Was he then in a converted state? certainly not; and yet his endeavors were required. To say no more, the notion is grounded on an erroneous piety, inadvertently exalting one of the divine attributes and dispensations, at the expence of the others. As to the rest, the intelligent observer will easily see how it is founded, and with what faulty arts conducted and inculcated in the present day.
After what has been said of specialties and interpositions, a Materialist may probably ask some such question as this; if specialties [38] have such a beneficial tendency, why did not the divine Being order them more frequently, and in a more determinate, and perspicuous manner? This requires an answer, and accordingly a few lines upon it will not be amiss.
All will allow, in words, at least, that there is through every part of the divine works and dispensations, the utmost consistency and agreement, no repugnancy or clashing, and nothing contradictory, redundant or deficient to be found: Whereas, was the divine conduct altered, to what the Materialists in the question requires, the case would be quite otherwise in the moral world. It would have destroy’d all Liberty, and subverted a state of probation. Man would be necessitated contrary to the divine intention. Had the divine will been to secure an uninterrupted and uniform moral conduct, no doubt the instances of specialties and interpositions would have been much more frequent, and explicit, together with immediate rewards of good, and punishment of ill deeds. The divine finger barred to mortal sight had no question astonish’d mankind into continued moral order, without any room for praise or blame. The event would have been the same as if he had impell’d mankind into right conduct, by effectual instinctive impressions, or mechanically dispos’d them to religious observance, without any capacity to the contrary. [39] But man then would not have been man. He would have been a cold unspirited lump of absurdity; such only as a Lucretian genius, or materializing projector could have had the credit of devising—No! infinite wisdom laid a nobler plan, in which the rational creature, by the use of moral powers, with Liberty, might approve himself to his maker in a suitable and determin’d degree; with attention to whose laws, providential dispensations, and by the assistances provided for him, he should obtain the happiness his nature was made capable of. I say approve himself, in the use of the talents he has given him, for it would be presumption to expect his maker should do that for him which he has given him the powers to perform; while yet in all beyond this, and what is requisite for him, he may piously expect his gracious assistance.
I shall mention but one more of these proofs of liberty, viz. that of the notions we naturally form of the Deity. As soon as we are capable of consideration, we perceive ourselves constitutionally led to negative every idea that appears to imply imperfection; and to attribute to the divine Being whatever implies the highest degrees of excellency and perfection, with the most perfect harmony of the divine attributes. And upon severe examination of the matter, we find we were right [40] in these sentiments. Whereas when we enquire into the consequences that arise from the doctrine of Necessity, we find them derogatory to them; particularly to those of divine power, wisdom, and goodness: Besides that, it unavoidably makes the perfection of holiness the author of sin; while on the contrary, the doctrine of liberty shows the origin of moral evil to be a very different thing. Thus we also find we agree with the genuine sense and meaning of S. S. I need only add, that our natural notions and common sense, have more real weight and intrinsic worth, than our Necessitarians, and Semimaterialists, of which we have a great number, will admit. But we must take care to distinguish between what is truly common sense, and the notions that arise from educated ignorance, and various misleading causes, in the course of life; together with the bias of our corporeal affections.
I shall finish what I have to say on liberty, with some very short observations on the divine fore-knowledge of events.
The Necessitarians would have us believe, that unless every action of mankind were previously decreed, (i. e.) absolutely determin’d, they could not be foreknown by the Deity. It remains therefore to examine this agreably to the foregoing theory, by which the contrary will be evident.
[41] But in order to make a right judgment concerning this weighty question, we must be suitably prepared by a competent knowledge of the nature of man, particularly the operations of his mind; how far he is necessitated and how far free; according to, or in some such manner as has been already expres’d. But especially we must have right notions of the Deity; right so far as they go, for we cannot have adequate ones. We must allow the infinite difference between his manner of knowing, and that of mankind; of him who sees the essence of matter, and all effects in their causes; to whom the past, the present, and the future are ever before him in one perfect, and continued view. We must acknowledge the boundless immensity of that wisdom and power by which he made all Worlds; and that Omnipresence by which he is every moment of duration present to them, to every part of them, and to all, even the minutest beings in them. Then if we add to this, the dependent nature of man, whose Liberty is no more than a capacity of passing occasionally, from one necessitating motive to another, we shall be in some measure prepared to satisfy ourselves in the present question.
Admitting then the foregoing postulate, which I think will not be disrupted, we shall [42] perceive that as the Almighty sees all effects in their causes, so all the causes and changes of Motive must be accordingly foreknown by him; that he can foresee whether the subject will consider or not; whether partially or impartially; and in either case, what the event will be. For we may easily perceive, that he can as well forsee what the mental eye of the mind in consideration will discover, as what will appear to the bodily eye in the course of life; and equally what the effect will be, (i.e.) how the rational creature will determine.
It is own’d, that the determinations of the mind are greatly influenced by the different characters of persons. So that although they see the same thing, and under the same individual circumstances, they will yet judge very differently; but however perplexing this may be to mankind to determine what the party will do, it makes no difference with Omniscience. He equally sees their special peculiarities as he does any simple object; their original nature, various complications, and special influences; and in one self-same view, what particular in the whole will determine them, and exactly how. So that he cannot need an absulute decree to know what one will do.
[43] This short account of the matter, may prove sufficient for the impartial and contemplative, while the most clear and full rationale would be to no purpose for others. On this, and the foregoing way of thinking, it is evident, to me, that the Almighty could make a free agent; and that, man having liberty, his every action is yet foreknown. Such objection being remov’d, affords one more presumption of the reality of liberty, as distinguished from any absolute self-determining power; and upon the whole, that such a power is not necessary to the idea of Moral Freedom.
THE END.
English colonists in America began living under local government based upon the consent of the majority before John Locke was born, and by the time he wrote his Second Treatise they had evolved most of the institutions and practices that Locke’s theory implied. Nevertheless, Locke’s work had considerable impact on Americans by the middle of the eighteenth century, probably because it nicely justified theoretically what Americans were already doing. Locke built his theory from rationalist assumptions, while Americans built their institutions on biblical foundations, especially upon the notion of a covenant. While to men in the 1770s there seemed to be no essential conflict between what Locke and the Bible were telling them, their synthesis of the two was in fact an American accomplishment, not a logical necessity. John Tucker, pastor of the First Church in Newbury, here, in the Election Day Sermon of 1771, demonstrates how the synthesis was accomplished.
