determine magisterially that God cannot possibly foresee them; and that therefore, contingency is, and has been, an eternal impossibility; that even Omnipotence itself could not possibly have rendered the minutest event contingent? What a God does this make of him! Why, a God bound down by the eternal chains, and indissoluble fetters of an uncontrolable necessity!!-A God who never knew any liberty, but that of unavoidable necessity!--A God whose very wisdom and omniscience render him a slave to fate; and who, because he knows all things, must for that very reason, be limited both in thought and act, to the exact prescriptions of all-controling necessity, and never allowed to possess or exert, from everlasting to everlasting, the least degree of real free agency, lest it should introduce contingency, and destroy his own foreknowledge! I should rather incline to think a creature of man's small size, low stature, and scant modicum of knowledge, ought to bow low in humble reverence before his Creator, and not presume that because he (worm of the dust) cannot certainly foresee an event that is contingent, nor, indeed, how it can be foreseen, that therefore there exists not, in "the unlimited expanse of infinite ability," any possible way or manner of foreknowing events, unless at one dash, all possibility of contingency is renounced, and God himself reduced to the rules, measures, and limitations of an omnipotent and all-controling necessity.

How knowest thou, O man, the precise standard of omniscience? Canst thou infallibly determine that he, who is unlimited in knowledge, cannot know what a free agent will do, acting altogether freely, because thou canst not know it? Whom makest thou thyself? Hast thou never considered that it is a much greater mark of infinite wisdom and knowledge, to be able to know certainly what a being chosing freely, will choose to do; than only to know what one will choose, who cannot possibly choose other than the thing unavoidably imposed upon him by absolute necessity? And wilt thou deny this kind of knowledge to him whom thou acknowledgest omniscient? But why deny it to him? Is it to reduce his knowledge to the standard of thy own? or to raise thine own, to absolute omniscience? If thou art omniscient, thou mayst determine whether God can or can

not foreknow contingent events. But, until thou art omniscient, I maintain it, thou canst not pronounce with any degree of certainty against God's absolute prescience, in regard to events that are actually contingent; much less hast thou any right to deny the existence or possibility of contingency. For though to thee, poor frail (yet too wise) man, it may seem impossible, yet it may be possible with God; and, if possible, then not inconsistent with free agency, nor free agency with foreknowledge. But if it could be granted, that both free agency and contingency were really inconsistent with prescience, and that therefore, and for other reasons, an universal and uncontrolable necessity governs "the whole series of events" in such wise that no agency of God or man, can alter the least circumstance; how can this doctrine be freed from the imputation of a tendency, and a very strong one too, to produce downright atheism? Is it easier to believe in such a God, acting all he does under the influence of an uncontrolable necessity, under this necessity constraining men to acts of desperation, violence, and murder, and under the influence of the same absolute necessity punishing them severely for so doing, than with the atheist to conclude "there is no God"--all things jumble on by chance, nor wisdom nor direction is seen or known at all. For my part, I can see little difference, between all things being left to chance, or their being left to absolute necessity; except that the necessitarian represents the God whom he calls all-wise, and infinite in goodness and in power, as exerting his omnipotence in producing creatures, and inflicting sore pains and punishments upon them, as the just reward and desert of their criminal actions, for things which it was absolutely and eternally impossible for them to avoid the commission of.

This is the necessary result of the doctrine of necessity. A result which the atheist is clear of, and perhaps would shudder at, and view with abhorrence. But, once more, let us suppose for a moment, that this doctrine were truth. Then it follows by irresistible necessity, I am constrained to disbelieve the truth, and write against it. It follows, that "uncontrolable necessity," or God by uncontrolable necessity, makes and obliges men to think, speak, and write, diametrically contrary one to

another; to be angry and outrageous with one another for not thinking exactly as themselves do; to burn, torture, and behead one another, for thinking, writing, and worshipping, as God, or necessity, constrains them to do,--and then punishes these murderers for tormenting and destroying their fellows for doing God's will. At this rate God or necessity obliges one to believe in transubstantiation, and another to disbelieve it, each to be angry with, and one to crucify the other, for not believing contrary to what he is constrained to believe: and then it seems God justly punishes the murderer, for his zeal for that very notion, which God himself obliged him to believe essential to salvation; justly punishes him for feeling just so much zeal, and acting just so far in the heat of it, as himself constrained him to, by the presentation of irresistible motives to his mind! How man, whose doctrine unavoidably involves all this, can consistently maintain the excellency of virtue, and the turpitude of vice, as this writer pretends to do, there are no instruments in my understanding fine enough to perceive, or take hold of. I must be allowed to think, nay, uncontrolable necessity obliges me to think, every action of life must be equally innocent, holy, and acceptable to God, which proceeds from an equal influence of his own power, and equal submission to it. If I lift the dagger to my brother's heart, in all the frenzy of malice, rage, or revenge, by direction and control of God's will, or of an unavoidable necessity, which is agreeable to his will,-I maintain it, and maintain it in his presence, that I cannot help thinking, I am as worthy his blessing and favour therefor, as I can possibly be for any thing else which he can possibly make me do. And if he will punish me for this, and reward me for an action which he, or a man calls virtuous, he acts either altogether capriciously, and rewards and punishes without any reason and justice, that is at all comprehensible by man, or merely because he cannot avoid doing it.

If this is the God of the rational Christian; if such is the "character of the most high, most holy, perfectly benevolent, and all-wise God; then let poor subjugated, distressed, necessitated, and sighing man, drop a tear over his own calamitous, and inexpressibly deplorable situation; and, yielding to his hard and dismal fate, either "curse God and die," or else calmly say, Well,

since it is my doom, and since neither God, angel, nor man could possibly have prevented it, "all-wretched" as it is, I'll wear my chains and bear my burdens as I can! All I can be, or have any cause to be thankful for, is, that seeing it could not possibly have been any better with me than it is, so neither. could it possibly have been worse.

Some further remarks upon the "absolute and uncontrolable necessity," which the Predestinarians suppose influences "the whole series of events."

To my understanding, this doctrine centres in atheism, as much as if they were to maintain, that absolute chance attended all events. Either there is a God of wisdom, understanding, and economy, or else things jumble on without the direction of any wise governor, or superintendent. If wisdom and superintendence are excluded, a God is denied, and atheism triumphs. If wisdom, direction, and superintendence are maintained, there must be free agency. For without free agency, absolute, real free agency, wisdom, direction, and superintendency cannot exist. If "absolute and uncontrolable necessity," governs, influences, and binds all things, even "the whole series of events," it must either be, because God has so ordained it, but could have ordained it otherwise; or else because he had not power to alter it; or else because "there is no God." Now, let us try it on all these three suppositions.

And first, if it be urged that God has ordained it so, but could have ordained it otherwise, free agency and contingency, are immediately established; and then God must see and know how things could have been different from what they now are, and have been. And this at once shows an open door, in a consistency with the divine prescience, for free agency in man, to any degree wherewith the first, great, and all-wise free Agent is pleased to endue him; and loudly proclaims it possible with God to create beings, who, when they feel themselves to be free, have not imposed upon them the strange necessity of feeling themselves to be directly the reverse of what they really are. For if once free agency and contingency, are allowed ever to have

existed, the doctrine of universal uncontrolable necessity is at once overthrown; and all the arguments from the divine prescience against liberty, vanish of course. But who will believe that a God of infinite wisdom and power, and who was absolutely free, and could choose this or that as he pleased, has arbitrarily bound himself and all his creatures by a necessity, which he has even rendered in all things absolutely uncontrolable; that is, irreversible and past all possible interference or alteration? If he was once free, and could choose and act, either this or that, he is always in the same manner and to the same extent free; for he changes not, he loses no freedom he ever had, and cannot bind himself by any necessity, by which he was not always bound. So that he never was a God of freedom and choice, or he is always so. If he never was so he is no God, and the cause is yielded to atheism. If he was and is free to choose and act either this or the other, the supposed absolute uncontrolable necessity has no existence.

If God is free,-if he could have done any otherwise than he has done, then it is false doctrine to say, that all things have moved on unavoidably, just as they have moved; in the same manner as any given force, applied to an inanimate body will produce just such an effect. If he could have done otherwise than he has done, things are certainly contingent, and God must know how he could have done otherwise, as well as that he could,

But, secondly, if God could not have done otherwise, if he had not power to have prevented a single event from being just as it has been, the talk about his wisdom, goodness, and power, is a mere empty sound, and absolute, eternal fatality reigns over all. God has then no power, in any other sense than a stone has power, if thrown up, to fall and crush what it falls on; but cannot choose where it will or where it will not fall. In short, there is no God but fate, or a God wholly subordinate to fate. And though the predestinarian or necessitarian, chooses to dignify the God he professes to believe in, with the glorious epithets of good, powerful, and wise, his doctrines evidently divest him of this character. And these doctrines are maintained, because a poor, short-sighted man cannot see how a definite motive or im