born do all oblige us to the observation of them yet to none of all these did we give our actual consent Over and above all these exceptions he builds upon a wrong foundation that all Magestrates at first were elective The first Governours were Fathers of Families And when those petty Princes could not afford competent protection and security to their subjects many of them did resign their several and respective interists into the hands of one joint Father of the Country And though his ground had been true that all first Legislators were elective which is false yet his superstructure fails for it was done in hope and trust that they would make just Lawes If Magistrates abuse this trust and deceive the hopes of the people by making tyrannical Lawes yet it is without their consent A precedent trust doth not justifie the subsequent errours and abuses of a Trustee He who is duely elected a Legislator may exercise his Legislative power unduely The peoples implicite consent doth not render the tyrannical Lawes of their Legislators to be just d But his chiefest answer is that an action forhidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly it may be justly punished which according to his custome he proves by an instance A man necessitated to steal by the strength of temptation yet if he steal willingly is justly put to death Here are two things and both of them untrue First he fails in his assertion Indeed we suffer justly for those necessities which we our selves have contracted by our own fault but not for extrinsecal antecedent necessities w ch were imposed upon us without our fault If that Law do not oblige to punishment which is not intimated because the subject is invincibly ignorant of it How much less that Law which prescribes absolute impossibilities unless perhaps invincible necessity be not as strong a plea as invincible ignorance That which he adds if it were done willingly though it be of great moment if it be rightly understood yet in his sense that is if a mans will be not in his own disposition and if his willing do not come upon him according to his will nor according to any thing else in his power it weighs not half so much as the least feather in all his horse-load For if that Law be unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do then that Law is likewise unjust and tyrannical which commands him to wil that which is impossible for him to will Secondly his instance supposeth an untruth and is a plain begging of the Question No man is extrinsecally antecedently and irresistibly necessitated by temptation to steal The Devil may sollicite us but he cannot necessitate us He hath a faculty of perswading but not a power of compelling Nosignem habemus spiritus â—â—ammam ciet as Nazi anzen He blowes the coles but the fire is our own Mordet duntaxat sese in fauces illius objicientens as St. Austin he bites not until we thrust our selves into his mouth He may propose he may suggest but he cannot move the will effectively Resist the Devil and he will flie from you Jam. 4. 7. By faith we are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked Eph. 6. 16. And if Sathan who can both propose the object and choose out the fittest times and places to work upon our frailties and can suggest reasons yet cannot necessitate the will which is most certain then much less can outward objects do it alone They have no natural efficacy to determine the will Well may they be occasions but they cannot be causes of evil The sensitive appetite may engender a proclivity to steal but not a necessity to steal And if it should produce a kind of necessity yet it is but Moral not Natural Hypothetical not Absolute Coexistent not Antecedent from our selves nor Extrinsecall This necessity or rather proclivity was fâ—â—â— in its causes we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given it a kind of dominion over us Admit that some sudden passions may and do extraordinarily surprise us And therefore we say motus primo primi the first motions are not alwayes in our power neither are they free yet this is but very rarely and it is our own fault that they do surprise us Neither doth the Law punish the first motion to theft but the advised act of stealing The intention makes the thief But of this more largely Numb 25. e He pleads moreover that the Law is a cause of justice that it frames the wills of men to justice and that the punishment of one doth conduce to the preservation of many All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But this is no god-a-mercy to T. H. his opinion of absolute necessity If all actions and all events be predetermined Naturally Necessarily Extrinsecally how should the Law frame men morally to good actions He leaves nothing for the Law to do but either that which is done already or that which is impossible to be done If a man be chained to every individual act which he doth and from every act which he doth not by indissolvible bonds of inevitable necessity how should the Law either deterre him or frame him If a Dog be chained fast to a post the sight of a rod cannot draw him from it Make a thousand Lawes that the fire shall not burn yet it will burn And whatsoever men do according to T. H. they do it as necessarily as the fire burneth Hang up a thousand Theevs and if a man be determined inevitably to steal he must steal notwithstanding f He addes that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon delinquents respect not the evil act past but the good to come and that the putting of a delinquent to death by the Magistrate for any crime whatsoever cannot be justified before God except there be a reall intention to benefit others by his example The truth is the punishing of delinquents by Law respecteth both the evil act past and the good to come The ground of it is the evil act past the scope or end of it is the good to come The end without the ground cannot justifie the act A bad intention may make a good action bad but a good intention cannot make a bad action good It is not lawful to do evil that good may come of it nor to punish an innoceut person for the admonition of others that is to fall into a certain crime for fear of an uncertain Again though there were no other end of penalties inflicted neither probatory nor castigatory nor exemplary but only vindicatory to satisfie the Law out of a zeal of Justice by giving to every one his own yet the action is just and warrantable Killing as it is considered in it self without all undue circumstances was never prohibited to the lawful Magistrate who is the Vicegerent or
judgment is no part of the weight but is the sentence of the trier The understanding weigheth all Things Objects Means Circumstances Convenience Inconvenience but it self is not weighed Secondly the sensitive passion in some extraordinary cases may give a counterfeit weight to the object if it can detein or divert reason from the ballance but ordinarily the Means Circumstances and Causes concurrent they have their whole weight from the understanding So as they do not press the horses back at all until reason lay them on Thirdly he conceives that as each feather hath a certain natural weight whereby it concurs not arbitrarily but necessarily towards the overcharging of the horse So all objects and causes have a naturall efficiency whereby they do Physically determin the will which is a great mistake His Objects his Agents his Motives his Passions and all his concurrent causes ordinarily do onely moove the will morally not determine it naturally So as it hath in all ordinary actions a free dominion over it self His other example of a man that strikes whose will to strike followeth necessarily that thought he had of the sequell of this stroke immediately before the lifting up of his hand as it confounds passionate indeliberate thoughts with the dictates of right reason so it is very uncertain for between the cup and the lip between the lifting up of the hand and the blow the will may alter and the judgment also And lastly it is impertinent for that necessity of striking proceeds from the free determination of the Agent and not from the special influence of any outward determining causes And so it is onely a necessity upon supposition Concerning Medeas choise the strength of the argument doth not lye either in the fact of Medea which is but a fiction or in the authority of the Poet who writes things rather to be admired than believed but in the experience of all men who find it to be true in themselves That sometimes reason doth shew unto a man the exorbitancy of his passion that what he desires is but a pleasant good that what he loseth by such a choise is an honest good That that which is honest is to be preferred before that which is pleasant yet the will pursues that which is pleasant and neglects that which is honest St. Paul saith as much in earnest as is feined of Medea That he approoved not that which he did and that he did that which he hated Rom. 7. 15. The Roman Story is mistaken There was no bribe in the case but affection Whereas I urge that those things which are neerer to the senses do moove more powerfully he layes hold on it and without answering to that for which I produced it infers That the sense of present good is more immediate to the action than the foresight of evil consequents Which is true but it is not absolutely true by any antecedent necessity Let a man do what he may do and what he ought to do and sensitive objects will lose that power which they have by his own fault and neglect Antecedent or indeliberate concupiscence doth sometimes but rarely surprise a man and render the action not free But consequent and deliberated concupiscence which proceeds from the rational will â—oth render the action more free not less free and introduceth onely a necessity upon supposition Lastly he saith that a mans mourning more for the loss of his Child than for his sin makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding Yes very much Reason dictates that a sin committed is a greater evil than the loss of a Child and ought more to be lamented for yet we see daily how affection prevailes against the dictate of reason That which he inferrs from hence that sorrow for sin is not voluntary and by consequence that repentance proceedeth from causes is true as to the latter part of it but not in his sense The causes from whence repentance doth proceed are Gods grace preventing and mans will concurring God prevents freely man concurs freely Those inferiour Agents which sometimes do concur as subordinate to the grace of God do not cannot determine the will naturally And therefore the former part of his inference that sorrow for sin is not voluntary is untrue and altogether groundless That is much more truely and much more properly said to be voluntary which proceeds from judgment and from the rational will than that which proceeds from passion and from the sensitive will One of the main grounds of all T. H. his errours in this question is that he acknowledgeth no efficacy but that which is natural Hence is this wild consequence Repentance hath causes and therefore it is not voluntary Free effects have free causes necessary effects necessary causes voluntary effects have sometimes free sometimes necessary causes Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XXIII a SUpposing the last dictate of the understanding did alwayes determine the Wil yet this determination being not antecedent in time nor proceeding from extrinsecall causes but from the proper resolution of the Agent who had now freely determined himself makes no absolute necessity but onely Hypothetical c. This is the Bishops answer to the necessity inferred from that that the Wil necessarily followeth the last dictate of the understanding which answer he thinks is not sufficiently taken away because the last act of the understanding is in time together with the Wil it self and therefore not antecedent It is true that the Wil is not produced but in the same Instant with the last dictate of the understanding but the necessity of the Wil and the necessity of the last dictate of the understanding may have been antecedent For that last dictate of the understanding was produced by causes antecedent and was then necessary though not yet produced as when a stone is falling the necessity of touching the earth is antecedent to the touch it self For all motion through any determined space necessarily makes a motion through the next space unlesse it be hindered by some contrary external motion and then the stop is as necessary as the proceeding would have been The Argument therefore from the last dictate of the understanding sufficiently inferreth an antecedent necessity as great as the necessity that a stone shall fall when it is already falling As for his other answer that the Wil does not certainly follow the last dictate of the understandig though it alwayes ought to follow it he himself says it is but probable but any man that speaks not by rote but thinks of what he says will presently find it false and that it is impossible to will any thing that appears not first in his understanding to be good for him And whereas he says the Wil ought to follow the last dictate of the understanding unlesse he mean that the man ought to follow it it is an insignificant speech for duties are the man 's not the Wils duties and if he means so then t is false for
Treatise out of which he only repeateth two things One is that we ought not to desert a certain truth for not being able to comprehend the certain manner of it And I say the same as for example that he ought not to desert this certain truth That there are certain and necessarâ— causes wâ—iâ—h make evâ—ry man to will what he willâ—th though he do not yet conceive in what manner the will of man is causâ—d And yet I think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive seeing that we see daily that praise dispraise reward punishment good and evil sequels of mâ—ns actioâ—s â—â—tained in memory â—o frame and make us to the election of whatsoever it be that we elâ—ct And â—â—aâ— 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 governed onely by God Almighty And by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents â—re necessary The other thing he repeateth is that the best way to reconcile Contingency and Liberty with the prescience and Decrees of God is to subject future contingents to the aspect of God The same is also my opinion but contâ—ary to what he hath all this while laboured to prove For â—itherto he held liberty and necessity that is to say libertâ— and the decrees of God irreconcilable unless the aspect of God which word appeareth now the first time in this discourse signifie somewhat else besides Gods will and decree which I cannot understand Buâ— he adds that we must subject them according to that presentiality which they have in eternity which he says cannot be done by them that conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession but onely by them that conceive it an indivisible poiâ—t To this I answer that as soon as I can conceive Eternity to be an indivisible point or any thing but an everlâ—sting succession I wilâ— renounce all I have written in this subject I know St. Thomas Aquinas calls eternity Nunc stans an ever abidâ—ng now which is easy enough to say but though I fain would I never could conceive it They that can are more hapâ—y than I. But in the mean time he alloweth hereby all men to be of my opinion save onely those that conceive in their minds a nunc stans which I think are none I undâ—rstand as little how it can be true that God is not just but Justice it self not wise but Wisedom it self not eternal but Eternity it self Nor how he concludes thence that Eternity is a point indivisible and not a succession Nor in what sense it can be said that an infinite point c. wherein is no succession can comprehend all times though time be suâ—cessive These phrases I find not in the Scripture I wonder therefore what was the dâ—sign of the School-men to bring them up unless they thâ—ught a man could not be a true Christian unless his understanstanding be first strangled with such hard sayings And thus much in answer to his discourse wherein I think not onely his squadrons but also his reserves of distinctions are defeated And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the sâ—me question with my reasons for iâ— positively and briefly as I can without any tearms of Art in plain English J. D. a THat poor discourse which I mention was not written against any Divines but in way of examination of a French Treatise which your Lordships Brother did me the honour to shew me at York b My assertion is must true that we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner Such a truth is that which I maintain that the will of man in ordinary actions is free from extrinsecal determination A truth demonstrable in reason received and believed by all the world And therefore though I be not able to comprehend or express exactly the certain manner how it consists together with Gods Eternall Prescience and Decrees which exceed my weak capacity yet I ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest But T. H. his opinion of the absolute necessity of all events by reason of their antecedent determination in their extrinsecal and necessary causes is no such certain Truth but an innovation a strange paradox without probable grounds rejected by all Authours yea by all the world Neither is the manner how the second causes do operate so oscure or so transcendent above the reach of reason as the Eternal Decrees of God are And therefore in both these respects he cannot challenge â—â—e same priviledge I am in possession of an old truth derived by inheritance or succession from mine ancestors And therefore though I were not able to clear every quirk in Law yet I might justly hold my possession until a better title were shewed for another He is no old Possessor but a new Pretender and is bound to make good his claime by evident proofs not by weak and inconsequent suppositions or inducements such as those are which he useth here of praises dispraises rewards punishments the memory of good and evil sequels and events which may incline the will but neither can nor do necessitate the will Nor by uncertain and accidental inferences such as this The memory of praises dispraises rewards punishments good and evil sequels do make us he should say dispose us to elect what we elect but the memory of these things is from the sense and the sense from the oâ—â—ration of the external obâ—ects and the Agency of external objâ—cts 〈…〉 from God therefore all actions even of free and volâ—ntâ—ry Agents are necâ—ssâ—ry c To pass by all the other great imperfections which are to be sound in this Sorite It is just like that old Sophistical piece He that drinks well sleeps well â—e that sleeps well thinks no hurt he that thinks no hurt lives 〈…〉 therefore he that drinks well lives well d In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed mine own private opinion how it might be made appear that the Eternal Prescience and Decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency And this I set down in as plain terms as I could or as so profound a speculation would permit which is almost wholly misunderstood by T. H. and many of my words wrested to a wrong sense As first where I speak of the aspect of God that is his view his knowledge by which the most free and contingent actions were manifest to him from eternity Heb. 4. 11. All things are naked and open to his eyes and this not discursively but intuitively not by external species but by his internal Essence He confounds this with the Wil and the Decrees of God Though he found not the word Aspect before in this discourse he might have found prescience e Secondly he chargeth me that hither to I have maintained that Liberty and the Decrees of God are irrecilable If I have said any such thing my heart
if every thing be either necessary or impossible Who ever deliberated whether the Sun should rise to morrow or whether he should sail over mountains It is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or mad men if all things be necessary Praises and dispraises rewards and punishments are as vain as they are undeserved if there be no liberty All Councells Arts Arms Books Instruments are superfluous and foolish if there be no liberty In vain we labour in vain we study in vain we take Physick in vain we have Tutors to instruct us if all things come to pass alike whether we sleep or wake whether we be idle or industrious by unalterable necessity But it is said that though future events be certain yet they are unknown to us And therefore we prohibite deliberate admonish praise dispraise reward punish study labour and use means Alas how should our not knowing of the event be a sufficient motive to us to use the means so long as we believe the event is already certainly determined and can no more be changed by all our endeavours than we can stay the course of Heaven with our finger or add a cubite to our stature Suppose it be unknown yet it is certain We cannot hope to alter the course of things by our labours Let the necessary causes do their work we have no remedy but patience and shrug up the shoulders Either allow liberty or destroy all Societies T. H. THE second Argument is taken from certain inconveniences which he thinks would follow such an opinion It is true that ill use may be made of it and therefore your Lordship and J. D. ought at my request to keep private that I say here of it But the inconveniences are indeed none and what use soever be made of truth yet truth is truth and now the Question is not what is fit to be preached but what is true The first inconvenience he sayes is this that Lawes which prohibite any action are then unjust The second that all consultations are vain The third that admonitions to men of understanding are of no more use than to fools children and mad men The fourth that praise dispraise reward and punishment are in vain The fift that Councells Arts Armes Books Instruments Study Tutours Medicines are in vain To which Argument expecting I should answer by saying that the ignorance of the event were enough to make us use means he adds as it were a reply to my answer foreseen these words Alas how should our not knowing the event be a sufficient motive to make us use the means Wherein be saith right but my answer is not that which he expecteth I answer First that the necessity of an action doth not make the Law which prohibits it unjust To let pass that not the necessity but the will to break the Law maketh the action unjust because the Law regardeth the will and no other precedent causes of action And to let pass that no Law can be possibly unjust in as much as every man makes by his consent the Law he is bound to keep and which consequently must be just unless a man can be unjust to himself I say what necessary cause soever preceeds an action yet if the action be forbidden he that doth it willingly may justly be punisht For instance suppose the Law on pain of death prohibit stealing and there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal and is there upon put to death does not this punishment deterr others from theft is it not a cause that others steal not doth it not frame and make their will to justice To make the Law is therefore to make a cause of Justice and to necessitate justice and consequently it is no injustice to make such a Law The institution of the Law is not to grieve the delinquent for that which is passed 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 this good intention of 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 that they are spared and preserved because they 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 preservations And yet J. D. confesseth that their actions as being onely spontaneous and not free are all necessitated and determined to that one thing which they shall do For men when we make Societies or Common-wealths we lay down our right to kill excepting in certain cases as murther theft or other offensive actions So that the right which the Commonwealth 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 that right away in case of criminals who were by 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 voluntatary 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 for biddeth it or of the Magistrate that punisheth it Secondly I deny that it makes consultations to be in vain 't is the consultation that causeth a man and necessitateth him to choose to do one thing rather than another So that unless a man say that cause to be in vain which necessitateth the effect he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation oâ—t of the necessity of the election proceeding from it But it seems be reasons thus If I musts needs do this rather than that then I shall do this rather than that though I consult not at all which is a false proposition 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 required 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
the Universal work of God and then it is absurd for the universe as one aggregate of things natural hath no intention His Doctrine that followeth concerning the generation of Monsters is not worth consideration therefore I leave it wholy to the Judgement of the Reader e Then he betakes himself to his old help that God may punish by right of omnipotence though there were no sin The question is not now what God may do but what God will do according to that Covenant which he hath made with Man Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live T is plaine to let passe that he puts Punishment where I put Affliction making a true sentence false that if a man do this he shall live and he may do this if he will In this the Bishop and I disagree not This therefore is not the question but whether the will to do this or not to do this be in a mans own Election Whereas he adds He that wills not the death of a sinner doth much lesse Will the death of an innocent creature He had forgot for a while that both good and evil men are by the Will of God all mortall but presently corrects himself and says he means by Death Eternal torments that is to say eternal life but in torments To which I have answered once before in this Book and spoken much more amply in another Book to which the Bishop hath inclination to make an answer as appeareth by his Epistle to the Reader That which followeth to the end of this number hath been urged and answered already divers times I therefore passe it over J. D. BUT the Patrons of necessity being driven out of the Numb 18. plain field with reason have certain retreats or distinctions which they flye unto for refuge First they distinguish between Stoical necessity and Christian necessity between which they make a threefold difference First say they the Stoicks did subject Jupiter to destiny but but we subject destiny to God I answer that the Stoical and Christian destiny are one and the same fatum quasi effatum Jovis Hear Seneca Destiny is the necessity of all things and actions depending upon the disposition of Jupiter c. I add that the Stoicks left a greater liberty to Jupiter over destiny than these Stoicall Christians do to God over his decrees either for the beginnings of things as Euripides or for the progress of them as Chrysippus or at least of the circumstances of time and place as all of them generally So Virgil Sed trahere moras ducere c. So Osyris in Apuleius promiseth him to prolong his life Ultra fato constituta tempora beyond the times set down by the destinies Next they say that the Stoicks did hold an eternall flux and necessary connexion of causes but they believe that God doth act praeter contra naturam besides and against nature I answer that it is not much material whether they attribute necessity to God or to the Starrs or to a connexion of causes so as they establish necessity The former reasons do not only condemn the ground or foundation of necessity but much more necessity it self upon what ground soever Either they must run into this absurdity that the effect is determined the cause remaining undetermined or els hold such a necessary connexion of causes as the Stoicks did Lastly they say the Stoicks did take away liberty and contingence but they admit it I answer what liberty or contingence was it they admit but a titular liberty and an empty shadow of contingence who do profess stifly that all actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner in any other Place Time Number Order Measure nor to any other end than they are and that in respect of God determining them to one what a poor ridiculous liberty or contingence is this Secondly they distinguish between the first cause and the second causes they say that in respect of the second causes many things are free but in respect of the first cause all things are necessary This answer may be taken away two wayes First so contraries shall be true together The same thing 1. at the same time shall be determined to one and not determined to one the same thing at the same time must necessarily be and yet may not be Perhaps they will say not in the same respect But that which strikes at the root of this question is this If all the causes were onely collateral this exception might have some colour but where all the causes being joined together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall cause if any one cause much more the first in the whole series or subordination of causes be necessary it determines the rest and without doubt makes the effect necessary Necessity or Liberty is not to be esteemed from one cause but from all the causes joyned together If one link in a chain be fast it fastens all the rest Secondly I would have them tell me whether the second 2. causes be predetermined by the first cause or not If it be determined then the effect is necessary even in respect of the second causes If the second cause be not determined how is the effect determined the second cause remaining undetermined Nothing can give that to another which it hath not it self But say they nevertheless the power or faculty remaineth free True but not in order to the act if it be once determined It is free in sensu diviso but not in sensu composito when a man holds a bird fast in his hand is she therefore free to flie where she will because she hath wrings Or a man imprisoned or fettered is he therefore free to walk where he will because he hath feet and a loco-motive faculty Judge without prejudice what a miserable subterfuge is this which many men confide so much in T. H Certain distinctions which he supposing may be brought to his arguments are by him removed HE saith a man may perhaps answer that the necessity of things held by him is not a Stoical necessity but a Christian necessity c. but this dâ—stinction I have not used nor indeed have ever heard bâ—fore Nor do I think any man could make Stoical and Christian two kinds of necessitiâ—s though they may be two kinds of doctrin Nor have I drawn my answer to his arguments from the authority of any Sect but from the nature of the things themselves But here I must take notice of certain words of his in this place as making against his own Tenet where all the causes saith he being jâ—yned together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall cause If any one cause much more the first in the whole series of subordination of causes be necessary it determines the rest and without doubt maketh the effect necessary For that which I call the necessary cause of
Against those that are Scholastical onely I do and may inveigh But against those that are Scholastical and Sapiential also I do not inveigh Likewise some Doctors of the Church as Suarez Johannes à Duns and their imitators to breed in men such opinions as the Church of Rome thought sutable to their interest did â—rite such things as neither other men nor themselves understood These I confesse I have a little sleighted Other Docters of the Church as Martin Luther Philip Melancthon John Calvin William Perkins and others that did write their sense clearly I never sleighted but alwayes very much reverenced and admired Wherein then lieth my presumption if it be because I am a private man let the Bishop also take heed he contradict not some of those whom the World worthily esteemes least he also for he is a private man be taxed of presumption h What then must the Logicians lay aside their first and second intentions their Abstracts and Concrets c. Must the Moral Philosopher quit his means and extreames his Principia congenita aquisita his liberty of contradiction and contrariety his necessity absolute and Hypothetical c. Must the Natural Philosopher give over his intentional species c. Because they do not relish with T. H. his Palate I confesse that among the Logicians Barbara Celarent Darii Ferio c. are termes of Art But if the Bishop thing that words of first and second intention that Abstract Concret that Subjects Predicates Moods Figures Method Synthetique Analytique Fallacies of Composition and Division be terms of Art I am not of his opinion For these are no more terms of Art in Logick then Lines Figures Squares Triangles c. in the Mathematicks Barbara Celarent and the rest that follow are terms of Art invented for the easier Apprehension of youngmen and are by youngmen understood But the terms of the School with which I have found fault have been invented to blind the understanding and cannot be understood by those that intend to learn Divinity And to his question whether the Moral Philosopher must quit his means and extreams I answer that though they are not terms of Art he ought to quite them when they cannot be understood and when they can to use them rightly And therefore though means and extreams be terms intelligible yet I would have them quit the placing of vertue in the one and of vice in the other But for his liberty of contradiction contrariety his necessity absolute Hypothetical if any moral Philosopher ever used them then away with them they serve for nothing but to seduce young Students In like manner let the natural Philosopher no more mention his intentional Species his understanding Agent and Patient his Receptive and Eductive power of the matter his qualities infusae or influxae Symbolae or Dissymbolae his Temperament ad pondus and ad justitiam He may keep his parts Homogeneous and Heterogeneous but his Sympathies and Antipathies his Antiperistasis and the like names of excuses rather then of causes I would have him â—â—ing away And for the Astrologer unlesse he means Astronomer I would have him throw away his whole trade but if he mean Astronomer then the terms of Apogaeum and Perigaeum Artique Antartique Aequator Zodiack Zenith Meridian Horizon Zones c. are no more terms of Art in Astronomy then a Saw or a Hatchet in the Art of a Carpenter He cites no terms of Art for Geometry I was afraid he would have put Lines or perhaps Equality or Inequality for terms of Art So that now I know not what be those terms he thinks I would cast away in Geometry And lastly for his Metaphysician I would have him quit both his terms and his Profession as being in truth as Plutarch saith in the beginning of the life of Alexander the Great not at all profitable to learning but made onely for an essay to the learner and the Divine to use no word in preaching but such as his Auditors nor in writing but such as a common Reader may understand And all this not for the pleasing of my Palate but for the promotion of truth i T. H. Hath forgotten what he said in his Book De Cive Cap. 12. that it is a seditious opinion to teach that the knowledge of good and evill belongs to private persons And Cap. 17. that in questions of Faith the civill Magistrates ought to consult with the Ecclesiastical Doctors to whom Gods blessing is derived by imposition of hands so as not to be deceived in necessary truths c. There he attributes too much to them here he attributeth too little both there and here he takes too much upon him The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets He thinks he hath a great advantage against me from my own words in my Book de Cive which he would not have thought if he had understood them The knowledge of good and evill is Iudicature which in Latin is cognitio causarum not Scientia Every private man may do his best to attain a knowledge of what is good and evill in the action he is to do but to judge of what is good and evill in others belongs not to him but to those whom the Soveraign Power appointeth thereunto But the Bishop not understanding or forgetting that Cognoscere is to judg as Adam did of Gods commandement hath cited this place to little purpose And for the infallibility of the Ecclesiastical Doctors by me attributed to them it is not that they cannot be deceaved but that a subject cannot he deceived in obeying them when they are our lawfully constituted Doctors For the supreme Ecclesiastical Doctor is he that hath the supreme Power and in obeying him no subject can be deceived because thy are by God himself commanded to obey him And what the Ecclesiastical Doctors lawfully constituted do tell us to be necessary in point of Religion the same is told us by the Soveraign Power And therefore though we may be deceaved by them in the beleef of an opinion we can not be deceived by them in the duty of our Actions And this is all that I ascribe to the Ecclesiastical Doctors If they think it too much let them take upon them lesse Too little they cannot say it is who take it as it is for a Burthen And for them who seek it as a wordly preferment it is too much I take he says too much upon me Why so Because The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets This is it that he finds fault with in me when he says I am a private man that is to say no Prophet that is to say no Bishop By which it is manifest that the Bishop subjectâ—th not his Spirit but to the Convocation of Bishops I admit that every man eught to subject his Spirit to the Prophets But a Prophet is he that speaketh unto us from God which I acknowledgement to do but him that hath
Will not because he hath equall freedom to do good and evill but because he does the evill he does not by constraint but willingly Monsr du Mouâ—in in his Buckler of the Faith Article 9 The necessity of sinning is not repugnant to the freedom of the Will Witness the Devils who are necessarily wicked and yet sin freely without constraint And the Synod of Dort Liberty is not opposite to all kinds of necessity and determination It is indeed opposite to the necessity of constraint but standeth well enough with the necessity of infallibility I could add more For all the famous Doctors of the Reformed Churches and with them St. Augustine are of the same opinion None of these denied that God is the cause of al Motion Action or that God is the cause of al Laws and yet they were never forced to say that God is the cause of sin o They who invented this term of Actus Imperatus understood not he saith any thing what it signified No Why not It seemeth to me they understood it better then those who except against it They knew there are mentall terms which are only conceived in the mind as well as vocal terms which are expressed with the tongue c. In this place the Bishop hath discovered the ground of all his errors in Philosophy which is this that he thinketh when he repeateth the words of a proposition in his mind that is when he fancieth the words without speaking them that then hee conceiveth the things which the words signifie and this is the most general cause of false opinions For men can never be deceived in the conceptions of things though they may and are most often deceived by giving unto them wrong terms or appellations different from those which are commonly used and constituted to signifie their conceptions And therefore they that study to attain the certain knowledge of truth do use to set down before hand all the terms they are to expresse themselves by and declare in what sense they shall use them constantly And by this means the Reader having an Idea of every thing there named cannot conceive amisse But when a man from the hearing of a word hath no Idea of the thing signified but onely of the sound and of the Letters whereof the word is made which is that he here calleth Mentall terms it is impossible he should conceive aright or bring forth any thing but absurdity as he doth here when he says that when Tarquin delivered his commands to his Son by onely striking off the tops of the Poppies he did it by Mental terms As if to strick off the head of a Poppy were Mental term It is the sound and the Letters that maketh him think Elicitus and Imperatus somewhat And it is the same that makes him say for think it he cannot that to Wil or choose is drawn or allured or fetch 't out of the power to Wil. For drawing cannot be imagined but of bodys and therefore to Will to speak to write to dance to leape or any way to be moved cannot be said intelligibly to be drawn much lesse to be drawn out of a Power that is to say out of an ability for whatsoever is drawn out is drawn out of one place into another He that can discourse in this manner in Philosophy cannot probably be thought able to discourse rationally in any thing p His other objection against this distinction of the Acts of the Will into Elicite and Imperate is obscurity Might it not saith he have been as easily said in English a voluntary Action Yes it might have been said as easily but not as truly nor as properly He says that Actus Imperatus is when a man opens or shuts his eyes at the command of the Wil. I say when a man opens and shuts his eyes according to his Wil that it is a voluntary Action and I believe we mean one and the same thing Whether of us speak more properly or more truly let the Reader Judge q But his mistakes are so thick c. I will do my duty to shew him the right way First no Acts which are properly said to be compelled are voluntary Secondly Acts of of terrour c. This is nothing but Tohu and Bohu J. D. THE rest are umbrages quickly dispelled first the Astrologer Num. 21. steps up and subjects Liberty to the motions of Heaven to the aspects and ascensions of the Starrs Plus etenim fati valet hora benigni Quam si nos Veneris commendet Epistola Marti I stand not much upon them who cannot see the fishes swimming besides them in the rivers yet believe they see those which are in Heaven Who promise great treasures to others and beg a groat for themselves The Starrs at the most do but incline they cannot necessitate Secondly the Physitian subjects liberty to the complexion and temperature of the body But yet this comes not home to a necessity Socrates and many others by assiduous care have corrected the pernicious propensions which flowed from their temperatures T. H. IN the rest of his discourse he reckoneth up the opinions of certain professions of men touching the causes wherein the necessity of things which they maintain consisteth And first he saith the Astrologer deriveth his necessity from the Starrs Secondly that the Physician attributeth it to the temper of the body For my part I am not of their opinion because neither the Starrs alone nor the temperature of the Patient alone is able to produce any effect without the concurrence of all other Agents For there is hardly any one action how casual soever it seem to the causing whereof concur not whatsoever is in rerum natura Which because it is a great Paradox and depends on many antecedent speculations I do not press in this place J. D. TOwards the later end of my discourse I answered some specious pretences against liberty The two first were of the Astrologer and the Physician The one subjecting liberty to the motions and influences of the heavenly bodies The other to the complexions of men a The sum of my answer was that the Stars and complexions do incline but not at all necessitate the will To which all judicious Astronomers and Physicians do assent And T. H. himself doth not dissent from it So as to this part there needs no reply b But whereas he mentions a great paradox of his own that there is hardly any one action to the causing of which concurres not whatsoever is in rerum natura I can but smile to see with what ambition our great undertakers do affect to be accounted the first founders of strange opinions as if the devising of an ill grounded Paradox were as great an honour as the invention of the needle or the discovery of the new World And to this Paradox in Particular I meddle not with natural actions because the subject of my discourse is moral liberty But if he intend not only the kinds
each pace that he walks Thus many steps must he go not one more nor one less under pain of mortal sin What is this but a Rack and a Gibbet to the Conscience But God leaves many things indifferent though man be so curious he will not A good Architect will be sure to provide sufficient materials for his building but what particular number of stones or trees he troubles not his head And suppose he should weigh each action thus yet he doth not so still there is liberty Thirdly I conceive it is possible in this mist and weakness of human apprehension for two actions to be so equally circumstantiated that no discernable difference can appear between them upon discussion Aâ— suppose a Chirurgion should give two plaisters to his Patient and â—id him apply either oâ— them to his wound what can induce his reason more to the one than to the other but that he may refer it to chance whether he will use But leaving these probable speculations which I submit â—o better judgments I answer the Philosopher briefly thus Admitting that the will did necessarily follow the last dictare of the understanding as certainly in many things it doth Yet First this is no extrinsâ—â—al determination from without and a mans own resolution is not destructive to his own liberty but depends upon it So the person is still free Secondly this determination is not antecedent but joyned with the Action The understanding and the will are not different Agents but distinct faculties of the same soul. Here is an infallibility or an hypothetical necessity as we say Quicquid est quando est necessâ— est esse A necessity of consequence but not a necessity of consequent Though an Agent have certainly determined and so the Action be become infallible yet if the Agent did determine freely the Action likewise is free T. H. THE fourth opinion which he râ—jecteth is of them that make the will necessarily to follow the last dictate of the understanding but it seems he understands that Tenet in another sense than I do For he speaketh as if they that held it did suppose men must dispute the sequel of every astion they do great and small to the least grain which it a thing that he thinks with reason to be untrue But I understand it to signifie that thâ— will followes the last opinion or judgment immediatly proceding thâ— action concerning whether it be good to do it or not whether he hath weighed it long before or not at all And that I take to be the meaning of them that hold it As for example when a man strikes his will to strike followes necessarily that thought he had of the sequel of his stroke immediately before the liftinâ— of his hand Nâ—w iâ— it be understood in that sense the last dictate of the understanding does â—ertainly necessitate the action though not as the whole cause yet as the last cause as the last feather necessitates the breaking of an horses back when there are so many laid on before as there needeth but the addition oâ— that one to make the weight sufficient That which he alledgeth against this is first out of a Poet who in the person of Medea sayes Video Meliora proboque Deteriora sequorâ— But the saying as prâ—try as it is 〈◊〉 not true for though Medea saw many reasons to forbear killing her Children yet the last dictate of her judgment was that the present revenge on her husband outweighed them all and thereupon the wicked action followed necessarily Then the story of the Roman that of two competitors said one had the better reasons but the oâ— her must have the office This also maketh against him for the last dictate of his judgment that had the bestowing of the office was this that it was better to take a great bribe than reward a great merit Thirdly he objects that things neerer the senses moove more powerfully than reason What followeth thence but this That the sense of the present good is commonly more immediate to the Action than the foresight of the evill consequents to come Fourthly whereas he sayes that do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his son than for the sin of his soul it makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding but it argues plainly that sorrow for sin is not voluntary And by consequence repentance proceedeth from causes J. D. THE fourth pretense alledged against Liberty was that the will doth necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding This objection is largely answered before in several places of this Reply and particularly Numb 7. In my former discourse I gave two answers to it The one certain and undoubted That a supposing the last dictate of the understanding did alwayes determine the will yet this determination being not antecedent in time nor proceeding from extrinsecal causes but from the proper resolution of the Agent who had now freely determined himself it makes no absolute necessity but onely hypothetical upon supposion that the Agent hath determined his own will after this or that manner Which being the main answer T. H. is so far from taking it away that he takes no notice of it The other part of mine answer was probable That it is not alwayes certain that the will doth alwayes actually follow the last dictate of the understanding though it alwayes ought to follow it b Of which I gave then three reasons one was that actions may be so equally circumstantiated or the case so intricate that reason cannot give a positive sentence but leaves the election to liberty or chance To this he answers not a word Another of my reasons was because reason doth not weigh nor is bound to weigh the convenience or inconvenience of every individual action to the uttermost grain in the balance of true judgement The truth of this reason is confessed by T. H. though he might have had more abetters in this than in the most part of his discourse that nothing is indifferent that a man cannot stroak his beard on one side but it was either necessary to do it or sinful to omit it from which confession of his it follows that in all those actions wherein reason doth not define what is most convenient there the will is free from the determination of the understanding and by consequence the last feather is wanting to break the horses back A third reason was because passions and affections sometimes prevail against judgment as I prooved by the example of Medea and Caesar by the neerness of the objects to the senses and by the estimation of a temporal loss more than sin Against this reason his whole answer is addressed And first c he explaineth the sense of the assertion by the comparison of the last feather wherewith he seems to be delighted seeing he useth it now the second time But let him like it as he will it is improper for three reasons First the determination of the
proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of naturall causes First that there are free actions which proceed meerly from election without any outward necessitation is a truth so evident as that there is a Sun in the Heavens and he that doubteth of it may as well doubt whether there be a shell without the Nut or a stone within the Olive A man proportions his time each day and allots so much to his Devotions so much to his Study so much to his Diet so much to his Recreations so much to necessary or civil visits so much to his rest he who will seek for I know not what causes of all this without himself except that good God who hath given him a reasonable Soul may as well seek for a cause of the Egyptian Pyramides among the Crocodiles of Nilus c Secondly for mixt actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural Agents though they be not free yet they are not necessary as to keep my former instance a man walking though a street of a Citie to do his occasions a Tile falls from an House and breaks his head the breaking of his head was not necessary for he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation neither was it free for he did not deliberate of that accident therefore it was contingent and by undoubted consequence there are contingent acâ—â—ons in the World which are not free Most certainly by the concurrence of free causes as God the good and bad Angels and men with natural Agents sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident many events happen which otherwise had never hapned many effects are produced which otherwise had never been produced And admitting such things to be contingent not necessary all their consequent effects not onely immediate but medâ—ate must likewise be contingâ—â—â— that is to say such as do not proceed from a continued connexion and succession of necessary causes which is directly contrary to T. H. his opinion d Thirdly for the actions of bruit beasts though they be not free though they have not the use of reason to restrain their appetites from that which is sensitively good by the consideration of what is rationally good or what is hoâ—est and though their fancies be determined by nature to some kinds of work yet to think that every individual action of theirs and each animal motion of theirs even to the least murmure or gesture is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity to the extrinsecal causes or objects I see no ground for it Christ saith one of these Sparrows doth not fall to the gound without your Heavenly Father that is without an influence of power from him or exempted from his disposition he doth not say which your Heavenly Father casteth not down Lastly for the natural actions of inanimate Creatures wherein there is not the least concurrence of any free or voluntary Agents the question is yet more doubtful for many things are called contingent in respect of us because we know not the cause of them which really and in themselves are not contingent but necessary Also many things are contingent in respect of one single cause either actually hindred or in possibility to be hindred which are necessary in respect of the joynt concurrence of all collateral causes e But whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning so as they must all have concurred as they have done and in the same degree of power and have been deficient as they have been in all events whatsoever would require a further examination if it were pertinent to this question of liberty but it is not It is sufficient to my purpose to have shewed that all elective actions are free from absolute neâ—essity And more-over that the concurrence of voluntary aâ—d free Agents with natural causes both upon purpose and accidentally hath helped them to produce many effects which otherwise they had not produced and hindred them from producing many effects which otherwise they had produced And that if this intervention of voluntary and free Agents had been more frequent than it hath been as without doubt it might have been many natural events had been otherwise than they are And therefore he might have spared his instances of casting Ambs-ace and raining to morrow And first for his casting Ambs-ace If it be thrown by a fair Gamester with indifferent Dice it is a mixt action the casting of the Dice is free but the casting of Ambs-ace is contingent a man may deliberate whether he will cast the Dice or not but it were folly to deliberate whether he will cast Ambs-ace or not because it is not in his power unless he be a cheater that can cogge the Dice or the Dice be false Dice and then the contingency or the degree of contingency ceaseth accordingly as the Caster hath more or less cunning or as the figure or making of the Dice doth incline them to Ambs-ace more than to another cast or necessitate them to this cast and no other Howsoever so far as the cast is free or contingent so far it is not necessary And where necessity begins there liberty and contingency do cease to be Likewise his other instance of raining or not raining to morrow is not of a free elective act nor alwayes of a contingent act In some Countries as they have their stati venti their certain winds at set seasons so they have their certain and set rains The Aethiopian rains are supposed to be the cause of the certain inundation of Nilus In some eastern Countries they have rain onely twice a year and those constant which the Scriptures call the former and the later rain In such places not onely the causes do act determinately and necessarily but also the determination or necessity of the event is fore-known to the inhabitants In our Climate the natural causes coelestial and sublunary do not produce rain so necessarily at set times neither can we say so certainly and infallibly it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow Neverthelesse it may so happen that the causes are so disposed and determined even in our climate that this proposition it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow may be necessary in it self and the Prognosticks or tokens may be such in the sky in our own bodies in the creatures animate and inanimate as weather-glasses c. that it may become probably true to us that it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow But ordinarily it is a contingent proposition to us whether it be contingent also in it self that is whether the concurrence of the causes were absolutely necessary whether the vapours or matter of the rain may not yet be dispersed or otherwise consumed or driven beyond our coast is a speculation which no way concerns this question So we see one reason why his two instances are altogether impertinent because they are of actions which are not