FREEDOM OF WILL, be clearly and completely relieved by the understanding acrd, reasoning powers of man, at least in this present, state. I do not pretend that my set of sentiments is entirely free from all But the chief difficulty is to find any scheme which has less or fewer than this which I have represented. Till I see that done, I think I most be content to abide where I am. It is possible I may meet with some new objections against mine, which I had not thought of before ; but while every scheme has some hard- ships, I persuade myself that hypothesis may still be allowed to come nearest to the truth, which has the least and fewest diffi- culties attending it. But when the difficulties are many more and greater which hang upon any one human scheme than do upon another, we arenaturally led to suppose that such a scheme can never be true, or at least that it is by no means so probable as the opposite. Let us then consider what will be the conse- quences of supposing that thedivine will in all its determinations and decrees whatsoever, is universally, certainly and unalterably influenced by the superior fitness of things. Difficulty L Then there is nothingamongst all the works of God's creation, or his providence, or his government of creatures through time or eternity, left free to him with a liberty of choice or indifference, since thisopinion supposes there is but one single train of fittest.things; or one set of things supremely fit among all themillions of' supposed_possibles that come within the divine survey. Has it not been always said, and that with great truth and justice, that all creatures are contingent beings, and that they might not have been. But according to this supposition no creature existing is a contingent being, for its superior fitness macle its existence necessary. And upon this hypothesis every atom in the creation, together with the shape of it, and the size and situation of it through the whole universe, every motion in the world of corporeal nature appointed by God, together with the times and periods, minutesand momentsof every event, the least as well as the greatest, except those which are introduced by inferior spirits, are all eternally necessary, because they ire the fittest that could be. And I might add, they are as unchangeably necessary as the being of God himself, that is, with a consequential, if not with a simultaneous necessity ; forat least from the very position of his essence and existence, all conceivable things, with all their infinite relations and their eternal fitnesses arise, and they all appear to his view: And the only one scheme of' things which is most fit, is necessarily determined by him into existence and actual futurity, with all the minutest parts andappendices thereof, because he sees the superior fitness of them all : Thus the least appearance and event in the corporeal world throughout all the ages of creation . and pro.pidence, is unalterably necessary,
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