it lies all Law First the eternall Law which is the ordination of divine Wisdom by which all Creaturs are directed to that end which is convenient for them that is not to necessitate them to eternall flames Then the Law participated which is the ordination of right reason instituted for the common good to shew unto man vvhat he ought to do and what he ought not to do To vvhat purpose is it to shevv the right vvay to him vvho is dravvn and haled a contrary vvay by Adamantine bonds of inevitalbe necessity g Lastly hovvsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin For he makes him to be the cause not onely of the Lavv and of the action but even of the irregularity it self and the difference betvveen the Action and the Lavv vvherein the very essence of sin doth consist He makes God to determine Davids Will and necessitate him to kill Uriah In causes physically and essentially subordiuate the cause of the cause is evermore the casue of the effect These are those deadly fruits vvhich spring from the poisonous root of the absolute necessity of all things vvhich T. H. seeing and that neither the sins of Esau nor Pharaoh nor any vvicked person do proceed from the operative but from the permissive Will of God and that punishment is an act of Justice not of dominion onely I hope that according to his promise he vvill change his opinion Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XII THE Bishop had argued in this manner If there be no Liberty there shall be no last Judgement no Revvards nor Punishments after death To this I answered that though God cannot sin because what he doth his doing maketh just and because he is not subject to anothers Law and that therefore it is blasphemy to say that God can sin yet to say that God hath so ordered the world that sin may necessarily be committed is not blasphemy And I can also further say though God be the cause of all motion and of all actions and therefore unless sin be no motion nor action it must derive a necessity from the first mover nevertheless it cannot be said that God is the Author of sin because not he that necessitateth an action but he that doth command and warrant it is the Author And if God own an action though otherwise it were sin it is now no sin The act of the Israelites in robbing the Egyptians of their Jewels without Gods warrant had been theft But it was neither theft cousonage nor sin supposing they knew the warrant was from God The rest of my answer to that inconvenience was an opposing to his inconveniences the manifest Texts of St. Paul Rom. 9. The substance of his Reply to my Answer is this a Though punishment vvere an act of dominion not of Justice in God yet this is no sufficient cause vvhy God should deny his ovvn act or vvhy he should chide or expostulate vvith men vvhy they did that vvhich he himself did necessitate them to do I never said that God denied his act but that he may expostulate with men And this may be I shall never say directly it is the reason of that his expostulation viz. to convince them that their wills were not independent but were his meer gift and that to do or not to do is not in him that willeth but in God that hath mercy on or hardeneth whom he will But the Bishop interpreteth hardening to be a permission of God Which is to attribute to God in such actions no more than he might have attributed to any of Pharaohs servants the not perswading their Master to let the People goe And whereas he compares this permission to the indulgence of a parent that by his patience incourageth his son to become more rebellious which indulgence is a sin he maketh God to be like a sinful man And indeed it seemeth that all they that hold this Freedome of the Will concieve of God no otherwise than the common sort of Jewes did that God was like a man that he had been seen by Moses and after by the seventy Elders Exod 9. 10. Expounding that and other places literally Again he saith that God is said to harden the heart permissively but not operatively which is the same distinction with his first namely negatively not positively and with his second occasionally and not causally so that all his three wayes how God hardens the heart of wicked meu come to this one of permission which is as much as to say God sees looks on and dâ—th nothing nor ever did any thing in the business Thus you see how the Bishoâ— expoundeth St. Paul Therefore I will leave the rest of his â—…mentary upon Rom. 9. to the judgement of the Reader to think of the same as he pleaseth b Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H saith That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent Will or by a consequent Will either by an operative Will or by a permissive Will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Whether it be called antecedent or consequent or operative or permissive it is enough for the necessity of the thing that the heart of Pharaoh should be hardened and if God were not willing to do it I cannot conceive how it could be done without him c T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the Action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the Action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evil by a general but not by a special influence I had thought to passe over this place because of the non-sense of general and special influence seeing he saith that God concurres to the doing of evil I desire the Reader would take notice that if he blame me for speaking of God as of a necessitating cause and as it were a principal Agent in the causing of all Actions he may with as good reason blame himself for making him by concurrence an accessory to the same and indeed let men hold what they will contrary to the truth if they write much the truth will fall into their pens But he thinks he hath a similitude which will make this permissive Will a very clear business The earth saith he gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yeilds food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the general nourishment of the earth but from the special quality of the root It seemeth by this similitude he thinketh that God doth not operatively but premissively Will that the root of Hemlock should poison the man that eateth it
is already done or doing but as a thing â—o be done They imply not the actual production but the producibility of the effect But when once the will hath actually concurred with all other causes and conditions and circumstances then the effect is no more possible or producible but it is in being and actually produced Thus he takes away the subject of the question The question is whether effects producible be free from necessity He shuffles out effects producible and thrusts in their places effects produced or which are in the act of production Wherefore I conclude that it is neither non sense nor contradiction to say that a free Agent when all things requisite to produce the effect are present may nevertheless not produce it Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXII THe question is here whether these words a free Agent is that which when all things needfull to the production of the effect are present can nevertheless not produce it â—â—mply a contradiction as I say it does To make it appear no contradiction he saith a In these words all things needful or all things requisite the actual determination of the Will is not included as if the Will were not needful nor requisite to the producing of a voluntary Action For to the production of any Act whatsoever there is needful not onely those things which proceed from the Agent but also those that consist in the disposition of the patient And to use his own instance it is necessary to writing not onely that there be pâ—n ink paper c. but also a will to write He that hath the former hath all things requisite to write if he will but not all things necessary to writing And so in his other instances he that hath men and money c. without that which he putteth in for a requisite hath all things requisite to make War if he Will but not simply to make War And he in the Gospel that had prepared his Dinner had all things requisite for his guests if they came but not all things requisite to make them come And therefore all things requisite is a term ill defined by him b And indeed if the will were as he conceives it is necessitated extrinsecally to every act of willing if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth will nor to will what it does not will then if the will were wanting something requisite to the produceing of the effect were wanting But now when Science and Conscience Reason and Religion our own and other mens experience doth teach us that the Will hath a Dominion over its own Acts to Will or Nill without extrinsecal necessitation if the power to will be present in actu primo determinable by our selves then there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of the effect These words the will hath power to forbear willing what it doth will and these the Wil hath a Dominion over its own Acts and these the power to Will is present in actu primo determinable by our selves are as wild as ever were any spoken with in the Walls of Bedlam and if Science Conscience Reason and Religion teach us to speak thus they make us mad And that which followeth is false to Act or not to Act to work or not to work to produce or not to produce have reference to the effect not as a thing which is already done or doing but as a thing to be done For to act to work to produce are the same thing with to be doing It is not the act but the power that hath reference to the future for act and power differ in nothing but in this that the former signifieth the time present the latter the time to come And whereas he adds that I shuffle out effects producible and thrust into their places effects produced I must take it for an untruth till he cite the place wherein I have done so T. H. FOr my first five points where it is explicated First what Num. 33. Spontaneity is Secondly what Deliberation is Thirdly what Will Propension and Appetite is Fourthly what a free Agent is Fiftly what Liberty is There can be no other proof offered but every mans own experience by reflecting on himself and remembring what he useth to have in his mind 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 so reflecteth on himself cannot but be satisfied that deliberation is the considering of the good and evil sequells of the action to come That by Spontaneity is meant inconsiderate proceeding for 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 externall impediments But to those that out of custome 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 mâ—ns own sense and memory For example how can it be prooved that to love a thing and to think it good are all one to a man that does not mark his own meaning by those words Or how can it be prooved that Eternity is not nunc Stans to a man that sayes these words by câ—stoâ—â—e and never considers how he can conceive the thing it self in his mind Also the sixt 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 find as much reason if there be no cause of the thing to conceive it should begin at one time as another that is he hath equall 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 J. D. NOw at length he comes to his main proofs He that hath so confidently censured the whole current of Schoolmen and Philosophers of non-sense had need to produce strong evidence for himself So he calls his reasons Numb 36. demonstrative proofs All demonstrations are either from the cause or the effect not fâ—om private notions and conceptions which we have in our minds That which he calls a demonstration deserves not the name of an intimation He argues thus That which a man conceives in his mind by these words Spontaneity Deliberation c. that they are This is his proposition which I deny a The true natures of things are not to be judged by the private ideas or conceptions of men but by their causes and formal reasons Ask an ordinary person what upwards
that my Principles are pernicious both to Piety and Policy and destructive to all Relations c. My answer is that I desire not that he or they should so mispend their time but if they will needs do it I can give them a fit Title for their Book Behemoth against Leviathan He ends his Epistle with so God bless us Which words are good in themseves but to no purpose here but are a Buffonly abusing of the name of God to Calumny A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY FROM Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity J. D. EIther I am free to write this Discourse for Liberty against Necessity or I am not free If I be Numb 1. free I have obteined the cause and ought not to suffer for the truth If I be not free yet I ought not to be blamed since I do it not out of any voluntary election but out of an inevitable Necessity T. H. RIght Honourable I had once resolved to answer J. D'â— objections to my Book De Cive in the first place as that which concerns me most and afterwards to examine this discoâ—â—se of Liberty and Necessity which because I never had uttered my opinion of it concerned me the less But seeing it was both your Lordships and J. D s. desire that I should begin with the later I was contented so to do And here I present and submit it to your Lordships judgement J. D. a THe first day that I did read over T. H. his defence of the necessity of all things was April 20. 1646. Which proceeded not out of any disrespect to him for if all his discourses had been Geometrical demonstrations able not onely to perswade but also to compel assent all had been one to me first my journey and afterwards some other trifles which we call business having diverted me until then And then my occasions permitting me and an advertisement from a friend awakening me I set my self to a serious examination of it We commonly see those who delight in Paradoxes if they have line enough confute themselves and their speculatives and their practicks familiarly enterfere one with another b The very first words of T. H. his defence trip up the heels of his whole cause I had once resolved To resolve praesupposeth deliberation but what deliberation can there be of that which is inevitably determined by causes without our selves before we do deliberate can a condemned man deliberate whether he should be executed or not It is even to as much purpose as for a man to consult and ponder with himself whether he should draw in his breath or whether he should increase in stature Secondly c to resolve implies a mans dominion over his own actions and his actual determination of himself but he who holds an absolute necessity of all things hath quitted this dominion over himself which is worse hath quitted it to the second extrinsecal causes in which he makes all his actions to be determined one may as well call again Yesterday as resolve or newly determine that which is determined to his hand already d I have perused this treatise weighed T. H his answers considered his reasons and conclude that he hath missed and missed the Question that the answers are evasions that his arguments are paralogisms that the opinion of absolute and universal Necessity is but a result of some groundless and ill chosen principles and that the defect is not in himself but that his cause will admit no better defence and therefore by his favour I am resolved to adhere to my first opinion Perhaps another man reading this discourse with other eyes judgeth it to be pertinent and well founded How comes this to pass the treatise is the same the exteriour causes are the same yet the resolution is contrary Do the second causes play fast and loose do they necessitate me to condemn and necessitate him to maintain what is it then the difference must be in our selves either in our intellectuals because the one sees clearer than the other or in our affections which betray our unsterstandings and produce an implicite adhaerence in the one more than in the other Howsoever it be the difference is in our selves The outward causes alone do not chain me to the one resolution nor him to the other resolution But T. H. may say that our several and respective deliberations and affections are in part the causes of our contrary resolutions and do concur with the outward caufes to make up one total and adaequate cause to the necessary production of this effect If it be so he hath spun a fair thred to make all this stir for such a necessity as no man ever denyed or doubted of when all the causes have actually determined themselves then the effect is in being for though there be a priority in nature between the cause and the effect yet they are together in time And the old rule is e whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is This is no absolute necessity but onely upon supposition that a man hath determined his own liberty When we question whether all occurrences be necessary we do not question whether they be necessary when they are nor whether they be necessary in sensu composito after we have resolved and finally determined what to do but whether they were necessary before they were determined by our selves by or in the praecedent causes before our selves or in the exteriour causes without our selves It is not inconsistent with true Liberty to determine it self but it is inconsistent with true Liberty to be determined by another without it self T. H. saith further that upon your Lorships desire and mine he was contented to begin with this discourse of Liberty and Necessity that is to change his former resolution f If the chain of necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily in sunder if his will was no otherwise determined without himself but onely by the signification of your Lordships desire and my modest intreaty then we may easily conclude that humane affairs are not alwaies governed by absolute necessity that a man is Lord of his own actions if not in chief yet in mean subordinate to the Lord Paramount of Heaven and Earth and that all things are not so absolutely determined in the outward and precedent causes but that fair intreaties and moral perswasions may work upon a good nature so far as to prevent that which otherwise had been and to produce that which otherwise had not been He that can reconcile this with an Antecedent Necessity of all things and a Physical or Natural determination of all causes shall be great Apollo to me Whereas T. H. saith that he had never uttered his opinion of this Question I suppose he intends in writing my conversation with him hath not been frequent yet I remember well that when this Question was agitated between us two in your Lordships Chamber by your command he did then declare himself in words
that which proves one thing prove any thing hath translated into English and brought into this place to prove Free-will It is true very few have learned from Tutors that a man is not free to Will nor do they find it much in Books That they find in Books that which the Poets chant in their Theaters and the Shepheards in the Mountains that which the Pastors teach in the Churches and the Doctors in the Vniversities and that which the common people in the Markets and all mankind in the whole World do assent unto is the same that I assent unto namely that a man hath freedome to do if he will but whether he hath freedome to Will is a Question which it seems neither the Bishop nor they ever thought on g No man blameth fire for burning Cities nor taxeth poyson for destroying Men c. Here again he is upon his arguments from Blame which I have answered before and we do as much blame them as we do men for we say fire hath done hurt and the poyson hath killed a man as well as we say the man hath done unjustly but we do not seek to be revenged of the fire and of poyson because we cannot make them ask forgiveness as we would make men to do when they hurt us so that the blaming of the one and the other that is the declaring of the hurt or evill action done by them is the same in both but the malice of man is onely against man h No man sins in doing those things which he could not shun He may as well say no man halts which cannot chuse but halt or stumbles that cannot chuse but stumhlâ— For what is sin but halting or stumbling in the way of Gods Commandements i The Question then is not whether a man be necessitated to will or nill yet free to act or forbear But saving the ambiguous acceptions of the word Free the Question is plainly this c. This Question which the Bishop stateth in this place I have before set down verbatim and allowed and it is the same with mine though he perceave it not But seeing I did nothing but at his request set down my opinion there can be no other Question between us in this controversie but whether my opinion be the truth or not k So my preface remains yet unanswered Either I was extrinsecally and inevetably predetermined to write this discourse c. That which he sayes in the preface is that if he be not Free to write this discourse he ought not to be blamed But if he be Free he hath obteined the cause The first consequence I should have granted him if he had written it rationally and civilly the later I deny and have shown that he ought to have proved that a man is Free to Wil. For that which he sayes any thing else whatsoever would think if it know it were moved and did not know what moved it A woodden Top that is lasht by the Boyes and runs about sometimes to one Wall sometimes to another somtimes spinning sometimes hitting men on the shins if it were sensible of its own motion would think it proceeded from its own Will unless it felt what lasht it And is a man any wiser when he runns to one place for a Benefice to another for a Bargain and troubles the world with writing errors and requiring answers because he thinks he doth it without other cause than his own Will and seeth not what are the lashings that cause his Will J. D. ANd so to fall in hand with the Question without any further proems or prefaces By Liberty I do neither Numb 4. understand a liberty from sin nor a liberty from misery nor a liberty from servitude nor a liberty from violence but I understand a liberty from Necessity ' or rather from Necessitation that is an universal immunity from all inevitability and determination to one whether it be of exercise onely which the Schooles cal a liberty of contradiction and is found in God and in the good and bad Angels that is not a liberty to do both good and evill but a liberty to do or not to do this or that good this or that evill respectively or whether it be a liberty of specification and exercise also which the Schooles call liberty of contrariety and is found in men indowed with reason and understanding that is a llberty to do and not to do good and evill this or that Thus the coast being cleared c. T. H. IN the next place he maketh certain distinctions of liberty and sayes he means not liberty from sin nor from servitude nor from violence but from Necessity Necessitation inevitability and determination to one It had been better to define liberty than thus to distinguish for I understand never the more what he means by liberty And though he sayes he means liberty from Necessitation yet I understand not how such a liberty can be and it is a taking of the Question without proof for what else is the Question between ut but whether such a liberty he possible or not There are in the same place other distinctions as a liberty of exercise onely which he calls a liberty of contradiction namely of doing not good or evill simply but of doing this or that good or this or that evill respectively And a liberty of specification and exercise also which he calls a liberty of contrariety namely a liberty not onely to do or not to do good or evill but also to do or not to do this or that good or evill And with these distinctions he sayes he clears the coast whereas in truth he darkneth his meaning not onely with the Jargon of exercise onely specification also contradiction contrariety but also with pretending distinction where none is for how is it possible for the liberty of doing or not doing this or that good or evill to consist as he sayes it doth in God and Angels without a liberty of doing or not doing good or evill J. D. a IT is a rule in art that words which are homonymous of various and ambiguous significations ought ever in the first place to be distinguished No men delight in confused generalities but either Sophisters or Bunglers Vir dolosus versatur in generalibus deceitful men do not love to descend to particulars and when bad Archers shoot the safest way is to run to the marke Liberty is sometimes opposed to the slavery of sin and vitious habits as Rom. 6. 22. Now being made free from sin Sometimes to misery and oppression Isay 58. 6. To let the oppressed go free Sometimes to servitude as Levit. 25. 10. In the year of Jubilee ye shall proclaim liberty throughout the land Sometimes to violence as Psal. 105. 20. The prince of his people let him go free Yet none of all these are the liberty now in question but a liberty from necessity that is a determination to one or rather from necessitation that is a necessity imposed
If the Will do not suspend but assent then the act is necessary but because the Will may suspend and not assent therefore it is not absolutely necessary In the former case the Will is moved necessarily and determinately In the later freely and indeterminately The former excitation is immediate the later is mediaté mediante intellectu and requires the help of the understanding In a word so great a difference there is between natural and moral efficacy as there is between his opinion and mine in this Question There remains onely the last dictate of the understanding which he maketh to be the last cause that concurreth to the determination of the Will and to the necessary production of the act as the last feather may be said to break an Horses back when there were somany laid on before that there wanted but that to do it I have shewed Numb 7. that the last dictate of the understanding is not alwaies absolute in it self nor conclusive to the Will and when it is conclusive yet it produceth no antecedent nor extrinsecal Necessity I shall only ad one thing more in present That by making the last judgement of right reason to be of no more weight then a single feather he wrongs the understanding as well as he doth the Will and endeavonrs to deprive the Will of its supreme power of application and to deprive the understanding of its supreme power of judicature and definition Neither corporeal agents and objects nor yet the sensitive appetite it self being an inferiour faculty and affixed to the Organ of the Body have any direct or immediate dominion or command over the rational Will It is without the sphear of their activity All the access which they have unto the Will is by the means of the understanding sometimes cleare and sometimes disturbed and of reason either right or mis-informed Without the help of the understanding all his second causes were not able of themselves to load the Horses back with so much weight as the least of all his feathers doth amount unto But we shall meet with his Horse load of feathers again Numb 23. These things being thus briefly touched he proceeds to his answer My argument was this If any of these â—rall these causes formerly recited do take away true liberty that is still intended from necessity then Adam before his fall had no true liberty But Adam before his fall had true liberty He mis-recites the argument and denies the consequence which is so clearly proved that no man living can doubt of it Because Adam was subjected to all the same causes as well as we the same decree the same prescience the same influences the same concourse of causes the same efficacy of objects the same dictates of reason But it is onely a mistake for it appears plainly by his following discourse that he intended to deny not the consequence but the assumption For he makes Adam to have had no liberty from necessity before his fall yea he proceeds so far as to affirm that all humane wills his and ours and each propension of our wills even during our deliberation are as much necessitated as any thing else whatsoever that we have no more power to forbear those actions which we do than the fire hath power not to burn Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning yet I must confess ingeniously I hate this Doctrine from my heart And I believe both I have reason so to do and al others who shall seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it It destroyes liberty dishonours the nature of Man It makes the second causes outward objects to be the Rackets and Men to be but the Tennis-Balls of destiny It makes the first cause that is God Almighty to be the introducer of all evil and sin into the world as much as Man yea more than Man by as much as the motion of the Watch is more from the Artificer who did make it and wind it up than either from the spring or the wheels or the thred if God by his special influence into the second causes did necessitate them to operate as they did And if they being thus determined did necessitate Adam inevitably irresistably not by an accidental but by an essential subordination of causes to whatsoever he did Then one of these two absurdities must needs follow either that Adam did not sin and that there is no such thing as sin in the world because it proceeds naturally necssarily and essentially from God Or that God is more guilty of it and more the cause of evil than Man because Man is extrinsecally inevitably determined but so is not God And in causes essentially subordinate the cause of the cause is alwaies the cause of the effect What Tyrant did ever impose Lawes that were impossible for those to keep upon whom they were imposed and punish them for breaking those Laws which he himself had necessitated them to break which it was no more in their power not to break than it is in the power of the fire not to burn Excuse me if I hate this Doctrine with a perfect hatred which is so dishonourable both to God and Man which makes Men to blaspheme of necessity to steal of necessity to be hanged of necessity and to be damned of necessity And therefore I must say and say again Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulous odi It were better to be an Atheist to believe no God or to be a Manichee to believe two Gods a God of good and a God of evil or with the Heathens to believe thirty thousand Gods than thus to charge the true God to be the proper cause and the true Author of all the sins and evills which are in the world Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XI aTHis Argument was sent forth only as an espie to make a more full discovery what were the true grounds of T. H. his supposed Necessity The Argument which he sendeth forth as an Espie is this If either the decree of God or the Fore-knowledge of God or the Influence of the Stars or the Concatenation which he saies falsly I call a Concourse of causes or the Physical or Moral Efficacy of objects or the last Dictate of the Understanding do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty In answer whereunto I said that all the things now existent were necessary to the production of the effect to come that the Fore-knowledge of God causeth nothing though the Will do that the influence of the Stars is but a small part of that cause which maketh the Necessity and that this consequence If the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect then Adam had no true liberty was false But in his words if these do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty the consequence is good but then I deny that Necessity takes away Liberty the reason
whereof which is this Liberty is to choose what we will not to choose our Will no iuculâ—ation is sufficient to make the Bishop take notice of notwithstanding he be other where so witty and here so crafty as to send out Arguments for spies The cause why I denied the consequence was that I thought the force thereof consisted in this that Necessity in the Bishops opinion destroyed Liberty b Concerning the eternal Decree of God c. Here begins his Reply From which if we take these words knowledge of Approbation Practical knowledge Heavenly Bodies act upon sublunary things not onely by their motion but also by an occult vertue which we call influence Moral efficacy General influence Special influence Infuse something into the Will The Will is moved The Will is induced to will The Will suspends its own act Which are all Non-sense unworthy of a Man nay and if a Beast could speak unworhthy of a Beast and can befal no creature whose nature is not depâ—aved by Doctrine nothing at all remaineth to be answered Perhaps the word Occult vertue is not to be taxed as unintelligible But then I may tax therein the want of ingenuity in him that had rather say that heavenly Bodies do work by an occult vertue then that they work he knoweth not how which he would not confess but endeavours to make Occult be taken for a Cause The rest of this Reply is one of those consequences which I have answered in the beginning where I compare the inconveniences of both opinions that is That either Adam did not sin or his sin proceeded necessarily from God which is no stronger a consequence than if out of this That a man is lame necessarily one should inferre That either he is not lame or that his lameness proceeded necessarily from the Will of God To the end of this Number there is nothing more of argument The place is filled up with wondering and railing â— D. FIftly If there be no Liberty there shall be no day of Numb 12. Arg. 5. Doom no last Judgement no rewards nor punishments after death A man can never make himself a criminal if he be not left at liberty to commit a crime No man can be justly punished for doing that which was not in his power to shun To take away Liberty hazards Heaven but undoubtedly it leaves no Hell T. H. THE Arguments of greatest consequence are the third and fift and fall both into one Namely If there be a necessity of all events that it will follow that praise and reprehension 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 or Hell To oppose hereunto I must borrow an answer from St. Paul Rom. 9. ver 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 to her viz. to Rebeckah that the elder shall serve the younger And 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 may shew my power in thee and that my Name may 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 St. Paul is the same with that of J. D. and the same objection in these words following Thou wilt ask me thin why will 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 St. Paul I answer J. D's objection and say The power of God alone without other help is sufficient Justification of any action he doth That which men make among themselves here by Pacts and Covenants and call by the name of Justice and according whereunto men are counted and tearmed rightly just and unjust is not that by which God Almighties actions are to be measured or called just no more than his counsails are to be measured by human wisedom That which he does is made just by his doing Just I say in him not alwaies just in us by the Example for a man that shall command a thing openly and plot secretly the hinderance of the same if he punish him he so commanded for not doing it is unjust So also his Counsails they be 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 to him but justified that afflicting him by telling him of his power Hast thou sayes God an arm like mine Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth and the like So our Saviour concerning the man that was born blind said it was not for his sin nor his parents sin but that the power of God might be shewn in him Beasts are subject to death and torment yet they cannot sin It was Gods will it should be so Power irresistible justifieth all actions really and properly in whomsoever it be found Less power does not And because such power is in God only he must needs be just in all his actions And we that not comprehending his Counsails call him to the Bar 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 permit sin sometimes 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 God Almighty does indeed cause the action whatsoever action it be but not the sinfulness or irregularity of it that is the discordance between the Action and the Law Such distinctions as these dazel my understanding I find no difference between the will to have a thing done and the permission to do it when he that permitteth it can hinder it and knowes it will be done unless he hinder it Nor find I any difference between an action that is against the Law and the sin of that action As for example between the killing of Uriah and
the sin of David in killing Uriah Nor when one is cause both of the action and of the Law how another can be cause of the disagreement between them no more than how one man making a longer and shorter garment another can make the inequality that is between them This I know God cannot sin because his doing a thing makes it just and consequently no sin And because whatsoever can sin is subject to anothers Law which God is not And therefore t is blasphemy to say God can sin But to say that God can so order the world as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man I do not see how it is any dishonour to him Howsoever if such or other distinctions can make it clear that St. Paul did not think Esaus or Pharaohs actions proceeded from the will and purpose of God or that proceeding from his will could not therefore without injustice be blamed or punished I will as soon as I understand them turn unto J. D's opinion For I now hold nothing in all this Question between us but what seemeth to me not obscurely but most expresly said in this place by Saint Paul And thus much in answer to his places of Scripture J. D. T. H. thinks to kill two birds with one stone and satisfie two Arguments with one answer whereas in truth he satisfieth neither First for my third reason a Though all he say here were as true as an Oracle Though punishment were an act of dominion not of Justice in God yet this is no sufficient cause why God should deny his own act or why he should chide or expostulate with men why they did that which he himself did necessitate them to do and whereof he was the actor more than they they being but as the stone but he the hand that threw it Notwithstanding any thing which is pleaded here this Stoical opinion doth stick hypocrisie and dissimulation close to God who is Truth it self And to my fift Argument which he changeth and relateth amiss as by comparing mine with his may appear His chiefest answer is to oppose a difficult place of St. Paul Rom. 9. 11. Hath he never heard that to propose adoubt is not to answer an Argument Nec bene respondet qni litem lite resolvit But I will not pay him in his own coin Wherefore to this place alledged by him I answer The case is not the same The Question moved there is how God did keep his promise made to Abraham to be the God of him and of his seed if the Jews who were the legimate progeny of Abraham were deserted To which the Apostle answers ver 6 7 8. That that promise was not made to the carnal seed of Abraham that is the Jewes but to his spiritual Sons which were the Heirs of his Faith that is to the beleeving Christians which answer he explicateth first by the Allegory of Isaack and Ishmael and after in the place cited of Esau and of Jacob. Yet neither doth he speak there so much of their persons as of their posterities And though some words may be accommodated to Gods predestination which are there uttered yet it is not the scope of that text to treat of the reprobation of any man to Hell fire All the posterity of Esau were not eternally reprobated as holy Job and many others But this Question which is now agitated between us is quite of another nature how a man can be a criminal who doth nothing but that which he is extrinsecally necessitated to do or how God in Justice can punish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone That he who did imprint the motion in the heart of man should punish man who did only receive the impression from him So his answer looks another way But because he grounds so much upon this text that if it can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion I will examine all those passages which may seem to favour his cause First these words ver 11. being not yet borne neither having done any good or evil upon which the whole weight of his argument doth depend have no reference at all to those words ver 13. Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated for those words were first uttered by the Prophet Malachy many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead Mal. 1. 2. and intended of the posterity of Esau who were not redeemed from captivity as the Israelites were But they are referred to those other words ver 12. The elder shall serve the younger which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were Born Gen. 5. 23. And though those words of Malachy had been used of Jacob and Esau before they were Born yet it had advantaged his cause nothing for hatred in that text doth not signifie any reprobation to the flames of Hell much less the execution of that decree or the actual imposition of punishment nor any act contrary to love God saw all that he had made and it was very good Goodness it self cannot hate that which is good But hatred there signifies Comparative hatred or a less degree of love or at the most a negation of love As Gen. 29. 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated we may not conclude thence that Jocob hated his Wife The precedent verse doth fully expound the sense ver 30. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah So Mat. 6. 24. No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and lóve the other So Luke 14. 26. If any man hate not his Father and Mother c. he cannot be my Disciple St. Matthew tells us the sense of it Mat. 10. 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me Secondly those words ver 15. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy do prove no more but this that the preferring of Jacob before Esau and of the Christians before the Jewes was not a debt from God either to the one or to the other but a work of mercy And what of this All men confess that Gods mercies do exceed mans deserts but Gods punishments do never exceed mans misdeeds As we see in the Parable of the Labourers Matth. 20. Friend I do the no wrong did not I agree with thee for a penny Is it not lawful for me to do with mine own as I will Is thy eye evil because I am good Acts of mercy are free but acts of Justice are due That which followes ver 17. comes something nearer the cause The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh for this same purpose I have raised the up that is I have made thee a King or I have preserved thee that I might shew my power in thee But this particle that doth not alwaies signifie the main end of an action but sometimes only a consequent of it As Matt. 2. 15. He departed into Egypt that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
opinion of T. H almost as there are words Here we learn that God is rich in goodness and will not punish his creatures for that which is his own act Secondly that he suffers and forbeares sinners long and doth not snatch them away by sudden death as they deserve Thirdly that the reason of Gods forbearance is to bring men to repentance Fourthly that hardness of heart and impenitency is not causally from God but from our selves Fiftly that it is not the insufficient proposal of the means of their conversion on Gods ' part which is the cause of mens perdition but their own contempt and despising of these means Sixtly that punishment is not an act of absolute dominion but an act of righteous judgement whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves eternal life to those who continue patiently in well-doing If they deserve such punishment who only neglect the goodness and long suffering of God what do they who utterly deny it and make Gods doing and his suffering to be all one I do beseech T. H. to consider what a degree of wilfulness it is out of one obscure text wholly misunderstood to contradict the clear current of the whole Scripture Of the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 22. The long suffering of God waited once in the daies of Noah And 2 Pet. 3. 15. Account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation This is the name God gives himself Exod. 34. 6. The Lord the Lord God mercyful and gracious long suffering c. b Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be commonly true That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent will or by a consequent will either by an operative will or by a permissive will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man to suffer that to be done which otherwise he would not suffer So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the Lions den to make good his rash decree So Herod suffered John Baptist to be beheaded to make good his rash oath How much more may the immutable rule of justice in God and his fidelity in keeping his word draw from him the punishment of obstinate sinners though antecedently he willeth their conversion He loveth all his creatures well but his own Justice better Again sometimes a man suffereth that to be done which he doth not will directly in it self but indirectly for some other end or for the producing of some greater good As a man willeth that a putrid member be cut off from his body to save the life of the whole Or as a Judge being desirous to save a malefactors life and having power to reprieve him doth yet condemn him for example sake that by the death of one he may save the lives of many Marvel not then if God suffer some creatures to take such courses as tend to their own ruine so long as their sufferings do make for the greater manifestation of his glory and for the greater benefit of his faithful servants This is a most certain truth that God would not suffer evil to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evil Yet this ought not to be understood as if we made any priority or posteriority of time in the acts of God but onely of Nature Nor do we make the antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another because the one respects man pure and uncorrupted the other respects him as he is lapsed The objects are the same but considered after a diverse manner Nor yet do we make these wills to be distinct in God for they are the same with the divine essence which is one But the distinction is in order to the objects or things willed Nor lastly do we make this permission to be a naked or a meer permission God causeth all good pemitteth all evil disposeth all things both good and evill c T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evill by a general but not by a speciall influence As the Earth gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yeilds food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the general nourishment of the Earth but from the special quality of the root Even so the general power to act is from God In him we live and move and have our being This is good But the specification and determination of this general power to the doing of any evill is from our selves and proceeds from the free will of man This is bad And to speak properly the free will of man is not the efficient cause of sin as the root of the Hemlock is of poison sin having no true entity or being in it as poison hath But rather the deficient cause Now no defect can flow from him who is the highest perfection d Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God The general power to act is from God but the specification of this general and good power to murther or to any particular evil is not from God but from the free will of man So T. H. may see clearly if he will how one may be the cause of the Law and likewise of the action in some sort that is by general influence and yet another cause concurring by special influence and determining this general and good power may make it self the true cause of the anomy or the irregularity And therefore he may keep his longer and shorter garments for some other occasion Certainly they will not fit this subject unless he could make general and special influence to be all one But T. H. presseth yet further that the case is the same and the objection used by the Jews ver 19. Why doth he yet find fault who hath resisted his will is the very same with my argument And St. Pauls answer ver 20. O man who art thou that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over his Clay c is the very same with his answer in this place drawn from the irresistible power and absolute dominion of God which justifieth all his actions And that the Apostle in his answer doth not deny that it was Gods will nor that Gods decree was before Esaus sin To which I reply First that the case is
but that Wheat should nonrish him be willeth operatively Which is very absurd or else he must confess that the venimous effects of wicked men are willed operatively d Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God The general power to act is from God but the specification of this general and good power to murther or to any particular evil is not from God but from the free will of man But why am I so mightily mistaken did not God foreknow that Uriah in particular should be murthered by David in particular and what God foreknoweth shall come to pass can that possibly not come to pass and that which cannot possibly not come to pass doth not that necessarily come to pass and is not all necessity from God I cannot see this great mistake The general power saith he to act is from God but the specification to do this act upon Uriah is not from God but from Eree-will Very learnedly As if there were a power that were not the power to do some particular act or a power to kill and yet to kill no body in particular If the power be to kill it is to kill that which shall be by that power killed whether it be Uriah or any other and the giving of that power is the application of it to the act nor doth power signifie any thing actually but those motions and present acts from which the act that is not now but shall be hereafter necessarily proceedeth And therefore this Argument is much like that which used heretofore to be brought for the defence of the divine Right of the Bishops to the Ordination of Ministers They derive not say they the Right of Ordination from tho civill Soveraign but from Christ immediately And yet they acknowledge that it is unlawful for them to Ordain if the civil power do forbid them But how have they right to Ordain when they cannot do it lawfully their answer is they have the Right though they may not exercise it as if the Right to Ordain and the Right to Exercise Ordination were not the same thing And as they answer concerning Right which is Legal Power so the Bishop answereth concerning Natural Power that David had a general power to kill Uriah from God but not a power of applying this power in special to the killing of Uriah from God but from his own Free-will that is be had a power to kill Uriah but not to exercise it upon Uriah that is to say he had a power to kill him but not to kill him which is absurd e But if the case be put why God doth punish one more than another or why he throwes one into Hell fire and not another which is the present case between us to say with T. H. that it is because God is Omnipotent or because his power is irresistible or meerly because it is his pleasure is not onely not warranted but is plainly condemned by St. Paul in this place I note first that he hath no reason to say the case agitated between us is whether the cause why God punisheth one man more than another be his irresistible power or mans sin The case agitated between us is whether a man can now choose what shall be his Will anon or at any time hereafter Again 't is not true that he sayes 't is my opinion that the irresistible power of God is the cause why he punisheth one more than another I say onely that when he doth so the irresistible power is enough to make it not unjust But that the cause why God punisheth one more than another is many times the will he hath to show his power is affirmed in this place by St Paul Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it c. And by our Saviour in the case of him that was born blind where he saith Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the works of God may be made manifest And by the expostulation of God with Job This endeavour of his to bring the text of St. Paul to his purpose is not onely frustrate but the cause of many insignificant phrases in his discourse as this It was in their own power by their concurrence with Gods grace to prevent these judgements and to recover their former estates which is as good sense as if he should say that it is in his own power with the concurrence of the Soveraign Power of England to be what he will And this that God may oblige himself freely to his Creature For he that can oblige can also when he will release and he that can release himself when he will is not obliged Besides this he is driven to words ill becoming him that is to speak of God Almighty for he makes him unable to do that which hath been within the ordinary Power of men to do God he saith cannot destroy the Righteous with the Wicked which nevertheless is a thing ordinarily done by Armies and He could not destroy Sodome while Lot was in it which he interpreteth as if he could not do it lawfully one text iâ— Gen. 18. 23 24 25. There is not a word that God could not destroy the Righteous with the Wicked Onely Abraham saith as a man shall not the Judge of all the earth do Right Another is Gen. 19 22. Haste thee escape thither for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither Which is an ordinary phrase in such a case where God had determined to burn the City and save a particular man and signifieth not any obligation to save Lot more than the rest Likewise concerning Job who expostulating with God was answered only with the explication of the infinite power of God the Bishop answereth that there is never a word of Jobs being punished without desert which answer is impertinent for I say not that he was punished without desert but that it was not for his desert that he was afflicted for punished he was not at all And concerning the blind Man John 9. who was born blind that the power of God might be shown in him he answers that it was not a punishment but a blessing I did not say it was a punishment certainly it was an affliction How then doth he call it a blessing reasonably enough because saith he it was the means to raise his soul illuminated and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the Body is common to us with Ants and Flies but the sight of the soul with the blessed Angels This is very well said for no man doubts but some afflictions may be blessings but I doubt whether the Bishop that sayes he reads of some who have put out their bodily eyes because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the soul think that they did well To that where I say that brute Beasts are afflicted which cannot sin he answereth that there is
a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs and the unsufferable and endless pains of Hell As if the length or the greatness of the pain made any difference in the justice or injustice of the inflicting it f But his greatest error is that which I touched before to make Justice to be the proper result of Power He would make men beleeve I hold all things to be just that are done by them who have power enough to avoid the punishment This is one of his pretty little policies by which I find him in many occasions to take the measure of his own wisdom I said no more but that the Power which is absolutely irrefistible makes him that hath it above all Law so that nothing he doth can be unjust But this Power can be no other than the Power divine Therefore let him preach what he will upon his mistaken text I shall leave it to the Reader to consider of it without any further answer g Lastly howsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin for he makes him to be the cause not onely of the Law and of the Action but even of the irregularity it self c. wherein the very essence of sin doth consist I think there is no man but understands no not the Bishop himself but that where two things are compared the similitude or dissimilitude regularity or irregularity that is between them is made in and by the making of the things themselves that are compared The Bishop therefore that denies God to be the cause of the irregularity denies him to be the cause both of the Law and of the Action So that by his doctrine there shall be a good Law whereof God shall be no cause and an Action that is a local motion that shall depend upon another first Mover that is not God The rest of this Number is but railing J. D. Proofs of Liberty drawn from Reason THe first Argument is Herculeum or Baculinum drawn Numb 13. Arg. 1. from that pleasant passage between Zeno and his man The servaâ—t had committed some pettilarceny and the Master was cudgeling him well for it The servant thinks to creep under his Masters blind side and pleads for himself That the necessity of destiny did compell him to steal The Master answers the same necessity of destiny compels me to beat thee He that denies Liberty is fitter to be refuted with rodds than with arguments until he confess that it is free for him that beats him either to continue striking or to give over that is to have true Liberty T. H. OF the Arguments from Reason the first is that which he saith is drawn from Zenos beating of his wan 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 hâ—ing 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 maintaiued but he that derided the necessity of things was beaten contrary to that he would infer And the Argument was rather withdrawn than drawn from the story J. D. VVHether the Argument be withdrawn from the story or the answer withdrawn from the argument let the Reader judge T. H. mistakes the scope of the reason the strength whereof doth not lie neither in the authority of Zeno a rigid Stoick which is not worth a button in this cause Nor in the servants being an adversary to Stoical necessity for it appears not out of the story that the servant did deride necessity but rather that he pleaded it in good earnest for his own justification Now in the success of the fray we were told even now that no power doth justifie an action but onely that which is irresistible Such was not Zenos And therefore it advantageth neither of their causes neither that of Zeno nor this of T. H. What if the servant had taken the staff out of his Masters hand and beaten him soundly would not the same argument have served the man as well as it did the Master that the necessity of destiny did compell him to strike again Had not Zeno smarted justly for his Paradox And might not the spectators well have taken up the Judges Apothegm concerning the dispute between Corax and his Scholar An ill egg of an ill bird But the strength of this argument lies partly in the ignorance of Zeno that great Champion of necessity and the beggarliness of his cause which admitted no defence but with a cudgel No man saith the servant ought to be beaten for doing that which he is compelled inevitably to do but I am compelled inevitably to steal The major is so evident that it cannot be denied If a strong man shall take a weak mans hand perforce and do violence with it to a third person he whose hand is forced is innocent and he onely culpable who compelled him The minor was Zenos own doctrine what answer made the great patron of destiny to his servant very learnedly he denied the conclusion and cudgelled his servant telling him in effect that though there was no reason why he should be beaten yet there was a necessity why he must be beaten And parttly in the evident absurdity of such an opinion which deserves not to be confuted with reasons but with rods There are four things said the Philosopher which ought not to be called into question First such things where of it is wickedness to doubt as whether the soul be immortal whether there be a God such an one should not be confuted with reasons but cast into the Sea with a milstone about his neck as unworthy to breath the air or to behold the light Secondly such things as are above the capacity of reason as among Christians the mystery of the holy Trinity Thirdly such principles as are evidently true as that two and two are four in Arithmetick that the whole is greater than the part in Logick Fourthly such things as are obvious to the senses as whether the snow be white He who denied the heat of the fire was justly sentenced to be scorched with fire and he that denied motion to be beaten until he recanted So he who denies all Liberty from necessitation should be scourged untill he become an humble suppliant to him that whips him and confesse that he hath power either to strike or to hold his hand T. H. IN this Number 13. which is about Zeno and his man there is contained nothing necessary to the instruction of the Reader Therefore I pass it over J. D. SEcondly this very perswasion that there is no true Liberty Numb 14. Arg. 2. is able to overthrow all Societies and Common wealths in the World The Laws are unjust which prohibite that which a man cannot possibly shun All consultations are vain
acts and words to acknowledge it than he that thinketh otherwise Yet is this external acknowledgement the same thing which we call Worship So this opinion fortifieth piety in both kinds externally and internally and therefore is far from destroying it And for Repentance which is nothing 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 â—…ason why he should not grieve and again though the cause â—…hy he returned into the way were necessary there remaines still the causes of joy So that the necessity of the actions taketh away neither of those parts of repentance grief for the errour nor joy for the returning And for Prayer whereas he saith that the necessity of things destroyes prayer I deny it For though prayer be none of the causes that moove Gods Will his Will being unchangeable yet since we find in Gods Word he will not give his blessings but to those that ask them the motive to prayer is the same Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessings 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 his 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 J. D. I Hope T. H. will be perswaded in time that it is not the Covetousness or Ambition or Sensuallity or Sloth or Prejudice of his Readers which renders this doctrine of absolute necessity dangerous but that it is in its own nature destructive to true godliness a And though his answer consist more of oppositions than of solutions yet I will not willingly leave one grain of his matter unweighed b First he erres in making inward piety to consist meerly in the estimation of the judgement If this were so what hinders but that the Devils should have as much inward piety as the best Christians for they esteem Gods power to be infinite and tremble Though inward piety do suppose the act of the understanding yet it consisteth properly in the act of the will being that branch of Justice which gives to God the honour which is due unto him Is there no Love due to God no Faith no Hope Secondly he erres in making inward piety to ascribe no glory to God but onely the glory of his Power or Omnipotence What shall become of all other the divine Attributes and particularly of his Goodness of his Truth of his Justice of his Mercy which beget a more true and sincere honour in the heart than greatness it self Magnos facile laudamus bonos lubenter Thirdly this opinion of absolute necessity destroyes the truth of God making him to command one thing openly and to necessitate another privately to chide a man for doing that which he hath determined him to do to profess one thing and to intend another It destroyes the goodness of God making him to be an hater of mankind and to delight in the torments of his creatures whereas the very doggs licked the sores of Lazarus in pitty and commiseration of him It destroyes the Justice of God making him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act which they had no more powerto shun than the fire hath power not to burn It destroyes the very power of God making him to be the true Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world These are the fruits of Impotence not of Omnipotence He who is the effective cause of sin either in himself or in the Creature is not Almighty There needs no other Devil in the world to raise jealousies and suspitions between God and his creatures or to poyson mankind with an apprehension that God doth not love them but onely this opinion which was the office of the Serpent Gen. 3. 5. Fourthly for the outward worship of God e How shall a man praise God for his goodness who believes him to be a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault to express his power How shall a man hear the word of God with that reverence and devotion and faith which is requisite who believeth that God causeth his Gospel to be preached to the much greater part of Christians not with any intention that they should be converted and saved but meerly to harden their hearts and to make them inexcusable How shall a man receive the blessed Sacrament with comfort and confidence as a Seal of Gods love in Christ who believeth that so many millions are positively excluded from all fruit and benefit of the passions of Christ before they had done either good or evil How shall he prepare himself with care and conscience who apprehendeth that Eating and Drinking unworthily is not the cause of damnation but because God would damn a man therefore he necessitates him to eat and drink unworthily How shall a man make a free vow to God without grosse ridiculous hypocrisie who thinks he is able to pâ—rform nothing but as he is extrinsecally necessitated Fiftly for Repentance how shall a man condemn and accuse himself for his sins who thinks himself to be like a Watch which is wound up by God and that he can go neither longer nor shorter faster nor slower truer nor falser than he is ordered by God If God sets him right he goes right If God set him wrong he goes wrong How can a man be said to return into the right way who never was in any other way but that which God himself had chalked out for him What is his purpose to amend who is destitute of all power but as if a man should purpose to fly without wings or a beggar who hath not a groat in his purse purpose to build Hospitals We use to say admit one absurdity and a thousand will follow To maintain this unreasonable opinion of absolute necessity he is necessitated but it is hypothetically he might change his opinion if he would to deal with all ancient Writers as the Goths did with the Romans who destroyed all their magnificent works that there might remain no monument of their greatness upon
the Power he hath and exerciseth in distributing blessings and afflictions Justice is not in God as in man the observation of the Lawes made by his superiours Nor is Wisedom in God a logicall examination of the means by the end as it is in men but an incomprehensible Attribute given to an incomprehensible nature for to honour him It is the Bishop that erres in thinking nothing to be Power but Riches and High place wherein to dominere and please himself and vex those that submit not to his opinions d Thirdly this opinion of absolute Necessity destroyes the Truth of God making him to command one thing openly and to necessitate another privately c. It destroyes the goodness of God making him to be a hater of mankind c. It destroyes the Justice of God making him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act c. It destroyes the very Power of God making him to be the true Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world If the opinion of absolute necessity do all this then the opinion of Gods Prescience does the same for God foreknoweth nothing that can possibly not come to pass but that which cannot possibly not come to pass cometh to pass of necessity But how doth necessity destroy the Truth of God by commanding and hindering what he commandeth Truth consisteth in Affirmation and Negation not in commanding and hindering it does not therefore follow if all things be necessary that come to pass that therefore God hath spoken an untruth Nor that he professesseth one thing and intendeth another The Scripture which is his word is not the profession of what he intendeth but an indication of what those men shall necessarily intend whom he hath chosen to salvation and whom he hath determined to destruction But on the other side from the Negation of necessity there followeth necessarily the Negation of Gods Prescience which is in the Bishop if not ignorance impiety Or how destroyeth it the Goodness of God or maketh him to be an hater of mankind and to delight in the torments of his creatures whereas the very doggs licked the sores of Lazarus in pitty and commiseration of him I cannot imagine when living creatures of all sorts are often in torments as well as men that God can be displeased with it without whose will they neither are nor could be at all tormented Nor yet is he delighted with it but health sickness â—ase torments life and death are without all passion in him dispenced by him and he putteth an end to them then when they end and a beginning when they begin according to his eternal purpose which cannot be resisted That the necessity argueth a delight of God in the torments of his creatures is even as true as that it was pitty and commiseration in the doggs that made them lick the sores of Lazarus Or how doth the opinion of necessity destroy the Justice of God or make him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act If all afflictions be punishments for whose act are all other Creatures punished which cannot sin Why may not God make the affliction both of those men that he hath elected and also of those whom he hath reprobated the necessary causes of the conversion of those he hath elected their own afflictions serving therein as chastisements and the afflictions of the rest as examples But he may perhaps think it no injustice to punish the creatures that cannot sin with temporary punishments when nevertheless it would be injustice to torment the same creatures eternally This may be somewhat to Meekness and Cruelty but nothing at all to Justice and Injustice For in punishing the innocent the injustice is equall though the punishments be unequal And what cruelty can be greaner than that which may be inferred from this opinion of the Bishop that God doth torment eternally and with the extreamest degree of torment all those men which have sinned that is to say all mankind from the creation to the end of the world which have not believed in Jesus Christ whereof very few in respect of the multitude of others have so much as heard of his name and this when Faith in Christ is the gift of God himself and the hearts of all men in his hands to frame them to the belief of whatsoever he will have them to believe He hath no reason therefore for his part to tax any opinion for ascribing to God either cruelty or injustice Or how doth it destroy the Power of God or make him to be the Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world First he seemeth not to understand what Author signifies Author is he which owneth an Action or giveth a warrant to do it Doe I say that any man hath in the Scripture which is all the warrant we have from God for any Action whatsoever a Warrant to commit Theft Murder or any other sin Does the opinion of necessity inferre that there is such a warrant in the Scripture Perhaps he will say no but that this opinion makes him the cause of sin But does not the Bishop think him the cause of all Actions And are not sins of commission Actions Is Murder no Action And does not God himself say Non est malum in civitate quod ego non feci And was not murder one of those evils whether it were or not I say no more but that God is the cause not the Author of all Actions and Motions Whether sin be the Action or the Defect or the Irregularity I mean not to dispute Nevertheless I am of opinion that the distinction of Causes into Efficient and Deficient is Bohu and signifies nothing e How shall a man praise God for his Goodness who beleeves him to be a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault to express his Power If Tyrant signifie as it did when it came first in use a King t is no dishonour to beleeve that God is a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world for he is the King of all Kings Emperours and Common-Wealths But if we take the word as it is now used to signifie those Kings onely which they that call them Tyrants are displeased with that is that Govern not as they would have them the Bishop is nearer the calling him a Tyrant than I am making that to be Tyranny which is but the exercise of an absolute Power For he holdeth though he see it not by consequence in withdrawing the Will of man from Gods dominion that every man is a King of himself And if a man cannot praise God for his Goodness who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault how can the Bishop praise God for his Goodness who thinks he hath created millions of millions to burn eternally when he could have kept them so easily from committing any fault And to his How shall a man hear
according to this description many necessary actions should be contingent and many contingent actions should be necessary The Loadstone draweth Iron the Jet chaff we know not how and yet the effect is necessary and so it is in all Sympathies and Antipathies or occult qualities Again a man walking in the streets a Tile falls down from an house and breaks his head We know all the causes we know how this came to pass The man walked that way the pin failed the Tile fell just when he was under it And yet this is a contingent effect The man might not have walked that way and then the Tile had not fallen upon him Neither yet do I understand here in this place by contingents such events as happen beside the scope or intention of the Agents as when a man digging to make a grave finds a Treasure though the word be sometimes so taken But by contingents I understand all things which may be done and may not be done may happen or may not happen by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes And those same things which are absolutely Incontingent are yet Hypothetically necessary As supposing the passenger did walk just that way just at that time and that the pin did faile just then and the Tile fall it was necessary that it should fall upon the Passengers head The same defence will keep out his shower of rain But we shall meet with his shower of rain again Number 34. Whither I referre the further explication of this point Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XVI IN this Number he would prove that there must be Free Agents and Contingent Agents as well as Necessary Agents from the Order Beauty and Perfection of the World I that thought that the Order Beauty and Perfection of the World required that which was in the World and not that which the Bishop had need of for his Argument could see no force of consequence to inferre that which he calls Free and Contingent That which is in the World is the Order Beauty and Perfection which God hath given the World and yet there are no Agents in the World but such as work a seen Necessity or an unseen Necessity and when they work an unseen Necessity in creatures inanimate then are those creatures said to be wrought upon Contingently and to work Contingently And when the Necessity unseen is of the actions of men then it is commonly called Free and might be so in other living creatures for Free and Voluntary are the same thing But the Bishop in his Reply hath insisted most upon this that I make it a contradiction to say that He that maketh a thing doth not make it necessary and wonders how a Contradiction can be in one Proposition and yet within two or three lines after found it might be and therefore to clear the matter he sayes that such Necessity is not Antecedent but a Necessity of Supposition which nevertheless is the same kind of Necessity which he attributeth to the burning of the fire where there is a necessity that the thing thrown into it shall be burned though yet it be but burning or but departing from the hand that throwes it in and therefore the Necessity is Antecedent The like is in making a Garment the Necessity begins from the first motion towards it which is from Eternity though the Taylor and the Bishop are equally unsensible of it If they saw the whole order and conjunction of Causes they would say it were as Necessary as any thing else can possibly be and therefore God that sees that order and conjunction knowes it is necessary The rest of his Reply is to argue a contradiction in me for he sayes a I grant that there are some Free Agents and some Contingent Agents and that perhaps the beauty of the World doth require it but like a shrewd Cow which after she hath given her milk casts it down with her foot in the conclusion I tell him that nevertheless they are all necessary It is true that I say some are Free Agents and some Contingent nevertheless they may be all necessary For according to the significations of the words Necessary Free and Contingent the distinction is no more but this of Necessary Agents some are Necessary and some are Agents and of Agents some are living creatures and some are inanimate which words are improper but the meaning of them is this men call necessary Agents such as they know to be necessary and contingent Agents such inanimate things as they know not whether they work necessarily or no and by free Agents men whom they know not whether they work necessarily or no. All which confusion ariseth from that presumptuous men take for granted that that is not whith they know not b Neither do I approve his definition of Contingents that they are such Agents as work we know not how The reason is because it would follow that many necessary Actions should be contingent and many contingent Actions necessary But that which followeth from it really is no more but this That many necessary Actions would be such as we know not to be necessary and many Actions which we know not to be necessary may yet be necessary which is a truth But the Bishop defineth Contingents thus All things which may be done and may not be done may happen or may not happen by reason of the Indetermination or accidental concurrence of the Causes By which definition Contingent is nothing or it is the same that I say it is For there is nothing can be done and not be done nothing can happen and not happen by reason of the Indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes It may be done or not done for ought he knowes and happen or not happen for any determination he perceaveth and that is my definition But that the indetermination can make it happen or not happen is absurd for indetermination maketh it equally to happen or not to happen and therefore both which is a contradiction Therefore indetermination doth nothing and whatsoever causes do is necessary J. D. FIftly take away liberty and you take away the very nature Numb 17. Arg. 5. of evil and the formal reason of sin If the hand of the Painter were the law of painting or the hand of the Writer the law of writing whatsoever the one did write or the other paint must infallibly be good Seeing therefore that the first cause is the rule and Law of goodness if it do necessitate the will or the person to evil either by it self immediatly or mediatly by necessary flux of second causes it will no longer be evill The essence of sin consists in this that one commit that which he might avoid If there be no liberty to produce sin there is no such thing as sin the world Therefore it appears both from Scripture and Reason that there is true Liberty T. H. TO the fift Argument from reason which is that
if liberty be taken away the nature and formall reason of sin is taken away I answer by denying the consequence The nature of sin consiâ—â—eth in this that the action done proceed from ouâ— will and be against the Law A Judge in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the Law lâ—oks at no higher cause oâ— the action then the will of the doer Now when I say the action was necessary I do not say it was done against the will oâ— the doer but with his will and so necessarily because mans will that is every act of the will and purpose of man had a sufficient and therefore a necessary cause and consequently every voluntary action was necessitated An action therefore may be voluntary and a sin and nevertheless be necessary And because God may afflict by right derived from his â—mnipâ—tency though sin were not And the example of punishment on voluntary sinners is the cause that produceth Justice and maketh sin less frequent for God to punish such sinners as I have shewed before is no injustice And thus you have my answer to his objections both out of Scripture and Reason J. D. SCis tu simulare â—upressum quid hoc It was shrewd counsâ—il which Alcibiades gave to Themistocles when he was busy about his accounts to the State that he should rather study how to make no accounts So it seems T. H. thinks it a more compendious way to baulk an argument then to satisfie it And if he can produce a Rowland against an Olâ—ver if he can urge a reason against a reason he thinks he hath quitted himself fairely But it will not serve his turn And that he may not complain of misunderstanding it as those who have a politick deafness to hear nothing but what liketh them I will first reduce mine argument into form and then weigh what he saith in answer or rather in opposition to it a That opinion which takes away the formall reason of sin and by consequence sin it self is not to be approoved this is cleer because both Reason and Religion Nature and Scripture do proove and the whole world confesseth that there is sin But this opinion of the necessity of all things by reason of a conflux of second causes ordered and determined by the first cause doth take away the very formal reason of sin This is prooved thus That which makes sin it self to be good and just and lawfull takes away the formall cause and destroyes the essence of sin for if sin be good and just and lawfull it is no more evill it is no sin no anomy But this opinion of the necessity of all things makes sin to be very good and just and lawful for nothing can flow essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause which is the Law and Rule of Goodness and Justice but that which is good and just and lawfull but this opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause as appears in T. H. his whole discourse Neither is it material at all whether it proceed immediatly from the fist cause or mediately so as it be by a necessary flux of second and determinate causes which produce it inevitably To these proofs hee answers nothing but onely by denying the first consequence as he calls it and then sings over his old song That the nature of sin consisteth in this that the action proceede from our will and be against the Law which in our sense is most true if he understand a just Law and a free rationall will b But supposing as he doth that the Law injoins things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrahnical Law and the transgression of it is no sin not to do that which never was in our power to do And supposing likewise as he doth that the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause then it is not mans will but Gods Will and flows essentially from the Law of Goodness c That which he addes of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civil Judge the proper Judge noâ— the Law of the Land the proper Rule of Sin But it makes strongly against him for the Judge goes upon a good ground and even this which he confesseth that the Judge looks at no higâ—er cause then the will of the doer prooves that the will of the doer did determine it self freely and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the Law if he would Certainly a Judge ought to look at all material circumstances and much more at all essential causes Whether every sufficient cause be a necessary cause will come to be examined more properly Numb 31. For the present it shall suffice to say that liberty flows from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause d Nature Never intends the generation of a monster If all the causes concur sufficiently a a perfect creature is produced but by reason of the insufficiency or debility or contingent aberration of some of the causes sometimes a Monster is produced Yet the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced What is it then A Monster is not produced by vertue of that order which is set in Nature but by the contingent aberration of some of the natural causes in their concurrence The order set in Nature is that every like should beget its like But supposing the concurrence of the causes to be such as it is in the generation of a Monster the generation of a Monster is necessary as all the events in the world are when they are that is by an hypothetical necessity e Then he betakes himself to his old help that God may punish by right of omnipotence though there were no sin The question is not now what God may do but what God will do according to that Covenant which he hath made with man Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live Neither doth God punish any man contrary to this Covenant Hosea 13. 9. O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help He that wills not the death of a Sinner doth much less will the death of an innocent Creature By death or destruction in this discourse the onely separation of Soul and Body is not intended which is a debt of nature and which God as Lord of Life and Death may justly do and make it not a punishment but a blessing to the party but we understand the subjecting of the Creature to eternal torments Lastly he tells of that benefit which redounds to others from Exemplary Justice which is most true but not according to his own grounds for neither is it Justice to punish a man for doing that which it was impossible always for him not to do Neither is it lawfull to punish an
innocent person that good may come of it And if his opinion of absolute necessity of all things were true the destinies of men could not be altered either by examples or fear of punishment Animadversions upon the Reply Numb XVII WHereas he had in his first discourse made this consequence If you take away Liberty you take away the very nature of evil and the formal reason of sin I denied that consequence It is true he who taketh away the Liberty of doing according to the will taketh away the nature of sin but he that denieth the Liberty to Will does not so But he supposing I understood him not will needs reduce his argument into form in this manner a That opinion which takes away the formal reason of sin and by consequence Sin â—t self is not to be approved This is granted But the opinion of necessity doth this This I deny He proves it thus This opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause But whatsoever proceedes essentially by way of Physical determination from the first cause is Good and Just and Lawfull Therefore this opinion of necessity maketh sin to be very Good Just and Lawfull He might as well have concluded whatsoever man hath been made by God is a good and just man He observeth not that sin is not a thing really made Those things which at first were actions were not thâ—n sins though actions of the same nature with those which were afterwards sins nor was then the will to any thing a sin though it were a will to the same thing which in willing now we should sin Actions became sins then first when the commandement came for as St. Paul saith Without the Law sin is dead and sin being but a transgression of the Law there can be no action made sin but by the Law Therefore this opinion though it derive actions essentially from God it derives not sins essentially from him but relatively and by the Commandement And consequently the opinion of necessity taketh not away the nature of sin but necessitateth that action which the Law hath made sin And whereas I said the nature of sin consisteth in this that it is an action proceeding from our will and against the Law he alloweth it for true and therefore he must allow also that the formal reason of sin lieth not in the Liberty or necessity of willing but in the will it self necessary or unnecessary in relation to the Law And whereas he limits this truth which he allowed to this that the Law be just and the will a Free rational Will it serves to no purpose for I have shown before that no Law can be unjust And it seemeth to me that a rationall Will if it be not meant of a Will after deliberation whether he that deliberateth reasoneth aright or not signifieth nothing A rational man is rightly said but a rational Will in other sense then I have mentioned is insignificant b But supposing as he doth that the Law injoynes things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrannical Law and the transgression of it no sin c. And supposing likewise as he doth that the Will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause then it is not mans Will but Gods Will. He mistakes me in this For I say not the Law injoyns things impossible in themselves for so I should say it injoyned contradictories But I say the Law sometimes the Law-makers not knowing the secret necessities of things to come injoynes things made impossible by secret and extrinsicall causes from all eternity From this hâ—s error he infers that the Laws must be unjust and Tyrannical and the transgression of them no sin But he who holds that Laws can be unjust and Tyrannical will easily find pretence enough under any Government in the World to deny obedience to the Laws unlesse they be such as he himself maketh or adviseth to be made He says also that I suppose the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause It is true saving that senselesse word Influence which I never used But his consequence then it is not mans Will but Gods will is not true for it may be the Will both of the one and of the other and yet not by concurrence as in a league but by subjection of the will of man to the Will of God c That which he adds of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civil Judge the proper Judge nor the Law of the Land a proper Rule of sin A Judge is to judge of voluntary crimes He has no commission to look into the secret causes that make it voluntary An because the Bishop had said the Law cannot justly punish a crime that proceedeth from necessity it was no impertinent answer to say the Judge lookes at no higher cause then the Will of the Doer And even this as hâ— sayeth is enough to proove that the Will of the Doer did determine it self freely and that the Malefactor had liberty to have kept the Law if he would To which I answer that it proves indeed that the Malefactor had Liberty to have kept the Law if hâ— would but it proveth not that he had the Liberty to have a Will to keep the Law Nor doth it prove that the Will of the Doer dâ—d determine it self freely for nothing can prove non-sence But here you see what the Bishop pâ—â—sueth in this whole Reply namely to prove that a man hath Liberty to do if he will which I deny not and thinks when he hath done that he hath proved a man hath Liberty to Will which he calles the Wills determining of it self freely And whereas he adds a Judge ought to look at all essential causes It is answer enough to say he is bound to look at no more then hee thinks he can see d Nature never intends the generation of a Monster If all the causes concur sufficiently a perfect creature is produced but by reason of the insufficiency or debility or contingent aberration of some of the causes sometimes a Monster is produced He had no sooner said this but finding his error he retracteth it and confesseth that the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is of a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced Which is all that I intended by sufficiency of the cause But whether every suffâ—â—â—â—nt cause be a necessary cause or not he meaneth to examine in Numb 31. In the meane time he saith onely that Liberty flows from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause and leaves out necessity as if it came from neither I must note also that where he says Nature never intends the generation of a Monster I understand not whether by nature he meane the Author of Nature in which meaning it derogates from God or nature it self as
voluntary It seems that he calleth Compulsion Force but I call it a fear of force or of dammage to be done by force by which fear a mans will is framed to somewhat to which he had no will before Force taketh away the sin because the Action is not his that is forced but his that forceth It is not alwayes so in Compulsion because in this case a man electeth the Lesse Evil under the notion of Good But his instances of the betrothed Damsel that was forced and of Tamar may for any thing there appeareth in the Text be Instances of Compulsion and yet the Damsel and Tamar be both innocent In that which immediately followeth concerninâ— how far fear may extenuate a sin there is nothing to be answered I preceive in it he hath some glimmering of the truth but not of the grounds thereof It is true that Just â—ear dispenceth not with the precepts of God or Nature for they are not dispensable but it extenuateth the fault not by diâ—â—inishing any thing in the Action but by being no transgressiâ—n For if the fear be allowed the Action it produceth is allowed also Nor doth it disp use in any case with the Law positive but by making the Action it self Lawful for thâ— breaking of a Law is alwayes sin and it is certain that men are obliged to the observation of all positive Precepts though with the losse of their lives unlesse the right that a man hath to preserve himself make it in case of a just Fear to be nâ— Law The omission of circumcision was no sin he says whilst the Israelites were travelling through the Wildernesse 'T is very true but this has nothing to do with Compulsion And the cause why it was no sin was this they were ready to obâ—y it whâ—nsoever God should give them leasure and rest from travel whereby they might be cured or at least when God that daily spake to their Conducter in the Desert should appoint him to renew that Sacrament g I will propose a case to him c. The case is this a Servant is robbed of his Masters money by the Highway but is acquit because he was forced Another Servant spends his Masters money in a Tavern Why is he not acquited also seeing he was necessitated Would hâ— saith he T. H. admit of this excuse I answer no But I would do that to him which should necessitate him to behave himself better anothâ—r time or at least necessitate another to behave himself better by his example h He talkes much of the motives to do anâ— the mâ—tives to forbear how they work upon and determine a man as if a reasonable man were no more then a Tennis-ball to be tossed to and fro by the Rackets of the second causes c. May not great things be produced by second causes as well as little And a Foot-ball as well as a Tennis-ball But the Bishop can never be driven from this that the Will hath power to move it self but says t is all one to say that an Agent can determine it self and that the Will is determined by motives extrinsical He adds that if there be no necessitation before the Judgment of right reason doth dictate to the Will then there is no Antecedent nor Extrinsecal necessitation at all I say indeed the effect is not produced before the last dictate of the understanding but I say not that the necessity was not before he knows I say it is from eternity When a Cannon is planted against a Wall though the battery be not made till the bullet arrive yet the necessity was present all the while the bullet was going to it if the Wall stood still and if it â—liâ—t away the hitting of somewhat else was necessary and that antecedently i All the World knows that when the Agent is determined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause Yes whâ—n the Agent is dâ—termined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause and so any thing else is what he will have it But nothing is determined by it self nor is there any man in the World that hâ—th any Conception answerable to those Words But Motives he says determine not naturally but Morally This also is insignificant for all Motion is Natural or Supernatural Moral motion is a meer Word without any Imagination of the mind correspondent to it I have heard men talk of a Motion in a Court of Justice perhaps this is it which he means by Moral Motion But certainly when the tongue of the Judg and the hands of the Clerks are thereby movâ—d the Motion is Natural and proceed from natural causes which causes also were Natural Motions of the tongue of the Advocate And whereas he adds that if this were true then not onely Motives but reason it self and deliberation were vain it hath been sufficiently answered before that therefore they are not vain because by them is produced the effect I must also note that oftentimes in citing my opinion he puts â—n instead of mine those terms of his own which upon all occasions I complain of for absurdity as here he makes me to say that which I did never say Special influence of extrinsical causes k He saith that the ignorance of the true causes and their Power is the reason why we ascribe the effect â—o Liberty but when we seriously consider the causes of things we acknowledge a necessity No such thing but just the contrary Iâ—â— understand the Authors which he readeth upon this point no better then he understands what I have here written it is no wonder he understandeth not the truth of the question I said not that when we consider the causes of things but when we see and know the strength that moves us we acknowledge necessity No such thing says the Bishop but just the contrary the more we consider and the clearer we understand the greater is the Liberty c. Is there any doubt if a man could foreknow as God foreknows that which is hereafter to come to passe but that he would also see and know she causes which shall bring it to passe and how they work and make the effect necessary for necessary it is whatsoever God foreknoweth But we that foresee them not may consider as much as wâ— will and understand as clearly as we will but are never the neerer to the knowledge of their necessity and that I said was the cause why we impute those events to Liberty and not to causes l Lastly he tels us that the Wil doth chose of necessity as well as the fire burns of necessity If he intend no more but this that Election is the proper and natural Act of the Wil as burning is of the fire c. He speaks truely but most impertinently for the question is not now of the Elective power in actu primo c. Here again he makes me speak non sense I said the man chooseth of necessity he says I say
the Will chooseth of necessity And why but because he thinks I ought to speak as he does and say as he does here that Election is the Act of the Wil. No Election is the Act of a man as power to Elect is the power of a man Election and Wil are all one Act of a man and the power to Elect and the power to Wil one and the same power of a man But the Bishop is confounded by the use of calling by the name of Wil the power of willing in the future as they also were confounded that first brought in this senselesse term of Actus primus My meaning is that the Election I shall have of any thing hereafter is now as necessary as that the fire that now is and continueth shall burn any combustible matter thrown into it hereafter Or to use his own terms the Wil hath no more power to suspend its Willing then the burning of the fire to suspend its burning Or rather more properly the man hath no more power to suspend his Will then the fire to suspend his burning Which is contrary to that which he would have namely that a man should have power to refuse what he Wils and to suspend his own appetite for to refuse what one willeth implyeth a contradiction the which also is made much more absurd by his expression for he saith the Will hath power to refuse what it Wils and to suspend its own Appetite whereas the Will and the Willing â—â—d the Appetite is the same thing He adds that even the burning of the fire if it be considered as it is invested with all particular circumstances is not so necessary an Action as T. H. imagineth He doth not sufficiently understand what I imagine For I imagine that of the fire which shall burn five hundred years hence I may truly say now it shall burn necessarily and of that which shall not burn then for fire may sometimes not burn the combustible matter thrown into it as in the case of the three Children that it is necessary it shall not burn m Two things are required to make an Effect necessary First that it be produced by a necessary cause c. Secondly that it be necessarily produced c. To this I say nothing but that I understand not how a cause can be necessary and the Effect not be necessarily produced n My second reason against this distinction of Liberty from compulsion but not from necessitation is new and demonstrates cleerly that to necessitate the Wil by a Physical necessity is to compel the Wil so far as the Wil is capable of compulsion and that he who doth necessitate the Wil to evil after that manner is the true cause of evil c. By this second reason which he says is new and demonstrates c. I cannot find what reason he means for there are but two whereof the later is in these Words Secondly to rip up the bottom of this business this I take to be the clear resolution of the Schools There is a double Act of the Wil the one more remote called Imperatus c. The other Act is nearer called Actus Elicitus c. But I doubt whether this be it he means or no. For this being the resolution of the Schools is not new and being a distinction onely is no demonstration though â—erhaps he may use the word demonstration as every unlearned man now a days does to signifie any Argument of his own As for the distinction it self because the terms are Latine and never used by any Author of the Latine tongue to shew their impertinence I expounded them in English and left them to the Readers judgement to find the absurdity of them himself And the Bishop in this part of his Reply indeavours to defend them And first he calls it a Trivial and Grammatical objection to say they are improper and obscure Is there any thing lesse be seeming a Divine or a Philosopher then to speak improperly and obscurely where the truth is in question Perhaps it may be tollerable in one that Divineth but not in him that pretendeth to demonstrate It is not the universal current of Divines and Philosophers that giveth Words their Authority but the generality of them who acknowledge that they understand them Tyrant and Praemunire though their signification be changed yet they are understood and so are the names of the Days Sunday Munday Tuesday And when English Reaâ—ers not engaged in School Divinity shall find Imperate Elicite Acts as intelligible as those I will confesse I had no reason to find fault But my braving against that famous and most necessary distinction between the Elicite and Imperate Acts of the Wil he says was onely to hide from the eyes of the Reader a tergiversation in not answering this Argument of his he who doth necessitate the Wil to evil is the true cause of evil But God is not the cause of evil Therefore he does not necessitate the Wil to evil This Argument is not to be found in this Numb 20. to which I here answered nor had I ever said that the Wil was compelled But he taking all necessitation for Compulsion doth now in this place from necessitation simply bring in this Inference concerning the cause of evill and thinks he shall force me to say that God is the cause of sin I shall say onely what is said in the Scripture Non est malum quod ego non feci I shall say what Micaiah saith to Ahab 1 Kings 22. 23. Behold the Lord hath put a lying Spirit into the mouth of all these thy Prophets I shall say that that is true which the Prophet David saith 2 Sam. 16. 10. Let him curse because the Lord hath said unto him curse David But that which God himself saith of himself 1 Kings 12. 15. The King hearkned not to the people for the cause was from the Lord I will not say least the Bishop exclaim against me but leave it to be interpreted by those that have authority to interpret the Scriptures I say further that to cause sin is not always sin nor can be sin in him that is not subject to some higher Power but to use so unseemly a Phrase as to say that God is the cause of sin because it soundeth so like to saying that God sinneth I can never be forced by so weak an argument as this of his Luther says we act necessarily necessarily by necessity of immutability not by necessity of constraint that is in plain English necessarily but not against our wills Zanchius says Tract Theol. cap. 6. Thes. 1. The freedom of our will doth not consist in this that there is no necessity of our sinning but in this that there is no constraint Bucer Lib. de Concordia Whereas the Catholicks say man has Free Will we must understand it of freedom from constraint and not freedom from necessity Calvin Inst. Cap. 2. § 6. And thus shall man be said to have Free
Will not because he hath equall freedom to do good and evill but because he does the evill he does not by constraint but willingly Monsr du Mouâ—in in his Buckler of the Faith Article 9 The necessity of sinning is not repugnant to the freedom of the Will Witness the Devils who are necessarily wicked and yet sin freely without constraint And the Synod of Dort Liberty is not opposite to all kinds of necessity and determination It is indeed opposite to the necessity of constraint but standeth well enough with the necessity of infallibility I could add more For all the famous Doctors of the Reformed Churches and with them St. Augustine are of the same opinion None of these denied that God is the cause of al Motion Action or that God is the cause of al Laws and yet they were never forced to say that God is the cause of sin o They who invented this term of Actus Imperatus understood not he saith any thing what it signified No Why not It seemeth to me they understood it better then those who except against it They knew there are mentall terms which are only conceived in the mind as well as vocal terms which are expressed with the tongue c. In this place the Bishop hath discovered the ground of all his errors in Philosophy which is this that he thinketh when he repeateth the words of a proposition in his mind that is when he fancieth the words without speaking them that then hee conceiveth the things which the words signifie and this is the most general cause of false opinions For men can never be deceived in the conceptions of things though they may and are most often deceived by giving unto them wrong terms or appellations different from those which are commonly used and constituted to signifie their conceptions And therefore they that study to attain the certain knowledge of truth do use to set down before hand all the terms they are to expresse themselves by and declare in what sense they shall use them constantly And by this means the Reader having an Idea of every thing there named cannot conceive amisse But when a man from the hearing of a word hath no Idea of the thing signified but onely of the sound and of the Letters whereof the word is made which is that he here calleth Mentall terms it is impossible he should conceive aright or bring forth any thing but absurdity as he doth here when he says that when Tarquin delivered his commands to his Son by onely striking off the tops of the Poppies he did it by Mental terms As if to strick off the head of a Poppy were Mental term It is the sound and the Letters that maketh him think Elicitus and Imperatus somewhat And it is the same that makes him say for think it he cannot that to Wil or choose is drawn or allured or fetch 't out of the power to Wil. For drawing cannot be imagined but of bodys and therefore to Will to speak to write to dance to leape or any way to be moved cannot be said intelligibly to be drawn much lesse to be drawn out of a Power that is to say out of an ability for whatsoever is drawn out is drawn out of one place into another He that can discourse in this manner in Philosophy cannot probably be thought able to discourse rationally in any thing p His other objection against this distinction of the Acts of the Will into Elicite and Imperate is obscurity Might it not saith he have been as easily said in English a voluntary Action Yes it might have been said as easily but not as truly nor as properly He says that Actus Imperatus is when a man opens or shuts his eyes at the command of the Wil. I say when a man opens and shuts his eyes according to his Wil that it is a voluntary Action and I believe we mean one and the same thing Whether of us speak more properly or more truly let the Reader Judge q But his mistakes are so thick c. I will do my duty to shew him the right way First no Acts which are properly said to be compelled are voluntary Secondly Acts of of terrour c. This is nothing but Tohu and Bohu J. D. THE rest are umbrages quickly dispelled first the Astrologer Num. 21. steps up and subjects Liberty to the motions of Heaven to the aspects and ascensions of the Starrs Plus etenim fati valet hora benigni Quam si nos Veneris commendet Epistola Marti I stand not much upon them who cannot see the fishes swimming besides them in the rivers yet believe they see those which are in Heaven Who promise great treasures to others and beg a groat for themselves The Starrs at the most do but incline they cannot necessitate Secondly the Physitian subjects liberty to the complexion and temperature of the body But yet this comes not home to a necessity Socrates and many others by assiduous care have corrected the pernicious propensions which flowed from their temperatures T. H. IN the rest of his discourse he reckoneth up the opinions of certain professions of men touching the causes wherein the necessity of things which they maintain consisteth And first he saith the Astrologer deriveth his necessity from the Starrs Secondly that the Physician attributeth it to the temper of the body For my part I am not of their opinion because neither the Starrs 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 J. D. TOwards the later end of my discourse I answered some specious pretences against liberty The two first were of the Astrologer and the Physician The one subjecting liberty to the motions and influences of the heavenly bodies The other to the complexions of men a The sum of my answer was that the Stars and complexions do incline but not at all necessitate the will To which all judicious Astronomers and Physicians do assent And T. H. himself doth not dissent from it So as to this part there needs no reply b But whereas he mentions a great paradox of his own that there is hardly any one action to the causing of which concurres not whatsoever is in rerum natura I can but smile to see with what ambition our great undertakers do affect to be accounted the first founders of strange opinions as if the devising of an ill grounded Paradox were as great an honour as the invention of the needle or the discovery of the new World And to this Paradox in Particular I meddle not with natural actions because the subject of my discourse is moral liberty But if he intend not only the kinds
judgment is no part of the weight but is the sentence of the trier The understanding weigheth all Things Objects Means Circumstances Convenience Inconvenience but it self is not weighed Secondly the sensitive passion in some extraordinary cases may give a counterfeit weight to the object if it can detein or divert reason from the ballance but ordinarily the Means Circumstances and Causes concurrent they have their whole weight from the understanding So as they do not press the horses back at all until reason lay them on Thirdly he conceives that as each feather hath a certain natural weight whereby it concurs not arbitrarily but necessarily towards the overcharging of the horse So all objects and causes have a naturall efficiency whereby they do Physically determin the will which is a great mistake His Objects his Agents his Motives his Passions and all his concurrent causes ordinarily do onely moove the will morally not determine it naturally So as it hath in all ordinary actions a free dominion over it self His other example of a man that strikes whose will to strike followeth necessarily that thought he had of the sequell of this stroke immediately before the lifting up of his hand as it confounds passionate indeliberate thoughts with the dictates of right reason so it is very uncertain for between the cup and the lip between the lifting up of the hand and the blow the will may alter and the judgment also And lastly it is impertinent for that necessity of striking proceeds from the free determination of the Agent and not from the special influence of any outward determining causes And so it is onely a necessity upon supposition Concerning Medeas choise the strength of the argument doth not lye either in the fact of Medea which is but a fiction or in the authority of the Poet who writes things rather to be admired than believed but in the experience of all men who find it to be true in themselves That sometimes reason doth shew unto a man the exorbitancy of his passion that what he desires is but a pleasant good that what he loseth by such a choise is an honest good That that which is honest is to be preferred before that which is pleasant yet the will pursues that which is pleasant and neglects that which is honest St. Paul saith as much in earnest as is feined of Medea That he approoved not that which he did and that he did that which he hated Rom. 7. 15. The Roman Story is mistaken There was no bribe in the case but affection Whereas I urge that those things which are neerer to the senses do moove more powerfully he layes hold on it and without answering to that for which I produced it infers That the sense of present good is more immediate to the action than the foresight of evil consequents Which is true but it is not absolutely true by any antecedent necessity Let a man do what he may do and what he ought to do and sensitive objects will lose that power which they have by his own fault and neglect Antecedent or indeliberate concupiscence doth sometimes but rarely surprise a man and render the action not free But consequent and deliberated concupiscence which proceeds from the rational will â—oth render the action more free not less free and introduceth onely a necessity upon supposition Lastly he saith that a mans mourning more for the loss of his Child than for his sin makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding Yes very much Reason dictates that a sin committed is a greater evil than the loss of a Child and ought more to be lamented for yet we see daily how affection prevailes against the dictate of reason That which he inferrs from hence that sorrow for sin is not voluntary and by consequence that repentance proceedeth from causes is true as to the latter part of it but not in his sense The causes from whence repentance doth proceed are Gods grace preventing and mans will concurring God prevents freely man concurs freely Those inferiour Agents which sometimes do concur as subordinate to the grace of God do not cannot determine the will naturally And therefore the former part of his inference that sorrow for sin is not voluntary is untrue and altogether groundless That is much more truely and much more properly said to be voluntary which proceeds from judgment and from the rational will than that which proceeds from passion and from the sensitive will One of the main grounds of all T. H. his errours in this question is that he acknowledgeth no efficacy but that which is natural Hence is this wild consequence Repentance hath causes and therefore it is not voluntary Free effects have free causes necessary effects necessary causes voluntary effects have sometimes free sometimes necessary causes Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XXIII a SUpposing the last dictate of the understanding did alwayes determine the Wil yet this determination being not antecedent in time nor proceeding from extrinsecall causes but from the proper resolution of the Agent who had now freely determined himself makes no absolute necessity but onely Hypothetical c. This is the Bishops answer to the necessity inferred from that that the Wil necessarily followeth the last dictate of the understanding which answer he thinks is not sufficiently taken away because the last act of the understanding is in time together with the Wil it self and therefore not antecedent It is true that the Wil is not produced but in the same Instant with the last dictate of the understanding but the necessity of the Wil and the necessity of the last dictate of the understanding may have been antecedent For that last dictate of the understanding was produced by causes antecedent and was then necessary though not yet produced as when a stone is falling the necessity of touching the earth is antecedent to the touch it self For all motion through any determined space necessarily makes a motion through the next space unlesse it be hindered by some contrary external motion and then the stop is as necessary as the proceeding would have been The Argument therefore from the last dictate of the understanding sufficiently inferreth an antecedent necessity as great as the necessity that a stone shall fall when it is already falling As for his other answer that the Wil does not certainly follow the last dictate of the understandig though it alwayes ought to follow it he himself says it is but probable but any man that speaks not by rote but thinks of what he says will presently find it false and that it is impossible to will any thing that appears not first in his understanding to be good for him And whereas he says the Wil ought to follow the last dictate of the understanding unlesse he mean that the man ought to follow it it is an insignificant speech for duties are the man 's not the Wils duties and if he means so then t is false for
know that a sufficient cause and cause enough signifieth the same thing And no man wil say that that is cause enough to produce an effect to which any thing is wanting needful to the producing of it But the Bishop thinks if he set down what he understands by sufficient it would serve to confute my definition And therefore says a Two Horses joyntly are sufficient to draw a Coach which either of them singly is insufficient to do Now to make the effect that is the drawing of the Coach necessary it is not onely required that the two Horses be sufficient to draw it but also that it be necessary they shall be joyned and that the owner of the Horses will let them draw and that the Smith hath not lamed them and they be not resty and list not to draw but when they list otherwise the effect is contingent It seems the Bishop thinks two Horses may be sufficient to draw a Coach though they will not draw or though they be lame or though they be never put to draw and I think they can never produce the effect of drawing without those needful circumstances of being strong obedient and having the Coach some way or other fastened to them He calls it a sufficient cause of drawing that they be Coach hoâ—ses though they be lame or wiâ—â— not draw But I say they are not sufficient absolutely but conditionally if they be not lame nor resty Lâ—t the read r judge whether my sufficient cause or his may properly be called cause enough b Secondly a cause may be said to be sufficient either because it produceth that effect which is intended as in the generation of a man or else because it is sufficient to produce that which is produced as in the generation of a Monster the former is properly called a sufficient cause the latter a weak and insufficient cause In these few lines he hath said the cause of the generation of a Monster is sufficient to produce a Monster and that it is insufficient to produce a Monster How sooâ— may a man forget his words that doth nâ—t understand theâ—â— This term of insufficient cause which also the School calls Deficient that they may rime to efficient is not inteâ—â—eâ—ible but a word devised like Hocus Pocus to juggle a difficulty out of sight That which is sufficient to produce a Monster is not therefore to be called an insufficient cause to produce a mâ—n no more then that which is sufficient to produce a man is to be called an insufficient cause to produce a Monster c Thirdly a cause is said to be sufficient in respect of the ability of it to act not in respect of its will to act c. As God is sufficient to produce a thousand Worlds He understands little whâ—n â—en say God is sufficient to produce many worlds if he understand not the meaning to be that he is sufficient to prodâ—ce them if he will Without this sâ—pposition It he will a man is not sufficient to produce any voluntary action not so much as to walk though he be inhâ—alth and at Liberty The will is as much a sufficient cause without the strength to do as the strength without the Wil To that which he adds that my Definition is a meer trifling between a sufficiency in a divided sense and a sufficiency in a compounded sense I can make no answer because I understand no more what he means by sufficiency in a divided sense and sufficiency in a compounded sense then if he had said sufficiency in a divided non-sense and sufficiency in a compounded non-sense T. H. LAstly I hold that the ordinary definition of a free Agent namely Num. 32. that a free Agent is that which when all things are present which are needful to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it implies a contradiction and is non-sense being as much as to say the cause may be sufficient that is necessary and yet the effect not follow J. D. THis last point is but a Corollary or an Inference from the former doctrine that every sufficient cause produceth its effect necessarily which pillar being taken away the superstructure must needs fall to the ground having nothing left to support it Lastly I hold saith he what he is able to proove is something So much reason so much trust but what he holds concerns himself not others But what holds he I hold saith he that the ordinary definition of a free Agent implies a contradiction and is non-sense That which he calls the ordinary definition of liberty is the very definition which is given by the much greater part of Philosophers and School-men And doth he think that all these spake non-sense or had no more judgment than to contradict themselves in a definition He might much better suspect himself than censure so many Let us see the definition iâ— self A free Agent is that which when all things are present that are needful to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it I acknowledge the old definition of Liberty with little variation But I cannot see this non-sense nor discover this contradiction For a in these words all things needfull or all things requisite the actual determination of the will is not included But by all things needful or requisite all necessary power either operative or elective all necessary instruments and adjuments extrinsecall and intrinsecall and all conditions are intended As he that hath pen and ink and paper a table a desk and leisure the art of writing and the free use of his hand hath all things requisite to write if he will and yet he may forbear if he will Or as he that hath men and mony and arms and munition and ships and a just cause hath all things requisite for war yet he may make peace if he will Or as the King proclaimed in the Gospel Matth. 2â— 4. â— hâ—ve prepared my dinner my oxen and my fatlings are killed all things are ready come unto the marriage According to T. H his doctrine the guests might have told him that he said not truly for their own wills were not readâ— b And indeed if the will were as he conceives it is necessitated extrinsecally to every act of willing if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth will nor to will what it doth not will then if the will were wanting something requisite to the producing of the effect was wanting But now when Science and conscience reason and Religion our own and other mens experience doth teach us that the will hath a dominion over its own acts to will or nill without extrinsecal necessitation if the power to will be present in actâ— primo determinable by our selves then there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of the effect Secondly these words â—o act or not to act to wâ—rk or not to work to produce or nâ—t to produce have reference to the effect not as a thing which