benevolence, and to murder a parent from a feeling of malice, involve the same degree of guilt ! Such a sacrifice to logic was never made by any man before. But still more wonderful, if possible, is the declaration that a man may " feel deeply malicious and revengeful feelings toward God. But sin does not consist in these feelings, nor necessarily imply them." x
Moral excellence is not an object of love. To say that we are bound to love God because He is good, is said to be " most non- sensical. What is it to love God ? Why, as is agreed, it is not to exercise a mere emotion of complacency in Him. It is to will something to Him." 2 " Should it be said that God's holiness is the foundation of our obligation to love Him, I ask in what sense it can be so ? What is the nature or form of that love, which his virtue lays us under an obligation to exercise ? It cannot be a mere emotion of complacency, for emotions being involuntary states of mind and mere phenomena of the sensibility, are with- out the pale of legislation and morality." 3 " We are under in- finite obligation to love God, and to will his good with all our power, because of the intrinsic value of his well-being, whether He is holy or sinful. Upon condition that He is holy, we are under obligation to will his actual blessedness, but certainly we are under obligation to will it with no more than all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. But this we are required to do because of the intrinsic value of his blessedness, whatever his character might be." 4 Surely such a system is a inroSeiyna -nfc a7rei0€tas.
Dr. Taylor's View. The system of Dr. Taylor of New Haven agrees with that of Professor Finney in making free agency include plenary power ; in limiting responsibility and moral character to voluntary acts ; in regarding happiness as the chief good ; and in making regen- eration to consist in a change of purpose. The two systems dif- fer, however, essentially as to the ground of moral obligation or nature of virtue ; and as to the nature of that change of purpose in which regeneration consists. Professor Finney adopts the common eudaemonistic theory which makes the happiness of being, i. e., of the universe, the chief good ; and therefore makes virtue con- sist in the governing purpose to promote that happiness, and all sin in the purpose to seek our own happiness, instead of the hap-
1 Lecture* on Systematic Theology, by Charles G. Finney, Oberlin, Boston, and New York, 1846, p. 296.
2 Ibid. p. 64. » Ibid. p. 9L * Ibid. p. 99.
12 PART HI. Ch. XV. — REGENERATION .
piness of being ; consequently, regeneration is a change of that purpose ; that is, it is a change from selfishness to benevolence.
Dr. Taylor, on the other hand, recognized the fact that as the desire of happiness is a constituent element of our nature, or law of our being, it must be innocent, and therefore is not to be con- founded with selfishness. He hence inferred that this desire of happiness is rightfully the controlling principle of action in all sentient and rational creatures. Sin consists in seeking happi- ness in the creature ; holiness in seeking happiness in God ; re- generation is the purpose or decision of a sinner to seek his hap- piness in God and not in the world. This change of purpose, he sometimes calls a " change of heart," sometimes " giving the heart to God," sometimes " loving God." As regeneration is the choice of God as our chief good, it is an intelligent, voluntary act of the soul, and therefore must take place according to the estab- lished laws of mental action. It supposes the preliminary acts of consideration, appreciation, and comparison. The sinner contem- plates God as a source of happiness, estimates his suitableness to the necessities of his nature, compares Him with other objects of choice, and decides to choose God as his portion. Sometimes the word regeneration is used in a comprehensive sense, including the whole process of consideration and decision ; sometimes in a restricted sense, for the decision itself.
Such being the nature of regeneration, it is of course brought about through the influence of the truth. The Bible reveals the nature of God, and his capacity and willingness to make his creatures happy ; it exhibits all the motives which should deter- mine the soul to take God for its portion. As regeneration is a rational and voluntary act, it is inconceivable that it should take place except in view of rational considerations. The Spirit's in- fluence in this process is not denied. The fact is admitted that all the considerations which ought to determine the sinner to make choice of God, will remain without saving effect, unless the Spirit renders them effectual.
These views are presented at length in the « Christian Specta- tor (a quarterly review) for 1829. On the nature of the change in question, Dr. Taylor says: "Regeneration, considered as a moral change of which man is the subject— giving God the heart — making a new heart— loving God supremely, etc., are terms and phrases which, in popular use, denote a complex act . . . . These words, in all ordinary speech and writing, are used to denote one act, and yet this one act includes a process of mental