AN ESSAY. 496 the moral commands are necessary at all times and occasions, and the positive only on some particular occasions. And upon this hypothesis, it is no more in the power of God to have altered the positive commands on those particular occasions, than it is in his power to change the moral commands on any occasion what- soever. Then every pin and tack in the tabernacleof Moses, every little punctilio and circumstance in all the Levitical rites of purification and sacrifice, every colour and thread which is of divine appointment in the curtains of the tabernacle, or the vest- ments of the priest, were as necessary at that time and place as the ten commands, or any rule of virtue and piety whatso- ever; since they did necessitate and determine the will of God to appoint them by his seeing a superior fitness and goodness in them all. It is true indeed, we who are short-sighted creatures, and cannot penetrate so far into the fitness and unfitness of things cannot find out the positive commands of God by our reasoning, as we can many of the greater and more obvious moral laws ; yet let it be observed also, that these moral laws in some of the lesser branches of them; and in their application to particular cases, perhaps can hardly be found out by our short and feeble reasonings; and in this respect the difference between moral and positive laws would grow less and less, even with regard to us, till in many instances the difference would vanish. But with re- gard to God himself, and in the nature of things, they would be roll, equally necessary, and God could not appoint any of them otherwise than he has done. V. Then there would be no such thing as any liberty of choice and indifference in the world, or at least only among im- perfect intelligent beings who aré endowed with wills, and that but seldom too : And this very liberty would arise merely from their imperfection, that is, because in some things they could not find the superior fitness, since they cannot extend their know- ledge deep and wide enough to see all the fitnesses and unfit - nesses of timings. For according to this scheme, all the decrees and actions of God time most perfect Spirit, about himself, or about his creatures, would be ever necessary; and all the ma= terial creation, the whole universe of bodies, and every natu- ral motion therein, so far as ordained by God even in their remotest causes, would be necessary from the beginning to the end of all things : And a very wise' man who sees the fitnesses of things, would have scarce any thing of this free- dom, for lie would be always necessarily determined itrhis choice by this superior fitness. But let us think a little further on this point : If this ¿pinion were true in the whole scheme, and all spirits, perfect or imper- feet, were necessarily determined to act according as things ap- peared fit or unfit to the mind, and if these appearances were nit
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