in their difpofitions, as to induce many of them to act in fuch a manner as to render themselves proper fubjects for fuch neceffary fufferings, and yet at the fame time endued with fuch a degree of reafon and * Some have afferted that there can be no degrees of free-will, but that every being must be absolutely free, or poffeffed of no freedom at all: and this feems to have been the principal error that has led those who have supported both fides of this question into so many abfurdities; as it well might, fince they were both equally wrong in efpoufing a propofition, which contradicts both reafon and experience. Brutes have a certain degree of free-will; elfe why do we correct them for their misbehaviour, or why do they amend upon correction? Yet certainly they have not fo great a degree as ourselves. A man raving mad is not, nor is confidered as a free-agent; a man less mad has a greater portion of freedom; and a man not mad at all has the greatest; but ftill the degree of his freedom must bear a proportion to the weakness of his understanding, and the ftrength of his paffions and preju dices; all which are a perverfion of reason, and madnefs as far as they extend, and operate on free-will in the very fame manner: fo that it is so far from being true, that all men are equally free, that probably there are no two men who are poffeffed of exactly the fame degree of freedom. free-will free-will as to put it in the power of every individual to escape them by their good behaviour: fuch a creature is man; fo corrupt, base, cruel, and wicked, as to convert these unavoidable miferies into juft punishments, and at the fame time fo fenfible of his own depravity and the fatal confequences of guilt, as to be well able to correct the one, and to avoid the other. Here we fee a substantial reason for the depravity of man, and the admittance of moral evil in these circumstances seems not only compatible with the justice of God, but one of the higheft instances of his confummate wisdom in ordering and difpofing all things in the best manner their imperfect natures will admit. I prefume not by what has been here said to determine on the counfels of the Almighty, to triumph in the compleat difcovery of the origin of moral evil, or to affert that this is the certain or fole cause of its existence; I propose it only as a guess concerning the reason of its admiffion, more probable, and lefs derogatory from the di vine wisdom and justice, than any that has hitherto been offered for that purpose. There is undoubtedly something farther in the general depravity of mankind than we are aware of, and probably many great and wife ends are answered by it to us totally incomprehenfible. God, as has been fhewn, would never have permitted the existence of natural evil, but from the impoffibility of preventing it without the lofs of fuperior good; and on the fame principle the admiffion of moral evil is equally confiftent with the divine goodnefs: and who is he fo knowing in the whole ftupendous fyftem of nature as to affert, that the wickednefs of fome beings may not, by means unconceivable to us, be beneficial to innumerable unknown orders of others? or that the punishments of fome may not contribute to the felicity of numbers infinitely superior? To this purpose the learned Hugenius fays with great fagacity, Praterea credibile eft, ipfa illa animi vitia magnæ hominum parti, non fine fummo concilio data effe: Cum enim Dei providentia talis fit Tellus, ejufque incola, quales cernimus, abfurdum enim foret exiftimare omnia hæc alia falta effe, quam ille voluerit, fciveritque futura*. But let us not forget that this neceffity of vice and punishment, and its fubferviency to public good, makes no alteration in their natures with regard to man; for though the wisdom of God may extract from the wickedness of men fome remote benefits to the univerfe; yet that alters not the cafe with regard to them, nor in the least extenuates their guilt. He has given them reason fufficient to inform them, that their injuries to each other are difpleafing to him, and freewill fufficient to refrain from fuch actions, and may therefore punish their disobedience without any infringement of justice: he knows indeed, that though none are under any compulfion to do evil, yet that they are all fo framed, that many will certainly do it; and he knows alfo that incomprehenfible fe * Cofmotheoros, Lib. 1. p. 34. cret why it is necessary that many should: but his knowledge having no relation to their determinations renders not their vices less criminal, nor the punishment of them less equitable: for though with regard to God, vice may be perhaps the consequence of misery; that is, men may be inclined to vice in order to render them proper objects of fuch a degree of mifery as was unavoidably necessary, and previously determined for the fake of public good, yet, in regard to man, misery is the consequence of vice; that is, all human vices produce mifery, and are justly punished by its infliction. If it be objected, that this makes God the author of fin, I answer, God is, and must be the author of every thing; and to say that any thing is, or happens, independent of the first cause, is to say that something exists, or happens, without any cause at all. God is the author, if it may be fo expreffed, of all the natural evils in the universe; that is, of the fewest poffible in the nature of things; and why may he not be the author of all moral |