Page:Sermons by Richard Fuller.djvu/19

Rh every quicksand that he may fathom its depths, or to rush into every thicket by the wayside that he may try how far he can penetrate. It was through pride of reasoning that man fell. Revelation constantly assails the arrogance which impiously arraigns the credibility of the divine word, unless our puny intellects can comprehend things which it is the glory of God to conceal. The design of the Gospel is to humble this temper, and to nourish in us the spirit of " a little child," without which the mind will go on sounding its dim and perilous way, till it is lost in endless mazes, bewildered inextricably in dark, interminable labyrinths.

As, however, men affecting to be wits and geniuses are, in books and in conversation, forever parading their flippancies on the question of predestination and free-agency, it is worth while to show them, once for all, how little they can take by their infidelity and ribaldry.

I. I am first to treat our subject doctrinally. And you see at once that it presents the very question which, century after century, has been the source of bitter controversy ; which has not only supplied the sceptic with his sneers, but has exasperated pulpit against pulpit, church against church, and council against council. The problem to which I refer is that of God's decrees and man's moral agency, to solve which two systems have been advocated, two parties have been formed. Let us examine each of these systems, let us hear each of these parties, whom that I may avoid the shibboleths of hostile religious prejudices and factions — I will designate as the Libertarians and the Necessarians.

The Libertarians reject the doctrine of predestination; they deny that God has fore-ordained all things. But, now, can this negation be even mentioned without shocking our reason and our reverence for the oracles of eternal truth?

I might easily shew that nothing is gained by this denial, that it only removes the difficulty a little farther back. This system rejects predestination, and maintains that God has left all men to act as they choose. But what is meant by a man's acting as he chooses? It is, of course,