Part 16

_T. H._ His third argument consisteth in other inconveniences which he saith will follow, namely, impiety and negligence of religious duties, repentance and zeal to God’s service. To which I answer, as to the rest, that they follow not. I must confess, if we consider the far greatest part of mankind, not as they should be, but as they are, that is, as men whom either the study of acquiring wealth or preferments, or whom the appetite of sensual delights, or the impatience of meditating, or the rash embracing of wrong principles, have made unapt to discuss the truth of things, that the dispute of this question will rather hurt than help their piety. And therefore, if he had not desired this answer, I would not have written it. Nor do I write it, but in hope your Lordship and he will keep it private. Nevertheless, in very truth, the necessity of events does not of itself draw with it any impiety at all. For piety consisteth only in two things; one, that we honour God in our hearts, which is, that we think of his power as highly as we can: for to honour any thing, is nothing else but to think it to be of great power. The other, that we signify that honour and esteem by our words and actions, which is called _cultus_ or worship of God. He therefore, that thinketh that all things proceed from God’s eternal will, and consequently are necessary, does he not think God omnipotent? does he not esteem of his power as highly as is possible; which is to honour God as much as can be in his heart? Again, he that thinketh so, is he not more apt by external acts and words to acknowledge it, than he that thinketh otherwise? Yet is this external acknowledgment the same thing which we call worship. So this opinion fortifieth piety in both kinds, externally and internally, and therefore is far from destroying it. And for repentance, which is nothing but a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way, though the cause that made him go astray were necessary, yet there is no reason why he should not grieve; and again, though the cause why he returned into the way were necessary, there remain still the causes of joy. So that the necessity of the actions taketh away neither of those parts of repentance, grief for the error, nor joy for the returning. And for prayer, whereas he saith that the necessity of things destroys prayer, I deny it. For though prayer be none of the causes that move God’s will, his will being unchangeable, yet since we find in God’s word, he will not give his blessings but to those that ask them, the motive to prayer is the same. Prayer is the gift of God, no less than the blessings. And the prayer is decreed together in the same decree wherein the blessing is decreed. It is manifest, that thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing passed; and that which is passed, is sure and necessary. Yet even amongst men, thanks are in use as an acknowledgment of the benefit past, though we should expect no new benefit for our gratitude. And prayer to God Almighty is but thanksgiving for his blessings in general; and though it precede the particular thing we ask, yet it is not a cause or means of it, but a signification that we expect nothing but from God, in such manner as He, not as we will. And our Saviour by word of mouth bids us pray, “thy will, not our will be done”; and by example teaches us the same; for he prayed thus: _Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass_, &c. The end of prayer, as of thanksgiving, is not to move, but to honour God Almighty, in acknowledging that what we ask can be effected by Him only.

_J. D._ “I hope T. H. will be persuaded in time, that it is not the coveteousness, or ambition, or sensuality, or sloth, or prejudice of his readers, which render this doctrine of absolute necessity dangerous, but that it is, in its own nature, destructive to true godliness; (_a_) and though his answer consist more of oppositions than of solutions, yet I will not willingly leave one grain of his matter unweighed. (_b_) First, he errs in making inward piety to consist merely in the estimation of the judgment. If this were so, what hinders but that the devils should have as much inward piety as the best Christians? For they esteem God’s power to be infinite, and tremble. Though inward piety do suppose the act of the understanding, yet it consisteth properly in the act of the will, being that branch of justice which gives to God the honour which is due unto him. Is there no love due to God, no faith, no hope? (_c_) Secondly, he errs in making inward piety to ascribe no glory to God, but only the glory of his power or omnipotence. What shall become of all other the Divine attributes, and particularly of his goodness, of his truth, of his justice, of his mercy, which beget a more true and sincere honour in the heart than greatness itself? _Magnos facile laudamus, bonos lubenter._ (_d_) Thirdly, this opinion of absolute necessity destroys the truth of God, making him to command one thing openly, and to necessitate another privately; to chide a man for doing that which he hath determined him to do; to profess one thing, and to intend another. It destroys the goodness of God, making him to be a hater of mankind, and to delight in the torments of his creatures; whereas the very dogs licked the sores of Lazarus, in pity and commiseration of him. It destroys the justice of God, making him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act, which they had no more power to shun, than the fire hath power not to burn. It destroys the very power of God, making him to be the true author of all the defects and evils which are in the world. These are the fruits of impotence, not of omnipotence. He who is the effective cause of sin, either in himself or in the creature, is not almighty. There needs no other devil in the world to raise jealousies and suspicions between God and his creatures, or to poison mankind with an apprehension that God doth not love them, but only this opinion, which was the office of the serpent (Gen. iii. 5). Fourthly, for the outward worship of God; (_e_) how shall a man praise God for his goodness, who believes him to be a greater tyrant than ever was in the world; who creates millions to burn eternally, without their fault, to express his power? How shall a man hear the word of God with that reverence, and devotion, and faith, which is requisite, who believeth that God causeth his gospel to be preached to the much greater part of Christians, not with any intention that they should be converted and saved, but merely to harden their hearts, and to make them inexcusable? How shall a man receive the blessed sacrament with comfort and confidence, as a seal of God’s love in Christ, who believeth that so many millions are positively excluded from all fruit and benefit of the passions of Christ, before they had done either good or evil? How shall he prepare himself with care and conscience, who apprehendeth that eating and drinking unworthily is not the cause of damnation, but, because God would damn a man, therefor he necessitates him to eat and drink unworthily? How shall a man make a free vow to God without gross ridiculous hypocrisy, who thinks he is able to perform nothing but as he is extrinsically necessitated? Fifthly, for repentance, how shall a man condemn and accuse himself for his sins, who thinks himself to be like a watch which is wound up by God, and that he can go neither longer nor shorter, faster nor slower, truer nor falser, than he is ordered by God? If God sets him right, he goes right; if God sets him wrong, he goes wrong. How can a man be said to return into the right way, who never was in any other way but that which God himself had chalked out for him? What is his purpose to amend, who is destitute of all power, but as if a man should purpose to fly without wings, or a beggar who hath not a groat in his purse, purpose to build hospitals?

“We use to say, admit one absurdity, and a thousand will follow. To maintain this unreasonable opinion of absolute necessity, he is necessitated (but it is hypothetically, he might change his opinion if he would) to deal with all ancient writers as the Goths did with the Romans, who destroyed all their magnificent works, that there might remain no monument of their greatness upon the face of the earth. Therefore he will not leave so much as one of their opinions, nor one of their definitions, nay, not one of their terms of art standing. (_f_) Observe what a description he hath given us here of repentance: ‘it is a glad returning into the right way, after the grief of being out of the way’. It amazed me to find _gladness_ to be the first word in the description of repentance. His repentance is not that repentance, nor his piety that piety, nor his prayer that kind of prayer, which the Church of God in all ages hath acknowledged. Fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes, and tears, and _humicubations_, used to be companions of repentance. Joy may be a consequent of it, not a part of it. (_g_) It is a _returning_: but whose act is this returning? Is it God’s alone, or doth the penitent person concur also freely with the grace of God? If it be God’s alone, then it is his repentance, not man’s repentance. What need the penitent person trouble himself about it? God will take care of his own work. The Scriptures teach us otherwise, that God expects our concurrence (Revel. iii. 19, 20): _Be zealous and repent: behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him_. It is a ‘glad returning into the right way’. Why dare any man call that a wrong way, which God himself hath determined? He that willeth and doth that which God would have him to will and to do, is never out of his right way. It follows in his description, _after the grief_, &c. It is true, a man may grieve for that which is necessarily imposed upon him; but he cannot grieve for it as a fault of his own, if it never was in his power to shun it. Suppose a writingmaster shall hold his scholar’s hand in his, and write with it; the scholar’s part is only to hold still his hand, whether the master write well or ill; the scholar hath no ground either of joy or sorrow, as for himself; no man will interpret it to be his act, but his master’s. It is no fault to be out of the right way, if a man had not liberty to have kept himself in the way.

“And so from _repentance_ he skips quite over _new obedience_ to come to _prayer_, which is the last religious duty insisted upon by me here. But according to his use, without either answering or mentioning what I say; which would have showed him plainly what kind of prayer I intend, not contemplative prayer in general, as it includes thanksgiving, but that most proper kind of prayer which we call _petition_, which used to be thus defined, to be an act of religion by which we desire of God something which we have not, and hope that we shall obtain it by him; quite contrary to this, T. H. tells us, (_h_) that prayer ‘is not a cause nor a means of God’s blessing, but only a signification that we expect it from him’. If he had told us only, that prayer is not a meritorious cause of God’s blessings, as the poor man by begging an alms doth not deserve it, I should have gone along with him. But to tell us, that it is not so much as a means to procure God’s blessing, and yet with the same breath, that ‘God will not give his blessings but to those who pray’, who shall reconcile him to himself? The Scriptures teach us otherwise, (John xvi. 23): _Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you_: (Matth. vii. 7): _Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shal find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you_. St. Paul tells the Corinthians (2 Cor. i. 11), that he was _helped by their prayers_: that is not all; that _the gift was bestowed upon him by their means_. So prayer is a means. And St. James saith (chap. v. 16): _The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much_. If it be _effectual_, then it is a cause. To show this efficacy of prayer, our Saviour useth the comparison of a father towards his child, of a neighbour towards his neighbour; yea, of an unjust judge, to shame those who think that God hath not more compassion than a wicked man. This was signified by Jacob’s wrestling and prevailing with God. Prayer is like the tradesman’s tools, wherewithal he gets his living for himself and his family. But, saith he, ‘God’s will is unchangeable’. What then? He might as well use this against study, physic, and all second causes, as against prayer. He shows even in this, how little they attribute to the endeavours of men. There is a great difference between these two: _mutare voluntatem_, to change the will; (which God never doth, in whom there is not the least shadow of turning by change; his will to love and hate was the same from eternity, which it now is and ever shall be; his love and hatred are immovable, but we are removed; _non tellus cymbam, tellurem cymba reliquit_); and _velle mutationem_, to will a change; which God often doth. To change the will, argues a change in the agent; but to will a change, only argues a change in the object. It is no inconstancy in a man to love or to hate as the object is changed. _Præsta mihi omnia eadem, et idem sum._ Prayer works not upon God, but us; it renders not him more propitious in himself, but us more capable of mercy. He saith this, ‘that God doth not bless us, except we pray, is a motive to prayer’. Why talks he of motives, who acknowledgeth no liberty, nor admits any cause but absolutely necessary? He saith, ‘prayer is the gift of God, no less than the blessing which we pray for, and contained in the same decree with the blessing’. It is true, the spirit of prayer is the gift of God. Will he conclude from thence, that the good employment of one talent, or of one gift of God, may not procure another? Our Saviour teacheth us otherwise: _Come thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful in little, I will make thee ruler over much_. Too much light is an enemy to the sight, and too much law is an enemy to justice. I could wish we wrangled less about God’s decrees, until we understood them better. But, saith he, ‘thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past, and prayer is but a thanksgiving’. He might even as well tell me, that when a beggar craves an alms, and when he gives thanks for it, it is all one. Every thanksgiving is a kind of prayer, but every prayer, and namely petition, is not a thanksgiving. In the last place he urgeth, that ‘in our prayers we are bound to submit our wills to God’s will.’ Who ever made any doubt of this? We must submit to the preceptive will of God, or his commandments; we must submit to the effective will of God, when he declares his good pleasure by the event or otherwise. But we deny, and deny again, either that God wills things _ad extra_, without himself, necessarily, or that it is his pleasure that all second causes should act necessarily at all times; which is the question, and that which he allegeth to the contrary comes not near it.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XV.

(_a_) “And though his answer consist more of oppositions than of solutions, yet I will not willingly leave one grain of his matter unweighed.”

It is a promise of great exactness, and like to that which is in his Epistle to the Reader: “Here is all that passed between us upon this subject, without any addition or the least variation from the original,” &c.: which promises were both needless, and made out of gallantry; and therefore he is the less pardonable in case they be not very rigidly observed. I would therefore have the reader to consider, whether these words of mine: “our Saviour bids us pray, _thy will_, not _our_ will, _be done_, and by example teaches us the same; for he prayed thus: _Father, if it be thy will let this cup pass_,” &c.: which seem at least to imply that our prayers cannot change the will of God, nor divert him from his eternal decree: have been weighed by him to a grain, according to his promise. Nor hath he kept his other promise any better; for (No. VIII.) replying to these words of mine, “if he had so little to do as to be a spectator of the actions of bees and spiders, he would have confessed not only election, but also art, prudence, and policy in them,” &c., he saith, “yes, I have seen those silliest of creatures, and seeing their rare works I have seen enough to confute all the bold-faced atheists of this age, and their hellish blasphemies”. This passage is added to that which passed between us upon this subject; for it is not in the copy which I have had by me, as himself confesseth, these eight years; nor is it in the body of the copy he sent to the press, but only in the margin, that is to say, added out of anger against me, whom he would have men think to be one of the bold-faced atheists of this age.

In the rest of this reply he endeavoureth to prove, that it followeth from my opinion, that there is no use of piety. My opinion is no more than this, that a man cannot so determine to-day, the will which he shall have to the doing of any action to-morrow, as that it may not be changed by some external accident or other, as there shall appear more or less advantage to make him persevere in the will to the same action, or to will it no more. When a man intendeth to pay a debt at a certain time, if he see that the detaining of the money for a little longer may advantage himself, and seeth no other disadvantage equivalent likely to follow upon the detention, he hath his will changed by the advantage, and therefore had not determined his will himself; but when he foreseeth discredit or perhaps imprisonment, then his will remaineth the same, and is determined by the thoughts he hath of his creditor, who is therefore an external cause of the determination of the debtor’s will. This is so evident to all men living, though they never studied school-divinity, that it will be very strange if he draw from it the great impiety he pretends to do. Again, my opinion is only this: that whatsoever God foreknows shall come to pass, it cannot possibly be that that shall not come to pass; but that which cannot possibly not come to pass, that is said by all men to come to pass necessarily; therefore all events that God foreknows shall come to pass, shall come to pass necessarily. If therefore the Bishop draw impiety from this, he falleth into the impiety of denying God’s prescience. Let us see now how he reasoneth.

(_b_) “First, he errs in making inward piety to consist merely in the estimation of the judgment. If this were so, what hinders but that the devils should have as much inward piety as the best Christians; for they esteem God’s power to be infinite, and tremble?”

I said, that two things concurred to _piety_; one, to esteem his power as highly as is possible; the other, that we signify that estimation by our words and actions, that is to say, that we worship him. This latter part of piety he leaveth out; and then, it is much more easy to conclude as he doth, that the devils may have inward piety. But neither so doth the conclusion follow. For goodness is one of God’s powers, namely, that power by which he worketh in men the hope they have in him; and is relative; and therefore, unless the devil think that God will be good to him, he cannot esteem him for his goodness. It does not therefore follow from any opinion of mine, that the devil may have as much inward piety as a Christian. But how does the Bishop know how the devils esteem God’s power; and what devils does he mean? There are in the Scripture two sorts of things, which are in English translated devils. One, is that which is called Satan, Diabolus, and Abaddon, which signifies in English, an _enemy_, an _accuser_, and a _destroyer_ of the Church of God. In which sense, the devils are but wicked men. How then is he sure that they esteem God’s power to be infinite? For, _trembling_ infers no more than that they apprehend it to be greater than their own. The other sort of devils are called in the Scripture _dæmonia_, which are the feigned Gods of the heathen, and are neither bodies nor spiritual substances, but mere fancies, and fictions of terrified hearts, feigned by the Greeks and other heathen people, and which St. Paul calleth _nothings_; for an idol, saith he, is nothing. Does the Bishop mean, that these nothings esteem God’s power to be infinite and tremble? There is nothing that has a real being, but God, and the world, and the parts of the world; nor has anything a feigned being, but the fictions of men’s brains. The world and the parts thereof are corporeal, endued with the dimensions of quantity, and with figure. I should be glad to know, in what classes of entities which is a word that schoolmen use, the Bishop ranketh these devils, that so much esteem God’s power, and yet not love him nor hope in him, if he place them not in the rank of those men who are enemies to the people of God, as the Jews did.

(_c_) “Secondly, he errs in making inward piety to ascribe no glory to God, but only the glory of his power or omnipotence. What shall become of all other the Divine attributes, and particularly of his goodness, of his truth, of his justice, of his mercy,” &c.