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
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
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
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.
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
not practically practical because it takes not effect by reason of the dissent of the will But whensoever the will shall give its free assent to the practical judgement of the understanding and the sentence of reason is approved by the acceptation of the will then the judgement of the understanding becomes practically practical Then the election is made which Philosophers do therefore call a consultative appetition Not that the will can elect contrary to the judgement of reason but that the will may suspend its consent and require a new deliberation and a new judgement and give consent to the later So we have this seeming piece of non-sense judicium intellectus practice practicum not onely translated but explained in English consonantly to the most received opinions of Classical Authours If he have any thing to say against it let him bring arguments not reproaches And remember how Memnon gave a railing souldier a good blow with his Lance saying I hired thee to fight and not to raile The absurdity which he imputeth to me in natural Philosophy That it is ridiculous to say that the object of the sight is the cause of seeing which maketh him sorry that he had the ill fortune to be ingaged with me in a dispute of this kind is altogether impertinent and groundlesse The cause of seeing is either the cause of the exercise of seeing or the cause of the specification of the act of seeing The object is the cause of the specification why we see this or that and not the cause of the exercise He that should affirm that the object doth not concurre in the causation of sight especially going upon those grounds that I do that the manner of vision is not by sending out beames from the eye to the object but by receiving the species from the object to the eye was in an errour indeed For in sending out the species there is action and in the reception of them passion But he that should affirm that the object is the cause of the exercise of sight or that it is that which maketh that which is facultate espectabile to be actu aspectabile or that it is that which judgeth of the colour or light or to come home to the scope of the place that the object doth necessitate or determine the faculty of sight or the sensitive soul to the exercise of seeing were in a greater errour Among many answers which I gave to that objection that the dictate of the understanding doth determine the will this was one That supposing it did determine it yet it was not naturally but morally not as an efficient by physical influence into the will but by proposing and representing the object which is not my single opinion but the received judgement of the best Schoole-men And in this sense and this sense onely I said truely that the understanding doth no more by proposing the object determine and necessitate the will to will than the object of sight doth determine and necessitate the sensitive soul to the actual exercise of seeing whereas all men know that the sensitive Agent notwithstanding any efficacy that is in the object may shut his eyes or turn his face another way So that which I said was both true and pertinent to the question But his exception is altogether impertinent and if it be understood according to the proper sense and scope of the place untrue And this is the onely Philosophical notion which hitherto I have found in his Animadversions Castigations of his Animadversions Num. 8. WHosoever desireth to be secure from T. H. his arguments may hold himself close to the question where he will find no great cause of fear All his contention is about terms Whatsoever there was in this Section which came home to the principal question is omitted and nothing minded but the meaning or signification of voluntary and spontaneous acts c. which were well enough understood before by all Scholars until he arose up like another Davus in the Comedy to trouble all things So he acts his part like those fond Musicians who spent so much time in tuning of their Instruments that there was none left to spare for their musick Which are free which are voluntary or spontaneous and which are necessary Agents I have set down at large whither to prevent further trouble I refer the Reader And am ready to make it good by the joynt testimonies of an hundred Classick Authours that this hath been the common and current language of Scholars for many Ages If he could produce but one Authour Stoick or Christian before himself who in the ventilation of this question did ever define liberty as he doth it were some satisfaction Zeno one of the fairest flowers in the Stoicks Garland used to boast that he sometimes wanted opinions but never wanted arguments He is not so lucky never wanting opinions ever wanting proofes Hitherto we have found no demonstrations either from the cause or from the effect few topical arguments or authorities that are pertinent to the question except it be of country men and common people with one comparison But to come to the Animadversions themselves He chargeth me or rather the Schoole-men for bringing in this strange word Spontaneous meerely to shift off the difficulty of maintaining our Tenet of free-will If spontaneous and voluntary be the same thing as we affirm and use them both indifferently I would gladly know how the one can be a subterfuge more than the other or why we may not use a word that is equipollent to his own word But to cure him of his suspition I answer That the same thing and the same terme of spontaneous both in Greek and Latine in the same sense that we take it as it is distinguished from free and just as we define it was used by Philosophers a thousand years before either I or any Schoole-men were borne as we find in Aristotle That is spontaneous or voluntary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose beginning is in it self with knowledge of the end or knowing every thing wherein the action doth consist And the same Authour in the very next Chapter makes the very same difference between that which is voluntary and that which is free or eligible that we do His second exception is against these words Spontaneity consists in a conformity of the appetite either intellectual or sensitive to the object which words saith he do signifie that spontaneity is a conformity or likeness of the appetite to the object which to him soundeth as if I had said that the appetite is like the object which is as proper as if I had said that the hunger is like the meat And then he concludes triumphantly If this be his meaning as it is the meaning of the words he is a very fine Philosopher All his Philosophy consists in words If there had been an impropriety in the phrase as there is none this exception had been below an Athenian
Sophister I had allmost said saving the rigorous acception of the word as it was used afterwards an Athenian Sycophant Conformity signifies not onely such a likenesse of feature as he imagineth but also a convenience accommodation and agreeablenesse So the savoury meat which Rebeckah made for her husband was conform to his appetite So Daniel and his fellows conformed their appetites to their pulse and water Thus Tully saith Ego me comformo ad ejus voluntatem I conform my self to his will Where there is an agreeablenesse there is a conformity as to conform ones self to another mans humour or to his councel or to his commands He resolveth to have no more to do with spontaneity I thought that it had not been himself but the causes that resolved him without his own will But whether it be himself or the causes I think if he hold his resolution and include liberty therein for company it will not be much amisse for him Here he readeth us a profound Lecture what the common people on whose arbitration dependeth the signification of words in common use among the Latines and Greeks did call all actions and motions whereof they did perceive no cause spontaneous and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in the conclusion of his Lecture according to his custom he forgeteth not himself The Bishop understanding nothing of this might if it pleased him have called it Iargon What pitty is it that he hath not his Gnatho about him to ease him of this trouble of stroaking his own head Here is a Lecture able to make all the Blacksmiths and Watchmakers in a City gape and wonder to see their workmanship so highly advanced Thus he vapoureth still when he lights upon the blind side of an equivocall word For my part I not onely might have called it but do still call it meer Iargon and no better To passe by peccadillo's First he telleth us How the common people did call all actions spontaneous and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. How doth he know what the common people called them The books which we have are the books of Scholars not of the common people Secondly he saith That the signification of all words dependeth upon the arbitration of the common people Surely he meaneth onely at Athens where it is observed That wise men did speak and fools did judge But neither at Athens nor at any other place were the common people either the perfecters or arbitrators of language who neither speak regularly nor properly much lesse in words that are borrowed from learned languages Thirdly he supposeth that these words liberty necessity and spontaneity are words in common use which in truth are terms of art There is as much difference between that liberty and necessity which ordinary people speak and the liberty and necessity intended in this question whereof we are agreed as there is between the pointing out of a man with ones finger and a logicall demonstration or between an habit in a Tailers shop and an habit in Logick or Ethicks Fourthly He confoundeth spontaneity and chance comprehending them both under the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I confesse that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Poets and Oratours is a word of very ambiguous signification sometimes signifieing a necessary sometimes a voluntary or spontaneous sometimes a casuall sometimes an artificiall Agent or Event Such equivocall words are his delight But as they are terms of art all these words are exactly distinguished and defined and limitted to their proper and certain signification That which is voluntary or spontaneous is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we see plainly in Aristotle That which is freely elected is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that which is by chance is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he may see in the places cited in the margent where all these words are exactly distinguished and defined Fifthly He saith the Latines and Greeks did call all actions and motions whereof they did perceive no cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which according to Aristotle and other Philosophers doth signifie things done by chance And in his reason whereof they did perceive no cause He is mistaken on hoth sides For first the causes of many things are apparent which yet are said to be done by chance as when a tile falleth down accidentally from an house breaketh a mans head And on the other side many things whereof the causes were not known as the ebbing and flowing of the sea were not said to be done by chance I shall not need for the present to make any further inquiry into his extravagant interpretations of words which he maketh gratis upon his own head and authority and which no man admitteth but himself Rectum est Index sui obliqui Sixthly he saith Not every appetite but the last is esteemed the will when men do judge of the regularity or irregularity of one anothers actions I do acknowledge that de non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio If it do not appear outwardly to be his will man cannot judge of it as his will But if it did appear to be his will first or last though he change it over and over it was his will and is judged by God to have been his will and may be justly judged so by man so far as it did appear to have been his will by his words and actions If he mean his last will and testament that indeed taketh place and not the former yet the former will was truly his will untill it was revoked But of this and of his deliberation I shall have cause to speak more hereafter I come now to his contradictions His first contradiction is this All voluntary acts are deliberate Some voluntary acts are not deliberate The former part of his contradiction is proved out of these words Voluntary presupposes some precedent deliberation that is to to say some consideration and meditation of what is likely to follow both upon the doing and abstaining from the action deliberated of The second part is proved as plainly When a man hath time to deliberate but deliberates not because never any thing appeared that could make him doubt of the consequence the action follows his opinions of the goodnesse or harm of it These actions I call voluntary c. because these actions that follow immediately the last appetitite are voluntary And here where there is one onely apppetite that one is the last To this he answereth Voluntary presupposes deliberation when the judgement whether the action be voluntary or not is not in the Actor but in the Iudge who regardeth not the will of the Actor when there is nothing to be accused in the action of deliberate malice yet knoweth that though there be but one appetite the same is truely will for the time and the action if it follow a voluntary action To which term doth he answer Of what term doth he distinguish Some
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
things which have a reall being do depend upon God for their being for their making for their conservation And therefore when we speak of any thing that is without the Deity we do not intend that any thing is without the Essence or the Presence or the Power or the circumference of it God is a Circle whose Center is every where the Circumference no where But by the works of God without himself we understand the Creation and the Government of the World which are not terminated in the Deity it self but in the creatures which are from God as their efficient and for God as their end and in God or thorough God in respect of their necessary and perpetual dependence upon him who is the Original Essence of all things I am hath sent me unto you yet they are not of God as particles of the Divine Essence nor in God in that sense wherein we use to say Whatsoever is in God is God And so they are his works ad extra without the Deity To make good the second part of his censure that it was untruly said he produceth nothing but his old threedbare argument taken from the prescience of God which hath been answered over and over Neither the prescience of God nor the will of God upon prescience do imply any more than a meer hypothetical necessity which will do his cause no good In the conclusion of this Section he confesseth That God doth not all things that he can do if he will but he saith God cannot will that which he hath not willed from eternity understanding by eternity an everlasting succession whereas in eternity nothing is past or to come I have shewed often in these Castigations the falsity uselessenesse and contradiction of this absurd silly senselesse distinction in respect of men But being here applied by him to God nothing can be imagined more absurd for to will efficaciously and to do in God are the same thing What he doth he doth by his will To imagine that many things are free to God to do which are not free to him to will sheweth that his meditations upon this Subject were either none at all or worth nothing But it shall susfice for the present to shew how absurd and how unappliable this exposition is to the two places by me produced John Baptist told the Jews that they might not flatter themselves with this that they were the posterity of Abraham that though all they should prove impenitent and unbelievers yet God was able to raise up children to Abraham of stones If it were impossible for God to will the doing of any such thing How was this truly said And how could this afford any supply to the seed of Abraham in case his carnal posterity should continue obstinate In the other place S. Peter drawing his sword in defence of his Master Christ reprehended him and told him that he could have a better guard to secure him from all the attempts of the Jews if it pleased him not to lay down his liâ—…e freely Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father and he shall give me presently more than twelve legions of Angels He saith not I can if I would but positively I can Neither speaketh he of remote possibilities but he shall give me presently Christ would shew by these words that if it had not been his own will freely to suffer for the Redemption of mankind he could have prayed to his Father and he would have sent him a Guard of more than twelve Legions of Angels and that presently without delay If it was impossible for God to will any such thing then our Saviours plea to S. Peter was but a vain pretence and had nothing of reality in it If T. H. regarded the honour and veracity of Christ he would not impose such a jugling delusory sense upon his clear assertion As if our Saviour should have said Peter I have no need of thy endeavours to defend me for I could pray to my Father he would immediately send me a Guard of twelve Legions of Angels But to say the truth he is not willing to do it and to say the whole truth it is not possible for him to be willing Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 19. HE professeth that he never said the will is compelled but doth agree with the rest of the World that it is not compelled But to let us see that he understandeth not what the World meaneth in saying the will is not compelled twice or thrice in the same page he maketh it to be compelled Many things saith he may compel a man to do an action in producing the will If a man can be compelled to will then the will can be compelled This appeareth yet more plainly a little after where he maketh the casting of ones goods into the sea in a storm to be a voluntary free elective act And yet he confesseth that terrour was a necessary cause of the election To which if we adde what he saith in his answer A man is then onely said to be compelled when fear maketh him willing to it it appeareth that according to his grounds it is a compulsory action also If voluntary actions may be compulsory actions then the will may be compelled To help to beare off this blow he distinguisheth between the compulsion of the will and the compulsion of the voluntary Agent denying the former but acknowledging the later That is not a compulsion of the will but of the man The very same he hath again in these words The necessitation of the will is the same thing with the compulsion of the man If this be not plain Jargon and Bohu as he phraseth it let him tell me what is the compulsion of a man to will but the compulsion of his will Whether by the will he understand the soul as it willeth or the faculty of the will or the act of willing every way he that compelleth a man to will compelleth his will Let him call it what he please either to compell a man to will or to compell the will by his leave it is a grosse contradiction for to compell implyeth reluctance and opposition and to will implyeth inclination and appetition To necessitate the will as he doth is to compell the will so far as the will in the elicite acts of it is capable of compulsion That is properly said to be compelled which hath its beginning from an extrinsecal cause that which suffereth contributing nothing to it but resisting as much as he can But he hath devised a new improper kind of compulsion which is caused onely by fear which is not properly a compulsion and such as it is common to many other causes with fear As to persuasion So Sauls servants compelled him to eat To command So the drinking was according to law none did compell To occasion So S. Paul saith I am become a foole in glorying ye have compelled me I passe by his
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
in his thighes Yet he tells us boldly That no man can understand that the understanding maketh any alteration of weight or lightnesse in the object or that reason layes objects upon the understanding What poor trifling is this in a thing so plain and obvious to every mans capacity There can be no desire of that which is not known in some sort Nothing can be willed but that which is apprehended to be good either by reason or sense and that according to the degree of apprehension Place a man in a darke roome and all the rarest objects in the World besides him he seeth them not he distinguisheth them not he willeth them not But bring in a light and he seeth them and distinguisheth them and willeth them according to their distinct worths That which light is to visible objects making those things to be actually seen which were onely potentially visible that is the understanding to all intelligible objects without which they are neither known nor willed Wherefore men define the understanding to be A faculty of the reasonable soul understanding knowing and judging all intelligible things The understanding then doth not alter the weight of objects no more than the light doth change the colours which without the help of the light did lie hid in the darke But the light makes the colours to be actually seene So doth the understanding make the latent value of intelligible objects to be apprehended and consequently maketh them to be desired and willed according to their distinct degrees of goodnesse This judgement which no man ever denyed to intelligible creatures is the weighing of objects or attributing their just weight to them and the trying of them as it were by the Balance and by the Touchstone This is not the laying of objects upon the understanding The understanding is not the patient but the judge but this is the representing of the goodnesse or badnesse of objects to the will or to the free Agent willing which relatively to the will giveth them all their weight and efficacy There may be difference between these two Propositions Repentance is not voluntary and by consequence proceedeth from causes And Repentance proceedeth from causes and by consequence is not voluntary if his consequence were well intelligible as it is not All acts both voluntary and involuntary doe proceed from causes He chargeth me to have chopt in these words And therefore The truth is his words were and by consequence which I expressed thus and therefore Therefore and by consequence are the very same thing neither more nor lesse Is not this a doughty exception But the other is his greater errour That Repentance is not voluntary No Schooleman ever said that the faculty of the will was voluntary but that the Agent was a voluntary Agent and the act a voluntary act Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 24. HE accuseth me of charging him witly Blasphemy and Atheisme If he be wronged in that kind it is he who wrongeth himself by his suspicion Sprâ—…ta exolescunt si irascare agnita videntur I accused him not either of Blasphemy or Atheisme in the Concrete One may say a mans opinions are Blasphemous and Atheisticall in the Abstract without charging the person with formall Atheisme or blasphemy The reason is evident because it may be that through prejudice he doth not see the consequences which other men whose eyes are not blinded with that mist do see and if he did see them would abhor them as well as they For this reason he who chargeth one with speaking or writing implicite contradictions or things inconsistent one with another doth not presently accuse him of lying although one part of a contradiction must needs be false because it may be the force of the consequence is not evident to him A man may know a truth certainly and yet not know the formal reason or the manner of it so certainly I know that I see and I judge probably how I see yet the manner how I see whether by sending out beams or by receiving in the species is not so evident as â—…he thing it self that I do see They who do not agree about the manner of vision do all agree about the truth of vision Every man knoweth certainly that he can cast a stone up into the air but the manner how the stone is moved after it is seperated from the hand whether it be by some force or form or quality impressed into the stone by the caster or by the air if it be by the air whether it be by the pulsion of the air following or by the cession of the former air is obscure enough and not one of a thousand who knoweth the certainty of the thing knoweth the manner how it cometh to passe If this be true in natural actions how much more in the actions of God who is an infinite being and not comprehensible by the finite wit of man The water can rise no higher than the fountains head A looking-glasse can represent the body because there is some proportion between bodies but it cannot represent the soul because there is no proportion between that which is material and that which is immaterial This is the reason why we can in some sort apprehend what shall be after the end of the World because the soul is eternal that way but if we do but think of what was before the beginning of the World we are as it were presently swallowed up into an Abysse because the soul is not eternal that way So I know that there is true liberty from necessity both by Divine Revelation and by reason and by experience I know likewise that God knoweth all events from eternity the difficulty is not about the thing but about the manner how God doth certainly know things free or contingent which are to come in respect of us seeing they are neither determined in the event it self nor in the causes thereof The not knowing of the manner which may be incomprehensible to us doth not at all diminish the certain truth of the thing Yet even for the manner sundry wayes are proposed to satisfie the curiosities rather than the consciences of men Of which this is one way which I mentioned It were a great madnesse to reject a certain truth because there may be some remote difficulty about the manner and yet a greater madnesse for avoiding a needlesse scruple to destroy all the attributes of God which is by consequence to deny God himself His proof of necessity drawn from Gods eternall knowledge of all events hath been sufficiently discussed and satisfied over and over I pleaded that my doctrine of liberty is an ancient truth generally received His opinion of universall necessity an upstart Paradox and all who own it may be written in a ring So I am an old possessor he is but a new pretender He answereth That he is in possession of a truth derived to him from the light of reason And it is
him to it and reason to restrain him from it he shall not die for it in the strict rules of particular justice unlesse there be some mixture of publick justice in the case Siego dignus hac contumelia Sum maxime at tu indignus qui faceres tamen If I deserved a reproofe he was a most unfit man to be my reprover who maintaineth That no law can be unjust That in the State of nature it was lawful for any man to kill another and particularly for mothers to expose or make away their children at their pleasure Ita ut illum vel educare vel exponere suo arbitrio jure possit De Cive c. 9. d. 2. That Parents to their children and Soverigns to their subjects cannot be injurious whether they kill them or whatsoever they do unto them But what is it that I have said I have delivered no judgement or opinion of mine own in the case I know what hath been practiced by some persons in some places at some times I know what reasons have been pretended for such practices Soveraign dominion The law of retaliation Psal. 137. 8 9. The common safety The satisfaction or contentment of persons or families injuried But if I have delivered any opinion of mine own it was on the contrary Though I affirm not but that it may be sometimes lawful to punish Parents for acts truly treasonable in their posterity with lesser punishments as losse of liberty or the losse of the fathers estate which was at the time of the delinquency in the fathers power to dispose that they who will not forbear to offend for their own sakes may forbear for their posterities sakes Though I know the practice of many Countries even in this to be otherwise But for death I know no warrant Pliny observeth of the Lion that he preyeth first upon men more rarely upon women and not upon children except he be extremely pressed with hunger Private right and private justice is between particular men Publick right and publick justice is either between Common-wealths as in forreign war or between Common-wealths and Subjects as in case of Law-giving or civil war Many things are lawful in the way of publick justice which are not lawful in the way of private justice But this inquisition hath no relation to our present controversie My exception Except there be some mixture of publick justice in the case is as much as to say Unlesse there be some thing more in the case that doth nearly concern the safety of the Common-wealth It is not impossible but before the ordinary age of attaining to the perfect use of reason a child may be drawn into very treasonable attempts so far as to act a ministerial part And in such cases there is a rule in law Malitia supplet aetatem He hath confessed here enough to spoile his cause if it were not spoiled already That want of reason takes away both crime and punishment and maketh agents innocent If want of reason do it without doubt antecedent extrinsecal necessity doth much more do it How then hath he taught us all this while That voluntary faults are justly punishable though they be necessary A childs fault may be as voluntary as a mans How a child may justly be put to death to satisfie a vow or to save a great number of people or for reason of State I know not This I do know That it is not lawful to do evil that good may come of it Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 26. IT seemeth by the Animadversion which T. H. hath in this Section wherein he maketh Consideration understanding reason and all the passions or affections of the mind to be imaginations And by some other passages in this Treatise where he attributeth to bees and spiders not onely election but also art prudence pollicy very near equal to that of mankind And where he denieth to man all dominion over the creatures making him like a toppe or a foot-ball or a pair of scales and his chiefest difference from brute beasts to consist in his language and in his hand And his liberty to consist in an absence of outward impediments ascribing to brute beasts deliberation such as if it were constant there were no cause to call men more rational than beasts That he maketh the reason and understanding of men to be nothing else but refined and improved sense or the sense of brute beasts to include reason It was an old Stoical opinion that the affections were nothing else but imaginations but it was an old groundlesse errour Imaginations proceed from the brain affections from the heart But to make reason and understanding to be imaginations is yet grosser Imagination is an act of the sensitive phantasie Reason and understanding are proper to the intellectual soul. Imagination is onely of particulars Reason of universals also In the time of sleep or some raging fit of sicknesse when the imagination is not governed by reason we see what absurd and monstrous and inconsistent shapes and phansies it doth collect remote enough from true deliberation Doth the Physitian cure his Patient by imaginations or the Statesman govern the Common-wealth by imaginations or the Lawyer determine differences by imaginations Are Logical arguments reduced into due forme and an orderly method nothing but imaginations Is prudence it selfe turned to imagination And are the dictates of right reason which God hath given as a light to preserve us from moral vices and to lead us to virtuous actions now become meere imaginations We see the understanding doth often contrary and correct the imaginations of sense I do not blame the pusled Schoole-men if they dissented from such new-fangled speculations And the ground of all these vain imaginations is imagination As any man may perceive as easily as he can look into his own thoughts His Argument may be thus reduced That which we imagine is true but we imagine all these to be imaginations I deny both his propositions First Our imaginations are not alwayes true but many times such as are suggested to us by our working phantasies upon some sleight grounds or by our fond or deceitful instructers or by our vain hopes or fears For one Whittington that found his imagination to prove true when the Bells rang him back to his Master Turn again Whittington thou shalt be Lord Mayor of London a thousand have been grossely abused by their vain imaginations Secondly No man can imagine any such thing who knoweth the difference between the reasonable and the sensitive soul between the understanding and the phantasie between the brain and the heart but confident assertions credulity may doe much among simple people So we have heard or read of some who were contented to renounce their eye-sight and to affirm for company that they saw a Dragon flying in the aire where there was not so much as a Butterflie out of a mannerly simplicity rather than to seem to doubt of the truth of that which was
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
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