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    plained by its most rational advocates 1 Like the fatalist , indeed , they freely admit that all the events of the world have been absolutely determined from tlie beginning of time ; but as we know by experience as well as

    from Scripture , that the Almighty acts by secondary causes , and as we are in the generality of instances ignorant of the preordained result of what is passing around us , they contend that no man who has not

    renounced the exercise ot his sane faculties ought to neglect to exert his utmost energy in the promotion of his designs ; and that , in truth , without adopting the means , his expectation of attaining the end must be for ever fruitless . A more important distinction , as it affects human happiness , it is not very easy to conceive .

    respect ooservation of your correspondent , it has always appeared to me a singular circumstance that so many men of clear and energetic minds on other points , and whose acquired talents no

    one can dispute , should express their inability to comprehend how the doctrine of philosophical necessity can be compatible with free agency . Freedom of the will , in its popular sense , implies the power of acting * in conformity with our volitions when no

    physical impediment intervenes ; and no person asserts more vehemently than the necessarian , that every man may act as he pleases , and deliberately follow his own choice , where he is not restricted by external force or some internal debility . And what is

    this mysterious necessity which excites so many apprehensions in the minds of the multitude ? Nothing more than the natural sequence of cause and effect : and I am disposed to agree with Hume , that the

    generality of mankind have been necessarians without being- aware of it ; or , in other words , that the regular and uniform conjunction of motives and voluntary actions has in all ages obtained universal belief . Your

    correspondent will perhaps excuse my recommending to his re-perusal Hume ' s essay on this subject , where , if I am not mistaken , he will acknowledge the reasoning ( with the exception of the concluding part ) to be at once clfe&r an « bcouehe * ~' No error is so

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    frequent as that of confounding com . pulsion and necessity * and of considering them as almost convertibl e terms ; and yet , in the present question , no two words can imply more opposite significations . In the one

    case , a man acts precisely as be chooses ; in the other , he is absolutely deprived of the power of following his will . In the former , his conduct is strictly voluntary ; in the latter , it is completely the reverse .

    I confess that I am somewhat sun prised at the estimation in . which . Jonathan Edwards ' s treatise on Free Will is held by the American persuasion to which I conclude that your correspondent belongs . The harsh and

    embarrassed style in which that work is unfortunately written , the frequent repetition of the same arguments , no £ always recommended by the happiest illustrations , and the author ' s anxiety to vindicate his Calvinistic tenets from

    the severe charges of his Arminian opponents , have , there can be little doubt , prevented a numerous class of readers from devoting to it sufficient attention to make themselves com * pletely masters of the point in

    dispute- It would by no means be difficult , I admit , to select from so many pages instances of inaccuracy in his mode of arguing , and not a few inconsistencies scarcely to be expected from a man of his acute talents . His

    attempt to prove the distinction , lor example , between the permission and the appointment of evil by the Deity , is extremely unsatisfactory , and evinces a degree of timidity but rarely discoverable in the defenders of Calvinism . But I must nevertheless be

    allowed to assert that his direct arguments on the main question are , in my apprehension , altogether unanswerable ; and I have no hesitation in saying , that those who think othertheir

    wise ought in fairness to state reasons for such an opinion , and to point out the fallacy in his reasoning which their superior acuteness may have enabled them to detect . C . LERICUS 0 aNTABIUGI £ NS 18-

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    ^ 18 Mr . tVrightf& Survey of this Series of The Monthly Repository .

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    "" nawin " Trowbridge , Dear Sir , Nov . % 1826 . BEFORE you close your labours as Editor of the Repository , and the work passes iato other hm *>

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1826, page 718, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2555/page/18/