Castigations of the Animad∣versions, Num. 22.

HE cannot imagine how the question, Whe∣ther * outward objects do necessitate or not necessitate the will; can any way be re∣ferred to moral Philosophy. That is his fault. If the objects do necessitate the will, they take away both virtue and vice; that is, moral good and moral evil, which consist in pre-election, and cannot stand with antecedent necessitation to one. To reform his errour, let him consult with Aristotle. Those things that are fair and pleasant do seem to be violent after a sort, because being without us, * they move and necessitate Agents to act with their beauty and delight; but it is not so. What he addeth that the Principles of moral philoso∣phy are the laws, is an absurd supposititious ob∣trusion of the municipal law, in place of the law of right reason, which errour hath for∣merly been sufficiently refelled. And to his horse that is lame from some cause that was not in his power; I answer, That the lamenesse is a natural or accidental defect in the horse; but Page  293 to instance in an horse as a fit subject of virtue or vice, is a moral defect in him. If he de∣sire to speak to the purpose, he must leave such impertinencies.

In the next Animadversion, I meet with * nothing but a meer sawing of the wind, or an altercation about nothing. All the differ∣ence between him and me is, concerning an antecedent necessity, but of a necessity of consequence, that when a thing is produced it must necessarily be so as it is, there can be no∣question between us. He himself confesseth as much, If the Bishop think that I hold no other ne * cessity than that which is expressed in that old foolish rule [VVhatsoever is, when it is, is ne∣cessarily so as it is,] he understandeth me not: And he confesseth that the necessity which he maintaineth is, an antecedent necessity, de∣rived from the beginning of time. And yet ne∣verthelesse, * a great part of that altercation which he makes in these Animadversions, is about such a necessity. Socrates confesseth that naturally he had vitious inclinations. This is no more than a proclinity to evil. If by his own condescension he fall into sin, this is but an hypothetical necessity, yet he ma∣keth it an antecedent necessity. Socrates by his good indeavours reformeth his vitious propensions, and acquireth the contrary ha∣bits or virtues. This is but an hyothetical necessity, yet he pretendeth it to be antece∣dent. Lastly, Socrates by the help of these Page  294 habits which he himself had acquired, doth freely do virtuous actions. Still here is no ne∣cessity but consequents, and still he pretend∣eth to Antecedent. Either (saith he) these ha∣bits do necessitate the will, or the will followeth not. If these habits or somewhat else do not ne∣cessitate the will, it may follow freely. But saith he, If they do onely facilitate men to do such acts, then what they do they do not. I deny his consequence, acquired habits are not solitary, but social and adjuvant causes of virtuous actions.

His next errour is yet more grosse, making the person of the Preacher, and not the sound * of his voice, to be the object of hearing: Adding, that the Preachers voice is the same thing with the hearing, and a phansie of the hearer. Thus (as commonly their errours spring from confusion) he confoundeth the images of sounds with sounds themselves. What then is the report of a Canon, or the sound of a Trumpet turned to a meer phansie? By the same reason he may say, that the Prea∣cher himself is nothing but a meer phansie: There is as much ground for the one as for the other. If he go on in this manner, he will move me beyond smiling, to laugh out∣right. In what sense the object of sight is the cause of sight, and in what sense it is not the cause of sight, I have shewed distinctly. Here he setteth down another great paradox, as he himself stileth it out of gallantry, That in all Page  295 the sens•… the object is the Agent. If he had not said the Agent, which signifieth either the sole Agent, or the Principal Agent, but onely an Agent, we had accorded so far. But the Principal Agent in all the senses is the crea∣ture indowed with sense, or the sensitive soul perceiving and judging of the object by the proper Organ. The Preachers voice and the Auditos hearing have two distinct subjects, otherwise speaking should be hearing, and hearing speaking. I conclude this Castiga∣tion with the authority of as good a Philoso∣pher as himself, That it is ridiculous to think * external things either fair or delightful to be the causes of humane actions, and not rather him who is easily taken with such objects.

In the later part of this Animadversion his errours are greater, and more dangerous * than in the former. He affirmeth that the will is produced, generated, and formed, in such sort as accidents are effected in a corporeal subject; and yet it (the will) cannot be moved. As if generation, and augmentation, and alteration, were not kinds of motion or mutation. But the last words, because it goeth not from place to place, do shew plainly, that he acknowledgeth no motion but local motion. What no other natural motion but onely local motion? no metaphorical motion? that were strange. We read in holy Scripture of those who have been moved with fear, moved with envy, moved with compassion, moved with choler, moved by Page  296 the Holy Ghost. In all these there is no local motion. Outward persuasives, inward sug∣gestions, are all motions. God moveth a man to good by his preventing grace. The devil moveth a man to sinne by his temptations. There are many kinds of motions, besides moving from place to place. He himself con∣fesseth in this Section that we are moved to prayer by outward objects.

In the next place, supposing there were no * other motions than local motions, yet he er∣reth in attributing no motion to any thing but bodies. The reasonable soul is moved accidentally, according to the motion of the body. The Angels are spirits or spiritual substances, no bodies, by his leave, and yet move locally from place to place. Jacob sees the Angels of God ascending and descending. The Angels came and ministred unto Christ; The Angels shall gather the elect from the one end of Heaven to the other. The soul of Lazarus was born by the Angels into Abra∣hams bosom. God sent his Angel to deliver Peter out of prison, and every where useth his Angels as ministring spirits.

Thirdly, he erreth in this also, That no∣thing * can move, that is not moved it self. If he mean that all power to move is from God, he speaketh truly, but impertinently: But if he mean (as he must mean if he mean sense) that nothing moveth which is not moved of some second cause, he speaketh untruly. The Page  297 Angels move themselves; all living creatures do move themselves by animal motion. The inanimate creatures do move themselves, heavy bodies descending downwards, light bodies ascending upwards, according to their own natures. And therefore nature is de∣fined to be an internal cause or principle of mo∣tion and rest, &c. And even they who held that whatsoever is moved is moved by ano∣ther, did limit it to natural bodies, and make the form to be the mover in natural motion, and the soul in animal motion.

His last errour in this Animadversion (and a dangerous one,) is, That it is not truly said, * that acts or habits are infused by God, for infusion is motion, and nothing is moved but bodies. I wish for his own quiet and other mens, that he were as great an enemy to errours and in∣novations, as he is to metaphors and distin∣ctions. Affectation of words is not good, but contention about words is worse. By such an argument a man might take away all Zones and Zodiack in Astronomy, Modes and Figures in Logick, Cones and Cylindres in Geometry; for all these are borrowed termes, as infusion is. What Logician almost doth not distinguish between acquired habits and infused habits? If all infusion be of bo∣dies, then he never infused any paradoxical principles into his Auditours. When any difference doth arise about expressions, the onely question is, Whether there be any Page  298 ground in nature for such an expression. He himself telleth us, That faith and repentance are the gifts of God. To say they are the gifts of God, and to say they are infused by God is the same thing, saving that to say they are infused by God, is a more distinct, and a more significant expression. I hope he will not controle the language of the Holy Ghost, I will powre out my spirit upon all flesh. No, * (saith T. H.) that cannot be, nothing can be powred out but bodies. Saint Peter telleth us otherwise, This Iesus being exalted by the * right hand of God, hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. That was the gift of tongues, an act or habit infused. That which was shed forth or effused on Gods part, was infused on their part. So saith Saint Paul, The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts * by the Holy Ghost: Again, He saveth us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the * Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the word is still the same, signifying an effusion from God, and an infusion into us. All those graces freely given which were infused by the Holy Ghost, and are recited by the Apostle to the * Corinthians, are either permanent Habits, or transient Acts.

In the remainder of this Section, is contain∣ed nothing but relapses, and repetitions of his former Paradoxical errours, still confound∣ing the intellectual will, with the sensitive ap∣petite, Page  299 Liberty with Spontaneity, the Faculty of the will, with the Act of willing, the liber∣ty of reasonable Creatures, with the liberty of mad men and fools. Before he told us, * That he that can do what he will, hath no liberty at all. Now he telleth us of the liberty of doing what we will, in those things we are able to do, Before he limitted the power by the will, now he limitteth the will by the power. I affirmed most truely, That liberty is dimi∣nished by vitious habits; which he saith can∣not be unnderstood otherwise, then that vitious habits make a man lesse free to do vitious actions. There is little doubt but he would expound it so, if he were my Interpreter. But my sense and my scope is evident to the con∣trary, that vitious habits make a man lesse free to do virtuous actions. He will take notice of no difference between the liber∣ty of a man, and the bias of a bowl.

Yet in the midst of all these mistakes and Paradoxes, he hath not forgotten his old Thrasonicall humour. Where I say liberty is in more danger to be abused, than to be lost; he telleth me, It is a meer shift to be thought not licenced. I had not thought him such a dangerous Adversary, metuent omnes jam te, nec immerito, well, if it be a shift, it is such a shift as all conscionable men do find by experience to be true. And for his silencing of men, impavidum ferient ruinae. I do not fear silencing by him, except his arguments Page  300 have some occult quality, more than he or I dream of. If a fish could speak, a fish would not be silenced by him in this cause.