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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MY OPINION ABOUT LIBERTY AND NECESSITY NO. XXV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NO. XXVI.

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

J. D. (a) “If I did not know what deliberation was, I should be little relieved in my knowledge by this description. Sometimes he makes it to be a consideration, or an act of the understanding; sometimes an imagination, or an act of the fancy; sometimes he makes it to be an alternation of passions, hope and fear. Sometimes he makes it concern the end, sometimes to concern the means. So he makes it I know not what. The truth is this in brief: ‘Deliberation is an inquiry made by reason, whether this or that, definitely considered, be a good and fit means, or, indefinitely, what are good and fit means to be chosen for attaining some wished end.’”

(a) “If I did not know what deliberation was, I should be little relieved in my knowledge by this description. Sometimes he makes it to be a consideration, or an act of the understanding, sometimes an imagination, or an act of the fancy, &c. So he makes it I know not what.” If the Bishop had observed what he does himself, when he deliberates, reasons, understands, or imagines, he would have known what to make of all that I have said in this Number. He would have known that consideration, understanding, reason, and all the passions of the mind, are imaginations. That to consider a thing, is to imagine it; that to understand a thing, is to imagine it; that to hope and fear, are to imagine the things hoped for and feared. The difference between them is, that when we imagine the consequence of anything, we are said to consider that thing; and when we have imagined anything from a sign, and especially from those signs we call names, we are said to understand his meaning that maketh the sign; and when we reason, we imagine the consequence of affirmations and negations joined together; and when we hope or fear, we imagine things good or hurtful to ourselves: insomuch as all these are but imaginations diversely named from different circumstances: as any man may perceive as easily as he can look into his own thoughts. But to him that thinketh not himself upon the things whereof, but upon the words wherewith he speaketh, and taketh those words on trust from puzzled Schoolmen, it is not only hard, but impossible to be known. And this is the reason that maketh him say, I make deliberation he knows not what. But how is deliberation defined by him? “It is”, saith he, “an inquiry made by reason, whether this or that definitely considered, be a good and fit means; or indefinitely, what are good and fit means to be chosen for attaining some wished end.” If it were not his custom to say, the understanding understandeth, the will willeth, and so of the rest of the faculties, I should have believed that when he says deliberation is an inquiry made by reason, he meaneth an inquiry made by the man that reasoneth; for so it will be sense. But the reason which a man useth in deliberation, being the same thing that is called deliberation, his definition that deliberation is an inquiry made by reason, is no more than if he had said, deliberation is an inquiry made by deliberation; a definition good enough to be made by a Schoolman. Nor is the rest of the definition altogether as it should be; for there is no such thing as an “indefinite consideration of what are good and fit means”; but a man imagining first one thing, then another, considereth them successively and singly each one, whether it conduceth to his ends or not.

NO. XXVII.

T. H. 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 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 deliberation, are usually called intentions and inclinations, but not wills; there being but one will, which also in this case may be called last will, though the intention change often.

J. D. (a) “Still here is nothing but confusion; he confounds the faculty of the will with the act of volition; he makes the will to be the last part of deliberation; he makes the intention, which is a most proper and elicit act of the will, or a willing of the end, as it is to be attained by certain means, to be no willing at all, but only some antecedaneous inclination or propension. He might as well say, that the uncertain agitation of the needle hither and thither to find out the pole, and the resting or fixing of itself directly towards the pole, were both the same thing. But the grossest mistake is, that he will acknowledge no act of man’s will, to be his will, but only the last act, which he calls the last will. If the first were no will, how comes this to be the last will? According to his doctrine, the will of a man should be as unchangeable as the will of God, at least so long as there is a possibility to effect it. (b) According to this doctrine, concupiscence with consent should be no sin; for that which is not truly willed is not a sin; or rather should not be at all, unless either the act followed, or were rendered impossible by some intervening circumstances. According to this doctrine no man can say, this is my will, because he knows not yet whether it shall be his last appeal. The truth is, there be many acts of the will, both in respect of the means and of the end. But that act which makes a man’s actions to be truly free, is election; which is the deliberate choosing or refusing of this or that means, or the acceptation of one means before another, where divers are represented by the understanding.

(a) “Still here is nothing but confusion; he confounds the faculty of the will with the act of volition; he makes the will to be the last part of deliberation; he makes the intention, which is a most proper and elicit act of the will, to be no willing at all, but only some antecedaneous (he might as well have said, antecedent) inclination.” To confound the faculty of the will with the will, were to confound a will with no will; for the faculty of the will is no will; the act only which he calls volition, is the will. As a man that sleepeth hath the power of seeing, and seeth not, nor hath for that time any sight; so also he hath the power of willing, but willeth nothing, nor hath for that time any will. I must therefore have departed very much from my own principles, if I have confounded the faculty of the will with the act of volition. He should have done well to have shown where I confounded them. It is true, I make the will to be the last part of deliberation; but it is that will which maketh the action voluntary, and therefore needs must be the last. But for the preceding variations of the will to do and not to do, though they be so many several wills, contrary to and destroying one another, they usually are called intentions; and therefore they are nothing to the will, of which we dispute, that maketh an action voluntary. And though a man have in every long deliberation a great many wills and nills, they use to be called inclinations, and the last only will which is immediately followed by the voluntary action. But nevertheless, both he that hath those intentions, and God that seeth them, reckoneth them for so many wills.

(b) “According to this doctrine, concupiscence with consent should be no sin; for that which is not truly willed, is not a sin.” This is no consequent to my doctrine: for I hold that they are, in the sight of God, so many consents, so many willings, which would have been followed by actions, if the actions had been in their power. It had been fitter for a man in whom is required gravity and sanctity more than ordinary, to have chosen some other kind of instance. But what meaneth he by concupiscence with consent? Can there be concupiscence without consent? It is the consent itself. There may be also a lawful concupiscence with consent. For concupiscence makes not the sin, but the unlawfulness of satisfying such concupiscence; and not the consent, but the will and design to prosecute that which a man knoweth to be unlawful. An appetite to another man’s bread, is concupiscence; and though it be with consent to eat, it is no sin; but the design to take it from the other, notwithstanding that he may fail in his design, that is the sin. And this instance might have served his turn as well as the other; and for consent, if he had understood the truth, he might have put design.

NO. XXVIII.

T. H. Fourthly, that those actions which 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.