culations of Leibnitz. This has resulted from a
premature and extreme devotion to system--a source of miscarriage and
failure common to Leibnitz, and to most others who have devoted their
attention to the origin of evil. On the one hand, exaggerated views
concerning the divine agency, or equally extravagant notions on the other,
respecting the agency of man, have frequently converted a seeming into a
real contradiction. In general, the work of God has been conceived in such
a relation to the powers of man, as to make the latter entirely disappear;
or else the power of man has been represented as occupying so exalted and
independent a position, as to exclude the Almighty from his rightful
dominion over the moral world. Thus, the Supreme Being has generally been
shut out from the affairs and government of the world by one side, and his
energy rendered so all-pervading by the other, as really to make him the
author of evil. In this way, the difficulties concerning the origin and
existence of evil have been greatly augmented by the very speculations
designed to solve them. For if God takes little or no concern in the
affairs and destiny of the moral world, this clearly seems to render him
responsible for the evil which he might easily have prevented; and, on the
other hand, if he pervades the moral world with his power in such a manner
as to bring all things to pass, this as clearly seems to implicate him in
the turpitude of sin.

After having converted the seeming discrepancy between the divine power
and human agency into a real contradiction, it is too late to endeavour to
reconcile them. Yet such has been the case with most of the giant
intellects that have laboured to reconcile the sovereignty of God and the
moral agency of man. It will hereafter be clearly seen, we trust, that it
is not possible for any one, holding the scheme of a Calvin, or a
Leibnitz, or a Descartes, or an Edwards, to show an agreement between the
power of God and the freedom of man; since according to these systems
there is an eternal opposition and conflict between them. It is no ground
of despair, then, that the mighty minds of the past have failed to solve
the problem in question, if the cause of their failure may be traced to
the errors of their own systems, and not to the inherent difficulties of
the subject.

Those who have endeavoured to solve the problem in question have, for the
most part, been necessitated to fail in consequence of having