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
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
acts and words to acknowledge it than he that thinketh otherwise Yet is this external acknowledgement the same thing which we call Worship So this opinion fortifieth piety in both kinds externally and internally and therefore is far from destroying it And for Repentance which is nothing but a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way though the cause that made him go astray were necessary yet there is no â—…ason why he should not grieve and again though the cause â—…hy he returned into the way were necessary there remaines still the causes of joy So that the necessity of the actions taketh away neither of those parts of repentance grief for the errour nor joy for the returning And for Prayer whereas he saith that the necessity of things destroyes prayer I deny it For though prayer be none of the causes that moove Gods Will his Will being unchangeable yet since we find in Gods Word he will not give his blessings but to those that ask them the motive to prayer is the same Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessings And the prayer is decreed together in the same decree wherein the blessing is decreed T is manifest that thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past And that which is past is sure and necessary Yet even amongst men thanks is in use as an acknowledgement of the benefit past though we should expect no new benefit for our gratitude And prayer to God Almighty is but thanksgiving for his blessings in general and though it precede the particular thing we ask yet it is not a cause or means of it but a signification that we expect nothing but from God in such manner as he not as we will And our Saviour by word of mouth bids us pray Thy will not our will be done and by example teaches us the same for he prayed thus Father if it be thy will let this cup pass c. The end of prayer as of thanksgiving is not to move but to honour God Almighty in acknowledging that what we ask can be effected by him onely J. D. I Hope T. H. will be perswaded in time that it is not the Covetousness or Ambition or Sensuallity or Sloth or Prejudice of his Readers which renders this doctrine of absolute necessity dangerous but that it is in its own nature destructive to true godliness a And though his answer consist more of oppositions than of solutions yet I will not willingly leave one grain of his matter unweighed b First he erres in making inward piety to consist meerly in the estimation of the judgement If this were so what hinders but that the Devils should have as much inward piety as the best Christians for they esteem Gods power to be infinite and tremble Though inward piety do suppose the act of the understanding yet it consisteth properly in the act of the will being that branch of Justice which gives to God the honour which is due unto him Is there no Love due to God no Faith no Hope Secondly he erres in making inward piety to ascribe no glory to God but onely the glory of his Power or Omnipotence What shall become of all other the divine Attributes and particularly of his Goodness of his Truth of his Justice of his Mercy which beget a more true and sincere honour in the heart than greatness it self Magnos facile laudamus bonos lubenter Thirdly this opinion of absolute necessity destroyes the truth of God making him to command one thing openly and to necessitate another privately to chide a man for doing that which he hath determined him to do to profess one thing and to intend another It destroyes the goodness of God making him to be an hater of mankind and to delight in the torments of his creatures whereas the very doggs licked the sores of Lazarus in pitty and commiseration of him It destroyes the Justice of God making him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act which they had no more powerto shun than the fire hath power not to burn It destroyes the very power of God making him to be the true Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world These are the fruits of Impotence not of Omnipotence He who is the effective cause of sin either in himself or in the Creature is not Almighty There needs no other Devil in the world to raise jealousies and suspitions between God and his creatures or to poyson mankind with an apprehension that God doth not love them but onely this opinion which was the office of the Serpent Gen. 3. 5. Fourthly for the outward worship of God e How shall a man praise God for his goodness who believes him to be a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault to express his power How shall a man hear the word of God with that reverence and devotion and faith which is requisite who believeth that God causeth his Gospel to be preached to the much greater part of Christians not with any intention that they should be converted and saved but meerly to harden their hearts and to make them inexcusable How shall a man receive the blessed Sacrament with comfort and confidence as a Seal of Gods love in Christ who believeth that so many millions are positively excluded from all fruit and benefit of the passions of Christ before they had done either good or evil How shall he prepare himself with care and conscience who apprehendeth that Eating and Drinking unworthily is not the cause of damnation but because God would damn a man therefore he necessitates him to eat and drink unworthily How shall a man make a free vow to God without grosse ridiculous hypocrisie who thinks he is able to pâ—rform nothing but as he is extrinsecally necessitated Fiftly for Repentance how shall a man condemn and accuse himself for his sins who thinks himself to be like a Watch which is wound up by God and that he can go neither longer nor shorter faster nor slower truer nor falser than he is ordered by God If God sets him right he goes right If God set him wrong he goes wrong How can a man be said to return into the right way who never was in any other way but that which God himself had chalked out for him What is his purpose to amend who is destitute of all power but as if a man should purpose to fly without wings or a beggar who hath not a groat in his purse purpose to build Hospitals We use to say admit one absurdity and a thousand will follow To maintain this unreasonable opinion of absolute necessity he is necessitated but it is hypothetically he might change his opinion if he would to deal with all ancient Writers as the Goths did with the Romans who destroyed all their magnificent works that there might remain no monument of their greatness upon
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
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