The arguments by which this question is disputed, are drawn from four
fountains. 1. From _authorities_. 2. From _the inconveniences consequent
to either opinion_. 3. From _the attributes of God_. 4. From _natural
reason_.
The _authorities_ are of two sorts, _divine_ and _human_. _Divine_ are
those which are taken from the holy Scriptures. _Human_ also are of two
sorts; one, the authorities of those men that are generally esteemed to
have been learned, especially in this question, as the Fathers,
Schoolmen, and old Philosophers: the other, are the vulgar and most
commonly received opinions in the world.
His reasons and places of Scripture I will answer the best I am able;
but his human authorities I shall admit and receive as far as to
Scripture and reason they be consonant, and no further.
And for the arguments derived from the attributes of God, so far forth
as those attributes are argumentative, that is, so far forth as their
significations be conceivable, I admit them for arguments; but where
they are given for honour only, and signify nothing but an intention and
endeavour to praise and magnify as much as we can Almighty God, there I
hold them not for arguments, but for oblations; not for the language,
but (as the Scripture calls them) for the calves of our lips; which
signify not true nor false, nor any opinion of our brain, but the
reverence and devotion of our hearts; and therefore they are no
sufficient premises to infer truth or convince falsehood.
The places of Scripture that make for me are these. First, (Gen. xlv.
5): Joseph saith to his brethren that had sold him, _Be not grieved nor
angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me
before you to preserve life._ And again (verse 8), _So now it was not
you that sent me hither, but God._
And concerning Pharaoh, God saith, (Exod. vii. 3): _I will harden
Pharaoh’s heart._ And concerning Sihon King of Heshbon, Moses saith,
(Deut. ii. 30): _The Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his
heart obstinate._
And of Shimei that did curse David, David himself saith, (2 Sam. xvi.
10): _Let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, curse David._
And (1 Kings, xii. 15): _The King hearkened not to the people, for the
curse was from the Lord._
And Job, disputing this very question, saith, (Job xii. 14): _God
shutteth man, and there can be no opening_: and verse 16: _The deceived
and the deceiver are his_: and verse 17: _He maketh the Judges fools_:
and verse 24: _He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of
the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no
way_: and verse 25: _He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man._
And of the King of Assyria, God saith, _I will give him a charge to take
the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of
the streets._ (Isaiah x. 6.)
And Jeremiah saith, (Jer. x. 23): _O Lord, I know that the way of man is
not in himself, it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps._
And to Ezekiel, whom God sent as a watchman to the house of Israel, God
saith thus: _When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and
commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die;
because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin._
(Ezek. iii. 20.) Note here, God lays the stumbling block, yet he that
falleth dieth in his sin: which shows that God’s justice in killing
dependeth not on the sin only.
And our Saviour saith, (John vi. 44): _No man can come to me, except the
Father which hath sent me draw him._
And St. Peter, concerning the delivering of Christ to the Jews, saith
thus, (Acts ii. 23): _Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken_, &c.
And again, those Christians to whom Peter and John resorted after they
were freed from their troubles about the miracle of curing the lame man,
praising God for the same, say thus: _Of a truth against the holy child
Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the
Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do
whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done._ (Acts
iv. 27, 28.)
And St. Paul, Rom. ix. 16: _It is not of him that willeth, nor of him
that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy_: and verse 18, 19, 20:
_Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he
hardeneth. Thou wilt say unto me, why doth he yet find fault; for who
hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that disputest
against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast
thou made me thus?_
And again, (1 Cor. iv 7): _Who maketh thee differ from another? and what
hast thou that thou hast not received?_ and 1 Cor. xii. 6: _There are
diversities of operations, but it is the same God that worketh all in
all_: and Eph. ii. 10: _We are his workmanship created in Jesus Christ
unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them_: and Philip. ii. 13: _It is God that worketh in you both to will
and to do, of his good pleasure._
To these places may be added all the places that make God the giver of
all graces, that is to say, of all good habits and inclinations; and all
the places wherein men are said to be dead in sin. For by all these it
is manifest, that although a man may live holily if he _will_, yet _to
will_ is the work of God, and not eligible by man.
A second sort of places there be, that make equally for the Bishop and
me; and they be such as say that a man hath election, and may do many
things _if he will_, and also _if he will_ he may leave them undone; but
not that God Almighty naturally or supernaturally worketh in us every
act of the will, as in my opinion; nor that he worketh it not, as in the
Bishop’s opinion; though he use those places as arguments on his side.
The places are such as these, (Deut. xxx. 19): _I call heaven and earth
to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and
death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both thou and
thy seed may live_: and (Ecclesiasticus xv. 14): _God in the beginning
made man, and left him in the hand of his counsel_: and verse 16, 17:
_He hath set fire and water before thee, stretch forth thy hand to
whither thou wilt. Before man is life and death, and whether him liketh
shall be given him._
And those places which the Bishop citeth: _If a wife make a vow, it is
left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it, or to make it
void_, (Numb. xxx. 13): and (Josh. xxiv. 15): _Chuse ye this day whom
you will serve_, &c. _But I and my house will serve the Lord_: and (2
Sam. xxiv. 12): _I offer thee three things, choose which of them I shall
do_: and (Isaiah vii. 16): _before the child shall know to refuse the
evil and choose the good_. And besides these very many other places to
the same effect.
The third sort of texts are those which seem to make against me. As
Isaiah v. 4: _What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have
not done in it?_
And Jeremiah xix. 5: _They have also built the high places of Baal, to
burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal; which I
commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind._
And Hosea xiii. 9: _O Israel, thy destruction is from thyself, but in me
is thy help._
And 1 Tim. ii. 4: _Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the
knowledge of truth._
And Eccl. xv. 11, 12: _Say not thou, it is through the Lord I fell away;
for thou oughtest not to do the things that he hateth. Say not thou, he
hath caused me to err; for he hath no need of thee, sinful man._ And
many other places to the like purpose.
You see how great the apparent contradiction is between the first and
the third sort of texts, which being both Scripture, may and must be
reconciled and made to stand together; which unless the rigour of the
letter be on one or both sides with intelligible and reasonable
interpretations mollified, is impossible.
The Schoolmen, to keep the literal sense of the third sort of texts,
interpret the first sort thus; the words of Joseph, _It was not you that
sent me hither, but God_; they interpret in this manner: _It was you
that sold me into Egypt, God did but permit it; it was God that sent me
and not you_; as if the _selling_ were not the _sending_. This is
Suarez; of whom and the Bishop I would know, whether the _selling_ of
Joseph did infallibly and inevitably follow that permission. If it did,
then that _selling_ was necessitated beforehand by an eternal
permission. If it did not, how can there be attributed to God a
foreknowledge of it, when by the _liberty of human will_ it might have
been frustrated? I would know also whether the _selling_ of Joseph into
Egypt were a sin? If it were, why doth Joseph say, _Be not grieved nor
angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither_? Ought not a man to be
grieved and angry with himself for sinning? If it were no sin, then
treachery and fratricide is no sin.
Again, seeing the _selling_ of him consisted in these acts, _binding_,
_speaking_, _delivering_, which are all corporeal motions, did God
_will_ they should not be, how then could they be done? Or doth he
permit barely, and neither _will_ nor _nill_ corporeal and local
motions? How then is God the first mover and cause of all local motion?
Did he cause the motion, and _will_ the law against it, but not the
irregularity? How can that be, seeing the motion and law being existent,
the contrariety of the motion and law is necessarily coexistent?
So these places, _He hardened Pharaoh’s heart_, _he made Sihon’s heart
obstinate_, they interpret thus: “He permitted them to make their own
hearts obstinate.” But seeing that man’s heart without the grace of God,
is uninclinable to good, the _necessity_ of the hardness of heart, both
in Pharaoh and in Sihon, is as easily derived from God’s _permission_,
that is, from his withholding his grace, as from his _positive decree_.
And whereas they say, He _wills_ godly and free actions conditionally
and consequently, that is, if the man _will_ them, then God _wills_
them, else not; and _wills_ not evil actions, but _permits_ them; they
ascribe to God nothing at all in the causation of any action either good
or bad.
Now to the third sort of places, that seem to contradict the former, let
us see if they may not be reconciled with a more intelligible and
reasonable interpretation, than that wherewith the Schoolmen interpret
the first.
It is no extraordinary kind of language, to call the commandments and
exhortations and other significations of the _will_, by the name of
_will_; though the _will_ be an internal act of the soul, and commands
are but words and signs external of that internal act. So that the
_will_ and the _word_ are diverse things; and differ as the _thing
signified_, and the _sign_. And hence it comes to pass, that the Word
and Commandment of God, namely, the holy Scripture, is usually called by
Christians God’s will, but his revealed will; acknowledging the very
will of God, which they call his counsel and decree, to be another
thing. For the revealed will of God to Abraham was, that Isaac should be
sacrificed; but it was his will he should not. And his revealed will to
Jonas, that Nineveh should be destroyed within forty days; but not his
decree and purpose. His decree and purpose cannot be known beforehand,
but may afterwards by the event; for from the event we may infer his
will. But his revealed will, which is his word, must be foreknown,
because it ought to be the rule of our actions.
Therefore, where it is said that _God will have all men to be saved_, it
is not meant of his will internal, but of his commandments or will
revealed; as if it had been said, “God hath given commandments, by
following of which all men may be saved.” So where God says, _O Israel,
how often would I have gathered thee_, &c., _as a hen doth her chickens,
but thou wouldest not_, it is thus to be understood: “How oft have I by
my prophets given thee such counsel, as, being followed, thou hadst been
gathered,” &c. And the like interpretations are to be given to the like
places. For it is not Christian to think, if God had the purpose to save
all men, that any man could be damned; because it were a sign of want of
power to effect what he would. So these words, _What could have been
done more to my vineyard, that I have not done_: if by them be meant the
Almighty power, might receive this answer: “Men might have been kept by
it from sinning.” But when we are to measure God by his revealed will,
it is as if he had said, “What directions, what laws, what threatenings
could have been used more, that I have not used?” God doth not will and
command us to inquire what his will and purpose is, and accordingly to
do it; for we shall do that, whether we will or not; but to look into
his commandments, that is, as to the Jews, the law of Moses; and as to
other people, the laws of their country.
_O Israel, thy destruction is from thyself, but in me is thy help_: or
as some English translations have it, _O Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself_, &c., is literally true, but maketh nothing against me; for the
man that sins willingly, whatsoever be the cause of his will, if he be
not forgiven, hath destroyed himself, as being his own act.
Where it is said, _They have offered their sons unto Baal, which I
commanded not, nor spake it, nor came it into my mind_; these words,
_nor came it into my mind_, are by some much insisted on, as if they had
done it without the will of God. For whatsoever is done comes into God’s
mind, that is, into his knowledge, which implies a certainty of the
future action, and that certainty an antecedent purpose of God to bring
it to pass. It cannot therefore be meant God did not will it, but that
he had not the will to command it. But by the way it is to be noted,
that when God speaks to men concerning his will and other attributes, he
speaks of them as if they were like to those of men, to the end he may
be understood. And therefore to the order of his work, the world,
wherein one thing follows another so aptly as no man could order it by
design, he gives the name of will and purpose. For that which we call
design, which is reasoning, and thought after thought, cannot be
properly attributed to God; in whose thoughts there is no _fore_ nor
_after_.
But what shall we answer to the words in Ecclesiasticus: _Say not thou,
it is through the Lord I fell away; say not thou, he hath caused me to
err_. If it had not been, _say not thou_, but “think not thou,” I should
have answered that Ecclesiasticus is Apocrypha, and merely human
authority. But it is very true that such words as these are not to be
said; first, because St. Paul forbids it: _Shall the thing formed_,
saith he, _say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me so?_ Yet
true it is, that he did so make him. Secondly, because we ought to
attribute nothing to God but what we conceive to be honourable, and we
judge nothing honourable but what we count so amongst ourselves; and
because accusation of man is not honourable, therefore such words are
not to be used concerning God Almighty. And for the same cause it is not
lawful to say that any action can be done, which God hath purposed shall
not be done; for it is a token of want of the power to hinder it.
Therefore neither of them is to be said, though one of them must needs
be true. Thus you see how disputing of God’s nature which is
incomprehensible, driveth men upon one of these two rocks. And this was
the cause I was unwilling to have my answer to the Bishop’s doctrine of
liberty published.
And thus much for comparison of our two opinions with the Scriptures;
which whether it favour more his or mine, I leave to be judged by the
reader. And now I come to compare them again by _the inconveniences
which may be thought to follow them_.
First, the bishop says, that this very persuasion, that all things come
to pass by _necessity_, is able to overthrow all societies and
commonwealths in the world. The laws, saith he, are unjust which
prohibit that which a man cannot possibly shun.
Secondly, that it maketh superfluous and foolish all consultations,
arts, arms, books, instruments, teachers, and medicines, and which is
worst, piety and all other acts of devotion. For if the event be
necessary, it will come to pass whatsoever we do, and whether we sleep
or wake.
This inference, if there were not as well a necessity of the means as
there is of the event, might be allowed for true. But according to my
opinion, both the event and means are equally necessitated. But
supposing the inference true, it makes as much against him that denies
as against him that holds this necessity. For I believe the Bishop holds
for as certain a truth, _what shall be, shall be_, as _what is, is_, or
_what has been, has been_. And then the ratiocination of the sick man,
“If I shall recover, what need I this unsavoury potion? if I shall not
recover, what good will it do me?” is a good ratiocination. But the
Bishop holds, that it is necessary he shall recover or not recover.
Therefore it follows from an opinion of the Bishop’s, as well as from
mine, that medicine is superfluous. But as medicine is to health, so is
piety, consultation, arts, arms, books, instruments, and teachers, every
one to its several end. Out of the Bishop’s opinion it follows as well
as from mine, that medicine is superfluous to health. Therefore from his
opinion as well as from mine, it followeth, (if such ratiocination were
not unsound), that piety, consultation, &c. are also superfluous to
their respective ends. And for the superfluity of laws, whatsoever be
the truth of the question between us, they are not superfluous, because
by the punishing of one, or of a few unjust men, they are the cause of
justice in a great many.
But the greatest inconvenience of all that the Bishop pretends may be
drawn from this opinion, is, “that God in justice cannot punish a man
with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to
leave undone.” It is true, that seeing the name of punishment hath
relation to the name of crime, there can be no punishment but for crimes
that might have been left undone; but instead of _punishment_ if he had
said _affliction_, may not I say that God may afflict, and not for sin?
Doth he not afflict those creatures that cannot sin? And sometimes those
that can sin, and yet not for sin, as Job, and the man in the gospel
that was born blind, for the manifestation of his power which he hath
over his creature, no less but more than hath the potter over his clay
to make of it what he please? But though God have power to afflict a man
and not for sin without injustice, shall we think God so cruel as to
afflict a man, and not for sin, with extreme and endless torment? Is it
not cruelty? No more than to do the same for sin, when he that so
afflicteth might without trouble have kept him from sinning. But what
infallible evidence hath the Bishop, that a man shall be after this life
eternally in torments and never die? Or how is it certain there is no
second death, when the Scripture saith there is? Or where doth the
Scripture say that a second death is an endless life? Or do the Doctors
only say it? Then perhaps they do but say so, and for reasons best known
to themselves. There is no injustice nor cruelty in him that giveth
life, to give with it sickness, pain, torments, and death; nor in him
that giveth life twice, to give the same miseries twice also. And thus
much in answer to the inconveniences that are pretended to follow the
doctrine of necessity.
On the other side from this position, that a man is free to will, it
followeth that the prescience of God is quite taken away. For how can it
be known beforehand what man shall have a will to, if that will of his
proceed not from necessary causes, but that he have in his power to will
or not will? So also those things which are called future contingents,
if they come not to pass with certainty, that is to say, from necessary
causes, can never be foreknown; so that God’s foreknowing shall
sometimes be of things that shall not come to pass, which is as much to
say, that his foreknowledge is none; which is a great dishonour to the
all-knowing power.
Though this be all the inconvenient doctrine that followeth _free-will_,
forasmuch as I can now remember; yet the defending of this opinion hath
drawn the Bishop and other patrons of it into many inconvenient and
absurd conclusions, and made them make use of an infinite number of
insignificant words; whereof one conclusion is in Suarez, that God doth
so concur with the will of man, that _if man will, then God concurs_;
which is to subject not the will of man to God, but the will of God to
man. Other inconvenient conclusions I shall then mark out, when I come
to my observations upon the Bishop’s reply. And thus far concerning the
inconveniences that follow both opinions.
The attribute of God which he draweth into argument is his _justice_, as
that God cannot be just in punishing any man for that which he was
necessitated to do. To which I have answered before, as being one of the
inconveniences pretended to follow upon the doctrine of necessity. On
the contrary, from another of God’s attributes, which is his
_foreknowledge_, I shall evidently derive, that all actions whatsoever,
whether they proceed from the will or from fortune, were necessary from
eternity. For whatsoever God foreknoweth shall come to pass, cannot but
come to pass, that is, it is impossible it should not come to pass, or
otherwise come to pass than it was foreknown. But whatsoever was
impossible should be otherwise, was necessary; for the definition of
_necessary_ is, that which cannot possibly be otherwise. And whereas
they that distinguish between God’s _prescience_ and his _decree_, say
the foreknowledge maketh not the necessity without the decree; it is
little to the purpose. It sufficeth me, that whatsoever was foreknown by
God, was necessary: but all things were foreknown by God, and therefore
all things were necessary. And as for the distinction of foreknowledge
from decree in God Almighty, I comprehend it not. They are acts
co-eternal, and therefore one.
And as for the arguments drawn from natural reason they are set down at
large in the end of my discourse to which the Bishop maketh his reply;
which how well he hath answered, shall appear in due time. For the
present, the actions which he thinketh proceed from liberty of will,
must either be necessitated, or proceed from fortune, without any other
cause; for certainly to _will_ is impossible without thinking on what he
willeth. But it is in no man’s election what he shall at any named time
hereafter think on. And this I take to be enough to clear the
understanding of the reader, that he may be the better able to judge of
the following disputation. I find in those that write of this argument,
especially in the Schoolmen and their followers, so many words strangers
to our language, and such confusion and inanity in the ranging of them,
as that a man’s mind in the reading of them distinguisheth nothing. And
as things were in the beginning before the Spirit of God was moved upon
the abyss, _tohu_ and _bohu_, that is to say, confusion and emptiness;
so are their discourses.
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“TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE
MARQUIS OF NEWCASTLE,
ETC.
“SIR,--
“If I pretended to compose a complete treatise upon this subject, I
should not refuse those large recruits of reasons and authorities which
offer themselves to serve in this cause, for God and man, religion and
policy, Church and Commonwealth, (_a_) against the blasphemous,
desperate, and destructive opinion of fatal destiny. But as (_b_) mine
aim, in the first discourse, was only to press home those things in
writing, which had been agitated between us by word of mouth, (a course
much to be preferred before verbal conferences, as being freer from
passions and tergiversations, less subject to mistakes and misrelations,
wherein paralogisms are more quickly detected, impertinences discovered,
and confusion avoided), so my present intention is only to vindicate
that discourse, and together with it, (_c_) those lights of the Schools,
who were never slighted but where they were not understood. How far I
have performed it, I leave to the judicious and impartial reader,
resting for mine own part well contented with this, that I have
satisfied myself.
Your Lordship’s most obliged,
to love and serve you,
“J. D.”
ANIMADVERSIONS UPON
THE BISHOP’S EPISTLE TO MY LORD OF NEWCASTLE.
(_a_) “Against the blasphemous, desperate, and destructive opinion of
fatal destiny.”
This is but choler, such as ordinarily happeneth unto them who contend
against greater difficulties than they expected.
(_b_) “My aim in the first discourse was only to press home those things
in writing, which had been agitated between us by word of mouth: a
course much to be preferred before verbal conferences, as being freer
from passions, &c.”
He is here, I think, mistaken; for in our verbal conference there was
not one passionate word, nor any objecting of blasphemy or atheism, nor
any other uncivil word; of which in his writing there are abundance.
(_c_) “Those lights of the Schools, who were never slighted but where
they were not understood.”
I confess I am not apt to admire every thing I understand not, nor yet
to slight it. And though the Bishop slight not the Schoolmen so much as
I do, yet I dare say he understands their writings as little as I do.
For they are in most places unintelligible.
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