necessity supposing God and good Angels are freer than men and yet do good necessarily that we must now examin I confess saith he that God and good Angels are more free than we that is intensively in degree of freedom not extensively in the latitude of the object according to a liberty of exercise not of specification Again we have here two distinctions that are no distinctions but made to seem so by tearms invented by I know not whom to cover ignorance and blind the understanding of the Reader For it cannot be conceived that there is any liberty greater than for a man to do what he will and to fobrear what he will One heat may be more intensive than another but not one liberty than another He that can do what he will hath all liberty possibly and he that cannot has nonâ— at all Also liberty as he says the Schooles call it of exercise which is as I have said before a liberty to do or not to do cannot be without a liberty which they call of specification that is to say a liberty to do or not to do this or that in particular for how can a man conceive that he has liberty to do any thing that hath not liberty to do this or that or somewhat in particular If a man be forbidden in Lent to eat this and that and every other particular kind of flesh how can he be understood to have a liberty to eat flesh more than he that hath no lâ—cense at all You may by this again see the vanity of distinctions used in the Schools And I do not doubt but that the imposing of them by authority of Doctors in the Church hath been a great cause that men have laboured though by sedition and evil courses to shake them off for nothing is more apt to beget hatred than the tyrannising over mans reason and understanding especially when it is done not by the Scripture bâ—â— by pretense of learning and more judgment than that of other men J. D. HE who will speak with some of our great undertakers about the grounds of learning had need either to speak by an Interpreter or to learn a new Language I dare not call it Jargon or Canting lately devised not to set forth the truth but to conceal falshood He must learn a new Liberty a new necessity a new Contingency a new Sufficiency a new Spontaneity a new kind of Deliberation a new kind of Election a new Eternity a new Compulsion and in conclusion a new Nothing a This proposition the will is free may be understood in two senses Either that the will is not compelled or that the will is not alwayes necessitated for if it be ordinarlly or at any time free from necessitation my assertion is true that there is freedom from necessity The former sense that the will is not compelled is acknowledged by all the world as a truth undeniable Voluntas non cogitur For if the will may be compelled then it may both will and not will the same thing at the same time under the same notion but this implies a contradiction Yet this Author like the good woman whom her husband sought up the stream when she was drowned upon pretense that when she was living she used to go contrary courses to all other people he holds that true compulsion and fear may make a man will that which he doth not will that is in his sense may compell the will As when a man willingly throws his goods into the Sea to save himself or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed I answer that T. H. mistakes sundry wayes in this discourse b First he erreth in this to think that actions proceeding from fear are properly compulsory actions which in truth are not only voluntary but free actions neither compelled nor so much as Physically necessitated Another man at the same time in the same Ship in the same storm may choose and the same individual man otherwise advised might choose not to throw his goods over-board It is the man himself who chooseth freely this means to preserve his life It is true that if he were not in such a condition or if he were freed from the grounds of his present fears he would not choose neither the casting of his goods into the Sea nor the submitting to his enemy But considering the present exigence of his affairs reason dictates to him that of two inconveniences the less is to be chosen as a comparative good Neither doth he will this course as the end or direct object of his desires but as the means to attain his end And what Fear doth in these cases Love Hope Hatred c. may do in other cases that is may occasion a man to elect those means to obtain his willed end which otherwise he would not elect As Jacob to serve seven yeers more rather than not to enjoy his beloved Rachel The Merchant to hazard himself upon the rough Seas in hope of profit Passions may be so violent that they may necessitate the will that is when they prevent deliberations but this is rarely and then the will is not free But they never properly compell it That which is compelled is against the will and that which is against the will is not willed c Secondly T. H. erres in this also where he saith that a man is then onely said to be compelled when fear makes him willing to an action As if force were not more prevalent with a man then fear we must know therefore that this word compelled is taken two wayes sometimes improperly that is when a man is mooved or occasioned by threats or fear or any passion to do that which he would not have done if those threats or that passion had not been Sometimes it is taken properly when we do any thing against our own inclination mooved by an external cause the will not consenting nor concurring but resisting as much as it can As in a rape or when a Christian is drawn or carried by violence to the Idols Temple Or as in the case of St. Peter John 21. 18. Another shall guide thee and carry thee whither thou wouldst not This is that compulsion which is understood when we say the will may be letted or changed or necessitated or that the imperate actions of the will that is the actions of the inferiour faculties which are ordinarily moved by the will may be compelled but that the immanent actions of the will that is to will to choose cannot be compelled because it is the nature of an action properly compelled to be done by an extrinsecal cause without the concurrence of the will d Thirdly the question is not whether all the actions of a man be free but whether they be ordinarily free Suppose some passions are so suddain and violent that they surprise a man and betray the succours of the soul and prevent deliberation as we see in some motus primo primi or antipathies how some men
is true that seeing the name of punnishment hath relation to the name of Crime there can be no punishment but for Crimes that might have been left undone but instead of punnishment if he had said affliction may not I say that God may afflict and not for sin doth he not afflict those Creatures that cannot sin and sometimes those that can sin and yet not for sin as Job and the Man in the Gospel that was born blind for the manifestation of his power which he hath over his Creature no less but more than hath the Potter over his Clay to make of it what he please But though God have power to afflict a man and not for sin without injustice shall we think God so cruel as to afflict a man and not for sin with extream and endlesse torment Is it not cruelty No more than to do the same for sin when he that so afflicteth might without trouble have kept him from sinning But what Infallible evidence hath the Bishop that a man shall be after this life Eternally in torments and never die Or how is it certain there is no second death when the Scripture saith there is Or where doth the Scripture say that a second death is an endless life Or do the Doctors onely say it then perhaps they do but say so and for reasons best known to themselves There is no injustice nor cruelty in him that giveth life to give withit sicknesse pain torments and death nor in him that giveth life twice to give the same miseries twice also And thus much in Answer to the Inconveniences that are pretended to follow the Doctrine of Necessity On the other side from this Position that a man is free to will it followeth that the Prescience of God is quite taken away For how can it be known before hand what man shall have a will to if that will of his proceed not from necessary causes but that he have in his power to will or not will So also those things which are called future contingents if they come not to passe with certainty that is to say from necessary causes can never be foreknown so that Gods fâ—reknowing shall sometimes be of things that shall not come to passe which is as much to say that his foreknowledge is none which is a great dishonour to the All-knowing Power Though this be all the Inconvenient Doctrine that followeth Freewill for as much as I can now remember yet the defending of this opinion hath drawn the Bishop and other Patrons of it into many inconvenient and absurd conclusions and made them make use of an infinite number of Insignificant words whereof one conclusion is in Suarez that God doth so concurre with the Will of Man that if Man will then God concurres which is to subject not the will of Man to God but the will of God to Man Other inconvenient conclusions I shall then mark out when I come to my observations upon the Bishops reply And thus farre concerning the inconveniences that follow both Opinions The Attribute of God which he draweth into argument is his Justice as that God cannot be Just in punishing any man for that which he was necessitated to do To which I have answered before as being one of the Inconveniences pretended to follow upon the Doctrine of Necessity On the Contrary from another of Gods Attributes which is his Fore-knowledge I shall evidently derive that all Actions whatsoever whether they proceed from the will or from fortune were necessary from eternity For whatsoever God Fore-knoweth shall come to passe cannot but come to passe that is it is Impossible it should not come to passe or otherwise come to passe then it was fore-known But whatsoever was Impossible should be otherwise was necessary for the definition of Necessary is that which cannot possibly be otherwise And whereas they that distinguish between Gods Praescience and his Decree say the Fore-knowledge maketh not the Necessity without the Decree it is little to the purpose It sufficeth me that whatsoever was fore-known by God was necessary but all things were Fore-known by God and therefore all things were necessary And as for the distinction of Fore-knowledge from Decree in God Almighty I comprehend it not They are Acts coeternall and therefore one And as for the Arguments drawn from naturall reason they are set down at large in the end of my discourse to which the Bishop maketh his reply which how well he hath answered shall appear in due time For the present the Actions which he thinketh proceed from liberty of will must either be necessitated or proceed from fortune without any other cause for certainly to Will is Impossible without thinking on what he willeth But it is in no mans Election what he shall at any named time hereafter think on And this I take to be enough to clear the understanding of the Reader that he may be the better able to Judge of the Following Disputation I find in those that write of this Argument especially in the Schoolmen and their Followers so many words strangers to our Language and such Confusion and Inanity in the ranging of them as that a mans mind in the reading of them distinguisheth nothing And as things were in the beginning before the Spirit of God was moved upon the Abiss Tohu and Bohu that is to say Confusion and Emptiness so are their discourses To the Right Honourable the Marquis of NEWCASTLE c. SIR IF I pretended to compose a compleat treatise upon this subject I should not refuse those large recruites of reasons and authorities which offer themselves to serve in this cause for God and man Religion and Policy Church and Common wealth a against the blasphemous desperate and destructive opinion of fatall destiny But as b mine aim in the first discourse was onely to presse home hose things in writing which had been agitated between us by word of mouth a course much to be preferred before verball conferences as being freer from passions and tergiversations less subject to mistakes and misrelations wherein paralogismes are more quickly detected impertinencies discovered and confusion avoided So my present intention is onely to vindicate that discourse and together with it c those lights of the Schooles who were never sleighted but where they were not understood How far I have performed it I leave to the judicious and unpartiall Reader resting for mine own part well contented with this that I have fatisfied my self Your Lordships most obliged to love and serve you I. D. Animadversions upon the Bishops Epistle to my Lord of Newcastle a AGainst the Blasphemous Desperate and Destructive Opinion of fatal Destiny This is but choler such as ordinarily happeneth unto them who contend against greater difficulties than they expected b My aim in the first discourse was onely to press home those things in writing which had been agitated between us by word of mouth a course much to be preferred before verball Conferences
at all For seeing I writ this at his modest request it is no modest expectation to look for as many answers as he shall be pleased to exact b The Sheep should not bragg how much they have eaten but shew it in their Lamb and Wool It is no great bragging to say I was not supprised for whosoever chanceth to read Suarez his Opuscula where he writeth of Free-will and of the concourse of God with Mans Will shall find the greatest part if not all that the Bishop hath urged in this Question But that which the Bishop hath said of the Reasons and Authorities which he saith in his Epistle do offer themselves to serve in this cause and many other passages of his Book I shall I think before I have done with him make appear to be very bragging and nothing else And though he say it be Epictetus his counsell that Sheep should show what they eat in their Lamb and Wool It is not likely that Epictetus should take a metaphor from Lamb and Wool for it could not easily come into the mind of men that were not acquainted with the paying of Tithes Or if it had he would have said Lambs in the Plural as Lay men use to speak That which followes of my leaving things untoucht and altering the state of the Question I remember no such thing unless he require that I should answer not to his Arguments onely but also to his Syllables T. H. THe Praeface is an handsome one but it appears even in that Numb 3. that he hath mictaken the Question for whereas he sayes thus if I be free to write this discourse I have obteined the cause I deny that to be true for 't is not enough to his freedome of writing that he had not written it unless he would himself if he will obtein the cause he must prove that before he writ it it was not necessary he should write it afterward It may be he thinks it all one to say I was free to write it and it was not necessary I should write it But I think otherwise for he is free to do a thing that may do it if he have the will to do it and may forbear if he have the will to forhear And yet if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to do it the action is necessarily to follow and if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to forbear the forbearing also will be necessary The Question therefore is not whether a man be a free Agent that is to say whether he can write or forbear speak or be silent according to his will but whether the will to write and the will to forbear come upon him according to his will or according to any thing else in his own power I acknowledge this liberty that I can do if I will but to say I can will if I will I take to be an absurd speech Wherefore I cannot grant him the cause upon this Preface J. D. TAcitus speaks of a close kind of adversaries which evermore begin with a mans praise The Crisis or the Catastrophe of their discourse is when they come to their but As he is a good natured man but he hath a naughty quality or he is a wise man but he hath committed one of the greatest follies So here the Praeface is an handsome one but it appears even in this that he hath mistaken the Question This is to give an Inch that one may take away an Ell without suspicion to praise the handsomeness of the Porch that he may gain credit to the vilifying of the House Whether of us hath mistaken the Question I refer to the judicious Reader a Thus much I will maintain that that is no true necessity which he calls necessity nor that liberty which he calls liberty nor that the Question which he makes the Question First for liberty that which he calls liberty is no true liberty For the clearing whereof it behooveth us to know the difference between these three Necessity Spontaneity and Liberty Necessity and Spontaneity may sometimes meet together so may Spontaneity and Liberty but reall necessity and true liberty can never meet together Some things are necessary and not voluntary or spontaneous some things are both necessary and voluntary some things are voluntary and not free some things are both voluntary and free But those things which are truly necessary can never be free and those things which are truly free can never be necessary Necessity consists in an Antecedent determination to one Spontaneity consists in a conformity of the Appetite either intellectual or sensitive to the object True Liberty consists in the elective power of the rational Will That which is determined without my concurrence may nevertheless agree well enough with my fancy or desires and obtein my subsequent consent But that which is determined without my concurrence or consent cannot be the object of mine election I may like that which is inevitably imposed upon me by another but if it be inevitably imposed upon me by extrinsecal causes it is both folly for me to deliberate and impossible for me to choose whether I shall undergo it not Reason is the root the fountain the original of true liberty which judgeth and representeth to the will whether this or that be convenient whether this or that be more convenient Judge then what a pretty kind of liberty it is which is maintained by T. H. such a liberty as is in little Children before they have the use of reason before they can consult or deliberate of any thing Is not this a Childish liberty and such a liberty as is in brute Beasts as Bees and Spiders which do not learn their faculties as we do our trades by experience and consideration This is a brutish liberty such a liberty as a Bird hath to flie when her wings are clipped or to use his own comparison such a liberty as a lame man who hath lost the use of his limbs hath to walk Is not this a ridiculous liberty Lastly which is worse than all these such a liberty as a River hath to descend down the Channel what will he ascribe liberty to inanimate Creatures also which have neither reason nor spontaneity nor so much as sensitive appetite Such is T. H. his liberty b His Necessity is just such another a necessity upon supposition arising from the concourse of all the causes including the last dictate of the understanding in reasonable creatures The adaequate cause and the effect are together in time and when all the conurrent causes are determined the effect is determined also and is become so necessary that it is actually in being But there is a great difference between determining and being determined If all the collateral causes concurring to the production of an effect were antecedently determined what they must of necessity produce and when they must produce it then there is no doubt but the effect is necessary c
by the Event for from the Event we may inferre his Will But his revealed Will which is his Word must be foreknown because it ought to be the rule of our actions Therefore where it is said that God will have all men to be saved it is not meant of his Will internal but of his Commandements or Will revealed as if it had been said God hath given Commandements by following of which all men may be saved So where God saies O Israel how often would I have gathered thee c. as a Hen doth her Chickens but thou wouldest not It is thus to be understood How oft have I by my Prophets given thee such counsell as being followed thou had'st been gathered c. And the like interpretations are to be given to the like places For it is not christian to think if God had the purpose to save all men that any man could be damned because it were a sign of want of power to effect what he would So these words What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done If by them be meant the Almighty power might receave this answer Men might have been kept by it from sinning But when we are to measure God by his revealed Will it is as if he had said What directions what lawes what threatnings could have been used more that I have not used God doth not will and command us to enquire what his Will and Purpose is and accordingly to do it for we shall do that whether we will or not but to look into his Commandements that is as to the Jewes the Law of Moses and as to other People the Lawes of their Country O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help Or as some English Translations have it O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self c. Is literally true but maketh nothing against me for the man that sins willingly whatsoever be the cause of his Will if he be not forgiven hath destroyed himself as being his own act Where it is said They have offered their sons unto Bâ—al which I commanded not nor spake it nor came it into my mind These words nor came it into my mind are by some much insisted on as if they had done it without the Will of God For whatsoever is done comes into Gods mind that is into his knowledge which implyes a certainty of the future action and that certainly an antecedent purpose of God to bring it to passe It cannot therefore be meant God did not will it but that he had not the will to command it But by the way it is to be noted that when God speaks to men concerning his Will and other Attributes he speaks of them as if they were like to those of men to the end he may be understood And therefore to the order of his Work the World wherein one thing followes another so aptly as no man could order it by Designe he gives the name of Will and Purpose For that which we call Designe which is reasoning and thought after thought cannot be properly attributed to God in whose thoughts there is no fore nor after But what shall we answer to the Words in Ecclesiasticus Say not thou it is through the Lord I fell away say not thou he hath caused me to erre If it had not been say not thou but think not thou I should have answered that Ecclesiasticus is Apocrypha and meerly humane authority But it is very true that such words as these are not to be said first because St. Paul forbids it Shall the thing formed saith he say to him that formed it why hast thou made me so Yet true it is that he did so make him Secondly because we ought to attribute nothing to God but what we conceave to be Honourable and we judge nothing Honourable but what we count so amongst our selves and because accusation of man is not Honourable therefore such words are not to be used concerning God Almighty And for the same cause it is not lawful to say that any Action can be done which God hath purposed shall not be done for it is a token of want of the power to hinder it Therefore neither of them is to be said though one of them must needs be true Thus you see how disputing of Gods nature which is incomprehensible driveth men upon one of these two Rocks And this was the cause I was unwilling to have my Answer to the Bishops Doctrine of Liberty published And thus much for comparison of our two opinions with the Scriptures which whether it favour more his or mine I leave to be judged by the Reader And now I come to compare them again by the Inconveniences which may be thought to follow them First the Bishop sayes that this very perswasion that all things come to passe by Necessity is able to overthrow all Societies and Common-wealths in the World The Lawes saith he are unjust which prohibit that which a man cannot possibly shunne Secondly that it maketh superstuous and foolish all Consultations Arts Armes Books Instruments Teachers and Medicines and which is worst Piety and all other Acts of Devotion For if the Event be necessary it will come to pass whatsoever we do and whether we sleep or wake This inference if there were not as well a necessity of the means as there is of the event might be allowed for true But according to my opinion both the event and means are equally necessitated But supposing the inference true it makes as much against him that denies as against him that holds this necessity For I believe the Bishop holds for as certain a truth what shall be shall be as what is is or what has been has been And then the ratiocination of the sick man If I shall recover what need I this unsavoury potion if I shall not recover what good will it do me is a good ratiocination But the Bishop holds that it is necessary he shall recover or not recover Therefore it followes from an opinion of the Bishops as well as from mine that Medicine is superstuous But as Medicine is to Health so is Piety Consultation Arts Armes Books Instruments and Teachers every one to its several â—nd Out of the Bishops opinion it followes as well as from mine that Medicine is superstuous to Health Therefore from his opinion as well as from mine it followeth if such ratiocination were not unsound that Piety Consultation c. are also superstuous to their respective ends And for the superstuity of Lawes whatsoever be the truth of the Question between us they are not superstuous because by the punnishing of one or of a few unjust men they are the cause of justic in a great many But the greatest inconvenience of all that the Bishop pretends may be drawn from this opinion is that God in justice cannot punnish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone It
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
both for the absolute necessity of all events and for the ground of this necessity the Flux or concatenation of the second causes Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number I. a THe first day that I did read over T. H. his defence of Necessity c. His deferring the reading of my defence of necessity he will not he saith should be interpreted for disrespect T is well though I cannot imagine why he should fear to be thought to disrespect me He was diverted he saith by trifles called business It seems then he acknowledgeth that the will can be diverted by business Which though said on the By is contrary I think to the Mayne that the Will is Free for free it is not if any thing but it self caâ— divert it b The very first words of T. H. his defence trip up the heeles of his whole cause c. How so I had once saith he Resolved To Resolve praesupposeth deliberation But what deliberation can there be of that which is inevitably determined without our selves There is no man doubts but a man may deliberate of what himself shall do whether the thing be impossible or not in case he know not of the impossibility though he cannot deliberate of what another shall do to him Therefore his examples of the man condemned of the man that breatheth and of him that groweth because the Question is not what they shall do but what they shall suffer are impertinent This is so evident that I wonder how he that was before so witty as to say my first words tript up the â—eâ—les of my cause and that having line enough I would confute my self could presently be so dull as not to see his Argument was too weak to support so triumphant a language And whereas he seemeth to be off ended with Paradoxes let him thank the Schoolmen whose senceless writings have made the greatest number of important Truths seeâ— Paradoxe c This Argument that followeth is no better To Resolve saith he implies a mans dominion over his actions and his actual determination of himself c. If he understand what it is to Resolve he knowes that it signifies no more then after deliberation to Will He thinks therefore to Will is to have dominion over his own actions and actually to determine his own Will But no man can determine his own will for the will is appetite nor can a man more determine his will than any other appetite that is more than he can determine when he shall be hungry and when not When a man is hungry it is in his choise to eat or not eat this is the liberty of the man But to be hungry or not hungry which is that which I hold to proceed from necessity is not in his choise Besides these words dominion over his own actions and determination of himself so farre as they are significant make against him For over whatsoever things there is dominion those things are not Free and therefore a mans actions are not Free And if a man determine himself the Question will still remain what determined him to determine himself in that manner d I have perused this Treatise weighed T. H. his answers considered his reasons c. This and that whicâ— followeth is talking to himself at randome till he come to allâ—adge that which he calleth an old rule which is this 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 c. If the Bishop think that I hold no other Necessity than that which is expressed in that old foolish rule he neither understandeth me nor what the word Necessary signifieth Necessary is that which is impossible to be otherwise or that which cannot possibly otherwise come to passe Therefore Necessary Possible and Impossible have no signification in reference to time past or time present but onely time to come His Necessary and his in sensu composito signifie nothing My Necessary is a Necessary from all Eternity and yet not inconsistent with true Liberty which doth not consist in determining it self but in doing what the Will is determined unto This dominion over it self and this sensus compositus and this determining it self and this necessarily is when it is are confused and empty words f If the chain of Necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily in sunder c. by the signification of your Lordships desire and my modest intreaty then we may safely conclude that humane affairs c. Whether my Lords desire and the Bishops modest intreaty were enough to produce a Will in me to write an answer to his treatise without other concurrent causes I am not sure Obedience to his Lordship did much my civility to the Bishop did somwhat perhaps there were other imaginations of mine own that contributed their part But this I am sure of that alltogether they were sufficient to frame my will thereto and whatsoever is sufficient to produce any thing produceth it as necessarily as the fire necessarily burneth the Fâ—wel that is cast into it And though the Bishops modest intreaty had been no part of the cause of my yeilding to it yet certainly it would have been cause enough to some civil man to have requited me with fairer Language than he hath done throughout this Reply T. H. ANd first I assure your Lordship I find in it no new Argument Numb â— neither from Scripture nor from Reason that I have not often heard before which is as much as to say that I am not supprised J. D. a THough I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort that if he be not supprised then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him and where he failes I may ascribe it to the weakness of his cause not to want of preparation But in this case I like Epictetus his Councell well that b the Sheep should not brag how much they have eaten or what an excellent pasture they do go in but shew it in their Lamb and Wool Opposite answers and downright Arguments advantage a cause To tell what we have heard or seen is to no purpose When a respondent leaves many things untouched as if they were too hot for his Fingers and declines the weight of other things and alters the true state of the Question it is a shrewd sign either that he hath not weighed all things maturely or else that he maintains a desperate cause Animadversions upon his Reply Numb II a THough I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort that if he be not supprised then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him c. Though I were not supprised yet I do not see the reason for which he saith he may expect a more mature answer from me or any further answer
to motion Also he will face me down that I understand what he meanes by his distinctions of liberty of Contrariety of Contradiction of Exercise onely of Exercise and Specification jointly If he mean I understand his meaning in one sence it is true for by them he means to shift off the discredit of being able to say nothing to the Question as they do that pretending to know the cause of every thing give for the cause of why the Loadstone draweth to it Iron sympathy occult quality making they cannot tell turned now into Occult to stand for thereall cause of that most admirable effect But that those words signifie distinction I constantly deny It is not enough for a distinction to be forked it ought to signifie a distinct conception There is great difference between luade distinctions and cloven feet b It is strange to see with what confidence now adayes particular men slight all the Schoolmen and Philosophers and Classick Authors of former ages c. This word particular men is put here in my opinion with little judgement especially by a man that pretendeth to be learned Does the Bishop think that he himself is or that there is any Universal man It may be he means a private man Does he then think there is any man not private besides him that is indued with Soveraign power But it is most likely he calls me a particular man because I have not had the authority he has had to teach what doctrine I think fit But now I am no more Particular than he and may with as good a grace despise the Schoolmen and some of the old Philosophers as he can despise me unless he can shew that it is more likely that he should be better able to look into these Questions sufficiently which require meditation and reflection upon a mans own thoughts he that hath been obliged most of his time to preach unto the people and to that end to read those Authors that can best furnish him with what he has to say and to study for the rhetorick of his expressions and of the spare time which to a good Pastor is very little hath spent no little part in seeking preferment and encreasing of riches than I that have done almost nothing else nor have had much else to do but to meditate upon this and other natural Questions It troubles him much that I stile School-learning Jargon I do not call all School-learning so but such as is so that is that wch they say in defending of untruths and especially in the maintenance of Free-will when they talk of liberty of Exercise Specification Contrariety Contradiction Acts Elicite and Exercite and the like Which though he go over again in this place endeavouring to explain them are still both here and there but Jargon or that if he like it better which the Scripture in the first Chaos calleth Tohu and Bohu But because he takes it so hainously that a private man should so hardly censure School-Divinity I would be glad to know with what patience he can hear Martin Luther and Phillip Melancthon speaking of the same Martin Luther that was the first beginner of our deliverance from the servitude of the Romish Clergy had these three Articles censured by the University of Paris The first of which was School-Theology is a false interpretation of the Scripture and Sacraments which hath banished from us true and sinceere Theology The second is At what time School-Theology that is Mock-Theology came up at the same time the Theology of Christs Crosse went down The third is It is now almost 300 years since the Church has endured the licentiousnes of School Doctors in corrupting of the Scriptures Moreover the same Luther in another place of his works saith thus School-Theology is nothing else but ignorance of the truth and a block to stumble at laid before the Scriptures And of Tho. Aquinas in particular he saith that it was he that did set up the Kingdome of Aristotle the destroyer of godly Doctrine And of the Philosophy whereof St. Paul biddeth us beware he saith it is School-Theology And Melancthon a Divine once much esteemed in our Church saith of it thus T is known that that profane Scholastique learning which they will have to be called Divinity began at Paris which being admitted nothing is left sound in the Church the Gospel is obscured Faith extinguished the Doctrine of works received and instead of Christs People we are become not so much as the people of the Law but the people of Aristotles Ethiques These were no raw Divines such as he saith preacht to their equally ignorant Auditors I could ad to these the slighting of School-Divinity by Calvin and other learned Protestant Doctors yet were they all but private men who it seemes to the Bishop had forgot themselves as well as I. J. D. THus the coast being cleared the next thing to be done Numb 5. is to draw out our forces against the enemy And because they are divided into two Squadrons the one of Christians the other of Heathen Philosophers it will be best to dispose ours also into two Bodies the former drawn from Scripture the later from Reason T. H. THe next thing be doth after the clearing of the coast is the dividing of his forces as he calls them into two Squadrons one of places of Scripture the other of Reasons which Allegory be useth I suppose because he addresseth the discourse to your Lordship who is a Millitary Man All that I have to say touching this is that I observe a great part of those his forces do look and march another way and some of them do fight among themselves J. D. IF T. H. could divide my forces and commit them together among themselves it were his onely way to conquer them But he will find that those imaginary contradictions which he thinks he hath espied in my discourse are but fancies and my supposed impertinences wil prove his own real mistakings IN this fift Number there is nothing of his or mine pertinent to the Question therefore nothing necessary to be repeated J. D. Proofs of Liberty out of Scripture FIrst whosoever have power of election have true Liberty Numb 6. 1. for the proper act of liberty is election A Spontaneity may consist with determination to one as we see in Children Fools mad Men bruit Beasts whose fancies are determined to those things which they act Spontaneously as the Bees make Honey the Spiders Webs But none of these have a liberty of election which is an act of judgement and understanding and cannot possibly consist with a determination to one He that is determined by something before himself or without himself cannot be said to choose or elect unless it be as the Junior of the Mess chooseth in Cambridge whether he will have the least part or nothing And scarcely so much But men have liberty of election This is plain Numb 30. 14. If a Wife make a vow
two faculties of the same soul no absolute necessity but meerly upon supposition And therefore the same Authors who matntain that the judgement of the understanding doth necessarily determine the will do yet much more earnestly oppugne T. H. his absolute necessity of all occurrences Suppose the Will shall apply the understanding to deliberate and not require a review Suppose the dictate of the understanding shall be absolute not this or that indifferently nor this rather than that comparatively but this positively nor this freely but this necessarily And suppose the will do will efficaciously and do not suspend its own act Then here is a necessity indeed but neither absolute nor extrinsecal nor antecedent flowing from a concourse of causes without our selves but a necessity upon supposition which we do readily grant So far T. H. is wide from the truth whilest he maintains either that the apprehension of a greater good doth neessitate the Will or that this is an absolute necessity b Lastly whereas he saith that the nature of election doth consist in following our hopes and fears I cannot but observe that there is not one word of Art in this whole treatife which he useth in the right sence I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity nor out of a contempt of former Writers nor out of a desire to take in sunder the whole frame of Learning and new mould it after his own mind It were to be wished that at least he would give us a new Dictionary that we might understand his sence But because this is but touched here sparingly and upon the by I will forbear it until I meet with it again in its proper place And for the present it shall suffise to say that hopes and fears are common to brute Beasts but election is a rational act and is proper only to man who is Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae T. H. THE second place of Scripture is Josh. 24. 15. The third is 2 Sam. 24. 12. whereby t is clearly proved that there is election in man but not proved that such election was not necessitated by the hopes and fears and considerations of good and bad to follow which depend not on the Will nor are subject to election And therefore one answer serves all such places if they were a thousand J. D. THis answer being the very same with the former word for word which hath already sufficiently been shaken in pieces doth require no new reply Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb VII a THere is no thing said with more show of reason in this cause by the Patrons of Necessity then this that the Wil doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding or the last judgement of right reason c. Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary and justly for first this very act of the understanding is an effect of the Will c. I note here first that the Bishop is mistaken in saying that I or any other Patron of Necessity are of opinion that the Will followes alwayes the last judgement of right Reason For it followeth as well the judgement of an erroneous as of a true reasoning and the truth in general is that it followeth the last opinion of the goodness or evilness of the object be the opinion true or false Secondly I note that in making the understanding to be an effect of the Will he thinketh a man may have a will to that which he not so much as thinks on And in saying that it is the Will which affecting some particular good doth ingage and command the Understanding to consult c. That he not onely thinketh the Will affecteth a particular good before the man understands it to be good but also he thinketh that these words doth command the understanding and these for it belongs to the Will as to the General of an Army to move the other powers of the soul to their acts and a great many more that follow which are not sense but meer confusion emptiness as for example The understanding doth determine the will not Naturally but Morally and The will is moved by the understanding is unintelligible Moved not as by an Efficient is non-sense And where he saith that it is ridiculous to say the object of the sight is the cause of seeing he showeth so clearly that he understandeth nothing at all of Natural Philosophy that I am sorry I had the ill fortune to be engaged with him in a dispute of this kind There is nothing that the simplest Country Man could say so absurdly concerning the understanding as this of the Bishop the judgement of the understanding is not alwaies practicè practicum A Country Man will acknowledge there is judgement in Men but will as soon say the judgement of the judgement as the judgement of the understanding And if practicè practicum had been sense he might have made a shift to put it into English Much more followeth of this stuff b Lastly whereas he saith that the nature of Election doth consist in following our hopes and fears I cannot but observe that there is not one word of Art in this whole treatise which he useth in the right sense I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity nor out of a contempt of former Writers c. He might have said there is not a word of Jargon nor Nonsense and that it proceedeth from an affectation of truth and contempt of metaphysical Writers and a desire to reduce into frame the Learning which they have confounded and disordered T. H. SUpposing it seemes I might answer as I have done that Numb 8. Necessity and Election might stand together and instance in the actions of Children Fooles and brute Beasts whose fancies I might say are necessitated and determined to one before these his proofs out of Scripture he desires to prevent that instance and therefore sayes that the actions of children fooles mad-men and beasts are indeed determined but that they proceed not from election nor from free but from spontaneous Agents As for example that the Bee when it maketh honey does it spontaneously And when the Spider makes his webb he does it spontaneously and not by election Though I never meant to ground any answer upon the experience of what children fools mad-men and beasts do yet that your Lordship may understand what can be meant by spontaneous and how it differs from voluntary I will answer that distinction and shew that it fighteth against its fellow Arguments Your Lordship therefore is to consider that all voluntary actions where the thing that induceth the will is not fear are called also spontaneous and said to be done by a mans own accord As when a man giveth money voluntarily to another for Merchandise or out of affection he is said to do it of his own accord which in Latin is Sponte and therefore the action is spontaneous Though to give
man that shall command a thing openly and plot secretly the hinderance of the same if he punish him whom he commanded so for not doing it is unjust b I dare not insist upon it I hope his meaning is not so bad as the words intimate and as I apprehend That is to impute falshood to him that is Truth it self and to justifie feining and dissimulation in God as he doth tyranny by the infiniteness of his power and the absoluteness of his dominion And therefore by his leave I must once again tender him a new summons for a full and clear answer to this Argument also He tels us that he was not supprised Whether he were or not is more than I know But this I see plainly that either he is not provided or that his cause admits no choice of answers The Jews dealt ingenously when they met with a difficult knot which they could not untie to put it upon Elias Elias will answer it when he comes Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb X. THE Bishop argued thus Thirdly if there be no true liberty but all things come to pass by inevitable necessity then what are as those interrogations we find so frequently in holy Scriptures be it spoken with all due respect but faigned and hypocritical exaggerations Here putting together two repugnant suppositions either craftily or be it spoken with all due respect ignorantly he would have men beleeve that I because I hold Necessity I deny Liberty I hold as much that there is true Liberty as he doth and more for I hold it as from Necessity and that there must of Necessity be Liberty but he holds it not from Necessity and so makes it possible there may be none His expostulations were First Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat Secondly Why hast thou done this Thirdly Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance east down Fourthly Why will ye dye O house of Israel These Arguments requiring the same answer which some other do I thought fit to remit them to their fellowes But the Bishop will not allow me that For he saith a Certainly saith he distinct Arguments as the third and fifth are c. did require distinct Answers I am therefore to give an account of the meaning of the aforesaid objnrgations and expostulations Not of the end for which God said Hast thou eaten of the tree c. but how those words may be taken without repugnance to the doctrine of Necessity These words Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded that thou shouldest not eat Convince Adam that notwithstanding God had placed in the Garden a means to keep him perpetually from dying in case he should accommodate his Will to obedience of Gods commandement concerning the tree of knowledg of good and evil yet Adam was not so much master of his own Will as to do it Whereby is signified that a mortal man though invited by the promise of immortality cannot govern his own Will though his Will govern his Actions which dependance of the Actions on the Will is that which properly and truly is called Liberty And the like may be said of the words to Eve why hast thou done this and of those to Cain why art thou wroth c. and to Israel why will ye dye O house of Israel but the Bishop here will say dye signifieth not dye but live eternally in torments For by such interpretations any man may answer any thing and whereas he asketh Doth God reprehend him for doing that which he hath antecedently determined him that he must do I answer no but he convinceth and instructeth him that though immortality was so easie to obtain as it might be had for the abstinence from the fruit of one onely tree yet he could not obtain it but by pardon and by the sacrafice of Jesus Christ nor is there here any punishment but onely a reducing of Adam and Eve to their original mortality where death was no punishment but a gift of God In which mortality he lived neer a thousand years and had a numerous issue and lived without misery and I beleeve shall at the Resurrection obtain the immortality which then he lost Nor in all this is there any plotting secretly or any mockery or derision which the Bishop would make men beleeve there is And whereas he saith that they who talk here of a twofold Will of God secret and revealed and the one opposite to the other understand not what they say The Protestant Docttors both of our and other Churches did use to distinguish between the secret and revealed Will of God the former they called voluntas bene placiti which signifieth absolutly his Will the other voluntas signi that is the signification of his Will in the same sense that I call the one his Will the other his Commandement which may sometimes differ For Gods Commandement to Abraham was that he should sacrafice Isaack but his Will was that he should not do it Gods denunciation to Ninive was that it should be destroyed within forty daies but his Will was that it should not b I dare not insist upon it I hope his meaning is not so bad as the words intimate and as I apprehend That is to impute falshood to him that is Truth it self c. What damned Rhetorique and subtile Calumny is this God I said might command a thing openly and yet hinder the doing of it without injustice but if a man should command a thing to be done and then plot secretly the hinderance of the same and punish for the not doing of it it were injustice This is it which the Bishop apprehends as an imputation of falshood to God Almighty And perhaps if the death of a sinner were as he thinks an eternal life in extream misery a man might as far as Job hath done expostulate with God Almighty not accusing him of injustice because whatsoever he doth is therefore just because done by him but of little tenderness and love to mankind and this expostulation will be equally just or injust whether the necessity of all things be granted or denyed for it is manifest that God could have made man impeccable and can now preserve him from sin or forgive him if he please and therefore if he please not the expostulation is as reasonable in the cases of Liberty as of Necessity J. D. FOurthly if either the deeree of God or the foreknowledge Numb 11. Arg. 4. of God or the influence of the Starrs or the concatenation 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 For he was subjected to the same decrees the same prescience the same constellations the same causes the same objects the same dictates of the understanding But quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulous odâ— The greatest opposers of our liberty are as
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
have withdrawn their obedience as Lions and Bears to shew that man hath lost the â—…cy of his dominion and the weakest creatures as Flies and Gnats to shew into what a degree of contempt he is fallen yet still the most profitable and useful creatures as Sheep and Oxen do in some degree retain their obedience i The next branch of his answer concernes consultations which saith he are not superfluous though all things come to pass necessarily because they are the cause which doth necessitate the effect and the means to bring it to pass We were told Numb 11. that the last dictate of right reason was but as the last feather which breaks the Horses back It is well yet that reason hath gained some command again and is become at least a Quarter-master Certainly if any thing under God have power to determine the will it is right reason But I have shewed sufficiently that reason doth not determine the will physically nor absolutely much less extrinsecally and antecedently and therefore it makes nothing for that necessity which T. H. hath undertaken to prove k He adds further that as the end is necessary so are the means And when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another it is determined also for what cause it shall be so chosen All which is truth but not the whole truth for as God ordaines means for all ends so he adapts and fits the means to their respective ends free means to free ends contingent means to contingent ends necessary means to necessary ends whereas T. H. would have all means all ends to be necessary If God hath so ordered the World that a man ought to use and may freely use those means of God which he doth neglect not by vertue of Gods decree but by his own fault If a man use those means of evil which he ought not to use and which by Gods decree he had power to forbear If God have left to man in part the free managery of human affairs and to that purpose hath endowed him with understanding then consultations are of use then provident care is needfull then it concerns him to use the means But if God have so ordered this world that a man cannot if he would neglect any means of good which by vertue of Gods decree it is possible for him to use and that he cannot possibly use any means of evill but those which are irresistibly and inevitably imposed upon him by an antecedent decree then not onely consultations are vain but that noble facnâ—ty of reason it self is vain do we think that we can help God Almighty to do his proper work In vain we trouble our selves in vain we take care to use those means which are not in our power to use or not to use And this is that which was conteined in my prolepsis or prevention of his answer though he be pleased both to disorder it and to silence it We cannot hope by our labours to alter the course of things set down by God let him perform his decree let the necessary causes do their work If we be those causes yet we are not in our own disposition we must do what we are ordained to do and more we cannot do Man hath no remedy but patience and to shrug up the shoulders This is the doctrine flowes from this opinion of absolute necessity Let us suppose the great wheel of the clock which sets all the little wheels a going to be as the decree of God that the motion of it were perpetually infallible from an intrinsecal principle even as Gods decree is Infallible Eternal All-sufficient Let us suppose the lesser wheels to be the second causes and that they do as certainly follow the motion of the great wheel without missing or swerving in the least degree as the second causes do pursue the determination of the first cause I desire to know in this case what cause there is to call a Councill of Smiths to consult and order the motion of that which was ordered and determined before to their hands Are men wiser than God yet all men know that the motion of the lesser wheels is a necessary means to make the clock sirike l But he tells me in great sadness that my Argument is just like this other If I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self through with a sword to day which saith he is a false consequence and a false proposition Truly if by running through he understands killing it is a false or rather a foolish proposition and implyes a contradiction To live till to morrow and â—o dye to day are inconsistent But by his favour this is not my consequence but this is his own opinion He would perswade us that it is absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to morrow and yet that it is possible that he may kill himself to day My Argument is this If there be a liberty and possibility for a man to kill himself to day then it is not absolutely necessary that he shall live till tomorrow but there is such a liberty therefore no such necessity And the consequence which I make here is this If it be absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to morrow then it is vain and superfluous for him to consult and deliberate whether he should dye to day or not And this is a true consequence The ground of his mistake is this that though it be true that a man may kill himself to day yet upon the supposition of his absolute necessity it is impossible Such Heterogeneous arguments and instances he produceth which are half builded upon our true grounds and the other half upon his false grounds m The next branch of my argument concerns Admonitions to which he gives no new answer and therefore I need not make any new reply saving onely to tell him that he mistakes my argument I say not onely If all things be necessary then admonitions are in vain but if all things be necessary then it is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or mad men That they do admonish the one and not the other is confessedly true and no reason under heaven can be given for it but this that the former have the use of reason and true liberty with a dominion over their own actions which children fools and mad men have not Concerning praise and dispraise he inlargeth himself The scope of his discourse is that things necessary may be praise-worthy There is no doubt of it but withal their praise reflects upon the free agent as the praise of a statue reflects upon the workman who made it To praise a thing saith he is to say it is good n True but this goodness is not a Metaphysical goodness so the worst of things and whatsoever hath a being is good Nor a Natural goodness The praise of it passeth wholly to the Author of Nature
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 â—earms of Art standing f 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 Tears and Humi-cubations used to be companions of Repentance Joy may be a consequent of it not a part of it g 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 voice and open the dore I will come into him It is a glad returning into the right way Why dare any man 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 skips 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 plainly what kind of prayer I intend not contemplative prayer in general 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 h that prayer is not a cause nor a meanes of Gods blessing but onely a signification that we expest 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 Matth. 7. 7. St. Paul tells the Corinthians 2 Cor. 1. 11. that he was helped by their prayers that 's not all that the gift was bestowed upon him by their means So prayer is a means And St. James saith chap. 5. 16. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much If it be effectual then it is a cause To shew this efficacy of prayer our Saviour useth the comparison of a Father towards his Child of a Neighbour towards his Neighbour yea of an unjust Judge to shame those who think that God hath not more compassion than a wicked man This was signified by Jacobs wrestling and prevailing with God Prayer is like the Tradesmans tools wherewithal he gets his living for himself and his family But saith he Gods Will is unchangeable What then He might as well use this against study Physick and all second causes as against Prayer He shewes even in this how little they attribute to the endeavours of men There is a great difference between these two mutare voluntatem to change the will which God never doth in whom there is not the least shadow of turning by change His will to love and hate was the same from eternity which it now is and ever shall be His love and hatred are immovable but we are removed Non tellus cymbam tellurem cymbareliquit And velle mutationem to will a change which God often doth To change the will argues a change in the Agent but to will a change only argues a change in the object It is no inconstancy in a man to love or to hate as the object is changed Praesta mihi omnia â—adâ—m idem sum Prayer works not upon God but us It renders not him more propitious in himself but us more capable of mercy He saith this That God doth not bless us execpt we pray is a motive to prayer Why talks he of motives who acknowledgeth no liberty nor admits any cause but absolutely necessary He saith Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessing which we pray for and conteined in the same decrree with the blessing It is true the spirit of prayer is the gift of God will he conclude from thence that the good imployment of one talent or of one gift of God may not procure another Our Saviour teacheth us otherwise Come thou good and faithfull servant thou hast been faithful in little I will make the ruler over much Too much light is an enemy to the sight and too much Law is an enemy to Justice I could wish we wrangled less about Gods Decrees until we understood them better But saith he Thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past and prayer is but a thanksgiving He might even as well tell me that when a beggar craves an almes and when he gives thanks for it it is all one Every thanksgiving is a kind of prayer but every prayer and namely Petition is not a thanks-giving In the last place he urgeth that in our prayers we are bouâ—d to submit our Wills to Gods Will who ever made any doubt of this we must submit to the Preceptive Will of God or his Commandements we must submit to the effective Will of God when he declares his good pleasure by the event or otherwise But we deny and deny again either that God wills things ad extra
without himself necessarily or that it is his pleasure that all second causes should act necessarily at all times which is the question and that which he alledgeth to the contrary comes not near it Animâ—dversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XV. a ANd though his answer consist more of oppositions than of solutions yet I will not willingly leave one grain of his matter unweighed It is a promise of great exactness and like to that which is in his Epistle to the Reader Here is all that passed between us upon this subject without any addition or the least variation from the original c. Which promises were both needless and made out of gallantry and therefore he is the less pardonable in case they be not very rigidly observed I would therefore have the Reader to consider whether these words of mine Our Saviour 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. which seem at least to imply that our prayers cannot change the Will of God nor divert him from his eternal decree have been weighed by him to a grain according to his promise Nor hath he kept his other promise any better For Number 8. replying to these wordâ— of mine If he had so little to do as to be a spectator of the actions of Bees and Spiders he would have confessed not onely Election but also Art Prudence and Policy in them c. He saith Yes I have seen those silliest of Creatures and seeing their rare works I have seen enough to confute all the bold-faced Athiests of this age and their hellish blasphemies This passage is added to that which passed between us upon this subject For it is not in the Copy which I have had by me as himself confesseth these eight years Nor is it in the Body of the Copy he sent to the Presse but onely in the margent that is to say added out of anger against me whom he would have men think to be one of the bold-faced Athiests of this Age. In the rest of this Reply he endeavoureth to prove that it followeth from my opinion that there is no use of Piety My opinion is no more than this that a man cannot so determine to day the will which he shall have to the doing of any action to morrow as that it may not be changed by some external accident or other as there shall appear more or less advantage to make him persevere in the Will to the same action or to Will it no more When a man intendeth to pay a debt at a certain time if he see that the deteining of the money for a little longer may advantage himself and â—eth no other disadvantage equivalent likely to follow upon the detention hath his will changed by the advantage and therefore had not determined his Will himself but when he foreseeth discredit or perhaps imprisonment then his Will remaineth the same and is determined by the thoughts he hath of his Creditor who is therefore an external cause of the determination of the debtors Will. This is so evident to all men living though they never studied School-Divinity that it will be very strange if he draw from it the great impiety he pretends to do Again my opinion is only this that whatsoever God foreknowes shall come to pass it cannot possibly be that that shall not come to pass But that which cannot possibly not come to pass that is said by all men to come to pass necessarily therefore all events that God foreknowes shal come to pass shall come to pass necessarily If therefore the Bishop draw Impiety from this he falleth into the Impiety of denying Gods Prescience Let us see now how he reasoneth 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 I said that two things concurr'd to Piety one to esteem his power as highly as is possible The other that we signifie that estimation by our words and actions that is to say that we worship him This later part of Piety he leaveth out and then it is much more easie to conclude as he doth that the Devils may have inward Piety But neither so doth the Conclusion follow For Goodness is one of Gods Powers namely that Power by which he worketh in men the Hope they have in him and is relative and therefore unless the Devil think that God will be good to him he cannot esteem him for his Goodness It does not therefore follow from any opinion of mine that the Devil may have as much inward Piety as a Christian. But how does the Bishop know how the Devils esteem Gods Power and what Devils does he mean there are in the Scripture two sorts of things which are in English translated Devils one is that which is called Satan Diabolus and Abaddon which signifies in English an Enemy an Accuser and a Destroyer of the Church of God In which sense the Devils are but wicked men How then is he sure that they esteem Gods Power to be infinite for trembling inferrs no more than that they apprehend it to be greater than their own The other sort of Devils are called in the Scripture Doemonia which are the faigned Gods of the Heathen and are neither bodies nor spiritual substances but meer fancies and fictions of terrified hearts faigned by the Greeks and other Heathen People and which St. Paul calleth Nothings for an Idol saith he is Nothing Does the Bishop mean that these Nothings esteem Gods Power to be infinite and tremble there is nothing that has a real being but God and the World and the parts of the World nor has any thing a faigned being but the fictions of mens braines The World and the parts thereof are corporeal indued with the dimensions of Quantity and with Figure I should be glad to know in what Classis of Entities which is a word that Schoolmen use the Bishop â—anketh these Devils that so much esteem Gods Power and yet not love him nor hope in him if he place them not in the rank of those men who are enemies to the People of God as the Jewes did c 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 c. He speaketh of Gods Goodness and Mercy as if they were no part of his Power Is not Goodness in him that is good the Power to make himself beloved and is not Mercy Goodness are not therefore these Attributes contained in the Attribute of his Omnipotence And Justice in God is it any thing else but
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
the Universal work of God and then it is absurd for the universe as one aggregate of things natural hath no intention His Doctrine that followeth concerning the generation of Monsters is not worth consideration therefore I leave it wholy to the Judgement of the Reader 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 T is plaine to let passe that he puts Punishment where I put Affliction making a true sentence false that if a man do this he shall live and he may do this if he will In this the Bishop and I disagree not This therefore is not the question but whether the will to do this or not to do this be in a mans own Election Whereas he adds He that wills not the death of a sinner doth much lesse Will the death of an innocent creature He had forgot for a while that both good and evil men are by the Will of God all mortall but presently corrects himself and says he means by Death Eternal torments that is to say eternal life but in torments To which I have answered once before in this Book and spoken much more amply in another Book to which the Bishop hath inclination to make an answer as appeareth by his Epistle to the Reader That which followeth to the end of this number hath been urged and answered already divers times I therefore passe it over J. D. BUT the Patrons of necessity being driven out of the Numb 18. plain field with reason have certain retreats or distinctions which they flye unto for refuge First they distinguish between Stoical necessity and Christian necessity between which they make a threefold difference First say they the Stoicks did subject Jupiter to destiny but but we subject destiny to God I answer that the Stoical 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 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 material 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 only 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 1. 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 collateral this exception might have some colour but where all the causes being joined together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall cause if any one cause much more the first in the whole series or subordination of causes be necessary it determines the rest and without doubt makes the effect necessary Necessity or Liberty is not to be esteemed from one cause but from all the causes joyned together If one link in a chain be fast it fastens all the rest Secondly I would have them tell me whether the second 2. causes be predetermined by the first cause or not If it be determined then the effect is necessary even in respect of the second causes If the second cause be not determined how is the effect determined the second cause remaining undetermined Nothing can give that to another which it hath not it self But say they nevertheless the power or faculty remaineth free True but not in order to the act if it be once determined It is free in sensu diviso but not in sensu composito when a man holds a bird fast in his hand is she therefore free to flie where she will because she hath wrings Or a man imprisoned or fettered is he therefore free to walk where he will because he hath feet and a loco-motive faculty Judge without prejudice what a miserable subterfuge is this which many men confide so much in T. H Certain distinctions which he supposing may be brought to his arguments are by him removed HE saith a man may perhaps answer that the necessity of things held by him is not a Stoical necessity but a Christian necessity c. but this dâ—stinction I have not used nor indeed have ever heard bâ—fore Nor do I think any man could make Stoical and Christian two kinds of necessitiâ—s though they may be two kinds of doctrin Nor have I drawn my answer to his arguments from the authority of any Sect but from the nature of the things themselves But here I must take notice of certain words of his in this place as making against his own Tenet where all the causes saith he being jâ—yned together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall cause If any one cause much more the first in the whole series of subordination of causes be necessary it determines the rest and without doubt maketh the effect necessary For that which I call the necessary cause of
drinking or gaming Jam. 1. 14. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and entised Disordered passions of anger hatred lust if they be consequent as the case is here put by T. H. and flow from deliberation and election they do not only not diminish the fault but they aggravate it and render it much greater h He talks much of the motives to do the motives to forbear how they work upon and determine a man as if a reasonable man were no more than a Tennis-ball to be tossed to and fro by the Rackets of the second causes As if the will had no power to moove it self but were meerly passive like an artificiall Popingay remooved hither and thither by the bolts of the Archers who shoot on this side and on that What are motives but reasons or discourses framed by the understanding and freely mooved by the will What are the will and the understanding but faculties of the same soul and what is liberty but a power resulting from them both To say that the will is determined by these motives is as much as to say that the Agent is determined by himself If there be no necessitation before the judgment of right reason doth dictate to the will then there is no antecedent no extrinsecal necessitation at all i All the world knows that when the Agent is determined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause But if he determined himself freely then the effect is free Motives determine not naturally but morally which kind of determination may consist with true liberty But if T. H. his opinion were true that the will were naturally determined by the Physical and special influence of extrinsecal causes not onely motives were vain but reason it self and deliberation were vain No saith he they are not vain because they are the means Yes if the means be superfluous they are vain what needed such a circuit of deliberation to advise what is fit to be done when it is already determined extrinsecally what must be done k He saith that the ignorance of the true causes and their power is the reason why we ascribe the effect to liberty but when we seriously consider the causes of things we acknowledge a necessity No such thing but just the contrary The more we consider and the cleerer we understand the greater is the liberty and the more the knowledge of our own liberty The less we consider and the more incapable that the understanding is the lesser is the liberty and the knowledge of it And where there is no consideration nor use of reason there is no liberty at all there is neither moral good nor evil Some men by reason that their exteriour senses are not totally bound have a trick to walk in their sleep Suppose such an one in that case should cast himself down a pair of stairs or from a bridge and break his neck or drown himself it were a mad Jury that would find this man accessary to his own death Why because it was not freely done he had not then the use of reason l Lastly he tells us that the will doth choose of necessity as well as the fire burns of neoessity If he intend no more but this that election is the proper and natural act of the will as burning is of the fire or that the elective power is as necessarily in a man as visibility he speaks truly but most impertinently For the question is not now of the elective power in actu primo whether it be an essential faculty of the soul but whether the act of electing this or that particular object be free and undetermined by any antecedent and extrinsecal causes But if he intend it in this other sense that as the fire hath no power to suspend its burning nor to distinguish between those combustible matters which are put unto it but burns that which is put unto it necessarily if it be combustible So the will hath no power to refuse that which it wills nor to suspend its own appetite He erres grossely The will hath power either to will or nill or to suspend that is neither to will nor nill the same object Yet even the burning of the fire if it be considered as it is invested with all particular circumstances is not otherwise so necessary an action as T. H. imagineth m Two things are required to make an effect necessary First that it be produced by a necessary cause such as fire is Secondly that it be necessarily produced Protagoras an Atheist began his Book thus Concerning the Gods I have nothing to say whether they be or they be not for which his Book was condemned by the Athenians to be burned The fire was a necessary Agent but the sentence or the application of the fire to the Book was a free act and therefore the burning of his Book was free Much more the rational will is free which is both a voluntary agent and acts voluntarily n My second reason against this distinction of Liberty from Compulsion but not from necessitation is new and demonstrates cleerly that to necessitate the will by a Physical necessity is to compel the will so far as the will is capable of Compulsion and that he who doth necessitate the will to evil after that manner is the true cause of evil and ought rather to be blamed than the will it self But T. H. for all he saith he is not surprised can be contented upon better advise to steal by all this in silence And to hide this tergiversation from the eyes of the Reader he makes an empty shew of braving against that famous and most necessary distinction between the elicite and imperate acts of the will first because the terms are improper secondly because they are obscure What Triviall and Grammatical objections are these to be used against the universal current of Divines and Philosophers Verborum ut Nummorum It is in words as it is in mony Use makes them proper and current A Tyrant at first signified a lawful and just Prince Now use hath quite changed the sense of it to denote either an Usurper or an Oppressor The word praemunire is now grown a good word in our English Laws by use and tract of time And yet at first it was meerly mistaken for a praemonere The names of Sunday Munday Tuesday were derived at first from those Heathenish Deities the Sun the Moon and the warlike God of the Germans Now we use them for distinction sake onely without any relation to their first original He is too froward that will refuse a piece of coin that is current throughout the world because it is not stamped after his own fancy So is he that rejects a good word because he understands not the derivation of it We see forrein words are daily naturalized and made free Denizons in every Country But why are the tearms improper Because saith he It attributes command and subjection to
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
of things but every individuall creature and not onely in natural but voluntary actions I desire to know how Prester John or the great Mogol or the King of China or any one of so many millions of their subjects do concur to my writing of this reply If they do not among his other speculations concerning this matter I hope he will give us some restrictions It were hard to make all the Negroes accessary to all the murthers that are committed in Europe Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XXI THere is not much in this part of his Reply that needeth Animadversion But I must observe where he saith a The sum of my answer was that the Stars and complections do incline but not at all necessitate the Will He answereth nothing at all to me who attribute not the necessitation of the Will to the Stars and Complections but to the aggregate of all things together that are in motion I do not say that the Stars or Complections of themselves do incline men to Wil but when men are inclined I must say that that inclination was necessitated by some causes or other 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 c. The Bishop speaks often of Paradoxes which such scorn or detestation that a simple Reader would take a Paradox either for Felony or some other hainous crime or else for some rediculous turpitude whereas perhaps a Judicious Reader knows what the word signifies And that a Paradox is an opinion not yet generally received Christian Religion was once a Paradox and a great many other opinions which the Bishop now holdeth were formerly Paradoxes Insomuch as when a man calleth an opinion Paradox he doth not say it is untrue but signifieth his own ignorance for if he understood it he would call it either a truth or an errour He observes not that but for Paradoxes we should be now in that savage ignorance which those men are in that have not or have not long had Laws and Common-wealth from whence porceedeth Science and Civility There was not long since a Scholler that maintained that if the least thing that had waight should be laid down upon the hardest body that could be supposing it an Anvill of Diamant it would at the first accesse make it yeeld This I thought and much more the Bishop would have thought a Paradox But when he told me that either that would do it or all the waight of the World would not doe it because if the whole waight did it every the least part thereof would do its part I saw no reason to dissent In like manner when I say there is hardly any one Action to the causing of which concurs not whatsoever is in rerum natura It seems to the Bishop a great Paradox and if I should say that all Action is the effect of Motion and that there cannot be a Motion in one part of the World but the same must also be communicated to all the rest of the World he would say that this were no lesse a Paradox But yet if I should say that if a lesser body as a concave Sphere or Tun were filled with air or other liquid matter and that any one little particle thereof were moved all the rest would be moved also he would conceive it to be true or if not he a judicious reader would It is not the greatness of the Tun that altereth the case and therefore the same would be true also if the whole World were the Tun for t is the greatness of this Tun that the Bishop comprohendeth not But the truth is comprehensible enough and may be said without ambition of being the founder of strange opinions And though a Grave man may smile at it he that is both Grave and wise will not J. D. THirdly the moral Philosopher tells us how we are haled hither Num. 22. and thither with outward objects To this I answer First that the power which outward objects have over us is for the most part by our own default because of those vitious habits which we have contracted Therefore though the actions seem to have a kind of violence in them yet they were free and voluntary in their first originals As a paralitick man to use Aristotles comparison shedding the liquor deserves to be punished for though his act be unwilling yet his imtemperance was willing whereby he contracted this infirmity Secondly I answer that concupiscence and custome and bad company and outward objects do indeed make a proclivity but not a necessity By Prayers Tears Meditations Vowes Watchings Fastings Humi-cubations a man may get a contrary habit and gain the victory not onely over outward objects but also over his own corruptions and become the King of the little world of himself Si metuis si prava cupis si duceris irà Servitii patiere jugum tolâ—rabis iniquas Interius leges Tunc omnia jure tenebis Cum poteris rex esse tâ—â— Thirdly a resolved mind which weighs all things judiciously and provides for all occurrences is not so easily surprised withoutward objects Onely Ulysses wept not at the meeting with â—is wife and son I would beat thee said the Philosopher but that I am angry One spake lowest when he was most mooved Another poured out the water when he was thirsty Another made a Covenant with his eyes Neither opportunity nor entisement could prevail with Joseph Nor the Musick nor the fire with the three Children It is not the strength of the wind but the lightness of the chaff which causeth it to be blown away Outward objects do not impose a moral much less a Physical necessity they may be dangerous but cannot be destructi e to true liberty T. H. THirdly he disputeth against the opinion of them that say external objects presentâ—d to men of such and such tâ—mperatures do make their actions necessary And sayes the poâ—â—er that such objects have over us proceed from our own fault But that is nothing to the purpose if such â—ault of ours proceedeth from causes not in our own power And therefore that opinion may â—old true foâ—â— all this answer Further he saith Prayer Fasting c. may alter our habits 'T is true but when they do so they are causes of the contrary habit and make it necessary as the former habit had been necessary iâ— Prayer Fasting c. had not been Besides we are not mooved nor disposed to prayer or any ot er action but by outward objects as pious company godly preachers or something equivalent Thirdly he saith a resolved mind is not easily surprised As the mind of Ulysses who when others wept he alone wept not And of the Philosopher that abstained from striking because he found
is in our own power True saith he but then the contrary habit doth necessitate the onâ— way as well as the former habit did the other way By which very consideration it appears that that which he calls a necessity is no more but a Proclivity If it were a true necessity it could not be avoided nor altered by our endeavours Again he mistakes for I said that Prayer Fasting c. when they alter our habits do necessarily cause the contrary habits which is not to say that the habit necessitates but is necessitated But this is Common with him to make me say that which out of readinâ— nâ—t out of Meditation he useth to say hiâ—â—â—â— Bâ—t how doth it apâ—â—ar that Prayer and Fasting c. make but a Proclivity in men to do what they do for if it â—ere but a Proclivity then what they do they do not Therefore they either necessitate the Will or the Will followeth nâ—t I contend for the truth of this onely that when the Wâ—ll followeth them they necessitate the will and when a â—râ—climity followeth they necessitate the proclimity But the Bishop thinâ—s I maintain that that also is produced necessiarily which is not produced at aâ— d He adds that we are not moved to Prayer or any other Action but by outward objects as pioâ—s company and Godly Preachers or something equivalent Wherein are two other mistakeâ— first to make Godly Preachers and pious company to be outward objects which are outward Agents Secondly to affirm that the Will is not moved but by outward objects The Wâ—l is moved by it self c. The first mistake he urgeth that I call Preachers and company objects Is not the Preacher to the hearer the object of his hearing No perhaps he will say it is the voyce which is the object and that we hear not the Preacher but his voyce as before he said the object of sight was not the cause of sight I must therefore once more make him smile with a great Paradox which is this that in all thâ— senses he Object is the Agent And that it is when we hear a Preacher the Preacher that we hear and that his voyce is the same thing with the hearing and a fancy in the hearer though the motion oâ— the Lips and other organs of speâ—ch be his that speaketh But of this I have written more largely in a moâ—e proper place My second mistake in affirming that the Will is not moved but by outward objects is a mistake of his own For I said not the Will is not moved but we ate not moved for I alwayes avoid attributing motion to any thing but Body The Will is produced generated formed and created in suâ—h â—ort as accidents are effected in a corpâ—real subject but moved it cannot be because it goeth not â—rom place to place And whereas hâ— saith the Will is moved by it self if he had spoken properly as he ought to do and said the Will is made or created by it self he would presently have acknowledged that it was impossible So that it is not without cause men use improper Language when they mean to keep their errours from being detected And because nothing can move that is not it self moved it is untruly said that either the Will or any thing else is moved by it self by the understanding by the sensitive passions or by Acts or habits or that Acts or habits are infused by God for infusion is motion and nothing is moved but bodys e He answers that I prove Ulysses was not necessitated to weep nor the Philosopher to strik but I do not prove that they were not necessitated to forbear He saith true I am not now proving but answering By his favour though he be answering now he was proving then And what he answers now maketh nothing more toward a proof then was before For these words the rational Wil hath Power to sleight the most appetible objects and to controle the most unruly passions are no more being reduced into proper terms then this the appetite hath power to be without appetite towards most appetible objects and to Will contrary to the most unruly Will which is Jargon f He objects that Liberty is in no danger but to be lost but I say it cannot be lost therefore he inferrs that it is in no danger at all I answer First that Liberty is in more danger to be abused then lost c. Secondly Liberty is in danger likewise to be weakened by vicâ—ous habits Thirdly it may be totally lost It is true that a man hath more liberty one time then another and in one place then another which is a difference of liberty 〈◊〉 to the Body But as to the liberty of doing what we will in those things we are able to do it cannot be greater one time then another Consequently outward objects can 〈◊〉 wayes endanger liberty further then it destroyeth it And his answer that liberty is in more danger to be abused then lost is not to the question but a meer shift to be thought not silenced And whereas he says liberty is diminished by vitious habits it cannot be understood otherwise then that vicious habits make a man the lesse free to do vicious actions which I believe is not his meaning And lastly whereas he says that Liberty is lost when reason is lost and that they who by expresse of Study or by continuall gurmandising or by extravagant passion c. do become sots have consequently lost their liberty it requireth proof for for any thing that I can observe mad men and fools have the same liberty that other men have in those things that are in their power to do J. D. FOurthly the natural Philosopher doth teach that the will Num. 23. doth necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding It is true indeed the will should follow the direction of the understanding but I am not satisfied that it doth evermore follow it Sometimes this saying hath place Video mâ—liora proboque Deteriora sequor As that great Roman said of two Sailers that the one produced the better reasons but the other must have the office So reason often lies dejected at the feet of affection Things neerer to the senses moove more powerfully Do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his child than for the sin of his soul Yet appreciatively in the estimation of judgment he accounts the offence of God a greater evill than any temporal loss Next I do not believe that a man is bound to weigh the expedience or inexpedience of every ordinary trivial action to the least grain in the ballance of his understanding or to run up into his Watch-Tower with his perspective to take notice of every Jack-daw that flies by for fear of some hidden danger This seems to me to be a prostitution of reason to petit observations as concerning every rag that a man wears each drop of drink each morsel of bread that he eates
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
by general influence which is evermore requisite Angels or men by perswading evill spirits by tempting the object or end by its appetibility the understanding by directing So passions and acquired habits But I deny that any of these do necessitate or can necessitate the will of man by determining it Physically to one except God alone who doth it rarely in extraordinary cases And where there is no antecedent determination to one there is no absolute necessity but true Liberry b His second argument is ex concessis It is out of controversie saith he that of voluntary actions the will is a necessary cause The argument may be thus reduced Necessary causes produce necessary effects but the Will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions I might deny his major Necessary causes do not alwayes produce necessary effects except they be also necessarily produâ—ed as I have shewed before in the burning of Protagoras his book But I answer cleerly to the minor that the will is not a necessary cause of what it wills in particular actions It is without controversie indeed for it is without all probability That it wills when it wills is necessary but that it wills this or that now or then is free More expresly the act of the will may be considered three wayes Either in respect of its nature or in respect of its exercise or in respect of its object First for the nature of the act That which the will wills is necessarily voluntary because the will cannot be compelled And in this sense it is out of controversie that the will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions Secondly for the exercise of its acts that is not necessary The will may either will or suspend its act Thirdly for the object that is not necessary but free the will is not extrinsecally determined to its objects As for example The Cardinalls meet in the conclave to chose a Pope whom they chose he is necessarily Pope But it is not necessary that they shall chose this or that day Before they were assembled they might defer their assembling when they are assembled they may suspend their election for a day or a week Lastly for the person whom they will choose it is freely in their own power otherwise if the election were not free it were void and no election at all So that which takes its beginning from the will is necessarily voluntary but it is not necessary that the will shall will this or that in particular as it was necessary that the person freely elected should be Pope but it was not necessary either that the election should be at this time or that this man should be elected And therefore voluntary acts in particular have not necessary causes that is they are not necessitated Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXX I Had said that nothing taketh beginning from it self and that the cause of the Will is not the Will it self but something else which it dispâ—seth not of Answering to thiâ— he endeavours to sheâ— us the cause of the Will. a I grant saith he that the Will doth not take beginning from it self for that the faculty of the Wilâ— takes beginning from God who created the soul and powred it into man and endowed it with this power and for that the act of willing takes not beginning from it self but from the faculty or from the power of willing which is in the soul. This is certain finite and participated things cannot be from themselves nor be produced by themselves What would he conclude from hence That therefore the Act of willing takes not its beginning from the faculty of the Wil It is well that he grants finite things as for his participated it signifies nothing here cannot be produced by themselves For out of this I can conclude that the Act of willing is not produced by the faculty of willing He that hath the faculty of willing hath the faculty of willing something in particular And at the same time he hath the faculty of nilling the same If therefore the faculty of willing be the cause he willeth any thing whatsoever for the same reason the faculty of nilling will be the cause at the same time of nilling it and so he shall will and nill the same thing at the same time which is absurd It seems the Bishop had forgot that Matter and Power are indifferent to contrary Forms and contrary Acts. It is somewhat besides the Matter that dâ—termineth it to a certain form and somewhat besides the Power that produceth a certain Act and thence it is that is inferred this that he granteth that nothing can be produced by it self which neverthelesse he presently contradicteth in saying that all men know when a stone descends the beginning is intrinsecal and that the stone mooves in respect of the Form and is moved in respect of the Matter Which is as much to say that the Form moveth the Matter or that the stone moveth it self which before he denied When a stone ascends the beginning of the stones motion was in it self that is to say intrinsecal because it is not the stones motion till the store begins to be moved but the motion that caused it to begin to ascend was a precedent and extrinsecal motion of the hand or other engine that threw it upward And so when it descends the beginning of the stones motion is in the stone but neverthelesse there is a former motion in the ambient Body aire or water that causeth it to descend But because no man can see it most men think there is none though Reason wherewith the Bishop as relying onely upon the Authority of Books troubleth not himself coâ—vince that there is b His second Argument is ex concessis It is out of controversy that of voluntary Actions the Wil is a necessary cause The Argument may be thus reduced Necessary causes produce necessary effects but the Wil is a necessary cause of voluntary Actions I might deny his Major necessary causes do not alwayes produce necessary effects except they be also necessarily produced He has reduced the Argument to non-sense by saying necessary causes produce not necessary effects For necessary effects unlesse he mean such effects as shall necessarily be produced is insignificant Let him consider therefore with what grace he can say necessary causes do not alwayes produce their effects except those effects be also necessarily produced But his answer is chiefly to the Minor and denies that the Wil is not a necessary cause of what it wills in particular Actions That it wills when it wills saith he is necessary but that it wills this or that is free Is it possible for any man to conceive that he that willeth can will any thing but this or that particular thing It is therefore manifest that either the Wil is a necessary cause of this or that or any other particular Action or not the necessary cause of any voluntary Action at all For universal Actions
thing to begin without a cause or if it should begin without a cause why it should begin at this time rather than at that time He saith truely nothâ—â—g can begin without a cause that is to be but it may begin to act of it self without any other cause Nothing can begin without a cause but many things may begin and do begin without necessary causes A free cause may as well choose his time when he will begin as a necessary cause be determined extrinsâ—cally when it must begin And although free effects cannot be foretold because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes yet when the free causes do determine themselves they are of as great certainty as the other As when I see a Bell ringing I can conceive the cause of it as well why it rings now as I know the interposition of the earth to be the cause of the Eclipse of the Moon or the most certain occurrent in the nature of things k And now that I have answered T. H. his Arguments drawn from the private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words I desire him seriously without prejudice to examine himself and those natural notions which he finds in himself not of words but of things these are from nature those are by imposition whether he doth not find by experience that he doth many things which he might have left undone if he would and omits many things which he might have done if he would whether he doth not somethings out of meer animosity and will without either regard to the direction of right reason or serious respect of what is honest or profitable onely to shew that he will have a dominion over his own actions as we see ordinarily in Children and wise men find at sometimes in themselves by experience And I apprehend this very defence of necessity against liberty to be partly of that kind Whether he is not angry with those who draw him from his study or cross him in his desires if they be necessitated to do it why should he be angry with them any more than he is angry with a sharp winter or a rainy day that keeps him at home against his antecedent wil. Whether he doth not sometime blame himself and say O what a fool was I to do thus and thus or wish to himself O that I had been wise or O that I had not done such an act If he have no dominion over his actions if he be irresâ—stibly necessitated to all things that he doth he might as well wish O that I had not breached or blame himself for growing old O what a fool was I to grow old Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXIII I Have said in the beginning of this Number that to define what spontanâ—iry is what deliberation is what Will Propension Appetite a free Agent and Liberty is and to prove they are well defined there can be no other proof offered but every mans own experience and memory of what he meaneth by such words For definitions being the beginning of all demonstration cannot themselves be demonstrated that is proved to another man All that can be done is either to put him in mind what thâ—se words signifie commonly in the matter whereof they treâ—t or if the words bâ— unusual to make the Definitions of them true by mutual consent in their signification And though this be manifestly true yet there is nothing of it amongst the School-men whouse to argue not by rule but as Fencers teach to hardle weapons by quickness â—nâ—ly of the hand and eye The Bishop therefore boggles at this kind of proof and says a The true natures of things are not to be judged by the private Ideas or conceptions of men but by their causes and formall reasons Aske an ordinary person what upwards signifies c. But what will â—e answer if I should aske him how he will judge oâ— the causes of things whereof he hatâ— no Iâ—ea or conceptiâ—n in his own â—ind It is therefore impossible to give a true definition of any word without the Idea of the thing which that word signifieth or not acâ—oâ—â—ing to that Idea or conception Here again he discovereth the true cause why he and other School-men so often speak absurdâ—y For they speak without conception of the things and by rote one receiving what he saith from another by tradition from some pust 〈◊〉 or Philosopher that to decline aâ— difficulty speakes in such manner as not to be understood And whereas he bidds us asâ—e an ordinary person what upwards signifieth 〈◊〉 dare Answer for that ordinary person he will tell us as significantly as any Scholler and say it is towards Heaven and as soâ—â— as he knows the earth is râ—und makes no scruple to believe there are Antipodes being wiser in that point then were those which he saith to have been of more then ordinary capacities Again ordinary men understand not he saith the words empty and Body yes but they do just as well as learned men When they hear named an empty vessel the learned as well as the unlearned mean and understand the same thing namely that there is nothing in it that can be seen and whether it be truely empty the Plough-man and the School man know a like I might give he says an hundred such like instances That true a man may give a thousand foolish and impertinent instances of men ignorant in such questions of Philosophy concerning Emptiness Body Upwards and Downwards and the like But the question is not whether such and such tenets be true but whether such and such words can be well defined without thinking upon the things they signifiet as the Bishop thinks they may when he concludeth with these words So his proposition is salfe b His reason that matter of fact is not verified by other mens Arguments but by every mans own sense and memory is likewise maimed on both sides Whether we hear such words or not is matter of fact and sense is the proper Judge of it but what these words do or ought truely to signifie is not to be judged by sense but by reason A man is borne with a capacity after due time and experience to reason truely to which capacity of nature if there be added no Discipline at all yet as far as he reasoneth he will reason truely though by a right Discipline he may reason truely in more numerous and various matters But he that hath lighted on deceiving or deceived masters that teach for truth all that hath been dictated to them by their own interest or hath been cried up by other such teachers before them have for the most part their natural reason as far as concerneth the truth of Doctrine quite defaced or very much weakened becoming changelings through the inchantments of words not understood This cometh into my mind from this saying of the Bishop that matter of fact is not verified by sense and memory but by Arguments How is it
Which cannot be proved for the contrary is true Or how proveth he that there is no outward impediment to keep that point of the Load stone which placeth it self toward the North from turning to the South His ignorance of the causes external is nâ—t a sufficient argument that there are none And whereas he saith that according to my definition of Liberâ—y a Hauk were at Liberty to fly when her wings are pluckt but not when they are tyed I answer that she is not at Liberty to fly when her wings are tyâ—d but to say when her wings are plâ—ckt that she wanted the Liberty to fly were to speak impropâ—rly and absurdly for in that case men that speak English use to say she cannot fly And for his reprehension of my attributing Libâ—rty to brute beasts and rivers I would be glad to know whether it be improper language to say a bird â—r beast may be sâ—t at Liberty from the cage wherein they were â—mprisoned or to say that a river which was stopped hath recovered its free course and how it follows that a beast or river recovering this freedome must needs therefore be capable of sin and punishment i The reason for the sixt point is like the former a Phantastical or Imaginative reason How can a man imagine any thing to begin without a cause or if it should begin without a cause why it should begin at this time rather then at that time He saith truely nothing can begin without a cause that is to be but it may begin to Act of it self without any other cause Nothing can begin without a cause but many things may begin without anâ—cessâ—ry cause He granteth nothing caâ— begin without a cause he hath granted formerly that nothing can cause it self And now he saith it may begin to Act of it self The action therefore begins to be without any cause which he said nothing could do contradicting what he had said but in the line before And â—or that that he saith that many things may begin not without cause but without a necessary cause It hath bâ—en arguâ—d before and all causes have been proved if entire and sufficiâ—nt causes to be nâ—cessary and that which he repeatâ—th here namely that a free cause may choose his time when he will begin to work and that although free effects cannot be foretold because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes yet when the free causes do determine themselves they are of as great certainty as the other it has been made appear sufficiently before that it is but Jargon the words free cause and determining themselves being insignificant and having nothing in the mind of man naswerable to them k And now that I have answered T. H. his arguments drawn from the private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words I desire him seriously to examine himself c. One of his interrogatories is this whether I find not by experience that I do many things which I might have left undone if I would This question was needlâ—sse because all the way I have granted him that men have libeâ—ty to do many things if they will which they left undâ—ne because they had not the Will to do them Another interrogatory is this whether I do not some things without regard to the direction of right reason or serious respect of what is honest or prâ—fitable This question was in vain unlesse he think himself my Confessour Another is whether I writ not this defence against Liberty onely to show I will have a Dominion over my own actions To this I answer no but to show I have no Dominion over my will and this also at his request But all these questions serve in this place for nothing else but to deliver him of a jest he was in labour with all and therefore his last question is whether I do not sometimes say Oh what a fool was I to do thus and thus or Oh that I had been wise or Oh what a fool was I to grow old Subtil questions and full of Episcopal gravity I would he had left out charging me with blasphemous desperate destructive and Atheistecal opinions I should then have pardonâ—d him his calling me fool both because I do many things foolishly and because in this question disputed between us I think he will appear a greater fool then I. T. H. FOr the seventh point that all events have necessary causes it is Num. 34. there proved in that they have sufficient causes Further Let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual at for example the throwing Ambs-ace upon a paire of Dice and see if it must not have been necessary before it was thrown for seeing it was thrown it had a beginning and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it consisting partly in the Dice partly in the ouâ—ward things as the posture of the parties hand the measure of force applied by the caster the posture of the parts of the Table and the like In sum there was notâ—ing wanting that was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast and consequently that cast was necessarily thrown For iâ— it had not been thrown there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it and so the cause had not been sufficient In the like manner it may be proved that every other accident how contingâ—nt soâ—ver it seem or how voluntary soever it be is produced necâ—ssarily which is that J. D. disâ—utes against The same also may be proved in this manner Let the case be put for example of the weather T is necessary that to morrow it shall rain or not rain If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain it is necessary it shall not rain Otherwise it is not necessary that the proposition It shall rain or it shall not rain should be true I know there are some that say it may necessarily be true that one of the two shall come to pass but not singly that it shall rain or it shall not rain Which is as much as to say One of them is necessary yet neither of them is necessary And therefore to seem to avoid that absurdity they make a distinction that neither of them is true determinatè but indeterminatè Which distinction either signifies no more than this One of them is true but we know not which and so the necessity remains though we know it not Or if the meaning of the distinction be not that it has no meaning And they might as well have said One of them is true Tytyrice but neither of them Tupatulice J. D. a HIs former proof that all sufficient causes are necessary causes is answered before Numb 31. b And his two instances of casting Ambs-ace and raining to morrow are altogether impertinent to the question now agitated between us for two reasons First our present controversie is concerning free actions which proceed from the liberty of mans will both his instances are of contingent actions which
opinions when they are taught as they are often in Divinity Books and from the Pulpit I could hardly guesse but that I remember that there have been Books written to intitle the Bishops to a Divine right underived from the civil Soveraign But because he maketh it so â—aynous a matter that the supreme civil Magistrate should be Christs Lieutenant upon earth let us suppose that a Bishop or a Synode of Bishops should be set up which I hope never shall for our civil Soveraign then that which he objecteth here I could object in the same words against himself For I could say in his oâ—n words This is life eternal to know the onely true God and Jesus Christ Joh. 17. 3. Pure Religion and undefiled before God is this to visit the Fatherless c. James 1. 27. Fear God and keep his Commandments Eccles. 12. 13. But the Bishop hath found a more compendious way to Heaven namely that true Religion consisteth in obedience to Christs Lieutenants that is now by supposition to the Bishops That is to say that every Christian of what nation soever coming into the Country which the Bishopâ— governe should be of their Religion He would make the civil Magistrate to be Christs Lieutenant upon earth for matters of Religion and supreme Judge in all controversies and say they ought to be obeyed by al how strange soever and uncouth it seem to him now the Soveraignity being in others And I may say to him what if the Magistrate himself I mean by supposition the Bishops should be wicked 〈…〉 What if they should command as much contrary to the â—…w of 〈◊〉 oâ— nature as every any Christian King did which is very possible must we obey them rather then God Is the civill Magistrate become now the onely ground and pâ—â—lar of truth No. Synedri jussum est voce Episcoporum Ipsum quod colit ut colamus omnes Aeternum colemus Principem dierum Factorem Dominumque Epilcoporum And thus the Bishop may see there is 〈…〉 difference between his Ode and my â—arode to it and that both of them are of equal force 〈◊〉 conclud nothinâ— The Bishop knows that the Kings of England since the time of Henry the 8. have been 〈…〉 by 〈…〉 Parliament supream Governors oâ— the Church of England in 〈…〉 both civil and Ecclesiastical that is to say 〈…〉 matters both Ecclesiastical and civil anâ— consequently oâ— this Church Supreme head on Earth though perhaps he will not allow that 〈…〉 me of Hâ—â—d I should wonder therefore whom the Bishop would have to be Christs Lieutenant here in England for matters of Religion if not the supreme Governor â—nd Head of the Church of England 〈…〉 Man or Women whosoever he be that hath the Soveraign Power but that I know he challenges it to the Bishops and thinks thaâ— King Henry the 8. took the Ecclesiastical Power away from the Pope to settle it not in himself but them But he ought to have known that what 〈…〉 or Power oâ— Ordaiâ—ing 〈…〉 the Popâ—s had here in the time of the Kings Predecessours til Henry the 8. they derived it all from the Kings Power though they did not acknowledge it and the Kings connived at it either not knowing their own right or not daring to challenge it til such tiâ—e as the behaviour of the Romane Clergie had undeceived the people which otherwise would have sided with them Nor was it unlawful for the King to take from them the Authority he had given them as being Pope enough in his own Kingdome without depending on a forraign one nor is it to be called Schisme unlesse it be Schisme also in the head of a Family to discharge as often 〈◊〉 he shall see cause the School-Masters he enter â—ineth to teach his Children If the Bishop and Dr. Hammond when they did write in defence of the Church of England against imputation of Schisme quitting their own pretences of jurisdiction and Jus divinum had gone upon these principles of mine they had not been so shrewdly handled as they have been by an English Papist that wrote against them And now I have done answering to his Arguments I shall here â—n the end of all taee that Liberty of censuring his while Book which he hath taken in the beginning of censuring mine I have saith he Numb 1. perused T. H. his answers considered his reasons and conclude he hath missed and miâ—â—aid the question that his answers are evasions that his Arguments are â—aralogismes and that the opinion of absolute and universal necessity is but a 〈…〉 some groundless and ill chosen Principles And now it is my turn to censure And first â—oâ— the strength of his discourse and knowledge of the point in question I think it much inferiour to that which might have been written by any man living that had no other learning besides the ability to wriâ—e his mind but as well perhaps as the same man would have done it if to the ability of writing his mind he had added the study of School-Divinity Secondly for the manners of it for to a publick writing there belongeth good manners it consisteth in railing and exclaiming and scurrilous jesting with now and then an unclean and mean instance And lastly for his elocution the vertue whereof lieth not in the flux of words but in perspicuity it is the same Language with that of the Kingdome of Darkness One shall find in it especially where â—e should speak most closely to the question such words as these Divided sense Compounded sense Hypothetical necessity Liberty of Exercise Liberty of specification Liberty of contradiction Liberty of contrariety Knowledge of approbation Practical knowledge General influence Special influence Instinct Qualities infused Efficatious election Moral efficacy Moral motion Metaphorical motion Practice practicum Motus primo primi Actus eliciti Actus imperati Permissive will Consequent will Negative obduration Deficient cause Simple act Nunc stans other like words of non-sense divided besides many propositions such as thâ—se The Will is the Mistris of humane Actions The understanding iâ— her counseller The Will chuseth The Will willeth The Will suspends its own Act The Understanding understandeth I wonder how he mist saying The Understanding suspendeth its own Act The Will applies the understanding to deliberate The Will requires of the Understanding a riview The Wil determines it self A change may be Willed without changing of the Will Man concurrs with God in causing his own Will The Will causeth willing Motives determine the Will not naturally but morally The same Action may be both future and not future God is not Just but Justice not eternal but eternity Eternity is Nunc stans Eternity is an infinite point which comprehendeth al time not formally but eminently Al eternity is coexistent with to day and the same coexistent with to morrow and many other like speeches of non-sense compounded Which the truth can never stand in need of Perhaps the Bishop will say these Terms and Phrases