PART [Reply.] 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. 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. his 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 shew 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 extrinsecal 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 impossibili. ties, and punish men for not doing of impossibilities. In all his answer there is not one word to this argument, but only [T. H.'s an- to the conclusion. He saith, that "not the necessity, but irrelevant 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? swer both and untrue.] I. He neither denies, nor distinguisheth. First, the question DISCOURSE 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. Man-slaughter 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 €80 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 man-slaughter. He saith, that "no law can possibly be unjust;" and I [Laws de facto may say, that this is to deny the conclusion, which deserves no be unjust.] 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, nor 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 Exod. i. 22. of the Israelites,-Nebuchadnezzar's law, that whosoever Dan. iii. 4[6.] did not fall down and worship the golden image which he had set up, should be cast into the fiery furnace,—Darius Dan. vi. 7. his 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,-Ahasuerosh his law, to destroy the Jewish Esther iii. nation, root and branch,-the Pharisees' law, that whoso- John ix. 22. ever confessed Christ should be excommunicated,-were all unjust laws. 13. PART III. [Not all of those The ground of this error is as great an error itself (such an art he hath learned of repacking paradoxes); which is laws made this, that "every man makes by his consent the law which by consent he is bound to keep." If this were true, it would preserve subject to them, if not from being unjust, yet from being injurious; them.] 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. [1. Punishment un just for sin 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 committed own fault, but not for extrinsecal, antecedent necessities, tecedent which were imposed upon us without our fault. If that law do not oblige to punishment which is not intimated, because through an necessity.] I. the subject is invincibly ignorant of it; how much less that DISCOURSE 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 horseload. 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. tion does dent neces Secondly, his instance supposeth an untruth, and is a plain 2.[Tempta681 begging of the question. No man is extrinsecally, antece- not involve dently, and irresistibly "necessitated by temptation to steal." an anteceThe devil may solicit us, but he cannot necessitate us. He sity of sin.] hath a faculty of persuading, but not a power of compelling. "Nos ignem habemus, spiritus flammam ciet," as 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 Jam. iv. 7. fly from you." By "faith" we are "able to quench all the Eph. vi. 16. fiery darts of the wicked." 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, III. [Law useless on the necessity.] not antecedent; from ourselves, not extrinsecal. 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 Numb. xxv.P He pleads, moreover, that the law is "a cause of justice," theory of 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. his opinion of absolute necessity. If all actions and all events be predetermined naturally, necessarily, extrinsecally, 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 indissolvible 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. [Punish ment vindi catory, not corrective only.] He adds, that the sufferings imposed by the law upon delinquents, "respect not the evil act past, 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 delinquents by [See below in the Castigations, Numb. vii., p. 768. (fol. edit.); Disc. ii. Pt. iii.] P [Below, p. 714 (fol. edit.).] |