Книга: A Literary Journal [Ed. by J.P. Droz].

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to million-books where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ' Once fettled and no more minded ' which laft exprefs vaftly more than was ever intended by the Aflerters of a general Providence what feems to me to be the Meaning of this is no part of their Scheme, their Notion is complete without it. Say it were a Part of it, the Confequence you draw from it will not hold, All our Actions c will not therefore be neceffary as the Ef- c feds of Gravitation:' Go on with your Inftance, and apply it to the moral World as well as the mechanical, I am miftaken but you will find it hold : What is the principal Diftindtion between a Man and a Watch but this ? That the latter, when it goes wrong, requires the Artift's Finger to fet it to Rights, the other has a Spring and Power within to correct every wandering, and reduce it to its juft and regular State: what Occafion then for Interpofition here more than in the other j the Occasions me- thinks fhould be fewer, the Neceffity lefs j infinite Wifdom certainly will not interpofe, where there is none j and I greatly fufpeft that, where we moft argue and call for it, our Ignorance of the true ftate of Things h the Ground of our Conduft we fee but a little way into the great Scheme of Providence, and cannot fay, that even the greateft Abufes of moral Powers have not a Tendency and Efficacy to advance and perfedl C 2 that that Scheme : all things (hall work together for Good, and if that is the Refult upon the whole, there is noWildom in finding Fault with the Parts: Neither to me is there any Reafon of Complaint j Man is left in the Hands of his own Counfel: The Ingredients of Happinefs are all before him, and the End certain, where it is regularly and fteadily purfued : Why then mould God interpofe to alter the Determinati- .ons of human Will, more than the O- perations of common Nature ? cannot Ma...