Page images
PDF
EPUB

III.

PART deny Himself,"-He "cannot lie." fruits of impotence, not of power.

Tit. i. 2.

25.

Gen. xix.

22.

Heb. vi.

10.

These and the like are So God cannot "destroy Gen. xviii. the righteous with the wicked;" He "could not" destroy Sodom whilst Lot was in it: not for want of dominion or power, but because it was not agreeable to His justice, nor to that law which Himself had constituted. The Apostle saith, "God is not unrighteous to forget your work." As it is a good consequence to say, This is from God, therefore it is righteous; so is this also, This thing is unrighteous, therefore it cannot proceed from God. We see how all creatures by instinct of nature do love their young, as the hen her chickens; how they will expose themselves to death for them: and yet all these are but shadows of that love which is in God towards His creatures. How impious is it then to conceive, that God did create so many millions of souls to be tormented eternally in Hell without any fault of theirs, except such as He Himself did necessitate them unto, merely to shew His dominion, and because His power is irresistible! The same privilege which T. H. appropriates here to "power absolutely irresistible,” a friend of his, in his book De Cive (cap. vi. p. 70), ascribes to power respectively irresistible, or to sovereign magistrates; whose power he makes to be " as absolute as a man's power is over himself, not to be limited by any thing but only by their strength." The greatest propugners of sovereign power think it enough for princes to challenge an immunity from coercive power, but acknowledge, that the law hath a directive power over them. But T. H. will have no limits but their strength. Whatsoever they do by power, they do justly. But, saith he, "God objected no sin to Job, but justified His 675 afflicting him by His power." First, this is an argument from authority negatively, that is to say, worth nothing. Secondly, the afflictions of Job were no vindicatory punishments, to take vengeance of his sins (whereof we dispute), but probatory chastisements, to make trial of his graces. Thirdly, Job was not so pure, but that God might justly have laid greater punishments upon him, than those afflictions which he sufJob iii. 3. fered. Witness his impatience, even to the cursing of the day of his nativity. Indeed God said to Job, "Where wast

[The case of Job.]

Job xxxviii. 4.

[Elementorum Philosophiæ Sectio Tertia de Cive, c. vi. § 18. p. 70. first ed. Paris, 4to. 1642.]

I.

thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" that is, how DISCOURSE canst thou judge of the things that were done before thou wast born, or comprehend the secret causes of My judgments? —and, "Hast thou an arm like God?"—as if He should say, Job xl. 9. Why art thou impatient? dost thou think thyself able to strive with God? But that God should punish Job without desert, here is not a word.

the blind man men

tioned in

Concerning the blind man, mentioned John ix, his blind- [And of ness was rather a blessing to him than a punishment, being the means to have his soul illuminated, and to bring him to St. John's see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body Gospel.] is common to us with ants and flies, but the sight of the soul with the blessed angels. We read of some, who have put out their bodily eyes because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the soul. Again, neither he nor his parents were innocent, being "conceived and born in sin and Psal. li. 5. iniquity;" and, "In many things we offend all." But our Jam. iii.2. Saviour's meaning is evident by the disciples' question, vers. 2. They had not so sinned, that he should be born blind; or, they were not more grievous sinners than other men, to deserve an exemplary judgment more than they; but this corporal blindness befell him principally by the extraordinary providence of God, for the manifestation of His own glory in restoring him to his sight. So his instance halts on both sides; neither was this a punishment, nor the blind man free from sin.

the brute

His third instance, of the death and torments of beasts, is of [And of no more weight than the two former. The death of brute beasts beasts.] is not a punishment of sin, but a debt of nature. And though they be often slaughtered for the use of man, yet there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs, and the unsufferable and endless pains of Hell; between the mere depriving of a creature of temporal life, and the subjecting of it to eternal death. I know the philosophical speculations of some, who affirm, that entity is better than non-entity; that it is better to be miserable, and suffer the torments of the damned, than to be annihilated, and cease to be altogether. This entity which they speak of, is a metaphysical entity, abstracted from the matter; which is better than non-entity, in respect of some goodness, not moral nor natural, but transcendental, which accompanies every being.

Matt.

III.

PART But in the concrete it is far otherwise; where that of our Saviour often takes place,-"Woe unto that man by whom xxvi. 24. the Son of Man is betrayed; it had been good for that man, that he had not been born." I add, that there is an analogi[Deut.xxv. cal justice and mercy, due even to the brute beasts. "Thou 4.] shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn;" and, "A just man is merciful to his beast".'

[Power to be regulated by

justice by power.]

But his greatest error is that which I touched before, to make justice to be the proper result of power. Power doth justice, not not measure and regulate justice, but justice measures and regulates power. The will of God, and the eternal law which is in God Himself, is properly the rule and measure of justice. As all goodness, whether natural or moral, is a participation of Divine goodness, and all created rectitude is but a participation of Divine rectitude; so all laws are but participations of the eternal law, from whence they derive their power. The rule of justice then is the same both in God and us; but it is in God, as in Him that doth regulate and measure; in us, as in those who are regulated and measured. As the will of God is immutable, always willing what is just and right and good, so His justice likewise is immutable. And that individual action which is justly punished as sinful in us, cannot possibly proceed from the special influence and determinative power of a just cause. See then how grossly T. H. doth understand that old and true principle, that "the will of God is the rule of justice;" as if, by willing things in themselves unjust, He did render them just, by reason of His absolute dominion and irresistible power: as 676 fire doth assimilate other things to itself, and convert them into the nature of fire. This were to make the eternal law a Lesbian rule. Sin is defined to be "that, which is done, or said, or thought, contrary to the eternal law"." But by this doctrine nothing is done nor said nor thought contrary to the will of God. St. Anselm said most truly, "Then the will of man is good and just and right, when he wills that which God would have him to will." But according to this doc

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

1.

trine, every man always "wills that which God would have DISCOURSE him to will." If this be true, we need not pray, "Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven." T. H. hath devised a new kind of Heaven upon earth. The worst is, it is a Heaven without justice. Justice is a "constant and perpetual act of the will to give every one his own;" but to inflict punishment for those things which the Judge Himself did determine and necessitate to be done, is not to give every one his own. Right punitive justice is a relation of equality and proportion between the demerit and the punishment; but supposing this opinion of absolute and universal necessity, there is no demerit in the world. We use to say, that right springs from law and fact: as in this syllogism ;-Every thief ought to be punished, there's the law; but such an one is a thief, there's the fact; therefore he ought to be punished, there's the right. But this opinion of T. H. grounds the right to be punished, neither upon law, nor upon fact, but upon the "irresistible power" of God. Yea, it overturneth as much as in it lies all law: first, the eternal law; which is the ordination of Divine wisdom, by which all creatures are directed to that end which is convenient for theme; that is not, to necessitate them to eternal flames: then, the law participated; which is the ordination of right reason, instituted for the common good, to shew unto man what he ought to do and what he ought not to do; to what purpose is it to shew the right way to him, who is drawn and haled a contrary way by adamantine bonds of inevitable necessity?

theory

the cause

Lastly, howsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin, yet [T. H.'s in truth he makes Him to be the principal and most proper makes God cause of all sin. For he makes Him to be the cause not only inevitably of the law, and of the action, but even of the irregularity itself, of sin. ] and the difference between the action and the law; wherein the essence of sin doth consist. He makes God to determine David's will, and necessitate him to kill Uriah. In causes physically and essentially subordinate, the cause of the cause is evermore the cause of the effect. These are those deadly fruits which spring from the poisonous root of the absolute necessity of all things; which T. H. seeing, and that neither ["Perpetua et constans voluntas tit. i. lex 10.] Thom.

jus suum unicuique tribuens."
Aquin., Summ., Secund. Secund., Qu.
lviii. art. 1; from the Digest, lib. I.

[blocks in formation]

d [Vide Aristot., Ethic., lib. V. c. iv.] [Thom. Aquin., Summ., Prima Secund., Qu. xci. art. 3, xciii. art. 1.]

[ocr errors]

PART the sins of Esau nor Pharaoh nor any wicked person do proceed from the operative but from the permissive will of God, and that punishment is an act of justice, not of dominion only, I hope that according to his promise he will change his opinion.

Argument

of Zeno ;

II. PROOFS OF LIBERTY DRAWN FROM REASON.
NUMBER XIII.

J. D.-The first argument is Herculeum or baculinum, Story drawn from that pleasant passage between Zeno and his necessity of man. The servant had committed some petty larceny, and sin implies necessity of the master was cudgelling him well for it; the servant thinks

punishment.]

to creep under his master's blind side, and pleads for himself, that "the necessity of destiny did compel him to steal." The master answers, The same necessity of destiny compels me to beat thee'. He that denies liberty, is fitter to be refuted with rods than with arguments, until he confess, that it is free for him that beats him either to continue striking or to give over; that is, to have true liberty.

[Answer.] T. H.-Of the arguments from reason, the first is that, which he saith "is drawn" from Zeno's beating of his man, which is therefore called argumentum " baculinum," that is to say, a wooden argument. The story is this :-Zeno held, that all actions were necessary; his man, therefore, being for some fault beaten, excused himself upon the necessity of it; to avoid this excuse, his master pleaded likewise the necessity of beating him. So that, not he that maintained, but he that derided, the necessity of things, was beaten; contrary to that he would infer: and the argument was rather withdrawn than" drawn" from the story.

[Reply.]

J. D. Whether the argument be "withdrawn from the story," or the answer withdrawn from the argument, let the reader judge. T. H. mistakes the scope of the reason; the strength whereof doth not lie, neither in the authority of Zeno, a rigid Stoic, which is not worth a button in this cause; nor in the servant's being an adversary to Stoical necessity, for it appears not out of the story that the servant did "deride neces- 677 sity," but rather that he pleaded it in good earnest for his own

f V [Diog. Laert., vii. 23.]

« PreviousContinue »