overtures of his mercy, a ray of hope breaks through the thickest gloom of the present

state.

One great reason why a wicked man, wicked to the degree now described, can find no satisfaction in the view of Providence, as consisting in the government of God over free agents, is, because it leaves him responsible for his actions, and threatens him with certain vengeance on their account; he is therefore willing to divert his attention from this subject altogether, or perhaps to seek relief in some scheme of necessity, which, whatever other misery it may involve, will, if he can thoroughly persuade himself of it, save him, at least, from the anguish of a guilty conscience, and from the apprehension of any suffering which can properly come under the idea of punish

ment.

It appears, therefore, of the highest moment, that while we maintain the sinful volitions of men to be subject to divine control, we should exempt them from every kind of absolute necessitation; lest, by contending for the government of God, we de

stroy the responsibility of man, and remove him out of that state of trial which we are taught to believe he is under during the present life. To guard against this destructive consequence shall be the business of the following section; which, though it may be censured as a digression, the reader, it is presumed, will regard with a favourable allowance, from a consideration of the great and pressing importance of the subject; especially at a season, when the strong hold of necessity is become the last retreat of infidels and atheists, and (what is still more to be lamented) is resorted to as a tower of defence by some who are professed advocates for evangelical religion, to which, in other respects, it is acknowledged they are an

ornament.

SECTION III.

On the Importance of distinguishing Providence from Necessity.

THAT the doctrine of necessity is as ancient as the days of our first parents, it would be rashness to assert. It might be supposed, however, without any great improbability, that something of this kind was insinuated in Adam's casting his offence upon Eve, and Eve upon the serpent. Be this as

it

may, it is certain, that an infusion of this doctrine has corrupted the streams both of religion and philosophy almost in all ages, and among all nations of which we have any literary records. Without attempting to demonstrate this by a particular deduction, which would here be unseasonable, I proceed to observe, that it was the felicity of the christian church, either to escape entirely this taint, or to be but slightly infected

with it, till, in the beginning of the fifth century, it was spread far and wide by the famous St. Austin, in the warmth of his zeal against the Pelagians. As a proof of what is here asserted, it may be sufficient to allege the testimony of one who is considered as the most strenuous champion of the predestinarian doctrine in modern times, I mean Calvin; who frankly acknowledges, that all the fathers who preceded Austin, spoke so ambiguously and variously upon this point, that an endeavour to establish it upon their authority would be vain and fruitless*.

To which he might have added,

* "Magnum mihi præjudicium attulisse forsan videar, qui scriptores omnes Ecclesiasticos, excepto Augustino, ita ambiguè aut variè in hâc re loquutos esse confessus sum, ut certum quippiam ex eorum scriptis haberi nequeat. Hoc enim perinde nonnulli interpretabuntur quasi à suffragii jure depellere ideo ipsos voluerim, quia mihi sint omnes adversarii. Ego verò nihil aliud spectaui quám quòd volui simpliciter ac bona fide consultum piis ingemis quæ si eorum sententiam hac in parte expectent, semper incertè fluctuabunt: adeò nunc hominem liberi arbitrii viribus spoliatum, ad solam gratiam confugere docent: nunc propiis ipsum armis aut instruunt, aut videntur instruere.”

CALV. Inst. lib. ii. cap. 2. sect. 9.

that even Austin himself, for some time after his conversion, held the same sentiment with his predecessors *; or rather, I believe, ascribed more than some of them, or than he ought to have done, to the unassisted

*To evince this, the following passage from St. Austin will be sufficient, which I cite from a learned writer, as the original is not at hand. "St. Austin lays down this as the true definition of sin, peccatum est voluntas retinendi, vel consequendi id, quod justitia vetat, et unde liberum est abstinere; sin is the will to obtain or retain that which justice forbids, and from which it is free for us to abstain*. Whence he concludes, that no man is worthy of dispraise or punishment, qui id non faciat quod facere non potest, for not doing that which he hath no power to do; and that if sin, be worthy of dispraise and punishment, it is not to be doubted, tunc esse peccatum cum et liberum est nolle. These things, saith he, the shepherds sing upon the mountains, and the poets in the theatres, and the unlearned in their assemblies, and the learned in their libraries, and the doctors in the schools, and [antistites, in sacris locis, et in orbe terrarum genus humanum] the bishops in the churches, and mankind throughout the whole earth. Yea this, saith he, is so manifest, nulla hinc doctorum paucitas, nulla indoctorum turba dissentiat, that it hath the universal consent of the learned and unlearned †.”

* Lib. de Duab. Animab. c. 11, 12.

+ De Vera Rel. c. 14, et 56.