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A A View of ike DEIsTI-aL Writers. Let. 23.

³ verſe he createde.“ Here he not only aſcribes ideas to God, but eternal ideas, by which God hath preſcribed to himſelf a rule for his governing the world. This rule he there explain- eth to be“ a fitneſs arifing from the various natures, and more ¹ various relations of things, in the ſyſtem which he hath con- *eſtituted.“ Which fitneſs he there ſuppoſeth to have been known to God in his eternal ideas. And yet he hath frequently inveighed againſt Dr. Clarke, for ſpeaking of the eternal reaſons and relations of things. This particularly is the ſubject of the ſecond, fifty-eighth, and fifty-ninth of his fragments and eſſays in the fifth volume of his works. He treats that learned di- vine, as if he maintained, that theſe reaſons and fitneſſes of things were real natures, exiſting independently of God, and co-eternal with him. And yet he bimſelf, ſpeaking of Dr. Cudworth and others, obſerveth, that when they talk of eternal ideas and eſſences independent on the will of God,“ they do ¹not mean by theſe eternal independent natures, any natures *s at all, but ſuch intelligible eſſences and ationes of things, as *areé objects of the mind ſ.“ And it is his own obſervation, that“ God knew from all eternity every fyſtem that he created ¹„ in time—the relations things ſhould bear— and the propor- *¹tions they ſhould have 8"— and that“to the divine omni- «ſcience the future is like the preſent;“ and therefore he thinks it improper to talk of preſcience in God. He repreſents it as“a great truth, that the whole ſeries of things is at all *etimes actually preſent to the divine mind: ſo that we may ſay **properly, that God knows things, becauſe they are actual to *¹him.“ According to his own repreſentation therefore it may be juſtly ſaid, that all the fitneſſes and relations of things were from the beginning actually preſent to the divine mind. And he accordingly declares, that God was determined by his infinite wiſdom to Proceed with bis creatires in all the æxertions of his Bower, according to the fitneſs of things ¹i. Or in other words, as he elſewhere expreſſeth it, God does not govern by mere ar- bitrary will; but always does that uwbhich is fitteſt to be done; and which he from all eternity ſaw would be fitteſt to be done. And this ſeems to be all that is really intended by thoſe who ſpeak of the eternal reaſons and fitneſſes of things. Whether therefore the manner of expreſſion be ſtrictly proper or not, this

« See idea of a patriot king in vol. iii. of his works, p. 53⸗

† Vol. v. p. 15. s Ibid. p. 7. à Ibid. p. 457. 458, 1 Ibid. p. 435.

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