Philosophy of the Human Mind. 3 1 



monstratlon, that the doctrine of moral necessity 

 (as explained and guarded by him) is the only scrip- 

 tural and philosophical doctrine on this subject, as 

 the nature of such inquiries admits, is certainly the 

 opinion of some of the best judges in every part 

 of the literary world/ The extremes to which 

 the system of the venerable President has been 

 carried by several subsequent writers, and the con- 

 sequences deduced from it, were far from being- 

 recognized by him; and with respect to some of 

 them, they are, beyond all doubt, illegitimately 

 drawn. 



It is worthy of remark, that our great country- 

 man, Mr. Edwards, appears to have been the first 

 Calvlnlst who avowed his belief so fully and tho- 

 roughly in the doctrine of moral necessity as his 

 book indicates. Though all Calvinistic writers be- 

 fore his time were characterized by a firm ad- 

 herence to the doctrine of Predestination; yet 

 they seem, for the most part, to have adopted a 

 kind of middle course between his creed and that 

 of the Arminian contingency. The penetrating 

 and comprehensive mind of Edwards went fur- 

 ther; demonstrated that this middle ground was 

 untenable, and presented a more clear and satis- 

 factory view of the doctrines of free grace, when 

 contemplated through the medium of his main doc- 

 trine, than had ever before been given/ 



That class of philosophers who taught that the 

 soul was material, were, until the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, generally ranked among infidels, and in most 



z Soon after the publication of President Edwards's celebrated work 

 on the Will, he received the thanks of several Professors of the Universities 

 of Holland, and of other gentlemen of distinction, in various parts of Eu- 

 rope, for having, in their opinion, thrown more light on the subject than 

 all preceding writers. This publication has long been considered and quoted 

 as a standard work on the side of this question which it is designed to de- 

 fend. 



a Sec his Inquiry into the Freedom of the Willy &c. passim. 



