power to choose evil and misery as such. Seldom do men, who are yet in a state of probation,-men, who are not degenerated into mere fiends, choose evil only as evil. When we pursue some evil, it is then generally under the appearance of some good ; or, as leading to some good, which will sooner or later make us ample amends for the present evil. For God having made us for the supreme good, which is the knowledge and enjoyment of himself, he has placed in our souls an unquenchable thirst after happiness; that we may ardently seek him, the fountain of true happiness. It can hardly be said therefore, that probationers are at liberty with respect to the capital enquiry, "Who will shew us any good ?" We naturally desire good, just as a hungry man desires food: Although he may say, I do not choose to be hungry, yet he is so, whether he will

or not.

2. But although a hungry man is necessarily hungry, yet he does not eat necessarily, for he may fast if he pleases: and when he chooses to eat, he may prefer bad to wholesome food; he may take more or less of either, he may take it now or by and by-with deliberation or with greediness, as he pleases. Apply this observation to our necessary hunger or thirst after happiness. All probationers necessarily ask : "Who will shew us any good?" But although they necessarily aim at happiness, yet they are not necessitated to aim at it in this or that way:-although they cannot but choose that end, yet they are not irresistibly obliged to choose any one particular means to attain it.

ty.

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we may choose to seek happiness in ourselves, in our fellow creatures, or in our Creator: We may choose a way that will lead us to imaginary, and fading bliss, or to real and eternal happiness: Or, to speak as the oracles of God, we may choose death or life.

This being premised, I observe that our liberty consists, 1. In our being under NO NATURAL necessity with regard to our choice of the means, by which we pursue happiness: and, of consequence, with regard to our schemes and actions. I repeat it, by natural necessity I mean, an absolute want of power to do the reverse of what is done. Thus by natural necessity án ounce is out weighed by a pound; it can no ways help it; and a man, whose eyes are quite put out cannot absolutely see the light, should he desire and endeavour it ever so much. Hence it appears, that when Peter denied his master, he was under no natural necessity so to do; for he might have confessed him if he pleased: When the martyrs confessed Christ, they might have denied him with oaths, if they had been so minded: And when David went to Uriah's bed, he migh have gone to his own. There was no shadow of natural necessity in the case. may then, or we may not admit the truth or the lie, that is laid before us as a principle of action. Thus the Eunuch without necessity, admitted the truth delivered to him by Philip; and Eve, without necessity entertained the lie, which was told her by the serpont.

We

2. Our liberty consists in a power carefully to consider, whether what is presented to us as a principle of action, is a truth or a lie ; lest we should judge according to deceitful appearances. Our blessed Lord, by steadily using this power, steadily baffled the tempter, and Adam, by not making a proper use of it, was shamefully overcome.

3. It consists in a power natural to all moral agents, to do acts of sin if they please, and in a supernatural or gracious power, (bestowed for Christ's sake upon fallen man) to forbear, with some degree of ease, doing sinful acts, at least when we have not yet fully thrown ourselves down the declivity of temptation and passion; and when we have not yet, by that means contracted such strong habits, as make virtue or vice morally neces sary to us. *

* 1 make these exceptions for two reasons; 1. Because I am sensible of the justness of Ovid's advice to persons in love.

Principiis obsta, sero, medicina paratur. For if love, and indeed any other violent passion, is not resisted at its first appearance, it soon gets to such a height, that it can hardly be mastered, till it has had its course. 2. Because a habit strongly rooted is a second nature. It is far easier to refrain from the first acts, than to break off inveterate habits of virtue or of vice. In such cases, powerful, uncommon impulses of grace or of temptation are peculiarly necessary to throw us out of our beaten track. Hence the strong comparison of the prophet, "Can the Ethiopian change

4. It consists in a gracious power to make diligent enquiry, and to apply in doubtful cases to the Father of lights for wisdom, before we practically decide, that such a doctrine is true, or that such an action is right. Have Eve and David used that power, the one would not have been deceived by a flattering serpent; nor the other by an impure desire.

But, 5. The highest degree of our liberty consists in a power to suspend a course of life entered upon; to re-examine our principle, and to admit a new one, if it appear more suitable; especially when we are par ticularly assisted by divine grace, or strongly wrought upon by temptations adapted to our weakness. 'Thus by their gracious freeagency, Manasseh and the prodigal son sus pended their bad course of life, weighed the case a second time for the better, admitted the truth which they once rejected, and from that new principle wrought righteousness: while on the other hand, Solomon, Judas, and Demas, by their natural free-agency, suspended their good course of life, weighed the case a second time for the worse, admitting the lie which they once detested, and from that new principle, wrought damnable iniquity. Is not this account of our real, though limited liberty, more agreeable to scripture, reason, conscience, and experience, than the necessity maintained by Calvinistic boundwillers, and deistical fatalists?

I have already observed, (Equal Check, Part I.) that the seemingly contrary systems of those gentlemen, like the two opposite half-diameters of a circle meet in natural necessity, a central point which is common to both; Mr. Voltaire, who is the apostle of the deistical world, and Mr. Edwards, who is the oracle of Calvinistic metaphysicians, exactly agreeing to represent man as a mere though willing slave to the circumstances in which he finds himself, and to load him from head to foot, and from the cradle to the grave with the chains of absolute necessity, one link of which he can no more break, than he can make a world. Their error, if I mistake not, springs chiefly from their overlooking the important difference there is between natural necessity and what the barrenness of language obliges me to call moral necessity. Hence it is, that they perpetually confound real liberty, which is always of an active nature, with that kind of necessity in disguise, which I beg leave to call passive liberty. Clear definitions, illustrated by plain examples, will make this intelligible; will unravel the mystery of fatalism, and rescue the capital doctrine of Liberty from its confinement in mystical Babel.

his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also that are accustomed to do evil, do good," without a more than common assistance of divine grace,

1. A thing is done by NATURAL necessity, when it unavoidably takes place, according to the fixed laws of nature. Thus, by natural necessity, a serpent begets a serpent, and not a dove; a fallen man begets a fallen child, and not an angel; a deaf man cannot hear, and a cripple cannot be a swift racer.

2. A thing is done by MORAL necessity (if I may use that improper expression) when it is done by a free-agent with a peculiar degree of readiness, resolution, and determination;

from strong motives, powerful arguments, confirmed habits and when it might never theless be done just the reverse, if the free agent pleased. Thus, by a low degree of moral necessity, chaste, conscientious Joseph struggled out of the arms of his master's wife, and cried out, "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God ?" And, by a high degree of it, Satan hates holi ness, God abhors sin, and Christ refused to fall down and worship the devil.

3. I have observed in the Second Check, that Mr. Edwards's celebrated treatise upon Free-will, turns in a great degree upon a comparison between balances and the will. To shew the more clearly the flaw of his per formance, I beg leave to venture upon the improper, and in one sense contradictory expression of PASSIVE liberty. By passive liber, ty, (which might also be called MECHANICAL liberty,) I mean the readiness with which just scales turn upon the least weight thrown into either of them... Now it is certain that this liberty (so called) is mere necessity: For two even scales necessarily balance each other, and the heavier scale necessarily onts weighs the lighter. According to the fixed laws of nature, it cannot be otherwise. It is evident therefore, that when Mr. Edwards avails himself of such popular, improper expressions as these, "Good scales are free to turn either way, just balances are at liberty to rise or fall by the least weight," he absurdly imposes upon the moral world a mechanical freedom or liberty, which is mere necessity. His mistake is set in a still clearer light by the following definition.

4. Active Liberty is that of living creatures, endued with a degree of power to use their powers in VARIOUS manners: Their preroga tive is to have in general the weight that turns them in a great degree at their own dis posal. Experience confirms this observation; How many stubborn beasts, for example, have died under the repeated strokes of their drivers, rather than to move at their command? And how many thousand Jews chose to be destroyed rather than be saved by him, who said, "How often would I have gathered you, &c, and YE WOULD NOT ?" Hence it appears, that active liberty sub-divides itself into brutal liberty, and rational, or moral liberty.

he create and annihilate a thing in the same instant, because he is wise.-Our Lord's power is circumscribed also. "Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do."

If a degree af confinement is consistent with the Liberty of omnipotence itself, how much more can a degree of Restraint be consistent with our natural,' civil, moral, and spiritual liberty? Take an instance of it. 1. With re gard to natural liberty. Although you cannot fly you may walk; but not upon the sea, as Peter did; nor thirty miles at once, as some people do not one mile when you are quite spent ;-nor five yards when you have a broken leg. 2. With respect to civil liber ty. You are a free-born Englishman; never theless you are not free from taxes: and probably you have not the freedom of two cities in all the kingdom. On the other hand St. Paul is Nero's prisoner bound with a chain, and yet he swims to shore, he gathers sticks, makes a fire, and preaches two years in his own hired house, no body forbidding him.-3. With respect to moral liberty. When Nabal is in company with his fellow-sots, has good wine before him, and is already heated by drinking, he cannot refrain him. self, he must get drunk: But might not he have done violence to his inclination before his blood was inflamed? Conscious of his weakness, might he not at least have avoided the dangerous company he is in, and the sight of the sparkling liquor, in which all his good resolutions are drowned ?

Take one instance more of the imperfect liberty I plead for. Is not what I have said. of civil applicable to devotional liberty? You have not the power to love God with all your heart; but may you not fear him a little? You cannot wrap yourself for one hour in the sublime contemplation of his glory; but may you not meditate for two minutes on death and judgment? St. Paul's burning zeal is far above your sphere; but is not the timorous inquisitiveness of Nicodemus within your reach? You cannot attain the elevations of him who has ten talents of piety; but might not you so use your one talent of consideration, as to gain two-four-eight and so on, till the unsearchable riches of Christ are all yours? And, if I may allude to the embla matic pictures of the four evangelists, may you not ruminate upon earth with the or of St. Luke, till you can look up to heaven with St. Matthew's human face, fight against sin with the courage of St. Mark's lion, and soar up towards the Sun of Righteousness with the strong wings of St. John's eagle? Did not our Lord expect as much from the phari sees, when he said to them, "Ye hypocrites how is it that ye do not discern this [accepted] time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right ?" Alas! how

frequently do we complain of the want of power, when we have ten times more than we make use of? How many slothfully bury their talent, and peevishly charge God with giving them none? And how common is it to hear people, who are sincerely invited to the gospel-feast, say, "I cannot come," who might roundly say, if they had Thomas's honesty, "I will not believe?" The former of these pleas is indeed more decent than the latter: but is it not shamefully evasive? And does it not amount to the following excuse: "I cannot come without taking up my cross; and as I will not do it, my coming is morally impossible ?"-A lame excuse this, which will pull down aggravated vengeance upon those, who, by making it, trifle with truth, and their own souls, and with God himself.

From the whole I conclude, that our liberty as free-agents consists in a limited ability to use our bodily and spiritual powers right or wrong at our option; and that to deny mankind such an ability is as absurd as to say, that a man cannot work, or beg or steal, as he pleases;-bend the knee to God or to Ashtaroth;—go to the house of prayer, or to the play-house ;-turn a careless or an attentive ear to a divine message ;-refuse or give credit to an awful report ;-slight or consider a matter of fact ;-and act in a reasonable or unreasonable manner at his option.

Is not this doctrine agreeable to the dictates of conscience, as well as to plain Scripture? And when we maintain, that, as often as our free-will inclines to vital godliness since the fall, it is touched though not necessarily impelled by free-grace: When we assert in the words of our Xth Article, that " we have no power to do good works acceptable to God, without the grace of God, by Christ, preventing" (not forcing) us that we may have a good will;" do we not sufficiently secure the honour of free-grace? Say we not as much as David does in this passage, "Thy people (obedient believers) shall or will be willing (to execute thy judgments upon thy* enemies) in the day of thy power," i. e, in the day of thy powerful wrath? have it in the common prayers, "In the day of thy power shall the people offer free-will (not bound-will) offerings?"-Do we not grant all that St. Paul affirms, when he says to the Philippians," Work out your own salvation with fear, &c. for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do?" i. e. God of his good pleasure gives you a gracious talent of will and power: Bury it not use it

Or as we

That this is the true meaning of Psalm cx. 3, is evident from the context. Read the whole Psalm; compare it with Ps, exlix. 6; Mal. iv. 1, 2, 3, and Rev. xix. 19, and you will see, that the day of God's power, or the day of God's army, is the day of his wrath against two verses after, and described in the rest of the his enemies; A day this, which is expressly mentioned Psalm.