A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY FROM ANTECEDENT AND EXTRINSICAL NECESSITY.

J. D. “Either I am free to write this discourse for liberty against necessity, or I am not free. If I be free, I have obtained the cause, and ought not to suffer for the truth. If I be not free, yet I ought not to be blamed, since I do it not out of any voluntary election, but out of an inevitable necessity.”

T. H. Right Honourable, I had once resolved to answer J. D.’s objections to my book De Cive in the first place, as that which concerns me most; and afterwards to examine this Discourse of Liberty and Necessity, which, because I never had uttered my opinion of it, concerned me the less. But seeing it was both your Lordship’s and J. D.’s desire that I should begin with the latter, I was contented so to do. And here I present and submit it to your Lordship’s judgment.

J. D. “The first day that I did read over T. H.’s defence of the necessity of all things, was April 20th, 1646. Which proceeded not out of any disrespect to him; for if all his discourses had been geometrical demonstrations, able not only to persuade, but also to compel assent, all had been one to me, first my journey, and afterwards some other 30trifles which we call business, having diverted me until then. And then my occasions permitting me, and an advertisement from a friend awakening me, I set myself to a serious examination of it. We commonly see those who delight in paradoxes, if they have line enough, confute themselves; and their speculatives and their practices familiarly interfere one with another. (b) The very first words of T. H.’s defence trip up the heels of his whole cause; ‘I had once resolved.’ To resolve presupposeth deliberation. But what deliberation can there be of that which is inevitably determined by causes without ourselves, before we do deliberate? Can a condemned man deliberate whether he should be executed or not? It is even to as much purpose, as for a man to consult and ponder with himself whether he should draw in his breath, or whether he should increase in stature. Secondly, (c) to resolve implies a man’s dominion over his own actions, and his actual determination of himself. But he who holds an absolute necessity of all things, hath quitted this dominion over himself; and (which is worse) hath quitted it to the second extrinsical causes, in which he makes all his actions to be determined. One may as well call again yesterday, as resolve or newly determine that which is determined to his hand already. (d) I have perused this treatise, weighed T. H.’s answers, considered his reasons, and conclude that he hath missed, and misled the question, that the answers are evasions, that his arguments are paralogisms, that the opinion of absolute and universal necessity is but a result of some groundless and ill-chosen principles, and that the defect is not in 31himself, but that his cause will admit no better defence; and therefore, by his favour, I am resolved to adhere to my first opinion. Perhaps another man reading this discourse with other eyes, judgeth it to be pertinent and well-founded. How comes this to pass? The treatise is the same, the exterior causes are the same; yet the resolution is contrary. Do the second causes play fast and loose? Do they necessitate me to condemn, and necessitate him to maintain? What is it then? The difference must be in ourselves, either in our intellectuals, because the one sees clearer than the other; or in our affections, which betray our understandings, and produce an implicit adherence in the one more than in the other. Howsoever it be, the difference is in ourselves. The outward causes alone do not chain me to the one resolution, nor him to the other resolution. But T. H. may say, that our several and respective deliberations and affections are in part the causes of our contrary resolutions, and do concur with the outward causes to make up one total and adequate cause to the necessary production of this effect. If it be so, he hath spun a fair thread, to make all this stir for such a necessity as no man ever denied or doubted of. When all the causes have actually determined themselves, then the effect is in being; for though there be a priority in nature between the cause and the effect, yet they are together in time. And the old rule is, (e) ‘whatsoever is, when it is, is necessarily so as it is.’ This is no absolute necessity, but only upon supposition, that a man hath determined his own liberty. When we question whether all occurrences be necessary, we do not 32question whether they be necessary when they are, nor whether they be necessary in sensu composito, after we have resolved and finally determined what to do; but whether they were necessary before they were determined by ourselves, by or in the precedent causes before ourselves, or in the exterior causes without ourselves. It is not inconsistent with true liberty to determine itself, but it is inconsistent with true liberty to be determined by another without itself.

“T. H. saith further ‘that upon your Lordship’s desire and mine, he was contented to begin with this discourse of Liberty and Necessity,’ that is, to change his former resolution. (f) If the chain of necessity be no stronger, but that it may be snapped so easily insunder; if his will was no otherwise determined without himself, but only by the signification of your Lordship’s desire and my modest entreaty, then we may easily conclude that human affairs are not always governed by absolute necessity; that a man is lord of his own actions, if not in chief, yet in mean, subordinate to the Lord paramount of heaven and earth; and that all things are not so absolutely determined in the outward and precedent causes, but that fair entreaties and moral persuasions may work upon a good nature so far, as to prevent that which otherwise had been, and to produce that which otherwise had not been. He that can reconcile this with an antecedent necessity of all things, and a physical or natural determination of all causes, shall be great Apollo to me.

“Whereas T. H. saith that he had never uttered his opinion of this question, I suppose he intends 33in writing; my conversation with him hath not been frequent, yet I remember well that when this question was agitated between us two in your Lordship’s chamber by your command, he did then declare himself in words, both for the absolute necessity of all events, and for the ground of this necessity, the flux or concatenation of the second causes.”causes.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. I.

(a) “The first day that I did read over T. H.’s defence of necessity,” &c.

His deferring the reading of my defence of necessity, he will not, he saith, should be interpreted for disrespect. ’Tis well; though I cannot imagine why he should fear to be thought to disrespect me. “He was diverted,” he saith, “by trifles called business.” It seems then he acknowledgeth that the will can be diverted by business. Which, though said on the by, is contrary I think to the main, that the will is free; for free it is not, if anything but itself can divert it.

(b) “The very first words of T. H.’s defence, trip up the heels of his whole cause, &c.”

How so? “I had once,” saith he, “resolved. To resolve presupposeth deliberation. But what deliberation can there be of that which is inevitably determined without ourselves?” There is no man doubts but a man may deliberate of what himself shall do, whether the thing be impossible or not, in case he know not of the impossibility; though he cannot deliberate of what another shall do to him. Therefore his examples of the man condemned, of the man that breatheth, and of him 34that groweth, because the question is not what they shall do, but what they shall suffer, are impertinent. This is so evident, that I wonder how he that was before so witty as to say, my first words tripped up the heels of my cause, and that having line enough I would confute myself, could presently be so dull as not to see his argument was too weak to support so triumphant a language. And whereas he seemeth to be offended with paradoxes, let him thank the Schoolmen, whose senseless writings have made the greatest number of important truths seem paradox.

(c) This argument that followeth is no better. “To resolve,” saith he, “implies a man’s dominion over his actions, and his actual determination of himself,” &c.

If he understand what it is to resolve, he knows that it signifies no more than after deliberation to will. He thinks, therefore, to will is to have dominion over his own actions, and actually to determine his own will. But no man can determine his own will, for the will is appetite; nor can a man more determine his will than any other appetite, that is, more than he can determine when he shall be hungry and when not. When a man is hungry, it is in his choice to eat or not eat; this is the liberty of the man; but to be hungry or not hungry, which is that which I hold to proceed from necessity, is not in his choice. Besides these words, “dominion over his own actions,” and “determination of himself,” so far as they are significant, make against him. For over whatsoever things there is dominion, those things are not free, and therefore a man’s actions are not free; and if a 35man determine himself, the question will still remain, what determined him to determine himself in that manner.

(d) “I have perused this treatise, weighed T. H.’s answers, considered his reasons,” &c.

This and that which followeth, is talking to himself at random, till he come to allege that which he calleth an old rule, which is this: (e) “Whatsoever is, when it is, is necessarily so as it is. This is no absolute necessity, but only upon supposition that a man hath determined his own liberty,” &c.

If the bishop think that I hold no other necessity than that which is expressed in that old foolish rule, he neither understandeth me, nor what the word necessary signifieth. Necessary is that which is impossible to be otherwise, or that which cannot possibly otherwise come to pass. Therefore necessary, possible, and impossible have no signification in reference to time past or time present, but only time to come. His necessary, and his in sensu composito, signify nothing; my necessary is a necessary from all eternity; and yet not inconsistent with true liberty, which doth not consist in determining itself, but in doing what the will is determined unto. This “dominion over itself,” and this sensus compositus, and this, “determining itself,” and this, “necessarily is when it is,” are confused and empty words.

(f) “If the chain of necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily asunder, &c. by the signification of your lordship’s desire, and my modest entreaty, then we may safely conclude that human affairs,” &c.

36Whether my Lord’s desire and the Bishop’s modest entreaty were enough to produce a will in me to write an answer to his treatise, without other concurrent causes, I am not sure. Obedience to his Lordship did much, and my civility to the Bishop did somewhat, and perhaps there were other imaginations of mine own that contributed their part. But this I am sure of, that altogether they were sufficient to frame my will thereto; and whatsoever is sufficient to produce any thing, produceth it as necessarily as the fire necessarily burneth the fuel that is cast into it. And though the Bishop’s modest entreaty had been no part of the cause of my yielding to it, yet certainly it would have been cause enough to some civil man, to have requited me with fairer language than he hath done throughout this reply.

NO. II.

T. H. And first I assure your Lordship, I find in it no new argument, neither from Scripture nor from reason, that I have not often heard before, which is as much as to say, that I am not surprised.

J. D. (a) “Though I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H., yet I have this comfort, that if he be not surprised, then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him; and where he fails, I may ascribe it to the weakness of his cause, not to want of preparation. But in this cause I like Epictetus’s counsel well, that (b) the sheep should not brag how much they have eaten, or what an excellent pasture they do go in, but shew it in their lamb and wool. Opposite answers and downright arguments advantage a cause. 37To tell what we have heard or seen is to no purpose. When a respondent leaves many things untouched, as if they were too hot for his fingers, and declines the weight of other things, and alters the true state of the question, it is a shrewd sign either that he hath not weighed all things maturely, or else that he maintains a desperate cause.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON HIS REPLY NO. II.

(a) “Though I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort, that if he be not surprised, then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him,” &c.

Though I were not surprised, yet I do not see the reason for which he saith he may expect a more mature answer from me; or any further answer at all. For seeing I wrote this at his modest request, it is no modest expectation to look for as many answers as he shall be pleased to exact.

(b) “The sheep should not brag how much they have eaten, but shew it in their lamb and wool.”

It is no great bragging, to say I was not surprised; for whosoever chanceth to read Suarez’s Opuscula, where he writeth of free-will and of the concourse of God with man’s will, shall find the greatest part, if not all, that the Bishop hath urged in this question. But that which the Bishop hath said of the reasons and authorities which he saith in his epistle do offer themselves to serve in this cause, and many other passages of his book, I shall, I think, before I have done with him, make appear to be very bragging, and nothing else. And though he say it be Epictetus’s counsel, 38that sheep should shew what they eat in their lamb and wool, it is not likely that Epictetus should take a metaphor from lamb and wool; for it could not easily come into the mind of men that were not acquainted with the paying of tithes. Or if it had, he would have said lambs in the plural, as laymen use to speak. That which follows of my leaving things untouched, and altering the state of the question; I remember no such thing, unless he require that I should answer, not to his arguments only, but also to his syllables.

NO. III.

T. H. The preface is a handsome one, but it appears even in that, that he hath mistaken the question; for whereas he says thus, “if I be free to write this discourse, I have obtained the cause,” I deny that to be true. For it is not enough to his freedom of writing that he had not written it, unless he would himself; if he will obtain the cause, he must prove that, before he wrote it, it was not necessary he should write it afterwards. It may be he thinks it all one to say, “I was free to write it,” and “it was not necessary I should write it.” But I think otherwise; for he is free to do a thing, that may do it if he have the will to do it, and may forbear if he have the will to forbear. And yet if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to do it, the action is necessarily to follow; and if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to forbear, the forbearing also will be necessary. The question, therefore, is not whether a man be a free agent, that is to say, whether he can write or forbear, speak or be silent, according to his will; 39but whether the will to write, and the will to forbear, come upon him according to his will, or according to any thing else in his own power. I acknowledge this liberty, that I can do if I will: but to say, I can will if I will, I take to be an absurd speech. Wherefore I cannot grant him the cause upon this preface.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “Tacitus speaks of a close kind of adversaries, which evermore begin with a man’s praise. The crisis or the catastrophe of their discourse is when they come to their but; as, he is a good natured man, but he hath a naughty quality; or, he is a wise man, but he hath committed one of the greatest follies; so here, ‘the preface is a handsome one, but it appears even in this that he hath mistaken the question.’ This is to give an inch, thatthat one may take away an ell without suspicion; to praise the handsomeness of the porch, that he may gain credit to the vilifying of the house. Whether of us hath mistaken the question, I refer to the judicious reader. (a) Thus much I will maintain, that that is no true necessity, which he calls necessity; nor that liberty, which he calls liberty; nor that the question, which he makes the question.

“First for liberty, that which he calls liberty, is no true liberty.

“For the clearing whereof, it behoveth us to know the difference between these three, necessity, spontaneity, and liberty.

“Necessity and spontaneity may sometimes meet together; so may spontaneity and liberty; but real necessity and true liberty can never meet together. Some things are necessary and not voluntary 40or spontaneous; some things are both necessary and voluntary; some things are voluntary and not free; some things are both voluntary and free; but those things which are truly necessary can never be free, and those things which are truly free can never be necessary. Necessity consists in an antecedent determination to one; spontaneity consists in a conformity of the appetite, either intellectual or sensitive, to the object; true liberty consists in the elective power of the rational will; that which is determined without my concurrence, may nevertheless agree well enough with my fancy or desires, and obtain my subsequent consent; but that which is determined without my concurrence or consent, cannot be the object of mine election. I may like that which is inevitably imposed upon me by another, but if it be inevitably imposed upon me by extrinsical causes, it is both folly for me to deliberate, and impossible for me to choose, whether I shall undergo it or not. Reason is the root, the fountain, the original of true liberty, which judgeth and representeth to the will, whether this or that be convenient, whether this or that be more convenient. Judge then what a pretty kind of liberty it is which is maintained by T. H., such a liberty as is in little children before they have the use of reason, before they can consult or deliberate of any thing. Is not this a childish liberty; and such a liberty as is in brute beasts, as bees and spiders, which do not learn their faculties as we do our trades, by experience and consideration? This is a brutish liberty, such a liberty as a bird hath to fly when her wings are clipped, or to use his own 41comparison, such a liberty as a lame man, who hath lost the use of his limbs, hath to walk. Is not this a ridiculous liberty? Lastly, (which is worse than all these), such a liberty as a river hath to descend down the channel. What! will he ascribe liberty to inanimate creatures also, which have neither reason, nor spontaneity, nor so much as sensitive appetite? Such is T. H.’s liberty.

(b) “His necessity is just such another, a necessity upon supposition, arising from the concourse of all the causes, including the last dictate of the understanding in reasonable creatures. The adequate cause and the effect are together in time, and when all the concurrent causes are determined, the effect is determined also, and is become so necessary that it is actually in being; but there is a great difference between determining, and being determined. If all the collateral causes concurring to the production of an effect, were antecedently determined what they must of necessity produce, and when they must produce it, then there is no doubt but the effect is necessary. (c) But if these causes did operate freely or contingently; if they might have suspended or denied their concurrence, or have concurred after another manner, then the effect was not truly and antecedently necessary, but either free or contingent. This will be yet clearer by considering his own instance of casting ambs-ace, though it partake more of contingency than of freedom. Supposing the positure of the parties’ hand who did throw the dice, supposing the figure of the table and of the dice themselves, supposing the measure of force applied, and supposing all other things which did concur to the 42production of that cast, to be the very same they were, there is no doubt but in this case the cast is necessary. But still this is but a necessity of supposition; for if all these concurrent causes, or some of them, were contingent or free, then the cast was not absolutely necessary. To begin with the caster, he might have denied his concurrence, and not have cast at all; he might have suspended his concurrence, and not have cast so soon; he might have doubled or diminished his force in casting, if it had pleased him; he might have thrown the dice into the other table. In all these cases what becomes of his ambs-ace? The like uncertainties offer themselves for the maker of the tables, and for the maker of the dice, and for the keeper of the tables, and for the kind of wood, and I know not how many other circumstances. In such a mass of contingencies, it is impossible that the effect should be antecedently necessary. T. H. appeals to every man’s experience. I am contented. Let every one reflect upon himself, and he shall find no convincing, much less constraining reason, to necessitate him to any one of these particular acts more than another, but only his own will or arbitrary determination. So T. H.’s necessity is no absolute, no antecedent, extrinsical necessity, but merely a necessity upon supposition.

(d) “Thirdly, that which T. H. makes the question, is not the question. ‘The question is not,’ saith he, ‘whether a man may write if he will, and forbear if he will, but whether the will to write or the will to forbear come upon him according to his will, or according to any thing else 43in his own power.’ Here is a distinction without a difference. If his will do not come upon him according to his will, then he is not a free, nor yet so much as a voluntary agent, which is T. H.’s liberty. Certainly all the freedom of the agent is from the freedom of the will. If the will have no power over itself, the agent is no more free than a staff in a man’s hand. Secondly, he makes but an empty show of a power in the will, either to write or not to write. (e) If it be precisely and inevitably determined in all occurrences whatsoever, what a man shall will, and what he shall not will, what he shall write, and what he shall not write, to what purpose is this power? God and nature never made any thing in vain; but vain and frustraneous is that power which never was and never shall be deduced into act. Either the agent is determined before he acteth, what he shall will, and what he shall not will, what he shall act, and what he shall not act, and then he is no more free to act than he is to will; or else he is not determined, and then there is no necessity. No effect can exceed the virtue of its cause; if the action be free to write or to forbear, the power or faculty to will or nill, must of necessity be more free. Quod efficit tale, illud magis est tale. If the will be determined, the writing or not writing is likewise determined, and then he should not say, ‘he may write or he may forbear,’ but he must write or he must forbear. Thirdly, this answer contradicts the sense of all the world, that the will of man is determined without his will, or without any thing in his power. Why do we ask men whether they will do such a thing or not? Why do we represent 44reasons to them? Why do we pray them? Why do we entreat them? Why do we blame them, if their will come not upon them according to their will. Wilt thou be made clean? said our Saviour to the paralytic person (John v. 6); to what purpose, if his will was extrinsically determined? Christ complains, (Matth. xi. 17): We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced. How could they help it, if their wills were determined without their wills to forbear? And (Matth. xxiii. 37): I would have gathered your children together as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not. How easily might they answer, according to T. H.’s doctrine, ‘Alas! blame not us; our wills are not in our own power or disposition; if they were, we would thankfully embrace so great a favour.’ Most truly said St. Austin, ‘Our will should not be a will at all, if it were not in our power.’ (f) This is the belief of all mankind, which we have not learned from our tutors, but is imprinted in our hearts by nature; we need not turn over any obscure books to find out this truth. The poets chaunt it in the theatres, the shepherds in the mountains, the pastors teach it in their churches, the doctors in the universities, the common people in the markets, and all mankind in the whole world do assent unto it, except an handful of men who have poisoned their intellectuals with paradoxical principles. Fourthly, this necessity which T. H. hath devised, which is grounded upon the necessitation of a man’s will without his will, is the worst of all others, and is so far from lessening those difficulties and absurdities which flow from the fatal destiny of the Stoics, that it increaseth 45them, and rendereth them unanswerable. (g) No man blameth fire for burning whole cities; no man taxeth poison for destroying men; but those persons who apply them to such wicked ends. If the will of man be not in his own disposition, he is no more a free agent than the fire or the poison. Three things are required to make an act or omission culpable. First, that it be in our power to perform it or forbear it; secondly, that we be obliged to perform it, or forbear it, respectively; thirdly, that we omit that which we ought to have done, or do that which we ought to have omitted. (h) No man sins in doing those things which he could not shun, or forbearing those things which never were in his power. T. H. may say, that besides the power, men have also an appetite to evil objects, which renders them culpable. It is true; but if this appetite be determined by another, not by themselves, or if they have not the use of reason to curb or restrain their appetites, they sin no more than a stone descending downward, according to its natural appetite, or the brute beasts who commit voluntary errors in following their sensitive appetites, yet sin not.

(i) The question then is not whether a man be necessitated to will or nill, yet free to act or forbear. But saving the ambiguous acception of the word free, the question is plainly this, whether all agents, and all events natural, civil, moral, (for we speak not now of the conversion of a sinner, that concerns not this question), be predetermined extrinsically and inevitably without their own concurrence in the determination; so as all actions and events which either are or shall be, cannot but be, 46nor can be otherwise, after any other manner, or in any other place, time, number, measure, order, nor to any other end, than they are. And all this in respect of the supreme cause, or a concourse of extrinsical causes determining them to one.

(k) “So my preface remains yet unanswered. Either I was extrinsically and inevitably predetermined to write this discourse, without any concurrence of mine in the determination, and without any power in me to change or oppose it, or I was not so predetermined. If I was, then I ought not to be blamed, for no man is justly blamed for doing that which never was in his power to shun. If I was not so predetermined, then mine actions and my will to act, are neither compelled nor necessitated by any extrinsical causes, but I elect and choose, either to write or to forbear, according to mine own will and by mine own power. And when I have resolved and elected, it is but a necessity of supposition, which may and doth consist with true liberty, not a real antecedent necessity. The two horns of this dilemma are so straight, that no mean can be given, nor room to pass between them. And the two consequences are so evident, that instead of answering he is forced to decline them.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON HIS REPLY NO. III.

(a) “Thus much I will maintain, that this is no true necessity, which he calleth necessity; nor that liberty which he calleth liberty; nor that the question, which he makes the question,” &c. “For the clearing whereof, it behoveth us to know the 47difference between these three, necessity, spontaneity, and liberty.”

I did expect, that for the knowing of the difference between necessity, spontaneity, and liberty, he would have set down their definitions. For without these, their difference cannot possibly appear. For how can a man know how things differ, unless he first know what they are? which he offers not to shew. He tells us that necessity and spontaneity may meet together, and spontaneity and liberty; but necessity and liberty never; and many other things impertinent to the purpose. For which, because of the length, I refer the reader to the place. I note only this, that spontaneity is a word not used in common English; and they that understand Latin, know it means no more than appetite, or will, and is not found but in living creatures. And seeing, he saith, that necessity and spontaneity may stand together, I may say also, that necessity and will may stand together, and then is not the will free, as he would have it, from necessitation. There are many other things in that which followeth, which I had rather the reader would consider in his own words, to which I refer him, than that I should give him greater trouble in reciting them again. For I do not fear it will be thought too hot for my fingers, to shew the vanity of such words as these, intellectual appetite, conformity of the appetite to the object, rational will, elective power of the rational will; nor understand I how reason can be the root of true liberty, if the Bishop, as he saith in the beginning, had the liberty to write this discourse. I understand how objects, and the conveniences and 48the inconveniences of them may be represented to a man, by the help of his senses; but how reason representeth anything to the will, I understand no more than the Bishop understands how there may be liberty in children, in beasts, and inanimate creatures. For he seemeth to wonder how children may be left at liberty; how beasts in prison may be set at liberty; and how a river may have a free course; and saith, “What! will he ascribe liberty to inanimate creatures, also?” And thus he thinks he hath made it clear how necessity, spontaneity, and liberty differ from one another. If the reader find it so, I am contented.

(b) “His necessity is just such another; a necessity upon supposition, arising from the concourse of all the causes, including the last dictate of the understanding in reasonable creatures,” &c.

The Bishop might easily have seen, that the necessity I hold, is the same necessity that he denies; namely, a necessity of things future, that is, an antecedent necessity derived from the very beginning of time; and that I put necessity for an impossibility of not being, and that impossibility as well as possibility are never truly said but of the future. I know as well as he that the cause, when it is adequate, as he calleth it, or entire, as I call it, is together in time with the effect. But for all that, the necessity may be and is before the effect, as much as any necessity can be. And though he call it a necessity of supposition, it is no more so than all other necessity is. The fire burneth necessarily; but not without supposition that there is fuel put to it. And it burneth the fuel, when it is put to it, necessarily; but it is by 49supposition, that the ordinary course of nature is not hindered; for the fire burnt not the three children in the furnace.

(c) “But if these causes did operate freely or contingently, if they might have suspended or denied their concurrence, or have concurred after another manner, then the effect was not truly and antecedently necessary, but either free or contingent.”

It seems by this he understands not what these words, free and contingent, mean. A little before, he wondered I should attribute liberty to inanimate creatures, and now he puts causes amongst those things that operate freely. By these causes it seems he understandeth only men, whereas I shewed before that liberty is usually ascribed to whatsoever agent is not hindered. And when a man doth any thing freely, there be many other agents immediate, that concur to the effect he intendeth, which work not freely, but necessarily; as when the man moveth the sword freely, the sword woundeth necessarily, nor can suspend or deny its concurrence; and consequently if the man move not himself, the man cannot deny his concurrence. To which he cannot reply, unless he say a man originally can move himself; for which he will be able to find no authority of any that have but tasted of the knowledge of motion. Then for contingent, he understandeth not what it meaneth. For it is all one to say it is contingent, and simply to say it is; saving that when they say simply it is, they consider not how or by what means; but in saying it is contingent, they tell us they know not whether necessarily or not. But 50the Bishop thinking contingent to be that which is not necessary, instead of arguing against our knowledge of the necessity of things to come, argueth against the necessity itself. Again, he supposeth that free and contingent causes might have suspended or denied their concurrence. From which it followeth, that free causes, and contingent causes, are not causes of themselves, but concurrent with other causes, and therefore can produce nothing but as they are guided by those causes with which they concur. For it is strange he should say, they might have concurred after another manner; for I conceive not how, when this runneth one way, and that another, that they can be said to concur, that is, run together. And this his concurrence of causes contingent, maketh, he saith, the cast of ambs-ace not to have been absolutely necessary. Which cannot be conceived, unless it had hindered it; and then it had made some other cast necessary, perhaps deux-ace, which serveth me as well. For that which he saith of suspending his concurrence, of casting sooner or later, of altering the caster’s force, and the like accidents, serve not to take away the necessity of ambs-ace, otherwise than by making a necessity of deux-ace, or other cast that shall be thrown.

(d) “Thirdly, that which T. H. makes the question, is not the question,” &c.

He hath very little reason to say this. He requested me to tell him my opinion in writing concerning free-will. Which I did, and did let him know a man was free, in those things that were in his power, to follow his will; but that he was not free to will, that is, that his will did not follow his 51will. Which I expressed in these words: “The question is, whether the will to write, or the will to forbear, come upon a man according to his will, or according to any thing else in his own power.” He that cannot understand the difference between free to do if he will, and free to will, is not fit, as I have said in the stating of the question, to hear this controversy disputed, much less to be a writer in it. His consequence, “if a man be not free to will, he is not a free nor a voluntary agent,” and his saying, “the freedom of the agent is from the freedom of the will,” is put here without proof; nor is there any considerable proof of it through the whole book hereafter offered. For why? He never before had heard, I believe, of any distinction between free to do and free to will; which makes him also say, “if the will have not power over itself, the agent is no more free, than a staff in a man’s hand.” As if it were not freedom enough for a man to do what he will, unless his will also have power over his will, and that his will be not the power itself, but must have another power within it to do all voluntary acts.

(e) “If it be precisely and inevitably determined in all occurrences whatsoever, what a man shall will, and what he shall not will, and what he shall write, and what he shall not write, to what purpose is this power?” &c.

It is to this purpose, that all those things may be brought to pass, which God hath from eternity predetermined. It is therefore to no purpose here to say, that God and nature hath made nothing in vain. But see what weak arguments he brings next, which, though answered in that which is gone before, 52yet, if I answer not again, he will say they are too hot for my fingers. One is: “If the agent be determined what he shall will, and what he shall act, then he is no more free to act than he is to will;” as if the will being necessitated, the doing of what we will were not liberty. Another is: “If a man be free to act, he is much more free to will; because quod efficit tale, illud magis est tale;” as if he should say, “if I make him angry, then I am more angry; because quod efficit,” &c. The third is: “If the will be determined, then the writing is determined, and he ought not to say he may write, but he must write.” It is true, it followeth that he must write, but it doth not follow I ought to say he must write, unless he would have me say more than I know, as himself doth often in this reply.

After his arguments come his difficult questions. “If the will of man be determined without his will, or without any thing in his power, why do we ask men whether they will do such a thing or not?” I answer, because we desire to know, and cannot know but by their telling, nor then neither, for the most part. “Why do we represent reasons to them? Why do we pray them? Why do we entreat them?” I answer, because thereby we think to make them have the will they have not. “Why do we blame them?” I answer, because they please us not. I might ask him, whether blaming be any thing else but saying the thing blamed is ill or imperfect? May we not say a horse is lame, though his lameness came from necessity? or that a man is a fool or a knave, if he be so, though he could not help it? “To what purpose did our Saviour say to the paralytic person, 53wilt thou be made clean, if his will were extrinsically determined?” I answer, that it was not because he would know, for he knew it before; but because he would draw from him a confession of his want. “We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; how could they help it?” I answer they could not help it. “I would have gathered your children as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not. How easily might they answer, according to T. H.’s doctrine, Alas! blame not us, our wills are not in our own power?” I answer, they are to be blamed though their wills be not in their own power. Is not good good, and evil evil, though they be not in our power? and shall not I call them so? and is not that praise and blame? But it seems the Bishop takes blame, not for the dispraise of a thing, but for a pretext and colour of malice and revenge against him he blameth. And where he says our wills are in our power, he sees not that he speaks absurdly; for he ought to say, the will is the power; and through ignorance detecteth the same fault in St. Austin, who saith, “our will should not be a will at all, if it were not in our power;” that is to say, if it were not in our will.

(f) “This is the belief of all mankind, which we have not learned from our tutors, but is imprinted in our hearts by nature,” &c.

This piece of eloquence is used by Cicero in his defence of Milo, to prove it lawful for a man to resist force with force, or to keep himself from killing; which the Bishop, thinking himself able to make that which proves one thing prove any thing, hath translated into English, and brought 54into this place to prove free-will. It is true, very few have learned from tutors, that a man is not free to will; nor do they find it much in books. That they find in books, that which the poets chant in their theatres and the shepherds in the mountains, that which the pastors teach in the churches and the doctors in the universities, and that which the common people in the markets, and all mankind in the whole world do assent unto, is the same that I assent unto, namely, that a man hath freedom to do if he will; but whether he hath freedom to will, is a question which it seems neither the Bishop nor they ever thought on.

(g) “No man blameth fire for burning cities, nor taxeth poison for destroying men,” &c.

Here again he is upon his arguments from blame, which I have answered before; and we do as much blame them as we do men. For we say fire hath done hurt, and the poison hath killed a man, as well as we say the man hath done unjustly; but we do not seek to be revenged of the fire and of poison, because we cannot make them ask forgiveness, as we would make men to do when they hurt us. So that the blaming of the one and the other, that is, the declaring of the hurt or evil action done by them, is the same in both; but the malice of man is only against man.

(h) “No man sins in doing those things which he could not shun.”

He may as well say, no man halts which cannot choose but halt; or stumbles, that cannot choose but stumble. For what is sin, but halting or stumbling in the way of God’s commandments?

(i) “The question then is not, whether a man 55be necessitated to will or nill, yet free to act or forbear. But, saving the ambiguous acceptions of the word free, the question is plainly this,” &c.

This question, which the Bishop stateth in this place, I have before set down verbatim and allowed: and it is the same with mine, though he perceive it not. But seeing I did nothing, but at his request set down my opinion, there can be no other question between us in this controversy, but whether my opinion be the truth or not.

(k) “So my preface remains yet unanswered. Either I was extrinsically and inevitably predetermined to write this discourse,” &c.

That which he saith in the preface is, “that if he be not free to write this discourse, he ought not to be blamed; but if he be free, he hath obtained the cause.”

The first consequence I should have granted him, if he had written it rationally and civilly; the latter I deny, and have shown that he ought to have proved that a man is free to will. For that which he says, any thing else whatsoever would think, if it knew it were moved, and did not know what moved it. A wooden top that is lashed by the boys, and runs about sometimes to one wall, sometimes to another, sometimes spinning, sometimes hitting men on the shins, if it were sensible of its own motion, would think it proceeded from its own will, unless it felt what lashed it. And is a man any wiser, when he runs to one place for a benefice, to another for a bargain, and troubles the world with writing errors and requiring answers, because he thinks he doth it without other cause than his own will, and seeth not what are the lashings that cause his will?

56

NO. IV.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “And so to fall in hand with the question without any further proems or prefaces, by liberty, I do neither understand a liberty from sin, nor a liberty from misery, nor a liberty from servitude, nor a liberty from violence, but I understand a liberty from necessity, or rather from necessitation; that is, an universal immunity from all inevitability and determination to one; whether it be of exercise only, which the Schools call a liberty of contradiction, and is found in God and in the good and bad angels, that is, not a liberty to do both good and evil, but a liberty to do or not to do this or that good, this or that evil, respectively; or whether it be a liberty of specification and exercise also, which the Schools call liberty of contrariety, and is found in men endowed with reason and understanding, that is, a liberty to do and not to do good and evil, this or that. Thus the coast being cleared,” &c.

T. H. In the next place he maketh certain distinctions of liberty, and says, he means not liberty from sin, nor from servitude, nor from violence, but from necessity, necessitation, inevitability, and determination to one. It had been better to define liberty, than thus to distinguish; for I understand never the more what he means by liberty. And though he says he means liberty from necessitation, yet I understand not how such a liberty can be, and it is a taking of the question without proof. For what else is the question between us, but whether such a liberty be possible or not? There are in the same place other distinctions, as a liberty of 57exercise only, which he calls a liberty of contradiction, namely, of doing not good or evil simply, but of doing this or that good, or this or that evil, respectively: and a liberty of specification and exercise also, which he calls a liberty of contrariety, namely, a liberty not only to do or not to do good or evil, but also to do or not to do this or that good or evil. And with these distinctions, he says, he clears the coast, whereas in truth he darkeneth his meaning, not only with the jargon of exercise only, specification also, contradiction, contrariety, but also with pretending distinction where none is. For how is it possible for the liberty of doing or not doing this or that good or evil, to consist, as he saith it doth in God and Angels, without a liberty of doing or not doing good or evil?

J. D. (a) “It is a rule in art, that words which are homonymous, of various and ambiguous significations, ought ever in the first place to be distinguished. No men delight in confused generalities, but either sophisters or bunglers. Vir dolosus versatur in generalibus, deceitful men do not love to descend to particulars; and when bad archers shoot, the safest way is to run to the mark. Liberty is sometimes opposed to the slavery of sin and vicious habits, as (Romans vi. 22): Now being made free from sin. Sometimes to misery and oppression, (Isaiah lviii. 6): To let the oppressed go free. Sometimes to servitude, as (Leviticus xxv. 10): In the year of jubilee ye shall proclaim liberty throughout the land. Sometimes to violence, as (Psalms cv. 20): The prince of his people let him go free. Yet none of all these is the 58liberty now in question, but a liberty from necessity, that is, a determination to one, or rather from necessitation, that is, a necessity imposed by another, or an extrinsical determination. These distinctions do virtually imply a description of true liberty, which comes nearer the essence of it, than T. H.’s roving definition, as we shall see in due place. And though he say that ‘he understands never the more what I mean by liberty,’ yet it is plain, by his own ingenuous confession, both that he doth understand it, and that this is the very question where the water sticks between us, whether there be such a liberty free from all necessitation and extrinsical determination to one. Which being but the stating of the question, he calls it amiss ‘the taking of the question.’ It were too much weakness to beg this question, which is so copious and demonstrable. (b) It is strange to see with what confidence, now-a-days, particular men slight all the Schoolmen, and Philosophers, and classic authors of former ages, as if they were not worthy to unloose the shoe-strings of some modern author, or did sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, until some third Cato dropped down from heaven, to whom all men must repair, as to the altar of Prometheus, to light their torches. I did never wonder to hear a raw divine out of the pulpit declare against School Divinity to his equally ignorant auditors. It is but as the fox in the fable, who, having lost his own tail by a mischance, would have persuaded all his followers to cut off theirs, and throw them away as unprofitable burthens. But it troubles me to see a scholar, one who hath been long admitted into the innermost closet of 59nature, and seen the hidden secrets of more subtle learning, so far to forget himself as to style School-learning no better than a plain jargon, that is, a senseless gibberish, or a fustian language, like the chattering noise of sabots. Suppose they did sometimes too much cut truth into shreds, or delight in abstruse expressions, yet certainly this distinction of liberty into liberty of contrariety and liberty of contradiction, or which is all one, of exercise only, or exercise and specification jointly, which T. H. rejects with so much scorn, is so true, so necessary, so generally received, that there is scarce that writer of note, either divine or philosopher, who did ever treat upon this subject, but he useth it.

“Good and evil are contraries, or opposite kinds of things. Therefore to be able to choose both good and evil, is a liberty of contrariety, or of specification. To choose this, and not to choose this, are contradictory, or which is all one, an exercise or suspension of power. Therefore to be able to do or forbear to do the same action, or to choose or not choose the same object, without varying of the kind, is a liberty of contradiction, or of exercise only. Now a man is not only able to do or forbear to do good only, or evil only, but he is able both to do and to forbear to do both good and evil. So he hath not only a liberty of the action, but also a liberty of contrary objects; not only a liberty of exercise, but also of specification; not only a liberty of contradiction, but also of contrariety. On the other side, God and the good angels can do or not do this or that good; but they cannot do and not do both good and evil. So 60they have only a liberty of exercise or contradiction, but not a liberty of specification or contrariety. It appears then plainly, that the liberty of man is more large in the extension of the object, which is both good and evil, than the liberty of God and the good angels, whose object is only good. But withal the liberty of man comes short in the intention of the power. Man is not so free in respect of good only, as God or the good angels, because (not to speak of God, whose liberty is quite of another nature) the understandings of the angels are clearer, their power and dominion over their actions is greater, they have no sensitive appetites to distract them, no organs to be disturbed. We see, then, this distinction is cleared from all darkness.

“And where T. H. demands, how it is possible for the liberty of doing or not doing this or that good or evil, to consist in God and angels, without a liberty of doing or not doing good or evil? the answer is obvious and easy, referendo singula singulis, rendering every act to its right object respectively. God and good angels have a power to do or not to do this or that good, bad angels have a power to do or not to do this or that evil; so both, jointly considered, have power respectively to do good or evil. And yet, according to the words of my discourse, God and good and bad angels, being singly considered, have no power to do good or evil, that is, indifferently, as man hath.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. IV.

He intendeth here to make good the distinctions of liberty of exercise, and liberty of contradiction; 61liberty of contrariety, and liberty of specification and exercise. And he begins thus:

(a) “It is a rule in art, that words which are homonymous, or of various and ambiguous significations, ought ever in the first place to be distinguished,” &c.

I know not what art it is that giveth this rule. I am sure it is not the art of reason, which men call logic. For reason teacheth, and the example of those who only reason methodically, (which are the mathematicians), that a man, when he will demonstrate the truth of what he is to say, must in the first place determine what he will have to be understood by his words; which determination is called definition; whereby the significations of his words are so clearly set down, that there can creep in no ambiguity. And therefore there will be no need of distinctions; and consequently his rule of art, is a rash precept of some ignorant man, whom he and others have followed.

The Bishop tells us that liberty is sometimes opposed to sin, to oppression, to servitude; which is to tell us, that they whom he hath read in this point, are inconsistent in the meaning of their own words; and, therefore, they are little beholden to him. And this diversity of significations he calls distinctions. Do men that by the same word in one place mean one thing, and in another another, and never tell us so, distinguish? I think they rather confound. And yet he says, that “these distinctions do virtually imply a description of true liberty, which cometh nearer the essence of it, than T. H.’s roving definition;” which definition of mine was this: “liberty is 62when there is no external impediment.” So that in his opinion a man shall sooner understand liberty by reading these words, (Romans vi. 22): Being made free from sin; or these words, (Isaiah lviii. 6): To let the oppressed go free; or by these words, (Leviticus xxv. 10): You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land, than by these words of mine: “liberty is the absence of external impediments to motion.” Also he will face me down, that I understand what he means by his distinctions of liberty of contrariety, of contradiction, of exercise only, of exercise and specification jointly. If he mean I understand his meaning, in one sense it is true. For by them he means to shift off the discredit of being able to say nothing to the question; as they do that, pretending to know the cause of every thing, give for the cause of why the load-stone draweth to it iron, sympathy, and occult quality; making they cannot tell, (turned now into occult), to stand for the real cause of that most admirable effect. But that those words signify distinction, I constantly deny. It is not enough for a distinction to be forked; it ought to signify a distinct conception. There is great difference between duadeduade distinctions and cloven feet.

(b) “It is strange to see with what confidence now-a-days particular men slight all the Schoolmen, and philosophers, and classic authors of former ages,” &c.

This word, particular men, is put here, in my opinion, with little judgment, especially by a man that pretendeth to be learned. Does the Bishop think that he himself is, or that there is any universal 63man? It may be he means a private man. Does he then think there is any man not private, besides him that is endued with sovereign power? But it is most likely he calls me a particular man, because I have not had the authority he has had, to teach what doctrine I think fit. But now, I am no more particular than he; and may with as good a grace despise the Schoolmen and some of the old Philosophers, as he can despise me, unless he can shew that it is more likely that he should be better able to look into these questions sufficiently, which require meditation and reflection upon a man’s own thoughts, he that hath been obliged most of his time to preach unto the people, and to that end to read those authors that can best furnish him with what he has to say, and to study for the rhetoric of his expressions, and of the spare time (which to a good pastor is very little) hath spent no little part in seeking preferment and increasing of riches; than I, that have done almost nothing else, nor have had much else to do but to meditate upon this and other natural questions. It troubles him much that I style School-learning jargon. I do not call all School-learning so, but such as is so; that is, that which they say in defending of untruths, and especially in the maintenance of free-will, when they talk of liberty of exercise, specification, contrariety, contradiction, acts elicite and exercite and the like; which, though he go over again in this place, endeavouring to explain them, are still both here and there but jargon, or that (if he like it better) which the Scripture in the first chaos calleth Tohu and Bohu.

But because he takes it so heinously, that a private 64man should so hardly censure School-divinity, I would be glad to know with what patience he can hear Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon speaking of the same? Martin Luther, that was the first beginner of our deliverance from the servitude of the Romish clergy, had these three articles censured by the University of Paris. The first of which was: “School-theology is a false interpretation of the Scripture, and Sacraments, which hath banished from us true and sincere theology.” The second is: “At what time School-theology, that is, mock-theology, came up, at the same time the theology of Christ’s Cross went down.” The third is: “It is now almost three hundred years since the Church has endured the licentiousness of School-Doctors in corrupting of the Scriptures.” Moreover, the same Luther in another place of his work saith thus; “School-theology is nothing else but ignorance of the truth, and a block to stumble at laid before the Scriptures.” And of Thomas Aquinas in particular he saith, that “it was he that did set up the kingdom of Aristotle, the destroyer of godly doctrine.” And of the philosophy whereof St. Paul biddeth us beware, he saith it is School-theology. And Melancthon, a divine once much esteemed in our Church, saith of it thus: “It is known that that profane scholastic learning, which they will have to be called Divinity, began at Paris; which being admitted, nothing is left sound in the Church, the Gospel is obscured, faith extinguished, the doctrine of works received, and instead of Christ’s people, we are become not so much as the people of the law, but the people of Aristotle’s ethics 65These were no raw divines, such as he saith preached to their equally ignorant auditors. I could add to these the slighting of School-divinity by Calvin and other learned Protestant Doctors; yet were they all but private men, who, it seems to the Bishop, had forgot themselves as well as I.

NO. V.

J. D. “Thus the coast being cleared, the next thing to be done, is to draw out our forces against the enemy; and because they are divided into two squadrons, the one of Christians, the other of heathen philosophers, it will be best to dispose ours also into two bodies, the former drawn from Scripture, the latter from reason.”

T. H. The next thing he doth, after the clearing of the coast, is the dividing of his forces, as he calls them, into two squadrons, one of places of Scripture, the other of reasons, which allegory he useth, I suppose, because he addresses the discourse to your Lordship, who is a military man. All that I have to say touching this, is, that I observe a great part of those his forces do look and march another way, and some of them do fight among themselves.

J. D. “If T. H. could divide my forces, and commit them together among themselves, it were his only way to conquer them. But he will find that those imaginary contradictions, which he thinks he hath espied in my discourse, are but fancies, and my supposed impertinences will prove his own real mistakings.”

66In this fifth number there is nothing of his or mine, pertinent to the question, therefore nothing necessary to be repeated.

PROOFS OF LIBERTY OUT OF SCRIPTURE.--NO. VI.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “First, whosoever have power of election, have true liberty; for the proper act of liberty is election. A spontaneity may consist with determination to one, as we see in children, fools, madmen, brute beasts, whose fancies are determined to those things which they act spontaneously, as the bees make honey, the spiders webs. But none of these have a liberty of election, which is an act of judgment and understanding, and cannot possibly consist with a determination to one. He that is determined by something before himself or without himself, cannot be said to choose or elect, unless it be as the junior of the mess chooseth in Cambridge, whether he will have the least part or nothing. And scarcely so much.

“But men have liberty of election. This is plain, (Numbers xxx. 13): If a wife make a vow it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or to make it void. And (Joshua xxiv. 15): Choose you this day whom you will serve, &c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. He makes his own choice, and leaves them to the liberty of their election. And (2 Samuel xxiv. 12): I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do. If one of these three things was necessarily determined, and the other two impossible, how was it left to him to choose what should be done? Therefore we have true liberty.”

T. H. And the first place of Scripture taken 67from Numbers xxx. 13, is one of them that look another way. The words are, If a wife make a vow it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or make it void. For it proves no more but that the husband is a free or voluntary agent, but not that his choice therein is not necessitated or not determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes.

J. D. “My first argument from Scripture is thus formed.

“Whosoever have a liberty or power of election, are not determined to one by precedent necessary causes.

“But men have liberty of election.

“The assumption or minor proposition is proved by three places of Scripture, (Numbers xxx. 13; Joshua xxiv. 15; 2 Samuel xxiv. 12.) I need not insist upon these, because T. H. acknowledgeth ‘that it is clearly proved that there is election in man.’

“But he denieth the major proposition, because, saith he, ‘man is necessitated or determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes.’ I take away this answer three ways.

“First, by reason. Election is evermore either of things possible, or at least of things conceived to be possible, that is, efficacious election, when a man hopeth or thinketh of obtaining the object. Whatsoever the will chooseth, it chooseth under the notion of good, either honest, or delightful, or profitable. But there can be no real goodness apprehended in that which is known to be impossible. It is true, there may be some wandering pendulous wishes of known impossibilities, as a man also that hath committed an offence may 68wish he had not committed it. But to choose efficaciously an impossibility, is as impossible as an impossibility itself. No man can think to obtain that which he knows impossible to be obtained; but he who knows that all things are antecedently determined by necessary causes, knows that it is impossible for anything to be otherwise than it is; therefore to ascribe unto him a power of election to choose this or that indifferently, is to make the same thing to be determined to one, and to be not determined to one, which are contradictories. Again, whosoever hath an elective power, or a liberty to choose, hath also a liberty or power to refuse; (Isaiah vii. 16): Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good. He who chooseth this rather than that, refuseth that rather than this. As Moses (Hebrews xi. 25), choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God, did thereby refuse the pleasures of sin. But no man hath any power to refuse that which is necessarily predetermined to be, unless it be as the fox refused the grapes which were beyond his reach. When one thing of two or three is absolutely determined, the others are made thereby simply impossible.

(a) “Secondly, I prove it by instances, and by that universal notion which the world hath of election. What is the difference between an elective and hereditary kingdom, but that in an elective kingdom, they have power or liberty to choose this or that man indifferently; but in an hereditary kingdom, they have no such power nor liberty? Where the law makes a certain heir, there is a necessitation to one; where the law doth not name a certain heir, there is no necessitation to one, 69and there they have power or liberty to choose. An hereditary prince may be as grateful and acceptable to his subjects, and as willingly received by them (according to that liberty which is opposed to compulsion or violence), as he who is chosen: yet he is not therefore an elective prince. In Germany all the nobility and commons may assent to the choice of the emperor, or be well pleased with it when it is concluded; yet none of them elect or choose the emperor, but only those six princes who have a consultative, deliberative, and determinative power in his election; and if their votes or suffrages be equally divided, three to three, then the King of Bohemia hath the casting voice. So likewise in corporations or commonwealths, sometimes the people, sometimes the common-council, have power to name so many persons for such an office, and the supreme magistrate, or senate, or lesser council respectively, to choose one of those. And all this is done with that caution and secresy, by billets or other means, that no man knows which way any man gave his vote, or with whom to be offended. If it were necessarily and inevitably predetermined, that this individual person, and no other, shall and must be chosen, what needed all this circuit and caution, to do that which is not possible to be done otherwise, which one may do as well as a thousand, and for doing of which no rational man can be offended, if the electors were necessarily predetermined to elect this man and no other. And though T. H. was pleased to pass by my University instance, yet I may not, until I see what he is able to say unto it. The junior of the mess in Cambridge divides the 70meat in four parts; the senior chooseth first, then the second and third in their order. The junior is determined to one, and hath no choice left, unless it be to choose whether he will take that part which the rest have refused, or none at all. It may be this part is more agreeable to his mind than any of the others would have been; but for all that he cannot be said to choose it, because he is determined to this one. Even such a liberty of election is that which is established by T. H.; or rather much worse in two respects. The junior hath yet a liberty of contradiction left, to choose whether he will take that part, or not take any part; but he who is precisely predetermined to the choice of this object, hath no liberty to refuse it. Secondly, the junior, by dividing carefully, may preserve to himself an equal share; but he who is wholly determined by extrinsical causes, is left altogether to the mercy and disposition of another.

“Thirdly, I prove it by the texts alleged. (Numb. xxx. 13): If a wife make a vow, it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or make it void. But if it be predetermined that he shall establish it, it is not in his power to make it void. If it be predetermined that he shall make it void, it is not in his power to establish it. And howsoever it be determined, yet being determined, it is not in his power indifferently, either to establish it, or to make it void at his pleasure. So (Joshua xxiv. 15): Choose you this day whom ye will serve: but I and my house will serve the Lord. It is too late to choose that this day, which was determined otherwise yesterday. Whom ye will serve, whether the Gods whom your fathers 71served, or the Gods of the Amorites. Where there is an election of this or that, these Gods, or those Gods, there must needs be either an indifferency to both objects, or at least a possibility to either. I and my house will serve the Lord. If he were extrinsically predetermined, he should not say I will serve, but I must serve. And (2 Samuel xxiv. 12): I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do. How doth God offer three things to David’s choice, if he had predetermined him to one of the three by a concourse of necessary extrinsical causes? If a sovereign prince should descend so far as to offer a delinquent his choice, whether he would be fined, or imprisoned, or banished, and had underhand signed the sentence of his banishment, what were it else but plain drollery or mockery? This is the argument which in T. H.’s opinion looks another way. If it do, it is as the Parthians used to fight, flying. His reason follows next to be considered.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. VI.

In this number he hath brought three places of Scripture to prove freewill. The first is, If a wife make a vow, it is left to her husband’s choice either to establish it or to make it void. And, Choose you this day whom ye will serve, &c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. And, I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do. Which in the reply he endeavoureth to make good; but needed not, seeing they prove nothing but that a man is free to do if he will, which I deny not. He ought to prove he is free to will, which I deny.

72(a) Secondly, “I prove it by instances, and by that universal notion which the world hath of election.”

His instances are, first, the difference between an hereditary kingdom and an elective; and then the difference between the senior and junior of the mess taking their commons; both which prove the liberty of doing what they will, but not a liberty to will. For in the first case, the electors are free to name whom they will, but not to will; and in the second, the senior having an appetite, chooseth what he hath an appetite to; but chooseth not his appetite.

NO. VII.

T. H. For if there came into the husband’s mind greater good by establishing than abrogating such a vow, the establishing will follow necessarily. And if the evil that will follow thereon in the husband’s opinion outweigh the good, the contrary must needs follow. And yet in this following of one’s hopes and fears consisteth the nature of election. So that a man may both choose this, and cannot but choose this. And consequently choosing and necessity are joined together.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. (a) “There is nothing said with more show of reason in this cause by the patrons of necessity and adversaries of true liberty than this, that the will doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding, or the last judgment of right reason. And in this, and this only, I confess T. H. hath good seconds. Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary, and justly.

73“For first, this very act of the understanding is an effect of the will, and a testimony of its power and liberty. It is the will, which affecting some particular good, doth engage and command the understanding to consult and deliberate what means are convenient for attaining that end. And though the will itself be blind, yet its object is good in general, which is the end of all human actions. Therefore it belongs to the will, as to the general of an army, to move the other powers of the soul to their acts, and among the rest the understanding also, by applying it and reducing its power into act. So as whatsoever obligation the understanding doth put upon the will, is by the consent of the will, and derived from the power of the will, which was not necessitated to move the understanding to consult. So the will is the lady and mistress of human actions; the understanding is her trusty counsellor, which gives no advice but when it is required by the will. And if the first consultation or deliberation be not sufficient, the will may move a review, and require the understanding to inform itself better and take advice of others, from whence many times the judgment of the understanding doth receive alteration.

“Secondly, for the manner how the understanding doth determine the will, it is not naturally but morally. The will is moved by the understanding, not as by an efficient having a causal influence into the effect, but only by proposing and representing the object. And therefore, as it were ridiculous to say that the object of the sight is the cause of seeing, so it is to say that the proposing of the object by the understanding to the will is 74the cause of willing; and therefore the understanding hath no place in that concourse of causes, which according to T. H. do necessitate the will.

“Thirdly, the judgment of the understanding is not always practice practicum, nor of such a nature in itself as to oblige and determine the will to one. Sometimes, the understanding proposeth two or three means equally available to the attaining of one and the same end. Sometimes, it dictateth that this or that particular good is eligible or fit to be chosen, but not that it is necessarily eligible or that it must be chosen. It may judge this or that to be a fit means, but not the only means to attain the desired end. In these cases no man can doubt but that the will may choose, or not choose, this or that indifferently. Yea, though the understanding shall judge one of these means to be more expedient than another, yet forasmuch as in the less expedient there is found the reason of good, the will in respect of that dominion which it hath over itself, may accept that which the understanding judgeth to be less expedient, and refuse that which it judgeth to be more expedient.

“Fourthly, sometimes the will doth not will the end so efficaciously, but that it may be, and often is deterred from the prosecution of it by the difficulty of the means; and notwithstanding the judgment of the understanding, the will may still suspend its own act.

“Fifthly, supposing, but not granting, that the will did necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding, yet this proves no antecedent necessity, but coexistent with the act; no extrinsical 75necessity, the will and the understanding being but two faculties of the same soul; no absolute necessity, but merely upon supposition. And therefore the same authors who maintain that the judgment of the understanding doth necessarily determine the will, do yet much more earnestly oppugn T. H.’s absolute necessity of all occurrences. Suppose the will shall apply the understanding to deliberate and not require a review. Suppose the dictate of the understanding shall be absolute, not this or that indifferently, nor this rather than that comparatively, but this positively; nor this freely, but this necessarily. And suppose the will do will efficaciously, and do not suspend its own act. Then here is a necessity indeed, but neither absolute nor extrinsical, nor antecedent, flowing from a concourse of causes without ourselves, but a necessity upon supposition, which we do readily grant. So far T. H. is wide from the truth, whilst he maintains, either that the apprehension of a greater good doth necessitate the will, or that this is an absolute necessity.

(b) “Lastly, whereas he saith, that ‘the nature of election doth consist in following our hopes and fears,’ I cannot but observe that there is not one word of art in this whole treatise which he useth in the right sense; I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity, nor out of a contempt of former writers, nor out of a desire to take in sunder the whole frame of learning and new mould it after his own mind. It were to be wished that at least he would give us a new dictionary, that we might understand his sense. But because this is but touched here sparingly, and 76upon the by, I will forbear it until I meet with it again in its proper place. And for the present it shall suffice to say, that hopes and fears are common to brute beasts, but election is a rational act, and is proper only to man, who is sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius altæ.

T. H. The second place of Scripture is Joshua xxiv. 15; the third is 2 Samuel xxiv. 12; whereby it is clearly proved, that there is election in man, but not proved that such election was not necessitated by the hopes, and fears, and considerations of good and bad to follow, which depend not on the will nor are subject to election. And therefore one answer serves all such places, if they were a thousand.

J. D. “This answer being the very same with the former, word for word, which hath already sufficiently been shaken in pieces, doth require no new reply.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. VII.

(a) “There is nothing said with more show of reason in this cause by the patrons of necessity than this, ‘that the will doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding, or the last judgment of right reason,’ &c. Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary, and justly; for, first, this very act of the understanding is an effect of the will, &c.”

I note here, first, that the Bishop is mistaken in saying that I or any other patron of necessity, are of opinion that the will follows always the last judgment of right reason. For it followeth as well the judgment of an erroneous as of a true 77reasoning; and the truth in general is that it followeth the last opinion of the goodness or evilness of the object, be the opinion true or false.

Secondly, I note, that in making the understanding to be an effect of the will, he thinketh a man may have a will to that which he not so much as thinks on. And in saying, that “it is the will which, affecting some particular good, doth engage and command the understanding to consult,” &c, that he not only thinketh the will affecteth a particular good, before the man understands it to be good; but also he thinketh that these words “doth command the understanding,” and these, “for it belongs to the will as to the general of an army, to move the other powers of the soul to their acts,” and a great many more that follow, are sense, which they are not, but mere confusion and emptiness: as, for example, “the understanding doth determine the will, not naturally, but morally,” and “the will is moved by the understanding,” is unintelligible. “Moved not as by an efficient,” is nonsense. And where he saith, that “it is ridiculous to say the object of the sight is the cause of seeing,” he showeth so clearly that he understandeth nothing at all of natural philosophy, that I am sorry I had the ill fortune to be engaged with him in a dispute of this kind. There is nothing that the simplest countryman could say so absurdly concerning the understanding, as this of the Bishop, “the judgment of the understanding is not always practice practicum.” A countryman will acknowledge there is judgment in men, but will as soon say the judgment of the judgment, as the judgment 78of the understanding. And if practice practicum had been sense, he might have made a shift to put it into English. Much more followeth of this stuff.

(b) “Lastly, whereas he saith, ‘that the nature of election doth consist in following our hopes and fears,’ I cannot but observe that there is not one word of art in this whole treatise which he useth in the right sense. I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity, nor out of a contempt of former writers,” &c.

He might have said, there is not a word of jargon nor nonsense; and that it proceedeth from an affectation of truth, and contempt of metaphysical writers, and a desire to reduce into frame the learning which they have confounded and disordered.

NO. VIII.

T. H. Supposing, it seems, I might answer as I have done, that necessity and election might stand together, and instance in the actions of children, fools, and brute beasts, whose fancies, I might say, are necessitated and determined to one: before these his proofs out of Scripture, he desires to prevent that instance, and therefore says, that the actions of children, fools, madmen, and beasts, are indeed determined, but that they proceed not from election, nor from free, but from spontaneous agents. As for example, that the bee, when it maketh honey, does it spontaneously; and when the spider makes his web, he does it spontaneously, and not by election. Though I never meant to ground any answer upon the experience 79of what children, fools, madmen, and beasts do, yet that your Lordship may understand what can be meant by spontaneous, and how it differs from voluntary, I will answer that distinction, and show that it fighteth against its fellow arguments. Your Lordship therefore is to consider, that all voluntary actions, where the thing that induceth the will is not fear, are called also spontaneous, and said to be done by a man’s own accord. As when a man giveth money voluntarily to another for merchandise, or out of affection, he is said to do it of his own accord, which in Latin is sponte, and therefore the action is spontaneous; though to give one’s money willingly to a thief to avoid killing, or throw it into the sea to avoid drowning, where the motive is fear, be not called spontaneous. But every spontaneous action is not therefore voluntary; for voluntary presupposes some precedent deliberation, that is to say, some consideration and meditation of what is likely to follow, both upon the doing and abstaining from the action deliberated of; whereas many actions are done of our own accord, and are therefore spontaneous; of which nevertheless, as he thinks, we never consulted nor deliberated in ourselves, as when making no question nor any the least doubt in the world but that the thing we are about is good, we eat, or walk, or in anger strike or revile, which he thinks spontaneous, but not voluntary nor elective actions. And with such kind of actions he says necessitation may stand, but not with such as are voluntary, and proceed upon election and deliberation. Now if I make it appear to you that even these actions which he says proceed from 80spontaneity, and which he ascribes only to fools, children, madmen, and beasts, proceed from deliberation and election, and that actions inconsiderate, rash and spontaneous, are ordinarily found in those that are, by themselves and many more, thought as wise or wiser than ordinary men are; then his argument concludeth, that necessity and election may stand together, which is contrary to that which he intendeth by all the rest of his arguments to prove. And first, your Lordship’s own experience furnishes you with proof enough, that horses, dogs, and other brute beasts, do demur oftentimes upon the way they are to take: the horse, retiring from some strange figure he sees, and coming on again to avoid the spur. And what else doth man that deliberateth, but one while proceed toward action, another while retire from it, as the hope of greater good draws him, or the fear of greater evil drives him? A child may be so young as to do all which it does without all deliberation, but that is but till it chance to be hurt by doing somewhat, or till it be of age to understand the rod; for the actions wherein he hath once a check, shall be deliberated on a second time. Fools and madmen manifestly deliberate no less than the wisest men, though they make not so good a choice, the images of things being by diseases altered. For bees and spiders, if he had so little to do as to be a spectator of their actions, he would have confessed not only election, but also art, prudence, and policy in them, very near equal to that of mankind. Of bees Aristotle says, their life is civil. He is deceived, if he think any spontaneous action, after once being checked in it, 81differs from an action voluntary and elective, for even the setting of a man’s foot in the posture of walking, and the action of ordinary eating, was once deliberated, how and when it should be done; and though it afterwards became easy and habitual, so as to be done without fore-thought, yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and proceeds from election. So also are the rashest actions of choleric persons voluntary and upon deliberation. For who is there, but very young children, that has not considered when and how far he ought, or safely may, strike or revile. Seeing then he agrees with me that such actions are necessitated, and the fancy of those that do them is determined to the actions they do, it follows out of his own doctrine, that the liberty of election does not take away the necessity of electing this or that individual thing. And thus one of his arguments fights against another.

The Bishop’s reply.The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “We have partly seen before how T. H. hath coined a new kind of liberty, a new kind of necessity, a new kind of election; and now in this section a new kind of spontaneity, and a new kind of voluntary actions. Although he say that here is nothing new to him, yet I begin to suspect that either here are many things new to him, or otherwise his election is not the result of a serious mature deliberation. (a) The first thing that I offer, is, how often he mistakes my meaning in this one section. First, I make voluntary and spontaneous actions to be one and the same; he saith, I distinguish them, so as spontaneous actions may be necessary, but voluntary actions cannot. Secondly, (b) I distinguish between free acts and voluntary 82acts. The former are always deliberate, the latter may be indeliberate; all free acts are voluntary, but all voluntary acts are not free. But he saith I confound them and make them the same. (c) Thirdly, he saith, I ascribe spontaneity only to fools, children, madmen, and beasts; but I acknowledge spontaneity hath place in rational men, both as it is comprehended in liberty, and as it is distinguished from liberty.

(d) “Yet I have no reason to be offended at it; for he deals no otherwise with me than he doth with himself. Here he tells us that ‘voluntary presupposeth deliberation.’ But (No. XXV.) he tells us contrary, ‘that whatsoever followeth the last appetite is voluntary, and where there is but one appetite, that is the last:’ and that ‘no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation, though never so sudden.’ So (No. XXXIII.) he tells us, that ‘by spontaneity is meant inconsiderate proceeding, or else nothing is meant by it:’ yet here he tells us, that ‘all voluntary actions which proceed not from fear, are spontaneous,’ whereof many are deliberate, as that wherein he instanceth himself, ‘to give money for merchandise.’ Thirdly, when I said that children, before they have the use of reason, act spontaneously, as when they suck the breast, but do not act freely, because they have not judgment to deliberate or elect, here T. H. undertakes to prove that they do deliberate and elect; and yet presently after confesseth again, that ‘a child may be so young, as to do what it doth without all deliberation.’

“Besides these mistakes and contradictions, he hath other errors also in this section. As this, 83that no actions proceeding from fear are spontaneous. He who throws his goods into the sea to avoid drowning, doth it not only spontaneously, but even freely. He that wills the end, wills the means conducing to that end. It is true that if the action be considered nakedly without all circumstances, no man willingly or spontaneously casts his goods into the sea. But if we take the action, as in this particular case, invested with all the circumstances, and in order to the end, that is, the saving of his own life, it is not only voluntary and spontaneous, but elective and chosen by him, as the most probable means for his own preservation. As there is an antecedent and a subsequent will, so there is an antecedent and a subsequent spontaneity. His grammatical argument, grounded upon the derivation of spontaneous from sponte, weighs nothing; we have learned in the rudiments of logic, that conjugates are sometimes in name only, and not in deed. He who casts his goods into the sea, may do it of his own accord in order to the end. Secondly, he errs in this also, that nothing is opposed to spontaneity but only fear. Invincible and antecedent ignorance doth destroy the nature of spontaneity or voluntariness, by removing that knowledge which should and would have prohibited the action. As a man thinking to shoot a wild beast in a bush, shoots his friend, which if he had known, he would not have shot. This man did not kill his friend of his own accord.

“For the clearer understanding of these things, and to know what spontaneity is, let us consult awhile with the Schools about the distinct order 84of voluntary or involuntary actions. Some acts proceed wholly from an extrinsical cause; as the throwing of a stone upwards, a rape, or the drawing of a Christian by plain force to the idol’s temple; these are called violent acts. Secondly, some proceed from an intrinsical cause, but without any manner of knowledge of the end, as the falling of a stone downwards; these are called natural acts. Thirdly, some proceed from an internal principle, with an imperfect knowledge of the end, where there is an appetite to the object, but no deliberation nor election; as the acts of fools, children, beasts, and the inconsiderate acts of men of judgment. These are called voluntary or spontaneous acts. Fourthly, some proceed from an intrinsical cause, with a more perfect knowledge of the end, which are elected upon deliberation. These are called free acts. So then the formal reason of liberty is election. The necessary requisite to election is deliberation. Deliberation implyeth the actual use of reason. But deliberation and election cannot possibly subsist with an extrinsical predetermination to one. How should a man deliberate or choose which way to go, who knows that all ways are shut against him and made impossible to him, but only one? This is the genuine sense of these words voluntary and spontaneous in this question. Though they were taken twenty other ways vulgarly or metaphorically, as we say spontaneous ulcers, where there is no appetite at all, yet it were nothing to this controversy, which is not about words, but about things; not what the words voluntary or free do or may signify, but whether all things be extrinsically predetermined to one.