PART Sin in the fore the civil law. This might have been pardoned to him; but his second slip is worse, that the world was I know not how long world be without sin. I did demonstrate, that upon his grounds all sins are essentially from God, and consequently are lawful and just. He answereth, that the actions were from God, but the actions were not sins at the first, until there was a law. What is this to the purpose? It is not material when sin did enter into the world, early or late; so as, when it did enter, it were essentially from God; which it must needs be upon his grounds,—that both the murder, and the law against murder, are from God. And as it doth not help his cause at all, so it is most false. What actions Job iv. 18. were there in the world before the sin of the angel? "He 2 Pet. ii. 4. charged the angels with folly ;" and, "If God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Hell;" and, "The angels which kept not their first estate." What were those Rom. v. 12. first actions' that were before the sin of Adam? man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Jude 6. 15. By one Thirdly, he erreth most grossly in supposing that the world at first was lawless. The world was never without the eternal law, that is, the rule of justice in God Himself, and that which giveth force to all other laws; as the Divine WisProv. viii. dom saith, " By Me kings reign, and princes decree justice." And sin is defined to be "that which is acted, said, or thought, against the eternal lawf." But to let this pass for the present, because it is transcendentally a law. How was the world ever without the law of nature? which is most properly a law, "the law that cannot lie, not mortal from mortal man, not dead, or written in the paper without life, but incorruptible, written in the heart of man by the finger of God Himselfg." Let him learn sounder doctrine from St. Paul;-"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or excusing one another." I pass by those commandments of God Rom. ii. 14, 15. = p. 175. na" Res vacua et inanis." f [See above p. 80, note a.] II. nature of which were delivered by tradition from hand to hand, from DISCOURSE father to son. This, that mankind was ever without all law, is the most drowsy dream that ever dropped from pen. Whereas he saith, that I "allow," that "the nature of sin [The true doth consist in this, that it is an action proceeding from our sin.] will against the law," and thence inferreth, " that the formal reason of sin lieth not in the liberty of willingh," he doth wrong himself, and misinform his reader; for I never "allowed" it, nor never shall "allow" it in that sense, but said expressly the contrary. My words were these,-" which in our sense is most true, if he understand a just law and a free rational will;" and then I added further, that the law which he understandeth, is a most unjust law, and the will which is intended by him, an irrational necessitated will. Where did he learn to take that for granted, which is positively denied? He saith indeed, if the reader could trust him, that he hath "shewed that no law can be unjustk." But I expect arguments, not his own authority, which I value not. He neither "hath shewed," that all laws are just, nor ever will be able to shew it, until the Greek Calends. Likewise, where he seemeth not to understand what "the rational will" is', I do think there is scarcely any one author, who did ever write upon this subject, but he hath this distinction between the rational and the sensitive appetite; and hath, particularly, made this main difference between them, that the rational appetite is free, but the sensitive appetite is necessary. If he alone will not understand that which is so evident and universally received by all scholars, it is no great matter. possibili just. It is as unjust to command a man to do that which is To com"impossible" for man to do, as to command him 'contradic- mand imtionsm. This silly evasion will not serve his turn. Those ties is unthings are said to be impossible to us in themselves, which are not made impossible to us by our own defaults. And 805 those things which we make impossible by our defaults, are not impossible in themselves. Those impossibilities, and only those, which we by our defaults have made, may lawfully be III. PART punished. Where he confesseth, that "law makers, not knowing the secret necessities of things to come," do "sometimes enjoin things that are made impossible from eternity"," it cometh every way short of the truth. First, in limiting it to human "law makers," who only know not the necessities of things to come; for my argument,-that law which commandeth impossibilities is an unjust law,-doth hold as well of God's law as of man's law: not that we believe any law of God can be unjust, God forbid; but to demonstrate to him undeniably, that all those things which he conceiveth to be impossible from eternity, are not impossible from eternity, because the contrary is commanded from God, and God never commandeth impossibilities. Secondly, he cometh short of the truth in this also, that he saith human law-givers "do sometimes enjoin impossibilities;" for, by his leave, upon his grounds, they do always enjoin either absolute impossibilities or absolute necessities, both which are equally ridiculous. Lastly, whereas I argued thus, if the will of man be determined by God without the will of man, "then it is not man's will, but God's will," he denieth my "consequence," because "it may be both God's will and man's will." I answer, it is God's will effectively, because He maketh it necessarily, and subjectively, because He willeth it; but upon his grounds, it is the will of man only subjectively, because he is necessitated to will it, but not effectively, because he had no hand in the production of it; and therefore, how faulty soever it may be, yet it cannot be imputed to man. Concerning his instance in a civil judge;— [T. H.'s instance of a civil judge.] First, I shewed that it was "impertinent;" because "neither is a civil judge the judge of sin, nor the law of the land the rule of sin." To my reasons he answereth nothing in particular; but in general, that whereas I "said," that "the law cannot justly punish a crime that proceedeth from necessity, it was no impertinent answer to say, that the judge looketh no higher than the will of the doers." Here are so many imperfections, that I scarcely know where to begin. First, I never "said that the law cannot justly punish a crime that II. proceedeth from necessity;" I always said, and do still say, DISCOURSE that if it be antecedently necessitated, it is no crime, either punishable or unpunishable. Secondly, he did make the civil judge to be the judge of sin, and the law of the land to be the rule of sin, in express terms;-" a judge, in judging whether it be sin or not, which is done against the law"." Thirdly, that will which the law and the judge do regard, is not his brutish necessitated irrational appetite, but our free rational will, after deliberation determined intrinsecally by the agent himself. against his tinction, not free to Secondly, I shewed, that his instance in a civil judge was Yet further against himself; because "this which he saith, that 'the judge silly dislooketh no higher than the will of the doer,' doth prove that free to do the will of the doer did determine itself freely, and that the if he will, malefactor had liberty to have kept the law if he would." To will. this he answers, that "it proveth indeed that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law if he would, but it proveth not that he had the liberty [to have a will] to keep the law." Hath not this silly senseless distinction been canvassed sufficiently yet, but it must once more appear upon the stage? Agreed. Thus I argue.-First, if "the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law if he would," then the malefactor had liberty to have contradicted the absolute will of God, if he would; then he had liberty to have changed the unalterable decrees of God, if he would: but he had not liberty to have contradicted the absolute will of God, if he would; he had not liberty to have changed the unalterable decrees of God, if he would. The assumption is so evident, that it were great shame to question it. The consequence is as clear as the sun. For, upon Mr. Hobbes his grounds, it was the absolute will of God, and the unalterable decree of God, that the malefactor should do as he did, and not do otherwise. And, therefore, if the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law, and to have done otherwise if he would, he had liberty to have contradicted the will of God, and to have changed the decree of God, if he would. But this is too absurd. Secondly, to have "liberty to have kept the law if he would," III. PART implieth necessarily a conditional possibility. But the will of God and the decree of God, that the malefactor should do 806 as he did and not keep the law, implieth an absolute impossibility. Now, it is a rule in logic, that "impossibile habet in se vim adverbii universaliter negantis"-" an impossibility hath the force of an universal negative." But an universal negative and a particular affirmative are contradictory:—that it was impossible for the malefactor to have kept the law, and yet he had liberty to have kept the law if he would. There is not the least starting hole for him, through which he can endeavour to creep out of this contradiction, but by making this supposition-" if he would"—to signify nothing; and to affirm, that it was equally impossible for the malefactor to will otherwise and to do otherwise. Then see what a pretty liberty he hath left us, even a mere impossibility. If the sky fall, then we shall catch larks. Observe further the vanity of this distinction, between "liberty to do if we will," and "liberty to will;" when both the one liberty and the other are equally impossible, upon his own grounds. And yet, with this mock liberty, which signifieth nothing, he is fain to answer all the texts of Scripture which are brought against him, and all the absurdities which are heaped upon him. Lastly, to say a man is free to do any thing if he will, implieth that he hath power enough, and there is nothing wanting to the doing of it but his will. Otherwise, if there be not power enough to do it (as in this case upon his grounds there is not), it is as ridiculous to say, a malefactor was free to have kept the law if he would, as to say, a man is free to jump over the sea if he will, or to fly in the air if he will. Of monsters. Yet still he saith, the will of the malefactor "did not determine itself"." Then, by his own confession, the malefactor had the more wrong, to be punished for that which was unavoidably and irresistibly imposed upon him. If the malefactor was necessitated from God by an essential determination of extrinsecal causes, both to will as he did and to do as he did, he was no more a malefactor than his judge. I have no reason to "retract" any one syllable of what I said concerning monsters; but he had need to retract his ordinary |