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serves, that as God makes his creatures act just according to his own will, he knows every thing he thinks fit to know. But though it is in his power to see every thing, yet he does not always make use of that power: he generally leaves his creatures at liberty to act or not act, that they may have room to be guilty or innocent. In this view he renounces his right of acting upon his creatures, and directing their resolutions: but when he chooses to know any thing he always does know it; because he need only will that it shall happen as he sees it, and direct the resolutions of his creatures according to his will. Thus he fetches the things which shall happen from among those which are merely possible, by 'fixing by his decrees the future determinations of the minds of his creatures, and depriving them of the power of acting or not acting which he has bestowed upon them. If we may presume to make comparison of a thing which is above all comparison, A monarch does not know what his ambassador will do in an affair of importance. If he thinks fit to know it, he need only give him direction to behave so and so, and he may be assured he will follow his directions.

President Edwards makes

the following distinction be tween his and Lord Kaims's ideas of necessity :-(1.) Lord Kaims supposes that such a necessity takes place, with respect to all men's actions, as is inconsistent with liberty. Edwards maintains that the moral necessity which universally takes place, is not inconsistent with the utmost liberty which can be defined or conceived.-(2.) Kaims seems every where to suppose that necessity, properly so called, attends all men's actions, and that the terms unavoidable, impossible, &c., are equally applicable to the case of moral and natural necessity. Edwards maintains that such a necessity as attends the acts of men's wills can with more propriety be called certainty, it being no other than the certain connexion between the subject and predicate of the proposition which affirms their existence.-(3.) Kaims supposes that if mankind could clearly see the real necessity of their actions, they would not appear to themselves or others praise-worthy, culpable, or accountable for their actions. Edwards maintains that moral necessity, or cer tainty, is perfectly consistent with praise and blame, rewards and punishments. Lord Kaims agrees with President Edwards in supposing that

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The Rev. Mr. Dawson, in a late pamphlet, entitled, "The Necessarian, or the Question concerning Liberty and Necessity stated and discussed," endeavours to prove that the will is determined by motives. He accounts, however, every act which proceeds not from mechanical force a voluntary act. Every voluntary act he calls a free act, because it proceeds from the will-from the man himself: but calls that voluntary act necessary, in conformity to their idea of necessity, who, on supposition of the will's being determined by motives, will not allow it to be free, though voluntary. Having established this species of necessity, he endeavours to shew that free-will leaves no foundation for attributing merit or demerit to the agent; and that, on the contrary, the doctrine of necessity does that which the doctrine of freewill does not. By leaving the foundation of morality secure, it leaves a foundation for merit and demerit; viz. the moral nature of actions. The morality of an action is its motive: that which gives the action its moral quality, gives it at the same time its worth, or merit. But, on the doctrine of freewill, there can be no founda

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tion for attributing merit or demerit to the agent, because it destroys all distinctions between actions; good and bad being terms without meaning, when applied to actions without a moral motive.

As, in the account of Dr. Priestley's sentiments, the manner in which that celebrated author distinguishes his scheme of philosophical necessity from the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination is inserted, perhaps those who are fond of speculating on this subject will be gratified by being presented on the other hand with the following distinction which the Rev. Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, has made between the Calvinistic idea of necessity and that of Dr. Priestley.

It has long been a subject of controversy among Arminians and Calvinists, whether moral agents can act of necessity. Upon this subject Dr. Priestley takes the Calvinistic side, and labours to prove the doctrine of necessity from the general principle that no effect can exist without a cause. His train of reasoning runs very much in this form: Every volition must be an effect, every effect must have a cause, every cause must necessarily produce its effect: therefore every volition, as well as every other effect, must be necessary.

But though he agrees with Calvinists in their first principles and general mode of reasoning, yet in one very capital point he differs from them totally; for he maintains that motives, which are the cause of volitions, must operate mechanically, which, they suppose, totally destroys He

the freedom of the will. is obliged to maintain the mechanical operation of motives, by his maintaining the materiality of the soul. If the soul be material, the natural conclusion is, that motives must act upon it by a mechanical operation. This conclusion, he owns, he means to draw from the doctrine of materialism. In the preface to his illustrations of Philosophical Necessity, he says, "Every thing belonging to the doctrine of materialism is, in fact, an argument for the doctrine of necessity; and consequently the doctrine of necessity is a direct inference from materialism."

But President Edwards supposes that mechanical necessity is precisely the same as natural necessity, coercion, or constraint, which he therefore considers as entirely subver

sive of moral freedom. Hence he expressly denies, in his treatise on the will, that motives act upon the mind, as weights do upon the scale, by a mechanical operation. Indeed all Calvinists maintain that motives govern the will by a moral, and not by a mechanical influence: for though they allow that moral causes as really and as necessarily produce moral effects, as mechanical causes produce mechanical effects, yet they deny that moral and mechanical necessity are the same. It is therefore carefully to be observed, that the Materialists plead for such a mechanical operation of motives upon the mind, as the Calvinists suppose must inevitably destroy its liberty, or moral freedom.*

NEONOMIANS, so called from the greek vɛos, new, and roμos, law; signifying a new law, the condition whereof is imperfect, though sincere and persevering obedience.

[Neonomianism seems to be an essential part of the Arminian system. "The new covenant of grace which, through the medium of Christ's death, the Father made with men, consists, according to this sys

*Mosheim's Eccles, Hist. vol. v. p. 24. Leibnitz's Essay on the Goodness of God, the Free-will of Man, &c. Letters between Clarke and Leibnitz. Edwards on the Will, pp. 17-213. Kaims's Essays, pp. 114, 155-Montesquieu's Persian Letters, pp. 134–136. Dawson's Letters on Liberty and Necessity, pp. 12-71.

tem, not in our being justified by faith, as it apprehends the righteousness of Christ; but in this, that God, abrogating the exaction of perfect legal obedience, reputes, or accepts of faith itself, and the imper'fect obedience of faith, instead of the perfect obedience of the law, and graciously accounts them worthy of the reward of eternal life." This opinion was examined at the synod of Dort, and has been canvassed between the Calvinists and Arminians on various occasions.+

personally justified until they receive Christ, and yield up themselves to him; but they remain condemned whilst unconverted to Christ.-(3.) By the ministry of the gospel there is a serious offer of pardon and glory, upon the terms of the gospel, to all that hear it: and God thereby requires them to comply with the said terms.

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(4.) Ministers ought to use these and other gospel benefits as motives, assuring men that if they believe, they shall be justified; if they turn to God, they shall live; if they repent, Towards the close of the their sins shall be blotted out : seventeenth century a contro- and whilst they neglect these versy was agitated amongst the duties, they cannot have a English dissenters, in which personal interest in these rethe one side, who were partial spective benefits.-(5.) It is to the writings of Dr. Crisp, by the power of the Spirit of were charged with Antinomian- Christ freely exerted, and not ism, and the other, who favour- by the power of free-will, that ed those of Mr. Baxter, were the gospel becomes effectual accused of Neonomianism. Dr. for the conversion of any soul Daniel Williams, who was a to the obedience of faith.principal writer on what was (6.) When a man believes, yet called the Neonomian side, is not that very faith, and after many things had been said much less any other work, the of him, gives the following as matter of that righteousness a summary of his faith in re- for which a sinner is justified; ference to those subjects ;-- i. e. entitled to pardon, ac"(1.) God has eternally elected ceptance as righteous, and a certain definite number of eternal glory before God; and men, whom he will infallibly it is the imputed righteousness save by Christ, in that way of Christ alone, for which the prescribed by the gospel. gospel gives the believer a right (2.) These very elect are not to these and all saving `bless

*Acta Synodi. p. 253.

† See Edwards on the Will, London edition, pp. 220, 221.

threatenings, as motives to our obedience? Both these I affirm, and they deny; saying the gospel in the largest sense is an absolute promise, without precepts and conditions, and a gospel threat is a bull.-(4.) Do the gospel promises of benefits to certain graces, and its threats that those benefits shall be withheld, and the contrary evils inflicted for the neglect of such graces, render those graces the condition of our personal title to those benefits? This they deny, and I affirm, &c."*

It does not appear to have been a question in this controversy, whether God in his word commands sinners to repent and believe in Christ, nor whether he promises life to believers, and threatens death to unbelievers; but whether it be the gospel under the form of a new law that thus commands or threatens, or the moral law on its behalf; and whether its. promises to believing render such believing a condition of the things promised.-In another controversy, however,

which arose about forty years afterwards amongst the same descriptions of people, it became a question whether God did by his word (call it law or gospel) command unregenerate sinners to repent and believe in Christ, or do any thing else which is spiritually good. Of those who took the affirmative side of this question, one party attempted to maintain it on the ground of the gospel being a new law, consisting of commands, promises, and threatenings, the terms or conditions of which were repentance, faith, and sincere obedience. But those who first engaged in the controversy, though they allowed the encouragement to repent and believe to arise merely from the grace of the gospel, yet considered the formal obligation to do so as arising from the moral law, which, requiring supreme love to God, requires acquiescence in any revelation which he shall at any time make known.+]

NESTORIANS, a denomination which arose in the

*Gospel Truth, pp. 256-258. Williams's Gospel Truth Stated and Vindicated. Chauncey's Neonomianism Unmasked. Maurice's Modern Question Affirmed and Proved,

[NB. The controversy between what a century ago were called the Neonomians and the Antinomians, has been very ably and candidly reviewed by the famous WLTSIUS, author of the economy of the covenants, in his Irenicum. This work has been translated from the latin by the late Mr Thomas Beli, of Glasgow, and is now proposed to be reprinted with notes by the translator, The volume, it is said, will be small, and the subscription low. We earnestly hope the work will be duly encouraged.]

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