must be obstructed by the grant of an undetermin'd liberty in Man It is not that I know of affirm'd by any Disputant that there is such a lawless Liberty in Man as is not under subjection to the absolute Power of God but that it is a Liberty which God Almighty in an agreeableness to the free nature of Man hath been pleas'd to grant and for the greater part to suffer in the exercise of it Only it is said concerning sin that God cannot force the Will of Man to the commission of it for the production of such a wretched Issue would argue not omnipotency but impotence and imperfection in the parent of it God created Man and gave a Law to him and design'd not to use his Almighty Power to effect the fulfilling of that Law which Power supposeth the Command of a Law to be in vain He therefore that interposeth not his Power whilst he may hath not his Power disanulled when his preceptive Will is only withstood and he permitteth that disobedience Mr. Hobbes But what Elusion can be invented touching the foreknowledg of God The denying necessity destroyeth both the Decrees and 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 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 Stud. Touching the Decees of God it cannot be proved that they extend to all things which come to pass For his Prescience I 'm sure that it extendeth to all things possible to be known and that it hath no necessary influence upon the Event it doth neither hinder the Power of God nor the Liberty of Man God foreseeth that the Event may come to paâ—s and that he will not hinder it yet that he might and it cometh to pass most necessarily if God â—oreseeth it but the necessity ariseth from the supposition of the infallibility and not from any causal energy of divine foreknowledg It is manifest by the fulfilled Prophesies of divers inspired Men that there is Prescience and a man may also be assured that neither is his Liberty intringed by it nor Prescience by his Liberty It is evident to every Man in many cases as evident as that he perceiveth at all or understandeth that he willeth or â—efuseth without any constraint upon his freedom But there is great difficulty in unridling the manner of the consistence of Foreknowledg and Liberty because although there be some notion yet there is not a knowledg fully comprehensive of the Divine Wisdom in a finite Soul Thus much notwithstanding may with sobriety be offer'd towards the explication of this mysterious truth that the boundless wisdom of God who made the World understanding the Laws and Operations of his Workmanship from the beginning to the end of them understandeth also the nature of all appearances in all Objects in relation to the mind of Man in every Estate wherein he is placed and at all times together with the dispositions of each Man's Soul and thereby foreseeth what he will refuse or chuse whilst he had power absolutely speaking otherwise either to elect or reject He that should drop a piece of money by an undiscerned hand in the way of a man afflicted with extream poverty the same person might readily foresee that the espied money would infallibly be taken up by that poor man though he could not but understand that the Beggar had so much power over his own limbs as not to stoop unless he pleased But it seemeth not worth the time and pains to reconcile to your apprehension the Doctrins of Foreknowledg and undetermin'd Liberty because this Objection is by you proposed in order to the amusing of other Men's Reasons rather than in justification of the Truth For according to your Principles all evidence or knowledg ariseth from Objects already in being Neither understand you this of Essence in the Sense of the Metaphysick-Schools but of the actual presence of caused Objects Mr. Hobbes In my Opinion Foreknowledg is Knowledg and Knowledg depends on the existence of things known not they on it However the Objection serveth for the incommoding of those who maintain another sort of Foreknowledg but the argument on which I establish my Doctrine is of another kind I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect The same also is a necessary cause For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanteth somewhat which was needful 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 voluntary actions are necessitated Stud. In the alterations made in Bodies every sufficient is an efficient Cause by reason that matter sufficiently moved cannot stay it self but is wholly determin'd by foreign impulse which impulse also had an undefeated determination But because I have proved the existence of an Immaterial Soul I may affirm that all outward preparations being made so that there remaineth nothing wanting but the Act of Volition the Spiritual Mind not being overcome by the sway of Matter hath a power to abstain from acting though perhaps it is not pleased to use it And this we may illustrate by the Example of Abraham whose Fire Wood and Son to be a Victim and Sacrificing-knife were in a readiness and sufficient strength with these to execute the Command which God Almighty by way of trial had given to him yet who can doubt that Abraham had a power at the same time to render these preparations useless and to be disobedient For how could those Objects and this Command conveigh a force into his Will and thence into his Arm to slay his Son though they might present him with a reason which the goodness of his Disposition would not refuse The intention of Abraham to slay his Son was wrought by a Moral and not a Physical or Natural Power Mr. Hobbes Natural efficacy of Objects does determine voluntary Agents and necessitates the Will and consequently the Action but for Moral efficacy I understand not what you mean Stud. I understand by Moral efficacy the perswaâ—ive power of such Motives as those which arise from fear and love and trust and gratitude and especially such as arise from the meer reason of the Case as when a man doth therefore give Alms
notion which may be delivered in another form of words And moreover when you say that Plato and Aristotle could not conceive a spirit by reason that with them it signified a wind to be incorporeal therein also you ought not to have used such confidence in your assertion for if wind be motion and motion be so unglued and loose as to pass from Body to Body I know not whether the nâ—me of wind may not more promote than obstruâ—t the apprehension of an incorporeal Being We are informed by Sextus Empiricus that some of the Antients contended expresly for the incorporeity of motion I mean by motion that force so little yet understood which is the cause of the translation of bodies and not as you somewhere speak the relinquishing of one place and acquiring another But leaving this subtiler Consideration I will proceed to shew that neither the Scripture nor the School of Plato or Aristotle is wholly unacquainted with the Doctrine of an incorporeal spirit Concerning the holy Scripture it saith that God created all things and filleth all things and therefore it teacheth that he is immaterial And for the very term we may perhaps meet with it in the words of our blessed Lord who appearing to the doubting and amazed Disciples encouraged and confirmed their faith by saying to them Lay hold of me handle me and see that I am not an incorporeal Daemon you will now tell me that I follow not the true Copy of the New Testament in the translation of this produced Text. I defend my self by answering that I follow holy Ignatius who in his undoubted Epistle to those of Smyrna cited both by Eusebius and St. Hierome bringeth in our Lord using these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This excellent person who saw our Lord after his resurrection did either cite the words exactly or else which also strengtheneth my cause he eâ—press'd the sence of them according as it was received in the incorruptest Age of the Christian Church Concerning the Philosophy of Plato in relation to the Question which lay before us there is nothing more received than that he affirmed the most celestial parts of matter neither to be God or Angel or spirit of man but to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is the phrase of Hierocles the spiritual Chariots of prae-existing Angels or of departed minds In the beginning of the Dialogue with the Jew Trypho Iustin Martyr at large relating his small proficiency under the Tutorage of a Stoick a Peripatetick and a Pythagorean adds also that he adjoyn'd himself at last to a Platonist of great fame that he improved daily by his instruction that he was extreamly pleas'd amongst other parts of science by him taught with the notion of incorporeal beings and if I well remember the great admirer of Plato Psellus has call'd the Soul an immaterial and incorporeal fire And touching Plato himself I am sure that I have read this Maxime in his Politicus that incorporeal Beings which are of all others the most glorious and great are only conspicuous to the faculty of Reason which though it be there said by Hospes yet it is approved of by Plato himself under the name of Socrates who reply'd that he had excellently spoken Neither will I pass by the testimony of Aristotle who by his separate Intelligences meaneth saith Ben Maimon the same with those who maintain the existence of incorporeal Angels And concerning the rational soul he teacheth that it is separable from the body because it is not the Entelech of any body having a while before enquired whether it be endued with any peculiar function not arising from this compounded estate He also denieth that motion can arise from a body Mr. Hobbes It is manifest by your thick quotations that you are much in love with Authority to that therefore in the second place I will refer you Know then that whatsoever can be inferr'd from the denying of incorporeal substances makes Tertullian one of the antientest of the Fathers and most of the Doctors of the Greek Church as much Atheists as my self Stud. You have not by this means advanc'd your hopes of victory for I shall make it evident that the Forces in whose numbers you trust are falsly muster'd The Fathers of the Greek Church believe in the same sence with the Doctors of our own that God is a Spirit for Ignatius and Iustin Martyr you have heard already on what side they stand Athenagoras in his Embassie in behalf of the Christians to M. Aurelius Antoninus and L. Aurelius Commodus discourseth to this purpose The Athenians did most justly condemn Diagoras for sacrilegious impiety who rather than his Coleworts should remain unboylâ—d would cut in pieces the Statue of Hercules who also did expresly affirm that there was no God at all But as for us who separate God from matter and teach that God is one thing and matter another the reproach of Atheism is most unreasonably and injuriously charg'd upon our Creed The same Athenagoras in a few Pages after this discourse again professeth not as his private opinion but as the faith of the Christians of that Age that God admitteth not of any division neither consisteth of any parts Then for Theophiluâ— the Patriarch of Antioch who likewise writeth not as a private man but as a common Apologist for the Christians he tells Antolycus the Heathen that God is every where and that every thing is in God Had he believed God to have been a Body he would not have placed all other Beings in his boundless Essence unless we shall take the boldness to accuse the holy Patriarch of that fault which Des-Cartes imagined he had espied in your self of failing whatsoever the Premisses be in the Illations deduced from them If we consult Tatianus in his Oration contra Graecos we shall likewise obtain his suffrage for the immateriality of the first cause There are said Tatianus who do maintain that God is a Body I am not of the same belief with them for my perswasion is that he is incorporeal Eâ—sebius may be produc'd in the same place both against your self touching the materiality and against Idolaterâ— touching the worship of Angels for thus he speaks We have learn't to honour the incorporeal powers according to the degree of their dignity ascribing divine honour to God alone St. Athanasius tells the Followers of Sabellius that it is a very childish and foolish conceit by the eye or by the circumscription of place to comprehend that which is incorporeal understanding this speech of the infinite Majesty of Almighty God St. Chrysostome in the same place affirmeth God and the soul of man to be incorporeal I might here subjoyn in favour of the common opinion St. Irenâ—eus St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen St. Gregory Nyssen St. Epiphanius and a long order of others if it were not a needless labour and would
of an Incorporeal God to any end of it distinctly known Wherefore the Stoicks long before you supposing God to be a kind of Fire and the Soul to be a subtil Body held also the opinion of Irresistible Fate And Plutarch and Stobaeus take notice of both Opinions together as I find them cited by Lipsius in his Manuduction to that Philosophy Upon which occasion a worthy and learned person hath in his Discourse at the Funeral of Bishop Hall deservedly call'd you the New Stoick If then there be nothing more divine in Man than Matter and Motion he does as necessarily chuse or refuse as Fire ascends or a Stone is pressed towards the Earth Mr. Hobbes It is no more necessary that Fire should burn than that a man or other creature whose Limbs be moved by Fancy should have Election that is Liberty to do what he hath a fancy to do though it be not in his Will or Power to choose his fancy or to choose his Election and Will Good and evil sequels of Mens Actions retained in Memory do frame and make us to the Election of whatsoever it be that we elect and the memory of such things proceeds from the Senses and Sense from the operation of the Objects of sense which are external to us and govern'd only by God Almighty and by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents are necessary Stud. Were Man such a piece of Mechanism as has been forged by your untoward invention much of the Cause would be granted to you and yet not this that the Memory of good or evil Sequels of Mens Actions do frame us unto Every election because there are too many whom no examples of Punishment will deterr from such evil manners as they see daily producing bitter effects But seeing it has been prov'd that there is in Man an Immaterial Soul it follows thence that the Motions from the Object continued to the Brain and Heart can only solicite and not force the Assent of that Incorporeal Being which giveth them passage or resisteth them and determineth them at its pleasure in divers cases Neither can outward force any more restrain this Spiritual mind than Xerxes could properly fetter the Hellespont There is then left me but little work in oppugning your Opinion about Liberty and Necessity seeing the foundation of your belief of Fate is the Corporeity of the Universe It is also to be considered that a Person of great fame and place hath already contended with you so very much to your disadvantage that it seems not worth the while for any Man henceforth to enter the lists And of this I will not make my self the Judg but repeat the opinion of a Learned Man who was wont to declare his mind in Controversies with unbyassed freedom It is known every where said that Elegant Writer with what Piety and acumen the last Lord Primate of all Ireland wrote against the Manichean Doctrine of fatal Necessity which a late witty Man had pretended to adorn with a new vizor but this excellent person wash'd off the Cerusse and the Meritricious Paintings rarely well asserted the Oeconomy of the Divine Providence and having once more triumph'd over his Adversary Plenus Victoriarum Trophaearum be took himself to the more agreeable attendance upon Sacred Offices Mr. Hobbes This luxuriant Pen-man boasts of Trophies and the Bishop himself of old talk'd of clearing the coast by Distinctions and dividing his forces into two squadrons one of places of Scripture the other of Reasons And I say notwithstanding to continue in the military allusion begun by them that in my Books not only his squadrons of Arguments but also his reserve of Distinctions are defeated Stud. I perceive you intend to make good the Character now given of you of being a witty Man although according to the Principles of your own Philosophy it redoundeth not much to your reputation For Wit depending upon a tenuity and agility of spirits there seemeth wanting in a very witty Man that fixation of parts which is required to Prudence Touching your Antagonist there is no doubt and it appeareth by your fretting and sprawling that you have felt the smart of that Opposition which he hath made against you But so far as I can remember for I have not had for some years any writing of his in my possession he hath not level'd his men in force against that place wherein you seem to me most capable of being wounded and wherein your chief strength seemeth to lay that is to say the Materiality of the whole Sphaere of Nature In relation to which I am apt to be perswaded that in this Controversie about Fate you by a daring consequence do charge the most holy God with all the iniquities committed in the World For all Effects arising from Motion and all Motion being derived from the first immoveable Mover all subordinate Causes and Effects will owe themselves in a chain-like dependance to the supreme Original Cause Mr. Hobbes The concourse of all causes maketh not one simple chain or concatenation but an innumerable number of Chains joyned together not in all parts but in the first link God Almighty That which I say necessitateth and determineth every action is the sum of all things which being now existent conduce and concur to the production of that Action hereafter whereof if any one thing now were 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 Every act of mans will and every desire and inclination proceedeth from some cause and that from another cause in a continual Chain whose first link is in the hand of God the Cause of all Causes and therefore the voluntary Actions of Men proceed from Necessity Stud. Impute not that with falshood and dishonour to God which is caused by Man's unconstrained Will the only Mother which conceiveth and bringeth forth Sin not withstanding that Objects may incline and Examples may entice and opportunities may invite and evil Angels may tempt and Constitution may encline and God permitteth Let no Man therefore say when he is tempted he is tempted of God for every Man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed Mr. Hobbes '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 dishonnour to Him Stud. These Answers should not have proceeded from a Man who professeth himself a Christian of no mean degree They come I was ready to say as unexpectedly as if they had dropped out of the Heavens but that they have relation to a lower place If we brand
mortal Men with Names of Infamy and tokens of our abhorence calling them unmerciful bloody deceitful who are said by you in all their actions to be drawn by Fate how can we speak or think with honour of the Deity whilst we apprehend him as the Original Causer of all those evils for which we unhurt abominate one another which he himself hath told us he doth abhor and for the commission of which Immoralities he will execute vengeance upon the brutish part of Mankind When a Sword is sheathed in the Bowels of an innocent and good Man we reproach not the bloody Weapon which was moved by force but we give titles of extraordinary dishonour to the barbarous will of that savage Man who made it an instrument of such dreadful mischief If men be carryed on in all their Circumstances by the mighty torrent of irresistible Motion their iniquities and the dishonours due unto them are chargable upon the source and spring of Motion If Men are necessitated to act or omit as also to will or to refuse then Exhortations unto such Duties as they perform not are bitter taunts and like commands to a Criple to rise up and walk and punishment for such evils as they commit is a cruel usage and a declaration against Sin as hated by the first Cause who cannot be thought in earnest to detest his own workmanship and as the default of Man who is asked in Scripture why he will die whilst his very Will to die is by you supposed fatal is imperious mockery and unworthy deceit St. Austin himself in his 10 th cap. de Fide contra Manichaeos speaketh in words to the same effect Who said the Father may not cry out that it is a ridiculous thing to bind Precepts upon him who is not at liberty to obey them and an unrighteous thing to condemn that man who had no power to perform what he was commanded And what can be said of God which may betoken honour if he be once accused as the Author of Sin Mr. Hobbes Men may do many things which God does not command and therefore he is not the Author of them Stud. He is more the Author who doth secretly necessitate than he who only does command the effect in as much as a command may as it is daily be disobey'd but power irresistible is not to be eluded And David would have bin more entirely and notoriously the Murtherer of Vriah by forcing the armed hand of an Ammonite upon him and the Ammonite less guilty than by a bare appointing of him to be placed in the Front of the Battel Besides it seems superfluous perfluous to command the doing of that which the supposed Commander with or without promulgation of his Will does unavoidâ—bly bring to pass for you make God the first Causer of all that is performed even against the Revelation of his pleasure Mr. Hobbes I grant that though Men may do many things which God does not command yet that they can have no passion nor appetite to any thing of which appetite God's Will is not the Cause Stud. Why then did accused Adam transfer the blame on Eve and she upon the Serpent It had been an easie if it might have been a true reply for both of them to have said Thou thy self didst force us unto that which by thee is so severely reprehended The Serpent himself at the hearing of his doom remained silent the very Father of Lies not being impudent in so excessive a degree as to charge the Almighty with his own evils Wherefore in ascribing Sin to God as the first cause of it you put me in mind of their fancy upon a mistaken Text who affirm'd Leviathan to be the very Father of the Devil I cannot heartily beg your pardon for that note because it is necessary that I be zealous when once the holiness and goodness of God is reproached by humane wit impudence madness Mr. Hobbes Condemn not in such a furious way good Dedoctor of Morality for with as ill manners you affirm that God is the Permitter as I have done in saying he is the Cause of every action I am not ignorant that Divines distinguish between Will and Permission and say that God Almighty does indeed sometimes permit sins and that he also foreknoweth that the sin he permitteth shall be committed but does not will nor necessitate it But I find no difference between the Will to have a thing done and the permission to do it when he that permitteth can hinder it and knows that it will be done unless he hinder it Stud. The difference is heavenly-wide betwixt bare Permission and that Will which you have fancied in Almighty God a Will attended with such a disposal of all things as begetteth a necessity in Man's Will of doing Gods For no Man ever could imagin your self excepted that bare Permission should have the influence of a necessary Cause whereas such influence is ascrib'd by you to the Will of God It appeareth by the Revelation which God hath made to Man that he does so will Religion that it would be more pleasing to him for Man to obey than to remain perverse yet not in such a manner that he compelleth him to become his subject by active compliance for that were to unmake Man as such that is as a creature endu'd with a free Will When God saith of his Vineyard which made not such returns of fruitfulness as were proportion'd to his cultivation of it that he could do no more for it than he had done he declared plainly that he used such means as were consistent with a liberty in Man of neglecting or misimproving them And the exercise of this liberty in sinning he permitteth in regard to Man's free free nature and because he can not only chastise him for his delinquency but likewise by his Methods and infinite wisdom bring good out of it There being then in God in many cases a Conditional Will that will without the rescinding of any law of Man's unconstrain'd Election is always done either by the obedience of Man or by the vindication of abused mercy in the correction of a stubborn sinner And thus we have seen how injurious your Doctrine of Necessity hath been to the just honour of the most Holy Will of God It is also manifest that by the same way I will not call of reason but of bold asseveration you upbraid all Laws whereby any punishment is inflicted upon Malefactors of most rigorous and unreasonable procedure and thereby after dishonour done to God you vilisie his Vicegerents For why is the Scourge or Brand the Rope or Fire the Press Axe or Bullet prepared for those Men who do not by their own free choice and power lay open the fence which Authority hath set down but are hurried through it by a foreign violence against which it is in vain to struggle Sword and Pistol or whatsoever is an instrument in the violation of