stir up their distast of others B. The question may have three several senses of passiveness as man is considered 1. In his Nature 2. In his Action And therein 1. In the reception of the Divine Influx 2. In the acting thereupon And so the questions are 1. VVhether mans Soul be an active nature or passive matter only 2. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in the reception of the Divine Influx ad agendum 3. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in its own first act of Faith or Repentance Tell me Are not these three distinct questions And are they not all that you can devise unless you will make another whether we are merly passive in the preparatory part And are you not now ashamed to confess that you need any answer to any one of these three questions I. All the world is agreed save the Hobbists and Somatists and Sadduces that mans Soul is not meer passive nature but is an active nature inclined to Action as passive Elements are to non-action And that when God moveth it he moveth not Earth Water or Air but a Spirit whose nature is self-moving as fire under the first mover II. All the world is agreed that the Soul and all Spirits are not so purely and meerly active as God is but are partly and first passive and that they do and needs must be receptive of the Divine Influx before they can act For all Creatures depend on the first Cause and both Being Nature and Action would cease if Gods emanation to it ceased And all the world agreeth that no man before Conversion or after doth any act of Faith Love c. no nor eating and drinking and going c. but he is in the first instant passive as influenced by God before he is active Who ever doubted whether physice recipere be pati Did you ever know such a man III. All the world is agreed that man is not meerly passive when he acteth An Act is an Act sure And to believe repent and love is an Act and an act of mans Soul And Scotus who thinketh that immanent Act are qualities as we think of habits yet thinketh that the Soul is truly active antecedently to that quality Where now is there any room for a Controversie C. You would make me believe that we are very ignorant Wranglers that make a noise in our dream and will not suffer others to rest Do not the Arminians say that man concurreth with God to the first act of his own Faith yea that he maketh Gods Grace effectual B. You shall not again tempt me to anticipate the question of effectual Grace though enough is said before to it as far as this Objection is concerned in it Gods Influx on the Soul is one thing mans natural faculty receiving that Influx passively is another And mans Act is another To thrust in here a general word man concurreth and so to run away from clear and necessary distinction is not the part of a man of knowledge Did ever man yet deny that man herein concurreth as aforesaid 1. Man concurreth not to make his Soul nor to continue it in being or power 2. Man concurreth not as any efficient of Gods Influx on his Soul ad agendum 3. But man receptively or passively concurreth as a Receiver of that Influx 4. And man actively thereupon concurreth to believe and repent Is not all this true But you would tempt the Arminians to say that it is you and not they that are herein to be accused For what mean you else by confining the Controversie to the first act of Faith or to our first Conversion Would you make men believe that a converted man is not as truly passive in believing loving God c. as the unconverted is Must not the holiest person be passive in receiving the Divine Influx on his Soul before he do any holy Act You seem to deny this and then you are the person that err by ascribing too much to man If not shew the difference C. There is a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act And it is in respect to that habit that the Arminians say we are active procurers of it which we deny But the godly operate from a habit B. You speak a private Opinion of your own brain against the sense of the Concordant Churches Where doth Scripture say that a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act Mr. Pemble * Vind. Gratâ— saith so indeed yet he sometime calleth that but a Seed which at other times he calleth a habit Dr. Ames in his Medulla contradicteth it Bishop Downame * In the end of his Treatise Of Perseverance Le Blank de diss Grat. 2. Thes 22. speaking of our being passive as to operating Grace saith truly Non videntur hac in parte Reformati a sanioribus inter Scholasticos dissentire licet aliis verbis mentem suam exprimant The School-men and Protestants little differ in the method of operations of Grace and all are drawn by Controversies too near curiosity beyond their reach hath written a large Confutation of Mr. Pemble The generality of Protestant Divines contradict it and thus with Rollock de Vocat distinguish Vocation from Sanctification that they suppose Vocation to cause the first act of Faith and Repentance and Sanctification to give us the fixed habit the act intervening Mr. Tho. Hooker is large upon it in his Souls Vocation Will you start one mans Opinion which Calvinists and Arminians are against and feign this to be a difference between Calvinists and Arminians And perhaps Mr. Pemble himself by his first semen or habit meaneth no more than the Divine Influx ad actum received I have before told you how unsearchable the nature of that Influx is and how hard it is to know the true nature of an Habit. C. But Mr. Pemble saith It is the Spirit that is given before we believe B. Away with Ambiguity By the Spirit is meant either the meer received Influx of the Spirit ad agendum and so it is granted Bad men receive the Spirits Influx to such acts as he moveth them to Or else you mean the foresaid fixed Habits and Dispositions to a ready and facile ordinary Operation Or else you mean the Spirit given relatively by Covenant undertaking to be the Sanctifier and Preserver of the Soul In both these latter senses the Spirit is not given before the first act of Faith to Infidels They have not the fixed habits of Holiness Love Hope Obedience c. Otherwise they were holy Infidels No Scripture speaketh it nay contrarily it promiseth the Spirit as to Believers and affirmeth it given after Faith Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 14. 17. 15. 26. Gal. 3. 14. 4. 6. Joh. 7. 39. And that the Holy Ghost is not given in Covenant to Infidels I need not prove to them that will not baptize Infidels The sixth Crimination C. They hold that none are damned only for Adam's sin imputed * Yes Vasqu and other
saith is not willed by the sinner himself § 33. So far as God Causeth not sin he willeth it not and they that say that he Loveth and Willeth the existence of it as a means to his glory abuse Gods Moliness and are confuted before Par. 1. § 34. How God overruleth sinners and the effects of sin and procureth his own ends not by the Means or Causality but Occasion of it I have so largely there opened that I must refer the Reader thither SECT XX. How far God and how far Man himself is the Cause of Hell and other punishments THough somewhat be said of this in the Conclusion of the second Jo. Major in 4. sent d. 50. fol. 289. q. 1. inquit concl 3. Sive actus damnatorum dicantur mali culpâ— vel peccata non patientur aliquam poenam inflictam ratione illorum actuum Quia non sunt in statu merendi demerendi sed addit Signanter de poena inflicta loquor quae à culpa distinguitur ejus est reordinativa per cruciatum De poena enim acta non est possibile dare culpam quin suam poenam habeat annexam eo modo quo idem potest habere se Ipsa scilicet peccandi continuatio est poenae miseriae continuatio Nec mihi probabile videtur quod Demerendi ratio cessat apud inferos Praemium quidem mereri non possunt At quare non Poenam commereri sunt putandi Nonne adhuc sunt subditi etiam ipsi daemones sub quadam Lege ideâ—que peccandi adhuc capaces nonne omne peccatum suâ naturâ meretur poenam Ipsius scilicet Joh. Majoris ibid. Conclus 1. Est Damnati habent multos malos actus in inferno libere An opâ—abilius sit damnà tum esse an non esse vide quae ibidem sequuntur ubi concludit Itaque tenco si daretur viro optio vel non esse vel esse in perpetua flamma quod licitè posset vel alterutrum eligendum est non esse Nam minus malum habet rationem boni See Aureolus in 2. d. 31. a. 2. pag. 301. shewing ten wayes how one sin causeth another and so multiplyeth and continueth it self in the wicked Part I think meet to say more here because I find that the not understanding it doth tempt many to unbelief and others to hard repining disaffected atheistical thoughts of God § 1. Again here consider that God made man such as he is in Nature before either Laws or sins or punishments had any being so that if you can but forgive God for making you men that is Rational Free-Agents you can have no fair pretence of quarrel with him As will appear by these considerations following § 2. Mans Body and sensitive soul are of such a nature as that things inconvenient will be his pain He that will take poison shall be griped and tormented by it and he that will eat unwholsome meat or will surfeit shall be sick and he that will cherish diseases by sloth or excesses or abuses of nature will have the pain of them And he that will wound himself or break his bones will be his own afflicter And he that cuts his throat or hangeth himself must dye And all this without any doing of God besides the making him a man and continuing such a nature under his Government in and with the world § 3. Not only positive hurting but omissions will bring mens bodies unto pain and death As not eating not exercising not keeping warm c. And consequently such a life of prodigality or sloth as tendeth to such wants § 4. The inward senses Imagination and Passions are so constituted as that their inconveniences will be a pain and torment as well as the inconveniences of the outward senses 1. Cares and Melancholy thoughts are distracting 2. Desires breed such care and are themselves like a thirst or hunger to the soul 3. Fears are tormenting 4. Sorrows if deep and long are as a living death 5. Anger is a vexatious feaver of the mind And revengeful malice and envy do prolong it 6. Despair anticipateth eternity of misery c. 7. And Love it self how pleasing soever at first is the strength of them all § 5. The superiour faculties as they are more noble are capable of greater misery and their corruption and disorder is the worst To have an ignorant erring mind that taketh evil for good and good for evil To have a carnal malignant wicked obstinate froward Will and sinful Affections and by these to have mens actions misguided and so the sensitive soul it self brought into the foresaid misery through bad government is a misery to man in the Nature and immediate effects of the thing § 6. Man liveth among multitudes of fellow Creatures in the world which will all be tormentors of him if he will make them such As a post will hurt him if he knock his head to it The fire will burn him if he touch his flesh with it The water will drown him if he will leap into it over-head The Sun will scorch him the frost will pain him if he expose himself to them A Lyon or Mastiff will tear him if he avoid them not His neighbours will hurt him likely if he hurt them and cross their interest Men in power will hurt him if he offend them And all things will be to him as he behaveth himself to them § 7. All this being Natural let us now consider what sin doth to the sinner here and you will find that almost all his calamity consisteth in his very sin it self and the natural effects of it But yet it is sin as mans and it is punishment as from God when yet God is no Cause of the sin § 8. This is plain if you consider that Gods Act by which he maketh sin a Punishment was Before the sin though the Relation of a Punishment come after the relation of sin Here are two Agents 1. God making Nature and a Law therein 2. Man disordering his actions by transgressing 3. Hence Immediately followeth Guilt or the form of sin 4. And with it even in the change or after it the natural pain of loss or hurt 5. And this is Related to man as a punishment for the sin in the last place For instance God made man and God made meat wine and poyson God telleth Man in Nature I have made thee such a Creature as that excess of Meat will make thee sick excess of Wine will make thee mad and Poyson will torment and kill thee I have given thee self-love and command thee that thou avoid all these and I will not deny thee necessary help But if thou wilt not it will be thy pain which I will that thou suffer for and by thy sin I need not further apply it here the application is obvious § 9. All this I speak only of natural punishments which by the Law of nature follow sin what is supernatural is after to be considered §
his overlooking and undervaluing Gods Design in Making and Governing free Intellectual agents by his Sapiential Moral Directive way He supposeth this way to be so much below that of Physical Motion and Determination as that it is not to be considered but as an instrument thereof As if it were unworthy of God to give any creature a Meer Power Liberty Law and Moral Means alone and not to Necessitate him Positively or Negatively to Obey or Disobey And this looking only at Physical Good Being and Motion and thereby thinking lightly of Sapiential Regency is the summ as of his so of Hobbes Spinosa's Alvarez Bradwardines Twisses Rutherfords and the rest of the Predeterminants errors herein And had not I other thoughts of this one thing I should come over to their Opinion For I confess the case to be of very great difficulty § 28. I think that as the Divine Life and Power glorifieth it self eminently in the Causation of the Being Motion and Life of the creatures so the Divine Wisdom eminently glorifieth it self in the Order of all things and in the Moral Directive Sapiential Regiment of Intellectual free agents And that Gods Laws and Doctrine are the Image of his Wisdom and an admirable harmonious and beautiful frame And that all would think so and be wonderfully delighted in them were they compleatly printed on our Minds and Hearts § 29. II. And accordingly I think that the glory of his governing Wisdom and Punishing and Rewarding Justice is a great and notable part of that glory which man must give him now and for ever And that this Justice is not his physical using all things according to their physical aptitude only But his Judging and Executing according to that moral aptitude commonly called Merit by Punishments and Rewards And that to deny God the glory of all this is no small error in a Philosopher or Divine § 30. III. Accordingly I think that God made man a free self-determining agent that he might be capable of such Sapiential Rule And that it is a great Honour to God to make so noble a Nature as hath a Power to determine its own elections And though such are not of the highest rank of Creatures they are far above the lowest And that God who we see delighteth to make up beauty and harmony of diversities doth delight in the Sapiential Moral Government of this free sort of Creatures And though man be not Independent yet to be so far like God himself as to be a kind of first-determiner of many of his own Volitions and Nolitions is part of Gods Natural Image on Man § 31. IV. Accordingly I take Duty to be Rewardable and Laudable and sin to be odious as it is the Act of a free agent And that the Nature of Moral Good and Evil consisteth not in its being the meer effect of physical premotion but in being a Voluntary Conformity or Disconformity to the Sapiential Rule of duty by a free agent that had Power to do otherwise § 32. V. Free-will then is not only the same with willing it self or a meer agency according to Nature by the premotion of the first determining necessitating Mover It is not only such a freedom as Fire Water Beasts and every moved thing hath to be moved according to the first Moyers action which is in the will of man But it is a Power to be a first determining Specifier of its own acts as Moral Not that it is never predetermined but that it can do this § 33. VI. Accordingly I judge of Guilt and Shame and the Accusation of Conscience which will not be a bare discerning what God made us do or be but what we voluntarily did or were when we could do otherwise § 34. VII And I am past all doubt that he grosly mistaketh the nature and distinction of Law and Gospel 1. To think that Gods Law when it is not accompained with physical predetermination is but to shew us that we are creatures that cannot but sin 2. Yea hereby he wrongeth the glory of the Creator that made no creature with a power to do any thing but evil unless predetermined physically thereto 3. It 's gross to say that all the Doctrine of Redemption and Faith and Justification by Christ as a meer signum Letter or Law is the Law or Covenant of Works and so that every Command is the Covenant of Works and Physical Efficiency of Good in us is the Gospel or Covenant of Grace For that which we call the Gospel is not true if this be true For this Gospel is a preached word spoken by mans mouth which some believe and some believe not but reject and disobey and therefore perish Matth. 4. 23. 11. 5. 24. 14. 26. 13. Mark 16. 15. Luke 4. 18. 1 Cor. 9. 14 16 18. Heh 4. 2. 1 Pet. 1. 25. 1 Pet. 4. 6. 2. Thess 1. 8 10 11. Matth. 13. 10. Acts. 13. 7. It is a Law by which men shall be judged to life or death Rom. 2. 16. Mar. 16. 15 16. 2 Thes 1. 8. Rom. 10. 16. John 3. 19 20 21. 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. It is a word which some pervert Gal. 1. 7. and many sin against Gal. 2. 14. 1 Pet. 4. 17. The rejecters of it are to speed worse than Sodom and Gomorrah and they cannot escape that neglect so great salvation Whereas by his description 1. No man ever yet sinned against the Gospel or Covenant of Grace For it is not that Covenant or Gospel further than it is a physical effect on the soul 2. And every Heathen that hath any good effect on his soul by Common Grace hath so much Gospel 3. Yea why is not then all Gods Creation being a physical effect the Covenant of Grace if that he doth be it and all that he commandeth as such be the Law of Works 4. And how then can the Law of Works and Grace be two if every proper Law be the Law of Works For a Law is sub genere signi and a produced event is another thing 5. And what sense will be found throughout the Scripture if we must hold that It is the Covenant or Law of Works which telleth us that the Law of Works is abolished and calleth us to believe in Christ for free Justification and not to expect Justification by the Works of the Law and offereth us pardon and life in Christ c. But I will add no more seeing the plainness of the matter makes it needless § 35. The truth is he distinguisheth between the Law and the effect of the Law and Spirit of God and calleth one the Law of Works and the other the Gospel whereas the Scripture only maketh it the excellency of the Gospel that by it the Spirit effectually worketh on the soul more usually and more excellently and no meer Law of Works or Grace will renew us without the Spirit § 36. VIII And if Redemption be nothing but Physical efficiency by Christ who as a creating Mediator
But that which I ask you is whether this new power given by sufficient Grace be of the same Species with our natural powers or of some other A. What if I say It is of the same sort B. Then as I have hinted you must make the Soul to have either two orders of natural powers of the same Species one founded or subjected in the other which is it that Dr. Twisse derideth or else indeed to have two Souls For I have else-where at large proved with the Scotists that the faculties are essential to the Soul or else you must make the specifick powers of the Soul to have degrees and Souls to be augmented and so that they have more Soul that have Grace than they that have none and so Grace is a kind of generation or augmentation of Souls A. What if I say that it is of another Species B. Then we must consider what it is Is it of a superior Species or subordinate or co-ordinate If you say with some Fryers and Fanaticks that it is the Spirit of God in Essence or God himself it would be Omnipotency If it be not any created Spirit or Substance which would alter our Species or make each one two it must be an Accident as all confess it is and therefore not ejusdem speciei with the faculties that are essential And if so tell us what this power is A. The Soul of man is it self so little known to it self that we cannot easily tell what its natural powers be as the difference between Thomas and the Scotists sheweth much less can we tell how to conceive aright of the quiddity of the Accidents of a Soul who know so little of the Accidents of Bodies or of Bodies themselves Let me hear what your own conceptions are of the matter if they tend to elucidate or reconcile B. He that will take up with the bare words Can or Cannot and confess that he knoweth not what they signifie should not with the blind confidence of too many Contenders trouble the peoples ears in Pulpits and set them on fire against one another and by raving distract the Churches of Christ with such Can's and Cannot's Able and Unable And yet this one poor word is the Granade or Fire-Ball If I pretend to understand it no more than you yet I will be ashamed to vex and ensnare mens Souls with what I understand not but will use the easiest intelligible words But to answer your desires distinctly 1. The Soul is as you say so little known to it self that no man living I think hath a true formal conception of that first accident or effect which it receiveth from Gods Spirit nor yet of the true nature of a habit or disposition following it He that readeth but what our Metaphysicks and School-men have said of Habits will find this to be true and that their quiddity is past his understanding To say that they are qualities by which we are prompt to act is but to name a general notion no better understood than the quaesitum Quality and to name the effect promptitude and not the form or thing it self II. The nature of fire seemeth to be a kind of likeness to Spirits And in this sensible thing we cannot tell what it is that is added by excitation and incension And they that talk of generation of fire know not what generation signifieth whether the production of a new simple substance that before was nothing or the introduction of a new form into a pre-existent substance by mixture or how or only a new motion or if they say It is a generation of new Qualities they know not what the word Quality signifieth But this much is apparent that whether it be done by Collision or however to kindle a spark or latent fire into a flame or incendium is to excite a pre-existent active nature And this excitation is by motion And as we have some very defective conception what motion received is in Bodies and how by contact when it cometh from force motus motum causat vis per motum vint quandam imprimit so by some Analogy we may conceive how Spirits move Spirits and such as is the unexpressible action of one Spirit on another such is the thing thereby imprinted and received A kind of spiritual motus And as in bodily motion the first thing received is the very thing moved by contact qua talis as it self in motion or act so Spirits sno modo seem qua agentes attingentes transcendently to be the first received by the moved Spirits And the second thing the vis impressa and thence followeth the ipse motus But if it to this day most certainly surpass the wits of the greatest Philosophers formally to conceive what it is that adhereth to the res mota to contiue its motion and what that is that is called Vis impressa and in what subject it moveth the projectum c. For the Cartesian fancy that motus inceptus nunquam cessabit nisi impeditus either tells us nothing of the continued cause or supposeth moveri to be no effect and to need no more cause than negatio motus which is unworthy a confutation what wonder then if it surpass the conception of all mortal men to know what that spiritual Vis impressa on a Soul is But what-ever it is this much is the best notion that we can have of that which the Divine Action first communicateth that it is influxus Dei Receptus vel excitatio facultatum exeâ—â—ata as distinct from excitatio Dei excitans It is passive excitation or a spiritual Vis impressa whence Action followeth III. But it hath also a similitude to the Agent in more than simple motion Even as the Sun or Fire doth kindle fire on combustible matter which had also a latent fire before or else it 's not combustible which is not as the Cartesians feign by motion alone but by the operation of a three-fold virtue in the Sun viz. the motive lucid and calefactive producing the same in the Receiver so the Spirit of God doth in this excitation at once communicate to the three faculties of the Soul an impressed force for Vital-activity Intellection and Volition so that the three natural faculties by this received impress and excitation are suscitated to holy Activity Knowledge and Love the habit of which is holy Life and Light and Love abiding For it is certain that it is not one only but all the faculties of the Soul that are vitiated by Sin and therefore all that must be repaired by sanctifying Grace The Vital-active-power as it is a faculty of the rational Soul is as it were sleepy dead and impotent and must be quickened with spiritual life and strength The Intellect is dark and must be illuminated The Will is carnal and unholy and must be turned from the Flesh to God by mortification and by holy love And all this the Holy Ghost doth by Action but not meer Action in
without using the memory and imagination to the Act and this deep insensible Act is such as that a man may doubt whether it be not the very thing which we call a habit I say now all these ten things being presupposed which yet are none of them commonly taken to be the habit of Grace How hard is it to us to know what a habit is indeed beyond all these and what it is that it addeth to these We are sure that it is a Disposition Propensity and Aptitude to holy Action in Specie But what that Disposition and Propensity is besides all this fore-named it is not easie to understand And yet undoubtedly it is the Operation of the Holy Ghost XVIII How hard then must it be to know how much Power or what kind of Power and in what sense so called it is that this superadded habit containeth beside all the ten fore-mentioned excitations and propensities And whether it be properly called Power and how it differeth from the potentiae naturales XIX But yet our great Disputes being more about the first act of Faith which antecedeth the habit than about any of the acts that follow the habit the case will be yet harder what that Power is which the Holy Ghost giveth before the habit of Faith as to the performance of that particular act That it suscitateth the natural â—aculty to act is certain Therefore in order of nature it must be disposed or inclined to that act before it act That the Soul receiveth the Divine influx is certain But no mortal man knoweth what that is We commonly conclude that ex parte Dei it is nothing but God himself By God himself is meant his Act By his Act is meant his Essence as in Act But how his Essence is always immutably in equal Act and yet produceth a world in time which it produced not from eternity and how the equal Act or Agency of the Essence is natural necessary and eternal and the Effect free How the Volition is necessary in se and yet free in every termination and effect ad extra How a natural-equal-eternal Agency can produce such wonderful diversity of Effects And how Souls are said to receive Gods Influx if it be nothing but his Agent Essence All these are past the reach of Mortals XX. And it addeth to these difficulties that we are uncertain what use it is that God maketh of Angels in operating on the Soul They are ministring Spirits for the good of them that are Heirs of Salvation about the matters of their Salvation It is absurd to think that Devils whose very powerful Operations on our imagination we surely feel have more power to put evil thoughts into us and stir up evil passions in us than Angels good ones And seeing a Spirit is more active than a Body they that take the Sun to be a Body and perceive that its Beams and Virtue of Light and Heat and Motion is extended to this Earth and incomparably further in a minuite should not take an Angel to be like a stone or staff that moveth no where but where it corporally toucheth and is no where but where it moveth XXI And all Motion and Action hath so many impediments in the world and all Active Natures as fire have so strong a natural inclination to act when they are not hindred by a greater Power that we little know how much of the action of the Soul is promoted by removing impediments internal and external As they that dam up the water all ways save one do force it to rise if it be a stream till it flow that one way Embittering all other things to a Soul doth much to turn its thoughts towards God and dispair of any delight or felicity on Earth maketh Heaven regarded XXII Seeing all naturally-necessary Concauses Objects Media are supposed to the Ratio formalis of Power which is Relative ad possibile he that giveth or taketh away any one of those necessaries doth give or take away Power though he never change the Soul or faculty at all And this is called A moral collation or causation of Power not a moral Power As when a man bringeth a Light into a dark Room he enableth us to see or if he bring in a Book he enableth me to read that which else I could not have read If he open the Windows or if he cure me of blindness by cutting a Suffusion c. So he that preacheth the Gospel to them that had not heard it and God when he gave Christ and the Gospel to be an Object of Faith did make the natural faculty to be more in sensu naturali potentiam ad hoc to which before it was no power but hypothetically only XXIII The Will is not a Power of choosing or willing an unknown good Therefore it may be truly said to be naturally unable to will that which the Intellect perceiveth not to be good And he that giveth knowledge to such a Mind doth truly give more power to the Will as the loss of knowledge is its loss of power Though the Will it self should receive no habitual alteration by it XXIV We must not conceive of the suscitation of an active nature as we do of the motion of dead matter which is meerly passive But as of that which is passive indeed from God and superior Causes but active in it self and on inferiors And I think like the Sun beams passive from no lower nature save by stop or resistance of its own activity XXV As the Scotists distinguish Passive Receptive Power into natural which is naturally disposed to the form received and violent which is averse or opposite to the form or neutral which is indifferent and affirm the Soul to have the first sort of passive power natural to the love of God and supernatural felicity so the distinction is sound and their assertion is true as to the nature of the Soul in it self considered for it was made to love God But accidentally by reason of adventitious pravity it is but potentia passiva violenta for the the carnal mind is enmity to God and neither is nor can be subject to his Law So that it is both natural and violent in several respects XXVI As for the great question what is a moral Power I answer 1. Power may be called Moral ab objecto because it is ad mores and so our natural power is moral and actus humanus and actus moralis are oft put for Synonima's 2. Power may be called moral from the way of effecting it And so our natural Powers also are moral not in the Essence of the Soul but in the Relative form of the power in specie vel individuo ad hoc objectum For he that causeth or revealeth the Object doth by moral causation give us a natural power ad hoc 3. Power is called moral formally In that of it self it is a moral Virtue or Vice Good or Evil which yet could not be true if it were
more are Godly vulgar people ignorant and consequently erre in many things Even they that cry out against the vulgar Ignorance and insufficient Teachers know far less than they are Ignorant of themselves 5. He that mistakingly thinks any thing is Good or Bad Duty or Sin which is not so will be zealous in pursuit of his mistake if he be serious for God A good principle will hasten him on in a wrong way whatever it cost him 6. Ignorance and timerousness cause superstition which is a conceit that God is pleased by overdoing in external things and observances and laws of their own making and so they that make part of their own Religion superstitiously as most good people do in some things through ignorance will censure all others as Good or Bad by the measure of their own mistakes 7. He that thus mistakingly thinks that men sin when they do not will have a proportionable dislike of them and aversation from them And will be ready to speak as he thinks of them and so will be guilty of calumny and calling Evil Good and Good Evil. 8. The World will abound still with real evil and scandals And all parties will be faulty And usually the greater part of the Clergie in the Christian World will be guilty of so much Ignorance pride contentiousness worldliness and sensuality as will greatly grieve and offend good people And this will occasion alienation and separations even with Godly persons The sacrifice of the Lord was abhorred through the sins of Eli's sons The case of the Clergie at this day in the Greek Church in Moscovie Armenia Syria Abassia c. yea among too many of the German Churches is very lamentable by Ignorance and scandal And the corruption of the Roman Clergie was it that facilitated the revolt from the Papacy at Luther's reformation He that readeth Cornel. Mus Ferus Espencaeus Erasmus Alvan Pelagius Clemangis and such others describing their own Clergie and Jos Acosta of them in India c. will see much of the Cause of the Divisions in the World And all the old Writers that write against the Waldenses do make us understand that the ignorance and wickedness of the Clergie then was it that drove them from the Roman Church Saith Wicelius Meth. Concord c. 11. p. 39. Quum tales ad nullum honestius vitae institutum idonei sunt mirum sit si bonos sacerdotes praestabunt sic itaque procedente tempore regetur Ecclesia ab asinis praedicabunt imperitissimi misero populo quod nunquam didicerunt ipsi Adolescentes optimi quique abhorrent propterea ab instituto illo quod nolint suam libertatem sibi eripi c. I have oft said what caused St. Martin to separate during life from the Synodical Bishops about him And what Gildas saith of such that no excellent Christian will call them Ministers And it 's very observable not only as Dr. James in the Margin of Wicelius hath cited that there are many Canons against wicked Priests celebrating and Massing but Wicelius himself saith p. 17. Non admittantur sacra concubinariorum quos Deus pejus odit atque manifestarios incestus Meminerimus in Decretis Pontificum piè caveri Ne quis Missam ejus Presbyteri audiat quem scit indubitanter concubinam habere aut subintroductam mulierem And yet there are now men pretending to piety among Protestants that speak of and use those Godly persons more hatefully who refuse to hear such wicked Priests than they do those Priests themselves Light and Darkness have no Communion And the Church will alwayes have bad Ministers and Members And many good people through Ignorance will think that they should go further from them than they ought And will not distinguish between that private familiarity which is in their own power and that publick Church Communion which the Church Pastors are the guides and judges of And so the honesty and the ignorance of these good men meeting with the vulgar wickedness will be as the congress of fire and water and will occasion ruptures and parties in the Churches 9. The carnal Clergie will usually hate and persecute Godly zealous Preachers As even the case of Ph. Nerius and Baronius at Rome sheweth which had almost made disturbance And then sufferings will be a stronger temptation to hard thoughts and too much alienation than most are able well to overcome 10. And the Godly people will adhere to their Godly suffering Teachers and run further in bitterness against the carnal and persecuting party than their suffering Leaders do desire 11. Yet interest and temptations will prevail with too many of the sufferers to connive at the bitterness and alienation of the people if not to countenance it which they do not justifie And so the rupture will grow still greater 12. And all men have some Pride And Godliness being the best thing may become the object of Pride as well as Knowledge and Power And so many will affect to have their Piety Conspicuous and therefore to be singular or of some small party that is eminent and so by separation to stand at a more conspicuous distance from the vulgar sort of Christians than Christ would have them And so many a good man hath more of Pride in his profession and separation than he is aware of 13. And because Gods word and his last judgement and Heaven and Hell do make so great a difference between the Godly and ungodly it occasioneth many to think that they must difference men by their own censures and separations farther than indeed they ought 14. And it greatly promoteth Schisms that good people are unacquainted with Church-history and know not how just such Opinions and Schisms as their own have in former ages risen and how they have miscarryed and dyed and what have been their fruits 15. And few men have that humble sense as they ought of their own Ignorance and badness which would keep their suspicions and Censures more at home and make them more compassionate to others 16. And few love their Neighbours as themselves nor consider while they hate mens sin what is lovely in their Natures and Capacities of grace 17. And the Piety of almost all Sects of Christians on Earth is already corrupted with so many humane superstitious additions that few can escape the temptation of Censuring accordingly 18. And the Church will alwayes have many hypocrites who quiet their Consciences by adhering to the strictest Ministers and Churches instead of a mortified holy and heavenly heart and conversation 19. And lastly Persecution and hatred from others and the due Love of Godly persons tempteth too many Ministers to over-run their own judgements and follow the more censorious sort of persons further than they ought at least by connivence and to be ruled by those whom they should rule And thus Divisions are occasioned even by Piety it self II. But yet were the Principles of Division never so many and pernicious Interest might have led
It seemeth to me a presumptuous playing with the Majesty of God to affirm that we must ascribe to him infinite Positive Volitions that infinite Atoms Names c. shall not be when even to men we only ascribe reductively and morally the nolition of things evil 7. It is certain that God suspendeth his Velle facere about non-entities And why not as well his Nolle or Velle non esse as aforesaid But here after others a late philosophical Physicion saith that Nothings may be Bona Moralia though not Naturalia I answer It is not true save by a reductive improper speech Morality is Modality The negative Commandments forbid evil and command the nolivion and resistance of it To murder c. is evil and to nill it and positively resist and subdue all in us that tendeth to it is good But the bare non occidere is not moral Good All moral Good is radically in the Will and no farther in any forbearance of an act than a positive act of the Will makes it Obedience And yet here I go not so far as Ockam as I have said elsewhere I grant that when the positive nolition and restraint of an act to which we are inclined or tempted is the good of obedience the not-doing of the Act is loco materiae circa quam and so must go to an adequate conception of the duty although it be no proper part nor good in it self But Ockam goeth further and maintaineth that the external act of duty with the internal Volition hath no more moral goodness than the Volition alone But I think that the action is a subject or loco subjectâ— of a derived secondary goodness as Scotus asserteth They that are against this are moved with a fear lest we make God an Idle Spectator and not the Governour of the World But they consider not 1. That the suspension of his Powerful Operation inferreth no such thing God is not Idle because he Causeth not or maketh not infinite Nothings or possibles to exist Not is he the less Governour of the World And yet Idleness and Government are words that more directly signifie non-operation and operation than any meer Volitions or Nolitions Men may thrust out words but no rational answer against this argument 486. 2. And note well that Gods not knowing or not-nilling nothing is from his Perfection and not any privative Ignorance or Negligence For he knoweth all that is an object of Knowledge and willeth all that his Wisdom judgeth meet to will or nill respectively So that to tell God that he is Ignorant if he know not an unintelligible object or Idle if he Will or Nill not at our direction is as much blasphemy as to tell him that he is Impotent if he cannot sin or cause Contradictions to be true The case is the very same 487. Object But Scripture oft ascribeth both Nolitions of Nothings and Knowledge of them unto God Answ And so must we in that sense as the Scripture doth We will say and must say of some Nothings that God Nilleth them I hope the Learned will not take it amiss if I speak where the Schoolmen are too silent as well as desire silence where they unprofitably speak as long as the case is 1. Weighty 2. And made plain 3. And I go the middle healing way 488. In all these cases and respects we ascribe Nolitions unto Godâ— I. He that by a Positive operation causeth a limited cause may be said to cause the limitation of effects by consequence And he that positively willeth realities with such limitations from whence the consequence necessarily followeth Nothing else will ever be is said Morally or â—reputatively or by Consequence to Will that Nothing else shall be And he that knoweth all things that belong to the perfection of knowledge is improperly said to know all Nothings in that he knoweth that Nothing more is or will be And so as knowing Beings is by consequence reputatively or morally called the knowing of Nothings by men we are sain to use such terms of imperfection even of God lest we seem to make him Idle or Ignorant When we say that God is the Cause that thâ—re is no more creatures we mean but that he causeth not more creatures And so to say that God willeth that there shall be no more Worlds meaneth but that God willeth not that there shall be more 489. II. This Interpretative consequential Act which is but morally so called is fitlier expressed in the gross of universal Nothings than of millions of imaginary particulars It is fitter to say that by willing a limited or finite World God willed that there should be nothing more than to say He willed that there should not be a Sun in every mans pocket or Heaven and Earth in every mans fist c. Though as to the truth all is one 490. III. When God positively willeth the Positive hindering of a thing he may morally be said to Nill the thing or to Will that it shall not be That there are Positive Impeditions of God by Dr. Twisses leave I have elsewhere proved But then you must suppose that as the fountain of Nature as it were by a Decree he hath resolved to continue the Nature of things and his natural Concurse which supposed their Natures may incline them to such Action as needeth Positive Impedition So God hindered the fire from burning and the Lyons from killing Daniel it's like Dan. 3. 6. Certainly if a man can stop a Cart-wheel with a Stone or bind a man in chains God can do the same And mens Inclination to sin needeth a Positive Impedition Now though non-agere is nothing and hath no cause yet he that destroyeth or hindereth the Cause of Action is morally said to be the Cause that there is no Action Though strictly it be but destroying the Cause of Action and so preventing further action And this moral language even of God is the fitter because it is of Moral things 491. IV. And here Gods Law being called his Will though it be formally but de debito yet being materially de re ipsa a double reason will thence arise For when God forbiddeth and condemneth sin c. 1. He doth very much to hinder it and that positively and so he doth by his grace 2. And his prohibition may be called his Nolition signified 492. V. And God properly willeth the Being and Truth of Negative propositions viz. This or that will not be and knoweth them as made by man at least And as I said sin as the subject of a proposition is not sin or hath no harm in it As sin repented of or the object of repentance and hatred maketh up a Virtue and is not sin indeed but the knowledge of it So here But yet hence the phrase may be borrowed and it may be said that God Nilleth the existence of such Possibles because he willeth the truth of the proposition They shall not be 493. VI. But here note that when
naturally happy is proper to God therefore Adam was to be led to it freely by a Covenant An. To be happy necessarily and independently and primarily is proper to God But you can never prove it any contradiction or impossible for God to make a Creature naturally happy nor that there are not such § 9. Here the M. S. citeth some words of his Gibieuf making our Being in God initially and finally to be our state of amplitude and liberty and our going out from God to be our particularity and state of necessity as if we were pre-existent in God and our individuation ceased upon oâ—â— return into him as our End An. But these are Platonick Phantasms And Gibieuf who was a devout Oratorian and talketh too oft of our Deification as Benedictâ—â— de Benedictis Barbanson Baker and other Fryers that talk phanatically must be read with caution and exception and as the Soul need not fear too near a Union with God as the loss of its individuation so neither must it desire or hope for such § 10. M. S. An unchangeable state of Happiness in the love of God is called Eternal Life An. No doubt but that is called Eternal Life in the fullest sense which actually endureth to eternity as to that particular Subject And so 1. The life of Glory perfectively 2. And a confirmed state of Sanctity here initially are usually called Eternal Life But 3. Whether the lossable state which the Angels fell from and Adam fell from or that measure of Grace which the ancient Fathers thought the justified may fall from be never so called also I cannot prove § 11. M. S. Adam's promised Happiness was 1. Essential in this perfect holiness or love of God 2. Complemental in the enjoying God iâ— all the sanctified Creatures in that Paradise but not to be translated to Heaven which Christ only procureth us An. I inclined to that Opinion 26 years ago when I wrote the Aphorisms which you oppose But I now incline more to the contrary and rather think man should have been translated to Heaven as Henoch and Elias were upon many reasons which I now pass by Though I take it yet to be scarce certain to us § 12. M. S. The Holiness of God is his loving himself as his End And the third Person proceeding by a reflex act of the infinite Will and self-love of God is therefore called the Holy Spirit An. 1. This notion of Gods Holiness that it is his Self-love is not to be contemned It seemeth to be so with this limitation that you confine not his Holiness to this but take this only as the most eminent among the inadequate conceptions of it For his whole Transcendency in Being Life and Knowledg as being adoreable by the Creature and its End and the Fountain of all created Goodness and specially of Morality is also Gods Holiness 2. But the saying that God is his own End seemeth improper though tolerable if spoken but analogically For God neither hath nor is to himself a Cause nor an Effect a Beginning nor an End 3. That the third Person proceedeth by a reflex Act of the infinite Will many School-men boldly say And so some say that he is Gods actual self-love which is â—he same that you call his Holiness And some say that he is the Divine Will or Love considered in it self as distinct from Vital Power and Intellect or Wisdom But of this I have spoken more largely else-where § 13. M. S. Adam's promised Reward was to be fixed in an unchangeable state of pleasing God by this Holy Spirit not by infusing any new quality which should unchangeably fasten him to the Rule for no created thing can unchangeably keep a man from falling An. 1. The promise to Adam is very obscure But Happiness it must needs be and everlasting 2. But it is past my reach to conceive how the Spirit of God can fix man in perfect holiness without any fixing quality as it 's called on his Soul A constant Act the Soul must have And 1. If that Act be caused by any Divine Impulse disposing the Soul so to act then that disposition is a quality 2. And if there be not both disposition and habit then the Soul will not in Glory be habitually or qualitatively holy but only actually 3. And a habit-acting being perfecter than an act without a habit or inclination the Soul will be more imperfect in Glory than in this state of Grace 4. Operari sequitur esse God fitteth all his Creatures to their works And as when he will give Immortality he will give a Nature fit for Immortality even indissoluble and incorruptible so when he giveth perpetuity of Love he giveth a nature or habits fit for perpetual Action Christ saith A good Tree bringeth forth good fruit and an evil Tree evil fruit Make the Tree good and his fruit good 5. The Operations of Love in Glory should be ex potentia aut violentia aut neutra if there were no intrinsick disposition or inclination to them In a word it is a contradiction for a Soul to be perfectly holy and not have the perfection of inclination to its Acts. 3. But if the meaning were that no holy quality alone sufficeth without Gods Influx that were no more than what must be faid of every Creature without Divine Influx no Creature can be or operate a moment No created thing of it self without God can continue How then should it keep a man from falling But if the Soul have any more goodness of nature or inclination in it than the Devils have it must be a created thing or God himself If only God that proveth not a Saint to be himself better than a Devil as to nature or disposition but only that God in him is better His reason why the Sun is naturally fixed to its Operations but not a glorified Soul is § 14. M. S. that one is a natural and the other a voluntary Agent One as Gibieuf saith Non agit sed agitur the other doth agere non tantum agitur An. 1. Gibieuf and you were deceived in thinking that such naturals non agunt Passive matter doth not Act ex principio essentiali unless Dr. Glissons and Campanellas Doctrine hold true But the three Active Natures Intellectual Sensitive and Vegetative and so Fire and the Sun do ex principio Activo essentali agere but nothing doth Act without an Antecedent Influx to action from the first Cause in which it is passive For no Creature is Independent 2. Voluntas est quaedam Natura quamvis libera To move naturally only and not freely is proper to Agents meerly natural distinct from free But to move freely and yet from a fixed principle which shall infallibly determine the Soul to act freely is not a contradiction nor that which Gibieuf should deny to the glorified § 15. M. S. Man though a Creature is the first Cause of his own action He moveth and sets himself on work else he were
Will or Power as if he could do no more But it is his Delight thus to govern the creature according to the nature and rank which he hath made it in and his non-volitions and non-operations of a higher sort are agreeable to his Perfection Wisdom and Liberty Higher action being used on higher creatures 3. Yet hath God placed and kept these free Agents not only under his Moral Government but also under his Dominion and disposal so that he will do with them as his own what he lift and none shall frustrate his disposing Will. 4. It pleased him first to make man perfect under a Law of Perfection making innocency or perfection the only condition of Life and the contrary of Death 5. When Man had sufficient Grace to have kept this Law not sufficient to ascertain the event but sufficient Power to have stood that is as much Grace as was necessary to his standing sine qua non esse potuit cum qua esse potuit he broke it and sinned against that sufficient Grace before God either denyed him any thing necessary or withdrew any from him 6. From whence it is clear that the Nature of Man's Will is such as that it is made to use a Power which doth not necessitate or determine it self or is determined necessarily but freely And that it is no Deifying of the Will nor extolling it above its Nature to say that it can act or determine it self without Gods pre-determinating premotion or by that same measure of help which at another time doth not determine it Though its Nature and its Act as such be of God yet so is its Liberty too and therefore by the Power and Liberty given by God the Will can act or not act or turn it self to this object or to that without more help than the said natural support and Concurse And this Power and Liberty is its Nature and Gods Image 7. From hence also it is evident that there is such a thing or operation of God as Grace Necessary called sufficient which is not effectual For God took no Grace away from Adam before he sinned nor let out any temptation upon him which he was not able to resist nor did he sin for want of necessary Grace but by that same degree of help might have overcome 8. God passing Sentence on faln Man for sin would not forgive him the temporal death nor common calamities of this life but cursed the creatures which he was to use as part of his penalty 9. But the Great evil which sin brought on man was the loss of Gods approbation and complacency and of his Spirits saving Communion and help and of Gods Image on man's Soul and of Communion with God herein and also his right to life eternal All which man 's own sin cast away and man was both the Deserver and Executioner without any change in God 10. Yet was all this privation penal in that God made Man such a creature as that his own sin should become his punishment or ruine if he committed it so that all Punishment is not determinatively of God though Gods Antecedent Will did make that which by man is made a Cause As in argument God saith antecedently If thou sin thy own sin shall be thy torment and misery and man saith I will sin Therefore it is Man that is the determining Cause of the Conclusion My own sâ—â— shall be my torment and misery So it is in Causation God antecedently to man's sin doth resolve I will make Man such a Creature with such a Mind Conscience and Will as that his Holiness shall be his Health and Joy and his immediate Receptive capacity of my favour and of his Communion with me and of his title to my spirit and Glory And that if he forsake me and his Holiness in the very Nature of the thing he shall lose all this Life Light and Love Joy and Communion and title to my Grace and shall feel the torments of his own Conscience telling him of his sin and loss This is Gods Antecedent Law Nay this is Gods Antecedent Creation to make man such a Creature Now if man sin his owâ— sin doth ipso facto become his misery and yet is not caused at all by Gods But yet that his Nature was made such as sin should prove a misery to was Gods Work And from that Antecedent Creation or Constitution the Relative form of a Punishment resulteth to the Sinner Even as God saith If thou Murder it shall be thy sin or Thou shalt not Murder And man doth Murder Here the Act that is sin is of man but that the Relation of sin belongeth to that act resulteth partly from the Law which forbiddeth it and yet God is not the Cause of sin though he Antecedently decreed Murder shall be sin if thou commit it So is it also with this sort of Punishment which is either sin it self or the effect or result oâ— sin immediately By which we see that when sin and punishment are found in one thing God is the Cause Antecedently of the formal Relation of a Punishment without being a Cause of the sin yea antecedently is some cause of the formal relation of the sin by his Law without causing any of the sin it self as the author of it As if God make man of such a temper as that surfetting drunkenness lust will make him sick and hazard his life Here God did no otherwise punish him than by making him such a man which he turned to his own destruction by his sin If a man make a thorn Hedge about his Garden that men may not steal his fruit and those that will shall â—rick themselves it is they that prick and punish themselves If God say He that will leap into the fire shall be burnt or into the water shall be drown'd it is they that do it that cause the evil and yet some formal relation of penalty may result to it from Gods conditional antecedent Law I say not that God executeth no other kind of punishment But these are the most common 11. Man having thus cast away Gods Image and his Innocency could beget a Child no purer holier or better than himself For he could not communicate that which he had lost So that our Nature is vitiated with Original sin and unhappy in the miserable effects Bradwardine hath a shift which serveth them that say man could do no good in Innocency without supernatural Help viz. Making that Help to be Gods Will that it shall be done But is not Gods Will called our natural Help when it is the foundation of Nature working by natural means It 's true that free will without Gods Will could do nothing 12. The promisory part of the Covenant or Law of Innocency became null or ceased with man's first sin cessante subditorum capacitate and so the Condition which is its modus So that no man ever since was under the Obligation of that Law as a Covenant of life
optimum omnium qui uâ—quam extiterunt Estque hoc ipsâ—us peculiaâ—e eâ—coâ—â—â— quod ita prâ—dicetur citra exceptionem â—llam praedicatur Mer. Causabon Praef. in Vers Angl. ut citat per Gataker what is said But the question whether any or how many are actuaâ—â—y saved doth depend on the resolution of the question whether any of them are truly sanctified that is do truly love God and Holiness abâ—â—â— the Pleasures Profits and Honours of this world For nothing is moâ—â— certain in Gods Word than that all that do so shall be saved For a â—â—â— to live in Hell with the predominant love of God is as great a contradiction as for a man to be sick in health and both in the greater degree God cannot damn or forsake a Soul that loveth him and is holy in sensu composito 88. And whether any or how many without the Christian Church do truly love God is a question which dependeth as to probability upon the foresaid grounds but as to the certainty of the fact upon that heart-knowledge of other men which belongeth to God only 1. How can I that live in an obscure corner of England know whether any love God in Siam China Japon or Persia or at the Antipodes 2. If I were with them all and acquainted with every person in the world I could have but a probability of the affirmative of any one because I am not acquainted with the heart But when the Scripture assureth us that it is the Law of Grace and not only that of Innocency which all the world is governed by and shall be judged by and so that their Sanctification and Salvation is possible there is so great a probability that this Covenant and the mercies of it are not in vain to all of them that are under it alone and that the thing that is possible to so many millions doth come to pass with some that an impartial considerer of Gods Nature and Government may easily see what to think most probable 89. Those therefore that teach the Church that it is a certain truth that no one in the world Infant or Aged is saved from Hell fire but Christians only and that this is not only certain to such great understandings as their own but must be so to all true Christians do but discover that they over-value their own understandings and that siding hath contracted their thoughts and charity into a sinful narrowness and that the Opinions of men counted Orthodox prevaileth more with them than the evidence of truth and I think that they are to be numbred with those that by over-doing do dangerously undermine the Christian Faith 90. The Texts urged by them for this pretended certainty are all abused some of these ways 1. Either some one difficult Text is expounded contrary to the current of the whole Scripture 2. Or the words that are spoken only of privative Unbelievers who hear the Gospel are expounded of negative not-Believers who never heard it nor could do 3. Or that which is said against Unbelievers in general is exâ—pounded as against the non-Believers of the Articles of the Christian Faith which are superadded since Christ's Incarnation in special As if all the Apostles before they believed Christ's Sacrifice Resurrection Ascension c. were Infidels in a state of damnation 4. Or else they suppose without proof that the Spirit and Grace of Christ can extend it self to none that know him not as incarnate crucified risen glorified c. and so that the Apostles had no Grace till the Resurrection Some such fallacy is in all these particular textual arguments easily discernable 91. Were it not evident in Scripture that the world is under the Law of Grace as the norma officii judicii as it is yet could no man truly say that he is certain that no one of them should be saved For if they were all under the Law of Innocency yet there is this great difference between it and the Law of Grace that whereas the sentence of the latter is peremptory excluding all hope of Dispensation and Pardon to the final Rejecters of its Grace for ever yet the former was a Law whose penalty was remissible and it did not pass a peremptory sentence of dispair Though it gave no hope of Pardon yet it took not away the hopes of it that is It had a threatening-dispensable as Dr. Twisse and many other say Without a Saviour had God so pleased And as others say Through the virtue of Christ's Sacrifice even to them that know him not For the commination of that Law which threatened not the death of a Surety but of the Sinner was actually dispensed with in our Justification And what God can do they ought not to say that they are certain that he never will do it unless he had first said so himself 92. If in all Humane Judgments Nature dictateth that in doubtful cases the Judge should rather propend to the better interpretation and favourable Judgment why should it not be so in our judgment of God and man The Nature of God is infinitely good He hath proclaimed his Name as aforesaid even in the terrours of Mount Sinai to be a God gracious merciful long-suffering pardoning c. He hath protested or sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked â—â—â—â— rather that he repent and live and so that he first seeketh the Glory of his Mercy and exerciseth justice in mans destruction but as his second work He that saved no man but Christ himself glorified upon the terms of Innocency but all by Grace and never else took one Soul to Heaven who had not first deserved Hell doth surely first seek the Glory of his Grace And we know that 1. All Judea was a small Country like England An inconsiderable point or spot of the Earth as to its magnitude 2. That most of the worlds duration in likelihood was over as Bishop Usher reckons 4000 years before Christ's death and the second Edition of the Covenant So that if none but Jews were ☞ saved all that while the number was comparatively next to none 3. That no man that I know of hath presumed to say that before Moses time none but the Seed of Abraham were saved 4. That the Covenant made by Moses at Mount Sinai and the inclosure of the Jews was no casting off the rest of the world into a worse condition than they were before 5. That none yet have presumed to say they are certain that all the Seed of Keturah of Ishmael of Esau were damned much less that Sem and all his Subjects Japheth and all his Subjects and Posterity till then or that Job and his Friends and Melchizedec and all his Subjects were certainly damned 6. That the Jews themselves were for the most part so wicked that seeing few even of that little Country were saved if you are sure that no others were saved they were but a few in the world indeed 7. That the Apostles
There is no Place where any Corporeal being is where some Active created Nature is not with it so that considering the proximity and the natures we may well conclude that we know of no corporal motion under the Sun which God effecteth by himself alone without any second Cause § 6. Joh. Sarisburiensis and some Schoolmen liken Gods presence with the Creature in operation to the fire in a red hot Iron where you would think all were Fire and all Iron But the similitude is too low The SUN is the most Notable Instrument in visible Nature And GOD operateth on all lower things by its virtue and influx God and the Sun do what the Sun doth and we know of nothing that God moveth here on earth that 's corporeal without it § 7. But the Sun moveth nothing as the Cartesians dream by a single Motive Influx alone but by emission of its Threefold Influx as every Active Nature doth that is Motive Illuminative and Calefactive which are One-radically in Three-effectively § 8. This Efflux of the Sun is universal and equal ex parte sui But causeth wonderful diversity of effects without diversity in God the prime Cause or in it self The same Influx causeth the Weed and Dunghill and Carrion to stink and the Flowers of the sweeter Plants to be sweet some things to live and some to dye some things to be soft and some hard c. In a word there are few changes or various actions below in bodies which the Sun is not the Cause of without difference in it self But not the specifying Cause § 9. The reason why one equal Influx causeth such wonderful diversity of motions is the DIVERSITY of RECEPTIVE DISPOSITIONS and natures Recipitur ad modum recipientis So one poise maketh various Motions in a Clock c. § 10. God operateth on second Causes as God Omnipotently but not ad ultimum potentiae but Freely as he pleaseth § 11. God worketh by second Causes according to the said Causes aptitude so that the operation of Infinite power is limited according to the quality of the second cause which God useth § 12. There is a superiority and inferiority among Spirits as well as Bodies And whether God work on all our souls by superiour Spirits as second Causes is unknown to us It is not improbable according to the order of his providence in other things But we know little of it certainly § 13. But certain we are that superiour Voluntary Agents Angels and Devils have very much to do with our souls and operate much upon them It is a wonderful power which wise observers perceive Satan hath upon the Imagination or Thinking faculty of which I could give some instances enough to convince a rational Sadducee And it is not like that good Angels have less power skill or will § 14. And we are sure that God hath ordained One Great Universal second Cause to convey his Spirit and Grace by which is JESUS CHRIST As the Sun is an Universal Cause of Motion Light and Heat to Inferiour creatures and God operateth by the Sun So is Christ set as a Sun of Righteousness by whom God will convey his spiritual Influx to mens souls and there is now no other conveyance to be expected § 15. Christs Humane Nature united personally to the Divine and Glorified is by the Office of Mediator Authorized and by Personal Union and the Fulness of the Holy Spirit enabled and fitted to this communication of Gods Spiritual Influx to mankind § 16. Object A Creature cannot be a Cause of the Operation of the Holy Ghost who is God the Creator Sending is the Act of a Superiour But Christs humanity is not superiour to the Holy Ghost Answ 1. Christ as a Creature is no Cause of any Essential or purely Immanent Act of God for that hath no Cause But 1. He is a Cause of the Spirits operation as it signifieth the effect 2. And so the cause why his Act is terminated on the soul and 3. Of the ordering of these effects why rather on this soul than on that and at this time measure c. And 2. This Christ doth not as a superiour sender of the Spirit but a Ministerial and a second cause As a Master payeth his servants as his Steward determineth § 17. It is certain that Christ is the Political Cause or Head of this spiritual Influx on souls that is As Mediator is Authorized to determine of the Persons measure time conditions of the Communication of the Spirit But whether he be a Physical Head of this Influx by proper efficiency giving the Spirit from himself as the Sun giveth us its Influx is all that is disputable That is Whether the Spirit be first given Inherently to Christ and pass from his person as his unto us as the Spirits do from the Head to the Members § 18. This question may be put either of all Natural Being and Motion or only of Spiritual Motion in the soul of man Whether Christ be so the Head of Nature as that all Nature in Heaven and Earth is sustained and actuated by him as the physical efficient Cause or whether this be true of this Lower World which was curst for sin or whether it be true at least of Humane nature or whether it be true only of Gracious operations § 19. 1. That Christ hath the Political dispose of the whole Universe contained in the words Heaven and Earth the Scripture seemeth to assert 2. That he hath the Political disposal of humane nature and of all other creatures that belong to man so far as they belong to him Angels Devils Sun Air Earth c. is past dispute 3. That the real â—hysical effects acts and habits of the Spirit on mens souls are caused by Christs Moral Causation by his Merit and his Political Mission is past dispute 4. That besides all this the Spirit it self by Baptism is in Covenant with all the members of Christ and that as they are such and is in a prior Covenant first Related to Christ himself and so by this Covenant given us in relation as we are united to Christ is past dispute 5. And that Christ himself doth make such Physical changes on our souls by Means and by the foresaid Political Mission of the Spirit by which we are made Receptive of more of the Spirits operations is past dispute 6. But whether moreover any Action of Christs own Humane soul glorified do physically reach our souls or whether the Holy Ghost may in its own essential Virtue which is every where be said to be more in Christ than elsewhere and communicated to us as from the root or the Spirits effects on the soul to come by Reflection from the first effects on Christ as Light and Heat from the Sun by a Speculum or Burning-glass are questions not for me to determine § 20. Christs spiritual Influx on souls is not single but is ever Three in One as the Sun 's aforesaid which are according to
cessationem aâ— vaâ—ationem ab aâ—â—u boâ— necessitate naturaliter praecedentâ— cor p. 649. Omnia quâ— sunt fiunt aut eveniâ—â—t sunt â—â—â—â— eveniunt â—â— aliquâ— necessitate ipâ—â— naturalâ—tâ—r praecedentâ— This is just Hobbs Soâ— 5. â—â— 654 that No creature hath simple liberty of Contradiction or Contingency but only secundum quid in respect to second causes but only Gods acts of will ad extra are simply free and contingent As if God had given no creature Liberty to forbear sin or do good but doing it or not doing it were from Gods necessitation though not from the creatures The Dominicans the Masters of the Inquisition and Murderers of the Waldenses and Albigenses of old and therefore faulty as well as the Jesuits though there are very Learned men among them both do commonly hold that No Creature natural or free can act unless God by Immediate physical efficient premotion predetermine it to that act both in the act as such which they call the substance of it and all the modes circumstances and order of it 3. Augustine and Jansenius after him with their true followers hold not this necessity of predetermining premotion to all acts natural or sinful but only to spiritual good acts which is not from the Nature but the Corruptâ—â—n of â—â—an and therefore the predetermination is not made say they by Gods Common Natural Motion but by Medicinal Grace 4. Durandus and his followers as Lud. à Dola and Aureolus partly do hold that if God do but uphold â—ll creatures as compaginate in the Universe in the Nature he made them in and so natural Inclination and media and objects all supposed this sustentation and Influx maintaining their Active Natures and means is sufficient to cause an Act without another particular predetermining premotion of God As e. g. in Naturals they think that if a Rock were violently held up in the Air God continuing its Natural Gravity and all other circumstant Natures and Concauses this Rock if loosed can fall down of it self without another predetermining premotion of God And that a new Act of God supposing the said support of Nature is more necessary to the not-falling than to the falling of it As it was to the fires not burning the Three Confessors Dan. 3. And I am unable to see the error of this Opinion And so in Free agents they think that if God continue the Nature of a free-will with all circumstants and necessary natures it can freely determine it self without another act of predetermining premotion And doth so in each act of sin Though as Jansenius saith by accidental corruption for Conversion we need Medicinal Grace 5. The Jesuits and all others explode this Opinion of Durà ndus as singular but give so little and slender reason of their dissent as would draw one the more to suspect their cause Instead of it they scarce know what to assert But Bellarmine and the chiefest of them under a pretended opposition speak I think the same in other words Even an Universal Concurse like that of the Sun which operateth in specification according to the nature of Recipients which specifie the effect Which Universal Influx no doubt Aureolus and Durandus include in Gods sustentation of Nature For to sustain an Active Nature in all its Active disposition by a suitable active Influx is universally to cause its motion The difference they are unable to assign 6. After these come Hobbs Cartesius and Gassendus with a swarm of Epicureans a Sect commonly despised even in Cicero's time and yet called Wits in ours by men that have no more wit than themselves and some of these say that Motion needeth no continued cause at all any more than non-movere But when a thing is in motion it will so continue because it is its state without any other continued cause than the motion it self And so they may as well say and some do that when a thing is in Being it will so continue till it be positively annihilated without any continued causation of its being As if esse existere were nothing more than non esse and agere were no more noble a mode of Entity than non agere and so needed no more that is no Cause For non esse non agere need no Cause When this distraction is worn out and shamed the next Age will reproach us for attempting the confutation of it And yet the Wits of this delirant Age have not the wit to understand a Confutation Some of them say that Spirits cannot move bodies for want of Contact as Gassendus Some say that Matter and Motion are eternal and that of themselves As if there were no God but Matter and Motion Some say that there is a God who gave matter one push at first and so set it in that motion by which one body by a knock will move another to the end And some say There is no other Intellect but the wonders of wisdom and order in the World are done by such fortuitous motion But Hobbes meeteth the Predeterminants and saith that the Will is free in that its Act is Volition but that this Volition is necessitated by superiour or natural Causes as much as any motion in a Clock or Watch and that it is unconceivable that any Act or Mode of Act can be without a necessitating efficient cause But he differs from them in his consequents and in the Notion of a Spirit acknowledging no being but Corporeal § 2. The Predeterminants commonly build not their doctrine on Gods free-will but on the Necessity of the thing As if it were a contradiction which God cannot do for God to make a creature that can Determine it self ad ordinem actionis without his particular predetermining premotion or to make a Stone that can fall from the Air of it self unless he move it downwards besides his sustentation of its natural gravity and all other natures by his Influx or universal Concurse § 3. But till they can prove the Contradiction they must pass for the denyers of Gods Omnipotency which is to deny a God § 4. * * * Let the Reader note 1. That all the rest of their arguments save this one are of no value 2. And that Dr. Twisse affirmeth that God is not alwayes the effector of all Good either of Profit or Pleasure which yet he saith are Good Now if there be no such Entity in Bonum conducibile vel Bonum Jucundum as necessarily to require God to be the Cause of them tell us if you can Why there is so much entity in Malum morale as that man is not able to cause it unless God predetermine his will Yea as to Entity there is no more in Bonum honestum than in the rest fore-named His words are Nos tueri poterimus Malum fieri esse Bonum per se neâ—â—pe in genere Boni conducibilis ad certum aliquem fiâ—â—m sed arguit adversarius Ergo Deus esset non modo
to be simply necessary to motion Here the Reader must know that the Controversie is equally of Natural and Free agents and action And first let us enquire of natural action I. Fire is an Active nature as much Inclined to Action as Earth to non-action or rest Yea it s Active Virtue and Inclination is its very Essential Form and this as to a threefold action viz. Motion Light and Heat If God then make Fire and continue its Nature or Essential Inclination For I have before shewed how many wayes this is certainly done The whole experience of the world sheweth that God doth operate by second causes according to their natures and wayes of operation Therefore it more concerneth us here to know what second causes do on the soul in good and evil actions than in these disputes is usually observed Adrian Quodl 3. fol 18. Sententia Durandi plurium aliorum certum tenet c. Quam opinionem ultimo tradit Magister 37. d. 2. judicium relinquens prudentis lectoris examini to these acts and continue fuel approximate with all necessary concauses and media without impediments to say that this Fire yet cannot burn or act without another kind of Divine premotion besides all this even an Immediate physical impulse besides the described Influx is a plain contradiction For Fire is essentially an Inclined Power to act And that which hath a true Power to act can act It 's a contradiction to say It hath power but it cannot And a Power naturally inclined to act will act caeteris paribus The question then is Whether it be an impossibility for fire to burn if God do but as the first Cause of Nature continue its burning power and inclination with all concauses or rather Was it not a Miracle for the three Confessors Dan. 3. not to be burnt in that fiery Furnace If you say that the Miracle was in Gods withholding his additional premotion you then imply that God as principium vel causa prima Naturae doth ordinarily give that additional premotion For that is no Miracle which is not dissonant from the common course of nature But nothing can belong to God as the Cause of Nature but to continue Nature as he made it and he actually premoveth and concurreth while by his Influx as the first cause he continueth all its Moving Nature both Power and Inclination In the motus projectorum so far as the moving vis impressa continueth and prevaileth the motion continueth accordingly And who can prove that though the vis impressa continue e. g. in a Bullet shot out of a Gun and all concauses yet there can be no motion unless God otherwise thrust it on or move it by some other impulse Suppose a Stone or Rock hang in the Air quasi per filum or by somewhat that hindereth its descent If God continue the Natural Gravity of that Rock which is not only a power but an inclination to descend and if he continue all concauses and media and if the thred be cut or the impediment removed that held up the stone yet saith the Dominican this Stone cannot fall unless God moreover by another action thrust it down or by an efficient physical premotion predetermine it or as the Jesuits say unless God concurr with a further moving Impulse A plain contradiction That a Power of motion strongly inclined to act so as a greater power is necessary in the impediment that will hinder it and this in genere Agentis continued by Divine Influx yet cannot act unless otherwise moved God worketh so constantly by Natural Inclinations of second causes as fully proveth to us that ut prima Causa Naturae he hath decreed so to work And how is that then but by his Influx into Nature as Nature If my house cannot fall when the foundations and pillars are gone unless God otherwise thrust it down If I cannot fall though I leap down from the house top unless God otherwise thrust me down If the Town cannot be fired unless God predetermine it or concurr besides his continuation of Nature why should we fear it when we know not that God decreeth any more than the continuation of natural causes and that action which is by them and by him as the upholder of them II. And the case of Free-agents is here confessed to be the same The Influx into their Natures and Virtues is it that continueth them in esse substantiali and in esse movente moto An Act is but the modus substantiae And it surpasseth my understanding to conceive what it is for God physice influere in actum immediate non in potentiam seu virtutem agentem nor how he can be said to move the faculties to act that doth cause the act and not meddle with and therefore not move the faculty Nor know I how an Act immediately and not the agent can be the terminus of a physical motion Though it 's easie to conceive how God should cause an act by moral and extrinsick objective means Therefore as God moveth things Natural by his Influx into their moving Virtues or into the moving Virtues of second Causes which being Active operate on passive matter so as the Soul and its Will is quadam natura inclined to Action in genere and to will good in special God as the cause of nature moveth it by his Influx into the faculty as he doth other natural agents But having made it a Free self-determining Agent his Influx upholdeth and moveth it as such And the same Influx is upholding and moving and moving as upholding seeing God as Motor also doth influere in naturam vitalem liberam Besides which supporting and moving Influx no other predetermining premotion is necessary to an Act as an Act that I know of But the very natures or dispositions of lapsed man being depraved the reparation of them is necessary to holy actions And here also God operateth on the faculties by right disposing them and by that grace which Augustine and Jansenius well call Gratia medicinalis his special Influx causing maintaining and actuating it he causeth the holy actions of believers I do verily believe that Durandus and his followers under the name of supporting the natural and free faculties did mean inclusively that which Bellarmine pleadeth for A General Concurse to the Act as an Act And that they differ in words and not in sense And if his doctrine hold not true I cannot see how God can be said to Permit mens sinful Actions or any action at all For if neither the Inclination of natural agents as of Fire to burn a Stone to descend c. nor the Inclination of the most wicked nature would cause any act unless God otherwise cause it by premotion then there is no place for Impedition for we cannot be said to Hinder a Stone from speaking or a Mountain from walking nor anything from any act which it could not as And permittere is non impedire And
of all true profit to us no more true natural entity in my choosing the forbidden one than in my choosing the commanded one To hate God and love sin hath no more natural entity than to love God and hate sin To speak an Oath or Lye than to speak Truth and Holily To will a forbidden Act than to Nill it and to will a good one So that it is no deifying man to make him a first cause of that which hath no natural entity that is of an Act not as an Act but comparatively as rather this way than that way exercised And Dr. Twisse hence saith That moral specification of Acts is no true specification of them And it 's true that it is not a Physical specification 2. If you say that we have a Liberty ad exercitium as well as of specification or of Contradiction as well as of Contrariety Even to will or not will do or not do And in this case to do or will when forbidden is more than not to do or will I answer 1. The Soul is naturally an active vital power and it is as natural to it to be in act as to a stone to lie still And the Cartesians will tell you that Action needeth no more cause than Rest But I rather say that God never forbiddeth Action in general to the Soul but only this or that Action upon this or that Object at an undue time So that no man ever sinned by meer Action as such whether Vital Intellectual or Volitive The Action which God commandeth he willeth The Action which he forbiddeth is but this or that upon an undue Object Adam had this liberty of contradiction to will or not to will this particular Act of eating the forbidden fruit but not to will or not will simply Now for Adam to will to eat that fruit instead both of nilling it and of willing to please God by nilling or refusing it had no more natural entity in it than if he had not willed it but willed somewhat else at the same time 3. An Action it self is not properly Res but modus Rei and if any should say that God is not able to make a Creature that supposing God the cause of its Power continued shall be the first cause of its own Act or exercise of that Power he saith that which no mortal man can prove The Glory of Gods Works is their likeness to Himself And as Intellection and Free-will are parts of this likeness we know not just how far God can go in such Communications I see no contradiction in it to say that a faculty maintained by God in its natural force with necessary though not determining concurse can determine it self without any more causation And if it be not a Contradiction God can do it 4. But this is all prevented by considering that mans Soul is never out of Act. It s active force is never idle though it act not always the same way nor with the same extension or intension so that to reduce it into act is not to reduce it from a meer potentia in actum but from a power acting one way or slowly to act another way or more intensly 5. Yea this is all answered by considering that as I said while God continueth the Soul in its nature it continueth a naturally active force or power inclined essentially to activity So that though I say that Action needeth more cause than non-action that is here done in God still causeth the active disposition But supposing that upheld I say that there is oft more need of other causality or strength to keep it from Action than to cause it to act Whatever the world talketh against Durandus they are never well able to answer à Dola though in sense they that factiously oppose him mean the same as he And if a Rock hanged in the Air by something that might be cut off or removed as a threed supposing God to continue the nature of it and all things else there is more strength and causality needful to hold it from falling than to make it fall when the threed is cut It was a work of Gods Power to keep the fire from burning the three Confessors Dan. 3. and the Lions from devouring Daniel Dan. 6. and the Sea from flowing on the Israelites and the Sun from moving in Joshuah's fight 6. And yet consider that it is not so much as an Action which is but modus rei that is in question but only the comparative circumstantiating of that action so that it is but modus modi rei 7. And lastly The denial of the matter of our power and liberty in this I have else-where proved overthroweth the certainties and fundamentals of all our Religion Now whether any man should deny all our Religion and certain necessary Truths for such a metaphysical uncertain notion as this that God is not able to make a Creature that can cause a modus modi in determining its active nature to this Object rather than to that without Divine predetermination let sobriety be judge C. But thus you make man the specifier of his good acts without Gods determination as well as of the evil B. Jansenius is in the right in this we have more need of Divine help to the willing and doing of good than of evil We cannot do evil without his natural support and concurse But we cannot do good especially spiritual saving good unless we have moreover his medicinal special Grace To the specifying of good actions there must ever concur Gods natural help Gods gracious help and mans free-will or self-determination It is not two or three determinations of the Will which are made by these several Causes but one determination So that under God man is the specifying determiner of his Will to good or else he were not a Believer nor rewardable or punishable And that he cannot determine his Will to good as well as to evil proceedeth not from the Original nature of the Will for with that such a determination was consistent but from its Pravity or Corruption But how Grace and Free-will concur is after to be handled C. Dr. Twisse Vindic. Grat. lib. 2. p. 190. Vol. minoris hath a full digression 4 to prove that God willeth that sin shall come to pass he permitting it and saith Nostri Theologi affirmanâ— Arminiani â—ontificii negant * This Digression of Dr. Twisse is answered in the first Book His Friend Alvarez de Aux li. 11. disp 110. p. 442 c. discusseth the Qu. An detur ex parte nostra causa reprobationis and concludeth that Reprobatio qua Deus statuit non dare aliquibus vitam aeternam et permittere peccatum eorum non est conditionata sed absoluta nec praesupponit in Deo praescientiam demeritorum ipsius reprobi 2. In Angelis qui ceciderunt nuâ—la datur causa reprobationis ex parte ipsorum quantum ad integrum effectum c. 3. Et ita de reprobatione parvulorum
Enemies and Unbelievers Christ died not for them as such but as in their antecedent recoverable pardonable sin and misery THE Fifth Days Conference WITH AN ARMINIAN Of mans natural sinfulness and impotency to good and of FREE-WILL A. You have hitherto perswaded us that all the Controversies of the Decrees and Redemption between the Synodists and Remonstrants being resolved into those of the Execution we should there expect the solution of all To this therefore we are next to come And first about mans Sinfulness Impotency and Free-will And there all these things following offend me The first Crimination That some of them deny all true Free-will and others deny all Free-will to good and others to all spiritual good by which man is made uncapable of being a moral Agent and so uncapable of moral Good or Evil any more than a Tree or Beast seeing Free-will is the seat of moral Virtues and Vices which necessitated Natures are uncapable of B. I hope you are willing to understand your self and to be understood Tell me then what mean you by Free-will A. I know that the true nature of Liberty is much controverted but I mean that Qua positis omnibus ad agendum requisitis possumus agere vel non agere * Alvarez hath these conclusions hereof de Aux l. 12. d 115. p. 469. 1. Ad liberum arbitrium necessario requiritur quod positis omnibus antecedenter secundum ordinom rationis vel temporis ad actum praerequisitis possit operari vel non operari Ita viz. ut cum iisdem praerequisitis stet simul in libero arbitrio facultas potentia qua possit operari si velit vel non operari si velit But the question is de posse velle 2. Non est de ratione aut definitione liberi arbitrii quod positis omnibus secundum ordinem causalitatis antecedenter praerequisitis ad operandum talem actum possit eundem actum non operari in sensâ— composito si compositio fiat inter hujusmodi requisita carentiam talis actus seu actum contrarium 3. Legitima liberi arbitrii definitio ita se habet lib. arb est facultas voluntatis rationis ad utrum libet agendum vel non agendum ad agendum unum vel alterum But I suppose his predetermination inconsistent with his potentia ad contrarium in the first proposition Because it is antecedent to the wills self-determination and the Will is not able to determine it self against the predetermining causality of God nor as he holdeth without it neither and so hath no true power but on supposition of the premotion of God predetermining B. 1. Do you mean by agendum imperate Acts only or also Volitions A. Both All moral Acts of Body and Soul B. That which is requisite to extrinsick moral Acts is that they be commanded by a determined will You mean then that it is Liberty for the Tongue or Hand to be able to Act when the Will forbiddeth it and not to Act when the Will commandeth it A. I mean it only of imperate Acts as voluntary for it is the Will and not the executive power that is the seat of Liberty B. 2. By Agere what Action of the Will do you mean you know that mans Soul is an active nature and can no more cease all action than cease to be You may as well say that fire with fuel can forbear to burn as a Soul to be active A. I mean only moral Acts of Virtue and Vice B. All that a man doth by Reason is Actus humanus a moral Act either good or bad And a man at the use of Reason liveth among thousands of intelligible Objects necessarily presented to his Intellect by sense and among thousands of Objects good for us or bad for us desireable or hateful And is it possible for such a sensitive intelligent Creature to live continually with intelligible amiable or odible Objects and to suspend all rational apprehensions Volitions and Nolitions of them A. I mean it not of all moral Action in general but of this or that singular Act â—ic nunâ— B. I will not entangle you with an enquiry whether he that câ—n do every particular good act cannot do all universally and whether he that can forbear every singular evil or good act cannot forbear all when all is nothing but all singulars But 3. What mean you by requisitis All things of meer necessity to the Act sine quibus non Or also all things that can possibly be put to ascertain the Act A. Of the first I am most fully resolved Of the second there is much doubtfulness If I include it I know you will ask me whether it be impossible for God so to determine the Will as to make the contrary act impossible without taking away its Liberty And whether Christ could commit every sin or else was not free And whether Heaven take away all Liberty if it make sin impossible But briefly I answer you that the Libertas Viatoris differeth from that in Heaven and that Ours still supposeth a possibility of the Contrary but Theirs doth not B. But if it be their Liberty to be past a posse peccare why should it not be ours to come as near it as may be especially when we have the fore-tasts and first-fuits of Heaven on Earth and Grace is the seed of Glory A. It is our Liberty to be as far from sin as may be But this is another kind of Liberty and not to be confounded with that which is a meer power of doing or not doing B. 4. But that a man can act positis omnibus ad agendum requisitis is no wonder so can a Stone or Bruit but how say you potest non agere when non-agere is not an effect or exercise of Power There needs no Power ad non agendum A. Yes when Nature or Vice and Temptation draw us to a forbidden Act it is a work of Power to resist them and forbear it B. But sure Nature Vice or Temptation do not so draw us to love God perfectly to hate all Sin perfectly to be heavenly-minded to consent to suffer Death for Christ c. as that we should need any power to resist such drawings or forbear such acts How then do you make this a part of your power A. But when the Spirit of God draweth us to love him it is an act of natural abused power to resist him And also in this and the former case I say that by possumus here we do not mean a moral or physical power always but in this instance only a logical power And our meaning only is that we are not necessitated to Act or not Act to love God or to hate him or not to love him As Privations are reduced to Entities in Descriptions so are Impotencies to Powers B. The word Posse then in your definition is equivocal and signifieth both Power and No Power What a definition is that But