Condition required unto the salvation of the weaker sex as our Apostle hath it 1 Tim. 2. 15. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in Child-bearing if she continue in faith and charity and holinesse with sobriety And so is abstinence from some peculiar sins or from Occasions of temptations to such sins as their Progenitors have been most prone unto more peremptorily required in their Children then in Other Men whose Ancestors or Progenitors have not been tainted with the like sins nor obnoxious to like temptations 4. Whether all branches of sin Original do necessarily spring from our first Parents Sin But here if any man be otherwise minded or disposed to contradict what I have said or shall briefly say Concerning this point I professe I shall not be willing to debate the Probleme any further with him Only I must for mine own part protest that there never yet arose any doubt or question between me and my most retired thoughts Whether there may not be and are sundry particular Branches of sin or natural inclinations unto Evil propagated from intermediate Parents unto their Children or Families for many Generations which do not by any Natural Necessity grow out of that Original Stem or Root of Corruption whereof all of us are partakers by the Fall of our First Parents Yet I would intreat the Reader to take this Consideration along with him That such Hereditary ill dispositions or inclinations to some peculiar vices as we mean may abate remit or revive and be improved through several successions or collateral Lines of the same Stem unto which they are for some generations Hereditary or finally expire after the same manner that similitude of bodily Lineaments feature or visages do vary alter or expire in many Ancient families Some Children being more true pictures of their Great Grand-fathers or Grand-fathers or great Uncles then of their immediate Parents Others again more like their immediate parents then to any of their Ancestors whether by father or mother Concerning the Cause or manner How similitudes of feature of bodily Lineaments or visages do or may abate or remit in the first or second Descent and revive in third or fourth Vid. inter alios Franciscum Valleriolam in comm in Hippocr this the Reader must learn from Philosophers or Physitians as Aristotle or Galen which of purpose have searched into this secret of Nature For illustration of the maner how hereditary indispotions of the heart or affections may abate revive or expire in the several Descents of families the determination of that moral Probleme An nobilitas generis desinat in uno vitioso will be pertinent Now that Nobility of Bloud or those inclinations unto Heroical vertues for which some Ancient Families have been famous do not necessarily cease or expire through the vitiousnesse of one Succession was a point determined in the Schools when I first knew them And Experience may teach a Long-Liv'd Observant man that Two vitious or lewde Successors do not oftentimes so abate or utterly dead those seeds of vertue which were propagated to them from their Ancestors but that they may revive or be improved in the Fourth Generation or Descent The abating reviving or expiring of them depends most upon their Education And so doth the abatement or improvement of Original Sin or inclinations unto Evil. Even that Corruption of Nature which we necessarily draw from the losse of Paradise is not equal in all the sons of Adam though it be most true That every one of us is as truly tained with it as any Other Again though it be universally true That all men are by Nature Sinners all destitute of the Grace of God Yet is it no part of this Vniversal truth to deny That some Race or Brood of Men are from their birth or Conception much more by Education more gracelesse then Others are And yet for such as have the least measure of sin whether Original Habitual or Actual Or for men as we terme them of Sweet Dispositions or Good nature it is as impossible to be freed from Natural Servitude unto sin without the Special Grace of God in Christ as it is for the greatest Sinners or most Gracelesse Brood of men The best of us even after the participation of Grace in some degree have a greater measure of one or other kind of sin then we take notice of or then we can Learn from most Professors of Divinity which have purposely undertaken to Decypher the nature and haynousnesse of it CHAP. XII Containing the true and solid Definition of sin whether Original or Acquired by vitious Acts or dispositions 1. THe best attempt that I have read or heard to this purpose was made long ago by One who hath been so buffeted on both sides which he sought to teach or instruct as would make an ordinary Souldier in our Christian warfare afraid either to be his Second or to come unto his Rescue Illyricus his Definition of Sin Original how far blamable how farr Commendable Flaccius Illyricus I mean a man most happy in Political undertakings and atchivements which were rather below then beyond his profession Yet in his Treatise Concerning the Nature of Original Sin or the nature of sin in general Two wayes unfortunate First in that he was not so profound a Philosopher or exquisite Artist as it were fitting Every Divine which will undertake to handle this part of Divinity or others which have connexion with it should be Secondly in that he was a better Philosopher and more exquisite Artist by much then such Divines whether in reformed Churches or others which have taken upon them to rectifie or confute his Errors These for the most part run a wider Byaz on the left hand towards the Nominals then he doth on the right hand from the Real Philosophers or Divines This man went the right way to his work and begun it like a good Artist by defining or displaying the Nature or Essence of Original Righteousness before he entred into that dispute Concerning the Nature of Original Sin or unrighteousnesse He rightly and upon demonstrative grounds denies Original Righteousness to be any quality supernatural any Accident or property adventitious to the Humane nature if we consider that in the Estate wherein it was first created Nor did he commit any error much lesse incur any censure of Heresie by avouching Original Righteousness to have been the Essential form of man if he had expressd his meaning with this addition or limited his expressions thus As the First man was the work of God or considered as he was created in His Image For as I am forced often to repeat there were not in mans Creation Two works of God really distinct either in order of nature or in respect of time nor so distinct as that The One might be imagined to be the Nature of the first man or of Gods image in Him The other a Coronation of his Nature or image of God with a Grace or righteousnesse supernatural
Church call Original should be no more then a meer Privation of Original Justice Of the Inconveniencies which will follow upon the affirmative Opinion that is of that Image of God wherein the First Man was Created But the Ingenuous Reader wil perhaps demand what further Inconvenience wil follow upon the yielding or granting of the former Postulatum or Supposition unto them This in the Second place That Adams Successors whether immediate or intermediate unto the worlds End should have a greater measure of that which they call Liberum Arbitrium or Free-will then the word of God doth acknowledge or any Ingenuous Man that will subjugate his Reason to be Regulated by the written word or Ancient Rules or Canons of Faith can allow or approve This deduction following is clear by Rules of Reason viz. If the Righteousnesse of the First Man did consist in a Grace Supernatural or in any quality additional to his constitution as he was the Work of God This Grace or Quality might have been or rather was lost without any Real wound unto our Nature Or without any other Wound then such as the Free-will or right use of Reason or other Natural parts which after the losse this of supposed Supernatural Grace or Quality were left might instantly have cured or yet may cure Or in other terms more Scholastical perhaps Thus If the Integrity or Righteousnesse of the First Man were lost only demeritoriè by way of Demerit without any physical or working cause of its expulsion or without any wound made in our nature by such positive cause The same Righteousnesse which the First Man had might have been regained by the right use of Reason which was left unto him or of those natural faculties which he had pro primâ vice abused From these premisses the necessary consequence will be this That the satisfaction of our Lord Christ for sin original at least had been superfluous And according to this Tenet the Opinion of the Socinians would be more tolerable and more justifiable then the Doctrine of the Romish Church so far as it concerns the Valew or Efficacy of Christs Sufferings or Satisfaction by his Merits or Justification by works rather then by faith especially works of the Moral Law or observance of those two great Commandments To love God above all and our Neighbours as our Selves or of that other whatsoever you would that men should do unto you even so do unto them 3. Lastly if all or any of these Opinions were granted to the Church of Rome we of Reformed Churches should be concluded to yield That Adams posterity or as many of them as are or shall be justified were to be Formally justified by inherent Righteousnesse that is they have or might challenge absolution from the first sentence denounced against Adam by way of legal plea or satisfaction The deduction or remonstration of this demonstrative inference is clear to any Artist to any reasonable man unlesse his Reason be overgrown by faction or by mingling of passions with his understanding The Remonstration of this demonstrative inference is thus It is in confesso and more then so an undoubted Maxim subscribed unto by the Church of Rome That the grace which is infused by and from our Lord Jesus Christ is a supernatural quality or a qualification more soveraign then the first grace which God the Father bestowed upon the First Man Now if that Grace were a super addition to his Nature or Constitution as he was the work of God the losse of this Grace or quality could not have made any wound in the humane Nature which the least drop of that Grace which daily distilleth from the second Adam might not more then fully cure Yea such grace would sublimate our Nature so cured unto an higher pitch or fuller measure of Righteousnesse then that which was bestowed upon our Father Adam In respect of these and many other Reasons which might be alledged all such Congregations or Assemblies of Christian Men as have departed or have been extruded out of the Romish Church stand deeply engaged to deny that the Righteousnesse of the First Man was a Grace or quality supernatural CHAP. III. Whether Original Righteousness were a quality Natural or a mean betwixt Natural and supernatural 1. TO affirm that the Righteousnesse wherein the First Man was created was a gift rather Natural then supernatural would be no solaecisme no assertion any way more incongruous then many Resolutions of the Roman Doctors in like Cases are no grosser blemish or deeper impression then might easily be salved or wiped off with that distinction usual amongst them in other the like or rather the same Cases The true state of the Question proposed That the righteousness wherein Adam was created was natural quoad terminum productum non quoad modum productionis A natural Endowment in respect of the essential qualitie produced albeit the manner of producing it were somewhat more then supernatural But this is a dispute which for the present shall be waved because the Original difference betwixt us and them may be more punctually stated and the Questions dependent on it may be more clearly resolved from these Postulata or presumed Maxims First That God did make the First Man after his own image Secondly That the First man being so made was righteous and just Neither of these are denied by any The state of the Original Controversie unto such as are disposed to have it plainly propounded in constant or unfleeting Terms is thus Seeing man was made after the image of God and being so made was just and righteous Whether there were two works of God or two distinct effects of his work of creating the First Man in righteousness and in his own image And whether the one of them was terminated to his own image imprinted in man and the other to his original justice If these two expressions made by Moses of Gods image and mans righteousness expresse or include no more then one and the same work of God or effect of his work in man The losse of Original justice or defacing of Gods image enstamped upon him was more then a meer privation and necessarily presupposeth a positive Cause in our First Parents and a positive Effect wrought by that cause whereunto the privation of Original justice was Concomitant or rather Consequent Whatsoever Controversie may be moved concerning the Cause or manner how this Effect was wrought the effect it self was a deadly wound in our Nature a multitude of wounds all by Nature or any endeavour of Nature or performances of such Free will as was left to mankind after these wounds were once made altogether incurable without the help or assistance of better Grace or endowments then were bestowed upon the First Man The cure of these wounds wholly depends upon that grace whose Being and bestowing the second Adam did merit from the Father of Lights or from the Divine nature or Deity 2. To win the Assent of
from the Forbidden Act or desire It was impossible there should be one Cause of the Act and another Cause of the Obliquity or deformity whether unto Gods Laws or unto God himself For no Relation or Entity meerly relative such are obliquity and deformity can have any other Cause beside That which is the Cause of the Fundamentum or Foundation whence They immediately result It remains then that we acknowledg the old Serpent to have been the First Author and Man whom God created male and female to have been the true positive Cause of that Obliquity or deformity which did result by inevitable Necessity from the forbidden Act or desire which could have no Necessary Cause at all For the Devil or old Serpent could lay no absolute necessity upon our First Parents Will which the Almighty Creator had left Free to eat or not to eat of the Forbidden Fruit. That they did de Facto eat of it was not by any Necessity but meerly Contingently or by abuse of that Free-will which God had given them Briefly to say or think that our First Parents were necessitated by the Divine Decree to that Act or any part of that Act or desire whence the First sin did necessarily result or to imagine that the Act or desire was necessary in respect of Gods Decree is to lay a deeper and fouler charge upon the Almighty That Holy One then we can without slander charge the Devil withall 5. Charity binds me to impute the harsh Expressions of some good Writers and wel-deserving of all reformed Churches Yea the Errors of the Dominicans or other Schoolmen which were more faulty then Zwinglius or his followers in this point rather unto Incogitancy or want of Skill in good Arts then unto Malice or such malignancy as the Lutheran long ago had furiously charged upon the Calvinist as if they had chosen the Devil not the Father of lights Much wrong done to worthy writers by unskilful Apologizers for their harsh expresons maker of heaven and earth to be their God And I could heartily wish that Pareus had not entered into that Dispute with Becanus about this Controversie But seeing I cannot obtain my wish I must be sorry that he came off no better then he did especially for Calvins Credit or for his own I did not believe the relation of the conference which I read long ago in Canisius until I read the like set forth by * Tum D. Serarius Scimus Vestros ita distinguere quod non improbamus Calvinus vero in scriptis suis omnem Dei permissionem in peccatis simpliciter rejicit Et opera malorum etiam quoad malitiam efficaciae Dei tribuit atque sic Deum Authorem Peccari manifestè facit Ego verò Utrum haec sit Calvini sententia quam Vos Eitribuitis postea videbimus Jam accipio quod datis Nostros quos Calvinistas vocatis â—o modo quo dixi distinguere Quódque distinctionem nostram non potestis improbare Hinc verò evidentèr conficitur Calvinistas quos vocatis Deum peccati Autorem nequaquam facere Ac proinde salsam esse D. Becani Minorem quòd Calvinistae faciant Deum Authorem peccati eóque Conclusionem esse calumniosam quòd Calvinistarum Deus sit Diabolus Pareus himself wherein he professeth that he likes better of Cardinal Bellarmines opinion then of Calvins Concerning the Controversies or Questions about the First Cause of sinning But were it any part of my present task I could easily make it appear even by the Testimony and Authority or which is more by the concludent Arguments of some learned Jesuits themselves That Cardinal Bellarmin and many others of Aquinas his followers do make God to be the Author of sin Ibi D. Serarius pro ingenio suo intelligens nodum Ergo inquit deleatur illud starum Erit tamen Diabolus Calvini si non Calvinistarum Deus Quo dicto D. Becanus subrubescens cum Socii ingenuitatem improbare non auderet subjecit ipse Benè deleatur starum Manebit tamen Deus Calvini Diabolus Tum Ego dextra eis praebita pro tanta liberalitate gratias agens Satis mihi nunc est inquam quòd fatemini starum delendum esse ut jam non Calvinistarum sed Calvini Deus secundum Vos sit Diabolus Pareus Act. Swalbacen Parte 1. Coll. 2. De Autore Peccati by as clear infallible Consequence as either Zwinglius or Piscator have done And he that would diligently peruse Aquinas his writings and in particular his resolution of that Question An detur Causa Praedestinationis may find him as strait-lac'd as Calvin was one and the same girdle would be an equall and competent measure for both their Errors The best Apology that can be made for Either must be taken from the Romane Satyrists charity Opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum Calvin and Aquinas were Homines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is somewhat more then Authors of long works Authors of many various works in respect of the several subjects or arguments which is the best apologie that Jansenius could make for St. Jeromes contradicting of himself in several works as Espenseus doth the like for Saint Austin 6. But of that Pardon which learned Men that wrot much and handled many much different matters may justly challenge such as stand to be their followers though afarr off are no way Capable Men I meane who having other ordinary works or vocations to follow do busie their braines and abuse their Auditors or Readers with idle and frivolous Apologies for those slips or errors of worthy writers which stand more in need of ingenuous censure of mild interpretation or Correction then a Justifiable Defence More there have not been as I hope nor more peccant in this kinde in any of reformed Churches then In this Church of England though not Of it Some Treatises I have read and heard for justifying the Escapes or ill expressions of Calvin and Beza by improving their words into a worse and more dangerous sense then they themselves meant them in or their Followers in the Churches wherein they lived did interpret them Had these Vnscholastick Apologizers been called to a strict account or examination of their Doctrine by the Rules of Art this haply would have bred a new Question in our Schooles Whether to attribute such Acts or decrees unto God as they do and yet withall to deny that they concludently make him the Author of sin doth not argue as great a measure of Artificiall Foppery or which is more to be feared in some of Supernaturall Infatuation as it would do of impietie toresolve dogmatically in Terminis terminantibus That God is the Author of Sin CHAP. VI. The usuall distinction between the Act and obliquitie of the Act can have no place in the first oblique Act of our first Parents 1. The Illustration of the forementioned distinction retorted upon such as use it THe former Question or Probleme might
or Idols Who then Qui colit ille facit He or they alone turn Images or Pictures into Idols or false Gods Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus which worship or adore them Non facit ille Deos qui colit ille facit But the former Opinion or imagination whether in respect of God as he was the First mans Creator or of the wisdom of God Martial as he is our Lord and Redeemer is Intrinsecal and Formal Idolatry or Idolatry in the Abstract without any external Object to dote upon or to entice men to bestow worship upon it The Heathens committed Idolatry in their Temples or in their houses but this Idolatry is committed within his Brain that entertains it The Essence of it formally consists in the Reflexion of the Imagination upon it self or in the complacency which men take in such Reflexions if any man happily which I much doubt can be delighted with such imaginations The very height of Heathenish Idolatry as our Apostle instructs us Rom. 1. 23 c. did consist in changing the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things Now if the wisdom of God had sent wise-men and Prophets unto the Jews unto the End that Jerusalem should be destroyed and righteous bloud required of them His weeping over Jerusalem had better resembled or expressed the disposition of a Crocodile then the Nature either of God or any good Man Nor was it greater Idolatry in the Heathen to change the glory of the uncorruptible God into the image or likenesse of a Crocodile as the Egyptians did then it is to ascribe the properties of this noysome beast or any such disposition as the Historical Emblem of the Crocodile doth represent unto the Son of God who came into the world not to destroy or hurt but to save sinners and to be consecrated to be the * Heb. 5. 9. Author of Everlasting Salvation to all that Obey him These Two Branches of Idolatry The One planted in the Egyptian who worshipped the Crocodile for his god The other in such as worship or nourish such sinister imaginations of the Son of God as have been specified differ no more then the way from Athens to Thebes doth from the way from Thebes to Athens 5. The original occasion of the former errors or ill expressions The main head or source original whence all or most of the harsh expressions whether of Reformed writers or of Roman Catholiques whence all the aspersions which both or either of them indirectly or by way of necessary consequence cast upon our Lord Creator and Redeemer naturally issue is that Common or Fundamental Errour That all things the changes and chances of this inferior World not excepted are necessary in respect of God or of his irresistible Decree That nothing not humane Acts can be Contingent save only with reference to Second Causes Now if there be no Contingency in humanc Acts there neither is nor ever was nor ever can be any Free-will in man The original of this common Error That all things are Necessary in respect of the Divine Decree hath been sufficiently discovered in the sixth book of these Commentaries upon the Apostles Creed Sect. 2. Chap. 12. Where the Reader may find the Truth of this Proposition or Conclusion clearly demonstrated That to Decree a Contingency in some works or Course of Nature in Humane Acts especially was as possible to him unto whom nothing is impossible as it was to decree a Necessity in some others works or Courses of Nature As for instance To Decree or constitute that our Father Adam should have a Free power or Faculty either to eat or not to eat of the Forbidden Fruit doth imply no Contradiction and therefore was absolutely possible to the Almighty Creator so to ordain or Decree But many things as the observant Reader will except are possible which are not probable or never are brought into Act. True Yet that the Almighty Creator did de Facto or actually decree a Mutual Possibility of Adams Falling and not Falling or between his Fall and Perseverance hath been in this present Treatise and in some others demonstrated from the Article Concerning The Goodness of God or his Gratious providence by such Demonstration as the Case now in handling is capable of that is by Evident Deduction of the Contradictory Opinion to this Impossibility That God otherwise was the only Cause of our First Parents sins and of all other sins which necessarily issue from their sins unlesse it be granted and agreed upon that Adams Falling or not Falling should both be alike possible that neither should or could be necessary either to the First or Second Causes To deny that God did ordain or constitute a true and Facible Mean between the Necessity of Adams Perseverance in the State wherein he was created and the Necessity of his Falling into sin that is a mutual Possibility of falling or not of Falling into sin would imply as Evident a Contradiction unto or impeachment of his Goodness as it would do to his Omnipotency if any man should peremptorily deny that the Constitution or Tenour of such a Decree were possible to his Almighty power To say God could not possibly make such a disjunctive Decree or such a Tenour of mutual possibility betwixt things Decreed as hath been often mentioned would be a grosse Error yet an error I take it not so dangerous as to deny that he did de Facto make such a Decree For our Gratious Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier is doubtless more jealous to have his Goodness impeached or suspected then to have his Almighty Power questioned 6. Thus much of the main general Query Concerning the manner how sin or that evil which we call Malum culpae did find First entrance into the works of God and in particular into the nature of Man from the first moment of whose creation he and all the rest of Gods visible works had this Elogium or commendation that they were Exceeding Good No entrance of sin into the works of God into man especially was possible without the Incogitancy or Inadvertency of a Free Cause or Agent The true nature of the first sin and of its haynousnesse did especially consist in this that whereas our gratious Creator had endowed our First Parents with a Power or faculty to Doe well exceeding well and given them good encouragement to persevere in so doing they should so incogitantly and quickly abuse this power and the Divine Concourse or assistance that did attend it to do that which was evil that which the Lord their Creator had so peremptorily forbidden them to do under commination of a dreadful punishment to ensue upon the doing of it The difficulty or main Querie which remains all that hath been said being granted is principally this How this one sinful Act of our First Parents could possibly produce an Habit
any point of Catholick Faith or Orthodoxal Doctrine CHAP. XXV Of the divers Acceptions or Significations of Freedom or Freenesse And of the several sorts or Degrees of Freedom in Creatures inanimate Vegetable Sensitive and Rational 1. FReedom or Freeness in our English tongue sometimes imports no more then spontaneum doth in Latin Of Freedom in creatures inanimate as it is opposed to Inforcement And according to this Sense or signification every thing is said to be done Sponte or Freely or Freely to come to pass which is done or comes to passe by the proper or Natural Inclination of any bodily Substance Whether it be endowed with life or sense or with motion only Thus we say the Water hath a Free-Course or runneth Freely when it runs that way which Nature inclines it without any Let or Hinderance or without any Artificial or External Help to draw move or impell it Freedom in this sense is opposed only to Coaction to Constraint or Inforcement As when water is drawn or impelled to such a course which left to it self it would not take we say it is a Forced Stream or Current not a Free Stream And so we call those Grounds Forced which bring forth little or no fruit without great labour toyl or cost unto such as Till or dress them And in this Sense the Latin word Liberum unto which our English Freedom or Liberty doth more properly and directly answer then unto the Latin Spontaneum is sometimes used to wit as it is opposed only to Coaction or Inforcement So a Poet describing the happy Estate of the world in the Golden Age saith Ipsaque tellus Omnia liberiùs nullo poscente ferebat The Earth did bring forth all things necessary or expedient for the use or comfort of man Freely that is Of its own Accord without the Labour industry or provident dressing of man Thus This and Other * Of that Age Ovid. Met. Lib. 1. Ipsa quoque immunis rastroque intacta nec ullis Saucia vomeâ—ibus per se dabat omnia Tâ—llus Mox etiam fruges Tellus inarata ferebat Nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis Poets speak of the Golden Age from some Broken Notions or Traditions of mans First Estate in Paradise and of that Estate wherein the world and all things should have continued if Man had not fallen But this Temper of the Earth is much altered or rather inverted by the fall of man Most men it may be have heard or read of that Answer which an Ancient Philosopher made to this Question See Horace his Arva Beata Epod. 16. Reddit ubi Cererem tellus inarata quotannis c. Illic injussae veniunt ad mulctra capellae c. Why Nettles Thistles and other like weeds should grow so fast in such abundance of their own accord when as flowers herbs or comfortable fruits did not grow at all or seldom come to any good proof without the extraordinary pains or skill of man The best Answer which the Philosopher could make was this That the Earth was a Natural and Kind Mother unto Nettles weeds and grass but a Step-mother only to Flowers Herbs or Fruit. Now the Answer though for those times held witty was no way Satisfactory For a man might have further asked him why the Earth should be a kind mother and Loving nurse to weeds and a hard or Cruel Step-mother to herbs or Fruits Unto this Question the youngest Child amongst us that is rightly Catechized in the Grounds of Religion or hath but read the three first Chapters of the first Book of Moses may give a more full and satisfactory Answer then the wisest Philosophers without the Principles of Christian Religion could do The Cause then or Reason is from the Curse wherewith God cursed the Earth for mans Transgression Gen. 3. 17 â—8 19. Because thou hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying thou shalt not eat of it cursed is the ground for thy sake In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the dayes of thy life Thorns also and Thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalâ— eat the herb of the field In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground But though the Heathâ—nâ— could not know this Story by Light of Nature yet thus much being revealed or made known unto them they might easily have gathered That if the Earth was thus accursed for Mans sake the Nature of man was first accursed or corrupted As in very deed this preposterous and untoward inclination of the Earth to bring forth weeds Freely and plentifully and good Fruit hardly or by Constraint or Coaction is but an Emblem or visible Picture of the untoward and corrupt disposition of mans heart to bring forth the Fruits of the Flesh Voluntarily Freely and plentifully whereas it doth not it cannot bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit without the skill and husbandry of Him that made it We have the seeds of sin and iniquity planted in us by Nature and they fructisie and increase by our sloath and negligence As for the fruits of Righteousnesse the Seeds of them must be sown in us by the Spirit of God And being sown they do not grow up and prosper without his Extraordinary Blessing upon his own plants and his Servants Labours Though Paul may plant and Apollo water yet it is God only that gives the increase I am the Vine saith our Saviour John 15. 1. and my Father is the Husbandman And as the Apostle 1. Cor 3. 9. speaks we are his Husbandry So that in Respect of the Fruits of Righteousness and Works Spiritual mans Nature is not Free according to this First Acception or Sense of Freedom that is as it was opposed unto Coaction But in respect of the Fruits of the Flesh our corrupt Nature is most Free These it brings forth of its own accord more Freely and more plentifully then the Earth which God hath cursed for mans sake doth Nettles Thistles or any worse kind of weed And yet the more Freely our Nature brings forth the Fruits of sin the more deeply it is still tainted with the Servitude of Sin So that Freedom and Servitude in some cases at least in respect of divers Objects are not Opposite but Coincident or Compatible in One and the same subject or Person 2. This kind of Freedom which is only opposed to Coaction or Inforcement Of the Radical Difference between Creatures Inanimate and Vegetahles though it be truly and properly in Creatures Inanimate and void of life yet is it in an higher Degree in Creatures Vegetable or Sensitive Inanimate or Livelesse creatures have their Inclinations so set by †Arist Eth. Nicom Lib 2. Cap. 1. Nature that no Contrary Inclination can be implanted in them by Custome As if you move a stone every hour of the day upwards it will still move its selfas Freely and as swiftly downwards as it did at the First
Doctrine handled First Vnto what Condemnation they were of Old ordained Secondly How or in what manner they were ordained unto it 2. There is An English Note upon this Place A very strange One yet gathered as it seems from some good Writers vvho did not so clearly express themselves in their Comments upon this Place as might have been desired See the 1. note at the end of this Chapter and yet are farre vvorse understood by many of their Follovvers then they meant The English Note seems to imply that these men were Ordained to trouble the Church or to follow those lewd Opinions or Practises whereby the Church was troubled and the Faith of many brought into manifest hazard Yet to say that any man is ordained by God to this or the like end will be very harsh to any Christian eares and was I am perswaded either a branch of their Heresy which are here said to be ordained to Condemnation or a Branch of the same Root worse then any Heresy God ordains no man to sin which they maintained And yet to say That men are ordained to trouble the Church to be ungodly and to deny Christ is but the Necessary Consequent of their Opinion who hold That all things every Action of Man even sinfull Actions are so ordained and determined by God that they cannot come to pass otherwise then they do in the Individual either for the Matter Substance or for the circumstance of the action Thus to write thus to speak some are emboldened because nothing can fall out without Gods Foresight yea without his Co-operation For in him all things living do live all things endued with motion do move and have their being And in that nothing can be done without him in that he is Omnipotent and supporteth the world by the Word of his Power they do not collect amisse that they cannot lay a load too heavy upon him But they should consider God is no lesse holy and just then powerful that seeing he is Holy and Just no lesse Holy and Just then he is Powerfull they may lay that upon him which is a great deal too foul for him to bear The foulest Aspersion that can be cast upon his Holiness is to make him the Author of sinful Actions To say or think he did Ordain men to trouble the Church or to be as these men were ungodly Persons denyers of Christ 3. To avouch in plain Terms That God is the Author of sin is as most confesse a dangerous Heresy a sign of a darkned mind in spiritual knowledge And yet the blindnesse or ignorance would be more gross if any man should grant the Antecedent and deny the Consequent That is if one should grant that God did ordain any man to persecute the Church to turn his Grace into wantonness and yet withall deny that God in thus doing should be the cause and Author of Sin See the 6. Chapter He that is the Author or Cause of any Action which is Essentially evill or universally inseparable from evill is the Author and Cause of all the evill which is inseparable from the Action even in that he is the Cause of the Action For that which they call the Obliquity of the Action or Malum Formale Formally Evill can have no other cause at all then that which is the Cause of the Action from which this Formal evill is unseparable So that if Gods Ordinance be the Necessary Cause of such an Action to wit of Troubling the Church the same Ordinance must be the cause of the Obliquity or evill which is annexed unto it Satan and wicked men should be but Causes Instrumental at most that is such a cause as the sword is of the murther which a man commits with it So that the Case is clear that if to trouble the Church with lewd Opinions be a sinfull Action then God who is no Author of Sin did never ordain men unto that action For whatsoever God doth ordain or decree God is Author of that which be ordaineth he is the Author of it These Inferences will admit no Plea or Traverse amongst such as are instructed in the Fundamentall Rules of Art or Nature For all do grant that which they call Obliquity or Formal Evil to be a Relation that is such an entity or Being unto which no Action can be immediatly terminated it hath its Being only by Concomitance or resultance from some other Effect which hath a direct and Immediate Cause Of this Nature are Equality or Inequality of bodies Similitude or Dissimilitude Now it is impossible that man or Angel or any Cause whatsoever should produce an Equality between two bodies formally unequal by any other means then by altering the Quantity of one or both or to make one body dislike unto another but by altering their Qualities Altogether as Impossible it is to produce an Obliquity or Crookedness in mens wayes by any other means then by producing those Actions which are in their Nature Perverse and crooked He which is the Cause of such Actions in the Individual is the Cause of that crookedness or Obliquity which is inseparably annext unto them 4. That God is not the Cause not the Author of such Actions or that such Actions are not necessary in respect of his Decree Christianity it self or the Rule of Catholick Faith binds us to believe as firmly as that there is a God who is the Author or Fountain of Goodnesse Hence saith St. James Cap. 1. ver 13. Let no man say when he is tempted he is tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evill neither tempteth he any man unto evil but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and inticed And unto this inconvenience of being tempted by his own lust man was not subject untill he was beguiled by Satan nor could this great tempter work evill in man immediatly or directly but only by tempting or inticing him to that Action to which evill was unseparably annexed that is to tast of the fruit which God had forbidden The Tempter knew that if he could intice our first Parents unto this Action there was no possibility of shedding the Obliquity or Formal evil from it which was essentially annext unto it Now if God had ordained man to this Individuall Action or to the condemnation which was due to this Action without possibility of avoiding it His Ordination had been a more true Cause of the first mans sin and of his death and ours then Satan was For Satan had no power either naturall or permitted him by God to make any ordinance or decree for man no power either given or permitted to lay a necessity of sinning upon our first Parents All that he was able or permitted to do was only by way of temptation or inticement Adam as all grant had a Freedom of Will in respect of Satan or any inticement that he could propose unto him But Freedom of Will he