$ 12. FREE WILL.

The free agency of man, one of the essential conditions of all theodicy, is sometimes relied on as constituting a theodicy in itself. Thus the greatest of the Fathers says of eternal suffering: "Whoever thinks such a condemnation either unduly severe, or unjust, surely has not estimated the guilt of sinning when it was so easy not to sin. For, as a signal merit of obedience is ascribed to Abraham because so hard a duty was laid upon him as the slaying of his son, so in Paradise the disobedience was as much greater as the duty required was less difficult. And as the obedience of the second Adam was the worthier because it was unto death, so the disobedience of the first Adam was more detestable because it was unto death. For when the threatened penalty of disobedience is great, and the requirement of our Maker is easy, who can tell how great a sin it is not to obey in so easy a matter, and in awe of so high an authority and so dreadful a doom?”1

We think the theory thus stated merits the name we have given it, because the facility of obedience is the perfection of freedom. So far as the theory relies on the vastness of the motive to obedience, it becomes another theodicy, to be examined presently.

This theory is refuted by its consequences. By parity of reasoning the least sin might be visited with the heaviest penalty, because the sin was voluntary. The child need not steal a pin; the petty theft may require more effort than to desist from it. Why should the child complain of penalty at all? And if not at all, why complain of any penalty, though it be infinite? Indeed the theodicy sometimes takes this form, the more trivial the

1 Augustine, De Civ. Dei, l. 14, c. 15. Compare Willard, Lectures on the Catechism, q. 19; "There is a covenant merit. It is the wages for sin according to the indentures which were made between God and man. Rom. vi. 23: 'The wages of sin is death.' The word signifies a stipend, or something that is agreed for... . The sinner hath no cause to complain, because he knew what he had to stand to;"-J. Scott, Christian Life, Part III. c. 9;- Crousaz Examen du Pyrrhonisme, Part III. c. 2, § 22; c. 13, §§ 7, 25, 34, 38, 52;-Bledsoe, Theodicy, p. 302; - Hinton, Harmony of Religious Truth, pp. 208, 209.

duty God requires, the more excuseless the refusal to perform it, and the greater may be the penalty.

The fallacy is that which we have already indicated: a mistake of the condition of guilt for the producing cause of guilt. It is as if one should say an infinite penalty of law is just because the subject knows it to be the penalty. The knowledge of law and its penalty is an essential condition of its binding force; but the publication of a law assuredly does not make it just. Neither does the most perfect power to obey it, or to escape its penalty.

$ 13. THE CHOICE OF TWO INFINITIES.

The theory just considered is often supplemented by the consideration of eternal happiness and misery as offset against each other, and offered to man's choice. Thus a living writer, speaking of man as free, and a necessary holiness as impossible: "It was the bright and cheering light which this truth seemed to cast upon the dark places of the universe, that first inspired us with the thought and determination to produce a theodicy. And it is in the light of this truth, if we mistake not, that the infinite love of God may be seen beaming from the eye of hell, as well as from the bright regions of eternal blessedness. All that

could be done in such a case was, for God to set life and death before us, accompanied by the greatest of all conceivable motives to pursue the one, and to fly from the other; and then say 'choose ye;' and all this God has actually done for the salvation of all men. Hence, though some should be finally lost, His infinite goodness will be clear."1

1 Bledsoe, Theodicy, pp. 302, 303. Compare J. Clarke, Origin of Moral Evil, Boyle Lecture Sermons, III., 275; - Baxter, Unreasonableness of Infidelity. §31;-Bp. Newton, Dissertations, No. 60: " You cannot complain of injustice, for the rewards and punishments are equal; "— Bates, Inmort. of Soul, c. 12: "Eternal life and death are set before them. So that none dies but for wilful disobedience;" Harris, Man Primeval, p. 177: "Now the same constitution which renders man capable of hoping, renders him capable of fearing to the same extent. But if it was never intended that such fear should be realized in the event of disobedience, here is the anomaly of a part of the human constitution to which there is nothing whatever in the objective and the future to correspond."

This theodicy is closely connected with the common notion of human dignity; and in this view it is, we think, already refuted. As an argument for the divine justice, we may reply to it in the words of Tillotson. After dismissing several theories, he says: "Here are two things which seem to bid fairly towards an answer. First, that the reward which God promiseth to our obedience is equal to the punishment which he threatens to our disobedience. But yet this, I doubt, will not reach the business; because though it be not contrary to justice to exceed in rewards, that being matter of mere favor, yet it may be so, to exceed in punishments. Secondly, it is further said, that the sinner in this case hath nothing to complain of, since he hath his own choice. This I confess is enough to silence the sinner, and to make him acknowledge that his destruction is of himself; but yet for all that it does not seem so clearly to satisfy the objection from the disproportion between the fault and the punishment." 1

The theodicy fails, besides being dualistic in its very form. When it is asked why God should propose to man the choice of two infinities, the answer brings us to another form of the theory.

§ 14. CHOICE OF PENALTIES.

Meanwhile we may notice a theodicy similar to the last, which seems to have been that of Baxter. He says: "I would ask you, do you not know that you and all men must die? and would you not be contented to suffer a terrible degree of misery everlastingly, rather than die? Whatsoever men may say, it is certain they would. Though not to live to us is better than to live in hell, yet men would live in very great misery, rather than not live at all, if they had their choice. We see men that have lived, some in extreme poverty, some in great pain, for many years, that yet had rather continue in it than die. If, then, it be so great a misery to be turned again into nothing, that you would rather suffer everlasting pain in some measure, methinks you can discover a probability that God's word should be true, which

1 Sermon on Matt. xxv. 46.

threatens yet a greater pain; for is it not likely that the judge will inflict more than the prisoner will choose or submit to?"1

The statement is, doubtless, too general; only the nobler sort of men have spoken of eternal pain as better than the loss of being; and that inconsiderately, though sincerely.

The argument divides the eternal misery of the lost into two portions, that highest measure which they would prefer to nonexistence, and the overplus which they would not prefer, but which justice may inflict. It will readily appear that this overplus alone can be penalty; the rest can hardly be vindicated as just-much less as penal.

For, why would so great a degree of eternal misery be preferred to annihilation? Certainly because immortality would be an honor and a blessing, in the pleasures of intellect at least, though not in the enjoyments of sense.

"For who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being,

These thoughts that wander through eternity?"

They would be the solace and comfort that are to make the suffering preferable to annihilation. Without them who would not lose his being? But they would be a gift of God's eternal goodness. And the attendant suffering which they are supposed to vindicate, would be a charge made for the gratuity. The pleasure would be no longer a grace of God, and the pain no longer of his justice.

§ 15. INFINITE MOTIVES.

Salvation is too valuable to be exposed to any hazard of loss. Hence a very prevalent sentiment which has been expressed as

1 The Unreasonableness of Infidelity, Part I. Works, xx. 31, Lond. 1830. Compare Twisse, Vindiciæ, 1. 2, pars 1, § 5, p. 17: "Not only according to the Schoolmen, but to Augustine also [De Lib. Arbit. I. 3, cc. 6-8], even according to the truth itself, it is more desirable to be, though in any pain whatever, than not to be at all;"-- Dr. Gordon, Hall's Memoir, p. 95, ed. Pres. Board: "So dreadful do I think annihilation, that I would rather live in pain than not live at all;"Athenagoras, I. Taylor, and R. Williams, as above, p. 13;-Walker, Philosophy of Scepticism, pp. 151-153, states the common view that hell is appointed "in mercy" to the lost, because heaven would be less congenial.

follows: "There can be no kindness felt for the impenitent, in wishing any less influence to come upon them in their sins, to urge them to enter immediately upon that course in which their highest happiness lies, than what arises from the existence of an endless penalty. Nor can any kindness be felt for the penitent and pious on earth, in wishing any less influence to come upon them to bind them firmly and immovably to their Saviour, than what arises from the threatening of an endless penalty in case they apostatize. The desire of Universalists cannot be to have any motives addressed to men for carrying on the work of reformation on earth, higher and stronger than what arise from the doctrine they reject. . . . And as to God, they must acknowledge that He regards the holiness of his subjects as involv ing their highest good; and that He is pursuing this object in the demands and threatenings of his government. Consequently there can be no kindness and respect felt for his character, in wishing any motive lessened which is to secure the obedience and veneration of his subjects."1 With this should be compared a translation of one of the early Fathers: "Allowing our tenets to be as false and groundless presumptions as you would have them, yet I must tell you they are presumptions the world cannot well be without. If they are follies, they are follies of great use, because the believers of them, what under the dread of eternal pain, and the hope of everlasting pleasure, are under the strongest obligations to become the best of men." 2

It is a frequent cavil of the sceptic that the Christian practices virtue for the hope of an eternal reward, for the fear of an eternal pain, or for both reasons; not at all for the love of virtue.

1 Fitch, Review of Tyler on Fut. Pun., Chr. Spectator, Dec. 1829.

2 Tertullian, Apology, c. 49, Reeves' translation. (But the context makes the argument to be this, that the utility of a doctrine is prima facie evidence of its truth.) Compare Bp. Burnet, Demonstr. of True Religion, Boyle Lecture Sermons, III. 494, 495: "Therefore the right and just proportion of punishment to be annexed to laws is hot to be measured by the nature of sin;" — Bates, Immort. of the Soul, c. 12;-Maud, The Tremendous Sanction, c. 3, § 6;Watson, Theol. Instt. Part II. c. 19; - Hinton, Harmony of Religious Truth, pp. 203, sq. 206;-Walker, Philosophy of Scepticism, pp. 147, 148.

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