Part 18

“In the second part of his answer, (_a_) he grants; that there are some free agents, and some contingent agents, and that perhaps the beauty of the world doth require it; but like a shrewd cow, which after she hath given her milk casts it down with her foot, in the conclusion he tells us, that nevertheless they are all necessary. This part of his answer is a mere logomachy, as a great part of the controversies in the world are, or a contention about words. What is the meaning of necessary, and free, and contingent actions? I have showed before what free and necessary do properly signify; but he misrecites it. He saith, I make all agents which want deliberation, to be necessary; but I acknowledge that many of them are contingent. (_b_) Neither do I approve his definition of contingents, though he say I concur with him, that they are ‘such agents as work we know not how’. For, according to this description, many necessary actions should be contingent, and many contingent actions should be necessary. The loadstone draweth iron, the jet chaff, we know not how; and yet the effect is necessary; and so it is in all sympathies and antipathies or occult qualities. Again, a man walking in the streets, a tile falls down from a house, and breaks his head. We know all the causes, we know how this came to pass. The man walked that way, the pin failed, the tile fell just when he was under it; and yet this is a contingent effect: the man might not have walked that way, and then the tile had not fallen upon him. Neither yet do I understand here in this place by contingents, such events as happen beside the scope or intention of the agents; as when a man digging to make a grave, finds a treasure; though the word be sometimes so taken. But by contingents, I understand all things which may be done and may not be done, may happen or may not happen, by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes. And those same things which are absolutely contingent, are yet hypothetically necessary. As supposing the passenger did walk just that way, just at that time, and that the pin did fail just then, and the tile fall; it was necessary that it should fall upon the passenger’s head. The same defence will keep out his shower of rain. But we shall meet with his shower of rain again, No. XXXIV; whither I refer the further explication of this point.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XVI.

In this number he would prove that there must be free agents and contingent agents, as well as necessary agents, from the order, beauty, and perfection of the world. I that thought that the order, beauty, and perfection of the world required that which was in the world, and not that which the Bishop had need of for his argument, could see no force of consequence to infer that which he calls free and contingent. That which is in the world, is the order, beauty, and perfection which God hath given the world; and yet there are no agents in the world, but such as work a seen necessity, or an unseen necessity; and when they work an unseen necessity in creatures inanimate, then are those creatures said to be wrought upon contingently, and to work contingently; and when the necessity unseen is of the actions of men, then it is commonly called free, and might be so in other living creatures; for free and voluntary are the same thing. But the Bishop in his reply hath insisted most upon this, that I make it a contradiction to say that “he that maketh a thing, doth not make it necessary”, and wonders how a contradiction can be in one proposition, and yet within two or three lines after found it might be. And therefore, to clear the matter, he saith that such necessity is not _antecedent_, but a necessity _of supposition_: which, nevertheless, is the same kind of necessity which he attributeth to the burning of the fire, where there is a necessity that the thing thrown into it shall be burned; though yet it be but burning, or but departing from the hand that throws it in; and, therefore, the necessity is antecedent. The like is in making a garment; the necessity begins from the first motion towards it, which is from eternity, though the tailor and the Bishop are equally insensible of it. If they saw the whole order and conjunction of causes, they would say it were as necessary as any thing else can possibly be; and therefore God that sees that order and conjunction, knows it is necessary.

The rest of his reply is to argue a contradiction in me; for he says,

(_a_) “I grant that there are some free agents, and some contingent agents, and that perhaps the beauty of the world doth require it; but like a shrewd cow, which, after she hath given her milk, casts it down with her foot, in the conclusion I tell him, that nevertheless they are all necessary.”

It is true that I say some are free agents, and some contingent; nevertheless they may be all necessary. For according to the significations of the words necessary, free, and contingent, the distinction is no more but this. Of agents, some are necessary, some are contingent, and some are free agents; and of agents, some are living creatures, and some are inanimate; which words are improper, but the meaning of them is this. Men call necessary agents, such as they know to be necessary, and contingent agents, such inanimate things as they know not whether they work necessarily or no, and free agents, men whom they know not whether they work necessarily or no. All which confusion ariseth from that presumptuous men take for granted, that that _is_ not, which they _know_ not.

(_b_) “Neither do I approve his definition of contingents; that they are such agents as work we know not how.”

The reason is, because it would follow that many necessary actions should be contingent, and many contingent actions necessary. But that which followeth from it really is no more but this: that many necessary actions would be such as we know not to be necessary, and many actions which we know not to be necessary, may yet be necessary; which is a truth. But the Bishop defineth contingents thus: “all things which may be done and may not be done, may happen or may not happen, by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes”. By which definition, contingent is nothing, or it is the same that I say it is. For there is nothing can be done and not be done, nothing can happen and not happen, by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes. It may be done or not done for aught he knows, and happen or not happen for any determination he perceiveth; and that is my definition. But that the indetermination can make it happen or not happen, is absurd; for indetermination maketh it equally to happen or not to happen, and therefore both; which is a contradiction. Therefore indetermination doth nothing; and whatsoever causes do, is necessary.

NO. XVII.

[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]

_J. D._ “Fifthly, take away liberty, and you take away the very nature of evil, and the formal reason of sin. If the hand of the painter were the law of painting, or the hand of the writer the law of writing, whatsoever the one did write, or the other paint, must infallibly be good. Seeing therefore that the first cause is the rule and law of goodness, if it do necessitate the will or the person to evil, either by itself immediately, or mediately by necessary flux of second causes, it will no longer be evil. The essence of sin consists in this, that one commit that which he might avoid. If there be no liberty to produce sin, there is no such thing as sin in the world. Therefore it appears, both from Scripture and reason, that there is true liberty.”

_T. H._ To the fifth argument from reason, which is, that if liberty be taken away, the nature and formal reason of sin is taken away, I answer by denying the consequence. The nature of sin consisteth in this, that the action done proceed from our will, and be against the law. A judge, in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the law, looks at no higher cause of the action than the will of the doer. Now when I say the action was necessary, I do not say it was done against the will of the doer, but with his will, and so necessarily; because man’s will, that is, every act of the will, and purpose of man had a sufficient, and therefore a necessary cause, and consequently every voluntary action was necessitated. An action therefore may be voluntary and a sin, and nevertheless be necessary. And God may afflict by right derived from his omnipotency, though sin were not. And the example of punishment on voluntary sinners, is the cause that produceth justice, and maketh sin less frequent; for God to punish such sinners, as I have shewed before, is no injustice. And thus you have my answer to his objections, both out of Scripture and reason.

[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]

_J. D._ “_Scis tu simulare cupressum._ _Quid hoc?_” It was shrewd counsel which Alcibiades gave to Themistocles, when he was busy about his accounts to the state; that he should rather study how to make no accounts. So it seems T. H. thinks it a more compendious way, to baulk an argument, than to satisfy it. And if he can produce a Rowland against an Oliver, if he can urge a reason against a reason, he thinks he hath quitted himself fairly. But it will not serve his turn. And that he may not complain of misunderstanding it, as those who have a politic deafness to hear nothing but what liketh them, I will first reduce mine argument into form, and then weigh what he saith in answer, or rather in opposition to it. (_a_) That opinion which takes away the formal reason of sin, and by consequence, sin itself, is not to be approved; this is clear, because both reason and religion, nature and Scripture, do prove, and the whole world confesseth, that there is sin. But this opinion, of the necessity of all things by reason of a conflux of second causes, ordered and determined by the first cause, doth take away the very formal reason of sin. This is proved thus. That which makes sin itself to be good, and just, and lawful, takes away the formal cause, and destroys the essence of sin; for if sin be good, and just, and lawful, it is no more evil, it is no sin, no anomy. But this opinion of the necessity of all things, makes sin to be very good, and just, and lawful; for nothing can flow essentially by way of physical determination from the first cause, which is the law and rule of goodness and justice, but that which is good, and just, and lawful. But this opinion makes sin to proceed essentially by way of physical determination from the first cause, as appears in T. H.’s whole discourse. Neither is it material at all whether it proceed immediately from the first cause, or mediately, so as it be by a necessary flux of second and determinate causes, which produce it inevitably. To these proofs he answers nothing, but only by denying the first consequence, as he calls it, and then sings over his old song, ‘that the nature of sin consisteth in this, that the action proceed from our will, and be against the law’, which, in our sense, is most true, if he understand a just law, and a free rational will. (_b_) But supposing, as he doth, that the law enjoins things impossible in themselves to be done, then it is an unjust and tyrannical law; and the transgression of it is no sin, not to do that which never was in our power to do. And supposing, likewise as he doth, that the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause, then it is not man’s will, but God’s will, and flows essentially from the law of goodness.

(_c_) “That which he adds of a judge, is altogether impertinent as to his defence. Neither is a civil judge the proper judge, nor the law of the land the proper rule of sin. But it makes strongly against him; for the judge goes upon a good ground; and even this which he confesseth, that ‘the judge looks at no higher cause than the will of the doer’, proves that the will of the doer did determine itself freely, and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law, if he would. Certainly, a judge ought to look at all material circumstances, and much more at all essential causes. Whether every sufficient cause be a necessary cause, will come to be examined more properly, No. XXXI. For the present it shall suffice to say, that liberty flows from the sufficiency, and contingency from the debility of the cause. (_d_) Nature never intends the generation of a monster. If all the causes concur sufficiently, a perfect creature is produced; but by reason of the insufficiency, or debility, or contingent aberration of some of the causes, sometimes a monster is produced. Yet the causes of a monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced, that is a monster: otherwise a monster had not been produced. What is it then? A monster is not produced by virtue of that order which is set in nature, but by the contingent aberration of some of the natural causes in their concurrence. The order set in nature is, that every like should beget its like. But supposing the concurrence of the causes to be such as it is in the generation of a monster, the generation of a monster is necessary; as all the events in the world are when they are, that is, by an hypothetical necessity. (_e_) Then he betakes himself to his old help, that God may punish by right of omnipotence, though there were no sin. The question is not now what God may do, but what God will do, according to that covenant which he hath made with man, _fac hoc et vives_, _do this and thou shalt live_. Neither doth God punish any man contrary to this covenant (Hosea xiii. 9): _O Israel, thy destruction is from thyself; but in me is thy help_. He that wills not the death of a sinner, doth much less will the death of an innocent creature. By _death_ or _destruction_ in this discourse the only separation of soul and body is not intended, which is a debt of nature, and which God, as Lord of life and death, may justly do, and make it not a punishment, but a blessing to the party; but we understand, the subjecting of the creature to eternal torments. Lastly, he tells of that benefit which redounds to others from exemplary justice; which is most true, but not according to his own grounds. For neither is it justice to punish a man for doing that which it was impossible always for him not to do; neither is it lawful to punish an innocent person, that good may come of it. And if his opinion of absolute necessity of all things were true, the destinies of men could not be altered, either by examples or fear of punishment.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XVII.

Whereas he had in his first discourse made this consequence: “if you take away liberty, you take away the very nature of evil, and the formal reason of sin”: I denied that consequence. It is true, he who taketh away the liberty of doing, according to the will, taketh away the nature of sin; but he that denieth the liberty to will, does not so. But he supposing I understood him not, will needs reduce his argument into form, in this manner. (_a_) “That opinion which takes away the formal reason of sin, and by consequence, sin itself, is not to be approved.” This is granted. “But the opinion of necessity doth this.” This I deny; he proves it thus: “this opinion makes sin to proceed essentially, by way of physical determination from the first cause. But whatsoever proceeds essentially by way of physical determination from the first cause, is good, and just, and lawful. Therefore this opinion of necessity maketh sin to be very good, just, and lawful.” He might as well have concluded, whatsoever man hath been made by God, is a good and just man. He observeth not that sin is not a thing really made. Those things which at first were actions, were not then sins, though actions of the same nature with those which were afterwards sins; nor was then the will to anything a sin, though it were a will to the same thing, which in willing now, we should sin. Actions became sins then first, when the commandment came; for, as St. Paul saith, _without the law sin is dead_; and sin being but a _transgression of the law_, there can be no action made sin but by the law. Therefore this opinion, though it derive actions essentially from God, it derives not sins essentially from him, but relatively and by the commandment. And consequently the opinion of necessity taketh not away the nature of sin, but necessitateth that action which the law hath made sin. And whereas I said the nature of sin consisteth in this, that ‘it is an action proceeding from our will and against the law’, he alloweth it for true; and therefore he must allow also, that the formal reason of sin lieth not in the liberty or necessity of willing, but in the will itself, necessary or unnecessary, in relation to the law. And whereas he limits this truth which he allowed, to this, that _the law be just_, and _the will a free rational will_, it serves to no purpose; for I have shown before, that no law can be unjust. And it seemeth to me that a rational will, if it be not meant of a will after deliberation, whether he that deliberateth reasoneth aright or not, signifieth nothing. A _rational man_ is rightly said; but a _rational will_, in other sense than I have mentioned, is insignificant.

(_b_) “But supposing, as he doth, that the law enjoins things impossible in themselves to be done, then it is an unjust and tyrannical law, and the transgression of it no sin,” &c. “And supposing likewise, as he doth, that the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause, then it is not man’s will, but God’s will.” He mistakes me in this. For I say not the law enjoins things impossible in themselves; for so I should say it enjoined contradictories. But I say the law sometimes, the law-makers not knowing the secret necessities of things to come, enjoins things made impossible by secret and extrinsical causes from all eternity. From this his error he infers, that the laws must be unjust and tyrannical, and the transgression of them no sin. But he who holds that laws can be unjust and tyrannical, will easily find pretence enough, under any government in the world, to deny obedience to the laws, unless they be such as he himself maketh, or adviseth to be made. He says also, that I suppose the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause. It is true; saving that senseless word _influence_, which I never used. But his consequence, “then it is not man’s will, but God’s will”, is not true; for it may be the will both of the one and of the other, and yet not by concurrence, as in a league, but by subjection of the will of man to the will of God.

(_c_) “That which he adds of a judge, is altogether impertinent as to his defence. Neither is a civil judge the proper judge, nor the law of the land a proper rule of sin.” A judge is to judge of voluntary crimes. He has no commission to look into the secret causes that make them voluntary. And because the Bishop had said the law cannot justly punish a crime that proceedeth from necessity, it was no impertinent answer to say, “the judge looks at no higher cause than the will of the doer”. And even this, as he saith, is enough to prove, that “the will of the doer did determine itself freely, and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law if he would”. To which I answer, that it proves indeed that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law if he would; but it proveth not that he had the liberty to have a will to keep the law. Nor doth it prove that the will of the doer did determine itself freely; for, nothing can prove nonsense. But here you see what the Bishop pursueth in this whole reply, namely, to prove that a man hath liberty to do if he will, which I deny not; and thinks when he hath done that, he hath proved a man hath liberty to will, which he calls the will’s determining of itself freely. And whereas he adds, “a judge ought to look at all essential causes”; it is answer enough to say, he is bound to look at no more than he thinks he can see.

(_d_) “Nature never intends the generation of a monster. If all the causes concur sufficiently, a perfect creature is produced; but by reason of the insufficiency, or debility, or contingent aberration of some of the causes, sometimes a monster is produced.” He had no sooner said this, but finding his error he retracteth it, and confesseth that “the causes of a monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced, that is, of a monster; otherwise a monster had not been produced;” which is all that I intended by sufficiency of the cause. But whether every sufficient cause be a necessary cause or not, he meaneth to examine in No. XXXI. In the meantime he saith only, that liberty flows from the sufficiency, and contingency from the debility of the cause; and leaves out necessity, as if it came from neither. I must note also, that where he says nature never intends the generation of a monster, I understand not whether by nature he means the Author of nature, in which meaning he derogates from God; or nature itself, as the universal work of God; and then it is absurd; for the universe, as one aggregate of things natural, hath no intention. His doctrine that followeth concerning the generation of monsters, is not worth consideration; therefore I leave it wholly to the judgment of the reader.