CASTIGATIONS OF Mr. HOBBES HIS LAST ANIMADVERSIONS IN The case concerning LIBERTY and Universal NECESSITY Wherein all his Excepâ—…ions about that Controversie are fully satisfied By Iohn Bramhall D. D. and Bishop of Derry Prov. 12. 19. The lip of truth shall be established for ever but a lying tongue is but for a moment London Printed by E. T. for I. Crook 1657. An Answer to Mr. Hobs his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and first to his Epistle to the Reader CHristian Reader thou hast here the testimony of Mr. Hobs that the questions concerning Necessity Freedom and Chance are clearly discussed between him and me in that little volume which he hath lately published If they be it were strange whilest we agree not much better about the terms of the controversie than the builders of Babel did understand one anothers language A necessity upon supposition which admits a possibility of the contrary is mistaken for an absolute and true necessity A freedom from compulsion is confounded with a freedom from necessitation meer spontaneity usurpeth the place of true liberty no chance is acknowledged but what is made chance by our ignorance or nescience because we know not the right causes of it I desire to retein the proper terms of the Schools Mr. Hobs flies to the common conceptions of the vulgar a way seldom troden but by false Prophets and seditious Oratours He preferreth their terms as more intelligible I esteem them much more obscure and confused In such intricate questions vulgar brains are as uncapable of the things as of the terms But thus it behoved him to prevaricate that he might not seem to swim against an universal stream nor directly to oppose the generall current of the Christian World There was an odde phantastick person in our times one Thomas Leaver who would needs publish a Logick in our mothers tongue You need not doubt but that the publick good was pretended And because the received terms of art seemed to him too abstruce he translated them into English stiling a Subject an Inholder an Accident an Inbeer A Proposition a Shewsay an affirmative Proposition a Yeasav a negative proposition a Naysay the subject of the Proposition the Foreset the predicate the Backset the conversion the turning of the Foreset into the Backset and the Backset into the Foreset Let M. Hobs himself be judge whether the common Logical notions or this new gibrish were lesse intelligible Haec à se non multum abludit imago But Reader dost thou desire to see the question discussed clearly to thy satisfastion observe but Mr. Hobs his practicks and compare them with his principles and there needs no more He teacheth that all causes and all events are absolutely necessary yet if any man crosse him he frets and fumes and talkes his pleasure jussit quod splendida bilis Doth any man in his right wits use to be angry with causes that act necessarily He might as well be angry with the Sun because it doth not rise an hour sooner or with the Moon because it is not alwayes full for his pleasure he commands his servant to do thus to as much purpose if he be necessitated to do otherwise as Canutus commanded the waves of the Sea to flow no higher He punisheth him if he transgresse his commands with as much justice if he have no dominion over his own actions as Xeâ—…xes commanded so many stripes to be given to the Hâ—…llespont for breaking down his Bridge He exhorts him and reprehends him He might as well exhort the fire to burne or reprehend it for burning of his cloaths He is as timerous in a thunder or a storme as cautelous and deliberative in doubtful cases as if he believed that all things in the World were contingent and nothing necessary Sometimes he chideth himself how ill advised was I to do thus or so O that I had thought better upon it or had done otherwise Yet all this while he believeth that it was absolutely necessary for him to do what he did and impossible for him to have done otherwise Thus his own practise doth sufficiently confute his tenets He will tell us that he is timerous and solicitous because he knows not how the causes will determine To what purpose Whether their determination be known or unknown he cannot alter it with his endeavours He will tell us that deliberation must concur to the production of the effect Let it be so but if it do concur necessarily Why is he so solicitous and so much perplexed Let him sleep or wake take care or take no care the necessary causes must do their work Yet from our collision some light hath proceeded towards the elucidation of this question and much more might have arisen if Mr. Hobbes had been pleased to retain the ancient Schoole terms for want of which his discourse is still ambiguous and confused As here he tells thee That we both maintain that men are free to do as they will and to forbear as they will My charity leads me to take him in the best sense onely of free acts and then with dependence upon the first cause That man who knows not his idiotismes would think the cause was yeilded in these words whereas in truth they signifie nothing His meaning is He is as free to do and forbear as he is free to call back yesterday He may call until his heart ake but it will never come He saith A man is free to do if he will but he is not free to will if he will If he be not free to will then he is not free to do Without the concurrence of all necessary causes it is impossible that the effect should be produced But the concurrence of the will is necessary to the production of all free or voluntary acts And if the will be necessitated to nil as it may be then the act is impossible And then he saith no more in effect but this A man is free to do if he will that which is impossible for him to do By his doctrine all the powers and faculties of a man are as much necessitated and determinated to one by the natural influence of extrinsecal causes as the will And therefore upon his own grounds a man is as free to will as to do The points wherein he saith we disagree are set down loosely in like manner What our Tenets are the Reader shall know more truely and distinctly by comparing our writings together then by this false dimme light which he holds out unto him He is pleased if not ironically yet certainly more for his own glory than out of any respect to me to name me a learned Schoole-Divine An honour which I vouchsafe not to my self My life hath been too practical to attend so much to those speculative Studies It may be the Schoole-men have started many superfluous questions and some of dangerous conse quence But yet I say the weightier Ecclesiastical controversies will never be understood and
how uningenuously did he charge me in the last Section to have confessed That nothing can move it self And in this Section accuse me of contradiction for saying That when a stone descendeth the beginning of its motion is intrinsecal Now to justifie himself he saith that from this which I did say That finite things cannot be produced by themselves he can conclude that the act of willing is not produced by the faculty of willing If he could do as much as he saith yet it was not ingenuously done to feign that I had confessed all that which he thinketh he can prove that I contradicted my self when I contradicted his conclusions But let us see how he goeth about to prove it He that hath the faculty of willing hath the faculty of willing something in particular In good time This looketh not like a demonstration But let that passe And at the same time he hath the faculty of nilling the same How two faculties the one of willing the other of nilling Hola He hath but one faculty and that is a faculty of willing or nilling something in particular not of willing and nilling He proceedeth If therefore the faculty of willing be the cause he willeth any thing whatsoever for the same reason the faculty of nilling will be the cause at the same time of nilling it And so he shall will and nill the same thing at the same time which is absurd I deny his consequence It doth not follow that because the Agent hath power to will or nill indifferently therefore he hath power to will and nill contradictorily He may chuse indifferently whether he will write or not but he cannot chuse both to write and not to write at the same time contradictorily It doth not follow that because the Agent hath power to will or nill indifferently before he do actually either will or nill therefore when he doth will actually he hath power to nill at the same time Hath he forgotten that old foolish rule Whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is How often must I tell him that in the place of an absolute antecedent necessity he seeketh to obtrude upon us hypothetical necessity He proceedeth It seems the Bishop had forgotten that matter and power are indifferent to contrary formes and contrary acts No I had not forgotten it but he had fogotten it To say that the matter is indifferent to contrary formes and yet necessitated antecedently to one form or that power is indifferent to contrary acts and yet necessitated antecedently to one act is a ratling contradiction He saith That it is somewhat besides the matter that determineth to a certain form and something besides the power that produceth a certain act I acknowledge it and it is the onely piece of sense that is in this Section I made this objection to my self in my defence and answered it in these words Yet I do not deny that there are other beginnings of humane actions which do concur with the will some outward as the first cause by general influence which is evermore requisite Angels or men by perswading evil spirits by tempting the object or end by its appetibility some inward as the understanding by directing so passions and acquired habits But I deny that any of these do necessitate or can necessitate the will of man by determining it physically to one except God alone who doth it rarely in extraordinary cases And where there is no antecedent determination to one there is no absolute necessity but true liberty Where he maketh The beginning of motion in a stone thrown upwards and a stone descending downwards to be both in the stone it is but a poor trifling homonymy as the most part of his Treatise is The beginning of motion in a stone ascending is in the stone subjectively but not effectively because that motion proceedeth not from the form of the stone But in the descent of the stone the beginning of motion is both subjectively and effectively in the stone And what he telleth us of a former motion in the ambient body aire or water to make the stone descend is needlesse and frustraneous Let him but withdraw the pin that holdeth the slate upon the house against its natural inclination and he shall see presently there needeth no motion in the ambient body to make the stone drop down He adviseth me to consider with what grace I can say that necessary causes do not alwayes produce their effects except those effects be also necessarily produced Rather let him consider with what grace he can mis-recite that which I say by leaving out the word necessary I said necessary causes do not alwayes produce necessary effects and I can say that with better grace than he can deny it When necessary Agents and free Agents are conjoynt in the production of the same effect the effect is not antecedently necessary I gave him an instance Protagoras writ a book against the gods De dis utrum sint utrum non sint nihil habeo dicere The Senate ordered his book to be burned for it Although the fire be a necessary Agent yet because the Senators were free Agents the burning of his book was not antecedently necessary Where I say that the will is not a necessary cause of what it willeth in particular actionâ—… He inferreth That there are no universal actions and if it be not a necessary cause of particular actions it is the necessary cause of no actions And again he would be glad to have me set down what voluntary actions not particular those are which are necessitated It is scarcely possible for a man to expresse himself more clearly than I did but clearly or unclearly all is one to him who is disposed to cavil I did not oppose particular acts to universal acts but to a collection of all voluntary acts in general qua tales as they are voluntary It is necessary That all acts generally which proceed from the will should be voluntary and so the will is a necessary cause of voluntary acts that is of the voluntarinesse of them But the will is not a necessary cause of the particular acts themselves As upon supposition that a man be willing to write it is necessary that his writing be voluntary because he willeth it But put the case without any supposition and it is not necessary that he should write or that he should will to write because it was in his own power whether he would write or not So the voluntarinesse of all acts in general proceeding from the will is necessary but the acts themselves were not necessary before the free Agent had determined himself and then but upon supposition His excepting against these common expressions The will willeth or the will may either will or suspend its acts is but seeking of a knot in a bullrush It is all one whether one say the will willeth or the man willeth or the will may will or suspend its
act or the man may will or suspend his acts Scaliger saith that volo velle is a proper speech I will will and received by the common consent of all nations If he had any thing of moment to insert into his Animadversions he would not make use of such Leptologies Canting is not chargable upon him who useth common and known terms of art but upon him who deviseth new terms as Canters do which die with their inventers He asketh How can he that willeth at the same time suspend his will Rather why doth he insert into his demand at the same time It is enough to liberty if he that willeth could have suspended his will All this answer of mine to his second argument was illustrated by the instance of the election of a Pope to which he opposeth nothing but It may be and it doth not follow and I would be glad to know by what arguments he can prove that the election was not necessitated I have done it sufficiently all over in this Treatise I am now answering to what he produceth not proving If he have any thing to demand let him go to the Cardinals and inquire of them whether they be such fools to keep such a deal of needlesse stir if they were atecedently necessitated to chuse one certain man Pope and no other Castigations of the Animadversion Num. 31. and Num. 32. I Joyne these two Sections together because they concern one and the same thing namely Whether every sufficient cause do necessarily effect whatsoever it is sufficient for Or which is the same in effect Whether a free Agent when all things are present which are needful to produce an effect can neverthelesse not produce it Which question may be understood two wayes either inclusively or exclusively either including and comprehending the will of the Agent under the notion of sufficiency and among things requisite to the producing of the effect so as the cause is not reputed to be sufficient except it have both ability and will to produce the effect and so as both requisite power and requisite will do concur and then there is no question but the effect will infallibly follow Posita causa ponitur effectus or else it may be understood exclusively not comprehending the will under the notion of sufficiency or not reckoning it among the necessary requisites to the production of the effect so as the Agent is supposed to have power and ability to produce the effect but no will And then it is as infallibly true on the other side that the effect cannot be produced Thus far this question is a meer Logomachy or contention about words without any reall difference And T. H. doth but abuse his Readers to keep a jangling and a stir about nothing But in truth the water stopeth not here If he should speak to the purpose he should leave these shallows If the will of the free Agent be included under the notion of sufficiency and comprehended among those things which are requisite to the production of the effect so as both sufficient ability and sufficient wil are required to the making a sufficient cause Then it cometh to be considered in the second place whether the will in things external be under God in the power and disposition of the free Agent himself which is the common opinion of all men who understand themselves And then the production of the effect is onely necessary hypothetically or upon supposition that the free Agent is willing Or else Whether the will of the free Agent be not in his own power and disposition but determined antecedently by extrinsecal causes which is the paradoxical opinion of T. H. and then the production of the the effect is absolutely and antecedently necessary So still the question is where it was and all his bustling about sufficiency and efficiency and deficiency is but labour in vain If he would have spoken any thing at all to the purpose he should have attempted to prove that every sufficient cause excluding the will that is every cause which hath sufficient power and ability doth necessaryly produce whatsoever it is able to produce though the Agent be unwilling to produce it or that the will of the Agent is not in his own power and disposition We expect proofs not words But this he could not do for he himself in this very Treatise hath several times distinguished between liberty and power telling us that a sick man hath liberty to go but wanteth power And that a man who is bound hath power to go but wanteth liberty If he that is bound hath power to go then he hath sufficient power to go for unsufficient power cannot produce the effect And so by his own confession an Agent may have sufficient power and yet cannot necessarily nor yet possibly produce the effect I urged That God is sufficient to produce many Worlds but he doth not produce them therefore a sufficient cause dorh not necessarily produce all those effects which it is sufficient to produce He answereth That the meaning is that God is sufficient to produce them if he will Doth he not see that it followeth inevitably from hence That there may be a sufficient cause without will Doth he not see likewise from hence plainly that for those things which are within the power of man he is sufficient also to produce them if he will So still he would obtrude a necessity of supposition If a man will for an absolute necessity That which is but necessary conditionally If a man will is not necessary absolutely And he confesseth that without this supposition If he will a man is not sufficient to produce any voluntary action I added other instances as this That the passion of Christ is a sufficient ransom for all mankind and so is acknowledged by all Christians yet all mankind shall not be saved by virtue of his passion therefore there may be a sufficient cause without production of the effect This is the language of holy Scripture Which of you intending to build a Tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it That is as our Saviour expoundeth himself in the next verse whether he be able to finish it So St. Paul saith Who is sufficient for these things that is Who is able for these things When God saith What could I have done more for my vineyard that I have not done God had given them sufficient means and could have given them more if they had been more capable but because they were wanting to themselves these sufficient means were not efficacious I looked for grapes saith God How could God look for grapes if he had not given them sufficient means to bring forth grapes yet these sufficient means were not efficacious These things being premised do answer whatsoever he saith as this The Bishop thinks two Horses may be sufficient to draw a Coach though they will not draw c. I say they
may be sufficient in point of power and ability though they will not draw Many men have sufficient power to do what they will not do And if the production of the effect do depend upon their wills or upon their contingent and uncertain endeavours or if their sufficiency be but conditional as he maketh it if they be not lame or resty then the production of the effect is free or contingent and cannot be antecedently necessary For otherwise all these conditions and suppositions are vain Where he chargeth me to say That the cause of a Monster is unsufficient to produce a Monster he doth me wrong and himself more I never said any such thing I hope I may have leave to speak to him in his own words I must take it for an untruth untill he cite the place where I have said so I have said and I do say That the cause of a Monster was unsufficient to produce a man which nature and the free Agent intended but it was sufficient to produce a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced When an Agent doth not produce what he and nature intend but produceth a Monster instead of a Man it is proof enough of his insufficiency to produce what he should and would have produced if he could Where he addeth That that which is sufficient to produce a Monster is not therefore to be called an insufficient cause to produce a Man no more than that which is sufficient to produce a man is to be called an insufficient cause to produce a Monster is even as good sense as if a man should say He who hath skill sufficient to hit the white is insufficient to misse the white He pretendeth that sensus divisus and compositus is nonsense though they be Logical terms of art And what I say of the power of the will to forbear willing or the dominion of the will over its own acts or the power of the will in Actu primo he saith are as wild words as ever were spoken within the walls of Bedlam though they be as sad truths as the founders of Bedlam themselves could have uttered And the Authours who used them the greatest wits of the World and so many that ten Bedlams could not hold them But it may be he would have the Scene changed and have the wisest sort of men thrust into Bedlam that he might vent his Paradoxes more freely So Festus accused Saint Paul of madnesse Paul Paul much learning hath made thee mad In the definition of a free Agent Which when all things needful to the production of the effect are present can neverthelesse not produce it They understood all things needful in point of ability not will He telleth us gravely That Act and Power differ in nothing but in this That the former signifieth the time present the later the time to come As if he should tell us That the cause and the effect differ nothing but that the effect signifieth the time present and the cause the time to come Lastly he saith That except I shew him the place where he shuffled out effects producible and thrust into their place effects produced he will take it for an untruth To content him I shall do it readily without searching far for it My words were these The question is whether effects producible be free from necessity He shuffles out effects producible and thrusts in their places effects produced Now that he doth this I prove out of his own words in the Section preceding Hence it is manifest That whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily For whatsoever is preduced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it or else it had non been Let the Reader judge if he have not here shuffled effects producible out of the question and thrust into their places effects produced The question is whether effects producible be necessarily produced He concludeth in the place of the contradictory That effects actually produced are necessary Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 33. HE saith That to define what Spontaneity Deliberation Will Propension Appetite a free Agent and Liberty is and to prove that they are well defined there can be no other proof offered but every mans own experience and memory what he meaneth by such words I do readily believe all this to be true in order to his own opinions That there neither is nor can be any proof of them but imagination But his reason was shot at random For definitions being the beginning of all demonstration cannot themselves be domonstrated that is proved to another man Doth he take all his particular imaginations to be so many definitions or demonstrations He hath one conception of Spontaneity of Deliberation of a free Agent of Liberty I have another My conception doth not prove my opinion to be true nor his conception prove his opinion to be true but our conceptions being contrary it proveth either his or mine or both to be false Truth is a conformity or congruity of the conceptions of the mind with the things themselves which are without the mind and of the exteriour speech as the signe with the things and conceptions as the things signified So there is a threefold truth The first is objective in the things themselves The second is conformative in the conceptions of the mind The third is signative or significative in speech or writing It is a good proceeding to prove the truth of the inward conceptions of the mind from their conformity with the things themselves but it is vain and ridiculous to prove the truth of things from their agreement with the conceptions of my mind or his mind The Clocks may differ but the course of the Sun is certain A mans words may not agree with his thoughts nor his thoughts agree with the things themselves But I commend his prudence in this and in this onely That he hath chosen out a way of proof that cannot be confuted without his own consent because no man knoweth another mans inward conceptions but himself And the better to secure himself he maketh his English Reader judge of Latine words and his ignorant Readers judge of words of art These are the fittest Judges for his purpose But what if the terms be obscure He answereth If the words be unusaal the way must be to make the definition of their signification by mutual consent What mutual consent The signification of these words was setled by universall consent and custome And must they be unsetled again to satisfie the homour of every odd Paradoxical person who could find no way to get himself reputation but by blondring all things He telleth us that the School-men use not to argue by rule but as Fencers use to handle weapons by quicknesse of the hand and eye The poor School-men cannot rest quietly in their graves for him but he is still persecuting their ashes because they durst presume to soare a pitch above his capacity The Scool-men were the most exact observers of rules in
given him a reasonable soul may as well seek for a necessary cause of the Egyptian Pyramides among the Crocodiles of Nilus This distinction of a mans time is an act of dominion done on purpose to maintain his domion over his actions against the encroachments of sensual delights He saith here upon the by That he knoweth no action that proceedeth from the liberty of mans will And again A mans will is something but the liberty of his will is nothing Yet he hath often told us That a man is free to do if he will and not to do if he will If no action proceed from the liberty of the will then how is a man free to do if he will Before he told us He is free to do a thing that may do it if he have the will to do it and may forbear it if be have the will to forbear it If the liberty of the will be nothing then this supposition If he have the will is nothing but an impossibility And here to all that I have said formerly against that frivolous distinction I shall adde an undoubted rule both in law and Logick A conditional proposition having an impossible condition annexed to it is equipollent to a simple negative He who is free to write if he will if it be impossible for him to will is not free to write at all no more than he is free to will But this Castle in the aire hath been beaten down often enough about his ears Where I say that contingent actions do proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes my intention was not to exclude contingent determination but necessary determination according to an antecdent necessity which he hath been so far from proving unanswerably that he hath as good as yeilded the cause in his case of Ames ace by making the necessity to be onely upon supposition Concerning mixt actions partly free and partly necessary he saith That for proof of them I instance in a tile falling from an house which breaketh a mans head How often must I tell him that I am not now proving but answering that which he produceth He may find proofes enough to content him or rather to discontent him in twelve Sections together from the fifth to the eighteenth And upon the by thoroughout the whole book He who proveth that election is alwayes inter plura and cannot consist with antecedent determination to one proveth that that man who did elect or chuse to walk in that street at that very time when the stone fell though he knew not of it was not antecedently necessitated to walke there And if any one of all those causes which concur to the production of an effect be not antecedently necessary then the effect is not antecedently necessary for no effect can exceed the virtue of its cause He saith I should have proved that such contingent actions are not antecedently necessary by a concurrence of natural causes though a little before I granted they are First he doth me wrong I never granted it either before or after It is a foule fault in him to mistake himself or his adversary so often Secondly it is altogether improper and impertinent to our present controversie Let him remember what he himself said If they the instances of casting ambs ace and raining to morrow be impertinent to his opinion of the liberty of mans will he doth impertinently to meddle with them Not so neither by his leave Though I refuse to prove them formally or write Volumes about them yet I do not refuse to answer any thing which he doth or can produce Such is his argument which followeth immediately Whatsoever is produced by concurrence of natural causes was antecedently determined in the cause of such concurrence though contingent concurrence He addeth That though I perceive it not concurrence and contingent concurrence are all one It may be in his Dialect which differs from the received Dialect of all Schollars but not in the Dialect of wiser and learneder men To his argument pardoning his confounding of natural and voluntary causes I answer That if he speak of the immediate adaequate cause as it is a cause in act without doubt he saith truth Causa proxima in actu posita impossible est non sâ—…qui effectum But he told us of a necessary connexion of all causes from eternity and if he make not this good he saith nothing If he intend it in this sense I deny his assertion That whatsoever is produced by concurrence of natural causes was antecedently determined from eternity As for instance that the generation of a monster which nature or the Agent never intended was necessary from eternity or necessary before the contingence was determined Concerning the individual actions of brute beasts that they should be necessitated to every act they do from eternity As the bee for example how often she shall hum in a day and how often she shall flie abroad to gather thyme and whither and how many flowers precisely she must suck and no more and such like acts I had reason to say I see no ground for it Yet the least of all these acts is known to God and subject to his disposition He telleth us That he hath pointed out the ground in the former discourse If he have it is as the blind Senator of whom I told him formerly pointed the wrong way All his intimations have received their answers But whereas I made an objection to my self Are not two sparrows sould for a farthing and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your father He doth not deale clearly to urge mine own objection and conceale my answer He doth not say which your father casteth not down or which your father doth not necessitate to fall but without your father That is without your fathers knowledge without his protection without the influence of his power or which is exemted from your fathers disposition The last sort of actions are the natural actions of inanimate creatures which have not the least pretence to liberty or so much as spontaneity and therefore were declined by me as impertinent to this question Out of my words concerning these he argueth thus If there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning then there is no doubt but that all things happen necessarily But there is a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning First I deny his consequence and by it he who is so busie to take other mens heights in Logick wherein he never medled yet but he was baffelled may have his own height taken by them that are so disposed There is scarce a freshman in the University but could have taught him the difference between causa efficiens physica and voluntaria the one acting by necessity of nature the other freely according to deliberation The former cannot defer nor moderate its act nor act opposite actions indifferently but the later
can So though a necessary connexion of all natural causes were supposed yet it inferreth not a necessary connexion of all voluntary causes Secondly I deny his assumption that there is a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning for proof whereof he produceth nothing nor is able to produce any thing All he saith he alledgeth out of me That it deserveth further examination And from thence according to his wild roving imaginations he draweth consequences from the staff to the corner that have not the least grain of salt or weight in them As these Hitherto he knows not whether it be true or no. And consequently all his arguments hitherto have been of no effect nor hath he shewed any thing to prove that elective actions are not necessitated Thus his pen runneth over without time or reason He that would learn to build Castles in the air had best be his Apprentise The truth is I was not willing to go out of mine own profession and therefore desired to hold my self to the question of liberty without medling with contingency But yet with the same reservation that the Romans had in their Military Discipline nec sequi nec fugere not to seek other questions nor yet to thuâ—… them if they were put upon me And now we are come to his two famous instances of casting ambs ace and raining or not raining to morrow I said that I had already answered what he produceth to prove all sufficient causes to be necessary causes Now saith he It seemeth that distrusting his former answer he answereth again O memory he did not urge them in that place neither did I answer them at all in that place But though he had urged them and I answered them there yet he repeating them or enforcing them here would he not have me to answer him It is true that in another Section upon the by he hath been gravelled about his ambs ace and therefore he treadeth tenderly still upon that foot He saith I bring no other argument to prove the cast thrown not to be necessarily thrown but this that the caster did not deliberate By his leave it is not truly said I shewed undeniably that the necessity upon which he buildeth is onely hypothetical I enumerated all the causes which were or could be recited to make the necessity As the dice the positure of the casters hand the measure of the force the positure of the table c. And shewed clearly that there was not the least grain of antecedent necessity in any of them which he is not able to answer and therefore he doth well to be silent But if I had urged nothing else This alone had been sufficient to prove the caster a free Agent from his own principles A free Agent saith he is he that hath not done deliberating He who never began to deliberate hath not done deliberating There can be no necessity imaginable why the caster should throw these dice rather than those other or cast into this table rather than that or use so much force and no more but the casters will or meer chance The caster never deliberated nor so much as thought of any one of these things And therefore it is undeniably apparent that there was no necessity of casting ambs ace but onely upon supposition which is far enough from antecedent necessity But he pleadeth further That from our ignorance of the particular causes that concurring make the necessity I infer that there was no such necessity at all which is that indeed which hath deceived me and all other men in this question Whose fault was it then first to make this an instance and then to plead ignorance Before he was bold to reckon up all the causes of the antecedent necessity of this cast and now when he is convinced that it is but a necessity upon suppositon he is fain to plead ignorance He who will not suffer the Loadstone to enjoy its attractive virtue without finding a reason for it in a fiddle-string as Scoggin sought for the Hare under the leades as well where she was not as where she was is glad to plead ignorance about the necessary causes of ambs ace Whereas my reasons did evince not onely that the causes are unknown but that there are no such causes antecedently necessitating that cast Thus If any causes did necessitate ambs ace antecedently it was either the caster but he thought not of it or the dice but they are square no more inclinable to one cast than another or the positure of the table but the caster might have thrown into the other table or the positure of the hand but that was by chance or the measure of the force but that might have been either more or lesse or all of these together But to an effect antecedently necessary all the causes must be antecedently determined where not so much as one of them is antecedently determined there is no pretence of antecedent necessity Or it is some other cause that he can name but he pleadeth ignorance Yet I confesse the deceit lieth here but it is on the other side in the ignorant mistaking of an hypothetical necessity for absolute antecedent necessity And here according to the advice of the Poet Nec deus inter sit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit He calleth in the fore knowledge of God to his aid as he doth alwayes when he findeth himself at a losse but to no purpose He himself hath told us That it cannot be truly said that the foreknowledge of God should be a cause of any thing seeing foreknowledge is knowledge and knowledge dependeth on the existence of the thing known God seeth not future contingents in an antecedent certainty which they have in their causes but in the events themselves to which Gods infinite knowledge doth extend it self In order of time one thing is before another one thing is after another and accordingly God knoweth them in themselves to be one before another But his knowledge is no beginning no expiring act Nothing is past nothing is to come but all things present to his knowledge even those things which are future with the manner of their futurition His casting ambs ace hath been unfortunate to him he will speed no better with his shower of rain In the enterance to my answer and as it were the stating of the cause I shewed that rain was more contingent in our Climate than in many other parts of the World where it is almost as necessary as the seasons of the year I do not find so much weight in his discourse as to occasionme to alter one word for which I could have produced authours enough if I had thought it needful but I alledged onely the Scriptures mentioning the former and the later rain And even this is objected to me as a defect or piece of ignorance I thought saith he he had known it by experience of some Travellers but I see he onely
God decreeing Or else the decree of God may be taken passively for the execution of this decree or the order set by God for the government and disposition of the World which is an act done in time and ad extra or without the Deity This executive decree was that which I intended as he might easily have perceived if he had pleased He himself saith the same which he dislikes in me 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 What difference is there whether one say this decree was made or it was set and ordered as he himself saith My argument holds as well the one way as the other God was not necessitated to set this order and yet this distinctive proposition was alwayes necessarily true either God will order it thus or he will not order it thus To my last argument used in this Section he answereth nothing but this If God had made either causes or effects free from necessity he had made them free from his own prescience which had been imperfection Which reason besides all the inconsequences thereof and all the other absurdities which flow from it doth deny to the infinite knowledge of God the knowledge of possibilities and future contingents Whereas it is most certain That God doth perfectly know not onely all future contingents not in their causes onely but in themselves but also all possibilities upon supposition of a condition such as were never to be actually produced Woe unto thee Chorazin Woe unto thee Bethsaida for if the mighty woks which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sydon they would have repented long agoe in sackcloath and ashes To know certainly future possibilities which shall never come into act is more than to know future events though never so contingent and voide of necessity Take another instance Will the men of Keilah deliver me up Will Saul come down He will come down they will deliver thee up And again He was speedy by taken away least wickednesse should alter his understanding Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 35. HIs first endeavour in this Section is to reduce his argument into better form and when all is done it proveth but a Sorites The only commendation that I can give it is this That the matter and form are agreeable both stark naught Thus he argueth That which is an Agent worketh That which worketh wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action and consequently is therefore a sufficient cause and if a sufficient cause then also a necessary cause I deny his first proposition That every Agent worketh There are causes and Agents in power as well as in act But it may be he meaneth an Agent in act then he proveth the same by it self That which acteth worketh and when they returned then they came home again He taketh pains to prove that which no man in his right wits can doubt of His second proposition conteineth such another sublime point of Apodeictical learning called idem per idem the same by the same That which worketh wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth It may want truth that is requisite to the production of that which it ought to produce But it can want nothing to produce that which it doth produce Whatsoever acteth when it acteth doth necessarily act what it doth act He is still stumbling upon that old foolish rule What is all this to his antecedent necessity His third proposition follows And consequently is thereof a sufficient cause Yes in his canting language which makes deficience and sufficience to be all one Whereunto tendeth all this Hitherto he hath not advanced one hairs breadth But now he uniteth all his force to pull down the Castle of Liberty And if a sufficient cause then also a necessary cause I denyed his consequence And gave him a reason for it otherwise God himself should not be allsufficient He replieth That Gods allsufficience signifieth no more than his omnipotence and omnipotence signifieth no more than the power to do all things that he will Yes Gods infinite power and sufficience ought not to be limited to those things which he doth actually will or which have actual being No more than his eternity is commensurable by time He was sufficient to raise up children to Abraham of stones which he never did and probably never will do If God did all which he could do and could justy do who was able to abide it we were in a wretched condition A covetous person may have more than sufficient for his back and his belly and yet no will to bestow it upon himself So he hath proved himself a sufficient Agent sufficient to make this Sorites though very unsufficient to prove his intention But I took pity on him to see him toile himself to no purpose and was contented out of grace and curtesie to admit these two things First that every effect in the World hath sufficient causes Secondly that supposing the determination of the free and contingent causes every effect in the World is necessary that is necessary upon supposition But this will do him no good Necessity upon supposition is far enough from antecedent necessity He objecteth That necessity is onely said truly of somewhat in future I deny iâ—… He proveth it thus Necessary is that which cannot possibly be otherwise And possibility is alwayes understood of some future time Good Where are his eyes that he cannot distinguish between possible and not possible If necessary had been that which could possibly be otherwise or if impossibility had alwayes reference to the future as well as possibility he had said something By this argument he might prove that yesterday is not past but to come because it is not possible to bring back yesterday and possibility is alwayes understood of the time to come But out of pure necessity he is contented to make use of my curtesie Seeing he granteth so favourably that sufficient causes are necessary causes I shall easily conclude from it that whatsoever those causes do cause are necessary antecedently He may easily prove it if he can make possible and impossible all one I gave him an inch and he takes an ell I admitted that every effect in the World is necessary upon supposition and he taketh it for granted that they are necessary without supposition But that is more than I can yeild him If that be his meaning he had best stick to his own grounds But they will afford him no more relief than my concession Howsoever thus he argueth If the necessity of the thing produced when produced be in the same instant of time with the existence of its immediate cause then also that immediate cause was in the same instant with the
as himself that accused the Church of England ofâ—… Arminianisme for holding those truths which they ever professed before Arminius was born If Arminius were alive Mr. Hobbes out of conscience ought to ask him forgivenesse Let him speak for himself De libero hominis arbitrio ita sentio c In statu vero lapsus c This is my sentence of free will That man fallen can neither think nor will nor do that which is truly good of himself and from himself But that it is needfull that he be regenerated and renewed in his understanding will affections and all his powers from God in Christ by the Holy Ghost to understand esteem consider will and do aright that which is truely good It was not the speculative doctrine of Arminius but the seditious tenets of Mr. Hobbes and such like which opened a large window to our troubles How is it possible to pack up more errours together in so narrow a compasse If I were worthy to advise Mr. Hobbes he should neveâ—… have more to do with these old Philosopheâ—… except it were to weed them for some obsâ—…lete opinions Chrysippus used to say He sometimes wanted opinions but never wanted arguments but to stand upon his own bottom and make himself both Party Jurer and Judge in his own cause Concerning the stating of the question THe righ stating of the question is commonly the mid way to the determination of the difference and he himself confesseth that I have done that more than once saving that he thinketh I have done it over cautiously with as much caution as I would draw up a lease Abundant caution was never thought hurtfull until now Doth not the truth require as much regard as a lease On the other side I accuse him to have stated it too carelessely loosly and confusedly He saith He understands not these words the contversion of a sinner concerns not the question I do really believe him But in concluding That whatsoever he doth not understand is unintelligible he doth but abuse himself and his readers Let him study better what is the different power of the will in naturall or civill actions which is the subject of our discourse and morall or supernaturall acts which concernes not this question and the necessiâ—…y of adding these words will clearly appear to him Such another pitifull piece is his other exception against these words without their own concurrence which he saith are unsignificant unlesse I mean that the events themselves should concur to their own production Either these words were unsignificant or he was blind or worse than blind when he transcribed them My words were these Whether all Agents and all Events be predetermined He fraudulently leaves out these words all Agents and makes me to state the question thus Whether all Events be predetermined without their own concurrence Whereas those words without their own concurrence had no reference at all to all Events but to all Agents which words he hath omitted The state of the question being agreed upon it were vanity and meer beating of the air in me to weary my self and the reader with the serious examination of all his extravagant and impertinent fancies As this Whether there be a morall efficacy which is not naturall which is so far from being the question between us that no man makes any question of it except one who hath got a blow upon his head with a mill-saile Naturall causes produce their effects by a true reall influence which implies an absolute determination to one as a father begets a son or fire produceth fire Morall causes have no naturall influence into the effect but move or induce some other cause without themselves to produce it As when a Preacher perswadeth his hearers to give almes here is no absolute necessitation of his hearers nor any thing that is opposite to true liberty Such another question is that which followes Whether the object of the sight be the cause of seeing meaning if he mean aright the subjective cause Or how the understanding doth propose the object to the will which though it be blind as Philosophers agree yet not so blind as he that will not see but is ready to follow the good advice of the intellect I may not desert that which is generally approved to satisfie the phantastick humour of a single conceited person No man would take exceptions at these phrases the will willeth the understanding understandeth the former term expressing the faculty the later the elicite act but one who is resolved to pick quarrels with the whole World To permit a thing willingly to be done by another that is evil not for the evils sake which is permitted but for that goods sake which is to be drawn out of it is not to will it positively nor to determine it to evil by a natural influence which whosoever do maintaine do undeniably make God the authour of sin Between positive willing and nilling there is a meane of abnegation that is not to will That the will doth determine it self is a truth not to be doubted of what different degrees of aide or assistance the will doth stand in need of in different Acts natural moral supernatural where a general assistance is sufficent and where a special assistance is necessary is altogether impertinent to this present controversie or to the right stating of this question In the last place he repeateth his old distinction between a mans freedom to do those things which are in his power if he will and the freedom to will what he will which he illustrateth for similitudes prove nothing by a comparison drawn from the natural appetite to the rational appetite Will is appetite but it is one question Whether he be free to eate that hath an appetite And another question whether he be free to have an appetite In the former he saith He agreeth with me That a man is free to do what he will In the later he saith He dissents from me That a man is not free to will And as if he had uttered some profound mystery he addeth in a triumphing manner That if I have not been able to distinguish between thâ—…se two questions I have not done well to meddle with either And if I have understood them to bring arguments to prove that a man is free to do if he will is to deale uningenuously and fraudulently with my readers Yet let us have good words Homini homino quid praestat What difference is there between man and man That so many wits before Mr. Hobbes in all Ages should beate their brains about this question all their lives long and never meet with this distinction which strikes the question dead What should hinder him from crying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found it I have found it But stay a little the second thoughts are wiser and the more I look upon this distinction the lesse I like it It seemeth like the
is impossible I argued thus If a man be free to act he is much more free to will because quod efficit tale illud magis est tale To which he answereth with an ignorant jeere As if he should say if I make him angry then I am more angry Pardon me I will free him from this feare I see nothing in him that should move a man to anger but rather to pity That Canon holdeth onely in causis perse such causes as by nature or the intention of the free Agent are properly ordained to produce that effect such as his outward causes are supposed by him to be in the determination of the will And therefore my instance was proper Not in causis per accidens where the effect is not produced naturally or intentionally but accidentally as in his ridiculous instance My last argument which he vouchsafeth to take notice of was this If the will be determined then the writing is determined And then he ought not to say he may write but he must write His answer is It followeth that he must write but it followeth not that I ought to say he must write unlesse he would have me say more than I know as he himself doth What poor crotchets are these unworthy of a man that hath any thing of reality in him as if my argument did regard the saying of it and not the thing it self If it follow precisely that he must write then he hath no freedom in utramque partem either to write or not to write then he is no more free to do than to will both which are contrary to his assertion I demanded if a mans will be determined without his will Why we do ask him whether he will do such a thing or not His answer is because we desire to know But he wholly mistaketh the scope of the question The emphasis lieth not in the word we but in the word his how it is his will For if his will be determined by natural causes without his will then it is the will of the causes rather than his own will I demanded further why we do represent reasons to men why we do intreate them He answereth Because we think to make them have the will they have not So he teacheth us First that the will is determined by a necessary influence of natural causes and then prateth of changing the will by advice and moral perswasions Let him advise the clock to strike sooner or later than it is determined by the weight of the plumb and motion of the wheeles Let him disswade the Plants from growing and see how much it availeth He saith the will doth will as necessarily as the fire burneth Then let him intreat the fire to leave burning at his request But thus it falleth out with them who cannot or will not dishinguish between natural and moral efficacy I asked then why do we blame free Agents since no man blameth fire for burning Cities nor accuseth poison for destroying men First he returneth an answer We blame them because they do not please us Why may a man blame every thing that doth not please his humour Then I do not wonder why T. H. is so apt to blame others without cause So the Schollar may blame his Master for correcting him deservedly for his good So he who hath a vitious stomack may blame healthful food So a Lethargical person may blame his best friend for endeavouring to save his life And now having shot his bolt he begins to examine the case Whether blaming be any more than saying the thing blamed is ill or imperfect Yes moral blame is much more It is an imputation of a fault If a man be born blind or with one eye we do not blame him for it But if a man have lost his sight by his intemperance we blame him justly He inquireth May not we say a lame horse is lame Yes but you cannot blame the horse for it if he was lamed by another without his own fault May not a man say one is a fool or a knave saith he if he be so though he could not help it If he made himself a sot we may blame him though if he be a stark sot we lose our labour But if he were born a natural idiot it were both injurious and ridiculous to blame him for it Where did he learn that a man may be a knave and cannot help it Or that knavery is imposed inevitably upon a man without his own fault If a man put fire to his neighbours house it is the fault of the man not of the fire He hath confessed formerly that a man ought not to be punished but for crimes The reason is the very same that he should not be blamed for doing that which he could not possibly leave undone no more than a servant whom his Master hath chained to a pillar ought to be blamed for not waiting at his elbow No chaine is stronger than the chaine of fatal Destiny is supposed to be That piece of eloquence which he thinks I borrowed from Tully was in truth taken immediately out of St. Austine who applieth it most properly to this case now in question He urgeth That a man might as well say that no man halteth which can not chuse but halt as say That no man sinneth in those things which he cannot shun for what is sin but halting This is not the first time that he hath contradicted himself Before he told us that there can be no punishment but for crimes that might have been left undone Now he telleth us that a man may sin who cannot chuse but sin Then sin is not a punishable crime He might even as well say that there is no such thing as sin in the World Or if there be that God is the authour of it Reader whosoever thou art if thou reverence God eschew such doctrines His comparison of halting is frivolous and impertinent Halting is not against the eternal rule of Gods justice as sinning is Neither doth a man chuse his halting freely as he doth his sinning In the conclusion of his Animadversions upon Num. 3. there is nothing that is new but that he is pleased to play with a wooden toppe He calleth my argument from Zenos cudgelling of his man a wooden argument Let him chuse whether I shall call his a wooden or a boyish comparison I did never meet with a more unfortunate instancer than he is He should produce an instance of natural Agents and he produceth an instance of voluntary Agents Such are the boyes that whip his wooden toppe He should produce an instance of a natural determination so he affirmeth that the will is determined and he produceth an instance of a violent determination for such is the motion of his toppe I hope he doth not mean that the will is compelled if he do he may string it up with the rest of his contradictions Hath not he brought his hogs to a faire market
aut faciendum quod cognoscit the understanding extended to injoy or do that which it knoweth it must needs be that the more reason the lesse passion the lesse reluctance and consequently the more liberty He saith When we mark not the force that moves us we think that it is not causes but liberty that produceth the action I rendred him thus The ignornnce of the true causes and their power is the reason that we ascribe the effect to liberty Where lieth the fault that which he calleth force and strength I call power and for that which moves us I say causes as he himself doth exexpresse himself in the same place Where I say the will causeth he saith the man chuseth As if there were any difference between these two the eye seeth and the man seeth This and a confounding of voluntas with volitio the faculty of willing with the act of willing and a young suckling contradiction which he hath found out That the will hath power to refuse what he willeth that is before it have willed it not after is the substance of this Animadversion which deserve no other answer but that a man should change his risibility into actual laughter I produced two reasons to prove that true liberty is a freedom not only from compulsion but from necessity The former drawn from the nature of election or the act of the will which is allwayes inter plura the later which I called a new Argument because it had not formerly been touched in this Treatise taken from the nature of the faculty of the will or of the soul as it willeth which is not capable of any other compulsion but necessitation And if it be physically necessitated it is thereby acquitted from all guilt and the fault transferred upon those causes that did necessitate it This argument indeed began with a distinction but proceeded to a demonstration which was reduced by me into form in my defence to which he hath given no shew of satisfaction either in his first answer or in these Animadversions except it be a concedo omnia or a granting of the conclusion The same ground which doth warrant the names of Tyrant Praemunire Sunday Monday Tuesday that is Use Quem penes arbitrium est vis norma loquendi doth likewise justifie these generally received terms of the Elicite and Imperate Acts of the will there being scarcely one Authour who hath written upon this subject in Latine that doth not use them and approve them In the councel of Dort which he himself mentioneth he may find this truth positively maintained that voluntas elicit actum suum Where he may likewise find what morall perswasives or motives are if he have a desire to learn Allthough he be convicted that it followeth from his principles That God is the cause of all sin in the world yet he is loath to say so much for that is an unseemly phrase to say that God is the cause of sin because it soundeth so like a saying that God sinneth yea it is even as like it as one egge is like another or rather it is not like it for it is the very same Nullum simile est idem He that is the determining cause of sin in others sinneth himself It is as well against the eternall law that is the rule of justice which is in God himself to make another to sin as to sin Yet though he will not avow such an unseemly phrase That God is the cause of sin Yet he doth indeavour to prove it by four texts of holy Scripture which are alltogether impertiuent to his purpose The first is that of the Prophet Amos Shall there be evill in a City and the Lord hath not done it But that is clearly understood of the evill of punishment not of the evill of sin To the three other places That the Lord said unto Shimei curse David and that the Lord put a lying spirit into the mouth of Ahabs Prophets And that of Rehoboams not hearkning to the people the Reader may find a satisfactory answer formerly But because he seemeth to ground much upon those words which are added to the last place for the cause was from the Lord conceiving some singular virtue to lie in them and an ovation at least to be due unto himself I will not say least the Bishop exclaim against me applauding himself like the flie upon the Cart-wheel See what a dust I do raise I will take the liberty to tell him further That there is nothing of any cause of sin in the text but of a cause of Jeroboams advancement as he might have perceived plainly by the words immediately following The cause was from the Lord that he might perform his saying which the Lord spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Ieroboam the son of Nebat Which saying was this I will rent the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give ten tribes to thee So he hath produced an evil effect of punishment for an evil effect of sin and a cause of advancement for a cause of sin and a permitting or ordering or disposing of sin for a necessitating or determining to sin Yet he produceth six witnesses to prove that liberty is not opposed to necessity but to compulsion Luther Zanchy Bucer Calvin Moulin and the Synod of Dort First Reader I desire thee to judge of the partiality of this man who rejecteth all humane authority in this cause as he hath reason for it were an easie thing to overwhelme and smother him and his cause with testimonies of Councels Fathers Doctours of all Ages and Communions and all sorts of Classick Authours and yet to seek for protection under the authority of a few Neoterick Writers A double weight and a double measure are an abomination Aut haec illis sunt habenda aut illa cum his amittenda sunt Harum duarum conditionum nunc utram malis vide If he will reap the benefit of humane authority he must undergoe the inconvenience also Why may he use the testimony of Calvine against me in this cause and I may not make use of the testimonies of all the Ancients Greek and Latine against him whom Calvine himself confesseth to have been for liberty against necessiry Semper apud Latinos liberi arbitrii nomen extitit Graecos vero non puduit multo arrogantius usurpare vocabulum siquidem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dixerunt acsi potest as suiipsius penes hominem fuisset But I am able to give him that advantage in this cause Secondly a man may see by his citing of these testimonies that he hath taken them up upon trust without ever perusing them in the Authours themselves I demand therefore whether he will be tried by his own witnesses in this case in difference between him and me that is concerning universal necessity in natural civil and external actions by reason of a necessary connextion of second causes and a natural determination of
cause by which it was immediately produced The same may be said of the cause of this cause and backward eternally From whence it will follow that all the connexion of the causes of any effect from the beginning of the World are altogether existent in one and the same instant It is well that I meet with a beginning of the World for I was afraid of those words and so backwards eternaly If his Mathematical engins be such as these he will never prove so terrible an enemy as Archimedes He proveth that all immediate causes and their particular distinct effects successively were together in time at the very instant of their causation successively since the beginning of the World But he lets the question alone as bad Archers do the But Whether the first cause did determine the second to every individual act which it doth necessarily and without any supposition and the second the third and so downward to the last Of this he saith not a word Where there is no need of proof he swelleth with arguments where the question is he is silent I will shew him the palpable absurdity of his argument in an instance When Mr. Hobs made his Leviathan his Leviathan and he were necessarily coexistent in the same instant of time So likewise when his father did beget him his father and he were necessarily coexistent in the same instant of time The like may be said of his grandfather and his great grandfather and so upwards to the beginning of the World Therefore Adams begetting of Seth had a necessary connexion with his writing of his Leviathan so as to necessitate him antecedently and inevitably to write it and stuff it with Paradoxes Or thus A man kindles a fire to warm himself The fire and he are necessarily coexistent and there is necessary connexion between them Another man steals part of the fire and burns an house with it the fire and the conflagration are together and have a necessary connexion therefore the kindling of the fire had a necessary connexion with the burning of the house to render it inevitable See with what doughty arguments they use to catch Dotterels From hence he concludeth That consequently all the time from the beginning of the World or from eternity to this day is but one instant Better and better Why doth he not infer likewise that the sea burneth His premises will sustain the one as well as the other Why will he lose his cause for want of confidence If God who is an infinite Essence be free from all variablenesse and succession of time Must he who is but a turning shadow upon the old Exchange of this World challenge the same priviledge Because eternity is a nunc stans must successive parts of time make one instant or nunc stans But he addeth That by this time I know it is not so He hath been spinning a fair threed and now like a curst Cow casts down his meale with his foot First to endeavour to prove that it is so and then confesse that it is not so Neither can he say that he proceedeth upon my grounds whilest his own grounds are so much higher than mine I make but an hypothetical necessity which implieth onely an accidental connexion He maketh an absolute antecedent necessity which implieth a necessary connexion of the whole conjoinct series of causes and effects Castigations upon the Animadversions Num. 36. I Cited his sense that he could adde other arguments if he thought it good Logick He complaineth that I mis-recite his words which are I could adde if I thought it good Logick the inconvenience of denying necessity as that it destroyes both the Decrees and Prescience of God Almighty And are not these reasons drawn from the Decrees and Prescience of God Arguments or are they not his prime arguments How glad would this man be to find any little pretence of exception He distinguisheth between absurdities and inconveniences Absurdities he saith are impossibilities and it is a good forme of reasoning to argue from absurdities but not from inconveniences If all absurdities be impossibilities then there are no absurdities in rerum natura for there can be no impossibilities This it is to take the sense of words not from Artists in their own Arts but from his own imaginations By this reason there never was an absurd speech or absurd action in the World otherwise absurdities are not impossibilities But he hath confuted himself sufficiently in this Treatise One absurdity may be greater than another and one inconvenience may be greater than another but absurd and inconvenient is the same thing That is absurd which is incongruous unreasonable not fit to be heard Truth it self may accidentally be said in some sense to be inconvenient to some persons at some times But neither absurdities nor inconveniences in themselves do flow from truth Now let us see what are those incoveniences which he mentioneth here To destroy the decrees and prescience of God Almighty There can be no greater absurdities imagined than these things which he calleth inconveniencies He himself hath at the least ten several times drawn arguments in this Treatise from the prescience of God Where was his Logick then or his memory now And in this very place where he condemneth it as no good form of reasoning to argue from inconveniences yet he himself doth practice it and argues from inconveniences But he hath worn this subject so threed-bare without adding either new matter or new ornament that I will not weary the Reader with a needlesse repetition but refer him to my defence which I dare well trust with his Animadversions Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 37. IT is vain to talke any longer of keeping this controversie secret Neither do I regard whether it was made publick by his fault or his friends or who it was that hanged out the Ivie-bush before it to beg custom and procure utterance for his first fardel of Paradoxes He thinketh it is great confidence in me to say that the edge of his discourse was so abated that it could not easily hurt any rational man who was not over much possessed with prejudice But I have much more reason to wonder at his transcendent confidence The people of China did use to brag that they onely had two eyes The Europaeans one eye and all the rest of the World no eyes But he maketh himself to be a very Argus all eye better sighted than either Eagle or Serpent and all the rest of the Europaean World to be as blind as Moles or Beetles like so many changlings or enchanted persons that had lost their senses For my part I am more confident since I see his Animadversions than before And why should I not be confident in this cause Grant me but that there is a God that he is just and true and good and powerfull that there is an Heaven and an hell and a day of judgement that is rewards and punishments That good and evil
c. 1. Rational will Eth. l. 3. c. 6 7 8. Passive obedience Act. 4. 19. Compulsion what it is Fear of hurt doth not abrogate a law Cap. 2. d. 18. C. 6. d. 13. Natural Agents act determinately Not voluntary Seal exerc 307. d. 3. T. H. maketh God the cause of sin Amos c. 3. 6. 2 Sam. 16. 10. 1 King 22. 23. 1 King 12. 15. Fount of Argu. Six witnesses for universal necessity answeted Cal. Instit. l. 2. c. 2. d. 4. Visit. Saxon. Cal. Instir. l. 2. c. 4. d. 7. Iudic. Theol. Lorit de lib. A rb Thes. 4. Mentall terms Metaphorical drawing Jam. 4. 8. Joh. 6. 44. Joh. 12. 32. Pro. 20. 5. Paradoxes what they are Whether a feather make a Diamant yeild Or a falling drop move the whole World Power of objects concerneth the moral Philosopher Eth. l. 3 c. 2. Still he seeketh to obtru de hypothetical necessity for absolute Num. 1. Num. 3. Hearing speaking all one with T. H. Eth. l. 3. c. 2. There are other motions than local Spirits moved as well as bodies Both bodies and spirits move themselves Quality infused by God Joel 2. Acts 2. 33. Rom. 5. 5. Tit. 3. 6. 1 Cor. 12. Num. 9. The understanding and will two powers of the reasonablesoul Mans willing is not like a falling stone Absolute necessity admitteth no contrary supposition A man may will contrary to the dictate of reason Rom. 7. 15. Ro. 14. 23. An erroneous conscience obligeth first to reform it then to follow it Reason is the true root of liberty Actions may be equally circumstantiated Passions often preâ—…ile aâ—…inst reaâ—… Jam. 1. 13. Man was created to be Lord of the creatures Psal. 8. 6. How the understanding giveth to objects their properweight Blasphmy in the abstract and in the concrete differ much Aman may know a truth certainly yet not know the manner The Doctrine of liberty an ancient truth Liberty to will more reconciliable with prescience than liberty to do How the will of God is the necessity of all things Dei Gen. ad lit l. 6. c. 15. Ibid. c. 17. De Civit. Dei c. 5. c. 10. What it is to permit only and to permit barely Eternity is no successive duration Why God is said to be justice it self c. Joh. 14. 6. Act. 17. 29. Prov. 8. 9. God is indivisible Joh. 4. 24. 1 Tim. 1. 17. God is eternity it self Exo. 3. 13. Num. 8. What a Judge judgeth to be indeliberate is impertinent And his assertion false Num. 35. A man cannot predeliberate perfectly of contingent events Num. 33. Num. 8. Endeavour is not of the essence of liberty Num. 29. There may be impediments before deliberation be done And liberty when it is ended Some undeliberated acts may be punishable Virtual deliberation Children not punishable with death Num. 8. He knoweth no reason but imagination The faculty of willing is the will Num. 20. Of concupiscence Jam. 1. 15. Of the intellectualâ—… and sensitive appetite Not the same thing His deliberation is no deliberation His liberty no true liberty His definition of liberty Analogical matter 〈◊〉 4. d. 7. By his definition a stone is free to ascend Beginning of motion from the mover The same faculty willeth or nilleth Other causes concur with the will Necessary causes do not allwaies act necessarily Two sorâ—…s of sufficiency Luk. 14. 28. 2 Cor. 2. 16. Isa. 5. 4. Our conceptions are not the touchstone of truth His grosse mistakes about eternity What is his deliberation Man is free to will or he is not free to do He maketh a stone as free to ascend as descend A Hawke saith he is free to flie when her wings are plucked Abegining of being acting His answer to some demands Free to do if he will yet not free to wil is against law and Logick Num. 3. Num. 3. A necessary effect requires all necessary causes Math. 10. 29. His instance of Ambs ace Num. 31 32. Num. 3. Num. 11. His other idstance of raining or not raining to morrow Deut 11. 14. Jer. 5. 24. Hos. 6. 3. Gods decree consideredactually and passively Num. 11. God knows all future possibilities Math. 11. 21. 1 Sam 23. 11. His argument to prove universal necessity answered Possible and impossible all one with T. H. Remote causes are not together with the effect Nor doth all time make one instant T. H. admitteth no absurdities but impossibilities Abuses do not flow essentially from good doctrines as from universal necessity Solid reasons work soonest upon solid judgements Three sorts of men The doctrine of liberty maketh no â—…man careless or thanklesse God hath no faculties Num. 24. Q. 1. Levi. c. 38. God is incomprehensible Rom. 1. â—…0 Psal. 119. Yet so far as we can we are obliged to search after him Act. 17. 24. To admit that God is infinite is enough to confute T. H. Tophet True Religion consisteth not in obedience to Princes Lev. c. 42. Lev. c. 17 18. Lev. c. 42. 1 Tim. 3. 14. Num. 14. 1. King 12. 30. 1 King 22. 52. â—…ev c. 22. Act. 4. 19. De Cive e. 3. Num. 29. 31. Lev. c. 29. c. 26. Leviath c. 34. De Cive c. 15. Num. 18. C. 31. Ibidem De cive c. 15. Dan. 3. 4. Dan. 6. 7. Math. 10. 33. 27. Hierome Epist. ad Chromat Ezek. 28. 3. Rom. 10. 10. De Cive c. 14. Active and passive obedience Lev. c. 20. Universal practise against him The just power of Priences 1 King 21. 9. Acts 4. 19. He confesseth that Ecclesiastical persons have a priviledg above himself De Cive c. 17. D R. C. P. I. S. Qu. p. 20. ibid. p. 340. Qu. p. 20. Qu. p. 80. Leviathan a meer phantasme Job 41. 1. Psal. 104. 25. T. H. The true Leviathan Job 41. 34. 1 Cor. 1. 27. Leviathan no Soveraign of the sea Nature dictates the existence and worship of God C. c. 15. s. 14. T. H. no friend to religion Cic. Har. Respons Orat. in P. Clod. C. c. 3. s. 8. Le. p. 54. Ci. c. 16. s. 1. Excuseth Atheisme Ci. c. 14. s. 19. Ci. c. 15. s. 7. Qu. p. 137. Ci. c. 15. s. 19. 1 Cor. 9 7. Rev. 4. 11. Destroyes Gods ubiquity Ci. c. 15. s. 14. Le. p. 11. His eternity Qu. p. 266. Le. p. 374. His simplâ—…city Qu. p. 267. Ci. c. 15. s. 14. Qu. p. 266. His existence Le. p. 214. Qu. p. 160 Joh. 4. 24. Le. p. 208. The Trinity Le. p. 268. Le. p. 21. Le. p. 271. Ci. c. 17. s. 5. 6. Le. p. 248. Le. p. 261. Le. p. 36. Le. p. 169. Le. p. 232. 1 Sam. 15. 1 King 13. 1 King 18. 2 Chr. 18. Jer. 38. Le. p. 250. Lev. p. 214. Lev. p. 227. Lev. p. 196. Lev. p. 361. Lev. p. 17. Lev. p. 169. Lev. p. 220. De Cive c. 17. s. 22. Le. p. 206. Ci. c. 17. 〈◊〉 26. Ci. c. 17. s. 21. Ci. c. 18. s. 1. Le. p. 205. Le. p. 283. Le. p. 284. Ci. c. 17. s. 18.
beliâ—…e that what is is and what hath been hath been So I hold this for a certain truth that what shall be shall be And therefore the argument holds as strongly against me as against him If I shall recover I need not his unsavoury potion If I shall not recover it will do me no good In all my life I never heard a weaker or sillier Sophisme urged in earnest by a rational man That which is is necessary to be upon supposition that it is That which hath been is necessary to have been upon supposition that it hath been So that which shall be shall be necessarily that is infallibly upon supposition that it shall be And the event cannot be supposed except it be supposed that the free Agent shall determine it self in such manner and except all necessary means be likewise supposed Such a necessity upon supposition is very consistent with true libery but T. H. his necessity is of another nature an antecedent extrinsecal necessitation and determination to one which is altogether inconsistent with election and true liberty According to my opinion we say That which may be may be but that which may be may not be According to his opinion we say That which must be must be but that which must be cannot be otherwise According to my opinion I am free either to walk abroad or to stay within doors whethersoever I do this is true that which shall be shall be But if I walk abroad as I may do then my stay within doors shall not be And on the other side If I stay within doors as I may do likewise then my walking abroad shall not be The event hath yet no determinate certainty in the causes for they are not yet determined The Agent may determine it self otherwise the event may come otherwise to passe even until the last moment before the production And when the event is actually produced and is without its causes it hath a determinate certainty not antecedent not from extrinsecal determination not absolute but meerly hypothetical or upon supposition the not distinguishing aright of which two different kinds of necessity makes the reader and us all this trouble It follows Laws are not superfluous because by the punishment of one or a few unjust men they are the cause of justice in a great many This answer hath been taken away already and shall be surther refelled if it be surther pressed But he willingly declineth the main scope of my argument which reflected more upon the unjustice than upon the superfluity of human laws if his opinion were true Those laws are unjust which punish men for not doing that which was antecedently impossible for them to do and for doing that which was impossible for them to leave undone But upon supposition of T. H. his opinion of the absolute necessity of all events all humane laws do punish men for not doing that which was antecedently impossible for them to do and for doing that which was antecedently impossible for them to leave undone Here we have confitentem reum our adversaries confession within a very few lines It is true that seeing the name of punishment hath relation to the name of crime there can be no punishment but for crimes that might have been left undone This is the first ingenuous confession we have had from T. H. I hope we shall have more From whence it followeth First that there neither is nor can be any crime deserving punishment in the World that is to say no such criminal thing as sin for nothing by his doctrine was ever done that could have been left undone Secondly it followeth hence that no punishment is just because nothing can be left undone that is done And that all men are innocent and there is no such thing as a delinquent in the World How saith he then That the laws are the cause of justice in many by punishing one or a few unjust men Upon his principles the Laws and Judges themselves are unjust to punish any men If this be not a contradiction I have lost my aime And if punishments are not just then neither are â—…ewards just Thus by his doctrine we have lost the two great pillars or preservatives of all well-ordered Societies as Lycurgus called them the two hinges whereupon the Common-wealth is turned Reward and Punishment Yet St. Peter doth teach us That Kings and Governours are sent from God for the punishment of evil-doers and for the praise of them that do well The last inconvenience which he mentions of those that were urged by me is this God in justice cannot punish a man with eternal torments for doing that which never was in his power to leave undone To which admitting as you have heard that there can be no punishment but for crimes that might have been left undone he gives two answers The first is this Instead of punishment if he had said affliction may not I say that God may afflict and not for sin Doth he not afflict those creatures that cannot sin And sometimes those that can â—…n yet not for sin as Job and the blind man in the Gospel This is still worser and worser He told us even now that nothing which is dishonourable ought to be attributed to God And can there be any thing in the World more dishonourable than to say That God doth torment poor innocent creatures in hell fire without any fault of theirs without any relation to sin meerly to shew his dominion over them The Scripture teacheth us clear otherwise That a man complains for the punishment of his sins Sin and punishment are knit together with adamantine bonds He phrases it for the manifestation of his power If it were true it was the greatest manifestation of cruelty and tyranny that is imaginable I confesse that chastisements ioflicted after the sin is forgiven are not properly punishments because they proceed a patre castigantâ—… non a Iudice vindicante from a father correcting not from a Judge revenging Yet even these chastisements are grounded upon sin The Lord hath put away thy sin thou shalt not die Howbeit because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the child that is born unto thee shall surely die But what place have such chastisements as Davids were in hell Is any man bettered by his sufferings there What place have probations and trialls of mens graces such as Jobs were in hell where there are no graces to be tried Jobs triall and Davids chastisements and the poor mans blindnesse were the greatest blessings that ever befell them For their light afflictions which were but for a moment did work out unto them a far more excellent and eternall weight of glory But the paines of hell are heavy and endlesse and work out nothing but torment In a word these afflictions we now treat of are downright punishments So the Holy Ghost stiles them everlasting punishment he
doth not afflict the children of men willingly except it be for sin Fools are afflicted because of their transgression The afflictions as he calleth them of those creatures that cannot sin that is brute beasts are alltogether of another nature They were created for the use of man they were given for the sustenance of men every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things But the tormenting even of the brute creatures needlessely for the pleasing of our sensual appetites or the satisfaction of our humour is not onely unchristian but unhumane A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruell God hath made two covenants with man none with the beasts He saith It is no more cruelty to afflict a man with endlesse torment for sin than without sin when he might without trouble have kept him from sinning Is it not great pitty that T. H. was not of God Almighties councel when he ordered the World that he might have advised him to have made man impeccable which he might have done without any trouble or that otherwise his fall and consequently his punishment might be justly imputed to God himself It was well enacted in the laws of the twelve tables Ad divos adeunto caste pietatem adhibento qui secus faxit Deus ipse vindex erit our addresses to God ought to be pure and devout they who do otherwise will find God himself the revenger Doth T. H. believe St. Jude That God hath reserved the Angels that kept not their first estate in everlasting chains under darknesse unto the judgement of the great day God could by his absolute power have kept them in their first estate yet he would not By his absolute power he can do all things which do not implic imperfection or contradiction but by his ordinate power he cannot change his decrees nor alter whathe hath ordained Acts of grace may be free but punishments must be alwayes just That King who doth not pardon a willfull traitour is not equally guilty of murther with him that hangs up an innocent Subject Then to answer fully to his question Why God suffered man to sinne having power to withhold him To preserve that order and course which he had established in the World and to draw a greater good out of evill for the further manifestation of his own glory First the manifestation of his power as St. Austin saith He that created all things very good and did foreknow that evill would arise from good knew likewise that it appeerteined rather to his most Almighty goodnesse to draw good out of evill then not to suffer evill Secondly the manifestation of his providence in suffering man whom he had indowed with freedom of will and power sufficient to resist and overcome Satan either to conquer or yield at his own choice Thirdly the manifestation of his justice and mercy by punishing some out of the corrupted masse justly and saving others out of his meer mercy If T. H. thinks vainly that the onely manifestation of Gods power is a sufficient ground for the punishment of men in hell fire without their own faults or crimes how much better may good Christians conclude That the greater manifestation of Gods power and providence and justice and mercy is a sufficient ground for the punishment of men with the like torments for their own crimes His second answer is set down by way of interrogation What infallible evidence hath the Bishop that a man shal be eternally in torments never die Even the authority of our Saviour and the Holy Scriptures which call it an everlasting fire an eternall fire a fire that is not quenched everlasting punishment everlasting chains the worm that never dyeth and the fire that goeth not out Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devill and his angels The Bishop hath the testimony of the Athanasian creed that they who have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire He hath the testimony of the universall Church of all ages except a few Originists If T. H. have no more than his own single private authority to oppose against all these he is a bold man They who question everlasting torments will not stick to question everlasting life To his demand about the second death I answer This is the second death if he could see wood for trees In the next place he urgeth how that inconveniencies follow from our opinion First That mans liberty to will quite takes away the prescience of God for if man have it in his power to will or not to will it cannot be certainly foreknown what he will will The second That Gods prescience doth take away liberty by making all events necessary from eternity for it is impossible that that should not come to passe or come to passe otherwise than it was foreknown which God foreknoweth shall come to passe And if it be impossible that it should not come to passe then it is necessary that it should come to passe This is too severe first to make us take prescience quite away and yet with the same breath to argue against us from prescience But for once I will give him a cleaâ—… solution to both his pretended demonstrations and let him see that there is no necessity that men must either turn blocks without liberty or sacrilegious to rob God of his prescience But I give him it upon a condition That hereafter before he take away either prescience or liberty he will first take away this answer and not repeat us the same thing over and over again to no purpose To the first inconvenience I answer That a thing may be said to be foreknown two wayes either as it is in its causes before it be produced and so I confesse That if the free Agent have it in his power to will or not to will there is no determinate truth of future contingents that is in their causes and consequently no prescience or foreknowledge in that respect or else a thing may be said to be foreknown as it is or shall be in it self in the nature of things after it is produced And thus every particular event that shall be untill the end of the World is foreknown or to speak more properly is known to God from all eternity For in Gods knowledge there is neither before nor after past nor to come Those things which are past or to come to us are allwayes present to God whose infinite understanding that is himself doth encompasse all times and events in one instant of eternity and so doth prevent or anticipate all differences of time Time is the measure of all our acts but Gods knowledge being infinite is not measured but by eternity so that which is a prescience or a before-hand knowledge as he calleth it to us is a present
his advantages much good may they do him First he erreth grossely in affirming that all deliberation is onely of what a man will do or not do And not at all of what a man will suffer or not suffer Deliberation is as well about evil to be eschewed as about good to be pursued Men deliberate equally of their doings and of their sufferings if they be not inevitably determined but if they be then neither of the one nor of the other A Martyr or a Confessor may deliberate what torments he will suffer for his Religion Many of those acts whereabout we do usually deliberate are mixt motions partly active and partly passive as all our senses Secondly it is a shame for him to distinguish between actions and sufferings in this cause when all the actions of all the free Agents in the World by his doctrine are meer sufferings A free Agent is but like a bullet rammed up into the barrel by the outward causes and fired off by the outward causes the will serves for no use but to be a touchhole and the poor Agent hath no more aime or understanding of what he doth than the arrow which is forced out of the bow towards the mark without any sense or concurrent in it self A condemned person may be reprieved and deliberate about that but the sentence of the causes produceth a necessity from eternity as he phraseth it never to be interrupted or altered Thirdly he erreth in this also That he affirmeth all my three instances to be onely of passions or sufferings Growing up in stature is a vegetative act Respiration is a sensitive act or an act of the moving and animal faculty Some question there hath been whether respiration were a natural motion or a voluntary motion or a mixt motion but all conclude that it is an act or motion which is performed whilst we sleep when we are uncapable of deliberation Lastly to say that a man may deliberate of a thing that is not possible if he know not of the impossibility will not advantage his cause the value of a rush for supposing an universal necessity of all events from eternity there can be no such case seeing all men know that upon this supposition all acts and events are either antecedently and absolutely necessary or antecedently and absolutely impossible boâ—… which are equally uncapable of deliberation So the impertinence will prove to be in 〈◊〉 answer not in my instances My second argument out of his own wordâ—… was this To resolve a mans self is to determine his own will and if a man determine his own will then he is free from outward necessity But T. H. confesseth that a man 〈◊〉 resolve himself I resolved once c. And 〈◊〉 further to resolve is to will after deliberation Now to will after deliberation is to elect but that he hateth the very term of electing or chusing as being utterly destructive to his new modeled fabrick of universal necessity And for that very reason he confounds and blunders together the natural sensitive and intellectual appetites Either the will determineth it self in its resolution or both will and deliberation and resolution are predetermined by a necessary fluxe of natural causes if the will determine it self in its resolution then we have true liberty to will or nill If both the will and the deliberation and the resolution be predetermined by outward causes then it is not the resolution of the will it self nor of the Agent but of the outward causes then it was as much determined that is to say resolved before the deliberation as after because the deliberation it self and the whole event of it particularly the last resolution was outwardly predetermined from eternity To this he answereth nothing but according to his usual manner he maketh three objections First No man can determine his own will for the will is an appetite and it is not in mans power to have an appetite when he will This argument would much better become the kitchin than the Schooles to argue from the lesser to the greater negatively which is against all rules of Logick Just thus A brute beast cannot make a Categorical Syllogisme thererefore a man cannot make one So here the sensitive appetite hath no dominion over its own acts therefore neither hath the rationall appetite any dominion over its own acts Yet this is the onely pillar that supporteth his main distinction which must uphold his Castle in the aire from tumbling down about his ears But be what it will be it hath been sufficiently answered allready His second oblection hath so little solidity in it that it is ridiculous Over whatsoever things there is dominion those things are not free but over a mans actions there is the dominion of his wil. What a medius terminus hath he light upon This which he urgeth against liberty is the very essence of liberty If a mans actions were under the dominion of another mans will or under the dominion of his extrinsecall causes then they were not free indeed but for a mans own actions to be in his own power or in the power or under the dominion of his own wil that is that which makes them free Thirdly he objects If a man determine himself the question will yet remain What determined him to determine himself If he speak properly in his own sense of physicall determination by outward causes he speaketh plain non-sense for if he was so determined by another then he did not determine himself But if he mean onely this What did concur with the will in the determination of it self I answer That a friend by perswasion might concur morally and the understanding by representing might concur intrinsecally but it hath been demonstrated to him over and over that neither of these concurrences is inconsistent with true liberty from necessitation and physicall determination to one Something I say afterwards which doth not please him which he calleth a talking to my self at random My aime in present is onely to answer his exceptions a little more punctually then he hath done mine not at all to call him to an account for his omissions that part I leave to the Readers own observation He telleth me plainly That I neither understand him nor what the word necessary signifieth if I think he holds no other necessity then that which is expressed in that old foolish rule what soever is when it is is necessarily so as it is If I understand him not I cannot help it I understand him as well as I can and wish that he understood himself a little better to make him speak more significantly Let us see where the fault lies that he is no better understood First he defineth what is necessary That is necessary which is impossible to be otherwise Whence he inferreth That Necessary Possible and Impossible have no signification in reference to the time past or time present but onely the time to come I think all men
will condescend to him thus far That possibility hath only referrence to the time to come But for necessity and impossibility he overshooteth himself beyond all aime If an house do actually burn in present it is necessary that is infallible that that house do burn in present and impossible that it do not burn If a man was slain yestarday it is necessary that he is slain to day and impossible that he should nor be slain His own definition doth sufficiently confute him That is necessary which is impossible to be otherwise but it is impossible that that which is doing in present or which was done yestarday should be otherwise How hang these things together Or this that he telleth us That his necessary is a necessary from all eternity which with him is an everlasting succession And yet he telleth us That necessary signifieth nothing in reference to the time past then how is it necessary from all eternity And here he thrusteth out for rotten a great many of old Scholastick terms as empty words As necessary when it is or absolutely and hypothecally necessary and sensus compositus divisus and the dominion of the will and the determining of its self I must put him in mind again of the good old woman in Seneca who complained of the darknesse of the room when the defect was in her own eye-sight I wonder not that he is out of love with distinctions more than I wonder why a bungling workman regards not a square or a plum But if he understood these distinctions a little better he would not trouble his reader with That which shall be shall be and a bundle of such like impertinencies He acknowledgeth That my Lord of Newcastle desire and my intreaty were enough to produce a will in him to write his answer If they were enough then he was not necessitated nor physically predetermined to write it We had no more power than to perswade no natural influence upon his will And so he was for us not onely free to write but free to will also But perhaps there were other imaginations of his own that contributed their part Let it be so yet that was no extrinsecall or absolute determination of his will And so far was our request from producing his consent as necessarily as the fire burneth that it did not it could not produce it at all by any naturall causall influence and efficacy The sufficiency and efficiency and productive power was in his will it self which he will not be brought to understand An Answer to his Animadversions upon the Reply Num. 2. HEre is nothing of moment to detain the Reader He saith Whosoever chanceth to read Suares his opuscula shall find the greatest part if not all that I have urged in this question Said I not truely Give Innovators line enough and they will confute themselves whosoever chanceth c. And why chanceth By his doctrine it was as necessary for him that readeth to read as it is for the fire to burn Doth the fire sometimes burn by chance He will say That where the certain causes are not known we attribute Events to Chance But he sticks still in the same mire without hope ever to be freed who knoweth the certain reason why the needle touched with the loadstone pointeth allwayes towards the North Doth it therefore point by chance How many thousands are ignorant of the true causes of Comets and Earthquakes and Eclipses Do they therefore attribute them to chance Chance never hath place but where the causes concur accidentally to produce some effect which might have been produced otherwise Though a man strive to expell these common notions with a fork yet now and then they will return And though I could not surprize him yet the truth can Thus Penelope like he hath undone that in the dark which he hath been weaving all this while in the light It were more ingenuous to say it was a slip of his pen. It is indifferent to me whether the greatest part of what I urge in this question or all that I urge or perhaps more than I urge be contained in Suares his Opuscula So the truth may prevaile I care not who have the honour of the atchievement But Suares understood himself better then to confound two such different questions namely that of the necessity or liberty of all Events naturall and civill which is our question with the concurrence of grace and free-will in morall and supernaturall acts which he saith is the subject of Suares his discourse in that place In all my life that I do remember I never read one line of Suares his Opuscula nor any of his works the sixteen years last past I wish he had been versed in his greater works as well as in his Opuscula that he might not be so averse from the Schools Ignoti nulla cupido Then he would have known the terms and arguments used in the Schools as well as others It is no blemish to make advantage of other mens pains and experience Dies diei eructat verbum nox nocti indicat scientiam But Mr. Hobbes trusting over much to his own particular abilities presumeth to stand upon his own bottom without any dread of Solomons ve solâ—… Wo to him that is alone when he falleth He scrupleth not to remove the ancient land-marks which his fathers had set nor to stumble from the ancient paths to walk in a way that was never cast up It were meer folly to expect either a known ground or a received term from him Other men are contented to learn to write after a Copy but he will be printed a Philosopher and a Divine of the first edition by himself and Icarus like find out a new way with his waxen winges which mortalls never knew though he perish in the attempt Such undigested phancies may please for a while during the distemper and green-sickness fit of this present age as maids infected with that malady preferre chalk or coles in a corner before healthfull food in their fathers house but when time hath cured their malady and experience opened their eyes they wil abominate their former errours and those who were their misleaders He had slighted whatsoever I produced as common and triviall having nothing new in it either from Scripture or reason which he had not often heard I replied onely that then I might expect a more mature answer and advised him under the similitude of Epictetus his sheep rather to shew his reading in his works than to glory of it And where I said that great recruits of reasons and authorities did offer themselves to me in this cause he threatneth before he have done with me to make it appear to be very bragging and nothing else Adding That it is not likely that Epictetus should take a metaphor from lamb and wooll because he was not acquainted with paying of tithes I could not suspect that a poor similitude out of Epictetus should make him
when God hath created him a free man a noble creature to make himself like a wooden toppe Deserveth not he to be moved as the toppe is with a whip until he confesse his errour and acknowledge his own liberty If this wooden toppe should chance to hit T. H. on the shinnes I desire to know whom he would accuse The toppe That were as mad a part as it is in the dog to run after the stone and bite it never looking at the man who did throw it What then should he accuse the boyes that whipped the toppe No that were equally ludibrious seeing the boyes are as much necessitated and to use his own phrase as much lasht to what they do by the causes as the toppe is by the boyes So he may sit down patiently and at last think upon his liberty which he had abandoned and if the causes will give him leave get a plantin leafe to heale his broken shinne Such an unruly thing as this toppe which he fancieth is he himself sometimes dictating errours sometimes writing paradoxes sometimes justling out Metaphysicks sometimes wounding the Mathematicks And in a word troubling the World and disordering all things Logick Philosophy Theology with his extravagant conceits And yet he is offended that men will go about to keep possession of their ancient Principles against his upstart innovations and is ready to implead them with that quarrelsome Roman because they would not receive his weapon fairly with their whole bodies It were a much more Christian contemplation to elevate his thoughts from this wooden toppe to the organical body of a man wherein he may find God an hundred times from the external form or figure of the one which affords it onely an aptitude to move and turn to the internall and substantiall form of the other which is the subordinate beginning of animal motion from the turning of his toppe which is so swift that it prevents the discovery of the sharpest eye-sight and seemeth to stand stock still to the eternity of God where motion and rest do meet together or all motion is swallowed up into rest Lastly from these boyes who hold the toppe up by their continued lashings to the infinite power of an Almighty God who is both the procreating and conserving cause of all our life being and motion and to magnifie him for his wonderful workes wherein he hath manifested to the World his own power and wisdom An answer to his Animadversions upon Num. 4. THese Animadversions will produce no great trouble either to me or the Reader I did demonstrate in this Section the difference between liberty of exercise or contradiction and liberty of specification or contrariety He onely takes notice of it and calls it Jargon and so without one word more shaketh hands and withdraweth himself I said it was a rule in art that homonymous words or words of a double or doubtful signification ought first to be distinguished that Disputants may understand one another rightly and not beat the aire to no purpose I shewed out of the Scriptures that the word liberty or freedom was such an ambiguous word and shewed further what this liberty is whereof we dispute A liberty from necessitation or determination to one by extrinsecal causes He confesseth that this is the question adding That he understandeth not how such a liberty can be Then what remained but to go to our proofes Yet here he raiseth a storm of words upon the by and foameth out his own disgrace He denieth that there is any such rule of Art I am sure saith he not in the art of reason which men call Logick And all Logicians are sure of the contrary who give not onely one but many such rules in treating of simple terms of complex terms of fallacies They teach that an ambiguous term before it be distinguished signifieth nothing That it cannot be placed in any predicament That it cannot be defined nor divided And they give this general Rule Distinctio vocis ambiguae prima sit in omni rerum consideratione Either this man never read one word of Logick in his life or it is most strange how pride hath defaced all Logicall notions out of his mind He telleth us that the signification of an ambiguous word may be rendered perspicuous by a definition But Logicians teach us better that it cannot be defined before it be distinguished How should a man define he knoweth not what Suppose I should aske him the definition of a degree Can he or any man define a degree before they know what degree is to be defined whether a degree in the Heavens or a degree in the Schooles or a degree of Consanguinity or a degree of Comparison He may as well define a crabbe before he know whether it be a crab-fish or a crabbe-fruit The difinition and the thing defined are the same thing But ambiguous words have several significations which cannot be of the same thing His definition of liberty is this Liberty is the absence of external impediments to motion Before I have done I shall make him out of love with his definitions Liberty is an absence If liberty be an absence then liberty is nothing for an absence is nothing in the nature of things but a meer privation An absence of impediments Impediments may take away the liberty of execution not the liberty of election There may be true liberty where there are impediments and there may be no impediments yet without liberty An absence of outward impediments And why of outward impediments may not inward impediments withhold a man from acting freely as well as outward May not a fit of sicknesse keep a man at home as well as a shower of rain A man may be free and act freely notwithstanding impediments Many impediments are vincible A man may go out of his house though there be a great logge laid at his door Lastly an absence of impediments to motions Election is the most proper intrinsecall act of liberty which may be without locall motion I durst not stile my poor description by the name of a definition Yet it set down the right nature of liberty and shewed what was the difference between us His definition hath nothing to do with liberty and cometh not near our question by twenty furlongs Our controversie is Whether the will be antecedently determined by extrinsecall causes we have nothing to do with impediments of motion But to let him see the vanity of his definitions I will demonstrate out of them That the most necessary Agents are free Agents and the most free Agents necessary Agents that the will is free and necessity is liberty First when a stone falleth from a steeple to the ground or when a fire burneth there is an absence of all externall impediments to motion yet by his own confession these are not free nor so much as voluntary but naturall necessary actions The stone falleth necessarily not freely The fire burneth necessarily not freely So his
misapplication of this generall power to evill What times are we fallen into to see it publickly maintained That God is the cause of all irregularity or deviation from his own rules Num. 13. HEre is no need of Castigations there being no Animadversions Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 14. IN the beginning he repeateth his empty objections from what shall be shall be and from foreknowledge and that a man cannot chuse to day for tomorrow and thence concludeth nemine consentiente That my deductions are irrationall and fallacious and that he need mak no further answer As if he should say I sent forth two or three light horsemen to vapour who were soundly beaten back and made their defence with their heels therefore I need not answer the charge of the main battle He told me that I did not understand him if I thought he held no other necessity than that which is contained in that old foolish rule Whatsoever is when it is it is necessarily so as it is But I see when all is done he must sit down and be contented to make his best of that old foolish rule For praescience and what shall be shall be doe imply no more In the next place he chargeth me with three great abfurdities The first that I say A law may be unjust The second That a law may be tyrannicall The third that I say It is an unjust law which prescribes things impossible in themselves to be done A grievous accusation These absurdities are at age let them even answer for themselves He saith Civil laws are made by every man that is subject to them because every one of them consented to the placing of the Legislative power I deny his consequence Indeed in causes that are naturally necessarily and essentially subordinate the cause of the cause is allwayes the cause of the effect as he that planteth a vineyard is the cause of the vine But in causes that are accidentally or contingently subordinate as the people electing the law-giver elected and the law made are the cause of the cause is not allwayes the cause of the effect As he that planteth a vineyard is not the cause of the drunkennesse The Kings commission maketh a Judge but it is not the cause of his unrighteous judgement Two Cities in Italy contending about their bounds chose the people of Rome to be their Arbitrators they gave either City a small pittance and reserved all the rest to themselves Quod in medio est populo Romano adjucetur The two Cities did not so much like their Arbitators at the first as they detested the Arbitrament at the last And though they had contracted a necessity of compliance by their credulous submission yet this did not free that unconscionable Arbitrament from palpable injustice no nor yet so much as from palpable injury for though a man is not injuried who is willing to be injuried volenti non fit injuria Yet he who doth chuse an Arbitrator doth not chuse his unjust Arbitrament nor he that chuseth a Law-giver chuse his tyrannical Law Though he have obliged himself to passive obedience yet his obligation doth not render either the injurâ—…ous Arbitrament of the one or the tyrannicall law of the other to be just So the main ground of his errour is a grosse fallacy which every Sophister in the University is able to discover I answer secondly That though every subject had actually consented as well to the laws as to the Law-giver yea though the law were made by the whole collective body of the people in their own persons yet if it be contrary to the law of God or nature it is still an unjust law The people cannot give that power to their Prince which they have not themselves Thirdly many laws are made by those who are not duely invested with Legislative power which are therefore unjust laws Fourthly many laws are made to bind forraigners who exercise commerce with subjects which if they be contrary to the pacts and capitulations of the confederate nations are unjust laws Forraigners never consented to the placing of the Legislative power Fifthly no humane power whatsoever judiciary or Legislative civill or sacred is exempted from excesses and possibility of doing or making unjuct acts Lastly the people cannot confer more power upon their Law-giver than God himself doth confer neither is their election a greater priviledge from injustice than Gods own disposition but they who have been placed in soveraign power by God himself have both made unjust laws and prescribed unjust acts to their subjects I said those laws were unjust which prescribed things impossible in themselves Against this he excepteth Onely contradictions are impossible in themselves all other things are possible in themselves as to raise the dead to change the course of nature But never any Tyrant did bind a man to contradictions or make a law commanding him to do and not to do the same action or to be and not to be in the same place at the same moment of time I answer first That Tyrants may command and by their Deputies have commanded contradictory Acts as for the same Subjects to appear before several Judges in several places at the same time And to do several duties inconsistent one with another which imply a contradiction and have punished Subjects for disobedience in such cases Secondly I answer That when we say Law-makers ought to command things possible it ought to be understood of things possible to their Subjects upon whom they impose their commands not of such things as are possible to God Allmighty To make a law that subjects should raise the dead or change the course of nature which he reckons as things possible in themselves is as unjust a law as a law that should injoine them contradictions the acts as impossible to the Subject Thirdly these words impossible in themselves which he layeth hold on have a quite contrary sense to that which he imagineth and are warranted by great Authours Some things are impossible to us by our own defaults as for a man to hold the liquour firmly without shedding who hath contracted the Palsy by his own intemperance These impossibilities may justly be forbidden and punished when we have had power and lost it byour own fault Secondly there are other impossibilities in themselves such as proceed not from our own faults which never were in our power as those which proceed from the antecedent determinatioo of extrinsecall causes To injoine these by law and to punish a man for not obeying is unjust and tyrannicall Whereas I called just laws the ordinances of right reason he saith It is an errour that hath cost many thousands of men their lives His reason is If laws be erroneous shall they not be obeyed Shall we rather rebell I answer neitheir the one one nor the other We are not to obey them actively because we ought to obey God rather than man Yet may we not rebell Submit your selves to
there be true liberty in the world we know well whereunto to impute all these disorders but if there be no true liberty in the world free from antecedent necessitation then they all fall directly upon God Almighty and his Providence The last question is concerning his definition of contingent That they are such Agents as work we know not how Against which I gave him two exceptions in my defence One was this Many Agents work we know not how as the Loadstone draweth iron the Jet chaff and yet they are known and acknowledged to be necessary and not contingent Agents Secondly many Agents do work we know how as a stone falling down from an house upon a mans head and yet we do not account it a necessary but a contingent event by reason of the accidental concurrence of the causes I have given him other instances in other parts of this Treatise And if need be he may have twenty more And yet though his definition was shewed formerly to halt down-right on both sides yet he good man is patient and never taketh the least notice of it But onely denyeth the consequence and over-looketh the proofes His objection about the indetermination of the causes That indetermination doth nothing because it maketh the event equal to happen and not to happen is but a flash without any one grain of solidity For by indetermination in that place is clearly understood not to be predetermined to one by extrinsecal causes but to be left free to its own intrinsecal determination this way or that way indifferently So the first words By reason of the indetermination have referrence to free Agents and free Events And the other words Or accidentall concurrence of the causes have referrence to casuall Events And both together referendo sigul◅ singulis do include all contingents as the word is commonly and largely taken by old Philosophers Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 17. REader I do not wonder now and then to see T. H. sink under the weight of an absurdity in this cause A back of steel were not able to bear all those unsupportable consequences which flow from this opinion of fatall destiny But why he should delight to multiplle needlesse absurdities I do not know Allmost every Section produceth some new monster In this seventeenth Section I demonstrated clearly that this opinion of universal necessity doth take away the nature of sinne That which he saith in answer thereunto is that which followeth First it is true he who taketh away the liberty of doing according to the will taketh away the nature of sinne but he that denieth the liberty to will doth not so This answer hath been sufficiently taken away already both in the defence and in these Castigations Inevitable and unresistible necessity doth as much acquit the will from sin as the action Again whereas I urged That whatsoever proceedeth essentially by way of physicall determination from the first cause is good and just and lawfull he opposeth That I might as well have concluded that what soever man hath been made by God is a good and just man So I might What should hinder me to conclude that every man and every creature created by God is good qua talis as it is created by God but being but a creature it is not immutably good as God himself is If he be not of the same opinion he must seek for companions among those old Hereticks the Manichees or Marcionites So he cometh to his main answer Sin is not a thing really made Those things which at first were actions were not then sins though actions of the same nature with those which were afterwards sins Nor was then the will to any thing a sin though it were a will to the same thing which in willing now we should sin Actions became then sins first when the Commandemens came c. There can no action be made sin but by the law Therefore this opinion though it derive actions essentially from God it derives not sins essentially from him but relatively and by the Cōmandement The first thing I observe in him is a contradiction to himself Now he maketh the anomy or the irregularity and repugnance to the law to be the sinne before he conceiveth the action it self to be the sin Doth not the Bishop think God to be the cause of all actions And are not sins of commission actions Is murther no action And doth not God himself say there is no evil in the City which I have not done And was not murther one of those evills c. I am of opinion that the distinction of causes into efficient and deficient is Bohu and signifieth nothing This might have been pardoned to him But his second slip is worse That the World was I know not how long without sin I did demonstrate That upon his grounds all sins are essentially from God and consequently are lawfull and just He answereth That the actions were from God but the actions were not sins at the first untill there was a law What is this to the purpose It is not materiall when sin did enter into the World early or late so as when it did enter it were essentially from God which it must needs be upon his grounds that both the murther and the law against murther are from God And as it doth not help his cause at all so it is most false What actions were there in the World before the sinne of the Angell He charged the Angels with folly And if God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to hell and the Angels which kept not their first estate What were those first actions that were before the sinne of Adam By one man sinne entred into the World and death by sinne Thirdly he erreth most grossely in supposing that the World at first was lawlesse The World was never without the eternall law that is the rule of justice in God himself and that which giveth force to all other laws as the Divine Wisdom saith By me Kings raign and Princes decree justice And sinne is defined to be that which is acted said or thought against the eternall law But to let this passe for the present because it is transcendentally a law How was the World ever without the law of nature which is most properly a law the law that cannot lie not mortal from mortal man not dead or written in the paper without life but incorruptible written in the heart of man by the finger of God himself Let him learn sounder doctrine from St. Paul For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law these having not the law are a law unto themselves which shew the work of the law written in their hearts their consciences also bearing witnesse and their thoughts the mean while accusing or excusing one another I passe by those Commandements of God which were delivered by tradition from hand to
successively until the motive power cease altogether before the hundredth or it may be the thousandth part of the water in the tun be moved As we see in a stone thrown upwards the motion is swifter or slower of longer or of lesser continuance according to the degree of the first impression of force and the figure of the thing cast upwards which ceasing by continued diminution the motion ceaseth Violent motioris are vehement in the beginning remisse in the middle and cease in the end Lastly I answer That the case of a great tun and the whole World is not the same The World is too large a Sphere and exceedeth the activity of poor little weak creatures which are not able to leave such an impression of might as should move upwards to the convex superficies of Heaven and downwards to the center of the Earth and round about to the extremities of the VVorld If this were true the flie might say in earnest See what a dust I do raise It hath been given out that the burning of our heathes in England did hurt their vines in France This had been strange yet not so strange as his paradox That the least motions that are are communicated to the whole World But wise men looked upon this pretence as a meer scare-crow or made dragon The hurt it did was nearer home to destroy the young moorepowtes and spoile some young Burgesses game Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 22. HE cannot imagine how the question Whether outward objects do necessitate or not necessitate the will can any way be referred to moral Philosophy That is his fault If the objects do necessitate the will they take away both virtue and vice that is moral good and moral evil which consist in pre-election and cannot stand with antecedent necessitation to one To reform his errour let him consult with Aristotle Those things that are fair and pleasant do seem to be violent after a sort because being without us they move and necessitate Agents to act with their beauty and delight but it is not so What he addeth that the Principles of moral philosophy are the laws is an absurd supposititious obtrusion of the municipal law in place of the law of right reason which errour hath formerly been sufficiently refelled And to his horse that is lame from some cause that was not in his power I answer That the lamenesse is a natural or accidental defect in the horse but to instance in an horse as a fit subject of virtue or vice is a moral defect in him If he desire to speak to the purpose he must leave such impertinencies In the next Animadversion I meet with nothing but a meer sawing of the wind or an altercation about nothing All the difference between him and me is concerning an antecedent necessity but of a necessity of consequence that when a thing is produced it must necessarily be so as it is there can be no-question between us He himself confesseth as much If the Bishop think that I hold no other ne cessity than that which is expressed in that old foolish rule VVhatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is he understandeth me not And he confesseth that the necessity which he maintaineth is an antecedent necessity derived from the beginning of time And yet neverthelesse a great part of that altercation which he makes in these Animadversions is about such a necessity Socrates confesseth that naturally he had vitious inclinations This is no more than a proclinity to evil If by his own condescension he fall into sin this is but an hypothetical necessity yet he maketh it an antecedent necessity Socrates by his good indeavours reformeth his vitious propensions and acquireth the contrary habits or virtues This is but an hyothetical necessity yet he pretendeth it to be antecedent Lastly Socrates by the help of these habits which he himself had acquired doth freely do virtuous actions Still here is no necessity but consequents and still he pretendeth to Antecedent Either saith he these habits do necessitate the will or the will followeth not If these habits or somewhat else do not necessitate the will it may follow freely But saith he If they do onely facilitate men to do such acts then what they do they do not I deny his consequence acquired habits are not solitary but social and adjuvant causes of virtuous actions His next errour is yet more grosse making the person of the Preacher and not the sound of his voice to be the object of hearing Adding that the Preachers voice is the same thing with the hearing and a phansie of the hearer Thus as commonly their errours spring from confusion he confoundeth the images of sounds with sounds themselves What then is the report of a Canon or the sound of a Trumpet turned to a meer phansie By the same reason he may say that the Preacher himself is nothing but a meer phansie There is as much ground for the one as for the other If he go on in this manner he will move me beyond smiling to laugh outright In what sense the object of sight is the cause of sight and in what sense it is not the cause of sight I have shewed distinctly Here he setteth down another great paradox as he himself stileth it out of gallantry That in all the sensâ—… the object is the Agent If he had not said the Agent which signifieth either the sole Agent or the Principal Agent but onely an Agent we had accorded so far But the Principal Agent in all the senses is the creature indowed with sense or the sensitive soul perceiving and judging of the object by the proper Organ The Preachers voice and the Auditos hearing have two distinct subjects otherwise speaking should be hearing and hearing speaking I conclude this Castigation with the authority of as good a Philosopher as himself That it is ridiculous to think external things either fair or delightful to be the causes of humane actions and not rather him who is easily taken with such objects In the later part of this Animadversion his errours are greater and more dangerous than in the former He affirmeth that the will is produced generated and formed in such sort as accidents are effected in a corporeal subject and yet it the will cannot be moved As if generation and augmentation and alteration were not kinds of motion or mutation But the last words because it goeth not from place to place do shew plainly that he acknowledgeth no motion but local motion What no other natural motion but onely local motion no metaphorical motion that were strange We read in holy Scripture of those who have been moved with fear moved with envy moved with compassion moved with choler moved by the Holy Ghost In all these there is no local motion Outward persuasives inward suggestions are all motions God moveth a man to good by his preventing grace The devil moveth a man
gathereth it from that place in Scripture as if the Scripture alone were not proof good enough except it be confirmed by the experience of Travellers From this preparatory discourse he frameth two Arguments and puts them into my Character as if they were my Reasons In our Climate the natural causes do not produce rain so necessarily at set times as in some Eastern Countries therefore they do not produce rain necessarily in our Climates then when they do produce it Again We cannot say so certainly and infallibly it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow therefere it is not necessary either that it should rain or that it should not rain to morrow Such reasons as these do become him better than me I disclaim them and to use his own phrase must take them for untruths untill he cite the place where I have made any such ridiculous inferences which conclude against hypothetical necessity which we our selves do establish But I come to his arguments which I shall set down in his own words for it cannot be worse disposed to let us see the great skill of this new controller in Logick It is necessary that to morrow it shall rain or not rain if therefore it be not necessary that it shall rain it is necessary it shall not rain otherwise it is not necessary that the proposition it shall rain or it shall not rain should be true To this I answered That it was most false that the proposition could not be necessarily true except one of the members were necessarily true which is a truth evident and undeniable This answer I illustrated thus A conjunct proposition may have both parts false and yet the proposition be true As if the Sun shine it is day is a true proposition at midnight Logicians use to give another example If an Asse flie then he hath wings The proposition is true but both the parts are false Neither doth the Asse flie neither hath he wings To my direct answer he replyeth not a word either by denial or distinction and so by his silence yieldeth the controversie But to my illustration he excepteth thus First What hath a conjunct proposition to do with this in question which is disjunctive By his good favour there are two propositions in his argument the former is disjunctive which is not questioned at all by either party either for the truth of it or the necessity of it namely Either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow His second proposition is conjunctive and not disjunctive namely If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain it is necessary that it shall not rain This conjunctive proposition I deny and I deny it upon this evident ground because as in a conjunctive proposition both parts of the proposition may be false and yet the proposition true or both parts true and yet the proposition false because the truth or falshood of the proposition dependeth not upon the truth or falshood of the parts but onely of the consequence So in a disjunctive proposition the disjunction may be necessarily true and yet neither member of the disjunction be necessarily because the truth or falshood of a disjunctive proposition dependeth not upon the necessary truth of either member distinctly considered but upon the necessary truth of the disjunction The reason is evident in a disjunctive proposition nothing is affirmed or denyed either of the one member or the other but onely the necessary truth of the disjunction According to that rule in Logick In propositione disjunctiva affirmatio negatio aestimatur ex sola conjuctione disjunctiva cui necesse est addi negationem si debet negativa esse propositio Now the disjunction of contradictories is most necessary Either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow though neither part of the contradiction be necessarily true As for example A man is to pay a sum of mony Either he will pay it in gold or he will not pay it in gold is necessarily true but it is not necessary that he shall pay it in gold neither is it necessary that he shall not pay it in gold Seeing he hath it in his choice to pay it in gold or in silver or any other coine which is current This is so clear that no man can seriously oppose it without his own discredit Secondly he saith that a conjuctive proposition is not made of two propositions as a disjunctive is What then First this is altogether impertinent and nothing to his purpose Secondly it is also false Every compounded proposition such as a conjunct proposition is doth either actually or virtually include two propositions Indeed an hypothetical proposition may sometimes be reduced to a cathegorical that is when there are but three terms for when there are four terms it is hardly reducible What is this to the question or to any difference between us Just which is the way to London A sack full of plums He might do well for his reputation sake to reduce his argument into any Scholler like form either Cathegorical or hypothetical or disjunctive or any thing But then the uglinesse of it would streight appear This is the nearest to his sense that I can contrive it Either it is necessary that it shall rain to morrow or it is necessary that is shall not rain to morrow Or this proposition Either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow is not necessarily true I deny the disjunction Pono quartum Or the one of these two raining or not raining will happen contingently The disjunction is alwayes necessarily true before either of the members be determinately or necessaly true Whether this proposition I know that either it will rain to morrew or it will not rain to morrow be a disjunctive proposition or not is not material It includeth a disjunctive proposition in it and sheweth plainly that the certainty of a disjunctive proposition doth not depend upon the certainty of either of the members determinately but upon the certainty of one of them indifferently He taketh great exception at my manner of expression that God made his own decrees freely because whatsoever was made had a beginning but Gods decrees are eternal Besides Gods decree is his will and the Bishop said formerly that the will of God is God Although God being a simple and infinite essence to speak properly is not capable of any manner of composition or of being perfected any further than he is Yet to help our conception we use to attribute to God such acts and qualities and perfections which being spoken after the manner of men are to be underood according to the Majesty of God Such is the notion of Gods decrees More particularly the decrees of God may be taken and is taken in the Schools two wayes actively or passively Actively as it is an act immanent in God and so the decree of God is nothing else but Deus decernens