metaphysical
controversy which can never be settled. The doctrines of free-will and
necessity can never be reconciled by mortal reason. Consciousness
reveals the freedom of the will as well as the slavery to sin. Men are
conscious of both; they waste their time in attempting to reconcile two
apparently opposing facts,--like our pious fathers at their New England
firesides, who were compelled to shelter themselves behind mystery.

The tendency of Calvin's system, it is maintained by many, is to ascribe
to God attributes which according to natural justice would be injustice
and cruelty, such as no father would exercise on his own children,
however guilty. Even good men will not accept in their hearts doctrines
which tend to make God less compassionate than man. There are not two
kinds of justice. The intellect is appalled when it is affirmed that one
man _justly_ suffers the penalty of another man's sin,--although the
world is full of instances of men suffering from the carelessness or
wickedness of others, as in a wicked war or an unnecessary railway
disaster. The Scripture law of retribution, as brought out in the Bible
and sustained by consciousness, is the penalty a man pays for personal
and voluntary transgression. Nor will consciousness accept the doctrine
that the sin of a mortal--especially under strong temptation and with
all the bias of a sinful nature--is infinite. Nothing which a created
mortal can do is infinite; it is only finite: the infinite belongs to
God alone. Hence an infinite penalty for a finite sin conflicts with
consciousness and is nowhere asserted in the Bible, which is
transcendently more merciful and comforting than many theological
systems of belief, however powerfully sustained by dialectical reasoning
and by the most excellent men. Human judgments or reasonings are
fallible on moral questions which have two sides; and reasonings from
texts which present different meanings when studied by the lights of
learning and science are still more liable to be untrustworthy. It would
seem to be the supremest necessity for theological schools to unravel
the meaning of divine declarations, and present doctrines in their
relation with apparently conflicting texts, rather than draw out a
perfect and consistent system, philosophically considered, from any one
class of texts. Of all things in this wicked and perplexing world the
science of theology should be the most cheerful and inspiring, for it
involves i