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131 a p p e n d i x i Containing the Substance of a Pamphlet Wrote in Defence of the Third Essay1 With respect to liberty and necessity, our author’s doctrine may be comprised under the following heads. 1. That man is a rational being endued with liberty. 2. That his liberty consists in acting voluntarily, or according to his inclination and choice. 3. That his will is necessarily, that is infallibly and certainly, determined by motives; or, in the style of the schools, voluntas necessario sequitur ultimum judicium intellectus practici. 4. That, consequently, liberty of indifference , or an arbitrary power of acting without or against motives, is no part of human nature. 5. That though human actions proceed in a fixed train, this is owing to no blind fate, but to the predestination or decree of God, who is the first cause of all things. Concerning these points, philosophersanddivinesmaydifferinopinion,and each side will impute error to the other; but, that by any of the church of Scotland such opinions should be censured as unsound or heterodox, shows great ignorance, considering that they are espoused by our first great reformers, and inculcated in all the most noted systems of theology, composed by calvinist divines and taught in our universities. With us it is a fundamental principle, That God from all eternity hath foreordained whatever comes to pass; that all events are immutably and necessarily fixed by the decree of God, and cannot happen in any other way than he hath predetermined. The most orthodox divines agree with our author, not only in his doctrine of necessity as founded on the decree of God; but likeways in distinguishing moral necessity which effects the mind 1. The pamphlet to which Kames refers was entitled Objections against the Essays on Morality and Natural Religion Examined (1756), written in response to a flurry of pamphlets condemning the first edition of the Essays as the work of a dangerous heretic. 132 appendix only, from physical necessity which affects the body only; and they acquiesce in his explanation of moral necessity as produced by the operation of motives on the will. They hold with him, that liberty is opposed, not to necessity, but to constraint; that it consists not in indifference, but in spontaneity, or lubentia rationalis;2 and that the will necessarily follows the last judgment of the understanding . They show, that none of the consequencesfollowthatareendeavoured to be laid upon our author; but that virtue and vice, rewards and punishments, are consistent with a necessity of this sort. Thus, for instance, the great Calvin reasons in the following manner, Seeing we have often mentioned the distinction betwixt necessity and constraint , upon which this whole controversy turns, we must now explain it a little more accurately. They who defend free will in opposition to divine grace, maintain, that there can be neither virtue nor vice where there is necessity. We answer, That God is necessarily good; and that his goodness though necessary is not upon that account the lessworthyof praise.Again, that the devil is necessarily wicked; and yet his wickedness is not the less criminal. Nor is this any invention of ours; for in the same manner St. Augustine and St. Bernard reason.———Our adversaries insist, That what is voluntary, cannot at the same time be necessary. We shew them, that both these qualities are found in the goodness of God. They pretend it to be absurd, that men should be blamed for actions they must unavoidably perform. By the instance above given, we show, that there is in this no absurdity.———They object again, That unless virtue and vice proceed from a free choice, according to their sense of freedom, there can be no reason either for inflicting punishments, or bestowing rewards. As to punishments, I answer, That they are justly inflicted on those whocommit evil; because it makes no difference, whether their choice was free, i.e. arbitrary, or whether they were under the influence of bad motives; provided only they were voluntary in their guilt.———As to rewards there is certainly no absurdity in our saying, that these are bestowed rather according to the goodness of God, than the merit of men. Calvin. Tractat. Theolog. p. 152. edit. Amstelod. 1667.3 2. Rational spontaneity. 3. First published as Jean Calvin, Tract. Theolog. & Comment. (Geneva, 1576). For a more accessible version of this argument, see Institutes of the Christian Religion in Two [18.222.67.251] Project MUSE...

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