of age to understand the rod for the actions wherein he hath once a check shall be deliberated on the second time Fools and madmen manifestly deliberate no less then the wisest men though they make not so good a choise the images of things being by diseases altered For Bees and Spiders if be had so little to do as to be a spectator of their actions he would have confessed not onely Election but also Art Prudence and Policy in them very neer equall to that of mankind Of Bees Aristotle sayes their life is civill He is deceived if he think any spontaneous action after once being checked in it differs from an action voluntary and elective for even the setting of a mans foot in the posture of walking and the action of ordinary eating was once deliberated how and when it should be done And though it afterward become easy and habitual so as to be done without fore-thought yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and proceeds from election So also are the rashest actions of cholerick persons voluntary and upon deliberation for who is there but very young Children that has not considered when and how far he ought or safely may strike or revile seeing then he agrees with me that such actions are necessitated and the fancy of those that do them is determined to the actions they do it follows out of his own doctrin that the liberty of election does not take away the necessity of electing this or that individuall thing And thus one of his Arguments fights against another J. D. WE have partly seen before how T. H. hath coined a new kind of liberty a new kind of necessity a new kind of election and now in this section a new kind of spontaneity and a new kind of voluntary actions Although he say that here is nothing new to him yet I begin to suspect that either here are many things new to him or otherwise his election is not the result of a serious mature deliberation The first thing that I offer is how often he mistakes my meaning in this one section first I make voluntary and spontaneous actions to be one and the same he saith I distinguish them so as spontaneous actions may be necessary but voluntary actions cannot Secondly I distinguish between free acts and voluntary acts The former are alwaies deliberate the latter may be indeliberate all free acts are voluntary but all voluntary acts are not free but he saith I confound them and make them the same Thirdly he saith I ascribe spontaneity onely to Fools Children Mad-Men and Beasts But I acknowledge spontaneity hath place in rationall men both as it is comprehended in liberty and as it is distinguished from liberty Yet I have no reason to be offended at it for he deals no otherwise with me then he doth with himself Here he tells us that voluntary praesupposeth deliberation But Numb 25. he tells us contrary that whatsoever followeth the last appetite is voluntary and where there is but one appetite that is the last And that no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation though never so suddain So Numb 33. he tells us that by spontaneity is meant inconsiderate proceeding or else nothing is meant by it yet here he tells us that all voluntary actions which proceed not from fear are spontaneous whereof many are deliberate as that wherein he instanceth himself to give mony for merchandise Thirdly when I said that Children before they have the use of reason act spontaneously as when they suck the Breast but do not act freely because they have not judgement to deliberate or elect Here T. H. undertakes to proove that they do deliberate and elect And yet presently after confesseth again that a Child may be so young as to do what it doth without all deliberation Besides these mistakes and contradictions he hath other errours also in this section As this that no actions proceeding from fear are spontaneous He who throws his goods into the Sea to avoid drowning doth it not onely spontaneously but even freely He that wills the end wills the means conducing to that end It is true that if the action be considered nakedly without all circumstances no man willingly or spontaneously casts his goods into the Sea But if we take the action as in this particular case invested with all the circumstances and in order to the end that is the saving of his own life it is not onely voluntary and spontaneous but elective and chosen by him as the most probable means for his own preservation As there is an Antecedent and a subsequent will so there is an Antecedent and a subsequent spontaneity His Grammaticall argument grounded upon the derivation of spontaneous from sponte weighs nothing we have learned in the rudiments of Logick that conjugates are sometimes in name onely and not indeed He who casts his goods in 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 what spontaneity is let us consult a while with the Schools about the distinct order of voluntary or involuntary actions Some acts proceed wholy from an extrinsecall 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 intrinsecall cause but without any manner of knowledge of the end as the falling of a stone downwards these are called naturall acts Thirdly some proceed from an internall 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 acts 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 formall reason of liberty is election The necessary requisite to election is deliberation Deliberation implieth the actuall use of reason But deliberation and election cannot possibly subsist with an extrinsecall 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 wayes vulgarly or metaphorically as we say spontaneous ulcers where there is no
Matth. 7.7 St. Paul tells the Corinthians 2 Cor. 1.11 that he was helped by their prayers that 's not all that the gift was bestowed upon him by their means So prayer is a means And St. James saith cap. 5.16 The effectuall fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much If it be effectuall then it is a cause To shew this efficacy of prayer our Saviour useth the comparison of a Father towards his Child of a Neighbour towards his Neighbour yea of an unjust Judge to shame those who think that God hath not more compassion than a wicked man This was signified by Jacobs wrestling and prevailing with God Prayer is like the Tradesmans tools wherewithall he gets his living for himself and his family But saith he Gods will is unchangeable What then He might as well use this against study Physick and all second causes as against Prayer He shewes even in this how little they attribute to the endeavours of men There is a great difference between these two mutare voluntatem to change the will which God never doth in whom there is not the least shadow of turning by change His will to love and hate was the same from eternity which it now is and ever shall be His love and hatred are immovable but we are removed Non tellus cymbam tellurem cymba reliquit And velle mutationem to will a change which God often doth To change the will argues a change in the Agent but to will a change only argues a change in the object It is no inconstancy in a man to love or to hate as the object is changed Praesta mihi omnia eadem idem sum Prayer works not upon God but us It renders not him more propitious in himself but us more capable of mercy He saith this That God doth not bless us except we pray is a motive to prayer Why talks he of motives who acknowledgeth no liberty nor admitts any cause but absolutely necessary He saith Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessing which we pray for and conteined in the same decree with the blessing It is true the spirit of prayer is the gift of God will he conclude from thence that the good imployment of one talent or of one gift of God may not procure another Our Saviour teacheth us otherwise Come thou good and faithfull servant thou hast been faithfull in little I will make thee ruler over much Too much light is an enemy to the light and too much Law is an enemy to Justice I could wish we wrangled less about Gods Decrees untill we understood them better But saith he Thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past and prayer is but a thanksgiving He might even as well tell me that when a beggar craves an almes and when he gives thanks for it it is all one Every thanksgiving is a kind of prayer but every prayer and namely Petition is not a thanks-giving In the last place he urgeth that in our prayers we are bound to submit our wills to Gods Will who ever made any doubt of this we must submit to the Preceptive will of God or his Commandments we must submit to the effective Will of God when he declares his good pleasure by the event or otherwise But we deny and deny again either that God wills things ad extra without himself necessarily or that it is his pleasure that all second causes should act necessarily at all times which is the question and that which he allegeth to the contrary comes not neer it Numb 16. J. D. argument 4 FOurthly the order beauty and perfection of the world doth require that in the Universe should be Agents of all sorts some necessary somefree some contingent He that shall make either all things necessary guided by destiny or all things free governed by election or all things contingent happening by chance doth overthrow the beauty and the perfection of the world T. H. THE fourth Argument from reason is this The Order Beauty and Perfection of the world requireth that in the Vniverse should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some free some contingent He that shall make all things necessary or all things free or all things contingent doth overthrow the beauty and perfection of the world In which Argument I observe first a contradiction For seeing he that maketh any thing in that he maketh it he maketh it to be necessary it followeth that he that maketh all things maketh all things necessary to be As if a workman make a garment the garment must necessarily be So if God make every thing every thing must necessarily be Perhaps the beauty of the world requireth though we know it not that some Agents should work without deliberation which he calls necessary Agents And some Agents with deliberation and those both he and I call free Agents And that some Agents should work and we not know how And them effects we both call contingent But this hinders not but that he that electeth may have his election necessarily determined to one by former causes And that which is contingent and imputed to Fortune be nevertheless necessary and depend on precedent necessary causes For by contingent men do not mean that which hath no cause but which hath not for cause any thing which we perceive As for example when a Travailer meets with a shower the journey had a cause and the rain had a cause sufficient enough to produce it but because the journey caused not the rain nor the rain the journey we say they were contingent one to another And thus you see though there be three sorts of events Necessary Contingent and Free yet they may be all necessary without the destruction of the beauty or perfection of the Univers J. D. THE first thing he observes in mine Argument is contradiction as he calls it but in truth it is but a deception of the sight As one candle sometimes seems to be two or a rod in the water shewes to be two rods Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipient is But what is this contradiction Because I say he who maketh all things doth not make them necessary What a contradiction and but one proposition That were strange I say God hath not made all Agents necessary he saith God hath made all Agents necessary Here is a contradiction indeed but it is between him and me not between me and my self But yet though it be not a formall contradiction yet perhaps it may imply a contradiction in adjecto Wherefore to clear the matter and dispell the mist which he hath raised It is true that every thing when it is made it is necessary that it be made so as it is that is by a necessity of infallibility or supposition supposing that it be so made but this is not that absolute antecedent necessity whereof the question is between him and me As to use his own instance Before the Garment be made the Tailor is
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 controversy 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 Numb 31. T. H. SEventhly I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needfull 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 needfull 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 els it had not been And therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated J. D. THis section containes 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 severall causes singly considered may be insufficient and the same taken conjointly be sufficient to produce an effect As 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 Secondly a cause may be said to be sufficient either because it produceth that effect which is intended as in the generation of a man or els 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 followes 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 concernes this question of Liberty from necessity most neerely is That a cause is said to be sufficient in respect of the ability of it to act not in respect of its will to act The concurrence of the will is needfull 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 Physitian though he will not administer to every patient Forasmuch therefore as the concurrence of the will is needfull to the production of every free effect and yet the cause may be sufficient in sensu diviso although the will do not concur It followes evidently that the cause may be sufficient and yet something which is needfull 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 hypotheticall which may consist with liberty Numb 32. T. H. LAstly I hold that ordinary definition of a free Agent namely that a free Agent is that which when all things are present which are needfull to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it Implies a contradiction and is non-sense being as much as to say the cause may be sufficient that is necessary and yet the effect not follow J. D. THis last point is but a Corollary or an Inference from the former doctrine that every sufficient cause produceth its effect necessarily which pillar being taken away the superstructure must needs fall to the ground having nothing left to support it Lastly I hold saith he what he is able to proove is something So much reason so much trust but what he holds concernes himself not others But what holds he I hold saith he that the ordinary definition of a free Agent implies a contradiction and is non-sense That which he calls the ordinary definition of liberty is the very definition
not truly empty and that the aire is a true body I might give an hundred such like instances He who leaves the conduct of his understanding to follow vulgar notions shall plunge himself into a thousand errours like him who leaves a certaine guide to follow an ignis fatuus or a Will with the wispe So his proposition is false His reason That matter of fact is not verified by other mens Arguments but by every mans own sense and memory is likewise maimed on both sides whether we hear such words or not is matter of fact and sense is the proper judge of it But what these words do or ought truely to signifie is not to be judged by sense but by reason Secondly reason may and doth oftentimes correct sense even about its proper object Sense tells us that the Sun is no bigger than a good Ball but reason demonstrates that it is many times greater than the whole Globe of the earth As to his instance How can it be proved that to love a thing and to think it good is all one to a man that doth not make his own meaning by these words I confess it cannot be proved for it is not true Beauty and likeness and love do conciliate love as much as goodness cos amoris amor Love is a passion of the will but to judge of goodness is an act of the understanding A Father may love an ungracious Childe and yet not esteem him good A man loves his own house better than another mans yet he cannot but esteem many others better than his own His other instance How can it be proved that eternity is not nunc stans to a man that sayes these words by custom and never considers how he can conceive the thing it self in his minde is just like the former not to be proved by reason but by fancie which is the way he takes And it is not unlike the counsel which one gave to a Novice about the choise of his wise to advice with the Bels as he fancied so they founded either take her or leave her Then for his assumption it is as defective as his proposition That by these words spontaneity c. men do understand as he conceives No rational man doth conceive a spontaneous action and an indeliberate action to be all one every indeliberate action is not spontaneous The fire considers not whether it should burn yet the burning of it is not spontaneous Neither is every spontaneous action indeliberate a man may deliberate what he will eat and yet eat it spontaneously Neither doth deliberation properly signifie the considering of the good and evil sequels of an action to come But the considering whether this be a good and fit means or the best and fittest means for obtaining such an end The Physician doth not deliberate whether he should cure his Patient but by what means he should cure him Deliberation is of the means not of the end Much less doth any man conceive with T. H. that deliberation is an imagination or an act of fancy not of reason common to men of discretion with mad men and natural fools and children and bruit beasts Thirdly neither doth any understanding man conceive or can conceive either that the will is an act of our deliberation the understanding and the will are two distinct faculties or that onely the last appetite is to be called our will So no man should be able to say this is my will because he knows not whether he shall persevere in it or not Concerning the fourth point we agree that he is a free Agent that can do if he will and forbear if he will But I wonder how this dropped from his pen what is now become of his absolute necessity of all things If a man be free to do and to forbear any thing will he make himself guilty of the non-sence of the School-men and run with them into contradictions for company It may be he will say he can do if he will and forbear if he will but he cannot will if he will This will not serve his turn for if the cause of a free action that is the will to be determined then the effect or the action it self is likewise determined a determined cause cannot produce an undetermined effect either the Agent can will and forbear to will or else he cannot do and forbear to do But we differ wholy about the fifth point He who conceives liberty aright conceives both a liberty in the subject to will or not to will and a liberty to the object to will this or that and a liberty from impediments T. H. by a new way of his own cuts off the liberty of the subject as if a stone was free to ascend or descend because it hath no outward impediment And the liberty towards the object as if the Needle touched with the Load-stone were free to point either towards the North or towards the South because there is not a Barrecado in its way to hinder it yea he cuts off the liberty from inward impediments also As if an Hawk were at liberty to fly when her wings are plucked but not when they are tied And so he makes liberty from extrinsecal impediments to be compleat liberty so he ascribes liberty to bruit beasts and liberty to Rivers and by consequence makes Beasts and Rivers to be capeable of sin and punishment Assuredly Xerxes who caused the Hellespont to be beaten with so many stripes was of this opinion Lastly T. H. his reason that it is custom or want of ability or negligence which makes a man conceive otherwise is but a begging of that which he should prove Other men consider as seriously as himself with as much judgement as himself with less prejudice than himself and yet they can apprehend no such sense of these words would he have other men feign that they see fiery Dragons in the Air because he affirms confidently that he sees them and wonders why others are so blinde as not to see them The reason for the sixth 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 than 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 and do begin without necessary causes A free cause may as wel choose his time when he will begin as a necessary cause be determined extrinsically when it must begin And 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 As when I see a Bell ringing I can conceive the cause of it as well why it rings now as I know the
of these Sparrows doth not fall to the ground without your Heavenly Father that is without an influence of power from him or exempted frō 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 questiō is yet more doubtfull for many things are called cōtingent in respect of us because we know not the cause of them which really 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 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 in the same degree of power have been deficient as they have beē 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 necessity And moreover that the concurrence of voluntary and 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 inintervention 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 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 nati 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 foreknown 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 or 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 Sun 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 put 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 it 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 And therefore to say either this or that will infallibly be but it is not yet determined whether this or that shall be is no such senselesse assertion that it deserved a Tytyrice Tupatulice but an evident truth which no man that hath his eyes in his head can doubt of If all this will not satisfie him I will give one of his own kinde 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 deceived 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 T. H. THe last thing in which also consisteth the whole controversy Namely that there is no such thing as an Agent which when all things requisite to action are present can nevertheless forbeare to produce it or which is all one that there is no such thing as freedom from necessity is easily inferd 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 sufficients 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