which enlightens conscience within, if man is necessarily determined from without; and if the objectз which strike his senses, irresistibly turn his judgment and his will; insomuch that he can no more resist their impresssion," than a tree can resist the stroke of lightning?"

IV. As this scheme leaves no room for Morality, so it robs us of the very essence of God's natural image, which consists chiefly in self-activity and self-motion. For, according to Mr. T.'s philosophy, we cannot take one step, no not in the affairs of common life, without an irresistible, necessitating impulse. Yea, with respect to self-activity, he represents us as inferior to our watches: They have their spring of motion within themselves, and they can go alone, if they are wound up once in twenty-four hours. But, if we believe Mr. T., our spring of motion is without us: Nay, we have as many springs of motion as there are objects around us and these objects necessarily wind up our will from moment to moment. For, by necessarily moving our senses, they necessarily move our understanding; our understanding necessarily moves our will; and our will necessarily moves our tongues, hands, and feet. Thus our will and our body, like the wheels and body of a coach, never move but as they are moved, and cannot help moving, when they are acted upon. How different is this mechanical religion from the spiritual religion, which the learned and pious Dr. H. More inculcates in these words! "The first

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degree of the divine image was self-motion, or selfactivity. For mere passivity, or to be moved or "acted by another, without a man's will, &c., is the "condition of such as are either dead or asleep; as to go of a man's self, is a symptom of one alive, or "awake.-Men that are dead drunk, may be haled, or <4 disposed of, where others please;"-To be irresistibly acted upon, is then to be "deprived of that degree of life, which is self-activity, or the doing of things from an inward principle of free-agency; and therefore it is to be, so far, in a state of death."

commands the reprobates to choose virtue, after having bound them over to vice by the adamantine chain of Necessitation, does he not insult over their misery, as much as a sheriff would do, who, after having ordered the executioner to bind a man's hands, to fasten his neck to the gallows, and absolutely to drive away the cart from under him, should gravely bid the wretch to choose life and liberty, and bitterly exclaim against him for neglecting so great' a deliverance?

VIII. It is contrary to the sentiments of all the Churches of Christ, except those of Necessitarian Rome and Geneva: For they all reasonably require us to renounce the pomps of the world, and the alluring sinful baits of the flesh. But, if these pomps and baits work upon us by means of our senses, as necessarily, and determine our will as irresistibly, as lightning shivers a tree; can any thing be more absurd than our baptismal engagements? Might we not as well seriously vow, never to be struck by the lightning in a storm, as solemnly vow never to be led by, or follow the vanities of the world and the sinful lusts of the flesh ?

IX. It represents the proceedings of the Day of Judgment, as the most unrighteous, cruel, and hypocritical acts, that ever disgraced the tribunal of a tyrant. For if God, by eternal, absolute, and necessitating decrees, places the reprobates in the midst of a current of circumstances, which carries them along as irresistibly as a rapid river wafts a feather ;-if he encompasses them with tempting objects, which strike their souls with ideas, that cause sin in their hearts and lives, as inevitably as a stroke of lightning raises splinters in the tree which it shatters ;-and if we can no more help being determined by these objects, which God's providence has placed around us on purpose to determine us, than a tree can resist a stroke of lightning; it unavoidably follows, that when God will judicially condemn the wicked, and send them to hell for their sins, he will act with as much justice as the king would do, if he sent to the gallows all his subwho have had the misfortune of being struck

with lightning. Nay, to make the case parallel, we must suppose that the king has the absolute command of the lightning, and had previously struck them with the fiery ball, that he might subsequently condemu them to be hanged for having been struck, according to his absolute decree.

Should the reader, who is not yet initiated into the mystery of the Calvinian Decrees, ask, If it be possible that rigid Bound-willers should fix so horrible a blot upon the character of the Judge of all the earth ?' I answer in the affirmative; and I prove by the following words of Mr. Toplady, that, if Calvinism be true, the pretended sentence, which the Judge shall pass in the great day, will be only a publication or ratification of the everlasting decrees, by which a Manicheau Deity absolutely necessitates some men to repent and be saved, and others to sin and be damned. "Christ," says Mr. Toplady, (in his Zanch. p. 87,)" will then properly sit as a Judge; and openly publish, and solemnly ratify his everlasting Decrees, by receiving the elect, &c., into glory; and by passing sentence on the non-elect, [&c.,] for their wilful ignorance of divine things, and their obstinate unbelief," &c.—It is true, that after the word non-elect, Mr. T. adds in a parenthesis these words, "not for having done what they could not help." But it is equally true, that he had no more right to add this parenthesis, than I have to say, that the lightning is at my command: For, throughout his Scheme of Necessity, he attempts to prove, that man is not "self-determined," but irresistibly determined by some other being, viz. by God, who absolutely determines him by "second causes created for that end;" forcible causes these, whose impressions are so strong, that we 66 'can no more help receiving them [and being determined by them] than a tree can resist a stroke of lightning." Besides, if the non-elect are damned" for their obstinate unbelief," as Mr. T. tells us in his quotation; and if it be as impossible for them to believe as to make a world, (an absurd maxim this-which is inculcated by rigid