The caput vivum, of a dexterous infidel, is absolutely invulnerable by the caput mortuum of freewill nonsense, though the asinine jaw-bone were wielded by the arm of a Samson. CHAPTER IV. Specimen of Scripture Attestations to the Doctrine of Necessity. REFERENCES have already been made, in the course of the present essay, to several scripture passages, wherein necessity is invincibly and decisively asserted. I will add a few others: and then leave the reader to judge, whether necessitarians, or chance-mongers, give most credit to the " divine original of the scriptures.' I withheld thee from sinning against me. xx. 6. Gen. It was not you that sent me hither, but God. Gen. 1. 5. 7, 8. I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go. Exod. iv. 21. It was of the Lord, to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel to battle; that he might destroy them utterly. Josh. xi. 20. The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Judg. v. 20. The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich; he bringeth low, and lifteth up. 1 Sam. ii. 7. They hearkened not to the voice of their Father; because the Lord would slay them. 1 Sam. ii. 25. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee, out of thy own house; and I will take thy wives, before thine eyes, and give them to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. What was the consequence ?-So they spread Absalom a tent upon the top of the house; and Absalom went in unto his father's concubines, in the sight of all Israel. 2 Sam. xii. 11. with 2 Sam. xvi. 22. The Lord hath said unto him [to Shimei], curse David. 2 Sam. xvi. 10. And he [i. e. the evil spirit] said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his [Ahab's] prophets. And he [God] said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now, therefore, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these, &c. 1 Kings xxii. 22, 23. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all. 1 Chr. xxix. 12. Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, &c. whose spirit God had raised to go up, to build the house of the Lord. Ezra i. 5. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Job i. 21. Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward (Job v. 7.) And, I am apt to think, sparks ascend by necessity! He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprize. (Job v. 12.) Be men ever so shrewd, their utmost dexterity will not avail, unless the great superintending Creator stamp it with efficiency. Behold he taketh away. Who can hinder him? Who will say unto him [i. e. who has a right to say unto God], what dost thou ? Job ix. 12.For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and that we should come together in judg ment, ver. 32. Vain man would be wise [and the puny prisoner of a clod would be an independent, self-determining free-willer!] though man be born as a wild ass's colt. Job xi. 12. What a thunderbolt to human pride! To the το αυτεξέσιον. Το αυτοδεσπολεια. Το the τα εφ' ήμιν. Το αυτοκρατορία. Το liberum arbitrium. Το ipseitas. To the Arminian herb called, self-heal. To independency, self-authority, self-determination, self-salvation, innate ideas, and other pompous nothings, with which man's ignorance and conceit seek to plat a wreath for the enrichment of his brows. Vain man, born as a wild ass's (a) colt! (a) And we should remain, to our dying day, nearly on a level with the animal to which we are compared, were it not for the care of those about us, and did we not necessarily become parts of a society antecedently formed to our hands. In what a state would the present generation be, had they not dropt (if I may use the expression) into a house ready built! i. e. if we had been cut off from all means of profiting by the wisdom, the experience, the discoveries, the inventions, and the regulations, of those who lived before us.-— It is a circumstance of unspeakable convenience, to be the children of Time's old age. Our mental powers, like a chicken in the shell, or a plant in its semen, are no more than virtual and dormant, until elicited by cultivation, and ripened by experience, attention, and reflection. Civil society, dress, articulate language, with all other useful and ornamental polishings which result from domestic and political connection, are, in themselves, things purely artificial and adventitious. If so, will it not follow, that (ever since the fall) man is naturally a wild animal? Some very able reasoners have gone so far, as peremptorily to pronounce him such. The late Dr. Young, in his "Centaur not fabulous," appears to have thought, that the greater part of the human species profit so little by their accessory opportunities of improvement, as to go off the stage, semi savages, at last; notwithstanding the inexhaustible and omnipotent deluge of free-will, which that ingenious writer imagined every man to bring into the world with him. Strange, that so immense a reservoir, inherent in the soul, should yet leave the soul so dry! With regard to the natural wildness of man, supposed and asserted by some philosophers; thus much, I think, must be fairly admitted; that the hypothesis derives much subsidiary force, from various pertinent and well authenticated facts. For, if any credit be due to human testimony, there have been instances of exposed infants, who were nursed by forest animals; and, when grown up, went prone on all-four, with a swiftness greatly superior to that of the nimblest running-footman: but totally unable (and no wonder) to form the least articulate sound. It is added, that, like any other wild creature, they would fly from the human sight (i. e. from the sight of their own species refined), with a roar of fear and hatred, into the thickest recesses of the woods. "How keenly," says a fine writer, "is this comparison pointed!-Like the ass: an animal, remarkable for its stupidity, even to a proverb. Like the ass's colt: which must be still more egregiously stupid than the dam. Like the wild ass's colt: which is not only blockish, but stubborn and intractable; neither possesses valuable qualities by nature, nor will easily receive them by discipline. The image, in the original, is yet more strongly touched. The comparative particle like, is not in the Hebrew. Born a wild ass's colt. Or, as we should say in English, a mere wild, &c." (Hervey's Theron and Aspasio, Dial. 13.) He [i. e. God] is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doth. He performeth the thing that is appointed for me. And many such things are with him, Job xxiii. 13, 14. Query: Who is self-determiner? Man or God? Surely, God. Nor is he only the self-determiner, but the all-determiner likewise; throughout the whole universe both of spirits and of matter. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven: to make a weight for the Civilization, though a very poor succedaneum for that divine image, originally impressed on our immortal part, and lost by Adam's transgression, is, however, of very great secular importance. Nay, its importance is, with regard to millions of us, more than secular: for it is often a providential means of qualifying us to receive and understand that blessed gospel, which, when made the vehicle of divine power to the heart, issues in our recovery of God's image, and in the salvation of the soul. After all, let the instruments of our refinement, and of our knowledge (whether in things temporal, or in things sacred), be who or what they may; and let us profit ever so deeply by our intercourse with the living, by converse with the recorded wisdom of the dead, by the perceptions we receive from external objects, and by reflecting on the ideas of which those perceptions are the source; still, no advantages are any thing more to us, than divine providence makes them to be. Let him, therefore, that glories, glory in the Lord.-For, it is God, who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven, 1 Cor. i. 31. Job xxxv. 11. winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure. He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder. Job xxviii. 25, 26. When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? and, when he hideth his face, who then can behold him? whether it be done against a nation, or against a man only. Job xxxiv. 29. Absolute necessity still. By the breath of God, frost is given; and the breadth of the waters is straitened. Also, by watering, he wearieth the thick cloud: he scattereth his bright cloud. He causeth it to come; whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy. Job Xxxviii. 10-13. We see from this, as well as from a preceding and from two or three subsequent quotations, that the air cannot be compressed into a current of wind; nor rain find its way to the earth nor exhalations kindle into thunder and lightning; nor a river overflow its banks; nor suspended vapours condense into snow or hail; nor water freeze, or when frozen, thaw; without the express appointment of God's will, and the hand of his particular providence. Second causes are but effects of his decree and can operate no farther, than he, from whom they derive their whole activity, condescends to make use of them as mediums of his own agency. The kingdom is the Lord's; and he is the governor among the nations. Psal. xxii. 28. O Lord, thou preservest man and beast. Psal. xxxvi. 6. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Psal. cxxvii. 1. Whatsoever the Lord pleaseth, that did he; in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and in all deep places. He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings, for the |