plainly acknowledged by T. H. Numb 11. That fore-knowledge is knowledge and knowledge depends on the existence of 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 prooveth 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 Numb 37. T. H. THis is all thath hath come into my mind touching this question since I last considered it And I humbly beseech your Lordship to communicate it onely to J. D. And so praying God to prosper your Lordship in all your designes I take leave and am my most Noble and obliging Lord Your most humble servant T. H. J. D. HE is very carefull to have this discourse kept secret as appeares 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 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 But if he think that this ventilation of the question between us two may do hurt truly I hope not The edge of his discourse is so abated that it cannot easily hurt any rationall man who is not too much possessed with prejudice Numb 38. T. H. POstscript Arguments seldom work on men of wit and learning 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 wormes 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 not 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 severall Lieutenancies shall ordain J. D. THough Sophisticall 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 solide and substantiall 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 Oratours apply themselves to the many headed multitude because they despaire 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 proove more succesfull When he sees he can do no good by sight 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. knowes the comparison so we take our own errours to be truths and other mens truths to be errours 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 of 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 Goodness and Truth such an errour as renders men more devout 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 persuades us too much to our loss But let us see what is the imaginary cause of an 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 Immortall Independent Or by attribubuting 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 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 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 in justice 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 originall 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 Eternall Decrees with as much confidence as if they had been all their lives of his cabinet councell 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 Molech 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 pitifull cries from the eares of their Parents So they make a noise with their declamations against those who dare dispute of the nature of God that is who dare set forth his Justice and his goodness and his truth and his Philanthropy onely to deaf the ears and dim the eyes of the Christian world least they should hear the lamentable ejulations and howlings or see that ruefull spectacle of millions of souls tormented for evermore 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 of all consolation This is life eternall saith our Saviour to know the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Joh. 17.3 Pure Religion and undefiled 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 St. James Jam. 1.27 Fear God and keep his Commandements for this is the whole duty of man saith Salomon Eccles 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 honour both in attributes and actions as they in their severall Lieutenances shall ordain That is to say be 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 eares that I should have missed his meaning but that I consulted with his Book De Cive c. 15. Sect. 16. and c. 17. Sect. 28. What if the Magistrate shall be no Christian 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 Lawes 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 colemus omnes Aeternum colemus Principem dierum Factorem Dominumque Galieni FINIS
themselves to load the Horses back with so much weight as the least of all his feathers doth amount unto But we shall meet with his Horse load of feathers again Num. 23. These things being thus briefly touched he proceeds to his answer My argument was this If any of these or all of these causes formerly recited do take away true liberty that is still intended from necessity then Adam before his fall had no true liberty But Adam before his fall had true liberty He mis-recites the argument and denies the consequence which is so clearly proved that no man living can doubt of it Because Adam was subjected to all the same causes as well as we the same decree the same praescience the same influences the same concourse of causes the same efficacy of objects the same dictates of reason But it is onely a mistake for it appears plainly by his following discourse that he intended to deny not the consequence but the Assumption For he makes Adam to have had no liberty from necessity before his fall yea he proceeds so far as to affirm that all humane wills his and ours and each propension of our wills even during our deliberation are as much necessitated as any thing else whatsoever that we have no more power to forbear those actions which we do then the fire hath power not to burn Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning yet I must confess ingenuously I hate this Doctrin from my heart And I beleeve both I have reason so to do and all others who shall seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it It destroyes liberty and dishonours the nature of man It makes the second causes and outward objects to be the Rackets and Men to be but the Tennis-Balls of destiny It makes the first cause that is God Almighty to be the introducer of all evill and sin into the world as much as Man yea more then Man by as much as the motion of the Watch is more from the Artificer who did make it and wind it up then either from the spring or the wheels or the thred if God by his speciall influence into the second causes did necessitate them to operate as they did And if they being thus determined did necessitate Adam inevitably irresistibly not by an accidentall but by an essentiall subordination of causes to whatsoever he did Then one of these two absurdities must needs follow either that Adam did not sin and that there is no such thing as sin in the world because it proceeds naturally necessarily and essentially from God Or that God is more guilty of it and more the cause of evill than man because man is extrinsecally inevitably determined but so is not God And in causes essentially subordinate the cause of the cause is always the cause of the effect What Tyrant did ever impose Lawes that were impossible for those to keep upon whom they were imposed and punish them for breaking those Lawes which he himself had necessitated them to break which it was no more in their power not to break then it is in the power of the fire not to burn Excuse me if I hate this doctrine with a perfect hatred which is so dishonorable both to God and man which makes men to blaspheme of necessity to steal of necessity to be hanged of necessity and to be damned of necessity And therefore I must say and say again Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulis odi It were better to be an Atheist to believe no God or to be a Manichee to believe two Gods a God of good and a God of evill or with the Heathens to believe thirty thousand Gods than thus to charge the true God to be the proper cause and the true Author of all the sins and evills which are in the world Numb 12. J. D. argument 5 FIftly if there be no liberty there shall be no day of Doom no last Judgment no rewards nor punishments after death A man can never make himself a criminall if he be not left at liberty to commit a crime No man can be justly punished for doing that which was not in his power to shun To take away liberty hazards heaven but undoubtedly it leaves no hell T. H. THE Arguments of greatest consequence are the third and fift and fall both into one Namely If there be a necessity of all events that it will follow that praise and reprehension reward and punishment are all vain and unjust And that if God should openly forbid and secretly necessitate the same action punishing men for what they could not avoid there would be no belief among them of heaven or hell To oppose hereunto I must borrow an answer from St. Paul Rom. 9. ver 11. from the 11. verse of the Chapter to the 18. is laid down the very same objection in these words When they meaning Esau and Jacob were yet unborn and had done neither good nor evill That the purpose of God according to election not by works but by him that calleth might remain firm it was said to her viz. to Rebekah that the elder shall serve the younger And what then shall we say is there iniustice with God God forbid It is not therefore in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in God that sheweth mercy For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh I have stirred thee up that I I may shew my power in thee and that my Name may be set forth in all the earth Therefore whom God willeth he hath mercy or and whom he willeth he hardeneth Thus you see the case put by St. Paul is the same with that of J. D. and the same objection in these words following Thou wilt ask me then why will God yet complain for who hath resisted his will To this therefore the Apostle answers not by denying it was Gods will or that the decree of God concerning Esau was not before he had sinned or that Esau was not necessitated to do what he did but thus Who art thou O Man that interrogatest God shall the work say to the workman why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same stuff to make one vessell to honour another to dishonour According therefore to this answer of St. Paul I answer J D's objection and say The power of God alone without other help is sufficient Justification of any action he doth That which men make among themselves here by pacts and Covenants and call by the name of Justice and according whereunto men are counted and tearmed rightly just and unjust is not that by which God Almighties actions are to be measured or called just no more than his counsailes are to be measured by human wisedom That which he does is made just by his doing Just I say in him not always just in us by the Examples for a man that shall command a thing openly and plot secretly the hinderance of the
man for doing that which it hath determined him to do to profess one thing and to intend another It destroyes the goodness of God making him to be an hater of mankind and to delight in the torments of his creatures whereas the very doggs licked the sores of Lazarus in pitty and commiseration of him It destroyes the Justice of God making him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act which they had no more power to shun than the fire hath power not to burn It destroyes the very power of God making him to be the true Author of all the defects and evills which are in the world These are the fruits of Impotence not of Omnipotence He who is the effective cause of sin either in himselfe or in the Creature is not Almighty There needs no other Devill in the world to raise jealousies and suspitions between God and his creatures or to poison mankind with an apprehension that God doth not love them but onely this opinion which was the office of the Serpent Gen. 3.5 Fourthly for the outward worship of God How shall a man praise God for his goodness who believes him to be a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault to express his power How shall a man hear the Word of God with that reverence and devotion and faith which is requisite who believeth that God causeth his Gospel to be preached to the much greater part of Christians not with any intention that they should be converted and saved but meerly to harden their hearts and to make them inexcusable How shall a man receive the blessed Sacrament with comfort and confidence as a Seal of Gods love in Christ who believeth that so many millions are positively excluded from all fruit and benefit of the Passions of Christ before they had done either good or evill How shall he prepare himself with care and conscience who apprehendeth that Eating and Drinking unworthily is not the cause of damnation but because God would damn a man therefore he necessitates him to eat and drink unworthily How shall a man make a free vow to God without gross ridiculous hypocrisy who thinks he is able to perform nothing but as he is extrinsecally necessitated Fiftly for Repentance how shall a man condemn and accuse himself for his sins who thinks himself to be like a Watch which is wound up by God and that he can go neither longer nor shorter faster nor slower truer nor falser than he is ordered by God If God sets him right he goes right If God set him wrong he goes wrong How can a man be said to return into the right way who never was in any other way but that which God himself had chalked out for him What is his purpose to amend who is destitute of all power but as if a man should purpose to fly without wings or a begger who hath not a groat in his purse purpose to build Hospitalls We use to say admit one absurdity and a thousand will follow To maintain this unreasonable opinion of absolute necessity he is necessitated but it is hypothetically he might change his opinion if he would to deal with all antient Writers as the Goths did with the Romans who destroyed all their magnificent works that there might remain no monument of their greatness upon the face of the earth Therefore he will not leave so much as one of their opinions nor one of their definitions nay not one of their tearmes of Art standing Observe what a description he hath given us here of Repentance It is a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way It amazed me to find gladness to be the first word in the description of repentance His repentance is not that repentance nor his piety that piety nor his prayer that kind of prayer which the Church of God in all Ages hath acknowledged Fasting and Sackcloth and Ashes and Teares and Humi-cubations used to be companions of Repentance Joy may be a consequent of it not a part of it It is a returning but whose act is this returning Is it Gods alone or doth the penitent person concur also freely with the grace of God If it be Gods alone then it is his repentance not mans repentance what need the penitent person trouble himself about it God will take care of his own work The Scriptures teach us otherwise that God expects our concurrence Revel 3.19 Be zealous and repent behold I stand at the dore and knock If any man hear my voyce and open the dore I will come in to him It is a glad returning into the right way Why dare any more call that a wrong way which God himself hath determined He that willeth and doth that which God would have him to will and to do is never out of his right way It followes in his description after the grief c. It is true a man may grieve for that which is necessarily imposed upon him but he cannot grieve for it as a fault of his own if it never was in his power to shun it Suppose a Writing-master shall hold his Scholars hand in his and write with it the Scholars part is only to hold still his hand whether the Master write well or ill the Scholar hath no ground either of joy or sorrow as for himself no man will interpret it to be his act but his Masters It is no fault to be out of the right way if a man had not liberty to have kept himself in the way And so from Repentance he skipps quite over New obedience to come to Prayer which is the last Religious duty insisted upon by me here But according to his use without either answering or mentioning what I say Which would have shewed him plainely what kind of prayer I intend not contemplative prayer in generall as it includes thanksgiving but that most proper kind of prayer which we call Petition which used to be thus defined to be an act of Religion by which we desire of God something which we have not and hope that we shall obtain it by him Quite contrary to this T. H. tells us that prayer is not a cause nor a meanes of Gods blessing but only a signification that we expect it from him If he had told us onely that prayer is not a meritorious cause of Gods blessings as the poor man by begging an almes doth not deserve it I should have gone along with him But to tell us that it is not so much as a means to procure Gods blessing and yet with the same breath that God will not give his blessings but to those who pray who shall reconcile him to himself The Scriptures teach us otherwise Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will give it you John 16.23 Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you
Matth. 7.7 St. Paul tells the Corinthians 2 Cor. 1.11 that he was helped by their prayers that 's not all that the gift was bestowed upon him by their means So prayer is a means And St. James saith cap. 5.16 The effectuall fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much If it be effectuall then it is a cause To shew this efficacy of prayer our Saviour useth the comparison of a Father towards his Child of a Neighbour towards his Neighbour yea of an unjust Judge to shame those who think that God hath not more compassion than a wicked man This was signified by Jacobs wrestling and prevailing with God Prayer is like the Tradesmans tools wherewithall he gets his living for himself and his family But saith he Gods will is unchangeable What then He might as well use this against study Physick and all second causes as against Prayer He shewes even in this how little they attribute to the endeavours of men There is a great difference between these two mutare voluntatem to change the will which God never doth in whom there is not the least shadow of turning by change His will to love and hate was the same from eternity which it now is and ever shall be His love and hatred are immovable but we are removed Non tellus cymbam tellurem cymba reliquit And velle mutationem to will a change which God often doth To change the will argues a change in the Agent but to will a change only argues a change in the object It is no inconstancy in a man to love or to hate as the object is changed Praesta mihi omnia eadem idem sum Prayer works not upon God but us It renders not him more propitious in himself but us more capable of mercy He saith this That God doth not bless us except we pray is a motive to prayer Why talks he of motives who acknowledgeth no liberty nor admitts any cause but absolutely necessary He saith Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessing which we pray for and conteined in the same decree with the blessing It is true the spirit of prayer is the gift of God will he conclude from thence that the good imployment of one talent or of one gift of God may not procure another Our Saviour teacheth us otherwise Come thou good and faithfull servant thou hast been faithfull in little I will make thee ruler over much Too much light is an enemy to the light and too much Law is an enemy to Justice I could wish we wrangled less about Gods Decrees untill we understood them better But saith he Thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past and prayer is but a thanksgiving He might even as well tell me that when a beggar craves an almes and when he gives thanks for it it is all one Every thanksgiving is a kind of prayer but every prayer and namely Petition is not a thanks-giving In the last place he urgeth that in our prayers we are bound to submit our wills to Gods Will who ever made any doubt of this we must submit to the Preceptive will of God or his Commandments we must submit to the effective Will of God when he declares his good pleasure by the event or otherwise But we deny and deny again either that God wills things ad extra without himself necessarily or that it is his pleasure that all second causes should act necessarily at all times which is the question and that which he allegeth to the contrary comes not neer it Numb 16. J. D. argument 4 FOurthly the order beauty and perfection of the world doth require that in the Universe should be Agents of all sorts some necessary somefree 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 Beauty and Perfection of the world requireth that in the Vniverse should be Agents of all sorts some necessary some free some contingent He that shall make all things necessary or all things free or all things contingent doth overthrow the beauty and perfection 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 them 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 modum recipient is 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 formall 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 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 Neither do I approove his definition of contingents though he say I concur 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 besides 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 in determination or accidentall concurrence of the causes And those same things which are absolutely Incontingent and yet Hypothetically necessary As supposing the Passenger did walk just that way just at that time and that the pin did fail 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 Numb 34. Whither I refer the further explication of this point Numb 17. J. D. argument 5 FIftly take away liberty and you take away the very nature of evill and the formall 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 evill 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 a void If there be no liberty to produce sin there is no such thing as sin in the world Therefore it appeares both from Scripture and reason that there is true Liberty T. H. TO the fift Argument from reason which is that if liberty be taken away the nature and formall reason of sin is taken away I answer by denying the consequence The nature of sin consisteth in this that the action done proceed from our will and be against the Law A Judge in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the Law looks at no higher cause of the action then the will of the doer Now when I say the action was necessary I do not say it was done against the will of the doer but with his will and so necessarily because mans will that is every act of the will and purpose of man had a sufficient and therefore a necessary cause and consequently every voluntary action was necessitated An action therefore may be voluntary and a sin and nevertheless be necessary And because God may afflict by right derived from his Omnipotency though sin were not And the example of punishment on voluntary sinners is the cause that produceth Justice and maketh sin less frequent For God to punish such sinners as I have shewed before is no injustice And thus you have my answer to his objections both out of Scripture and reason J. D. SCis tu simulare cupressum quid hoc It was shrewd counsail which Alcibiades gave to Themistocles when he was busy about his accounts to the State that he should rather study how to make no accounts So it seemes T. H. thinks it a more compendious way to baulk an argument then to satisfie it And if he can produce a Rowland against an Oliver if he can urge a reason against a reason he thinks he hath quitted himself fairely But it will not serve his turn And that he may not complain of misunderstanding it as those who have a politick deafness to hear nothing but what liketh them I will first reduce mine argument into form and then weigh what he saith in answer or rather in opposition to it That opinion which takes away the formall reason of sin and by consequence sin it self is not to be approoved this is cleer because both Reason and Religion Nature and Scripture do proove and the whole world confesseth that there is sin But this opinion of the necessity of all things by reason of a conflux of second causes ordered and determined by the first cause doth take away the very formall reason of sin This is prooved thus That which makes sin it self to be good and just and lawfull takes away the formall cause and distroyes the essence of sin for if sin be good and just and lawfull it is no more evill it is no sin no anomy But this opinion of the necessity of all things makes sin to be very good and just and lawfull for nothing can flow essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause which is the Law and Rule of Goodness and Justice but that which is good and just and lawfull but this opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause as appeares in T. H. his whole discourse Neither is it materiall at all whether it proceed immediatly from the first cause or mediately so as it be by a necessary flux of second and determinate causes which
produce it inevitably To these proofs he answers nothing but onely by denying the first consequence as he calls it and then sings over his old song That the nature of sin consisteth in this that the action proceeds from our will and be against the Law which in our sense is most true if he understand a just Law and a free rationall will But supposing as he doth that the Law injoines things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrannicall Law and the transgression of it is no sin not to do that which never was in our power to do And supposing likewise as he doth that the will is inevitably determined by speciall influence from the first cause then it is not mans will but Gods Will and flowes essentially from the Law of Goodness That which he addes of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civill Judge the proper Judge nor the Law of the Land the proper Rule of Sin But it makes strongly against him for the Judge goes upon a good ground and even this which he confesseth that the Judge looks at no higher cause then the will of the doer prooves that the will of the doer did determine it self freely and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the Law if he would Certainly a Judge ought to look at all materiall circumstances and much more at all essentiall causes Whether every sufficient cause be a necessary cause will come to be examined more properly Numb 31. For the present it shall suffice to say that liberty flowes from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause 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 Yet the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced What is it then A Monster is not produced by vertue of that order which is set in Nature but by the contingent aberration of some of the naturall causes in their concurrence The order set in Nature is that every like should beget its like But supposing the concurrence of the causes to be such as it is in the generation of a Monster the generation of a Monster is necessary as all the events in the world are when they are that is by an hypotheticall necessity Then he betakes himself to his old help that God may punish by right of omnipotence though there were no sin The question is not now what God may do but what God will do according to that Covenant which he hath made with man Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live whether God doth punish any man contrary to this Covenant Hosea 13.9 O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help He that wills not the death of a Sinner doth much less will the death of an innocent Creature By death or destruction in this discourse the onely separation of Soul and Body is not intended which is a debt of nature and which God as Lord of Life and Death may justly do and make it not a punishment but a blessing to the party but we understand the subjecting of the Creature to eternall torments Lastly he tells of that benenefit which redounds to others from Exemplary Justice which is most true but not according to his own grounds for neither is it Justice to punish a man for doing that which it was impossible alwayes for him not to do Neither is it lawfull to punish an 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 Numb 18. J. D. BUt the Patrons of necessity being driven out of the plain field with reason have certain retreats or distinctions which they fly unto for refuge First they distinguish between Stoicall necessity and Christian necessity between which they make a threefold difference First say they the Stoicks did subject Jupiter to destiny but we subject destiny to God I answer that the Stoicall and Christian destiny are one and the same fatum quasi effatum Jovis Hear Seneca Destiny is the necessity of all things and actions depending upon the disposition of Jupiter c. I add that the Stoicks left a greater liberty to Jupiter over destiny than these Stoicall Christians do to God over his decrees either for the beginnings of things as Euripides or for the progress of of them as Chrysippus or at least of the circumstances of time and place as all of them generally So Virgil Sed trahere moras ducere c. So Osyris in Apuleius promiseth him to prolong his life Ultra fato constituta tempora beyond the times set down by the destinies Next they say that the Stoicks did hold an eternall flux and necessary connexion of causes but they believe that God doth act praeter contra naturam besides and against nature I answer that it is not much materiall whether they attribute necessity to God or to the Starrs or to a connexion of causes so as they establish necessity The former reasons do not onely condemn the ground or foundation of necessity but much more necessity it self upon what ground soever Either they must run into this absurdity that the effect is determined the cause remaining undetermined or els hold such a necessary connexion of causes as the Stoicks did Lastly they say the Stoicks did take away liberty and contingence but they admit it I answer what liberty or contingence was it they admit but a titular liberty and an empty shadow of contingence who do profess stifly that all actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner in any other Place Time Number Order Measure nor to any other end than they are and that in respect of God determining them to one what a poor ridiculous liberty or contingence is this Secondly they distinguish between the first cause and the second causes they say that in respect of the second causes many things are free but in respect of the first cause all things are necessary This answer may be taken away two wayes First so contraries shall be true together The same thing at the same time shall be determined to one and not determined to one the same thing at the same time must necessarily be and yet may not be Perhaps they will say not in the same respect But that which strikes at the root of this question is this If all the causes were onely collaterall this exception might have some colour but where all the causes being joined together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall
his keeping at home is free Again sometimes the thing supposed is not in the power of the Agent to do or not to do supposing a man to be extrem sick it is necessary that he keep at home or supposing that a man hath a naturall antipathy against a Cat he runs necessarily away so soon as he sees her Because this antipathy and this sickness are not in the power of the party affected therefore these acts are not free Jacob blessed his Sons Balaam blessed Israel these two acts being done are both necessary upon supposition But is was in Jacobs power not to have blessed his Sons So was it not in Balaams power not to have blessed Israel Numb 22.38 Jacobs will was determined by himself Balaams will was Phyfically determined by God Therefore Jacobs benediction proceeded from his own free election And Balaams from Gods determination So was Caiphas his Prophesy John 11.51 Therefore the Text saith He spake not of himself To this T. H. saith nothing but only declareth by an impertinent instance what Hypotheticall signifies And then adviseth your Lordship to take notice how Errours and Ignorance may be cloked under grave Scholastick tearmes And I do likewise intreat your Lordship to take notice that the greatest fraud and cheating lurks commonly under the pretense of plain dealing we see Juglers commonly strip up their sleeves and promise extraordinary fair dealing before they begin to play their tricks Concerning the second argument drawn from the liberty of God and the good Angells As I cannot but approove his modesty in suspending his judgment concerning the manner how God and the good Angells do work necessarily or freely because he finds it not set down in the Articles of our Faith or the Decrees of our Church especially in this age which is so full of Atheisme and of those scoffers which St. Peter Prophesied of 2 Pet. 3.3 Who neither believe that there is God or Angells or that they have a Soul but only as salt to keep their bodies from putrifaction So I can by no means assent unto him in that which followes that is to say that he hath proved that Liberty and Necessity of the same kind may consist together that is a liberty of exercise with a necessity of exercise or a liberty of specification with a necessity of specification Those actions which he saith are necessitated by passion are for the most part dictated by reason either truly or apparently right and resolved by the will it self But it troubles him that I say that God and the good Angells are more free than men 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 which he saith are no distinctions but tearmes invented to cover ignorance Good words Doth he onely see Are all other men stark bling By his favour they are true and necessary distinctions And if he alone do not conceive them it is because distinctions as all other things have their fates according to the capacities or prejudices of their Readers But he urgeth two reasons One heate saith he may be more intensive than another but not one liberty than another Why not I wonder Nothing is more proper to a man than reason yet a man is more rationall than a child and one man more rationall than another that is in respect of the use and exercise of reason As there are degrees of understanding so there are of liberty The good Angells have cleerer understandings than we and they are not hindred with passions as we and by consequence they have more use of liberty than we His second reason is He that can do what he will hath all liberty and he that cannot do what he will hath no liberty If this be true then there are no degrees of liberty indeed But this which he calls liberty is rather an Omnipotence than a liberty to do whatsoever he will A man is free to shoot or not to shoot although he cannot hit the white when soever he would We do good freely but with more difficulty and reluctation than the good Spirits The more rationall and the less sensuall the will is the greater is the degree of liberty His other exception against liberty of exercise and liberty of specification is a meer mistake which growes meerly from not rightly understanding what liberty of specification or contrariety is A liberty of specification saith he is a liberty to do or not to do or not to do this or that in particular Upon better advice he will find that this which he calls a liberty of specification is a liberty of contradiction and not of specification nor of contrariety To be free to do or not to do this or that particular good is a liberty of contradiction so likewise to be free to do or not to do this or that particular evill But to be free to do both good and evill is a liberty of contrariety which extends to contrary objects or to diverse kinds of things So his reason to proove that a liberty of exercise cannot be without a liberty of specification falls flat to the ground And he may lay aside his Lenten license for another occasion I am ashamed to insist upon these things which are so evident that no man can question them who doth understand them And here he falls into another invective against distinctions and Scholasticall expressions and the Doctors of the Church who by this means tyrannized over the understandings of other men What a presumption is this for one private man who will not allow human liberty to others to assume to himself such a license to controll 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 generall 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 what then must the Logicians lay aside their first and second Intentions their Abstracts and Conceits their Subjects and Predicates their Modes and Figures their Method Synthetick and Analytick their Fallacies of Composition and Division c Must the morall Philosopher quitt his means and extremes his pricipia congenita ad acquisita his liberty of contradiction and contrariety his necessity absolute and hypotheticall c Must the naturall Philosopher give over his intentionall 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 ad justitiam his parts Homogeneous Heterogeneous his Sympathies and Antipathies his Antiperistasis c Must the Astrologer and the Geographer leave their Apogaeum and Perigaeum their Arctick and Antarctick Poles their Aequator Zodiack Zenith Meridian Horison Zones c Must the Mathematician the Metaphysician
it an indivisible point To this I answer that as soon as I can conceive Eternity an indivisible point or any thing but an everlasting succession I will renounce all I have written in this subject I know St. Thomas Aquinas calls eternity Nunc stans an ever abiding now which is easy enough to say but though I fain would I never could conceive it They that can are more happy 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 understand as little how it can be true that God is not just but Justice it self not wise but Wisedom it self not eternall but Eternity it self Nor how he concludes thence that Eternity is a ponit 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 successive These phrases I find not in the Scripture I wonder therefore what was the designe of the School-men to bring them up unless they thought a man could not be a true Christian unless his understanding 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 same question with my reasons for it positively and briefly as I can without any tearmes of Art in plain English J. D. 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 My assertion is most 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 extrinsecall 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 absoute necessity of all events by reason of their antecedent determination in their extrinsecall 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 obscure or so transcendent above the reach of reason as the Eternall Decrees of God are And therefore in both these respects he cannot challenge the same priviledge I am in profession 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 untill 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 evill sequells and events which may incline the will but neither can nor do necessitate the will Nor by uncertain and accidentall inferences such as this The memory of praises dispraises rewards punishments good and evill sequelis 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 operation of the externall objects and the Agency of externall octjects is onely from God therefore all actions even of free and voluntary Agents are necessary To pass by all the other great imperfections which are to be found in this Sorite It is just like that old Sophisticall 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 In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed mine own private opinion how it might be made appear that the Eternall Prescience and Decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency And this I set down in as plain tearmes 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 externall species but by his internall Essence He confounds this with the Will and the Decrees of God Though he found not the word Aspect before in this discourse he might have found prescience Secondly he chargeth me that hitherto I have maintained that Liberty and the Decrees of God are irreconcilable If I have said any such thing my heart never went along with my pen. No but his reason why he chargeth me on this manner is because I have maintained that Liberty and the absolute necessity of all things are irreconciliable That is true indeed What then Why saith he Necessity and Gods Decrees are all one How all one that were strange indeed Necessity may be a consequent of Gods Decrees it cannot be the Decree it self But to cut his argument short God hath decreed all effects which come to pass 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 with some he cooperateth by speciall influence and some he onely permitteth Yet this is no idle or bare permission seeing he doth concurre both by way of generall influence giving power to act and also by disposing all events necessary free and contingent to his own glory 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 than an everlasting succession But I have given no such allowance I know there are many other wayes proposed by Divines for reconciling the Eternall Prescience and Decrees of God with the Liberty and Contingency of second causes some of which may please other judgments better than this of mine Howsoever though a man could comprehend none of all these wayes yet remember what I said that a certain truth ought not to be rejected because we are not able in respect of our weakness to understand the certain manner or reason of it I know the Load-stone hath an attractive power to draw the Iron to it And yet I know not how it
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 controversy 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 Numb 31. T. H. SEventhly I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needfull to the producing of the effect The same is also a necessary cause for if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanted somewhat which was needfull to the producing of it and so the cause was not sufficient But if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it or els it had not been And therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated J. D. THis section containes a third Argument to proove that all effects are necessary for clearing whereof it is needfull to consider how a cause may be said to be sufficient or insufficient First severall causes singly considered may be insufficient and the same taken conjointly be sufficient to produce an effect As two horses jointly are sufficient to draw a Coach which either of them singly is insufficient to do Now to make the effect that is the drawing of the Coach necessary it is not onely required that the two horses be sufficient to draw it but also that their conjunction be necessary and their habitude such as they may draw it If the owner of one of these horses will not suffer him to draw If the Smith have shod the other in the quick and lamed him If the horse have cast a shoe or be a resty jade and will not draw but when he list then the effect is not necessarily produced but contingently more or less as the concurrence of the causes is more or less contingent Secondly a cause may be said to be sufficient either because it produceth that effect which is intended as in the generation of a man or els because it is sufficient to produce that which is produced as in the generation of a Monster The former is properly called a sufficient cause the later a weak and insufficient cause Now if the debility of the cause be not necessary but contingent then the effect is not necessary but contingent It is a rule in Logick that the conclusion alwayes followes the weaker part If the premises be but probable the conclusion cannot be demonstrative It holds as well in causes as in propositions No effect can exceed the vertue of its cause If the ability or debility of the causes be contingent the effect cannot be necessary Thirdly that which concernes this question of Liberty from necessity most neerely is That a cause is said to be sufficient in respect of the ability of it to act not in respect of its will to act The concurrence of the will is needfull to the production of a free effect But the cause may be sufficient though the will do not concur As God is sufficient to produce a thousand worlds but it doth not follow from thence either that he hath produced them or that he will produce them The blood of Christ is a sufficient ransome for all mankind but it doth not follow therefore that all mankind shall be actually saved by vertue of his Blood A man may be a sufficient Tutour though he will not teach every Scholler and a sufficient Physitian though he will not administer to every patient Forasmuch therefore as the concurrence of the will is needfull to the production of every free effect and yet the cause may be sufficient in sensu diviso although the will do not concur It followes evidently that the cause may be sufficient and yet something which is needfull to the production of the effect may be wanting and that every sufficient cause is not a necessary cause Lastly if any man be disposed to wrangle against so clear light and say that though the free Agent be sufficient in sensu diviso yet he is not sufficient in sensu composito to produce the effect without the concurrence of the will he saith true but first he bewrayes the weakness and the fallacy of the former argument which is a meer trifling between sufficiency in a divided sense and sufficiency in a compounded sense And seeing the concurrence of the will is not predetermined there is no antecedent necessity before it do concur and when it hath concurred the necessity is but hypotheticall which may consist with liberty Numb 32. T. H. LAstly I hold that ordinary definition of a free Agent namely that a free Agent is that which when all things are present which are needfull to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it Implies a contradiction and is non-sense being as much as to say the cause may be sufficient that is necessary and yet the effect not follow J. D. THis last point is but a Corollary or an Inference from the former doctrine that every sufficient cause produceth its effect necessarily which pillar being taken away the superstructure must needs fall to the ground having nothing left to support it Lastly I hold saith he what he is able to proove is something So much reason so much trust but what he holds concernes himself not others But what holds he I hold saith he that the ordinary definition of a free Agent implies a contradiction and is non-sense That which he calls the ordinary definition of liberty is the very definition
to support it 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 If 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 fellowes 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 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 But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean for still it amounts but to an hypotheticall necessity and differs as much from that absolute necessity which he maintains as a Gentleman who travailes for his pleasure differs from a banished man or a free Subject from a slave Numb 36. T. H. AND thus you see how the inconveniences which he objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity are avoided and the necessity it self demonstratively prooved To which I could add if I thought it good Logick the inconveniency of denying necessity as that it distroyes 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 proove his own assertion But for demonstration there is nothing like it among his Arguments Now he saith 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 opinion Argumentum ducens ad impossibile 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 laethalis arundo The Arguments drawn from the attributes of God do stick so close in the sides of his cause that he hath no mind to treate of that subject By the way take notice of his own confession that he could add other reasons if he thought it good Logick If it were predetermined in the outward causes that he 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 whilest men seek to smother it 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 Lawes of the Medes 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 Eternall being of God The summe is this The Decree of God or God himself Eternally constitutes or ordaines all effects which come to to pass in time according to the distinct natures or capacities of his creatures An Eternall Ordination is neither past nor to come but alwaies present So free actions do proceed as well from the Eternall Decree of God as necessary and from that order which he hath set in the world As the Decree of God is Eternall so is his Knowledge And therefore to speak truly and properly there is neither fore-knowledge nor after-knowledge in him The Knowledge of God comprehends all times in a point by reason of the eminence 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 therfore 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 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 certaine 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 Watch-man but that which God fore-knowes is future God knowes what shall be The Watch-man onely knowes 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 Watchman 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 Eternall knowledge doth reach to the future being of all Agents and events Thus much is