authority what I have said for the sake of those with whom authority has weight in matters of speculation.
The questions of Liberty, Necessity, and chance have been subjects of dispute among philosophers at all times; and most of those philosophers have clearly asserted Necessity, and denied Liberty and chance.
The questions of Liberty and Necessity have also been debated among divines in the several ages of the Christian church, under the terms of free-will and predestination, and the divines who have denied free will and asserted predestination have enforced the arguments of the philosopher by the consideration of some doctrines peculiar to the Christian religion. And as to chance, hazard or fortune, I think divines unanimously agree that those words have no meaning.
Some Christian communions have even proceeded so far in relation to these matters, as to condemn in councils and synods the doctrine of Free Will as heretical; and the denial thereof is become a part of the Confessions of Faith, and Articles of Religion of several churches.[1]
From this state of the fact it is manifest that whoever embraces the opinion I have maintained cannot want the authority of as many learned and pious men as in embracing the contrary.
But considering how little men are moved by the authority of those who professedly maintain opinions contrary to theirs, though at the same time they themselves embrace no opinion but on the authority of somebody, I shall waive all the advantages that I might draw from the authority of such philosophers and divines as are undoubtedly on my side, and for that reason shall not enter into a more particular detail of
- ↑ Both the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Articles of the Church of England distinctly deny Free Will and assert Predestination. Yet the zealots of the Establishment, after subscribing the Thirty-Nine Articles, are the most strenuous supporters of Liberty, and fierce and contemptuous in their opposition to Necessity—G.W.F.
