Tendencies of the Two Systems in Regard to the Cultivation of the Reasoning Powers and Moral Sense.
Reading edition
The common-sense system, resting on the assumption that happiness-making, according to the laws of God, is the chief end of man, naturally leads to the development of the intellect and reason in order to discover these laws, and to the devotion of all our [pg 245] powers to happiness-making, according to these laws. This being so, every thing that tends to make enjoyment and diminish evil without violating law, is valued as good and right. All noble, generous, self-sacrificing and honorable sentiments and acts are regarded as right, pleasing to the Father of all, and tending equally to promote the best good of ourselves and of all our fellow-beings. In this light we become one with the Father and with all good beings just so far as we obey all the physical, social and moral laws of our Creator, and thus conform to his will, and add to his happiness. Thus the direct tendency of this system is to promote an earnest desire, first to discover all that is true and right, and then to follow it. And such efforts naturally tend both to develop our highest powers, and to bring the mind into harmony and communion with the Father of our spirits.
On the contrary, the Augustinian system, resting on the assumption that all the plans and ways of God are a mystery beyond our comprehension; that man, by nature, has no power to understand what is right or wrong in God's dispensations; that what we call goodness and virtue in unregenerate minds is not so in God's sight; that every act of every unrenewed mind is sin, and only sin; that until regenerated we never do any thing to move God to re-create our ruined nature; all this in its tendency leads to recklessness, hopelessness and neglect of all virtuous efforts, as useless in regard to our highest interests. As before intimated, these tendencies are more or less counteracted by the teachings of common sense and the Bible. Still, such tendencies must always be, more or less, effective and disastrous.
[pg 246]