Objections, that this scheme of Necessity renders all Means and Endeavours for avoiding Sin, or obtaining Virtue and Holiness, vain, and to no purpose; and that it makes men no more than mere machines, in affairs of morality and religion, answered.
Arminians say, If sin and virtue come to pass by a Necessity consisting in a sure connexion of causes and effects, antecedents and consequents, it can never be worth while to use any Means or Endeavours to obtain the one, and avoid the other; seeing no Endeavours can alter the futurity of the event, which is become necessary by a connexion already established.
But I desire, that this matter may be fully considered; and that it may be examined with a thorough strictness, whether it will follow that Endeavours and Means, in order to avoid or obtain any future thing, must be more in vain, on the supposition of such a connexion of antecedents and consequents, than if the contrary be supposed.
For Endeavours to be in vain, is for them not to be successful; that is to say, for them not eventually to be the Means of the thing aimed at, which cannot be, but in one of these two ways; either, first, That although the Means are used, yet the event aimed at does not follow; or, secondly, If the event does follow, it is not because of the Means, or from any connexion or dependence of the event on the Means, the event would have come to pass as well without the Means as with them. If either of these two things are the case, then the Means are not properly successful, and are truly in vain. The success or non-success of Means, in order to an effect, or their being in vain or not in vain, consists in those Means being connected, or not connected, with the effect, in such a manner as this, viz. That the effect is with the Means, and not without them; or. that the being of the effect is, on the one hand, connected with Means, and the want of the effect, on the other hand, is connected with the want of the Means. If there be such a connexion as this between Means and end, the Means are not in vain: the more there is of such a connexion, the further they are from being in vain; and the less of such a connexion, the more they are in vain.
Now, therefore, the question to be answered—in order to determine, whether it follows from this doctrine of the necessary connexion between foregoing things, and consequent ones, that Means used in order to any effect, are more in vain than they would be otherwise—is, whether it follows from it, that there is less of the forementioned connexion between Means and effect; that is, whether on the supposition of there being a real and true connexion between antecedent things and consequent ones, there must be less of a connexion between Means and effect, than on the supposition of there being no fixed connexion between antecedent things and consequent ones: and the very stating of this question is sufficient to answer it. It must appear to every one that will open his eyes, that this question cannot be affirmed, without the grossest absurdity and inconsistence. Means are foregoing things, and effects are following things: And if there were no connexion between foregoing things and following ones, there could be no connexion between Means and end; and so all Means would be wholly vain and fruitless. For it is only by virtue of some connexion, that they become successful: It is some connexion observed, or revealed, or otherwise known, between antecedent things and following ones, that directs in the choice of Means. And if there were no such thing as an established connexion, there could be no choice, as to Means; one thing would have no more tendency to an effect, than another; there would be no such thing as tendency in the case. All those things, which are successful Means of other things, do therein prove connected antecedents of them: and therefore to assert, that a fixed connexion between antecedents and consequents makes Means vain and useless, or stands in the way to hinder the connexion between Means and end, is just so ridiculous, as to say, that a connexion between antecedents and consequents stands in the way to hinder a connexion between antecedents and consequents.
Nor can any supposed connexion of the succession or train of antecedents and consequents, from the very beginning of all things, the connexion being made already sure and necessary, either by established laws of nature, or by these together with a decree of sovereign immediate interpositions of divine power, on such and such occasions, or any other way (if any other there be); I say, no such necessary connexion of a series of antecedents and consequents can in the least tend to hinder, but that the Means we use may belong to the series; and so may be some of those antecedents which are connected with the consequents we aim at, in the established course of things. Endeavours which we use, are things that exist; and, therefore, they belong to the general chain of events; all the parts of which chain are supposed to be connected: and so Endeavours are supposed to be connected with some effects, or some consequent things or other. And certainly this does not hinder but that the events they are connected with, may be those which we aim at, and which we choose, because we judge them most likely to have a connexion with those events, from the established order and course of things which we observe, or from something in divine revelation.