on the supposition that God could create a moral system, and yet
necessarily exclude all sin from it. This mistake, it seems to me, has
already been sufficiently refuted, and the existence of moral evil brought
into perfect accordance and harmony with the infinite holiness of God.

But it is strenuously insisted, in particular, that the divine
foreknowledge of all future events establishes their necessity; and thus
involves the advocates of that sublime attribute in all the difficulties
against which they so loudly declaim. As I have examined this argument in
another place,(157) I shall not dwell upon it here, but content myself
with a few additional remarks. The whole strength of this argument in
favour of necessity arises from the assumption, that if God foresees the
future volitions of men, they must be bound together with other things
according to the mechanism of cause and effect; that is to say that God
could not foresee the voluntary acts of men, unless they should be
necessitated by causes ultimately connected with his own will.
Accordingly, this bold position is usually assumed by the advocates of
necessity. But to say that God could not foreknow future events, unless
they are indissolubly connected together, seems to be a tremendous flight
for any finite mind; and especially for those who are always reminding us
of the melancholy fact of human blindness and presumption. Who shall set
limits to the modes of knowledge possessed by an infinite,
all-comprehending mind? Who shall tell _how_ God foresees future events?
Who shall say it must be in this or that particular way, or it cannot be
at all?

Let the necessitarian prove his assumption, let him make it clear that God
could not foreknow future events unless they are necessitated, and he will
place in the hands of the sceptic the means of demonstrating, with
absolute and uncontrollable certainty, that God does not foreknow all
future events at all, that he does not foresee the free voluntary acts of
the human mind. For we do know, as clearly as we can possibly know
anything, not even excepting our own existence, or the existence of a God,
that we are free in our volitions, that they are not necessitated; and
hence, according to the assumption in question, God could not foresee
them. If the sceptic could see what the necessitarian affirms, he might
proceed from what he _knows_, by a direct and irresistible process, to a
denial of the foreknowledge of God, in re