Bramhall, John, 1594-1663. The works of the Most Reverend Father in God,
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THE
WORKS
OF THE
MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,
JOHN BRAMHALL, D. D.
SOMETIME LORD ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH, PRIMATE AND METROPOLITAN OF ALL IRELAND.
WITH
A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
AND A COLLECTION OF HIS LETTERS.
VOL. IV.
OXFORD :
JOHN HENRY PARKER. MDCCCXLIV.
OXFORD : PRINTED BY I. SHRIMPTON.
PREFACE.
In the volume now published will be found the whole of BramhalFs Discourses against Hobbes_, which form the third part of his collected Works. An account of the controversy that gave rise to them has been given in vol. i. pp. xxxi — xxxiii. A list of the tracts relating to it is here subjoined.
1 . A Discourse of Liberty and Necessity by John Bramhall Bishop of Derry. — Written, and sent to the (then) Marquis of Newcastle to be transmitted to Hobbes, in 1645, after a verbal discussion of the subject in the Marquis's presence; but first published in 1655 with the two tracts to be next mentioned.
i. Of Liberty and Necessity ; a Treatise wherein all Con- troversy concerning Predestination, Election, Free will, Grace, Merit, Reprobation, &c., is fully Decided and Cleared : in Answer to a Treatise by the Bishop of Londonderry on the same Subject. Lond. 1654. 12mo. by Thomas Hobbes. — AVritten as a letter to the Marquis of Newcastle, Aug. 20. 1645% from Bouen, in answer to
" The original edition of this letter (see p. 23 of the present volume), and
(in 165 1) the present editor has not as the date of the letter as published in
seen ; and Hobbes (Qu., Aniinadv. 1679 by Bp. Laney (see p. 19, note b
upon the Bp's. Epist. to the Reader, of this vol.) is as above given (viz.
p. 19) speaks of it as written in 1616 Aug. 20. 1645), it seems probable that
instead of 161-5. But as Bramhall had Hobbes was himself mistaken, and that
had the MS. in his possession a con- 1645 is the true date, siderable time so early as April 1646
PREFACE.
BramhalVs Discourse^ and to be transmitted to liim. It was first published in 1654 without Hobbes's knowledge, with the above title and a Preface, for neither of which is Hobbes responsible, and with the erroneous date of 1652b.
2. Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent Necessity, &c. &c., by John Bramhall, D.D. and Lord Bishop of Derry. In answer to the last named; written in 1646, and com- municated then to the Marquis of Newcastle and to Hobbes, but first published in 1655 (8vo. Lond.), upon the appearance of Hobbes^s Letter just mentioned ; the original Discourse and that Letter being divided into sections, and published together in one volume, section by section, with BramhalFs reply to each.
These three tracts, thus intermixed one with the other, constitute the first Discourse in the present volume.
ii. The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance, clearly Stated and Debated between Dr. Bram- hall Bishop of Derry and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (Lond. 4to. 1656). — Containing all three of the above named tracts, printed section by section, together with Hobbes^s rejoinder, in the shape of Animadversions^^ upon each section.
3. Castigations of Mr. Hobbes his last Animadversions in the case concerning Liberty and Universal Necessity, by John Bramhall, D.D. and Bishop of Derry (Lond. 8vo. 1657 — 1658). — The second Discourse in the present volume.
4. The Catching of Leviathan or the Great Whale, &c. &c., by John Bramhall, D.D. and Bishop of Derry (Lond. 8vo. 1658) : — at first designed to form a part of the Castigations,
^ Molesworth in his late edition of neous date of the original publication Hobbes's Works (vol. iv. p. 278) has in 1654: the case at best (i. e. sup- mistaken the matter altogether. He posing 1646 were the true date and not imagines 1652 to be the correct date of 1645) being precisely the reverse, the letter, and gives 1646 as the erro-
PREFACE.
but enlarged afterwards into a distinct tract, although still printed as an appendix and continuation of that work. It is professedly an exposure of the gross and dangerous errors of Hobbes's Leviathan, but refers also to his book De Give and to his Questions just now mentioned : and forms the third Discourse in the present volume.
iii. An Answer to a Book published by Dr. Bramhall, late Bishop of Derry, called The Catching of the Leviathan ; together with an Historical Narration concerning Heresy and the Punishment thereof: by Thomas Hobbes. — Pub- lished at London in 1682 (8vo.) after the author's death, but written (according to the ^Advertisement to the Reader) ten years only after the publication of BramhalFs book (which had not sooner come to the wi'iter's know- ledge). This would mark its date to 1668, in which year Hobbes was in great alarm lest legal measures should be taken against him on account of his writings (see his Life in the Biogr. Brit, note K). Among other steps to justify and protect himself, he appears to have composed this tract; of which the first part is an "answer" (what Hobbes at least called such) to the first chapter of the Leviathan, that relating to his religious sentiments. To the Castigations he made no reply, nor to the remainder of BramhalFs attack upon his Leviathan.
Such was the course of the controversy, with which the present volume is concerned ; from which Hobbes appears to have come off with less loss of credit than from his complete defeat he deserved (see, for instance, Brucker's ac- count of the matter). It is to be regretted, that Bramhall should have been led to cast his thoughts upon such a sub- ject into the form of an answer to Hobbes^s tracts. The consequence is, that instead of a complete and connected discussion of a very abstruse subject, such as his peculiar talents and knowledge especially fitted him to produce, and
PREFACE.
of which passages in these tracts as they at present stand afford a specimen, the course of his argument is now too often broken off by the necessity of perpetual rephes to the feeble and perverse crotchets of his adversary : and the reader is forced to conclude,, that in this (as in nine-tenths of his other writings) BramhalFs fame would have stood higher, had his opponent been more worthy of him.
A. W. H.
August J 1844.
CONTENTS OF VOL. IV.
Page
Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal
Necessity ; Against Mr. Hobbes. Part iii. Discourse i. 3 Castigations of Mr. Hobbes his last Animadversions in the
Case concerning Liberty and Universal Necessity. Part iii.
Discourse ii. . . . . . .197
The Catching of Leviathan or the Great Whale. Part iii.
Discourse iii. . . . . . . 507
THE WORKS
OP
ARCHBISHOP BRAMHALL.
PART THE THIRD;
CONTAINING
THE DISCOURSES AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
BRAMHAI.I..
B
DISCOURSE 1.
A DEFENCE
OF
TRUE LIBERTY
FROM
ANTECEDENT AND EXTRINSECAL NECESSITY;
BEING
AN ANSWER
TO A LATE BOOK OF MR. THOMAS HOBBES OF MALMESBURY,
ENTITLED
A TREATISE OF LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.
WRITTEN BY THE EIGHT REVEREND
JOHN BRAMHALL, D.D.
AND V LORD BISHOP OF DERRY.
B 2
CONTENTS.
[Epistle to the Marquis of Newcastle Advertisement to the Reader.]
[Introduction.]
NUMBER I.
D — [Introduction of the subject. T. H. — Introduction of the subject. J. D.'s Reply. .... T. H.'s own words convict his theory of falsehood.]
NUMBER II.
IT. H.'s boast. J. D.'s Reply.]
NUMBER III.
[r. H.'s Ansiver to J. D.'s Preface.
Liberty to act does not imply liberty to will. J. D.'s Reply. ....
1. T. H. confounds liberty with spontaneity.
2. And hypothetical with antecedent necessity.
3. True liberty includes liberty to will.]
6
CONTENTS.
Page
[The Stating of the Question.]
NUMBER IV.
J. D. — [True liberty, an universal immunity from all determination to one. 33
T. H's Answer. . . . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . .34
Different senses of the word liberty explained. . . . ib.
Liberty of contradiction and of contrariety, of exercise and of speci- fication.] . . . . . . .36
NUMBER V.
J. D. — [Division of the argument. . . . . .37
7'. H.'s Ansiver. . . . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply.] lb.
T. Proofs of Liberty out of Scripture^
NUMBER VI.
T. D. — Argument 1. — [That men have power of election, and therefore
true liberty. . . . . . . . ib.
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . .38
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . . ib.
1. Election is only of alternatives conceived possible. . . ib.
2. Universal consent. . . . . , .39
3. Holy Scripture.] . . . . . .41
NUMBER VII.
[T. H.'s assertion, that the last act of the reason necessitates the will. . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . .42
1. The last act of the reason is itself an act of the will. . . ib.
2. It determines the will morally, not necessarily ; . . ib.
3. Nor yet to one course unalterably ; . . . .43
4. Nor in such a way, that the will cannot suspend its own act ; . ib.
5. Nor antecedently or extrinsecally. . . . . ib.
6. T. H.'s affectation of new terms of art. . . . 44
Further answer of T. H. . . . . . . ib.
.1. D.'s Reply.] ....... ib.
CONTENTS. 7
Page
NUMBER VIII.
[ T. H.'s Further Answer . . . . . ,4)5
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . .47
1. T. H. mistakes the author's words. . . . . ib.
2. And contradicts himself. . . . . . ib.
3. Actions which proceed from fear, may or may not be spontaneous. 48
4. Definition of voluntary and involuntary acts. . . .49
5. Necessity and election inconsistent in the same act. . . ib.
6. Irrational beings neither deliberate nor elect. . . .50
7. Habitual actions voluntary. . . . . .53
8. How they differ from actions done in passion.] . . ib.
NUMBER IX.
J. D. — Argument 2. — [That men may do many things and do them not,
and therefore have true liberty. . . . .54
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . .55
J. D.'s Reply.] . . . . . . . ib.
NUMBER X.
J. D. — Argument 3. — [That the interrogations, expostulations, and the like,
in Scripture, prove men to have true liberty. . . 56
T. H.'s Answer deferred. . . . . . .57
J. D.'s Reply.] . . . . . . . ib.
NUMBER XI.
J. D. — Argument 4. — [That every theory of necessity proves too much, in
proving Adam a necessary agent; which yet Necessitarians deny. 58
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . . ib.
T, H.'s own theory of necessity. . . . . . ib.
Of the theories of necessity held by others. . . . ib.
Election as well as action necessary. . . . .59
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . . ib.
The decrees and foreknowledge of God. . . . .60
The influences of the stars. . . . . . ib.
The concatenation of causes. . . . . . ib.
Physical and moral efficacy of objects. . . . .61
The last dictate of the understanding. . . . . ib.
Adam was a necessary agent if other men are. . . .62
Horrid consequences of the doctrine of necessity.] . . 63
8 CONTENTS.
Page
NUMBER XII.
J. D. — Argument 5. — [That the theory of Necessity leaves no room for
reward or punishment. . , . . . .64
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . . ih.
St. Paul's argument in the Epistle to the Romans. . . . ib.
The power of God alone is sufficient to justify any action He doth. . 65 There is no difference between a will active and a will permissive, or a will causing the act and a will causing the sin. . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . 66
The passage of St. Paul explained, as to its general scope. . 67 , in its particular passages. . ib.
1. How Jacob was loved and Esau hated. . . .68
2. Of the freedom of God's mercy. . . . ib.
3. In what sense God's glory is either the end or the consequence
of man's sin. . . . . . .69
4. In what sense God is said to harden men's hearts. . . ib. There is a real difference between an operative and a permissive will. 71
How God is the cause of the act, yet not of the sin of the act. . 74 God's justice not measured by His power, but by His will, and that
the will of One Who is perfect. . . . . .75
The case of Job. . . . . . . . 7&
And of the blind maa mentioned in St. John's Gospel. . . 79
And of the brute beasts . . . . . . ib.
Power to be regulated by justice, not justice by power. . . 80
T. H.'s theory makes God inevitably the cause of sin.] . . 81
II. Proofs of Liberty drawn from Reason.
NUMBER XIII.
J. D. — Argument 1. — [Story of Zeno : — necessity of sin implies necessity
of pimishment. . . . , . .82
T. H.^s Answer. . . . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply.] . . . . . . . ib.
NUMBER XIV.
J. D. — Argument 2. — [The doctrine of necessity overthrows the frame- work
of all human society. . . . . .84
T. H.'s Answer. ' . . . . . .85
The law not unjust because the violntioii of it is necessary. . . ib.
Necessity does not supersede consultation. . . . .86
Nor admonition. . . . . . . .87
Nor praise or dispraise. . .... . ib.
Nor the use of means. . . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . .88
CONTENTS.
9
Page
T. H.'s answer both irrelevant and untrue. . . . .88
Laws de facto may be unjust. . . . . .89
Not all laws made by consent of those subject to them. . . 90
Punishment unjust for sin committed through antecedent necessity. . ib. Temptation does not involve an antecedent necessity of sin. . 91
Law useless on the theory of necessity. . . , .92
Punishment vindicatory, not corrective only. , . . ib.
T. H.'s inconsistencies. . . , . .93
Right and wrong antecedent to human pacts. . . .94
Consultation does imply liberty, and does not necessitate determination. 96
Admonitions do imply liberty, because they are addressed to those only who are conceived to be free. . . . . .98
Praise moral, although not praise metaphysical, does imply liberty. . ib.
Of rewards and punishments ; — the parallel of brute beasts not re- levant. ........ 100
1. All the actions of brute beasts not necessary. . . . ib.
2. The terms reward and punishment applied to them by analogy only. . . . . . . .101
3. They act in such cases, not from reason, but from sense of present or memory of past joy or pain.] . . . ib.
NUMBER XV.
J. D. — Argument 3. — [The opinion of necessity inconsistent with piety. . ib.
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . .102
The opinion of necessity doth not involve impiety in right-minded men. . 103
Kor exclude repentance. . . . . . . ib.
Nor prayer. . . . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . .104
T. H. mistaketh piety to be an act of the judgment. . . ib.
And to respect God's power only. , . . . . ib.
His opinion destroys the moral attributes of God. . . . ib.
And the outward worship of God. ..... 105
And repentance. . . . . . . . ib.
T. H. denieth prayer to be either a cause or a means of God's
blessings.] . . . . . . .107
NUMBER XVL
J. D Argument 4. — [The opinion of necessity destroys the variety and per-
fection of the universe. ..... 109
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . .110
Hypothetical, distinct from antecedent, necessity. . , ib.
Contingent events.] . . . . . .111
10
CONTENTS.
Page
NUMBER XVII.
J. D. — Argument 5. — [If there be no true liberty, there is no formal sin. . 112
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . , ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . .113
Sin, to be sin, must be an act of a, free will against a, just law.] . 114
[III. Distinctions made by Necessitarians,]
NUMBER XVIII.
J. D. — [Distinction i. — Between Stoical and Christian necessity. . .116
1. That the Stoics subject God to destiny, they subject destiny to God. . . . . . . ib.
2. That the Stoics hold a necessary connection of cavxses, they hold God to be the one pervading Cause. . . ib.
3. That the Stoics deny contingents, they admit them. . ib. Distinction ii. — Between the First Cause, which necessitates all things, and
second causes, which do not. . . . . . .117
1. The two parts of this distinction contradict one another, ib.
2. The First Cause being necessary, second causes must
be so likewise. . . . . . . ib.
T. H.'s Answer.'] — Certain distinctions, which he supposing may be
brought to his arguments, are by him removed. . .118
[r. //. disavows both distinctions. . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . . ib.
Christian necessity (so called) only disguised Stoical necessity. . ib.
The terms are employed by Lipsius. . . .119
The First Cause not a necessary cause of all effects.] . .120
NUMBER XIX.
J. D — [Distinction iii. — Between liberty from compulsion and liberty from
necessitation. . . . . . . . .121
Antecedent necessity involves compulsion. . . . ib.
Of the freedom of God, and of the good Angels. . . . ib.
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . .122
Hypothetical necessity. . . . . . . ib.
Of God, and of the good Angels. . . . . . ib.
Degrees of liberty impossible. . . . . . . 1 23
Liberty of exercise and liberty of specification cannot exist apart. . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . . .121'
Actions proceeding from fear are not compulsory actions. . . ib.
CONTENTS.
11
Page
Proper compulsion extrinsecal. . . . . .125
Men ordinarily, not always, free. . . . . ib.
Hypothetical necessity. . . . . . .126
Of God and of good Angels. ..... 127
Degrees of liberty possible. . . . . . ib.
Liberty of exercise not necessarily accompanied by liberty of specifi- cation, . . . . . . • .128
T. H.'s presumptuous censure of the doctors of the Church.] . ib.
NUMBER XX.
J. D. — [Election opposed to coarctation as well as to coaction. . .130
Elicit acts of the will cannot be necessitated. . . . ib.
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . .131
Election not inconsistent with necessity. . . . . ib.
The distinction vain, betiveen imperate and elicit acts of the will. . 132
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . .133
Compulsion and necessitation both opposite to liberty, , . ib.
Of mixed actions. . , . . . .134
Of fear and other passions. . , . . . ib.
Motives cannot compel the will. . , . .136
Liberty not ignorance of necessitation. . , .* . 137
T. H.'s impertinent instance of fire burning. . . . ib.
Distinction of imperate and elicit acts not improper. . .138
Nor unnecessarily obscure. , , , . ,140
T. H, entirely mistakes the author's words.] , . . . ib.
[IV. Theories concerning the cause of a supposed necessity.]
NUMBER XXI.
J. D.— [i. Astrology, . , . . , . .141
ii. The complexion and temperature of the body. . . .142
T. H.'s Answer. , . . . . , . ib.
J. D.'s Reply.] . . . . . . . ib.
NUMBER XXTI.
J. D. — [iii. The moral efficacy of outward objects. .... 143
Such efficacy partly our own fault. . . . ib.
not irresistible. . . , . ib.
may be overcome by a settled resolution. . 144
/'. H.'s Answer. . . . . , . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply,] . . . , . , ,115
12
CONTENTS.
Page
NUMBER XXIII.
J. D. — [iv. The natural efficacy of the last dictate of the understanding. . 147 The case otherwise in point of fact. . . . ib.
Such a cause neither extrinsecal nor antecedent. . . ib.
The understanding may be equally balanced between two alternatives. ...... 148
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply, . . . . . . .149
The last feather breaketh the horse's back. . . . .150
T. H.'s example of a man that strikes. .... 151
Of Medea's choice. . . . . . . ib.
And Caesar's. . . . . . . . ib.
Affection sometimes prevails against reason.] . . . 152
NUMBER XXIV.
•T. D. — [v. The prescience and decrees of God. .... 153
Our ignorance a sufficient answer. . . . ib.
Futurity ever present to God. . . . . ib.
T. H.'s Answer. . . . . . . . ib.
Events necessarily determined by antecedent and extrinsecal causes. . 154 Eternity not an indivisible point but a succession. . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . .155
A certain and received truth not to be deserted because it is hard to
be understood. . . . . . . . ib.
How contingent events are reconcileable with God's prescience and decrees. . . . . . . .156
The aspect of God. . . . . . . ib.
Necessity not identical with God's decrees. . . . ib.
Other explanations have been offered of the subject besiJes the author's. ....... 157
That eternity is not a succession but an indivisible point. . ib.
T. H.'s boastful conclusion.] ..... 159
[v. REMAINDER OF T. H.'s ANSWER.]
NUMBER XXV.
T. H. — My opinion about liberty and necessity. . . . ib.
[i. Of actions done without deliberation. . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . . iGO
Of actions done in sudden passions. .... 161
Of actions done without present deliberation. . . . 162
Actions done in passion justly punished, because done through past
or present choice.] . . . . . . ib.
NUMBER XXVI.
T. II. — [ii. Of actions done with deliberation. . . . .163
J. D.'s Reply.] . . . . . . . .164
CONTENTS. 13
Pago
NUMBER XXVII.
T. H. — [iii. The will the last step before action. . . • .164
J. D.'s Reply. i''- T. H. confounds the act of volition with the will itself.] . . ib.
NUMBER XXVIII.
T, H. — [iv. A voluntary act free until deliberatimi ends. . . .165 J. D.'s Reply ] i^^-
NUMBER XXIX.
T. H.—l\. Definition of liberty. . . . . • • 166
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . • • • -167
T. H.'s definition one of negatives. . . . . ib.
His instances. . . . • • . . ib.
His definition far removed from the idea of moral liberty.] . 168
NUMBER XXX.
T. H. — [vi. All things take their beginning from an antecedent and extrinsecal
cause. . . . . . . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . . .169
Nothing finite begins to be of itself. . . . . ib.
Many things begin to act of themselves. . . . . ib.
The will is not a necessary cause of its particialar acts.] . .170
NUMBER XXXI.
T. H. — [vii. Every actual event hath a sufficient and therefore a necessary cause. 171
J. D.'s Reply. ....... ib.
1. Causes singly insufficient which jointly are sufficient. . . ib.
2. That cause properly sufficient which produceththe eflfect intended. 172
3. A cause is sufficient in respect of its ability, not of its will, to act. ib. 4-. A sufficient cause inclusive of will, only hypothetically necessary.] 1 73
14
CONTENTS.
Page
NUMBER XXXII.
T. H. — [viii. Free agency a self contradiction, because it implies a sufficient
cause without an actual effect. . . . . .173
J. D.'s Reply. ........ ib.
Sufficient causes include not the actual determination of the will. . 174
• refer to the producibility, not to the production, of
an event.] . . . . . . . ib.
NUMBER XXXIII.
T. H. — \_Pr oof of necessity, from men's experience of their own meaning in the
use of words. . . . . . . .175
.T. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . .176
Truth to be sought in reason, not in vulgar notions. . . ib.
Men's experience contrary to T. H.'s conclusions.] . .177
NUMBER XXXIV.
T. H. — [Sufficieiit causes necessary causes. . . . . .180
Instance of throwing dice. . , . . . ib.
a shower of rain. . . . . .181
J. D.'s Reply. . . . . . . . . ib.
Our question, of human actions, not of natural contingencies. . ib.
of absolute, not of hypothetical, necessity. . .184
Of T. H.'s instance of the shower of rain. . . . .185
A contrary instance.] . . . . . .187
NUMBER XXXV.
T. H. — \A free agent impossible, because a sufficient ?nusi be a necessary cause. 188 J. D.'s Reply.] ....... ib.
NUMBER XXXVI.
T. JI. — lOf the inconveniency of denying necessity. . . . .189
J. D.'s Reply. ........ ib.
Freedom of man not inconsistent with God's eternal decrees. . 190
Nor with Ills eternal prescience.] ..... 191
CONTENTS. 15
Page
NUMBER XXXVII.
T. H.~-[Co7iclusioii. . . . . . . .192
J. D.'s Reply. ........ ib.
Of T. H.'s desire of secrecy.] . . . . . ib.
NUMBER XXXVIII.
T. H. — Postscript. . , . . . . .193
[ The cause of the erroneous opinion of liberty. . . . ib.
J. D.'s Reply.] . . . . . . ib.
•7
TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE MARQUIS OF NEWCASTLE,
&c.
Sir,
If I pretended to compose a complete treatise upon this subject, I should not refuse those large recruits of reasons and authorities, which offer themselves to serve in this cause, for God and man, religion and policy, Church and common- wealth, against the blasphemous, desperate, and destructive opinion of fatal destiny. But as mine aim, in the first dis- course, was only to press home those things in writing which had been agitated between us by word of mouth (a course much to be preferred before verbal conferences, as being freer from passions and tergiversations, less subject to mistakes and misrelations, wherein paralogisms are more quickly detected, impertinencies discovered, and confusion avoided), so my present intention is only to vindicate that discourse, and together with it, those lights of the Schools, who were never slighted but where they were not understood. How far I have performed it, I leave to the judicious and unpartial reader, resting for mine own part well contented with this, that I have satisfied myself.
Your Lordship's most obliged
to love and serve you,
J. D.
r.RAMlIAI.L-
C
648
TO THE READER.
Christian E/Eader, this ensuing treatise was neither penned nor intended for the press, but privately undertaken, that by the ventilation of the question truth might be cleared from mistakes*. The same was Mr. Hobbes his desire at that time; as appeareth by four passages in his book, wherein he requesteth and beseecheth that it may be kept private^. But either through forgetfulness or change of judgment, he hath now caused or permitted it to be printed in England^, without either adjoining my first discourse, to which he wrote that answer, or so much as mentioning this reply, which he hath had in his hands now these eight years'^. So wide is the date of his letter, — " in the year 1652^,^' — from the truth, and his manner of dealing with me in this particular from ingenuity (if the edition were with his own consent). How- soever, here is all that passed between us upon this subject, without any addition, or the least variation from the original.
* [For an account of the dispute which led to the publication of this and the following tracts, see vol. i. pp. xxxi. — xxxiii. of the present edition of Bramhall's works, and the Preface to this volume.]
b pp. 18, 26, 35, and 80. [viz. of Hobbes' Letter to the Marquis of Newcastle as first published, Lond. 12mo. 1654: see below Numbers xi, xiv, XV, xxxvii. The latter part of Hobbes' Letter, viz. from Numb. xxv. inclusive to the end, was republished in 1676 (12mo. Lond.), with "Ob- servations by a Learned Prelate of the Church of England lately de- ceased," viz. Dr. Benjamin Laney, who was Bishop of Peterborough, Lin- coln, and Ely, successively from 1660 until his death in 1674 ; and the whole letter was published again, according toWood(Ath.Oxon., iii. 1212), in 1684 (8vo., as the third edition).]
[The present editor has been unable
to meet with the original edition of Hobbes' Letter; but it appears from Hobbes' reply to Bramhall's Defence (Animadv. on the Bishop's Epistle to the Reader, p. 19), that it was printed in London without the author's know- ledge or consent, by " an English young man," who had been allowed to trans- late it for the benefit of a French ac- quaintance of Hobbes', and who, *' being a nimble writer, took a copy of it also for himself." See also Bramhall's Castigations of the Animadversions (below p. 751, fol. edit.). Disc. ii. Pt. iii.]
[Scil. 1646—1654. See below notes a, b. pp. 23, 24.]
* [It appears by the passage of Hobbes' reply to Bramhall's Defence above quoted in note c, that the person who edited Hobbes' Letter in the first instance, mistook the date, and printed it as "in 1652," instead of Aug. 20, 1645, which was the true date.]
c 2
20
TO THE READER.
Concerning the nameless autlior of the preface^, who takes upon him to hang out an ivy-bush before this rare piece of sublimated stoicism, to invite passengers to purchase it, as I know not who he is, so I do not much heed it, nor regard either his ignorant censures or hyperbolical expressions. The Church of England is as much above his detraction, as he is beneath this question. Let him lick up the spittle of Dionysius by himself, as his servile flatterers did, and protest that it is more sweet than nectar^: we emy him not; much good may it do him. His very frontispiece is a sufficient confutation of his whole preface ; wherein he tells the world, as falsely and ignorantly as confidently, that " all controversy concerning Predestination, Election, Free-will, Grace, Merits, Reprobation, &c., is fully decided and cleared ^.^^ Thus he accustometh his pen to run over beyond all limits of truth and discretion, to let us see that his knowledge in theological controversies is none at all, and into what miserable times we are fallen, when blind men ^vill be the only judges of colours.
" Quid tanto dignum feret hie promissor hiatu^?"
There is yet one thing more, whereof I desire to advertise the reader. Whereas Mr. Hobbes mentions my objections to [A.D.1645] his Book De Cive^, it is true, that ten years since I gave him about sixty exceptions, the one half of them political, the other half theological, to that book, and every exception justified by a number of reasons ; to which he never yet vouchsafed any answer. Nor do I now desire it ; for since that, he hath published his Leviathan —
" Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptuml," —
which aff'ords much more matter of exception. And I am informed, that there are already two, the one of our own Church, the other a stranger"^, who have shaken in pieces
^ [Scil. to the surreptitious edition ^ [From the title-page, apparently,
of Hobbes' Letter. Who this was does of the first edition of Hobbes' Letter.] not appear; further than what has been i [Hor., A. P., 138.] said above. For the style of his Pre- p. 1. [of T. H.'s Letter, ed. 1654.
. face, see below in the Castigations of See below Numb.i. p. 23.] Mr. Hobbes' Animadversions, Answ. to i [Virg., JEn., iii. 658.] Animadvers. on the Bishop's Epistle ™ [See below, in the Preface to the
to the Reader, p. 751 (fol. edit.). Disc. Catching of Leviathan, p. 869 (fol.-
ii. Pt. iii.] edit.). Disc. iii. Pt. iii.]
K [Athen. Deipnosoph. vi. 13.]
TO THE READER.
21
the whole fabric of his city, that was but builded in the air, and resolved that huge mass of his seeming Leviathan into a new nothing, and that their labours will speedily be pub- lished. But if this information should not prove true, I will not grudge upon his desire, God willing, to demonstrate, that his principles are pernicious, both to piety and policy, and destructive to all relations of mankind, between prince and subject, father and child, master and servant, husband and wife; and that they, who maintain them obstinately, are fitter to live in hollow trees among wild beasts, than in any Christian or political society". So God bless us.
[Vide The Catching of the Leviathan, &c., below, Disc. iii. Pt. iii., at the end of this volume. ]
Y
A
yiNDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
FROM
ANTECEDENT AND EXTRINSECAL NECESSITY.
[first printed at LONDON, A.D. 1655.]
[INTRODUCTION.]
NUIVEBER I.
J. D. — Either I am free to write this discourse for liberty Discourse against necessity, or I am not free. If I be free, I have ob- ^^^^^J^^^ tained the cause, and ought not to suffer for the truth. If I tion of the be not free, yet I ought not to be blamed, since I do it not ^^^j^^*"^ out of any voluntary election, but out of an inevitable neces- sity^
T. H. — Right Honourable, I had once resolved to answer {Tntroduc J. D.^s objections to my book De Cive in the first place, 3-8 subject.'] that which concerns me most, and afterwards to examine this discourse of liberty and necessity, which (because I never had uttered my opinion of it) concerned me the less. But seeing it was both your Lordship's and J. D.'s desire, that I should begin with the latter, I was contented so to do. And here I present and submit it to your Lordship's judgment.
J. D. — The first day that I did read over T. H. his defence [Reply.] of the necessity of all things, was April 20, 1646 : which pro-
* [The present " Discourse" is com- to this discourse, written also in 1645
posed of three several tracts, printed as a letter to the Marquis of Newcastle,
in successive portions: viz. 1. "a and surreptitiously printed in 1654;
discourse of liberty and necessity," and 3. Bramhall's reply to Hobbes'
written by Bramhall in 1645 in con- answer, written also in 1645, and sent
sequence of a conversation between at that time (through the Marquis) to
Hobbes and himself in the presence of Hobbes, but printed for the first time
the Marquis of Newcastle, but not (with his original discourse and Hobbes'
printed until 1655 ; 2. Hobbes' answer letter, as here reprinted) in 1655.]
24
k VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
P A^RT ceeded not out of any disrespect to him^ ; for if all his dis-
'- — courses had been geometrical demonstrations^ able not only
to persuade but also to compel assent^ all had been one to me ; first my journey, and afterwards some other trifles (which we call business), having diverted me until then. And then my occasions permitting me, and an advertisement from a friend awakening me, I set myself to a serious examination of it. [T.H.'sown We commonly see those who delight in paradoxes, if
words con- , .
Vict his they have line enough, coniute themselves, and their specu- faisehood.] l^tives and their practicks familiarly interfere one with another. The very first words of T. H. his defence trip up the heels of his whole cause ; — " I had once resolved/^ To "resolve'^ pre-supposeth dehberation; but what deliberation can there be of that, w^hich is inevitably determined by causes without ourselves, before we do deliberate? Can a condemned man deliberate whether he should be executed or not ? It is even to as much purpose, as for a man to con- sult and ponder with himself whether he should draw in his breath, or whether he should increase in stature. Secondly, to "resolve^^ implies a man^s dominion over his own actions, 650 and his actual determination of himself; but he who holds an absolute necessity of all things, hath quitted this domi- | nion over himself, and (which is worse) hath quitted it to the second extrinsecal causes, in which he makes all his actions to be determined. One may as well call again yester- day, as " resolve," or newly determine, that which is deter- mined to his hand already. I have perused this treatise, weighed T. H. his answers, considered his reasons ; and con- clude, that he hath missed and misted the question, that the answers are evasions, that his arguments are paralogisms, that the opinion of absolute and universal necessity is but a result of some groundless and ill-chosen principles, and that the defect is not in himself, but that his cause will admit no better defence ; and therefore, by his favour, I am resolved to adhere to my first opinion. Perhaps another man, read- ing this discourse with other eyes, judgeth it to be pertinent and well founded. How comes this to pass ? The treatise
[Hobbes' letter was dated Aug. had met Hobbes) to Brussels, which
20, 1645, from Rouen. The journey was his ordinary place of residence
of Bramhall alluded to appears to have from 1644 to 1648 : See above in vol. i.
been his return from Paris (where he p. x.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
25
is the same, the exterior causes are the same; yet the resolu- Discourse
tion is contrary. Do the second causes play fast and loose?
Do they necessitate me to condemn, and necessitate him to maintain ? What is it then ? The difference must be in ourselves ; either in our intellectuals, because the one sees clearer than the other, or in our affections, which betray our understandings, and produce an implicit adherence in the one more than in the other. Howsoever it be, the difference is in ourselves. The outward causes alone do not chain me to the one resolution, nor him to the other resolution. But T. H. may say, that our several and respective deliberations and affections are in part the causes of our contrary resolu- tions, and do concur with the outward causes to make up one total and adequate cause to the necessary production of this effect. If it be so, he hath spun a fair thread, to make all this stir for such a necessity as no man ever denied or doubted of. When all the causes have actually determined themselves, then the effect is in being ; for though there be a priority in nature between the cause and the effect, yet they are together in time. And the old rule is, — " whatso- ever is, when it is, is necessarily so as it is*^.^^ This is no ab- solute necessity, but only upon supposition, — that a man hath determined his own liberty. When we question whether all occurrences be necessary, we do not question whether they be necessary when they are, nor whether they be neces- sary in sensu composito — after we have resolved and finally determined what to do, but whether they were necessary before they were determined by ourselves, by or in the pre- cedent causes before ourselves, or in the exterior causes with- out ourselves. It is not inconsistent with true liberty to determine itself, but it is inconsistent with true liberty to be determined by another without itself.
T. H. saitli further, that "upon your Lordship's desire and'' mine, he "was contented" to "begin with this dis- course of liberty and necessity," that is, to change his former resolution. If the chain of necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily in sunder, if his will was no
["Tb jxcv elvaL rh tv 'Stuv 77, Kai rh Tavr6v icrri rh hy airav chai e| avdyKrjs
HV tv ij.^ eli/ai '6rav fx^ 77, avayKt]' ov ot€ iari, kui rh awKais dyai avdyKr^s.''
fxivroi otjTi rh t>v airav avayKt) elvai, Aristot., De Interpret., c, ix. § 11.] oi/Tc rh fxT] hv avdyKT) fx^ iivai' ov yap
26
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
P^A^R T otherwise determined from without himself but only by the signification of your Lordship^s desire" and my modest entreaty, then we may safely conclude, that human afi*airs are not always governed by absolute necessity, that a man is lord of his own actions, if not in chief, yet in mean, subordi- nate to the Lord Paramount of Heaven and Earth, and that all things are not so absolutely determined in the outward and precedent causes, but that fair entreaties and moral per- suasions may work upon a good nature so far, as to prevent that which otherwise had been, and to produce that which otherwise had not been. He that can reconcile this with an antecedent necessity of all things, and a physical or natural determination of all causes, "shall be great Apollo to me*^."
Whereas T. H. saith, that he "had never uttered" his " opinion" of this question, I suppose he intends in writing. My conversation with him hath not been frequent ; yet I remember well, that when this question was agitated be- tween us two in your Lordship^s chamber by your command, he did then declare himself in words, both for the absolute necessity of all events, and for the ground of this necessity, the flux or concatenation of the second causes.
NUMBER II.
T. H. — And, first, I assure your Lordship, I find in it no new argument, neither from Scripture nor from reason, that I have not often heard before ; which is as much as to say, that I am not surprised.
[Reply.] J. D. — Though I be so unhappy, that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort, that if he be not "surprised," then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him, and where he fails, I may ascribe it to the weakness of his cause, not to want of preparation. But in this case I like Epictetus^ his counsel well, that the sheep should not brag how much they have eaten, or what an excellent pasture they do go in, but shew it in their lamb and wool. Apposite answers and downright arguments
["Et eris mihi magnus Apollo." ® [Vide Epicteti Enchirid., c. xlvi. Virg., Eel., iii. 104.] § 2. p. 222. ed. Schweigh.]
[ T. h:s
boast. ]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
27
advantage a cause. To tell what we have heard or seen, is Discourse
to no purpose, ^yheu a respondent leaves many things un '■
touched, as if they were too hot for his fingers, and declines the weight of other things, and alters the true state of the question, it is a shrewd sign, either that he hath not weighed all things maturely, or else that he maintains a desperate cause.
NUMBER III.
T. H. — The preface is a handsome one, but it appears [Ansicer to even in that, that he hath mistaken the question. For^^Y^''^' whereas he says thus — " If I be free to write this discourse, I have obtained the cause,^^ — I deny that to be tnie ; for ^tis not enough to his fi'eedom of wi-iting, that he had not written it unless he would himself. If he will obtain the cause, he must prove, that before he wi'it it, it was not necessary he should write it afterward. It may be, he [Liberty to thinks it all one to say, I was free to wi'ite it, and, it was not ^(^^^^^^^ necessary I should write it. But I think otherwise. For he ^'^.^^^^^ is free to do a tiling, that may do it if he have the will to do it, and may forbeai* if he have the will to forbear : and yet, if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to do it, the action is necessai'ily to follow ; and if there be a neces- sity that he shall have the will to forbear, the forbeai'ing also -will be necessaiy. The question therefore is not, whether a man be a free agent, that is to say, whether he can wi'ite or forbeai', speak or be silent, according to his will ; but whether the will to write, and the will to forbeai', come upon him according to his will, or according to any thing else in his own power. I acknowledge this libeity, that I can do if I will; but to say I can will if I will, I take it to be an absurd speech. \Mierefore I cannot grant him the cause upon this preface.
J. D. — Tacitus speaks of a close kind of adversaries, which 'Rei iy.] evermore begin with a man's praise-. The crisis or the catastrophe of theii' discom-sc is when they come to their " bfff.^' As, he is a good natuved man, but he liath a
^ [Vide Agric. c. tl.]
28
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part naughty quality ; or, he is a wise man, hut he hath com- — — mitted one of the greatest follies. So here, — " The preface
is a handsome one, hut it appears even in this, that he hath mistaken the question." This is to give an inch, that one may take away an ell without suspicion ; to praise the hand- someness of the porch, that he may gain credit to the vilify- ing of the house. Whether of us hath mistaken the ques- tion, I refer to the judicious reader. Thus much I will maintain, that that is no true necessity, which he calls necessity, nor that liberty which he calls liberty, nor that the question which he makes the question. 1 . [T. H. First, for libertj^, that which he calls liberty is no true liberty, liberty with For the clearing whereof it behoveth us to know the diffe- spontanei- ^.g-^^g between these three, necessity, spontaneity, and liberty.
Necessity and spontaneity may sometimes meet together, so may spontaneity and liberty, but real necessity and true liberty can never meet together. Some things are necessary and not voluntary or spontaneous, some things are both necessary and voluntary ; some things are voluntary and not free, some things are both voluntary and free; but those things which are truly necessary can never be free, and those things which are truly free can never be necessary. Necessity consists in an antecedent determination to one ; spontaneity consists in a conformity of the appetite, either intellectual or sensitive, to the object ; true liberty consists in the elective power of the rational will. That which is determined without my concurrence, may nevertheless agree well enough with my fancy or desires, and obtain my subse- quent consent ; but that which is determined without my concurrence or consent, cannot be the object of mine elec- tion. I may like that which is inevitably imposed upon me by another ; but if it be inevitably imposed upon me by extrinsecal causes, it is both folly for me to deliberate, and impossible for me to choose, whether I shall undergo it or not. Reason is the root, the fountain, the original of true liberty ; which judgeth and representeth to the will, whether this or that be convenient, whether this or that be more convenient. Judge, then, what a pretty kind of liberty it is which is maintained by T. H. Such a liberty as is in little children, before they have the use of reason, before they can 652
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
29
consult or deliberate of any thing. Is not this a childish Discourse
liberty ? And such a liberty as is in brute beasts^ as bees '■
and spiders, which do not learn their faculties as we do our trades, by experience and consideration. This is a brutish liberty. Such a liberty as a bird hath to fly when her wings are clipped. Or (to use his own comparison such a liberty as a "lame" man who hath lost the use of his limbs hath to walk. Is not this a ridiculous liberty ? Lastly (which is worse than all these), such a liberty as "a river" hath " to descend down the channel^." What ? Will he ascribe liberty to inanimate creatures also, which have neither reason, nor spontaneity, nor so much as sensitive appetite? Such is T.H. his liberty.
His necessity is just such another; a necessity upon suppo- [2. And sition, arising from the concourse of all the causes, including ca?with the last dictate of the understanding in reasonable creatures. n"ce^gsjjy"-] The adequate cause and the effect are together in time ; and when all the concurrent causes are determined, the eflPect is determined also, and is become so necessary, that it is actu- ally in being. But there is a great difference between de- termining, and being determined. If all the collateral causes concurring to the production of an effect, were antecedently determined, what they must of necessity produce, and when they must produce it, then there is no doubt but the effect is necessary. But if these causes did operate freely, or con- tingently, if they might have suspended or denied theii' con- currence, or have concurred after another manner, then the effect was not truly and antecedently necessary, but either free or contingent. This will be yet clearer by considering his own instance of " casting ambs ace^ though it partake more of contingency than of freedom. Supposing '^''the posture of the party^s hand" who did throw the dice, sup- posing the figure of the table and of the dice themselves, supposing " the measure of force applied," and supposing all other things which did concur to the production of that cast, to be the very same they were, there is no doubt but in this case the cast is necessary. But stUl this is but a necessity of supposition; for if all these concurrent causes or some of them were contingent or free, then the cast was not abso-
^ [See below T. H. Numb. xxix. [See below T. H. Numb, xxxiv.
p. 715. fol. edit.] p. 722. fol. edit.]
30
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
P T lutely necessary. To begin with the caster ; — he might have
'- — denied his concurrence, and not have cast at all ; he might
have suspended his concurrence, and not have cast so soon ; he might have doubled or diminished his force in casting, if it had pleased him ; he might have thrown the dice into the other table. In all these cases what becomes of his "ambs ace?'^ The like uncertainties offer themselves for the maker of the tables, and for the maker of the dice, and for the keeper of the tables, and for the kind of wood, and I know not how many other circumstances. In such a mass of contingencies, it is impossible that the effect should be antecedently necessary. T. H. appeals to every man's ex- perience. I am contented. Let every one reflect upon him- self; and he shall find no convincing, much less constraining reason, to necessitate him to any one of these particular acts more than another, but only his own will or arbitrary deter- mination. So T. H. his necessity is no absolute, no antecedent, extrinsecal necessity, but merely a necessity upon supposition. 3. [True Thirdly, that which T. H. makes the question, is not the eludes li^" question. " The question is not,'' saith he, whether a man berty to write" if he will, and "forbear" if he will, "but whether
the will to write or the will to forbear come upon him according to his will, or according to any thing else in his own power." Here is a distinction without a difference. If his will do not " come upon him according to his will," then he is not a free, nor yet so much as a voluntary agent, which is T. H. his liberty. Certainly all the freedom of the agent is from the freedom of the will. If the will have no power over itself, the agent is no more free than a staff in a man's hand. Secondly, he makes but an empty show of a power in the will, either to write or not to write. If it be precisely and inevitably determined in all occurrences whatsoever, what a man shall will and what he shall not will, what he shall write and what he shall not write, to what purpose is this power ? God and nature never made anything in vain ; but "vain and frustraneous is that power, which never was and never shall be deduced into act." Either the agent is determined before he acteth, what he shall Avill and what he shall not will, what he shall act and what he shall not act ; and then he is no more free to act than he is to will : or else
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
31
he is not determined ; and then there is no necessity. No Discourse
653 effect can exceed the virtue of its cause. If the action be
free, to write or to forbear, the power or faculty to will or nill must of necessity be more free. " Quod efficit tale illud magis est tale\'^ If the will be determined, the writing or not writing is likewise determined ; and then he should not say, he may write or he may forbear, but he must write, or he miLSt forbear. Thirdly, this answer contradicts the sense of all the world ; — that the will of man is determined without his "will," or without "any thing in his power/' Why do we ask men whether they will do such a thing or not? why do we represent reasons to them ? why do we pray them ? why do we entreat them ? why do we blame them ? if their will "come" not "upon them according to their will." " Wilt thou be made clean ?" said our Saviour to the paraly- john v. 6. tic person ; to what purpose, if his will was extrinsecally [./j™e/*?]^ determined? Christ complains, "We have piped unto you, Matt.xLi?. and ye have not danced." How could they help it, if their wills were determined without their wills to forbear ? And, " I would have gathered your children together as the hen i^iatt. xxiii. gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not." How easily might they answer, according to T. H. his doc- trine,— Alas ! blame not us ; our wills are not in our own power or disposition ; if they were, we would thankfully em- brace so great a favour. Most truly said St. Austin, "Our wiU should not be a will at aU, if it were not in our power j." This is the belief of all mankind, which we have not learned from our tutors, but is imprinted in our hearts by nature. " We need not turn over any obscure books" to find out this truth. "The poets chant it in the theatres, the shepherds in the mountains j the pastors teach it in their churches, the doctors in the universities ; the common people in the markets, and all mankind in the whole world, do assent unto it^ ;" except a handful of men, who have poisoned their intel-
' [Aristot., Analyt. Poster., lib. i. ^ [" Etiamne hi libri obscuri mihi
c. 2. § 15. — " At' & inrdpxei %KaaTov, scrutandi eraiit, unde discerem, nemi-
4kuvo fxaWov virdpx^L' oTou, 5t' h (pi- nem vituperatione suppliciove dignum,
AoCjuev, iKelvo ixaWou c^iAov."] qui aut id velit quod justitia velle non
j De Lib. Arb., lib. iii. c. 3. [§ 8 ; prohibet, aut id non faciat quod facere
Op. torn. i. p. 613. F. — "Voluntas nos- non potest ? Nonne ista cantant et in
tra nec voluntas esset, nisi esset in nos- montibus pastores et in tlieatris poetae
tra potestate."] et indocti in circulis et docti in bi-
32
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
PjAjR T lectuals with paradoxical principles. Fourthly, this necessity
'■ — which T. H. hath devised, which is grounded upon the neces-
sitation of a man^s will without his will, is the worst of all others; and is so far from lessening those difficulties and absurdities which flow from the fatal destiny of the Stoics, that it increaseth them, and rendereth them unanswerable. No man blameth fire for burning whole cities ; no man tax- eth poison for destroying men ; but those persons, who apply them to such wicked ends. If the will of man be not in his own disposition, he is no more a free agent than the fire or the poison. Three things are required to make an act or omission culpable : first, that it be in our power to perform it or forbear it ; secondly, that we be obliged to perform it or forbear it respectively; thirdly, that we omit that which we ought to have done, or do that which we ought to have omitted. No man sins in doing those things which he could uot shun, or forbearing those things which never were in his power. T. H. may say, that besides the power, men have also an appetite to evil objects, which renders them culpable. It is true ; but if this appetite be determined by another, not by themselves, or if they have not the use of reason to curb or restrain their appetites, they sin no more than a stone descending downward according to its natural aj)petite, or the brute beasts, who commit voluntary errors in follow- ing their sensitive appetites, yet sin not. The question then is not, whether a man be necessitated to will or nill, yet free to act or forbear. But, lea\ing the ambiguous acceptions of the word " free/' the question is plainly this — whether all agents^ and all events, natural, ci\dl, moral (for we speak not now of the conversion of a sinner, that concerns not this ques- tion), be predetermined extrinsecally and inevitably without their own concurrence in the determination ; so as all actions and events which either are or shall be, cannot but be, nor can be otherwise, after any other manner, or in any other place, time, number, measure, order, nor to any other end, than they are ; and all this, in respect of the Supreme Cause, or a concourse of extrinsecal causes, determining them to one. So my preface remains yet unanswered. Either I was
hliothecis et magistri in scholis et an- abus A nimabus contra Manichaeos, c.xi. tistites in sacratis locis et in orbe terra- § 15; Op. torn. viii. pp. 85. F, G, rum genus luunanum ?" Aug.,De Du- 86. A.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
33
extrinsecally and inevitably predetermined to write this dis- Discourse
course, without any concurrence of mine in tlie determination,
and without any power in me to change or oppose it, or I was not so predetermined. If I was, then I ought not to be blamed ; for no man is justly blamed for doing that, which never was in his power to shun. If I was not so predeter- mined, then mine actions and my wiU to act are neither 654 compelled nor necessitated by any extrinsecal causes, but I elect and choose, either to write or to forbear, according to mine own will, and by mine own power. And when I have resolved and elected, it is but a necessity of supposition, which may and doth consist with true liberty, not a real antecedent necessity. The two horns of this dilemma are so strait, that no mean can be given, nor room to pass between them. And the two consequences are so evident, that instead of answering he is forced to decline them.
[the stating of the question.] NUMBER IV.
J. D. — And so to fall in hand with the question, without [Tmeiiber- any further proems or prefaces. By liberty, I do understand, terSi im" neither a liberty from sin, nor a liberty from misery^, nor a fvom Si liberty from servitude, nor a liberty from violence, but I jlQ^jf^^™^"*^" understand a liberty from necessity, or rather from necessita- one.] tion, that is, an universal immunity from all inevitability and determination to one : whether it be of exercise only, which the Schools call a liberty of contradiction^ y and is found in God, and in the good and bad angels ; that is, not a liberty to do both good and evil, but a liberty to do or not to do this or that good, this or that evil, respectively ; or whether it be a liberty of specification and exercise also, which the Schools call liberty oi contrariety^, and is found in men endowed with reason and understanding; that is, a liberty to do and not to do, good and evil, this or that. Thus the coast being cleared, &c.
T. H. — In the next place, he maketh certain distinctions of [Answer.l^
liberty, and says, he means not " liberty from sin," nor
' [" Est namque libertas arbitrii tri- of liberty of exercise, &c., see Bellarm.,
plex, scz. a necessitate, a peccato, et a De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, lib. iii. c.
miseria." Pet. Lomb,,Sent.,lib.II. dist. 3 ; Op. torn. iii. pp. 651. C, 654. A.] XXV. qu. i. art. 5. For the distinction
BRAMHALL.
34
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
p R T <( from servitude/' nor from violence/' but " from necessity,
necessitation^ inevitability, and determination to one.'' It
had been better to define liberty tban thus to distinguish ; for I understand never the more what he means by liberty. And though he says, he means " liberty from necessitation/' yet I understand not how such a liberty can be. And it is a taking of the question without proof ; for what else is the question between us, but whether such a liberty be possible or not ? There are in the same place other distinctions : as, a liberty of exercise" only, which he calls " a liberty of con- tradiction" (namely, of doing, not good or e^dl simply, but of doing this or that good, or this or that evil, respectively), and a liberty of " specification and exercise also," which he calls " a liberty of contrariety" (namely, a liberty not only to do or not do, good or evil, but also to do or not do, this or that good or evil). And with these distinctions, he says, he " clears the coast /' whereas in truth he darkeneth his meaning, not only with the jargon of "exercise only, specifi- cation also, contradiction, contrariety," but also with pre- tending distinction where none is ; for how is it possible for the liberty of doing or not doing this or that good or evil, to consist (as he says it doth in God and angels) without a liberty of doing or not doing good or evil ?
[Reply.] J. D. — It is a rule in art, that words which are homo- nymous, of various and ambiguous significations, ought ever in the first place to be distinguished. No men delight in confused generalities but either sophisters or bunglers. ^ Vir dolosus versatur in generalibus' — ' deceitful men do not love to descend to particulars f and when bad archers shoot, [Different the safest way is to run to the mark. Liberty is sometimes the word opposed to the slavery of sin and vicious habits, as Rom. vi. pia1ned?f " — " "^^^ being made free from sin — sometimes to misery and oppression, — Isai. Iviii. 6, — " To let the oppressed go free/' — sometimes to servitude, as Levit. xxv. 10, — In the year of jubilee "ye shall proclaim liberty throughout the land j" — sometimes to violence, as Psalm cv. 20, — " The prince of his people let him go free." Yet none of all these are the liberty now in question, but a liberty from necessity, that is, a determination to one, or rather from necessitation,
AGAIXST MR. HOBBES.
35
that is, a necessity imposed by another, or an extrinsecal Discol use
determination. These distinctions do virtually imply a de- L
scription of true liberty, which comes nearer the essence of it than T. H. his roving definition ; as we shall see in due place. And though he say that he " understands never the more what^^ I ^^mean by liberty/^ yet it is plain by his ow^n inge- nuous confession, both that he doth understand it, and that this is the very question where ^^the water sticks" between us; — whether there be such a liberty, free from all necessitation and extrinsecal determination to one. Which being but the stating of the question, he calls it amiss the " taking of the question." It were too much weakness to beg this question, which is so copious and demonstrable. It is strange to see, with what confidence now-a-days particular men slight all the schoolmen, and philosophers, and classic authors of former ages, as if they were not worthy to unloose the [Mark i. 7. ' jj shoe-strings" of some modern author, or did " sit in darkness ^plj' ^^^j,- and in the shadow of death," until some third Cato dropped ^0.] down from heaven™," to whom all men must repair, as to the altar of Prometheus, to light their torches. I did never wonder to hear a raw diWne out of the pulpit declaim against school dignity to his equally ignorant auditors. It is but as the fox in the fable, who having lost his own tail by a mischance, would have persuaded all his fellows to cut ofi" theirs and throw them away as unprofitable burdens. But it troubles me to see a scholar, one who hath been long admitted into the innermost closet of nature, and seen the hidden secrets of more subtle learning, so far to forget him- self, as to style school-learning no better than a plain " jargon," that is, a senseless gibberish, or a fustian language, like the clattering noise of sabots. Suppose they did sometimes too much cut truth into shreads, or delight in abstruse expressions ; yet, certainly, this distinc- tion of liberty into " liberty of contrariety^' and " liberty of contradiction," or (which is all one) of ^' exercise only" or " exercise and specification jointly," which T. H. rejects T\'ith so much scorn, is so true, so necessary, so generally received, that there is scarce that writer of note, either di\ine or philosopher, who did ever treat upon this subject, but he
^ ["Tertius e coelo cecidit Cato." Juv., ii. 40.] D 2
36
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part uscth it. Good and evil are contraries_, or opposite kinds of things : therefore to be able to choose both good and evil, is
contracHc^-^ a liberty of contrariety or of specification. To choose this, and contrariety! choosc this, are contradictory, or (which is all one) an
of exercise exercise or suspension of power : therefore to be able to do
and of spe- ^ ^ . .
cification.] or forbear to do the same action, to choose or not choose the same object, without varying of the kind, is a liberty of contradiction, or of exercise only. Now man is not only able to do or forbear to do good only, or evil only, but he is able both to do and to forbear to do, both good and evil ; so he hath not only a liberty of the action, but also a liberty of contrary objects ; not only a liberty of exercise, but also of specification; not only a liberty of contradiction, but also of contrariety. On the other side, God, and the good angels, can do or not do this or that good, but they cannot do or not do both good and evil. So they have only a liberty of exercise or contradic- tion, but not a liberty of specification or contrariety. It ap- pears then plainly, that the liberty of man is more large in the extension of the object, which is both good and evil, than the liberty of God and the good angels, whose object is only good. But withal, the liberty of man comes short in the intension of the power. Man is not so free in respect of good only, as God, or the good angels ; because (not to speak of God, Whose liberty is quite of another nature) the under- standings of the angels are clearer, their power and dominion over their actions is greater, they have no sensitive appetites to distract them, no organs to be disturbed. We see, then, this distinction is cleared from all darkness.
And where T. H. demands, "how it is possible for the liberty of doing, or not doing, this or that good or evil, to consist in God and angels without a liberty of doing or not doing good or evil the answer is obvious and easy, ^ refe- renda singula singulis/ rendering every act to its right object respectively. God, and good angels, have a power to do or not to do this or that good ; bad angels have a power to do or not to do this or that evil ; so both, jointly considered, have power respectively to do good or evil. And yet, accord- ing to the words of my discourse, God, and good, and bad angels, being singly considered, have no power to do good or evil, that is, indifferently, as man hath.
AGAIXST MR. HOBBES.
37
Discourse
NOIBER V. '
J. D. — Thus the coast being cleared_, the next thing to be [Division done is to draw out om- forces against the enemy. And be- mentf*^^" cause they are divided into two squadrons^ the one of Chris- tians, the other of heathen philosophers, it will be best to dispose ours also into two bodies, the former drawn from Scrip tiu'e, the latter fi'om reason.
T. H. — The next thing he doth after the clearing of the lAnswer.] coast, is the dividing of his forces," as he calls them, " into two squadrons," one of places of Scripture, the other of reasons ; which allegory he useth, I suppose, because he addi^esseth the discourse to your Lordship, who is a military man. All that I have to say touching this, is, that I observe a great part of those his forces do look and march another way, and some of them do fight among themselves.
J. D. — If T. H. could divide my forces, and commit them [Reply.] together among themselves, it were his only way to conquer i56 them. But he will find, that those imaginary contradictions which he thinks he hath espied in my discourse, are but fan- cies ; and my supposed impertinencies will prove his o^\*n real mistakings.
I. PROOFS OF LIBERTY OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
NUMBER VI.
J. D. — First, whosoever have power of election have true Argument hberty, for the proper act of Hberty is election. A sponta- men have neity may consist with determination to one : as we see in election! children, fools, madmen, brute beasts, whose fancies are ^^^^ determined to those things which they act spontaneously ; I'^ert v.] as the bees make honey, the spiders webs. But none of these have a hberty of election ; which is an act of judgment and understanding, and cannot possibly consist with a deter- mination to one. He that is determined by something before himself or without himself, cannot be said to choose or elect : unless it be as the junior of the mess chooseth in Cambridge,
38
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part whether lie will have the least part or nothing ; and scarcely
'■ — so much. — But men have liberty of election. This is plain,
Numb. XXX. 14 [13], — If a wife make a vow, it is left to her husband^s choice, either to "establish it,^^ or to " make it void.'' And Josh. xxiv. 15, — " Choose you this day whom ye will serve,'' &c., " but I and my house will serve the Lord ;" he makes his own choice, and leaves them to the liberty of their election. And 2 Sam. xxiv. 12, — "I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do;" if one of these three things was necessarily determined and the other two impossible, how was it left to him to choose what should be done ? — Therefore we have true liberty.
[Answer.^ T. H. — And the first place of Scripture, taken from Numb.
XXX. 14 [13], is one of them that look another way. The words arcj " If a wife make a vow, it is left to her husband's choice, either to establish it or make it void." For it proves no more but that the husband is a free or voluntary agent ; but not that his choice therein is not necessitated, or not determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes.
[Reply.] J. D. — My first argument from Scripture is thus formed;
— Whosoever have a liberty or power of election, are not determined to one by precedent necessary causes ; but men have liberty of election. The assumption, or minor proposi- tion, is proved by three places of Scripture ; Numb. xxx. 14 [13], Josh. xxiv. 15, 2 Sam. xxiv. 12. I need not insist upon these; because T. H. acknowledgeth, that "it is clearly proved that there is election in man"." But he denieth the major proposition, because (saith he) man is " necessitated," or " determined to what he shall choose by precedent neces- sary causes."
I take away this answer three ways.
1. [Eiec- First, by reason. Election is evermore either of thinsrs
tion is only -i i i p i •
ofaiteina- possiblc, or at Icast of thmgs conceived to be possible: that clfved'^pos- efficacious election, when a man hopeth or thinketh of sibie.] obtaining the object. Whatsoever the will chooseth, it chooseth under the notion of good, either honest or delight-
» [liclow, T. H. at the end of Numb. vii. p. 44.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
39
ful or profitable; but there can be no real goodness ap- Discourse
prehended in that which is known to be impossible. It '■
is true, there may be some wandering pendulous wishes of known impossibilities ; as a man who hath committed an offence, may wish he had not committed it : but to choose efficaciously an impossibility, is as impossible as an impossi- bihty itself. No man can think to obtain that, which he knows impossible to be obtained. But he who knows that all things are antecedently determined by necessary causes, knows that it is impossible for anything to be otherwise than it is. Therefore to ascribe unto him a power of election, to choose this or that indifferently, is to make the same thing to be determined to one, and to be not determined to one ; which are contradictories. Again, whosoever hath an elective power, or a liberty to choose, hath also a liberty or power to refuse. Isa. vii. 16, — Before the child shall know to refuse the e\dl and choose the good.^^ He who chooseth this rather than that, refuseth that rather than this. As "Moses, Heb.xi.24, choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God,'' did ^^^'^ thereby refuse ''^the pleasures of sin.'' But no man hath any power to refuse that which is necessarily predetermined to be : unless it be as the fox refused the grapes, which were beyond his reach. When one thing of two or three is abso- lutely determined, the others are made thereby simply impos- sible.
Secondly, I prove it by instances, and by that universal 2. [Univer- notion which the world hath of election. What is the diffe- sentT" rence between an elective and hereditary kingdom, but that in an elective kingdom they have power or liberty to choose
657 this or that man indifferently, but in an hereditary king- dom they have no such power nor liberty? Where the law makes a certain heir, there is a necessitation to one ; where the law doth not name a certain heir, there is no necessitation to one, and there they have power or Hberty to choose. An hereditary prince may be as grateful and acceptable to his subjects, and as willingly received by them (according to that liberty which is opposed to compulsion or violence), as he who is chosen ; yet he is not therefore an
I elective prince. In Germany all the nobility and commons may assent to the choice of the emperor, or be well pleased
40
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part witli it when it is concluded ; yet none of them elect or
^ — choose the emperor, but only those six princes who have a
consultative,, deliberative, and determinative power in his election. And if their votes or suffrages be equally divided, three to three, then the king of Bohemia hath the casting voice °. So likewise in corporations or commonwealths, sometimes the people, sometimes the common council, have power to name so many persons for such an office, and the supreme magistrate, or senate, or lesser council respectively, to choose one of those. And all this is done with that cau- tion and secrecy, by billets or other means, that no man knows which w^ay any man gave his vote, or with whom to be offended. If it were necessarily and inevitably predeter- mined, that this individual person and no other shall and must be chosen, what needed all this circuit and caution, to do that which is not possible to be done otherwise, which one may do as well as a thousand, and for doing of which no rational man can be offended, if the electors were necessarily predetermined to elect this man and no other? And though T. H. was pleased to pass by my university instance, yet I may not, until I see what he is able to say unto it. The junior of the mess in Cambridge divides the meat into four parts. The senior chooseth first, then the second and third in their order. The junior is determined to one, and hath no choice left ; unless it be to choose whether he will take that part which the rest have refused, or none at all. It may be, this part is more agreeable to his mind than any of the others would have been, but for all that he cannot be said to choose it, because he is determined to this one. Even such a liberty of election is that which is established by T. H. : or rather much worse, in two respects. The junior hath yet a liberty of contradiction left, to choose whether he will take that part or not take any part ; but he who is precisely pre- determined to the choice of this object, hath no liberty to refuse it. Secondly, the junior, by di^dding carefully, may preserve to himself an equal share; but he who is wholly
° [This is the account given by The- tracts in the beginning of Goldastus as
odoric a Niem, as quoted by Schardius, just quoted, and Robertson's Hist, of
De Elect. Iinper., c. i. inter Goldast. Charles V., Introd., Proofs and lllus-
Polit. Imper. p. 12 For a more cor- trations, note xli. § 2.] rect account of the matter, see the
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
41
determined by extrinsecal causes, is left altogether to tlie Discourse mercy and disposition of another. ~ Thirdly, I prove it by the texts alleged. Numb. xxx. 13 ; I^^^^^^^J'^ -j " If a wife make a vow, it is left to her husband's choice, either to ' estabhsh it' or ' make it void.' '' But if it be pre- determined that he shall "establish it,'' it is not in his power to "make it void." If it be predetermined that he shall "make it void," it is not in his power to "estabhsh it." And howsoever it be determined, yet, being determined, it is not in his power, indifferently, either to "establish it" or to "make it void" at his pleasure. So Joshua xxiv. 15; " Choose you this day whom ye will serve, . . but I and my house will serve the Lord." It is too late to choose that "this day," which was determined otherwise yesterday. " Whom ye will serve, whether the gods whom your fathers served, or the gods of the Amorites :" — where there is an election of this or that, these gods or those gods, there must needs be either an indifferency to both objects, or at least a possibility of either. "I and my house will serve the Lord :" — if he were extrinsecally predetermined, he should not say, " I will serve," but, I must serve. And 2 Sam. xxiv. 12 ; " I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do." How doth God " offer three things" to David's choice, if He had predetermined him to one of the three by a concourse of necessary extrinsecal causes ? If a sovereign prince should descend so far as to offer a delinquent his choice, whether he would be fined or imprisoned or banished, and had under- hand signed the sentence of his banishment, what were it else but plain drollery, or mockery ? This is the argument which in T. H. his opinion "looks another way." If it do, it is as the Parthians used to fight, flyingP. His reason fol- lows next to be considered.
NUMBER VII. T. H. — For if there come into the husband's mind greater [That the good by establishing than abrogating such a vow, the esta- ^tVe reason bhshing will follow necessarily. And if the evil that will "^^^'/ff ' 58 follow thereon in the husband's opinion outweigh the good, the contrary must needs follow. And yet in this following
V [Justin., in Trog. Pomp. Hist., lib. xli. c. 2. — &c,]
42
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part III.
of one's hopes and fears consisteth the nature of election. So that a man may both choose this, and cannot but choose this. And consequently choosing and necessity are joined together.
[Reply.] J. X). — There is nothing said with more show of reason in this cause by the patrons of necessity and adversaries of true liberty than this, that the will doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding, or the last judgment of right reason. And in this, and this only, I con- fess T. H. hath good seconds'^. Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary. And justly. For, —
1. [The First, this very act of the understanding is an effect of the the reason will, and a testimony of its power and liberty. It is the acfof\he" ^^^^f which, affecting some particular good, doth engage and will ] command the understanding to consult and deliberate what
means are convenient for attaining that end. And though the will itself be blind, yet its object is good in general, which is the end of all human actions. Therefore it belongs to the will, as to the general of an army, to move the other powers of the soul to their acts, and among the rest the understanding also, by applying it and reducing its power into act : so as, whatsoever obligation the understanding doth put upon the will, is by the consent of the will, and derived from the power of the will ; which was not necessitated to move the understanding to consult. So the will is the lady and mistress of human actions ; the understanding is her trusty counsellor, which gives no ad^dce but when it is required by the will. And if the first consultation or deliberation be not sufficient, the will may move a review, and require the un- derstanding to inform itself better, and take advice of others, from whence many times the judgment of the understanding doth receive alteration.
2. [It deter- Secondly, for the manner how the understanding doth wnrmo-^ determine the will, it is not naturally but morally. The will neces "''^ is moved by the understanding, not as by an efficient, having ndrWy.] a causal influence into the effect, but only by proposing and
representing the object. And therefore, as it were ridiculous
[E. g. Bellarmine, De Grat. et Lib. cessario ab ultimo judicio practicEC ra- Arb., lib. iii. c. 8 ; Op. torn. iii. p. 6(57. tionis."] C, &c. — "Voluntatis clcctio peudct nc-
I
i
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
43
to say, that the object of the sight is the cause of seeing, so Discourse
it is to say, that the proposing of the object by the under
standing to the will is the cause of willing. And therefore the understanding hath no place in that concourse of causes which according to T. H. do necessitate the will.
Thirdly, the iuderment of the understanding is not always 3. [Nor
.V r, -, • • 1/. ^ , ,/ yet to one
practice prachcum'', nor of such a nature m itseli as to oblige course un- and determine the wijl to one. Sometimes the understand- ^^^^^^^^^-1 ing proposeth two or three means equally available to the attaining of one and the same end. Sometimes it dictateth, that this or that particular good is eligible or fit to be chosen, but not that it is necessarily eligible or that it must be chosen. It may judge this or that to be a fit means, but not the only means, to attain the desired end. In these cases, no man can doubt but that the will may choose or not choose, this or that, indifferently. Yea, though the under- standing shaU judge one of these means to be more expedient than another, yet, forasmuch as in the less expedient there is found the reason of good, the will in respect of that dominion which it hath over itself may accept that which the understanding judgeth to be less expedient, and refuse that which it judgeth to be more expedient.
Fourthly, sometimes the will doth not will the end so effi- 4. [Nor in caciously, but that it may be, and often is, deterred from the thauVe^^' prosecution of it by the difficulty of the means : and notwith- ^'^^^ canriot
. , " suspend its
standing the judgment of the understanding, the wiU may own act.] still suspend its own act.
Fifthly, supposing but not granting, that the wiU did 5. [Nor an- necessarily foUow the last dictate of the understanding, yet or^e^trlnse- this proves no antecedent necessity, but co-existent with the ^^^^^'^ act ; no extrinsecal necessity, the -will and understanding being but two faculties of the same soul ; no absolute neces- sity, but merely upon supposition. And therefore the same authors who maintain that the judgment of the understand- ing doth necessarily determine the will, do yet much more earnestly oppugn T. H. his absolute necessity of all occur- rences. Suppose the will shall apply the understanding to dehberate, and not require a review ; suppose the dictate of
^ [See below in the Castigations of vii. p. 768 (fol. edit.) Disc. ii. Pt. iii.] Mr. Hobbes's Animadversions, Numb.
44
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part the Understanding shall be absolute, not this or that indiffer-
III
ently, nor this rather than that comparatively, but this posi- 659 tively, not this freely, but this necessarily ; and suppose the will do will efficaciously, and do not suspend its own act ; then here is a necessity indeed, but neither absolute, nor ex- trinsecal, nor antecedent, flowing from a concourse of causes without ourselves, but a necessity upon supposition, which we do readily grant. So far T. H. is wide from the truth, whilst he maintains, either that the apprehension of a greater good doth necessitate the will, or that this is an absolute necessity.
[6. T. H.'s Lastly, whereas he saith, that " the nature of election^^ affectation ^^^^ cousist^' in following our hopes and fears,'' I cannot terms of j^^^ observe, that there is not one word of art in this whole treatise which he useth in the right sense. I hope it doth not proceed out of an aff'ectation of singularity, nor out of a contempt of former writers, nor out of a desire to take in sunder the whole frame of learning, and new mould it after his own mind. It were to be wished that at least he would give us a new dictionary, that we might understand his sense. But because this is but touched here sparingly and upon the by, I will forbear it, until I meet with it again in its proper place. And for the present it shall sufiice to say, that hopes and fears are common to brute beasts, but election is a rational act, and is proper only to man, who is
" Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae'."
[Further T. H. — The second place of Scripture is Josh. xxiv. 15, ^.^ifj'^'^ the third is 2 Sam. xxiv. 12 ; whereby 'tis clearly proved, that there is election in man, but not proved, that such election was not necessitated by the hopes, and fears, and considera- tions of good and bad to follow, which depend not on the will, nor are subject to election. And therefore one answer serves all such places, if they were a thousand.
[Reply.] J. D. — This answer being the very same with the former, word for word, which hath already been sufficiently shaken in pieces, doth require no new reply.
« [Ovid., Mctani., i. 76.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
45
DlSCOUIlSK
I.
NUMBER VIII.
T. H. — Supposing, it seems^ I might answer as I have [Further done, that necessity and election might stand together; and t. h.] instance in the actions of children, fools, and brute beasts, whose fancies, I might say, are necessitated and determined to one ; before these his proofs out of Scripture he desires to prevent that instance, and therefore says, that the actions of " children, fools, madmen, and beasts,^^ are indeed " deter- mined,^^ but that they proceed not from election, nor from free, but from spontaneous agents ; as, for example, that the bee when it maketh honey does it spontaneously, and when the spider makes his web, he does it spontaneously, and not by election. Though I never meant to ground any answer upon the experience of what children, fools, madmen, and beasts do, yet, that your Lordship may understand what can be meant by spontaneous, and how it differs from voluntary, I will answer that distinction, and shew, that it fighteth against its fellow arguments. Your Lordship is therefore to consider, that all voluntary actions, where the thing that in- duceth the will is not fear, are called also spontaneous, and said to be done by a man's own accord. As when a man giveth money voluntarily to another for merchandise, or out of affection, he is said to do it of his own accord ; which in Latin is sponte, and therefore the action is spontaneous : though to give one's money willingly to a thief to avoid kill- ing, or throw it into the sea to avoid drowning, where the motive is fear, be not called spontaneous. But every spon- taneous action is not therefore voluntary : for voluntary pre- supposes some precedent deliberation, that is to say, some consideration and meditation of what is likely to follow, both upon the doing and abstaining from the action deliberated of; whereas many actions are done of our own accord, and be therefore spontaneous, of which nevertheless as he thinks we never consulted, nor deliberated of in ourselves ; as when, making no question nor any the least doubt in the world but that the thing we are about is good, we eat, or walk, or in anger strike or revile, which he thinks spontaneous but not voluntary nor elective actions. And with such kind of actions
46
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Pa^r t he says necessitation may stand, but not with such as are
voluntary, and proceed upon election and deliberation. Now
if I make it appear to you_, that even these actions which he says proceed from spontaneity, and which he ascribes only to " fools, children, madmen, and beasts,^^ proceed from deliber- ation and election ; and that actions inconsiderate, rash, and spontaneous, are ordinarily found in those, that are by themselves and many more thought as wise or wiser than ordinary men are ; then his argument concludeth, that neces- sity and election may stand together, which is contrary to that which he intendeth by all the rest of his arguments to prove. And, first, your Lordship^ s own experience furnishes you with proof enough, that horses, dogs, and other brute beasts, < do demur oftentimes upon the way they are to take. The horse retiring from some strange figure he sees, and com- ing on again to avoid the spur. And what else does man that dehberateth, but one while proceed toward action, another while retire from it, as the hope of greater good draws him, or the fear of greater evil drives him ? A child may be so young as to do all which it does without all deliberation ; but that is but till it chance to be hurt by doing somewhat, or till it be of age to understand the rod ; for the actions wherein he hath once a check, shall be de- liberated on the second time. Fools and madmen mani- festly deliberate no less than the wisest men, though they make not so good a choice, the images of things being by diseases altered. For bees and spiders, if he had so little to do as to be a spectator of their actions, he would have con- fessed not only election, but also art, prudence, and policy in them, very near equal to that of mankind. Of bees, Aristotle says, their life is " civil*. " He is deceived, if he think any spontaneous action, after once being checked in it, difi'ers from an action voluntary and elective ; for even the setting of a man's foot in the posture of walking, and the action of ordinary eating, was once deliberated how and when it should be done ; and though it afterward become easy and habitual, so as to be done without forethought, yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and] proceeds from
' [Ilist. Animal., lib. I. c. i. § 25. — yiuerai irauruv rh fpyow . . . eari 5e " UoXiTiKO. S' 4(Tr\u wv eV rt Ka.\ KOivhv roiovrov &udpu}nos, /xfAirra," k. r. A.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
47
election. So also are the rashest actions of choleric persons Discourse
voluntary and upon deliberation : for who is there but very
3^oung children, that has not considered, when and how far he ought or safely may strike or revile? Seeing then he agrees with me, that such actions are necessitated, and the fancy of those that do them is determined to the actions they do, it follows out of his own doctrine, that the liberty of election does not take away the necessity of electing this or that individual thing. And thus one of his arguments fights against another.
J. D. — We have partly seen before, how T. H. hath coined [Reply.] a new kind of liberty, a new kind of necessity, a new kind of election ; and now, in this section, a new kind of spontaneity, and a new kind of voluntary actions. Although he say, that here is nothing " new^" to him, yet I begin to suspect, that either here are many things new to him, or otherwise his election is not the result of a serious mature " deliberation."
The first thing that I offer is, how often he mistakes my [i. T. H. meaning in this one section. First, I make voluntary and the author's spontaneous actions to be one and the same; he saith I dis- ^^'°^^^-l tinguish them, so as spontaneous actions may be necessary, but voluntary actions cannot. Secondly, I distinguish be- tween free acts and voluntary acts. The former are always deliberate, the latter may be indeliberate ; all fi'ee acts are volimtary, but all voluntary acts are not free. But he saith I confound them, and make them the same. Thirdly, he saith, I ascribe spontaneity only to fools, children, madmen, and beasts ; but I acknowledge spontaneity hath place in rational men, both as it is comprehended in liberty, and as it is distinguished from liberty.
Yet I have no reason to be offended at it ; for he deals no [2. And otherwise with me than he doth with himself. Here he Mmseif.']^^ tells us, that "voluntary presupposeth deliberation." But, Numb. XXV, he tells us contrary; — "that whatsoever follow- eth the last appetite" is " voluntary, and where there is but one appetite, that is the last;" and that "no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation, though never so sudden''." So, Numb, xxxiii, he tells us, that "by spon-
" [See above T. H. Numb. ii. p. 26.] ^ [Below, p. 712. fol. edit.]
48
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part tancity is meant inconsiderate proceedings or else nothing is
— meant by it yet here he tells us^ that " all voluntary
actions" which proceed not from "fear/' are "spontaneous/' whereof many are deliberate, as that wherein he instanceth himself, to give " money for merchandise/' Thirdly, when I said, that children before they have the use of reason, act spontaneously (as when they suck the breast), but do not act freely, because they have not judgment to deliberate or elect, here T. H. undertakes to prove, that they do deliberate and elect; and yet presently after confesseth again, that " a child may be so young, as to do what it doth without all deliberation."
3. [Actions Besides these mistakes and contradictions, he hath other Teed from' eiTors also in this section. As this, that no actions proceed- oTmaym)t ^^^^ "fear" are "spontaneous." He who throws his goods be spon- into the sea to avoid drowning, doth it not only " spontane-
tcinGOus 1 o «/
ously" but even freely. He that wills the end, wills the means conducing to that end. It is true, that if the action be considered nakedly without all circumstances, no man willingly or spontaneously casts his goods into the sea. But if we take the action as in this particular case invested with all the circumstances, and in order to the end, that is, the 661 saving of his own life, it is not only voluntary and spon- taneous, but elective and chosen by him, as the most probable means for his own preservation. As there is an antecedent and a subsequent will, so there is an an- tecedent and a subsequent spontaneity. His grammatical argument, grounded upon the derivation of spontaneous from spontCj weighs nothing; we have learned in the rudi- ments of logic, that conjugates are sometimes in name only, and not in deed. He who casts his goods in the sea, may do it of his own accord in order to the end. Secondly, he errs in this also, that nothing is opposed to spontaneity but only " fear." Invincible and antecedent ignorance doth destroy the nature of spontaneity or voluntariness, by removing that knowledge which should and would have prohibited the J action. As a man, thinking to shoot a wild beast in a bush, shoots his friend, which if he had known, he would not have shot. This man did not kill his friend of his own accord. I
w [Below, p. 719. fol. edit.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
49
For the clearer understanding of these things, and to Discouuse know what spontaneity is^, let us consult awhile with the ^ [Defi- Schools^ about the distinct order of voluntary or involuntary "'ti^" of
. " voluntar}'
actions. Some acts proceed wholly from an extrmsecal and in- cause ; as the throwing of a stone upwards, a rape, or the acts!]*'^^^ drawing of a Christian by plain force to the idoFs temple. These are called violent acts. Secondly, some proceed from an intrinsecal cause, but without any manner of knowledge of the end; as the falling of a stone downwards. These are called natui'al acts. Thirdly, some proceed from an internal principle with an imperfect knowledge of the end, where there is an appetite to the object, but no deliberation nor election ; as the acts of fools, children, beasts, and the in- considerate acts of men of judgment. These are called voluntaiy or spontaneous acts. Fourthly, some proceed from an intrinsecal cause with a more perfect knowledge of the end, which are elected upon deliberation. These are called fi'ee acts. So then the formal reason of liberty is election. The necessary requisite to election is deliberation. Delibera- tion implieth the actual use of reason. But deliberation and election cannot possibly subsist with an extrinsecal predeter- mination to one. How should a man deliberate or choose which way to go, who knows that all ways are shut against him, and made impossible to him, but only one ? This is the genuine sense of these words voluntary" and ^'"spontaneous" in this question. Though they were taken twenty other ways -vulgarly or metaphorically (as we say spontaneous ulcers," where there is no appetite at all), yet it were nothing to this controversy ; which is not about words, but about things, not what the words voluntary or fi'ee do or may signify, but whether all things be extrinsecally predetermined to one.
These grounds being laid for clearing the true sense of the [5. Neces- words, the next thing to be examined is that contradiction e/e^J^on which he hath espied in mv discourse, or how this argument inconsis-
tent in the
fights against its fellows." " If I," saith T. H., " make it same act.] appear," that the spontaneous actions of " fools, children, madmen, and beasts," do "proceed from election and de- liberation," and that " inconsiderate" and indeliberate actions
* [Thorn. Aquin., Summ., Prim. Se- Aristot., Ethic, V. x. 6—9 ; Rhet., I. cund., Qu. vi. artt. 1, 2. And compare x. 7, 8.]
BR.\MHALL. £
50
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part are found in the wisest men, " then his argument concludes,
— that necessity and election may stand together ; which is
contrary^^ to his assertion. If this could be made appear as easily as it is spoken, it would concern himself much ; who, when he should prove that rational men are not free from necessity, goes about to prove, that brute beasts do de- liberate and elect, that is as much as to say, are free from necessity. But it concerns not me at all. It is neither my assertion, nor my opinion, that necessity and election may not meet together in the same subject. Violent, natural, spontaneous, and deliberative or elective acts, may all meet together in the same subject. But this I say, that necessity and election cannot consist together in the same act. He who is determined to one, is not free to choose out of more than one. To begin with his latter supposition, — that wise men may do "inconsiderate" and indeliberate actions. I do readily admit it. But where did he learn to infer a general conclusion from particular premisses ? as thus, — be- cause wise men do some indeliberate acts, therefore no act they do is free or elective. Secondly, for his former supposition, — " that fools, children, madmen, and beasts, do deliberate and elect." If he could make it good, it is not I who contra- dict myself, nor "fight against" mine own assertion; but it is he who endeavours to prove that which I altogether deny. He may well find a contradiction between him and me ; otherwise to what end is this dispute ? But he shall not be o able to find a difi*erence between me and myself. But the truth is, he is not able to prove any such thing; and that brings me to my sixth consideration : — 6. [ina- That neither horses, nor bees, nor spiders, nor children, ingTnei- fools, nor madmen, do deliberate or elect. His first
liberate' iiistaucc is in the horse or dog, but more especially the nor elect.] horsc. He told me, that I divided my argument "into squadrons," to apply myself to your Lordship, being " a mili- tary man^ ;" and I apprehend, that for the same reason he gives his first instance of the horse with a submission to your " own experience." So far well, but otherwise very disadvantageously to his cause. Men use to say of a dull fellow, that he hath no more brains than a horse. And the
y [See above T. II. Numb. v. p. 37.]
AGAINST MK. HOCBES
51
Prophet David saith^ Be not like tlie horse and mule, which Discol-rse have no understandincr/^ How do thev deliberate'^ vrithoiit '-
* P-.xxxii.O.
understanding And P^alm xlix. 20, he saith the same of all brute beasts ; — Man being in honour had no under- standing, but became like unto the beasts that perish/' The horse "demurs upon his way." "Why not ? Outward objects or inward fancies may produce a stay in his coui'se, though he have no judgment either to deliberate or elect. He " retires from some strange figure vrhich he sees, and comes on again to avoid the spur." So he may, and yet be far enough from deliberation. All this proceeds from the sensitive passion of fear, which is "a perturbation arising from the expectation of some imminent eviP.'' But he m'geth, "what else doth man that deliberateth Yes, very much. The horse feareth some outward object, but deliberation is a comparing of several means conducing to tlie same end. Fear is commonly of one, deliberation of more than one ; fear is of those things which are not in our power, deliberation of those things which are in oui' power^ ; fear ariseth many times out of natm-al antipathies, but in these disconveniences of natm-e deliberation hath no place at all. In a word, fear [" Fear is is an enemy to dehberation, and ' betrayeth the succour's of eii^ut a the soul.' If the horse did deliberate, he should consult of riS «uc- with reason, whether it were more expedient for him to ^^'^^^
^ ^ which rea-
that way or not ; he should represent to himself all the son offtr- dangers both of going and staving, and compare the one with xvii. 12.'] the other, and elect that which is less ; he should con- sider, whether it v»ere not better to endure a Httle hazard, than ungratefully and dishonestly to fail in his duty to his master, who did breed him and doth feed him. This the horse doth not ; neither is it possible for him to do it. Secondly, for childi-en, T. H. confesseth, that they may be so " young," that they " do not deliberate at all." Afterwards, as they attain to the use of reason by degrees, so by degrees they become free agents. Then they do deliberate ; before, they do not deliberate. The rod may be a means to make them use their reason, when they have power to exercise it ; but the rod cannot produce the power before they have it.
' [""Eo-Tctf St; 6 (p6fios \v1n7 tis fi ra- lib. II. c. v. § 1. — " Oaa yluerai 5i' hH-^'-', paxh f f (pavTamas fx.4x\ovro$ kukov /utj w(TavT(as 5' det, Trepi tovtoov fijv\(v6- (pdapTiKod ^ KvTTTjpov." Aristot., Rhet., ^e0a." Id., Ethic, III. v. 8. J
52
A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part' Thirdly^ for fools and madmen: — it is not to be understood
'- — of such madmen as have their lucida intervalla, who are mad
and discreet by fits ; when they have the use of reason, they are no madmen, but may dehberate as well as others : nor yet of such fools as are only comparative fools, that is, less wise than others j such may deliberate, though not so clearly nor so judiciously as others : but of mere madmen, and mere natural fools : — to say that they, who have not the use of rea- son, do deliberate or use reason, implies a contradiction. But his chiefest confidence is in his bees and spiders ; of whose ^' actions^^ (he saith) if I had been " a spectator," I " would have confessed, not only election, but also art, prudence, pohcy, very near equal to that of mankind whose " life," as "Aristotle saith, is civil." Truly I have contemplated their J actions many times, and have been much taken with their ^ curious works; yet my thoughts did not reflect so much uponH them, as upon their Maker, Who is ^^sic magnus in magnisP thatH He is not minor inparvis" — "so great in great things, that HeH is not less in small things." Yes, I have seen those silliest o^f creatures ; and seeing their rare works, I have seen enoughH to confute all the bold-faced atheists of this age, and theirH hellish blasphemies. I see them, but I praised the marvel-H lous works of God, and admired that Great and First Intel-H lect. Who had both adapted their organs and determined™ their fancies to these particular works. I was not so simpleH to ascribe those rarities to their own invention, which I knewM to proceed from a mere instinct of nature. In all othei^ things they are the dullest of creatures. Naturalists write of bees, that their fancy is imperfect, not distinct from their 66 common sense, spread over their whole body, and only per- ceiving things present. When Aristotle calls them "politi- cal" or sociable creatures % he did not intend it really that they lived a civil life, but according to an analogy, — because they do such things by instinct, as truly political creatures do out of judgment. Nor when I read in St. Ambrose of their " hexagonies" or sexangular cells ^, did I therefore conclude,
" ["noAtTtKct." Aristot., Hist, Ani- Aok" «. t. A.]
mal., lib. I. c. i, § 25. Compare his ^ [" Hexagonia cellularum." Am-
Politics , I. ii. 10: — " Ait^rt 8^ -no- bros., Hexaem., lib. v. c. 21. § 69 ; Op.
XiTiKhvb &ydp(t}rros (u>oi/ irdarjs fxcXlTrrjs tom. i. p. 107. C] Koi Travrhs ay f\alov fwov /jluWou, Srj-
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
53
that they were mathematicians. Nor when I read in Cres- Discourse
pet, that they invoke God to their aid, when they go out of
tlieir hives, bending their thighs in form of a cross and bowing themselves, did I therefore think, that this was an act of rehgious piety, or that they were capable of "theological virtues whom I see in all other things, in which their fancies are not determined, to be the silliest of creatures, strangers not only to right reason but to all resemblances of it.
Seventhly, concerning those actions which are done upon 7. [Habitu- precedent and past deliberations ; they are not only spon- voluntary. ] taneous, but free acts. Habits contracted by use and ex- perience do help the will to act with more facility, and more determinately ; as the hand of the artificer is helped by his tools. And precedent deliberations, if they were sad and serious, and proved by experience to be profitable, do save the labour of subsequent consultations. " Frustra fit per plura, quod fieri potest per pandora." Yet, nevertheless, the actions which are done by \irtue of these formerly acquired habits are no less free, than if the deliberation were co- existent with this particular action. He that hath gained a habit and skill to play such a lesson, needs not a new deli- beration how to play, every time that he plays it over and over. Yet I am far from giving credit to him in this, that walking or eating universally considered are free actions, or proceed from true liberty ; not so much because they want a particular deliberation before every individual act, as because they are animal motions, and need no deliberation of reason ; as we see in brute beasts. And nevertheless the same actions, as they are considered individually, and invested with their due circumstances, may be, and often are, free actions sub- jected to the liberty of the agent.
Lastly, whereas T. H. compareth the first motions or rash s. [How attempts of " choleric persons" with such acquired habits, it fro^lc^^^ is a great mistake. Those rash attempts are voluntary Ij^p^ggiQ^J,^-] actions, and may be facilitated sometimes by acquired habits :
[" Virtutes Theologicae dicuntur, order of the Celestines at Paris, who
qunc? ordinant nos ad Deum ;" scz. died in 1594, was author of a Summa
"Fides, Spes, Caritas :" as distin- Fidei Catholicae, and of several mystical
guished from " moral " and " intellec- religious works, from one of which
tual" virtues. Tliom. Aquin., Summ. latter class the account in the text is
Prima Secund., Qu. Ixii. art. 2. § 2. probably taken. See Moreri, and the
— Father Peter Crespet, a monk of the Biogr. Univ.]
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
^'iii''^ but yet, forasmuch as actions are often altered and varied by the circumstances of time, place, and person, so as that act which at one time is morally good, at another time may be morally evil; and forasmuch as a general precedent deli- beration how to do this kind of action is not sufficient to make this or that particular action good or expedient, which being in itself good, yet particular circumstances may render inconvenient or unprofitable, to some persons, at some times, in some places; therefore a precedent general deliberation how to do any act (as, for instance, how to write), is not sufficient to make a particular act (as my writing this individual reply) to be freely done, without a particular and subsequent delibera- tion. A man learns French advisedly, that is a free act. The same man in his choler and passion reviles his friend in French without any deliberation; this is a spontaneous act, but it is not a free act. If he had taken time to advise, he would not have reviled his friend. Yet, as it is not free, so neither is it so necessary, as the bees making honey; whose fancy is not only inclined but determined by nature to that act. So every way he fails. And his conclusion — "that the liberty of election doth not take away the necessity of electing this or that individual thing" — is no consequent from my doctrine, but from his own. Neither do my argu- ments " fight one against another," but his private opinions fight both against me and against an undoubted truth. A free agent endowed with liberty of election, or with an elective power, may nevertheless be necessitated in some individual acts ; but those acts wherein he is necessitated, do not flow from his elective power, neither are those acts which flow from his elective power necessitated.
NUMBER IX.
Argument J. D. — Secondly, they who might have done, and may do, m^'"may^ many things which they leave undone, and they who leave things"an(i ^^^^^^^^ many things which they might do, are neither corn- do them pelled nor necessitated to do what they do, but have true
not, and _^ • ^ i ^ • i • ^
therefore liberty. J3ut wc might do many things which we do not, liberty.]^ and we do many things which we might leave undone ; as is 6^ plain, 1 Kings iii. 11, — " Because thou hast asked this thing.
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
55
and hast not asked for thyself long life, neither hast asked Discourse
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 eonsisteth in [Answer.] histories of men, that did one thing, when if they would they might have done another. The places are two : one is in the 1 Kings iii. 11 ; where the history says, God Avas 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 there is election, but do not disprove the necessity which I maintain of what they so elect.
J. D. — We have had the. very same answer twice before^. [Reply.] 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 adversary's weapons 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 shew any further, how the mem- bers 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 impossi- ble, is to make election to be no election at all. But I forbear to press that in present. If I maybe bold to use his own phrase,
[ Thrice ; see above T. H., Numbers e [See Virg., tEu., xii. 41 1—419 ;— iii, vi, vii. pp. 27, 38, 41.] Plin., Nat. Hist., viii. 27. xxv. 8.J
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
A^RT his answer "looks'^ quite "another way^^^ from mine argu- — - — ment. My second reason was this j — " 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 preciseh^ and antecedently determined, to do 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 ; there- fore 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 anything contained in my argument. Here I must be bold to call upon him for a more pertinent answer.
NUMBER X.
Argument J. D. — Thirdly, if there be no true liberty, but all things the"fn^^^' come to pass by inevitable necessity, then what are all those toriePex i^^terrogations, and objurgations, and reprehensions, and ex- postuia- postulations, which we find so frequently in Holy Scriptures, the like, in (be it spokcn with all due respect) but feigned and hypocriti- prove^ men exaggerations ? " Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I to have commanded that thou shouldest not eat Gen. iii. 11 : and
true h-
berty.] verse 13, He saith to Eve, " AYhy hast thou done this and this^hoV^ to Cain, Why art thou wrath, and why is thy countenance done?"] ^^^^ down?" And, "Why will ye die, O house of Israel?'^ [Gen. iv. 6. Doth God Command openh^ not to eat, and yet secretly by xviii. 31 ; Himself or by the second causes necessitate him to eat ? Doth xxxiii. 1].] jjg 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.
f [See above T. H. Numb. v. p. 37.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
57
The secret will of God is what He will do Himself ; the re- Discourse
vealed will of God is what He would have us to do. It may
65 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 com- mand one thing, and yet to necessitate him that is com- manded 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 [The one answer. d^f^red.-]
J. D. — Certainly distinct arguments, as the third and fifth [Reply.] are, the one drawn from the truth of God, the other drawn 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 Numb, 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 hindrance of the same, if he punish him wliom he commanded so for not doing it, is unjust^\" 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
g [From Anselm., Lib. de Volunt. ^ [Below, T. H. Numb. xii. p. 65.] Dei, Opusc. p. 85. M. fol. Paris. 1544.] ' [Above, in Numb. ii. p. 26.]
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
p A II r see plainly, that either he is not provided, or that his cause — ^Jh — admits no choice of answers. The Jews dealt ingenuously, when they met with a difficult knot which they could not untie, to put it upon Elias ; — " Elias will answer it when he comes/^
Argument 4. — [That every theory of necessity proves too much, in proving Adam a necessary agent ; vvliich yet Necessi- tarians deny. ]
NUMBER XI. J. D. — Fourthly, if either the decree of God, or the fore- knowledge of God, or the influence of the stars, or the con- catenation 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 odiJ."
The greatest opposers of our liberty are as earnest main tainers of the liberty of Adam. Therefore none of thes supposed impediments take away true liberty.
Anstcer. ]
[ T. h:s
T. H.— The fourth argument is to this eff*ect '^f th decree of God, or His foreknowledge, or the influence of the stars, or the concatenation of causes, or the physical or mor? 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 odiJ.' "
That which I saynecessitateth and determineth every action.
"dfneces-"^^ — ^^^^ lougcr doubt of my meaning, — is the sum
Hy.-]
[Of the theories of
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 eff'ect 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
^ [Herat., A. P., 188. — " Quodcunque doctrine, Calvin., Instit., lib. I.e. xv. ostendig mihi sic," &c. And for the § 8; Op. torn. viii. p. 44.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
59
anything, cannot be truly said; seeing foreknowledge is Discourse knowledge, and knowledsre depends on the existence of the —
° ■' o jT necessity
things known, and not they on it. held by
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 X for moral efficacy,^' I understand not what he means by it.
The last dictate of the judgment concerning the good or bad 66 that may follow on any action, is not properly the w hole 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 a 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 [Election causes necessitate that effect, that then it follows, Adam had ZthfrZ 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 w^ill itself, and each propen- sion of a man during his deliberation, is as much necessitated, and depends on a sufficient cause, as anything else whatso- ever. 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.— This argument was sent forth only as an espy, to [Reply.] make a more full discovery what were the true grounds of T. H. his supposed necessity; which errand being done, and the foundation whereupon he builds being found out, which
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
R T 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 tlie refutation of all those other opinions, which he doth not undertake to defend. And therefore I shall wave them for the present, with these short animadversions. [The de- Concerning the eternal decree of God, he confounds the forSnow- decree itself with the execution of His decree. And concern- GodV^ ing the foreknowledge of God, he confounds that speculative knowledge, which is called the "knowledge of vision V' 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 ^°Heb cause of his work. God made all things " by His
2.] * * Word," that is, by His wisdom. [The in- Concerning the influences of the stars, I wish he had ex- ?h"e^stars.]^ pressed 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 physi- cally 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. [The con- Concerning the concatenation of causes, whereas he makes of causes.] ^ot One chain, but an innumerable number of chains" (I hope he speaks hyperbolically, and doth not intend that they are actually infinite), the diff'erence is not material whether one or many, so long as they are all joined together, both in the first link, and likewise in the eff*ect. It sers^es 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.
^ [Thorn. Aquin., Summ., P. Prima, Qu, xiv. artt. 8, 9.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
61
But I admire^, that T. H.^ who is so versed in this ques- Discourse tion, should here confess, that he understands not the diffe '
[Physical
rence between physical or natural, and moral efficacy. And and moral much more, that he should affirm, that outward objects do objects.]°^ "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 deter- mined 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 pleaseth Him, in cases extraordinary, concur by a special influence, and infuse something into the will in the nature of an act or a habit, w^hereby 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
67 determined extrinsecally, in the latter case, intrinsecally ; 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 neces- sary. 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 understand- ing. In a word, so great a difference there is between natu- ral and moral efficacy, as there is between his opinion and mine in this question.
I There remains only the last dictate of the understanding, [The last which he maketh to be the last cause that concurreth to the the under- determination of the will, and to the necessary production of ^*^"^"^°-l the act ; " as the last feather may be said to break a horse^s back, when there were so many laid on before that there wanted but that to do it.'' I have shewed (Numb, vii.^), that the last dictate of the understanding is not always absolute
I 1 [Above, pp. 42, 43.]
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part in itself. nor conclusive to the will : and when it is conclu- III . . . '■ — sive, yet it produceth no antecedent nor extrinsecal necessity.
I shall only add one thing more in present, — that by mak- ing 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 ; he endeavoui's to deprive the will of its supreme power of application, and to deprive the under- standing 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 mis- informed. 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 horse-load of feathers again Numb, xxiii.™ [Adam was These things being thus briefly touched, he proceeds to agentTf his answer. My argument was this ; — If any of these or all of other men thesc causcs formerly recited do take awav true libertv (that
are.] ... " ' .
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 conse- quence ; which is so clearly proved that no man li^-ing 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 dis- course, 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 propen- sion^' of our wills, even "during^' our "deliberation,^^ are " as much necessitated as any thing else whatsoever that we have no more power to forbear those actions which we do,
^ [Below, p. 707. fol. edit.]
AGAINST MR. HOBCES.
63
than the " fire" hath power not to " burn." Though I honour Disco ursk T. H. for his person and for liis learning, yet I must confess — in^enuouslv, I hate this doctrine from mv heart. And I conse- beheve both I have reason so to do, and all others who shall tTe jo?-'' seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it. [[p"^'^^*!^. -j It destroys libcj'ty, and dishonours the natui'e 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 in- troducer 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 ii]), 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 ine^itably, ii'resisti- bly, not by an accidental but by an essential subordination of causes, to whatsoever he did ; then one of these two ab- surdities must needs follow ; — either that Adam did not sin, and that tliere is no such thing as sin in the world, because 8 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 extrinsecally, inevitably deter- mined, but so is not God ; and in causes essentially subordi- nate, the cause of the cause is alwavs the cause of the eff*ect. What tp'ant 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 necessi- tated tliem to break, wliicli 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 [P?.cxx.\ix. which is so dishonom-able both to God and man, which ' makes men to blaspheme of necessity, to steal of necessity, to be liauged of necessity, and to be damned of necessity. And therefore I must say, and say again,
" Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incroduUis 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, aud a God of evil ; or with the heathens, to beheve thirty thousand Gods ; than thus to charge tlie true God to be the proper
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
P^A^R T cause and the true author of all the sins and evils which are '■ — in the world.
NUMBER XII.
Argument J. D. — Fifthly^ if there be no liberty, there shall be no Day thT^thiiory of Doom, no Last Judgment, no rewards nor punishments after ?eaTe?no^^ death. A man can never make himself a criminal, if he be room for not left at liberty to commit a crime. No man can be iustly
reward or . f _ , , tj ./
punish- punished for doing that, which was not in his power to shun, ment] ^^-^^ away liberty, hazards Heaven ; but undoubtedly it
leaves no Hell.
[Answer.] 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 un- just ; 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.
[ St. PauTs To oppose hereunto, I must borrow an answer from 7hTEphtie ^^^^^ 1^0^- i^- ^^e^s. 11. From the eleventh verse of the totheRo- chapter to the eighteenth is laid down the very same objec- tion in these words. — When they^^ (meaning Esau and J acob) 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^^ (^dz. to Rebekah), that the elder shall serve the younger^. *. . And what then shall we say ? Is there in- justice with God ? God forbid. . . It is not therefore in him that willeth, nor in him that runneth, but in God, that sheweth mercy. For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh, I have stirred thee up, that I may shew 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 [Rom. xi. words following, — "Thou wilt ask me then, why will God yet
19.]
" [Hobbes has omitted here v. 13.— and Esau have I hated."] ** As it is written, Jacob have I loved
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
65
complain, for who hath resisted His will?'^ To this there- Discourse
fore the Apostle answers, not by denying it w^as God's will,
or that the decree of God concerning Esau w^as not before he had sinned, or that Esau Avas not necessitated to do what he did, but thus— Who art thou, O man, that interrogatest f 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 honom^, another to dis- honour ?" According therefore to this answer of St. Paul, I [The power answer J. D.'s objection, and say, the power of God alone, alone is without other help, is sufficient justification of any action He ]l'^,yP*Jy 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 measui-ed 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 hindi-ance 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 bv telling him of His power. Hast [Job x. 9;
* xxxviii, 4
thou'' (says God) '*^an arm like Mine?" — " AYhere wast thou &c.] when I laid the foundations of the earth?" — and the like. So [Johnix.3.] our Sa\iour, 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 shewn in him.' Beasts are subject to death and torment, yet they cannot sin. It was God's will it should be so. Power irresistible justifieth 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 I His counsels call Him to the bar, commit injustice in it.
I am not ignorant of the usual reply to this answer, by dis- [ There is tinguishing between will and permission : as, that God Infe 'te^' Almighty does indeed permit sin sometimes, and that ^Q*ZTive\in'd also foreknoweth that the sin He permitteth shall be com- «
^ imssivt, or
II
BRAMHALL.
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part mitted. but does not will it, nor necessitate it. I know also III. ... ^ — they distinguish the action from the sin of the action, savins:,
a will cans- ^ t , , -, . -, , • -> J &^
ingtheact Cjod Almighty docs mdccd cause the action, whatsoever ^causing^the ^ction it bc, but uot 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 [2Sam.xi.] 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 gar- ment, 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 'tis blasphemy to say, God can sin. But to say, that God can so order the world as a sin may be neces- sarily caused thereby in a man, I do not see how it is any dis- honour 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, [they] 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.
[Reply.] 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. 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
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
67
was the actor more tlian they, they being but as the stone, but Discourse
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 the Truth itself. And to my fifth argument, which he chanffcth and relateth [The pas-
u • • -.1 1 • X.- sage in St.
amiss, as by comparing mine with his may appear, his Paul ex- chiefest answer is to oppose a difficult place of St. Paul, Eom. to^ts^gc'tie". ix. 11. Hath he never heard, that to propose a doubt is not i^is^^oi'^^-] 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," [Gen. xvii. if the Jews, who were the legitimate progeny of Abraham, were deserted. To which the Apostle answers, that that verses 6, 7, 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 expUcateth, first by the allegory of Isaac and Ishmael, and after, in the place cited, of Esau and of Jacob. Yet neither doth he speak there so much of their persons as of their posterities. And though some words may be accommo- dated 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 extrinsecally 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 ; that He who did impress the motion in the heart of man, should punish man, who did only receive the impression from Him. So his answer " looks another wayP."
But because he grounds so much upon this text, that if it [In its par- 0 can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion, I will examine sages^] all those passages which may seem to favour his cause.
° [" Nil agit exemplum litem quod [See above, T. H. Numb. v. p. 37.]
lite resolvit." Horat., Sat., Il.iii. 103.]
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part First^ these words, vers. 11, — " Being not yet born, neither ^^'^ having done any good or evil/^ — upon which the whole weight Jacob was of his argument doth depend, have no reference at all to Esa^ those words, vers. 13, " Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated.] hated;" for those words were first uttered by the prophet Mai.i.2,[3.] Malachi, many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead; and intended of the posterity of Esau, who were not redeemed from captivity, as the Israelites were : but they are referred to those other w^ords, vers. 13, " The elder shall serve the Gen. XXV. younger ;" which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were born. 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 [Gen.i. 31.] of punishment, nor any act contrary to love. "God saw all that He made, and it w^as very good." Goodness itself can- not hate that which is good. But ^hatred' there signifies com- parative hatred, or a less degree of love, or at the most a nega- tion 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 vers. 30. scnsc ; — " Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah." So Matt. y\.
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 dis- Matt. X. 37. ciple." St. Matthew tells us the sense of it ; — " He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me." 2. [Of the Secondly, those words, vers. 15, — "IwiU have mercy on God's^'^ whom I will have mercy," — do prove no more but this, that mercy.] tlie 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 de- serts; but God's punishments do never exceed man's mis- Matt. XX. deeds. As we see in the parable of the labourers ; — " Friend, 1*3, 15.] J ^^^^^ 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.
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
69
That wliich follows_, vers. 17, comes something nearer the Discourse
cause ; — " The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this same '■
purpose I have raised thee up" (that is, I have made thee a sen?e"(5!?s king, or T have preserved thee), " that I might shew My fj^h^/ the power in thee." But this particle—" that"— doth not always ^nd^^^^ the signify the main end of an action, but sometimes only a con- quence of sequent of it. As Matt. ii. [14,] 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 jour- ney, he saith, " that it might be fulfilled." So here, — " I have raised thee up, that I might shew 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 conse- quent intention upon the pre\dsion of Pharaoh's obstinacy, — that since he would not glorify God in obeying His word, he should glorify God [in] undergoing His judgments. Hitherto we find no eternal punishments, nor no temporal punish- ments, without just deserts.
It follows, vers. 18, "Whom He will He hardeneth." In- 4. [in what deed hardness of heart is the greatest judgment that God is said to lays upon a sinner in this life, worse than all the plagues of men's" Egypt. But how doth God harden the heart? Not by a ^^^^^^-l natural influence of any evil act or habit into the will, nor by inducing the will with persuasive motives to obstinacy and rebellion; for " God tempteth no man, but every man is James i. 13, tempted when he is di-awn away of his own lust and enticed." Then God is said to harden the heart three ways. — 1. First, negatively, and not positively; "not by imparting wickedness, but by not imparting graced :" 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.
1 [" Nec obdurat Deus impartiendo sam excsecationis et indurationis posi-
malitiam sed non impartiendo niiseri- tive (ut sic loquar), sed negative; viz.
cordiam." Aug., Epist. cxiii, Ad Six- permittendo, deserendo, non miseren-
tum,c. 3. §4; Op. tom. ii. p. 719. D. do." Bellarm., De Amiss. Grat. et
— " Respondeo,ex communi sanctorum Statu Peccati, lib. ii. c. 14 ; Op. tom. iii.
Patrum sententia, Deum non esse cans- p. 177. C]
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part 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 — 2. Secondly^ God is said to harden the 6 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 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 Pha- raoh^s request, both of them in their several kinds were occa- sions of hardening PharaoVs 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 Pliaraoh^s. God gave the occasion, but Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration. This is clearly confirmed, Exod. viii. 15, — "When Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart f — and Exod. ix. 34, — "When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned jet 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 sub- tilly with them that is, God blessed the children of Israel, whereupon the Egyptians did take occasion to hate them ; as is plain, Exod. i. verses 7, 8, 9, 10. So God hardened Pha- raoh^ s heart, and Pharaoh hardened his own heart. God hardened it by not shewing mercy to Pharaoh, as He did to
[Dan. iv. Nebuchaduczzar, who was as great a sinner as he ; or God
3-1—3/] ijardened 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
Ps. xcv. 8. presumptuous sinners. " Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness." — 3. Thirdly, God is said to harden the heart permissively, but
' [" Obduratio Dei est nolle mise- Simplicianum, lib. i. qu. 2. § 15; Op. reri." Aug., De Divers. Quaest. Ad torn. vi. p. 96. E.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
71
not operatively, nor effectively ; as he who only lets loose a Discourse
greyhound out of the slip_, is said to hound him at the hare. '-
Will you see plainly what St. Paul intends by ^' hardening Eead vers. 22 ; — " 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 in- citing, " the vessels of wrath." He saith of " the vessels of mercy," that God " prepared them unto glory ;" but of " the [Rom. ix. 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 irresisti- bly to do those acts which He condemneth as evil, and for which He punisheth them. If doing willingly, and "endur- ing," if "much long-suffering" and necessitating, imply not a contrariety one to another, reddat mihi minam Diogenes'^ — let hun that taught me logic " give me my money again ^"
But T. H. saith, that this distinction between the operative [There is a and permissive ^vill of God, and that other between the ence be- action and the ii-regularity, do " dazzle his understanding." operative Though he can find no difference between these two, vet ^ p^^"
° ' - missive
others do^ St. Paul himself did: Acts xiii. 18, "About the ^iH-] time of forty years suffered He theii' manners in the wilder- ness;" and Acts xiv. 16, "Who in times past suffered aU nations to walk in then' 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 x\ii. 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 wiU not suffer you to be tempted above that you are
' [Cic, Lucull., XXX.] Summ., P. Prima, Qu. xx. art. 12 :
' [See Pet. Lomb., Sent., lib. i. dist. from Aug., Enchirid., c. xcv. § 24, Op. xlv. qu. 1. art. 3 ; and Thom. Aquin., tom. vi. p. 231. E.]
72 A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY ^
p R T able — to tempt is the deviFs act, therefore he is called the I
— Terapter ; 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. his 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 know- ing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance, but 672 after thj 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 comdncing 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 creatui'cs 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 in- sufficient 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
1 Pet. iii. the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter : — " The lonsr-
20
suffering of God waited once in the days of Noah ;" and,
2 Pet. iii. " Account that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation."
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
73
This is the name God gives Himself; — "The Lord, the Lord Discourse
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering/^ &c. ^ — ^
Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be com- xxxiv. 6. monly true, — that he who doth permit anything 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 j some sort ; that is, either by an antecedent will or by a con- I sequent will, either by an operative will or by a permissive I! will, or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do j| it. Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man j to suffer that to be done, which otherwise he w^ould not suffer. 1 So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the lions^ den, to [Dan. vi. ( make good his rash decree : so Herod suffered John Baptist [ti^tt! xiv. \ 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 lovcth all His creatures well, but His ow^n justice better. Again, sometimes a man suffereth that to be done, which he doth not wall 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 desii'ous 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 e\dl". Yet this ought not to be so i understood, as if we made any priority or posteriority of time i in the acts of God, but only of nature. Nor do we make the I antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another; because the one respects man puie and uncorrupted, the other respects him as he is lapsed. The objects are the same,
" [" Neqiie enim Deus omnipotens, et bonus, ut benefaceret et de nialo."
. . cum summe bonus sit, ullo modo Aug., Enchirid., c. xi. § 3 ; Op. torn,
siueret mali aliquid esse in operibus vi. p. 199. A.] suis, nisi usque adeo asset omnipotens
74 A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part 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 Di\ine 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 e\il. [How God T. H. demands, how God should be the cause of the action oVtheTr ^^^^^ irregularity of the action. I
yet not of ^uswcr, bccausc He concurs to the doing of evil by a general,
the sin of , . . ,
the act.] but not by a special influence. As the earth gives nourish- ment 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 673 root : even so the general power to act is from God, — " In
[Acts xvii. 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 ha^dng 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 per- fection^. 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 speci- fication 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
\_" Nemo quaerat efficientem caus- tem," &c. Bellarm,, De Amiss. Grat. sam malas voluntatis; non enim est et Statu Peccati, lib. ii. c, 17 ; Op. torn. efficiens sed deficiens, quia nee ilia effec- iii. p. 207. B. — " Non est enim injusti- tio est sed defectio." Aug., De Civ. tia quaiitas aut actio aut aliqua essen- Deijlib. xii. c. 7; Op. torn. vii. p. 306, tia, sed tantum absentia debitae justi- C. — " Ex his apertissima erit ratio cur tiae ; nec est nisi in voluntate, ubi debet Deus non peccet neque peccati causa esse justitia." Anselm., De Concord, jure dici possit, quamvis concurrat ad Praescient. &c. cum Lib. Arb., c. i. p. illam actionem efficiendam quae homini 88. B. Opusc. fol. Paris. ISii — "Pec- sit peccatum;" viz. "quia Deus non catum nihil est, et nihil fiunt homines efficit actionem illam ut caussa particu- cum peccant." Aug., In Joh. Evang. laris sed ut caussa universalis, prsebens Tract, i. § 13 ; Op. torn. iii. P. 2. p. 294. vim et influxum quendam indifferen- D.]
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75
is, by general influence, and yet another cause, concurring Discourse
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, [God's jus- and the objection used by the Jews, vers. 19, — " Why doth measured He yet find fault ? who hath resisted His will is the very Jj^o "er'but same with mv ar":ument : and St. PauFs answer, vers. 20, — ^^'!^,'^??u'
^ , , and that the
" O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? shall the will of One thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made fect?]^^^^^ 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 denj', that it was God's will, nor that God's decree was before Esau's sin. To which I reply : —
1. First, that the case is not at all the same, but quite dif- ferent; 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 obdiu'ation, 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. diff'ers from all that I re- member to have read, who do all acknowledge that punish- ment is never actually inflicted but for sin"'. If the question
^ ["Omnis poena, si justa est, i. c. 9. § 5 : Op. torn. i. pp. (331. B, 14. peccati poena est." Aus;., De Lib. Arb., E.] lib. iii. c. 18. § 51; and Retract., lib.
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part 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, Matt. XX. and it is sauciness in a creature in this case to reply. " May not God do what He will with His own?^^ No man doubteth but God imparteth grace beyond man's desert. 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 difi'erences 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 [Rom. xi. by reason, to plead His omnipotence, or to cry, "O altitudoP^ 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 fantastical devices, which are inconsistent with the truth, and goodness, and [2 Cor. i. 3. justice of God, and make Him to be a tyrant, who is " the 6.] ' 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.
2. Secondly, this objection contained vers. 19, to which the 67 Apostle answers vers. 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 vers. 22, — "What if God, willing" (that is, by a consequent will) " to shew His wrath, and to make
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
77
His power known, endured witli much long-suffering the Discourse
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 vers. 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, vers. 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 to the righteousness of God;" — and yet most expressly chap. xi. vers. 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 conse- quently 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; — vers. 23, " If they" (that is, the unbelieving Jews) "abide not still in unbelief, they shall be graffed in." The crown and the sword are immove- able* (to use St. Anselm's comparison), but it is we that move and change places. Sometimes the JeAvs were under the crown, and the Gentiles under the sword; sometimes the Jews under the sword, and the Gentiles under the crown.
3. Thirdly, though I confess, that human "pacts" are not the measure of God's justice, but His justice is His own immut- able 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 1 therefore He punisheth not man contrary to His own cove- nant, 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 [Matt. iii. |i 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 2 Tim. ii.
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
P R T deny Himself," — He cannot lie." These and the like are rp;^ j 2 — fruits of impotence, not of power. So God cannot "destroy Gen. xviii. the righteous with the wicked f He " conld not" destroy Gen. xix. Sodom whilst Lot was in it : 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, Heb. vi. " 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 thej^ 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. p. 70) 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, [The case But, saith he, " God objected no sin to Job, but justified His 675 of Job.] 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 suf- Job iii. 3. fered. Witness his impatience, even to the cursing of the Job day of his nativity. Indeed God said to Job, " Where wast
XXXVI11.4. *^
* [Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Tertia de Cive, c. vi. § 18. p. 70. first ed. Paris, 4to. 1642.]
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
79
thou when I laid the foundations of the earth that is, how Discourse
canst thou judge of the things that were done before thou '-
wast born, or comprehend the secret causes of My judgments? — and, " Hast thou an arm hke God — as if He should say, job xi. p. Why art thou impatient? dost thou think thyself able to strive vrith. God ? But that God should punish Job without desert, here is not a word.
Concerninfif the blind man, mentioned John ix, his blind- [And of
® . . , . the blind
ness was rather a blessing to him than a punishment, being man men- the means to have his soul illuminated, and to bring him to st"john's see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body Gospel.] 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 impedi- ment to the eye of the soul. Again, neither he nor his parents were innocent, being " conceived and born in sin and Psai. li.o. iniquity/^ and, "In many things we oflPend all.^^ But our Jam. iii.2. Sariour's meaning is erident by the disciples^ question, vers. 2. They had not so sinned, that he should be born blind; or, they were not more grievous sinners than other men, to de- sen^e an exemplary judgment more than they; but this corpo- ral blindness befell him principally by the extraordinary pro- vidence of God, for the manifestation of His own glory in re- storing 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 [And of no more weight than the two former. The death of brute beasts 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 depriring of a creature of temporal life, and the sub- jecting 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 meta- physical entity, abstracted from the matter ; which is better than non-entity, in respect of some goodness, not moral nor natural, but transcendental, which accompanies everj^ being.
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
^ni^' But in the concrete it is far otherwise; where that of our '^^^ ^ Saviour often takes place^ — " Woe unto that man by whom xxvi. 24. 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 analogi- [Deutxxv. cal 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^/ M [Power to But his greatest error is that which I touched before, to la^eTby" make justice to be the proper result of power. Power doth justice'by^* not measure and regulate justice, but justice measures and power. ] regulates power. The will of God, and the eternal law which is in God Himself, is properly the rule and measure of justice. As all goodness, whether natural or moral, is a participation of Divine goodness, and all created rectitude is but a par- ticipation of Divine rectitude ; so all laws are but participa- tions of the eternal law, from whence they derive their power. The rule of justice then is the same both in God and us; but it is in God, as in Him that doth regulate and measure ; in us, as in those who are regulated and measured. As the will of God is immutable, always willing what is just and right and good, so His justice likewise is immutable. And that individual action which is justly punished as sinful in us, cannot possibly proceed from the special influence and de- terminative power of a just cause. See then how grossly T. H. doth understand that old and true principle, that " the will of God is the rule of justice as if, by willing things in themselves unjust, He did render them just, by reason of His absolute dominion and irresistible power : as 676 fire doth assimilate other things to itself, and convert them into the nature of fire. This were to make the eternal law a Lesbian rule 2. Sin is defined to be " that, which is done, or said, or thought, contrary to the eternal law*.^' But by this doctrine nothing is done nor said nor thought contrary to the will of God. St. Anselm said most truly, Then the will of man is good and just and right, when he wills that which God would have him to will^." But according to this doc- s' ["A righteous man regardeth the turn vel concupitum aliquid contra le- life of his heast." Prov. xii. 10.] gem aeternam." Aug., Cont. Faustum,
[Aristot,, Eth. Nic. V. xiv. 7 ;— see lib. xxii. c. 27 ; Op. torn. viii. p. 378. F.] above, in vol. iii. p. 303, note 1.] ^ [Lib. de Voluntate Dei, Opusc. pp.
» ["Peccatum est dictum vel fac- 85. K, 86. A. ed. 1544.]
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81
trine, every man always " wills tliat wliicli God would have Discourse
him to will/' If this be true, we need not pray, " Thy will be — — -
done in earth as it is in Heaven." T. H. hath devised a new kind of Heaven upon earth. The worst is, it is a Heaven wdthout justice. Justice is a constant and perpetual act of the will to give every one his own*^ but to inflict punishment for those things which the Judge Himself did determine and necessitate to be done, is not to give every one his ow^n. Right punitive justice is a relation of equality and proportion be- tween the demerit and the punishment^; but supposing this opinion of absolute and universal necessity, there is no demerit in the world. We use to say, that right springs from law and fact : as in this syllogism ; — Every thief ought to be punished, there^s the law ; but such an one is a thief, there's the fact ; therefore he ought to be punished, there's the right. But this opinion of T. H. grounds the right to be punished, neither upon law, nor upon fact, but upon the irresistible power" of God. Yea, it overtumeth as much as in it lies all law : first, the eternal law ; which is the ordination of Divine wisdom, by which ail creatures are directed to that end which is convenient for them^; that is not, to necessitate them to eternal flames : then, the law parti- cipated; which is the ordination of right reason, instituted for the common good, to shew unto man what he ought to do and what he ought not to do^ ; to what purpose is it to shew the right w^ay to him, who is drawn and haled a contrary w^ay by adamantine bonds of inevitable necessity ?
Lastly, howsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin, yet [t. h.'s in truth he makes Him to be the principal and most proper makS g cause of all sin. For he makes Him to be the cause not onlv inevitably
" the c<ius6
of the law, and of the action, but even of the irregularity itself, of sin.] and the diff'erence between the action and the law ; wherein the essence of sin doth consist. He makes God to determine David's wdll, and necessitate him to kill Uriah. In causes physically and essentially subordinate, the cause of the cause' is evermore the cause of the eff'ect. These are those deadly fruits which spring from the poisonous root of the absolute necessity of all things ; which T. H. seeing, and that neither
*■ [" Perpetua et constans voluntas tit. i. lex 10.] jus suum unicuique tribuens." Thorn. [Vide Aristot., Ethic, lib. V. c. iv.]
Aquin., Summ., Secund. Secund., Qu. « [Thorn. Aquin., Summ., Prima
Iviii. art. 1 ; from the Digest, lib. 1. Secund., Qu. xci. art. 3, xciii. art. 1.]
BRAMHALL G
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part the sins of Esau nor Pharaoh nor any wicked person do pro- — ceed from the operative but from the permissive will of God, and that punishment is an act of justice, not of dominion only, I hope that according to his promise he will change his opinion.
II. PROOFS OF LIBERTY DRAWN FROM REASON.
NUMBER XIII. Argument J. D. — The first argument is Herculeum or baculinum, ofZenoT— ^^^^^ from that pleasant passage between Zeno and his necessity of j^an. The servant had committed some petty larceny, and
sm implies ^ , . i • i
necessity of the master was cudgelling him well for it ; the servant thmks mlTnt.Y *o creep under his master's blind side, and pleads for himself, that "the necessity of destiny did compel him to steal." The master answers, The same necessity of destiny compels me to beat thee^. He that denies liberty, is fitter to be refuted with rods than with arguments, until he confess, that it is free for him that beats him either to continue striking or to give over ; that is, to have true liberty.
{Answer.'] T. H. — Of the arguments from reason, the first is that, which he saith " is drawn'' from Zeno's beating of his man, which is therefore called argumentum " haculinum^^ that is to say, a wooden ai'gument. The story is this : — Zeno held, that all actions were necessary ; his man, therefore, being for some fault beaten, excused himself upon the necessity of it ; to avoid this excuse, his master pleaded Hkewise the neces- sity of beating him. So that, not he that maintained, but he that derided, the necessity of things, was beaten ; contrary to that he would infer : and the argument was rather with- drawn than " drawn" from the story.
[Reply.] J. D. — ^Whether the argument be withdrawn from the story," or the answer withdrawn from the argument, let the reader judge. T. H. mistakes the scope of the reason ; the strength whereof doth not lie, neither in the authority of Zeno, a rigid Stoic, which is not worth a button in this cause ; nor in the servant's being an adversary to Stoical necessity, for it appears not out of the story that the servant did "deride neces- sity," but rather that he pleaded it in good earnest for his own
f [Diog. Laert, vii. 23.]
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justification ; nor in the success of the fray ; we were told Discourse
even now that no power doth justify an action but only that
which is " irresistible such was not Zeno^s ; and therefore it advantageth neither of their causes, neither that of Zeno, nor this of T. H. What if the servant had taken the staff out of his master's hand and beaten him soundly ; would not the same argument have served the man as well as it did the master ? — that the necessity of destiny did compel him to strike again. Had not Zeno smarted justly for his paradox? And might not the spectators well have taken up the judges' apophthegm, concerning the dispute between Corax and his scholar, " an ill egg of an ill bird ^ But the strength of this argument lies partly in the ignorance of Zeno, that great champion of necessity, and the beggarliness of his cause, which admitted no defence but with a cudgel. No man (saith the servant) ought to be beaten for doing that which he is compelled inevitably to do, but I am compelled inevita- bly to steal. The major is so evident, that it cannot be denied. If a strong man shall take a weak man's hand per- force, and do violence with it to a third person, he whose hand is forced is innocent, and he only culpable who com- pelled him. The minor was Zeno's own doctrine. What answer made the great patron of destiny to his servant? Very learnedly he denied the conclusion, and cudgelled his servant ; telling him in effect, that though there was no rea- son why he should be beaten, yet there was a necessity why he must be beaten. And partly in the evident absurdity of such an opinion, which deserves not to be confuted with rea- sons but with rods. There are four things, said the philoso- pher, which ought not to be called into question : first, such things whereof it is wickedness to doubt ; as, whether the soul be immortal, whether there be a God ; such an one should not be confuted with reasons, but 'cast into the sea fMatt.xviii. with a null-stone about his neck,' as unworthy to breathe the ^'^^'^ air or to behold the light : secondly, such things as are above the capacity of reason; as, among Christians, the mystery of the Holy Trinity : thirdly, such principles as are evidently true ; as, that two and two are four, in arithmetic, that the whole is greater than the part, in logic : fourthly,
K [Above T. H. Niimb. xii. p. 66.] Sext. Empir., Adv. Mathem., lib. ii. [" 'E/c KttKov KdpaKos KaKbu u6v.'' p. 81. C. fol. Colon. Allob. 1621.]
g2
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part such things as are obvious to the senses ; as, whether the snow — be white. He who denied the heat of the fire, was justly- sentenced to be scorched with fire ; and he that denied motion, to be beaten until he recanted. So he who denies all liberty from necessitation, should be scourged until he be- come a humble suppliant to him that whips him, and con- fess that he hath power either to strike or to hold his hand.
society,]
NUMBER XIV.
Argument J. D. — Secondly, this very persuasion — that there is no true doctrine of liberty — is able to overthrow all societies and commonwealths overthrows world. The laws are unjust, which prohibit that which
the frame- ^ man Cannot possibly shun. All consultations are vain,
work of all . . .
human if every thing be either necessary or impossible. Who ever deliberated, whether the sun should rise to-morrow, or whether he should sail over mountains ? It is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools, children, or madmen, if all things be necessary. Praises and dispraises, rewards and punishments, are as vain as they are undeserved, if there be no liberty \ All counsels, arts, arms, books, instru- ments, are superfluous and foolish, if there be no liberty. In vain we labour, in vain we study, in vain we take physic, in vain we have tutors to instruct us, if all things come to pass alike, whether we sleep or wake, whether we be idle or industrious, by unalterable necessity. But it is said, that though future events be certain, yet they are unknown to us; and therefore we prohibit, deliberate, admonish, praise, dis- praise, reward, punish, study, labour, and use means. Alas ! how should our not knowing of the event be a sufficient mo- tive to us to use the means, so long as we believe the event is already certainly determined, and can no more be changed by all our endeavours, than we can stay the course of heaven with our finger, or add a cubit to our stature ! Suppose it be unknown, yet it is certain ; we cannot hope to alter the course of things by our labours. Let the necessar}^ causes do their work ; we have no remedy but patience, and shrug up the shoulders. Either allow libertj^ or destroy all societies.
■ OvT€ 8e ot eiraiuoi oyre ol \p6yoi KaKids oi;(rr]5." Clem. Alex., Strom.,
oV6i' at Ti/xal ovd' at koXolths SiKaiai, /xtj lib. i. c, 17 ; Op. torn. i. p. 368. foL
T7)s ^\/vxvs e'xoi^o'rjs rriv i^ovcriau rf/s Oxon. 1715.] opfirjs Koi a(popiJ.TiS a\\' aKovalov rrjs
AGAINST MR. HOBBES.
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T. H. — The second arg^ument is taken from certain incon- Dtscolrsf.
• • I
veniences, which he thinks would follow snch an opinion. It - — — is true, that ill use may be made of it; and therefore vour 78 Lordship and J. D. ought at my request to keep private that I say here of it. But the inconveniences ai'e indeed none : and what use soever be made of truth, yet tmth is truth ; and now the question is not what is fit to be preached, but what is true. The first inconvenience, he savs, is this, that " laws which prohibit'^ any action are then " unjust. The second, that " all consultations are vain.^^ The thii'd, that admonitions to " men of understanding^^ are of no more use than to fools, childi'en, and madmen." The fourth, that " praise, dispraise, reward and punishment," are in vain. The fifth, that "counsels, arts, arms, books, instminents, study, tutors," medicines, are " in vain." To which ai'gument ex- pecting I should answer by saying, that the ignorance of the event were enough to make us use means, he adds (as it were a reply to my answer foreseen) these words, — "Alas I how should our not knowing the event be a sufficient motive to make us use the means I" wherein he saith right, but my answer is not that which he expecteth. I answer, —
First, that the necessity of an action doth not make the [ The law law which prohibits it unjust. To let pass, that not the hfcausethe necessity, but the will to break the law, maketh the acrion ^iif"ne7e,f unjust, because the law regardeth the will, and no other *°'"^-l precedent causes of action ; and to let pass, that no law can be possibly unjust, inasmuch as every man makes by his con- sent the law he is bound to keep, and which consequently must be just, unless a man can be unjust to himself ; I sav, what necessary cause soever precedes an action, yet, if the action be forbidden, he that doth it willingly may justly be punished. For instance, suppose the law on pain of death prohibit steahng, and there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal, and is thereupon put to death : does not this punishment deter others fi'om theft ? is it not a cause that others steal not? doth it not fi-ame and make then will to justice ? To make the law is therefoi^ to make a cause of jusrice, and to necessitate justice, and consequently it is no injustice to make such a law. The in- stitution of the law is not to grieve the delinquent for that
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part which is passed_, and not to be undone, but to make him and
: — others just, that else would not be so ; and respecteth not the
evil act past, but the good to come : insomuch as without this good intention of future, no past act of a delinquent could justify his killing in the sight of God. But you will say, how is it just to kill one man to amend another, if what were done were necessary ? To this I answer, that men are justly killed, not for that their actions are not necessitated, but that they are spared and preserved, because they are not noxious : for where there is no law, there no killing nor any thing else can be unjust; and by the right of nature we destroy, without being unjust, all that is noxious, both beasts and men. And for beasts, we kill them justly, when we do it in order to our own preservation; and yet J. D. con- fesseth, that their actions, as being only spontaneous and not free, are all necessitated and determined to that one thing which they shall do. For men, when we make societies or commonwealths, we lay down our right to kill, excepting in certain cases, as murder, theft, or other offensive actions : so that the right which the commonwealth hath to put a man to death for crimes, is not created by the law, but remains from the first right of nature, which every man hath, to pre- serve himself ; for that the law doth not take that right away in case of criminals, who were by law excepted. Men . are not therefore put to death, or punished, for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious, and contrary to men's preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest : inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men^s wills such as men would have them. And thus it is plain, that from necessity of a voluntary action cannot be inferred the injustice of the law that forbiddeth it, or of the magistrate that punisheth it. [Necessity Secondly, I deny, that it makes consultations to be in supersfde It is the cousultatiou that causeth a man and neces-
consuita- sitatcth him to choose to do one thiner rather than another ;
tion.\ °
SO that, unless a man say that cause to be in vain which necessitateth the effect, he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation out of the necessity of the election proceeding from it. But it seems he reasons thus, — If I must needs do
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this rather than that, then I shall do this rather than that, Discourse though I consult not at all ; — which is a false proposition, a
false consequence, and no better than this, — If I shall live till to-morrow, I shall live till to-morrow, though I run myself through with a sword to-day. If there be a necessity that an action shaU be done, or that any effect shall be brought to pass, it does not therefore follow, that there is nothing necessarily required as a means to bring it to pass. And therefore, when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another, 'tis determined also for what cause 679 it shall be chosen ; which cause for the most part is delibera- tion or consultation. And therefore consultation is not in vain : and indeed the less in vain, by how much the election is more necessitated.
The same answer is to be given to the third supposed in- [Nor ad- conveniency, namely, that admonitions are in vain ; for ad- ] monitions are parts of consultations, the admonitor being a counsellor for the time to him that is admonished.
The fourth pretended inconveniency is, that praise and dis- [Nor praise praise, reward and punishment, will be in vain. To which I 'praise.] answer, that for praise and dispraise, they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or dispraised. For what is it else to praise, but to say a thing is good ? good, I say, for me, or for somebody else, or for the state and com- monwealth. And what is it to say an action is good, but to say, it is as I would wish, or as another would have it, or according to the will of the state, that is to say, according to law ? Does J. D. think, that no action can please me or him or the commonwealth, that should proceed from necessity ? Things may be therefore necessary and yet praiseworthy, as also necessary and yet dispraised ; and neither of both in vain, because praise and dispraise, and likewise reward and punishment, do by example make and conform the will to good or evil. It was a very great praise in my opinion, that Velleius Paterculus gives Cato, where he says, he was good by nature, ' et quia aliter esse non potuit^.'
The fifth and sixth inconvenience, that counsels, arts, iNor the
use of means. ]
arms, books, instruments," study, medicines, and the like, "-^
[ " Qui uunquam recte fecit ut von poterat." Veil. Paterc, Histor. facere videretur, sed qtda aliter facere lib. ii. c. 35.]
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part would be " superfluous," the same answer serves that to the
— former ; that is to say, that this consequence — if the effect
shall necessarily come to pass, then it shall come to pass without its cause — is a false one. And those things named, " counsels, arts, arms," &c., are the causes of those effects.
[Reply.] J. D. — Nothing is more familiar with T. H. than to de- cline an argument. But I will put it into form for him. The first inconvenience is thus pressed ; — those laws are unjust and tyrannical, which do prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done, and punish men for not doing of them ; but, supposing T. H. his opinion of the necessity of all things to be true, all laws do prescribe abso- lute impossibilities to be done, and punish men for not doing of them. The former proposition is so clear, that it cannot be denied. Just laws are the ordinances of right reason ; but those laws which prescribe absolute impossibilities, are not the ordinances of right reason. Just laws are instituted for the public good ; but those laws which prescribe absolute impossibilities, are not instituted for the public good. Just laws do shew unto a man what is to be done, and what is to be shunned ; but those laws which prescribe impossibilities, do not direct a man what he is to do, and what he is to shun. The minor is as evident. For if his opinion be true, all actions, all transgressions, are determined antecedently inevitably to be done by a natural and necessary flux of ex- trinsecal causes ; yea, even the will of man, and the reason itself, is thus determined : and therefore, whatsoever laws do prescribe any thing to be done which is not done, or to be left undone which is done, do prescribe absolute impossibili- ties, and punish men for not doing of impossibilities. In all his answer there is not one word to this argument, but only [T. H.'s an- to the conclusioii. He saith, that " not the necessity, but ^rrefevant the will to break the law, makes the action unjust." I ask, true j"' what makes the will to break the law ?" Is it not his ^^neces- sity ?" What gets he by this ? A perverse will causeth in- justice, and necessity causeth a perverse will. He saith, " The law regardeth the will, but not the precedent causes of action." To what proposition, to what term, is this answer?
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He neither denies^ nor distinguislieth. First, the qnestion Discourse
here is not what makes actions to be unjust, but what makes •
laws to be unjust. So his answer is impertinent. It is like- wise untrue. For, first, that will which the law regards, is not such a will as T. H. imagineth. It is a free will, not a determined, necessitated will ; a rational will, not a brutish will. Secondly, the law doth look upon "precedent causes^' as well as the voluntariness of the action. If a child, before he be seven years old, or have the use of reason, in some childish quarrel do willingly stab another, whereof we have seen experience, yet the law looks not upon it as an act of mur- der, because there wanted a power to deliberate, and conse- quently true hberty. Man-slaughter may be as voluntary as murder ; and commonly more voluntary, because, being done in hot blood, there is the less reluctation. Yet the law con- siders, that the former is done out of some sudden passion
) without serious deliberation, and the other out of prepensed malice and desire of revenge, and therefore condemns mur- der as more wilful and more punishable than man-slaughter.
He saith, that "no law can possibly be unjust;^' and I [Lawst/e say, that this is to deny the conclusion, which deserves no'bTunjusf.] reply. But to give him satisfaction, I will follow him in this
I also. If he intended no more, but that unjust laws are not genuine laws, nor bind to active obedience, because they are not the ordinations of right reason, nor instituted for the common good, nor prescribe that which ought to be done, he said truly, but nothing at all to his purpose. But if he in- tend (as he doth), that there are no laws de facto, Avhich are the ordinances of reason erring, instituted for the common hurt, and prescribing that which ought not to be done, he is much mistaken. Pharaoh^s law to drown the male children Exod. i. 22. of the Israelites, — Nebuchadnezzar's law, that whosoever Dan. iii. 4-' did not fall down and worship the golden image which he ^^'^ had set up, should be cast into the fiery furnace, — Darius Dan. vi. 7. his law, that whosoever should ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of the king, should be cast into the den of lions, — Ahasuerosli his law, to destroy the Jewish Esther iii. nation, root and branch, — the Pharisees' law, that whoso- John ix. 22. ever confessed Christ should be excommunicated, — were all unjust laws.
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A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY
Part The ground of this error is as great an error itself (such pjj — an art he hath learned of repacking paradoxes) ; which is laws made this, — that " every man makes by his consent the law which of thosf"* is bound to keep/^ If this were true, it would preserve them ]^ them, if not from being unjust, yet from being injurious ;
but it is not true. The positive law of God, contained in the Old and New Testament ; the law of nature, written in our hearts by the finger of God; the laws of conquerors, who come in by the power of the sword ; the laws of our ances- tors, which were made before we were born; — do all oblige us to the observation of them : yet to none of all these did we give our actual consent. Over and above all these excep- tions, he builds upon a wrong foundation, — that all magis- trates at first were elective. The first governors were fathers of families; and when those petty princes could not afford competent protection and security to their subjects, many of them did resign their several and respective interests into the hands of one joint father of the country. And though his ground had been true, — that all first legislators were elec- tive,— which is false, yet his superstructure fails ; for it was done in hope and trust, that they would make just laws. If magistrates abuse this trust and deceive the hopes of the people by making tyrannical laws, yet it is without their consent. A precedent trust doth not justify the subsequent errors and abuses of a trustee. He who is duly elected a legislator, may exercise his legislative power unduly. The people^s implicit consent doth not render the tyrannical laws of their legislators to be just.
But his chiefest answer is, that ^^an action forbidden," though it proceed from "necessary causes,^' yet, if it were " done willingly, it may be justly punished ;" which accord- ing to his custom he proves by an instance, — " A man neces- sitated to steal by the strength of temptation," yet, if he steal " willingly," is justly " put to death." Here are two things^ and both of them untrue. [I. Punish- First, he fails in his assertion. Indeed we suffer justly foi j'ust'f.rrTin tliose necessities which we ourselves have contracted by oui comniitted Q^yn fault, but iiot for extrinsecal, antecedent necessities
thnjiif^h an- ^ . ^ '
tocedent wliich wcrc imposcd upon us without our fault. If that necessity. J ^^^^ oblige to punishment which is not intimated, becaus(
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the subject is invincibly ignorant of it; how much less that Discourse
law which prescribes absolute impossibilities ! unless perhaps
invincible necessity be not as strong a plea as invincible ig- norance. That which he adds, — if it were done " willingly/^ — though it be of great moment if it be rightly understood, yet, in his sense, that is, if a man^s vvill be not in his own disposition, and if his wilKng do not " come upon him accord- ing to his will, nor according to anything else in his power it weighs not half so much as the least feather in all his horse- load. For if that law be unjust and tyrannical, which com- mands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do, then that law is likewise unjust and tyrannical, which com- mands him to will that which is impossible for him to will.
Secondly, his instance supposetli an untruth, and is a plain 2.[Tempta- ji begging