To the same purpose he says, "that nothing can be known at present, except itself or its necessary cause exist at present."

This is affirmed, but I find no proof of it.

Again he says, "that knowledge supposes an object, which, in this case, does not exist." It is true, that knowledge supposes an object, and every thing that is known is an object of knowledge, whether past, present, or future, whether contingent or necessary.

Upon the whole, the arguments I can find upon this point, bear no proportion to the confidence of the assertion, that there cannot be a greater absurdity or contradiction, than that a contingent event should be the object of knowledge.

To those who, without pretending to show a manifest absurdity or contradiction in the knowledge of future contingent events, are still of opinion, that it is impossible that the future free actions of man, a being of imperfect wisdom and virtue, should be certainly foreknown, I would humbly offer the following considerations.

1st, I grant that there is no knowledge of this kind in man; and this is the cause that we find it so difficult to conceive it in any other being.

All our knowledge of future events is drawn either from their necessary connection with the present course of nature, or from their connection with the character of the agent that produces them. Our knowledge, even of those future events that necessarily result from the established laws of nature, is hypothetical. It supposes the continuance of those laws with which they are connected. And how long those laws may be continued, we have no certain knowledge. God only knows when the present course of nature shall be changed, and therefore he only has certain knowledge even of events of this kind.

The character of perfect wisdom and perfect rectitude in the Deity, gives us certain knowledge that he will always be true in all his declarations, faithful in all his promises, and just in all his dispensations. But when we reason from the character of men to their future actions, though, in many cases, we have such probability as we rest upon in our most important worldly concerns, yet we have no certainty, because men are imperfect in wisdom and in virtue. If we had even the most perfect knowledge of the character and situation of a man, this would not be sufficient to give certainty to our knowledge of his future actions; because, in some actions, both good and bad men deviate from their general character.

The prescience of the Deity, therefore, must be different not only in degree, but in kind, from any knowledge we can attain of futurity.

2dly, Though we can have no conception how the future free actions of men may be known by the Deity, this is not a sufficient reason to conclude that they cannot be known. Do we know, or can we conceive, how God knows the secrets of men's hearts? Can we conceive how God made this world, without any pre-existent matter? All the ancient philosophers believed this to be impossible: and for what reason but this, that they could not conceive how it could be done. Can we give any better reason for believing that the actions of men cannot be certainly foreseen?

3dly, Can we conceive how we ourselves have certain knowledge by those faculties with which God has endowed us? If any man thinks that he understands distinctly how he is conscious of his own thoughts; how he perceives external objects by his senses; how he remembers past events, I am afraid that he is not yet. so wise as to understand his own ignorance.

4thly, There seems to me to be a great analogy between the prescience of future contingents, and the memory of past contingents. We possess the last in some degree, and therefore find no difficulty in believing that it may be perfect in the Deity. But the first we have in no degree, and therefore are apt to think it impossible. In both, the object of knowledge is neither what presently exists, nor has any necessary connection with what presently exists. Every argument brought to prove the impossibility of prescience, proves, with equal force, the impossibility of memory. If it be true that nothing can be known to arise from what does exist, but what necessarily arises from it, it must be equally true, that nothing can be known to have gone before what does exist, but what must necessarily have gone before it. If it be true that nothing future can be known unless its necessary cause exist at present, it must be equally true that nothing past can be known unless something consequent, with which it is necessarily connected, exist at present. If the Fatalist should say, that past events are indeed necessarily connected with the present, he will not surely venture to say, that it is by tracing this necessary connection, that we remember the past.

Why then should we think prescience impossible in the Almighty, when he has given us a faculty which bears a strong analogy to it, and which is no less unaccountable to the human understanding, than prescience is. It is more reasonable as well as more agreeable to the sacred writings, to conclude with a pious father of the church, " Quocirca nullo modo cogimur, aut retentâ præscientiâ Dei tollere voluntatis arbitrium, aut retento voluntatis arbitrio, Deum, quod nefas est, negare præscium futurorum: Sed utrumque amplectimur, utrumque fideliter et veraciter confitemur: Illud ut bene credamus; hoc ut bene vivamus." AUG.

ANOTHER use has been made of Divine prescience by the advocates for necessity, which it is proper to consider before we leave this subject.

It has been said, "that all those consequences follow from the Divine prescience which are thought most alarming in the scheme of necessity; and particularly God's being the proper cause of moral evil. For, to suppose God to foresee and permit what it was in his power to have prevented, is the very same thing, as to suppose him to will, and directly to cause it. He distinctly foresees all the actions of a man's life, and all the consequences of them: if, therefore, he did not think any particular man and his conduct proper for his plan of creation and providence, he certainly would not have introduced him into being at all."

In this reasoning we may observe, that a supposition is made which seems to contradict itself.

That all the actions of a particular man should be distinctly foreseen, and, at the same time, that that man should never be brought into existence, seems to me to be a contradiction: and the same contradiction there is, in supposing any action to be distinctly foreseen, and yet prevented. For, if it be foreseen, it shall happen; and, if it be prevented, it shall not happen, and therefore could not be foreseen.

The knowledge here supposed is neither prescience nor science, but something very different from both. It is a kind of knowledge, which some metaphysical divines, in their controversies about the order of the Divine decrees, a subject far beyond the limits of human understanding, attributed to the Deity, and of

which other divines denied the possibility, while they firmly maintained the Divine prescience.

It was called scientia medía, to distinguish it from prescience; and by this scientia media, was meant, not the knowing from eternity all things that shall exist, which is prescience, nor the knowing all the connections and relations of things that exist or may be conceived, which is science, but a knowledge of things contingent, that never did nor shall exist. For instance, the knowing every action that would be done by a man who is barely conceived, and shall never be brought into existence.

Against the possibility of the scientia media arguments may be urged, which cannot be applied to prescience. Thus it may be said, that nothing can be known but what is true. It is true that the future actions of a free agent shall exist, and therefore we see no impossibility in its being known that they shall exist: but with regard to the free actions of an agent that never did nor shall exist, there is nothing true, and therefore nothing can be known. To say that the being conceived, would certainly act in such a way, if placed in such a situation, if it have any meaning, is to say, that his acting in that way is the consequence of the conception; but this contradicts the supposition of its being a free action.

Things merely conceived have no relations or connections but such as are implied in the conception, or are consequent from it. Thus I conceive two circles in the same plane. If this be all I conceive, it is not true that these circles are equal or unequal, because neither of these relations is implied in the conception ; yet if the two circles really existed, they must be either equal or unequal. Again, I conceive two circles in the same plane, the distance of whose centres is equal to the sum of their semidiameters. It is true of these