can for to honour any thing is nothing else but to think it to be of great power The other is that we signifie that honour and esteem by our words and actions which is called Cultus or worship of God He therefore that thinketh that all things proceed from Gods eternal will and consequently are necessary does he not think God Omnipotent Does he not esteem of his power as highly as is possible which is to honour God as much as may be in his heart Again he that thinketh so is he not more apt by external acts and words to acknowledge it than he that thinketh otherwise yet is this external acknowledgement the same thing which we call worship So that this opinion fortifies piety in both kinds external and internal therefore is far from destroying it And for Repentance which is nothing else but a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way though the cause that made him go astray were necessary yet there is no reason why he should not grieve and again though the cause why he returned into the way were necessary there remained still the causes of joy So that the necessity of the actions taketh away neither of those parts of Repentance grief for the errour and joy for returning And for prayer whereas he saith that the necessity of things destroy prayer I deny it for though prayer be none of the causes that move Gods will his will being unchangeable yet since we finde in Gods word he will not give his blessings but to those that aske the motive of prayer is the same Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessing and the prayer is decreed together in the same decree wherein the blessing is decreed 'T is manifest that Thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past and that which is past is sure and necessary yet even amongst men thanks is in use as an acknowledgement of the benefit past though we should expect no new benefit for our gratitude And prayer to God Almighty is but thanksgiving for Gods blessings in general and though it precede the particular thing we ask yet it is not a cause or means of it but a signification that we expect nothing but from God in such manner as he not as we will and our Saviour by word of mouth bids us pray thy will not our will be done and by example teaches us the same for he prayed thus Father if it be thy will let this cup pass c. The end of prayer as of thanksgiving is not to move but to honour God Almighty in acknowledging that what we ask can be effected by him onely The fourth Argument from Reason is this The order beauty and perfection of the world requireth that in the universe should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some free some contingent He that shall make all things necessary 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 maketh it to be necessary it followeth that he that maketh all things maketh all things necessarily to be As if a work-man 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 his Lordship 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 their effects we both call Contingents 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 that which hath not for cause any thing that we perceive As for example when a Traveller meets with a shower the journey had a cause and the rain had a cause sufficient 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 that though there be three sorts of events necessary contingent and free yet they may be all necessary without destruction of the beauty or perfection of the universe To the first Argument from Reason which is that if liberty be taken away the nature and formel reason of sin is taken away I answer by denying the consequence The nature of sin consisteth in this that the action done proceed from our will and be against the Law A Judge in judging whether it be sin or no which is done against the Law looks at no higher cause of the action than the will of the doer Now when I say the action was necessary I do not say it was done against the will of the doer but with his will and necessarily because mans will that is every volition or 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 a right derived from his Omnipotence though sin were not and because 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 said before is no injustice And thus you have my answer to his Lordships Objections both out of Scripture and from Reason Certain Distinctions which his Lordship supposing might be brought to evade his Arguments are by him removed HE saies a man may perhaps answer that the necessity of things held by him is not a Stoicall necessity but a Christian necessity c. But this distinction I have not used nor indeed ever heard before nor could I think any man could make Stoicall and Christian two kindes of necessity though they may be two kindes of Doctrine Nor have I drawn my Answer to his Lordships 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 Lordships in this place as making against his own Tenet Where all the causes saith he being joyned together and subordinate one to another do make but one total 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 maketh the effect necessary For that which I call the necessary cause of any effect is the joyning together of all causes subordinate to the first into one total cause If any of these saith he especially the first produce its effect necessarily then all the rest are determined Now
a man that deliberateth but one while proceed toward action another while retire from it as the hope of greater good draws him or the fear of greater evil drives him away A Child may be so young as to do what it does without all deliberation but that is but till it have the chance to be hurt by doing of somewhat or till it be of age to understand the rod for the actions wherein he hath once had a check shall be deliberated on the second time Fools and Madmen manifestly deliberate no less than the wisest men though they make not so good a choice the images of things being by disease altered For Bees and Spiders if my Lord Bishop had had so little to do as to be a spectatour of their actions he would have confessed not onely election but art prudence and policy in them very near equal to that of mankinde Of Bees Aristotle saies their life is Civil Again his Lordship 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 for walking and the action of ordinary eating was once deliberated of how and when it should be done and though afterward it became easie habitual so as to be done without fore-thought yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and proceedeth from election So also are the rashest actions of cholerick persons voluntary and upon deliberation for who is there but very young children that hath not considered when and how farr he ought or safely may strike or revile Seeing then his Lordship agrees with me that such actions are necessitated and the fancie of those that do them determined to the action they do it follows out of his Lordships own doctrine that the liberty of election does not take away the necessitie of electing this or that individual thing And thus one of his Arguments fights against another The 2 Argument from Scripture consisteth in histories of men that did one thing when if they would they might have done another the places are two One is 1 Kings 3.11 where the history saies God was pleased that Solomon who might if he would have asked Riches or Revenge did nevertheless aske wisdom at Gods hands the other is the words of S. Peter to Ananias Acts 5.4 After it was sold was it not in thine own power To which the answer is the same with that I answered to the former places that they prove there is elction but do not disprove the necessity which I maintain of what they so elect The fourth Argument for to the 3 and fifth I shall make but one answer 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 moral 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 incredulus odi That which I say necessitateth and determinateth every action that his Lordship may no longer doubt of my meaning is the summ of all things which being now existent conduce and concurr to the production of that action hereafter whereof if any one thing now were wanting the effect could not be produced This concourse of causes whereof every one is determined 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 foreknowledge of God should be a cause of any thing cannot be truely said seeing fore-knowledge is knowledge and knowledge depends on the existence of the things known and not they on it The influence of the Starres is but a small part of the whole cause consisting of the concourse of all Agents Nor does the concourse of all causes make one simple chain or concatination 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 doth not always depend on 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 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 a horses back when there were so many laid on before as there wanted but that one 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 onely the effect but also the election of that particular effect necessary in as much as the will it self 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 than that a man or other creature whose limbs be moved by fancy should have election that is liberty to do what he hath a fancy to do though it be not in his will or power to choose his fancie or choose his election and will This doctrine because my Lord Bishop 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 The Arguments of greatest consequence are the third and the fifth and they fall both into one namely If there be a necessity of all events that it will follow That praise and reprehension and reward and punishment are all vain and unjust and that if God should openly forbid and secretly necessitate the same action punishing men for what they could not avoid there would be no belief among them of Heaven and Hell To oppose hereunto I must borrow an answer from S. Paul Rom. 9.11 From the 11 verse of the Chapter to the 18 is laid down the very same objection in these words When they meaning Esau and Jacob were yet unborn and had done neither good nor evil that the purpose of God according to election not by works but by him that calleth might remain firm it was said unto her viz Rebecca that the elder should serve the younger c. What then shall we say Is there injustice with God God forbid It is not therefore in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in God that sheweth mercy For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh I have stirred thee up that I might shew my power in thee and that my name might be set forth in all the
earth Therefore whom God willeth he hath mercy on and whom he willeth he hardeneth Thus you see the case put by S. Paul is the same with that of my Lord Bishop and the same objection in these words following Thou wilt aske me then why does God yet complain for who hath resisted his will To this therefore the Apostle answers not by denying it was Gods will or that the decree of God concerning Esau was not before he had sinned or that Esau was not necessitated to do what he did but thus Who art thou O man that interrogatest God shall the work say to the workman why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same stuff to make one vessel to honour another to dishonour According therefore to this answer of S. Paul I answer my Lords Ojection and say the power of God alone without other helps is sufficient justification of any action he doth That which men make amongst themselves here by pacts and covenants and call by the name of justice and according whereunto men are accounted and tearmed rightly just or unjust is not that by which God Almighties actions are to be measured or called just no more than his counsels are to be measured by humane wisdom That which he does is made just by his doing it just I say in him though not always just in us For a man that shall command a thing openly and plot secretly the hinderance of the same if he punish him that he so commandeth for not doing it it is unjust So also his counsels are therefore not in vain because they be his whether we see the use of them or not When God afflicted Job he did object no sin unto him justified his afflicting of him by telling him of his power Hast thou saith God an arm like mine Where wert thou when I laid the foundations of the earth and the like So our Saviour concerning the man that was born blinde said it was not for his sin or for his Parents sin but that the power of God might be shewn in him Beasts are subject to death and torments yet they cannot sin it was Gods will they should be so Power irresistible justifies all actions really and properly in whomsoever it be found less power does not and because such power is in God onely he must needs be just in all his actions and we that not comprehending his Counsels call him to the Barr commit injustice in it I am not ignorant of the usual reply to this answer by distinguishing between will and permission as that God Almighty does indeed sometimes permit sins and that he also foreknoweth that the sin he permitteth shall be committed but does not will it nor necessitate it I know also they distinguish the action from the sin of the action saying that God Almighty does indeed cause the action whatsoever action it be but not the sinfullness or irregularity of it that is the discordance between the action and the Law Such distinctions as these dazle my understanding I finde no difference between the will to have a thing done and the permission to do it when he that permitteth can hinder it and knows that it will be done unless he hinder it Nor finde I any difference between an action the sin of that action as for example between the killing of Vriah and the sin of David in killing Vriah nor when one is cause both of the Action and of the Law how another can because of the disagreement between them no more than how one man making a longer and a 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 as also 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 S. 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 assoon as I understand them turn unto my Lords Opinion for I now hold nothing in all this question betwixt us but what seemeth to me not obscurely but most expressely said in this place by S. Paul And thus much in answer to his places of Scripture To the Arguments from Reason OF the Arguments from Reason the first is that which his Lordship saith is drawn from Zeno's beating of his man which is therefore called Argumentum baculinum that is to say a wooden Argument The story is this Zeno held that all actions were necessary his man therefore being for some fault beaten excused himself upon the necessity of it to avoid this excuse his Master pleaded likewise the necessity of beating him So that not he that maintained but he that derided the necessity was beaten contrary to that his Lordship would inferr And the Argument was rather withdrawn than drawn from the story The second Argument is taken from certain inconveniences which his Lordship thinks would follow such an opinion It is true that ill use might be made of it and therefore your Lordship and my Lord Bishop ought at my request to keep private what I say here of it But the inconveniences are indeed none and what use soever he made of truth yet truth is truth and now the question is not what is fit to be preached but what is true The first inconvenience he saies is this That the Laws which prohibit any action will be unjust 2. That all consultations are vain 3. That admonitions to men of understanding are of no more use than to children fools and mad men 4. That praise dispraise reward and punishment are in vain 5.6 That Counsels Acts Arms Books Instruments Study Tutours Medicines are in vain To which arguments his Lordship expecting I should answer by saying the ignorance of the event were enough to make us use the means adds as it were a reply to my answer foreseen these words A lass how should our not knowing the event be a sufficient motive to make us use the means Wherein his Lordship saies right but my answer is not that which he expecteth I answer First that the necessity of an action doth not make the Laws that prohibit it unjust To let pass that not the necessity but the will to break the Law maketh the action unjust because the Law regardeth the will and no other precedent causes of action And to let pass that no Law can possibly be unjust in as much as every man maketh by his consent the Law he is bound to keep and which consequently must be just unless a man can be unjust to himself I
say what necessary cause soever precede an action yet if the action be forbidden he that doth it willingly may justly be punished For instance suppose the Law on pain of death prohibit stealing and that there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal and is thereupon put to death does not this punishment deter others from Theft is it not a cause that others steal not Doth it not frame and make their wills to justice To make the Law is therefore to make a Cause of Justice and to necessitate Justice and consequently 't is no injustice to make such a Law The intention of the Law is not to grieve the Delinquent for that which is past and not to be undone but to make him and others just that else would not be so and respecteth not the evil act past but the good to come in so much as without the good intention for the future no past act of a Delinquent could justifie his killing in the sight of God But you will say how is it just to kill one man to amend another if what were done were necessary To this I answer that men are justly killed not for that their actions are not necessitated but because they are noxious and they are spared and preserved whose actions are not noxious For where there is no Law there no killing nor any thing else can be unjust and by the right of nature we destroy without being unjust all that is noxious both Beasts and Men and for Beasts we kill them justly when we do it in order to our own preservation and yet my Lord himself confesseth that their actions as being onely spontaneous and not free are all necessitated and determined to that one thing they shall do For men when we make Societies or Common-Wealths we lay not down our right to kill excepting in certain cases as murther theft or other offensive action so that the right which the Common-Wealth hath to put a man to death for crimes is not created by the Law but remains from the first right of nature which every man hath to preserve himself for that the Law doth not take the right away in the case of Criminals who were by the Law excepted Men are not therefore put to death or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest in as much as to punish those that do voluntary hurt and none else frameth and maketh mens wills such as men would have them And thus it is plain that from the necessity of a voluntary action cannot be inferred the injustice of the Law that forbiddeth it or the Magistrate that punisheth it Secondly I deny that it maketh consultations to be in vain 't is the consultation that causeth a man necessitateth him to choose to do one thing rather than another so that unless a man say that that cause is in vain which necessitateth the effect he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation out of the necessity of the election proceeding from it But it seemeth his Lordships reasons thus If I must do this rather than that I shall do this rather than that though I consult not at all which is a false proposition and a false consequence and no better than this if I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self through with a sword to day If there be a necessity that an action shall be done or that any effect shall be brought to pass it does not therefore follow that there is nothing necessarily requisite as a means to bring it to pass and therefore when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another 't is determined also for what cause it shall so be chosen which cause for the most part is deliberatiō or consultation and therefore consultation is not in vain and indeed the less in vain by how much the election is more necessitated if more and less had any place in necessity The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience namely that admonitions are in vain for the Admonitions are parts of consultation the admonitor being a Councellour for the time to him that is admonished The fourth pretended inconveence is that praise 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 Common-Wealth 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 the Law Does my Lord 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 them both in vain because praise and dispraise and likewise Reward and Punishment do by example make and conform the will to good and evil It was a very great praise in my opinion that Velleius Paterculus gives Cato where he saies that he was good by nature Et quia aliter esse non potuit To the fifth and sixth inconveniences that Counsels Arts Arms Instruments Books Study Medicines and the like would be superfluous the same answer serves as 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 causes is a false one and those things named Counsels Arts Arms c. are the causes of these effects His Lordships third Argument consisteth in other inconveniences which he saith will follow namely Impiety and negligence of religious duties as Repentance and Zeal to Gods service c. To which I answer as to the rest that they follow not I must confess if we consider the greatest part of Mankinde not as they should be but as they are that is as men whom either the study of acquiring wealth or preferment or whom the appetite of sensual delights or the impatience of meditating or the rash embracing of wrong principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things I must I say confess that the dispute of this question will rather hurt than help their piety and therefore if his Lordship had not desired this answer I should not have written it nor do I write it but in hopes your Lordship and his will keep it private Nevertheless in very truth the necessity of events does not of it self draw with it any impiety at all For piety consisteth onely in two things one that we honour God in our hearts which is that we think as highly of his power as we
is the same thing and that of a voluntarie Agent it is all one to say he is free and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating Fifthly I conceive Libertie to be rightly defined in this manner Libertie is the absence of all the impediments to Action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsecal qualitie of the Agent As for example the water is said to descend freely or to have libertie to descend by the channel of the river because there is no impediment that way but not across because the banks are impediments And though the water cannot ascend yet men never say it wants the libertie to ascend but the faculty or power because the impediment is in the nature of the water and intrinsecal So also we say he that is tied wants the libertie to go because the impediment is not in him but in his bands whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame because the impediment is in himself Sixthly I conceive that nothing taketh beginning from it self but from the Action of some other immediate Agent without it self And that therefore when first a man hath an appetite or will to something to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will the cause of his will is not the will it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas it is out of controversie that of voluntarie actions the will is the necessarie cause and by this which is said the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not it followeth that voluntarie actions have all of them necessarie causes and therefore are necessitated 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 also is a necessarie cause For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanteth 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 else it had not been and therefore also voluntarie actions are necessitated Lastly should 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-sence being as much as to say The cause may be sufficient that is to say necessarie and yet the effect shall not follow My Reasons FOr the first five points wherein it is explicated 1. what Spontanity is 2. what Deliberation is 3. what Will propension and appetite is 4. what a free Agent is 5. what Liberty is there can no other proof be offered but every mans own experience by reflection on himself and remembring what he useth in his minde that is what he himself meaneth when he saith an action is Spontaneous a man deliberates such is his will that Agent or that action is free Now he that reflecteth so on himself cannot but be satisfied that Deliberation is the consideration of the good and evil sequels of an action to come that by Spontanity is meant inconsiderate action or else nothing is meant by it that will is the last act of our Deliberation that a free Agent is he that can do if he will and forbear if he will and that Liberty is the absence of external impediments But to those that out of custom speak not what they conceive but what they hear and are not able or will not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such words no Argument can be sufficient because experience and matter of fact is not verified by other mens Arguments but by every mans own sence and memory For example how can it be proved that to love a thing and to think it good is all one to a man that doth not mark his own meaning by those word Or how can it be proved that Eternity is not nunc stans to a man that saies those words by custom and never consider how he can conceive the thing in his minde Also the sixth point that a man cannot imagine any thing to begin without a cause can no other way be made known but by trying how he can imagine it but if he try he shall finde as much reason if there be no cause of the thing to conceive it should begin at one time as another that he hath equal reason to think it should begin at all times which is impossible and therefore he must think there was some special cause why it began then rather than sooner or later or else that it began never but was eternal For the seventh point which is that all events have necessary causes it is there proved in that they have sufficient causes Further let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual as the throwing for example Ames Ace upon a pair of dice and see if it must not have been necessary before 't 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 outward things as the posture of the parts of the hand the measure of force applied by the caster the posture of the parts of the Table and the like In sum there was nothing wanting which was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast and consequently the cast was necessarily thrown for if it had not been thrown there had wanted somwhat 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 acâ—ident how contingent soever it seem or how voluntary soever it be is produced necessarily which is that that my L. Bishop disputes against The same may be proved also 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 there is no necessity that the proposition It shall rain or not rain should be true I know there be 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 that 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 determinate but indeterminate which distinction either signifies no more but 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 hath no meaning and they might as well have said One of them is true Titirice but neither of them Tu patulice The last thing in which also consisteth the whole controversie 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 if sufficient then also necessary as hath been proved before And thus you see how the inconveniences which his Lordship objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity are avoided and the necessity it self demonstratively proved To which I could add if I thought it good Logick the inconvenience of denying necessity as that it destroyeth both the decrees and the prescience of God Almighty for whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an instrument or foreseeth shall come to pass a man if he have Liberty such as his Lordship affirmeth from necessitation might frustrate and make not to come to pass and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be and decree that which shall never come to pass This is all hath come into my minde touching this question since I last considered it And I humbly beseech your Lordship to communicate it onely to my Lord Bishop And so praying God to prosper your Lordship in all your designes I take leave and am My most Noble and most obliged Lord Your most humble servant Thomas Hobbs Roven Aug. 20. 〈◊〉 FINIS
it is manifest that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next and immediate to it and therefore by his Lordships 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 his Lordship well notes imply a contradiction But the distinction of free into free from compulsion and free from Necessitation I acknowledge for to be free from compulsion is to do a thing so as terror 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 enemie for fear of being killed Thus all men that do any thing for love or revenge or lust are free from compulsion and yet their actions may be as necessarie as those that are done by compulsion for sometimes other passions work as forcibly as fear But free from Necessitation I say no man can be and 't is that which his Lordship undertook to disprove This distinction his Lordship says uses to be fortified by two reasons but they are not mine The first he says is that it is granted by all Divines that an Hypothetical necessitie or Necessitie upon supposition may stand with Libertie That you may understand this I will give you an example of Hypothetical necessity If I shall live I shall eat This is an Hypothetical necessitie Indeed it is a necessarie proposition that is to say it is necessarie that that proposition should be true whensoever uttered but 't is not the necessitie of the thing nor is it therefore necessarie that the man should live nor that the man should eat I do not use to fortifie my distinctions with such reasons let his Lordship confute them how he will it contents me but I would have your Lordship take notice hereby how easie and plain a thing but withal false with the grave usage of such terms as Hypothetical necessitie and Necessitie upon supposition and such like terms of School-men may be obscured and made to seem profound learning The second reason that may confirm the distinction of free from compulsion and free from necessitation he says is that God and good Angels do good necessarily and yet are more free than we This reason though I had no need of yet I think it so farforth 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 necessitie or in what sence they work Freely I suspend my sentence in that point and am content that there be a freedom from Compulsion and yet no freedom from Necessitation as hath been proved in that a man may be necessitated to some action without threats and without fear of danger But how my Lord can avoid the consisting together of freedom and necessitie supposing God and good Angels are freer than men and yet do good necessarily that we must examin I confess saith he that God good Angels are more free than we that is intensively in degree of Freedom not extensively in the latitude of the object according to a libertie of exercise not of specification Again we have here two distinctions that are no distinctions but made to seem so by terms invented by I know not whom to cover ignorance and blind the understanding of the Reader For it cannot be conceived that there is any libertie greater than for a man to do what he will One heat may be more intensive than another but not one libertie than another he that can do what he will hath all libertie possible and he that cannot hath none at all Also Libertie as his Lordship says the Schools call it of exercise which is as I have said before a libertie to do or not to do cannot be without a Libertie which they call of Specification that is to say a libertie to do or not to do this or that in particular For how can a man conceave he hath libertie to do any thing that hath not libertie to do this or that or somewhat in particular If a man be forbidden in Lent to eat this and that and every other particular kind of flesh how can he be understood to have a libertie to eat flesh more than he that hath no licence at all You may by this again see the vanitie of distinctions used in the Schools and I do not doubt but that the imposing of them by Authoritie of Doctors in the Church hath been a great cause that men have labored though by Sedition and evil courses to shake them off for nothing is more apt to beget hatred than the tyrannizing over mens reason and understanding especially when it is done not by the Scriptures but by the pretence of Learning and more judgement than that of other men In the next place his Lordship bringeth two Arguments against distinguishing between free from compulsion and free from necessitation The first is that election is opposite not onely to Coaction or compulsion but also Necessitation or determination to one This is it he was to prove from the beginning and therefore bringeth no new Argument to prove it and so those brought formerly I have already answered And in this place I deny again that election is opposite to either For when a man is compelled for example to subject himself to an enemy or to die he hath â—till election left him and a deliberation to bethink which of the two he can better endure And he that â—â—led to prison by force hath election â—nd may deliberate whether he will â—e hal'd and traind on the ground â—r make use of his own feet Likewise when there is no compulsion but the strength of temptation to do â—n evil action being greater than the motives to abstain it necessarily determines him to the doing of it â—et he deliberates while sometimes the motives to do sometimes the motives to forbear are working on â—im and consequently he electeth which he will But commonly when we see and know the strength that moves us we acknowledge necessity but when we see not or mark not the force that moves us we then think there is none and that it is not causes but liberty that produceth the action Hence it is that they think he does not choose this that of necessity choose it but they might as well say fire doth not burn because it burns of necessity The second Argument is not so much an argument as a distinction to shew in what sence it may be said that voluntary actions are necessitated and in what sence not And therefore his Lordship alledgeth as from the authority of the Schools and that which rippeth up the bottom of the
Question that there is a double act of the will The one he says is Actus imperatus an act done at the command of the will by some inferiour faculty of the soul As to open or shut ones eyes and this act may be compell'd the other he saies is Actus elicitus an act allured or drawn forth by allurement out of the will as to will to choose to elect this he saies cannot be compelled Wherein letting pass that metaphorical speech of attributing command and subjection to the faculties of the soul as if they made a Common-Wealth or family within themselves and could speak one to another which is very improper in searching the truth of a question you may observe first that to compel a voluntary act is nothing else but to will it for it is all one to say my will commands the shutting of my eyes or the doing of any other action and to say I have the will to shut my eyes so that Actus imperatus here might as easily have been said in English a voluntry action but that they that invented the term understood not any thing it signified Secondly you may observe that Actus elicitus is exemplified by these words to will to elect to choose which are all one and so to will is here made an act of the will and indeed as the will is a faculty or power in a mans soul so to will is an act of it according to that power but as it is absurdly said that to dance is an act allured or drawn by fair means out of the ability to dance so is it also to say so that to will is an act allured or drawn out of the power to will which power is commonly called the will Howsoever it be the sum of his Lordships distinction is that a voluntary act may be done by compulsion that is to say by foul means but to will that or any act cannot be but by allurement or fair means Now seeing fair means allurements and enticements produce the action which they do produce as necessarily as foul means and threatening it follows that to will may be made as necessarie as any thing that is done by compulsion So that the distinction of Actus imperatus and Actus elicitus are but words and of no effect against necessitie His Lordship in the rest of his discourse reckoneth up the opinion of certain professions of men touching the causes wherein the necessitie of things which they maintain consisteth And first he saith the Astrologer deriveth his necessitie from the stars Secondly that the Physitian attributeth it to the temper of the bodie For my part I am not of their opinion because neither the stars alone nor the temperature of the Patient alone is able to produce any effect without the concurrence of all other Agents For there is hardly any one action how casual soever it seem to the causing whereof concur not whatsoever is in rerum natura which because it is a great paradox and depends on many antecedent speculations I do not press in this place Thirdly he disputeth against the opinion of them that say external objects presented to men of such and such temparatures do make their actions necessarie and says the power such objects have over us proceeds from our own fault but that is nothing to the purpose if such fault of ours proceedeth from causes not in our own power and therefore that opinion may hold true for all that answer Further he says Prayer Fasting c. may alter our habits 't is true but when they do so they are causes of the contrarie habit and make it necessarie as the former habit had been necessarie if Prayer Fasting c. had not been Besides we are not moved or disposed to prayer or any other action but by outward objects as pious company godly preachers of something equivolent Fourthly he says a resolved mind is not easily surprised as the mind of Vlysses who when others wept alone wept not and of the Phylososopher that abstained from striking because he found himself angrie and of him that poured out the water when he was thirstie and the like Such things I confess have or may have been done and do prove onely that it was not necessarie for Vlysses then to weep nor for that Philosopher to strike nor for that other man to drink but it does not prove that it was not necessarie for Vlysses then to abstain as he did from weeping nor for the Philosopher to abstain as he did from striking nor for the other man to forbear drinking and yet that was the thing his Lordship ought to have proved Lastly his Lordship confesses that the dispositions of objects may be dangerous to libertie but cannot be destructive To which I answer it is impossible for libertie is never in any other danger than to be lost and if it cannot be lost which he confesses I may infer it can be in no danger at all The fourth opinion his Lordship rejecteth is of them that make the will necessarily to follow the last dictate of the understanding but it seems his Lordship understands that Tenet in another sence than I do for he speaketh as if they that held it did suppose men must dispute the sequel of every action they do great and small to the least grain which is a thing his Lordship with reason thinks untrue But I understand it to signifie that the will follows the last opinion or judgement immediately proceding the action concerning whether it be good to do it or not whether he have weighed it long before or not at all and that I take to be the meaning of them that hold it As for example when a man strikes his will to strike follows necessarily that thought he had of the sequel of his stroak immediately before the lifting up of his hand Now if it be understood in that sence the last dictate of the understanding does necessitate the action though not as the whole cause yet as the last cause as the last feather necessitates the breaking of a horses back when there are so many laid on before as there needed but the addition of one to make the weight sufficient That which his Lordship alleadgeth against this is First out of a Poet who in the person of Medea says Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor but that saying as prettie as it is is not true for though Medea saw many reasons to forbear killing her children yet the last dictate of her judgement was that the present revenge on her husband out-weighed them all and thereupon the wicked action necessarily followed Then the story of the Roman who of two competitors said one had the better reason but the other must have the office This also maketh against his Lordship for the last dictate of his judgement that had the bestowing of the office was this That it was better to take a great bribe than reward a great merit Thirdly he objects that
things nearer the sence move more powerfully than reason what followeth thence but this the sence of the present good is commonly more immediate to the action than the foresight of the evil consequence to come Fourthly whereas his Lordship saies that do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his Son than for the sin of his soul makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding but it argues plainly that sorrow for sin is not voluntary and by consequence that Repentance proceedeth from Causes The last part of this discourse containeth his Lordships opinion about reconciling liberty with the prescience and decree of God otherwise than some Divines have done against whom he saies he had formerly written a Treatise out of which he repeateth onely 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 his Lordship ought not to desert this certain truth That there are certain and necessary causes which make every man to will what he willeth though he do not yet conceive in what manner the will of man is caused And yet I think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive seeing we see daily that praise dispraise reward and punishment good and evil sequels of mens actions retained in memory do frame and make us to the election of whatsoever it be that we elect and that the memory of such things proceeds from the sences and sence from the operation of the objects of sence which are external to us and governed onely by God Almighty and by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents are necessary The other thing that he repeateth is that the best way to reconcile contingence and liberty with Prescience and the decrees of God is to subject future contingencies to the Aspect of God The same is also my opinion but cōtrary to what his Lordship all this while laboured to prove For hitherto he held liberty and necessity that is to say liberty and the decrees of God irreconcileable 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 But he adds that we must subject them according to that presentiality which they have in eternity which he saies cannot be done by them that conceive Eternity to be an everlasting succession but onely by them that conceive it as an Indivisible point To which I answer that assoon as I can conceive Eternity to be an Indivisible point or any thing but an everlasting succession I will renounce all that I have written on this subject I know S. Thomas Aquinas calls Eternity Nunc stans an ever-abiding now which is easie enough to say but though I fain would yet I could never conceive it they that can are more happy than I. But in the mean time his Lordship alloweth all men to be of my opinion save onely those that can conceive in their minds a nunc stans which I think are none I understand as little how it can be true his Lordship saies that God is not just but justice it self not wise but wisdom 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 sence it can be said that an infinite point and wherein is no succession can comprehend all time though time be successive These phrases I finde not in the Scripture I wonder therefore what was the design of the School-men to bring them up unless they thought a man could not be a true Christian unless his understanding be first strangled with such hard sayings And thus much for answer to his Lordships discourse wherein I think not onely his Squadrons of Arguments but also his Reserve of Distinctions are defeated And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the same question with my Reasons for it positively and as briefly as I can without any terms of Art in plain English My Opinion about LIBERTIE and NECESSITIE FIrst I conceive that when it cometh into a mans mind to do or not to do some certain action if he have no time to deliberate the doing it or abstaining necessarily follow the present thought he hath of the good or evil consequence thereof to himself As for example In sudden anger the action shall follow the thought of revenge in sudden fear the thought of escape Also when a man hath time to deliberate but deliberates not because never any thing appeared that could make him doubt of the consequence the action follows his opinion of the goodness or harm of it These actions I call VOLUNTARY my Lord if I understand him aright that calls them SPONTANEOUS I call them voluntarie because those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntarie and here where is one onely appetite that one is the last Besides I see 't is reasonable to punish a rash Action which could not be justly done by man to man unless the same were voluntarie For no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation though never so sudden because it is supposed he had time to deliberate all the precedent time of his life whether he should do that kind of action or not And hence it is that he that killeth in a sudden passion of Anger shall nevertheless be justly put to death because all the time wherein he was able to consider whether to kill were good or evil shall be held for one continual deliberation and consequently the killing shall be judged to proceed frōelection Secondly I conceive when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do it that he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it And to consider an action is to imagine the consequences of it both good and evil From whence is to be inferred that Deliberation is nothing else but alternate imagination of the good and evil sequels of an action or which is the same thing alternate hope and fear or alternate appetite to do or quit the action of which he deliberateth Thirdly I conceive that in all deliberations that is to say in at alternate succession of contrary appetites the last is that which we call the WILL is immediately next before the doing of the action or next before the doing of it become impossible All other Appetites to do and to quit that come upon a man during his deliberations are called Intentions Inclinations but not Wills there being but one will which also in this case may be called the last will though the Intentions change often Fourthly I conceive that those actions which a man is said to do upon deliberation are said to be voluntarie and done upon choice and election so that voluntarie action and action proceeding from election