Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	effect_n	sin_n	2,000	5	5.1557	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44006	Of libertie and necessitie a treatise, wherein all controversie concerning predestination, election, free-will, grace, merits, reprobation, &c. is fully decided and cleared, in answer to a treatise written by the Bishop of London-derry, on the same subject / by Thomas Hobs.	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1654 (1654)	Wing H2252; ESTC R20187	27,647	98

say what necessary cause soever precede an action yet if the action be forbidden he that doth it willingly may justly be punished For instance suppose the Law on pain of death prohibit stealing and that there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal and is thereupon put to death does not this punishment deter others from Theft is it not a cause that others steal not Doth it not frame and make their wills to justice To make the Law is therefore to make a Cause of Justice and to necessitate Justice and consequently 't is no injustice to make such a Law The intention of the Law is not to grieve the Delinquent for that which is past and not to be undone but to make him and others just that else would not be so and respecteth not the evil act past but the good to come in so much as without the good intention for the future no past act of a Delinquent could justifie his killing in the sight of God But you will say how is it just to kill one man to amend another if what were done were necessary To this I answer that men are justly killed not for that their actions are not necessitated but because they are noxious and they are spared and preserved whose actions are not noxious For where there is no Law there no killing nor any thing else can be unjust and by the right of nature we destroy without being unjust all that is noxious both Beasts and Men and for Beasts we kill them justly when we do it in order to our own preservation and yet my Lord himself confesseth that their actions as being onely spontaneous and not free are all necessitated and determined to that one thing they shall do For men when we make Societies or Common-Wealths we lay not down our right to kill excepting in certain cases as murther theft or other offensive action so that the right which the Common-Wealth hath to put a man to death for crimes is not created by the Law but remains from the first right of nature which every man hath to preserve himself for that the Law doth not take the right away in the case of Criminals who were by the Law excepted Men are not therefore put to death or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest in as much as to punish those that do voluntary hurt and none else frameth and maketh mens wills such as men would have them And thus it is plain that from the necessity of a voluntary action cannot be inferred the injustice of the Law that forbiddeth it or the Magistrate that punisheth it Secondly I deny that it maketh consultations to be in vain 't is the consultation that causeth a man necessitateth him to choose to do one thing rather than another so that unless a man say that that cause is in vain which necessitateth the effect he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation out of the necessity of the election proceeding from it But it seemeth his Lordships reasons thus If I must do this rather than that I shall do this rather than that though I consult not at all which is a false proposition and a false consequence and no better than this if I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self through with a sword to day If there be a necessity that an action shall be done or that any effect shall be brought to pass it does not therefore follow that there is nothing necessarily requisite as a means to bring it to pass and therefore when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another 't is determined also for what cause it shall so be chosen which cause for the most part is deliberatiō or consultation and therefore consultation is not in vain and indeed the less in vain by how much the election is more necessitated if more and less had any place in necessity The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience namely that admonitions are in vain for the Admonitions are parts of consultation the admonitor being a Councellour for the time to him that is admonished The fourth pretended inconveence is that praise dispraise reward and punishment will be in vain To which I answer that for praise and dispraise they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or dispraised For what is it else to praise but to say a thing is good good I say for me or for some body else or for the State and Common-Wealth And what is it to say an action is good but to say it is as I would wish Or as another would have it or according to the will of the State that is to say according to the Law Does my Lord think that no action can please me or him or the Common-Wealth that should proceed from necessity things may be therefore necessary and yet praise worthy as also necessary and yet dispraised and neither of them both in vain because praise and dispraise and likewise Reward and Punishment do by example make and conform the will to good and evil It was a very great praise in my opinion that Velleius Paterculus gives Cato where he saies that he was good by nature Et quia aliter esse non potuit To the fifth and sixth inconveniences that Counsels Arts Arms Instruments Books Study Medicines and the like would be superfluous the same answer serves as to the former that is to say that this consequence If the effect shall necessarily come to pass then it shall come to pass without its causes is a false one and those things named Counsels Arts Arms c. are the causes of these effects His Lordships third Argument consisteth in other inconveniences which he saith will follow namely Impiety and negligence of religious duties as Repentance and Zeal to Gods service c. To which I answer as to the rest that they follow not I must confess if we consider the greatest part of Mankinde not as they should be but as they are that is as men whom either the study of acquiring wealth or preferment or whom the appetite of sensual delights or the impatience of meditating or the rash embracing of wrong principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things I must I say confess that the dispute of this question will rather hurt than help their piety and therefore if his Lordship had not desired this answer I should not have written it nor do I write it but in hopes your Lordship and his 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 as highly of his power as we

is the same thing and that of a voluntarie Agent it is all one to say he is free and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating Fifthly I conceive Libertie to be rightly defined in this manner Libertie is the absence of all the impediments to Action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsecal qualitie of the Agent As for example the water is said to descend freely or to have libertie to descend by the channel of the river because there is no impediment that way but not across because the banks are impediments And though the water cannot ascend yet men never say it wants the libertie to ascend but the faculty or power because the impediment is in the nature of the water and intrinsecal So also we say he that is tied wants the libertie to go because the impediment is not in him but in his bands whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame because the impediment is in himself Sixthly I conceive that nothing taketh beginning from it self but from the Action of some other immediate Agent without it self And that therefore when first a man hath an appetite or will to something to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will the cause of his will is not the will it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas it is out of controversie that of voluntarie actions the will is the necessarie cause and by this which is said the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not it followeth that voluntarie actions have all of them necessarie causes and therefore are necessitated Seventhly I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needfull to the producing of the effect The same also is a necessarie cause For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanteth somewhat which was needfull to the producing of it and so the cause was not sufficient but if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it or else it had not been and therefore also voluntarie actions are necessitated Lastly should that Ordinary Definition of a free Agent namely That a free Agent is that which when all things are present which are needfull to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it implies a contradiction and is non-sence being as much as to say The cause may be sufficient that is to say necessarie and yet the effect shall not follow My Reasons FOr the first five points wherein it is explicated 1. what Spontanity is 2. what Deliberation is 3. what Will propension and appetite is 4. what a free Agent is 5. what Liberty is there can no other proof be offered but every mans own experience by reflection on himself and remembring what he useth in his minde 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 reflecteth so on himself cannot but be satisfied that Deliberation is the consideration of the good and evil sequels of an action to come that by Spontanity is meant inconsiderate action or 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 external impediments But to those that out of custom 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 mans own sence and memory For example how can it be proved that to love a thing and to think it good is all one to a man that doth not mark his own meaning by those word Or how can it be proved that Eternity is not nunc stans to a man that saies those words by custom and never consider how he can conceive the thing in his minde Also the sixth 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 finde as much reason if there be no cause of the thing to conceive it should begin at one time as another that he hath equal 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 For the seventh point which is that all events have necessary causes it is there proved in that they have sufficient causes Further let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual as the throwing for example Ames Ace upon a pair of dice and see if it must not have been necessary before 't 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 outward things as the posture of the parts of the hand the measure of force applied by the caster the posture of the parts of the Table and the like In sum there was nothing wanting which was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast and consequently the cast was necessarily thrown for if it had not been thrown there had wanted somwhat 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 ac●ident how contingent soever it seem or how voluntary soever it be is produced necessarily which is that that my L. Bishop disputes against The same may be proved also 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 there is no necessity that the proposition It shall rain or not rain should be true I know there be 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 that 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 determinate but indeterminate which distinction either signifies no more but 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 hath no meaning and they might as well have said One of them is true Titirice but neither of them Tu patulice The last thing in which also consisteth the whole controversie 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 if sufficient then also necessary as hath been proved before And thus you see how the inconveniences which his Lordship objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity are avoided and the necessity it self demonstratively proved To which I could add if I thought it good Logick the inconvenience of denying necessity as that it destroyeth both the decrees and the prescience of God Almighty for whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an instrument or foreseeth shall come to pass a man if he have Liberty such as his Lordship affirmeth from necessitation might frustrate and make not to come to pass and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be and decree that which shall never come to pass This is all hath come into my minde touching this question since I last considered it And I humbly beseech your Lordship to communicate it onely to my Lord Bishop And so praying God to prosper your Lordship in all your designes I take leave and am My most Noble and most obliged Lord Your most humble servant Thomas Hobbs Roven Aug. 20. 〈◊〉 FINIS

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 willt I take to be an absurd speech wherefore I cannot grant my Lord the cause upon his preface In the next place he maketh certain distinctions of Libertie and saies he meaneth not Libertie from sin nor from servitude nor from violence but from Necessitie Necessitation inevitabilitie and determination to one It had been better to define Liberty than thus to distinguish for I understand never the more what he means by Libertie and though he say he means Libertie from necessitation yet I understand not how such a Libertie can be and t is a taking of the Question without proof for what is else the Question between us but whether such a Liberty be possible or not There are in the same place other distinctions as a Liberty of Exercise onely which he calls a Libertie of contradiction namely of doing not good or evil simply but of doing this or that good or this or that evil respestively and a Libertie of specification and exercise also which he calls a Liberty of contrarietie namely a Liberty not onely to do good or evil but also to do or not do this or that good or evil And with these Distinctions his Lordship saies he clears the coast whereas in truth he darkneth his own meaning and the Question not onely with the jargon of exercise onely specification also contradiction contrarietie but also with pretending distinction where none is For how is it possible that the Libertie of doing or not doing this or that good or evil can consist as he saies it does in God and good Angels without a Liberty of doing or not doing good or evil The next thing his Lordship does after clearing of the coast is the dividing of his forces as he calls them into two squadrons one of places of Scriptures the other of Reasons which allegory he useth I suppose because he addresseth the discourse to your Lordship who is military 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 fight amongst themselves And the first place of Scripture taken from Numb. 30.14 Is one of those that look another way the words are If a wife make a vow it is left to her husbands choice either to establish it or make it void For it proves no more but that the husband is a free and voluntary Agent but not that his choice therein is not necessitated or not determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes For if there come into the husbands minde greater good by establishing than abrogating such a vow the establishing will follow necessarily and if the evil that will follow in the husbands opinion out-weigh the good the contrary must needs follow and yet in this following of ones hopes and fears consisteth the nature of Election So that a man may both choose this and cannot but choose this and consequently choosing and necessity are joyned together The second place of Scripture is Joshua 24.15 The third is 2 Sam. 24.12 whereby 't is clearly proved that there is election in man but not proved that such election was not necessitated by the hopes and fears and considerations of good and bad to follow which depend not on the will nor are subject to election And therefore one answer serves all such places if there were a thousand But his Lordship supposing it seems I might answer as I have done that necessity and election might stand together and instance in the actions of children fools or bruit beasts whose fancies I might say are necessitated and determined to one before these his proofs out of Scripture desires to prevent that instance and therefore saies that the actions of children fools mad men and beasts are indeed determined but that they proceed not from election nor from free but from Spontaneous Agents As for example that the Bee when it maketh hony does it Spontaneously and when the Spider makes his web he does it Spontaneously but not by election Though I never meant to ground my Answer upon the experience of what Children Fools Mad men and Beasts do yet that your Lordship may understand what can be meant by Spontaneous and how it differeth from voluntary I will answer that distinction and shew that it fighteth against its fellow Arguments Your Lordship therefore is to consider that all voluntary actions where the thing that induceth the will is not fear are called also spontaneous and said to be done by a mans own accord As when a man giveth money voluntarily to another for Merchandise or out of affection he is said to do it of his own accord which in latine is sponte and therefore the action is spontaneous though to give ones mony willingly to a thief to a void killing or throw it into the Sea to avoid drowning where the motive is fear be not called spontaneous But every spontaneous action is not therefore voluntary for voluntary presupposes some precedent deliberation that is to say some consideration and meditation of what is likely to follow both upon the doing and abstaining from the action deliberated of whereas many actions are done of our own accord and are therefore spontaneous for which nevertheless as my Lord thinks we never consulted nor deliberated in our selves As when making no question nor any the least doubt in the world but the thing we are about is good we eat and walk or in anger strike or revile which my Lord thinks spontaneous but not voluntary nor elective actions and with such kinde of actions he saies necessitation may stand but not with such as are voluntary and proceed upon election and deliberation Now if I make it appear to your Lordship that those actions which he saies proceed from spontanity and which he ascribes to Children Fools Madmen and Beasts proceed from election and deliberation and that actions inconsiderate rash and spontaneous are ordinarily found in those that are by themselves and many more thought as wise or wiser than ordinarily men are then my Lord Bishops Argument concludeth that necessity and election may stand together which is contrary to that which he intendeth by all the rest of his Arguments to prove And first your Lordships own experience furnishes you with proof enough that Horses Doggs and other Bruit Beasts do demur oftentimes upon the way they are to take the Horse retiring from some strange figure that he sees and coming on again to avoid the spur And what else doth

can for to honour any thing is nothing else but to think it to be of great power The other is 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 may 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 that this opinion fortifies piety in both kinds external and internal therefore is far from destroying it And for Repentance which is nothing else 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 reason why he should not grieve and again though the cause why he returned into the way were necessary there remained still the causes of joy So that the necessity of the actions taketh away neither of those parts of Repentance grief for the errour and joy for returning And for prayer whereas he saith that the necessity of things destroy prayer I deny it for though prayer be none of the causes that move Gods will his will being unchangeable yet since we finde in Gods word he will not give his blessings but to those that aske the motive of prayer is the same Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessing 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 Gods 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 The fourth Argument from Reason is this The order beauty and perfection of the world requireth that in the universe should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some free some contingent He that shall make all things necessary all things free or all things contingent doth overthrow the beauty and perfection of the world In which Argument I observe first a Contradiction for seeing he that maketh any thing in that he maketh it maketh it to be necessary it followeth that he that maketh all things maketh all things necessarily to be As if a work-man make a garment the garment must necessarily be so if God make every thing every thing must necessarily be Perhaps the beauty of the world requireth though we know it not that some Agents should work without deliberation which his Lordship calls necessary Agents and some Agents with deliberation and those both he and I call free Agents and that some Agents should work and we not know how and their effects we both call Contingents but this hinders not but that he that electeth may have his election necessarily determined to one by former causes and that which is contingent and imputed to fortune be nevertheless necessary and depend on precedent necessary causes For by contingent men do not mean that which hath no cause but that which hath not for cause any thing that we perceive As for example when a Traveller meets with a shower the journey had a cause and the rain had a cause sufficient to produce it but because the journey caused not the rain nor the rain the journey we say they were contingent one to another And thus you see that though there be three sorts of events necessary contingent and free yet they may be all necessary without destruction of the beauty or perfection of the universe To the first Argument from Reason which is that if liberty be taken away the nature and formel reason of sin is taken away I answer by denying the consequence The nature of sin consisteth in this that the action done proceed from our will and be against the Law A Judge in judging whether it be sin or no which is done against the Law looks at no higher cause of the action than the will of the doer Now when I say the action was necessary I do not say it was done against the will of the doer but with his will and necessarily because mans will that is every volition or act of the will and purpose of man had a sufficient and therefore a necessary cause and consequently every voluntary action was necessitated An action therefore may be voluntary and a sin and nevertheless be necessary and because God may afflict by a right derived from his Omnipotence though sin were not and because the example of punishment on voluntary sinners is the cause that produceth justice and maketh sin less frequent for God to punish such sinners as I have said before is no injustice And thus you have my answer to his Lordships Objections both out of Scripture and from Reason Certain Distinctions which his Lordship supposing might be brought to evade his Arguments are by him removed HE saies a man may perhaps answer that the necessity of things held by him is not a Stoicall necessity but a Christian necessity c. But this distinction I have not used nor indeed ever heard before nor could I think any man could make Stoicall and Christian two kindes of necessity though they may be two kindes of Doctrine Nor have I drawn my Answer to his Lordships 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 Lordships in this place as making against his own Tenet Where all the causes saith he being joyned together and subordinate one to another do make but one total 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 maketh the effect necessary For that which I call the necessary cause of any effect is the joyning together of all causes subordinate to the first into one total cause If any of these saith he especially the first produce its effect necessarily then all the rest are determined Now