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 falletur præsciendo, errabit & agendo (quod est impossibile) aut nos agemus & agemur secumdum ipsius præscientiam & actionem.” And our learned Dr. South says, “the fore-knowledge of an event does certainly and necessarily infer that there must be such an event; forasmuch as the certainty of knowledge depends upon the certainty of the thing known. And in this sense it is that God’s decree and promise give a necessary existence to the thing decreed or promised, that is to say, they infer it by infallible consequence; so that it was as impossible for Christ not to rise from the dead, as it was for God absolutely to decree and promise a thing, and yet the thing not come to pass.”

I could also bring in the greatest divines and philosophers who are assertors of Liberty, as confirming this argument; for they acknowledge that they are unable to reconcile the divine prescience and the Liberty of man together, which is all I intended to prove by this argument, taken from the consideration of the divine prescience.

 

V. A fifth argument to prove man a necessary agent is as follows: If man was not a necessary agent, determined by pleasure and pain, there would be no foundation for rewards and punishments, which are the essential supports of society.

For if men were not necessarily determined by pleasure and pain, or if pleasure and pain were no causes to determine men’s wills; of what use would be the prospect of rewards to frame a man’s will to the observation of the law, or punishments to hinder his trans- 