hout a
sacrifice or mutilation of the truth, divest itself of the darkness which
must ever accompany all one-sided and partial views, will it possess a
decided advantage and superiority over other systems. Since this general
principle will not be denied, let us proceed, in conclusion, to take a
brief survey of the foregoing scheme of doctrine, and determine, if we
can, whether to any truth it has given any such advantage.

It clearly seems free from the stupendous cloud of difficulties that
overhang that view of the moral universe which supposes its entire
constitution and government to be in accordance with the scheme of
necessity. These difficulties pertain, first, to the responsibility of
man; secondly, to the purity of God; and, thirdly, to the reality of moral
distinctions. These three several branches of the difficulty in question
have been respectively considered in the first three chapters of the first
part of the present work; and we shall now briefly recapitulate the views
therein presented, in the three following sections.

Section I.

The scheme of necessity denies that man is the responsible author of sin.

If, according to this scheme, all things in heaven and earth, the
volitions of the human mind not excepted, be under the dominion of
necessitating causes, then may we well ask, How can man be a free and
responsible agent? To this inquiry the most illustrious advocates of the
scheme in question have not been able to return a coherent or satisfactory
reply. After the search of ages, and the joint labour of all their
gigantic intellects, they have found no position in their system on which
the freedom of the human mind may be securely planted. The position set up
for this purpose by one is pulled down by another, who, in his turn,
indicates some other position only to be demolished by some other advocate
of his own scheme. The more we look into their writings on this subject,
the more irreconcilable seems the conflict of opinion in which they are
among themselves involved. The more closely we contemplate the labour of
their hands, the more clearly we perceive that all their attempts, in
opposition to the voice of heaven and earth, to rear the great
metaphysical tower of necessity, have only ended in an utter confusion of
tongues. So far, indeed, are they from having found and presented any such
view of the freedom and responsibility of man, as shall, by the intrinsi