cannot be so much as conceiv'd by us
separable from the Being of God; unless the God, which we conceive, be
a Fiction of our own Imagination, and not the Creator of All Things;
who is an invisible Being only knowable to us in, and by, the
exemplifications of his Attributes: The infinite Perfection, and the
inseparable Correspondence, and Harmony of which (discernable in the
Frame and Government of the Universe) plainly tells us, That the
Divine Will cannot be (like ours) successive Determinations without
dependance, or connection one upon another; much less inconsistent,
contradictory, and mutable; but one steady, uniform, unchangeable
result of infinite Wisdom and Benevolence, extending to, and including
All his Works. So that Sin, or disobedience to our Maker is manifestly
the greatest Nonsense, Folly and contradiction conceivable, with
regard purely to the immutable perfection of the Divine Nature; and to
the Natural constitution of things, independently upon any positive
command of God to us, or his irresistible power over us.

But as without a capacity in The Creature to act contrary to the will
of the Creator there could be no defect, or self-excellency in any
Created Being; contrariety to the Will of God is therefore permitted
in the Universe as a necessary result of Creaturely imperfection,
under the greatest endowment that a Created Being is capable of
having, viz. _That of Freedom or Liberty of Action_: And as the
constitution of such Creature, as this, implies that what is _best_ in
reference to the design of the Creator, and of its own Happiness,
should not be always necessarily present to the Mind as Best; such a
Creature may oppose the Will of his Maker with various degrees of
Guilt in so doing; or (possibly) with none at all; for no Agent can
offend farther than he wilfully abuses the Freedom he has to act.

But God having made Men so as that they find in themselves, very
often, a liberty of acting according to the preference of their own
Minds, it is incumbent upon them to study the Will of their Maker; in
an application of the Faculty of Reason which he has given them, to
the consideration of the different respects, consequences, and
dependencies of Things, so as to discern from thence, the just
measures of their actions in every circumstance and relation they
stand plac'd in; which _measures_ are nothing else but the dictates
resulting from those views which such a consideration of things as
this gi