of an Incorporeal God to any end of it distinctly known Wherefore the Stoicks long before you supposing God to be a kind of Fire and the Soul to be a subtil Body held also the opinion of Irresistible Fate And Plutarch and Stobaeus take notice of both Opinions together as I find them cited by Lipsius in his Manuduction to that Philosophy Upon which occasion a worthy and learned person hath in his Discourse at the Funeral of Bishop Hall deservedly call'd you the New Stoick If then there be nothing more divine in Man than Matter and Motion he does as necessarily chuse or refuse as Fire ascends or a Stone is pressed towards the Earth Mr. Hobbes 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 fancy or to choose his Election and Will 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 the memory of such things proceeds from the Senses and Sense from the operation of the Objects of sense which are external to us and govern'd only by God Almighty and by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents are necessary Stud. Were Man such a piece of Mechanism as has been forged by your untoward invention much of the Cause would be granted to you and yet not this that the Memory of good or evil Sequels of Mens Actions do frame us unto Every election because there are too many whom no examples of Punishment will deterr from such evil manners as they see daily producing bitter effects But seeing it has been prov'd that there is in Man an Immaterial Soul it follows thence that the Motions from the Object continued to the Brain and Heart can only solicite and not force the Assent of that Incorporeal Being which giveth them passage or resisteth them and determineth them at its pleasure in divers cases Neither can outward force any more restrain this Spiritual mind than Xerxes could properly fetter the Hellespont There is then left me but little work in oppugning your Opinion about Liberty and Necessity seeing the foundation of your belief of Fate is the Corporeity of the Universe It is also to be considered that a Person of great fame and place hath already contended with you so very much to your disadvantage that it seems not worth the while for any Man henceforth to enter the lists And of this I will not make my self the Judg but repeat the opinion of a Learned Man who was wont to declare his mind in Controversies with unbyassed freedom It is known every where said that Elegant Writer with what Piety and acumen the last Lord Primate of all Ireland wrote against the Manichean Doctrine of fatal Necessity which a late witty Man had pretended to adorn with a new vizor but this excellent person wash'd off the Cerusse and the Meritricious Paintings rarely well asserted the Oeconomy of the Divine Providence and having once more triumph'd over his Adversary Plenus Victoriarum Trophaearum be took himself to the more agreeable attendance upon Sacred Offices Mr. Hobbes This luxuriant Pen-man boasts of Trophies and the Bishop himself of old talk'd of clearing the coast by Distinctions and dividing his forces into two squadrons one of places of Scripture the other of Reasons And I say notwithstanding to continue in the military allusion begun by them that in my Books not only his squadrons of Arguments but also his reserve of Distinctions are defeated Stud. I perceive you intend to make good the Character now given of you of being a witty Man although according to the Principles of your own Philosophy it redoundeth not much to your reputation For Wit depending upon a tenuity and agility of spirits there seemeth wanting in a very witty Man that fixation of parts which is required to Prudence Touching your Antagonist there is no doubt and it appeareth by your fretting and sprawling that you have felt the smart of that Opposition which he hath made against you But so far as I can remember for I have not had for some years any writing of his in my possession he hath not level'd his men in force against that place wherein you seem to me most capable of being wounded and wherein your chief strength seemeth to lay that is to say the Materiality of the whole Sphaere of Nature In relation to which I am apt to be perswaded that in this Controversie about Fate you by a daring consequence do charge the most holy God with all the iniquities committed in the World For all Effects arising from Motion and all Motion being derived from the first immoveable Mover all subordinate Causes and Effects will owe themselves in a chain-like dependance to the supreme Original Cause Mr. Hobbes The concourse of all causes maketh not one simple chain or concatenation but an innumerable number of Chains joyned together not in all parts but in the first link God Almighty That which I say necessitateth and determineth every action is the sum of all things which being now existent conduce and concur 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 to be such as it is by a like concourse of former Causes may well be called in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal Cause of all things God Almighty The Decree of God Every act of mans will and every desire and inclination proceedeth from some cause and that from another cause in a continual Chain whose first link is in the hand of God the Cause of all Causes and therefore the voluntary Actions of Men proceed from Necessity Stud. Impute not that with falshood and dishonour to God which is caused by Man's unconstrained Will the only Mother which conceiveth and bringeth forth Sin not withstanding that Objects may incline and Examples may entice and opportunities may invite and evil Angels may tempt and Constitution may encline and God permitteth Let no Man therefore say when he is tempted he is tempted of God for every Man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed Mr. Hobbes '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 dishonnour to Him Stud. These Answers should not have proceeded from a Man who professeth himself a Christian of no mean degree They come I was ready to say as unexpectedly as if they had dropped out of the Heavens but that they have relation to a lower place If we brand
mortal Men with Names of Infamy and tokens of our abhorence calling them unmerciful bloody deceitful who are said by you in all their actions to be drawn by Fate how can we speak or think with honour of the Deity whilst we apprehend him as the Original Causer of all those evils for which we unhurt abominate one another which he himself hath told us he doth abhor and for the commission of which Immoralities he will execute vengeance upon the brutish part of Mankind When a Sword is sheathed in the Bowels of an innocent and good Man we reproach not the bloody Weapon which was moved by force but we give titles of extraordinary dishonour to the barbarous will of that savage Man who made it an instrument of such dreadful mischief If men be carryed on in all their Circumstances by the mighty torrent of irresistible Motion their iniquities and the dishonours due unto them are chargable upon the source and spring of Motion If Men are necessitated to act or omit as also to will or to refuse then Exhortations unto such Duties as they perform not are bitter taunts and like commands to a Criple to rise up and walk and punishment for such evils as they commit is a cruel usage and a declaration against Sin as hated by the first Cause who cannot be thought in earnest to detest his own workmanship and as the default of Man who is asked in Scripture why he will die whilst his very Will to die is by you supposed fatal is imperious mockery and unworthy deceit St. Austin himself in his 10 th cap. de Fide contra Manichaeos speaketh in words to the same effect Who said the Father may not cry out that it is a ridiculous thing to bind Precepts upon him who is not at liberty to obey them and an unrighteous thing to condemn that man who had no power to perform what he was commanded And what can be said of God which may betoken honour if he be once accused as the Author of Sin Mr. Hobbes Men may do many things which God does not command and therefore he is not the Author of them Stud. He is more the Author who doth secretly necessitate than he who only does command the effect in as much as a command may as it is daily be disobey'd but power irresistible is not to be eluded And David would have bin more entirely and notoriously the Murtherer of Vriah by forcing the armed hand of an Ammonite upon him and the Ammonite less guilty than by a bare appointing of him to be placed in the Front of the Battel Besides it seems superfluous perfluous to command the doing of that which the supposed Commander with or without promulgation of his Will does unavoidâ—bly bring to pass for you make God the first Causer of all that is performed even against the Revelation of his pleasure Mr. Hobbes I grant that though Men may do many things which God does not command yet that they can have no passion nor appetite to any thing of which appetite God's Will is not the Cause Stud. Why then did accused Adam transfer the blame on Eve and she upon the Serpent It had been an easie if it might have been a true reply for both of them to have said Thou thy self didst force us unto that which by thee is so severely reprehended The Serpent himself at the hearing of his doom remained silent the very Father of Lies not being impudent in so excessive a degree as to charge the Almighty with his own evils Wherefore in ascribing Sin to God as the first cause of it you put me in mind of their fancy upon a mistaken Text who affirm'd Leviathan to be the very Father of the Devil I cannot heartily beg your pardon for that note because it is necessary that I be zealous when once the holiness and goodness of God is reproached by humane wit impudence madness Mr. Hobbes Condemn not in such a furious way good Dedoctor of Morality for with as ill manners you affirm that God is the Permitter as I have done in saying he is the Cause of every action I am not ignorant that Divines distinguish between Will and Permission and say 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 nor necessitate it But I find 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 Stud. The difference is heavenly-wide betwixt bare Permission and that Will which you have fancied in Almighty God a Will attended with such a disposal of all things as begetteth a necessity in Man's Will of doing Gods For no Man ever could imagin your self excepted that bare Permission should have the influence of a necessary Cause whereas such influence is ascrib'd by you to the Will of God It appeareth by the Revelation which God hath made to Man that he does so will Religion that it would be more pleasing to him for Man to obey than to remain perverse yet not in such a manner that he compelleth him to become his subject by active compliance for that were to unmake Man as such that is as a creature endu'd with a free Will When God saith of his Vineyard which made not such returns of fruitfulness as were proportion'd to his cultivation of it that he could do no more for it than he had done he declared plainly that he used such means as were consistent with a liberty in Man of neglecting or misimproving them And the exercise of this liberty in sinning he permitteth in regard to Man's free free nature and because he can not only chastise him for his delinquency but likewise by his Methods and infinite wisdom bring good out of it There being then in God in many cases a Conditional Will that will without the rescinding of any law of Man's unconstrain'd Election is always done either by the obedience of Man or by the vindication of abused mercy in the correction of a stubborn sinner And thus we have seen how injurious your Doctrine of Necessity hath been to the just honour of the most Holy Will of God It is also manifest that by the same way I will not call of reason but of bold asseveration you upbraid all Laws whereby any punishment is inflicted upon Malefactors of most rigorous and unreasonable procedure and thereby after dishonour done to God you vilisie his Vicegerents For why is the Scourge or Brand the Rope or Fire the Press Axe or Bullet prepared for those Men who do not by their own free choice and power lay open the fence which Authority hath set down but are hurried through it by a foreign violence against which it is in vain to struggle Sword and Pistol or whatsoever is an instrument in the violation of
the Law or safety of Man is as guilty as Man himself and with indignation to be broken in pieces if Man be unavoidably and fatally managed as in a Puppet-play by a foreign hand discern'd only by you who pretend to see within the Curtain I remember to have read that Draco the Athenian made a Law whereby the very Instruments of Homicide were punish'd And the Sons of him that perished by the fall of Nicon's Statue which he had whipped in order to the greater infamy of Nicon condemn'd the Statue as a Murtherer and with solemnity threw it into the Sea But they were not so sottish by these Laws and practices to pretend a real punishment of such Instruments but they design'd to move Beholders to the greater abhorrence of spilling human Blood and they gave some vent to the fermenting rage of their inward passion which might have swell'd to their greater discommodity if they had not sought some means of dischargeing it Mr. Hobbes 'T is unreasonable to punish some Actions of Men which could not be justly done by man to man unless the same were voluntary The nature of Sin consisteth in this that the Action done proceed from our Will and be against the Law A Judg in judging whether it be a sin or no which is done against the Law looks at no higher cause in the Action than the Will of the doer Now when I say the Action is necessary I do not say it was done against the will of the Doer but with his will And the Will to break the Law maketh the Action unjust because the Law regardeth the Will and no other precedent Causes of Action Stud. The Will if we have regard to the Opinion which you hold concerning it can neither render the Action unjust or the Judg righteous in his sentence of Condemnation because every Volition or Act of the Will and Purpose of Man is by outward violence made unavoidable and the beginning and progress of deliberation dependeth also upon necessary Causes Mr. Hobbes I acknowledg that when first a Man hath a Will to something to which immediately before he had no Appetite nor Will the cause of the 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 Voluntary Actions the Will is the necessary Cause and by this which is said the Will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not it followeth that Voluntary Actions have all of them necessary causes and therefore are necâ—ssitated Stud. Wherefore if the Law inflicteth capital punishment upon a Man with regard unto his Will the Man suffers for that which was not in his power to help and is therefore to be reckoned amongst those whose blood is shed without any proper stain in it Mr. Hobbes Men are justly killed not for that their Actions are necessitated but because they are noxious Men are not therefore put to death or punished for that their theft proceedeth from Election but because it was noxious contrary to Mens preservation Stud. The Law regards the free choice ' though it hath respect also to the mischief derived on the Commonwealth Wherefore there have been Cities of Refuge constituted for the safeguard of those who had unwittingly kill'd a man whilst the wilful Murtherers were to repay blood for blood And amongst our selves the blood of the most unuseful person in the Land shall be avenged by the death of the ablest Soldier or Counsellor if the Law may have its course and it be satisf'd that he shed it with a deliberate stroke whilst a pitiful ignorant Criple shall escape if by meer mischance he shall slay such a man as is able to serve a Kingdom either by his Sword or Prudence In which cases the Laws have regard rather to the wilfulness than the noxiousness of the Actors So also in the Roman Law reported by Paulus I. C. de poenis Paganorum he that wilfully burnt an house was to suffer death but he that by accident burnt a Village or an Island was but a Debtor But if noxiousness be the Rule of Judging then are you to change your phrase and say not that men are punished which presupposeth a crime but afflicted or killed after the manner of Beasts which not being capable of Law do perish without Law as their ruin conduceth to the behoof or security of Man And therefore the Civil Law calleth not the fact of a Beast injuria but damnum and determineth that a Beast being devoid of Reason can do no Injury Mr. Hâ—bb As for Beasts we kill them justly when we do 't in ord'r to our own preservation Stud. But that Justice dependeth upon the dominion which God hath vouchsafed Man over those Creatures to which some will not allow so much as sense and many no more than direct Perception though you are so profuse in one of your Books as to grant them Election and Deliberation And here let it be observed that God who hath given this Dominion to Man hath revealed it also to be his purpose not to rule and judg him by absolute Soveraignty nor to approve of Men whilst they measure their Right amongst themselves by a power not to be controll'd But he hath shew'd that he will govern them and have you deal with one another according to the equal Laws of their reasonable Nature Mr. Hobbes You run on in Exceptions against that Doctrine of Necessity which I have proposed but you take no notice of the inconveniencies wherwith your own opinion is pressed And first you take no notice of the consistence of Freedom and Necessity or that God and good Angels are supposed to be freer than Men and yet do good necessarily It was a very great praise in my opinion that Villeius Paterculus gives Cato where he says That he was good by Nature Et quia aliter esse non potisit Stud. The Necessity wherewith Almighty God doth always good is of a kind extremely different from that Physical co-co-action which you believe to be the Cause of each effect For he determineth himself by the eternal Reason of his own most perfect nature and is not urged by outward impulse which if it could once be attributed to him he would straightway cease to be God Omnipotent Mr. Hobbes That word Omnipotent reminds me of a second inconvenience which attendeth the Opposers of my Doctrine For if Gods Will did not assure the necessity of Man's Will and consequently of all that on Man's Will dependeth the Liberty of Men would be a contradiction and impediment to the Omnipotence and Liberty of God Stud. It is in you absurd to mention Liberty even in relation to God himself because by ascribing to him a Material Nature you assign him no Motions but such as arise from Physical compulsion But upon what account is it said by you that the Omnipotence of God
meerly because he apprehends it to be more blessed to give than to receive and not to be rid of the pang of compassion or to obtain praise or other reward By such Motives the Mind is often prevail'd upon without the force of Corporeal Motion being wooed and not pressed unavoidably into Consent Of these Motives that of Fear may seem to have Meâ—hanick force because that Passion is often stirred up by the horror of Objects disturbing the natural course of the Blood But it will be granted by your self that the very passion of Fear doth not compell but incline the Will For you acknowledg that Fear and Liberty are consistent as when a Man throweth his Goods into the Sea for fear the Ship should sink he doth it nevertheless very willingly and may refuse to do it if he will It is therefore the action of one that was free Seeing then the Incorporeal Soul of Man is induced by perswasion and not compelled by Natural Motion you may as soon convince me that every sufficient Man as we are wont to call a wealthy person is therefore a dispenser of his Goods and a liberal Man as that the immaterial Soul is forthwith compell'd to act when all things are present which are needful to the producing of the effect and all impediments are removed Mr. Hobbes To say that an Agent in such Circumstances can nevertheless not produce the effect implies a contradiction and is non-sense being as much as to say the Cause may be sufficient that is to say necessary and yet the effect shall not follow That all Events have necessary Causes hath been proved already 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 consequently the Cast was necessarily thrown for if it had not been thrown there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it and so the cause had not been sufficient Stud. Here you make instance in an Event resulting from Circumstances of Bodies and from Physical motion in relation to which I have already granted that a sufficient is an efficient Cause and declar'd the reason of it and how it toucheth not the present business But by this last Answer I begin to understand that you obtrude a Sophism upon me instead of a real Argument For whilst you say that sufficient is the same which necessary and that if the Cast had not been thrown there was something wanting you include in your sufficient Cause when you speak of Man the very act of Volition besides all the furniture prepared for that act And then your meaning amounts to this that when there is each thing needful and no impediment and also a Will to act the effect followeth But here you beg the Question which is this Whether all things requisite to action being present the will and act of Volition excepted the Soul hath not a power to forbear that Act and whilst you suppose a removal of impediments and the presence of all things necessary and the act of the Will also and then say the Cause is sufficient and efficient too you say no more than that a Man produceth necessarily an effect whilst he produceth it which indeed is a truth for he cannot act and not act at the same time but in the present Controversie it is an egregious Impertinence For the Necessity which you speak of is not in the Will it self or in the Effect but in that consequence which the mind createth by supposing that the Will complieth with the means and that whilst it chuseth it cannot but chuse Wherefore this fallacy is like to theirs who say the Will is necessarily determin'd by the last act of the Understanding meaning because it is the last they suppose the last act and that the Will closeth with the Understanding and then they say it followeth upon necessity which is no more than to affirm that there is nothing later than the last And if I am not impos'd upon by my memory you somewhere argue that the Will is the last appetite in deliberating and that therefore though we say in common Discourse A man had once a will to do a thing that nevertheles he forbears to do yet that is not properly a will because the action depends not of it but of the laâ—t inclination or appetite You suppose the Will to be the last Inclination and that thereâ—ore the Action depends upon it because it is the last and then you call it sufficient and necessary when you have made it to be such not in its own nature but by the supposition framed in your own brain And thus you have made a great noise and kackling about Sufficient and Efficient whilst there is nothing here said by you which is not as insipid as the white of an Egg. But of that Necessity which is said to compell the Will of Man enough let â—s consider that Law which obligeth it though not by force to action yet upon default to punishment And that we may proceed in order let our beginning be made at Our Seventh Head The Law of Nature that inward Law in relation to which each Man is a Magistrate to himself erecting a Tribunal in his own Breast Mr. Hobbes There is right and also a Law of Nature The Right of Nature is the Liberty each Man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature that is to say of his own life and consequently of doing any thing which in his own judgment and reason he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto The Law of Nature is a precept or general Rule found out by Reason by which a Man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or taketh away the means of preserving the same and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be lest preserved the sum of the Right of the right of Nature is by all means we can to defend our selves This is the first foundation of Natural Right Stud. The distinction betwixt the Right and the Law of Nature is with good reason to be admitted But you ought not to challenge it to your self seeing it is expressly noted by divers ancient Authors and in particular by Laurentius Valla That which you add seemeth as false as the other is ancient For the right dictate of Natural Reason obliging Man not yet suppos'd a
Science For it is with the mysteries of our Religion as with wholesome Pills for the sick which swallowed whole have the virtue to cure but chewed are for the most part cast up again without effect Stud. The danger in my opinion ariseth not from the mastication of the Physic but from the indisposed Stomach and Palate of the Patient to whose health Religion conduceth more when it is relished by an uninfected Judgment in the particular accounts of it than when it is taken in the lump by an implicit faith which is a way agreeable not to grown men but to children in understanding whom we cannot satisfie and must not distast But because you seem not willing to intrude further into this mystery of the God-head considered in its self and persons which yet as you would make it is no more a mystery than if his Majesty should be called one Sovereign with three persons being represented by three successive Lord Lieutenants of Ireland let us descend to the consideration of the Godhead in its outward works in which perhaps we may have surer footing seeing Phylosophers unassisted by Revelation have discoursed much upon Our third Head the Creation of the World Mr. Hobbes The questions about the magnitude of the World whether it be finite or infinite or concerning its duration whether it had a beginning or be eternal are not to be determined by Phylosophers Whatsoever we know that are men we learn it from our phantasms and of infinite whether magnitude or time there is no phantasm at all so that it is impossible either for a man or any other creature to have any conception of infinite Stud. You prove not here that a man can have no conception but only that he can have no image of an infinite Cause whereas it ha's been already shewn may hereafter be evâ—â—ced from the immateriality of Mans Soul that all conceptionâ— and Ideas are not phantasms or arise not from them But whilst you plead the difficulty of conceiving an eternal being in reference to the Creation you elsewhere admit of an Idea difficult enough for you can feign in your mind that a point may swell to a great figure such as that of Man and this you say is the only Ideâ— which we have at the naming of Creator and that such a figure may again contract it self into the narrowness of a point hereby you admit of a natural phantasm of Creation out of nothing as also of re-annihilation for all the supposed points besides that first which is just commensurate to so much space can neither arise out of that one nor shrink into it and whereaâ— you add that you cannot comprehend in your mind how this may poâ—â—ibly be done in nature of which before you pranted a phantasm which ariseth from real impulse if all be Body it is as much as if you had said you can and you cannot comprehend it And I cannot but here admire it in a man who pretends to a consistency with himself that you should allow the above said phantasm and yet reprehend it as principle void of sense and which a man at the first hearing whether Geometrician or not Geometriciam must abhorr the which notwithstanding the learned Lord Bacon did embrace that the same Body without adding to it or taking from it is sometimes greater and sometimes lesse But to return to the conception of an eternal Cause though it be not possible to have an Image of God yet it is easie by the help of Reason from the Images of things we see to climb by degrees above the visible World to the eternal Creator of it Curiosity or love of the knowledge of Causes doe's draw a man as you will grant from consideration of the effect to seek the Cause and again the cause of that Cause till of necessity he must come to this thought at last that there is some cause whereof there is no former cause but is Eternal and is called God Mr. Hobbes Though a man may from some effect proceed to the immediate cause thereof and from that to a more remote Cause and so ascend continually by right ratiocination from cause to Cause yet he will not be able to proceed eternally but wearied will at last give over without knowing whether it were possible for him to proceed to an end or not Stud. We are not as you imagine wearied in this assent of our Reason upon the several roundles of second causes to that which is eternal for we passe not through every single cause and effect but like those who search their pedigree no further than their great great Grand-Father yet say they at first sprung from Adam we view some more immediate causes and effects and consider that there is the like reason of dependency in the rest and thence as it were leap forward unto the top of this Iacob's Ladder and arrive aâ— the acknowledgment of an eternal immovable Mover Mr. Hobbes Though from this that nothing can move it self it may rightly be inferred that there was some first eternal Movent yet 〈◊〉 can never be inferred though some use to make such inference that that Movent was eternally immoveable but rather eternally moved for as it is true that nothing is moved by it self so is aâ— true also that nothing is moved but by that which is already moved Stud. Here you proceed not with such consistence and scrupulous ratiocination as becometh a Phylosopher for if nothing be moved by it self then to say an eternal Mover is moved is to say that that Eternal is not Eternal for there is something presupposed to give it motion and another thing foregoing and causing that motion and so on in infinitum Yet you acknowledge in your Book a first Power of all Powers but at the present your reasoning is connected with your beloved notion oâ— a corporeal Universe For Matter can never move but by that which is moved and so forward not to an eternal Cause but in an endless Circle which yet in some part must have had a beginning for here the question will return how came the sluggish Matter which cannot help it self to have motion at first imparted to it if there were not an eternal incorporeal self-moving mind wherefore you are again involved in the condemnation of the Epicureans of whom Cicero in his first De Finibus ha's left this pertinent observation There being two things to be inquired after in the nature of things the one what the Matter is out of which every thing is made the other what is the force or motion which doth every thing the Epicureans have reasoned concerning Matter but the efficient Power is a part of Phylosophy which they have left untilled So little of Reason in this Article of the Creation is on the side of some men who would monopolize that honorable name Mr. Hobbes Natural Reason is not so much concerned in this question because so
must be obstructed by the grant of an undetermin'd liberty in Man It is not that I know of affirm'd by any Disputant that there is such a lawless Liberty in Man as is not under subjection to the absolute Power of God but that it is a Liberty which God Almighty in an agreeableness to the free nature of Man hath been pleas'd to grant and for the greater part to suffer in the exercise of it Only it is said concerning sin that God cannot force the Will of Man to the commission of it for the production of such a wretched Issue would argue not omnipotency but impotence and imperfection in the parent of it God created Man and gave a Law to him and design'd not to use his Almighty Power to effect the fulfilling of that Law which Power supposeth the Command of a Law to be in vain He therefore that interposeth not his Power whilst he may hath not his Power disanulled when his preceptive Will is only withstood and he permitteth that disobedience Mr. Hobbes But what Elusion can be invented touching the foreknowledg of God The denying necessity destroyeth both the Decrees and 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 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 Stud. Touching the Decees of God it cannot be proved that they extend to all things which come to pass For his Prescience I 'm sure that it extendeth to all things possible to be known and that it hath no necessary influence upon the Event it doth neither hinder the Power of God nor the Liberty of Man God foreseeth that the Event may come to paâ—s and that he will not hinder it yet that he might and it cometh to pass most necessarily if God â—oreseeth it but the necessity ariseth from the supposition of the infallibility and not from any causal energy of divine foreknowledg It is manifest by the fulfilled Prophesies of divers inspired Men that there is Prescience and a man may also be assured that neither is his Liberty intringed by it nor Prescience by his Liberty It is evident to every Man in many cases as evident as that he perceiveth at all or understandeth that he willeth or â—efuseth without any constraint upon his freedom But there is great difficulty in unridling the manner of the consistence of Foreknowledg and Liberty because although there be some notion yet there is not a knowledg fully comprehensive of the Divine Wisdom in a finite Soul Thus much notwithstanding may with sobriety be offer'd towards the explication of this mysterious truth that the boundless wisdom of God who made the World understanding the Laws and Operations of his Workmanship from the beginning to the end of them understandeth also the nature of all appearances in all Objects in relation to the mind of Man in every Estate wherein he is placed and at all times together with the dispositions of each Man's Soul and thereby foreseeth what he will refuse or chuse whilst he had power absolutely speaking otherwise either to elect or reject He that should drop a piece of money by an undiscerned hand in the way of a man afflicted with extream poverty the same person might readily foresee that the espied money would infallibly be taken up by that poor man though he could not but understand that the Beggar had so much power over his own limbs as not to stoop unless he pleased But it seemeth not worth the time and pains to reconcile to your apprehension the Doctrins of Foreknowledg and undetermin'd Liberty because this Objection is by you proposed in order to the amusing of other Men's Reasons rather than in justification of the Truth For according to your Principles all evidence or knowledg ariseth from Objects already in being Neither understand you this of Essence in the Sense of the Metaphysick-Schools but of the actual presence of caused Objects Mr. Hobbes In my Opinion Foreknowledg is Knowledg and Knowledg depends on the existence of things known not they on it However the Objection serveth for the incommoding of those who maintain another sort of Foreknowledg but the argument on which I establish my Doctrine is of another kind I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect The same also is a necessary cause For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanteth somewhat which was needful to the producing of it and so the Cause was not sufficient but if it be impossible that a sufficient Cause should not produce the Effect then is a sufficient Cause a necessary Cause for that is said to produce an Effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient Cause to produce it or else it had not been and therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated Stud. In the alterations made in Bodies every sufficient is an efficient Cause by reason that matter sufficiently moved cannot stay it self but is wholly determin'd by foreign impulse which impulse also had an undefeated determination But because I have proved the existence of an Immaterial Soul I may affirm that all outward preparations being made so that there remaineth nothing wanting but the Act of Volition the Spiritual Mind not being overcome by the sway of Matter hath a power to abstain from acting though perhaps it is not pleased to use it And this we may illustrate by the Example of Abraham whose Fire Wood and Son to be a Victim and Sacrificing-knife were in a readiness and sufficient strength with these to execute the Command which God Almighty by way of trial had given to him yet who can doubt that Abraham had a power at the same time to render these preparations useless and to be disobedient For how could those Objects and this Command conveigh a force into his Will and thence into his Arm to slay his Son though they might present him with a reason which the goodness of his Disposition would not refuse The intention of Abraham to slay his Son was wrought by a Moral and not a Physical or Natural Power Mr. Hobbes Natural efficacy of Objects does determine voluntary Agents and necessitates the Will and consequently the Action but for Moral efficacy I understand not what you mean Stud. I understand by Moral efficacy the perswaâ—ive power of such Motives as those which arise from fear and love and trust and gratitude and especially such as arise from the meer reason of the Case as when a man doth therefore give Alms