Chapter VI: Part 6

Secondly, I deny that it makes consultations to be in vain; it is the consultation that causeth a man, and necessitateth him, to choose to do one thing rather than another. So that unless a man say that cause to be in vain, which necessitateth the effect, he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation out of the necessity of the election proceeding from it. But it seems he reasons thus: If I must needs do this rather than that, then I shall do this rather than that, though I consult not at all; which is a false proposition, a false consequence, and no better than this: If I shall live till to-morrow, I shall live till to-morrow, though I run myself through with a sword to-day. If there be a necessity that an action shall be done, or that any effect shall be brought to pass, it does not therefore follow that there is nothing necessarily required as a means to bring it to pass. And therefore, when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another, it is determined also for what cause it shall be chosen; which cause, for the most part, is deliberation or consultation. And therefore consultation is not in vain; and indeed the less in vain, by how much the election is more necessitated.

The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience; namely, that admonitions are in vain; for admonitions are parts of consultations; the admonitor being a counsellor, for the time, to him that is admonished.

The fourth pretended inconvenience is, that praise and dispraise, reward and punishment, will be in vain. To which I answer, that for praise and dispraise, they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or dispraised. For, what is it else to praise, but to say a thing is good? Good, I say, for me, or for somebody else, or for the state and commonwealth. And what is it to say an action is good, but to say, it is as I would wish, or as another would have it, or according to the will of the state, that is to say, according to law? Does J. D. think, that no action can please me or him, or the commonwealth, that should proceed from necessity?

Things may be therefore necessary and yet praiseworthy, as also necessary and yet dispraised, and neither of both in vain; because praise and dispraise, and likewise reward and punishment, do by example make and conform the will to good or evil. It was a very great praise, in my opinion, that Velleius Paterculus gives Cato, where he says, he was good by nature, _et quia aliter esse non potuit_.

To his fifth and sixth inconvenience, that counsels, arts, arms, books, instruments, study, medicines, and the like, would be superfluous, the same answer serves that to the former; that is to say, that this consequence, if the effect shall necessarily come to pass, then it shall come to pass without its cause, is a false one. And those things named, counsels, arts, arms, &c., are the causes of those effects.

_J. D._ “Nothing is more familiar with T. H. than to decline an argument. But I will put it into form for him. (_a_) The first inconvenience is thus pressed. Those laws are unjust and tyrannical, which do prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done, and punish men for not doing of them. But supposing T. H’s opinion of the necessity of all things to be true, all laws do prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done, and punish men for not doing of them. The former proposition is so clear that it cannot be denied. Just laws are the ordinances of right reason; but those laws which prescribe absolute impossibilities, are not the ordinances of right reason. Just laws are instituted for the public good; but those laws which prescribe absolute impossibilities, are not instituted for the public good. Just laws do show unto a man what is to be done, and what is to be shunned; but those laws which prescribe impossibilities, do not direct a man what he is to do, and what he is to shun. The minor is as evident. For if his opinion be true, all actions, all transgressions are determined antecedently inevitably to be done by a natural and necessary flux of extrinsical causes. Yea, even the will of man, and the reason itself is thus determined. And therefore whatsoever laws do prescribe any thing to be done, which is not done, or to be left undone which is done, do prescribe absolute impossibilities, and punish men for not doing of impossibilities. In all his answer there is not one word to this argument, but only to the conclusion. He saith, that ‘not the necessity, but the will to break the law makes the action unjust.’ I ask what makes the will to break the law; is it not his necessity? What gets he by this? A perverse will causeth injustice, and necessity causeth a perverse will. He saith, ‘the law regardeth the will, but not the precedent causes of action.’ To what proposition, to what term is this answer? He neither denies nor distinguisheth. First, the question here is not what makes actions to be unjust, but what makes laws to be unjust. So his answer is impertinent. It is likewise untrue. For first, that will which the law regards, is not such a will as T. H. imagineth. It is a free will, not a determined necessitated will; a rational will, not a brutish will. Secondly, the law doth look upon precedent causes, as well as the voluntariness of the action. If a child, before he be seven years old or have the use of reason, in some childish quarrel do willingly stab another, whereof we have seen experience, yet the law looks not upon it as an act of murder; because there wanted a power to deliberate, and consequently true liberty. Manslaughter may be as voluntary as murder, and commonly more voluntary; because being done in hot blood there is the less reluctation. Yet the law considers, that the former is done out of some sudden passion without serious deliberation, and the other out of prepensed malice and desire of revenge; and therefore condemns murder, as more wilful and more punishable than manslaughter.”

(_b_) “He saith, ‘that no law can possibly be unjust;’ and I say, that this is to deny the conclusion, which deserves no reply. But to give him satisfaction, I will follow him in this also, if he intended no more but that unjust laws are not genuine laws, nor bind to active obedience, because they are not the ordinations of right reason, not instituted for the common good, nor prescribe that which ought to be done; he said truly, but nothing at all to his purpose. But if he intend, as he doth, that there are no laws _de facto_, which are the ordinances of reason erring, instituted for the common hurt, and prescribing that which ought not to be done, he is much mistaken. Pharaoh’s law, to drown the male children of the Israelites (Exod. i. 22); Nebuchadnezzar’s law, that whosoever did not fall down and worship the golden image which he had set up, should be cast into the fiery furnace (Dan. iii. 4-6); Darius’s law, that whosoever should ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of the king, should be cast into the den of lions (Dan. vi. 7); Ahasuerus’s law, to destroy the Jewish nation, root and branch (Esther iii. 13); the Pharisees’ law, that whosoever confesseth Christ, should be excommunicated (John ix. 22); were all unjust laws.

(_c_) “The ground of this error is as great an error itself (such an art he hath learned of repacking paradoxes); which is this, ‘that every man makes by his consent the law which he is bound to keep.’ If this were true, it would preserve them, if not from being unjust, yet from being injurious. But it is not true. The positive law of God, contained in the Old and New Testament; the law of nature, written in our hearts by the finger of God; the laws of conquerors, who come in by the power of the sword; the laws of our ancestors, which were made before we were born; do all oblige us to the observation of them; yet to none of all these did we give our actual consent. Over and above all these exceptions, he builds upon a wrong foundation, that all magistrates at first were elective. The first governors were fathers of families; and when those petty princes could not afford competent protection and security to their subjects, many of them did resign their several and respective interests into the hands of one joint father of the country.

“And though his ground had been true, that all first legislators were elective, which is false; yet his superstructure fails: for it was done in hope and trust that they would make just laws. If magistrates abuse this trust, and deceive the hopes of the people by making tyrannical laws, yet it is without their consent. A precedent trust doth not justify the subsequent errors and abuses of a trustee. He who is duly elected a legislator, may exercise his legislative power unduly. The people’s implicit consent doth not render the tyrannical laws of their legislators to be just.

(_d_) “But his chiefest answer is, that ‘an action forbidden, though it proceed from necessary causes, yet if it were done willingly, it may be justly punished;’ which, according to his custom, he proves by an instance. ‘A man necessitated to steal by the strength of temptation, yet if he steal willingly, is justly put to death.’ Here are two things, and both of them untrue.

“First, he fails in his assertion. Indeed we suffer justly for those necessities, which we ourselves have contracted by our own fault; but not for extrinsical antecedent necessities, which were imposed upon us without our fault. If that law do not oblige to punishment, which is not intimated, because the subject is invincibly ignorant of it; how much less that law which prescribes absolute impossibilities: unless perhaps invincible necessity be not as strong a plea as invincible ignorance. That which he adds, ‘if it were done willingly,’ though it be of great moment, if it be rightly understood, yet in his sense, that is, if a man’s ‘will be not in his own disposition,’ and ‘if his willing do not come upon him according to his will, nor according to anything else in his power,’ it weighs not half so much as the least feather in all his horse-load. For if that law be unjust and tyrannical which commands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do, then that law is likewise unjust and tyrannical, which commands him to will that which is impossible for him to will.

“Secondly, his instance supposeth an untruth, and is a plain begging of the question. No man is extrinsically, antecedently, and irresistibly necessitated by temptation to steal. The devil may solicit us, but he cannot necessitate us. He hath a faculty of persuading, but not a power of compelling. _Nos ignem habemus, spiritus flammam ciet_; as Gregory Nazianzen, he blows the coals, but the fire is our own. _Mordet duntaxat sese in fauces illius objicientem_; as St. Austin, he bites not, until we thrust ourselves into his mouth. He may propose, he may suggest, but he cannot move the will effectively. _Resist the devil, and he will flee from you_ (James iv. 7). By faith we are able _to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked_ (Ephes. vi. 16). And if Satan, who can both propose the object, and choose out the fittest times and places to work upon our frailties, and can suggest reasons, yet cannot necessitate the will, (which is most certain); then much less can outward objects do it alone. They have no natural efficacy to determine the will. Well may they be occasions, but they cannot be causes of evil. The sensitive appetite may engender a proclivity to steal, but not a necessity to steal. And if it should produce a kind of necessity, yet it is but moral, not natural; hypothetical, not absolute; coexistent, not antecedent from ourselves, nor extrinsical. This necessity, or rather proclivity, was free in its causes; we ourselves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might, have freely given it a kind of dominion over us. Admit that some sudden passions may and do extraordinarily surprise us; and therefore we say, _motus primo primi_, the first motions are not always in our power, neither are they free: yet this is but very rarely, and it is our own fault that they do surprise us. Neither doth the law punish the first motion to theft, but the advised act of stealing. The intention makes the thief. But of this more largely No. XXV.

(_e_) “He pleads moreover, ‘That the law is a cause of justice,’ that ‘it frames the wills of men to justice,’ and ‘that the punishment of one doth conduce to the preservation of many.’ All this is most true of a just law justly executed. But this is no God-a-mercy to T. H.’s opinion of absolute necessity. If all actions and all events be predetermined naturally, necessarily, extrinsically, how should the law frame men morally to good actions? He leaves nothing for the law to do, but either that which is done already, or that which is impossible to be done. If a man be chained to every individual act which he doth, and from every act which he doth not, by indissolvable bonds of inevitable necessity, how should the law either deter him or frame him? If a dog be chained fast to a post, the sight of a rod cannot draw him from it. Make a thousand laws that the fire shall not burn, yet it will burn. And whatsoever men do, according to T. H., they do it as necessarily as the fire burneth. Hang up a thousand thieves, and if a man be determined inevitably to steal, he must steal notwithstanding.

(_f_) “He adds, that ‘the sufferings imposed by the law upon delinquents, respect not the evil act passed, but the good to come, and that the putting of a delinquent to death by the magistrate for any crime whatsoever, cannot be justified before God, except there be a real intention to benefit others by his example.’ The truth is, the punishing of delinquents by law, respecteth both the evil act passed and the good to come. The ground of it, is the evil act passed, the scope or end of it, is the good to come. The end without the ground cannot justify the act. A bad intention may make a good action bad; but a good intention cannot make a bad action good. It is not lawful to do evil that good may come of it, nor to punish an innocent person for the admonition of others; that is to fall into a certain crime for fear of an uncertain. Again, though there were no other end of penalties inflicted, neither probatory, nor castigatory, nor exemplary, but only vindicatory, to satisfy the law out of a zeal of justice by giving to every one his own, yet the action is just and warrantable. Killing, as it is considered in itself, without all undue circumstances, was never prohibited to the lawful magistrate, who is the vice-gerent or lieutenant of God, from whom he derives his power of life and death.

“T. H. hath one plea more. As a drowning man catcheth at every bulrush, so he lays hold on every pretence to save a desperate cause. But first, it is worth our observation to see how oft he changeth shapes in this one particular. (_g_) First, he told us, that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his actions, though he command one thing openly, and plot another thing secretly, though he be the cause not only of the action, but also of the irregularity; though he both give man power to act, and determine this power to evil as well as good; though he punish the creatures, for doing that which he himself did necessitate them to do. But being pressed with reason, that this is tyrannical, first to necessitate a man to do his will, and then to punish him for doing of it, he leaves this pretence in the plain field, and flies to a second; that therefore a man is justly punished for that which he was necessitated to do, because the act was voluntary on his part. This hath more show of reason than the former, if he did make the will of man to be in his own disposition; but maintaining that the will is irresistibly determined to will whatsoever it doth will, the injustice and absurdity is the same, first to necessitate a man to will, and then to punish him for willing. The dog only bites the stone which is thrown at him with a strange hand, but they make the first cause to punish the instrument for that which is his own proper act. Wherefore not being satisfied with this, he casts it off and flies to his third shift. ‘Men are not punished,’ saith he, ‘therefore, because their theft proceeded from election,’ (that is, because it was willingly done, for to elect and will, saith he, are both one; is not this to blow hot and cold with the same breath?) ‘but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation.’ Thus far he saith true, that every creature by the instinct of nature seeks to preserve itself: cast water into a dusty place, and it contracts itself into little globes, that is to preserve itself. And those who are noxious in the eye of the law, are justly punished by them to whom the execution of the law is committed; but the law accounts no persons noxious, but those who are noxious by their own fault. It punisheth not a thorn for pricking, because it is the nature of the thorn, and it can do no otherwise, nor a child, before it have the use of reason. If one should take my hand perforce and give another a box on the ear with it, my hand is noxious, but the law punisheth the other who is faulty. And therefore he hath reason to propose the question, ‘how it is just to kill one man to amend another, if he who killed did nothing but what he was necessitated to do.’ He might as well demand, how it is lawful to murder a company of innocent infants, to make a bath of their lukewarm blood for curing the leprosy. It had been a more rational way, first to have demonstrated that it is so, and then to have questioned why it is so. His assertion itself is but a dream, and the reason which he gives of it why it is so, is a dream of a dream.

“The sum of it is this; ‘that where there is no law, there no killing or any thing else can be unjust; that before the constitution of commonwealths, every man had power to kill another, if he conceived him to be hurtful to him; that at the constitution of commonwealths, particular men lay down this right in part, and in part reserve it to themselves, as in case of theft or murder; that the right which the commonwealth hath to put a malefactor to death, is not created by the law, but remaineth from the first right of nature which every man hath to preserve himself; that the killing of men in this case is as the killing of beasts in order to our own preservation.’ This may well be called stringing of paradoxes.

“But first, (_h_) there never was any such time when mankind was without governors and laws, and societies. Paternal government was in the world from the beginning, and the law of nature. There might be sometimes a root of such barbarous thievish brigands, in some rocks or deserts, or odd corners of the world; but it was an abuse and a degeneration from the nature of man, who is a political creature. This savage opinion reflects too much upon the honour of mankind.

“Secondly, there never was a time when it was lawful, ordinarily, for private men to kill one another for their own preservation. If God would have had men live like wild beasts, as lions, bears, or tigers, he would have armed them with horns, or tusks, or talons, or pricks; but of all creatures man is born most naked, without any weapon to defend himself, because God had provided a better means of security for him, that is, the magistrate.

“Thirdly, that right which private men have to preserve themselves, though it be with the killing of another, when they are set upon to be murdered or robbed, is not a remainder or a reserve of some greater power which they have resigned, but a privilege which God hath given them, in case of extreme danger and invincible necessity, that when they cannot possibly have recourse to the ordinary remedy, that is, the magistrate, every man becomes a magistrate to himself.

“Fourthly, nothing can give that which it never had. The people, whilst they were a dispersed rabble, (which in some odd cases might happen to be), never had justly the power of life and death, and therefore they could not give it by their election. All that they do is to prepare the matter, but it is God Almighty that infuseth the soul of power.

“Fifthly and lastly, I am sorry to hear a man of reason and parts to compare the murdering of men with the slaughtering of brute beasts. The elements are for the plants, the plants for the brute beasts, the brute beasts for man. When God enlarged his former grant to man, and gave him liberty to eat the flesh of his creatures for his sustenance, (Gen. ix. 3), yet man is expressly excepted (verse 6): _Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed_. And the reason is assigned, _for in the image of God made he man_. Before sin entered into the world, or before any creatures were hurtful or noxious to man, he had dominion over them as their lord and master. And though the possession of this sovereignty be lost in part, for the sin of man, which made not only the creatures to rebel, but also the inferior faculties to rebel against the superior, from whence it comes that one man is hurtful to another; yet the dominion still remains. Wherein we may observe how sweetly the providence of God doth temper this cross; that though the strongest creatures have withdrawn their obedience, as lions and bears, to shew that man hath lost the excellency of his dominion, and the weakest creatures, as flies and gnats, to shew into what a degree of contempt he is fallen; yet still the most profitable and useful creatures, as sheep and oxen, do in some degree retain their obedience.

(_i_) “The next branch of his answer concerns consultations, ‘which,’ saith he, ‘are not superfluous, though all things come to pass necessarily, because they are the cause which doth necessitate the effect, and the means to bring it to pass.’ We were told (No. XI.) ‘that the last dictate of right reason was but as the last feather which breaks the horse’s back. It is well yet, that reason hath gained some command again, and is become at least a quarter-master. Certainly if any thing under God have power to determine the will, it is right reason. But I have shewed sufficiently, that reason doth not determine the will physically, nor absolutely, much less extrinsically, and antecedently; and therefore it makes nothing for that necessity which T. H. hath undertaken to prove.

(_k_) “He adds further, that ‘as the end is necessary, so are the means; and when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another, it is determined also for what cause it shall be so chosen.’ All which is truth, but not the whole truth; for as God ordains means for all ends, so he adapts and fits the means to their respective ends, free means to free ends, contingent means to contingent ends, necessary means to necessary ends, whereas T. H. would have all means, all ends, to be necessary. If God hath so ordered the world, that a man ought to use, and may freely use, those means of God, which he doth neglect, not by virtue of God’s decree, but by his own fault; if a man use those means of evil, which he ought not to use, and which by God’s decree he had power to forbear; if God have left to man in part the free managery of human affairs, and to that purpose hath endowed him with understanding: then consultations are of use, then provident care is needful, then it concerns him to use the means. But if God have so ordered this world, that a man cannot, if he would, neglect any means of good, which by virtue of God’s decree it is possible for him to use, and that he cannot possibly use any means of evil, but those which are irresistibly and inevitably imposed upon him by an antecedent decree; then not only consultations are vain, but that noble faculty of reason itself is vain. Do we think that we can help God Almighty to do his proper work? In vain we trouble ourselves, in vain we take care to use those means, which are not in our power to use, or not to use. And this is that which was contained in my prolepsis or prevention of his answer, though he be pleased both to disorder it, and to silence it. We cannot hope by our labours, to alter the course of things set down by God; let him perform his decree, let the necessary causes do their work. If we be those causes, yet we are not in our own disposition; we must do what we are ordained to do, and more we cannot do. Man hath no remedy but patience, and to shrug up the shoulders. This is the doctrine that flows from this opinion of absolute necessity. Let us suppose the great wheel of the clock which sets all the little wheels going, to be as the decree of God, and that the motion of it were perpetually infallible from an intrinsical principle, even as God’s decree is infallible, eternal, all-sufficient. Let us suppose the lesser wheels to be the second causes, and that they do as certainly follow the motion of the great wheel, without missing or swerving in the least degree, as the second causes do pursue the determination of the first cause. I desire to know in this case, what cause there is to call a council of smiths, to consult and order the motion of that which was ordered and determined before to their hands? Are men wiser than God? Yet all men know, that the motion of the lesser wheels is a necessary means to make the clock strike.

(_l_) “But he tells me in great sadness, that ‘my argument is just like this other; if I shall live till to-morrow, I shall live till to-morrow, though I run myself through with a sword to-day; which, saith he, is a false consequence, and a false proposition.’ Truly, if by running through, he understands killing, it is a false, or rather a foolish proposition, and implies a contradiction. To live till to-morrow, and to die to-day, are inconsistent. But by his favour, this is not my consequence, but this is his own opinion. He would persuade us, that it is absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to-morrow, and yet that it is possible that he may kill himself to-day. My argument is this: if there be a liberty and possibility for a man to kill himself to-day, then it is not absolutely necessary that he shall live till to-morrow; but there is such a liberty, therefore no such necessity. And the consequence which I make here, is this: if it be absolutely necessary, that a man shall live till to-morrow, then it is vain and superfluous for him to consult and deliberate whether he should die to-day, or not. And this is a true consequence. The ground of his mistake is this, that though it be true, that a man may kill himself to-day, yet upon the supposition of his absolute necessity, it is impossible. Such heterogeneous arguments and instances he produceth, which are half builded upon our true grounds, and the other half upon his false grounds.

(_m_) “The next branch of my argument concerns admonitions, to which he gives no new answer, and therefore I need not make any new reply, saving only to tell him, that he mistakes my argument. I say not only, if all things be necessary, then admonitions are in vain; but if all things be necessary, then it is to no more purpose to admonish men of understanding than fools, children, or madmen. That they do admonish the one and not the other, is confessedly true; and no reason under heaven can be given for it but this, that the former have the use of reason and true liberty, with a dominion over their own actions, which children, fools, and madmen have not.

“Concerning praise and dispraise, he enlargeth himself. The scope of his discourse is, that ‘things necessary may be praiseworthy.’ There is no doubt of it; but withal their praise reflects upon the free agent, as the praise of a statue reflects upon the workman who made it. ‘To praise a thing,’ saith he, ‘is to say it is good.’ (_n_) True, but this goodness is not a metaphysical goodness; so the worst of things, and whatsoever hath a being, is good: nor a natural goodness; the praise of it passeth wholly to the Author of nature; _God saw all that he had made, and it was very good_: but a moral goodness, or a goodness of actions rather than of things. The moral goodness of an action is the conformity of it with right reason. The moral evil of an action is the deformity of it, and the alienation of it from right reason. It is moral praise and dispraise which we speak of here. To praise anything morally, is to say, it is morally good, that is, conformable to right reason. The moral dispraise of a thing is to say, it is morally bad, or disagreeing from the rule of right reason. So moral praise is from the good use of liberty, moral dispraise from the bad use of liberty; but if all things be necessary, then moral liberty is quite taken away, and with it all true praise and dispraise. Whereas T. H. adds, that ‘to say a thing is good, is to say, it is as I would wish, or as another would wish, or as the state would have it, or according to the law of the land;’ he mistakes infinitely. He, and another, and the state, may all wish that which is not really good, but only in appearance. We do often wish what is profitable or delightful, without regarding so much as we ought what is honest. And though the will of the state where we live, or the law of the land, do deserve great consideration, yet it is no infallible rule of moral goodness. And therefore to his question, ‘whether nothing that proceeds from necessity can please me,’ I answer, yes. The burning of the fire pleaseth me, when I am cold; and I say, it is good fire, or a creature created by God for my use and for my good. Yet I do not mean to attribute any moral goodness to the fire, nor give any moral praise to it, as if it were in the power of the fire itself either to communicate its heat or to suspend it; but I praise first the Creator of the fire, and then him who provided it. As for the praise which Velleius Paterculus gives Cato, that he was good by nature, _et quia aliter esse non potuit_; it hath more of the orator, than either of the theologian or philosopher in it. Man in the state of innocency did fall and become evil; what privilege hath Cato more than he? No, by his leave. _Narratur et divi Catonis sæpe mero caluisse virtus._ But the true meaning is, that he was naturally of a good temper, not so prone to some kinds of vice as others were. This is to praise a thing, not an action, naturally, not morally. Socrates was not of so good a natural temper, yet proved as good a man; the more his praise, by how much the difficulty was the more to conform his disorderly appetite to right reason.

“Concerning reward and punishment, he saith not a word, but only that they frame and conform the will to good, which hath been sufficiently answered. They do so indeed; but if his opinion were true, they could not do so. But because my aim is not only to answer T. H., but also to satisfy myself, (_o_) though it be not urged by him, yet I do acknowledge that I find some improper and analogical rewards and punishments used to brute beasts, as the hunter rewards his dog, the master of the decoy-duck whips her when she returns without company. And if it be true, which he affirmeth a little before that I have confessed, ‘that the actions of brute beasts are all necessitated and determined to that one thing which they shall do,’ the difficulty is increased.

“But first, my saying is misalleged. I said, that some kinds of actions which are most excellent in brute beasts, and make the greatest show of reason, as the bees working their honey, and the spiders weaving their webs, are yet done without any consultation or deliberation, by a mere instinct of nature, and by a determination of their fancies to these only kinds of works. But I did never say, I could not say, that all their individual actions are necessary, and antecedently determined in their causes, as what days the bees shall fly abroad, and what days and hours each bee shall keep in the hive, how often they shall fetch in thyme on a day, and from whence. These actions and the like, though they be not free, because brute beasts want reason to deliberate, yet they are contingent, and therefore not necessary.

“Secondly, I do acknowledge, that as the fancies of some brute creatures are determined by nature to some rare and exquisite works; so in others, where it finds a natural propension, art, which is the imitator of nature, may frame and form them according to the will of the artist to some particular actions and ends, as we see in setting-dogs, and coy-ducks, and parrots; and the principal means whereby they effect this, is by their backs or by their bellies, by the rod or by the morsel, which have indeed a shadow or resemblance of rewards and punishments. But we take the word here properly, not as it is used by vulgar people, but as it is used by divines and philosophers, for that recompense which is due to honest and dishonest actions. Where there is no moral liberty, there is neither honesty nor dishonesty, neither true reward nor punishment.

“Thirdly, (_p_) when brute creatures do learn any such qualities, it is not out of judgment, or deliberation, or discourse, by inferring or concluding one thing from another, which they are not capable of. Neither are they able to conceive a reason of what they do, but merely out of memory or out of a sensitive fear or hope. They remember that when they did after one manner, they were beaten; and when they did after another manner, they were cherished; and accordingly they apply themselves. But if their individual actions were absolutely necessary, fear or hope could not alter them. Most certainly, if there be any desert in it, or any praise due unto it, it is to them who did instruct them.

Lastly, concerning arts, arms, books, instruments, study, physic, and the like, he answereth not a word more than what is already satisfied. And therefore I am silent.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XIV.

(_a_) “The first inconvenience is thus pressed. Those laws are unjust and tyrannical, which do prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done, and punish men for not doing of them.”

I have already, in the beginning, where I recite the inconveniences that follow the doctrine of necessity, made clear that the same inconveniences follow not the doctrine of necessity, any more than they follow this truth, _whatsoever shall be, shall be_, which all men must confess; the same also followeth upon this, that _whatsoever God foreknows, cannot but come to pass in such time and manner as he hath foreknown it_. It is therefore evident that these inconveniences are not rationally deduced from those tenets. Again, it is a truth manifest to all men, that it is not in a man’s power to-day, to choose what will he shall have to-morrow, or an hour, or any time after. Intervening occasions, business, which the Bishop calls trifles, (trifles of which the Bishop maketh here a great business), do change the will. No man can say what he will do to-morrow, unless he foreknow, which no man can, what shall happen before to-morrow. And this being the substance of my opinion, it must needs be that when he deduceth from it, that counsels, arts, arms, medicines, teachers, praise, prayer, and piety, are in vain, that his deduction is false, and his ratiocination fallacy. And though I need make no other answer to all that he can object against me, yet I shall here mark out the causes of his several paralogisms.

“Those laws,” he saith, “are unjust and tyrannical, which do prescribe things absolutely impossible to be done, and punish men for not doing of them.” In which words this is one absurdity, that _a law can be unjust_; for all laws are divine or civil, neither of which can be unjust. Of the first there is no doubt. And as for civil laws, they are made by every man that is subject to them; because every one of them consenteth to the placing of the legislative power. Another is this, in the same words, that he supposeth there may be laws that are tyrannical; for if he that maketh them have the sovereign power, they may be regal, but not tyrannical; if tyrant signify not King, as he thinks it doth not. Another is in the same words, “that a law may prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done.” When he says _impossible in themselves_, he understands not what himself means. _Impossible in themselves_ are contradictions only, as to be and not to be at the same time, which the divines say is not possible to God. All other things are possible at least in themselves. Raising from the dead, changing the course of nature, making of a new heaven, and a new earth, are things possible in themselves; for there is nothing in their nature able to resist the will of God. And if laws do not prescribe such things, why should I believe they prescribe other things that are more impossible. Did he ever read in Suarez of any tyrant that made a law commanding any man to do and not to do the same action, or to be and not to be at the same place in one and the same moment of time. But out of the doctrine of necessity, it followeth he says, that “all laws do prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done.” Here he has left out _in themselves_, which is a wilful fallacy.

He further says that “just laws are the ordinances of right reason;” which is an error that hath cost many thousands of men their lives. Was there ever a King, that made a law which in right reason had been better unmade? And shall those laws therefore not be obeyed? Shall we rather rebel? I think not, though I am not so great a divine as he. I think rather that the reason of him that hath the sovereign authority, and by whose sword we look to be protected both against war from abroad and injuries at home, whether it be right or erroneous in itself, ought to stand for right to us that have submitted ourselves thereunto by receiving the protection.

But the Bishop putteth his greatest confidence in this, that whether the things be impossible in themselves, or made impossible by some unseen accident, yet there is no reason that men should be _punished for not doing them_. It seems he taketh punishment for a kind of revenge, and can never therefore agree with me, that take it for nothing else but for a correction, or for an example, which hath for end the _framing_ and _necessitating of the will_ to virtue; and that he is no good man, that upon any provocation useth his power, though a power lawfully obtained, to afflict another man without this end, to reform the will of him or others. Nor can I comprehend, as having only humane ideas, that that punishment which neither intendeth the correction of the offender, nor the correction of others by example, doth proceed from God.

(_b_) “He saith that no law can possibly be unjust,” &c.

Against this he replies that the law of Pharaoh, to drown the male children of the Israelites; and of Nebuchadnezzar, to worship the golden image; and of Darius, against praying to any but him in thirty days; and of Ahasuerus, to destroy the Jews; and of the Pharisees, to excommunicate the confessors of Christ; were all unjust laws. The laws of these kings, as they were laws, have relation only to the men that were their subjects; and the _making_ of them, which was the action of every one of those kings, who were subjects to another king, namely, to God Almighty, had relation to the law of God. In the first relation, there could be no injustice in them; because all laws made by him to whom the people had given the legislative power, are the acts of every one of that people; and no man can do injustice to himself. But in relation to God, if God have by a law forbidden it, the making of such laws is injustice. Which law of God was to those heathen princes no other but _salus populi_, that is to say, the properest use of their natural reason for the preservation of their subjects. If therefore those laws were ordained out of wantonness, or cruelty, or envy, or for the pleasing of a favourite, or out of any other sinister end, as it seems they were, the making of those laws was unjust. But if in right reason they were necessary for the preservation of those people of whom they had undertaken the charge, then was it not unjust. And for the Pharisees, who had the same written law of God that we have, their excommunication of the Christians, proceeding, as it did, from envy, was an act of malicious injustice. If it had proceeded from misinterpretation of their own Scriptures, it had been a sin of ignorance. Nevertheless, as it was a law to their subjects (in case they had the legislative power, which I doubt of), the law was not unjust. But the making of it was an unjust action, of which they were to give account to none but God. I fear the Bishop will think this discourse too subtile; but the judgment is the reader’s.

(_c_) “The ground of this error,” &c., “is this: that every man makes by his consent the law which he is bound to keep,” &c.

The reason why he thinketh this an error, is because the positive law of God, contained in the Bible, is a law without our assent; the law of nature was written in our hearts by the finger of God without our assent; the laws of conquerors, who come in by the power of the sword, were made without our assent; and so were the laws of our ancestors, which were made before we were born. It is a strange thing that he that understands the nonsense of the Schoolmen, should not be able to perceive so easy a truth as this which he denieth. The Bible is a law. To whom? To all the world? He knows it is not. How came it then to be a law to us? Did God speak it _viva voce_ to us? Have we then any other warrant for it than the word of the prophets? Have we seen the miracles? Have we any other assurance of their certainty than the authority of the Church? And is the authority of the Church any other than the authority of the commonwealth, or that of the commonwealth any other than that of the head of the commonwealth, or hath the head of the commonwealth any other authority than that which hath been given him by the members? Else, why should not the Bible be canonical as well in Constantinople as in any other place? They that have the legislative power make nothing canon, which they make not law, nor law, which they make not canon. And because the legislative power is from the assent of the subjects, the Bible is made law by the assent of the subjects. It was not the Bishop of Rome that made the Scripture law without his own temporal dominions; nor is it the clergy that make it law in their dioceses and rectories. Nor can it be a law of itself without special and supernatural revelation. The Bishop thinks because the Bible is law, and he is appointed to teach it to the people in his diocese, that therefore it is law to whomsoever he teach it; which is somewhat gross, but not so gross as to say that conquerors who come in by the power of the sword, make their laws also without our assent. He thinks, belike, that if a conqueror can kill me if he please, I am presently obliged without more ado to obey all his laws. May not I rather die, if I think fit? The conqueror makes no law over the conquered by virtue of his power; but by virtue of their assent, that promised obedience for the saving of their lives. But how then is the assent of the children obtained to the laws of their ancestors? This also is from the desire of preserving their lives, which first the parents might take away, where the parents be free from all subjection; and where they are not, there the civil power might do the same, if they doubted of their obedience. The children therefore, when they be grown up to strength enough to do mischief, and to judgment enough to know that other men are kept from doing mischief to them by fear of the sword that protecteth them, in that very act of receiving that protection, and not renouncing it openly, do oblige themselves to obey the laws of their protectors; to which, in receiving such protection, they have assented. And whereas he saith, the law of nature is a law without our assent, it is absurd; for the law of nature is the assent itself that all men give to the means of their own preservation.

(_d_) “But his chiefest answer is, that an action forbidden, though it proceed from necessary causes, yet if it were done willingly, may be justly punished,” &c.

This the Bishop also understandeth not, and therefore denies it. He would have the judge condemn no man for a crime, if it were necessitated; as if the judge could know what acts are necessary, unless he knew all that hath anteceded, both visible and invisible, and what both every thing in itself, and altogether, can effect. It is enough to the judge, that the act he condemneth be voluntary. The punishment whereof may, if not capital, reform the will of the offender; if capital, the will of others by example. For heat in one body doth not more create heat in another, than the terror of an example createth fear in another, who otherwise were inclined to commit injustice.

Some few lines before, he hath said that I built upon a wrong foundation, namely, “that all magistrates were at first elective;” I had forgot to tell you, that I never said nor thought it. And therefore his reply, as to that point, is impertinent.

Not many lines after, for a reason why a man may not be justly punished when his crime is voluntary, he offereth this: “that law is unjust and tyrannical, which commands a man to will that which is impossible for him to will.” Whereby it appears, he is of opinion that a law may be made to command the will. The style of a law is _do this_, or _do not this_; or, _if thou do this, thou shalt suffer this_; but no law runs thus, _will this_, or _will not this_; or, _if thou have a will to this, thou shalt suffer this_. He objecteth further, that I beg the question, because no man’s will is necessitated. Wherein he mistakes; for I say no more in that place, but that he that doth evil willingly, whether he be necessarily willing, or not necessarily, may be justly punished. And upon this mistake he runneth over again his former and already answered nonsense, saying, “we ourselves, by our own negligence in not opposing our passions when we should and might, have freely given them a kind of dominion over us;” and again, _motus primo primi_, the first motions are not always in our power. Which _motus primo primi_, signifies nothing; and “our negligence in not opposing our passions,” is the same with “our want of will to oppose our will,” which is absurd; and “that we have given them a kind of dominion over us,” either signifies nothing, or that we have a dominion over our wills, or our wills a dominion over us, and consequently either we or our wills are not free.

(_e_) “He pleads moreover that the law is a cause of justice,” &c. “All this is most true, of a just law justly executed.”

But I have shown that all laws are just, as laws, and therefore not to be accused of injustice by those that owe subjection to them; and a just law is always justly executed. Seeing then that he confesseth that all that he replieth to here is true, it followeth that the reply itself, where it contradicteth me, is false.

(_f_) “He addeth that the sufferings imposed by the law upon delinquents, respect not the evil act passed, but the good to come; and that the putting of a delinquent to death by the magistrate for any crime whatsoever, cannot be justified before God, except there be a real intention to benefit others by his example.”

This he neither confirmeth nor denieth, and yet forbeareth not to discourse upon it to little purpose; and therefore I pass it over.

(_g_) “First he told us, that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his actions; though he command one thing openly, and plot another thing secretly; though he be the cause not only of the action, but also of the irregularity, &c.”

To all this, which hath been pressed before, I have answered before; but that he says I say, “having commanded one thing openly, he plots another thing secretly,” it is not mine, but one of his own ugly phrases. And the force it hath, proceeded out of an apprehension he hath, that affliction is not God’s correction, but his revenge upon the creatures of his own making; and from a reasoning he useth, “because it is not just in a man to kill one man for the amendment of another, therefore neither is it so in God;” not remembering that God hath, or shall have killed all the men in the world, both nocent and innocent.

My assertion, he saith, “is a dream, and the sum of it this; that where there is no law, there no killing or anything else can be unjust; that before the constitution of commonwealths, every man had power to kill another,” &c., and adds, that “this may well be called stringing of paradoxes.” To these my words he replies:

(_h_) “There was never any time when mankind was without governors, laws, and societies.”