(_a_) “‘If it be an agent,’ saith he, ‘it can work’. What of this? _A
posse ad esse non valet argumentum_; from _can work_ to _will work_, is
a weak inference. And from _will work_ to _doth work upon absolute
necessity_, is another gross inconsequence.” Here he has gotten a just
advantage; for I should have said, if it be an agent it worketh, not it
can work. But it is an advantage which profiteth little to his cause.
For if I repeat my argument again in this manner: that which is an
agent, worketh; that which worketh, wanteth nothing requisite to produce
the action or the effect it produceth, and consequently is thereof a
sufficient cause; and if a sufficient cause, then also a necessary
cause: his answer will be nothing to the purpose. For whereas to these
words, ‘that which worketh, wanteth nothing requisite to produce the
action or the effect it produceth,’ he answereth, “it is true, but there
may want much to produce that which was intended”, it is not contrary to
any thing that I have said. For I never maintained, that whatsoever a
man intendeth, is necessarily performed; but this, whatsoever a man
performeth, is necessarily performed, and what he intendeth, necessarily
intended, and that from causes antecedent. And therefore to say, as he
doth, that the cause is sufficient to do what it doth, but not always
sufficient to do what a man should or would do, is to say the same that
I do. For I say not, that the cause that bringeth forth a monster, is
sufficient to bring forth a man; but that every cause is sufficient to
produce only the effect it produceth; and if sufficient, then also
necessary.
(_b_) “‘And if sufficient, then also necessary’. Stay there; by his
leave, there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and
efficiency; otherwise God himself should not be all-sufficient.”
All-sufficiency signifieth no more, when it is attributed to God, than
omnipotence; and omnipotence signifieth no more, than the power to do
all things that he will. But to the production of any thing that is
produced, the will of God is as requisite as the rest of his power and
sufficiency. And consequently, his all-sufficiency signifieth not a
sufficiency or power to do those things he will not. But he will deal,
he says, so favourably with me, as to grant me all this, which I labour,
he saith, so much in vain to prove: and adds, (_c_) “But all this will
not advantage his cause the black of a bean; for still it amounts but to
an hypothetical necessity”. If it prove no more, it proves no necessity
at all; for by hypothetical necessity he means the necessity of this
proposition, _the effect is, then when it is_; whereas necessity is only
said truly of somewhat in future. For _necessary_ is that which cannot
possibly be otherwise; and _possibility_ is always understood of some
future time. But seeing he granteth so favourably that sufficient causes
are necessary causes, I shall easily conclude from it, that whatsoever
those causes do cause, are necessary antecedently. For if the necessity
of the thing produced, when produced, be in the same instant of time
with the existence of its immediate cause; then also that immediate
cause was in the same instant with the cause by which it was immediately
produced; the same may be said of the cause of this cause, and so
backward eternally. From whence it will follow, that all the connexion
of the causes of any effect from the beginning of the world, were
altogether existent in one and the same instant; and consequently, all
the time from the beginning of the world, or from eternity to this day,
is but one instant, or a _nunc stans_; which he knows by this time is
not so.