Whatever extent we assign to the corruption of human nature, by which its moral powers have been impaired, or the soul disqualified for the due and proper use of those powers, it is plain that men are still capable of acting, and of being treated as the subjects of moral government. Calvinistic writers do themselves admit the turpitude of sin and the loveliness of virtue—that vice entails suffering, and that happiness is the consequence of a religious conformity to the will of God. That is, setting aside all special refinements by which they attempt to disprove that the present state of man is probationary, they confess that practically mankind are treated as accountable beings whose guilt is punished and their goodness rewarded. This broad and unquestionable fact defies controversy. Although we may not be able to give a definition of freedom which may satisfy the philosopher, and although we may concede to the opposers of the freedom of the will, that virtue and vice—moral good and moral evil—are to be predicated, not of the cause, whether it be freedom or fate, from whence our volitions spring, but of the good or evil nature of the volitions themselves—in whatever way these questions are decided, or, if we leave them undecided, as being beyond the present grasp of the human intellect, men are unquestionably subjected by the Deity to the laws of a moral economy. They are, sooner or later, rendered happy in exact proportion to their conformity to the commands of God, and miserable if they remain rebellious.

And all we contend for is, that such a state of things can never be explained on the supposition of absolute predestination or inevitable necessity, founded on the irreversible decrees of Heaven. The reason appears on a moment’s consideration. The good or evil nature of the volition belongs, on this hypothesis, not to the created being, who is a passive instrument, without actual power—but to the Creator, who is the only real agent, as well as the efficient cause. The instrument by which He accomplishes his purposes may be good or evil, the volitions of that instrument may be characterised by whatever qualities you please, still, a mere instrument is not an object of moral approbation or blame; no responsibility attaches to it, and the condition on which it acts is perfectly incongruous with all the ideas we have of reward or punishment. These are inapplicable to a state of fatalism. The volitions, and the actions they produce, are in reality those of the Deity. To Him they belong, and to Him alone. On this critical and decisive point all the great Calvinistic writers break down. While they award to human beings the treatment due to moral agents, they deny to them the attributes without which they cannot be responsible for their actions.

To beings under moral government, personal agency is essential; but Calvinistic fatalism reduces all agency to that of the Deity alone. The human soul is moved mechanically by impulse from without, and passively yields to an irresistible power.

It supposes the exercise of faculties by which we are made sensible of our relation to the Deity, and our obligation to obey his laws. Hence results the consciousness of rectitude or guilt, and all the noble motives by which we are led to self-government and self-renunciation—from a sense of duty, and with a view to future happiness in the enjoyment of the divine approbation. But Calvinistic necessity destroys the majesty of the human mind, as “an arbiter enthroned in its own dominion, endowed with an initiating power, and forming its determinations for good or for evil by an inherent and indefeasible prerogative.” It tells us that we have neither power to act nor freedom to fall—that our sense of liberty is delusive, that we are predestined to sin or to holiness by a decree of the infinite mind, and that our fate has been sealed from eternity! If we really believe it and act upon it, our moral energies are for ever suppressed, and the consciousness of virtue and of guilt must give way to the humiliating persuasion that we can do nothing, and that we have nothing to do, but to yield to our lot and await our doom, whether to be lost or saved!

The absurdity of such a theory of religion is a light consideration compared with the perilous consequences it must produce, if it were possible that the mass of ignorant and unreflecting creatures, of which society is composed, should really believe it true and act in accordance with their belief. Instructed to regard their present conduct and future allotment, as being already determined, the notion of a state of trial, in which they were accountable to God, would be cast off, with all its salutary restraints upon the passions, and all its noble incentives to a virtuous life. Nor would it be possible to enforce the laws of morality by mere temporal sanctions, the fear of exile, the dungeon, or the gibbet, when conscience no longer enforced the dictates of religious faith. The great auxiliary and support of all human authority is to be found in that most noble attribute of human nature—the sense of duty, which ceases to operate the moment we lose the consciousness of freedom, believing that our thoughts, our actions, ourselves, are but necessary links in an eternal chain of causes and effects.

Such a theory of religion renders it absurd to admonish mankind of their duty, whether to obey the law of God, or to believe the Gospel of Christ.

To this reasoning the Calvinist replies: “I acknowledge that men are morally, spiritually dead. But at the command of God I would preach to the dead: at his word the dead shall hear and live.” But this reply is irrelevant to the great points of the argument. It remains to be proved, that God would be just in punishing as a crime that spiritual death, of which, on the Calvinistic theory, He is the author;—that it is possible for infinite goodness to subject created beings to an inevitable necessity of breaking his laws, and then hand them over to perdition. This is the point which cannot be evaded; and it is fatal to the predestinarian theology. Doubtless God can raise the dead, literally or spiritually; but that does not touch the question.