a calamity that any man dissents from their
maxims. It is their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing,
who neither will hear with meekness, nor can convince, yet all must be
suppressed which is not found in their Syntagma. They are the troublers,
they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not others to unite
those dissevered pieces which are yet wanting to the body of truth. To be
still searching what we know not, by what we know, still closing up truth
to truth as we find it, (for all her body is homogeneal and proportional,)
this is the golden rule in theology as well as in arithmetic, and makes up
the best harmony in a Church; not the forced and outward union of cold,
and neutral, and inwardly-divided minds."

Part I.

THE EXISTENCE OF MORAL EVIL, OR SIN, CONSISTENT WITH THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

What Time this World's great Workmaister did cast,
To make all things such as we now behold,
It seems that he before his eyes had plast
A goodly patterne, to whose perfect mould
He fashion'd them as comely as he could,
That now so fair and seemly they appear,
As naught may be amended anywhere.

That wondrous patterne, wheresoe'er it be,
Whether in earth laid up in secret store,
Or else in heav'n, that no man may it see
With sinful eyes, for feare it to deflore,
Is perfect Beautie.--SPENSER.

Chapter I.

The Scheme Of Necessity Denies That Man Is Responsible For The Existence
Of Sin.

Ye, who live,
Do so each cause refer to Heaven above,
E'en as its motion, of necessity,
Drew with it all that moves. If this were so,
Free choice in you were none; nor justice would
There should be joy for virtue, woe for ill.--DANTE.

The doctrine of necessity has been, in all ages of the world, the great
stronghold of atheism. It is the mighty instrument with which the
unbeliever seeks to strip man of all accountability, and to destroy our
faith and confidence in God, by tracing up the existence of all moral evil
to his agency. "The opinion of necessity," says Bishop Butler, "seems to
be the very basis in which infidelity grounds itself." It will not be
denied that this opinion seems, at first view, to be inconsistent with the
free agency and accountability of man, and that it appears to impair our
idea of God by staining it with