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The caput vivum, of a dexterous infidel, is abfolutely invulnerable by the caput mortuum of free-will nonfenfe, though the afinine jaw-bone were wielded by the arm of a Samfon.

CHAP. IV.

Specimen of Scripture-Atteftations to the Doctrine of Necefity.

R

EFERENCES have already been made, in the course of the prefent effay, to feveral Scripture paffages, wherein neceflity is invincibly and decifively afferted. I will add a few others: and then leave the reader to judge, whether neceffitarians, or chance-mongers, give moft credit to the "divine. original of the Scriptures."

I withheld thee from finning against me. Gen.

xx. 6.

It was not you that fent me hither, but God. Gen. 1. 5, 7, 8.

I will harden his heart, that he fhall not let the people go. Exod. iv. 21.

It was of the Lord, to harden their hearts, that they should come againft Ifrael to battle; that he might destroy them utterly. Joh. xi. 20.

The fars in their courfes fought against Sifera. Judg. v. 20.

The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich; he bringeth low, and lifteth up. 1 Sam. ii. 7.

They hearkened not to the voice of their Father; because the Lord would flay them. 1 Sam. ii. 25.

Thus faith the Lord: Behold, I will raife up evil against thee, out of thy own houfe; and I will take thy wives, before thine eyes, and give them to thy neighbour, and he fhall lie with thy wives in the fight

Atheism itself, on any but neceffitarian principles; fuch defenders ever will, and inevitably muft, have the worst end of the staff: for the Bible will ftand on no ground but its own; nor can the cavillings of its doctrinal gainfayers (flimfy as their cavillings are) be hewn effectually in pieces, by any weapons but thofe which the Bible itself fupplies. Among others, it fupplies us with the invincible two-edged fword of predeftination and neceffity (which two edges, by the way, terminate, fword-like, in one common point): a weapon, peculiarly formed and tempered to penetrate the beft mail of our modern unbelieving Philiftines; moft of whom have fenfe enough to laugh (and laugh they may in perfect safety) at

"The pointlefs arrow and the broken bow;" equipped with which, Arminianifm comes limping into the field of battle.

* People do not fee all things at once. The rifing of truth, upon the mind, is commonly gradual; like the rifing of the fun, on the world. Hence, fome philofophers, who are rooted neceffitarians, either do not yet perceive, or forbear to acknowledge, the coincidence of Scripture-predeftination with phyfical and metaphyfical neceffity.

But, all in good time. The more thefe doctrines are examined, and compared together, the more clearly and ftrongly will they be found to fuppofe and fupport each other. The Arminians are aware of this: and pelt both predeftination and neceflity, with equal rage, and with the felf-fame cavils.

Nor without reafon. For what is predeftination, but neceffitas imperata; or, the free and everlafting determination of God, that fuch and fuch a train of caufes and effects fhould infalliby take place in time? And what is philofophical neceffity, but predeftinatio elicita; or, God's determination drawn out into act, by fucceffive accomplishment, according to the plan pre-conceived in the divine mind?-Neceflity (i. e. fate, or providence, to whose ceaselefs agency all the laws and modes and the very being of matter and fpirit inceffantly fubferve) this neceflity is, as a valuable perfon phrases it, a ftrait line," however crooked it may fometimes appear tɔ us; a ftrait line, drawn from the point of God's decree." And as predeftination is the point itself, from which the strait line is drawn; fo it is alfo the point, into which the line, progreffively, but infallibly, reverts.

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What was the confequence?-So they fpread Abfalom a tent upon the top of the house; and Abfalom went in unto his father's concubines, in the fight of all Ifrael. 2 Sam. xii. 11. with 2 Sam. xvi. 22.

The Lord hath faid unto him [to Shimei], curfe David. 2 Sam. xvi. 10.

And he [i. e. the evil spirit] faid, I will go forth, and I will be a lying fpirit in the mouth of all his [Ahab's] prophets. And he [God] faid, Thou fhalt perfuade him, and prevail alfo: go forth, and do fo.-Now, therefore, the Lord hath put a lying fpirit in the mouth of all these, &c. 1 Kings

xxii. 22, 23.

Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reigneft over all. 1 Chron. xxix. 12.

Then rofe up the chief of the Fathers of Judah and Benjamin, &c; whofe fpirit God had railed to go up, to build the house of the Lord. Ezra i. 5.

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Job i. 21.

Man is born unto trouble, as the fparks fly upward (Job v. 7.). And, I am apt to think, fparks afcend by neceffity!

He difappointeth the devices of the crafty, fo that their hands cannot perform their enterprize. (Jobv. 12.) Be men ever fo fhrewd, their utmoft dexterity will not avail, unless the Great Superintending Creator ftamp it with efficiency.

Behold he taketh away. Who can hinder him? Who will fay unto him [i. e. who has a right to fay unto God], what doft thou? Job ix. 12.

For he is not a man, as I am, that I fhould answer him, and that we should come together in judg ment. Ver. 32.

Vain man would be wife [and the puny prifoner of a clod would be an independent, felf-determining freewiller!] though man be born as a wild als's colt. Job xi. 12. What a thunderbolt to human

pride! To the το αλεξασιον. Το αιλοδεσπόλεια. Το the τα εφ' ήμιν. Το αυτοκρατορία. Το liberum arbitrium. Το ipfeitas. To the Arminian herb called, felf-heal. To independency, felf-authority, felf-determination, felf-falvation, innate ideas, and other pompous nothings, with which man's ignorance and conceit feek to plat a wreath for the enrichment of his brows. Vain man, born as a wild afs's* colt!

"How

* And we fhould remain, to our dying day, nearly on a level with the animal to which we are compared, were it not for the care of thofe about us, and did we not neceffarily become parts of a fociety antecedently formed to our hands. In what a ftate would the prefent generation be, had they not dropt (if I may use the expreffion) into an house ready built! i. e. if we had been cut off from all means of profiting by the wifdom, the experience, the discoveries, the inventions, and the regulations, of thofe who lived before us.It is a circumftance of unfpeakable convenience, to be the children of Time's old age.

Our mental powers, like a chicken in the fhell, or a plant in its femen, are no more than virtual and dormant, until elicited by cultivation, and ripened by experience, attention, and reflection. Civil fociety, drefs, articulate language, with all other ufeful and ornamental polishings which refult from domestic and political connection, are, in themselves, things purely artificial and adventitious. If fo, will it not follow, that (ever fince the fall) man is, naturally, a wild animal? Some very able reafoners have gone fo far, as peremptorily to pronounce him fuch. The late Dr. Young, in his " Centaur not fabulous," appears to have thought, that the greater part of the human fpecies profit fo little by their acceffory opportunities of improvement, as to go off the ftage, femi favages, at laft; notwithftanding the inexhauftible and omnipotent deluge of freewill, which that ingenious writer imagined every man to bring into the world with him. Strange, that fo immenfe a refervoir, inherent in the foul, fhould yet leave the foul fo dry!

With regard to the natural wildness of man, fuppofed and afferted by fome philofophers; thus much, I think, must be fairly admitted; that the hypothefis derives much fubfidiary force, from various pertinent and well authenticated facts. For, if any credit be due to human teftimony, there have been inftances of expofed infauts, who were nurfed by foreft animals; and, when grown up, went prone on all-four, with a fwiftnefs greatly fuperior to that of the nimbleft running-footman: but totally unable (and no wonder) to form the leaft articulate found. It is added, that, like any other wild creature, they would fly from the human fight (i. e. from the fight of their own fpecies refined), with a roar of fear and hatred, into the thickest receffes of the woods. Civilization,

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