PART III. [Gen.xxxii. 24-30.]

more compassion than a wicked man. This was signified by 689 Jacob's wrestling and prevailing with God. Prayer is like the tradesman's tools, wherewithal he gets his living for himself and his family. But, saith he, God's "will" is "unchangeable." What then? He might as well use this against study, physic, and all second causes, as against prayer. He shews even in this, how little they attribute to the endeavours of men. There is a great difference between these two; "mutare voluntatem"-" to change the will","_ [James i. (which God never doth, in Whom there is not the least shadow of turning by change; His will to love and hate was the same from eternity, which it now is, and ever shall be; His love and hatred are immoveable, but we are removed ;"Non tellus cymbam tellurem cymba reliquit ;")—

17.]

and "velle mutationem"-"to will a change";" which God often doth. To change the will argues a change in the agent, but to will a change only argues a change in the object. It is no inconstancy in a man, to love, or to hate, as the object is changed. "Præsta mihi omnia eadem et idem sum." Prayer works not upon God but us. It renders not Him more propitious in Himself, but us more capable of mercy. He saith, this-that God doth not bless us, except we pray-is "a motive to prayer." Why talks he of "motives," who acknowledgeth no liberty, nor admits any cause, but absolutely necessary? He saith, "Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessing" which we pray for, and contained "in the same decree" with "the blessing." It is true, the spirit of prayer is the gift of God; will he conclude from thence, that the good employment of one talent, or of one gift of God, may not procure another? Our Saviour teach[Matt. xxv. eth us otherwise ;-" Come, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful in little, I will make thee ruler over much." Too much light is an enemy to the light, and too much law is an enemy to justice. I could wish we wrangled less about God's decrees, until we understood them better. But, saith he, "thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past," and "prayer is but a thanksgiving." He might even as well tell me, that when a beggar craves an alms, and when h [Thom. Aquin., Summ., P. Prima, Qu. xix. art. 7.]

21.]

I.

he gives thanks for it, it is all one. Every thanksgiving is a DISCOURSE kind of prayer; but every prayer, and namely petition, is not a thanksgiving. In the last place he urgeth, that in our prayers we are bound to submit our wills to God's will. Who ever made any doubt of this? We must submit to the preceptive will of God, or His commandments; we must submit to the effective will of God, when He declares His good pleasure by the event or otherwise. But we deny, and deny again, either that God wills things "ad extra”— "without Himself" necessarily, or that it is His pleasure that all second causes should act necessarily at all times; which is the question, and that which he allegeth to the contrary comes not near it.

NUMBER XVI.

4.- [The opinion of He necessity des- the variety and perfec

destroys

J. D.-Fourthly, the order, beauty, and perfection of the Argument world doth require, that in the universe should be agents of all sorts, some necessary, some free, some contingent. that shall make either all things necessary, guided by tiny, or all things free, governed by election, or all things tion of the contingent, happening by chance, doth overthrow the beauty and the perfection of the world.

universe.]

T. H.-The fourth argument from reason is this, "The [Answer.] order, beauty, and perfection of the world requireth, that in the universe should be agents of all sorts, some necessary, some free, some contingent; he that shall make all things necessary, or all things free, or all things contingent, doth overthrow the beauty and perfection of the world." In which argument I observe, first, a contradiction. For, seeing he that maketh anything, in that he maketh it, he maketh it to be necessary, it followeth, that he that maketh all things, maketh all things necessary to be. As, if a workman make a garment, the garment must necessarily be; so, if God make every thing, every thing must necessarily be. Perhaps the beauty of the world requireth (though we know it not), that some agents should work without deliberation,

III.

PART which he calls necessary agents; and some agents with deliberation, and those both he and I call free agents; and that some agents should work and we not know how, and their effects we both call contingent. But this hinders not, but that he that electeth may have his election necessarily determined to one by former causes; and that which is contingent and imputed to fortune, be nevertheless necessary, and depend on precedent necessary causes. For by contingent, men do not mean that which hath no cause, but which hath not for cause anything which we perceive. As, for example, when a traveller meets with a shower, the journey had a cause, and the rain had a cause, sufficient enough to produce it, but because the journey caused not the rain, nor the rain the journey, we say, they were contingent one to another. And thus, you see, though there be three sorts of events, neces- 690 sary, contingent, and free, yet they may be all necessary without the destruction of the beauty or perfection of the universe.

[Reply.]

J. D.-The first thing he observes in mine argument is "contradiction," as he calls it, but in truth it is but a deception of the sight; as one candle sometimes seems to be two, or a rod in the water shews to be two rods. "Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis." But what is this "contradiction?" Because I say, "he who maketh all things, doth not make them necessary." What? A "contradiction," and but one proposition? That were strange. I say, God hath not made all agents necessary; he saith, God hath made all agents necessary. Here is a "contradiction" indeed, but it is between him and me, not between me and myself. But yet though it be not a formal "contradiction," yet perhaps it may imply a contradiction in adjecto. Wherefore, to clear the matter, and dispel the mist which he hath [Hypothe- raised. It is true, that every thing when it is made, it is tinct from necessary that it be made so as it is; that is, by a necessity of infallibility, or supposition-supposing, that it be so made; but this is not that absolute, antecedent necessity, whereof the question is between him and me. As, to use his own. instance, before the garment be made, the tailor is free to

tical, dis

antece

dent, necessity.]

I.

make it either of the Italian, Spanish, or French fashion in- DISCOURSE differently; but after it is made, it is necessary that it be of that fashion whereof he hath made it; that is, by a necessity of supposition. But this doth neither hinder the cause from being a free cause, nor the effect from being a free effect ; but the one did produce freely, and the other was freely produced. So the "contradiction" is vanished.

gent

In the second part of his answer he grants, that there are [Continsome free agents, and some contingent agents; and that events.] "perhaps the beauty of the world" doth "require" it; but, like a shrewd cow, which after she hath given her milk casts it down with her foot, in the conclusion he tells us, that nevertheless they are "all necessary." This part of his answer is a mere logomachy (as a great part of the controversies in the world are), or a contention about words;-what is the meaning of necessary, and free, and contingent actions. I have shewed before, what free and necessary do properly signify; but he misrecites it. He saith, I make all agents which want "deliberation" to be "necessary;" but I acknowledge, that many of them are contingent. Neither do I approve his definition of contingents, though he say, I concur with him ;—that they are such agents as "work we know not how." For, according to this description, many necessary actions should be contingent, and many contingent actions should be necessary. The loadstone draweth iron, the jet chaff, we "know not how ;" and yet the effect is necessary and so it is in all sympathies and antipathies or occult qualities. Again, a man walking in the streets, a tile falls down from a house, and breaks his head. We know all the causes, we know how this came to pass. The man walked that way, the pin failed, the tile fell just when he was under it. And yet this is a contingent effect. The man might not have walked that way, and then the tile had not fallen upon him. Neither yet do I understand here in this place by contingents, such events as happen besides the scope or intention of the agents; as when a man, digging to make a grave, finds a treasure; though the word be sometimes so taken. But by contingents, I understand all things, which may be done and may not be done, may happen or may not happen, by reason of the indetermination, or acci

III.

PART dental concurrence, of the causes. And those same things which are absolutely contingent, are yet hypothetically necessary; as, supposing the passenger did walk just that way, just at that time, and that the pin did fail just then, and the tile fall, it was necessary that it should fall upon the passenger's head. The same defence will keep out his "shower of rain." But we shall meet with his "shower of rain" again, Numb. xxxiv'; whither I refer the further explication of this point.

Argument 5.-[If there be no true liberty,

NUMBER XVII.

J. D.-Fifthly, take away liberty, and you take away the very nature of evil, and the formal reason of sin. If the hand of the painter were the law of painting, or the hand of there is no the writer the law of writing, whatsoever the one did write, formal sin.] or the other paint, must infallibly be good. Seeing therefore, that the First Cause is the rule and law of goodness, if it do necessitate the will or the person to evil, either by itself immediately, or mediately by necessary flux of second causes, it will no longer be evil. The essence of sin consists in this, that one commit that which he might avoid. If there be no 691 liberty to produce sin, there is no such thing as sin in the world. Therefore it appears, both from Scripture and reason, that there is true liberty.

[Answer.]

T. H.-To the fifth argument from reason, which is, that if liberty be taken away, the nature and formal reason of sin is taken away, I answer by denying the consequence. The nature of sin consisteth in this, that the action done proceed from our will, and be against the law. A judge, in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the law, looks at no higher cause of the action than the will of the doer. Now when I say the action was necessary, I do not say it was done against the will of the doer, but with his will; and so necessarily, because man's will, that is, every act of the

i [Below, pp. 724, 725 (fol. edit.).]