the sin of David in killing Uriah Nor when one is cause both of the action and of the Law how another can be cause of the disagreement between them no more than how one man making a longer and shorter garment another can make the inequality that is between them This I know God cannot sin because his doing a thing makes it just and consequently no sin And because whatsoever can sin is subject to anothers Law which God is not And therefore t is blasphemy to say God can sin But to say that God can so order the world as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man I do not see how it is any dishonour to him Howsoever if such or other distinctions can make it clear that St. Paul did not think Esaus or Pharaohs actions proceeded from the will and purpose of God or that proceeding from his will could not therefore without injustice be blamed or punished I will as soon as I understand them turn unto J. D's opinion For I now hold nothing in all this Question between us but what seemeth to me not obscurely but most expresly said in this place by Saint Paul And thus much in answer to his places of Scripture J. D. T. H. thinks to kill two birds with one stone and satisfie two Arguments with one answer whereas in truth he satisfieth neither First for my third reason a Though all he say here were as true as an Oracle Though punishment were an act of dominion not of Justice in God yet this is no sufficient cause why God should deny his own act or why he should chide or expostulate with men why they did that which he himself did necessitate them to do and whereof he was the actor more than they they being but as the stone but he the hand that threw it Notwithstanding any thing which is pleaded here this Stoical opinion doth stick hypocrisie and dissimulation close to God who is Truth it self And to my fift Argument which he changeth and relateth amiss as by comparing mine with his may appear His chiefest answer is to oppose a difficult place of St. Paul Rom. 9. 11. Hath he never heard that to propose adoubt is not to answer an Argument Nec bene respondet qni litem lite resolvit But I will not pay him in his own coin Wherefore to this place alledged by him I answer The case is not the same The Question moved there is how God did keep his promise made to Abraham to be the God of him and of his seed if the Jews who were the legimate progeny of Abraham were deserted To which the Apostle answers ver 6 7 8. That that promise was not made to the carnal seed of Abraham that is the Jewes but to his spiritual Sons which were the Heirs of his Faith that is to the beleeving Christians which answer he explicateth first by the Allegory of Isaack and Ishmael and after in the place cited of Esau and of Jacob. Yet neither doth he speak there so much of their persons as of their posterities And though some words may be accommodated to Gods predestination which are there uttered yet it is not the scope of that text to treat of the reprobation of any man to Hell fire All the posterity of Esau were not eternally reprobated as holy Job and many others But this Question which is now agitated between us is quite of another nature how a man can be a criminal who doth nothing but that which he is extrinsecally necessitated to do or how God in Justice can punish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone That he who did imprint the motion in the heart of man should punish man who did only receive the impression from him So his answer looks another way But because he grounds so much upon this text that if it can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion I will examine all those passages which may seem to favour his cause First these words ver 11. being not yet borne neither having done any good or evil upon which the whole weight of his argument doth depend have no reference at all to those words ver 13. Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated for those words were first uttered by the Prophet Malachy many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead Mal. 1. 2. and intended of the posterity of Esau who were not redeemed from captivity as the Israelites were But they are referred to those other words ver 12. The elder shall serve the younger which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were Born Gen. 5. 23. And though those words of Malachy had been used of Jacob and Esau before they were Born yet it had advantaged his cause nothing for hatred in that text doth not signifie any reprobation to the flames of Hell much less the execution of that decree or the actual imposition of punishment nor any act contrary to love God saw all that he had made and it was very good Goodness it self cannot hate that which is good But hatred there signifies Comparative hatred or a less degree of love or at the most a negation of love As Gen. 29. 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated we may not conclude thence that Jocob hated his Wife The precedent verse doth fully expound the sense ver 30. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah So Mat. 6. 24. No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and lóve the other So Luke 14. 26. If any man hate not his Father and Mother c. he cannot be my Disciple St. Matthew tells us the sense of it Mat. 10. 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me Secondly those words ver 15. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy do prove no more but this that the preferring of Jacob before Esau and of the Christians before the Jewes was not a debt from God either to the one or to the other but a work of mercy And what of this All men confess that Gods mercies do exceed mans deserts but Gods punishments do never exceed mans misdeeds As we see in the Parable of the Labourers Matth. 20. Friend I do the no wrong did not I agree with thee for a penny Is it not lawful for me to do with mine own as I will Is thy eye evil because I am good Acts of mercy are free but acts of Justice are due That which followes ver 17. comes something nearer the cause The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh for this same purpose I have raised the up that is I have made thee a King or I have preserved thee that I might shew my power in thee But this particle that doth not alwaies signifie the main end of an action but sometimes only a consequent of it As Matt. 2. 15. He departed into Egypt that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
Prophet out of Egypt have I called my Son without doubt Josephs aim or end of his journey was not to fulfil prophesies but to save the life of the Child Yet because the fulfilling of the prophecy was a consequent of Josephs journey he saith That it might be fulfilled So here I have raised thee up that I might shew my power Again though it should be granted that this particle that did denote the intention of God to destroy Pharaoh in the Red Sea yet it was not the antecedent intention of God which evermore respects the good and benefit of the creature but Gods consequent intention upon the prevision of Pharaohs obstinacy that since he would not glorifie God in obeying his word he should glorifie God undergoing his judgements Hitherto we find no eternal punishments nor no temporal punishment without just deserts It follows ver 18. whom he will he hardneth Indeed hardness of heart is the greatest judgement that God layes upon a sinner in this life worse than all the Plagues of Egypt But how doth God harden the heart not by a natural influence of any evil act or habit into the will nor by inducing the will with perswasive motives to obstinacy and rebellion for God tempteth no man but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and intised Jam. 1. 13. Then God is said to harden the heart three wayes First negativly 1. and not positively not by imparting wickedness but by not imparting grace as the Sun descending to the tropick of Capricorne is said with us to be the cause of Winter that is not by imparting cold but by not imparting heat It is an act of mercy in God to give his grace freely but to detein it is no act of injustice So the Apostle opposeth hardning to shewing of mercy To harden is as much as not to shew mercy Secondly God is said to harden the heart occasionally and not causally by doing good which incorrigible sinners 2. make an occasion of growing worse and worse and doing evil as a Master by often correcting of an untoward Scholar doth accidentally and occasionally harden his heart and render him more obdurate insomuch as he grows even to despise the Rod. Or as an indulgent parent by his patience and gentleness doth incourage an obstinate son to become more rebellious So whether we look upon Gods frequent judgements upon Pharaoh or Gods iterated fauours in removing and withdrawing those judgements upon Pharaohs request both of them in their several kinds were occasions of hardning Pharaohs heart the one making him more presumptuous the other more desperately rebellious So that which was good in it was Gods that which was evil was Pharaohs God gave the occasion but Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration This is clearly confirmed Exod. 8. 15. When Pharaoh saw that there was respite he hardned his heart And Exod. 9. 34. When Pharaoh saw that the Rain and the Hail and the Thunders were ceased he sinned yet more and hardned his heart he and his servants So Psal. 105. 25. He turned their hearts so that they hated his people and dealt subtilly with them That is God blessed the Children of Israel whereupon the Egyptians did take occasion to hate them as is plain Exod. 1. ver 7 8 9 10. So God hardned Pharaohs heart and Pharaoh hardned his own heart God hardned it by not shewing mercy to Pharaoh as he did to Nebuckadnezzar who was as great a sinner as he or God hardned it occasionally but still Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration by determining his own will to evil and confirming himself in his obstinancy So are all presumptuous sinners Psal. 95 8. Harden not your hearts as in the provocation as in the day of temptation in the Wilderness Thirdly God is said to harden the heart permissively 3. but not operatively nor effectively as he who oâ—ly le ts loose a Greyhound out of the slip is said to hound him at the Hare Will you see plainly what St. Paul intends by hardening Read ver 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known that is by a consequent will which in order of nature followes the prevision of sin indured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy c. There is much difference between induring and impelling or inciting the vessels of wrath He saith of the vessels of mercy that God prepared them unto glory But of the vessels of wrath he saith only that they were fitted to destruction that is not by God but by themselves St. Paul saith that God doth endure the vessels of wrath with much long suffering T. H. saith that God wills and effects by the second causes all their actions good and bad that he necessitateth them and determineth them irresistibly to do those acts which he condemneth as evill and for which he punisheth them If doing willingly and enduring If much long suffering and necessitating imply not a contrariety one to another reddat mihi minam Diogenes Let him that taught me Logick give me my money again But T. H. saith that this distinction between the operative and permissive Will of God and that other between the action and the irregularity do dazel his understanding Though he can find no difference between these two yet others do St. Paul himself did Acts 13. 18. About the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the Wilderness And Acts 14. 16. Who in times past suffered all Nations to walk in their own wayes T. H. would make suffering to be inciting their manners to be Gods manners their wayes to be Gods wayes And Acts 17. 30. The times of this ignorance God winked at It was never heard that one was said to wink or connive at that which was his own act And 1 Cor. 10. 13. God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able To tempt is the Devils act therefore he is called the Tempter God tempts no man to sin but he suffers them to be tempted And so suffers that he could hinder Sathan if he would But by T. H. his doctrine To tempt to sin and to suffer one to be tempted to sin when it is in his power to hinder it it is all one And so he transforms God I write it with horrour into the Devil and makes tempting to be Gods own work and the Devil to be but his instrument And in that noted place Rom. 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearrance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thy â—elf wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God Here are as many convincing Arguments in this one text against the
opinion of T. H almost as there are words Here we learn that God is rich in goodness and will not punish his creatures for that which is his own act Secondly that he suffers and forbeares sinners long and doth not snatch them away by sudden death as they deserve Thirdly that the reason of Gods forbearance is to bring men to repentance Fourthly that hardness of heart and impenitency is not causally from God but from our selves Fiftly that it is not the insufficient proposal of the means of their conversion on Gods ' part which is the cause of mens perdition but their own contempt and despising of these means Sixtly that punishment is not an act of absolute dominion but an act of righteous judgement whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves eternal life to those who continue patiently in well-doing If they deserve such punishment who only neglect the goodness and long suffering of God what do they who utterly deny it and make Gods doing and his suffering to be all one I do beseech T. H. to consider what a degree of wilfulness it is out of one obscure text wholly misunderstood to contradict the clear current of the whole Scripture Of the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 22. The long suffering of God waited once in the daies of Noah And 2 Pet. 3. 15. Account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation This is the name God gives himself Exod. 34. 6. The Lord the Lord God mercyful and gracious long suffering c. b Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be commonly true That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent will or by a consequent will either by an operative will or by a permissive will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man to suffer that to be done which otherwise he would not suffer So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the Lions den to make good his rash decree So Herod suffered John Baptist to be beheaded to make good his rash oath How much more may the immutable rule of justice in God and his fidelity in keeping his word draw from him the punishment of obstinate sinners though antecedently he willeth their conversion He loveth all his creatures well but his own Justice better Again sometimes a man suffereth that to be done which he doth not will directly in it self but indirectly for some other end or for the producing of some greater good As a man willeth that a putrid member be cut off from his body to save the life of the whole Or as a Judge being desirous to save a malefactors life and having power to reprieve him doth yet condemn him for example sake that by the death of one he may save the lives of many Marvel not then if God suffer some creatures to take such courses as tend to their own ruine so long as their sufferings do make for the greater manifestation of his glory and for the greater benefit of his faithful servants This is a most certain truth that God would not suffer evil to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evil Yet this ought not to be understood as if we made any priority or posteriority of time in the acts of God but onely of Nature Nor do we make the antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another because the one respects man pure and uncorrupted the other respects him as he is lapsed The objects are the same but considered after a diverse manner Nor yet do we make these wills to be distinct in God for they are the same with the divine essence which is one But the distinction is in order to the objects or things willed Nor lastly do we make this permission to be a naked or a meer permission God causeth all good pemitteth all evil disposeth all things both good and evill c T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evill by a general but not by a speciall influence As the Earth gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yeilds food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the general nourishment of the Earth but from the special quality of the root Even so the general power to act is from God In him we live and move and have our being This is good But the specification and determination of this general power to the doing of any evill is from our selves and proceeds from the free will of man This is bad And to speak properly the free will of man is not the efficient cause of sin as the root of the Hemlock is of poison sin having no true entity or being in it as poison hath But rather the deficient cause Now no defect can flow from him who is the highest perfection d Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God The general power to act is from God but the specification of this general and good power to murther or to any particular evil is not from God but from the free will of man So T. H. may see clearly if he will how one may be the cause of the Law and likewise of the action in some sort that is by general influence and yet another cause concurring by special influence and determining this general and good power may make it self the true cause of the anomy or the irregularity And therefore he may keep his longer and shorter garments for some other occasion Certainly they will not fit this subject unless he could make general and special influence to be all one But T. H. presseth yet further that the case is the same and the objection used by the Jews ver 19. Why doth he yet find fault who hath resisted his will is the very same with my argument And St. Pauls answer ver 20. O man who art thou that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over his Clay c is the very same with his answer in this place drawn from the irresistible power and absolute dominion of God which justifieth all his actions And that the Apostle in his answer doth not deny that it was Gods will nor that Gods decree was before Esaus sin To which I reply First that the case is
if liberty be taken away the nature and formall reason of sin is taken away I answer by denying the consequence The nature of sin consiâ—â—eth in this that the action done proceed from ouâ— will and be against the Law A Judge in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the Law lâ—oks at no higher cause oâ— the action then the will of the doer Now when I say the action was necessary I do not say it was done against the will oâ— the doer but with his will and so necessarily because mans will that is every act of the will and purpose of man had a sufficient and therefore a necessary cause and consequently every voluntary action was necessitated An action therefore may be voluntary and a sin and nevertheless be necessary And because God may afflict by right derived from his â—mnipâ—tency though sin were not And the example of punishment on voluntary sinners is the cause that produceth Justice and maketh sin less frequent for God to punish such sinners as I have shewed before is no injustice And thus you have my answer to his objections both out of Scripture and Reason J. D. SCis tu simulare â—upressum quid hoc It was shrewd counsâ—il which Alcibiades gave to Themistocles when he was busy about his accounts to the State that he should rather study how to make no accounts So it seems T. H. thinks it a more compendious way to baulk an argument then to satisfie it And if he can produce a Rowland against an Olâ—ver if he can urge a reason against a reason he thinks he hath quitted himself fairely But it will not serve his turn And that he may not complain of misunderstanding it as those who have a politick deafness to hear nothing but what liketh them I will first reduce mine argument into form and then weigh what he saith in answer or rather in opposition to it a That opinion which takes away the formall reason of sin and by consequence sin it self is not to be approoved this is cleer because both Reason and Religion Nature and Scripture do proove and the whole world confesseth that there is sin But this opinion of the necessity of all things by reason of a conflux of second causes ordered and determined by the first cause doth take away the very formal reason of sin This is prooved thus That which makes sin it self to be good and just and lawfull takes away the formall cause and destroyes the essence of sin for if sin be good and just and lawfull it is no more evill it is no sin no anomy But this opinion of the necessity of all things makes sin to be very good and just and lawful for nothing can flow essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause which is the Law and Rule of Goodness and Justice but that which is good and just and lawfull but this opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause as appears in T. H. his whole discourse Neither is it material at all whether it proceed immediatly from the fist cause or mediately so as it be by a necessary flux of second and determinate causes which produce it inevitably To these proofs hee answers nothing but onely by denying the first consequence as he calls it and then sings over his old song That the nature of sin consisteth in this that the action proceede from our will and be against the Law which in our sense is most true if he understand a just Law and a free rationall will b But supposing as he doth that the Law injoins things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrahnical Law and the transgression of it is no sin not to do that which never was in our power to do And supposing likewise as he doth that the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause then it is not mans will but Gods Will and flows essentially from the Law of Goodness c That which he addes of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civil Judge the proper Judge noâ— the Law of the Land the proper Rule of Sin But it makes strongly against him for the Judge goes upon a good ground and even this which he confesseth that the Judge looks at no higâ—er cause then the will of the doer prooves that the will of the doer did determine it self freely and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the Law if he would Certainly a Judge ought to look at all material circumstances and much more at all essential causes Whether every sufficient cause be a necessary cause will come to be examined more properly Numb 31. For the present it shall suffice to say that liberty flows from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause d Nature Never intends the generation of a monster If all the causes concur sufficiently a a perfect creature is produced but by reason of the insufficiency or debility or contingent aberration of some of the causes sometimes a Monster is produced Yet the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced What is it then A Monster is not produced by vertue of that order which is set in Nature but by the contingent aberration of some of the natural causes in their concurrence The order set in Nature is that every like should beget its like But supposing the concurrence of the causes to be such as it is in the generation of a Monster the generation of a Monster is necessary as all the events in the world are when they are that is by an hypothetical necessity e Then he betakes himself to his old help that God may punish by right of omnipotence though there were no sin The question is not now what God may do but what God will do according to that Covenant which he hath made with man Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live Neither doth God punish any man contrary to this Covenant Hosea 13. 9. O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help He that wills not the death of a Sinner doth much less will the death of an innocent Creature By death or destruction in this discourse the onely separation of Soul and Body is not intended which is a debt of nature and which God as Lord of Life and Death may justly do and make it not a punishment but a blessing to the party but we understand the subjecting of the Creature to eternal torments Lastly he tells of that benefit which redounds to others from Exemplary Justice which is most true but not according to his own grounds for neither is it Justice to punish a man for doing that which it was impossible always for him not to do Neither is it lawfull to punish an
Lipsius that a Fate is a series or order of causes depending upon the Divine counsel though the Divines thought he came to near them as he thinks I do now And the reason why he was cautelous was because being a member of the Romish Church he had little confidence in the judgment and lenity of the Romish Clergie and not because he thought he had over-shot himself b Concerning the other distinction of liberty in respect of the first cause and liberty in respect of the second causes though he will not see that which it concerned him to answer c. as namely that the faculty of willing c. I answer that distinction he alledgeth not to bee mine but the Stoicks and therefore I had no reason to take notice of it for he disputeth not against me but others And whereas he says it concerned me to make that answer which he hath set down in the words following I cannot conceive how it concerneth me whatsoever it may do somebody else to soâ—aâ— absurdly I said that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next and immediate to it which can not be doubted and though he deny it he does not disprove it For when he says those things which God wills without himself he wills freely and not necessarily He says rashly and untruly Rashly because there is nothing without God who is Infinite in whom are all things and in whom we live move and have our being and untruly because whatsoever God foreknew from eternity he willed from eternity and therefore necessarily But against this he argueth thus Whatsoever cause acts or works necessarily doth work or act all that it can do or all that is in its power but it is evident that God doth not all things which he can do c. In things inanimate the action is alwaies according to the extent of its power not taking in the Power of Willing because they have it not But in those things that have Wilâ— the action is according to the wâ—ole Power wiâ—â— and all It is true that God doth not all things that he can do if he will but that he can Will that which he hath not Willed from all eternity I deny unlesse that he can not only Wil a change but also change his wil which all Divines say is immutable and then they must needs be necessary effects that proceed from God And his Texts God could have raised up Children unto Abraham c. And sent twelve Legions of Angels c. make nothing against the necessity of those actions which from the first cause proceed immediately J. D. THirdly they distinguish between liberty from compulsion Numb 19. and liberty from necessitation The Will say they is free from compulsion but not free from necessitation And this they fortifie with two reasons First because it is granted by all Divines that hypothetical necessity or necessity upon a supposition may consist with liberty Secondly because God and the good Angels do good necessarily and yet are more free than we To the first reason I confess that necessity upon a supposition may sometimes consist with true liberty as when it signifies onely an infallible certitude of the understanding in that which it knows to be or that it shall be But if the supposition be not in the Agents power nor depend upon any thing that is in his power If there be an exteriour antecedent cause which doth necessitate the effect to call this free is to be mad with reason To the second reason I confess that God and the good Angels are more free than we are that is intensively in the degree of freedom but not extensively in the latitude of the object according to a liberty of exercise but not of specification A liberty of exercise that is to do or not to do may consist well with a necessity of specification or a determination to the doing of good But a liberty of exercise and a necessity of exercise A liberty of specification and a necessity of specification are not compatible nor can consist together He that is antecedently necessitated to do evil is not free to do good So this instance is nothing at all to the purpose T. H. BUT the distinction of free into free from compulsion and free from necessitation I acknowledg for to be free from compulsion is to do a thing so as terrour be not the cause of his will to do it for a man is then onely said to be compelled when fear makes him willing to it as when a man willingly throws his goods into the Sea to save himself or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed Thus all men that do any thing from love or revenge or lust are free from compulsion and yet their actions may be as necessary as those which are done upon compulsion for sometimes other passions work as forcibly as fear But free from necessitation I say nothing can be And 't is that which he undertook to disproove This distinction he sayes useth to be fortified by two reasons But they are not mine The first he sayes is That it is granted by all Divines that an hypothetical necessity or necessity upon supposition may stand with liberty That you may understand this I will give you an example of hypotheticall necessity If I shall live I shall eat this is an hypotheticall necessity Indeed it is a necessary proposition that is to say it is necessary that that proposition should be true whensoever uttered but t is not the necessity of the thing nor is it therefore necessary that the man shall live or that the man shall eat I do not use to fortifie my distinctions with such reasons Let him confute them as he will it contents me But I would have your Lordship take notice hereby how an easy and plain thing but withal false may be with the grave usage of such words as hypotheticall necessity and necessity upon supposition and such like tearms of Schoolmen obscur'd and made to seem profound learning The second reason that may confirm the distinction of free from compulsion and free from necessitation he sayes is that God and good Angels do good necessarily and yet are more free than we This reason though I had no need of it yet I think it so far forth good as it is true that God and good Angels do good necessarily and yet are free but because I find not in the Articles of our Faith nor in the Decrees of our Church set down in what manner I am to conceive God and good Angels to work by necessity or in what sense they work freely I suspend my sentence in that point and am content that there may be a freedom from compulsion and yet no freedom from necessitation as hath been prooved in that that a man may be necessitated to some actions without threats and without fear of danger But how he can avoid the consisting together of freedom and
possible that without Discipline a man should come to think that the estimony of a witness which is the onely verifier of matter of fact should consist not in sense and memory so as he may say he saw and remembers the thing done but in Arguments or Sâ—llegismes Or how can an unlearnâ—d man be brought to think the words he speaks ought to signifie when he speaks sincerely any thing else but that which himself meant by them Or how can any man without learning take the question whether the Sun be no bigger then a ball or bigger then the Earth to be a question of fact Nor do I think that any man is so simple as â—â—t to find that to be good which he loveth good I say so far forth as it maketh him to love it or is there any unlâ—arned man so stâ—pid as to think Eternity is this present instant of time standing still and the same Eternit to be the very next instant after an consequently that there be so many eternities â—aâ— there can be instants of time supposed No there is Scâ—olasticâ— learning required in some measure to make one mad c Then for his assumption it is as defective as his proposition That by these words spontaneity c. Men do understand as he conceives c. No rational man doth conceive a spontaneous Action and an indeliberate Action to be all one Every indeliberate Action is not spontaneous c. Nor every spontaneous Action indeliberate This I get by striving to make sense of that which he strives to make non-sense I never thought the word spontaneity English Yet because he used it I made such meaning of it as it would bear and said it meant inconsiderate proceeding or nothing And for this my too much officioâ—snesse I râ—ceive the reward of bâ—ing thought by him not to be a rati nal man I know that in the Latine of all Authors but School-men Actio spontanea signifies that Action whereof there is no apparent cause derived further thâ—n from the Agent it self and is in all things that have sense the same with voluntary whether deliberated or not dâ—liberated And therefore where he distinguished it from voluntary I thought he might mean indeliberate but let it signifie what it will provided it be intelligible it would make against him d Neither doth deliberation properly signifie the considoring of the good â—nd evil sequells of an Action to come but the considering whether this be a good and fit means or the best and fittest means for obtaining such an end If the Biâ—â—ops words proceeded not from hearing and readiâ—g of others but from his own thoughts he could never have reprehended this â—efinition of Deliberation especiaâ—â—y in the manner he doth it for he says it is the consiâ—â—ring whether this or that be a good and fit means for obtaining such an end as if considering whether a means be good or not were nâ—t all â—nâ— with considering whether the sâ—quei of using those means be good or evil e Much lesse doth any man conceive with T. H. that deliberation is an Act oâ— Fancie not of Reason common to men of discretion with mad men natural fools children and brute beasts I do indeed conceive that dâ—liberation is an Act of Imagination or Fancie â—ay more that Reason and Understanding also are Aâ—â—s of the Imagination that is to say they are Imaginations I find it so by considering my own Ratioâ—â—nation and he might find it so iâ— his iâ— he did consider his own thoughts and not speak as he does by rote by rote I say when he disputes not by rote when he is about those trisâ—â—s he caâ—â—eth businesses then when he speaks he thinks of that is to say he Imagins his business but here he thinks onely upon the words of other men that have gone before him in thâ—â— question transcribing their conclusions and arguments not his oâ—n thoughts f Thirdly neither doth any understanding man conceive or can conceive either that the Will is an Act of our Deliberation the Understanding and the Will are two distinct faculties or that onely the last appetite is to be called our Wiâ—â— Though the understanding and the Will were two distinct faculties yet follow their not that the Will and the Deliberation are two distinct faculâ—iâ—s for the whole Deliberation is nothing else but so many Wills alternatively changâ—d according as a man understandeth or fancieth the good and evil sequels of the thing concerning which he deliberateth whether he shall pursâ—e it or of the means whâ—ther they conduce or not to that end whatsoever it be he seeketh to obtain So that in deliberation there be many wills whereof net any is the cause of a voluntary action but the last as I have said before answering this objection in another place g Concerning the fourth point we agree that he is a free Agent that can do if he Will and forbear if he Will. But I wonder how this dropped from his Pen c. It may be he will say he can do if he will and forbear if he will but he cannot will if he will He has no reason to wonder â—ow this dropped from my Pen. He sound it in my Answer Numb 3. and has been all his while about to confute it so long indeed that he had forget I said it And now agaiâ— brings another Argument to prâ—vâ— a man is free to Will which â—â—th either the Agent can Will and forbear to Will or else be cannot do and forbear to do There is no doubt a man can Will one thing or other and forbear to will it For men if they be awake â—re alwayes willing one thing or other But put the case a man hâ—s a Will today to do a certain Action to morrow is he sure to have the same Will tomorrow when he is to do it Is he free to day to chuse tomorrows Will This is it that 's now in question and this Argument maketh nothing for the assirmative or negative h But we differ wholy about the fifth point He who conceives Liberty aright conceives both a Liberty in the subject to Will or not to Will and a Liberty to the object to Will this or that and a Liberty from impediments T. H. by a new way of his own cuts of the â—iberty of the subject as if a stone were free to ascend or descend because it hath no outward impediment And the Liberty towards the object as if the needle touched with the Load-stone were free to point either towards the North or towards the South because there is not a Baricado in its way How does it appear that he who conceives Liberty aright conceives a Liberty in the subject to Will or noâ— to Will unlesse he mean Liberty to dâ— if he Will or not to do if he wiâ—l not which was never denied Or how does it follow that a stone is as free to ascend as descâ—nd uâ—leâ—â—e he prove there is no outward impeâ—iment to its ascent
that which proves one thing prove any thing hath translated into English and brought into this place to prove Free-will It is true very few have learned from Tutors that a man is not free to Will nor do they find it much in Books That they find in Books that which the Poets chant in their Theaters and the Shepheards in the Mountains that which the Pastors teach in the Churches and the Doctors in the Vniversities and that which the common people in the Markets and all mankind in the whole World do assent unto is the same that I assent unto namely that a man hath freedome to do if he will but whether he hath freedome to Will is a Question which it seems neither the Bishop nor they ever thought on g No man blameth fire for burning Cities nor taxeth poyson for destroying Men c. Here again he is upon his arguments from Blame which I have answered before and we do as much blame them as we do men for we say fire hath done hurt and the poyson hath killed a man as well as we say the man hath done unjustly but we do not seek to be revenged of the fire and of poyson because we cannot make them ask forgiveness as we would make men to do when they hurt us so that the blaming of the one and the other that is the declaring of the hurt or evill action done by them is the same in both but the malice of man is onely against man h No man sins in doing those things which he could not shun He may as well say no man halts which cannot chuse but halt or stumbles that cannot chuse but stumhlâ— For what is sin but halting or stumbling in the way of Gods Commandements i The Question then is not whether a man be necessitated to will or nill yet free to act or forbear But saving the ambiguous acceptions of the word Free the Question is plainly this c. This Question which the Bishop stateth in this place I have before set down verbatim and allowed and it is the same with mine though he perceave it not But seeing I did nothing but at his request set down my opinion there can be no other Question between us in this controversie but whether my opinion be the truth or not k So my preface remains yet unanswered Either I was extrinsecally and inevetably predetermined to write this discourse c. That which he sayes in the preface is that if he be not Free to write this discourse he ought not to be blamed But if he be Free he hath obteined the cause The first consequence I should have granted him if he had written it rationally and civilly the later I deny and have shown that he ought to have proved that a man is Free to Wil. For that which he sayes any thing else whatsoever would think if it know it were moved and did not know what moved it A woodden Top that is lasht by the Boyes and runs about sometimes to one Wall sometimes to another somtimes spinning sometimes hitting men on the shins if it were sensible of its own motion would think it proceeded from its own Will unless it felt what lasht it And is a man any wiser when he runns to one place for a Benefice to another for a Bargain and troubles the world with writing errors and requiring answers because he thinks he doth it without other cause than his own Will and seeth not what are the lashings that cause his Will J. D. ANd so to fall in hand with the Question without any further proems or prefaces By Liberty I do neither Numb 4. understand a liberty from sin nor a liberty from misery nor a liberty from servitude nor a liberty from violence but I understand a liberty from Necessity ' or rather from Necessitation that is an universal immunity from all inevitability and determination to one whether it be of exercise onely which the Schooles cal a liberty of contradiction and is found in God and in the good and bad Angels that is not a liberty to do both good and evill but a liberty to do or not to do this or that good this or that evill respectively or whether it be a liberty of specification and exercise also which the Schooles call liberty of contrariety and is found in men indowed with reason and understanding that is a llberty to do and not to do good and evill this or that Thus the coast being cleared c. T. H. IN the next place he maketh certain distinctions of liberty and sayes he means not liberty from sin nor from servitude nor from violence but from Necessity Necessitation inevitability and determination to one It had been better to define liberty than thus to distinguish for I understand never the more what he means by liberty And though he sayes he means liberty from Necessitation yet I understand not how such a liberty can be and it is a taking of the Question without proof for what else is the Question between ut but whether such a liberty he possible or not There are in the same place other distinctions as a liberty of exercise onely which he calls a liberty of contradiction namely of doing not good or evill simply but of doing this or that good or this or that evill respectively And a liberty of specification and exercise also which he calls a liberty of contrariety namely a liberty not onely to do or not to do good or evill but also to do or not to do this or that good or evill And with these distinctions he sayes he clears the coast whereas in truth he darkneth his meaning not onely with the Jargon of exercise onely specification also contradiction contrariety but also with pretending distinction where none is for how is it possible for the liberty of doing or not doing this or that good or evill to consist as he sayes it doth in God and Angels without a liberty of doing or not doing good or evill J. D. a IT is a rule in art that words which are homonymous of various and ambiguous significations ought ever in the first place to be distinguished No men delight in confused generalities but either Sophisters or Bunglers Vir dolosus versatur in generalibus deceitful men do not love to descend to particulars and when bad Archers shoot the safest way is to run to the marke Liberty is sometimes opposed to the slavery of sin and vitious habits as Rom. 6. 22. Now being made free from sin Sometimes to misery and oppression Isay 58. 6. To let the oppressed go free Sometimes to servitude as Levit. 25. 10. In the year of Jubilee ye shall proclaim liberty throughout the land Sometimes to violence as Psal. 105. 20. The prince of his people let him go free Yet none of all these are the liberty now in question but a liberty from necessity that is a determination to one or rather from necessitation that is a necessity imposed
it s left to her Husbands choice either to establish it or to make it void And Josh. 24. 15. Choose you this day whom you will serve c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. He makes his own choice and leaves them to the liberty of their election And 2 Sam. 24 12. I offer thee three things choose thee which of them I shall do If one of these three things was necessarily determined and the other two impossible how was it left to him to choose what should be done Therefore we have true liberty T. H. ANd the first place of Scripture taken from Numb 30. 14 is one of them that look another way The words are If a Wife make a vow it is left to her Husbands choice either to establish it or make it void for it prooves no more but that the Husband is a free or voluntary Agent but not that his choice therein is not necessitated or not determined to what he shall choose by praecedent necessary causes J. D. MY first Argument from Scripture is thus formed Arg. 1. Whosoever have a liberty or power of election are not determined to one by praecedent necessary causes But men have liberty of election The assumption or minor proposition is prooved by three places of Scripture Numb 30. 14. Josh. 24. 15. 2 Sam. 24. 12. I need not insist upon these because T. H. acknowledgeth that it is clearly prooved that there is election in Man But he denieth the major Proposition because saith he Man is necessitated or determined to what he shall choose by praecedent necessary causes I take away this answer three wayes First by Reason Election is evermore either of things 1. possible or at least of things conceived to be possible that is efficacious election when a man hopeth or thinketh of obteining the object Whatsoever the will chooseth it chooseth under the notion of good either honest or delightful or profitable but there can be no reall goodness apprehended in that which is known to be impossible It is true there may be some wandring pendulous wishes of known impossibilities as a man also that hath comitted an offence may wish he had not committed it but to choose efficaciously an impossibility is as impossible as an impossibility it self No man can think to obtein that which he knows impossible to be obteined but he who knows that all things are antecedently determined by necessary causes knows that it is impossible for any thing to be otherwise than it is Therefore to ascribe unto him a power of election to choose this or that indifferently is to make the same thing to be determined to one and to be not determined to one which are contradictories Again whosoever hath an elective power or a liberty to choose hath also a liberty or power to refuse Isa. 7. 10. Before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good He who chooseth this rather than that refuseth that rather than this As Moses choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God did thereby refuse the pleasures of sin Heb. 11. 24. But no man hath any power to refuse that which is necessarily praedetermined to be unlesse it be as the Fox refused the Grapes which were beyond his reach When one thing of two or three is absolutely determined the other are made thereby simply impossible a Secondly I proove it by instances and by that universal 2. notion which the world hath of election what is the difference between an elective and hereditary Kingdom but that in an elective Kingdom they have power or liberty to choose this or that Man indifferently But in an hereditary Kingdome they have no such power nor liberty Where the Law makes a certain Heir there is a necessitation to one where the Law doth not name a certain Heir there is no necessitation to one and there they have power or liberty to choose An haereditary prince may be as grateful and acceptable to his subjects and as willingly received by them according to that liberty which is opposed to compulsion or violence as he who is chosen yet he is not therefore an elective Prince In Germany all the Nobility and Commons may assent to the choice of the Emperour or be well pleased with it when it is concluded yet none of them elect or choose the Emperour but onely those six Princes who have a consultative deliberative and determinative power in his Election And if their votes or suffrages be equally divided three to three then the King of Bohemia hath the casting voice So likewise in Corporations or Common-wealths sometimes the People sometimes the Common Councell have power to name so many persons for such an office and the Supreme Magistrate or Senate or lesser Councel respectively to choose one of those And all this is done with that caution and secrecy by billets or other means that no man knowes which way any man gave his vote or with whom to be offended If it were necessarily and inevitably predetermined that this individual person and no other shall and must be chosen what needed all this circuit and caution to do that which is not possible to be done otherwise which one may do as well as a thousand and for doing of which no rational man can be offended if the electors were necessarily predetermined to elect this man and no other And though T. H. was pleased to passe by my University instance yet I may not untill I see what he is able to say unto it The Junior of the Mess in Cambridge divides the meat in four parts the Senior chooseth first then the second and third in their order The Junior is determined to one and hath no choice left unless it be to choose whether he will take that part which the rest have refused or none at all It may be this part is more agreable to his mind that any of the others would have been but for all that he cannot be said to choose it because he is determined to this one Even such a liberty of election is that which is established by T. H. Or rather much worse in two respects The Junior hath yet a liberty of contradiction left to choose whether he will take that part or not take any part but he who is precisely predetermined to the choice of this object hath no liberty to refuse it Secondly the Junior by dividing carefully may preserve to himself an equal share but he who is wholly determined by extrinsecal causes is left altogether to the mercy and disposition of another Thirdly I proove it by the texts alleadged Numb 30. 3. 13. If a Wife make a vow it is left to her Husbands choice either to establish it or make it void But if it be predetermined that he shall establish it it is not in his power to make it void If it be predetermined that he shall make it void it is not in his power to establish it
earnest maintainers of the liberty of Adam Therefore none of these supposed impediments take away true liberty T. H. THe fourth Argument is to this effect If the decree of God or his foreknowledge or the influence of the Stars or the concatenation of causes or the physical or morall efficacy of causes or the last dictate of the understanding or whatsoever it be do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulous odi That which I say necessitateth and determineth every action that he may no longer doubt of my meaning is the sum of all those things which being now existent conduce and concurre to the production of that action hereafter whereof if any one thing now â—ere wanting the effect could not be produced This concourse of causes whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like concourse of former causes may well be called in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal cause of all things God Almighty the decree of God But that the fore-knowledge of God should be a cause of any thing cannot be truly said seeing fore-knowledge is knowledge and knowledge dependeth on the existence of the things known and not they on it The influence of the Stars is but a small part of the whole cause consisting of the concourse of all Agents Nor. doth the concourse of all causes make one simple chain or concatenation but an innumerable number of chains joyned together not in all parts but in the first link God Almighty and consequently the whole cause of an event does not alwayes depend upon one single chain but on many together Natural efficacy of objects does determine voluntary Agents and necessitates the Will and consequently the Action but for moral efficacy I understand not what he means by it The last dictate of the judgement concerning the good or bad that may follow on any action is not properly the whole cause but the last part of it And yet may be said to produce the effect necessarily in such manner as the last feather may be said to break an Horses back when there were so many laid on before as there wanted but that to do it Now for his Argument That if the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect that then it follows Adam had no true liberty I deny the consequence for I make not only the effect but also the election of that particular effect to be necessary in as much as the Will it self and each propension of a man during his deliberation is as much necessitated and depends on a sufficient cause as any thing else whatsoever As for example it is no more necessary that fire should burn then that a man or other creature whose limbs be moved by fancy should have election that is liberty to do what he has a fancy to though it be not in his will or power to choose his fancy or choose his election or will This Doctrine because he saies he hates I doubt had better been suppressed as it should have been if both your Lordship and he had not pressed me to an answer J. D. a THis Argument was sent forth onely as an espie to make a more full discovery what were the true grounds of T. H. his supposed Necessity which errand being done and the foundation whereupon he bnilds being found out which is as I called it a concatenation of causes and as he calls it a concourse of necessary causes It would now be a superfluous and impertineut work in me to undertake the refutation of all those other opinions which he doth not undertake to defend And therefore I shall wave them at the present with these short animadversions b Concerning the eternal decree of God he confounds the decree it self with the execution of his decree And concerning the fore-knowledge of God he confounds that speculative knowledge which is called the knowbedge of vision which doth not produce the intellective objects no more then the sensitive vision doth produce the sensible objects with that other knowledge of God which is called the knowledge of approbation or a practical knowledge that is knowledge joyned with an act of the Will of which Divines do truly say that it is the cause of things as the knowledge of the Artist is the cause of his work God made all things by his word John 1. that is by his wisdom Concerning the influence of the Stars I wish he had expressed himself more clearly For as I do willingly grant that those Heavenly Bodies do act upon these sublunary things not onely by their motion and light but also by an occuit vertue which we call influence as we see by manifold experience in the Loadstone and Shell-fish c. So if he intend that by these influences they do naturally or physically determine the Will or have any direct dominion over humane Counsels either in whole or in part either more or less he is in an errour Concerning the concatenation of causes where as he makes not one chain but an innumerable number of chains I hope he speaks hyperbolically and doth not intend that they are actually infinite the difference is not material whether one or many so long as they are all joyned together both in the first link and likewise in the effect It serves to no end but to shew what a shaddow of liberty T. H. doth fancy or rather what a dream of a shaddow As if one chain were not sufficient to load poor man but he must be clogged with iunumerable chains This is just such another freedom as the Turkish Galli-slaves do enjoy But I admire that T. H. who is so versed in this Question should here confess that he understands not the difference between physical or natural and moral efficacy And much more that he should affirm that outward objects do determine voluntary agents by a natural efficacy No object no second Agent Angel or Devill can determine the Will of man naturally but God alone in respect of his supreme dominion over all things Then the Will is determined naturally when God Almighty besides his general influence where upon all second causes do depend as well for their being as for their acting doth moreover at some times when it pleases him in cases extraordinary concurre by a special influence and infuse something into the Will in the nature of an act or an habit whereby the Will is moved and excited and applyed to will or choose this or that Then the Will is determined morally when some object is proposed to it with perswasive reasons and arguments to induce it to will Where the determination is natural the liberty to suspend its act is taken away from the will but not so where the determination is moral In the former case the Will is determined extrinsecally in the later case intrinsecally The former produceth an absolute necessity the later onely a necessity of supposition
it lies all Law First the eternall Law which is the ordination of divine Wisdom by which all Creaturs are directed to that end which is convenient for them that is not to necessitate them to eternall flames Then the Law participated which is the ordination of right reason instituted for the common good to shew unto man vvhat he ought to do and what he ought not to do To vvhat purpose is it to shevv the right vvay to him vvho is dravvn and haled a contrary vvay by Adamantine bonds of inevitalbe necessity g Lastly hovvsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin For he makes him to be the cause not onely of the Lavv and of the action but even of the irregularity it self and the difference betvveen the Action and the Lavv vvherein the very essence of sin doth consist He makes God to determine Davids Will and necessitate him to kill Uriah In causes physically and essentially subordiuate the cause of the cause is evermore the casue of the effect These are those deadly fruits vvhich spring from the poisonous root of the absolute necessity of all things vvhich T. H. seeing and that neither the sins of Esau nor Pharaoh nor any vvicked person do proceed from the operative but from the permissive Will of God and that punishment is an act of Justice not of dominion onely I hope that according to his promise he vvill change his opinion Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XII THE Bishop had argued in this manner If there be no Liberty there shall be no last Judgement no Revvards nor Punishments after death To this I answered that though God cannot sin because what he doth his doing maketh just and because he is not subject to anothers Law and that therefore it is blasphemy to say that God can sin yet to say that God hath so ordered the world that sin may necessarily be committed is not blasphemy And I can also further say though God be the cause of all motion and of all actions and therefore unless sin be no motion nor action it must derive a necessity from the first mover nevertheless it cannot be said that God is the Author of sin because not he that necessitateth an action but he that doth command and warrant it is the Author And if God own an action though otherwise it were sin it is now no sin The act of the Israelites in robbing the Egyptians of their Jewels without Gods warrant had been theft But it was neither theft cousonage nor sin supposing they knew the warrant was from God The rest of my answer to that inconvenience was an opposing to his inconveniences the manifest Texts of St. Paul Rom. 9. The substance of his Reply to my Answer is this a Though punishment vvere an act of dominion not of Justice in God yet this is no sufficient cause vvhy God should deny his ovvn act or vvhy he should chide or expostulate vvith men vvhy they did that vvhich he himself did necessitate them to do I never said that God denied his act but that he may expostulate with men And this may be I shall never say directly it is the reason of that his expostulation viz. to convince them that their wills were not independent but were his meer gift and that to do or not to do is not in him that willeth but in God that hath mercy on or hardeneth whom he will But the Bishop interpreteth hardening to be a permission of God Which is to attribute to God in such actions no more than he might have attributed to any of Pharaohs servants the not perswading their Master to let the People goe And whereas he compares this permission to the indulgence of a parent that by his patience incourageth his son to become more rebellious which indulgence is a sin he maketh God to be like a sinful man And indeed it seemeth that all they that hold this Freedome of the Will concieve of God no otherwise than the common sort of Jewes did that God was like a man that he had been seen by Moses and after by the seventy Elders Exod 9. 10. Expounding that and other places literally Again he saith that God is said to harden the heart permissively but not operatively which is the same distinction with his first namely negatively not positively and with his second occasionally and not causally so that all his three wayes how God hardens the heart of wicked meu come to this one of permission which is as much as to say God sees looks on and dâ—th nothing nor ever did any thing in the business Thus you see how the Bishoâ— expoundeth St. Paul Therefore I will leave the rest of his â—…mentary upon Rom. 9. to the judgement of the Reader to think of the same as he pleaseth b Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H saith That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent Will or by a consequent Will either by an operative Will or by a permissive Will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Whether it be called antecedent or consequent or operative or permissive it is enough for the necessity of the thing that the heart of Pharaoh should be hardened and if God were not willing to do it I cannot conceive how it could be done without him c T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the Action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the Action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evil by a general but not by a special influence I had thought to passe over this place because of the non-sense of general and special influence seeing he saith that God concurres to the doing of evil I desire the Reader would take notice that if he blame me for speaking of God as of a necessitating cause and as it were a principal Agent in the causing of all Actions he may with as good reason blame himself for making him by concurrence an accessory to the same and indeed let men hold what they will contrary to the truth if they write much the truth will fall into their pens But he thinks he hath a similitude which will make this permissive Will a very clear business The earth saith he gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yeilds food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the general nourishment of the earth but from the special quality of the root It seemeth by this similitude he thinketh that God doth not operatively but premissively Will that the root of Hemlock should poison the man that eateth it
born do all oblige us to the observation of them yet to none of all these did we give our actual consent Over and above all these exceptions he builds upon a wrong foundation that all Magestrates at first were elective The first Governours were Fathers of Families And when those petty Princes could not afford competent protection and security to their subjects many of them did resign their several and respective interists into the hands of one joint Father of the Country And though his ground had been true that all first Legislators were elective which is false yet his superstructure fails for it was done in hope and trust that they would make just Lawes If Magistrates abuse this trust and deceive the hopes of the people by making tyrannical Lawes yet it is without their consent A precedent trust doth not justifie the subsequent errours and abuses of a Trustee He who is duely elected a Legislator may exercise his Legislative power unduely The peoples implicite consent doth not render the tyrannical Lawes of their Legislators to be just d But his chiefest answer is that an action forhidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly it may be justly punished which according to his custome he proves by an instance A man necessitated to steal by the strength of temptation yet if he steal willingly is justly put to death Here are two things and both of them untrue First he fails in his assertion Indeed we suffer justly for those necessities which we our selves have contracted by our own fault but not for extrinsecal antecedent necessities w ch were imposed upon us without our fault If that Law do not oblige to punishment which is not intimated because the subject is invincibly ignorant of it How much less that Law which prescribes absolute impossibilities unless perhaps invincible necessity be not as strong a plea as invincible ignorance That which he adds if it were done willingly though it be of great moment if it be rightly understood yet in his sense that is if a mans will be not in his own disposition and if his willing do not come upon him according to his will nor according to any thing else in his power it weighs not half so much as the least feather in all his horse-load For if that Law be unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do then that Law is likewise unjust and tyrannical which commands him to wil that which is impossible for him to will Secondly his instance supposeth an untruth and is a plain begging of the Question No man is extrinsecally antecedently and irresistibly necessitated by temptation to steal The Devil may sollicite us but he cannot necessitate us He hath a faculty of perswading but not a power of compelling Nosignem habemus spiritus â—â—ammam ciet as Nazi anzen He blowes the coles but the fire is our own Mordet duntaxat sese in fauces illius objicientens as St. Austin he bites not until we thrust our selves into his mouth He may propose he may suggest but he cannot move the will effectively Resist the Devil and he will flie from you Jam. 4. 7. By faith we are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked Eph. 6. 16. And if Sathan who can both propose the object and choose out the fittest times and places to work upon our frailties and can suggest reasons yet cannot necessitate the will which is most certain then much less can outward objects do it alone They have no natural efficacy to determine the will Well may they be occasions but they cannot be causes of evil The sensitive appetite may engender a proclivity to steal but not a necessity to steal And if it should produce a kind of necessity yet it is but Moral not Natural Hypothetical not Absolute Coexistent not Antecedent from our selves nor Extrinsecall This necessity or rather proclivity was fâ—â—â— in its causes we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given it a kind of dominion over us Admit that some sudden passions may and do extraordinarily surprise us And therefore we say motus primo primi the first motions are not alwayes in our power neither are they free yet this is but very rarely and it is our own fault that they do surprise us Neither doth the Law punish the first motion to theft but the advised act of stealing The intention makes the thief But of this more largely Numb 25. e He pleads moreover that the Law is a cause of justice that it frames the wills of men to justice and that the punishment of one doth conduce to the preservation of many All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But this is no god-a-mercy to T. H. his opinion of absolute necessity If all actions and all events be predetermined Naturally Necessarily Extrinsecally how should the Law frame men morally to good actions He leaves nothing for the Law to do but either that which is done already or that which is impossible to be done If a man be chained to every individual act which he doth and from every act which he doth not by indissolvible bonds of inevitable necessity how should the Law either deterre him or frame him If a Dog be chained fast to a post the sight of a rod cannot draw him from it Make a thousand Lawes that the fire shall not burn yet it will burn And whatsoever men do according to T. H. they do it as necessarily as the fire burneth Hang up a thousand Theevs and if a man be determined inevitably to steal he must steal notwithstanding f He addes that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon delinquents respect not the evil act past but the good to come and that the putting of a delinquent to death by the Magistrate for any crime whatsoever cannot be justified before God except there be a reall intention to benefit others by his example The truth is the punishing of delinquents by Law respecteth both the evil act past and the good to come The ground of it is the evil act past the scope or end of it is the good to come The end without the ground cannot justifie the act A bad intention may make a good action bad but a good intention cannot make a bad action good It is not lawful to do evil that good may come of it nor to punish an innoceut person for the admonition of others that is to fall into a certain crime for fear of an uncertain Again though there were no other end of penalties inflicted neither probatory nor castigatory nor exemplary but only vindicatory to satisfie the Law out of a zeal of Justice by giving to every one his own yet the action is just and warrantable Killing as it is considered in it self without all undue circumstances was never prohibited to the lawful Magistrate who is the Vicegerent or
have withdrawn their obedience as Lions and Bears to shew that man hath lost the â—…cy of his dominion and the weakest creatures as Flies and Gnats to shew into what a degree of contempt he is fallen yet still the most profitable and useful creatures as Sheep and Oxen do in some degree retain their obedience i The next branch of his answer concernes consultations which saith he are not superfluous though all things come to pass necessarily because they are the cause which doth necessitate the effect and the means to bring it to pass We were told Numb 11. that the last dictate of right reason was but as the last feather which breaks the Horses back It is well yet that reason hath gained some command again and is become at least a Quarter-master Certainly if any thing under God have power to determine the will it is right reason But I have shewed sufficiently that reason doth not determine the will physically nor absolutely much less extrinsecally and antecedently and therefore it makes nothing for that necessity which T. H. hath undertaken to prove k He adds further that as the end is necessary so are the means And when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another it is determined also for what cause it shall be so chosen All which is truth but not the whole truth for as God ordaines means for all ends so he adapts and fits the means to their respective ends free means to free ends contingent means to contingent ends necessary means to necessary ends whereas T. H. would have all means all ends to be necessary If God hath so ordered the World that a man ought to use and may freely use those means of God which he doth neglect not by vertue of Gods decree but by his own fault If a man use those means of evil which he ought not to use and which by Gods decree he had power to forbear If God have left to man in part the free managery of human affairs and to that purpose hath endowed him with understanding then consultations are of use then provident care is needfull then it concerns him to use the means But if God have so ordered this world that a man cannot if he would neglect any means of good which by vertue of Gods decree it is possible for him to use and that he cannot possibly use any means of evill but those which are irresistibly and inevitably imposed upon him by an antecedent decree then not onely consultations are vain but that noble facnâ—ty of reason it self is vain do we think that we can help God Almighty to do his proper work In vain we trouble our selves in vain we take care to use those means which are not in our power to use or not to use And this is that which was conteined in my prolepsis or prevention of his answer though he be pleased both to disorder it and to silence it We cannot hope by our labours to alter the course of things set down by God let him perform his decree let the necessary causes do their work If we be those causes yet we are not in our own disposition we must do what we are ordained to do and more we cannot do Man hath no remedy but patience and to shrug up the shoulders This is the doctrine flowes from this opinion of absolute necessity Let us suppose the great wheel of the clock which sets all the little wheels a going to be as the decree of God that the motion of it were perpetually infallible from an intrinsecal principle even as Gods decree is Infallible Eternal All-sufficient Let us suppose the lesser wheels to be the second causes and that they do as certainly follow the motion of the great wheel without missing or swerving in the least degree as the second causes do pursue the determination of the first cause I desire to know in this case what cause there is to call a Councill of Smiths to consult and order the motion of that which was ordered and determined before to their hands Are men wiser than God yet all men know that the motion of the lesser wheels is a necessary means to make the clock sirike l But he tells me in great sadness that my Argument is just like this other If I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self through with a sword to day which saith he is a false consequence and a false proposition Truly if by running through he understands killing it is a false or rather a foolish proposition and implyes a contradiction To live till to morrow and â—o dye to day are inconsistent But by his favour this is not my consequence but this is his own opinion He would perswade us that it is absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to morrow and yet that it is possible that he may kill himself to day My Argument is this If there be a liberty and possibility for a man to kill himself to day then it is not absolutely necessary that he shall live till tomorrow but there is such a liberty therefore no such necessity And the consequence which I make here is this If it be absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to morrow then it is vain and superfluous for him to consult and deliberate whether he should dye to day or not And this is a true consequence The ground of his mistake is this that though it be true that a man may kill himself to day yet upon the supposition of his absolute necessity it is impossible Such Heterogeneous arguments and instances he produceth which are half builded upon our true grounds and the other half upon his false grounds m The next branch of my argument concerns Admonitions to which he gives no new answer and therefore I need not make any new reply saving onely to tell him that he mistakes my argument I say not onely If all things be necessary then admonitions are in vain but if all things be necessary then it is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or mad men That they do admonish the one and not the other is confessedly true and no reason under heaven can be given for it but this that the former have the use of reason and true liberty with a dominion over their own actions which children fools and mad men have not Concerning praise and dispraise he inlargeth himself The scope of his discourse is that things necessary may be praise-worthy There is no doubt of it but withal their praise reflects upon the free agent as the praise of a statue reflects upon the workman who made it To praise a thing saith he is to say it is good n True but this goodness is not a Metaphysical goodness so the worst of things and whatsoever hath a being is good Nor a Natural goodness The praise of it passeth wholly to the Author of Nature
perceave so easie a truth as this which he denieth The Bible is a Law To whom To all the World He knowes it is not How came it then to be a Law to us Did God speak it viva voce to us Have we then any other Warrant for it than the Word of the Prophets Have we seen the miracles Have we any other assurance of their certainty than the authority of the Church and is the authority of the Church any other than the authority of the Commonwealth or that of the Commonwealth any other than that of the Head of the Common-wealth or hath the Head of the Commonwealth any other authority than that which hath been given him by the Members Else why should not the Bible be Canonical as well in Constantinople as in any other place They that have the Legislative power make nothing Canon which they make not Law nor Law which they make not Canon And because the Legislative power is from the assent of the subjects the Bible is made Law by the assent of the subjects It was not the Bishop of Rome that made the Scripture Law without his own temporal Dominions nor is it the Clergy that make it Law in their Dioceses and Rectories Nor can it be a Law of it self without special and supernatural revelation The Bishop thinks because the Bible is Law and he is appointed to teach it to the people in his Diocese that therefore it is Law to whom soever he teach it which is somewhat grosse but not so grosse as to say that Conquerors who come in by tho power of the sword make their Lawes also without our assent He thinks belike that if a Conquerour can kill me if he please I am presently obliged without more a doe to obey all his Lawes May not I rather dye if I think fit The Conquerour makes no Law over the Conquered by vertue of his power but by vertue of their assent that promised obedience for the saving of their lives But how then is the assent of the Children obtained to the Laws of their Ancestors This also is from the desire of preserving their lives which first the Parents might take away where the Parents be free from all subjection and where they are not there the Civil power might do the same if they doubted of their obedience The Children therefore when they be grown up to strength enough to do mischeif and to judgement enough to know that other men are kept from doing mischeif to them by fear of the Sword that protecteth them in that very act of receiving that protection and not renouncing it openly do oblige themselves to obey the Lawes of their Protectors to which inreceaving such protection they have assented And whereas he saith the Law of Nature is a Law without our assent it is absurd for the Law of Nature is the Assent it self that all men give to the means of their own preservation d But his cheifest answer is that An action forbidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly may be justly punished c. This the Bishop also understandeth not and therefore denies it He would have the Judge condemne no man for a crime if it were necessitated as if the Judge could know what acts are necessary unless he knew all that hath anteceded both visible and invisible and what both every thing in it self and altogether can effect It is enough to the Judge that the act he condemneth be voluntary The punishment whereof may if not capital reforme the will of the offender if capital the will of others by example For heat in one body doth not more create heat in another than the terrour of an example creatâ—th fear in another who otherwise were inclined to commit injustice Some few lines before he hath said that I built upon a wrong foundation namely That all Magistrates were at first elective I had forgot to tell you that I never said nor though it And therefore his Reply as to that point is impertinent Not many lines after for a reason why a man may not be justly punished when his crime is voluntary he offereth this that Law is unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to Will that which is impossible for him to Will Whereby it appears he is of opinion that a Law may be made to command the Will The stile of a Law is Do this or Do not this or If thou Do this thou shalt Suffer this but no Law runs thus Will this or Will not this or If thou have a Will to this thou shalt Suffer this He objecteth further that I hegg the question because no mans Will is necessitated Wherein he mistakes for I say no more in that place but that he that doth evill willingly whether he be necessarily willing or not necessarily may be justly punished And upon this mistake he runneth over again his former and already answered non-sense saying we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given them a kind of dominion over us and again motus primo primi the first motions are not alwayes in our power Which motus primo primi signifies nothing and our negligence in not opposing our passions is the same with our want of Will to oppose our Will which is absurd and that we have given them a kind of dominion over us either signifies nothing or that we have a dominion over our Wills or our Wills a dominion over us and consequently either we or our wills are not Free e He pleads moreover that the Law is a cause of Justice c. All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But I have shown that all Lawes are just as Lawes and therefore not to be accused of injustice by those that owe subjection to them and a just Law is alwayes justly executed Seeing then that he confesseth that all that he replieth to here is true it followeth that the Reply it self where it contradicteth me is false f He addeth that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon Delinquents respect not the evil act past but the good to come and that the putting of a Delinquent to death by the Magistrate for any crime whatsoever cannot be justified before God except there be a reall intention to benefit others by his example This he neither confirmeth nor denieth and yet forbeareth not to discourse upon it to little purpose and therefore I pass it over g First he told us that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his Actions though he command one thing openly and plot another thing secretly though he be the cause not onely of the Action but also of the irregularity c. To all this which hath been pressed before I have answered also before but that he sayes I say having commanded one thing openly he plots another thing secretly it is not mine but one of his own ugly Phrases And the
debt That cannot â—e for they have no sense of debt or duty And I think he will not say that they have received a command to obey him from authority It resteth therefore that the dominion of man consists in this that men are too hard for Lions and Bears because though a Lion or a Bear be stronger than a man yet the strength and art and specially the Leaguâ—ing and Societies of men are a greater power than the ungoverned strength of unruly Beasts In this it is that consisteth this dominion of man and for the same reason when a hungry Lion meeteth an unarmed man in a desert the Lion hath the dominion over the man if that of man over Lions or over Sheeep and Oxen may be called dominion which properly it cannot nor can it be said that Sheep and Oxen do otherwise obey us than they would do a Lion And if we have dominion over Sheep and Oxen we exercise it not as dominion but as hostility for we keep them onely to labour and to be kill'd and devoured by us so that Lions and Bears would be as good Maters to them as we are By this short passage of his concerning Dominion and Obedience I have no reason to expect a very shrewd answer from him to my Leviathan i The next branch of his Answer concerns Consultations which saith he are not superfluous though all things come to pass necessarily because they are the cause which doth necessitate the effect and the means to bring it to pass His Reply to this is that he hath shewed sufficiently that reason doth not determine the will Physically c. If not Physically how then As he hath told us in another place Morally But what it is to determine a thing Morally no man living understands I doubt not but be had therefore the Will to write this Reply because I had answered his Treatise concerning true Liberty My answer therefore was at least in part the cause of his writing yet that is the cause of the nimble local motion of his fingers Is not the cause of local motion Physical His Will therefore was Physically and Extrinsecally and Antecedently and not Morally caused by my writing k He adds further that as the end is necessary so are the means And when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another it is determined also for what cause it shall be so chosen All which is truth but not the whole truth c. Is it not enough that it is truth must I put all the truth I know into two or three lines No. I should have added that God doth adapt and fit the means to their respective ends free means to free ends contingent means to contingent ends necessary means to necessary ends It may be I would have done so but for shame Free Contingent and Necessary are not words that can be joined to Means or Ends but to Agents and Actions that is to say to things that moove or are moved A Free Agent being that whose motion or action is not hindered nor stopt And a Free Action that which is produced by a Free Agent A Contingent Agent is the same with an Agent simply But because men for the most part think those things are produced without cause whereof they do not see the cause they use to call both the Agent and the Action Contingent as attributing it to fortune And therefore when the causes are Necessary if they perceive not the necessity they call those necessary Agents and Actions in things that have Appetite Free and in things inanimate Contingent The rest of his Reply to this point is very little of it applied to my answer I note onely that where he sayes but if God have so ordered the World that a man cannot if he would neglect any means of good c. He would fraudulently insinuate that it is my opinion that a man is not Free to Do if he will and to Abstain if he will Whereas from the beginning I have often declared that it is none of my opinion and that my opinion is only this that he is not Free to Will or which is all one he is not Master of his future Will After much unorderly discourse he comes in with This is the doctrine that flows from this opinion of absolute Necessity which is impertinent seeing nothing flows from it more than may be drawn from the confession of an eternal Prescience l But he tells me in great sadness that my Argument is no better than this If I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self thorow with a sword to day which saith he is a false consequence and a false proposition Truly if by running through he understand killing it is a false or rather a foolish proposition He saith right Let us therefore see how it is not like to his He sayes If it be absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to morrow then it is vain and superfluous for him to consult whether he should dye to day or not And this he sayes is a true consequence I cannot perceive how it is a better consequence than the former for if it be absolutely necessary that a man should live till to morrow and in health which may also be supposed why should he not if he have the curiosity have his head cut off to try what pain it is But the consequence is false for if there be a necessity of his living it is necessary also that he shall not have so foolish a curiosity But he cannot yet distinguish between a seen and unseen necessity and that is the cause he beleeveth his consequence to be good m The next branch of my Argument concerns Admonitions c. Which he saies is this If all things be necessary then it is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or madmen but That they do admonish the one and not the other is confessedly true and no reason under heaven can be given for it but this that the former have the use of reason and true liberty with a dominion over their own actions which children fools and madmen have not The true reason why we admonish men and not children c. is because admonition is nothing else but telling a man the good and evil consequences of his actions They who have experience of good and evill can better perceive the reasonableness of such admonition than they that have not and such as have like passions to those of the Admonitor do more easily conceive that to be good or bad which the Admonitor sayeth is so than they who have great passions and such as are contrary to his The first which is want of experience maketh children and fools unapt and the second which is strength of passion maketh madmen unwilling to receive admonition for children are ignorant and mad men in an errour concerning what is good or evill for themselves This
It may be he will say he has done it in calling them Annalogical yet for any thing that can be understood thereby he might have called them Paragogical or Typical or Topical if he had pleased He adds further that whereas he had said that the action of Bees and Spiders were done without consultation by meer instinct of nature and by a determination of their fancies I missaleadge him and say he made their individuall Actions necessary I have onely this to answer that seeing he sayes that by instinct of nature their fancies were determined to special kinds of works I might justly inferre they were determined every one of them to some work and every work is an individual action for a kind of work in the general is no work But these their individual actions he saith are contingent and therefore not necessary which is no good consequence for if he mean by contingent that which has no cause he speaketh not as a Christian but maketh a Deity of Fortune which I verily think he doth not But if he mean by it that whereof he knoweth not the cause the consequence is naught The means whereby Setting-dogs and Coy-ducks and Parats are taught to do what they do is by their backs by their bellies by the rod or by the morsell which have indeed a shaddow or resemblance of rewards and punishments But we take the word here properly not as it is used by vulgar plople but as it is used by Divines and Philosophers c. Does not the Bishop know that the Belly hath taught Poets and Historians and Divines and Philosophers and Artificers their several Arts as well as Parrats Do not men do their duty with regard to their backs to their necks and to their morsells as well as Setting-dogs Coy-ducks and Parrats Why then are these things to us the substance and to them but the shadow or resemblance of rewards or punishments p When brute creatures do learn any such qualities it is not out of judgement or deliberation or discourse by inferring or concluding one thing from another which they are not capable of neither are they able to conceive a reason of what they do c. but they remember that when they did after one manner they were beaten and when they did after another manner they were cherished and accordingly they apply themselves If the Bishop had considered the cogitations of his own mind not then when he disputeth but then when he followed those businesses which he calleth trifles he would have found them the very same which he here mentioneth saving instead of beating because he is exempt from that he is to put in dammage For setting aside the discourse of the tongue in words of general signification the Idea's of our minds are the same with those of other living creatures created from Visible Audible and other sensible objects to the eyes and other Organs of sence as theirs are For as the objects of sense are all individual that is singular so are all the fancies proceeding from their operations and men reason not but in words of universal signification uttered or tacitely thought on But perhaps he thinketh remembrance of words to be the Idea's of those things which the words signifie and that all fancies are not effected by the operation of Objects upon the Organs of our senses But to rectifie him in those points is greater labour unless he had better principles than I am willing or have at this timâ— leasure to undergo Lastly whereas he sayes if their Individual actions were absolutely necessary Fear or Hope could not alter them That 's true For it is Fear and Hope that makes them necessarily what they are J. D. THirdly let this opinion be once radicated in the minds Numb 15. Arg. 3. of men that there is no true liberty and that all things come to pass inevitably and it will utterly destroy the study of Piety Who will bewaile his sins with tears what will become of that Grief that Zeal that Indignation that holy Revenge which the Apostle speaks of if men be once throughly perswaded that they could not shun what they did A man may grieve for that which he could not help but he will never be brought to bewaile that as his own fault which flowed not from his own errour but from antecedent necessity Who will be careful or sollicitous to performe obedience that beleeveth there are inevitable bounds and limits set to all his devotions which he can neither go beyond nor come short of To what end shall he pray God to avert those evils which are inevitable or to confer those favours which are impossible We indeed know not what good or evill shall happen to us but this we know that if all things be necessary our devotions and endeavours cannot alter that which must be In a word the onely reason why those persons who tread in this path of fatal destiny do sometimes pray or repent or serve God is because the light of nature and the strength of reason and the evidence of Scripture do for that present transport them from their ill chosen grounds and expell those Stoical fancies out of their heads A compleate Stoick can neither pray nor repent nor serve God to any purpose Either allow liberty or destroy Church as well as Commonwealth Religion as well as Policy T. H. HIs third Argument consisteth in other inconveniences which he saith will follow namely impiety and negligence of Religious duties Repentance and zeal to Gods service To which I answer as to the rest that they follow not I must confess if we consider the far greatest part of mankind not as they should be but as they are that is as men whom either the study of acquiring wealth or preferments or whom the apperite of sensual delights or the impatience of meditating or the rash imbracing of wrong principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things that the dispute of this question will rather hurt than help their piety And therefore if he had not desired this answer I would not have written it Nor do I write it but in hope your Lordship and he will keep it private Nevertheless in very truth the necessity of events does not of it self draw with it any impiety at all For piety consisteth onely in two things One that we honour God in our hearts which is that we think of his power as highly as we can for to honour any thing is nothing else but to think it to be of great power The other that we signifie that honour and esteem by our words and actions which is called cultus or worship of God He therefore that thinketh that all things proceed from Gods Eternal Will and consequently are necessary does he not think God Omnipotent does he not esteem of his power as highly as is possible which is to honour God as much as can be in his heart Again he that thinketh so is he not more apt by external
according to this description many necessary actions should be contingent and many contingent actions should be necessary The Loadstone draweth Iron the Jet chaff we know not how and yet the effect is necessary and so it is in all Sympathies and Antipathies or occult qualities Again a man walking in the streets a Tile falls down from an house and breaks his head We know all the causes we know how this came to pass The man walked that way the pin failed the Tile fell just when he was under it And yet this is a contingent effect The man might not have walked that way and then the Tile had not fallen upon him Neither yet do I understand here in this place by contingents such events as happen beside the scope or intention of the Agents as when a man digging to make a grave finds a Treasure though the word be sometimes so taken But by contingents I understand all things which may be done and may not be done may happen or may not happen by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes And those same things which are absolutely Incontingent are yet Hypothetically necessary As supposing the passenger did walk just that way just at that time and that the pin did faile just then and the Tile fall it was necessary that it should fall upon the Passengers head The same defence will keep out his shower of rain But we shall meet with his shower of rain again Number 34. Whither I referre the further explication of this point Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XVI IN this Number he would prove that there must be Free Agents and Contingent Agents as well as Necessary Agents from the Order Beauty and Perfection of the World I that thought that the Order Beauty and Perfection of the World required that which was in the World and not that which the Bishop had need of for his Argument could see no force of consequence to inferre that which he calls Free and Contingent That which is in the World is the Order Beauty and Perfection which God hath given the World and yet there are no Agents in the World but such as work a seen Necessity or an unseen Necessity and when they work an unseen Necessity in creatures inanimate then are those creatures said to be wrought upon Contingently and to work Contingently And when the Necessity unseen is of the actions of men then it is commonly called Free and might be so in other living creatures for Free and Voluntary are the same thing But the Bishop in his Reply hath insisted most upon this that I make it a contradiction to say that He that maketh a thing doth not make it necessary and wonders how a Contradiction can be in one Proposition and yet within two or three lines after found it might be and therefore to clear the matter he sayes that such Necessity is not Antecedent but a Necessity of Supposition which nevertheless is the same kind of Necessity which he attributeth to the burning of the fire where there is a necessity that the thing thrown into it shall be burned though yet it be but burning or but departing from the hand that throwes it in and therefore the Necessity is Antecedent The like is in making a Garment the Necessity begins from the first motion towards it which is from Eternity though the Taylor and the Bishop are equally unsensible of it If they saw the whole order and conjunction of Causes they would say it were as Necessary as any thing else can possibly be and therefore God that sees that order and conjunction knowes it is necessary The rest of his Reply is to argue a contradiction in me for he sayes a I grant that there are some Free Agents and some Contingent Agents and that perhaps the beauty of the World doth require it but like a shrewd Cow which after she hath given her milk casts it down with her foot in the conclusion I tell him that nevertheless they are all necessary It is true that I say some are Free Agents and some Contingent nevertheless they may be all necessary For according to the significations of the words Necessary Free and Contingent the distinction is no more but this of Necessary Agents some are Necessary and some are Agents and of Agents some are living creatures and some are inanimate which words are improper but the meaning of them is this men call necessary Agents such as they know to be necessary and contingent Agents such inanimate things as they know not whether they work necessarily or no and by free Agents men whom they know not whether they work necessarily or no. All which confusion ariseth from that presumptuous men take for granted that that is not whith they know not b Neither do I approve his definition of Contingents that they are such Agents as work we know not how The reason is because it would follow that many necessary Actions should be contingent and many contingent Actions necessary But that which followeth from it really is no more but this That many necessary Actions would be such as we know not to be necessary and many Actions which we know not to be necessary may yet be necessary which is a truth But the Bishop defineth Contingents thus All things which may be done and may not be done may happen or may not happen by reason of the Indetermination or accidental concurrence of the Causes By which definition Contingent is nothing or it is the same that I say it is For there is nothing can be done and not be done nothing can happen and not happen by reason of the Indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes It may be done or not done for ought he knowes and happen or not happen for any determination he perceaveth and that is my definition But that the indetermination can make it happen or not happen is absurd for indetermination maketh it equally to happen or not to happen and therefore both which is a contradiction Therefore indetermination doth nothing and whatsoever causes do is necessary J. D. FIftly take away liberty and you take away the very nature Numb 17. Arg. 5. of evil and the formal reason of sin If the hand of the Painter were the law of painting or the hand of the Writer the law of writing whatsoever the one did write or the other paint must infallibly be good Seeing therefore that the first cause is the rule and Law of goodness if it do necessitate the will or the person to evil either by it self immediatly or mediatly by necessary flux of second causes it will no longer be evill The essence of sin consists in this that one commit that which he might avoid If there be no liberty to produce sin there is no such thing as sin the world Therefore it appears both from Scripture and Reason that there is true Liberty T. H. TO the fift Argument from reason which is that
innocent person that good may come of it And if his opinion of absolute necessity of all things were true the destinies of men could not be altered either by examples or fear of punishment Animadversions upon the Reply Numb XVII WHereas he had in his first discourse made this consequence If you take away Liberty you take away the very nature of evil and the formal reason of sin I denied that consequence It is true he who taketh away the Liberty of doing according to the will taketh away the nature of sin but he that denieth the Liberty to Will does not so But he supposing I understood him not will needs reduce his argument into form in this manner a That opinion which takes away the formal reason of sin and by consequence Sin â—t self is not to be approved This is granted But the opinion of necessity doth this This I deny He proves it thus This opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause But whatsoever proceedes essentially by way of Physical determination from the first cause is Good and Just and Lawfull Therefore this opinion of necessity maketh sin to be very Good Just and Lawfull He might as well have concluded whatsoever man hath been made by God is a good and just man He observeth not that sin is not a thing really made Those things which at first were actions were not thâ—n sins though actions of the same nature with those which were afterwards sins nor was then the will to any thing a sin though it were a will to the same thing which in willing now we should sin Actions became sins then first when the commandement came for as St. Paul saith Without the Law sin is dead and sin being but a transgression of the Law there can be no action made sin but by the Law Therefore this opinion though it derive actions essentially from God it derives not sins essentially from him but relatively and by the Commandement And consequently the opinion of necessity taketh not away the nature of sin but necessitateth that action which the Law hath made sin And whereas I said the nature of sin consisteth in this that it is an action proceeding from our will and against the Law he alloweth it for true and therefore he must allow also that the formal reason of sin lieth not in the Liberty or necessity of willing but in the will it self necessary or unnecessary in relation to the Law And whereas he limits this truth which he allowed to this that the Law be just and the will a Free rational Will it serves to no purpose for I have shown before that no Law can be unjust And it seemeth to me that a rationall Will if it be not meant of a Will after deliberation whether he that deliberateth reasoneth aright or not signifieth nothing A rational man is rightly said but a rational Will in other sense then I have mentioned is insignificant b But supposing as he doth that the Law injoynes things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrannical Law and the transgression of it no sin c. And supposing likewise as he doth that the Will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause then it is not mans Will but Gods Will. He mistakes me in this For I say not the Law injoyns things impossible in themselves for so I should say it injoyned contradictories But I say the Law sometimes the Law-makers not knowing the secret necessities of things to come injoynes things made impossible by secret and extrinsicall causes from all eternity From this hâ—s error he infers that the Laws must be unjust and Tyrannical and the transgression of them no sin But he who holds that Laws can be unjust and Tyrannical will easily find pretence enough under any Government in the World to deny obedience to the Laws unlesse they be such as he himself maketh or adviseth to be made He says also that I suppose the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause It is true saving that senselesse word Influence which I never used But his consequence then it is not mans Will but Gods will is not true for it may be the Will both of the one and of the other and yet not by concurrence as in a league but by subjection of the will of man to the Will of God c That which he adds of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civil Judge the proper Judge nor the Law of the Land a proper Rule of sin A Judge is to judge of voluntary crimes He has no commission to look into the secret causes that make it voluntary An because the Bishop had said the Law cannot justly punish a crime that proceedeth from necessity it was no impertinent answer to say the Judge lookes at no higher cause then the Will of the Doer And even this as hâ— sayeth is enough to proove that the Will of the Doer did determine it self freely and that the Malefactor had liberty to have kept the Law if he would To which I answer that it proves indeed that the Malefactor had Liberty to have kept the Law if hâ— would but it proveth not that he had the Liberty to have a Will to keep the Law Nor doth it prove that the Will of the Doer dâ—d determine it self freely for nothing can prove non-sence But here you see what the Bishop pâ—â—sueth in this whole Reply namely to prove that a man hath Liberty to do if he will which I deny not and thinks when he hath done that he hath proved a man hath Liberty to Will which he calles the Wills determining of it self freely And whereas he adds a Judge ought to look at all essential causes It is answer enough to say he is bound to look at no more then hee thinks he can see d Nature never intends the generation of a Monster If all the causes concur sufficiently a perfect creature is produced but by reason of the insufficiency or debility or contingent aberration of some of the causes sometimes a Monster is produced He had no sooner said this but finding his error he retracteth it and confesseth that the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is of a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced Which is all that I intended by sufficiency of the cause But whether every suffâ—â—â—â—nt cause be a necessary cause or not he meaneth to examine in Numb 31. In the meane time he saith onely that Liberty flows from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause and leaves out necessity as if it came from neither I must note also that where he says Nature never intends the generation of a Monster I understand not whether by nature he meane the Author of Nature in which meaning it derogates from God or nature it self as
drinking or gaming Jam. 1. 14. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and entised Disordered passions of anger hatred lust if they be consequent as the case is here put by T. H. and flow from deliberation and election they do not only not diminish the fault but they aggravate it and render it much greater h He talks much of the motives to do the motives to forbear how they work upon and determine a man as if a reasonable man were no more than a Tennis-ball to be tossed to and fro by the Rackets of the second causes As if the will had no power to moove it self but were meerly passive like an artificiall Popingay remooved hither and thither by the bolts of the Archers who shoot on this side and on that What are motives but reasons or discourses framed by the understanding and freely mooved by the will What are the will and the understanding but faculties of the same soul and what is liberty but a power resulting from them both To say that the will is determined by these motives is as much as to say that the Agent is determined by himself If there be no necessitation before the judgment of right reason doth dictate to the will then there is no antecedent no extrinsecal necessitation at all i All the world knows that when the Agent is determined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause But if he determined himself freely then the effect is free Motives determine not naturally but morally which kind of determination may consist with true liberty But if T. H. his opinion were true that the will were naturally determined by the Physical and special influence of extrinsecal causes not onely motives were vain but reason it self and deliberation were vain No saith he they are not vain because they are the means Yes if the means be superfluous they are vain what needed such a circuit of deliberation to advise what is fit to be done when it is already determined extrinsecally what must be done k He saith that the ignorance of the true causes and their power is the reason why we ascribe the effect to liberty but when we seriously consider the causes of things we acknowledge a necessity No such thing but just the contrary The more we consider and the cleerer we understand the greater is the liberty and the more the knowledge of our own liberty The less we consider and the more incapable that the understanding is the lesser is the liberty and the knowledge of it And where there is no consideration nor use of reason there is no liberty at all there is neither moral good nor evil Some men by reason that their exteriour senses are not totally bound have a trick to walk in their sleep Suppose such an one in that case should cast himself down a pair of stairs or from a bridge and break his neck or drown himself it were a mad Jury that would find this man accessary to his own death Why because it was not freely done he had not then the use of reason l Lastly he tells us that the will doth choose of necessity as well as the fire burns of neoessity If he intend no more but this that election is the proper and natural act of the will as burning is of the fire or that the elective power is as necessarily in a man as visibility he speaks truly but most impertinently For the question is not now of the elective power in actu primo whether it be an essential faculty of the soul but whether the act of electing this or that particular object be free and undetermined by any antecedent and extrinsecal causes But if he intend it in this other sense that as the fire hath no power to suspend its burning nor to distinguish between those combustible matters which are put unto it but burns that which is put unto it necessarily if it be combustible So the will hath no power to refuse that which it wills nor to suspend its own appetite He erres grossely The will hath power either to will or nill or to suspend that is neither to will nor nill the same object Yet even the burning of the fire if it be considered as it is invested with all particular circumstances is not otherwise so necessary an action as T. H. imagineth m Two things are required to make an effect necessary First that it be produced by a necessary cause such as fire is Secondly that it be necessarily produced Protagoras an Atheist began his Book thus Concerning the Gods I have nothing to say whether they be or they be not for which his Book was condemned by the Athenians to be burned The fire was a necessary Agent but the sentence or the application of the fire to the Book was a free act and therefore the burning of his Book was free Much more the rational will is free which is both a voluntary agent and acts voluntarily n My second reason against this distinction of Liberty from Compulsion but not from necessitation is new and demonstrates cleerly that to necessitate the will by a Physical necessity is to compel the will so far as the will is capable of Compulsion and that he who doth necessitate the will to evil after that manner is the true cause of evil and ought rather to be blamed than the will it self But T. H. for all he saith he is not surprised can be contented upon better advise to steal by all this in silence And to hide this tergiversation from the eyes of the Reader he makes an empty shew of braving against that famous and most necessary distinction between the elicite and imperate acts of the will first because the terms are improper secondly because they are obscure What Triviall and Grammatical objections are these to be used against the universal current of Divines and Philosophers Verborum ut Nummorum It is in words as it is in mony Use makes them proper and current A Tyrant at first signified a lawful and just Prince Now use hath quite changed the sense of it to denote either an Usurper or an Oppressor The word praemunire is now grown a good word in our English Laws by use and tract of time And yet at first it was meerly mistaken for a praemonere The names of Sunday Munday Tuesday were derived at first from those Heathenish Deities the Sun the Moon and the warlike God of the Germans Now we use them for distinction sake onely without any relation to their first original He is too froward that will refuse a piece of coin that is current throughout the world because it is not stamped after his own fancy So is he that rejects a good word because he understands not the derivation of it We see forrein words are daily naturalized and made free Denizons in every Country But why are the tearms improper Because saith he It attributes command and subjection to
voluntary It seems that he calleth Compulsion Force but I call it a fear of force or of dammage to be done by force by which fear a mans will is framed to somewhat to which he had no will before Force taketh away the sin because the Action is not his that is forced but his that forceth It is not alwayes so in Compulsion because in this case a man electeth the Lesse Evil under the notion of Good But his instances of the betrothed Damsel that was forced and of Tamar may for any thing there appeareth in the Text be Instances of Compulsion and yet the Damsel and Tamar be both innocent In that which immediately followeth concerninâ— how far fear may extenuate a sin there is nothing to be answered I preceive in it he hath some glimmering of the truth but not of the grounds thereof It is true that Just â—ear dispenceth not with the precepts of God or Nature for they are not dispensable but it extenuateth the fault not by diâ—â—inishing any thing in the Action but by being no transgressiâ—n For if the fear be allowed the Action it produceth is allowed also Nor doth it disp use in any case with the Law positive but by making the Action it self Lawful for thâ— breaking of a Law is alwayes sin and it is certain that men are obliged to the observation of all positive Precepts though with the losse of their lives unlesse the right that a man hath to preserve himself make it in case of a just Fear to be nâ— Law The omission of circumcision was no sin he says whilst the Israelites were travelling through the Wildernesse 'T is very true but this has nothing to do with Compulsion And the cause why it was no sin was this they were ready to obâ—y it whâ—nsoever God should give them leasure and rest from travel whereby they might be cured or at least when God that daily spake to their Conducter in the Desert should appoint him to renew that Sacrament g I will propose a case to him c. The case is this a Servant is robbed of his Masters money by the Highway but is acquit because he was forced Another Servant spends his Masters money in a Tavern Why is he not acquited also seeing he was necessitated Would hâ— saith he T. H. admit of this excuse I answer no But I would do that to him which should necessitate him to behave himself better anothâ—r time or at least necessitate another to behave himself better by his example h He talkes much of the motives to do anâ— the mâ—tives to forbear how they work upon and determine a man as if a reasonable man were no more then a Tennis-ball to be tossed to and fro by the Rackets of the second causes c. May not great things be produced by second causes as well as little And a Foot-ball as well as a Tennis-ball But the Bishop can never be driven from this that the Will hath power to move it self but says t is all one to say that an Agent can determine it self and that the Will is determined by motives extrinsical He adds that if there be no necessitation before the Judgment of right reason doth dictate to the Will then there is no Antecedent nor Extrinsecal necessitation at all I say indeed the effect is not produced before the last dictate of the understanding but I say not that the necessity was not before he knows I say it is from eternity When a Cannon is planted against a Wall though the battery be not made till the bullet arrive yet the necessity was present all the while the bullet was going to it if the Wall stood still and if it â—liâ—t away the hitting of somewhat else was necessary and that antecedently i All the World knows that when the Agent is determined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause Yes whâ—n the Agent is dâ—termined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause and so any thing else is what he will have it But nothing is determined by it self nor is there any man in the World that hâ—th any Conception answerable to those Words But Motives he says determine not naturally but Morally This also is insignificant for all Motion is Natural or Supernatural Moral motion is a meer Word without any Imagination of the mind correspondent to it I have heard men talk of a Motion in a Court of Justice perhaps this is it which he means by Moral Motion But certainly when the tongue of the Judg and the hands of the Clerks are thereby movâ—d the Motion is Natural and proceed from natural causes which causes also were Natural Motions of the tongue of the Advocate And whereas he adds that if this were true then not onely Motives but reason it self and deliberation were vain it hath been sufficiently answered before that therefore they are not vain because by them is produced the effect I must also note that oftentimes in citing my opinion he puts â—n instead of mine those terms of his own which upon all occasions I complain of for absurdity as here he makes me to say that which I did never say Special influence of extrinsical causes k He saith that the ignorance of the true causes and their Power is the reason why we ascribe the effect â—o Liberty but when we seriously consider the causes of things we acknowledge a necessity No such thing but just the contrary Iâ—â— understand the Authors which he readeth upon this point no better then he understands what I have here written it is no wonder he understandeth not the truth of the question I said not that when we consider the causes of things but when we see and know the strength that moves us we acknowledge necessity No such thing says the Bishop but just the contrary the more we consider and the clearer we understand the greater is the Liberty c. Is there any doubt if a man could foreknow as God foreknows that which is hereafter to come to passe but that he would also see and know she causes which shall bring it to passe and how they work and make the effect necessary for necessary it is whatsoever God foreknoweth But we that foresee them not may consider as much as wâ— will and understand as clearly as we will but are never the neerer to the knowledge of their necessity and that I said was the cause why we impute those events to Liberty and not to causes l Lastly he tels us that the Wil doth chose of necessity as well as the fire burns of necessity If he intend no more but this that Election is the proper and natural Act of the Wil as burning is of the fire c. He speaks truely but most impertinently for the question is not now of the Elective power in actu primo c. Here again he makes me speak non sense I said the man chooseth of necessity he says I say
the Will chooseth of necessity And why but because he thinks I ought to speak as he does and say as he does here that Election is the Act of the Wil. No Election is the Act of a man as power to Elect is the power of a man Election and Wil are all one Act of a man and the power to Elect and the power to Wil one and the same power of a man But the Bishop is confounded by the use of calling by the name of Wil the power of willing in the future as they also were confounded that first brought in this senselesse term of Actus primus My meaning is that the Election I shall have of any thing hereafter is now as necessary as that the fire that now is and continueth shall burn any combustible matter thrown into it hereafter Or to use his own terms the Wil hath no more power to suspend its Willing then the burning of the fire to suspend its burning Or rather more properly the man hath no more power to suspend his Will then the fire to suspend his burning Which is contrary to that which he would have namely that a man should have power to refuse what he Wils and to suspend his own appetite for to refuse what one willeth implyeth a contradiction the which also is made much more absurd by his expression for he saith the Will hath power to refuse what it Wils and to suspend its own Appetite whereas the Will and the Willing â—â—d the Appetite is the same thing He adds that even the burning of the fire if it be considered as it is invested with all particular circumstances is not so necessary an Action as T. H. imagineth He doth not sufficiently understand what I imagine For I imagine that of the fire which shall burn five hundred years hence I may truly say now it shall burn necessarily and of that which shall not burn then for fire may sometimes not burn the combustible matter thrown into it as in the case of the three Children that it is necessary it shall not burn m Two things are required to make an Effect necessary First that it be produced by a necessary cause c. Secondly that it be necessarily produced c. To this I say nothing but that I understand not how a cause can be necessary and the Effect not be necessarily produced n My second reason against this distinction of Liberty from compulsion but not from necessitation is new and demonstrates cleerly that to necessitate the Wil by a Physical necessity is to compel the Wil so far as the Wil is capable of compulsion and that he who doth necessitate the Wil to evil after that manner is the true cause of evil c. By this second reason which he says is new and demonstrates c. I cannot find what reason he means for there are but two whereof the later is in these Words Secondly to rip up the bottom of this business this I take to be the clear resolution of the Schools There is a double Act of the Wil the one more remote called Imperatus c. The other Act is nearer called Actus Elicitus c. But I doubt whether this be it he means or no. For this being the resolution of the Schools is not new and being a distinction onely is no demonstration though â—erhaps he may use the word demonstration as every unlearned man now a days does to signifie any Argument of his own As for the distinction it self because the terms are Latine and never used by any Author of the Latine tongue to shew their impertinence I expounded them in English and left them to the Readers judgement to find the absurdity of them himself And the Bishop in this part of his Reply indeavours to defend them And first he calls it a Trivial and Grammatical objection to say they are improper and obscure Is there any thing lesse be seeming a Divine or a Philosopher then to speak improperly and obscurely where the truth is in question Perhaps it may be tollerable in one that Divineth but not in him that pretendeth to demonstrate It is not the universal current of Divines and Philosophers that giveth Words their Authority but the generality of them who acknowledge that they understand them Tyrant and Praemunire though their signification be changed yet they are understood and so are the names of the Days Sunday Munday Tuesday And when English Reaâ—ers not engaged in School Divinity shall find Imperate Elicite Acts as intelligible as those I will confesse I had no reason to find fault But my braving against that famous and most necessary distinction between the Elicite and Imperate Acts of the Wil he says was onely to hide from the eyes of the Reader a tergiversation in not answering this Argument of his he who doth necessitate the Wil to evil is the true cause of evil But God is not the cause of evil Therefore he does not necessitate the Wil to evil This Argument is not to be found in this Numb 20. to which I here answered nor had I ever said that the Wil was compelled But he taking all necessitation for Compulsion doth now in this place from necessitation simply bring in this Inference concerning the cause of evill and thinks he shall force me to say that God is the cause of sin I shall say onely what is said in the Scripture Non est malum quod ego non feci I shall say what Micaiah saith to Ahab 1 Kings 22. 23. Behold the Lord hath put a lying Spirit into the mouth of all these thy Prophets I shall say that that is true which the Prophet David saith 2 Sam. 16. 10. Let him curse because the Lord hath said unto him curse David But that which God himself saith of himself 1 Kings 12. 15. The King hearkned not to the people for the cause was from the Lord I will not say least the Bishop exclaim against me but leave it to be interpreted by those that have authority to interpret the Scriptures I say further that to cause sin is not always sin nor can be sin in him that is not subject to some higher Power but to use so unseemly a Phrase as to say that God is the cause of sin because it soundeth so like to saying that God sinneth I can never be forced by so weak an argument as this of his Luther says we act necessarily necessarily by necessity of immutability not by necessity of constraint that is in plain English necessarily but not against our wills Zanchius says Tract Theol. cap. 6. Thes. 1. The freedom of our will doth not consist in this that there is no necessity of our sinning but in this that there is no constraint Bucer Lib. de Concordia Whereas the Catholicks say man has Free Will we must understand it of freedom from constraint and not freedom from necessity Calvin Inst. Cap. 2. § 6. And thus shall man be said to have Free
Will not because he hath equall freedom to do good and evill but because he does the evill he does not by constraint but willingly Monsr du Mouâ—in in his Buckler of the Faith Article 9 The necessity of sinning is not repugnant to the freedom of the Will Witness the Devils who are necessarily wicked and yet sin freely without constraint And the Synod of Dort Liberty is not opposite to all kinds of necessity and determination It is indeed opposite to the necessity of constraint but standeth well enough with the necessity of infallibility I could add more For all the famous Doctors of the Reformed Churches and with them St. Augustine are of the same opinion None of these denied that God is the cause of al Motion Action or that God is the cause of al Laws and yet they were never forced to say that God is the cause of sin o They who invented this term of Actus Imperatus understood not he saith any thing what it signified No Why not It seemeth to me they understood it better then those who except against it They knew there are mentall terms which are only conceived in the mind as well as vocal terms which are expressed with the tongue c. In this place the Bishop hath discovered the ground of all his errors in Philosophy which is this that he thinketh when he repeateth the words of a proposition in his mind that is when he fancieth the words without speaking them that then hee conceiveth the things which the words signifie and this is the most general cause of false opinions For men can never be deceived in the conceptions of things though they may and are most often deceived by giving unto them wrong terms or appellations different from those which are commonly used and constituted to signifie their conceptions And therefore they that study to attain the certain knowledge of truth do use to set down before hand all the terms they are to expresse themselves by and declare in what sense they shall use them constantly And by this means the Reader having an Idea of every thing there named cannot conceive amisse But when a man from the hearing of a word hath no Idea of the thing signified but onely of the sound and of the Letters whereof the word is made which is that he here calleth Mentall terms it is impossible he should conceive aright or bring forth any thing but absurdity as he doth here when he says that when Tarquin delivered his commands to his Son by onely striking off the tops of the Poppies he did it by Mental terms As if to strick off the head of a Poppy were Mental term It is the sound and the Letters that maketh him think Elicitus and Imperatus somewhat And it is the same that makes him say for think it he cannot that to Wil or choose is drawn or allured or fetch 't out of the power to Wil. For drawing cannot be imagined but of bodys and therefore to Will to speak to write to dance to leape or any way to be moved cannot be said intelligibly to be drawn much lesse to be drawn out of a Power that is to say out of an ability for whatsoever is drawn out is drawn out of one place into another He that can discourse in this manner in Philosophy cannot probably be thought able to discourse rationally in any thing p His other objection against this distinction of the Acts of the Will into Elicite and Imperate is obscurity Might it not saith he have been as easily said in English a voluntary Action Yes it might have been said as easily but not as truly nor as properly He says that Actus Imperatus is when a man opens or shuts his eyes at the command of the Wil. I say when a man opens and shuts his eyes according to his Wil that it is a voluntary Action and I believe we mean one and the same thing Whether of us speak more properly or more truly let the Reader Judge q But his mistakes are so thick c. I will do my duty to shew him the right way First no Acts which are properly said to be compelled are voluntary Secondly Acts of of terrour c. This is nothing but Tohu and Bohu J. D. THE rest are umbrages quickly dispelled first the Astrologer Num. 21. steps up and subjects Liberty to the motions of Heaven to the aspects and ascensions of the Starrs Plus etenim fati valet hora benigni Quam si nos Veneris commendet Epistola Marti I stand not much upon them who cannot see the fishes swimming besides them in the rivers yet believe they see those which are in Heaven Who promise great treasures to others and beg a groat for themselves The Starrs at the most do but incline they cannot necessitate Secondly the Physitian subjects liberty to the complexion and temperature of the body But yet this comes not home to a necessity Socrates and many others by assiduous care have corrected the pernicious propensions which flowed from their temperatures T. H. IN the rest of his discourse he reckoneth up the opinions of certain professions of men touching the causes wherein the necessity of things which they maintain consisteth And first he saith the Astrologer deriveth his necessity from the Starrs Secondly that the Physician attributeth it to the temper of the body For my part I am not of their opinion because neither the Starrs alone nor the temperature of the Patient alone is able to produce any effect without the concurrence of all other Agents For there is hardly any one action how casual soever it seem to the causing whereof concur not whatsoever is in rerum natura Which because it is a great Paradox and depends on many antecedent speculations I do not press in this place J. D. TOwards the later end of my discourse I answered some specious pretences against liberty The two first were of the Astrologer and the Physician The one subjecting liberty to the motions and influences of the heavenly bodies The other to the complexions of men a The sum of my answer was that the Stars and complexions do incline but not at all necessitate the will To which all judicious Astronomers and Physicians do assent And T. H. himself doth not dissent from it So as to this part there needs no reply b But whereas he mentions a great paradox of his own that there is hardly any one action to the causing of which concurres not whatsoever is in rerum natura I can but smile to see with what ambition our great undertakers do affect to be accounted the first founders of strange opinions as if the devising of an ill grounded Paradox were as great an honour as the invention of the needle or the discovery of the new World And to this Paradox in Particular I meddle not with natural actions because the subject of my discourse is moral liberty But if he intend not only the kinds
Liberty of Wil consists with Gods eternal Prescience and Decrees yet he ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest But why should he adhere to it unlesse it be manifest to himself And if it be manifest to himself why does he deny that he is able to comprehend it And if he be not able to comprehend it how knows he that it is domonstrable Or why says he that so confidently which he does not know Me thinks that which I have said namely that that which God foreknows shall be hereafter cannot but be hereafter and at the same time that he foreknew it should be But that which cannot but be is necessary Therefore what God foreknows shall be necessarily and at the time foreknown This I say looketh somewhat liker to a demonstration than any thing that he hath hitherto brought to prove Free Wil. Another reason why I should be of his opinion is that he is in possession of an old truth derived to him by inheritance or succession from his Ancestors To which I answer first that I am in possession of a truth derived to me from the light of reason Secondly that whereas he knoweth not whether it be the truth that he possesseth or not because he confesseth he knows not how it can consist with Gods Prescience and Decrees I have sufficiently shewn that my opinion of necessity not onely agrees with but necessirily followeth from the eternal Prescience and Decrees of God Besides it is an unhansome thing for a man to derive his opinion concerning truth by succession from his Ancestors For our Ancestors the first Christians derived not therefore their truth from the Gentils because they were their Ancestors c To passe by all the other great imperfections which are to be found in this Sorite it is just like that old Sophistical piece he that drinks well sleeps well he that sleeps well thinks no hurt he that thinks no hurt lives well therefore he that drinks well lives well My argument was thus Election is alwayes from the Memory of good and evil sequels Memory is alway from the Sense and Sense alwayes from the Action of external bodys and all Action from God therefore all Actions even of Free and Voluntary Agents are from God and consequently necessary Let the Bishop compare now his scurrilous Argumentation with this of mine and tell me whether he that sleeps well doth all his life time think no hurt d In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed my own private opinion how it might be made appear that the eternal Prescience and Decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency c. If he had meant by Liberty as other men do the Liberty of Action that is of things which are in his power to doe which he will it had been an easie matter to reconcile it with the Prescience and Decrees of God But meaning the Liberty of Wil it was impossible So likewise if by contingency he had meant simply comming to passe it had been reconcilable with the Decrees of God but meaning comming to passe without necessity it was impossible And therefore though it be true he says that he set it down in as plain terms as he could yet it was impossible to set it down in plain terms Nor â—ought he to charge me with misunderstanding him and wresting his words to a wrong sense For the truth is I did not understand them at all nor thought he understood them himself but was willing to give them the best imterpretation they would bear which he calls wresting them to a wrong sense And first I understood not what he meant by the Aspect of God For if he had meant his foreknowledge which word he had often used before what needed he in this one place onely to call it Aspect Or what need he here call it his View Or say that all things are open to the eyes of God not discursively but intuitively which is to expound Eyes in that Text Hebr. 4. 11. not figuratively but litteraâ—ly neverthâ—lâ—sse excluding external Species which the School-men say are the cause of seeing But it wat well done to exclude such insignificant speeches upon every occasion whatsoever And though I do not hold the foreknowledge of God to consist in Discourse yet I shall be never driven to say it is by Intuition as long as I know that even a man hath foreknowledge of all those things which he intendeth himself to do not by discourse but by knowing his own purpose saving that man hath a superiour power over him that can change his purpose which God hath not And whereas he says I confound this Aspect with the Wil and Decrees of Godâ— â—he 〈◊〉 wrongifully For how could I so confound it when I understood not what it meant e Secondly he chargeth me that hitherto I have maintained that Liberty and the Decrees of God are â—rreconcileable and the reason why I do so is because he maintained that Liberty and the absolute necessity of all things are â—rreconcileable If Liberty cannot stand with necessity it cannot stand with the Decrees of God of which Decrees necessity is a Consequent I needed not to say nor did say that Necessity and Gods Decrees are all one though if I had said it it had not been without Authority of learned men in whose writings are often found this sentence Voluntas Dei Necessitas rerum f But to cut his Argument short God hath Decreed all effects which come to passe in time yet not all after the same manner but according to the distinct natures capacities and conditions of his creatures which he doth not destroy by his Decree Some he acteth Hitherto true then he addeth with some he cooperateth by special influence and some he onely permitteth Yet this is no idle or bare permission This is false For nothing operateth by its own original power but God himself Man operateth not but by special power I say special power not special influence derived from God Nor is it by Gods permission onely as I have often already shown and as the Bishop here contradicting his former words confesseth for to permit onely and barely to permit signifie the same thing And that which he says that God concurs by way of general influence is Jargon For every concurrence is one singular and individual concurrence and nothing in the World is general but the signification of words and other signs g Thirdly he chargeth me that I allow all men to be of his opinion save onely those that conceive in their minds a Nunc stans or how eternity is an indivisible point rather then an everlasting succession But I have given no such allowance Surely if the reason wherefore my opinion is false proceed from this that I conceive not eternity to be Nunc stans but an everlasting succession I am allowed to hold my opinion till I can conceive eternity otherwise at least he allows men not till then to be of his
is already done or doing but as a thing â—o be done They imply not the actual production but the producibility of the effect But when once the will hath actually concurred with all other causes and conditions and circumstances then the effect is no more possible or producible but it is in being and actually produced Thus he takes away the subject of the question The question is whether effects producible be free from necessity He shuffles out effects producible and thrusts in their places effects produced or which are in the act of production Wherefore I conclude that it is neither non sense nor contradiction to say that a free Agent when all things requisite to produce the effect are present may nevertheless not produce it Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXII THe question is here whether these words a free Agent is that which when all things needfull to the production of the effect are present can nevertheless not produce it â—â—mply a contradiction as I say it does To make it appear no contradiction he saith a In these words all things needful or all things requisite the actual determination of the Will is not included as if the Will were not needful nor requisite to the producing of a voluntary Action For to the production of any Act whatsoever there is needful not onely those things which proceed from the Agent but also those that consist in the disposition of the patient And to use his own instance it is necessary to writing not onely that there be pâ—n ink paper c. but also a will to write He that hath the former hath all things requisite to write if he will but not all things necessary to writing And so in his other instances he that hath men and money c. without that which he putteth in for a requisite hath all things requisite to make War if he Will but not simply to make War And he in the Gospel that had prepared his Dinner had all things requisite for his guests if they came but not all things requisite to make them come And therefore all things requisite is a term ill defined by him b And indeed if the will were as he conceives it is necessitated extrinsecally to every act of willing if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth will nor to will what it does not will then if the will were wanting something requisite to the produceing of the effect were wanting But now when Science and Conscience Reason and Religion our own and other mens experience doth teach us that the Will hath a Dominion over its own Acts to Will or Nill without extrinsecal necessitation if the power to will be present in actu primo determinable by our selves then there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of the effect These words the will hath power to forbear willing what it doth will and these the Wil hath a Dominion over its own Acts and these the power to Will is present in actu primo determinable by our selves are as wild as ever were any spoken with in the Walls of Bedlam and if Science Conscience Reason and Religion teach us to speak thus they make us mad And that which followeth is false to Act or not to Act to work or not to work to produce or not to produce have reference to the effect not as a thing which is already done or doing but as a thing to be done For to act to work to produce are the same thing with to be doing It is not the act but the power that hath reference to the future for act and power differ in nothing but in this that the former signifieth the time present the latter the time to come And whereas he adds that I shuffle out effects producible and thrust into their places effects produced I must take it for an untruth till he cite the place wherein I have done so T. H. FOr my first five points where it is explicated First what Num. 33. Spontaneity is Secondly what Deliberation is Thirdly what Will Propension and Appetite is Fourthly what a free Agent is Fiftly what Liberty is There can be no other proof offered but every mans own experience by reflecting on himself and remembring what he useth to have in his mind that is what he himself meaneth when he saith an action is spontaneous A man deliberates such is his will That Agent or that action is free Now he that so reflecteth on himself cannot but be satisfied that deliberation is the considering of the good and evil sequells of the action to come That by Spontaneity is meant inconsiderate proceeding for else nothing is meant by it That will is the last act of our Deliberation That a free Agent is he that can do if he will and forbear if he will And that Liberty is the absence of externall impediments But to those that out of custome speak not what they conceive but what they hear and are not able or will not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such words no argument can be sufficient because experience and matter of fact is not verified by other mens Arguments but by every mâ—ns own sense and memory For example how can it be prooved that to love a thing and to think it good are all one to a man that does not mark his own meaning by those words Or how can it be prooved that Eternity is not nunc Stans to a man that sayes these words by câ—stoâ—â—e and never considers how he can conceive the thing it self in his mind Also the sixt point that a man cannot imagine any thing to begin without a cause can no other way be made known but by trying how he can imagine it But if he try he shall find as much reason if there be no cause of the thing to conceive it should begin at one time as another that is he hath equall reason to think it should begin at all times which is impossible And therefore he must think there was some special cause why it began then rather than sooner or later or else that it began never but was Eternal J. D. NOw at length he comes to his main proofs He that hath so confidently censured the whole current of Schoolmen and Philosophers of non-sense had need to produce strong evidence for himself So he calls his reasons Numb 36. demonstrative proofs All demonstrations are either from the cause or the effect not fâ—om private notions and conceptions which we have in our minds That which he calls a demonstration deserves not the name of an intimation He argues thus That which a man conceives in his mind by these words Spontaneity Deliberation c. that they are This is his proposition which I deny a The true natures of things are not to be judged by the private ideas or conceptions of men but by their causes and formal reasons Ask an ordinary person what upwards
thing to begin without a cause or if it should begin without a cause why it should begin at this time rather than at that time He saith truely nothâ—â—g can begin without a cause that is to be but it may begin to act of it self without any other cause Nothing can begin without a cause but many things may begin and do begin without necessary causes A free cause may as well choose his time when he will begin as a necessary cause be determined extrinsâ—cally when it must begin And although free effects cannot be foretold because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes yet when the free causes do determine themselves they are of as great certainty as the other As when I see a Bell ringing I can conceive the cause of it as well why it rings now as I know the interposition of the earth to be the cause of the Eclipse of the Moon or the most certain occurrent in the nature of things k And now that I have answered T. H. his Arguments drawn from the private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words I desire him seriously without prejudice to examine himself and those natural notions which he finds in himself not of words but of things these are from nature those are by imposition whether he doth not find by experience that he doth many things which he might have left undone if he would and omits many things which he might have done if he would whether he doth not somethings out of meer animosity and will without either regard to the direction of right reason or serious respect of what is honest or profitable onely to shew that he will have a dominion over his own actions as we see ordinarily in Children and wise men find at sometimes in themselves by experience And I apprehend this very defence of necessity against liberty to be partly of that kind Whether he is not angry with those who draw him from his study or cross him in his desires if they be necessitated to do it why should he be angry with them any more than he is angry with a sharp winter or a rainy day that keeps him at home against his antecedent wil. Whether he doth not sometime blame himself and say O what a fool was I to do thus and thus or wish to himself O that I had been wise or O that I had not done such an act If he have no dominion over his actions if he be irresâ—stibly necessitated to all things that he doth he might as well wish O that I had not breached or blame himself for growing old O what a fool was I to grow old Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXIII I Have said in the beginning of this Number that to define what spontanâ—iry is what deliberation is what Will Propension Appetite a free Agent and Liberty is and to prove they are well defined there can be no other proof offered but every mans own experience and memory of what he meaneth by such words For definitions being the beginning of all demonstration cannot themselves be demonstrated that is proved to another man All that can be done is either to put him in mind what thâ—se words signifie commonly in the matter whereof they treâ—t or if the words bâ— unusual to make the Definitions of them true by mutual consent in their signification And though this be manifestly true yet there is nothing of it amongst the School-men whouse to argue not by rule but as Fencers teach to hardle weapons by quickness â—nâ—ly of the hand and eye The Bishop therefore boggles at this kind of proof and says a The true natures of things are not to be judged by the private Ideas or conceptions of men but by their causes and formall reasons Aske an ordinary person what upwards signifies c. But what will â—e answer if I should aske him how he will judge oâ— the causes of things whereof he hatâ— no Iâ—ea or conceptiâ—n in his own â—ind It is therefore impossible to give a true definition of any word without the Idea of the thing which that word signifieth or not acâ—oâ—â—ing to that Idea or conception Here again he discovereth the true cause why he and other School-men so often speak absurdâ—y For they speak without conception of the things and by rote one receiving what he saith from another by tradition from some pust 〈◊〉 or Philosopher that to decline aâ— difficulty speakes in such manner as not to be understood And whereas he bidds us asâ—e an ordinary person what upwards signifieth 〈◊〉 dare Answer for that ordinary person he will tell us as significantly as any Scholler and say it is towards Heaven and as soâ—â— as he knows the earth is râ—und makes no scruple to believe there are Antipodes being wiser in that point then were those which he saith to have been of more then ordinary capacities Again ordinary men understand not he saith the words empty and Body yes but they do just as well as learned men When they hear named an empty vessel the learned as well as the unlearned mean and understand the same thing namely that there is nothing in it that can be seen and whether it be truely empty the Plough-man and the School man know a like I might give he says an hundred such like instances That true a man may give a thousand foolish and impertinent instances of men ignorant in such questions of Philosophy concerning Emptiness Body Upwards and Downwards and the like But the question is not whether such and such tenets be true but whether such and such words can be well defined without thinking upon the things they signifiet as the Bishop thinks they may when he concludeth with these words So his proposition is salfe b His reason that matter of fact is not verified by other mens Arguments but by every mans own sense and memory is likewise maimed on both sides Whether we hear such words or not is matter of fact and sense is the proper Judge of it but what these words do or ought truely to signifie is not to be judged by sense but by reason A man is borne with a capacity after due time and experience to reason truely to which capacity of nature if there be added no Discipline at all yet as far as he reasoneth he will reason truely though by a right Discipline he may reason truely in more numerous and various matters But he that hath lighted on deceiving or deceived masters that teach for truth all that hath been dictated to them by their own interest or hath been cried up by other such teachers before them have for the most part their natural reason as far as concerneth the truth of Doctrine quite defaced or very much weakened becoming changelings through the inchantments of words not understood This cometh into my mind from this saying of the Bishop that matter of fact is not verified by sense and memory but by Arguments How is it
free nor elective nor such as proceed from the liberty of mans will Secondly our dispute is about absolute necessity his proofs extend onely to Hypothetical necessity Our question is whether the concurrence and determination of the causes were necessary before they did concur or were determined He proves that the effect is necessary after the causes have concurred and are determined The freest actions of God or man are necessary by such a necessity of supposition and the most contingent events that are as I have shewed plainly Numb 3. where his instance of Ambs-ace is more fully answered So his proof looks another way from his proposition His proposition is that the casting of Ambs-ace was necessary before it was thrown His proof is that it was necessary when it was thrown examine all his causes over and over and they will not afford him one grain of antecedent necessity The first cause is in the Dice True if they be false Dice there may be something in it but then his contingency is destroyed If they be square Dice they have no more inclination to Ambs-ace than to Cinque and Quater or any other cast His second cause is the posture of the parties hand But what necessity was there that he should put his hand into such a posture None at all The third cause is the measure of the force applied by the caster Now for the credit of his cause let him but name I will not say a convincing reason nor so much as a probable reason but even any pretence of reason how the Caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force and neither more nor lesse If he cannot his cause is desperate and he may hold his peace for ever His last cause is the posture of the Table But tell us in good earnest what necessity there was why the Caster must throw into that Table rather than the other or that the Dice must fall just upon that part of the Table before the cast was thrown He that makes these to be necessary causes I do not wonder if he make all effects necessary effects If any one of these causes be contingent it is sufficient to render the cast contingent and now that they are all so contingent yet he will needs have the effect to be necessary And so it is when the cast is thrown but not before the cast was thrown which he undertook to prove Who can blame him for being so angry with the School-men and their distinctions of necessity into absolute and hypothetical seeing they touch his freehold so nearly But though his instance of raining to morrow be impertinent as being no free action yet because he triumphs so much in his argument I will not stick to go a little out of my way to meet a friend For I confess the validity of the reason had been the same if he had made it of a free action as thus Either I shall finish this reply to morrow or I shall not finish this reply to morrow is a necessary proposition But because he shall not complain of any disadvantage in the alteration of his terms I will for once adventure upon his shower of rain And first I readily admit his major that this proposition either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow is necessarily true for of two contradictory propositions the one must of necessity be true because no third can be given But his minor that it could not be necessarily true except one of the Members were necessarily true is most false And so is his proof likewise that if neither the one nor the other of the Members be necessarily true it cannot be affirmed that either the one or the other is true A conjunct proposition may have both parts false and yet the proposition be true as if the Suu shine it is day is a true proposition at midnight And T. H. confesseth as much Numb 19. If I shall live I shall eat is a necessary proposition that is to say it is necessary that that proposition should be true whensoever uttered But it is not the necessity of the thing nor is it therefore necessary that the man shall live or that the man shall eat And so T. H. proceeds I do not use to fortifie my distinctions with such reasons But it seemeth he hath forgotten himself and is contented with such poor fortifications And though both parts of a disjunctive proposition cannot be false because if it be a right disjunction the Members are repugnant whereof one part is infallibly true yet vary but the proposition a little to abate the edge of the disjunctions and you shall finde that which T. H. saith to be true that it is not the necessity of the thing which makes the proposition to be true As for example vary it thus I know that either 〈◊〉 will rain to morrow or that it will not rain to morrow is a true proposition But it is not true that I know it will rain to morrow neither is it true that I know it will not rain to morrow wherefore the certain truth of the proposition doth not prove that either of the Members is determinately true in present Truth is a conformity of the understanding to the thing known whereof speech is an interpreter If the understanding agree not with the thing it is an errour if the words agree not with the understanding it is a lie Now the thing known is known either in it self or in its causes If it be known in it self as it is then we expresse our apprehension of it in words of the present tence as the Sun is risen If it be known in its cause we expresse our selves in words of the future tense as to morrow will be an Eclipse of the Moon But if we neither know it in its self nor in its causes then there may be a foundation of truth but there is no such determinate truth of it that we can reduce it into a true proposition we cannot say it doth rain to morrow or it doth not rain to morrow That were not onely false but absurd we cannot positively say it will rain to morrow because we do not know it in its causes either how they are determined or that they are determined wherefore the certitude and evidence of the disjunctive proposition is neither founded upon that which will be actually to morrow for it is granted that we do not know that nor yet upon the determination of the causes for then we would not say indifferently either it will rain or it will not rain but positively it will rain or positively it will not rain But it is grounded upon an undeniable principle that of two contradictory propositions the one must necessarily be true f And therefore to say either this or that will infallibly be but it is not yet 〈…〉 whether this or that shall be is no such senselesse 〈…〉 thaâ—â—t deserved a â—ytyrice Tâ—patulice but an evâ—…th
which no man that hath his eyes in his head can dâ—â—bt oâ— g If all this will not satisfie him I will give one of his own kind of proofs that is an instance That which necessitates all things according to T. H. is the decree of God or that order which is set to all things by the eternal cause Numb 11. Now God himself who made this necessitating decree was not subjected to it in the making thereof neither was there any former order to oblige the first cause necessarily to make such a decree therefore this decree being an act ad extra was freely made by God without any necessitation Yet nevertheless this disjunctive proposition is necessarily true Either God did make such a decree or he did not make such a decree Again though T. H. his opinion were true that all events are necessary and that the whole Christian world are deccived who believe that some events are free from necessity yet he will not deny but if it had been the good pleasure of God he might have made some causes free from necessity seeing that it neither argues any imperfection nor implies any contradiction Supposing therefore that God had made some second causes free from any such antecedent determination to one yet the former disjunction would be necessarily true Either this free undetermined cause will act after this manner or it will not act after this manner Wherefore the necessary truth of such a disjunctive proposition doth not prove that either of the members of the disjunction singly considered is determinately true in present but onely that the one of them will be determinately true to morrow Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXIV a HIs former proof that all sufficient causes are necessary causes is answered before Numb 31. When he shall have read my Animadversions upon that Answer of his he will think otherwise whatsoever he will confesse b And his two instances of casting Ambs-ace and of raining to morrow are altogether impertinent to the question for two reasons His first reason is because he saith our present controversy is concerning free actions which proceed from the Liberty of mans Will and both his instances are of contingent actions which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes He knows that this part of my discourse which beginneth at Numb 25. is no dispute with him at all but a bare seâ—ting down of my opinion concerning the natural necessity of all things which is opposite not onely to the Liberty of Will but also to all contingence that is not necessary And therefore these instances were not impertinent to my purpose and if they be impertinent to his opinion of the Liberty of mans Will he does impertinently to meddle with them And yet for all he pretends here that the question is onely ab ut Liberty of the Will Yet in his first discourse Number the 16. he maintains that the order beauty and perfection of the world doth require that in the Universe should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some Free some contingent And my purpose here is to shew by those instances that those things which we esteem most contingent are neverthelesse necessary Besides the controversy is not whether free actions which proceed from the Liberty of mans Will be necessary or not for I know no action which proceedeth from the Liberty of mans Will But the question is whether those actions which proceed from the mans Will be necessary The mans Will is something but the Liberty of his Will is nothing Again the question is not whether contingent actions which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes for there is nothing that can proceed from indetermination but whether contingent actions be necessary before they be done or whether the concurrence of natural causes when they happen to concur were not necessitated so to happen or whether whatsoever chanceth be not necessitated so to chance And that they are so necessitated I have proved already with such arguments as the Bishop for ought I see cannot answer For to say as he doth that there are free actions which proceed meerly from Election without any outward necessitation is a truth so evident as that there is a Sun in the Heavens is no proof 'T is indeed as cleer as the Sun that there are free actions proceeding from Election but that there is Election without any outward necessitation is dark enough c Secondly for mixt actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural Agents though they be not free yet they are not necessary c. For proof of this he instanceth in a Tile that falling from an house breaks a mans head neither necessarily nor freely and therefore contingently Not necessarily for saith he he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation Which is as much as taking the question it self for a proof For what is else the question but whether a man be necessitated to choose what he chooseth Again saith he it was not Free because he did not deliberate whether his head should be broken or not and conâ—ludes therefore it was contingent and by undoubted consequence there are contingent actions in the world which are not free This is true and denied by none but he should have proved that such contingent actions are not antecedently necessary by a concurrence of natural causes though a little before he granteth they are For whatsoever is produced by concurrence of natural causes was antecedently determined in the cause of such concurrence though as he calls it contingent concurrence not perceiving that concurrence and contingent concurrence are all one and suppose a continued connection and succession of causes which make the effect necessarily future So that hitherto he hath proved no other contingence then that which is necessary d Thirdly for the actions of brute beasts c. To think each animal motion of theirs is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity I see no ground for it It maketh nothing against the truth that he sees no ground for it I have pointed out the ground in my former discourse and am not bound to find him eyes He himself immediately citeth a place of Scripture that proveth it where Christ saith one of these sparrows doth not fall to the ground without your heavenly father which place if there were nâ— more were a sufficient ground for the assertion of tâ—e necessity of all those changes of animal motion in birds and other living creatures which seem to us so uncertain But when a man is dizzy with influence of power elicite acts permissive will Hypothetical necessity and the like unintelligible terms the ground goes from him By and by after he confesseth that many things are called contingent in respect of us because we know not the cause oâ— tâ—em which really and in themselves are not contingent bu necessary and errâ— therein the other way for he says in effect that
many things are which are not for it is all one to say they are not contingent and they are not He should have said there be many things the necessity of whose contingence we cannot or do not know e But whether there be a necessary connection of all natural causes from the beginning so as they must all have concurred as they have done c. Would require a further examination if it were pertinent to this question of Liberty but it is not It is sufficient to my purpose to have shewed c. If there be a necessary connection oâ— all natural causes from the beginning â—hen there is no doubt but â—hat all things happen necessarily which is that that I have all this while maintained But whether there be or no he says it requires a further exaâ—inatioâ— Hitherto therefore he knows â—ot whether it be true or no and coâ—sequâ—nâ—lâ— all his arguments hitherto have been â—f no effect nor hath he shewed anâ— thing to prov what he purposed that elective Actions are nâ—t necessitated And whereas a little before he says that to my Arguments to prove that sufficient causes are necessary he hath already answered it seemeth he distrusteth his own answer and answers again to the two instances of casting Ambsâ—ace and raining or not raining to morrow but brings no other Argument to prove the cast thrown not to be necessarily thrown but this that he doe not deliberate whether he shall throw that cast or not Which Argument may perhaps prove that the casting of it proceedeth not from free will but proves not any thing against the antecedent necessity of it And to prove that it is not necessary that it should rain or not rain to morrow after telling us that the Aethiopian rains cause the inundation of Nilus that in some Eastern Countries they have rain onely twice a year which the Scripture he saith calleth the former and the latter rain I thought he had known it by the experience of some Travellers but I see he onely gathereth it from that Phrase in Scripture of former and latter rain I say after he has told us this to prove that it is not necessâ—ry it should rain or not rain to morrow he saith that in our Climate the natural causes celestial and sublunary do not produce rain so necessarily at set times as in the Eastern Countries neither can we say so certainly and infallibly it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow By this Argument a man may take the height of the Bishops Logick In our Climate the natural causes do not produce rain so necessarily at set times as in some Eastern Countries Therefore they do not produce rain necessarily in our Climate then when they do produce it And again we cannot say so certainly and infallibly it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow therefore it is not necessary either that it should rain or that it should not rain to morrow as if nothing were necessary the necessity whereof we know not Another reason he saith why my instances are impertinent is because they extend onely to an Hypothetical necessity that is that the necessity is not in the antecedent causes and thereupon challengeth me for the credit of my cause to name some reason how the caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force to the cast and neither more nor lesse or what necessity there was why the caster must throw into that Table rather then the other or that the Dice must fall just upon that part of the Table before the cast was thrown Here again from our ignorance of the particular causes that concurring make the necessity he inferreth that there was no such necessity at all which indeed is that which hath in all this question deceived him and all other men that attribute events to fortune But I suppose he will not deny that event to be necessary where all the causes of the cast and their concurrence and the cause of that concurrence are foreknown and might be told him though I cannot tell him Seeing therefore God foreknows them all the cast was necessary and that from antecedent causes from eternity which is no Hypothetical necessity And whereas my argument to prove that raining to morrow if it shall then rain and not raining to morrow if it shall then not rain was herefore necessary because otherwise this disjuntive proposition it shall rain or not rain to morrow is not necessary he answereth that a conjunct proposition may have both parts false and yet the proposition be true as if the Sun shine it is day is a true proposition at midnight What has a conjunct proposition to do with this in question which is disiunctive Or what be the parts of this proposition if the Sun shine it is day It is not made of two propositions as a disjunctive is but is one sâ—â—ple proposition namely this the shining of the Sun is day Either he has no Logick at all or thinks they have no reason at all that are his readers But he has a trick he saith to abate the edge of the disjunction by varying the proposition thus I know that it will rain to morrow or that it will not rain to morrow is a true proposition and yet saith he it is neither true that I know it will rain to morrow neither is it true that I know it will not rain to morrow What childish deceit or childish ignorance is this when he is to prove that neither of the members is determinately true in a disjunctive proposition to bring for instance a proposition not disjunctive It had been disjunctive if it had gone thus I know that it will rain to morrow or I know that it will not rain to morrow but then he had certainly known determinately one of the two f And therefore to say either this or that will infallibly be but it is not yet determined whether this or that shall be is no such senselesse assertion that it deserved a Tity ricè Tupatulicè But it is a senselesse assertion whatsoever it deserve to say that this proposition it shall rain or not rain is true indeterminedly and neither of them true determinedly and little better as he hath now qualified it That it will infallibly be though it be not yet determined whether it shall be or no. g If all this will not satisfie him I will give him one of his own kinds of proof that is an instance That which necessitates all things according to T. H. is the decree of God c. His instance is that God himself made this necessitating decree and therefore this decree being an act ad extra was freely made by God without any necessitation I do believe the Bishop himself believeth that all the Decrees of God have been from all eternity and therefore he will not stand to this that Gods Decrees were ever made for whatsoever hath been made hath had a beginning
immediately produced the same may be said of the cause of this cause and so backward eternally from whence it will follow that all the connection of the causes of any effect from the beginning of the World were altogether existent in one and the same instant and consequently all the time from the beginning of the World or from Eternity to this day is but one instant or a Nunc stans which he knows by this time is not so T. H. AND thus you see how the inconveniences which he objecteth Num. 36. must follow upon the holding of necessity are avoided and the necessity it self demonstratively proved To which I could add if I thought it good Logick the inconvenience of denying necessity as that it destroyes both the Decrees and Prescience of God Almighty for whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an instrument or foreseeth shall come to passe A man if he have Liberty such as he affirmeth from necessitation might frustrate and make not to come to pass And God should either not foreknow it and not Decree it or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be and decree that which shall never come to pass J. D. THus he hath laboured in vain to satisfie my reasons and to prove his own assertion But for demonstration there is nothing like it among his Arguments Now he saith a he could add other Arguments if he thought it good Logick There is no impediment in Logick why a man may not press his Adversary with those absurdities which flow from his opion Argumentum ducens ad impossible or ad absurdum is a good form of reasoning But there is another reason of his forbearance though he be loth to express it Haeret lateri laethalâ—â— arundâ— The Arguments drawn from the attributes of God do stick so close in the sides of his cause that he hath no mind to treat of that subject By the way take notice of his own confession that he could add othâ—r reasons if he thought it good Logick If it were predetermined in the outward causes that â—e must make this very defence and no other how could it be in his power to add or substract any thing Just as if a blind-man should say in earnest I could see if I had mine eyes Truth often breaks out whilst men sâ—eâ— to smother it b But let us view his Argument If a man have liberty from necessitation he may frustrate the Decrees of God and make his prescience false First for the Decrees of God This is his Decree that man should be a free Agent If he did consider God as a most simple Act without priority or posteriority of time or any composition He would not conceive of his Decrees as of the Laws of the Modes and Persians long since enacted and passed before we were born but as coexistent with our selves and with the acts which we do by vertue of those Decrees Decrees and Attributes are but notions to help the weakness of our understanding to conceive of God The Decrees of God are God himself and therefore justly said to be before the foundation of the world was laid And yet coexistent with our selves because of the Infinite and Eternal being of God The summe is this The Decree of God or God himself Eternally constitutes or ordaines all effects which come to pass in time according to the distinct natures or capacities of his creatures An Eternal Ordination is neither past nor to come but alwayes present So free actions do proceed as well from the Eternal Decree of God as necessary and from that order which he hath set in the world As the Decree of God is Eternal so is his Knowledge And therefore to speak truely and properly there is neither foreknowledge nor after-knowledge in him The Knowledge of God comprehends all times in a point by reason of the eminence and vertue of its infinite perfection And yet I confess that this is called fore knowledge in respect of us But this fore-knowledge doth produce no absolute necessity Things are not therefore because they are fore known but therefore they are fore-known because they shall come to pass If any thing should come to pass otherwise than it doth yet Gods knowledge could not be irritated by it for then he did not know that it should come to pass as now it doth Because every knowledge of vision necessarily presupposeth its object God did know that Judas should betray Christ but Judas was not necessitated to be a traitor by Gods knowledge If Judas had not betrayed Christ then God had not fore-known that Judas should betray him The case is this A watch-man standing on the steeples-top â—as it is the use in Germany gives notice to them below who see no such things that company are coming and how many His prediction is most certain for he sees them What a vain collection were it for one below to say what if they do not come then a certain prediction may fail It may be urged that there is a difference between these two cases In this case the coming is present to the Watchman but that which God fore-knows is future God knows what shall be The Watch-man onely knows what is I answer that this makes no difference at all in the case by reason of that disparity which is between Gods knowledge and ours As that coming is present to the Watch-man which is future to them who are below So all those things which are future to us are present to God because his Infinite and Eternal knowledge doth reach to the future being of all Agents and events Thus much is plainly acknowledged by T. H. Numb 11. That fore-knowledge is knowledge and knowledge depends on the existence oâ— the things known and not they on it To conclude the prescience of God doth not make things more necessary than the production of the things themselves But if the Agents were free Agents the production of the things doth not make the events to be absolutely necessary but onely upon supposition that the causes were so determined Gods prescience proveth a necessity of infallibility but not of antecedent extrinsecall determination to one If any event should not come to pass God did never foreknow that it would come to pass For every knowledge necessarily presupposeth its object Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXVI a HE could add he saith other Arguments if he thought it good Logick c. There is no impediment in Logick why a man may not presse his adversary with those absurdities which flow from his opinion Here he miss recites my words which are I could add if I thought it good Logick the inconvenience of denying necessity as that it destroys both the Decrees and Prescience of God Almighty But he makes me say I could add other Arguments then inferrs that there is no impediment in Logick why a man may not presse his adversary with the absurdities that flow from his opinion
because Argumentum ducèns ad impossibile is a good form of reasoning making no difference between absurdities which are impossibilities and inconveniences which are not onely possible but frequent And though it be a good form of reasoning to argue from absurdities yet it â— no good form of reasoning to argue from inconveniences for inconvenience may stand well enough with truth b But let us view his Argument If a man have Liberty from necessitation he may frustrate the Decrees of God and make his Praescience false This is his Decree that man should be a free Agent If he did consider God as a most simple Act without priority or posteriority of time or any composition he would not conceive of his Decrees as long since enacted but as coexistent with our selves Here again he would have me conceive eternity to be Nunc stans that is an instant of time and that instant of time to be God which neither he nor I can conceive nor can without impiety say as he doth here that the Decrees of God are God In which consisteth all the rest of his Answer to this Number saving that he putteth in sometimes that the foreknowledge of God produceth not necessity which is granted him but that any thing can be foreknown which shall not necessarily câ—me to passe which was not granted â—e proveth no otherwise then by his assertion that every instant of time is God which is denyed him T. H. THis is all that hath come inâ—o my mind touching this question Num. 37. since I last considered it And I â—umbly besâ—ech your â—ordshâ—p â—o communicat it onely to J. D. And so praying Goa to prosper your Lordship in all your designs I take leave and am my most Noble and obliging Lord. Your most humble Servant T. H. J. D. HE is very careful to have this discourse kept secret as appears in this Section and in the 14. and 15. Sections If his answer had been kept private I had saved the labour of a Reply But hearing that it was communicated I thought my self obliged to vindicate both the truth and my self I do not blame him to be cautious for in truth this assertion is of desperate consequence and destructive to piety policy and morality a If he had desired to have kept it secret the way had been to have kept it secret himself It will not suffice to say as Numb 14. that Truth is Truth This the common plea of all men Neither is it sufficient for him to say as Numb 15. That it was desired by me long before that he had discovered his opinion by word of mouth And my desire was to let some of my noble friends see the weakness of his grounds and the pernicious consequences of that opinion b But if he think that this ventilation of the question between us two may do hurt truely I hope not The edge of his discourse is so abated that it cannot easily hurt any rational man who is not too much possessed with prejudice Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXVII IN this place I said nothing but that I would have my L. of N. to communicate it onely to the Bishop And in his answer he says a If I had desired to have it kept secret the way had been to have kept it secret my self My desire was it should not be communicated by my L. of N. to â—ll men indifferently But I barred not my selâ— from showin it privâ—tâ—ly tâ— my friends though to publish it was never my intention till new provoâ—ed by the â—ncivâ—lâ— triâ—nphing of the Bishop in his own errours to my disadvantage b But if he think that this ventilation of the question may do hurt truely I hope not The edge of his discourse iâ— so abated that it cannot easily hurt any rational man who is not too much possessed wâ—â—h prejudice It is confidently said but not very pertinently to the hâ—rt I thouâ—â—â— might proceed from a discourse of this nature For I nevrr thought it could do hurt â—o a rational man but onely to such men as cannot reason in those points which are of difficult contemplation for a rational man will say with himself they whom God will bâ—ing to a blessed and happy end those he will put into an humble pious and Righteous way and of those whom he will destroy he will harden the hearts and thereupon examining himself whether he be in such a way or not the examination it self would if elected be a necessary cause of working out his salvation with fear and trembling But the men who I thought might take hurt thereby are such as reason erroneously saying with themselves if I shall be saved I shall be saved whether I walk uprightly or no and consequently thereunto shall be have themselves negligently and pursue the pleasant way oâ— the sins they are in love with Which inconvenience is not abated by this discourse of the Bishop because they understand not the grounds he goeth on of Nunc stans motus primo primi Elicite Acts Imperate Acts and a great many other such unintelligible words T. H. POstscript Arguments seldom work on men of wit and learning Num. 38. when they have once ingaged themselves in a contrary opinion If any thing do it it is the shewing of them the causes of their errours which is this Pious men attribute to God Almighty for honour sake whatsoever they see is honourable in the World as seeing hearing willing knowing Justice Wisedom c. But deny him such poor things as eyes ears brains and other organs without which we worms neither have nor can conceive such faculties to be and so far they do well But when they dispute of Gods actions Philosophically then they consider them again as if he had such faculties and in that manner as we have them This is not well and thence it is they fall into so many difficulties We ought nâ—t to dispute of Gods Nature he is no fit subject of our Philosophy True Religion consisteth in obedience to Christ's Lieutenants and in giving God such honour both in attributes and actions as they in their several â—ieu enancies shall ordain J. D. THough Sophistical captions do seldom work on men of wit and learning because by constant use they have their senses exercised to discern both good and evill Heb. 5. 14. Yet a solide and substantial reasons work sooner upon them than upon weaker judgments The more exact the balance is the sooner it discovers the reall weight that is put into it Especially if the proofs be proposed without passion or opposition Let Sophisters and seditious Orators apply themselves to the many headed multitude because they despair of success with men of wit and learning Those whose gold is true are not afraid to have it tryed by the touch Since the former way hath not succeeded T. H. hath another to shew as the causes of our errours which he hopes will prove more successful When he sees he can do
no good by fight he seeks to circumvent us under colour of curtesy Fistula dulce canit volucrem dum decipit auceps As they who behold themselves in a glass take the right hand for the left and the left for the right T. H. knows the comparison so we take our own errours to be truths and other mens truths to be errours b If we be in an errour in this it is such an errour as we sucked from nature it self such an errour as is confirmed in us by reason and experience such an errour as God himself in his sacred Word hath revealed such an errour as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in all ages have delivered Such an errour wherein we have the concurrence of all the best Philosophers both Natural and Moral such an errour as bringeth to God the glory of Justice and Wisedom and Goodness and Truth such an errour as renders men more devour more pious more industrious more humble more penitent for their sins Would he have us resign up all these advantages to dance blindfold after his pipe No he perswades us too much to our loss But let us see what is the imaginary cause of our imaginary errour Forsooth because we attribute to God whatsoever is honourable in the World as seeing hearing willing knowing Justice Wisedom but deny him such poor things as eyes ears brains and so far he saith we do well He hath reason for since we are not able to conceive of God as he is the readiest way we have is by remooving all that imperfection from God which is in the creatures So we call him Infinite Immortal Independent Or by attributing to him all those perfections which are in the creatures after a most eminent manner so we call him Best Greatest most Wise most Just most Holy c But saith he When they dispute of Gods actions Philosophically then they consider them again as if he had such faculties and in the manner as we have them And is this the cause of our errour That were strange indeed for they who dispute Philosophically of God do neither ascribe faculties to him in that manner that we have them Nor yet do they attribute any proper faculties at all to God Gods Understanding and his Will is his very Essence which for the eminency of its infinite perfection doth perform all those things alone in a most transcendent manner which reasonable creatures do perform imperfectly by distinct faculties Thus to dispute of God with modesty and reverence and to clear the Deity from the imputation of tyranny injustice and dissimulation which none do throw upon God with more presumption than those who are the Patrons of absolute necessity is both comely and Christian. It is not the desire to discover the original of a supposed errour which drawes them ordinarily into these exclamations against those who dispute of the Deity For some of themselves dare anatomise God and publish his Eternal Decrees with as much confidence as if they had been all their lives of his cabinet councel But it is for fear lest those pernicious consequences which flow from that doctrine essentially and reflect in so high a degree upon the supreme goodness should be laid open to the view of the world Just as the Turks do first establish a false Religion of their own devising and then forbid all men upon pain of death to dispute upon Religion Or as the Priests of â—olech the Abhomination of the Ammonites did make a noise with their timbrells all the while the poor Infants were passing through the fire in Tophet to keep their pitiful cries from the ears of their Parents So d they make a noise with their declamations against those who dare dispute of the Nature of God that is who dare set forth â—â—s Justice and his goodness and his truth and his Philanthropy onely to deaf the ears and dim the eyes of the Christian world lest they should hear the lamentable ejulations and howlings or see that rueful spectacle of millions of souls tormented for evermore e in the flames of the true Tophet that is Hell onely for that which according to T. H. his doctrine was never in their power to shun but which they were ordered and inevitably necessitated to do onely to express the omnipotence and dominion and to satisfie the pleasure of him who is in truth the Father of all mercies and the God oâ— all consolation f This is life eternal saith our Saviour to know the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Joh. 17. 3. Pure Religion and und filed before God and the Father is this to visite the fatherless and widowes in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world saith Sâ— James Jam. 1. 27. Fear God and keâ—p his Commandments for this 〈◊〉 the whole duty of man saith Solomon â—câ—les 12. 13. But T. H. hath found out a more compendious way to heaven True Religion saith he consisteth in obedience to Christs Lieutenants and giving God such honouâ— both in attributes and â—â—â—ions 〈◊〉 they in their several Lieutenancâ—â—â— shaâ— ordain That is to say â—e of the Religion of every Christian Country where you come To make the Civill Magistrate to be Christs Lieutenant upon earth for matters of Religion And to make him to be Supreme Judge in all controversies whom all must obey is a Doctrine so strange and such an uncouth phrase to Christian ears that I should have missed his meaning but that I consulted with his Book De Civ c. 15. Sect. 16. and c. 17. Sect. 28. What if the Magistrate shall be no Christiam himself What if he shall command contrary to the Law of God or Nature Must we obey him rather than God Act. 14. 19. Is the Civill Magistrate become now the onely ground and pillar of Truth I demand then why T. H. is of a different mind from his Soveraign and from the Laws of the Land concerning the Attributes of God and his Decrees This is a new Paradox and concerns not this question of liberty and necessity Wherefore I forbear to prosecute it further and so conclude my reply with the words of the Christian Poet. Caesaris jussum est ore Galieni Princeps quod colit ut colimus omnes Aeternum colemus Principem dierum Factorem Dominumque Galieni Animadversions upon the Answer to the Postscript Numb XXXVIII HE taketh it ill that I say that Arguments do seldome work on men of wit and learning when they have once engaged themselves in a contrary opinion Neverthelesse it is not onely certain by experience but also there is reason for it and that grounded upon the natural disposition of mankind For it is natural to all men to defend those opinions which they have once publickly engaged themselves to maintain because to have that detected for errour which they have publickly maintained for truth is never without some dishonour more or lesse and to find in themselves that they have spent a great
there be none In that which followeth he undertaketh to make his doctrine more expressly understood by considering the Act of the will three ways In respect of its nature in respect of its Exercise and in respect of its object For the nature of the Act be saith that That which the will wills is necessarily volunrary and that in this sense he grants it is out of controversy that the will is a necessary cause of voluntary Actions Instead of that which the will wills to make it sense read that which the man wills and then if the mans will be as he confesseth a necessary cause of voluntary Actions it is no lesse a necessary cause that they are Actions then that they are voluntary For the Exercise of the Act he saith that the will may either will or suspend its Act This is the old canting which hath already been sufficiently detected But to make it somewhat let us reade it thus the man that willeth may either will or suspend his will and thus it is intelligible but false for how can he that willeth at the same time suspend his will And for the object he says that it is not necessary but Free c. His reason is because he says it was not necessary for example in choosing a Pope to choose him this or that day or to chuse this or that man I would be glad to know by what Argument â—e can prove the Election not to have been necessitated For it is not enough for him to say I perceive no necessity in it nor to say they might have chosen another because he knows not whether they might or not nor to say if he had not been freely elected the Election had been void or none For though that be true it does not follow that the Election was not necessary for there is no repugnance to necessity either in Election or in Freedome And whereas he concludeth therefore voluntary Acts in particular are not necessitated I would have been glad he had set down what voluntary Acts there are not particular which by his restriction of voluntary Acts he grants to be necessitated T. H. SEventhly I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing Num. 31. is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect The same is also a necessary cause for if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanted somewhat which was needful to the producing of it and so the cause was not sufficient But if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it or else it had not been And therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated J. D. THis section contains a third Argument to proove that all effects are necessary for clearing whereof it is needfull to consider how a cause may be said to be sufficient or insufficient First several causes singly considered may be insufficient and the same taken conjointly be sufficient to produce an effect As a two Horses jointly are sufficient to draw a Coach which either of them singly is insufficient to do Now to make the effect that is the drawing of the Coach necessary it is not onely required that the two Horses be sufficient to draw it but also that their conjunction be necessary and their habitude such as they may draw it If the owner of one of these Horses will not suffer him to draw If the Smith have shod the other in the quick and lamed him If the Horse have cast a shoe or be a resty jade and will not draw but when he list then the effect is not necessarily produced but contingently more or less as the concurrence of the causes is more or less contingent b Secondly a cause may be said to be sufficient either because 2. it produceth that effect which is intended as in the generation of a man or else because it is sufficient to produce that which is produced as in the generation of a Monster The former is properly called a sufficient cause the later a weak and insufficient cause Now if the debility of the cause be not necessary but contingent then the effect is not necessary but contingent It is a rule in Logick that the conclusion alwayes follows the weaker part If the premises be but probable the conclusion cannot be demonstrative It holds as well in causes as in propositions No effect can exceed the vertue of its cause If the ability or debility of the causes be contingent the effect cannot be necessary Thirdly that which concerns this question of Liberty from necessity most neerly is That c a cause is said to be sufficient 3. in respect of the ability of it to act not in respect of its will to act The concurrence of the will is needful to the production of a free effect But the cause may be sufficient though the will do not concur As God is sufficient to produce a thousand worlds but it doth not follow from thence either that he hath produced them or that he will produce them The blood of Christ is a sufficient ransome for all mankind but it doth not follow therefore that all mankind shall be actually saved by vertue of his Blood A man may be a sufficient Tutour though he will not teach every Scholler and a sufficient Physician though he will not administer to every patient For as much therefore as the concurrence of the will is needful to the production of every free effect and yet the cause may be sufficient in sensu-divi'so although the will do not concur it followes evidently that the cause may be sufficient and yet something which is needful to the production of the effect may be wanting and that every sufficient cause is not a necessary cause Lastly if any man be disposed to wrangle against so clear light and say that though the free Agent be sufficient in sensu diviso yet he is not sufficient in sensu composito to produce the effect without the concurrence of the will he saith true but first he bewrayes the weakness and the fallacy of the former argument which is a meer trifling between sufficiency in a divided sense and sufficiency in a compounded sense And seeing the concurrence of the will is not predetermined there is no antecedent necessity before it do concur and when it hath concurred the necessity is but hypothetical which may consist with liberty Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXI IN this place he disputeth against my definition of a sufficient cause namely that cause to which nothing is wanting needfull to the producing of the effect I thought this definition could have been mistiked by no man that had English enough to
know that a sufficient cause and cause enough signifieth the same thing And no man wil say that that is cause enough to produce an effect to which any thing is wanting needful to the producing of it But the Bishop thinks if he set down what he understands by sufficient it would serve to confute my definition And therefore says a Two Horses joyntly are sufficient to draw a Coach which either of them singly is insufficient to do Now to make the effect that is the drawing of the Coach necessary it is not onely required that the two Horses be sufficient to draw it but also that it be necessary they shall be joyned and that the owner of the Horses will let them draw and that the Smith hath not lamed them and they be not resty and list not to draw but when they list otherwise the effect is contingent It seems the Bishop thinks two Horses may be sufficient to draw a Coach though they will not draw or though they be lame or though they be never put to draw and I think they can never produce the effect of drawing without those needful circumstances of being strong obedient and having the Coach some way or other fastened to them He calls it a sufficient cause of drawing that they be Coach hoâ—ses though they be lame or wiâ—â— not draw But I say they are not sufficient absolutely but conditionally if they be not lame nor resty Lâ—t the read r judge whether my sufficient cause or his may properly be called cause enough b Secondly a cause may be said to be sufficient either because it produceth that effect which is intended as in the generation of a man or else because it is sufficient to produce that which is produced as in the generation of a Monster the former is properly called a sufficient cause the latter a weak and insufficient cause In these few lines he hath said the cause of the generation of a Monster is sufficient to produce a Monster and that it is insufficient to produce a Monster How sooâ— may a man forget his words that doth nâ—t understand theâ—â— This term of insufficient cause which also the School calls Deficient that they may rime to efficient is not inteâ—â—eâ—ible but a word devised like Hocus Pocus to juggle a difficulty out of sight That which is sufficient to produce a Monster is not therefore to be called an insufficient cause to produce a mâ—n no more then that which is sufficient to produce a man is to be called an insufficient cause to produce a Monster c Thirdly a cause is said to be sufficient in respect of the ability of it to act not in respect of its will to act c. As God is sufficient to produce a thousand Worlds He understands little whâ—n â—en say God is sufficient to produce many worlds if he understand not the meaning to be that he is sufficient to prodâ—ce them if he will Without this sâ—pposition It he will a man is not sufficient to produce any voluntary action not so much as to walk though he be inhâ—alth and at Liberty The will is as much a sufficient cause without the strength to do as the strength without the Wil To that which he adds that my Definition is a meer trifling between a sufficiency in a divided sense and a sufficiency in a compounded sense I can make no answer because I understand no more what he means by sufficiency in a divided sense and sufficiency in a compounded sense then if he had said sufficiency in a divided non-sense and sufficiency in a compounded non-sense T. H. LAstly I hold that the ordinary definition of a free Agent namely Num. 32. that a free Agent is that which when all things are present which are needful to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it implies a contradiction and is non-sense being as much as to say the cause may be sufficient that is necessary and yet the effect not follow J. D. THis last point is but a Corollary or an Inference from the former doctrine that every sufficient cause produceth its effect necessarily which pillar being taken away the superstructure must needs fall to the ground having nothing left to support it Lastly I hold saith he what he is able to proove is something So much reason so much trust but what he holds concerns himself not others But what holds he I hold saith he that the ordinary definition of a free Agent implies a contradiction and is non-sense That which he calls the ordinary definition of liberty is the very definition which is given by the much greater part of Philosophers and School-men And doth he think that all these spake non-sense or had no more judgment than to contradict themselves in a definition He might much better suspect himself than censure so many Let us see the definition iâ— self A free Agent is that which when all things are present that are needful to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it I acknowledge the old definition of Liberty with little variation But I cannot see this non-sense nor discover this contradiction For a in these words all things needfull or all things requisite the actual determination of the will is not included But by all things needful or requisite all necessary power either operative or elective all necessary instruments and adjuments extrinsecall and intrinsecall and all conditions are intended As he that hath pen and ink and paper a table a desk and leisure the art of writing and the free use of his hand hath all things requisite to write if he will and yet he may forbear if he will Or as he that hath men and mony and arms and munition and ships and a just cause hath all things requisite for war yet he may make peace if he will Or as the King proclaimed in the Gospel Matth. 2â— 4. â— hâ—ve prepared my dinner my oxen and my fatlings are killed all things are ready come unto the marriage According to T. H his doctrine the guests might have told him that he said not truly for their own wills were not readâ— b And indeed if the will were as he conceives it is necessitated extrinsecally to every act of willing if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth will nor to will what it doth not will then if the will were wanting something requisite to the producing of the effect was wanting But now when Science and conscience reason and Religion our own and other mens experience doth teach us that the will hath a dominion over its own acts to will or nill without extrinsecal necessitation if the power to will be present in actâ— primo determinable by our selves then there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of the effect Secondly these words â—o act or not to act to wâ—rk or not to work to produce or nâ—t to produce have reference to the effect not as a thing which
signifies and whether our Antipodes have their heads upwards or downwards And he will not stick to tell you that if his head be upwards theirs must needs be downwards And this is because he knows not the formal reason thereof that the Heavens incircle the earth and what is towards Heaven is upwards This same erroneous notion of upwards and downwards before the true reason was fully discovered abused more than ordinary capacities as appears by their arguments of penduli homines and pendulae arbores Again what do men conceive ordinaryly by this word empty as when they say an empty vessel or by this word Body as when they say there is no body in that room they intend not to exclude the aire either out of the vessel or out of the room Yet reason tells us that the vessel is not truly empty and that the aire is a true body I might give an hundred such like instances He who leaves the conduct of his understanding to follow vulgar notions shall plunge himself into a thousand errours like him who leaves a certain guide to follow an ignis fatuus or a Will with the wispe So his proposition is false b His reason That matter of fact is not verified by other mens Arguments but by every mans own sense and memory is likewise maimed on both sides whether we hear such words or not is matter of fact and sense is the proper judge of it But what these words do or ought truely to signifie is not to be judged by sense but by reason Secondly reason may and doth oftentimes correct sense even about its proper object Sense tells us that the Sun is no bigger than a good Ball but reason demonstrates that it is many times greater than the whole Globe of the earth As to his instance How can it be proved that to love a thing and to think it good is al one to a man that doth not mark his own meaning by these words I confess it cannot be proved for it is not true Beauty and likeness and love do conciliate love as much as goodness Cos amoris amor Love is a passion of the will but to judge of goodness is an act of the understanding A Father may love an ungracious Child and yet not esteem him good A man loves his own house better than another mans yet he cannot but esteem many others better than his own His other instance How can it be proved that eternity is not nunc stans to a man that says these words by custome and never considers how he can conceive the thing it self in his minde is just like the former not to be proved by reason but by fancy which is the way he takes And it is not unlike the counsel which one gave to a Novice about the choise of his wife to advice with the Bels as he fancied so they sounded either take her or leave her c Then for his assumption it is as defective as his proposition That by these words spontaneity c. men do understand as he conceives No rational man doth conceive a spontaneous action and an indeliberate action to be all one every indeliberate action is not spontaneous The fire considers not whether it should burn yet the burning of it is not spontaneous Neither is evâ—ry spontaneous action indeliberate a man may deliberate what he will eat and yet eat it spontaneously d Neither doth deliberation properly signifie the considering of the good and evil sequels of an action to come But the considering whether this be a good and fit means or the best and fittest means for obtaining such an end The Physician doth not deliberate whether he should cure his Patient but by what means he should cure him Deliberation is of the means not of the end e Much less doth any man conceive with T. H. that deliberation is an imagination or an act of fancy not of reason common to men of discretion with mad men and natural fools and children and bruit beasts f Thirdly neither doth any understanding man conceive or can conceive that the will is an act of our deliberation The understanding and the will are two distinct faculties or that onely the last appetite is to be called our will So no man should be able to say this is my will because he knows not whether he shall persevere in it or not g Concerning the fourth point we agree that he is a free Agent that can do if he will and forbear if he will But I wonder how this dropped from his pen what is now become of his absolute necessity of all things if a man be free to do and to forbear any thing Will he make himself guilty of the non-sense of the School-men and run with them into contradictions for company It may be he will say he can do if he will and forbear if he will but he cannot will if he will This will not serve his turn for if the cause of a free action that is the will to be determined then the effect or the action it self is likewise determined a determined cause cannot produce an undetermined effect either the Agent can will and forbear to will or else he cannot do and forbear to do h But we differ holy about the fifth point He who conceives liberty aright conceives both a liberty in the subject to will or not to will and a liberty to the object to will this or that and a liberty from impediments T. H. by a new way of his own cuts off the liberty of the subject as if a stone was free to ascend or descend because it hath no outward impediment And the liberty towards the object as if the Needle touched with the Load-stone were free to point either towards the North or towards the South because there is not a Barricado in its way to hinder it yea he cuts off the liberty from inward impediments also As if an Hawk were at liberty to fly when her wings are plucked but not when they are tied And so he makes liberty from extrinsecal impediments to be compleat liberty so he ascribes liberty to bruit beasts and liberty to Rivers and by consequence makes Beasts and Rivers to be capeable of sin and punishment Assuredly Xerxes who caused the Hellespont to be beaten with so many stripes was of this opinion Lastly T. H. his reason that it is â—ustome or want of ability or negligence which makes a mâ—n câ—nceive otherwise is but a begging of that which he should prove Other men consider as seriously as himself with as much judgement as himself with less prejudice than himself and yet they can apprehend no suchsense of these words Wouldhe have other men feign that they see fiery Dragons in the Air because he affirms confidently that he sees them and wonders why others are so blind as not to see them i The reason for the sixth point is like the former a phantastical or imaginative reason How can a man imagine any