III. PART sary," that he is slain to-day, and "impossible," that he should not be slain. His own definition doth sufficiently confute him," that is necessary which is impossible to be otherwise ;"-but it is "impossible," that that which is doing in present, or which was done yesterday, should "be otherwise." How hang these things together? Or this that he telleth us, that his "necessary' is a necessary from all eternity," which with him is an everlasting succession2. And yet he telleth us, that necessary signifieth nothing in reference to the time past; then how is it "necessary from all eternity?" And here he thrusteth out for rotten a great many of old scholastic terms, as "empty words;" as, "necessary when it is," or, "absolutely and hypothetically necessary," and, "sensus compositus et divisus," and, "the dominion of the will," and, "the determining of itself." I must put him in mind again of the good old woman in Seneca, who complained of the darkness of the room, when the defect was in her own eyesight. I wonder not that he is out of love with distinctions, more than I wonder why a bungling workman regards not a square or a plumb; but if he understood these distinctions a little better, he would not trouble his reader with "that which shall be, shall be," and a bundle of such like impertinencies. He acknowledgeth, that "my Lord of Newcastle's desire, and" my "intreaty, were enough to produce a will in" him "to write" his "answer." If they were enough, then he was not necessitated, nor physically predetermined, to write it. We had no more power than to persuade, no natural influence upon his will; and so he was, for us, not only free to write, but free to will also. But "perhaps there were other imaginations of" his "own that contributed their part"." Let it be so; yet that was no extrinsecal or absolute determination of his will. And so far was our request from producing his 755 consent, "as necessarily as the fire burnethe," that it did not, it could not, produce it at all, by any natural causal II. influence and efficacy. The sufficiency, and efficiency, and DISCOURSE productive power, was in his will itself; which he will not be brought to understand. AN ANSWER TO HIS ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE REPLY ; NUMBER II. from acci not from Here is nothing of moment to detain the reader. He Chance is saith, "Whosoever chanceth to read Suarez his Opuscula, dental conshall find the greatest part, if not all, that" I " have urged in currence, this questionf." Said I not truly, give innovators "line ignorance. enough, and they will confute themselves?" "Whosoever chanceth," &c.—and why "chanceth?" By his doctrine, it was as necessary for him that readeth to read, as it is for the fire to burn. Doth the fire sometimes burn by 'chance?' He will say, that where the certain causes are not known, we attribute events to chance'. But he sticks still in the same mire, without hope ever to be freed. Who knoweth the certain reason, why the needle touched with the loadstone pointeth always towards the north? Doth it therefore point by 'chance? How many thousands are ignorant of the true causes of comets, and earthquakes, and eclipses? Do they therefore attribute them to 'chance?' Chance never hath place, but where the causes concur accidentally to produce some effect, which might have been produced otherwise. Though a man strive to "expel" these common notions "with a fork, yet now and then they will return." And though I could not "surprise" him, yet the truth can. Thus, Penelope likem, he hath undone that in the dark, which he hath been weaving all this while in the light. It were more ingenuous to say, it was a slip of his pen. It is indifferent to me, whether the greatest part of what I [Suarez.] urge in this question, or all that I urge, or perhaps more than I urge, be contained in Suarez his Opuscula. So the truth PART may prevail, I care not who have the honour of the achievement. But Suarez understood himself better than to confound two such different questions; namely, that of the necessity or liberty of all events, natural and civil, which is our question, with the concurrence of grace and free will in moral and supernatural acts, which he saith is the subject of Suarez his discourse in that place". In all my life, that I do remember, I never read one line of Suarez his Opuscula, nor any of his works the sixteen years last past. I wish he had been versed in his greater works, as well as in his Opuscula, that he might not be so averse from the Schools. "Ignoti nulla cupido." Then he would have known the terms and arguments used in the Schools as well as others. It is no blemish to make advantage of other men's pains and experience. [Ps. xix. 2." Dies diei eructat verbum, et nox nocti indicat scientiam." Vulg.] But Mr. Hobbes, trusting over much to his own particular abilities, presumeth to stand upon his own bottom, without any dread of Solomon's "Væ soli"-"Wo to him that is alone when he falleth." He scrupleth not to remove the ancient landmarks which his fathers had set," nor to "stumble from the ancient paths, to walk in a way that was never cast up." It were mere folly to expect either a known ground or a received term from him. Other men are contented to learn to write after a copy, but he will be printed a philosopher and a divine of the first edition by himself; and, Icarus like, find out a new way with his waxen wings which mortals never knew, though he perish in the attempto. Such undigested fancies may please for a while, during the distemper and green-sickness fit of this present age; as maids infected with that malady, prefer chalk or coals in a corner before healthful food in their father's house; but when time hath cured their malady, and experience opened their eyes, they will abominate their former errors, and those who were their misleaders. Eccles. iv. 10. 28. Jerem. xviii. 15. ai P Ex Plutarchi Polit. ad Trajan., [c. iv; Op. Moral., tom. iv. p. 148. ed. Wyttenb.—“ Καὶ γὰρ αἱ κιττῶσαι λίθους, καὶ οἱ ναυτιῶντες ἁλμυρίδας καὶ τοιαῦτα βρώματα διώκουσι πολλάκις, εἶτα ὀλίγον ὕστερον ἐξέπτυσαν καὶ ἀπεστράφησαν· οὕτω δὴ καὶ οἱ δῆμοι διὰ τρυφὴν καὶ ὕβριν," κ. τ. λ.] II. [Epictetus.] He had slighted whatsoever I produced as common and DISCOURSE trivial, “having nothing new in it, either from Scripture or reason, which" he "had not often heard." I replied only, that then I might "expect a more mature answer," and advised him, under the similitude of Epictetus his sheep, rather to shew his reading in his works than to glory of it'. And where I said, that "great recruits of reasons and authorities did offer themselves" to me in this cause, he threateneth, "before" he "have done with me, to make it appear to be very bragging, and nothing else;" adding, that "it is not likely, that Epictetus should take a metaphor from lamb and wool," because he was "not acquainted with paying of tithes." I could not suspect, that a poor similitude out of Epictetus should make him so passionate. But "tange montes, et fumi- [Ps. cxliv. 5.] gubunt”—“ touch the high mountains, and they will fume and smoke." It seemeth strange to me, that he should be so 756 ignorant in Epictetus (a Stoic, one of his principal friends, of so great fame, that his earthen lamp was preserved as a relic, and sold for three thousand drachmas ", whom even Lucian, that great scoffer, calleth an "admirable old manx"), as to say, that "it is not likely, that Epictetus should take a metaphor from lamb and wool." He meaneth, from sheep. To inform him better, let him hear his words;-"For sheep do not bring their grass to their shepherd, to shew him how much they have eaten; but, concocting their meat inwardly, do bring forth wool and milk." This might be pardoned; but his scoffing at payment of "tithes," and particularly "lamb and wool," being an institution of God Himself, and established by the laws of our own realm, cannot be excused. I appeal to all those who have read anything upon this subject, whether I might not have added many more reasons, and produced the authority of the Christian world against him in this cause of liberty, with the suffrages of the Fathers PART Matt. vii. 6. in all successive ages. But I remember that of our Saviour, before swine, lest they trample them Exact definitions not frequent. What liberty is. AN ANSWER TO THE ANIMADVERSIONS UPON NUMBER III. He is displeased, that I do not "set down the definitions" of necessity, spontaneity, and liberty," without which (he saith) "their difference cannot possibly appear." Yet formerly, and again in this very chapter, he confesseth, that the question is truly and clearly stated by me ;-"The question which the Bishop stateth in this place, I have before set down verbatim, and allowed"." What a trifling humour is this! Many things are not capable of perfect definition; as (to pass by all others) accidents, and modes, or such terms as signify the manner of being. And in such things as are capable of definition, yet essentials (whereof a definition must consist,—“ὁρισμός ἐστι τῆς οὐσίας γνωρισμὸς”) are neither so obvious nor so useful to common capacities. I believe, that all the perfect definitions which T. H. hath made in his life in philosophy or theology, may be written in one little ring; whereof I shall be bold henceforth, now and then as I find occasion, to put him in mind. Nay, even in mathematics, which by reason of their abstraction from matter are less subject to error, he can miss the cushion as well as his neighbours, and be contented sometimes to acknowledge it; not because those errors are greater or so great as his errors in philosophy or theology, but because their conviction is more easy, and more evident. And therefore for the most part a plain description must serve the turn; sometimes from the etymological unfolding of the name, sometimes by the removing of what is opposite or contrary, sometimes by a periphrastical circumlocution, sometimes by instances and examples. And thus, by his own confession, the question is cleared between us. Yet, to satisfy him, I will describe them more formally. To begin with liberty. Liberty is a power of the will (or free |