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
Which cannot be proved for the contrary is true Or how proveth he that there is no outward impediment to keep that point of the Load stone which placeth it self toward the North from turning to the South His ignorance of the causes external is nâ—t a sufficient argument that there are none And whereas he saith that according to my definition of Liberâ—y a Hauk were at Liberty to fly when her wings are pluckt but not when they are tyed I answer that she is not at Liberty to fly when her wings are tyâ—d but to say when her wings are plâ—ckt that she wanted the Liberty to fly were to speak impropâ—rly and absurdly for in that case men that speak English use to say she cannot fly And for his reprehension of my attributing Libâ—rty to brute beasts and rivers I would be glad to know whether it be improper language to say a bird â—r beast may be sâ—t at Liberty from the cage wherein they were â—mprisoned or to say that a river which was stopped hath recovered its free course and how it follows that a beast or river recovering this freedome must needs therefore be capable of sin and punishment i The reason for the sixt point is like the former a Phantastical or Imaginative reason How can a man imagine any thing to begin without a cause or if it should begin without a cause why it should begin at this time rather then at that time He saith truely nothing 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 without anâ—cessâ—ry cause He granteth nothing caâ— begin without a cause he hath granted formerly that nothing can cause it self And now he saith it may begin to Act of it self The action therefore begins to be without any cause which he said nothing could do contradicting what he had said but in the line before And â—or that that he saith that many things may begin not without cause but without a necessary cause It hath bâ—en arguâ—d before and all causes have been proved if entire and sufficiâ—nt causes to be nâ—cessary and that which he repeatâ—th here namely that a free cause may choose his time when he will begin to work and that 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 it has been made appear sufficiently before that it is but Jargon the words free cause and determining themselves being insignificant and having nothing in the mind of man naswerable to them 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 to examine himself c. One of his interrogatories is this whether I find not by experience that I do many things which I might have left undone if I would This question was needlâ—sse because all the way I have granted him that men have libeâ—ty to do many things if they will which they left undâ—ne because they had not the Will to do them Another interrogatory is this whether I do not some things without regard to the direction of right reason or serious respect of what is honest or prâ—fitable This question was in vain unlesse he think himself my Confessour Another is whether I writ not this defence against Liberty onely to show I will have a Dominion over my own actions To this I answer no but to show I have no Dominion over my will and this also at his request But all these questions serve in this place for nothing else but to deliver him of a jest he was in labour with all and therefore his last question is whether I do not sometimes say Oh what a fool was I to do thus and thus or Oh that I had been wise or Oh what a fool was I to grow old Subtil questions and full of Episcopal gravity I would he had left out charging me with blasphemous desperate destructive and Atheistecal opinions I should then have pardonâ—d him his calling me fool both because I do many things foolishly and because in this question disputed between us I think he will appear a greater fool then I. T. H. FOr the seventh point that all events have necessary causes it is Num. 34. there proved in that they have sufficient causes Further Let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual at for example the throwing Ambs-ace upon a paire of Dice and see if it must not have been necessary before it was thrown for seeing it was thrown it had a beginning and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it consisting partly in the Dice partly in the ouâ—ward things as the posture of the parties hand the measure of force applied by the caster the posture of the parts of the Table and the like In sum there was notâ—ing wanting that was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast and consequently that cast was necessarily thrown For iâ— it had not been thrown there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it and so the cause had not been sufficient In the like manner it may be proved that every other accident how contingâ—nt soâ—ver it seem or how voluntary soever it be is produced necâ—ssarily which is that J. D. disâ—utes against The same also may be proved in this manner Let the case be put for example of the weather T is necessary that to morrow it shall rain or not rain If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain it is necessary it shall not rain Otherwise it is not necessary that the proposition It shall rain or it shall not rain should be true I know there are some that say it may necessarily be true that one of the two shall come to pass but not singly that it shall rain or it shall not rain Which is as much as to say One of them is necessary yet neither of them is necessary And therefore to seem to avoid that absurdity they make a distinction that neither of them is true determinatè but indeterminatè Which distinction either signifies no more than this One of them is true but we know not which and so the necessity remains though we know it not Or if the meaning of the distinction be not that it has no meaning And they might as well have said One of them is true Tytyrice but neither of them Tupatulice J. D. a HIs former proof that all sufficient causes are necessary causes is answered before Numb 31. b And his two instances of casting Ambs-ace and raining to morrow are altogether impertinent to the question now agitated between us for two reasons First our present controversie is concerning free actions which proceed from the liberty of mans will both his instances are of contingent actions which
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
therefore as it were ridiculous to say that the object of Sight is the cause of Seeing so it is to say that the proposing of the object by the Understanding to the Will is the cause of Willing Here also the Question is brought to this issue Whether the object of Sight be the cause that it is Seen But for these words proposing of the object by the Understanding to the Will I understand them not Again he often useth such words as these The Will willeth the Will suspendeth its act id est the Will willeth not the Understanding proposeth the Understanding understandeth Herein also lyeth the whole Question If they be true I if false He is in the errour Again the whole question is decided when this is decided Whether he that willingly permitteth a thing to be done when without labour danger or diversion of mind he might have hindered it do not Will the doing of it Again the whole Question of Free-will is included in this Whether the Will determine it self Again it is included in this Whether there be an universal Grace which particular men can take without a particular Grace to take it Lastly there be two Questions one Whether a man be free in such things as are within his power to do what he Will another Whether he be free to Will Which is as much as to say because Will is Appetite it is one Question Whether he be free to eat that has an Appetite and another Whether he be feee to have an Appetite In the former Whether a man be free to do what he Will I agree with the Bishop In the latter Whether he be free to Will I dissent from him And therefore all the places of Scripture that he alleadgeth to prove that a man hath liberty to do what he Will are impertinent to the Question If he has not been able to distinguish between these two Questions he has not done well to meddle with either if he has understood them to bring arguments to prove that a man is free to do if he Will is to deale uningenuously and fraudulently with his Readers And thus much for the State of the Question The Fountains of Argument in this Question THe Arguments by which this Question is disputed are drawn from four Fountaines 1. From Authorities 2. From the Inconveniences consequent to either opinion 3. From the Attributes of God 4. From natural Reason The Authorities are of two sorts Divine and Humane Divine are those which are taken from the holy Scriptures Humane also are of two sorts one the Authorities of those men that are generally esteemed to have been learned especially in this Question as the Fathers Schoolmen and old Philosophers the other are the Uulgar and most commonly receaved opinions in the world His Reasons and places of Scripture I will answer the best I am able but his humane Authorities I shall admit and receive as farre as to Scripture and Reason they be consonant and no further And for the Arguments derived from the Attributes of God so farre forth as those Attributes are argumentative that is so farre forth as their significations be conceavable I admit them for Arguments but where they are given for honour onely and signifie nothing but an intention and endeavour to praise and magnifie as much as we can Almighty God there I hold them not for Arguments but for Oblations not for the language but as the Scripture calls them for the calves of our lips which signifie not true nor false or any opinion of our brain but the reverence and devotion of our hearts and therefore they are no sufficient praemises to inferre Truth or convince Falsehood The places of Scripture that make for me are these First Gen. 45. 5. Joseph sayeth to his Brethren that had sold him Be not grieved nor angry with your selves that ye sold me hither For God did send me before you to preserve life And again verse 8. So now it was not you that sent me hither but God And concerning Pharaoh God sayeth Exod. 7. 3. I will harden Pharaohs heart And concerning Sihon King of Hesbon Moses sayeth Deut. 2. 30. The Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate And of Shimei that did curse David David himself sayeth 2 Sam. 16. 10. Let him curse because the Lord hath said unto him curse David and 1 Kings 12 15. The King hearkned not to the People for the curse was from the Lord. And Job disputing this very Question sayeth Job 12. 14. God shutteth man and there can be no opening and vers 16. The deceaved and the deceaver are his and verse 17. He maketh the Judges fools and verse 24. He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the Earth and causeth them to wander in a Wilderness where there is no way and verse 25. He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man And of the King of Assyria God saith I will give him a charge to take the spoile and to take the prey and to tread them down like the mire of the streets Esay 10. 6. And Jeremiah sayth Jer. 10 23. O Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps And to Ezechiel whom God sent as a watchman to the house of Israel God saith thus When a Righeous man doth turne from his righteousness and commit iniquity and I lay a stumbling block before him he shall dye because thou hast not given him warning he shall dye in his sin Eze. 3. 20. Note here God layes the stumbling block yet he that falleth dyeth in his sin which showes that Gods Justice in killing dependeth not on the sin onely And our Saviour saith John 6. 44. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him And St. Peter concerning the dilivering of Christ to the Jews saith thus Acts 2. 23. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken c. And again those Christians to whom Peter and John resorted after they were freed from their troubles about the miracle of curing the lame man praysing God for the same say thus Of a truth against the holy Child Jesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done Acts 4. 27 28. And St. Paul Rom. 9. 16. It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy and verse 18 19 20. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault For who hath resisted his will Nay but O man who art thou that disputest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus And again 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who
maketh thee differ from another and what hast thou that thou hast not received and 1 Cor. 12. 6. There are diversities of operations but it is the same God that worketh all in all and Ephes. 2. 10. We are his workmanship created in Jesus Christ unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them and Phillip 2. 13. It is God that worketh in you both to Will and to Do of his good pleasure To these places may be added all the places that make God the giver of all Graces that is to say of all good habits and inclinations and all the places wherein men are said to be dead in sin for by all these it is manifest that although a man may live holily if he will yet to will is the work of God and not eligible by man A second sort of places there be that make equally for the Bishop and Me and they be such as say that a man hath Election and may do many things if he will and also if he will he may leave them undone but not that God Almighty naturally or supernaturally worketh in us every act of the will as in my opinion nor that he worketh it not as in the Bishops opinion though he use those places as Arguments on his side The places are such as these Deut. 30. 19 I call Heaven and Eatth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing Therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live and Ecclesâ—… 15. 14. God in the beginning made man and left him in the hand of his Counsell and verse 16 17. He hath set fire and water before thee stretch forth thy hand to whether thou wilt Before man is life and death and whether him liketh shall be given him And those places which the Bishop citeth If a wife make a vow it is left to her husbands choise either to establish it or to make it void Numb 30. 14. and Josh 24. 15. Chuse ye this day whom you will serve c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. and 2 Sam. 24. 12. I offer thee three things choose which of them I shall do and Before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and chuse the good Esay 7. 10. And besides these very many other places to the same effect The third sort of Texts are those which seem to make against me As Esay 5. 4. What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it And Jer. 19. 5. They have also bailt the high places of Baal to burn their sonns with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal which I commanded not nor spake it neither came it into my mind And Hosea 15. 9. O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help And 1 Tim. 2. 4. Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth And Ecclesiasticus 15. 11. 12. Say not thou it is through the Lord I fell away for thou oughtest not to do the things that he hateth Say not thou he hath caused me to erre for he hath no need of thee sinfull man And many other places to the like purpose You see how great the apparent contradiction is between the first and the third sort of Texts which being both Scripture may and must be reconciled and made to stand together which unless the rigor of the letter be on one or both sides with intelligible and reasonable interpretations mollified is impossible The Schoolmen to keep the literal sence of the third sort of Texts interpret the first sort thus the words of Joseph It was not you that sent me hither but God they interpret in this manner It was you that sold me into Egipt God did but permit it It was God that sent me and not you as if the selling were not the sending This is Suarez of whom and the Bishop I would know whether the selling of Joseph did infallibly and inevitably follow that permission If it did then that selling was necessitated before hand by an eternal permission If it did not how can there be attributed to God a foreknowledge of it when by the Liberty of humane Will it might have been frustrated I would know also whether the selling of Joseph into Egipt were a sin If it were why doth Joseph say Be not grieved nor angry with your selves that ye sold me hither Ought not a man to be grieved and angry with himself for sinning If it were no sin then treachery and fratricide is no sin Again seeing the selling of him consisted in these acts binding speaking delivering which are all corporeal motions did God Will they should not be how then could they be done Or doth he permit barely and neither Will nor Nill corporeal and local motions How then is God the first mover and cause of all local motion Did he cause the motion and Will the law against it but not the irregularity How can that be seeing the motion and law being existent the contrariety of the motion and law is necessarily coexistent So these places He hardned Pharaohs heart He made Sihons heart obstinate they interpret thus He permitted them to make their own hearts obstinate But seeing that mans heare without the grace of God is uninclinable to good the necessity of the hardness of heart both in Pharaoh and in Sihon is as easily derived from Gods permission that is from his with-holding his grace as from his positive decree And whereas they say He Wilâ—s godly and free actions conditionally and consequently that is if the man will them then God Wills them elso not and Wills not evil actions but permits them they ascribe to God nothing at all in the causation of any action either good or bad Now to the third sort of places that seem to contradict the former let us see if they may not be reconciled with a more intelligible and reasonable interpretation than that wherewith the Schoolmen interpret the first It is no extraodinary kind of â—anguage to call the Commandements and Exhortations and other significations of the Will by the name of Will though the Will be an internal act of the soul and Commands are but words and signes external of that internal act So that the will and the word are diverse things and differ as the thing signified and the signe And hence it comes to passe that the Word and Commandement of God namely the holy Scripture is usually called by Christians Gods Will but his revealed Will acknowledging the very Will of God which they call his Counsell and Decree to be another thing For the revealed Will of God to Abraham was that Isaac should be sacrificed but it was his Will he should not And his revealed Will to Jonas that Niniveh should be destroyed within forty dayes but not his Decree and Purpose His Decree and Purpose cannot be known beforehand but may afterwards
by the Event for from the Event we may inferre his Will But his revealed Will which is his Word must be foreknown because it ought to be the rule of our actions Therefore where it is said that God will have all men to be saved it is not meant of his Will internal but of his Commandements or Will revealed as if it had been said God hath given Commandements by following of which all men may be saved So where God saies O Israel how often would I have gathered thee c. as a Hen doth her Chickens but thou wouldest not It is thus to be understood How oft have I by my Prophets given thee such counsell as being followed thou had'st been gathered c. And the like interpretations are to be given to the like places For it is not christian to think if God had the purpose to save all men that any man could be damned because it were a sign of want of power to effect what he would So these words What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done If by them be meant the Almighty power might receave this answer Men might have been kept by it from sinning But when we are to measure God by his revealed Will it is as if he had said What directions what lawes what threatnings could have been used more that I have not used God doth not will and command us to enquire what his Will and Purpose is and accordingly to do it for we shall do that whether we will or not but to look into his Commandements that is as to the Jewes the Law of Moses and as to other People the Lawes of their Country O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help Or as some English Translations have it O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self c. Is literally true but maketh nothing against me for the man that sins willingly whatsoever be the cause of his Will if he be not forgiven hath destroyed himself as being his own act Where it is said They have offered their sons unto Bâ—al which I commanded not nor spake it nor came it into my mind These words nor came it into my mind are by some much insisted on as if they had done it without the Will of God For whatsoever is done comes into Gods mind that is into his knowledge which implyes a certainty of the future action and that certainly an antecedent purpose of God to bring it to passe It cannot therefore be meant God did not will it but that he had not the will to command it But by the way it is to be noted that when God speaks to men concerning his Will and other Attributes he speaks of them as if they were like to those of men to the end he may be understood And therefore to the order of his Work the World wherein one thing followes another so aptly as no man could order it by Designe he gives the name of Will and Purpose For that which we call Designe which is reasoning and thought after thought cannot be properly attributed to God in whose thoughts there is no fore nor after But what shall we answer to the Words in Ecclesiasticus Say not thou it is through the Lord I fell away say not thou he hath caused me to erre If it had not been say not thou but think not thou I should have answered that Ecclesiasticus is Apocrypha and meerly humane authority But it is very true that such words as these are not to be said first because St. Paul forbids it Shall the thing formed saith he say to him that formed it why hast thou made me so Yet true it is that he did so make him Secondly because we ought to attribute nothing to God but what we conceave to be Honourable and we judge nothing Honourable but what we count so amongst our selves and because accusation of man is not Honourable therefore such words are not to be used concerning God Almighty And for the same cause it is not lawful to say that any Action can be done which God hath purposed shall not be done for it is a token of want of the power to hinder it Therefore neither of them is to be said though one of them must needs be true Thus you see how disputing of Gods nature which is incomprehensible driveth men upon one of these two Rocks And this was the cause I was unwilling to have my Answer to the Bishops Doctrine of Liberty published And thus much for comparison of our two opinions with the Scriptures which whether it favour more his or mine I leave to be judged by the Reader And now I come to compare them again by the Inconveniences which may be thought to follow them First the Bishop sayes that this very perswasion that all things come to passe by Necessity is able to overthrow all Societies and Common-wealths in the World The Lawes saith he are unjust which prohibit that which a man cannot possibly shunne Secondly that it maketh superstuous and foolish all Consultations Arts Armes Books Instruments Teachers and Medicines and which is worst Piety and all other Acts of Devotion For if the Event be necessary it will come to pass whatsoever we do and whether we sleep or wake This inference if there were not as well a necessity of the means as there is of the event might be allowed for true But according to my opinion both the event and means are equally necessitated But supposing the inference true it makes as much against him that denies as against him that holds this necessity For I believe the Bishop holds for as certain a truth what shall be shall be as what is is or what has been has been And then the ratiocination of the sick man If I shall recover what need I this unsavoury potion if I shall not recover what good will it do me is a good ratiocination But the Bishop holds that it is necessary he shall recover or not recover Therefore it followes from an opinion of the Bishops as well as from mine that Medicine is superstuous But as Medicine is to Health so is Piety Consultation Arts Armes Books Instruments and Teachers every one to its several â—nd Out of the Bishops opinion it followes as well as from mine that Medicine is superstuous to Health Therefore from his opinion as well as from mine it followeth if such ratiocination were not unsound that Piety Consultation c. are also superstuous to their respective ends And for the superstuity of Lawes whatsoever be the truth of the Question between us they are not superstuous because by the punnishing of one or of a few unjust men they are the cause of justic in a great many But the greatest inconvenience of all that the Bishop pretends may be drawn from this opinion is that God in justice cannot punnish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone It
that my Principles are pernicious both to Piety and Policy and destructive to all Relations c. My answer is that I desire not that he or they should so mispend their time but if they will needs do it I can give them a fit Title for their Book Behemoth against Leviathan He ends his Epistle with so God bless us Which words are good in themseves but to no purpose here but are a Buffonly abusing of the name of God to Calumny A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY FROM Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity J. D. EIther I am free to write this Discourse for Liberty against Necessity or I am not free If I be Numb 1. free I have obteined the cause and ought not to suffer for the truth If I be not free yet I ought not to be blamed since I do it not out of any voluntary election but out of an inevitable Necessity T. H. RIght Honourable I had once resolved to answer J. D'â— objections to my Book De Cive in the first place as that which concerns me most and afterwards to examine this discoâ—â—se of Liberty and Necessity which because I never had uttered my opinion of it concerned me the less But seeing it was both your Lordships and J. D s. desire that I should begin with the later I was contented so to do And here I present and submit it to your Lordships judgement J. D. a THe first day that I did read over T. H. his defence of the necessity of all things was April 20. 1646. Which proceeded not out of any disrespect to him for if all his discourses had been Geometrical demonstrations able not onely to perswade but also to compel assent all had been one to me first my journey and afterwards some other trifles which we call business having diverted me until then And then my occasions permitting me and an advertisement from a friend awakening me I set my self to a serious examination of it We commonly see those who delight in Paradoxes if they have line enough confute themselves and their speculatives and their practicks familiarly enterfere one with another b The very first words of T. H. his defence trip up the heels of his whole cause I had once resolved To resolve praesupposeth deliberation but what deliberation can there be of that which is inevitably determined by causes without our selves before we do deliberate can a condemned man deliberate whether he should be executed or not It is even to as much purpose as for a man to consult and ponder with himself whether he should draw in his breath or whether he should increase in stature Secondly c to resolve implies a mans dominion over his own actions and his actual determination of himself but he who holds an absolute necessity of all things hath quitted this dominion over himself which is worse hath quitted it to the second extrinsecal causes in which he makes all his actions to be determined one may as well call again Yesterday as resolve or newly determine that which is determined to his hand already d I have perused this treatise weighed T. H his answers considered his reasons and conclude that he hath missed and missed the Question that the answers are evasions that his arguments are paralogisms that the opinion of absolute and universal Necessity is but a result of some groundless and ill chosen principles and that the defect is not in himself but that his cause will admit no better defence and therefore by his favour I am resolved to adhere to my first opinion Perhaps another man reading this discourse with other eyes judgeth it to be pertinent and well founded How comes this to pass the treatise is the same the exteriour causes are the same yet the resolution is contrary Do the second causes play fast and loose do they necessitate me to condemn and necessitate him to maintain what is it then the difference must be in our selves either in our intellectuals because the one sees clearer than the other or in our affections which betray our unsterstandings and produce an implicite adhaerence in the one more than in the other Howsoever it be the difference is in our selves The outward causes alone do not chain me to the one resolution nor him to the other resolution But T. H. may say that our several and respective deliberations and affections are in part the causes of our contrary resolutions and do concur with the outward caufes to make up one total and adaequate cause to the necessary production of this effect If it be so he hath spun a fair thred to make all this stir for such a necessity as no man ever denyed or doubted of when all the causes have actually determined themselves then the effect is in being for though there be a priority in nature between the cause and the effect yet they are together in time And the old rule is e whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is This is no absolute necessity but onely upon supposition that a man hath determined his own liberty When we question whether all occurrences be necessary we do not question whether they be necessary when they are nor whether they be necessary in sensu composito after we have resolved and finally determined what to do but whether they were necessary before they were determined by our selves by or in the praecedent causes before our selves or in the exteriour causes without our selves It is not inconsistent with true Liberty to determine it self but it is inconsistent with true Liberty to be determined by another without it self T. H. saith further that upon your Lorships desire and mine he was contented to begin with this discourse of Liberty and Necessity that is to change his former resolution f If the chain of necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily in sunder if his will was no otherwise determined without himself but onely by the signification of your Lordships desire and my modest intreaty then we may easily conclude that humane affairs are not alwaies governed by absolute necessity that a man is Lord of his own actions if not in chief yet in mean subordinate to the Lord Paramount of Heaven and Earth and that all things are not so absolutely determined in the outward and precedent causes but that fair intreaties and moral perswasions may work upon a good nature so far as to prevent that which otherwise had been and to produce that which otherwise had not been He that can reconcile this with an Antecedent Necessity of all things and a Physical or Natural determination of all causes shall be great Apollo to me Whereas T. H. saith that he had never uttered his opinion of this Question I suppose he intends in writing my conversation with him hath not been frequent yet I remember well that when this Question was agitated between us two in your Lordships Chamber by your command he did then declare himself in words
both for the absolute necessity of all events and for the ground of this necessity the Flux or concatenation of the second causes Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number I. a THe first day that I did read over T. H. his defence of Necessity c. His deferring the reading of my defence of necessity he will not he saith should be interpreted for disrespect T is well though I cannot imagine why he should fear to be thought to disrespect me He was diverted he saith by trifles called business It seems then he acknowledgeth that the will can be diverted by business Which though said on the By is contrary I think to the Mayne that the Will is Free for free it is not if any thing but it self caâ— divert it b The very first words of T. H. his defence trip up the heeles of his whole cause c. How so I had once saith he Resolved To Resolve praesupposeth deliberation But what deliberation can there be of that which is inevitably determined without our selves There is no man doubts but a man may deliberate of what himself shall do whether the thing be impossible or not in case he know not of the impossibility though he cannot deliberate of what another shall do to him Therefore his examples of the man condemned of the man that breatheth and of him that groweth because the Question is not what they shall do but what they shall suffer are impertinent This is so evident that I wonder how he that was before so witty as to say my first words tript up the â—eâ—les of my cause and that having line enough I would confute my self could presently be so dull as not to see his Argument was too weak to support so triumphant a language And whereas he seemeth to be off ended with Paradoxes let him thank the Schoolmen whose senceless writings have made the greatest number of important Truths seeâ— Paradoxe c This Argument that followeth is no better To Resolve saith he implies a mans dominion over his actions and his actual determination of himself c. If he understand what it is to Resolve he knowes that it signifies no more then after deliberation to Will He thinks therefore to Will is to have dominion over his own actions and actually to determine his own Will But no man can determine his own will for the will is appetite nor can a man more determine his will than any other appetite that is more than he can determine when he shall be hungry and when not When a man is hungry it is in his choise to eat or not eat this is the liberty of the man But to be hungry or not hungry which is that which I hold to proceed from necessity is not in his choise Besides these words dominion over his own actions and determination of himself so farre as they are significant make against him For over whatsoever things there is dominion those things are not Free and therefore a mans actions are not Free And if a man determine himself the Question will still remain what determined him to determine himself in that manner d I have perused this Treatise weighed T. H. his answers considered his reasons c. This and that whicâ— followeth is talking to himself at randome till he come to allâ—adge that which he calleth an old rule which is this e Whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is This is no absolute necessity but onely upon supposition that a man hath determined his own liberty c. If the Bishop think that I hold no other Necessity than that which is expressed in that old foolish rule he neither understandeth me nor what the word Necessary signifieth Necessary is that which is impossible to be otherwise or that which cannot possibly otherwise come to passe Therefore Necessary Possible and Impossible have no signification in reference to time past or time present but onely time to come His Necessary and his in sensu composito signifie nothing My Necessary is a Necessary from all Eternity and yet not inconsistent with true Liberty which doth not consist in determining it self but in doing what the Will is determined unto This dominion over it self and this sensus compositus and this determining it self and this necessarily is when it is are confused and empty words f If the chain of Necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily in sunder c. by the signification of your Lordships desire and my modest intreaty then we may safely conclude that humane affairs c. Whether my Lords desire and the Bishops modest intreaty were enough to produce a Will in me to write an answer to his treatise without other concurrent causes I am not sure Obedience to his Lordship did much my civility to the Bishop did somwhat perhaps there were other imaginations of mine own that contributed their part But this I am sure of that alltogether they were sufficient to frame my will thereto and whatsoever is sufficient to produce any thing produceth it as necessarily as the fire necessarily burneth the Fâ—wel that is cast into it And though the Bishops modest intreaty had been no part of the cause of my yeilding to it yet certainly it would have been cause enough to some civil man to have requited me with fairer Language than he hath done throughout this Reply T. H. ANd first I assure your Lordship I find in it no new Argument Numb â— neither from Scripture nor from Reason that I have not often heard before which is as much as to say that I am not supprised J. D. a THough I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort that if he be not supprised then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him and where he failes I may ascribe it to the weakness of his cause not to want of preparation But in this case I like Epictetus his Councell well that b the Sheep should not brag how much they have eaten or what an excellent pasture they do go in but shew it in their Lamb and Wool Opposite answers and downright Arguments advantage a cause To tell what we have heard or seen is to no purpose When a respondent leaves many things untouched as if they were too hot for his Fingers and declines the weight of other things and alters the true state of the Question it is a shrewd sign either that he hath not weighed all things maturely or else that he maintains a desperate cause Animadversions upon his Reply Numb II a THough I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort that if he be not supprised then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him c. Though I were not supprised yet I do not see the reason for which he saith he may expect a more mature answer from me or any further answer
sensitive appetites yet sin not 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 acception of the word Free the Question is plainly this whether all Agents and all events natural civil moral for we speak not now of the conversion of a sinner that concerns not this Question be predetermined extrinsecally and inevitably without their own concurrence in the determination so as all actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner or in any other place time number measure order nor to any other end than they are And all this in respect of the supream cause or a concourse of extrinsecal causes determining them to one k So my preface remains yet unanswered Either I was extrinsecally and inevitably predetermined to write this discourse without any concurrence of mine in the determination and without any power in me to change or oppose it or I was not so predetermined If I was then I ought not to be blamed for no man is justly blamed for doing that which never was in his power to shun If I was not so predetermined then mine actions and my will to act are neither compelled nor necessitated by any extrinsecal causes but I elect and choose either to write or to forbear according to mine own will and by mine own power And when I have resolved and elected it is but a necessity of supposition which may and doth consist with true liberty not a reall antecedent necessity The two hornes of this Dilemma are so strait that no mean can be given nor room to passe between them And the two consequences are so evident that instead of answering he is forced to decline them Animadversions upon his Reply Numb III. a THus much I will maintaine that that is no true necessity which he calleth Necessity nor that Liberty which he calleth Liberty nor that the Question which he makes the Question c. For the clearing whereof it behooveth us to know the difference between these three Necessity Spontaneity and Liberty I did expect that for the knowing of the difference between Necessity Spontaneity and Liberty he would have set down their Definitions For without these their difference cannot possibly appear for how can a man know how things differ unless he first know what they are which he offers not to shew He tels us that Necessity and Spontaneity may meet together and Spontaneity and Liberty but Necessity and Liberty never and many other things impertinent to the purpose For which because of the length I refer the Reader to the Place I note onely this that Spontaneity is a word not used in common English and they that understand Latine know it means no more than Appetite or Will and is not found but in living Creatures And seeing he saith that Necessity and Spontaneity may stand together I may say also that Necessity and Will may stand together and then is not the Will Free as he would have it from Necessitation There are many other things in that which followeth which I had rather the Reader would consider in his own words to which I referre him than that I should give him greater trouble in reciting them again For I do not fear it will be thought too hot for my fingers to shew the vanity of such words as these Intellectual appetire Conformity of the appetite to the object Rational will Elective power of the Rational will nor understand I how Reason can be the root of true Liberty if the Bishop as he saith in the beginning had the liberty to write this discourse I understand how objects and the Conveniences and the Inconveniences of them may be represented to a man by the help of his sences but how Reason representeth any thing to the Will I understand no more than the Bishop understands there may be Liberty in Children in Beasts and inanimate Creaturs For he seemeth to wonder how Children may be left at Liberty how Beasts imprisoned may be set at Liberty and how a River may have a free course and saith what will he ascribe Liberty to inanimate Creatures also And thus he thinks he hath made it clear how Necessity Spontaneity and Liberty differ from â—â—e another If the Reader find it so I am contented b His Necessity is just such another a Necessity upon supposition arising from the concourse of all the causes including the last dictate of the understanding in reasonable Creatures c. The Bishop might easily have seen that the Necessity I hold is the same Necessity that he denies namely a Necessity of things future that is an antecedent Necessity derived from the very beginning of time and that I put Necessity for an Impossibility of not being and that Impossibility as well as Possibility are never truly said but of the future I know as well as he that the cause when it is adaequate as he calleth it or entire as I call it is together in time with the effect But for all that the Necessity may be and is before the effect as much as any Necessity can be And though he call it a Necessity of supposition it is no more so than all other Necessity is The fire burneth neoessarily but not without supposition that there is fewel put to it And it burneth the fewel when it is put to it necessarily but it is by supposition that the ordinary course of nature is not hindred For the fire burnt not the three Children in the Furnace c But if these causes did operate Freely or Contingently if they might have suspended or denied their concurrence or have concurred after another manner then the effect was not truly and antecedently necessary but either free or Contingent It seems by this he understandeth not what these words Free and Contingent mean A little before he wondred I should attribute Liberty to inanimate Creatures and now he puts causes amongst those things that operate Freely By these causes it seems be understandeth onely men whereas I shewed before that Liberty is usually ascribed to whatsoever Agent is not hindred And when a man doth any thing Freely there be many other Agents immediate that concur to the effect he intendeth which work not Freely but necessarily as when the man moveth the Sword Freely the Sword woundeth necessarily nor can suspend or deny its concurrence And consequently if the man move not himself the man cannot deny â—is concurrence To which he cannot reply unless he say a man originally can move himself for which he will be able to find no Authority of any that have but tasted of the knowledge of motion Then for Contingent he understandeth not what it meaneth for it is all one to say it is Contingent and simply to say it is saving that when they say simply it is they consider not how or by what means but in saying it is contingent they tell us
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
to motion Also he will face me down that I understand what he meanes by his distinctions of liberty of Contrariety of Contradiction of Exercise onely of Exercise and Specification jointly If he mean I understand his meaning in one sence it is true for by them he means to shift off the discredit of being able to say nothing to the Question as they do that pretending to know the cause of every thing give for the cause of why the Loadstone draweth to it Iron sympathy occult quality making they cannot tell turned now into Occult to stand for thereall cause of that most admirable effect But that those words signifie distinction I constantly deny It is not enough for a distinction to be forked it ought to signifie a distinct conception There is great difference between luade distinctions and cloven feet b It is strange to see with what confidence now adayes particular men slight all the Schoolmen and Philosophers and Classick Authors of former ages c. This word particular men is put here in my opinion with little judgement especially by a man that pretendeth to be learned Does the Bishop think that he himself is or that there is any Universal man It may be he means a private man Does he then think there is any man not private besides him that is indued with Soveraign power But it is most likely he calls me a particular man because I have not had the authority he has had to teach what doctrine I think fit But now I am no more Particular than he and may with as good a grace despise the Schoolmen and some of the old Philosophers as he can despise me unless he can shew that it is more likely that he should be better able to look into these Questions sufficiently which require meditation and reflection upon a mans own thoughts he that hath been obliged most of his time to preach unto the people and to that end to read those Authors that can best furnish him with what he has to say and to study for the rhetorick of his expressions and of the spare time which to a good Pastor is very little hath spent no little part in seeking preferment and encreasing of riches than I that have done almost nothing else nor have had much else to do but to meditate upon this and other natural Questions It troubles him much that I stile School-learning Jargon I do not call all School-learning so but such as is so that is that wch they say in defending of untruths and especially in the maintenance of Free-will when they talk of liberty of Exercise Specification Contrariety Contradiction Acts Elicite and Exercite and the like Which though he go over again in this place endeavouring to explain them are still both here and there but Jargon or that if he like it better which the Scripture in the first Chaos calleth Tohu and Bohu But because he takes it so hainously that a private man should so hardly censure School-Divinity I would be glad to know with what patience he can hear Martin Luther and Phillip Melancthon speaking of the same Martin Luther that was the first beginner of our deliverance from the servitude of the Romish Clergy had these three Articles censured by the University of Paris The first of which was School-Theology is a false interpretation of the Scripture and Sacraments which hath banished from us true and sinceere Theology The second is At what time School-Theology that is Mock-Theology came up at the same time the Theology of Christs Crosse went down The third is It is now almost 300 years since the Church has endured the licentiousnes of School Doctors in corrupting of the Scriptures Moreover the same Luther in another place of his works saith thus School-Theology is nothing else but ignorance of the truth and a block to stumble at laid before the Scriptures And of Tho. Aquinas in particular he saith that it was he that did set up the Kingdome of Aristotle the destroyer of godly Doctrine And of the Philosophy whereof St. Paul biddeth us beware he saith it is School-Theology And Melancthon a Divine once much esteemed in our Church saith of it thus T is known that that profane Scholastique learning which they will have to be called Divinity began at Paris which being admitted nothing is left sound in the Church the Gospel is obscured Faith extinguished the Doctrine of works received and instead of Christs People we are become not so much as the people of the Law but the people of Aristotles Ethiques These were no raw Divines such as he saith preacht to their equally ignorant Auditors I could ad to these the slighting of School-Divinity by Calvin and other learned Protestant Doctors yet were they all but private men who it seemes to the Bishop had forgot themselves as well as I. J. D. THus the coast being cleared the next thing to be done Numb 5. is to draw out our forces against the enemy And because they are divided into two Squadrons the one of Christians the other of Heathen Philosophers it will be best to dispose ours also into two Bodies the former drawn from Scripture the later from Reason T. H. THe next thing be doth after the clearing of the coast is the dividing of his forces as he calls them into two Squadrons one of places of Scripture the other of Reasons which Allegory be useth I suppose because he addresseth the discourse to your Lordship who is a Millitary Man All that I have to say touching this is that I observe a great part of those his forces do look and march another way and some of them do fight among themselves J. D. IF T. H. could divide my forces and commit them together among themselves it were his onely way to conquer them But he will find that those imaginary contradictions which he thinks he hath espied in my discourse are but fancies and my supposed impertinences wil prove his own real mistakings IN this fift Number there is nothing of his or mine pertinent to the Question therefore nothing necessary to be repeated J. D. Proofs of Liberty out of Scripture FIrst whosoever have power of election have true Liberty Numb 6. 1. for the proper act of liberty is election A Spontaneity may consist with determination to one as we see in Children Fools mad Men bruit Beasts whose fancies are determined to those things which they act Spontaneously as the Bees make Honey the Spiders Webs But none of these have a liberty of election which is an act of judgement and understanding and cannot possibly consist with a determination to one He that is determined by something before himself or without himself cannot be said to choose or elect unless it be as the Junior of the Mess chooseth in Cambridge whether he will have the least part or nothing And scarcely so much But men have liberty of election This is plain Numb 30. 14. If a Wife make a vow
And howsoever it be determined yet being determined it is not in his power indifferently either to establish it or to make it void at his pleasure So Joshua 24. 15. Choose you this day whom ye will serve But I and my house will serve the Lord. It is too late to choose that this day which was determined otherwise yesterday whom ye will serve whether the Gods whom your fathers served or the Gods of the Amorites Where there is an election of this or that these Gods or those Gods there must needs be either an indifferency to both objects or at least a possibility of either I and my house will seve the Lord. If he were extrinsecally predetermined he should not say I will serve but I must serve And 2 Sam. 24. 12. I offer thee three things choose thee which of them I shall do How doth God offer three things to Davids choice if he had predetermined him to one of the three by a concourse of necessary extrinsecal causes If a soveraign Prince should descend so far as to offer a delinquent his choice whether he would be fined or imprisoned or banished and had under hand signed the sentence of his banishment what were it else but plain drollery or mockery This is the argument which in T. H. his opinion looks another way If it do it is as the Parthians used to fight flying His reason followes next to be considered Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number VI. IN this Number he hath brought three places of Scripture to prove Free-Will The first is If a Wife make a vow it is left to her Husbands choice either to establish it or to make it void And Choose you this day whom you will serve c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. And I offer thee three things choose thee which of them I shall do Which in the Reply he endeavoureth to make good but needed not seeing they prove nothing but that a man is Free to do if he will which I deny not He ought to prove he is Free to will which I deny a Secondly I prove it by instances and by that universal notion which the world hath of Election His instances are first the difference between an Hereditary Kingdom and an Elective and then the difference between the Senior and Junior of the Mess taking their commons both which prove the liberty of doing what they will but not a liberty to will for in the first case the Electors are Free to name whom they will but not to Will and in the second the Senior having an appetite chooseth what he hath an appetite to but chooseth not his appetite T. H. FOr if there come into the Husbands mind greater good by establishing Numb 7. than abrogating such a vow the establishing will follow necessarily And if the evill that will follow thereon in the Husbands opinion outweigh the good the contrary must needs follow And yet in this following of ones hopes and feares consisteth the nature of Election So that a man may both choose this and cannot but choose this And consequently choosing and necessity are joyned together J. D. â—THere is nothing said with more shew of reason in this cause by the patrons of necessity and adversaries of true liberty than this That the Will doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding or the last judgement of right reason 〈…〉 in this and this onely I confess T. H. hath good seconds Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary And justly For First this very act of the understanding is an effect of 1. the will and a testimony of its power and liberty It is the will which affecting some particular good doth ingage and command the understanding to consult and deliberate what means are convenient for atteining that end And though the Will it self be blind yet its object is good in general which is the end of all human actions Therefore it belongs to the Will as to the General of an Army to move the other powers of the soul to their acts and among the rest the understanding also by applying it and reducing its power into act So as whatsoever obligation the understanding doth put upon the Will is by the consent of the Will and derived from the power of the Will which was not necessitated to moove the understanding to consult So the Will is the Lady and Mistriss of human actions the understanding is her trusty counseller which gives no advise but when it is required by the Will And if the first consultation or deliberation be not sufficient the Will may moove a review and require the understanding to inform it self better and take advise of others from whence many times the judgment of the understanding doth receive alteration Secondly for the manner how the understanding doth 2. determine the Will it is not naturally but morally The Will is mooved by the understanding not as by an efficient having a causal influence into the effect but onely by proposing and representing the object And therefore as it were ridiculous to say that the object of the sight is the cause of seeing so it is to say that the proposing of the object by the understanding to the will is the cause of willing and therefore the understanding hath no place in that concourse of causes which according to T. H. do necessitate the will Thirdly the judgement of the understanding is not alwayes 3. practicè practicum nor of such a nature in it self as to oblige and determine the will to one Sometimes the understanding proposeth two or three means equally available to the atteining of one and the same end Sometimes it dictateth that this or that particular good is eligible or fit to be chosen but not that it is necessarily eligible or that it must be chosen It may judge this or that to be a fit means but not the onely means to attain the desired end In these cases no man can doubt but that the Will may choose or not choose this or that indifferently Yea though the understanding shall judge one of these means to be more expedient than another yet for as much as in the less expedient there is found the reason of good the Will in respect of that dominion which it hath over it self may accept that which the understanding judgeth to be less expedient and refuse that which it judgeth to be more expedient Fourthly sometimes the will doth not will the end so efficaciously 4. but that it may be and often is deterred from the prosecution of it by the difficulty of the means and notwithstanding the judgement of the understanding the will may still suspend its own act Fiftly supposing but not granting that the will did necessarily 5. follow the last dictate of the understanding yet this proves no antecedent necessity but coexistent with the act no extrinsecal necessity the will and the understanding being but
two faculties of the same soul no absolute necessity but meerly upon supposition And therefore the same Authors who matntain that the judgement of the understanding doth necessarily determine the will do yet much more earnestly oppugne T. H. his absolute necessity of all occurrences Suppose the Will shall apply the understanding to deliberate and not require a review Suppose the dictate of the understanding shall be absolute not this or that indifferently nor this rather than that comparatively but this positively nor this freely but this necessarily And suppose the will do will efficaciously and do not suspend its own act Then here is a necessity indeed but neither absolute nor extrinsecal nor antecedent flowing from a concourse of causes without our selves but a necessity upon supposition which we do readily grant So far T. H. is wide from the truth whilest he maintains either that the apprehension of a greater good doth neessitate the Will or that this is an absolute necessity b Lastly whereas he saith that the nature of election doth consist in following our hopes and fears I cannot but observe that there is not one word of Art in this whole treatife which he useth in the right sence I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity nor out of a contempt of former Writers nor out of a desire to take in sunder the whole frame of Learning and new mould it after his own mind It were to be wished that at least he would give us a new Dictionary that we might understand his sence But because this is but touched here sparingly and upon the by I will forbear it until I meet with it again in its proper place And for the present it shall suffise to say that hopes and fears are common to brute Beasts but election is a rational act and is proper only to man who is Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae T. H. THE second place of Scripture is Josh. 24. 15. The third is 2 Sam. 24. 12. whereby t is clearly proved that there is election in man but not proved that such election was not necessitated by the hopes and fears and considerations of good and bad to follow which depend not on the Will nor are subject to election And therefore one answer serves all such places if they were a thousand J. D. THis answer being the very same with the former word for word which hath already sufficiently been shaken in pieces doth require no new reply Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb VII a THere is no thing said with more show of reason in this cause by the Patrons of Necessity then this that the Wil doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding or the last judgement of right reason c. Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary and justly for first this very act of the understanding is an effect of the Will c. I note here first that the Bishop is mistaken in saying that I or any other Patron of Necessity are of opinion that the Will followes alwayes the last judgement of right Reason For it followeth as well the judgement of an erroneous as of a true reasoning and the truth in general is that it followeth the last opinion of the goodness or evilness of the object be the opinion true or false Secondly I note that in making the understanding to be an effect of the Will he thinketh a man may have a will to that which he not so much as thinks on And in saying that it is the Will which affecting some particular good doth ingage and command the Understanding to consult c. That he not onely thinketh the Will affecteth a particular good before the man understands it to be good but also he thinketh that these words doth command the understanding and these for it belongs to the Will as to the General of an Army to move the other powers of the soul to their acts and a great many more that follow which are not sense but meer confusion emptiness as for example The understanding doth determine the will not Naturally but Morally and The will is moved by the understanding is unintelligible Moved not as by an Efficient is non-sense And where he saith that it is ridiculous to say the object of the sight is the cause of seeing he showeth so clearly that he understandeth nothing at all of Natural Philosophy that I am sorry I had the ill fortune to be engaged with him in a dispute of this kind There is nothing that the simplest Country Man could say so absurdly concerning the understanding as this of the Bishop the judgement of the understanding is not alwaies practicè practicum A Country Man will acknowledge there is judgement in Men but will as soon say the judgement of the judgement as the judgement of the understanding And if practicè practicum had been sense he might have made a shift to put it into English Much more followeth of this stuff b Lastly whereas he saith that the nature of Election doth consist in following our hopes and fears I cannot but observe that there is not one word of Art in this whole treatise which he useth in the right sense I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity nor out of a contempt of former Writers c. He might have said there is not a word of Jargon nor Nonsense and that it proceedeth from an affectation of truth and contempt of metaphysical Writers and a desire to reduce into frame the Learning which they have confounded and disordered T. H. SUpposing it seemes I might answer as I have done that Numb 8. Necessity and Election might stand together and instance in the actions of Children Fooles and brute Beasts whose fancies I might say are necessitated and determined to one before these his proofs out of Scripture he desires to prevent that instance and therefore sayes that the actions of children fooles mad-men and beasts are indeed determined but that they proceed not from election nor from free but from spontaneous Agents As for example that the Bee when it maketh honey does it spontaneously And when the Spider makes his webb he does it spontaneously and not by election Though I never meant to ground any answer upon the experience of what children fools mad-men and beasts do yet that your Lordship may understand what can be meant by spontaneous and how it differs from voluntary I will answer that distinction and shew that it fighteth against its fellow Arguments Your Lordship therefore is to consider that all voluntary actions where the thing that induceth the will is not fear are called also spontaneous and said to be done by a mans own accord As when a man giveth money voluntarily to another for Merchandise or out of affection he is said to do it of his own accord which in Latin is Sponte and therefore the action is spontaneous Though to give
not indeed He who casts his goods into the Sea may do it of his own accord in order to the end Secondly he erres in this also that nothing is opposed to spontaneity but onely fear Invincible and Antecedent ignorance doth destroy the nature of spontaneity or voluntariness by removing that knowledge which should and would have prohibited the action As a man thinking to shoot a wild Beast in a Bush shoots his friend which if he had known he would not have shot This man did not kill his friend of his own accord For the clearer understanding of these things and to know 4. what spontaneity is let us consult a while with the Schools about the distinct order of voluntary or involuntary actions Some acts proceed wholly from an extrinsecal cause as the throwing of a stone upwards a rape or the drawing of a Christian by plain force to the Idols Temple these are called violent acts Secondly some proceed from an intrinsecal cause but without any manner of knowledge of the end as the falling of a stone downwards these are called natural acts Thirdly some proceed from an internal principle with an imperfect knowledge of the end where there is an appetite to the object but no deliberation nor election as the acts of Fools Children Beasts and the inconsiderate act of men of judgement These are called voluntary or spontaneous acts Fourthly some proceed from an intrinsecal cause with a more perfect knowledge of the end which are elected upon deliberation These are called free acts So then the formal reason of liberty is election The necessary requisite to election is deliberation Deliberation implyeth the actual use of reason But deliberation and election cannot possibly subsist with an extrinsecal praedetermination to one How should a man deliberate or choose which way to go who knows that all wayes are shut against him and made impossible to him but onely one This is the genuine sense of these words Voluntary and Spontaneous in this Question Though they were taken twenty other waies vnlgarly or metaphorically as we say spontaneous ulcers where there is no appetite at all yet it were nothing to this controversie which is not about Words but about Things not what the words Voluntary or Free do or may signifie but whether all things be extrinsecally praedetermined to one These grounds being laid for clearing the true sense of the words the next thing to be examined is that contradiction which he hath espied in my discourse or how this Argument fights against his fellows If I saith T. H. make it appear that the spontaneous actions of Fools Children mad Men and Beasts do proceed from election and deliberation and that inconsiderate and indeliberate actions are found in the wisest men then this argument concludes that necessity and election may stand together which is contrary to his assertion If this could be made appear as easily as it is spoken it would concern himself much who when he should prove that rational men are not free from necessity goes about to prove that brute Beasts do deliberate and elect that is as much as to say are free from necessity But it concerns not me at all it is neither my assertion nor my opinion that necessity and election may not meet together in the same subject violent natural spontaneous and deliberate or elective acts may all meet together in the same subject But this I say that necessity and election cannot consist together in the same act He who is determined to one is not free to choose out of more then one To begin with his later supposition that wise men may do inconsiderate and indeliberate actions I do readily admit it But where did he learn to infer a general conclusion from particular premises as thus because wise men do some indeliberate acts therefore no act they do is free or elective Secondly for his former supposition That Fools Children mad Men and Beasts do deliberate and elect if he could make it good it is not I who contradict my self nor fight against mine own assertion but it is he who endeavours to prove that which I altogether deny He may well find a contradiction between him and me otherwise to what end is this dispute But he shall not be able to find a difference between me and my self But the truth is he is not able to proove any such thing and that brings me to my sixth Consideration That neither Horses nor Bees nor Spiders nor Children nor Fools nor Mad-men do deliberate or elect His 6. first instance is in the Horse or Dog but more especially the Horse He told me that I divided my argument into squadrons to apply my self to your Lordship being a Military man And I apprehend that for the same reason he gives his first instance of the Horse with a submission to your own experience So far well but otherwise very disadvantageously to his cause Men use to say of a dull fellow that he hath no more brains than a Horse And the Prophet David saith Be not like the Horse and Mule which have no understanding Psal. 32. 9. How do they deliberate without understanding And Psal. 49. 20. he saith the same of all brute Beasts Man being in honour had no understanding but became like unto the Beasts that perish The Horse dâ—â—urres upon his way Why not Outward objects or inward fancies may produce a stay in his course though he have no judgement either to deliberate or elect He retires from some strange figure which he sees and comes on again to avoid the spur So he may and yet be far enough from deliberation All this proceeds from the sensitive passion of fear which is a perturbation arising from the expectation of some imminent evil But he urgeth what else doth man that deliberateth Yes very much The Horse feareth some outward object but deliberation is a comparing of several means conducing to the same end Fear is commonly of one deliberation of more than one fear is of those things which are not in our power deliberation of those things which are in our power fear ariseth many times out of natural antipathies but in these disconveniences of nature deliberation hath no place at all In a word fear is an enemy to deliberation and betrayeth the succours of the Soul If the Horse did deliberate he should consult with reason whether it were more expedient for him to go that way or not He would represent to himself all the dangers both of going and staying and compare the one with the other and elect that which is less evil He should consider whether it were not better to endure a little hazard than ungratefully and dishonestly to fail in his duty towards his Master who did breed him and doth feed him This the Horse doth not Neither is it possible for him to do it Secondly for Children T. H. confesseth that they may be so young that they do not deliberate at all Afterwards as they
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
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
of his in his Book de Cive cap. 6. pag. 70. ascribes to power respectively irresistible or to Soveraign Magistrates whose power he makes to be as absolute as a mans power is over himself not to be limitted by any thing but onely by their strength The greatest propugners of Soveraign power think it enough for Princes to challenge an immunity from coercive power but acknowledge that the Law hath a directtive power over them But T. H. will have no limits but their strength Whatsoever they do by power they do justly But saith he God objected no sin to Job but justified his afflicting him by his power First this is an Argument from authority negatively that is to say worth nothing Secondly the afflictions of Job were no vindicatory punishments to take vengeance of his sins whereof we dispute but probarory chasstisements to make triall of his graces Thirdly Iob was not so pure but that God might justly have laid greater punishments upon him than those afflictions which he suffered Witness his impatience even to the cursing of the day of his nativity Job 3. 3. Indeed God said to Job where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth Job 38. 4. that is how canst thou judge of the things that were done before thou wast born or comprehend the secret causes of my judgements And Job 42. 9. Hast thou an arm like God As if he should say why art thou impatient doest thou think thy self able to strive with God But that God should punish Job without desert here is not a word Concerning the blind man mentioned John 9. his blindness was rarher a blessing to him than a punishment being the means to raise his Soul illuminated and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with Ants and Flies but the sight of the soul with the blessed Angels We read of some who have put out their bodily eyes because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the Soul Again neither he nor his parents were innocent being conceived and born in sin and iniquity Psal. 51. 5. And in many things we offend all Jam. 3. 2. But our Saviours meaning is evident by the Disciples question ver 2. They had not so sinned that he should be born blind Or they were not more grievous sinners than other men to deserve an examplary judgment more than they but this corporal blindness befel him principally by the extraordinary providence of God for the manifestation of his own glory in restoring him to his sight So his instance halts on both sides neither was this a punishment nor the blind man free from sin His third instance of the death and torments of Beasts is of no more weight than the two former The death of brute Beasts is not a punishment of sin but a debt of nature And though they be often slaughtered for the use of man yet there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell between the meer depriving of a creature of remporal life and the subjecting of it to eternal death I know the Philosophical speculations of some who affirme that entity is better than non-entity that it is better to be miserable and suffer the tormenss of the damned than to be annihilated and cease to be altogether This entity which they speak of is a Metaphysical entity abstracted from the matter which is better than non-entity in respect of some goodness not moral nor natural but trancendental which accompanies every being But in the concrete it is far otherwise where that of our Saviour often takes place Mat. 26. 24. Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed It had been good for that man that he had not been born I add that there is an Analogical Juctice and Mercy due even to the brute Beasts Thou shalâ— not musâ—â—e the mouth of the Oxe that treadeth out the corn And a just man is merciful to his Beast f But his greatest errour is that which I touched before to make Justice to be the proper result of Power Power doth not measure and regulate Justice but Justice measures and regulates Power The Will of God and the Eternal Law which is in God himself is properly the rule and measure of Justice As all goodness whether Natural or Moral is a participation of divine goodness and all created Rectitude is but a participation of divine Rectitude so all Lawes are but participations of the eternall Law from whence they derive their power The rule of Justice then is the same both in God and us but it is in God as in him that doth regulate and measure in us as in those who are regulated and measured As the Will of God is immutable alwayes willing what is just and right and good So his justice likewise is immutable And that individual action which is justly punished as sinful in us cannot possibly proceed from the special influence and determinative power of a just cause See then how grossely T. H. doth understand that old and true principle that the Will of God is the rule of Justice as if by willing things in themselves unjust he did render them just by reason of his absolute dominion and irresistible power as fire doth assimilate other things to it self and convert them into the nature of fire This were to make the eternal Law a Lesbian rule Sin is defined to be that which is done or said or thought contrary to the eternall Law But by this doctrine nothing is done nor said nor thought contrary to the Will of God St. Anselm said most truly then the will of man is good and just and right when he wills that which God would have him to will but according to this doctrine every man alwayes wills that which God would have him to will If this be true we need not pray Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven T. H. hath devised a new kind of heaven upon earth The worst is it is an heaven without Justice Justice is a constant and perpetual act of the Will to give every one his own But to inflict punishment for those things which the Judge himself did determine and necessitate to be done is not to give every one his own right punitive Justice is a relation of equallity and proportion between the demerit and the punishment But supposing this opinion of absolute and universal necessity there is no demerit in the World we use to say that right springs from Law and Fact as in this Syllogism Every thief ought to be punished there 's the Law But such an one is a thief there 's the Fact therefore he ought to be punished there 's the right But this opinion of T. H. grounds the right to be punished neither upon Law nor upon Fact but upon the irresistible power of God Yea it overturneth as much as in
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
a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs and the unsufferable and endless pains of Hell As if the length or the greatness of the pain made any difference in the justice or injustice of the inflicting it f But his greatest error is that which I touched before to make Justice to be the proper result of Power He would make men beleeve I hold all things to be just that are done by them who have power enough to avoid the punishment This is one of his pretty little policies by which I find him in many occasions to take the measure of his own wisdom I said no more but that the Power which is absolutely irrefistible makes him that hath it above all Law so that nothing he doth can be unjust But this Power can be no other than the Power divine Therefore let him preach what he will upon his mistaken text I shall leave it to the Reader to consider of it without any further answer g Lastly howsoever 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 Law and of the Action but even of the irregularity it self c. wherein the very essence of sin doth consist I think there is no man but understands no not the Bishop himself but that where two things are compared the similitude or dissimilitude regularity or irregularity that is between them is made in and by the making of the things themselves that are compared The Bishop therefore that denies God to be the cause of the irregularity denies him to be the cause both of the Law and of the Action So that by his doctrine there shall be a good Law whereof God shall be no cause and an Action that is a local motion that shall depend upon another first Mover that is not God The rest of this Number is but railing J. D. Proofs of Liberty drawn from Reason THe first Argument is Herculeum or Baculinum drawn Numb 13. Arg. 1. from that pleasant passage between Zeno and his man The servaâ—t had committed some pettilarceny and the Master was cudgeling him well for it The servant thinks to creep under his Masters blind side and pleads for himself That the necessity of destiny did compell him to steal The Master answers the same necessity of destiny compels me to beat thee He that denies Liberty is fitter to be refuted with rodds than with arguments until he confess that it is free for him that beats him either to continue striking or to give over that is to have true Liberty T. H. OF the Arguments from Reason the first is that which he saith is drawn from Zenos beating of his wan which is therefore called Argumentum baculinum that is to say a wooden Argument The story is this Zeno held that all actions were necessary His man therefore hâ—ing for some fault beaten excused himself upon the necessity of it To avoid this excuse his Master pleaded likewise the necessity of beating him So that not he that maintaiued but he that derided the necessity of things was beaten contrary to that he would infer And the Argument was rather withdrawn than drawn from the story J. D. VVHether the Argument be withdrawn from the story or the answer withdrawn from the argument let the Reader judge T. H. mistakes the scope of the reason the strength whereof doth not lie neither in the authority of Zeno a rigid Stoick which is not worth a button in this cause Nor in the servants being an adversary to Stoical necessity for it appears not out of the story that the servant did deride necessity but rather that he pleaded it in good earnest for his own justification Now in the success of the fray we were told even now that no power doth justifie an action but onely that which is irresistible Such was not Zenos And therefore it advantageth neither of their causes neither that of Zeno nor this of T. H. What if the servant had taken the staff out of his Masters hand and beaten him soundly would not the same argument have served the man as well as it did the Master that the necessity of destiny did compell him to strike again Had not Zeno smarted justly for his Paradox And might not the spectators well have taken up the Judges Apothegm concerning the dispute between Corax and his Scholar An ill egg of an ill bird But the strength of this argument lies partly in the ignorance of Zeno that great Champion of necessity and the beggarliness of his cause which admitted no defence but with a cudgel No man saith the servant ought to be beaten for doing that which he is compelled inevitably to do but I am compelled inevitably to steal The major is so evident that it cannot be denied If a strong man shall take a weak mans hand perforce and do violence with it to a third person he whose hand is forced is innocent and he onely culpable who compelled him The minor was Zenos own doctrine what answer made the great patron of destiny to his servant very learnedly he denied the conclusion and cudgelled his servant telling him in effect that though there was no reason why he should be beaten yet there was a necessity why he must be beaten And parttly in the evident absurdity of such an opinion which deserves not to be confuted with reasons but with rods There are four things said the Philosopher which ought not to be called into question First such things where of it is wickedness to doubt as whether the soul be immortal whether there be a God such an one should not be confuted with reasons but cast into the Sea with a milstone about his neck as unworthy to breath the air or to behold the light Secondly such things as are above the capacity of reason as among Christians the mystery of the holy Trinity Thirdly such principles as are evidently true as that two and two are four in Arithmetick that the whole is greater than the part in Logick Fourthly such things as are obvious to the senses as whether the snow be white He who denied the heat of the fire was justly sentenced to be scorched with fire and he that denied motion to be beaten until he recanted So he who denies all Liberty from necessitation should be scourged untill he become an humble suppliant to him that whips him and confesse that he hath power either to strike or to hold his hand T. H. IN this Number 13. which is about Zeno and his man there is contained nothing necessary to the instruction of the Reader Therefore I pass it over J. D. SEcondly this very perswasion that there is no true Liberty Numb 14. Arg. 2. is able to overthrow all Societies and Common wealths in the World The Laws are unjust which prohibite that which a man cannot possibly shun All consultations are vain
if every thing be either necessary or impossible Who ever deliberated whether the Sun should rise to morrow or whether he should sail over mountains It is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or mad men if all things be necessary Praises and dispraises rewards and punishments are as vain as they are undeserved if there be no liberty All Councells Arts Arms Books Instruments are superfluous and foolish if there be no liberty In vain we labour in vain we study in vain we take Physick in vain we have Tutors to instruct us if all things come to pass alike whether we sleep or wake whether we be idle or industrious by unalterable necessity But it is said that though future events be certain yet they are unknown to us And therefore we prohibite deliberate admonish praise dispraise reward punish study labour and use means Alas how should our not knowing of the event be a sufficient motive to us to use the means so long as we believe the event is already certainly determined and can no more be changed by all our endeavours than we can stay the course of Heaven with our finger or add a cubite to our stature Suppose it be unknown yet it is certain We cannot hope to alter the course of things by our labours Let the necessary causes do their work we have no remedy but patience and shrug up the shoulders Either allow liberty or destroy all Societies T. H. THE second Argument is taken from certain inconveniences which he thinks would follow such an opinion It is true that ill use may be made of it and therefore your Lordship and J. D. ought at my request to keep private that I say here of it But the inconveniences are indeed none and what use soever be made of truth yet truth is truth and now the Question is not what is fit to be preached but what is true The first inconvenience he sayes is this that Lawes which prohibite any action are then unjust The second that all consultations are vain The third that admonitions to men of understanding are of no more use than to fools children and mad men The fourth that praise dispraise reward and punishment are in vain The fift that Councells Arts Armes Books Instruments Study Tutours Medicines are in vain To which Argument expecting I should answer by saying that the ignorance of the event were enough to make us use means he adds as it were a reply to my answer foreseen these words Alas how should our not knowing the event be a sufficient motive to make us use the means Wherein be saith right but my answer is not that which he expecteth I answer First that the necessity of an action doth not make the Law which prohibits it unjust To let pass that not the necessity but the will to break the Law maketh the action unjust because the Law regardeth the will and no other precedent causes of action And to let pass that no Law can be possibly unjust in as much as every man makes by his consent the Law he is bound to keep and which consequently must be just unless a man can be unjust to himself I say what necessary cause soever preceeds an action yet if the action be forbidden he that doth it willingly may justly be punisht For instance suppose the Law on pain of death prohibit stealing and there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal and is there upon put to death does not this punishment deterr others from theft is it not a cause that others steal not doth it not frame and make their will to justice To make the Law is therefore to make a cause of Justice and to necessitate justice and consequently it is no injustice to make such a Law The institution of the Law is not to grieve the delinquent for that which is passed and not to be undone but to make him and others just that else would not be so And respecteth not the evil act past but the good to come In so much as without this good intention of future no past act of a delinquent could justifie his killing in the sight of God But you will say how is it just to kill one man to amend another if what were done were necessary To this I answer that men are justly killed not for that their actions are not necessitated but that they are spared and preserved because they are not noxious for where there is no Law there no killing nor any thing else can be unjust And by the right of Nature we destroy without being unjust all that is noxious both beasts and men And for beasts we kill them justly when we do it in order to our own preservations And yet J. D. confesseth that their actions as being onely spontaneous and not free are all necessitated and determined to that one thing which they shall do For men when we make Societies or Common-wealths we lay down our right to kill excepting in certain cases as murther theft or other offensive actions So that the right which the Commonwealth hath to put a man to death for crimes is not created by the Law but remains from the first right of Nature which every man hath to preserve himself for that the Law doth not take that right away in case of criminals who were by Law excepted Men are not therefore put to death or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest In as much as to punish those that do voluntatary hurt and none else frameth and maketh mens wills such as men would have them And thus it is plain that from the necessity of a voluntary action cannot be inferred the injustice of the Law that for biddeth it or of the Magistrate that punisheth it Secondly I deny that it makes consultations to be in vain 't is the consultation that causeth a man and necessitateth him to choose to do one thing rather than another So that unless a man say that cause to be in vain which necessitateth the effect he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation oâ—t of the necessity of the election proceeding from it But it seems be reasons thus If I musts needs do this rather than that then I shall do this rather than that though I consult not at all which is a false proposition a false consequence and no better than this If I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self through with a sword to day If there be a necessity that an action shall be done or that any effect shall be brought to pass it does not therefore follow that there is nothing necessarily required as a means to bring it to pass And therefore when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another t is determined also for what
cause it shall be chosen which cause for the most part is deliberation or consultation And therefore consultation is not in vain and indeed the less in vain by how much the election is more necessitated The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience Namely that admonitions are in vain for admonitions are parts of consultations The admonitor being â— Counsailer for the time to him that is admonished The fourth pretended inconvenience is that praise and dispraise reward and punishment will be in vain To which I answer that for praise and dispraise they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or dispraised For what is it else to praise but to say a thing is good Good I say for me or for some body else or for the State and Commonwealth And what is it to say an action is good but to say it is as I would wish or as another would have it or according to the will of the State that is to say according to Law Does J. D. think that no action can please me or him or the Common-wealth that should proceed from necessity Things may be therefore necessary and yet praise-worthy as also necessary and yet dispraised and neither of both in vain because praise and dispraise and likewise reward and punishment do by example make and conform the will to good or evill It was a very great praise in my opinion thaâ— Velleius Paterculus gives Cato where he sayes he was â—â—od by Nature Et quia aliter esse non potuit To his fift and sixt inconvenience that Councells Arts Arms Books Instruments Study Medicines and the like would be superfluous the same answer servâ— that to the former That is to say that this consequence if the effect shall necessarily come to pass then it shall come to pass without its cause is a false one And those things named Councells Arts Arms c. are the causes of those effects J. D. NOthing is more familiar with T. H. than to decline an Argument But I will put it into form for him â— The first inconvenience is thus preffed Those Lawes are unjust and tyrannical which do prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done and punish men for not doing of them But supposing T. H. his opinion of the necessity of all things to be true all Lawes do prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done and punish men for not doing of them The former proposition is so clear that it cannot be denied Just Lawes are the Ordinances of right Reason but those Lawes which prescribe absolute impossibilities are not the Ordinances of right Reason Just Laws are instituted for the publick good but those Lawes which prescribe absolute impossibilities are not instituted for the publick good Just Lawes do shew unto a man what is to be done and what is to be shunned But those Laws which prescribe impossibilities do not direct a man what he is to do and what he is to shun The Minor is as evident for if his opinion be true all actions all transgressions are determined antecedently inevitably to be done by a natural and necessary flux of extrinsecal causes Yea even the will of man and the reason it self is thus determined And therefore whatsoever Lawes do prescribe any thing to be done which is not done or to be left undone which is done do prescribe absolute impossibilities and punish men for not doing of impossibilities In all his answer there is not one word to this Argument but onely to the conclusion He saith that not the necessity but the will to break the Law makes the action unjust I ask what makes the will to break the Law is it not his necessity What gets he by this A perverse will causeth injustice and necessity causeth a perverse wilf He saith the Law regardeth the will but not the precedent causes of action To what proposition to what tearm is this answer he neither denies nor distinguisheth First the Question here is not what makes actions to be unjust but what makes Lawes to be unjust So his answer is impertinent It is likewise untrue for First that will which the Law regards is not such a will as T. H. imagineth It is a free will not a determined necessitated will a rational will not a brutish will Secondly the Law doth look upon precedent causes as well as the voluntariness of the action If a child before he be seven years old or have the use of reason in some childish quarrell do willingly stab another whereof we have seen experience yet the Law looks not upon it as an act of murther because there wanted a power to deliberate and consequently true liberty Man-slaughter may be as voluntary as murther and commonly more voluntary because being done in hot blood there is the less reluctation yet the Law considers that the former is done out of some sudden passion without serious deliberation and the other out of prepensed malice and desire of revenge and therefore condemns murther as more wilful and more panishable than Man-slaughtter b He saith that no Law can possibly be unjust And I say that this is to deny the conclusion which deserves no reply But to give him satisfaction I will follow him in this also If he intended no more but that unjust Lawes are not genuine Lawes nor bind to active obedience because they are not the ordinations of right Reason nor instituted for the common good nor prescribe that which ought to be done he said truly but nothing at all to his purpose But if he intend as he doth that there are no Lawes de facto which are the ordinances of reason erring instituted for the common hurt and prescribing that which ought not to be done he is much mistaken Pharaohs Law to drown the Male Children of the Israelites Exod. 1. 22. Nebuckadnezzars Law that whosoever did not fall down and worship the golden Image which he had set up should be cast into the fiery furnace Dan. 3. 4 Darius his Law that whosoever should ask a Petition of any God or man for thirty dayes save of the King should be cast into the Den of Lions Dan. 6. 7. Ahashuerosh his Law to destroy the Jewish Nation root and branch Esther 3. 13. The Pharisees Law that whosoever confesseth Christ should be excommunicated John 9. 22. were all unjust Lawes c The ground of this errour is as great an errour it self Such an art be hath learned of repacking Paradoxes which is this That every man makes by his consent the Law which he is bound to keep If this were true it would preserve them if not from being unjust yet from being injurious But it is not true The positive Law of God conteined in the old and new Testament The Law of Nature written in our hearts by the finger of God The Lawes of Conquerors who come in by the power of the Sword The Laws of our Ancesters which were made before we were
Lieutenant of God from whom he derives his power of life and death T. H. hath one plea more As a drowning man catcheth at every Buâ—rush so he layes hold on every pretence to save a desperate cause But first it is worth our observation to see how oft he changeth shapes in this one particular â— 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 though he both give man power to act and determine this power to evil as well as good though he punish the Creatures for doing that which he himself did necessitate them to do But being pressed with reason that this is tyrannical first to necessitate a man to do his will and then to punish him for doing of it he leaves this pretence in the plain field and flies to a second That therefore a man is justly punished for that which he was necessitated to do because the act was voluntary on his part This hath more shew of reason than the former if he did make the will of man to be in his own disposition but maintaining that the will is irresistibly determined to will whatsoever it doth will the injustice and absurdity is the same First to necessitate a man to will and then to punish him for willing The Dog onely bites the stone which is thrown at him with a strange haud but they make the first cause to punish the instrument for that which is his own proper act Wherefore not being satisfied with this he casts it off and flies to his third shift Men are not punished saith he â—…fore because their theft proceeded from election that is because it was willingly done for to Elect and Will saith he are both one Is not this to blow hot and cold with the same breath but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation Thus far he saith true that every creature by the instinct of nature seeks to preserve it self cast water into a dusty place and it contracts it self into little globes that is to preserve it self And those who are noxious the eye of the Law are justly punished by them to whom the execution of the Law is committed but the Law accounts no persons noxious but those who are noxious by their own fault It punisheth not a thorn for pricking because it is the nature of the thorn and it can do no otherwise nor a child before it have the use of reason If one should take mine hand perforce and give another a box on the ear with it my hand is noxious but the Law punisheth the other who is faulty And therefore he hath reason to propose the question how it is just to kill on man to amend another if he who killed did nothing but what he was necessitated to do He might as well demand how it is lawful to murther a company of innocent Infants to make a bath of their lukewarm blood for curing the Leprosie It had been a more rational way first to have demonstrated that it is so and then to have questioned why it is so His assertion it self is but a dream and the reason which he gives of it why it is so is a dream of a dream The sum of it is this That where there is no Law there no killing or any thing else can be unjust that before the constitution of Commonwealths every man had power to kill another if he conceived him to be hurtfull to him that at the constitution of Commonwealhts particular men lay down this right in part and in part reserve it to themselves as in case of theft or murther That the right which the Commonwealth hath to put a malefactor to death is not created by the Law but remaineth from the first right of Nature which every man hath to preserve himself that the killing of men in this case is as the killing of beasts in order to our own preservation This may well be called stringing of Paradoxes But first h there never was any such time when Mankind was without Governors and Lawes and Societies Paternal Government was in the world from the beginning and the Law of Nature There might be sometimes a root of such Barbatous Theevish Brigants in some rocks or desarts or odd corners of the World but it was an abuse and a degeneration from the nature of man who is a political creature This savage opinion reflects too much upon the honour of mankind Secondly there never was a time when it was lawfull ordinarily for private men to kill one another for their own preservation If God would have had men live like wild beasts as Lions Bears or Tygers he would have armed them with hornes or tusks or talons or pricks but of all creatures man is born most naked without any weapon to defend himself because God had provided a better means of security for him that is the Magistrate Thirdly that right which private men have to preserve themselves though it be with the killing of another when they are set upon to be murthered or robbed is not a remainder or a reserve of some greater power which they have resigned but a priviledge which God hath given them in case of extream danger and invincible necessity that when they cannot possibly have recourse to the ordinary remedy that is the Magistrate every man becomes a Magistrate to himself Fourthly nothing can give that which it never had The people whilest they were a dispersed rable which in some odd cases might happen to be never had justly the power of life and death and therefore they could not give it by their election All that they do is to prepare the matter but it is God Almighty that infuseth the soul of power Fiftly and lastly I am sorry to hear a man of reason and parts to compare the murthering of men with the slaughtering of brute beasts The elements are for the Plants the Plants for the brute Beasts the brute Beasts for Man When God enlarged his former grant to man and gave him liberty to eat the flesh of his creatures for his sustenance Gen. 9. 3. Yet man is expresly excepted ver â— Who so sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed And the reason is assigned for in the image of God made he man Before sin entred into the World or before any creatures were hurtful or noxious to man he had â—â—minion over them as their Lord and Master And though the possession of this soveraignty be lost in part for the sin of man which made not onely the creatures to rebel but also the inferiour 〈…〉 to rebel against the superiour from whence it comes that one man is hurtful to another yet the dominion still remains wherein we may observe how sweetly the providence of God doth temper this cross that though the strongest creatures
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
difference between my words and his in the sense and meaning for in the one there is honour ascrihed to God and humility in him that prayeth but in the other presumption in him that prayeth and a detraction from the honour of God When I say Prayer is not a cause nor a meanes I take cause and meanes in one and the same sense affirming that God is not moved by any thing that we do but has alwaies one and the same eternal purpose to do the same things that from eternity he hath foreknown shall be done and me thinks there can be no doubt made thereof But the Bishop alledgeth 2 Cor. 1. 11. That St Paul was helped by their prayers and that the gift was bestowed upon them by their means and James 5. 16. The effectual and fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much In which places the words meanes effectual availeth do not signifie any causation for no man nor creature living can work any effect upon God in whom there is nothing that hath not been in him eternally heretofore nor that shall not be in him eternally hereafter but do signifie the order in which God hath placed mens prayers and his own blessings And not much after the Bishop himself saith Prayer works not upon God but us Therefore it is no cause of Gods Will in giving us his blessings but is properly a signe not a procuration of his favour The next thing he replieth to is that I make prayer to be a kind of thanksgiving to which he replies He might even as wel tell me that when a Beggar craves an Alms and when he gives thanks for it it is all one Why so Does not a Beggar move a man by his prayer and sometime worketh in him a compassion not without pain and as the Scripture calls it a yerning of the Bowels which is not so in God when we pray to him Our prayer to God is a duty it is not so to man Therefore though our prayers to man be distinguished from our thanks it is not necessary it should be so in our prayers and thanks to God Almighty To the rest of his Reply in this Number 15. there needs no further Answer J. D. FOourthly 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 He that shall make either all things necessary guided by destiny or all things free governed by election or all things contingent happening by chance doth overthrow the beauty and the perfection of the world T. H. THE fourth Argument from Reason is this The Order Numb 16. Arg. 4. Beauty and Perfection of the World requireth that in the Universe should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some free some contingent He that shall make all things nenessary or all things free or all things contingent doth overthrow the beauty and pefection of the World In which Argument I observe first a contradiction For seeing he that maketh any thing in that he maketh it he maketh it to be necessary it followeth that he that maketh all things maketh all things necessary to be As if a workman make a garment the garment must necessarily be So if God make every thing every thing must necessarily be Perhaps the beauty of the World requireth though we know it not that some Agents should work without deliberation which he calls necessary Agents And some Agents with deliberation and those both he and I call free Agents And that some Agents should work and we not know how And those effects we both call contingent But this hinders not but that he that electeth may have his election necessarily determined to one by former causes And that which is contingent and imputed to Fortune be nevertheless necessary and depend on precedent necessary causes For by contingent men do not mean that which hath no cause but which hath not for cause any thing which we perceive As for Example when a Travailer meets with a shower the journey had a cause and the rain had a cause sufficient enough to produce it but because the journey caused not the rain nor the rain the journey we say they were contingent one to another And thus you see though there be three sorts of events Necessary Contingent and Free yet they may be all necessary without the destruction of the beauty or perfection of the Univers J. D. THE first thing he observes in mine Argument is contradiction as he calls it but in truth it is but a deception of the sight As one candle sometimes seems to be two or a rod in the water shewes to be two rods Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad mâ—dum recipientis But what is this contradiction Because I say he who maketh all things doth not make them necessary What! a contradiction and but one proposition That were strange I say God hath not made all Agents necessary he saith God hath made all Agents necessary Here is a contradiction indeed but it is between him and me not between me and my self But yet though it be not a formal contradiction yet perhaps it may imply a contradiction in adjecto Wherefore to clear the matter and dispell the mist which he hath raised It is true that every thing when it is made it is necessary that it be made so as it is that is by a necessity of infallibility or supposition supposing that it be so made but this is not that absolute antecedent necessity whereof the question is between him and me As to use his own instance Before the Garment be made the Tailor is free to make it either of the Italian Spanish or French fashion indifferently But after it is made it is necessary that it be of that fashion whereof he hath made it that is by a necessity of supposition But this doth neither hinder the cause from being a free cause nor the effect from being a free effect but the one did produce freely and the other was freely produced So the contradiction is vanished In the second part of his answer a he grants 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 he tells us that nevertheless they are all necessary This part of his answer is a meer Logomachy as a great part of the controversies in the world are or a contention about words What is the meaning of necessary and free and contingent actions I have shewed before what free and necessary do properly signifie but he misrecites it He saith I make all Agents which want deliberation to be necessary but I acknowledge that many of them are contingent b Neither do I approve his definition of contingents though he say I concurre with him that they are such Agents as work we know not how For
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
any effect is the joyning togethâ—r of all causes subordinate to the first into one totall cause If any oâ—â— of those saith he especially the first produce its effect necessarily thâ—n all the rest are determined and the effect also necessary Now it is manifest that the first cause is a necessary cause oâ— all thâ— effects that are next and immediat to it and therefore by hâ—â— own reason all effects are necessary Nor is that distinction of necessary in respect of the first cause and necessary in respect of second causes mine It does as he well notâ—th imply a contradiction J. D. BEcause T. H. disavowes these two distinctions I have joyned them together in one paragraph He likes not the distinction of necessity or destiny into Stoicall and Christian no more do I. We agree in the conclusion but our motives are diverse My reason is because I acknowledg no such necessity either as the one or as the other and because I conceive that those Christian writers who do justly detest the naked destiny of the Stoicks as fearing to fall into those gross absurdities and pernicious consequences which flow from thence do yet privily though perhaps unwittingly under another form of expression introduce it again at the backdoor after they had openly cast it out at the foredoor But T H. rusheth boldly without distinctions which he accounts but Jargon and without foresight upon the grossest destiny of all others that is that of the Stoicks He confesseth that they may be tâ—o kinds of doctrine May be Nay they are without all peradventure And he himself is the first who beares the name of a Christian that I have read that hath raised this sleeping Ghost out of its grave and set it out in its true colours But yet he likes not the names of Stoicall and Christian destiny I do not blame him though he would not willingly be accounted a Stoick To admit the thing and quarrel about the name is to make our selves ridiculous Why might not I first call that kind of destiny which is maintained by Christians Christian destiny and that other maintained by Stoicks Stoicall destiny But I am not the inventer of the tearm If he had been as carefull in reading other mens opinions as he is confident in setting down his own he might have found not only the thing but the name it self often used But if the name of fotâ—m Christi num do offend him Let him call it with Lipsius â—atum verum who divides destiny into four kinds 1. Mathematicall or Astrological destiny 2. Natural destiny 3. Stoical or violent destiny and 4. true destiny which he calls ordinarily nostrum our destiny that is of Christians and fatum pium that is godly destiny and defines it just as T. H. doth his destiny to be a series or order of causes depending upon the divine Counsel de const l 1. cap. 17. 18. 19. Though he be more cautelous than T. H. to decline those rocks which some others have made shipwrack upon Yet the Divines thought he came too neer them as appears by his Epistle to the Reader in a later Edition And by that note in the margent of his twentieth Chapter Whatsoever I dispute here I submit to the judgment of the wise and being admonished I will convert it One may convince me of error but not of obstinacy So fearfull was he to overshoot himself and yet he maintained both true liberty and true contingency T. H. saith he hath not sucked his answer from any Sect And I say so much the worse It is better to be the disciple of an old Sect than the ring-leader of a new Concerning the other destinction 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 like those old Lamiae which could put out their eyes when they list As namely that the faculty of willing when it is determined in order to the act which is all the freedom that he acknowledgeth is but like the freedom of a bird when she is first in a mans hand c. Yet he hath espied another thing wherein I contradict my self because I affirm that if any one cause in the whole series of causes much more the first cause be necessary it determineth the â—est But saith he it is manifest that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next I am glad yet it is not I who contradict my self but it is some of his manifest truths which I contradict That the first cause is a necessary cause of all effects which I say is a manifest falshood Those things which God wills without himself he wills freely not necessarily Whatsoever cause acts or works necessarily doth act or work all that it can do or all that is in its power But it is evident that God doth not all things without himself which he can do or which he hath power to do He could have raised up children unto Abraham of the very stones which were upon the banks of Jordan Luk. 3. 8. but he did not He could have sent twelve Legions of Angels to the succour of Christ but he did not Matth. 26. 53. God can make T. H. live the yeers of Methuselah but it is not necessary that he shall do so nor probable that he will do so The productive power of God is infinite but the whole created world is finite And therefore God might still produce more if it pleased him But this it is when men go on in a confused way and will admit no distinctions If T. H. had considered the difference between a necessary being and a necessary cause or between those actions of God which are immanent within himself and the transient works of God which are extrinsecall without himself he would never have proposed such an evident error for a manifest truth Qui pauca considerat facile pronuntiat Animadversions upon the Reply Numb XVIII THE Bishop supposing I had taken my opinion from the Authority of the Stoick Philosophers not from my own Meditation falleth into dispute against the Stoicks whereof I might if I pleas'd take no notice but passe over to Number 19. But that he may know I have considered their doctrine concerning Fate I think fit to say thus much that their error consisteth not in the opinion of Fate but in faigning of a false God When therefore they say Fatum est effatum Jovis They say no more but that Fate is the word of Jupiter If they had said it had been the Word of the true God I should not have perceived any thing in it to contradict because I hold as most Christians do that the whole world was made and is now Governed by the Word of God which bringeth a necessity of all things and actions to depend upon the divine disposition Nor do I see cause to find fault with that as he does which is said by
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
one private man who will not allow human liberty to others to assume to himself such a license to control so Magistrally and to censure of gross ignorance and tyrannising over mens judgments yea as causes of the troubles and tumults which are in the World the Doctors of the Church in general who have flourished in all ages and all places only for a few necessary and innocent distinctions Truly said Plutarch that a sore eye is offended with the light of the Sun h What then must the Logicians lay aside their first and second Intentions their Abstracts and Concrets their Subjects and Predicates their Modes and Figures their Method Synthetick and Analytick their Fallacies of Composition and Division c Must the moral Philosopher quite his means and extremes his pricipia congenita acquisita his liberty of contradiction and contrariety his necessity absolute and hypothetical c Must the natural Philosopher give over his intentional Species his understanding Agent and Patient his receptive and eductive power of the matter his qualities infinitae or influxae symbolae or dissymbolae his temperament ad pondus and adjâ—stitiam his parts Homogeneous and Heterogeneous his Sympathies and Antipathies his Antiperistasis c Must the Astrologer and the Geographer leave their Apogâ—um and Perigaeum their Arctick and Antarctick Poles their Aequator Zodiack Zenith Meridian Horison Zones c Must the Mathematician the Metaphysician and the Divine relinquish all their tearms of Art and proper idâ—otismes because they do not rellish with T. H. his palate But he will say they are obscure expressions What marvel is it when the things themselves are more obscure Let him put them into as plain English as he can and they shall be never a whit the better understood by those who want all grounds of learning Nothing is clearer than Mathematical demonstration yet let one who is altogether ignorant in Mathematicks hear it and he will hold it to be as T. H. tearms these distinctions plain Fustian or Jargon Every Art or Profession hath its proper mysteries and expressions which are well known to the Sons of Art not so to strangers Let him consult with Military men with Physitians with Navigators and he shall find this true by experience Let him go on shipboard and the Mariners will not leave their Sterbord and Larbord because they please not him or because he accounts it Gibrish No no it is not the Schoole-Divines but Innovators and seditious Orators who are the true causes of the present troubles of Europe â— T. H. hath forgotten what he said in his book De Cive cap. 12. That it is a seditious opinion to teach that the knowledge of good and evill belongs to private persons And cap. 17. that in questions of Faith the Civill Magistrates ought to consult with the Ecclesiasticall Doctors to whom Gods blessing is derived by imposition of hands so as not to be deceived in necessary truths to whom our Saviour hath promised infallibility These are the very men whom he traduceth here There he ascribes infallibility to them here he accuseth them of gross superstitious ignorance There he attributes too much to them here he attributes too little Both there and here he takes too much upon him The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets 1 Cor. 14. 32. Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XIX a THis proposition the Will is Free may be understood in two senses Either that the Will is not compelled or that the Will is not alwayes necessitated c. The former sense that the Will is not compelled is acknowledged by all the world as a truth undeniable I never said the Will is compelled but do agree with the rest of the World in granting that it is not compelled It is an absurd speech to say it is compelled but not to say it is necessitated or a necessary effect of some cause When the fire heateth it doth not compell heate so likewise when some cause maketh the Will to any thing it doth not compell it Many things may compel a man to do an Action in producing the Will but that is not a compelling of the Will but of the man That which I call necessitation is the effecting and creating of that Will which was not before not a compelling of a Will already existent The necessitation or Creation of the Will is the same thing with the compulsion of the man saving that we commonly use the word compulsion in those Actions which proceed from terrour And therefore this distinction is of no use and that raving which followeth immediately after it is nothing to the question whether the Will be free though it be to the question whether the man be Free b First he erreth in this to think that actions proceeding from fear are properly compulsory actions which in truth are not onely Voluntary but free actions I never said nor doubted but such actions were both Voluntary and free For he that doth any thing for fear though he say truely he was compelled to it yet we deny not that he had Election to do or not to do and consequently that he was a Voluntary and free Agent But this hinders not but that the terrour might be a necessary cause of his Election of that which otherwise he would not have Elected unlesse some other potent cause made it necessary he should elect the contrary And there fore in the same ship in the same storm one man may be necessitated to throw his goods over-board and another man to keep them within the Ship and the same mâ—n in a like storm be otherwise advised if all the causes be not like But that the same invidual man as the Bishops says that close to throw his goods over board might choose not to throw his goods over board I cannot conceive unlesse a man can choose to throw over board and not to throw over board or be so advised and otherwise advised all at once c Secondly T. H. errs in this also where he saith that a man is then only said to be compelled when â—ear makes him willing to an Action As if force were not more prevalent with a man then fear c. When I said fear I think no mâ—n can â—oubt but the fear of force was understood I cannot seâ— therfore what quarrel he could justly take at saying that a man is compelled by â—ar onely unlesse he think it may be called compulsion when â— man by force seizing on another mans limbs moveth them as himself not as the other man pleaseth but this is not the meaning of compulsion Neither is the Action so done the Action of him that suffereth but of him that useth the force But this as if it were a question of the propriety of the English tongue the Bishop denies and sayes when a man is moved by fear it is improperly said he is compelled But when a man is moved by an external cause the Will resisting as much as it can then
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
of things but every individuall creature and not onely in natural but voluntary actions I desire to know how Prester John or the great Mogol or the King of China or any one of so many millions of their subjects do concur to my writing of this reply If they do not among his other speculations concerning this matter I hope he will give us some restrictions It were hard to make all the Negroes accessary to all the murthers that are committed in Europe Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XXI THere is not much in this part of his Reply that needeth Animadversion But I must observe where he saith a The sum of my answer was that the Stars and complections do incline but not at all necessitate the Will He answereth nothing at all to me who attribute not the necessitation of the Will to the Stars and Complections but to the aggregate of all things together that are in motion I do not say that the Stars or Complections of themselves do incline men to Wil but when men are inclined I must say that that inclination was necessitated by some causes or other 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 c. The Bishop speaks often of Paradoxes which such scorn or detestation that a simple Reader would take a Paradox either for Felony or some other hainous crime or else for some rediculous turpitude whereas perhaps a Judicious Reader knows what the word signifies And that a Paradox is an opinion not yet generally received Christian Religion was once a Paradox and a great many other opinions which the Bishop now holdeth were formerly Paradoxes Insomuch as when a man calleth an opinion Paradox he doth not say it is untrue but signifieth his own ignorance for if he understood it he would call it either a truth or an errour He observes not that but for Paradoxes we should be now in that savage ignorance which those men are in that have not or have not long had Laws and Common-wealth from whence porceedeth Science and Civility There was not long since a Scholler that maintained that if the least thing that had waight should be laid down upon the hardest body that could be supposing it an Anvill of Diamant it would at the first accesse make it yeeld This I thought and much more the Bishop would have thought a Paradox But when he told me that either that would do it or all the waight of the World would not doe it because if the whole waight did it every the least part thereof would do its part I saw no reason to dissent In like manner when I say there is hardly any one Action to the causing of which concurs not whatsoever is in rerum natura It seems to the Bishop a great Paradox and if I should say that all Action is the effect of Motion and that there cannot be a Motion in one part of the World but the same must also be communicated to all the rest of the World he would say that this were no lesse a Paradox But yet if I should say that if a lesser body as a concave Sphere or Tun were filled with air or other liquid matter and that any one little particle thereof were moved all the rest would be moved also he would conceive it to be true or if not he a judicious reader would It is not the greatness of the Tun that altereth the case and therefore the same would be true also if the whole World were the Tun for t is the greatness of this Tun that the Bishop comprohendeth not But the truth is comprehensible enough and may be said without ambition of being the founder of strange opinions And though a Grave man may smile at it he that is both Grave and wise will not J. D. THirdly the moral Philosopher tells us how we are haled hither Num. 22. and thither with outward objects To this I answer First that the power which outward objects have over us is for the most part by our own default because of those vitious habits which we have contracted Therefore though the actions seem to have a kind of violence in them yet they were free and voluntary in their first originals As a paralitick man to use Aristotles comparison shedding the liquor deserves to be punished for though his act be unwilling yet his imtemperance was willing whereby he contracted this infirmity Secondly I answer that concupiscence and custome and bad company and outward objects do indeed make a proclivity but not a necessity By Prayers Tears Meditations Vowes Watchings Fastings Humi-cubations a man may get a contrary habit and gain the victory not onely over outward objects but also over his own corruptions and become the King of the little world of himself Si metuis si prava cupis si duceris irà Servitii patiere jugum tolâ—rabis iniquas Interius leges Tunc omnia jure tenebis Cum poteris rex esse tâ—â— Thirdly a resolved mind which weighs all things judiciously and provides for all occurrences is not so easily surprised withoutward objects Onely Ulysses wept not at the meeting with â—is wife and son I would beat thee said the Philosopher but that I am angry One spake lowest when he was most mooved Another poured out the water when he was thirsty Another made a Covenant with his eyes Neither opportunity nor entisement could prevail with Joseph Nor the Musick nor the fire with the three Children It is not the strength of the wind but the lightness of the chaff which causeth it to be blown away Outward objects do not impose a moral much less a Physical necessity they may be dangerous but cannot be destructi e to true liberty T. H. THirdly he disputeth against the opinion of them that say external objects presentâ—d to men of such and such tâ—mperatures do make their actions necessary And sayes the poâ—â—er that such objects have over us proceed from our own fault But that is nothing to the purpose if such â—ault of ours proceedeth from causes not in our own power And therefore that opinion may â—old true foâ—â— all this answer Further he saith Prayer Fasting c. may alter our habits 'T is true but when they do so they are causes of the contrary habit and make it necessary as the former habit had been necessary iâ— Prayer Fasting c. had not been Besides we are not mooved nor disposed to prayer or any ot er action but by outward objects as pious company godly preachers or something equivalent Thirdly he saith a resolved mind is not easily surprised As the mind of Ulysses who when others wept he alone wept not And of the Philosopher that abstained from striking because he found
Treatise out of which he only repeateth two things One is that we ought not to desert a certain truth for not being able to comprehend the certain manner of it And I say the same as for example that he ought not to desert this certain truth That there are certain and necessarâ— causes wâ—iâ—h make evâ—ry man to will what he willâ—th though he do not yet conceive in what manner the will of man is causâ—d And yet I think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive seeing that we see daily that praise dispraise reward punishment good and evil sequels of mâ—ns actioâ—s â—â—tained in memory â—o frame and make us to the election of whatsoever it be that we elâ—ct And â—â—aâ— the memory of such things proceeds from the senses and sense from the operation of the objects of sense which are external to us and governed onely by God Almighty And by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents â—re necessary The other thing he repeateth is that the best way to reconcile Contingency and Liberty with the prescience and Decrees of God is to subject future contingents to the aspect of God The same is also my opinion but contâ—ary to what he hath all this while laboured to prove For â—itherto he held liberty and necessity that is to say libertâ— and the decrees of God irreconcilable unless the aspect of God which word appeareth now the first time in this discourse signifie somewhat else besides Gods will and decree which I cannot understand Buâ— he adds that we must subject them according to that presentiality which they have in eternity which he says cannot be done by them that conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession but onely by them that conceive it an indivisible poiâ—t To this I answer that as soon as I can conceive Eternity to be an indivisible point or any thing but an everlâ—sting succession I wilâ— renounce all I have written in this subject I know St. Thomas Aquinas calls eternity Nunc stans an ever abidâ—ng now which is easy enough to say but though I fain would I never could conceive it They that can are more hapâ—y than I. But in the mean time he alloweth hereby all men to be of my opinion save onely those that conceive in their minds a nunc stans which I think are none I undâ—rstand as little how it can be true that God is not just but Justice it self not wise but Wisedom it self not eternal but Eternity it self Nor how he concludes thence that Eternity is a point indivisible and not a succession Nor in what sense it can be said that an infinite point c. wherein is no succession can comprehend all times though time be suâ—cessive These phrases I find not in the Scripture I wonder therefore what was the dâ—sign of the School-men to bring them up unless they thâ—ught a man could not be a true Christian unless his understanstanding be first strangled with such hard sayings And thus much in answer to his discourse wherein I think not onely his squadrons but also his reserves of distinctions are defeated And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the sâ—me question with my reasons for iâ— positively and briefly as I can without any tearms of Art in plain English J. D. a THat poor discourse which I mention was not written against any Divines but in way of examination of a French Treatise which your Lordships Brother did me the honour to shew me at York b My assertion is must true that we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner Such a truth is that which I maintain that the will of man in ordinary actions is free from extrinsecal determination A truth demonstrable in reason received and believed by all the world And therefore though I be not able to comprehend or express exactly the certain manner how it consists together with Gods Eternall Prescience and Decrees which exceed my weak capacity yet I ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest But T. H. his opinion of the absolute necessity of all events by reason of their antecedent determination in their extrinsecal and necessary causes is no such certain Truth but an innovation a strange paradox without probable grounds rejected by all Authours yea by all the world Neither is the manner how the second causes do operate so oscure or so transcendent above the reach of reason as the Eternal Decrees of God are And therefore in both these respects he cannot challenge â—â—e same priviledge I am in possession of an old truth derived by inheritance or succession from mine ancestors And therefore though I were not able to clear every quirk in Law yet I might justly hold my possession until a better title were shewed for another He is no old Possessor but a new Pretender and is bound to make good his claime by evident proofs not by weak and inconsequent suppositions or inducements such as those are which he useth here of praises dispraises rewards punishments the memory of good and evil sequels and events which may incline the will but neither can nor do necessitate the will Nor by uncertain and accidental inferences such as this The memory of praises dispraises rewards punishments good and evil sequels do make us he should say dispose us to elect what we elect but the memory of these things is from the sense and the sense from the oâ—â—ration of the external obâ—ects and the Agency of external objâ—cts 〈…〉 from God therefore all actions even of free and volâ—ntâ—ry Agents are necâ—ssâ—ry c To pass by all the other great imperfections which are to be sound in this Sorite It is just like that old Sophistical piece He that drinks well sleeps well â—e that sleeps well thinks no hurt he that thinks no hurt lives 〈…〉 therefore he that drinks well lives well d In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed mine own private opinion how it might be made appear that the Eternal Prescience and Decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency And this I set down in as plain terms as I could or as so profound a speculation would permit which is almost wholly misunderstood by T. H. and many of my words wrested to a wrong sense As first where I speak of the aspect of God that is his view his knowledge by which the most free and contingent actions were manifest to him from eternity Heb. 4. 11. All things are naked and open to his eyes and this not discursively but intuitively not by external species but by his internal Essence He confounds this with the Wil and the Decrees of God Though he found not the word Aspect before in this discourse he might have found prescience e Secondly he chargeth me that hither to I have maintained that Liberty and the Decrees of God are irrecilable If I have said any such thing my heart
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
by general influence which is evermore requisite Angels or men by perswading evill spirits by tempting the object or end by its appetibility the understanding by directing So passions and acquired habits But I deny that any of these do necessitate or can necessitate the will of man by determining it Physically to one except God alone who doth it rarely in extraordinary cases And where there is no antecedent determination to one there is no absolute necessity but true Liberry b His second argument is ex concessis It is out of controversie saith he that of voluntary actions the will is a necessary cause The argument may be thus reduced Necessary causes produce necessary effects but the Will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions I might deny his major Necessary causes do not alwayes produce necessary effects except they be also necessarily produâ—ed as I have shewed before in the burning of Protagoras his book But I answer cleerly to the minor that the will is not a necessary cause of what it wills in particular actions It is without controversie indeed for it is without all probability That it wills when it wills is necessary but that it wills this or that now or then is free More expresly the act of the will may be considered three wayes Either in respect of its nature or in respect of its exercise or in respect of its object First for the nature of the act That which the will wills is necessarily voluntary because the will cannot be compelled And in this sense it is out of controversie that the will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions Secondly for the exercise of its acts that is not necessary The will may either will or suspend its act Thirdly for the object that is not necessary but free the will is not extrinsecally determined to its objects As for example The Cardinalls meet in the conclave to chose a Pope whom they chose he is necessarily Pope But it is not necessary that they shall chose this or that day Before they were assembled they might defer their assembling when they are assembled they may suspend their election for a day or a week Lastly for the person whom they will choose it is freely in their own power otherwise if the election were not free it were void and no election at all So that which takes its beginning from the will is necessarily voluntary but it is not necessary that the will shall will this or that in particular as it was necessary that the person freely elected should be Pope but it was not necessary either that the election should be at this time or that this man should be elected And therefore voluntary acts in particular have not necessary causes that is they are not necessitated Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXX I Had said that nothing taketh beginning from it self and that the cause of the Will is not the Will it self but something else which it dispâ—seth not of Answering to thiâ— he endeavours to sheâ— us the cause of the Will. a I grant saith he that the Will doth not take beginning from it self for that the faculty of the Wilâ— takes beginning from God who created the soul and powred it into man and endowed it with this power and for that the act of willing takes not beginning from it self but from the faculty or from the power of willing which is in the soul. This is certain finite and participated things cannot be from themselves nor be produced by themselves What would he conclude from hence That therefore the Act of willing takes not its beginning from the faculty of the Wil It is well that he grants finite things as for his participated it signifies nothing here cannot be produced by themselves For out of this I can conclude that the Act of willing is not produced by the faculty of willing He that hath the faculty of willing hath the faculty of willing something in particular And at the same time he hath the faculty of nilling the same If therefore the faculty of willing be the cause he willeth any thing whatsoever for the same reason the faculty of nilling will be the cause at the same time of nilling it and so he shall will and nill the same thing at the same time which is absurd It seems the Bishop had forgot that Matter and Power are indifferent to contrary Forms and contrary Acts. It is somewhat besides the Matter that dâ—termineth it to a certain form and somewhat besides the Power that produceth a certain Act and thence it is that is inferred this that he granteth that nothing can be produced by it self which neverthelesse he presently contradicteth in saying that all men know when a stone descends the beginning is intrinsecal and that the stone mooves in respect of the Form and is moved in respect of the Matter Which is as much to say that the Form moveth the Matter or that the stone moveth it self which before he denied When a stone ascends the beginning of the stones motion was in it self that is to say intrinsecal because it is not the stones motion till the store begins to be moved but the motion that caused it to begin to ascend was a precedent and extrinsecal motion of the hand or other engine that threw it upward And so when it descends the beginning of the stones motion is in the stone but neverthelesse there is a former motion in the ambient Body aire or water that causeth it to descend But because no man can see it most men think there is none though Reason wherewith the Bishop as relying onely upon the Authority of Books troubleth not himself coâ—vince that there is b His second Argument is ex concessis It is out of controversy that of voluntary Actions the Wil is a necessary cause The Argument may be thus reduced Necessary causes produce necessary effects but the Wil is a necessary cause of voluntary Actions I might deny his Major necessary causes do not alwayes produce necessary effects except they be also necessarily produced He has reduced the Argument to non-sense by saying necessary causes produce not necessary effects For necessary effects unlesse he mean such effects as shall necessarily be produced is insignificant Let him consider therefore with what grace he can say necessary causes do not alwayes produce their effects except those effects be also necessarily produced But his answer is chiefly to the Minor and denies that the Wil is not a necessary cause of what it wills in particular Actions That it wills when it wills saith he is necessary but that it wills this or that is free Is it possible for any man to conceive that he that willeth can will any thing but this or that particular thing It is therefore manifest that either the Wil is a necessary cause of this or that or any other particular Action or not the necessary cause of any voluntary Action at all For universal Actions
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
proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of naturall causes First that there are free actions which proceed meerly from election without any outward necessitation is a truth so evident as that there is a Sun in the Heavens and he that doubteth of it may as well doubt whether there be a shell without the Nut or a stone within the Olive A man proportions his time each day and allots so much to his Devotions so much to his Study so much to his Diet so much to his Recreations so much to necessary or civil visits so much to his rest he who will seek for I know not what causes of all this without himself except that good God who hath given him a reasonable Soul may as well seek for a cause of the Egyptian Pyramides among the Crocodiles of Nilus c Secondly for mixt actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural Agents though they be not free yet they are not necessary as to keep my former instance a man walking though a street of a Citie to do his occasions a Tile falls from an House and breaks his head the breaking of his head was not necessary for he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation neither was it free for he did not deliberate of that accident therefore it was contingent and by undoubted consequence there are contingent acâ—â—ons in the World which are not free Most certainly by the concurrence of free causes as God the good and bad Angels and men with natural Agents sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident many events happen which otherwise had never hapned many effects are produced which otherwise had never been produced And admitting such things to be contingent not necessary all their consequent effects not onely immediate but medâ—ate must likewise be contingâ—â—â— that is to say such as do not proceed from a continued connexion and succession of necessary causes which is directly contrary to T. H. his opinion d Thirdly for the actions of bruit beasts though they be not free though they have not the use of reason to restrain their appetites from that which is sensitively good by the consideration of what is rationally good or what is hoâ—est and though their fancies be determined by nature to some kinds of work yet to think that every individual action of theirs and each animal motion of theirs even to the least murmure or gesture is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity to the extrinsecal causes or objects I see no ground for it Christ saith one of these Sparrows doth not fall to the gound without your Heavenly Father that is without an influence of power from him or exempted from his disposition he doth not say which your Heavenly Father casteth not down Lastly for the natural actions of inanimate Creatures wherein there is not the least concurrence of any free or voluntary Agents the question is yet more doubtful for many things are called contingent in respect of us because we know not the cause of them which really and in themselves are not contingent but necessary Also many things are contingent in respect of one single cause either actually hindred or in possibility to be hindred which are necessary in respect of the joynt concurrence of all collateral causes e But whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning so as they must all have concurred as they have done and in the same degree of power and have been deficient as they have been in all events whatsoever would require a further examination if it were pertinent to this question of liberty but it is not It is sufficient to my purpose to have shewed that all elective actions are free from absolute neâ—essity And more-over that the concurrence of voluntary aâ—d free Agents with natural causes both upon purpose and accidentally hath helped them to produce many effects which otherwise they had not produced and hindred them from producing many effects which otherwise they had produced And that if this intervention of voluntary and free Agents had been more frequent than it hath been as without doubt it might have been many natural events had been otherwise than they are And therefore he might have spared his instances of casting Ambs-ace and raining to morrow And first for his casting Ambs-ace If it be thrown by a fair Gamester with indifferent Dice it is a mixt action the casting of the Dice is free but the casting of Ambs-ace is contingent a man may deliberate whether he will cast the Dice or not but it were folly to deliberate whether he will cast Ambs-ace or not because it is not in his power unless he be a cheater that can cogge the Dice or the Dice be false Dice and then the contingency or the degree of contingency ceaseth accordingly as the Caster hath more or less cunning or as the figure or making of the Dice doth incline them to Ambs-ace more than to another cast or necessitate them to this cast and no other Howsoever so far as the cast is free or contingent so far it is not necessary And where necessity begins there liberty and contingency do cease to be Likewise his other instance of raining or not raining to morrow is not of a free elective act nor alwayes of a contingent act In some Countries as they have their stati venti their certain winds at set seasons so they have their certain and set rains The Aethiopian rains are supposed to be the cause of the certain inundation of Nilus In some eastern Countries they have rain onely twice a year and those constant which the Scriptures call the former and the later rain In such places not onely the causes do act determinately and necessarily but also the determination or necessity of the event is fore-known to the inhabitants In our Climate the natural causes coelestial and sublunary do not produce rain so necessarily at set times neither can we say so certainly and infallibly it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow Neverthelesse it may so happen that the causes are so disposed and determined even in our climate that this proposition it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow may be necessary in it self and the Prognosticks or tokens may be such in the sky in our own bodies in the creatures animate and inanimate as weather-glasses c. that it may become probably true to us that it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow But ordinarily it is a contingent proposition to us whether it be contingent also in it self that is whether the concurrence of the causes were absolutely necessary whether the vapours or matter of the rain may not yet be dispersed or otherwise consumed or driven beyond our coast is a speculation which no way concerns this question So we see one reason why his two instances are altogether impertinent because they are of actions which are not
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
Besides Gods Decree is his Will and the Bishop hath said formerly that the Will of God is God the Justice of God God c. If therefore God made a Decree according to the Bishops opinion God made himself By which we may see what fine stuffe it is that proceedeth from disputing of Incomprehensibles Again he says 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 If God had made either causes or effects free from necessity he had made theâ—â— free from his own Praescience which had been imperfection Perhaps he will say that in these words of his the decree being an act ad extra was freely made by God I take no notice of that act ad extra as being too hot for my fingers Therefore now I take notice of it and say that it is neither Latiâ— nor English nor Sense T. H. THe last thing in which also consisteth the whole controversy Num. 35. Namely that there is no such thing as an Agent which when all things requisite to action are present can nevertheless forbear to produce it or which is all one that there is no such thing as freedom from necessity is easily inferred from that which hath been before alledged For if it be an Agent it can work And if it work there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action and consequently the cause of the action is sufficient And if sufficient then also necessary as hath been proved before J. D. I Wonder that T. H. should confess that the whole weight of this controversy doth rest upon this proposition That there is no such thing as an Agent which when all things requisite to action are present can nevertheless forbear to act And yet bring nothing but such poor Bull-rushes to support it a If it be an Agent saith he it can work what of this A posse ad esse non valet argumentum from can work to will work is a weak inference And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity is another gross inconsequence He proceeds thus Iâ— it work there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action True there wants nothing to produce that which is produced but there may want much to produce that which was intended One horse may pull his heart out and yet not draw the Coach whither it should be if he want the help or concurrence of his fellows And consequently saith he the cause of the action is sufficient Yes sufficient to do what it doth though perhaps with much prejudice to it self but not alwayes sufficient to do what it should do or what it would do As he that begets a Monster should beget a man and would beget a man if he could The last link of his argument follows b And if sufficient then also necessary Stay there by his leave there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency otherwise God himself should not be All-sufficient Thus his Argument is vanished But I will deal more favourably with him and grant him all that which he labours so much in vain to prove That every effect in the world hath sufficient causes Yea more that supposing the determination of the free and contingent causes every effect in the world is necessary c But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean for still it amounts but to an hypothetical necessity and differs as much from that absolute necessity which he maintains as a Gentleman who travels for his pleasure differs from a banished man or a free Subject from a slave Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXXV a IF it be an Agent saith he it can work what of this A posse ad esse non valet argumentum from can work to will work is a weak inference And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity is another grosse inconsequence Here he has gotten a just advantage for I should have said if it be an Agent it worketh not it can work But it is an advantage which profiteth little to his cause for if I repeate my argument again in this manner that which is an Agent worketh that which worketh wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth and consequently is thereof a sufficient cause and if a sufficient cause then also a necessary cause his answer will be nothing to the purpose For whereas to these words that which worketh wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth he answereth it is true but there may want much to produce that which was intended it is not contrary to any thing that I have said For I never maintained that whatsoever a man intendeth is necessarily performed but this whatsoever a man performeth iâ— necessarily performed and what he intendeth necessarily intended and that from causes antecedent And therefore to say as he doth that the cause is sufficient to do what it doth but not alwayes sufficient to do what a man should or would do is to say the same that I do For I say not that the cause that bringeth forth a Monster is sufficient to bring forth a man but that every cause is sufficient to produce onely the effect it produceth And if sufficient then also necessary b And if sufficient then also necessary stay there by his leave there is no necessary connection between sufficiency and efficiency otherwise God himself should not be All sufficient All sufficiency signifieth no more when it is attributed to God then Omnipotence and Omnipotence signifieth no more then the Power to do all things that he will But to the production of any thing that is produced the Will of God is as requisite as the rest of his Power and sufficiency And consequently his all sufficiency signifieth not a sufficiency or Power to do those thing he will not But he will deal he says so favourably with me as to grant me all this which I labour he saith so much in vain to prove and adds c But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a Bean for still it amounts but to an Hypothetical necessity If it prove no more it proves no necessity at all for by Hypothetical necessity he means the necessity of this proposition the effect is then when it is whereas necessity is onely said truely of somewhat in future For necessary is that which cannot possibly be otherwise and possibility is alwayes understood of some future time But seeing he granteth so favourably that sufficient causes are necessary causes I shall easily conclude from it that whatsoever those causes do cause are necessary antecedently For if the necessity of the thing produced when produced be in the same instant of time with the existence of its immediate cause then also that immediate cause was in the same instant with the cause by which it was
immediately produced the same may be said of the cause of this cause and 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
are intelligible enough for he hath said in his Reply to Numb 24. that his opinion is demonstrable in reason though he be not able to comprehend how iâ— consisteth together with Gods eternal Prescience and though it exceed his weak capacitie yet he ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest so that to him that truth is manifest â—nd demonstrable by reason which is beyond his capacity so that words beyond capacity are with him intelligible enough But the Reader is to be Judge of that I could add many other passages that discover both his little Logick as taking tâ—â— insignificant word above recited for Terms of Art aâ—d hiâ— no Philosophy in distinguishing between moral and â—â—turâ—lâ— mâ—tion and by calling some motions Metaphorical and his thâ—r offers at the causes of sight and of the descent of heavy lies and his talk of the inclination of the Lâ—ud-stone and diverse other places of his Book But to make an end I shall briefly draw up the sum of what we have both said That which I have maintained is that no man hath his future will in his own present power That it may be changed by others and by the change of things without him and when it is changed it is not changed nor determined to any thing by it self and that when it is undetermined it is no Will because every one that willeth willeth something in particular That deliberation is common to men with beasts as being alternate appetite and not ratiocination and the last act or appetite therein and which is immediately followed by the action the onely will that can be taken notice of by others and which onely maketh an action in publick judgment voluntary That to be free is no more then to do if a man will and if he will to forbear and consequently that this freedome is the freedome of the man and not of the Will That the Will is not free but subject to change by the operation of external causes That all external causes depend necessarily on the first eternal cause God Almighty who worketh in us both to Will and to do by the mediation of second causes That seeing neither man nor any thing else can work upon it self it is impossible that any man in the framing of his own Will should concur with God either as an Actor or as an Instrument That there is nothing brought to passe by fortune as by a cause nor any thing without a cause or concurrence of causes sufficient to bring it so to passe and that every such cause and their concurrence do proceed from the providence good pleasure and working of God and consequently though I do with others call many events Contingent and say they happen yet because they had every of them their several sufficient causes and those causes again their former causes I say they happen necessarily And though we perceive not what they are yet there are of the most Contingent events as necessary causes as of those events whose causes we perceive or else they could not possibly be foreknown as they are by him that foreknoweth all things On the contrary the Bishop maintaineth That the Will is free from necessitation and in order thereto that the Judgment of the understanding is not alwayes practice practicum nor of such a nature in it self as to oblige and determine the Will to one though it be true that Spontaneity and determination to one may consist together That the Will determineth it self and that external things when they change the Will do work upon it not naturally but morally not by natural motion but by moral and Metaphorical motion That when the Will is determined naturally it is not by Gods general influence whereon depend all second causes but by special influence God concurring and powring something into the Will That the Will when it suspends not its Act makes the Act necessary but because it may suspend and not assent it is not absolutely necessary That sinful acts proceed not from Gods Will but are willed by him by a permissive Will not an operative Will and hardeneth the heart of man by a negative obduration That mans Will is in his own power but his motus primo primi not in his own power nor necessary save onely by a Hypothetical necessity That the Will to change is not always a change of Wil That not all things which are produced are produced from sufficient but some things from deficient causes That if the Power of the Will be present in actu primo then therâ— is nothing wanting to the production of the effect That a cause may be sufficient for the production of an effect though it want something necessary to the production thereof because the Will may be wanting That a necessary cause doth not alwayes necessarily produce its effect but onely then when the effect is necessarily produced He proveth also that the Will is free by that universal notion which the World hath of election For when of the six electors the votes are divided equally the King of Bohemia hath a casting voyce That the Prescience of God supposeth no necessity of the future existence of the things foreknown because God is not eternal but eternity and eternity is as standing Now without succession of time and therefore God foresees all things intuitively by the presentiallity they have in Nunc stans which comprehendeth in it all time past present and to come not formally but eminently and vertually That the Will is free even then when it acteth but that is in a compounded not in a divided sense That to be made and to be eternal do consist together because Gods Decrees are made and are nevertheless eternal That the order beauty and perfection of the World doth require that in the universe there should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some free some contingent That though it be true that to morrow it shall rain or not rain yet neither of them is true determinatè That the Doctrine of necessity is a blasphemous desperate and destructive doctrinâ— That it were better to be an Atheist that then to hold it he that maintaineth it is fitter to be refuted with Rodds then with Arguments And now whether this his Doctrine or mine be the more intelligible more rational or more coâ—â—ormable to Gords Word I leave it to the Judgment of the Reader But whatsoever be the truth of the disputed Question the Reader may peradventure think I have not used the Bishop with that respect I ought or without disadvantage of my cause I might have done for which I am to make a short Apologie A little before the last Parliament of the â—â—te King when every man 〈…〉 freely against the then present Government I thought it worth my study to consider the grounds and consequences of such behaviour and whether it were conformable or contrary to reason and to the Word of God and after some time I did put in order and publish my thoughts thereof first in Latine and then again the same in English where I endeavoured to prove both by reason and Scripture That they who have once submitted themselves to any Soveraign Governour either by express acknowledgment of his power or by receiving protection from his Laws are obliged to be true and faithful to him and to acknowledge no other supreme power but him in any matter or question whatsoever either civill or Ecclesiastical In which Books of mine I pursued my subject without taking notice of any particular man that held any opinion contrary to that which I then writ onely in general I maintained that the office of the Clergy in respect of the supreme civil power was not Magisterial but Ministerial and that their teaching of the People was founded up nâ—o other Authority then that of the civil Soveraign and all this without any word tending to the disgrace either of Episcopacy or of Presbytery Nevertheless I find since that divers of them whereof thâ— Bishop of Derry is one have taken offence especially at two things one that I make the supremacy in matters of Religion to residâ— in the civil Soveraign the other that being no Clergy-man I deliver Doctrines and ground them uâ—on Words of the Scripture which Doctrines they being by profession Divines have never taught And in this their displeasure divers of them in their Books and Sermons without answering any of my Arguments have not onely exclâ—iâ—ed against my Doctrine but reviled me and endeavoured to make me hateful 〈…〉 things for which if they knâ—w their own and the Publick good they ought to have given me thanks There is also one of them that taking offence at me for blaming in part the Discipline instituted heretofore and regulated by the Authority of the Pope in the Universities not onely ranks me amongst thosâ— men that would have the Revenue of the Universities diminished and sayes plainly I have no Religion but also thinks me so simple and ignorant of the World as to believe that our Universities maintain Popery And this is the Author of the Book called Vindiciae Academiarum If either of the Universities had thought it self injured I believe it could have Authorised or appointed some member of theirs whereof there be many abler men then he to have made their vinâ—ication But this Vindex as little Doggs to plâ—ase their Masters use to bark in token of their sedulity indifferently at strangers till they be rated off unprovoked by me hath fallen upon me without bidding I have been publiquely injured by many of whom I took no notice supposing that that humour would spend it self but seeing it last and grow higher in this writing I now answer I thought it necessary at last to make of some of them and first of this Bishop an Example FINIS
is true that seeing the name of punnishment hath relation to the name of Crime there can be no punishment but for Crimes that might have been left undone but instead of punnishment if he had said affliction may not I say that God may afflict and not for sin doth he not afflict those Creatures that cannot sin and sometimes those that can sin and yet not for sin as Job and the Man in the Gospel that was born blind for the manifestation of his power which he hath over his Creature no less but more than hath the Potter over his Clay to make of it what he please But though God have power to afflict a man and not for sin without injustice shall we think God so cruel as to afflict a man and not for sin with extream and endlesse torment Is it not cruelty No more than to do the same for sin when he that so afflicteth might without trouble have kept him from sinning But what Infallible evidence hath the Bishop that a man shall be after this life Eternally in torments and never die Or how is it certain there is no second death when the Scripture saith there is Or where doth the Scripture say that a second death is an endless life Or do the Doctors onely say it then perhaps they do but say so and for reasons best known to themselves There is no injustice nor cruelty in him that giveth life to give withit sicknesse pain torments and death nor in him that giveth life twice to give the same miseries twice also And thus much in Answer to the Inconveniences that are pretended to follow the Doctrine of Necessity On the other side from this Position that a man is free to will it followeth that the Prescience of God is quite taken away For how can it be known before hand what man shall have a will to if that will of his proceed not from necessary causes but that he have in his power to will or not will So also those things which are called future contingents if they come not to passe with certainty that is to say from necessary causes can never be foreknown so that Gods fâ—reknowing shall sometimes be of things that shall not come to passe which is as much to say that his foreknowledge is none which is a great dishonour to the All-knowing Power Though this be all the Inconvenient Doctrine that followeth Freewill for as much as I can now remember yet the defending of this opinion hath drawn the Bishop and other Patrons of it into many inconvenient and absurd conclusions and made them make use of an infinite number of Insignificant words whereof one conclusion is in Suarez that God doth so concurre with the Will of Man that if Man will then God concurres which is to subject not the will of Man to God but the will of God to Man Other inconvenient conclusions I shall then mark out when I come to my observations upon the Bishops reply And thus farre concerning the inconveniences that follow both Opinions The Attribute of God which he draweth into argument is his Justice as that God cannot be Just in punishing any man for that which he was necessitated to do To which I have answered before as being one of the Inconveniences pretended to follow upon the Doctrine of Necessity On the Contrary from another of Gods Attributes which is his Fore-knowledge I shall evidently derive that all Actions whatsoever whether they proceed from the will or from fortune were necessary from eternity For whatsoever God Fore-knoweth shall come to passe cannot but come to passe that is it is Impossible it should not come to passe or otherwise come to passe then it was fore-known But whatsoever was Impossible should be otherwise was necessary for the definition of Necessary is that which cannot possibly be otherwise And whereas they that distinguish between Gods Praescience and his Decree say the Fore-knowledge maketh not the Necessity without the Decree it is little to the purpose It sufficeth me that whatsoever was fore-known by God was necessary but all things were Fore-known by God and therefore all things were necessary And as for the distinction of Fore-knowledge from Decree in God Almighty I comprehend it not They are Acts coeternall and therefore one And as for the Arguments drawn from naturall reason they are set down at large in the end of my discourse to which the Bishop maketh his reply which how well he hath answered shall appear in due time For the present the Actions which he thinketh proceed from liberty of will must either be necessitated or proceed from fortune without any other cause for certainly to Will is Impossible without thinking on what he willeth But it is in no mans Election what he shall at any named time hereafter think on And this I take to be enough to clear the understanding of the Reader that he may be the better able to Judge of the Following Disputation I find in those that write of this Argument especially in the Schoolmen and their Followers so many words strangers to our Language and such Confusion and Inanity in the ranging of them as that a mans mind in the reading of them distinguisheth nothing And as things were in the beginning before the Spirit of God was moved upon the Abiss Tohu and Bohu that is to say Confusion and Emptiness so are their discourses To the Right Honourable the Marquis of NEWCASTLE c. SIR IF I pretended to compose a compleat treatise upon this subject I should not refuse those large recruites of reasons and authorities which offer themselves to serve in this cause for God and man Religion and Policy Church and Common wealth a against the blasphemous desperate and destructive opinion of fatall destiny But as b mine aim in the first discourse was onely to presse home hose things in writing which had been agitated between us by word of mouth a course much to be preferred before verball conferences as being freer from passions and tergiversations less subject to mistakes and misrelations wherein paralogismes are more quickly detected impertinencies discovered and confusion avoided So my present intention is onely to vindicate that discourse and together with it c those lights of the Schooles who were never sleighted but where they were not understood How far I have performed it I leave to the judicious and unpartiall Reader resting for mine own part well contented with this that I have fatisfied my self Your Lordships most obliged to love and serve you I. D. Animadversions upon the Bishops Epistle to my Lord of Newcastle a AGainst the Blasphemous Desperate and Destructive Opinion of fatal Destiny This is but choler such as ordinarily happeneth unto them who contend against greater difficulties than they expected b My aim in the first discourse was onely to press home those things in writing which had been agitated between us by word of mouth a course much to be preferred before verball Conferences