II.

His reason to the contrary, that " no creature living can DISCOURSE work any effect upon God","-is most true; but neither pertinent to his purpose, nor understood by himself. It is all one as to the efficacy of prayer, if it work upon us, as though it had wrought upon God Himself; if it render us more capable of His mercies, as if it rendered Him more merciful. Though the sword and the crown hang immoveable, yet prayer translateth us from one capacity to another, from being under the sword to be under the crown.

Lastly, he telleth us in great sadness, that "though our prayers to man be distinguished from our thanks, it is not necessary it should be so in our prayers and thanks to God 802 Almighty"." Prayers and thanksgiving are our acts, not God's acts; and have their distinction from us, not from God. Prayer respects the time to come, thanksgiving the time past. Prayer is for that we want, thanksgiving for that we have. All the ten lepers prayed, "Jesus, Master, have Luke xvii. mercy on us;" but only one of them returned to give God thanks. St. Paul distinguisheth prayer and thanksgiving, 2 Cor. i. 11. even in respect of God. By granting the prayers of His people, God putteth an obligation upon them to give thanks. He might as well have said, that faith, hope, and charity, are the same thing.

He passeth over the rest of this chapter in silence. I think him much the wiser for so doing. If he had done so by the rest likewise, it had been as much credit for his cause.

13. and 18.

CASTIGATIONS OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS;-NUMBER XVI. Here are three things questionable in this section; first, whether "He who maketh all things, make all things necessary to be," or whether it be "a contradiction of" me to myself "to say so?"-First, this is certain, there can be no formal contradiction where there is but one proposition; but here is but one proposition. Secondly, here is no implicit contradiction; first, because there is a vast difference between making all things "necessary to be," and making all things to be necessary agents. The most free or contingent agents in the m [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xv. o [Ibid., Animadv. upon Numb. xvi. p. 179.] p. 183.]

[Ibid.]

PART

III.

world, when they are, are necessarily such as they are; that is, "necessary to be;" but they are not necessarily necessary agents. And yet he is still harping upon this string, to prove such a necessity as no man did ever deny. Thirdly, I told him, that this which he contends for here, is but a necessity of supposition: as, supposing a garment to be made of the French fashion, when it is made, it is necessarily of the French fashion; but it was not necessary before it was made, that it should be made of the French fashion, nor of any other fashion; for it might not have been made at all. He excepteth, that the burning of the fire is no otherwise necessary than upon supposition; that is, supposing fuel be upon sup- cast upon the fire, the fire doth burn it necessarily.

T. H. still

mistaketh necessity

position.

But

herein he is altogether mistaken. For that only is called necessary upon supposition, where the thing supposed is or was in some sort in the power of the free agent, either to do it or to leave it undone, indifferently; but it is never in the power of the fire to burn or not to burn indifferently. He who did strike the fire out of the flint, may be said to be a necessary cause of the burning that proceeded from thence upon supposition; because it was in his power either to strike fire or not to strike fire. And he who puts more fuel to the fire, may be said to be a necessary cause of the continuance of the fire upon supposition; because it was in his choice to put to more fuel or not. But the fire itself cannot choose but burn whilst it is fire, and therefore it is a necessary cause of burning, absolutely, and not upon supposition. What unseen necessity doth prejudice liberty, and what doth not, I have shewed formerly. How mean an esteem soever he hath of the tailor, either he or his meanest apprentice have more sense than himself in this cause. The tailor knows, that there was no necessity from eternity that he should be a tailor, or that that man for whom he made the garment should be his customer, and much less yet of what fashion he should make it. But he is still fumbling to no purpose upon that "old foolish rule," as he pleased once to call it," whatsoever is, when it is, is necessarily so as it is."

The second question is, whether there be any agents in the [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xvi. p. 183.]

[See above p. 264. note k.]

II.

There is

contin

gency than

world which are truly free or truly contingent agents, accord- DISCOURSE ing to his grounds. And it is easily demonstrated, that there are not because he maintaineth, that all agents are more in necessary; and that those agents which we call free agents and contingent agents, do act as necessarily, as those agents ignorance. which we see and know to be necessary agents; and that the reason why we style them free agents and contingent agents, is, because we do "not know whether they work necessarily or not." He hath told us hitherto, that all agents act necessarily; otherwise there could not be an universal necessity. Now he telleth us, that there be sundry agents, which we "know not whether they work necessarily or not." If we do "not know whether they work necessarily or not," then we do not know whether there be universal necessity or not. But we may well pass by such little mistakes in him. That which I deduce from hence is this,-that the formal reason of liberty and contingency according to his opinion doth consist in our ignorance or nescience; and then it hath 803 no real being in the nature of things. Hitherto the world hath esteemed nothing more than liberty; mankind hath been ready to fight for nothing sooner than liberty. Now if, after all this, there be no such thing as liberty in the world, they have contended all this while for a shadow. It is but too apparent, what horrible disorders there are in the world; and how many times right is trodden under foot by might; and how the worst of men do flourish and prosper in this world, whilst poor Hieremy is in the dungeon, or writing books of Lamentation. If there be true liberty in the world, we know well whereunto to impute all these disorders; but if there be no true liberty in the world, free from antecedent necessitation, then they all fall directly upon God Almighty and His providence.

definition

gents.]

The last question is, concerning his definition of contin- [T. H.'s gents, that "they are such agents as work we know not of contin how." Against which I gave him two exceptions in my Defence. One was this. Many agents work we know not how, as the loadstone draweth iron, the jet chaff; and yet they are known and acknowledged to be necessary and not [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xvi. s [Ibid.] p. 184.]

III.

PART contingent agents'. Secondly, many agents do work we know how, as a stone falling down from a house upon a man's head; and yet we do not account it a necessary but a contingent event, by reason of the accidental concurrence of the causes". I have given him other instances in other parts of this treatise; and if need be, he may have twenty more. And yet, though his definition was shewed formerly to halt downright on both sides, yet he, good man, is patient, and never taketh the least notice of it; but only denieth the consequence, and overlooketh the proofs.

[Indetermination of causes.]

His objection about the "indetermination" of the causes, -that indetermination "doth nothing," because "it maketh the event equal to happen and not to happen,"-is but a flash without any one grain of solidity. For by "indetermination" in that place is clearly understood, not to be predetermined to one by extrinsecal causes, but to be left free to its own intrinsecal determination, this way or that way, indifferently. So the first words-" by reason of the indetermination"have reference to free agents and free events; and the other words "or accidental concurrence of the causes"-have reference to casual events: and both together, referendo singula singulis, do include all contingents, as the word is commonly and largely taken by old philosophers.

[The opinion of necessity taketh away

the nature of sin.]

CASTIGATIONS OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS;-NUMBER XVII. Reader, I do not wonder, now and then, to see T. H. sink under the weight of an absurdity in this cause. A back of steel were not able to bear all those unsupportable consequences which flow from this opinion of fatal destiny. But why he should delight to multiply needless absurdities, I do not know. Almost every section produceth some new monster. In this seventeenth section I demonstrated clearly, that this opinion of universal necessity doth take away the nature of sin. That which he saith in answer thereunto, is that which followeth.

First, "it is true, he who taketh away the liberty of doing [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb, xvi. p. 184.]

t [Defence, Numb. xvi. above p. 111; Disc. i. Pt. iii.]

[Ibid.]

II.

according to the will, taketh away the nature of sin; but he DISCOURSE that denieth the liberty to will, doth not so." This answer hath been sufficiently taken away already, both in the Defence and in these Castigations". Inevitable and unresistible necessity doth as much acquit the will from sin as the action.

Again, whereas I urged, that whatsoever proceedeth essentially by way of physical determination from the First Cause, is good and just and lawful", he opposeth, that I "might as well have concluded, that whatsoever man hath been made by God, is a good and just man." So I might. What should hinder me to conclude, that every creature created by God is good quá talis—as it is created by God? But, being but a creature, it is not immutably good, as God Himself is. If he be not of the same opinion, he must seek for companions among those old heretics, the Manichees, or Marcionites.

So he cometh to his main answer;-" Sin is not a thing really made; those things which at first were actions, were 804 not then sins, though actions of the same nature with those which were afterwards sins; nor was then the will to any thing a sin, though it were a will to the same thing which in willing now we should sin; actions became then sins first, when the Commandments came," &c.; "there can no action be made sin but by the law; therefore this opinion, though it derive actions essentially from God, it derives not sins essentially from Him, but relatively, and by the commandment."

The first thing I observe in him is a contradiction to himself. Now he maketh the anomy, or the irregularity and repugnance to the law, to be the sin; before he conceiveth the action itself to be the sin :-" Doth not the Bishop think God to be the cause of all actions? and are not sins of commission actions? is murder no action? and doth not God Himself say, 'there is no evil in the city which I have not done?' and was not murder one of those evils," &c.? "I am of opinion, that the distinction of causes into efficient and deficient is Bohu, and signifieth nothing"."