s scheme, and propose it to our
acceptance, on the sole and sufficient ground of its evidence. If we may
judge from those of their writings which we have seen, this course of
proceeding is getting to be very much the fashion among the Calvinists of
the present day; and they have a great deal to say in praise of simply
adhering to the truth, without being over-solicitous about its
difficulties, or paying too much attention to them. That man, say they, is
in imminent danger of heresy who, instead of receiving the truth with the
simplicity of a little child, goes about to worry himself with its
difficulties. He walks in dark and slippery places. We agree with them in
this, and commend their wisdom: for it presents the only chance which
their system has of retaining its hold on the human mind. But before
accepting this scheme on the ground of its evidence, we have deemed it
prudent to look into the very interior of the scheme itself, and weigh the
evidence on which it is so confidently recommended.

Section IV.

The moral world not constituted according to the scheme of necessity.

In the prosecution of this inquiry, we have appeared to ourselves to find,
that this boasted scheme of necessity is neither more nor less than one
grand tissue of sophisms. We have found, we believe, that this huge
imposition on the reason of man is a vile congregation of pestilential
errors, through which, if the glory of God and his marvellous ways be
contemplated, they must appear most horribly distorted. We have found that
this scheme is as weak and crazy in the mechanism of its internal
structure as it is frightful in its consequences. Instead of that closely
articulated body of thought, which we were led to expect therein, we have
found little more than a jumble of incoherences, a semi-chaotic mass of
plausible blunders. We have seen and shown, we trust, that this grand and
imposing scheme of necessity is, in reality, based on a false
psychology,--directed against a false issue,--supported by false
logic,--fortified by false conceptions,--recommended by false analogies,--and
rendered plausible by a false phraseology. And, besides, we have
ascertained that it originates in a false method, and terminates in a
false religion. As such, we deem it far better adapted to represent the
little, narrow, dark, crooked, and perverted world within, than the great
and all-glorious world of God without. So have we n