But this is not all. We find within ourselves a will, and are conscious of a character. Now if this, in us, be reconcilable with fate, it is reconcilable with it in the Author of nature. Besides, natural government and final causes imply a character and a will in the Governor and Designer;[107] a will concerning the creatures whom he governs. The Author of nature then being certainly of some character or other, notwithstanding necessity; it is evident this necessity is as reconcilable with the particular character of benevolence, veracity, and justice, in him, which attributes are the foundation of religion, as with any other character: since we find this necessity no more hinders _men_ from being benevolent, than cruel; true, than faithless; just, than unjust; or, if the fatalist pleases, what we call unjust. It is said indeed, that what, upon supposition of freedom, would be just punishment, upon supposition of necessity, becomes manifestly unjust: because it is punishment inflicted for doing that which persons could not avoid doing. As if the necessity, which is supposed to destroy the injustice of murder, for instance, would not also destroy the injustice of punishing it! However, as little to the purpose as this objection is in itself, it is very much to the purpose to observe from it, how the notions of justice and injustice remain, even while we endeavor to suppose them removed; how they force themselves upon the mind, even while we are making suppositions destructive of them: for there is not, perhaps, a man in the world, but would be ready to make this objection at first thought. But though it is most evident, that universal necessity, if it be reconcilable with any thing, is reconcilable with that character in the Author of nature, which is the foundation of religion; “Yet, does it not plainly destroy the _proof_ that he is of that character, and consequently the proof of religion?” By no means. For we find, that happiness and misery are not our _fate_, in any such sense as not to be the consequences of our behavior; but that they are the consequences of it.[108] We find God exercises the same kind of government over us, which a father exercises over his children, and a civil magistrate over his subjects. Now, whatever becomes of abstract questions concerning liberty and necessity, it evidently appears to us, that veracity and justice must be the natural rule and measure of exercising this authority or government, to a Being who can have no competitions, or interfering of interests, with his creatures and his subjects. But as the doctrine of liberty, though we experience its truth, may be perplexed with difficulties, which run up into the most abstruse of all speculations; and as the opinion of necessity seems to be the very basis upon which infidelity grounds itself; it may be of some use to offer a more particular proof of the obligations of religion, which may distinctly be shown not to be destroyed by this opinion.