and (3.) about which there is ground for consultation and deliberation. Seeing then, (i.) necessarium est quod non potest aliter se habere, that only is necessary to be done one way which cannot be done otherwise;' and that which is thus necessary cannot be free, because that only is so which may be done otherwise. (ii.) Seeing that is not in our power to omit which we are determined to do, nor is it in our power to do that which we are determined to omit; if that be only free which it is in our power to do, or not to do; that evil which through the fall we are determined to do, or that omission of good we are necessitated to; and that good which by the divine influx we are necessitated or determined to perform, cannot be free; and so can neither be blame-worthy nor rewardable. And (iii.) Seeing there can be no rational consultation or deliberation about those things which antecedently are either necessary or impossible; and so when persons are infrustrably determined to one, that one thing becomes necessary, and any other thing is thereby made to them impossible; they who are only free in matters about which they can reasonably consult and deliberate, cannot act freely in those things which they are thus determined to do, or not do. Moreover all consultation and deliberation is in order to choice and election: Now choice, or election, in the very nature of it, is of more than one; but there can be no choice of more than one in him who is determined to one, and so a consequent election cannot consist with an antecedent determination to one. If therefore the divine grace in man's conversion unfrustrably determines him to one; or if the disability contracted by the fall determines men to chuse that which is evil only, and to omit that which is truly good; both these determinations must take away the freedom of men's actions, at least as far as they are worthy of praise or dispraise, of reward or punishment. For,

First. Either the divine influx leaves men room to chuse to turn to God, or it doth not: if it doth not, they do not chuse to turn to God when they are thus converted: if it doth, it cannot unfrustrably determine them to turn to him, because it leaves it to their choice whether they will turn or not. disability determines lapsed man to what is to the omission of what is truly good, or it doth not so: if it doth not so, it leaves him an ability to do good: if it doth not, he

Again, either this evil only, and so

cannot properly be said to chuse not to do good. In a word, when God calls, invites, and exhorts him to chuse the thing that is good, and to learn to do well; when he attempts by threatenings to affright him from continuance in his evil ways, and by his promises to allure and to incite him to return unto him; are not these things designed to engage him to consider of, and attend to, God's exhortations; to consult and deliberate how he may avoid the evils threatened, and obtain the blessings promised? But if they lie under an utter disability of doing what is spiritually good, and so of obtaining the blessings promised, to what purpose should they deliberate about it? To what purpose should they consider how they may avoid the evil that they do? I conclude therefore this argument with that which Gennadius" delivers as the doctrine of the church of God, that "though man by the fall hath lost, vigorem arbitrii, the vigour of his free-will,' non tamen electionem, ne non esset suum quod evitaret peccatum, nec merito indulgeretur quod non arbitrio diluisset; yet hath he not lost his choice, lest it should not be of his choice that he avoided sin, nor should that be accounted to him for reward which he did not freely put away:' manet ergo ad quærendam salutem arbitrii libetas, sed admonente prius Deo et invitante; there remains therefore yet to fallen man a freedom of will to seek after his salvation, though God must first admonish and invite him so to do'."

III. ARGUMENT THIRD. Le Blanc adds, (ibid.) that all the actions which proceed freely from us may be subject to a command, and by the law of God or man may be enjoined or forbidden; but this cannot agree to those acts, circa quos voluntas immutabiliter se habet, in which the will is so immutably determined that it never can or could do otherwise.' So that if this be the case of lapsed man, his sin cannot proceed freely from him, and so cannot be reasonably forbidden; for as St. Austin' saith, peccati teneri reum quempiam quia non fecit id quod facere non potuit, summæ iniquitatis et insania est, it is the height of madness and injustice to hold any person guilty because he did not that which he could not do;' as will be farther evident even from the essential condition of a law, viz. that it be just; those laws being certainly unjust which prohibit that under a penalty which a man cannot

possibly shun, or require that which cannot possibly be done by him of whom it is required. greater still is the injustice. of wisdom and right reason; possibilities can never be required reasonably or wisely. Quis enim non clamet stultum esse, præcepta ei dare cui liberum non est quod præcipitur facere? For who,' saith St. Austin, 'will not pronounce it folly, to command him who is not free to do what is commanded?' (2.) Just laws are instituted for the publick good, and God hath made this declaration concerning his own precepts, that he commands them for our good; but that law which prescribes impossibilities under a penalty upon non-performance, cannot be instituted for the publick good, but rather for the greatest evil to the generality of mankind, who are said to be left to the defect and disability of their own wills. (3.) Good laws do shew to a man what is to be done by him, and what is to be shunned; but those laws which prescribe what cannot be done or avoided, cannot direct a man to what he is to do, or what he is to shun. And, indeed, who feels not the truth of those words of St. Austin, d iniquum esse eum damnare cui non fuit potestas jussa complere, 'that it is unjust to condemn him as disobedient, who hath no power to obey,' or to punish men for doing evil, though they lie under a necessity of doing it, only because they do it willingly, seeing they must do it willingly, if they do it at all; because they must first will to do it, and so it is as necessary for them to be willing, as it is to do it?

And the greater is the penalty, the For, (1.) just laws are the ordinances whereas that which commands im

IV. ARGUMENT FOURTH. If wicked men be not necessitated to do the evil that they do, or to neglect the good they do neglect, then have they freedom from necessity in both these cases; and if they be thus necessitated, then neither their sins of omission or commission could deserve that name; it being essential to the nature of sin, according to St. Austin's definition of it, that it be an action, à quo liberum est abstinere, from which the sinner might abstain.' Three things seem plainly necessary to make an action or omission culpable, (1,) that it be in our power to perform or to forbear it; for as Origen, and all the Fathers, say, ἐδεἰς ἀδύνατον μὴ ποιήσας ψεκτός ἐςι, ' no man is blame-worthy for

e

not doing what he could not do.' (2.) That we be obliged to perform, or to forbear it; for where there is no obligation, there can be no transgression. (3.) That we omit that which we ought to have done, or do that which we ought not to have done; now seeing nemo tenetur ad impossibile, no man can be obliged to what is to him impossible,' it cannot truly be affirmed that any man ought to do what he never had the power to do, or to leave undone that which he could not shun, for then there would be no place for expostulation, for chiding or reprehending men on these accounts, seeing they could not help it. O Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean? When shall it once be?' saith God,-to what purpose, if by the fall they were disabled even from being willing so to be? I will destroy,' saith he, my people, sith they return not from their evil ways;' s; "why," might they answer, "O thou ," " righteous God, was it ever in our power to turn from them, or "convert ourselves? When, Lord? Was it in our father Adam "before his fall? Then, sure, we did not need to be converted. "Or was it after this fall? Alas! then were we utterly disabled "from doing this without that special grace thou hast not yet "been pleased to vouchsafe." "OJerusalem, how oft,' saith Christ, 'would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! And again, you will not come unto me that ye might have life." "How could we help it?" might they truly answer, provided they were disabled both from coming, and from being willing so to do.

h

CHAP. IV.

Shewing the affinity of the opinions of our adversaries concerning liberty, with that of Mr. Hobbes; and with the fate of the philosophers, condemned by the christian Fathers.

THE peculiar notions of Mr. Hobbes, and of those who concur with him in these opinions, (that "our liberty is well consistent with necessity, as being only a power to do what we will, though we lie under a necessity to have that will; and that it is sufficient that we chuse to do what we do, though we lie under a necessity, if we chuse at all, to chuse as we do,")

f Jeremiah xiii, 27. g Jeremiah xv, 7. h Luke xiii, 34.

i John v. 40.

lie under this considerable disadvantage, that they were universally condemned by all christians for the first four centuries, who asserted, that a liberty from necessity was a Fundamental Prinple, without which there was no place for vice or virtue, praise or dispraise, rewards or punishments, heaven or hell, but an introduction of Stoical fate; confuting that and Manicheism, and other heresies, on this very account, that they destroyed the liberty of man's will, and left them under a necessity and a determination to one. I therefore shall endeavour to shew,

FIRST. That there is a plain agreement betwixt the doctrine of Mr. Hobbes, and of these men, concerning this matter, as to the great concernments of religion.

SECONDLY. That their opinion differs very little, and in things only of little moment, from the Stoical fate, and lies obnoxious to the same absurdities which the philosophers and christians did object against it.

THIRDLY. That their doctrine hath been condemned by all the primitive christians for the first four centuries. And

FOURTHLY. That St. Austin, who first introduced the contrary doctrine, is forced by it to contradict his former self, to renounce what he had said in confutation of the Manichees; is unable to answer his own arguments; and falleth into manifest absurdities. And,

1. FIRST. That there is a manifest agreement betwixt their opinion and that of Mr. Hobbes will be evident from an exact comparison of their words together. Mr. Hobbes then asserts,

First. That "though the will be necessitated, yet the doing what we will is liberty;" which is perfectly the same with their assertion, that "the liberty of the will consists not in a freedom from necessity, but only in a freedom from co-action or compulsion."

Secondly. That "he who takes away the liberty of doing according to our will, taketh away the nature of sin; but he that denies the liberty to will, doth not do so. And do not they say this, who teach that "though fallen man is become so far a slave to sin, that whatever he does he cannot but sin; yet that necessity of

z 'Exéolov, quod est liberum potest consistere cum ἀναΓκαίῳ, sed non cum ακεσίῳ. Ursin

1 Bramh, Cast. p. 803.