SECT. II. The common Notions of Liberty are not from School Divines, but from Nature.
IN the first lines of his Book he seems to denounce War against Mankind, endeavouring to overthrow the principle of Liberty in which God created us, and which includes the chief advantages of the life we enjoy, as well as the greatest helps towards the felicity, that is the end of our hopes in the other. To this end he absurdly imputes to the School Divines that which was taken up by them as a common notion, written in the heart of every Man, denied by none, but such as were degenerated into Beasts, from whence they might prove such. Points as of themselves were less evident. Thus did Eu∣clid lay down certain Axioms, which none could deny that did not renounce common Sense, from whence he drew the proofs of such Propositions as were less obvious to the Understanding; and they may with as much reason be accused of Paganism, who say that the whole is greater than a part, that two halfs make the whole, or that a streight Line is the shortest way from Point to Point, as to say, that they who in Politicks lay such Foundations, as have been taken up by Schoolmen and others as undeniable Truths, do therefore follow them, or have any regard to their Authority. Tho the Schoolmen were corrupt, they were neither stupid nor unlearned: They could not but see that which all men saw, nor lay more approved Foundati∣ons, than, That Man is naturally free; That he cannot justly be de∣prived of that Liberty without cause, and that he doth not resign it, or any part of it, unless it be in consideration of a greater good, which he proposes to himself. But if he doth unjustly impute the invention of this to School Divines, he in some measure repairs his Fault in saying, This hath been fostered by all succeeding Papists for good Divi∣nity: The Divines of the Reformed Churches have entertained it, and the Common People every where tenderly embrace it. That is to say, all Christian Divines, whether Reformed or Unreformed, do approve it, and the People every where magnify it, as the height of human