[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_J. D._ “First, whosoever have power of election, have true liberty; for
the proper act of liberty is election. A spontaneity may consist with
determination to one, as we see in children, fools, madmen, brute
beasts, whose fancies are determined to those things which they act
spontaneously, as the bees make honey, the spiders webs. But none of
these have a liberty of election, which is an act of judgment and
understanding, and cannot possibly consist with a determination to one.
He that is determined by something before himself or without himself,
cannot be said to choose or elect, unless it be as the junior of the
mess chooseth in Cambridge, whether he will have the least part or
nothing. And scarcely so much.
“But men have liberty of election. This is plain, (Numbers xxx. 13): _If
a wife make a vow it is left to her husband’s choice, either to
establish it or to make it void_. And (Joshua xxiv. 15): _Choose you
this day whom you will serve_, &c. _But I and my house will serve the
Lord._ He makes his own choice, and leaves them to the liberty of their
election. And (2 Samuel xxiv. 12): _I offer thee three things, choose
thee which of them I shall do_. If one of these three things was
necessarily determined, and the other two impossible, how was it left to
him to choose what should be done? Therefore we have true liberty.”
_T. H._ And the first place of Scripture taken from Numbers xxx. 13, is
one of them that look another way. The words are, _If a wife make a vow
it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or make it
void_. For it proves no more but that the husband is a free or voluntary
agent, but not that his choice therein is not necessitated or not
determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes.
_J. D._ “My first argument from Scripture is thus formed.
“Whosoever have a liberty or power of election, are not determined to
one by precedent necessary causes.
“But men have liberty of election.
“The assumption or _minor_ proposition is proved by three places of
Scripture, (Numbers xxx. 13; Joshua xxiv. 15; 2 Samuel xxiv. 12.) I need
not insist upon these, because T. H. acknowledgeth ‘that it is clearly
proved that there is election in man.’
“But he denieth the _major_ proposition, because, saith he, ‘man is
necessitated or determined to what he shall choose by precedent
necessary causes.’ I take away this answer three ways.
“First, by reason. Election is evermore either of things possible, or at
least of things conceived to be possible, that is, efficacious election,
when a man hopeth or thinketh of obtaining the object. Whatsoever the
will chooseth, it chooseth under the notion of good, either honest, or
delightful, or profitable. But there can be no real goodness apprehended
in that which is known to be impossible. It is true, there may be some
wandering pendulous wishes of known impossibilities, as a man also that
hath committed an offence may wish he had not committed it. But to
choose efficaciously an impossibility, is as impossible as an
impossibility itself. No man can think to obtain that which he knows
impossible to be obtained; but he who knows that all things are
antecedently determined by necessary causes, knows that it is impossible
for anything to be otherwise than it is; therefore to ascribe unto him a
power of election to choose this or that indifferently, is to make the
same thing to be determined to one, and to be not determined to one,
which are contradictories. Again, whosoever hath an elective power, or a
liberty to choose, hath also a liberty or power to refuse; (Isaiah vii.
16): _Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the
good_. He who chooseth this rather than that, refuseth that rather than
this. As Moses (Hebrews xi. 25), choosing to suffer affliction with the
people of God, did thereby refuse the pleasures of sin. But no man hath
any power to refuse that which is necessarily predetermined to be,
unless it be as the fox refused the grapes which were beyond his reach.
When one thing of two or three is absolutely determined, the others are
made thereby simply impossible.
(_a_) “Secondly, I prove it by instances, and by that universal notion
which the world hath of election. What is the difference between an
elective and hereditary kingdom, but that in an elective kingdom, they
have power or liberty to choose this or that man indifferently; but in
an hereditary kingdom, they have no such power nor liberty? Where the
law makes a certain heir, there is a necessitation to one; where the law
doth not name a certain heir, there is no necessitation to one, and
there they have power or liberty to choose. An hereditary prince may be
as grateful and acceptable to his subjects, and as willingly received by
them (according to that liberty which is opposed to compulsion or
violence), as he who is chosen: yet he is not therefore an elective
prince. In Germany all the nobility and commons may assent to the choice
of the emperor, or be well pleased with it when it is concluded; yet
none of them elect or choose the emperor, but only those six princes who
have a consultative, deliberative, and determinative power in his
election; and if their votes or suffrages be equally divided, three to
three, then the King of Bohemia hath the casting voice. So likewise in
corporations or commonwealths, sometimes the people, sometimes the
common-council, have power to name so many persons for such an office,
and the supreme magistrate, or senate, or lesser council respectively,
to choose one of those. And all this is done with that caution and
secresy, by billets or other means, that no man knows which way any man
gave his vote, or with whom to be offended. If it were necessarily and
inevitably predetermined, that this individual person, and no other,
shall and must be chosen, what needed all this circuit and caution, to
do that which is not possible to be done otherwise, which one may do as
well as a thousand, and for doing of which no rational man can be
offended, if the electors were necessarily predetermined to elect this
man and no other. And though T. H. was pleased to pass by my University
instance, yet I may not, until I see what he is able to say unto it. The
junior of the mess in Cambridge divides the meat in four parts; the
senior chooseth first, then the second and third in their order. The
junior is determined to one, and hath no choice left, unless it be to
choose whether he will take that part which the rest have refused, or
none at all. It may be this part is more agreeable to his mind than any
of the others would have been; but for all that he cannot be said to
choose it, because he is determined to this one. Even such a liberty of
election is that which is established by T. H.; or rather much worse in
two respects. The junior hath yet a liberty of contradiction left, to
choose whether he will take that part, or not take any part; but he who
is precisely predetermined to the choice of this object, hath no liberty
to refuse it. Secondly, the junior, by dividing carefully, may preserve
to himself an equal share; but he who is wholly determined by
extrinsical causes, is left altogether to the mercy and disposition of
another.
“Thirdly, I prove it by the texts alleged. (Numb. xxx. 13): _If a wife
make a vow, it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it
or make it void_. But if it be predetermined that he shall establish it,
it is not in his power to make it void. If it be predetermined that he
shall make it void, it is not in his power to establish it. And
howsoever it be determined, yet being determined, it is not in his power
indifferently, either to establish it, or to make it void at his
pleasure. So (Joshua xxiv. 15): _Choose you this day whom ye will serve:
but I and my house will serve the Lord_. It is too late to choose that
_this day_, which was determined otherwise yesterday. _Whom ye will
serve, whether the Gods whom your fathers served, or the Gods of the
Amorites._ Where there is an election of this or that, these Gods, or
those Gods, there must needs be either an indifferency to both objects,
or at least a possibility to either. _I and my house will serve the
Lord._ If he were extrinsically predetermined, he should not say I
_will_ serve, but I _must_ serve. And (2 Samuel xxiv. 12): _I offer thee
three things, choose thee which of them I shall do_. How doth God offer
three things to David’s choice, if he had predetermined him to one of
the three by a concourse of necessary extrinsical causes? If a sovereign
prince should descend so far as to offer a delinquent his choice,
whether he would be fined, or imprisoned, or banished, and had underhand
signed the sentence of his banishment, what were it else but plain
drollery or mockery? This is the argument which in T. H.’s opinion looks
another way. If it do, it is as the Parthians used to fight, flying. His
reason follows next to be considered.”