Part 8

But because he takes it so heinously, that a private man should so hardly censure School-divinity, I would be glad to know with what patience he can hear Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon speaking of the same? Martin Luther, that was the first beginner of our deliverance from the servitude of the Romish clergy, had these three articles censured by the University of Paris. The first of which was: “School-theology is a false interpretation of the Scripture, and Sacraments, which hath banished from us true and sincere theology.” The second is: “At what time School-theology, that is, mock-theology, came up, at the same time the theology of Christ’s Cross went down.” The third is: “It is now almost three hundred years since the Church has endured the licentiousness of School-Doctors in corrupting of the Scriptures.” Moreover, the same Luther in another place of his work saith thus; “School-theology is nothing else but ignorance of the truth, and a block to stumble at laid before the Scriptures.” And of Thomas Aquinas in particular he saith, that “it was he that did set up the kingdom of Aristotle, the destroyer of godly doctrine.” And of the philosophy whereof St. Paul biddeth us beware, he saith it is School-theology. And Melancthon, a divine once much esteemed in our Church, saith of it thus: “It is known that that profane scholastic learning, which they will have to be called Divinity, began at Paris; which being admitted, nothing is left sound in the Church, the Gospel is obscured, faith extinguished, the doctrine of works received, and instead of Christ’s people, we are become not so much as the people of the law, but the people of Aristotle’s ethics These were no raw divines, such as he saith preached to their equally ignorant auditors. I could add to these the slighting of School-divinity by Calvin and other learned Protestant Doctors; yet were they all but private men, who, it seems to the Bishop, had forgot themselves as well as I.

NO. V.

J. D. “Thus the coast being cleared, the next thing to be done, is to draw out our forces against the enemy; and because they are divided into two squadrons, the one of Christians, the other of heathen philosophers, it will be best to dispose ours also into two bodies, the former drawn from Scripture, the latter from reason.”

T. H. The next thing he doth, after the clearing of the coast, is the dividing of his forces, as he calls them, into two squadrons, one of places of Scripture, the other of reasons, which allegory he useth, I suppose, because he addresses the discourse to your Lordship, who is a military man. All that I have to say touching this, is, that I observe a great part of those his forces do look and march another way, and some of them do fight among themselves.

J. D. “If T. H. could divide my forces, and commit them together among themselves, it were his only way to conquer them. But he will find that those imaginary contradictions, which he thinks he hath espied in my discourse, are but fancies, and my supposed impertinences will prove his own real mistakings.”

In this fifth number there is nothing of his or mine, pertinent to the question, therefore nothing necessary to be repeated.

PROOFS OF LIBERTY OUT OF SCRIPTURE.--NO. VI.

J. D. “First, whosoever have power of election, have true liberty; for the proper act of liberty is election. A spontaneity may consist with determination to one, as we see in children, fools, madmen, brute beasts, whose fancies are determined to those things which they act spontaneously, as the bees make honey, the spiders webs. But none of these have a liberty of election, which is an act of judgment and understanding, and cannot possibly consist with a determination to one. He that is determined by something before himself or without himself, cannot be said to choose or elect, unless it be as the junior of the mess chooseth in Cambridge, whether he will have the least part or nothing. And scarcely so much.

“But men have liberty of election. This is plain, (Numbers xxx. 13): If a wife make a vow it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or to make it void. And (Joshua xxiv. 15): Choose you this day whom you will serve, &c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. He makes his own choice, and leaves them to the liberty of their election. And (2 Samuel xxiv. 12): I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do. If one of these three things was necessarily determined, and the other two impossible, how was it left to him to choose what should be done? Therefore we have true liberty.”

T. H. And the first place of Scripture taken from Numbers xxx. 13, is one of them that look another way. The words are, If a wife make a vow it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or make it void. For it proves no more but that the husband is a free or voluntary agent, but not that his choice therein is not necessitated or not determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes.

J. D. “My first argument from Scripture is thus formed.

“Whosoever have a liberty or power of election, are not determined to one by precedent necessary causes.

“But men have liberty of election.

“The assumption or minor proposition is proved by three places of Scripture, (Numbers xxx. 13; Joshua xxiv. 15; 2 Samuel xxiv. 12.) I need not insist upon these, because T. H. acknowledgeth ‘that it is clearly proved that there is election in man.’

“But he denieth the major proposition, because, saith he, ‘man is necessitated or determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes.’ I take away this answer three ways.

“First, by reason. Election is evermore either of things possible, or at least of things conceived to be possible, that is, efficacious election, when a man hopeth or thinketh of obtaining the object. Whatsoever the will chooseth, it chooseth under the notion of good, either honest, or delightful, or profitable. But there can be no real goodness apprehended in that which is known to be impossible. It is true, there may be some wandering pendulous wishes of known impossibilities, as a man also that hath committed an offence may wish he had not committed it. But to choose efficaciously an impossibility, is as impossible as an impossibility itself. No man can think to obtain that which he knows impossible to be obtained; but he who knows that all things are antecedently determined by necessary causes, knows that it is impossible for anything to be otherwise than it is; therefore to ascribe unto him a power of election to choose this or that indifferently, is to make the same thing to be determined to one, and to be not determined to one, which are contradictories. Again, whosoever hath an elective power, or a liberty to choose, hath also a liberty or power to refuse; (Isaiah vii. 16): Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good. He who chooseth this rather than that, refuseth that rather than this. As Moses (Hebrews xi. 25), choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God, did thereby refuse the pleasures of sin. But no man hath any power to refuse that which is necessarily predetermined to be, unless it be as the fox refused the grapes which were beyond his reach. When one thing of two or three is absolutely determined, the others are made thereby simply impossible.

(a) “Secondly, I prove it by instances, and by that universal notion which the world hath of election. What is the difference between an elective and hereditary kingdom, but that in an elective kingdom, they have power or liberty to choose this or that man indifferently; but in an hereditary kingdom, they have no such power nor liberty? Where the law makes a certain heir, there is a necessitation to one; where the law doth not name a certain heir, there is no necessitation to one, and there they have power or liberty to choose. An hereditary prince may be as grateful and acceptable to his subjects, and as willingly received by them (according to that liberty which is opposed to compulsion or violence), as he who is chosen: yet he is not therefore an elective prince. In Germany all the nobility and commons may assent to the choice of the emperor, or be well pleased with it when it is concluded; yet none of them elect or choose the emperor, but only those six princes who have a consultative, deliberative, and determinative power in his election; and if their votes or suffrages be equally divided, three to three, then the King of Bohemia hath the casting voice. So likewise in corporations or commonwealths, sometimes the people, sometimes the common-council, have power to name so many persons for such an office, and the supreme magistrate, or senate, or lesser council respectively, to choose one of those. And all this is done with that caution and secresy, by billets or other means, that no man knows which way any man gave his vote, or with whom to be offended. If it were necessarily and inevitably predetermined, that this individual person, and no other, shall and must be chosen, what needed all this circuit and caution, to do that which is not possible to be done otherwise, which one may do as well as a thousand, and for doing of which no rational man can be offended, if the electors were necessarily predetermined to elect this man and no other. And though T. H. was pleased to pass by my University instance, yet I may not, until I see what he is able to say unto it. The junior of the mess in Cambridge divides the meat in four parts; the senior chooseth first, then the second and third in their order. The junior is determined to one, and hath no choice left, unless it be to choose whether he will take that part which the rest have refused, or none at all. It may be this part is more agreeable to his mind than any of the others would have been; but for all that he cannot be said to choose it, because he is determined to this one. Even such a liberty of election is that which is established by T. H.; or rather much worse in two respects. The junior hath yet a liberty of contradiction left, to choose whether he will take that part, or not take any part; but he who is precisely predetermined to the choice of this object, hath no liberty to refuse it. Secondly, the junior, by dividing carefully, may preserve to himself an equal share; but he who is wholly determined by extrinsical causes, is left altogether to the mercy and disposition of another.

“Thirdly, I prove it by the texts alleged. (Numb. xxx. 13): If a wife make a vow, it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or make it void. But if it be predetermined that he shall establish it, it is not in his power to make it void. If it be predetermined that he shall make it void, it is not in his power to establish it. And howsoever it be determined, yet being determined, it is not in his power indifferently, either to establish it, or to make it void at his pleasure. So (Joshua xxiv. 15): Choose you this day whom ye will serve: but I and my house will serve the Lord. It is too late to choose that this day, which was determined otherwise yesterday. Whom ye will serve, whether the Gods whom your fathers served, or the Gods of the Amorites. Where there is an election of this or that, these Gods, or those Gods, there must needs be either an indifferency to both objects, or at least a possibility to either. I and my house will serve the Lord. If he were extrinsically predetermined, he should not say I will serve, but I must serve. And (2 Samuel xxiv. 12): I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do. How doth God offer three things to David’s choice, if he had predetermined him to one of the three by a concourse of necessary extrinsical causes? If a sovereign prince should descend so far as to offer a delinquent his choice, whether he would be fined, or imprisoned, or banished, and had underhand signed the sentence of his banishment, what were it else but plain drollery or mockery? This is the argument which in T. H.’s opinion looks another way. If it do, it is as the Parthians used to fight, flying. His reason follows next to be considered.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. VI.

In this number he hath brought three places of Scripture to prove freewill. The first is, If a wife make a vow, it is left to her husband’s choice either to establish it or to make it void. And, Choose you this day whom ye will serve, &c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. And, I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do. Which in the reply he endeavoureth to make good; but needed not, seeing they prove nothing but that a man is free to do if he will, which I deny not. He ought to prove he is free to will, which I deny.

(a) Secondly, “I prove it by instances, and by that universal notion which the world hath of election.”

His instances are, first, the difference between an hereditary kingdom and an elective; and then the difference between the senior and junior of the mess taking their commons; both which prove the liberty of doing what they will, but not a liberty to will. For in the first case, the electors are free to name whom they will, but not to will; and in the second, the senior having an appetite, chooseth what he hath an appetite to; but chooseth not his appetite.

NO. VII.

T. H. For if there came into the husband’s mind greater good by establishing than abrogating such a vow, the establishing will follow necessarily. And if the evil that will follow thereon in the husband’s opinion outweigh the good, the contrary must needs follow. And yet in this following of one’s hopes and fears consisteth the nature of election. So that a man may both choose this, and cannot but choose this. And consequently choosing and necessity are joined together.

J. D. (a) “There is nothing said with more show of reason in this cause by the patrons of necessity and adversaries of true liberty than this, that the will doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding, or the last judgment of right reason. And in this, and this only, I confess T. H. hath good seconds. Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary, and justly.

“For first, this very act of the understanding is an effect of the will, and a testimony of its power and liberty. It is the will, which affecting some particular good, doth engage and command the understanding to consult and deliberate what means are convenient for attaining that end. And though the will itself be blind, yet its object is good in general, which is the end of all human actions. Therefore it belongs to the will, as to the general of an army, to move the other powers of the soul to their acts, and among the rest the understanding also, by applying it and reducing its power into act. So as whatsoever obligation the understanding doth put upon the will, is by the consent of the will, and derived from the power of the will, which was not necessitated to move the understanding to consult. So the will is the lady and mistress of human actions; the understanding is her trusty counsellor, which gives no advice but when it is required by the will. And if the first consultation or deliberation be not sufficient, the will may move a review, and require the understanding to inform itself better and take advice of others, from whence many times the judgment of the understanding doth receive alteration.

“Secondly, for the manner how the understanding doth determine the will, it is not naturally but morally. The will is moved by the understanding, not as by an efficient having a causal influence into the effect, but only by proposing and representing the object. And therefore, as it were ridiculous to say that the object of the sight is the cause of seeing, so it is to say that the proposing of the object by the understanding to the will is the cause of willing; and therefore the understanding hath no place in that concourse of causes, which according to T. H. do necessitate the will.

“Thirdly, the judgment of the understanding is not always practice practicum, nor of such a nature in itself as to oblige and determine the will to one. Sometimes, the understanding proposeth two or three means equally available to the attaining of one and the same end. Sometimes, it dictateth that this or that particular good is eligible or fit to be chosen, but not that it is necessarily eligible or that it must be chosen. It may judge this or that to be a fit means, but not the only means to attain the desired end. In these cases no man can doubt but that the will may choose, or not choose, this or that indifferently. Yea, though the understanding shall judge one of these means to be more expedient than another, yet forasmuch as in the less expedient there is found the reason of good, the will in respect of that dominion which it hath over itself, may accept that which the understanding judgeth to be less expedient, and refuse that which it judgeth to be more expedient.