CHAPTER III. 493 Necessity of existence may be distinguished into absolute or conditional : God alone is absolutely necessary, for he must exist whether any other thing be or be not; but as for crea tares, though they are properly contingent beings, yet a con- ditional necessity, may belong to them, i. e.. such a creature or such an event may exist if the causes are put, which will certainly and necessarily produce it ; if a hen's egg be hatch- ed it will produce a chicken ; if the sun rise there will be day -light ; if a man will leap down a vast precipice, lie must, be destroyed, It is called also sometimes a conditional necessity, when such premises or conditions are put from whence, an event may certainly inferred, though they have no manner of ca-' sual influence on this event ; so we may say, that it was ne- cessary Antichrist should arise, because the God of truth had foretold it. Necessity may be divided into natural, logical; and mo- ral; by natural necessity fire burns, and snow melts i nthe., sun-beams. By logical necessity the conclusion of a syllogism follows from the premises. By moral necessity intelligent.crea tures are obliged to worship God, and virtue will be finally re- warded ; though I know some writers take the term moral neces- sity in another sense. Both necessity and contingence are ideas frequently applied to the events which arise in the natural world, i. e. the world of bodies, whether animate or inanimate; but the events in the moral world are more usually called contingent, i. e.the volun- tary actions of intelligent creatures ; though necessity may in some cases be ascribed to them too, as the blessed God.necessa- rily acts agreeably to his own perfections ; a rational and sensi-. ble being necessarily hates pain and misery. Events in the natural world are said to be necessary, or to arise from natural necessity, when they are derived from the connection of second causes, and those laws of motion which God established in the world at the creation, and which he con- times by bis providence. This is the chief and most usual meaning of the word nature; and indeed fate in its deriva- tion and original sense signifies but the dictate or decree of God. But if the appointment of God be left quite out of our thoughts, then fate is a heathenish term to denote a sort of eternal neces- sary connection of causes, without regard to the first cause ; and some of the heathens have exalted this fate above the Gods.. themselves. Events in the natural world are said tobe contingent, or to arise from chance when they are different from what is usual in the course of nature, and utterly unexpected, though indeed the Bourse of nature really produces them by the interposition of
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