e law of God;
because if we will to do so, the external act will follow; and because it
is certain that _if_ we will we do really will. But _how to will_ is the
question. Can we put forth the requisite volitions? No one doubts that if
we put forth the volition which the law of God requires, we then obey him,
whether the external act follow or not; nor that if we will, then we do
really will. But all this leaves the great question untouched, Can we put
forth the requisite volitions without divine aid? And after this question
has been answered in the negative, and we have been told that such aid is
not given to the reprobate, all this talk about a natural ability, which
must forever prove unavailing, is the merest mockery that ever entered
into the imagination or the metaphysics of man. However the fact may be
disguised by verbal niceties, it as really places eternal life beyond the
reach of the reprobate, as is the very sun in the firmament of heaven, and
makes eternal death as inevitable to them as is the rising and the setting
thereof.

Section III.

The eternity of future punishments an expression of the divine goodness.

We have seen in the first chapter of this part of the present work, that
God really and sincerely intended the salvation of all men; and that if
any are lost, it is because it is impossible in the nature of things to
necessitate holiness; and that the impenitent, in spite of all the means
employed by infinite wisdom and goodness for their salvation, do
obstinately work out their own ruin and destruction. Omnipotence cannot
confer holiness upon them; they do not choose to acquire it; and hence,
they are compelled to endure the awful wages of sin. To those who reject
this view of the nature of holiness, the world in which we live must
forever remain an inexplicable enigma; and that to which we are hastening
must present still more terrific subjects of contemplation. To their minds
the eternal agonies of the lost can never be made to harmonize with the
infinite perfections of God, by whom the second death is appointed. "How
self-evident the proposition," says Foster, "that if the Sovereign Arbiter
had _intended_ the salvation of the race, it must have been accomplished."
Having so summarily settled this position, that God did not intend the
salvation of the race, the question which admits of no answer, _Why did he
not intend it?_ might well spread a mysterious dar