do I hear what do I handle with my hands? He whom Thomas is supposed to call God in this passage, had acknowledged respecting himself not long before, John xx. 17, I ascend unto my God and your God. Now the God of God cannot be essentially one with him whose God he is. On whose word therefore can we ground our faith with most security; on that of Christ, whose doctrine is clear, or of Thomas, a new disciple, first incredulous, then suddenly breaking out into an abrupt exclamation in an ecstacy of wonder, if indeed he really called Christ his God? For having reached out his fingers, he called the man whom he touched, as if unconscious of what he was saying, by the name of God. Neither is it credible that he should have so quickly understood the hypostatic union of that person whose resurrection he had just before disbelieved. Accordingly the faith of Peter is commended-Blessed art thou, Simon-for having only said-Thou art the Son of the living God, Matt. xvi. 16, 17. The faith of Thomas, although as it is commonly explained, it asserts the divinity of Christ in a much more remarkable manner, is so far from being praised, that it is undervalued, and almost reproved in the next verse-Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And yet, though the slowness of his belief may have deserved blame, the testimony borne by him to Christ as God, which, if the common interpretation be received as true, is clearer than occurs in any other passage, would undoubtedly have met with some commendation; whereas it obtains none whatever. Hence there is nothing to invalidate that interpretation of the passage which has been already suggested, referring the words-my Lord -to Christ, my God-to God the Father, who had just testified that Christ was his Son, by raising him up from the dead in so wonderful a manner."-Pp. 112, 113.

Milton gives the Unitarian sense of most of the texts alleged by Trinitarians. He was aware of a various reading in Acts xx. 28, but he understands the word blood of offspring or son. He interprets 1 Tim. iii. 16, God manifest in the flesh, of the Father, who was manifested in the Son, his image; who was justified, &e, On Titus ii. 13, he says, that "the definitive article may be inserted or omit