The questions of liberty, necessity, and chance have been subjects of dispute among Philosophers at all times; and most of those Philosophers have clearly asserted necessity, and deny’d liberty and chance.
The questions of liberty and necessity, have also been debated among Divines in the several ages of the Christian Church, under the terms of free-will and predestination: and the Divines who have deny’d free-will and asserted predestination, have inforc’d the arguments of the Philosopher, by the consideration of some doctrines peculiar to the Christian Religion. And as to chance, hazard, or fortune, I think, Divines unanimously agree, that those words have no meaning.
Some Christian communions have even proceeded so far in relation to these matters, as to condemn in Councils and Synods the doctrine of free-will as heretical; and the denial thereof is become a part of the Confessions of Faith, and Articles of Religion of several Churches.
From this state of the fact it is manifest, that whoever embraces the opinion
