III.

PART understanding then doth not "alter the weight of objects;" no more than the light doth change the colours, which without the help of the light did lie hid in the dark but the light makes the colours to be actually seen; so doth the understanding make the latent value of intelligible objects to be apprehended, and consequently maketh them to be desired and willed according to their distinct degrees of goodness. This judgment, which no man ever denied to intelligible 827 creatures, is the "weighing of objects," or attributing their just "weight" to them, and the trying of them as it were by the balance and by the touchstone. This is not "the laying of objects upon the understanding." The understanding is not the patient but the judge; but this is the representing of the goodness or badness of objects to the will, or to the free agent willing, which relatively to the will giveth them all their weight and efficacy.

There may be difference between these two propositions, 'Repentance is not voluntary and by consequence proceedeth from causes,' and, 'Repentance proceedeth from causes, and by consequence is not voluntary", if his consequence werc well intelligible, as it is not. All acts both voluntary and involuntary do proceed from causes. He chargeth me to have "chopped in" these words, "and therefore." The truth is, his words were, "and by consequence," which I expressed thus," and therefore." "Therefore" and "by consequence" are the very same thing, neither more nor less. Is not this a doughty exception? But the other is his greater error,that repentance is not voluntary). No Schoolman ever said, that the faculty of the will was voluntary, but that the agent was a voluntary agent and the act a voluntary act.

Blasphemy

in the ab

CASTIGATIONS OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS;-NUMBER XXIV.

He accuseth me of "charging" him "with blasphemy and stract and atheism." If he be wronged in that kind, it is he who crete differ wrongeth himself by his suspicion. "Spreta exolescunt; si much. irascare, agnita videntur1." I accused him not either of blas

in the con

II.

phemy or atheism, in the concrete. One may say a man's DISCOURSE opinions are blasphemous and atheistical in the abstract, without charging the person with formal atheism or blasphemy. The reason is evident ;-because it may be, that through prejudice he doth not see the consequences, which other men, whose eyes are not blinded with that mist, do see, and if he did see them, would abhor them as well as they. For this reason, he who chargeth one with speaking or writing implicit contradictions, or things inconsistent one with another, doth not presently accuse him of lying, although one part of a contradiction must needs be false, because it may be the force of the consequence is not evident to him.

know a

not know

ner.

A man may know a truth certainly, and yet not know the A man may formal reason or the manner of it so certainly. I know that truth cerI see, and I judge probably how I see; yet the manner how tainly, yet I see, whether by sending out beams, or by receiving in the the manspecies, is not so evident as the thing itself,-that I do see. They who do not agree about the manner of vision, do all agree about the truth of vision. Every man knoweth certainly, that he can cast a stone up into the air; but the manner how the stone is moved after it is separated from the hand,— whether it be by some force or form or quality impressed into the stone by the casters or by the air; and if it be by the air, whether it be by the pulsion of the air following or by the cession of the former air,-is obscure enough; and not one of a thousand who knoweth the certainty of the thing, knoweth the manner how it cometh to pass. If this be true in natural actions, how much more in the actions of God, Who is an infinite Being, and not comprehensible by the finite wit of man? The water can rise no higher than the fountain's head. A looking-glass can represent the body, because there is some proportion between bodies; but it cannot represent the soul, because there is no proportion between that which is material and that which is immaterial. This is the reason why we can in some sort apprehend what shall be after the end of the world,-because the soul is eternal that way; but if we do but think of what was before the beginning of the world, we are as it were presently swallowed up into an abyss, because the soul is not eternal that way. So I know, that there is true liberty from necessity, both by Divine revelation,

III.

PART and by reason, and by experience. I know likewise, that God knoweth all events from eternity. The difficulty is not about the thing, but about the manner,-how God doth certainly know things free or contingent, which are to come in respect of us, seeing they are neither determined in the event itself, nor in the causes thereof. The not knowing of the manner, which may be incomprehensible to us, doth not at all diminish the certain truth of the thing. Yet even for the manner sundry ways are proposed, to satisfy the curiosities rather than the consciences of men; of which this is one way which I mentioned m. It were a great madness to reject a certain truth, because there may be some remote difficulty about the manner; and yet a greater madness, for avoiding a needless scruple, to destroy all the attributes of God, which 828 is by consequence to deny God Himself. His proof of necessity drawn from God's eternal knowledge of all events, hath been sufficiently discussed and satisfied over and over.

The doctrine of

ancient

truth.

I pleaded, that my doctrine of liberty is an ancient truth liberty an generally received; his opinion of universal necessity, an upstart paradox, and all who own it may be written in a ring; so I am an "old possessor," he is but "a new pretender"." He answereth, that he is "in possession of a truth derived" to him "from the light of reason," and "it is an unhandsome thing for a man to derive his opinion concerning truth by succession from his ancestor°." I answer, that just possession is either by law or by prescription. I have all laws, Divine and human, ecclesiastical and civil, and a prescription of two thousand years, or at least, ever since Christianity came into the world, for liberty. His opinion of universal destiny by reason of a necessary connection of the second causes, was never the general, nor the common, nor the current opinion of the world; and hath been in a manner wholly buried for sixteen hundred years, and now is first conjured out of its grave by him, to disturb the world. If this be just possession, a highway-robber may plead possession so soon as ever he hath stripped an honest traveller. It is not only no "unhandsome thing," but it is a most comely

m [See the Defence, Numb. xxiv. above pp. 156, 157; Disc. i. Pt. iii.]

[Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xxiv.

p. 263.]

n

[Ibid., pp. 155, 156.]

II.

and commendable thing, for a man to derive his religion by DISCOURSE the universal approbation of the Christian world from the purest primitive times throughout all ages, and never to deviate further from the steps of his ancestors than they had first degenerated from their predecessors. And where he telleth us, that "the first Christians did not derive" Christianity "from their ancestors P," it is very true, but very impertinent. For they had not their religion from their own invention or presumption, as he hath his opinions, but by Divine revelation, confirmed with miracles. When he is able to produce as authentic proof for his paradoxes, as they did for their religion, he saith something.

That which he calleth my "scurrilous argumentation 9,❞— 9,""he that drinks well, sleeps well," &c.—is none of mine, but a common example used in logic, to shew the weakness of such forms of arguings as his is, when the dependance is not necessary and essential but contingent and accidental; as it is in his argument here. All actions are from God by a general power, but not determinately. The like contingent connection there is between "action" and "sense," sense and "memory," memory and "election"." This is enough to shew the weakness of his argument. But he hath one main fault more, he hath put more in the conclusion than there was in the premisses.

will more

prescience

to do.

He sayeth, "If by liberty" I had understood only "liberty Liberty to of action," and not "liberty of will," it "had been an easy mat- reconcileter to reconcile it with prescience and the decrees of Gods." I able with answer, first, that "liberty of action" without "liberty of will" than liberty is but a mock liberty, and a new nothing, like an empty bottle given to a child to satisfy his thirst. Where there is no liberty to will, there is no liberty to act; as hath been formerly demonstrated'. Secondly, the liberty to will, is as reconcileable with the prescience and decrees of God as the liberty to act. God's decrees do extend at least as much to acting as to willing. Thirdly, this liberty of acting without a liberty of willing is irreconcileable with all the other attributes of God, His truth, His justice, His goodness, and His

III.

PART power; and setteth the decrees of God in opposition one with another. How should a man have a liberty to act, and have no liberty to will, when he cannot act freely except he will freely, because willing is a necessary cause or means of acting? That which followeth about "God's aspect" and "intuition"," is merely a contention about words, and such words as are received and approved by all authors. God's intuition is not of the same nature with ours. We poor creatures do stand in need of organs; but God, Who is a pure simple infinite essence, cannot be made perfecter by organs, or accidents. Whatsoever He seeth or knoweth, He seeth or knoweth by His essence. The less T. H. understood the terms of "aspect" and "intuition," the more apt he was to blunder them.

How the will of God is the ne

cessity of

He pleadeth, "If liberty cannot stand with necessity, it cannot stand with the decrees of God, of which decrees all things. necessity is a consequent ;" and he citeth somebody without name, who said, "The will of God is the necessity of all things." I deny his consequence. Liberty is consistent with God's decrees, though it be not consistent with universal necessity. The reason is plain;-because liberty is a con- 829 sequent of God's decrees as well as necessity. He who said, that "the will of God was the necessity of all things," was St. Austin. I wish he would stand to his judgment, or to his sense of those words. The meaning of those words is not, that God doth will that all things should be necessary, but that whatsoever God doth will, that must necessarily be. If He will have all things necessary, then all things must be necessary. If He will have all things free, then all things must be free. If He will have some things necessary, and some things free, then some things must be necessary, and some things free. When God formed man of the dust of the earth, He might have formed him either a child or a man; but whether he should be formed the one or the other, "it was not in the condition of the creature, but in the pleasure of the Creator, Whose will is the necessity of all things"." What cessitas rerum.'"]

"[Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xxiv. p. 264.]

[Ibid., p. 265.-" If I had said it, it had not been without authority of learned men, in whose writings are often found this sentence, Voluntas Dei ne