A treatise of freewill / by Ralph Cudworth ; now first edited from the original MS and with notes by John Allen.

  • Cudworth, Ralph, 1617-1688.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise of freewill / by Ralph Cudworth ; now first edited from the original MS and with notes by John Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    16/110 (page 4)
    observed*. But besides this, the generality of mankind have always had a strong presage of pun- ishments to be inflicted by the Deity after death; and the Scripture assures us that ther0-;,i8 a solemn day of judgment appointed, in which God will conspicuously, palpably, and notoriously render to every one according to his works or actions past. And that these punishments in Hell, after death, will respect only the future, and are no othei«ise designed than as iatrical and medicinal, in order to the curing or recovering of the deceased souls punished, as some have imagined, (from whence they infer that there can be no eternal punishments,) is neither agreeable to Scriptm-e nor sound reason. But if all actions be necessary, there seems to be no more reason why there should be a day of judgment appointed to punish men for murders and adultery, injustice and intemperance, than for agues and fevers, palsies and lethargies. Hence it is that moralists, looking upon men’s free and voluntary actions as blameworthy in a peculiar sense, have called the evil of them jnalinn culpa, an evil of fault, in way of distinction from those other necessary evils which are without fault, that is of which the doer himself was not properly the cause. Concerning which Cicero thus—Hoc tibi persuade nihil homini pcrtimescendum prater culpam; i. e. that • o)s TT]S dSiKias Tov fitv Kapnbv tvBvs apaiov /cat TrpovTrrov aTroStSovtn/r, rfiv di Tipcoplav ot/cs /cat ttoXv rijs aTToXavcrfatf Ka6v(rrepovcrcw.—De his qui sero a nuiiiine piuiiuntur, ii. p. 049, ed. Francof.