Part 22

_J. D._ “In the next place follow two reasons of mine own against the same distinction, the one taken from the former grounds, that election cannot consist with determination to one. To this, he saith, he hath answered already. No; truth is founded upon a rock. He hath been so far from prevailing against it, that he hath not been able to shake it. (_a_) Now again he tells us, that ‘election is not opposite to either’, necessitation or compulsion. He might even as well tell us, that a stone thrown upwards moves naturally; or that a woman can be ravished with her own will. Consent takes away the rape. This is the strangest liberty that ever was heard of, that a man is compelled to do what he would not, and yet is free to do what he will. And this he tells us upon the old score, that ‘he who submits to his enemy for fear of death, chooseth to submit’. But we have seen formerly, that this which he calls compulsion, is not compulsion properly, nor that natural determination of the will to one, which is opposite to true liberty. He who submits to an enemy for saving his life, doth either only counterfeit, and then there is no will to submit; (this disguise is no more than a stepping aside to avoid a present blow); or else he doth sincerely will a submission, and then the will is changed. There is a vast difference between compelling and changing the will. Either God or man may change the will of man, either by varying the condition of things, or by informing the party otherwise: but compelled it cannot be, that is, it cannot both will this and not will this, as it is invested with the same circumstances; though, if the act were otherwise circumstantiated, it might nill that freely which now it wills freely. (_b_) Wherefore this kind of actions are called mixed actions, that is partly voluntary, partly involuntary. That which is compelled in a man’s present condition or distress, that is not voluntary nor chosen. That which is chosen, as the remedy of its distress, that is voluntary. So hypothetically, supposing a man were not in that distress, they are involuntary; but absolutely without any supposition at all, taking the case as it is, they are voluntary. (_c_) His other instance of ‘a man forced to prison, that he may choose whether he will be haled thither upon the ground, or walk upon his feet,’ is not true. By his leave, that is not as he pleaseth, but as it pleaseth them who have him in their power. If they will drag him, he is not free to walk; and if they give him leave to walk, he is not forced to be dragged. (_d_) Having laid this foundation, he begins to build upon it, that ‘other passions do necessitate as much as fear’. But he errs doubly; first, in his foundation. Fear doth not determine the rational will naturally and necessarily. The last and greatest of the five terrible things is death; yet the fear of death cannot necessitate a resolved mind to do a dishonest action, which is worse than death. The fear of the fiery furnace could not compel the three children to worship an idol, nor the fear of the lions necessitate Daniel to omit his duty to God. It is our frailty, that we are more afraid of empty shadows than of substantial dangers, because they are nearer our senses; as little children fear a mouse or a visard more than fire or weather. But as a fit of the stone takes away the sense of the gout for the present, so the greater passion doth extinguish the less. The fear of God’s wrath and eternal torments doth expel corporeal fear: _fear not them who kill the body, but fear him who is able to cast both body and soul into hell_ (Luke xii. 4). (_e_) _Da veniam imperator; tu carcerem, ille gehennam minatur._--_Excuse me, O emperor, thou threatenest men with prison, but he threatens me with hell._ (_f_) Secondly, he errs in his superstruction also. There is a great difference, as to this case of justifying, or not justifying an action, between force and fear, and other passions. Force doth not only lessen the sin, but takes it quite away. He who forced a betrothed damsel was to die; ‘but unto the damsel,’ saith he, ‘thou shalt do nothing, there is in her no fault worthy of death’ (Deut. xxii. 26). Tamar’s beauty, or Ammon’s love, did not render him innocent; but Ammon’s force rendered Tamar innocent. But fear is not so prevalent as force. Indeed if fear be great and justly grounded, such as may fall upon a constant man, though it do not dispense with the transgression of the negative precepts of God or nature, because they bind to all times, yet it diminisheth the offence even against them, and pleads for pardon. But it dispenseth in many cases with the transgression of the positive law, either divine or human; because it is not probable that God or the law would oblige man to the observation of all positive precepts, with so great damage as the loss of his life. The omission of circumcision was no sin, whilst the Israelites were travelling through the wilderness. By T. H.’s permission, (_g_) I will propose a case to him. A gentleman sends his servant with money to buy a dinner; some Russians meet him by the way, and take it from him by force; the servant cried for help, and did what he could to defend himself, but all would not serve. The servant is innocent, if he were to be tried before a court of Areopagites. Or suppose the Russians did not take it from him by force, but drew their swords and threatened to kill him except he delivered it himself; no wise man will conceive, that it was either the master’s intention or the servant’s duty to hazard his life or limbs for saving of such a trifling sum. But on the other side, suppose this servant, passing by some cabaret or tennis-court where his comrades were drinking or playing, should stay with them, and drink or play away his money, and afterwards plead, as T. H. doth here, that he was overcome by the mere strength of temptation. I trow, neither T. H. nor any man else would admit of this excuse, but punish him for it: because neither was he necessitated by the temptation, and what strength it had was by his own fault, in respect of that vicious habit which he had contracted of drinking or gaming: (James i. 14): _Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed_. Disordered passions of anger, hatred, lust, if they be consequent (as the case is here put by T. H.) and flow from deliberation and election, they do not only not diminish the fault, but they aggravate it, and render it much greater.

(_h_) “He talks much of the ‘motives to do and motives to forbear, how they work upon and determine a man’; as if a reasonable man were no more than a tennis-ball, to be tossed to and fro by the rackets of the second causes; as if the will had no power to move itself, but were merely passive, like an artificial popingay removed hither and thither by the bolts of the archers, who shoot on this side and on that. What are motives, but reasons or discourses framed by the understanding, and freely moved by the will? What are the will and the understanding, but faculties of the same soul? And what is liberty but a power resulting from them both? To say that the will is determined by these motives, is as much as to say that the agent is determined by himself. If there be no necessitation before the judgment of right reason doth dictate to the will, then there is no antecedent, no extrinsical necessitation at all. (_i_) All the world knows, that when the agent is determined by himself, then the effect is determined likewise in its cause. But if he determined himself freely, then the effect is free. Motives determine not naturally, but morally; which kind of determination may consist with true liberty. But if T. H.’s opinion were true, that the will were naturally determined by the physical and special influence of extrinsical causes, not only motives were vain, but reason itself and deliberation were vain. No, saith he, they are not vain, because they are the means. Yes, if the means be superfluous, they are vain. What needed such a circuit of deliberation to advise what is fit to be done, when it is already determined extrinsically what must be done?

(_k_) “He saith, ‘that the ignorance of the true causes and their power, is the reason why we ascribe the effect to liberty; but when we seriously consider the causes of things, we acknowledge a necessity’. No such thing, but just the contrary. The more we consider, and the clearer we understand, the greater is the liberty, and the more the knowledge of our own liberty. The less we consider, and the more incapable that the understanding is, the lesser is the liberty, and the knowledge of it. And where there is no consideration nor use of reason, there is no liberty at all, there is neither moral good nor evil. Some men, by reason that their exterior senses are not totally bound, have a trick to walk in their sleep. Suppose such a one in that case should cast himself down a pair of stairs or from a bridge, and break his neck or drown himself; it were a mad jury that would find this man accessary to his own death. Why? Because it was not freely done, he had not then the use of reason.

(_l_) “Lastly, he tells us, that ‘the will doth choose of necessity, as well as the fire burns of necessity’. If he intend no more but this, that election is the proper and natural act of the will as burning is of the fire, or that the elective power is as necessarily in a man as visibility, he speaks truly, but most impertinently; for, the question is not now of the elective power, _in actu primo_, whether it be an essential faculty of the soul, but whether the act of electing this or that particular object, be free and undetermined by any antecedent and extrinsical causes. But if he intend it in this other sense, that as the fire hath no power to suspend its burning, nor to distinguish between those combustible matters which are put unto it, but burns that which is put unto it necessarily, if it be combustible; so the will hath no power to refuse that which it wills, nor to suspend its own appetite: he errs grossly. The will hath power either to will or nill, or to suspend, that is, neither to will nor nill the same object. Yet even the burning of the fire, if it be considered as it is invested with all particular circumstances, is not otherwise so necessary an action as T. H. imagineth. (_m_) Two things are required to make an effect necessary. First, that it be produced by a necessary cause, such as fire is; secondly, that it be necessarily produced. Protagoras, an atheist, began his book thus: ‘Concerning the Gods, I have nothing to say, whether they be or they be not’: for which his book was condemned by the Athenians to be burned. The fire was a necessary agent, but the sentence or the application of the fire to the book was a free act; and therefore the burning of his book was free. Much more the rational will is free, which is both a voluntary agent, and acts voluntarily.

(_n_) “My second reason against this distinction, of liberty from compulsion but not from necessitation, is new, and demonstrates clearly that to necessitate the will by a physical necessity, is to compel the will so far as the will is capable of compulsion; and that he who doth necessitate the will to evil after that manner, is the true cause of evil, and ought rather to be blamed than the will itself. But T. H., for all he saith he is not surprised, can be contented upon better advise to steal by all this in silence. And to hide this tergiversation from the eyes of the reader, he makes an empty shew of braving against that famous and most necessary distinction, between the _elicite_ and _imperate_ acts of the will; first, because the terms are _improper_; secondly, because they are _obscure_. What trivial and grammatical objections are these, to be used against the universal current of divines and philosophers. _Verborum ut nummorum_, it is in words as it is in money: use makes them proper and current. A _tyrant_ at first signified a lawful and just prince; now, use hath quite changed the sense of it, to denote either a usurper or an oppressor. The word _præmunire_ is now grown a good word in our English laws, by use and tract of time; and yet at first it was merely mistaken for a _præmonere_. The names of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, were derived at first from those heathenish deities, the Sun, the Moon, and the warlike god of the Germans. Now we use them for distinction sake only, without any relation to their first original. He is too froward, that will refuse a piece of coin that is current throughout the world, because it is not stamped after his own fancy. So is he that rejects a good word, because he understands not the derivation of it. We see foreign words are daily naturalized and made free denizens in every country. But why are the terms improper? ‘Because,’ saith he, ‘it attributes command, and subjection to the faculties of the soul, as if they made a commonwealth or family among themselves, and could speak one to another.’ Therefore, he saith, (_o_) they who invented this term of _actus imperatus_, understood not anything what it signified. No; why not? It seemeth to me, they understood it better than those who except against it. They knew there are _mental terms_, which are only conceived in the mind, as well as _vocal terms_, which are expressed with the tongue. They knew, that howsoever a superior do intimate a direction to his inferior, it is still a command. Tarquin commanded his son by only striking off the tops of the poppies, and was by him both understood and obeyed. Though there be no formal commonwealth or family either in the body or in the soul of man, yet there is a subordination in the body, of the inferior members to the head; there is a subordination in the soul, of the inferior faculties to the rational will. Far be it from a reasonable man so far to dishonour his own nature, as to equal fancy with understanding, or the sensitive appetite with the reasonable will. A power of command there is, without all question; though there be some doubt in what faculty this command doth principally reside, whether in the will or in the understanding. The true resolution is, that the directive command or counsel is in the understanding; and the applicative command, or empire for putting in execution of what is directed, is in the will. The same answer serves for his second impropriety, about the word _elicite_. For saith he, ‘as it is absurdly said, that to dance is an act allured, or drawn by fair means, out of the ability to dance; so is it absurdly said, that to will or choose, is an act drawn out of the power to will’. His objection is yet more improper than the expression. The art of dancing rather resembles the understanding than the will. That drawing which the Schools intend, is clear of another nature from that which he conceives. By _elicitation_, he understands a persuading or enticing with flattering words, or sweet alluring insinuations, to choose this or that. But that _elicitation_ which the Schools intend, is a deducing of the power of the will into act; that drawing which they mention, is merely from the appetibility of the object, or of the end. As a man draws a child after him with the sight of a fair apple, or a shepherd draws his sheep after him with the sight of a green bough: so the end draws the will to it by a metaphorical motion. What he understands here by an ability to dance, is more than I know, or any man else, until he express himself in more proper terms; whether he understand the locomotive faculty alone, or the art or acquired habit of dancing alone, or both of these jointly. It may be said aptly without any absurdity, that the act of dancing is drawn out (_elicitur_) of the locomotive faculty helped by the acquired habit. He who is so scrupulous about the received phrases of the Schools, should not have let so many improper expressions have dropt from his pen; as in this very passage, he confounds the _compelling_ of a voluntary action, with the _commanding_ of a voluntary action, and _willing_ with _electing_, which, he saith, ‘are all one’. Yet _to will_ properly respects the end, _to elect_ the means.

(_p_) “His other objection against this distinction of the acts of the will into _elicite_ and _imperate_, is obscurity. ‘Might it not,’ saith he, ‘have been as easily said in English, a voluntary action.’ Yes, it might have been said as easily, but not as truly, nor properly. Whatsoever hath its original from the will, whether immediately or mediately, whether it be a proper act of the will itself, as to elect, or an act of the understanding, as to deliberate, or an act of the inferior faculties or of the members, is a voluntary action: but neither the act of reason, nor of the senses, nor of the sensitive appetite, nor of the members, are the proper acts of the will, nor drawn immediately out of the will itself; but the members and faculties are applied to their proper and respective acts by the power of the will.

“And so he comes to cast up the total sum of my second reason with the same faith that the unjust steward did make his accounts (Luke xvi). ‘The sum of J. D.’s distinction is,’ saith he, ‘that a voluntary act may be done on compulsion,’ (just contrary to what I have maintained), ‘that is to say, by foul means: but to will that or any act, cannot be but by allurement or fair means.’ I confess the distinction is mine, because I use it; as the sun is mine, or the air is mine, that is common to me with all who treat of this subject. (_q_) But his mistakes are so thick, both in relating my mind and his own, that the reader may conclude he is wandered out of his known way. I will do my duty to show him the right way. First, no acts which are properly said to be compelled, are voluntary. Secondly, acts of terror, (which he calls foul means), which are sometimes in a large improper sense called compulsory actions, may be, and for the most part are, consistent with true liberty. Thirdly, actions proceeding from blandishments or sweet persuasions, (which he calls fair means), if they be indeliberated, as in children who want the use of reason, are not presently free actions. Lastly, the strength of consequent and deliberated desires doth neither diminish guilt, nor excuse from punishment, as just fears of extreme and imminent dangers threatened by extrinsical agents often do; because the strength of the former proceeds from our own fault, and was freely elected in the causes of it; but neither desires nor fears, which are consequent and deliberated, do absolutely necessitate the will.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XX.

(_a_) “Now again he tells us, that election is not opposite to either necessitation or compulsion. He might even as well tell us, that a stone thrown upwards moves naturally, or that a woman can be ravished with her own will. Consent takes away the rape,” &c. If that which I have told him again, be false, why shows he not why it is false? Here is not one word of argument against it. To say, I might have said as well that a stone thrown upwards moves naturally, is no refutation, but a denial. I will not dispute with him, whether a stone thrown up move naturally or not. I shall only say to those readers whose judgments are not defaced with the abuse of words, that as a stone moveth not upwards of itself, but by the power of the external agent who giveth it a beginning of that motion; so also when the stone falleth, it is moved downward by the power of some other agent, which, though it be imperceptible to the eye, is not imperceptible to reason. But because this is not proper discourse for the Bishop, and because I have elsewhere discoursed thereof expressly, I shall say nothing of it here. And whereas he says, ‘consent takes away the rape’; it may perhaps be true, and I think it is; but here it not only inferreth nothing, but was also needless, and therefore in a public writing is an indecent instance, though sometimes not unnecessary in a spiritual court. In the next place, he wonders how “a man is compelled, and yet free to do what he will”; that is to say, how a man is made to will, and yet free to do what he will. If he had said, he wondered how a man can be compelled to will, and yet be free to do that which he would have done if he had not been compelled, it had been somewhat; as it is, it is nothing. Again he says, “he who submits to an enemy for saving his life, doth either only counterfeit, or else his will is changed,” &c.: all which is true. But when he says he doth counterfeit, he doth not insinuate that he may counterfeit lawfully; for that would prejudice him hereafter, in case he should have need of quarter. But how this maketh for him, or against me, I perceive not. “There is a vast difference,” saith he, “between compelling and changing the will. Either God or man may change the will of man, either by varying the condition of things, or by informing the party otherwise; but compelled it cannot be,” &c. I say the same; the will cannot be compelled; but the man may be, and is then compelled, when his will is changed by the fear of force, punishment, or other hurt from God or man. And when his will is changed, there is a new will formed, (whether it be by God or man), and that necessarily; and consequently the actions that flow from that will, are both voluntary, free, and necessary, notwithstanding that he was compelled to do them. Which maketh not for the Bishop, but for me.