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
mihi minam Diogenes Let him that taught me Logick give me my money again But T. H. saith that this distinction between the operative and permissive Will of God And that other between the action and the irregularity do dazell his understanding Though he can find no difference between these two yet others do St. Paul himself did Act. 13.18 About the time of 40. yeares suffered he their manners in the Wilderness And Act. 14.16 Who intimes past suffered all Nations to walk in their own wayes T. H. would make suffering to be inciting their manners to be Gods manners their wayes to be Gods wayes And Act. 17.30 The times of this ignorance God winked at It was never heard that one was said to wink or connive at that which was his own act And 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithfull who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able To tempt is the Devills act therefore he is called the Tempter God tempts no man to sin but he suffers them to be tempted And so suffers that he could hinder Sathan if he would But by T. H. his doctrine To tempt to sin and to suffer one to be tempted to sin when it is in his power to hinder it is all one And so he transforms God I write it with horrour into the Devill and makes tempting to be Gods own work and the Devill to be but his instrument And in that noted place Rom. 2.4 Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath and revealation of the righteous judgment of God Here are as many convincing Arguments in this one text against the opinion of T. H. almost as there are words Here we learn that God is rich in goodness and will not punish his creatures for that which is his own act Secondly that he suffers and forbeares sinners long and doth not snatch them away by sudden death as they deserve Thirdly that the reason of Gods forbearance is to bring men to repentance Fourthly that hardness of heart and impenitency is not casually from God but from our selves Fiftly that it is not the insufficient proposall of the means of their conversion on Gods part which is the cause of mens perdition but their own contempt and despising of these means Sixtly that punishment is not an act of absolute dominion but an act of righteous Judgment whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves and eternall life to those who continue patiently in well-doing If they deserve such punishment who onely neglect the goodness and long suffering of God what do they who utterly deny it and make Gods doing and his suffering to be all one I do beseech T. H. to consider what a degree of wilfulness it is out of one obscure text wholly misunderstood to contradict the clear current of the whole Scripture Of the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter 1 Pet. 3.22 The long suffering of God waited once in the dayes of Noah And 2 Pet. 3.15 Account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation This is the name God gives himself Exod. 34.6 The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious long suffering c. Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be commonly true That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent will or by a consequent will either by an operative will or by a permissive will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man to suffer that to be done which otherwise he would not suffer So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the Lions den to make good his rash decree So Herod suffered John Baptist to be beheaded to make good his rash oath How much more may the immutable rule of justice in God and his fidelity in keeping his word draw from him the punishment of obstinate sinners though antecedently he willeth their conversion He loveth all his Creatures well but his own Justice better Again sometimes a man suffereth that to be done which he doth not will directly in it self but indirectly for some other end or for the producing of some great good As a man willeth that a putrid member be cut off from his body to save the life of the whole Or as a Judge being desirous to save a malefactors life and having power to repreive him doth yet condemn him for example sake that by the death of one he may save the lives of many Marvell not then if God suffer some creatures to take such courses as tend to their own ruine so long as their sufferings do make for the greater manifestation of his glory and for the greater benefit of his faithfull servants This is a most certain truth that God would not suffer evill to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evill Yet this ought not to be so understood as if we made any priority or posteriority of time in the acts of God but onely of nature Nor do we make the antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another because the one respects man pure and uncorrupted the other respects him as he is lapsed The objects are the same but considered after a diverse manner Nor yet do we make these wills to be distinct in God for they are the same with the divine essence which is one But the distinction is in order to the objects or things willed Nor lastly do we make this permission to be a naked or a meer permission God causeth all good permitteth all evill disposeth all things both good and evill T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evill by a generall but not by a speciall influence As the Earth gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yields food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the generall nourishment of the earth but from the speciall quality of the root Even so the generall power to act is from God In him we live and move and have our being This is good But the specification and determination of this generall power to the doing of any evill is from our selves and proceeds from the free will of man This is bad And to speak properly the free will of man is not the efficient cause of sin as the root
Covenant of works with mankind in Adam and therefore he punisheth not man contrary to his own Covenant but for the transgression of his duty And Divine Justice is not measured by Omnipotence or by irresistible power but by Gods will God can do many things according to his absolute power which he doth not He could raise up children to Abraham of stones but he never did so It is a rule in Theology that God cannot do any thing which argues any wickedness or imperfection as God cannot deny himself 2 Tim. 2.13 He cannot lie Tit. 1.2 These and the like are fruits of impotence not of power So God cannot destroy the righteous with the wicked Gen. 18.25 He could not destroy Sodome whilst Lot was in it Gen. 19.22 not for want of dominion or power but because it was not agreeable to his Justice nor to that Law which himself had constituted The Apostle saith Heb. 6.10 God is not unrighteous to forget your work As it is a good consequence to say this is from God therefore it is righteous so is this also This thing is unrighteous therefore it cannot proceed from God We see how all Creatures by instinct of nature do love their young as the Hen her Chickens how they will expose themselves to death for them And yet all these are but shadowes of that love which is in God towards his Creatures How impious is it then to conceive that God did creat so many millions of souls to be tormented eternally in hell without any fault of theirs except such as he himself did necessitate them unto meerly to shew his dominion and because his power is irresistible The same privilege which T. H. appropriates here to power absolutely irresistible a friend of his in his book de Cive cap. 6. pag. 70. ascribes to power respectively irresistible or to Soveraign Magistrates whose power he makes to be as absolute as a mans power is over himself not to be limitted by any thing but only by their strength The greatest propugners of Soveraign power think it enough for Princes to challenge an immunity from coercive power but acknowledge that the Law hath a directive power over them But T. H. will have no limits but their strength Whatsoever they do by power they do justly But saith he God objected no sin to Job but justified his afflicting him by his power First this is an Argument from authority negatively that is to say worth nothing Secondly the afflictions of Job were no vindicatory punishments to take vengeance of his sins whereof we dispute but probatory chastisements to make triall of his graces Thirdly Job was not so pure but that God might justly have laid greater punishments upon him then those afflictions which he suffered Witness his impatience even to the cursing of the day of his nativity Job 3.3 Indeed God said to Job where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth Job 38.4 that is how canst thou judge of the things that were done before thou wast born or comprehend the secret causes of my judgments And Job 42.9 Hast thou an arm like God As if he should say why art thou impatient doest thou think thy self able to strive with God But that God should punish Job without desert here is not a word Concerning the blind man mentioned John 9. his blindness was rather a blessing to him than a punishment being the means to raise his Soul illuminated and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ The sight of the body is common to us with Ants and Flies but the sight of the soul with the blessed Angells We read of some who have put out their bodily eyes because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the Soul Again neither he nor his parents were innocent being conceived and born in sin and iniquity Psal 51.5 And in many things we offend all Jam. 3.2 But our Saviours meaning is evident by the Disciples question ver 2. They had not so sinned that he should be born blind Or they were not more grievous sinners than other men to deserve an exemplary judgment more than they but this corporall blindness befell him principally by the extraordinary providence of God for the manifestation of his own glory in restoring him to his sight So his instance halts on both sides neither was this a punishment nor the blind man free from sin His third instance of the death and torments of beasts is of no more weight then the two former The death of brute beasts is not a punishment of sin but a debt of nature And though they be often slaughtered for the use of man yet there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell between the meer depriving of a creature of temporall life and the subjecting of it to eternall death I know the Philosophicall speculations of some who affirme that entity is better than non-entity that it is better to be miserable and suffer the torments of the damned than to be annihilated and cease to be altogether This entity which they speak of is a Metaphysicall entity abstracted from the matter which is better than non-entity in respect of some goodness not morall nor naturall but transcendentall which accompanies every being But in the concrete it is far otherwise where that of our Saviour often takes place Matth. 26.24 Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed It had been good for that man that he had not been born I add that there is an Analogicall Justice and Mercy due even to the brute beasts Thou shalt not mussle the mouth of the Oxe that treadeth out the corn And a just man is mercifull to his beast But his greatest errour is that which I touched before to make Justice to be the proper result of Power Power doth not measure and regulate Justice but Justice measures regulates Power The will of God and the Eternall Law which is in God himself is properly the rule and measure of Justice As all goodness whether Naturall or Morall is a participation of divine goodness and all created Rectitude is but a participation of divine rectitude so all Lawes are but participations of the eternall Law from whence they derive their power The rule of Justice then is the same both in God and us but it is in God as in him that doth regulate and measure in us as in those who are regulated and measured As the will of God is immutable alwayes willing what is just and right and good So his justice likewise is immutable And that individuall action which is justly punished as sinfull in us cannot possibly proceed from the speciall influence and determinative power of a just cause See then how grossely T. H. doth understand that old and true principle that the Will of God is the rule of Justice as if by willing things in themselves unjust he did render them
benefit others by his example The truth is the punishing of delinquents by Law respecteth both the evill act past and the good to come The ground of it is the evill act past the scope or end of it is the good to come The end without the ground cannot justifie the act A bad intention may make a good action bad but a good intention cannot make a bad action good It is not lawfull to do evill that good may come of it nor to punish an innocent person for the admonition of others that is to fall into a certain crime for fear of an uncertain Again though there were no other end of penalties inflicted neither probatory nor castigatory nor exemplary but only vindicatory to satisfie the Law out of a zeal of Justice by giving to every one his own yet the action is just and warrantable Killing as it is considered in it self without all undue circumstances was never prohibited to the lawfull Magistrate who is the Vicegerent or Lieutenant of God from whom he derives his power of life and death T. H. hath one plea more As a drowning man catcheth at every Bulrush so he layes hold on every pretence to save a desperate cause But first it is worth our observation to see how oft he changeth shapes in this one particular First he told us that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his actions though he command one thing openly and plot another thing secretly though he be the cause not only of the action but also of the irregularity though he both give man power to act and determine this power to evill as well as good though he punish the Creatures for doing that which he himself did necessitate them to do But being pressed with reason that this is tyrannical first to necessitate a man to do his will and then to punish him for doing of it he leaves this pretence in the plain field and flies to a second That therefore a man is justly punished for that which he was necessitated to do because the act was voluntary on his part This hath more shew of reason than the former if he did make the will of man to be in his own disposition but maintaining that the will is irresistibly determined to will whatsoever it doth will the injustice and absurdity is the same First to necessitate a man to will and then to punish him for willing The dog onely bites the stone which is thrown at him with a strange hand but they make the first cause to punish the instrument for that which is his own proper act Wherefore not being satisfied with this he casts it off and flies to his third shift Men are not punished saith he therefore because their theft proceeded from election that is because it was willingly done for to Elect and Will saith he are both one Is not this to blow hot and cold with the same breath but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation Thus far he saith true that every creature by the instinct of nature seeks to preserve it self cast water into a dusty place and it contracts it self into little globes that is to preserve it self And those who are noxious in the eye of the Law are justly punished by them to whom the execution of the Law is committed but the Law accounts no persons noxious but those who are noxious by their own fault It punisheth not a thorn for pricking because it is the nature of the thorn and it can do no otherwise nor a child before it have the use of reason If one should take mine hand perforce and give another a box on the ear with it my hand is noxious but the Law punisheth the other who is faulty And therefore he hath reason to propose the question how it is just to kill one man to amend another if he who killed did nothing but what he was necessitated to do He might as well demand how it is lawfull to murther a company of innocent Infants to make a bath of their lukewarm blood for curing the Leprosy It had been a more rational way first to have demonstrated that it is so and then to have questioned why it is so His assertion it self is but a dream and the reason which he gives of it why it is so is a dream of a dream The sum of it is this That where there is no Law there no killing or any thing els can be unjust that before the constitution of Common-wealths every man had power to kill another if he conceived him to be hurtfull to him that at the constitution of Commonwealths particular men lay down this right in part and in part reserve it to themselves as in case of theft or murther That the right which the Commonwealth hath to put a malefactor to death is not created by the Law but remaineth from the first right of Nature which every man hath to preserve himself that the killing of men in this case is as the killing of beasts in order to our own preservavation This may well be called stringing of Paradoxes But first there never was any such time when mankind was without Governors and Lawes and Societies Paternall Government was in the world from the beginning and the Law of Nature There might be sometimes a root of such Barbarous Theevish Brigants in some rocks or desarts or odd corners of the world but it was an abuse and a degeneration from the nature of man who is a politicall creature This savage opinion reflects too much upon the honour of mankind Secondly there never was a time when it was lawfull ordinarily for private men to kill one another for their own preservation If God would have had men live like wild beasts as Lions Bears or Tygers he would have armed them with hornes or tusks or talons or pricks but of all creatures man is born most naked without any weapon to defend himself because God had provided a better means of security for him that is the Magistrate Thirdly that right which private men have to preserve themselves though it be with the killing of another when they are set upon to be murdered or robbed is not a remainder or a reserve of some greater power which they have resigned but a privilege which God hath given them in case of extreme danger and invincible necessity that when they cannot possibly have recourse to the ordinary remedy that is the Magistrate every man becomes a Magistrate to himself Fourthly nothing can give that which it never had The people whilest they were a dispersed rabble which in some odd cases might happen to be never had juftly the power of life and death and therefore they could not give it by their election All that they do is to prepare the matter but it is God Almighty that infuseth the soul of power Fiftly and lastly I am sorry to hear a man of reason and parts to compare the murthering of men with
omitted but onely to satisfie his exceptions The first is that it is not materiall though the power of outward objects do proceed from our own faults if such faults of our proceed not from causes in our own power Well but what if they do proceed from causes that are in our own power as in truth they do then his answer is a meere subterfuge If our faults proceed from causes that are not and were not in our own power then they are not our faults at all It is not a fault in us not to do those things which never were in our power to do But they are the faults of these causes from whence they do proceed Next he confesseth that it is in our power by good endeavours to alter those vitious habits which we had contracted and to get the contrary habit True saith he but then the contrary habit doth necessitate the one way as well as the former habit did the other way By which very consideration it appeares that that which he calls a necessity is no more but a proclivity If it were a true necessity it could not be avoided nor altered by our endeavours The truth is Acquired habits do help and assist the faculty but they do not necessitate the faculty He who hath gotten to himself an habit of temperance may yet upon occasion commit an intemperate act And so on the contrary Acts are not opposed to habits but other habits He addes that we are not mooved to prayer or any other action but by outward objects as pious company godly Preachers or something equivalent Wherein are two other mistakes first to make godly Preachers and pious company to be outward objects which are outward Agents Secondly to affirm that the will is not moved but by outward objects The will is mooved by it self by the understanding by the sensitive passions by Angells good and bad by men and most effectually by acts or habits infused by God whereby the will is excited extraordinarily indeed but efficaciously and determinately This is more than equivalent with outward objects Another branch of mine answer was that a resolved and prepared mind is able to resist both the appetibility of objects and the unruliness of passions As I shewed by examples He answers that I prove Ulysses was not necessitated to weep nor the Philosopher to strike but I do not prove that they were not necessitated to forbear He saith true I am not now proving but answering Yet my answer doth sufficiently prove that which I intend That the rationall will hath power both to sleight the most appetible objects and to controll the most unruly passions When he hath given a clear solution to those proofs which I have produced then it will be time for him to cry for more work Lastly whereas I say that outward objects may be dangerous but cannot be destructive to true liberty He catcheth at it and objects that liberty is in no danger but to be lost but I say it cannot be lost therefore he infers that it is in no danger at all I answer First that liberty is in more danger to be abused than to be lost Many more men do abuse their wits than lose them Secondly liberty is in danger likewise to be weakened or diminished as when it is clogged by vitious habits contracted by our selves and yet it is not totally lost Thirdly though liberty cannot be totally lost out of the world yet it may be totally lost to this or that particular man as to the exercise of it Reason is the root of liberty and though nothing be more naturall to a man than reason yet many by excess of study or by continuall gurmandizing or by some extravagant passion which they have cherished in themselves or by doting too much upon some affected object do become very sotts and deprive themselves of the use of reason and consequently of Liberty And when the benefit of liberty is not thus universally lost yet it may be lost respectively to this or that particular occasion As he who makes choise of a bad wife hath lost his former liberty to chose a good one Numb 23. J. D. FOurthly the naturall Philosopher doth teach that the will doth necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding It is true indeed the will should follow the direction of the understanding but I am not satisfied that it doth evermore follow it Sometimes this saying hath place Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor As that great Roman said of two Sailers that the one produced the better reasons but the other must have the office So reason often lies dejected at the feet of affection Things neerer to the senses moove more powerfully Do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his child than for the sin of his soul Yet appreciatively in the estimation of judgment he accounts the offence of God a greater evill than any temporall loss Next I do not believe that a man is bound to weigh the expedience or inexpedience of every ordinary triviall action to the least grain in the ballance of his understanding or to run up into his Watch-Tower with his perspective to take notice of every Jack-daw that flies by for fear of some hidden danger This seemes to me to be a prostitution of reason to petite observations as concerning every rag that a man weares each drop of drink each morsell of bread that he eates each pace that he walks Thus many stepps must he go not one more nor one less under pain of mortall sin What is this but a Rack and a Gibbet to the Conscience But God leaves many things indifferent though man be so curious he will not A good Architect will be sure to provide sufficient materialls for his building but what particular number of stones or trees he troubles not his head And suppose he should weigh each action thus yet he doth not so still there is liberty Thirdly I conceive it is possible in this mist and weakness of human apprehension for two actions to be so equally circumstantiated that no discernible difference can appear between them upon discussion As suppose a Chirurgion should give two plaisters to his Patient and bid him apply either of them to his wound what can induce his reason more to the one than to the other but that he may refer it to chance whether he will use But leaving these probable speculations which I submit to better judgments I answer the Philosopher briefly thus Admitting that the will did necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding as certainly in many things it doth Yet First this is no extrinsecall determination from without and a mans own resolution is not destructive to his own liberty but depends upon it So the person is still free Secondly this determination is not antecedent but joyned with the action The understanding and the will are not different Agents but distinct faculties of the same soul Here is
an infallibility or an hypotheticall necessity as we say Quicquid est quando est necesse est esse A necessity of consequence but not a necessity of consequent Though an Agent have certainly determined and so the action be become infallible yet if the Agent did determine freely the action likewise is free T. H. THE fourth opinion which he rejecteth is of them that make the will necessarily to follow the last dictate of the understanding but it seems he understands that Tenet in another sense than I do For he speaketh as if they that held it did suppose men must dispute the sequell of every action they do great small to the least grain which is a thing that he thinks with reason to be untrue But I understand it to signifie that the will followes the last opinion or judgment immediatly preceding the action concerning whether it be good to do it or not whether he hath weighed it long before or not all And that I take to be the meaning of them that hold it As for example when a man strikes his will to strike followes necessarily that thought he had of the sequell of his stroke immediately before the lifting of his hand Now if it be understood in that sense the last dictate of the understanding does certainly necessitate the action though not as the whole cause yet as the last cause as the last feather necessitates the breaking of an horses-back when there are so many laid on before as there needeth but the addition of that one to make the weight sufficient That which he alledgeth against this is first out of a Poet who in the person of Medaea sayes Video Meliora proboque Deteriora sequor But the saying as pretty as it is is not true for though Medaea saw many reasons to forbear killing her children yet the last dictate of her judgment was that the present revenge of her husband out-weighed them all And thereupon that wicked action followed necessarily Then the story of the Romans that of two competitors said one had the better reasons but the other must have the office This also maketh against him for the last dictate of his judgment that had the bestowing of the office was this that it was better to take a great bribe than reward a great merit Thirdly he objects that things neerer the senses moove more powerfully than reason What followeth thence but this That the sense of the present good is commonly more immediate to the Action than the foresight of the evill consequents to come Fourthly whereas he sayes that do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his son than for the sin of his soul it makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding but it argues plainly that sorrow for sin is not voluntary And by consequence repentance proceedeth from causes J. D. THE fourth pretense alledged against Liberty was that the will doth necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding This objection is largely answered before in severall places of this Reply and particularly Numb 7. In my former discourse I gave two answers to it The one certain and undoubted That supposing the last dictate of the understanding did alwayes determine the will yet this determination being not antecedent in time nor proceeding from extrinsecall causes but from the proper resolution of the Agent who had now freely determined himself it makes no absolute necessity but onely hypotheticall upon supposition that the Agent hath determined his own will after this or that manner Which being the main answer T. H. is so farr from taking it away that he takes no notice of it The other part of mine answer was probable That it is not alwayes certain that the will doth alwayes actually follow the last dictate of the understanding though it alwayes ought to follow it Of which I gave then three reasons one was that actions may be so equally circumstantiated or the case so intricate that reason cannot give a positive sentence but leaves the election to liberty or chance To this he answers not a word Another of my reasons was because reason doth not weigh nor is bound to weigh the convenience or inconvenience of every individuall action to the uttermost grain in the balance of true judgement The truth of this reason is confessed by T. H. though he might have had more abetters in this than in the most part of his discourse that nothing is indifferent that a man cannot stroak his beard on one side but it was either necessasary to do it or sinfull to omit it from which confession of his it followes that in all those actions wherein reason doth not define what is most convenient there the will is free from the determination of the understanding And by consequence the last feather is wanting to break the horses back A third reason was because passions and affections sometimes prevail against judgment as I prooved by the example of Medaea and Caesar by the neerness of the objects to the senses and by the estimation of a temporall loss more than sin Against this reason his whole answer is addressed And first he explaneth the sense of the assertion by the comparison of the last feather wherewith he seems to be delighted seeing he useth it now the second time But let him like it as he will it is improper for three reasons First the determination of the judgment is no part of the weight but is the sentence of the trier The understanding weigheth all Things Objects Means Circumstances Convenience Inconvenience but it self is not weighed Secondly the sensitive passion in in some extraordinary cases may give a counterfeit weight to the object if it can detein or divert reason from the ballance but ordinarily the Means Circumstances and Causes concurrent they have their whole weight from the understanding So as they do not press the horses back at all untill reason lay them on Thirdly he conceives that as each feather hath a certain naturall weight whereby it concurres not arbitrarily but necessarily towards the overcharging of the horse So all objects and causes have a naturall efficiency whereby they do Physically determin the will which is a great mistake His Objects his Agents his Motives his Passions and all his concurrent causes ordinarily do onely moove the will morally not determine it naturally So as it hath in all ordinary actions a free dominion over it self His other example of a man that strikes whose will to strike followeth necessarily that thought he had of the sequell of his stroke immediately before the lifting up of his hand as it confounds passionate indeliberate thoughts with the dictates of right reason So it is very uncertain for between the cup and the lipps between the lifting up of the hand and the blow the will may alter and the judgment also And lastly it is impertinent for that necessity of striking proceeds from the free determination of the Agent and not