and future decrees must be consistent.-Corresponding with those definitions, the decrees of God are eligibly conceived as primarily chosen, next in purpose before their existence, and that their purpose ripened to volition at the moment they respectively became decrees. Thus the decrees which have for their object the moral connections of things in their own nature, were before creation in purpose, but became voluntary decrees when mankind were created in their nature, and were placed among other created beings: And thus the positive decree revealed to our first parents, took actual existence when God placed the tree of life, and tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden, and introduced them to that prepared inclosure: And thus the decree of connections involving a dispensation of mercy, took existence by di vine volition, when God appeared to our disobedient parents in the evening of the day; all which were probably in purpose before the actual decree.

A respectable body of theologians having extended divine decrees to whatsoever, without exception, cometh to pass: On the extention of divine decrees, accept a few thoughts before we proceed.

The decrees of God are not so extensive as future things, either in their number or divisi bility. To apply decrees of God to whatever comes to pass, as some theologians do, is, I humbly conceive, repugnant to common sense, moral sense, and the analogy of the scriptures of truth. I think the decrees of God from eternity are not rightly conceived, to take for

their objects every event in time: because this is to confound and supersede present divine purpose and volition; and to enervate, if not irradicate, the fully evident doctrine of God's ruling his world. Indeed I am confirmed in opinion, that decrees, ordinances, or appointments, whether in eternity or in time, have for their objects merely connecting antecedents consisting in the free actions or forbearances of finite dependent persons, in anticipation, with consequences, painful or pleasing, for the general good of his creation and his own glory. More particularly,

Evil, natural evil, moral evil, or any effects of negative causes cannot be objects of divine decree, because they are essentially repugnant to divine inclination and working; true they are indirectly necessary consequents of God's inclination and working; but also, they are objects which he counterworks, overrules, and will destroy. There is no need of conceiving decrees for the existence of negative causes, as it is otherwise accounted for. Every particle of dust that dirted the furniture yesterday, and which the housemaid cleans off to-day, might possibly be foreknown to God: Every particle of sand which fell on the carriage travelling to day, a nuisance, might possibly be foreknown to God yesterday: but there is no need of supposing the undesired events were either purposed or decreed. The fine sands of Persia (I had almost said, infinitely numerous) which occasion the ophthalmia blindness to an individual, we have no reason to think, were either purposed or decreed to that melancholy consequent; yet must admit, God

E 3

might

might foresee every particle thereof, and its determinate tendency in its actual circum+ stances. The doctrine of negative causes, or reasons of events affords equal evidence to knowledge, with affirmative causes or reasons. Negative quantities are estimated in mathematics, and, afford mathematical demonstrations even without actual existence, and consequently need neither purpose nor decree. To decree, or even to purpose, negation, nihility, or malevolence, does not consist with our demonstrable conceptions of the divine mind. Equally incongruous is application of decree to the effects of negative causes, and to the causes themselves. Evil is unworthy of decree, ordinance, or appointment of Deity; admission or sufferance is all it can claim.

Again, indifferent things, I cannot admit the honour of being objects of divine decrees. By indifferent things, I mean all that the intelligent Solomon, pious David, the prophets and apostles denominated vanity, compre hended under the term vanity and sometimes yanity of vanities. The vanity of this world is generally admitted to include, indolence idleness or inactivity and its consequents so far as temporal:-Actual pursuit and attainment of superfluous wealth-inordinate pursuit and attainment of popular honour:-pursuit and attainment of sensual and intellectual pleasure. In other words, self-accommodation, popular applause, and vivid pleasure; which, with their disappointments and vexations, variegate the life of the same person at different seasons; or which, as one or the other preponderates in different persons, form their respective cha

racter;

facter; as we say, an easy soul, a prosperous person, an ambitious man, and a man of plea sure. None of those, nor the degree of their respective attainment by individuals, do I consider to be objects of divine decrees.

Again, I think there is no reason for conceiving that God decreed his own acts, or even decreed a plan for his procedure. Choice of work from work where there was opportunity of chusing from possibles imagined, and purs pose of executing all that remains at any time unexecuted, seem evidently to supersede a need of voluntary establishment, that is to say, decree or appointment. There is no danger of God's changing his purpose, nor danger of the purpose ripening to volition in its season. The universal extent of divine decrees to divine working may be denied, yet divine foreknowledge continue to stand on a firmer basis. If creatures must be finite, which none will deny, then foreseen consequents of divine working may exist which were never themselves objects of divine choice, purpose, or will. The supposition that God, for himself, needs decrees of not doing, that is refraining to do, what, in fact, he has not done, is not doing, and will not do, is a still more prepos terous conception. It is to suppose that God is naturally propense to action, like a perpetual motion, for instance, a revolving planet which we rationally conceive to require an equal force to stop it, to that which first gave it motion; or else to suppose he is by some other being continually pressed to action,

which is absurd.

Again

Again, there seems no conceivable need for God to decree the effects of second causes. No consideration within the compass of my knowledge, renders decrees needful of things which are to be produced by second causes. Persons and things created must have properties, and their disposal in suitable circumstances, thus secondarily tend to causation and efficiency. Divine choice from possibles in imagination, to constitute substances, material and spiritual, with active properties and related passive properties with valuable tendency, and divine choice of placing them in circumstances tending to valuable operation and influence, seem evidently to supersede all need of decrees for their effects. The effects were foreseen and indirectly purposed; but, I think we cannot, from any source of evidence, infer they were decreed. I remark, secondly, that the same reason which prevents our rightly conceiving these effects, being more than indirectly purposed of Deity, namely, Second causes being essentially interwoven, if I may so say, with negative causes, arising from the finity of the properties aad circumstances concerned, is equally conclusive in respect of their exclusion from divine decrees; and manifesting, that even the good, better, and best instances of their efficiency, are rationally conceived to be unworthy of divine pre-establishment by decree.

Corol. The accidental advantages of some persons over others whether of constitution, or circumstances, in respect of natural or moral good are not decreed.

Lastly