A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland
Course that is suitable to their free Purposes and voluntary Actions.’214 The precedent Arguments, upon which he builds his Notion, are, viz.
“‘If (says he) bodily and external Events fall out fortuitously and by Chance, what becomes of the Superintendency of God, to judge and recompense every one according to his Deserts? For we will not suppose these Things to happen without Appointment, and say, that our just Purposes, and our Judgments and Desires, proceed from an overruling Necessity: For, if so, we should not impute Virtue and Vice to ourselves, but to that Necessity. Nor is it reasonable to suppose all Things to be the necessary Effects of them, I mean the Actions of the Soul, as well as the Things that are without us, and concern the Body. Nor ought we to ascribe all Things to the unintelligent and undirected Circumvolution of the Universe; there being a Mind, that presides over all Things, and a God, who is the Author of the World. That which necessarily remains, therefore, is, that the Choice we make is in our own Power, and that a righteous Recompense is awarded, according thereto, by coelestial Beings and Judges appointed by God, and who have the Care of us committed to them.—And the Supposition of a Recompence, according to our Merit, immediately infers a Providence and Fate, as the consequent of it; and judicial Providence, which orders the Events of human Affairs, according to Right and Equity, depends upon the Principle of our Will and Choice: So that Fate is a Part of universal Providence, and the Rule of Judgment upon the Souls of Men.’215
“To which he adds presently after; ‘To choose, is in the Power of the Mind; but the Events following the Choice, are determined by a judicial Providence, recompensing the Purposes of the Soul, according to its Desert: And thence we are said, both to choose our Condition of Life, and to have it destin’d to us. For the Recompense, ordain’d to follow our Works, both manifests the free Motion (or Operation) of our Mind, and the divine Superintendency over us. So that it is evident, that the Motions (or Operations) of our Minds, from Beginning to End, are free—and that the Recompence of our Deserts is not without Appointment,—as neither is Fate, which is the Chain and Connection of the human Will, with the divine Judgment: So that we choose what we will, thro’ an unrestrain’d Liberty, but often suffer against our Will, thro’ the unavoidable Power of Providence.’216
“Chalcidius expresseth the Platonick Notion of Fate in like manner; viz. ‘Such, (says he) in my Opinion, is that heavenly Law, which is call’d Fate, commanding Men that which is right, and forbidding the contrary; but to obey, is in our own Power, and free from the Coercion of Fate. To praise him that does well, is both agreeable to this Law, and to the common Judgment of all.—Moreover, to live ill, is in the Power of Man, and, therefore, Punishment proceeds from a fatal Necessity, in consequence of the Law. All these Things relate to the Mind of Man, which is free, and acts by its own Choice.’217
“Again; ‘Fate is the Decree of Providence, comprehending our voluntary Actions, as the precedent Grounds of it; comprehending, also, the Recompence of our Deserts. Punishment and Approbation, which are by Fatality, and all those Things which happen fortuitously, or by Chance, are the Consequents of it.’218
“But, in order to understand more fully and distinctly the antient philosophical, or theological, Notion of Fate, or Necessity, we are to observe, that it was distinguished into two Senses, (tho’ in Reality amounting to the same,) in the one of which it was understood, substantially to mean that intelligent divine Being, or Substance, which govern’d the World by the Administration of the Laws of Providence; in the other it was taken abstractedly, or virtually, for the Laws, or Decrees themselves, of the divine Government of the World.
“‘Fate (says the great Philosopher Chalcidius) was understood by Plato in a two-fold Sense, the one relating to its Substance, the other to its Energy and Power.’219
“Thus also Plutarch represents it;220
“Fate, in the Sense of Operation, or Power, is call’d by Plato, ‘in his Phaedrus, an unavoidable Decree; in his Timaeus, the Laws, which God endited to coelestial Beings221 concerning the Nature of the Universe.’222 The Sense of which he immediately explains; viz.
“‘By unavoidable Decree, we may understand an irrepealable Law, proceeding from an irresistible Cause, (viz. the supreme God,) and by the Laws which God endited to (coelestial) Beings concerning the Nature of the Universe, the Law which is consequential to the Nature of the World, and by which the Universe is governed.
“‘Fate, in the Sense of Substance (he proceeds to tell us) is the Soul of the World.’223 Which Plutarch also informs us it was.224
“It was call’d Lachesis, or (ἀνάγνινι) Necessity; both as being supposed to be necessarily-existent, and the necessary Substratum for the Formation of rational Beings; as also, because the Laws of it were fix’d and immutable, and to which they supposed God had subjected all Beings, and even bound himself under an irreversible and necessary Obligation.
“Chalcidius styles this Lachesis, or Necessity, ‘the divine Law,’225 by which Things future are connected with Things past and present.
“And it is, with respect to the immutable Laws of Providence, that Plotinus calls God ‘the Necessity and Law of all Things.’226
“Cicero in like manner (speaking of the Platonick Philosophy) observes, that this Fate, or Soul of the World, by whose providential Wisdom all Things, both in Heaven and Earth, are governed, is call’d Necessity; because nothing can happen otherwise than according to the Laws of it, whereby the eternal Order of the Universe is immutably preserved by Fatality.227
“The Stoϊcks express their Notion of Fate (substantially) in Agreement with the Platonists.
“‘Heraclitus styles the Substance of Fate, that Reason which pervades the Substance of the Universe; the same (he adds) is an aethereal Body, the generating Seed of the Universe.’228
“Euripides expresses the Stoical Sense; ‘Jupiter, or the Necessity of Nature, or the Reason of Men. For Necessity and Mind is the (substantial) Power, which diffuseth itself thro’ the Universe.’229
“Velleius, in Cicero, represents the Opinion of the Stoick Chrysippus; ‘That he says; that the Power of that perpetual and eternal Law, which is, as it were, the Guide of our Life, and Director of our Duty, is Jupiter; the same he also calls Fate and Necessity.’230 Again; ‘The Stoicks held a Necessity, which they called Fate.’231
“Again; Diogenes Laertius tells us it was the Stoical Notion, ‘That God, and Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, were one and the same, to which they gave many other Names also.’232
“Alexander Aphrodisius says; ‘They (the Stoicks) say that Fate, and Nature, and Reason, by which the Universe is governed, is God.’233
“Lastly, Seneca the Stoick says; ‘What else is Nature but God, and the divine Reason, which is infused into the whole World and the Parts of it?—And, if you call the same Fate, you will not be mistaken.’234
“There was no other Difference betwixt the Platonick and Stoick Notion of Fate, but only, that the Stoicks thought that Fate considered (Substantia, or κατ’ οὐσίαν) as a substantial divine Being, which was the Soul of the World, was the (πρῶτος θεὸς) supreme God, whom they styled ‘The first Cause of the Universe;’235