choice respecting it, he is a free agent. A machine has no will. It never chooses. The brute animals choose, and are therefore free agents. But they have no perception of right and wrong, and therefore, are not moral agents. Men have conscience, by which they feel the distinction between right and wrong, and are, therefore, free moral agents. The machines with which we are acquainted have no intelligence, no reason, and no conscience, as well as no will. They are not only incapable of choice, but incapable of perception too. A being, however, with intelligence, reason and conscience, would be a machine still, if he had no power of choosing. He could not be a free agent. Free agency, therefore, consists in choosing, and in nothing else. If any thing else is necessary to free agency, what is it? Is it that our acts of choice should come to pass by chance, without any cause? Is a free agent one whose actions have no motive, are guided by no reason, and directed to no end? Is a free agent like one exposed in the open sea, upon a single plank, without compass, oar, or sail, the sport of winds and waves? Such free agency no one can desire. If our actions come to pass by mere chance, without any cause, then intelligence, reason, and conscience, are worse than useless. would be better to be a machine, in the hands of a wise and benevolent artist. It would be better to be a senseless block, than to be thus the sport

It

of mere blind contingence, and have intelligence, reason, and conscience, to aggravate our misery. But this supposition is impossible, for nothing comes into existence without a cause.

necessary, then, to our free agency,

Is it

that we

This is

should cause our own acts of choice? the ground usually taken by those who deny the doctrine which has been supported in these discourses. Let us, then, examine it carefully. It is thought that we cause our own acts of choice, and that no one can be a free agent unless he does so; and consequently, that if God should cause our acts of choice, it would destroy our free agency. Perhaps, however, it can be shown that it is not essential to free agency that we should cause our own acts of choice; and not only so, but that it is impossible we should cause them, impossible in the very nature of things. It will be admitted by all, that God is a free agent. If any being in the universe acts freely, it must be that God does. He is infinite in power, and there is no superior being to lay him under any restraints. God, then, is a perfect free agent. If, therefore, it is necessary to free agency that a being should cause his own acts of choice, God must cause his. But this he does not do. His acts of choice have no cause, for they are eternal. By acts of choice, are here mcant determinations, those acts of the mind which are confined within the mind itself, and not external operations: and

by cause, is meant the efficient or producing cause, and not the reason or motive. God's determinations have a reason, but not a cause. They are all eternal. But the producing cause must exist before the effects which it produces. Therefore, the producing cause of God's eternal determinations must have existed before eternity, which is absurd. Consequently, the divine determinations have no cause. To deny that the divine determinations are eternal, is to deny that God is immutable; it is saying God is not "in 'one mind," as the scriptures say he is. And if he changes his mind, and makes new determinations, it is because he discovers some new reasons for his new determinations, which he did not know before. That is, he did not know all things from eternity. But this makes God a very imperfect, ignorant, changeable being. It makes him no God at all; it is blank atheism. He, therefore, did know all things from eternity, and never sees any reason to change his determinations, which have always been the same from eternity. The divine determinations, therefore, being all eternal, cannot have a cause, any more than the being of God can have a cause. Since, therefore, God does not cause his own determinations, or acts of choice, and God is a free agent, it follows that a being may be a free agent without causing his own acts of choice. But it is not only unnecessary for us to cause our own acts of choice, in

order to be free agents, but it is impossible that we should cause them. In what way can we cause them? If we do it, we must do it voluntarily or involuntarily, that is, intentionally or unintentionally. Do we do it involuntarily, that is, without intending it? But if we do it without intending it, there is no free agency in that. Whatever we do involuntarily, we do as machines; or rather, it is not we that do it at all. Do we, then, cause our own acts of choice voluntarily? Do we do it by intending to do it? But to say we intend to do it, is the same as to say, we determine to do it, we choose to do it. Do we, then, cause an act of choice, by choosing to put it forth? Do we choose to choose? Here, then, are two acts of choice, by one of which we caused the other. But what caused the first of them? Did we cause that, by choosing it? There is no other in which we could cause Did we way choose to choose to choose? Here, then, are three acts of choice, the first causing the second, and the second causing the third. But what caused the first? Did we cause that by a previous choice, and that previous choice by another previous to it, and so on? What, then, caused Did we cause that?

the first in the whole series?

it.

If we caused that, it must have been by choosing or willing it. That is, we caused our first act of choice by another previous to it, or by one before the first, which is absurd. It is, therefore, impos

sible in the nature of things, for any being to cause his own acts of choice. And consequently,

free agency does not consist in causing our own acts of choice. But it consists simply in choosing. If an object is presented to our minds, and we exercise choice respecting it, we are free agents, and it is impossible for any being in the universe to be more so. The doctrine supported in these discourses, is, that God causes us to choose. But free agency consists in choosing. Therefore, if God causes us to choose, he causes us to be free agents. To destroy our free agency, and make us machines, he must cause us NOT to choose. This doctrine, therefore, is so far from destroying free agency, that it is the very thing which secures it. There is no liberty possible or conceivable greater than of acting voluntarily. But when God causes us to choose, he causes us to act voluntarily. When God causes us to choose, therefore, he causes us to enjoy and exercise the greatest liberty that is possible for any being in the universe, the greatest liberty that can be desired, or that can be conceived. The doc

trine which has been supported in these discourses, therefore, is so far from infringing upon the doctrine of free agency, that the doctrine of free agency rests upon it, as upon a foundation

that cannot be shaken.

But some say, that, if God causes us to choose, then it is God's choice, and not ours; we have no