a man ought not to follow the dictate of the understanding when it is erroneous b Of which I gave then three reasons one was that actions may be so equally circumstantiated that reason cannot give a positive sentence but leaves the election to liberty or chance To this he answers not a word There was no need of answer for he hath very often in this discourse contradicted it himself in that he maketh Reason to be the true root of liberty and men to have more or lesse liberty as they have more or lesse Reason How then can a man leave that to liberty when his Reason can give no sentence And for his leaving it to chance if by chance he mean that which hath no causes he destroyeth Providence and if he mean that which hath causes but unknown to us he leaveth it to necessity Besides it is false that actions may be so equally circumstantiated that Reason cannot give a positive sentence For though in the things to be elected there may be an exact equality yet there may be circumstances in him that is to elect to make him resolve upon that of the two which he considereth for the present and to break of all further deliberation for this cause that he must not to use his own instance by spending time in vain apply neither of the plaisters which the Chirurgion gives him to his wound Another of his reasons was because Reason doth not weigh every individual action to the uttermost grain True But does it therefore follow a man gives no sentence The Wil therefore may follow the dictate of the judgment whether the man weigh or not weigh all that might be weighed His third reason was because Passions and Affections sometime prevail against Judgment I consesse they prevail often against Wisdome which is it he means here by Judgment But they prevail not against the dictate of the understanding which he knows is the meaning of Judgment in this place And the Wil of a passionate and peevish fool doth no lesse follow the dictate of that little understanding he hath then the Wil of the wisest man followeth his wisedome c He explaineth the sense of the assertion by the comparison of the last feather wherewith he seems to be delighted seeing he useth it now the second time But let him like it as he Wil it is improper for three Reasons To me this comparison seemeth very proper and therefore I made no scruple though not much delighted with it as being no new comparison to use it again when there was need again For in the examination of truth I search rather for perspicuity then elegance But the Bishop with his School terms is far from perspicuity How neer he is to elegence I shall not forget to examine in due time But why is this comparison improper First because the determination of the Judgment is no part of the weight for the understanding weigheth all things Objects Means Circumstances Convenience Inconvenience but it self is not weighed In this comparison the Objects Means c. are the weights the man is the scale the understanding of a Convenience or Inconvenience is the pressure of those weights which incline him now one way now another and that inclination is the Wil. Again the Objects Means c. are the feathers that presse the Horse the feeling of that pressure is understanding and his patience or impatience the Wil to bear them if not too many or if too many to lye down under them T is therefore to little purpose that he saith the understanding is not weighed Secondly he says the comparison is improper because ordinarily the Means Circumstances and Causes concurrent have their whole weight from the understanding so as they do not presse the Horses back at all until Reason lay them on This and that which followeth that my Objects Agents Motives Passions and all my concurrent Causes ordinarily do onely move the Will morally not determine it naturally so as it hath in all ordinary actions a Free dominion over it self is all non sense for no man can understand that the understanding maketh any alteration in the Object in Weight or lightnesse nor that Reason lays on Objects upon the understanding nor that the Wil is moved nor that any motion is moral nor that these Words the Wil hath a Free dominion over it self signifie any thing With the rest of this Reply I shall trust the Reader and onely note the last Words where he makes me say Repentance hath causes and therefore it is not voluntary but I said repentance hath causes and that it is not voluntary he chops in and therefore and makes an absurd consequence which he would have the Reader believe was mine and then câ—nâ—utes it with these senselesse words Free effects have Free causes necessary effects necessary causes Voluntary effects have sometimes Free sometimes necessary causes Can any man but a Schoolman think the Wil is voluntary But yet the Wil is the cause of voluntary actions J. D. FIftly and lastly the Divine labours to find out a way how Num. 24. liberty may consist with the prescience and decrees of God But of this I had not very long since occasion to write a full discourse in answer to a Treatise against the prescience of things contingent I shall for the present only repeat these two things First we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner God should be but a poor God if we were able perfectly to comprehend all his Actions and Attributes Secondly in my poor judgment which I ever do and ever shall submit to better the readiest way to reconcile Contingence and Liberty with the decrees and prescience of God and most remote from the altercations of these times is to subject future contingents to the aspect of God according to that presentiality which they have in eternity Not that things future which are not yet existent are co-existent with God but because the infinite knowledge of God incircling all times in the point of eternity doth attain to their future Being from whence proceeds their objective and intelligible Being The main impediment which keeps men from subscribing to this way is because they conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession and not one indivisible point But if they consider that whatsoever is in God is God That there are no accidents in him for that which is infinitely perfect cannot be further perfected That as God is not wise but Wisedom it self not just but Justice it self so he is not eternal but Eternity it self They must needs conclude that therefore this eternity is indivisible because God is indivisible and therefore not successive but altogether an infinite point comprehending all times within it self T. H. THE last part of this discourse conteineth his opinion about reconciling Liberty with the Prescience and Decrees of God otherwise than some Divines have done against whom he had formerly written a
attein to the use of reason by degrees so by degeees they become free Agents Then they do deliberate before they do not deliberate The rod may be a means to make them use their reason when they have power to exercise it but the rod cannot produce the power before they have it Thirdly for Fools and mad Men It is not to be understood of such mad Men as have their lucida intervalla who are mad and discreet by fitts when they have the use of reason they are no mad Men but may deliberate as well as others Nor yet of such Fools as are only comparative Fools that is less wise than others Such may deliberate though not so clearly nor so judiciously as others but of meer mad Men and meer natural Fools to say that they who have not the use of reason do deliberate or use reason implies a contradiction But his chiefest confidence is in his Bees and Spiders of whose actions he saith if I had been a spectator I would have confessed not only Election but also Art Prudence Policy very near equal to that of Mankind whose life as Aristotle saith is civill Truly I have contemplated their actions many times and have been much taken with their curious works yet my thoughts did not reflect so much upon them as upon their maker who is sic magnus in magnis that he is not minor in parvis So great in great things that he is not less in small things Yes I have seen those silliest of creatures and seeing their rare works I have seen enough to confute all the bold-faced Atheists of this age and their hellish blasphemies I see them but I praised the marvaillous works of God and admired that great and first intellect who hath both adapted their organs and determined their fancies to these particular works I was not so simple to ascribe those Rarities to their own invention which I knew to proceed from a meer instinct of Nature In all other things they are the dullest of creatures Naturalists write of Bees that their fancy is imperfect not distinct from their common sense spread over their whole body and only perceiving things present When Aristotle calls them Political or Sociable Creatures he did not intend it really that they lived a civil life but according to an Analogy because they do such things by instinct as truly Political Creatures do out of judgement Nor when I read in St. Ambrose of their Hexagones or Sexangular celles did I therefore conclude that they were Mathematicians Nor when I read in Crespet that they invoke God to their aid when they go out of their Hives beâ—â—â—ing their thighs in form of a crosse and bowing themselves did I therefore think that this was an act of religious piety or that they were capable of Theological vertues whom I see in all other things in which their fancies are not determined to be the silliest of creatures strangers not only to right reason but to all resemblances of it Seventhly concerning those actions which are done 7. upon precedent and passed deliberations They are not only spontaneous but free acts Habits contracted by use and experience do help the Will to act with more facility and more determinately as the hand of the Artificer is helped by his tools And precedent deliberations if they were sad and serious and prooved by experience to be profitable do save the labour of subsequent consultations frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora yet nevertheless the actions which are done by vertue of these formerly acquired habits are no less free than if the deliberation were coexistent which this particular action He that hath gained an habit and skill to play such a lesson needs not a new deliberation how to play every time that he playes it over and over yet I am far from giving credit to him in this that walking or eating universally considered are free actions or proceed from true liberty not so much because they want a particular deliberation before every individual act as because they are animal motions and need no deliberation of reason as we see in brute beasts And nevertheless the same actions as they are considered individually and invested with their due circumstances may be and often are free actions subjected to the liberty of the Agent Lastly whereas T. H. compareth the first motions or 8. rash attempts of cholerick persons with such acquired habits it is a great mistake Those rash attempts are voluntary actions and may be facilitated sometimes by acquired habits But yet for as much as actions are often altered and varied by the circumstances of Time Place and Person so as that act which at one time is morally good at another time may be morally evil And for as much as a general precedent deliberation how to do this kind of action is not sufficient to make this or that particular action good or expedient which being in it self good yet particular circumstances may render inconvenient or unprofitable to some persons at some times in some places Therefore a precedent general deliberation how to do any act as for instance how to write is not sufficient to make a particular act as my writing this individual Reply to be freely done without a particular and subsequent deliberation A man learns French adviseâ—â—y that is a free act The same man in his choler and passion reviles his friend in French without any deliberation this is a spontaneous act but it is not a free act If he had taken time to advise he would not have reviled his friend Yet as it is not free so neither is it so necessary as the Bees making honey whose fancy is not only inclined but determined by nature to that act So every way he failes And his conclusion that the liberty of Election doth not take away the necessity of electing this or that individual thing is no consequent from my doctrine but from his own Neither do my arguments fight one against another but his private opinions fight both against me and against an undoubted truth A free Agent endowed with liberty of election or with an elective power may nevertheless be necessitated in some individual acts but those acts wherein he is necessitated do not flow from his elective power neither are those acts which flow from his elective power necessitated Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number VIII a THe first thing that I offer is how often he mistakes my meaning in this one Section First I make Voluntary and Spontaneous actions to be one and the same He saith I distinguish them c. It is very possible I may have mistaken him for neither he nor I understand him If they be one why did he without need bring in this strange word Spontaneous Or rather why did the School men bring it in if not meerly to shift off the difficulty of maintaining their tenet of Free-Will b Secondly he saith I distinguish between
have withdrawn their obedience as Lions and Bears to shew that man hath lost the â—…cy of his dominion and the weakest creatures as Flies and Gnats to shew into what a degree of contempt he is fallen yet still the most profitable and useful creatures as Sheep and Oxen do in some degree retain their obedience i The next branch of his answer concernes consultations which saith he are not superfluous though all things come to pass necessarily because they are the cause which doth necessitate the effect and the means to bring it to pass We were told Numb 11. that the last dictate of right reason was but as the last feather which breaks the Horses back It is well yet that reason hath gained some command again and is become at least a Quarter-master Certainly if any thing under God have power to determine the will it is right reason But I have shewed sufficiently that reason doth not determine the will physically nor absolutely much less extrinsecally and antecedently and therefore it makes nothing for that necessity which T. H. hath undertaken to prove k He adds further that as the end is necessary so are the means And when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another it is determined also for what cause it shall be so chosen All which is truth but not the whole truth for as God ordaines means for all ends so he adapts and fits the means to their respective ends free means to free ends contingent means to contingent ends necessary means to necessary ends whereas T. H. would have all means all ends to be necessary If God hath so ordered the World that a man ought to use and may freely use those means of God which he doth neglect not by vertue of Gods decree but by his own fault If a man use those means of evil which he ought not to use and which by Gods decree he had power to forbear If God have left to man in part the free managery of human affairs and to that purpose hath endowed him with understanding then consultations are of use then provident care is needfull then it concerns him to use the means But if God have so ordered this world that a man cannot if he would neglect any means of good which by vertue of Gods decree it is possible for him to use and that he cannot possibly use any means of evill but those which are irresistibly and inevitably imposed upon him by an antecedent decree then not onely consultations are vain but that noble facnâ—ty of reason it self is vain do we think that we can help God Almighty to do his proper work In vain we trouble our selves in vain we take care to use those means which are not in our power to use or not to use And this is that which was conteined in my prolepsis or prevention of his answer though he be pleased both to disorder it and to silence it We cannot hope by our labours to alter the course of things set down by God let him perform his decree let the necessary causes do their work If we be those causes yet we are not in our own disposition we must do what we are ordained to do and more we cannot do Man hath no remedy but patience and to shrug up the shoulders This is the doctrine flowes from this opinion of absolute necessity Let us suppose the great wheel of the clock which sets all the little wheels a going to be as the decree of God that the motion of it were perpetually infallible from an intrinsecal principle even as Gods decree is Infallible Eternal All-sufficient Let us suppose the lesser wheels to be the second causes and that they do as certainly follow the motion of the great wheel without missing or swerving in the least degree as the second causes do pursue the determination of the first cause I desire to know in this case what cause there is to call a Councill of Smiths to consult and order the motion of that which was ordered and determined before to their hands Are men wiser than God yet all men know that the motion of the lesser wheels is a necessary means to make the clock sirike l But he tells me in great sadness that my Argument is just like this other If I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self through with a sword to day which saith he is a false consequence and a false proposition Truly if by running through he understands killing it is a false or rather a foolish proposition and implyes a contradiction To live till to morrow and â—o dye to day are inconsistent But by his favour this is not my consequence but this is his own opinion He would perswade us that it is absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to morrow and yet that it is possible that he may kill himself to day My Argument is this If there be a liberty and possibility for a man to kill himself to day then it is not absolutely necessary that he shall live till tomorrow but there is such a liberty therefore no such necessity And the consequence which I make here is this If it be absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to morrow then it is vain and superfluous for him to consult and deliberate whether he should dye to day or not And this is a true consequence The ground of his mistake is this that though it be true that a man may kill himself to day yet upon the supposition of his absolute necessity it is impossible Such Heterogeneous arguments and instances he produceth which are half builded upon our true grounds and the other half upon his false grounds m The next branch of my argument concerns Admonitions to which he gives no new answer and therefore I need not make any new reply saving onely to tell him that he mistakes my argument I say not onely If all things be necessary then admonitions are in vain but if all things be necessary then it is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or mad men That they do admonish the one and not the other is confessedly true and no reason under heaven can be given for it but this that the former have the use of reason and true liberty with a dominion over their own actions which children fools and mad men have not Concerning praise and dispraise he inlargeth himself The scope of his discourse is that things necessary may be praise-worthy There is no doubt of it but withal their praise reflects upon the free agent as the praise of a statue reflects upon the workman who made it To praise a thing saith he is to say it is good n True but this goodness is not a Metaphysical goodness so the worst of things and whatsoever hath a being is good Nor a Natural goodness The praise of it passeth wholly to the Author of Nature
judgment is no part of the weight but is the sentence of the trier The understanding weigheth all Things Objects Means Circumstances Convenience Inconvenience but it self is not weighed Secondly the sensitive passion in some extraordinary cases may give a counterfeit weight to the object if it can detein or divert reason from the ballance but ordinarily the Means Circumstances and Causes concurrent they have their whole weight from the understanding So as they do not press the horses back at all until reason lay them on Thirdly he conceives that as each feather hath a certain natural weight whereby it concurs not arbitrarily but necessarily towards the overcharging of the horse So all objects and causes have a naturall efficiency whereby they do Physically determin the will which is a great mistake His Objects his Agents his Motives his Passions and all his concurrent causes ordinarily do onely moove the will morally not determine it naturally So as it hath in all ordinary actions a free dominion over it self His other example of a man that strikes whose will to strike followeth necessarily that thought he had of the sequell of this stroke immediately before the lifting up of his hand as it confounds passionate indeliberate thoughts with the dictates of right reason so it is very uncertain for between the cup and the lip between the lifting up of the hand and the blow the will may alter and the judgment also And lastly it is impertinent for that necessity of striking proceeds from the free determination of the Agent and not from the special influence of any outward determining causes And so it is onely a necessity upon supposition Concerning Medeas choise the strength of the argument doth not lye either in the fact of Medea which is but a fiction or in the authority of the Poet who writes things rather to be admired than believed but in the experience of all men who find it to be true in themselves That sometimes reason doth shew unto a man the exorbitancy of his passion that what he desires is but a pleasant good that what he loseth by such a choise is an honest good That that which is honest is to be preferred before that which is pleasant yet the will pursues that which is pleasant and neglects that which is honest St. Paul saith as much in earnest as is feined of Medea That he approoved not that which he did and that he did that which he hated Rom. 7. 15. The Roman Story is mistaken There was no bribe in the case but affection Whereas I urge that those things which are neerer to the senses do moove more powerfully he layes hold on it and without answering to that for which I produced it infers That the sense of present good is more immediate to the action than the foresight of evil consequents Which is true but it is not absolutely true by any antecedent necessity Let a man do what he may do and what he ought to do and sensitive objects will lose that power which they have by his own fault and neglect Antecedent or indeliberate concupiscence doth sometimes but rarely surprise a man and render the action not free But consequent and deliberated concupiscence which proceeds from the rational will â—oth render the action more free not less free and introduceth onely a necessity upon supposition Lastly he saith that a mans mourning more for the loss of his Child than for his sin makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding Yes very much Reason dictates that a sin committed is a greater evil than the loss of a Child and ought more to be lamented for yet we see daily how affection prevailes against the dictate of reason That which he inferrs from hence that sorrow for sin is not voluntary and by consequence that repentance proceedeth from causes is true as to the latter part of it but not in his sense The causes from whence repentance doth proceed are Gods grace preventing and mans will concurring God prevents freely man concurs freely Those inferiour Agents which sometimes do concur as subordinate to the grace of God do not cannot determine the will naturally And therefore the former part of his inference that sorrow for sin is not voluntary is untrue and altogether groundless That is much more truely and much more properly said to be voluntary which proceeds from judgment and from the rational will than that which proceeds from passion and from the sensitive will One of the main grounds of all T. H. his errours in this question is that he acknowledgeth no efficacy but that which is natural Hence is this wild consequence Repentance hath causes and therefore it is not voluntary Free effects have free causes necessary effects necessary causes voluntary effects have sometimes free sometimes necessary causes Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XXIII a SUpposing the last dictate of the understanding did alwayes determine the Wil yet this determination being not antecedent in time nor proceeding from extrinsecall causes but from the proper resolution of the Agent who had now freely determined himself makes no absolute necessity but onely Hypothetical c. This is the Bishops answer to the necessity inferred from that that the Wil necessarily followeth the last dictate of the understanding which answer he thinks is not sufficiently taken away because the last act of the understanding is in time together with the Wil it self and therefore not antecedent It is true that the Wil is not produced but in the same Instant with the last dictate of the understanding but the necessity of the Wil and the necessity of the last dictate of the understanding may have been antecedent For that last dictate of the understanding was produced by causes antecedent and was then necessary though not yet produced as when a stone is falling the necessity of touching the earth is antecedent to the touch it self For all motion through any determined space necessarily makes a motion through the next space unlesse it be hindered by some contrary external motion and then the stop is as necessary as the proceeding would have been The Argument therefore from the last dictate of the understanding sufficiently inferreth an antecedent necessity as great as the necessity that a stone shall fall when it is already falling As for his other answer that the Wil does not certainly follow the last dictate of the understandig though it alwayes ought to follow it he himself says it is but probable but any man that speaks not by rote but thinks of what he says will presently find it false and that it is impossible to will any thing that appears not first in his understanding to be good for him And whereas he says the Wil ought to follow the last dictate of the understanding unlesse he mean that the man ought to follow it it is an insignificant speech for duties are the man 's not the Wils duties and if he means so then t is false for
do a thing or not do a thing 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 but alternate imagination of the good and evil sequells of an action or which is the same thing alternate hope and fear or alternate appetite to do or acquit the action of which he deliberateth J. D. a IF I did not know what deliberation was I should be little relieved in my knowledge by this description Sometimes he makes it to be a consideration or an act of the understanding sometimes an imagination or an act of the fancy sometimes he makes it to be an alternation of passions hope fear Sometimes he makes it concern the end sometimes to concern the means So he makes it I know not what The truth is this in brief Deliberation is an inquiry made by reason whether this or that definitely considered be a good and fit means or indefinitely what are good and fit means to be chosen for attaining some wished end Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXVI a IF I did not know what Deliberation was I should be little relieved in my knowledge by this description Sometimes he makes it to be a consideration or an act of the understanding sometimes an imagination or an act of the fancy c. So he makes it I know not what If the Bishop had observed what he does himself when he Deliberates reasons understands or imagins he would have known what to make of all that I have said in this Number He would have known that consideration understanding reason and all the passions of the mind are imaginations That to consider a thing is to imagine it that to understand a thing is to imagine it that to hope and fear are to imagine the things hoped for and feared The difference between them is that when we imagine the consequence of any thing we are said to consider that thing and when we have imagined any thing from a sign and especially from those signs we call names we are said to understand his meaning that maketh the sign and when we reason we imagine the consequence of affirmations and negations joyned together and when we hope or fear we imagine things good or hurtful to our selves insomuch as all these are but imaginations diversly named from different circumstances as any man may perceive as easily as he can look into his own thoughts But to him that thinketh not himself upon the things where of but upon the words where with he speaketh and taketh those words on trust from pushed Schoolmen it is not onely hard but impossible to be known And this is the reason that maketh him say I make Deliberation he knows not what But how is deliberation defined by him It is saith he an inquiry made by reason whether this or that definitely considered be a good and fit means or indefinitely what are good and fit means to be chosen for attaining some wished end If it were not his custome to say the understanding understandeth the Wil willeth and so of the rest of the faculties I should have believed that when he says deliberation is an inquiry made by reason he meaneth an inquiry made by the man that reasoneth for so it will be sense But the reason which a man useth in deliberation being the same thing that is called Deliberation his Definition that Deliberation is an inquiry made by reason is no more then if he had said Deliberation is an inquiry made by Deliberation a Definition good enough to be made by a School-man Nor is the rest of the Definition altogether as it should be for there is no such thing as an indefinite consideration of what are good and fit means but a man imagining first one thing then another considereth them successively and singly each one whether it conduceth to his ends or not T. H. THirdly I conceive that in all deliberations that is to say in all alternate succession of contrary appetites the last is that which we cal the Wil is immediatly before the doing of the action or next before the doing of it become impossible All other appetites to do and to quit that come upon a man during his deliberation are usually called intentions and inclinations but not wills there being but one will which also in this case may be called last will though the intention change often J. D. a STill here is nothing but confusion he confounds the faculty of the will with the act of volition he makes the wil to be the last part of deliberation he makes the intention which is a most proper and elicite act of the will or a willing of the end as it is to be attainâ—â— by certain means to be no willing at all but onely some antecedaneous inclination or propension He might as well say that the uncertain agitation of the needle hither and thither to find out the Pole the resting or fixing of it self directly towards the Pole were both the same thing But the grossest mistake is that he will acknowledge no act of a mans will to be his will but onely the last act which he calls the last will If the first were no will how comes this to be the last will According to this doctrine the will of a man should be as unchangeable as the Will of God at least so long as there is a possibility to effect it b According to this doctrine concupiscence with consent should be no sin for that which is not truely willed is not a sin Or rather should not be at all unless either the act followed or were rendred impossible by some intervening circumstances According to this Doctrine no man can say this is my will because he knowes not yet whether it shall be his last appeal The truth is there be many acts of the will both in respect of the means and of the end But that act which makes a mans actions to be truely free is Election which is the deliberate chosing or refusing of this or that means or the acceptation of one means before another where divers are represented by the understanding Animadversions upon the Answer to Numb XXVII a STill here is nothing but confusion he con founds the faculty of the Wil with the act of Volition he makes the Wil to be the last part of Deliberation he makes the intention which is a most proper and elicite act of the Wil to be no Willing at all but onely some antecedâ—nâ—ous he might as well have said antecedent inclination To confound the faculty of the Wil with the Wil were to confound a Wil with no Wil for the faculty of the Wil is no Wil the Act onely which he calls Volition is the Wil. As a man that sleâ—peth hath the Power of seeing and seeth not nor hath
to motion Also he will face me down that I understand what he meanes by his distinctions of liberty of Contrariety of Contradiction of Exercise onely of Exercise and Specification jointly If he mean I understand his meaning in one sence it is true for by them he means to shift off the discredit of being able to say nothing to the Question as they do that pretending to know the cause of every thing give for the cause of why the Loadstone draweth to it Iron sympathy occult quality making they cannot tell turned now into Occult to stand for thereall cause of that most admirable effect But that those words signifie distinction I constantly deny It is not enough for a distinction to be forked it ought to signifie a distinct conception There is great difference between luade distinctions and cloven feet b It is strange to see with what confidence now adayes particular men slight all the Schoolmen and Philosophers and Classick Authors of former ages c. This word particular men is put here in my opinion with little judgement especially by a man that pretendeth to be learned Does the Bishop think that he himself is or that there is any Universal man It may be he means a private man Does he then think there is any man not private besides him that is indued with Soveraign power But it is most likely he calls me a particular man because I have not had the authority he has had to teach what doctrine I think fit But now I am no more Particular than he and may with as good a grace despise the Schoolmen and some of the old Philosophers as he can despise me unless he can shew that it is more likely that he should be better able to look into these Questions sufficiently which require meditation and reflection upon a mans own thoughts he that hath been obliged most of his time to preach unto the people and to that end to read those Authors that can best furnish him with what he has to say and to study for the rhetorick of his expressions and of the spare time which to a good Pastor is very little hath spent no little part in seeking preferment and encreasing of riches than I that have done almost nothing else nor have had much else to do but to meditate upon this and other natural Questions It troubles him much that I stile School-learning Jargon I do not call all School-learning so but such as is so that is that wch they say in defending of untruths and especially in the maintenance of Free-will when they talk of liberty of Exercise Specification Contrariety Contradiction Acts Elicite and Exercite and the like Which though he go over again in this place endeavouring to explain them are still both here and there but Jargon or that if he like it better which the Scripture in the first Chaos calleth Tohu and Bohu But because he takes it so hainously that a private man should so hardly censure School-Divinity I would be glad to know with what patience he can hear Martin Luther and Phillip Melancthon speaking of the same Martin Luther that was the first beginner of our deliverance from the servitude of the Romish Clergy had these three Articles censured by the University of Paris The first of which was School-Theology is a false interpretation of the Scripture and Sacraments which hath banished from us true and sinceere Theology The second is At what time School-Theology that is Mock-Theology came up at the same time the Theology of Christs Crosse went down The third is It is now almost 300 years since the Church has endured the licentiousnes of School Doctors in corrupting of the Scriptures Moreover the same Luther in another place of his works saith thus School-Theology is nothing else but ignorance of the truth and a block to stumble at laid before the Scriptures And of Tho. Aquinas in particular he saith that it was he that did set up the Kingdome of Aristotle the destroyer of godly Doctrine And of the Philosophy whereof St. Paul biddeth us beware he saith it is School-Theology And Melancthon a Divine once much esteemed in our Church saith of it thus T is known that that profane Scholastique learning which they will have to be called Divinity began at Paris which being admitted nothing is left sound in the Church the Gospel is obscured Faith extinguished the Doctrine of works received and instead of Christs People we are become not so much as the people of the Law but the people of Aristotles Ethiques These were no raw Divines such as he saith preacht to their equally ignorant Auditors I could ad to these the slighting of School-Divinity by Calvin and other learned Protestant Doctors yet were they all but private men who it seemes to the Bishop had forgot themselves as well as I. J. D. THus the coast being cleared the next thing to be done Numb 5. is to draw out our forces against the enemy And because they are divided into two Squadrons the one of Christians the other of Heathen Philosophers it will be best to dispose ours also into two Bodies the former drawn from Scripture the later from Reason T. H. THe next thing be doth after the clearing of the coast is the dividing of his forces as he calls them into two Squadrons one of places of Scripture the other of Reasons which Allegory be useth I suppose because he addresseth the discourse to your Lordship who is a Millitary Man All that I have to say touching this is that I observe a great part of those his forces do look and march another way and some of them do fight among themselves J. D. IF T. H. could divide my forces and commit them together among themselves it were his onely way to conquer them But he will find that those imaginary contradictions which he thinks he hath espied in my discourse are but fancies and my supposed impertinences wil prove his own real mistakings IN this fift Number there is nothing of his or mine pertinent to the Question therefore nothing necessary to be repeated J. D. Proofs of Liberty out of Scripture FIrst whosoever have power of election have true Liberty Numb 6. 1. for the proper act of liberty is election A Spontaneity may consist with determination to one as we see in Children Fools mad Men bruit Beasts whose fancies are determined to those things which they act Spontaneously as the Bees make Honey the Spiders Webs But none of these have a liberty of election which is an act of judgement and understanding and cannot possibly consist with a determination to one He that is determined by something before himself or without himself cannot be said to choose or elect unless it be as the Junior of the Mess chooseth in Cambridge whether he will have the least part or nothing And scarcely so much But men have liberty of election This is plain Numb 30. 14. If a Wife make a vow
And howsoever it be determined yet being determined it is not in his power indifferently either to establish it or to make it void at his pleasure So Joshua 24. 15. Choose you this day whom ye will serve But I and my house will serve the Lord. It is too late to choose that this day which was determined otherwise yesterday whom ye will serve whether the Gods whom your fathers served or the Gods of the Amorites Where there is an election of this or that these Gods or those Gods there must needs be either an indifferency to both objects or at least a possibility of either I and my house will seve the Lord. If he were extrinsecally predetermined he should not say I will serve but I must serve And 2 Sam. 24. 12. I offer thee three things choose thee which of them I shall do How doth God offer three things to Davids choice if he had predetermined him to one of the three by a concourse of necessary extrinsecal causes If a soveraign Prince should descend so far as to offer a delinquent his choice whether he would be fined or imprisoned or banished and had under hand signed the sentence of his banishment what were it else but plain drollery or mockery This is the argument which in T. H. his opinion looks another way If it do it is as the Parthians used to fight flying His reason followes next to be considered Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number VI. IN this Number he hath brought three places of Scripture to prove Free-Will The first is If a Wife make a vow it is left to her Husbands choice either to establish it or to make it void And Choose you this day whom you will serve c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. And I offer thee three things choose thee which of them I shall do Which in the Reply he endeavoureth to make good but needed not seeing they prove nothing but that a man is Free to do if he will which I deny not He ought to prove he is Free to will which I deny a Secondly I prove it by instances and by that universal notion which the world hath of Election His instances are first the difference between an Hereditary Kingdom and an Elective and then the difference between the Senior and Junior of the Mess taking their commons both which prove the liberty of doing what they will but not a liberty to will for in the first case the Electors are Free to name whom they will but not to Will and in the second the Senior having an appetite chooseth what he hath an appetite to but chooseth not his appetite T. H. FOr if there come into the Husbands mind greater good by establishing Numb 7. than abrogating such a vow the establishing will follow necessarily And if the evill that will follow thereon in the Husbands opinion outweigh the good the contrary must needs follow And yet in this following of ones hopes and feares consisteth the nature of Election So that a man may both choose this and cannot but choose this And consequently choosing and necessity are joyned together J. D. â—THere is nothing said with more shew of reason in this cause by the patrons of necessity and adversaries of true liberty than this That the Will doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding or the last judgement of right reason 〈…〉 in this and this onely I confess T. H. hath good seconds Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary And justly For First this very act of the understanding is an effect of 1. the will and a testimony of its power and liberty It is the will which affecting some particular good doth ingage and command the understanding to consult and deliberate what means are convenient for atteining that end And though the Will it self be blind yet its object is good in general which is the end of all human actions Therefore it belongs to the Will as to the General of an Army to move the other powers of the soul to their acts and among the rest the understanding also by applying it and reducing its power into act So as whatsoever obligation the understanding doth put upon the Will is by the consent of the Will and derived from the power of the Will which was not necessitated to moove the understanding to consult So the Will is the Lady and Mistriss of human actions the understanding is her trusty counseller which gives no advise but when it is required by the Will And if the first consultation or deliberation be not sufficient the Will may moove a review and require the understanding to inform it self better and take advise of others from whence many times the judgment of the understanding doth receive alteration Secondly for the manner how the understanding doth 2. determine the Will it is not naturally but morally The Will is mooved by the understanding not as by an efficient having a causal influence into the effect but onely by proposing and representing the object And therefore as it were ridiculous to say that the object of the sight is the cause of seeing so it is to say that the proposing of the object by the understanding to the will is the cause of willing and therefore the understanding hath no place in that concourse of causes which according to T. H. do necessitate the will Thirdly the judgement of the understanding is not alwayes 3. practicè practicum nor of such a nature in it self as to oblige and determine the will to one Sometimes the understanding proposeth two or three means equally available to the atteining of one and the same end Sometimes it dictateth that this or that particular good is eligible or fit to be chosen but not that it is necessarily eligible or that it must be chosen It may judge this or that to be a fit means but not the onely means to attain the desired end In these cases no man can doubt but that the Will may choose or not choose this or that indifferently Yea though the understanding shall judge one of these means to be more expedient than another yet for as much as in the less expedient there is found the reason of good the Will in respect of that dominion which it hath over it self may accept that which the understanding judgeth to be less expedient and refuse that which it judgeth to be more expedient Fourthly sometimes the will doth not will the end so efficaciously 4. but that it may be and often is deterred from the prosecution of it by the difficulty of the means and notwithstanding the judgement of the understanding the will may still suspend its own act Fiftly supposing but not granting that the will did necessarily 5. follow the last dictate of the understanding yet this proves no antecedent necessity but coexistent with the act no extrinsecal necessity the will and the understanding being but
not indeed He who casts his goods into the Sea may do it of his own accord in order to the end Secondly he erres in this also that nothing is opposed to spontaneity but onely fear Invincible and Antecedent ignorance doth destroy the nature of spontaneity or voluntariness by removing that knowledge which should and would have prohibited the action As a man thinking to shoot a wild Beast in a Bush shoots his friend which if he had known he would not have shot This man did not kill his friend of his own accord For the clearer understanding of these things and to know 4. what spontaneity is let us consult a while with the Schools about the distinct order of voluntary or involuntary actions Some acts proceed wholly from an extrinsecal cause as the throwing of a stone upwards a rape or the drawing of a Christian by plain force to the Idols Temple these are called violent acts Secondly some proceed from an intrinsecal cause but without any manner of knowledge of the end as the falling of a stone downwards these are called natural acts Thirdly some proceed from an internal principle with an imperfect knowledge of the end where there is an appetite to the object but no deliberation nor election as the acts of Fools Children Beasts and the inconsiderate act of men of judgement These are called voluntary or spontaneous acts Fourthly some proceed from an intrinsecal cause with a more perfect knowledge of the end which are elected upon deliberation These are called free acts So then the formal reason of liberty is election The necessary requisite to election is deliberation Deliberation implyeth the actual use of reason But deliberation and election cannot possibly subsist with an extrinsecal praedetermination to one How should a man deliberate or choose which way to go who knows that all wayes are shut against him and made impossible to him but onely one This is the genuine sense of these words Voluntary and Spontaneous in this Question Though they were taken twenty other waies vnlgarly or metaphorically as we say spontaneous ulcers where there is no appetite at all yet it were nothing to this controversie which is not about Words but about Things not what the words Voluntary or Free do or may signifie but whether all things be extrinsecally praedetermined to one These grounds being laid for clearing the true sense of the words the next thing to be examined is that contradiction which he hath espied in my discourse or how this Argument fights against his fellows If I saith T. H. make it appear that the spontaneous actions of Fools Children mad Men and Beasts do proceed from election and deliberation and that inconsiderate and indeliberate actions are found in the wisest men then this argument concludes that necessity and election may stand together which is contrary to his assertion If this could be made appear as easily as it is spoken it would concern himself much who when he should prove that rational men are not free from necessity goes about to prove that brute Beasts do deliberate and elect that is as much as to say are free from necessity But it concerns not me at all it is neither my assertion nor my opinion that necessity and election may not meet together in the same subject violent natural spontaneous and deliberate or elective acts may all meet together in the same subject But this I say that necessity and election cannot consist together in the same act He who is determined to one is not free to choose out of more then one To begin with his later supposition that wise men may do inconsiderate and indeliberate actions I do readily admit it But where did he learn to infer a general conclusion from particular premises as thus because wise men do some indeliberate acts therefore no act they do is free or elective Secondly for his former supposition That Fools Children mad Men and Beasts do deliberate and elect if he could make it good it is not I who contradict my self nor fight against mine own assertion but it is he who endeavours to prove that which I altogether deny He may well find a contradiction between him and me otherwise to what end is this dispute But he shall not be able to find a difference between me and my self But the truth is he is not able to proove any such thing and that brings me to my sixth Consideration That neither Horses nor Bees nor Spiders nor Children nor Fools nor Mad-men do deliberate or elect His 6. first instance is in the Horse or Dog but more especially the Horse He told me that I divided my argument into squadrons to apply my self to your Lordship being a Military man And I apprehend that for the same reason he gives his first instance of the Horse with a submission to your own experience So far well but otherwise very disadvantageously to his cause Men use to say of a dull fellow that he hath no more brains than a Horse And the Prophet David saith Be not like the Horse and Mule which have no understanding Psal. 32. 9. How do they deliberate without understanding And Psal. 49. 20. he saith the same of all brute Beasts Man being in honour had no understanding but became like unto the Beasts that perish The Horse dâ—â—urres upon his way Why not Outward objects or inward fancies may produce a stay in his course though he have no judgement either to deliberate or elect He retires from some strange figure which he sees and comes on again to avoid the spur So he may and yet be far enough from deliberation All this proceeds from the sensitive passion of fear which is a perturbation arising from the expectation of some imminent evil But he urgeth what else doth man that deliberateth Yes very much The Horse feareth some outward object but deliberation is a comparing of several means conducing to the same end Fear is commonly of one deliberation of more than one fear is of those things which are not in our power deliberation of those things which are in our power fear ariseth many times out of natural antipathies but in these disconveniences of nature deliberation hath no place at all In a word fear is an enemy to deliberation and betrayeth the succours of the Soul If the Horse did deliberate he should consult with reason whether it were more expedient for him to go that way or not He would represent to himself all the dangers both of going and staying and compare the one with the other and elect that which is less evil He should consider whether it were not better to endure a little hazard than ungratefully and dishonestly to fail in his duty towards his Master who did breed him and doth feed him This the Horse doth not Neither is it possible for him to do it Secondly for Children T. H. confesseth that they may be so young that they do not deliberate at all Afterwards as they
If the Will do not suspend but assent then the act is necessary but because the Will may suspend and not assent therefore it is not absolutely necessary In the former case the Will is moved necessarily and determinately In the later freely and indeterminately The former excitation is immediate the later is mediaté mediante intellectu and requires the help of the understanding In a word so great a difference there is between natural and moral efficacy as there is between his opinion and mine in this Question There remains onely the last dictate of the understanding which he maketh to be the last cause that concurreth to the determination of the Will and to the necessary production of the act as the last feather may be said to break an Horses back when there were somany laid on before that there wanted but that to do it I have shewed Numb 7. that the last dictate of the understanding is not alwaies absolute in it self nor conclusive to the Will and when it is conclusive yet it produceth no antecedent nor extrinsecal Necessity I shall only ad one thing more in present That by making the last judgement of right reason to be of no more weight then a single feather he wrongs the understanding as well as he doth the Will and endeavonrs to deprive the Will of its supreme power of application and to deprive the understanding of its supreme power of judicature and definition Neither corporeal agents and objects nor yet the sensitive appetite it self being an inferiour faculty and affixed to the Organ of the Body have any direct or immediate dominion or command over the rational Will It is without the sphear of their activity All the access which they have unto the Will is by the means of the understanding sometimes cleare and sometimes disturbed and of reason either right or mis-informed Without the help of the understanding all his second causes were not able of themselves to load the Horses back with so much weight as the least of all his feathers doth amount unto But we shall meet with his Horse load of feathers again Numb 23. These things being thus briefly touched he proceeds to his answer My argument was this If any of these â—rall these causes formerly recited do take away true liberty that is still intended from necessity then Adam before his fall had no true liberty But Adam before his fall had true liberty He mis-recites the argument and denies the consequence which is so clearly proved that no man living can doubt of it Because Adam was subjected to all the same causes as well as we the same decree the same prescience the same influences the same concourse of causes the same efficacy of objects the same dictates of reason But it is onely a mistake for it appears plainly by his following discourse that he intended to deny not the consequence but the assumption For he makes Adam to have had no liberty from necessity before his fall yea he proceeds so far as to affirm that all humane wills his and ours and each propension of our wills even during our deliberation are as much necessitated as any thing else whatsoever that we have no more power to forbear those actions which we do than the fire hath power not to burn Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning yet I must confess ingeniously I hate this Doctrine from my heart And I believe both I have reason so to do and al others who shall seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it It destroyes liberty dishonours the nature of Man It makes the second causes outward objects to be the Rackets and Men to be but the Tennis-Balls of destiny It makes the first cause that is God Almighty to be the introducer of all evil and sin into the world as much as Man yea more than Man by as much as the motion of the Watch is more from the Artificer who did make it and wind it up than either from the spring or the wheels or the thred if God by his special influence into the second causes did necessitate them to operate as they did And if they being thus determined did necessitate Adam inevitably irresistably not by an accidental but by an essential subordination of causes to whatsoever he did Then one of these two absurdities must needs follow either that Adam did not sin and that there is no such thing as sin in the world because it proceeds naturally necssarily and essentially from God Or that God is more guilty of it and more the cause of evil than Man because Man is extrinsecally inevitably determined but so is not God And in causes essentially subordinate the cause of the cause is alwaies the cause of the effect What Tyrant did ever impose Lawes that were impossible for those to keep upon whom they were imposed and punish them for breaking those Laws which he himself had necessitated them to break which it was no more in their power not to break than it is in the power of the fire not to burn Excuse me if I hate this Doctrine with a perfect hatred which is so dishonourable both to God and Man which makes Men to blaspheme of necessity to steal of necessity to be hanged of necessity and to be damned of necessity And therefore I must say and say again Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulous odi It were better to be an Atheist to believe no God or to be a Manichee to believe two Gods a God of good and a God of evil or with the Heathens to believe thirty thousand Gods than thus to charge the true God to be the proper cause and the true Author of all the sins and evills which are in the world Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Number XI aTHis Argument was sent forth only as an espie to make a more full discovery what were the true grounds of T. H. his supposed Necessity The Argument which he sendeth forth as an Espie is this If either the decree of God or the Fore-knowledge of God or the Influence of the Stars or the Concatenation which he saies falsly I call a Concourse of causes or the Physical or Moral Efficacy of objects or the last Dictate of the Understanding do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty In answer whereunto I said that all the things now existent were necessary to the production of the effect to come that the Fore-knowledge of God causeth nothing though the Will do that the influence of the Stars is but a small part of that cause which maketh the Necessity and that this consequence If the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect then Adam had no true liberty was false But in his words if these do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty the consequence is good but then I deny that Necessity takes away Liberty the reason
debt That cannot â—e for they have no sense of debt or duty And I think he will not say that they have received a command to obey him from authority It resteth therefore that the dominion of man consists in this that men are too hard for Lions and Bears because though a Lion or a Bear be stronger than a man yet the strength and art and specially the Leaguâ—ing and Societies of men are a greater power than the ungoverned strength of unruly Beasts In this it is that consisteth this dominion of man and for the same reason when a hungry Lion meeteth an unarmed man in a desert the Lion hath the dominion over the man if that of man over Lions or over Sheeep and Oxen may be called dominion which properly it cannot nor can it be said that Sheep and Oxen do otherwise obey us than they would do a Lion And if we have dominion over Sheep and Oxen we exercise it not as dominion but as hostility for we keep them onely to labour and to be kill'd and devoured by us so that Lions and Bears would be as good Maters to them as we are By this short passage of his concerning Dominion and Obedience I have no reason to expect a very shrewd answer from him to my Leviathan i The next branch of his Answer concerns Consultations which saith he are not superfluous though all things come to pass necessarily because they are the cause which doth necessitate the effect and the means to bring it to pass His Reply to this is that he hath shewed sufficiently that reason doth not determine the will Physically c. If not Physically how then As he hath told us in another place Morally But what it is to determine a thing Morally no man living understands I doubt not but be had therefore the Will to write this Reply because I had answered his Treatise concerning true Liberty My answer therefore was at least in part the cause of his writing yet that is the cause of the nimble local motion of his fingers Is not the cause of local motion Physical His Will therefore was Physically and Extrinsecally and Antecedently and not Morally caused by my writing k He adds further that as the end is necessary so are the means And when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another it is determined also for what cause it shall be so chosen All which is truth but not the whole truth c. Is it not enough that it is truth must I put all the truth I know into two or three lines No. I should have added that God doth adapt and fit the means to their respective ends free means to free ends contingent means to contingent ends necessary means to necessary ends It may be I would have done so but for shame Free Contingent and Necessary are not words that can be joined to Means or Ends but to Agents and Actions that is to say to things that moove or are moved A Free Agent being that whose motion or action is not hindered nor stopt And a Free Action that which is produced by a Free Agent A Contingent Agent is the same with an Agent simply But because men for the most part think those things are produced without cause whereof they do not see the cause they use to call both the Agent and the Action Contingent as attributing it to fortune And therefore when the causes are Necessary if they perceive not the necessity they call those necessary Agents and Actions in things that have Appetite Free and in things inanimate Contingent The rest of his Reply to this point is very little of it applied to my answer I note onely that where he sayes but if God have so ordered the World that a man cannot if he would neglect any means of good c. He would fraudulently insinuate that it is my opinion that a man is not Free to Do if he will and to Abstain if he will Whereas from the beginning I have often declared that it is none of my opinion and that my opinion is only this that he is not Free to Will or which is all one he is not Master of his future Will After much unorderly discourse he comes in with This is the doctrine that flows from this opinion of absolute Necessity which is impertinent seeing nothing flows from it more than may be drawn from the confession of an eternal Prescience l But he tells me in great sadness that my Argument is no better than this If I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self thorow with a sword to day which saith he is a false consequence and a false proposition Truly if by running through he understand killing it is a false or rather a foolish proposition He saith right Let us therefore see how it is not like to his He sayes If it be absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to morrow then it is vain and superfluous for him to consult whether he should dye to day or not And this he sayes is a true consequence I cannot perceive how it is a better consequence than the former for if it be absolutely necessary that a man should live till to morrow and in health which may also be supposed why should he not if he have the curiosity have his head cut off to try what pain it is But the consequence is false for if there be a necessity of his living it is necessary also that he shall not have so foolish a curiosity But he cannot yet distinguish between a seen and unseen necessity and that is the cause he beleeveth his consequence to be good m The next branch of my Argument concerns Admonitions c. Which he saies is this If all things be necessary then it is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools children or madmen but That they do admonish the one and not the other is confessedly true and no reason under heaven can be given for it but this that the former have the use of reason and true liberty with a dominion over their own actions which children fools and madmen have not The true reason why we admonish men and not children c. is because admonition is nothing else but telling a man the good and evil consequences of his actions They who have experience of good and evill can better perceive the reasonableness of such admonition than they that have not and such as have like passions to those of the Admonitor do more easily conceive that to be good or bad which the Admonitor sayeth is so than they who have great passions and such as are contrary to his The first which is want of experience maketh children and fools unapt and the second which is strength of passion maketh madmen unwilling to receive admonition for children are ignorant and mad men in an errour concerning what is good or evill for themselves This
out of the power to will which power is commonly called the Will Howsoever it be the summe of his distinction is that a voluntary act may be done on 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 threatning and foul means it followes that to will may be made as necessary 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 necessity J. D. IN the next place follow two reasons of mine own against the same distinction the one taken from the former grounds that Election cannot consist with determination to one To this he saith he hath answered already No truth is founded upon a Rock He hath been so far from prevailing against it that he hath not been able to shake it a Now again he tells us that Election is not opposite to either Necessitation or Compulsion He might even as well tell us that a stone thrown upwards mooves naturally Or that a a woman can be ravished with her own will Consent takes away the Rape This is the strangest liberty that ever was heard of that a man is compelled to do what he would not and yet is free to do what he will And this he tells us upon the old score that he who submits to his enemy for fear of death chooseth to submit But we have seen formerly that this which he calls compulsion is not compulsion properly nor that natural determination of the will to one which is opposite to true Liberty He who submits to an enemy for saving his life doth either onely counterfeit and then there is no will to submit this disguise is no more than a stepping aside to avoid a present blow Or else he doth sincerely will a submission and then the will is changed There is a vast difference between compelling and changing the will Either God or man may change the will of man either by varying the condition of things or by informing the party otherwise but compelled it cannot be that is it cannot both will this and not will this as it is invested with the same circumstances though if the act were otherwise circumstantiated it might nill that freely which now it wills freely b Wherefore this kind of actions are called mixt actions that is partly voluntary partly unvoluntary That which is compelled in a mans present condition or distress that is not voluntary nor chosen That which is chosen as the remedy of its distress that is voluntary So hypothetically supposing a man were not in that distress they are involuntary but absolutely without any supposition at all taking the case as it is they are voluntary c His other instance of a man forced to prison that he may choose whether he will be haled thither upon the ground or walk upon his feet is not true By his leave that is not as he pleaseth but as it pleaseth them who have him in their power If they will drag him he is not free to walk And if they give him leave to walk he is not forced to be dragged d Having laid this foundation he begins to build upon it that other passions do necessitate as much as fear But he erres doubly first in his foundation fear doth not determine the rational will naturally and necessarily The last and greatest of the five terrible things is death yet the fear of death cannot necessitate a resolved mind to do a dishonest action which is worse than death The fear of the fiery furnace could not compel the three Children to worship an Idol nor the fear of the Lions necessitate Daniel to omit his duty to God It is our frailty that we are more afraid of empty shadows than of substantial dangers because they are neerer our senses as little Children fear a Mouse or a Visard more than fire or weather But as a fitte of the stone takes away the sense of the gout for the present so the greater passion doth extinguish the less The fear of Gods wrath and eternal torments doth expel corporal fear fear not them who kill the body but fear him who is able to cast both body and soul into hell Luc. 7. 4. e Da veniam Imperator tu carcerem ille gehennam minatur Excuse me O Emperor thou threatenest men with prison but he threatens me with hell f Secondly he erres in his superstruction also There is a great difference as to this case of justifying or not justifying an action between force and fear and other passions Force doth not only lessen the sin but takes it quite away Deâ—t 22. 26. He who forced a betrothed Damsell was to die but unto the Damsel saith he thou shalt do nothing there is in her no fault worthy of death Tamars beauty or Ammons love did not render him innocent but Ammons force rendred Tamar innocent But fear is not so prevalent as force Indeed if fear be great and justly grounded such as may fall upon a constant man though it do not dispense with the transgression of the negative Precepts of God or Nature because they bind to all times yet it diminisheth the offence even against them and pleades for pardon But it dispenseth in many cases with the trangression of the positive Law either Divine or humane because it is not probable that God or the Law would oblige man to the observation of all positive Precepts with so great dammage as the loss of his life The omission of Circumcision was no sin whilst the Isralites were travelling through the wilderness By T. H. his permission g I will propose a case to him A Gentleman sends his servant with mony to buy his dinner some Ruffians meet him by the way and take it from him by force The servant cryed for help and did what he could to defend himself but all would not serve The servant is innocent if he were to be tried before a Court of Areopagites Or suppose the Ruffians did not take it from him by force but drew their swords and threatned to kill him except he delivered it himself no wise man will conceive that it was either the Masters intention or the servants duty to hazard his life or limbs for saving of such a trifling sum But on the other side suppose this servant passing by some Cabaret or Tennis-court where his Camerads were drinking or playing should stay with them and drink or play away his mony and afterwards plead as T. H. doth here that he was overcome by the meer strength of temptation I trow neither T. H. nor any man else would admit of this excuse but punish him for it because neither was he necessitated by the temptation and what strength it had was by his own fault in respect of that vitious habit which he had contracted of
drinking or gaming Jam. 1. 14. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and entised Disordered passions of anger hatred lust if they be consequent as the case is here put by T. H. and flow from deliberation and election they do not only not diminish the fault but they aggravate it and render it much greater h He talks much of the motives to do the motives to forbear how they work upon and determine a man as if a reasonable man were no more than a Tennis-ball to be tossed to and fro by the Rackets of the second causes As if the will had no power to moove it self but were meerly passive like an artificiall Popingay remooved hither and thither by the bolts of the Archers who shoot on this side and on that What are motives but reasons or discourses framed by the understanding and freely mooved by the will What are the will and the understanding but faculties of the same soul and what is liberty but a power resulting from them both To say that the will is determined by these motives is as much as to say that the Agent is determined by himself If there be no necessitation before the judgment of right reason doth dictate to the will then there is no antecedent no extrinsecal necessitation at all i All the world knows that when the Agent is determined by himself then the effect is determined likewise in its cause But if he determined himself freely then the effect is free Motives determine not naturally but morally which kind of determination may consist with true liberty But if T. H. his opinion were true that the will were naturally determined by the Physical and special influence of extrinsecal causes not onely motives were vain but reason it self and deliberation were vain No saith he they are not vain because they are the means Yes if the means be superfluous they are vain what needed such a circuit of deliberation to advise what is fit to be done when it is already determined extrinsecally what must be done k He saith that the ignorance of the true causes and their power is the reason why we ascribe the effect to liberty but when we seriously consider the causes of things we acknowledge a necessity No such thing but just the contrary The more we consider and the cleerer we understand the greater is the liberty and the more the knowledge of our own liberty The less we consider and the more incapable that the understanding is the lesser is the liberty and the knowledge of it And where there is no consideration nor use of reason there is no liberty at all there is neither moral good nor evil Some men by reason that their exteriour senses are not totally bound have a trick to walk in their sleep Suppose such an one in that case should cast himself down a pair of stairs or from a bridge and break his neck or drown himself it were a mad Jury that would find this man accessary to his own death Why because it was not freely done he had not then the use of reason l Lastly he tells us that the will doth choose of necessity as well as the fire burns of neoessity If he intend no more but this that election is the proper and natural act of the will as burning is of the fire or that the elective power is as necessarily in a man as visibility he speaks truly but most impertinently For the question is not now of the elective power in actu primo whether it be an essential faculty of the soul but whether the act of electing this or that particular object be free and undetermined by any antecedent and extrinsecal causes But if he intend it in this other sense that as the fire hath no power to suspend its burning nor to distinguish between those combustible matters which are put unto it but burns that which is put unto it necessarily if it be combustible So the will hath no power to refuse that which it wills nor to suspend its own appetite He erres grossely The will hath power either to will or nill or to suspend that is neither to will nor nill the same object Yet even the burning of the fire if it be considered as it is invested with all particular circumstances is not otherwise so necessary an action as T. H. imagineth m Two things are required to make an effect necessary First that it be produced by a necessary cause such as fire is Secondly that it be necessarily produced Protagoras an Atheist began his Book thus Concerning the Gods I have nothing to say whether they be or they be not for which his Book was condemned by the Athenians to be burned The fire was a necessary Agent but the sentence or the application of the fire to the Book was a free act and therefore the burning of his Book was free Much more the rational will is free which is both a voluntary agent and acts voluntarily n My second reason against this distinction of Liberty from Compulsion but not from necessitation is new and demonstrates cleerly that to necessitate the will by a Physical necessity is to compel the will so far as the will is capable of Compulsion and that he who doth necessitate the will to evil after that manner is the true cause of evil and ought rather to be blamed than the will it self But T. H. for all he saith he is not surprised can be contented upon better advise to steal by all this in silence And to hide this tergiversation from the eyes of the Reader he makes an empty shew of braving against that famous and most necessary distinction between the elicite and imperate acts of the will first because the terms are improper secondly because they are obscure What Triviall and Grammatical objections are these to be used against the universal current of Divines and Philosophers Verborum ut Nummorum It is in words as it is in mony Use makes them proper and current A Tyrant at first signified a lawful and just Prince Now use hath quite changed the sense of it to denote either an Usurper or an Oppressor The word praemunire is now grown a good word in our English Laws by use and tract of time And yet at first it was meerly mistaken for a praemonere The names of Sunday Munday Tuesday were derived at first from those Heathenish Deities the Sun the Moon and the warlike God of the Germans Now we use them for distinction sake onely without any relation to their first original He is too froward that will refuse a piece of coin that is current throughout the world because it is not stamped after his own fancy So is he that rejects a good word because he understands not the derivation of it We see forrein words are daily naturalized and made free Denizons in every Country But why are the tearms improper Because saith he It attributes command and subjection to
the faculties of the soul as if they made a Common-wealth or family among themselves and could speak one to another Therefore he saith o They who invented this tearm of Actus Imperatus understood not any thing what it signified No why not It seemeth to me they understood it better than those who except against it They knew there are mentall tearms which are onely conceived in the mind as well as vocal tearms which are expressed with the tongue They knew that howsoever a Superiour do intimate a direction to his inferiour it is still a command Tarquin commanded his son by onely striking off the tops of the Poppies and was by him both understood and obeyed Though there be no formall Common-wealth or family either in the body or in the soul of man yet there is a subordination in the body of the inferiour members to the head there is a subordination in the soul of the inferiour faculties to the rational will Far be it from a reasonable man so far to dishonour his own nature as to equal fancy with understanding or the sensitive appetite with the reasonable will A power of command there is without all question though there be some doubt in what faculty this command doth principally reside whether in the will or in the understanding The true resolution is that the directive command for counsel is in the understanding And the applicative command or empire for putting in execution of what is directed is in the will The same answer serves for his second impropriety about the word Elicite For saith he as it is absurdly said that to dance is an act allured or drawn by fair means out of the ability to dance So it is absurdly said that to will or choose is an act drawn out of the power to will His objection is yet more improper than their expression The art of dancing rather resembles the understanding than the will That drawing which the Schools intend is cleer of another nature from that which he conceives By elicitation he understands a perswading or enticing with flattering words or sweet alluring insinuations to choose this or that But that elicitation which the Schools intend is a deducing of the power of the will into act that drawing which they mention is meerly from the appetibility of the object or of the end as a man draws a Child after him with the sight of a fair Apple or a Shepheard draws his sheep after him with the sight of a green bough So the end â—rawâ— the will to it by a Metaphorical motion What he understands here by an ability to dance is more than I know or any man els until he express himself in more proper tearms whether he understand the locomotive faculty alone or the art or acquired habit of dancing alone or both of these jointly It may be said aptly without any absurdity that the act of dancing is drawn out â—licâ—tur of the locomotive faculty helped by the acquired habit He who is so scrupulous about the received phrases of the Schools should not have let so many improper expressions have dropped from his pen as in this very passage he confounds the compelling of a voluntary action with the commanding of a voluntary action and willing with electing which he saith are all one Yet to will properly respects the end to elect the means p His other objection against this distinction of the acts of the will into Elicite and Imperate iâ— obscurity Might it not saith he have been as easily said in English a voluntary action Yes it might have been said as easily but not as truely nor properly Whatsoever hath its original from the will whether immediatly or mâ—diatly whether it be a proper act of the will it self as to elect or an act of the understanding as to deliberate or an act of the inferiour faculties or of the members is a voluntary action but neither the act of reason nor of the senses nor of the sensitive appetite nor of the members are the proper acts of the will nor drawn immediatly out of the will it self but the members and faculties are applyed to their proper and respective acts by the power of the will And so he comes to cast up the total sum of my second reason with the same faith that the unjust Steward did make his accounts Luk. 16. The sum of J. D's distinction is saith he that a voluntary act may be done on compulsion just contrary to what I have maintained that is to say by â—oul means But to will that or any act cannot be but by allurement or fair means I confess the distinction is mine because I use it as the Sun is mine or the Air is mine that is common to me with all who treat of this subject q But his mistakes are so thick both in relating my mind and his own that the Reader may conclude he is wandered out of his known way I will do my duty to shew him the right way First no acts which are properly said to be compelled are voluntary Secondly acts of terrour which he calls foul means which are sometimes in a large improper sense called compulsory actions may be and for the most part are consistent with true liberty Thirdly actions procâ—â—â—â—ng from blandishments or sweet perswasions which he calls fair means if they be indeliberated as in children who want the use of reason are not presently free actions Lastly the strength of consequent and deliberated desires doth neither diminish guilt nor excuse from punâ—â—â—ment as just fears of extream and imminent dangers thrâ—â—tâ—â—â— by extrinsecal agents often do because the strength oâ— the foâ—mer proceeds from our own fault and was freeâ—â— elected in the causes of it But neither desires nor fears which are consequent and deliberated do absolutely necessitate the will Animadversions upon the Bishops Reply Numb XX. a NOw again he tells us that Election is not opposite to either necessation or compulsion He might even as well tell us that a stone thrown upwards moves naturally or that a Woman 〈◊〉 be ravished with her own Will Consent takes away the Râ—â—e c. If that which I have told him again be false why shews he not why it is false Here is not one word of Argument against it To say I might have said as well that a stone thrown upwards moves naturally is no refutation but a deniall I will not dispute with him whether a stone thrown up move naturally or not I shall onely say to those Readers whose Judgements are not defaced with the abuse of Words that as a stone moveth not upwards of it self but by the Pâ—â—â—er of the Exernal Agent who giveth it a beginning of that motion So also when the stone falleth it is moved downward by the Power of some other Agent which though it be imperâ—eptible to the eye is not imperceptible to reason But because this is not proper discourse for the Bishop and because I have else where discoursed thereof
each pace that he walks Thus many steps must he go not one more nor one less under pain of mortal sin What is this but a Rack and a Gibbet to the Conscience But God leaves many things indifferent though man be so curious he will not A good Architect will be sure to provide sufficient materials for his building but what particular number of stones or trees he troubles not his head And suppose he should weigh each action thus yet he doth not so still there is liberty Thirdly I conceive it is possible in this mist and weakness of human apprehension for two actions to be so equally circumstantiated that no discernable difference can appear between them upon discussion Aâ— suppose a Chirurgion should give two plaisters to his Patient and â—id him apply either oâ— them to his wound what can induce his reason more to the one than to the other but that he may refer it to chance whether he will use But leaving these probable speculations which I submit â—o better judgments I answer the Philosopher briefly thus Admitting that the will did necessarily follow the last dictare of the understanding as certainly in many things it doth Yet First this is no extrinsâ—â—al determination from without and a mans own resolution is not destructive to his own liberty but depends upon it So the person is still free Secondly this determination is not antecedent but joyned with the Action The understanding and the will are not different Agents but distinct faculties of the same soul. Here is an infallibility or an hypothetical necessity as we say Quicquid est quando est necessâ— est esse A necessity of consequence but not a necessity of consequent Though an Agent have certainly determined and so the Action be become infallible yet if the Agent did determine freely the Action likewise is free T. H. THE fourth opinion which he râ—jecteth is of them that make the will necessarily to follow the last dictate of the understanding but it seems he understands that Tenet in another sense than I do For he speaketh as if they that held it did suppose men must dispute the sequel of every astion they do great and small to the least grain which it a thing that he thinks with reason to be untrue But I understand it to signifie that thâ— will followes the last opinion or judgment immediatly proceding thâ— action concerning whether it be good to do it or not whether he hath 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 followes necessarily that thought he had of the sequel of his stroke immediately before the liftinâ— of his hand Nâ—w iâ— it be understood in that sense the last dictate of the understanding does â—ertainly necessitate the action though not as the whole cause yet as the last cause as the last feather necessitates the breaking of an horses back when there are so many laid on before as there needeth but the addition oâ— that one to make the weight sufficient That which he alledgeth against this is first out of a Poet who in the person of Medea sayes Video Meliora proboque Deteriora sequorâ— But the saying as prâ—try as it is 〈◊〉 not true for though Medea saw many reasons to forbear killing her Children yet the last dictate of her judgment was that the present revenge on her husband outweighed them all and thereupon the wicked action followed necessarily Then the story of the Roman that of two competitors said one had the better reasons but the oâ— her must have the office This also maketh against him for the last dictate of his judgment that had the bestowing of the office was this that it was better to take a great bribe than reward a great merit Thirdly he objects that things neerer the senses moove more powerfully than reason What followeth thence but this That the sense of the present good is commonly more immediate to the Action than the foresight of the evill consequents to come Fourthly whereas he sayes that do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his son than for the sin of his soul it makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding but it argues plainly that sorrow for sin is not voluntary And by consequence repentance proceedeth from causes J. D. THE fourth pretense alledged against Liberty was that the will doth necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding This objection is largely answered before in several places of this Reply and particularly Numb 7. In my former discourse I gave two answers to it The one certain and undoubted That a supposing the last dictate of the understanding did alwayes determine the will yet this determination being not antecedent in time nor proceeding from extrinsecal causes but from the proper resolution of the Agent who had now freely determined himself it makes no absolute necessity but onely hypothetical upon supposion that the Agent hath determined his own will after this or that manner Which being the main answer T. H. is so far from taking it away that he takes no notice of it The other part of mine answer was probable That it is not alwayes certain that the will doth alwayes actually follow the last dictate of the understanding though it alwayes ought to follow it b Of which I gave then three reasons one was that actions may be so equally circumstantiated or the case so intricate that reason cannot give a positive sentence but leaves the election to liberty or chance To this he answers not a word Another of my reasons was because reason doth not weigh nor is bound to weigh the convenience or inconvenience of every individual action to the uttermost grain in the balance of true judgement The truth of this reason is confessed by T. H. though he might have had more abetters in this than in the most part of his discourse that nothing is indifferent that a man cannot stroak his beard on one side but it was either necessary to do it or sinful to omit it from which confession of his it follows that in all those actions wherein reason doth not define what is most convenient there the will is free from the determination of the understanding and by consequence the last feather is wanting to break the horses back A third reason was because passions and affections sometimes prevail against judgment as I prooved by the example of Medea and Caesar by the neerness of the objects to the senses and by the estimation of a temporal loss more than sin Against this reason his whole answer is addressed And first c he explaineth the sense of the assertion by the comparison of the last feather wherewith he seems to be delighted seeing he useth it now the second time But let him like it as he will it is improper for three reasons First the determination of the
Form of Liberty c. How a reall faculty or the elective power should be defined by a negation or by an absence is past my understanding and contrary to all the rules of right reason which I have learned A right dâ—â—nition is that which determineth the signification of the word defined to the end that in the discourse where it is used the meaning of it may be constant and without equivocation This is the measure of a definition and intelligible to an English Reader But the Bishop that measures it by the Genus and the Difference thinks it seems though he write English he writes not to an English Reader unlesse he also be a School-man I confesse the rule is good that we ought to define when it can be done by using first soâ—e more general term and then by râ—straining the signification of that general term till it bâ— thâ— same with that of the word definâ—d And this general term the Scâ—ool calls Genus and the restraint Difference This I say is a good rule where it can be done for some words are so general that they cannot admit a more general in their definition But why this ought to be a Law of definition I doubt it would trouble him to find the reason and therefore I referr him he shall give me leave sometimes to cite as well as he to the 14. and 15. Articles of the 6 Chapter of my Book De Corpore But it is to little purpose that he requires in a definition so exactly the Genus and the Difference seâ—ing he does not know them when they are there For in this my definition of Liberty the Genus is absence of impediments to action and the difference or Restrictiâ—n is that they be not contained in the nature of the Agent The Bishop therefore though he talk of Genus and Difference understands not what they are but requires the matter and Form of the thing in the Definition Matter is body that is to say corporeal substance and subject to dimension such as are the Elements and the things compounded of the Elements But it is impossible that Matter should be part oâ— a Definition whose parts are onely words or to put the name of Matter into the Definition of Liberty which is immaterial How a reall faculty can be defined by an absence is saith he past my understanding Unlesse he mean by reall Faculty a very Faculty I know not how a Faculty is reall If he mean so then a very absence is as reall as a very Faculty And if the word defined signifie an absence or Negation I hope he would not have me define it by a presence or affrmation Such a word is Liberty for it signifieth Freedome from impediments which is all one with the absence of impediments as I have defined it And if this be contrary to all the rules of right reason that is to say of Logic that he hath learned I should advise him to read some other Logic then he hath yet read or consider better those he did read when he was a young man and could lesse understand them He adds that by this Definition a stone hath Liberty to ascend into the aire because there is no outward impediment to hinder it How know he whether there be impediments to hinder it or not Certainly if a stone were thrown upwards it would either go upwards eternally or it must be stopped by some outward impediment or it must stop it self He hath confessed that nothing can moove it self I doubt not therefore but he will confess also that it cannot stop it self But stopped we see it is it is therefore stopped by impediments external He hath in this part of his Answer ventured a little too far in speaking of Definition and of Jmpediments and Motion and bewâ—ayed too much his ignorance in Logick and Philosophy and talketh so absurdly of the current of Rivers and of the motion of the Seas and of the weight of Water that it cannot be corrected otherwise then by blotting it all out T. H. SIxtly I conceive nothing taketh beginning from it self but Num. 30. from the action of some other immediate Agent without it self And that therefore when first a man had an appetite or will to something to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will the cause of his will is not the will it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas it is out of controversie that of voluntary actions the will is a necessary cause and by this which is said the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not it followeth that voluntary actions have all of them necessary causes and therefore are necessitated J. D. THis sixt point doth not consist in explicating of tearms as the former but in two proofs that voluntary actions are necessitated The former proof stands thus Nothing takes beginning from it self but from some Agent without it self which is not in its own disposing therefore c. concedo omnia a I grant all he saith The will doth not take beginning from it self Whether he understand by will the faculty of the will which is a power of the reasonable soul it takes not beginning from it self but from God who created and infused the Soul into man and endowed it with this power Or whether he understand by will the act of willing it takes not beginning from it self but from the faculty or from the power of willing which is in the Soul This is certain finite and participated things cannot be from themselves nor be produced by themselves What would he conclude from hence that therefore the act of willing takes not its beginning from the faculty of the will Or that the faculty is alwayes determined antecedently extrinsecally to will that which it doth will He may as soon draw water out of a pumice as draw any such conclusion out of these premisses Secondly for his taking a beginning Either he understands a beginning of being or a beginning of working and acting If he understand a beginning of being he saith most truly that nothing hath a beginning of being in time from it self But this is nothing to his purpose The question is not between us whether the Soul of man or the will of man be eternal But if he understand a beginning of working or mooving actually it is a gross errour All men know that when a stone descends or fire ascends or when water that hath been heated returns to its former temper the beginning or reason is intrinsecal and one and the same thing doth moove and is mooved in a diverse respect It mooves in respect of the form and it is mooved in respect of the matter Much more man who hath a perfect knowledge and prenotion of the end is most properly said to moove himself Yet I do not deny but that there are other beginnings of humane actions which do concur with the will some outward as the first cause
possible that without Discipline a man should come to think that the estimony of a witness which is the onely verifier of matter of fact should consist not in sense and memory so as he may say he saw and remembers the thing done but in Arguments or Sâ—llegismes Or how can an unlearnâ—d man be brought to think the words he speaks ought to signifie when he speaks sincerely any thing else but that which himself meant by them Or how can any man without learning take the question whether the Sun be no bigger then a ball or bigger then the Earth to be a question of fact Nor do I think that any man is so simple as â—â—t to find that to be good which he loveth good I say so far forth as it maketh him to love it or is there any unlâ—arned man so stâ—pid as to think Eternity is this present instant of time standing still and the same Eternit to be the very next instant after an consequently that there be so many eternities â—aâ— there can be instants of time supposed No there is Scâ—olasticâ— learning required in some measure to make one mad c Then for his assumption it is as defective as his proposition That by these words spontaneity c. Men do understand as he conceives c. No rational man doth conceive a spontaneous Action and an indeliberate Action to be all one Every indeliberate Action is not spontaneous c. Nor every spontaneous Action indeliberate This I get by striving to make sense of that which he strives to make non-sense I never thought the word spontaneity English Yet because he used it I made such meaning of it as it would bear and said it meant inconsiderate proceeding or nothing And for this my too much officioâ—snesse I râ—ceive the reward of bâ—ing thought by him not to be a rati nal man I know that in the Latine of all Authors but School-men Actio spontanea signifies that Action whereof there is no apparent cause derived further thâ—n from the Agent it self and is in all things that have sense the same with voluntary whether deliberated or not dâ—liberated And therefore where he distinguished it from voluntary I thought he might mean indeliberate but let it signifie what it will provided it be intelligible it would make against him d Neither doth deliberation properly signifie the considoring of the good â—nd evil sequells of an Action to come but the considering whether this be a good and fit means or the best and fittest means for obtaining such an end If the Biâ—â—ops words proceeded not from hearing and readiâ—g of others but from his own thoughts he could never have reprehended this â—efinition of Deliberation especiaâ—â—y in the manner he doth it for he says it is the consiâ—â—ring whether this or that be a good and fit means for obtaining such an end as if considering whether a means be good or not were nâ—t all â—nâ— with considering whether the sâ—quei of using those means be good or evil e Much lesse doth any man conceive with T. H. that deliberation is an Act oâ— Fancie not of Reason common to men of discretion with mad men natural fools children and brute beasts I do indeed conceive that dâ—liberation is an Act of Imagination or Fancie â—ay more that Reason and Understanding also are Aâ—â—s of the Imagination that is to say they are Imaginations I find it so by considering my own Ratioâ—â—nation and he might find it so iâ— his iâ— he did consider his own thoughts and not speak as he does by rote by rote I say when he disputes not by rote when he is about those trisâ—â—s he caâ—â—eth businesses then when he speaks he thinks of that is to say he Imagins his business but here he thinks onely upon the words of other men that have gone before him in thâ—â— question transcribing their conclusions and arguments not his oâ—n thoughts f Thirdly neither doth any understanding man conceive or can conceive either that the Will is an Act of our Deliberation the Understanding and the Will are two distinct faculties or that onely the last appetite is to be called our Wiâ—â— Though the understanding and the Will were two distinct faculties yet follow their not that the Will and the Deliberation are two distinct faculâ—iâ—s for the whole Deliberation is nothing else but so many Wills alternatively changâ—d according as a man understandeth or fancieth the good and evil sequels of the thing concerning which he deliberateth whether he shall pursâ—e it or of the means whâ—ther they conduce or not to that end whatsoever it be he seeketh to obtain So that in deliberation there be many wills whereof net any is the cause of a voluntary action but the last as I have said before answering this objection in another place g Concerning the fourth point we agree that he is a free Agent that can do if he Will and forbear if he Will. But I wonder how this dropped from his Pen c. It may be he will say he can do if he will and forbear if he will but he cannot will if he will He has no reason to wonder â—ow this dropped from my Pen. He sound it in my Answer Numb 3. and has been all his while about to confute it so long indeed that he had forget I said it And now agaiâ— brings another Argument to prâ—vâ— a man is free to Will which â—â—th either the Agent can Will and forbear to Will or else be cannot do and forbear to do There is no doubt a man can Will one thing or other and forbear to will it For men if they be awake â—re alwayes willing one thing or other But put the case a man hâ—s a Will today to do a certain Action to morrow is he sure to have the same Will tomorrow when he is to do it Is he free to day to chuse tomorrows Will This is it that 's now in question and this Argument maketh nothing for the assirmative or negative h But we differ wholy about the fifth point He who conceives Liberty aright conceives both a Liberty in the subject to Will or not to Will and a Liberty to the object to Will this or that and a Liberty from impediments T. H. by a new way of his own cuts of the â—iberty of the subject as if a stone were free to ascend or descend because it hath no outward impediment And the Liberty towards the object as if the needle touched with the Load-stone were free to point either towards the North or towards the South because there is not a Baricado in its way How does it appear that he who conceives Liberty aright conceives a Liberty in the subject to Will or noâ— to Will unlesse he mean Liberty to dâ— if he Will or not to do if he wiâ—l not which was never denied Or how does it follow that a stone is as free to ascend as descâ—nd uâ—leâ—â—e he prove there is no outward impeâ—iment to its ascent