Part 11

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 for moral efficacy, I understand not what he means by it. The last dictate of the judgment concerning the good or bad that may follow on any action, is not properly the whole 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 an 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 causes necessitate the effect, that then it follows, Adam had 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 will itself, and each propension of a man during his deliberation, is as much necessitated, and depends on a sufficient cause, as any thing else whatsoever. 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. (a) “This argument was sent forth only as an espy to make a more full discovery, what were the true grounds of T. H.’s supposed necessity. Which errand being done, and the foundation whereupon he builds being found out, which 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 the refutation of all those other opinions, which he doth not undertake to defend. And therefore I shall waive them at the present, with these short animadversions.

(b) “Concerning the eternal decree of God, he confounds the decree itself with the execution of his decree. And concerning the foreknowledge of God, he confounds that speculative knowledge, which is called the knowledge of vision, (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 is the cause of his work. John i.: God made all things by his word; that is, by his wisdom. Concerning the influence of the stars, I wish he had expressed 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 physically 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. Concerning the concatenation of causes, whereas he makes not one chain, but an innumerable number of chains, (I hope he speaks hyperbolically, and doth not intend that they are actually infinite), the difference is not material whether one or many, so long as they are all joined together, both in the first link, and likewise in the effect. It serves 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. But I admire that T. H., who is so versed in this question, should here confess that he understands not the difference between physical or natural, and moral efficacy: and much more that he should affirm, that outward objects do 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 determined 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 pleases him in cases extraordinary, concur by a special influence, and infuse something into the will, in the nature of an act, or an habit, whereby 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 determined extrinsically, in the latter case intrinsically; 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 necessary. 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 understanding. In a word, so great a difference there is between natural and moral efficacy, as there is between his opinion and mine in this question.

“There remains only the last dictate of the understanding, which he maketh to be the last cause that concurreth to the determination of the will, and to the necessary production of the act, ‘as the last feather may be said to break an horse’s back, when there were so many laid on before that there wanted but that to do it.’ I have shewed (No. VII.) that the last dictate of the understanding is not always absolute in itself, nor conclusive to the will; and when it is conclusive, yet it produceth no antecedent nor extrinsical necessity. I shall only add one thing more at present, that by making 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; and endeavours to deprive the will of its supreme power of application, and to deprive the understanding 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 misinformed. 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 horseload of feathers again, No. XXIII.

“These things being thus briefly touched, he proceeds to his answer. My argument was this: if any of these or all these causes formerly recited, do take away true liberty, (that 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 consequence, which is so clearly proved, that no man living 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 discourse, 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 propension of our wills, even during our deliberation, are as much necessitated as anything else whatsoever; that we have no more power to forbear those actions which we do, than the fire hath power not to burn. Though I honour T. H. for his person and for his learning, yet I must confess ingenuously, I hate this doctrine from my heart. And I believe both I have reason so to do, and all others who shall seriously ponder the horrid consequences which flow from it. It destroys liberty, and dishonours the nature 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 introducer 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 up, 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 inevitably, irresistibly, not by an accidental, but by an essential subordination of causes to whatsoever he did, then one of these two absurdities must needs follow: either that Adam did not sin, and that there is no such thing as sin in the world, because 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 extrinsically, inevitably determined, but so is not God. And in causes essentially subordinate, the cause of the cause is always the cause of the effect. What tyrant 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 necessitated them to break, which 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, which is so dishonourable both to God and man; which makes men to blaspheme of necessity, to steal of necessity, to be hanged of necessity, and to be damned of necessity. And therefore I must say and say again, quicquid ostendes mihi sic, incredulus 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 and a God of evil; or with the heathens, to believe thirty thousand Gods: than thus to charge the true God to be the proper cause and the true author of all the sins and evils which are in the world.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XI.

(a) “This argument was sent forth only as an espy, to make a more full discovery, what were the true grounds of T. H.’s supposed necessity.”

The argument which he sendeth forth as an espy, is this: “If either the decree of God, or the foreknowledge of God, or the influence of the stars, or the concatenation (which he says falsely I call a concourse) of causes, of 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.” In answer whereunto I said, that all the things now existent were necessary to the production of the effect to come; that the foreknowledge of God causeth nothing, though the will do; that the influence of the stars is but a small part of that cause which maketh the necessity; and that this consequence, “if the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect, then Adam had no true liberty,” was false. But in his words, if these do take away true liberty, then Adam before his fall had no true liberty, the consequence is good; but then I deny that necessity takes away liberty; the reason whereof, which is this, liberty is to choose what we will, not to choose our will, no inculcation is sufficient to make the Bishop take notice of, notwithstanding he be otherwhere so witty, and here so crafty, as to send out arguments for spies. The cause why I denied the consequence was, that I thought the force thereof consisted in this, that necessity in the Bishop’s opinion destroyed liberty.

(b) “Concerning the eternal decree of God,” &c.

Here begins his reply. From which if we take these words; “knowledge of approbation;” “practical knowledge;” “heavenly bodies act upon sublunary things, not only by their motion, but also by an occult virtue, which we call influence;” “moral efficacy;” “general influence;” “special influence;” “infuse something into the will;” “the will is moved;” “the will is induced to will;” “the will suspends its own act;” which are all nonsense, unworthy of a man, nay, and if a beast could speak, unworthy of a beast, and can befal no creature whose nature is not depraved by doctrine; nothing at all remaineth to be answered. Perhaps the word, occult virtue, is not to be taxed as unintelligible. But then I may tax therein the want of ingenuity in him that had rather say, that heavenly bodies do work by an occult virtue, than that they work he knoweth not how; which he would not confess, but endeavours to make occult be taken for a cause. The rest of this reply is one of those consequences, which I have answered in the beginning, where I compare the inconveniences of both opinions, that is, “that either Adam did not sin, or his sin proceeded necessarily from God;” which is no stronger a consequence than if out of this, “that a man is lame necessarily,” one should infer, that either he is not lame, or that his lameness proceeded necessarily from the will of God. To the end of this number there is nothing more of argument. The place is filled up with wondering and railing.

NO. XII.

J. D. “Fifthly, if there be no liberty, there shall be no day of doom, no last judgment, no rewards nor punishments after death. A man can never make himself a criminal, if he be not left at liberty to commit a crime. No man can be justly punished for doing that which was not in his power to shun. To take away liberty hazards heaven, but undoubtedly it leaves no hell.”

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 unjust: 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.

To oppose hereunto, I must borrow an answer from St. Paul (Rom. ix.), from the eleventh verse of the chapter to the eighteenth, is laid down the very same objection in these words: When they (meaning Esau and Jacob) 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 (viz. to Rebecca) that the elder shall serve the younger. And what then shall we say, is there injustice with God? God forbid. It is not therefore in him that willeth, nor in him that runneth, but in God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh, I have stirred thee up, that I may show 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 words following (verse 19): Thou wilt ask me then, why will God yet complain; for who hath resisted his will? To this therefore the apostle answers, not by denying it was God’s will, or that the decree of God concerning Esau was not before he had sinned, or that Esau was not necessitated to do what he did; but thus (verse 20, 21): Who art thou, O man, that interrogatest 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 honour, another to dishonour? According therefore to this answer of St. Paul, I answer J. D.’s objection, and say, the power of God alone, without other help, is sufficient justification of any action he 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 measured 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 hindrance 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 by telling him of his power. Hast thou (says God) an arm like mine? Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? and the like. So our Saviour, 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 shown in him. Beasts are subject to death and torment, yet they cannot sin. It was God’s will it should be so. Power irresistible justified 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 his counsels, call him to the bar, commit injustice in it.

I am not ignorant of the usual reply to this answer, by distinguishing between will and permission. As, that God Almighty does indeed permit sin sometimes, and that he also foreknoweth that the sin he permitteth shall be committed; but does not will it, nor necessitate it. I know also they distinguish the action from the sin of the action, saying, God Almighty doth indeed cause the action, whatsoever action it be, but not 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 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 garment, 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 it is blasphemy to say, God can sin. But to say, that God can so order the world as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man, I do not see how it is any dishonour 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 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.

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. (a) 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 was the actor more than they, they being but as the stone, but 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 truth itself.

“And to my fifth argument, which he changeth and relateth amiss, as by comparing mine with his may appear, his chiefest answer is to oppose a difficult place of St. Paul (Rom. ix. 11.) Hath he never heard, that to propose a doubt is not 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, if the Jews who were the legitimate progeny of Abraham were deserted. To which the apostle answers (vers. 6, 7, 8), that that 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 explicateth, first by the allegory of Isaac and Ishmael, and after in the place cited of Esau and Jacob. Yet neither does he speak there so much of their persons as of their posterities. And though some words may be accommodated 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 extrinsically 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; or why he who did imprint the motion in the heart of man, should punish man, who did only receive the impression from him. So his answer looks another way.

“But because he grounds so much upon this text, that if it can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion, I will examine all those passages which may seem to favour his cause. First, these words (ver. 11): being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, upon which the whole weight of his argument doth depend, have no reference at all to those words (verse 13), Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated; for those words were first uttered by the prophet Malachi, many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead (Mal. i. 2, 3), and intended of the posterity of Esau, who were not redeemed from captivity as the Israelites were. But they are referred to those other words (verse 12), the elder shall serve the younger, which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were born. (Gen. xxv. 23.) 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 of punishment, nor any act contrary to love. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Goodness itself cannot hate that which is good. But hatred there signifies comparative hatred, or a less degree of love, or at the most a negation 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 sense (verse 30): Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. So (Matth. vi. 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 disciple. St. Matthew (x. 37) tells us the sense of it: He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.

“Secondly, those words (ver. 15) I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, do prove no more but this, that the 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 deserts, but God’s punishments do never exceed man’s misdeeds. As we see in the parable of the labourers (Matth. xx. 13-15): Friend, I do thee no 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.

“That which follows (verse 17) comes something nearer the cause. The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, for this same purpose I have raised thee up, (that is, I have made thee a king, or I have preserved thee), that I might show my power in thee. But this particle, that, doth not always signify the main end of an action, but sometimes only a consequent of it, as Matth. ii. 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 journey, he saith, that it might be fulfilled. So here, I have raised thee up, that I might show 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 consequent intention upon the prevision of Pharaoh’s obstinacy, that since he would not glorify God in obeying his word, he should glorify God undergoing his judgments. Hitherto we find no eternal punishments, nor no temporal punishment without just deserts.

“It follows, (ver. 18), whom he will he hardeneth. Indeed hardness of heart is the greatest judgment that God lays upon a sinner in this life, worse than all the plagues of Egypt. But how doth God harden the heart? Not by a natural influence of any evil act or habit into the will, nor by inducing the will with persuasive motives to obstinacy and rebellion (James i. 13, 14): For God tempteth no man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then God is said to harden the heart three ways; first, negatively, and not positively; not by imparting wickedness, but by not imparting grace; 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. 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.

“Secondly, God is said to harden the 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 of 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 Pharaoh’s request, both of them in their several kinds were occasions of hardening Pharaoh’s 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 Pharaoh’s. God gave the occasion, but Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration. This is clearly confirmed, Exodus viii. 15: When Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart. And Exodus ix. 34: When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet 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 subtly with them. That is, God blessed the children of Israel, whereupon the Egyptians did take occasion to hate them, as is plain, Exodus i. 7, 8, 9, 10. So God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and Pharaoh hardened his own heart. God hardened it by not shewing mercy to Pharaoh, as he did to Nebuchadnezzar, who was as great a sinner as he, or God hardened 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 presumptuous sinners, (Psalm xcv. 8): Harden not your hearts as in the provocation, or as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.