It is fully evident from the essential perfections of Deity, that divine purposes are unchangeable, that is, every one of them must continue to exist invariably until it terminates in a volition at its essential season.

OF DIVINE Will.

WILL or Volition, is an Inclination, evident from reason and revelation, truly attributed unto God. As the objects of divine purpose are future things, so the objects of divine volition are present things; and hence it is' evident divine volitions take order of time as well as of nature.

The object of divine volition is a present act of God himself, or by an intelligent Instrument specially commissioned; and the present connected consequent of that act. Divine volitions do most strictly refer to the acts and works of God, that is to say, to his acting, and to the immediate or present consequent or consequents of his voluntary acts.

Some valuable consequents connected with a voluntary act of Deity, or with a series of voluntary acts may be in their nature future existences or remote consequents. But in this case, shall we judge that the divine direct volition is continued to these remote consequents? No, these consequents are objects of divine indirect purpose untill the future season becomes present, when we rightly conceive new but indirect volitions of Deity respecting these existing consequents; yet the original volition I think, we rightly conceive to have terminated with its related antecedent act and its immediate

immediate influence. Every necessary remote consequent of volition is perhaps known by a spirit of infinite intelligence, and was so far as valuable, for that reason connected with the direct volition and is at least indirectly willed at its time of existence.

If it be asked why the remote valuable consequents of a divine volition are not also objects of this direct act of divine will? The answer is ready. God is not the Agent, nor can consistently be the agent, of remote consequents: For all these remote valuable consequents exist through the medium of second causes, to which the properties and circumstances of things essentially concur; and as all second causes are rendered imperfect by being necessarily more or less affected by negative causes, through the necessary finity of the properties and circumstances which go to the essence of a second cause; and as negation and finity and their consequents cannot be objects of divine will: It follows that no remote consequents of God's voluntary acting are objects of divine direct will, and can be no otherwise objects of his will at all, but indirectly through his being the author of causation so far as valuable.

Corol. All things produced by second causes are objects of divine indirect will; but negative causes, and things produced by negative causes, are neither directly nor indirectly objects of divine will. Whatever God himself doeth as an agent, he directly willeth; but what he doeth through the medium of second causes; that is, whatever is affected more or less in its production by a negative cause arising from the limitations of the

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properties and circumstances of dependent things, GOD but indirectly willeth.

The Works of God may be distinguished into Works of Creation, and Works of Provi dence, The holy scriptures do not inform us of any work of God previous to Creation; but we learn from these sacred records, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, with every species of their inhabitants, according to a previously concerted plan, involving providence of future sustenance and government. God's Works of Providence are his procreating, preserving, and ruling his created works by second causes and occasional interpositions. The concurrence of second causes to either of these ends, we rationally conceive to have been provided in the divine plan. The interpositions of God also, whether immediately or by instruments, for ruling mankind, we rationally conceive to have been primarily provided in the divine choice; and afterward to have remained in purpose until their season when they voluntarily take place. The call of Abraham was of Providence-the commission of Moses was of Providence-the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ was of Providence-the call of Saul, afterwards called Paul, was of Providence-and the divine ends of the providing are manifest from scripture. Some other provided, purposed, and voluntary interpositions,

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mediate interpositions, either by angels and men specially commissioned, or by things specially employed. Thus the giving of the law at Horeb by a dispensation of angels-the mediation of our Saviour-the gift of the Holy

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Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost-miracles wrought and recorded in confirmation of doctrines-and the revelations of truths themselves.

Having said that some of God's provided mediate interpositions were by things specially employed, I will add, employed in ruling human persons. Now these I conceive to involve the whole class of instruments rightly called decrees of God; and which respectively give birth to a new series of second causes of divine providing.

Some theologians have erroneously, I think erroneously represented the divine volition in eternity past, as at once taking for its objects all the events of time by a voluntary decree ordinance or appointment, which they call decretive will. Through confused conceptions of the kinds of inclination, they continue to confound decrees with purposes.* A decree is a voluntary establishment for futurity; but a purpose is not a voluntary any thing; for both volition and purpose are species of inclination. A decree, generally conceived, is a direct volition which respects futurity. A decree more specially conceived, is an ordinance voluntarily made by a superior for the regulation of an inferior. The term is used in its genuine sense,

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Notwithstanding some years have elapsed since the pub lic were presented with determinate conceptions of the kinds of human preference, yet, even in recent publications, we are still called to read jargon of the will purposing, the will chusing, and of dispositions and inclinations determining the will, and of good dispositions securing a wise choice. True, in apology, we may say they are familiar expressions; but may we not as truly say, they are the confused offspring of con fused conceptions?

Acts xvi. 4. and xvii. 7. Exod. xii. 14. Isaiah, lviii. 2. &c. In a secondary or figurative sense, the term is applied in scripture to the chosen and voluntary connections of inanimate things with their consequents. Thus settling the place and limits of the sea, Job xxxviii. 10. Prov. vii. 29. and the causation of the rain, Job xxiii. 26. and in a more remote or tropical way the term ordinance is applied to future events indiscriminately thus, Acts xiii. 48. and Jude iv. meaning no more than the previous certainty of events as foreknown of the Deity. Some have said that, to foresee and to fore-appoint, in God is only one and the same thing. This position is in the highest degree. questionable. Perhaps nothing is a greater untruth than the affirmation, that, for God to foresee, and for God to fore-appoint, is only one and the same thing.

In what I have further to say of divine decrees I shall consider decrees, ordinances, and appointments as synonimies, and use them indiscriminately to express divine enactions or establishments of the connection of antecedent conduct of persons with consequent enjoyments and sufferings. Decrees of God consist in those chosen and voluntary connections of antecedent acts and omissions of finite intelligent beings with painful or pleasing consequents, according to which God rules, or suasively governs them. Divine decrees are not purposes, but voluntary enactions or establishments for ruling the motives and movements of dependent persons. Some purposes are their native consequents, and with them all future purposes

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