happiness, when flowing from obedience and due fubordi.

nation.

"That excess of liberty which tends fo much to vitiate the Will, no lefs tends to deprave the paffions, and to augment their natural violence. The favage ferocity, and enormous lewdness, with other monstrous vices, which marked the characters of many of the Roman Emperors, as it cannot reafonably be ascribed to any extraordinary depravity of nature, must be refolved into the want of that falutary difcipline and reftraint, which ferved, in fome measure, to keep other men within the bounds of virtue and decency. But there is no need of recurring to remote examples to thew that those who have been leaft under the government of others, are generally leaft able to govern themselves; and that power, when it falls into fuch hands, is commonly converted into an inftrument of fenfuality and injuftice.

Government and Patriotism.

"In eftimating the merits of a government, regard is to be had, as we have obferved, to the people governed. A nation, during its youth, while fimple manners prevail, and the principles of industry and frugality continue in vigour, requires much lefs wifdom to manage it than an old nation, refined to artificial life, and in poffeffion of the objects which the other is ftriving to obtain. In this ftage, it is hardly poffible to recover a country to its fuber habits, or to preserve it from the fatal confequences of inveterate vice and diffipation; and to charge upon the exifting government all the evils which have been accumulating perhaps for ages, must be highly unreafonable and unjust.

"You may fay, I am not only diffatished with the present rulers, I would have our whole civil ftate diffolved, all ranks, and title, and property abolished, and the entire political fyftem recomposed after a better model. Your ideas, it must be acknowledged, are bold, and bespeak the genius of modern philofophy. But do you understand clearly what you mean by a better model; and have you well confidered, that it is often better to adopt the form to the matter, than with violence to reduce the matter to the form? Have you seriously counted the coft, and are you fure that the probable benefit is greater than the certain risk? If not, you are a dangerous projector;

and

and, had you power to second your speculations, might prove a fatal enemy to your country.

"It is the misfortune of fome men to reap no other fruit from their patriotism than their own fears and jealoufies. The national credit is in danger, trade is declining, foreign nations are conspiring against us, or fome dreadful plot is hatching a home against our rights and liberties; though they fee every man going his own way, and acting as his interest or his pleasure dictates, and every market crowded with wares and cuftomers. Should it be said, these are no infallible signs of national profperity,—at least it must be allowed they are no infallible figns of approaching beggary and chains; and while any hopeful symptoms remain, a true patriot will augur well of his country.

And-" So far as any man, whether he is a Weft"India planter, or in any other rank or ftation, acts "the part of a tyrant, he forfeits all just claim to the "dignity of moral freedom. Nor has a patriot much "to boast of his fuperior character, if, while he pro"mises liberty to others, he himself is a flave to de"pravity."

Property.

"With relation to the diftribution of property, the bet poffible state of society feems to be, when the bulk of a people can fubfift comfortably with moderate labour, and cannot fubfift without it. And indeed no fociety can enjoy much permanency beyond this; for fuppofe it elevated a few degrees higher, whether by a fudden influx of wealth, or by any other means, the number of idle hands that would thus be thrown upon it, and the confequent deficiency of labour, would probably foon reduce it more below its proper fituation, than it had been raised above it."

Our philofophical pedlars may profit by the following hint.

"Whatever does not tend to strengthen in a man a regard to futurity, or in respect to the prefent life, is not effentially neceffary to the supply of his primary wants, must be to him of no great importance. Upon this principle, I fear, we shall be obliged to lower our cftimation of a great deal that is cal

Jed

led learning, and of many ingenious arts, as being neither needful to protect the body from the injuries of the elements, mor to provide it with fufficient fuftenance; and also as it may be fairly questioned, whether on the whole they are really conducive to the moral improvement of mankind."

"The extremes of learned refinement and unenlightened Barbarism are no lefs unfavourable to the acquifition of true wifdom. The polite fcholar, and the philofophic fage, are often found as unqualified subjects of religious teaching as the antutored favage; arifing indeed not from literature or philofophy in themselves, but from that prefumption with which they are fo apt to fwell the mind, and indispose it to that doctrine whofe first and laft inftruction is humility."

Of Free-agency:

"Though our free volitions are exempt from every kind of neceffity, moral as well as phyfical, they are nevertheless fubject to the influence of our difpofitions, our views, and extermal circumstances, all which are under a divine fuperintending direction."

"It appears therefore of the highest confequence, that in maintaining the finful volitions of men to be subject to divine controul, we exempt them from every kind of neceffitation; left by contending for the government of God, we destroy the refponfibility of man, and remove him out of that state of trial which we are taught to believe he is under during the present Life.

"There is more need to infift upon this topic, as such endeavours have been used of late to fubftitute fatalifm in the place of Providence, and to transform the moral world into a fyftem of intellectual machinery, in which infinite wifdom fees nothing that is not a necessary and ufeful part of a perfect rahale *. The advocates of this fcheme would perfuade us, that the diftinction between things natural and moral is groundless f; that a man is no more accountable for his

*To God nothing is feen as an evil, but as a neceffary and useful part of a perfect whole. Priestley's Doctrine of Neceffity, p. 114.

natural and moral en

The diftinction between things tirely ceases on the fcheme of neceffity. Ibid. p. 115.

vices than for his misfortunes *; that all remorfe of confcience is a deception, and arifes entirely from a narrownels of comprehenfiont; that a thoroughly enlightened neceffitarian, when he looks back upon his actions, fees them all to be perfectly right; and that the doctrine of repentance, confellion, and pardon, are founded upon an imperfect and fullacious view of things.

"Say not thou, God hath caused me to err; for he hath no need of the finful man. Though this was written by an apocryphal author, I take the fenfe to be perfectly canonical, and exprefsly confirmed by canonical feripture. We read in the epiftle of James, Let no man fay when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neiz ther tempteth he any man.-Do not err, my beloved brethren; every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights. Whence then is

evil? This is an ancient question, and the answer to it is one and fimple, from the abuse of liberty. If you prefs me further and afk, Why the Almighty endued any of his creatures with a power which he forefaw they would abuse? I would anfwer, Because he forefaw likewife that the abuse might be overruled to ends worthy of his infinite wisdom. If you reply, this is faying but little, and can never fatisfy the curiofity of a philofopher.-Allowing this, it may be fufficient, notwithstanding, to fatisfy the modesty of a Christian.

*The vices of men come under the class of common evils. Priestley's Doctrine of Neceflity, p. 115.

You fay, that remorse of confcience implies that a man thinks he could have acted otherwife than he did. I have no objection to this, at the fame time, that I fay he deceives himself in that fuppofition. Pr. Def. of Neceffity, p. 62. In the preceding page he afcribes it to want of comprehen fion.

It is acknowledged that a neceffitarian, who, as fuch, believes that, strictly speaking, nothing goes wrong, cannot accufe himself of having done wrong in the ultimate feufe of the words. He has, therefore, in this strict fenfe, nothing to do with repentance, confeffion, or pardon, which are all adapted to a different, imperfect, and fallacious view of things. Correfpondence with Dr. Price, p. 301.

§ Ecclefiafticus xv. 12. James i. 17.

(To be concluded in our next.)