effect. He that drinks himself drunk, that without fear and shame he may fornicate,-though when he fornicates, he hath not the use of his reason any more than of his modesty, and cannot deliberate, and therefore cannot choose,-yet he is guilty of fornication as well as drunkenness. He that eats high and drinks deep, that in his sleep he may procure pollution, is guilty of that uncleanness as well as of that excess, which St. Paul intimates in those words, "Make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof;" that is, what you design as the purpose of your intemperance, is your crime though it be a natural effect, when things are by your choice so disposed. And when our blessed Saviour commanded us to "take heed of surfeiting and drunkenness," he forewarned us as well of the effect as of the cause; for κραιπάλη παρὰ τὸ xápa áλλ, surfeiting hath its name from the event, because "it causes dissolutions of the nerves and dilutions of the brain,” and consequently palsies, which when we have contracted, we are, by our own fault, disabled in the service of God. Κραιπάλη ἀπὸ προτεραίας καὶ χθιζῆς οἰνοποσίας, "Surfeiting is the product of yesterday's debauchery:" and since the effect is also forbidden, he that chooses it by delighting in the cause, chooses also what is forbidden, and therefore that which will be imputed to him. But this I have largely proved upon a distinct account, by making it appear that even a vicious habit, the facility and promptness to a sin, are an aversion from God, and make us hateful by a malignity distinct from that, which is inherent in all the single actions. Thus he sins, that swears by custom, though he have no advertency to what he says, and knows nothing of it: he chose those actions, which introduced the habit, and he can derive no impunity from his first crime: and he that is the greatest sinner, can never come to that state of things, that he shall take God's name in vain, and yet be held guiltless. m 2. But this rule is to be understood with these cautions. The involuntary effect is imputed to the voluntary cause, if that effect was foreseen, or if it was designed, though when it be acted, the foolish man knows but little of it, no more than a beast does his own acts of pleasure, which he perceives by sense, but does not by counsel enter into it. Of this there 1 Luke, xxi. 34. in Unum Necessar. cap. 5. is no question, because he put his hand to a hook of iron, and that being fastened upon the rich vessels in the house, draws forth what the man, it may be, knows not to be there; but his hand willingly moved the iron hook, and therefore his hand and his will are the thief. 3. The involuntary effect is not imputed to the voluntary cause, if, after it is chosen by the will, in one act, it is revoked by another, before the mischief be effected. Thus if Mævius shot an arrow to kill Paternus, and in the instant of its egression nollet factum,' repents of the intended evil,' that mischief which is then done, shall not be imputed to him. This indeed is generally said both by the divines and lawyers; but it hath no effect at all that is material and considerable, save only this, that the repentance does wash away the guilt; but in true speaking, the whole guilt was contracted, because the act of the will was completed up to action and execution, beyond which there can be no intention of the evil; but then the effect is therefore not imputed, because the cause also is pardoned by the means of repentance, and so it is even after the mischief is done. He that by repentance recalls the mischief, shall, by pardon, be cleared from guiltiness, whether that repentance be before or after. 4. But that which we can rely upon in this particular, and of which great use is to be made, is this, that though all the evil events which are foreseen, or ought to have been considered, are imputed even then, when they are not in our power, to him who willingly brought in the cause of those evils; yet whatsoever was not foreseen, and therefore not designed, nor yet chosen, by consequence and implication is not imputed to him, that brought that foolish necessity upon himself. Consonant to this is the doctrine of St. Austin "; "Culpandus est Loth, non quantum incestus in ebrietate admissus, sed quantum ebrietas meretur;" "Lot was answerable for his drunkenness, but not for his incest caused by his drunkenness," which he foresaw not and designed But this case also suffers alteration. For if Lot had been warned of the evils of his first night's drunkenness, and yet would be drunk the next night, he is not so innocent of the effect, the incest lies nearer to him. Only if after that monition he suspected as little as at first, he was not indeed not. n Lib. 22. contr. Faust. cap. 44. guilty of the incest directly, but of a more intolerable drunkenness and a careless spirit, who by the first sad event did not consider, and was not affrighted from the intolerable cause. But thus if a servant throws himself into a pit, and breaks a leg or an arm that he might not work, his not working is as much imputed to him as uncharitable injury to himself: but if afterwards (as Pyrrho did) he see his master falling into a ditch, and, by reason of that first fall, he cannot help his master out, that is not to be imputed to him; for he willed it not, it was not included virtually in any act of his will or understanding. And thus it is also in the divine judgments, which if we procure by our own vilenesses, all that impotency and disability of obeying God in external religion, which is consequent to the suffering that judgment which himself procured, and by which he is fallen sick, or mad or lame, is not imputed to him; because to make himself guilty of a thing, it is not sufficient that he be the meritorious cause of that which procured it, but he must be the voluntary and discerning cause. evil of which a man is only the meritorious cause, depends upon another will besides his own, and is indeed an effect deserved by him, but not willingly consented to, but very much against him; and therefore can never be imputed to him to any other purpose, but to upbraid his infelicity, who justly suffers what he would not foresee, and now cannot avoid. That 5. When a man falls into a state or condition, in which he cannot choose,-those acts which are done in that state are imputed to him, if they be such acts, to which no new consent is required, but that it be sufficient that he do not dissent; and if those acts be consonant to his former will, all such effects are imputed to the will. Thus if Titius, being a catechumen, desired to be baptized, and then falls into madness, or stupidity, or a lethargy, he is capable of being baptized, because nothing is in some persons required but a mere susceptibility, and that there be no just impediment ; the grace of the sacrament being so mere a favour, that it is the first grace to which nothing on our parts be previous, but that all impediments be removed. Since therefore in this a man is passive, his present indisposition of making new acts of election renders him not incapable of receiving a favour; always provided that there was in him no indisposition and impediment before his present accident, but that he did desire it and was capable before: that volition hath the same effect in the present state of madness or stupidity as it could have, if it had been well. But when this comes to be reduced to practice, I know of no material change it works upon the man, in case he dies in that sad affliction, but what was, by the mercies of God, laid up for him upon the account of his own goodness and the man's former desire. But if he does live, that susception of the sacrament of baptism is sufficient for him for his whole life, and the days of his recovery; that is, all that which he could be bound to in the susception, is performed effectively in that state, in which he could not presently choose. But I shall resume this consideration and inquiry upon occasion of something to be explicated in the sixth rule of this chapter. 6. But, in matter of punishment, the case is something different. The case is this; Mizaldus a Florentine, smote an officer of the great Duke in the court, and apprehending that he was in great danger of suffering a great punishment, grew sad, and impatient, and at last distracted: the question upon the case is, Whether or no Mizaldus may, being mad, be punished by death, or the abscission of his hand, for a fact he did in his health and the days of understanding. To this the answers are various, by reason of the several cases that may arise. 7. If the punishment cannot be inflicted without legal process, trial, conviction, and sentence, the madman cannot be punished, because he is not capable of passing through the solemnities of law: but if the sentence was passed before his madness, then the evil may be inflicted, that is, it is just if it be and it may be done unless some other consideration interpose to hinder it. 8. In punishments where no judicial process is required, a man that is mad, may be punished for what he did when he was sober. If a son strikes his father, and then falls mad, the father may disinherit him for all his madness, because the father may proceed summarily and upon sense of the crime; and he that by his own voluntary act did deserve it, is not by madness made incapable of the punishment, to which, in this case, nothing but a passiveness is required". • Bartol. in lib. ex facto in princip. ff. de Vulg. et Pupilla substit. 9. This also holds in cases of punishments ipso facto' incurred, that is, which a man is fallen into, as soon as ever the crime is committed. And of this there is a double reason; the one is, because the punishment is actually incurred before he is actually mad, for the very crime itself is to him as a judge and sentence, and the sanction of the law is all the solemnity and that is the other reason, consequent to the former; in this case there needs no process, and therefore the sinner's indisposition cannot make him incapable of passing into punishment. 10. In punishments emendatory, that is, such which, besides the exemplar justice, intend to reform the criminal, he that is fallen into madness ought not to suffer them, whether the sentence be to be passed by the law or by the judge, whether it be solemn or summary, whether it be passed before his calamity or after. The reason of this is plain, because such punishments being in order to an end which cannot be acquired, are wholly to no purpose, and therefore are tyrannical and unreasonable; the man is not capable of amendment, and therefore not of such punishments, which are emendatory. 11. But after all this, the moderation of charity in Christian judicatories is such as that they refuse to inflict corporal penalties on distracted people, it being enough that they are already but too miserable. Solus te jam præstare potest Furor insontem: proxima puris He that knows not what he does, or what he hath done, is next to him that is innocent. And when the man is civilly dead, it is to little purpose to make him sink further under the civil sword. That is a dreadful justice and security, that would kill a man twice over. Only when any thing of example, or public interest, or detestation of the fact, is concerned, it may be done according to the former measures, and for the present considerations; just as it is in some cases lawful to punish a man after he is dead, by denying him an honourable and Christian sepulture: where although there be something particular in this case, the nature of this punishment being such, that because we do not bury them beb Sence. Herc. Fur. act. iv. 1096. Schröder, pag. 83. |