miserable beings would they be, if instead of choosing evil under the appearance of good (which is the only case wherein men now choose evil) they were indifferent to good and evil, and had the power to choose evil as evil, and did actually choose evil as evil in virtue of that power? They would, in such a state, or with such a liberty, be like infants that cannot walk, left to go alone, with Liberty to fall; or like children, with knives in their hands; or lastly, like young rope-dancers, left to themselves, on their first essays upon the rope, without anyone to catch them if they fall. And this miserable state following from the supposition of Liberty, is so visible to some of the greatest advocates thereof,[1] that they acknowledge that created beings, when in a state of happiness, cease to have Liberty[2] (that is, cease to have Liberty to choose evil) being invoilably attached to their duty by the actual enjoyment of their felicity.
4. Were Liberty defined, as it is by some, a power to will or choose at the same time any one out of two or more indifferent things; that would be no perfection. For those things called here indifferent or alike may be considered either as really different from each other, and that only seem indifferent or alike to us through our want of discernment; or as exactly like each other. Now the more Liberty we have in the first kind, that is, the more instances there are of things which seem alike to us, and are not alike, the more mistakes and wrong choices we must run into. For if we had just notions, we should know those things were not indifferent or alike. This Liberty therefore would be founded on a direct imperfection of our faculties. And as to a power of choosing differently at the same time among things, really indifferent; what benefit, what perfection would such a power of choosing be, when the things that are the sole objects of our free choice are all alike?
