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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	life_n	sin_n	spirit_n	19,754	5	5.4357	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67467	The life of Dr. Sanderson, late Bishop of Lincoln written by Izaak Walton ; to which is added, some short tracts or cases of conscience written by the said Bishop.	Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.; Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. Judgment concerning submission to usurpers.; Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. Pax ecclesiae.; Hooker, Richard, 1553 or 4-1600. Sermon of Richard Hooker, author of those learned books of Ecclesiastical politie.; Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. Judgment in one view for the settlement of the church.; Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. Judicium Universitatis Oxoniensis. English.	1678 (1678)	Wing W667; ESTC R8226	137,878	542

heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed where true joy is to be found His thought sseem'd now to be wholly of death for which he was so prepar'd that that King of Terrors could not surprise him as a thief in the night for he had often said he was prepar'd and long'd for it And as this desire seem'd to come from Heaven so it left him not till his Soul ascended to that Region of blessed Spirits whose Imployments are to joyn in consort with him and sing praise and glory to that God who hath brought them to that place into which sin and sorrow cannot enter Thus this pattern of meekness and primitive innocence chang'd this for a better life 'T is now too late to wish that my life may be like his for I am in the eighty fifth year of my Age but I humbly beseech Almighty God that my death may and do as earnestly beg of every Reader to say Amen Blessed is the man in whose Spirit there is no guile Postscript IF I had had time to have review'd this Relation as I intended before it went to the Press I could have contracted some and altered other parts of it but 't was hastned from me and now too late for this impression If there be a second which the Printer hopes for I shall both do that and upon information mend any mistake or supply what may seem wanting I. W. Dr. PIERCE's LETTER Good Mr. Walton AT my return to this place I made a yet stricter search after the Letters long ago sent me from our most excellent Dr. Sanderson before the happy Restoration of the King and Church of England to their several Rights in one of which Letters more especially he was pleas'd to give me a Narrative both of the rise and the progress and reasons also as well of his younger as of his last and riper Judgment touching the famous Points controverted between the Calvinians and the Arminians as they are commonly though unjustly unskilfully miscalled on either side The whole Letter I allude to does consist of several sheets whereof a good part has been made publick long ago by the most learned most judicious most pious Dr. Hammond to whom I sent it both for his private and for the publick satisfaction if he thought fit in his excellent Book intituled A Pacifick Discourse of God's Grace and Decrees in full accordance with Dr. Sanderson To which Discourse I referr you for an account of Dr. Sanderson and the History of his Thoughts in his own hand-writing wherein I sent it to Westwood as I receiv'd it from Boothby Pannel And although the whole Book printed in the year 1660. and reprinted since with his other Tracts in Folio is very worthy of your perusal yet for the Work you are about you shall not have need to read more at present than from the 8 th to the 23 th page and as far as the end of § 33. There you will find in what year the excellent man whose life you write became a Master of Arts. How his first reading of learned Hooker had been occasioned by certain Puritanical Pamphlets and how good a preparative he found it for his reading of Calvin's Institutions the honour of whose name at that time especially gave such credit to his Errors How he erred with Mr. Calvin whilst he took things upon trust in the sublapsarian way How being chosen to be a Clerk of the Convocation for the Diocese of Lincol 1625. He reduced the Quinquarticular Controversie into five Schemes or Tables and thereupon discerned a necessity of quitting the Sublapsarian way of which he had before a better liking as well as the Supralapsarian which he could never phancy There you will meet with his two weighty Reasons against them both and find his happy change of Iudgment to have been ever since the year 1625 even 34 years before the World either knew or at least took notice of it And more particularly his Reasons for rejecting Dr. Twiss or the way He walks in although his acute and very learned and ancient Friend I now proceed to let you know from Dr. Sanderson's own hand which was never printed and which you can hardly know from any unless from his Son or from my self That when that Parliament was broken up and the Convocation therewith dissolved a Gentleman of his Acquaintance by occasion of some discourse about these Points told him of a Book not long before published at Paris A. D. 1623. by a Spanish Bishop who had undertaken to clear the Differences in the great Controversie De Concordiâ Gratiae Liberi Arbitrij And because his Friend perceived he was greedily desirous to see the Book he sent him one of them containing the four first Books of twelve which he intended then to publish When I had read says Dr. Sanderson in the following words of the same Letter his Epistle Dedicatory to the Pope Greg. 15. he spake so highly of his own Invention that I then began rather to suspect him for a Mountebank than to hope I should find satisfaction from his performances I found much confidence and great pomp of words but little matter as to the main Knot of the Business other than had been said an hundred times before to wit of the coexistence of all things past present and future in mente divinâ realiter ab aeterno which is the subject of his whole third Book only he interpreteth the word realiter so as to import not only praesentialitatem objectivam as others held before him but propriam actualem existentiam Yet confesseth 't is hard to make this intelligible In his fourth Book he endeavours to declare a twofold manner of God's working ad extra the one sub ordine Praedestinationis of which Eternity is the proper measure the other sub ordine Gratiae whereof Time is the measure And that God worketh fortiter in the one though not irresistibiliter as well as suaviter in the other wherein the Freewill hath his proper working also From the Result of his whole performance I was confirmed in this Opinion That we must acknowledge the work of both Grace and Free-will in the conversion of a sinner And so likewise in all other events the Consistency of the Infallibility of God's foreknowledge at least though not with any absolute but conditional Predestination with the liberty of man's will and the contingency of inferiour causes and effects These I say we must acknowledge for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I thought it bootless for me to think of comprehending it And so came the two Acta Synodalia Dordrectana to stand in my Study only to fill up a room to this day And yet see the restless curiosity of man Not many years after to wit A.D. 1632. out cometh Dr. Twiss his Vindiciae Gratiae a large Volume purposely writ against Arminius And then notwithstanding my former resolution I must needs

numerous ancient and honourable Family of his own Name for the search of which truth I refer my Reader that inclines to it to Dr. Thoriton's History of the Antiquities of Nottinghamshire and other Records not thinking it necessary here to ingage him into a search for bare Titles which are noted to have in them nothing of reality For Titles not acquir'd but deriv'd only do but shew us who of our Ancestors have and how they have atchiev'd that honour which their Descendants claim and may not be worthy to enjoy For if those Titles descend to persons that degenerate into Vice and break off the continued line of Learning or Valour or that Vertue that acquir'd them they destroy the very foundation upon which that Honour was built and all the Rubbish of their Vices ought to fall heavy on such dishonourable Heads ought to fall so heavy as to degrade them of their Titles and blast their Memories with reproach and shame But our Robert Sanderson lived worthy of his Name and Family Of which one testimony may be That Gilbert call'd the Great Earl of Shrewsbury thought him not unworthy to be joyn'd with him as a God-father to Gilbert Sheldon the late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury to whose Merits and Memory Posterity the Clergy especially ought to pay a Reverence But I return to my intended Relation of Robert the Son who began in his Youth to make the Laws of God and Obedience to his Parents the rules of his life seeming even then to dedicate himself and all his Studies to Piety and Vertue And as he was inclin'd to this by that native goodness with which the wise Disposer of all hearts had endow'd his So this calm this quiet and happy temper of mind his being mild and averse to oppositions made the whole course of his life easie and grateful both to himself and others And this blessed temper was maintain'd and improv'd by his prudent Fathers good Example and by frequent conversing with him and scattering short Apothegms and little pleasant Stories and making useful applications of them his Son was in his Infancy taught to abhor Vanity and Vice as Monsters and to discern the loveliness of Wisdom and Vertue and by these means and God's concurring Grace his knowledge was so augmented and his native goodness so confirm'd that all became so habitual as 't was not easie to determine whether Nature or Education were his Teachers And here let me tell the Reader That these early beginnings of Vertue were by God's assisting grace blest with what St. Paul seem'd to beg for his Philippians namely That he that had begun a good work in them would finish it And Almighty God did For his whole life was so regular and innocent that he might have said at his death and with truth and comfort what the same St. Paul said after to the same Philippians when he advis'd them to walk as they had him for an Example And this goodness of which I have spoken seem'd to increase as his years did and with his goodness his learning the foundation of which was laid in the Grammer School of Rotheram that being one of those three that were founded and liberally endow'd by the said great and good Bishop of that Name And in this time of his being a Scholar there he was observ'd to use an unwearied diligence to attain learning and to have a seriousness beyond his age and with it a more than common modesty and to be of so calm and obliging a behaviour that the Master and whole number of Scholars lov'd him as one man And in this love and amity he continued at that School till about the thirteenth year of his age at which time his Father design'd to improve his Grammer learning by removing him from Rotheram to one of the more noted Schools of Eaton or Westminster and after a years stay there then to remove him thence to Oxford But as he went with him he call'd on an old Friend a Minister of noted learning and told him his intentions and he after many questions with his Son receiv'd such Answers from him that he assur'd his Father his Son was so perfect a Grammarian that he had laid a good foundation to build any or all the Arts upon and therefore advis'd him to shorten his journey and leave him at Oxford And his Father did so His father left him there to the sole care and manage of Dr. Kilbie who was then Rector of Lincoln Colledge And he after some time and trial of his manners and learning thought fit to enter him of that Colledge and after to matriculate him in the University which he did the first of Iuly 1603. but he was not chosen Fellow till the third of May 1606. at which time he had taken his Degree of Batchelor of Arts at the taking of which Degree his Tutor told the Rector That his Pupil Sanderson had a metaphysical brain and a matchless memory and that he thought he had improv'd or made the last so by an Art of his own invention And all the future imployments of his life prov'd that his Tutor was not mistaken I must here stop my Reader and tell him that this Dr. Kilbie was a man of so great learning and wisdom and so excellent a Critick in the Hebrew Tongue that he was made Professor of it in this University and was also so perfect a Grecian that he was by King Iames appointed to be one of the Translators of the Bible And that this Doctor and Mr. Sanderson had frequent Discourses and lov'd as Father and Son The Doctor was to ride a Journey into Darbyshire and took Mr. Sanderson to bear him company and they going together on a Sunday with the Doctor 's Friend to that Parish Church where they then were found the young Preacher to have no more discretion than to waste a great part of the hour allotted for his Sermon in exceptions against the late Translation of several words not expecting such a hearer as Dr. Kilbie and shew'd three Reasons why a particular word should have been otherwise translated When Evening Prayer was ended the Preacher was invited to the Doctor 's Friends house where after some other Conference the Doctor told him He might have preach'd more useful Doctrine and not fill'd his Auditors ears with needless Exceptions against the late Translation and for that word for which he offered to that poor Congregation three Reasons why it ought to have been translated as he said he and others had considered all them and found thirteen more considerable Reasons why it was translated as now printed and told him If his Friend then attending him should prove guilty of such indiscretion he should forfeit his favour To which Mr. Sanderson said He hop'd he should not And the Preacher was so ingenious as to say He would not justifie himself And so I return to Oxford In the year 1608. Iuly the 11 th Mr. Sanderson was compleated Master

University since that day And having well perform'd his other Exercises for that degree he took it the nine and twentieth of May following having been ordain'd Deacon and Priest in the year 1611. by Iohn King then Bishop of London who had not long before been Dean of Christ-Church and then knew him so well that he became his most affectionate Friend And in this year being then about the 29th of his Age he took from the University a Licence to preach In the year 1618. he was by Sir Nicholas Sanderson Lord Viscount Castleton presented to the Rectory of Wibberton not far from Boston in the County of Lincoln a Living of very good value but it lay in so low and wet a part of that Countrey as was inconsistent with his health And health being next to a good Conscience the greatest of God's blessings in this life and requiring therefore of every man a care and diligence to preserve it he apprehending a danger of losing it if he continued at Wibberton a second Winter did therefore resign it back into the hands of his worthy Kinsman and Patron about one year after his donation of it to him And about this time of his resignation he was presented to the Rectory of Boothby Pannel in the same County of Lincoln a Town which has been made famous and must continue to be famous because Dr. Sanderson the humble and learned Dr. Sanderson was more than 40 years Parson of Boothby Pannel and from thence dated all or most of his matchless Writings To this Living which was of less value but a purer Air than Wibberton he was presented by Thomas Harrington of the same County and Parish Esq who was a Gentleman of a very ancient Family and of great use and esteem in his Countrey during his whole life And in this Boothby Pannel the meek and charitable Dr. Sanderson and his Patron liv'd with an endearing mutual and comfortable friendship till the death of the last put a period to it About the time that he was made Parson of Boothby Pannel he resign'd his Fellowship of Lincoln Colledge unto the then Rector and Fellows And his resignation is recorded in these words Ego Robertus Sanderson per c. I Robert Sanderson Fellow of the Colledge of St. Maries and All-Saints commonly call'd Lincoln Colledge in the University of Oxford do freely and willingly resign into the hands of the Rector and fellows all the Right and Title that I have in the said Colledge wishing to them and their Successors all peace and piety and happiness in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen May 6. 1619 Robert Sanderson And not long after this resignation he was by the then Bishop of York or the King Sede vacante made Prebend of the Collegiate Church of Southwell in that Diocese and shortly after of Lincoln by the Bishop of that See And being now resolv'd to set down his rest in a quiet privacy at Boothby Pannel and looking back with some sadness upon his removal from his general Acquaintance left in Oxford and the peculiar pleasures of a University life he could not but think the want of Society would render this of a Countrey Parson the more uncomfortable by reason of that want of conversation and therefore he did put on some saint purposes to marry For he had considered that though marriage be cumbred with more worldly care than a single life yet a complying and prudent Wife changes those very cares into so mutual a content as makes them become like the Sufferings of St. Paul which he would not have wanted because they occasioned his rejoycing in them And he having well considered this and observ'd the secret unutterable joys that Children beget in Parents and the mutual pleasures and contented trouble of their daily care and constant endeavours to bring up those little Images of themselves so as to make them as happy as all those cares and endeavours can make them He having considered all this the hopes of such happiness turn'd his faint purpose into a positive resolution to marry And he was so happy as to obtain Anne the daughter of Henry Nelson Batchelor in Divinity then Rector of Haugham in the County of Lincoln a man of noted worth and learning And the Giver of all good things was so good to him as to give him such a Wife as was sutable to his own desires a Wife that made his life happy by being always content when he was chearful that divided her joys with him and abated of his sorrow by bearing a part of that burthen a Wife that demonstrated her affection by a chearful obedience to all his desires during the whole course of his life and at his death too for she out-liv'd him And in this Boothby Pannel he either found or made his Parishioners peaceable and complying with him in the decent and regular service of God And thus his Parish his Patron and he liv'd together in a religious love and a contented quietness He not troubling their thoughts by preaching high and useless notions but such plain truths as were necessary to be known believed and practised in order to their salvation And their assent to what he taught was testified by such a conformity to his Doctrine as declared they believ'd and lov'd him For he would often say That without the last the most evident truths heard as from an enemy or an evil liver either are not or are at least the less effectual and do usually rather harden than convince the hearer And this excellent man did not think his duty discharged by only reading the Church Prayers Catechizing Preaching and administring the Sacraments seasonably but thought if the Law or the Canons may seem to injoyn no more yet that God would require more than the defective Laws of man's making can or does injoyn the performance of that inward Law which Almighty God hath imprinted in the Conscience of all good Christians and inclines those whom he loves to perform He considering this did therefore become a law to himself practicing what his Conscience told him was his duty in reconciling differences and preventing Law-suits both in his Parish and in the Neighbourhood To which may be added his often visiting sick and disconsolate Families perswading them to patience and raising them from dejection and his advice and chearful discourse and by adding his own Alms if there were any so poor as to need it considering how acceptable it is to Almighty God when we do as we are advis'd by St. Paul help to bear one anothers burthen either of sorrow or want and what a comfort it will be when the Searcher of all hearts shall call us to a strict account for that evil we have done and the good we have omitted to remember we have comforted and been helpful to a dejected or distressed Family And that his practice was to do good one Example may be That he met with a

poor dejected Neighbour that complain'd he had taken a Meadow the Rent of which was 9 l. a year and when the Hay was made ready to be carried into his Barn several days constant rain had so raised the water that a sudden Flood carried all away and his rich Landlord would bate him no rent and that unless he had half abated he and seven children were utterly undone It may be noted That in this Age there are a sort of people so unlike the God of mercy so void of the bowels of pity that they love only themselves and children love them so as not to be concern'd whether the rest of mankind waste their days in sorrow or shame People that are curst with riches and a mistake that nothing but riches can make them and theirs happy But 't was not so with Dr. Sanderson for he was concern'd and spoke comfortably to the poor dejected man bade him go home and pray and not load himself with sorrow for he would go to his Landlord next morning and if his Landlord would not abate what he desired he and a Friend would pay it for him To the Landlord he went the next day and in a conference the Doctor presented to him the sad condition of his poor dejected Tenant telling him how much God is pleas'd when men compassionate the poor and told him That though God loves Sacrifice yet he loves Mercy so much better that he is pleas'd when call'd the God of mercy And told him the riches he was possest of were given him by that God of mercy who would not be pleas'd if he that had so much given yea and forgiven him too should prove like the rich Steward in the Gospel that took his fellow servant by the throat to make him pay the utmost farthing This he told him And told him That the Law of this Nation by which Law he claims his Rent does not undertake to make men honest or merciful but does what it can to restrain men from being dishonest or unmerciful and yet was defective in both and that taking any Rent from his poor Tenant for what God suffered him not to enjoy though the Law allowed him to do so yet if he did so he was too like that rich Steward which he had mentioned to him and told him that riches so gotten and added to his great Estate would as Iob says prove like gravel in his teeth would in time so corrode his Conscience or become so nauseous when he lay upon his Death-bed that he would then labour to vomit it up and not be able and therefore advis'd him being very rich to make Friends of his unrighteous Mammon before that evil day come upon him But however neither for his own sake nor for God's sake to take any Rent of his poor dejected sad Tenant for that were to gain a temporal and lose his eternal happiness These and other such reasons were urg'd with so grave and so compassionate an earnestness that the Landlord forgave his Tenant the whole Rent The Reader will easily believe that Dr. Sanderson who was himself so meek merciful did suddenly and gladly carry this comfortable news to the dejected Tenant and will believe that at the telling of it there was a mutual rejoycing 'T was one of Iob's boasts That he had seen none perish for want of clothing and that he had often made the heart of the widow to rejoyce And doubtless Dr. Sanderson might have made the same religious boast of this and very many like occasions But since he did not I rejoyce that I have this just occasion to do it for him and that I can tell the Reader I might tire my self and him in telling how like the whole course of Dr. Sanderson's life was to this which I have now related Thus he went on in an obscure and quiet privacy doing good daily both by word and by deed as often as any occasion offer'd it self yet not so obscurely but that his very great learning prudence and piety were much noted and valued by the Bishop of his Diocese and by most of the Nobility and Gentrey of that Country By the first of which he was often summon'd to preach many Visitation Sermons and by the latter at many Assizes Which Sermons though they were much esteemed by them that procur'd and were fit to judge them yet they were the less valued because he read them which he was forc'd to do for though he had an extraordinary memory even the Art of it yet he had such an inmate invincible fear and bashfulness that his memory was wholly useless as to the repetition of his Sermons as he had writ them which gave occasion to say when they were first printed and expos'd to censure which was in the year 1632 That the best Sermons that were ever read were never preach'd In this contented obscurity he continued till the learned and good Archbishop Laud who knew him well in Oxford for he was his contemporary there told the King 't was the knowing and conscientious King Charles the I. that there was one Mr. Sanderson an obscure Countrey Minister that was of such sincerity and so excellent in all Casuistical learning that he desir'd his Majesty would make him his Chaplain The King granted it most willingly gave the Bishop charge to hasten it for he long'd to discourse with a man that had dedicated his Studies to that useful part of learning The Bishop forgot not the King's desire and Mr. Sanderson was made his Chaplain in Ordinary in November following 1631. And when they became known to each other the King did put many Cases of Conscience to him and receiv'd from him such deliberate safe and clear solutions as gave him great content in conversing with him so that at the end of his months attendance the King told him He should long for the next November for he resolv'd to have a more inward acquaintance with him when that month and he return'd And when the month and he did return the good King was never absent from his Sermons and would usually say I carry my ears to hear other Preachers but I carry my conscience to hear Mr. Sanderson and to act accordingly And this ought not to be conceal'd from Posterity That the King thought what he spake For he took him to be his Adviser in that quiet part of his life and he prov'd to be his Comforter in those days of his affliction when he apprehended himself to be in danger of Death or Deposing Of which more hereafter In the first Parliament of this good King which was 1625. he was chosen to be a Clerk of the Convocation for the Diocese of Lincoln which I here mention because about that time did arise many disputes about Predestination and the many Critical Points that depend upon or are interwoven in it occasioned as was said by a disquisition of new Principles of Mr. Calvin's though others say they were before his time

ways which either the rigid Calvinists or the Arminians have taken Quaere then whether or no the Eternal Decrees of God concerning man's Salvation may not be conveniently conceived in this order viz. That he decreed 1. To make himself glorious by communicating his goodness in producing powerfully and ex nihilo a world of Creatures and among the chiefest of them Man endued with a reasonable soul and organical body as a vessel and subject capable of grace and glory 2. To enter into a Covenant with this reasonable Creature commonly called the first Covenant of Works to bestow upon him life and glory if he should continue in his obedience but if otherwise then not only to be deprived of the blessedness covenanted but also and instead thereof to be punished with actual misery and eternal death 3. After this Covenant made to leave man in manu consilij sui by the free choice of his own will to lay hold either on life by obedience or by transgression on death 4. To permit man thus left to himself to fall into sin and so to cast himself out of that Covenant into a state of misery and corruption and damnation with a purpose in that permission to serve himself of mans fall as a fit occasion whereby to magnifie himself and his own glory yet farther in the manifestation of his infinite both justice and mercy 5. That the whole Species of so noble a Creature might not perish everlastingly and without all remedy to provide for mankind pro genere humano a most wise sufficient and convenient means of reparation and redemption and salvation by the satisfactory and meritorious death and obedience of the incarnate Son of God Jesus Christ God blessed for ever 6. In this Jesus as the Mediator to enter into a second Covenant with Mankind commonly called the New Covenant or the Covenant of Grace that whosoever should lay hold on him by a true and steadfast Faith should attain remission of sins and eternal life but he that should not believe should perish everlastingly in his sins 7. Lest this Covenant should yet be ineffectual and Christ die in vain because left to themselves especially in this wretched state of corruption none of the Sons of Adam could de facto have repented and believed in Christ for the glory of his grace to elect and cull a certain number of particular persons out of the corrupted lump of mankind to be advanced into this Covenant and thereby entitled unto Salvation and that without any cause or motive at all in themselves but meerly ex beneplacito voluntatis of his own free grace and good pleasure in Jesus Christ pretermitting and passing by the rest to perish justly in their sins 8. To confer in due season upon the persons so elected all fit and effectual means and graces needful for them unto Salvation proportionably to their personal capacities and conditions as namely 1. Upon Infants that die before the use of Reason the Sacrament of Christian Baptism administred and received in the Name and Faith of the Chuch with Sacramental grace to such persons as for the want of the use of Reason never come to be capable of the habitual or actual graces of Faith Repentance c. we are to judge to be sufficient for their Salvation 2. Upon men that come to the use of Reason sooner or later such a measure of Faith in the Son of God of repentance from dead works of new and holy obedience to God's Commandments together with final perseverance in all these as in his excellent wisdom he seeth meet wrought and preserved in them outwardly by the Word and Sacraments and inwardly by the operation of his holy Spirit shed in their hearts whereby sweetly and without constraint but yet effectually their understandings wills and affections are subdued to the acknowledgment and obedience of the Gospel and both these are done ordinarily and by ordinary means 3. Into some men it may be and extraordinarily especially in the want of ordinary means God may infuse Faith and other Graces accompanying Salvation as also modo nobis incognito make supply unto Infants unbaptized some other way by the immediate work of his Holy and Almighty Spirit without the use of the outward means of the Word and Sacraments Of which extraordinary work we cannot pronounce too sparingly the special use whereto it serveth us being the suspending of our Censures not rashly to pass the Sentence of Damnation upon those Infants or Men that want the ordinary outward means since we are not able to say How God in his infinite power can and how in his rich mercy he hath doth or will deal with them 9. Thus much concerning the salvation of those whom God hath of his free grace elected thereunto But with the Reprobates whom he hath in his justice appointed to destruction he dealeth in another fashion as concerning whom he hath decreed either 1. To afford them neither the extraordinary nor so much as but the outward and ordinary means of Faith Or else 2. In the presence of the outward means of the Word and Sacraments to withhold the inward concurrence of his enlightning and renewing Spirit to work with those means for want whereof they become ineffectual to them for their good working upon them either malignantly so as their hearts are the more hardened thereby in sin and unbelief or infirmly so as not to work in them a perfect Conversion but to produce instead of the gracious habits of Sanctification as Faith Repentance Charity Humility c. some weak and infirm shadows of those Graces which for their formal semblance sake do sometimes bear the name of those Graces they resemble but were never in the mean time the very true Graces themselves and in the end are discovered to have been false by the want of perseverance IV. Vtilitas hujus Seriei This way of ordering the Decrees of God besides that it seemeth to be according to the mind of the Scriptures and to hold correspondency more than any other as well with the writings of the ancient Doctors of the Church especially of St. Augustine and those that followed him as with the present Doctrine contained in the Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England It hath also three notable commodities viz. 1. Hereby are fairly avoided the most and greatest of those inconveniences into which both extremes run or at the least which either extreme presseth sore upon the opposite extreme The Arminian accusing the rigid Calvinist as a betrayer of the justice of God for placing the Decree of Reprobation before that of Adam's fall and being again accused by him as an Enemy to the grace of God for making the efficacy thereof to depend upon man's free will Whereas both the glory of the justice of God and the efficacy of the grace of God are preserved entire by following this middle way For 1. There can lie no imputation upon the justice of God though he have reprobated some