as I shall show.

4. This doctrine contributes not a little to the advantage of common
society, in so far as it teaches us by what means citizens are to be
governed and led; not in order that they may be slaves, but that they
may freely do those things which are best.

II

At[21] last I see, what it was that you begged me not to publish.
However, as it forms the chief foundation of everything in the
treatise[22] which I intend to bring out, I should like briefly to
explain here, in what sense I assert that a fatal necessity presides
over all things and actions.

God I in no wise subject to fate: I conceive that all things follow with
inevitable necessity from the nature of God, in the same way as every
one conceives that it follows from God's nature that God understands
Himself. This latter consequence all admit to follow necessarily from
the divine nature, yet no one conceives that God is under the compulsion
of any fate, but that He understands Himself quite freely, though
necessarily.

Further, this inevitable necessity in things does away neither with
divine nor human laws. The principles of morality, whether they receive
from God Himself the form of laws or institutions, or whether they do
not, are still divine and salutary; whether we receive the good, which
flows from virtue and the divine love, as from God in the capacity of a
judge, or as from the necessity of the divine nature, it will in either
case be equally desirable; on the other hand, the evils following from
wicked actions and passions are not less to be feared because they are
necessary consequences.[23] Lastly, in our actions, whether they be
necessary or contingent, we are led by hope and fear.

Men are only without excuse before God, because they are in God's power,
as clay is in the hands of the potter, who from the same lump makes
vessels, some to honor, some to dishonor.... [24] When I said in my
former letter that we are inexcusable, because we are in the power of
God, like clay in the hands of the potter, I meant to be understood in
the sense that no one can bring a complaint against God for having given
him a weak nature, or infirm spirit. A circle might as well complain to
God for not being endowed with the properties of a sphere, or a child
who is tortured, say, with stone, for not being given a healthy body, as
a man of feeble spirit, because God has denied to him fortitude, and the
true knowledge and love of the Deity, or because