opinion of T. H almost as there are words Here we learn that God is rich in goodness and will not punish his creatures for that which is his own act Secondly that he suffers and forbeares sinners long and doth not snatch them away by sudden death as they deserve Thirdly that the reason of Gods forbearance is to bring men to repentance Fourthly that hardness of heart and impenitency is not causally from God but from our selves Fiftly that it is not the insufficient proposal of the means of their conversion on Gods ' part which is the cause of mens perdition but their own contempt and despising of these means Sixtly that punishment is not an act of absolute dominion but an act of righteous judgement whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves eternal life to those who continue patiently in well-doing If they deserve such punishment who only neglect the goodness and long suffering of God what do they who utterly deny it and make Gods doing and his suffering to be all one I do beseech T. H. to consider what a degree of wilfulness it is out of one obscure text wholly misunderstood to contradict the clear current of the whole Scripture Of the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 22. The long suffering of God waited once in the daies of Noah And 2 Pet. 3. 15. Account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation This is the name God gives himself Exod. 34. 6. The Lord the Lord God mercyful and gracious long suffering c. b Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be commonly true That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent will or by a consequent will either by an operative will or by a permissive will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man to suffer that to be done which otherwise he would not suffer So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the Lions den to make good his rash decree So Herod suffered John Baptist to be beheaded to make good his rash oath How much more may the immutable rule of justice in God and his fidelity in keeping his word draw from him the punishment of obstinate sinners though antecedently he willeth their conversion He loveth all his creatures well but his own Justice better Again sometimes a man suffereth that to be done which he doth not will directly in it self but indirectly for some other end or for the producing of some greater good As a man willeth that a putrid member be cut off from his body to save the life of the whole Or as a Judge being desirous to save a malefactors life and having power to reprieve him doth yet condemn him for example sake that by the death of one he may save the lives of many Marvel not then if God suffer some creatures to take such courses as tend to their own ruine so long as their sufferings do make for the greater manifestation of his glory and for the greater benefit of his faithful servants This is a most certain truth that God would not suffer evil to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evil Yet this ought not to be understood as if we made any priority or posteriority of time in the acts of God but onely of Nature Nor do we make the antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another because the one respects man pure and uncorrupted the other respects him as he is lapsed The objects are the same but considered after a diverse manner Nor yet do we make these wills to be distinct in God for they are the same with the divine essence which is one But the distinction is in order to the objects or things willed Nor lastly do we make this permission to be a naked or a meer permission God causeth all good pemitteth all evil disposeth all things both good and evill c T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evill by a general but not by a speciall influence As the Earth gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yeilds food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the general nourishment of the Earth but from the special quality of the root Even so the general power to act is from God In him we live and move and have our being This is good But the specification and determination of this general power to the doing of any evill is from our selves and proceeds from the free will of man This is bad And to speak properly the free will of man is not the efficient cause of sin as the root of the Hemlock is of poison sin having no true entity or being in it as poison hath But rather the deficient cause Now no defect can flow from him who is the highest perfection d Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God The general power to act is from God but the specification of this general and good power to murther or to any particular evil is not from God but from the free will of man So T. H. may see clearly if he will how one may be the cause of the Law and likewise of the action in some sort that is by general influence and yet another cause concurring by special influence and determining this general and good power may make it self the true cause of the anomy or the irregularity And therefore he may keep his longer and shorter garments for some other occasion Certainly they will not fit this subject unless he could make general and special influence to be all one But T. H. presseth yet further that the case is the same and the objection used by the Jews ver 19. Why doth he yet find fault who hath resisted his will is the very same with my argument And St. Pauls answer ver 20. O man who art thou that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over his Clay c is the very same with his answer in this place drawn from the irresistible power and absolute dominion of God which justifieth all his actions And that the Apostle in his answer doth not deny that it was Gods will nor that Gods decree was before Esaus sin To which I reply First that the case is
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
not at all the same but quite different as may appear by these particulars first those words before they had done either good or evill are not cannot be refered to those other words Esau have I hated Secondly If they could yet it is less than nothing because before Esau had actually sinned his future sins were known to God Thirdly by the Potters clay here is not to be understood the pure mass but the corrupted mass of mankind Fourthly the hating here mentioned is only a comparative hatred that is a less degree of love Fiftly the hardening which St. Paul speaks of is not a positive but a negative obduration or a not imparting of grace Sixtly St. Paul speaketh not of any positive reprobation to eternal punishment much less doth he speak of the actual inflicting of punishment without sin which is the Question between us and wherein T. H. differs from all that I remember to have read who do all acknowledge that punishment is never actually inflicted but for sin If the Question be put why God doth good to one more than to another or why God imparteth more grace to one than to another as it is there the answer is just and fit because it is his pleasure and it is sawciness in a creature in this case to reply May not God do what he will with his own Matth. 20. 15. No man doubteth but God imparteth grace beyond mans desert c But if the case be put why God doth punish one more than another or why he throws one into hell fire and not another which is the present case agitated between us To say with T. H. that it is because God is Omnipotent or because his power is irresistible or meerly because it is his pleasure is not only not warranted but is plainly condemned by St. Paul in this place So many differences there are between those two cases It is not therefore against God that I reply but against T. H. I do not call my Creator to the Bar but my fellow creature I ask no account of Gods counsails but of mans presumptions It is the mode of these times to father their own fancies upon God and when they cannot justifie them by reason to plead his Omnipotence or to cry O altitudo that the wayes of God are unsearchable If they may justifie their drowsie dreams because Gods power and dominion is absolute much more may we reject such phantastical devises which are inconsistent with the â—ruth and goodness and justice of God and make him to be a Tyrant who is the Father of Mercies and the God af all consolation The unsearchableness of Gods wayes should be a bridle to restrain presumption and not a sanctuary for spirits of error Secondly this objection conteined ver 19. to which the Apostle answers ver 20. is not made in the person of Esau or Pharaoh as T. H. supposeth but of the unbelieving Jews who thought much at that grace and favour which God was pleased to vouchsafe unto the Gentiles to acknowledge them for his people which honour they would have appropriated to the posterity of Abraham And the Apostles answer is not onely drawn from the Soveraign Dominion of God to impart his grace to whom he pleaseth as hath been shewed already but also from the obstinacy and proper fault of the Jews as appeareth ver 22. What if God willing that is by a consequent will to shew his wrath and to make his power known endureth with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction They acted God endured They were toltrated by God but fitted to destruction by themselves for their much wrong doing here is Gods much long suffering And more plainly ver 31. Israel hath not atteined to the Law of righteousness wherefore because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the works of the Law This reason is set down yet more emphaâ—ically in the next Chapter ver 3. They that is the Israelites being ignorant of Gods righteousness that is by faith in Christ and going about to establish their own righteousness that is by the works of the Law have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God And yet most expresly Chap. 11. ver 20. Because of undelief they were broken off but thou standest by faith Neither was there any precedent binding decree of God to necessitate them to unbelief and consequently to punishment It was in their own power by their concurrence with Gods grace to prevent these judgements and to recover their former estate ver 23. If they that is the unbelidving Jews abide not still in unbelief they shall be grafted in The Crown and the Sword are immovable to use St. Anselmes comparison but it is we that move change places Sometimes the Jews were under the Crown and the Gentiles under the Sword sometimes the Jews under the Sword and â—he Gentiles under the Crown Thirdly though I confess that human pacts are not the measure of Gods Justice but his justice is his own immutable will whereby he is ready to give every man that which is his own as rewards to the good punishments to the bad so nevertheless God may oblige himself freely to his creature He made the Covenant of works with mankind in Adam and therefore he punisheth not man contrary to his own Covenant but for the transgression of his duty And Divine justice is not measured by Omnipotence or by irresistible power but by Gods will God can do many things according to his absolute power which he doth not He could raise up children to Abraham of stones but he never did so It is a rule in Theology that God cannot do any thing which argues any wickedness or imperfection as God cannot deny himself 2 Tim 2. 13. He cannot lie Tit. 1. 2. These and the like are fruits of impotence not of power So God cannot destroy the righteous with the wicked Gen. 18. 25. He could not destroy Shdome whil'st Lot was in it Gen. 19 22. not for want of dominion or power but because it was not agreeable to his Justice nor to that Law which himself had constituted The Apostle saith Heb. 6. 10. God is not unrighteous to forget your work As it is a good consequence to say this is from God therefore it is righteous so is this also This thing is unrighteous therefore it cannot proceed from God We see how all creatures by instinct of nature do love their young as the Hen her Chickens how they will expose themselves to death for them And yet all these are but shadowes of that love which is in God towards his Creatures How impious is it then to conceive that God did create so many millions of souls to be tormented eternally in hell without any fault of theirs except such as he himself did necessitate them unto meerly to shew his dominion and because his power is irresistible The same priviledge which T. H. appropriates here to power absolutely irresistible a friend
born do all oblige us to the observation of them yet to none of all these did we give our actual consent Over and above all these exceptions he builds upon a wrong foundation that all Magestrates at first were elective The first Governours were Fathers of Families And when those petty Princes could not afford competent protection and security to their subjects many of them did resign their several and respective interists into the hands of one joint Father of the Country And though his ground had been true that all first Legislators were elective which is false yet his superstructure fails for it was done in hope and trust that they would make just Lawes If Magistrates abuse this trust and deceive the hopes of the people by making tyrannical Lawes yet it is without their consent A precedent trust doth not justifie the subsequent errours and abuses of a Trustee He who is duely elected a Legislator may exercise his Legislative power unduely The peoples implicite consent doth not render the tyrannical Lawes of their Legislators to be just d But his chiefest answer is that an action forhidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly it may be justly punished which according to his custome he proves by an instance A man necessitated to steal by the strength of temptation yet if he steal willingly is justly put to death Here are two things and both of them untrue First he fails in his assertion Indeed we suffer justly for those necessities which we our selves have contracted by our own fault but not for extrinsecal antecedent necessities w ch were imposed upon us without our fault If that Law do not oblige to punishment which is not intimated because the subject is invincibly ignorant of it How much less that Law which prescribes absolute impossibilities unless perhaps invincible necessity be not as strong a plea as invincible ignorance That which he adds if it were done willingly though it be of great moment if it be rightly understood yet in his sense that is if a mans will be not in his own disposition and if his willing do not come upon him according to his will nor according to any thing else in his power it weighs not half so much as the least feather in all his horse-load For if that Law be unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do then that Law is likewise unjust and tyrannical which commands him to wil that which is impossible for him to will Secondly his instance supposeth an untruth and is a plain begging of the Question No man is extrinsecally antecedently and irresistibly necessitated by temptation to steal The Devil may sollicite us but he cannot necessitate us He hath a faculty of perswading but not a power of compelling Nosignem habemus spiritus â—â—ammam ciet as Nazi anzen He blowes the coles but the fire is our own Mordet duntaxat sese in fauces illius objicientens as St. Austin he bites not until we thrust our selves into his mouth He may propose he may suggest but he cannot move the will effectively Resist the Devil and he will flie from you Jam. 4. 7. By faith we are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked Eph. 6. 16. And if Sathan who can both propose the object and choose out the fittest times and places to work upon our frailties and can suggest reasons yet cannot necessitate the will which is most certain then much less can outward objects do it alone They have no natural efficacy to determine the will Well may they be occasions but they cannot be causes of evil The sensitive appetite may engender a proclivity to steal but not a necessity to steal And if it should produce a kind of necessity yet it is but Moral not Natural Hypothetical not Absolute Coexistent not Antecedent from our selves nor Extrinsecall This necessity or rather proclivity was fâ—â—â— in its causes we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given it a kind of dominion over us Admit that some sudden passions may and do extraordinarily surprise us And therefore we say motus primo primi the first motions are not alwayes in our power neither are they free yet this is but very rarely and it is our own fault that they do surprise us Neither doth the Law punish the first motion to theft but the advised act of stealing The intention makes the thief But of this more largely Numb 25. e He pleads moreover that the Law is a cause of justice that it frames the wills of men to justice and that the punishment of one doth conduce to the preservation of many All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But this is no god-a-mercy to T. H. his opinion of absolute necessity If all actions and all events be predetermined Naturally Necessarily Extrinsecally how should the Law frame men morally to good actions He leaves nothing for the Law to do but either that which is done already or that which is impossible to be done If a man be chained to every individual act which he doth and from every act which he doth not by indissolvible bonds of inevitable necessity how should the Law either deterre him or frame him If a Dog be chained fast to a post the sight of a rod cannot draw him from it Make a thousand Lawes that the fire shall not burn yet it will burn And whatsoever men do according to T. H. they do it as necessarily as the fire burneth Hang up a thousand Theevs and if a man be determined inevitably to steal he must steal notwithstanding f He addes that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon delinquents respect not the evil act past but the good to come and that the putting of a delinquent to death by the Magistrate for any crime whatsoever cannot be justified before God except there be a reall intention to benefit others by his example The truth is the punishing of delinquents by Law respecteth both the evil act past and the good to come The ground of it is the evil act past the scope or end of it is the good to come The end without the ground cannot justifie the act A bad intention may make a good action bad but a good intention cannot make a bad action good It is not lawful to do evil that good may come of it nor to punish an innoceut person for the admonition of others that is to fall into a certain crime for fear of an uncertain Again though there were no other end of penalties inflicted neither probatory nor castigatory nor exemplary but only vindicatory to satisfie the Law out of a zeal of Justice by giving to every one his own yet the action is just and warrantable Killing as it is considered in it self without all undue circumstances was never prohibited to the lawful Magistrate who is the Vicegerent or
Lieutenant of God from whom he derives his power of life and death T. H. hath one plea more As a drowning man catcheth at every Buâ—rush so he layes hold on every pretence to save a desperate cause But first it is worth our observation to see how oft he changeth shapes in this one particular â— First he told us that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his actions though he command one thing openly and plot another thing secretly though he be the cause not onely of the action but also of the irregularity though he both give man power to act and determine this power to evil as well as good though he punish the Creatures for doing that which he himself did necessitate them to do But being pressed with reason that this is tyrannical first to necessitate a man to do his will and then to punish him for doing of it he leaves this pretence in the plain field and flies to a second That therefore a man is justly punished for that which he was necessitated to do because the act was voluntary on his part This hath more shew of reason than the former if he did make the will of man to be in his own disposition but maintaining that the will is irresistibly determined to will whatsoever it doth will the injustice and absurdity is the same First to necessitate a man to will and then to punish him for willing The Dog onely bites the stone which is thrown at him with a strange haud but they make the first cause to punish the instrument for that which is his own proper act Wherefore not being satisfied with this he casts it off and flies to his third shift Men are not punished saith he â—…fore because their theft proceeded from election that is because it was willingly done for to Elect and Will saith he are both one Is not this to blow hot and cold with the same breath but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation Thus far he saith true that every creature by the instinct of nature seeks to preserve it self cast water into a dusty place and it contracts it self into little globes that is to preserve it self And those who are noxious the eye of the Law are justly punished by them to whom the execution of the Law is committed but the Law accounts no persons noxious but those who are noxious by their own fault It punisheth not a thorn for pricking because it is the nature of the thorn and it can do no otherwise nor a child before it have the use of reason If one should take mine hand perforce and give another a box on the ear with it my hand is noxious but the Law punisheth the other who is faulty And therefore he hath reason to propose the question how it is just to kill on man to amend another if he who killed did nothing but what he was necessitated to do He might as well demand how it is lawful to murther a company of innocent Infants to make a bath of their lukewarm blood for curing the Leprosie It had been a more rational way first to have demonstrated that it is so and then to have questioned why it is so His assertion it self is but a dream and the reason which he gives of it why it is so is a dream of a dream The sum of it is this That where there is no Law there no killing or any thing else can be unjust that before the constitution of Commonwealths every man had power to kill another if he conceived him to be hurtfull to him that at the constitution of Commonwealhts particular men lay down this right in part and in part reserve it to themselves as in case of theft or murther That the right which the Commonwealth hath to put a malefactor to death is not created by the Law but remaineth from the first right of Nature which every man hath to preserve himself that the killing of men in this case is as the killing of beasts in order to our own preservation This may well be called stringing of Paradoxes But first h there never was any such time when Mankind was without Governors and Lawes and Societies Paternal Government was in the world from the beginning and the Law of Nature There might be sometimes a root of such Barbatous Theevish Brigants in some rocks or desarts or odd corners of the World but it was an abuse and a degeneration from the nature of man who is a political creature This savage opinion reflects too much upon the honour of mankind Secondly there never was a time when it was lawfull ordinarily for private men to kill one another for their own preservation If God would have had men live like wild beasts as Lions Bears or Tygers he would have armed them with hornes or tusks or talons or pricks but of all creatures man is born most naked without any weapon to defend himself because God had provided a better means of security for him that is the Magistrate Thirdly that right which private men have to preserve themselves though it be with the killing of another when they are set upon to be murthered or robbed is not a remainder or a reserve of some greater power which they have resigned but a priviledge which God hath given them in case of extream danger and invincible necessity that when they cannot possibly have recourse to the ordinary remedy that is the Magistrate every man becomes a Magistrate to himself Fourthly nothing can give that which it never had The people whilest they were a dispersed rable which in some odd cases might happen to be never had justly the power of life and death and therefore they could not give it by their election All that they do is to prepare the matter but it is God Almighty that infuseth the soul of power Fiftly and lastly I am sorry to hear a man of reason and parts to compare the murthering of men with the slaughtering of brute beasts The elements are for the Plants the Plants for the brute Beasts the brute Beasts for Man When God enlarged his former grant to man and gave him liberty to eat the flesh of his creatures for his sustenance Gen. 9. 3. Yet man is expresly excepted ver â— Who so sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed And the reason is assigned for in the image of God made he man Before sin entred into the World or before any creatures were hurtful or noxious to man he had â—â—minion over them as their Lord and Master And though the possession of this soveraignty be lost in part for the sin of man which made not onely the creatures to rebel but also the inferiour 〈…〉 to rebel against the superiour from whence it comes that one man is hurtful to another yet the dominion still remains wherein we may observe how sweetly the providence of God doth temper this cross that though the strongest creatures
perceave so easie a truth as this which he denieth The Bible is a Law To whom To all the World He knowes it is not How came it then to be a Law to us Did God speak it viva voce to us Have we then any other Warrant for it than the Word of the Prophets Have we seen the miracles Have we any other assurance of their certainty than the authority of the Church and is the authority of the Church any other than the authority of the Commonwealth or that of the Commonwealth any other than that of the Head of the Common-wealth or hath the Head of the Commonwealth any other authority than that which hath been given him by the Members Else why should not the Bible be Canonical as well in Constantinople as in any other place They that have the Legislative power make nothing Canon which they make not Law nor Law which they make not Canon And because the Legislative power is from the assent of the subjects the Bible is made Law by the assent of the subjects It was not the Bishop of Rome that made the Scripture Law without his own temporal Dominions nor is it the Clergy that make it Law in their Dioceses and Rectories Nor can it be a Law of it self without special and supernatural revelation The Bishop thinks because the Bible is Law and he is appointed to teach it to the people in his Diocese that therefore it is Law to whom soever he teach it which is somewhat grosse but not so grosse as to say that Conquerors who come in by tho power of the sword make their Lawes also without our assent He thinks belike that if a Conquerour can kill me if he please I am presently obliged without more a doe to obey all his Lawes May not I rather dye if I think fit The Conquerour makes no Law over the Conquered by vertue of his power but by vertue of their assent that promised obedience for the saving of their lives But how then is the assent of the Children obtained to the Laws of their Ancestors This also is from the desire of preserving their lives which first the Parents might take away where the Parents be free from all subjection and where they are not there the Civil power might do the same if they doubted of their obedience The Children therefore when they be grown up to strength enough to do mischeif and to judgement enough to know that other men are kept from doing mischeif to them by fear of the Sword that protecteth them in that very act of receiving that protection and not renouncing it openly do oblige themselves to obey the Lawes of their Protectors to which inreceaving such protection they have assented And whereas he saith the Law of Nature is a Law without our assent it is absurd for the Law of Nature is the Assent it self that all men give to the means of their own preservation d But his cheifest answer is that An action forbidden though it proceed from necessary causes yet if it were done willingly may be justly punished c. This the Bishop also understandeth not and therefore denies it He would have the Judge condemne no man for a crime if it were necessitated as if the Judge could know what acts are necessary unless he knew all that hath anteceded both visible and invisible and what both every thing in it self and altogether can effect It is enough to the Judge that the act he condemneth be voluntary The punishment whereof may if not capital reforme the will of the offender if capital the will of others by example For heat in one body doth not more create heat in another than the terrour of an example creatâ—th fear in another who otherwise were inclined to commit injustice Some few lines before he hath said that I built upon a wrong foundation namely That all Magistrates were at first elective I had forgot to tell you that I never said nor though it And therefore his Reply as to that point is impertinent Not many lines after for a reason why a man may not be justly punished when his crime is voluntary he offereth this that Law is unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to Will that which is impossible for him to Will Whereby it appears he is of opinion that a Law may be made to command the Will The stile of a Law is Do this or Do not this or If thou Do this thou shalt Suffer this but no Law runs thus Will this or Will not this or If thou have a Will to this thou shalt Suffer this He objecteth further that I hegg the question because no mans Will is necessitated Wherein he mistakes for I say no more in that place but that he that doth evill willingly whether he be necessarily willing or not necessarily may be justly punished And upon this mistake he runneth over again his former and already answered non-sense saying we our selves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might have freely given them a kind of dominion over us and again motus primo primi the first motions are not alwayes in our power Which motus primo primi signifies nothing and our negligence in not opposing our passions is the same with our want of Will to oppose our Will which is absurd and that we have given them a kind of dominion over us either signifies nothing or that we have a dominion over our Wills or our Wills a dominion over us and consequently either we or our wills are not Free e He pleads moreover that the Law is a cause of Justice c. All this is most true of a just Law justly executed But I have shown that all Lawes are just as Lawes and therefore not to be accused of injustice by those that owe subjection to them and a just Law is alwayes justly executed Seeing then that he confesseth that all that he replieth to here is true it followeth that the Reply it self where it contradicteth me is false f He addeth that the sufferings imposed by the Law upon Delinquents respect not the evil act past but the good to come and that the putting of a Delinquent to death by the Magistrate for any crime whatsoever cannot be justified before God except there be a reall intention to benefit others by his example This he neither confirmeth nor denieth and yet forbeareth not to discourse upon it to little purpose and therefore I pass it over g First he told us that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his Actions though he command one thing openly and plot another thing secretly though he be the cause not onely of the Action but also of the irregularity c. To all this which hath been pressed before I have answered also before but that he sayes I say having commanded one thing openly he plots another thing secretly it is not mine but one of his own ugly Phrases And the
the Universal work of God and then it is absurd for the universe as one aggregate of things natural hath no intention His Doctrine that followeth concerning the generation of Monsters is not worth consideration therefore I leave it wholy to the Judgement of the Reader e Then he betakes himself to his old help that God may punish by right of omnipotence though there were no sin The question is not now what God may do but what God will do according to that Covenant which he hath made with Man Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live T is plaine to let passe that he puts Punishment where I put Affliction making a true sentence false that if a man do this he shall live and he may do this if he will In this the Bishop and I disagree not This therefore is not the question but whether the will to do this or not to do this be in a mans own Election Whereas he adds He that wills not the death of a sinner doth much lesse Will the death of an innocent creature He had forgot for a while that both good and evil men are by the Will of God all mortall but presently corrects himself and says he means by Death Eternal torments that is to say eternal life but in torments To which I have answered once before in this Book and spoken much more amply in another Book to which the Bishop hath inclination to make an answer as appeareth by his Epistle to the Reader That which followeth to the end of this number hath been urged and answered already divers times I therefore passe it over J. D. BUT the Patrons of necessity being driven out of the Numb 18. plain field with reason have certain retreats or distinctions which they flye unto for refuge First they distinguish between Stoical necessity and Christian necessity between which they make a threefold difference First say they the Stoicks did subject Jupiter to destiny but but we subject destiny to God I answer that the Stoical and Christian destiny are one and the same fatum quasi effatum Jovis Hear Seneca Destiny is the necessity of all things and actions depending upon the disposition of Jupiter c. I add that the Stoicks left a greater liberty to Jupiter over destiny than these Stoicall Christians do to God over his decrees either for the beginnings of things as Euripides or for the progress of them as Chrysippus or at least of the circumstances of time and place as all of them generally So Virgil Sed trahere moras ducere c. So Osyris in Apuleius promiseth him to prolong his life Ultra fato constituta tempora beyond the times set down by the destinies Next they say that the Stoicks did hold an eternall flux and necessary connexion of causes but they believe that God doth act praeter contra naturam besides and against nature I answer that it is not much material whether they attribute necessity to God or to the Starrs or to a connexion of causes so as they establish necessity The former reasons do not only condemn the ground or foundation of necessity but much more necessity it self upon what ground soever Either they must run into this absurdity that the effect is determined the cause remaining undetermined or els hold such a necessary connexion of causes as the Stoicks did Lastly they say the Stoicks did take away liberty and contingence but they admit it I answer what liberty or contingence was it they admit but a titular liberty and an empty shadow of contingence who do profess stifly that all actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner in any other Place Time Number Order Measure nor to any other end than they are and that in respect of God determining them to one what a poor ridiculous liberty or contingence is this Secondly they distinguish between the first cause and the second causes they say that in respect of the second causes many things are free but in respect of the first cause all things are necessary This answer may be taken away two wayes First so contraries shall be true together The same thing 1. at the same time shall be determined to one and not determined to one the same thing at the same time must necessarily be and yet may not be Perhaps they will say not in the same respect But that which strikes at the root of this question is this If all the causes were onely collateral this exception might have some colour but where all the causes being joined together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall cause if any one cause much more the first in the whole series or subordination of causes be necessary it determines the rest and without doubt makes the effect necessary Necessity or Liberty is not to be esteemed from one cause but from all the causes joyned together If one link in a chain be fast it fastens all the rest Secondly I would have them tell me whether the second 2. causes be predetermined by the first cause or not If it be determined then the effect is necessary even in respect of the second causes If the second cause be not determined how is the effect determined the second cause remaining undetermined Nothing can give that to another which it hath not it self But say they nevertheless the power or faculty remaineth free True but not in order to the act if it be once determined It is free in sensu diviso but not in sensu composito when a man holds a bird fast in his hand is she therefore free to flie where she will because she hath wrings Or a man imprisoned or fettered is he therefore free to walk where he will because he hath feet and a loco-motive faculty Judge without prejudice what a miserable subterfuge is this which many men confide so much in T. H Certain distinctions which he supposing may be brought to his arguments are by him removed HE saith a man may perhaps answer that the necessity of things held by him is not a Stoical necessity but a Christian necessity c. but this dâ—stinction I have not used nor indeed have ever heard bâ—fore Nor do I think any man could make Stoical and Christian two kinds of necessitiâ—s though they may be two kinds of doctrin Nor have I drawn my answer to his arguments from the authority of any Sect but from the nature of the things themselves But here I must take notice of certain words of his in this place as making against his own Tenet where all the causes saith he being jâ—yned together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall cause If any one cause much more the first in the whole series of subordination of causes be necessary it determines the rest and without doubt maketh the effect necessary For that which I call the necessary cause of
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