NECESSITY. This Word is taken, not only for that Need of several Things in which we may be found, but also for the Perplexity, Trouble, or Disquiet we may be in, whether we be afflicted inwardly, or assaulted by our Enemies outwardly, or in Irresolution, Difficulty, &c. It sometimes answers to the Hebrew Word Zarah, AngustiaJudg. xi. 7., and to Mezucah, coarctatio. St. Jerome has often put into the Vulgate the Word necessitas, to express a Thing that must be done immediately. But especially in the Psalms necessitates is put for angustiæ. In Wisd. xviii. 21.the Book of Wisdom it is said of Aaron, restitit iræ, & finem imposuit necessitati; he caused the dreadful Plague to cease, with which God had visited his People, upon the Occasion of the Rebellion of Korah. And Wisd. xix. 4.elsewhere, ducebat illos digna necessitas; the Egyptians were urged, as it were, into their Calamity, by a kind of fatal Necessity, of which, by their Hardness of Heart they had render’d themselves worthy.
St. Paul often speaks of the Necessities of the Saints, or of the new Converts, who were in a true and real Poverty.
The Word necessary does not always denote an absolute Necessity, but a Necessity of Decency, or of Duty, or meerly something useful and advantageous. For Example, necesse est ut veniant scandala; It must needs be that Offences come; God suffers them to come, and makes them subservient Tob. xii. 3.to his Glory. And in Tobit, Quia acceptus eras Deo, necesse fuit ut tentatio probaret te. It was necessary, it was expedient that you should be proved by Temptation. And in St. Luke, I have bought a Luke xiv. 18.piece of Ground, and I must needs go and see it: It is convenient that I go to see it.