Printed for the EDITOR: and fold at the New-Chapel, City-Road, THE Arminian Magazine, For JANUARY 1791. *0*0*0*0*0*0*0*00*0* ̄ I do not remember to have ever seen a more ftrong and beautiful treatife on moral liberty than the following: which I therefore earnestly recommend to the confideration of all those who defire "To vindicate the ways of God with man." May 3, 1790. JOHN WESLEY. An ESSAY on the LIBERTY of MORAL AGENTS. [Extracted from a late Author.] The Notions of Moral Liberty and Neceffity flated. BY the liberty of a moral agent, I understand, a power over the determinations of his own will. If, in any action, he had power to will what he did, or not to will it, in that action he is free. But if, in every voluntary action, the determination of his will be the necessary con fequence fequence of fomething involuntary in the fate of his mind, or of fomething in his external circumftances, he is not free; he has not what I call the liberty of a moral agent, but is subject to neceffity. This liberty fuppofes the agent to have understanding and will; for the determinations of the will are the fole object about which this power is employed; and there can be no will without fuch a degree of understanding, at leaft, as gives the conception of that which we will. The liberty of a moral agent implies, not only a conception of what he wills, but fome degree of judgment or reason. For, if he has not the judgment to difcern one determination to be preferable to another, either in itself, or for fome purpose which he intends, what can be the ufe of a power to deter mine? His determinations must be made perfectly in the dark, without reafon, motive or end. They can neither be right nor wrong, wife nor foolish. Whatever the confequences may be, they cannot be imputed to the agent, who had not the capacity of foreseeing them, or of perceiving any reafon for acting otherwife than he did. We may perhaps be able to conceive a being endowed with power over the determinations of his will, without any light in his mind to direct that power to fome end. But fuch power would be given in vain. No exercise of it could be either blamed or approved. As nature gives no power in vain, I fee no ground to afcribe a power over the determinations of the will to any being who has no judgment to apply it to the direction of his conduct, no difcernment of what he ought or ought not to do. For that reafon, I fpeak only of the liberty of moral agents, who are capable of acting well or ill, wifely or foolishly, and this, I call moral liberty. The effect of moral liberty is, That it is in the power of the agent to do well or ill. This power, like every' other gift of God, may be abufed. The right ufe of this gift of God is to " do 1 |