have left them so
shadowy and indistinct, and so distorted from their real proportions, that
they have inevitably seemed to clash with each other. Hence, to describe
these two spheres with clearness and precision, and to determine the
precise point at which they come into contact without intersecting each
other, is still a desideratum in the science of theology. We shall
endeavour to define the human power and the divine sovereignty, and to
exhibit the harmony subsisting between them, in such a manner as to
supply, in some small degree at least, this great _desideratum_ which has
so long been the reproach of the most sublime of all the sciences.

But this is not to be done by planting ourselves upon any one particular
platform, and dogmatizing from thence, as if that particular point of view
necessarily presented us with every possible phase of the truth. There has
been, indeed, so much of this one-sided, exclusive, and dogmatizing spirit
manifested in relation to the subject in question, as to give a great
appearance of truth to the assertion of an ingenious writer, that inasmuch
as different minds contemplate the divine and human agency from different
points of view, the predominant or leading idea presented to them can
never be the same; and hence they can never agree in the same
representation of the complex whole. The one, says he, "necessarily gives
a greater prominence to the divine agency, and the other to the scope and
influence of the human will, and consequently they pronounce different
judgments; just as a man who views a spherical surface from the inside
will forever affirm it to be concave, while he who contemplates it from
the outside will as obstinately assert that it is convex." But although
this has been the usual method of treating the subject in question, such
weakness and dogmatizing is self-imposed, and not an inevitable condition
of the human mind. We may learn wisdom from the errors of the past, no
less than from its most triumphant and glorious discoveries.

In the discussion of this subject, it is true that opposite parties have
confined themselves to first appearances too much, and rested on one-sided
views. But are we necessarily tied down to such inadequate conceptions?
The causes which separate men in opinion, and the obstacles which keep
them asunder, are indeed powerful; but we hope they do not form an eternal
barrier between the wise and good. In regard to doctrines so fundamental
and so