The Freedom of the Will, Part 1 · Subpart 1
A DISCOURSE OF THE Freedome of the Will. The FIRST PART.
CONTAINING The Definition of the Free-will in question, and the Arguments opposed to it.
Libertas est facultas ejus quod cui que facere libet (ut Romani definiunt) faith Grotius upon Genesis. This is liberty to do that which we like to do. Liking is from likeness. Nihil est, quod ad se rem ullam tam alliciat, tam attrahat, quàm ad amicitiam similitudo (saith Cicero.) Nothing so allures, and so attracts, as similitude and likeness doth to liking and to love. Liking then is founded in the nature and harmony of each essence. Every thing moves, and rests freely, at liberty, when it moves and rests according to its own nature, according to the harmony of its own essence.
Zeno defines liberty to be foreign, a power of selfacting. The Philosopher defines nature to be the principle of motion and rest there, where it is foreign, and not foreign, by it self, and not by accident. Our nature is our true-self. Then have we the power of self-acting, when we move and rest according to our own natures, being acted in them by our own natural and essential Principles.
We meet with this Rule often in Aquinas, Vnumquod que operatur prout est; Every thing acts as it is. The being or nature of each thing is the Root, and the Rule of its operation.
By these things which I have spoken, two marks present themselves to us, to guide us in our judgment of liberty.
1. Liberty is a relation or harmony between the essence or nature of each thing, and its operations.
2. According to the Orders and Degrees of Being, are the Orders and Degrees of Liberty.
According to these two Marks, we shall find a two-fold measure of Liberty:
1. The Principle.
2. The Sphere of Activity.
I shall then upon this ground distinguish liberty into a four-fold Order:
1. The freedome of the Elements and Coelestial Bodies.
2. The freedome of Plants.
3. The freedome of brnit Creatures.
4. The freedome of intellectual Agents.
1. The freedome of the Elements and Coelestial Bodies consisteth in that motion and rest, which is generally esteemed and stiled simply natural. The principle of their motion and rest, is nature guiding their motions and rests, in the figure of Divine motions and rests (their invisible Patterns and Originals,) either by way of instinct, or by the assistance of intelligences, (as the Peripateticks Schools assert) or informed by Intellectual, Angelical, Divine Souls, (as the Academy teacheth.)
The sphere of their motion and rest is their own proper place, Adaequate to their Dimensions. They move and rest naturally within themselves. This is their liberty. Such also is their liberty in their parts and mixtures, which also being by violence carried out of their proper places, naturally tend to them by a simple motion in a strait line.
This is the first Order in the liberty of things, a liberty from outward force or constraint, with a confinement to a single simple motion and rest, at least in their material and corporeal part.
Thus the Peripateticks make the Spheres of the Elements the first and lowest order of Corporeal substances and compleat being, confining them to Forms meerly natural, and in a manner allowing them only single and simple local motion. After the same manner also they circumscribe the Coelestial Spheres, giving them only this two-fold preheminence,
1. One of a fifth essence, compounded of a distinct matter and form.
2. The other of assisting forms, or intelligences moving them.
With these their grounds agreeth the Ptolemaiical System. But (as before I toucht) the ancient Academy sets these spheres of the world in a higher rank, attributing to them, foreign, making them rational Beings, Angels, Gods. Copernicus also sets them at liberty, altering the whole design of their local motions, and inlarging them to a greater variety.
2. In the second place, is the liberty of Plants, which is a vital liberty. The principle of their motion and rest, is animate, a vegetative Soul, which hath in it self a variety of formal Acts or Virtues, according to which it formeth to it self an Organical body, composed of differing parts, framed to be proper Instruments for the diversity of these vital Acts. In like manner doth this soul of the plant put forth it self into diversity of motions in its proper body; yet are all these motions confined to the body of the plant it self, or to a very narrow sphere round about it.
The plant also it self is fixt by its root in one place, and immoveable there: The Ratio seminalis, the seminal harmony, which is the essential form, and the proper soul of the plant (as it is a vegetative soul) gives measure both to the principle of motion in the plant, and to the sphere or compass of its motion, being thus the ground and bound of this vital liberty.
This seminal harmony is the contracted and fainter off-spring of the imaginative form, as those are freer, clearer, livelier Births and Images of rational forms, which are the living pictures of the intellectual and essential Ideas;
either
In superiour Souls, or
In superiour parts of the same Soul.
These intellectual Ideas or essences, are also rich and ample streams of light and life, flowing from their Divine Unities and springs in the supream eternal Unity, the first seat and head of all liberty.
3. The liberty of bruit Creatures hath the third place; this is the liberty of sense. The principle of this liberty, is the sensitive soul, which hath its chief seat in the imagination. Here is the amplitude of its Kingdom, and the power of its Rule. This being immediately subordinate to the rational intellectual power, is that Sea whence all the springs and streams of the inferior and outward senses (as of the local motions) go forth, and into which they again flow with all their force and efficacy. Here they are united, here they have their various mixtures, here they have their greatest amplitude and heightning. The motions here are no more fixed in one place, nor confined to the compass of their own proper Subject, but enlarge themselves after their several manner, according to the amplitude of the object of sense, which is the whole Corporeal world.
There are indeed divers ranks of sensitive Creatures, which have divers degrees of liberty.
1. Some are confined to particular Elements.
2. Others have the liberty of distinct Elements.
All that are perfect in the order of sensitive being, agree in this; that they have the liberty of progressive motion, of motion from place to place, variously, according to the variety of their appetites, governed by the ample light of their imaginations.
This chiefest freedom of sense is placed in the imagination, this being the first and highest faculty of the sensitive Soul, where it is in its perfection, is as ample as the universal object of sense, the whole Corporeal world. Some Philosophers teach us, That the imagination is the immediate former of this universal Image, which comprehends all corporeity, the visible Heavens and Earth, in it self. Others, that it hath a commanding power upon this universal Image, and all the parts of it, having the force of all magick in its self, to alter the motions of the heavenly bodies, and the Constitutions of the Elements. This is more universally understood, that it not only takes in and enjoys the sensitive forms of all the objects of sense, uniting and varying them according to its own pleasure, but also that it espouseth in it self the spiritual and corporeal world to each other, receiving the impressions, the similitudes, the illapses of the invisible Glories as the Originals into their sensitive Image, and heightning the sensitive Image to a greatness and glory above it self by this communion with its invisible patterns.
The sensitive appetite hath an inseparable conjunction with and conformity to the imagination. They mutually influence, excite, and govern each other. They have both objects of equal extent. The good of the sensitive being (which is the object of its appetite) is not only the preservation of its own being, but its pleasure and proper happiness in the fruition of the sensitive forms of things, which fruition is compleated in the imagination.
4. The liberty of intellectual beings, is the utmost point of liberty, comprehending in the general nature of it, God as the Original, and Angels and Men as the immediate, immortal, clearest, compleatest Copies of that Original. This is properly the liberty of Spirits, of the Father of Spirits, and of the Sons of the eternal Spirit. The ground of this liberty is the Divine essence, and the Divine Image of that essence. The sphere or compass of this liberty is being it self in its greatest extent, in its first, highest, and most universal form with all its unbounded self-bounding varieties, and in its descent into all forms of things, figuring or shadowing it self upon them, filling them with it self.
Thus the Schools teach us, That ens quà ens, est objectum intellectus. Being it self in all its fulnesses and forms under the formality of truth (that is, in its own most proper, formal, and essential Image, which is beauty it self) the beauty of truth; the truth of beauty in all its riches and varieties) is the proper object of the understanding, adaequately suited to it, its entertainment, its food and feast, its light and life which actuates it, its perfection which determines it and compleats it in its proper form and essence. It is an acknowledged Maxim, That good is the object of the will. All things desire good. Good is the object of every appetite, natural; and sensitive also. But these are particular goods, proper to those particular Orders of Being; the mark to which the rational appetite directs it self (the Firmament, in the face of which this Dove with its wide-spread-wings flyes) is the Heaven of the first and universal Good, as it comprehends within its embraces all inferiour goods.
Thus the Will hath the freedome of all good before it, a freedome for all good in its self, an essential suitableness, inclination, and capacity to good, absolutely as good. The soul of man hath a three-fold liberty, the liberty of its Essence, Understanding, and Will.
1. The liberty of its Essence, is the fulness of Being, All Being in the highest, amplest, and most substantial Image, next to the Original it self, the Divine Essence. For it is the immediate birth of the Supream Original, its darling and best beloved Child, although it be the younger Brother to those Sons of God, the Angels; yet is it as Isaac to Ismael, and Jacob to Esau, their Lord, the Heir of all; the Nursling of the Angels, while it is in its minority, for whom they are made to be ministring Spirits to it. So hath the soul of man (as an intellectual Spirit) all things in its own essence, within it self, the supream and eternal Being in its fairest and fullest Image beneath it self, all inferior Beings, fairer and fuller then they are in themselves; as the Face in the Glasse excels a Picture, or as a Statue exactly framed in Gold or Marble excels the shadow cast from that Statue.
2. The Soul, or intellectual Spirit, hath a liberty of understanding. Here it is a clear and spacious light, the immediate lustre and outshining of the Supream Light unconfined; like to that, as the clearest and compleatest Copy of it, next to it self. In this Light it freely contemplateth all forms of things above it, beneath it, of the same order with it; all are present before it, it comprehends them all within its own circle. In the same Image of it self, in which it contemplateth it self, it freely and unconfinedly rangeth in the midst of them; taking in their various beauties distinctly, and all their beauties (with their most delightful proportions and harmonies) united in one: at its pleasure, freely doth it put on all these beautiful forms, the truths and essences of all things, being made all things in their truest and conpleatest beauties, both distinctly and unitedly. So it appears to it self in the sweetness, beauty, reality, truth of each form, each figure of the Divine truth and beauty apart. So it appears to it self in the unconfined sweetness, beauty, majesty of the forms, the truths of all things united in one. This, with unexpressible delights it looketh upon as its own proper and compleat Image 5 in this it beholdeth all scenes of things at once within it self, it seeth it self in all persons, and shapes with the beautiful dresses of Divine truths, acting all parts in the most beautiful harmony with the Divine truth it self in its eternal Original. In all it enjoyeth within it self the truth of reality, of distinction, of unity, as in the highest Copy; and the life-picture of the supream life it self, far above all other Copies.
This Aristotle expresseth to us, when he teacheth us this Lesson, foreign, The understanding is made all things. This also we learn from him, and his Followers, That the understanding alone doth touch, take in, embrace the essences of things, while all that presents it self below the understanding to the senses, is only a various combination of accidents and shadows. So also we learn from Plato's School, That foreign, the Understanding, is the Son of God, the Word of God, the first and most substantial expression of the Divine Unity, with all its incomprehensible fulness, next to the Divine Unity it self. This is in that School the only Seat of the Essences, and the essential truths of all things. Beneath it, in the discourses of reason, are the forms of these Essences, as lively Pictures without; in the senses the shadows only. Agreeable to this also doth the sense of the sacred Scriptures seem to be, which maketh man that similitude and Image, in which God with all his holy Angels, in all created forms of things, unite, center, and terminate, as the end and perfection of all. Upon this ground is the second Person of the Trinity, the Godhead in its essential Image, as the most adaequate Image of it self, most answering, and most suited to it self, and so fittest for the most perfect Union with it self, as of the proper and most immediate Image with its own proper Idea.
3. The liberty of the Will is equal to, and ariseth from this liberty of the Understanding. The Understanding, as the eye of the Soul, first feasteth upon the beauties presented to it in the truths of things, and so inviteth the will as the mouth of the Spirit, to tast the sweetness and goodness of them. The good of all these forms and essential truths, is that which St. Peter calls the sincere milk of the living Word. It is peculiarly the Divinity, that of the Original and Supream Unity, which is in them. The nature of good is defined by a sutableness or agreeableness. This hath its root in an unity. All things that agree, agree in aliquo tertio. The agreement of things, is their meeting in an unity. The Soul in its essence is the most complete and immediate Image of the Divine Unity, in which all varieties of things lie virtually and eminently, as in their first spring. The understanding, and all forms or truths of things in the understanding, are the effulgency of this Divine Unity, with all its varieties contained in it, as they shine forth in the essence of the Soul, and so become the reflexions of it self upon it self, and as the highest figure of the eternal Son of God, the brightness of its own glory to it self. Thus the essence of the Soul, and the essential Images of all truths of things, according to their Divine beauties in the Soul, have an essential sutableness and agreeableness to each other; from that two-fold unity, their unity in their Original, their unity in their own proper form, as it is the Image of that Original. The essential inclination of the Soul to these forms of Being, and Images of the Divinity (and to the Divinity it self in these Images) presented to the Soul by their essential truths in their understanding, is that power which we call the Will. The sutableness and agreeableness of these forms of things to the Will: The foreign (and so more principally the Divine Unity in them, the root and life of this agreeableness) is the good, which is the Object of this inclination, the Will of the intellectual Spirit.
Love is defined the union of the Lover, and the Beloved. The will, as it is an essential inclination to its Object; the good (shining forth in its proper Image, and beautiful forms of truth in the understanding) is love it self, the essential love of the Soul. The Soul in this essential power, which we call the Will, is the Lover. This is that which Plotinus seemeth to mean, when discoursing of the Soul, he The same in the Arg. of Kleg.saith, That every Soul comes forth with a Cupid, or love proper to it, and inseparable from it. It is commonly known, that the Soul is represented by Venus (the Queen of Beauty, and the Mother of Love) the Daughter of Jupiter, of Jehovah. As the intellectual Soul is the …enus, so is this essential inclination of the Soul to good (which is its will) the Cupid or Love born of it, and born with it, inseparable from it.
As is the intellectual Spirit, so is its Will or Love; the highest and loveliest Image of the first Spirit, and the first Love: so hath it in it, next to the Divine Love, the highest, the most potent, the most universal force of inclination, and love to the highest and most universal good. The Beloved, or the Object of this Love and this Lover, the intellectual Soul and the Intellectual Will, is the highest and most universal good, as it presenteth it self in its highest lustre, in its richest, amplest, most unlimited variety of beauties in the Understanding. This good being an agreeableness to the Will, and so meeting with a mutual and answerable agreeableness in the Will to it self, presenteth it self thus by the Understanding in these forms of truth, (which is the Divinest beauty,) as a lover and a beloved both to the Will, that they may be equally and mutually happy, by equal, by mutual embraces and fruition.
This is the liberty of the Will consisting in two parts, mutually answering each other. The first is the vigour and amplitude of the principle, the inclination or love carrying the Soul to, rendring it capable of, good in its absolute and universal form. The second is the vigor and amplitude of its Object, which is the highest good, the Divinity of good it self, presenting it self in its absolute, universal, or intire truth, beauty, and essential form, presenting it self in all varieties of distinct truths, beauties, and forms, as they are represented in their highest, completest Image, next to the Original it self in the Understanding. Here is the Will, like a Bee in a Garden, or flourishing Field, or rather in an heavenly Paradise, flying at liberty over all forms of truth and beauty, as the Flowers and Plants in this Paradise, resting at pleasure upon every one of them, sucking … sweetness, the virtue, the good, the unexpressibleness of the Divinity, and the Divine Unity from them, as the Honey which is its Divine Feast, Nourishment, Life, and Treasure.
This is the liberty of the Soul, of the Understanding, of the Will, in its proper Nature, and primitive State. This is the liberty which it still enjoys inseparable from its essence, under the fall it self, so far as by the promised Seed putting forth it self in the moment of the Fall, the essence of the intellectual Spirit is renewed and maintained universally by common Grace, in the midst of the ruines of the Fall. I have this one thing only to add, under this fourth Head, (the Liberty of intellectual Spirits,) that, as God is the Original Spirit, as Angels and intellectual Souls are Image-Spirits; so is the liberty of the Divine Essence, the Original liberty, and the liberty of all other intellectual Spirits, Humane or Angelical, is the Birth, and so the Image of that liberty.
Having thus passed through the several degrees of liberty, in the several Orders of Being, we come now more particularly and distinctly to state the question concerning the Liberty of the Will, which is the subject of our present Discourse.
There is a two-fold liberty of the Will.
1. One by all acknowledged inseparable from the Will, in all States and acts.
2. The other hath been through all Ages, Religions, and Philosophyes, the ground of many learned, eloquent, deep Discourses and Disputes between persons eminent in all kind.
1. The first uncontroverted liberty of the Will, is that which is built upon the grounds already laid. It consisteth in two glorious preheminencies:
1. The liberty of acting from an internal, essential, universal Principle of inclination or love, which is confined or restrained in its nature and power by no particular differences; which is by nothing determined in its actings, except only as it determines it self by the Laws of its own universal nature, in which it bears the immediate and most express figure of the Divine Nature, and so of the Divine freedome or liberty.
2. This Principle hath for the sphere and compass of its activity, the absolute and universal good in the entire freedome of his unconfined form or Essence, in all the varieties of its descents and ascents, its divisions and compositions. The Will of the Intellectual Spirit is free here in the chase and pursuit of all good, unconfined to any particular form of good, determined by it self alone, and its own internal essential motions, to the choice and embraces of every good.
2. The second liberty of the Will, which hath so different aspects to the differing understanding of excellent persons (for the most part, in all places and times) is generally known by these terms of Libertas contradictionis, & libertas contrarietatis; Liberty of contradiction and of contraricty. Suppose an intellectual Spirit, in the moment immediately preceding its Action, positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum, now ready for action, in the constitution and concurrence of all circumstances essential, accidental, from above, from below, from the first universal cause, from all second and particular causes, from within, from without, in respect to any Essence, Power, and Operation, in respect to any thing in any potentiality or act: The Will of this intellectual Spirit without any change in any circumstance, in any degree, may act, or not act, which is the liberty of contradiction; may act either in this way, or in the way directly contrary to it, which is the liberty of contrariety.
This is also expressed by a liberty or power in the Will to determine it self in the moment of acting by its act, without any predetermination in the Will it self, in the power of acting, in its proper Essence, and the laws of its own Nature, in the connexion of causes, or in the first, and universal Cause.
The method of my treating upon this Question, shall be,
1. An humble proposal of those Arguments, which seem to fight against this liberty.
2. To state and examine the Arguments brought to establish this liberty, with all the clearness and candour that I am capable of.
To these also I shall annex those answers, which may appear proper to give any satisfaction to those Arguments.
These two sorts of Arguments I shall digest into so many Books.
1. The first Book shall contain the first sort of Arguments opposed to this liberty in question, divided according to these five Heads, from which they are drawn,
1. The Divine Nature.
2. The Nature of the Creature.
3. The Mediation of Christ.
4. The Soul intellectual with its Will.
5. The proper form and essence of liberty.
1. Head of Arguments.
The first Head of Arguments is the Divine Nature.
From this Head we shall draw seven Arguments.