in our notion of blame, to inquire whether the bad will be FROM a bad will: there is no consideration of the original of that bad will; because, according to our natural apprehension, blame originally consists in it. Therefore a thing's being from a man is a secondary consideration in the notion of blame or ill-desert. Because those things, in our external actions, are most properly said to be from us, which are from our choice; and no other external actions, but those that are from us in this sense, have the nature of blame; and they, indeed, not so properly because they are from us, as because we are in them, i. e. our wills are in them; not so much because they are from some property of ours, as because they are our properties.

However, all these external actions being truly from us, as their cause; and we being so used, in ordinary speech, and in the common affairs of life, to speak of men's actions and conduct that we see, and that affect human society, as deserving ill or well, as worthy of blame or praise; hence it is come to pass, that philosophers have incautiously taken all their measures of good and evil, praise and blame, from the dictates of common sense, about these overt acts of men; to the running of every thing into the most lamentable and dreadful confusion. And therefore I observe:

III. It is so far from being true (whatever may be pretended) that the proof of the doctrine which has been maintained depends on certain abstruse, unintelligible, metaphysical terms and notions, and that the Arminian scheme, without needing such clouds and darkness for its defence, is supported by the plain

dictates of common sense, that the very reverse is most certainly true, and that to a great degree. It is fact that they, and not we, have confounded things with metaphysical, unintelligible notions and phrases, and have drawn them from the light of plain truth into the gross darkness of abstruse metaphysical propositions, and words without a meaning. Their pretended demonstrations depend very much on such unintelligible metaphysical phrases, as self-determination and sovereignty of the will; and the metaphysical sense they put on such terms as necessity, contingency, action, agency, &c. quite diverse from their meaning as used in common speech; and which, as they use them, are without any consistent meaning, or any manner of distinct consistent ideas; as far from it as any of the abstruse terms and perplexed phrases of the peripatetic philosophers, or the most unintelligible jargon of the schools, or the cant of the wildest fanatics. Yea, we may be bold to say, these metaphysical terms, on which they build so much, are what they use without knowing what they mean themselves; they are pure metaphysical sounds, without any ideas whatsoever in their minds to answer them; inasmuch as it has been demonstrated, that there cannot be any notion in the mind consistent with these expressions, as they pretend to explain them, because their explanations destroy themselves. No such notions as imply self-contradiction and self-abolition, and this a great many ways, can subsist in the mind; as there can be no idea. of a whole which is less than any of its parts, or of solid extension without dimensions, or of an effect which is before its cause. Arminians

improve these terms as terms of art, and in their metaphysical meaning, to advance and establish those things which are contrary to common sense, in a high degree. Thus, instead of the plain, vulgar notion of liberty, which all mankind, in every part of the face of the earth, and in all ages, have, consisting in opportunity to do as one pleases, they have introduced a new, strange liberty, consisting in indifference, contingence, and self-determination, by which they involve themselves and others in great obscurity and manifold gross inconsistence. So, instead of placing virtue and vice, as common sense places them very much, in fixed bias and inclination, and greater virtue and vice in stronger and more established inclination; these, through their refinings and abstruse notions, suppose a liberty consisting in indifference, to be essential to all virtue and vice. So they have reasoned themselves, not by metaphysical distinctions, but metaphysical confusion, into many principles about moral agency, blame, praise, reward, and punishment, which are, as has been shewn, exceeding contrary to the common sense of mankind; and perhaps to their own sense, which governs them in common life.

CONCLUSION.

WHETHER the things which have been alleged are liable to any tolerable answer in the ways of calm, intelligible, and strict reasoning, I must leave others to judge; but I am sensible they are liable to one sort of answer. It is not unlikely, that some, who value themselves on the supposed rational and generous principles of the modern fashionable divinity, will have their indignation and disdain raised at the sight of this discourse, and on perceiving what things are pretended to be proved in it. And if they think it worthy of being read, or of so much notice as to say much about it, they may probably renew the usual exclamations, with additional vehemence and contempt, about the fate of the heathen, Hobbes's necessity, and making men mere machines; accumulating the terrible epithets of fatal, unfrustrable, inevitable, irresistible, &c., and, it may be, with the addition of horrid and blasphemous; and perhaps much skill may be used to set forth things, which have been said, in colours which shall be shocking to the imaginations, and moving to the passions of those who have either too little capacity, or too much confidence of the opinions they have imbibed, and contempt of the contrary, to try the matter by any serious and circumspect examination.*

* A writer of the present age, whom I have several times had occasion to mention, speaks once and again of those who

Or, difficulties may be started and insisted on, which do not belong to the controversy; because let them be more or less real, and hard to be resolved, they are not what are owing to any thing distinguishing of this scheme from that of the Arminians, and would not be removed nor diminished by renouncing the former, and adhering to the latter. Or, some particular things may be picked out, which they may think will sound harshest in the ears of the generality; and these may be glossed and des- ́ canted on, with tart and contemptuous words; and from thence, the whole treated with triumph and insult.

It is easy to see how the decision of most of the points in controversy between Calvinists and Arminians depends on the determination of this grand article concerning the freedom of the will requisite to moral agency; and that by clearing and establishing the Calvinistic doctrine in this point, the chief arguments are ob

hold the doctrine of necessity, as scarcely worthy of the name of philosophers.-I do not know whether he has respect to any particular notion of necessity, that some may have maintained; and, if so, what doctrine of necessity it is that he means.- Whether I am worthy of the name of a philosopher, or not, would be a question little to the present purpose. If any, and ever so many, should deny it, I should not think it worth the while to enter into a dispute on that question: though, at the same time, I might expect some better answer should be given to the arguments brought for the truth of the doctrine I maintain; and I might further reasonably desire, that it might be considered, whether it does not become those who are truly worthy of the name of philosophers, to be sensible that there is a difference between argument and contempt; yea, and a difference between the contemptibleness of the person that argues, and the inconclusiveness of the arguments

he offers.