majefty. And, in abfolute harmony with this neceffitating principle, the faid book befeeches the bleffed Father and governor of men, that by his holy infpiration, we may think thofe things that are good; and that we may, by his merciful guidance, faithfully perform the fame. If this is being, what Mr. Wefley terms, "a fine piece of clock-work;" I heartily with and pray, that I may, every hour of my life, be fo wound up. But ftill, fays the objector, "moral good, or evil," cannot confift with neceffity. I, on the contrary, fay, that it both can, and does. Mr. Wefley does not confider the tremendous confequences, which unavoidably flow from his pofition. For, if neceffary virtue be neither moral, nor praifeworthy; it will follow, that God himfelf (who, without all doubt, is neceffarily and unchangeably good) is an immoral being, and not praife-worthy for his goodness! On the fame horrible Arminian principle, it would also follow, that Chrift's most perfect obedience (which was neceffary: for he could not but obey perfectly) had no morality in it, was totally void of merit, and entitled him to neither praife, nor reward! The axiom, therefore, which dares to affirm, that "neceffity and moral agency are irreconcilable things;" lays, at once, the axe to the root both of natural and revealed religion, and ought to be hiffed back again by all mankind to the hell from whence it came. "The hacknied objection to the doctrine of neceffity, from its being [pretendedly] inconfiftent with the idea of virtue and vice, as implying praife and blame, may be fully retorted upon its opponents. For, as to their boafted felf-determining power (were the thing poffible in itfelf, and did not imply an abfurdity), by which they pretend to have a power of acting independently of every thing that comes under the defcription of motive; I fcruple not to say, that it is as foreign to every idea of virtue or vice, praise or blame, as the groffeft kind of mechanifm that the moft blundering writer in defence of liberty ever afcribed to the advocates for moral neceffity." Dr. Priestley's Exam. of Beattie, &c. p. 178. The The crucifiers of the Son of God perpetrated the moft immoral act, that ever was, or ever will be, committed. And yet, I am exprefsly affured, by the written teftimony of the Holy Ghoft, entered on a record which will continue to the end of time, that Herod, and Pontius Pilate, and the people of the Jews, were gathered together against Jefus, for to do whatsoever God's hand and God's counfel hads fore-determined to be done. So that, upon Chriftian principles at leaft, neceffity and moral evil (by the fame rule, alfo, neceffity and moral good), may walkhand in hand together. If Mr. Wefley prefers Ariftotle and the other gentlemen of the Lyceum, to the inspired writers; and chufes the peripatetic fcheme of freewill, rather than the Bible scheme of neceffity; he muft, for me, go on to hug an idol that cannot fave. 1 The whole cavil amounts to precifely this. If God is the alone author and worker of all good; virtue ceases to be virtue: and, if God is the free permitter of evil, vice ceafes to be vice. Can any thing be, at once, more impious, and more irrational, than the letter and the spirit of these two propofitions? In one word: thofe modes of actions, called virtue and vice, do not cease to be moral, i. e. to affect our manners, as creatures of God, and as members of fociety; be thofe modes occafioned by what they may. Acts of devotion, candour, juftice, and beneficence, together with their oppofites, are, to all intents and purposes, as morally good or evil, if they flow from one fource, as from another: though no works can be evangelically good and pleafing to God, which do not spring from his own grace in the heart. But this latter circumftance is entirely of fpiritual Acts ii. 23. and iv. 28. this point, in a former tract, entitled, Wefley," + I have largely canvaffed "More Work for Mr. John confideration. 9 confideration. It has nothing to do, off or on, with the mere morality of actions. Good is morally, i. e. religiously excellent, or focially beneficial; and evil is morally, i. e. religioufly bad or focially injurious; whether men be felf-determining agents, or not. Light is light, and darkness is darkness; flow they from the right-hand, or from the left. 2. We are told, that, on the hypothefis of neceffity, man is "neither rewardable, nor punishable; neither praife, nor blame-worthy.", No objection can be more unphilofophical than this, because it quite lofes fight of the very point in debate; viz. of neceffity itfelf: by which, certain caufes inevitably produce certain effects, and certain antecedents are inevitably concatenated with certain confequences. It is fufficient, therefore, to answer : that the will of God has eftablished a natural connection between virtue and happinefs, vice and mifery. This divine eftablished connection is fo indiffoluble, that, even in the prefent ftate of things, happiness never fails to enter at the fame door with virtue; nor does mifery ever fail to tread upon the heels of vice. Some fenfualifts, however, profefs otherwife: and affirm, that their own deviations from the moral path are neither attended, nor followed, by any pungent briar, or grieving thorn. Their draughts are all balmy and necarious, without a drop of wormwood or of gall, to allay the fweetnefs, or to embitter the remembrance. Thofe gentlemen muit, however, excufe me from taking their word for this. I do not believe one fyllable of it to be true. Both Scripture, and the nature of the cafe, and the obfervations I have *Morality, is, I think, ufually, and very juftly, defined to be, that relation, or proportion, which actions bear, to a given rule.Confequently, neither neceffity, nor non-neceffity, has any thing to do with the morality of action. + I hear fpeak of intellectual happiness or mifery. made, made, unite to render me quite pofitive, that the way of tranfgreffors is hard*: that even in the midst of laughter, they have a tinge of forrow in their hearts; as well as that the end of their mirth is heavinefs. They may, for a time, like the Lacedæmonian Boy, conceal the wolf that is eating out their very intrails; and fet the glofs of an outward Sardonian smile, on the inward pangs they endure but the great law of neceffity, from which neither the virtuous nor the licentious are exempt, affures me, that this pretended eafe is mere diffimulation and grimace. One of the moft fenfible men I ever knew, but whofe life, as well as creed, had been rather eccentric, returned me the following anfwer, not many months before his death, when I afked him, "whether his former irregularities were not both accompanied, at the time, and fucceeded, afterwards, by fome fenfe of mental pain ?" Yes, faid he: but I have scarce ever owned it, until now. We [meaning, we infidels, and men of fashionable morals] do not tell you all that paffes in our hearts. The fact, then, plainly is, that rectitude of manners faves people from much uneafinefs of mind; and, that the perpetration of moral evil involves in it a Trojan horfe, whofe hidden force puts their comforts to the fword. I have feen inftances of this, in very high, as well as in more humble, life: notwithstanding all the labour and art, which have been obtended, to vail it from the eye of man. They who plough iniquity, and fow wickednefs, reap the fame the crop is always, more or lefs, fimilar to the feed. The wicked man travelleth with pain, all his days; and a dreadful found is in his ears §; let him fay what he will to the contrary. So that we : * Prov. xiii. 15. + Prov. xiv. 13. may * may almoft affert, with Seneca, "prima & maximd peccantium pæna eft, peccaffe:" i. e. the very commiffion of fin is its own primary and capital punish ment. God himself has joined the chain together: no wonder, therefore, that its links cannot be put afunder. Hence, I conclude, that, let what feeming confequences foever flow from the pofition of neceffity, God would have not tied moral and natural evil together, into one knot, if moral evil were not juftly punishable. And, while facts, indifputable facts, fay, aye; facts I will still believe, though ten thoufand imaginary inferences were to fay, no. I must likewife add, that, if we fhut out the doctrine of neceffity, which afferts the infeparable connection of moral evil with intellectual (and, often, with external) infelicity; men will want one of the moft rational motives, which can poffibly induce them Epift. Lib. 16. Ep. 2.-When St. Paul fpeaks (Eph. iv. 19.) of fome who were anandles, which we render, paft feeling (though it may better be rendered, quite funk in indolence and idleness; totally enervated, and diffipated; enemies to all honeft, manly, and laborious employ:) there is no neceffity for fuppofing even the English phrafe to import, that thofe wretched people were void of inward horror and tormenting anguish; but that they were quite void of outward decency, and had no feelings of delicacy: for there is a fort of refinement (though bad is the beft), which even vice itself is capable of. When the fame apoftle fpeaks, elsewhere (1 Tim. iv. 2.) of the κεκαυληγιασμένων, or perfons whofe confciences have been feared as with an hot iron; the word (not to canvafs, here, the feveral critical fenfes which it will admit of) may be fairly confidered, as importing neither more nor lefs than this, that they carry a fearful brand, or mark of condemnation, in their own minds; though they may endeavour to tofs off matters, outwardly, with an air of feeming unconcern. + Should any be fo pitiably undifcerning, as to afk, "What can neceflity have to do with rational motives?"-I anfwer: that there are numberlefs cafes, wherein certain motives appear fo very rational to the mind, as to be abfolutely cogent, and incline the will effectually. For, the finally predominant motive conftantly and infallibly determines the will: and the will, thus neceffarily determined, as conftantly and infallibly (all extrinfic impediments reVOL. VI. (29.) moved) D |