hands and keepe us from falling into the hands of men yet if God calleth us thereunto to commit our selves unto God when we doe cast our selves into the hands of men Because in Gods hands are the hearts of kings and hee turneth them whither soever it pleaseth him certainly They that put their trust in the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good even at such times when Lyons want and suffer hunger Yet by your leave it is not the nature of God that is the ground of our confidence but the revealed will of God For whatsoever Gods nature is hee workes freely in the communicating of any good thing unto us but hee hath revealed that he will never faile them that put their trust in him And this is that loving kindenesse of God as much as to say his loving and gracious will and pleasure revealed to us which excites the sonnes of men to put their trust under the shadow of his wings It was improbable that there should bee any motive from the creature why God should give them a being neither was it his love to the creature that moved God to make the creature as you superficially use to discourse but meerely the love of himselfe For he made all things for himselfe And the creature before God made him was just nothing neither was there at that time any distinction betweene King Alexander and his horse Bucephalus It is a strange conceit to say that the being of the creature is like unto Gods being who is the Creator For what likenesse is there betweene an apple and a nut between an horne and a bagpipe an harp and an harrow Ens hath no univocation in the comprehending of all created entities much lesse as by denomination it comprehends both the Creator and the creature Certainly all do not love God whom he loves for he loved us when we were his enemies Rom. 5. 8. But if all did so love him as all shall either sooner or later it will not follow that all should bee saved For onely such as Iacob are loved of him in Scripture phrase and such as Esau are hated rather And though you will not bee beaten off from that uncoth assertion That they whom God wills to be saved are not saved yet we had rather abhorre so foule a sentence with Austine as denying Gods omnipotency then concurre with you in boldnesse to the embracing of it The apprehension of Gods love to us is the cause morall of our love to him though God it is that by the circumcision of our hearts workes it Deut. 30. 6. But if lovelinesse in the object be the cause of love how dare you professe God loves the reprobate and that ardently and with excessive and infinite love Is there any lovelinesse in them in the state of their corruption and not rather unlovelinesse throughout Neither will it serve your turne to say that he loves them as his creatures For if this be sufficient to qualifie the businesse of the object which hee loves you may as well say that hee loves frogs and toads yea and the Devills and damned Spirits 3. I make no question but an unregenerate man may love his friend and companion in evill as brethren in evill do love one another and our Saviour hath taught us as much Matt. 5. 49. If yee love them that love you what reward shall ye have doe not the Publicanes even the same I never heard nor read before that condemnation was dispensable The doing of things otherwise unlawfull in some cases may be dispensed with but punishment was never knowne to be dispensed with it may be remitted but that is not to dispense with it I take your meaning and leave your words you thinke belike that infinite mercy cannot free the world from condemnation I no way like such extravagant assertions though frequent in your writings as if you would innovate all both naturall reason and divinity I know no sinne which infinite mercy cannot pardon neither doe I know any sinne beside the sinne against the Holy Ghost and finall impenitency which God will not pardon in his elect Much lesse is mans dull backwardnesse to love him unpardonable For though as it seemes you were never conscious of any such dulnesse in your selfe yet I cannot easily be perswaded untill I finde cause that any Christian in the world entertaines such a conceite of himselfe as you doe of your selfe Be God never so louely yet if a man know him not how can hee love him And doe you thinke it is naturall for a man to know God Suppose we doe know him to be most wise most powerfull yet if he be our enemie how should this move us to love him or put our trust in him If we know him to love us and to be our friend yet are not the best backward enough from loving him when we are easily drawne to sinne against him And are all sinnes of this kinde unpardonable what an uncomfortable doctrine is this and how prone to carry all that believe it into desperation God regards not our love unlesse we keep his commandements Ioh. 14. 5. Againe what is the love of God Is it not to love him above all things even above our selves as Gerson expresseth it Amor Dei usque ad contentum sui Is this naturall long agoe Austine hath defined it to bee supernaturall And if any dull backwardnesse bee found in us to this love of God if wee are loath to lose our lives for Christs sake is this sinne unpardonable You are a valliant Champion I heare you are ready to dye in maintenance of your opinions but I cannot believe you are any whit the readier for that to die for Christ. But alas what should become of poore Peter that for feare of some trouble upon confessing himselfe to bee a follower of Christ denied that he knew him and that with oath and imprecation Yet Christ looked back upon him â—s before he had praied for him that his faith might not faile and Peter looked back upon himselfe and went forth and wept bitterly and within three daies after the Angells take speciall order that Peter by name should be acquainted with the first with the comfortable newes of Christs resurrection from the dead that as he died for his sinnes so hee rose again for his justification The infinite love of God becomes known only to the regenerate who take notice of it chiefly as touching blessings spirituall As for temporall blessings Gods love therein to man how can it be knowne to a man unregenerate seeing it can bee knowne onely by faith Those temporall blessings you speake of in the judgement of flesh and bloud comming to passe onely by course of nature But that his intention in bestowing temporall blessings upon the wicked is to binde himselfe to instate them in the incomprehensible joyes of endlesse life which hee never meanes to performe is one of your incomprehensible paradoxes To the children of God there is
owne image this is no more true of man then of Angels even of the very Angels of darknesse And men also are borne the children of darknesse and so continue untill the time that God calleth them and enlightneth them Or will you say that in speciall sort he is the father of man by way of redemption yet I finde hitherto in your discourse no intimation of this fatherhood But will you say that all and every one have redemption in Christ through his bloud you may as well say that all and every one have the remission of their sinnes in Christ thorough his bloud For this is it which in Scripture phrase is meant by redemption Arminius who maintaines that Christ dyed for all and every one professeth plainly that the immediate effect of Christs passion is but this that God now may his Iustice nothing hindring him give pardon of sinnes and salvation upon what condition he will Which upon the matter is all one as if he should say that seeing faith and repentance are the conditions whereupon God gives forgivenesse of sinnes none but such as beleeve and repent doe obtaine the forgivenesse of sinnes that is doe obtaine redemption in Christ through his bloud Now consider are not faith and repentance the gifts of God It cannot be denied but they are the Scriptures evidently give testimony hereunto namely that faith is the gift of God that repentance is the gift of God And doth God give faith and repentance unto all All experience of the world doth manifest that he doth not no nor so much as the outward meanes unto all whereby faith and repentance are wrought I wonder you blush not in setting downe such incongruities as first in saying that God as he is willing to be called the father of the sonnes of men so he is ready to doe the kinde office of a father unto them and for proofe hereof alledge that of the Psalmist As a father pitieth his owne children so the Lord pitieth them that feare him In which passage the fatherly love of God is not extended unto all but restrained to those that feare him And yet I pray consider what father would torment his children with everlasting fire though never so unnaturall towards him or would not keepe him from it if it lay in his power without sinning against God Yet God torments even those whom you call his children justly for their sinnes in the torments of hell fire that never shall have end We willingly grant the love of God the Father and the love of God the Sonne is such a love as passeth knowledge but it is enlarged onely towards those that are his children by faith in Christ Iesus This is the filiation alone which the Apostle takes notice of you take no notice of this at all And againe Because ye are sonnes God hath sent the Spirit of his Sonne into your hearts crying Abba Father Now is this common unto all as you make Gods fatherhood common unto all So saith the Apostle in another place As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sonnes of God Here is a description of that sonneship we have in respect of our heavenly Father And againe The Spirit of God witnesseth with our spirits that we are the sonnes of God Of these passages I sinde no accompt made throughout this whole discourse of yours And towards these sonnes of God wee shall willingly give you leave to extend and intend the love of God as much as you thinke fit But you still continue to extend the fatherhood of God unto all as it were in despight of all these passages formerly alledged Where doe you finde throughout the Scriptures that the title of the sonnes of God is attributed to the uncircumcised or to the Heathen To the contrarie we reade both before the flood that The sonnes of God saw the daughters of men that they were faire where we have a manifest distinction opposite to your confusion And after for this is the message which God sent unto Pharaoh Israel is my sonne even my first borne and if thou refuse to let him goe I will slay thy sonne even thy first borne How much more under the Law Is Ephraim my deare sonne or pleasant childe yet since I spake unto him I still remembred him therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have compassion on him saith the Lord. Most of all under the Gospell Behold what love the Fathe hath shewed us that wee should bee called the sonnes of God What have you here said of Gods love to man that may not as well be said of his love to the very Angels of darknesse For is it not true in respect of them as well as in respect of us that having given them being he doth much more love them after they are enstamped with his image For he sowes not wheat to reape tares nor did he give life to Angels that he might bring forth death God gave both man and Angels life for the manifestation of his owne glory and for the manifestation of his owne glory doth he punish transgressors amongst men and Angels with everlasting death 3. You would willingly draw Heathens to the acknowledgement of this fatherhood in God towards all though thinking it too narrow to comprehend all references of loving kindnesses betweene him and demy gods which demy gods you take to be men I thinke rather they were conceived to be inferiour spirits like as Aristotle makes all inferiour intelligences to depend upon the first mover And what reference of loving kindnesse is comprehended in this that Iupiter is said to be both male and female you may at leisure dilate of when you please Gods affection to his children exceeds the affection of any mother towards the fruit of her wombe For God was content to purchase his Church with his owne blood Your next sentence containes meere non sense I rectifie it thus And as if his love could not be sufficiently expressed by these dearest references amongst men c. hee hath chosen the most affectionate female c. Thus I make sense of it but the poorest sense that ever was vented in so grave a matter of discourse As if the greatnesse of place or curiosity of education did make mothers so little compassionate towards their children that God is faine to seeke out for more proper resemblances Thus you fetch about for matter as Balaam did for divinations as if there were no women in the world but delicate Ladies or such nice curious dames whose nicenesse hath made them so unnaturall that our Saviour was driven to compare his tender affection unto the affectionof a hen towards her chicken which creature is magnified by you to hold up the jest for the most affectionate female amongst reasonlesse creatures implying that reasonable creatures may in tendernesse of affection right well exceed the henne and so you quite marre your owne
of his sinnes by your opinion Pharaoh had beene saved though he neither had faith nor repentance For till their soules be betroathed unto wickednesse God doth not hate them this is your dialect whence it followeth that either all infants of Turkes and Saracens dying in their infancy are saved or else all men as soone as they are borne are betrothed unto wickednesse and consequently all reprobates from their birth unto their death continue the same objects of Gods decree without alteration And then againe I pray consider if God hates them not and wils not their damnation untill by filling up the measure of their sinne they are betroathed unto wickednesse as you speake then surely hee did not hate them nor will the condemnation of them in their infancy much lesse did hee will it before they were borne much lesse did hee will it before the world was made yet you have already plainly professed that God willed the death of Pharaoh from all eternity and if from all eternity then sure he willed it before the world was made much more before Pharaoh was borne much more before Pharaoh had filled up the measure of his iniquity Yet I confesse that though God from all eternity willed the death of Pharaoh and consequently before Pharaoh was borne and much more before he had filled up the measure of his iniquity Yet God did not will that Pharaoh should be damned before he had filled up the measure of his iniquitie much lesse that he should be damned in his infancie much lesse before he was borne much lesse before the world was So that these two propositions may well stand together without contradiction God from all eternity willed that Pharaoh should be damned but God did not will that Pharaoh should bee damned from all eternity or before hee was borne or in his infancy or before he had filled up the measure of his sinnes But the propositions which you take upon you to free from contradiction are of a farre different nature and indeed directly contradictious God did from all eternity will the death of Pharaoh God did not from all eternity will the death but rather willed the life of Pharaoh And for clearing it you onely tell us that Pharaoh was not the same object of Gods decree though he continued the same man A proposition both very obscure in it selfe and void of all efficacie to free your selfe from contradiction neither doe you take any paines to accommodate it but leaving that as a blanke for your propitious reader to fill up after his owne judgement or affection rather And the issue of all is to professe that God did indeede from all etetnity will the life of Pharaoh and so continued to will it untill such time as hee had filled up the measure of his sinne and that from thenceforth hee hated him as he doth all reprobates having once betrothed themselves unto wickednesse which assertion manifestly betraying your opinion as touching the making of Gods will mutable your desire to satisfie your reader with calling Gods will immutable and saying that the object of Gods decree is not still the same Sed quid ego verb a audiam facta cum vidiam You manifestly maintaine that Gods love and will to save doth cease upon the filling up the measure of sinne and betrothing a mans selfe to wickedness and thereupon and from thenceforth hee hates them and wills their death and damnation whereas till that time he willed their life and salvation These propositions God loves all men God doth not love all men I say are contradictories All rules of contradiction justifie these to be contradictions And your selfe confesse as much in effect when going about to cleare them from contradiction you quite alter the forme of them by shaping them thus in effect God loves all men till they have filled up the measure of their sinnes but when once they have filled up the measure of their sinnes he loves them not Now these propositions are quite different from the former neither doe we charge these with contradiction as wee charged the former But that wherewith wee charge these is this they make the will of God mutable contrary to the expresse testimonie of the holy Ghost saying I the Lord am not changed Mal. 3. 6. And Saint Iames professeth that with the Lord there is no variableness nor shadow of change which you perceiving are loath to speake your minde plainly but to avoide so grose an untruth had rather cast your selfe upon a manifest contradiction in saying God loves all men and God loves not all men and to free your selfe from contradiction betray your corrupt opinion another way in making Gods love to change into hatred after a certaine time to wit after the measure of sinne is filled up and the onely shift you have to charme it is to confound the difference of time which alone avoides the contradiction and expressing it thus God loves all men as men or as men which have not made up the full measure of iniquity but having made up that or having their soules betrothed to wickednesse hee hates them But this will not serve your turne for seeing this contradiction of making up the full measure of sinne did not belong unto man from the beginning but onely after a certaine space of time the difference specified must necessarily resolve it selfe into a meere difference of time thus God did love them till they had made up the full measure of sinne but after that he hated them And this is further proved For if the difference onely consisted in respect of different considerations at the same time then the distinction should have place as well after this full measure of sinne is made up as before And so Pharaoh after the filling up of the full measure of sinne might bee said to be loved of God as a man and hated as having filled up the measure of sinne but no where doâ— you make use of any such distinction Nay much more should it have use in this case and indeed onely in this case for untill a man hath filled up the measure of his sinne this distinct consideration hath no place for a body may bee considered as Ens or Naturale or as Quantum because hee is both Ens and Naturale and Quantum But a man connot be considered at any time as having filled up the measure of his sinne but onely after that time comes hee may bee so considered for to consider him to bee that which hee is not is not to consider him what hee is but to faine him to be what he is not Againe when you say God loves all men as men What is the meaning of this What doâ— you denote by this love of God For wee commonly say love is not in God Quoad affectum but Quoad effectum at least Quoad affectum it is nothing at all different from Gods will Now I desire to know what that thing is which God wills to man as a
teach when we make the work of faith a worke of power 2 Thess. 1. And shall not the raising of men from the dead be a worke of power and is not the worke of grace such a worke Eph. 2. 2 But you doe ill under colour of magnifying the love of God to dishonour both his love and his power his love in confining it onely to promises and threatnings as if by these operations alone he moved us unto repentance his power in denying that God brings to passe those things which hee desires to bring to passe and that ardently And this latter is Austins objection as well as ours and hee makes the former to be meere Pelagianisme as wel'l as we doe In the next place you tell us We are to beleeve that Gods infinite power shall effect all things possible for them that love him but constraines no mans will to love him But doth he make mans will to love him without constraint why did you not expresse your minde on this point you are willing to acknowledge God to be the author of glory but I doe not finde you so ready to acknowledge God to be the author of all goodnesse the author and finisher of our faith of our repentance of our obedience Did you acknowledge this there should bee no difference betweene us For we doe not affirme that he works faith and repentance in us by way of constraint And when the Apostle prayeth that God would worke in the Hebrewes that which was pleasing in his sight you shall never finde in any of our Divines that the meaning of the Apostles prayer was that he would constraine them to doe that which is good and acceptable in the sight of God I know no power in God but infinite and seeing what worke soever he workes is by the exercise of his power it cannot be denied but that it is the exercise of that power which is infinite Againe is man or Angell able to circumcise our hearts so as to make us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts It is not as I presume you will confesse why then shall not this worke of Gods love in circumcising our hearts and making us to love him be accounted a worke of power infinite And Austin divers times professeth that God doth convert our hearts omnipotenti facilitate by an almighty facility and when God regenerates us he quickneth us and raiseth us from death to life Eph. 2. 2. and is said to transform us as it were of beasts to make us become men Esay 9. and how can this be wrought by lesse then power infinite as when Bernard confesseth of God saying Bernâ—n circumcis Dom. Serm. 2. Numquid non vere admirabilem experti sumus in imitatione utique voluntatum nostrarum As for Gods power to the immediate parent of our love to God it is no article of our Creed but a tricke of yours to insinuate any thing on your adversaries part that may make your owne cause seeme plausible wee rather conceive Gods grace and mercy to be the immediate cause of the circumcision of our hearts whereby wee are brought to love him Neither doe we say that he workes in us the love of himselfe immediately but rather by faith brings us first acquainted with the love of God towards us according to that of Iohn 1 Ioh. 3. 19. We love him because he loved us first and to that of S. Paul The end of the Law is love out of a pure heart and good conscience and faith unfained 1 Tim. 1. 5. No other seed of our love to God doe I acknowledge to be sowne in our soule Yet I doubt you referre this to a seed of nature and not to a seed of grace though you doe not affect to manifest your meaning so plainly as it were fit you should And no marvell For they which doe evill hate the light As for constraint we hold that infinite power cannot so worke the will Bodies may be constrained to suffer the execution of mens lusts upon them and may justly breed loathing in the parties so constrained As for the will that non potest cogi cannot be constrained And I wonder you that take notice of so many choice points of philosophy and divinity whereof others doe not should not all this while take notice of so popular a Maxime as this though I confesse your taking notice of it in this place had marred your game for the furthering whereof you are content to obtrude upon your adversaries so unreasonable a conceite as if they maintained that the will of man may be constrained yet suppose the will were constrained by God to love him would this breed in God a loathing of him Thus the foule and uncivill resemblance you make transports you Yet I have read My soule loathed them and their soule abhorred mee but I never heard the contrary My soule loathed them and their soule loved mee for while we abhorre God as enemies unto him yet notwithstanding even then hee loved us Rom. 5. 8. how much more when we love will he continue to love us and not turne his love into loathing as mens lusts turne into loathing sometimes as being satisfied and disdaining to be scorned by them whose bodies though they could force to be subject to their lusts yet could not winne their loues But God never makes us unwillingly to love him it is a thing impossible but as Austine saith Ex nolentibus volentes facit T is true God loves a cheerefull giver but who makes this cheerefulnesse but God and whose workes is it fit hee should love but his owne Like as it is said of him that Corâ—nat non merit a nostra sed donasua he crownes not our works but his owne And where there is a willing minde there it is accepted not according to that which a man hath not but to that which he hath but whose worke is this willing minde Is it not God that worketh in us both the will and the deede And that God doth not wrest any obedience from us but makes us willing and ready and cheerefull in the performing of it not onely in the way of doing what hee commandeth but in suffering what hee inflicteth or permitteth the sins of others to inflict upon us In so much that the Apostles rejoyced that they were accounted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. And if a father prevaile to worke his childe to dutifulnesse though with much a doe yet in the end masters his stubbornnesse will hee love his childe or his obedience or dutifulnesse the worse for this yet God more effectually and with a great deale more case changeth our hearts even omnipotente facilitate as Austine speaketh and shall hee love our obedience our thankfulnesse our repentance the lesse for this 5 Now wee are like to receive something concerning the maine probleme to wit In what sense God may bee said to doe all that he can for his vineyard All
principall means or occasion why so many perish FRom Gods love to his Vineyard you have proceeded to discourse of his infinite love towards them that perish and because in the issue they are never the better for it and Solomon saith that open hatred is better then secret love which some understand of fruitlesse love therefore to salve this inefficatious nature of Gods love as you shape it though yet you count it infinite and ardent and excessively fervent you here take upon you to discover unto us the reason why it proves so inefficacious and that without prejudice to the love of God and that is you say on mans part to wit Want of consideration or ignorance of Gods unfained love towards them Yet wee doe not say God is made any looser by the damnation of so many thousands both men and Angels for the glory of God is indifferently advanced as well in the condemnation of them that perish as in the salvation of his Elect And the Apostle in this case professeth saying 2 Cor. 2. 15. Wee are unto God the sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish But you proceede and tell vs That God hath from eternitie infallibly forecast the entire redemption of his infinite love which unto us may seeme utterly cast away And of men if many die the fault is their owne or their instructers But by your leave I see not how Gods infinite love if there be any such towards them that perish as you plead there is is redeemed from being utterly cast away for surely they that are thus cast away are never a whit the better for it God I confesse is never a whit the worse for their damnation but if Gods love were such towards them that perish as to will their salvation surely God is much the worse for that in two respects First because his omnipotency is hereby shaken in as much as that is not brought to passe which he would and ardently desired as you speake that it should come to passe In which case it followeth that God is not omnipotent as Austine long agoe discoursed and thereupon was driven to give such commodious interpretation of that place whereupon you onely insist in your owne sense notwithstanding the analogie of Scripture phrase is as directly against that construction of the place which you lay for a ground of your present discourse as for it as might not enterfare upon Gods omnipotencie for by experience wee finde that whatsoever wee desire to bring to passe wee alwaies doe bring to passe if it lies in our power to bring it to passe and if wee doe not effect it it is a manifest signe that wee are not able to effect it Secondly God is the worse for it in another respect for this love and will of God to them that perish you make to cease as soone as they have filled up the measure of their iniquity how much more after the time of their damnation is come And this is to make God mutable and his will and love to bee of a changeable condition But God is so perfect as to be without all variablenesse or shadow-of change And by the way I observe you are apt to discourse of Gods infinite love towards them that perish amongst men but of any such love towards them that perish amongst Angells nor a word yet it is as evident that if any perish amongst Angels it is meerely their owne faults also Nay much more evident is this in the nation of Angells then in the nation of men For many thousand infants perish in originall sinne for no personall originall fault of their owne but for the transgression of Adam and in that corruption which is naturally derived unto them from the loynes of Adam after that by his actuall transgression hee fell into the state of that corruption which since from him is become hereditarie unto us all As for that miscarriage which makes all men obnoxious unto the wrath of God and unto condemnation wee hold it impossible to be prevented For originall sinne and Adams transgression is it which you well know cannot be prevented Onely God may have mercy on whom hee will even in despight of any actuall miscariage which you doat upon as an only hinderer from grace like as on the otherside he hardeneth whom hee will in spite of all civill and morall good carriage found in the best of heathen men This I speake according to the doctrine of Saint Paul I confesse I speake it not according to the doctrine of Silius Italicus nor according to the doctrine of Sozimus as sound at heart for true heathenisme as Silius was for his life And that Sozimus amongst other reproaches he casts upon Christianity this is one that wee offer Gods free grace of pardoning all manner of sinnes to all manner of men that believe in Christ Iesus And to touch by the way if it bee the fault or may be the fault onely of their instructors that many perish then it is not their owne fault Yet certainly it is their owne fault that Angells perish yet wee see not any paines you take to shew How God hath infallibly forecast the intire redemption of his infinite love towards Angells that are cast away belike he never entertained any love towards those Angells at all But Silius Italicus himselfe that knew this and considered this and preacheth it unto others what did he fare the better for it was hee saved by it thinke you Nay how many thousands knew this amongst heathen men as well as Silius that Mite cognitum est homini Deus and that he delighted not in the sacrificing of the bloud of men which yet were never a whit the nearer unto salvation for all this Much lesse so neare as Abraham even at that time when he travelled three dayes journey to the sacrificing ofhis sonne Isaac Yet we confesse his love is unfainedly extended to all that call him Maker for in that hee made them and a world for them and by giving raine and fruitfull seasons doth fill their hearts with food and gladnesse hee may bee said to love them but herehence it followeth not that hee loves them unto salvation And yet how many are so far from having their hearts filled with food and gladnesse that sometimes they perish for want of bread But in stead of arguing you turne to prophecying and tell us that Had the doctrines which those divine oracles God is love and would have all men to be saved naturally afford beene for these forty yeares last past as generally taught and their right use continually prest with as great zeale and fervencie as the doctrine and uses of Gods absolute decree for electing some and reprobating most in that space have beene the plentifull encrease of Gods glory and his peoples comfort throughout this land might have wrought such astonishment to our adversaries â—as would have put their mutinous mouthes to silence I
law God might allowe the Israelits in robbing the Egyptians Abraham in sacrificing his sonne Sampson in sacrificing himselfe we may not allowe any in the like God hath power to expose men unto sinne to harden mens hearts we may not take any such courses but rather doe all we can to keepe our bretheren from sinne Now from your discourse it no more followeth that God cannot be unjustly mercyfull then that he cannot be unmercifully just especially towards those whom he loves more dearely then any man doth himselfe as you speake And if you would be pleased to take notice by the way of the oracles of God and not follow still the course of your owne inventions you might find that God hath mercy on whome he will and hardneth whome he will Yet is not he either unjustly mercyfull in the one or unmercyfully just in the other Neyther should he be though the case were altered and he were mercyfull to those whome now he hardneth and hardned those whome now he comiserateth satis contraria fata reponens But let us goe with you along the coast of Barbarie Gods love you say extends it selfe unto our nature so polluted with corruption It is true and that not only in respect of corruption by sinne orginall but by sinne actuall For he gave his sonne to dy for us when we were his enimyes and when we were dead in sinne and walked after the Prince of the ayre and fashions of the world he quickned us Ephes. 2. 29. The effects of this love you say are limited towards men by the correspondency which they hold or loose with that absolute goodnesse or with those rules of equity in which his will is to have man made like him This manner of limitation is unsound and fowly unsounde as that which apparantly excludeth our correspondency to Gods goodnesse and unto Gods love out of the number of the effects of Gods love as much as to say that faith and repentance thankfulnesse and obedience are no effects of Gods love but merely works of nature as if it were not God that worketh in us both the will the deede according to his good pleasure As if regeneration were but the imagination of a vayne thing For I presume you will not say it is in the power of man to regenerate himselfe And how can it be a work of God if not an effect of his love and correspondency unto Gods goodnesse you make to prevent the effects of Gods love Agayne the effects of Gods love the Scripture teacheth us are limited according to the good pleasure of God both as touching graces of edification for he distributes to every one as he will 1. Cor. 12. and as touching the graces of sanctification For he hath mercy on whome he will Rom. 9. And according to his purpose and grace he hath saved us and called us not according to our works 2 Tim. 1. 9. And of his owne will hath he begotten us c. There is a condition of morall goodnesse which God doth accept to reward with glory but there is no condition of morall goodnesse which God doth accept to reward with grace For then grace were of works and consequently no more grace And then God should call us accordinge to our works which he expresly denyeth Tit. 3. 5. and 2 Tim. 1. 9. There is no condition of morall viciousnesse that excludes Gods mercy in calling men unto faith and salvation Austine coumpts it impiety and madnesse to thinke otherwise as I have often alleaged him Enchirid. 96. He calls some at the first houre of the day some at the last And what absurde conceyte is it to require some mitigation of sinne or morall good qualification to make correspondency unto mercy in pardoning sinne and curing it As no disease of the body is uncurable by God so no disease of the soule or simfull course is unpardonable or uncurable by the mercy of God the Father the merits of God the sonne For each are infinite but the sinnes of all the world are finite God himselfe may limite the demonstration and exercise of his mercy as he thinks good Now as touching the limitation hereof nothing is revealed unto us but only this that the sinne against the Holy Ghost shall not be pardoned and cured no small infidelity and impenitency All other limitations are merely revelations of flesh and blood and the inventions of idle Braines that impugne the prerogative of Gods grace and in the place thereof advance the operation of nature as that which first commends us in some sort unto Gods grace you are apt to discourse of Gods inviting men unto God and of the riches of his bounty that way but of Gods working men unto God and of the riches of his bounty that may never any Arminian or Pelagian spake lesse then you Yet the despising of Gods goodnesse shewed eyther in his word or in his works shall indoubtedly increase mens condemnation But God can breake of these their contemptiouse courses in whome he will and when he will and where he will as Austine professeth with such confidence as that he censureth him of impiety and dotery whosoever he be that denyeth it A silly course it is to inferre that vicious courses doe exclude men from Gods mercy because God hates filthinesse or uncleanesse For God undoubtedly hates all manner of filthinesse and uncleanesse whether the measure of it be filled up or no For did he not hate Manasses his idolatry and his bloody courses and his using them that were given to sorcery and witchcrast Yet all this excluded him not from the participation of Gods mercy And if for this reason to wit because God hates filthinesse men are excluded from Gods favour so as to be uncapable of his mercy then every man shoulde be a reprobate and incapable of mercy and abandoned as a vessel of wrath unto everlasting condemnation And you consider not that to be uncapable of mercy is to be uncapable of Gods love even in your owne discourse whence it followeth that God must after a certayne time cease to love them as in reason it should be acknowledged by you according to the tenour of your opinion and that when the doore of repentance is shut upon them as your selfe have phrasified it most of all when God condemnes them to everlasting torments in hell fire he must needs cease to love them And consequently you must necessarily admit mutability in the nature of God which is directly contrary to the perfection of God delivered unto us in holy Scripture I the Lord am not changed and you sonnes of Iacob are not consumed Mala. 3. 6. And with God is no variablenesse nor shadow of change Iac. 1. 19. This rocke you have in your eye labour to keepe your Tenet from dashing it selfe desperately against it Wherin how well you have carryed your selfe we are to consider in the next place CHAP. XX. Whilst God of a loving Father becomes a severe
communication of them also Am. 9. 7. I have withheld the raine from you when there were yet three weekes to the harvest and caused it to raine upon one Citie and caused it not to raine upon another Citie one piece was rained upon and the piece whereon it rained not withered Some dye in their mothers wombe some hanging at their mothers breasts some after a long time are consumed with a lingring death neither is Gods love in Scripture phrase enlarged towards any save towards his elect Thus Iacob was loved but Esau hated Againe what justice doe you devise in God towards his creature Both Vasquez and Suarez concurre in this that the justice of God towards man doth alwaies presuppose his will and God may binde himselfe as he pleaseth by promise But Gods will you say is not the rule of goodnesse because the designes thereof are backt with infinite power Your theame was to prove that Gods will is not the rule of goodnesse when you come to prove it you prove nothing lesse but onely that the cause why Gods will is not the rule of goodnesse is not for that his designes are backt with infinite power This is not to disprove Gods will to be the rule of goodnesse but rather to confirme it for in saying that this or that is not the cause why Gods will is the rule of goodnesse you doe imply that you maintaine that his will is the rule of goodnesse though not for this cause Perhaps you may say They which maintaine Gods will to be the rule of Gods goodnesse doe maintaine it upon no other ground then this to wit Because his designes are backt with infinite power But had it beene so you might have fallen directly upon the overthrowing of such a foundation without carrying it in such a manner as if you would beare the world in hand that your selfe in some sort hold Gods will to bee the rule of goodnesse whereas you mean nothing lesse and therefore in carying your discourse after this manner you betray a faint heart in maintaining the maine Secondly I say it is incredible that any should maintaine Gods will to bee the rule of goodnesse for this cause because his designes are backt with infinite power as much as to say because God can doe what hee will This reason carieth no colour of truth with it for there is no reason why amongst men they that can doe what they will in comparison to other men should therefore bee honester men then other But because God hath infinite lawfull power that extends to every thing that implies no contradiction hence it followeth that whatsoever God doth is good and whatsoever God can doe if it were done by him it should justly be done otherwise hee should have power to be unjust which power in this case should either be in vain because it is not possible that ever it should be actuated or if actuated God should be unjust Holinesse you say doth so rule his power and moderate his will that the one cannot enjoyne or the other exact any thing not most consonant to the eternall or abstract patterns of equitie You take great liberty of discourse throughout What I pray according to our understandings is the subject of Gods holinesse is it not his will And how can his holinesse worke upon his will Doth the heat of fire worke upon the fire or the cold of water worke upon the water Againe here wee have power and will distinguished and the act of injoyning attributed to the one and exacting to the other Both are acts of command now I pray consider doth Gods power command I had thought imperium had beene the proper prerogative of the will yet both these by your discourse are in subjection to the eternall patterns of equity and equity before you confounded with justice Now I know no such justice in God different from his wisedome And herein I am of the same minde with Aquinas Quest. 23. De voluntate Dei Art 6. where hee disputeth this question Utrum justitia in rebus creatis ex simplici divina voluntate dependeat And there hee professeth that Primum ex quo pendet ratio omnis justitiae est sapientia divini intellectus qua res constituit in debita proportione ad se invicem ad suam causam Now let any man name any thing that God can doe and then let him answer me whether God bee not as well able by the infinitie of his wisedome to doe it wisely as by the infinity of his power to doe it at all And marke what in the same place where he seems most to favour your present Tenet Aquinas professeth Quamvis in nobis sit aliud intellectus voluntas secundum rem pro hoc nec idem est voluntas rectitudo voluntatis Deo tamen est idem secundum rein intellectus voluntas propter hoc est idem rectitudo voluntatis ipsa voluntas Although in us the understanding is one thing and the will really another thing whence it is that our will and the rectitude of our will is not the same yet seeing that in God the understanding and the will are really the same hence it is that in God his will and the rectitude of his will are all one But be it that his will is consonant to the eternall or abstract paternes of equitie I pray what more eternall and abstract paterne of equity then this that it is lawfull for God to make the world if he will and not to make it if he will yea and to doe what he will and leave undone what he will I hope the will of God revealed doth as sufficiently warrant all our actions if things are therefore good because God wils them as in case because they are good therefore God willeth them Now the former of these is true without all question in most things for whether the world had beene made sooner or later bigger or lesser more Angels or lesse more spheres or lesse whether they had moved this way they doe or the contrary way whether they should have continued longer or shorter time then they shall all had been received as the good course of Gods providence equally as now it is But here you passe to a point of a farre different nature for it is one thing to enquire whether Gods will be the rule of goodnesse in this sense whether whatsoever God brings to passe in the world is therefore good because God hath done it and a farre different thing to demand whether Gods will be the rule of goodnesse in this sense that whatsoever God commands us in his word for so I understand you when you speake of Gods revealed will it is therefore good because God commandeth it And I give a manifest reason of this difference for before the revelation of Gods word and without that all men naturally are able to discerne between good and evill they knew impiety idolatry profane swearing perjury
And if to inflict the torments of hell upon these or these for their sinnes be to hate them surely to intend to inflict the torments of hell upon them for their sinnes is to hate them And seeing God from everlasting intended to doe whatsoever hee doth in time it followeth that from everlasting hee did hate them Yet this truth you dare secretly to outface without taking any notice of it But here you argue well let us consider it For men to blesse God and to curse men doth argue a dissolution of that internall harmony which should be in the humane nature therfore for God to hate some men and to love others would necessarily inferre a greater distraction in the indivisible essence besides the contradiction which it implies to insinite goodnes This latter clause is thrust in to make weight and to turne the scale but being nothing save meere breath and aire makes it rather lighter Like as when the Spaniard to make his state weigh as much as the state of France and finding that Spaine and other places would not serve the turne clapt in Millane and Naples into the ballance whereupon it was found well the lighter Yet I am content to consider that also in its turne But first of the argument My answer hereunto is twofold First as touching the antecedent I say and have already shewed that the passage of Iames whereat you aime proceeds of cursing onely as it signifies cursed speaking not as it signifies the pronouncing of a curse which may be in an holy manner it being cleere that both God and man both God the Father and God the Sonne may and have pronounced curses in an holy manner without giving evidence of any dissolution of that internall harmony which should be in them and yet such a dissolution is to be acknowledged to have its place more or lesse in the best of men in this world for they have flesh in them as well as spirit but neither is nor can be in God Secondly I deny the consequence for it doth not follow that because it is not lawfull for man to curse therefore it is not lawfull for God to curse Are not Devills accursed At the day of judgement shall not our Saviour pronounce that sentence on thousands Go ye cursed into everlasting fire And why should this argue any distraction in God more then in a Iudge that absolveth some and condemneth others So our Saviour at the day of judgement will say unto some Go yee cursed into everlasting fire unto others Come ye blessed of my Father receive the kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world If you do not speake of blessing and cursing in the way of execution of judgement and reward what meane you to walke thus in the cloud of generalities If you speake not of execution but of intention as God doth execute judgements for sinne and rewards of obedience so doth he from everlasting intend both the one and the other as it is impossible it should be otherwise Your selfe acknowledging in words Gods decrees to be eternall And doth it not become God from everlasting to intend to proceed in the day of judgement as before spoken of As great a divine as you are taken for I much doubt you little understand the state of the question wherein you seem to oppose some body for I cannot be perswaded you doe wilfully dissemble it But there is another course of Gods providence in another matter and farre different from the execution of punishment and reward maintained by your opposites and impugned by you but you are loath to bee seene in your opposition therein and to have your opinion knowne particularly for feare lest the common voice should cry shame upon you as upon a profest Arminian a manifest impugner of the soveraignty of God in shewing mercy on whom he will and denying mercy to whom he will and so hardening whom he will Now here you have no comparison to helpe your selfe withall drawne from the condition of man For in mans power it is not either to give grace or to deny it But to the contrary wee finde that Superiours have the dispensation of favours and gratifications in their power which they enlarge or restraine at their pleasure and extend to whom they will How much more shall the Lord of all take liberty unto himselfe to have mercy on whom hee will have mercy and to shew compassion on whom hee will shew compassion yea and as to have mercy on whom hee will so to harden whom he will also and that I hope without contradiction to his goodnesse which you besides the word of God cast in to outface the proclamation of God himselfe For as Gods goodnesse did not binde him to make the world so neither doth it binde him to save the world And as when he made the world he made as many creatures as he thought good so in saving the world he saves as many creatures as he thinkes good both amongst men and Angels by giving grace to whom he will and denying grace to whom he will When you say that To love the worke of his owne hands is more essentiall to him that made all things out of his meere love then it is unto the fire to burn matter combustible This speech of yours is a grosse unsavory speech transforming God into a naturall and necessary agent for it is well knowne that the fire burnes naturally and necessarily And if God doth more essentially love his creatures then he must naturally and necessarily preserve them in being and cannot destroy them And because it is out of the same love that you derive the creation of the world it followeth that God was necessitated by the necessity of nature to make the world and consequently that the world was everlasting without beginning and so shall continue without end Behold the flowers that grow in the paradise of your contemplation fitter for Aristotles Physicks or Metaphysicks then for the meditations of a Christian Divine as being fit onely to make a nosegay for the Devill The love of God towards himselfe is essentiall towards his creatures is meerely accidentall Hee needed not to have made them neither is it any whit necessary that he should preserve them And as creation and preservation are attributed of extrinsecall denomination unto God so is his love towards his creatures also Neither was it out of love to the creature that he made the world but out of love to himselfe as who is the end of all For both Salomon professeth that God made all things for himselfe and Saint Paul likewise gives us to understand that as things are from him so all things are for him also But Gods love is infinite therefore say you it extends to all seeing all are lesse then infinite A proper argument and as well suitable unto your text which undertaketh onely to shew that Gods love is infinite to mankinde And this argument proves
as well that it is extended to frogges and toads to Angells and Devills as well as to mankinde This is onely to professe that it extends to all Now this is a very improper interpretarion of infinite love for lesse love and lesse liberality may extend to more then greater love and greater liberality for he that gives ten shillings to one person is more liberall then that divides five shillings amongst threescore persons in giving them a peny apiece Lastly the fruit of this love can be but being and is it not a proper commendation of Gods infinite love towards mankinde to say that he gives being unto all And doth Gods love to man appeare more herein then to the vilest creature that is 2 In the next Section you discourse at large after your manner of the amplitude of Gods love in comparison which is nothing at all to your purpose whose chiefe aime is to insinuae that Gods love is alike to all Yet having proceeded thus farre my resolution is to go on and to consider what you bring What thinke you of Adams love in the state of innocency was it perfect or no Though without sinne awhile yet hee fell into sinne so did the Angells before him so should wee though as perfect as they if God should not uphold us Yet our love in greatest perfection could not be so much as a shadow of Gods love there being no resemblance betweene them our love being a love of duety Gods love to us of meere grace and mercy Besides betweene the fruits of Gods love to us and the fruits of our love towards God no colour of resemblance Man is bound heartily to desire the good of all but God is free and hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth Many widowes were in Israel in the daies of Elias when heaven was shut three yeares and six months and great famine was throughout all the land But unto none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta a city of Sidone unto a certaine widow Also many lepers were in Israel in the dayes of Elesaeus the prophet yet none of them was made cleane but Naaman the Syrian And if Gods will had beene to doe the best that might be hee could have cured no doubt all other lepers as well as Naaman and succoured other widows as well as the widow of Sarepta Yet I confesse Gods good will exceeds ours not intensively onely but extensively also for not a sparrow falleth to the ground without the providence of our heavenly Father hee saveth both man and beast and heareth the young Ravens that call upon him the eyes of all doe wait upon the Lord and hee gives them their meat in due season And as touching the conferring both of grace and glory therein hee saveth more then wee know or are acquainted with The number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea that cannot bee counted for multitude As touching temporall blessings all partake of his goodnesse therein in their naturall preservation and consolation therein wee must imitate him in doing good to all as it lieth in our power though chiefly to the houshold of faith yet not to them onely but to others also But though he causeth his sun to shine and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust yet pronounceth not the sentence of salvation on all promiscuously whether they be just or unjust And whereas all are equally corrupt in state of nature yet he doth not equally shew mercy on all or bestow the meanes of grace on all or where he doth bestow these meanes of salvation he doth not make them effectuall unto us He blindes the eyes and hardens the hearts of some that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts and be converted that he might heale them Whereby it comes to passe that the word of God though it be the savour of life unto life unto some yet it is the savour of death unto death unto others and the Ministers of God are a good savour unto God in both even both in them that are saved and in them that perish For God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill Mercie you say is not restrained from ill deservers in distresse so long as the exercise of it breeds no harme to such as are more capable of bountifull love and favour This is a consideration which I confesse hath place among men sometimes and in some cases Yet hardly can I devise how to suit with a fit instance For no states for ought I find doe take notice of any such distinction of times wherein the exercise of mercy will not breed harme and wherein it will but they execute condigne punishment upon malefactors according to the lawes that all may see and feare to doe the like not be encouraged malorum facta imitari but rather eorum exitus perhorrescere God doth not so His patience and long suffering is exceeding great yet if hee should give every man repentance in his death bed and save their soules what one in the world should be the worse for this And though the wicked many times spend their daies in mirth and sodainly goe downe to the grave yet by the grace of God we shall be nothing the worse for this nor provoked hereupon to condemne the generation of Gods children Yet what is it that makes one man more capable of bountifull love and favour then another I know not what makes him more capable of love in the execution of reward I know but what makes him more capable of love in the communication of grace and in shewing mercy towards him I know not Sure I am that woman who had many sinnes forgiven her loved so much the more the ninety nine just persons that thinke they need no repentance like enough love so much the lesse It is true the lawes of States take order for the just execution of punishment upon offenders for the common good yet by your leave Kings on earth by their absolutenesse doe give pardons to whom they will respecting more their own pleasure then the common good And withall I thinke Princes doe lesse offend if at all offend in refusing to pardon malefactors then in granting pardons unto them As for God to whom you say the execution of justice is unnaturall he being the Father of mercy I pray consider if God should give repentance to all on their death-beds and consequently save all what common good of mankinde would be hindred by this And as God is the father of mercy so is he also the Iudge of all the world and I conceive the execution of justice punitive to be as naturall to him as he is Iudge of all the world as the execution of mercy is naturall unto him as he is the Father of mercy Yet you seeme to have a place of Scripture to prove a
play But where doe you finde if a man might be so bold to aske that an henne is so superlative a creature in her affection towards her chicken I can hardly beleeve that either Aristotle or Pliny hath afforded you any such observation but rather your comment upon them or upon the booke of Nature What is an henue more affectionate to her young ones then a Pelican is to hers who is said to let her selfe bloud to feed them or then a Storke that hath her name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the Hebrew is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a word neere of kinne to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bowels of compassion as which indeed are most tender in her A story whereof we have in the description of the Netherlands namely of a Storke that when the house was on fire where her nest was kept the fire off from her yong ones with her owne body and wings so long till she was burnt her selfe Still you proceede in amplyfying the love of God nothing to the purpose For the question is not how great Gods love is towards those on whom it is placed but whether it extend to all or no You say All the sweet fruits and comforts of love whether of fathers and mothers towards their children or of husbands towvrd their wives or of brethren to brethren sisters to sisters or of one friend to another their sinfulnesse excepted are but distillations or infusions of his infinite loue to our nature We well know the love of God exceeds all this bu◠I verily think your penne hath runne riot ere you are aware and you have written you know not or you consider not what For herehence it followeth that there is no act so abominable of the will of the creature but God may infuse it the sinfulnesse onely thereof excepted which yet is a very sory exception for sinfulnes is not a thing that can be infused by God Angell or man Of old is was determined by Austine that sinne hath not causam efficientem but deficientem onely And herein you manifestly contradict your selfe as who maintaine that whosoever is the author of the act must therewithall be the author of the sinnefullnesse thereof for as much as sinfulnesse doth result relative like upon position of the foundation And of this kinde of argument I have found you wondrous confident in a certain treatise of yours though a very weake argument and long agoe proposed and answered by Capreolus and whose answer thereunto is again rehearsed by Soncinas But here I shew onely how you make no bones of contradicting your selfe very handsomely in saying God doth infuse an act which is sinfull though not the sinfulnesse of it The love of God you say though infinitely increased in every particular and afterwards made up in one could no way equalize Gods love towards every particular soule created by him Thus you steale up without all proofe the extention of Gods love to every particular and that in infinite manner Whereas the Scripture professeth as plainely that God hath hated Esau as that he hath loved Jacob. And seeing Gods love can be but infinite towards his elect and towards his dearest Sonne and towards himselfe you make it infinite towards the very reprobates whether men or devills for every particular of them hath beene created by him Is not this good divinity and very comfortable divinity Yet no Arminian will say that God so loved the Angells that were fallen that he sent his Sonne to die for them When you say The creatures for feare doe not so much good for their little ones as they might not so much for the modell of their wit or strength as God for his part though infinite in wisedome and power doth for the sonnes of men As hee said of his Bore that was sent him Noster te non capit ignis conturbator Aper so may I say of this your eloquence that it passeth mine intelligence I can neither construe your sentence nor correct it To say that the creature cannot doe so much for his young as God doth for the sonnes of men is so vulgar a trueth that when you introduce it with such pompe and state I may well say ' Tu pulicem Gaure giganta facis yet the adversative interposed Though infinite in wisedome and power hath no congruity to this sense neither for Gods infinite wisedome and power is no adversative to this I trow but rather a coroborative thereunto Bee it that God had done as much as could bee done for his unfruitfull vineyard what is this to prove that Gods love extends to all whereas the place it selfe doth manifestly restraine this love of God unto his vineyard Yet what is there mentioned besides the well husbanding of this vineyard wherein hee appeales to their consciences whether a better course could be devised then he had taken for the well husbanding thereof But I pray consider doth the worke of grace extend no further then to planting and watering Is it not God that gives the increase also Is it not in Gods power to give faith to give repentance you that will have God to infuse that love in carnall men which is found to be sinfull and not to infuse the sinfulnesse thereof cannot indure that God should infuse faith and repentance into the heart of man But if God can doe this surely hee can doe more then ought that is expressed in that song of God concerning his vineyard Yet it is true that in the way of outward husbandry Gods course was without all exception neither could the wisedome of man devise a better course for God to take then was that which hee tooke with them And therefore you have small cause to charge your adversaries with such sorry shifts so atheisticall as if wee thought Gods serious protestations deserved no credite with us These are fictions of course proceeding from an addle braine to supply the roome of so and arguments And surely did wee not believe Gods serious protestations why should wee regard his oath For amongst men he that is found to bee no man of his word is usually little regarded for his oath Gods word without protestation is and ever shall bee through his grace sufficient ground of our faith in him Looke you unto it that you hunt not after some other foundation the tenour of whose discourse in many places and in this very place treating of his infinite love to all and every one runnes in a current of manifest opposition against the word of God though now and then you have a snatch at it and away like the dog at the river Nilus for feare of the Crocadile and content your selfe onely with a superficiall consideration of it as in this place like as in the former For what is this spoken indifferently of all of the Gentiles as well as of the Iewes It is manifestly spoken of the house of Israel concerning whom the Lord asketh this question Why
will yee die yee house of Israel And the whole proceedeth by way of answer to their murmuring against the providence of God in saying The fathers have eaten sower grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge and hereupon God proceedeth to justifie the course of his providence unto their face Now when God doth not take men upon the hippe as soone as they have sinned against him but spares them and not onely gives them space of repentance but useth meanes to bring them unto repentance by sending Prophets unto them to admonish them to admonish them of their sinnes and to denounce the judgements of God against them is not this a manifest evidence that God is not delighted in their death but rather in their repentance although he still reserves libertie to himselfe to bestow the gift of repentance on whom he will And therefore all this is only in respect of his church not in respect of those who are strangers from the common wealth of Israel and aliens from the covenants of promise then concerning those within the church All are not Israel that are of Israel Rom. 9. And though the meanes of grace have their course withall yet God intends to make them effectuall onely with his elect according to that As many as were ordeined to eternall life believed and whom he hath predestinated them hath he called and justified and glorified For as Austine saith Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis aget poenitentiam And speaking of the Non pradestinatis Istorum neminem saith hee adducit Deus ad salubrem spiritatemque poenitentiam qua homo reconciliatur Deo in Christo sive illis ampliorem patientiam sive non imparem praebeat Therefore we say that as concerning the elect though they sinne yet God willeth not their death but willeth their repentance and their salvation But as touching others who are mixt amongst them as tares amongst the wheat and are partakers of the same meanes of grace and invitations unto repentance in as much as he spares them and giveth them not onely time to repent but admonisheth them of their sinnes and affords them the outward meanes of repentance it is sufficient to justifie that God doth not willingly bring judgement upon them neither for their sinnes because hee comes not hastily thereunto but upon wilfull despising of the means of grace used to reclaime them like as before I shewed in what sense God is said not to afflict the sonnes of men willingly And as for this present place your selfe elsewhere hath interpreted it thus I will not the death of an impenitent sinner but that God wills undoubtedly the death of an impenitent sinner To quash this construction in this place you say this oath of God proceeds as concerning those who all their life long have hated him Here I am perswaded wee shall finde no little inconsideratenesse To hate God all a mans life time what is it but to hate him from the first hower of comming to the use of reason unto the last even unto the moment of death now I pray consider Will not God the death of such a one as dieth in impenitencie The text I confesse runnes thus I will not the death of him that dieth But doe you thinke indeed the meaning is that as for such a man as now dieth and hath lived all his life time in the hatred of God God will not the death of such a one Like enough you are content your Reader should entertaine such a conceite But I cannot bee perswaded you take this to be the meaning The text is manifestly against it for it followeth But rather that he returne and live so that it is spoken of a man living and such as is capable of repentance And wee know the whole Chapter is to justifie Gods providence in afflicting men with his judgements so that to die in this place is to be under the afflicting hand of God and so in the way to death and to destruction Our living is reputed a continuall dying for as much as nature consumeth and wasteth as the Poet wittily expresseth it Childehood ends in youth And youth in old age dies I thought I lived in truth But now I die I die I see Each age of death is one degree Whereupon he concludes his resolution to correct his former phrase of speech saying Farewell the doating score Of worlds Arithmaticke Life I le trust thee no more But henceforth for thy sake I le go by deaths new Almanaeke For while I sing A thousand men lie sick a thousand bells doring And would you know what is the difference between me and them They are but dead and I dying So that I guesse your meaning according to the articles of your owne creed is but this That Gods love is such to them that all their life past not simply all their life but all their life past have hated him that He will not their death but rather that they returne and live And I grant that this is true of many in most proper speech namely of all the elect of God though it bee long ere God calleth and converteth some of them Of others also that live in the Church I have shewed how it may have course in the same sense that God is said not so much willingly to afflict them for their sinnes as for refusing to repent and turne unto God after they have sinned When you tell us of infinite places more of sacred texts and those most perspicuous in themselves and also that The whole ancient Church with some small exception which yet may bee counterpoised is ready to give joynt verdict for you it savoureth hotly of Smithfield eloquence Pessima quò vendas opus est mangone perito Qui Smithfieldensi polleat eloquio Yet it was an old observation Multa fidem promissa levant cum plenius aequo Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces If you had some about you to justfie you in cleanly manner by some prety qualification it had beene absolute As the Gentleman who professed that he had certaine ponds wherein Carpes were taken as big as that Somer-pole which hee then rode by and withall askt his man that rode with him whether it were not so Sir quoth his man though they were so big yet I am sure they were nothing like so long and indeed the dimension of length is more suitable to the proportion of an Eele then of a Carpe As Cicero answered him that told a strange tale concerning the length of certaine Eeles which he had seene for Tully handsomely to convince him of his vanity made shew of going beyond him in his owne element of tossing and forthwith replied saying That is nothing strange for I know a place where Eeles are taken of such a length that they use to make their Angling-rods of them And this assertion of yours may come as heere to the trueth as an Eele is to an Angling rod. CHAP. XV.
world of new Divinity communicated unto us to endoctrinate us in these latter dayes To what end soever God plagued Pharaoh for not doing that which he could not doe all possibility of amending being taken from him this action was just in God and so is the like whersoever it be found to proceed from God And although Pharaoh could not repent without the grace of God yet I make no doubt but that he could have let Israel goe notwithstanding his obduration And it appeares he did let them goe after the ninth plague which followed sometime after the seventh plague And so I doubt not but he could have refrained himselfe from pursuing them when hee had once dismissed them And yet as for not letting Israel goe God brought ten plagues upon Aegypt so for pursuing after them he drowned Pharaoh and his host in the red Sea Now in confidence of your performances in clearing your self frō contradictiōs in one point you are as adventrous to fal upon another The Iesuites pretend they can equivocate without lying and you take upon you to speake contradiction without all contradiction yet by your leave if no body else will I will take care it may not passe without contradiction There is no contradiction you say betweene these two propositions God from all eternity did will the death of Pharaoh God from all eternity did not will the death but rather the life of Pharaoh In like sort we may say there is no contradiction between these two propositions God from all eternity did will the salvation of Judas God from all eternity did not will the salvation but the condemnation of Iudas and to proceed in the straine of your subtile discourse I goe along by you step by step For albeit Iudas continued one and the same man from his birth unto his death yet did he not all that time continue one and the same object of Gods immutable will and eternall decree This object did alter as Iudas his dispositions or affections towards God or his neighbour altered There is no contrariety much lesse contradiction betweene these God unfainedly hateth sinners God doth not hate but love the elect though they be sinners For here the object of his hatred and love is not the same he hates sinners unfainedly as sinners not having made up the full measure of faith and repentance but having made up the full measure of faith and repentance and good workes and having their soules betrothed unto holinesse he loves them His love of them as elect is no less necessary or usuall then his hatred of them as sinners But though he necessarily loves them being once become elect or having made up the full measure of good workes yet was there no necessity laid upon them by his eternall decree to make up such a measure of good works No to this sufficed the liberty of their wils both to performe such a measure of good works and to carry themselves like stout champions and patrons of this power of their free wils and to gratifie the grace of God so far as to admit her activity both to admonish them aforehand and upon their propension to that which is good to concur to the performing of it He that walkes in the Sunne must needs be coloured and I have so long beene versed in the contemplation of your argumentive facultie that I am growne almost as sufficient to plead for the elects electing of themselves as you to plead for the reprobates reprobation of themselves and which of us dischargeth his part best I leave it to the indifferent reader to consider and I doubt not but his sentence will bee this Et vitulo tu dignus hic But let us run over the contexture of your discourse once more and consider it in it selfe I say there is more sobriety in saying God from all eternity did not will the salvation of an elect then that he did from all eternity not will the damnation of a reprobate For the onely qualification of your saying is this He did not will the damnation of Pharaoh as a man but the qualification of my congruous assertion on the other side is this God did not will the salvation or life of an elect as a sinner Now I appeale to any mans judgement whether there be not greater congruitie betweene the termes in my proposition then betweene the termes in yours The termes in mine are these Not will the salvation of an elect as a sinner in yours they are these Not will the death of a reprobate as a man Seeing it is well knowne and Arminius confesseth it that God can turne the holiest creature into nothing without any shew of repugnance unto his justice But to will the salvation of a sinner hath some shew of repugnancy to Gods justice But to deale with you closely and upon a point I deny that God did ever will the salvation of Pharaoh and I prove it by two reasons If hee did ever will it then Gods will is now changed for certainly now he doth not will his salvation But Gods will cannot change He is without variablenesse or shadow of change If God would save Pharaoh and did not as it appeares he did not then the reason why Pharaoh was not saved was because God could not save him This was Austines discourse long agoe For a father desiring the saving of his childe and not performing of it who doubts but that the reason is because he cannot It is enough for us that Pharaoh continued the same man for like as of the same man it cannot be verified that both he shall be saved and shall not be saved so neither can it be verified of the same man that both God will save him and will not save him Neither was Pharaoh ever in any other estate then in the state of damnation In like sort the contradiction is evident enough in those propositions which you adde to illustrate the contradictious nature as you pretend of the former as if you should say Aske my fellow whether I am a thiefe which is nimis familiaris probatio As if you should say I unfainedly love such a man and yet I hate him here is no contradiction or as if a King should say I unfainedly love such a one yet I le hang him yet this with more probability may be saved from contradiction It is true wee may parcere personis dicere de vitiis love the man and hate his qualities and manifest my love in seeking to redeeme him from his lewd conversations by prayer unto God by perswasion towards the man himselfe But to say I unfainedly love him and yet I hate him and thinke to save it from contradiction by saying I love him as a man and hate him as a lewd person is worse then for Adam to seeke with figge leaves to cover his nakednesse To say God loves men as they have not made up the full measure of their iniquity is manifestly to imply that God loves a
reprobate untill hee hath made up the full measure of his iniquity and that this measure being full God ceasing to love him God is changed for Gods love is an act in God and is made to cease after a certaine time by your doctrine and be turned into hatred More probable it is to say that God hates all men seeing they are borne and bred in sinne untill they are regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ. Yet this is untrue For Gods love is an everlasting love as without end so without beginning If you had distinguished of love as Aquinas doth 1. q. 23. art 4. and said that God may be said to love all things that he hath made in as much as he wisheth some good unto them but for as much as he wisheth not unto them a certaine good to wit eternall life therfore he is said not to love but to hate some your discourse had beene more specious Touching a necessity laid upon them by Gods decree to fill up the measure of sinne Arminius acknowledgeth Deum voluisse Achabam mensuram scelerum suorum implere God would that Ahab should make up the full measure of his iniquity which is as much as to say that God decreed it and the Scripture professeth that both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israell were gathered together to doe what Gods hand and his will had determined before to be done so then in betraying condemning and crucyfying of Christ they did but that which God determined should come to passe And upon supposition that God will expose any man unto temptation and leave him therein destitute of his grace all which it is but to harden him wee say it is necessary that men shall goe on in sinne without repentance as your selfe acknowledge was verified of Pharaoh after the seventh plague onely wee say this is necessity onely secandum quid and not simpliciter and hinders not our liberty for it is necessary that such a thing should come to passe but not necessarily but contingently and freely like as upon supposition of Gods decree to make the world it is necessary that God should make it but how not necessarily like a naturall agent but freely like a voluntary agent Yet once again to take a view of your uncouth tenents obscurely delivered whē you say Pharaoh did not continue one the same object of Gods decree It is a very strange speech for was not the man Pharaoh the object of Gods decree If he was so continued the same man doth it not follow that he continued the same object of Gods decree notwithstanding his person altered much in the space of his life You may as well say of one of Gods elect as of David and Paul that neither of them continued the same object of Gods decree if the alteration of their natures made them become different objects of Gods decree Nay much more may you say so because farre greater alterations are found in the elect of God then in the reprobate for in the elect there is found an alteration from the state of nature to the state of grace no such alteration is found in the reprobate the reprobate onely growes from bad to worse the elect have growne so too before their calling but by their effectuall calling they are changed and of the children of this world they are made the children of God And after their calling though after the committing of one sinne they fall into another as doe the reprobate yet withall againe they returne unto God by repentance no such alteration is found in the reprobates but still prosiciunt in pejus they grow worse and worse Againe if because the person of a man altereth therefore the object of Gods decree altereth seeing that a mans person altereth not only in the course of manners but in the course of nature from childehood to youth from youth to middle age from middle age to old age as also from health to sicknesse from sicknesse to health therefore the object of Gods decree in this respect altereth also If you say the case is not alike I say you might then have prevented this objection by plaine dealing and told us not onely in what case but why in the case you meane the object of Gods decree altereth whereas wee are now driven to fish it out as well as wee can and bring your opinion to light and set it forth in the proper and distinct lineaments thereof Now the reason of the difference I conceive to be this to wit because God doth not will the death of a man according to his naturalls but according to his moralls and considered in his moralls As if you should say God did not will the death of Pharaoh but of wicked Pharaoh But say I Pharaoh did alwaies continue wicked Pharaoh from his birth to his death never altering from wickednesse to goodnesse and therefore even in this respect he still continued the same object of Gods decree to damne him Perhaps you will further say that Pharaoh as wicked was not the object of Gods decree of condemnation but as having filled up the measure of his iniquity But I say againe from the first time that he thus became the object of Gods decree of condemnation hee still continued the same for your selfe confesse after once they have filled up a certaine measure of iniquity all possibility of repentance is taken from them The last refuge for you is to say that this speech of yours in denying Pharaoh to continue the same object of Gods decree is to be understood not in respect of one and the same decree but in respect of different decrees thus Though Pharaoh were wicked all his life yet he was not all along the object of Gods decree of condemnation but untill he had filled the measure of his iniquity he was the object of Gods decree to save him For in the consequence you acknowledge that God doth unfainedly love all men untill such time as they have filled up the measure of their sinne And accordingly in another Treatise of yours you acknowledge that men may change from the state of the elect to the state of reprobates And immediately before you professe that God from all eternity did not will the death but rather the life of Pharaoh This you might have expressed in plaine termes without faultering but you were loath as it seemes to alienate mens mindes with so foule a Tenent touching the change not of the object of Gods will and decree onely but of Gods verie will and decree also which manifestly appeares by this opening your Tenent though in termes you professe Gods will is immutable and would have your reader conceive that all the alteration is in the object of Gods will and decree not in the will and decree of God himselfe And over and above herehence it followeth that if Pharaoh had died before the seventh wonder for till then he had not filled up the measure
not all possibilitie of amendment being taken from him My opinion to the contrary is that no man hath filled up the full measure of his iniquity till death As touching the possibility of amendment I acknowledge none in man without the regenerating grace of God whereby he gives man repentance Neither do I know any time in the course of mans life wherin any man is excluded from possibility of repentance by the grace of God We know God gave the thiefe repentance upon the crosse Our Saviour gives us to understand that God calleth some at the very last houre of the day Paul admonisheth Timothy to carrie himselfe gently towards them that are without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if so be God at any time may give them repentance that they may come to amendment out of the snare of the devill by whom they are led captive to doe his will Of old it was wont to be said Inter pontem fontem and the like is usuall amongst us Betweene the stirrop and the ground Mercy I askt mercy I found All this which followeth and which you have transcribed out of Bishop Hooper I finde nothing that contradicteth any of these assertions of mine or that justifieth any of your opposite assertions not in this which immediately followeth thus Every man is in Scripture called wicked and the enemy of God for the privation and lacke of faith and love that hee oweth to God Et impij vocantur qui non omnino sunt pij that is They are called wicked that in all things honour not God beleeve not in God and observe not his commandements as they should doe which we cannot doe by reason of this naturall infirmity or hatred of the flesh as Paul calleth it against God In this sense taketh Paul the word wicked So must we interpret S. Paul and take his words or else no man should be damned In all this I finde nothing to that purpose whereto you alledge it Yet by the way I am not of Master Hoopers opinion in saying that They were called wicked meaning in holy Scripture that in all things honour not God beleeve not in God and observe not his commandements as they should which wee cannot doe by reason of this naturall infirmity c. For all this is verified of the very Saints and children of God here on earth and I doe not finde that the Saints of God in holy Scripture by reason of their infirmities not honouring God not beleeving in God not observing his commandements in such measure as they should as God knowes and our consciences well know that in many things we offend all are therefore called wicked Especially considering that the Greeke word which Master Hooper aimes at and which hee renders by the word wicked in English is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appeares by his reference to Rom. 5. 8. In this sense saith Bishop Hooper taketh Paul this word wicked when he saith that Christ died for the wicked Now this state noted by S. Paul in these words is not the state of grace but the state of sinne precedent to justification and the state of enmity against God as appeares by the two next verses Much more being justified by his bloud we shall be saved by his life 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne c. Whereby it is manifest that the state of sinne in which we were when wee were reconciled to God by Christs death was the state of enmity against God And indeed otherwise there were no place for reconcilement which consists in making them friends which before were enemies Neither doe I know any Divine of master Hoopers opinion in construing S. Paul in this manner as if these sinners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he cals wicked for whom Christ died were onely such as doe not honour God beleeve in God and observe his commandements as they should which wee know is incident to the very children of God and to the most righteous Saints that are on the earth who yet are never accounted in holy Scripture for ought I know the enemies of God Yet such are they termed for whom Christ died and who S. Paul saith are reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne I willingly grant that Christ died to procure the salvation of none but such as sooner or later should become the Saints of God to honour him beleeve in him and observe his commandements though not in such measure as they should by reason of the flesh which they carie about them still lusting against the spirit and this seemes by this place undoubtedly to be the opinion of Bishop Hooper though he erreth in the interpretation of S. Paul who in this place considereth not what shall be their condition sooner or later for whom Christ died but only sheweth what was their condition when Christ died for them thereby the more to commend the love of God towards us who sent his Sonne to die for us when wee were sinners and reconciled us to himselfe by the death of his Son what time we were his enemies And I am perswaded your selfe are of the same opinion with me in this though I will not say that the evidence of S. Pauls text seemed so plaine unto you this very way I have interpreted it that therefore you concealed S. Pauls passage mentioned by master Hooper thus When he saith that Christ died for the wicked and in the margent referres us to Rom. 5. 8. all which you have handsomly left out to what end I know not But hereby it comes to passe that the reader may be to seeke of that passage of S. Paul in case he have no other meanes to judge thereof then your transcribing it As for the reason of Bishop Hooper to justifie this interpretation of S. Pauls text it is nothing consequent as when he saith So we must interpret Saint Pauls words or else no man should be damned If S. Paul had said Christ died for all the wicked or for all sinners then indeed we should be driven to seeke out some such interpretation of the word wicked or sinners or else none should bee damned But S. Paul doth not say Christ died for all that are wicked or for all sinners but for us sinners his words are these God commendeth his love to us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Now he writes unto Christians and for such onely hee died though they were not Christians when Christ died for them but rather in the state of enmity against God And thus to appropriate Christs dying for mankinde doth manifestly appeare to bee master Hoopers meaning as before I shewed albeit he deviates from the right interpretation of S. Pauls Text in the place mentioned by him That which followeth doth in my judgement carie a greater shew of justifying your former assertions and yet but a shew neither as when he saith Now we know that Paul himselfe S.
implyeth any such impotency in God yet Austin long agoe did acknowledge this consequence Enchirid. 96. Deo quam facile est quod vult facere tam facile est quod non vult esse non sinere Hoc nisi credamus periclitatur ipsum nostrae fidei confessionis initium qua consitemur in Deum Patrem omnipotentem credere Neque veraciter ob aliud vocatur omnipotens nisi quia quicquid vult potest nec voluntate cujusquam creaturae voluntatis omnipotentis impeditur effectus Et cap. 27. In caelo in terra non quaedam voluit fecit quaedam vero voluit non fecit sed omnia quaecunque voluit fecit Et cap. 98. Quis porro tam impii desipiat ut dicat Deum malas hominum voluntates quas voluerit quando voluerit ubi voluerit in bonum non posse convertere And whereas you say that man is not capable of endlesse joyes unlesse he will be wrought by meere love without the impulsions of unresistible power to love him to love God the same insinite love which drawes him unto repentance in congruity leaving a possibility not to be drawne by it This is a notorious untruth For was there any possibility in Christ to sinne or not to bee drawne to that which was good I thinke you will not avouch it And was he not therefore capable of endlesse joyes And if Gods will be unresistible as the Apostle plainly testifieth shall not the operation whereby his will is accomplished bee irresistible And shall such a bug-beare deterre us from acknowledging God to be the author of repentance and move us to give the glory thereof to the will of man who through the hardnesse of his heart cannot repent as the Apostle speaketh Againe the Scripture testifieth that whatsoever God willeth that he doth both in heaven and earth whether it be by power resistible or unresistible is nothing to the purpose But you maintain that what God ardently willeth is not brought to passe by reason that man willeth not Neither doe wâ—e maintaine that God in working whom hee will unto repentance doth doe this by bereaving man of power to resist which alone denominates the operation of God irresistible but onely by taking away the will of resisting while ex nolentibus volentes facit And consequently wee say not that God takes away all possibility of refusing to be drawne by it For we maintaine that God brings to passe contingent things contingently that is with a possibility to the contrarie though supposing Gods wil to the contrary this possibility shall not be actuated And so when God workes a man to faith and to repentance nullum humanum resistit arbitrium No mans will resists and that the grace which God gives a nullo duro corde respuitur is refused by no hard heart So that all this is done without all coaction For neither can the will be constrained and God in making men volentes ex nolentibus cannot without great absurditie be said to constraine them as you would fain insinuate having no sound argument for it but such poore trickes to serve your turne withall And when God promiseth to circumcise the hearts of his people and thereby to make them love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soule hee doth not say he will constraine them to repent Deut. 30. 6. So when hee promiseth to take away their stony heart and give them an heart of flesh and put his owne Spirit within them and cause them to walke in his statutes and judgements and to do them Ezech. 36. 27. hee doth not signifie that hee will constraine them For God can change any mans will without constraining Nay in making them willing it is contradiction to say he doth constraine them to be willing for constraint is against the will but it is impossible a man should bee willing against his will yet this you obtrude upon your adversaries as though they maintained that God by his power did make them repent against their wils Neither yet can we like that other extreame which you approve that men must first be brought to a willingnesse and then God makes them repent For to will to repent is to repent for repentance is the very change of the will Neither can you in any sober manner expound unto us how God is said to make men repent after they are made willing hereunto And yet the very will to repent is the worke of God as who it is that worketh in us both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure Philip. 2. 13. not by such attractions onely you speake of though you are loath to betray your Pelagian Tenet though you expresse the threatning of judgement and thereby imply what you meane by attraction of love to wit the promises of reward Now this apparantly is not to worke it for this is onely suadere and suadere is not to worke it And the case is cleere even by your opinion that God doth not work it as oft as he doth exhort unto it which yet he should if suadere and hortari thereunto were to worke it And indeed suadere hortari ut resipiscamus is onely to exhort and perswade that wee would worke our selves unto repentance And in this sense to interpret S. Paul where he saith God workes in us both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure was of old the practise of the Pelagians as S. Austin hath discovered long agoe de grat Christi cont Pelag. Calest cap. 10. For thus Pelagius plaid the commentator upon S. Paul Operatur in nobis velle quod bonum est velle quod sanctum est dum nos terrenis cupiditatibus deditos mutorum more animalium tantummodo praesentia diligentes futurae gloriae magnitudine praemiorum pollicitatione succendit dum revelatione sapientiae in desiderium sui stupentem suscitat voluntatem dum nobis suadet omne quod bonum est And therefore he urgeth Pelagius to confesse another manner of grace then this if he will be accompted a Christian Ibid cap. 11. Nos eam gratiam volumus isti aliquando fateantur qua futurae gloriae magnitudo non solum promittitur verumetiam creditur us speratur Nec solum revelatur sapientia verumetiam amatur nec suadetur solum omne quod bonum est sed persuadetur hanâ— debet Pelagius gratiam consiteri si vult non modo vocari sed esse Christianus And thus to circumcise our hearts in causing us to love him and to walke in his wayes and to keepe his statutes and judgments and to doe them this I hope is not to strangle us yet here is no violent operation in all this For Dum non modâ—versas à vera side sed adversas verae fidei voluntates convertit ex volentibus nolentes facit it is so farre from violence that the will rejoyceth that God hath thus reformed it we do but as Scriptures
this while you have beene as it were in trimming your instrument and it seemes not to bee yet in tune the first musick is so harsh and without all harmony I cannot devise a construction thereof to carry any tolerable sense But the sentence following seemes to bee of the same nature where you call that Revenue which before you called Charge very incongruously as if a mans revenues were a burthen unto him whereof he did exonorate himselfe Or if it bee spoken of Bursers accounts in Colledges the incomes are not to them that are charged and put to exonerate themselves but to the Colledges this at the best is but a gamboll le ts come to the naked truth Though mans love to his dearest friend bee in respect of Gods love to us but saint and his power small yet because his love to justice is much lesse heâ— oft-times effects that for his temporall good which God though infinite in power doth not effect for those whom he infinitely loves I thinke I may bee bold to say that this is infinitely false God loved Iacob and hated Esau now all whom God hates as he hated Esau he damnes and all those whom he loves as hee loved Iacob he saves yet this love was but infinite and what love of man or Angel vicious or vertuous can effect the like Yet God blessed both Esau and Ismael with temporall blessings and what friend by good courses or lewd courses was able to equall it what creature can equall that temporall good that God affords to any reprobate for hee gives him his being and all that hee enjoyes nay what man or Angell can doe ought for him in the effecting whereof God hath not a greater hand then the man or Angell himselfe Yet you suppose that God infinitely loves the very reprobates It is familiar with you to suppose that God loved Esau and that infinitely of whom the Scripture professeth that God hated him Your suppositions are fat and well fed but your arguments are more leane and ill favoured then the leane kine of Pharaoh Yet I will be content to helpe you a little in the way of argument Gods love saith Aquinas is in respect of designing some good to his creature now God doth will temporall good to the very reprobates and that in such a manner as cannot be supplied unto them but by power infinite In no other sense doe I finde that it may bee tollerably avouched that God loves them infinitely though you are pleased to suppose it often It is untrue that his grants made to man must undergoe the examination of justice for it is law full for him to doe what hee will with his owne to bestow being and gracious being and consequently glorious being on whom he will for both grace and glory is executed on man in the way of mercy and hee hath mercy on whom hee will And though he hath revealed unto us by what rules hee will proceede in pronouncing the sentence of salvation or condemnation yet hath he revealed unto us no rules according whereunto hee proceedeth in giving grace unto some and denying grace unto others And both Suarez and Vasquez though opposite in other points about the justice of God concurrently professe that there is no justice in God towards man but upon presuposition of his will And those unchangeable rules you speake of for confining God in the execution of his power according to his gracious will are like Castles in the aire that have no foundations and fit for nothing but to discover the new world in the Moone and to ease the man there of his burthen that travelled so long with a bush at his backe God may convert whom hee will and consequently save whom he will as the Holy Ghost teacheth us this is no fiction Quis porro saith Austine tam impie desipiat ut dicat Deum malas hominum voluntates quas voluerit quando voluerit ubi voluerit in bonum non posse convertere Who doth so impiously doat as to say that God cannot convert the evill wills of men whom hee will when hee will and where hee will Yet you say as much as this comes to when you tell us of unchangeable rules of justice restraining God from converting and changing the hearts of men without all feare of imputation either of dotage or impiety God you say loves justice more then mankinde God loves himselfe better then hee loves mankinde or all his creatures for he made all things for himselfe Prov. 16. 4. But as for any justice in God that limits his will I know none neither are you able to prove any as I am verily perswaded What you have hitherto delivered I thinke I have not suffered in any materiall part to passe unsaluted unanswered CHAP. XVII The truth and ardency of Gods love unto such as perish justified by our Saviour and S. Paul I Would your propositions were onely paradoxes but indeed we have weighed them in the ballance and found them plaine untruthes yet what those propositions are which you intimate when you say These are no paradoxes but plaine truth I am to seeke neither can I tell whereto to referre it but to a point which you aime at and insinuate rather then expresse as if you feared plaine dealing most For that which you undertooke to shew in the former Chapter was onely this In what sense God may bee said to have done all that he could doe for his vineyard yet your ensuing discourse throughout hath very little correspondency thereunto But the point you aime at is to perswade that God doth all that hee could doe for all reprobates and that hee doth as much for them as for his elect and the difference betweene the elect and reprobates ariseth rather from their free wills then from any different dispensation of Gods providence in giving that grace unto the one which hee denies unto the other A most foule opinion and therefore no marvell if you are content to travaile long in the delivery of such a monster and seeme to desire that your Readers forwardnesse in understanding your meaning should deliver you thereof and if his propitious affections should be as ready to embrace it upon your weake suggestions the whole businesse shall be very preposterously carried Yet unlesse this conceit of yours bee admitted you tell us Wee shall hardly finde any true sense or good meaning in Gods protestations of sorrowes for his peoples plagues or in his expostulations of their unthankefulnesse or in his kinde invitations of them to repentance which never repent or in his tender profer of salvation to those that perish Whensoever you shall charge us with any of these like places if a true sense and good meaning of them shall be found by us though hardly without the acknowledgment of your foule Tenets wee shall not faile to obtaine wherewithall to answer you Certainly sorrow is not incident to God no not for the plagues of his elect and therefore cannot be
manner I confesse for your impugnation is not like to do any great harme save onely to your selfe Our Saviour was the Sonne of man as well as hee was the Sonne of God and made under the law and therefore was bound to bee as compassionate to his people as Ieremy was Ier. 13. 17. But if you will not heare this my soule shall weepe in secret for your pride and mine eye shall weep and drop down tears because the Lords slock is carried away captive So our Saviour wept over Ierusalem saying Jf thou hadst knowne even then aâ— the least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eies Luk. 19. 42. You aske whether hee spake this as man or whether the spirit doth not say the same and I aske whether your wits were your own when you made such a question Who could weepe and speake but man and how could man weepe or speake this but as man Hath God any heart to be filled with woe or eies to bee filled with teares yet the Spirit moved him to speake this So if any Prophet had said it as hee might have said it the Spirit of God had moved him hereunto And when Ieremy said My soule shall weepe in secret for your pride and mine eye shall drop downe teares the Spirit of God moved him to utter this for Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1. 21. The truth is the words are congruous to him both as God and as man but the sorrow of heart and teares of eies wherewith it was uttered are onely agreable to the nature of man How doe you prove that he that spake this spake nothing but words of Spirit and life because our Saviour saith Ioh. 6. 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speake unto you are spirit and life will it therefore follow that all that he spake was spirit and life Suppose it were so would it herehence follow that these words were not spoken by him as man Then belike when he said I thirst this also being words of Spirit and life as it needs must if all that he spake were spirit and life hee spake not this as man likewise when hee said My soule is heavy unto death and on the crosse My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee these words were not his words as hee was man and though hee spake nothing but what the Father gave him in commandement to speake yet herehence it followeth not that therefore he spake them not as man For by just proportion of reason if this were admitted it would follow that hee spake nothing as man no not that I have desired to eate this Passeover with you nor that How was it that hee sought after mee wist hee not that I must goe about my Fathers businesse nor that My Father is greater then I T is true His bowels of compassion were freely extended towards them in exact conformitie not so much to the love of God as you discourse at pleasure according to your owne extravagant conceits of the love of God equally extended to the elect and reprobate as to the will of God for being made under the law he was bound to the like compassion commiseration as to pray for his persecutors so to mourne for the judgements of God upon his brethren according to the flesh yet one word by the way concerning this Was the measure of Ierusalems iniquity at this time filled up or no It seemes it should be so in your computation for now it s said The things that belonged unto their peace were now hid from their eyes When should the doore of repentance be shut upon them if not at such a time and in such a case as this If so then by your owne doctrine Gods love ceaseth towards them as but in the former sentence you signified consequently Christs love and compassion should cease also if it were but in conformity to Gods love but rather it was in conformity to Gods law as I have shewed God the Father having made him in subjection to the law and consequently was he bound to mourne for them as well as to pray for them for he was by vertue of the law to love his neighbour as himselfe This incongruity as it seemes of yours you observed and therefore as I guesse you added that his bowels of compassion were restrained also by the same conformity and though you tell us that from different motions and distractions occasioned from the indissolvable union of his divisible soule this is your owne language with these two attributes of the indivisible nature to wit love and justice his teares were squeized out Yet neither doe you tell us how his bowels of compassion were restrained or wherein neither doe you make knowne unto us what these different motions and distractions in our Saviour were Neither doth the story of the Gospell afford us any discovery of any such different motions distractions you talke of But to the end hee continued in his bowells of compassion towards them as it appeares by his prayers for them upon the crosse for indeede his first comming was not to condemne the world but to save the world But in the old Testament God himselfe as God expresseth his desires of his peoples obedience O that my people had hearkened unto me This you will have to bee understood in proper speech Piscator by a figure of speech Talis optatio saith hee Deotribuitur per anthropopathiam Utri creditis With Piscator concurreth Iunius also And wee have reason for it because whatsoever God wills that brings hee to passe both in heaven and earth how much more what hee desires and that ardently Yet you keepe your course contrary to reason and authority in attributing desires unto God of such things which never come to passe which Austine long agoe professed to be all one with the denying of Gods omnipotencie And not content with this you most ridiculously contradict your selfe and call it also an unquenchable desire wheras your selfe have often professed that the filling up the measure of mans iniquity doth quench this desire in God thereby making God not onely impotent but mutable also Israel might have truely said Was there ever any love like unto this love wherewith the Lord embraced mee But what Israel even the true Israel of God wee say but the true Israel of God cannot say so the elect of God cannot say so according to your Tenet for as much as you make the love of God towards reprobates to bee as great as the love of God towards the elect yet as if you strained your words you call it the excessive fervency of his loving kindenesse to wit even towards them that perish and adde by way of Parenthesis that Gods will is infinite as if you had a minde to inferre thereby that his love towards them were
meaning comes to this that God would never have suffered them thus to have walked in their owne wayes and to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath if so be they had repented Now the question is whether they had power to repent or no you seeme to imply they had but you dare not expresse so much because you see how manifestly contradictious that were to the text it selfe where it is expresly said But thou after the hardnesse of thine heart which cannot repent treasurest up wrath against the day of wrath So that you what by taking up pieces of Scripture at pleasure and leaving out pieces as you list make up a patcht coat contrary to the Scripture which yet you commend unto us as Scripture it selfe Nay what will you say if God did not so much as admonish them to repent Doth not the same Apostle plainly signifie so much Act. 17. 30. where hee saith And God regarded not the time of this ignorance but now hee admonisheth all men every where to repent Againe consider I pray you what is to be accounted the time when this ceasure deserved to be fastened upon them namely of despising the riches of his bounty It seemes by your former discourse it is not till they have filled up the measure of their iniquity for till then Gods infinite love was towards them according to your opinion and hee did not give them over to their owne lests Now I pray consider did hee not even afore this time suffer the Gentiles to walk in their own waies according to the Apostles meaning Act. 14. 16. although as the same Apostle saith even at that time Hee left not himselfe without witnesse giving them raine and fruitfull seasons filling their hearts with food and gladnesse And this you take hold of in the next place and tell us that these were unquestionable earnests of Gods everlasting love and to prove it you adde by way of reason for thou so lovedst the world still holding up your deyout Soliloquies as if you would enchant your Readers with an affected straine of devotion that thou gavest thine onely begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish If this be not like capping of verses I doe not know what is for will it follow by any Logicall method that because the giving of Christ for everlasting life to all that believe in him is an evidence of Gods love to all therefore the giving of raine from heaven and fruitfull seasons is an unquestionable earnest of Gods everlasting love to all Yet I grant it is an evidence of Gods love as touching the preservation of their state temporall but you urge it as an evidence of Gods love as touching the state of their soules spirituall and eternall otherwise your discourse were nothing to the purpose Yet to speake according to the Apostles drift in that place hee proposeth them not as witnesses of his love but as of his providence which wee know extends even to bruit beasts and to the very lillies of the field Onely man is capable of deserving this testimony of divine providence and so accordingly should be moved to seeke the Lord and to worship him as God who governes all and provides for all and not as a corruptible thing thus wee interpret the Apostle Act. 14. 16. according to the Apostle Act. 17. 27. and Rom. 1. 23. and not at randome as you doe fashioning his meaning in such a manner as may best accord with your extravagant opinions Lastly who seeth not that if these be unquestionable earnests of Gods love towards them then notwithstanding they have filled up the measure of their iniquity yet Gods love continueth towards them the same still and therefore cannot be said to give them over to their owne lusts and to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath For these and the like temporall blessings they enjoy still and that in greater measure then is usually the portion of Gods owne deare children To conclude this wee make no doubt but that if all and every one should believe in Christ all and every one should bee saved by Christ. But the question is whether God gives faith to all it is apparant he doth not but onely to those whom hee hath predestinated Rom. 8. 30. to those whom hee hath ordained to everlasting life Act. 13. 45. to such as shall be saved Act. 2. last Perhaps your meaning is that though God doth not give faith to all but only to some the reason is because some fit themselves for faith and others doe not And I verily believe this is your opinion but it seemes you are ashamed to professe it and speake it out plainly Yet the texts mentioned are directly against you which confine the giving of faith not to mans disposition but to Gods predestination like as those other also Rom. 9. God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will hee hardeneth and it is not of him that willeth or of him that runnes but of God that sheweth mercy and 2 Tim. 1. 9. the Apostle professeth that God calleth us not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace To the prosecuting of every which place and making it good against any exceptions that you shall bring I shall be willing to condescend so long as God affords mee life and opportunity But as yet you dissemble your Tenet and play least in sight and discover your meaning onely by insinuation I know there is no greater argument of Gods love then the giving of his Sonne whence it manifestly followeth that unlesse Gods love to reprobates bee as great as his love to his elect Christ was not given to the reprobates like as our Saviour signifieth that Hee sanctified himselfe unto his death and passion not for the world but for those for whom he praied which were partly those whom God had already giuen him and partly those who hereafter should believe through their word Yet I confesse you are audacious enough to resist this argument and openly to professe that Gods love to the reprobate is as great as his love to the elect which no Arminian was ever yet knowne to professe yet you take upon you to prove that this love was tendred to all A strange phrase which I thinke was never heard of before as if love were like an ointment in a box that might be offered and received if a man would Of tendering grace I have heard to wit the grace of remission of sinnes and salvation upon our beliefe but of tendring love I never heard And of the tendring of this grace in Christ unto all that heare it preached who ever doubted For this is no more then to say that It is tendred unto all to whom it is tendred And are you well in your wits to addresse your selfe to the proving of this with some notable argument which should be like a thunderbolt and therefore no great marvell if some great noise preceed it But
they have to their singular commendation that they suppressed Arminianisme that Canker-worme of Gods grace and of his soveraignety over his creatures banished the greatest patrons thereof out of their territories This inartificiall argument of yours I thought deserved the canvassing and therefore I have spent so many lines in discovering the rottennesse of it Now to proceed you aske Who would not be willing to be saved if he were fully perswaded that God did will his salvation in particular When we read this I muse at the contrariant disposition of our adversaries for when wee discourse of election absolute the Arminian party cryeth out against us as if hereby wee tooke a course to make men most carelesse of their salvation you though you shake hands with the Arminian party oppose in a direct contrarious manner and say Who would not bee willing to bee saved which is as much as to say Who would not bee carefull of his salvation if hee were fully perswaded that God did will his salvation in particular Your meaning is every one would be carefull of it So then all that are of your minde are most carefull of their salvation so that it is opposite to the Arminian Tenent to harden himselfe or humour himselfe in any profane course or lewde course of life All such must needs turne Saints here on earth which if it were true t is to be feared they would be accounted Puritans and then their opinions would bee liked so much the worse for that Touching Gods protestation that hee will not the death of any but the repentance of all we have said enough and shewed how you vary from the most authenticall translation of our Churches And it is apparant that God neither gives repentance nor life to all and to say that God wills any thing otherwise then by his will of commandement which is improperly though usually called his will which cometh not to passe Austine long agoe professed was as much as to deny God to be omnipotent How sorily you have performed the justifying of your doctrine in this particular by the authoritie of the Church of England wee have likewise shewed in its proper place And if it bee true that if this doctrine of yours were believed all would unfainedly endeavour with fervent alacrity to bee truly happy then it must needs bee that like as your selfe doe so every Arminian doth unfainedly endeavour with fervent alacrity words enough to bee truely happy So that a profane person like Esau that sold his birthright for a messe of pottage is not likely to be found amongst the Arminian generation And I doubt not but a part of your owne unfained endeavours with fervent alacrity in this kinde consists in writing such books as these containing so many blasphemies both against the nature and against the grace of God For proofe whereof I appeale to the consideration and judgement of every indifferent Reader that shall peause the answer of mine thereunto You tell us Gods love and goodnesse is so great that he cannot passe any act whereby any of his creatures should be debarred either from being like him in love or goodnesse Thus you dictate magisterially more like a Prophet then a Pastor of Gods Church But though you bring no reason for what you say I will trie whether I cannot bring something against it And because it is proposed of his creatures in generall I will begin with the Angels If this be true then the Devils are not excluded by any act of God from being like him in love and goodnesse What hinders then but that they may be like him in love and goodnesse if they will and that they may will it for is not their will as free as mans in the state of his corruption Secondly God hath decreed that all that are descended from Adam shall be born in originall corruption also he hath ordained that many thousands of them shall die in their infancie as well out of the Church as within the Church Now let any man judge whether by vertue of these decrees of God they bee not utterly excluded from being like unto God in love and goodnesse after an ordinary manner whereof alone you speake Againe all that shall be damned God hath ordained unto damnation Now let any man judge whether by vertue of this decree and upon supposition thereof it is not impossible that such should be saved Of those who are not predestinated unto life God brings none unto wholesome and spirituall repentance If God brings none of them unto true repentance then he hath decreed to bring none of them unto true repentance and by vertue of this decree they are debarred from being like unto God in love and goodnes which I prove thus None can be like unto God in goodnesse without true repentance and none can repent except God gives repentance therefore God having decreed not to give them repentance by vertue of this decree they are debarred from repentance and consequently from being like unto God in goodnesse You close this Section with an Alas the effect whereof is that by your opposites doctrine a mispersuasion is wrought in most men of his goodnesse towards them and consequently your meaning is they grow carelesse of their salvation Because as before we heard from you carefulnesse of salvation is an herbe that grows onely in the gardens of Arminianisme And what is this dangerous doctrine Surely it is very pretily expressed by you to wit in teaching that God doth oftentimes dispose his blessings of this life not as undoubted pledges of a better Well then to say that God doth dispense his blessings of this life unto Turkes and Sarazens not as pledges of a better is in danger to make Christians conceive that God is not good to them But perhaps you meane it onely in respect of those who pertake of these blessings Now I professe I never read any of our divines make use of any such consideration in this argument you love to shape opposites opinion after your own fancy And yet the truth is that according to Scripture evidence temporall blessings are so farre from being generally the pledges of a better life as that they are noted out unto us in Scripture to be the character of the wicked namely to have their portion in this life Woe bee to you rich saith our Saviour for you have received your consolation And they are the poore of this world for the most part that God hath chosen Iac. 2. 5. God hath chosen the poore of this world rich in faith and heires of salvation And on the other side the prosperity of the wicked is such as hath been a scandal to the children of God as we read Ps. 73. David himself took offence at it until he went into the sanctuary of God then he understood their end vers 17. Surely saith he thou hast set them in slipery places and castest them downe into desolation how suddenly are they destroyed perished and
nisi credamus periclitatur ipsum nostrae fidei confessionis initium qua nos in Deum Patrem omnipotentem credere consitemur Neque enim veraciter ob aliud vocatur omnipotens nisi quia quicquid vult potest nec voluntate cujusquam creaturae voluntatis omnipotentis impeditur effectus The other tenet as foule as the former is this that God changeth For undoubtedly at this time he hath no purpose to save the Divells and damned soules of men therfore if ever he had any such purpose it is now changed and consequently God is changed himselfe You have no way to avoyde this but by saying that Gods purpose you speake of is not absolute but conditionall as before you upbraided your opposites for maintaining Gods decree of electtion to be absolute Yet the Arminians at the conference of Hage utterly declined the maintenance of Gods decree of election to be conditionall Yet the shifre will not serve your turne being too narrow a leafe to cover the shamefull nakednesse of your assertion For to purpose conditionally is no more a purpose of salvation then of condemnation which is no way an evidence of Gods love to any man in particular the issue wherof is indifferent to be condemnation as well as salvation But you hitherto in this respect have insisted upon the maintenance of Gods love to all and every one The beginning which God found out for mankind was a being indifferent to stand or fall which indifferency fitted him no more for salvation in case he stood then for damnation in case he fell save that God was withall resolved to provide him of a Saviour upon his fall that should be as tabula post naufragium but to whome only to these whome he loved as he loved Iacob not unto those whome he hated as he hated Esau. For as he made all thinges for himselfe so also he made the wicked against the day of evill and ever that for himselfe also Why Gods love in respect of creation should be accoumpted his infinite love I know no reason considering that the meanest creature was partaker of that love as well as man And as he gave being unto all things so he maintaynes being to Divells and damned men and ever will doe We are knit unto God by faith as well as by love and of the two faith is the more noble as being the Fountaine and cause of love If God out of love be sayd to make us what we are it may as well be sayd that out of love he made all other creatures what they are If you reply that they were made out of his love to us for as much as they were made for our use and service In like sort I answeare that it was out of love to himselfe that he made us for as much as he made us for his owne use and service yea and all things else that were made For he made all things for himselfe In like sort if God made us what we are because he was lovinge to us he made also all creatures what they are because he was loving to them Yet by your leave He made all things for himselfe And this is the foure and twenty Elders acknowledgment Revela 4. 11. Thou art worthy o Lord to receive glory and honour and power For thou hast created all thinges and for thy wills sake they are and have bin created You say true where faith and love is found there is assurance of Gods favour towards us to set both his wisdome power on worke to make all things worke together for our good and so to preserve us to his heavenly Kingdome But the question is whether this faith and love be the workes of nature and wherof all are capable by power of nature or whether they are the meere fruites of Gods grace afforded to some denyed to others according to the good pleasure of his owne will as who hath mercie on whome hee will and whom he will he hardneth CHAP. XIX How God of a most lovinge Father becomes a severe and inexorable judge NOw because you cannot but perceave how this pincheth sore upon the unchangeable nature of God Therfore you spend two chapters in the clearinge of this difficulty wherin if you satisfie your selfe it is well As for my part I am so farre from receaving satisfaction that I am utterly to seeke in understandinge the course you take to give satisfaction Whether anger hate or jealosie have any seate in the omnipotent Majestie is litle to the purpose But to shew how God of a most loving Father becomes a severe and inexorable judge without any change this alone is to the purpose For the very māner of proposing it doth imply the ceasing to be a loving Father which he was but becomes a severe inexorable judge which he was not For to bee a loving Father and a severe judge all at once is not of a lovinge Father to become a severe judge And though this were granted you yet it is not congruous to your tenet to maintayne that God was an inxorable judge to any before the measure of his iniquity be full And as then he first begines to become an inexorable judge so it is requisite that then he ceaseth to be a loving Father And albeit you are loath to acknowledge this because it doth so manifestly imply a change in the nature of God yet you must be driven hitherto whether you will or no unlesse you maintayne that still God continueth a most loving Father unto the Divells and ever shall be both unto them and to all damned persons notwithstandinge the wrath of God continue upon them to everlastinge damnation And it is a very strange dialect to acknowledge that God is a most loving Father unto damned persons especially considering that in Scripture phrase we are sayd to be the Sonnes of God by faith in Christ Jesus Gala. 3. 26. And indeede if you can make good that to inflict everlastinge damnation doth consort with infinite mercy then you shall obteyne not that God of a most loving Father doth become an inexorable judge but that at once he is both a most loving father and a most inexorable judge also As for anger whether it be in God or no or whether Lactantius hath carryed himselfe well or no in this Argument it is nothing at all to this present businesse The question is whether God ardently desiring the salvation of any man doth at length cease to desire it or whether still he continueth to will and ardently desire a mans salvation notwithstandinge that he purposeth to inflict or actually doth inflict upon him condemnation For this seemes to be the intended issue of your discourse as when you undertake to illustrate how extreame severitie may stand with the fervency of fatherly unfeyned love As much as to say that God loves the Devills and loves the damned and continueth the fervency of fatherly unfeyned love towards them notwithstanding that he doth inflict everlasting condemnation
upon them and because this love you accoumpt all one with mercy and that it is infinite in like sort infinite mercy may consort as before you speake with extreame severity Hence it followeth that all are vessels of merey the reprobate as well as the elect only here is the difference the elect are only vessells of mercy but the reprobate are both vessells of mercy and vessells of wrath also Now I demaund what is the fruite of this love and of this mercy of God towards the damned Can you devise any fruite of this but the preservation of them in being And may you not as well say that he loves at this day every creature in as much as he preserveth them And consider I pray doe you call this fatherly love and doe you accoumpt this the fervency of fatherly love And doth either Scripture or Eclesiasticall phrase allow you in this Yet speake your minde plainly and say that Gods will to preserve his creatures may stand with extreame severity used towards them and no man will contend with you at all in this But then consider whether you are well in your witts when you enter upon the proofe of this as of some rare notion when the issue of your meaning falleth upon a most vulgar conceyte and explication And whether this be to proove that God of a most lovinge Father becomes a severe and inexorable judge when the only fruit of his love is the holding of his childrens noses unto the grindstone of his wrath and inplacable displeasure Yet let us take notice of your illustration 2. Here wee have a large discourse of Manlius Torquatus and his severe execution upon his owne Sonne for transgressing the commaundement of his Generall therefore Martiall lawe was executed by the father being at that time Generall upon his owne sonne But were it all true that you discourse in justifying that fathers severitie upon his child Yet you miserably forget your selfe when you say That excessive love which he bare unto his person whilst his hopefull beginnings did seeme to promise an accomplishment of his Martiall vertues turnes into extreame severity and indignation after hee proves transgressor For this is not to shew how extreame severitie may stand with the fervency of fatherly unfeyned love but rather to shew how fatherly love ceaseth and severity and indignation comes in the place thereof This is rather answerable to the theame proposed how a most loving Father becomes a severe judge and answerable to the former discourse of Gods withdrawing his goodnesse from those that have once filled up the measure of theire iniquity But because in this manner it cannot be applyed unto God without acknowledging mutability in the nature of God as well as in the nature of men Therefore as I conceave your pretence was to illustrate how extreame severity may stand with the fervency of fatherly love though indeede you performe nothing lesse but rather shew how that fatherly love ceased as being turned into extreame severity and indignation Yet it seemes you did but forget your selfe in this And that your drift was to shew how notwithstanding his love towards his sonne continuing the same yet in a greater love of Martiall dicipline he caused his head to be striken of But this also will nothing serve your turne For notwithstanding this we see a manifest alteration For Manlius conceaved not any such indignation against his sonne till now never entertayned any will to cut him off till the noyse of his transgression came unto his eares All which cannot bee sayd of God as it must be if the case be alike without acknowledging as manifest alteration and innovation in the nature of God There was a time wherin Manlius desired his sonnes life and prosperitie there was a time when he willed and commaunded him to be put to death It was impossible that both those should be at once in Manlius as implying flat contradiction Yet you place them both in God eyther at once and so imply contradiction or successively and so introduce alteration into the nature of God Manlius his purpose and will was changed upon the fact of his sonne and his sonne was consumed by it But God is the Lord and is not changed and therfore the sonnes of Iacob are not consumed So Selencus never intertayned any thought or purpose of pulling out his sonnes eyes til he was found guiltie of adulterie this cannot be sayd of God without subjecting him to variablenesse and somewhat more then shadowe of change And therefore though Manlius and Selencus be justified in theire courses and God justified in his as no man makes question whether God be just in that which he doth yet this proves not that God is exempt from alteration one way in making a will to damne a man succeede in God his will to save him or your selfe from contradiction another way in making God at one and the same time both to will a mans salvation and at the same time to will the same mans condemnation yea and to inflict it also And looke by what reason God may at one and the same time will both the salvation and condemnation of the same man by the same reason he may at the same time both damne and save the same man For if you say he wills to save him as he is a man and wills to damne him as he is a sinner by the same reason you may say that he can both save him as he is a man and damne him as he is a sinner For the contradiction is as manifest in the one as in the other Yet there is a greate deale of difference betweene the course of Manlius Torquatus and the courses of God For Manlius did not cut of his sonnes heade but for an actuall and personall transgression of his sonne but God causeth many thousand Infants to perish in originall sinne through no actuall and personall transgression of theire owne What place can you find for that fervency of Gods fatherly love towards them Agayne God hath power in the course of his graciouse providence to keepe men from those transgressions which make them incurre condemnation Now let any man judge whether Manlius would not have kept his sonne from transgression in this kinde if he coulde Thirdly Manlius was not able to provide that the strictnesse of Military discipline should not be remitted by relaxation of the punishment of his sonne but God is able to procure that no discipline shall bee the more remitted by reason of his shewinge mercy on whome he will Nay there is mercy with thee sayth the Prophet that thou mayst be feared Lastly Manlius had no power to pardon whome he would without partiality but God hath power to have mercy on whome he will yea and to harden whome he will and that without injustice or partiality Yet I am content to consider the course you take in justifying Manlius First you acquaint us with your persuasions and lay them for
judge there is no chang or alteration at all in God but only in men and in theire actions Gods will is allwayes fullfilled even in such as goe most against it How it may stand with the justice of God to punish transgressours temporall with torments everlasting THe objection that by your Tenet the nature of God is made subject to change and alteration your selfe proposed in the former chapter but you addresse your selfe to make answere therunto in this yet not without fetching a greate compasse which inclines rather to a worke of circumvention then of satisfaction Love you say is the Mother of all Gods workes and the fertility of his power and essence that is the fruitfull Mother of all things and the power and essence of God by love becomes the fruitfull Mother of all things Yet to shew how apt you are to forget your selfe which usually falleth out whē men discourse quicquid in buccam venerit in the 8. chap. and pag. 91. you told us as a quaint conceyte that we may conceave wisedome to be the Father and power the Mother of all Gods works of wonder and I thinke you accoumpt few or no works more wonderfull then the creation And yet that which you say here I preferre before that which you had formerly expressed there because the love of God hath stricter sociation with the will of God then eyther wisedome or power But you have not discovered unto us if love be the Mother what is to be accoumpted the Father Or if you referre this to the loving will and affection of God why this should be accoumpted the Mother rather then the Father of the works of God Agayne we have earthly parents as Father and Mother which are indewed with wills and loves and other affections and it is out of all course to say that theire love or theire will is the Mother of theire children especially consideringe that will is found in the Father as well as in the Mother yea and love also if not in greater measure But I deny not but that God made the world out of love but out of love to whome to the creature Nothing lesse I should thinke as before I have shewed but rather out of love to himselfe as Prov. 16. 4. God made all things for himselfe And greate reason God who is the sovereigne Creator of all things should be the supreame end of all things But let this passe Your next sentence is more serious and ponderous but very preposterous and unsound First it containes a generall proposition with the reason of it and then a qualification or limitation thereof by way of exception unto a certayne time The proposition is this No part of our nature can be excluded from all fruits of his love Now the fruits of Gods love you make to be not only grace and glory but our temporall being also and the preservation therof For you make creation to be a fruit of Gods love Now this proposition so generall to my understanding is utterly untrue For not only God is not bound to give grace and glory unto any For they are merely gratuita dona and it is lawfull to doe what he will with his owne in bestowing it on whome he will and denyinge it to whome he will And therefore the Apostle testifieth that He hath mercy on whome he will and whome he will he hardneth But more then this as God was not bound to create any so neyther can any thing save his owne will binde him to preserve any thing in being But as he deales with other creatures so could he deale with men even take theire temporall being from them without any purpose ever to restore it and not only the being of theire bodyes but of theire soules also turning both into nothing Yet thus could God deale with men and Angells were they never so innocent never so holy as Arminius confesseth But let us consider the reasons wherupon you ground this Now these are two the one because God hath created our natures Now the unsoundnesse of this reason appeares by this that God hath created other things as well as man Yet who will conclude herehence that God must needes preserve them and not exclude them from this fruite of his love Your other reason is because God cannot change and this is as weake as the former For like as God though at one time he gives us life another time takes life from us yet all this is done by him without any change in himselfe like as in course of nature though he causeth changes and alterations in the seasons of the yeare in the wether in the heavens in the earth in the Sea in the states and Kingdoms of the World and in the bodyes of all creatures yet without any change at all in himselfe yea though he set an end to this visible World this can inferre no variablenesse in God so if he should take all manner of being from men and Angells and so exclude them from all fruits of his love Yet should all this come to passe without any shadow of change in God Yet you have a third reason which is this Love is the nature of God as Creator You could not be ignorant that God did freely create the World and therfore that it was not naturall to God to create it therfore you say that Love is the nature of God as Creator the sense and meaning whereof I comprehende not And I have made it already appeare that though God creats a thing yet is he not therby bound to preserve it any longer then he seeth good and what other sense you imply when you say Love is Gods nature as a Creator I discerne not You make creation to be a fruite of Gods love it is very incongruous to say that this love of God wherby he creats any thing belongs unto him as a Creator But rather creation of things belongs unto him as he loves them For fitter it is that the effect should be thus modified by the cause then the cause by the effect in denominating any subject Who ever sayd that a man was rationalis quatenus risibilis and not rather risibilis quatenus rationalis But let us proceede to the limitation of this your proposition and that is this No part of our nature can be excluded from all fruits of his love untill the sinister use of that contingency wherwith he indued it or the improvement of inclinations naturally bent unto evill come to that hight as to imply a contradiction for infinite justice or equity to vouchsafe them any favour First touching your meaning in this then touching the manner how you expresse this meaning your meaning in briefe is this No part of our nature can be utterly excluded from all fruits of Gods love untill men have filled up the measure of theire iniquity Of this your opinion I have spoken often I hope it shall be sufficient now to consider the reason whereupon you ground it And that is
willingly enter upon so flat a contradictiō to such a discourse of Kinge Iames in the dayes of Kinge Charles and that so soone after his death If you write only concerning men of ripe yeares you must have a care to limit your propositions accordingly and not to give them longer wings then is fitt In the next place you touch upon a distinction much talked of and as much advanced by some as cryed downe by others Yet both Scotus and Durandus give a tolerable and Aquinas with the Dominicans after him an orthodoxe interpretation therof though neyther suitable to the minde of Damascen commonly reputed the Father of it Yet looke what in this kind is wanting in them is supplyed by Arminiensis who gives both an orthodoxe construction thereof and that also in conformity to the opinion of Damascene of whose text he gives a very sound and orthodoxe interpretation and the more orthodoxe the more opposite to theire constructions who with greate cry of words draw it to the countenancing of theire Arminian Tenets without cause Love you say is the fruite of Gods antecedent will wrath and severity are the proper effects of his consequent will Fruite and effect you make all one as with good reason you may Now what I pray you is this effect which you call love You seeme to intimate that they are the effects of creation as when you say Every particular faculty of soule or body is a pledge undoubted of Gods love Yet faculties of soules and bodyes are found in beasts but Gods antecedent will in Damascene is referred wholly unto men Neyther doth Damascene at all referre it to the worke of creation but makes it to be that wherby God will have all to be saved Liberty of will is proper to man in distinction from beasts but who seeth not that this indifferently makes him obnoxius unto damnation as well as capable of salvation Then when you say wrath and severity is the effect of Gods consequent will what doe you meane by wrath Is it eyther a resolution to take vengeance or the execution of vengeance it selfe I think you take it for the execution of vengeance it selfe Now there is an execution of reward also properly opposite unto this which whether it be the same love you speake of it became you to expresse so much or whether you conceave it to be different yet it were fit you should take notice of it and acknowledge that this is a fruite of Gods consequent will as well as wrath that as effectually presupposing obedience as this disobedience and that love in rewarding is every way as infallibly consequent to the obeying of Gods will revealed as wrath is of our neglecting and despising it A full explication of this distinction you promise in good time how well you performe it we may in good time consider with Gods helpe Next you enter upon another forme of the same distinction as you pretend and you suffer it to fly with one winge For you talke of Gods absolute will which you seeme to confound with Gods antecedent will but as touching the member congruously opposite you leave us to seeke for that But as it is we are to consider it Gods absolute will was you say to have men capable of Heaven and Hell of joyes and miseryes immortall This cannot be understoode of Gods consequent will for this absolute will is indifferent to end in the bestowing of reward or punishment and is immediately terminated only in making man capable of eyther but his consequent will is not so indifferent For the only effect thereof you mention to be wrath and severity and this presupposeth rather then causeth capablenesse Neyther can this absolute will be the antecedent will of God according to Damascens meaning For the antecedent will in Damascene is only referred to the will of God wherby he wills mans salvation but this absolute will is you say to have men capable of Heaven and Hell To helpe this you tell us That this absolute will whose possible objects are two is in the first place set on mans eternall joy But you doe not proceede to shew on what it is set in the next place as if by such like incongrueties you desired rather to confounde your reader then to satisfie him Yet by the tenour of your discourse you leave it to us to guesse that in the second place to witt upon the dispising of Gods love it is set upon a mans damnation So that by this your doctrine both Gods antecedent will and consequent will is all one and that is Gods absolute will But no such thinge is founde in Damascene from whome such as you are doe usually take this distinction of will antecedent in God and will consequent And indeed you doe well to make one as absolute as another for like as wrath the fruite of this will of God in the second place as you imply hath not its course but upō presuppositiō of disobedience so in like manner the proper opposite to wrath on the other side the fruite of this will of God in the first place hath not its course but upon presupposition of obedience And that you may know what this fruite I speake of is I say as wrath is taken for the execution of vengeance so the proper opposite herunto must be love as it is taken for the execution of reward And let any man judge whether this doth not every way presuppose obedience as well as the other presupposeth disobedience And thus shall God as truly be sayed absolutely to wish a mans damnation as his salvation and no more conditionally will the one then the other And like as if God be absolutely sayd to will a mans salvation it shall not herhence follow he shall so will it as to contradict himselfe by frustrating the contrary possibilitie which unto man he had appointed so though God be sayd absolutely to will a mans damnation yet it will not follow that God doth so will it as to contradict himselfe by frustrating the contrary possibility which unto man he had appointed Only it is absurd to call this possibility a contrary possibility It is I confesse a possibility to the contrary but not a contrary possibility Like as liberty unto good and liberty unto evill are liberties unto things contrary in the way of manners but yet they are no contrary liberties so the possibilities of obtaining salvation or damnation which are consequent upon the use of this liberty though they are possibilities to contrary things yet are they not contrary possibilities And as Gods anger signifying the execution of vengeance doth never rise up but upon the dispising of his love alluringe unto good so Gods love signifying the execution of reward doth never rise up but upon the embracing of his love alluring unto good But if you take Gods wrath for his will to punish I say that looke by what reason Gods wrath as it signifies his will to punish doth not arise in God
intimations You seeme to mee to imply that this will of God is accomplished in Iudas his damnation Because looke in what measure of love God would have saved him in such a measure of wrath he doth damne him and so accordingly looke in what measure Gods delight would have bin in Iudas his salvation had he bin saved in the same measure God doth delight in his damnation he being damned Vous avez thus have you the interpretation of this riddle And by the same reason you may proceede to make other riddles and aske how is the will of God as touching Peters damnation and Gods delight and pleasure therin accomplished to every dramme and scruple and answere that this is accomplished in his salvation For looke in what measure God would have delighted in his damnation had he bin damned in the same measure God now delights in his salvation he being saved And thus the delight and pleasure that any man takes in his childes salvation may be sayd to be accomplished in the delight and pleasure which he shall take in his childes condemnation For the Saints shall judge the World even the Godly Father joyne with Christ in pronouncing the sentence of condemnation upon his ungodly Sonne c. God delights in our obedience and in our repentance when it is but where there is no repentance or obedience how is it probable he or any should delight in that which is not 1 Sam. 15. 22. Hath the Lord as greate pleasure in burnt-offrings and sacrifices as when the voyce ef the Lord is obeyed Perhapps you will say yet his will is that all should repent I answere his will commanding is so to all that heare it but his will decreeing is not that all shall repent that are commaunded to repent For then all should repent To say that God will have any thing come to passe which yet never comes to passe Austine hath long agoe professed to be as good as to deny Gods omnipotency And whereas repentance is the gift of God as the Scripture plainly testifieth it is apparent that God doth not give repentance unto all and therefore neyther did he will or determine to give repentance unto all God is sayd to love persons in as much as he willeth good things unto them God may be sayd to love things morall as repentance and obedience in as much as he will reward persons for theire repentance and obedience Neyther of these loves is accommodable to punishment no more then unto reward Yet looke in what respect God may be sayd to love the one so may he be sayd to love the other And the Apostle professeth of himselfe and his fellows that they were the good savour of the Lord even in them that perish And every man knoweth reward to be a fruite of justice remunerative as well as punishment is of justice vindicative and each presupposeth the will of God as well one as the other For God is not bound to punish sinne he may pardon it Nay how is he not bound to pardon all sinne of all men if so be Christ hath made satisfaction for the sinnes of all And with these Tenets of yours you are growne so farre in love that because some schoole poynts doe not beare such faire wether towards them as might be wished you woulde put the maintayners of them upon some better explication of such Tenets The Tenet is that God doth punish sinners in the life to come citra condignum The Moderne divines as it seemes by your margent are Calvin Zanchy that maintayne this against whom you oppose Coppenius a Lutheran I guesse I doe not thinke he is a Papist Sure I am Bradwardine and Gerson maintayne the same and as I remenber it is most generally receaved amongst the Schoolemen And as for Coppenius his reasons when he demaunds whether God doth remit ought for Christs satisfaction or no I answere it is not for Christs satisfaction but merely according to the good pleasure of his owne will And when he urgeth that of Iames Iudgement mercylesse shall be to him that sheweth no mercy I answere that like as when the Apostle prayeth for Onesiphorus that he may find mercy at that day his meaning can be no other then this that his sinnes might be pardoned and his soule saved so likewise in just proportion they may be sayd to tast of judgement mercylesse whose sinners are not pardoned and whose soules are not saved As for your reason it is grounded merely upon a fiction of your owne that subjecteth the delight of God unto degrees whereas his simplicitie freeth him as well from composition of degrees as from any other kind of composition as also unto change even there where you undertake to cleere God from change If Iudas had bin saved and Peter damned God had still bin the same and no other then now he is as touching will and delight and every thinge that is in God But by the way let me tell you you corrupt the state of the question in supposing that by this Tenet which you dislike the punishment of reprobation is lesse then divine justice exacts For they maintayne no such thing but rather the contrary that no degree of punishment is exacted by any justice in God but left indifferent to the determination of Gods will And therefore Bradwardine distinguisseth betweene meritum actuale and meritum potentiale Meritum actuale is in reference to such a degree of punishment or reward which the will of God hath determined But meritum potentiale is in reference to any degree of reward or punishment which God might have determined And Gerson professeth that when a sinne is committed it is merely in the good pleasure of God to inflict what kinde or degree of punishment he will 2. Your text is to proove that Gods nature admitteth no change albeit of a loveing Father he becomes a severe judge albeit his tender love be turned into wrath And for proofe of this you thinke it enough to say that the change is in man and that Gods wrath kindles not but out of the ashes of his love despised To this you take on an other poynt nothing at all to the purpose that Gods wrath is in proportion to mens sinnes neyther lesse nor more and this you prosequuâ—e a whole leafe and more that what you want of solid answere you may supply by silling mens eyes with an idle discourse Well we have considered what your discourse hath bin on the by touching this that mens punishments are not lesse then theire deserts Now let us consider your following extravagancy in shewing that mens punishments are not more then theire deserts And here you tell us that to thinke God should punish sinne unlesse it were truly against his will or any sinne more deeply then it is against his will and pleasure is one of those 3. grosse transformations of the divine nature which Saint Austine refutes For thus to doe is
contrary where he saith Istorum neminem adducit Deus ad salubrem spiritualemque poenitentiam qua homo reconciliatur Deo in Christo sive illis ampliorum patientiam sive non imparem praebeat But to returne to the poynt with farre more reason doe they discourse that considering the infinite nature of God against whom sinne is committed doe therhence inferre the desert of infinite punishment and because a creature being but finite is not capable of infinite punishment in intention therfore make him liable to infinite punishment in duration Though I well know also this is excepted against and therfore Miranrandula whom you mention makes choyce to reply on this that as many as dye in sinne theire sinnes being never broken of continue with them in infinitum and therfore doe justly expose them to infinite punishment in duration Yet I very well consider what just exceptions may be taken against this also and the lesse we can satisfie our selves in the reason herof the more cause have we to referre all to the will and pleasure of God untill such time as the wonderfull wisedom and congruity of his actions shall be more clearly discovered unto us 5. As for Lactantius I am not apt to quarrell with him about any incommodious speeches but willing to accept any convenient interpretation of them In anger as it is in man we all know there is something materiall as the kindling of the blood about the heart and something formall which is the desire of revenge But as diverse other passions doe include imperfection in the very formall part of them so doth anger for it supposeth griefe Yet some passions in the formall part of them imply no imperfection as love and joy And accordingly the rule that Aquinas gives is this Cum nihil horum Deo conveniat secundum illud quod est naturale in eis illaque imperfectionem important etiam formaliter Deo convenire non possunt nisi metaphoricè propter similitudinem effectus Quae autem imperfectionem non important de Deo propriè dicuntur ut Amor Gaâ—dium tamen sine passione ut dictum est 1. q. 20. art 1. ad 2. And in another place Ira non dicitur in Deo secundom passionem animi sed secundum judicium justitiae prout vult vindicta facere de peccato 12. q. 47. art 1. ad 1. God you say is more deeply displeased with sinne then man as if Gods displeasure and mans differed only in degree and not rather toto genere Neyther are there any degrees of displeasure at all in God properly but attribuuntur Deo secundum similitudinem effectus as anger is when God punisheth so he shewes a grenter anger when he punisheth more severely and a lesse anger when he punisheth Iesse severely You make God unchangeable in worde yet not so allwayes neyther as where you discoursed of an impotent immutability But if you maintayne that God did for a time will the salvation of any man before he had filled up the measure of his iniquity and not afterwards or that his tender love is turned into severe wrath it cannot be avoyded but you must make change and innovation in the nature of God 6. It is true that love includes no imperfection in it as touching the formall part therof unlesse it be considered as a passion but anger doth in as much as it supposeth griefe But take love as it signifieth a will to doe good and anger as it signifeth a will to take vengeance on them that doe evill and the one is as naturall unto God as the other The truth is neither of them naturall but free Gods love to himselfe is naturall and nessary but his love to his creatures is not no more then his mercy and he hath mercy on whom he will He is neyther tyed by any naturall inclination to make the World nor being made is he bound to maintayne it but as he made it according to the good pleasure of his will so he doth maintayne it Every love of God to his creatures is not suitably opposite to his anger 〈◊〉 â—he anger of God being the will of punishing nothinge is congruously opposite herunto but his love as it signifieth the will of rewarding and rewarding presupposeth obedience as well as punishing presupposeth disobedience but the will of doing the one or the other presupposeth neither You might as well say that justice is not so naturall to God as mercy and I wonder at your unreasonable declination of this comparison in this place wheras in other places you insist so much on Gods justice as to take litle or no notice of his mercy Yet if it be true as you have hertofore discoursed that there is a justice before the will of God by which the will of God is ordered how can you make that doctrine conformable unto this It is true God condemnes no man but for sinne and it is as true that God rewards no man but for obedience only here is the difference The best obedience of mans is no meritorious cause of his salvation but only disposing therto but mans disobedience is not only a disposing cause but meritorious of his condemnation It is untrue that compassion come naturally from God it comes freely â—so doth punishment also not naturally much lesse unnaturally but freely For he could pardon sinne in allof it pleased him and doth pardon it in all his elect 〈◊〉 God when he punisheth relinquisheth the exercise of his mercyfull nature but undoubtedly he exerciseth his vindicative nature Now indeede the exercise of his merciful nature is proper to his owne people as whom he hath made vessells of mercy and for whom Christ hath made satisfaction upon the crosse And therfore when he proceedes to punishment against them he may be sayd to exercise alienum opus and is represented unto us loathe to come unto it How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israell how shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim Myne heart is turned within me c. Gods anger is seene and felt by the effects of it but to whom only to those that know God to be the Author of the things they suffer But the Angells and Saints of God doe otherwise see God in the joyes of Heaven In this world the manifestation of Gods wrath doth not alwayes hide God from men but rather is many times a meanes to make God known unto them yea a better meanes then continuall prosperity which makes men grow proude and say Who is the Lord If anger and hate are not in God but upon supposall of sinne then they cannot be sayd to be in God but only by eternall denomination attributed unto him least otherwise we should introduce a manifest innovation into the nature of God And indeede anger sayth Aquinas is often attributed unto God propter similitudinem effectus and so as often as he punisheth and not till then is he sayd
tables of the law and calling others unto him to fall upon the massacring of the people yet this testimony is given of him that hee was the meekest man on the earth I doe not dislike your allowance of men to be passionate in the promoting of Gods glory I hope you will give like allowance to men to be passionate in the defence of Gods truth I have no greate edge to make Christians contend in passion with worldly men how wise soever Yet well I wote that David one of the worthyes of the World amongst Martialists his eyes did gushe out with rivers of water because men kept not the law of the Lord holy Lot did vexe his heart with the uncleane conversations of the Sodomites These morall essayes of yours have a foule issue as when you inferre but most inconsequently as arguing from the nature of man to the nature of God that passions are in God nor so only but even such affections as essentially include perturbation you were as good plainly professe that God is not exempt from perturbation Neyther is to be zealous or compassionate to be like God in wisedom but rather in affection Yet zeale and compassion are accidents in man not in God arise in man never without alteration but no alteration as your selfe have made shew to maintayne is incident unto God Yet I doe easily grant you that the vehemency of mans passions doth as significantly represent the want of passion in God as the swift motions of the Heavens doth represent Gods immutability Like unto him that presenting an unsufficient person to his degree and being demaunded what he meant to prostitute himself to such profanesse made answere he might doe it with a safe conscience For he undertooke for him but tam quam tam moribus quam doctrina and he thought him as good one way as the other though indeede good at neyther And now if your selfe be arrived after all this unto a rest I doe not say vigorous least that might proove the embleme of greater motion from your passion I pray consider how these doe agree First to say that Gods wisedom doth not exempt him from passion and then to acknowledge a want of passion in God 2 I see no reason why you should complaine of the barrennesse of your imagination in illustrating the attributes of God to my judgement it hath bin more fruitefull then all that ever went before you who I dare say were never able to discerne that lively resemblance you speake of betweene the swift motion of the Heavens and the immutability or vigorous rest of God as also betweene the vehemency of mens passions and the vacuity of all passion in God Your Mathematickes though I professe my selfe a very sory scholler in that science I doe reasonablely well understand as namely that a circular figure is as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of all figures of equall circumference the most capacious and that all other figures the nearer they draw to a circle and the more Angles they contayn of equall circumference are the more capacious I expect your mysterious and profound explication 3. The Analogy spoken of betweene sides and Angles as found in circles and other figures doth fitly expresse you say that analogy which Schole divines assign betweene wisedom science love hatred goodnesse desire as they are found in God and man Your theame was how Anger Love Compassion mercy or other affections are in the divine nature of all these there is but one found in this latter enumeration of yours and that is love and wheras you proposed to speake only of the affection and to shew how they are in God Yet here you mention wisedome science goodnesse which never were accoumpted affections No name or title of affection can you say be univocally attributed unto God And this is true and as true of habits and powers of our soules that they cannot univocally be attributed unto God For whatsoever is in God is mere essence and therfore such titles as signifie accidents in us cannot denominate God secundum nomen nominis rationem But as we love by an act of passion so God may love by an act which is his essence Our wills and understandings are accidents yet doth God as truly will and understand as we by his very essence not by any act which is really distinguished from his essence Gods love Gods wrath are merely his will to doe good or to revenge evill as they signifie any thing within God But if they be used as externall denominations so when God punisheth us he is sayd to be angry with us when he doth us good he is sayd to love us And in the like sense may every name of any affection be attributed unto God provided it doth not essentially imply any imperfection as feare doth and desire doth which cannot be attributed unto God but metaphorically The fruits of love compassion proceede from none so freely so plentiously as from God and therfore he may justly be sayd to be most loving most compassionate but to whom he will In like sort the fruits of wrath and a revenging will proceede from none more powerfully and more heavenly then from God Psal. 90. 11. Heb. 10. 13. Who knoweth the power of thy wrath Psalm 90. It is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of God Therefore may he justly be accoumpted a most severe regenger of iniquity but on whom he will For he can pardon it and cure it in whom he will these being but the fruites of his mercy and he hath mercy on whom he will But to say he is wholly love and wholly displeasure is a wild expression in my conceyte For to say that he is wholly love is as much as to say that whatsoever he is is love whence it followeth that seeing he is displeasure also as you say his very displeasure is love and consequently by the same reason his very love is his displeasure The truth is affections in us belong only to the will and so translated unto God they should only denominate his will Now his power his understanding his will are very distinct notions though in God they are not really distinct yet so farre distinct as that it seemes absurd to say that his power is his will or his wisedom or that his wisedom is his will or his power or that his will is eyther his power or wisdom So you speake truth we are content you take what liberty you think good in the illustration of it and to satisfie your selfe with your illustrations though your readers you doe not I finde you are much pleased in the commodious illustration which a circle doth afford you or which you divise in a circle which you call the true embleme of eternity Some I confesse have professed that eternity doth ambire tempus but I never observed that they compared it to a circle but only I conceave theire meaning was that at this present it was
grace a worke of flesh and blood and not of the spirit of God And all the way no touch of faith your discourse savoring of the humour of a naturalist throughout rather then of a Christian. To them that are sanctified he is you say felicity and salvation but what is he to them that are not sanctified belike to them damnation Yet the holy Apostle hath taught us that God hath made Christ to be unto us wisedom righteousnesse sanctification and redemption 1 Cor. 1. 30. And that God is he that justifieth the ungodly Rom. 4. Alas how often hath the best despised his bounty love mercy grace and salvation yet is not he justice indignation and severity unto them but bounty still love still mercy and grace and salvation still and at length overcomes them and bringes them from the power of Satan unto God When for theire wicked covetousnesse he was angry with them and hath smitten them he hid himselfe and was angry yet they went away turned after the way of theire owne heartes Yet after all this He hath seene theire wayes and hath healed them Es. 57. 17. 18. Yea he rules them with a mighty hand and outstretched arme and makes them passe under the rod and brings them under the band of the covenant Ezech. 20. 37. He takes away their stony hearts and gives them an heart of flesh and putteth his owne spirit within them and causeth them to walke in his statuts and keepe his judgements and doe them I am sory to find so litle evidence throughout your discourse that your selfe have neede of this What did the heathens understand by theire Nemesis God or a creature If God surely he is not more powerfull then himselfe If a creature is it strange that the power of a creature should be inferior to the power the Creator VVhen the Apostle sayth God shall be all in all he speakes only of his elect to fill them with the joyes of Heaven and with God himselfe VVill you take boldnesse to apply this presence of God to the very divills and reprobates It is true we looke for the comming of the mighty God who shall be glorified in his Saints even then shall he shew himselfe from Heaven with his mighty Angells in slaming fire rendring vengeance to them that doe not know God as also unto them which obey not the Gospell of the Lord Iesus Christ which shall be punished with everlasting perdition from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power When he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and to be made marveylous in all them that beleive and because his servants testimony towards us was beleived in that day Then shall the Heaven depart away like a scrolle when it is rolled and every mountayne and yle be mooved out of theire place And the Kings of the earth and the greate men and the rich men and the cheife Captaines and the mighty men and every bond man and every free man hide themselves in dennes and among the rockes of the Mountaines and say to the Mountaines and to the rockes fall on us and hide us from the presence of him that sitteth on the throne from the wrath of the Lamb. For the greate day of his wrath is come and who can stande Anno Dom. 1629. Aprilis 30. FINIS The Errata IN the Epistle to the Reader pag 7. lin 24. for pag 1. read page 642. In the Praeface pag 4 lin 30. for which 〈◊〉 with p 6. l. 13. r necessitie contingencie lin 31 for your sweet r. the sweete p 10 l 32 for si antea read sint ea 1. Sect. p. 1. 2. l. 14 for good r. Godâ— p. 20 l. 7. for Salumy r. Salmuth p. 23. lâ— 22. for kight shâ—s r. kickshewes p. 25. l. 25. r. of things that doe appeare l. 29. r. omnis causa est principium omnis causatum est principlarum p. 30. l. 24. r. to be some 12 or 13 inches p. 31. l. 4. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 50. l. 3. r. and as we all confesse l. 32. r. finite or infinite p. 63. l. 17. r. If you say a true being p. 74. l. 18. r. are life and power 2. Sect. p. 92. l. 27. for is not only r. it is not only p. 99. l. 16. for motis r. molis p. 102. l. 29. for most unlike r. most like p 104 l 1. for motis r. molis p. 1 18. l. 21 for quia et r. quia est p. 119. l. 24. for so they are r. so they are p. 123. l. 28. for the paradoxes r. your paradoxes p. 125. l. 2. for diaculetion r. ejaculation p. 126. l. 7. competi r. competeret l. 23. dare r. dari p. 127 l. 8. for returne to r returne from p 128 l. 4. for numerably r numerable l. 5. for notting r. nothing p 130 l 15. for Sincet r Snicet p 131 l. 31 for mutili read iuhtili p 133. l. 30 for properby r properly l 32 for motis r molis p 135. l 29 for persitum rea per situm p 141 l 23 for maxime r matter p 142 l 4 for tertium r tantum pag 143 l 12 for liberall r litterall p 144 l 26 blot out so l 28 they draw it from leaue out it and in the place thereof interline their existence continuance of being from that which did every way exist before them I know not how much lesse how they draw it p 145 l 33 for sect r section l 36 for spere r sphere p 146 l 15 for what such moue r what should move l 21 blot out the first word of the Greeks there and read insteed thereof earum p 147 l 18 for what I ever r what ever p 148 l 15 for cortune r continue p 149 l 8 r entertaine time that wasted p 150 l 9 r some things move more or lesse p 152 l 31 r move any way p 153 l 5 for and shall be r it shall be p 155 l 7 r and the miserablest p. 156 l. 17. for Dorphiry r. Porphiry pag 157. l. 1 r. or of being what it is l. 10. for hactens r. hastens l 16. for Times r. Time is p. 158 l 8. for be not stored r. be not scored p 161. l 3. r. severall branches of time l 9. r. is impossible p 162. l 7. r. is diversified l 8. r. one is sicke l 11. for crosse r crasse p 163. l 11. r then that being p 164. l 3. for even r aevum l 34 r. in that hope p. 169 l 4. r. with out begining l 28. r. but eminently p 172. l 2. r. I know not the l 31. r. diminution in quantitie p 177. l 35. r. to his power p 182. l 9. for forme r. formes p 148. l 13. r. world doth truely p 191. l 9. 10 11. to all things that haue been is and shal be coexistent to all that shal be is most