found a way out; as, at length, I believe, I have P. But I am not yet so confident of my acquaintedness with all the windings and turnings, as to undertake to conduct others safely through them: it is enough for once, if I have but escaped myself. . . . .

I am, dear Sir,

Your most obliged and affectionate humble Servant, DAN. WATERLAND.

P.S. A learned foreigner (Mr. Lemker, of Lunenburg) sent to me to know, whether any such pamphlet, as, Some Observations addressed to the Author of the Letter to Dr. W. &c. had ever appeared. It seems he had taken hints of such a piece from some foreign Journals, and some persons of Leipsick had reproached him, as referring to a piece which never was in being; and it gave him uneasiness. I compassionated his case, and sent him an exact list of all that had been published in that fray, by or against the letter-writer. Only, I would not acquaint the gentleman with the names of the several authors, having no leave; and besides, not knowing what use might be made of it. Mr. Lemker had translated into the German language, De Lany's Revelation examined with Candour, in which there is a small digression ¶ about the letter-writer: so came Mr. Lemker to give some account, by way of note, of what had been written, on the same side with De Lany, as far as he could learn from the foreign prints.

P The tract upon Justification was not, however, published till after his death, in December following.

The passage occurs in vol. i. pp. 64-68. of Dr. Delany's work, where he defends Dr. Waterland against Dr. Middleton, respecting the literal interpretation of the Fall.

of

THE following letter was obligingly communicated to the editor by the present Bishop of Chester, together with another found among the papers his father, the late Bishop of Carlisle, but which, relating chiefly to some personal concerns in the University, is not here inserted.

To the Reverend Mr. Law, Fellow of Christ's College, in Cambridge.

GOOD SIR,

Windsor, July 19, 1732.

I HAD the pleasure to receive your kind present some

time ago; but I deferred my acknowledgments, because I was in hopes to find two or three days of cool leisure, when I might read some parts over with a proper attention and care, such as you had employed in the writing. But I have not such recess here, as at Magdalen College; my time and my thoughts are much broken, with great variety of calls and interruptions. I had a mind to have gone over Archbishop King's once again carefully, as well as your notes upon him. But in truth I could not find leisure for more than barely running over the notes, and particularly considering the additional parts. I am first to thank you for the honour you have been pleased to do me in the dedication, and next for the service you have done the public by your accurate inquiries into several very useful and important, as well as curious subjects. The Archbishop's Sermon upon the Fall, which you have now added, appears to me a very rational and solid discourse, and seasonable also at this time: your own additional compositions I have read with a great deal of

The second edition of Mr. Law's translation of Archbishop King's Essay on the Origin of Evil, which Mr. Law dedicated to Waterland, and to which was added Archbishop King's Sermon on the Fall.

pleasure. What you have, pp. 80, 81, in answer to Mr. J.s is perfectly clear and right. You wave the unravelling his pretended demonstrations of the Unity: but I am willing to hope that you have, or will have, a particular answer to them ready drawn up, to be thrown out afterwards, as occasion may offer. They are little more than trifling equivocations upon the word Necessity: but yet common readers may be imposed upon by such things. You have effectually made good your point against your namesake, p. 94, &c. and in the handsomest manner. I hope he will learn to understand a question, before he again takes upon him to censure: he was too precipitate, but intended well. I am hugely pleased with your Postscript. You stand upon firm ground, where it will be impossible for the adverse party to attack you with any success. You will blow them off like a feather, come they ever so many of them: that I perceive plainly: for they have indeed nothing to produce, but what to a person of your discernment will soon appear to be lighter than vanity. You have very softly intimated to them, how it is with them. If they have any sense in them, they will be quiet for the future. But if they are as wrong-headed in point of prudence as well as in point of speculation, they must go on, to be exposed thoroughly; and there is no help for them.

Upon reading your account of moral good and evil, (p. 50,) and some hints dropped (p. 458) about God's graciously ordaining that this world should appear good and desirable to us; a few out-of-the-way thoughts came across my mind; which, because I see I have blank paper enough left, I shall here communicate, for you to muse upon at leisure.

I consider that moral goodness or moral virtue in men is not merely choosing or willing natural good, but choosing it without view to present rewards. For please to ob

A tract by the Rev. John Jackson, entitled, Calumny no Conviction, or a Vindication of the Plea for Human Reason.

Mr. Law's Case of Reason.

serve how the case stands. The greatest natural good of all is so provided for by God himself, by the strong appetites he has implanted in men, or the necessities he has laid them under, that there is no moral goodness, no virtue at all in choosing it. The greatest natural good I call what concerns the being of the moral world; and the second greatest what concerns their well-being. Now God has taken care to preserve the world in being, to continue both the species and the individual; 1, by implanting a very strong love of life in every man; 2, by the appetites of hunger and thirst; 3, by warm desires for propagating the species; 4, by the σropyǹ of parents towards their offspring; 5, by necessitating men to unite in society and mutual offices of trade, traffick, &c. Upon these five articles depends the very being of mankind: and God would not trust such weighty things as these to the weak reason of man, but has provided for them by never-failing appetites and necessities; insomuch that there is no virtue in choosing these actions, but in regulating or moderating them. There is no moral goodness in eating and drinking, though a natural good, necessary to keep up life; no moral goodness in propagating the species, though that also must come under the notion of choosing natural good; no moral goodness in pursuing the σropy before mentioned, nor in carrying on any trade for the service of the world; though without these things the world could not subsist. Moral goodness, therefore, lies not in choosing the greatest natural good, but in choosing any natural good when not impelled to it by necessity, nor moved by present pleasure or reward. Eating and drinking is not virtue, because we do it to satisfy hunger and thirst, and to please the appetite: but the virtue is in regulating and moderating the appetite, that that very appetite which is necessary for the being of the world, may not be carried to such an excess as to disturb its well-being. The like may be said of the rest.

Moral goodness, therefore, is choosing natural good,

would be irrational for a dependent being to choose such natural good for no reward at all, therefore to complete the notion of moral goodness, in a dependent being, we must take in the consideration of future rewards: and so, the full definition of moral good, will be, the willing or choosing actions naturally good for the world, without view to any reward here, but with a view to future recompense only. So much for the notion of moral goodness in a dependent being. But if you ask what it is in a being independent; it is choosing actions naturally good without view to self-interest at all, present or future, ex mero

motu.

The principles I have here mentioned, may, I think, be pursued a great deal farther, in several useful corollaries, or other superstructure: but I shall not forestall your own thoughts. Only pardon me for offering them in this plain and immethodical dress, just as they occurred. I had no time to throw them into neater form, and it is not necessary in writing to a person that made things before confused become clear. If I live to return to Cambridge, and to meet you there, we may then more thoroughly discuss points of this nature.. In the mean while, if it may lie in my power to do you any service with a great man, I shall be heartily glad to do it: and I believe it will not be long before I shall see him. In ten days time, or thereabout, you may expect a trifle of mine now in the press ".

I am, good Sir,

Your affectionate Friend and faithful humble Servant,

DAN. WATERLAND.

" Probably, his second Charge on Infidelity, which was delivered and published in this year.