of a beleif that God doth not observe the good and evil actions of men in this life and by consequence shall not compensate them with Felicity or misery after death but manifest upon the asseveration of three judicious and conscientious witnesses Seneca Cicero and Lactantius For the First chargeth it upon him in these words 4. de Benefic 4. Deus inquit Epicurus nihil agit nec magis illum beneficia quam injuriae tangunt The Second in these Dii inquit Epicurus neque propitii cuiquam esse solent neque irati 3. de Nat. Deor. the Third in these De schola Epicuri est sicut iram in Deo non esse it a nec gratiam quidem nam cum putat Epicurus alienum esse à Deo malum facere at que nocere quod ex affectu iracundiae plerumque nascitur ademit ei etiam beneficentiam quoniam videbat consequens esse ut si iram habeat Deus habeat gratiam Itaque ne vitium concederet etiam virtutis fecit expertâ—m Which argument his disciple Lucretius who as Theseus scorned to forsake his Master though he led him into hell hath contracted into this Tristich Nam privata dolore omni privata periclis Ipsa suis pollens opibus nihil indiga nostri Nec bene promeritis capitur neque tangitur ira Th' Immortal Nature placed above the sense Of sorrow danger and all indigence Rich in its own Perfections neither can Smile at the Good nor frown at 'h Ill of Man The import of all which amounts to no higher a sum of reason then only this that the Supreme Nature being wholly imployed in a blisfull vacancy and entirely taken up with the superlatively-pleasant contemplation of its own excellencies hath cast the rains upon our own necks committed the managery of all our affairs to our own providence and hears neither the clamours of our profane impieties nor the sighes of our supplications but stands as unconcerned in so unregardant of all our actions Sic enim sese res habet ut ad prosperam adversamve fort unam qualis sis aut quemadmodum vixeris nihil intersit as Cotta personated by Cicero 3. de Nat. Deor. or as Caesar in Lucan Nunquam se cur a Deorum Sic premit ut vestrae vitae vestraeque saluti Fata vacent The Gods are never subject to a Care Nor doe the Fates look how you Mortals fare The Second objected frequently against the Stoicks by the Academicks as that incomparable Atheomastix Lactantius Article 4. The second objection extorted from mant being obnoxious to the hostility of many other Nature hath observed de ira Dei cap. 13. is this Cur si Deus omnia hominum caussâ fecerit etiam multa contraria inimica pestifera nobis reperiantur tam in mari quam in terra If man be the chief object of Gods love and his welfare the grand intention of his Providence why then did he create so many powerfull and malicious enemies against him in all elements and still expose him to encounter more dangers then his dayes nay then his haires can number If God be an indulgent Father how dares Nature prove her self so cruel a Stepmother to man If his Creator intended him for a Favorite and made him the centre in which all the lines of his blessings should convene to make up a full and constant felicity how comes it to pass that the vilest of Creatures insult over him and make him the point at which all their darts of hostility are levelled so that his life is made a full and constant infelicity The Last and indeed the most dangerous rock against which innumerable numbers not only of unhappy Ethnicks that wanted Article 5. The last objection of the Adversity of the Pious and Prosperity of the Imptous in this life the Compass of true Religion and so were forced to steer by the imperfect Chart of their own natural judgment but also of Christians who had the inestimable advantage of the Scriptures the only Loadstone that never deflects from the point or unity of truth have suffered shipwrack is this The calamitous condition of the Virtuous and the prosperous estate of the Vitious in this life The most full and accurate description of this Scylla we can meet with amongst many of those venerable Fathers who with as much profound learning as strenuous industry have attempted the remove of it is given us by Lactantius lib. 3. cap. 17. in these words Videbat Epicurus bonis adversa semper accidere paupertatem labores exilia carorum amissiones malos contrà beatos esse augeri potentia honoribus affici Videbat innocentiam minus tutam scelera impune committi Videbat sine delectu morum sine ordine ac discrimine annorum saevire mortem sed alios ad senectutem pervenire alios infantes rapi alios jam robustos interire alios in primo adolescentiae flore immaturis funeribus extingui In bellis potius meliores vinci perire maxime autem commovebat homines imprimis religiosos malis affici iis autem qui aut Deos omninò negligerent aut minus piè colerent vel minora incommoda evenire vel nulla To the observation of Epicurus it appeared that unjust Fortune not the discriminating hand of Divine Providence had the dispensation of Happiness and Misery for Adversity is the common cognizance of Honesty and poverty uncessant and unsuccesfull labours banishment loss of friends and the like dolefull accidents are alwaies in the lots of Good men but on the contrary Prosperity is frequently the pathognomonick of Villainy and increase of power accumulation of honours and other blandishments of fortune are the portion of Wicked men That the ready way to danger was to be innocent and to be extremely nefarious the only hopefull means to attain impunity That death like an inconsiderate Tyrant spares none upon the exceptions of age sex dignities or merits but raging in an arbitrary way of cruelty suffers some to unravell their clue of life to the last minute of old age while he cuts off the threads of others more hopefull in the first rundle of infancy That he extinguisheth the vital lamp of some in their brightest and strongest lustre of others before they are well and throughly kindled and permits others to shine till they have consumed their last drop of oyle That the sword of war both conquers and cuts off the most noble and valiant heads while the degenerous and cowardly escape unwounded And what with the greatest violence swayed him from the beleif of Particular Providence that the most religious had for the most part the most afflictions but those who either contemned or neglected or but coldly affected the worship of the Gods had either less lighter misfortunes or none at all Nor did the impiety of Epicurus rest here but as if this objection though fine enough to entangle the phansies of vulgar slies were yet too loosly woven
subjoyned viz. because of their impious and bloody Inclinations and Practises and so consequently our present opinion be admitted For if he beleived it constituted by the immutable law of Fate that such should then and at no other time be taken off without any relation at all to the contracting and anticipating merit of their Impiety what makes it to the principal scope that he sayd they shall not dimidiate their days since according to this inconvenient interpretation they do not only not Dimidiate theirdays but fully Accomplish them as any the most mortified and conscientious observers of Gods sacred laws and so neither Piety shall retain its attribute of having the power to prolong nor its Contrary longer weare the just imputation of having the power to abbreviate the Term of Life To which we may add that David could not without special Revelation from that omniscient Light that penetrates the darkness of Futurity deliver this certain Prognostick concerning the non-dimidiation of their days For since he could not but have observed that many the most accursed Vassals of Satan the Providence of God so permitting for considerations privy onely to his Wisdome attained to extreme old age whence could he acquire that prophetique knowledge that those particular Villaines whom he levelled at should be taken in their own snares and perish immaturely in the nonage of their lives Undoubtedly he could desume that prediction from no oracle less prescient then that Spirit whose Essence is Truth and to whose cognition all things are actually present but who can though but with a specious or verisimilous argument prove that David received any such special Revelation Wherefore Reason adviseth that we acquiesce in the judgement of most of the Fathers who unanimously resolve that David reslected his thoughts upon that positive sentence in the Levitical Law which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the major part comminates a short and calamtous life and a repentine and miserable death to the Ungodly but on the contrary promiseth longevous and peaceable days to those who should revere the sacred Majesty and observe the wholsome ordinances of Jehovab and upon the general infallibility of that Sentence erected his particular prediction that those Sanguinary traytors who had with so much detestable policy prepared stratagems to ensnare his feet walking in the ways of innocence and charity should be entangled in their own mischievous wiles and stumble into their graves in the midle of their race To which we may accommodate that of Juvenal Ad Generum Cereris sine caede ac sanguine pauci Descendunt Reges sicca morte Tyranni Few Tyrants goe late to th' infernal slood But sink betimes in Cataracts of blood The second place they endeavour to betray out of our possession is that promission of Longevity whereby the Father of all things Article 7. The second Testimony vindicated from several Exceptions was pleased to invite Children to a due Veneration of their Parents which they corrupt with this dangerous gloss This say they was spoken Anthropopathically or ad captum hominis by the Holy Spirit who frequently hath descended to discourse in the stammering and imperfect dialect of mortality so that the days of obsequious children are said to be prolonged then when they are blessed with diuturnity tranquillity and sanity of life which as it immediately depends on the immutable decree of God so cannot one moment be superadded thereunto beyond the term prefixt unless we infer a manifest Inoonstancy upon that immutable Essence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning But that the Ancient of days had determined that such should live to wear the honourable badge of Antiquity who should constantly beare a venerable regard toward those from whom under God they had derived their being yet so that if any obedient Child should chance to be snatched away by the tallons of that sarcophagous Vultur Death before time had reduced his haires to the same colour with his skull which is no rarity yet notwithstanding doth God in no respect deflect from the point of his general determination but persevere in the accomplishment of his promise no less then a Prince who bestows a million of crowns upon that servant to whom he had promised only a hundred For this life is no Mansion but a narrow and incommodious Inne standing in the way to a better whose Term is Eternity and therfore ter felix ille cui ante lassitudinem peractum est iter thrice happy he who arrives at his journies end before he is weary of travell And our Grandfathers tell us that old Age is but the magazine of sorrows the sowre Dreggs of life the Portal to the Nosocomie or Hospital of Diseases and indeed a kind of living-living-Death wherein men only Breath and Doate which though all men wish for yet no man delights in when it comes optima cum expectatur cum advenit onerosa sibi aliis molesta good only when expected evil when enjoyed because burdensome to it self and troublesome to others So that those Saturnine minds which were most ambitious to wear the silver Crown of old Age when they had obtained it found it to gall their feeble temples and enervate all their limbs nor did they appear other then weatherbeaten and mouldring statues of their former selves Human-Grashoppers or Ghosts walking in Skeletons In fine that the whole concernment of this encouragement to Filial Duty doth consist only in this that Vivacity in this transitory World is promised unto morigerous Children only in this capacity that it is a Benediction of God and a Benediction only in this respect that it is a Document of Divine Grace or an Evidence of Gods singular love toward them which he doth infinitely more testify unto them by a timous and early delivery of them from this calamitous prison of Mortality into the glorious Liberty of the Sonnes of God We reply that this plea of Exception against our lawfull right to the place is not only frivolous and dilute but even derogatory as well to the Sanction as Excellence of the Promise For to transmute the serious and faithfull promise of him whose words are yea and amen into an Anthropopathical Sophisme or affected expression in the stammering Dialect of Humanity is frivolous and not only to stagger but subvert the Fidelity thereof and so demolish the comfortable hopes of Filial Piety nay what 's a degree of Blasphemy to insimulate Truth it self of Imposture For to promise Longevity to morigerous Children when formerly and without any respect to their prevised obedience God hath prefixt unto them an Intransible Term of life what els can it be but to make him promise that which cannot be promised Hypothetically or upon condition unless that which was Absolutely decreed long before the promise was made be violently cancelled and altered And so much the more intolerable indignity to the sacred majesty of God doth this absurd Exception infer by how much the
testimonies out of holy writ supporting the mobility of the Term of mans life in individuo duty viz. the Confession of those Reasons which charmed my judgement to an adherence to their perswasion who contend for the Mobility of the Term of mans Life The First of those is desumed from the Testimonies of the Oracle of Truth the Book of God and in our list of those Testimonies those deserve to stand in the front which in ample elegant and express terms warrant our Assertion that the life of man hath bin and may be both Abbreviated and Prolonged The Coryphaeus or leading Text is that of the Wise King Proverb 10. vers 27. Timor Domini apponit aut prolongat dies anni verò impiorum abbreviantur the Fear of the Lord prolongeth daies but the years of the wicked shall be shortned Then which nothing can be more express perspicuous and positive and so nothing less subject to detorsion or altercation The Lievtenant or second to that is the gracious encouragement to filial reverence and obedience annexed to the 5 th Precept in the Decalogue Honora Patrem tuum matrem tuam ut prolongentur dies tui super terram quam Jehov ah Deus tuus dat tibi which the Apostle of the Gentiles in Epist ad Ephes 6. ver 2. call's the first understand it of the second table Commandement with promise viz. of a singular reward or the first with a peculiar promise and such as hath ever bin held distinct from the promise made in the second Precept of the Decalogue insomuch as that is common and universal comprehending all kinds of Blessings but this only peculiar and determined to that of diuturnous subsistence or Longevity In Exhod 24. ver 25. and many other places the Pen-man of God earnestly inculcates the benefit of the Fear of God by this forcible impulsive that he would crown them with length health and serenity of days who should revere his most sacred name and conscientiously observe his laws Si colatis Deum vestrum benedicet pani vestro aquis vestris auferetque infirmitatem è medio vestri non crit abortiens aut sterilis in terra vestra numerum dierum in terra vestra complebo Which importune incitement to piety those Commentators have no way enlarged who have extended it to this just height of intention that to those happy Sonnes of Israel who subjugated their Wills to the written Will of God and cherished no desires so much as those of cordial obedience to the rules of his Law demeaning themselves reverently towards their Maker and righteously toward their Neighbour to these God would vouchsafe not only that they should accomplish that lease of life which they held by the grant of Nature or the condition of each mans Idiosyncrasy but even that their Temperament should be meliorated made more symmetrical compact tenacious and consequently more durable as well by the soveraign balsamical and restorative Faculties of their Aliment impregnated or inriched by the tincture of his continual Benediction as by the benigne and salutiferous disposition of the Aer and propitious influences of the Host of Heaven which otherwise are wont to induce sensible Exorbitances and Anomalies upon the blood spirits and solid parts of mans body and from those seeds of morbosities produce various both Acute and Chronique Diseases which either consume or corrupt the Vital Nectar and accelerate the execution of that Sentence Pulvis es Pulvis eris So that of infirme languid and valetudinarious persons they should be made robust athletical and longevous no less then the Barren should be made Fertil the one by the Conservatory the other by the Prolifical virtue of Gods special Grace The same promise we read frequently repeated by God in most of his Embassies delivered by his Secretary Moses to his People and more particularly in Deuteron 4. vers 40. and chap. 30. vers 20. And as he proposeth length of days for the desiderable reward of obedience so on the contrary he makes Immaturity of Death the affrighting penalty of Disobedience For Deuteron 30. vers 19. and 28. vers 20. contain a large Catalogue of insirmities diseases and corporal calamities feircely comminated to the immorigerous and disobedient and in vers 62. t is emphatically sayd of Transgressors ye shall be left few in number whereas you were as the starrs of heaven for multitude because thou wouldst not obey the voyce of the Lord thy God A Third egregious text is that where God gratefully resenting Salomons Election of Wisdome before all other Accomplishments temporal set before him supererogates to his vote by the additional concession of long life 2 Kings 3. 14. And if thou wilt walk in my wayes to keep my Statutes and commandements as thy Father David did then will I lengthen thy days A fourth is that definitive sentence of David Psalm 55. vers ult Bloody and deceitfull men shall not live out half their days A Fifth that of the same Author Psalm 102. vers 25. O my God take me not away in the midst of my days and in like manner Psalm 6. and 30. and 88. and 111. he with fervent importunity supplicates that God would be pleased not to cut off the thread of his life while he was then in the spring and vigour of his age but restore him from that languor and marcid Consumption introduced by his grievous disease to his pristine sanity that he might thereby be enabled to chant his praises in the Sanctuary and do good to the children of Sion A Sixth that remarkable Precedent of the prolongation of life beyond the term presixt King Ezechias Esai 38. vers 10. who being infested with the most mortiferous of diseases the Plague and convulst with the horror of death denounced by the thundering Prophet in the intervalls betwixt the showers of heavy tears he sighes out this lamentation in the cutting off my days I shall go to the gates of death I am deprived of the residue of my years Mine age is departed and is removed from me as a shepards tent I have cut off like a weaver my life vitam meam veluti textoris telam praecidi as some read it he will cut me off with pining sickness Which signifies as much as this that he was adjudged to dye before his time But this night of sorrow was dispelled by a comfortable morn caused by the light of that Sun which riseth with healing in his wings for immediately after his contrition sincere resipiscence and earnest supplications obtaining a repreive from the mercifull hands of him who desireth not the death of a sinner the execution of that fatal sentence was suspended and a paroll lease of 15. years supernumerary annexed to that old one of his life fully to some few anxious minutes expired And can any Prejudice be so inslexible as not to stoop to the conversion of this pregnant Example which on one side testifies the possibility of the Decurtation of the Term
embalmed them before-hand pined them into perfect Skeletons and so defrauded their hungry Creditors the Wormes yet since they drop away full of youthfull and green hopes their departure is premature and inopine and so they may be sayd not to dimidiate their days We return that this illegitimate Desoant ought to be rejected for 4 considerable Causes 1 Because it cannot be justly charged upon the words no not in the greatest latitude of Construction For t is not there sayd the Wicked shall dye sooner then they expect but positively and expresly they shall not dimidiate their days now every Ideot can tell that it is one thing not to live out half their days and another not to beleive they shall live out half their days 2 because it argues the sacred Psalmist of a manifest Falsity For when the ungodly expire they do not only Dimidiate their days but Accomplish them Death being at any time the December of life 3 Because it imports a double repugnancy to Truth For first now there are and in all ages since the first experiment of death have bin millions of Vicious men who even in the wildest paroxysme of their Vanity and highest orgasme of their Pride and Ambition have still cooled themselves with E 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and felt a dejecting horror from within at the remembrance of that Motto Statutum est omnibus semel mori so far is our Nature from entertaining any hopes of Immortality though but in a dreame or melancholy depravation of Phansy And again no Chronicle is barren in the stories of prosperous Libertines who have wanted nothing but some Cross to indeare the Felicity of their lives have unravelled their vital web in the highest blandishments of Sense attained to miraculous Longevity and being sated with the profuse treatments of Fortune have outlived their own large stock of Hopes so that a Poet might take the Liberty to say of them they dyed for grief that they had nothing left to wish for which they had not already surfetted in the fruition of 4 Because the admission there of loseth the Singularity or Determination of Davids speech to Sanguinary and Nefarious Persons For if to Dimidiate their days import no more then to dye by the same common kind of Death and at the same period of their Temperamental Lease when by the ineluctable laws of Destiny it is enacted that all men shall revert to Dust certainly there can remain no reason why Impious men so dying should be thought more unhappy because they were Cruent and Unjust then others To conclude of all those just Persons mentioned in the old Testament who were translated from this Vale of tears to the Celestial Hils of permanent delight by early and premature deaths amongst whom the Apostle Heb. 11. vers 38. hath accounted some so excellent above the common rate of humanity that the world was not worthy of them of such I say 't was true according to this erroneous paraphrase that they did not Dimidiate their days because they dyed sooner then they expected For they did not only hope but upon the faithfull promise of God even assure themselves of a longer continuation heer below to do him further service And confidently to expect nay by a lively hope to anticipate the fruition of a promised blessing is a privilege peculiar only to those to whom the promise doth properly and solely belong but the blessing of Longevity was only then promised to the pious observers of the Divine laws as is manifest from the places formerly cited 3 By fixing the scope of the Text only upon that mature Term of life to which many ordinarily attain viz. to 60. 70. 80. 90. years more or less according to the respective Duration of every individual Constitution and so concluding the verity of Davids speech only in this respect For say they the Annales of Impious men seldome arise to so large an account because either the sword of war or justice or some Accident occasioned by their Villanies takes them off before the completion of their natural Term of years But this sinister Detorsion of the Text ought also to be repudiated for two Reasons 1 In regard t is manifestly heterodox and dissimilar to the express sense of the words since they say not Wicked men shall not live out half the days of Others but their own Now the days of their lives amount not to so many years as are required to the commensuration of the natural space betwixt the Animation and Disanimation of the posterity of Adam prefixt by the decree of him who is the Breath of our nostrils and therefore when they fully and wholly accomplish that common compute with what semblance of truth can they be sayd to Dimidiate their days Moreover if those Sanguinary Miscreants against whom David directly denounceth this judgement of Premature Mortality be sayd not to dimidiate their days only in this respect that they seldome arrive at that provect and silver-headed Age wherein the Tapor of life by the ordinary deflux of Nature burns dim and languid and at last for want of oyle winks out into pepetual night then with equal right may it be affirmed also of many Holy and Just persons that they do not dimidiate theirs nay t is a question not easily answered whether the same may not be asserted of these with more justice then of those For how rarely doe we observe the pulse of Pious men to beate till their Arteries grow hard from the Hectick distemper of old age How small a manual would the Legends of all those Saints whose names and stories yet survive make who have lived till the Almond tree hath budded and flourished and how vast a volume would theirs make who have bin gathered green into the Granary of God and never lived to see one revolution of Saturn about the solary Orbe and how frequently have we occasion to comfort our selves after the transplantation of Junior Virtue with that adage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor hath Piety always proved a Coat of maile against the danger of Malice or the Panoplie of a Christian defence against the sword of war or perfect Charity an Antidote to Poyson or Temperance an Alexipharmacon against the Pestilence or religious Abstinence a Preservative against Famine or Innocence awarded the stroke of the Executioner in short as to the time of Death in this concernement there is one event to the Righteous and to the Wicked to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as dies the Good so dies the Sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath 2 In respect it disarmes the Text of all its Force and Purpose For to what end could David say they should not dimidiate their days if thereby he intended no more then this that they should not run over half their stage of life or subsist untill grey haires unless the ground or reason thereof be also
taken away by that Injury and by so much a higher rate are those goods prized at by how much the more weak abject and ignoble the mind of him is that aestimates them because in truth they are dependent upon others pleasure nor doth a well ordered mind lose any part of its happiness by being deprived of them Now having duly praeconsidered all things occurrent in this pregnant example we may not only without difficulty understand what those first motions or incitements are which objects exciting in the mind thereby obtrude themselves upon the Intellect or rather compell the Intellect to apprehend them under that species in which they praesent themselves but also that though those motions are not in our power yet the Consequents or Actions to which they provoke us are subject to our Deliberation Examination and Arbitrary Election or Rejection since every Action is the Conclusion of a Practical Syllogisme and every Conclusion praesupposeth two praecedent Propositions and these again praesuppose Deliberation and consequently that who ever committing an Evil Action doth yet say Videóque meliora probóque doth in that confess his Action to be Deliberate and Arbitrary which is as much as to confess that t was absolutely in his own power not to have done it And as for that proverbiall subterfuge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nemo mâ—lus ultro est neque beatus non volens Aristotle hath long since subverted it by answering That though it be true in the later part insomuch as no man can be happy because not virtuous against his will yet t is false in the former insomuch as vice whereby man becomes Evil is voluntary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereupon M. Anton. said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui verò sui ipsius animi motus certa ratione consilióque non gubernat necessariò miser est lib. 2. num 5. And therefore though many have thought to palliate their vitiosities by affirming that no man doth commit a sin voluntarily but being compelled thereunto by the impulse of some perturbation yet t is manifest since every Delinquent gives either occasion or way to that perturbation and suffers himself to be transported by the impulse thereof beyond the sphaere of reason that no coaction can intevene To conclude we are ready to confess that among those many excuses which the Sophistry of the Advocates of vice hath Article 8. Necessity and Fear conceded to be in some measure Excuses and what are the objects of Excusing Fear alledged for the extenuation of its Culpability the most weighty and considerable is the violence of Necessity and Fear But all violence must proceed from an external Principle and is not admitted without some Renitency in the thing that suffers it and that Necessity whereby any man is coacted must proceed from an external and present Cause and fear is an internal Passion though excited by an external Cause viz. a future Evill and differeth from Cupidity in this that this though it be excited by an external cause also viz. a future Good yet it is joyned always with a Libency or Willingness but Fear with a Renitency or Vnwillingness Upon which consideration was it that Aristotle concluded him exceeding stupid and ridiculous who having vitiated his friends wife should for excuse pretend that he was constrained to that perfidious and immodest action by the violent temptation of pleasure bur holds him excusable who is compelled to omit an office of friendship by the praevention of some more considerable incommodity impendent upon himself since the Necessity of the one is more violent and urgent then the obligation of the other For the more easy decision of all disputes concerning the more or less pressure of these kinds of Necessity Cicero puts this Case Si constitueris te cuipiam advocatum in rem praesentem esse venturum atque interim graviter aegrotare filius coeperit non sit contra officium non facere quod dixeris magisque ille cui promissum sit ab officio discedat si se destitutum queratur This praemised we may safely conclude that a small and light fear is not to be accounted sufficient to excuse a malefaction because it cannot usurp upon and countermand the Liberty of the Mind nay nor a great and strong fear which is therefore allowed by some great Clerks for an excuse because it may sometimes invade and stagger a mind in other things constant and generous since it cannot so oppose the Liberty Elective as not to leave the mind possest with some Libency And this is to be understood not in respect to that Evil which is sustained or undergone in the praesent but to that far greater one which is avoided and in comparison of which the less Evil hath indeed the reason of Good because it is as it were the means whereby the greater Evil is averted or prevented as when Merchants throw their treasure overboard for fear of drowning and a Traveller delivers his purse to Robbers for fear of having his throate cut Now how far this kind of fear which seems to necessitate the commission of a small Evil for the probable praevention of a greater may be extended by way of Excusation as also of what sorts those evils must be which justify this fear the exactest and profoundest of Moralists have found it no easy matter praecisely to determine chiefly because according to the variety of mens Temperaments ages sexes Educations Habits c. what is but a weak and light fear to one may be great and potent to another but all consent that we are to understand it to be a fear of no less then Death Mutilation torment servitude long exile taedious imprisonment aeternal dishonour or ignominy privation of all or the greatest part of ones estate or livelyhood and in this particular not in respect of a mans self only but also for those who depend upon him for temporal subsistence as wife children parents c. as also that kind of fear which is a species of Reverence and such as may be in a subject in respect of his Prince in a child in respect of his Father in a wife in respect of her husband c. We said that fear which seems to necessitate the commission of a small evil c. thereby insinuating that it only seems so to do For Truth its self hath taught us that we ought not to do evil though never so small for prevention of another evil though ne'r so great and every man knows that Fear unless of doing Evil is wholly excluded the society of virtue Which our late Salomon whom we can hardly think upon without a devout Adoration of his deified part reflected upon when he affirmed for a Maxime of general truth That a Coward can hardly be an honest man And this we desire our Reader candidly to accept as a sufficient enquiry into the nature of mans Free-Will CHAP. VIII Of Fortune THat this Phantsme though of no great antiquity
which otherwise would not have come to pass doth or some other Cause interposeth which besides its proper destination and the unpraemeditated concurse of certain other things effecteth that some even◠which otherwise would doth not come to pass or that some event which otherwise would not doth come to pass hence is it manifest that this Posterior kind of Contingency is in the general that w ch men call Chance and if it be especially in Man besides or beyond whose intention any Effect eveneth then is it what they call Fortune unless that somtimes they confound both these and then 't is indifferent whether the event be referred either to Fortune or Chance However we perceive reflecting upon the former Example since the Double Effect viz. the digging of the earth and the invention of the treasure had but one single Cause viz. the man that digged that for this reason the Digger may justly enough be sayd to be Causa per se in respect of the one and per accidens in respect of the other To which we may add this that since in Effects meerly Natural one and the same thing may be both Fortune and Nature or a Natural Cause therefore Gassendus had very good reason to justifie Epicurus in this particular that he made Fortune and Nature no more then synonoma's signifying one and the same thing in Reality Now though common Enquirie may goe away satisfied with Article 3. Their Anatomy of her Nature desicient a more perfect one praesented this pausible Adumbration of Fortune yet cannot a profound and more ocular Scrutiny be terminated therein for the Example introduced to explain it comes largely short of a requisite Adaequation insomuch as no rational man can appositely enough accept either him that digged or his Action of digging for all that 's comprehended under that obscure notion of Fortune Wherefore omitting the consideration of Res Fortuita or the Event which is most frequently apprehended for Fortune it self or the cause of that insperate event let us understand Fortune to be such a concurse of various Causes made without all mutual consultation or praecogitate conspiracy betwixt them as that from thence doth follow an Event or fortuitous Effect which neither all the Causes concurrent nor some of them nor especialy he to whom the Event happens ever in the least measure intended or could expect Now according to the tenor of this Defifinition in regard to the fortuitous Invention of a treasure is required not only the Person who digg's and finds it but also he who first digg'd and hid it it is no obscure nor controvertible truth that Fortune or the Cause by Accident of the invention of the treasure is the Concurse both of the Occultation and Effossion thereof in that particular place We sayd without mutual Consultation and besides the intention of any or all the Causes concurrent thereby intimating that though one or more of the Causes may have haply intended that event yet nevertheless t is properly and absolutely Fortune in relation to that Cause which intended it not Thus if any man who foreknowes or at least conjectures that such a Person will come and digg in such a place doth there hide treasure to the end that the other may find it in this case in respect to him that hid it the Invention of the treasure is not a Fortuitous Effect but in respect to him who unexpectedly finds it it is Thus was it not altogether Fortuitous in respect of Nitocris what hapned at the Violation of his Tomb in regard he praesumed that in process of time there would be some King or other who invited by this promising Inscription If any of my Successors the Kings of Babylon shall want mony let him break open this Sepulchre and thence take what may supply his wants but on no condition unless his wants be real let him attempt it for it shall redound to his no swale detriment would open it but yet in respect to Darius that instead of mony he therein found this deriding Engravement Had'st not thou bin insatiable with riches and covetous of sordid lucre thou wouldst not have thus prophaned the Ashes of thy Praedecessors and ransack't the sacred Dormitory of the Dead this was meerly Fortuitous And thus also though Democritus hath pleaded hard to free Fortune from having any hand in the incomparable Death of good old Aeschylus why because his bald pate being mistaken by a volant Eagle for a white stone in the field was the cause why the Eagle drop't a Tortois perpendicular thereupon yet had we bin of the Jury we should have found her guilty of the Murder 1 in respect of the Poet since that sad event was besides his intention he at the same time having withdrawn himself from the Town for fear of being destroyed according to the tenor of the Astrologers praediction by the fall of an house nor could he possibly foresee that prodigious mischance impendent 2 in respect of the Eagle who drop't not the Tortois with purpose to brain the Poet but to break its shell that so he might come at his prey the flesh thereof However we are willing because in truth we ought to acknowledge that if we regard the height or punctilio of her Propriety Fortune is chiefly when among all those several Causes which concurr no one either principally or collaterally intends or aimes at that Event which unexpectedly succeeds upon that their concurse of which we have a most illustrious and competent Example in the Dilatation of the death of Socrates a day beyond the time praefixt by his Judges for the Execution of their Sentence upon him as Plutarch de Fato hath praecisely observed We have it from the pen of that oraculous Secretary of Nature Article 4. Fortune nothing but a meer Negation of all Praenotion in a Concurse of natural Causes respective to a fortuitous Event D r Harvey that he never dissected any Animal but he always discoverd somthing or other more then he expected nay then ever he thought on before so useful infinite in variety is the Magna Charta of Nature and perhaps some of our Readers may here have occasion to say as much of this our Dissection of Fortune for while we have exercised our thoughts in the exploration of her Nature we have unexpectedly found that if considered per se reverà she hath no nature at all i. e. that in Reality she is nothing For when we have abstracted all those Causes in the Concurse which act per se or by natural virtue there remains no more but a meer Privation or Negation of all Praenotion in the concurrent Causes of that particular Concurse and also of the intention and expectation of the subsequent Event nor can that unpraemeditate Concurse of Causes be rightly accounted the Cause of the Fortuitous Event by any neerer relation then that which Philosophers have termed Conditio sine qua non Since as the Admotion of any