never admits of a liberty or power to do wise than it is done. I resolve to go ou and I write my resolution; but this does absolute necessity: FIRST, Because I a liberty not to make such a resolution; and Because I am at perfect liberty to break certainly do it, if some sufficient reason home.

Take a nobler example: God resolved to ham and his seed the land of Canaan for ing possession;' and the divine resolution Gen. xvii. 8, and xlviii. 4. But this does no least degree of Calvinian necessity: For. dictates that God was no ways obliged to resolution; and, (2.) Experience teaches obstinacy of the Jews has obliged him to 'know the breach' of his written resolution xiv. 34.) Accordingly, they are scattered world, instead of enjoying the promised la everlasting possession.'

3. When prophetical sayings refer to the in the following texts, This cometh to pas word might be fulfilled, which is written They hated me without a cause-The son is lost; that the scriptures might be fulf believed not on him, that the saying of ES be fulfilled; Lord, who has believed our repor and the like passages denote only a prophetic founded upon God's bare foresight of what but might as well (nay, better) have been ot Thus I prophecy, that through logical necessity (in full opposition to orthographical necessity colon, instead of a full point, at the end of th graph I am now writing: But this double nece: Prophecy and Logic, is so far from absolutely n tating me, that I have almost a mind to follow th of punctuation, and to show by this mean, that as much at liberty to reverse my prophetic, decree, as God was to reverse his prophetic, vind decree,' Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroye

hour as a rare contingency, is now matter period is concluded wi

sert; as GLC exists.

not deny? What is it that we perfectly understand ? Is there one man in ten thousand, that understands how astronomers can certainly foretel the very instant, in which an eclipse will begin? But does this ignorance of the vulgar render astronomical calculations less real or certain? And may not God (by the good leave of the Necessitarians) surpass all men in his foreknowledge of the actions of free agents, as much as Sir Isaac Newton surpassed all the Hottentots in his foreknowledge of eclipses?

From these remarks, it appears, that all the difficulties which the Calvinists have raised, with respect to the consistency of divine foreknowledge and human free-will, arise from two mistakes: The FIRST of which consists in supposing, that the simple, certain knowledge of an event, whether past, present, or future, is necessarily connected with a peculiar influence on that event; and the SECOND consists in measuring God's foreknowledge by our own, and supposing, that because we cannot prophesy with absolute certainty, what free willing creatures will do to- morrow, therefore God cannot do it. A conclusion this, which is as absurd, as the following argument: "We cannot create a grain of sand, nor comprehend how God could create it, and therefore God could neither create a grain of sand, nor comprehend how it was to be created."

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I have dwelt so long upon this head, because it is the strong hold of the Calvinists, from which Mr. T seems to bid defiance to every argument; witness hi assertion, (p. 80,) Foreknowledge, undarkened by the least shadow of ignorance, and superior to all pos sibility of mistake, is a link which draws invincibl necessity after it."-To the preceding arguments which, I trust, fully prove the contrary, I shall ad one more, which is founded on the plain words o scripture.

So sure as the Bible is true, Mr. T. is mistaken and God's foreknowledge, far from being connecte with "invincible necessity," may exist, not only wit

respect to an event which is not necessary, but also with respect to an event which is so contingent, that it never comes to pass. Take a proof of it:

We read, (1 Sam. xxiii. 10-12,) that David, while he was in the city of Keilah, heard that Saul designed to come and surprise him there. Then said David, 0 Lord God of Israel, &c. Will Saul come down as thy servant has heard? And the Lord said, HE WILL COME DOWN. Then David said, Will the men of Keilah deliver me.. into the hund of Saul? And the Lord said, THEY WILL DELIVER THEE UP.' When David had received this double information, he went out of Keilah, and when Saul heard it, he did not come to Keilah, neither did the men of Keilah deliver him to Saul. From this remarkable occurrence we learn: (1.) That future, contingent events are clearly seen of God.— (2.) That this foresight of God has not the least influence on such events.-(3.) That God cau foretel such events as contingent:-And, (4.) That ueither seripture-prophecy, nor Divine Foreknowledge, has the least connexion with Mr. T.'s scheme of absolute, invincible necessity; since God foreknew, that, if David stayed in Keilah, Saul would come down, and the men of Keilah would deliver David into his hands. But so far were this clear foreknowledge, and peremptory prophecy of God, from "drawing invincible necessity after" them, that Saul did not come to Keilah ; neither did the men of Keilah deliver David into his hands. I flatter myself, that if the reader attend to these arguments, he will see that Mr. T.'s doctrine of an absolute connexion between the certain foreknowledge of events, and their invincible necessity, is contradicted by experience, reason, and scripture.

TWELFTH KEY.-Because no child can help being born, when the last pang of his mother forces him into the light; and because no man can possibly live, when the last pang of death forces his soul into eternity, the Necessitarians conclude, that our every intermediate action, from our birth to our death, is irresis

tibly brought about by the iron hand of necessity. But is not their conclusion as absurd as the following argument?" John the Baptist could not speak when he was newly born, nor could he do it, when the executioner had cut off his head; absolute necessity hindered him from forming articulate sounds in the mo ment of his birth, and at the instant of his death; and therefore, all the days of his life absolute necessity made him move his tongue when he spake."-Let us see how Mr.T. handles this wonderful argument.

Page 102, 118. "Birth and death are the æra and the period, whose interval constitutes the thread of man's visible existence on earth. Let us examine, whether those important extremes be or be not unalterably fixed by the necessitating providence of God." -And by and by we are asked: "If the initial point from whence we start, and the ultimate goal which terminates our race, be divinely and unchangeably fixed; is it reasonable to suppose, that any free will, but the free will of Deity alone, may fabricate the intermediate links of the chain?"-That is, in plain English, "Does not God alone fabricate our every action, good or bad, from our cradle to our grave ?”

Page 107, &c. Mr. T. produces such scriptures as these, to prove that the free will of Deity alone fabricates the link of our birth. "He [Jacob] said, Am I in God's stead to give [a barren woman] children ?— They are my sons, whom God has given me.-' -Thy hands have made me and fashioned me.—Thou art He that took me out of the womb.-Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord.-Thou hast covered me, &c., in my mother's womb.-In thy book all my members were written.-God has fixed an exact point of time, for the accomplishment of all his decrees: Amoug which fixed and exact points of time, are a time to be born, and a time to die."

All these passages prove only: (1.) That when a woman is naturally barren, like Rachel or Sarah, an extraordinary interposition of God's providence is neessary to render her fruitful.-(2.) That the fruitful