performed commending himselfe by solemne prayer unto God For he called unto the Lord and said O Lord God remember me I pray thee and strengthen me I pray thee onely this once O God that I may bee at once revenged of the Philistins for my two eyes and thereupon taking hold of the two pillars of the house he bowed himselfe and said Let me die with the Philistins and the house fell upon the Lords and upon all the people that were within so the dead which he slew at his death were more then they which he slew in his life What a strange zeale possessed Phinees when he ran his javelin thorow Zimri and Cosbi thus perishing in their incestuous act and thus hee as it were sending their soules to hel as well as their bodies to the grave Yet God approves of it and seales hereupon unto him the covenant of the Priesthood The children of Israel expell the Canaanites and destroy them without all mercy having nothing to justifie them in these violent courses but onely the commandement of God The Israelites are said to have robbed the Egyptians in borrowing that which they never meant to restore and the Lord animates them hereunto and foretels unto Moses that he would cause them to march out of the land laden with the riches of Egypt and a great part of this was afterwards consecrated to the service of the Tabernacle 4. In the next place you tell us after your manner positively that the infinite goodnesse of Gods Majestie cannot wrest his most holy will from strict observance of such rules of righteousnesse as he sets us to follow and this dogmaticall assertion of yours is ushered in with a great deale of state by a comparison forsooth of the contrary disposition of great men for whom to set paternes of the morality which they require in others is reputed a kinde of pedantisme or mechanicall servitude and why mechanicall forsooth because it is like the setting of us copies or songs or teaching us some honest trade Yet I can hardly beleeve but that Sardanapalus or Heliogabalus both did thinke it better becomming the Majesty of a Prince to give examples of honest conversation then to play the Scrivener or the Shomaker Instruction in morality or in liberall Arts may in some things have resemblance to mechanicall instructions but is any man so sottish as thereupon to conceive such morall and liberall instruction to be mechanicall An Ape may bee like unto a man Simia quam similis turpissima bestia nobis yet no foole conceives him to be a man Neither doe I see any cause to wonder that they who are willing to give lawes to others are loath to have any lawes given to curbe them Well though the garments of morality be too strait for great ones yet they are not too strait for God he can bee content to put them on to weare them and they become him so well that the infinite greatnesse of his Majestie cannot wrest his most holy will from strict observance of such rules of righteousnesse as he sets us to follow As I remember in Cyri paedia there is conceived such a good lesson becomming Princes namely themselves to observe those lawes which they make for their people This law you have such a transcendent conceit of and of the goodnesse of it that you thinke fit to establsh it in the Common-wealth of the Trinity God say you cannot wrest his will Consider I pray whether this be a sober speech The corruptest man that lives the devill himselfe cannot wrest his will First because the will cannot be wrested lawes may be wrested by violent interpretations mens goods may bee wrested from them by violent courses but I never read nor heard that any mans will may be wrested For it is a received rule that Voluntas non potest cogi Secondly because a man cannot wrest anything that he undertakes to wrest but by his will Now in what congruitie can the will of any be said to wrest it selfe But take we your meaning that God doth strictly observe the rules of righteousnesse which he sets us to follow Now the rules he setteth us to follow ate partly such as are conteined in the first table and partly such as are conteined in the second In the first wee are commanded to love him to feare him to put our trust in him Are these the rules that God himselfe doth so strictly observe doth he feare himselfe doth he put his trust or confidence in himselfe In the second we are commanded to worship him according to his word hath God a care to worship himselfe according to his word God sometimes doth sweare by himselfe and I hold it impossible that God should doe any thing in vaine much more that he should take his owne name in vaine But as for the sanctifying of the Sabbath whereunto wee are bound I cannot well conceive how that day and the sanctification thereof should be observed by God unlesse you are of the Iewes opinion who thinke that God spends some part of the day in reading their Talmud and some part in lamenting Ierusalem and the desolation thereof and the other part of the day he spends in playing with Leviathan and you desire to translate these celestiall devotions to the Sabbath We are bid to honour our father and mother God hath none to honour Wee are forbid to kil any man yet God did bid Abraham to sacrifice his sonne and allowed Phinees in slaying Zimri and Cosbi and exposed his owne innocent Sonne to be crucified and gives us power over inferiour creatures as Lords of life and death God made Adam after his owne image and likenesse Adams integrity was the image of his holinesse but when man by his fall lost this his holinesse take heed you avouch not that hereby he lost the image of God Our holinesse consisteth in seeking the glory of God and no creature can be so zealous of Gods glory as God is of his owne But how to expresse our zeale of Gods glory better then by obedience unto his will I willingly professe I know not As likewise what you meane by those ever living examples of goodnesse which as you say God expresseth in his works vnlesse it bee in making his sunne to shine and his raine to fall both upon good and bad For unto this is the last precept which you mentioned referred by our Saviour And yet I doubt not nor you neither that God hath contrary waies and courses as namely in making us to discerne betweene the righteous and the wicked betweene him that serveth God and him that serveth him not and that in respect of demonstration of mercie to the one and execution of judgement on the other Behold my servant shall eate and ye shall be hungry behold my servants shall drinke and yee shall be thirstie behold my servants shall rejoyce and ye shall be ashamed Behold my servants shall sing for joy of heart
that God should by his secret or reserved will recall any part of his will declared by oath We are so farre from thinking that God recalls any part of his will declared by oath that wee doe not believe that hee doth or can recall any patt of his will that hee hath declared by his bare word And wee thinke it equally impossible for God to lye and to perjure himselfe for he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither when hee kept Abraham from sacrificing his sonne Isaac doe wee say that he recalled any part of his will which he had formerly declared by his word although he commanded Abraham to sacrifice his sonne for Gods will of commandement signifieth onely what God will have to be our duety to doe not what hee hath determined to be done though you confound these usually and that as wilfully and unlearnedly as Arminius himselfe because it serves your turne and advantageth your cause to confound them But looke you to it how you free your selfe from maintaining that God doth recall something which hee hath properly willed and determined to be done For that God willeth the death of no man that dieth you make to bee the word of God confirmed by oath and you understand it of Gods will properly so called and yet you maintaine that God willeth the death of him that dieth though not as man and as the sonne of Adam yet in some other manner which either is flat contradiction or else God doth recall and change his will The last part of your devout asseveration is Farre be it from us to thinke that God should proclaime an universall pardon to all the sonnes of Adam under the seale of his oath and yet exempt many from all possibilitie of receiving any benefit by it Here you seeme to shew your teeth but I had rather understand your meaning for to proclaime pardon to all is ambiguous for it may bee done absolutely as kings on earth grant pardons and usually our kings grant pardons at the end and conclusion of parliaments I doe not thinke this is your meaning for then all should be pardoned for to proclaime pardon is to signifie his Majesties pleasure that hee doth pardon them But if conditionally it is true God proclaimes that whosoever believeth shall be saved this is a knowne truth no man takes exception against it And how doe we exempt any from all possibility of receiving it You will say that this we doe in exempting many from all possibility of performing the condition to wit of believing I answer that your owne opinion is to be charged with this ours is not for you maintain that Pharaoh after the seventh wonder was exempt from all possibility of repentance and the like you avouch of all reprobates and such as have filled up the measure of their sinne which according to your opinion may be many yeares before their death and in the seventh Section following you expresse it thus Having their soules betrothed unto wickednesse such undoubtedly was Ahab that sold himselfe to worke wickednesse and many such like And in this case you professe in your owne phrase that the doore of repentance is shut upon them But wee like not this opinion of yours wee know no measure of sinne nor continuance of sinne that doth prescribe unto the grace of God and forbids the banes of matrimony betwixt him and his Church but that in a due time the power of Gods grace shall breake through all obstacles even through the furious idolatry of Manasses in giving his children unto Devills and that sealed with bloud wherewith hee filled Ierusalem from corner to corner yea and through his sorcery and witchcraft also and through the rage of Saul persecuting Gods saints and making havocke of the Church of God And for as much as wee maintaine it to be possible for every one to believe and repent through Gods grace it is manifest that we exempt no man from all possibility of believing and repenting to wit in consideration of the power of God But in consideration of the power of man wee exempt not many onely but all and every one from possibility of beleeving and repenting by power of nature And dare you avouch the contrary It is apparant that whatsoever you thinke you dare not openly professe thus much And therefore are content to hide your head and lurke under generalities So that the case is cleare that you doe us wrong in saying wee exempt many from all possibility of repenting I say it is a notorious slander for we exempt men from possibility of repenting onely by power of nature and so we exempt not onely many but all and every one from possibility of repenting But perhaps you may say that withall wee maintaine that God doth not purpose to give the grace of faith and repentance unto all but to deny it unto many yea unto most and upon this supposition we exempt them from all possibility of repenting But I pray consider to exempt some from possibility of repenting upon supposition is this to exempt from all possibility without supposition For you have delivered this without all supposition And then the issue is to enquire whether God hath decreed to give the grace of faith and repentance unto all or rather to deny it to many yea to most And dare you affirme that God hath decreed to give the grace of faith and repentance unto all It is apparant you dare not openly professe this and therefore carie your selfe in the clouds without any cleare and distinct proposing of your meaning In S. Pauls daies there was a remnant amongst Israel which are called Gods election Rom. 11. and these had obtained this grace of faith and repentance as there the Apostle signifieth but the rost were hardned And if God hath purposed to give grace unto all you may as well say God hath elected all But the Holy Ghost witnesseth that many are called and but few are chosen Many I say are called not all neither nor the most part as all experience and the histories of the world doe manifest and therefore though God proclaimes in his word pardon of sinne to all that beleeve yet he doth not proclaimethis unto all By the way I observe that whereas you say that God doth proclaime an universall pardon to all the sonnes of Adam under the seale of his oath this of Gods oath which you adde doth draw us to conceive that the meaning of those words As I live I will not the death of him that dies containes this sense in your construction that God will pardon the sinnes of all and since these words as you understand them doe not runne conditionally but absolutely herehence it followeth that according to your opinion God hath sworne absolutely to pardon the sinnes of all men the absurdity whereof I leave to everie mans sober consideration 7. Hitherto you have told us in what matters the distinction of voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti cannot
certeyne universall nature mooves them contrarily to their speciall inclinations for mayntenance of the integritie of the whole and for avoydance of all vacuity I see no reason for that other assertion of yours that nature cannot sett boundes to bodies naturall but rather is limited in them What thinke you of the soules of men doe not these as other soules prescribe limits unto the matter Materia prima was accoumpted in our Vniversitie to have dimensiones in determinatas and that it receaved the determination therof from formes but by the operation of Agents in their severall generations I confesse nature it selfe is but the effect and instrument of God who is the God of nature as well as of grace But yet whether every thinge that hathe boundes of nature as the World hathe dothe herby evidence and inferre the creation therof is such a question wherin Aristotle and his followers did peremtorily maynteyne the negative and the Scripture it selfe do the impute unto faithe our acknowledgement of the Creation 4. Nowe we come to the scanninge of your second Principle Whatsoever hathe no cause of beinge can have no limits or boundes of beinge This in part hathe evidence of truthe thus Whatsoever hathe no efficient cause of beinge the same hathe no beginninge of beinge But if it proceede of limits of essence or of qualitie or of quantitie it requires helpe of reason to make it good For as many as denyed the World to have a beginninge denyed as it seemes that it had any cause of beinge and thought the beinge therof to be by necessitie of nature Yet did they maynteyne that the World had limits of quantitie and qualitie For they maynteyned that Infinitum magnitudine was absolutely impossible as Aristotle by name By your distinction followinge of diverse wayes wherby beinge may be limited you make no mention of limitation by havinge a beginninge therof which yet hathe bene the cheife if not only limit which hitherto you have mentioned Agayne why shoulde you make but two wayes confoundinge the limits of quantitie with the limits of intensive perfection in every several kinde It were too much in my judgement to confound limits of quantitie with limits of qualitie which yet are both accidentall But most unreasonable it seemes to confound eyther of these with intensive perfection of every severall kinde But howe will you accommodate the members of this distinction to the former proposition Allmightie God hathe no cause of beinge therfore he hathe no limits of beinge Nowe I pray apply this to the members of your distinction concerninge the kinde of limits of beinge Is he without limits in number why then belike he is numberles Yet indeede he is but one and can be but one in nature and in persons can be but three must needes be three Is he without limits in quantitio and so infinite therin But in very truthe he hathe no quantitie at all Is he without limits in qualities not materiall for such are not incident to him but spirituall so infinite therin Are there no boundes of the degrees of his goodnes why but consider in God there are no degrees no qualities at all As touching perfections created therof indeede we have severall kindes but none such are to be found in God Only because God is able to produce them therfore they are sayde to be eminently in God thoughe not formally But the like you may say as well of any materiall attribute as of spirituall For God can produce all alike Therfore all are eminently alike in God Of thinges visible the most perfect you say are but perfect in some one kinde It is true of invisible creatures as well as of visible but this kinde is to be understood of a kinde created But you may not say that God is perfect in all such kindes but rather in none of them For that were to be perfect in imperfections Gods perfection transcendes all created kindes and he is the Author of them producinge them out of nothing They that maynteyne the World to have bene eternall maynteyne it to have bene so by necessitie of nature And all such would peremtorily deny that it was possible for the World not to have bene and therfore in this discourse of yours it would have becommed you rather to proove the contrary then to suppose it Howe the Heaven of Heavens shoulde be accoumpted immortall I knowe not seing they are not capable of life And seing deathe properly is a dissolution of body and soule immortalitie must consist proportionably in an indissoluble conjunction of the body and the soule which is not incident to Angells much lesse to Heavens which have neyther bodies nor soules wherof to consist Neyther dothe Seneca in the place by you alleaged speake of Angells in my judgment but rather of the Species of thinges generable particulars thoughe subject to corruption beinge inabled for generation and therby for perpetuation of their kindes and consequently for the mayntenance of the World and that for ever It is well knowne that the Platonickes thoughe they maynteyned the World to have a beginninge yet denyed the matter wherof the World was made to have had any beginninge Of the same opinion were the Stoicks Their common voyce was De nihilo nihil in nihiluâ— nil posse reverti accordingly they might well conceave that God might be hindered in his operation by reason of the stubbornes and churlishnes of the matter so the censure of Muretus upon such Philosophers I conceave to be just Yet by your leave I doe not thinke that any creature capable of immortalitie in what sense soever applyable to Angells as well as unto men can be made immortall by nature Yet I doubt not but God can make creatures in such sort immortall by nature as that no second cause can make them ceasse to be For it is apparant that God hathe many such as namely the Angels and soules of men Yet still their natures are annihilable in respect of the power of God Neyther can I believe that to be immortall in Senecaes language was to be without beginninge For I doe not finde but that the Stoicks together with Plato conceaved that the World had a beginninge But in this respect he calleth them eternall I shoulde thinke because the World together with the kindes of thinges therin conteyned subject to corruption and generation in particulars should have no ende and that by the Providence of God We believe that nothinge is absolutely necessary but God But Aristotle believed the World allso to be everlasting without beginninge of absolute necessitie For that the World shoulde be created originally out of nothinge all Philosophers helde impossible and that the matter shoulde be everlastinge and of absolute necessity wherof the World was to be made that seemed impossible unto Aristotle and that upon good reason The creation therfore is to be justified against Philosophers by sound argument and not avouched only by bare contestation That which followethe
as well that it is extended to frogges and toads to Angells and Devills as well as to mankinde This is onely to professe that it extends to all Now this is a very improper interpretarion of infinite love for lesse love and lesse liberality may extend to more then greater love and greater liberality for he that gives ten shillings to one person is more liberall then that divides five shillings amongst threescore persons in giving them a peny apiece Lastly the fruit of this love can be but being and is it not a proper commendation of Gods infinite love towards mankinde to say that he gives being unto all And doth Gods love to man appeare more herein then to the vilest creature that is 2 In the next Section you discourse at large after your manner of the amplitude of Gods love in comparison which is nothing at all to your purpose whose chiefe aime is to insinuae that Gods love is alike to all Yet having proceeded thus farre my resolution is to go on and to consider what you bring What thinke you of Adams love in the state of innocency was it perfect or no Though without sinne awhile yet hee fell into sinne so did the Angells before him so should wee though as perfect as they if God should not uphold us Yet our love in greatest perfection could not be so much as a shadow of Gods love there being no resemblance betweene them our love being a love of duety Gods love to us of meere grace and mercy Besides betweene the fruits of Gods love to us and the fruits of our love towards God no colour of resemblance Man is bound heartily to desire the good of all but God is free and hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth Many widowes were in Israel in the daies of Elias when heaven was shut three yeares and six months and great famine was throughout all the land But unto none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta a city of Sidone unto a certaine widow Also many lepers were in Israel in the dayes of Elesaeus the prophet yet none of them was made cleane but Naaman the Syrian And if Gods will had beene to doe the best that might be hee could have cured no doubt all other lepers as well as Naaman and succoured other widows as well as the widow of Sarepta Yet I confesse Gods good will exceeds ours not intensively onely but extensively also for not a sparrow falleth to the ground without the providence of our heavenly Father hee saveth both man and beast and heareth the young Ravens that call upon him the eyes of all doe wait upon the Lord and hee gives them their meat in due season And as touching the conferring both of grace and glory therein hee saveth more then wee know or are acquainted with The number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea that cannot bee counted for multitude As touching temporall blessings all partake of his goodnesse therein in their naturall preservation and consolation therein wee must imitate him in doing good to all as it lieth in our power though chiefly to the houshold of faith yet not to them onely but to others also But though he causeth his sun to shine and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust yet pronounceth not the sentence of salvation on all promiscuously whether they be just or unjust And whereas all are equally corrupt in state of nature yet he doth not equally shew mercy on all or bestow the meanes of grace on all or where he doth bestow these meanes of salvation he doth not make them effectuall unto us He blindes the eyes and hardens the hearts of some that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts and be converted that he might heale them Whereby it comes to passe that the word of God though it be the savour of life unto life unto some yet it is the savour of death unto death unto others and the Ministers of God are a good savour unto God in both even both in them that are saved and in them that perish For God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill Mercie you say is not restrained from ill deservers in distresse so long as the exercise of it breeds no harme to such as are more capable of bountifull love and favour This is a consideration which I confesse hath place among men sometimes and in some cases Yet hardly can I devise how to suit with a fit instance For no states for ought I find doe take notice of any such distinction of times wherein the exercise of mercy will not breed harme and wherein it will but they execute condigne punishment upon malefactors according to the lawes that all may see and feare to doe the like not be encouraged malorum facta imitari but rather eorum exitus perhorrescere God doth not so His patience and long suffering is exceeding great yet if hee should give every man repentance in his death bed and save their soules what one in the world should be the worse for this And though the wicked many times spend their daies in mirth and sodainly goe downe to the grave yet by the grace of God we shall be nothing the worse for this nor provoked hereupon to condemne the generation of Gods children Yet what is it that makes one man more capable of bountifull love and favour then another I know not what makes him more capable of love in the execution of reward I know but what makes him more capable of love in the communication of grace and in shewing mercy towards him I know not Sure I am that woman who had many sinnes forgiven her loved so much the more the ninety nine just persons that thinke they need no repentance like enough love so much the lesse It is true the lawes of States take order for the just execution of punishment upon offenders for the common good yet by your leave Kings on earth by their absolutenesse doe give pardons to whom they will respecting more their own pleasure then the common good And withall I thinke Princes doe lesse offend if at all offend in refusing to pardon malefactors then in granting pardons unto them As for God to whom you say the execution of justice is unnaturall he being the Father of mercy I pray consider if God should give repentance to all on their death-beds and consequently save all what common good of mankinde would be hindred by this And as God is the father of mercy so is he also the Iudge of all the world and I conceive the execution of justice punitive to be as naturall to him as he is Iudge of all the world as the execution of mercy is naturall unto him as he is the Father of mercy Yet you seeme to have a place of Scripture to prove a
will yee die yee house of Israel And the whole proceedeth by way of answer to their murmuring against the providence of God in saying The fathers have eaten sower grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge and hereupon God proceedeth to justifie the course of his providence unto their face Now when God doth not take men upon the hippe as soone as they have sinned against him but spares them and not onely gives them space of repentance but useth meanes to bring them unto repentance by sending Prophets unto them to admonish them to admonish them of their sinnes and to denounce the judgements of God against them is not this a manifest evidence that God is not delighted in their death but rather in their repentance although he still reserves libertie to himselfe to bestow the gift of repentance on whom he will And therefore all this is only in respect of his church not in respect of those who are strangers from the common wealth of Israel and aliens from the covenants of promise then concerning those within the church All are not Israel that are of Israel Rom. 9. And though the meanes of grace have their course withall yet God intends to make them effectuall onely with his elect according to that As many as were ordeined to eternall life believed and whom he hath predestinated them hath he called and justified and glorified For as Austine saith Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis aget poenitentiam And speaking of the Non pradestinatis Istorum neminem saith hee adducit Deus ad salubrem spiritatemque poenitentiam qua homo reconciliatur Deo in Christo sive illis ampliorem patientiam sive non imparem praebeat Therefore we say that as concerning the elect though they sinne yet God willeth not their death but willeth their repentance and their salvation But as touching others who are mixt amongst them as tares amongst the wheat and are partakers of the same meanes of grace and invitations unto repentance in as much as he spares them and giveth them not onely time to repent but admonisheth them of their sinnes and affords them the outward meanes of repentance it is sufficient to justifie that God doth not willingly bring judgement upon them neither for their sinnes because hee comes not hastily thereunto but upon wilfull despising of the means of grace used to reclaime them like as before I shewed in what sense God is said not to afflict the sonnes of men willingly And as for this present place your selfe elsewhere hath interpreted it thus I will not the death of an impenitent sinner but that God wills undoubtedly the death of an impenitent sinner To quash this construction in this place you say this oath of God proceeds as concerning those who all their life long have hated him Here I am perswaded wee shall finde no little inconsideratenesse To hate God all a mans life time what is it but to hate him from the first hower of comming to the use of reason unto the last even unto the moment of death now I pray consider Will not God the death of such a one as dieth in impenitencie The text I confesse runnes thus I will not the death of him that dieth But doe you thinke indeed the meaning is that as for such a man as now dieth and hath lived all his life time in the hatred of God God will not the death of such a one Like enough you are content your Reader should entertaine such a conceite But I cannot bee perswaded you take this to be the meaning The text is manifestly against it for it followeth But rather that he returne and live so that it is spoken of a man living and such as is capable of repentance And wee know the whole Chapter is to justifie Gods providence in afflicting men with his judgements so that to die in this place is to be under the afflicting hand of God and so in the way to death and to destruction Our living is reputed a continuall dying for as much as nature consumeth and wasteth as the Poet wittily expresseth it Childehood ends in youth And youth in old age dies I thought I lived in truth But now I die I die I see Each age of death is one degree Whereupon he concludes his resolution to correct his former phrase of speech saying Farewell the doating score Of worlds Arithmaticke Life I le trust thee no more But henceforth for thy sake I le go by deaths new Almanaeke For while I sing A thousand men lie sick a thousand bells doring And would you know what is the difference between me and them They are but dead and I dying So that I guesse your meaning according to the articles of your owne creed is but this That Gods love is such to them that all their life past not simply all their life but all their life past have hated him that He will not their death but rather that they returne and live And I grant that this is true of many in most proper speech namely of all the elect of God though it bee long ere God calleth and converteth some of them Of others also that live in the Church I have shewed how it may have course in the same sense that God is said not so much willingly to afflict them for their sinnes as for refusing to repent and turne unto God after they have sinned When you tell us of infinite places more of sacred texts and those most perspicuous in themselves and also that The whole ancient Church with some small exception which yet may bee counterpoised is ready to give joynt verdict for you it savoureth hotly of Smithfield eloquence Pessima quò vendas opus est mangone perito Qui Smithfieldensi polleat eloquio Yet it was an old observation Multa fidem promissa levant cum plenius aequo Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces If you had some about you to justfie you in cleanly manner by some prety qualification it had beene absolute As the Gentleman who professed that he had certaine ponds wherein Carpes were taken as big as that Somer-pole which hee then rode by and withall askt his man that rode with him whether it were not so Sir quoth his man though they were so big yet I am sure they were nothing like so long and indeed the dimension of length is more suitable to the proportion of an Eele then of a Carpe As Cicero answered him that told a strange tale concerning the length of certaine Eeles which he had seene for Tully handsomely to convince him of his vanity made shew of going beyond him in his owne element of tossing and forthwith replied saying That is nothing strange for I know a place where Eeles are taken of such a length that they use to make their Angling-rods of them And this assertion of yours may come as heere to the trueth as an Eele is to an Angling rod. CHAP. XV.
every one I would I knew once what forme would satisfie you for I am apt to entertaine a resolution to gratifie you therein But to say that we must pray for all not in an indefinite but in an universall consideration if you could make me understand it I would soone come to capitulation with you In the meane time I appeale to your conscience did you ever pray in this stile for all and signifie that your meaning was to pray for them not in an indefinite but in an universall consideration I professe unto you if God should leave me unto my selfe and to follow mine owne desires I should desire not onely that all that now live but that all that ever lived might have beene converted and saved yea the Angels that fell might have been kept from sin or having sinned might have beene brought to repētance saved I see no cause why I should desire the contrary But considering the wil of God wherby the angels that fell are bound in chaines and kept to the judgement of the great day I dare not pray for their salvation And to pray that every one that now lives might be saved with submission to the will of God I see no incongruity but we have better grounds of faith and those sufficient to take up our thoughts especially in these daies wherein we live whereupon to proceed in the ordering of our prayers And I would be loath you should put upon us any course or forme of prayer for all which you practise not your selfe And if I knew your practice in this kinde I would soone give in mine answer whether I thought good to subscribe to your forme or no. In the next place you tell us that the reason why we are bound to desire the spirituall good of all men universally considered is because we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect Here againe you bewray your jealousie of the weaknesse of your owne cause as when you content not your selfe in saying we must pray for all men but adde hereunto that we must pray for all men universally considered the opposite member wherto before you signified to be this To pray for all men indefinitly considered Now the Apostle is farre from these scrupulosities He simply exhorts us to pray for all men hee doth not adde as you doe We must pray for all men universally considered and not indefinitely Yet in no other sense you think it will serve your turne That reason of yours drawne from the conformity to the courses of our heavenly Father whereon you so much insist I have already shewed how little it serves your turne Now I will shew you how in another respect it is rather repugnant then consonant to your Tenet For that example of conformity is onely in an indefinite consideration thus Wee must pray not onely for our friends and them that love us but also for them that are our enemies and hate us and persecute us like as God doth good unto the just and wicked and not onely to the just and good To our desires you say wee must adde our endeavours that saving truth may be imparted to all It seemes you have not failed herein Now I would gladly know what those endeavours of yours have beene hitherto whereby you have endeavoured that saving truth may be imparted to the inhabitants of terra Australis incognita or to the Negroes or to the Tartarians yea or the Turkes Saracens or Arabians Hitherto you have seemed to dispute thus God will have it our duty to pray for the salvation of all therefore God willeth the salvation of all but now you dispute in a quite contrary manner thus God wils that all should come to the knowledge of his truth therefore wee must desire and endeavour that his saving truth may be imparted unto al. The consequence of your former argument is utterly untrue as I have already shewed and as Austin long agoe discoursed mans will in an holy manner may be contrary to the will of God and againe in a most unholy manner may the will of man be concurrent with the will of God As it is the duty of the childe to pray for the life of the father though God will have the father to dye and not live On the other side a wicked childe wisheth the death of his father in an ungracious manner yet it may bee that herein he concurreth with the will of God supposing as it may well be that God willeth the death of the father at the same time that the sonne wisheth it As for the second argument we deny therein the antecedent if you understand it of all and every one For the case is cleer that God doth not bring all and every one to the knowledge of his truth not because he cannot for doubtlesse he could bestow his Gospell upon them that want it as well as upon us that enjoy it therefore the reason must needs be because he will not As he plainly professeth he will bring a famine of his word upon a Land Amos 8. 11. Behold the dayes come saith the Lord God that I will send a famine in the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst of water but of hearing the word of the Lord. vers 12. And they shall wander from sea to sea and from the North even to the East shall they runne to and fro to seeke the word of the Lord and shall not finde it So the Lord threatens the Church of Ephesus to remove her candlesticke out of his place Revel 2. and long before threatned the Iewes to take his vineyard from them and let it out to others that should bring him the fruit thereof in due season And it is very strange that these and such like judgements should come to passe and God should not will them This is the reason whereupon Austin is moved to enquire into a commodious construction of that place left otherwise we should fall upon a direct contradiction to the prime Article of our Creed and therefore after he hath given two constructions of the place the last whereof is this which you impugne but not answer his reasons which are two the one drawne from the analogie of Scripture phrase as where our Saviour saith unto the Pharises you tithe Mint and Rue and every herbe which phrase cannot be understood otherwise then of every kinde of herbe the other reason is that formerly spoken of as if we say That God willeth such a thing to come to passe which yet doth not come to passe we shall thereby deny Gods omnipotency Yet see the ingenuity of this worthy father hee gives any man leave to give any fair construction of the place provided that God bee not made unable to bring to passe whatsoever hee will have to come to passe Et quocunque alio modo intelligi potest dum tamen credero non cogamur aliquid omnipotentem statutum voluisse fieri factumque non esse qui sine ullis
proving that which no Christian will deny For your conclusion is that God willeth not the death of any but the life of all whom of men or infidels he hath made Christians Did ever any Christian deny this Is this it you are to prove that God wils the salvation of all Christians Have you not rather undertaken to prove that God willeth not the salvation of all sorts of men onely which was Austins glosse and which you set up here as a mark to shoot at thinking by the power of your discourse to beare downe the authority and learned discourse of that worthy Father hereupon but that he willeth the salvation of every man of every sort throughout the world And this you would prove out of the doctrine established in the Church of England that is out of their Liturgie and three prayers therein you insist upon whereas the two first are apparantly nothing for the purpose whereof your selfe seeme to bee sensible enough and therefore the third place Triary like was to doe the feat and to cleare all and the conclusion herehence definit in piscem being no more but this that God willeth the salvation of all men whom he hath vouchsafed to make Christians which no man denies or cals into question May I not justly aske and that with admiration Quid dignum tanto tulit hic promissor hiatu Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus But what should move you to carie your selfe so preposterously and to balke or blast rather so faire a consequence and so beneficiall unto your cause as your antecedent doth bespeake For if your antecedent be true namely that God willeth not the death of any Turke Iew or Infidell will it not manifestly follow that God willeth not the death of any Turke or Iew or Infidell To my thinking it should follow as manifestly as to say that if the Sunne shineth it shineth though in my poore judgement this is identity rather then consequence or concomitance I say I wonder what moved you to blast this consequence with such a dash of your pen in the very face of it and the addition of such a proviso as this whom of men or infidels he hath made Christians First especially considering that no such qualification is in the antecedent and it is most unreasonable that any qualification should be foisted into a conclusion that hath no ground in the premisses especially it being such a qualification as utterly marres your market and that at the end of the day and you have a long time waited for a good penyworth and now your selfe are the man that cuts your owne throat Did the conscience of so foule a conclusion as was towards make you blush to put it in writing that cannot be for you have it full and whole in the antecedent though straining to proceed most indecently it fares with you as it doth with the horse in the Poet Peccat ad extremum ridendus ilia ducit Or by the way did your consequence suggest unto you that the argument drawne from this prayer proves no more but this that God will save every Iew Turke and Infidell in case he be first made a Christian If so then the supposed consequence in your antecedent was made against your conscience and therefore by the consequence herehence made you desired to strangle it that so the birth of it might bee abortive Yet because you carie some shew of argumentation in the antecedent I will not trust to the corruptnesse of your consequent deduced therhence but I will take the pains to strangle it my selfe since the presse hath brought it to light your antecedent is this If God therefore will not the death of any Jewe Turke or Infidel because of nothing he made them men Now this includes such an Enthymeme Of all Turkes Iewes and Infidels it is true that God of nothing hath made them men therefore he will not the death of any Iew Turke or Infidel Now I say this consequence is notoriously false and in stead of your proving it in any manner I disprove it in this manner Of all Devils it is as true that God of nothing made them angels shall I herehence inferre therefore he will not the death of any devill So likewise of all cats and dogs horses and hogs it is as true that God of nothing made them such as they are will it therefore follow that God willeth not the death of any of them But perhaps some may say that the Collect implyeth some such argument for it runneth thus Mercifull God who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made have mercy upon all Jewes I answer first here is no such argument implyed as to inferre that God will not the death of any Iewe Turke or Infidell but onely it implieth a reason why we pray God to have mercy upon all Iewes Turkes and Infidels But albeit we doe thus pray for all yet it followeth not that God will save every Iew Turke and Infidell that liveth as before I have shewed For who doubts but the childe is bound to pray for the recovery of his fathers health being cast downe upon the bed of sicknesse at what time it may bee it is Gods will that his father shall not recover but dye the death Secondly the complete reason why we pray for all signified in this praier is not this because God hath made all men and hateth nothing that he hath made for by the same reason we might be urged to pray for devils as well as for men This is onely a part of the reason not the whole reason The whole reason is this Who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made nor wouldest the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live And we finde by manifest experience that most wicked men are converted and God hath revealed unto us that the fulnesse of the Gentiles shall come in Rom. 11. and that then shall be the calling of the Iewes therefore wee pray for the fulnesse of the one and of the other but with submission unto the will of God as touching the time of this and the manner how Thirdly and lastly like as it followeth not that because we must pray for all men therefore wee must pray for every man throughout the world in like sort it followeth not that because our Church prescribes us to pray for all Iewes Turks and Infidels therefore it prescribes us to pray for every Iew Turke and Infidel throughout the world and looke what restraint may be laid upon all men the very same restraint of interpretation may be laid upon all Jewes all Turkes and all Insidels Yet you keep your course and tel us that as God made all things without invitation a prettie phrase for them that affect eloquence beyond intelligence out of meere love made nothing hatefull Apply this I pray to devils and see whether we have not as good a ground to pray for them
not made Christians so as to cease any longer to be men Yet you couple them together under one yoke though very unequall heyfers you should have said rather of meere men we are made Christians All that are redeemed are unfainedly loved but if all mankinde signifie no more then all men and all men no more then all sorts of men what are you the nearer to that you reach after And you know I suppose that this was Austins interpretation of that universality and hee gives reasons for it though you magisterially will have your owne way in spite of the pie without answering his reasons Againe consider whether to pay a price which is sufficient for the redemption of all and every one be not in a faire sense to redeem all every one And what one of our Church will maintaine that any one obtaines actuall redemption by Christ without faith especially considering that redemption by the bloud of Christ and forgivenesse of sins are all one I would you would speake plainely and tell us what is meant by redemption which you say every one hath in Christ denying that every one hath sanctification So that whereas the Apostle joynes these two together where hee saith Christ is of God made unto us wisedome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption you divide them telling us that Christ is made redemption to all and every one but not sanctification And truely I had thought that Christ had deserved the one as well as the other for all those for whom he died And it is very strange that God should be said to love them whom he never meanes to sanctifie But I pray answer me Doth he unfainedly love the Devils I thinke you will say he doth not what reason have you then to say that hee loveth all men though you will easily perswade your selfe that the most part of them are reprobates and whom hee never will bring unto wholesome and spirituall repentance whereby a man is reconciled unto God in Christ as Austine writes lib. 5. cont Iulian Pelag. cap 4. and whether you meane to contradict Austine in this also I know not as yet yet one word more with you before wee part How long doth God continue to love them till the measure of their sinne is at full t is your owne oracle in the former Section And then belike hee beginnes and continues to hate them But I pray consider how can this change this alteration stand with the nature of God that his love his will to save them should bee changed into hatred into a purpose to damme them considering that Gods will is his essence And the Lord professeth of himselfe saying I the Lord am not changed and yee sonnes of Iacob are not consumed Mal. 3. 6. All that are baptized in your opinion are not sanctified yet some others much agreeing with you in other opinions maintaine that all that are baptized are regenerate and they alledge a better testimony out of the book of Common prayer then any you have brought to serve your turne namely the profession that is made by the Minister thus Now this childe is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christs congregation Yet that hath beene answered by a Bishop of our Church and that out of the doctrine of Austine Yet I grant baptisme is the seale of redemption and of forgivenesse of sinnes also but to whom to none but such as believe for God hath not ordained that the benefit of Christs bloud shall redound to the redemption and forgivenesse of the sinnes of any man unlesse hee believeth For God hath set him forth to be a propitiation for our sinnes through faith in his bloud But your inferences you conceive to bee as cleere as christall so that the consideration of them makes you doubt whether such amongst us as teach the contrary to these have at any time subscribed to the booke of Common prayer And no question is to be made of your subscription which deny all them to bee sanctified that are baptized though in plaine termes the booke of Common prayer professeth of every baptized childe that hee is regenerate And now you have plaide your part so well in working our authorized devotions as you call them and Catechisme to serve your turn you promise to performe as much touching the book of Homilies but wee must expect your performance therein untill you come to the article concerning Christ in the meane time you will give us space to breathe and take notice of your concludent proofe as you call it thus God wills the salvation of all that are saved and all that are not saved therefore hee wills the salvation of all and every one Now the second part of the Antecedent which alone is called in question is proved out of that of Ezech As I live I will not the death of him that dieth I had thought you had done with this but if it bee your course to tautologize in repeating former arguments I may take liberty to repeat without tautologie my former answer First therefore I say the words as they lye in proper speech are contradictions to your tenent in two respects First because in another discourse of yours you maintaine that hee whose death God wills not is the penitent but here you professe that God willeth not the death of them that are not saved when they die which as as much as to say that God willeth not the death of impenitent sinners Secondly there is a time you confesse in the former Section when God hates sinners to wit when the measure of their sinne is full and if then he hates them he may then as well be said to will their death and damnation as he was said to will their salvation while he loved them In the second place the words as they lye in proper speech are contradictions to manifest reason for seeing God is he that inflicts death and damnation upon them hee must needes will their death and damnation because whatsoever God doth hee doth it according to the counsell of his owne will Eph. 1. 11. Secondly if God doth not will the death which he inflicts then neither doth he will the punishment that he inflicteth nor the chastisement that he inflicteth and so indeed it is said Lam. 3. That he doth not punish willingly nor afflict the children of men which cannot bee understood in proper speech for then it would follow that God doth afflict and chastise the children of men against his will Therefore I say this must be understood by a figure of speech to wit by a metaphor and God said not to will or this or that which hee doth because in the doing of it hee is similis nolenti as first when hee doth it not according to the Latine phrase animi causa for his pleasures sake but being provoked and yet not hastily neither though provoked but after long forbearance and giving time of repentance upon the despising of this goodnesse of God as
Ezek. 14. 23. They shall comfort you when you see their way and their enterprises and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it saith the Lord God Secondly when God doth chastise not as parents for their owne pleasures but with an eye to the good of those whom hee chastiseth Rom. 12. 10. According thereto is that of Augustine Qui trucidat non considerat quemadmodum laniet sed qui curat considerat quemadmodum seret This is my answer following the course of your owne reading of the place whereas Piscator blames the vulgar translation in this place which you follow for saith hee in the Hebrew it is not I will not the death of a sinner but this I am not delighted in the death of a sinner But saith he A man may will that wherein he takes no delight as a ficke man may will to drinke a bitter potion wherein he takes no delight For he may will to take it not for it selfe but for something else to wit to recover his health And so God willeth the eternall death of reprobates for his owne glory to wit for the manifestation of his just wrath in punishing of their sinnes And Iunius reades it and translates it in like manner and with these accordeth our last English translation As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turne from his way and live Ezek. 33. 11. And the 18. of Ezekiel doth cleare the meaning of the Holy Ghost where the same phrase is used and in the same manner translated by our worthiest Divines and followed in our last translation vers 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that hee should returne from his waies and live and verse 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God wherefore turne your selves and live ye Now in this chapter the Lord justifieth himselfe against an imputation of harsh if not unjust dealing as if hee punished the children for the sinnes of their fathers which in a proverbiall manner was delivered thus The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge which might occasion a desperate disposition in them and provoke them to cast off all care of amending their waies and turning to God by repentance because all was one whether they repented or repented not because the sowre grapes which their fathers had eaten were enough to set all their teeth on edge Against this the Lord made a solemne protestation that all soules were his even the soules of the children as well as the soules of the fathers and that the soule that sinned that should dye and hereupon expostulates with them thus Have I any pleasure in the death of a sinner to wit so as to bring death upon him notwithstanding his repentance because forsooth his father had eaten sowre grapes No no the Lord hath no delight in their death but if they returne and live hee delights in that and therefore concludes with exhorting them to returne unto the Lord that they may live Now when you forsake the translation of our Church and slicke unto the Vulgar corrupt translation to hold up your odde conceits doth it become you to make question whether they that oppose you in your extravagant tenents and proofes have subscribed to the booke of Common Prayer Piscator proceedeth further and saith that the meaning is not simply that God delights not in the death of the wicked but in case he ceaseth not from his iniquity as appeares saith he by comparing of it with that which goeth before and with that which commeth after for otherwise God takes delight in all his workes like as Lyra upon Ezech. 18. Punitio improbitatis bene est à Deo volita quia justa In Proverbs 1. 26. thus we reade I will laugh at your destruction and mocke when your feare commeth How are these places to bee reconciled Piscator answereth God is not delighted in the death of man as it is the destruction of the creature but is delighted therein as it is the just punishment of the creature which is as much as to say he delights in the execution of his owne Iustice like as wee reade Ier. 9. 24. Let him that glorieth glorie in this that he understandeth and knoweth me For I am the Lord which shew mercy and judgement and righteousnesse in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. 4. Now as if you had made all sure on your side partly out of our authorized devotions wherein you make choice of three prayers whereof two are nothing to the purpose and the third at your uttermost straining of it doth but encourage you to conclude finally that God wils not the death but the life rather of them that of Infidels are made Christians and partly out of the Catechisme where you finde that Christ hath redeemed all mankinde which hath no coloutable extent further then all men and without manifest opposition to Austin you finde this phrase will not serve your turne whom yet you oppose so as without answering any one of his arguments one whereof was drawne from analogie of Scripture phrase another from manifest reason professing therewithall that your construction of this place contradicts the prime Article of the Creed And last of all driving the naile of your discourse home with a concludent proofe depending upon a translation of the text quite different from the most authentique translation of our Church which yet must be without prejudice to your conformity having a sound heart of your owne and therefore some peccadilies may bee well borne withall and you take liberty to question others your opposites whether they have subscribed or no to the booke of Common Prayer such is the height of your imperious cariage bearing downe all before you Now you come to enquire By what will God doth will they should be saved that are not saved and you demand whether God doth will their salvation by his revealed and not by his secret will As if this were our opinion whereas neither Calvin embraceth it nor Beza nor Piscator but all concurre upon that interpretation which Austin gave many hundred yeares agoe and which you impugne and how judiciously we have already considered Peter Martyr proposeth it amongst divers others but embraceth it not neither doe I know any Divine of ours that embraceth it Cajetan indeed embraceth it and Cornelius de Lapide and Aquinas amongst other interpretations As you doubt whether your opposites have subscribed to the booke of Common prayer so if you take a liberty to put upon us the opinions and accommodations of distinctions used by Papists you may in the next place make doubt whether wee have not subscribed to the Councell of Trent We plainly deny that God doth will the salvation of any but of his elect For to
words are when you talke of manifest contradiction upon our part let the indifferent consider and judge 5. But you will seeme to gratifie your opposites by not carying your selfe so rigorously criticall as to banish this distinction of voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti out of the consines of Divinity But therewithall you continue your former fiction in the stating of our opinion as if we maintained that God did will the salvation of all by that will which is called voluntas signi but not by that will which is called voluntas beneplaciti whereas I know none of our Divines that doe professe their opinion in that manner but rather they utterly deny in plaine termes that God doth will the salvation of all And in my judgement the application of this distinction in this case by some that are orthodoxe in the point of Predestination as namely by Aquinas and Cajetan is most unseasonable And therefore we have small cause to feare the imputation you cast upon us forsooth of canonization of Iesuiticall perjuries and deification of mentall evasions or reservations seeing it is onely grounded upon a meere fiction of yours fashioning our Tenent at your owne pleasure most unseasonably and most incongruously in respect of our opinion who grammatically and plainly professe God willeth not the salvation of all men And yet I am perswaded that in the end this canonization of Jesuiticall perjuries and deification of mentall evasions or reservations will justly light upon your selfe according to the lawes of your owne making and the tenour of your consequences when you come to manifest wherein this distinction of voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti may have place Yet I purpose to consider well how you carrie your selfe in this imputation you cast upon us You acquaint us with two Iesuiticall equivocations each consisting in part of a protestation and in part of a mentall reservation The first as touching the protestation is this I doe not intend the ruine of King or State as touching the reservation this so they will become Roman Catholiques The second protestation this J know of no conspiracy against them the reservation this with purpose to reveale it unto them Now let us see how you make us to deifie these or such like equivocations upon your fiction of our opinion You need not trouble your selfe about putting any interrogatory unto God it is enough to prove that God by our opinion doth make protestations of such intentions or expresse such speeches with such reservations God protests you say that he would not the death of him that dies and we you say professe this to bee spoken with such a reservation So he will repent which J know he cannot doe A second is this God doth not will the non-repentance of him that dyeth the reservation that wee make as you say is this with purpose to make it knowne to him however according to my secret and reserved will I have resolved never to grant him the meanes without which he cannot possibly repent whereas without repentance he cannot live but must die To each of these I answer distinctly and to every part of each First therefore I deny that God professeth any such thing in the place you beat upon as that hee will not the death of him that dieth but onely that he delighteth not nor hath any pleasure in the death of him that dieth And not onely Piscator and Iunius doe so interpret the place but our last and best and most authorized English translation doth so render it And wee cannot but wonder at your inconsideration if you take no notice of it or at your boldnesse thus to proceed in despight of it if you did take notice of it and yet question your opposites Archdeacon like at least whether they have subscribed to the booke of Common Prayer Secondly touching the reservation I say it is your owne interpretation as I have read in a manuscript of yours namely that he whose death God willeth not is the penitent sinner And in the end of the seventh section of this Chapter you professe that God necessarily hates them that have made up the full measure of their iniquity whence it seemeth that when God saith according to your translation I will not the death of him that dieth it is to bee understood with this provision provided that he fill not up the measure of his iniquity Againe I say this supposition of repentance is no reservation but plainly signified by the tenour of the Prophets discourse as appeares manifestly both by the consideration of the 33. chapter in Ezekiel and especially by comparing of it with the 18. wherein are found the same words as I have already shewed in the end of the third section So that we adde not this by way of reservation as you impute unto us but make it appeare to be the meaning of the Holy Ghost by the tenour of the Text and if Iesuites did in like sort make their meanings cleare unto us we should never challenge them for equivocation or reservation We see by this what is the issue of your imputation which in great pompe you called out deisication of mentall evasions and reservations as if you spent your strength in phrasifying You seemed to bee sensible of your own weaknesse in justifying this your calumniation and therfore to give weight unto it you have your additions without all congruity to the precedent of Iesuiticall equivocations whereunto notwithstanding you desired to conforme our tenent and rest your selfe wholly upon the odious nature of that conformity especially as being charged upon God by our opinion as you manage the matter But your addition hath no colour of conformity thereunto but proceeds of it selfe without all respect of proportion For the Iesuite protesting he intends not the ruine of the King and State with this reservation So they become Romane Catholiques doth not adde hereunto these words Which I know they cannot doe I doâ— not doubt but they have a more comfortable opinion of us then so Yet when you come to shew how our opinion doth deisie as you speake this very Iesuiticall tricke the greatest strength of your odious expression of our Tenet consists in such like addition whereunto not any thing on the Iesuiticall equivocations part is conformable Doe you see how well you performe the part of a disputant and that in making good so foule a calumniation as is the deisying of equivocations As if you followed the politicians counsell who bids his disciples bee bold to calumniate for as much as though a man might cleare his good name yet in such a case cicatrix manet calumniae Fie upon such shamelesse courses And as for this addition of yours what taile of consequence soever it drawes after it it is like to fall foule on your part and not on ours For you maintaine that there is a state of man in this life in respect of a certaine measure of iniquity wherein it is not possible
for him to repent I know no such state nor any rule that God hath given to himselfe to confine his grace Nay to the contrary we reade that neither continuance in sinne nor greatnesse of sinne doth preclude the grace of God but that Gods grace as it can so it doth many times prevaile over both But you love not to speake distinctly but to carie your selfe in the clouds of generalities They that maintaine a weake cause had need play least in sight wee say plainly that God well knowes no man can repent except he gives the grace of repentance the Scriptures in divers places expresly testifying that repentance is the gift of God though you love not to heare of that eare nor are well pleased as it seemes with the musique that riseth upon the touching of that string On the other side God knowes that every man at any time can repent if God will be pleased to give him the grace of repentance yea and that he shall repent also the habituall grace serves for the one and the actuall and effectuall motion of Gods Spirit is requisite to the other I come to the second parallell of Iesuiticall equivocation or rather the deification of it as you are pleased out of glorious spleene to calumniate your opposites The protestation is on Gods part I will not the nonrepentance of him that dieth the reservation with purpose to make this part of my will knowne unto him But where I pray doe you finde any such protestation on Gods part Ezekiel hath none such In him it is said I will not the death of him that dieth But no where doth he say I will not the non repentance of him that dieth This is a tricke of your owne device as if you followed the counsell of Lysander and where the Lyons skinne will not reach you are content to patch it up with some piece of a Fox skinne Wee professe in plaine termes that as God hath mercy on whom he will so he hardneth whom he will and as he will give the grace of repentance unto some so he will not give the grace of repentance unto others Notwithstanding that he bid all in the ministery of his word I meane all those that heare it To repent and beleeve the Gospel So he did bid the Iewes and that with great earnestnesse to keepe the covenant Deut. 30. 19. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing therefore chuse life that both thou and thy seed may live By loving the Lord thy God by obeying his voice and cleaving unto him for hee is thy life and the length of thy daies that thou maiest dwell in the land which the Lord did sweare unto thy fathers ' Yet I hope you will not say this could be done without grace though of the nature of grace what you thinke and of the universall extention thereof I should be very glad to understand and that therein you would speake your minde plainly As for the reservation here it is most ridiculous neither is any equivocation of Iesuites I trow answerable hereunto for by reservations a sense is raised contradictious to the sense of the protestation but by this reservation no contradiction ariseth to the former as it lieth but onely it denyeth a certaine purpose to be joyned with it but be it that Iesuits allow such artifice what Divine of ours doth Did we say that God wills not the non repentance of any we would say hee willeth it not in as much as hee forbiddeth it And Gods prohibitions and commandements are usually though improperly called the will of God And here voluntas signi hath proper place enough Like as God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his sonne yet his determination was that Isaac should not be sacrificed Some may have said that God willeth not the death of him that dyeth in case he repent But was ever any heard to affirme that God wills not the non repentance of him that dieth to wit with purpose to make it knowne unto him What madnesse possessed you to ascribe so incredible a thing to your opposites so contrary to the rule of fiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Callimachus hath set it downe Your addition here likewise which drawes a long taile after it hath no conformity to the patterne And as for the substance of it as touching Gods resolution never to grant some repentance or the meanes of it if thereby you meane the Gospel we acknowledge it to be truth for the arme of the Lord is not revealed unto all neither doth he give repentance or faith to all but hath mercy on some onely even on whom hee will and hardenneth othersome even whom he will that is denieth them repentance and consequently they cannot repent which interpretation of obduration your selfe make in the seventh section following and consequently they cannot live this I doubt not but you will acknowledge with us And therefore the vanity of your discourse is not at an end you proceed to talke of Gods oath in giving assurance that he will not the death of them that are damned built meerly upon a translation which you follow different from the most authorized translation of our Church and that contrary to evident reason for seeing God doth inflict death and damnation upon the impenitent so hee must needs will it for hee doth all things according to the counsell of his owne will Ephesians 1. 11. And yet according to your reading of it a good construction may be given without all reservations as plainly enough deduced out of the word of God it selfe And what God hath manifested unto us in his word I hope is not to bee accounted a reservation but a revelation rather I am not of your minde to thinke that the keeping of an oath is a branch of perfection or to keepe a mans word either which yet is a better point of morality then to keepe an oath Such justice is to bee found amongst heathen men yet workes of mercy go beyond workes of justice yet no great perfection neither but to be mercifull to our enemies When they are hungry to feed them when they are thirsty to give them drinke this is the perfection that our Saviour calleth us unto and sets before our eyes the goodnes of our heavenly Father in suffering his raine to fall and his sunne to shine on the bad as well as on the good And here withall how well your calumniation hath sped imputing to us the deification of Iesuiticall equivocations let the indifferent Reader judge 6 Here you proceede learnedly to distinguish betweene somethings determined by oath and somethings else and in the accomodation of your distinction you tell us that Voluntas signi and beneplaciti can have no place in things determined by divine oath but well it may in other things What is the other member of your distinction opposite to things determined by
onely voluntate signi that he doth not will it is voluntate beneplaciti and this will which is called the will of good pleasure is onely the will of God in proper speech and that S. Paul speakes of when he saith Who hath resisted his will the other to wit voluntas signi is improperly though usually called the will of God It being indeed nothing else but Gods commandement in which sense he willed Abraham to sacrifice his sonne yet who doubts but that it was Gods will in proper speech that Isaak should not be sacrificed And because you perceived how easily the shew of contradiction might be washed off if it were proposed in this manner therfore you made bold upon dame Logicke and without her leave and in despight of her faine a contradiction under another forme by way of consequence which indeed proves most inconsequent Thirdly you speake in a strange language when you say that the affirmation and negation of salvation falling upon the personall being of men containes contradiction implying that it might fall otherwise then upon the personall being of men and in that case it would not prove contradictious both which are not onely untrue but absurd also For the affirmation of the salvation of man cannot fall otherwise then upon the person of man and consequently upon the personall being of man whatsoever be the cause of it which cause you most preposterously conceive to give unto man a being different from his personall being whereupon and not upon his personall being his salvation should fall Againe no distinction of personall being and other being will serve your turne to save the affirmation and negation of salvation of one and the same man from contradiction I say of one and the same man which is of principall consideration in the course of contradiction and yet wholly permitted by you in this proposition though therein you talke of the strictest point of contradiction Straine your invention while you will you shall never be able to free these propositions from contradiction Peter shall be saved Peter shall not be saved But to change the nature of these propositions and of absolute to make them conditionall thus Peter shall be saved if he beleeve and repent Peter shall not be saved if he beleeve and repent not is neither to affirme nor deny the salvation of Peter For to affirme or deny the salvation of Peter is categoricall not hypotheticall What you want of force of argument you supply with devotion as if you came to enchant your reader and not to informe him as when you say Farre be it from us to thinke that God should sweare to this universall negative I will not the death of him that dieth and yet beleeve withall that he wils the death of some men that die as they are men or as they are the sonnes of Adam This is proposed by way of an holy and confident asseveration but consider how sottish it is and most averse from sobriety For first what if God had not sworne it but onely said it had there been the lesse truth in it for this Is not Gods word sure enough without an oath yet before wee heard that in things determined by divine oath the distinction of voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti could have no place Secondly where were your logicall wits when you said this was an universall negative I will not the death of a sinner I pray examine your rules well and see whether it bee not a singular will you measure the quantity of a proportion by the predicate and not rather by the subject Yet if you should doe so it would not serve your turne For both Aristotle of old hath taught us that it is absurd to put an universall signe to the predicate and here is no universality added either to the whole predicate which is Nolens mortem peccatoris nor to any part of it which you seeme to confound For he that dyeth is a terme indefinite Neither is it in a necessary matter For the most holy Angell God could turne into nothing if it pleased him And in the 18. chapter of Ezekiel it is apparant that this is restrained to him that repenteth without any mentall reservation but by plaine evidence of the Text it selfe Thirdly you harpe upon a false string and an erroneous translation as it were in spight of the most authorized translation of our owne Church and follow the vulgar Latine herein And withall in opposition to manifest reason to the contrary for seeing God doth inflict death and damnation upon every one that dyeth and is damned and he doth all things according to the counsell of his owne will Eph. 1. 11. it is impossible he should doe any thing and not will it that he should inflict death on him that dieth and not will it Fourthly be it as you will have it that God doth not will the death of him that dieth will you herehence inferre that God willeth not the death of him that dyeth as man or as the son of Adam implying that notwithstanding hee may will the death of him that dieth in some other respect without any prejudice to his oath what a senselesse collection and interpretation is this You may as well say God willeth the life of him that liveth ergo farre be it from us to say that hee willeth not the life of him that liveth as he is a man or as he is the son of Adam implying that for all this God may be said not to will the life of him that liveth in some other respect But I say that if God willeth not the death of any man that dieth as you will have it and to be confirmed also with the Lords oath then in no respect can it be said that hee willeth the death of any man that dieth For it is both ad idem death is the same in both and it is secundum idem for we speak of the same man in both and it is eodem modo for we speake of the will of God in the same sense in both and it is at the same time and must be for Gods will is everlasting and therefore willing whatsoever he doth everlastingly he cannot bee said at any time not to will it As for the cause of death and damnation willed by God we maintaine that God willeth not the death of any man or the condemnation of any man but for sinne But I pray what thinke you of infants perishing in originall sin If Goth doth not will their death as the sonnes of Adam how doth he will it Or had you rather shake hands with Arminius in this also and professe that no man is damned for originall sinne onely but that all the children of Turkes and Sarazens and Iewes and Caniballs that die in their infancie are saved and enjoy the joyes of heaven as well as the children of the faithfull You proceede in your devout asseveration and will have it to bee farre from us to thinke
much lesse in their sinnes whereby they bring destruction upon themselves but God delights both in the faith and repentance of his elect and in their salvation But this signification of good pleasure is nothing to the purpose in this distinction for no Schooleman understands it in this sense And I well know Arminius considering the usuall acception of Voluntas beneplaciti amongst Divines professeth he had rather call it Voluntas placiti then Voluntas beneplaciti If such lettice like your lips you may make your selfe merry with them A second extent and accommodation of this distinction of Uoluntas signi and Voluntas beneplaciti you allow of applyed to men after they have made up the full measure of their iniquity and are cut off from all possibilitie of repentance I had thought no man had filled up the full measure of his sinne untill his death like as on the other side no man hath fulfilled the measure of his obedience untill hee hath finished his course as Revel 11. 7. When the witnesses had finished their testimonie the beast that came out of the bottomlesse pit made warre against them and slew them You seeme to speake it of a certaine measure whereupon the doore of repentance is shut upon them and thereupon excluded from all possibility of repentance as here you say it was with Pharaoh especially after the 7. plague upon Aegypt whereupon you have taken great paines to discourse at large in another Treatise which I have well considered and examined your reasons throughout and that following you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet there you confesse that it must have beene so with Pharaoh at Moses first comming unto him yea and was possible to have beene so when he was but 3. yeares old And indeed I doe not see how it can bee avoided but that as many as depart this life in their infancy are excluded from all possibility of repentance But it may be you will apply this only to men of ripe years but by your leave such Pharaoh was not at three yeares old And though God willed Pharaoh to let his people goe and sent Moses and Aaron to him to that purpose yet you say It was no branch of Gods good will and pleasure that Pharaoh should now repent Rather it was his good will and pleasure to have the heart of Pharaoh hardned though you restraine this to Pharaohs condition after the seventh plague for which I see no reason So that in such a case you will have it lawfull for God by his reserved will to recall that part of his will which hee hath declared by his word or oath and therefore as touching your holy asseveration mentioned in the sixth Section it must be restrained to them that have not yet filled up the measure of their sinne as Pharaoh had after the seventh plague For in such a case God may will their death notwithstanding his oath in shew to the contrary For his meaning is this As I live I will not the death of him that dieth that is I will not his death as a man or as the sonne of Adam neither doe I herein deifie Iesuiticall equivocations or mentall reservations for I take libertie to charge that upon mine adversaries and therefore you may well think I would not be so simple as to transgresse in the same kind my selfe And I thinke so too if God had not confounded your wits but it is Gods course and most just to strike with confusion those that build Babel and he makes the Aegyptians to erre in their counsels as a drunken man erreth in his vomite the issue whereof is to defile himselfe and his owne favourites even those that sit next unto him In the same spirit you professe that God did punish Pharaoh for not letting his people goe as though it had beene free and possible for him to repent though indeed in your opinion it was not But Pharaohs case was extraordinary you say and not to be drawne into example But by your leave if God did so but once it is no unjust thing for God to do so oftner and therefore pray looke unto it that whensoever it is your lot to oppose your adversaries in such a point you doe not lay to their charge that they make God to be unjust if not for conscience sake of the truth yet at least for feare of contradicting your selfe As for the Apostles intimation you touch upon by the way that it was an argument of Gods great mercy and long suffering to permit Pharaoh to live any longer upon earth after he was become a vessell of wrath destinated to everlasting punishment in hell I professe I am not so quicke or accurate as to observe any such intimation of the Apostle What if you devised this to make good some fictions of yours to that purpose in another Treatise of yours which I have already weighed in the ballance and found them a great deale too light of worth to move any sober man to concurre with you in opinion thereabouts But whatsoever it be that the Apostle intimates you seeme to expresse strange conceits when you talke of Gods providence in suffering Pharaoh to live longer on earth after hee was become a vessell of wrath destinated to everlasting punishment in hell I had thought every reprobate had beene destinated to everlasting punishment in hell before hee was borne For Gods destination of them is the ordination of his will and that I had thought you had not denied to be everlasting But you referre it to a certaine time as in speciall to Pharaoh after the seventh plague and in speciall to all after they have filled up a certaine measure of iniquitie and shall not men in like sort be destinated to everlasting joies in heaven after they have filled up a certaine measure of obedience And so a little after you tell us that men doe not become reprobates till a certaine measure of iniquitie bee filled up and so in proportion men are not elect till a certaine proportion of obedience bee filled up Yet the Apostle plainly telleth us that the elect are elect of God before the foundation of the world Eph. 1. 4. and consequently so are reprobates reprobated before the foundation of the world for the word election of some doth connotate the reprobation of others Yea Iacob was loved of God before he was borne and was not Esau hated also before he was borne Rom. 9. Did God wait till the measure of Esaus sinnes was full and the measure of Iacobs obedience before he did elect the one and reprobate the other And if destination unto the punishment of hell and on the other side destination unto the joyes of heaven beginne in time after the obedience of some and disobedience of others what is the meaning of predestination for what is that but the destination of some to the joyes of heaven and others to the sorrowes of hell No doubt but if you proceed as you beginne we shall have a
of his sinnes by your opinion Pharaoh had beene saved though he neither had faith nor repentance For till their soules be betroathed unto wickednesse God doth not hate them this is your dialect whence it followeth that either all infants of Turkes and Saracens dying in their infancy are saved or else all men as soone as they are borne are betrothed unto wickednesse and consequently all reprobates from their birth unto their death continue the same objects of Gods decree without alteration And then againe I pray consider if God hates them not and wils not their damnation untill by filling up the measure of their sinne they are betroathed unto wickednesse as you speake then surely hee did not hate them nor will the condemnation of them in their infancy much lesse did hee will it before they were borne much lesse did hee will it before the world was made yet you have already plainly professed that God willed the death of Pharaoh from all eternity and if from all eternity then sure he willed it before the world was made much more before Pharaoh was borne much more before Pharaoh had filled up the measure of his iniquity Yet I confesse that though God from all eternity willed the death of Pharaoh and consequently before Pharaoh was borne and much more before he had filled up the measure of his iniquity Yet God did not will that Pharaoh should be damned before he had filled up the measure of his iniquitie much lesse that he should be damned in his infancie much lesse before he was borne much lesse before the world was So that these two propositions may well stand together without contradiction God from all eternity willed that Pharaoh should be damned but God did not will that Pharaoh should bee damned from all eternity or before hee was borne or in his infancy or before he had filled up the measure of his sinnes But the propositions which you take upon you to free from contradiction are of a farre different nature and indeed directly contradictious God did from all eternity will the death of Pharaoh God did not from all eternity will the death but rather willed the life of Pharaoh And for clearing it you onely tell us that Pharaoh was not the same object of Gods decree though he continued the same man A proposition both very obscure in it selfe and void of all efficacie to free your selfe from contradiction neither doe you take any paines to accommodate it but leaving that as a blanke for your propitious reader to fill up after his owne judgement or affection rather And the issue of all is to professe that God did indeede from all etetnity will the life of Pharaoh and so continued to will it untill such time as hee had filled up the measure of his sinne and that from thenceforth hee hated him as he doth all reprobates having once betrothed themselves unto wickednesse which assertion manifestly betraying your opinion as touching the making of Gods will mutable your desire to satisfie your reader with calling Gods will immutable and saying that the object of Gods decree is not still the same Sed quid ego verb a audiam facta cum vidiam You manifestly maintaine that Gods love and will to save doth cease upon the filling up the measure of sinne and betrothing a mans selfe to wickedness and thereupon and from thenceforth hee hates them and wills their death and damnation whereas till that time he willed their life and salvation These propositions God loves all men God doth not love all men I say are contradictories All rules of contradiction justifie these to be contradictions And your selfe confesse as much in effect when going about to cleare them from contradiction you quite alter the forme of them by shaping them thus in effect God loves all men till they have filled up the measure of their sinnes but when once they have filled up the measure of their sinnes he loves them not Now these propositions are quite different from the former neither doe we charge these with contradiction as wee charged the former But that wherewith wee charge these is this they make the will of God mutable contrary to the expresse testimonie of the holy Ghost saying I the Lord am not changed Mal. 3. 6. And Saint Iames professeth that with the Lord there is no variableness nor shadow of change which you perceiving are loath to speake your minde plainly but to avoide so grose an untruth had rather cast your selfe upon a manifest contradiction in saying God loves all men and God loves not all men and to free your selfe from contradiction betray your corrupt opinion another way in making Gods love to change into hatred after a certaine time to wit after the measure of sinne is filled up and the onely shift you have to charme it is to confound the difference of time which alone avoides the contradiction and expressing it thus God loves all men as men or as men which have not made up the full measure of iniquity but having made up that or having their soules betrothed to wickednesse hee hates them But this will not serve your turne for seeing this contradiction of making up the full measure of sinne did not belong unto man from the beginning but onely after a certaine space of time the difference specified must necessarily resolve it selfe into a meere difference of time thus God did love them till they had made up the full measure of sinne but after that he hated them And this is further proved For if the difference onely consisted in respect of different considerations at the same time then the distinction should have place as well after this full measure of sinne is made up as before And so Pharaoh after the filling up of the full measure of sinne might bee said to be loved of God as a man and hated as having filled up the measure of sinne but no where doâ— you make use of any such distinction Nay much more should it have use in this case and indeed onely in this case for untill a man hath filled up the measure of his sinne this distinct consideration hath no place for a body may bee considered as Ens or Naturale or as Quantum because hee is both Ens and Naturale and Quantum But a man connot be considered at any time as having filled up the measure of his sinne but onely after that time comes hee may bee so considered for to consider him to bee that which hee is not is not to consider him what hee is but to faine him to be what he is not Againe when you say God loves all men as men What is the meaning of this What doâ— you denote by this love of God For wee commonly say love is not in God Quoad affectum but Quoad effectum at least Quoad affectum it is nothing at all different from Gods will Now I desire to know what that thing is which God wills to man as a
man or what is the effect of this love and I doubt not but when you say God hates them as having made up the full measure of their sinne your meaning is that God wills their damnation and that for this measure of their sin In proportion your answer should be this That God wills the salvation of all men as they are men yet here is very great disproportion for when you say God wills the damnation of men having filled up the measure of their sin I finde herein a manifest difference between the reprobate the elect as touching the cause of damnation and that on mans part namely the making up the full measure of their sin which is found onely in reprobates not in the elect But when you say on the contrary side God wills the salvation of all men as they are men I finde no difference at all betweene the reprobate and the elect as touching the cause of salvation either on mans part or on Gods part for as touching Gods will that passeth you say upon the salvation of all without difference then on mans part likewise there is no difference at all if they are considered onely as men for the reprobates are men as well as the elect To help this you rest not in this consideration of them as men but adde a clause unto it very inconfiderately as touching the forme thus Or at having made up the full measure of their sinne Now the disjunctive argues that these two considerations are equivalent which is untrue for the first consideration proceeds in abstraction from the second But I conceive the weakenesse of your cause urgeth you to take hold of all helpes and thereupon you confound things that differ for in some cases the first consideration usually hath place as when t is said God hateth nothing that hee hath made therefore he hateth not man true say some he hateth not man as man and this distinction seemes plausible to some and therefore you seemed willing to help your selfe with this by the way for it might stirre some propitious effection in a pliable reader But then finding this bed a great deale too short to stretch your selfe thereon you added by way of disjunctive another consideration which is this As not having made up the full measure of sinne And because you rest upon it I thinke good to consider it Now against this I have already excepted on the part of reprobates and in the particular of Pharaoh and argued that then Pharaoh had beene saved had he died before the seventh wonder for till then in your opinion hee had not made up the full measure of his sinne yet we doe not finde that Pharaoh before this time had either faith or repentance Now I will propose another exception on the part of Gods elect Paul never filled up the measure of his sinne for if he had then had hee beene a reprobate but hee was an elect therefore if hee had died immediately after the sâ—oning of Steven hee had beene saved though accessary to his death For he kept the garments of them that slew him as himselfe confesseth In a word all the elect though dying before ever they were called unto faith and repentance should notwithstanding bee saved also My third exception is against the disproportion that neverthelesse is found in these propositions for when t is said God wills the damnation of them that have filled up the measure of their sinne the filling up the measure of sinne is noted here as the cause of their damnation but in saying God willeth the salvation of all not having filled up the measure of their sinne the not having filled up the measure of their sinne cannot be noted as the cause of their salvation And therefore to mend this foule disproportion the Genius of your tenet drives you in conscience to proceede and professe plainely that God willeth the salvation of all men that believe and repent and accordingly God willeth the damnation of all that doe not believe and repent and such indeed alone are they that fill up the measure of their sinn Now herein wee agree with you namely in justifying the truth of both these propositions But like as from the latter it followeth not that God willeth the damnation of all but of some onely namely of those that doe fill up the measure of their sinne and breake not off their sins by faith and repentance so from the former it followeth not that God willeth the salvation of all but onely that hee willeth the salvation of those that believe and repent And if you please further to infer that because perseverance in sinne of infidelitie and impenitencie as they are the meritorions causes of damnation so they are the meritorious causes of the decree of damnation also I thinke I may with as good reason take liberty to inferre from the former that seeing faith and repentance yea and good workes also are the disposing causes of salvation therefore they are to bee accounted the disposing causes of the decree of salvation that is of our election also And so your opinion shall appeare at full and to life in his proper coulors not an haires breadth different either from the Arminian heresie of late or from the Pelagian heresie of old 8 The deductions you speake of in my judgement deserve to be called dictates rather then deductions As for moderne Catechismes you are not the first that nibble at them it is a point of imperious learning now a daies from on high to despise such performances But to speake as a free man the lesse they shall consort with these your deductions as you call them the lesse shall they differ from the truth As for your concurrence with Bishop Hooper in his preface upon the commandements which you glorie of now a second time In this place it is hard if not impossible to discerne by your text what that passage is of Bishop Hoopers which you rest upon with ostentation of your concurrence with him as if your opinions were confirmed by his martyrdome In the close of the second Section of this chapter you told us That it was not every degree of mans hatred or enmity unto God but a full measure of it which utterly exempts man from Gods love and withall that this was observed by Bishop Hooper But in stead of alledging any passage in him to this purpose you referred us there to the fourth paragraffe of this chapter which is this present section Yet concerning that sentence I see a good construction may bee made of it taking love quoad effectum as usually passions are in such sense attributed unto God and not quoad affectum and the chiefest effect of Gods love is salvation Now it is most true that nothing but finall perseverance in sinne doth bereave men of salvation of glory nothing but finall perseverance in sinne stands in opposition to the possibility of grace succeeding in the same subject Now albeit in that which followeth it
not all possibilitie of amendment being taken from him My opinion to the contrary is that no man hath filled up the full measure of his iniquity till death As touching the possibility of amendment I acknowledge none in man without the regenerating grace of God whereby he gives man repentance Neither do I know any time in the course of mans life wherin any man is excluded from possibility of repentance by the grace of God We know God gave the thiefe repentance upon the crosse Our Saviour gives us to understand that God calleth some at the very last houre of the day Paul admonisheth Timothy to carrie himselfe gently towards them that are without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if so be God at any time may give them repentance that they may come to amendment out of the snare of the devill by whom they are led captive to doe his will Of old it was wont to be said Inter pontem fontem and the like is usuall amongst us Betweene the stirrop and the ground Mercy I askt mercy I found All this which followeth and which you have transcribed out of Bishop Hooper I finde nothing that contradicteth any of these assertions of mine or that justifieth any of your opposite assertions not in this which immediately followeth thus Every man is in Scripture called wicked and the enemy of God for the privation and lacke of faith and love that hee oweth to God Et impij vocantur qui non omnino sunt pij that is They are called wicked that in all things honour not God beleeve not in God and observe not his commandements as they should doe which we cannot doe by reason of this naturall infirmity or hatred of the flesh as Paul calleth it against God In this sense taketh Paul the word wicked So must we interpret S. Paul and take his words or else no man should be damned In all this I finde nothing to that purpose whereto you alledge it Yet by the way I am not of Master Hoopers opinion in saying that They were called wicked meaning in holy Scripture that in all things honour not God beleeve not in God and observe not his commandements as they should which wee cannot doe by reason of this naturall infirmity c. For all this is verified of the very Saints and children of God here on earth and I doe not finde that the Saints of God in holy Scripture by reason of their infirmities not honouring God not beleeving in God not observing his commandements in such measure as they should as God knowes and our consciences well know that in many things we offend all are therefore called wicked Especially considering that the Greeke word which Master Hooper aimes at and which hee renders by the word wicked in English is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appeares by his reference to Rom. 5. 8. In this sense saith Bishop Hooper taketh Paul this word wicked when he saith that Christ died for the wicked Now this state noted by S. Paul in these words is not the state of grace but the state of sinne precedent to justification and the state of enmity against God as appeares by the two next verses Much more being justified by his bloud we shall be saved by his life 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne c. Whereby it is manifest that the state of sinne in which we were when wee were reconciled to God by Christs death was the state of enmity against God And indeed otherwise there were no place for reconcilement which consists in making them friends which before were enemies Neither doe I know any Divine of master Hoopers opinion in construing S. Paul in this manner as if these sinners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he cals wicked for whom Christ died were onely such as doe not honour God beleeve in God and observe his commandements as they should which wee know is incident to the very children of God and to the most righteous Saints that are on the earth who yet are never accounted in holy Scripture for ought I know the enemies of God Yet such are they termed for whom Christ died and who S. Paul saith are reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne I willingly grant that Christ died to procure the salvation of none but such as sooner or later should become the Saints of God to honour him beleeve in him and observe his commandements though not in such measure as they should by reason of the flesh which they carie about them still lusting against the spirit and this seemes by this place undoubtedly to be the opinion of Bishop Hooper though he erreth in the interpretation of S. Paul who in this place considereth not what shall be their condition sooner or later for whom Christ died but only sheweth what was their condition when Christ died for them thereby the more to commend the love of God towards us who sent his Sonne to die for us when wee were sinners and reconciled us to himselfe by the death of his Son what time we were his enemies And I am perswaded your selfe are of the same opinion with me in this though I will not say that the evidence of S. Pauls text seemed so plaine unto you this very way I have interpreted it that therefore you concealed S. Pauls passage mentioned by master Hooper thus When he saith that Christ died for the wicked and in the margent referres us to Rom. 5. 8. all which you have handsomly left out to what end I know not But hereby it comes to passe that the reader may be to seeke of that passage of S. Paul in case he have no other meanes to judge thereof then your transcribing it As for the reason of Bishop Hooper to justifie this interpretation of S. Pauls text it is nothing consequent as when he saith So we must interpret Saint Pauls words or else no man should be damned If S. Paul had said Christ died for all the wicked or for all sinners then indeed we should be driven to seeke out some such interpretation of the word wicked or sinners or else none should bee damned But S. Paul doth not say Christ died for all that are wicked or for all sinners but for us sinners his words are these God commendeth his love to us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Now he writes unto Christians and for such onely hee died though they were not Christians when Christ died for them but rather in the state of enmity against God And thus to appropriate Christs dying for mankinde doth manifestly appeare to bee master Hoopers meaning as before I shewed albeit he deviates from the right interpretation of S. Pauls Text in the place mentioned by him That which followeth doth in my judgement carie a greater shew of justifying your former assertions and yet but a shew neither as when he saith Now we know that Paul himselfe S.
this Such an hight of sinne implyeth a contradiction to infinite justice to vouchsafe them any favour Now of this proposition of yours I see no reason Nay I seeme to observe manifest reason to the contrary For justice consists in giving to every one his owne Now seeing the wages of any sinne is death even everlasting death Not to condemne him that hath deserved to be condemned seemes as contradictory to justice as not to condemne him that is come to an hight of impiety And which is more many thousand infants perish in Originall sinne and yet we beleive that Manasses who unto Originall sinne added many abominable sinnes was notwithstanding all this saved and will you say there was any contradiction unto Gods justice in all this And I wonder you so much beate upon the contradiction unto Gods justice and take no notice of Gods mercy whereas we doe not consider the pardoning of sinnes as an act of Gods justice but rather as an act of his mercy and without quest on it is not contradiction to Gods mercy to pardon any sinne And God is mercyfull as well as just and it is very absurd in my judgment to say that God in performing an act of mercy contradicts his justice as well as to say that in performing an act of justice he contradicts his mercy And the reason is because it is indifferent to God to exercise eyther his mercy in commiserating whome he will or his justice in hardening whome he will And therefore when the Apostle proposeth such an objection against his former doctrine of election reprobation as this What shall we say then is there any injustice with God He answereth it by this that God is free and hath a lawfull power to exercise mercy and compassion on whome he will God forbid sayth he we should thinke so For he sayth to Moses I will have mercy on him to whome I will shewe mercy and will have compassion on him on whome I will have compassion And yet I pray consider what colour of contradiction to Gods justice in pardoning the sinnes of them be they never so many never so fowle for whome the sonne of God as you say hath suffered the sorrowes of death and therby made full satisfaction for all theire sinnes unlesse you will say that Christ dyed to make satisfaction for originall sinne only and not for sinnes actuall or for some of theire actuall sinnes and not for all to which strange and uncouth opinion You seeme to incline in the end of your 15. Chapter where you say that Christ only receaved our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his law I have cause to suspect that you concurre with Arminians in maintayning that all Infants the very children of Pagans Turkes and Saracens that perish in theire infancy are saved For how can it be conceaved that any improvement of evill inclinations is made in them unto such an hight as that it should imply contradiction to Gods justice to shew them any favour And where such an hight of impiety is not you professe they cannot be excluded from all fruits of his love Yet I confesse theire soules have a being and that eternall and if this be a fruit of Gods love then though the hight of impiety be never so greate yet is no man or devill excluded from this fruite of Gods love For they shall continue for ever and that to theire everlasting wo. As touching your manner of expressing your meaning this increase of sinne you call the sinister use of contingency that God hath bestowed upon them your meaning must be the sinister use of the liberty of theire wills which in your phrase is the sinister use of contingency wherof I am perswaded you can give no example And by the way I observe you suppose in every naturall man a power to use the liberty of his will eyther will or ill I had thought and doe still thinke there is no power in carnall man to use theire naturall liberty well but only to use it either in this or that subject but so as still the use of it shall be evill For the affection of the flesh is not subject to the law of God nor can be sayth the Apostle and every man is dead in sinne till God quickneth him Ephesi 2. 2. And a dead man can performe no action of life naturall if dead naturally no action of life spirituall if dead spiritually But whether naturall inclinations unto evill may be thus farre improved in the children by theire Forefathers on no you say is disputable but in another place that is it is a disputable question whether children may not by the sinnes of theire Father be so farre corrupt that it implyeth contradiction to Gods justice to shew them any favour You might as well say it is a disputable question whether there be any God or no For that there should be a God and yet not able to cure the naturall corruption wherein any man is borne is contradiction And if he were then sure he were able to shew them no small favour And as for contradictions to Gods justice there is so litle colour herof in the saving of Infants that on the contrary there is nothing the condemnation of the Sonne of God alone excepted wherin the justice of God is more obscure then in the condemnation of Infants I thinke you have litle minde to come to an accoumpt how you doe accommodate this your doctrine unto Infants yet you must be called hereunto whether you will or no unlesse you clippe the wings of your generall propositions as when you say None can be excluded from the fruits of Gods love untill the improvement of inclinations naturally bent to evill come to that hight of impiety as to imply a contradiction for infinite justice or equity to vouchsafe them any favour Yet by the way you put in an exception concerning Infants and that is in case there be a neglect of duties to be performed to them by theire Elders why doe you not speake plainly and say saving in case they are not baptized And what thinke you in this case Are they damned I cannot beleive you thinke so yet the face of your discourse lookes this way I say I cannot beleive it and that for two reasons The one is because the tenour of your tenet caryeth you rather to maintayne with the Arminians that all children dying in theire Infancy though they dye without the Church are saved My second reason is because herein you should directly contradict the discourse Kinge Iames had with certaine Divines a litle before his death and his apparent profession to the contrary not as his private opinion but as the opinion generally of our Divines whome he had learned in his younger dayes to have censured Austine for his opinion to the contrary as one that was Durus Pater Infantum Now I am so well perswaded of you that I thinke you would not
neyther incident to the divine nature nor to any other imaginable I would we were worthy to know 3. things First who they are whom you oppose in this Secondly what those 3. so grosse transformations are which you speake of out of Austine Thirdly to what end tends all this on which you spend so many words But to take it as we find it No Christian I think ever doubted but that all sinne is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transgression of Gods law accordingly contrary to the commaundment of God which is usually called the will of God But that any sinne should be committed contrary to the will of God as it is taken for the decree and determination of God I had thought no sober man would have affirmed Austine I am sure plainly professeth that Non aliquid sit nisi omnipotens feri velit vel sinendo ut fiat vel ipse faciendo And albeit Aquinas seemes concealedly to oppose Austine in this in q. 9. 19. art 9. Yet notwithstanding concludeth thus Deus igitur neque vult mala fieri neque vult mala non fieri sed vult permittere mala fieri Ibid. ad tertium Yet I willingly graunt that every sinne is against Gods will and pleasure as it signifieth his pleasure what shall be our dutie to doe which is nothing els but his commaundment And it is as true that herein are no degrees every sinne is equally against the commaundments of God And the will and pleasure of God whereby he will have this or that to be our duty to doe or leave undone hath no degrees For Gods simplicity freeth him as well from composition of degrees as from any other composition But yet some transgressions are greater then others in as much as God may be more or lesse wronged by us or our selves or our brethren It is neyther incident to the divine nature nor to the humane to punish any more then it is ones will and pleasure to punish But to a man it is incidēt to punish for those crimes wherein themselves take delight For a man may be condemned and punished for adultery by them who are adulterers themselves as appeares in those that brought unto our Saviour a Woman taken in adultery For when our Saviour sayd Let him that is amoungst you without sinne cast the first stone at her the text sayth herupon being accused by theire owne conscience they went out one by one beginning at the eldest even to the last Iohn 8. 7. Wherfore you doe overlash in not contenting your selfe to affirme this of the divine nature but extending it to every nature imaginable Agayne what meane you to call that a way wardnesse of men whereof you professe the humane nature is uncapable as namely to be offended at that which doth not offend them What is a wilde manner of discourse if this be not Nothing inferiour in absurdity is that which followeth as when you say that To punish any which doe not contradict theire wills is an injustice scarce incident to the inhabitans of Hell If the Divills punish any as you say they doe doe they punish them for sins committed in contradiction to theire wills And how many Magistrates doe punish even such sinnes wherof themselves are guilty They are bound by law to punish profane swearers to punish drunckerds is it necessary that every such Magistrat should be free from such sinnes themselves But the Divills themselves you say doe not vexe the wicked but the Godly this being a most absurde conceyte at first sight you have taken a course to charme the absurdity of it by adding concerning the wicked Till Gods justice overtake them might you not as well adde concerning the Godly Till Gods will and pleasure is and so farre as his pleasure is the Divill shall vexe them as appeares in the example of Iob But ordinarily in the course of Gods providence who are more vexed by the Divill the godly or the wicked rather Now because it it apparent that in your opinion the Divill torments infernally the damned and hath no power over the Saints of God though they are more prone to vexe the godly then the wicked as you thinke therefore you put your selfe to devise a reason why the Divills torment the damned wheras the sinnes of the damned men were committed only in following the will of the Divill too much But the reason you give is of the wildest and most contradictious nature that ever any I thinke was heard of For the reason you give is this Therfore the Divills cease not to torment them because they can find no ease in tormenting them Whereas if they could finde any case in tormenting them then you say they would be lesse displeased with them and consequently torment them lesse which if it were true the Divills should be as arrant fooles as ever lived as namely in ceasing to doe that by the doing whereof they should finde ease by this supposition of yours And in the meane time you represent unto as a proper modell of Gods providence while you conceave the tormenting of the damned to be put over by God to the will of the Divill as if the dispensation of the degrees of punishment therby to justifie Gods proceeding were remitted to the discretion and equity of those Angells of darkenesse And who I pray shall be the dispenser of that punishment that in justice belongs to the Divills themselves Yet as if you had performed some greate exployte against some body you demaunde bravely Whether they did not rather dreame then thinke of God that some times write as if it were not as much against Gods will to have men dye as it is against mans will to suffer death In writing this you thinke they did rather dreame then thinke on God in writing of the former sure I am you did if not dreame yet thinke of the Divill But which writing yours or theirs be like unto a sicke mans dreame let not the indifferent only but the unindifferent also judge For you show as litle sobriety in the impugning of these in theire writing concerning the will of God then in inventing your former fancies concerning the Divill Is it not by the will of God appoynted that all must dye And is it probable then it should be against Gods will that any should dye O but you speake belike of the second death I answere Is it not as well appoynted by the will of God that all that dye the first death in sinne shall dye the second death of everlasting sorrow as it is appoynted by the will of God that all shall dye the first death And will it not by the same reason follow that looke in what sense it is impossible that any should dye the first death against the will of God in the same sence it is impossible that any should dye the second death against the will of God and if they suffered death as you say to this end that Gods will may be