II. of promise; yet there is no promise, and if they had been DISCOURSE promises, both are accomplished. One of my promises was, that "I would not leave one grain of his matter unweighed;" yet I leave these words unanswered,-" our Saviour bids us pray, 'Thy will,' not our will be done,' and by example teacheth us the same, for He prayed thus-' Father, if it be [Luke xxii. 42.] Thy will, let this cup passe.'" First, this was no promise, but mine own private resolution, which I might lawfully change at any time upon better grounds. Secondly, it had been an easy thing to omit two lines in a whole discourse unwillingly. Thirdly, the intent was only to omit nothing that was material; but this was merely impertinent. Lastly, without any more to do, it was fully answered in my Defence in these words;-"In the last place he urgeth, that in our prayers we are bound to submit our wills to God's will; who ever made a 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 pleasure by the event, or otherwise; but we deny, and deny again, that God wills ad extra 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 ith." Where were his eyes? That inference—“Which seemeth at least to imply that our prayers cannot change the will of God"-is now first added; and if it had been there formerly, is answered abundantly in the same section. The second breach of promise is this; that I said, “Here is all that passed between us upon this subject, without any addition or the least variation from the original;" but I "have added these words-' Yes, I have seen those silliest of creatures, and seeing their rare works, I have seen enough to confute all the boldfaced atheists of this age, and their hellish blasphemies!.'" What a stir is here about two lines, which contain neither argument, nor answer, nor authority, nor any thing material! 1 did not apply these words to him, nor gave the least intimation of any such thing. If he be wronged, he wrongeth himself. I am as much offended with 8 [Ibid., Animadv. upon Numb. xv. p. 158.] h [Defence, Numb. xv. above p. 109. Disc. i. Pt. iii.] i [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xv. p. 158; from the Defence, Numb. viii. above p. 52.] III. PART the theists of this age, as with the atheists; who are convinced that there is a God, and profess it, yet never do Him any service or worship, not so much as "ante focum si frigus erit” Rom. i. 21. —by a warm fire's side in a winter's day; "who, when they 796 know God, do not glorify Him as God." But to deal clearly with him ;-I profess I do not know, either when any such words were added, or that any such words were added; neither ever had I any other copy but that original which was sent to the press, and that copy which was transcribed for him and sent to him at the first. If the amanuensis did omit two lines, either in the margent (which is most likely by what he saith) or otherwise, I could not help it. My asseveration (for it was no promise) was true,-that I sent the original itself, as it had lain long by me without any variation. What it is to honour God. When he is afraid to be hard put to it, then he layeth in the other scale,-to counterbalance those new reasons which are brought against him,-either "prescience," or, "What shall be, shall be," or, "A man cannot determine to-day, what his will shall be to-morrow':"-all which are impertinent to the question, and have been abundantly answered in these Castigations. His instance of a debtor, who intended first to pay his creditor, then thought to defer it, and lastly resolved to do it for fear of imprisonment", is remote from the question. The determination of the debtor is not antecedent, but concomitant, not extrinsecal,-by the creditor, who perhaps never thought on it, but intrinsecal,—by the dictate of his own reason; which he calleth "thoughts"," lest he should seem to attribute any thing to reason. What are "thoughts," but "intellectus actu circa res occupatus" -"the understanding actually employed about something?" If he hold no other necessity but this, which no man opposeth, why doth he trouble the world with his debtor and creditor about nothing? I did not accuse him for making all piety to consist in the estimation of the judgment; he still mistaketh; but I did 11. and do accuse him for placing all the inward piety of the DISCOURSE heart in the estimation of the judgment. So he saith expressly, that "to honour any thing is nothing else but to think it to be of great powerp." If it were "nothing else," the devil honours God as much as the best Christian; for he believeth a God as much as they, and he cannot believe a God but he must believe Him to be omnipotent. "Thou believest Jam. ii. 19. there is one God, thou dost well; the devils also believe and tremble." I shewed him, that inward piety doth consist more in the submission of the will than in the estimation of the judgment; but I may not say, that it was "too hot for his fingers"." He urgeth, that the devil "cannot esteem God for His goodness." Let it be so. Neither is there any need that he should, to make him devout, if his ground were true, that "to honour God is nothing else but to think Him to be of great power." devils in But to make amends for this oversight, he hath found us What are out "two sorts" of devils: "the one" (and indeed all the his judg devils that are in his creed) 66 are wicked men," ," to whom he ment. applieth the name of " Diabolus and Satan and Abaddon" in Holy Scripture; the other are heathen gods, "mere fancies. or fictions of terrified hearts," or (as he styleth them out of St. Paul) "nothingst." What he will do with Heaven, I [1 Cor. x. 19.] know not; but he hath emptied Hell at once, and swept away all the devils, except "wicked men." He might do well to acquaint the judges with it, to save the lives of so many poor old melancholic women, who suffer as witches for confederacy with the devil. I desire to know of him, whether those devils which our Saviour cast out of the possessed, or those [Matt. viii. devils which hurried the swine into the sea, or that devil who 5, &c.] took our Saviour up to the pinnacle of the Temple, were "heathen gods," or "wicked men ?" or how "a legion" of [Mark v. heathen gods" or wicked men" could enter into one pos- viii. 30.] sessed person, without crowding one another to death? But this belongeth to another speculation. He asketh, “in what classis of entities" I "place devils"?" P [See above in the Defence, T. H. Numb. xv. p. 103.] Will he learn to [Defence, Numb. xv. above p. t [Ibid.] u [Ibid.] 104; Disc. i. Pt. iii.] 32, &c.-iv. 9.-Luke III. PART speak "jargon?" I answer, with angels, among spiritual substances. He hath as much authority to empty Heaven of good angels, as to empty Hell of bad angels. butes of included in His omnipotence.] [The attri- To cover his former error,-that the honour of God is God not all nothing else but the estimation of His power, he hath devised another error,-that all the attributes of God are included in His "omnipotence." I confess, that the attributes of God are transcendents above our capacities, and are not of the same nature with the same attributes of mortal men. I confess further, that all the attributes of God, and whatsoever is in God, is God, or is the Deity itself. But to confound all these distinct attributes in one, to no purpose, without any ground, is absurd; and serveth only to make 797 those notions, which were piously invented to help our understandings, to be the ready means to confound our understandings. God doth privately commands openly. In the next place I shewed, that to command one thing not hinder openly, and to necessitate another thing privately, destroyeth what He the truth of God, the goodness of God, the justice of God, and the power of God. This is a heavy accusation, and he had need to acquit himself like a man. But I believe he will fail. Here he bringeth in the "prescience" of God again twice, to seem to stop a gap with it. But it will not serve his turn. Where the soldiers are mustered over and over, it is a sign the companies are but thin. His opin eth the God. First, to save the truth of God, he saith, that "truth conion destroy- sisteth in affirmation and negation, not in commanding"." truth of The sense is, that God, Who is truth itself, may will one thing and command another, and hinder that act which He commandeth. Mark but his reason;-" the Scripture, which is His word, is not the profession of what He intendeth, but an indication what those men whom He hath chosen to salvation.. or destruction, shall necessarily intend"." This is the same, which he renounced formerly as one of my "ugly phrases"-that God should command one thing openly, and hinder the same privately or underhand. Reader, if thou delightest in such a God Who will command one thing [See above p. 278. note c.] pp. 160, 161.] [Ibid., p. 161.] p. 139.] II. publicly and hiuder it privately, choose Mr. Hobbes his God. DISCOURSE God forbid we should attribute any such double dealing to our God, Who is truth itself. Some contraries, as heat and cold, may meet together in remiss degrees; but truth and falsehood, a habit and privation, can never meet together. There is a truth in being; the picture of a man cannot be the man himself. There is a truth in knowing; if the understanding be not adequate to the thing understood, there is no truth in it. There is a truth in saying; which is a conformity or an adequation of the sign to the thing said, which we call veracity. When one thing is commanded publicly, and the same is hindered privately, and the party so hindered is punished for not doing that which was impossible for him to do, where is the veracity? where is the conformity and adequation of the sign to the thing said? I dare not tell Mr. Hobbes, that he understandeth not these things; but I fear it very much. If he do, his cause is bad, or he is but an ill advocate. Next, to reconcile the goodness of God with his principles, And His goodness. he answereth first to the thing, that "living creatures of all sorts are often in torments as well as men," which they could not be "without the will of God"." I know no torments of the other creatures but death; and death is a debt to nature, not an act of punitive justice. The pangs of a violent death are less than of a natural; besides the benefit that proceedeth thence for the sustenance of men, for which the creatures were created. See what an argument here is (for all his answers are recriminations or exceptions), from brute beasts to men, from a debt of nature to an act of punitive justice, from a sudden death to lingering torments ("ut sentiant se morie"), from a light affliction producing great good, to endless intolerable pains, producing no good but only the satisfaction of justice. Then, to the phrase of "God's delighting in torments," he answereth, that God "delighteth not" in them. It is true. God is not capable of passions, as delight or grief. But when He doth those things, that men grieving or delighting do, the Scriptures by an anthro[Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xv. ton., in Caio, c. 30. p. 424. ed. Græv.] [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xv. p. 174.] p. 174.] |