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 Animadversions upon the Reply Numb XVII WHereas he had in his first discourse made this consequence If you take away Liberty you take away the very nature of evil and the formal reason of sin I denied that consequence It is true he who taketh away the Liberty of doing according to the will taketh away the nature of sin but he that denieth the Liberty to Will does not so But he supposing I understood him not will needs reduce his argument into form in this manner a That opinion which takes away the formal reason of sin and by consequence Sin â—t self is not to be approved This is granted But the opinion of necessity doth this This I deny He proves it thus This opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause But whatsoever proceedes essentially by way of Physical determination from the first cause is Good and Just and Lawfull Therefore this opinion of necessity maketh sin to be very Good Just and Lawfull He might as well have concluded whatsoever man hath been made by God is a good and just man He observeth not that sin is not a thing really made Those things which at first were actions were not thâ—n sins though actions of the same nature with those which were afterwards sins nor was then the will to any thing a sin though it were a will to the same thing which in willing now we should sin Actions became sins then first when the commandement came for as St. Paul saith Without the Law sin is dead and sin being but a transgression of the Law there can be no action made sin but by the Law Therefore this opinion though it derive actions essentially from God it derives not sins essentially from him but relatively and by the Commandement And consequently the opinion of necessity taketh not away the nature of sin but necessitateth that action which the Law hath made sin And whereas I said the nature of sin consisteth in this that it is an action proceeding from our will and against the Law he alloweth it for true and therefore he must allow also that the formal reason of sin lieth not in the Liberty or necessity of willing but in the will it self necessary or unnecessary in relation to the Law And whereas he limits this truth which he allowed to this that the Law be just and the will a Free rational Will it serves to no purpose for I have shown before that no Law can be unjust And it seemeth to me that a rationall Will if it be not meant of a Will after deliberation whether he that deliberateth reasoneth aright or not signifieth nothing A rational man is rightly said but a rational Will in other sense then I have mentioned is insignificant b But supposing as he doth that the Law injoynes things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrannical Law and the transgression of it no sin c. And supposing likewise as he doth that the Will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause then it is not mans Will but Gods Will. He mistakes me in this For I say not the Law injoyns things impossible in themselves for so I should say it injoyned contradictories But I say the Law sometimes the Law-makers not knowing the secret necessities of things to come injoynes things made impossible by secret and extrinsicall causes from all eternity From this hâ—s error he infers that the Laws must be unjust and Tyrannical and the transgression of them no sin But he who holds that Laws can be unjust and Tyrannical will easily find pretence enough under any Government in the World to deny obedience to the Laws unlesse they be such as he himself maketh or adviseth to be made He says also that I suppose the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause It is true saving that senselesse word Influence which I never used But his consequence then it is not mans Will but Gods will is not true for it may be the Will both of the one and of the other and yet not by concurrence as in a league but by subjection of the will of man to the Will of God c That which he adds of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civil Judge the proper Judge nor the Law of the Land a proper Rule of sin A Judge is to judge of voluntary crimes He has no commission to look into the secret causes that make it voluntary An because the Bishop had said the Law cannot justly punish a crime that proceedeth from necessity it was no impertinent answer to say the Judge lookes at no higher cause then the Will of the Doer And even this as hâ— sayeth is enough to proove 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 To which I answer that it proves indeed that the Malefactor had Liberty to have kept the Law if hâ— would but it proveth not that he had the Liberty to have a Will to keep the Law Nor doth it prove that the Will of the Doer dâ—d determine it self freely for nothing can prove non-sence But here you see what the Bishop pâ—â—sueth in this whole Reply namely to prove that a man hath Liberty to do if he will which I deny not and thinks when he hath done that he hath proved a man hath Liberty to Will which he calles the Wills determining of it self freely And whereas he adds a Judge ought to look at all essential causes It is answer enough to say he is bound to look at no more then hee thinks he can see d 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 He had no sooner said this but finding his error he retracteth it and confesseth that the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is of a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced Which is all that I intended by sufficiency of the cause But whether every suffâ—â—â—â—nt cause be a necessary cause or not he meaneth to examine in Numb 31. In the meane time he saith onely that Liberty flows from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause and leaves out necessity as if it came from neither I must note also that where he says Nature never intends the generation of a Monster I understand not whether by nature he meane the Author of Nature in which meaning it derogates from God or nature it self as
if liberty be taken away the nature and formall reason of sin is taken away I answer by denying the consequence The nature of sin consiâ—â—eth in this that the action done proceed from ouâ— will and be against the Law A Judge in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the Law lâ—oks at no higher cause oâ— the action then the will of the doer Now when I say the action was necessary I do not say it was done against the will oâ— the doer but with his will and so necessarily because mans will that is every act of the will and purpose of man had a sufficient and therefore a necessary cause and consequently every voluntary action was necessitated An action therefore may be voluntary and a sin and nevertheless be necessary And because God may afflict by right derived from his â—mnipâ—tency though sin were not And the example of punishment on voluntary sinners is the cause that produceth Justice and maketh sin less frequent for God to punish such sinners as I have shewed before is no injustice And thus you have my answer to his objections both out of Scripture and Reason J. D. SCis tu simulare â—upressum quid hoc It was shrewd counsâ—il which Alcibiades gave to Themistocles when he was busy about his accounts to the State that he should rather study how to make no accounts So it seems T. H. thinks it a more compendious way to baulk an argument then to satisfie it And if he can produce a Rowland against an Olâ—ver if he can urge a reason against a reason he thinks he hath quitted himself fairely But it will not serve his turn And that he may not complain of misunderstanding it as those who have a politick deafness to hear nothing but what liketh them I will first reduce mine argument into form and then weigh what he saith in answer or rather in opposition to it a That opinion which takes away the formall reason of sin and by consequence sin it self is not to be approoved this is cleer because both Reason and Religion Nature and Scripture do proove and the whole world confesseth that there is sin But this opinion of the necessity of all things by reason of a conflux of second causes ordered and determined by the first cause doth take away the very formal reason of sin This is prooved thus That which makes sin it self to be good and just and lawfull takes away the formall cause and destroyes the essence of sin for if sin be good and just and lawfull it is no more evill it is no sin no anomy But this opinion of the necessity of all things makes sin to be very good and just and lawful for nothing can flow essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause which is the Law and Rule of Goodness and Justice but that which is good and just and lawfull but this opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of Physicall determination from the first cause as appears in T. H. his whole discourse Neither is it material at all whether it proceed immediatly from the fist cause or mediately so as it be by a necessary flux of second and determinate causes which produce it inevitably To these proofs hee 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 proceede 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 b But supposing as he doth that the Law injoins things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrahnical 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 special influence from the first cause then it is not mans will but Gods Will and flows essentially from the Law of Goodness c That which he addes of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civil Judge the proper Judge noâ— 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 higâ—er 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 material circumstances and much more at all essential 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 flows from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause d Nature Never intends the generation of a monster If all the causes concur sufficiently a 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 natural 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 hypothetical necessity e 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 Neither doth God 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 eternal torments Lastly he tells of that benefit 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 always for him not to do Neither is it lawfull to punish an
if every thing be either necessary or impossible Who ever deliberated whether the Sun should rise to morrow or whether he should sail over mountains It is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or mad men if all things be necessary Praises and dispraises rewards and punishments are as vain as they are undeserved if there be no liberty All Councells Arts Arms Books Instruments are superfluous and foolish if there be no liberty In vain we labour in vain we study in vain we take Physick in vain we have Tutors to instruct us if all things come to pass alike whether we sleep or wake whether we be idle or industrious by unalterable necessity But it is said that though future events be certain yet they are unknown to us And therefore we prohibite deliberate admonish praise dispraise reward punish study labour and use means Alas how should our not knowing of the event be a sufficient motive to us to use the means so long as we believe the event is already certainly determined and can no more be changed by all our endeavours than we can stay the course of Heaven with our finger or add a cubite to our stature Suppose it be unknown yet it is certain We cannot hope to alter the course of things by our labours Let the necessary causes do their work we have no remedy but patience and shrug up the shoulders Either allow liberty or destroy all Societies T. H. THE second Argument is taken from certain inconveniences which he thinks would follow such an opinion It is true that ill use may be made of it and therefore your Lordship and J. D. ought at my request to keep private that I say here of it But the inconveniences are indeed none and what use soever be made of truth yet truth is truth and now the Question is not what is fit to be preached but what is true The first inconvenience he sayes is this that Lawes which prohibite any action are then unjust The second that all consultations are vain The third that admonitions to men of understanding are of no more use than to fools children and mad men The fourth that praise dispraise reward and punishment are in vain The fift that Councells Arts Armes Books Instruments Study Tutours Medicines are in vain To which Argument expecting I should answer by saying that the ignorance of the event were enough to make us use means he adds as it were a reply to my answer foreseen these words Alas how should our not knowing the event be a sufficient motive to make us use the means Wherein be saith right but my answer is not that which he expecteth I answer First that the necessity of an action doth not make the Law which prohibits it unjust To let pass that not the necessity but the will to break the Law maketh the action unjust because the Law regardeth the will and no other precedent causes of action And to let pass that no Law can be possibly unjust in as much as every man makes by his consent the Law he is bound to keep and which consequently must be just unless a man can be unjust to himself I say what necessary cause soever preceeds an action yet if the action be forbidden he that doth it willingly may justly be punisht For instance suppose the Law on pain of death prohibit stealing and there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal and is there upon put to death does not this punishment deterr others from theft is it not a cause that others steal not doth it not frame and make their will to justice To make the Law is therefore to make a cause of Justice and to necessitate justice and consequently it is no injustice to make such a Law The institution of the Law is not to grieve the delinquent for that which is passed and not to be undone but to make him and others just that else would not be so And respecteth not the evil act past but the good to come In so much as without this good intention of future no past act of a delinquent could justifie his killing in the sight of God But you will say how is it just to kill one man to amend another if what were done were necessary To this I answer that men are justly killed not for that their actions are not necessitated but that they are spared and preserved because they are not noxious for where there is no Law there no killing nor any thing else can be unjust And by the right of Nature we destroy without being unjust all that is noxious both beasts and men And for beasts we kill them justly when we do it in order to our own preservations And yet J. D. confesseth that their actions as being onely spontaneous and not free are all necessitated and determined to that one thing which they shall do For men when we make Societies or Common-wealths we lay down our right to kill excepting in certain cases as murther theft or other offensive actions So that the right which the Commonwealth hath to put a man to death for crimes is not created by the Law but remains from the first right of Nature which every man hath to preserve himself for that the Law doth not take that right away in case of criminals who were by Law excepted Men are not therefore put to death or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest In as much as to punish those that do voluntatary hurt and none else frameth and maketh mens wills such as men would have them And thus it is plain that from the necessity of a voluntary action cannot be inferred the injustice of the Law that for biddeth it or of the Magistrate that punisheth it Secondly I deny that it makes consultations to be in vain 't is the consultation that causeth a man and necessitateth him to choose to do one thing rather than another So that unless a man say that cause to be in vain which necessitateth the effect he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation oâ—t of the necessity of the election proceeding from it But it seems be reasons thus If I musts needs do this rather than that then I shall do this rather than that though I consult not at all which is a false proposition a false consequence and no better than this If I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self through with a sword to day If there be a necessity that an action shall be done or that any effect shall be brought to pass it does not therefore follow that there is nothing necessarily required as a means to bring it to pass And therefore when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another t is determined also for what
cause it shall be chosen which cause for the most part is deliberation or consultation And therefore consultation is not in vain and indeed the less in vain by how much the election is more necessitated The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience Namely that admonitions are in vain for admonitions are parts of consultations The admonitor being â— Counsailer for the time to him that is admonished The fourth pretended inconvenience is that praise and dispraise reward and punishment will be in vain To which I answer that for praise and dispraise they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or dispraised For what is it else to praise but to say a thing is good Good I say for me or for some body else or for the State and Commonwealth And what is it to say an action is good but to say it is as I would wish or as another would have it or according to the will of the State that is to say according to Law Does J. D. think that no action can please me or him or the Common-wealth that should proceed from necessity Things may be therefore necessary and yet praise-worthy as also necessary and yet dispraised and neither of both in vain because praise and dispraise and likewise reward and punishment do by example make and conform the will to good or evill It was a very great praise in my opinion thaâ— Velleius Paterculus gives Cato where he sayes he was â—â—od by Nature Et quia aliter esse non potuit To his fift and sixt inconvenience that Councells Arts Arms Books Instruments Study Medicines and the like would be superfluous the same answer servâ— that to the former That is to say that this consequence if the effect shall necessarily come to pass then it shall come to pass without its cause is a false one And those things named Councells Arts Arms c. are the causes of those effects J. D. NOthing is more familiar with T. H. than to decline an Argument But I will put it into form for him â— The first inconvenience is thus preffed Those Lawes are unjust and tyrannical which do prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done and punish men for not doing of them But supposing T. H. his opinion of the necessity of all things to be true all Lawes do prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done and punish men for not doing of them The former proposition is so clear that it cannot be denied Just Lawes are the Ordinances of right Reason but those Lawes which prescribe absolute impossibilities are not the Ordinances of right Reason Just Laws are instituted for the publick good but those Lawes which prescribe absolute impossibilities are not instituted for the publick good Just Lawes do shew unto a man what is to be done and what is to be shunned But those Laws which prescribe impossibilities do not direct a man what he is to do and what he is to shun The Minor is as evident for if his opinion be true all actions all transgressions are determined antecedently inevitably to be done by a natural and necessary flux of extrinsecal causes Yea even the will of man and the reason it self is thus determined And therefore whatsoever Lawes do prescribe any thing to be done which is not done or to be left undone which is done do prescribe absolute impossibilities and punish men for not doing of impossibilities In all his answer there is not one word to this Argument but onely to the conclusion He saith that not the necessity but the will to break the Law makes the action unjust I ask what makes the will to break the Law is it not his necessity What gets he by this A perverse will causeth injustice and necessity causeth a perverse wilf He saith the Law regardeth the will but not the precedent causes of action To what proposition to what tearm is this answer he neither denies nor distinguisheth First the Question here is not what makes actions to be unjust but what makes Lawes to be unjust So his answer is impertinent It is likewise untrue for First that will which the Law regards is not such a will as T. H. imagineth It is a free will not a determined necessitated will a rational will not a brutish will Secondly the Law doth look upon precedent causes as well as the voluntariness of the action If a child before he be seven years old or have the use of reason in some childish quarrell do willingly stab another whereof we have seen experience yet the Law looks not upon it as an act of murther because there wanted a power to deliberate and consequently true liberty Man-slaughter may be as voluntary as murther and commonly more voluntary because being done in hot blood there is the less reluctation yet the Law considers that the former is done out of some sudden passion without serious deliberation and the other out of prepensed malice and desire of revenge and therefore condemns murther as more wilful and more panishable than Man-slaughtter b He saith that no Law can possibly be unjust And I say that this is to deny the conclusion which deserves no reply But to give him satisfaction I will follow him in this also If he intended no more but that unjust Lawes are not genuine Lawes nor bind to active obedience because they are not the ordinations of right Reason nor instituted for the common good nor prescribe that which ought to be done he said truly but nothing at all to his purpose But if he intend as he doth that there are no Lawes de facto which are the ordinances of reason erring instituted for the common hurt and prescribing that which ought not to be done he is much mistaken Pharaohs Law to drown the Male Children of the Israelites Exod. 1. 22. Nebuckadnezzars Law that whosoever did not fall down and worship the golden Image which he had set up should be cast into the fiery furnace Dan. 3. 4 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 and branch Esther 3. 13. The Pharisees Law that whosoever confesseth Christ should be excommunicated John 9. 22. were all unjust Lawes c The ground of this errour is as great an errour it self Such an art be 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 Laws of our Ancesters which were made before we were
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 Buâ—rush 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 â— 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 onely of the action but also of the irregularity though he both give man power to act and determine this power to evil 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 haud 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 â—…fore 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 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 on 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 lawful to murther a company of innocent Infants to make a bath of their lukewarm blood for curing the Leprosie 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 else can be unjust that before the constitution of Commonwealths every man had power to kill another if he conceived him to be hurtfull to him that at the constitution of Commonwealhts 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 preservation This may well be called stringing of Paradoxes But first h there never was any such time when Mankind was without Governors and Lawes and Societies Paternal Government was in the world from the beginning and the Law of Nature There might be sometimes a root of such Barbatous 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 political 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 murthered or robbed is not a remainder or a reserve of some greater power which they have resigned but a priviledge which God hath given them in case of extream 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 rable which in some odd cases might happen to be never had justly 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 the slaughtering of brute beasts The elements are for the Plants the Plants for the brute Beasts the brute Beasts for Man When God enlarged his former grant to man and gave him liberty to eat the flesh of his creatures for his sustenance Gen. 9. 3. Yet man is expresly excepted ver â— Who so sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed And the reason is assigned for in the image of God made he man Before sin entred into the World or before any creatures were hurtful or noxious to man he had â—â—minion over them as their Lord and Master And though the possession of this soveraignty be lost in part for the sin of man which made not onely the creatures to rebel but also the inferiour 〈…〉 to rebel against the superiour from whence it comes that one man is hurtful to another yet the dominion still remains wherein we may observe how sweetly the providence of God doth temper this cross that though the strongest creatures
he shall have to morrow or an hower or any time after Intervening occasions business which the Bishop calls trifles Trifles of which the Bishop maketh here a great business to change the Will No man can say what he will do to morrow unless he foreknow which no man can what shall happen before to morrow And this being the substance of my opinion it must needs be that when he deduceth from it that Counsells Arts Armes Medicines Teachers Praise Prayer and Piety are in vain that his deduction is false and his ratiocination fallacy And though I need make no other answer to all that he can object against me yet I shall here mark out the causes of his several Parologismes Those Lawes he saith are unjust and tyrannical which do prescribe things absolutly impossible to be done and punish men for not doing of them In which words this is one absurdity that a Law can be unjust for all Lawes are Divine or Civil neither of which can be unjust Of the first there is no doubt And as for Civil Lawes they are made by every man that is subject to them because every one of them consenteth to the placing of the Legislative Power Another is this in the same words that he supposeth there may be Lawes that are not Tyrannical for if he that maketh them have the soveraign Power they may be Regal but not Tyrannical if Tyrant signifie not King as he thinks it doth not Another is in the same words that a Law may prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done When he sayes impossible in themselves he understands not what himself means Impossible in themselves are contradictions onely as to be and not to be at the same time which the Divines say is not possible to God All other things are possible at least in themselves Raising from the dead changing the course of nature making of a new Heaven and a new Earth are things possible in themselves for there is nothing in their nature able to resist the Will of God and if Laws do not prescribe such things why should I believe they prescribe other things that are more impossible Did he ever readin Suarez of any Tyrant that made a Law commanding any man to do and not to do the same Action or to be and not to be at the same place in one and the same moment of time But out of the doctrine of Necessity it followeth he sayes that all Lawes do prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done Here he has left out in themselves which is a wilfull Fallacy He further sayes that Just Lawes are the Ordinances of right Reason which is an error that hath cost many thousands of men their lives Was there ever King that made a Law which in right reason had been better unmade and shall those Lawes therefore not be obeyed shall we rather rebell I think not though I am not so great a Divine as he I think rather that the Reason of him that hath the Soveraign Authority and by whose Sword we look to be protected both against war from abroad and injuries at home whether it be Right or Erronious in it seslf ought to stand for Right to us that have submitted our selves thereunto by receiving the protection But the Bishop putteth his greatest confidence in this that whether the things be impossible in themselves or made impossible by some unseen accident yet there is no reason that men should be punished for not doing them It seemes he taketh punishment for a kind of revenge and can never therefore agree with me that take it for nothing else but for a correction or for an example which hath for end the framing and necessitating of the Will to virtue and that he is no good man that upon any provocation useth his power though a power lawfully obtained to afflict another man without this end to reforme the will of him or others Nor can I comprehend as having onely humane Idea's that that punishment which neither intendeth the correction of the offender nor the correction of others by example doth proceed from God b He saith that no Law can possibly be unjust c. Against this he replies that the Law of Pharaoh to drown the Male Children of the Israelites and of Nebuckadnezxar to worship the golden Image and of Darius against praying to any but him in thirty dayes and of Ahashuerosh to destroy the Jewes and of the Pharisees to excommunicate the confessors of Christ were all unjust Lawes The Lawes of these Kings as they were Lawes have relation onely to the men that were their subjects And the making of them which was the action of every one of those Kings who were subjects to another King namely to God Almighty had relation to the Law of God In the first relation there could be no injustice in them because all Laws made by him to whom the people had given the Legislative Power are the Acts of every one of that people and no man can do injustice to himself But in relation to God if God have by a Law forbidden it the making of such Lawes is injustice Which Law of God was to those Heathen Princes no other but salus populi that is to say the properest use of their natural reason for the preservation of their subjects If therefore those Lawes were ordained out of wantonness or cruelty or envy or for the pleasing of a Favorite or out of any other sinister end as it seemes they were the making of those Lawes was unjust But if in right Reason they were necessary for the preservation of those people of whom they had undertaken the charge then was it not unjust And for the Pharisees who had the same written Law of God that we have their excommunication of the Christians proceeding as it did from envy was an Act of malicious injustice If it had proceeded from misinterpretation of their own Scriptures it had been a sin of ignorance Nevertheless as it was a Law to their subjects in case they had the Legislative Power which I doubt of the Law was not unjust But the making of it was an unjust action of which they were to give account to none but God I fear the Bishop will think this discourse too subtile but the judgement is the Readers c The ground of this error c. is this That every man makes by his consent the Law which he is bound to keep c. The reason why he thinketh this an error is because the positive Law of God conteined in the Bible is a Law with out our assent the Law of Nature was written in our hearts by the finger of God without our assent the Lawes of Conquerours who come in by the power of the Sword were made without our assent and so were the Lawes of our Ancestors which were made before we were born It is a strange thing that he that understands the non-sense of the Schoolmen should not be able to
perceave so easie a truth as this which he denieth The Bible is a Law To whom To all the World He knowes it is not How came it then to be a Law to us Did God speak it viva voce to us Have we then any other Warrant for it than the Word of the Prophets Have we seen the miracles Have we any other assurance of their certainty than the authority of the Church and is the authority of the Church any other than the authority of the Commonwealth or that of the Commonwealth any other than that of the Head of the Common-wealth or hath the Head of the Commonwealth any other authority than that which hath been given him by the Members Else why should not the Bible be Canonical as well in Constantinople as in any other place They that have the Legislative power make nothing Canon which they make not Law nor Law which they make not Canon And because the Legislative power is from the assent of the subjects the Bible is made Law by the assent of the subjects It was not the Bishop of Rome that made the Scripture Law without his own temporal Dominions nor is it the Clergy that make it Law in their Dioceses and Rectories Nor can it be a Law of it self without special and supernatural revelation The Bishop thinks because the Bible is Law and he is appointed to teach it to the people in his Diocese that therefore it is Law to whom soever he teach it which is somewhat grosse but not so grosse as to say that Conquerors who come in by tho power of the sword make their Lawes also without our assent He thinks belike that if a Conquerour can kill me if he please I am presently obliged without more a doe to obey all his Lawes May not I rather dye if I think fit The Conquerour makes no Law over the Conquered by vertue of his power but by vertue of their assent that promised obedience for the saving of their lives But how then is the assent of the Children obtained to the Laws of their Ancestors This also is from the desire of preserving their lives which first the Parents might take away where the Parents be free from all subjection and where they are not there the Civil power might do the same if they doubted of their obedience The Children therefore when they be grown up to strength enough to do mischeif and to judgement enough to know that other men are kept from doing mischeif to them by fear of the Sword that protecteth them in that very act of receiving that protection and not renouncing it openly do oblige themselves to obey the Lawes of their Protectors to which inreceaving such protection they have assented And whereas he saith the Law of Nature is a Law without our assent it is absurd for the Law of Nature is the Assent it self that all men give to the means of their own preservation d But his cheifest answer is that An action forbidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly may be justly punished c. This the Bishop also understandeth not and therefore denies it He would have the Judge condemne no man for a crime if it were necessitated as if the Judge could know what acts are necessary unless he knew all that hath anteceded both visible and invisible and what both every thing in it self and altogether can effect It is enough to the Judge that the act he condemneth be voluntary The punishment whereof may if not capital reforme the will of the offender if capital the will of others by example For heat in one body doth not more create heat in another than the terrour of an example creatâ—th fear in another who otherwise were inclined to commit injustice Some few lines before he hath said that I built upon a wrong foundation namely That all Magistrates were at first elective I had forgot to tell you that I never said nor though it And therefore his Reply as to that point is impertinent Not many lines after for a reason why a man may not be justly punished when his crime is voluntary he offereth this that Law is unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to Will that which is impossible for him to Will Whereby it appears he is of opinion that a Law may be made to command the Will The stile of a Law is Do this or Do not this or If thou Do this thou shalt Suffer this but no Law runs thus Will this or Will not this or If thou have a Will to this thou shalt Suffer this He objecteth further that I hegg the question because no mans Will is necessitated Wherein he mistakes for I say no more in that place but that he that doth evill willingly whether he be necessarily willing or not necessarily may be justly punished And upon this mistake he runneth over again his former and already answered non-sense saying we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given them a kind of dominion over us and again motus primo primi the first motions are not alwayes in our power Which motus primo primi signifies nothing and our negligence in not opposing our passions is the same with our want of Will to oppose our Will which is absurd and that we have given them a kind of dominion over us either signifies nothing or that we have a dominion over our Wills or our Wills a dominion over us and consequently either we or our wills are not Free e He pleads moreover that the Law is a cause of Justice c. All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But I have shown that all Lawes are just as Lawes and therefore not to be accused of injustice by those that owe subjection to them and a just Law is alwayes justly executed Seeing then that he confesseth that all that he replieth to here is true it followeth that the Reply it self where it contradicteth me is false f He addeth that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon Delinquents respect not the evil 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 reall intention to benefit others by his example This he neither confirmeth nor denieth and yet forbeareth not to discourse upon it to little purpose and therefore I pass it over g 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 onely of the Action but also of the irregularity c. To all this which hath been pressed before I have answered also before but that he sayes I say having commanded one thing openly he plots another thing secretly it is not mine but one of his own ugly Phrases And the
force it hath proceedeth out of an apprehension he hath that affliction is not Gods correction but his revenge upon the Creatures of his own making and from a reasonning he useth because it is not just in a man to kill one man for the amendment of another therefore neither is it so in God not remembring that God hath or shall have killed all the men in the World both nocent and innocent My assertion he saith is a Dream and the sum of it this that where there is no Law there no killing or any thing else can be unjust that before the constitution of Common-wealths every man had power to kill another c. and adds That this may well be called stringing of Paradoxes To these my words he replies h There was never any time when Mankind was without Governours Lawes and Societies It is very likely to be true that since the Creation there never was a time in which Mankind was totally without Society If a part of it were without Lawes and Governours some other parts might be Commonwealths He saw there was Paternal Government in Adam which he might do easily as being no deep consideration But in those places where there is a Civil Warre at any time at the same time there is neither Lawes nor Commonwealth nor Society but onely a temporal League which every discontented Souldier may depart from when he pleases as being entred into by each man for his private interest without any obligation of conscience There are therefore almost at all times multitudes of lawless men but this was a little too remote from his understanding to perceave Again he denies that ever there was a time when one private man might lawfully kill another for his own preservation and has forgotten that these words of his Number 2. This is the beleef of all Mankind which we have not learned from our Tutors but is imprinted in our hearts by Nature we need not turn over any obscure Books to find out this truth c. Which are the words of Cicero in the defence of Milo and translated by the Bishop to the defence of Free-will were used by Cicero to prove this very thing that it is and hath been alwayes lawful for one private man to kill another for his own preservation But where he saith it is not lawful ordinarily he should have shown some particular case wherein it is unlawful For seeing it is a beleef imprinted in our hearts not only I but many more are apt to think it is the Law of Nature and consequently Vniversal and Eternal And where he saith this right of defence where it is is not a remainder of some greater power which they have resigned but a priviledge which God hath given them in case of extream danger and invincible necessity c. I also say it is a priviledge which God hath given them but we differ in the manner how which to me seems this that God doth not account such killing sin But the Bishop it seems would have it thus God sends a Bishop into the Pulpit to tell the People it is lawful for a man to kill another man when it is necessaay for the preservation of his own life of which necessity that is whether it be invincible or whether the danger be extreame the Bishop shall be the Judge after the man is killed as being a case of conscience Against the resigning of this our general power of killing our enemies he argues thus Nothing can give that which it never had the People whilest they were a dispersed rable which in some odd cases might happen to be never had justly the power of life and death and therefore they could not give it by their election c. Needs there much acuteness to understand what number of men soever there be though not united into Government that every one of them in particular having a right to destroy whatsoever he thinketh can annoy him may not resign the same right and give it to whom he please when he thinks it conducible to his proservation And yet it seemes he has not understood it He takes it ill that I compare the murthering of men with the slaughtering of brute beasts as also a little before he sayes my opinion reflects too much upon the honour of mankind The Elements saith he are for the Plants the Plants for the brute Beasts and the brute Beasts for Man I pray when a Lyon eats a Man and a Man eats an Oxe why is the Oxe more made for the Man than the Man for the Lion Yes he saith God gave man liberty Gen. 9. 3. to eat the flesh of the Creatures for his sustenance True But the Lion had the liberty to eat the flesh of man long before But he will say no pretending that no man of any Nation or at any time could lawfully eat flesh unless he had this licence of holy Scripture which it was impossible for most men to have But how would he have been offended if I had said of man as Pliny doth Quo nullum est animal neque miserius neque superbius The truth is that man is a Creature of greater power than other living Creatures are but his advantages do consist especially in two things whereof one is the use of speech by which men communicate one with another and joine their forces together and by which also they Register their thoughts that they perish not but be reserved and afterwards joined with other thoughts to produce general Rules for the direction of their actions There be Beasts that see better others that hear better and others that exceed mankind in other senses Man excelleth beasts onely in making of Rules to himself that is to say in remembring and in reasoning aright upon that which he remembreth They which do so deserve an honour above brute beasts But they which mistaking the use of words deceive themselves and others introducing errour and seducing men from the truth are so much less to be honoured than brute beasts as error is more vile than ignorance So that it is not meerly the nature of man that makes him worthier than other living Creatures but the knowledge that he acquires by meditation and by the right use of reason in making good rules of his future actions The other advantage a man hath is the use of his hands for the making of those things which are instrumental to his well-being But this advantage is not a matter of so great honour but that a man may speak negligently of it without offence And for the dominion that a man hath over beasts he saith it is lost in part for the sin of man because the strongest Creatures as Lions and Bears have withdrawn their obedience but the most profitable and useful Creatures as Sheep and Oxen do in some degree retain their obedience I would ask the Bishop in what consisteth the dominion of man over a Lion or a Bear Is it in an obligation of promise or of
is not to say children and mad men want true Liberty that is the liberty to do as they will nor to say that men of judgement or the Admonitor himself hath a dominion over his own actions more than children or mad men for their actions are also voluntary or that when he admonisheth he hath alwayes the use of reason though he have the use of deliberation which children fools mad men and beasts also have There be therefore reasons under heaven which the Bishop knowes not of Whereas I had said that things necessary may be praise-worthy and to praise a thing is to say it is good He distinguisheth and saith n True but this goodness is not a Metaphysical goodness so whatsoever hath a being is good nor a Natural goodness The praise of it passeth wholly to the Author of Nature c. But a Moral goodness or a goodness of actions rather than of things The Moral goodness of an action is the conformity of it to right Reason c. There hath been in the Schooles derived from Aristotles Metaphysicks an old Proverb rather than an Axiome Ens Bonum et verum convertuntur From hence the Bishop hath taken this notion of a Metaphysical goodness and his doctrine that whatsoever hath a being is good and by this interpreteth the words of Gen. 1. God saw all that he had made and it was very good But the reason of those words is that Good is relative to those that are pleased with it and not of absolute signification to all men God therefore saith that all that he had made was very good because he was pleased with the Creatures of his own making But if all things were absolutely good we should be all pleased with their Being which we are not when the actions that depend upon their Being are hurtful to us And therefore to speak properly nothing is good or evil but in regard of the action that proceedeth from it and also of the person to whom it doth good or hurt Satan is evil to us because he seeketh our destruction but good to God because he executeth his commandements And so his Metaphysical goodness is but an idle tearm and not the member of a distinction And as for Natural goodness and evilness that also is but the goodness and evilness of Actions as some Hearbs are good because they nourish others evil because they poyson us and one Horse is good because he is gentle strong and carrieth a man easily another bad because he resisteth goeth hard or otherwise displeaseth us and that quality of gentleness if there were no more Lawes amongst men than there is amongst beasts would be as much a moral good in a horse or other beast as in a man T is the Law from whence proceeds the difference between the Moral and the Natural goodness so that it is well enough said by him that Moral goodness is the conformity of an action with right Reason and better said than meant for this right Reason which is the Law is no otherwise certainly Right than by our making it so by our approbation of it and voluntary subjection to it For the Law-makers are men and may erre and think that Law which they make is for the good of the people sometimes when it is not And yet the â—â—â—ions of subjects if they be conformable to the Law are Morally good and yet cease not to be Naturally good and the praise of them passeth to the Author of Nature as well as of any other good whatsoever From whence it appears that Moral praise is not as he sayes from the good use of liberty but from obedience to the Lawes nor Moral dispraise from the bad use of liberty but from disobedience to the Lawes And for his consequence If all things be necessary then Moral Liberty is quite taken away and with it all true praise and dispraise there is neither truth in it nor argument offered for it for there is nothing more necessary than the consequence of voluntary actions to the Will. And whereas I had said that to say a thing is good is to say it is as I or another would wish or as the State would have it or according to the Law of the Land he answers that I mistake infinitely And his reason is because we often wish what is profitable or delightful without regarding as we ought what is honest There is no man living that seeth all the consequences of an action from the beginning to the end whereby to weigh the whole sum of the good with the whole sum of the evill consequents We choose no further than we can weigh That is good to every man which is so farre good as he can see All the reall good which we call honest and Morally vertuâ—us is that which is not repugnant to the Law Civil or Natural for the Law is all the right Reason we have and though he as often as it disagreeth with his own reason denie it is the infallible rule of Moral goodness The reason whereof is this that because neither mine nor the Bishops reason is right Reason fit to be a rule of our Moral actions we have therefore set up over our selves a Soveraign Governour and agreed that his Lawes shall be unto us whatsoever they be in the phace of Right roason to dictate to us what is really good in the same manner as men in playing turn up Trump and as in playing their game their Morality consisteth in not renouncing so in our civil conversation our Morality is all coâ—â—â—â—ned in not disobeying of the Lawes To my question whether nothing could please him that proceeded from Necessity he answers yes The fire pleaseth him when he is cold and he sayes it is good fire but does not praise it Morally He praiseth he sayes first the Creator of the fire and then him who provided it He does well yet he praiseth the fire when he saith it is good though not Morally He does not say it is a just fire or a wise or a well manered fire obedient to the Lawes but these Attributes it seems he gives to God as if justice were not of his nature but of his manners And in praising Morally him that provided it he seemes to say he would not say the fire was good if he were not Morally good that did provide it To that which I had answered concerning reward and punishment he hath replied he sayes sufficiently before and that that which he discoursenh here is not only to answer me but also to satisfie himself and saith o Though it be not urged by him yet I do acknowledge that I find some improper and analogical rewards and punishments used to brute beasts as the Hunter rewards his Dog c. For my part I am too dull to perveave the difference between those rewards used to brute beasts and those that are used to men If they be not properly called rewards and punishments let him give them their proper name
the Power he hath and exerciseth in distributing blessings and afflictions Justice is not in God as in man the observation of the Lawes made by his superiours Nor is Wisedom in God a logicall examination of the means by the end as it is in men but an incomprehensible Attribute given to an incomprehensible nature for to honour him It is the Bishop that erres in thinking nothing to be Power but Riches and High place wherein to dominere and please himself and vex those that submit not to his opinions d Thirdly this opinion of absolute Necessity destroyes the Truth of God making him to command one thing openly and to necessitate another privately c. It destroyes the goodness of God making him to be a hater of mankind c. It destroyes the Justice of God making him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act c. It destroyes the very Power of God making him to be the true Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world If the opinion of absolute necessity do all this then the opinion of Gods Prescience does the same for God foreknoweth nothing that can possibly not come to pass but that which cannot possibly not come to pass cometh to pass of necessity But how doth necessity destroy the Truth of God by commanding and hindering what he commandeth Truth consisteth in Affirmation and Negation not in commanding and hindering it does not therefore follow if all things be necessary that come to pass that therefore God hath spoken an untruth Nor that he professesseth one thing and intendeth another The Scripture which is his word is not the profession of what he intendeth but an indication of what those men shall necessarily intend whom he hath chosen to salvation and whom he hath determined to destruction But on the other side from the Negation of necessity there followeth necessarily the Negation of Gods Prescience which is in the Bishop if not ignorance impiety Or how destroyeth it the Goodness of God or maketh him to be an hater of mankind and to delight in the torments of his creatures whereas the very doggs licked the sores of Lazarus in pitty and commiseration of him I cannot imagine when living creatures of all sorts are often in torments as well as men that God can be displeased with it without whose will they neither are nor could be at all tormented Nor yet is he delighted with it but health sickness â—ase torments life and death are without all passion in him dispenced by him and he putteth an end to them then when they end and a beginning when they begin according to his eternal purpose which cannot be resisted That the necessity argueth a delight of God in the torments of his creatures is even as true as that it was pitty and commiseration in the doggs that made them lick the sores of Lazarus Or how doth the opinion of necessity destroy the Justice of God or make him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act If all afflictions be punishments for whose act are all other Creatures punished which cannot sin Why may not God make the affliction both of those men that he hath elected and also of those whom he hath reprobated the necessary causes of the conversion of those he hath elected their own afflictions serving therein as chastisements and the afflictions of the rest as examples But he may perhaps think it no injustice to punish the creatures that cannot sin with temporary punishments when nevertheless it would be injustice to torment the same creatures eternally This may be somewhat to Meekness and Cruelty but nothing at all to Justice and Injustice For in punishing the innocent the injustice is equall though the punishments be unequal And what cruelty can be greaner than that which may be inferred from this opinion of the Bishop that God doth torment eternally and with the extreamest degree of torment all those men which have sinned that is to say all mankind from the creation to the end of the world which have not believed in Jesus Christ whereof very few in respect of the multitude of others have so much as heard of his name and this when Faith in Christ is the gift of God himself and the hearts of all men in his hands to frame them to the belief of whatsoever he will have them to believe He hath no reason therefore for his part to tax any opinion for ascribing to God either cruelty or injustice Or how doth it destroy the Power of God or make him to be the Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world First he seemeth not to understand what Author signifies Author is he which owneth an Action or giveth a warrant to do it Doe I say that any man hath in the Scripture which is all the warrant we have from God for any Action whatsoever a Warrant to commit Theft Murder or any other sin Does the opinion of necessity inferre that there is such a warrant in the Scripture Perhaps he will say no but that this opinion makes him the cause of sin But does not the Bishop think him the cause of all Actions And are not sins of commission Actions Is Murder no Action And does not God himself say Non est malum in civitate quod ego non feci And was not murder one of those evils whether it were or not I say no more but that God is the cause not the Author of all Actions and Motions Whether sin be the Action or the Defect or the Irregularity I mean not to dispute Nevertheless I am of opinion that the distinction of Causes into Efficient and Deficient is Bohu and signifies nothing e How shall a man praise God for his Goodness who beleeves him to be a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault to express his Power If Tyrant signifie as it did when it came first in use a King t is no dishonour to beleeve that God is a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world for he is the King of all Kings Emperours and Common-Wealths But if we take the word as it is now used to signifie those Kings onely which they that call them Tyrants are displeased with that is that Govern not as they would have them the Bishop is nearer the calling him a Tyrant than I am making that to be Tyranny which is but the exercise of an absolute Power For he holdeth though he see it not by consequence in withdrawing the Will of man from Gods dominion that every man is a King of himself And if a man cannot praise God for his Goodness who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault how can the Bishop praise God for his Goodness who thinks he hath created millions of millions to burn eternally when he could have kept them so easily from committing any fault And to his How shall a man hear
according to this description many necessary actions should be contingent and many contingent actions should be necessary The Loadstone draweth Iron the Jet chaff we know not how and yet the effect is necessary and so it is in all Sympathies and Antipathies or occult qualities Again a man walking in the streets a Tile falls down from an house and breaks his head We know all the causes we know how this came to pass The man walked that way the pin failed the Tile fell just when he was under it And yet this is a contingent effect The man might not have walked that way and then the Tile had not fallen upon him Neither yet do I understand here in this place by contingents such events as happen beside the scope or intention of the Agents as when a man digging to make a grave finds a Treasure though the word be sometimes so taken But by contingents I understand all things which may be done and may not be done may happen or may not happen by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes And those same things which are absolutely Incontingent are yet Hypothetically necessary As supposing the passenger did walk just that way just at that time and that the pin did faile just then and the Tile fall it was necessary that it should fall upon the Passengers head The same defence will keep out his shower of rain But we shall meet with his shower of rain again Number 34. Whither I referre the further explication of this point Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XVI IN this Number he would prove that there must be Free Agents and Contingent Agents as well as Necessary Agents from the Order Beauty and Perfection of the World I that thought that the Order Beauty and Perfection of the World required that which was in the World and not that which the Bishop had need of for his Argument could see no force of consequence to inferre that which he calls Free and Contingent That which is in the World is the Order Beauty and Perfection which God hath given the World and yet there are no Agents in the World but such as work a seen Necessity or an unseen Necessity and when they work an unseen Necessity in creatures inanimate then are those creatures said to be wrought upon Contingently and to work Contingently And when the Necessity unseen is of the actions of men then it is commonly called Free and might be so in other living creatures for Free and Voluntary are the same thing But the Bishop in his Reply hath insisted most upon this that I make it a contradiction to say that He that maketh a thing doth not make it necessary and wonders how a Contradiction can be in one Proposition and yet within two or three lines after found it might be and therefore to clear the matter he sayes that such Necessity is not Antecedent but a Necessity of Supposition which nevertheless is the same kind of Necessity which he attributeth to the burning of the fire where there is a necessity that the thing thrown into it shall be burned though yet it be but burning or but departing from the hand that throwes it in and therefore the Necessity is Antecedent The like is in making a Garment the Necessity begins from the first motion towards it which is from Eternity though the Taylor and the Bishop are equally unsensible of it If they saw the whole order and conjunction of Causes they would say it were as Necessary as any thing else can possibly be and therefore God that sees that order and conjunction knowes it is necessary The rest of his Reply is to argue a contradiction in me for he sayes a I grant that there are some Free Agents and some Contingent Agents and that perhaps the beauty of the World doth require it but like a shrewd Cow which after she hath given her milk casts it down with her foot in the conclusion I tell him that nevertheless they are all necessary It is true that I say some are Free Agents and some Contingent nevertheless they may be all necessary For according to the significations of the words Necessary Free and Contingent the distinction is no more but this of Necessary Agents some are Necessary and some are Agents and of Agents some are living creatures and some are inanimate which words are improper but the meaning of them is this men call necessary Agents such as they know to be necessary and contingent Agents such inanimate things as they know not whether they work necessarily or no and by free Agents men whom they know not whether they work necessarily or no. All which confusion ariseth from that presumptuous men take for granted that that is not whith they know not b Neither do I approve his definition of Contingents that they are such Agents as work we know not how The reason is because it would follow that many necessary Actions should be contingent and many contingent Actions necessary But that which followeth from it really is no more but this That many necessary Actions would be such as we know not to be necessary and many Actions which we know not to be necessary may yet be necessary which is a truth But the Bishop defineth Contingents thus All things which may be done and may not be done may happen or may not happen by reason of the Indetermination or accidental concurrence of the Causes By which definition Contingent is nothing or it is the same that I say it is For there is nothing can be done and not be done nothing can happen and not happen by reason of the Indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes It may be done or not done for ought he knowes and happen or not happen for any determination he perceaveth and that is my definition But that the indetermination can make it happen or not happen is absurd for indetermination maketh it equally to happen or not to happen and therefore both which is a contradiction Therefore indetermination doth nothing and whatsoever causes do is necessary J. D. FIftly take away liberty and you take away the very nature Numb 17. Arg. 5. of evil and the formal reason of sin If the hand of the Painter were the law of painting or the hand of the Writer the law of writing whatsoever the one did write or the other paint must infallibly be good Seeing therefore that the first cause is the rule and Law of goodness if it do necessitate the will or the person to evil either by it self immediatly or mediatly by necessary flux of second causes it will no longer be evill The essence of sin consists in this that one commit that which he might avoid If there be no liberty to produce sin there is no such thing as sin the world Therefore it appears both from Scripture and Reason that there is true Liberty T. H. TO the fift Argument from reason which is that
himself angry And of him that poured out the water when he was thirsty And the like Such things I confess have or may have been done and do prove onely that it was not necessary for Ulysses then to weâ—p nor for the Philosopher to strike nor for â—hat other maâ— to drink but it does not prove that it was not necessary for Ulysses then to abâ—â—ain as he did from weeping nor the Philosopher to abstain as he did from striking Nor the other man to forbear drinking And yet that was the thing he ought to have provâ—d Lastly he confesseth that the disposition of objects may be dangerous to liberty but cannot be destructive To which I answer tâ—â— impossible For liberty is never in any other danger than to be lost And if 〈◊〉 cannot be lost which he confesseth I may inâ—er it can be in no danger at all J. D. a THe third pretense was out of moral Philosophy misunderstood that outward objects do necessitate the will I shall not need to repeat what he hath omitted but onely to satisfie his exceptions b The first is that it is not material though the power of outward objects do proceed from our own faults if such faults of ours 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 meer 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 frâ—m whence they do proceed c Next he confesseth that it â—â—â—n 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 appears 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 d He adds that we are not mooved to prayer or any other action but by outward objects as pions 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 Angels good aâ—d 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 appâ—tibility of objects and the unruliness of passions As I shewed by examples e 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 rational will hath power both to sleight the most appetible objects and to control 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 f 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 vicious 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 natural to a man than reason yet many by excess of study or by continual gurmandizing or by some extravagant passion which they have cherished in themselves or by doting too much upon some affected object do become very sorts 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 Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XXII a THe third pretence was out of Moral Philosophy misunderstood that outward objects do necessitate the Will I cannot imagine how the question whether outward objects do necessitate or not necessitate the Wilâ— can any â—ay be referred to Moral Philosophy The principles â—f moral Philosophy are the Laws wherewith outward objects have little to do as being for the most part inanimate which follow alwayes the force of nature without respect to moral Laws Nor can I conceive what purpose he had to bring this into his Reply to my answer wherein I attribute nothing in the Action of outward objects to Morallity b His first exception is that it is not material that the power of outward objects do proceed from our own faults if such faults of ours 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 meer subterfuge But how prâ—vâ—s he that in truth they do Because else saith he they are not our faults at all Very well reasoned A Horse is lame from a cause that was not in his power therefore the lameness is no fault in the Horse But his meaning is tâ—s no injustice unlesse the causes were in his own power as if it were not injustice whatsoever is willingly done against the Law whatsoever it be that is the cause oâ— the Wil to do it c Next he confesseth that it is in our power by good endeavours to alter those vicious habits which we had contracted and to get the contrary habits There is no such confession in my answer I said Prayer Fasting c. May alter our habits But I never said that the Will to Pray Fast c.
no good by fight he seeks to circumvent us under colour of curtesy Fistula dulce canit volucrem dum decipit auceps As they who behold themselves in a glass take the right hand for the left and the left for the right T. H. knows the comparison so we take our own errours to be truths and other mens truths to be errours b If we be in an errour in this it is such an errour as we sucked from nature it self such an errour as is confirmed in us by reason and experience such an errour as God himself in his sacred Word hath revealed such an errour as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in all ages have delivered Such an errour wherein we have the concurrence of all the best Philosophers both Natural and Moral such an errour as bringeth to God the glory of Justice and Wisedom and Goodness and Truth such an errour as renders men more devour more pious more industrious more humble more penitent for their sins Would he have us resign up all these advantages to dance blindfold after his pipe No he perswades us too much to our loss But let us see what is the imaginary cause of our imaginary errour Forsooth because we attribute to God whatsoever is honourable in the World as seeing hearing willing knowing Justice Wisedom but deny him such poor things as eyes ears brains and so far he saith we do well He hath reason for since we are not able to conceive of God as he is the readiest way we have is by remooving all that imperfection from God which is in the creatures So we call him Infinite Immortal Independent Or by attributing to him all those perfections which are in the creatures after a most eminent manner so we call him Best Greatest most Wise most Just most Holy c But saith he When they dispute of Gods actions Philosophically then they consider them again as if he had such faculties and in the manner as we have them And is this the cause of our errour That were strange indeed for they who dispute Philosophically of God do neither ascribe faculties to him in that manner that we have them Nor yet do they attribute any proper faculties at all to God Gods Understanding and his Will is his very Essence which for the eminency of its infinite perfection doth perform all those things alone in a most transcendent manner which reasonable creatures do perform imperfectly by distinct faculties Thus to dispute of God with modesty and reverence and to clear the Deity from the imputation of tyranny injustice and dissimulation which none do throw upon God with more presumption than those who are the Patrons of absolute necessity is both comely and Christian. It is not the desire to discover the original of a supposed errour which drawes them ordinarily into these exclamations against those who dispute of the Deity For some of themselves dare anatomise God and publish his Eternal Decrees with as much confidence as if they had been all their lives of his cabinet councel But it is for fear lest those pernicious consequences which flow from that doctrine essentially and reflect in so high a degree upon the supreme goodness should be laid open to the view of the world Just as the Turks do first establish a false Religion of their own devising and then forbid all men upon pain of death to dispute upon Religion Or as the Priests of â—olech the Abhomination of the Ammonites did make a noise with their timbrells all the while the poor Infants were passing through the fire in Tophet to keep their pitiful cries from the ears of their Parents So d they make a noise with their declamations against those who dare dispute of the Nature of God that is who dare set forth â—â—s Justice and his goodness and his truth and his Philanthropy onely to deaf the ears and dim the eyes of the Christian world lest they should hear the lamentable ejulations and howlings or see that rueful spectacle of millions of souls tormented for evermore e in the flames of the true Tophet that is Hell onely for that which according to T. H. his doctrine was never in their power to shun but which they were ordered and inevitably necessitated to do onely to express the omnipotence and dominion and to satisfie the pleasure of him who is in truth the Father of all mercies and the God oâ— all consolation f This is life eternal saith our Saviour to know the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Joh. 17. 3. Pure Religion and und filed before God and the Father is this to visite the fatherless and widowes in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world saith Sâ— James Jam. 1. 27. Fear God and keâ—p his Commandments for this 〈◊〉 the whole duty of man saith Solomon â—câ—les 12. 13. But T. H. hath found out a more compendious way to heaven True Religion saith he consisteth in obedience to Christs Lieutenants and giving God such honouâ— both in attributes and â—â—â—ions 〈◊〉 they in their several Lieutenancâ—â—â— shaâ— ordain That is to say â—e of the Religion of every Christian Country where you come To make the Civill Magistrate to be Christs Lieutenant upon earth for matters of Religion And to make him to be Supreme Judge in all controversies whom all must obey is a Doctrine so strange and such an uncouth phrase to Christian ears that I should have missed his meaning but that I consulted with his Book De Civ c. 15. Sect. 16. and c. 17. Sect. 28. What if the Magistrate shall be no Christiam himself What if he shall command contrary to the Law of God or Nature Must we obey him rather than God Act. 14. 19. Is the Civill Magistrate become now the onely ground and pillar of Truth I demand then why T. H. is of a different mind from his Soveraign and from the Laws of the Land concerning the Attributes of God and his Decrees This is a new Paradox and concerns not this question of liberty and necessity Wherefore I forbear to prosecute it further and so conclude my reply with the words of the Christian Poet. Caesaris jussum est ore Galieni Princeps quod colit ut colimus omnes Aeternum colemus Principem dierum Factorem Dominumque Galieni Animadversions upon the Answer to the Postscript Numb XXXVIII HE taketh it ill that I say that Arguments do seldome work on men of wit and learning when they have once engaged themselves in a contrary opinion Neverthelesse it is not onely certain by experience but also there is reason for it and that grounded upon the natural disposition of mankind For it is natural to all men to defend those opinions which they have once publickly engaged themselves to maintain because to have that detected for errour which they have publickly maintained for truth is never without some dishonour more or lesse and to find in themselves that they have spent a great