488 FREEDOM or WILL. us act upon motives which we do not apprehend: or saying. that we act mechanically, that is, do not act at all; And in the last place, to say, that we are determined t0 chime any of these trifles just as we happen tofix our thoughts upon it inparticular at the very instant of action, is either attributing all to the se(moving power of the mind, which is granting the question ; or else re- ferring us to the minuteand imperceptible causes above-mentioned; or else obtruding upon US that idle unmeaningword chance instead of a physical cause, which is saying nothing at all. How bard nzust men be pressedunder an hypothesis, wizen theyfly to such evasive shifts as these ! how much easier and better would it be to give up all such unknown and unaccountable impulses, and own that both common sense and experience dictate an independent, free, self -moving principle, the true, the obvious, the only source of action? page165, edit. 1st. Objection IV. But whatsoever may be said of the blind and arbitrarydeterminations of the will of man, without reason and without motive, surely it is not so with the great and blessed God ; all his actions are wise, and fit, and good : His will al- ways chases and determines according to the fitness or unfitness of things : He never does any thing in an arbitrary manner, or by mere will and pleasure ; and though we are at a loss to find out the superior fitness or unfitness of many things by which the divine will is determined to chuse or refuse, yet he who hath all the infinite ideas of things real and possible within the grasp of his understanding, can see those superior fitnesses er unfitnesses ;which are unsearchable to us, and he always de- termines and nets according to them : for infinite wisdom can- not -act otherwise. Answer. To guard against the charge of supposing the great God to act in an arbitrary manner, without good reason, and without fit motives, let it be again considered, what has been often hinted before, that God never decrees or acts in general without a just design and reason for it, and a proper end to . be Obtained by'it : as for instance ; if God determine to create ra- ther thannot to create, there was probably a reason for it taken from the consequences of creation which the blessed God design- ed, and had in his view : But when several distinct and different creatures or worlds appear in idea to his infinite understanding, in any of which there is no superior fitness, but which in them- Selves are equallyfit, and by each of which, considered as means, he may equally obtain the same end, then he must chose one of these means, that is, one of these worlds in particular, only by the determination of his own will: And if this be called .sove- reign and arbitraryconduct, it is still no more than the eter- nal nature of things requires, and it shows him to be pro- per sovereign over all his creatures, and to have a complete
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