opinion of T. H almost as there are words Here we learn that God is rich in goodness and will not punish his creatures for that which is his own act Secondly that he suffers and forbeares sinners long and doth not snatch them away by sudden death as they deserve Thirdly that the reason of Gods forbearance is to bring men to repentance Fourthly that hardness of heart and impenitency is not causally from God but from our selves Fiftly that it is not the insufficient proposal of the means of their conversion on Gods ' part which is the cause of mens perdition but their own contempt and despising of these means Sixtly that punishment is not an act of absolute dominion but an act of righteous judgement whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves eternal life to those who continue patiently in well-doing If they deserve such punishment who only neglect the goodness and long suffering of God what do they who utterly deny it and make Gods doing and his suffering to be all one I do beseech T. H. to consider what a degree of wilfulness it is out of one obscure text wholly misunderstood to contradict the clear current of the whole Scripture Of the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 22. The long suffering of God waited once in the daies of Noah And 2 Pet. 3. 15. Account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation This is the name God gives himself Exod. 34. 6. The Lord the Lord God mercyful and gracious long suffering c. b Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be commonly true That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent will or by a consequent will either by an operative will or by a permissive will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man to suffer that to be done which otherwise he would not suffer So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the Lions den to make good his rash decree So Herod suffered John Baptist to be beheaded to make good his rash oath How much more may the immutable rule of justice in God and his fidelity in keeping his word draw from him the punishment of obstinate sinners though antecedently he willeth their conversion He loveth all his creatures well but his own Justice better Again sometimes a man suffereth that to be done which he doth not will directly in it self but indirectly for some other end or for the producing of some greater good As a man willeth that a putrid member be cut off from his body to save the life of the whole Or as a Judge being desirous to save a malefactors life and having power to reprieve him doth yet condemn him for example sake that by the death of one he may save the lives of many Marvel not then if God suffer some creatures to take such courses as tend to their own ruine so long as their sufferings do make for the greater manifestation of his glory and for the greater benefit of his faithful servants This is a most certain truth that God would not suffer evil to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evil Yet this ought not to be understood as if we made any priority or posteriority of time in the acts of God but onely of Nature Nor do we make the antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another because the one respects man pure and uncorrupted the other respects him as he is lapsed The objects are the same but considered after a diverse manner Nor yet do we make these wills to be distinct in God for they are the same with the divine essence which is one But the distinction is in order to the objects or things willed Nor lastly do we make this permission to be a naked or a meer permission God causeth all good pemitteth all evil disposeth all things both good and evill c T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evill by a general but not by a speciall influence As the Earth gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yeilds food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the general nourishment of the Earth but from the special quality of the root Even so the general power to act is from God In him we live and move and have our being This is good But the specification and determination of this general power to the doing of any evill is from our selves and proceeds from the free will of man This is bad And to speak properly the free will of man is not the efficient cause of sin as the root of the Hemlock is of poison sin having no true entity or being in it as poison hath But rather the deficient cause Now no defect can flow from him who is the highest perfection d Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God The general power to act is from God but the specification of this general and good power to murther or to any particular evil is not from God but from the free will of man So T. H. may see clearly if he will how one may be the cause of the Law and likewise of the action in some sort that is by general influence and yet another cause concurring by special influence and determining this general and good power may make it self the true cause of the anomy or the irregularity And therefore he may keep his longer and shorter garments for some other occasion Certainly they will not fit this subject unless he could make general and special influence to be all one But T. H. presseth yet further that the case is the same and the objection used by the Jews ver 19. Why doth he yet find fault who hath resisted his will is the very same with my argument And St. Pauls answer ver 20. O man who art thou that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over his Clay c is the very same with his answer in this place drawn from the irresistible power and absolute dominion of God which justifieth all his actions And that the Apostle in his answer doth not deny that it was Gods will nor that Gods decree was before Esaus sin To which I reply First that the case is
two faculties of the same soul no absolute necessity but meerly upon supposition And therefore the same Authors who matntain that the judgement of the understanding doth necessarily determine the will do yet much more earnestly oppugne T. H. his absolute necessity of all occurrences Suppose the Will shall apply the understanding to deliberate and not require a review Suppose the dictate of the understanding shall be absolute not this or that indifferently nor this rather than that comparatively but this positively nor this freely but this necessarily And suppose the will do will efficaciously and do not suspend its own act Then here is a necessity indeed but neither absolute nor extrinsecal nor antecedent flowing from a concourse of causes without our selves but a necessity upon supposition which we do readily grant So far T. H. is wide from the truth whilest he maintains either that the apprehension of a greater good doth neessitate the Will or that this is an absolute necessity b Lastly whereas he saith that the nature of election doth consist in following our hopes and fears I cannot but observe that there is not one word of Art in this whole treatife which he useth in the right sence I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity nor out of a contempt of former Writers nor out of a desire to take in sunder the whole frame of Learning and new mould it after his own mind It were to be wished that at least he would give us a new Dictionary that we might understand his sence But because this is but touched here sparingly and upon the by I will forbear it until I meet with it again in its proper place And for the present it shall suffise to say that hopes and fears are common to brute Beasts but election is a rational act and is proper only to man who is Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae T. H. THE second place of Scripture is Josh. 24. 15. The third is 2 Sam. 24. 12. whereby t is clearly proved that there is election in man but not proved that such election was not necessitated by the hopes and fears and considerations of good and bad to follow which depend not on the Will nor are subject to election And therefore one answer serves all such places if they were a thousand J. D. THis answer being the very same with the former word for word which hath already sufficiently been shaken in pieces doth require no new reply Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb VII a THere is no thing said with more show of reason in this cause by the Patrons of Necessity then this that the Wil doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding or the last judgement of right reason c. Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary and justly for first this very act of the understanding is an effect of the Will c. I note here first that the Bishop is mistaken in saying that I or any other Patron of Necessity are of opinion that the Will followes alwayes the last judgement of right Reason For it followeth as well the judgement of an erroneous as of a true reasoning and the truth in general is that it followeth the last opinion of the goodness or evilness of the object be the opinion true or false Secondly I note that in making the understanding to be an effect of the Will he thinketh a man may have a will to that which he not so much as thinks on And in saying that it is the Will which affecting some particular good doth ingage and command the Understanding to consult c. That he not onely thinketh the Will affecteth a particular good before the man understands it to be good but also he thinketh that these words doth command the understanding and these for it belongs to the Will as to the General of an Army to move the other powers of the soul to their acts and a great many more that follow which are not sense but meer confusion emptiness as for example The understanding doth determine the will not Naturally but Morally and The will is moved by the understanding is unintelligible Moved not as by an Efficient is non-sense And where he saith that it is ridiculous to say the object of the sight is the cause of seeing he showeth so clearly that he understandeth nothing at all of Natural Philosophy that I am sorry I had the ill fortune to be engaged with him in a dispute of this kind There is nothing that the simplest Country Man could say so absurdly concerning the understanding as this of the Bishop the judgement of the understanding is not alwaies practicè practicum A Country Man will acknowledge there is judgement in Men but will as soon say the judgement of the judgement as the judgement of the understanding And if practicè practicum had been sense he might have made a shift to put it into English Much more followeth of this stuff b Lastly whereas he saith that the nature of Election doth consist in following our hopes and fears I cannot but observe that there is not one word of Art in this whole treatise which he useth in the right sense I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity nor out of a contempt of former Writers c. He might have said there is not a word of Jargon nor Nonsense and that it proceedeth from an affectation of truth and contempt of metaphysical Writers and a desire to reduce into frame the Learning which they have confounded and disordered T. H. SUpposing it seemes I might answer as I have done that Numb 8. Necessity and Election might stand together and instance in the actions of Children Fooles and brute Beasts whose fancies I might say are necessitated and determined to one before these his proofs out of Scripture he desires to prevent that instance and therefore sayes that the actions of children fooles mad-men and beasts are indeed determined but that they proceed not from election nor from free but from spontaneous Agents As for example that the Bee when it maketh honey does it spontaneously And when the Spider makes his webb he does it spontaneously and not by election Though I never meant to ground any answer upon the experience of what children fools mad-men and beasts do yet that your Lordship may understand what can be meant by spontaneous and how it differs from voluntary I will answer that distinction and shew that it fighteth against its fellow Arguments Your Lordship therefore is to consider that all voluntary actions where the thing that induceth the will is not fear are called also spontaneous and said to be done by a mans own accord As when a man giveth money voluntarily to another for Merchandise or out of affection he is said to do it of his own accord which in Latin is Sponte and therefore the action is spontaneous Though to give
Lipsius that a Fate is a series or order of causes depending upon the Divine counsel though the Divines thought he came to near them as he thinks I do now And the reason why he was cautelous was because being a member of the Romish Church he had little confidence in the judgment and lenity of the Romish Clergie and not because he thought he had over-shot himself b Concerning the other distinction of liberty in respect of the first cause and liberty in respect of the second causes though he will not see that which it concerned him to answer c. as namely that the faculty of willing c. I answer that distinction he alledgeth not to bee mine but the Stoicks and therefore I had no reason to take notice of it for he disputeth not against me but others And whereas he says it concerned me to make that answer which he hath set down in the words following I cannot conceive how it concerneth me whatsoever it may do somebody else to soâ—aâ— absurdly I said that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next and immediate to it which can not be doubted and though he deny it he does not disprove it For when he says those things which God wills without himself he wills freely and not necessarily He says rashly and untruly Rashly because there is nothing without God who is Infinite in whom are all things and in whom we live move and have our being and untruly because whatsoever God foreknew from eternity he willed from eternity and therefore necessarily But against this he argueth thus Whatsoever cause acts or works necessarily doth work or act all that it can do or all that is in its power but it is evident that God doth not all things which he can do c. In things inanimate the action is alwaies according to the extent of its power not taking in the Power of Willing because they have it not But in those things that have Wilâ— the action is according to the wâ—ole Power wiâ—â— and all It is true that God doth not all things that he can do if he will but that he can Will that which he hath not Willed from all eternity I deny unlesse that he can not only Wil a change but also change his wil which all Divines say is immutable and then they must needs be necessary effects that proceed from God And his Texts God could have raised up Children unto Abraham c. And sent twelve Legions of Angels c. make nothing against the necessity of those actions which from the first cause proceed immediately J. D. THirdly they distinguish between liberty from compulsion Numb 19. and liberty from necessitation The Will say they is free from compulsion but not free from necessitation And this they fortifie with two reasons First because it is granted by all Divines that hypothetical necessity or necessity upon a supposition may consist with liberty Secondly because God and the good Angels do good necessarily and yet are more free than we To the first reason I confess that necessity upon a supposition may sometimes consist with true liberty as when it signifies onely an infallible certitude of the understanding in that which it knows to be or that it shall be But if the supposition be not in the Agents power nor depend upon any thing that is in his power If there be an exteriour antecedent cause which doth necessitate the effect to call this free is to be mad with reason To the second reason I confess that God and the good Angels are more free than we are that is intensively in the degree of freedom but not extensively in the latitude of the object according to a liberty of exercise but not of specification A liberty of exercise that is to do or not to do may consist well with a necessity of specification or a determination to the doing of good But a liberty of exercise and a necessity of exercise A liberty of specification and a necessity of specification are not compatible nor can consist together He that is antecedently necessitated to do evil is not free to do good So this instance is nothing at all to the purpose T. H. BUT the distinction of free into free from compulsion and free from necessitation I acknowledg for to be free from compulsion is to do a thing so as terrour be not the cause of his will to do it for a man is then onely said to be compelled when fear makes him willing to it as when a man willingly throws his goods into the Sea to save himself or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed Thus all men that do any thing from love or revenge or lust are free from compulsion and yet their actions may be as necessary as those which are done upon compulsion for sometimes other passions work as forcibly as fear But free from necessitation I say nothing can be And 't is that which he undertook to disproove This distinction he sayes useth to be fortified by two reasons But they are not mine The first he sayes is That it is granted by all Divines that an hypothetical necessity or necessity upon supposition may stand with liberty That you may understand this I will give you an example of hypotheticall necessity If I shall live I shall eat this is an hypotheticall necessity Indeed it is a necessary proposition that is to say it is necessary that that proposition should be true whensoever uttered but t is not the necessity of the thing nor is it therefore necessary that the man shall live or that the man shall eat I do not use to fortifie my distinctions with such reasons Let him confute them as he will it contents me But I would have your Lordship take notice hereby how an easy and plain thing but withal false may be with the grave usage of such words as hypotheticall necessity and necessity upon supposition and such like tearms of Schoolmen obscur'd and made to seem profound learning The second reason that may confirm the distinction of free from compulsion and free from necessitation he sayes is that God and good Angels do good necessarily and yet are more free than we This reason though I had no need of it yet I think it so far forth good as it is true that God and good Angels do good necessarily and yet are free but because I find not in the Articles of our Faith nor in the Decrees of our Church set down in what manner I am to conceive God and good Angels to work by necessity or in what sense they work freely I suspend my sentence in that point and am content that there may be a freedom from compulsion and yet no freedom from necessitation as hath been prooved in that that a man may be necessitated to some actions without threats and without fear of danger But how he can avoid the consisting together of freedom and
Liberty which is the question between us in stead of necessitated he puts in not free And therefore to say a man is free till he hath made an end of Deliberating is no contradiction to absolute and antecedent necessity And whereas he adds presently after that I ascribe the necessitation of a man in â—ree acts to his own deliberation and in indeliberate acts to his last thoughts he mistakes the matter for I ascribe all necessity to the universal Series or Order of causes depending on the first cause eternal Which the Bishop understâ—ndetâ— as if I had said in his Phrase to a special influence of extrinsecal causes that is understandeth it not at all c Again Liberty saith he is an absence of extrinsecal impeâ—imentâ— but Deliberation doth produce no new extrinsecall impediment therefore either he is free after Deliberation or he was not free before I canâ—ot perceive in these words any more force of inference then of so many other words whatsoever put together at adventure But be his meaning what he Wil I say not that deliberation porduceth any impediments for there are no impediments but to the Action â—hilst we are endeavouring to do it which is not till we have done deliberating But during the Deliberation there arise thoughts in him that deliberateth concerning the consequence of the action whereof he deliberateth which cause the action following which are not impediments to that which was not done but the causes of that which was done That which followeth in this Number is not intelligible by reason of the insignificance of these words understanding directeth Will electeth hypothetical necessity which are but Jargon and his divided sense and compounded sense non sense And this also Liberty respecteth not future acts onely but present acts also is unintelli ible For how can a man have Liberty to do or not to do that which is at the same instant already done For where he addeth otherwise God did not freely create the World it proves nothing because he had the Liberty to create it before it was created Besides it is a pâ—rphancing of the name of God to make instances of his incomprehensible working in a question as this is meerly natural T. H. FIftly I conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner Num. 29. Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and in the intrinsecal quality of the Agent As for example the water is said to descend freely or to have liberty to descend by the Chanel of the River because there is no impediment that way but not across because the banks are impediments And though water cannot ascend yet men never say it wants the liberty to ascend but the faculty or power because the impediment is in the nature of the water and intrinsecall So also we say he that is tied wants the liberty to go because the impediment is not in him but in his bonâ—s whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame bâ—cause the impediment is in himself J. D. a HOw that should be a right definition of liberty which comprehends neither the Genus nor the Difference neither the Matter nor the Form of liberty which doth not so much as accidentally describe liberty by its marks and tokens How a real faculty or the Elective power should be defined by a negation or by an absence is past my understanding and contrary to all the rules of right Reason which I have learned Negatives cannot explicate the nature of things defined By this definition a stone hath liberty to ascend into the aire because there is no outward impediment to hinder it and so a violent act may be a free act Just like his definit on are his instances of the liberty of the water to descend down the Channell and a sick or a lame mans liberty to go The later is an impotence and not a power or a liberty The former is so far from being a free act that it is scarce a natural act Certainly the proper natural motion of water as of all heavy bodies is to descend directly downwards towards the center as we see in rain which falls down perpendicularly Though this be far from a free act which proceeds from a rational appetite yet it is a natural act and proceeds from a natural appetite and hath its reason within in it self So hath not the current of the river in its Channel which must not be ascribed to the proper nature of the water but either to the general order of the universe for the better being and preservation of the creatures otherwise the waters should not moove in Seas and Rivers as they do but cover the face of the earth and possess their proper place between the aire and the earth according to the degree of their gravity Or to an extrinsecal principle whilst one particle of water thrusteth and forceth forward another and so comes a current or at least so comes the current to be more impetuous to which motion the position of the earth doth contribute much both by restraining that fluid body with its banks from dispersing it self and also by affording way for a fair and easy descent by its proclivity He tells us sadly that the water wants liberty to go over the banks because there is an extrinsecal impediment But to ascend up the channel it wants not liberty but power Why Liberty is a power if it want power to ascend it wants liberty to ascend But he makes the reason why the water ascends not up the channel to be intrinsecal and the reason why it ascends not over the banks to be extrinsecal as if there were not a rising of the ground up the channel as well as up the banks though it be not so discernable nor alwayes so sudden The natural appetite of the water is as much against the ascending over the banks as the ascending up the channel And the extrinsecal impediment is as great in ascending up the channel as over the banks or rather greater because there it must moove not onely against the rising soil but also against the succeeding waters which press forward the former Either the River wants liberty for both or else it wants liberty for neither But to leave his metaphorical faculties and his Catachrestical Liberty How far is his discourse wide from the true moral liberty which is in question between us His former description of a free Agent that is he who hath not made an end of deliberating though it was wide from the mark yet it came much neerer the truth than this difinition of Liberty unless perhaps he think that the water hath done deliberating whether it will go over the banks but hath not done deliberating whether it will go up the channel Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXIX a HOw that should be a right definition of Liberty which comprehends neither the Genus nor the Difference neither the Matter nor the
by general influence which is evermore requisite Angels or men by perswading evill spirits by tempting the object or end by its appetibility the understanding by directing So passions and acquired habits But I deny that any of these do necessitate or can necessitate the will of man by determining it Physically to one except God alone who doth it rarely in extraordinary cases And where there is no antecedent determination to one there is no absolute necessity but true Liberry b His second argument is ex concessis It is out of controversie saith he that of voluntary actions the will is a necessary cause The argument may be thus reduced Necessary causes produce necessary effects but the Will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions I might deny his major Necessary causes do not alwayes produce necessary effects except they be also necessarily produâ—ed as I have shewed before in the burning of Protagoras his book But I answer cleerly to the minor that the will is not a necessary cause of what it wills in particular actions It is without controversie indeed for it is without all probability That it wills when it wills is necessary but that it wills this or that now or then is free More expresly the act of the will may be considered three wayes Either in respect of its nature or in respect of its exercise or in respect of its object First for the nature of the act That which the will wills is necessarily voluntary because the will cannot be compelled And in this sense it is out of controversie that the will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions Secondly for the exercise of its acts that is not necessary The will may either will or suspend its act Thirdly for the object that is not necessary but free the will is not extrinsecally determined to its objects As for example The Cardinalls meet in the conclave to chose a Pope whom they chose he is necessarily Pope But it is not necessary that they shall chose this or that day Before they were assembled they might defer their assembling when they are assembled they may suspend their election for a day or a week Lastly for the person whom they will choose it is freely in their own power otherwise if the election were not free it were void and no election at all So that which takes its beginning from the will is necessarily voluntary but it is not necessary that the will shall will this or that in particular as it was necessary that the person freely elected should be Pope but it was not necessary either that the election should be at this time or that this man should be elected And therefore voluntary acts in particular have not necessary causes that is they are not necessitated Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXX I Had said that nothing taketh beginning from it self and that the cause of the Will is not the Will it self but something else which it dispâ—seth not of Answering to thiâ— he endeavours to sheâ— us the cause of the Will. a I grant saith he that the Will doth not take beginning from it self for that the faculty of the Wilâ— takes beginning from God who created the soul and powred it into man and endowed it with this power and for that the act of willing takes not beginning from it self but from the faculty or from the power of willing which is in the soul. This is certain finite and participated things cannot be from themselves nor be produced by themselves What would he conclude from hence That therefore the Act of willing takes not its beginning from the faculty of the Wil It is well that he grants finite things as for his participated it signifies nothing here cannot be produced by themselves For out of this I can conclude that the Act of willing is not produced by the faculty of willing He that hath the faculty of willing hath the faculty of willing something in particular And at the same time he hath the faculty of nilling the same If therefore the faculty of willing be the cause he willeth any thing whatsoever for the same reason the faculty of nilling will be the cause at the same time of nilling it and so he shall will and nill the same thing at the same time which is absurd It seems the Bishop had forgot that Matter and Power are indifferent to contrary Forms and contrary Acts. It is somewhat besides the Matter that dâ—termineth it to a certain form and somewhat besides the Power that produceth a certain Act and thence it is that is inferred this that he granteth that nothing can be produced by it self which neverthelesse he presently contradicteth in saying that all men know when a stone descends the beginning is intrinsecal and that the stone mooves in respect of the Form and is moved in respect of the Matter Which is as much to say that the Form moveth the Matter or that the stone moveth it self which before he denied When a stone ascends the beginning of the stones motion was in it self that is to say intrinsecal because it is not the stones motion till the store begins to be moved but the motion that caused it to begin to ascend was a precedent and extrinsecal motion of the hand or other engine that threw it upward And so when it descends the beginning of the stones motion is in the stone but neverthelesse there is a former motion in the ambient Body aire or water that causeth it to descend But because no man can see it most men think there is none though Reason wherewith the Bishop as relying onely upon the Authority of Books troubleth not himself coâ—vince that there is b His second Argument is ex concessis It is out of controversy that of voluntary Actions the Wil is a necessary cause The Argument may be thus reduced Necessary causes produce necessary effects but the Wil is a necessary cause of voluntary Actions I might deny his Major necessary causes do not alwayes produce necessary effects except they be also necessarily produced He has reduced the Argument to non-sense by saying necessary causes produce not necessary effects For necessary effects unlesse he mean such effects as shall necessarily be produced is insignificant Let him consider therefore with what grace he can say necessary causes do not alwayes produce their effects except those effects be also necessarily produced But his answer is chiefly to the Minor and denies that the Wil is not a necessary cause of what it wills in particular Actions That it wills when it wills saith he is necessary but that it wills this or that is free Is it possible for any man to conceive that he that willeth can will any thing but this or that particular thing It is therefore manifest that either the Wil is a necessary cause of this or that or any other particular Action or not the necessary cause of any voluntary Action at all For universal Actions
Besides Gods Decree is his Will and the Bishop hath said formerly that the Will of God is God the Justice of God God c. If therefore God made a Decree according to the Bishops opinion God made himself By which we may see what fine stuffe it is that proceedeth from disputing of Incomprehensibles Again he says if it had been the good pleasure of God he might have made some causes free from necessity seeing that it neither argues any imperfection nor implies any contradiction If God had made either causes or effects free from necessity he had made theâ—â— free from his own Praescience which had been imperfection Perhaps he will say that in these words of his the decree being an act ad extra was freely made by God I take no notice of that act ad extra as being too hot for my fingers Therefore now I take notice of it and say that it is neither Latiâ— nor English nor Sense T. H. THe last thing in which also consisteth the whole controversy Num. 35. Namely that there is no such thing as an Agent which when all things requisite to action are present can nevertheless forbear to produce it or which is all one that there is no such thing as freedom from necessity is easily inferred from that which hath been before alledged For if it be an Agent it can work And if it work there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action and consequently the cause of the action is sufficient And if sufficient then also necessary as hath been proved before J. D. I Wonder that T. H. should confess that the whole weight of this controversy doth rest upon this proposition That there is no such thing as an Agent which when all things requisite to action are present can nevertheless forbear to act And yet bring nothing but such poor Bull-rushes to support it a If it be an Agent saith he it can work what of this A posse ad esse non valet argumentum from can work to will work is a weak inference And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity is another gross inconsequence He proceeds thus Iâ— it work there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action True there wants nothing to produce that which is produced but there may want much to produce that which was intended One horse may pull his heart out and yet not draw the Coach whither it should be if he want the help or concurrence of his fellows And consequently saith he the cause of the action is sufficient Yes sufficient to do what it doth though perhaps with much prejudice to it self but not alwayes sufficient to do what it should do or what it would do As he that begets a Monster should beget a man and would beget a man if he could The last link of his argument follows b And if sufficient then also necessary Stay there by his leave there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency otherwise God himself should not be All-sufficient Thus his Argument is vanished But I will deal more favourably with him and grant him all that which he labours so much in vain to prove That every effect in the world hath sufficient causes Yea more that supposing the determination of the free and contingent causes every effect in the world is necessary c But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean for still it amounts but to an hypothetical necessity and differs as much from that absolute necessity which he maintains as a Gentleman who travels for his pleasure differs from a banished man or a free Subject from a slave Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXV a IF it be an Agent saith he it can work what of this A posse ad esse non valet argumentum from can work to will work is a weak inference And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity is another grosse inconsequence Here he has gotten a just advantage for I should have said if it be an Agent it worketh not it can work But it is an advantage which profiteth little to his cause for if I repeate my argument again in this manner that which is an Agent worketh that which worketh wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth and consequently is thereof a sufficient cause and if a sufficient cause then also a necessary cause his answer will be nothing to the purpose For whereas to these words that which worketh wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth he answereth it is true but there may want much to produce that which was intended it is not contrary to any thing that I have said For I never maintained that whatsoever a man intendeth is necessarily performed but this whatsoever a man performeth iâ— necessarily performed and what he intendeth necessarily intended and that from causes antecedent And therefore to say as he doth that the cause is sufficient to do what it doth but not alwayes sufficient to do what a man should or would do is to say the same that I do For I say not that the cause that bringeth forth a Monster is sufficient to bring forth a man but that every cause is sufficient to produce onely the effect it produceth And if sufficient then also necessary b And if sufficient then also necessary stay there by his leave there is no necessary connection between sufficiency and efficiency otherwise God himself should not be All sufficient All sufficiency signifieth no more when it is attributed to God then Omnipotence and Omnipotence signifieth no more then the Power to do all things that he will But to the production of any thing that is produced the Will of God is as requisite as the rest of his Power and sufficiency And consequently his all sufficiency signifieth not a sufficiency or Power to do those thing he will not But he will deal he says so favourably with me as to grant me all this which I labour he saith so much in vain to prove and adds c But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a Bean for still it amounts but to an Hypothetical necessity If it prove no more it proves no necessity at all for by Hypothetical necessity he means the necessity of this proposition the effect is then when it is whereas necessity is onely said truely of somewhat in future For necessary is that which cannot possibly be otherwise and possibility is alwayes understood of some future time But seeing he granteth so favourably that sufficient causes are necessary causes I shall easily conclude from it that whatsoever those causes do cause are necessary antecedently For if the necessity of the thing produced when produced be in the same instant of time with the existence of its immediate cause then also that immediate cause was in the same instant with the cause by which it was
therefore as it were ridiculous to say that the object of Sight is the cause of Seeing so it is to say that the proposing of the object by the Understanding to the Will is the cause of Willing Here also the Question is brought to this issue Whether the object of Sight be the cause that it is Seen But for these words proposing of the object by the Understanding to the Will I understand them not Again he often useth such words as these The Will willeth the Will suspendeth its act id est the Will willeth not the Understanding proposeth the Understanding understandeth Herein also lyeth the whole Question If they be true I if false He is in the errour Again the whole question is decided when this is decided Whether he that willingly permitteth a thing to be done when without labour danger or diversion of mind he might have hindered it do not Will the doing of it Again the whole Question of Free-will is included in this Whether the Will determine it self Again it is included in this Whether there be an universal Grace which particular men can take without a particular Grace to take it Lastly there be two Questions one Whether a man be free in such things as are within his power to do what he Will another Whether he be free to Will Which is as much as to say because Will is Appetite it is one Question Whether he be free to eat that has an Appetite and another Whether he be feee to have an Appetite In the former Whether a man be free to do what he Will I agree with the Bishop In the latter Whether he be free to Will I dissent from him And therefore all the places of Scripture that he alleadgeth to prove that a man hath liberty to do what he Will are impertinent to the Question If he has not been able to distinguish between these two Questions he has not done well to meddle with either if he has understood them to bring arguments to prove that a man is free to do if he Will is to deale uningenuously and fraudulently with his Readers And thus much for the State of the Question The Fountains of Argument in this Question THe Arguments by which this Question is disputed are drawn from four Fountaines 1. From Authorities 2. From the Inconveniences consequent to either opinion 3. From the Attributes of God 4. From natural Reason The Authorities are of two sorts Divine and Humane Divine are those which are taken from the holy Scriptures Humane also are of two sorts one the Authorities of those men that are generally esteemed to have been learned especially in this Question as the Fathers Schoolmen and old Philosophers the other are the Uulgar and most commonly receaved opinions in the world His Reasons and places of Scripture I will answer the best I am able but his humane Authorities I shall admit and receive as farre as to Scripture and Reason they be consonant and no further And for the Arguments derived from the Attributes of God so farre forth as those Attributes are argumentative that is so farre forth as their significations be conceavable I admit them for Arguments but where they are given for honour onely and signifie nothing but an intention and endeavour to praise and magnifie as much as we can Almighty God there I hold them not for Arguments but for Oblations not for the language but as the Scripture calls them for the calves of our lips which signifie not true nor false or any opinion of our brain but the reverence and devotion of our hearts and therefore they are no sufficient praemises to inferre Truth or convince Falsehood The places of Scripture that make for me are these First Gen. 45. 5. Joseph sayeth to his Brethren that had sold him Be not grieved nor angry with your selves that ye sold me hither For God did send me before you to preserve life And again verse 8. So now it was not you that sent me hither but God And concerning Pharaoh God sayeth Exod. 7. 3. I will harden Pharaohs heart And concerning Sihon King of Hesbon Moses sayeth Deut. 2. 30. The Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate And of Shimei that did curse David David himself sayeth 2 Sam. 16. 10. Let him curse because the Lord hath said unto him curse David and 1 Kings 12 15. The King hearkned not to the People for the curse was from the Lord. And Job disputing this very Question sayeth Job 12. 14. God shutteth man and there can be no opening and vers 16. The deceaved and the deceaver are his and verse 17. He maketh the Judges fools and verse 24. He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the Earth and causeth them to wander in a Wilderness where there is no way and verse 25. He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man And of the King of Assyria God saith I will give him a charge to take the spoile and to take the prey and to tread them down like the mire of the streets Esay 10. 6. And Jeremiah sayth Jer. 10 23. O Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps And to Ezechiel whom God sent as a watchman to the house of Israel God saith thus When a Righeous man doth turne from his righteousness and commit iniquity and I lay a stumbling block before him he shall dye because thou hast not given him warning he shall dye in his sin Eze. 3. 20. Note here God layes the stumbling block yet he that falleth dyeth in his sin which showes that Gods Justice in killing dependeth not on the sin onely And our Saviour saith John 6. 44. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him And St. Peter concerning the dilivering of Christ to the Jews saith thus Acts 2. 23. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken c. And again those Christians to whom Peter and John resorted after they were freed from their troubles about the miracle of curing the lame man praysing God for the same say thus Of a truth against the holy Child Jesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done Acts 4. 27 28. And St. Paul Rom. 9. 16. It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy and verse 18 19 20. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault For who hath resisted his will Nay but O man who art thou that disputest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus And again 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who
by the Event for from the Event we may inferre his Will But his revealed Will which is his Word must be foreknown because it ought to be the rule of our actions Therefore where it is said that God will have all men to be saved it is not meant of his Will internal but of his Commandements or Will revealed as if it had been said God hath given Commandements by following of which all men may be saved So where God saies O Israel how often would I have gathered thee c. as a Hen doth her Chickens but thou wouldest not It is thus to be understood How oft have I by my Prophets given thee such counsell as being followed thou had'st been gathered c. And the like interpretations are to be given to the like places For it is not christian to think if God had the purpose to save all men that any man could be damned because it were a sign of want of power to effect what he would So these words What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done If by them be meant the Almighty power might receave this answer Men might have been kept by it from sinning But when we are to measure God by his revealed Will it is as if he had said What directions what lawes what threatnings could have been used more that I have not used God doth not will and command us to enquire what his Will and Purpose is and accordingly to do it for we shall do that whether we will or not but to look into his Commandements that is as to the Jewes the Law of Moses and as to other People the Lawes of their Country O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help Or as some English Translations have it O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self c. Is literally true but maketh nothing against me for the man that sins willingly whatsoever be the cause of his Will if he be not forgiven hath destroyed himself as being his own act Where it is said They have offered their sons unto Bâ—al which I commanded not nor spake it nor came it into my mind These words nor came it into my mind are by some much insisted on as if they had done it without the Will of God For whatsoever is done comes into Gods mind that is into his knowledge which implyes a certainty of the future action and that certainly an antecedent purpose of God to bring it to passe It cannot therefore be meant God did not will it but that he had not the will to command it But by the way it is to be noted that when God speaks to men concerning his Will and other Attributes he speaks of them as if they were like to those of men to the end he may be understood And therefore to the order of his Work the World wherein one thing followes another so aptly as no man could order it by Designe he gives the name of Will and Purpose For that which we call Designe which is reasoning and thought after thought cannot be properly attributed to God in whose thoughts there is no fore nor after But what shall we answer to the Words in Ecclesiasticus Say not thou it is through the Lord I fell away say not thou he hath caused me to erre If it had not been say not thou but think not thou I should have answered that Ecclesiasticus is Apocrypha and meerly humane authority But it is very true that such words as these are not to be said first because St. Paul forbids it Shall the thing formed saith he say to him that formed it why hast thou made me so Yet true it is that he did so make him Secondly because we ought to attribute nothing to God but what we conceave to be Honourable and we judge nothing Honourable but what we count so amongst our selves and because accusation of man is not Honourable therefore such words are not to be used concerning God Almighty And for the same cause it is not lawful to say that any Action can be done which God hath purposed shall not be done for it is a token of want of the power to hinder it Therefore neither of them is to be said though one of them must needs be true Thus you see how disputing of Gods nature which is incomprehensible driveth men upon one of these two Rocks And this was the cause I was unwilling to have my Answer to the Bishops Doctrine of Liberty published And thus much for comparison of our two opinions with the Scriptures which whether it favour more his or mine I leave to be judged by the Reader And now I come to compare them again by the Inconveniences which may be thought to follow them First the Bishop sayes that this very perswasion that all things come to passe by Necessity is able to overthrow all Societies and Common-wealths in the World The Lawes saith he are unjust which prohibit that which a man cannot possibly shunne Secondly that it maketh superstuous and foolish all Consultations Arts Armes Books Instruments Teachers and Medicines and which is worst Piety and all other Acts of Devotion For if the Event be necessary it will come to pass whatsoever we do and whether we sleep or wake This inference if there were not as well a necessity of the means as there is of the event might be allowed for true But according to my opinion both the event and means are equally necessitated But supposing the inference true it makes as much against him that denies as against him that holds this necessity For I believe the Bishop holds for as certain a truth what shall be shall be as what is is or what has been has been And then the ratiocination of the sick man If I shall recover what need I this unsavoury potion if I shall not recover what good will it do me is a good ratiocination But the Bishop holds that it is necessary he shall recover or not recover Therefore it followes from an opinion of the Bishops as well as from mine that Medicine is superstuous But as Medicine is to Health so is Piety Consultation Arts Armes Books Instruments and Teachers every one to its several â—nd Out of the Bishops opinion it followes as well as from mine that Medicine is superstuous to Health Therefore from his opinion as well as from mine it followeth if such ratiocination were not unsound that Piety Consultation c. are also superstuous to their respective ends And for the superstuity of Lawes whatsoever be the truth of the Question between us they are not superstuous because by the punnishing of one or of a few unjust men they are the cause of justic in a great many But the greatest inconvenience of all that the Bishop pretends may be drawn from this opinion is that God in justice cannot punnish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone It
that my Principles are pernicious both to Piety and Policy and destructive to all Relations c. My answer is that I desire not that he or they should so mispend their time but if they will needs do it I can give them a fit Title for their Book Behemoth against Leviathan He ends his Epistle with so God bless us Which words are good in themseves but to no purpose here but are a Buffonly abusing of the name of God to Calumny A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY FROM Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity J. D. EIther I am free to write this Discourse for Liberty against Necessity or I am not free If I be Numb 1. free I have obteined the cause and ought not to suffer for the truth If I be not free yet I ought not to be blamed since I do it not out of any voluntary election but out of an inevitable Necessity T. H. RIght Honourable I had once resolved to answer J. D'â— objections to my Book De Cive in the first place as that which concerns me most and afterwards to examine this discoâ—â—se of Liberty and Necessity which because I never had uttered my opinion of it concerned me the less But seeing it was both your Lordships and J. D s. desire that I should begin with the later I was contented so to do And here I present and submit it to your Lordships judgement J. D. a THe first day that I did read over T. H. his defence of the necessity of all things was April 20. 1646. Which proceeded not out of any disrespect to him for if all his discourses had been Geometrical demonstrations able not onely to perswade but also to compel assent all had been one to me first my journey and afterwards some other trifles which we call business having diverted me until then And then my occasions permitting me and an advertisement from a friend awakening me I set my self to a serious examination of it We commonly see those who delight in Paradoxes if they have line enough confute themselves and their speculatives and their practicks familiarly enterfere one with another b The very first words of T. H. his defence trip up the heels of his whole cause I had once resolved To resolve praesupposeth deliberation but what deliberation can there be of that which is inevitably determined by causes without our selves before we do deliberate can a condemned man deliberate whether he should be executed or not It is even to as much purpose as for a man to consult and ponder with himself whether he should draw in his breath or whether he should increase in stature Secondly c to resolve implies a mans dominion over his own actions and his actual determination of himself but he who holds an absolute necessity of all things hath quitted this dominion over himself which is worse hath quitted it to the second extrinsecal causes in which he makes all his actions to be determined one may as well call again Yesterday as resolve or newly determine that which is determined to his hand already d I have perused this treatise weighed T. H his answers considered his reasons and conclude that he hath missed and missed the Question that the answers are evasions that his arguments are paralogisms that the opinion of absolute and universal Necessity is but a result of some groundless and ill chosen principles and that the defect is not in himself but that his cause will admit no better defence and therefore by his favour I am resolved to adhere to my first opinion Perhaps another man reading this discourse with other eyes judgeth it to be pertinent and well founded How comes this to pass the treatise is the same the exteriour causes are the same yet the resolution is contrary Do the second causes play fast and loose do they necessitate me to condemn and necessitate him to maintain what is it then the difference must be in our selves either in our intellectuals because the one sees clearer than the other or in our affections which betray our unsterstandings and produce an implicite adhaerence in the one more than in the other Howsoever it be the difference is in our selves The outward causes alone do not chain me to the one resolution nor him to the other resolution But T. H. may say that our several and respective deliberations and affections are in part the causes of our contrary resolutions and do concur with the outward caufes to make up one total and adaequate cause to the necessary production of this effect If it be so he hath spun a fair thred to make all this stir for such a necessity as no man ever denyed or doubted of when all the causes have actually determined themselves then the effect is in being for though there be a priority in nature between the cause and the effect yet they are together in time And the old rule is e whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is This is no absolute necessity but onely upon supposition that a man hath determined his own liberty When we question whether all occurrences be necessary we do not question whether they be necessary when they are nor whether they be necessary in sensu composito after we have resolved and finally determined what to do but whether they were necessary before they were determined by our selves by or in the praecedent causes before our selves or in the exteriour causes without our selves It is not inconsistent with true Liberty to determine it self but it is inconsistent with true Liberty to be determined by another without it self T. H. saith further that upon your Lorships desire and mine he was contented to begin with this discourse of Liberty and Necessity that is to change his former resolution f If the chain of necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily in sunder if his will was no otherwise determined without himself but onely by the signification of your Lordships desire and my modest intreaty then we may easily conclude that humane affairs are not alwaies governed by absolute necessity that a man is Lord of his own actions if not in chief yet in mean subordinate to the Lord Paramount of Heaven and Earth and that all things are not so absolutely determined in the outward and precedent causes but that fair intreaties and moral perswasions may work upon a good nature so far as to prevent that which otherwise had been and to produce that which otherwise had not been He that can reconcile this with an Antecedent Necessity of all things and a Physical or Natural determination of all causes shall be great Apollo to me Whereas T. H. saith that he had never uttered his opinion of this Question I suppose he intends in writing my conversation with him hath not been frequent yet I remember well that when this Question was agitated between us two in your Lordships Chamber by your command he did then declare himself in words
both for the absolute necessity of all events and for the ground of this necessity the Flux or concatenation of the second causes Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number I. a THe first day that I did read over T. H. his defence of Necessity c. His deferring the reading of my defence of necessity he will not he saith should be interpreted for disrespect T is well though I cannot imagine why he should fear to be thought to disrespect me He was diverted he saith by trifles called business It seems then he acknowledgeth that the will can be diverted by business Which though said on the By is contrary I think to the Mayne that the Will is Free for free it is not if any thing but it self caâ— divert it b The very first words of T. H. his defence trip up the heeles of his whole cause c. How so I had once saith he Resolved To Resolve praesupposeth deliberation But what deliberation can there be of that which is inevitably determined without our selves There is no man doubts but a man may deliberate of what himself shall do whether the thing be impossible or not in case he know not of the impossibility though he cannot deliberate of what another shall do to him Therefore his examples of the man condemned of the man that breatheth and of him that groweth because the Question is not what they shall do but what they shall suffer are impertinent This is so evident that I wonder how he that was before so witty as to say my first words tript up the â—eâ—les of my cause and that having line enough I would confute my self could presently be so dull as not to see his Argument was too weak to support so triumphant a language And whereas he seemeth to be off ended with Paradoxes let him thank the Schoolmen whose senceless writings have made the greatest number of important Truths seeâ— Paradoxe c This Argument that followeth is no better To Resolve saith he implies a mans dominion over his actions and his actual determination of himself c. If he understand what it is to Resolve he knowes that it signifies no more then after deliberation to Will He thinks therefore to Will is to have dominion over his own actions and actually to determine his own Will But no man can determine his own will for the will is appetite nor can a man more determine his will than any other appetite that is more than he can determine when he shall be hungry and when not When a man is hungry it is in his choise to eat or not eat this is the liberty of the man But to be hungry or not hungry which is that which I hold to proceed from necessity is not in his choise Besides these words dominion over his own actions and determination of himself so farre as they are significant make against him For over whatsoever things there is dominion those things are not Free and therefore a mans actions are not Free And if a man determine himself the Question will still remain what determined him to determine himself in that manner d I have perused this Treatise weighed T. H. his answers considered his reasons c. This and that whicâ— followeth is talking to himself at randome till he come to allâ—adge that which he calleth an old rule which is this e Whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is This is no absolute necessity but onely upon supposition that a man hath determined his own liberty c. If the Bishop think that I hold no other Necessity than that which is expressed in that old foolish rule he neither understandeth me nor what the word Necessary signifieth Necessary is that which is impossible to be otherwise or that which cannot possibly otherwise come to passe Therefore Necessary Possible and Impossible have no signification in reference to time past or time present but onely time to come His Necessary and his in sensu composito signifie nothing My Necessary is a Necessary from all Eternity and yet not inconsistent with true Liberty which doth not consist in determining it self but in doing what the Will is determined unto This dominion over it self and this sensus compositus and this determining it self and this necessarily is when it is are confused and empty words f If the chain of Necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily in sunder c. by the signification of your Lordships desire and my modest intreaty then we may safely conclude that humane affairs c. Whether my Lords desire and the Bishops modest intreaty were enough to produce a Will in me to write an answer to his treatise without other concurrent causes I am not sure Obedience to his Lordship did much my civility to the Bishop did somwhat perhaps there were other imaginations of mine own that contributed their part But this I am sure of that alltogether they were sufficient to frame my will thereto and whatsoever is sufficient to produce any thing produceth it as necessarily as the fire necessarily burneth the Fâ—wel that is cast into it And though the Bishops modest intreaty had been no part of the cause of my yeilding to it yet certainly it would have been cause enough to some civil man to have requited me with fairer Language than he hath done throughout this Reply T. H. ANd first I assure your Lordship I find in it no new Argument Numb â— neither from Scripture nor from Reason that I have not often heard before which is as much as to say that I am not supprised J. D. a THough I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort that if he be not supprised then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him and where he failes I may ascribe it to the weakness of his cause not to want of preparation But in this case I like Epictetus his Councell well that b the Sheep should not brag how much they have eaten or what an excellent pasture they do go in but shew it in their Lamb and Wool Opposite answers and downright Arguments advantage a cause To tell what we have heard or seen is to no purpose When a respondent leaves many things untouched as if they were too hot for his Fingers and declines the weight of other things and alters the true state of the Question it is a shrewd sign either that he hath not weighed all things maturely or else that he maintains a desperate cause Animadversions upon his Reply Numb II a THough I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort that if he be not supprised then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him c. Though I were not supprised yet I do not see the reason for which he saith he may expect a more mature answer from me or any further answer
not indeed He who casts his goods into the Sea may do it of his own accord in order to the end Secondly he erres in this also that nothing is opposed to spontaneity but onely fear Invincible and Antecedent ignorance doth destroy the nature of spontaneity or voluntariness by removing that knowledge which should and would have prohibited the action As a man thinking to shoot a wild Beast in a Bush shoots his friend which if he had known he would not have shot This man did not kill his friend of his own accord For the clearer understanding of these things and to know 4. what spontaneity is let us consult a while with the Schools about the distinct order of voluntary or involuntary actions Some acts proceed wholly from an extrinsecal cause as the throwing of a stone upwards a rape or the drawing of a Christian by plain force to the Idols Temple these are called violent acts Secondly some proceed from an intrinsecal cause but without any manner of knowledge of the end as the falling of a stone downwards these are called natural acts Thirdly some proceed from an internal principle with an imperfect knowledge of the end where there is an appetite to the object but no deliberation nor election as the acts of Fools Children Beasts and the inconsiderate act of men of judgement These are called voluntary or spontaneous acts Fourthly some proceed from an intrinsecal cause with a more perfect knowledge of the end which are elected upon deliberation These are called free acts So then the formal reason of liberty is election The necessary requisite to election is deliberation Deliberation implyeth the actual use of reason But deliberation and election cannot possibly subsist with an extrinsecal praedetermination to one How should a man deliberate or choose which way to go who knows that all wayes are shut against him and made impossible to him but onely one This is the genuine sense of these words Voluntary and Spontaneous in this Question Though they were taken twenty other waies vnlgarly or metaphorically as we say spontaneous ulcers where there is no appetite at all yet it were nothing to this controversie which is not about Words but about Things not what the words Voluntary or Free do or may signifie but whether all things be extrinsecally praedetermined to one These grounds being laid for clearing the true sense of the words the next thing to be examined is that contradiction which he hath espied in my discourse or how this Argument fights against his fellows If I saith T. H. make it appear that the spontaneous actions of Fools Children mad Men and Beasts do proceed from election and deliberation and that inconsiderate and indeliberate actions are found in the wisest men then this argument concludes that necessity and election may stand together which is contrary to his assertion If this could be made appear as easily as it is spoken it would concern himself much who when he should prove that rational men are not free from necessity goes about to prove that brute Beasts do deliberate and elect that is as much as to say are free from necessity But it concerns not me at all it is neither my assertion nor my opinion that necessity and election may not meet together in the same subject violent natural spontaneous and deliberate or elective acts may all meet together in the same subject But this I say that necessity and election cannot consist together in the same act He who is determined to one is not free to choose out of more then one To begin with his later supposition that wise men may do inconsiderate and indeliberate actions I do readily admit it But where did he learn to infer a general conclusion from particular premises as thus because wise men do some indeliberate acts therefore no act they do is free or elective Secondly for his former supposition That Fools Children mad Men and Beasts do deliberate and elect if he could make it good it is not I who contradict my self nor fight against mine own assertion but it is he who endeavours to prove that which I altogether deny He may well find a contradiction between him and me otherwise to what end is this dispute But he shall not be able to find a difference between me and my self But the truth is he is not able to proove any such thing and that brings me to my sixth Consideration That neither Horses nor Bees nor Spiders nor Children nor Fools nor Mad-men do deliberate or elect His 6. first instance is in the Horse or Dog but more especially the Horse He told me that I divided my argument into squadrons to apply my self to your Lordship being a Military man And I apprehend that for the same reason he gives his first instance of the Horse with a submission to your own experience So far well but otherwise very disadvantageously to his cause Men use to say of a dull fellow that he hath no more brains than a Horse And the Prophet David saith Be not like the Horse and Mule which have no understanding Psal. 32. 9. How do they deliberate without understanding And Psal. 49. 20. he saith the same of all brute Beasts Man being in honour had no understanding but became like unto the Beasts that perish The Horse dâ—â—urres upon his way Why not Outward objects or inward fancies may produce a stay in his course though he have no judgement either to deliberate or elect He retires from some strange figure which he sees and comes on again to avoid the spur So he may and yet be far enough from deliberation All this proceeds from the sensitive passion of fear which is a perturbation arising from the expectation of some imminent evil But he urgeth what else doth man that deliberateth Yes very much The Horse feareth some outward object but deliberation is a comparing of several means conducing to the same end Fear is commonly of one deliberation of more than one fear is of those things which are not in our power deliberation of those things which are in our power fear ariseth many times out of natural antipathies but in these disconveniences of nature deliberation hath no place at all In a word fear is an enemy to deliberation and betrayeth the succours of the Soul If the Horse did deliberate he should consult with reason whether it were more expedient for him to go that way or not He would represent to himself all the dangers both of going and staying and compare the one with the other and elect that which is less evil He should consider whether it were not better to endure a little hazard than ungratefully and dishonestly to fail in his duty towards his Master who did breed him and doth feed him This the Horse doth not Neither is it possible for him to do it Secondly for Children T. H. confesseth that they may be so young that they do not deliberate at all Afterwards as they
earnest maintainers of the liberty of Adam Therefore none of these supposed impediments take away true liberty T. H. THe fourth Argument is to this effect If the decree of God or his foreknowledge or the influence of the Stars or the concatenation of causes or the physical or morall efficacy of causes or the last dictate of the understanding or whatsoever it be do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulous odi That which I say necessitateth and determineth every action that he may no longer doubt of my meaning is the sum of all those things which being now existent conduce and concurre to the production of that action hereafter whereof if any one thing now â—ere wanting the effect could not be produced This concourse of causes whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like concourse of former causes may well be called in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal cause of all things God Almighty the decree of God But that the fore-knowledge of God should be a cause of any thing cannot be truly said seeing fore-knowledge is knowledge and knowledge dependeth on the existence of the things known and not they on it The influence of the Stars is but a small part of the whole cause consisting of the concourse of all Agents Nor. doth the concourse of all causes make one simple chain or concatenation but an innumerable number of chains joyned together not in all parts but in the first link God Almighty and consequently the whole cause of an event does not alwayes depend upon one single chain but on many together Natural efficacy of objects does determine voluntary Agents and necessitates the Will and consequently the Action but for moral efficacy I understand not what he means by it The last dictate of the judgement concerning the good or bad that may follow on any action is not properly the whole cause but the last part of it And yet may be said to produce the effect necessarily in such manner as the last feather may be said to break an Horses back when there were so many laid on before as there wanted but that to do it Now for his Argument That if the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect that then it follows Adam had no true liberty I deny the consequence for I make not only the effect but also the election of that particular effect to be necessary in as much as the Will it self and each propension of a man during his deliberation is as much necessitated and depends on a sufficient cause as any thing else whatsoever As for example it is no more necessary that fire should burn then that a man or other creature whose limbs be moved by fancy should have election that is liberty to do what he has a fancy to though it be not in his will or power to choose his fancy or choose his election or will This Doctrine because he saies he hates I doubt had better been suppressed as it should have been if both your Lordship and he had not pressed me to an answer J. D. a THis Argument was sent forth onely as an espie to make a more full discovery what were the true grounds of T. H. his supposed Necessity which errand being done and the foundation whereupon he bnilds being found out which is as I called it a concatenation of causes and as he calls it a concourse of necessary causes It would now be a superfluous and impertineut work in me to undertake the refutation of all those other opinions which he doth not undertake to defend And therefore I shall wave them at the present with these short animadversions b Concerning the eternal decree of God he confounds the decree it self with the execution of his decree And concerning the fore-knowledge of God he confounds that speculative knowledge which is called the knowbedge of vision which doth not produce the intellective objects no more then the sensitive vision doth produce the sensible objects with that other knowledge of God which is called the knowledge of approbation or a practical knowledge that is knowledge joyned with an act of the Will of which Divines do truly say that it is the cause of things as the knowledge of the Artist is the cause of his work God made all things by his word John 1. that is by his wisdom Concerning the influence of the Stars I wish he had expressed himself more clearly For as I do willingly grant that those Heavenly Bodies do act upon these sublunary things not onely by their motion and light but also by an occuit vertue which we call influence as we see by manifold experience in the Loadstone and Shell-fish c. So if he intend that by these influences they do naturally or physically determine the Will or have any direct dominion over humane Counsels either in whole or in part either more or less he is in an errour Concerning the concatenation of causes where as he makes not one chain but an innumerable number of chains I hope he speaks hyperbolically and doth not intend that they are actually infinite the difference is not material whether one or many so long as they are all joyned together both in the first link and likewise in the effect It serves to no end but to shew what a shaddow of liberty T. H. doth fancy or rather what a dream of a shaddow As if one chain were not sufficient to load poor man but he must be clogged with iunumerable chains This is just such another freedom as the Turkish Galli-slaves do enjoy But I admire that T. H. who is so versed in this Question should here confess that he understands not the difference between physical or natural and moral efficacy And much more that he should affirm that outward objects do determine voluntary agents by a natural efficacy No object no second Agent Angel or Devill can determine the Will of man naturally but God alone in respect of his supreme dominion over all things Then the Will is determined naturally when God Almighty besides his general influence where upon all second causes do depend as well for their being as for their acting doth moreover at some times when it pleases him in cases extraordinary concurre by a special influence and infuse something into the Will in the nature of an act or an habit whereby the Will is moved and excited and applyed to will or choose this or that Then the Will is determined morally when some object is proposed to it with perswasive reasons and arguments to induce it to will Where the determination is natural the liberty to suspend its act is taken away from the will but not so where the determination is moral In the former case the Will is determined extrinsecally in the later case intrinsecally The former produceth an absolute necessity the later onely a necessity of supposition
If the Will do not suspend but assent then the act is necessary but because the Will may suspend and not assent therefore it is not absolutely necessary In the former case the Will is moved necessarily and determinately In the later freely and indeterminately The former excitation is immediate the later is mediaté mediante intellectu and requires the help of the understanding In a word so great a difference there is between natural and moral efficacy as there is between his opinion and mine in this Question There remains onely the last dictate of the understanding which he maketh to be the last cause that concurreth to the determination of the Will and to the necessary production of the act as the last feather may be said to break an Horses back when there were somany laid on before that there wanted but that to do it I have shewed Numb 7. that the last dictate of the understanding is not alwaies absolute in it self nor conclusive to the Will and when it is conclusive yet it produceth no antecedent nor extrinsecal Necessity I shall only ad one thing more in present That by making the last judgement of right reason to be of no more weight then a single feather he wrongs the understanding as well as he doth the Will and endeavonrs to deprive the Will of its supreme power of application and to deprive the understanding of its supreme power of judicature and definition Neither corporeal agents and objects nor yet the sensitive appetite it self being an inferiour faculty and affixed to the Organ of the Body have any direct or immediate dominion or command over the rational Will It is without the sphear of their activity All the access which they have unto the Will is by the means of the understanding sometimes cleare and sometimes disturbed and of reason either right or mis-informed Without the help of the understanding all his second causes were not able of themselves to load the Horses back with so much weight as the least of all his feathers doth amount unto But we shall meet with his Horse load of feathers again Numb 23. These things being thus briefly touched he proceeds to his answer My argument was this If any of these â—rall these causes formerly recited do take away true liberty that is still intended from necessity then Adam before his fall had no true liberty But Adam before his fall had true liberty He mis-recites the argument and denies the consequence which is so clearly proved that no man living can doubt of it Because Adam was subjected to all the same causes as well as we the same decree the same prescience the same influences the same concourse of causes the same efficacy of objects the same dictates of reason But it is onely a mistake for it appears plainly by his following discourse that he intended to deny not the consequence but the assumption For he makes Adam to have had no liberty from necessity before his fall yea he proceeds so far as to affirm that all humane wills his and ours and each propension of our wills even during our deliberation are as much necessitated as any thing else whatsoever that we have no more power to forbear those actions which we do than the fire hath power not to burn Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning yet I must confess ingeniously I hate this Doctrine from my heart And I believe both I have reason so to do and al others who shall seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it It destroyes liberty dishonours the nature of Man It makes the second causes outward objects to be the Rackets and Men to be but the Tennis-Balls of destiny It makes the first cause that is God Almighty to be the introducer of all evil and sin into the world as much as Man yea more than Man by as much as the motion of the Watch is more from the Artificer who did make it and wind it up than either from the spring or the wheels or the thred if God by his special influence into the second causes did necessitate them to operate as they did And if they being thus determined did necessitate Adam inevitably irresistably not by an accidental but by an essential subordination of causes to whatsoever he did Then one of these two absurdities must needs follow either that Adam did not sin and that there is no such thing as sin in the world because it proceeds naturally necssarily and essentially from God Or that God is more guilty of it and more the cause of evil than Man because Man is extrinsecally inevitably determined but so is not God And in causes essentially subordinate the cause of the cause is alwaies the cause of the effect What Tyrant did ever impose Lawes that were impossible for those to keep upon whom they were imposed and punish them for breaking those Laws which he himself had necessitated them to break which it was no more in their power not to break than it is in the power of the fire not to burn Excuse me if I hate this Doctrine with a perfect hatred which is so dishonourable both to God and Man which makes Men to blaspheme of necessity to steal of necessity to be hanged of necessity and to be damned of necessity And therefore I must say and say again Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulous odi It were better to be an Atheist to believe no God or to be a Manichee to believe two Gods a God of good and a God of evil or with the Heathens to believe thirty thousand Gods than thus to charge the true God to be the proper cause and the true Author of all the sins and evills which are in the world Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XI aTHis Argument was sent forth only as an espie to make a more full discovery what were the true grounds of T. H. his supposed Necessity The Argument which he sendeth forth as an Espie is this If either the decree of God or the Fore-knowledge of God or the Influence of the Stars or the Concatenation which he saies falsly I call a Concourse of causes or the Physical or Moral Efficacy of objects or the last Dictate of the Understanding do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty In answer whereunto I said that all the things now existent were necessary to the production of the effect to come that the Fore-knowledge of God causeth nothing though the Will do that the influence of the Stars is but a small part of that cause which maketh the Necessity and that this consequence If the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect then Adam had no true liberty was false But in his words if these do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty the consequence is good but then I deny that Necessity takes away Liberty the reason
the sin of David in killing Uriah Nor when one is cause both of the action and of the Law how another can be cause of the disagreement between them no more than how one man making a longer and shorter garment another can make the inequality that is between them This I know God cannot sin because his doing a thing makes it just and consequently no sin And because whatsoever can sin is subject to anothers Law which God is not And therefore t is blasphemy to say God can sin But to say that God can so order the world as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man I do not see how it is any dishonour to him Howsoever if such or other distinctions can make it clear that St. Paul did not think Esaus or Pharaohs actions proceeded from the will and purpose of God or that proceeding from his will could not therefore without injustice be blamed or punished I will as soon as I understand them turn unto J. D's opinion For I now hold nothing in all this Question between us but what seemeth to me not obscurely but most expresly said in this place by Saint Paul And thus much in answer to his places of Scripture J. D. T. H. thinks to kill two birds with one stone and satisfie two Arguments with one answer whereas in truth he satisfieth neither First for my third reason a Though all he say here were as true as an Oracle Though punishment were an act of dominion not of Justice in God yet this is no sufficient cause why God should deny his own act or why he should chide or expostulate with men why they did that which he himself did necessitate them to do and whereof he was the actor more than they they being but as the stone but he the hand that threw it Notwithstanding any thing which is pleaded here this Stoical opinion doth stick hypocrisie and dissimulation close to God who is Truth it self And to my fift Argument which he changeth and relateth amiss as by comparing mine with his may appear His chiefest answer is to oppose a difficult place of St. Paul Rom. 9. 11. Hath he never heard that to propose adoubt is not to answer an Argument Nec bene respondet qni litem lite resolvit But I will not pay him in his own coin Wherefore to this place alledged by him I answer The case is not the same The Question moved there is how God did keep his promise made to Abraham to be the God of him and of his seed if the Jews who were the legimate progeny of Abraham were deserted To which the Apostle answers ver 6 7 8. That that promise was not made to the carnal seed of Abraham that is the Jewes but to his spiritual Sons which were the Heirs of his Faith that is to the beleeving Christians which answer he explicateth first by the Allegory of Isaack and Ishmael and after in the place cited of Esau and of Jacob. Yet neither doth he speak there so much of their persons as of their posterities And though some words may be accommodated to Gods predestination which are there uttered yet it is not the scope of that text to treat of the reprobation of any man to Hell fire All the posterity of Esau were not eternally reprobated as holy Job and many others But this Question which is now agitated between us is quite of another nature how a man can be a criminal who doth nothing but that which he is extrinsecally necessitated to do or how God in Justice can punish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone That he who did imprint the motion in the heart of man should punish man who did only receive the impression from him So his answer looks another way But because he grounds so much upon this text that if it can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion I will examine all those passages which may seem to favour his cause First these words ver 11. being not yet borne neither having done any good or evil upon which the whole weight of his argument doth depend have no reference at all to those words ver 13. Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated for those words were first uttered by the Prophet Malachy many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead Mal. 1. 2. and intended of the posterity of Esau who were not redeemed from captivity as the Israelites were But they are referred to those other words ver 12. The elder shall serve the younger which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were Born Gen. 5. 23. And though those words of Malachy had been used of Jacob and Esau before they were Born yet it had advantaged his cause nothing for hatred in that text doth not signifie any reprobation to the flames of Hell much less the execution of that decree or the actual imposition of punishment nor any act contrary to love God saw all that he had made and it was very good Goodness it self cannot hate that which is good But hatred there signifies Comparative hatred or a less degree of love or at the most a negation of love As Gen. 29. 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated we may not conclude thence that Jocob hated his Wife The precedent verse doth fully expound the sense ver 30. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah So Mat. 6. 24. No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and lóve the other So Luke 14. 26. If any man hate not his Father and Mother c. he cannot be my Disciple St. Matthew tells us the sense of it Mat. 10. 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me Secondly those words ver 15. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy do prove no more but this that the preferring of Jacob before Esau and of the Christians before the Jewes was not a debt from God either to the one or to the other but a work of mercy And what of this All men confess that Gods mercies do exceed mans deserts but Gods punishments do never exceed mans misdeeds As we see in the Parable of the Labourers Matth. 20. Friend I do the no wrong did not I agree with thee for a penny Is it not lawful for me to do with mine own as I will Is thy eye evil because I am good Acts of mercy are free but acts of Justice are due That which followes ver 17. comes something nearer the cause The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh for this same purpose I have raised the up that is I have made thee a King or I have preserved thee that I might shew my power in thee But this particle that doth not alwaies signifie the main end of an action but sometimes only a consequent of it As Matt. 2. 15. He departed into Egypt that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
Prophet out of Egypt have I called my Son without doubt Josephs aim or end of his journey was not to fulfil prophesies but to save the life of the Child Yet because the fulfilling of the prophecy was a consequent of Josephs journey he saith That it might be fulfilled So here I have raised thee up that I might shew my power Again though it should be granted that this particle that did denote the intention of God to destroy Pharaoh in the Red Sea yet it was not the antecedent intention of God which evermore respects the good and benefit of the creature but Gods consequent intention upon the prevision of Pharaohs obstinacy that since he would not glorifie God in obeying his word he should glorifie God undergoing his judgements Hitherto we find no eternal punishments nor no temporal punishment without just deserts It follows ver 18. whom he will he hardneth Indeed hardness of heart is the greatest judgement that God layes upon a sinner in this life worse than all the Plagues of Egypt But how doth God harden the heart not by a natural influence of any evil act or habit into the will nor by inducing the will with perswasive motives to obstinacy and rebellion for God tempteth no man but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and intised Jam. 1. 13. Then God is said to harden the heart three wayes First negativly 1. and not positively not by imparting wickedness but by not imparting grace as the Sun descending to the tropick of Capricorne is said with us to be the cause of Winter that is not by imparting cold but by not imparting heat It is an act of mercy in God to give his grace freely but to detein it is no act of injustice So the Apostle opposeth hardning to shewing of mercy To harden is as much as not to shew mercy Secondly God is said to harden the heart occasionally and not causally by doing good which incorrigible sinners 2. make an occasion of growing worse and worse and doing evil as a Master by often correcting of an untoward Scholar doth accidentally and occasionally harden his heart and render him more obdurate insomuch as he grows even to despise the Rod. Or as an indulgent parent by his patience and gentleness doth incourage an obstinate son to become more rebellious So whether we look upon Gods frequent judgements upon Pharaoh or Gods iterated fauours in removing and withdrawing those judgements upon Pharaohs request both of them in their several kinds were occasions of hardning Pharaohs heart the one making him more presumptuous the other more desperately rebellious So that which was good in it was Gods that which was evil was Pharaohs God gave the occasion but Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration This is clearly confirmed Exod. 8. 15. When Pharaoh saw that there was respite he hardned his heart And Exod. 9. 34. When Pharaoh saw that the Rain and the Hail and the Thunders were ceased he sinned yet more and hardned his heart he and his servants So Psal. 105. 25. He turned their hearts so that they hated his people and dealt subtilly with them That is God blessed the Children of Israel whereupon the Egyptians did take occasion to hate them as is plain Exod. 1. ver 7 8 9 10. So God hardned Pharaohs heart and Pharaoh hardned his own heart God hardned it by not shewing mercy to Pharaoh as he did to Nebuckadnezzar who was as great a sinner as he or God hardned it occasionally but still Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration by determining his own will to evil and confirming himself in his obstinancy So are all presumptuous sinners Psal. 95 8. Harden not your hearts as in the provocation as in the day of temptation in the Wilderness Thirdly God is said to harden the heart permissively 3. but not operatively nor effectively as he who oâ—ly le ts loose a Greyhound out of the slip is said to hound him at the Hare Will you see plainly what St. Paul intends by hardening Read ver 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known that is by a consequent will which in order of nature followes the prevision of sin indured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy c. There is much difference between induring and impelling or inciting the vessels of wrath He saith of the vessels of mercy that God prepared them unto glory But of the vessels of wrath he saith only that they were fitted to destruction that is not by God but by themselves St. Paul saith that God doth endure the vessels of wrath with much long suffering T. H. saith that God wills and effects by the second causes all their actions good and bad that he necessitateth them and determineth them irresistibly to do those acts which he condemneth as evill and for which he punisheth them If doing willingly and enduring If much long suffering and necessitating imply not a contrariety one to another reddat mihi minam Diogenes Let him that taught me Logick give me my money again But T. H. saith that this distinction between the operative and permissive Will of God and that other between the action and the irregularity do dazel his understanding Though he can find no difference between these two yet others do St. Paul himself did Acts 13. 18. About the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the Wilderness And Acts 14. 16. Who in times past suffered all Nations to walk in their own wayes T. H. would make suffering to be inciting their manners to be Gods manners their wayes to be Gods wayes And Acts 17. 30. The times of this ignorance God winked at It was never heard that one was said to wink or connive at that which was his own act And 1 Cor. 10. 13. God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able To tempt is the Devils act therefore he is called the Tempter God tempts no man to sin but he suffers them to be tempted And so suffers that he could hinder Sathan if he would But by T. H. his doctrine To tempt to sin and to suffer one to be tempted to sin when it is in his power to hinder it it is all one And so he transforms God I write it with horrour into the Devil and makes tempting to be Gods own work and the Devil to be but his instrument And in that noted place Rom. 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearrance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thy â—elf wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God Here are as many convincing Arguments in this one text against the
it lies all Law First the eternall Law which is the ordination of divine Wisdom by which all Creaturs are directed to that end which is convenient for them that is not to necessitate them to eternall flames Then the Law participated which is the ordination of right reason instituted for the common good to shew unto man vvhat he ought to do and what he ought not to do To vvhat purpose is it to shevv the right vvay to him vvho is dravvn and haled a contrary vvay by Adamantine bonds of inevitalbe necessity g Lastly hovvsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin For he makes him to be the cause not onely of the Lavv and of the action but even of the irregularity it self and the difference betvveen the Action and the Lavv vvherein the very essence of sin doth consist He makes God to determine Davids Will and necessitate him to kill Uriah In causes physically and essentially subordiuate the cause of the cause is evermore the casue of the effect These are those deadly fruits vvhich spring from the poisonous root of the absolute necessity of all things vvhich T. H. seeing and that neither the sins of Esau nor Pharaoh nor any vvicked person do proceed from the operative but from the permissive Will of God and that punishment is an act of Justice not of dominion onely I hope that according to his promise he vvill change his opinion Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XII THE Bishop had argued in this manner If there be no Liberty there shall be no last Judgement no Revvards nor Punishments after death To this I answered that though God cannot sin because what he doth his doing maketh just and because he is not subject to anothers Law and that therefore it is blasphemy to say that God can sin yet to say that God hath so ordered the world that sin may necessarily be committed is not blasphemy And I can also further say though God be the cause of all motion and of all actions and therefore unless sin be no motion nor action it must derive a necessity from the first mover nevertheless it cannot be said that God is the Author of sin because not he that necessitateth an action but he that doth command and warrant it is the Author And if God own an action though otherwise it were sin it is now no sin The act of the Israelites in robbing the Egyptians of their Jewels without Gods warrant had been theft But it was neither theft cousonage nor sin supposing they knew the warrant was from God The rest of my answer to that inconvenience was an opposing to his inconveniences the manifest Texts of St. Paul Rom. 9. The substance of his Reply to my Answer is this a Though punishment vvere an act of dominion not of Justice in God yet this is no sufficient cause vvhy God should deny his ovvn act or vvhy he should chide or expostulate vvith men vvhy they did that vvhich he himself did necessitate them to do I never said that God denied his act but that he may expostulate with men And this may be I shall never say directly it is the reason of that his expostulation viz. to convince them that their wills were not independent but were his meer gift and that to do or not to do is not in him that willeth but in God that hath mercy on or hardeneth whom he will But the Bishop interpreteth hardening to be a permission of God Which is to attribute to God in such actions no more than he might have attributed to any of Pharaohs servants the not perswading their Master to let the People goe And whereas he compares this permission to the indulgence of a parent that by his patience incourageth his son to become more rebellious which indulgence is a sin he maketh God to be like a sinful man And indeed it seemeth that all they that hold this Freedome of the Will concieve of God no otherwise than the common sort of Jewes did that God was like a man that he had been seen by Moses and after by the seventy Elders Exod 9. 10. Expounding that and other places literally Again he saith that God is said to harden the heart permissively but not operatively which is the same distinction with his first namely negatively not positively and with his second occasionally and not causally so that all his three wayes how God hardens the heart of wicked meu come to this one of permission which is as much as to say God sees looks on and dâ—th nothing nor ever did any thing in the business Thus you see how the Bishoâ— expoundeth St. Paul Therefore I will leave the rest of his â—…mentary upon Rom. 9. to the judgement of the Reader to think of the same as he pleaseth b Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H saith That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent Will or by a consequent Will either by an operative Will or by a permissive Will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Whether it be called antecedent or consequent or operative or permissive it is enough for the necessity of the thing that the heart of Pharaoh should be hardened and if God were not willing to do it I cannot conceive how it could be done without him c T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the Action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the Action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evil by a general but not by a special influence I had thought to passe over this place because of the non-sense of general and special influence seeing he saith that God concurres to the doing of evil I desire the Reader would take notice that if he blame me for speaking of God as of a necessitating cause and as it were a principal Agent in the causing of all Actions he may with as good reason blame himself for making him by concurrence an accessory to the same and indeed let men hold what they will contrary to the truth if they write much the truth will fall into their pens But he thinks he hath a similitude which will make this permissive Will a very clear business The earth saith he gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yeilds food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the general nourishment of the earth but from the special quality of the root It seemeth by this similitude he thinketh that God doth not operatively but premissively Will that the root of Hemlock should poison the man that eateth it
cause it shall be chosen which cause for the most part is deliberation or consultation And therefore consultation is not in vain and indeed the less in vain by how much the election is more necessitated The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience Namely that admonitions are in vain for admonitions are parts of consultations The admonitor being â— Counsailer for the time to him that is admonished The fourth pretended inconvenience is that praise and dispraise reward and punishment will be in vain To which I answer that for praise and dispraise they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or dispraised For what is it else to praise but to say a thing is good Good I say for me or for some body else or for the State and Commonwealth And what is it to say an action is good but to say it is as I would wish or as another would have it or according to the will of the State that is to say according to Law Does J. D. think that no action can please me or him or the Common-wealth that should proceed from necessity Things may be therefore necessary and yet praise-worthy as also necessary and yet dispraised and neither of both in vain because praise and dispraise and likewise reward and punishment do by example make and conform the will to good or evill It was a very great praise in my opinion thaâ— Velleius Paterculus gives Cato where he sayes he was â—â—od by Nature Et quia aliter esse non potuit To his fift and sixt inconvenience that Councells Arts Arms Books Instruments Study Medicines and the like would be superfluous the same answer servâ— that to the former That is to say that this consequence if the effect shall necessarily come to pass then it shall come to pass without its cause is a false one And those things named Councells Arts Arms c. are the causes of those effects J. D. NOthing is more familiar with T. H. than to decline an Argument But I will put it into form for him â— The first inconvenience is thus preffed Those Lawes are unjust and tyrannical which do prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done and punish men for not doing of them But supposing T. H. his opinion of the necessity of all things to be true all Lawes do prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done and punish men for not doing of them The former proposition is so clear that it cannot be denied Just Lawes are the Ordinances of right Reason but those Lawes which prescribe absolute impossibilities are not the Ordinances of right Reason Just Laws are instituted for the publick good but those Lawes which prescribe absolute impossibilities are not instituted for the publick good Just Lawes do shew unto a man what is to be done and what is to be shunned But those Laws which prescribe impossibilities do not direct a man what he is to do and what he is to shun The Minor is as evident for if his opinion be true all actions all transgressions are determined antecedently inevitably to be done by a natural and necessary flux of extrinsecal causes Yea even the will of man and the reason it self is thus determined And therefore whatsoever Lawes do prescribe any thing to be done which is not done or to be left undone which is done do prescribe absolute impossibilities and punish men for not doing of impossibilities In all his answer there is not one word to this Argument but onely to the conclusion He saith that not the necessity but the will to break the Law makes the action unjust I ask what makes the will to break the Law is it not his necessity What gets he by this A perverse will causeth injustice and necessity causeth a perverse wilf He saith the Law regardeth the will but not the precedent causes of action To what proposition to what tearm is this answer he neither denies nor distinguisheth First the Question here is not what makes actions to be unjust but what makes Lawes to be unjust So his answer is impertinent It is likewise untrue for First that will which the Law regards is not such a will as T. H. imagineth It is a free will not a determined necessitated will a rational will not a brutish will Secondly the Law doth look upon precedent causes as well as the voluntariness of the action If a child before he be seven years old or have the use of reason in some childish quarrell do willingly stab another whereof we have seen experience yet the Law looks not upon it as an act of murther because there wanted a power to deliberate and consequently true liberty Man-slaughter may be as voluntary as murther and commonly more voluntary because being done in hot blood there is the less reluctation yet the Law considers that the former is done out of some sudden passion without serious deliberation and the other out of prepensed malice and desire of revenge and therefore condemns murther as more wilful and more panishable than Man-slaughtter b He saith that no Law can possibly be unjust And I say that this is to deny the conclusion which deserves no reply But to give him satisfaction I will follow him in this also If he intended no more but that unjust Lawes are not genuine Lawes nor bind to active obedience because they are not the ordinations of right Reason nor instituted for the common good nor prescribe that which ought to be done he said truly but nothing at all to his purpose But if he intend as he doth that there are no Lawes de facto which are the ordinances of reason erring instituted for the common hurt and prescribing that which ought not to be done he is much mistaken Pharaohs Law to drown the Male Children of the Israelites Exod. 1. 22. Nebuckadnezzars Law that whosoever did not fall down and worship the golden Image which he had set up should be cast into the fiery furnace Dan. 3. 4 Darius his Law that whosoever should ask a Petition of any God or man for thirty dayes save of the King should be cast into the Den of Lions Dan. 6. 7. Ahashuerosh his Law to destroy the Jewish Nation root and branch Esther 3. 13. The Pharisees Law that whosoever confesseth Christ should be excommunicated John 9. 22. were all unjust Lawes c The ground of this errour is as great an errour it self Such an art be hath learned of repacking Paradoxes which is this That every man makes by his consent the Law which he is bound to keep If this were true it would preserve them if not from being unjust yet from being injurious But it is not true The positive Law of God conteined in the old and new Testament The Law of Nature written in our hearts by the finger of God The Lawes of Conquerors who come in by the power of the Sword The Laws of our Ancesters which were made before we were
born do all oblige us to the observation of them yet to none of all these did we give our actual consent Over and above all these exceptions he builds upon a wrong foundation that all Magestrates at first were elective The first Governours were Fathers of Families And when those petty Princes could not afford competent protection and security to their subjects many of them did resign their several and respective interists into the hands of one joint Father of the Country And though his ground had been true that all first Legislators were elective which is false yet his superstructure fails for it was done in hope and trust that they would make just Lawes If Magistrates abuse this trust and deceive the hopes of the people by making tyrannical Lawes yet it is without their consent A precedent trust doth not justifie the subsequent errours and abuses of a Trustee He who is duely elected a Legislator may exercise his Legislative power unduely The peoples implicite consent doth not render the tyrannical Lawes of their Legislators to be just d But his chiefest answer is that an action forhidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly it may be justly punished which according to his custome he proves by an instance A man necessitated to steal by the strength of temptation yet if he steal willingly is justly put to death Here are two things and both of them untrue First he fails in his assertion Indeed we suffer justly for those necessities which we our selves have contracted by our own fault but not for extrinsecal antecedent necessities w ch were imposed upon us without our fault If that Law do not oblige to punishment which is not intimated because the subject is invincibly ignorant of it How much less that Law which prescribes absolute impossibilities unless perhaps invincible necessity be not as strong a plea as invincible ignorance That which he adds if it were done willingly though it be of great moment if it be rightly understood yet in his sense that is if a mans will be not in his own disposition and if his willing do not come upon him according to his will nor according to any thing else in his power it weighs not half so much as the least feather in all his horse-load For if that Law be unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do then that Law is likewise unjust and tyrannical which commands him to wil that which is impossible for him to will Secondly his instance supposeth an untruth and is a plain begging of the Question No man is extrinsecally antecedently and irresistibly necessitated by temptation to steal The Devil may sollicite us but he cannot necessitate us He hath a faculty of perswading but not a power of compelling Nosignem habemus spiritus â—â—ammam ciet as Nazi anzen He blowes the coles but the fire is our own Mordet duntaxat sese in fauces illius objicientens as St. Austin he bites not until we thrust our selves into his mouth He may propose he may suggest but he cannot move the will effectively Resist the Devil and he will flie from you Jam. 4. 7. By faith we are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked Eph. 6. 16. And if Sathan who can both propose the object and choose out the fittest times and places to work upon our frailties and can suggest reasons yet cannot necessitate the will which is most certain then much less can outward objects do it alone They have no natural efficacy to determine the will Well may they be occasions but they cannot be causes of evil The sensitive appetite may engender a proclivity to steal but not a necessity to steal And if it should produce a kind of necessity yet it is but Moral not Natural Hypothetical not Absolute Coexistent not Antecedent from our selves nor Extrinsecall This necessity or rather proclivity was fâ—â—â— in its causes we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given it a kind of dominion over us Admit that some sudden passions may and do extraordinarily surprise us And therefore we say motus primo primi the first motions are not alwayes in our power neither are they free yet this is but very rarely and it is our own fault that they do surprise us Neither doth the Law punish the first motion to theft but the advised act of stealing The intention makes the thief But of this more largely Numb 25. e He pleads moreover that the Law is a cause of justice that it frames the wills of men to justice and that the punishment of one doth conduce to the preservation of many All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But this is no god-a-mercy to T. H. his opinion of absolute necessity If all actions and all events be predetermined Naturally Necessarily Extrinsecally how should the Law frame men morally to good actions He leaves nothing for the Law to do but either that which is done already or that which is impossible to be done If a man be chained to every individual act which he doth and from every act which he doth not by indissolvible bonds of inevitable necessity how should the Law either deterre him or frame him If a Dog be chained fast to a post the sight of a rod cannot draw him from it Make a thousand Lawes that the fire shall not burn yet it will burn And whatsoever men do according to T. H. they do it as necessarily as the fire burneth Hang up a thousand Theevs and if a man be determined inevitably to steal he must steal notwithstanding f He addes that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon delinquents respect not the evil act past but the good to come and that the putting of a delinquent to death by the Magistrate for any crime whatsoever cannot be justified before God except there be a reall intention to benefit others by his example The truth is the punishing of delinquents by Law respecteth both the evil act past and the good to come The ground of it is the evil act past the scope or end of it is the good to come The end without the ground cannot justifie the act A bad intention may make a good action bad but a good intention cannot make a bad action good It is not lawful to do evil that good may come of it nor to punish an innoceut person for the admonition of others that is to fall into a certain crime for fear of an uncertain Again though there were no other end of penalties inflicted neither probatory nor castigatory nor exemplary but only vindicatory to satisfie the Law out of a zeal of Justice by giving to every one his own yet the action is just and warrantable Killing as it is considered in it self without all undue circumstances was never prohibited to the lawful Magistrate who is the Vicegerent or
Lieutenant of God from whom he derives his power of life and death T. H. hath one plea more As a drowning man catcheth at every Buâ—rush so he layes hold on every pretence to save a desperate cause But first it is worth our observation to see how oft he changeth shapes in this one particular â— First he told us that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his actions though he command one thing openly and plot another thing secretly though he be the cause not onely of the action but also of the irregularity though he both give man power to act and determine this power to evil as well as good though he punish the Creatures for doing that which he himself did necessitate them to do But being pressed with reason that this is tyrannical first to necessitate a man to do his will and then to punish him for doing of it he leaves this pretence in the plain field and flies to a second That therefore a man is justly punished for that which he was necessitated to do because the act was voluntary on his part This hath more shew of reason than the former if he did make the will of man to be in his own disposition but maintaining that the will is irresistibly determined to will whatsoever it doth will the injustice and absurdity is the same First to necessitate a man to will and then to punish him for willing The Dog onely bites the stone which is thrown at him with a strange haud but they make the first cause to punish the instrument for that which is his own proper act Wherefore not being satisfied with this he casts it off and flies to his third shift Men are not punished saith he â—…fore because their theft proceeded from election that is because it was willingly done for to Elect and Will saith he are both one Is not this to blow hot and cold with the same breath but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation Thus far he saith true that every creature by the instinct of nature seeks to preserve it self cast water into a dusty place and it contracts it self into little globes that is to preserve it self And those who are noxious the eye of the Law are justly punished by them to whom the execution of the Law is committed but the Law accounts no persons noxious but those who are noxious by their own fault It punisheth not a thorn for pricking because it is the nature of the thorn and it can do no otherwise nor a child before it have the use of reason If one should take mine hand perforce and give another a box on the ear with it my hand is noxious but the Law punisheth the other who is faulty And therefore he hath reason to propose the question how it is just to kill on man to amend another if he who killed did nothing but what he was necessitated to do He might as well demand how it is lawful to murther a company of innocent Infants to make a bath of their lukewarm blood for curing the Leprosie It had been a more rational way first to have demonstrated that it is so and then to have questioned why it is so His assertion it self is but a dream and the reason which he gives of it why it is so is a dream of a dream The sum of it is this That where there is no Law there no killing or any thing else can be unjust that before the constitution of Commonwealths every man had power to kill another if he conceived him to be hurtfull to him that at the constitution of Commonwealhts particular men lay down this right in part and in part reserve it to themselves as in case of theft or murther That the right which the Commonwealth hath to put a malefactor to death is not created by the Law but remaineth from the first right of Nature which every man hath to preserve himself that the killing of men in this case is as the killing of beasts in order to our own preservation This may well be called stringing of Paradoxes But first h there never was any such time when Mankind was without Governors and Lawes and Societies Paternal Government was in the world from the beginning and the Law of Nature There might be sometimes a root of such Barbatous Theevish Brigants in some rocks or desarts or odd corners of the World but it was an abuse and a degeneration from the nature of man who is a political creature This savage opinion reflects too much upon the honour of mankind Secondly there never was a time when it was lawfull ordinarily for private men to kill one another for their own preservation If God would have had men live like wild beasts as Lions Bears or Tygers he would have armed them with hornes or tusks or talons or pricks but of all creatures man is born most naked without any weapon to defend himself because God had provided a better means of security for him that is the Magistrate Thirdly that right which private men have to preserve themselves though it be with the killing of another when they are set upon to be murthered or robbed is not a remainder or a reserve of some greater power which they have resigned but a priviledge which God hath given them in case of extream danger and invincible necessity that when they cannot possibly have recourse to the ordinary remedy that is the Magistrate every man becomes a Magistrate to himself Fourthly nothing can give that which it never had The people whilest they were a dispersed rable which in some odd cases might happen to be never had justly the power of life and death and therefore they could not give it by their election All that they do is to prepare the matter but it is God Almighty that infuseth the soul of power Fiftly and lastly I am sorry to hear a man of reason and parts to compare the murthering of men with the slaughtering of brute beasts The elements are for the Plants the Plants for the brute Beasts the brute Beasts for Man When God enlarged his former grant to man and gave him liberty to eat the flesh of his creatures for his sustenance Gen. 9. 3. Yet man is expresly excepted ver â— Who so sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed And the reason is assigned for in the image of God made he man Before sin entred into the World or before any creatures were hurtful or noxious to man he had â—â—minion over them as their Lord and Master And though the possession of this soveraignty be lost in part for the sin of man which made not onely the creatures to rebel but also the inferiour 〈…〉 to rebel against the superiour from whence it comes that one man is hurtful to another yet the dominion still remains wherein we may observe how sweetly the providence of God doth temper this cross that though the strongest creatures
perceave so easie a truth as this which he denieth The Bible is a Law To whom To all the World He knowes it is not How came it then to be a Law to us Did God speak it viva voce to us Have we then any other Warrant for it than the Word of the Prophets Have we seen the miracles Have we any other assurance of their certainty than the authority of the Church and is the authority of the Church any other than the authority of the Commonwealth or that of the Commonwealth any other than that of the Head of the Common-wealth or hath the Head of the Commonwealth any other authority than that which hath been given him by the Members Else why should not the Bible be Canonical as well in Constantinople as in any other place They that have the Legislative power make nothing Canon which they make not Law nor Law which they make not Canon And because the Legislative power is from the assent of the subjects the Bible is made Law by the assent of the subjects It was not the Bishop of Rome that made the Scripture Law without his own temporal Dominions nor is it the Clergy that make it Law in their Dioceses and Rectories Nor can it be a Law of it self without special and supernatural revelation The Bishop thinks because the Bible is Law and he is appointed to teach it to the people in his Diocese that therefore it is Law to whom soever he teach it which is somewhat grosse but not so grosse as to say that Conquerors who come in by tho power of the sword make their Lawes also without our assent He thinks belike that if a Conquerour can kill me if he please I am presently obliged without more a doe to obey all his Lawes May not I rather dye if I think fit The Conquerour makes no Law over the Conquered by vertue of his power but by vertue of their assent that promised obedience for the saving of their lives But how then is the assent of the Children obtained to the Laws of their Ancestors This also is from the desire of preserving their lives which first the Parents might take away where the Parents be free from all subjection and where they are not there the Civil power might do the same if they doubted of their obedience The Children therefore when they be grown up to strength enough to do mischeif and to judgement enough to know that other men are kept from doing mischeif to them by fear of the Sword that protecteth them in that very act of receiving that protection and not renouncing it openly do oblige themselves to obey the Lawes of their Protectors to which inreceaving such protection they have assented And whereas he saith the Law of Nature is a Law without our assent it is absurd for the Law of Nature is the Assent it self that all men give to the means of their own preservation d But his cheifest answer is that An action forbidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly may be justly punished c. This the Bishop also understandeth not and therefore denies it He would have the Judge condemne no man for a crime if it were necessitated as if the Judge could know what acts are necessary unless he knew all that hath anteceded both visible and invisible and what both every thing in it self and altogether can effect It is enough to the Judge that the act he condemneth be voluntary The punishment whereof may if not capital reforme the will of the offender if capital the will of others by example For heat in one body doth not more create heat in another than the terrour of an example creatâ—th fear in another who otherwise were inclined to commit injustice Some few lines before he hath said that I built upon a wrong foundation namely That all Magistrates were at first elective I had forgot to tell you that I never said nor though it And therefore his Reply as to that point is impertinent Not many lines after for a reason why a man may not be justly punished when his crime is voluntary he offereth this that Law is unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to Will that which is impossible for him to Will Whereby it appears he is of opinion that a Law may be made to command the Will The stile of a Law is Do this or Do not this or If thou Do this thou shalt Suffer this but no Law runs thus Will this or Will not this or If thou have a Will to this thou shalt Suffer this He objecteth further that I hegg the question because no mans Will is necessitated Wherein he mistakes for I say no more in that place but that he that doth evill willingly whether he be necessarily willing or not necessarily may be justly punished And upon this mistake he runneth over again his former and already answered non-sense saying we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given them a kind of dominion over us and again motus primo primi the first motions are not alwayes in our power Which motus primo primi signifies nothing and our negligence in not opposing our passions is the same with our want of Will to oppose our Will which is absurd and that we have given them a kind of dominion over us either signifies nothing or that we have a dominion over our Wills or our Wills a dominion over us and consequently either we or our wills are not Free e He pleads moreover that the Law is a cause of Justice c. All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But I have shown that all Lawes are just as Lawes and therefore not to be accused of injustice by those that owe subjection to them and a just Law is alwayes justly executed Seeing then that he confesseth that all that he replieth to here is true it followeth that the Reply it self where it contradicteth me is false f He addeth that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon Delinquents respect not the evil act past but the good to come and that the putting of a Delinquent to death by the Magistrate for any crime whatsoever cannot be justified before God except there be a reall intention to benefit others by his example This he neither confirmeth nor denieth and yet forbeareth not to discourse upon it to little purpose and therefore I pass it over g First he told us that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his Actions though he command one thing openly and plot another thing secretly though he be the cause not onely of the Action but also of the irregularity c. To all this which hath been pressed before I have answered also before but that he sayes I say having commanded one thing openly he plots another thing secretly it is not mine but one of his own ugly Phrases And the
if liberty be taken away the nature and formall reason of sin is taken away I answer by denying the consequence The nature of sin consiâ—â—eth in this that the action done proceed from ouâ— will and be against the Law A Judge in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the Law lâ—oks at no higher cause oâ— the action then the will of the doer Now when I say the action was necessary I do not say it was done against the will oâ— the doer but with his will and so necessarily because mans will that is every act of the will and purpose of man had a sufficient and therefore a necessary cause and consequently every voluntary action was necessitated An action therefore may be voluntary and a sin and nevertheless be necessary And because God may afflict by right derived from his â—mnipâ—tency though sin were not And the example of punishment on voluntary sinners is the cause that produceth Justice and maketh sin less frequent for God to punish such sinners as I have shewed before is no injustice And thus you have my answer to his objections both out of Scripture and Reason J. D. SCis tu simulare â—upressum quid hoc It was shrewd counsâ—il which Alcibiades gave to Themistocles when he was busy about his accounts to the State that he should rather study how to make no accounts So it seems T. H. thinks it a more compendious way to baulk an argument then to satisfie it And if he can produce a Rowland against an Olâ—ver if he can urge a reason against a reason he thinks he hath quitted himself fairely But it will not serve his turn And that he may not complain of misunderstanding it as those who have a politick deafness to hear nothing but what liketh them I will first reduce mine argument into form and then weigh what he saith in answer or rather in opposition to it a That opinion which takes away the formall reason of sin and by consequence sin it self is not to be approoved this is cleer because both Reason and Religion Nature and Scripture do proove and the whole world confesseth that there is sin But this opinion of the necessity of all things by reason of a conflux of second causes ordered and determined by the first cause doth take away the very formal reason of sin This is prooved thus That which makes sin it self to be good and just and lawfull takes away the formall cause and destroyes the essence of sin for if sin be good and just and lawfull it is no more evill it is no sin no anomy But this opinion of the necessity of all things makes sin to be very good and just and lawful for nothing can flow essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause which is the Law and Rule of Goodness and Justice but that which is good and just and lawfull but this opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause as appears in T. H. his whole discourse Neither is it material at all whether it proceed immediatly from the fist cause or mediately so as it be by a necessary flux of second and determinate causes which produce it inevitably To these proofs hee answers nothing but onely by denying the first consequence as he calls it and then sings over his old song That the nature of sin consisteth in this that the action proceede from our will and be against the Law which in our sense is most true if he understand a just Law and a free rationall will b But supposing as he doth that the Law injoins things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrahnical Law and the transgression of it is no sin not to do that which never was in our power to do And supposing likewise as he doth that the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause then it is not mans will but Gods Will and flows essentially from the Law of Goodness c That which he addes of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civil Judge the proper Judge noâ— the Law of the Land the proper Rule of Sin But it makes strongly against him for the Judge goes upon a good ground and even this which he confesseth that the Judge looks at no higâ—er cause then the will of the doer prooves that the will of the doer did determine it self freely and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the Law if he would Certainly a Judge ought to look at all material circumstances and much more at all essential causes Whether every sufficient cause be a necessary cause will come to be examined more properly Numb 31. For the present it shall suffice to say that liberty flows from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause d Nature Never intends the generation of a monster If all the causes concur sufficiently a a perfect creature is produced but by reason of the insufficiency or debility or contingent aberration of some of the causes sometimes a Monster is produced Yet the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced What is it then A Monster is not produced by vertue of that order which is set in Nature but by the contingent aberration of some of the natural causes in their concurrence The order set in Nature is that every like should beget its like But supposing the concurrence of the causes to be such as it is in the generation of a Monster the generation of a Monster is necessary as all the events in the world are when they are that is by an hypothetical necessity e Then he betakes himself to his old help that God may punish by right of omnipotence though there were no sin The question is not now what God may do but what God will do according to that Covenant which he hath made with man Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live Neither doth God punish any man contrary to this Covenant Hosea 13. 9. O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help He that wills not the death of a Sinner doth much less will the death of an innocent Creature By death or destruction in this discourse the onely separation of Soul and Body is not intended which is a debt of nature and which God as Lord of Life and Death may justly do and make it not a punishment but a blessing to the party but we understand the subjecting of the Creature to eternal torments Lastly he tells of that benefit which redounds to others from Exemplary Justice which is most true but not according to his own grounds for neither is it Justice to punish a man for doing that which it was impossible always for him not to do Neither is it lawfull to punish an
the Universal work of God and then it is absurd for the universe as one aggregate of things natural hath no intention His Doctrine that followeth concerning the generation of Monsters is not worth consideration therefore I leave it wholy to the Judgement of the Reader e Then he betakes himself to his old help that God may punish by right of omnipotence though there were no sin The question is not now what God may do but what God will do according to that Covenant which he hath made with Man Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live T is plaine to let passe that he puts Punishment where I put Affliction making a true sentence false that if a man do this he shall live and he may do this if he will In this the Bishop and I disagree not This therefore is not the question but whether the will to do this or not to do this be in a mans own Election Whereas he adds He that wills not the death of a sinner doth much lesse Will the death of an innocent creature He had forgot for a while that both good and evil men are by the Will of God all mortall but presently corrects himself and says he means by Death Eternal torments that is to say eternal life but in torments To which I have answered once before in this Book and spoken much more amply in another Book to which the Bishop hath inclination to make an answer as appeareth by his Epistle to the Reader That which followeth to the end of this number hath been urged and answered already divers times I therefore passe it over J. D. BUT the Patrons of necessity being driven out of the Numb 18. plain field with reason have certain retreats or distinctions which they flye unto for refuge First they distinguish between Stoical necessity and Christian necessity between which they make a threefold difference First say they the Stoicks did subject Jupiter to destiny but but we subject destiny to God I answer that the Stoical and Christian destiny are one and the same fatum quasi effatum Jovis Hear Seneca Destiny is the necessity of all things and actions depending upon the disposition of Jupiter c. I add that the Stoicks left a greater liberty to Jupiter over destiny than these Stoicall Christians do to God over his decrees either for the beginnings of things as Euripides or for the progress of them as Chrysippus or at least of the circumstances of time and place as all of them generally So Virgil Sed trahere moras ducere c. So Osyris in Apuleius promiseth him to prolong his life Ultra fato constituta tempora beyond the times set down by the destinies Next they say that the Stoicks did hold an eternall flux and necessary connexion of causes but they believe that God doth act praeter contra naturam besides and against nature I answer that it is not much material whether they attribute necessity to God or to the Starrs or to a connexion of causes so as they establish necessity The former reasons do not only condemn the ground or foundation of necessity but much more necessity it self upon what ground soever Either they must run into this absurdity that the effect is determined the cause remaining undetermined or els hold such a necessary connexion of causes as the Stoicks did Lastly they say the Stoicks did take away liberty and contingence but they admit it I answer what liberty or contingence was it they admit but a titular liberty and an empty shadow of contingence who do profess stifly that all actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner in any other Place Time Number Order Measure nor to any other end than they are and that in respect of God determining them to one what a poor ridiculous liberty or contingence is this Secondly they distinguish between the first cause and the second causes they say that in respect of the second causes many things are free but in respect of the first cause all things are necessary This answer may be taken away two wayes First so contraries shall be true together The same thing 1. at the same time shall be determined to one and not determined to one the same thing at the same time must necessarily be and yet may not be Perhaps they will say not in the same respect But that which strikes at the root of this question is this If all the causes were onely collateral this exception might have some colour but where all the causes being joined together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall cause if any one cause much more the first in the whole series or subordination of causes be necessary it determines the rest and without doubt makes the effect necessary Necessity or Liberty is not to be esteemed from one cause but from all the causes joyned together If one link in a chain be fast it fastens all the rest Secondly I would have them tell me whether the second 2. causes be predetermined by the first cause or not If it be determined then the effect is necessary even in respect of the second causes If the second cause be not determined how is the effect determined the second cause remaining undetermined Nothing can give that to another which it hath not it self But say they nevertheless the power or faculty remaineth free True but not in order to the act if it be once determined It is free in sensu diviso but not in sensu composito when a man holds a bird fast in his hand is she therefore free to flie where she will because she hath wrings Or a man imprisoned or fettered is he therefore free to walk where he will because he hath feet and a loco-motive faculty Judge without prejudice what a miserable subterfuge is this which many men confide so much in T. H Certain distinctions which he supposing may be brought to his arguments are by him removed HE saith a man may perhaps answer that the necessity of things held by him is not a Stoical necessity but a Christian necessity c. but this dâ—stinction I have not used nor indeed have ever heard bâ—fore Nor do I think any man could make Stoical and Christian two kinds of necessitiâ—s though they may be two kinds of doctrin Nor have I drawn my answer to his arguments from the authority of any Sect but from the nature of the things themselves But here I must take notice of certain words of his in this place as making against his own Tenet where all the causes saith he being jâ—yned together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall cause If any one cause much more the first in the whole series of subordination of causes be necessary it determines the rest and without doubt maketh the effect necessary For that which I call the necessary cause of
any effect is the joyning togethâ—r of all causes subordinate to the first into one totall cause If any oâ—â— of those saith he especially the first produce its effect necessarily thâ—n all the rest are determined and the effect also necessary Now it is manifest that the first cause is a necessary cause oâ— all thâ— effects that are next and immediat to it and therefore by hâ—â— own reason all effects are necessary Nor is that distinction of necessary in respect of the first cause and necessary in respect of second causes mine It does as he well notâ—th imply a contradiction J. D. BEcause T. H. disavowes these two distinctions I have joyned them together in one paragraph He likes not the distinction of necessity or destiny into Stoicall and Christian no more do I. We agree in the conclusion but our motives are diverse My reason is because I acknowledg no such necessity either as the one or as the other and because I conceive that those Christian writers who do justly detest the naked destiny of the Stoicks as fearing to fall into those gross absurdities and pernicious consequences which flow from thence do yet privily though perhaps unwittingly under another form of expression introduce it again at the backdoor after they had openly cast it out at the foredoor But T H. rusheth boldly without distinctions which he accounts but Jargon and without foresight upon the grossest destiny of all others that is that of the Stoicks He confesseth that they may be tâ—o kinds of doctrine May be Nay they are without all peradventure And he himself is the first who beares the name of a Christian that I have read that hath raised this sleeping Ghost out of its grave and set it out in its true colours But yet he likes not the names of Stoicall and Christian destiny I do not blame him though he would not willingly be accounted a Stoick To admit the thing and quarrel about the name is to make our selves ridiculous Why might not I first call that kind of destiny which is maintained by Christians Christian destiny and that other maintained by Stoicks Stoicall destiny But I am not the inventer of the tearm If he had been as carefull in reading other mens opinions as he is confident in setting down his own he might have found not only the thing but the name it self often used But if the name of fotâ—m Christi num do offend him Let him call it with Lipsius â—atum verum who divides destiny into four kinds 1. Mathematicall or Astrological destiny 2. Natural destiny 3. Stoical or violent destiny and 4. true destiny which he calls ordinarily nostrum our destiny that is of Christians and fatum pium that is godly destiny and defines it just as T. H. doth his destiny to be a series or order of causes depending upon the divine Counsel de const l 1. cap. 17. 18. 19. Though he be more cautelous than T. H. to decline those rocks which some others have made shipwrack upon Yet the Divines thought he came too neer them as appears by his Epistle to the Reader in a later Edition And by that note in the margent of his twentieth Chapter Whatsoever I dispute here I submit to the judgment of the wise and being admonished I will convert it One may convince me of error but not of obstinacy So fearfull was he to overshoot himself and yet he maintained both true liberty and true contingency T. H. saith he hath not sucked his answer from any Sect And I say so much the worse It is better to be the disciple of an old Sect than the ring-leader of a new Concerning the other destinction of liberty in respect of the first cause and liberty in respect of the second causes though he will not see that which it concerned him to answer like those old Lamiae which could put out their eyes when they list As namely that the faculty of willing when it is determined in order to the act which is all the freedom that he acknowledgeth is but like the freedom of a bird when she is first in a mans hand c. Yet he hath espied another thing wherein I contradict my self because I affirm that if any one cause in the whole series of causes much more the first cause be necessary it determineth the â—est But saith he it is manifest that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next I am glad yet it is not I who contradict my self but it is some of his manifest truths which I contradict That the first cause is a necessary cause of all effects which I say is a manifest falshood Those things which God wills without himself he wills freely not necessarily Whatsoever cause acts or works necessarily doth act or work all that it can do or all that is in its power But it is evident that God doth not all things without himself which he can do or which he hath power to do He could have raised up children unto Abraham of the very stones which were upon the banks of Jordan Luk. 3. 8. but he did not He could have sent twelve Legions of Angels to the succour of Christ but he did not Matth. 26. 53. God can make T. H. live the yeers of Methuselah but it is not necessary that he shall do so nor probable that he will do so The productive power of God is infinite but the whole created world is finite And therefore God might still produce more if it pleased him But this it is when men go on in a confused way and will admit no distinctions If T. H. had considered the difference between a necessary being and a necessary cause or between those actions of God which are immanent within himself and the transient works of God which are extrinsecall without himself he would never have proposed such an evident error for a manifest truth Qui pauca considerat facile pronuntiat Animadversions upon the Reply Numb XVIII THE Bishop supposing I had taken my opinion from the Authority of the Stoick Philosophers not from my own Meditation falleth into dispute against the Stoicks whereof I might if I pleas'd take no notice but passe over to Number 19. But that he may know I have considered their doctrine concerning Fate I think fit to say thus much that their error consisteth not in the opinion of Fate but in faigning of a false God When therefore they say Fatum est effatum Jovis They say no more but that Fate is the word of Jupiter If they had said it had been the Word of the true God I should not have perceived any thing in it to contradict because I hold as most Christians do that the whole world was made and is now Governed by the Word of God which bringeth a necessity of all things and actions to depend upon the divine disposition Nor do I see cause to find fault with that as he does which is said by
he says he is properly said to be compelled as in a Rape or when a Christian is drawn or carryed by violence to the idols Temple Insomuch as by this distinction it were very proper English to say that a stone were compelled when it is thrown or a man when he is carried in a Cart. For my part I understand compulsion to be used rightly of living creatures onely which are moved onely by their own animal motion in such manner as they would not be moved without the fear But of this dispute the English and Well-bred Reader is the proper Judge d Thirdly the question is not whether all the actions of a man be free but whether they be ordinarily free Is it impossible for the Bishop to remember the question which is Whether a man be Free to Wil Did I ever say that no Actions of a man are free On the contrary I say that al his Voluntary Actions are Free even those also to which he is compelled by fear But it does not therefore follow but that the Will from whence those Actions and their Election proceed may have necessary causes against which he hath never yet said any thing That which followeth immediately is not offered as a proof but as explication how the passions of a man surprise him therefore I let it passe noting onely that he expound thâ— Motus primo primi which I understood not before by the word Antipathy e A necessity of supposition is of two kinds sometimes a thing supposed is in the power of the Agent to do or not to do c. sometimes a thing supposed is not in the power of the Agent to do or not to do c. When the necessity is of the former kind of supposition then he says Freedom may consist with this necessity In the latter sense hat it cannot And to use his own instances to vow continence in a Romish Priest upon supposition that he is a Romish Priest is a necessary Act because it was in his power to be a Priest or not On the other side supposing a man having a natural Antipathy against a Cat because this Antipathy is not in the power of the party affected therefore the running away from the Cat is no Free act I deny not but that it is a Free act of the Romish Priest to vow continence noâ— upon the supposition that he was a Romish Priest but because he had not done it unlesse he would if he had not been a Romish Priest it had been all one to the Freedom of his Act. Nor is his Priesthood any thing to the Necessitie of his vow saving that if he would not have vowed he should not have been made a Priest There was an antecedent necessity in the causes extrinsecal first that he should have the Wil to be a Priest and then consequently that he should have the Wil to vow Against this he alledgeth nothing Then for his Cat the mans running from it is a Free Act as being voluntary and arising from a false apprehension which neverthelesse he cannot help of some hurt or other the Cat may do him And therefore the Act is as free as the Act of him that throweth his goods into the Sea So likewise the Act of Jacob in blessing his sons and the Act of Balaam in blessing Israel are equally Free and equally voluntary yet equally determined by God who is the Author of all blessings and framed the will of both of them to blesse and whose Will as St. Paul saith cannot be resisted Therefore both their Actions were necessitated equally and because they were Voluntary equally Free As for Caiphas his prophecy which the Text saith He spake not of himself it was necessary first because it was by the supernatural gift of God to the High-priests as soveraigns of the Common-wealth of the Jews to speak to the people as from the mouth of God that is to say to prophesie and secondly whensoever he did speak not as from God but as from himself it was neverthelesse necessary he should do so not that he might not have been silent if he would but because his will to speak was antecedently determined to what he should speak from all Aeternity which he hath yet brought no argument to contradict He approveth my modesty in suspending my judgement concerning the manner how the good Angells do work Necessarily or Freely because I find it not set down in the Articles of our Faith nor in the decrees of our Church But he useth not the same modesty himself For whereas he can apprehend neither the Nature of God nor of Angels nor conceive what kind of thing it is which in them he calleth Will he neverthelesse takes upon him to attribute to them Liberty of Exercise and to deny them a Liberty of Specification to grant them a more intensive Liberty then we have but not a more extensive using not incongruously in the incomprehensibility of the subject â—â—comprehensible terms as Liberty of Exercise Liberty of Specification degrees of intention in Liberty as if one liberty like heat might be more intensive then another It is true that there is greater liberty in a large then in a strait prison but one of those Liberties is not more intense then the other f His second reason is He that can do what he Will hath all Liberty and he that cannot do what he Will hath no Liberty If this be true then there are no degrees of Liberty indeed But this which he calls Liberty is rather an Omnipotence then a Liberty 'T is one thing to say a man hath Liberty to do what he will and another thing to say he hath power to do what he Will. A man that is bound would say readily he hath not the Liberty to walk but he will not say he wants the Power But the sick man will say he wants the Power to walk but not the Liberty This is as I conceive to speak the English tongue and consequently an English man will not say the Liberty to do what he Will but the Power to do what he Will is Omnipotence And therefore either I or the Bishop understand not English Whereas he adds that I mistake the meaning of the word Liberty of specification I am sure that in that way wherein I expound them there is no absurdity But if he say I understand not what the Schoolmen mean by it I will not contend with him for I think they know not what they mean themselves g And here he falls into another invective against distinctions and Scholastical expressions and the Doctors of the Church who by this means tyrannized over the understanding of other men What a presumption is this for one private man c That he may know I am no enemy to intelligible distinctions I also will use a distinction in the defence of my self against this his accusation I say therefore that some distinctions are Scholastical onely and some are Scholastical and sapiential also
voluntary It seems that he calleth Compulsion Force but I call it a fear of force or of dammage to be done by force by which fear a mans will is framed to somewhat to which he had no will before Force taketh away the sin because the Action is not his that is forced but his that forceth It is not alwayes so in Compulsion because in this case a man electeth the Lesse Evil under the notion of Good But his instances of the betrothed Damsel that was forced and of Tamar may for any thing there appeareth in the Text be Instances of Compulsion and yet the Damsel and Tamar be both innocent In that which immediately followeth concerninâ— how far fear may extenuate a sin there is nothing to be answered I preceive in it he hath some glimmering of the truth but not of the grounds thereof It is true that Just â—ear dispenceth not with the precepts of God or Nature for they are not dispensable but it extenuateth the fault not by diâ—â—inishing any thing in the Action but by being no transgressiâ—n For if the fear be allowed the Action it produceth is allowed also Nor doth it disp use in any case with the Law positive but by making the Action it self Lawful for thâ— breaking of a Law is alwayes sin and it is certain that men are obliged to the observation of all positive Precepts though with the losse of their lives unlesse the right that a man hath to preserve himself make it in case of a just Fear to be nâ— Law The omission of circumcision was no sin he says whilst the Israelites were travelling through the Wildernesse 'T is very true but this has nothing to do with Compulsion And the cause why it was no sin was this they were ready to obâ—y it whâ—nsoever God should give them leasure and rest from travel whereby they might be cured or at least when God that daily spake to their Conducter in the Desert should appoint him to renew that Sacrament g I will propose a case to him c. The case is this a Servant is robbed of his Masters money by the Highway but is acquit because he was forced Another Servant spends his Masters money in a Tavern Why is he not acquited also seeing he was necessitated Would hâ— saith he T. H. admit of this excuse I answer no But I would do that to him which should necessitate him to behave himself better anothâ—r time or at least necessitate another to behave himself better by his example h He talkes much of the motives to do anâ— the mâ—tives to forbear how they work upon and determine a man as if a reasonable man were no more then a Tennis-ball to be tossed to and fro by the Rackets of the second causes c. May not great things be produced by second causes as well as little And a Foot-ball as well as a Tennis-ball But the Bishop can never be driven from this that the Will hath power to move it self but says t is all one to say that an Agent can determine it self and that the Will is determined by motives extrinsical He adds that if there be no necessitation before the Judgment of right reason doth dictate to the Will then there is no Antecedent nor Extrinsecal necessitation at all I say indeed the effect is not produced before the last dictate of the understanding but I say not that the necessity was not before he knows I say it is from eternity When a Cannon is planted against a Wall though the battery be not made till the bullet arrive yet the necessity was present all the while the bullet was going to it if the Wall stood still and if it â—liâ—t away the hitting of somewhat else was necessary and that antecedently i All the World knows that when the Agent is determined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause Yes whâ—n the Agent is dâ—termined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause and so any thing else is what he will have it But nothing is determined by it self nor is there any man in the World that hâ—th any Conception answerable to those Words But Motives he says determine not naturally but Morally This also is insignificant for all Motion is Natural or Supernatural Moral motion is a meer Word without any Imagination of the mind correspondent to it I have heard men talk of a Motion in a Court of Justice perhaps this is it which he means by Moral Motion But certainly when the tongue of the Judg and the hands of the Clerks are thereby movâ—d the Motion is Natural and proceed from natural causes which causes also were Natural Motions of the tongue of the Advocate And whereas he adds that if this were true then not onely Motives but reason it self and deliberation were vain it hath been sufficiently answered before that therefore they are not vain because by them is produced the effect I must also note that oftentimes in citing my opinion he puts â—n instead of mine those terms of his own which upon all occasions I complain of for absurdity as here he makes me to say that which I did never say Special influence of extrinsical causes k He saith that the ignorance of the true causes and their Power is the reason why we ascribe the effect â—o Liberty but when we seriously consider the causes of things we acknowledge a necessity No such thing but just the contrary Iâ—â— understand the Authors which he readeth upon this point no better then he understands what I have here written it is no wonder he understandeth not the truth of the question I said not that when we consider the causes of things but when we see and know the strength that moves us we acknowledge necessity No such thing says the Bishop but just the contrary the more we consider and the clearer we understand the greater is the Liberty c. Is there any doubt if a man could foreknow as God foreknows that which is hereafter to come to passe but that he would also see and know she causes which shall bring it to passe and how they work and make the effect necessary for necessary it is whatsoever God foreknoweth But we that foresee them not may consider as much as wâ— will and understand as clearly as we will but are never the neerer to the knowledge of their necessity and that I said was the cause why we impute those events to Liberty and not to causes l Lastly he tels us that the Wil doth chose of necessity as well as the fire burns of necessity If he intend no more but this that Election is the proper and natural Act of the Wil as burning is of the fire c. He speaks truely but most impertinently for the question is not now of the Elective power in actu primo c. Here again he makes me speak non sense I said the man chooseth of necessity he says I say
is in our own power True saith he but then the contrary habit doth necessitate the onâ— way as well as the former habit did the other way By which very consideration it appears that that which he calls a necessity is no more but a Proclivity If it were a true necessity it could not be avoided nor altered by our endeavours Again he mistakes for I said that Prayer Fasting c. when they alter our habits do necessarily cause the contrary habits which is not to say that the habit necessitates but is necessitated But this is Common with him to make me say that which out of readinâ— nâ—t out of Meditation he useth to say hiâ—â—â—â— Bâ—t how doth it apâ—â—ar that Prayer and Fasting c. make but a Proclivity in men to do what they do for if it â—ere but a Proclivity then what they do they do not Therefore they either necessitate the Will or the Will followeth nâ—t I contend for the truth of this onely that when the Wâ—ll followeth them they necessitate the will and when a â—râ—climity followeth they necessitate the proclimity But the Bishop thinâ—s I maintain that that also is produced necessiarily which is not produced at aâ— d He adds that we are not moved to Prayer or any other Action but by outward objects as pioâ—s company and Godly Preachers or something equivalent Wherein are two other mistakeâ— first to make Godly Preachers and pious company to be outward objects which are outward Agents Secondly to affirm that the Will is not moved but by outward objects The Wâ—l is moved by it self c. The first mistake he urgeth that I call Preachers and company objects Is not the Preacher to the hearer the object of his hearing No perhaps he will say it is the voyce which is the object and that we hear not the Preacher but his voyce as before he said the object of sight was not the cause of sight I must therefore once more make him smile with a great Paradox which is this that in all thâ— senses he Object is the Agent And that it is when we hear a Preacher the Preacher that we hear and that his voyce is the same thing with the hearing and a fancy in the hearer though the motion oâ— the Lips and other organs of speâ—ch be his that speaketh But of this I have written more largely in a moâ—e proper place My second mistake in affirming that the Will is not moved but by outward objects is a mistake of his own For I said not the Will is not moved but we ate not moved for I alwayes avoid attributing motion to any thing but Body The Will is produced generated formed and created in suâ—h â—ort as accidents are effected in a corpâ—real subject but moved it cannot be because it goeth not â—rom place to place And whereas hâ— saith the Will is moved by it self if he had spoken properly as he ought to do and said the Will is made or created by it self he would presently have acknowledged that it was impossible So that it is not without cause men use improper Language when they mean to keep their errours from being detected And because nothing can move that is not it self moved it is untruly said that either the Will or any thing else is moved by it self by the understanding by the sensitive passions or by Acts or habits or that Acts or habits are infused by God for infusion is motion and nothing is moved but bodys e He answers that I prove Ulysses was not necessitated to weep nor the Philosopher to strik but I do not prove that they were not necessitated to forbear He saith true I am not now proving but answering By his favour though he be answering now he was proving then And what he answers now maketh nothing more toward a proof then was before For these words the rational Wil hath Power to sleight the most appetible objects and to controle the most unruly passions are no more being reduced into proper terms then this the appetite hath power to be without appetite towards most appetible objects and to Will contrary to the most unruly Will which is Jargon f He objects that Liberty is in no danger but to be lost but I say it cannot be lost therefore he inferrs that it is in no danger at all I answer First that Liberty is in more danger to be abused then lost c. Secondly Liberty is in danger likewise to be weakened by vicâ—ous habits Thirdly it may be totally lost It is true that a man hath more liberty one time then another and in one place then another which is a difference of liberty 〈◊〉 to the Body But as to the liberty of doing what we will in those things we are able to do it cannot be greater one time then another Consequently outward objects can 〈◊〉 wayes endanger liberty further then it destroyeth it And his answer that liberty is in more danger to be abused then lost is not to the question but a meer shift to be thought not silenced And whereas he says liberty is diminished by vitious habits it cannot be understood otherwise then that vicious habits make a man the lesse free to do vicious actions which I believe is not his meaning And lastly whereas he says that Liberty is lost when reason is lost and that they who by expresse of Study or by continuall gurmandising or by extravagant passion c. do become sots have consequently lost their liberty it requireth proof for for any thing that I can observe mad men and fools have the same liberty that other men have in those things that are in their power to do J. D. FOurthly the natural Philosopher doth teach that the will Num. 23. doth necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding It is true indeed the will should follow the direction of the understanding but I am not satisfied that it doth evermore follow it Sometimes this saying hath place Video mâ—liora proboque Deteriora sequor As that great Roman said of two Sailers that the one produced the better reasons but the other must have the office So reason often lies dejected at the feet of affection Things neerer to the senses moove more powerfully Do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his child than for the sin of his soul Yet appreciatively in the estimation of judgment he accounts the offence of God a greater evill than any temporal loss Next I do not believe that a man is bound to weigh the expedience or inexpedience of every ordinary trivial action to the least grain in the ballance of his understanding or to run up into his Watch-Tower with his perspective to take notice of every Jack-daw that flies by for fear of some hidden danger This seems to me to be a prostitution of reason to petit observations as concerning every rag that a man wears each drop of drink each morsel of bread that he eates
Treatise out of which he only repeateth two things One is that we ought not to desert a certain truth for not being able to comprehend the certain manner of it And I say the same as for example that he ought not to desert this certain truth That there are certain and necessarâ— causes wâ—iâ—h make evâ—ry man to will what he willâ—th though he do not yet conceive in what manner the will of man is causâ—d And yet I think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive seeing that we see daily that praise dispraise reward punishment good and evil sequels of mâ—ns actioâ—s â—â—tained in memory â—o frame and make us to the election of whatsoever it be that we elâ—ct And â—â—aâ— the memory of such things proceeds from the senses and sense from the operation of the objects of sense which are external to us and governed onely by God Almighty And by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents â—re necessary The other thing he repeateth is that the best way to reconcile Contingency and Liberty with the prescience and Decrees of God is to subject future contingents to the aspect of God The same is also my opinion but contâ—ary to what he hath all this while laboured to prove For â—itherto he held liberty and necessity that is to say libertâ— and the decrees of God irreconcilable unless the aspect of God which word appeareth now the first time in this discourse signifie somewhat else besides Gods will and decree which I cannot understand Buâ— he adds that we must subject them according to that presentiality which they have in eternity which he says cannot be done by them that conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession but onely by them that conceive it an indivisible poiâ—t To this I answer that as soon as I can conceive Eternity to be an indivisible point or any thing but an everlâ—sting succession I wilâ— renounce all I have written in this subject I know St. Thomas Aquinas calls eternity Nunc stans an ever abidâ—ng now which is easy enough to say but though I fain would I never could conceive it They that can are more hapâ—y than I. But in the mean time he alloweth hereby all men to be of my opinion save onely those that conceive in their minds a nunc stans which I think are none I undâ—rstand as little how it can be true that God is not just but Justice it self not wise but Wisedom it self not eternal but Eternity it self Nor how he concludes thence that Eternity is a point indivisible and not a succession Nor in what sense it can be said that an infinite point c. wherein is no succession can comprehend all times though time be suâ—cessive These phrases I find not in the Scripture I wonder therefore what was the dâ—sign of the School-men to bring them up unless they thâ—ught a man could not be a true Christian unless his understanstanding be first strangled with such hard sayings And thus much in answer to his discourse wherein I think not onely his squadrons but also his reserves of distinctions are defeated And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the sâ—me question with my reasons for iâ— positively and briefly as I can without any tearms of Art in plain English J. D. a THat poor discourse which I mention was not written against any Divines but in way of examination of a French Treatise which your Lordships Brother did me the honour to shew me at York b My assertion is must true that we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner Such a truth is that which I maintain that the will of man in ordinary actions is free from extrinsecal determination A truth demonstrable in reason received and believed by all the world And therefore though I be not able to comprehend or express exactly the certain manner how it consists together with Gods Eternall Prescience and Decrees which exceed my weak capacity yet I ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest But T. H. his opinion of the absolute necessity of all events by reason of their antecedent determination in their extrinsecal and necessary causes is no such certain Truth but an innovation a strange paradox without probable grounds rejected by all Authours yea by all the world Neither is the manner how the second causes do operate so oscure or so transcendent above the reach of reason as the Eternal Decrees of God are And therefore in both these respects he cannot challenge â—â—e same priviledge I am in possession of an old truth derived by inheritance or succession from mine ancestors And therefore though I were not able to clear every quirk in Law yet I might justly hold my possession until a better title were shewed for another He is no old Possessor but a new Pretender and is bound to make good his claime by evident proofs not by weak and inconsequent suppositions or inducements such as those are which he useth here of praises dispraises rewards punishments the memory of good and evil sequels and events which may incline the will but neither can nor do necessitate the will Nor by uncertain and accidental inferences such as this The memory of praises dispraises rewards punishments good and evil sequels do make us he should say dispose us to elect what we elect but the memory of these things is from the sense and the sense from the oâ—â—ration of the external obâ—ects and the Agency of external objâ—cts 〈…〉 from God therefore all actions even of free and volâ—ntâ—ry Agents are necâ—ssâ—ry c To pass by all the other great imperfections which are to be sound in this Sorite It is just like that old Sophistical piece He that drinks well sleeps well â—e that sleeps well thinks no hurt he that thinks no hurt lives 〈…〉 therefore he that drinks well lives well d In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed mine own private opinion how it might be made appear that the Eternal Prescience and Decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency And this I set down in as plain terms as I could or as so profound a speculation would permit which is almost wholly misunderstood by T. H. and many of my words wrested to a wrong sense As first where I speak of the aspect of God that is his view his knowledge by which the most free and contingent actions were manifest to him from eternity Heb. 4. 11. All things are naked and open to his eyes and this not discursively but intuitively not by external species but by his internal Essence He confounds this with the Wil and the Decrees of God Though he found not the word Aspect before in this discourse he might have found prescience e Secondly he chargeth me that hither to I have maintained that Liberty and the Decrees of God are irrecilable If I have said any such thing my heart
for that time any sight so also he hath the power of Willing but Willeth nothing nor hath for that time any Wil. I must therefore have departed very much from my own Principles if I have confounded the faculty of the Wil wiâ—h the Act of Volition He should have done well to have shown where I confoundâ—d them It is true I make the Wil to be the last part of Deliberation But it is that Wil which maketh the Action voluntarâ— and therefore needs must be the last But for the preceding variâ—tions of the Wil to do and not to do though they be so many several Wills contrary to and destroying one another they usually are called Intentions And therefore they are nothing to the Wil of which we dispute that maketh an Action voluntary And though a man have in every long deliberation a great many Wills and Nills they use to be called inclinations and the last onâ—ly Wil which is immediately follâ—wed by the voluntary Action But nevertheless both he that hath those intentions and God that sâ—eth them reckoneth them for so many Wills b According to this Doctrine concupiscence with consent should be no sin for that which is not truely Willed is not a sin This is no consequent to my Doctrine for I hold that they are in the sight of God so many consents so many willings which would have been followed by Actions if the Actions had been in their poâ—â—er It had been fitter for a man in whom is required gravity and sanctity more then ordinary to have chosen some other kind of instance But what meaneth he by concupiscence with consent Can there be concupiscence without consent It is the consent it self There may be also a Lawful concupiscence with consent For concupiscence makes not the sin but the unlawfulness of satisfying such concupiscence and not the consent but the Wil and design to prosecute that which a man knoweth to be unlawful An appetite to another mans bread is concupiscence and though it be with consent to eat t is no sin but the design to take it from the other notwithstanding that he may fail in his design that 's the sin And this instance might have served his turn as well as the other and for consent if he had understood the truth he might have pâ—t design T. H. FOurthly that those actions which man is said to do upon deliberation Num. 28. are said to be voluntary and done upon choise and election So that voluntary action and action proceeding from election is the same thing And that of a voluntary Agent t is all one to say he is free and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating J. D. a THis short Section might pass without an animadversion but for two things The one is that he confounds a voluntary act with a free act A free act is onely that which proceeds from the free election of the rational will after deliberation but every act that proceeds from the sensitive appetite of man or beast without deliberation or election is truely voluntary b The other thing observable is his conclusion that it is all one to say a man is free and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating Which confession of his overturns his whole structure of absolute necessity for if every Agent be necessitated to act what he doth act by a necessary and natural flux of extrinsecal causes then he is no more free before he deliberates or whilest he deliberates than he is after but by T. H. his confession here he is more free whilest he deliberates than he is after And so after all his flourishes for an absolute or extrinsecal necessity he is glad to sit himself down and rest contented with an hypothetical necessity which no man ever denied or doubted of ascribing the necessitation of a man in free acts to his own deliberation and in indeliberate acts to his last thought Numb 25. What is this to a natural and special influence of extrinsecal causes c Again Liberty saith he is an absence of extrinsecal impediments but deliberation doth produce no new extrinsecal impediment therefore let him chose which part he will either he is free after deliberation by his own Doctrine or he was not free before Our own deliberation and the direction of our own understanding and the election of our own will do produce an hypothetical necessity that the event be such as the understanding hath directed and the will elected But for as much as the understanding might have directed otherwise and the will have elected otherwise this is far from an absolute necessity Neither doth liberty respect onely future acts but present acts also Otherwise God did not freely create the world In the same instant wherein the will elects it is free according to a priority of Nature though not of time to elect otherwise And so in a divided sense the will is free even whilest it acts though in a compounded seuse it be not free Certainly deliberation doth constitute not destroy liberty Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXVIII a THis short section might passe but for two things one is that he confounds a voluntary act with a free act I do indeed tâ—ke all voluntary acts to be free and all free acts to be voluntary but withal that all acts whether free or voluntary if they be acts were necessary before they were acts But where is the errour A free act saith he is onely that which proceeds from the free election of the rational Wil after deliberation but every act that proceeds from the sensitive appetite of man or beast without Deliberation or Election is truely voluntary So that my errour lies in this that I distinguish not between a rational Wil and a sensitive appetite in the same man As if the Appetite and Wil in man or beast were not the same thing or that sensual men and beasts did not deliberate and chuse one thing before another in the same manner that wise men do Nor can it be said of Wills that one is rational the other sensitive but of men And if it be granted that deliberation is alwayes as it is not there were no cause to caâ—â— men rationall more then beasts For it is manifest by continual experience that beasts do Deliberate b The other thing observeable is his conclusion that it is all one to say a man is free and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating Which confession of his overturns his whole structure of absolute necessity Why so Because saith he if every Agent be necessitated to act what he doth act by extrinsical causes then he is no more free before he Deliberates or whilst he Deliberates then he is after But this is a false consequence he should have inferred thus then he is no lesse necessiated before he Deliberates then he is after Which is true â—nd yet neverthelesse he is more free But taking necessity to be inconsistent with
there be none In that which followeth he undertaketh to make his doctrine more expressly understood by considering the Act of the will three ways In respect of its nature in respect of its Exercise and in respect of its object For the nature of the Act be saith that That which the will wills is necessarily volunrary and that in this sense he grants it is out of controversy that the will is a necessary cause of voluntary Actions Instead of that which the will wills to make it sense read that which the man wills and then if the mans will be as he confesseth a necessary cause of voluntary Actions it is no lesse a necessary cause that they are Actions then that they are voluntary For the Exercise of the Act he saith that the will may either will or suspend its Act This is the old canting which hath already been sufficiently detected But to make it somewhat let us reade it thus the man that willeth may either will or suspend his will and thus it is intelligible but false for how can he that willeth at the same time suspend his will And for the object he says that it is not necessary but Free c. His reason is because he says it was not necessary for example in choosing a Pope to choose him this or that day or to chuse this or that man I would be glad to know by what Argument â—e can prove the Election not to have been necessitated For it is not enough for him to say I perceive no necessity in it nor to say they might have chosen another because he knows not whether they might or not nor to say if he had not been freely elected the Election had been void or none For though that be true it does not follow that the Election was not necessary for there is no repugnance to necessity either in Election or in Freedome And whereas he concludeth therefore voluntary Acts in particular are not necessitated I would have been glad he had set down what voluntary Acts there are not particular which by his restriction of voluntary Acts he grants to be necessitated T. H. SEventhly I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing Num. 31. is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect The same is also a necessary cause for if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanted somewhat which was needful to the producing of it and so the cause was not sufficient But if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it or else it had not been And therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated J. D. THis section contains a third Argument to proove that all effects are necessary for clearing whereof it is needfull to consider how a cause may be said to be sufficient or insufficient First several causes singly considered may be insufficient and the same taken conjointly be sufficient to produce an effect As a two Horses jointly are sufficient to draw a Coach which either of them singly is insufficient to do Now to make the effect that is the drawing of the Coach necessary it is not onely required that the two Horses be sufficient to draw it but also that their conjunction be necessary and their habitude such as they may draw it If the owner of one of these Horses will not suffer him to draw If the Smith have shod the other in the quick and lamed him If the Horse have cast a shoe or be a resty jade and will not draw but when he list then the effect is not necessarily produced but contingently more or less as the concurrence of the causes is more or less contingent b Secondly a cause may be said to be sufficient either because 2. it produceth that effect which is intended as in the generation of a man or else because it is sufficient to produce that which is produced as in the generation of a Monster The former is properly called a sufficient cause the later a weak and insufficient cause Now if the debility of the cause be not necessary but contingent then the effect is not necessary but contingent It is a rule in Logick that the conclusion alwayes follows the weaker part If the premises be but probable the conclusion cannot be demonstrative It holds as well in causes as in propositions No effect can exceed the vertue of its cause If the ability or debility of the causes be contingent the effect cannot be necessary Thirdly that which concerns this question of Liberty from necessity most neerly is That c a cause is said to be sufficient 3. in respect of the ability of it to act not in respect of its will to act The concurrence of the will is needful to the production of a free effect But the cause may be sufficient though the will do not concur As God is sufficient to produce a thousand worlds but it doth not follow from thence either that he hath produced them or that he will produce them The blood of Christ is a sufficient ransome for all mankind but it doth not follow therefore that all mankind shall be actually saved by vertue of his Blood A man may be a sufficient Tutour though he will not teach every Scholler and a sufficient Physician though he will not administer to every patient For as much therefore as the concurrence of the will is needful to the production of every free effect and yet the cause may be sufficient in sensu-divi'so although the will do not concur it followes evidently that the cause may be sufficient and yet something which is needful to the production of the effect may be wanting and that every sufficient cause is not a necessary cause Lastly if any man be disposed to wrangle against so clear light and say that though the free Agent be sufficient in sensu diviso yet he is not sufficient in sensu composito to produce the effect without the concurrence of the will he saith true but first he bewrayes the weakness and the fallacy of the former argument which is a meer trifling between sufficiency in a divided sense and sufficiency in a compounded sense And seeing the concurrence of the will is not predetermined there is no antecedent necessity before it do concur and when it hath concurred the necessity is but hypothetical which may consist with liberty Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXI IN this place he disputeth against my definition of a sufficient cause namely that cause to which nothing is wanting needfull to the producing of the effect I thought this definition could have been mistiked by no man that had English enough to
Which cannot be proved for the contrary is true Or how proveth he that there is no outward impediment to keep that point of the Load stone which placeth it self toward the North from turning to the South His ignorance of the causes external is nâ—t a sufficient argument that there are none And whereas he saith that according to my definition of Liberâ—y a Hauk were at Liberty to fly when her wings are pluckt but not when they are tyed I answer that she is not at Liberty to fly when her wings are tyâ—d but to say when her wings are plâ—ckt that she wanted the Liberty to fly were to speak impropâ—rly and absurdly for in that case men that speak English use to say she cannot fly And for his reprehension of my attributing Libâ—rty to brute beasts and rivers I would be glad to know whether it be improper language to say a bird â—r beast may be sâ—t at Liberty from the cage wherein they were â—mprisoned or to say that a river which was stopped hath recovered its free course and how it follows that a beast or river recovering this freedome must needs therefore be capable of sin and punishment i The reason for the sixt point is like the former a Phantastical or Imaginative reason How can a man imagine any thing to begin without a cause or if it should begin without a cause why it should begin at this time rather then at that time He saith truely nothing can begin without a cause that is to be but it may begin to Act of it self without any other cause Nothing can begin without a cause but many things may begin without anâ—cessâ—ry cause He granteth nothing caâ— begin without a cause he hath granted formerly that nothing can cause it self And now he saith it may begin to Act of it self The action therefore begins to be without any cause which he said nothing could do contradicting what he had said but in the line before And â—or that that he saith that many things may begin not without cause but without a necessary cause It hath bâ—en arguâ—d before and all causes have been proved if entire and sufficiâ—nt causes to be nâ—cessary and that which he repeatâ—th here namely that a free cause may choose his time when he will begin to work and that although free effects cannot be foretold because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes yet when the free causes do determine themselves they are of as great certainty as the other it has been made appear sufficiently before that it is but Jargon the words free cause and determining themselves being insignificant and having nothing in the mind of man naswerable to them k And now that I have answered T. H. his arguments drawn from the private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words I desire him seriously to examine himself c. One of his interrogatories is this whether I find not by experience that I do many things which I might have left undone if I would This question was needlâ—sse because all the way I have granted him that men have libeâ—ty to do many things if they will which they left undâ—ne because they had not the Will to do them Another interrogatory is this whether I do not some things without regard to the direction of right reason or serious respect of what is honest or prâ—fitable This question was in vain unlesse he think himself my Confessour Another is whether I writ not this defence against Liberty onely to show I will have a Dominion over my own actions To this I answer no but to show I have no Dominion over my will and this also at his request But all these questions serve in this place for nothing else but to deliver him of a jest he was in labour with all and therefore his last question is whether I do not sometimes say Oh what a fool was I to do thus and thus or Oh that I had been wise or Oh what a fool was I to grow old Subtil questions and full of Episcopal gravity I would he had left out charging me with blasphemous desperate destructive and Atheistecal opinions I should then have pardonâ—d him his calling me fool both because I do many things foolishly and because in this question disputed between us I think he will appear a greater fool then I. T. H. FOr the seventh point that all events have necessary causes it is Num. 34. there proved in that they have sufficient causes Further Let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual at for example the throwing Ambs-ace upon a paire of Dice and see if it must not have been necessary before it was thrown for seeing it was thrown it had a beginning and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it consisting partly in the Dice partly in the ouâ—ward things as the posture of the parties hand the measure of force applied by the caster the posture of the parts of the Table and the like In sum there was notâ—ing wanting that was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast and consequently that cast was necessarily thrown For iâ— it had not been thrown there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it and so the cause had not been sufficient In the like manner it may be proved that every other accident how contingâ—nt soâ—ver it seem or how voluntary soever it be is produced necâ—ssarily which is that J. D. disâ—utes against The same also may be proved in this manner Let the case be put for example of the weather T is necessary that to morrow it shall rain or not rain If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain it is necessary it shall not rain Otherwise it is not necessary that the proposition It shall rain or it shall not rain should be true I know there are some that say it may necessarily be true that one of the two shall come to pass but not singly that it shall rain or it shall not rain Which is as much as to say One of them is necessary yet neither of them is necessary And therefore to seem to avoid that absurdity they make a distinction that neither of them is true determinatè but indeterminatè Which distinction either signifies no more than this One of them is true but we know not which and so the necessity remains though we know it not Or if the meaning of the distinction be not that it has no meaning And they might as well have said One of them is true Tytyrice but neither of them Tupatulice J. D. a HIs former proof that all sufficient causes are necessary causes is answered before Numb 31. b And his two instances of casting Ambs-ace and raining to morrow are altogether impertinent to the question now agitated between us for two reasons First our present controversie is concerning free actions which proceed from the liberty of mans will both his instances are of contingent actions which
proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of naturall causes First that there are free actions which proceed meerly from election without any outward necessitation is a truth so evident as that there is a Sun in the Heavens and he that doubteth of it may as well doubt whether there be a shell without the Nut or a stone within the Olive A man proportions his time each day and allots so much to his Devotions so much to his Study so much to his Diet so much to his Recreations so much to necessary or civil visits so much to his rest he who will seek for I know not what causes of all this without himself except that good God who hath given him a reasonable Soul may as well seek for a cause of the Egyptian Pyramides among the Crocodiles of Nilus c Secondly for mixt actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural Agents though they be not free yet they are not necessary as to keep my former instance a man walking though a street of a Citie to do his occasions a Tile falls from an House and breaks his head the breaking of his head was not necessary for he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation neither was it free for he did not deliberate of that accident therefore it was contingent and by undoubted consequence there are contingent acâ—â—ons in the World which are not free Most certainly by the concurrence of free causes as God the good and bad Angels and men with natural Agents sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident many events happen which otherwise had never hapned many effects are produced which otherwise had never been produced And admitting such things to be contingent not necessary all their consequent effects not onely immediate but medâ—ate must likewise be contingâ—â—â— that is to say such as do not proceed from a continued connexion and succession of necessary causes which is directly contrary to T. H. his opinion d Thirdly for the actions of bruit beasts though they be not free though they have not the use of reason to restrain their appetites from that which is sensitively good by the consideration of what is rationally good or what is hoâ—est and though their fancies be determined by nature to some kinds of work yet to think that every individual action of theirs and each animal motion of theirs even to the least murmure or gesture is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity to the extrinsecal causes or objects I see no ground for it Christ saith one of these Sparrows doth not fall to the gound without your Heavenly Father that is without an influence of power from him or exempted from his disposition he doth not say which your Heavenly Father casteth not down Lastly for the natural actions of inanimate Creatures wherein there is not the least concurrence of any free or voluntary Agents the question is yet more doubtful for many things are called contingent in respect of us because we know not the cause of them which really and in themselves are not contingent but necessary Also many things are contingent in respect of one single cause either actually hindred or in possibility to be hindred which are necessary in respect of the joynt concurrence of all collateral causes e But whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning so as they must all have concurred as they have done and in the same degree of power and have been deficient as they have been in all events whatsoever would require a further examination if it were pertinent to this question of liberty but it is not It is sufficient to my purpose to have shewed that all elective actions are free from absolute neâ—essity And more-over that the concurrence of voluntary aâ—d free Agents with natural causes both upon purpose and accidentally hath helped them to produce many effects which otherwise they had not produced and hindred them from producing many effects which otherwise they had produced And that if this intervention of voluntary and free Agents had been more frequent than it hath been as without doubt it might have been many natural events had been otherwise than they are And therefore he might have spared his instances of casting Ambs-ace and raining to morrow And first for his casting Ambs-ace If it be thrown by a fair Gamester with indifferent Dice it is a mixt action the casting of the Dice is free but the casting of Ambs-ace is contingent a man may deliberate whether he will cast the Dice or not but it were folly to deliberate whether he will cast Ambs-ace or not because it is not in his power unless he be a cheater that can cogge the Dice or the Dice be false Dice and then the contingency or the degree of contingency ceaseth accordingly as the Caster hath more or less cunning or as the figure or making of the Dice doth incline them to Ambs-ace more than to another cast or necessitate them to this cast and no other Howsoever so far as the cast is free or contingent so far it is not necessary And where necessity begins there liberty and contingency do cease to be Likewise his other instance of raining or not raining to morrow is not of a free elective act nor alwayes of a contingent act In some Countries as they have their stati venti their certain winds at set seasons so they have their certain and set rains The Aethiopian rains are supposed to be the cause of the certain inundation of Nilus In some eastern Countries they have rain onely twice a year and those constant which the Scriptures call the former and the later rain In such places not onely the causes do act determinately and necessarily but also the determination or necessity of the event is fore-known to the inhabitants In our Climate the natural causes coelestial and sublunary do not produce rain so necessarily at set times neither can we say so certainly and infallibly it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow Neverthelesse it may so happen that the causes are so disposed and determined even in our climate that this proposition it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow may be necessary in it self and the Prognosticks or tokens may be such in the sky in our own bodies in the creatures animate and inanimate as weather-glasses c. that it may become probably true to us that it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow But ordinarily it is a contingent proposition to us whether it be contingent also in it self that is whether the concurrence of the causes were absolutely necessary whether the vapours or matter of the rain may not yet be dispersed or otherwise consumed or driven beyond our coast is a speculation which no way concerns this question So we see one reason why his two instances are altogether impertinent because they are of actions which are not
free nor elective nor such as proceed from the liberty of mans will Secondly our dispute is about absolute necessity his proofs extend onely to Hypothetical necessity Our question is whether the concurrence and determination of the causes were necessary before they did concur or were determined He proves that the effect is necessary after the causes have concurred and are determined The freest actions of God or man are necessary by such a necessity of supposition and the most contingent events that are as I have shewed plainly Numb 3. where his instance of Ambs-ace is more fully answered So his proof looks another way from his proposition His proposition is that the casting of Ambs-ace was necessary before it was thrown His proof is that it was necessary when it was thrown examine all his causes over and over and they will not afford him one grain of antecedent necessity The first cause is in the Dice True if they be false Dice there may be something in it but then his contingency is destroyed If they be square Dice they have no more inclination to Ambs-ace than to Cinque and Quater or any other cast His second cause is the posture of the parties hand But what necessity was there that he should put his hand into such a posture None at all The third cause is the measure of the force applied by the caster Now for the credit of his cause let him but name I will not say a convincing reason nor so much as a probable reason but even any pretence of reason how the Caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force and neither more nor lesse If he cannot his cause is desperate and he may hold his peace for ever His last cause is the posture of the Table But tell us in good earnest what necessity there was why the Caster must throw into that Table rather than the other or that the Dice must fall just upon that part of the Table before the cast was thrown He that makes these to be necessary causes I do not wonder if he make all effects necessary effects If any one of these causes be contingent it is sufficient to render the cast contingent and now that they are all so contingent yet he will needs have the effect to be necessary And so it is when the cast is thrown but not before the cast was thrown which he undertook to prove Who can blame him for being so angry with the School-men and their distinctions of necessity into absolute and hypothetical seeing they touch his freehold so nearly But though his instance of raining to morrow be impertinent as being no free action yet because he triumphs so much in his argument I will not stick to go a little out of my way to meet a friend For I confess the validity of the reason had been the same if he had made it of a free action as thus Either I shall finish this reply to morrow or I shall not finish this reply to morrow is a necessary proposition But because he shall not complain of any disadvantage in the alteration of his terms I will for once adventure upon his shower of rain And first I readily admit his major that this proposition either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow is necessarily true for of two contradictory propositions the one must of necessity be true because no third can be given But his minor that it could not be necessarily true except one of the Members were necessarily true is most false And so is his proof likewise that if neither the one nor the other of the Members be necessarily true it cannot be affirmed that either the one or the other is true A conjunct proposition may have both parts false and yet the proposition be true as if the Suu shine it is day is a true proposition at midnight And T. H. confesseth as much Numb 19. If I shall live I shall eat is a necessary proposition that is to say it is necessary that that proposition should be true whensoever uttered But it is not the necessity of the thing nor is it therefore necessary that the man shall live or that the man shall eat And so T. H. proceeds I do not use to fortifie my distinctions with such reasons But it seemeth he hath forgotten himself and is contented with such poor fortifications And though both parts of a disjunctive proposition cannot be false because if it be a right disjunction the Members are repugnant whereof one part is infallibly true yet vary but the proposition a little to abate the edge of the disjunctions and you shall finde that which T. H. saith to be true that it is not the necessity of the thing which makes the proposition to be true As for example vary it thus I know that either 〈◊〉 will rain to morrow or that it will not rain to morrow is a true proposition But it is not true that I know it will rain to morrow neither is it true that I know it will not rain to morrow wherefore the certain truth of the proposition doth not prove that either of the Members is determinately true in present Truth is a conformity of the understanding to the thing known whereof speech is an interpreter If the understanding agree not with the thing it is an errour if the words agree not with the understanding it is a lie Now the thing known is known either in it self or in its causes If it be known in it self as it is then we expresse our apprehension of it in words of the present tence as the Sun is risen If it be known in its cause we expresse our selves in words of the future tense as to morrow will be an Eclipse of the Moon But if we neither know it in its self nor in its causes then there may be a foundation of truth but there is no such determinate truth of it that we can reduce it into a true proposition we cannot say it doth rain to morrow or it doth not rain to morrow That were not onely false but absurd we cannot positively say it will rain to morrow because we do not know it in its causes either how they are determined or that they are determined wherefore the certitude and evidence of the disjunctive proposition is neither founded upon that which will be actually to morrow for it is granted that we do not know that nor yet upon the determination of the causes for then we would not say indifferently either it will rain or it will not rain but positively it will rain or positively it will not rain But it is grounded upon an undeniable principle that of two contradictory propositions the one must necessarily be true f And therefore to say either this or that will infallibly be but it is not yet 〈…〉 whether this or that shall be is no such senselesse 〈…〉 thaâ—â—t deserved a â—ytyrice Tâ—patulice but an evâ—…th
which no man that hath his eyes in his head can dâ—â—bt oâ— g If all this will not satisfie him I will give one of his own kind of proofs that is an instance That which necessitates all things according to T. H. is the decree of God or that order which is set to all things by the eternal cause Numb 11. Now God himself who made this necessitating decree was not subjected to it in the making thereof neither was there any former order to oblige the first cause necessarily to make such a decree therefore this decree being an act ad extra was freely made by God without any necessitation Yet nevertheless this disjunctive proposition is necessarily true Either God did make such a decree or he did not make such a decree Again though T. H. his opinion were true that all events are necessary and that the whole Christian world are deccived who believe that some events are free from necessity yet he will not deny but if it had been the good pleasure of God he might have made some causes free from necessity seeing that it neither argues any imperfection nor implies any contradiction Supposing therefore that God had made some second causes free from any such antecedent determination to one yet the former disjunction would be necessarily true Either this free undetermined cause will act after this manner or it will not act after this manner Wherefore the necessary truth of such a disjunctive proposition doth not prove that either of the members of the disjunction singly considered is determinately true in present but onely that the one of them will be determinately true to morrow Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXIV a HIs former proof that all sufficient causes are necessary causes is answered before Numb 31. When he shall have read my Animadversions upon that Answer of his he will think otherwise whatsoever he will confesse b And his two instances of casting Ambs-ace and of raining to morrow are altogether impertinent to the question for two reasons His first reason is because he saith our present controversy is concerning free actions which proceed from the Liberty of mans Will and both his instances are of contingent actions which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes He knows that this part of my discourse which beginneth at Numb 25. is no dispute with him at all but a bare seâ—ting down of my opinion concerning the natural necessity of all things which is opposite not onely to the Liberty of Will but also to all contingence that is not necessary And therefore these instances were not impertinent to my purpose and if they be impertinent to his opinion of the Liberty of mans Will he does impertinently to meddle with them And yet for all he pretends here that the question is onely ab ut Liberty of the Will Yet in his first discourse Number the 16. he maintains that the order beauty and perfection of the world doth require that in the Universe should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some Free some contingent And my purpose here is to shew by those instances that those things which we esteem most contingent are neverthelesse necessary Besides the controversy is not whether free actions which proceed from the Liberty of mans Will be necessary or not for I know no action which proceedeth from the Liberty of mans Will But the question is whether those actions which proceed from the mans Will be necessary The mans Will is something but the Liberty of his Will is nothing Again the question is not whether contingent actions which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes for there is nothing that can proceed from indetermination but whether contingent actions be necessary before they be done or whether the concurrence of natural causes when they happen to concur were not necessitated so to happen or whether whatsoever chanceth be not necessitated so to chance And that they are so necessitated I have proved already with such arguments as the Bishop for ought I see cannot answer For to say as he doth that there are free actions which proceed meerly from Election without any outward necessitation is a truth so evident as that there is a Sun in the Heavens is no proof 'T is indeed as cleer as the Sun that there are free actions proceeding from Election but that there is Election without any outward necessitation is dark enough c Secondly for mixt actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural Agents though they be not free yet they are not necessary c. For proof of this he instanceth in a Tile that falling from an house breaks a mans head neither necessarily nor freely and therefore contingently Not necessarily for saith he he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation Which is as much as taking the question it self for a proof For what is else the question but whether a man be necessitated to choose what he chooseth Again saith he it was not Free because he did not deliberate whether his head should be broken or not and conâ—ludes therefore it was contingent and by undoubted consequence there are contingent actions in the world which are not free This is true and denied by none but he should have proved that such contingent actions are not antecedently necessary by a concurrence of natural causes though a little before he granteth they are For whatsoever is produced by concurrence of natural causes was antecedently determined in the cause of such concurrence though as he calls it contingent concurrence not perceiving that concurrence and contingent concurrence are all one and suppose a continued connection and succession of causes which make the effect necessarily future So that hitherto he hath proved no other contingence then that which is necessary d Thirdly for the actions of brute beasts c. To think each animal motion of theirs is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity I see no ground for it It maketh nothing against the truth that he sees no ground for it I have pointed out the ground in my former discourse and am not bound to find him eyes He himself immediately citeth a place of Scripture that proveth it where Christ saith one of these sparrows doth not fall to the ground without your heavenly father which place if there were nâ— more were a sufficient ground for the assertion of tâ—e necessity of all those changes of animal motion in birds and other living creatures which seem to us so uncertain But when a man is dizzy with influence of power elicite acts permissive will Hypothetical necessity and the like unintelligible terms the ground goes from him By and by after he confesseth that many things are called contingent in respect of us because we know not the cause oâ— tâ—em which really and in themselves are not contingent bu necessary and errâ— therein the other way for he says in effect that
opinions when they are taught as they are often in Divinity Books and from the Pulpit I could hardly guesse but that I remember that there have been Books written to intitle the Bishops to a Divine right underived from the civil Soveraign But because he maketh it so â—aynous a matter that the supreme civil Magistrate should be Christs Lieutenant upon earth let us suppose that a Bishop or a Synode of Bishops should be set up which I hope never shall for our civil Soveraign then that which he objecteth here I could object in the same words against himself For I could say in his oâ—n words This is life eternal to know the onely true God and Jesus Christ Joh. 17. 3. Pure Religion and undefiled before God is this to visit the Fatherless c. James 1. 27. Fear God and keep his Commandments Eccles. 12. 13. But the Bishop hath found a more compendious way to Heaven namely that true Religion consisteth in obedience to Christs Lieutenants that is now by supposition to the Bishops That is to say that every Christian of what nation soever coming into the Country which the Bishopâ— governe should be of their Religion He would make the civil Magistrate to be Christs Lieutenant upon earth for matters of Religion and supreme Judge in all controversies and say they ought to be obeyed by al how strange soever and uncouth it seem to him now the Soveraignity being in others And I may say to him what if the Magistrate himself I mean by supposition the Bishops should be wicked 〈…〉 What if they should command as much contrary to the â—…w of 〈◊〉 oâ— nature as every any Christian King did which is very possible must we obey them rather then God Is the civill Magistrate become now the onely ground and pâ—â—lar of truth No. Synedri jussum est voce Episcoporum Ipsum quod colit ut colamus omnes Aeternum colemus Principem dierum Factorem Dominumque Epilcoporum And thus the Bishop may see there is 〈…〉 difference between his Ode and my â—arode to it and that both of them are of equal force 〈◊〉 conclud nothinâ— The Bishop knows that the Kings of England since the time of Henry the 8. have been 〈…〉 by 〈…〉 Parliament supream Governors oâ— the Church of England in 〈…〉 both civil and Ecclesiastical that is to say 〈…〉 matters both Ecclesiastical and civil anâ— consequently oâ— this Church Supreme head on Earth though perhaps he will not allow that 〈…〉 me of Hâ—â—d I should wonder therefore whom the Bishop would have to be Christs Lieutenant here in England for matters of Religion if not the supreme Governor â—nd Head of the Church of England 〈…〉 Man or Women whosoever he be that hath the Soveraign Power but that I know he challenges it to the Bishops and thinks thaâ— King Henry the 8. took the Ecclesiastical Power away from the Pope to settle it not in himself but them But he ought to have known that what 〈…〉 or Power oâ— Ordaiâ—ing 〈…〉 the Popâ—s had here in the time of the Kings Predecessours til Henry the 8. they derived it all from the Kings Power though they did not acknowledge it and the Kings connived at it either not knowing their own right or not daring to challenge it til such tiâ—e as the behaviour of the Romane Clergie had undeceived the people which otherwise would have sided with them Nor was it unlawful for the King to take from them the Authority he had given them as being Pope enough in his own Kingdome without depending on a forraign one nor is it to be called Schisme unlesse it be Schisme also in the head of a Family to discharge as often 〈◊〉 he shall see cause the School-Masters he enter â—ineth to teach his Children If the Bishop and Dr. Hammond when they did write in defence of the Church of England against imputation of Schisme quitting their own pretences of jurisdiction and Jus divinum had gone upon these principles of mine they had not been so shrewdly handled as they have been by an English Papist that wrote against them And now I have done answering to his Arguments I shall here â—n the end of all taee that Liberty of censuring his while Book which he hath taken in the beginning of censuring mine I have saith he Numb 1. perused T. H. his answers considered his reasons and conclude he hath missed and miâ—â—aid the question that his answers are evasions that his Arguments are â—aralogismes and that the opinion of absolute and universal necessity is but a 〈…〉 some groundless and ill chosen Principles And now it is my turn to censure And first â—oâ— the strength of his discourse and knowledge of the point in question I think it much inferiour to that which might have been written by any man living that had no other learning besides the ability to wriâ—e his mind but as well perhaps as the same man would have done it if to the ability of writing his mind he had added the study of School-Divinity Secondly for the manners of it for to a publick writing there belongeth good manners it consisteth in railing and exclaiming and scurrilous jesting with now and then an unclean and mean instance And lastly for his elocution the vertue whereof lieth not in the flux of words but in perspicuity it is the same Language with that of the Kingdome of Darkness One shall find in it especially where â—e should speak most closely to the question such words as these Divided sense Compounded sense Hypothetical necessity Liberty of Exercise Liberty of specification Liberty of contradiction Liberty of contrariety Knowledge of approbation Practical knowledge General influence Special influence Instinct Qualities infused Efficatious election Moral efficacy Moral motion Metaphorical motion Practice practicum Motus primo primi Actus eliciti Actus imperati Permissive will Consequent will Negative obduration Deficient cause Simple act Nunc stans other like words of non-sense divided besides many propositions such as thâ—se The Will is the Mistris of humane Actions The understanding iâ— her counseller The Will chuseth The Will willeth The Will suspends its own Act The Understanding understandeth I wonder how he mist saying The Understanding suspendeth its own Act The Will applies the understanding to deliberate The Will requires of the Understanding a riview The Wil determines it self A change may be Willed without changing of the Will Man concurrs with God in causing his own Will The Will causeth willing Motives determine the Will not naturally but morally The same Action may be both future and not future God is not Just but Justice not eternal but eternity Eternity is Nunc stans Eternity is an infinite point which comprehendeth al time not formally but eminently Al eternity is coexistent with to day and the same coexistent with to morrow and many other like speeches of non-sense compounded Which the truth can never stand in need of Perhaps the Bishop will say these Terms and Phrases
are intelligible enough for he hath said in his Reply to Numb 24. that his opinion is demonstrable in reason though he be not able to comprehend how iâ— consisteth together with Gods eternal Prescience and though it exceed his weak capacitie yet he ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest so that to him that truth is manifest â—nd demonstrable by reason which is beyond his capacity so that words beyond capacity are with him intelligible enough But the Reader is to be Judge of that I could add many other passages that discover both his little Logick as taking tâ—â— insignificant word above recited for Terms of Art aâ—d hiâ— no Philosophy in distinguishing between moral and â—â—turâ—lâ— mâ—tion and by calling some motions Metaphorical and his thâ—r offers at the causes of sight and of the descent of heavy lies and his talk of the inclination of the Lâ—ud-stone and diverse other places of his Book But to make an end I shall briefly draw up the sum of what we have both said That which I have maintained is that no man hath his future will in his own present power That it may be changed by others and by the change of things without him and when it is changed it is not changed nor determined to any thing by it self and that when it is undetermined it is no Will because every one that willeth willeth something in particular That deliberation is common to men with beasts as being alternate appetite and not ratiocination and the last act or appetite therein and which is immediately followed by the action the onely will that can be taken notice of by others and which onely maketh an action in publick judgment voluntary That to be free is no more then to do if a man will and if he will to forbear and consequently that this freedome is the freedome of the man and not of the Will That the Will is not free but subject to change by the operation of external causes That all external causes depend necessarily on the first eternal cause God Almighty who worketh in us both to Will and to do by the mediation of second causes That seeing neither man nor any thing else can work upon it self it is impossible that any man in the framing of his own Will should concur with God either as an Actor or as an Instrument That there is nothing brought to passe by fortune as by a cause nor any thing without a cause or concurrence of causes sufficient to bring it so to passe and that every such cause and their concurrence do proceed from the providence good pleasure and working of God and consequently though I do with others call many events Contingent and say they happen yet because they had every of them their several sufficient causes and those causes again their former causes I say they happen necessarily And though we perceive not what they are yet there are of the most Contingent events as necessary causes as of those events whose causes we perceive or else they could not possibly be foreknown as they are by him that foreknoweth all things On the contrary the Bishop maintaineth That the Will is free from necessitation and in order thereto that the Judgment of the understanding is not alwayes practice practicum nor of such a nature in it self as to oblige and determine the Will to one though it be true that Spontaneity and determination to one may consist together That the Will determineth it self and that external things when they change the Will do work upon it not naturally but morally not by natural motion but by moral and Metaphorical motion That when the Will is determined naturally it is not by Gods general influence whereon depend all second causes but by special influence God concurring and powring something into the Will That the Will when it suspends not its Act makes the Act necessary but because it may suspend and not assent it is not absolutely necessary That sinful acts proceed not from Gods Will but are willed by him by a permissive Will not an operative Will and hardeneth the heart of man by a negative obduration That mans Will is in his own power but his motus primo primi not in his own power nor necessary save onely by a Hypothetical necessity That the Will to change is not always a change of Wil That not all things which are produced are produced from sufficient but some things from deficient causes That if the Power of the Will be present in actu primo then therâ— is nothing wanting to the production of the effect That a cause may be sufficient for the production of an effect though it want something necessary to the production thereof because the Will may be wanting That a necessary cause doth not alwayes necessarily produce its effect but onely then when the effect is necessarily produced He proveth also that the Will is free by that universal notion which the World hath of election For when of the six electors the votes are divided equally the King of Bohemia hath a casting voyce That the Prescience of God supposeth no necessity of the future existence of the things foreknown because God is not eternal but eternity and eternity is as standing Now without succession of time and therefore God foresees all things intuitively by the presentiallity they have in Nunc stans which comprehendeth in it all time past present and to come not formally but eminently and vertually That the Will is free even then when it acteth but that is in a compounded not in a divided sense That to be made and to be eternal do consist together because Gods Decrees are made and are nevertheless eternal That the order beauty and perfection of the World doth require that in the universe there should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some free some contingent That though it be true that to morrow it shall rain or not rain yet neither of them is true determinatè That the Doctrine of necessity is a blasphemous desperate and destructive doctrinâ— That it were better to be an Atheist that then to hold it he that maintaineth it is fitter to be refuted with Rodds then with Arguments And now whether this his Doctrine or mine be the more intelligible more rational or more coâ—â—ormable to Gords Word I leave it to the Judgment of the Reader But whatsoever be the truth of the disputed Question the Reader may peradventure think I have not used the Bishop with that respect I ought or without disadvantage of my cause I might have done for which I am to make a short Apologie A little before the last Parliament of the â—â—te King when every man 〈…〉 freely against the then present Government I thought it worth my study to consider the grounds and consequences of such behaviour and whether it were conformable or contrary to reason and to the Word of God and after some time I did put in order and publish my thoughts thereof first in Latine and then again the same in English where I endeavoured to prove both by reason and Scripture That they who have once submitted themselves to any Soveraign Governour either by express acknowledgment of his power or by receiving protection from his Laws are obliged to be true and faithful to him and to acknowledge no other supreme power but him in any matter or question whatsoever either civill or Ecclesiastical In which Books of mine I pursued my subject without taking notice of any particular man that held any opinion contrary to that which I then writ onely in general I maintained that the office of the Clergy in respect of the supreme civil power was not Magisterial but Ministerial and that their teaching of the People was founded up nâ—o other Authority then that of the civil Soveraign and all this without any word tending to the disgrace either of Episcopacy or of Presbytery Nevertheless I find since that divers of them whereof thâ— Bishop of Derry is one have taken offence especially at two things one that I make the supremacy in matters of Religion to residâ— in the civil Soveraign the other that being no Clergy-man I deliver Doctrines and ground them uâ—on Words of the Scripture which Doctrines they being by profession Divines have never taught And in this their displeasure divers of them in their Books and Sermons without answering any of my Arguments have not onely exclâ—iâ—ed against my Doctrine but reviled me and endeavoured to make me hateful 〈…〉 things for which if they knâ—w their own and the Publick good they ought to have given me thanks There is also one of them that taking offence at me for blaming in part the Discipline instituted heretofore and regulated by the Authority of the Pope in the Universities not onely ranks me amongst thosâ— men that would have the Revenue of the Universities diminished and sayes plainly I have no Religion but also thinks me so simple and ignorant of the World as to believe that our Universities maintain Popery And this is the Author of the Book called Vindiciae Academiarum If either of the Universities had thought it self injured I believe it could have Authorised or appointed some member of theirs whereof there be many abler men then he to have made their vinâ—ication But this Vindex as little Doggs to plâ—ase their Masters use to bark in token of their sedulity indifferently at strangers till they be rated off unprovoked by me hath fallen upon me without bidding I have been publiquely injured by many of whom I took no notice supposing that that humour would spend it self but seeing it last and grow higher in this writing I now answer I thought it necessary at last to make of some of them and first of this Bishop an Example FINIS