given us to direct us in our inquiries after truth, in our pursuit after happiness, and to preserve our beings. For if we had a faculty, which chose without regard to the notices and advertisements of these powers, and by its choice over-ruled them; we should then be indu'd with a faculty to defeat the end and uses of these powers.
The Perfection of necessity.But the imperfection of liberty inconsistent with necessity, will yet more appear by considering the great perfection of being necessarily determin'd.
Can anything be perfect, that is not necessarily perfect? For whatever is not necessarily perfect may be imperfect, and is by consequence imperfect.
Is it not a perfection in God necessarily to know all truth?
Is it not a perfection in him to be necessarily happy?
Is it not also a perfection in him to will and do always what is best? For if all things are indifferent to him, as some of the advocates of liberty[1] assert, and become good only by his willing them, he cannot have any motive from his own Ideas, or from the nature of things, to will one thing rather than another; and consequently he must will one thing rather than another; andconsequently
- ↑ King de orig. mali. p. 177.
