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come to pass in the manner they now do. The fitneffes and unfitneffes of things were eternally prefent to his all-comprehenfive mind, because he willed they should be, either by his efficacious or permiffive will. But then the eternity of these things in this fenfe, or the eternal difference of good and evil, as founded upon the eternal knowledge of God, arifing from, and depending upon his own will, ftrongly militates against what is further faid of this nature and fitness of things, or of the difference between moral good and evil, as that it is ",

3. Prior to the will of God, and independent of it. By the will of God is meant either his will of purpose, and is what the fcripture calls, The counsel of his will '; or will of precept, which is that system of moral laws, God has given to rational creatures as the rule of their actions. The Gentleman I am attending to, uses the phrase fometimes in one fenfe, and fometimes in another; and fometimes takes in both in one and the fame paragraph; and plainly suggests, that this difference is prior to the will of God, and independent of it, taken in either fenfe; his words are thefe*; "this difference did originally and eter"nally fubfift in the mind of God, as certainly as the difference between light "and darkness; and was in idea ever present with him, before ever it became "the law of his creatures, and appeared to them as the matter of his command "and will; and is itself that neceffary and invariable rule, by which God him"felf regulates and determines his own will and conduct to his creatures; and "which, therefore, as a rule of action to himself, must be supposed to be inde"pendent of, and prior to, not the existence of God, which is abfolutely eternal, but to the will of the eternal God, and to be, indeed, the great reason "and measure of all his actions towards his creatures." Now, though it should be admitted, that things are fit and proper, just and good, antecedent to the revealed will of God, or his will of command; and that God wills these things, that is, commands them, because they are fit and proper, just and good; and not that they are so because he commands them; though one fhould think, whatever God commands must be fit and proper, just and good, for that very reafon, whether we can difcern any other reafon or no, because he commands it; fince he can command nothing contrary to his nature, and the moral perfections of it; yet, nevertheless, these must be fubfequent to the fecret will of God, or the counsel of his will, as that is within himself determining, fettling, conftituting, or permitting the order and fituation of things, their natures, beings, and relations to himself and others; from whence the fitneffes and unfitneffes of things, and the difference of moral good and evil are faid to arife. Whatever may be faid for the independency of these things on the will of God, they can never be prior to it: For if the production of creatures into being is owing to the will

of

h Sermon, p. 11.

i Ephes. i. 11.

* Sermon, p. 10, 11.

of God, and follows upon it; if the feveral relations they stand in to one another are folely of his appointment and forming, then furely what is fit, or not fit to be done, in such a situation, must be fixed by, and be the refult of his own will, as determining them according to the moral perfections of his nature; which determinations of his fecret will being revealed, become the law of his creatures; and being fo, this law is the fureft rule of judgment to them, with respect to the difference of moral good and evil; what lays the strongest obligation upon them to do the one and avoid the other; and fo must be the best rule of action to them. Mr Chandler himself owns', that "God might have "formed other creatures than what he hath; or produced fome, or all of those "which now exist, in a different manner from what he actually hath done; he "might, for instance, have ftocked our earth with inhabitants at once, and "formed them in the fame manner as he did our first parents. And of confequence, as the prefent frame of things is owing to the wifdom, the good plea"fure and will of God, so the fitneffes of things which now actually take place, "and that particular fyftem of mor al virtue which mankind are obliged to re

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gard, and conform themselves to, muft, as far as it is a conftitution of things actually exifting, be refolved into the fame good pleasure and will of God." Now, as the formation of creatures, and their production in this or the other manner, entirely depends on the will of God, and according to the variations. of them the fitneffes of things must have altered; there would not have been the fame fitneffes and unfitneffes, obligations and duties; fo it wholly depended on the will of God whether he would create any or no; and if he had never formed any creature, in any manner whatever, as he might not have done, if he would, where had been this eternal nature and fitnefs of things? As therefore the formation of creatures follows upon, and is owing to the will of God, the nature and fitnefs of things, with refpect to thefe creatures, cannot be prior, but must be fubfequent to the will of God. Yea, this fame Gentleman fays ", that "the will of God is not any thing diftinct from the everlasting fitnesses of things, but included in them, and indeed a neceffary and effential branch "of them." If therefore the will of God is not distinct from them, is included in them, and a neceffary and effential branch of them; then the nature and fitnefs of things is not without the will of God, is not prior to it, and independent of it. And though this fame writer boldly afferts in one place", that the certain and immutable difference of things is entirely independent of the will of God; yet in other places he feems to stagger a little, and fays, that this dif tinction is not originally and properly the mere effect of the divine order and will, and is not merely the refult of the determination and arbitrary will of another; . Ibid. p. 10, 5:

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1 Sermon, p. 15.

m Ibid.

P. 22.

a Ibid. p. 9.

as

as if it was fo in part, or in fome fenfe, though not wholly and entirely fo. He feems to be fearful, that if the distinction of moral good and evil, and the fitneffes and unfitneffes of things, are placed to the will of God, and made to depend upon it, the confequence may be, that these things will not continue the fame; vice may be virtue, and virtue vice; "impiety, injuftice, and cruelty, may be substituted in the room of piety, justice, and charity;" and, "that "there can be no poffible certainty that God fhall always will that which is now "good, in oppofition to what is now called evil; but the one or the other, as

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caprice and humour fhall direct him, which immediately becomes either good "or evil; and on the contrary, evil or good, for no other reason, but because “he, without reafon, wills them to be fo." Not to take notice of the indecency, and irreverence of thefe expreffions; the infinuations and suggestions of instability and change in the divine will, are groundless and unreasonable, fince the will of God is as immutable as himself; and though it is not determined by the intrinfic difference of things without him, yet it is determined invariably by the rectitude of his nature; he cannot determine, or do any thing contrary to his moral perfections; he cannot deny himself. There is much more reafon to fear these things may change, if the diftinction between them lies in the nature and fitnefs of things, of which not only fallible men, but finful men, men prone to vice, are the only judges; who being either led into a falfe way of reasoning, or influenced by their interests and paffions, may put "evil for good, and good for evil." Moreover, why fhould not the distinction of moral good and evil be attributed to, and confidered as dependent upon the unalterable will of God, fince all moral good flows from him as the fountain of it? Nor could there have been any moral evil without his permiffive will; even as the productions of light and darkness, of bitter and sweet, are the effects of his will and pleasure. Light and darkness are his own formation; Iform the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all thefe things. It was he that faid, by his almighty power, and according to his own will, Let there be light, and there was light. What difference should we have been capable of difcerning between light and darkness, if God, of his own pleasure, had not divided the light from the darkness, as he did? Nor have we any idea of the diftinction of these things, but what that God of his will has given to us, who called the light day, and the darkness night. As natural light and darkness are of God, and the divifion between them is made by him; fo moral light and moral darkness are, the one by his effective, the other by his permiffive will; and the difference between them fettled by the determinations of his unchangeable mind, agreeable to the perfections of his nature. It is he • Gen. i. 3, 4.

9 Ifai. xlv. 7.

P Sermon, p. 13, 14.

that

that has made bitter and fweet, and of his own will and pleasure has put thefe different qualities in things; the fitneffes and unfitneffes of which are their agreement and disagreement with thofe laws and rules of nature, which God, of his own will, has placed in fenfitive beings; and even fo moral fitneffes and unfitneffès are their agreement and difagreement with those moral laws, which are the determinations of God's will, according to the rectitude of his nature; which of his own pleasure he infcribed on the heart of man in his creation, and has fince delivered in writing, as the rule of his actions. To all which I only add, in oppofition to this notion, that if this diftinction of moral good and evil, this moral nature and fitness of things, is prior to, and independent of the will of God, it must be prior to the first cause, which is a contradiction in terms; for the will of God is the first cause of all things; nothing in the whole compass of being exists without the will of God, but his own being and perfections; and if this is co-eternal with God, and is as independent of his order or will as his own being, perfection, and happiness; it must, as has been already obferved, neceffarily exist, and confequently, must be God; yea, fuperior to him whom we call fo; fince,

4. It is faid', that this "is itself that neceffary, invariable, and eternal rule, "by which God himself regulates and determines his own will and conduct to "his creatures, is the great reafon and measure of all his actions towards his "creatures, is the one certain and unerring rule of God himself';" than which nothing is more contrary to divine revelation, which affures us, that our God is in the heavens; he hath done whatsoever he pleased"; that he works all things after the counsel of his own will; and, that he does according to his will in the army of the heavens, and among the inhabitants of the earth. Whereas, according to this notion, not the will of God, but fomething prior to it, and independent of it, is the neceffary, eternal, invariable, unerring rule, reafon, and measure of all his actions, towards his creatures. This feems fomething like the Stoical fate and neceffity, which give laws to God and man, and equally bind and oblige both; though fometimes the Stoics indeed confider fate, and the nature of things, not as things distinct from God, but as being himself, his own will; in which their notion is greatly to be preferred to what is now advanced. Be it fo that the moral nature and fitnefs of things is a rule of action to men; that which is a rule to them cannot in every thing be thought to be fo to God; for instance, let it be admitted, that it is agreeable to the nature and fitnefs of things, and to the original difference between moral good and evil, that one man should VOL. II.

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Pfalm cxv. 3.

Vid. Lipf. Phyfiolog. Stoic. Differt. 12. p. 62.

* Ephes. i. 11.

• Ibid. Differt. 5. p. 23, 24. & Manuduct. ad Stoic, Philof. Differt. 16. p. 186, 187.

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not take away the life of another, and that law, Thou shalt not kill, is established upon this certain and immutable diftinction and fitnefs, and fo is a rule of action to men; yet this is no rule to God, nor any measure of his actions; who, as he gives, and has power over, the lives of men, can take them away at his pleasure, as well by ordering one man to flay another, as Abraham to facrifice his fon, and the Ifraelites to flay "every man his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbour, when there fell that day, and in that manner, about three thousand men;" as by fending a fever, a dropfy, or any other diftemper. Again, let it be allowed, that it is one branch of this moral nature and fitnefs of things, that one man fhould not take away the property of another; and that that law is founded upon it, Thou shalt not steal: yet God is not bound by this law; for, as the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, he disposes of it as he pleases, and takes away that which was one man's property, and gives it to another; which he has done in ten thousand instances of providence; and what is more, and full to our purpose, he could, and did order the Ifraelites to "borrow of the Egyptians jewels of filver and of gold, and "raiment," whereby they were spoiled, and plundered of their property. To fay no more, if this nature and fitness of things is a rule of action to God, it must be fomething both before him, and above him; it must be his fuperior; fince it must be confidered as giving laws for the regulation and determination of his will and conduct to his creatures; though, as this writer well fays, "he hath "no fuperior, can receive laws from none, nor have any external power to "oblige and constrain him." And what he further adds is right, "that he "hath a reason and rule of action within himself, is as evident as that he ever “acts at all; and as certain, as that he will always act wifely and well." Upon which I would obferve then, not any thing without him is a rule unto him; not the nature and fitness of things, as of an abstract confideration from him; as prior to, and independent of his will; nor is it, as is fuggested, his all-comprehenfive knowledge of the nature of things, the relation beings ftand in to him and one another, the fitneffes and unfitneffes which belong to them, the measure and degree of their powers and faculties, and all the feveral circumstances of their being; fince these are the determinations of his will, and his knowledge of them arifes from thence; he knows all these things will be, because he has determined that they fhall be. It remains then, that nothing can be a rule to God but himself, his own nature, and the perfections of it. In all things of a moral nature his moral perfections within himself are the rule of his will and conduct. But,

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