One of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith is the free agency of man; but the very term is a logical contradiction. An agent must act in accordance with the will and wishes of his employer, or he will be called to account, and perhaps dismissed. Where, then, is his moral freedom? It may be assumed that his employer licenses him to take his own course; but this must be with certain conditions, or else he will act for himself, and be no agent at all. Certain alternatives are placed before an agent, which he is privileged to choose; but that does not make him free in any rational or practical sense. If he does not act as required or desired, he will be either punished or dismissed. That is a singular kind of freedom. It is the freedom of a slave, which is no freedom at all; and this is exactly the kind of freedom orthodoxy grants to the sinner, and to the whole human race. It marks out the road to heaven, and says, "This is the road to eternal bliss; and you must walk in it, or eternal misery will be your portion." And, to escape such a terrible doom, millions tremblingly travel the road impelled and propelled by fear. And this painful alternative Christians are pleased to term free agency, or moral freedom. It is simply the freedom of a slave to clank his chains. It is a perversion of language to apply the term "free agency" to such a case. The orthodox give us our choice to accept their terms of salvation or reject them; but they attach to the consequence of rejecting them the most awful penalties. We will illustrate: A father says to his son some sabbath morning, "John, I am going to leave you free to-day either to go to church or go a-fishing." He instantly darts away to the river or the lake with the glee of a humming-bird, and is seen no more until nightfall. As he approaches the door, his father says to him, "John, where have you been to-day?"—"Why, father, I have been fishing, to be sure."—"Well now, John, I am going to give you one of the most terrible floggings you ever had in your life for not going to church."—"Why, father, you told me I might take my choice, and go either to church, or go a-fishing."—"That is true, John; but it was with the implied understanding that, if you did not choose to go to church, I would give you an unmerciful whipping." This is free agency indeed! It is the free agency of orthodoxy illustrated, and applied to practice. Free agency coupled with a penalty is moral slavery and moral tyranny. There is no moral freedom about it. You are simply free to take your choice between two systems of slavery and two systems of punishment or suffering. A hare pursued by a hound enjoys a similar kind of freedom,—the freedom to stand and be caught, or the freedom to run. Of all the absurdities that ever entered the brain of a human being, that of setting God and the Devil both after man, as orthodoxy does, and then call him a free agent, is not excelled. We are told that we can not think a thought of ourselves. All our good thoughts and actions are prompted by a good being; and all our bad thoughts' and actions by a bad being (God and the Devil). Where, then, is our moral freedom or our moral accountability, if neither our thoughts nor our actions are our own, as they can not be if they are prompted by other beings? When a man performs a good act, it is assumed that God is the author of it; and he is told that he must give God praise for it. On the other hand, all wicked actions are assigned to the Devil. He is thus a target between these two cross-fires. Such an assumption sweeps away the last vestige of free agency and moral accountability. Some Christian professors accept the doctrine of free agency to escape the dreaded alternative of assuming man to be a mere machine, which they call fatality. But here you have fatality to repletion. If to place man between two all-powerful beings, and have them both trying to direct his actions at once, don't make him a machine, then we have no use for the word. It is strange that Christian professors have never discovered that, according to the teachings of the Bible, God himself is not a free agent. A free agent is one who can have things as he wills or wishes, so far as he has the power to make them so. Look, then, at the fact that, according to their own Bible, God himself does not enjoy this desirable boon. It is declared by that book that "God wills not the death (destruction) of the sinner, but that all shall be saved." And it is elsewhere declared that "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life; and few there be that find it." According to the first text, God desires to save all; but, according to the second, he succeeds in saving but very few. Hence, not having things as he desires or wishes them to be, it is evident he is not a free agent, according to the orthodox or technical sense of that term. Why, then, talk of men being free agents, if a being with infinite power can not be a free agent?

To make man a free agent strictly or truly, he should have been consulted beforehand as to how, when, and where he would be born, or whether he would be born at all or not. Douglas Jerrold significantly remarks that, "if I had foreknown that a portion of mankind would be born to be damned, I'll be d——d if I would have been born at all." This expression, although profane, contains a good moral. Certainly nothing could be more preposterous or unreasonable than to hold one being accountable to another when the former had no agency in creating his mind or originating his inclinations, out of which all his actions grow. True accountability can only appertain to beings who created their own natural inclinations, or consented to receive those they are in possession of. This is clear and unanswerable logic. If man was made by God, or Infinite Wisdom, as Christians affirm, then common sense would teach that God alone is accountable for his actions. The man would be a fool who should blame a watch for not running right, knowing that the maker conferred upon it all the properties and powers it possessed. The maker of the watch alone is held responsible for all its perfections and imperfections. And, if man has a maker, it is a very clear case that that maker is equally responsible for his running wrong. There is no resisting this conclusion. The true assumption in the case is, that man has no creator in the orthodox sense, and is only responsible to himself, and to society so far as he is a voluntary member of it. But orthodoxy makes his salvation depend not only upon his resisting the natural inclinations implanted in his system, but also upon the position of his birth. As an argument in favor of sending the Bible to the heathen, they declare that millions perish every year because they have not the opportunity of reading that "Holy Book," and learning the name of Jesus. This makes their salvation depend upon the locality of their birth; as some sections furnish the opportunity, and others do not, of becoming acquainted with their Bible, and the name of their Savior.

We must imagine, therefore, in "the day of judgment" every human being will have a geographical question to answer. After being interrogated as to their conduct and practical lives, the next question will be, "Where were you born?" If the answer is, "In Arabia," the reply of the judge will be, "Oh yes! you are a Mahomedan. Our religion only saves those born in Christian countries. I must therefore set you aside among the goats." If the applicant is from India, he will be rejected from the kingdom, and consigned to perdition, because he is a "heathen." And thus Christianity is shown to be a geographical system of salvation, and makes a man's eternal destiny depend upon whether he is born in this country or that country, which strips it of all claim to either justice, impartiality, or good sense. The doctrine of free agency and moral accountability is one in a long list of Geological absurdities, which originated in an age of scientific ignorance, when nothing was known of the natural powers, or the philosophy of the human mind, or the laws which control its action.

Moral Accountability.—What is it? and where is it? It is certainly one of the greatest moral puzzles ever submitted to a philosopher, as to how a being, forced into existence by an omnipotent creative power, without his consultation or consent, can be responsible to that creative power for his conduct, when he had no agency and no volition in his own creation, and no power of resisting it, or in shaping its conditions. If God possesses omnipotent power and infinite wisdom, and is a creator, he could and should have made man to act just as he wished him to act; and, if he did not do so, common sense would suggest that it was his own fault. It will be seen from the force of this logic, that Christians must either give up the doctrine of a voluntary personal creator, or that of moral accountability. The two doctrines can not be made to harmonize together.