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THE BEE,

OR

LITERARY WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER.

FOR

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29. 1793.

ESSAY ON THE WILL OF MAN, HIS LIBERTY, AND THE DIRECTION OF HIS CONSCIENCE.

Competition Piece.

Offered not without diffidence *.

GOD has not only rendered man capable of knowledge by instructing him sufficiently concerning all the objects that surround him, and by permitting him to inform himself of them more and more by new essays and trials; but he also allowed him the liberty of appropriating the use of them to himself; and lest he should give himself over to idleness or trifles, he inspired him with a prevailing and unconquerable desire of being happy, which is the spring and principle of all his actions.

*Alluding to an exprefsion of the Editor, that the premium would be withheld in his option, unless some of the efsays were actually worthy of it.

VOL. XV.

May 19. His activity, which renders him capable of thinking, projecting, and executing, of applying the organs of his body to a variety of works, might flag, and from a state of lafsitude sink into a perfect numbnefs, if it were not kept awake by the love of his own welfare. He is ever in the chace, nor stops even where he thinks he has found the cause of his happiness. Follow man in all his motions, nay, in his very indolence, you will always find him setting out for that point. Let the action you see him do, or avoid, be what it will, the constant air of his doing, or avoiding, is the procuring his own happiness: this leads Alexander the Great of Macedon from the Streights of the Hellespont to the Granicus; this makes him pafs from Asia into Africa, from Africa to the Indus, and brings him back from the Indus to the Euphrates. This the son of Pepin aims at, when he goes from France to Lombardy, and from Lombardy into Saxony it is what the son of Hugh Capet has fixed his heart upon, when he employs all his talents, and the whole time of his long reign, in making his subjects happy, by the maintaining of a durable peace, and the restoring of plenty in barren years. It is the hope of being happy, that renders the learned greedy of discoveries, and the ignorant fond of trifles. The same hope animates the artisan, who lends his fhoulders to the heaviest burdens; and the very thief who siezes the property of others, in order to subsist without labour. This love of our happiness or ware is then the ground of all our desires, and may be looked upon as the universal spring which

all men are actuated by; therefore our will is the same with our love of happiness.

But, notwithstanding our being propense to our own happiness, from a permanent and inconquerable impression, yet we have still the full choice of the means, towards it. We carry

our eyes and thoughts over all the actions that surround us. The pleasure or disgust which they give us, invite us to draw near to, or fly from them. Nothing in the world can either fill or exhaust the capacity we have of desiring and loving whatever can please us. We may quit one object for another, and go from pursuit to pursuit, from project to project, and from trial to trial. We may, likewise, from the bare sight or proof of one good which offers itself to us, be sensible of its being absolutely necefsary, or barely useful, or perfectly insufficient, and accordingly be strongly inclined, or remain perfectly indifferent to it. It is this power of election which we call free will or liberty.

It may incline us more or lefs to certain goods than to others, either by the force of an attraction that is present, or by the ties or habits, contracted in length of time, or by an inward conviction of having found the true source of our happiness ;—but in every one of these cases our liberty is neither immutable nor destroyed; it ́ is neither hurried away by any compelling necefsity, nor forced by any grievous constraint.

Hitherto, all the faculties which we observe in mán, are so many finishing strokes of the image of

the Almighty in him. Liberty, above all, is the characteristic of his sovereignty; for, as the Lord freely does whatever he pleases in the universe, man, likewise, has not only a freedom of acting or not acting, but has also at his disposal, animals, plants, fofsils, and every thing within the reach of his senses in his habitation.

But how much is it to be feared, that gifts of this nature will fill him with pride, inebriate him," as it were, with his own excellency, and make him lefs mindful of giving glory to his bounteous benefactor, than of pursuing his own will and satisfaction every where; or ready to admire himself on account of what has been bestowed upon him! Will not God, who gave him but a limited science, set bounds likewise to his extensive dominion? fhall he permit man to lay hands on all the productions of the earth, without distinction; or pull down, consume, or make a property of what he pleases, without following any other law but that of his own fancy, or the sense he has of his own strength. Here we are going to see what God has inseparably united to reason, in order to render the dominion of it moderate, and prescribe a rule to its power, or keep its desires under restraint ;-God made conscience, and an inward sense of order, the constant companion of our reason.

It may then be said again, in the truest sense, that it is with the liberty of man, as it is with that of the Almighty; the latter never exerts itself at random, or unjustly; wisdom and the love of order are the rules of all its operations; and it

was in order to give the finishing stroke to his own. image in man, that God rendered him capable of perceiving the decency, the proportions, the moderation, order, and justice, which ought to attend, or rather animate all his 'works. Man makes no step or action but has its peculiar aim or purpose; and he is conscious that his aim ought to be just and honest. He knows he has an inspector and judge, that takes notice of every thing; and lest the oblivion of God fhould render man unmindful of referring his actions to their true end, or even capable of attempting every thing, without any distinction of right or wrong, God, together with the sense of what is good and honest, has placed at the bottom of his heart, the warning of his conscience, with regard to which, man may sometimes lull himself asleep, but which will not cease, neverthelefs, to speak to him; and is a faculty as imperifhable as his free will, because it is equally the work of the Creator. If conscience has not the power always over man, to make him forsake his perverse habits, or put a stop to their effects, it disturbs him at least in his ill practices. It forewarns him, and restrains him in the middle of his excesses. He carries every where within him, not only a witnefs of his actions, but a faithful monitor, or even an impartial judge, who commends him for all the good he does, and mercifully condemns those of his proceedings which are contrary to justice or truth. Whatever is true, just, becoming, lovely, or praise worthy, his conscience secretly extols the merit of it in his eyes, and excites

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