nt. Calvinistic free agency must be
something analogous to Bishop Hughes's freedom of conscience,
indestructible and inviolable, in its very nature and essence; so
that a man may be denied the privilege of reading the Bible, or
of propagating or entertaining any opinions contrary to the
Church of Rome--he may be thrown into prison, and put to torture,
for refusing to subscribe to its dogmas, or to worship according
to forms which he holds to be idolatrous--and yet he enjoys
freedom of conscience. So, according to the teachings of modern
Calvinism, man is a free agent, notwithstanding all the
_circumstances_ which _surround_ him, with all his _sensations,
emotions, desires, purposes, volitions_ and _acts_ were _decreed
from eternity_, and brought to pass by a power which he can
_neither control_ nor _resist_. This free agency must then be
something absolutely inviolable in its nature and essence,
something which God himself cannot destroy or impinge except by
terminating the existence of the being in whom it inheres. As
Bishop Hughes's freedom of conscience is very different from what
is generally understood to be freedom of conscience, so the free
agency which may be made to harmonize with this doctrine, is
different from what is usually understood to be free agency. It
is not the power to act otherwise than as we do act, or to choose
or will otherwise than as we do choose or will.

2. This doctrine, being at variance with man's free agency, is,
by necessary consequence, at variance with his _moral accountability_.
There would be as much reason in holding the _atmosphere_ accountable,
or the _trees_, or the _grass_, or the _clods_, or the _stones_. All
his _views_, _feelings_, and _volitions_, being thus predetermined,
he can no more be accountable for them than for the _circumstances_
of his _birth_, or the _natural color_ of his _skin_. He cannot
reasonably be made the subject of commendation or censure--of reward
or punishment.

3. It also follows, from this doctrine, that there is not, and
cannot be any such thing as sin. If man be not a free agent--if
he be incapable of acting otherwise than as predetermined by
Jehovah--he is incapable of either virtue or vice. It would be as
reasonable to predicate virtue or vice of the flux and reflux of
the tides, or the circulation of the blood, as of man or angel
under such circumstances.

And, mark! if we, for the sake of the argument, should admit that
man is capable o