O_ f Natural, Moral, and Civil Liberty: 57 impaired, and in a great meafure loft. We S E R M. have various motives to action, and expe- HI. rience fheweth, that we do not always ex- `^''s ert our reflecting powers as becometh us, in comparing and examining them, in or- der to at fo as we may have the appro- bation of our minds. To fet this matter in a clear light, it muff be obferved, that there are in our nature different tendencies and fprings of action, but we are not irre- fiftibly determined to follow them. For a man to act upon every fuggeftion or mo- tion of appetite or pafliion, may be faid to be following nature, fo far as that appetite and paffion is in his nature an inferior part of it-, but to do this without enqui- ring, and being fatisfied that it is right, or, all things confidered, the belt for him, is not to at according to the whole of his nature, nor indeed according to that which hath been obferved to be its primary law. Perhaps, too, fome may imagine that filch a conduct is free, and that it is a high privilege of the will, to determine itfelf with a kind of fupremacy independant of reafon. It may be acknowledged this is freedom in one fenfe, that is, a man thus rafting, is under no conftraint : But fure- ly we cannot fuppofe that the preroga- tive
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