6. In taking leave of the reader, I would simply say, that if he has
distinctly apprehended the great doctrine designed to be established in
this Work, and has happily come to an agreement with the author in
respect to it, the following hallowed impression has been left very
distinctly upon his mind. While he finds himself in a state of profound
and most pleasing dependence upon the Author of his being, in the Holy
of Holies of the inner sanctuary of his mind, one idea, the great
over-shadowing idea of the human Intelligence, has been fully
sanctified--the idea of _duty_, of _moral obligation_. With the
consciousness of Liberty, that idea must be to the mind an omnipresent
reality. From it we can never escape and in all states, and in all
worlds, it must and will be to us, as a guardian angel, or an avenging
fiend. But one thing remains, and that is, through the grace proffered
in the Remedial System, to "live and move, and have our being," in
harmony with that idea, thus securing everlasting "quietness and
assurance" in the sanctuary of our minds, and ever enduring peace and
protection under, the over-shadowing perfections of the Author of our
existence, and amid all the arrangements and movements of his eternal
government.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See Upham on the Will, pp. 32-35.
[2] The above is a perfectly correct statement of the famous distinction
between natural and moral ability made by Necessitarians. The sinner is
under obligation to do right, they say, because he might do what is
required of him, if he chose to do it. He has, therefore, _natural_ but
not _moral_ power to obedience. But the choice which the sinner wants,
the absence of which constitutes his moral inability, is the very thing
required of him. When, therefore, the Necessitarian says, that the
sinner is under obligation to obey, because he might obey if he chose to
do it, the real meaning is, that the sinner is under obligation to
obedience, because if he should choose to obey he would choose to obey.
In other words he is under obligation to obedience, because, if he did
obey, he would obey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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