A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY FROM ANTECEDENT AND EXTRINSICAL NECESSITY. (continued 6)

(b) “But whereas he mentions a ‘great paradox of his own, that there is hardly any one action to the causing of which concurs not whatsoever is in rerum natura’; I can but smile to see with what ambition our great undertakers do affect to be accounted the first founders of strange opinions, as if the devising of an ill-grounded 303paradox were as great an honour as the invention of the needle, or the discovery of the new world. And as to this paradox in particular, I meddle not with natural actions, because the subject of my discourse is moral liberty. But if he intend not only the kinds of things, but every individual creature, and not only in natural but voluntary actions, I desire to know how Prester John, or the great Mogul, or the king of China, or any one of so many millions of their subjects, do concur to my writing of this reply. If they do not, among his other speculations concerning this matter I hope he will give us some restrictions. It were hard to make all the negroes accessary to all the murders that are committed in Europe.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XXI.

There is not much in this part of his reply that needeth animadversion. But I must observe, where he saith, (a) “the sum of my answer was, that the stars and complexions do incline, but not at all necessitate the will:” he answereth nothing at all to me, who attribute not the necessitation of the will to the stars and complexions, but to the aggregate of all things together that are in motion. I do not say, that the stars or complexions of themselves do incline men to will; but when men are inclined, I must say that that inclination was necessitated by some causes or other.

(b) “But whereas he mentions ‘a great paradox of his own; that there is hardly any one action, to the causing of which concurs not whatsoever is in rerum natura’; I can but smile to see 304with what ambition our great undertakers do affect to be accounted the first founders of strange opinions, &c.” The Bishop speaks often of paradoxes with such scorn or detestation, that a simple reader would take a paradox either for felony or some other heinous crime, or else for some ridiculous turpitude; whereas perhaps a judicious reader knows what the word signifies; and that a paradox, is an opinion not yet generally received. Christian religion was once a paradox; and a great many other opinions which the Bishop now holdeth, were formerly paradoxes. Insomuch as when a man calleth an opinion a paradox, he doth not say it is untrue, but signifieth his own ignorance; for if he understood it, he would call it either a truth or an error. He observes not, that but for paradoxes we should be now in that savage ignorance, which those men are in that have not, or have not long had laws and commonwealth, from whence proceedeth science and civility. There was not long since a scholar that maintained, that if the least thing that had weight should be laid down upon the hardest body that could be, supposing it an anvil of diamant, it would at the first access make it yield. This I thought, and much more the Bishop would have thought, a paradox. But when he told me, that either that would do it, or all the weight of the world would not do it, because if the whole weight did it, every the least part thereof would do its part, I saw no reason to dissent. In like manner when I say, ‘there is hardly any one action to the causing of which concurs not whatsoever is in rerum natura;’ it seems to the Bishop a great paradox; and if I 305should say that all action is the effect of motion, and that there cannot be a motion in one part of the world, but the same must also be communicated to all the rest of the world, he would say that this were no less a paradox. But yet if I should say, that if a lesser body, as a concave sphere or tun, were filled with air, or other liquid matter, and that any one little particle thereof were moved, all the rest would be moved also, he would conceive it to be true, or if not he, a judicious reader would. It is not the greatness of the tun that altereth the case; and therefore the same would be true also, if the whole world were the tun; for it is the greatness of this tun that the Bishop comprehendeth not. But the truth is comprehensible enough, and may be said without ambition of being the founder of strange opinions. And though a grave man may smile at it, he that is both grave and wise will not.

NO. XXII.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “Thirdly, the moral philosopher tells us how we are haled hither and thither with outward objects. To this I answer, “First, that the power which outward objects have over us, is for the most part by our own default, because of those vicious habits which we have contracted. Therefore though the actions seem to have a kind of violence in them, yet they were free and voluntary in their first originals. As a paralytic man, to use Aristotle’s comparison, shedding the liquor deserves to be punished, for though his act be unwilling, yet his intemperance was willing, whereby he contracted this infirmity.

306“Secondly I answer, that concupiscence, and custom, and bad company, and outward objects do indeed make a proclivity, but not a necessity. By prayers, tears, meditations, vows, watchings, fastings, humi-cubations, a man may get a contrary habit, and gain the victory, not only over outward objects, but also over his own corruptions, and become the king of the little world of himself.

Si metuis, si prava cupis, si duceris irâ,

Servitii patiere jugum, tolerabis iniquas

Interius leges. Tunc omnia jure tenebis,

Cum poteris rex esse tui.

“Thirdly, a resolved mind, which weighs all things judiciously and provides for all occurrences, is not so easily surprised with outward objects. Only Ulysses wept not at the meeting with his wife and son. I would beat thee, said the philosopher, but that I am angry. One spake lowest, when he was most moved. Another poured out the water, when he was thirsty. Another made a covenant with his eyes. Neither opportunity nor enticement could prevail with Joseph. Nor the music nor the fire, with the three children. It is not the strength of the wind, but the lightness of the chaff, which causeth it to be blown away. Outward objects do not impose a moral, much less a physical necessity; they may be dangerous, but cannot be destructive to true liberty.”

T. H. Thirdly, he disputeth against the opinion of them that say, external objects presented to men of such and such temperatures, do make their actions necessary; and says, the power, that such objects have over us, proceeds from our own fault. But that is nothing to the purpose, if such fault 307of ours proceedeth from causes not in our own power. And therefore that opinion may hold true, for all this answer. Further, he saith, prayer, fasting, &c., may alter our habits. It is true: but when they do so, they are causes of the contrary habit, and make it necessary; as the former habit had been necessary, if prayer, fasting, &c., had not been. Besides we are not moved, nor disposed to prayer or any other action, but by outward objects, as pious company, godly preachers, or something equivalent. In the next place he saith, a resolved mind is not easily surprised. As the mind of Ulysses, who, when others wept, he alone wept not. And of the philosopher that abstained from striking, because he found himself angry. And of him that poured out the water, when he was thirsty; and the like. Such things I confess have, or may have been done; and do prove only that it was not necessary for Ulysses then to weep, nor for the philosopher to strike, nor for that other man to drink: but it does not prove that it was not necessary for Ulysses then to abstain, as he did, from weeping; nor the philosopher to abstain, as he did, from striking; nor the other man to forbear drinking. And yet that was the thing he ought to have proved.

Lastly, he confesseth that the disposition of objects may be dangerous to liberty, but cannot be destructive. To which I answer, it is impossible; for liberty is never in any other danger than to be lost. And if it cannot be lost, which he confesseth, I may infer it can be in no danger at all.

J. D. (a) “The third pretence was out of moral philosophy misunderstood, that outward objects do 308necessitate the will. I shall not need to repeat what he hath omitted, but only to satisfy his exceptions. (b) The first is, that ‘it is not material, ’though the power of outward objects do proceed from our own faults, if such faults of ours proceed not from causes in our own power’. Well, but what if they do proceed from causes that are in our own power, as in truth they do? Then his answer is a mere subterfuge. If our faults proceed from causes that are not, and were not in our own power, then they are not our faults at all. It is not a fault in us, not to do those things which never were in our power to do: but they are the faults of these causes from whence they do proceed. (c) Next he confesseth, that it is in our power, by good endeavours, to alter those vicious habits which we had contracted, and to get the contrary habit. ‘True,’ saith he, ‘but then the contrary habit doth necessitate the one way, as well as the former habit did the other way.’ By which very consideration it appears, that that which he calls a necessity, is no more but a proclivity. If it were a true necessity, it could not be avoided nor altered by our endeavours. The truth is, acquired habits do help and assist the faculty; but they do not necessitate the faculty. He who hath gotten to himself an habit of temperance, may yet upon occasion commit an intemperate act. And so on the contrary. Acts are not opposed to habits, but other habits. (d) He adds, ‘that we are not moved to prayer or any other action, but by outward objects, as pious company, godly preachers, or something equivalent’. Wherein are two other mistakes: first, to make godly preachers 309and pious company to be outward objects; which are outward agents: secondly, to affirm that the will is not moved but by outward objects. The will is moved by itself, by the understanding, by the sensitive passions, by angels good and bad, by men; and most effectually by acts or habits infused by God, whereby the will is excited extraordinarily indeed, but efficaciously and determinately. This is more than equivalent with outward objects.

“Another branch of mine answer was, that a resolved and prepared mind is able to resist both the appetibility of objects, and the unruliness of passions: as I showed by example. (e) He answers, that I prove Ulysses was not necessitated to weep, nor the philosopher to strike; but I do not prove that they were not necessitated to forbear. He saith true. I am not now proving, but answering. Yet my answer doth sufficiently prove that which I intend; that the rational will hath power, both to slight the most appetible objects, and to control the most unruly passions. When he hath given a clear solution to those proofs which I have produced, then it will be time for him to cry for more work.

“Lastly, whereas I say, that outward objects may be dangerous, but cannot be destructive to true liberty; he catcheth at it, (f) and objects, that ‘liberty is in no danger but to be lost; but I say it cannot be lost, therefore’, he infers that, ‘it is in no danger at all.’ I answer, first, that liberty is in more danger to be abused, than to be lost. Many more men do abuse their wits, than lose them. Secondly, liberty is in danger likewise to be weakened or diminished; as when it is clogged 310by vicious habits contracted by ourselves, and yet it is not totally lost. Thirdly, though liberty cannot be totally lost out of the world, yet it may be totally lost to this or that particular man, as to the exercise of it. Reason is the root of liberty; and though nothing be more natural to a man than reason, yet many by excess of study, or by continual gormandizing, or by some extravagant passion which they have cherished in themselves, or by doting too much upon some affected object, do become very sots, and deprive themselves of the use of reason, and consequently of liberty. And when the benefit of liberty is not thus universally lost, yet it may be lost respectively to this or that particular occasion. As he who makes choice of a bad wife, hath lost his former liberty to choose a good one.”one.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XXII.

(a) “The third pretence was out of moral philosophy misunderstood, that outward objects do necessitate the will.” I cannot imagine how the question, whether outward objects do necessitate or not necessitate the will, can any way be referred to moral philosophy. The principles of moral philosophy are the laws; wherewith outward objects have little to do, as being for the most part inanimate, and which follow always the force of nature without respect to moral laws. Nor can I conceive what purpose he had to bring this into his reply to my answer, wherein I attribute nothing in the action of outward objects to morality.

(b) “His first exception is, that ‘it is not material that the power of outward objects do proceed 311from our own faults, if such faults of ours proceed not from causes in our own power’. Well, but what if they do proceed from causes that are in our own power, as in truth they do? Then his answer is a mere subterfuge.” But how proves he that in truth they do? ‘Because else,’ saith he, ‘they are not our faults at all.’ Very well reasoned. A horse is lame from a cause that was not in his power: therefore the lameness is no fault in the horse. But his meaning is, it is no injustice unless the causes were in his own power. As if it were not injustice, whatsoever is willingly done against the law; whatsoever it be, that is the cause of the will to do it.

(c) “Next he confesseth, that it is in our power by good endeavours to alter those vicious habits which we had contracted, and to get the contrary habits.” There is no such confession in my answer. I said, prayer, fasting, &c., may alter our habits. But I never said that the will to pray, fast, &c. is in our own power. “‘True,’ saith he, ‘but then the contrary habit doth necessitate the one way, as well as the former habit did the other way.’ By which very consideration it appears, that that which he calls a necessity, is no more but a proclivity. If it were a true necessity, it could not be avoided, nor altered by our endeavours.” Again he mistakes: for I said that prayer, fasting, &c. when they alter our habits, do necessarily cause the contrary habits; which is not to say, that the habit necessitates, but is necessitated. But this is common with him, to make me say that which out of reading, not out of meditation, he useth to say himself. But how doth it appear, 312that prayer and fasting, &c. make but a proclivity in men to do what they do? For if it were but a proclivity, then what they do they do not. Therefore they either necessitate the will, or the will followeth not. I contend for the truth of this only, that when the will followeth them, they necessitate the will; and when a proclivity followeth, they necessitate the proclivity. But the Bishop thinks I maintain, that that also is produced necessarily, which is not produced at all.

(d) “He adds, ‘that we are not moved to prayer or any other action, but by outward objects, as pious company, and godly preachers, or something equivalent’. Wherein are two other mistakes: first, to make godly preachers and pious company to be outward objects, which are outward agents; secondly, to affirm that the will is not moved but by outward objects. The will is moved by itself, &c”. The first mistake, he urgeth that I call preachers and company objects. Is not the preacher to the hearer the object of his hearing? No, perhaps he will say, it is the voice which is the object; and that we hear not the preacher, but his voice; as before he said, the object of sight was not the cause of sight. I must therefore once more make him smile with a great paradox, which is this; that in all the senses, the object is the agent; and that it is, when we hear a preacher, the preacher that we hear; and that his voice is the same thing with the hearing and a fancy in the hearer, though the motion of the lips and other organs of speech be his that speaketh. But of this I have written more largely in a more proper place.

313My second mistake, in affirming that the will is not moved but by outward objects, is a mistake of his own. For I said not, the will is not moved, but we are not moved: for I always avoid attributing motion to any thing but body. The will is produced, generated, formed, and created in such sort as accidents are effected in a corporeal subject; but moved it cannot be, because it goeth not from place to place. And whereas he saith, “the will is moved by itself,” if he had spoken properly as he ought to do, and said, the will is made or created by itself, he would presently have acknowledged that it was impossible. So that it is not without cause men use improper language, when they mean to keep their errors from being detected. And because nothing can move that is not itself moved, it is untruly said that either the will or any thing else is moved by itself, by the understanding, by the sensitive passions, or by acts or habits; or that acts or habits are infused by God. For infusion is motion, and nothing is moved but bodies.

(e) “He answers, that I prove Ulysses was not necessitated to weep, nor the philosopher to strike, but I do not prove that they were not necessitated to forbear. He saith true; I am not now proving, but answering.” By his favour, though he be answering now, he was proving then. And what he answers now, maketh nothing more toward a proof than was before. For these words, “the rational will hath power to slight the most appetible objects, and to control the most unruly passions,” are no more, being reduced into proper terms, than this: the appetite hath power to be 314without appetite towards most appetible objects, and to will contrary to the most unruly will; which is jargon.

(f) “He objects that ‘liberty is in no danger, but to be lost; but I say it cannot be lost; therefore’, he infers, ‘that it is in no danger at all.’ I answer, first, that liberty is in more danger to be abused, than lost, &c.; secondly, liberty is in danger likewise to be weakened by vicious habits; thirdly, it may be totally lost.” It is true that a man hath more liberty one time than another, and in one place than another; which is a difference of liberty as to the body. But as to the liberty of doing what we will, in those things we are able to do it cannot be greater one time than another. Consequently outward objects can no ways endanger liberty, further than it destroyeth it. And his answer, that liberty is in more danger to be abused than lost, is not to the question, but a mere shift to be thought not silenced. And whereas he says liberty is diminished by vicious habits, it cannot be understood otherwise than that vicious habits make a man the less free to do vicious actions; which I believe is not his meaning. And lastly, whereas he says that “liberty is lost, when reason is lost; and that they who by excess of study, or by continual gormandising, or by extravagant passion, &c., do become sots, have consequently lost their liberty”: it requireth proof. For, for any thing that I can observe, mad men and fools have the same liberty that other men have, in those things that are in their power to do.

315

NO. XXIII.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “Fourthly, the natural philosopher doth teach, that the will doth necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding. It is true indeed the will should follow the direction of the understanding; but I am not satisfied that it doth evermore follow it. Sometimes this saying hath place: video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. As that great Roman said of two suitors, that the one produced the better reasons, but the other must have the office. So reason often lies dejected at the feet of affection. Things nearer to the senses move more powerfully. Do what a man can, he shall sorrow more for the death of his child, than for the sin of his soul; yet appreciatively in the estimation of judgment, he accounts the offence of God a greater evil than any temporal loss.

“Next, I do not believe that a man is bound to weigh the expedience or inexpedience of every ordinary trivial action to the least grain in the balance of his understanding; or to run up into his watch-tower with his perspective to take notice of every jackdaw that flies by, for fear of some hidden danger. This seems to me to be a prostitution of reason to petit observations as concerning every rag that a man wears, each drop of drink, each morsel of bread that he eats, 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 may be so curious, he will not. A good architect will be sure to provide sufficient materials for 316his 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 discernible difference can appear between them upon discussion. As suppose a chirurgeon should give two plaisters to his patient, and bid him apply either of 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 to better judgments, I answer the philosopher briefly thus: admitting that the will did necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding, as certainly in many things it doth: yet, first, this is no extrinsical determination from without, and a man’s 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 joined 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, necesse est esse: a necessity of consequence, but not a necessity of consequent. Though an agent have certainly determined, and so thethe action be become infallible, yet if the agent did determine freely, the action likewise is free.”

T. H. The fourth opinion which he rejecteth, is of them that make the will necessarily to follow 317the 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 action they do, great and small, to the least grain; which is a thing that he thinks with reason to be untrue. But I understand it to signify, that the will follows the last opinion or judgment, immediately preceding the 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 follows necessarily that thought he had of the sequel of his stroke, immediately before the lifting of his hand. Now if it be understood in that sense, the last dictate of the understanding does certainly necessitate the action, though not as the whole cause, yet as the last cause: as the last feather necessitates the breaking of a horse’s back, when there are so many laid on before, as there needeth but the addition of that one to make the weight sufficient. That which he allegeth against this, is first, out of a poet, who in the person of Medea says, video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. But the saying, as pretty as it is, 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 other must have the office: this also maketh against him. For the last 318dictate 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 nearer the senses move 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 evil consequents to come? Fourthly, whereas he says, 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 pretence alleged 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 No. VII. 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 always determine the will, yet this determination being not antecedent in time, nor proceeding from extrinsical causes, but from the proper resolution of the agent, who had now freely determined himself, it makes no absolute necessity, but only hypothetical, upon supposition 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 always certain that the will doth always actually follow the last dictate of the understanding, though 319it always 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 judgment. 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 stroke 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 horse’s back. A third reason was, because passions and affections sometimes prevail against judgment: as I proved by the example of Medea and Cæsar, by the nearness 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 judgment is no part of the weight, but is the sentence of the trier. The understanding weigheth all things, objects, 320means, circumstances, convenience, inconvenience; but itself is not weighed. Secondly, the sensitive passion, in some extraordinary cases, may give a counterfeit weight to the object, if it can detain or divert reason from the balance: but ordinarily the means, circumstances, and causes concurrent, they have their whole weight from the understanding; so as they do not press the horse’s back at all, until reason lay them on. Thirdly, he conceives that as each feather has a certain natural weight, whereby it concurs not arbitrarily, but necessarily towards the overcharging of the horse; so all objects and causes have a natural efficiency, whereby they do physically determine the will; which is a great mistake. His objects, his agents, his motives, his passions, and all his concurrent causes, ordinarily do only move the will morally, not determine it naturally. So as it hath in all ordinary actions a free dominion over itself.

“His other example, of a man that strikes, ‘whose will to strike followeth necessarily that thought he had of the sequel of his stroke, immediately before the lifting up of his hand’: as it confounds passionate, indeliberate thoughts, with the dictates of right reason, so it is very uncertain; for between the cup and the lip, between the lifting up of the hand and the blow, the will may alter, and the judgment also. And lastly, it is impertinent; for that necessity of striking proceeds from the free determination of the agent, and not from the special influence of any outward determining causes. And so it is only a necessity upon supposition.

321“Concerning Medea’s choice, the strength of the argument doth not lie either in the fact of Medea, which is but a fiction, or in the authority of the poet, who writes things rather to be admired than believed, but in the experience of all men: who find it to be true in themselves, that sometimes reason doth shew unto a man the exorbitancy of his passion, that what he desires is but a pleasant good, that what he loseth by such a choice is an honest good, that that which is honest is to be preferred before that which is pleasant; yet the will pursues that which is pleasant, and neglects that which is honest. St. Paul (Rom. vii. 15) saith as much in earnest, as is feigned of Medea: that he approved not that which he did, and that he did that which he hated. The Roman story is mistaken: there was no bribe in the case but affection. Whereas I urge, that those things which are nearer to the senses do move more powerfully, he lays hold on it; and without answering to that for which I produced it, infers, ‘that the sense of present good, is more immediate to the action than the foresight of evil consequents’: which is true; but it is not absolutely true by any antecedent necessity. Let a man do what he may do, and what he ought to do, and sensitive objects will lose that power which they have by his own fault and neglect. Antecedent or indeliberate concupiscence doth sometimes, but rarely, surprise a man, and render the action not free. But consequent and deliberated concupiscence, which proceeds from the rational will, doth render the action more free, not less free, and introduceth only a necessity upon supposition.

322“Lastly, he saith, that ‘a man’s mourning more for the loss of his child than for his sin, makes nothing to the last dictates of the understanding’. Yes, very much. Reason dictates that a sin committed is a greater evil than the loss of a child, and ought more to be lamented for: yet we see daily how affection prevails against the dictate of reason. That which he infers from hence, that ‘sorrow for sin is not voluntary, and by consequence that repentance proceedeth from causes’; is true as to the latter part of it, but not in his sense. The causes from whence repentance doth proceed, are God’s grace preventing, and man’s will concurring. God prevents freely, man concurs freely. Those inferior agents, which sometimes do concur as subordinate to the grace of God, do not, cannot, determine the will naturally. And therefore the former part of his inference, that sorrow for sin is not voluntary, is untrue, and altogether groundless. That is much more truly and much more properly said to be voluntary, which proceeds from judgment and from the rational will, than that which proceeds from passion and from the sensitive will. One of the main grounds of all T. H.’s errors in this question is, that he acknowledgeth no efficacy but that which is natural. Hence is this wild consequence; ‘repentance hath causes’, and therefore ‘it is not voluntary’. Free effects have free causes, necessary effects necessary causes: voluntary effects have sometimes free, sometimes necessary causes.”

323ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XXIII.

(a) “Supposing the last dictate of the understanding did always determine the will, yet this determination, being not antecedent in time, nor proceeding from extrinsical causes, but from the proper resolution of the agent, who had now freely determined himself, makes no absolute necessity, but only hypothetical, &c.” This is the Bishop’s answer to the necessity inferred from that, that the will necessarily followeth the last dictate of the understanding; which answer he thinks is not sufficiently taken away, because the last act of the understanding is in time together with the will itself, and therefore not antecedent. It is true, that the will is not produced but in the same instant with the last dictate of the understanding; but the necessity of the will, and the necessity of the last dictate of the understanding, may have been antecedent. For that last dictate of the understanding was produced by causes antecedent, and was then necessary though not yet produced; as when a stone is falling, the necessity of touching the earth is antecedent to the touch itself. For all motion through any determined space, necessarily makes a motion through the next space, unless it be hindered by some contrary external motion; and then the stop is as necessary, as the proceeding would have been. The argument therefore from the last dictate of the understanding, sufficiently inferreth an antecedent necessity, as great as the necessity that a stone shall fall when it is already falling. As for his other answer, that “the will does not certainly follow the last dictate 324of the understanding, though it always ought to follow it”, he himself says it is but probable; but any man that speaks not by rote, but thinks of what he says, will presently find it false; and that it is impossible to will anything that appears not first in his understanding to be good for him. And whereas he says the will ought to follow the last dictate of the understanding, unless he mean that the man ought to follow it, it is an insignificant speech; for duties are the man’s not the will’s duties: and if he meanshe means so, then it is false; for a man ought not to follow the dictate of the understanding, when it is erroneous.

(b) “Of which I gave then three reasons. One was, that actions may be so equally circumstantiated, that reason cannot give a positive sentence, but leaves the election to liberty or chance. To this he answers not a word.” There was no need of answer: for he hath very often in this discourse contradicted it himself, in that he maketh “reason to be the true root of liberty, and men to have more or less liberty, as they have more or less reason”. How then can a man leave that to liberty, when his reason can give no sentence? And for his leaving it to chance; if by chance he mean that which hath no causes, he destroyeth Providence; and if he mean that which hath causes, but unknown to us, he leaveth it to necessity. Besides, it is false that “actions may be so equally circumstantiated, that reason cannot give a positive sentence”. For though in the things to be elected there may be an exact equality: yet there may be circumstances in him that is to elect, to make him resolve upon that of the two which he considereth 325for the present; and to break off all further deliberation for this cause, that he must not (to use his own instance) by spending time in vain, apply neither of the plaisters, which the chirurgeon gives him, to his wound. “Another of his reasons was, because reason doth not weigh every individual action to the uttermost grain.” True; but does it therefore follow, a man gives no sentence? The will therefore may follow the dictate of the judgment, whether the man weigh or not weigh all that might be weighed. “His third reason was, because passions and affections sometimes prevail against judgment.” I confess they prevail often against wisdom, which is it he means here by judgment. But they prevail not against the dictate of the understanding, which he knows is the meaning of judgment in this place. And the will of a passionate and peevish fool doth no less follow the dictate of that little understanding he hath, than the will of the wisest man followeth his wisdom.

(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.” To me this comparison seemeth very proper; and therefore I made no scruple (though not much delighted with it, as being no new comparison) to use it again, when there was need again. For in the examination of truth, I search rather for perspicuity than elegance. But the Bishop with his School-terms is far from perspicuity. How near he is to elegance, I shall not forget to examine in due time. But why is 326this comparison improper? “First, because the determination of the judgment is no part of the weight: for the understanding weigheth all things, objects, means, circumstances, convenience, inconvenience; but itself is not weighed.” In this comparison, the objects, means, &c, are the weights, the man is the scale, the understanding of a convenience or inconvenience is the pressure of those weights, which incline him now one way, now another; and that inclination is the will. Again, the objects, means, &c, are the feathers that press the horse, the feeling of that pressure is understanding, and his patience or impatience the will to bear them, if not too many, or if too many, to lie down under them. It is therefore to little purpose that he saith, the understanding is not weighed. “Secondly”, he says the comparison is improper, “because ordinarily, the means, circumstances, and causes concurrent, have their whole weight from the understanding; so as they do not press the horse’s back at all, until reason lay them on.” This, and that which followeth, “that my objects, agents, motives, passions, and all my concurrent causes, ordinarily do only move the will morally, not determine it naturally, so as it hath in all ordinary actions a free dominion over itself,” is all nonsense. For no man can understand, that the understanding maketh any alteration in the object in weight or lightness; nor that reason lays on objects upon the understanding; nor that the will is moved, nor that any motion is moral; nor that these words, the will hath a free dominion over itself, signify anything. With the rest of this reply I shall trust the reader; and only 327note the last words, where he makes me say, repentance hath causes, and therefore it is not voluntary. But I said, repentance hath causes, and that it is not voluntary; he chops in, and therefore, and makes an absurd consequence, which he would have the reader believe was mine, and then confutes it with these senseless words: “Free effects have free causes, necessary effects necessary causes; voluntary effects have sometimes free, sometimes necessary causes”. Can any man but a Schoolman think the will is voluntary? But yet the will is the cause of voluntary actions.

NO. XXIV.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “Fifthly and lastly, the divine labours to find out a way how liberty may consist with the prescience and decrees of God. But of this I had not very long since occasion to write a full discourse, in answer to a treatise against the prescience of things contingent. I shall for the present only repeat these two things. First, we ought not to desert a certain truth, because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner. God should be but a poor God, if we were able perfectly to comprehend all his actions and attributes. Secondly, in my poor judgment, which I ever do and ever shall submit to better, the readiest way to reconcile contingence and liberty with the decrees and prescience of God, and most remote from the altercations of these times, is to subject future contingents to the aspect of God, according to that presentiality which they have in eternity. Not that things future, which are not yet existent, are co-existent with God: but because the 328infinite knowledge of God, incircling all times in the point of eternity, doth attain to their future being, from whence proceeds their objective and intelligible being. The main impediment which keeps men from subscribing to this way, is because they conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession, and not one indivisible point. But if they consider, that whatsoever is in God is God; that there are no accidents in him, (for that which is infinitely perfect cannot be further perfected); that as God is not wise, but wisdom itself, not just, but justice itself, so he is not eternal, but eternity itself: they must needs conclude, that therefore this eternity is indivisible, because God is indivisible; and therefore not successive, but altogether an infinite point, comprehending all times within itself.”

T. H. The last part of this discourse containeth his opinion about reconciling liberty with the prescience and decrees of God, otherwise than some divines have done; against whom he had formerly written a treatise, out of which he only repeateth two things. One is, that “we ought not to desert a certain truth, for not being able to comprehend the certain manner of it”. And I say the same; as for example, that he ought not to desert this certain truth: that there are certain and necessary causes, which make every man to will what he willeth, though he do not yet conceive in what manner the will of man is caused. And yet I think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive: seeing that we see daily, that praise, dispraise, reward, punishment, good and evil sequels of men’s actions retained in memory, do frame and make us to the election of whatsoever it be that we elect; 329and that the memory of such things proceeds from the senses, and sense from the operation of the objects of sense, which are external to us, and governed only by God Almighty; and by consequence, all actions, even of free and voluntary agents, are necessary.

The other thing he repeateth is, that “the best way to reconcile contingency and liberty with the prescience and decrees of God, is to subject future contingents to the aspect of God”. The same is also my opinion, but contrary to what he hath all this while laboured to prove. For hitherto he held liberty and necessity, that is to say, liberty and the decrees of God, irreconcilable; unless the aspect of God (which word appeareth now the first time in this discourse) signify somewhat else besides God’s will and decree, which I cannot understand. But he adds, that we must subject them “according to that presentiality which they have in eternity”; which he says cannot be done by them that conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession, but only by them that conceive it an indivisible point. To this I answer, that as soon as I can conceive eternity to be an indivisible point, or any thing but an everlasting succession, I will renounce all I have written on this subject. I know St. Thomas Aquinas calls eternity nunc stans, an ever abiding now; which is easy enough to say, but though I fain would, I never could conceive it; they that can, are more happy than I. But in the mean time he alloweth hereby all men to be of my opinion, save only those that conceive in their minds a nunc stans; which I think are none. I understand as little, how it can be true that “God is not just, 330but justice itself, not wise but wisdom itself, not eternal but eternity itself”: nor how he concludes thence that “eternity is a point indivisible, and not a succession”: nor in what sense it can be said, that an “infinite point,” &c, wherein is no succession, can “comprehend all times,” though time be successive.

These phrases I find not in the Scripture. I wonder therefore what was the design of the Schoolmen to bring them up; unless they thought a man could not be a true Christian, unless his understanding be first strangled with such hard sayings.

And thus much in answer to his discourse; wherein I think not only his squadrons, but also his reserves of distinctions are defeated. And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the same question, with my reasons for it, positively and briefly as I can, without any terms of art, in plain English.

J. D. (a) “That poor discourse which I mention, was not written against any divines, but in way of examination of a French treatise, which your Lordship’s brother did me the honour to show me at York. (b) My assertion is most true, that we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner. Such a truth is that which I maintain, that the will of man in ordinary actions is free from extrinsical determination: a truth demonstrable in reason, received and believed by all the world. And therefore, though I be not able to comprehend or express exactly the certain manner how it consists together with God’s eternal prescience and 331decrees, which exceed my weak capacity, yet I ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest. But T. H.’s opinion, of the absolute necessity of all events by reason of their antecedent determination in their extrinsical and necessary causes, is no such certain truth, but an innovation, a strange paradox, without probable grounds, rejected by all authors, yea, by all the world. Neither is the manner how the second causes do operate, so obscure, or so transcendent above the reach of reason, as the eternal decrees of God are. And therefore in both these respects, he cannot challenge the same privilege. I am in possession of an old truth, derived by inheritance or succession from mine ancestors. And therefore, though I were not able to clear every quirk in law, yet I might justly hold my possession until a better title were showed for another. He is no old possessor, but a new pretender, and is bound to make good his claim by evident proofs: not by weak and inconsequent suppositions or inducements, such as those are which he useth here, of ‘praises, dispraises, rewards, punishments, the memory of good and evil sequels and events’; which may incline the will, but neither can nor do necessitate the will: nor by uncertain and accidental inferences, such as this; ‘the memory of praises, dispraises, rewards, punishments, good and evil sequels, do make us’ (he should say, dispose us) ‘to elect what we elect; but the memory of these things is from the sense, and the sense from the operation of the external objects, and the agency of external objects is only from God; therefore all actions, even of free and voluntary agents, are necessary’. (c) To pass by all the other great imperfections 332which are to be found in this sorite, it is just like that old sophistical piece: He that drinks well sleeps well, he that sleeps well thinks no hurt, he that thinks no hurt lives well; therefore he that drinks well lives well.

(d) “In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed mine own private opinion, how it might be made appear, that the eternal prescience and decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency. And this I set down in as plain terms as I could, or as so profound a speculation would permit: which is almost wholly misunderstood by T. H., and many of my words wrested to a wrong sense. As first, where I speak of the aspect of God, that is, his view, his knowledge, by which the most free and contingent actions were manifest to him from eternity, (Heb. iv. 13, all things are naked and open to his eyes), and this not discursively, but intuitively, not by external species, but by his internal essence; he confounds this with the will and the decrees of God; though he found not the word aspect before in this discourse, he might have found prescience. (e) Secondly, he chargeth me, that hitherto I have maintained that ‘liberty and the decrees of God are irreconcilable.’ If I have said any such thing, my heart never went along with my pen. No, but his reason why he chargeth me on this manner is, because I have maintained that ‘liberty and the absolute necessity of all things’ are irreconcilable. That is true indeed. What then? ‘Why,’ saith he, ‘necessity and God’s decrees are all one.’ How all one? That were strange indeed. Necessity may be a consequent of God’s decrees; it cannot be the decree 333itself. (f) But to cut his argument short: God hath decreed all effects which come to pass in time; yet not all after the same manner, but according to the distinct natures, capacities, and conditions of his creatures, which he doth not destroy by his decree; some he acteth, with some he co-operateth by special influence, and some he only permitteth. Yet this is no idle or bare permission; seeing he doth concur both by way of general influence, giving power to act; and also by disposing all events necessary, free, and contingent to his own glory. (g) Thirdly, he chargeth me, that I ‘allow all men to be of his opinion, save only those that conceive in their minds a nunc stans, or how eternity is an indivisible point, rather than an everlasting succession’. But I have given no such allowance. I know there are many other ways proposed by divines, for reconciling the eternal prescience and decrees of God with the liberty and contingency of second causes; some of which may please other judgments better than this of mine. Howsoever, though a man could comprehend none of all these ways, yet remember what I said, that a certain truth ought not to be rejected, because we are not able, in respect of our weakness, to understand the certain manner or reason of it. I know the loadstone hath an attractive power to draw the iron to it; and yet I know not how it comes to have such a power.

“But the chiefest difficulty which offers itself in this section is, whether eternity be an indivisible point, as I maintain it; or an everlasting succession, as he would have it. According to his constant use, he gives no answer to what was urged by me, 334but pleads against it from his own incapacity. ‘I never could conceive,’ saith he, ‘how eternity should be an indivisible point.’ I believe, that neither we nor any man else can comprehend it so clearly as we do these inferior things. The nearer that anything comes to the essence of God, the more remote it is from our apprehension. But shall we therefore make potentialities, and successive duration, and former and later, or a part without a part, as they say, to be in God? Because we are not able to understand clearly the divine perfection, we must not therefore attribute any imperfection to him.

(h) “He saith moreover, that ‘he understands as little how it can be true which I say, that God is not just but justice itself, not eternal but eternity itself.’ It seems, howsoever he be versed in this question, that he hath not troubled his head overmuch with reading School-divines or metaphysicians, if he make faculties or qualities to be in God really distinct from his essence. God is a most simple or pure act, which can admit no composition of substance and accidents. Doth he think, that the most perfect essence of God cannot act sufficiently without faculties and qualities? The infinite perfection of the Divine essence excludes all passive or receptive powers, and cannot be perfected more than it is by any accidents. The attributes of God are not divers virtues or qualities in him, as they are in the creatures; but really one and the same with the Divine essence, and among themselves. They are attributed to God to supply the defect of our capacity, who are not able to understand that which is to be known 335of God under one name, or one act of the understanding.

“Furthermore he saith, that ‘he understands not how I conclude from hence, that eternity is an indivisable point, and not a succession’. (i) I will help him. The Divine substance is indivisible; but eternity is the Divine substance. The major is evident, because God is actus simplicissimus, a most simple act; wherein there is no manner of composition, neither of matter and form, nor of subject and accidents, nor of parts, &c; and by consequence no divisibility. The minor hath been clearly demonstrated in mine answer to his last doubt, and is confessed by all men that whatsoever is in God, is God.

“Lastly, he saith, he conceives not ‘how it can be said, that an infinite point, wherein is no succession, can comprehend all time which is successive’. I answer, that it doth not comprehend it formally, as time is successive; but eminently and virtually, as eternity is infinite. To-day all eternity is co-existent with this day: to-morrow all eternity will be co-existent with to-morrow: and so in like manner with all the parts of time, being itself without parts. He saith, ‘he finds not these phrases in the Scripture’. No, but he may find the thing in the Scripture, that God is infinite in all his attributes, and not capable of any imperfection.

“And so to show his antipathy against the Schoolmen, that he hath no liberty or power to contain himself when he meets with any of their phrases or tenets, he falls into another paroxism or fit of inveighing against them; and so concludes his 336answer with a plaudite to himself, because he had defeated both my squadrons of arguments and reserves of distinctions

Dicite Io pæan, et Io bis dicite pæan.

“But“But because his eyesight was weak, and their backs were towards him, he quite mistook the matter. Those whom he saw routed and running away, were his own scattered forces.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY, NO. XXIV.

(a) “That poor discourse which I mention, was not written against any divines, but in way of examination of a French treatise, &c”. This is in reply to those words of mine, “this discourse containeth his opinion about reconciling liberty with the prescience and decrees of God, otherwise than some divines have done, against whom he had formerly written a treatise”. If the French treatise were according to his mind, what need was there that the examination should be written? If it were not to his mind, it was in confutation of him, that is to say, written against the author of it: unless perhaps the Bishop thinks that he writes not against a man, unless he charge him with blasphemy and atheism, as he does me.

(b) “My assertion is most true, that we ought not to desert a certain truth, because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner.” To this I answered, that it was true; and as he alleged it for a reason why he should not be of my opinion, so I alleged it for a reason why I should not be of his. But now in his reply he saith, that his opinion is “a truth demonstrable in reason, received and 337believed by all the world. And therefore, though he be not able to comprehend or express exactly the certain manner how this liberty of will consists with God’s eternal prescience and decrees, yet he ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest.” But why should he adhere to it, unless it be manifest to himself? And if it be manifest to himself, why does he deny that he is able to comprehend it? And if he be not able to comprehend it, how knows he that it is demonstrable? Or why says he that so confidently, which he does not know? Methinks that which I have said, namely, that “that which God foreknows shall be hereafter, cannot but be hereafter, and at the same time that he foreknew it should be; but that which cannot but be, is necessary; therefore what God foreknows, shall be necessarily, and at the time foreknown”: this I say looketh somewhat liker to a demonstration, than any thing that he hath hitherto brought to prove free will. Another reason why I should be of his opinion, is that he is “in possession of an old truth derived to him by inheritance or succession from his ancestors”. To which I answer, first, that I am in possession of a truth derived to me from the light of reason. Secondly, that whereas he knoweth not whether it be the truth that he possesseth, or not; because he confesseth he knows not how it can consist with God’s prescience and decrees; I have sufficiently shewn that my opinion of necessity not only agrees with, but necessarily followeth from the eternal prescience and decrees of God. Besides, it is an unhandsome thing for a man to derive his opinion concerning truth by succession from his ancestors; for our ancestors, the first Christians, 338derived not therefore their truth from the Gentiles, because they were their ancestors.

(c) “To pass by all the other great imperfections which are to be found in this sorite, it is just like an old philosophical piece: he that drinks well, sleeps well; he that sleeps well, thinks no hurt; he that thinks no hurt, lives well; therefore he that drinks well, lives well.” My argument was thus: “election is always from the memory of good and evil sequels; memory is always from the sense; and sense always from the action of external bodies; and all action from God; therefore all actions, even of free and voluntary agents, are from God, and consequently necessary”. Let the Bishop compare now his scurrilous argumentation with this of mine; and tell me, whether he that sleeps well, doth all his lifetime think no hurt.

(d) “In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed my own private opinion, how it might be made appear that the eternal prescience and decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency, &c.” If he had meant by liberty, as other men do, the liberty of action, that is, of things which are in his power to do which he will, it had been an easy matter to reconcile it with the prescience and decrees of God; but meaning the liberty of will, it was impossible. So likewise, if by contingency he had meant simply coming to pass, it had been reconcilable with the decrees of God; but meaning coming to pass without necessity, it was impossible. And therefore though it be true he says, that “he set it down in as plain terms as he could”, yet it was impossible to set it down in plain terms. Nor ought he to charge 339me with misunderstanding him, and wresting his words to a wrong sense. For the truth is, I did not understand them at all, nor thought he understood them himself; but was willing to give them the best interpretation they would bear; which he calls wresting them to a wrong sense. And first, I understood not what he meant by the aspect of God. For if he had meant his foreknowledge, which word he had often used before; what needed he in this one place only to call it aspect? Or what need he here call it his view? Or say that all things are open to the eyes of God not discursively, but intuitively; which is to expound eyes in that text, Hebr. iv. 13, not figuratively but literally, nevertheless excluding external species, which the Schoolmen say are the cause of seeing? But it was well done to exclude such insignificant speeches, upon every occasion whatsoever. And though I do not hold the foreknowledge of God to consist in discourse; yet I shall be never driven to say it is by intuition, as long as I know that even a man hath foreknowledge of all those things which he intendeth himself to do, not by discourse, but by knowing his own purpose; saving that man hath a superior power over him, that can change his purpose; which God hath not. And whereas he says, I confound this aspect with the will and decrees of God, he accuseth me wrongfully. For how could I so confound it, when I understood not what it meant?

(e) “Secondly, he chargeth me, that hitherto I have maintained that ‘liberty and the decrees of God are irreconcileable’”. And the reason why I do so is, because he maintained that liberty and the 340absolute necessity of all things are irreconcileable. If liberty cannot stand with necessity, it cannot stand with the decrees of God, of which decrees necessity is a consequent. I needed not to say, nor did say, that necessity and God’s decrees are all one: though if I had said it, it had not been without authority of learned men, in whose writings are often found this sentence, voluntas Dei, necessitas rerum.

(f) “But to cut his argument short: God hath decreed all effects which come to pass in time, yet not all after the same manner, but according to the distinct natures, capacities, and conditions of his creatures; which he doth not destroy by his decree: some he acteth.” Hitherto true. Then he addeth: “with some he co-operateth by special influence; and some he only permitteth; yet this is no idle or bare permission”. This is false. For nothing operateth by its own original power, but God himself. Man operateth not but by special power, (I say special power, not special influence), derived from God. Nor is it by God’s permission only, as I have often already shown, and as the Bishop here contradicting his former words confesseth. For to permit only, and barely to permit, signify the same thing. And that which he says, that God concurs by way of general influence, is jargon. For every concurrence is one singular and individual concurrence; and nothing in the world is general, but the signification of words and other signs.

(g) “Thirdly, he chargeth me, that ‘I allow all men to be of his opinion, save only those that conceive in their minds a nunc stans, or how eternity 341is an indivisible point, rather than an everlasting succession.’ But I have given no such allowance.” Surely if the reason wherefore my opinion is false, proceed from this, that I conceive not eternity to be nunc stans, but an everlasting succession, I am allowed to hold my opinion till I can conceive eternity otherwise: at least he allows men not till then to be of his opinion. For he hath said, “that the main impediment which keeps men from subscribing to that way of his, is because they conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession, and not one indivisible point”. As for the many other ways which he says are “proposed by divines for reconciling the eternal prescience and decrees of God with the liberty and contingency of second causes”, if they mean such liberty and contingency as the Bishop meaneth, they are proposed in vain; for truth and error can never be reconciled. But “however,” saith he, “though a man could comprehend none of all these ways, yet we must remember that a certain truth ought not to be rejected, because we are not able to understand the reason of it.” For “he knows,” he says, “the loadstone hath an attractive power to draw the iron to it, and yet he knoweth not how it cometh to have such a power.” I know the load-stone hath no such attractive power; and yet I know that the iron cometh to it, or it to the iron; and therefore wonder not, that the Bishop knoweth not how it cometh to have that power. In the next place he saith, I bring nothing to prove that eternity is not an indivisible point, but my own incapacity “that I cannot conceive it”. The truth is, I cannot dispute neither for nor against (as he can do) the 342positions I understand not. Nor do I understand what derogation it can be to the divine perfection, to attribute to it potentiality, that is (in English) power, and successive duration; for such attributes are often given to it in the Scripture.

(h) “He saith moreover, that ‘he understands as little how it can be true which I say, that God is not just, but justice itself, nor eternal, but eternity itself’. It seems, howsoever he be versed in this question, that he hath not troubled his head over-much with reading School-divines, or metaphysicians.” They are unseemly words to be said of God: I will not say, blasphemous and atheistical, which are the attributes he gives to my opinions, because I do not think them spoken out of an evil mind, but out of error: they are, I say, unseemly words to be said of God, that he is not just, that he is not eternal, and (as he also said) that he is not wise; and cannot be excused by any following but, especially when the but is followed by that which is not to be understood. Can any man understand how justice is just, or wisdom wise? and whereas justice is an accident, one of the moral virtues, and wisdom another; how God is an accident or moral virtue? It is more than the Schoolmen or metaphysicians can understand; whose writings have troubled my head more than they should have done, if I had known that amongst so many senseless disputes, there had been so few lucid intervals. But I have considered since, where men will undertake to reason out of natural philosophy of the incomprehensible nature of God, that it is impossible they should speak intelligibly, or in other language than metaphysic, wherein they may 343contradict themselves, and not perceive it; as he does here, when he says, “the attributes of God are not diverse virtues or qualities in him, as they are in the creatures, but really one and the same with the divine essence and amongst themselves, and attributed to God to supply the defect of our capacity”. Attributes are names; and therefore it is a contradiction, to say they are really one and the same with the divine essence. But if he mean the virtues signified by the attributes, as justice, wisdom, eternity, divinity, &c; so also they are virtues, and not one virtue, (which is still a contradiction); and we give those attributes to God, not to shew that we apprehend how they are in him, but to signify how we think it best to honour him.

(i) “‘In the next place he will help me to understand,’ he says, ‘how eternity is an indivisible point.’ The divine substance is indivisible; but eternity is the divine substance. The major is evident, because God is actus simplicissimus; the minor hath been clearly demonstrated in my answer to his last doubt, and is confessed by all men, that whatsoever is attributed to God is God.” The major is so far from being evident, that actus simplicissimus signifieth nothing. The minor is said by some men, thought by no man; for whatsoever is thought, is understood. And all that he hath elsewhere and here dilated upon it, is as perfect nonsense, as any man ever writ on purpose to make merry with. And so is that whereby he answers to my objection, that a point cannot comprehend all time, which is successive; namely, his distinction, that “a point doth not comprehend 344all time formally, as time is successive; but eminently and virtually, as eternity is infinite”. And this, “to-day all eternity is co-existent with this day, and to-morrow all eternity will be co-existent with to-morrow”. It is well that his eternity is now come from a nunc stans to be a nunc fluens, flowing from this day to the next, and so on. This kind of language is never found in the Scripture. No, but the thing, saith he, is found there, namely, that God is infinite in all his attributes. I would he could shew me the place where God is said to be infinite in all his attributes. There be places enough to shew that God is infinite in power, in wisdom, mercy, &c: but neither is he said to be infinite in names (which is the English of attributes), nor that he is an indivisible point, nor that a point doth comprehend time eminently and virtually; nor that to-day all eternity is co-existent with to-day, &c. And thus much in answer to his reply upon my answer. That which remaineth, is my reply upon his answer to my positive doctrine on this subject.

MY OPINION ABOUT LIBERTY AND NECESSITY NO. XXV.

T. H. First, I conceive that when it cometh into a man’s mind to do or not to do some certain action, if he have no time to deliberate, the doing or abstaining necessarily followeth the present thought he had of the good or evil consequence thereof to himself. As for example, in sudden anger the action shall follow the thought of revenge, in sudden fear the thought of escape. Also when a man hath time to deliberate, but deliberates not, because never anything appeared that 345could make him doubt of the consequence, the action follows his opinion of the goodness or harm of it. These actions I call voluntary. He, if I understand him aright, calls them spontaneous. I call them voluntary, because those actions that follow immediately the last appetite, are voluntary. And here, where there is one only appetite, that one is the last.

Besides, I see it is reasonable to punish a rash action; which could not be justly done by man, unless the same were voluntary. For no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation, though never so sudden; because it is supposed he had time to deliberate all the precedent time of his life, whether he should do that kind of action or not. And hence it is, that he that killeth in a sudden passion of anger, shall nevertheless be justly put to death: because all the time wherein he was able to consider whether to kill were good or evil, shall be held for one continual deliberation; and consequently the killing shall be judged to proceed from election.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “This part of T. H.’s discourse hangs together like a sick man’s dreams. (a) Even now he tells us, that ‘a man may have time to deliberate, yet not deliberate’. By and by he saith, that ‘no action of a man, though never so sudden, can be said to be without deliberation’. He tells us, No. XXXIII., that ‘the scope of this section is to show what is spontaneous’. Howbeit he showeth only what is voluntary; (b) so making voluntary and spontaneous to be all one; whereas before he had told us, that ‘every spontaneous action is not voluntary, because indeliberate; nor every 346voluntary action spontaneous, if it proceed from fear.’ (c) Now he tells us, that ‘those actions which follow the last appetite, are voluntary; and where there is one only appetite, that is the last’. But before he told us, that ‘voluntary presupposeth some precedent deliberation and meditation of what is likely to follow, both upon the doing and abstaining from the action’. (d) He defines liberty, No. XXIX., to be ‘the absence of all extrinsical impediments to action’. And yet in his whole discourse he laboureth to make good, that whatsoever is not done, is therefore not done, because the agent was necessitated by extrinsical causes not to do it. Are not extrinsical causes, which determine him not to do it, extrinsical impediments to action? So no man shall be free to do any thing but that which he doth actually. He defines a free agent to be ‘him who hath not made an end of deliberating’ (No. XXVIII.). And yet defines liberty to be ‘an absence of outward impediments’. There may be outward impediments, even whilst he is deliberating. As a man deliberates whether he shall play at tennis: and at the same time the door of the tennis-court is fast locked against him. And after a man hath ceased to deliberate, there may be no outward impediments: as when a man resolves not to play at tennis, because he finds himself ill-disposed, or because he will not hazard his money. So the same person, at the same time, should be free and not free, not free and free. And as he is not firm to his own grounds, so he confounds all things, the mind and the will, the estimative faculty and the understanding, imagination with deliberation, the end with the means, human will with the sensitive 347appetite, rational hope or fear with irrational passions, inclinations with intentions, a beginning of being with a beginning of working, sufficiency with efficiency. So as the greatest difficulty is to find out what he aims at. So as I had once resolved not to answer this part of his discourse; yet upon better advice I will take a brief survey of it also; and show how far I assent unto, or dissent from that which I conceive to be his meaning.

“And first, concerning sudden passions, as anger or the like. (e) That which he saith, that ‘the action doth necessarily follow the thought’, is thus far true; that those actions which are altogether undeliberated and do proceed from sudden and violent passions, or motus primo primi, which surprise a man, and give him no time to advise with reason, are not properly and actually in themselves free, but rather necessary actions; as when a man runs away from a cat or a custard out of a secret antipathy.

(f) “Secondly, as for those actions ‘wherein actual deliberation seems not necessary, because never anything appeared that could make a man doubt of the consequence’: I do confess, that actions done by virtue of a precedent deliberation, without any actual deliberation in the present, when the act is done, may notwithstanding be truly both voluntary and free acts, yea, in some cases and in some sense, more free than if they were actually deliberated of in present. As one who hath acquired by former deliberation and experience a habit to play upon the virginals, needs not deliberate what man or what jack he must touch, nor what finger of his hand he must move 348to play such a lesson; yea, if his mind should be fixed, or intent to every motion of his hand, or every touch of a string, it would hinder his play, and render the action more troublesome to him. Wherefore I believe, that not only his playing in general, but every motion of his hand, though it be not presently deliberated of, is a free act, by reason of his precedent deliberation. So then (saving improprieties of speech, as calling that voluntary which is free, and limiting the will to the last appetite; and other mistakes, as that no act can be said to be without deliberation) we agree also for the greater part in this second observation.

(g) “Thirdly, whereas he saith, that ‘some sudden acts proceeding from violent passions, which surprise a man, are justly punished’; I grant they are so sometimes; but not for his reason, because they have been formerly actually deliberated of; but because they were virtually deliberated of, or because it is our fault that they were not actually deliberated of, whether it was a fault of pure negation, that is, of not doing our duty only, or a fault of bad disposition also, by reason of some vicious habit which we had contracted by our former actions. To do a necessary act is never a fault, nor justly punishable, when the necessity is inevitably imposed upon us by extrinsical causes. As if a child, before he had the use of reason, shall kill a man in his passion; yet because he wanted malice to incite him to it, and reason to restrain him from it, he shall not die for it in the strict rules of particular justice, unless there be some mixture of public justice in the case.

349(h) “But if the necessity be contracted by ourselves, and by our own faults, it is justly punishable. As he who by his wanton thoughts in the day-time doth procure his own nocturnal pollution: a man cannot deliberate in his sleep, yet it is accounted a sinful act, and consequently, a free act, that is, not actually free in itself, but virtually free in its causes; and though it be not expressly willed and chosen, yet it is tacitly and implicitly willed and chosen, when that is willed and chosen from whence it was necessarily produced. By the Levitical law, if a man digged a pit and left it uncovered, so that his neighbour’s ox or his ass did fall into it, he was bound to make reparation; not because he did choose to leave it uncovered on purpose that such a mischance might happen, but because he did freely omit that which he ought to have done, from whence this damage proceeded to his neighbour. Lastly, there is great difference between the first motions, which sometimes are not in our power, and subsequent acts of killing or stealing, or the like, which always are in our power if we have the use of reason, or else it is our own fault that they are not in our power. Yet to such hasty acts done in hot blood the law is not so severe, as to those which are done upon long deliberation and prepensed malice, unless, as I said, there be some mixture of public justice in it. He that steals a horse deliberately, may be more punishable by the law than he that kills the owner by chance-medley: yet the death of the owner was more noxious, (to use his phrase), and more damageable to the family, than the stealth of the horse. So far was T. H. mistaken in that also, 350that the right to kill men doth proceed merely from their being noxious (No. XIV).”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S ANSWER TO MY OPINION ABOUT LIBERTY AND NECESSITY NO. XXV.

(a) “Even now he tells us, that ‘a man may have time to deliberate, yet not deliberate’. By and by he saith, that ‘no action of a man, though never so sudden, can be said to be without deliberation’.” He thinks he hath here caught me in a contradiction; but he is mistaken; and the cause is, that he observed not that there may be a difference between deliberation and that which shall be construed for deliberation by a judge. For a man may do a rash act suddenly without deliberation; yet because he ought to have deliberated, and had time enough to deliberate whether the action were lawful or not, it shall not be said by the judge that it was without deliberation, who supposeth that after the law known, all the time following was time of deliberation. It is therefore no contradiction, to say a man deliberates not, and that he shall be said to deliberate by him that is the judge of voluntary actions.

(b) “Again, where he says, ‘he maketh voluntary and spontaneous actions to be all one’, whereas before he had told us that ‘every spontaneous action is not voluntary, because indeliberate; nor every voluntary action spontaneous, if it proceed from fear’.” He thinks he hath espied another contradiction. It is no wonder if speaking of spontaneous, which signifieth nothing else in Latin (for English it is not) but that which is done deliberately or indeliberately without compulsion, I 351seem to the Bishop, who hath never given any definition of that word, not to use it as he would have me. And it is easy for him to give it any signification he please, as the occasion shall serve to charge me with contradiction. In what sense I have used that word once, in the same I have used it always, calling that spontaneous which is without co-action or compulsion by terror.

(c) “Now he tells us, that ‘those actions which follow the last appetite are voluntary, and where there is one only appetite, that is the last’. But before he told us, that ‘voluntary presupposeth some precedent deliberation and meditation of what is likely to follow, both upon the doing and abstaining from the action’.” This is a third contradiction he supposeth he hath found, but is again mistaken. For when men are to judge of actions, whether they be voluntary or not, they cannot call that action voluntary, which followed not the last appetite. But the same men, though there were no deliberation, shall judge there was, because it ought to have been, and that from the time that the law was known to the time of the action itself. And therefore both are true, that voluntary may be without, and yet presupposed in the law not to be without deliberation.

(d) “He defines liberty (No. XXIX.) to be ‘the absence of all extrinsical impediments to action’. And yet in his whole discourse he laboureth to make good, that whatsoever is not done, is therefore not done, because the agent was necessitated by extrinsical causes not to do it. Are not extrinsical causes which determine him not to do it, extrinsical impediments to action?” This definition 352of liberty, that it is “the absence of all extrinsical impediments to action”, he thinks he hath sufficiently confuted by asking whether the extrinsical causes, which determine a man not to do an action, be not extrinsical impediments to action. It seems by his question he makes no doubt but they are; but is deceived by a too shallow consideration of what the word impediment signifieth. For impediment or hinderance signifieth an opposition to endeavour. And therefore if a man be necessitated by extrinsical causes not to endeavour an action, those causes do not oppose his endeavour to do it, because he has no such endeavour to be opposed; and consequently extrinsical causes that take away endeavour, are not to be called impediments; nor can any man be said to be hindered from doing that, which he had no purpose at all to do. So that this objection of his proceedeth only from this, that he understandeth not sufficiently the English tongue. From the same proceedeth also that he thinketh it a contradiction, to call a free agent him that hath not yet made an end of deliberating, and to call liberty an absence of outward impediments. “For,” saith he, “there may be outward impediments, even while he is deliberating.” Wherein he is deceived. For though he may deliberate of that which is impossible for him to do; as in the example he allegeth of him that deliberateth whether he shall play at tennis, not knowing that the door of the tennis-court is shut against him; yet it is no impediment to him that the door is shut, till he have a will to play; which be hath not till he hath done deliberating whether he shall play or not. 353That which followeth of my confounding mind and will; the estimative faculty and the understanding; the imagination and deliberation; the end and the means; the human will and the sensitive appetite; rational hope or fear, and irrational passions; inclinations and intentions; a beginning of being and a beginning of working; sufficiency and efficiency: I do not find in anything that I have written, any impropriety in the use of these or any other English words; nor do I doubt but an English reader, who hath not lost himself in School-divinity, will very easily conceive what I have said. But this I am sure, that I never confounded beginning of being with beginning of working, nor sufficiency with efficiency; nor ever used these words, sensitive appetite, rational hope, or rational fear, or irrational passions. It is therefore impossible I should confound them. But the Bishop is either mistaken, or else he makes no scruple to say that which he knows to be false, when he thinks it will serve his turn.

(e) “That which he saith, that ‘the action doth necessarily follow the thought’, is thus far true; that those actions which are altogether undeliberated, and do proceed from violent passions, &c, are not properly, and actually in themselves free, but rather necessary actions, as when a man runs away from a cat or a custard.” Thus far he says is true. But when he calls sudden passions motus primo primi, I cannot tell whether he says true or not, because I do not understand him; nor find how he makes his meaning ever the clearer by his example of a cat and a custard, because I know not what he means by a secret antipathy. For 354what that antipathy is he explaineth not by calling it secret, but rather confesseth he knows not how to explain it. And because he saith, it is thus far true, I expect he should tell me also how far it is false.

(f) “Secondly, as for those actions wherein actual deliberation seems not necessary, ‘because never anything appeared that could make a man doubt of the consequence’; I do confess that actions done by virtue of a precedent deliberation, without any actual deliberation for the present, may notwithstanding be truly voluntary and free acts.” In this he agrees with me. But where he adds, “yea, in some cases, and in some sense more free, than if they were actually deliberated of in present”, I do not agree with him. And for the instance he bringeth to prove it, in the man that playeth on an instrument with his hand it maketh nothing for him. For it proveth only, that the habit maketh the motion of his hand more ready and quick; but it proveth not that it maketh it more voluntary, but rather less; because the rest of the motions follow the first by an easiness acquired from long custom; in which motion the will doth not accompany all the strokes of the hand, but gives a beginning to them only in the first. Here is nothing, as I expected, of how far that which I had said, namely, that the action doth necessarily follow the thought, is false; unless it be “improprieties of speech, as calling that voluntary which is free, and limiting the will to the last appetite; and other mistakes, as that no act can be said to be without deliberation”. For improprieties of speech, I will not contend with 355one that can use motus primo primi, practice practicum, actus elicitus, and many other phrases of the same kind. But to say that free actions are voluntary; and that the will which causeth a voluntary action, is the last appetite; and that that appetite was immediately followed by the action; and that no action of a man can be said in the judgment of the law, to be without deliberation: are no mistakes, for anything that he hath proved to the contrary.

(g) “Thirdly, whereas he saith, that ‘some sudden acts, proceeding from violent passions which surprise a man, are justly punished’; I grant they are so sometimes, but not for his reason, &c.” My reason was, “because he had time to deliberate from the instant that he knew the law, to the instant of his action, and ought to have deliberated”, that therefore he may be justly punished. The Bishop grants they are justly punished, and his reason is, “because they were virtually deliberated of”, or, “because it is our fault they were not actually deliberated of”. How a man does deliberate, and yet not actually deliberate, I understand not. If virtual deliberation be not actual deliberation, it is no deliberation. But he calleth virtual deliberation, that which ought to have been, and was not; and says the same that he condemns in me. And his other reason, namely, because it is our fault that we deliberated not, is the same that I said, that we ought to have deliberated, and did not. So that his reprehension here, is a reprehension of himself, proceeding from that the custom of School-language hath made him forget the language of his country. And to that which he 356adds, “that a necessary act is never a fault, nor justly punishable, when the necessity is inevitably imposed upon us by extrinsical causes”, I have sufficiently answered before in diverse places; shewing that a fault may be necessary from extrinsical causes, and yet voluntary; and that voluntary faults are justly punishable.

(h) “But if the necessity be contracted by ourselves, it is justly punishable. As he who by his wanton thoughts in the day time, doth procure his own nocturnal pollution.” This instance, because it maketh not against anything I have held, and partly also because it is a stinking passage, (for surely if, as he that ascribes eyes to the understanding, allows me to say it hath a nose, it stinketh to the nose of the understanding); this sentence I pass over, observing only the canting terms, not actually free in itself, but virtually free in its causes. In the rest of his answer to this No. XXV, I find nothing alleged in confutation of anything I have said, saving that his last words are, that “T. H. is mistaken in that also, that the right to kill men doth proceed merely from their being noxious” (No. XIV.). But to that I have in the same No. XIV. already answered. I must not pass over, that a little before he hath these words: “If a child, before he have the use of reason, shall kill a man in his passion, yet because he wanted malice to incite him to it, and reason to restrain him from it, he shall not die for it, in the strict rules of particular justice, unless there be some mixture of public justice in the case”. The Bishop would make but an ill judge of innocent children, for such are they that, for want of age, have not use enough of reason to abstain from killing. For the 357want of reason proceeding from want of age, does therefore take away the punishment, because it taketh away the crime, and makes them innocent. But he introduceth another justice, which he calleth public; whereas he called the other particular. And by this public justice, he saith, the child though innocent may be put to death. I hope we shall never have the administration of public justice in such hands as his, or in the hands of such as shall take counsel from him. But the distinction he makes is not by himself understood. There are public causes, and private causes. Private are those, where the parties to the cause are both private men. Public are those, where one of the parties is the commonwealth, or the person that representeth it, and the cause criminal. But there is no distinction of justice into public and private. We may read of men that, having sovereign power, did sometimes put an innocent to death, either upon a vow; as Jepthah did in sacrificing his daughter; or when it hath been thought fit that an innocent person should be put to death to save a great number of people. But to put to death a child, not for reason of state, which he improperly calls public justice, but for killing a man, and at the same time to acknowledge such killing to be no crime, I think was never heard of.

NO. XXVI.

T. H. Secondly, I conceive when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do a thing, that he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it. And to consider an action, is to imagine the consequences 358of it, both good and evil. From whence is to be inferred, that deliberation is nothing but alternate imagination of the good and evil sequels of an action, or (which is the same thing) alternate hope and fear, or alternate appetite to do or acquit the action of which he deliberateth.