CHAPTER I.

Necessity defined and its consistency with voluntary Freedom, proved.

ALIQUIS in omnibus, nullus in singulis. The man, who concerns himself in every thing, bids fair not to make a figure in any thing.

Mr. John Wesley is, precisely, this aliquis in omnibus. For, is there a single subject in which he has not endeavoured to shine?-He is also, as precisely, a nullus in singulis. For, has he shone in any one subject which he ever attempted to handle?

Upon what principle can these two circumstances be accounted for? Only upon that very principle, at which he so dolefully shakes his head: viz. the principle of necessity. The poor gentleman is necessarily, an universal meddler: and, as necessarily, an universal miscarrier. Can he avoid being either the one or the other? No. Why then do you animadvert upon him ?"

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1. Because I myself am as necessary an agent as he:-2. Because I love to "shoot folly as it flies:" -3. Because, as on one hand, it is necessary that there should be heresies among (a) men; it is no less necessary on the other, that those heresies should be dissected and exposed. Mr. Wesley imagines, that, upon my own principles, I can be no more than "a clock." And, if so, how can I help striking? He himself has several times smarted for coming too near the pendulum.

Mr. Wesley's incompetence to argument is never more glaringly conspicuous, than when he paddles in metaphysics. And yet I suppose, that the man who has modestly termed himself, and in print too, "The greatest minister in the world;" does, with

(a) 1 Cor. xi. 19.

equal certainty, consider himself as the ablest metaphysician in the world. But his examinations are far too hasty and superficial, to enter into the real merits of subjects so extremely abstruse, and whose concatenations are (though invincibly strong, yet) so exquisitely nice and delicate. One result of his thus exercising himself in matters which are too high for him, is, that in many cases he decides peremptorily, without having discerned so much as the true state of the question; and then sets himself to speak evil of things which, it is very plain, he does not understand. Or, (to borrow the language of Mr. Locke), he "knows a little, presumes a great deal, and so jumps to conclusions."

I appeal at present, to his " Thoughts upon Necessity." Thoughts, which, though crude and dark as chaos, are announced, according to custom, with more than oracular positiveness: as though his own glandula pinealis was the single focus, wherein all the rays of divine and human wisdom are concentred. His thoughts open thus.

1. "Is man a free agent, or is he not?"-Without all manner of doubt, he is, in a vast number and variety of cases. Nor did I ever, in conversation or in reading, meet with a person or an author, who denied it.

But let us, by defining as we go, ascertain what free agency is. All needless refinements apart, free agency, in plain English, is neither more nor less than voluntary agency. Whatever the soul does, with the full bent of preference and desire; in that, the soul acts freely. For, ubi consensus, ibi voluntas, et, ubi voluntas, ibi libertas.

I own myself very fond of definitions. I therefore premise, what the Necessity is, whose cause I have undertaken to plead.

It is exactly and diametrically opposite to that which Cicero delivers concerning fortuna, or chance, luck, hap, accidentality, and contingency; invented by

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the poets of second antiquity, and during many ages, revered as a Deity, by both Greeks and Romans. "Quid est aliud sors, quid fortuna, quid casus, quid eventus; nisi quum sic aliquid cecidit, sic evenit, ut vel non cadere atque evenire vel aliter cadere atque evenire, potuerit (a) ?" i. e. Chance, fortune, accident, and uncertain event, are then said to take place, when a thing so comes to pass, as that it either might not have come to pass at all; or might have come to pass, otherwise than it does.

On the contrary, I would define necessity to be that, by which, whatever comes to pass cannot but come to pass (all circumstances taken into the account); and can come to pass in no other way or manner, than it does. Which coincides with Aristotle's definition of necessity (though, by the way, he was a free-willer himself): Το μη ενδεχομενον ΑΛΛΩΣ eyer, avalxasov pajev (b): We call that necessary, which cannot be otherwise than it is.

Hence the Greeks termed necessity, Avalan: because avado, it reigns, without exception, over all the works of God; and because avagy, it retains and comprises all things within the limits of its own dominion. The Romans called it necesse et necessitas; quasine cassitas, because it cannot fail, or be made void et quasi ne quassitas, because it cannot be moved or shaken, by all the power of men (c).

(a) Cic. De Divinat. L. 2.

(b) Apud Frommenium, Lib. 2. cap. 9.

(c) The immediate parent, or causa proxima, of necessity, is fate; called, by the Greeks, sague: because it invincibly distributes to every man his lot. They termed it also gwen, because it bounds, limits, marks out, adjusts, determines, and precisely ascertains, to each individual of the human race, his assigned portion both of active and passive life. Fate was likewise sometimes metonymically styled Loga, or the lot, i. e. the res ipsissimas, or very actions and felicities and sufferings, themselves, which fall to every man's share.

The Latins called fate, fatum: either from fiat, i. e. from God's saying, Let such and such a thing come to pass; or simply, à fando; from God's pronouncing the existence, the continuance, the circumstances, the times, and whatever else relates to men and things.

I acquiesce in the old distinction of necessity (a distinction adopted by Luther (a), and by most of, not to say by all, the sound reformed divines), into a necessity of compulsion, and a necessity of infallible certainty. The necessity of compulsion is predicated of inanimate bodies; as we say of the earth (for instance) that it circuits the sun, by compulsory necessity and, in some cases, of reasonable beings themselves; viz. when they are forced to do or suffer any thing, contrary to their will and choice.— The necessity of infallible certainty, is of a very different kind; and only renders the event inevitably future, without any compulsory force on the will of the agent. Thus, it was infallibly certain, that Judas would betray Christ: he was, therefore, a necessary, though a voluntary actor, in that tremendous business.

2. "Are a man's actions free, or necessary ?"— They may be, at one and the same time, free and necessary too. When Mr. Wesley is very hungry, or very tired, he is necessarily, and yet freely, disposed to food, or rest. He can no more help being so disposed, than a falling stone can help tending to the earth. But here lies the grand difference. The stone is a simple being, consisting of matter only: and consequently, can have no will either to rise or fall.-Mr. Wesley is a compounded being, made up of matter and spirit. Consequently, his spirit, soul,

If we distinguish accurately, this seems to have been the order, in which the most judicious of the ancients considered the whole matter. First, God:-then his will:-then fate; or the solemn ratification of his will, by passing and establishing it into an unchangeable decree-then creation:-then necessity; i. e. such an indissoluble concatenation of secondary causes and effects, as has a native tendency to secure the certainty of all events, sicut unda impellitur undâ ;—then providence; i. e. the omnipresent, omnivigilant, all-directing superintendency of divine wisdom and power, carrying the whole preconcerted scheme into actual execution, by the subservient mediation of second causes, which were created for that end.

(a) Vide Luther, De Servo Arbitrio, sect. 43.-Edit. Noremb. 1526.

or will, (for I can conceive no real difference between the will, and the soul itself) is concerned in sitting down to dinner, or in courting repose, when necessity impels to either. And I will venture to affirm, what he himself cannot deny, that, necessarily biassed as he is to those mediums of recruit; he has recourse to them as freely (i. e. as voluntarily, and with as much appetite, choice, desire, and relish), as if necessity was quite out of the case: nay, and with abundantly greater freedom and choice, than if he was not so necessitated and impelled.

It would be easy, to instance this obvious truth, in a thousand particulars; and in particulars of infinitely greater moment, than relate to common life. Let me just, en passant, illustrate the point, from the most grand important topic which the whole compass of reasoning affords.

It was necessary (i. e. absolutely and intrinsically inevitable), 1. That the Messiah should be invariably (a) holy in all his ways, and righteous in all his works:- -2. That he should die for the sins of

men.

Yet Christ, though, 1. necessarily good (so necessarily, that it was impossible for him to be otherwise); was freely and voluntarily good: else, he could not have declared, with truth, my meat and drink [i. e. my choice, my appetite, my desire] is, to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (b).—2. Though he (c) could not avoid being put

(a) I never knew more than one Arminian, who was so tremendously consistent, as to maintain explicitly, and in words, that it was possible for Christ himself to have fallen from grace by sin, and to have perished everlastingly. I must, however, do this gentleman the justice to add, that he has, for some years past, been of a better judg ment. But the shocking principle itself is necessarily involved in, and invincibly follows upon, the Arminian scheme of contingency; whether the asserters of that scheme openly avow the consequence, or no. (b) John iv. 34.

(c) To deny the necessity of Christ's sufferings, i. e. to consider them as unpredestinated, and as things which might, or might not,