do well and wifely, as far as his best judgment can direct him, and thereby merit approbation. The abuse of it is to act contrary to what he knows or fufpects to be his duty and his wif dom, and thereby juftly merits difapprobation.

By neceffity, I understand the want of this liberty.

If there can be a better and a worse in actions on the fyftem of neceffity, let us suppose a man neceffarily determined in all cafes to will and to do what is beft to be done, he would furely be innocent. But, he would not be entitled to the efteem and approbation of those, who knew and believed this neceffity.

On the other hand, if a man be neceffarily determined to do ill, this feems to move pity, but not difapprobation. He was ill, because he could not be otherwife. Who can blame him? Neceffity has no law.

If he knows that he acted under this neceffity, has he not juft ground to exculpate himself? The blame, if there be any, is not in him, but in his conftitution. If he be charged by his Maker with doing wrong, may he not expoftulate with him, and say, Why haft thou made me thus? I may be facrificed at thy pleasure, for the common good, like a man that has the plague, but not for ill defert; for thou knowest that what I am charged with is thy work, and not mine.

This liberty a man may have, though it do not extend to all his actions, or even to all his voluntary actions. He does many things by inftinct, many things by the force of habit, without any thought at all, and confequently without will. In the first part of life, he has not the power of felf-government. any more than the brutes. That power over the determinations of his own will, which belongs to him in ripe years, is limited, as all his powers are; and it is perhaps beyond the reach of his: understanding to define its limits with precifion. We can only say, in general, that it extends to every action for which he is accountable.

This power is given by his Maker, and at his pleasure whose gift it is; it may be enlarged or diminished, continued or with

drawn.

drawn. No power in the creature can be independent of the Creator. His hook is in its nofe; he can give it line as far as he fees fit, and, when he pleafes, can reftrain it, or turn it whitherfoever he will. Let this be always understood, when we afcribe liberty to man, or to any created being.

Suppofing it therefore to be true, That man is a free agent, it may be true, at the fame time, that his liberty may be impaired or loft, by disorder of body or mind, as in melancholy, or in madness: it may be impaired or loft by vicious habits; it may, in particular cases, be reftrained by divine interposition.

We call man a free agent in the fame way as we call him a reasonable agent. In many things he is not guided by reason, but by principles fimilar to thofe of the brutes. His reafon is weak at beft. It is liable to be impaired or loft, by his own fault, or by other means. In like manner, he may be a free agent, though his freedom of action may have many fimilar limitations.

Liberty is fometimes opposed to external force or confinement of the body. Sometimes it is oppofed to obligation by law, or by lawful authority. Sometimes it is oppofed to neceffity.

1. It is opposed to confinement of the body by fuperior force. So we fay a prisoner is fet at liberty when his fetters are knocked off, and he is difcharged from confinement. This is the liberty defined in the objection; and I grant that this liberty extends not to the will, neither does the confinement, because the will cannot be confined by external force.

2. Liberty is oppofed to obligation by law, or lawful authority. This liberty is a right to act one way or another, in things which the law has neither commanded nor forbidden; and this liberty is meant when we fpeak of a man's natural hberty, his civil liberty, his Chriftian liberty. It is evident that this liberty, as well as the obligation opposed to it, extends to the will: for it is the will to obey that makes obedience; the will to tranfgrefs that makes a tranfgreffion of the law. Without will there can be neither obedience nor tranfgreffion.

Law

Law fuppofes a power to obey or to tranfgrefs; it does not take away this power, but proposes the motives of duty and of intereft, leaving the power to yield to them, or to take the confequence of tranfgrellion.

3. Liberty is opposed to neceffity, and in this fenfe it extends to the determinations of the will only, and not to what is confequent to the will.

In every voluntary action, the determination of the will is the first part of the action, upon which alone the moral eftimation of it depends. It has been made a question among philofophers, Whether, in every instance, this determination be the neceffary confequence of the conftitution of the perfon, and the circumstances in which he is placed; or whether he had not power, in many cafes, to determine this way or that?

This has, by fome, been called the philofophical notion of liberty and neceffity; but it is by no means peculiar to philofophers. The loweft of the vulgar have, in all ages, been prone to have recourse to this neceffity, to exculpate themselves or their friends in what they do wrong, though, in the general tenor of their conduct, they act upon the contrary principle.

Whether this notion of moral liberty be conceivable or not, every man must judge for himself. To me there appears no difficulty in conceiving it. I confider the determination of the will as an effect. This effect must have a caufe which had power to produce it; and the caufe must be either the perfon himself, whose will it is, or fome other being. The first is as eafily conceived as the laft. If the person was the cause of that determination of his own will, he was free in that action, and it is justly imputed to him, whether it be good or bad. But, if another being was the cause of this determination, either by producing it immediately, or by means and inftruments under his direction, then the determination is the act and deed of that being, and is folely imputable to him.

But it is faid, "That nothing is in our power but what depends upon the will, and therefore the will itfelf cannot be in our power."

I answer,

I answer, That this is a fallacy arifing from taking a common faying in a sense which it never was intended to convey, and in a sense contrary to what it neceffarily implies.

In common life, when men speak of what is, or is not, in a man's power, they attend only to the external and visible effects, which only can be perceived, and which only can affect them. Of thefe, it is true, that nothing is in a man's power, but what depends upon his will, and this is all that is meant by this common faying.

But this is fo far from excluding his will from being in his power, that it neceffarily implies it. For to fay that what depends upon the will is in a man's power, but the will is not in his power, is to fay that the end is in his power, but the means neceffary to that end are not in his power, which is a contradiction.

In many propofitions which we express univerfally, there is an exception neceffarily implied, and therefore always underflood. Thus when we fay that all things depend upon God, God himself is neceffarily excepted. In like manner, when we fay, that all that is in our power dépends upon the will, the will itself it neceflarily excepted: for if the will be not, nothing else can be in our power. Every effect must be in the power of its caufe. The determination of the will is an effect, and therefore must be in the power of its caufe, whether that cause be the agent himself, or some other being.

From what has been faid in this chapter, I hope the notion of moral liberty will be diflintly understood, and that it appears that this notion is neither inconceivable, nor involves any abfurdity or contradiction.

[To be continued.]

SERMON

SERMO N

LXI.

1.

B

On LUKE xii. 20.

But God faid unto him, Thou fool!

Ur one of these fools is commonly wifer in his own

eyes than seven men that can render a reafon. If it wwere poffible for a Chriftian, for one that has the mind which was in Chrift, to defpife any one, he would cordially despise thefe, who suppose they are the men, and wisdom shall die with them! You may fee one of these painted to the life, in the verfes preceding the text. The ground of a certain rich man (says our blessed Lord) brought forth plenteously, (ver. 17, &c.) And he reafoned within himself, faying, What shall I do? For I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he faid, This will I do, I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there will I beflow all my goods and my fruits. And I will fay to my foul, Soul thou haft much goods laid up for many years: take thy cafe; eat, drink, and be merry :" but God faid unto him, Thou fool!

2. I propose, by the affiftance of God, firft, to open and explain these few full words, and then to apply them to your confcience. First to open and explain them. A little before, our Lord had been giving a folemn caution to one who spoke to him about dividing his inheritance. Beware of covetousness: for the life of a man, that is, the happiness of it, does not confift in the abundance of the things that he poffeffeth. To prove and illuftrate this weighty truth, our Lord relates this remarkable ftory. It is not improbable, it was one that had lately occurred, and that was fresh in the memory of fome that were prefent. The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plenteously. The riches of the antients confifted chiefly in the fruits of the earth. And he faid within himself, What shall I do? VOL. XIV.

B

The