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 Num. 23. These things being thus briefly touched he proceeds to his answer My argument was this If any of these or all of 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 praescience 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 then the fire hath power not to burn Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning yet I must confess ingenuously I hate this Doctrin from my heart And I beleeve both I have reason so to do and all others who shall seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it It destroyes liberty and dishonours the nature of man It makes the second causes and 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 evill and sin into the world as much as Man yea more then Man by as much as the motion of the Watch is more from the Artificer who did make it and wind it up then either from the spring or the wheels or the thred if God by his speciall influence into the second causes did necessitate them to operate as they did And if they being thus determined did necessitate Adam inevitably irresistibly not by an accidentall but by an essentiall 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 necessarily and essentially from God Or that God is more guilty of it and more the cause of evill than man because man is extrinsecally inevitably determined but so is not God And in causes essentially subordinate the cause of the cause is always 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 Lawes which he himself had necessitated them to break which it was no more in their power not to break then 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 dishonorable 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 incredulis 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 evill 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 Numb 12. J. D. argument 5 FIftly if there be no liberty there shall be no day of Doom no last Judgment no rewards nor punishments after death A man can never make himself a criminall 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 evill 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 Rebekah that the elder shall serve the younger And what then shall we say is there iniustice 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 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 or 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 then 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 vessell 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 counsailes are to be measured by human wisedom That which he does is made just by his doing Just I say in him not always just in us by the Examples for a man that shall command a thing openly and plot secretly the hinderance of the
man for doing that which it 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 power to 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 evills which are in the world These are the fruits of Impotence not of Omnipotence He who is the effective cause of sin either in himselfe or in the Creature is not Almighty There needs no other Devill in the world to raise jealousies and suspitions between God and his creatures or to poison 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 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 evill 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 gross ridiculous hypocrisy who thinks he is able to perform 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 begger who hath not a groat in his purse purpose to build Hospitalls 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 antient 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 face of the earth Therefore he will not leave so much as one of their opinions nor one of their definitions nay not one of their tearmes of Art standing Observe what a description he hath given us here of Repentance It is a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way It amazed me to find gladness to be the first word in the description of repentance His repentance is not that repentance nor his piety that piety nor his prayer that kind of prayer which the Church of God in all Ages hath acknowledged Fasting and Sackcloth and Ashes and Teares and Humi-cubations used to be companions of Repentance Joy may be a consequent of it not a part of it It is a returning but whose act is this returning Is it Gods alone or doth the penitent person concur also freely with the grace of God If it be Gods alone then it is his repentance not mans repentance what need the penitent person trouble himself about it God will take care of his own work The Scriptures teach us otherwise that God expects our concurrence Revel 3.19 Be zealous and repent behold I stand at the dore and knock If any man hear my voyce and open the dore I will come in to him It is a glad returning into the right way Why dare any more call that a wrong way which God himself hath determined He that willeth and doth that which God would have him to will and to do is never out of his right way It followes in his description after the grief c. It is true a man may grieve for that which is necessarily imposed upon him but he cannot grieve for it as a fault of his own if it never was in his power to shun it Suppose a Writing-master shall hold his Scholars hand in his and write with it the Scholars part is only to hold still his hand whether the Master write well or ill the Scholar hath no ground either of joy or sorrow as for himself no man will interpret it to be his act but his Masters It is no fault to be out of the right way if a man had not liberty to have kept himself in the way And so from Repentance he skipps quite over New obedience to come to Prayer which is the last Religious duty insisted upon by me here But according to his use without either answering or mentioning what I say Which would have shewed him plainely what kind of prayer I intend not contemplative prayer in generall as it includes thanksgiving but that most proper kind of prayer which we call Petition which used to be thus defined to be an act of Religion by which we desire of God something which we have not and hope that we shall obtain it by him Quite contrary to this T. H. tells us that prayer is not a cause nor a meanes of Gods blessing but only a signification that we expect it from him If he had told us onely that prayer is not a meritorious cause of Gods blessings as the poor man by begging an almes doth not deserve it I should have gone along with him But to tell us that it is not so much as a means to procure Gods blessing and yet with the same breath that God will not give his blessings but to those who pray who shall reconcile him to himself The Scriptures teach us otherwise Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you John 16.23 Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you
same if he punish him he so commanded for not doing it is unjust So also his counsailes 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 layd 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 Counsailes call him to the Bar commit injustice in it I am not ignorant of the usuall 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 dazell 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 inequallity that is between them This I know God cannot sin because his doing a thing makes it just and consequenly 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 proceed 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 satisfies two Arguments with one answer whereas in truth he satisfieth neither First for my third reason 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 Stoicall opinion doth stick hypocrisy and dissimulation close to God who is the Truth it self And to my fift Argument which he chargeth 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 a doubt is not to answer an Argument Nec bene respondet qui 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 Jewes who were the legitimate progeny of Abraham were deserted To which the Apostle answers ver 6. 7 8. That that promise was not made to the carnall seed of Abraham that is the Jewes but to his spirituall 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 praedestination 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 aeternall torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone That he who did impresite the motion in the heart of man should punish man who did onely 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 examin 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 evill 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 signify any reprobation to the flames of hell much less the execution of that decree or the actuall imposition of punishment nor any act contrary to love God saw all that he made and it was very good Goodness it self cannot hate that
mihi minam Diogenes Let him that taught me Logick give me my money again But T. H. saith that this distinction between the operative and permissive Will of God And that other between the action and the irregularity do dazell his understanding Though he can find no difference between these two yet others do St. Paul himself did Act. 13.18 About the time of 40. yeares suffered he their manners in the Wilderness And Act. 14.16 Who intimes past suffered all Nations to walk in their own wayes T. H. would make suffering to be inciting their manners to be Gods manners their wayes to be Gods wayes And Act. 17.30 The times of this ignorance God winked at It was never heard that one was said to wink or connive at that which was his own act And 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithfull who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able To tempt is the Devills act therefore he is called the Tempter God tempts no man to sin but he suffers them to be tempted And so suffers that he could hinder Sathan if he would But by T. H. his doctrine To tempt to sin and to suffer one to be tempted to sin when it is in his power to hinder it is all one And so he transforms God I write it with horrour into the Devill and makes tempting to be Gods own work and the Devill to be but his instrument And in that noted place Rom. 2.4 Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath and revealation of the righteous judgment of God Here are as many convincing Arguments in this one text against 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 casually from God but from our selves Fiftly that it is not the insufficient proposall 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 Judgment whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves and eternall life to those who continue patiently in well-doing If they deserve such punishment who onely 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 dayes 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 mercifull and gracious long suffering c. 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 great 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 repreive him doth yet condemn him for example sake that by the death of one he may save the lives of many Marvell 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 faithfull servants This is a most certain truth that God would not suffer evill to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evill Yet this ought not to be so 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 permitteth all evill disposeth all things both good and evill 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 generall 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 yields food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the generall nourishment of the earth but from the speciall quality of the root Even so the generall 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 generall 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
just by reason of his absolute dominion and irresistible power As fire doth assimilate other things to it self and convert them into the nature of fire This were to make the eternall Law a Lesbian rule Sin is defined to be that which is done or said or thought contrary to the eternall Law But by this doctrine nothing is done nor said nor thought contrary to the will of God St. Anselm said most truly then the will of man is good and just and right when he wills that which God would have him to will but according to this doctrine every man alwayes wills that which God would have him to will If this be true we need not pray Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven T. H. hath devised a new kind of heaven upon earth The worst is it is an heaven without Justice Justice is a constant and perpetuall act of the will to give every one his own But to inflict punishment for those things which the Judge himself did determine and necessitate to be done is not to give every one his own right punitive Justice is a relation of equallity and proportion between the demerit and the punishment But supposing this opinion of absolute and universall necessity there is no demerit in the world we use to say that right springs from Law and fact as in this Syllogism Every thief ought to be punished there 's the Law But such an one is a thief there 's the fact therefore he ought to be punished there 's the right But this opinion of T. H. grounds the right to be punished neither upon Law nor upon Fact but upon the irresistible power of God Yea it overturneth as much as in it lies all Law First the eternall Law which is the ordination of divine Wisdom by which all Creatures 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 what he ought to do and what he ought not to do To what purpose is it to shew the right way to him who is drawn and haled a contrary way by Adamantine bonds of inevitable necessity Lastly howsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin yet in truth he makes him to be the principall 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 and the difference between the action and the Law wherein the very essence of sin doth consist He makes God to determin Davids will and necessitate him to kill Uriah In causes physically and essentially subordinate the cause of the cause is evermore the cause of the effect These are those deadly fruits which spring from the poisonous root of the absolute necessity of all things which T. H. seeing and that neither the sins of Esau nor Pharaoh nor any wicked 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 will change his opinion Numb 13. J. D. Proofs of Liberty drawn from reason argument 1 THe first argument is Herculeum or Baculinum drawn from that pleasant passage between Zeno and his man The servant had committed some pettilarceny and the master was cudgelling him well for it The servant thinks to creep under his masters blind-side and pleades for himself That the necessity of destiny did compell him to steal The master answers the same necessity of destiny compells me to beat thee He that denies liberty is fitter to be refuted with rodds than with arguments untill he confess that it is free for him that beates 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 man which is therefore called Argumentum baculinum that is to say a wooden Argument The story is this Zeno held that all actions were necessary His man therefore being for some fault beaten excused himself upon the necessity of it To avoid this excuse his master pleaded likewise the necessity of beating him So that not he that mainteined 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. WHether 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 Stoicall necessity for it appeares 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 Schollar 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 cudgell 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 only 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 partly 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 Philosoher which ought not to be called into question First such things whereof it is wickedness to doubt as whether the soul be immortall whether there be a God such an one should not be confuted with reasons
free to make it either of the Italian Spanish or French fashion indifferently But after it is made it is necessary that it be of that fashion whereof he hath made it that is by a necessity of supposition But this doth neither hinder the cause from being a free cause nor the effect from being a free effect but the one did produce freely and the other was freely produced So the contradiction is vanished In the second part of his answer he grants 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 he tells us that nevertheless they are all necessary This part of his answer is a meer Logomachy as a great part of the controversies in the world are or a contention about words What is the meaning of necessary and free and contingent actions I have shewed before what free and necessary do properly signifie but he misrecites it He saith I make all Agents which want deliberation to be necessary but I acknowledge that many of them are contingent Neither do I approove his definition of contingents though he say I concur with him that they are such agents as work we know not how For 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 besides 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 in determination or accidentall concurrence of the causes And those same things which are absolutely Incontingent and yet Hypothetically necessary As supposing the Passenger did walk just that way just at that time and that the pin did fail 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 Numb 34. Whither I refer the further explication of this point Numb 17. J. D. argument 5 FIftly take away liberty and you take away the very nature of evill and the formall 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 evill 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 a void If there be no liberty to produce sin there is no such thing as sin in the world Therefore it appeares 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 consisteth in this that the action done proceed from our will and be against the Law A Judge in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the Law looks at no higher cause of 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 of 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 Omnipotency 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 cupressum quid hoc It was shrewd counsail 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 seemes 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 Oliver 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 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 formall 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 distroyes 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 lawfull 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 appeares in T. H. his whole discourse Neither is it materiall at all whether it proceed immediatly from the first cause or mediately so as it be by a necessary flux of second and determinate causes which
produce it inevitably To these proofs he 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 proceeds 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 But supposing as he doth that the Law injoines things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrannicall 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 speciall influence from the first cause then it is not mans will but Gods Will and flowes essentially from the Law of Goodness That which he addes of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civill Judge the proper Judge nor 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 higher 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 materiall circumstances and much more at all essentiall 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 flowes from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause 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 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 naturall 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 hypotheticall necessity 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 whether God doth 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 eternall torments Lastly he tells of that benenefit 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 alwayes 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 Numb 18. J. D. BUt the Patrons of necessity being driven out of the plain field with reason have certain retreats or distinctions which they fly unto for refuge First they distinguish between Stoicall necessity and Christian necessity between which they make a threefold difference First say they the Stoicks did subject Jupiter to destiny but we subject destiny to God I answer that the Stoicall and Christian destiny are one and the same fatum quasi effatum Jovis Hear Seneca Destiny is the necessity of all things and actions depending upon the disposition of Jupiter c. I add that the Stoicks left a greater liberty to Jupiter over destiny than these Stoicall Christians do to God over his decrees either for the beginnings of things as Euripides or for the progress of of them as Chrysippus or at least of the circumstances of time and place as all of them generally So Virgil Sed trahere moras ducere c. So Osyris in Apuleius promiseth him to prolong his life Ultra fato constituta tempora beyond the times set down by the destinies Next they say that the Stoicks did hold an eternall flux and necessary connexion of causes but they believe that God doth act praeter contra naturam besides and against nature I answer that it is not much materiall whether they attribute necessity to God or to the Starrs or to a connexion of causes so as they establish necessity The former reasons do not onely condemn the ground or foundation of necessity but much more necessity it self upon what ground soever Either they must run into this absurdity that the effect is determined the cause remaining undetermined or els hold such a necessary connexion of causes as the Stoicks did Lastly they say the Stoicks did take away liberty and contingence but they admit it I answer what liberty or contingence was it they admit but a titular liberty and an empty shadow of contingence who do profess stifly that all actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner in any other Place Time Number Order Measure nor to any other end than they are and that in respect of God determining them to one what a poor ridiculous liberty or contingence is this Secondly they distinguish between the first cause and the second causes they say that in respect of the second causes many things are free but in respect of the first cause all things are necessary This answer may be taken away two wayes First so contraries shall be true together The same thing at the same time shall be determined to one and not determined to one the same thing at the same time must necessarily be and yet may not be Perhaps they will say not in the same respect But that which strikes at the root of this question is this If all the causes were onely collaterall this exception might have some colour but where all the causes being joined together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall
from the speciall influence of any outward determining causes And so it is onely a necessity upon supposition Concerning Medaeas choise the strength of the argument doth not lye either in the fact of Medaea 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 Medaea 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 evill 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 rationall will doth 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 evill 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 truly and much more properly said to be voluntary which proceeds from judgment and from the rationall 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 naturall 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 Numb 24. J. D. FIftly and lastly the Divine labours to find out a way how liberty may consist with the prescience and decrees of God But of this I had not very long since occasion to write a full discourse in answer to a Treatise against the prescience of things contingent I shall for the present only repeat these two things First we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner God should be but a poor God if we were able perfectly to comprehend all his Actions and Attributes Secondly in my poor judgment which I ever do ever shall submit to better the readiest way to reconcile Contingence and Liberty with the decrees and prescience of God and most remote from the altercations of these times is to subject future cōtingents to the aspects of God according to that presentiallity which they have in eternity Not that things future which are not yet existent coexistent with God but because the infinite knowledge of God incircling all times in the point of eternity doth attain to their future Being from whence proceeds their objective and intelligible Being The main impediment which keeps men from subscribing to this way is because they conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession and not one indivisible point But if they consider that whatsoever is in God is God That there are no accidents in him for that which is infinitely perfect cannot be further perfected That as God is not wise but Wisedom it self not just but Justice it self so he is not eternall but Eternity it self They must needs conclude that therefore this eternity is indivisible because God is indivisible and therefore not successive but altogether an infinite point comprehending all times within it self T. H. THE last part of this discourse conteineth his opinion about reconciling Liberty with the Prescience and Decrees of God otherwise than some Divines have done against whom he had formerly written a Treatise out of which he only repeateth two things One is that we ought not to desert a certain truth for not being able to comprehend the certain manner of it And I say the same as for example that he ought not to desert this certain truth That there are certain and necessary causes which make every man to will what he willeth though he do not yet conceive in what manner the will of man is caused And yet I think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive seeing that we see daily that praise dispraise reward punishment good and evill sequells of mens actions retained in memory do frame and make us to the election of whatsoever it be that we elect And that the memory of such things proceeds from the senses And sense from the operation of the objects of sense which are externall to us and governed onely by God Almighty And by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents are necessary The other thing he repeateth is that the best way to reconcile Contingency and Liberty with the prescience and decrees of God is to subject future contingents to the aspect of God The same is also my opinion but contrary to what he hath all this while laboured to prove For hitherto he held liberty and necessity that is to say liberty and the decrees of God irreconcilable unless the aspect of God which word appeareth now the first time in this discourse signifie somewhat els besides Gods will and decree which I cannot understand But he adds that we must subject them according to that presentiality which they have in eternity which he sayes cannot be done by them that conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession but onely by them that conceive
it an indivisible point To this I answer that as soon as I can conceive Eternity an indivisible point or any thing but an everlasting succession I will renounce all I have written in this subject I know St. Thomas Aquinas calls eternity Nunc stans an ever abiding now which is easy enough to say but though I fain would I never could conceive it They that can are more happy than I. But in the mean time he alloweth hereby all men to be of my opinion save onely those that conceive in their minds a nunc stans which I think are none I understand as little how it can be true that God is not just but Justice it self not wise but Wisedom it self not eternall but Eternity it self Nor how he concludes thence that Eternity is a ponit indivisible and not a succession Nor in what sense it can be said that an infinite point c. wherein is no succession can comprehend all times though time be successive These phrases I find not in the Scripture I wonder therefore what was the designe of the School-men to bring them up unless they thought a man could not be a true Christian unless his understanding be first strangled with such hard sayings And thus much in answer to his discourse wherein I think not onely his squadrons but also his reserves of distinctions are defeated And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the same question with my reasons for it positively and briefly as I can without any tearmes of Art in plain English J. D. THat poor discourse which I mention was not written against any Divines but in way of examination of a French Treatise which your Lordships Brother did me the honour to shew me at York My assertion is most true that we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner Such a truth is that which I maintain that the will of man in ordinary actions is free from extrinsecall determination A truth demonstrable in reason received and believed by all the world And therefore though I be not able to comprehend or express exactly the certain manner how it consists together with Gods Eternall Prescience and Decrees which exceed my weak capacity yet I ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest But T. H. his opinion of the absoute necessity of all events by reason of their antecedent determination in their extrinsecall and necessary causes is no such certain Truth but an innovation a strange paradox without probable grounds rejected by all Authours yea by all the world Neither is the manner how the second causes do operate so obscure or so transcendent above the reach of reason as the Eternall Decrees of God are And therefore in both these respects he cannot challenge the same priviledge I am in profession of an old truth derived by inheritance or succession from mine ancestors And therefore though I were not able to clear every quirk in Law yet I might justly hold my possession untill a better title were shewed for another He is no old Possessor but a new Pretender and is bound to make good his claime by evident proofs not by weak and inconsequent suppositions or inducements such as those are which he useth here of praises dispraises rewards punishments the memory of good and evill sequells and events which may incline the will but neither can nor do necessitate the will Nor by uncertain and accidentall inferences such as this The memory of praises dispraises rewards punishments good and evill sequelis do make us he should say dispose us to elect what we elect but the memory of these things is from the sense and the sense from the operation of the externall objects and the Agency of externall octjects is onely from God therefore all actions even of free and voluntary Agents are necessary To pass by all the other great imperfections which are to be found in this Sorite It is just like that old Sophisticall piece He that drinks well sleeps well he that sleeps well thinks no hurt he that thinks no hurt lives well therefore he that drinks well lives well In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed mine own private opinion how it might be made appear that the Eternall Prescience and Decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency And this I set down in as plain tearmes as I could or as so profound a speculation would permit which is almost wholly misunderstood by T. H. and many of my words wrested to a wrong sense As first where I speak of the aspect of God that is his view his knowledge by which the most free and contingent actions were manifest to him from eternity Heb. 4.11 All things are naked and open to his eyes and this not discursively but intuitively not by externall species but by his internall Essence He confounds this with the Will and the Decrees of God Though he found not the word Aspect before in this discourse he might have found prescience Secondly he chargeth me that hitherto I have maintained that Liberty and the Decrees of God are irreconcilable If I have said any such thing my heart never went along with my pen. No but his reason why he chargeth me on this manner is because I have maintained that Liberty and the absolute necessity of all things are irreconciliable That is true indeed What then Why saith he Necessity and Gods Decrees are all one How all one that were strange indeed Necessity may be a consequent of Gods Decrees it cannot be the Decree it self But to cut his argument short God hath decreed all effects which come to pass in time yet not all after the same manner but according to the distinct natures capacities and conditions of his creatures which he doth not destroy by his Decree Some he acteth with some he cooperateth by speciall influence and some he onely permitteth Yet this is no idle or bare permission seeing he doth concurre both by way of generall influence giving power to act and also by disposing all events necessary free and contingent to his own glory Thirdly he chargeth me that I allow all men to be of his opinion save onely those that conceive in their minds a Nunc stans or how eternity is an indivisible point rather than an everlasting succession But I have given no such allowance I know there are many other wayes proposed by Divines for reconciling the Eternall Prescience and Decrees of God with the Liberty and Contingency of second causes some of which may please other judgments better than this of mine Howsoever though a man could comprehend none of all these wayes yet remember what I said that a certain truth ought not to be rejected because we are not able in respect of our weakness to understand the certain manner or reason of it I know the Load-stone hath an attractive power to draw the Iron to it And yet I know not how it