tiite free agency, because that is found in brutes, in idiots, and in maniacs. There is no dispute as to wliat is meant by reason as one of the elements of free agency ; and so far as activ^e power, which is its second element, is concerned, it is agreed that it means or in- cludes efficiency. In other words, it is agreed that a free agent is the efficient cause of his own acts.
3. It is admitted, on both sides, that in all important cases, men act under the influence of motives. Reid, indeed, endeavours to show that in many cases the will decides without any motive. When there is no ground of preference, he says this must be the case ; as when a man decides which of fifty shillings he shall give away. He admits, however, that these arbitrary decisions relate only to trifles. Others of the same school acknowledge that no rational volition is ever arrived at except under the influence of motives.
4. It is further agreed that the will is not determined with cer- tainty by external motives. All Augustinians deny that the inter- nal state of the mind which determines the will, is itself necessarily or certaiidy determined by anything external to the mind itself.
5. It may be assumed, also, that the parties are agreed that the word will is to be taken in its proper, restricted sense. The ques- tion is not, whether men have power over their affections, their likes and dislikes. No one carries the power pf the will so far as to maintain that we can, by a volition, change our feelings. The question concerns our volitions alone. It is the ground or reason of acts of self-determination that is in dispute. And, there- fore, it is the will considered as the faculty of self-determination, and not as the seat of the affections, that comes into view. The question, why one man is led to love God, or Christ, or his fellow men, or truth and goodness ; and another to love the world, or sin, is very different from the question, what determines him to do this or that particular act. The will is that faculty by which we deter- mine to do something which we conceive to be in oiu' povver. The question, whether a man has power to change his own character at 2it\y moment, to give himself, in the language of Scripture, a new heart, concerns the extent of his power. That is, it is a question concerning the ability or inability of the sinnor ; and it is a most important question : but it should not be confounded with the ques- tion of free agency, which is the one 7iow under consideration.
The whole question therefore is, whether, when a man decides to do a certain thing, his will is determined by the previous state of his mind. Or, whether, with precisely the same views and feel-
298 PAKT II. Ch. IX. — free agency.
iugs, his decision may be one way at one time, and another at an- other. That is, whether the will, or rather the agent, in order to be free, must be undetermined.
Argument that Certainty suits all Free Agents,
It is certainly a strong argument in favour of that view of free agency, which makes it consistent with certainty, or which supposes that an agent may be determined with inevitable certainty as to his acts, and yet those acts remain free, that it suits all classes or con- ditions of free agents. To deny free agency to God, would be to deny Him personality, and to reduce Him to a mere power or prin- ciple. And yet, in all the universe, is there anything so certain as that God will do right ? But if it be said that the conditions of ex- istence in an infinite being are so different from wiiat they are in creatures, that it is not fair to argue from the one to the other, we may refer to the case of our blessed Lord. He had a true body and a reasonable soul. He had a human will; a mind regulated by the same laws as those which determine the intellectual and volun- tary acts of ordinary men. In his case, however, although tliere may have been the metaphysical possibility of evil (though even that is a painful hypothesis), still it was more certain that He would be without sin than that the sun or moon should endure. No con- ceivable physical l^w could be more certain in the production of its effects than his will in always deciding for the right. But if it be objected even to this case, that the union of the divine and human natures in the person of our Lord places Him in a different category from ourselves, and renders it unfair to assume that what was true in his case must be true in ours; without admitting the force of the objection, we may refer to the condition of the saints in heaven. They, beyond doubt, continue to be free agents ; and yet their acts are, and to everlasting will be, determined with absolute and inevitable certainty to good. Certainty, thei*efore, must be consist- ent with free agency. What can any Christian say to this ? Does he deny that the saints in glory are free, or does he deny tlie absolute certainty of their perseverance in holiness ? Would his conception of the blessedness of heaven be thereby exalted ? Or would it raise his ideas of the dignity of the redeemed to believe it to be uncertain whether they will be sinful or hoh' ? We niay, however, come down to our present state of existence. Without assumino- anything as to the corruption of our nature, or taking for granted anything which Pelagius would deny, it is a certain fact that all men sin. There has never existed a mere man on the faro