stealing my mind will be strangely fram'd and made against stealing any more Phi. But though yourâ—… can't yet other mens minds may receive advantage and instruction hereby Tim. I thank you for that indeed I shall be hang'd for nothing at all only to do my Neigâ—…bour a kindness I don 't at all like without any fault of my own to be made a meer memorandum for the County and a framer of other mens minds Phi. But you can't but say that the punishment of onâ—… man is a very proper means to keep others in awe Tim. Who was ever so silly as to say otherwise But here 's the case which is most reasonable to punish a man for doing of that which is noxious and which he could have avoided that hereby others may be affrighted or to hang him up as a Crow upon a Pear Tree for no other reason at all but only to affright others Phi. I take them to be much alike Tim. Hugely alike indeed for if the first be true every mans sin and ruine lies at his own door but if the last I see no ways to avoid it Phi. To avoid what Tim. But that God must be the Author oâ—… all sin Phi. The Author of all sin whoever that Divine be for this is an old Black-Coat objection that talks of God being the Author of sin is not fit to go Chaplain to a Mackerel-Boat For the word Author Tim is a latine word and to be the Author of any thing is to give it authority and credit that is to command it warrant it and owne it now I suppose Tim that you can't find any where in Scripture that God did ever command sin or issued out any Warrants or Certificates for sin to be committed Tim. 'T were strange if one should But yet if your opinion of necessity be true one may find out that which is full out as strange if not stranger Phi. What 's that I prethee Tim. Whereas God has given plain Commandments against sin and manifested his great displeasure at it notwithstanding this he has so far authoriz'd or own'd it as according to you to be the contriver and finisher too of all the sins that ever were committed in the World Phi. I do grant and don't look upon 't to be any blasphemâ—… to say that God has so ordered the World that sin may necessarily be committed Tim. Then I pray is not sin of his ordering Phi. Not at all â—…or to order sin is to put out an order to have sin commited Tim. And what is it to order the World so that sin may necessarily be committed Phi. 'T is to put things of this World so and so together that people will necessarily fall into such and such sins Tim. Now I count these to be much the same For suppose I give order to my man first by word of mouth and afterwards under hand and seal to charge the Musket and to shoot such a Neighbour as he goes to morrow to Market Every body I know will grant that I have taken very sufficient order about this mans Death But suppose I do not dispatch him thus exactly according to the Roman use oâ—… the word but I knowing that this day twelve-months he 'll certainly ride to such a friends House and certainly go through such a Gâ—…te and I put things so â—…nd so together that he shall chuse to go so much out of â—…he road as to fall into a Pit and bâ—…eak his neck for my part I should reckon that in so doing I did as it were order his tumbling into the pit and that I was a kind of an Author of his destruction notwithstanding Author is a Latine word and tâ—…at he himself choose to go out o' the way seeing that I had laid a trap for that choice Phi. I suppose you are not so much a Heathen Tim as to imagine God should go about to decoy men into sin and to set snares for their destruction Tim. I am so far from that that I had much rather believe that there 's no God at all and no sin at all but those of your opinion must believe so for if God makes man of such or such a constiâ—…ution and puts him into such and such circumstances that every action he does be it good or bad it was as impossible for him to have avoided it as it is for fire to avoid burning I know in what sense it is that he has made fire to burn and I dread to think that in the same he should make any man to â—…in Phi. What a havock's here about a little sin when you have it so plainly in your Divinity Book how that God hated Esau and harden'd Pharaohs heart how that he commanded Abraham to murder his only Son Isaac and gave Commission to the Israelites to cheat and rob the Aegyptians and how besides all this God himself says by the Prophet Amos non est malum in Civitate quod ego non feci Tim. 'T was well done indeed to put the last in Latin For some body or other perhaps might be so silly as to think that malum did signifie sin whereas in that place it means nothing at all but only those great judgments and afflictions which God denounces against the people of Israel for their oppression Idolatry and such like impieties And you might as well have produc'd Gods raining Fire and Brimstone upon wicked Sodom and Gomorrah to have lessen'd the impiety of your opinion of sin as that place of the Prophet Phi. Say you so What think you then of the Israelites robbing the Aegyptians according to Gods own direction and warrant was that Tim a meer affliction too Tim. Truly I take it to be so seeing that God himself tells Moses that the last Plague that he intended to bring upon the Aegyptians for their oppressing his people should be to spoil them of their Jewells And as for Gods making use of the Israelites in this affair that was all one as if he had given Commission to a Whirlwind Fire or Angels to have done the same and to have been Executioners of his just displeasure Phi. Surely we shall have all the Bible turn'd into Judgments and Afflictions Must Gods hardening of Pharaohs heart come of thus also Tim. Just thus Sir For 't is plain that God did not harden Pharaoh's heart till he had hardened his own heart six times after so many judgments and then God is said to have hardened his heart that is he choose rather to raise him up or keep him alive and to inflict upon him that punishment of hardness of heart whereby the divine power by miracles might still be more manifested than to destroy him by the Pestilence Phi. But before ever Pharaoh hardened his own heart so much as once God was resolv'd to do it and said Exod. 4. 21. I will harden his heart that he shall not lâ—…t the people go Tim. And you may as well remember that in the Chapter before
Exod. 3. 19. the same God said also he was sure that he would not let them go that is that he would harden his own heart Phi. But I would know what it was that God did to Pharaoh's heart when he hardened it That expression methinks sounds as if it had something of positivity in 't as the Jargonists speak and seems to make God every whit as much concerned in sin as my opinion of necessity Tim. What did he do say you he did the same that the Scripture tells you he did to the Jews who when they had several miracles doâ—…e amongst them and would not see and would not understand God inflicted this just Judgment upon them that they should not see and should not understand In my opinion 't is very reasonable and there 's nothing at all iâ—…'t tending towards the Author of sin Phi. But 't is strange if this way of judgments and affâ—…ictions does for Esau too for before he was born he was hated of God Tim And so were all the Women in the World hated in respect of the Virgin Mary she being the only blessed among Women and prefer'd to be the Mother of our Lord Jesus For as 't was impossible that Christ should be born buâ—… of one Woman so likewise was it as impossible that he should be descended but of one Man And though God promised to bless Abraham and his seed after a most special manner yet he never promis'd to do the like to the elder House or line Phi. But what say you to Gods commanding Abraham to kill his own Son you can 't surely call that meerly not preferring Tim. You know well enough that it was the contrary that he commanded for he said lay not thine hâ—…nd upon the lad 'T is said indeed that Abraham wâ—…s tempted and tried by God and that accordingly he obey'd and made all things ready to do it Phi. But the Author to the Hebrews tells you that he did offer him up for doubtless Abraham did believe that God did really intend that he should kill him and that it was not at all unjust Tim. And well he might not doubting I suppose but that God might as well chuse by Sacrifice or what other means he pleased to take away any innocent mans life as by a Fever or any other sickness So that we hear nothing as yet of the Author of sin nor any thing toward Gods being at all concern'd in sin after any such manner as most inevitably follows from your opinion Phi. Therefore I have sav'd the great business for the last viz. the eternal decrees and prescience of God Almighty I suppose it will take you some time to explain them and to reconcile them to your Freewill Tim. They are done the easiest of any thing you have yet mention'd Phi. How so I prethee Tim. How so I don't believe any such thing at all that 's my way Sir Phi. What no decrees no prescience a most solid Divine without doubt Tim. Nay hold Sir 't is only when I meet with one that has such a God as yours for I believe always according to my Company and when I meet with one that has nothing else for his God but omnipotent thin matter 't is very idle in my opinion to talk about his foreknowing or determining before-hand what shall come to pass in this World For the World may as well foreknow what God shall do as God can what shall be done in the World they both running into one another and so proving to be exactly the same Phi. But to say that God is the World is a most horrid opinion and therefore in my Leviathan I utterly reject it as very unworthy to be spoken of God Tim. Then you must reject your omnipotent matter also For if God be nothing else but matter and this matter be in every particle of the World or Universe that is to speak according to your self of all that is either we have no God at all or they are all one which you please Phi. But the thinness Tim and the omnipotency Tim. Never talk to me of thinness for thinness takes up as much room as thickness And Omnipotency it self can never take away that incurable nusance that belongs to matter viz. of one justling out another Phi. But you make nothing to jumble mans body and soul together and never think then of any such clashing or enterfeiring Tim. Therefore 't is you that have help'd us to answer that difficulty for the body of man being only flesh and bones and the soul blood and spirits their quarters setting aside some few straglers are e'en as different as the Oat-tub is from the Hay-Chamber Phi. But stay a little Tim you are I perceive very severe in demanding how that if God be meerly matter the World and God should both stand together now suppose I should grant the soul of man to be quite different from his body which is a thing much too ridiculous to be so much as supposed I pray can't I seeing you are so very curious in your enquiring enquire also how contradictions can dwell together that is how matter and no matter can be join'd and move one another do you think it would not take much more time to remove and conquer such an absurdity as this than any thing that is to be inferr'd from my opinion Tim. Nothing nigh so much Sir for though we cannot punctually tell you by what Chains and Fetters matter and no matter or spirit are fasten'd together yet by our senses we are so exactly acquainted with the lodgings haunts and all the powers of the former and do so very well know that the most subtle and most refin'd of all must be subject to the common incumbrances as evidently to perceive that matter alone can never do the business Phi. Why so Tim. Because we don't only find several things very difficult to explain should there be nothing else but somethings there be especially two which ever to explain is utterly impossible And from the utter impossibility of their ever being explain'd we have abundance of reason to believe that there is somewhat else the name of which we agree upon to be a spirit Phi. And I prethee Tim may not I know what those two things be which thou dost prophesie will never be explain'd Tim. I have told you them already Philautus The one is that God and the World are the very same of which I desire no more may be now said The other is that a man can't chuse of himself to stroak his beard when it would oblige the Company every whit as much if he cockt his Hat Phi. What a mighty business is that to stroak a mans beard Tim. 'T is such a trick Philautus which neither Prince Rupert's famous Dog that eat up the Parliaments Ammunition nor Banks's ingenious Horse could ever arrive to as was before briefly hinted in what was said about train of thoughts And though it be not needful now to
but also to pronounce several words very distinctly and to call knave if touch'd in one place and in another to be your humble servant nay suppose you bestow upon it such breeding as it becomes able at last to recite word for word every Verse in Virgil yet take this same engine and stroak it and cokes it and promise it a Violet Comfit tell it the Emperour is to dine with you that day and therefore it must needs do some extraordinary feat for all this you can't get this sullen thing to say so much as Patulae tu Tityre Phi. Perhaps so but what 's the reason Tim Tim. I know none but only this that make what you will of meer matter and put in never so many Wheels and Pullies and instruct it in all the Languageâ—… of Europe and t will still be but a chip of the old block and 't will go but just the rounds and never take forth of its own accord nor skip up your lap and kiss you when you had tun'd it to say the first Ode of Horace Phi. I grant you that Man has very much the advantage of all other Creatures because he alone is capable of speech and thereby of comparing and reasoning Tim. Now don't I believe one word of all this Phi. What Tim dost deny by whole sale Tim. In the first place I do say that 't is not speech or the uttering of words that does at all make a man but the understanding those words he utters and the applying the same aptly For suppose you go to your Cage and ask your Pye how do you do this Morning and the Pye answers how do YOU do this Morning now if you can but teach the Pye to lay the accent strong enough upon that same YOU which she pronounces 't is then plain reparty and the Pye shall presently put in for a place at Court And as speech alone will never amount to reasoning so by your good leave Philautus there may be reasoning without speech that is there may be demonstrative inferring or concluding without the use of words For I don't imagine reasoning to consist in gaping or hollowing but in perceiving the necessity of the effect from its causes which deaf and dumb people by many instances certainly do as well as the lowdest disputant in the Schools But of these things Philautus you and I may have further occasion to discourse before we part And therefore if you have ever another Roman penny about you I pray let 's have it Phi. No Tim I know what to do with my money and notions better than to fling them away upon such an ungrateful wretch as thou art This same train or necessity of all humane thoughts is a great secret and too deep I perceive for thy apprehension Perhaps thou maist have better luck at understanding the necessity of all humane actions and therefore if thou hast a mind to it wee 'l have a small brush about Free-will for my part I have not much to say being most of it compriz'd in that little despicable piece of mine call'd Liberty and Necessity 'T is a very small thing Tim and one of thy confidence and prowess may eat it up at a mouth-ful Tim. Yes Sir 't is very small but somebody has put such a dreadful Preface to 't as would go nigh to give a Giant his Breakfast Reader says that same some-body take this little Book of Liberty and Necessity pull off thy glove and take it I say into thy right hand and let not the smallness thereof make it seem contemptible to thee for 't is every bit Diamond and Oaks heart for besides a new passage into the East-Indies and the bowells of the number of the Apocalyptical Beast there 's work enough for many thousand Sermons and Exercises and there 's that which is much better than the Catechisms and Confessions of a thousand Assemblies and that which will cast an eternal blemish upon all the corner'd Caps of the Priests and Jesuits and upon all the black and white Caps of the Ministers I know not Reader what profession perswasion opinion or Church thou art of but be of what thou wilt if thou intendest to be sav'd buy and study this little Book In comparison of which all the Sermons Teachings Preachings Meetings Disputations Conferences and Printed Books are good for nothing but only to divert the duller sort of Citizens Perhaps thou maist have a mind to be prying into the great mysteries of Predestination Election Freewill Grace Merits Reprobation c. if so take my advice for once and never go to any Black-Court again for generally they are a Company of ignorant Tinkers that pretend to mending and sodering of mens Consciences and for the most part they make more holes than they find but go thou me to this little little Book of Liberty and Necessity not written by a dull Tinkering Theologue but by a severe student of the Mathematicks and there thou shalt find more evidence and conviction and more means of humane salvation than in all the Volumes and Libraries and all the Controversial Labours and Polemical Treatises that were ever Printed Now Sir is not this very thundering and dismaying Do you think any body will venture when you scare people thus Phi. Who scare people You can't say that I writ that Preface can you Tim. No But when I find therein that same ratling story which was before in your Preface de Cive of Ixion's clasping a Cloud instead of Juno and of the Centaures and Hermaphrodite opinions that were produc'd by that unnatural coition and compare therewith your being so notoriously given to print over and over such elegant flourishes and when I consider besides how chargeable 't would be to procure one to â—…eign such commendations as you upon all occasions so easily and naturally trundle in upon your self I cannot but say that I am somewhat afraid that Phi. Afraid of what I prethee thou knowest well enough there was a Metaphysical Bishop that ventur'd to meddle and I don't question but thou art as fool-hardy as any Bishop Primate or Metropolitan of them all Tim. But you remember Sir what a woful example you made of the poor Bishop as you tell us in the last page of your Animadversions and of all fish that flie there 's none I hate like an Example In my opinion Philautus you did him a little too hard considering he was a Bishop Phi. How could I help it Tim dost think I can endure to be eternally tormented with nothing but Tohu's and Bohu's and Jargons The Bishop and I meet at Paris we discourse very calmly concerning Free-will upon this he writes a very angry Book viz. Vindication of true Liberty c. and upon that as he desir'd I writ that parlous little thing Liberty and Necessity But withal now mark how tender I was of his credit in no less than four several places I requested that it might by no means be Printed that the World
sentence and may do afterwards for Grammar upon condition 't will be towardly and promise to be guided by the Precepts of true Philosophy Whatsoever commodity men receive from the observation of the Heavens from the description of the Earth from the account of time from walking on the Seas and whatsoever distinguisheth the civility of Europe from the barbarity of the American Salvages is the Workmanship of fancy but guided by the Precepts of true Philosophy Phi. But where 's Poetry all this while Tim. Here 's fancy and that 's as well Sir Phi. But how do you know that by fancy I must needs mean the fancy of a Poet and not that of a Geometrician and again how do you know but that by Philosophy I meant particularly Geometry Tim. I 'll tell you Sir how I came to discover these two great secrets The sentence I just now mention'd is in the 132. page of your Answer to Sir William Davenant's Preface before Gondibert which answer is so richly fraight with the History nature and laws of Poetry that I am more than pretty well assur'd that by fancy you could not easily mean that of a Geometrician And that by Philosophy likewise you meant not particularly Geometry but Philosophy in general I am as well assur'd because in the very next words you advise Poets to be well skill'd in the true doctrine of moral vertue that in their Heroick Poems they may exhibite a venerable and amiable image of Heroick vertue and a little after to consult the possibility of nature and not to talk of their impenetrable armours inchanted Castles invulnerable bodies iron men flying Horses and a thousand other such things which as you say are easily feign'd by them that dare But now I think on 't why am I so mad as to trouble my self about this 't is better by half for me to let all pass for Geometry for then have I two most tearing sentences in praise of the Geometricians for as for Geometry it self giving any precepts for the guidance of the fancy she is so modest and mealy-mouth'd that I 'll trust her for doing any such thing unless she make use of the pen or mouth of some Cuckoldy Geometrician Phi. You may catch and carp and wrest Tim as long as you will but you 'l never be able to find any one place wherein I do absolutely and positively affirm that the Writings of Geometricians do any ways transcend the Writings of other men Tim. Absolutely and positively affirm that truly may be somewhat difficult That is you 'd have me I suppose shew you some such place as this viz. Whereas I Thomas the great Mathematician and Philosopher of Malmesbury having for ten years together taken all occasions to magnifie the labours and admire the success of the Geometricians in their several undertakings above all other Writers do now publickly declare to all the World that by Geometricians I meant Geometricians In witness whereof I have set my hand and seal in the presence of c. Such a place as this I don 't know on a sudden where to find but setting aside the solemnity of such an acknowledgement I don't know any thing that ever was more plainly express'd than what you have in many places said to the vast credit of Geometricians themselves But now they are all Canniballs and Cuckolds Let but any body read the 15. page of your Leviathan Phi. So he may if he will 't will do him good at the heart that or any other page Tim. For all that you 'd give money to buy it out of your Book Phi. I won't part with any one line of any Book that I ever writ in my whole life for all the money you can offer Tim. You shall keep it then Sir the only way say you to become truly wise and to avoid false and senseless tenets is to order words aright that is to determine what every word shall signifie and how it is to be placed which no body has done but the Geometricians Phi. Now I am sure I have catch'd thee Tim for the word Geometrician is not in that whole page Tim. But there 's that which is as like it as the Philosopher of Malmsbury is like Mr. Hobbs I think I can say it just as you do Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he uses stands for and to place it accordingly or else he will find himself entangled in words as a Bird in Lime-twigs the more he struggles the more belimed And thereforè in Geometry which is the only Science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow upon mankind men begin at the setling the signification of their words which setling of significations they call definitions and place them in the beginning of their reckonings Do you mind it Sir they are those same men that begin at the setling of the signification of their words and they call such setling of significations definitions and by the blessing of God upon their extraordinary care and endeavours the doctrine of lines and figures is so accurately performed by them that that alone as yet deserves the name of Science Phi. I am not bound Tim to remember every word that I have â—…poken or writ Phi. No Sir that would be a most unreasonable burden and therefore I suppose when you writ your contra fastum c. You might have forgot also what you said Lev. p. 20. viz. that of all Creatures none is subject to absurdity but men and none so much as those that profess Philosophy For it is most true that Cicero saith of them somewhere that there can be nothing so absurd but may be found in the Books of Philosophers And why because all but Geometricians are Sots Lubbers and Logger-heads Phi. I am sure these last are none of my words Tim Right but these that follow are which are as good and the reason say you is manifest For there is not one of them and now there 's ten thousand since you fail'd in Geometry that begins his ratiocination from the definitions or explications of the names they are to use which is a method that hath been used only in Geometry whose conclusions have therefore been made indisputable Do you mind it again Philautus 't is not an idle tale of ambition profit or lust such as you talk'd of before that makes the conclusions in Geometry to be indisputable but 't is the admireable method c. which Geometricians alone make use of Phi. I don't speak one word of the method which Geometricians use but only of that which is us'd in the Science of Geometry Tim. By whom by Sow-Gelders or Rat-Catchers I beseech you Philautus don't try at that any more for you know well enough that Geometry her self can't wipe her own nose according to art unless she borrows a quadrant of some neighbour And besides I find that you