II. things none of us doth deny. So we may conclude from Cal- DISCOURSE vin, that God doth not ordinarily necessitate external events; that is as much as to say, there is no universal necessity. He will yet have less cause to please himself with the Council of Dort, when he shall see what was said there by our British divines, and approved by the Synod:-" that God made our wills and endowed them with liberty*;" that "He leaves to every thing its proper manner and motion in the production of acts," and "to the wills of men to act after their native manner, freely";" that "in vain are punishments threatened to malefactors by the laws of men, if no man could leave undone that which he doth"." They ask, "who in his right wits will say, that David could not but have committed adultery," or "after that could not but have murdered Uriahz." They condemn this opinion positively, as an error, " hominem non posse plus boni facere quam facit, nec plus mali omittere quam omittit”—“ that a man cannot do more good, or leave more evil undone, than he dotha." acts of the Still he is about his old quarrel concerning the "elicit" and [Elicit and "imperate acts of the will;" not against the thing, for it is as imperate clear as the day-light, that there is a ground in nature for will.] such a distinction; and that external agents have not so much power over the will of man, to make him choose what they think fit, as over the locomotive faculty and other members, to make a man move them at their pleasure. But all his contention is still about the words,-" Imperate or commanded acts, as if" (saith he) "the faculties could speak one to another." I answered him, that there were mental Mental terms as well as vocal, by which the soul, being willing, may express itself to the locomotive and other inferior faculties. As the angels do understand one another, not by speech, but as we behold one another in a glass. Here he is out again, quite mistaking the plain and obvious sense of my words, shewing that in his long and profound "meditations" he did never meet with this subject; and telling us, that by terms. III. PART mental speech I understand only "an idea of the sound, and of the letters, whereof the word is maded;" and charging me most untruly to say, "that when Tarquin commanded his son by striking off the tops of poppies, he did it by mental terms." This I said truly, that "howsoever a superior doth intimate his commands to his inferior," whether it be by vocal terms, as ordinarily, or by mental terms, as it is among the angels, or by signs, as it was between Tarquin and his sons, "it is still a commande." And in this case of the soul's employing the inferior faculties, it is without dispute. But I never said, that the striking off the tops of the poppies with his rod was mental language, or the terms of his mind. It seemeth he hath never heard of mental terms, or mental prayer. The conceptions of the mind are the natural representations of things. Words are signs or symbols of the inward conceptions of the mind, by imposition. What way soever the inward conceptions are intimated, it is the same that speech is in effect, "kowvwvías ŏpyavov"—" an instrument or means of communication;" as a sign is an intimation to a traveller where he may find a harbour. Metaphorical drawing. He saith, "No drawing can be imagined but of bodies," and "whatsoever is drawn out, is drawn out of one place into another." He knoweth no drawing, but drawing of wire, or drawing of water, or drawing of cars. St. James saith, Jam. iv. 8. “ Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you;" and, 819 John vi. 44. "No man can come to Me, except My Father draw him;" John xii.32. and, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me." In all these "drawings," here is no "drawing out of one place into another." A fair object draws men's eyes; a good orator draweth them by the ears. There is Prov. xx. 5. metaphorical "drawing." Take but one place more;— "Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out." Paradoxes, what they are. CASTIGATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS;-NUMBER xxi. A paradox is a private opinion of one man, or a few factious men, assumed or maintained sometimes out of error of II. judgment, but commonly out of pride and vain-glorious DISCOURSE affectation of singularity, contrary to the common and received opinion of other men. Such paradoxes were the Stoical opinions (Stoics were fruitful in producing paradoxes), that "all sins are equal," and that "a wise man is all things," a good king, a good captain, a good cobblers. I hope he will be better advised than to condemn all those of ignorance, who out of civility styled those new-fangled opinions "Stoical paradoxes," rather than Stoical errors. He saith, "Christian religion was once a paradox"." Never. A paradox is a private opinion contrary to the common opinion. Points of faith are more than opinions. Faith is a certain assent grounded upon the truth and authority of the revealer. Opinion is an uncertain assent grounded upon the probable conjectures of reason. We do not use to call Turkish, heathenish, or heretical errors, by the name of paradoxes. I confess there may be opinions, and consequently paradoxes, in religion; that is, in such points, the truth or falsehood whereof is grounded more upon the probable discussion of reason than upon the evidence of Divine revelation; but errors in essentials of faith are not paradoxes. He who disbelieves any article of his Creed, is not paradoxical but heretical. Such another mistake is his other,-"that but for paradoxes we should be now in that savage ignorance, which those men are in that have not, or have not long had, laws and commonwealth'." Politic precepts, and civil institutions, and practical instructions, which consist not in theory or speculation but in the application of practical truths, neither are, nor ever were called properly, either opinions or paradoxes. But to come to the purpose, I did not, I do not, deny, that there may be some true paradoxes; and rather in such things as are found out by reason, than in such as depend upon revelation, which are delivered from age to age by universal tradition. An able industrious person, by constant meditation, and the help of other men's experience and observations, may sometimes find out a latent truth, or vindicate one from the oppressive tyranny of prejudice or cus PART [T. H.'s that every thing is a cause of every thing.] tom. But this is rarely. God and nature do not give all their gifts to one man, lest he should grow proud. But when men are composed of paradoxes, that as Ovid could not express himself without a versei, so they cannot speak without a paradox; when they take upon them to censure all ancient truths in divinity and humanity, and seek to obtrude their brain-sick conceptions upon all other men as oracles; I think he who telleth them only of their "paradoxes," dealeth gently with them. Zaleucus was more severe against innovators; who enacted, that if any man made a proposition for a change in their policy, he should make it with a halter about his neck, that if he failed to justify it by reason, he should justify his attempt by suffering. I leave his paradoxes, and come to his subtlety,-that subtlety," there is hardly any one action, to the causing whereof concur not whatsoever is in rerum naturá;" and that "there cannot be a motion in one part of the world, but the same must be communicated to all the rest of the world1:" that is to say, in plain English, that there is not a pie that chattereth, nor so much as an aspen leaf that waggeth, here in England, but it maketh some alteration in China and Peru, and the efficacy of it, like Drake or Cavendish, doth encompass the globe of the earth, and mounteth to heaven, and (if there be any such thing) helpeth to make the eighth sphere tremble. I thought it had been a modest expression to call this a " paradox." Whether a To prove this, he maketh a narration,-what " a scholar" "maintained" to him,-that if a grain or a feather be "laid upon an anvil of diamond, at the first access it maketh it yield;" which he demonstrated thus, that "if the whole world would do it, the least part thereof would do its part";" wherewith he rested convinced. But his relation is doubly impertinent. First, we speak of voluntary agents, and he instanceth in a natural agent; we speak of the yielding of the 820 will, and he instanceth in the yielding of an anvil. Secondly, it doth not come home to his assertion; because, when a feather is laid upon an anvil of diamond, yet it toucheth it, and by assiduous touching something may be done as we see feather make a diamond yield. II. how drops of rain do wear the hard stones; and Pliny tell- DISCOURSE eth, that "flints have been worn with the feet of ants"." But to think the chattering of a pie, or the shaking of an aspen leaf, should move the whole world, when the greatest earthquakes are not felt many leagues, is incredible. Neither do I believe, that the first touch of his feather doth make an anvil of diamond to yield. I believe the "scholar" put a fallacy of composition and division upon him. All the parts being conjoined do make the whole, and so have their proportionable part of the efficacy in the production of all effects which are produced by the whole, be it the breaking of an anvil of diamond or whatsoever else. But the parts being divided and subdivided into grains and lesser quantities, though they still have their proportionable weight towards the producibility of the same effect, if they were conjoined, yet it is not necessary that being so divided they shall actually produce the same part or proportion of the former effect. It is not universally true, that the patient suffers so much as the agent acts. The reason is, because 'quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis'-' that which receiveth,' doth not receive according to the force of that which makes the impression, but according to its own capacity of receiving.' The first drop of water taketh away part from a piece of clay; but a hundred drops fall before a stone doth yield, or actually lose the least particle, though the first drop may affect the stone and prepare it. Suppose one scale of a balance to have a weight in it of a pound, which depresseth the scale to the ground: put into the other scale a weight of two pounds, it lifteth up the other scale and sinketh that down; but take away the two pound weight, and put into the place of it a feather or a grain, and try if it will lift up the scale proportionably. Not at all, no more than if it were nailed to the ground. It were not well argued to say,—an elephant can carry a castle a league, therefore a fly can carry it such a proportion of the way. Yet I commend his discretion, for choosing such an instance, wherein he cannot be contradicted by experience. If a man could live until the revolution of Plato's year, and the feather not be consumed in all that [Hist. Nat., xi. 30.] [Viz. 36,000 ordinary years, according to Ficinus, In Platon. Rem publ. lib. x (Op. tom. ii. p. 1431. Basil. |