so far bear with one another as is consistent with the peace of the world and every man ought to endeavour so far as Religion and virtue will permit to render his humour and his manners as agreeable as he can to those with whom he converses for the greater comfort of Humane life for the preservation of friendship and charity in the world and for the mutual benefit and advantage of Mankind And now I see nothing that remains which hath not been sufficiently considered upon this Argument of Liberty and Necessity either in this introduction or in the book it self unless it be one of these three things which I shall pass over very briefly The first is the case of the divine Prescience which is pretended to be inconsistent with humane freedom To which it is sufficient to answer that extend the foreknowledge of God as wide as you please yet knowledge is but knowledge all this while and can have no external Physical causality for this were to confound the notions of knowledge and of power together so that the only reason why there can be no such thing as a free agent is not because this freedom is inconsistent with the divine Prescience which can have no Physical influence upon it and there is no other influence in the nature of things but because the notion of a free agent considered by it self is an impossible notion that is it is impossible there should be any such thing as an immaterial being for I have proved at large in one Part of this Discourse that an immaterial and a free agent are the same and this being a point upon which all Religion depends I leave the Calvinists to consider of it Secondly Mr. Hobs his Arguments against Freedom are objected and those Arguments as I remember for I have not his Book by me are these two which follow the first is contained in this syllogism Every Cause is a sufficient cause Every sufficient cause is a necessary cause Therefore every cause is a necessary cause Which is no more then to say in fewer words Every cause is a cause Which being an Identical Proposition must needs be true for nothing is a cause till it have produced an effect and then indeed it is necessary that the effect should have been because that which is past can never be to come but yet it does not follow but that there might be a causality or causability residing in a subject or substance though it do not yet exert it self by any express or actual operation and Mr. Hobs in this sence might have been said to be a cause of the Leviathan and the book de Cive many years before he wrote the Books themselves His second argument is taken from the nature of a disjunctive proposition concerning an action which is supposed to be future and contingent as thus Either Socrates shall dispute to morrow or he shall not dispute to morrow and it is certain that this Proposition is unquestionably true because it consists of contradicting parts which contain the whole circuit of things within themselves for everything in the world besides disputing is not disputing and if Socrates should dye or should be annihilated to morrow yet to be annihilated or to dye is not to dispute so that the whole Proposition is unavoidably true but it does not follow that either of its parts are so determinately at this time and that was Mr. Hobs his mistake as I will prove by altering the Proposition a very little Either Socrates shall dispute freely to morrow or he shall not dispute freely Now the nature of a Disjunctive Proposition is this that all the parts taken asunder cannot be true at the same time because they are supposed to be incompetible and inconsistent with one another otherwise there is no disjunction further it is certain that there can but one part of a Disjunctive Proposition which concerns the present be true at the same time and in a Proposition de futuro there can be but one part eventually true but this depends upon the nature of the thing and upon the issue of the expected event not upon the nature of the Proposition to which it is necessary that it should consist of several parts and therefore the truth of it as such must depend upon the just and full enumeration of all those parts of which it ought to consist so that whatever becomes of the nature of the thing the Disjunctive Proposition hinders not but Socrates may be free since freedom is supposed in one of its members but yet if it be necessary that he shall dispute freely to morrow as Mr. Hobs must own if he will be consistent to himself then he will be free and necessary at the same time which is absurd The third and last thing which may be and is usually objected concerns those places of Scripture wherein the days of a man are said to be numbred and the time of every respective personalities continuance upon the earth predetermined and preordained which if it be true then it will follow unavoidably that the actions of a mans life are necessary and fatal for there may be a thousand several actions that may conspire to bring a man into a Chronical distemper which shall be the cause of his death if he be predetermined to dye at such a time of the Plague it must likewise be so ordered that he shall necessarily reside there where it is or repair thither that he may catch it and if his fate be to be knockt on the head by the fall of any Stone or Timber from an House it is necessary that he be abroad and passing by that place where the Stone or Timber may be sure to meet him in its fall and the like But I do absolutely deny that the days of a man are any where in Scripture affirmed to be thus limited or predetermined but that which is called the appointed time is the utmost distance of time from the day of a mans birth to which the stamina vitae will extend or to which the respective constitutions will last if they be well used and what that time is God certainly who is the Author of nature and hath all causes and effects perpetually present to him and always in his sight cannot chuse but understand very well but yet it does not follow but a man may anticipate this time by intemperance or by want of skill or want of care nay I suppose we may affirm it for a certain truth that no man ever did yet live so long as he might possibly have done had he understood his own constitution and the respective usefulness or annoyance of all other things to it together with the true proportions in which they are to be taken and avoided and had he lived a life answerable to so exact a knowledge and yet after all humane life would be but of short continuance and after all we should have reason to pray with the Prophet David that
do the same at which immediately the Magicians threw down their Rods which were converted presently into Serpents like that of Aaron and gave new strength to the obstinacy of Pharaoh's heart These were the two rational motives upon which Pharaoh proceeded The First was properly a reason of State and interest why he should not suffer the Israelites to depart The Second was an argument with him and his people not to give that credit to the miracles of Moses which otherwise they might have done But this is not all the account Josephus gives he does manifestly suppose likewise the Concurrence of a necessary together with the voluntary and spontaneous principle without which it would have been impossible but so many and so great Plagues must needs have melted the Egyptian King into a compliance with the demands of Moses and into a final Resolution not any more to be recall'd of suffering the Israelites quietly to go their way For when the rod of Aaron had swallowed those of the Magicians which was a sufficient testimony of a Power superiour to theirs yet he makes the King of Egypt insensible of any such thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He was fill'd with rage but not with fear or admiration at what had happened And when Moses not at all discouraged by his former course Entertainment and contemptuous usage accosted him a fresh upon the same errant adding menaces of the utmost Plagues and Calamities to befall him and his people in case he still continued obstinate and refractory against the divine will and Message Yet Josephus makes him to take so little notice of it as if he had not heard what Moses had said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Again whereas I have compared this hardness of Pharaoh's heart to a Lethargick or Apoplectick fit which is awakened sometimes into some degree of sensation by the application of Caustick and painful Remedies but frequently upon the abatement of that Pain relapses into its former security and forgetful Slumber as Pharaoh was frequently of the mind to yield to the pressing importunity of Moses when it was backed with the dreadful sollicitation of the most dismal Plagues but yet upon the least relaxation or intermission of those Plagues was just the same insensible and stupid Creature that ever he was before I am in this likewise very strongly supported by the Authority of the same Josephus of the Rivers being turned into blood and of the removal of that Calamity he says thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The King being startled at this unexpected event and being perfectly at his wits end not knowing at this rate what would become of the Egyptians who must all perish if the Waters continued to be poisoned gave leave to the Hebrews immediately to depart but no sooner was the hand of God removed but he returned to his former mind and would by no means permit them to be gone So likewise when the Plague of Frogs was by the Mercy of God at the Prayer of Moses removed he makes him to have been so stupid that he was no more moved than if no such Judgment had ever been inflicted his words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is But Pharaoh was no sooner freed from this Judgment but he forgat the cause and would not dimiss the people Again when the Plague of Lice that loathsome and abominable Calamity had filled all Egypt with Terrour and deformity together he makes him then like a man between sleeping and waking to give his half consent that they should depart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. Opinor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. At this horrible Calamity the. King of Egypt being affrightned and fearing at once the Destruction of his people and recounting with himself the shameful and ignominious manner by which they were about to perish was now half perswaded to lay aside his perversness and hearken to sober Counsels But the Concurrence of these two Causes is most plainly intimated by him at the close of that Chapter out of which the above mentioned Citations are taken in the following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The aforesaid mischiefs must needs have been sufficient to bring him to a sense of what was equally his interest and his Duty if he had not lost the use of Reason together with the sense of Goodness but he not so much out of Ignorance as out of perfect Malice being sensible of the cause on which all these Judgments depended would yet notwithstanding set himself in opposition to God Almighty was a wilful betrayer of himself and his people to Destruction and did what he knew to be for the worse at that very time when he did it Neither is Josephus less favourable to my sentiments in the case of Rehoboam than in that of Pharaoh but rather more for he does not only attribute the infatuation of Rehoboam himself to a positive Act of the divine will but he makes his advisers to have been exactly in the same predicament with himself being all of them alike infatuated and deceived so that as he could not take so neither could they give any other Counsel than they did his words are these speaking first of Rehoboam's rejecting the Counsel of the old men Antiq. L. 8. c. 3. and then of his applying himself to the younger Fry for their opinion in the case proposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. fortasse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is But he Rehohoam neglected the Counsel of the old men how good soever in its self and how suitable soever to the present Circumstance of time wherein it was given God himself as I conceive making him to condemn and disallow that which was most for his advantage Wherefore assembling his young men and Camerades that had been bred up together with him he acquainted them with the advice of the old men desiring likewise their opinion of the matter but they partly from the heat and inconsiderate rashness of Youth and partly because God would not suffer them to discern any thing better advised him to give for answer that it was in vain to expect a redress of grievances from him for that he was so far from it that they should find his little finger heavier than his Father's loins Nay Curcelleus and Episcopius themselves who are my great opposers in this point yet when they are sifted to the bottom they confess the very same though at first they are mealy mouth'd and will not acknowledge so much So Curcelleus L. 6. c. 9. p. 382. Semper enim iis satis lucis relinquit ad omnem justam excusationem adimendum qualis vel illa sola est quae ex operibus Dei apparet ex quibus potentia ejus aeterna divinitas perspicitur Rom. 1. 20. Nisi fortè mentem iis eripiat obbrutescant ut olim contigit
than of any other part of the Creation and it would seem as if God had sent them into the World only that he might triumph over the infirmities and sport himself in the misery of his Creatures for this as I have said is the usual effect of that freedom for which I am now contending But now if at the end of this Race there be a Prize proposed if this laborious Combat which we are perpetually obliged to maintain with so many unruly Lusts and headstrong Passions be but to fit and refine our tempers for the enjoyment of a better and a more exalted condition of life nay if the very nature of that happiness do in a great measure consist in a comfortable remembrance of and reflexion upon that successful Conflict which we in this life have maintained with the brutish and beastly part of our selves then all is made good sense again and here is a very clear account given of the reason of that spontaneous principle which we find within our selves and of its Connexion with the happiness or misery of another Life Whereas on the contrary if all humane actions be necessary and fatal the nature of rewards and punishments is utterly destroy'd For though a Man may be plagued or tormented yet he can never properly be said to be punished for what he could not avoid for all punishment is either for the amendment of the offending party or for an example to others Now where there is no fault there can be no amendment and where there is no choice there can be no fault Again that Calamity which being inflicted upon one is intended for an example to others must have its effect upon us either by the way of a rational motive or of a necessary cause if the first that supposes that freedom for which we contend for deliberation without freedom is the greatest non-sense in the world if the latter then I demand whether before the appearance of this necessary cause there were an Antecedent liberty or no if you say there was then I do by no means understand why the punishment of one or more voluntary Agents should destroy the freedom of all Mankind invert the order of things and alter the natural constitution of the world and if you will not grant it then here are two contrary necessities contending with one another as a Body moved any determinate way will continue the same motion and the same determination if it be not hindered from pursuing its course and turned another way by another more powerful than it self whether quiescent or in motion which it shall meet or overtake in its passage but then how either of these determinations shall be either culpable or meritorious is another thing which I do not understand and I am afraid it will puzzle a wiser head to give a tolerable account of it Again the pains of the Damned in the life to come consist as I have said in a great measure to be certain in a troublesom and uneasie remembrance of the miscarriages of this But how can I be troubled for what I could not avoid Or if I may be troubled yet it is plain I am troubled without reason and consequently this is but the effect of another necessity and so here is one necessity punished by another which is certainly the most unreasonable and the most unjust thing in the world so that we must unavoidably grant either that there can be no such thing as Injustice or that this is that very thing aggravated with all the circumstances that can make it most unworthy of God or most hateful to Men. For here is the greatest injury and the greatest deceit together the greatest injury for a Man to be tormented to all Eternity for what he could not avoid and the greatest deceit for a Man to think all the while that he might have acted otherwise than he has for that is the case of every Man who is possessed with a sense of Guilt Repentance or Shame For what is Shame but a troublesom reflexion upon Folly And how can Folly and Necessity be consistent together What is Guilt but a certain pain and anguish of the Mind arising from a sense of Sin And how can that Action be sinful which it was not in our power to eschew Or why may we not as well conclude that the Sun commits a Sin when it parches the Earth with an immoderate heat Or the Rain when it poaches it with intemperate showres What room can there be for such a passion as Repentance where there is nothing to be repented of And how can any Man repent of that which it was utterly impossible for him to avoid And which being placed in the same circumstances he must with the same necessity act over again There are those whose dejection of Spirit is so great under the perpetual weight and pressure of misfortune that they curse the unhappy day wherein they were born into a World so full of misery and sorrow but there are none repent their being born because Repentance is a reflection upon a Man 's own action not upon the action of our Parents or upon the consequence of it â— No Man can be said to repent that he was born blind or that he became so by the virulence of a Distemper which it was not in his power to prevent he may wish it had been otherwise or he may be sorry that it was not but this desire or this sorrow of his is not accompany'd with a sense of guilt or shame which is always requisite to fill up the notion and constitute the nature of Repentance No Man repents his having had the Rickets in his Childhood or his being afflicted with the Gout in his old Age so far as these Distempers depend upon spermatick and hereditary Causes but if by Lewdness and Intemperance he shall contract a crazy and infirm habit of Body and shall derive a sickly and diseased Constitution down to his Issue then he may and has reason to repent for his own sake and for theirs too to whom he is the occasion of so great misfortune he must needs look back with blushes and confusion of face upon his own personal follies and it will be still a farther aggravation to the trouble of his mind that he has poison'd Ages and Generations to come that his name shall either perish with himself or dye together with his Children or live with infamy and disgrace in the infirmity of those that shall succeed them What hath been said concerning Guilt Repentance and Shame passions that do unavoidably suppose and prove a freedom the same is likewise applicable to the business of Temptation Watch and pray said our Blessed Lord to his Disciples that ye enter not into Temptation Mat. 26. 41. But now in all Temptations liberty is plainly supposed for if a Man cannot yield how is he tempted And if he cannot resist it is more than a Temptation So that the nature of a Temptation
principles of Truth and Reason But in all Vice there is a mixture of Freedom and Necessity together Of Necessity because all Sin is owing to the predominance of the necessary or material cause and yet of Freedom because if that predominance cannot possibly be overcome by our utmost diligence or circumspection or power this perfectly destroys the nature of Sin and makes us only passive in what we do This is the meaning of those other places already cited v. 15. That which I do I allow not For what I would that do I not but what I hate that do I. And v. 19. The good that I would I do not but the evil which I would not that I do That is the Will of Man properly so called is a principle of action steared and directed by the Understanding and so is naturally carried forth to nothing but what is reasonable and fit to be done and therefore every wicked or which is all one unreasonable desire is a violence done to the natural bent and tendency of the humane Will and is the effect of that union which there is betwixt the necessary principle and the free by which it comes to pass that the latter of these if it be not perfectly overcome yet being perpetually and strongly sollicited it is morally impossible for it to keep so strictly upon its Guard as not sometimes to be imposed upon and still the more it yields the more weak and infirm it grows and the less able to make any tolerable resistance for the future Besides that it cannot be that considerations of Virtue should be warm upon our Minds at the same time when temptations of Lust and Pleasure from without have a powerful influence upon them for these two are inconsistent together and do as the Logicians are used to say by contraries expell one another out of the same Subject Now then saith St. Paul v. 17 and 20. It is no more I that do it but Sin that dwelleth in me No more I that is it is not the pure intellectual nature in me which is truly and properly my self and which hath no tendency but to reasonable Courses but Sin that dwelleth in me that is it is the animal or bruitish nature resulting from the union of the Soul with Matter which by perpetual importunity and sollicitation does by degrees overpower the guards of Reason and amounts almost to a necessity of doing evil But here it is to be taken notice before we pass any further that this Pronoun I in this Chapter is used by St. Paul in a threefold acceptation First It signifies the whole Person consisting both of Soul and Body of a purely immaterial and of an animal or fleshly Nature v. 15 16. For that which I do I allow not For what I would that do I not but what I hate that do I If then I do that which I allow not I consent unto the Law that it is good and v. 19 For the good that I would I do not but the evil which I would not that I do Secondly It is taken for the pure intellectual and abstracted Nature v. 20 c. Now if I do that I would not it is no more I that do it but Sin that dwelleth in me And then Thirdly and Lastly It is taken otherwhile only for the animal or fleshly Life v. 18. For I know that in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good thing For to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not It is no more I that do it but Sin that dwelleth in me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which word the nature of it is very aptly signified and it is a very fit exposition of v. 19. The good that I would I do not but the evil which I would not that I do For the Will as I have said is naturally directed towards Happiness which can only be obtained by reasonable and virtuous Courses so that all Sin hath something of involuntary in it because it is naturally productive of nothing but mischeif and inconvenience to us and by consequence is a missing of that Mark to which our Wills are intentionally directed which is exactly the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the Etymologist whose words I will set down because they contain a very pat Interpretation of this place of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence it is plain that in the very word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is something of involuntary denoted and that it does very properly shadow cut unto us that mixture of Necessity and Freedom which there is to be found in every sinful action and what if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek should all of them be thought to owe their derivation to the Verb hamar Ligavit or Manipulos fecit in the Hebrew Language from whence homer Manipulus which was a Pledge or Earnest-penny or an acknowledgment that the rest of the harvest was equally due to him to whom the Homer it self was consecrated and offered up but this is a small Criticisme and indeed an improbable one into the bargain which I do not stand upon A third cause which I shall assign of the great prevalence and growth of Calvinistical Doctrines is this that notwithstanding when matters are examined to the bottom they are destructive of piety and holy living yet to the careless and unthinking view of many of Mr. Calvin's Disciples and Adherents they have an appearance of an extraordinary sanctity by vilifying a man's self at such a prodigious rate and by magnifying the Grace of God without which I acknowledge we can do nothing as we ought to so unreasonable a degree as includes in it the utter ruin and destruction of all the powers and faculties of the mind of man which nature will not permit and therefore God does not and cannot possibly be supposed to require A fourth reason which I believe to have been a motive to Mr. Calvin to propagate this Doctrine and I am sure in the nature of things it was not only a possible but a very probable reason is that in the Church of Rome there were such things as Pardons and Indulgences to be had upon occasion which gave an Artificial ease to the consciences of men when the reflection upon the past wickedness and follies of their life wou'd either have driven them into perfect despair or at least made them very uneasy and troublesome to themselves and the finding out a cheap expedient an expedient grounded in the very nature of things and consequently such as might be had for nothing such as was not exposed to the envy of the Papal Indulgencies and Dispensations could not chuse but be very serviceable to the Inventor of it and must needs draw abundance of Fishes into his Net for men do very easily excuse themselves