rary to this which is called liberty
in common speech. One is constraint; the same is otherwise called
force, compulsion, and coaction; which is a person's being
necessitated to do a thing contrary to his will. The other is
restraint; which is his being hindered, and not having power to do
according to his will. But that which has no will, can not be the
subject of these things. I need say the less on this head, Mr. Locke
having set the same thing forth, with so great clearness, in his
"Essay on the Human Understanding."

But one thing more I would observe concerning what is vulgarly called
liberty; namely, that power and opportunity for one to do and conduct
as he will, or according to his choice, is all that is meant by it;
without taking into the meaning of the word anything of the cause or
original of that choice; or at all considering how the person came to
have such a volition; whether it was caused by some external motive or
internal habitual bias; whether it was determined by some internal
antecedent volition, or whether it happened without a cause; whether
it was necessarily connected with something foregoing, or not
connected. Let the person come by his volition or choice how he will,
yet, if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his
pursuing and executing his will, the man is fully and perfectly free,
according to the primary and common notion of freedom.

What has been said may be sufficient to show what is meant by liberty,
according to the common notions of mankind, and in the usual and
primary acceptation of the word: but the word, as used by Arminians,
Pelagians and others, who oppose the Calvinists, has an entirely
different signification. These several things belong to their notion
of liberty. 1. That it consists in a self-determining power in the
will, or a certain sovereignty the will has over itself, and its own
acts, whereby it determines its own volitions; so as not to be
dependent, in its determinations, on any cause without itself, nor
determined by anything prior to its own acts. 2. Indifference belongs
to liberty in their notion of it, or that the mind, previous to the
act of volition, be in equilibrio. 3. Contingence is another thing
that belongs and is essential to it; not in the common acceptation of
the word, as that has been already explained, but as opposed to all
necessity, or any fixt and certain connection with some previous
ground or reason of its existence. They su