PART [What is properly compulsion. ] with the compulsion of the man"." If this be not plain "jargon," and "Bohu" (as he phraseth it3), let him tell me what is the compulsion of a man to will, but the compulsion of his will. Whether by the will he understand the soul as it willeth, or the faculty of the will, or the act of willing; every way, he that compelleth a man to will, compelleth his will. Let him call it what he please, either to compel a man to will or to compel the will; by his leave, it is a gross contradiction; for to compel implieth reluctance and opposition, and to will implieth inclination and appetition. To necessitate the will (as he doth) is to compel the will, so far as the will in the elicit acts of it is capable of compulsion. That is properly said to be compelled, "which hath its beginning from an extrinsecal cause, that which suffereth contributing nothing to it," but "resisting as much as he can." But he hath devised a new improper kind of compulsion, which is caused only by "fear"," which is not properly a compulsion; and such as it is, [is] common to many other causes with fear; as, to persuasion,-so Saul's servants compelled him" to eat ;-to command,-so, "the drinking Esth. i. 8. was according to law, none did compel;"-to occasion,-so 2 Cor. xii. St. Paul saith, "I am become a fool in glorying, ye have compelled me." 1 Sam. xxviii. 23. 11. I pass by his uncouth term of "creation of the wills" in every single act of willing: and his extravagant exception,-809 if "the same individual man who did choose to throw his goods overboard," might "choose not to throw his goods overboard," then "he might choose to throw overboard and not throw overboardt." As if the liberty to throw or not to throw and the liberty to throw and not to throw, that is, the liberty to do either part of the contradiction or to do both parts of the contradiction, were the same liberty. And, secondly, as if a man who hath actually chosen, were as free to choose now, as he was at the same time when he did choose. I see, if he cannot find a knot in a bulrush, he will do his endeavour to make it. If "a man" (saith he) "by σθέντος.”] [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xix. p. 208.] P [See above p. 368. note f.] q Aristot., Eth., lib. III. c. i. [§ 12.— “Έοικε δὴ τὸ βίαιον εἶναι οἱ ἔξωθεν ἡ ἀρχὴ, μηδὲν συμβαλλομένου τοῦ βια [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xix. p. 208.] $ [Ibid.] p. 209.] II. force seize on another man's limbs" (as suppose his hand), DISCOURSE " and move them as himself, not as the other man pleaseth, ... the action so done is not the action of him that suffereth, but of him that useth the force"." But if he that useth the force shall give a third person a box on the ear with that hand which he forceth, then it is the action of both; but with this difference, that it is the voluntary action of the one, and the forced or compelled action of the other. But supposing the first man had the will of the second as much in his power as his hand (as God Almighty hath), and should necessitate him to beat the third person willingly; certainly the second person, being so necessitated, could be no more blamed for willing in such a case, than for striking unwillingly. That motions proceeding from "antipathies" are "primo Motus primo primi, primi," such as surprise a man and prevent not only all and antipaactual deliberation but all advertence of reason, there is no thies. doubt. But he who knoweth no other "motus primo primos" but only "antipathies," is like to prove some such rare divine or philosopher, as Megabyses shewed himself a painter by his ignorant discourse;-"Whilst thou wert silent (said Apelles) thou seemedst to be somebody, but now there is not the meanest boy that grinds ochre but he laughs at thee*." The difference between necessity upon antecedent supposition, and necessity upon a consequent supposition, hath been sufficiently cleared several times in these Castigations, and in my Defence in this very section, to which I remit the reader. Whosoever shall tell us, that he who hath chosen to himself the profession of a Romish Priest, is still no more necessitated to take the oath of celibate, than he was before he made choice of that office"; and that the action of him who runs away upon the first view of a cat, by reason of an antipathy "which he cannot help," before all advertence of reason, is as free as a man casting his goods into the sea to u [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xix. p. 209.] [Ibid., p. 210.-"I let it pass, noting only, that he expoundeth 'motus primo primi,' which I understood not before, by antipathies.'"] [Plut., De Animi Tranquillitate, c. xii; and with a little variation, De Discrim. Adulat. et Amici, c. xv: Op. Moral. tom. ii. p. 629, and tom. i. p. 155. PART [Numb. save his own life after a sad and serious deliberation"; and that he who takes physic out of wantonness, was as much necessitated to stay within doors, as he who lay bedrid of a hectic fever; and that Balaam's blessing of Israel against his purpose and desire, and Caiaphas his prophecy, which he spake not of himself," but necessarily, by the special determination of the Holy Ghost, were altogether as free as [Gen. xlix.] Jacob's blessing of his sons upon election; I say, he who xxiii. 12. &c.] To search too boldly into the nature of God is a fault. [1 Cor. xiii. 12.] But the greater shall tell us all this in earnest upon his own word without any reason or authority, had need to meet with very credulous disciples, who judge of colours winking. It is true, we who "see but through a glass darkly," do not in this mortality comprehend exactly the nature of God and the Holy Angels; partly by reason of the weakness of our understanding,—the water can ascend no higher than the fountain's head,-and partly for want of revelation. Not to know what God hath not revealed, is a learned ignorance; and therefore, he who searcheth presumptuously into the majesty of God, is oppressed deservedly by His glory. But the much greater offence doth lie on the other side,fault is neg- that men do not endeavour to know God so much as they ligence. ought, and might, by the light of nature, the contemplation of the creatures, and the revelation of God's Holy Word, nor to serve Him according to their knowledge. How shall we serve God if we do not know God at all? The least means of the knowledge of God is by the contemplation of the creaRom. i. 20. tures: yet even that doth render men "without excuse.' No man but himself would have objected it as a presumption to any man to have said, that God was freer to do good than mortal man, and uncapable of doing evil. Yet this is that which those dreadful terms implied. We measure liberty by the degree of rationability, and the power of reason over passion; he by the largeness or straitness of the prison. Ours is a liberty of men, his is a liberty of blackbirds. If I were disposed to cavil at words as he doth, I could shew him out 810 of Scaliger, that one heat is not more intensive than another, II. any more than one liberty is more intensive than anotherf. DISCOURSE Both phrases are metaphorical. Intention is properly the drawing out of the two extremes, the one further from the other; as in the string of a bow by bending it, and in a cord by stretching it out. But I forbear. omnipotence in show, in nothing. He had said in his first answer, "He that can do what he will, T. H. his hath all liberty possible, and he that cannot has none at alls," liberty, I answered, that he who can do what he will, hath not only a liberty but omnipotence. To this he replieth, that "it is deed one thing to say a man hath liberty to do what he will, and another to say that a man hath power to do what he willi." This is very true, but it helpeth not him at all. He spake directly of power,-" he that can do what he will," and "he that cannot do what he will." Thus I argue ;-either a man can do what he will, or he cannot do what he will; if he can do what he will, then he is not only free but omnipotent; if he cannot do what he will, then he hath no liberty at all. So he hath made men to be either almighty gods or senseless logs; both ways he erreth. If he that can do what he will be not omnipotent (in good English), I have forgot my mother's tongue. He that is bound hand and foot, may wish that he were loosed, and he that is so sick that he cannot stand, may wish that he were in health, that they might both be able to walk; but to elect walking in that state and condition wherein they are, without supposition of the loosing of the one, or the recovery of the other, they cannot; for both want power, and election is of things actually possible. There is only this difference, that in probability the bound man may be loosed, before the sick man recover his strength. But yet it may so fall out, that the sick man may be restored to his health, before the other be loosed from his bonds. Therefore he saith amiss, that the sick man wanteth power, not liberty; and the bound man liberty, not powerk. If he understood the difference between the elicit and imperate acts of the will, he would be able to judge of such cases better than he is. I have only one more advertisement to the reader, that after all this glorious ostentation-" he that can 128; Disc. i. Pt. iii.] f[Exercit. de Subtilitate &c.,] Exercit. xii. c. 2. [pp. 66, 67.] i [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xix. p. 211.] * [Ibid.] PART He dare not refer his own witnesses. do what he will, hath all liberty possible"-he leaveth man as poor and bare and helpless as a grasshopper in winter, without any liberty to will, and consequently without any liberty to do. He nameth two Schoolmen,-I think, by the matching of himself to them, they be a great part of his store,-Suarez and "Johannes a Duns" (so he is pleased to call that honour of our nation, and one of the subtilest writers that these last ages have afforded), and four later divines, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Perkins, whom he "always much admired'." If he did so, they are the more beholden to him; for a man may see by his treatises, that unless he "meditated m" of them sometimes, he hath not been much acquainted with them. He dare not refer his two sorts of devils, or his temporary pains of Hell, or his lawless state of mankind by nature, or his necessity of active obedience to all human laws, or his inefficacy of prayer, or his infallible rule of moral goodness, or his universal necessity of all events by the physical determination of the second causes, or any one of his hundreds of paradoxes, to their determination. Terms of Room for great censor, not an old Roman censor, but a new English censor, who cometh armed with his own authority, to reform not only authors, but the arts and sciences themselves, after he hath been dreaming (I should have said meditating") some years upon the top of Parnassus, and now cometh forth suddenly 66 "Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes"." To stay there were to do him wrong; a pentameter added will not contain half his exploits; a poet, a logician, a philosopher natural and moral, an astronomer, a mathematician, a theologian. To what purpose did our universities nourish so many little professors? One great professor is best, as the cat in the fable said of one great way. But forget not Epictetus his rule, "Remember to distrust." We have seen a mountebank, or quacksalver, or operator, or charlatan, call him what you will, vapour upon a stage, and slight |