Selected quad for the lemma: opinion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
opinion_n	action_n	good_a	judgement_n	588	5	5.6280	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44006	Of libertie and necessitie a treatise, wherein all controversie concerning predestination, election, free-will, grace, merits, reprobation, &c. is fully decided and cleared, in answer to a treatise written by the Bishop of London-derry, on the same subject / by Thomas Hobs.	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1654 (1654)	Wing H2252; ESTC R20187	27,647	98

Question that there is a double act of the will The one he says is Actus imperatus an act done at the command of the will by some inferiour faculty of the soul As to open or shut ones eyes and this act may be compell'd the other he saies is Actus elicitus an act allured or drawn forth by allurement out of the will as to will to choose to elect this he saies cannot be compelled Wherein letting pass that metaphorical speech of attributing command and subjection to the faculties of the soul as if they made a Common-Wealth or family within themselves and could speak one to another which is very improper in searching the truth of a question you may observe first that to compel a voluntary act is nothing else but to will it for it is all one to say my will commands the shutting of my eyes or the doing of any other action and to say I have the will to shut my eyes so that Actus imperatus here might as easily have been said in English a voluntry action but that they that invented the term understood not any thing it signified Secondly you may observe that Actus elicitus is exemplified by these words to will to elect to choose which are all one and so to will is here made an act of the will and indeed as the will is a faculty or power in a mans soul so to will is an act of it according to that power but as it is absurdly said that to dance is an act allured or drawn by fair means out of the ability to dance so is it also to say so that to will is an act allured or drawn out of the power to will which power is commonly called the will Howsoever it be the sum of his Lordships distinction is that a voluntary act may be done by compulsion that is to say by foul means but to will that or any act cannot be but by allurement or fair means Now seeing fair means allurements and enticements produce the action which they do produce as necessarily as foul means and threatening it follows that to will may be made as necessarie as any thing that is done by compulsion So that the distinction of Actus imperatus and Actus elicitus are but words and of no effect against necessitie His Lordship in the rest of his discourse reckoneth up the opinion of certain professions of men touching the causes wherein the necessitie of things which they maintain consisteth And first he saith the Astrologer deriveth his necessitie from the stars Secondly that the Physitian attributeth it to the temper of the bodie For my part I am not of their opinion because neither the stars alone nor the temperature of the Patient alone is able to produce any effect without the concurrence of all other Agents For there is hardly any one action how casual soever it seem to the causing whereof concur not whatsoever is in rerum natura which because it is a great paradox and depends on many antecedent speculations I do not press in this place Thirdly he disputeth against the opinion of them that say external objects presented to men of such and such temparatures do make their actions necessarie and says the power such objects have over us proceeds from our own fault but that is nothing to the purpose if such fault of ours proceedeth from causes not in our own power and therefore that opinion may hold true for all that answer Further he says Prayer Fasting c. may alter our habits 't is true but when they do so they are causes of the contrarie habit and make it necessarie as the former habit had been necessarie if Prayer Fasting c. had not been Besides we are not moved or disposed to prayer or any other action but by outward objects as pious company godly preachers of something equivolent Fourthly he says a resolved mind is not easily surprised as the mind of Vlysses who when others wept alone wept not and of the Phylososopher that abstained from striking because he found himself angrie and of him that poured out the water when he was thirstie and the like Such things I confess have or may have been done and do prove onely that it was not necessarie for Vlysses then to weep nor for that Philosopher to strike nor for that other man to drink but it does not prove that it was not necessarie for Vlysses then to abstain as he did from weeping nor for the Philosopher to abstain as he did from striking nor for the other man to forbear drinking and yet that was the thing his Lordship ought to have proved Lastly his Lordship confesses that the dispositions of objects may be dangerous to libertie but cannot be destructive To which I answer it is impossible for libertie is never in any other danger than to be lost and if it cannot be lost which he confesses I may infer it can be in no danger at all The fourth opinion his Lordship rejecteth is of them that make the will necessarily to follow the last dictate of the understanding but it seems his Lordship understands that Tenet in another sence than I do for he speaketh as if they that held it did suppose men must dispute the sequel of every action they do great and small to the least grain which is a thing his Lordship with reason thinks untrue But I understand it to signifie that the will follows the last opinion or judgement immediately proceding the action concerning whether it be good to do it or not whether he have weighed it long before or not at all and that I take to be the meaning of them that hold it As for example when a man strikes his will to strike follows necessarily that thought he had of the sequel of his stroak immediately before the lifting up of his hand Now if it be understood in that sence the last dictate of the understanding does necessitate the action though not as the whole cause yet as the last cause as the last feather necessitates the breaking of a horses back when there are so many laid on before as there needed but the addition of one to make the weight sufficient That which his Lordship alleadgeth against this is First out of a Poet who in the person of Medea says Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor but that saying as prettie as it is is not true for though Medea saw many reasons to forbear killing her children yet the last dictate of her judgement was that the present revenge on her husband out-weighed them all and thereupon the wicked action necessarily followed Then the story of the Roman who of two competitors said one had the better reason but the other must have the office This also maketh against his Lordship for the last dictate of his judgement that had the bestowing of the office was this That it was better to take a great bribe than reward a great merit Thirdly he objects that

say what necessary cause soever precede an action yet if the action be forbidden he that doth it willingly may justly be punished For instance suppose the Law on pain of death prohibit stealing and that there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal and is thereupon put to death does not this punishment deter others from Theft is it not a cause that others steal not Doth it not frame and make their wills to justice To make the Law is therefore to make a Cause of Justice and to necessitate Justice and consequently 't is no injustice to make such a Law The intention of the Law is not to grieve the Delinquent for that which is past 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 the good intention for the 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 because they are noxious and they are spared and preserved whose actions 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 preservation and yet my Lord himself confesseth that their actions as being onely spontaneous and not free are all necessitated and determined to that one thing they shall do For men when we make Societies or Common-Wealths we lay not down our right to kill excepting in certain cases as murther theft or other offensive action so that the right which the Common-Wealth 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 the right away in the case of Criminals who were by the 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 voluntary 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 forbiddeth it or the Magistrate that punisheth it Secondly I deny that it maketh consultations to be in vain 't is the consultation that causeth a man necessitateth him to choose to do one thing rather than another so that unless a man say that that cause is in vain which necessitateth the effect he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation out of the necessity of the election proceeding from it But it seemeth his Lordships reasons thus If I must do this rather than that I shall do this rather than that though I consult not at all which is a false proposition and 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 requisite 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 so be chosen which cause for the most part is deliberatiō or consultation and therefore consultation is not in vain and indeed the less in vain by how much the election is more necessitated if more and less had any place in necessity The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience namely that admonitions are in vain for the Admonitions are parts of consultation the admonitor being a Councellour for the time to him that is admonished The fourth pretended inconveence is that praise 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 Common-Wealth 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 the Law Does my Lord 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 them both in vain because praise and dispraise and likewise Reward and Punishment do by example make and conform the will to good and evil It was a very great praise in my opinion that Velleius Paterculus gives Cato where he saies that he was good by nature Et quia aliter esse non potuit To the fifth and sixth inconveniences that Counsels Arts Arms Instruments Books Study Medicines and the like would be superfluous the same answer serves as 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 causes is a false one and those things named Counsels Arts Arms c. are the causes of these effects His Lordships third Argument consisteth in other inconveniences which he saith will follow namely Impiety and negligence of religious duties as Repentance and Zeal to Gods service c. To which I answer as to the rest that they follow not I must confess if we consider the greatest part of Mankinde not as they should be but as they are that is as men whom either the study of acquiring wealth or preferment or whom the appetite of sensual delights or the impatience of meditating or the rash embracing of wrong principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things I must I say confess that the dispute of this question will rather hurt than help their piety and therefore if his Lordship had not desired this answer I should not have written it nor do I write it but in hopes your Lordship and his will keep it private Nevertheless in very truth the necessity of events does not of it self draw with it any impiety at all For piety consisteth onely in two things one that we honour God in our hearts which is that we think as highly of his power as we

embracing of wrong Principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things I must confess c. Certainly we have some reason to expect an effectual cure from this man since he hath so fortunately found out the disease Now if he in so few sheets hath performed more than all the voluminous works of the Priests Ministers and that in points of soul-concernment and Christian interest as Predestination Free-will Grace Merits Election Reprobation Necessitie and Libertie of actions and others the main hinges of human Salvation and to do this being a person whom not onely the aversness of his nature to engage himself in matters of Controversie of this kind but his severer studie of the Mathematicks might justly exempt from any such skirmishes We may not stick to infer that the Black-Coats generally taken are a sort of ignorant Tinkers who in matters of their own profession such as is the mending and sodering of mens consciences have made more holes than they sound nay what makes them more impardonable they have neither the gratitude nor ingenuitie to acknowledge this repairer of their breaches and assertor of their reputation who hath now effected what they all this while have been tampering about I know this Author is little beholding to the Ministers they make a great part of the Nation and besides them I know there are a many illiterate obstinate and inconvincible spirits yet I dare advance this proposition how bold soever it may seem to some That this Book how little and contemptible soever it may seem contains more evidence and conviction in the matters it treats of than all the volumes nay Libraries which the Priests Jesuits and Ministers have to our great charge distraction and loss of precious time furnished us with Which if so I shall undertake for any rational man That all the controversial Labors concerning Religion in the world all the Polemical Treatises of the most antient or modern shall never breed any maggots of scruples or dissatisfactions in his brains nor shall his eyes or head ever ake with turning them over but he shall be so resolved in mind as never to importune God Almighty with impertinent addresses nor ever become any of those Enthusiastical spiritati who as the most Learned M. White says expound Scripture without sence or reason and are not to be disputed with but with the same success as men write on sand and trouble their neighbours with their dreams revelations and spiritual whimsies No here is solid conviction at least so far as the Metaphysical Mysteries of our Religion will admit If God be omnipotent he is irresistible if so just in all his actions though we who have as much capacitie to measure the justice of Gods actions as a man born blind to judge of colours haply may not discern it What then need any man trouble his head whether he be Predestinated or no Let him live justly and honestly according to the Religion of his Countrey and refer himself to God for the rest since he is the Potter and may do what he please with the vessel But I leave the Reader to finde his satisfaction in the Treatise it self since it may be I derogate from it by saying so much before it This Book I doubt not will find no worse entertainment than the Leviathan both in regard of its bulk and that it doth not strike so home at the Ministers and Catholick partie as that did And yet here we must complain of want of sufficiencie or ingenuitie to acknowledge the truths or confute the errors of that book which till it is done we shall not count the Author an Heretick On this side the sea besides the dirt and slander cast on him in Sermons private meetings none hath put any thing in Print against him but Mr. Rosse one who may be said to have had so much Learning as to have been perpetually barking at the works of the most learned How he hath been received beyond Seas I know not but certainly not without the regret of the Catholicks who building their Church on other foundations than those of the Scriptures and pretending infallibilitie certitude and unitie in Religion cannot but be discontented that these Prerogatives of Religion are taken away not onely from Tradition that is to say from the Church but also from the Scriptures and are invested in the Supream power of the Nation be it of what perswasion it will Thus much Reader I have thought fit to acquaint thee with that thou mightest know what a jewel thou hast in thy hands which thou must accordingly value not by the bulk but the preciousness Thou hast here in a few sheets what might prove work enough for many thousand sermons and exercises and more than the Catachisms and Confessions of a thousand Assemblies could furnish thee with Thou hast what will cast an eternal blemish on all the corner'd caps of the Priests and Jesuits and all the black white caps of the Ministers to be short Thou art now acquainted with that Man who in matters of so great importance as those of thy salvation furnishes thee with better instructions than any thou hast ever yet been acquainted with what profession perswasion opinion or Church soever thou art of of whom and his works make the best use thou canst c. Farewell RIGHT HONOURABLE I Had once resolved to answer my Lord Bishops Objections to my Book De CIVE in the first place as that which concerns me most and afterwards to examine his discourse of LIBERTY and NECSSITY which because I had never uttered my opinion of it concerned me the less But seeing it was your Lordships and my Lord Bishops desire that I should begin with the latter I was contented so to do and here I present and submit it to your Lordships judgement And first I assure your Lordship I finde in it no new argument neither from Scripture nor from Reason that I have not often heard before which is as much as to say I am not surprized The preface is a handsome one but it appeareth even in that that he hath mistaken the question For whereas he sayes thus If I be free to write this discourse I have obtained the Cause I deny that to be true for 't is enough to his freedom of writing that he had not written it unless he would himself If he will obtain the cause he must prove that before he writ it it was not necessary he should 〈◊〉 it afterward It may be his Lordship thinks it all one to say I was free to write it and It was not necessary I should write it but I think otherwise for he is free to do a thing that may do it if he have the will to do it and may forbear if he have the will to forbear And yet if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to do it the action is necessarily to follow and if there be a necessity that he shall have

earth Therefore whom God willeth he hath mercy on and whom he willeth he hardeneth Thus you see the case put by S. Paul is the same with that of my Lord Bishop and the same objection in these words following Thou wilt aske me then why does God yet complain for who hath resisted his will To this therefore the Apostle answers not by denying it was Gods will or that the decree of God concerning Esau was not before he had sinned or that Esau was not necessitated to do what he did but thus Who art thou O man that interrogatest God shall the work say to the workman why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same stuff to make one vessel to honour another to dishonour According therefore to this answer of S. Paul I answer my Lords Ojection and say the power of God alone without other helps is sufficient justification of any action he doth That which men make amongst themselves here by pacts and covenants and call by the name of justice and according whereunto men are accounted and tearmed rightly just or unjust is not that by which God Almighties actions are to be measured or called just no more than his counsels are to be measured by humane wisdom That which he does is made just by his doing it just I say in him though not always just in us For a man that shall command a thing openly and plot secretly the hinderance of the same if he punish him that he so commandeth for not doing it it is unjust So also his counsels are therefore not in vain because they be his whether we see the use of them or not When God afflicted Job he did object no sin unto him justified his afflicting of him by telling him of his power Hast thou saith God an arm like mine Where wert thou when I laid the foundations of the earth and the like So our Saviour concerning the man that was born blinde said it was not for his sin or for his Parents sin but that the power of God might be shewn in him Beasts are subject to death and torments yet they cannot sin it was Gods will they should be so Power irresistible justifies all actions really and properly in whomsoever it be found less power does not and because such power is in God onely he must needs be just in all his actions and we that not comprehending his Counsels call him to the Barr commit injustice in it I am not ignorant of the usual reply to this answer by distinguishing between will and permission as that God Almighty does indeed sometimes permit sins and that he also foreknoweth that the sin he permitteth shall be committed but does not will it nor necessitate it I know also they distinguish the action from the sin of the action saying that God Almighty does indeed cause the action whatsoever action it be but not the sinfullness or irregularity of it that is the discordance between the action and the Law Such distinctions as these dazle my understanding I finde no difference between the will to have a thing done and the permission to do it when he that permitteth can hinder it and knows that it will be done unless he hinder it Nor finde I any difference between an action the sin of that action as for example between the killing of Vriah and the sin of David in killing Vriah nor when one is cause both of the Action and of the Law how another can because of the disagreement between them no more than how one man making a longer and a shorter garment another can make the inequality that is between them This I know God cannot sin because his doing a thing makes it just and consequently no sin as also because whatsoever can sin is subject to anothers Law which God is not And therefore 't is blasphemy to say God can sin but to say that God can so order the world as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man I do not see how it is any dishonour to him Howsoever if such or other distinctions can make it clear that S. Paul did not think Esaus or Pharaohs actions proceeded from the will and purpose of God or that proceeding from his will could not therefore without injustice be blamed or punished I will assoon as I understand them turn unto my Lords Opinion for I now hold nothing in all this question betwixt us but what seemeth to me not obscurely but most expressely said in this place by S. Paul And thus much in answer to his places of Scripture To the Arguments from Reason OF the Arguments from Reason the first is that which his Lordship saith is drawn from Zeno's beating of his man which is therefore called Argumentum baculinum that is to say a wooden Argument The story is this Zeno held that all actions were necessary his man therefore being for some fault beaten excused himself upon the necessity of it to avoid this excuse his Master pleaded likewise the necessity of beating him So that not he that maintained but he that derided the necessity was beaten contrary to that his Lordship would inferr And the Argument was rather withdrawn than drawn from the story The second Argument is taken from certain inconveniences which his Lordship thinks would follow such an opinion It is true that ill use might be made of it and therefore your Lordship and my Lord Bishop ought at my request to keep private what I say here of it But the inconveniences are indeed none and what use soever he 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 saies is this That the Laws which prohibit any action will be unjust 2. That all consultations are vain 3. That admonitions to men of understanding are of no more use than to children fools and mad men 4. That praise dispraise reward and punishment are in vain 5.6 That Counsels Acts Arms Books Instruments Study Tutours Medicines are in vain To which arguments his Lordship expecting I should answer by saying the ignorance of the event were enough to make us use the means adds as it were a reply to my answer foreseen these words A lass how should our not knowing the event be a sufficient motive to make us use the means Wherein his Lordship saies right but my answer is not that which he expecteth I answer First that the necessity of an action doth not make the Laws that prohibit 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 possibly be unjust in as much as every man maketh 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

things nearer the sence move more powerfully than reason what followeth thence but this the sence of the present good is commonly more immediate to the action than the foresight of the evil consequence to come Fourthly whereas his Lordship saies that do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his Son than for the sin of his soul makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding but it argues plainly that sorrow for sin is not voluntary and by consequence that Repentance proceedeth from Causes The last part of this discourse containeth his Lordships opinion about reconciling liberty with the prescience and decree of God otherwise than some Divines have done against whom he saies he had formerly written a Treatise out of which he repeateth onely two things One is that we ought not to desert a certain truth for not being able to comprehend the certain manner of it And I say the same as for example that his Lordship ought not to desert this certain truth That there are certain and necessary causes which make every man to will what he willeth though he do not yet conceive in what manner the will of man is caused And yet I think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive seeing we see daily that praise dispraise reward and punishment good and evil sequels of mens actions retained in memory do frame and make us to the election of whatsoever it be that we elect and that the memory of such things proceeds from the sences and sence from the operation of the objects of sence which are external to us and governed onely by God Almighty and by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents are necessary The other thing that he repeateth is that the best way to reconcile contingence and liberty with Prescience and the decrees of God is to subject future contingencies to the Aspect of God The same is also my opinion but cōtrary to what his Lordship all this while laboured to prove For hitherto he held liberty and necessity that is to say liberty and the decrees of God irreconcileable unless the Aspect of God which word appeareth now the first time in this discourse signifie somewhat else besides Gods will and decree which I cannot understand But he adds that we must subject them according to that presentiality which they have in eternity which he saies cannot be done by them that conceive Eternity to be an everlasting succession but onely by them that conceive it as an Indivisible point To which I answer that assoon as I can conceive Eternity to be an Indivisible point or any thing but an everlasting succession I will renounce all that I have written on this subject I know S. Thomas Aquinas calls Eternity Nunc stans an ever-abiding now which is easie enough to say but though I fain would yet I could never conceive it they that can are more happy than I. But in the mean time his Lordship alloweth all men to be of my opinion save onely those that can conceive in their minds a nunc stans which I think are none I understand as little how it can be true his Lordship saies that God is not just but justice it self not wise but wisdom it self not Eternal but Eternity it self nor how he concludes thence that Eternity is a point indivisible and not a succession nor in what sence it can be said that an infinite point and wherein is no succession can comprehend all time though time be successive These phrases I finde not in the Scripture I wonder therefore what was the design of the School-men to bring them up unless they thought a man could not be a true Christian unless his understanding be first strangled with such hard sayings And thus much for answer to his Lordships discourse wherein I think not onely his Squadrons of Arguments but also his Reserve of Distinctions are defeated And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the same question with my Reasons for it positively and as briefly as I can without any terms of Art in plain English My Opinion about LIBERTIE and NECESSITIE FIrst I conceive that when it cometh into a mans mind to do or not to do some certain action if he have no time to deliberate the doing it or abstaining necessarily follow the present thought he hath of the good or evil consequence thereof to himself As for example In sudden anger the action shall follow the thought of revenge in sudden fear the thought of escape Also when a man hath time to deliberate but deliberates not because never any thing appeared that could make him doubt of the consequence the action follows his opinion of the goodness or harm of it These actions I call VOLUNTARY my Lord if I understand him aright that calls them SPONTANEOUS I call them voluntarie because those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntarie and here where is one onely appetite that one is the last Besides I see 't is reasonable to punish a rash Action which could not be justly done by man to man unless the same were voluntarie For no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation though never so sudden because it is supposed he had time to deliberate all the precedent time of his life whether he should do that kind of action or not And hence it is that he that killeth in a sudden passion of Anger shall nevertheless be justly put to death because all the time wherein he was able to consider whether to kill were good or evil shall be held for one continual deliberation and consequently the killing shall be judged to proceed frōelection Secondly I conceive when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do it that he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it And to consider an action is to imagine the consequences of it both good and evil From whence is to be inferred that Deliberation is nothing else but alternate imagination of the good and evil sequels of an action or which is the same thing alternate hope and fear or alternate appetite to do or quit the action of which he deliberateth Thirdly I conceive that in all deliberations that is to say in at alternate succession of contrary appetites the last is that which we call the WILL is immediately next 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 deliberations are called Intentions Inclinations but not Wills there being but one will which also in this case may be called the last will though the Intentions change often Fourthly I conceive that those actions which a man is said to do upon deliberation are said to be voluntarie and done upon choice and election so that voluntarie action and action proceeding from election