own Minds; neither can we know whether the Elections be our own or God's. Nay the force of Laws,

NOTES.

If it be afked, why God did not afford this help to all Mankind. I answer that the Elect are defigned for a station in Heaven void for them by the fall of the Angels, or some other way, and that a certain number may be fo provided and no more; and when the number of the Elect is full, then will follow the Confummation of all Things. But it is reasonable to permit God to choose the Perfons to whom he will vouchfafe this fupernatural Favour, and to take care that the pardoning and recovering of Sinners may not have an ill effect on the reft of his Creatures: and this he has done partly by letting feveral of them fuffer for an Example, and partly by appointing fuch a Satisfaction for them in the death of our Saviour, as is capable to deter both Men and Angels from failing in their Duty, more than the Punishment of the Malefactors could have done. For nothing could more fully demonftrate the determinate decree of God not to difpenfe with Obedience to his Laws, on the Obfervation of which the Good of the whole depends, than that he would not pardon a few on a less Confideration than the interpofition and death of his Son.

But fecondly, God may be conceived to have permitted Adam to fall not only for the reasons above, but likewife because it was better for him upon the whole than if he had been kept from the act of Guilt by an invifible force. He had no reason to prefume this, but the Power of God is fo great that he brought Good out of Evil, and made Adam's State after his Fall more advantageous to him than Innocence had been. This is plain from Holy Scripture that prefers our State under the fecond Adam to what it was under the firft. And as it was better for Adam himself, so it is not certain but it was best for his Pofterity. For fome of them it undoubtedly was, I mean thofe that are found in Chrift: and as to the reft, it doth not appear but all things confidered it was as good for them too. We have a notion that if Adam had not fallen all his Pofterity would have continued innocent, and been free from all natural Inconveniencies: but the Author fhews that neither the Holy Scriptures, nor the Catholic Church has determined either of them; nor is it faid how every one that was to be born would have used his Free-Will if he had been tried, nor that even those who used it right would have been subject to no natural Evil. And therefore 'tis a very uncertain Argument that is drawn from these fuppofitions, and ought not to be opposed to the Goodness of God.

But laftly, however this Matter stand, it is to be supposed that it was best for the whole that things should be as they are,

and

Laws, together with the Efficacy of Rewards and Punishments, would be quite destroyed. For who would

NOTES.

and that the hindring Man from falling by an irresistible force would have been more mischievous in general than his Sin. We know that God, as the Author obferves, is to govern an innumerable multitude of Creatures to all Eternity, and he only can comprehend what influence an action may have on that Syftem in infinite Ages. It has been fhewn that there is a Community and Connection amongst them all, and each is or may be affected with what his fellow Creature doth or fuffers; and it is impoffible for any but God to be a judge of this. We fee that in the greatest Number imaginable, if we change but one unit after a few Multiplications and Divifions the whole product is entirely altered. The fame might happen in the World in an infinite series of Mutations, if any one action were changed: it must be of great confequence to the whole if God fhould interpofe and alter any the minutest thing, and perhaps change the whole original Scheme. If therefore that Scheme was at first contrived to the best Advantage of thofe Creatures of which is confifted, to alter any thing in it wou'd certainly make it worfe; if it had not been beft for the whole that Man fhould be permitted to fall, God would not have done it; and if it was beft he ought not to alter it. Free Creatures were neceffary to the perfection of the World, that is, fuch Creatures as being effentially fhort of perfection were capable of choofing amifs. And to make them thus free and absolutely hinder the use of that Freedom appeared a greater Evil than the fall of a few for that would have defeated the very end of their being made Free Agents, which was that they might make themselves happy by choofing right. Thus good Men here are happy, the blessed in Heaven, and all the Holy Angels, fo far as we know of them.

But it is farther urged, could not God have determined their Wills to good, and neither let them nor any other Creature know it, and then the ill effects which could be apprehended from the Example might have been avoided? The meaning of this Expedient, fo far as I can understand it, is that God fhould have deceived and cheated all rational Creatures at once; and tho' he had given them Faculties to difcern truth from falfehood, yet he fhould have obliged them all to believe a Lye. Sure he delights in Treachery and Falfehood that can fuggeft fuch an Expedient.

But fuppofe God fhould deceive Men and Angels and make them believe that they choose when really they do not, but their Wills are fecretly determined; yet this would not obtain the end, or supply the ufe of Free Choice, or yield the pleasure

which

would regard Laws or Rewards, when he was certain that God would hinder him from doing any thing which might occafion the Lofs of Rewards, or make him incur the Punishments? But however this be, 'tis very certain that our greatest Pleasure, nay our very Reward, confifts in being confcious that we have used our Choice aright, and done those things which we might not have done. On the other hand, 'tis the greatest Grief and Affliction to have omitted fuch things as would have tended to our Happiness, and were in our Power: one of these could not be had without the other, and if none were fuffered to grieve for a bad Election, none would rejoice for a good one. But it is better that some few fhould grieve for their own folly, than that all should be deprived of the Rewards of their good Actions. That Priviledge then of doing well, and pleafing ourselves in what is well done, could not be had without the hazard of Sinning; if God fhould take away the one, the other would vanish of itself.

But you would have the Pleasure which arifes from Election without the Danger; that is, the End without the Means: Neither do you obferve that the greatest Pleasure in this Cafe is, that you could have done otherwise : and this arises from the very Nature of Pleafure, which feems to be nothing elfe but a Senfe of the Exercife of thofe Facul ties and Powers which we enjcy. The more therefore any Action is ours, the more it pleases us; and fince a free Action (which we could either exert

NOTES.

which is the refult of it. For it is not, as observed before, the belief of our being free that gives us the pleasure, but the true and right use of the Faculty: Tho' a Man believed never fo firmly that he fees or knows a thing, yet if his Faculty of Sight or Knowledge were not really exercised, he would neither have the ufe nor the pleasure of them. And at the fame rate if a Man have not the exercife of his Choice, he will neither have the ufe nor pleasure arifing from it.

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or omit) is the most of all ours, it must neceffarily please us moft: But if the Will were confined to one Side, or detained from the other, the Action would cease to be ours, and the Pleasure would perish together with the Senfe of Liberty. A Mind confcious of Virtue is the Pleasure and Reward of good Actions, but unless it were poffible for it to become confcious of Vice, 'tis plain it could not be conscious of Virtue. (69.)

NOTES.

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(69) In oppofition to what our Author has here advanced, Bayle [d] brings a great many Arguments drawn from the Tenets of Calvinifts, Spinozifts, &c. who believe that all their Actions are neceffarily determined, and yet are no less pleased with them. Nay fome, fays he, rejoice in this very thing, that they are under the abfolute Direction of the Deity. Dij me tuentur [e.] and to be naturally determined to the best was always looked upon as a peculiar Happiness, and they that came nearest it were esteemed the best Men, as the known Compliments to Cato and Fabricius declare. Some are as well pleased with what they have by Lot or Inheritance, as what they get by their own Labour: witnefs the Pride of antient Families, &c. Gaudeant bene nati, is a common Proverb; and among the Things, que vitam faciunt beatiorem, Martial reckons Res non parta Labore fed relicta. And again: If, fay he, we did take delight in choofing things, yet it would be enough for us if God concealed his determination from us, and we only believed that we were free to choose and act.

We need not, I think, spend much time in anfwering fuch Arguments as these. For the Calvinifts, &c. notwithstanding all their abfurd Tenets, have evidently this Consciousness of Choice within them, which is the fecret fource of the Pleasure that attends their Actions, and cannot be extinguifhed by any of their Principles, but overcomes them all, and conftantly puts thefe Men upon fuch endeavours as are vain and useless upon the Suppofition, and inconfiftent with the Belief of Fate and abfolute Predeftination: which fhews us that these Notions are neither acted upon in Life, nor pursued to their utmost Confequences; that they reft in pure Speculation, and are generally laid afide in Practice; in short, that they are abfolutely inconfiftent with human Nature, as well as human Reason.

Secondly,

[d.] Anfwer to the Queries of a Provincial. p. 665. Fol. [e] Horace, B. 1. Ode 17.

You may urge, that you had rather want this Pleasure than undergo the Danger; that is, you had

Secondly, Some Perfons may rejoice in being under the particular Care, Protection and Government of the Deity; but then their Joy proceeds not fo much from a bare Contemplation of what the Deity does for them, as from confidering on what account he does it, viz. because they are agreeable to him, and proper Objects of his Favour, and that on account of fomething which they themselves have done. If Horace meant otherwise by his Dij me tuentur, he had fmall reason for what he adds in the next Line, Diis Pietas mea & Mufa cordi eft. But in truth this and moft other of Bayle's Teftimonies are Rhetorical or Poetic Flourishes, rather than Philofophic Truths, and confequently not worth a serious examination. To draw any thing like an Argument from another's Words, we fhould at least be fure of his determinate Meaning, of the precife number of his Ideas, as well as the juftness of their Connection_together, which we must never expect from fuch kind of random Quotations. It may not therefore be improper to obferve here once for all, that Bayle's ufual Method of reafoning from Authorities must be very weak and unphilofophical; and calculated rather to blind Men's Eyes, than to inform their Understandings.

Thirdly, We are pleased indeed with what we call Good Fortune, when a great Sum of Money comes to us by Lot, or a Large Estate, or a Title by Inheritance; and are perhaps the more delighted, the greater the Change is in our Ĉircumftances; and the lefs Expectation we had of it [f] But is this Pleasure comparable to that Intellectual or Moral Pleasure, that fublime Satisfaction and complacency, which we feel upon acquiring a like Sum of Money by fome laudable Act, or egregious Undertaking, that may properly be called our own? Is it equal to that folid Comfort, and Self approbation which every ingenuous Mind is fenfible of from his doing what deferves an Estate or Title, and receiving these as the proper Recompence and due Tribute of fuch Deeds? The Man that can value himself more upon his Defcent from an antient Family, than upon being by these means the Founder of a new one, is a difgrace to his Defcent, and unworthy of the Arms he bears. - But to return :

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There is undoubtedly an agreeable and exalted Conscioufnefs attending all the Bleffings which we ourselves are inftrumental in procuring, infinitely beyond all the Satisfaction which they could afford us, if we knew ourselves to be un

con

[f] See Note 19.

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