when the hope or the fear of praise or blame, of pleasure or pain prompted our will thereto, whether they prompted it of necessity, or in prompting it they left spontaneity, contingency and freedom all alike unimpaired.  Thus praise and blame, rewards and punishments would preserve always a large part of their use, even though there were a true necessity in our actions.  We can praise and blame also natural good and bad qualities, where the will has no part—­in a horse, in a diamond, in a man; and he who said of Cato of Utica that he acted virtuously through the goodness of his nature, and that it was impossible for him to behave otherwise, thought to praise him the more.

76.  The difficulties which I have endeavoured up to now to remove have been almost all common to natural and revealed theology.  Now it will be necessary to come to a question of revealed theology, concerning the election or the reprobation of men, with the dispensation or use of divine grace in connexion with these acts of the mercy or the justice of God.  But when I answered the preceding objections, I opened up a way to meet those that remain.  This confirms the observation I made thereon (Preliminary Dissertation, 43) that there is rather a conflict between the true [164] reasons of natural theology and the false reasons of human appearances, than between revealed faith and reason.  For on this subject scarcely any difficulty arises that is new, and not deriving its origin from those which can be placed in the way of the truths discerned by reason.

77.  Now as theologians of all parties are divided among themselves on this subject of predestination and grace, and often give different answers to the same objections, according to their various principles, one cannot avoid touching on the differences which prevail among them.  One may say in general that some look upon God more metaphysically and others more morally:  and it has already been stated on other occasions that the Counter-Remonstrants took the first course and the Remonstrants the second.  But to act rightly we must affirm alike on one side the independence of God and the dependence of creatures, and on the other side the justice and goodness of God, which makes him dependent upon himself, his will upon his understanding or his wisdom.

78.  Some gifted and well-intentioned authors, desiring to show the force of the reasons advocated by the two principal parties, in order to persuade them to a mutual tolerance, deem that the whole controversy is reduced to this essential point, namely:  What was God’s principal aim in making his decrees with regard to man?  Did he make them solely in order to show forth his glory by manifesting his attributes, and forming, to that end, the great plan of creation and providence?  Or has he had regard rather to the voluntary movements of intelligent substances which he designed to create, considering what they would will and do in the different circumstances and