that the epithets, "self-determined," and "self-originated," cannot be applied to it.

But it seems to us that we can have a fuller and more adequate idea of the voluntary power in man than this comes to. It seems to us that our idea of the human Will is by no means exhausted of its contents, when we have taken into view merely that ability which a man has, to regulate his conduct in a particular instance. It seems to us that we do believe in the existence of a controlling power in the soul, that is far more central and profound than the quite superficial faculty by which we regulate the movement of our limbs outwardly, or inwardly summon up our energies to the performance of particular acts. It seems to us, that by the Will, is meant a voluntary power that lies at the very centre of the soul, and whose movements consist, not so much in choosing or refusing, in reference to particular circumstances, as in determining the whole man with reference to some great and ultimate end of living. The characteristic of the Will proper, as distinguished from the volitionary faculty, is determination of the whole being to an ultimate end, rather than selection of means for attaining that end in a particular case.* The difference between the voluntary and the volitionary power-between the Will proper and the faculty of choices may be seen by considering a particular instance of the exercise of the latter. Suppose that a man chooses to indulge one of his appetites in a particular instance--the appetite for alcoholic stimulus, e. g.-and that he actually does gratify it. In this instance, he puts forth one single volition, and performs one particular act. By an act of the faculty of choices, of which he is distinctly conscious, and over which he has arbitrary power, he drinks, and gratifies his appetite. But why does he thus choose in this particular instance? words, is there not a deeper ground for this single volition? Is not this particular act of the choice determined by a far deeper and pre-existing determination of his whole inward being to self, as an ultimate end of living? And now, if the Will should be widened out and deepened, so as to contain this whole inward state of the man-this entire tendency of the soul to self, and sin-is it not plain that it would be a very different power from that which put forth the particular volition? Would not the Will, as thus conceived, cover a far wider surface of the soul, and reach down to a far deeper depth in it, than that faculty of single choices which covers but a single

In other

* This distinction between the Will proper, and the faculty of choices, is marked in Latin by the two words, Voluntas and Arbitrium; and in that one of the modern tongues, whose vocabulary for Philosophy is the richest of all, by the two words, Wille and Willkühr.

point on the surface, and never goes below the surface?Would not a faculty, comprehensive enough to include the whole man, and sufficiently deep and central to be the origin and basis of a nature, a character, a permanent, moral state, be a very different faculty from that volitionary power whose activity is merely on the surface, and whose products are single resolutions, and transient volitions?

Now, by the Will, we mean such a faculty. We mean by it a voluntary power that lies at the very foundation of the human soul, constituting its central, active principle, containing the whole moral state, and all the moral affections. We mean by it a voluntary power that carries the whole inward being along with it when it moves-a power, in short, which is the man himself--the person.

It will be seen from this view, that the voluntary power in man is the deepest and most central power within him. We sometimes hear the human soul spoken of as composed fundamentally of Intellect and of Feeling, and only superficially of Will; as if man were an Intellect at bottom, or a Heart at bottom, and then a Will were superinduced as the executive of these. But this cannot be so, for man is a person, and the bottom of personality is free Will. Man at bottom is a Willa self-determining creature-and his other faculties of knowing and feeling are grafted into this stock and root; and hence he is responsible from centre to circumference.*

The Will, as thus defined, we affirm to be the responsible and guilty author of the sinful nature. Indeed, this sinful nature is nothing more nor less than the state of the Will; nothing more nor less than its constant and total determination to self, as the ultimate end of living. This voluntary power lying at the bottom of the soul, as its elementary base, and carrying all the faculties and powers of the man along with it, whenever it

* Since writing the above, we have fallen in with the following corroborations: "Voluntas est quippe in omnibus imo omnes nihil aliud quam voluntates sunt. Nam quid est cupiditas, et lætitia, nisi voluntas in eorum consensionem quæ volumus? Et quid est metus atque tristitia, nisi voluntas in dissensionem ab his quæ volumus." Aug. De civitate Dei, lib. xiv., cap. vi. "The Will is in the soul like the primum mobile in the heavens, that doth carry all the inferior orbs away with its own motion. This is the whole of a man; a man is not what he knoweth, or what he remembereth, but what he Willeth. The Will is the Queen sitting upon its throne, exercising its dominion over the other parts of the soul. The Will is the proper seat of all our sin; and if there could be a summum malum as there is a summum bonum, this would be in the Will."-Burgess' Original Sin, Part III. chap. xiv. sec. I.

"In the Will, we are to conceive suitable and proportionate affections to those we call passions in the sensitive part. Thus, in the Will, (as it is a rational appetite,) there are love, joy, desire, fear, and hatred.

*

*

*

So that the Will loveth, the Will rejoiceth, and the Will desireth," &c.-Burgess. Part III. chap. iv. sec. II.

moves, and wherever it goes, has turned away from God as an ultimate end, and has directed itself to self, as an ultimate end; and this self-direction-this permanent and entire determination of itself-this state of the Will-is the sinful nature of

man.

Here then we have a depraved nature, and a depraved nature that is guilt, because it is a self-originated nature.* Here, then, is the child of wrath. Were this nature created and put into man, as an intellectual nature, or as a particular temperament, is put into him, by the Creator of all things, it would not be a responsible and guilty nature, nor would man be a child of wrath. But it does not thus originate. It has its origin in the free and responsible use of that voluntary power which God has created and placed in the human soul, as its most central, most mysterious, and most hazardous endowment. It is a self-determined nature-i. e., a nature originated in a Will, and by a Will.

It will be apparent, from what has been said, that we regard the Arminian idea of the Will, and of self-determination, to be altogether inadequate to the purpose intended by it. The motive of this school, we are charitable enough to believe, was a good one. It desired to vindicate the ways of God to manto make man responsible for his character-but it ended in the annihilation of all sin except that of volitions; of all sin except what is technically called actual sin, because its view of the Will was not profound enough. And as we wish to bring out into as clear a light as possible the difference between the Arminian self-determination, and what we suppose to be the true doctrine, let us for a moment exhibit the relation of both theories to "the doctrine of inability," as it is familiarly styled.

According to the Arminian school, the Will is merely the faculty of choices; and its action consists solely in volitions. Self-determination, consequently, is the ability to put forth a volition. Now, as a volition is confessedly under the arbitrary control of a man, it follows, that he has the ability to put forth (so-called) holy or sinful volitions at pleasure; and inasmuch as no deeper action of the Will than this volitionary action is recognized in the scheme, it follows, that he has the ability to be holy or sinful, at pleasure. This is the "power to the contrary," which even sinful man has, although the more thoughtful portion of the school freely acknowledge that it is never exercised, as matter of fact, except under the co

* To use a scholastic distinction-it is Peccatum originans, and not merely originatum.

operating influence of the Holy Spirit. This view of the Will, and of self-determination, then, teaches theoretically, at all events, the doctrine of man's ability to regenerate himself. There is no other action of the Will than that of single volitions, and over these man has arbitrary power.

But the true idea of the Will, and of self-determination, while, bringing man in guilty for his sinful nature and conduct, forbids the attribution to him of a self-regenerating power. According to the Arminian theory, all the action of the Will consists of volitions, and one volition being as much within the power of the man as another, a succeeding volition can at any moment reverse and undo the preceding. But, according to what we suppose to be the true view of the Will, there is an action of this voluntary power far deeper, and consequently far less easily managed than that of single choices. We have spoken of a deep and central action of the Will, which consists in the determination and tendency of the whole soul, and of the soul as a whole. We have spoken of a movement in the voluntary power that carries the whole inward being along with it. Now, it is plain, that such a power as this-including so much, and running so deep-cannot, from the very nature of the case, be such a facile and easily managed power, as that by which we resolve to do some particular thing in every-day life. While, therefore, we affirm that the Will, using the term in the comprehensive sense in which we have defined it, is a free and self-determined power, we deny, that having once taken its direction, it can reverse its motion by a volition or resolution. If the Will were merely the faculty of choices or volitions, this might be the case; but that deep under current, that central self-determination, that great main tendency of the Will to self and sin, as an ultimate end, though having a free and criminal origin, is not to be reversed so easily. We have only to take the Will as thus conceived, and steadily eye it in this free process of self-determination, to see that there is no power in itself, from the very nature of the case, by which the direction of its movement can be altered. Take and hold the sinful Will of man, in this steady, this inmost, this total determination of itself to self, as the ultimate end of its existence, and say how the power that is to reverse all this process can possibly come out of the Will, thus shut up, and entirely swallowed in the process. How is the process to destroy itself, and turn into its own contrary? How is Satan to cast out Satan? Having once set itself, with all its energy, in a given direction, and towards a final end, the human Will becomes a current that is unmanageable-a power too strong for itself to turn backnot because of any compulsion or stress from without, be it observed, but simply because of its own momentum-simply

because of the obstinate energy with which it is perversely going in the contrary direction. For the whole Will is determined, if determined at all; consequently, when a tendency or determination, as distinguished from a volition, has been taken, there is no remainder of power in reserve, (as it were behind the existing determination or tendency,) by which the present moral state of the Will can be reversed. For this determination or permanent state of the Will, as we have observed again and again, is something very different from a volition, which does not carry the whole soul along with it, and which may be reversed by another volition back of it. When a determination has occurred, and a nature has been originated, the Will proper-the whole voluntary power-is in for it; and hence, in the case of sin, the bondage in the very seat of freedom-the absolute inability to be holy, springing out of, and identical with the determination to be evil-which is a selfdetermination.

It will be seen, that according to this theory, the freedom of the Will does not consist in the ability to originate a holy or sinful nature at any instant, and according to the caprice of the individual. It does not consist in the ability to determine itself to good or evil, as an ultimate end of existence, with the same facility and agility with which single choices can be exercised. It does not consist in an ability to jerk over from one moral state of the will, into a contrary moral state, at any moment, by a violent or a resolute effort. The doctrine of the freedom of the Will does indeed require us to affirm that the Will is primarily and constantly self-moved-that its permanent tendency and character is not imposed upon it as the tendency of the brute is imposed upon it by the creative act; but the doctrine does not require us to affirm, that when the Will has once freely formed its character, and responsibly originated its nature, it can then, ad libitum, or by any power then possessed by it, form a contrary character, and originate an entirely contrary nature within itself. All that is to be claimed is, that at the initial point in the history of the human Will, a free and responsible start shall be taken, a selfdetermination shall begin and continue. It is not to be af firmed, for it contradicts the experience of every man who has had any valuable experience upon this subject, that there is power in the will to cross and re-cross from a sinful to a holy state, at any moment-that the Will is in such an indifferent state in regard to the two great ultimate ends of action-God and self-that it stands affected in precisely the same way towards both, and by a volition, can choose either at pleasure.