On fifteen all my thoughts were bent,

Fifteen is come at last ;

Alas! I am not more content,

My pleasure's all a blast.

'Tis giddy diffipation all,

And an elufion vain;

Of which th' enjoyment e'er so small
May cause a life of pain.

True happiness is virtue's child,
And lives within our breaft;
Join'd to a temper pure and mild,
An honeft heart's best guest.

A confcience void of all offence,
Good fpirits, and good health;
Grant me but thefe, O Providence,
I ask not power or wealth.

Then, if next year should see me laid

A victim to the tomb;

Thefe friends will ftill attend my fhade,
Where joys eternal bloom.

SHE

HE never fmiles, but where the wretched weep; Nor lulls her malice with a moment's fleep: Restless in spite! While watchful to destroy; She pines and fickens at another's joy.

ག ་ཅན་ དཔ1 ་ པ 1:||

THE

Arminian Magazine,

For MAY 1791.

An ESSAY on the LIBERTY of MORAL AGENTS.

[Extracted from a late Author.]

[Concluded from page 173.].

Liberty confiflent with Government.

Acknowledge that a crime must be voluntary; for, if it be not voluntary, it is no deed of the man, nor can be justly imputed to him; but it is no lefs neceffary that the criminal have moral liberty. In men that are adult, and of a found mind, this liberty is prefumed. But in every cafe where it cannot be prefuted, no criminality is imputed, even to voluntary actions.

This is evident from the following inftances: Firft, The actions of brutes appear to be voluntary; yet they are never conceived to be criminal, though they may be noxious. Secondly, Children in nonage act voluntarily, but they are not VOL. XIV. chargeable

E e

chargeable with crimes. Thirdly, Madmen have both underftanding and will, but they have not moral liberty, and therefore are not chargeable with crimes. Fourthly, Even in men that are adult, and of a found mind, a motive that is thought irrefiftible by any ordinary degree of felf-command, fuch as the rack, or the dread of prefent death, either exculpates, or very much alleviates a voluntary action, which, in other circumftances, would be highly criminal; whence it is evident, that if the motive were abfolutely irrefiftible, the exculpation would be complete. So far is it from being true, that the criminality of an action depends folely upon its being voluntary.

Children under age are governed much in the fame way as the most fagacious brutes. The opening of their intellectual and moral powers, which may be much aided by proper inftruction and example, is that which makes them by degrees, capable of moral government.

Reafon teaches us to afcribe to the Supreme Being a government of the inanimate and inactive part of his creation, analogous to that mechanical government which men exercise, but infinitely more perfect. This, I think, is what we call God's natural government of the univerfe. In this part of the divine government, whatever is done is God's doing. He is the fole caufe, and the fole agent, whether he act immediately, or by inflruments fubordinate to him; and his will is always done for inflruments are not caufes, they are not agents, though we fometimes improperly call them fo.

It is therefore no lefs agreeable to reason, than to the language of holy writ, to impute to the Deity whatever is done in the natural world. When we fay of any thing, that it is the work of nature, this is faying that it is the work of God.

The natural world is a grand machine, contrived, made, and governed by the wifdom and power of the Almighty and if there be in this natural world, beings that have life, intelligence, and will, without any degree of active power, they can only be fubje&t