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
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
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
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
THE QUESTIONS Concerning LIBERTY NECESSITY And CHANCE Clearly Stated and Debated Between Dr. Bramhall Bishop of Derry And Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury London Printed for Andrew Crook and are to be sold at the Sign of the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1656. To the Reader YOu shall find in this little Volum the Questions concerning Necessity Freedom and Chance which in all Ages have perplexed the minds of curious Men largely and clearly discussed and the Arguments on all sides drawn from the Authority of Scripture from the Doctrine of the Schools from Natural Reason and from the Consequences pertaining to common Life truly alleadged and severely weighed between two persons who both maintain that Men are Free to Do as they Will and to Forbear as they Will. The things they dissent in are that the one holdeth That it is not in a Mans Power now to choose the Will he shall have anon That Chance produceth nothing That all Events and Actions have their Necessary Causes That the Will of God makes the Necessity of all things The other on the contrary maintaineth That not onely the Man is Free to choose what he will Do but the Will also to choose what it shall Will That when a Man willeth a good Action Gods Will concurreth with his else not That the Will may choose whether it will Will or not That many things come to pass without Necessity by Chance That though God foreknow a thing shall be yet it is not Necessary that that thing shall be in as much as God seeth not the future as in its Causes but as present In sum they adheare both of them to the Scripture but one of them is a learned School-Divine the other a man that doth not much admire that kind of learning This is enough to acquaint you withall in the beginning which also shall be more particularly explained by and by in the stating of the Question and dividing of the Arguments into their several heads The rest you shall understand from the persons themselves when they enter Fare ye well T. H. THE OCCASION OF THE CONTROVERSIE WHether whatsoever comes to passe proceed from Necessitie or some things from Chance has been a Question disputed amongst the old Philosophers long time before the Incarnation of our Saviour without drawing into argument on either side the almightie power of the Deity But the third way of bringing things to passe distinct from Necessitie and Chance namely Freewill is a thing that never was mentioned amongst them nor by the Christians in the beginning of Christianity For St. Paul that disputes that question largely and purposely never useth the term of Freewill nor did he hold any Doctrine aequivalent to that which is now called the Doctrine of Freewill but deriveth all actions from the irresistible Will of God and nothing from the will of him that runneth or willeth But for some ages past the Doctors of the Roman Church have exempted from this dominion of Gods Will the Will of Man and brought in a Doctrine that not onely Man but also his Will is Free and determined to this or that action not by the Will of God nor necessary causes but by the power of the Will it Self And though by the reformed Churches instructed by Luther Calvin and others this opinion was cast out yet not many years since it began again to be reduced by Arminius and his followers and became the readiest way to Ecclesiastical promotion and by discontenting those that held the contrary was in some part the cause of the following troubles which troubles were the occasion of my meeting with the Bishop of Derry at Paris where we discoursed together of the Argument now in hand from which Discourse we carried away each of us his own opinion and for ough I remember without any offensive words as blasphemous atheistical or the like passing between us either for that the Bishop was not then in passion or suppressed his passion being then in the presence of my Lord of Newcastle But afterwards the Bishop sent to his Lordship his opinion concerning the question in writing and desired him to perswade me to send an answer thereunto likewise in writing There were some reasons for which I thought it might be inconvenient to let my answer go abroad yet the many obligations wherein I was obliged to him prevailed with me to write this answer which was afterwards not onely without my knowledge but also against my will published by one that found means to get a Copy of it surreptitiously And thus you have the Occasion of this Controversie The State of the Question THe Question in general is stated by the Bishop himself towards the end of Numb 3. in these words Whether all Events Natural Civil Moral for we speak not now of the conversion of a sinner that concernes not this question be praedetermined extrinsecally and inevitably without their own concurrence so as all the actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner or in any other place time number measure order nor to any other end than they are And all this in respect of the supream cause or a concourse of extrinsecall causes determining them to one Which though drawn up to his advantage with as much caution as he would do a Lease yet excepting that which is not intelligible I am content to admit Not intelligible is First that the conversion of a sinner concerns not the Question If he mean that the conversion of a sinner is from necessity and praedetermined then he is for so much as the Question concerns Religion of the same mind that I am and what he can mean else by that exception I cannot guesse Secondly these words without their own concurrence are insignificant unless he mean that the events themselves should concurre to their production as that fire doth not necessarily burn without the concurrence of burning as the words properly import or at least without concurrence of the fuell Those two clauses left out I agree with him in the state of the Question as it is put universally But when the Question is put of the necessity of any particular event as of the Will to write or the like then it is the stating of that particular Question but it is decided in the decision of the Question universall He states the same Question againe â—n another place thus This is the very Question where the water sticks between us Whether there be such a Liberty free from necessitation and extrinsecall determination to one or not And I allow it also for well stated so Again he sayes In a word so great difference there is between Natural and Moral efficacy as there is between his opinion and mine in this Question So that the state of the Question is reduced to this Whether there be a Moral efficacy which is not Natural I say there is not he sayes there is Again he writes thus And
therefore as it were ridiculous to say that the object of Sight is the cause of Seeing so it is to say that the proposing of the object by the Understanding to the Will is the cause of Willing Here also the Question is brought to this issue Whether the object of Sight be the cause that it is Seen But for these words proposing of the object by the Understanding to the Will I understand them not Again he often useth such words as these The Will willeth the Will suspendeth its act id est the Will willeth not the Understanding proposeth the Understanding understandeth Herein also lyeth the whole Question If they be true I if false He is in the errour Again the whole question is decided when this is decided Whether he that willingly permitteth a thing to be done when without labour danger or diversion of mind he might have hindered it do not Will the doing of it Again the whole Question of Free-will is included in this Whether the Will determine it self Again it is included in this Whether there be an universal Grace which particular men can take without a particular Grace to take it Lastly there be two Questions one Whether a man be free in such things as are within his power to do what he Will another Whether he be free to Will Which is as much as to say because Will is Appetite it is one Question Whether he be free to eat that has an Appetite and another Whether he be feee to have an Appetite In the former Whether a man be free to do what he Will I agree with the Bishop In the latter Whether he be free to Will I dissent from him And therefore all the places of Scripture that he alleadgeth to prove that a man hath liberty to do what he Will are impertinent to the Question If he has not been able to distinguish between these two Questions he has not done well to meddle with either if he has understood them to bring arguments to prove that a man is free to do if he Will is to deale uningenuously and fraudulently with his Readers And thus much for the State of the Question The Fountains of Argument in this Question THe Arguments by which this Question is disputed are drawn from four Fountaines 1. From Authorities 2. From the Inconveniences consequent to either opinion 3. From the Attributes of God 4. From natural Reason The Authorities are of two sorts Divine and Humane Divine are those which are taken from the holy Scriptures Humane also are of two sorts one the Authorities of those men that are generally esteemed to have been learned especially in this Question as the Fathers Schoolmen and old Philosophers the other are the Uulgar and most commonly receaved opinions in the world His Reasons and places of Scripture I will answer the best I am able but his humane Authorities I shall admit and receive as farre as to Scripture and Reason they be consonant and no further And for the Arguments derived from the Attributes of God so farre forth as those Attributes are argumentative that is so farre forth as their significations be conceavable I admit them for Arguments but where they are given for honour onely and signifie nothing but an intention and endeavour to praise and magnifie as much as we can Almighty God there I hold them not for Arguments but for Oblations not for the language but as the Scripture calls them for the calves of our lips which signifie not true nor false or any opinion of our brain but the reverence and devotion of our hearts and therefore they are no sufficient praemises to inferre Truth or convince Falsehood The places of Scripture that make for me are these First Gen. 45. 5. Joseph sayeth to his Brethren that had sold him Be not grieved nor angry with your selves that ye sold me hither For God did send me before you to preserve life And again verse 8. So now it was not you that sent me hither but God And concerning Pharaoh God sayeth Exod. 7. 3. I will harden Pharaohs heart And concerning Sihon King of Hesbon Moses sayeth Deut. 2. 30. The Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate And of Shimei that did curse David David himself sayeth 2 Sam. 16. 10. Let him curse because the Lord hath said unto him curse David and 1 Kings 12 15. The King hearkned not to the People for the curse was from the Lord. And Job disputing this very Question sayeth Job 12. 14. God shutteth man and there can be no opening and vers 16. The deceaved and the deceaver are his and verse 17. He maketh the Judges fools and verse 24. He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the Earth and causeth them to wander in a Wilderness where there is no way and verse 25. He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man And of the King of Assyria God saith I will give him a charge to take the spoile and to take the prey and to tread them down like the mire of the streets Esay 10. 6. And Jeremiah sayth Jer. 10 23. O Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps And to Ezechiel whom God sent as a watchman to the house of Israel God saith thus When a Righeous man doth turne from his righteousness and commit iniquity and I lay a stumbling block before him he shall dye because thou hast not given him warning he shall dye in his sin Eze. 3. 20. Note here God layes the stumbling block yet he that falleth dyeth in his sin which showes that Gods Justice in killing dependeth not on the sin onely And our Saviour saith John 6. 44. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him And St. Peter concerning the dilivering of Christ to the Jews saith thus Acts 2. 23. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken c. And again those Christians to whom Peter and John resorted after they were freed from their troubles about the miracle of curing the lame man praysing God for the same say thus Of a truth against the holy Child Jesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done Acts 4. 27 28. And St. Paul Rom. 9. 16. It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy and verse 18 19 20. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault For who hath resisted his will Nay but O man who art thou that disputest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus And again 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who
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
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
sensitive appetites yet sin not i The Question then is not whether a man be necessitated to will or nill yet free to act or forbear But saving the ambiguous acception of the word Free the Question is plainly this whether all Agents and all events natural civil moral for we speak not now of the conversion of a sinner that concerns not this Question be predetermined extrinsecally and inevitably without their own concurrence in the determination so as all actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner or in any other place time number measure order nor to any other end than they are And all this in respect of the supream cause or a concourse of extrinsecal causes determining them to one k So my preface remains yet unanswered Either I was extrinsecally and inevitably predetermined to write this discourse without any concurrence of mine in the determination and without any power in me to change or oppose it or I was not so predetermined If I was then I ought not to be blamed for no man is justly blamed for doing that which never was in his power to shun If I was not so predetermined then mine actions and my will to act are neither compelled nor necessitated by any extrinsecal causes but I elect and choose either to write or to forbear according to mine own will and by mine own power And when I have resolved and elected it is but a necessity of supposition which may and doth consist with true liberty not a reall antecedent necessity The two hornes of this Dilemma are so strait that no mean can be given nor room to passe between them And the two consequences are so evident that instead of answering he is forced to decline them Animadversions upon his Reply Numb III. a THus much I will maintaine that that is no true necessity which he calleth Necessity nor that Liberty which he calleth Liberty nor that the Question which he makes the Question c. For the clearing whereof it behooveth us to know the difference between these three Necessity Spontaneity and Liberty I did expect that for the knowing of the difference between Necessity Spontaneity and Liberty he would have set down their Definitions For without these their difference cannot possibly appear for how can a man know how things differ unless he first know what they are which he offers not to shew He tels us that Necessity and Spontaneity may meet together and Spontaneity and Liberty but Necessity and Liberty never and many other things impertinent to the purpose For which because of the length I refer the Reader to the Place I note onely this that Spontaneity is a word not used in common English and they that understand Latine know it means no more than Appetite or Will and is not found but in living Creatures And seeing he saith that Necessity and Spontaneity may stand together I may say also that Necessity and Will may stand together and then is not the Will Free as he would have it from Necessitation There are many other things in that which followeth which I had rather the Reader would consider in his own words to which I referre him than that I should give him greater trouble in reciting them again For I do not fear it will be thought too hot for my fingers to shew the vanity of such words as these Intellectual appetire Conformity of the appetite to the object Rational will Elective power of the Rational will nor understand I how Reason can be the root of true Liberty if the Bishop as he saith in the beginning had the liberty to write this discourse I understand how objects and the Conveniences and the Inconveniences of them may be represented to a man by the help of his sences but how Reason representeth any thing to the Will I understand no more than the Bishop understands there may be Liberty in Children in Beasts and inanimate Creaturs For he seemeth to wonder how Children may be left at Liberty how Beasts imprisoned may be set at Liberty and how a River may have a free course and saith what will he ascribe Liberty to inanimate Creatures also And thus he thinks he hath made it clear how Necessity Spontaneity and Liberty differ from â—â—e another If the Reader find it so I am contented 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 c. The Bishop might easily have seen that the Necessity I hold is the same Necessity that he denies namely a Necessity of things future that is an antecedent Necessity derived from the very beginning of time and that I put Necessity for an Impossibility of not being and that Impossibility as well as Possibility are never truly said but of the future I know as well as he that the cause when it is adaequate as he calleth it or entire as I call it is together in time with the effect But for all that the Necessity may be and is before the effect as much as any Necessity can be And though he call it a Necessity of supposition it is no more so than all other Necessity is The fire burneth neoessarily but not without supposition that there is fewel put to it And it burneth the fewel when it is put to it necessarily but it is by supposition that the ordinary course of nature is not hindred For the fire burnt not the three Children in the Furnace c But if these causes did operate Freely or Contingently if they might have suspended or denied their concurrence or have concurred after another manner then the effect was not truly and antecedently necessary but either free or Contingent It seems by this he understandeth not what these words Free and Contingent mean A little before he wondred I should attribute Liberty to inanimate Creatures and now he puts causes amongst those things that operate Freely By these causes it seems be understandeth onely men whereas I shewed before that Liberty is usually ascribed to whatsoever Agent is not hindred And when a man doth any thing Freely there be many other Agents immediate that concur to the effect he intendeth which work not Freely but necessarily as when the man moveth the Sword Freely the Sword woundeth necessarily nor can suspend or deny its concurrence And consequently if the man move not himself the man cannot deny â—is concurrence To which he cannot reply unless he say a man originally can move himself for which he will be able to find no Authority of any that have but tasted of the knowledge of motion Then for Contingent he understandeth not what it meaneth for it is all one to say it is Contingent and simply to say it is saving that when they say simply it is they consider not how or by what means but in saying it is contingent they tell us
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
earnest maintainers of the liberty of Adam Therefore none of these supposed impediments take away true liberty T. H. THe fourth Argument is to this effect If the decree of God or his foreknowledge or the influence of the Stars or the concatenation of causes or the physical or morall efficacy of causes or the last dictate of the understanding or whatsoever it be do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulous odi That which I say necessitateth and determineth every action that he may no longer doubt of my meaning is the sum of all those things which being now existent conduce and concurre to the production of that action hereafter whereof if any one thing now â—ere wanting the effect could not be produced This concourse of causes whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like concourse of former causes may well be called in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal cause of all things God Almighty the decree of God But that the fore-knowledge of God should be a cause of any thing cannot be truly said seeing fore-knowledge is knowledge and knowledge dependeth on the existence of the things known and not they on it The influence of the Stars is but a small part of the whole cause consisting of the concourse of all Agents Nor. doth the concourse of all causes make one simple chain or concatenation but an innumerable number of chains joyned together not in all parts but in the first link God Almighty and consequently the whole cause of an event does not alwayes depend upon one single chain but on many together Natural efficacy of objects does determine voluntary Agents and necessitates the Will and consequently the Action but for moral efficacy I understand not what he means by it The last dictate of the judgement concerning the good or bad that may follow on any action is not properly the whole cause but the last part of it And yet may be said to produce the effect necessarily in such manner as the last feather may be said to break an Horses back when there were so many laid on before as there wanted but that to do it Now for his Argument That if the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect that then it follows Adam had no true liberty I deny the consequence for I make not only the effect but also the election of that particular effect to be necessary in as much as the Will it self and each propension of a man during his deliberation is as much necessitated and depends on a sufficient cause as any thing else whatsoever As for example it is no more necessary that fire should burn then that a man or other creature whose limbs be moved by fancy should have election that is liberty to do what he has a fancy to though it be not in his will or power to choose his fancy or choose his election or will This Doctrine because he saies he hates I doubt had better been suppressed as it should have been if both your Lordship and he had not pressed me to an answer J. D. a THis Argument was sent forth onely as an espie to make a more full discovery what were the true grounds of T. H. his supposed Necessity which errand being done and the foundation whereupon he bnilds being found out which is as I called it a concatenation of causes and as he calls it a concourse of necessary causes It would now be a superfluous and impertineut work in me to undertake the refutation of all those other opinions which he doth not undertake to defend And therefore I shall wave them at the present with these short animadversions b Concerning the eternal decree of God he confounds the decree it self with the execution of his decree And concerning the fore-knowledge of God he confounds that speculative knowledge which is called the knowbedge of vision which doth not produce the intellective objects no more then the sensitive vision doth produce the sensible objects with that other knowledge of God which is called the knowledge of approbation or a practical knowledge that is knowledge joyned with an act of the Will of which Divines do truly say that it is the cause of things as the knowledge of the Artist is the cause of his work God made all things by his word John 1. that is by his wisdom Concerning the influence of the Stars I wish he had expressed himself more clearly For as I do willingly grant that those Heavenly Bodies do act upon these sublunary things not onely by their motion and light but also by an occuit vertue which we call influence as we see by manifold experience in the Loadstone and Shell-fish c. So if he intend that by these influences they do naturally or physically determine the Will or have any direct dominion over humane Counsels either in whole or in part either more or less he is in an errour Concerning the concatenation of causes where as he makes not one chain but an innumerable number of chains I hope he speaks hyperbolically and doth not intend that they are actually infinite the difference is not material whether one or many so long as they are all joyned together both in the first link and likewise in the effect It serves to no end but to shew what a shaddow of liberty T. H. doth fancy or rather what a dream of a shaddow As if one chain were not sufficient to load poor man but he must be clogged with iunumerable chains This is just such another freedom as the Turkish Galli-slaves do enjoy But I admire that T. H. who is so versed in this Question should here confess that he understands not the difference between physical or natural and moral efficacy And much more that he should affirm that outward objects do determine voluntary agents by a natural efficacy No object no second Agent Angel or Devill can determine the Will of man naturally but God alone in respect of his supreme dominion over all things Then the Will is determined naturally when God Almighty besides his general influence where upon all second causes do depend as well for their being as for their acting doth moreover at some times when it pleases him in cases extraordinary concurre by a special influence and infuse something into the Will in the nature of an act or an habit whereby the Will is moved and excited and applyed to will or choose this or that Then the Will is determined morally when some object is proposed to it with perswasive reasons and arguments to induce it to will Where the determination is natural the liberty to suspend its act is taken away from the will but not so where the determination is moral In the former case the Will is determined extrinsecally in the later case intrinsecally The former produceth an absolute necessity the later onely a necessity of supposition
If the Will do not suspend but assent then the act is necessary but because the Will may suspend and not assent therefore it is not absolutely necessary In the former case the Will is moved necessarily and determinately In the later freely and indeterminately The former excitation is immediate the later is mediaté mediante intellectu and requires the help of the understanding In a word so great a difference there is between natural and moral efficacy as there is between his opinion and mine in this Question There remains onely the last dictate of the understanding which he maketh to be the last cause that concurreth to the determination of the Will and to the necessary production of the act as the last feather may be said to break an Horses back when there were somany laid on before that there wanted but that to do it I have shewed Numb 7. that the last dictate of the understanding is not alwaies absolute in it self nor conclusive to the Will and when it is conclusive yet it produceth no antecedent nor extrinsecal Necessity I shall only ad one thing more in present That by making the last judgement of right reason to be of no more weight then a single feather he wrongs the understanding as well as he doth the Will and endeavonrs to deprive the Will of its supreme power of application and to deprive the understanding of its supreme power of judicature and definition Neither corporeal agents and objects nor yet the sensitive appetite it self being an inferiour faculty and affixed to the Organ of the Body have any direct or immediate dominion or command over the rational Will It is without the sphear of their activity All the access which they have unto the Will is by the means of the understanding sometimes cleare and sometimes disturbed and of reason either right or mis-informed Without the help of the understanding all his second causes were not able of themselves to load the Horses back with so much weight as the least of all his feathers doth amount unto But we shall meet with his Horse load of feathers again Numb 23. These things being thus briefly touched he proceeds to his answer My argument was this If any of these â—rall these causes formerly recited do take away true liberty that is still intended from necessity then Adam before his fall had no true liberty But Adam before his fall had true liberty He mis-recites the argument and denies the consequence which is so clearly proved that no man living can doubt of it Because Adam was subjected to all the same causes as well as we the same decree the same prescience the same influences the same concourse of causes the same efficacy of objects the same dictates of reason But it is onely a mistake for it appears plainly by his following discourse that he intended to deny not the consequence but the assumption For he makes Adam to have had no liberty from necessity before his fall yea he proceeds so far as to affirm that all humane wills his and ours and each propension of our wills even during our deliberation are as much necessitated as any thing else whatsoever that we have no more power to forbear those actions which we do than the fire hath power not to burn Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning yet I must confess ingeniously I hate this Doctrine from my heart And I believe both I have reason so to do and al others who shall seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it It destroyes liberty dishonours the nature of Man It makes the second causes outward objects to be the Rackets and Men to be but the Tennis-Balls of destiny It makes the first cause that is God Almighty to be the introducer of all evil and sin into the world as much as Man yea more than Man by as much as the motion of the Watch is more from the Artificer who did make it and wind it up than either from the spring or the wheels or the thred if God by his special influence into the second causes did necessitate them to operate as they did And if they being thus determined did necessitate Adam inevitably irresistably not by an accidental but by an essential subordination of causes to whatsoever he did Then one of these two absurdities must needs follow either that Adam did not sin and that there is no such thing as sin in the world because it proceeds naturally necssarily and essentially from God Or that God is more guilty of it and more the cause of evil than Man because Man is extrinsecally inevitably determined but so is not God And in causes essentially subordinate the cause of the cause is alwaies the cause of the effect What Tyrant did ever impose Lawes that were impossible for those to keep upon whom they were imposed and punish them for breaking those Laws which he himself had necessitated them to break which it was no more in their power not to break than it is in the power of the fire not to burn Excuse me if I hate this Doctrine with a perfect hatred which is so dishonourable both to God and Man which makes Men to blaspheme of necessity to steal of necessity to be hanged of necessity and to be damned of necessity And therefore I must say and say again Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulous odi It were better to be an Atheist to believe no God or to be a Manichee to believe two Gods a God of good and a God of evil or with the Heathens to believe thirty thousand Gods than thus to charge the true God to be the proper cause and the true Author of all the sins and evills which are in the world Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XI aTHis Argument was sent forth only as an espie to make a more full discovery what were the true grounds of T. H. his supposed Necessity The Argument which he sendeth forth as an Espie is this If either the decree of God or the Fore-knowledge of God or the Influence of the Stars or the Concatenation which he saies falsly I call a Concourse of causes or the Physical or Moral Efficacy of objects or the last Dictate of the Understanding do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty In answer whereunto I said that all the things now existent were necessary to the production of the effect to come that the Fore-knowledge of God causeth nothing though the Will do that the influence of the Stars is but a small part of that cause which maketh the Necessity and that this consequence If the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect then Adam had no true liberty was false But in his words if these do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty the consequence is good but then I deny that Necessity takes away Liberty the reason
whereof which is this Liberty is to choose what we will not to choose our Will no iuculâ—ation is sufficient to make the Bishop take notice of notwithstanding he be other where so witty and here so crafty as to send out Arguments for spies The cause why I denied the consequence was that I thought the force thereof consisted in this that Necessity in the Bishops opinion destroyed Liberty b Concerning the eternal Decree of God c. Here begins his Reply From which if we take these words knowledge of Approbation Practical knowledge Heavenly Bodies act upon sublunary things not onely by their motion but also by an occult vertue which we call influence Moral efficacy General influence Special influence Infuse something into the Will The Will is moved The Will is induced to will The Will suspends its own act Which are all Non-sense unworthy of a Man nay and if a Beast could speak unworhthy of a Beast and can befal no creature whose nature is not depâ—aved by Doctrine nothing at all remaineth to be answered Perhaps the word Occult vertue is not to be taxed as unintelligible But then I may tax therein the want of ingenuity in him that had rather say that heavenly Bodies do work by an occult vertue then that they work he knoweth not how which he would not confess but endeavours to make Occult be taken for a Cause The rest of this Reply is one of those consequences which I have answered in the beginning where I compare the inconveniences of both opinions that is That either Adam did not sin or his sin proceeded necessarily from God which is no stronger a consequence than if out of this That a man is lame necessarily one should inferre That either he is not lame or that his lameness proceeded necessarily from the Will of God To the end of this Number there is nothing more of argument The place is filled up with wondering and railing â— D. FIftly If there be no Liberty there shall be no day of Numb 12. Arg. 5. Doom no last Judgement no rewards nor punishments after death A man can never make himself a criminal if he be not left at liberty to commit a crime No man can be justly punished for doing that which was not in his power to shun To take away Liberty hazards Heaven but undoubtedly it leaves no Hell T. H. THE Arguments of greatest consequence are the third and fift and fall both into one Namely If there be a necessity of all events that it will follow that praise and reprehension reward and punishment are all vain and unjust And that if God should openly forbid and secretly necessitate the same action punishing men for what they could not avoid there would be no belief among them of Heaven or Hell To oppose hereunto I must borrow an answer from St. Paul Rom. 9. ver 11. from the 11. verse of the Chapter to the 18. is laid down the very same objection in these words When they meaning Esau and Jacob were yet unborn and had done neither good nor evil That the purpose of God according to election not by works but by him that calleth might remain firm it was said to her viz. to Rebeckah that the elder shall serve the younger And what then shall we say is there injustice with God God forbid It is not-therefore in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in God that sheweth mercy For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh I have stirred thee up that I may shew my power in thee and that my Name may be set forth in all the earth Therefore whom God willeth he hath mercy on and whom he willeth he hardeneth Thus you see the case put by St. Paul is the same with that of J. D. and the same objection in these words following Thou wilt ask me thin why will God yet complain for who hath resisted his will To this therefore the Apostle answers not by denying it was Gods will or that the decree of God concerning Esau was not before he had sinned or that Esau was not necessitated to do what he did but thus Who art thou O Man that interrogatest God shall the work say to the workman why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same stuff to make one vessel to honour another to dishonour According therefore to this answer of St. Paul I answer J. D's objection and say The power of God alone without other help is sufficient Justification of any action he doth That which men make among themselves here by Pacts and Covenants and call by the name of Justice and according whereunto men are counted and tearmed rightly just and unjust is not that by which God Almighties actions are to be measured or called just no more than his counsails are to be measured by human wisedom That which he does is made just by his doing Just I say in him not alwaies just in us by the Example for a man that shall command a thing openly and plot secretly the hinderance of the same if he punish him he so commanded for not doing it is unjust So also his Counsails they be therefore not in vain because they be his whether we see the use of them or not When God afflicted Job he did object no sin to him but justified that afflicting him by telling him of his power Hast thou sayes God an arm like mine Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth and the like So our Saviour concerning the man that was born blind said it was not for his sin nor his parents sin but that the power of God might be shewn in him Beasts are subject to death and torment yet they cannot sin It was Gods will it should be so Power irresistible justifieth all actions really and properly in whomsoever it be found Less power does not And because such power is in God only he must needs be just in all his actions And we that not comprehending his Counsails call him to the Bar commit injustice in it I am not ignorant of the usual reply to this answer by distinguishing between Will and Permission As that God Almighty does indeed permit sin sometimes And that he also foreknoweth that the sin he permitteth shall be committed but does not will it nor necessitate it I know also they distinguish the action from the sin of the action saying God Almighty does indeed cause the action whatsoever action it be but not the sinfulness or irregularity of it that is the discordance between the Action and the Law Such distinctions as these dazel my understanding I find no difference between the will to have a thing done and the permission to do it when he that permitteth it can hinder it and knowes it will be done unless he hinder it Nor find I any difference between an action that is against the Law and the sin of that action As for example between the killing of Uriah and
the sin of David in killing Uriah Nor when one is cause both of the action and of the Law how another can be cause of the disagreement between them no more than how one man making a longer and shorter garment another can make the inequality that is between them This I know God cannot sin because his doing a thing makes it just and consequently no sin And because whatsoever can sin is subject to anothers Law which God is not And therefore t is blasphemy to say God can sin But to say that God can so order the world as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man I do not see how it is any dishonour to him Howsoever if such or other distinctions can make it clear that St. Paul did not think Esaus or Pharaohs actions proceeded from the will and purpose of God or that proceeding from his will could not therefore without injustice be blamed or punished I will as soon as I understand them turn unto J. D's opinion For I now hold nothing in all this Question between us but what seemeth to me not obscurely but most expresly said in this place by Saint Paul And thus much in answer to his places of Scripture J. D. T. H. thinks to kill two birds with one stone and satisfie two Arguments with one answer whereas in truth he satisfieth neither First for my third reason a Though all he say here were as true as an Oracle Though punishment were an act of dominion not of Justice in God yet this is no sufficient cause why God should deny his own act or why he should chide or expostulate with men why they did that which he himself did necessitate them to do and whereof he was the actor more than they they being but as the stone but he the hand that threw it Notwithstanding any thing which is pleaded here this Stoical opinion doth stick hypocrisie and dissimulation close to God who is Truth it self And to my fift Argument which he changeth and relateth amiss as by comparing mine with his may appear His chiefest answer is to oppose a difficult place of St. Paul Rom. 9. 11. Hath he never heard that to propose adoubt is not to answer an Argument Nec bene respondet qni litem lite resolvit But I will not pay him in his own coin Wherefore to this place alledged by him I answer The case is not the same The Question moved there is how God did keep his promise made to Abraham to be the God of him and of his seed if the Jews who were the legimate progeny of Abraham were deserted To which the Apostle answers ver 6 7 8. That that promise was not made to the carnal seed of Abraham that is the Jewes but to his spiritual Sons which were the Heirs of his Faith that is to the beleeving Christians which answer he explicateth first by the Allegory of Isaack and Ishmael and after in the place cited of Esau and of Jacob. Yet neither doth he speak there so much of their persons as of their posterities And though some words may be accommodated to Gods predestination which are there uttered yet it is not the scope of that text to treat of the reprobation of any man to Hell fire All the posterity of Esau were not eternally reprobated as holy Job and many others But this Question which is now agitated between us is quite of another nature how a man can be a criminal who doth nothing but that which he is extrinsecally necessitated to do or how God in Justice can punish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone That he who did imprint the motion in the heart of man should punish man who did only receive the impression from him So his answer looks another way But because he grounds so much upon this text that if it can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion I will examine all those passages which may seem to favour his cause First these words ver 11. being not yet borne neither having done any good or evil upon which the whole weight of his argument doth depend have no reference at all to those words ver 13. Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated for those words were first uttered by the Prophet Malachy many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead Mal. 1. 2. and intended of the posterity of Esau who were not redeemed from captivity as the Israelites were But they are referred to those other words ver 12. The elder shall serve the younger which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were Born Gen. 5. 23. And though those words of Malachy had been used of Jacob and Esau before they were Born yet it had advantaged his cause nothing for hatred in that text doth not signifie any reprobation to the flames of Hell much less the execution of that decree or the actual imposition of punishment nor any act contrary to love God saw all that he had made and it was very good Goodness it self cannot hate that which is good But hatred there signifies Comparative hatred or a less degree of love or at the most a negation of love As Gen. 29. 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated we may not conclude thence that Jocob hated his Wife The precedent verse doth fully expound the sense ver 30. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah So Mat. 6. 24. No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and lóve the other So Luke 14. 26. If any man hate not his Father and Mother c. he cannot be my Disciple St. Matthew tells us the sense of it Mat. 10. 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me Secondly those words ver 15. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy do prove no more but this that the preferring of Jacob before Esau and of the Christians before the Jewes was not a debt from God either to the one or to the other but a work of mercy And what of this All men confess that Gods mercies do exceed mans deserts but Gods punishments do never exceed mans misdeeds As we see in the Parable of the Labourers Matth. 20. Friend I do the no wrong did not I agree with thee for a penny Is it not lawful for me to do with mine own as I will Is thy eye evil because I am good Acts of mercy are free but acts of Justice are due That which followes ver 17. comes something nearer the cause The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh for this same purpose I have raised the up that is I have made thee a King or I have preserved thee that I might shew my power in thee But this particle that doth not alwaies signifie the main end of an action but sometimes only a consequent of it As Matt. 2. 15. He departed into Egypt that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
of his in his Book de Cive cap. 6. pag. 70. ascribes to power respectively irresistible or to Soveraign Magistrates whose power he makes to be as absolute as a mans power is over himself not to be limitted by any thing but onely by their strength The greatest propugners of Soveraign power think it enough for Princes to challenge an immunity from coercive power but acknowledge that the Law hath a directtive power over them But T. H. will have no limits but their strength Whatsoever they do by power they do justly But saith he God objected no sin to Job but justified his afflicting him by his power First this is an Argument from authority negatively that is to say worth nothing Secondly the afflictions of Job were no vindicatory punishments to take vengeance of his sins whereof we dispute but probarory chasstisements to make triall of his graces Thirdly Iob was not so pure but that God might justly have laid greater punishments upon him than those afflictions which he suffered Witness his impatience even to the cursing of the day of his nativity Job 3. 3. Indeed God said to Job where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth Job 38. 4. that is how canst thou judge of the things that were done before thou wast born or comprehend the secret causes of my judgements And Job 42. 9. Hast thou an arm like God As if he should say why art thou impatient doest thou think thy self able to strive with God But that God should punish Job without desert here is not a word Concerning the blind man mentioned John 9. his blindness was rarher a blessing to him than a punishment being the means to raise his Soul illuminated and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with Ants and Flies but the sight of the soul with the blessed Angels We read of some who have put out their bodily eyes because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the Soul Again neither he nor his parents were innocent being conceived and born in sin and iniquity Psal. 51. 5. And in many things we offend all Jam. 3. 2. But our Saviours meaning is evident by the Disciples question ver 2. They had not so sinned that he should be born blind Or they were not more grievous sinners than other men to deserve an examplary judgment more than they but this corporal blindness befel him principally by the extraordinary providence of God for the manifestation of his own glory in restoring him to his sight So his instance halts on both sides neither was this a punishment nor the blind man free from sin His third instance of the death and torments of Beasts is of no more weight than the two former The death of brute Beasts is not a punishment of sin but a debt of nature And though they be often slaughtered for the use of man yet there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell between the meer depriving of a creature of remporal life and the subjecting of it to eternal death I know the Philosophical speculations of some who affirme that entity is better than non-entity that it is better to be miserable and suffer the tormenss of the damned than to be annihilated and cease to be altogether This entity which they speak of is a Metaphysical entity abstracted from the matter which is better than non-entity in respect of some goodness not moral nor natural but trancendental which accompanies every being But in the concrete it is far otherwise where that of our Saviour often takes place Mat. 26. 24. Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed It had been good for that man that he had not been born I add that there is an Analogical Juctice and Mercy due even to the brute Beasts Thou shalâ— not musâ—â—e the mouth of the Oxe that treadeth out the corn And a just man is merciful to his Beast f But his greatest errour is that which I touched before to make Justice to be the proper result of Power Power doth not measure and regulate Justice but Justice measures and regulates Power The Will of God and the Eternal Law which is in God himself is properly the rule and measure of Justice As all goodness whether Natural or Moral is a participation of divine goodness and all created Rectitude is but a participation of divine Rectitude so all Lawes are but participations of the eternall Law from whence they derive their power The rule of Justice then is the same both in God and us but it is in God as in him that doth regulate and measure in us as in those who are regulated and measured As the Will of God is immutable alwayes willing what is just and right and good So his justice likewise is immutable And that individual action which is justly punished as sinful in us cannot possibly proceed from the special influence and determinative power of a just cause See then how grossely T. H. doth understand that old and true principle that the Will of God is the rule of Justice as if by willing things in themselves unjust he did render them just by reason of his absolute dominion and irresistible power as fire doth assimilate other things to it self and convert them into the nature of fire This were to make the eternal Law a Lesbian rule Sin is defined to be that which is done or said or thought contrary to the eternall Law But by this doctrine nothing is done nor said nor thought contrary to the Will of God St. Anselm said most truly then the will of man is good and just and right when he wills that which God would have him to will but according to this doctrine every man alwayes wills that which God would have him to will If this be true we need not pray Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven T. H. hath devised a new kind of heaven upon earth The worst is it is an heaven without Justice Justice is a constant and perpetual act of the Will to give every one his own But to inflict punishment for those things which the Judge himself did determine and necessitate to be done is not to give every one his own right punitive Justice is a relation of equallity and proportion between the demerit and the punishment But supposing this opinion of absolute and universal necessity there is no demerit in the World we use to say that right springs from Law and Fact as in this Syllogism Every thief ought to be punished there 's the Law But such an one is a thief there 's the Fact therefore he ought to be punished there 's the right But this opinion of T. H. grounds the right to be punished neither upon Law nor upon Fact but upon the irresistible power of God Yea it overturneth as much as in
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
he shall have to morrow or an hower or any time after Intervening occasions business which the Bishop calls trifles Trifles of which the Bishop maketh here a great business to change the Will No man can say what he will do to morrow unless he foreknow which no man can what shall happen before to morrow And this being the substance of my opinion it must needs be that when he deduceth from it that Counsells Arts Armes Medicines Teachers Praise Prayer and Piety are in vain that his deduction is false and his ratiocination fallacy And though I need make no other answer to all that he can object against me yet I shall here mark out the causes of his several Parologismes Those Lawes he saith are unjust and tyrannical which do prescribe things absolutly impossible to be done and punish men for not doing of them In which words this is one absurdity that a Law can be unjust for all Lawes are Divine or Civil neither of which can be unjust Of the first there is no doubt And as for Civil Lawes they are made by every man that is subject to them because every one of them consenteth to the placing of the Legislative Power Another is this in the same words that he supposeth there may be Lawes that are not Tyrannical for if he that maketh them have the soveraign Power they may be Regal but not Tyrannical if Tyrant signifie not King as he thinks it doth not Another is in the same words that a Law may prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done When he sayes impossible in themselves he understands not what himself means Impossible in themselves are contradictions onely as to be and not to be at the same time which the Divines say is not possible to God All other things are possible at least in themselves Raising from the dead changing the course of nature making of a new Heaven and a new Earth are things possible in themselves for there is nothing in their nature able to resist the Will of God and if Laws do not prescribe such things why should I believe they prescribe other things that are more impossible Did he ever readin Suarez of any Tyrant that made a Law commanding any man to do and not to do the same Action or to be and not to be at the same place in one and the same moment of time But out of the doctrine of Necessity it followeth he sayes that all Lawes do prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done Here he has left out in themselves which is a wilfull Fallacy He further sayes that Just Lawes are the Ordinances of right Reason which is an error that hath cost many thousands of men their lives Was there ever King that made a Law which in right reason had been better unmade and shall those Lawes therefore not be obeyed shall we rather rebell I think not though I am not so great a Divine as he I think rather that the Reason of him that hath the Soveraign Authority and by whose Sword we look to be protected both against war from abroad and injuries at home whether it be Right or Erronious in it seslf ought to stand for Right to us that have submitted our selves thereunto by receiving the protection But the Bishop putteth his greatest confidence in this that whether the things be impossible in themselves or made impossible by some unseen accident yet there is no reason that men should be punished for not doing them It seemes he taketh punishment for a kind of revenge and can never therefore agree with me that take it for nothing else but for a correction or for an example which hath for end the framing and necessitating of the Will to virtue and that he is no good man that upon any provocation useth his power though a power lawfully obtained to afflict another man without this end to reforme the will of him or others Nor can I comprehend as having onely humane Idea's that that punishment which neither intendeth the correction of the offender nor the correction of others by example doth proceed from God b He saith that no Law can possibly be unjust c. Against this he replies that the Law of Pharaoh to drown the Male Children of the Israelites and of Nebuckadnezxar to worship the golden Image and of Darius against praying to any but him in thirty dayes and of Ahashuerosh to destroy the Jewes and of the Pharisees to excommunicate the confessors of Christ were all unjust Lawes The Lawes of these Kings as they were Lawes have relation onely to the men that were their subjects And the making of them which was the action of every one of those Kings who were subjects to another King namely to God Almighty had relation to the Law of God In the first relation there could be no injustice in them because all Laws made by him to whom the people had given the Legislative Power are the Acts of every one of that people and no man can do injustice to himself But in relation to God if God have by a Law forbidden it the making of such Lawes is injustice Which Law of God was to those Heathen Princes no other but salus populi that is to say the properest use of their natural reason for the preservation of their subjects If therefore those Lawes were ordained out of wantonness or cruelty or envy or for the pleasing of a Favorite or out of any other sinister end as it seemes they were the making of those Lawes was unjust But if in right Reason they were necessary for the preservation of those people of whom they had undertaken the charge then was it not unjust And for the Pharisees who had the same written Law of God that we have their excommunication of the Christians proceeding as it did from envy was an Act of malicious injustice If it had proceeded from misinterpretation of their own Scriptures it had been a sin of ignorance Nevertheless as it was a Law to their subjects in case they had the Legislative Power which I doubt of the Law was not unjust But the making of it was an unjust action of which they were to give account to none but God I fear the Bishop will think this discourse too subtile but the judgement is the Readers c The ground of this error c. is this That every man makes by his consent the Law which he is bound to keep c. The reason why he thinketh this an error is because the positive Law of God conteined in the Bible is a Law with out our assent the Law of Nature was written in our hearts by the finger of God without our assent the Lawes of Conquerours who come in by the power of the Sword were made without our assent and so were the Lawes of our Ancestors which were made before we were born It is a strange thing that he that understands the non-sense of the Schoolmen should not be able to
It may be he will say he has done it in calling them Annalogical yet for any thing that can be understood thereby he might have called them Paragogical or Typical or Topical if he had pleased He adds further that whereas he had said that the action of Bees and Spiders were done without consultation by meer instinct of nature and by a determination of their fancies I missaleadge him and say he made their individuall Actions necessary I have onely this to answer that seeing he sayes that by instinct of nature their fancies were determined to special kinds of works I might justly inferre they were determined every one of them to some work and every work is an individual action for a kind of work in the general is no work But these their individual actions he saith are contingent and therefore not necessary which is no good consequence for if he mean by contingent that which has no cause he speaketh not as a Christian but maketh a Deity of Fortune which I verily think he doth not But if he mean by it that whereof he knoweth not the cause the consequence is naught The means whereby Setting-dogs and Coy-ducks and Parats are taught to do what they do is by their backs by their bellies by the rod or by the morsell which have indeed a shaddow or resemblance of rewards and punishments But we take the word here properly not as it is used by vulgar plople but as it is used by Divines and Philosophers c. Does not the Bishop know that the Belly hath taught Poets and Historians and Divines and Philosophers and Artificers their several Arts as well as Parrats Do not men do their duty with regard to their backs to their necks and to their morsells as well as Setting-dogs Coy-ducks and Parrats Why then are these things to us the substance and to them but the shadow or resemblance of rewards or punishments p When brute creatures do learn any such qualities it is not out of judgement or deliberation or discourse by inferring or concluding one thing from another which they are not capable of neither are they able to conceive a reason of what they do c. but they remember that when they did after one manner they were beaten and when they did after another manner they were cherished and accordingly they apply themselves If the Bishop had considered the cogitations of his own mind not then when he disputeth but then when he followed those businesses which he calleth trifles he would have found them the very same which he here mentioneth saving instead of beating because he is exempt from that he is to put in dammage For setting aside the discourse of the tongue in words of general signification the Idea's of our minds are the same with those of other living creatures created from Visible Audible and other sensible objects to the eyes and other Organs of sence as theirs are For as the objects of sense are all individual that is singular so are all the fancies proceeding from their operations and men reason not but in words of universal signification uttered or tacitely thought on But perhaps he thinketh remembrance of words to be the Idea's of those things which the words signifie and that all fancies are not effected by the operation of Objects upon the Organs of our senses But to rectifie him in those points is greater labour unless he had better principles than I am willing or have at this timâ— leasure to undergo Lastly whereas he sayes if their Individual actions were absolutely necessary Fear or Hope could not alter them That 's true For it is Fear and Hope that makes them necessarily what they are J. D. THirdly let this opinion be once radicated in the minds Numb 15. Arg. 3. of men that there is no true liberty and that all things come to pass inevitably and it will utterly destroy the study of Piety Who will bewaile his sins with tears what will become of that Grief that Zeal that Indignation that holy Revenge which the Apostle speaks of if men be once throughly perswaded that they could not shun what they did A man may grieve for that which he could not help but he will never be brought to bewaile that as his own fault which flowed not from his own errour but from antecedent necessity Who will be careful or sollicitous to performe obedience that beleeveth there are inevitable bounds and limits set to all his devotions which he can neither go beyond nor come short of To what end shall he pray God to avert those evils which are inevitable or to confer those favours which are impossible We indeed know not what good or evill shall happen to us but this we know that if all things be necessary our devotions and endeavours cannot alter that which must be In a word the onely reason why those persons who tread in this path of fatal destiny do sometimes pray or repent or serve God is because the light of nature and the strength of reason and the evidence of Scripture do for that present transport them from their ill chosen grounds and expell those Stoical fancies out of their heads A compleate Stoick can neither pray nor repent nor serve God to any purpose Either allow liberty or destroy Church as well as Commonwealth Religion as well as Policy T. H. HIs third Argument consisteth in other inconveniences which he saith will follow namely impiety and negligence of Religious duties Repentance and zeal to Gods service To which I answer as to the rest that they follow not I must confess if we consider the far greatest part of mankind not as they should be but as they are that is as men whom either the study of acquiring wealth or preferments or whom the apperite of sensual delights or the impatience of meditating or the rash imbracing of wrong principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things that the dispute of this question will rather hurt than help their piety And therefore if he had not desired this answer I would not have written it Nor do I write it but in hope your Lordship and he will keep it private Nevertheless in very truth the necessity of events does not of it self draw with it any impiety at all For piety consisteth onely in two things One that we honour God in our hearts which is that we think of his power as highly as we can for to honour any thing is nothing else but to think it to be of great power The other that we signifie that honour and esteem by our words and actions which is called cultus or worship of God He therefore that thinketh that all things proceed from Gods Eternal Will and consequently are necessary does he not think God Omnipotent does he not esteem of his power as highly as is possible which is to honour God as much as can be in his heart Again he that thinketh so is he not more apt by external
acts and words to acknowledge it than he that thinketh otherwise Yet is this external acknowledgement the same thing which we call Worship So this opinion fortifieth piety in both kinds externally and internally and therefore is far from destroying it And for Repentance which is nothing but a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way though the cause that made him go astray were necessary yet there is no â—…ason why he should not grieve and again though the cause â—…hy he returned into the way were necessary there remaines still the causes of joy So that the necessity of the actions taketh away neither of those parts of repentance grief for the errour nor joy for the returning And for Prayer whereas he saith that the necessity of things destroyes prayer I deny it For though prayer be none of the causes that moove Gods Will his Will being unchangeable yet since we find in Gods Word he will not give his blessings but to those that ask them the motive to prayer is the same Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessings And the prayer is decreed together in the same decree wherein the blessing is decreed T is manifest that thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past And that which is past is sure and necessary Yet even amongst men thanks is in use as an acknowledgement of the benefit past though we should expect no new benefit for our gratitude And prayer to God Almighty is but thanksgiving for his blessings in general and though it precede the particular thing we ask yet it is not a cause or means of it but a signification that we expect nothing but from God in such manner as he not as we will And our Saviour by word of mouth bids us pray Thy will not our will be done and by example teaches us the same for he prayed thus Father if it be thy will let this cup pass c. The end of prayer as of thanksgiving is not to move but to honour God Almighty in acknowledging that what we ask can be effected by him onely J. D. I Hope T. H. will be perswaded in time that it is not the Covetousness or Ambition or Sensuallity or Sloth or Prejudice of his Readers which renders this doctrine of absolute necessity dangerous but that it is in its own nature destructive to true godliness a And though his answer consist more of oppositions than of solutions yet I will not willingly leave one grain of his matter unweighed b First he erres in making inward piety to consist meerly in the estimation of the judgement If this were so what hinders but that the Devils should have as much inward piety as the best Christians for they esteem Gods power to be infinite and tremble Though inward piety do suppose the act of the understanding yet it consisteth properly in the act of the will being that branch of Justice which gives to God the honour which is due unto him Is there no Love due to God no Faith no Hope Secondly he erres in making inward piety to ascribe no glory to God but onely the glory of his Power or Omnipotence What shall become of all other the divine Attributes and particularly of his Goodness of his Truth of his Justice of his Mercy which beget a more true and sincere honour in the heart than greatness it self Magnos facile laudamus bonos lubenter Thirdly this opinion of absolute necessity destroyes the truth of God making him to command one thing openly and to necessitate another privately to chide a man for doing that which he hath determined him to do to profess one thing and to intend another It destroyes the goodness of God making him to be an hater of mankind and to delight in the torments of his creatures whereas the very doggs licked the sores of Lazarus in pitty and commiseration of him It destroyes the Justice of God making him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act which they had no more powerto shun than the fire hath power not to burn It destroyes the very power of God making him to be the true Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world These are the fruits of Impotence not of Omnipotence He who is the effective cause of sin either in himself or in the Creature is not Almighty There needs no other Devil in the world to raise jealousies and suspitions between God and his creatures or to poyson mankind with an apprehension that God doth not love them but onely this opinion which was the office of the Serpent Gen. 3. 5. Fourthly for the outward worship of God e How shall a man praise God for his goodness who believes him to be a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault to express his power How shall a man hear the word of God with that reverence and devotion and faith which is requisite who believeth that God causeth his Gospel to be preached to the much greater part of Christians not with any intention that they should be converted and saved but meerly to harden their hearts and to make them inexcusable How shall a man receive the blessed Sacrament with comfort and confidence as a Seal of Gods love in Christ who believeth that so many millions are positively excluded from all fruit and benefit of the passions of Christ before they had done either good or evil How shall he prepare himself with care and conscience who apprehendeth that Eating and Drinking unworthily is not the cause of damnation but because God would damn a man therefore he necessitates him to eat and drink unworthily How shall a man make a free vow to God without grosse ridiculous hypocrisie who thinks he is able to pâ—rform nothing but as he is extrinsecally necessitated Fiftly for Repentance how shall a man condemn and accuse himself for his sins who thinks himself to be like a Watch which is wound up by God and that he can go neither longer nor shorter faster nor slower truer nor falser than he is ordered by God If God sets him right he goes right If God set him wrong he goes wrong How can a man be said to return into the right way who never was in any other way but that which God himself had chalked out for him What is his purpose to amend who is destitute of all power but as if a man should purpose to fly without wings or a beggar who hath not a groat in his purse purpose to build Hospitals We use to say admit one absurdity and a thousand will follow To maintain this unreasonable opinion of absolute necessity he is necessitated but it is hypothetically he might change his opinion if he would to deal with all ancient Writers as the Goths did with the Romans who destroyed all their magnificent works that there might remain no monument of their greatness upon
the Word of God with that reverence and devotion and faith which is requisite who beleeveth that God causeth his Gospel to be preached to the much greater part of Christians not with any intention that they should be converted and saved c. I answer that those men who so beleeve have Faith in Jesus Christ or they have not Faith in him If they have then shall they by that faith hear the Word of God with that reverence and devotion and faith which is requisite to salvation And for them that hath no faith I do not think he asketh how they shall hear thâ— Word of God with that reverence and devotion and faith which is requisite for he knowes they shall not till such time as God shall have given them faith Also he mistakes if he think that I or any other Christian beleeve that God intendeth by hardening any mans heart to make that man inexcusable but to make his Elect the more careful Likewise to his question How shall a man receave the Sacrament with comfort who beleeveth that so many millions are positively excluded from the benefit of Christs Passion before they had done either good or evil I answer as before by Faith if he be of Gods Elect if not he shall not receave the Sacrament with comfort I may answer also that the Faithful man shall receave the Sacrament with comfort by the same way that the Bishop receaveth it with comfort For he also beleeveth that many millions are excluded from the benefit of Christs Passion whether positively or not positively is nothing to the purpose nor doth positively signifie any thing in this place and that so long before they had either done good or evil as it was known to God before they were born that they were so excluded To his How shall he prepare himself with care and conscience who apprehendeth that eating and drinking unworthily is not the cause of damnation but because God would damn a man therefore he necessitates him I answer that he that eateth and drinketh unworthily does not beleeve that God necessitates him to Eat and Drink unworthily because he would damn him for neither does he think he Eats and Drinks unworthily nor that God intends to damn him for he beleeveth no such damnation nor intendeth any preparation The beleef of damnation is an Article of Christian faith so is also preparation to the Sacrament T is therefore a vain question how he thaet hath no faith shall prepare himself with care and conscience to the receiving of the Sacrament But to the question how they shall prepare themselves that shall at all prepare themselves I answer it shall be by Faith when God shall give it them To his How shall a man make a free vow to God who thinks himself able to perform nothing but as he is extrinsecally necessitated I answer that if he make a vow it is a Free vow or else it is no vow and yet he may know when he hath made that vow though not before that it was extrinsecally nocessitated for the necessity of vowing before he vowed hindered not the Freedome of his Vow but made it Lastly to How shall a man condemn and accuse himself for his sins who thinks himself to be like a Watch which is wound up by God c. I answer though he think himself necessitated to what he shall do yet if he do not think himself necessitated and wound up to impenitence there will follow upon his opinion of necessity no impedment to his repentance The Bishop disputeth not against me but against sombody that holds a man may repent that beleeves at the same time he cannot repent 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 I could never be of opinion that Christian repentance could be ascribed to them that had as yet no intention to forsake their sins and to lead a new life He that grieves for the evil that hath happened to him for his sins but hath not a resolution to obey Gods Commandements better for the time to come grieveth for his sufferings but not for his doings which no Divine I think will call Christian Repentance but he that resolveth upon ameudment of life knoweth that there is forgiveness for him in Christ Jesus whereof a Christian cannot possibly be but glad Before this gladness there was a grief preparative to Repentance but the Repentance it self was not Christian Repentance till this Conversion till this glad Conversion Therefore I see no reason why it should amaze him to find gladness to be the first word in the description of Repentance saving that the light amazeth such as have been long in darkness And for the Fasting Sackcloth and Ashes they were never parts of Repentance perfâ—cted but signes of the beginning of it They are external things Repentance is internal This Doctrine pertaineth to the establishing of Romish Penance and being found to conduce to the power of the Clergy was by them wished to be restored g It is a returning but whose act is this returning If it be Gods alone then it is his Repentance not mans Repentance what need the penitent person trouble himself about it This is ill argued for why is it Gods Repentance when he gives man Repentance more than it is Gods Faith when he gives man Faith But he labours to bring in a concurrence of Mans Will with Gods Will and a power in God to give Repentance if man will take it but not the Power to make him take it This concurrence he thinks is proved by Revel 3. 19. Be zealous and repent behold I stand at the door and knock If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him Here is nothing of concurrence nor of any thing eqvivalent to it nor mention at all of the Will or Purpose but of the calling or voice by the Minister And as God giveth to the Minister a Power of perswading so he giveth also many times a concurrence of the Auditor with the Minister in being perswaded Here is therefore somewhat equivalent to a concurrence with the Minister that is of man with man but nothing of the concurrence of man whose Will God frameth as he pleaseth with God that frameth it And I wonder how any man can conceive when God giveth a man a Will to do any thing whatsoever how that Will when it is not can concurre with Gods Will to make it selfe be The next thing he excepteth against is this that I hold h That prayer is not a cause nor a means of Gods blessing but onely a signification that we expect it from him First instead of my words a signification that we expect nothing but from him he hath put a signification that we expect it from him There is much
innocent person that good may come of it And if his opinion of absolute necessity of all things were true the destinies of men could not be altered either by examples or fear of punishment Animadversions upon the Reply Numb XVII WHereas he had in his first discourse made this consequence If you take away Liberty you take away the very nature of evil and the formal reason of sin I denied that consequence It is true he who taketh away the Liberty of doing according to the will taketh away the nature of sin but he that denieth the Liberty to Will does not so But he supposing I understood him not will needs reduce his argument into form in this manner a That opinion which takes away the formal reason of sin and by consequence Sin â—t self is not to be approved This is granted But the opinion of necessity doth this This I deny He proves it thus This opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause But whatsoever proceedes essentially by way of Physical determination from the first cause is Good and Just and Lawfull Therefore this opinion of necessity maketh sin to be very Good Just and Lawfull He might as well have concluded whatsoever man hath been made by God is a good and just man He observeth not that sin is not a thing really made Those things which at first were actions were not thâ—n sins though actions of the same nature with those which were afterwards sins nor was then the will to any thing a sin though it were a will to the same thing which in willing now we should sin Actions became sins then first when the commandement came for as St. Paul saith Without the Law sin is dead and sin being but a transgression of the Law there can be no action made sin but by the Law Therefore this opinion though it derive actions essentially from God it derives not sins essentially from him but relatively and by the Commandement And consequently the opinion of necessity taketh not away the nature of sin but necessitateth that action which the Law hath made sin And whereas I said the nature of sin consisteth in this that it is an action proceeding from our will and against the Law he alloweth it for true and therefore he must allow also that the formal reason of sin lieth not in the Liberty or necessity of willing but in the will it self necessary or unnecessary in relation to the Law And whereas he limits this truth which he allowed to this that the Law be just and the will a Free rational Will it serves to no purpose for I have shown before that no Law can be unjust And it seemeth to me that a rationall Will if it be not meant of a Will after deliberation whether he that deliberateth reasoneth aright or not signifieth nothing A rational man is rightly said but a rational Will in other sense then I have mentioned is insignificant b But supposing as he doth that the Law injoynes things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrannical Law and the transgression of it no sin c. And supposing likewise as he doth that the Will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause then it is not mans Will but Gods Will. He mistakes me in this For I say not the Law injoyns things impossible in themselves for so I should say it injoyned contradictories But I say the Law sometimes the Law-makers not knowing the secret necessities of things to come injoynes things made impossible by secret and extrinsicall causes from all eternity From this hâ—s error he infers that the Laws must be unjust and Tyrannical and the transgression of them no sin But he who holds that Laws can be unjust and Tyrannical will easily find pretence enough under any Government in the World to deny obedience to the Laws unlesse they be such as he himself maketh or adviseth to be made He says also that I suppose the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause It is true saving that senselesse word Influence which I never used But his consequence then it is not mans Will but Gods will is not true for it may be the Will both of the one and of the other and yet not by concurrence as in a league but by subjection of the will of man to the Will of God c That which he adds of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civil Judge the proper Judge nor the Law of the Land a proper Rule of sin A Judge is to judge of voluntary crimes He has no commission to look into the secret causes that make it voluntary An because the Bishop had said the Law cannot justly punish a crime that proceedeth from necessity it was no impertinent answer to say the Judge lookes at no higher cause then the Will of the Doer And even this as hâ— sayeth is enough to proove that the Will of the Doer did determine it self freely and that the Malefactor had liberty to have kept the Law if he would To which I answer that it proves indeed that the Malefactor had Liberty to have kept the Law if hâ— would but it proveth not that he had the Liberty to have a Will to keep the Law Nor doth it prove that the Will of the Doer dâ—d determine it self freely for nothing can prove non-sence But here you see what the Bishop pâ—â—sueth in this whole Reply namely to prove that a man hath Liberty to do if he will which I deny not and thinks when he hath done that he hath proved a man hath Liberty to Will which he calles the Wills determining of it self freely And whereas he adds a Judge ought to look at all essential causes It is answer enough to say he is bound to look at no more then hee thinks he can see d Nature never intends the generation of a Monster If all the causes concur sufficiently a perfect creature is produced but by reason of the insufficiency or debility or contingent aberration of some of the causes sometimes a Monster is produced He had no sooner said this but finding his error he retracteth it and confesseth that the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is of a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced Which is all that I intended by sufficiency of the cause But whether every suffâ—â—â—â—nt cause be a necessary cause or not he meaneth to examine in Numb 31. In the meane time he saith onely that Liberty flows from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause and leaves out necessity as if it came from neither I must note also that where he says Nature never intends the generation of a Monster I understand not whether by nature he meane the Author of Nature in which meaning it derogates from God or nature it self as
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
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
a man ought not to follow the dictate of the understanding when it is erroneous b Of which I gave then three reasons one was that actions may be so equally circumstantiated that reason cannot give a positive sentence but leaves the election to liberty or chance To this he answers not a word There was no need of answer for he hath very often in this discourse contradicted it himself in that he maketh Reason to be the true root of liberty and men to have more or lesse liberty as they have more or lesse Reason How then can a man leave that to liberty when his Reason can give no sentence And for his leaving it to chance if by chance he mean that which hath no causes he destroyeth Providence and if he mean that which hath causes but unknown to us he leaveth it to necessity Besides it is false that actions may be so equally circumstantiated that Reason cannot give a positive sentence For though in the things to be elected there may be an exact equality yet there may be circumstances in him that is to elect to make him resolve upon that of the two which he considereth for the present and to break of all further deliberation for this cause that he must not to use his own instance by spending time in vain apply neither of the plaisters which the Chirurgion gives him to his wound Another of his reasons was because Reason doth not weigh every individual action to the uttermost grain True But does it therefore follow a man gives no sentence The Wil therefore may follow the dictate of the judgment whether the man weigh or not weigh all that might be weighed His third reason was because Passions and Affections sometime prevail against Judgment I consesse they prevail often against Wisdome which is it he means here by Judgment But they prevail not against the dictate of the understanding which he knows is the meaning of Judgment in this place And the Wil of a passionate and peevish fool doth no lesse follow the dictate of that little understanding he hath then the Wil of the wisest man followeth his wisedome c He explaineth the sense of the assertion by the comparison of the last feather wherewith he seems to be delighted seeing he useth it now the second time But let him like it as he Wil it is improper for three Reasons To me this comparison seemeth very proper and therefore I made no scruple though not much delighted with it as being no new comparison to use it again when there was need again For in the examination of truth I search rather for perspicuity then elegance But the Bishop with his School terms is far from perspicuity How neer he is to elegence I shall not forget to examine in due time But why is this comparison improper First because the determination of the Judgment is no part of the weight for the understanding weigheth all things Objects Means Circumstances Convenience Inconvenience but it self is not weighed In this comparison the Objects Means c. are the weights the man is the scale the understanding of a Convenience or Inconvenience is the pressure of those weights which incline him now one way now another and that inclination is the Wil. Again the Objects Means c. are the feathers that presse the Horse the feeling of that pressure is understanding and his patience or impatience the Wil to bear them if not too many or if too many to lye down under them T is therefore to little purpose that he saith the understanding is not weighed Secondly he says the comparison is improper because ordinarily the Means Circumstances and Causes concurrent have their whole weight from the understanding so as they do not presse the Horses back at all until Reason lay them on This and that which followeth that my Objects Agents Motives Passions and all my concurrent Causes ordinarily do onely move the Will morally not determine it naturally so as it hath in all ordinary actions a Free dominion over it self is all non sense for no man can understand that the understanding maketh any alteration in the Object in Weight or lightnesse nor that Reason lays on Objects upon the understanding nor that the Wil is moved nor that any motion is moral nor that these Words the Wil hath a Free dominion over it self signifie any thing With the rest of this Reply I shall trust the Reader and onely note the last Words where he makes me say Repentance hath causes and therefore it is not voluntary but I said repentance hath causes and that it is not voluntary he chops in and therefore and makes an absurd consequence which he would have the Reader believe was mine and then câ—nâ—utes it with these senselesse words Free effects have Free causes necessary effects necessary causes Voluntary effects have sometimes Free sometimes necessary causes Can any man but a Schoolman think the Wil is voluntary But yet the Wil is the cause of voluntary actions J. D. FIftly and lastly the Divine labours to find out a way how Num. 24. liberty may consist with the prescience and decrees of God But of this I had not very long since occasion to write a full discourse in answer to a Treatise against the prescience of things contingent I shall for the present only repeat these two things First we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner God should be but a poor God if we were able perfectly to comprehend all his Actions and Attributes Secondly in my poor judgment which I ever do and ever shall submit to better the readiest way to reconcile Contingence and Liberty with the decrees and prescience of God and most remote from the altercations of these times is to subject future contingents to the aspect of God according to that presentiality which they have in eternity Not that things future which are not yet existent are co-existent with God but because the infinite knowledge of God incircling all times in the point of eternity doth attain to their future Being from whence proceeds their objective and intelligible Being The main impediment which keeps men from subscribing to this way is because they conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession and not one indivisible point But if they consider that whatsoever is in God is God That there are no accidents in him for that which is infinitely perfect cannot be further perfected That as God is not wise but Wisedom it self not just but Justice it self so he is not eternal but Eternity it self They must needs conclude that therefore this eternity is indivisible because God is indivisible and therefore not successive but altogether an infinite point comprehending all times within it self T. H. THE last part of this discourse conteineth his opinion about reconciling Liberty with the Prescience and Decrees of God otherwise than some Divines have done against whom he had formerly written a
whence this dammage proceeded to his neighbour Lastly there is great difference between the first motions which sometimes are not in our power and subsequent acts of killing or stealing or the liâ—â— which alwayes are in our power if we have the use of râ—â—soâ— or else it is our own fault that they are not in our power Yet to such hasty acts done in hot blood the Law is not so severe as to those which are done upon long deliberation and prepensed malice unless as I said there be some mixture of publick Justice in it He that steals an Horse deliberately may be more punishable by the Law than he that kills the owner by Chance-medley Yet the death of the owner was more noâ—ious to use his phrase and more dammageable to the family than the stealth of the Horse So far was T. H. mistaken in that also that the right to kill men doth proceed meerly from their being noxious Numb 14. Animadversions upon the Bishops Answer to my opinion about Liberty and Necessity Numb XXV a EVen now he tells us that a man may have time to deliberate yet not deliberate By and by he saith that no action of a man though never so sudden can be said to be without deliberation He thinks he hath here oatcht me in a contradiction But he is mistaken and the cause is that he observed not that there may be a difference between deliberation and that which shall be constrâ—ed for deliberation by a Judge For a man may do â— rush ast suddenly without deliberation yet because he ought to have deliberated and had time enough to deliberate whether the action were Lawful or not it shall not be said by the Judge that it was without deliberation who supposeth that after the Law known all the time following was time of deliberation It is therefore â—o contradiction to say a man deliberates not and that he shall be said to deliberate by him that is the Judge of volâ—ntary actions b Again where he says he maketh Voluntary and Spontaneous to be alone wher as before he had told us that every Spontaneous Action is not Voluntary because indeliberate Nor every Voluntary Action Spontaneous if it proceed from fear He thinks he hath espied another contradiction It is no wonder if speaking of Spontaneous which signifieth nothing else in Latin for English it is not but that which is done deliberately or indeliberately without compulsion I seem to the Bishâ—p who hath never given any definition of that word not to use it as he would have me And t is easy for him to give it any signification he please as the occasion shall serve to charge me with contradiction In what sense I have used that word once in the same I have used it alwayes calling that Spontaneous which is without co-action or compulsion by tenrour c Now he tells us that those actions which follow the last Appetite are Voluntary and where there is onâ— onely Appetite that 's the last But before he told â—s that Voluntary presupposeth some precedent deliberation and meditation of what is likely to follow both upon the doing and abstaining from the Action This is a third contradiction he supposeth he hath found but is again mistaken For when men are to judge of actions whether they be Voluntary or not they cannot call that action Voluntary which followed not the last Appetite But the same men though there were no deliberation shall judge there was because it ought to have been and that from the time that the Law was known to the time of the action it self And therefore both are true that Voluntary may be without and yet presupposed in the Law not to be without deliberation d He defines Liberty Numb 29. to be the absence of all extrinsical impediments to action And yet in his whole discourse he laboureth to make good that whatsoever is not done is therefore not done because the Agent was necessitated by extrinsecal causes not to do it Are not extrinsecal causes which determine him not to do it extrinsecal impediments to Action This definition of Liberty that it is the absence of all extrinsecal impediments to action he thinkes he hath sufficiently confuted by asking whether the extrinsecal causes which determine a man not to do an action be not extrinsecal impediments to action It seems by his question he makes no doubt but they are but is deceived by a too shallow consideration of what the word Impediment signiâ—eth For Impediment or hinderance signifieth an opposition to endeavour And therefore if a man be necessitated by extrinsecal causes not to endeavour an action those causes do â—ot oppose his endeavour to do it because he has no such endeavour to be opposed and consequently extrinsecal causes that take away endeavour are not to be called impediments nor can any man be said to be hundred from doing that which he had no purpose at all to do So that this objection of his proceedeth onely from this that he understandeth not sufficiently the English Tongue From the same proceedeth also that he thinketh it a contradiction to call a Free Agent him that hath not yet made an end of deliberating and to call liberty an absence of outward impediments For saith he there may be outward impediments even while he is deliberating Wherein he is deceived For though he may deliberate of that which is impossible for him to do as in the example he alledgeth of him that deliberateth whether he shall play at Tennis not knowing that the door of the Tennis-Court in shut against him yet it is no impediment to him that the door is shut till he have a will to play which he hath not till he hath done deliberating whether he shall play or not That which followeth of my confounding mind and will the estimative faculty and the understanding the imagination and deliberation the end and the means the humane will and the sensitive appetite rational hope or fear and irrational passions inclinations and intentions a beginning of being and a beginning of working sufficiency and efficiency I do not find in any thing that I have written any impropriety in the use of these or any other English words nor do I doubt but an English Reader who hath not lost himself in School Divinity will very easily conceive what I have said But this I am sure that I never confounded beginning of being with beginning of working nor sufficiency with efficiency nor ever used these words Sensitive Appetite Rational hope or Rational fear or Irrationall Passions It is therefore impossible I should confound them But the Bishop is either mistaken or else he makes no scruple to say that which he knows to be false when he thinks it will serve his turne e That which he saith that the action doth necessarily follow the thought is thus far true that those actions which are altogether undeliberated and do proceed from violent passions c. are not properly and actually in
themselves free but rather necessary actions as when a man runs away from a Cat or a custard Thus far he says is true But when he calls sudden passions motus primo primi I cannot tell whether he says true or not because I do not understand him nor find how he makes his meaning ever the clearer by his example of a Cat and a Custard because I know not what he means by a secret Antipathie For what that Antipathy is he explaineth not by calling it secret but rather confesseth he knows not how to explain it And because he saith it is thus far true I expect he should tell me also how far it is false f Secondly as for those actions wherein actual deliberation seems not necessary because never any thing appeared that could make a man doubt of the consequence I do confesse that Actions done by vertue of a precedent deliberation without any actual deliberation for the present may notwithstanding be truely voluntary and free Acts. In this he agrees with me But where he adds yea in some cases and in some sense more free then if they were actually deliberated of in present I do not agree with him And for the instance he bringeth to prove it in the man that playeth on an iâ—strument with his hand it maketh nothing for him for it proveth onely that the Habit maketh the motion of his hand more ready and quick but it proveth not that it maketh it more voluntary but rather lesse because the rest of the motions follow the first by an easinesse acquired from long custome in which motion the Wil doth not accompany all the strokes of the hand but gives a beginning to them onely in the first Here is nothing as I expected of how far that which I had said namely that the action doth necessarily follow the thought is false unlesse it be improprieties of speech as calling that voluntary which is free and limitting the will to the last appetite and other mistakes as that no act can be said to be without deliberation For improprieties of speech I will not contend wâ—th one that can use motus primo primi practice practicum actus elicitus and many other phrases of the same kind But so say that Free actions are voluntary and that the Wil which oauseth a voluntary action is the last appetite and that that appetite was immediately followed by the action and that no action of a man can be said in the judgement of the Law to be without deliberation are no mistakes for any thing that he hath proved to the contrary g Thirdly whereas he saith that some sudden acts proâ—â—eceeding from violent passions which surprise a man are justly punished I grant they are so sometimes but not for his reason c. My reason was because he had time to deliberate from the instant that he knew the Law to the instant of his action and ought to have deliberated that therefore he may be justly punished The Bishop grants they are justly punished and his reason is because they were vertually deliberated of or because it is our fault they were not actually deliberated of How a man does deliberate and yet not actually deliberate I understand not If vertual deliberation be not actual deliberation it is no deliberation But he calleth vertual deliberation that which ought to have been and was not and says the same that he condemnes in me And his other reason namely because it is our fault that we deliberated not is the same that I said that we ought to have deliberated and did not So that his reprehension here is a reprehension of himself proceeding from that the custome of School Language hath made him forget the Language of his Country And to that which he adds that a necessary act is never a fault nor justly punishable when the necessity is inevitably imposed upon us by extrinsecal causes I have sufficiently answered before in divers places shewing that a fault may be necessary from extrinsecal causes and yet voluntary and that voluntary faults are justly punishable h But if the necessity be contracted by our selves it is justly punishable As he who by his wanton though in the day time doth procure his own nocturnal pollution This instance because it maketh not against any thing I have held and partly also because it is a stinking passage for surely if as he that ascribing eyes to the understanding allowes me to say it hath a nose it stinketh to the nose of the understanding This sentence I passe over observing only the canting terms not actually free in it self but vertually free in its causes In the rest of his answer to this Number 25. I find nothing alledged in confutation of any thing I have said saving that his last words are that T. H. is mistaken in that also that the right to kill men doth proceed meerly from their being noxious Numb 14. But to that I have in the same Numb 14. already answered I must not passe over that a little before he hath these words If a Child before he have the use of reason shall kill a man in his passion yet because he wanted malice to incite him to it and reason to restrain him from it he shall not dye for it in the strict rules of particular Justice unlesse there be some mixture of publique Justice in the case The Bishop would make but an ill Judge of innocent Children for such are they that for want of age have not use enough of reason to abstain from killing for the want of reason proceeding from want of age does therefore take away tho punishment because it taketh away the crime and makes them innocent But he introduceth another Justice which he calleth publick whereas he called the other particular and by this publick Justice he saith the Child though innocent may be put to death I hope we shall never have the administration of publick Justice in such hands as his or in the hands of such as shall take counsel from him But the distinction he makes is not by himself understood There are publick causes and private causes private are those where the parties to the cause are both private men Publick are those where one of the parties is the Common-wealth or the person that representeth it and the cause criminal But there is no distinction of Justice into Publick and Private We may reade of men that having Soverain Power did sometimes put an Innocent to death either upon a vow as â—â—pthah did in sacrificing his Daughter or when it hath been thought fit that an innocent person should be put to death to save a great number of people But to put to death a Child not for reason of State which he improperly calls Publick Justice but for killing a man and at the same time to acknowledge such killing to be no crime I think was never heard of T. H. SEcondly I conceive when a man deliberates whether he shall Num. 26.
Liberty which is the question between us in stead of necessitated he puts in not free And therefore to say a man is free till he hath made an end of Deliberating is no contradiction to absolute and antecedent necessity And whereas he adds presently after that I ascribe the necessitation of a man in â—ree acts to his own deliberation and in indeliberate acts to his last thoughts he mistakes the matter for I ascribe all necessity to the universal Series or Order of causes depending on the first cause eternal Which the Bishop understâ—ndetâ— as if I had said in his Phrase to a special influence of extrinsecal causes that is understandeth it not at all c Again Liberty saith he is an absence of extrinsecal impeâ—imentâ— but Deliberation doth produce no new extrinsecall impediment therefore either he is free after Deliberation or he was not free before I canâ—ot perceive in these words any more force of inference then of so many other words whatsoever put together at adventure But be his meaning what he Wil I say not that deliberation porduceth any impediments for there are no impediments but to the Action â—hilst we are endeavouring to do it which is not till we have done deliberating But during the Deliberation there arise thoughts in him that deliberateth concerning the consequence of the action whereof he deliberateth which cause the action following which are not impediments to that which was not done but the causes of that which was done That which followeth in this Number is not intelligible by reason of the insignificance of these words understanding directeth Will electeth hypothetical necessity which are but Jargon and his divided sense and compounded sense non sense And this also Liberty respecteth not future acts onely but present acts also is unintelli ible For how can a man have Liberty to do or not to do that which is at the same instant already done For where he addeth otherwise God did not freely create the World it proves nothing because he had the Liberty to create it before it was created Besides it is a pâ—rphancing of the name of God to make instances of his incomprehensible working in a question as this is meerly natural T. H. FIftly I conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner Num. 29. Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and in the intrinsecal quality of the Agent As for example the water is said to descend freely or to have liberty to descend by the Chanel of the River because there is no impediment that way but not across because the banks are impediments And though water cannot ascend yet men never say it wants the liberty to ascend but the faculty or power because the impediment is in the nature of the water and intrinsecall So also we say he that is tied wants the liberty to go because the impediment is not in him but in his bonâ—s whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame bâ—cause the impediment is in himself J. D. a HOw that should be a right definition of liberty which comprehends neither the Genus nor the Difference neither the Matter nor the Form of liberty which doth not so much as accidentally describe liberty by its marks and tokens How a real faculty or the Elective power should be defined by a negation or by an absence is past my understanding and contrary to all the rules of right Reason which I have learned Negatives cannot explicate the nature of things defined By this definition a stone hath liberty to ascend into the aire because there is no outward impediment to hinder it and so a violent act may be a free act Just like his definit on are his instances of the liberty of the water to descend down the Channell and a sick or a lame mans liberty to go The later is an impotence and not a power or a liberty The former is so far from being a free act that it is scarce a natural act Certainly the proper natural motion of water as of all heavy bodies is to descend directly downwards towards the center as we see in rain which falls down perpendicularly Though this be far from a free act which proceeds from a rational appetite yet it is a natural act and proceeds from a natural appetite and hath its reason within in it self So hath not the current of the river in its Channel which must not be ascribed to the proper nature of the water but either to the general order of the universe for the better being and preservation of the creatures otherwise the waters should not moove in Seas and Rivers as they do but cover the face of the earth and possess their proper place between the aire and the earth according to the degree of their gravity Or to an extrinsecal principle whilst one particle of water thrusteth and forceth forward another and so comes a current or at least so comes the current to be more impetuous to which motion the position of the earth doth contribute much both by restraining that fluid body with its banks from dispersing it self and also by affording way for a fair and easy descent by its proclivity He tells us sadly that the water wants liberty to go over the banks because there is an extrinsecal impediment But to ascend up the channel it wants not liberty but power Why Liberty is a power if it want power to ascend it wants liberty to ascend But he makes the reason why the water ascends not up the channel to be intrinsecal and the reason why it ascends not over the banks to be extrinsecal as if there were not a rising of the ground up the channel as well as up the banks though it be not so discernable nor alwayes so sudden The natural appetite of the water is as much against the ascending over the banks as the ascending up the channel And the extrinsecal impediment is as great in ascending up the channel as over the banks or rather greater because there it must moove not onely against the rising soil but also against the succeeding waters which press forward the former Either the River wants liberty for both or else it wants liberty for neither But to leave his metaphorical faculties and his Catachrestical Liberty How far is his discourse wide from the true moral liberty which is in question between us His former description of a free Agent that is he who hath not made an end of deliberating though it was wide from the mark yet it came much neerer the truth than this difinition of Liberty unless perhaps he think that the water hath done deliberating whether it will go over the banks but hath not done deliberating whether it will go up the channel Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXIX a HOw that should be a right definition of Liberty which comprehends neither the Genus nor the Difference neither the Matter nor the
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
know that a sufficient cause and cause enough signifieth the same thing And no man wil say that that is cause enough to produce an effect to which any thing is wanting needful to the producing of it But the Bishop thinks if he set down what he understands by sufficient it would serve to confute my definition And therefore says a Two Horses joyntly are sufficient to draw a Coach which either of them singly is insufficient to do Now to make the effect that is the drawing of the Coach necessary it is not onely required that the two Horses be sufficient to draw it but also that it be necessary they shall be joyned and that the owner of the Horses will let them draw and that the Smith hath not lamed them and they be not resty and list not to draw but when they list otherwise the effect is contingent It seems the Bishop thinks two Horses may be sufficient to draw a Coach though they will not draw or though they be lame or though they be never put to draw and I think they can never produce the effect of drawing without those needful circumstances of being strong obedient and having the Coach some way or other fastened to them He calls it a sufficient cause of drawing that they be Coach hoâ—ses though they be lame or wiâ—â— not draw But I say they are not sufficient absolutely but conditionally if they be not lame nor resty Lâ—t the read r judge whether my sufficient cause or his may properly be called cause enough b Secondly a cause may be said to be sufficient either because it produceth that effect which is intended as in the generation of a man or else because it is sufficient to produce that which is produced as in the generation of a Monster the former is properly called a sufficient cause the latter a weak and insufficient cause In these few lines he hath said the cause of the generation of a Monster is sufficient to produce a Monster and that it is insufficient to produce a Monster How sooâ— may a man forget his words that doth nâ—t understand theâ—â— This term of insufficient cause which also the School calls Deficient that they may rime to efficient is not inteâ—â—eâ—ible but a word devised like Hocus Pocus to juggle a difficulty out of sight That which is sufficient to produce a Monster is not therefore to be called an insufficient cause to produce a mâ—n no more then that which is sufficient to produce a man is to be called an insufficient cause to produce a Monster c Thirdly a cause is said to be sufficient in respect of the ability of it to act not in respect of its will to act c. As God is sufficient to produce a thousand Worlds He understands little whâ—n â—en say God is sufficient to produce many worlds if he understand not the meaning to be that he is sufficient to prodâ—ce them if he will Without this sâ—pposition It he will a man is not sufficient to produce any voluntary action not so much as to walk though he be inhâ—alth and at Liberty The will is as much a sufficient cause without the strength to do as the strength without the Wil To that which he adds that my Definition is a meer trifling between a sufficiency in a divided sense and a sufficiency in a compounded sense I can make no answer because I understand no more what he means by sufficiency in a divided sense and sufficiency in a compounded sense then if he had said sufficiency in a divided non-sense and sufficiency in a compounded non-sense T. H. LAstly I hold that the ordinary definition of a free Agent namely Num. 32. that a free Agent is that which when all things are present which are needful to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it implies a contradiction and is non-sense being as much as to say the cause may be sufficient that is necessary and yet the effect not follow J. D. THis last point is but a Corollary or an Inference from the former doctrine that every sufficient cause produceth its effect necessarily which pillar being taken away the superstructure must needs fall to the ground having nothing left to support it Lastly I hold saith he what he is able to proove is something So much reason so much trust but what he holds concerns himself not others But what holds he I hold saith he that the ordinary definition of a free Agent implies a contradiction and is non-sense That which he calls the ordinary definition of liberty is the very definition which is given by the much greater part of Philosophers and School-men And doth he think that all these spake non-sense or had no more judgment than to contradict themselves in a definition He might much better suspect himself than censure so many Let us see the definition iâ— self A free Agent is that which when all things are present that are needful to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it I acknowledge the old definition of Liberty with little variation But I cannot see this non-sense nor discover this contradiction For a in these words all things needfull or all things requisite the actual determination of the will is not included But by all things needful or requisite all necessary power either operative or elective all necessary instruments and adjuments extrinsecall and intrinsecall and all conditions are intended As he that hath pen and ink and paper a table a desk and leisure the art of writing and the free use of his hand hath all things requisite to write if he will and yet he may forbear if he will Or as he that hath men and mony and arms and munition and ships and a just cause hath all things requisite for war yet he may make peace if he will Or as the King proclaimed in the Gospel Matth. 2â— 4. â— hâ—ve prepared my dinner my oxen and my fatlings are killed all things are ready come unto the marriage According to T. H his doctrine the guests might have told him that he said not truly for their own wills were not readâ— b And indeed if the will were as he conceives it is necessitated extrinsecally to every act of willing if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth will nor to will what it doth not will then if the will were wanting something requisite to the producing of the effect was wanting But now when Science and conscience reason and Religion our own and other mens experience doth teach us that the will hath a dominion over its own acts to will or nill without extrinsecal necessitation if the power to will be present in actâ— primo determinable by our selves then there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of the effect Secondly these words â—o act or not to act to wâ—rk or not to work to produce or nâ—t to produce have reference to the effect not as a thing which
is already done or doing but as a thing â—o be done They imply not the actual production but the producibility of the effect But when once the will hath actually concurred with all other causes and conditions and circumstances then the effect is no more possible or producible but it is in being and actually produced Thus he takes away the subject of the question The question is whether effects producible be free from necessity He shuffles out effects producible and thrusts in their places effects produced or which are in the act of production Wherefore I conclude that it is neither non sense nor contradiction to say that a free Agent when all things requisite to produce the effect are present may nevertheless not produce it Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXII THe question is here whether these words a free Agent is that which when all things needfull to the production of the effect are present can nevertheless not produce it â—â—mply a contradiction as I say it does To make it appear no contradiction he saith a In these words all things needful or all things requisite the actual determination of the Will is not included as if the Will were not needful nor requisite to the producing of a voluntary Action For to the production of any Act whatsoever there is needful not onely those things which proceed from the Agent but also those that consist in the disposition of the patient And to use his own instance it is necessary to writing not onely that there be pâ—n ink paper c. but also a will to write He that hath the former hath all things requisite to write if he will but not all things necessary to writing And so in his other instances he that hath men and money c. without that which he putteth in for a requisite hath all things requisite to make War if he Will but not simply to make War And he in the Gospel that had prepared his Dinner had all things requisite for his guests if they came but not all things requisite to make them come And therefore all things requisite is a term ill defined by him b And indeed if the will were as he conceives it is necessitated extrinsecally to every act of willing if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth will nor to will what it does not will then if the will were wanting something requisite to the produceing of the effect were wanting But now when Science and Conscience Reason and Religion our own and other mens experience doth teach us that the Will hath a Dominion over its own Acts to Will or Nill without extrinsecal necessitation if the power to will be present in actu primo determinable by our selves then there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of the effect These words the will hath power to forbear willing what it doth will and these the Wil hath a Dominion over its own Acts and these the power to Will is present in actu primo determinable by our selves are as wild as ever were any spoken with in the Walls of Bedlam and if Science Conscience Reason and Religion teach us to speak thus they make us mad And that which followeth is false to Act or not to Act to work or not to work to produce or not to produce have reference to the effect not as a thing which is already done or doing but as a thing to be done For to act to work to produce are the same thing with to be doing It is not the act but the power that hath reference to the future for act and power differ in nothing but in this that the former signifieth the time present the latter the time to come And whereas he adds that I shuffle out effects producible and thrust into their places effects produced I must take it for an untruth till he cite the place wherein I have done so T. H. FOr my first five points where it is explicated First what Num. 33. Spontaneity is Secondly what Deliberation is Thirdly what Will Propension and Appetite is Fourthly what a free Agent is Fiftly what Liberty is There can be no other proof offered but every mans own experience by reflecting on himself and remembring what he useth to have in his mind that is what he himself meaneth when he saith an action is spontaneous A man deliberates such is his will That Agent or that action is free Now he that so reflecteth on himself cannot but be satisfied that deliberation is the considering of the good and evil sequells of the action to come That by Spontaneity is meant inconsiderate proceeding for else nothing is meant by it That will is the last act of our Deliberation That a free Agent is he that can do if he will and forbear if he will And that Liberty is the absence of externall impediments But to those that out of custome speak not what they conceive but what they hear and are not able or will not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such words no argument can be sufficient because experience and matter of fact is not verified by other mens Arguments but by every mâ—ns own sense and memory For example how can it be prooved that to love a thing and to think it good are all one to a man that does not mark his own meaning by those words Or how can it be prooved that Eternity is not nunc Stans to a man that sayes these words by câ—stoâ—â—e and never considers how he can conceive the thing it self in his mind Also the sixt point that a man cannot imagine any thing to begin without a cause can no other way be made known but by trying how he can imagine it But if he try he shall find as much reason if there be no cause of the thing to conceive it should begin at one time as another that is he hath equall reason to think it should begin at all times which is impossible And therefore he must think there was some special cause why it began then rather than sooner or later or else that it began never but was Eternal J. D. NOw at length he comes to his main proofs He that hath so confidently censured the whole current of Schoolmen and Philosophers of non-sense had need to produce strong evidence for himself So he calls his reasons Numb 36. demonstrative proofs All demonstrations are either from the cause or the effect not fâ—om private notions and conceptions which we have in our minds That which he calls a demonstration deserves not the name of an intimation He argues thus That which a man conceives in his mind by these words Spontaneity Deliberation c. that they are This is his proposition which I deny a The true natures of things are not to be judged by the private ideas or conceptions of men but by their causes and formal reasons Ask an ordinary person what upwards
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
free nor elective nor such as proceed from the liberty of mans will Secondly our dispute is about absolute necessity his proofs extend onely to Hypothetical necessity Our question is whether the concurrence and determination of the causes were necessary before they did concur or were determined He proves that the effect is necessary after the causes have concurred and are determined The freest actions of God or man are necessary by such a necessity of supposition and the most contingent events that are as I have shewed plainly Numb 3. where his instance of Ambs-ace is more fully answered So his proof looks another way from his proposition His proposition is that the casting of Ambs-ace was necessary before it was thrown His proof is that it was necessary when it was thrown examine all his causes over and over and they will not afford him one grain of antecedent necessity The first cause is in the Dice True if they be false Dice there may be something in it but then his contingency is destroyed If they be square Dice they have no more inclination to Ambs-ace than to Cinque and Quater or any other cast His second cause is the posture of the parties hand But what necessity was there that he should put his hand into such a posture None at all The third cause is the measure of the force applied by the caster Now for the credit of his cause let him but name I will not say a convincing reason nor so much as a probable reason but even any pretence of reason how the Caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force and neither more nor lesse If he cannot his cause is desperate and he may hold his peace for ever His last cause is the posture of the Table But tell us in good earnest what necessity there was why the Caster must throw into that Table rather than the other or that the Dice must fall just upon that part of the Table before the cast was thrown He that makes these to be necessary causes I do not wonder if he make all effects necessary effects If any one of these causes be contingent it is sufficient to render the cast contingent and now that they are all so contingent yet he will needs have the effect to be necessary And so it is when the cast is thrown but not before the cast was thrown which he undertook to prove Who can blame him for being so angry with the School-men and their distinctions of necessity into absolute and hypothetical seeing they touch his freehold so nearly But though his instance of raining to morrow be impertinent as being no free action yet because he triumphs so much in his argument I will not stick to go a little out of my way to meet a friend For I confess the validity of the reason had been the same if he had made it of a free action as thus Either I shall finish this reply to morrow or I shall not finish this reply to morrow is a necessary proposition But because he shall not complain of any disadvantage in the alteration of his terms I will for once adventure upon his shower of rain And first I readily admit his major that this proposition either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow is necessarily true for of two contradictory propositions the one must of necessity be true because no third can be given But his minor that it could not be necessarily true except one of the Members were necessarily true is most false And so is his proof likewise that if neither the one nor the other of the Members be necessarily true it cannot be affirmed that either the one or the other is true A conjunct proposition may have both parts false and yet the proposition be true as if the Suu shine it is day is a true proposition at midnight And T. H. confesseth as much Numb 19. If I shall live I shall eat is a necessary proposition that is to say it is necessary that that proposition should be true whensoever uttered But it is not the necessity of the thing nor is it therefore necessary that the man shall live or that the man shall eat And so T. H. proceeds I do not use to fortifie my distinctions with such reasons But it seemeth he hath forgotten himself and is contented with such poor fortifications And though both parts of a disjunctive proposition cannot be false because if it be a right disjunction the Members are repugnant whereof one part is infallibly true yet vary but the proposition a little to abate the edge of the disjunctions and you shall finde that which T. H. saith to be true that it is not the necessity of the thing which makes the proposition to be true As for example vary it thus I know that either 〈◊〉 will rain to morrow or that it will not rain to morrow is a true proposition But it is not true that I know it will rain to morrow neither is it true that I know it will not rain to morrow wherefore the certain truth of the proposition doth not prove that either of the Members is determinately true in present Truth is a conformity of the understanding to the thing known whereof speech is an interpreter If the understanding agree not with the thing it is an errour if the words agree not with the understanding it is a lie Now the thing known is known either in it self or in its causes If it be known in it self as it is then we expresse our apprehension of it in words of the present tence as the Sun is risen If it be known in its cause we expresse our selves in words of the future tense as to morrow will be an Eclipse of the Moon But if we neither know it in its self nor in its causes then there may be a foundation of truth but there is no such determinate truth of it that we can reduce it into a true proposition we cannot say it doth rain to morrow or it doth not rain to morrow That were not onely false but absurd we cannot positively say it will rain to morrow because we do not know it in its causes either how they are determined or that they are determined wherefore the certitude and evidence of the disjunctive proposition is neither founded upon that which will be actually to morrow for it is granted that we do not know that nor yet upon the determination of the causes for then we would not say indifferently either it will rain or it will not rain but positively it will rain or positively it will not rain But it is grounded upon an undeniable principle that of two contradictory propositions the one must necessarily be true f And therefore to say either this or that will infallibly be but it is not yet 〈…〉 whether this or that shall be is no such senselesse 〈…〉 thaâ—â—t deserved a â—ytyrice Tâ—patulice but an evâ—…th
Besides Gods Decree is his Will and the Bishop hath said formerly that the Will of God is God the Justice of God God c. If therefore God made a Decree according to the Bishops opinion God made himself By which we may see what fine stuffe it is that proceedeth from disputing of Incomprehensibles Again he says if it had been the good pleasure of God he might have made some causes free from necessity seeing that it neither argues any imperfection nor implies any contradiction If God had made either causes or effects free from necessity he had made theâ—â— free from his own Praescience which had been imperfection Perhaps he will say that in these words of his the decree being an act ad extra was freely made by God I take no notice of that act ad extra as being too hot for my fingers Therefore now I take notice of it and say that it is neither Latiâ— nor English nor Sense T. H. THe last thing in which also consisteth the whole controversy Num. 35. Namely that there is no such thing as an Agent which when all things requisite to action are present can nevertheless forbear to produce it or which is all one that there is no such thing as freedom from necessity is easily inferred from that which hath been before alledged For if it be an Agent it can work And if it work there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action and consequently the cause of the action is sufficient And if sufficient then also necessary as hath been proved before J. D. I Wonder that T. H. should confess that the whole weight of this controversy doth rest upon this proposition That there is no such thing as an Agent which when all things requisite to action are present can nevertheless forbear to act And yet bring nothing but such poor Bull-rushes to support it a If it be an Agent saith he it can work what of this A posse ad esse non valet argumentum from can work to will work is a weak inference And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity is another gross inconsequence He proceeds thus Iâ— it work there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action True there wants nothing to produce that which is produced but there may want much to produce that which was intended One horse may pull his heart out and yet not draw the Coach whither it should be if he want the help or concurrence of his fellows And consequently saith he the cause of the action is sufficient Yes sufficient to do what it doth though perhaps with much prejudice to it self but not alwayes sufficient to do what it should do or what it would do As he that begets a Monster should beget a man and would beget a man if he could The last link of his argument follows b And if sufficient then also necessary Stay there by his leave there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency otherwise God himself should not be All-sufficient Thus his Argument is vanished But I will deal more favourably with him and grant him all that which he labours so much in vain to prove That every effect in the world hath sufficient causes Yea more that supposing the determination of the free and contingent causes every effect in the world is necessary c But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean for still it amounts but to an hypothetical necessity and differs as much from that absolute necessity which he maintains as a Gentleman who travels for his pleasure differs from a banished man or a free Subject from a slave Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXV a IF it be an Agent saith he it can work what of this A posse ad esse non valet argumentum from can work to will work is a weak inference And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity is another grosse inconsequence Here he has gotten a just advantage for I should have said if it be an Agent it worketh not it can work But it is an advantage which profiteth little to his cause for if I repeate my argument again in this manner that which is an Agent worketh that which worketh wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth and consequently is thereof a sufficient cause and if a sufficient cause then also a necessary cause his answer will be nothing to the purpose For whereas to these words that which worketh wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth he answereth it is true but there may want much to produce that which was intended it is not contrary to any thing that I have said For I never maintained that whatsoever a man intendeth is necessarily performed but this whatsoever a man performeth iâ— necessarily performed and what he intendeth necessarily intended and that from causes antecedent And therefore to say as he doth that the cause is sufficient to do what it doth but not alwayes sufficient to do what a man should or would do is to say the same that I do For I say not that the cause that bringeth forth a Monster is sufficient to bring forth a man but that every cause is sufficient to produce onely the effect it produceth And if sufficient then also necessary b And if sufficient then also necessary stay there by his leave there is no necessary connection between sufficiency and efficiency otherwise God himself should not be All sufficient All sufficiency signifieth no more when it is attributed to God then Omnipotence and Omnipotence signifieth no more then the Power to do all things that he will But to the production of any thing that is produced the Will of God is as requisite as the rest of his Power and sufficiency And consequently his all sufficiency signifieth not a sufficiency or Power to do those thing he will not But he will deal he says so favourably with me as to grant me all this which I labour he saith so much in vain to prove and adds c But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a Bean for still it amounts but to an Hypothetical necessity If it prove no more it proves no necessity at all for by Hypothetical necessity he means the necessity of this proposition the effect is then when it is whereas necessity is onely said truely of somewhat in future For necessary is that which cannot possibly be otherwise and possibility is alwayes understood of some future time But seeing he granteth so favourably that sufficient causes are necessary causes I shall easily conclude from it that whatsoever those causes do cause are necessary antecedently For if the necessity of the thing produced when produced be in the same instant of time with the existence of its immediate cause then also that immediate cause was in the same instant with the cause by which it was