and with the mouth is confession made unto salvation If a man deny Christ with his mouth the faith of the heart will not serve his turn Sixthly Christ denounceth damnation to all those who for saving of their lives do deny their Religion and promiseth eternal life to all those who do seale the truth of their Christian faith with their blood against the commands of heathenish Magistrates Who soever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it Christ doth not promise eternal life for violation of true Religion Lastly no Christian Soveraign or Common-wealth did ever assume any such authority to themselves Never any subjects did acknowledge any such power in their Soveraigns Never any Writer of Politicks either waking or dreaming did ever phansie such an unlimitted power and authority in Princes as this which he ascribeth to them not onely to make but to justifie all doctrines all laws all religions all actions of their Subjects by their commands as if God Almighty had reserved onely Soveraign Princes under his own Jurisdiction and quitted all the rest of mankind to Kings and Common-wealths In vain ye worship me teaching for doctrine the commandments of men that is to say making true religion to consist in obedience to the commands of men If Princes were heavenly Angels free from all ignorance and passions such an unlimited power might better become them But being mortal men it is dangerous least Phaeton-like by their violence or unskilfulnesse they put the whole Empire into a flame It were too too much to make their unlawful commands to justifie their Subjects If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch He who imposeth unlawful commands and he who obeyeth them do both subject themselves to the judgements of God But if true religion do consist in active obedience to their commands it justifieth both their Subjects and themselves True religion can prejudice no man He taketh upon him to refute the distinction of obedience into active and passive As if a sin against the law of nature could be expiated by arbitrary punishments imposed by men Thus it happeneth to men who confute that which they do not understand Passive obedience is not for the expiation of any fault but for the maintenance of innocence When God commands one thing and the soveraign Prince another we cannot obey them both actively therefore we chuse to obey God rather than men and yet are willing for the preservation of peace to suffer from man rather than to resist If he understood this distinction well it hath all those advantages which he fancieth to himself in his new platform of government without any of those inconveniences which do attend it And whereas he intimateth that our not obeying our Soveraign actively is a sin against the law of nature meaning by the violation of our promised obedience it is nothing but a grosse mistake no Subjects ever did nor ever could make any such pact to obey the commands of their Soveraign actively contrary to the law of God or nature This reason drawn from universal practise was so obvious that he could not misse to make it an objection The greatest objection is that of the practice when men ask where and when such power has by Subjects been acknowledged A shrewd objection indeed which required a more solid answer then to say That though in all places of the World men should lay the foundation of their houses on the sand it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be As if there were no more difficulty in founding and regulating a Common-wealth then in distinguishing between a loose sand and a firm rock or as if all Societies of men of different tempers of different humours of different manners and of different interests must of necessity be all ordered after one and the same manner If all parts of the World after so long experience do practise the contrary to that which he fancieth he must give me leave to suspect that his own grounds are the quick-sands and that his new Common-wealth is but a Castle founded in the aire That a Soveraign Prince within his own dominions is custos utriusque tabulae the keeper of both the Tables of the Law to see that God be duely served and justice duely administred between man and man and to punish such as transgresse in either kind with civil punishment That he hath an Architectonical power to see that each of his Suctjects do their duties in their several callings Ecclesiasticks as well as Seculars That the care and charge of seeing that no doctrine be taught his Subjects but such as may consist with the general peace and the authority to prohibit seditious practices and opinions do reside in him That a Soveraign Prince oweth no account of his actions to any mortal man That the Kings of England in particular have been justly declared by Act of Parliament Supreme Governours in their own kingdoms in all causes over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil is not denyed nor so much as questioned by me Otherwise a kingdom or a Common-wealth should be destitute of necessary means for its own preservation To all this I do readily assent all this I have vindicated upon surer grounds than those desperate and destructive principles which he supposeth But I do utterly deny that true religion doth consist in obedience to Soveraign Magistrates or that all their injunctions ought to be obeyed not onely passively but actively or that he is infallible in his laws and commands or that his Soveraign authority doth justifie the active obedience of his Subjects to his unlawful commands Suppose a King should command his Judges to set Naboth on high among the people and to set two sons of Belial before him to bear witnesse against him saying Thou didst blaspheme God and the King and then carry him out and stone him that he may dye The regal authority could neither justifie such an unlawful command in the King nor obedience in the Judges Suppose a King should set up a golden Image as Nebucadnezar did and command all his Subjects to adore it his command could not excuse his Subjects from idolatry much lesse change idolatry into true religion His answer to the words of Peter and John do signifie nothing The High Priest and his Councel commanded the Apostles not to teach in the name of Jesus Here was sufficient humane authority yet say the Apostles Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye The question was not what were the commands that was clear enough what God commanded and what man commanded but who was to be obeyed which could admit no debate He asketh What has the Bishop to doe with what God sayes to me when I read the Scriptures more than I have to do with what God sayes to him when he reads them
logge in the fable which terrified the poor Frogs with the noise it made at the first falling of it into the water but afterwards they insulted over it and took their turns to leap upon it Some take it to be pure nonsense Whether a man be free in such things as be within his power That is whether he be free wherein he is free or that be within his power which is in his power I have formerly shewed and shall demonmonstrate further as there is occasion that this distinction is contradictory and destructive to his own grounds according to which all the other powers and faculties of a man are determined to one by an extrinsecal fluxe of natural causes equally with the will And therefore a man is no more necessitated to will or chuse what he will do than to do what he wills Secondly I have shewed that this distinction is vain and unuseful and doth not hold off so much as one blow from Mr. Hobâ—…es and his bleeding cause All those grosse absurdities which do necessarily follow the inevitable determinations of all actions and events by extrinsecal causes do fall much more heavily and insupportably upon the extrinsecal determination of the will So he stickes deeper by means of this distinction in the same mire All the ground of justice that he can find in punishments is this That though mens actions be necessary yet they do them willingly Now if the will be irresistibly determined to all its individial acts then there is no more justice to punish a man for willing necessarily than for doing necessarily Thirdly I have shewed already in part that this distinction is contrary to the sense of the whole World who take the will to be much more free than the performance Which may be thus enlarged Though a man were thrust into the deepest dungeon in Europe yet in despite of all the second causes he may will his own liberty Let the causes heap a conglomeration of diseases upon a man more than Herod had yet he may will his own health Though a man be withheld from his friend by Seas and Mountains yet he may will his presence He that hath not so much as a cracked groat towards the payment of his debts may yet will the satisfaction of his Creditors And though some of these may seem but pendulous wishes of impossibilities and not so compatibile with a serious deliberation yet they do plainly shew the freedom of the will In great things said the Poet it is sufficient to have willed that is to have done what is in our power So we say God accepteth the will that which we can for the deed that which we cannot If there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath that is to will And not according to that he hath not that is to perform And yet more plainly To will is present with me but how to perform that which is good that find I not Yet saith T. H. A man is free to do what he willes but not to will what he will do To come yet a little nearer to T. H. For since he refuseth all humane authority I must stick to Scripture It is called a mans own will and his own voluntary will If it be determined irresistibly by outward causes it is rather their own will than his own will Nay to let him see that the very name of free-will it self is not such a stranger in Scripture as he imagineth it is called a mans own free will How often do we read in the books of Moses Ezra and the Psalms of free-will offerings This free-will is opposed not onely to compulsion but also to necessity not of necessity but willingly And is inconsistent with all extrinsecal determination to one with which election of this or that indifferently is incompatible Is not the whole land before thee said Abraham to Lot If thou wilt take the left hand then I will go to the right or if thou depart to the right hand then I will go to the left God said to David I offer thee three things chuse one of them And to Solomon Because thou hast asked this thing and hast not asked long life or riches And Herod to his daughter Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt And Pilate to the Jews Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you And St. Paul unto the Corinthians What will ye shall I come unto you with a rod or in love Both were in their choice Yet T. H. doth tell us That all these were free to do this or that indifferently if they would but not free to will To chuse and to elect is of all others the most proper Act of the will But all these were free to chuse and elect this or that indifferently or else all this were meer mockery And therefore they were free to will The Scripture koweth no extrinsecal determiners of the will but iâ—…self So it is said of Eli's sons Give flesh to roast for the Priest for he will not have sodden flesh of thee but raw And if thou wilt not give it I will take it by force Sic volo sic jubeo stat pro ratione voluntas Here was more will than necessity So it is said of the rich man in the Gospel What shall I do This I will do I will pull down my barnes and build greater and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods And I will say to my soul take thine ease eat drink and be merry Both his purse and person were under the command of his wâ—…ll So St. Iames saith Go to now ye that say to day or tomorrow we will go into such a City and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain whereas ye know not what shall be to morrow c. for that ye ought to say if the Lord will we shall live and do this or that The defect was not in their will to resolve but in their power to perform So T. H. his necessity was their liberty and their liberty was his necessity Lastly the Scriptures teach us that it is in the power of a man to chuse his own will for the future All that thou commandest us we will do And whithersoever thou sendest us we will go As we hearkened unto Moses in all things so will we hearken unto thee So saith St. Paul What I do that I will do And in another place I do rejoyce and I will rejoyce And they that will be rich When Christ inquired of his Disciples Will ye also go away According to T. H. his principles he should have said Must ye also go away We have viewed his distinction but we have not answered his comparison Will is an appetite And it is one question whether he be free to eat that hath an appetite And another Whether he be free to have an appetite Comparisons are but a poor kind
will condescend to him thus far That possibility hath only referrence to the time to come But for necessity and impossibility he overshooteth himself beyond all aime If an house do actually burn in present it is necessary that is infallible that that house do burn in present and impossible that it do not burn If a man was slain yestarday it is necessary that he is slain to day and impossible that he should nor be slain His own definition doth sufficiently confute him That is necessary which is impossible to be otherwise but it is impossible that that which is doing in present or which was done yestarday should be otherwise How hang these things together Or this that he telleth us That his necessary is a necessary from all eternity which with him is an everlasting succession And yet he telleth us That necessary signifieth nothing in reference to the time past then how is it necessary from all eternity And here he thrusteth out for rotten a great many of old Scholastick terms as empty words As necessary when it is or absolutely and hypothecally necessary and sensus compositus divisus and the dominion of the will and the determining of its self I must put him in mind again of the good old woman in Seneca who complained of the darknesse of the room when the defect was in her own eye-sight I wonder not that he is out of love with distinctions more than I wonder why a bungling workman regards not a square or a plum But if he understood these distinctions a little better he would not trouble his reader with That which shall be shall be and a bundle of such like impertinencies He acknowledgeth That my Lord of Newcastle desire and my intreaty were enough to produce a will in him to write his answer If they were enough then he was not necessitated nor physically predetermined to write it We had no more power than to perswade no natural influence upon his will And so he was for us not onely free to write but free to will also But perhaps there were other imaginations of his own that contributed their part Let it be so yet that was no extrinsecall or absolute determination of his will And so far was our request from producing his consent as necessarily as the fire burneth that it did not it could not produce it at all by any naturall causall influence and efficacy The sufficiency and efficiency and productive power was in his will it self which he will not be brought to understand An Answer to his Animadversions upon the Reply Num. 2. HEre is nothing of moment to detain the Reader He saith Whosoever chanceth to read Suares his opuscula shall find the greatest part if not all that I have urged in this question Said I not truely Give Innovators line enough and they will confute themselves whosoever chanceth c. And why chanceth By his doctrine it was as necessary for him that readeth to read as it is for the fire to burn Doth the fire sometimes burn by chance He will say That where the certain causes are not known we attribute Events to Chance But he sticks still in the same mire without hope ever to be freed who knoweth the certain reason why the needle touched with the loadstone pointeth allwayes towards the North Doth it therefore point by chance How many thousands are ignorant of the true causes of Comets and Earthquakes and Eclipses Do they therefore attribute them to chance Chance never hath place but where the causes concur accidentally to produce some effect which might have been produced otherwise Though a man strive to expell these common notions with a fork yet now and then they will return And though I could not surprize him yet the truth can Thus Penelope like he hath undone that in the dark which he hath been weaving all this while in the light It were more ingenuous to say it was a slip of his pen. It is indifferent to me whether the greatest part of what I urge in this question or all that I urge or perhaps more than I urge be contained in Suares his Opuscula So the truth may prevaile I care not who have the honour of the atchievement But Suares understood himself better then to confound two such different questions namely that of the necessity or liberty of all Events naturall and civill which is our question with the concurrence of grace and free-will in morall and supernaturall acts which he saith is the subject of Suares his discourse in that place In all my life that I do remember I never read one line of Suares his Opuscula nor any of his works the sixteen years last past I wish he had been versed in his greater works as well as in his Opuscula that he might not be so averse from the Schools Ignoti nulla cupido Then he would have known the terms and arguments used in the Schools as well as others It is no blemish to make advantage of other mens pains and experience Dies diei eructat verbum nox nocti indicat scientiam But Mr. Hobbes trusting over much to his own particular abilities presumeth to stand upon his own bottom without any dread of Solomons ve solâ—… Wo to him that is alone when he falleth He scrupleth not to remove the ancient land-marks which his fathers had set nor to stumble from the ancient paths to walk in a way that was never cast up It were meer folly to expect either a known ground or a received term from him Other men are contented to learn to write after a Copy but he will be printed a Philosopher and a Divine of the first edition by himself and Icarus like find out a new way with his waxen winges which mortalls never knew though he perish in the attempt Such undigested phancies may please for a while during the distemper and green-sickness fit of this present age as maids infected with that malady preferre chalk or coles in a corner before healthfull food in their fathers house but when time hath cured their malady and experience opened their eyes they wil abominate their former errours and those who were their misleaders He had slighted whatsoever I produced as common and triviall having nothing new in it either from Scripture or reason which he had not often heard I replied onely that then I might expect a more mature answer and advised him under the similitude of Epictetus his sheep rather to shew his reading in his works than to glory of it And where I said that great recruits of reasons and authorities did offer themselves to me in this cause he threatneth before he have done with me to make it appear to be very bragging and nothing else Adding That it is not likely that Epictetus should take a metaphor from lamb and wooll because he was not acquainted with paying of tithes I could not suspect that a poor similitude out of Epictetus should make him
so passionate But tange montes fumigabunt touch the high mountains and they will fume and smoak It seemeth strange to me that he should be so ignorant in Epictetus a Stoick one of his principall friends of so great fame that his earthen lamp was preserved as a relick and sold for three thousand Drachmes whom even Lucian that great scoffer calleth an admirable old man as to say That it is not likely that Epictetus should take a metaphor from lamb and wool he meaneth from sheep To inform him better let him hear his words For sheep do not bring their grasse to their shepherd to shew him how much they have eaten but concocting their meat inwardly do bring forth wool and milk This might be pardoned but his scoffing at payment of tithes and particularly lamb and wool being an institution of God himself and established by the laws of our own realm cannot be excused I appeal to all those who have read any thing upon this subject whether I might not have added many more reasons and produced the authority of the Christian World against him in this cause of liberty with the suffrages of the Fathers in all successive ages But I remember that of our Saviour Cast not your Pearles before swine least they trample them under their feet An answer to the Animadversions upon Num. 3. HE is displeased that I do not set down the difinitions of necessity spontaneity and liberty without which he saith their difference cannot possibly appear Yet formerly and again in this very Chapter he confesseth that the question is truely and clearly stated by me The question which the Bishop stateth in this place I have before set down verbatim and allowed What a trifling humour is this Many things are not capable of perfect definitions as to passe by all others accidents and modes or such terms as signifie the manner of being And in such things as are capable of definition yet essentials whereof a definition must consist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are neither so obvious nor so useful to common capacities I believe that all the perfect definitions which T. H. hath made in his life in Philosophy or Theology may be written in one little ring whereof I shall be bold henceforth now and then as I find occasion to put him in mind Nay even in Mathematicks which by reason of their abstraction from matter are lesse subject to errour he can misse the cushion as well as his neighbours and be contented sometimes to acknowledge it not because those errours are greater or so great as his errours in Philosophy or Theology but because their conviction is more easie and more evident And therefore for the most part a plaine description must serve the turn sometimes from the etymological unfolding of the name sometimes by the removing of what is opposite or contrary sometimes by a periphrastical circumlocution sometimes by instances and examples And thus by his own confession the question is cleared between us Yet to satisfie him I will describe them more formally To begin with liberty Liberty is a power of the will or free Agent to chuse or to refuse this or that indifferently after deliberation free from all antecedent and extrinsecal determination to one Election is the proper act of the will and without indifferency or indetermination and deliberation there can be no election which is a consultative appetition And they and they onely are free Agents who supposing all things to be present that are requisite to action can nevertheless either act or forbeare to act at their own choice Which description hath already been explained and shall be further in due place Secondly voluntary or Spontaneous is that which hath its beginning from an inward principle that is the will with some knowledge of the end Such are the acts of children fooles and madmen whilest they want the use of reason And the sudden acts of passionate persons whensoever the violence of their passion doth prevent all deliberation Such are many actions of brute beasts as the spiders making of her webs to catch flies the birds building of her nest therein to lay her egges both which proceed from an inward principle with some knowledge of the end So then this is the difference between that which is free and that which is voluntary or spontaneous that every free act is also a voluntary or spontaneous act but every voluntary or spontaneous act is not a free act The reason is evident because no act is free except it be done upon deliberation But many voluntary or spontaneous acts are done without all deliberation as the acts of brute beasts fooles children madmen and some acts of passionate persons Secondly there is no liberty but where there is a possibility towards more than one and freedom to chuse this or that indifferently But in all those other kinds of voluntary or spontaneous acts there is an antecedent determination to one and no indifferency of election So spontaneity is an appetite of some object proceeding either from the rational or sensitive will either antecedently determined or not determined to one either upon deliberation or without deliberation either with election or without election The last term is necessity He himself hath defined necessary to be that which is impossible to be otherwise Here is a difinition without either matter or form genus or differentia without any thing in it that is essential or so much as positive a very periphrase or circumlocution and which is worst not convertible or reciprocal with the thing defined Many things may be necessary respectively which are not impossible to be otherwise as to let blood in a Pleâ—…risie A horse is necessary for a long voyage yet it is not impossible for a man to perform it on foot And on the other side Many things are impossible to be otherwise which are not necessary in that sense wherein we take necessity in this question as that which is necessary upon science or prescience and that which is necessary upon condition or supposition As if Thomas write then he lives Yet neither his writing nor his living is absolutely necessary So whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is or impossible to be otherwise None of these necessities have any place in this controversie None of these sorts of necessity are opposite to true liberty By the way T. H. calls this rule Whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is and old foolish rule yet it is delivered by Aristotle and received ever since in the World upon his own authority without ever examining it or understanding it Satis pro imperio So then necessity as it is proper to this question I conceive may be thus fitly described Necessity is a manner or propriety of being or of acting whereby that which is or acteth cannot possibly but be and act nor be or act otherwise then it
aut faciendum quod cognoscit the understanding extended to injoy or do that which it knoweth it must needs be that the more reason the lesse passion the lesse reluctance and consequently the more liberty He saith When we mark not the force that moves us we think that it is not causes but liberty that produceth the action I rendred him thus The ignornnce of the true causes and their power is the reason that we ascribe the effect to liberty Where lieth the fault that which he calleth force and strength I call power and for that which moves us I say causes as he himself doth exexpresse himself in the same place Where I say the will causeth he saith the man chuseth As if there were any difference between these two the eye seeth and the man seeth This and a confounding of voluntas with volitio the faculty of willing with the act of willing and a young suckling contradiction which he hath found out That the will hath power to refuse what he willeth that is before it have willed it not after is the substance of this Animadversion which deserve no other answer but that a man should change his risibility into actual laughter I produced two reasons to prove that true liberty is a freedom not only from compulsion but from necessity The former drawn from the nature of election or the act of the will which is allwayes inter plura the later which I called a new Argument because it had not formerly been touched in this Treatise taken from the nature of the faculty of the will or of the soul as it willeth which is not capable of any other compulsion but necessitation And if it be physically necessitated it is thereby acquitted from all guilt and the fault transferred upon those causes that did necessitate it This argument indeed began with a distinction but proceeded to a demonstration which was reduced by me into form in my defence to which he hath given no shew of satisfaction either in his first answer or in these Animadversions except it be a concedo omnia or a granting of the conclusion The same ground which doth warrant the names of Tyrant Praemunire Sunday Monday Tuesday that is Use Quem penes arbitrium est vis norma loquendi doth likewise justifie these generally received terms of the Elicite and Imperate Acts of the will there being scarcely one Authour who hath written upon this subject in Latine that doth not use them and approve them In the councel of Dort which he himself mentioneth he may find this truth positively maintained that voluntas elicit actum suum Where he may likewise find what morall perswasives or motives are if he have a desire to learn Allthough he be convicted that it followeth from his principles That God is the cause of all sin in the world yet he is loath to say so much for that is an unseemly phrase to say that God is the cause of sin because it soundeth so like a saying that God sinneth yea it is even as like it as one egge is like another or rather it is not like it for it is the very same Nullum simile est idem He that is the determining cause of sin in others sinneth himself It is as well against the eternall law that is the rule of justice which is in God himself to make another to sin as to sin Yet though he will not avow such an unseemly phrase That God is the cause of sin Yet he doth indeavour to prove it by four texts of holy Scripture which are alltogether impertiuent to his purpose The first is that of the Prophet Amos Shall there be evill in a City and the Lord hath not done it But that is clearly understood of the evill of punishment not of the evill of sin To the three other places That the Lord said unto Shimei curse David and that the Lord put a lying spirit into the mouth of Ahabs Prophets And that of Rehoboams not hearkning to the people the Reader may find a satisfactory answer formerly But because he seemeth to ground much upon those words which are added to the last place for the cause was from the Lord conceiving some singular virtue to lie in them and an ovation at least to be due unto himself I will not say least the Bishop exclaim against me applauding himself like the flie upon the Cart-wheel See what a dust I do raise I will take the liberty to tell him further That there is nothing of any cause of sin in the text but of a cause of Jeroboams advancement as he might have perceived plainly by the words immediately following The cause was from the Lord that he might perform his saying which the Lord spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Ieroboam the son of Nebat Which saying was this I will rent the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give ten tribes to thee So he hath produced an evil effect of punishment for an evil effect of sin and a cause of advancement for a cause of sin and a permitting or ordering or disposing of sin for a necessitating or determining to sin Yet he produceth six witnesses to prove that liberty is not opposed to necessity but to compulsion Luther Zanchy Bucer Calvin Moulin and the Synod of Dort First Reader I desire thee to judge of the partiality of this man who rejecteth all humane authority in this cause as he hath reason for it were an easie thing to overwhelme and smother him and his cause with testimonies of Councels Fathers Doctours of all Ages and Communions and all sorts of Classick Authours and yet to seek for protection under the authority of a few Neoterick Writers A double weight and a double measure are an abomination Aut haec illis sunt habenda aut illa cum his amittenda sunt Harum duarum conditionum nunc utram malis vide If he will reap the benefit of humane authority he must undergoe the inconvenience also Why may he use the testimony of Calvine against me in this cause and I may not make use of the testimonies of all the Ancients Greek and Latine against him whom Calvine himself confesseth to have been for liberty against necessiry Semper apud Latinos liberi arbitrii nomen extitit Graecos vero non puduit multo arrogantius usurpare vocabulum siquidem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dixerunt acsi potest as suiipsius penes hominem fuisset But I am able to give him that advantage in this cause Secondly a man may see by his citing of these testimonies that he hath taken them up upon trust without ever perusing them in the Authours themselves I demand therefore whether he will be tried by his own witnesses in this case in difference between him and me that is concerning universal necessity in natural civil and external actions by reason of a necessary connextion of second causes and a natural determination of
successively until the motive power cease altogether before the hundredth or it may be the thousandth part of the water in the tun be moved As we see in a stone thrown upwards the motion is swifter or slower of longer or of lesser continuance according to the degree of the first impression of force and the figure of the thing cast upwards which ceasing by continued diminution the motion ceaseth Violent motioris are vehement in the beginning remisse in the middle and cease in the end Lastly I answer That the case of a great tun and the whole World is not the same The World is too large a Sphere and exceedeth the activity of poor little weak creatures which are not able to leave such an impression of might as should move upwards to the convex superficies of Heaven and downwards to the center of the Earth and round about to the extremities of the VVorld If this were true the flie might say in earnest See what a dust I do raise It hath been given out that the burning of our heathes in England did hurt their vines in France This had been strange yet not so strange as his paradox That the least motions that are are communicated to the whole World But wise men looked upon this pretence as a meer scare-crow or made dragon The hurt it did was nearer home to destroy the young moorepowtes and spoile some young Burgesses game Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 22. HE cannot imagine how the question Whether outward objects do necessitate or not necessitate the will can any way be referred to moral Philosophy That is his fault If the objects do necessitate the will they take away both virtue and vice that is moral good and moral evil which consist in pre-election and cannot stand with antecedent necessitation to one To reform his errour let him consult with Aristotle Those things that are fair and pleasant do seem to be violent after a sort because being without us they move and necessitate Agents to act with their beauty and delight but it is not so What he addeth that the Principles of moral philosophy are the laws is an absurd supposititious obtrusion of the municipal law in place of the law of right reason which errour hath formerly been sufficiently refelled And to his horse that is lame from some cause that was not in his power I answer That the lamenesse is a natural or accidental defect in the horse but to instance in an horse as a fit subject of virtue or vice is a moral defect in him If he desire to speak to the purpose he must leave such impertinencies In the next Animadversion I meet with nothing but a meer sawing of the wind or an altercation about nothing All the difference between him and me is concerning an antecedent necessity but of a necessity of consequence that when a thing is produced it must necessarily be so as it is there can be no-question between us He himself confesseth as much If the Bishop think that I hold no other ne cessity than that which is expressed in that old foolish rule VVhatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is he understandeth me not And he confesseth that the necessity which he maintaineth is an antecedent necessity derived from the beginning of time And yet neverthelesse a great part of that altercation which he makes in these Animadversions is about such a necessity Socrates confesseth that naturally he had vitious inclinations This is no more than a proclinity to evil If by his own condescension he fall into sin this is but an hypothetical necessity yet he maketh it an antecedent necessity Socrates by his good indeavours reformeth his vitious propensions and acquireth the contrary habits or virtues This is but an hyothetical necessity yet he pretendeth it to be antecedent Lastly Socrates by the help of these habits which he himself had acquired doth freely do virtuous actions Still here is no necessity but consequents and still he pretendeth to Antecedent Either saith he these habits do necessitate the will or the will followeth not If these habits or somewhat else do not necessitate the will it may follow freely But saith he If they do onely facilitate men to do such acts then what they do they do not I deny his consequence acquired habits are not solitary but social and adjuvant causes of virtuous actions His next errour is yet more grosse making the person of the Preacher and not the sound of his voice to be the object of hearing Adding that the Preachers voice is the same thing with the hearing and a phansie of the hearer Thus as commonly their errours spring from confusion he confoundeth the images of sounds with sounds themselves What then is the report of a Canon or the sound of a Trumpet turned to a meer phansie By the same reason he may say that the Preacher himself is nothing but a meer phansie There is as much ground for the one as for the other If he go on in this manner he will move me beyond smiling to laugh outright In what sense the object of sight is the cause of sight and in what sense it is not the cause of sight I have shewed distinctly Here he setteth down another great paradox as he himself stileth it out of gallantry That in all the sensâ—… the object is the Agent If he had not said the Agent which signifieth either the sole Agent or the Principal Agent but onely an Agent we had accorded so far But the Principal Agent in all the senses is the creature indowed with sense or the sensitive soul perceiving and judging of the object by the proper Organ The Preachers voice and the Auditos hearing have two distinct subjects otherwise speaking should be hearing and hearing speaking I conclude this Castigation with the authority of as good a Philosopher as himself That it is ridiculous to think external things either fair or delightful to be the causes of humane actions and not rather him who is easily taken with such objects In the later part of this Animadversion his errours are greater and more dangerous than in the former He affirmeth that the will is produced generated and formed in such sort as accidents are effected in a corporeal subject and yet it the will cannot be moved As if generation and augmentation and alteration were not kinds of motion or mutation But the last words because it goeth not from place to place do shew plainly that he acknowledgeth no motion but local motion What no other natural motion but onely local motion no metaphorical motion that were strange We read in holy Scripture of those who have been moved with fear moved with envy moved with compassion moved with choler moved by the Holy Ghost In all these there is no local motion Outward persuasives inward suggestions are all motions God moveth a man to good by his preventing grace The devil moveth a man
an unhandsome thing for a man to derive his opinion concerning truth by succession from his Ancestor I answer That just possession is either by law or by prescription I have all laws Divine and Humane Ecclesiastical and Civil and a prescription of two thousand years or at least ever since Christianity came into the World for liberty His opinion of universal Destiny by reason of a necessary connexion of the second causes was never the general nor the common nor the current opinion of the World and hath been in a manner wholly buried for sixteen hundred years and now is first conjured out of its grave by him to disturb the World If this be just possession an High-way robber may plead possession so soon as ever he hath stripped an honest Traveller It is not onely no unhandsome thing but it is a most comely and commendable thing for a man to derive his religion by the universal approbation of the Christian World from the purest Primitive Times throughout all ages and never to deviate further from the steps of his Ancestors than they had first degenerated from their predecessors And where he telleth us That the first Christians did not derive Christianity from their Ancestours It is very true but very impertinent For they had not their religion from their own invention or presumption as he hath his opinions but by Divine Revelation confirmed with miracles When he is able to produce as authentick proof for his Paradoxes as they did for their religion he saith something That which he calleth my scâ—…rrilous argumentation he that drinks well sleeps well c. is none of mine but a common example used in Logick to shew the weaknesse of such forms of arguings as his is when the dependance is not necessary and essentiall but contingent and accidental as it is in his argument here All actions are from God by a general power but not determinately The like contingent connexion there is between action and sense sense and memory memory and election This is enough to shew the weaknesse of his argument But he hath one main fault more he hath put more in the conclusion than there was in the premisses He saith If by liberty I had understood onely liberty of action and not liberty of will it had been an easie matter to reconcile it with prescience and the decrees of God I answer first That liberty of action without liberty of will is but a mock liberty and a new nothing like an empty bottle given to a child to satisfie his thirst Where there is no liberty to will there is no liberty to act as hath been formerly demonstrated Secondly The liberty to will is as reconciliable with the prescience and decrees of God as the liberty to act Gods decrees do extend at least as much to acting as to willing Thirdly This liberty of acting without a liberty of willing is irreconciliable with all the other attributes of God his truth his justice his goodnesse and his power and setting the decrees of God in opposition one with another How should a man have a liberty to act and have no liberty to will when he cannot act freely except he will freely because willing is a necessary cause or means of acting That which followeth about Gods aspect and intuition is meerly a contention about words and such words as are received and approved by all Authours Gods intuition is not of the same nature with ours we poor Creatures do stand in need of organs but God who is a pure simple infinite essence cannot be made perfecter by organs or accidents Whatsoever he seeth or knoweth he seeth or knoweth by his essence The lesse T. H. understood the terms of Aspect and Intuition the more apt he was to blonder them He pleadeth If liberty cannot stand with necessity it cannot stand with the decrees of God of which decrees necessity is a consequent And he citeth some body without name who said The will of God is the necessity of all things I deny his consequence Liberty is consistent with Gods decrees though it be not consistent with universal necessity The reason is plain because liberty is a consequent of Gods decrees as well as necessity He who said that the will of God was the necessity of all things was St. Austine I wish he would stand to his judgement or to his sense of those words The meaning of those words is not that God doth will that all things should be necessary But that whatsoever God doth will that must necessarily be If he will have all things necessary then all things must be necessary If he will have all things free then all things must be free If he will have some things necessary and somethings free then some things must be necessary and some things free When God formed man of the dust of the earth he might have formed him either a child or a man but whether he should be formed the one or the other it was not in the condition of the Creature but in the pleasure of the Creator whose will is the necessity of things What doth this concern the liberty of man Nothing It concerned him more to have understood St. Austines distinction between Gods will and his prescience in the same place What God willeth shall necessarily be that is according to an absolute antecedent necessity What God foreknows shall truely be that is onely by a necessity of infallability I might produce the whole world against him in this cause But because he renounced Rumaine authorities I have been sparing to alledge one testimony against him But to free Saint Austin from all suspition of concurring in such a desperate cause I will onely cite one place of an hundred Neither is that necessity to be feared which the Stoicks fearing were careful to distinguish the causes of things so that some they substracted from necessity some they subjected to necessity And in those which they would not have to be under necessity they placed our wills least they should not be free if they were subjected to necessity For if that be to be called our necessity which is not in our power but effecteth what it can all though we will not such as is the necessity of death it is manifest that our wills whereby we live well or ill are not under such a necessity c. Here he may find the two sorts of necessity which we have had so much contention about the one in our power which is not opposed to liberty the other not in our power that is an antecedent extrinsecal necessity which destroyeth liberty but he saith that it is manifest that our wills are not subject to such an antecedent necessity Here he may see that his friends the Stoicks the great Patrons of necessity were not for universall necessity as he is nor did countenance necessity to the prejudice of the liberty of the will Onely to permit and to permit liberty do not