(a) “The first thing that I offer is, how often he mistakes my meaning in this one section. First, I make voluntary and spontaneous actions to be one and the same. He saith, I distinguish them,” &c.
It is very possible I may have mistaken him; for neither he nor I understand him. If they be one, why did he without need bring in this strange word, spontaneous? Or rather, why did the Schoolmen bring it in, if not merely to shift off the difficulty of maintaining their tenet of free-will?
(b) “Secondly, he saith I distinguish between free acts and voluntary acts; but he saith, I confound them and make them the same.”
In his reply No. II, he saith, that for the clearing of the question, we are to know the difference between these three, necessity, spontaneity, and liberty; and because I thought he knew that it could not be cleared without understanding what is will, I had reason to think that spontaneity was his new word for will. And presently after, “some things are necessary, and not voluntary or spontaneous; some things are both necessary and voluntary.” These words, voluntary and spontaneous, so put together, would make any man believe spontaneous were put as explicative of voluntary; for it is no wonder in the eloquence of the Schoolmen. Therefore, presently after, these words, “spontaneity consists in a conformity of the appetite, either intellectual or sensitive,” signify that spontaneity is a conformity or likeness of the appetite to the object; which to me soundeth as if he had said, that the appetite is like the object; which is as proper as if he had said, the hunger is like the meat. If this be the bishop’s meaning, as it is the meaning of the words, he is a very fine philosopher. But hereafter I will venture no more to say his meaning is this or that, especially where he useth terms of art.
(c) “Thirdly, he saith, I ascribe spontaneity only to fools, children, madmen, and beasts. But I acknowledge spontaneity hath place in rational men,” &c.
I resolve to have no more to do with spontaneity. But I desire the reader to take notice, that the common people, on whose arbitration dependeth the signification of words in common use, among the Latins and Greeks did call all actions and motions whereof they did perceive no cause, spontaneous and αυτοματα: I say, not those actions which had no causes; for all actions have their causes; but those actions whose causes they did not perceive. So that spontaneous, as a general name, comprehended many actions and motions of inanimate creatures; as the falling of heavy things downwards, which they thought spontaneous, and that if they were not hindered, they would descend of their own accord. It comprehended also all animal motion, as beginning from the will or appetite; because the causes of the will and appetite being not perceived, they supposed, as the Bishop doth, that they were the causes of themselves. So that which in general is called spontaneous, being applied to men and beasts in special, is called voluntary. Yet the will and appetite, though the very same thing, use to be distinguished in certain occasions. For in the public conversation of men, where they are to judge of one another’s will, and of the regularity and irregularity of one another’s actions, not every appetite, but the last is esteemed in the public judgment for the will: nor every action proceeding from appetite, but that only to which there had preceded or ought to have preceded some deliberation. And this I say is so, when one man is to judge of another’s will. For every man in himself knoweth that what he desireth or hath an appetite to, the same he hath a will to, though his will may be changed before he hath obtained his desire. The Bishop, understanding nothing of this, might, if it had pleased him, have called it jargon. But he had rather pick out of it some contradictions of myself. And therefore saith:
(d) “Yet I have no reason to be offended at it, (meaning such contradictions), for he dealeth no otherwise with me than he doth with himself.”
It is a contradiction, he saith, that having said that “voluntary presupposeth deliberation,” I say in another place, “that whatsoever followeth the last appetite, is voluntary, and where there is but one appetite, that is the last.” Not observing that voluntary presupposeth deliberation, when the judgment, whether the action be voluntary or not, is not in the actor, but in the judge; who regardeth not the will of the actor, where there is nothing to be accused in the action of deliberate malice; yet knoweth that though there be but one appetite, the same is truly will for the time, and the action, if it follow, a voluntary action.
This also he saith is a contradiction, that having said, “no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation, though never so sudden,” I say afterward that “by spontaneity is meant inconsiderate proceeding.”
Again he observes not, that the action of a man that is not a child, in public judgment how rash, inconsiderate, and sudden soever it be, it is to be taken for deliberation; because it is supposed, he ought to have considered and compared his intended action with the law; when, nevertheless, that sudden and indeliberate action was truly voluntary.
Another contradiction which he finds is this, that having undertaken to prove “that children before they have the use of reason do deliberate and elect,” I say by and by after a “child may be so young as to do what he doth without all deliberation.” I yet see no contradiction here; for a child may be so young, as that the appetite thereof is its first appetite, but afterward and often before it come to have the use of reason, may elect one thing and refuse another, and consider the consequences of what it is about to do. And why not as well as beasts, which never have the use of reason; for they deliberate, as men do? For though men and beasts do differ in many things very much, yet they differ not in the nature of their deliberation. A man can reckon by words of general signification, make propositions, and syllogisms, and compute in numbers, magnitudes, proportions, and other things computable; which being done by the advantage of language, and words of general significations, a beast that hath not language cannot do, nor a man that hath language, if he misplace the words, that are his counters. From hence to the end of this number, he discourseth again of spontaneity, and how it is in children, madmen, and beasts; which, as I before resolved, I will not meddle with; let the reader think and judge of it as he pleaseth.
J. D. “Secondly, (a) they who might have done, and may do, many things which they leave undone; and they who leave undone many things which they might do, are neither compelled nor necessitated to do what they do, but have true liberty. But we might do many things which we do not, and we do many things which we might leave undone, as is plain, (1 Kings iii. 11): Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies &c. God gave Solomon his choice. He might have asked riches, but then he had not asked wisdom, which he did ask. He did ask wisdom, but he might have asked riches, which yet he did not ask. And (Acts v. 4): After it was sold, was it not in thine own power? It was in his own power to give it, and it was in his own power to retain it. Yet if he did give it, he could not retain it; and if he did retain it, he could not give it. Therefore we may do, what we do not. And we do not, what we might do. That is, we have true liberty from necessity.”
T. H. The second argument from Scripture consisteth in histories of men that did one thing, when, if they would, they might have done another. The places are two; one is in 1 Kings iii. 11, where the history says, God was pleased that Solomon, who might, if he would, have asked riches or revenge, did nevertheless ask wisdom at God’s hands. The other is the words of St. Peter to Ananias, (Acts v. 4): After it was sold, was it not in thine own power?
To which the answer is the same with that I answered to the former places: that they prove that there is election, but do not disprove the necessity which I maintain of what they so elect.
“We have had the very same answer twice before. It seemeth that he is well-pleased with it, or else he would not draw it in again so suddenly by head and shoulders to no purpose, if he did not conceive it to be a panchreston, a salve for all sores, or dictamnum, sovereign dittany, to make all his adversaries’ weapons to drop out of the wounds of his cause, only by chewing it, without any application to the sore. I will not waste the time to show any further, how the members of his distinction do cross one another, and one take away another. To make every election to be of one thing imposed by necessity, and of another thing which is absolutely impossible, is to make election to be no election at all. But I forbear to press that at present. If I may be bold to use his own phrase, his answer looks quite another way from mine argument. My second reason was this: ‘They who may do, and might have done many things which they leave undone, and who leave undone many things which they might do, are not necessitated, nor precisely and antecedently determined to what they do.’
“But we might do many things which we do not, and we do many things which we might leave undone, as appears evidently by the texts alleged. Therefore we are not antecedently and precisely determined, nor necessitated to do all things which we do. What is here of election in this argument? To what proposition, to what term doth T. H. apply his answer? He neither affirms, nor denieth, nor distinguisheth of any thing contained in my argument. Here I must be bold to call upon him for a more pertinent answer.”
The Bishop, for the proving of free-will, had alleged this text: Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, &c. And another, (Acts v. 4): After it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Out of which he infers, there was no necessity that Solomon should ask wisdom rather than long life, nor that Ananias should tell a lie concerning the price for which he sold his land: and my answer, that they prove election, but disprove not the necessity of election, satisfieth him not; because, saith he, (a) “they who might have done what they left undone, and left undone what they might have done, are not necessitated.”
But how doth he know (understanding power properly taken) that Solomon had a real power to ask long life? No doubt Solomon knew nothing to the contrary; but yet it was possible that God might have hindered him. For though God gave Solomon his choice, that is, the thing which he should choose, it doth not follow, that he did not also give him the act of election. And for the other text, where it is said, that the price of the land was in Ananias’s power, the word power signifieth no more than the word right, that is, the right to do with his own what he pleased, which is not a real and natural power, but a civil power made by covenant. And therefore the former answer is sufficient, that though such places are clear enough to prove election, they have no strength at all to take away necessity.
J. D. “Thirdly, if there be no true liberty, but all things come to pass by inevitable necessity, then what are all those interrogations, and objurgations, and reprehensions, and expostulations, which we find so frequently in holy Scriptures, (be it spoken with all due respect), but feigned and hypocritical exaggerations? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded that thou shouldst not eat? (Gen. iii. 11.) And (verse 13) he saith to Eve, Why hast thou done this? And (Gen. iv. 6) to Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance cast down? And, (Ezech. xviii. 31): Why will ye die, O house of Israel? Doth God command openly not to eat, and yet secretly by himself or by the second causes necessitate him to eat? Doth he reprehend him for doing that, which he hath antecedently determined that he must do? Doth he propose things under impossible conditions? Or were not this plain mockery and derision? Doth a loving master chide his servant because he doth not come at his call, and yet knows that the poor servant is chained and fettered, so as he cannot move, by the master’s own order, without the servant’s default or consent? They who talk here of a twofold will of God, secret and revealed, and the one opposite to the other, understand not what they say. These two wills concern several persons. The secret will of God, is what he will do himself; the revealed will of God, is what he would have us to do; it may be the secret will of God to take away the life of the father, yet it is God’s revealed will that his son should wish his life and pray for his life. Here is no contradiction, where the agents are distinct. But for the same person to command one thing, and yet to necessitate him that is commanded to do another thing; to chide a man for doing that, which he hath determined inevitably and irresistibly that he must do; this were (I am afraid to utter what they are not afraid to assert) the highest dissimulation. God’s chiding proves man’s liberty.”
T. H. To the third and fifth arguments, I shall make but one answer.
J. D. (a) “Certainly distinct arguments, as the third and fifth are, the one drawn from the truth of God, the other from the justice of God, the one from his objurgations and reprehensions, the other from his judgments after life, did require distinct answers. But the plain truth is, that neither here, nor in his answer to the fifth argument, nor in this whole treatise, is there one word of solution or satisfaction to this argument, or to any part of it. All that looks like an answer is contained, No. XII: ‘That which he does is made just by his doing; just, I say, in him, not always just in us by the example; for a man that shall command a thing openly, and plot secretly the hinderance of the same, if he punish him whom he commanded so for not doing it, is unjust.’ (b) I dare not insist upon it, I hope his meaning is not so bad as the words intimate and as I apprehend, that is, to impute falsehood to Him that is truth itself, and to justify feigning and dissimulation in God, as he doth tyranny, by the infiniteness of his power and the absoluteness of his dominion. And therefore, by his leave, I must once again tender him a new summons for a full and clear answer to this argument also. He tells us, that he was not surprised. Whether he were or not, is more than I know. But this I see plainly, that either he is not provided, or that his cause admits no choice of answers. The Jews dealt ingeniously, when they met with a difficult knot which they could not untie, to put it upon Elias: Elias will answer it when he comes.
The Bishop argued thus: “Thirdly, if there be no true liberty, but all things come to pass by inevitable necessity, then what are those interrogations we find so frequently in holy Scriptures, (be it spoken with all due respect), but feigned and hypocritical exaggerations?” Here putting together two repugnant suppositions, either craftily or (be it spoken with all due respect) ignorantly, he would have men believe, because I hold necessity, that I deny liberty, I hold as much that there is true liberty as he doth, and more, for I hold it as from necessity, and that there must of necessity be liberty; but he holds it not from necessity, and so makes it possible there may be none. His expostulations were, first, Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? Secondly, Why hast thou done this? Thirdly, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance cast down? Fourthly, Why will ye die, O house of Israel? These arguments requiring the same answer which some other do, I thought fit to remit them to their fellows. But the Bishop will not allow me that. For he saith,
(a) “Certainly, distinct arguments, as the third and fifth are, &c. did require distinct answers.”
I am therefore to give an account of the meaning of the aforesaid objurgations and expostulations; not of the end for which God said, Hast thou eaten of the tree, &c., but how those words may be taken without repugnance to the doctrine of necessity. These words, Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded that thou shouldst not eat, convince Adam that, notwithstanding God had placed in the garden a means to keep him perpetually from dying in case he should accommodate his will to obedience of God’s commandment concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil, yet Adam was not so much master of his own will as to do it. Whereby is signified, that a mortal man, though invited by the promise of immortality, cannot govern his own will, though his will govern his actions; which dependence of the actions on the will, is that which properly and truly is called liberty. And the like may be said of the words to Eve, Why hast thou done this? and of those to Cain, Why art thou wroth? &c. and to Israel, Why will ye die, O house of Israel? But the Bishop here will say die signifieth not die, but live eternally in torments; for by such interpretations any man may answer anything. And whereas he asketh, “Doth God reprehend him for doing that which he hath antecedently determined him that he must do?” I answer, no; but he convinceth and instructeth him, that though immortality was so easy to obtain, as it might be had for the abstinence from the fruit of one only tree, yet he could not obtain it but by pardon, and by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ: nor is there here any punishment, but only a reducing of Adam and Eve to their original mortality, where death was no punishment but a gift of God. In which mortality he lived near a thousand years, and had a numerous issue, and lived without misery, and I believe shall at the resurrection obtain the immortality which then he lost. Nor in all this is there any plotting secretly, or any mockery or derision, which the Bishop would make men believe there is. And whereas he saith, that “they who talk here of a twofold will of God, secret and revealed, and the one opposite to the other, understand not what they say:” the Protestant doctors, both of our and other Churches, did use to distinguish between the secret and revealed will of God; the former they called voluntas bene placiti, which signifieth absolutely his will, the other voluntas signi, that is, the signification of his will, in the same sense that I call the one his will, the other his commandment, which may sometimes differ. For God’s commandment to Abraham was, that he should sacrifice Isaac, but his will was, that he should not do it. God’s denunciation to Nineveh was, that it should be destroyed within forty days, but his will was, that it should not.
(b) “I dare not insist upon it, I hope his meaning is not so bad, as the words intimate, and as I apprehend; that is, to impute falsehood to Him that is truth itself,” &c.
What damned rhetoric and subtle calumny is this? God, I said, might command a thing openly, and yet hinder the doing of it, without injustice; but if a man should command a thing to be done, and then plot secretly the hinderance of the same, and punish for the not doing it, it were injustice. This it is which the Bishop apprehends as an imputation of falsehood to God Almighty. And perhaps if the death of a sinner were, as he thinks, an eternal life in extreme misery, a man might as far as Job hath done, expostulate with God Almighty; not accusing him of injustice, because whatsoever he doth is therefore just because done by him; but of little tenderness and love to mankind. And this expostulation will be equally just or unjust, whether the necessity of all things be granted or denied. For it is manifest that God could have made man impeccable, and can now preserve him from sin, or forgive him if he please; and therefore, if he please not, the expostulation is as reasonable in the cases of liberty as of necessity.
J. D. “Fourthly, if either the decree of God, or the foreknowledge of God, or the influence of the stars, or the concatenation of causes, or the physical or moral efficacy of objects, or the last dictate of the understanding, do take away true liberty, then Adam before his fall had no true liberty. For he was subjected to the same decrees, the same prescience, the same constellations, the same causes, the same objects, the same dictates of the understanding. But, quicquid ostendes mihi sic, incredulus odi; the greatest opposers of our liberty, are as earnest maintainers of the liberty of Adam. Therefore none of these supposed impediments take away true liberty.”
T. H. The fourth argument is to this effect: “If the decree of God, or his foreknowledge, or the influence of the stars, or the concatenation of causes, or the physical or moral efficacy of causes, or the last dictate of the understanding, or whatsoever it be, do take away true liberty, then Adam before his fall had no true liberty. Quicquid ostendes mihi sic, incredulus odi.” That which I say necessitateth and determineth every action, (that he may no longer doubt of my meaning), is the sum of all those things, which being now existent, conduce and concur to the production of that action hereafter, whereof if any one thing now were wanting, the effect could not be produced. This concourse of causes, whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like concourse of former causes, may well be called (in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal cause of all things, God Almighty) the decree of God.
But that the foreknowledge of God should be a cause of any thing, cannot be truly said; seeing foreknowledge is knowledge, and knowledge dependeth on the existence of the things known, and not they on it.
The influence of the stars is but a small part of the whole cause, consisting of the concourse of all agents.
Nor doth the concourse of all causes make one simple chain or concatenation, but an innumerable number of chains joined together, not in all parts, but in the first link, God Almighty; and consequently the whole cause of an event does not always depend upon one single chain, but on many together.
Natural efficacy of objects does determine voluntary agents, and necessitates the will, and consequently the action; but for moral efficacy, I understand not what he means by it. The last dictate of the judgment concerning the good or bad that may follow on any action, is not properly the whole cause, but the last part of it; and yet may be said to produce the effect necessarily, in such manner as the last feather may be said to break an horse’s back, when there were so many laid on before as there wanted but that to do it.
Now for his argument, that if the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect, that then it follows, Adam had no true liberty. I deny the consequence; for I make not only the effect, but also the election of that particular effect to be necessary, inasmuch as the will itself, and each propension of a man during his deliberation, is as much necessitated, and depends on a sufficient cause, as any thing else whatsoever. As for example, it is no more necessary that fire should burn, than that a man, or other creature, whose limbs be moved by fancy, should have election, that is, liberty to do what he has a fancy to, though it be not in his will or power to choose his fancy, or choose his election or will.
This doctrine, because he says he hates, I doubt had better been suppressed; as it should have been, if both your Lordship and he had not pressed me to an answer.
J. D. (a) “This argument was sent forth only as an espy to make a more full discovery, what were the true grounds of T. H.’s supposed necessity. Which errand being done, and the foundation whereupon he builds being found out, which is, as I called it, a concatenation of causes, and, as he calls it, a concourse of necessary causes; it would now be a superfluous and impertinent work in me to undertake the refutation of all those other opinions, which he doth not undertake to defend. And therefore I shall waive them at the present, with these short animadversions.
(b) “Concerning the eternal decree of God, he confounds the decree itself with the execution of his decree. And concerning the foreknowledge of God, he confounds that speculative knowledge, which is called the knowledge of vision, (which doth not produce the intellective objects, no more than the sensitive vision doth produce the sensible objects), with that other knowledge of God, which is called the knowledge of approbation, or a practical knowledge, that is, knowledge joined with an act of the will, of which divines do truly say, that it is the cause of things, as the knowledge of the artist is the cause of his work. John i.: God made all things by his word; that is, by his wisdom. Concerning the influence of the stars, I wish he had expressed himself more clearly. For as I do willingly grant, that those heavenly bodies do act upon these sublunary things, not only by their motion and light, but also by an occult virtue, which we call influence, as we see by manifold experience in the loadstone and shell-fish, &c.: so if he intend that by these influences they do naturally or physically determine the will, or have any direct dominion over human counsels, either in whole or in part, either more or less, he is in an error. Concerning the concatenation of causes, whereas he makes not one chain, but an innumerable number of chains, (I hope he speaks hyperbolically, and doth not intend that they are actually infinite), the difference is not material whether one or many, so long as they are all joined together, both in the first link, and likewise in the effect. It serves to no end but to shew what a shadow of liberty T. H. doth fancy, or rather what a dream of a shadow. As if one chain were not sufficient to load poor man, but he must be clogged with innumerable chains. This is just such another freedom as the Turkish galley-slaves do enjoy. But I admire that T. H., who is so versed in this question, should here confess that he understands not the difference between physical or natural, and moral efficacy: and much more that he should affirm, that outward objects do determine voluntary agents by a natural efficacy. No object, no second agent, angel or devil, can determine the will of man naturally, but God alone, in respect of his supreme dominion over all things. Then the will is determined naturally, when God Almighty, besides his general influence, whereupon all second causes do depend, as well for their being as for their acting, doth moreover at some times, when it pleases him in cases extraordinary, concur by a special influence, and infuse something into the will, in the nature of an act, or an habit, whereby the will is moved and excited, and applied to will or choose this or that. Then the will is determined morally, when some object is proposed to it with persuasive reasons and arguments to induce it to will. Where the determination is natural, the liberty to suspend its act is taken away from the will, but not so where the determination is moral. In the former case, the will is determined extrinsically, in the latter case intrinsically; the former produceth an absolute necessity, the latter only a necessity of supposition. If the will do not suspend, but assent, then the act is necessary; but because the will may suspend, and not assent, therefore it is not absolutely necessary. In the former case, the will is moved necessarily and determinately; in the latter, freely and indeterminately. The former excitation is immediate; the latter is mediate mediante intellectu, and requires the help of the understanding. In a word, so great a difference there is between natural and moral efficacy, as there is between his opinion and mine in this question.
“There remains only the last dictate of the understanding, which he maketh to be the last cause that concurreth to the determination of the will, and to the necessary production of the act, ‘as the last feather may be said to break an horse’s back, when there were so many laid on before that there wanted but that to do it.’ I have shewed (No. VII.) that the last dictate of the understanding is not always absolute in itself, nor conclusive to the will; and when it is conclusive, yet it produceth no antecedent nor extrinsical necessity. I shall only add one thing more at present, that by making the last judgment of right reason to be of no more weight than a single feather, he wrongs the understanding as well as he doth the will; and endeavours to deprive the will of its supreme power of application, and to deprive the understanding of its supreme power of judicature and definition. Neither corporeal agents and objects, nor yet the sensitive appetite itself, being an inferior faculty and affixed to the organ of the body, have any direct or immediate dominion or command over the rational will. It is without the sphere of their activity. All the access which they have unto the will, is by the means of the understanding, sometimes clear and sometimes disturbed, and of reason, either right or misinformed. Without the help of the understanding, all his second causes were not able of themselves to load the horse’s back with so much weight as the least of all his feathers doth amount unto. But we shall meet with his horseload of feathers again, No. XXIII.
“These things being thus briefly touched, he proceeds to his answer. My argument was this: if any of these or all these causes formerly recited, do take away true liberty, (that is, still intended from necessity), then Adam before his fall had no true liberty.
“But Adam before his fall had true liberty.
“He mis-recites the argument, and denies the consequence, which is so clearly proved, that no man living can doubt of it. Because Adam was subjected to all the same causes as well as we, the same decree, the same prescience, the same influences, the same concourse of causes, the same efficacy of objects, the same dictates of reason. But it is only a mistake; for it appears plainly by his following discourse, that he intended to deny, not the consequence, but the assumption. For he makes Adam to have had no liberty from necessity before his fall, yea, he proceeds so far as to affirm that all human wills, his and ours, and each propension of our wills, even during our deliberation, are as much necessitated as anything else whatsoever; that we have no more power to forbear those actions which we do, than the fire hath power not to burn. Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning, yet I must confess ingenuously, I hate this doctrine from my heart. And I believe both I have reason so to do, and all others who shall seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it. It destroys liberty, and dishonours the nature of man. It makes the second causes and outward objects to be the rackets, and men to be but the tennis-balls of destiny. It makes the first cause, that is, God Almighty, to be the introducer of all evil and sin into the world, as much as man, yea, more than man, by as much as the motion of the watch is more from the artificer, who did make it and wind it up, than either from the spring, or the wheels, or the thread, if God, by his special influence into the second causes, did necessitate them to operate as they did. And if they, being thus determined, did necessitate Adam inevitably, irresistibly, not by an accidental, but by an essential subordination of causes to whatsoever he did, then one of these two absurdities must needs follow: either that Adam did not sin, and that there is no such thing as sin in the world, because it proceeds naturally, necessarily, and essentially from God; or that God is more guilty of it, and more the cause of evil than man, because man is extrinsically, inevitably determined, but so is not God. And in causes essentially subordinate, the cause of the cause is always the cause of the effect. What tyrant did ever impose laws that were impossible for those to keep, upon whom they were imposed, and punish them for breaking those laws, which he himself had necessitated them to break, which it was no more in their power not to break, than it is in the power of the fire not to burn? Excuse me if I hate this doctrine with a perfect hatred, which is so dishonourable both to God and man; which makes men to blaspheme of necessity, to steal of necessity, to be hanged of necessity, and to be damned of necessity. And therefore I must say and say again, quicquid ostendes mihi sic, incredulus odi. It were better to be an atheist, to believe no God; or to be a Manichee, to believe two Gods, a God of good and a God of evil; or with the heathens, to believe thirty thousand Gods: than thus to charge the true God to be the proper cause and the true author of all the sins and evils which are in the world.”
(a) “This argument was sent forth only as an espy, to make a more full discovery, what were the true grounds of T. H.’s supposed necessity.”
The argument which he sendeth forth as an espy, is this: “If either the decree of God, or the foreknowledge of God, or the influence of the stars, or the concatenation (which he says falsely I call a concourse) of causes, of the physical or moral efficacy of objects, or the last dictate of the understanding, do take away true liberty, then Adam before his fall had no true liberty.” In answer whereunto I said, that all the things now existent were necessary to the production of the effect to come; that the foreknowledge of God causeth nothing, though the will do; that the influence of the stars is but a small part of that cause which maketh the necessity; and that this consequence, “if the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect, then Adam had no true liberty,” was false. But in his words, if these do take away true liberty, then Adam before his fall had no true liberty, the consequence is good; but then I deny that necessity takes away liberty; the reason whereof, which is this, liberty is to choose what we will, not to choose our will, no inculcation is sufficient to make the Bishop take notice of, notwithstanding he be otherwhere so witty, and here so crafty, as to send out arguments for spies. The cause why I denied the consequence was, that I thought the force thereof consisted in this, that necessity in the Bishop’s opinion destroyed liberty.
(b) “Concerning the eternal decree of God,” &c.
Here begins his reply. From which if we take these words; “knowledge of approbation;” “practical knowledge;” “heavenly bodies act upon sublunary things, not only by their motion, but also by an occult virtue, which we call influence;” “moral efficacy;” “general influence;” “special influence;” “infuse something into the will;” “the will is moved;” “the will is induced to will;” “the will suspends its own act;” which are all nonsense, unworthy of a man, nay, and if a beast could speak, unworthy of a beast, and can befal no creature whose nature is not depraved by doctrine; nothing at all remaineth to be answered. Perhaps the word, occult virtue, is not to be taxed as unintelligible. But then I may tax therein the want of ingenuity in him that had rather say, that heavenly bodies do work by an occult virtue, than that they work he knoweth not how; which he would not confess, but endeavours to make occult be taken for a cause. The rest of this reply is one of those consequences, which I have answered in the beginning, where I compare the inconveniences of both opinions, that is, “that either Adam did not sin, or his sin proceeded necessarily from God;” which is no stronger a consequence than if out of this, “that a man is lame necessarily,” one should infer, that either he is not lame, or that his lameness proceeded necessarily from the will of God. To the end of this number there is nothing more of argument. The place is filled up with wondering and railing.
J. D. “Fifthly, if there be no liberty, there shall be no day of doom, no last judgment, no rewards nor punishments after death. A man can never make himself a criminal, if he be not left at liberty to commit a crime. No man can be justly punished for doing that which was not in his power to shun. To take away liberty hazards heaven, but undoubtedly it leaves no hell.”
T. H. The arguments of greatest consequence are the third and fifth, and fall both into one: namely, if there be a necessity of all events, that it will follow that praise and reprehension, reward and punishment, are all vain and unjust: and that if God should openly forbid, and secretly necessitate the same action, punishing men for what they could not avoid, there would be no belief among them of heaven or hell.
To oppose hereunto, I must borrow an answer from St. Paul (Rom. ix.), from the eleventh verse of the chapter to the eighteenth, is laid down the very same objection in these words: When they (meaning Esau and Jacob) were yet unborn, and had done neither good nor evil, that the purpose of God according to election, not by works, but by him that calleth, might remain firm, it was said to her (viz. to Rebecca) that the elder shall serve the younger. And what then shall we say, is there injustice with God? God forbid. It is not therefore in him that willeth, nor in him that runneth, but in God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh, I have stirred thee up, that I may show my power in thee, and that my name may be set forth in all the earth. Therefore whom God willeth he hath mercy on, and whom he willeth he hardeneth. Thus, you see, the case put by St. Paul is the same with that of J. D., and the same objection in these words following (verse 19): Thou wilt ask me then, why will God yet complain; for who hath resisted his will? To this therefore the apostle answers, not by denying it was God’s will, or that the decree of God concerning Esau was not before he had sinned, or that Esau was not necessitated to do what he did; but thus (verse 20, 21): Who art thou, O man, that interrogatest God? Shall the work say to the workman, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same stuff to make one vessel to honour, another to dishonour? According therefore to this answer of St. Paul, I answer J. D.’s objection, and say, the power of God alone, without other help, is sufficient justification of any action he doth. That which men make among themselves here by pacts and covenants, and call by the name of justice, and according whereunto men are counted and termed rightly just and unjust, is not that by which God Almighty’s actions are to be measured or called just, no more than his counsels are to be measured by human wisdom. That which he does is made just by his doing; just I say in him, not always just in us by the example; for a man that shall command a thing openly, and plot secretly the hindrance of the same, if he punish him he so commanded for not doing it, is unjust. So also his counsels, they be therefore not in vain, because they be his, whether we see the use of them or not. When God afflicted Job, he did object no sin to him, but justified that afflicting him by telling him of his power. Hast thou (says God) an arm like mine? Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? and the like. So our Saviour, concerning the man that was born blind, said, it was not for his sin, nor his parents’ sin, but that the power of God might be shown in him. Beasts are subject to death and torment, yet they cannot sin. It was God’s will it should be so. Power irresistible justified all actions really and properly, in whomsoever it be found. Less power does not. And because such power is in God only, he must needs be just in all his actions. And we, that not comprehending his counsels, call him to the bar, commit injustice in it.
I am not ignorant of the usual reply to this answer, by distinguishing between will and permission. As, that God Almighty does indeed permit sin sometimes, and that he also foreknoweth that the sin he permitteth shall be committed; but does not will it, nor necessitate it. I know also they distinguish the action from the sin of the action, saying, God Almighty doth indeed cause the action, whatsoever action it be, but not the sinfulness or irregularity of it, that is, the discordance between the action and the law. Such distinctions as these dazzle my understanding. I find no difference between the will to have a thing done, and the permission to do it, when he that permitteth it can hinder it, and knows it will be done unless he hinder it. Nor find I any difference between an action that is against the law, and the sin of that action. As for example, between the killing of Uriah, and the sin of David in killing Uriah. Nor when one is cause both of the action and of the law, how another can be cause of the disagreement between them, no more than how one man making a longer and shorter garment, another can make the inequality that is between them. This I know, God cannot sin, because his doing a thing makes it just, and consequently no sin: and because whatsoever can sin is subject to another’s law, which God is not. And therefore it is blasphemy to say, God can sin. But to say, that God can so order the world as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man, I do not see how it is any dishonour to him. Howsoever, if such or other distinctions can make it clear that St. Paul did not think Esau’s or Pharaoh’s actions proceeded from the will and purpose of God, or that proceeding from his will could not therefore without injustice be blamed or punished, I will, as soon as I understand them, turn unto J. D.’s opinion. For I now hold nothing in all this question between us, but what seemeth to me not obscurely, but most expressly said in this place by St. Paul. And thus much in answer to his places of Scripture.
J. D. T. H. thinks to kill two birds with one stone, and satisfy two arguments with one answer, whereas in truth he satisfieth neither. First, for my third reason. (a) Though all he say here were as true as an oracle; though punishment were an act of dominion, not of justice in God; yet this is no sufficient cause why God should deny his own act, or why he should chide or expostulate with men, why they did that which he himself did necessitate them to do, and whereof he was the actor more than they, they being but as the stone, but he the hand that threw it. Notwithstanding anything which is pleaded here, this stoical opinion doth stick hypocrisy and dissimulation close to God, who is truth itself.
“And to my fifth argument, which he changeth and relateth amiss, as by comparing mine with his may appear, his chiefest answer is to oppose a difficult place of St. Paul (Rom. ix. 11.) Hath he never heard, that to propose a doubt is not to answer an argument: nec bene respondet qui litem lite resolvit? But I will not pay him in his own coin. Wherefore to this place alleged by him, I answer, the case is not the same. The question moved there is, how God did keep his promise made to Abraham, to be the God of him and of his seed, if the Jews who were the legitimate progeny of Abraham were deserted. To which the apostle answers (vers. 6, 7, 8), that that promise was not made to the carnal seed of Abraham, that is, the Jews, but to his spiritual sons, which were the heirs of his faith, that is, to the believing Christians; which answer he explicateth, first by the allegory of Isaac and Ishmael, and after in the place cited of Esau and Jacob. Yet neither does he speak there so much of their persons as of their posterities. And though some words may be accommodated to God’s predestination, which are there uttered, yet it is not the scope of that text, to treat of the reprobation of any man to hell fire. All the posterity of Esau were not eternally reprobated, as holy Job and many others. But this question which is now agitated between us, is quite of another nature, how a man can be a criminal who doth nothing but that which he is extrinsically necessitated to do, or how God in justice can punish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone; or why he who did imprint the motion in the heart of man, should punish man, who did only receive the impression from him. So his answer looks another way.
“But because he grounds so much upon this text, that if it can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion, I will examine all those passages which may seem to favour his cause. First, these words (ver. 11): being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, upon which the whole weight of his argument doth depend, have no reference at all to those words (verse 13), Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated; for those words were first uttered by the prophet Malachi, many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead (Mal. i. 2, 3), and intended of the posterity of Esau, who were not redeemed from captivity as the Israelites were. But they are referred to those other words (verse 12), the elder shall serve the younger, which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were born. (Gen. xxv. 23.) And though those words of Malachi had been used of Jacob and Esau before they were born, yet it had advantaged his cause nothing: for hatred in that text doth not signify any reprobation to the flames of hell, much less the execution of that decree, or the actual imposition of punishment, nor any act contrary to love. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Goodness itself cannot hate that which is good. But hatred there signifies comparative hatred, or a less degree of love, or at the most a negation of love. As (Gen. xxix. 31), when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, we may not conclude thence that Jacob hated his wife; the precedent verse doth fully expound the sense (verse 30): Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. So (Matth. vi. 24), No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other. So (Luke xiv. 26), If any man hate not his father and mother, &c. he cannot be my disciple. St. Matthew (x. 37) tells us the sense of it: He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.
“Secondly, those words (ver. 15) I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, do prove no more but this, that the preferring of Jacob before Esau, and of the Christians before the Jews, was not a debt from God either to the one or to the other, but a work of mercy. And what of this? All men confess that God’s mercies do exceed man’s deserts, but God’s punishments do never exceed man’s misdeeds. As we see in the parable of the labourers (Matth. xx. 13-15): Friend, I do thee no wrong. Did not I agree with thee for a penny? Is it not lawful for me to do with mine own as I will? Is thy eye evil, because I am good? Acts of mercy are free, but acts of justice are due.
“That which follows (verse 17) comes something nearer the cause. The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, for this same purpose I have raised thee up, (that is, I have made thee a king, or I have preserved thee), that I might show my power in thee. But this particle, that, doth not always signify the main end of an action, but sometimes only a consequent of it, as Matth. ii. 15: He departed into Egypt, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt have I called my son. Without doubt Joseph’s aim or end of his journey was not to fulfil prophecies, but to save the life of the child. Yet because the fulfilling of the prophecy was a consequent of Joseph’s journey, he saith, that it might be fulfilled. So here, I have raised thee up, that I might show my power. Again, though it should be granted that this particle that, did denote the intention of God to destroy Pharaoh in the Red Sea, yet it was not the antecedent intention of God, which evermore respects the good and benefit of the creature, but God’s consequent intention upon the prevision of Pharaoh’s obstinacy, that since he would not glorify God in obeying his word, he should glorify God undergoing his judgments. Hitherto we find no eternal punishments, nor no temporal punishment without just deserts.
“It follows, (ver. 18), whom he will he hardeneth. Indeed hardness of heart is the greatest judgment that God lays upon a sinner in this life, worse than all the plagues of Egypt. But how doth God harden the heart? Not by a natural influence of any evil act or habit into the will, nor by inducing the will with persuasive motives to obstinacy and rebellion (James i. 13, 14): For God tempteth no man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then God is said to harden the heart three ways; first, negatively, and not positively; not by imparting wickedness, but by not imparting grace; as the sun descending to the tropic of Capricorn, is said with us to be the cause of winter, that is, not by imparting cold, but by not imparting heat. It is an act of mercy in God to give his grace freely, but to detain it is no act of injustice. So the apostle opposeth hardening to shewing of mercy. To harden is as much as not to shew mercy.
“Secondly, God is said to harden the heart occasionally and not causally, by doing good, (which incorrigible sinners make an occasion of growing worse and worse), and doing evil; as a master by often correcting of an untoward scholar, doth accidentally and occasionally harden his heart, and render him more obdurate, insomuch as he grows even to despise the rod. Or as an indulgent parent by his patience and gentleness doth encourage an obstinate son to become more rebellious. So, whether we look upon God’s frequent judgments upon Pharaoh, or God’s iterated favours in removing and withdrawing those judgments upon Pharaoh’s request, both of them in their several kinds were occasions of hardening Pharaoh’s heart, the one making him more presumptuous, the other more desperately rebellious. So that which was good in it was God’s; that which was evil was Pharaoh’s. God gave the occasion, but Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration. This is clearly confirmed, Exodus viii. 15: When Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart. And Exodus ix. 34: When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants. So Psalm cv. 25: He turned their hearts, so that they hated his people, and dealt subtly with them. That is, God blessed the children of Israel, whereupon the Egyptians did take occasion to hate them, as is plain, Exodus i. 7, 8, 9, 10. So God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and Pharaoh hardened his own heart. God hardened it by not shewing mercy to Pharaoh, as he did to Nebuchadnezzar, who was as great a sinner as he, or God hardened it occasionally; but still Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration, by determining his own will to evil, and confirming himself in his obstinacy. So are all presumptuous sinners, (Psalm xcv. 8): Harden not your hearts as in the provocation, or as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.
“Thirdly, God is said to harden the heart permissively, but not operatively, nor effectively, as he who only lets loose a greyhound out of the slip, is said to hound him at the hare. Will you see plainly what St. Paul intends by hardening? Read Rom. ix. 22, 23: What if God, willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known (that is, by a consequent will, which in order of nature follows the prevision of sin), endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, &c. There is much difference between enduring and impelling, or inciting the vessels of wrath. He saith of the vessels of mercy, that God prepared them unto glory. But of the vessels of wrath, he saith only that they were fitted to destruction, that is, not by God, but by themselves. St. Paul saith, that God doth endure the vessels of wrath with much long-suffering. T. H. saith, that God wills and effects by the second causes all their actions good and bad, that he necessitateth them, and determineth them irresistibly to do those acts which he condemneth as evil, and for which he punisheth them. If doing willingly, and enduring, if much long-suffering, and necessitating, imply not a contrariety one to another, reddat mihi minam Diogenes, let him that taught me logic, give me my money again.
“But T. H. saith, that this distinction between the operative and permissive will of God, and that other between the action and the irregularity, do dazzle his understanding. Though he can find no difference between these two, yet others do; St. Paul himself did (Acts xiii. 18): About the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And (Acts xiv. 16): Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. T. H. would make suffering to be inciting, their manners to be God’s manners, their ways to be God’s ways. And (Acts xvii. 30): The times of this ignorance God winked at. It was never heard that one was said to wink or connive at that which was his own act. And (1 Cor. x. 13): God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. To tempt is the devil’s act; therefore he is called the tempter. God tempts no man to sin, but he suffers them to be tempted. And so suffers, that he could hinder Satan, if he would. But by T. H.’s doctrine, to tempt to sin, and to suffer one to be tempted to sin when it is in his power to hinder it, is all one. And so he transforms God (I write it with horror) into the devil, and makes tempting to be God’s own work, and the devil to be but his instrument. And in that noted place, (Rom. ii. 4, 5): Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance; but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God? Here are as many convincing arguments in this one text against the opinion of T. H. almost as there are words. Here we learn that God is rich in goodness, and will not punish his creatures for that which is his own act; secondly, that he suffers and forbears sinners long, and doth not snatch them away by sudden death as they deserve. Thirdly, that the reason of God’s forbearance is to bring men to repentance. Fourthly, that hardness of heart and impenitency is not causally from God, but from ourselves. Fifthly, that it is not the insufficient proposal of the means of their conversion on God’s part, which is the cause of men’s perdition, but their own contempt and despising of these means. Sixthly, that punishment is not an act of absolute dominion, but an act of righteous judgment, whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds, wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves, and eternal life to those who continue patiently in well-doing. If they deserve such punishment who only neglect the goodness and long-suffering of God, what do they who utterly deny it, and make God’s doing and his suffering to be all one? I do beseech T. H. to consider what a degree of wilfulness it is, out of one obscure text wholly misunderstood to contradict the clear current of the whole Scripture. Of the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter, (1 Peter iii. 20): The long-suffering of God waited once in the days of Noah. And 2 Peter iii. 15: Account that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation. This is the name God gives himself, (Exod. xxxiv. 6): The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, &c.
(b) “Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be commonly true, that he who doth permit any thing to be done, which it is in his power to hinder, knowing that if he do not hinder it, it will be done, doth in some sort will it. I say in some sort, that is, either by an antecedent will, or by a consequent will, either by an operative will, or by a permissive will, or he is willing to let it be done, but not willing to do it. Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man to suffer that to be done, which otherwise he would not suffer. So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the lion’s den, to make good his rash decree; so Herod suffered John Baptist to be beheaded, to make good his rash oath. How much more may the immutable rule of justice in God, and his fidelity in keeping his word, draw from him the punishment of obstinate sinners, though antecedently he willeth their conversion? He loveth all his creatures well, but his own justice better.better. Again, sometimes a man suffereth that to be done, which he doth not will directly in itself, but indirectly for some other end, or for the producing of some greater good; as a man willeth that a putrid member be cut off from his body, to save the life of the whole. Or as a judge, being desirous to save a malefactor’s life, and having power to reprieve him, doth yet condemn him for example’s sake, that by the death of one he may save the lives of many. Marvel not then if God suffer some creatures to take such courses as tend to their own ruin, so long as their sufferings do make for the greater manifestation of his glory, and for the greater benefit of his faithful servants. This is a most certain truth, that God would not suffer evil to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evil. Yet this ought not to be understood, as if we made any priority or posteriority of time in the acts of God, but only of nature. Nor do we make the antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another; because the one respects man pure and uncorrupted, the other respects him as he is lapsed. The objects are the same, but considered after a diverse manner. Nor yet do we make these wills to be distinct in God; for they are the same with the divine essence, which is one. But the distinction is in order to the objects or things willed. Nor, lastly, do we make this permission to be a naked or a mere permission. God causeth all good, permitteth all evil, disposeth all things, both good and evil.
(c) “T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action. I answer, because he concurs to the doing of evil by a general, but not by a special influence. As the earth gives nourishment to all kinds of plants, as well to hemlock as to wheat; but the reason why the one yields food to our sustenance, the other poison to our destruction, is not from the general nourishment of the earth, but from the special quality of the root. Even so the general power to act is from God. In him we live, and move, and have our being. This is good. But the specification, and determination of this general power to the doing of any evil, is from ourselves, and proceeds from the free-will of man. This is bad. And to speak properly, the free-will of man is not the efficient cause of sin, as the root of the hemlock is of poison, sin having no true entity or being in it, as poison hath; but rather the deficient cause. Now no defect can flow from him who is the highest perfection. (d) Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken, to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God. The general power to act is from God, but the specification of this general and good power to murder, or to any particular evil, is not from God, but from the free-will of man. So T. H. may see clearly if he will, how one may be the cause of the law, and likewise of the action in some sort, that is, by general influence; and yet another cause concurring, by special influence and determining this general and good power, may make itself the true cause of the anomy or the irregularity. And therefore he may keep his longer and shorter garments for some other occasion. Certainly, they will not fit this subject, unless he could make general and special influence to be all one.
“But T. H. presseth yet further, that the case is the same, and the objection used by the Jews, (verse 19): Why doth he yet find fault; who hath resisted his will? is the very same with my argument; and St. Paul’s answer, (verse 20:) O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over his clay? &c., is the very same with his answer in this place, drawn from the irresistible power and absolute dominion of God, which justifieth all his actions. And that the apostle in his answer doth not deny that it was God’s will, nor that God’s decree was before Esau’s sin.
“To which I reply, first, that the case is not at all the same, but quite different, as may appear by these particulars; first, those words, before they had done either good or evil, are not, cannot be referred to those other words, Esau have I hated. Secondly, if they could, yet it is less than nothing, because before Esau had actually sinned, his future sins were known to God. Thirdly, by the potter’s clay, here is not to be understood the pure mass, but the corrupted mass of mankind. Fourthly, the hating here mentioned is only a comparative hatred, that is, a less degree of love. Fifthly, the hardening which St. Paul speaks of, is not a positive, but a negative obduration, or a not imparting of grace. Sixthly, St. Paul speaketh not of any positive reprobation to eternal punishment, much less doth he speak of the actual inflicting of punishment without sin, which is the question between us, and wherein T. H. differs from all that I remember to have read, who do all acknowledge that punishment is never actually inflicted but for sin. If the question be put, why God doth good to one more than to another, or why God imparteth more grace to one than to another, as it is there, the answer is just and fit, because it is his pleasure, and it is sauciness in a creature in this case to reply, (Matthew xx. 15): May not God do what he will with his own? No man doubteth but God imparteth grace beyond man’s desert. (e) But if the case be put, why God doth punish one more than another, or why he throws one into hell-fire, and not another, which is the present case agitated between us; to say with T. H., that it is because God is omnipotent, or because his power is irresistible, or merely because it is his pleasure, is not only not warranted, but is plainly condemned by St. Paul in this place. So many differences there are between those two cases. It is not therefore against God that I reply, but against T. H. I do not call my Creator to the bar, but my fellow-creature; I ask no account of God’s counsels, but of man’s presumptions. It is the mode of these times to father their own fancies upon God, and when they cannot justify them by reason, to plead his omnipotence, or to cry, O altitudo, that the ways of God are unsearchable. If they may justify their drowsy dreams, because God’s power and dominion is absolute; much more may we reject such phantastical devices which are inconsistent with the truth and goodness and justice of God, and make him to be a tyrant, who is the Father of Mercies and the God of all consolation. The unsearchableness of God’s ways should be a bridle to restrain presumption, and not a sanctuary for spirits of error.
“Secondly, this objection contained ver. 19, to which the apostle answers ver. 20, is not made in the person of Esau or Pharaoh, as T. H. supposeth, but of the unbelieving Jews, who thought much at that grace and favour which God was pleased to vouchsafe unto the Gentiles, to acknowledge them for his people, which honour they would have appropriated to the posterity of Abraham. And the apostle’s answer is not only drawn from the sovereign dominion of God, to impart his grace to whom he pleaseth, as hath been shewed already, but also from the obstinacy and proper fault of the Jews, as appeareth verse 22: What if God, willing (that is, by a consequent will) to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endureth with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. They acted, God endured; they were tolerated by God, but fitted to destruction by themselves; for their much wrong-doing, here is God’s much long-suffering. And more plainly, verse 31, 32: Israel hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. This reason is set down yet more emphatically in the next chapter (Rom. x. 3): They (that is, the Israelites) being ignorant of God’s righteousness, (that is, by faith in Christ), and going about to establish their own righteousness, (that is, by the works of the law), have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. And yet most expressly (chap. xi. 20): Because of unbelief they were broken off, but thou standest by faith. Neither was there any precedent binding decree of God, to necessitate them to unbelief, and consequently to punishment. It was in their own power by their concurrence with God’s grace to prevent these judgments, and to recover their former estate; verse 23: If they (that is, the unbelieving Jews) abide not still in unbelief they shall be grafted in. The crown and the sword are immovable, (to use St. Anselm’s comparison), but it is we that move and change places. Sometimes the Jews were under the crown, and the Gentiles under the sword; sometimes the Jews under the sword, and the Gentiles under the crown.
“Thirdly, though I confess that human pacts are not the measure of God’s justice, but his justice is his own immutable will, whereby he is ready to give every man that which is his own, as rewards to the good, punishments to the bad; so nevertheless God may oblige himself freely to his creature. He made the covenant of works with mankind in Adam; and therefore he punisheth not man contrary to his own covenant, but for the transgression of his duty. And divine justice is not measured by omnipotence or by irresistible power, but by God’s will. God can do many things according to his absolute power, which he doth not. He could raise up children to Abraham of stones, but he never did so. It is a rule in theology, that God cannot do anything which argues any wickedness or imperfection: as God cannot deny himself (2 Timothy ii. 13); he cannot lie (Titus i. 2). These and the like are the fruits of impotence, not of power. So God cannot destroy the righteous with the wicked (Genesis xviii. 25.) He could not destroy Sodom whilst Lot was in it, (Genesis xix. 22); not for want of dominion or power, but because it was not agreeable to his justice, nor to that law which himself had constituted. The apostle saith (Hebrews vi. 10), God is not unrighteous to forget your work. As it is a good consequence to say, this is from God, therefore it is righteous; so is this also, this thing is unrighteous, therefore it cannot proceed from God. We see how all creatures by instinct of nature do love their young, as the hen her chickens; how they will expose themselves to death for them. And yet all these are but shadows of that love which is in God towards his creatures. How impious is it then to conceive, that God did create so many millions of souls to be tormented eternally in hell, without any fault of theirs except such as he himself did necessitate them unto, merely to shew his dominion, and because his power is irresistible? The same privilege which T. H. appropriates here to power absolutely irresistible, a friend of his, in his book De Cive, cap. VI., ascribes to power respectively irresistible, or to sovereign magistrates, whose power he makes to be as absolute as a man’s power is over himself; not to be limited by any thing, but only by their strength. The greatest propugners of sovereign power think it enough for princes to challenge an immunity from coercive power, but acknowledge that the law hath a directive power over them. But T. H. will have no limits but their strength. Whatsoever they do by power, they do justly.
“But, saith he, God objected no sin to Job, but justified his afflicting him by his power. First, this is an argument from authority negatively, that is to say, worth nothing. Secondly, the afflictions of Job were no vindicatory punishments to take vengeance of his sins, (whereof we dispute), but probatory chastisements to make trial of his graces. Thirdly, Job was not so pure, but that God might justly have laid greater punishments upon him, than those afflictions which he suffered. Witness his impatience, even to the cursing of the day of his nativity (Job iii. 3). Indeed God said to Job, (Job xxxviii. 4): Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? that is, how canst thou judge of the things that were done before thou wast born, or comprehend the secret causes of my judgments? And (Job xl. 9): Hast thou an arm like God? As if he should say, why art thou impatient; dost thou think thyself able to strive with God? But that God should punish Job without desert, here is not a word.
“Concerning the blind man mentioned John ix, his blindness was rather a blessing to him than a punishment, being the means to raise his soul illuminated, and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with ants and flies, but the sight of the soul with the blessed angels. We read of some who have put out their bodily eyes, because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the soul. Again, neither he nor his parents were innocent, being conceived and born in sin and iniquity (Psalm li. 5). And in many things we offend all (James iii. 2). But our Saviour’s meaning is evident by the disciples’ question, John ix. 2. They had not so sinned, that he should be born blind; or they were not more grievous sinners than other men, to deserve an exemplary judgment more than they; but this corporal blindness befel him principally by the extraordinary providence of God, for the manifestation of his own glory in restoring him to his sight. So his instance halts on both sides; neither was this a punishment, nor the blind man free from sin. His third instance of the death and torments of beasts, is of no more weight than the two former. The death of brute beasts is not a punishment of sin, but a debt of nature. And though they be often slaughtered for the use of man, yet there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs, and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell; between the mere depriving of a creature of temporal life, and the subjecting of it to eternal death. I know the philosophical speculations of some, who affirm, that entity is better than non-entity, that it is better to be miserable and suffer the torments of the damned, than to be annihilated and cease to be altogether. This entity which they speak of, is a metaphysical entity abstracted from the matter, which is better than non-entity, in respect of some goodness, not moral nor natural, but transcendental, which accompanies every being. But in the concrete it is far otherwise, where that saying of our Saviour often takes place, (Matthew xxvi. 24): Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It had been good for that man, that he had not been born. I add, that there is an analogical justice and mercy due even to the brute beasts. Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, a just man is merciful to his beast.