He says a man may perhaps answer, that the necessity of things held by him, is not a stoical necessity, but a Christian necessity, &c. But this distinction I have not used, nor indeed ever heard before, nor could I think any man could make stoical and Christian two kinds of necessity, though they may be two kinds of doctrine. Nor have I drawn my answer to his Lordship’s arguments from the authority of any sect, but from the nature of the things themselves.

But here I must take notice of certain words of his Lordship’s in this place, as making against his own tenet. Where all the causes, saith he, being joined together, and subordinate one to another, do make but one total cause, if any one cause, much more the first, in the whole series or subordination of causes, be necessary, it determines the rest, and without doubt maketh the effect necessary. For that which I call the necessary cause of any effect, is the joining together of all causes subordinate to the first, into one total cause. If any of these, saith he, especially the first, produce its effect necessarily, then all the rest are determined. Now it is manifest, that the first cause is a necessary cause of all the effects that are next and immediate to it, and therefore by his Lordship’s own reason all effects are necessary.

Nor is that distinction of necessary in respect of the first cause, and necessary in respect of second causes, mine; it does, as his Lordship well notes, imply a contradiction. But the distinction of free into free from compulsion, and free from necessitation, I acknowledge. For to be free from compulsion is to do a thing so as terror be not the cause of his will to do it; for a man is then only said to be compelled, when fear makes him willing to it: as when a man willingly throws his goods into the sea to save himself, or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed. Thus all men that do anything for love, or revenge, or lust, are free from compulsion, and yet their actions may be as necessary as those that are done by compulsion; for sometimes other passions work as forcibly as fear. But free from necessitation, I say, no man can be, and it is that which his Lordship undertook to disprove.

This distinction, his Lordship says, uses to be fortified by two reasons, but they are not mine. The first he says, is, that it is granted by all divines, that an hypothetical necessity, or necessity upon supposition, may stand with liberty. That you may understand this, I will give you an example of hypothetical necessity. If I shall live, I shall eat. This is an hypothetical necessity. Indeed it is a necessary proposition, that is to say, it is necessary that that proposition should be true whensoever uttered, but it is not the necessity of the thing, nor is it therefore necessary that the man should live, nor that the man should eat. I do not use to fortify my distinctions with such reasons; let his Lordship confute them how he will, it contents me; but I would have your Lordship take notice hereby, how easy and plain a thing, but withal false, with the grave usage of such terms as hypothetical necessity, and necessity upon supposition, and such like terms of Schoolmen, may be obscured and made to seem profound learning.

The second reason that may confirm the distinction of free from compulsion, and free from necessitation, he says is, that God and good angels do good necessarily, and yet are more free than we. This reason, though I had no need of, yet I think it so far forth good, as it is true that God and good angels do good necessarily, and yet are free; but because I find not in the articles of our faith, nor in the decrees of our church, set down in what manner I am to conceive God and good angels to work by necessity, or in what sense they work freely, I suspend my sentence in that point, and am content that there be a freedom from compulsion, and yet no freedom from necessitation, as hath been proved, in that a man may be necessitated to some action without threats and without fear of danger. But how my Lord can avoid the consisting together of freedom and necessity, supposing God and good angels are freer than men, and yet do good necessarily, that we must examine: I confess, saith he, that God and good angels are more free than we, that is, intensively in degree of freedom, not extensively in the latitude of the object, according to a liberty of exercise not of specification.

Again, we have here two distinctions that are no distinctions, but made to seem so by terms invented by I know not whom to cover ignorance, and blind the understanding of the reader: for it cannot be conceived that there is any liberty greater, than for a man to do what he will. One heat may be more intensive than another, but not one liberty than another; he that can do what he will, hath all liberty possible, and he that cannot, hath none at all. Also liberty, as his Lordship says the Schools call it, of exercise, which is as I have said before, a liberty to do or not to do, cannot be without a liberty, which they call, of specification, that is to say, a liberty to do, or not to do this or that in particular. For how can a man conceive he hath liberty to do anything, that hath not liberty to do this, or that, or somewhat in particular? If a man be forbidden in Lent to eat this, and that, and every other particular kind of flesh, how can he be understood to have a liberty to eat flesh, more than he that hath no licence at all? You may by this again see the vanity of distinctions used in the Schools, and I do not doubt but that the imposing of them, by authority of doctors in the Church, hath been a great cause that men have laboured, though by sedition and evil courses, to shake them off; for nothing is more apt to beget hatred, than the tyrannizing over men’s reason and understanding, especially when it is done, not by the Scriptures, but by the pretence of learning, and more judgment than that of other men.

In the next place his Lordship bringeth two arguments against distinguishing between free from compulsion and free from necessitation.

The first is, that election is opposite not only to coaction or compulsion, but also necessitation or determination to one. This is it he was to prove from the beginning, and therefore bringeth no new argument to prove it; and to those brought formerly, I have already answered. And in this place I deny again, that election is opposite to either; for when a man is compelled, for example, to subject himself to an enemy or to die, he hath still election left him, and a deliberation to bethink which of the two he can better endure. And he that is led to prison by force, hath election, and may deliberate whether he will be hauled and trained on the ground, or make use of his own feet: likewise when there is no compulsion, but the strength of temptation to do an evil action, being greater than the motives to abstain, it necessarily determines him to the doing of it; yet he deliberates while sometimes the motives to do, sometimes the motives to forbear, are working on him, and consequently he electeth which he will. But commonly when we see and know the strength that moves us, we acknowledge necessity; but when we see not, or mark not the force that moves us, we then think there is none, and that it is not causes but liberty that produceth the action. Hence it is that they think he does not choose this, that of necessity chooses it; but they might as well say, fire doth not burn, because it burns of necessity.

The second argument is not so much an argument as a distinction, to show in what sense it may be said that voluntary actions are necessitated, and in what sense not. And therefore his Lordship allegeth, as from the authority of the Schools, and that which rippeth up the bottom of the question, that there is a double act of the will. The one, he says, is actus imperatus, an act done at the command of the will, by some inferior faculty of the soul; as to open or shut one’s eyes; and this act may be compelled: the other, he says, is actus elicitus, an act allured or drawn forth by allurement out of the will, as to will, to choose, to elect; this he says cannot be compelled. Wherein, letting pass that metaphorical speech of attributing command and subjection to the faculties of the soul, as if they made a commonwealth or family within themselves, and could speak one to another, which is very improper in searching the truth of a question, you may observe, first, that to compel a voluntary act, is nothing else but to will it; for it is all one to say, my will commands the shutting of my eyes, or the doing of any other action; and to say, I have the will to shut my eyes: so that actus imperatus, here, might as easily have been said in English a voluntary action, but that they that invented the term, understood not anything it signified.

Secondly, you may observe, that actus elicitus, is exemplified by these words, to will, to elect, to choose, which are all one, and so to will is here made an act of the will; and indeed as the will is a faculty or power in a man’s soul, so to will is an act of it according to that power; but as it is absurdly said, that to dance is an act allured or drawn by fair means out of the ability to dance; so is it also to say, that to will is an act allured or drawn out of the power to will, which power is commonly called the will. Howsoever it be, the sum of his Lordship’s distinction is, that a voluntary act may be done by compulsion, that is to say, by foul means, but to will that, or any act, cannot be but by allurement, or fair means. Now seeing fair means, allurements, and enticements, produce the action which they do produce, as necessarily as foul means and threatening; it follows, that to will may be made as necessary as anything that is done by compulsion. So that distinction of actus imperatus and actus elicitus are but words, and of no effect against necessity.

His Lordship in the rest of his discourse, reckoneth up the opinion of certain professions of men, touching the causes wherein the necessity of things, which they maintain, consisteth. And first he saith, the astrologer deriveth his necessity from the stars; secondly, that the physician attributeth it to the temper of the body. For my part, I am not of their opinion, because, neither the stars alone, nor the temperature of the patient alone, is able to produce any effect, without the concurrence of all other agents. For there is hardly any one action, how casual soever it seem, to the causing whereof concur not whatsoever is in rerum naturâ, which because it is a great paradox, and depends on many antecedent speculations, I do not press in this place. 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 such objections have over us, proceeds from our own fault: but that is nothing to the purpose, if such fault of ours proceedeth from causes not in our own power, and therefore that opinion may hold true for all that answer.

Further he says, 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 or disposed to prayer or any other action, but by outward objects, as pious company, godly preachers, or something equivalent. Fourthly, he says a resolved mind is not easily surprised, as the mind of Ulysses, who when others wept, 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 that 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 for the philosopher to abstain, as he did, from striking, nor for the other man to forbear drinking, and yet that was the thing his Lordship ought to have proved. Lastly his Lordship confesses, that the dispositions 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 confesses, I may infer, it can be in no danger at all.

The fourth opinion his Lordship rejecteth, is of them that make the will necessarily to follow the last dictate of the understanding; but it seems his Lordship 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 his Lordship, with reason, thinks 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 have 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 up of his hand. Now if it be understood in that sense, the last dictate of the understanding does 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 needed but the addition of one to make the weight sufficient.

That which his Lordship allegeth against this, is first, out of a poet, who in the person of Medea says,

But that 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 necessarily followed. Then the story of the Roman, who of two competitors, said, one had the better reason, but the other must have the office. This also maketh against his Lordship, for the last dictate of his judgment that had the bestowing of the office, was this, that it was better to take a great bribe, than reward a great merit.

Thirdly, he objects that things nearer the sense, move more powerfully than reason; what followeth thence but this, the sense of the present good is commonly more immediate to the action, than the foresight of the evil consequence to come? Fourthly, whereas his Lordship says, that do what a man can, he shall sorrow more for the death of his son than for the sin of his soul, makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding; but it argues plainly, that sorrow for sin is not voluntary, and by consequence, that repentance proceedeth from causes.

The last part of this discourse containeth his Lordship’s opinions about reconciling liberty with the prescience and decrees of God, otherwise than some divines have done, against whom, he says, he had formerly written a treatise, out of which he repeateth only 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 his Lordship 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 we see daily, that praise, dispraise, reward, and 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, and 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 necessarynecessary.

The other thing that he repeateth, is, that the best way to reconcile contingence and liberty with prescience and the decrees of God, is to subject future contingencies to the aspect of God. The same is also my opinion, but contrary to what his Lordship all this while laboured to prove. For hitherto he held liberty and necessity, that is to say, liberty and the decrees of God, irreconcileable, 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 as an indivisible point. To which I answer, that as soon as I can conceive eternity to be an indivisible point, or anything but an everlasting succession, I will renounce all that 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, yet I could never conceive it: they that can, are more happy than I. But in the mean time his Lordship alloweth all men to be of my opinion, save only those that can conceive in their minds a nunc stans, which I think are none. I understand as little how it can be true his Lordship says, that God is not just, but 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, and wherein is no succession, can comprehend all time, 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 for answer to his Lordship’s discourse, wherein I think not only his squadrons of arguments, but also his reserve of distinctions, are defeated. And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the same question, with my reasons for it, positively, and as briefly as I can, without any terms of art, in plain English.

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 it or abstaining necessarily follow the present thought he hath 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 could make him doubt of the consequence, the action follows his opinion of the goodness or harm of it. These actions I call VOLUNTARY, my Lord, if I understand him aright that calls them SPONTANEOUS. I call them voluntary, because those actions that follow immediately the last appetite, are voluntary, and here where 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 to 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.

Secondly, I conceive when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do it, 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 of it, both good and evil. From whence is to be inferred, that deliberation is nothing else 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 quit the action of which he deliberateth.

Thirdly, I conceive that in all deliberations, that is to say, in all alternate succession of contrary appetites, the last is that which we call the WILL, and is immediately next before the doing of the action, or next before the doing of it become impossible. All other appetites to do, and to quit, that come upon a man during his deliberations, are called intentions and inclinations, but not wills, there being but one will, which also in this case may be called the last will, though the intentions change often.

Fourthly, I conceive that those actions, which a man is said to do upon deliberation, are said to be voluntary, and done upon choice and election, so that voluntary action, and action proceeding from election is the same thing; and that of a voluntary agent, it is all one to say, he is free, and to say, he hath not made an end of deliberating.

Fifthly, I conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner: Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent. As for example, the water is said to descend freely, or to have liberty to descend by the channel of the river, because there is no impediment that way, but not across, because the banks are impediments. And though the water cannot ascend, yet men never say it wants the liberty to ascend, but the faculty or power, because the impediment is in the nature of the water, and intrinsical. So also we say, he that is tied, wants the liberty to go, because the impediment is not in him, but in his bands; whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame, because the impediment is in himself.

Sixthly, I conceive that nothing taketh beginning from itself, but from the action of some other immediate agent without itself. And that therefore, when first a man hath an appetite or will to something, to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will, the cause of his will, is not the will itself, but something else not in his own disposing. So that whereas it is out of controversy, that of voluntary actions the will is the necessary cause, and by this which is said, the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not, it followeth, that voluntary actions have all of them necessary causes, and therefore are necessitated.

Seventhly, I hold that to be a sufficient cause, to which nothing is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect. The same also is a necessary cause. For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect, then there wanteth somewhat which was needful to the producing of it, and so the cause was not sufficient; but if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect, then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause, for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it. Hence it is manifest, that whatsoever is produced, is produced necessarily; for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it, or else it had not been; and therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated.

Lastly, that ordinary definition of a free agent, namely, that a free agent is that, which, when all things are present which are needful to produce the effect, can nevertheless not produce it, implies a contradiction, and is nonsense; being as much as to say, the cause may be sufficient, that is to say, necessary, and yet the effect shall not follow.

MY REASONS.

For the first five points, wherein it is explicated I, what spontaneity is; II, what deliberation is; III, what will, propension, and appetite are; IV, what a free agent is: V, what liberty is; there can no other proof be offered but every man’s own experience, by reflection on himself, and remembering what he useth in his mind, that is, what he himself meaneth when he saith an action is spontaneous, a man deliberates; such is his will, that agent or that action is free. Now he that reflecteth so on himself, cannot but be satisfied, that deliberation is the consideration of the good and evil sequels of an action to come; that by spontaneity is meant inconsiderate action, or else nothing is meant by it; that will is the last act of our deliberation; that a free agent is he that can do if he will, and forbear if he will; and that liberty is the absence of external impediments. But to those that out of custom speak not what they conceive, but what they hear, and are not able, or will not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such words, no argument can be sufficient, because experience and matter of fact are not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory. For example, how can it be proved that to love a thing and to think it good is all one, to a man that doth not mark his own meaning by those words? Or how can it be proved that eternity is not nunc stans, to a man that says those words by custom, and never considers how he can conceive the thing in his mind?

Also the sixth point, that a man cannot imagine anything to begin without a cause, can no other way be made known, but by trying how he can imagine it; but if he try, he shall find as much reason, if there be no cause of the thing, to conceive it should begin at one time as another, that he hath equal reason to think it should begin at all times, which is impossible, and therefore he must think there was some special cause why it began then, rather than sooner or later; or else that it began never, but was eternal.

For the seventh point, which is, that all events have necessary causes, it is there proved, in that they have sufficient causes. Further let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual, as the throwing, for example, ames ace upon a pair of dice, and see, if it must not have been necessary before it was thrown. For seeing it was thrown, it had a beginning, and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it, consisting partly in the dice, partly in outward things, as the posture of the parts of the hand, the measure of force applied by the caster, the posture of the parts of the table, and the like. In sum, there was nothing wanting which was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast, and consequently the cast was necessarily thrown; for if it had not been thrown, there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it, and so the cause had not been sufficient. In the like manner it may be proved that every other accident, how contingent soever it seem, or how voluntary soever it be, is produced necessarily, which is that that my Lord Bishop disputes against. The same may be proved also in this manner. Let the case be put, for example, of the weather. It is necessary that to-morrow it shall rain or not rain. If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain, it is necessary it shall not rain, otherwise there is no necessity that the proposition, it shall rain or not rain, should be true. I know there be some that say, it may necessarily be true that one of the two shall come to pass, but not, singly that it shall rain, or that it shall not rain, which is as much to say, one of them is necessary, yet neither of them is necessary; and therefore to seem to avoid that absurdity, they make a distinction, that neither of them is true determinate, but indeterminate; which distinction either signifies no more but this, one of them is true, but we know not which, and so the necessity remains, though we know it not; or if the meaning of the distinction be not that, it hath no meaning, and they might as well have said, one of them is true Titirice, but neither of them, Tu patulice.

The last thing, in which also consisteth the whole controversy, namely that there is no such thing as an agent, which when all things requisite to action are present, can nevertheless forbear to produce it; or, which is all one, that there is no such thing as freedom from necessity, is easily inferred from that which hath been before alleged. For if it be an agent, it can work; and if it work, there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action, and consequently the cause of the action is sufficient; and if sufficient, then also necessary, as hath been proved before.

And thus you see how the inconveniences, which his Lordship objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity, are avoided, and the necessity itself demonstratively proved. To which I could add, if I thought it good logic, the inconvenience of denying necessity, as that it destroyeth both the decrees and the prescience of God Almighty; for whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man, as an instrument, or foreseeth shall come to pass; a man, if he have liberty, such as his Lordship affirmeth, from necessitation, might frustrate, and make not to come to pass, and God should either not foreknow it, and not decree it, or he should foreknow such things shall be, as shall never be, and decree that which shall never come to pass.

This is all that hath come into my mind touching this question since I last considered it. And I humbly beseech your Lordship to communicate it only to my Lord Bishop. And so praying God to prosper your Lordship in all your designs, I take leave, and am,

Rouen, Aug. 20, 1652.^[A]