know that this shall turn to my salvation thorough your prayers Hannah prayed and the Lord granted her request We see the like in Achab in Zachary in Cornelius and many others Hezekias prayed and the Lord said I have heard thy prayer I have seen thy teares Behold I will adde unto thy dayes fifteen years Nothing can be plainer than Solomons prayer at the dedication of the Temple If there be famine in the land if there be pestilence c. If their enemy besiege them in their Cities whatsoever plague whatsoever sicknesses there be what prayer or supplication soever be made by any man or by all thy people Israel c. and spread forth his hands toward this house heare thou in Heaven thy dwelling Place and forgive and do c. To all which God himself condescended and promised to do accordingly His reason to the contrary That no creature living can work any effect upon God is most true but neither pertinent to his purpose nor understood by himself It is all one as to the efficacy of prayer if it work upon us as though it had wrought upon God himself if it render us more capable of his mercies as if it rendered him more merciful Though the Sword and the Crown hang immovable yet prayer translateth us from one capacity to another from being under the sword to be under the Crown Lastly he telleth us in great sadnesse That though our prayers to man be distinguished from our thanks it is not necessary it should be so in our prayers and thanks to God Almighty Prayers and thanksgiving are our acts not Gods acts and have their distinction from us not from God Prayer respects the time to come thanksgiving the time past Prayer is for that we want thanksgiving for that we have All the ten Lepers prayed Jesus Master have mercy on us but onely one of them returned to give God thanks S. Paul distinguisheth prayer and thanksgiving even in respect of God By granting the prayers of his people God putteth an obligation upon them to give thanks He might as well have said that Faith Hope and Charity are the same thing He passeth over the rest of this Chapter in silence I think him much the wiser for so doing If he had done so by the rest likewise it had been as much credit for his cause Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 16. HEere are three things questionable in this Section First whether he who maketh all things make all things necessary to be or whether it be a contradiction of me to my self to say so First this is certain there can be no formal contradiction where there is but one proposition but here is but one proposition Secondly here is no implicite contradiction First because there is a vast difference between making all things necessary to be and making all things to be necessary Agents The most free or contingent Agents in the World when they are are necessarily such as they are that is necessary to be But they are not necessarily necessary Agents And yet he is still harping upon this string to prove such a necessity as no man did ever deny Thirdly I told him that this which he contends for here is but a necessity of supposition As supposing a garment to be made of the French fashion when it is made it is necessarily of the French faction But it was not necessary before it was made that it should be made of the French fashion nor of any other fashion for it might not have been made at all He excepteth That the burning of the fire is no otherwise necessary then upon supposition That is supposing fuell be cast upon the fire the fire doth burn it necessarily But herein he is altogether mistaken For that onely is called necessary upon supposition where the thing supposed is or was in some sort in the power of the free Agent either to do it or to leave it undone indifferently But it is never in the power of the fire to burn or not to burn indifferently He who did strike the fire out of the flint may be said to be a necessary cause of the burning that proceeded from thence upon supposition because it was in his power either to strike fire or not to strike fire And he who puts more fuell to the fire may be said to be a necessary cause of the continuance of the fire upon supposition because it was in his choice to put to more fuell or not But the fire it self cannot chuse but burne whilest it is fire and therefore it is a necessary cause of burning absolutely and not upon supposition What unseen necessity doth prejudice liberty and what doth not I have shewed formerly How mean an esteem soever he hath of the Tailor either he or his meanest apprentise have more sense than himself in this cause The Tailor knows that there was no necessity from eternity that he should be a Tailor or that that man for whom he made the garment should be his customer and much lesse yet of what fashion he should make it But he is still fumbling to no purpose upon that old foolish rule as he pleased once to call it Whatsoever is when it is is necessarily so as it is The second question is Whether there be any Agents in the World which are truly free or truly contingent Agents according to his grounds And it is easily demonstrated that there are not Because he maintaineth that all Agents are necessary and that those Agents which we call free Agents and contingent Agents do act as necessarily as those Agents which we see and know to be necessary Agents And that the reason why we stile them free Agents and contingent Agents is because we do not know whether they work necessarily or not He hath told us hitherto that all Agents act necessarily otherwise there could not be an universal necessity Now he telleth us that there be sundry Agents which we know not whether they work necessarily or not If we do not know whether they work necessarily or not then we do not know whether there be universal necessity or not But we may well passe by such little mistakes in him That which I deduce from hence is this That the formal reason of liberty and contingency according to his opinion doth consist in our ignorance or nescience and then it hath no reall being in the nature of things Hitherto the world hath esteemed nothing more than liberty Mankind hath been ready to fight for nothing sooner than liberty Now if after all this there be no such thing as liberty in the world they have contended all this while for a shadow It is but too apparent what horrible disorders there are in the world and how many times right is troden under foot by might and how the worst of men do flourish and prosper in this world whilest poor Hieremy is in the Dungeon or writing bookes of lamentation If
can So though a necessary connexion of all natural causes were supposed yet it inferreth not a necessary connexion of all voluntary causes Secondly I deny his assumption that there is a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning for proof whereof he produceth nothing nor is able to produce any thing All he saith he alledgeth out of me That it deserveth further examination And from thence according to his wild roving imaginations he draweth consequences from the staff to the corner that have not the least grain of salt or weight in them As these Hitherto he knows not whether it be true or no. And consequently all his arguments hitherto have been of no effect nor hath he shewed any thing to prove that elective actions are not necessitated Thus his pen runneth over without time or reason He that would learn to build Castles in the air had best be his Apprentise The truth is I was not willing to go out of mine own profession and therefore desired to hold my self to the question of liberty without medling with contingency But yet with the same reservation that the Romans had in their Military Discipline nec sequi nec fugere not to seek other questions nor yet to thuâ—… them if they were put upon me And now we are come to his two famous instances of casting ambs ace and raining or not raining to morrow I said that I had already answered what he produceth to prove all sufficient causes to be necessary causes Now saith he It seemeth that distrusting his former answer he answereth again O memory he did not urge them in that place neither did I answer them at all in that place But though he had urged them and I answered them there yet he repeating them or enforcing them here would he not have me to answer him It is true that in another Section upon the by he hath been gravelled about his ambs ace and therefore he treadeth tenderly still upon that foot He saith I bring no other argument to prove the cast thrown not to be necessarily thrown but this that the caster did not deliberate By his leave it is not truly said I shewed undeniably that the necessity upon which he buildeth is onely hypothetical I enumerated all the causes which were or could be recited to make the necessity As the dice the positure of the casters hand the measure of the force the positure of the table c. And shewed clearly that there was not the least grain of antecedent necessity in any of them which he is not able to answer and therefore he doth well to be silent But if I had urged nothing else This alone had been sufficient to prove the caster a free Agent from his own principles A free Agent saith he is he that hath not done deliberating He who never began to deliberate hath not done deliberating There can be no necessity imaginable why the caster should throw these dice rather than those other or cast into this table rather than that or use so much force and no more but the casters will or meer chance The caster never deliberated nor so much as thought of any one of these things And therefore it is undeniably apparent that there was no necessity of casting ambs ace but onely upon supposition which is far enough from antecedent necessity But he pleadeth further That from our ignorance of the particular causes that concurring make the necessity I infer that there was no such necessity at all which is that indeed which hath deceived me and all other men in this question Whose fault was it then first to make this an instance and then to plead ignorance Before he was bold to reckon up all the causes of the antecedent necessity of this cast and now when he is convinced that it is but a necessity upon suppositon he is fain to plead ignorance He who will not suffer the Loadstone to enjoy its attractive virtue without finding a reason for it in a fiddle-string as Scoggin sought for the Hare under the leades as well where she was not as where she was is glad to plead ignorance about the necessary causes of ambs ace Whereas my reasons did evince not onely that the causes are unknown but that there are no such causes antecedently necessitating that cast Thus If any causes did necessitate ambs ace antecedently it was either the caster but he thought not of it or the dice but they are square no more inclinable to one cast than another or the positure of the table but the caster might have thrown into the other table or the positure of the hand but that was by chance or the measure of the force but that might have been either more or lesse or all of these together But to an effect antecedently necessary all the causes must be antecedently determined where not so much as one of them is antecedently determined there is no pretence of antecedent necessity Or it is some other cause that he can name but he pleadeth ignorance Yet I confesse the deceit lieth here but it is on the other side in the ignorant mistaking of an hypothetical necessity for absolute antecedent necessity And here according to the advice of the Poet Nec deus inter sit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit He calleth in the fore knowledge of God to his aid as he doth alwayes when he findeth himself at a losse but to no purpose He himself hath told us That it cannot be truly said that the foreknowledge of God should be a cause of any thing seeing foreknowledge is knowledge and knowledge dependeth on the existence of the thing known God seeth not future contingents in an antecedent certainty which they have in their causes but in the events themselves to which Gods infinite knowledge doth extend it self In order of time one thing is before another one thing is after another and accordingly God knoweth them in themselves to be one before another But his knowledge is no beginning no expiring act Nothing is past nothing is to come but all things present to his knowledge even those things which are future with the manner of their futurition His casting ambs ace hath been unfortunate to him he will speed no better with his shower of rain In the enterance to my answer and as it were the stating of the cause I shewed that rain was more contingent in our Climate than in many other parts of the World where it is almost as necessary as the seasons of the year I do not find so much weight in his discourse as to occasionme to alter one word for which I could have produced authours enough if I had thought it needful but I alledged onely the Scriptures mentioning the former and the later rain And even this is objected to me as a defect or piece of ignorance I thought saith he he had known it by experience of some Travellers but I see he onely
logge in the fable which terrified the poor Frogs with the noise it made at the first falling of it into the water but afterwards they insulted over it and took their turns to leap upon it Some take it to be pure nonsense Whether a man be free in such things as be within his power That is whether he be free wherein he is free or that be within his power which is in his power I have formerly shewed and shall demonmonstrate further as there is occasion that this distinction is contradictory and destructive to his own grounds according to which all the other powers and faculties of a man are determined to one by an extrinsecal fluxe of natural causes equally with the will And therefore a man is no more necessitated to will or chuse what he will do than to do what he wills Secondly I have shewed that this distinction is vain and unuseful and doth not hold off so much as one blow from Mr. Hobâ—…es and his bleeding cause All those grosse absurdities which do necessarily follow the inevitable determinations of all actions and events by extrinsecal causes do fall much more heavily and insupportably upon the extrinsecal determination of the will So he stickes deeper by means of this distinction in the same mire All the ground of justice that he can find in punishments is this That though mens actions be necessary yet they do them willingly Now if the will be irresistibly determined to all its individial acts then there is no more justice to punish a man for willing necessarily than for doing necessarily Thirdly I have shewed already in part that this distinction is contrary to the sense of the whole World who take the will to be much more free than the performance Which may be thus enlarged Though a man were thrust into the deepest dungeon in Europe yet in despite of all the second causes he may will his own liberty Let the causes heap a conglomeration of diseases upon a man more than Herod had yet he may will his own health Though a man be withheld from his friend by Seas and Mountains yet he may will his presence He that hath not so much as a cracked groat towards the payment of his debts may yet will the satisfaction of his Creditors And though some of these may seem but pendulous wishes of impossibilities and not so compatibile with a serious deliberation yet they do plainly shew the freedom of the will In great things said the Poet it is sufficient to have willed that is to have done what is in our power So we say God accepteth the will that which we can for the deed that which we cannot If there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath that is to will And not according to that he hath not that is to perform And yet more plainly To will is present with me but how to perform that which is good that find I not Yet saith T. H. A man is free to do what he willes but not to will what he will do To come yet a little nearer to T. H. For since he refuseth all humane authority I must stick to Scripture It is called a mans own will and his own voluntary will If it be determined irresistibly by outward causes it is rather their own will than his own will Nay to let him see that the very name of free-will it self is not such a stranger in Scripture as he imagineth it is called a mans own free will How often do we read in the books of Moses Ezra and the Psalms of free-will offerings This free-will is opposed not onely to compulsion but also to necessity not of necessity but willingly And is inconsistent with all extrinsecal determination to one with which election of this or that indifferently is incompatible Is not the whole land before thee said Abraham to Lot If thou wilt take the left hand then I will go to the right or if thou depart to the right hand then I will go to the left God said to David I offer thee three things chuse one of them And to Solomon Because thou hast asked this thing and hast not asked long life or riches And Herod to his daughter Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt And Pilate to the Jews Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you And St. Paul unto the Corinthians What will ye shall I come unto you with a rod or in love Both were in their choice Yet T. H. doth tell us That all these were free to do this or that indifferently if they would but not free to will To chuse and to elect is of all others the most proper Act of the will But all these were free to chuse and elect this or that indifferently or else all this were meer mockery And therefore they were free to will The Scripture koweth no extrinsecal determiners of the will but iâ—…self So it is said of Eli's sons Give flesh to roast for the Priest for he will not have sodden flesh of thee but raw And if thou wilt not give it I will take it by force Sic volo sic jubeo stat pro ratione voluntas Here was more will than necessity So it is said of the rich man in the Gospel What shall I do This I will do I will pull down my barnes and build greater and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods And I will say to my soul take thine ease eat drink and be merry Both his purse and person were under the command of his wâ—…ll So St. Iames saith Go to now ye that say to day or tomorrow we will go into such a City and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain whereas ye know not what shall be to morrow c. for that ye ought to say if the Lord will we shall live and do this or that The defect was not in their will to resolve but in their power to perform So T. H. his necessity was their liberty and their liberty was his necessity Lastly the Scriptures teach us that it is in the power of a man to chuse his own will for the future All that thou commandest us we will do And whithersoever thou sendest us we will go As we hearkened unto Moses in all things so will we hearken unto thee So saith St. Paul What I do that I will do And in another place I do rejoyce and I will rejoyce And they that will be rich When Christ inquired of his Disciples Will ye also go away According to T. H. his principles he should have said Must ye also go away We have viewed his distinction but we have not answered his comparison Will is an appetite And it is one question whether he be free to eat that hath an appetite And another Whether he be free to have an appetite Comparisons are but a poor kind
his pupill or do him injustice There is onely this difference that a pupill may implead his Guardian and recover his right against him But from a Soveraign Law-giver there lies no appeal but onely to God Otherwise there would be endlesse appeales which both nature and pollicy doth abhor As in the instance of the Roman Arbitrament formerly mentioned An arbitrary power is the highest of all powers Judges must proceed according to law Arbitrators are tied to no law but their own reason and their own consciences Yet all the world will say that the Romans dealt fraudulently and unjustly with the two parties Lastly the holy Scriptures do every where brand wicked Laws as infamous As the Statutes of Omrâ—… and the Statutes of Israel and stileth them expressely unjust laws or unrighteous decrees He asketh to whom the Bible is a law The Bible is not a law but the positive laws of God are contained in the Bible Doth he think the Law of God is no Law without his suffrage He might have been one of Tiberius his Council when it was proposed to the Senate Whether they should admit Christ to be a God or not He saith I know that it is not a law to all the World Not de facto indeed How should it when the World is so full of Atheists that make no more account of their soules than of so many handfuls of salt to keep their bodies from stinking But de jure by right it is a Law and ought to be a Law to all the World The Heathens and particularly the Stoicks themselves did speak with much more reverence of the holy Books of which to suspect a falsehood they held to be an heinous and detestable crime And the first argument for necessity they produced from the authority of those Books because they said that God did know all things and dispose all things He asketh How the Bible came to be a Law to us Did God speake it viva voce to us have we seen the miracles have we any other assurance then the words of the Prophets and the authority of the Church And so it concludeth that it is the Legislative power of the Common-wealth wheresoever it is placed which makes the Bible a Law in England If a man digged a pit and covered it not again so that an oxe or an asse fell into it he was obbliged by the Mosaical Law to make satisfaction for the dammage I know not whether he do this on purpose to weaken the authority of holy Scripture or not Let God and his own conscience be his Triers But I am sure he hath digged a pit for an oxe or an asse without covering it again and if they chance to stumble blindfold into it their blood will be required at his hands If a Turke had said so much of the Alchoran at Constantinople he were in some danger If it were within the compasse of the present controversie I should esteem it no difficult task to demonstrate perspicuously that the holy Scriptures can be no other then the word of God himself by their antiquity by their harmony by their efficacy by the sanctity and sublimity of their matter such as could not have entered into the thoughts of man without the inspiration of the Holy Ghost By the plainnesse of their stile so full of Majesty by the light of prophetical predictions by the testimony of the blessed Martyrs by a multitude of miracles by the simplicity of the Penmen and Promulgers poor fishermen and shepherds who did draw the World after their oaten reeds and lastly by the judgements of God that have fallen upon such Tyrants and others as have gone about to suppr esse or profane the Sacred Oracles But this is one of those things de quibus nefas est dubitare which he that calleth into question deserveth to be answered otherwise than with arguments But that which is sufficient to confute him is the law of nature which is the same in a great part with the positive Law of God recorded in holy Scriptures All the ten Commandments in respect of their substanrials are acknowledged by all men to be branches of the law of nature I hope he will not say that these laws of nature were made by our Suffrages though he be as likely to say such an absurdity as any man living For he saith the law of nature is the assent it self which all men give to the means of their preservation Every law is a rule of our actions a meer assent is no rule A law commandeth or forbiddeth an assent doth neither But to shew him his vanity Since he delighteth so much in distinctions let him satisfie himself out of the distinction of the law of nature The law of nature is the prescription of right reason whereby thorough that light which nature hath placed in us we know some things to be done because they are honest and other things to be shunned because they are dishonest He had forgotten what he had twice cited and approved out of Cicero concerning the law of nature which Philo calls The law that cannot lie not moral made by mortals not without life or written in paper or columnes without life but that which can not be corrupted written by the immortal God in our understandings Secondly if this which he saith did deserve any consideration it was before the Bible was admitted or assented unto or received as the word of God But the Bible hath been assented unto and received in England sixteen hundred years A fair prescription and in all that time I do not find any law to authorize it or to under-prop heaven from falling with a bullrush This is undeniable that for so many successive ages we have received it as the law of God himself not depending upon our assents or the authority of our Law-makers Thirdly we have not onely a nationall tradition of our own Church for the divine authority of holy Scripture but which is of much more moment we have the perpetuall constant universall tradition of the Catholick Church of Christ ever since Christ himself did tread upon the face of the earth This is so clear a proof of the universall reception of the Bible for the genuine Word of God that there cannot justly be any more doubt made of it than whether there ever was a William the Conquerer or not But this is his opinion That true religion in every Country is that which the Soveraign Magistrate doth admit and injoyne I could wish his deceived followers would think upon what rock he drives them For if this opinion be true then that which is true religion to day may be false religion tomorrow and change as often as the chief Governour or Governours change their opinions Then that which is true religion in one Country is false religion in another Country because the Governours are of different opinions then all the religions of the World Christian Jewish Turkish Heathenish are true religions in
conformity or an adaequation of the sign to the thing said which we call Veracity When one thing is commanded publickly and the same is hindered privately and the party so hindered is punished for not doing that which was impossible for him to do Where is the veracity where is the conformity and adaequation of the sign to the thing said I dare not tell Mr. Hobbes that he understandeth not these things but I fear it very much If he do his cause is bad or he is but an ill Advocate Next to reconcile the goodnesse of God with his principles he answereth first to the thing That living creatures of all sorts are often in torments as well as men which they could not be without the will of God I know no torments of the other creatures but death and death is a debt to nature not an act of punitive justice The pangs of a violent death are lesse than of a natural besides the benefit that proceedeth thence for the sustenance of men for which the creatures were created See what an Argument here is for all his answers are recriminations or exceptions from brute beasts to men from a debt of nature to an act of punitive justice from a sudden death to lingring torments ut sentiant se mori from a light affliction producing great good to endlesse intolerable pains producing no good but onely the satisfaction of justice Then to the phrase of Gods delighting in torments He answereth That God delighteth not in them It is true God is not capable of passions as delight or grief but when he doth those things that men grieving or delighting do the Scriptures by an anthropopathy do ascribe delight or grief unto him Such are his exceptions not to the thing but to the phrase because it is too Scholastical or too elegant I see he liketh no tropes or figures But in all this here is not one word of answer to the thing it self That that which is beyond the cruelty of the most bloody men is not agreeable to the Father of Mercies to create men on purpose to be tormented in endlesse flames without their own faults And so contrary to the Scriptures that nothing can be more wherein punishment is called Gods strange Work his strange Act For God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living but ungodly men with their works and words called it unto them It this place seem to him Apocryphall he may have twenty that are Canonicall As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that he turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes for why will ye die O house of Israel That his opinion destroyeth the justice of God by making him punish others for his own acts is so plain that it admitteth no defence And if any further corroboration were needful we have his own confession That there can be no punishment but for crimes that might have been lest undone Yet he keepeth a shuffling of terms afflictions and bruit creatures which by his own confession are not capable of moral goodnesse or wickednesse and consequently not subject to punishment and quite taking away the proportion between sin and punishment onely to make a shew of answering to them who do not or cannot weigh what is said Among guilty persons to single out one to be punished for examples sake is equall and just that the punishment may fall upon few fear to offend upon all But to punish innocent persons for examples sake is onely an example of great injustice That which he calleth my opinion of the endlesse tormenrs of hell I learned from Christ himself Go ye cursed into everlasting fire and from my creed When Origen and some others called the mercifull Doctours did indeavour to possesse the Church with their opinion of an universall restitution of all creatures to their pristine estate after sufficient purgation it was rejected by the Church Without doubt a sin against infinite majesty and an aversion from infinite goodnesse do justly subject the offenders to infinite punishment But he talketh as though God were obliged to do acts of grace and to violate his own ordinances that he might save men without their own wills God loves his own creatures well but his own justice better Whereas I shewed That this opinion destroyeth the omnipotence of God by making him the authour or cause of sinne and of all defects which are the fruits of impotence not of power He distinguisheth between the cause of sinne and the authour of sinne granting that God is the cause of sinne He will say That this opâ—…nion makes him God the cause of sinne But does not the Bishop think him the cause of all actions And are not sins of commission actions Is murther no action Doth not God himself say there is no evill in the City which I have not done And was not murther one of those evils But he denieth that God is the authour of sinne that is God doth not own it God doth not give a warrant for it God doth not command it This is down-right blasphemy indeed When he took away the devill yet I did not suspect that he would so openly substitute God Almighty in his place Simon Magus held that God was the cause of sinne but his meaning was not so bad He only blameth God for not making man impeccable The Manichees and Marcionites did hold that God was the cause of sinne but their meaning was not so bad they meant it not of their good God whom they called light but of their bad God whom they termed darknesse But T. H is not afraid to charge the true God to be the very acter of all sinne When the Prophet asketh Shall there be evill in a City and the Lord hath not done it He speaketh expressely of evill of punishment not at all of the evill of sinne Neither will it avail him in the least that he maketh not God to be the authour of sinne For first it is worse to be the physicall or naturall cause of sinne by acting it than to be the morall cause of sinne by commanding it If a man be the Authour of that which he commandeth much more is he the authour of that which he acteth To be an authour is lesse than to be an actour A man may be an authour by perswasion or by example as it is said of Vespasian that he being antiquo cultu victuque was unto the Romans praecipuus astricti moris author by his observing of the ancient dyet of the country and the old fashion of apparrel He was unto the Romans the principall authour of their frugality Hath not he done God Almighty good service to acquit him from being the authour of sinne which is lesse and to make him to be the proper cause of all sin which is more Thus to maintain fate he hath deserted the
signifie the same thing in this place Onely to permit is opposed to acting to permit barely is opposed to disposing There are many things which God doth not act there is nothing which God doth not dispose He acteth good permitteth evil disposeth all things both good and evill He that cutteth the banks of a River is the active cause that the water floweth out of the Channel He that hindreth not the stream to break the banks when he could is the permissive cause And if he make no other use of the breaking out it is nuda permissio bare permission but if he disposeth and draweth the water that floweth out by furrowes to water the Medows then though he permit it yet he doth not barely permit it but disposeth of it to a further good So God onely permitteth evil that is he doth it not but he doth not barely permit it because he disposeth it to good Here he would gladly be nibling at the questions Whether universals be nothing but onely words Nothing in the World saith he is general but the significations of words and other signes Hereby affirming unawares that a man is but a word and by consequence that he himself is but a titular and not a real man But this question is alltogether impertinent in this place We do not by a general influence understand some universal substance or thing but an influence of indeterminate power which may be applyed either to good or evill The influence is a singular act but the power communicated is a general that is an indeterminate power which may be applied to acts of several kinds If he deny all general power in this sense he denieth both his own reason and his common sense Still he is for his old errour That eternity is a successive everlasting duration But he produceth nothing for it nor answereth to any thing which I urged against it That the eternity of God is God himself that if eternity were an everlasting duration then there should be succession in God then there should be former and later past and to come and a part without a part in God then all things should not be present to God then God should lose something namely that which is past and acquire something newly namely that which is to come and so God who is without all shadow of change should be mutable and change every day To this he is silent and silence argueth consent He saith Those many other wayes which are proposed by Divines for reconciling eternal prescience with liberty and contingency are proposed in vain if they mean the same liberty and contingency that I do for truth and errour can never be reconciled I do not wonder at his shew of confidence The declining sun maketh longer shadows and when a Merchant is nearest breaking he maketh the fairest shew to preserve his reputation as long as may be He saith he knoweth the loadstone hath no such attractive power I fear shortly he will not permit us to say that a plaister or a plantine leaf draweth What doth the loadstone then if it doth not draw He knoweth that the iron cometh to it or it to the iron Can he not tell whether This is worse than drawing to make iron come or go By potentiality he understandeth power or might Others understand possibility or indetermination Is not he likelely to confute the Schoolmen to good purpose Whereas I said that God is not just but justice it self not eternall but eternity it self He telleth me That they are unseemly words to be said of God he will not say blasphemous and Atheistical that God is not just that he is not eternal I do not fear that any one Scholler or any one understanding Christian in the World should be of his mind in this If I should spend much time in proving of such known truths approved and established by the Christian World I should shew my self almost as weak as he doth shew himself to talk of such things as he understandeth not in the least to the overthrowing of the nature of God and to make him no God If his God have accidents ours hath none If his God admit of composition and division ours is a simple essence When we say God is not just but justice not wise but wisdom doth he think that we speak of moral virtues or that we derogate or detract from God No we ascribe unto him a transcendental justice and wisdom that is not comprehended under our categories nor to be conceived perfectly by humane reason But why doth he not attempt to answer the reasons which I brought That that which is infinitely perfect cannot be further perfected by accidents That God is a simple essence and can admit no kind of composition That the infinite essence of God can act sufficiently without faculties That it consisteth not with divine perfection to have any passive or receptive powers I find nothing in answer to these but deep silence Attributes are names and justice and wisdom are moral virtues but the justice and wisdom and power and eternity and goodnesse and truth of God are neither names nor moral virtues but altogether do make one eternal essence wherein all perfections do meet in an infinite degree It is well if those words of our Saviour do escape him in his next Animadversions I am the truth Or St. Paul for making Deum and Deitatem God and the Godheads or Deity to be all one Or Solomon for personating God under the name of Wisdom in the abstract To prove eternity to be no successive duration but one indivisible moment I argued thus The divine substance is indivisible but eternity is the divine substance In answer to this in the first place he denyeth the Major That the divine substance is indivisible If he had not been a professed Christian but a plain Stoick I should not have wondred so much at this answer for they held that God was corporall If the divine substance be not indivisible then it is materiate then it is corporall then it is corruptible then the Anthropomorphites had reason to attribute humane members to God But the Scriptures teach us better and all the World consenteth to it That God is a Spirit that he is immortall and invisible that he dwelleth in light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see It is inconsistent with the nature of God to be finite It is inconsistent with the nature of a body to be infinite The speculations of Philosophors who had onely the light of reason were not so grosse who made God to be a most simple essence or simplicity it self All matter which is the originall of divisibility was created by God and therefore God himself cannot be material nor divisible Secondly he denyeth the minor That the eternity of God is the divine substance I proved it from that generally received rule Whatsoever is in God is God His answer is That
notorious falshood of them all the two last are apparently ridiculous That the doctrine of liberty is an errour that maketh men by imagining they can repent when they will neglect their duties and moreover makes them unthankfull for Gods graces by thinking them to proceed from the natural ability of their own will The doctrine of liberty from superstoical necessity doth neither make men truncos nor sacrilegos neither stupid blocks voide of all activity nor yet sacrilegiously to rob God of his honour We know and acknowledge that both free will and the good use of free will in repentance and all other acts of gratitude towards God is from God and proceedeth from grace These inferences which he makes are no consequences of our doctrine but his own drowsie dreams All men that are not blinded with prejudice do see clearly that it is his desperate doctrine of inevitable necessity which maketh men to neglect their duties by teaching them to belive that though they be impenitent or unthankful yet it was not at all in their power to have been otherwise they are as they must be and as God hath ordained and necessitated them to be He taketh me up for saying unskilfully that they who dispute philosophically of God ascribe unto him no proper faculties Indeed I do not wonder if he who ascribes to God potentialities and successive duration who denies that the divine substance is indivisible and saith that actus simplicissimus signifieth nothing who makes an incorporeal substance to be a contradiction do make him likewise to be compounded of substance and faculties But they who penetrate deeper into the ugly consequences of these bold and blind assertions who considered that whatsoever is truely infinite is not capable of any variation or shadow of turning by change and that whatsoever is infinitely perfect in it self cannot be further perfected by the supplimental addition of any faculties or accidents will not judge my assertion to be unskilful but his paradoxes to be dishonourable to the divine nature and derogatory to the Majesty of God His reason of this reprehension is Because to dispute philosophically is to dispute by natural reason and from principles evident from the light of nature and to dispute of the faculties and proprieties of the subject whereof they treat What whether they have any faculties or no that were very hard It seemeth that Christian Philosophers are not Philosophers with him And why may not a Philosopher make use of Divine Revelation but let him not trouble himself about this This truth hath been sufficiently cleared already by the light of natural reason Either the divine essence is infinitely perfect in it self or God is not God And if it be infinitely perfect in it self it cannot be further perfected by any faculties He saith he would fain know of me what improper faculties I ascribe to God I ascribe no faculties at all to God except it be anthropopathetically as the Scripture ascribes eyes and hands to God which must be understood as is beseeming the Majesty of God He addeth That I know not how to make it good that the will and understanding of God are faculties and yet will have these words his understanding and his will are his very essence to passe for an axiome of Philosophy It is true I know not how to make them faculties in God speaking properly and yet I doubt not of this truth that Gods understanding and his will are his very essence And this very objection sheweth clearly that he neither understandeth me nor himself This axiome that the will and the understanding of God are his very essence is a fit medium to prove they are no faculties not to prove they are faculties Quicquid est in Deo est ipse Deus Whatsoever is in God is God If he have any thing to say against it why is he silent That God is incomprehensible and that his nature can neither be expressed nor conceived perfectly by mortal men is a truth undeniable not to be doubted of How should finite reason be able to comprehend an infinite perfection And therefore they who do search too curiously into the Majesty of God or define his nature too sawcily and presumptiously are justly to be reprehended The pipe can convey the water no higher than the fountains head But on the other side seeing the invisible things of him that is his eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen from the creation of the world And seeing he hath given us his word to be a light unto our feet and a lanthorn unto our paths not to endeavour soberly and humbly to know God so far as he is represented to us by the Creatures and revealed unto us in the Scriptures to the end we may glorifie him as God and help others to know him and glorifie him aright is inexcusable ingratitude It is not then simply the inquiring into or discoursing of the nature of God but the transgressing of the right manner and due bounds of our enquiry which is unlawful The fathers disputed well from the nature of God against the Anthropomorphites So did St. Paul against the idolotrous Athenians For as much as me are the off spring of God and live and move and have our being in him and from him we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold and silver or stone graven with art I acknowledge that though all possible perfection ought to be ascribed to God yet the safest way to expresse him is by negative attributes Admit but one negative attribute which all men must admit and do admit that believe a God and I will easily evince all the rest from thence that is That he is actually infinite or an indivisible unity of infinite perfection If Gods being be infinite then it is not by successive duration In successive duration something is added every minute but to that which is infinite nothing can be added Again if God be actually infinite then he is not divisible nor materiate nor corporal nor hath parts without parts An aggravation of finite parts cannot make up an infinite being If God be actually infinite then his understanding and his will are not distinct faculties then his goodnesse and his wisdom and his justice and his truth are not distinct qualities For if his will be without his understanding or his justice without his wisdom then his understanding and his wisdom are not infinite for that only is infinite without which nothing is or can be It is not therefore enough to ascribe unto God whatsoever is honourable unlesse we do it in an honourable manner that is infinitely and that we can never do but by making him an indivisible unity of infinite being and perfection Not accidental but essential or transcendent perfection He who calleth God most perfect though T. H. see it not comes short of that honour which is due to God Most perfect is but a degree of comparison
Soveraign Neither is he more orthodox concerning the Holy Scriptures Hitherto that is for the books of Moses the power of making the Scripture canonical was in the civil Soveraign The like he saith of the Old Testament made canonical by Esdras And of the New Testament That it was not the Apostles which made their own writings canonical but every convert made them so to himself Yet with this restriction That until the Soveraign ruler had prescribed them they were but counsel and advise which whether good or bad he that was counselled might without injustice refuse to observe and being contrary to the Laws established could not without injustice observe He maketh the Primitive Christians to have been in a pretty condition Certainly the Gospel was contrary to the Laws then established But most plainly The word of the Interpreter of the Scripture is the word of God And the same is the Interpreter of the Scripture and the Soveraign Iudge of all Doctrines that is the Soveraign Magistrate to whose authority we must stand no lesse than to Theirs who at first did commend the Scripture to us for the canon of faith Thus if Christian Soveraigns of different communions do clash one with another in their interpretations or misinterpretation of Scripture as they do daily then the word of God is contradictory to it self or that is the word of God in one Common-wealth which is the word of the the devil in another Common-wealth and the same thing may be true and not true at the same time which is the peculiar priviledge of T. H. to make contradictories to be true together All the power virtue use and efficacy which he ascribeth to the holy Sacraments is to be signes or commemorations As for any sealing or confirming or conferring of grace he acknowledgeth nothing The same he saith particularly of Baptisme upon which grounds a Cardinals red hat or a Serjeant at arms his mace may be called Sacraments as well as Baptisme or the holy Eucharist if they be only signes or commemorations of a benefit If he except that Baptisme and the Eucharist are of divine institution but a Cardinals red hat or a Serjeant at arms his mace are not he saith truely but nothing to his advantage or purpose seeing he deriveth all the authority of the Word and Sacraments in respect of Subjects and all our obligation to them from the authority of the Soveraign Magistrate without which these words repent and be baptized in the Name of Iesus are but counsel no command And so a Serjeant at arms his mace and baptisme proceed both from the same authority And this he saith upon this silly ground That nothing is a command the performance whereof tendeth to our own benefit He might as well deny the Ten Commandements to be commands because they have an advantagious promise annexed to them Do this and thou shalt live And cursed is every one that continueth not in all the words of this Law to doe them Sometimes he is for holy orders and giveth to the Pastors of the Church the right of ordination and absolution and infallibility too much for a particular Pastor or the Pastours of one particular Church It is manifest that the consecration of the chiefest Doctours in every Church and imposition of hands doth pertein to the Doctours of the same Church And it cannot be doubted of but the power of binding and loosing was given by Christ to the future Pastours after the same manner as to his present Apostles And our Saviour hath promised this infallibility in those things which are necessary to salvation to his Apostles until the day of judgement that is to say to the Apostles and Pastours to be consecrated by the Apostles successively by the imposition of hands But at other times he casteth all this meale down with his foot Christian Soveraignes are the supreme Pastors and the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God except such as God speaketh to in these daies supernaturally What is now become of the promised infallibility And it is from the civil Soveraign that all other Pastours derive their right of teaching preaching and all other functions pertaining to that office and they are but his Ministers in the same manner as the Magistrates of Towns or Iudges in Courts of Justice and Commanders of Armies What is now become of their Ordination Magistrates Judges and Generals need no precedent qualifications He maketh the Pastoral authority of Soveraigns to be jure divino of all other Pastors jure civill He addeth neither is there any Iudge of Heresie among Subjects but their own civil Soveraign Lastly The Church excommunicateth no man but whom she excommunicateth by the authorty of the Prince And the effect of excommunication hath nothing in it neither of dammage in this World nor terrour upon an Apostate if the civil power did persecute or not assist the Church And in the World to come leaves them in no worse estate than those who never believed The damage rather redoundeth to the Church Neither is the excommunication of a Christian Subject that obeyeth the laws of his own Soveraign of any effect Where is now their power of binding and loosing It may be some of T. H. his disciples desire to know what hopes of heavenly joies they have upon their masters principles They may hear them without any great contentment There is no mention in Scripture nor ground in reason of the coelum empyreum that is the Heaven of the blessed where the Saints shall live eternally with God And again I have not found any text that can probably be drawn to prove any ascension of the Saints into Heaven that is to say into any coelum empyreum But he concludeth positively that salvation shall be upon earth when God shall reign at the coming of Christ in Ierusalem And again In short the Kingdom of God is a civil Kingdom c. called also the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Glory All the Hobbians can hope for is to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall So saith T. H. himself From whence may be inferred that the Elect after the resurrection shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned As for the beatifical vision he defineth to be a word unintelligible But considering his other principles I do not marvel much at his extravagance in this point To what purpose should a coelum empyreum or Heaven of the blessed serve in his judgement who maketh the blessed Angels that are the inhabitants of that happy mansion to be either idols of the brain that is in plain English nothing or thin subtile fluid bodies destroying the Angelical nature The unvierse being the aggregate of all bodies there is no real part thereof that is not also body And elsewhere Every part of the universe is body and that which is not
the reward which is then to be given to breach of faith but onely a belief grounded upon other mens saying that they know it supernaturally or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally 14. Davids killing of Uriah was no injury to Uriah because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself 15. To whom it belongeth to determine controversies which may arise from the divers interpretation of Scripture he hath an imperial power over all men which acknowledge the Scriptures to be the word of God 16. What is theft what is murder what is adultry and universally what is an injury is known by the civil law that is the commands of the Soveraign 17. He admitteth the incestuous copulations of the Heathens according to their heathenish lawes to have been lawful marriages Though the Scripture teach us expressely that for those abominations the land of Canaan spewed out her inhabitants Exod. 18. 28. 18. I say that no other Article of faith besides this that Iesus is Christ is necessary to a Christian man for salvation 19. Because Christs kingdom is not of this world therefore neither can his Ministers unlesse they be Kings require obedience in his name They had no right of commanding no power to make lawes 20. I passe by his errours about oathes about vows about the resurrections about the kingdom of Christ about the power of the keyes binding loosing excommunication c. His ignorant mistakes of meritum congrui and condigni active and passive obedience and many more for fear of being tedious to the Reader His whole works are an heape of mishapen errours and absurd paradoxes vented with the confidence of a Jugler the brags of a Mountebanck and the authority of some Pythagoras or third Cato lately dropped down from heaven Thus we have seen how the Hobbian principles do destroy the existence the simplicity the ubiquity the eternity and infinitenesse of God the doctrine of the blessed Trinity the Hypostatical union the Kingly Sacerdotal and Prophetical Offices of Christ the being and operation of the Holy Ghost Heaven Hell Angels Devils the immortality of the Soul the Catholick and all National Churches the holy Scriptures holy Orders the holy Sacraments the whole frame of Religion and the Worship of God the laws of Nature the reality of Goodnesse Justice Piety Honesty Conscience and all that is Sacred If his Disciples have such an implicite faith that they can digest all these things they may feed with Oestriches CHAP. 2. That the Hobbian Principles do destroy all relations between man and man and the whole frame of a Common wealth THe first Harping-iron is thrown at the heart of this great Whale that is his Religion for with the heart a man believeth unto righteousnesse Now let him look to his chine that is his Compage or Common-wealth My next task is to shew that he destroyeth all relations between man and man Prince and subject Parent and child Husband and wife Master and servant and generally all Society It is enough to dash the whole frame of his Leviathan or common-wealth in pieces That he confesseth it is without example as if the molding of a Common-wealth were no more than the making of gun-powder which was not found out by long experience but by meer accident The greatest objection saith T. H. is that of practice when men ask when and where such power has by subjects been acknowledged It is a great objection indeed Experience the Mistrisse of fooles is the best and almost the onely proof of the goodnesse or badnesse of any form of government No man knoweth where a shooe wringeth so well as he that weareth it A new Physitian must have a new Church-yard wherein to bury those whom he killeth And a new unexperienced Polititian commonly putteth all into a combustion Men rise by degrees from common souldiers to be decurions from decurions to be Centurions from Centurions to be Tribunes and from Tribunes to be Generals by experience not by speculation Alexander did but laugh at that Oratour who discoursed to him of Military affairs The Locrian law was well grounded that whosoever moved for any alteration in the tried policy of their Common-wealth should make the proposition at his own perill with an halter about his neck New Statesmen promise golden mountains but like fresh flies they bite deeper than those which were chased away before them It were a strange thing to hear a man discourse of the Philosophers Stone who never bestowed a groatsworth of charcole in the inquiry It is as strange to hear a man dictate so magisterially in Politicks who was never Officer nor Counsellor in his life nor had any opportunity to know the intrigues of any one state If his form of government had had any true worth or weight in it among so many Nations and so many succeeding Generations from the Creation to this day some one or other would have light upon it His Leviathan is but an idol of his own brain Neither is it sufficient to say That in long-lived Common-wealths the subjects never did dispute of the Soveraigns power Power may be moderated where it is not disputed of And even in those kingdomes where it was least disputed of as in Persia they had their fundamental laws which were not alterable at the pleasure of the present Prince Whereof one was as we find in the story of Esther and the book of Daniel that the law of the Medes and Persians altered not much lesse was it alterable by the onely breath of the Princes mouth according to T. H. his Principles He urgeth That though in all places of the World men should lay the foundations of their houses on the sand it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be He was a ashamed to make the application So suppose all the world should be out of their wits and he onely have his right understanding His supposition is a supposition of an impossibility which maketh an affirmative proposition to turn negative much like this other supposition If the skie fall we shall have larkes that is in plain English We shall have no larkes His argument had held much more strongly thus All the world lay the foundation of their houses upon firm ground and not upon the sand Therefore he who crosseth the practice of the whole world out of an over-weening opinion that he seeth further into a mill-stone than they all is he that builds upon the sand and deserveth well to be laught out of his humour But he persisteth still like one that knows better how to hold a Paradox than a Fort. The skill of making and maintaining Common-wealths consisteth in certain rules as doth Arethmatick and Geometry and not as Tennis-play on practice onely which rules neither poor men had the leisure nor men that have had the leisure have hitherto had the curiosity or the method
praising of Gods Holy Name the hearing of his Word the receiving of his Sacraments I leave to the judgement of the Reader The next thing which I disliked was his description of repentance It is a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way Who ever heard before this of gladnesse or joy in the definition of repentance he telleth us That it is not Christian repentance without a purpose of amendment of life That is true a purpose of amendment was comprehended in the old definition of repentance A godly sorrow for sinnes past with a stedfast purpose to commit no more sinnes to be sorrowed for St. Peter found no great sense of joy when he went out and wept bitterly And some tell us that so long as he lived he did the same so often as he heard the cock crow Nor Mary Magdalene when she washed the feet of Christ with her tears and wiped them with her hairs yet she was a true penitent and purposed amendment Nor David when he washed his bed night by night and watered his couch with his tears St. Paul reckoneth all the parts of the repentance of the Corinthians Godly sorrow carefulnesse clearing of themselves indignation fear vehement desires zeal revenge here is no word of joy or gladnesse in all this Joy is a consequent of repentance after reconciliation but it is not of the essence of repentance no more than a succeeding calme is of the essence of a storm or the prodigals festival joy after his re-admission into his fathers house was a part of his conversion He is afraid that this doctrine of fasting and mourning and teares and humicubation and sackcloth and ashes pertaineth to the establishment of Romish pennance Or rather they were natural expressions of sorrow before Rome was builded Turn ye to me with all your heart with fasting and weeping and mourning Neither the Ninevits nor the Tyrians and Zidonians did learn their sackcloth and ashes at Rome But many men love to serve God now adayes with as much ease as they can as if God Almighty would be satisfied with any thing vel uva vel faba either with a grape or with a beane And with the same measure they mete to God he measureth to them again He chargeth me that I labour to bring in a concurrence of mans will with Gods will and a power in God to give repentance if man will take it but not the power to make him take it Hola It is one question utrum possit what God can do another utrum sit what God will do God can determine the will irresistibly but he doth not do it ordinarily Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart ye do alwayes resist the Holy Ghost And I have called and ye refused c. The concurrence of God and man in producing the act of our believing or conversion to God is so evident in holy Scripture that it is vanity and lost labour to oppose it If God did not concurre the Scripture would not say It is God that worketh in us both the will and the deed If man did not concurre the Scripture would not say Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling If our repentance were Gods work alone God would not say to man Turn ye unto me with all your heart And if repentance were mans work alone we had no need to pray Turn us O Lord and we shall be turned We are commanded to repent and to believe In vain are commandments given to them who cannot at all concur to the acting of that which is commanded Faith and Repentance are proposed unto us as conditions to obtain blessednesse and avoid destruction If thou shalt confess with thy mouth believe with thy heart c. thou shalt be saved And except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish To propose impossible conditions which they to whom they are proposed have no power either to accept or to refuse is a meer mockery Our unbelief and impenitence is imputed to us as our own fault Because of unbelief thou wert broken off And after thy hardnesse and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thy self wrath Their unbelief and impenitence were not their own faults if they neither had power to concur with the grace of God to the production of faith and repentance nor yet to refuse the grace of God The holy Scripture doth teach us that God doth help us in doing workes of piety The Lord is my helper And the Spirit helpeth our infirmities If we did not co-operate at all God could not be said to help us There is therefore there must be co-operation Neither doth this concurrence or co-operation of man atall intrench upon the power or honour of God because this very liberty to co-operate is his gift and this manner of acting his own institution Those words Behold I stand at the door and knock are not understood onely of the Ministers outward knocking at the door of the ear with perswasive words but much more of God Almighties knocking at the door of the heart by his preventing grace To what end doth he knock to have it opened if he himself had shut it by an irresistible decree God first knocks at the door of our hearts by his preventing grace without which we have no desire to open unto Christ And then he helps us by his adjuvant or assisting grace that we may be able to open Yet the very name of Gods adjuvant or assistant or helping grace doth admonish us that there is something for us to do on our parts that is to open to consent to concur Why should our co-operation seem so strange which the Apostle doth assert so positively We are labourers together with God And I laboured more abundantly than they all yet not I that is not I alone but the grace of God which was with me The last part of his Section is concerning prayer which he mesnageth no better than the rest First he accuseth me for saying that prayer is a signification that we expect that which we pray for from God which he calleth a presumption in me and a detraction from the honour of God But it is so far from being a presumption that it is a necessary requisite in prayer S. James will have us pray without wavering Let him ask in faith nothing wavering S. Paul will have men to lift up holy hands without wrath or doubting And our Saviour commands What things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye shall receive them and shall have them I cited many Texts of Scripture to prove the efficacy of prayer whereof he is pleased to take notice of three and to deny that helping means efficacy availing do signifie any causation contrary both to the words and scope of those Texts and contrary to the tenor of the whole Scripture The prayer of faith shall save the sick And I
gathereth it from that place in Scripture as if the Scripture alone were not proof good enough except it be confirmed by the experience of Travellers From this preparatory discourse he frameth two Arguments and puts them into my Character as if they were my Reasons In our Climate the natural causes do not produce rain so necessarily at set times as in some Eastern Countries therefore they do not produce rain necessarily in our Climates then when they do produce it Again We cannot say so certainly and infallibly it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow therefere it is not necessary either that it should rain or that it should not rain to morrow Such reasons as these do become him better than me I disclaim them and to use his own phrase must take them for untruths untill he cite the place where I have made any such ridiculous inferences which conclude against hypothetical necessity which we our selves do establish But I come to his arguments which I shall set down in his own words for it cannot be worse disposed to let us see the great skill of this new controller in Logick It is necessary that to morrow it shall rain or not rain if therefore it be not necessary that it shall rain it is necessary it shall not rain otherwise it is not necessary that the proposition it shall rain or it shall not rain should be true To this I answered That it was most false that the proposition could not be necessarily true except one of the members were necessarily true which is a truth evident and undeniable This answer I illustrated thus A conjunct proposition may have both parts false and yet the proposition be true As if the Sun shine it is day is a true proposition at midnight Logicians use to give another example If an Asse flie then he hath wings The proposition is true but both the parts are false Neither doth the Asse flie neither hath he wings To my direct answer he replyeth not a word either by denial or distinction and so by his silence yieldeth the controversie But to my illustration he excepteth thus First What hath a conjunct proposition to do with this in question which is disjunctive By his good favour there are two propositions in his argument the former is disjunctive which is not questioned at all by either party either for the truth of it or the necessity of it namely Either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow His second proposition is conjunctive and not disjunctive namely If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain it is necessary that it shall not rain This conjunctive proposition I deny and I deny it upon this evident ground because as in a conjunctive proposition both parts of the proposition may be false and yet the proposition true or both parts true and yet the proposition false because the truth or falshood of the proposition dependeth not upon the truth or falshood of the parts but onely of the consequence So in a disjunctive proposition the disjunction may be necessarily true and yet neither member of the disjunction be necessarily because the truth or falshood of a disjunctive proposition dependeth not upon the necessary truth of either member distinctly considered but upon the necessary truth of the disjunction The reason is evident in a disjunctive proposition nothing is affirmed or denyed either of the one member or the other but onely the necessary truth of the disjunction According to that rule in Logick In propositione disjunctiva affirmatio negatio aestimatur ex sola conjuctione disjunctiva cui necesse est addi negationem si debet negativa esse propositio Now the disjunction of contradictories is most necessary Either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow though neither part of the contradiction be necessarily true As for example A man is to pay a sum of mony Either he will pay it in gold or he will not pay it in gold is necessarily true but it is not necessary that he shall pay it in gold neither is it necessary that he shall not pay it in gold Seeing he hath it in his choice to pay it in gold or in silver or any other coine which is current This is so clear that no man can seriously oppose it without his own discredit Secondly he saith that a conjuctive proposition is not made of two propositions as a disjunctive is What then First this is altogether impertinent and nothing to his purpose Secondly it is also false Every compounded proposition such as a conjunct proposition is doth either actually or virtually include two propositions Indeed an hypothetical proposition may sometimes be reduced to a cathegorical that is when there are but three terms for when there are four terms it is hardly reducible What is this to the question or to any difference between us Just which is the way to London A sack full of plums He might do well for his reputation sake to reduce his argument into any Scholler like form either Cathegorical or hypothetical or disjunctive or any thing But then the uglinesse of it would streight appear This is the nearest to his sense that I can contrive it Either it is necessary that it shall rain to morrow or it is necessary that is shall not rain to morrow Or this proposition Either it will rain to morrow or it will not rain to morrow is not necessarily true I deny the disjunction Pono quartum Or the one of these two raining or not raining will happen contingently The disjunction is alwayes necessarily true before either of the members be determinately or necessaly true Whether this proposition I know that either it will rain to morrew or it will not rain to morrow be a disjunctive proposition or not is not material It includeth a disjunctive proposition in it and sheweth plainly that the certainty of a disjunctive proposition doth not depend upon the certainty of either of the members determinately but upon the certainty of one of them indifferently He taketh great exception at my manner of expression that God made his own decrees freely because whatsoever was made had a beginning but Gods decrees are eternal Besides Gods decree is his will and the Bishop said formerly that the will of God is God Although God being a simple and infinite essence to speak properly is not capable of any manner of composition or of being perfected any further than he is Yet to help our conception we use to attribute to God such acts and qualities and perfections which being spoken after the manner of men are to be underood according to the Majesty of God Such is the notion of Gods decrees More particularly the decrees of God may be taken and is taken in the Schools two wayes actively or passively Actively as it is an act immanent in God and so the decree of God is nothing else but Deus decernens