must be obstructed by the grant of an undetermin'd liberty in Man It is not that I know of affirm'd by any Disputant that there is such a lawless Liberty in Man as is not under subjection to the absolute Power of God but that it is a Liberty which God Almighty in an agreeableness to the free nature of Man hath been pleas'd to grant and for the greater part to suffer in the exercise of it Only it is said concerning sin that God cannot force the Will of Man to the commission of it for the production of such a wretched Issue would argue not omnipotency but impotence and imperfection in the parent of it God created Man and gave a Law to him and design'd not to use his Almighty Power to effect the fulfilling of that Law which Power supposeth the Command of a Law to be in vain He therefore that interposeth not his Power whilst he may hath not his Power disanulled when his preceptive Will is only withstood and he permitteth that disobedience Mr. Hobbes But what Elusion can be invented touching the foreknowledg of God The denying necessity destroyeth both the Decrees and Prescience of God Almighty for whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by Man as an instrument or foreseeth shall come to pass a Man if he have Liberty from necessitation might frustrate and make not to come to pass and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be and decree that which shall never come to pass Stud. Touching the Decees of God it cannot be proved that they extend to all things which come to pass For his Prescience I 'm sure that it extendeth to all things possible to be known and that it hath no necessary influence upon the Event it doth neither hinder the Power of God nor the Liberty of Man God foreseeth that the Event may come to paâ—s and that he will not hinder it yet that he might and it cometh to pass most necessarily if God â—oreseeth it but the necessity ariseth from the supposition of the infallibility and not from any causal energy of divine foreknowledg It is manifest by the fulfilled Prophesies of divers inspired Men that there is Prescience and a man may also be assured that neither is his Liberty intringed by it nor Prescience by his Liberty It is evident to every Man in many cases as evident as that he perceiveth at all or understandeth that he willeth or â—efuseth without any constraint upon his freedom But there is great difficulty in unridling the manner of the consistence of Foreknowledg and Liberty because although there be some notion yet there is not a knowledg fully comprehensive of the Divine Wisdom in a finite Soul Thus much notwithstanding may with sobriety be offer'd towards the explication of this mysterious truth that the boundless wisdom of God who made the World understanding the Laws and Operations of his Workmanship from the beginning to the end of them understandeth also the nature of all appearances in all Objects in relation to the mind of Man in every Estate wherein he is placed and at all times together with the dispositions of each Man's Soul and thereby foreseeth what he will refuse or chuse whilst he had power absolutely speaking otherwise either to elect or reject He that should drop a piece of money by an undiscerned hand in the way of a man afflicted with extream poverty the same person might readily foresee that the espied money would infallibly be taken up by that poor man though he could not but understand that the Beggar had so much power over his own limbs as not to stoop unless he pleased But it seemeth not worth the time and pains to reconcile to your apprehension the Doctrins of Foreknowledg and undetermin'd Liberty because this Objection is by you proposed in order to the amusing of other Men's Reasons rather than in justification of the Truth For according to your Principles all evidence or knowledg ariseth from Objects already in being Neither understand you this of Essence in the Sense of the Metaphysick-Schools but of the actual presence of caused Objects Mr. Hobbes In my Opinion Foreknowledg is Knowledg and Knowledg depends on the existence of things known not they on it However the Objection serveth for the incommoding of those who maintain another sort of Foreknowledg but the argument on which I establish my Doctrine is of another kind I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect The same also is a necessary cause For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanteth somewhat which was needful to the producing of it and so the Cause was not sufficient but if it be impossible that a sufficient Cause should not produce the Effect then is a sufficient Cause a necessary Cause for that is said to produce an Effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient Cause to produce it or else it had not been and therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated Stud. In the alterations made in Bodies every sufficient is an efficient Cause by reason that matter sufficiently moved cannot stay it self but is wholly determin'd by foreign impulse which impulse also had an undefeated determination But because I have proved the existence of an Immaterial Soul I may affirm that all outward preparations being made so that there remaineth nothing wanting but the Act of Volition the Spiritual Mind not being overcome by the sway of Matter hath a power to abstain from acting though perhaps it is not pleased to use it And this we may illustrate by the Example of Abraham whose Fire Wood and Son to be a Victim and Sacrificing-knife were in a readiness and sufficient strength with these to execute the Command which God Almighty by way of trial had given to him yet who can doubt that Abraham had a power at the same time to render these preparations useless and to be disobedient For how could those Objects and this Command conveigh a force into his Will and thence into his Arm to slay his Son though they might present him with a reason which the goodness of his Disposition would not refuse The intention of Abraham to slay his Son was wrought by a Moral and not a Physical or Natural Power Mr. Hobbes Natural efficacy of Objects does determine voluntary Agents and necessitates the Will and consequently the Action but for Moral efficacy I understand not what you mean Stud. I understand by Moral efficacy the perswaâ—ive power of such Motives as those which arise from fear and love and trust and gratitude and especially such as arise from the meer reason of the Case as when a man doth therefore give Alms
meerly because he apprehends it to be more blessed to give than to receive and not to be rid of the pang of compassion or to obtain praise or other reward By such Motives the Mind is often prevail'd upon without the force of Corporeal Motion being wooed and not pressed unavoidably into Consent Of these Motives that of Fear may seem to have Meâ—hanick force because that Passion is often stirred up by the horror of Objects disturbing the natural course of the Blood But it will be granted by your self that the very passion of Fear doth not compell but incline the Will For you acknowledg that Fear and Liberty are consistent as when a Man throweth his Goods into the Sea for fear the Ship should sink he doth it nevertheless very willingly and may refuse to do it if he will It is therefore the action of one that was free Seeing then the Incorporeal Soul of Man is induced by perswasion and not compelled by Natural Motion you may as soon convince me that every sufficient Man as we are wont to call a wealthy person is therefore a dispenser of his Goods and a liberal Man as that the immaterial Soul is forthwith compell'd to act when all things are present which are needful to the producing of the effect and all impediments are removed Mr. Hobbes To say that an Agent in such Circumstances can nevertheless not produce the effect implies a contradiction and is non-sense being as much as to say the Cause may be sufficient that is to say necessary and yet the effect shall not follow That all Events have necessary Causes hath been proved already in that they have sufficient Causes Further let us in this place also suppose any Event never so casual as the throwing for example Ames-Ace upon a pair of Dice and see if it must not have been necessary before 't was thrown For seeing it was thrown it had a beginning and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it consisting partly in the Dice partly in outward things as the posture of the parts of the hand the measure of force applied by the Caster the posture of the parts of the Table and the like In sum there was nothing wanting which was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular Cast consequently the Cast was necessarily thrown for if it had not been thrown there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it and so the cause had not been sufficient Stud. Here you make instance in an Event resulting from Circumstances of Bodies and from Physical motion in relation to which I have already granted that a sufficient is an efficient Cause and declar'd the reason of it and how it toucheth not the present business But by this last Answer I begin to understand that you obtrude a Sophism upon me instead of a real Argument For whilst you say that sufficient is the same which necessary and that if the Cast had not been thrown there was something wanting you include in your sufficient Cause when you speak of Man the very act of Volition besides all the furniture prepared for that act And then your meaning amounts to this that when there is each thing needful and no impediment and also a Will to act the effect followeth But here you beg the Question which is this Whether all things requisite to action being present the will and act of Volition excepted the Soul hath not a power to forbear that Act and whilst you suppose a removal of impediments and the presence of all things necessary and the act of the Will also and then say the Cause is sufficient and efficient too you say no more than that a Man produceth necessarily an effect whilst he produceth it which indeed is a truth for he cannot act and not act at the same time but in the present Controversie it is an egregious Impertinence For the Necessity which you speak of is not in the Will it self or in the Effect but in that consequence which the mind createth by supposing that the Will complieth with the means and that whilst it chuseth it cannot but chuse Wherefore this fallacy is like to theirs who say the Will is necessarily determin'd by the last act of the Understanding meaning because it is the last they suppose the last act and that the Will closeth with the Understanding and then they say it followeth upon necessity which is no more than to affirm that there is nothing later than the last And if I am not impos'd upon by my memory you somewhere argue that the Will is the last appetite in deliberating and that therefore though we say in common Discourse A man had once a will to do a thing that nevertheles he forbears to do yet that is not properly a will because the action depends not of it but of the laâ—t inclination or appetite You suppose the Will to be the last Inclination and that thereâ—ore the Action depends upon it because it is the last and then you call it sufficient and necessary when you have made it to be such not in its own nature but by the supposition framed in your own brain And thus you have made a great noise and kackling about Sufficient and Efficient whilst there is nothing here said by you which is not as insipid as the white of an Egg. But of that Necessity which is said to compell the Will of Man enough let â—s consider that Law which obligeth it though not by force to action yet upon default to punishment And that we may proceed in order let our beginning be made at Our Seventh Head The Law of Nature that inward Law in relation to which each Man is a Magistrate to himself erecting a Tribunal in his own Breast Mr. Hobbes There is right and also a Law of Nature The Right of Nature is the Liberty each Man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature that is to say of his own life and consequently of doing any thing which in his own judgment and reason he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto The Law of Nature is a precept or general Rule found out by Reason by which a Man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or taketh away the means of preserving the same and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be lest preserved the sum of the Right of the right of Nature is by all means we can to defend our selves This is the first foundation of Natural Right Stud. The distinction betwixt the Right and the Law of Nature is with good reason to be admitted But you ought not to challenge it to your self seeing it is expressly noted by divers ancient Authors and in particular by Laurentius Valla That which you add seemeth as false as the other is ancient For the right dictate of Natural Reason obliging Man not yet suppos'd a
much cannot be known as may be sought the question about the beginning of the World is to be determined by those that are lawfully authorized to order the worship of God for as Almighty God when he had brought his People into Iudaea allowed the Priests the First-Fruits reserved to himself so when he had delivered up the World to the disputations of men it was his pleasure that all opinions concerning the nature of infinite and eternal known only to himself should as the First-Fruits of wisdom be judged by those whose ministry they meant to use in the ordering of Religion I cannot therefore commend those that boast they have demonstrated by reasons drawn from natural things that the World had a beginning Stud. Where find you the Supreme Civil Magistrate for him you mean to be constituted a Judge of true and false then would the Truth be as inconstant as the Opinions of those Powers who being thronged with employments have of all men the least room left for speculation The Great Turk who ha's made the Alcaron to be Law ha's there affirmed that two verses in Surata Vaccae were made by God Almighty two thousand years before the World was framed and written by his Finger and all Christian Princes who determine the Bible to be the Word of God have thereby determin'd that such Stories are absurd Fables If you had so stated the Power of Princes as to have ascribed a right to them not as you now have done of determining questions that is of resolving them into true negations or affirmations but of restraining the tongues or pens of men from venting what they esteem inconvenient for Society I know few men of my Order who would with any vehemence have become your opposers provided alwaies that this Power be meant of such Opinions as subvert not natural or Christian Religion for it is as necessary at all times to professe such Articles as it is to make profession that we are not Atheists the necessity of which may hereafter be proved Mr. Hobbes I have so done as you require I should for in my Letter to Dr. Wallis since his Majesties return I have upon second thoughts restrained the decision of Authority to the publication and not the inward belief of Doctrinâ— I say there that these opinions about the Creation are to be judged by those to whom God ha's committed the ordering of Religion that is to the Supreme Governors of the Church that is in England to the King By his Authority I say it ought to be decided not what men shall think but what they shall say in those questions Stud. In this question of the Creation you seem too bountiful to Authority seeing by your own concession the affirmative is a point so very fundamental that all natural Religion if that be taken away will fall to the ground for in the Epistle before mentioned you doubt not to affirm that as for arguments from natural reason no man ha's hitherto brought any one except the Creation to prove a Deity that had not made it more doubtful to many men than it was before Wherefore it follows that whilst you attribute unto the Civil Magistrate a Right of binding men if he shall so please to profess this falshood that the World had no beginning you also ascribe unto the same Magistrate a Right of banishing the Profession of a Deity out of his Dominions Mr. Hobbes Why do you stile the King by the name of Magistrate Do you find Magigistrate to signifie any where the person that hath the Sovereign Power and not every where the Sovereigns Officers Stud. Although you are here guilty of an excursion yet I am content to follow you not being ignorant how soon you are out of breath in pursuing any Game started in Philology And first I will grant it to you that if we have regard to the nicest application of the Word at some times amongst the Romans it will not so elegantly agree to the Supreme Power For in the fourth Book of Cicero or rather Cornificius ad Herennium the Magistrate is said to be imployed in the execution of such Decrees as were made Law by the Senate And I have read in Varro that the Officers inferior to the Magister Populi or Dictator and Magister Equitum were by way of diminution call'd Magistratus as from Albus Albatus and yet I am assured that Cicero sometimes us'd the Word Magistrate in such a sense as derogates not at all from the super-eminence of things for in his third Book De Legibus we have this sentence The Magistrate is a speaking Law and the Law is a mute Magistrate and a while after citing the words of the old Roman Law he stileth the Consuls Magistrates and the Office Magistracy and yet he sheweth that the Consuls at first had Regal and Supreme Power But seeing Custome since the dayes of Cicero ha's otherwise applyed divers words and seeing that from a diverse administration of affairs and from new inventions and other causes there have arisen new words also those persons who will precisely speak with Cicero and the old Romans every of whose words and phrases cannot be thought extant in the fragments now in our hands they rather betray their own affectation than declare themselves Masters of Propriety of Language whilst Castalio useth Iova Tinctio Genius Sancte colatur in stead of Iehovah Baptismus Angelus Sanctificetur which word by the favor of so great a Critic is not avoided by Cicero himself he seems to study rather niceness than true cleanness of Latine The word Magistrate is not forced when it is used in expressing the Supreme Power for Magisterare in Festus is glossed by Regerè Your own Champion Terâ—ullian who well knew how to speak with the Laws interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Magistratus and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoteth sometimes so great a Power that it is spoken of the very Prince of the Powers of the Air that learned Person had in the above said place an Eye to the Government of the Athenians which after the succession of Kings failed at the death of Codrus was administred by Thirteen Magistrates called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which the first was Medon Cavil not now at the number of these Rulers for how many soever the persons are in such a Senate the Supreme Authority is but one If you require modern Authority the Testimony of Hugo Grotius is beyond just exception for he acknowledgeth that Summus Magistratus is used commonly in denoting the Sovereign Power although he approves not of it for exact Roman and nice Latinity Lastly Magistrate is a word in the sense in which I use it used also in the Law of King and Church with which we Englishmen are to speak rather than with the Twelve Tables or the Prince of Orators Recall then to your mind the thirty seventh Article of the Faith proâ—essed in
and Dependencies and connecteth myriads of such Ideas as have no Phantasm appertaining to them must be divine Images and Thoughts are produced in us in much disorder by reason that the Objects which we converse with are many and divers and because our Studies vary upon infinite occasions so that our thoughts at first do spring up one by one as Jewels are found It is then the work of Reason to recall and gather together all such of them as are of the same kind and to lay aside the rest for a convenient season and to judg further of their agreeableness how they depend upon and illustrate each other and so as it were to string them into a long aâ—d nervous coherence a chain most fit to adorn a Philosopher I know not how a Phantasm or moved part in the Brain can receive any other into mutual dependence which the force of the antecedent or consequent Objects adds not to it For that which is in Motion acts not at a distance but presseth only its neighbour and that by way of pulsion not attraction Again Reason by the drawing of divers Consequences correcteth Sense which though it doth not properly deceive being such a Perception as naturally ariseth from such a pressure and such a disposed Organ yet would it leave us for ever in Ignorance if our Reason did not convince us that the Object is not adequately represented by the Image In Sense Imagination or Memory one of the fixed Starrs seems not bigger than that in the Badg of the Order of the Garter the Image is no greater the Motion of no further force and therefore Reason which by consequences in Astronomy infers that it is bigger than the Earth is something much superior to Motion derived from the Object If after all this a Man shall say that the very train of Corporeal Motions in the Head is the Reason which judgeth of that train disturbeth its dependance made by succession of Objects disposeth it after a new manner and also at pleasure ordereth the train of Logical Ideas not generated by Motion it may sooner be resolved concerning such a saying than about the Perpendicular and Circle in the Angle of Contact touching which you think you have written shrewd matters that it doth not meerly incline to but is co incident with non-sense Mr. Hobbes Here is a great deal said and too much to be confuted yet almost every saying may be disproved or ought to be reprehended In sum It is all error and railing But what will you say if perhaps Ratiocination be nothing but the coupling and concatenation of Names by the Verb Est whence we collect by reason nothing at all of the Nature of things but of their Appellations to wit whether we joyn the Names of things according to the Agreements which we made at pleasure about their signification or whether we do otherwise If this be so as so it may be Ratiocination may depend upon Names Names upon Imagination and Imagination perhaps as I think upon the motion of Corporeal Organs and so still the Soul will be nothing else besides agitation in certain parts of a well framed Body Nay It is plain that there is nothing universal but Names And Reason is nothing but reckoning of the Consequences of general Names agreed upon to certain purposes Stud. Let Des-Cartes answer this Objection to whom you once proposed it There is said he in Ratiocination a coupling not of Names but of things signified by certain Names and I admire how the contrary could enter into the mind of any Man For who doubts that a Frenchman and a German do reason the same things concerning the same Subjects whilst they conceive their Notions in different Words or Names And doth not this Philosopher condemn himself whilst he speaks concerning Pacts which we made at pleasure teaching the signification of Words for if he admitteth that any thing is signified by Words why will not he have our Ratiocination consist in that something which is signified rather than in the bare Words themselves Thus he and as I think with unanswerable pertinence It might be also said that by this Doctrine an Ass and a Dumb-man are equally without Reason and that a Parrot is indued with it Mr. Hobbes There is no Reasoning without speech By the advantage of Names it is that we are capable of Science which Beasts for want of them are not nor Man without the use of them Stud. Where is your Reason in these words considering the ingeniousness of divers Dumb-men excelling that of many who are loudly talkative Names doubtless though connected are not Reason but the Registers of our Thoughts and Reasonings and we proceed from Mental to Verbal discourse and when we have conceived a Book we may express to the World the sense of it in what language we please if we be Masters of it The use of Names causeth rather a readiness in Reasoning than begetteth Reason and I think you somewhere in your Leviathan do confess it So that I may say of Names as you have done of Symbols in Geometry that themselves are not Science but serve only to make men go faster about in Reasoning as greater wind to a wind-mill Well I have talk'd my self into a necessity of drinking this untempting Ale Sir A good Health to you Mr. Hobbes Your Servant Sir that Liquor is not very proper for Philosophers Stud. This very Draught has put me in mind of an Objection which makes me extreamly to dislike the Doctrine of Mechanick Ratiocination This muddy Ale it seems shall in some part of it circle with the Blood and be sublimed in the Heart and sent up in Arteries to the Head and there shall perceive imagin remember and help me to Philosophize and to make divine Discourses and give me not only the warmth but the very essence of Mental or Verbal Prayer and Thanksgiving Nay that we may pass in due time to our Sixt Subject It shall also Will and Nill which I find I may do and think strange that I can do so by the meer power of Matter Mr. Hobbes There are certain and necessary causes which make every man to will what he willeth Stud. Herein I confess you disagree not from your self though you seem at the widest distance from the truth And Regius is much more to be blamed for inconsistency who assâ—rting that the Soul might be a mode of the Body did yet profess that the Will was free and in his own phrase sui juris For your self it was fit upon supposition of your belief of a Corporeal Universe that you should maintain a necessity of Willing For if every thing be Matter each effect in the World being the meer result of motion in Matter will be produced by fatal impulse And likewise that producing impulse will be necessitated by a former and so on in so long an order as cannot be pursu'd without the admittance
of the manners of distant Nations the Traffick being then in a few Port-Towns which held littlâ— Commerce with the Inland-inhabitants at any remoteness Yet is there not hence to be taken such licentious advantage as if there were no Law of Nature For how various soever the opinions and customs of several Nations are in this they all agree that good is to be done and evil to be shunned which were a vain determination if it never descended from a general sense to particularness of direction which is the immediate rule of manners for it is this or that good which is to be done and good in general is an unpracticable notion Again there may be eternal Laws of good and evil though all consent not in them because the understanding and manners of men are depraved and debauch'd by â—â—stom and the several arts of our common Enemy inâ—omuch that divers appear to be men rather in shape and speech than by severe Reason the law rule of Life And here let it be noted also that such virtues as a man out of society cannot practise as some sorts of justice gratitude modesty and mercy are laws eternal in the reason of them because it can never come to pass that with advantage to society they may be banish'd out of a Common-wealth And indeed all the Laws of nature which relate to certain states though alterable in the alteration of Circumstances yet in the reasons of them they are everlasting And Reason that bids a man obey his Father bids him in some cases obey not Man but God and yet the reason is unchangable on which both depend to wit of allegiance to the higher Authority Mr. Hobbes If now it were agree'd upon amongst men what right Reason is the controversie would be immediately ended Reason it self is always right reason But no one mans reason nor the reason of any one number of men makes the certainty But the Reason of some Arbitrator or Judg to whose sentence men will stand When men that think themselvs wiser than all others clamor demand right Reason for Judg they seek no more but that things should be determin'd by no other meâ—s reason but their own and this is as intolerable in the society of men as it is in play after trump is turned to use for trump on every occasion that suit whereof they have most in their hand For they do nothing else that will have every of their passions as it comes to bear sway in them to be taken for right reason and that in their own controversies bewraying their want of right reason by the claim they lay to it Stud. I cannot but say that prejudice self-interest doth blind the understanding and cause it to put evil for good humor education profit for reason and that an unconcerned Judg decideth a difference to the commodity not only of peace but of truth and right Butâ—seeing it is supposed that an Arbitrator can pronounce such a righteous sentence it followeth that he hath some standing Rule whereby to guide his judgment This is not always the bâ—hoâ—f of society but it may be known and it may oblige a man considered by himself and it concerneth the Hermite and the shipwraâ—kt person who is unfortunately cast upon an uninhabited Island Now this dictate of right Reason which â—ogether with the superadded act of Conscience is the Law of Nature consisteth in that moral congruity or proportion which is betwixt the action of mind or â—ongue or hand and the object considered relatively in their proper circumstances That ouâ— minds can compare the act object or discern whether they are congrous or incongruous equal or unequal is plain enough by the daily operations of our Faculties the truth of which none but a professed Sceptick calleth in question being mov'd thereto rather by capricious humor than strength of his argument the reason of which is destroy'd by his very Hypothesis that Nothing is certain And he that calleth ouâ— Faculties into question doth raze the foundations of the Mathematicks as well as of moral doctrine and leaves no more place for the foot of Archimedes than of Socrates For it is as manifest by the comparative operations of our minds that hatred for instance and disrespect towards that Being on which we depend for what we are and have is an ununiform incongruous unequal disproportion'd carriage as that a crooked line is unequal to a straight one laying between the same terms The like may be said of killing an innocent man whom we know to have bin such and whose continuance in integrity we suspect not and of the abusing a benefactor And he that justifieth such returns may with equal truth reason maintain that the shortest Garment of David is well proportion'd to the properest statâ—re of Saul or Goliah Now to this perception of moral congruity betwixt the action and the object considered in their proper circumstances in relation to mens manners is added an act of conscience in all those who attend to the Laws of their Nature as rules imprinted in them by the Governour of the World who made them what they are consequently as the rules of his will in such manner declared to them and from thence what is reasonable passeth into a Law And as the mind of man perceiveth this proportion or conformity greater or less he knoweth in some sort the measure of hiâ— obligation And when he perceiveth the incongruity to be very little he concludeth it to be a counsel rather than a law yet will he be moved by that which Ovid calleth decor Recti if he be endued with a generous nature From hence it is manifest that some primary rules of good and evil carry a reason with them so immutable in the eternâ—l connexion of their terms that with modesty enough we may use concerning them that boast of Ovid touching his owâ— works affirming that neither the rage of Iupiter nor the most devouring fire or War nor what consumeth more than they both even Time it self can abolish and destroy them And this was the meaning of those in Aristotle who believed that what was natural was immoveable and of the same force in â—ll places as fire burneth here also in Persia. And this they mean who affirm that God cannot lie or deny or hate himself or approve of him that hateth him or adoreth him contrary to his declared will and that he cannot torture a man supposed innocent with never-ceasing misery Mr. Hobbes There is no rule which God may not most justly break because he iâ— Almighty This I know God cannot sin because his doing a thing makes it just and consequently no sin Power irresiâ—tible justifieth all actions really and properly in whomsoever it be found less power does not â— and because such Power is in God only he must needs be just in all his actions and we who not comprehending his Counsels call him to the Bar
life after many hundreds of years Mr. Hobbes A second place is that in St. Paul 1 Cor. 15.22 For as in Adam all dye even so in Christ shall all be made alive Now if as in Adam all dye that is have forfeited Paradise and eternal life on earth so in Christ all shall be made alive then all men shall be made to live on earth for else the comparison were not proper Stud. That Adam if he had remained obedient should have lived eternally upon earth together with all the race of men to have been produced out of his loyns to whom this earth would at last have denyed Elbow-room is a conceit of yours which reason doth not favour For the first man was of the earth earthy he was sustained by corruptible food he was design'd for propagation before his fall which things seem to argue a mortal nature and are by our Saviour excepted from the condition of those who shall enjoy eternal blessedness And though it was said to him that in eating the forbidden fruit he should dye the death that argueth thenceforth a necessity of dying and denyeth not a capableness of dying formerly and though God Almighty could have sustain'd his mortal nature for ever upon earth yet there is as I think no promise of it in Holy Writ and whilst we consider the future estate of blessed men described in Scripture there is some reason for us to believe that he should have rather been translated to an Heavenly Paradise then to have dwelt for ever in the Eden below Neither was it the business of the Apostle in this Text to determine any thing of the place but to set forth the priviledge of Believers by the means of Christ at the last day The meaning of the Apostle who speaketh here of those that are Christs seems no other then this As all who came from Adam were obnoxious to death and could not naturally claim the priviledge of a Resurrection to life eternal So all who believe in the Messiah shall not rot for ever in the grave but be raised up to everlasting happiness To this sense agree both Crellius and Vorstius whom I the rather name to you because they were men of singularity in conceit and such as stepped out of the beaten Road of Divinity which the Orthodox believe the truest and safest way In the Paraphrase of this comparison All of one kinde is answered by All of the other kinde and death by life And therefore there is no impropriety in the comparison though in other particulars the things compared disagree The main scope of the Apostle in setting forth the advantage of Believers at that day by Christ doth justifie the similitude though the place of life be not the same to all the Sons of Adam which was possessed by that Root of mankinde Parables saith Salmeron who wrote of them are like to swords the Hilts and Scabbards of them are variously wrought but it is the Edge whereby they â—o execution Mr. Hobbes Notwithstanding what hath been talk'd I still maintain that the Elect after the Resurrection shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned and that the place shall be on earth and more particularly at and about Ierusalem Concerning the general salvation because it must be in the Kingdom of Heaven there is great difficulty concerning the place On one side by Kingdom which is an estate ordained by men for their perpetual security against Enemies and want it seemeth that this Salvation shall be on earth for by Salvation is set forth unto us a glorious reign of our King by conquest not a safety by escape and therefore there where we look for Salvation we must look also for Triumph and before triumph for victory and before victory for battle which cannot well be supposed shall be in heaven and it is evident by Scripture that Salvation shall be on earth then when God shall reign at the coming again of Christ in Ierusalem and from Ierusalem shall proceed the Salvation of the Gentiles that shall be received into Gods Kingdom Stud. In this speech of yours there is a threefold error easily confuted and broken in sunder First you say the Elect shall be in the estate of innocent Adam and you would have comparison answer comparison as face answereth face Yet our Saviour saith That the elect shall neither eat drink nor marry Secondly you suppose a War in the estate of the heaven on earth and after that victory the former of which is inconsistent with that uninterrupted peace which the Scripture ascribeth to that estate and the latter is meant of Christ the Captain of our Salvation conquering death in behalf of Believers by dying and arising again and triumphing over death in ascending and reigning at Gods Right-hand Wherefore St. Paul saith O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory And again Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Iesus Christ. Neither in the third place do you speak consistently with your self when you mention Ierusalem as the Metropolis of Heaven For blessedness being by you supposed the recovery of the estate lost in Adam the chief seat of it ought by you to have been fixed in the Region of Eden which where it is those Atheists who scoff at the story of Adam may be instructed both in relation to their knowledge and manners by an obscure but yet most learned Geographer and Divine Mr. Hobbes Will you suffer me to proceed in proving that the future estate of Gods subjects shall be upon earth particularly at Ierusalem Stud. You shall not be unseasonably interrupted Mr. Hobbes That it shall be on earth is proved from a third place Rev. 2.7 To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God This was the Tree of Adams eternal life but his life was to have been on earth Stud. You here mistake as many have done in attempting to unfold the Revelation this Book of Mysteries which representeth Allegorically to our senses the things in Heaven by patterns on earth There is a Paradise not upon earth an entrance into which our Saviour promised to the relenting and believing Malefactor that very day upon the Cross. Besides the meer letter of the Text fixeth the chief Seat of Heaven in Eden not in Ierusalem Mr. Hobbes To my opinion concerning the Heavenly Ierusalem on earth seemeth to agree that of the Psalmist Psal. 133.3 Vpon Zion God commanded the blessing even life for evermore for Zion is in Ierusalem upon earth Stud. This blessing is meant of temporal long life which God promised so especially to the obedient in the Land of Canaan neither cannot it with reason be interpreted of a life eternal for David saith in the last place that God did there command a blessing Besides though Zion was at Ierusalem yet Hermon which is first
For as Descartes has with acuteness and truth observed we otherwise think of or understand a Triangle and a figure of a thousand Angles When we think of a Triangle we not only understand a figure comprehended by three lines but also we have a Perception or Image of those three lines in our Brain and that is Imagination But when we think of a Figure of a thousand Angles we as perfectly by our Reason understand that it consists of a thousand sides as we perceive the other to consist of three but we cannot imagin those thousand Sides and Angles after the same manner that we did the three that is behold them as distinctly pictur'd in our Brain as present in a Phantasm And although by reason of the custom which we have gotten of imagining something as often as there is mention made of a corporeal subject we may perhaps represent to our selves some confused figure at the hearing the foresaid figure named yet it is plain that this is not the image of a figure of a thousand sides and Angles because it is in nothing differing from that Image of a Figure which should represent to my self in thinking of a Figure with a myriad of Sides and Angles or of any other of very many Sides neither doth it conduce at all to the understanding of those proprieties whereby a figure of a thousand Angles differs from other very Polygonous Figures Again to proceed in order I will endeavour to make it evident beyond all just exception that the power of Reasoning in the acts of simple Apprehâ—nsion of connecting simple notions into a Proposition of deriving consequences from premised propositions is not the meer result of the moved Mechanism of Man's Body First In the Acts of simple Apprehension our Reason exercised in Notions purely Logical or Metaphysical has Ideas which are estranged from all Corporeal Matter For they are not conceptions of single Beings but of the manner how we conceive of them our selves or declare our conceptions unto others Thus every Youth will tell us within few days after Matriculation That Homo is Species Mr. Hobbes The Universality of one Name to many Things has been the cause that Men think the Things are themselves universal and so seriously contend that besides Peter and Iohn and all the rest of the Men that are have been or shall be in the World there is yet something else that we call Man viz. Man in general deceiving themselves by taking the universal or general appellation for the thing it signifieth For if one should desire the Painter to make him the Picture of a Man which is as much as to say of a Man in general he meaneth no more but that the Painter should chuse what Man he pleaseth to draw which must needs be some of them that are or have been or may be none of which are universal But when he would have him to draw the Picture of the King or any particular person he limiteth the Painter to that one person he chuseth Stud. I affirm not that there is such an existing Being as Man in general yet that there is such an abstracted notion of Man or Manhood all Circumstances of Individuation laid aside is manifest seeing it is not a true and proper Predication to say a Man is Socrates and therefore the notion reacheth beyond a singular and therefore is not an impulse from Sense whose Objects are all singular And because a Painter cannot make the Picture of Human Nature but only of a Human Person iâ— followeth that such a Notion is not Pictur'd in the Fancy Besides when we say a Man is a Species we represent not to our selves properly in Logick Human Nature but the manner whereby our Mind conceives of it whilst it takes notice that it agrees to Peter and Paul aâ—d Thomas and every single Man that has been or is or shall be produced For to be Species is not said of Man alone but of every common Nature And this also you might have known more than 6ty years ago in Magdalen-hall in Oxâ— It is a shame therefore for you to upbraid the Schools of non-sense and deceit into which if you had enter'd with apprehension this back-door to Atheism had never bin set open by you Further To take you a short lesson out of Ramus a Man who understood the Mathematicks and yet despis'd not though he reformed Logick The Invention of Arguments shews Reason to be above the Laws of Matter For the Arguments in his first part of Logick that is Topicks apt to argue or declare the relation of one thing to another as Virgil in the fourth Aeneid says Fear does argue degenerate Minds such as are Cause Effect Subject Adjunct and the like being used here not to find out the nature of single Beings which appertains to Natural Philosophy Medics and other Sciences nor to interpret Names which appertains to Grammar but only as places declaring the mutual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or habitudes of one thing to another which may be related divers ways they cannot possibly arise from the single and absolute motions of sense Wonder not now that I am so busie in the first Elements of Logick seeing your own misconceit about the art of Reasoning is a manifest relapse into the Ignorance of a second Childhood and sheweth a necessity of your returning to Oxford anew Again if we consider Reason in the framing of Propositions we find that we connect and disjoyn Subjects and Predicates we compare and refer them we say this appertains to the other or it does not it is equal to it or unequal like or unlike which being acts of Relation cannot wholly arise from any thing pressing into the Brain from without which must be some single and absolute Object but from the meer efficacy of an Incorporeal mind It is impossible that the Sentient by meer Motion should connect or compare one Image with another For a divers Phantasm is a divers Motion and supposing they remain the Motion is in a divers part seeing the Phantasms or divers Motions would be confounded if in the same part of the Brain they should conspire If then there be one Phantasm in one part and a second in another by what imaginable power can they confer For if any part gives its Motion to the other or receives from it the Motion that is the Phantasm of it is by so doing changed I may here subjoyn that without the Anticipation of Propositions in the mind it is a difficult matter to understand how we can be capable of Sense or Fancy unless we first know what it is to know and have some antecedent rules whereby to judg of receiv'd Images Last of all in deriving Consequences in longer or shorter trains of coherence reason shews it self to be an immaterial faculty For if two Images cannot as hath bin prov'd be aptly connected by Imagination and Memory supposed Mechanical Reason surely which ranketh all Beings into their distinct Orders