lingly, necessity rendering things unblameable, that being only to be blamed which is in our power:" and therefore that "fate or necessity which leaves not our assent or actions in our power, takes away praise or dispraise, honour or reward."

3. That "that only is voluntary which we he under no necessity to do or to forbear; and what we do, being unwilling, we do out of necessity, liberty being a power of acting from ourselves, or doing what we will:" whence they infer that "vice and virtue must be voluntary, and that there can be no necessity of doing evil, and that on this account only is vice worthy of dispraise."d

4. That "man can be guilty of no crime in doing that which he could not avoid; for what is evil is a fault," saith Cicero, "there can be no fault in not doing that which we have no power to do."

5. That "what is natural to all men, cannot be evil to any man; for no man is angry," saith Seneca," ubi vitium natura defendit, 'where nature defends the vice';" "nor can that be evil" saith Cicero, "quod à naturâ parente omnium constitutum, 'which owes its original to nature;' seeing that Being which consults the good of mankind, would neither produce nor nourish that, quod cum exantlavisset omnes labores incideret in mortis malum sempiternum, which, when it had done its utmost, must be subject to eternal death'."

6. That "there can be no consultations or deliberation about things which are not in our power, nor any rational persuasion to

έλευ

• Ἐκέσιον ὃ πράτλομεν μὴ ἀναγκαζόμενοι. Aristot. in Moral. l. 1, c. 13. Καὶ ὅσα μὴ ἐκόνιες πράτίομεν, αναΓκαζομενοι πράττομεν. ibid. Εἶναι γὰρ θερίαν ἐξεσίαν αὐτοπραγίας. Zeno apud Diog. Laert. 1. 7, n. 121. Ἐν τοῖς ἐφ' ἡμῖν τὸ ἄραθον, καὶ τὸ κακὸν. Epictet. c. 50.

d Τὴν τε κακίαν ἐκέσιον είναι, καὶ τὴν ἀρείὴν ἐδεμία γὰρ ἀνάγκη τὰ μοχθηρὰ πράττειν διὰ ταῦτα καὶ ψεκῖον ἡ κακία, καὶ ἡ ἀρείὴ ἐπαίνεῖον,

Aristot. Eudem. 1. 2, c. 11.

e Tusc. Quæst. 3, n. 31.

f Ep. 94.

• Τὸ ἀδύνατον προαίρεται δ' εδεὶς, ἐδ' ὅλως ὁ δυνατόν μὲν μὴ ἐφ ̓ αὐτ τῷ δ' διεται πρᾶξαι, ἤ μή πράξαι ὥςε τέτο μὲν φανερὸν ὅτι ἀνάγκη το προαιρεῖὸν τῶν ὑφ ̓ αυτῷ τὶ εἶναι. Aristot. Eudem. 1. 2, c. 10, and M. Moral. l. 1, c. 18. Ἡ δὲ πέθω βια καὶ ἀνάγκη ἀντίθεται. Eud. 1. 2, c. 8. Ἡ δὲ προαίρεσις τῶν πρὸς τὸ τέλΘ. de Morib. 1. 2, e. 4.

do them, because these actions can only be performed in order to that end; and therefore when the end cannot be obtained, must be done in vain." And hence it clearly follows, that if this be a doctrine of christianity,-that men not yet converted, or in their lapsed state, can do nothing which is truly good, and also lie under a necessity of doing evil, they ought not to think or deliberate how they may do good, or may avoid the doing evil, or pray for the divine assistance, or be sorry for their sins. Nor ought any man to persuade them so to do; for if they ought not to do evil that good may come, and whatsoever they do, whilst they continue in that state, though it may be materially good, is formally sin, they ought not to do it to obtain the divine assistance, or any other good.

To this may be added the arguments of the Heathen Philosophers against fate, produced Chapter the Fourth, Section the Third.

Nor ought these arguments to be slighted as being only the sayings of Philosophers guided by the dim light of reason, when they deliver only that in which the common notions of mankind have long agreed; for that would be of dreadful consequence to the whole christian faith. For our belief of it must bottom upon some rational inducements, and common principles of reason, which if they may be false, christianity may be a false religion; if they be evident and certain truths, whatsoever contradicts them must be false. If therefore any article of our faith should to the best of our judgments plainly contradict them, it must shock the foundation of our faith by engaging men to believe that false which alone engaged them to believe that faith was true. That this would also render us unable to convert Jew, Heathen, or Mahometan, to confute the Tritheite or such like hereticks, or to reject any interpretation of scripture as absurd and contrary to reason, I have fully proved in the appendix to the Idolatry of Host Worship, Chapter II, from Section First to the Sixth.

As for the THIRD PARTICULAR, that the Christian Fathers for four whole centuries condemned these new notions as destructive of true liberty, of the nature of vice and virtue, of rewards and punishments, of the equity of the divine precepts and of a future judgment, and also as contrary to the plain declarations of the holy scriptures, will be fully proved in the Sixth and last chapter of this discourse.

CHAP. II.

Proposing arguments to prove the freedom of the will, as well from necessity as from co-action.

THE question being thus fully stated, let it be observed that the liberty or freedom of the will we contend for, is,

FIRST. Plainly delivered in the holy scripture, and may abundantly be confirmed by arguments grounded upon scripture.

SECONDLY. That it is demonstrable from reason, and hath been constantly asserted both by Heathens and Christians in their discourses against fate.

THIRDLY. That it hath the constant suffrage of all the ancient writers of the church, by whom it is delivered, as a fundamental article, or as a truth on which all good or evil, piety or virtue, praise or dispraise, rewards or punishments depend. And,

I. FIRST. The scripture affords us express declarations, or plain intimations, that the liberty of the will, even in christian virtues of the highest nature, is opposite not only to co-action, but necessity. Thus in the case of chusing that high state of virginity, that they might serve the Lord without distraction,' the apostle determines that he that hath no necessity, but, ¿¿xoíav ëxa tõ idis Beλnatos, HATH POWER OVER HIS OWN WILL, let him retain his virginity's Where freedom is declared to be a power over our own will,' to chuse or not to chuse, and stands opposed to necessity. See Ecumenius and Theophylact upon the place. Again, in the case of his working with his own hands, and receiving nothing of the churches of Corinth, and throughout the regions of Achaia, which he thought of so great importance to the promotion of the gospel as to say, 'It was better for him to die than vary from it; he yet asserts his liberty by these enquiries, x ελεύθερος; AM I NOT FREE? Have I not power to eat, and to drink.” (on the church's charge, without labouring thus?) clearly

€ 1 Corinthians vi, 57, Μὴ ἔχων ἀναγκὴν ἀντὶ τὸ αὐτεξέσι & ὢν. Theod

· Having no necessity being put in opposition to having power over his own will.' Theodoret. ED 1 Corinthians ix, 1, 3, 4.

proving his freedom in that action, from his power to abstain from it, and to do the contrary. So also in the case of charity, that most excellent grace, he saith, 'every man, as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, un avayuns, NOT OF NECESSITY;' plainly opposing necessity to the free purpose of the heart: ""not of necessity'," say Chrysostom and Theophylact, “ τὸ γαρ ἐξ ἀναγκῆς ὑποτέμνει τὸν μolov for necessity cuts off the reward'." So he speaks to Philemon in the case of Onesimus, 'whom,' saith he, 'I would have to minister to me in the bonds of the gospel; but without thy mind, I would do nothing, that thy benefit should not be, is nar' avayκατ ̓ κὴν, ἀλλὰ κατ ̓ ἐκέσιον, AS OF NECESSITY BUT WILLINGLY.”k St. Peter also instructs bishops and elders to feed the flock of Christ, μὴ ἀναγκαςῶς, ἀλλ' ἐκεσιῶς, NOT OF NECESSITY, BUT WILLINGLY;”—so plain an opposition do these inspired writers put betwixt doing a virtuous action freely and willingly, and doing it out of necessity.

SECONDLY. God and his servants have sufficiently confirmed the liberty we contend for in this state of trial, by setting life and death, good and evil before our eyes, and putting it to our choice which we will have; as in all the instances forementioned, and in those words of Joshua to all Israel, 'chuse you this day whom ye will serve, the God that brought you out of the Land of Egypt, or of your fore-fathers, or of the Amorites.' The reason is plain; For whosoever hath a liberty to chuse, hath also a liberty to refuse, and vice versâ; according to those words of the prophet, 'before the child shall know to chuse the good and refuse the evil!'" And were it otherwise, how can we imagine that a gracious God, and lover of his people, should make this the condition of his pardoning mercy, that they should chuse the good and refuse the evil, that he should condemn them for 'not chusing the fear of the Lord, or for chusing the thing that he would not; or represent it as an act of faith in Moses, that he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season?' That, lastly, he should promise the greatest blessings to those who chose the things that pleased him, and threaten the severest judgments to those who chose the things in which he de

T

lighted not?' Seeing choice or election, in the very nature of it, is of more than one, whereas there can be no choice of more than one, where a person is determined to one. If then the elect are so determined by God's absolute decree to conversion, that when the divine impulse comes upon them, they must unfrustrably be converted to God, and chuse the thing that pleaseth him, how are they in a state of trial? Or why are they bid to chuse whether of the two they will have? If, on the other hand, they who from eternity are reprobated are determined so far to one, that though they have a liberty of specification, as the Schools barbarously speak, that is, a liberty to do this or that evil, yet have they no liberty of contrariety, that is of doing good as well as evil, and so are determined to do evil and not good, and so lie under a sad necessity of chusing that which God would not, or in which he delighteth not; because they cannot chuse the fear of the Lord, or the thing that pleaseth him;-they who assert these things must grant, that he who hath sworn "he would not the death of him that dieth, but would rather that he should return from his iniquity and live," had, before this serious oath, suspended the avoiding the death of him that dies, and his obtaining life, upon impossible conditions, and that he offers to such persons life only on the condition of doing that which under the disability they had contracted before that offer, it is impossible for them without that special grace which they can never have, to perform. Now to pass an act of preterition on creatures under this known disability, and then to offer life unto them only upon impossible conditions; and when, by reason of this act, it is made certain and infallible that they shall fail of obtaining life, to bid them chuse life rather than death; what is it, in effect, but to insult over the dreadful misery of men, and with an hypocritical pretence of kindness, and a desire of their welfare, to condemn them to eternal death without a possibility of having life? Since the known rule of logick, of the civil law, and even of common sense and reason, teacheth, that a conditional proposition having an impossible condition annex ed to it, is equivalent to a negative.*

s Isaiah lxv, 12. lxvi 4.

* Conditionem si cœlum digito tetigeris impossibilem negativam commentatores appellant. Calv. An impossible condition, such as touching the heavens with your finger, commentators fall a negative.' ED.