A mind with every virtue bleft

Must raise compaffion in your breast.
Virtue rejoin'd the fneering bird,
Where did you learn that gothic word?
Since I was hatch'd I never heard
That virtue was at all rever'd.
But say it was the ancients' claim,
Yet moderns difavow the name.
Unless, my dear, you read romances,
I cannot reconcile your fancies.
Virtue in fairy tales is seen

To play the goddess or the queen.
But what's a queen without the pow'r,
Or beauty, child, without a dow'r?
Yet this is all that virtue brags;
At beft 'tis only worth in rags;
Such whims my very heart derides;
Indeed you make me burst my fides.
Truft me, Miss Bee, to speak the truth,
I've copied men from earliest youth,
The fame our tafte, the fame our school,
Paffion and appetite our rule.

And call me bird, or call me finner,
I'll ne'er forego my fport or dinner.
A prowling Cat the mifcreant fpies,
And wide expands her amber eyes.
Near and more near Grimalkin draws,
She wags her tail, protends her paws:
Then springing on her thoughtless prey,
She bore the vicious bird away.

Thus, in her cuelty and pride,

The wicked wanton Sparrow dy'd.

N.

NUMBER LXIX.

Ingrate, he had of me

All he could have; I made him juft and right,
Sufficient to have flood, tho' free to fall:

Such I created all th` ethereal powers,

And Spirits, both them who flood, and them who fail'd;
Freely they flood who flood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have giv'n fincere
Of true allegiance, conftant faith and love,

Where only what they needs must do appear'd,

Not what they would? What praise could they re-
ceive?

What pleasure I from fuch obedience paid,
When will and reafon (reafon alfo is choice)
Ufelefs and vain, of freedom both defpoil'd,
Made paffive both, had ferv'd neceffity,

Not me?

MILTON.

SIR,

AM

To the VISITOR.

MONG the various particulars contained in the volume of divine revelation,. there is nothing more evidently taught, than that the human fpecies are invested with a capacity

2

pacity of doing or abstaining from those things on which their final happiness or mifery depends. The whole book proceeds entirely on the suppofition of fuch a power, and were all the feveral paffages, which prove the moral agency of mankind to be transcribed, they would fill a large treatise. The following few will fuffice for our present purpose.

Genefis iv. 7. "If thou doft well, fhalt thou not be accepted." Surely if there is any certainty in language, it is evident from these words, that Cain had it in his power to do those things which were required by his Creator, as the conditions of his eternal happiness.

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Genefis vi. 3. My spirit fhall not always ftrive with man." Acts vii. 51. "Ye do always refift the Holy Ghost."

The particulars taught by these passages are, that the holy spirit does strive with mankind to induce them to do those things, which are neceffary to their eternal well being; but that his operations were not irrefiftible, and with fome were actually refifted: and what can prove that mankind are capable of chufing good, and refufing evil, if this does not? Surely it is impoffible for the Blessed Spirit ever to excite men to do those things, which he knows they are utterly incapable of performing; and to complain of, and reproach them for non-compliance with his folicitations, when he knew it was not

pof

poffible for them ever to act in any other man

ner, than that in which they did act.

Deuteronomy xxx. 19. "I call heaven and earth to record against you this day, that I have fet before you life and death-therefore chuse life, &c.

This fcripture does moft clearly and certainly teach, that mankind are endowed with a power of chufing good and refusing evil, and cannot poffibly be true in any respect on the contrary fuppofition; for if the one part of men are fo acted upon, as to be under an invincible neceffity of doing those things which are requifite to their eternal happiness, it cannot, with the leaft degree of truth, be affirmed, that death has ever been set before any of them and if the reft are under an utter incapacity of avoiding those things which will infallibly procure their everlasting condemnation, it is impoffible to say that life has ever been fet before fo much as one of them: fo that on this hypothefis, the whole paffage is entirely falfe in all its parts; death and life having never been fet before any person since Adam's fall.

Ifaiah v. 3, &c. "What could have been done more that I have not done for my vineyard. Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes ?" Luke xii. 6, &c. "A certain man had a fig

tree

tree-and he came and fought fruit thereon and found none-then faid he-cut it down, &c."

What can be more ftrange than the language of these texts, if it was entirely out of the power of the perfons concerned, to prevent that behaviour, which was the cause of these complaints? Ought not the queftions on such a fuppofition to be directly inverted? For what could have been done lefs for them, than abfosolutely nothing at all? How could any other than wild grapes be expected, if the nature of the vine was fuch, as to produce them only, and no other? With what reafon could expectations be formed, of gathering figs from a tree, which was known to have perifhed fo foon as it was planted? It is evident therefore from thefe paffages, that mankind are ftill endowed with power to do thofe things which are expected from them by their Creator.

Ezek, xviii. 30. xxxvi. 11. "Repent and turn yourselves from all your tranfgreffions; as I live, faith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Ifrael ?"

Can any thing more clearly and inconteftibly prove the liberty of the human will, than these texts of scripture, in which Almighty God declares, even upon oath, that he would have