Part 11

“Concerning the blind man mentioned John ix, his blindness was rather a blessing to him than a punishment, being the means to raise his soul illuminated, and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with ants and flies, but the sight of the soul with the blessed angels. We read of some who have put out their bodily eyes, because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the soul. Again, neither he nor his parents were innocent, being conceived and born in sin and iniquity (Psalm li. 5). And in many things we offend all (James iii. 2). But our Saviour’s meaning is evident by the disciples’ question, John ix. 2. They had not so sinned, that he should be born blind; or they were not more grievous sinners than other men, to deserve an exemplary judgment more than they; but this corporal blindness befel him principally by the extraordinary providence of God, for the manifestation of his own glory in restoring him to his sight. So his instance halts on both sides; neither was this a punishment, nor the blind man free from sin. His third instance of the death and torments of beasts, is of no more weight than the two former. The death of brute beasts is not a punishment of sin, but a debt of nature. And though they be often slaughtered for the use of man, yet there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs, and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell; between the mere depriving of a creature of temporal life, and the subjecting of it to eternal death. I know the philosophical speculations of some, who affirm, that entity is better than non-entity, that it is better to be miserable and suffer the torments of the damned, than to be annihilated and cease to be altogether. This entity which they speak of, is a metaphysical entity abstracted from the matter, which is better than non-entity, in respect of some goodness, not moral nor natural, but transcendental, which accompanies every being. But in the concrete it is far otherwise, where that saying of our Saviour often takes place, (Matthew xxvi. 24): _Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It had been good for that man, that he had not been born._ I add, that there is an analogical justice and mercy due even to the brute beasts. _Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn._ And, _a just man is merciful to his beast_.

(_f_) “But his greatest error is that which I touched before, to make justice to be the proper result of power. Power doth not measure and regulate justice, but justice measures and 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 participation of divine rectitude, so all laws are but participations 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 determinative 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 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. 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 doctrine, every man always wills that which God would have 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 an heaven without 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 own; right punitive justice is a relation of equality and proportion between 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 is the law; but such an one is a thief, there is the fact; therefore he ought to be punished, there is 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 overturneth, as much as in it lies, all law; first, the eternal law, which is the ordination of divine wisdom, by which all creatures are directed to that end which is convenient for them, that is, not to necessitate them to eternal flames; then the law participated, which is the ordination of right reason, instituted for the common good, to show unto man what he ought to do, and what he ought not to do. To what purpose is it, to show the right way to him who is drawn and haled a contrary way by adamantine bonds of inevitable necessity?

(_g_) “Lastly, howsoever T. H. cries out, that God cannot sin, yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin. For he makes him to be the cause, not only of the law and of the action, but even of the irregularity itself, and the difference between the action and the law, wherein the very essence of sin doth consist. He makes God to determine David’s will, and necessitate him to kill Uriah. In causes physically and essentially subordinate, the cause of the cause is evermore the cause of the effect. 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 the sins of Esau, nor Pharaoh, nor any wicked person do proceed 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.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XII.

The Bishop had argued in this manner: “If there be no liberty, there shall be no last judgment, no rewards nor punishments after death.” To this I answered, that though God cannot sin, because what he doth, his doing maketh just, and because he is not subject to another’s law, and that therefore it is blasphemy to say that God can sin; yet to say, that God hath so ordered the world that sin may be necessarily committed, is not blasphemy. And I can also further say, though God be the cause of all motion and of all actions, and therefore unless sin be no motion nor action, it must derive a necessity from the first mover; nevertheless it cannot be said that God is the author of sin, because not he that necessitateth an action, but he that doth command and warrant it, is the author. And if God own an action, though otherwise it were a sin, it is now no sin. The act of the Israelites in robbing the Egyptians of their jewels, without God’s warrant had been theft. But it was neither theft, cozenage, nor sin; supposing they knew the warrant was from God. The rest of my answer to that inconvenience, was an opposing to his inconveniences the manifest texts of St. Paul, Rom. ix. The substance of his reply to my answer is this.

(_a_) “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.”

I never said that God denied his act, but that he may expostulate with men; and this may be (I shall never say directly, it is) the reason of that his expostulation, viz. to convince them that their wills were not independent, but were his mere gift; and that to do, or not to do, is not in him that willeth, but in God that hath mercy on, or hardeneth whom he will. But the Bishop interpreteth _hardening_ to be a permission of God. Which is to attribute to God in such actions no more than he might have attributed to any of Pharaoh’s servants, the not persuading their master to let the people go. And whereas he compares this permission to the indulgence of a parent, that by his patience encourageth his son to become more rebellious, which indulgence is a sin; he maketh God to be like a sinful man. And indeed it seemeth that all they that hold this freedom of the will, conceive of God no otherwise than the common sort of Jews did, that God was like a man, that he had been seen by Moses, and after by the seventy elders (Exod. xxiv. 10); expounding that and other places literally. Again he saith, that God is said to harden the heart _permissively_, but not _operatively_; which is the same distinction with his first, namely _negatively_, not _positively_, and with his second, _occasionally_, and not _causally_. So that all his three ways how God hardens the heart of wicked men, come to this one of _permission_; which is as much as to say, God sees, looks on, and does nothing, nor ever did anything, in the business. Thus you see how the Bishop expoundeth St. Paul. Therefore I will leave the rest of his commentary upon Rom. ix. to the judgment of the reader, to think of the same as he pleaseth.

(_b_) “Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith, ‘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 some sort, that is either by an antecedent will, or by a consequent will; either by an operative will, or by a permissive will; or he is willing to let it be done, but not willing to do it.”

Whether it be called antecedent, or consequent, or operative, or permissive, it is enough for the necessity of the thing that the heart of Pharaoh should be hardened; and if God were not willing to do it, I cannot conceive how it could be done without him.

(_c_) “T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action, and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action? I answer, because he concurs to the doing of evil by a general, but not by a special, influence.”

I had thought to pass over this place, because of the nonsense of general and special influence. Seeing he saith that God concurs to the doing of evil, I desire the reader would take notice, that if he blame me for speaking of God as of a necessitating cause, and as it were a principal agent in the causing of all actions, he may with as good reason blame himself for making him by concurrence an accessory to the same. And indeed, let men hold what they will contrary to the truth, if they write much, the truth will fall into their pens. But he thinks he hath a similitude, which will make this permissive will a very clear business. “The earth,” saith he, “gives nourishment to all kinds of plants, as well to hemlock as to wheat; but the reason why the one yields food to our sustenance, the other poison to our destruction, is not from the general nourishment of the earth, but from the special quality of the root.” It seemeth by this similitude, he thinketh, that God doth, not operatively, but permissively will that the root of hemlock should poison the man that eateth it, but that wheat should nourish him he willeth operatively; which is very absurd; or else he must confess that the venomous effects of wicked men are willed operatively.

(_d_) “Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken, to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God. The general power to act, is from God; but the specification of this general and good power, to murder, or to any particular evil, is not from God, but from the free will of man.”

But why am I so mightily mistaken? Did not God foreknow that Uriah in particular, should be murdered by David in particular? And what God foreknoweth shall come to pass, can that possibly not come so to pass? And that which cannot possibly not come to pass, doth not that necessarily come to pass? And is not all necessity from God? I cannot see this great mistake. “The general power,” saith he, “to act is from God, but the specification to do this act upon Uriah, is not from God, but from free-will.” Very learnedly. As if there were a power that were not the power to do some particular act; or a power to kill, and yet to kill nobody in particular. If the power be to kill, it is to kill that which shall be by that power killed, whether it be Uriah or any other; and the giving of that power, is the application of it to the act; nor doth power signify anything actually, but those motions and present acts from which the act that is not now, but shall be hereafter, necessarily proceedeth. And therefore this argument is much like that which used heretofore to be brought for the defence of the divine right of the bishops to the ordination of ministers. They derive not, say they, the right of ordination from the civil sovereign, but from Christ immediately. And yet they acknowledge that it is unlawful for them to ordain, if the civil power do forbid them. But how have they right to ordain, when they cannot do it lawfully? Their answer is, they have the right, though they may not exercise it; as if the right to ordain, and the right to exercise ordination, were not the same thing. And as they answer concerning right, which is legal power, so the Bishop answereth concerning natural power, that David had a general power to kill Uriah from God, but not a power of applying this power in special to the killing of Uriah from God, but from his own free will; that is, he had a power to kill Uriah, but not to exercise it upon Uriah, that is to say, he had a power to kill him, but not to kill him, which is absurd.

(_e_) “But if the case be put why God doth punish one more than another, or why he throws one into hell fire, and not another, which is the present case 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.”

I note first, that he hath no reason to say, the case agitated between us is, whether the cause why God punisheth one man more than another, be his irresistible power, or man’s sin. The case agitated between us is, whether a man can now choose what shall be his _will_ anon, or at any time hereafter. Again, it is not true that he says, it is my opinion that the irresistible power of God is the cause why he punisheth one more than another. I say only that when he doth so, the irresistible power is enough to make it not unjust. But that the cause why God punisheth one more than another, is many times the will he hath to show his power, is affirmed in this place by St. Paul, _Shall the thing formed, say to him that formed it_, &c. And by our Saviour in the case of him that was born blind, where he saith, _Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but that the works of God may be made manifest_. And by the expostulation of God with Job. This endeavour of his to bring the text of St. Paul to his purpose, is not only frustrate, but the cause of many insignificant phrases in his discourse; as this: “It was in their own power, by their concurrence with God’s grace, to prevent these judgments, and to recover their former estates,” which is as good sense, as if he should say, that it is in his own power, with the concurrence of the sovereign power of England, to be what he will. And this, that “God may oblige himself freely to his creature.” For he that can oblige, can also, when he will, release; and he that can release himself when he will, is not obliged. Besides this, he is driven to words ill-becoming him that is to speak of God Almighty; for he makes him unable to do that which hath been within the ordinary power of men to do. “God,” he saith, “cannot destroy the righteous with the wicked;” which nevertheless is a thing ordinarily done by armies: and “He could not destroy Sodom while Lot was in it;” which he interpreteth, as if he could not do it lawfully. One text is Genesis xviii. 23, 24, 25. There is not a word that God could not destroy the righteous with the wicked. Only Abraham saith (as a man): _Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?_ Another is Genesis 22): _Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither_. Which is an ordinary phrase, in such a case where God had determined to burn the city and save a particular man, and signifieth not any obligation to save Lot more than the rest. Likewise concerning Job, who, expostulating with God, was answered only with the explication of the infinite power of God, the Bishop answereth, that there is never a word of Job’s being punished without desert; which answer is impertinent. For I say not that he was punished without desert, but that it was not for his desert that he was afflicted; for punished, he was not at all.

And concerning the blind man, (John ix.), who was born blind, that the power of God might be shewn in him; he answers that it was not a punishment, but a blessing. I did not say it was a punishment; certainly it was an affliction. How then doth he call it a blessing? Reasonably enough: “because,” saith he, “it was the means to raise his soul illuminated, and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with ants and flies, but the sight of the soul, with the blessed angels.” This is very well said; for no man doubts but some afflictions may be blessings; but I doubt whether the Bishop, that says he reads of some who have put out their bodily eyes, because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the soul, think that they did well. To that where I say that brute beasts are afflicted which cannot sin, he answereth, that “there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs, and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell.” As if the length or the greatness of the pain, made any difference in the justice or injustice of the inflicting it.

(_f_) “But his greatest error is that which I touched before, to make justice to be the proper result of power.”

He would make men believe, I hold all things to be just, that are done by them who have power enough to avoid the punishment. This is one of his pretty little policies, by which I find him in many occasions to take the measure of his own wisdom. I said no more, but that the power, which is absolutely irresistible, makes him that hath it above all law, so that nothing he doth can be unjust. But this power can be no other than the power divine. Therefore let him preach what he will upon his mistaken text, I shall leave it to the reader to consider of it, without any further answer.

(_g_) “Lastly, howsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin, yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin. For he makes him to be the cause not only of the law, and of the action, but even of the irregularity itself, &c. wherein the very essence of sin doth consist.”

I think there is no man but understands, no, not the Bishop himself, but that where two things are compared, the similitude or dissimilitude, regularity or irregularity, that is between them, is made in and by the making of the things themselves that are compared. The Bishop, therefore, that denies God to be the cause of the irregularity, denies him to be the cause both of the law and of the action. So that by his doctrine, there shall be a good law whereof God shall be no cause, and an action, that is, a local motion that shall depend upon another first mover that is not God. The rest of this number is but railing.

PROOFS OF LIBERTY DRAWN FROM REASON. NO. XIII.

[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]

_J. D._ “The first argument is _Herculeum_ or _baculinum_, drawn from that pleasant passage between Zeno and his man. The servant had committed some petty larceny, and the master was cudgelling him well for it. The servant thinks to 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.”