J. D. “I wonder that T. H. should confess, that the whole weight of this controversy doth rest upon this proposition: ‘that there is no such thing as an agent, which, when all things requisite to action are present, can nevertheless forbear to act’act’; and yet bring nothing but such poor bullrushes to support it. (a) ‘If it be an agent’, saith he, ‘it can work’; what of this? A posse ad esse non valet argumentum: from can work to will work, is a weak inference. And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity, is another gross inconsequence. He proceeds thus: ‘if it work, there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action’. True, there wants nothing to produce that which is produced; but there may want much to produce that which was intended. One horse may pull his heart out, and yet not draw the coach whither it should be, if he want the help or concurrence of his fellows. ‘And consequently’, saith he, ‘the cause of the action is sufficient’. Yes, sufficient to do what it doth, though perhaps with much prejudice to itself; but not always sufficient to do what it should do, or what it would do. As he that begets a monster, should beget a man, and would beget a man if he could. The last link of his argument follows: (b) ‘and if sufficient, then also necessary’. Stay there; by his leave, there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency; otherwise God himself should not be all-sufficient. Thus his argument is vanished. But I will deal more favourably with him, and grant him all that which he labours so much in vain to prove, that every effect in the world hath sufficient causes; yea more, that supposing the determination of the free and contingent causes, every effect in the world is necessary. (c) But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean: for still it amounts but to an hypothetical necessity, and differs as much from that absolute necessity, which he maintains, as a gentleman who travels for his pleasure, differs from a banished man, or a free subject from a slave.”
(a) “‘If it be an agent,’ saith he, ‘it can work’. What of this? A posse ad esse non valet argumentum; from can work to will work, is a weak inference. And from will work to doth work upon absolute necessity, is another gross inconsequence.” Here he has gotten a just advantage; for I should have said, if it be an agent it worketh, not it can work. But it is an advantage which profiteth little to his cause. For if I repeat my argument again in this manner: that which is an agent, worketh; that which worketh, wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth, and consequently is thereof a sufficient cause; and if a sufficient cause, then also a necessary cause: his answer will be nothing to the purpose. For whereas to these words, ‘that which worketh, wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth,’ he answereth, “it is true, but there may want much to produce that which was intended”, it is not contrary to any thing that I have said. For I never maintained, that whatsoever a man intendeth, is necessarily performed; but this, whatsoever a man performeth, is necessarily performed, and what he intendeth, necessarily intended, and that from causes antecedent. And therefore to say, as he doth, that the cause is sufficient to do what it doth, but not always sufficient to do what a man should or would do, is to say the same that I do. For I say not, that the cause that bringeth forth a monster, is sufficient to bring forth a man; but that every cause is sufficient to produce only the effect it produceth; and if sufficient, then also necessary.
(b) “‘And if sufficient, then also necessary’. Stay there; by his leave, there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency; otherwise God himself should not be all-sufficient.” All-sufficiency signifieth no more, when it is attributed to God, than omnipotence; and omnipotence signifieth no more, than the power to do all things that he will. But to the production of any thing that is produced, the will of God is as requisite as the rest of his power and sufficiency. And consequently, his all-sufficiency signifieth not a sufficiency or power to do those things he will not. But he will deal, he says, so favourably with me, as to grant me all this, which I labour, he saith, so much in vain to prove: and adds, (c) “But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean; for still it amounts but to an hypothetical necessity”. If it prove no more, it proves no necessity at all; for by hypothetical necessity he means the necessity of this proposition, the effect is, then when it is; whereas necessity is only said truly of somewhat in future. For necessary is that which cannot possibly be otherwise; and possibility is always understood of some future time. But seeing he granteth so favourably that sufficient causes are necessary causes, I shall easily conclude from it, that whatsoever those causes do cause, are necessary antecedently. For if the necessity of the thing produced, when produced, be in the same instant of time with the existence of its immediate cause; then also that immediate cause was in the same instant with the cause by which it was immediately produced; the same may be said of the cause of this cause, and so backward eternally. From whence it will follow, that all the connexion of the causes of any effect from the beginning of the world, were altogether existent in one and the same instant; and consequently, all the time from the beginning of the world, or from eternity to this day, is but one instant, or a nunc stans; which he knows by this time is not so.
T. H. And thus you see how the inconveniences, which he 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 destroys both the decrees and 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 he 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.
J. D. “Thus he hath laboured in vain to satisfy my reasons, and to prove his own assertion. But for demonstration, there is nothing like it among his arguments. Now he saith, (a) he could add other arguments, if he thought it good logic. There is no impediment in logic, why a man may not press his adversary with those absurdities which flow from his opinion; argumentum ducens ad impossibile or ad absurdum, is a good form of reasoning. But there is another reason of his forbearance, though he be loath to express it. Hæret lateri læthalis arundo. The arguments drawn from the attributes of God do stick so close in the sides of his cause, that he hath no mind to treat of that subject. By the way, take notice of his own confession, that ‘he could add other reasons, if he thought it good logic’. If it were predetermined in the outward causes, that he must make this very defence and no other, how could it be in his power to add or subtract any thing: just as if a blind man should say in earnest, I could see if I had mine eyes? Truth often breaks out whilst men seek to smother it. (b) But let us view his argument: ‘if a man have liberty from necessitation, he may frustrate the decrees of God, and make his prescience false’. First, for the decrees of God, this is his decree that man should be a free agent; if he did consider God as a most simple act, without priority or posteriority of time, or any composition; he would not conceive of his decrees, as of the laws of the Medes and Persians, long since enacted and passed before we were born, but as coexistent with ourselves, and with the acts which we do by virtue of those decrees. Decrees and attributes are but notions to help the weakness of our understanding to conceive of God. The decrees of God are God himself, and therefore justly said to be before the foundation of the world was laid: and yet coexistent with ourselves, because of the infinite and eternal being of God. The sum is this, the decree of God, or God himself eternally, constitutes or ordains all effects which come to pass in time, according to the distinct natures or capacities of his creatures. An eternal ordination is neither past nor to come, but always present. So free actions do proceed as well from the eternal decree of God, as necessary; and from that order which he hath set in the world.
“As the decree of God is eternal, so is his knowledge. And therefore to speak truly and properly, there is neither fore-knowledge nor after-knowledge in him. The knowledge of God comprehends all times in a point, by reason of the eminence and virtue of its infinite perfection. And yet I confess, that this is called fore-knowledge in respect of us. But this fore-knowledge doth produce no absolute necessity. Things are not therefore, because they are foreknown; but therefore they are foreknown, because they shall come to pass. If any thing should come to pass otherwise than it doth, yet God’s knowledge could not be irritated by it; for then he did not know that it should come to pass, as now it doth. Because every knowledge of vision necessarily presupposeth its object, God did know that Judas should betray Christ; but Judas was not necessitated to be a traitor by God’s knowledge. If Judas had not betrayed Christ, then God had not fore-known that Judas should betray him. The case is this: a watchman standing on the steeple’s-top, as it is the use in Germany, gives notice to them below, who see no such things, that company are coming, and how many; his prediction is most certain, for he sees them. What a vain correction were it for one below to say, what if they did not come, then a certain prediction may fail. It may be urged, that there is a difference between these two cases. In this case, the coming is present to the watchman; but that which God fore-knows, is future. God knows what shall be; the watchman only knows what is. I answer, that this makes no difference at all in the case, by reason of that disparity which is between God’s knowledge and ours. As that coming is present to the watchman, which is future to them who are below: so all those things which are future to us, are present to God, because his infinite and eternal knowledge doth reach to the future being of all agents and events. Thus much is plainly acknowledged by T. H. No. XI: that ‘fore-knowledge is knowledge, and knowledge depends on the existence of the things known, and not they on it’. To conclude, the prescience of God doth not make things more necessary than the production of the things themselves; but if the agents were free agents, the production of the things doth not make the events to be absolutely necessary, but only upon supposition that the causes were so determined. God’s prescience proveth a necessity of infallibility, but not of antecedent extrinsical determination to one. If any event should not come to pass, God did never foreknow that it would come to pass. For every knowledge necessarily presupposeth its object.
(a) “‘He could add’, he saith, ‘other arguments, if he thought it good logic,’ &c. There is no impediment in logic, why a man may not press his adversary with those absurdities which flow from his opinion.” Here he misrecites my words; which are, ‘I could add, if I thought it good logic, the inconvenience of denying necessity; as that it destroys both the decrees and prescience of God Almighty’. But he makes me say I could add other arguments; then infers, that there is no impediment in logic, why a man may not press his adversary with the absurdities that flow from his opinion, because argumentum ducens ad impossibile is a good form of reasoning; making no difference between absurdities, which are impossibilities, and inconveniences, which are not only possible but frequent. And though it be a good form of reasoning to argue from absurdities, yet it is no good form of reasoning to argue from inconveniences; for inconvenience may stand well enough with truth.
(b) “But let us view his argument: ‘If a man have liberty from necessitation, he may frustrate the decrees of God, and make his prescience false’. This is his decree, that man should be a free agent. If he did consider God as a most simple act, without priority or posteriority of time, or any composition, he would not conceive of his decrees as long since enacted, but as coexistent with ourselves”. Here again he would have me conceive eternity to be nunc stans, that is, an instant of time, and that instant of time to be God; which neither he nor I can conceive, nor can without impiety say, as he doth here, that the decrees of God are God. In which consisteth all the rest of his answer to this Number, saving that he putteth in sometimes, that “the foreknowledge of God produceth not necessity”, which is granted him; but that anything can be foreknown which shall not necessarily come to pass, which was not granted, he proveth no otherwise than by his assertion, “that every instant of time is God”; which is denied him.
T. H. 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 J. D. And so praying God to prosper your Lordship in all your designs, I take leave, and am, my most noble and obliging Lord,
J. D. “He is very careful to have this discourse kept secret, as appears in this section, and in the XIVth and XVth sections. If his answer had been kept private, I had saved the labour of a reply. But hearing that it was communicated, I thought myself obliged to vindicate both the truth and myself. I do not blame him to be cautious; for in truth, this assertion is of desperate consequence, and destructive to piety, policy, and morality. (a) If he had desired to have it kept secret, the way had been to have kept it secret himself. It will not suffice to say, as No. XIV, that ‘truth is truth’: This is the common plea of all men. Neither is it sufficient for him to say, as No. XV, that ‘it was desired by me’, long before that he had discovered his opinion by word of mouth. And my desire was to let some of my noble friends see the weakness of his grounds, and the pernicious consequences of that opinion. (b) But if he think that this ventilation of the question between us two may do hurt, truly I hope not. The edge of his discourse is so abated, that it cannot easily hurt any rational man, who is not too much possessed with prejudice.”prejudice.”
In this place I said nothing, but that I would have my Lord of Newcastle to communicate it only to the Bishop. And in his answer he says, (a) “if I had desired to have it kept secret, the way had been to have kept it secret myself”. My desire was, it should not be communicated by my Lord of Newcastle to all men indifferently. But I barred not myself from showing it privately to my friends; though to publish it was never my intention, till now provoked by the uncivil triumphing of the Bishop in his own errors to my disadvantage.
(b) “But if he think that this ventilation of the question may do hurt, truly I hope not. The edge of his discourse is so abated, that it cannot easily hurt any rational man, who is not too much possessed with prejudice.” It is confidently said; but not very pertinently to the hurt I thought might proceed from a discourse of this nature. For I never thought it could do hurt to a rational man, but only to such men as cannot reason in those points which are of difficult contemplation. For a rational man will say with himself, they whom God will bring to a blessed and happy end, those he will put into an humble, pious, and righteous way; and of those whom he will destroy, he will harden the hearts: and thereupon examining himself whether he be in such a way or not, the examination itself would, if elected, be a necessary cause of working out his salvation with fear and trembling. But the men who I thought might take hurt thereby, are such as reason erroneously, saying with themselves, if I shall be saved, I shall be saved whether I walk uprightly or no: and consequently thereunto, shall behave themselves negligently, and pursue the pleasant way of the sins they are in love with. Which inconvenience is not abated by this discourse of the Bishop; because they understand not the grounds he goeth on, of nunc stans, motus primo primi, elicit acts, imperate acts, and a great many other such unintelligible words.
T. H. Postscript. Arguments seldom work on men of wit and learning, when they have once engaged themselves in a contrary opinion. If anything do it, it is the shewing of them the causes of their errors, which is this. Pious men attribute to God Almighty, for honour sake, whatsoever they see is honourable in the world, as seeing, hearing, willing, knowing, justice, wisdom, &c.: but deny him such poor things as eyes, ears, brains, and other organs, without which we worms neither have nor can conceive such faculties to be: and so far they do well. But when they dispute of God’s actions philosophically, then they consider them again as if he had such faculties, and in that manner as we have them. This is not well; and thence it is they fall into so many difficulties. We ought not to dispute of God’s nature; he is no fit subject of our philosophy. True religion consisteth in obedience to Christ’s lieutenants, and in giving God such honour, both in attributes and actions, as they in their several lieutenancies shall ordain.
J. D. “Though sophistical captions do seldom work on men of wit and learning, because by constant use they have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil (Heb. v. 14), yet (a) solid and substantial reasons work sooner upon them than upon weaker judgments. The more exact the balance is, the sooner it discovers the real weight that is put into it; especially if the proofs be proposed without passion or opposition. Let sophisters and seditious orators apply themselves to the many-headed multitude, because they despair of success with men of wit and learning. Those whose gold is true, are not afraid to have it tried by the touch. Since the former way hath not succeeded, T. H. hath another to shew as the causes of our errors, which he hopes will prove more successful. When he sees he can do no good by sight, he seeks to circumvent us under colour of courtesy: Fistula dulce canit, volucrem dum decipit auceps. As they who behold themselves in a glass, take the right hand for the left, and the left for the right (T. H. knows the comparison); so we take our own errors to be truths, and other men’s truths to be errors, (b) If we be in an error in this, it is such an error as we sucked from nature itself, such an error as is confirmed in us by reason and experience, such an error as God himself in his sacred Word hath revealed, such an error as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in all ages have delivered, such an error wherein we have the concurrence of all the best philosophers, both natural and moral, such an error as bringeth to God the glory of justice, and wisdom, and goodness, and truth, such an error as renders men more devout, more pious, more industrious, more humble, more penitent for their sins. Would he have us resign up all these advantages, to dance blindfold after his pipe? No, he persuades us too much to our loss. But let us see what is the imaginary cause of our imaginary error. Forsooth, because ‘we attribute to God whatsoever is honourable in the world, as seeing, hearing, willing, knowing, justice, wisdom; but deny him such poor things as eyes, ears, brains’brains’; and so far, he saith ‘we do well.’ He hath reason, for since we are not able to conceive of God as he is, the readiest way we have, is by removing all that imperfection from God, which is in the creatures; so we call him infinite, immortal, independent: or by attributing to him all those perfections which are in the creatures, after a most eminent manner; so we call him best, greatest, most wise, most just, most holy. (c) But saith he, ‘When they dispute of God’s actions philosophically, then they consider them again, as if he had such faculties, and in that manner as we have them’.
“And is this the cause of our error? That were strange indeed; for they who dispute philosophically of God, do neither ascribe faculties to him in that manner that we have them, nor yet do they attribute any proper faculties at all to God. God’s understanding and his will is his very essence, which, for the eminency of its infinite perfection, doth perform all those things alone in a most transcendant manner, which reasonable creatures do perform imperfectly by distinct faculties. Thus to dispute of God with modesty and reverence, and to clear the Deity from the imputation of tyranny, injustice, and dissimulation, which none do throw upon God with more presumption than those who are the patrons of absolute necessity, is both comely and Christian.
“It is not the desire to discover the original of a supposed error, which draws them ordinarily into these exclamations against those who dispute of the Deity. For some of themselves dare anatomize God, and publish his eternal decrees with as much confidence, as if they had been all their lives of his cabinet council. But it is for fear lest those pernicious consequences which flow from that doctrine essentially, and reflect in so high a degree upon the supreme goodness, should be laid open to the view of the world; just as the Turks do first establish a false religion of their own devising, and then forbid all men upon pain of death to dispute upon religion; or as the priests of Moloch, the abomination of the Ammonites, did make a noise with their timbrels all the while the poor infants were passing through the fire in Tophet, to keep their pitiful cries from the ears of their parents. So (d) they make a noise with their declamations against those who dare dispute of the nature of God, that is, who dare set forth his justice, and his goodness, and his truth, and his philanthropy, only to deaf the ears and dim the eyes of the Christian world, lest they should hear the lamentable ejulations and howlings, or see that rueful spectacle of millions of souls tormented for evermore (e) in the flames of the true Tophet, that is, hell, only for that which, according to T. H.’s doctrine, was never in their power to shun, but which they were ordered and inevitably necessitated to do, only to express the omnipotence and dominion, and to satisfy the pleasure of Him, who is in truth the Father of all mercies, and the God of all consolation. (f) This is life eternal (saith our Saviour), to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent (John xvii. 3.). Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world, saith St. James (James i. 27.). Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man, saith Solomon (Eccles. xii. 13.). But T. H. hath found out a more compendious way to heaven: ‘True religion’, saith he, ‘consisteth in obedience to Christ’s lieutenants, and giving God such honour, both in attributes and actions, as they in their several lieutenancies shall ordain’. That is to say, be of the religion of every ChristianChristian country where you come. To make the civil magistrate to be Christ’s lieutenant upon earth, for matters of religion, and to make him to be supreme judge in all controversies, whom all must obey, is a doctrine so strange, and such an uncouth phrase to Christian ears, that I should have missed his meaning, but that I consulted with his book, De Cive, c. XV. sect. 16, and c. XVII. sect. 28. What if the magistrate shall be no Christian himself? What if he shall command contrary to the law of God or nature? Must we obey him rather than God? (Acts iv. 19.) Is the civil magistrate become now the only ground and pillar of truth? I demand then, why T. H. is of a different mind from his sovereign, and from the laws of the land, concerning the attributes of God and his decrees? This is a new paradox, and concerns not this question of liberty and necessity. Wherefore I forbear to prosecute it further, and so conclude my reply with the words of the Christian poet,
A. Prudentius. περι στεφανων. Hymn. vi.
He taketh it ill that I say that arguments do seldom work on men of wit and learning, when they have once engaged themselves in a contrary opinion. Nevertheless it is not only certain by experience, but also there is reason for it, and that grounded upon the natural disposition of mankind. For it is natural to all men to defend those opinions, which they have once publicly engaged themselves to maintain; because to have that detected for error, which they have publicly maintained for truth, is never without some dishonour, more or less; and to find in themselves that they have spent a great deal of time and labour in deceiving themselves, is so uncomfortable a thing, as it is no wonder if they employ their wit and learning, if they have any, to make good their errors. And, therefore, where he saith, (a) “solid and substantial reasons work sooner upon them, than upon weaker judgments; and that the more exact the balance is, the sooner it discovers the real weight that is put into it”: I confess, the more solid a man’s wit is, the better will solid reasons work upon him. But if he add to it that which he calls learning, that is to say, much reading of other men’s doctrines without weighing them with his own thoughts, then their judgments become weaker, and the balance less exact. And whereas he saith, “that they whose gold is true, are not afraid to have it tried by the touch”; he speaketh as if I had been afraid to have my doctrine tried by the touch of men of wit and learning; wherein he is not much mistaken, meaning by men of learning (as I said before) such as had read other men, but not themselves. For by reading others, men commonly obstruct the way to their own exact and natural judgment, and use their wit both to deceive themselves with fallacies, and to requite those, who endeavour at their own entreaty to instruct them, with revilings.
(b) “If we be in an error, it is such an error as is sucked from nature; as is confirmed by reason, by experience, and by Scripture; as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church of all ages have delivered; an error, wherein we have the concurrence of all the best philosophers, an error that bringeth to God the glory of justice, &c.; that renders men more devout, more pious, more humble, more industrious, more penitent for their sins.” All this is but said; and what heretofore hath been offered in proof for it, hath been sufficiently refuted, and the contrary proved; namely, that it is an error contrary to the nature of the will; repugnant to reason and experience; repugnant to the Scripture; repugnant to the doctrine of St. Paul, (and ’tis pity the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have not followed St. Paul therein); an error not maintained by the best philosophers, (for they are not the best philosophers, which the Bishop thinketh so); an error that taketh from God the glory of his prescience, nor bringeth to him the glory of his other attributes; an error that maketh men, by imagining they can repent when they will, neglect their duties; and that maketh men unthankful for God’s graces, by thinking them to proceed from the natural ability of their own will.
(c) “‘But,’ saith he, ‘when they dispute of God’s actions philosophically, then they consider them again as if he had such faculties, and in such manner as we have them.’ And is this the cause of our error? That were strange indeed; for they who dispute philosophically of God, do neither ascribe faculties to him, in that manner that we have them, nor yet do they attribute any proper faculties at all to God. God’s understanding and his will is his very essence, &c.” Methinks he should have known at these years, that to dispute philosophically is to dispute by natural reason, and from principles evident by the light of nature, and to dispute of the faculties and proprieties of the subject whereof they treat. It is therefore unskilfully said by him, that they who dispute philosophically of God, ascribe unto him no proper faculties. If no proper faculties, I would fain know of him what improper faculties he ascribes to God. I guess he will make the understanding and the will, and his other attributes, to be in God improper faculties, because he cannot properly call them faculties; that is to say, he knows not how to make it good that they are faculties, and yet he will have these words, “God’s understanding and his will are his very essence”, to pass for an axiom of philosophy. And whereas I had said, we ought not to dispute of God’s nature, and that He is no fit subject of our philosophy, he denies it not, but says I say it.
(d) “With a purpose to make a noise with declaiming against those who dare dispute of the nature of God, that is, who dare set forth his justice and his goodness, &c.” The Bishop will have much ado to make good, that to dispute of the nature of God, is all one with setting forth his justice and his goodness. He taketh no notice of these words of mine, ‘pious men attribute to God Almighty for honour’s sake, whatsoever they see is honourable in the world’; and yet this is setting forth God’s justice, goodness, &c, without disputing of God’s nature.
(e) “In the flames of the true Tophet, that is hell.” The true Tophet was a place not far from the walls of Jerusalem, and consequently on the earth. I cannot imagine what he will say to this in his answer to my Leviathan, if there he find the same, unless he say, that in this place by the true Tophet, he meant a not true Tophet.
(f) “This is life eternal (saith our Saviour) to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, &c.” This which followeth to the end of his answer and of the book, is a reprehension of me, for saying that ‘true religion consisteth in obedience to Christ’s lieutenants’. If it be lawful for Christians to institute amongst themselves a commonwealth and magistrates, whereby they may be able to live in peace one with another, and unite themselves in defence against a foreign enemy; it will certainly be necessary to make to themselves some supreme judge in all controversies, to whom they ought all to give obedience. And this is no such strange doctrine, nor so uncouth a phrase to Christian ears, as the Bishop makes it, whatsoever it be to them that would make themselves judges of the Supreme Judge himself. No; but, saith he, Christ is the Supreme Judge, and we are not to obey men rather than God. Is there any Christian man that does not acknowledge that we are to be judged by Christ, or that we ought not to obey him rather than any man that shall be his lieutenant upon earth? The question therefore is, not of who is to be obeyed, but of what be his commands. If the Scripture contain his commands, then may every Christian know by them what they are. And what has the Bishop to do with what God says to me when I read them, more than I have to do with what God says to him when he reads them, unless he have authority given him by him whom Christ hath constituted his lieutenant? This lieutenant upon earth, I say, is the supreme civil magistrate, to whom belongeth the care and charge of seeing that no doctrine may be taught the people, but such as may consist with the general peace of them all, and with the obedience that is due to the civil sovereign. In whom would the Bishop have the authority reside of prohibiting seditious opinions, when they are taught (as they are often) in divinity books and from the pulpit? I could hardly guess, but that I remember that there have been books written to entitle the bishops to a divine right, underived from the civil sovereign. But because he maketh it so heinous a matter, that the supreme civil magistrate should be Christ’s lieutenant upon earth, let us suppose that a bishop, or a synod of bishops, should be set up (which I hope never shall) for our civil sovereign; then that which he objecteth here, I could object in the same words against himself. For I could say in his own words, This is life eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ (John xvii. 3.). Pure religion, and undefiled before God is this, to visit the fatherless, &c. (James i. 27.) Fear God and keep his commandments (Eccles. xii. 13.). But the Bishop hath found a more compendious way to heaven, namely, that true religion consisteth in obedience to Christ’s lieutenants; that is (now by supposition), to the bishops. That is to say, that every Christian of what nation soever, coming into the country which the bishops govern, should be of their religion. He would make the civil magistrate to be Christ’s lieutenant upon earth for matters of religion, and supreme judge in all controversies, and say they ought to be obeyed by all; how strange soever and uncouth it seem to him now, the sovereignty being in others. And I may say to him, what if the magistrate himself (I mean by supposition the bishops) should be wicked men; what if they should command as much contrary to the law of God or nature, as ever any Christian king did, (which is very possible); must we obey them rather than God? Is the civil magistrate become now the only ground and pillar of truth? No:
And thus the Bishop may see, there is little difference between his Ode and my Parode to it; and that both of them are of equal force to conclude nothing.
The Bishop knows that the kings of England, since the time of Henry VIII, have been declared by act of Parliament supreme governors of the Church of England, in all causes both civil and ecclesiastical, that is to say, in all matters both ecclesiastical and civil, and consequently of this Church supreme head on earth; though perhaps he will not allow that name of head. I should wonder therefore, whom the Bishop would have to be Christ’s lieutenant here in England for matters of religion, if not the supreme governor and head of the Church of England, whether man or woman whosoever he be, that hath the sovereign power, but that I know he challenges it to the Bishops, and thinks that King Henry VIII. took the ecclesiastical power away from the Pope, to settle it not in himself, but them. But he ought to have known, that what jurisdiction, or power of ordaining ministers, the Popes had here in the time of the king’s predecessors till Henry VIII, they derived it all from the king’s power, though they did not acknowledge it; and the kings connived at it, either not knowing their own right, or not daring to challenge it; till such time as the behaviour of the Roman clergy had undeceived the people, which otherwise would have sided with them. Nor was it unlawful for the king to take from them the authority he had given them, as being Pope enough in his own kingdom without depending on a foreign one: nor is it to be called schism, unless it be schism also in the head of a family to discharge, as often as he shall see cause, the school-masters he entertaineth to teach his children. If the Bishop and Dr. Hammond, when they did write in the defence of the Church of England against imputation of schism, quitting their own pretences of jurisdiction and jus divinum, had gone upon these principles of mine, they had not been so shrewdly handled as they have been, by an English Papist that wrote against them.
And now I have done answering to his arguments, I shall here, in the end of all, take that liberty of censuring his whole book, which he hath taken in the beginning, of censuring mine. ‘I have’, saith he, (No. I.) ‘perusedperused T. H.’s answers, considered his reasons, and conclude he hath missed and mislaid the question; that his answers are evasions, that his arguments are paralogisms, and that the opinion of absolute and universal necessity is but a result of some groundless and ill chosen principles.’ And now it is my turn to censure. And first, for the strength of his discourse and knowledge of the point in question, I think it much inferior to that which might have been written by any man living, that had no other learning besides the ability to write his mind; but as well perhaps as the same man would have done it if to the ability of writing his mind he had added the study of School-divinity. Secondly, for the manners of it, (for to a public writing there belongeth good manners), it consisteth in railing and exclaiming and scurrilous jesting, with now and then an unclean and mean instance. And lastly, for his elocution, the virtue whereof lieth not in the flux of words, but in perspicuity, it is the same language with that of the kingdom of darkness. One shall find in it, especially where he should speak most closely to the question, such words as these: divided sense, compounded sense, hypothetical necessity, liberty of exercise, liberty of specification, liberty of contradiction, liberty of contrariety, knowledge of approbation, practical knowledge, general influence, special influence, instinct, qualities infused, efficacious election, moral efficacy, moral motion, metaphorical motion, practice practicum, motus primo primi, actus eliciti, actus imperati, permissive will, consequent will, negative obduration, deficient cause, simple act, nunc stans; and other like words of nonsense divided: besides many propositions such as these: the will is the mistress of human actions, the understanding is her counsellor, the will chooseth, the will willeth, the will suspends its own act, the understanding understandeth, (I wonder how he missed saying, the understanding suspendeth its own act,) the will applies the understanding to deliberate; the will requires of the understanding a review; the will determines itself; a change may be willed without changing of the will; man concurs with God in causing his own will; the will causeth willing; motives determine the will not naturally, but morally; the same action may be both future and not future; God is not just but justice, not eternal but eternity; eternity is nunc stans; eternity is an infinite point which comprehendeth all time, not formally, but eminently; all eternity is co-existent with to-day, and the same co-existent with to-morrow: and many other like speeches of nonsense compounded, which the truth can never stand in need of. Perhaps the Bishop will say, these terms and phrases are intelligible enough; for he hath said in his reply to No. XXIV, that his opinion is demonstrable in reason, though he be not able to comprehend, how it consisteth together with God’s eternal prescience; and though it exceed his weak capacity, yet he ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest. So that to him that truth is manifest, and demonstrable by reason, which is beyond his capacity; so that words beyond capacity are with him intelligible enough.
But the reader is to be judge of that. I could add many other passages that discover, both his little logic, as taking the insignificant words above recited, for terms of art; and his no philosophy in distinguishing between moral and natural motion, and by calling some motions metaphorical, and by his blunders at the causes of sight and of the descent of heavy bodies, and his talk of the inclination of the load-stone, and divers other places in his book.
But to make an end, I shall briefly draw up the sum of what we have both said. That which I have maintained is, that no man hath his future will in his own present power. That it may be changed by others, and by the change of things without him; and when it is changed, it is not changed nor determined to any thing by itself; and that when it is undetermined, it is no will; because every one that willeth, willeth something in particular. That deliberation is common to men with beasts, as being alternate appetite, and not ratiocination; and the last act or appetite therein, and which is immediately followed by the action, is the only will that can be taken notice of by others, and which only maketh an action in public judgment voluntary. That to be free is no more than to do if a man will, and if he will to forbear; and consequently that this freedom is the freedom of the man, and not of the will. That the will is not free, but subject to change by the operation of external causes. That all external causes depend necessarily on the first eternal cause, God Almighty, who worketh in us both to will and to do, by the mediation of second causes. That seeing neither man nor any thing else can work upon itself, it is impossible that any man in the framing of his own will should concur with God, either as an actor or as an instrument. That there is nothing brought to pass by fortune as by a cause, nor any thing without a cause, or concurrence of causes, sufficient to bring it so to pass; and that every such cause, and their concurrence, do proceed from the providence, good pleasure, and working of God; and consequently, though I do with others call many events contingent, and say they happen, yet because they had every of them their several sufficient causes, and those causes again their former causes, I say they happen necessarily. And though we perceive not what they are, yet there are of the most contingent events as necessary causes as of those events whose causes we perceive; or else they could not possibly be foreknown, as they are by him that foreknoweth all things. On the contrary, the Bishop maintaineth: that the will is free from necessitation; and in order thereto that 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, though it be true that spontaneity and determination to one may consist together. That the will determineth itself, and that external things, when they change the will, do work upon it not naturally, but morally, not by natural motion, but by moral and metaphorical motion. That when the will is determined naturally, it is not by God’s general influence, whereon depend all second causes, but by special influence, God concurring and pouring something into the will. That the will when it suspends not its act, makes the act necessary; but because it may suspend and not assent, it is not absolutely necessary. That sinful acts proceed not from God’s will, but are willed by him by a permissive will, not an operative will, and that he hardeneth the heart of man by a negative obduration. That man’s will is in his own power, but his motus primo primi not in his own power, nor necessary save only by a hypothetical necessity. That the will to change, is not always a change of will. That not all things which are produced, are produced from sufficient, but some things from deficient causes. That if the power of the will be present in actu primo, then there is nothing wanting to the production of the effect. That a cause may be sufficient for the production of an effect, though it want something necessary to the production thereof; because the will may be wanting. That a necessary cause doth not always necessarily produce its effect, but only then when the effect is necessarily produced. He proveth also, that the will is free, by that universal notion which the world hath of election: for when of the six Electors the votes are divided equally, the King of Bohemia hath a casting voice. That the prescience of God supposeth no necessity of the future existence of the things foreknown, because God is not eternal but eternity, and eternity is a standing now, without succession of time; and therefore God foresees all things intuitively by the presentiality they have in nunc stans, which comprehendeth in it all time past, present, and to come, not formally, but eminently and virtually. That the will is free even then when it acteth, but that is in a compounded, not in a divided sense. That to be made, and to be eternal, do consist together, because God’s decrees are made, and are nevertheless eternal. That the order, beauty, and perfection of the world doth require that in the universe there should be agents of all sorts, some necessary, some free, some contingent. That though it be true, that to-morrow it shall rain or not rain, yet neither of them is true determinate. That the doctrine of necessity is a blasphemous, desperate, and destructive doctrine. That it were better to be an Atheist, than to hold it; and he that maintaineth it, is fitter to be refuted with rods than with arguments. And now whether this his doctrine or mine be the more intelligible, more rational, or more conformable to God’s word, I leave it to the judgment of the reader.
But whatsoever be the truth of the disputed question, the reader may peradventure think I have not used the Bishop with that respect I ought, or without disadvantage of my cause I might have done; for which I am to make a short apology. A little before the last parliament of the late king, when every man spake freely against the then present government, I thought it worth my study to consider the grounds and consequences of such behaviour, and whether it were conformable or contrary to reason and to the Word of God. And after some time I did put in order and publish my thoughts thereof, first in Latin, and then again the same in English; where I endeavoured to prove both by reason and Scripture, that they who have once submitted themselves to any sovereign governor, either by express acknowledgment of his power, or by receiving protection from his laws, are obliged to be true and faithful to him, and to acknowledge no other supreme power but him in any matter or question whatsoever, either civil or ecclesiastical. In which books of mine, I pursued my subject without taking notice of any particular man that held any opinion contrary to that which I then wrote; only in general I maintained that the office of the clergy, in respect of the supreme civil power, was not magisterial, but ministerial; and that their teaching of the people was founded upon no other authority than that of the civil sovereign; and all this without any word tending to the disgrace either of episcopacy or of presbytery. Nevertheless I find since, that divers of them, whereof thethe Bishop of Derry is one, have taken offence especially at two things; one, that I make the supremacy in matters of religion to reside in the civil sovereign; the other, that being no clergyman, I deliver doctrines, and ground them upon words of the Scripture, which doctrines they, being by profession divines, have never taught. And in this their displeasure, divers of them in their books and sermons, without answering any of my arguments, have not only exclaimed against my doctrine, but reviled me, and endeavoured to make me hateful for those things, for which (if they knew their own and the public good) they ought to have given me thanks. There is also one of them, that taking offence at me for blaming in part the discipline instituted heretofore, and regulated by the authority of the Pope, in the universities, not only ranks me amongst those men that would have the revenue of the universities diminished, and says plainly I have no religion, but also thinks me so simple and ignorant of the world as to believe that our universities maintain Popery. And this is the author of the book called Vindiciæ Academiarum. If either of the universities had thought itself injured, I believe it could have authorised or appointed some member of theirs, whereof there be many abler men than he, to have made their vindication. But this Vindex, (as little dogs to please their masters use to bark, in token of their sedulity, indifferently at strangers, till they be rated off), unprovoked by me hath fallen upon me without bidding. I have been publicly injured by many of whom I took no notice, supposing that that humour would spend itself; but seeing it last, and grow higher in this writing I now answer, I thought it necessary at last to make of some of them, and first of this Bishop, an example.