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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	contain_v	law_n	moral_a	2,485	5	9.8922	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77245	A defence of true liberty from ante-cedent and extrinsecall necessity being an answer to a late book of Mr. Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, intituled, A treatise of liberty and necessity. Written by the Right Reverend John Bramhall D.D. and Lord Bishop of Derry.	Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.	1655 (1655)	Wing B4218; Thomason E1450_1; ESTC R209599	138,196	261

had set up should be cast into the fiery furnace Dan. 3. ●… Darius his Law that whosoever should ask a Petition of any God or man for thirty dayes save of the King should be cast into the Den of Lions Dan. 6.7 Ahashuerosh his Law to destroy the Jewish Nation root branch Esther 3.13 The Pharisees Law that whosoever confessed Christ should be excommunicated John 9.22 were all unjust Lawes The ground of this errour is as great an errour it self Such an art he hath learned of repacking Paradoxes which is this That every man makes by his consent the Law which he is bound to keep If this were true it would preserve them if not from being unjust yet from being injurious But it is not true The positive Law of God conteined in the old and new Testament The Law of Nature written in our hearts by the Finger of God The Lawes of Conquerors who come in by the power of the Sword The Lawes of our Ancestors which were made before we were born do all oblige us to the observation of them yet to none of all these did we give our actuall consent Over and above all these exceptions he builds upon a wrong foundation that all Magistrates at first were elective The first Governors were Fathers of Families And when those petty Princes could not afford competent protection and security to their subjects many of them did resign their severall and respective interests into the hands of one joint Father of the Country And though his ground had been true that all first Legislators were elective which is false yet his superstructure fails for it was done in hope and trust that they would make just Laws If Magistrates abuse this trust and deceive the hopes of the people by making Tyrranicall Lawes yet it is without their consent A precedent trust doth not justifie the subsequent errours and abuses of a Trustee He who is duely elected a Legislator may exercise his Legislative power unduely The peoples implicite consent doth not render the Tyrannicall Lawes of their Legislators to be just But his chiefest answer is that an action forbidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly it may be justly punished which according to his custome he prooves by an instance A man necessitated to steal by the strength of temptation yet if he steal willingly is justly put to death Here are two things and both of them untrue First he failes in his assertion Indeed we suffer justly for those necessities which we our selves have contracted by our own fault but not for extrinsecall antecedent necessities which were imposed upon us without our fault If that Law do not oblige to punishment which is not intimated because the subject is invincibly ignorant of it How much less that Law which prescribes absolute impossibilities unless perhaps invincible necessity be not as strong a plea as invincible ignorance That which he addes if it were done willingly though it be of great moment if it be rightly understood yet in his sense that is if a mans will be not in his own disposition and if his willing do not come upon him according to his will nor according to any thing els in his power it weighs not half so much as the least feather in all his horse-load For if that Law be unjust and tyrannicall which commands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do then that Law is likewise unjust and tyrannicall which commands him to will that which is impossible for him to will Secondly his instance supposeth an untruth and is a plain begging of the question No man is extrinsecally antecedently and irresistibly necessitated by temptation to steal The Devill may sollicite us but he cannot necessitate us He hath a faculty of perswading but not a power of compelling Nos ignem habemus spiritus flammam ciet as Nazianzen He blowes the coles but the fire is our own Mordet duntaxat sese in fauces illius objicientem as St. Austin he bites not untill we thrust our selves into his mouth He may propose he may suggest but he cannot moove the will effectively Resist the Devill and he will flie from you Jam. 4.7 By faith we are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked Eph. 6.16 And if Sathan who can both propose the object and choose out the fittest times and places to worke upon our frailties and can suggest reasons yet cannot necessitate the will which is most certain then much less can outward objects do it alone They have no naturall efficacy to determine the will Well may they be occasions but they cannot be causes of evill The sensitive appetite may engender a proclivity to steal but not a necessity to steal And if it should produce a kind of necessity yet it is but Moral not Natural Hypothetical not Absolute Coexistent not Antecedent from our selves nor extrinsecall This necessity or rather proclivity was free in its causes we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given it a kind of dominion over us Admit that some sudden passions may and do extraordinarily surprise us And therefore we say motus primo primi the first motions are not always in our power neither are they free yet this is but very rarely and it is our own fault that they do surprise us Neither doth the Law punish the first motion to theft but the advised act of stealing The intention makes the thief But of this more largely numb 25. He pleades moreover that the Law is a cause of justice that it frames the wills of men to justice and that the punishment of one doth conduce to the preservation of many All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But this is no god-a-mercy to T. H. his opinion of absolute necessity If all actions and all events be predetermined Naturaly Necessarily Extrinsecally how should the Law frame men morally to good actions He leaves nothing for the Law to do but either that which is done already or that which is impossible to be done If a man be chained to every individual act which he doth and from every act which he doth not by indissolvible bonds of inevitable necessity how should the Law either deterre him or frame him If a dog be chained fast to a post the sight of a rod cannot draw him from it Make a thousand Lawes that the fire shall not burn yet it will burn And whatsoever men do according to T. H. they do it as necessarily as the fire burneth Hang up a thousand Theeves and if a man be determined inevitably to steal he must steal notwithstanding He addes that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon delinquents respect not the evill act past but the good to come and that the putting of a delinquent to death by the Magistrate for any crime whatsoever cannot be justified before God except there be a real intention to

in vain but if all things be necessary then it is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or mad-men That they do admonish the one and not the other is confessedly true and no reason under heaven can be given for it but this that the former have the use of reason and true liberty with a dominion over their own actions which children fools and mad-men have not Concerning praise and dispraise he inlargeth himself The scope of his discourse is that things necessary may be praise-worthy There is no doubt of it but withall their praise reflects upon the free agent as the praise of a statue reflects upon the workman who made it To praise a thing saith he is to say it is good True but this goodness is not a Metaphysicall goodness so the worst of things and whatsoever hath a being is good Nor a natural goodness The praise of it passeth wholy to the Author of Nature God saw all that he had made and it was very good But a morall goodness or a goodness of actions rather than of things The morall goodness of an action is the conformity of it with right reason The morall evill of an action is the deformity of it and the alienation of it from right reason It is morall praise and dispraise which we speak of here To praise any thing morally is to say it is morally good that is conformable to right reason The morall dispraise of a thing is to say it is morally bad or disagreeing from the rule of right reason So morall praise is from the good use of liberty morall dispraise from the bad use of liberty but if all things be necessary than morall liberty is quite taken away and with it all true praise and dispraise Whereas T. H. adds that to say a thing is good is to say it is as I would wish or as another would wish or as the State would have it or according to the Law of the Land he mistakes infinitely He and another and the State may all wish that which is not really good but only in appearance We do often wish what is profitable or delightfull without regarding so much as we ought what is honest And though the will of the State where we live or the Law of the Land do deserve great consideration yet it is no infallible rule of morall goodness And therefore to his question whether nothing that proceeds from necessity can please me I answer yes The burning of the fire pleaeth me when I am cold And I say it is good fire or a creature created by God for my use and for my good Yet I do not mean to attribute any morall goodness to the fire nor give any morall praise to it as if it were in the power of the fire it self either to communicate its heat or to suspend it but I praise first the Creator of the fire and then him who provided it As for the praise which Velleius Paterculus gives Cato that he was good by nature Et quia aliter esse non potuit it hath more of the Oratour than either of the Theologian or Philosopher in it Man in the State of innocency did fall and become evill what privilege hath Cato more than he No by his leave Narratur dij Catonis saepe mero caluisse virtus but the true meaning is that he was naturally of a good temper not so prone to some kinds of vices as others were This is to praise a thing not an action naturally not morally Socrates was not of so good a naturall temper yet prooved as good a man the more his praise by how much the difficulty was the more to conform his disorderly appetite to right reason Concerning reward and punishment he saith not a word but onely that they frame and confound the will to good which hath been sufficiently answered They do so indeed but if his opinion were true they could not do so But because my aim is not only to answer T. H. but also to satisfie my self Though it be not urged by him yet I do acknowledge that I find some improper and analogicall rewards and punishments used to brute beasts as the hunter rewards his dog the master of the Coy-duck whipps her when she returns without company And if it be true which he affirmeth a little before that I have confessed that the actions of brute beasts are all necessitated and determined to that one thing which they shall do the difficulty is increased But first my saying is misalleged I said that some kinds of actions which are most excellent in brute beasts and make the greatest shew of reason as the Bees working their Honey and the Spiders weaving their Webbs are yet done without any consultation or deliberation by a meer instinct of nature and by a determination of their fancies to these only kinds of workes But I did never say I could not say that all their individuall actions are necessary and antecedently determined in their causes as what dayes the Bees shall flie abroad and what dayes and houres each Bee shall keep in the Hive how often they shall fetch in Thyme on a day and from whence These actions and the like though they be not free because brute beasts want reason to deliberate yet they are contingent and therefore not necessary Secondly I do acknowledge that as the fancies of some brute creatures are determined by nature to some rare exquisite works So in others where it finds a naturall propension Art which is the Imitator of Nature may frame form them according to the will of the Artist to some particular actions and ends as we see in Setting-doggs and Coy-ducks and Parrots and the principall means whereby they effect this is by their backs or by their bellies by the rod or by the morsell which have indeed a shadow or resemblance of rewards and punishments But we take the word here properly not as it is used by vulgar people but as it is used by Divines and Philosophers for that recompense which is due to honest and dishonest actions Where there is no morall liberty there is neither honesty nor dishonesty neither true reward nor punishment Thirdly when brute creatures do learn any such qualities it is not out of judgment or deliberation or discourse by inferring or concluding one thing from another which they are not capable of Neither are they able to conceive a reason of what they do but meerly out of memory or out of a sensitive fear or hope They remember that when they did after one manner they were beaten and when they did after another manner they were cherished and accordingly they apply themselves But if their individuall actions were absolutely necessary fear or hope could not alter them Most certainly if there be any desert in it or any praises due unto it it is to them who did instruct them Lastly concerning Arts Arms Books Instruments Study Physick and

by reason whether this or that definitely considered be a good and fit means or indefinitely what are good and fit means to be chosen for attaining some wished end Numb 27. T. H. THirdly I conceive that in all deliberations that is to say in all alternate succession of contrary appetites the last is that which we call the Will and is immediatly before the doing of the action or next before the doing of it become impossible All other appetites to do and to quit that come upon a man during his deliberation are usually called intentions and inclinations but not wills there being but one will which also in this case may be called last will though the intention change often J. D. STill here is nothing but confusion he confounds the faculty of the will with the act of volition he makes the will to be the last part of deliberation He makes the intention which is a most proper and elicite act of the will or a willing of the end as it is to be attained by certain means to be no willing at all but onely some antecedaneous inclination or propension He might as well say that the uncertain agitation of the needle hither and thither to find out the Pole and the resting or fixing of it self directly towards the Pole were both the same thing But the grossest mistake is that he will acknowledge no act of a mans will to be his will but onely the last act which he calls the last will If the first were no will how comes this to be the last will According to this doctrine the will of a man should be as unchangeable as the Will of God at least so long as there is a possibility to effect it According to this doctrine concupiscence with consent should be no sin for that which is not truly willed is not a sin Or rather should not be at all unless either the act followed or were rendred impossible by some intervening circumstances According to this doctrine no man can say this is my will because he knowes not yet whether it shall be his last appeal The truth is there be many acts of the will both in respect of the means and of the end But that act which makes a mans actions to be truly free is Election which is the deliberate chosing or refusing of this or that means or the acceptation of one means before another where divers are represented by the understanding Numb 28. T. H. FOurthly that those actions which man is said to do upon deliberation are said to be voluntary and done upon choise and election So that voluntary action and action proceeding from election is the same thing And that of a voluntary Agent 't is all one to say he is free and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating J. D. THis short Section might pass without an animadversion but for two things The one is that he confounds a voluntary act with a free act A free act is onely that which proceeds from the free election of the rationall will after deliberation but every act that proceeds from the sensitive appetite of man or beast without deliberation or election is truly voluntary The other thing observable is his conclusion that it is all one to say a man is free and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating Which confession of his overturnes his whole structure of absolute necessity for if every Agent be necessitated to act what he doth act by a necessary and naturall flux of extrinsecall causes then he is no more free before he deliberates or whilest he deliberates than he is after but by T. H. his confession here he is more free whilest he deliberates than he is after And so after all his flourishes for an absolute or extrinsecall necessity he is glad to fit himself down and rest contented with an hypotheticall necessity which no man ever denied or doubted of Ascribing the necessitation of a man in free acts to his own deliberation and in indeliberate acts to his last thought Numb 25. what is this to a naturall and speciall influence of extrinsecall causes Again Liberty saith he is an absence of extrinsecall impediments but deliberation doth produce no new extrinsecall impediments therefore let him chose which part he will either he is free after deliberation by his own doctrine or he was not free before Our own deliberation and the direction of our own understanding and the election of our own will do produce an hypotheticall necessity that the event be such as the understanding hath directed and the will elected But forasmuch as the understanding might have directed otherwise and the will have elected otherwise this is far from an absolute necessity Neither doth liberty respect onely future acts but present acts also Otherwise God did not freely create the world In the same instant wherein the will elects it is free according to a priority of Nature though not of time to elect otherwise And so in a divided sense the will is free even whilest it acts though in a compounded sense it be not free Certainly deliberation doth constitute not destroy liberty Numb 29. T. H. FIftly I conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and in the intrinsecall quality of the Agent As for example the water is said to descend freely or to have liberty to descend by the Chanell of the River because there is no impediment that way but not across because the banks are impediments And though water cannot ascend yet men never say it wants the liberty to ascend but the faculty or power because the impediment is in the nature of the water and intrinsecall So also we say he that is tied wants the liberty to go because the impediment is not in him but in his hands where as we say not so of him that is sick or lame because the impediment is in himself J. D. HOw that should be a right definition of liberty which comprehends neither the Genus nor the difference neither the matter nor the forme of liberty which doth not so much as accidentally describe liberty by its marks and tokens How a reall faculty or the Elective power should be defined by a negation or by an ababsence is past my understanding and contrary to all the rules of right Reason which I have learned Negatives cannot explicate the nature of things defined By this definition a stone hath liberty to ascend into the aire because there is no outward impediment to hinder it and so a violent act may be a free act Just like his definition are his instances of the liberty of the water to descend down the Channell and a sick or a lame mans liberty to goe The later is an impotence and not a power or a liberty The former is so far from being a free act that it is scarce a naturall act