divine constitution for the
government of the world, and how much more conspicuously would it have
displayed the goodness of its Divine Author!

Again, the scheme of Edwards is condemned out of his own mouth. If this
scheme be better than another, because its motives are _stronger_, why did
not God render it still more worthy of his goodness, by rendering its
motives still more powerful and efficacious? Edwards admits, nay, he
insists, that God might easily have rendered the motives of his moral
government perfectly efficacious and successful. He repeatedly declares
that God could have prevented all sin, "by giving such influences of his
Spirit as would have been absolutely effectual to hinder it." If the
goodness of a constitution, then, is to be determined by the strength of
its motives, as the argument of Edwards supposes, then we are bound,
according to his principles, to pronounce that for which he contends
unworthy of the goodness of God, as being radically unsound and defective.
This is emphatically the case, as the Governor of the world might have
strengthened the motives to obedience _indefinitely_, not by augmenting
the danger, but by increasing the security of his subjects; that is to
say, not by making the penalty more terrific, but by giving a greater
disposition to obedience.

The same thing may be clearly seen from another point of view. Let us
suppose, for instance, that God had established the constitution or
covenant, that if Adam had persevered in obedience, then all his posterity
should be confirmed in holiness and happiness; and that if he fell, he
should fall for himself alone. Would not such an appointment, we ask, have
been more likely to have been attended with a happy issue than that for
which Edwards contends? Let us suppose again, that after such a
constitution had been established, its Divine Author had really secured
the obedience of Adam; would not this have made a "happy issue" perfectly
certain? Why then was not such a constitution established? It would most
assuredly have been an infinitely clearer and more beautiful expression of
the divine goodness than that of Edwards. Hence, the philosophy of Edwards
easily furnishes an unspeakably better constitution for the government of
the world, than that which has been established by the wisdom of God! Is
it not evident, that the advocates of such a scheme should never venture
before the tribunal of reason at all? Is it not evident, that their