Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	act_n	effect_n	will_n	1,670	5	6.6468	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B04263	A second part of Observations, censures, and confutations of divers errours in Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan beginning at the seventeenth chapter of that book. / By William Lucy, Bishop of S. David's.; Observations, censures, and confutations of notorious errours in Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan. Part 2	Lucy, William, 1594-1677.	1673 (1673)	Wing L3454A; ESTC R220049	191,568	301

external impediments but absolute liberty it is not because both it is impeded from overflowing the channel by the banks and likewise because it is restrained by its nature so that it is not absolutely liberty There is libertas à coactione a liberty from constraint of outward causes but there is no liberty à necessitate from the necessity of its nature without which there is no proper liberty any otherwise then a prisoner hath to live in Gaol But liberty is ad opposita to things of divers nature where the Internal Principle hath power to do this or that or at the least to do or not to do as he speaks at the end of the last Paragraph The doer had liberty to omit Now the water hath freedom to do it is not hindred from running in the channel but not so much liberty as School boys take one towards another when the weaker Boy should chuse the best the stronger would give him the worst and bid him chuse that or none for the water hath not liberty to run or not to run but only liberty to run SECT VIII Mr. Hobbs his former instance to voluntary actions His liberty to have or not to have written and dispersed these impious Doctrines HE proceeds So likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do It is not so in the actions which men voluntarily do there is no necessity for them to do their voluntary actions they can chuse whether they will do them or not that man who doth vertuously can chuse and do vitiously And so contrarily he could have chosen whether he would have writ these wicked Doctrines which he hath taught If not let him confess it and I will prove him not to be a Man but a Beast and fit to be used as a Beast yea worse then a Beast to be like a stone which naturally descends or water which necessarily runs down its Channel and so ought to be used like it for indeed there is no one thing more peculiar to man then this liberty SECT IX Mr. Hobbs his Reason of the former Assertion invalid Of the first and second causes Men actively other creatures passively capable of commands Fools and Mad-men incapable of commands BUt he gives a reason for what he speaks And yet because every act of mans will and every desire and inclination proceedeth from some causes and that from another cause in a continual chain whose first link is in the hand of God the first of all causes proceed from necessity The force of this Argument is invisible for though this will doth proceed from a cause as he expresseth it yet if that immediate cause from which it proceeds be not necessary yea if any one Link in the Chain of Causes be free and not necessary the effect is not necessary for the arbitrariness of any one will make the effect such But this liberty of the Agent he speaks of looks only upon the immediate cause which in humane actions is free and may not be done yea very often the Agent may chuse the contrary That the first cause works with all second causes is as certain as any thing in the Mathematicks for there cannot be a second or a third or any number but it proceeds from a first And yet because the first hath an influence upon the rest it follows not that they are Cyphers but each out of that foundation hath its several operations So in this the first cause is Causa generalis and works with second causes which are derived from it But they have their several ways and powers of working Natural according to their natural inclination Animal according to the peculiar disposition of those Souls which inhabit them only man hath a free nature amongst bodily things in that resembling the Great Cause of Causes he is the Principle of those actions which he doth as a man voluntarily and therefore is capable of Commands actively to do and the other Creatures passively to be done or used and Man is used as a Master or Owner under God of them a Steward who must give an account of such of them as come within the sphere of his Dominion Let any man tell me how a man can be capable of commands if he were like them necessitated No man commands Fools Mad-men or Infants we might account them Fools or Mad who should do it but if he would have them act any thing he must work upon their predominant passion as we would do with Beasts because there is in them a deficiency of this high Power to be Master of their own actions It cannot be then that all those Precepts Councels Commands of God should be given to him who hath no power to obey And from thence we must needs conclude that they have a liberty to do or not to do But let us follow him SECT X. Mr. Hobbs his Supposition impossible without a Revelation The force of the word See His Hypothesis granted His Inference would not follow Causes not otherwise to seem then as they are in their own Nature SO that saith he to him who could see the connexion of those Causes the necessity of all mens voluntary actions would appear manifest This conclusion is founded upon an impossible supposal there is no possibility that a man in this world should see that Chain of Causes in Heaven hereafter he may but here he cannot without a mighty strange Revelation But suppose he could This word See denotes a clear apprehension What would follow then but that he should see such causes necessary which are necessary and such free which are free he would see them as they are not see them in a representation false and so not agreeing to their condition SECT XI Of Gods concurrence with humane actions No man a sinner if necessitated to sin Divine disposure necessitates not to Evil. God not the Author of those actions which are contrary to his commands He is truly the Author of those actions he adviseth Gods concurrence further illustrated from the influx of the Sun Liberal Agents not necessitated by the ordinary concurrence of God HE proceeds And therefore God that seeth and disposeth all things seeth also that the liberty of man in doing what he will is accompanied with the necessity of doing that which God will and no more nor less Certainly although I think very many men are too bold to discourse of both Gods Knowledge and Will as they do which are things too high for the weak sight of man to look clearly into yet men may confidently say as his Knowledge cannot be deceived to judge falsly so his Will cannot be deceived in willing that which is not good and therefore because men are free Agents in what they do and must give an account of their actions to him and be judged according to them by him it is not possible to conceive that he should know them other then free which liberty was his own gift And for his will since it hath pleased

put out these Papers now and not before My Answer is That about three years past when I came up to the Parliament I brought up a rough draught of either all or most of these sheets thinking at leisure time in the intervals of business I might smooth them over but then I was informed that he was about such a work himself to c●rrect his own Errours which I should have been most glad to have seen O Mr Hobbs if this comes to your hands give me leave to tell y●u that would be a glorious work and let me say to you as the Philosopher did to him who blushed coming out of a Tavern Blush not to come out but going in Humanum est errare but perseverare Nay I may say it is the most glorious work of a Christian to repent every man may erre but none but a pious man can repent I would to God you would do it and do but consider how you oppose in your Opinions the whole Catholique Church in many things which never Christian man did before you You write as if your Leviathan were the B●ok in which the Rosiecrusians in their Fama speak of which should be able to instruct men sufficiently in all things both Theological and Philosophical were all the books in the world lost besides and a Pythagorean ipse dixit might suffice for your Scholar But good Sir think that there have been wise men in Philosophy in Policy in Divinity before your book was writ yea before you were born or thought of doing this great work your self and save me the labour of tiring my old decrepid Age with such unhappy cnotentions which else at such leisures as I can snatch from my greater duties I shall be writing to some other misconceipts of yours Reader I intreat you to forgive this diversion to Mr. Hobbs and further only know that I have taken care that his words should be put down strictly in a diverse Letter and I desire this may be printed in Quarto to be joyn'd by them who have the other to my first Piece and then I have done who am From my House at Brecnock March 12. 1673. Your Brother in Jesus Christ Will St. David Maii 16. 1671. Imprimatur iste Tractatus a Reverendo Confratre nostro Gulielmo Domino Episc Manevensi elucubratus Humfr. London A SECOND PART OF Observations Censures and Confutations OF DIVERS ERRORS IN Mr. Hobbs HIS LEVIATHAN Beginning at the seventeenth Chapter of that Book CHAP. 1. The Introduction to the whole Discourse I Have briefly touched the chief heads of his first Part. And am now arrived at his second part which is entituled of Common-wealths and this part begins at the seventeenth Chapter of the whole Book superscribed of the causes generation and definition of a Common-wealth He begins with the final cause most rightly which is causa causarum and sets the whole at work And I find no fault with what he writes concerning that Secondly I approve what he saith at the bottom of the 85. page That small numbers joyned together cannot give them security to live peaceably Small is a Relative small in respect of their Neighbours of whose injury they may justly be affraid unless they are supported with Natural or Artificial Fortifications or their number may be equalled by the weight of the internal vertue or gallantry of the Inhabitants some way or other it must be made up Thirdly I approve what he saith pag. 86. That be the People never so numerous I may add or strong yet if their actions are directed by their own particular Judgments and particular appetites they can expect thereby no Defence nor Protection His Reasons likewise I approve Fourthly I censure not his Conclusion in the same page That the Government for their Good must not be for one Life or Battel but Perpetual Fifthly He makes a very Ingenious Discourse upon the difference betwixt those sociable Creatures as Bees and Ants which Aristotle calls Political and hath very handsom applications concerning them to the middle of the 87. page but then I must begin to examine him with less approbation In the Margent there is noted the generation of a Common-Wealth and it begins thus CHAP. II. SECT I. This Generation censured first from that Word only which cannot be true THE only way to Erect such a common Power as may be able to defend them from the Invasion of Foreigners and the Injuries of one another and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their own Industry and by the fruits of the Earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly is to confer all their Power and strength upon one man or upon one Assembly of men that may reduce all their wills by plurality of voices unto one will which is as much as to say to appoint one man or Assembly of men to bear their person and every one to own and acknowledg himself to be Author of whatsoever he that so beareth their person shall act or cause to be acted in these things which concern the common peace and safety and therein to submit their wills every one to his will and their Judgment to his Judgment Thus far he A bold and strange assertion in that severe Language the on●ly way what Mr. Hobbs no other Certainly there have been many Common-wealths in the World which have lived peaceably and quietly and enjoyed the fruits of their Labours and have abounded with all the comforts of their association And yet I dare speak it with confidence there was never any thus generated that is to appoint one man or Assembly to bear their Person and to allow themselves to be Authors of his Actions to submit their Wills to his Will and their Judgments to his Judgment SECT II. A Supream cannot receive his Authority from the People 1. COnsider here for fear I may forget it hereafter that the King or Supreme by him is but the Person as he most improperly styles him and they the Multitude the Authors of what he doth so that he acts only by their Authority as you may see those words expounded in the 16. Chap. pag. 81. and 82. so that by him the People give the Supreme Authority which is a mighty diminution to all Supreme Authority and indeed an Incroachment upon the Praerogative of God by whom and whom alone Kings reign and Princes bear rule so that as we rightly say that all Authority in a Kingdom is derived from the King who is the Fountain of all Authority he makes a circle in it and saith the head of this Fountain is derived from the People SECT III. It is impossible they should do it BUT let us examine the possibilities of it Nihil dat quod non habet either formaliter eminenter or Virtualiter Nothing can give what it hath not Formally Eminently or Virtually Certainly neither of these can be affirmed of the People if they have it any of these ways it must be Conjunctim or

faultiness of what follows which is And therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself no nor himself of injury because to do injury to a mans self is impossible To the first piece I have shewed that though he were Author of Leviathans Power yet his evil usage of that power may be complained of To the second I think a man may injure himself when a rich man through niggardliness shall deny his belly or his back those expences which were necessary for the support of his health he deals unjustly with himself when another foolishly desperate shall adventure his life upon idle and frivolous occasions he deals unjustly with himself by hazarding so Noble a Creature upon so base and unworthy a prize These things and multitudes of more are unjust dealing towards a mans self But he hath a nice distinction at the bottom of this Paragraph It is true that they that have Soveraign Power may commit Iniquity but not injustice or injury in the proper signification I would he had expounded the proper signification At the first I was amazed at this distinction and did doubt there was some great and excellent Notion in it but duly considering the words I find they were airy and do signifie no more difference then if I had affirmed Mr. Hobbs or the Writer of Leviathan said this or that meerly nominal For what is iniquity but unequal dealings which in him who is bound to deal equally in distribution or commutation is injustice and indeed injustice is nothing else and injury what is that but not just or right and I am sure injustice is nothing else But where some Law directs this or that he doth otherwise This is the proper and genuine-sense of the words and unless he had shewed us some more proper use of them there is no reason why we should be forced from this common acceptation Here now I might justly break off from further discourse of this business having answered what he objects but because I would give some satisfaction to the Reader in this Conclusion I shall a little insist further and shew that Leviathans or Supremes may do unjustly SECT IV. A Soveraign may do injustice by himself and by his Ministers impowred and not punished by him IT will be a strong foundation for this discourse to produce the Actions of the King of Kings God himself which I may do in the eighteenth of Genesis ye may observe there that God was pleased to reveal to Abraham his intended destruction of Sodom Abraham after he had undertaken to plead for them in the twenty fourth verse puts the Question Peradventure there will be fifty righteous within the City wilt thou also destroy and not spare the City for the fifty righteous that are therein Then in the twenty fifth verse That be far from thee to do after this manner to slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous shall be as the wicked that be far from thee shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right In which you may observe that Abraham in a bold manner did dare to intimate that God himself should have done amiss not right but unjustly in punishing the righteous with the wicked and shall we be afraid to say that Leviathan can do unjustly when they shall slay the righteous as the wicked which many of them have done If we consider all the Species and several sorts of injustice we shall find that they may and have perpetrated them They have broke the equity of distributive Justice in preferring base and unworthy people and neglecting yea punishing vertuous men for Commutative Justice they have taken against Law and Equity other mens Estates they have neglected to pay their due debts and what can be more unjust then those they may therefore do unjustly nay what is more by how much their power is greater by so much they are enabled to do more injustice and I may add other mens injustice may prove theirs not only out of his vain principles because all Judges in his Dominion act by his Authority even in those Causes where they judge wickedly But because he is the Supreme and should take care for his inferiour Officers that they do their duties which if he knows they do not and yet neglect to correct them for amendment they will prove his wickedness We know the Judgment upon old Eli who was a vertuous and good man in himself and the Leviathan of that Nation then yet the Judgment of God was upon him for not using severe Justice to his Sons when he knew their faults as you may observe in 1 Sam. 2.27 So that it is apparent that they may do injustice more then others and indeed if he cannot be unjust neither can he be just for contraries are belonging to the same subject he who cannot be vicious cannot be vertuous and contrary acts in any man will by degrees eat out any vice or vertue nor can men call it vertue in any who cannot do ill But I think there is now enough said to this I will pass to his fifth Inference which is this CHAP. IX SECT I. Mr. Hobbs his fifth Inference The Proposition asserted The reason of this Inference weak and invalid FIfthly and consequently to that which was said last No man that hath Soveraign Power can justly be put to death or otherwise in any manner by his Subjects be punished This conclusion is most true because he is Supreme and to put to death or punish are acts only of Supremacy But his reason and the only means which he useth to obtain this excellent conclusion is so false that unless it should be confuted we may think so excellent a truth had a weak support his reason follows For seeing every Subject is Author of the actions of his Soveraign he punisheth another for the actions committed by himself I have oft spoke of this by this consequence a King cannot punish a wicked Judge a rebellious General and the like as I have often said before And if the Supreme should urge to these instances that this Judge or this General acted implicitly against the Authority granted by the Supreme the same answer may be returned to him from his Subjects when he doth that which is contrary to their good or peace so that although this conclusion is most necessary to the establishment of peace and happiness in any Kingdom yet when it is urged only by such fallacious Inferences it makes the Readers imagine that the greatest and most weighty things in Polity are dubious SECT II. He that hath right to the end hath not right to all the means to attain that end but only to such mediums as are just and legal HE infers presently upon the bottom of this conclusion And because the end of this Institution is the peace and defence of them all and whosoever has right to the end has right to the means it belongeth of right to him Whatsoever man or Assembly that hath the

God in his holy Word to reveal to us Rules by which we may know what is his will for us to do in doing which we please him and that he likes us as also what is against his will in doing which we shall anger and offend him and he will punish us although God be not only a general but the first cause which works with and in us yet it is not possible for man to think that God doth in that concurrence determine mans actions to such things which he himself hath declared evil and against his will and which he will punish and therefore it was too bold an Assertion to say That man doth no more or less then he is necessitated by Gods will which is to make no man a sinner for although as he spake God disposeth all things and that disposure must needs be to infinitely good and wise ends even the evils and things against his Rules of goodness yet his disposure orders such men according to their evil actions to suffer not makes them do evil that they may suffer But perhaps he explains this For though men may do many things which God does not command nor is therefore Author of them Nay I will tell him more men may do and many men do many things not only which God hath not commanded but which God hath forbidden and hath commanded they shall not do and surely then he is less Author of them But if a man do an act of advise or counsel of Gods without a Command yet that Gods Counsel is Author of Now these actions which are against Gods Command without doubt he is not Author of if he were he could not justly punish them But I would fain make out his sense which is this he doth not do it by Authority given by God but against it Well then Gods Authority is against evil but his power worketh this evil So he seems to affirm in his following words Yet they can have no passion nor appetite to any thing of which appetite Gods will is not the cause True indeed God is the first general cause but not the second and particular The Sun is an universal cause it shines upon the Earth Trees Plants and is the cause of their fertility but diversly according to the diversity of Constitutions it concurs with so doth God as he is the first and general cause meeting with several conditions operate severally to the production of those several effects which are produced by them with things necessary before he produceth necessary effects But as the Suns concourse doth not determine this thing to this and that to that effect so doth not the general concourse of God determine this or that appetite to this or that object in this or that manner but when it meets with things so disposed it concurs in the production of that effect to which it was so disposed so that God concurring with free Agents makes them no more necessary then his concurring with necessary Agents makes them free It is the same infinite Power of God which constituted both and his concurrence destroys neither in its ordinate working I speak not of his extraordinary operation whereby he can and doth controul all the frame of Nature when and how he pleaseth nor doth Mr. Hobbs Nay I may say that God himself being absolutely free bounded with no limits having nothing above or about him which can stop or hinder his Almighty hand from working it is much more reasonable to think that his concourse should make even necessary Agents free and not to be bounded by their natures which he had given them rather then that this most free Agent should against himself make those which he had constituted in a free nature to be necessary because they are by that more like himself which every Agent endeavours Nay in his extraordinary works he doth often for the present shake off those bonds which his former Donation had confined them to so that by his extraordinary concourse he makes them cease from their former operations which by their natures they were necessitated to do as the fire not to burn the water not to run down its channel and the like which are apparent to every man So then though Gods will and concurrence is a cause of those actions yet not being a terminating cause but concurring with that nature which he had given them that concurrence doth not necessitate that operation which he had given to man viz. freedom to do or not to do But he proves the contrary in his following words which are these SECT XII The consequence of this Paragraph examined His meaning conjectured and refuted Every deviation contradicts not the Power and Omnipotency of God Voluntas facere fieri distinguished in God Men not justly punished with Damnation if necessitated to sin Mr. Hobbs censured for obtruding those Doctrines in Divinity amongst his Political Discourses The actions of the King and Subject alike necessitated by Mr. Hobbs his Chain of Causes ANd did not his will assure the necessity of mans will and consequently of all that on mans will dependeth the liberty of men would be a contradiction and impediment to the Omnipotency and liberty of God I do not observe how this consequence can be deduced out of the premises for if God endowed man with liberty and free power in his nature why should it follow if God do not necessitate his actions that mans will would cross and impede the power and liberty of God For the will of God is that man should act freely the free actions therefore are according to his will and the necessitation would be contrary to his will But I think he means that if mans free power could sin against the will of God then man should be able to contradict and stop his Omnipotency and Liberty To understand this therefore consider with me that Gods Dominion over this World is like that of a King in a Kingdom he gives Laws and Rules to the Subjects which if they observe they shall live happily under him but if not he will punish and afflict yea perhaps destroy the offending parties It is an opposition to the Kings power that when men break his Laws and he shall go about to punish them they shall then rebel against him and oppose the power of the County or of the Kingdom or that power which he musters up to do Justice upon them then indeed his power is contradicted and impeded God whilst men live here with these natures hath given Rules and governs them by such Laws as he hath appointed them for their good if they observe those Laws happy are they but he seldom puts in his Omnipotency to make men do the one or the other never to make men break his Laws he ordinarily doth not vary the nature of man or any thing Men may and may not keep his Commandments I do not now dispute of the nature of Grace or any thing of that kind they that do