AN ESSAY 485 its welfare, and so very easy to obtain, merely for want of su- perior fitness in one of the things proposed : But it is a very ab- surd conception, that the blessed God should so form the nature of a s ;irit, and make it so impotent to chose what is ne- cessary to its welfare, and should keep it in everlasting suspense in matters of moment and importance. I might answer in the second place, II. If all determinations of the will are effected by superior fitness or by mere mechanism of the body, in either of these case's there is no freedom of choice, no real liberty of indifference in any human action : It is all pure natural necessity thatdetermines the will ; and in all these common instances inhuman life, natural liberty or freedom of choice is entirely lost, and the scheme of fatality is introduced ; and how absurd that is, will appear in the following section : Objection II. 'The doctrine whicidhasbeen proposed, de- pends in a great measure upon this supposition, that the will can determine itself without any prior reason borrowed from things, to chose one thingout of two or more, which are perfectly equal.; but this seems to be impossible ; for it is a plain axiom of truth, that nothing is or cores to pass without a sufficient reason why it is, or why it is in this manner rather than in another. Now, if two things are perfectly equal in all circumstances, there is no sufficient reason 'why one should be, or why the will of God or man should chuse it; and consequently the will would never chose nor be determined one way ratherthan another. If a true balance has equal weights, the scales will for ever hang equal, and neither one nor the other rise or sink, because such equal objects were proposed, whereof one had no more fitness or good- ness than the other : And it wouldbè the same thing with the will of God; for if there were not one best or fittest scheme or system of worlds, he would never have chosen or determined to make anyworld at all ; for as without a sufficient reason nothing can be, so the infinitely wise Being never determines himself to act without a sufficient reason. Answer. Scales and balances, and all other things besides a spirit or beingendowed with a will are, properly and philosophi- cally speaking, passive beings ; and therefore they must have some other reason or cause from-without, sufficient to determine them one way rather than another, beforethey can be determined : But spirits are beings of an actitemature, the 'spring of action is a-real something within themselves, and by which they can determine themselves. The will of God is an active and self-. determining power ; and the will of man perhaps in this respect -is the chief image of God in this lower world, as it is an- active power that can determine itself. Why must all beings and all their powers be supposed to be passive, and be determined by nh3
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=