tergiversation if we say that Doctor Hammond does take this phrase the Love of God or sincere Love wheresoever he uses it as Saint John does in the general notion for the Grace of Divine Charity and holy Love which to distinguish from all other Loves he calls the Love of God 1. because he is the giver and the alone infuser of it by his holy spirit and 2ly because he also is the prime and principal Object of it and for whose sake alone we love our Neighbours and 3ly because this alone is the root on which all the other parts and branches of holy Charity are grounded and from whence they all spring and without which they are nothing worth § 24. And that I shall prove by such clear Arguments as the Doctors writings afford If then as the great Philosopher tells us that Words are but the images and expressions of the Thoughts of the mind and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 1. de interpretatione c. 1. §. 1. Writings are the pictures and indications of Words then if the meaning of any word be questioned as doubtful the best way to unfold it is by considering the subject matter of the Discourse and the scope and purpose of it § 25. And now I doubt not but it will appear obvious to the most ordinary capacity that the subject matter of the Doctors discourse could not possibly tempt him to make use of this phrase the Love of God in any other sense then what we have given of it and that the cause he undertook to defend had utterly been betrayed and lost not supported by the meaning that the Refuter puts upon it For the main business and scope of the Treatise of Will-worship and the defence of it against Mr. Cawdrey is only to shew that there be certain Degrees and Acts of Piety and Charity and Vertue that no particular law enjoines which yet God accepts of as free-will Offerings from the Christian when performed For this we shall not need further proof then what one short Passage affords wherein the Doctor has briefly summed up his Opinion in both Treatises so largely insisted on It is in his Preface to the Reader prefixt to the Account § 5. And besides these there is somewhat of more sublime consideration on occasion of that of Will-worship the free-will Offerings which will very well become a Christian to bring to Christ rewardable in a high degree though they are not under any express precept such are all the Charities and Devotions and Heroical Christian Practices which shall all not only be degraded but defamed if every thing be concluded criminous which is not necessary if all uncommanded Practise be unlawful § 26. And now though this in the general might suffice to clear the Doctors meaning from any possible mistake unless to the wilfully perverse yet because the remainder of the Refuters Reply is wholy built upon this abused Notion of the Phrase and what he calls his threefold Demonstration so industriously placed in the Frontispiece of his Pamphlet to amuse vulgar Readers and those that look not beyond Titles has no other Basis and Foundation I shall with the Readers patience descend to a more particular confirmation of it § 27. The task I confess would be endlesly tedious to search for Proofs as they lie severally dispersed in those Treatises And therefore for brevity sake I shall confine my self to that very Section in the Account that first occasioned the Vse of Confutation § 28. In the very first § of that Section the Doctor tells us Doctor Hammond's Account to Mr. Cawdrey's Triplex Diatribe cap. 6. sect 9. p. 221. that those large inclusive words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. denoted only two things 1. the sincerity of this Love of God as opposed to partial divided Love to which I now adde for further explication that what we do according to the precepts of Gods Law we do out of Love towards God not hypocritically or as by constraint and 2ly not admitting any thing else into competition with him this sincere Love of God mean while being capable of Degrees so that it is very possible for two men to love God with all the heart and yet one to love him more intensely then another as was exemplifyed among the very Angels nay for the same person which so loves him to love him and express that Love more intensely at one time then another as appeared by the example of Christ Luc. 22. 44. To this I shall subjoin the very words upon which the Refuter grounds his Charge in the Vse of Confutation § 5. of that Section But sure this answer is nothing to the matter now in hand for the evidencing of which that example of Christ was brought by me viz. That sincere Love is capable of Degrees This was first shewed in several men and in the same man at several times in the several ranks of Angels and at last in Christ himself more ardent in one act of Prayer then in another wherein what is affirmed of Christ is common to Angels and Men c. And now I appeal to our Refuter himself and desire him to tell me whether the Doctor can possibly mean any thing else by this Phrase the Love of God and sincere Love in these places then the grace of holy Charity that in its general comprehensive notion contains in it whatsoever is holy good or vertuous for kind or degree that the Christian out of a sincere Love to God either freely or by way of Duty performs Can he possibly here mean by Christs Love of God in these places that Beatifick Love of God which was alwaies in termino and was proper to him as Comprehensor Does he not expresly adde in the Close of those words that what herein is affirmed of Christ is common to Angels and Men And do not his several instances speak as much Let our Refuter himself judge what other Love can the Doctor mean that is common to Christ to Angels and Men except that Love and Charity which the Doctor constantly makes a Genus to habitual and actual Love § 29. That this and no other was the Doctors meaning will 2ly appear from Mr. Cawdrey's Reply and the Doctors answer to it § 2. For whereas the Doctor had affirmed that this Grace of holy Love or Divine Charity consisted in a sincere endeavour after perfection Mr. Cawdrey now returns that it consisted in an absolute sinless Perfection such as was that of Adam in innocence and therefore perfect Love such as did cast out fear 1 Jo. 4. 18. Now to this the Doctor returns 1. that that perfect Love of Adam in innocence consisted not in an indivisible point in the several Acts 2ly that S. John 's Love was not that of Adam in innocence which is confessed not to be attainable but that other which is in every Confessor and Martyr which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
and the same moment and the Necessity of Nature at least when he slept required the intermission of some of them and as they were of necessity to be interrupted so of necessity also they could not be equal in themselves but some must be more high more intense then others because of the unequal participation of the divine goodness unequally shining in the several Objects of this Love as we have already beyond exception demonstrated This interruption this inequality in the fervour of these several Acts of divine Charity no more derogates from the fulness of that high Act of Divine Love he was possessed with as Comprehensor then the sorrows and anguish of his Soul and Spirit in the inferiour Part and the passible mortal condition of his flesh did derogate from the truth of his Godhead and the fulness of his happinesse which he enjoyed as Comprehensor Nay so far it was from derogating from the fulnesse of his habitual grace that if the Acts of this Love had been all equally intense his Love in the Habit had not been yet perfect because as we have shewn Gods Law requires an Order in our Charity and that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our Soul c. and our neighbours as ourselves § 14. When therefore you say that it is evident that whereas the Doctor avers that the inward Acts of divine love or holy Charity in Christ were lesse intense at one time then at another for so he affirmes in saying they were more intense at one time then at another he denies Christ to be happy and blessed at those times wherein his inward Acts of Love were thus intense and that this is Propositio malè sonans I must return that then also Mr. Jeanes himself is guilty of this harsh sounding proposition Nay not only Mr. Jeanes himself but his own Ames and our Hooker Jeanes mixture c. p. 250. and Field and Vorstius and Grotius and Aquinas and Suarez Estius many more of the Schoolmen are all equally guilty of this ill sounding proposition who all unanimously affirm that Christ did really grow in Actual Wisdom and Grace as well as Stature And so Doctor Hammond ha's very learned Company in this if it be an Errour and our Refuter himself among the number § 15. Whereas then you say in the close of this Argument JEANES Add hereunto that the School-men generally consent as unto a Proposition that is piously credible that the happiness of Christ's soul did even during the whole time of his abode here far surmount that of all Saints and Angels in heaven but if the inward Acts of this Love of God were lesse intense at one time then at another the blisse of his soul would have come far short of that of the Lowest Saint in Heaven for the Actual love of the Lowest Saint was not is not more intense at one time then at another but alwaies full and perfect and therefore uncapable of further and higher degrees This will no whit prejudice Doctor Hammond who never spake any thing of Christs happinesse and Love as Comprehensor in his Soul but only of the Acts of divine Charity or holy Love that belonged to him as Viator as he was in statu merēdi But then let me add that if this assertion of the Schoolmen be so piously credible as indeed it is in their sense it will much prejudice an assertion of Mr. Jeanes his in his very use of Confutation who tells us It is not to be denyed but that by special dispensation Jeanes mixture pag. 261. there was some restraint of the Influence of his happinesse or beatifical vision in the whole course of his humiliation and Particularly in the time of his doleful Passion § 16. Nay I dare undertake in the Consideration of his following argument to demonstrate that this one concession destroyes the very foundation of his Vse of Confutation and all that he ha's replyed against the Doctors Ectenesteron And therefore I hasten to it SECT 20. The Refuters third Argument Reduced to Form The Major denyed His Sophistical Homonymy discovered His confounding the different Acts of Christ's Love as Viator and Comprehensor The true Assertions in his discourse severed from the false inferences Christ impeceable Thence it followes not that the Acts of his Love are all equal but the contrary The great Commandement of Love enjoyns the most ardent Love that we are able to reach to Thence it followes not that the Acts of this Love ought alwaies to be equal Christ as Comprehensor had on earth greater Abilities to Love God then Adam in Paradise or the Saints and Angels in Hèaven Thence it followes not that the Acts of his Lovè as Viator were to be equal or if they increased successively that he sinned This discourse cleared and confirmed from Suarez The several Acts of Charity by which Christ merited Hence the inequality of intention in these Acts demonstrated Further proved from the Refuters Mixture The Viator differs in Abilities from the Comprehensor Proved from Scripture and Reason Cajetan Scotus The Refuters following Digression impertinent His design in it to amuse the Reader and to bring the Doctor into an unjust suspicion § 1. And here our Refuter is gotten into a very fruitful and advantageous digression Now with all the skil and Artifice he ha's he labours to raise Umbrages and Clouds to obscure the Doctors Reputation and to fill the heads of weak Readers with suspitions and Jealousies as if his tenent did inferr that our Saviour was not impeccable because he loved not God as intensely as he might But notwithstanding he is here so profusely copious yet I undertake that all that is material to the present controversie in his full four leaves may be contained in the compasse of two Syllogismes but I shall give it in his own words JEANES The third and last argument is fetched from Christs impeccability it was impossible for Christ to sin but if the inward acts of his Love of God had been less intense at one time then at another he had sinned for he had broken that first and great Commandement thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy Soul with all thy mind with all thy might and strength Deut. 6. 5. Matth. 22. 37. Mark 12. 30. Luke 10. 27. For this Commandement enjoyneth the most intense actual Love of God that is possible an actual love of him tanto nixu conatu quanto fieri potest i. e. as much as may be what better and more probable gloss can we put on that clause Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy strength or might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then thou shalt love him with thy uttermost force and endeauour sutable hereunto is that interpretation which Aquinas giveth of those words Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart i. e. saith he ex toto posse tuo with
as high a degree of actual love as thou art able to reach unto Deus est totaliter diligendus potest intelligi ita quod totalitas referatur ad diligentem sicetiam Deus totaliter diligi debet quia ex toto posse suo homo debet diligere Deum quicquid habet ad Dei amorem ordinare secundum illud Deuter 6. Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo 2. 2. q. 27. art 5. But now Christ-man had in him as great abilities for the actual Love of God as Adam in Paradise as the Saints and Angels in heaven for an all fulnesse of the grace and virtue of Love dwelled in him and therefore if the inward acts of his Love were less intense at one time then another then sometimes when he actually Loved God he did not Love him as intensely as ardently as fervently as he could he did not Love him with all his might and strength ex toto posse suo and so consequently he fulfilled not all righteousnesse for his obedience unto this commandement would have been by this your opinion imperfect and sinful which to imagine were blasphemy But you will be ready to tell me c. § 2. This is your Argument and the most specious of all but yet as little to the purpose as any of the rest And that it may so appear I thus reduce it into Form He whose love of God in the inward Act is more intense at one time then an other breaks that first Commandement that enjoynes the most intense Love of God Possible But Christ that was impeccable could not did not break that Commandement Ergo Christ's Love of God in the inward act was not more intense at one time then another Or thus He that had greater abilities for the Actual Love of God then Adam in Paradise or the Saints and Angels in Heaven and yet does Love God in the inward Act more intensely at one time then an other he does not alwayes love God ex toto posse suo and as much as the Law requires But Christ had alwayes greater abilities for the actuall Love of God then Adam in Paradise or the Saints and Angels in Heaven and yet as you say his Love of God in the inward Act was more intense at one time then another Ergo By consequence according to your saying he loved not God ex toto posse suo and as much as the Law requires which consequence because it makes him sinful but to imagine were blasphemy § 3. Chuse you which Form you will the force and evidence of the Argument is the same and one answer will fit both And I shall give it you in brief and it is no more then by a denyal of your Proposition or Major in both § 4. The truth is all the seeming strength of this Discourse lies in the ambiguity of the phrase The Love of God which is differently understood by our Refuter in the premisses and Doctor Hammond whom he opposes in the Conclusion And consequently the Syllogismes consist of four termes and so are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 phantastical paralogismes like the Colours in the Rainbow they make a fair show Arist Elench l. 1. c. 3. indeed to the eye but when we come to search what they are they are nothing but shew and without any solidity § 5. They are both guilty of that Sophism which the Philosopher calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first of the six in Voce For whereas Doctor Hammond as we have most demonstratively proved and as is also acknowledged in our Refuters first argument takes the Phrase The Love of God for the Acts of Divine Charity or holy Love in the General Notion our Refuter here takes it in a more restrained sense for that eminent Act of holy Charity that is immediatly terminated on God and is contradistinct from these other Acts of Charity whereby we love our selves and our neighbors as our selves And this will appear from the Tenor of the first Commandement and the places that himself has quoted Matth. 22. 37. Mark 12. 30 Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy mind This is the first and great Commandement and the second is like unto it Thou shalt Love thy neighbour as thy self Though then it were granted that all the Acts of our Love immediately fixed on God must be equal because alwaies by virtue of that Commandement we must Love God as highly as intensely as we can yet it will not follow that all the Acts of Divine Charity or holy Love must be therefore equally intense Nay because it was impossible for the Saviour of the world to sin I must conclude that the Acts of this his Love were not could not be equally intense For then he should have loved himself and his Neighbour the Finite goodness of the Creature with the same equal fervency and ardor as the infinite goodness of the Creator contrary to the Tenor of these Commandements and the fulness of our Saviours wisdom and grace § 6. But then this is not all the misadventure of our Refuter For in the latter part of his Discourse he confounds that Act of our Saviours Love of God belonging to him as Comprehensor with that other Act of Love that belonged to him as Viator and which alone is enjoyned in that first and great Commandement Now these two though the Objects be the same yet differ as really as heaven in possession from heaven in hope and expectation The one is a Free Act of the Will issuing from the Infused habit of Charity the other a necessary Act of the Will that flowes per modum emanationis from the beatifical vision as Light does from the Sun To the one he had a proper freedome and the Act by way of Duty fell under the authority and guidance of the first and great Commandement To the other he had no more freedom then now the Saints and Angels in heaven have who because they are already possessed of heaven and all that heaven can afford are not under any Law but as Naturally as Necessarily they love God as since their being made perfect they see him there § 7. And now though this be sufficient to demonstrate the weakness of our Refuters Discourse yet for the full satisfaction of the English Reader who is most likely to be deceived with these False Lights and empty shewes I shall take his whole discourse asunder that so I may sever Truth from Falshood and vain aerial shapes and Appearances from solid Bodies § 8. First then I grant that it was impossible for Christ to sin For such a high Priest became us who is holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners and made higher then the heaven Heb. 7. 26. When not only Pilates Wife calls him that just man but even his very adversaries and accusers were not able to convince him and his Judge does publickly acquit him
love of concupiscence which goes before Amorem gratuitum free Love For as the Apostle saith that is not first which is spirituall but that which is naturall or carnall and then that which is spirituall so free Love of God for himself is not first but first we love him for his benefits and then for himself and this is true love c. That which is naturall will be first concupiscentia before Amicitia or benevolentia and this is the inchoation of the other Perfect love is not attained at first for nemo repente fit summus Now Saint Chrysostome wondreth how men can slip themselves out of this Love for if they will love any for his Benefits none bids fairer for this Amor mercenarius then God for he offereth for it the kingdome of heaven c. And therefore it is lawfull to Love God for his benefits for God uses them as motives to stir us up to love him and the best of Gods servants have so practised Moses looked at the recompense Heb. 11. but we must not rest there nor love him onely or chiefly for them but for himself c. I love the Lord saith the Psalmist and why He is my defence Psal 18. 1. And in another place Because he heard my voyce yet seeing David did not Love God onely or chiefly for his benefits his love was not properly mercenary but true though not Perfect Thus far this most excellent Bishop whose words I have made use of as Jewels and ornaments to this discourse and because I think it impossible to me I am sure to express it better § 23. Now Christ being made like to us in all things sin onely excepted he must also have in him this naturall love of God for his benefits and protection and assistance that he had and might have from him and the Schools do resolve so For it was in its self naturall and therefore not sinfull and his present slate of a viator in the dayes of his flesh required it For though the Foxes have holes and the birds of the Air have nests yet the son of man had not where to lay his head He was truly vir desideriorum a man of desires as well as a man of sorrows This as it was naturall to the flesh and proper to him in the state of a viator so it agreed to him in respect of the Inferiour part of the Will and the sensitive Appetite which desired things naturall and necessary for it self but yet onely those things that were lawfull and fit And therefore the Schools though they resolve that there was not that hope Vid. Estium l. 3. sent d. 26. §. 8. alibi Aquin 3 part q. 7. art 4. Et Cajetan Suaresium alios in Loc. in Christ which is virtus Theologica Deum ipsum ut principale Objectum spectans yet there was in him another lower kind of hope bona quidem vera good and lawfull and true in it self which respected those things he had not yet obtained in the dayes of his flesh as his Resurrection the Glorification of himself in the humane Nature at the right hand of God and the honour of his Name and Enlargement of his kingdome In which respect saith the Psalmist in the Person of Christ in the Passion-Psalm 22. 10. I was cast upon thee from the womb thou art my God from my mothers Belly So again in the eighth and ninth verses He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him But thou art he that took me out of the womb thou didst make me hope when I was upon my Mothers breasts there are many other places in Scripture to this purpose but these are sufficient to our business This hope as it was the ground of his Love of God for the benefits he did expect and the assistance he stood in need of in the dayes of his flesh so it was the foundation of all his prayers either in regard of his present pressures and wants and reliefs he stood in need of or else in respect of the future blessings he expected after his resurrection As then as Aquinas tells us Christus habuit spem respectu aliquorum quae nondum erat adeptus so he did Aquin. 3. part q. 7. art 4. in corp truly in this respect divinum auxilium expectare In the midst of his afflictions and in the height of his Passion he trusted in God and he was heard in that he feared or delivered from it And as he trusted in God hoped in him and expected aid and assistance from him so he truly had a naturall love of God a love of desire and concupiscence towards God for the benefits and assistance he daily received and hoped from him And out of the abundance of this Love he cryes out upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me § 24. But then though this Love of concupiscence be ordinarily first in men and then afterwards the Love of Complacency though we love God first for his benefits and goodness to us and afterwards for himself yet it was not so in Christ For first as Comprehensor in his mind he loved God naturally and necessarily with the highest degree of complacency benevolence and friendship And this from the first moment of the souls union with the body And secondly as viator by reason of the fullness of the habit of Divine Grace he loved him alwayes as high with this love as the present state was capable of Though he loved God alwayes for his owne sake yet this supernaturall divine Love was not the fruit of his love of concupiscence and because he was sensible of Gods blessings and favours but it was the effect of the Beatificall vision and the fullness of divine Grace supernaturally infused from the first moment of his conception and de congruo both flowed from the Hypostaticall union § 25. But then as the Schools distinguish of a threefold knowledge in Christ the one which they call beata the other infusa and the third Experimentalis and Acquisita so there is also observed by them a threefold love of complacency in Christ The first is the beatifick Love proper to him as Comprehensor the second the Acts of the infused habit of divine Love And the third a Love of Complacency flowing from the frequent experiences of Gods goodness to him in the dayes of his flesh For he also did taste and see how good and gratious to him the Lord was in that state when he was truly that man of sorrows This was Acquisite and experimentall and this we may without any dishonour to Christ or the least disparagement to divine truth say was the issue of that other Love a Love of God for his blessings and gratious assistance This was a ravishing contentment arising in the Inferiour part of his soul a sweet delight and complacency in God from the experience of his goodness answering and satisfying those desires
usuall custome of bad debtors and stewards where they cannot satisfie their Creditors to rail at their demands and when their purses and bills are short to make payment and discount in bad language that so at least they may shame where they find they cannot satisfie and tire and weary where they cannot pay Indeed for an Adversary politickly to rail where he cannot conquer and confidently to undervalue the force of that reason which he is unable to resist or answer is a very easie way of consutation I confess but it is by libell not by book And such pitifull advocates that can onely calumniate and scold in behalf of a client without any solid plea make a bad cause far worse by such manner of defence Now as the Author does not envy this happiness of M. Cawdrey in his auditing of accounts so he is perswaded that if this reply to M. Jeanes could have been published as soon as it was designed for the Press he himself might also have received such an answer as the Doctor has done and been paid in the same coine and so at least had had a more speciall call then now he has to take notice of M. Cawdreys new manner of reckoning and stating of accounts But being not at all concerned in that Treatise he was very willing as yet not to take any notice of it And it was for these Reasons First because he saw that what he had already written against M. Cawd needed not any further confirmation there being nothing at all said in this new Rejoynder to impair any thing here delivered Secondly because if he should have said any thing more to this Reply of M. Cawdrey the work already grown too unweildy would have swelled to too large a bulk And thirdly because it could not well be done without making too large digressions from M. Jeanes to follow a new adversary which would have made the discourse too obscure and intricate by such unnecessary diversions And fourthly because the Author was willing to try how the Doctor and the world would like his present undertakings before he further intermedled with the Doctors business who as he is most immediately concerned so of all men he is fittest to undertake and best able to perform it Howsoever that our Author might not be wanting to the cause he had thus already undertaken though contrary to his first intention during the time that this was under the Press he cast an eye upon M. Cawdreys Audit and by way of Essay to satisfie the Reader of the strength of that discourse drew up an answer to one chapter that he conceived of most strength in the whole book and which had a great influence on all the rest But seeing that this work was big enough already and could not with convenience admit of this Appendix he thought fit to suppress it rather then at first be too troublesome to the Reader especially because he doubts not but that the Doctor himself if there shall be found cause will not be wanting to gratifie the Reader far better then himself could with this which he had already provided Howsoever if the Doctor shall think fit to decline this task and the world shall judge M. Cawdreys Audit to deserve a review this which he intended to have added here by way of appendix may in due time see light with some additions and strictures on the rest and M. Cawdrey may find a Person far inferiour to the Doctor that may call him to a new reckoning before he receives his quietus est or Acquittance The CONTENTS SECTION I. THe Refuters ominous changing the Doctors Title Page and the state of the Question His advantage by it over four sorts of Readers How easily the Doctor concluded against by it Love of God what it commonly signifies to English ears How difficult to defend the Doctor in that sense Not so in the Doctors wary state The Refuters Reply foreseen Answered The phrase The love of God variously taken in Scripture How understood by the Doctor In what sense Prayer an Act of holy Charity Page 1. SECT II. Doctor Hammonds renouncing the Errour charged upon him His civill address unjustly taxed by the Refuter The Defenders Resolution hereupon His reason for it Scurrility not maintained Seasonable Reproof lawfull The Defenders no regret to the Refuters person and Performances His undertakings against the Refuter This Course unpleasing to him But necessary The Doctor not guilty of high Complements and scoffs The Refuters Friends the onely Authors of them The Defenders hopes The Refuters promise The Defenders Engagement p. 7 SECT III. The Refuter acknowledges the Doctor to assert the fulness of Christs Habituall Grace His Use of Confutation and after undertakings groundless hereupon The terms of the Question much altered by the Refuter in his Rejoynder p. 15 SECT IV. The Refuters Argument no ground of the Use of Confutation unless he writes by inspiration He confounds the Immanent Acts of Love with the Action of Loving His Argument concerns not the Doctors Assertion The Acts of Divine Charity in Christ may gradually differ where the Habit is the same His frequent begging the Question and impertinence Scheibler vainly quoted What in that Author seemingly favourable to the Refuters pretences censured Immanent Acts truly Qualities Proved Not to be excluded out of the number of Entities Belong to the first species of Quality why Dispositions when imperfect things The Acts of divine Love in Christ supernaturall Not ordained to further Habits-Grace the sole effect of God Why these Acts called Dispositions The Doctor a Metaphysician The Refuters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His irrefragable Argument broken More ridiculous for the Refuters Confidence p. 19 SECT V. The Doctor innocent of the former Crimination The Refuters new Endictment proved vain by a clear instance His Argument a Parologism of four terms The Doctor affirms the direct contrary to the Refuters Charge Humane lapses doubtfull speeches Three rules of the Civill Law to interpret them All writings subject to obscurity How the Doctor to be understood in the passage arraigned He demonstrates by it the fulness of Christs Grace à posteriori The onely rationall way of proving it Christs Love more intense in his agony then in his suffering hunger Asserted by S. Paul Christs habituall grace alwayes perfect Alwayes Christ against the Sociniant Christs habitual grace not to be augmented Whence The Refuters boldness His adding the word before to the Doctors discourse and second misadventure in this kind His proof foreseen answered Difference in the actings of voluntary and naturall agents Acts of love in Christ howsoever heightned can never intend the habit Proved The Refuters major opposite to Scripture as well as the Doctor The habit of grace in Christ not determined to one uniform manner of acting Saints and Angels love God necessarily and freely So Christ as Comprehensor This not to the purpose The Refuters charitable additions The acts of holy charity of two sorts of which
is an order in the acts and degrees of love Asserted by the Schools Of the order in the love of Christ The habit of love to God and our neighbours one and the same quality proved God and our neighbours not to be loved with the same equality and degree of affection Actus efficaces inefficaces what they are That they were in Christ Of the gradual difference between them Hence demonstratively proved that the first great law of charity Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart c. does not alwayes oblige us pro hic nunc to the highest degree and noblest act of Divine love Of the gradual difference between the free and necessary acts of Christs love Phrase actuall love distinguished The acts and operations of grace in Christ were neither intensively nor extensively still commensurate with the habit Proved In what sense Aquinas's rule urged by the Refuter holds 205 SECT XIV The Doctors discourse here onely ad hominem The Refuters reply grants all that the Doctors argument aims at Where the degrees of any Quality particularly the love of Christ are for number multiplyed in the same subject there the quality particularly the love is more intense Proved This inferrs not Intension to be a meer coacervation of homogeneous degrees The Refuter reaches not the Doctors meaning The Doctor argues from the effect to the cause The reasonableness of the proof The onely way to conclude the servour of the inward devotion by the outward performance Length and continuance in prayer an argument of high zeal Suarez and Hurtado's discourse concerns not the Doctor The Refuters ignorance notwithstanding his confidence Quantitas virtutis molis No absurdity in the Doctors discourse if as the Refuter falsly charges him he had concluded a greater ardency in Christs devotion from the multiplying of the severall acts of prayer Continuance in prayer a demonstration of fervour Frequent repetitions of the same words in prayer an argument of an heightened fervour of Spirit 251 SECT XV. The pertinency of the Doctors Argument and impertinence of the Refuters charge The Doctors argument à posteriori from the necessary relation between the work and the reward Not understood by the Refuter The outward work more valuable in Gods sight for the inward fervour and devotion The Refuters petitio principii Works in a Physicall sense what and what in a Moral The Refuters discourse of the infinite value of Christs merit arising from the dignity of his person Nothing to the purpose The dignity of a morall action according to the physicall entity of the act or according to the dignity of the person performing it The actions of Christ in regard of his person infinite in value Not so in regard of their substantial moral goodness Proved and acknowledged by our Refuters own Suarez Consequently in this regard they might exceed one another in moral perfection The Doctors argument that it was so in Christ The appositeness of the proof The Scriptures say the same 265 SECT XVI The second part of the Refuters second answer The distinct confession of all the Doctor pretends to The English translation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more earnestly justified The Refuter's nonsense What ardency in Christ it was that was heightned Luk 22. 43. Comprehensor Viator what In what state whether of Comprehensor or Viator Christ was in a capacity to pray as that signifies either petition deprecation or thanksgiving and this whether onely for others or also for himself Of prayer and the severall kinds Whether though Christ were in a capacity thus to pray yet being God that was able of himself to accomplish whatsoever he might desire as man it was expedient for him to do so and whether God had so determined What things Christ might and did pray for both for himself and others M. Hooker commended Whether Christ did in truth and reality or onely in shew pray for a removal of that cup which he came on purpose to drink Whether these prayers and desires were not repugnant to Gods decree and the end of his coming into the world and his own peremptory resolution to drink it How those desires for a removall of this Cup might be advanced notwithstanding his readiness and resolution to drink it How Christs ardency in prayer for a removal of this cup might be increased above what it either was or there was occasion for at other times Of the greatness of his agony and bloody sweat How his zeal in prayer at this time might be advanced without derogation from the fulness of his habitual grace the impeccability of his soul and the uninterrupted happiness of it and perfect love as he was Comprehensor Strictures on the former part of the Refuters second answer 276 SECT XVII The Refuters three arguments to prove the act of Christ's love alwayes equally intense impertinent to the present question His confident proposal of them to be examined as rigidly as the Doctor pleases and his vain ostentation in placing them in his Title-page censured The ambiguity of the phrase Christs love of God distinguished from Crellius Estius Aquinas and others In what sense still used by the Doctor 333 SECT XVIII The Refuters first argument contradicts his second and proves not his conclusion Reduced to form The Sequele denyed The reason His authorities concern not the question His citing Aquinas from Capreolus censured The conclusion to be proved Hurtado's and Aquinas first saying from Capreolus true with the reason of it from Suarez but not pertinent A view of the place in Aquinas He speaks of the habit c. not the act The different workings of necessary and voluntary causes The Refuters argument guilty of a double fallacy His next place of Aquinas from Capreolus impertinent His gross ignorance or prevaricating in his third place of Aquinas Scotus testimony impertinent Aquinas and Scotus maintain that proposition which he would confute in the Doctor by their testimonies 337 SECT XIX The Refuters second argument Christ on earth Comprehensor true but Viator also Proved from Scripture Aquinas Scotus in the places referred to by the Refuter From Suarez also None but the Socinians deny Christ to be thus Comprehensor His beatifick love as Comprehensor an uniform because necessary act Fruitless here to enquire wherein the essence of happiness consists according to the Thomists or Scotists It follows not because Christs love as Viator was more intense at one time in some acts then at another in other acts that therefore his happiness as Comprehensor was at that time diminished Proved The Doctor never denies the fulness of Christs happiness as Comprehensor The Refuters grave propositio malè sonans His argument a fallacy à dicto secundum quid Christs twofold state Though the infused habit of grace in him alwayes full yet not so the acts The reason M. Jeanes and others guilty of this propositio malè sonans as well as the Doctor The piouâ—â—y credible proposition of the Schoolmen
as the Refuter calls it much prejudices an assertion of his own in his mixture but no whit the Doctor 345 SECT XX. The Refuters third argument reduced to form The major denyed His sophistical homonymy discovered His confounding the different acts of Christs love as Viator and Comprehensor The true assertions in his discourse severed from the false inferences Christ impeccable Thence iâ— follows not that the acts of his love are all equall but the contrary The great commandment of love enjoyns the most ardent love that we are able to reach to Thence it follows not that the acts of this love ought alwayes to be equal Christ as Comprehensor had on earth greater abilities to love God then Adam in paradise or the Saints and Angels in heaven Thence it follows not that the acts of his love as Viator were to be equall or if they increased successively that he sinned This discourse cleared and confirmed from Suarez The severall acts of charity by which Christ merited Hence the inequality of intension in these acts demonstrated Further proved from the Refuters mixture The Viator differs in abilities from the Comprehensor Proved from Scripture and reason Cajetan Scotus The Refuters following digression impertinent his design in it to amuse the Reader and to bring the Doctor into an unjust suspicion 365 SECT XXI As the Doctor needs not so is it not his custome to make use of former expositions This practise in the Refuter censured This digression not an answer to the Ectenesteron but a fling at the treatise of Will-worship His brief transcribing the Doctors exposition and large examining of it censured M. Cawdrey grants all in controversie between the Doctor and Refuter but contradicts himself The Refuters prevaricating and false suggestions to his Reader His first reason for this suggestion reduced to form Destructive to all religion Biddle Hobbes Leviathan Whatsoever answer he shal make for himself against a Socinian Anabaptist Quaker c. will secure the Doctor His five very false and proofless criminatious in his next reason mustered up His hasty oversight in citing Chamier 374 SECT XXII The occasion of the Doctors exposition of the first great commandment of love The reasons of his fundamental position in short If any one of them demonstrative as M. Cawdrey grants one is then all not bound to it to every act acceptable to God nor to perform it to a degree even then when they are obliged ad speciem This the utmost the Doctor undertook either against M. Cawdrey or the Refuter Reasonable the Refuter should answer these before he suggested to the Reader a need of further proof 383 SECT XXIII The Refuters two first charges Bellarmines explication at large The Doctors The defenders challenge hereupon The difference between Bellarmine and the Doctor examined What good in Bellarmine approved by the Doctor What erroneous not found in the Doctor or else declared against Bellarmine and the Doctor speak not of the same thing Chamier assents to the Doctors position The sixth Corollary of Bellarmine if found in the Doctor yet otherwise understood not censured by Chamier Ames Vorstius Two men may love God with all their hearts and yet one love him more then the other The Doctors exposition not borrowed from Bellarmine nor yet popishly affected 386 SECT XXIV The Refuters third and fourth charges The Doctors exposition parallel to that of Bishop Andrewss Davenant Downham White Hocker Field Grotius Ainsworth praised Assembly Annotations Vrsin Calvin Victor Antiochenus Imperfect work on Matthew Theophylact Theodoret Zacharias Austin Chamier The objections from Calvin Vrsin answered Chamiers conclusion against Bellarmine examined concerns not the Doctor advantages not the Refuter State of innocency a state of proficiency Proved from M. Cawdrey Saints and Angels love not God all to the same indivisible height Saints differ in glory The Doctor of the first and second covenant Perfection Legall Evangelicall Learned Protestants agree with him against Chamier The falshood of Chamier's inference as understood by the Refuter and M. Cawdrey demonstrated How to be understood Heresie of the Perfectists How not favoured by Chamier Thus more agreeable to himself Recapitulated in five positions Chamier and the Doctor agreed The Doctor justified from M. Cawdrey's concessions M. Cawdrey's contradictions in the point of perfection In what sense free will-offerings and uncommanded degrees and acts of piety and charity The question stated Davenant Montague White Hooker and generally the Fathers and divers Protestants agreeing with the Doctor in this point of perfection and counsel and doing more then is commanded This proves not the Popish doctrine of Supererogation 440 SECT XXV Heads of the reasons for the Doctors exposition and assertion of degrees in love and freewill offerings Refuters fifth charge examined Falshood of it Challenged to make reparations Calumny of Popishly affected how easily and unhappily retorted 433 SECT XXVI Artifice in refuting the Doctor in Ames words answering by halves Doctor asserts not lukewarmness How differs from sincerity What. Christianity a state of proficiency Growing grace true acceptable How differs from lukewarmness Bellarmine and Ames dispute concerns not the Doctor Artifice in citing Bishop White Doctor asserts sincerity as opposed to partiall divided love What. Bishop Whites words not to the purpose Love of God above all things objective appretiative intensive what Doctor maintains all Most intense love required yet not so much as is possible to the humane nature Perfection of charity how required of Christians how not 438 SECT XXVII His first reason proves not Intension and degrees of what love fall not under the commandment Modus of a virtuous act how under precept Aquinas how to be understood Opposes not the Doctor No one precise degree of love commanded First inference denyed Lukewarmness and first degree of love differ Second and third inferences denyed Vanity of his argument demonstrated Naturall spirituall qualities how differ His conclusion granted Love the highest 1 in respect of the thing beloved 2 The person loving according to mans threefold state In innocence obliged to sinless perfection Condition of the first covenant How urged by Protestants and S. Paul Condition of the second covenant How the Doctor denies legall perfection obligatory to Christians How bound to love God now Their love still growing Acknowledged by M. Cawdrey Opposed to lukewarmness Our loves future how the highest how not Degrees of this love proportioned to degrees of glory This the Saints crown not race 3 Love the highest in regard of the form No one precise degree highest in love as in naturall qualities May be increased in infinitum How a set number of degrees in love His argument retorted Doctors assertion proved by it Gods righteousness infinite immutable Inchoate sanctification a fruit of the Spirit Whole recapitulated No prejudice to the Doctor if all granted 450 SECT XXVIII His second reason proves not yet granted God by more obligations then he expresses to be loved Acknowledged by the
Argument a Paralogism of four terms The Doct. affirms the direct contrary to the Refuters Charge Humane lapses doubtful speeches Three rules of the Civil Law to interpret them All writings subject to obscurity How the Doctor to be understood in the passage arraigned He demonstrates by it the fulness of Christs habitual Grace à Posteriori The only rational way of proving it Christs Love more intense in his Agony than in his suffering Hunger Asserted by S. Paul Christs habitual Grace alwayes perfect Alwayes Christ against the Socinians Christ's habitual Grace not to be augmented whence The Refuters boldness His adding the word Before to the Doctors Discourse and second misadventure in this kind His proof foreseen answered Difference in the actings of Voluntary and Natural Agents Acts of Love in Christ howsoever heightned can never intend the Habit. Proved The Refuters Major opposite to Scripture as well as the Doctor The habit of Grace in Christ not determined to one uniform manner of Acting Saints and Angels love God necessarily and freely So Christ as Comprehensor This not to the purpose The Refuters charitable Additions The Acts of holy Charity of two sorts Of which the Doctor to be understood The Doctors censure of the Refuters Additions just Doctor HAMMOND § 6. FIrst I said it not in these words which he undertakes to refute These are pag. 258. of his Book thus set down by him This point may serve for confutation of a passage in Doctor H. against Mr. C. to wit That Christs love of God was capable of further Degrees 7. These words I never said nor indeed are they to be found in the Passage which he sets down from me and whereon he grounds them which he sayes is this D. H. p. 222. In the next place he passeth to the inforcement of my Argument from what we read concerning Christ himself that he was more intense in Prayer at one time than at another when yet the lower degree was sure no sin and prepares to answer it viz. That Christ was above the Law and did more than the Law required but men fall short by many degrees of what is required But sure this answer is nothing to the matter in hand for the evidencing of which that example was brought by me viz. That sincere Love is capable of Degrees This was first shewed in several men and in the same man at several times in the several ranks of Angels and at last in Christ himself more ardent in one act of Prayer than in another 8. Here the Reader finds not the words Christs Love of God is capable of further Degrees and when by deduction he endeavours to conclude them from these words his conclusion falls short in one word viz. further and 't is but this That the example of Christ will never prove Doctor Hammond his Conclusion unless it inferr that Christs Love of God was capable of Degrees 9. This is but a slight charge indeed yet may be worthy to be taken notice of in the entrance though the principal weight of my Answer be not laid on it and suggest this seasonable advertisement that he which undertakes to refute any saying of another must oblige himself to an exact recital of it to a word and syllable otherwise he may himself become the only Author of the Proposition which he refutes 10. The difference i◠no more than by the addition of the word further But that addition may possibly beget in the Readers understanding a very considerable difference 11. For this Proposition Christs Love of God was capable of further Degrees is readily interpretable to this dangerous sense that Christs Love of God was not full but so far imperfect as to be capable of some further Degrees than yet it had And thus sure the Author I have now before me acknowledges to have understood the words and accordingly professeth to refute them from the consideration of the All-fulness of habitual Grace in Christ which he could not do unless he deemed them a prejudice to it 12. But these other words which though he finds not in my Papers he yet not illogically inferrs from them that Christs Love of God was capable of Degrees more intense at one time than at another are not so liable to be thus interpreted but only import that Christ's Love of God had in its latitude or amplitude several Degrees one differing from another secundum magis minus all of them comprehended in that All-full perfect Love of God which was alwayes in Christ so full and so perfect as not to want and so not to be capable of further Degrees 13. The matter is clear The Degrees of which Christs Love of God is capable are by me thus exprest that his Love was more intense at one time than at another but still the higher of those Degrees of intenseness was as truly acknowledged to be in Christs Love at some time viz. in his Agony as the lower was at another and so all the Degrees which are supposed to be mentioned of his Love are also supposed and expresly affirmed to have been in him at some time or other whereas a supposed Capacity of further Degrees seems at least and so is resolved by that Author to infer that these Degrees were not in Christ the direct contradictory to the former Proposition so that they were wanting in him and the but seeming asserting of that want is justly censured as prejudicial to Christs fulness Here then was one misadventure in his Proceeding § 1. TO this so clear vindication wherein the Doctor very evidently declares 1. That neither the Words this Author undertakes to refute are to be found in his Book nor the Sense he draws from them 2. His acknowledgement of the dangerous sense that Proposition which he causelesly charges on the Doctor is readily interpretable to and that he who best knew his own opinions of any man in the world was so far from any such meaning that he expresly declares that the but seeming asserting of that want in Christs habitual Grace is justly censured as prejudicial to his fulness our Refuter returns a very proud answer and nothing to the purpose thus JEANES 1. He that saith that Christs Love of God was more intense in his Agony than before affirmeth that his Love of God before his Agony was capable of further Degrees than yet he had But you affirm the former and therefore I do you no wrong to impute the latter unto you The Premisses virtually contain the Conclusion and therefore he that holds the Premisses maintaineth the Conclusion I shall readily hearken to your seasonable advertisement that he that undertakes to refute any saying of another must oblige himself to an exact recital of it to a word and syllable but notwithstanding it I shall assume the liberty to charge you with the consequencies of your words and if I cannot make good my charge the shame will light on me 2. If there were any mistake in supplying
the word further it was a Mistake of Charity for I was so charitable as to think that you spake pertinently to the matter you had in hand I conceived that your scope in your Treatise of Will-worship was to prove that there be uncommanded Degrees of the Love of God that those large inclusive words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart withall thy soul c. do not command the highest and most intense degree of the Love of God so that a man may fulfill this command and yet there may be room or place for further and higher Degrees of the Love of God Now this Proposition Christs Love of God was capable of Degrees which you confess to be not illogically inferred from your Papers will never reach this point unless you understand the word further and therefore your censure of my supplying the word further as a misadventure in my proceedings is groundless § 2. You have said Sir And now to which of the former Paragraphs is this answer addressed Have you any where shewed the falshood or weakness of the Doctors vindication of that Passage in his Account from the charge laid in against it in your Vse of Confutation Has he not here clearly demonstrated his Innocence and that neither the Words nor the Sense imposed upon him are his Has he not manifested beyond exception that by your own addition of the word further not to be found in that Passage you have charged him with an Error that he is no wayes guilty of and as heartily abominates as you or any man can Review the Passage you taxed in your Vse of Confutation and compare it with the present Defence and if you can yet find it faulty let us know your reasons in short Do not set a new house on fire that you may run away in the Smoke for that will but aggravate your guilt Remember Sir your Promise and retract what is amiss Do not seek for new Calumnies till the former be made good Howsoever the world must needs see by this your (a) Qui non facit quod facere debet videtur facere adversus ea quia non facit Et qui facit quod facere non debet non videtur facere quod jussus est Digest de Reg. Jur. l. 50. tit 17. leg 121 Tergiversation and hunting after new Cavils to countenance old Aspersions that the Doctor is innocent and that a verse in Machiavels Proverbs which he borrowed from Tacitus Calumniare fortiter aliquid adhaerebit was your Text from whence you deduced your second Vse of Confutation § 3. The former Passage then being supposed innocent by our Refuters (b) Qui tacet non utique fatetur sed tamen verum est eum non negare Digest de reg Jur. leg 142. ibid. no reply to the Doctors vindication for all Courts of Judicature in the world absolve the person arraigned when the Accuser either cannot or will not make good his Crimination I shall now proceed to consider whether the Doctor ex post facto may be concluded guilty of the Vse of Confutation by this that our Refuter has anew brought in against him § 4. The Indictment now is The Doctor guilty not directly as before but only by consequence And thus the Accuser endeavours to make good his Charge § 5. He that saith that Christs Love of God was more intense in his Agony than before affirmeth by consequence you mean Sir that his Love of God before his Agony was capable of further degrees than yet it had But you affirm the former and therefore I do you no wrong to impute the latter unto you The Premisses virtually contain the Conclusion and therefore he that holds the Premisses maintaineth the Conclusion § 6. In good time Sir But then it must be where the Syllogism is (a) Leges communes sunt septem Prima In Syllogismo non debent esse plures termini nec pauciores tribus Haec lex praecipitur l. 1. prior c. 25. just and right and the (b) Secunda lex Non debet esse plus aut minus in Conclusione quam fuit in Praemissis Conclusion logically and artificially inferred from (c) Septima Conclusio sequitur partem debiliorem quare cum propositio negans deterior sit affirmante particularis universali si altera Praemissarum negans aut particularis sit Conclusio quoque debet esse negans aut particularis true and unquestionable principles (d) Haec regula se extendit etiam ad conditiones materiae ita ut si altera Praemissarum sit necessaria altera contingens Conclusio debet esse contingens ut docetur l. 1. Prior. c. 24. Burgers dic Log. l. 2. c. 8. otherwise though the Premisses virtually contain the Conclusion yet the inference will be false Unless the matter as well as the form of the Syllogism be true the Conclusion though rightly inferred for all that will be an untruth (e) Cum Conclusio dicitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 necessario sequi ex praemissis non intelligitur necessitas ipsius conclusionis quae sequitur quae necessitas consequentis appellatur sed necessitas sequelae sive consequentiae Necessitas enim conclusionis consequentis in solâ demonstratione locum habet Necessitas consequentiae in omni Syllogismo bene formato haec enim necessitas est anima Syllogismi eâ enim sublatâ Syllogismus non erit Syllogismus sed Paralogismus Burgersdic Log. l. 2. c. 6. in Comment §. 3. Follow it may by a necessity of consequence but there will be no necessity in the consequent and the inference will be naught Though you are a writer of Scholastical and Practical Divinity yet I see I must be forced to read a Logick Lecture to you And therefore to make this evident by an undeniable instance and not to asperse but only to give our Refuter a Vse of Instruction He that saith that the Pope is the supreme Head of the Church affirmeth by consequence that he has also power over every particular Congregation But you Mr. Refuter affirm the former and therefore I do you no wrong to impute the latter to you The Premisses virtually contain the Conclusion and therefore he that holds the Premisses maintaineth the Conclusion I know Sir notwithstanding this Argument you will bid defiance to the Pope and every the least ragge of Antichrist and you will deny that you are any wayes concerned in the Conclusion because the Assumption is false I believe it Sir and accept of your answer and therefore acquit you from the danger of the Inference § 7. But then withall I must ask you in the Doctors behalf And what if there be no less then four terms in your Syllogism and there be more in the Conclusion then the Premisses naturally inferre and that the Assumption also is directly false If these be all true as I shall not fail to demonstrate must the Doctor lay his hand on his
decrease so ordinarily do the other there could be no security of any mans Love or Friendship in the world but all things must fall into Jealousie and Confusion For the inward Acts of Love being immanent Acts of the Will it is impossible that they should appear and be discovered to others but only by the outward signs and Expressions And as it is impossible that the inward and elicite Acts of the mind should be discerned and known to others but only by the outward transient Acts so also it is generally received from Saint Austin that mentiri est contra mentem ire and men in Sinceritie are bound as well candidly to express as to speak truth to their neighbours else there will be as much a Lie in the Action as is in the Tongue § 43. If our Refuter shall here reply from the 38th Page that though it be a piece of high dissembling for a man to make great pretenses and shewes of Affection when there is little or none in the Heart yet there is no such matter where either it is not expressed to the height or else totally concealed § 44. To this I answer That as there is no General Rule without exceptions so it has already been granted that it may be lawful sometimes to conceal our Love or not express it to the height and Prudence also dictates that in some cases it is both commendable and necessary to assume and put on even a * Illud hic generatim dici potest Vbicumque Simulatio aut dissimulatio per se nihil habet quod Dei gloriam laedat aut in alterum sit injurium aut nostrae laudi vel commodo nimium aurigetur eam ad breve tempus cum res ita fert adhiberi posse saepe enim ad gubernationem rerum ad consilia perficienda opus est quaedam dissimulare nonnunquam etiam severitas quaedam simulari potest in liberos aut alios qui nobis subsunt ad eos imperio continendos quod tantum abest ut reprehensionem mereatur ut potius laude sit dignum tanquam ad disciplinam servandam vehementer utile Joh. Crellii Ethic. Christian l. 4. c. 27. pa. 517. contrary Passion of Anger and Severity toward those we most tenderly affect and consequently that he is no Hypocrite that in these cases hides his Love or does not fully expresse it But then these being but extraordinary cases and exceptions from general Rules can no whit prejudice the usual contrary Practice and Obligation And hence it is that I said which this Objection no waie strikes at that ordinarily the outward Expressions must and commonly do carry a correspondence and proportionable agreement with the inward Acts of that Love which they are designed to represent § 45. And now for this in the next place I appeal to the Common Notions and general apprehensions of Mankind For all men naturally are perswaded that where they conceive the Passion is not counterfeit there such as are the outward Expressions such also is the inward Love and as the one falls or rises so also does the other I pray Sir do not you your self guesse at your welcome by the freedome and nobleness and height of your entertainment Though the Table be loaded with plenty yet if a Super omnia vultus Accesscre boni if locks Ovid. Metam come not in to grace the entertainment or if others be more friendly accosted then your self you will soon enough descry that you are none of the Guests for whom the Feast was provided and that your room would be better accepted then your company When the Jewes saw our Saviour weeping for dead Lazarus Joh. 11. 35 36. did they not make a just construction of this Action and say truly Behold how he loved him When Mary Magdalene washed Luke 7. 38 c. our Saviours feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair and kissed them and anointed them with pretious oyntment did not our Saviour from thence truly argue the greatness of her Love and prove that it was though she were a sinner far more then that of Simon his entertainer because he neither as the Custome was had offered him a kiss or oyle for his head or else water for his feet And therefore the Schools do generally conclude from Saint Gregory that Probatio dilectionis Gregor Magn. Homil. in Evangel mihi pa. 321. E. exhibitio est operis It is in his 30th Homily upon the Gospels Such as is the Expression such is also the Love and the one is the Index and Touchstone to manifest the other § 46. Indeed true Love is a very fruitful and operative thing and it cannot chuse but be communicative Like Mines of Gold and Silver in the Bowels of the Earth it manifests the rich treasure by certain Signes and Indications And though we would our selves yet it cannot will not lie hid Every Concealment laies Shackles and Bonds upon it and shuts up that in a most tedious imprisonment which was born to be free and cannot long live restrained Like the natural heat in the Body it must have its vent and therefore if the Pores be shut up it puts all in a Flame till the Passages be opened Every Tree saies Luke 6. 44 45. our Saviour is known by its fruit and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh And again If ye love me keep my Joh. 15. 21. commandements He that hath my commandements and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my self to him Indeed true Love does as naturally manifest it self by the outward Expressions as Springs of water discover themselves by the verdure of the grass they run under It 's excellence consists in doing good and being communicative and like Light it was as well made to shew it self as comfort others and it has this Property also of Light that the greater or lesse it is still in the Fountain the stronger or weaker it alwaies is in the Ray. Nay it is altogether uselesse unlesse it be working and manifesting it self and a Love concealed is altogether as if it were not What Saint James saies of Faith may be as well said of this As Jam. 2. 26. the body without the Spirit is dead so Love without works is dead also § 47. This then being the nature of true Charity the Christian grace of sincerity requires that our Love be not only such as it seems but that it appear in the effects to be such as it truly is And therefore saies S. John My little Children let 1 John 3. 18. us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in truth From which place Tolet in his Commentary on Rom. 12. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let Love be without dissimulation observes that Tolet. Commentar in Epist ad Rom. c. 12. p. 527 528. there are
fiebat ut iste Habitus Gratiae Sapientiae ejus qui revera non crescebat hominum tamen opinione cresceret Atque hoc sensu non incommode accipi possunt verba Bedae à Magistro citata quem sensum indicat etiam Damascenus l. 3. c. 22 c. sunt autem qui memoratum Evangelii locum malunt intelligere de Sapientia acquisita quam etiam secundum Habitum putant aetatis successu auctam in Christo Sed obstat huic intellectui quod adjungitur de Gratia Non enim credibile est Christum secundum aliquem Habitum acquisitum in Gratia profecisse qua Deo hominibus paulatim gratior evaderet Et sane rectius Scientiae quae rerum est humanarum quam Sapientiae quâ res divinae cognoscuntur Habitus aliquis acquisitus videretur in Christo agnoscendus quare retinenda est superior explicatio Thus far Estius To these I might adde Scotus l. 3. Sent. dist 14. q. 3. and all the rest of the Schoolmen that H. Cavellus has there quoted Durand lib. 3. Sent. d. 14. q. 3. ad 3. q. 4. ad 1. Aquinas 3. par q. 7. art 12. ad 3m. q. 12. art 2. in corp Cajetan and others in loc For the best Commentators in these places understand him as speaking of a real increase in the inward Acts of Wisedom and Grace Ames in the place fore-quoted cites Bartholomeus Medina in tertiam partem Thom. q. 7. a. 12. q. 10. a. 2. to this purpose But O me probe lassum juvate Posteri It is time to cry out Claudite jam rivos pueri sat prata biberunt Virgil. If this be not enough to edifie our writer of Scholastical Practical Divinity it is not a Demonstration but a Miracle must do it But before I part with this Section I must advise him for the future to be more wary in his Challenges and to let the Schoolmen in Paul's Church yard and the Library at Oxford alone and rather to intreat the Doctor to alleadge the Testimonies only of such as are in the King of Spains Library of Saint Laurence or the Vatican at Rome where the Inquisition will be sure to keep the Doctor or his Hyperaspist from discovering his ignorance or folly And so farwell my bold Challenger till we meet in the next Section Only let me adde for a close that since I have shewed that you have few or none of the Schoolmen on your side which in your ecstatical passion and Galliardise you called all your own that now I expect with the Graecian Mad-man that in his pleasant dream called all the Ships in the haven his you will cry out as he did after his friends had cured him of his Frenzy and declaim against my cruel Courtesie with a pol me occidistis amici Horace Non sâ—rvastis And so we go on to the next Section SECTION 13. The Refuters Melancholy Phansie his acknowledging the Doctors Innocence The Doctor constantly speaks of the gradual difference in some Acts of Charity never of the Habit. The Refuters Consequence hereupon His Monstrous Syllogism examined The Acts of Christs Love were primariò per se and not only secundariò and per accidens capable of Degrees Demonstrated Actions and Passions intended and remitted only in regard of their Termes The Habits and Acts of Charity in Christ gradually only and not specifically different from those in all other men God by his extraordinary Power may create something greater and better then the habitual Grace of Christ Asserted by Aquinas Suarez and many other Schoolmen and the Refuter himself The Acts of the Habit of Grace in Christ de facto gradually different in themselves and from the Habit. The phrase The love of God variously taken in Scripture Proved In what sense the Doctor constantly takes it Demonstrated The greater good to be more intensely beloved There is an Order in the Acts and Degrees of Love Asserted by the Schooles Of the Order in the Love of Christ The Habit of Love to God and our Neighbours one and the same Quality Proved God and our Neighbours not to be loved with the same equality and degree of Affection Actus efficaces inefficaces what they are That they were in Christ Of the gradual difference between them Hence demonstratively proved that the first great Law of Charity Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart c. does not alwaies oblige us pro hic nunc to the highest degree and noblest Act of Divine Love Of the gradual difference between the free and necessary Acts of Christs Love Phrase Actual Love distinguished The Acts and operations of Grace in Christ were neither intensively nor extensively still commensurate with the Habit. Proved In what sense Aquinas 's Rule urged by the Refuter holds § 1. THe Refuter in a Melancholy Contemplation and Melancholy men are full of Phansie they can create Armies and Castles in the Clouds and Lions and Dragons in the Sielings of their Chambers and the very Curtains of their Beds was pleased to imagine that the Doctor was his Enemy and to raise Objections against his Doctrine a full year shall I say or rather twelve at least before his Mixture had been published to the world For the Passage in the Account against which his Vse of Confutation is addressed is but a recapitulation of what had been more largely delivered to that purpose in the Treatise of Will-worship And therefore the Doctor is willing to undeceive him in this misapprehension also Thus then he Doctor HAMMOND 29. SEcondly he will hear the Doctors Objection and consider of what weight it is Objection against what against the fulness of habitual Grace in Christ Sure never any was by me urged against it And he cannot now think there was The degrees of intenseness observable in the several Acts of Christs Love his praying more ardently at one time then another was all that I concluded from that Text Luc. 22. 24. and that is nothing to his habitual Love § 2. Indeed the Case is so plain in it self and the Doctor in this and the former Sections has so fully cleared his own Innocence that now even our Refuter himself professes his readiness to believe it though his Lucid intervals are very short For thus he bespeakes the Doctor in the very entrance of his Reply JEANES THat this Objection was not intended by you against the fulness of Christs habitual Grace upon your Protestation I readily believe but that by consequence it reacheth it I thus make good c. § 3. But why upon your Protestation why not rather upon your Proof and Reason For has not the Doctor all along demonstrated that his words could be meant of nothing else but the degrees of actual Love Nay is not this expressely and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declared even in that very Passage you quarrel at Are not these the very words as you your self have cited them even in your Vse of
But there is and must be a gradual difference and more in respect of the goodness of the Objects of the Habit of Charity or the Love of God in Christ Therefore there is and must be a gradual difference in respect of the several Acts of this Habit of Charity or the Love of God in Christ § 45. The Major and the Minor are both Propositions that are perse notae and carry their letters of Credence in their forehead But because we have met with such an exquisite Schoolman that Souldier-like he is resolved to dispute every inch of Jeans pag. 17. ground with us I shall now with the Readers patience for the Refuters satisfaction prove them § 46. The Major then I thus Demonstrate If Goodness be Vid. Suarez in 3. part Thom. tom 2. disp 38. sect 1. p. 524. B. C. the sole proper Object of the Will and the Affections of it and Love be nothing else but a Tendency to a union of the Will with the Object beloved then of necessity it follows that where the greater Goodness is either truly or apparently to be found in the Object beloved there it is the more amiable and lovely and the Will is carryed with a stronger inclination a greater Ardency of affection and a proportionably gradual intension to the Goodness of the Object either real or apprehended But so it is that Goodness is the sole and proper Object of the Will and the affections of it Ergo. And hence it is that the great Philosopher tells us in his Ethicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 8. Eth. cap. 2. §. 3 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again more clearly in the same Treatise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 1. Eth. c. 7. §. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again Ibid. § 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The sum and substance is this That as whatsoever is good is good either absolutely in it self or in order to something else good either as an End or else as a Means in order to that end whether it be absolutely such as the last great End of all or in suo genere in this or that kind in this or that Art or Science or Faculty so every man loves and pursues that which is either thus good as an End or a Means in truth and reality or else only in shew and appearance And that as the good is either in it self or appearance greater so it is more eligible more desirable in it self and pursued by the Will with the greater inclination and stronger ardency of affection and that Happiness because it is the last End of man is therefore by all most desirable and most earnestly pursued though they that follow after it do not run all in the same but most in several Pathes § 47. And indeed if this were not so it would evidently follow that God who is the great and only Good were not to be beloved with an higher ardency of affection with a more intense Act of Love then any other created inferior finite good And what then would become of that first and great Commandement and the second like unto it Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul c. and thy neighbour as thy self God who is the first the greatest Good must still be loved with the most high most noble and most ardent Act of Love and then our selves and then our neighbours as our selves § 48. And therefore the Schools do all after the Mr. of the Sentences resolve that Datur ordo in Charitate and that this Ordo Charitatis cadit sub praecepto That there is not only a gradual difference in respect of Intension in the several Acts of Divine Love but that God himself has so commanded and it would be unreasonable and brutish in us not to observe it And now Sir though I have not read scarce dipped into a quarter of them yet having read Lombard and Thomas and Scotus and Ocham and Durand D'Orbellis and Cajetan and Suarez and Estius and Bonaventure upon the point and the matter being so clear and evident in it self and none found in these several Authors quoted as Opponents in this controversie I dare challenge you in all your great reading in the Schoolmen in Paul's Church-yard or the Library at Oxford to shew me but one instance to the contrary To give the Reader a Tast and yet I am ashamed to be forced to prove things as plain and bright as the Sun at noon Si attendatur gradus in Charitate secundum intensionem remissionem Actus volendi Sic dicendum est quod talis ordo est in Charitate quia intensiùs tenemur diligere Deum quam nos ipsos et majus bonum debemus nobis magis velle vel proximo quam minus bonum sic aequale bonum magisnobis quam proximo caeteris paribus Et de Deo quidem quod sit magis diligendus quam nos ipsi patebit in sequente quaestione De aliis autem duobus probatur hoc ex dictis Arist 8. Eth. ubi dicit sic Bonum simpliciter amabile simpliciter unicuique autem bonum proprium Ex hoc potest dupliciter argui Primo sic Sicut simpliciter ad simpliciter sic magis ad magis Ergo magis bonum est magis amabile maximè bonum est maximè amabile Nunc est ita quod inter bona quae nobis vel amicis optamus est dare minus bonum magis bonum maxime bonum Ergo unum est magis alio amandum magis optandum Secundo potest argui ex altera clausula dicti Arist Unicuique est amabile bonum proprium Sed quod est bonum mihi est magis proprium quam illud quod est proximi quia licet proximus sit alter ipse non tamen est Ego ipse sed alter Ergo aequale bonum debeo mihi magis diligere optare quam proximo ita quod si ambo non possemus habere plus debeo eum velle carere quam me quod est intelligendum semper caeteris omnibus existentibus paribus Et sic patet primum principale So Durand lib. 3 Sentent d. 29. q. 2. art 1. C. D. Onoc more Ratio diligendi alia ex charitate est bonitas Divina primò quidem ut in se existens ac deinde ut ab aliis participata Et quia in hoc est multiplex gradus ideo in Actu dilectionis charitativè est dare multos gradus Durand ibid. art 1. ad primum So again Ad Tertium dicendum quod ordo Charitatis attenditur secundum Actum prout tendit in objecta inquibus invenitur differentia bonitatis per consequens in ipso Actu gradus intensionis remissionis nihilominus Charitas ipsa ante Actum dicitur ordinata in quantum per eam voluntas sic disponitur ut cum opus fuerit exeat in
Ex toto sunt etiam duae Patrum expositiones una Sancti Augustini Bernardi Thomae locis notatis qui docent illud Ex toto significare imperari nobis hoc mandato omnes gradus Charitatis quos vel in hoc mundo vel in alio habere possumus it a ut semper Deum amemus non sit in nobis ullus motus cupiditatis neque voluntarius neque involuntarius cum Dei amore pugnans ex quo recte deduc unt hoc mandatum in hac vita perfecte impleri non posse Quae sententia non pugnat cum sententia nostra de consiliis Evangelicis c. quia Patres supra-citati existimant hoc praecepto simul imperari medium indicari finem ideo docent non posse impleri perfectè hoc praeceptum in hac vita tamen non esse praevaricatorem qui non perfectè illud implet c. Quo circaremanet jam suus Consiliis locus etiam circa hoc praeceptum nam etiam si nihil possim addere huic praecepto quatenus indicat finem tamen possum addere quatenus indicat medium si non pecco ex sententiae S. Thomae si non amem Deum nisi vno gradu amoris certè non teneor in rigore amplius amare implicat enim contradictionem quod non peccem non faciendo quod facere teneor ergo si addam alterum gradum amoris amo plus quam teneor atque eo modo facio actum supererogationis consilii c. Est igitur alia Sententia illud ex toto Corde non significare omnes actus Cordis vel omnem intensionem possibilem ità ut imperetur ut nihil corde agamus nisi Deum diligere idque summâ vehementiâ amoris sed solum ut amemus Deum praecipuo amore nihilque illi in amore anteponamus vel aequemus ac proinde solum in hoc praecepto contineatur id quod faciendum est non etiam finis ob quem faciendum est ex quo sequuntur sex quasi Corollaria Primum est Huic praecepto adversari omnia peccata mortalia quia in omni peccato mortali anteponitur Creatura Creatori Secundum Huic praecepto non adversari amorem honestum affinium amicorum licet non roferatur actu in Deum quia non tenemur Deum solum amare sed eum praecipue Tertium Non adversari peccata venialia eidem praecepto quia peccata venialia non mutant ultimum finem Quartum Non adversari eidem praecepto motus involuntarios concupiscentiae etiam si rerum alioqui gravissimarum ut infidelitatis blasphemiae adulterii c. Nam cum charitas Dei sit in voluntate non adversantur ei nisi motus voluntarii Quintum Hoc praeceptum perfectè in hac vita servare posse quia non exigit nisi ut amemus Deum plus quam Creaturas Sextum Posse Deum ex toto corde magis minus diligi qui enim propter Deum abstinet se à licitis magis diligit quam qui solum se abstinet ab illicitis tamen uterque diligit toto corde Quod autem haec explicatio sit verior Scripturae conformior quam superior multis modis probari potest c. Bellarm. de Monachis lib. 2. cap. 13. col 343 344 345 346. § 4. The Doctors answer stands thus I answer that that Phrase Thou shalt love the Lord thy Treat of Will-worship §. 49. God with all thy heart with all thy Soul c. denoteth two things only First the sincerity of this love of God as opposed to Partial divided Love or Service Secondly the loving him above all other things and not admitting any thing into competition with him not loving any thing else in such a degree and in neither of these respects excluding all other things from a subordinate place in our Love Which being supposed it will be easie to discern that this sincere Love of God above all is capable of degrees and that it is possible for two men to love God with all their hearts i. e. sincerely and above all things and so both to obey the praecept and yet one to love him in a more intense degree then the other doth which may be observed amongst the Angels themselves the Seraphims being so called because they are more ardent in Zeal then other Angels nay for the same Person constantly to Love God above all and yet to have higher expressions of that Love at one time then at another Thus we read of Christ himself Luke 22. 24. who we know did never fail in performing what was man's duty in prayer or any thing else yet that he at that time prayed more earnestly which is a demonstrative evidence that the lower degree is not necessarily sinful when the higher is acceptable to God which when it is granted there is no doubt but these free-will-offerings will be reconcilable with that Command and he that loves God with all his heart may have some possibility of loving God better then yet he doth and so some room left for a voluntary oblation § 5. To this for a further clearing and unfolding his mind the Doctor thought fit in his Reply to Mr. Cawdrey's Triplex Diatribe to add these two things To the first branch of his answer The sincerity of this Love of God as opposed to partial divided Love I now add saies the Dr. Hammonds Account of Mr. Cawdrey's Triplex Diatribe c. 6. sect 9 §. 1. p. 221. Ibid. §. 5. p. 222. Doctor for further explication that what we do according to the precepts of Gods Law we do out of Love toward God not hypocritically or as by constraint 2ly He sayes Still it must be remembred that it is not the sinless perfection we speak of when we say it consists in a latitude and hath degrees but sincerity of this or that vertue exprest in this or that performance and as this though it excludes not all mixture of sin in the suppositum the man in whom it is yet may by the grace of God in Christ exclude it in this or that Act. For it is certain that I may in an Act of Mercy give as much as any Law obligeth me to give and so not sin in giving too little § 6. To which let me now add what the Doctor had before delivered in his Treatise of Will-worship Sect. 16. When in the service of God a man out of a pious affection of hope and gratitude inciting to do things acceptable to God as well as of fear deterring him from all that is prohihited shall in conformity to Gods general commands and the Doctrine of the Gospel do any thing else besides what God hath commanded by any particular precept this Action of his is to be accounted so much more commendable and acceptable to God Piety being one of those vertues quarum tantae sunt amplitudines ut quanto auctiores sunt tanto sunt laudatiores which have
find a Man that hath opened the Pentateuch in any language with more exquisite Judgement and profound learning and skill This work of his as it is very much for the honour of our Nation so there be very few writers that do equall it and scarce any that exceed it And yet such is our Refuters ill fortune that the Doctors exposition and his are almost one and the same in themselves and with that of the most excellent Grotius § 17. But yet if Ainsworth because too much Independent in his Judgement should be of as little value with our Refuter as the former I shall now annex the exposition of those that without doubt are of greater authority with him § 18. And first I shall begin with the Annotations of the Assembly of Divines Matth. 22. 37. Thou shalt love the Lord Deut. 6. 5. Luke 10. 27. With all thy heart with all the faculties of thy Soul With all thy Mind This is here added to Deut. 6. 5. and with all the strength or might lest out here is added Mark 12. 30. Luke 10. 27. Verse 38. The first in order for God must be loved before and more then all men So again on Mark 12. 39. Love the Lord thy God see on Matth. 22. 37 38. Luke 10. 27. with all thy strength As much as possibly thou canst the measure of love to thy Neighbour must be thy self but the measure wherewith we must love God must be to love him without measure So again on Luke 10. 27. Thou shalt love c. See Deut. 6. 5. with all thy heart as much as thou canst modus diligendi Deum est sine modo diligere Bernard The measure of our loving God is to love him beyond measure On Deut. 6. 4 5. Thus God though but one must be loved with all the heart Soul and might of every Man as in the next verse and all that is too little for so great and so good a God though it be a great deal more then we can perform Cap. 4. 35. Zach. 14. 9. Mark 12 29. Joh. 17. 3. 1 Cor. 8. 4 6. Ephes 4. 5. Verse 5. with all thy heart See the precedent Annot. and the Annot. on cap. 4. 29. Gen. 31. 6. The Annotations they refer to for the fuller explication of their meaning are these Deut. 4. 29. All thy heart Not without word or shew or Ceremony but with a true confession of thy faults and a sincere desire of his Favour The other is Gen. 31. 6. with all my Power A faithful and religious Servant will be as intentive and laborious in his Masters affaires as in his own serving him as Jacob with all his might and more then that he cannot do for himself and as he could not do more so could he not endure more for himself then for his Master he did see Verse 40. Which good Servants will take for a pattern of paines and patience to the bad who are sleight and slothful in their Masters business minding their own ease and pleasure more then their Masters profit though bad Masters as Laban was it may be brought for a Rebuke § 19. To these I shall adjoyn the interpretation of Vrsin as I find it in his Catechism of Paraeus's edition and castigation Diliges Dominum Deum tuum Diligere Deum ex toto corde c. est ex agnitione infinitae bonitatis Dei reverenter de Deo sentire pro summo bono Deum habere ideo Deum sumè amare nec non in Deo laetari acquiescere omniaque Dei gloriae postponere adeo ut ne minima quidem cogitatio vel inclinatio vel appetitio ullius rei in nobis sit quae Deo displiceat ac potius omnia etiam charissima amittere vel durissima perpeti velimus quam à Dei communione avelli aut Deum ulla in re offendere Denique omnia eo dirigere ut Deus solus celebretur Ex toto Corde tuo Cor Hebraeis significat affectus appetitus inclinationes Deus ergo cor nostrum requirens vult se solum agnosci haberi pro summo nostro bono se solum supra omnia amari in se solo cor nostrum acquiescere nec partem ejus sibi partem alteri tribui ita ut nihil sit quod ei aequale nedum autem apponere vel in amoris partem admittere velimus Hoc vocat Scriptura perfecto corde ambulare coram Deo cujus oppositum est ambulare coram Deo non toto non perfecto sed diviso corde coram Deo hoc est claudicare nec se totum Deo dedere Object Solus Deus est diligendus Ergo non proximus c. Resp Fallacia accidentis à negatione modi ad negationem rei Solus Deus est diligendus summè supra omnia hoc est sic ut nihil prorsus sit quod ei vel praeferamus vel aequemus quodque ipsius causâ amittere non parati simus Proximum verò alia debemus non summè non supra omnia nec ita ut malimus Deum quam parentes offendere sed infra Deum propter Deum non supra Deum Ex tota Anima tua Anima significat partem volentem motus Voluntatis quasi dicat totâ voluntate proposito diliges Ex tota Cogitatione tua Cogitatio significat mentem seu partem intelligentem quasi dicat quantum de Deo cognoscis tantum etiam eum diliges Omnes vero cogitationes tuas intendere ut Deum recte cognoscas sic etiam amabis quantum enim cognoscimus tantum diligimus Nunc imperfectè diligimus quia ex parte tantum cognoscimus In altera vita perfectè cognoscemus ideo perfectè etiam diligemus id quod ex parte cessabit Nunc cognoscimus in speculo tunc videbimus eum à facie ad faciem 1 Cor. 13. 10. Ex omnibus viribus tuis Intelligit omnes actiones simul internas externas ut cum Dei lege sint congruentes Thus Vrsin Explicat Catechis part 1. de Miseria hominis q. 4. Explicat p. 23 34. § 20. And now for a close of this very tedious task I shal appeal to those very places in Mr. Calvin that Chamier himself has quoted against Bellarmine in the present Controversie Eam vim Calvinus ita expressit Tunc ritè compositam fore vitam nostram si Dei amor omnes nostros sensus occupet solidè amandum esse Deum huc conferri debere quicquid facultatis inest hominibus Deum legis praeceptis non respicere quid possint homines sed quid debeant Et in harmonia Mosis ad summam Legis Jubemur Deum amare ex toto corde anima totisque viribus Quamlibet enitamur mutilum est ac debile nostrum studium nisi omnes sensus nostros occupet amor Dei ad ipsum penitus ferantur vota nostra cogitationes ad eum quoque se applicent omnes nostri
a debtor to the Law be done above it And if any man shall assert the contrary I desire either his Reason or Scripture to make it good § 39. And then secondly as to the Perfection of the Love of the blessed Saints and Angels in Heaven it is easily demonstrable and the Doctor has in part done it in his Treatise of Will-worship that though they all love God Naturally and Necessarily and ad ultimum virium yet they do not all love God in the same indivisible degree of Perfection and Point of fervour and intensenesse which to use the Doctors Dr. Ham. Treat of Will-worship sect 49. p. 101. edit Londin Vide Davenant de Justit habit Act. cap. 45. p. 514 527. Jeanes p 27. words to this purpose may be observed among the Angels themselves the Seraph in being so called because they are more Ardent in Zeal then other Angels For if it be true that God rewards every man according to his works and that there be different degrees of happinesse in Heaven proportionable to the Saints proficiency in Grace here on earth it must necessarily follow that if our Refuters observation from the Schoolmen be any whit considerable and that the Scotists do rightly place the very formality of happinesse solely in the love of God or if at least Suarez and others think truly that it is essential to happinesse though the very Essence of happinesse consists not wholly or chiefly in it or if at least the rest of the Thomists who hold that the Essence of happinesse stands only in the beatifical vision yet truly make this Actual most intense Love of God a natural and necessary consequence of the beatifical vision it must I say necessarily follow that the Love of the Saints must be proportionable to their happinesse and that they cannot love God more then they see and enjoy him § 40. But to wave these speculations of the School-men Plain it is from the Scriptures and our Saviour tells us that in his Fathers house are many Mansions Plain it is from the John 14. 2. 1 Cor. 15. 41 42. Scriptures and the Apostle has told us that as one star differeth from another star in glory so also it shall be in the Resurrection of the dead Plain it is from the Scriptures and our Saviour has made it good from the Parable of the Talents that the enlargement Matth. 25. 15 c. Vide Tertul. Scorpiac c. 6. p. 622. Augustin Tract 67. in Joan. p. 171. col 1. D. col 2. A. Tract 68. p. 172. col 2. A. Gregor M. Homil. 16. in Ezech. fol. 282. B. Dialog l. 4. c. 35. fol. 238. C. F. Cyrill in loc A Resurrectione diversos fore honoris gloriae gradus Verissimum est aliisque Scripturae testimoniis probatur c. Calvin in 1 Cor. 15. 41. p. 2â—0 Nos ut profitemur quod antea diximus varios fore gradus gloriae Chamier tom 3. Panstrat l. 25. c. 4. §. 7. Vide cap. 3. §. 8 9 10. ibid. l. 21. cap. 21. §. 58. Sed nec in ipsis Comprehensoribus est haec plenitudo summa omnium gratiarum quae est in Christo Nam si stella à stella differat luce magnitudine tum multo magis differt à Sole Habent omnes beati illam gratiae gloriae mensuram quam capere potest maximam mens vniuscujusque sed non habet illam capacitatem vel gratiae vel gloriae mens cujusvis purae Creaturae quam habet anima Christi Davenant Expos in Colos 1. 19. p. 100. n. 3. Vide Davenant de Justit habit Act. cap. 44. p 516 517. Quod autem visio Dei plena dicitur non efficitur inde aequalem fore omnium Sactorum visionem fruitionem Nam in domo Dei multae sunt mansiones uti inter Stellas alia alii praefulget ita inter Sanctos diversa erit gloria Dan 12. Quisque tamen quantum maxime pro doni sui capacitate Lambert Danaeus in c. 5. Enchirid. Augustin as I find him cited and approved by Chamier tom 3. Panstrat l. 25. c 3 §. 9 10. Vide Sculteti Idea Concion p. 1097. alios of our Crowns of glory shall bear some proportion with our improvement of those Graces that God has here bestowed upon us And therefore it seemes to me most undenyably to follow that a gradual difference in the Participation of the Beatifical Vision must of necessity inferr a gradual difference in the height and Fervour and intensenesse of our Love For though all the Saints and Angels in Heaven shall love God to the utmost of their might and ability there being nothing there to interrupt it nothing there to mingle with it and this because they naturally and necessarily love him and their happinesse consists in this Love and this sight and this enjoyment of God yet because all do not equally enjoy God because their capacities are not the same they cannot therefore all love him in the same height and degree All the Stars of the firmament are full of the Suns light yet all are not of the same brightnesse and lustre because they are not of the same Magnitude We see there is one glory of the Sun another of the Moon and another glory of the Stars For one Star differeth from another Star in glory And yet the Sun the Fountain of light does equally shine on all This gradual difference in their lustre and brightnesse arises from their different Capacities If all were of an equal Bignesse and Magnitude and Distance from the Sun their sight would be the same The Essence the Form of Fire is as truly in the weak lambent flames of spirit of Wine or Straw as in red hot Iron or moulten Brass or Nebuchadnezars fiery fornace and yet they do not heat and flame and scorch alike This difference does arise from the variety of the Combustible matter now enkindled For though Natural agents do alwayes work uniformly because they work necessarily and to the utmost of their power yet the intenseness of their operations is alwaies proportioned to the vigour and efficacy and virtue of the Causes from whence they do flow Otherwise the light of a Candle would be equal to the brightness of the Sun which yet we see is lost and swallowed up by the Sun-beams And therefore Mr. Cawdrey as we have already observed without scruple grants to the Doctor that sincere Love is capable of Degrees whether in the same man at several times or two men at the same time and so both may obey the precept though yet with Chamier he maintains that the utmost height and Point of Perfection possible is required and that whatsoever is short of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and indivisible point of Perfection is so far faulty How rationally and consequently we have already declared § 41. And therefore fifthly though it be granted that Mr. Cawdrey and our Refuter and * Vide
feel the motion of it yet we know not whence it comes nor whither it goes since thus it is with every one that is born of the Spirit since we cannot so much as think a good thought as of our selves but all our sufficiency 2 Cor. 3. 5. Phil. 4. 13. is of God through whose assistance and strengthening we can do all things he therefore will own every fruit and degree of Grace that flowes onely from his own holy Spirit and gracious assistance and will not break the bruised Reed nor Mat. 12. 20. quench the smoaking flax but in due time blow it up into a bright and glorious flame and set the bones which he has broken And consequently I must conclude that the highest degree is not commanded and that an Inferiour degree of Love even of Actuall love is no sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod erat demonstrandum § 39. To recapitulate all for the Readers better satisfaction 1. First the highest degree of Love absolutely such or rather the one infinite height and simply perfect Act of Love commensurate with the Perfection and amiableness of God no body sayes is required in this Love 2. The loving God according to sinless Perfection and the abilities and originall righteousness Adam had in innocence the Apostle against the Jews and the †Vid. White against Fisher point 8. §. 1. 2. p. 510. D. p. 522. B. C. D. E. Mountague's answer to the Gagger c. 15 17 19. Davenant de Justit Habit. Actual Protestants against the Romanists say is required to Justification and according to the Tenor of the first Covenant which therefore they say is necessary because the Papists speak of a Justification by works a fullfilling of the Law and merit ex condigno Perfection and works of Supererogation This our Refuter undertakes to maintain to be now required of Christians to Justification otherwise he has no opposite But then the Doctor maintains that this Law requires not that Love and that Charity that consists in this sinless Perfection to the Justification of believers now because they are not under the law but under Grace And if our Refuter be his Adversary in this let him try his School-skill and answer our arguments in a School-way and leave his begging of the question 3. The loving God according to the Abilities and advantages we shall have in heaven when we shall see God face to face is the Perfection of Saints and those of the Church Triumphant not the duty of Christians and those of the Church Militant more then sincerely to endeavour after it and by comparing their weakness with the uprightness of the Law and the Perfection of this Love they may have wherewithall to humble them and long for and to fly to Ckrists Righteousness and Mediation and Gods Mercy And though our Refuter bring after the Authorities of Austin Bernard Aquinas and Scotus to prove that to this we Christians are obliged by the Law yet I shall demonstratively prove anon that they say it not but the contrary and so our Refuter stands alone and naked like the Shrub on the point of a Rock or the top of a Mast in open Sea in a storm that has nothing to succour it 4. That there is no one degree in this Quality and Grace of holy love so high beyond which there can be no higher or it cannot go but it must cease to be love and become somewhat else and consequently we cannot be obliged to love God in any one degree precisely much lesse in the eighth degree which is the highest as our Refuter and Master Cawdrey maintain 5. That believers by this old this new Commandment of Love as * Mat. 22. 39. Joh. 13. 34. our Saviour and S. John †1 Joh. 2. 7 8. 2 Joh. 4. 5. calls it are obliged to Love God to the utmost of their Power and sincerely to endeavour to grow more in grace and the knowledge of our Lord that so they may be enabled still to love him the more The onely measure of love here being to love him without measure not fixing upon any bounds or limits of love And this is that the Doctor and the most learned of Protestants maintain and let him see if he can disprove it and make what advantage he can by it § 40. But now though all this is said and demonstratively proved I must tell our Refuter that all this is nothing to the present controversie depending between him and the Doctor I must grant it indeed to be very usefull in it self and very fit to be known and better considered then oftentimes it is And in this respect I thank our Refuter for his digression that has thus occasioned mine And withall I must adde that though all were granted which now he contends for it would no whit at all concern the Doctors assertion Because the Doctor expresly in very many places especially in the defence of his Treatise of Will-worship professes not to speak of sinless perfection but of the sincerity of this or that virtue or Grace in this or that performance when he sayes it consists in a latitude and admits of uncommanded degrees And so much for his first reason I follow him to the next SECT 28. His Second Reason proves not yet granted God by more Obligations then he expresses to be Loved Acknowledged by the Doctor This Love infinite Not Positively and Categorematicè but Negatively and Syncategorematicè Acknowledged by Bellarmine and others Hinders not Freewill-offerings of Love These asserted by Bishop White Doctor not confuted though Bellarmine may Bellarmine and Ames at no great odds here Concerns not the Doctor Refuters Artifice censured Doctors Comfort and Precedent in this Persecution of the tongue 1. HIs second Reason whereby he undertakes to evince that this Commandment enjoyneth a most intense actuall Love of God a love of God with as high a degree as is possible to the humane Nature now follows and it is this JEANES A most intense Love of God a love of him with the utmost of our forces and endeavours is due unto God debito connaturalitatis debito gratitudinis 1. Debito connaturalitatis by an obligation of congruence for it is fitting that we love him as much as we can who is infinitely good in himself and therefore the chief good and supreme end of man The Protestants are brought in by Bellarmine de Monach. l. 2. c. 13. thus objecting against their Popish Evangelicall counsels of perfection that he that is unwilling to love God as much as he can doth hereby deny to wit virtually and interpretatively that God is the chief good of man and whereas he is so bold in his answer to affirm that non requiritur ut quis summum bonum tam ardenter amet quam forte posset Ames hath hereunto a round and acute reply tum non requiritur ut in bonum omni ratione summum feramur affectu omni etiam ratione summo 2.
3. dist 27. dico igitur quod illud praeceptum Deut. 6. non potest impleri in viâ quantum ad omnes conditiones quae exponuntur per illas additiones ex toto Corde ex totâ animâ c. quia non potest esse in viâ istâ tanta recollectio virium ut amotis impedimentis possit voluntas tanto conatu ferri quanto possit si vices essent unitae non impeditae quod ad talem intensionem actûs expulsis impedimen t is recollectis viribus debet intelligi dictum Aug. Magistri quod praeceptum illud non impletur in viâ nam pronitas virium inferiorum pro statu isto impedit superiores ab actibus perfectis The first that Bellarmine hath to evade these Testimonies c. § 10. Well Sir because there can be no good Musick in unison's I cannot commend your skill very much you are still striking on one string Forsooth the writers of Controversies betwixt us and the Papists But though you are very uncharitable to the Doctor in thus aspersing his fame yet you are very mercifull to your Reader in not clogging his Patience by transcribing those quotations so every where to be had Howsoever I must tell you that you had yet been more mercifull if you had spared those that you have transcribed because indeed they are so little to the purpose And if these wherewith you say you trouble the Reader are the most remarkable that you conceive are to be found in Aquinas and Scotus concerning this matter you must give me leave to tell you that your Reading in those Authors is not very great although you are a School man nor your Remarques and Récherches very deep very pertinent and Judicious I doubt not but that I in my slender observation and small reading in those Authours shall observe the quite contrary to what you labour to perswade your Reader § 11. For your first quotation of Aquinas secundâ secundae q. 44. art 6. I must say that if you had rendred it entire and faithfully as it lyes in Aquinas it would have been answered before it had been objected I represent it then at large It is in Corp. thus Dicendum quod praeceptum aliquod dupliciter potest impleri uno modo Perfectè alio modo imperfectè Perfectè quidem impletur praeceptum quando pervenitur ad finem quem intendit Praecipiens Impletur sed imperfectè quando et si non pertingat ad finem Praecipientis non tamen receditur ab ordine ad finem sicut si dux exercitus praecipiat militibus ut pugnent ille perfectè implet praeceptum qui pugnando hostem vincit quod dux intendit Ille autem implet sed imperfectè cujus pugna ad victoriam non pertingit non tamen contra disciplinam militarem agit Intendit autem Deus per hoc praeceptum and this this is the Passage our Refuter insists on ut homo sibi totaliter uniatur quod fiet in Patrià quando Deus erit omnia in omnibus Et ideo plenè perfectè in Patriâ implebitur hoc praeceptum in viâ autem impletur sed imperfectè Et tamen in via tanto unus alio perfectius implet quanto magis accedit per quandam similitudinem ad Patriae perfectionem The meaning of Aquinas is this In every Precept or command we are to consider the end of the Legislator and the end of the Law This is the performance of the duty enjoyned which the Legislator commands as a means for the attainment of that end which he himself did intend and aime at when he published the Law For instance A Generall intends and designs the taking this city or that Fortresse and therefore he rallies up his Forces and commands them to storm it They do so and if they gain the City by assault the Commander has his end which he first intended when he gave the word of command and the soldier has done his duty which was the end of the Precept but if they storm it and are repulsed though the Generall has missed his Aime yet the Soldier has not broken the Precept and did as much as the Commandment though not as much as the Commander intended It is just so in the present case according to Aquinas's doctrine God when he first made man intended to make him eternally happy by a full enjoyment and sight and perfect love of himself But because he made him upright and of a nature as well capable of serving as of enjoying his maker he prescribed him a Law as a Means for the attainment of this happiness The Law was Thou shalt Love the Lord with all thy heart or as much as thou art able and according to that strength and that grace I bestow upon thee For God dwelling in inaccessible light cannot be known and loved by us any other way then as God enables us to know and to love him and then he promised to admit man to a clear sight and full fruition and perfect love of himself This was Gods end when he first made the Law and our duty and the end of the command it self was that we should love him to the utmost of that power and strength which he should give us to love him If therefore we consider the Perfection of that Love and that happiness which God intended we should arrive at by the enjoyment of himself in heaven this is mans duty to aime at because it is his last end and the perfection God intended to bring him to at first when he made him But then because it is incompatible with our present state and Condition as we are in the body God made it not the end of the Precept though it was that which he intended we should arrive at though it were our last end and his design when at first he created us For otherwise he had prescribed us an impossible duty that we should be happy in possession and yet in the way to it that we should be present with him and see him face to face and yet be absent from him which implyes a contradiction And therefore he requires of us as our duty a lower kind of love a love suitable to our present state that we should love him as much as we can and as much as he has enabled us to love him This is the end of the commandment and the other Gods end that enjoyned the commandment That is our duty and this our crown and reward This God commands us to aime at to labour for and endeavour after as much as we can whilst we are in this life and the way and means to it is the Performance of this command in the loving him here according to our utmost abilities and endeavours And this is not an impossible duty but an easie yoke a yoke yet burdensome enough in regard of it self but made facile and easie by the assistance of Grace And he that thus loves God with
all his heart though he love him not so perfectly as the Saints do in heaven yet in the Judgement and according to the Resolution of Aquinas he loves him with that height and perfection of love that the Law does require and look for the end whereof is onely that we love God as much as we are able in order to our last end and happiness and that we may gain that crown which God principally intended when he first did create us and imposed the command upon us He then that loves God as much as he can and according to the utmost of those abilities God gives him in this his passage to heaven fulfills this commandment though he loves him not so much as another does to whom God has afforded more Grace and more strength and more abilities to love him And he that now loves him with all his heart to day and so obeys the Command may by the addition of more Grace be enabled and so obliged to love God more to morrow because the Commandment still in force indefinitely commands that we love God with all our strength whatsoever it is And thus he can never know by this Law an end of his labour and an end of his love till he shall come to heaven where he shall love God as Perfectly as God at first intended when he shall arrive at the end that God aimed at in the enacting of the Law and prescribing that inferiour growing still increasing Love as a duty and means and way for the attainment of the other § 12. And now that this was the meaning of Aquinas is very plain from this very resolution For he expresly here declares that the Love in this height of Perfection is not compatible with our present state but is the perfection of the Saints in Patriâ who love not God by way of duty and choice and obedience but by necessity of their glorified nature and the beatificall vision § 13. This will further appear from his answers to the three Arguments in this very Article and Question For thus he Ad primum ergò dicendum quod ratio illa probat quod aliquo modo potest impleri in hac vitâ licet non perfectè Ad secundum dicendum quod miles qui legitimè pugnat licet non vincat non inculpatur nec poenam meretur ita etiam qui in viâ hoc praeceptum non implet nihil contra divinam dilectionem agens non peccat mortaliter Ad tertium dicendum quod sicut dicit Augustinus in lib. de perfectione Justitiae Cur non praeciperetur homini ista perfectio quamvis eam in hac vitâ nemo habeat Non enim rectè curritur si quo currendum est nesciatur Quomodo autem sciretur si nullis praeceptis ostenderetur So again in the same Question Art 4. in respons ad Secundum dicendum quod dupliciter contingit ex toto corde Deum diligere uno modo in actu id est ut totum cor hominis semper actualiter in Deum feratur ista est Perfectio Patriae Alio modo ut habitualiter totum cor hominis in Deum feratur ita scil quod nihil contra Dei dilectionem cor hominis recipiat haec est perfectio viae cui non contrariatur veniale peccatum quia non tollit habitum charitatis cum non tendat in oppositum objectum sed solum impedit charitatis usum So again ibid. Ad tertium dicendum quod Perfectio charitatis ad quam ordinantur consilia est media inter duas Perfectiones praedictas ut sc homo quantum possibile est se abstrahat à rebus temporalibus etiam licitis quae occupando animum impediunt actualem motum cordis in Deum So again 2. 2. q. 24. art 8. Vtrum Charitas in hac vitâ possit esse perfecta And he determines it in the affirmative from the Authority of Saint Austin The answer to it in Corpore is this †To this very purpose see also 2 2. q. 184. art 2. in Corp. Cajetan in loc Dicendum quod Perfectio charitatis potest intelligi dupliciter uno modo ex parte diligibilis alio modo ex parte diligentis Ex parte quidem diligibilis perfecta est charitas ut diligatur aliquid quantum diligibile est Deus autem tantum diligibilis est quantum bonus est Bonitas autem ejus est infinita unde per hunc modum nullius creaturae charitas potest esse perfecta sed solum charitas Dei quâ seipsum diligit Ex parte vero diligentis tunc est charitas perfecta quando diligit tantum quantum potest Quod quidem contingit tripliciter uno modo sic quod totum cor hominis actualiter semper feratur in Deum haec est perfectio charitatis Patriae quae non est possibilis in hac vitâ in quâ impossibile est propter humanae vitae infirmitatem semper actu cogitare de Deo moveri dilectione ad ipsum Alio modo ut homo studium suum deputet ad vacandum Deo rebus divinis praetermissis aliis nisi quantum necessitas praesentis vitae requirit Et ista est Perfectio charitatis quae est possibilis in viâ non tamen est communis omnibus habentibus charitatem Tertio modo ita quod habitualiter aliquis totum cor suum ponat in Deo ita scil quod nihil cogitet vel velit quod divinae dilectioni sit contrarium Et haec perfectio est communis omnibus habentibus charitatem So again in the following Article 9. Vtrum convenienter distinguantur tres gradus charitatis Incipiens Proficiens Perfectà he resolves it in the affirmative from the authority of Saint Austin The Answer in Corp. is this Dicendum quod spirituale augmentum charitatis considerari potest quantum ad aliquid simile corporali hominis augmento Quod quidem quamvis in plurimas partes distingui possit habet tamen aliquas determinatas distinctiones secundum determinatas actiones vel studia ad quae homo perducitur per augmentum sicut infantilis at as dicitur antequam habeat usum rationis postea autem distinguitur alius status hominis quando jam incipit loqui ratione uti iterum tertius status ejus est pubertas cum jam incipit posse generare sic deinde quousque perveniatur ad perfectum ita etiam diversi gradus charitatis distinguuntur secundum diversa studia ad quae homo perducitur per charitatis augmentum Nam primo quidem incumbit homini studium principale ad recedendum à peccato resistendum concupiscentiis ejus quae in contrarium charitatis movent Et hoc pertinet ad incipientes in quibus charitas est nutrienda vel fovenda ne corrumpatur Secundum autem studium succedit ut homo principaliter intendat ad hoc quod in bono proficiat Et hoc studium pertinet ad proficientes
the Second Ad secundum dicendum quod sicut Augustinus dicit in lib. de Perfectione Justitiae Perfectio charitatis homini in hâc vita praecipitur quia non rectè curritur si quo currendum est nesciatur Quomodo autem hoc sciretur si nullis praeceptis ostenderetur Cum autem id quod cadit sub praecepto diversimodè possit impleri non efficitur transgressor praecepti aliquis ex hoc quod non optimo modo implet sed sufficit quod quocunque modo impleat illud Perfectio autem divinae dilectionis universaliter quidem cadit sub praecepto ita quod etiam perfectio Patriae non excluditur ab illo praecepto ut dicit Augustinus sed transgressionem Praecepti evadit qui quocunque modo perfectionem divinae dilectionis attingit Est autem infimus divinae dilectionis gradus ut nihil supra eum aut contra eum aut aequaliter ei diligatur A quo gradu Perfectionis qui deficit nullo modo implet praeceptum Est autem alius gradus perfectae dilectionis qui non potest impleri in viâ ut dictum est art praecedenti à quo qui deficit manifestum est quod non est transgressor praecepti Et similiter non est transgressor praecepti qui non attingit ad medios Perfectionis gradus dummodò attingat ad infimum § 20. In short he that shall read the first second third and fourth Articles of this Question shall find Aquinas opinion to be this 1. That the Perfection and last end of man consists in that Love that wholy unites man to God 2. That this Love is not attainable in this life because the state of this life admits not possibly that we should so love God as the Saints in heaven do because they are at the end and we but in the way to it 3. That yet this Love though onely attainable in the next life is proposed to our desires and aimes and commanded we are to endeavour after it as much as we can because it is our Last end and Perfection 4. That the best way to attain this Perfection is to Love God as much as possibly we can in this life and because this Perfection of Love is mans Last end therefore he must never deliberate how much he must love God since that agrees not to the end but the means and consequently we must think that we can never love him sufficiently or more then enough 5. That therefore God commands us in this life by that great precept of Charity that we love him withall our heart and strength and endeavour and that this is the duty of a Christian required in that Commandment for the attainment of that end that consists in a perfect union with God 6. That because the abilities of men are diverse and the callings and conditions of men not alike and the Gifts and dispensations of Grace variable and mens endeavours not alwayes the same and equall in the use and imployments of those Talents some may more perfectly fulfill the Commandment and love God more perfectly then others 7. That he that attains the lowest degree of divine Charity that consists in avoiding of all mortall sin has fulfilled this commandment 8. That this is the lowest degree of divine Charity and the fullfilling this commandment 9. That there is an accidentall Perfection of state and calling that is helpfull and instrumentall to the attaining the highest degree of divine charity attainable in this life 10. That in respect of this state there is something left to Evangelicall counsell and freedome and choice and that herein may be a freewill offering of love unto God and in this respect a man may do more for his sake then God requires by any Particular command 11. That there is nothing left to Counsell and choice in the precepts that per se and essentialiter concern the love of God and our neighbour but all we can do in them and our utmost endeavour to perform them is under the command 12. That an absolute sinless perfection and an uninterrupted act of divine Love is the portion of the Saints and not attainable in this life and not the duty of the Commandment though the last end and happiness of the Man 13. That the Christian perfection enjoyned in this commandment to be laboured after and practised by us in this life may consist with those they call veniall sins § 21. This and much more to this purpose may be found in that Author and not onely in this Question but also in the 23 24 25 26 27 28 c. where he handles the Questions of Charity at large and with him agree the antient and the modern Schoolmen as will be evident to any man that shall consult them And now how contrary these and the like assertions are to the design of our Refuter I shall leave any man to judge and how much hand over head Aquinas his authority was called in by him for his defence § 22. Nor is he more happy in his next quotation from Scotus which place if considered according to the scope of the Author fairly answers it self § 23. That subtle Doctor there disputes utrum sit aliqua virtus Theologica inclinans ad diligendum Deum super omnia He affirms it l. 3. sent dist 27. q. unica In the handling this question he delivers many profound and acute and subtle and yet very usefull things but then according to his manner of writing he goes not on in an even course and method but suddenly leaps from one thing to another which is the cause of his obscurity to those that read him only en passant with a more quick and transeent eye For usually such sublime acute wits that move in the highest orbe and so transcendent a Sphere like the fixed stars they cast forth their light sparkling and with a kinde of trembling scintillation They are wits of a lower station that cast forth their lustre in one constant even orderly Ray. And though these because they are neerer to our apprehension seem to have a more pleasant and far clearer brightness yet the other though by reason of their height and distance from the eye they seem to have a weaker and more inconstant trembling shine and not to give so much light in themselves are stars of a far greater magnitude and brightness though to us they seem otherwise But to come to the business § 24. That subtle Doctor § 16 17. whence this quotation is borrowed first distinguishes and sayes God may be loved above all things 1. Extensivè ita ut plus quis diligat Deum quam omnia alia citius vellet omnia alia non esse quam Deum that is as others God may be loved above all things Objectivè and Appretiativè 2. Intensivè quando quis ex majori affectu vult Deo benè quam alicui alteri And then he resolves that all do agree that God is extensively to be loved above
in these faculties § 26. Now these two Loves of God proper to Christ as viator the naturall love of God for the blessings we hope and receive from him this love of desire and that experimentall acquisite love of Complacency arising in the Inferiour faculties of Christs soul from the experiment of Gods gracious goodness may without any derogation to the height and Perfection of his supernaturall Love be said to be capable of increase and augmentation And of these the Doctor must be understood to speak § 39. when he sayes that in the time of our Saviours Agony there was more occasion for the heightening of his Love of God and Trust then there was at other times He never before now had such occasion to Love God and earnestly long for his assistance as in his bloody Agony when the comfortable beams and influence of the Godhead were now miraculously and by speciall providence pro tempore withheld This made him to cry out upon the Cross with a loud voyce My God my God why hast thou forsaken me this made him to call up all the faculties of his soul and to heighten his Ardency and zeal and fervour in Prayer proportionable to the height of his Agony As he never was in such a Passion till now as he never sweat drops of blood before down to the ground so he never had such occasion to heighten his Ardency and that his Love of desire towards God and his goodness in respect of his present aid and support should be more advanced The more we are in want and distress the more nature instructs us to love those that help us and the heightning this love and our hope and expectation of aid and assistance advances and quickens our Ardency and fervour in Prayer and the more we want we love we hope we desire the higher will our zeal and devotion in Prayer be inflamed and this Saint Luke meant when he tells us that our blessed Saviour being in an agony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he prayed the more earnestly And now since in the dayes of his flesh he offered up Prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears c. and was heard in Heb. 5. 7. that he feared since he had an Angell sent to comfort him from this experience of Gods goodness the Inferiour faculties are so ravished and satisfied that now his love becomes bold as a lyon and we hear no more now of these naturall desires prompting him to pray for a removall of that bitter cup. Now boldly as the Lyon of the tribe of Judah he sayes to those that came to apprehend him I am he and again I have told you that I am he If therefore yee seek me let these go their way Joh. 18. 5 6 7 8. Now he willingly meets death and gives those that came to apprehend him leave to take him Now was this experimentall Love of God in the Inferiour faculties advanced to the utmost height And now his Love was as strong as death it self § 27. But then though this be abundantly sufficient to satisfie all pretences in this or any part of our Refuters discourse yet I must remind the Reader that there is a great deal of difference between the heightning Christs Ardency in Prayer of which the Doctor speaks and that advancement of Christs actuall love as Comprehensor immediately terminated on God himself of which our Refuter speaks in this discourse and never the Doctor either in his Ectenesteron or his Treatise of Will-worship or the defence of it against Master Cawdrey § 28. And thus at last is demonstrated the vanity of our Refuters Title-Page and shewed it is to be like the Apothecaries glorious titles on his Empty boxes For he has proved nothing he there pretends against the Doctor and if he had proved all he pretends to he had not so much as opposed much less refuted the Doctors Ectenesteron which alwayes speaks of another thing then himself does For all opposition must be ad idem as this of our Refuters is not as has all along been demonstrated And so I come to the next Section SECT 31. Poor Refuter Doctor digresses not Affliction a fit season to heighten Devotion Christs Ardency our Instruction The Doctor Heightning Christs Actuall Love derogates not from his Habituall fullnesse Charitas quamdiu augeri potest c variously cited The Doctors mistake The words not Jeromes but Austins This lapse how possible Veniall Occasion of Austins writing to Jerome His severall proposalls of solving the doubt His own upon the Distinction of Righteousness Legall Evangelicall Place in Austin at large How applyed against Papists How not M. Baxters censure of our differences in point of Justification Place impertinent to the Refuters Conclusion Ex vitio est how here understood against M. Cawdrey and the Refuter and the Doctor Denotes Originall Corruption This how called by Austin Signally vitium in Opposition to a saying of Pelagius Parallel places for this meaning Pelagius objection Answered Austin and the Doctor accord but not the Refuter Doctors Exposition of Austin Corrected Dilemma's Confidence springs from Ignorance Chedzoy-Confidence Learned Protestants and Papists and Himself assert what he sayes all else deny but the Doctor A new Jury of them against him for the Doctor Erasmus Cajetan Tolet. Outward works of wisdome and Grace in Tolet what Estius Jansenius L. Brugensis Beza Piscator Deodate Assembly notes Cameron Raynolds How Christ grew in Actuall Grace the Habituall still invariable Illustrated by two Instances Erasmus and Doctor Eckhard assert Christs growth in Habituall Perfection This charged on Luther Calvin c. by Bellarmine with probability on Calvin How they acquitted Refuters Conclusion complyes with the sowrest of Jesuites Maldonates censure of the Lutherans and Calvinists Answered Stapletons like censure Answered They and Bellarmine if they speak consequently must mean the same with us Whole recapitulated Refuters unhappiness Doctors safety Doctor HAMMOND § 40. OF this I shall hope it is possible to find some instances among men of whose graces it can be no blasphemy to affirm that they are capable of degrees Suppose we a sincerely pious man a true Lover of God and no despiser of his poor persecuted Church and suppose we as it is very supposable that at some time the Seas roar the tempest be at the height and the waves beat violently upon this frail brittle vessell may it not be a fit season for that pious mans Ardency to receive some growth for his zeal to be emulous of those waves and pour it self out more profusely at such then at a calmer season I hope there be some at this time among us in whom this point is really exemplified if it be not it is an effect of want not fullness of Love But I need not thus to enlarge It is not by this Refuter denyed of the Person of Christ and that is my entire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in reference either to M. C. or to him
the Crimination otherwise I assure you the Boldness will be unpardonable although as you somewhat insolently say you shall assume the liberty to fix it on him and the shame must light on you since you cannot make good your Charge § 24. It is true indeed the Doctor saies that Christs Love was more intense at one time then at another viz. in his Agony and dying for us more intense then in his suffering Nakedness and Hunger for us § 25. And does not the Apostle tell us the same when he saies (a) Phil. 2. 6 7 8 9. That he being in the form of God though he thought it no robbery to be equall with God yet made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross wherefore God also hath highly exalted him His birth his life his death were all Acts you see of Divine Love or holy Charity but the greater the lower still the Humiliation the more intense the more high the more noble Act of Divine Charity both in respect of God and us And therefore God also has proportioned his exaltation in the humane Nature to his a basement and sufferings given him the (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 6. 20. 1 Pet. 1. 18 19. People he had so dearly purchased and advanced his Name to that height that it should transcend every name besides and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father § 26. But then the Habit of Divine Love or holy Charity in Christ as of all other graces else was alwayes (b) There is no doubt but the Deitie of Christ hath enabled the nature which it took of man to do more then man in this world hath power to comprehend forasmuch as the bare essential Properties excepted he hath imparted to it all things he hath replenished it with all such Perfections as the same is any waies apt to receive at least according to the exigence of that oeconomy or service for which it pleased him in love to be made Man Luk. 2. 47. For as the parts degrees and Offices of that mysterial administration did require which he voluntarily undertook the Beames of Deity did in operatione alwaies accordingly either restrain or enlarge themselves vid. Theodoret. Iren. l. 3. advers haeres From whence we may somewhat conjecture how the Powers of the Soul are illuminated which being so inward unto God cannot chuse but be privy unto all things which God worketh and must therefore of necessity be indued with knowledge so far forth universal vid. Col. 2. 3. though not with infinite knowledge peculiar to Deity it self The Soul of Christ that saw in this life the face of God was here through so visible presence of Deitie filled with all manner of Graces and Vertues in that immatchable perfection for which of him we read it written that God with the oyle of gladness anointed him above his fellowes Vid. Esai 1. 2. Luc. 4. 18. Act. 4. 27. Heb. 1. 9. 2 Cor. 1. 21. Ioh. 2. 20 27. Hookers Eccles Policie lib. 5. §. 54. p. 298. Vid. Field of the Church l. 5. cap. 15. who from the Schoolmen has most judiciously and profoundly stated this question of the fulness of all Habitual Grace in Christ full and perfect so full and so perfect that it was not in him capable of any further addition without any possibility of want or encrease And so it must be acknowledged by all Christians when the Apostle tells us Coloss 2. 9. that in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1. 19. So acknowledged it must be by all Christians when the Evangelist Jo. 1. 14. expresly asserts that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father full of grace and truth and that of his fulness we have all received and that Grace for Grace Vers 16. Habitually so full he was that as the same Saint John assures us c. 3. 34. God giveth not the Spirit by measure to him § 27. Most certain it is say the (a) Quod qudem elogium ipse Christus ante suum in Coelos ascensu◠sibi tribuit nor quod rem encomio isto notatam tunc reverâ possidebat cum nondum in Regni sui gloriam ingressus esset sed quia certò idque mox futurum erat ut in Imperii istius possessionem constitue retur c. Volkel de vera Relig. l. 3. c. 21. ubi late illud prosequitur Quemadmodum ad ipsius Regnum viam quandam ei mors ejus aperiebat ideoque nondum plane regnare tunc cum mortem pateretur dici potuit ita cum illius Sacerdotium idem fere reipsa sit quod ejusdem Regnum eandem mortem principium seu praeparationem quandam istius Sacerdotii in coelo demum administrandi extitisse c. Vid. Volkel de vera Relig. li. 3. c. 37. pag. 145. ubi late illud prosequitur Socinian what he will to the contrary and it might be very largely demonstrated were it not eccentrical to the present Dispute that Christ was alwaies Christ as well so in the womb as at the right hand of God For otherwise Elizabeth had never called Mary the (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luc. 1. 43. Mother of her Lord before he was yet born Nor had the Angels said unto the Shepherds at his birth Behold I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people for unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is not as the (c) Quae verò ipsius Regni ratio est Ea quòd Deus eum suscitatum à mortuis in coelos assumptum à dextris suis collocavit ei potestate in coelis in terrâ omni datâ omnibus ipsius pedibus se excepto subjectis ut fideles suos gubernare tueri aeternùm servare posset Catechis Racoviens de offic Christ Reg. pag. 275. Quid an non erat sacerdos antequam in coelos ascenderet praesertim crucifixus penderet Non erat c. Ibid. de offic Christ Sacerdot pag. 291. Socinian perversely which shall be after his ascension and session at the right hand of God but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is Christ the Lord. Impossible it is he should be otherwise since he was God as well as Man from the first moment of Conception And therefore it was resolved justly against the Heretick Nestorius that his Blessed Virgin-Mother was truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God § 28. Whosoever then he be that against Arrius Photinus and Socinus acknowledges the Divinity of our Saviour
his Father because they all issued from it and in every Act though he loved us yet it was only for Gods sake § 35. But yet to make our Refuter's Discourse as strong as he can desire I shall for the present suppose that the Doct. had positively and in termes terminant affirmed that Christs Love of God was more intense in his Agony then before what then will be the issue will it then appear that he does the Doctor no wrong and that he is able to infer his Conclusion against him Certainly not For now the Major will be proved altogether as inconsequent as the Assumption has already been evidenced to be false It is this He that saith that Christs Love of God was more intense in his Agony then before affirmeth that his Love of God before his Agony was capable of further Degrees then yet it had But c. Ergo c. The whole strength and force of it does depend and rest upon this only Supposition That any gradual heightning in the Acts of Christs Love must of necessity infer a gradual heightning in the Habit. But this is most notoriously false For the Acts of Love in Christ howsoever heightned and advanced can never possibly increase the Habit. § 36. For first (a) Habitus infusi non producuntur neque augentur effective per proprios Actus etiam in proprio Subjecto Suarez in 3. part Thom. tom 1. q. 13. disp 31. pag. 416. col 2. 4. Neque Habitus operativi ut charitas aliae virtutes infusae possunt per se producere sibi similes Et ratio reddi potest quia haec est communis ratio Habitùs operativi ut scil non est productivus alterius Habitus sed solum actuum Vel certe dici potest Gratiam esse eminentem quandam participationem Divinae naturae quae propterea postulat ut solum per influxum Divinitatis naturâ suâ participari possit ideo non est qualitas activa sui similis sed à solo Deo ut à principali causa producibilis Suarez ibid. col 1. D E. Infused Habits such as this as they cannot be produced so neither can they physically and effectively be augmented by any Acts or humane endeavours as already it has been proved (b) Dicunt aliqui Christum Dominum per Actus virtutum quos exercebat acquisivisse augmentum harum virtutum sed hoc nec verè nec satis consideratè dictum est nam rationes quae probant habuisse Christum hos Habitus à principio probant similiter habuisse illos in gradu Heroico ut hîc dixit D. Thomas vel ut clarius dicamus habuisse in sua summa perfectione quam habere possunt vel secundum legem Dei ordinariam vel secundum naturalem capacitatem facultatem hominis cui hi Habitus eorum actus accommodantur vel denique in summa perfectione quam in ipso Christo unquam habituri erant Secondly When any Habit already is in the utmost height that the Subject is capable of no Acts howsoever gradually intense can possibly increase it Now it is supposed on both hands that the Habit of Grace holy Charity in Christ was already in him in all fulness in gradu heroico as Aquinas calls it (*) Concedo ergo per hos Actus neque Habitus neque augmentum eorundem Christum acquisivisse quia Actus non intendit Habitum nisi sit intensior illo Christus autem à Principio habuit Habitus vel magis vel aequè intensos quà m futuri essent Actus Suarez in 3. part Thom. tom 1. q. 7. art 3. disp 19. sect 2. p. 300. col 1. C D E F. Aquin. 3. part q. 7. art 2. Suarez commentar in loc Actus nullo modo augent Habitum jam sibi aequalem Vid. Suarez Metaph. tom 2. disp 44. sect 10. §. 14 15 16 17. Habitus sicut generatur per Actus ita etiam intenditur non intenditur autem nisi per Actus intensiores ut infra dicemus Suarez ibid. sect 6. §. 2. pag. 431. col 1. Vide etiam ibid. §. 5. Thirdly No Acts can possibly intend even an Acquisite Habit unless they be more gradually perfect then the habit supposed to be intended by it But in this present case the Habit is not acquired but infused and all the Acts howsoever heightned or intended must also be acknowledged to issue and flow from it And consequently since the Effect cannot be more noble then the Cause they can never advance the Habit or make it gradually more intense then formerly it was But of this again in due place § 37. But then fourthly If there were any truth any Consequence in this Major it will directly strike against the Scriptures as well as Doctor Hammond For do not they every where magnifie this last Act of Christs Love manifested in his dying for us as the most transcendent and superlative and which is not to be parallelled amongst all his other acts of Love towards us (a) Joh. 15. 13. Vide Maldonat Jansen alios in loc Greater Love saies our Saviour has no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends And the Apostle in Saint (b) Tu majorem habuisti Domine ponens eam etiam pro inimicis Bernard serm Fer. 4tâ hebdom sanctae Rom. 5. 10. Bernards opinion seems to go higher for when we were enemies we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son And again (c) Rom. 5. v. 6 7 8. For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ dyed for the ungodly For scarcely for a righteous man will one dye yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die But God and Christ let me adde for (d) Esay 53. 7. oblatus est quia ipse voluit commendeth his Love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Well then might Saint John cry out in Contemplation of this Love Ecce quanta Charitas (e) 1 Joh. 3. 1. Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us And again (f) Jo. 3. 16. Sic dilexit So God loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son And again (a) 1 Jo. 4. 9 10. In this was manifested the Love of God towards us because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through him Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins This this was Love the height and commendation and full manifesting of it His Birth his Life his Doctrine and Miracles his suffering Hunger and Nakedness and Poverty for our sakes were all high Acts of Love But hereby as Saint Iohn speaks (b) 1 Joh. 3. 16. perceive we the Love of God because he laid down his life for us And therefore the Apostle in the place formerly insisted on to express the
say that those outward Acts of Gods Love that appear in his common Providence and whereby he maketh Mat. 5. 45. his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall as well upon the unjust as the just are to be equalled and parallell'd with those more peculiar Acts of his Love whereby he regards his Saints and Chosen For the Apostle hath told us that though God be a Saviour of all 1 Tim. 4. 10. men yet it is with an especially of them that believe His eye and his ear are alwaies open to the Righteous they are not so unto Psal 34. 15 16. the wicked He loves indeed all the Creatures he has made and therefore constantly preserves them But Man he loves more then the rest of the Creatures which he made for Mans use But then his * Deut. 10. 15. Delight is in the Saints those that fear his name For their sakes his Son dyed and rose again for their sakes he made Heaven and there has laid up for them a never-fading Crown of Glory But his Son he loves more then all Saints and all Angels This this is his beloved Son in whom alone he is well pleased § 20. But then though these outward Acts of his favour be thus gradually different yet by reason of the infinite Perfection of his Essence the inward Act of his Love must be still one and the same because it can be no other but himself one and the same Act alwaies infinitely loving and one and the same Object alwaies infinitely amiable and beloved And therefore the Scriptures are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be understood and in a way that best suites with the Majesty and Excellence of God when speaking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of men they represent to us this one most simple infinite Act of his Love as if it were many and those in themselves also gradually distinct because among men the inward Acts of Love do usually vary according to the gradual difference of Goodness in the several Objects beloved which the greater it is truly or falsely apprehended to be the more it still allures and draws the affections and inclinations of the Will § 21. And now because the Socinian denies it and it is of great importance in the Christian Faith I shall upon this occasion endeavour to make it good And I hope that our Refuter himself will pardon this Digression that speaks so much for his advantage § 22. Say then Vorstius and Crellius what they will to the contrary those places of Scripture that speak of the different Ea verò attributa sunt Voluntatis Divinae Actus in ipso residentes seu Actiones voluntatis immanentes ut vocant Actus vero illi sunt duplicis generis Alii enim affectuum similitudinem inprimis referunt eorumque nominibus in sacris literis praecipuè designantur alii Decreta sunt Illi sunt Voluntatis Divinae ut ita dicam commotiones praesertim vehementiores seu actus ejusmodi quibus Voluntas vehementius vel in objectum suum fertur vel ab eo refugit atque abhorret Vt ut forte res ad quam affectus incitat non sit firmiter conclusa c. Crellius de Deo attributis apud Volkel lib. 1. de vera Religione cap. 29. p. 295. Vide eund ibid. per tot cap. 30 31. per tot Vorst de Deo Biddle's Catechis c. 4. Degrees of Gods Love cannot properly be understood and as if in God the inward Acts of his Will were gradually different as in men commonly they are For being the First Cause of all things he has no superior to limit him nor will he limit himself because this were to lessen his own perfection neither could he indeed bound and determine his own Being and Excellence if he could possibly will or attempt it because he is the one and alone necessary Being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is | Exod. 3. 14. 6. 3. I am that I am Nor can any Second inferior Cause do it be it of what kind soever because they being the free issues of his Power who * Ephes 1. 11. Vid. Esay 14. 24. 40. 13. Rom. 11. 33 34 35. Ephes 3. 20. Psal 115. 3. worketh all things according to the Counsel of his own Will they must of necessity be supposed to flow from him when now he has his Essence already undetermined And therefore he being the First Cause of all things and consequently infinite in his Essence as well as his Power and Perfection which only flows from the Infinitude of his Essence he must be absolutely simple in this his Essence and most perfectly One as much without all shadow of Parts or Accidents as he is of Change or Alteration For if he were made up of Parts he could not be the First Cause of all things because the Parts are first in Nature at least before the Whole compounded of them And if there were in him any Accidents he could not be the †Malach. 3. 6. Lord that changes not no more infinite in Perfection which the * Accedit quod perfectissimum unicum tantum est Quis vero dubitat supremum Numen primum Naturae Principium esse Perfectissimum quis id aliquo defectu laborare dicat Crell apud Volkel l. 1. ca. 17. p. 113. Haec Dei immensitas atque Omnipraesentia Potentiae Sapientiae Potestatis Perfectionis ut omnium confessione certissima sacris literis testatissima ita nobis creditu utilissima c. Ejus autem Essentiam in quovis pulvisculo latere nondum ex sacris literis discere potuimus viri quidam doctissimi ex Christianorum scriptis ea collegerunt dicta quae vulgarem sententiam de diffusione Essentiae Divinae per res universas vel penitus refellunt vel non â—arùm labefactant c. Crell ibid. cap. 27. p. 277 278. vide ibid. per tot Socinian dares not deny against so many clear express Scriptures then they say he is in his Essence because he stands in need of those Accidents and changeable alterations that must compleat his Perfection Nor could he indeed be that One all-perfect Being from whom all things else flow if he were not absolutely as well without Accidents as Parts because by the Addition of any thing whatsoever it be of necessity he becomes finite and simpliciter per se imperfect because capable of this Addition And therefore it is most rationally determined by the Schoolmen though the Socinian will not grant it that In Deo neque est aliud neque Accidens and Quicquid est in Deo Deus est That God is nothing else but one entire and simple infinite and eternal Act and that nothing can possibly be found or at least imagined in him which is not himself § 23. Hence it necessarily follows that when God in Scripture is said to love he must not be understood properly to love as man does by
Confutation That sincere Love was capable of Degrees was first shewed in several men at several times in the several rankes of Angels and at last in Christ himself more ardent in one Act of Prayer then in another But if the words of themselves were not so clear and plain yet the whole subject matter of the Treatise of Will-worship and the Account to Mr. Cawdrey would abundantly declare it For is not the whole business and design of those Discourses to shew that there be some Acts and Degrees of Piety and Devotion that are not commanded by any particular Law which yet are acceptable to God when performed and that Love which is sincere in the Habit is capable of Degrees in the several Acts and exercise And is it not for this among other Instances that this example of Christs ardency in Prayer is produced by him How then was it possible that you should be so strangely mistaken And what Temptation could you have to charge the Doctor with the denial of the habitual fulness of Christ's Grace from a Passage that speaks expresly of the Act a thing specifically distinct from it However you are a courteous man to take the Doctors word at last for his own meaning that best knew it of any man in the world But proceed in your new-begun ingenuity and take your pen and write a Deleatur also to your Vse of Confutation For to what purpose serves that against Doctor Hammond that never denied or so much as questioned your Doctrine of the Fulness of habitual Grace If you believe as you profess the world will count you unjust unless you write an Index expurgatorius unto your former Treatise For the Schoolmen will tell you non tollitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum and you cannot otherwise restore the Doctor his good Name of which you have by your confession so unjustly so unworthily robbed him § 4. But hold we are too quick and nimble For saies he not he will make the Charge good by Consequence although the Doctor never meant it Sure the man was born under a Mood-and-Figure-Planet and Ferio was the Lord of his Ascendent he is altogether for Consequences But what 's the Consequence It is this to a word and syllable JEANES THat Objection which is urged against the perpetual all-fulness and perfection of Christs actual Love the inward Acts of his Love of God strikes against the perpetual all-fulness and perfection of his habitual Love because the degrees of the inward Acts of his Love of God are commensurate unto the degrees of his habitual Love For they have no degrees at all but secundariò in regard of the Habit of his Love but now this Objection is urged by you against the perpetual all-fulness and perfection of his actual Love the inward Acts of his Love for it is brought to prove that the inward Acts of Christs Love were more intense at one time then another and a greater intension presupposeth a remission and imperfection for intensio est eductio rei intensae de imperfecto ad perfectum as Aquinas very often Therefore this Objection strikes against the perpetual fulness and perfection of Christs actual Love of God and so consequently against the perpetual fulness and perfection of his habitual Love § 5. What a monstrous Syllogism is here Like the Trojan horse it has Troops of Arguments and Proofes in the bowels of it and the Major Minor and Conclusion are not bare Propositions but Syllogismes themselves It is not a single Man of warr but a Spanish half-Moon an invincible Armado linck'd and coupled together O patria O Divûm domus Ilium inclyta bello Moenia Dardanidûm Now or never Troy is Virgil. taken and Doctor Hammond confuted § 6. But Sir there is nothing proved all this while but only by your own venerable authority For what if the whole be no other then a Sophisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Doctors Assertion will by no means inferr your Conclusion For proof of it I first deny your Major there is no consequence at all in it for we have already demonstrated that Acts which issue from Habits that are seated in the Will are free and not necessary effects of the Will from whence they flow and therefore may be gradually different in themselvs where the Habit continues gradually one and the same We have shewed you also from Reason and Scripture and Authority of Protestants and Papists as learned as any from Schoolmen and Fathers also that there was a gradual difference in some Acts of Christs Wisedom and Grace and that they did successively increase in Perfection as he himself did in Stature though the Infused Habit of Wisedom and Grace were in him alwaies at the utmost height both intensively and extensively § 7. But what are all the Fathers and Schoolmen that are to be had in Paul's Church-yard or in the Library at Oxford to the purpose if he can prove his Major which thus he does If the degrees of the inward Acts of Christs Love are commensurate unto the degrees of his habitual Love then whosoever saies the Acts are not alwaies intensively perfect saies also by consequence that the. Habit is not alwaies intensively perfect But the degrees c. Ergo. § 8. Here Sir you are in danger of a double Sophism For first you prove Ignotum per ignotius aut aliquid saltem aeque ignotum because it is as doubtful in the sense you should mean if you speak to the present purpose whether the degrees of the inward Acts of Christs Love are so commensurate unto the degrees of his habitual Love as still to equal them in intensive perfection and to assert it without Proof is Sophisma 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly if you conclude that the Acts and Habits are commensurate in every thing because they are commensurate in this that the Act can never exceed in Perfection the Habit from whence it effectively flowes as you do all along in this Discourse but more particularly in your first Argument p. 25 26. you most sophistically argue à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For though the Acts of Christs Love may be full and perfect in suo genere yet they may not be all equal in themselves and with the Habit and though they may and must be commensurate with the Habit as not to exceed it in perfection because they are the effects of the Habit yet they may not for all that still equal the gradual perfection of the Habit because the Habit is not a necessary but a voluntary cause and the Acts that flow from it are all Acts of the Will And consequently this way of proof will be no other then a plain Sophism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus Because the Act Arist l. 1. Soph Elen. h. c. 4. is in some respect commensurate with the Habit Ergo it must alsolutely and in every respect be commensurate with it just as if I should argue Mr.
of necessity be gradually different from one another § 17. And now because our Refuter seeks for Refuge under Vide Crellii Ethic. Christian infra citat the Ambiguity of this phrase the Love of God and to bring the debate between the Doctor and him to a final issue it will be necessary in the first place to distinguish that Term that so every thing may be clear before us in the present Debate and the Truth and the Doctors Innocence may be evidenced to the world and the Sophismes and mistakes of this Refuter be discovered § 18. First then this phrase the Love of God which the Refuter alwaies construes in a different sense from the Doctor and only for his advantage may be and is commonly taken in a threefold sense First more generally as it signifies the Divine Grace of holy Charity as the Schooles call it from Saint Paul 1 Cor. 13 the greatest of the three Theological Graces and that alone which never faileth that Grace which the Apostle there most excellently describes and the Schoolmen treat of l. 3. Sent. d. 27. 2. 2. q. 23 24 25 26 c. the Grace that in its latitude or amplitude conteins the whole duty of man towards God and our Neighbours whatsoever is good and excellent in him And therefore the Master of the Sentences defines P. Lombard 3. Sent. dist 25. B. Vid. Aquin 2. 2 q. 25 art 1. it thus Charitas est dilectio quâ diligitur Deus propter se proximus propter Deum vel in Deo and it is approved by all his Scholars for ought that I can find to the contrary § 19. Secondly more specially for Piety and Holiness and Devotion towards God and the Duties of the first Table § 20. Thirdly most strictly for that most sublime and perfect Love immediately terminated and concentred in God the only Good in which alone all the Acts of Piety and Charity are founded and from whence alone they stream and flow This is that which Aquinas frequently calls Charitas ut finis the other Vid. Aquin. 2. 2 q. 44. art 3. in Corp. Aquin. 2. 2. q. 44. art 1. in corp Aquin. ibid. art 3. ad 2. he calls Charitas propter finem Finis saies he spiritualis vitae est ut homo uniatur Deo quod fit per Charitatem ad hoc ordinantur sicut ad Finem omnia quae pertinent ad spiritualem vitam unde Apostolus dicit 1 Tim. 1. Finis praecepti Charitas est de corde puro conscientia bona fide non ficta c. And now because as the same Aquinas that alii actus Charitatis consequuntur ex actu dilectionis sicut effectus ex causa hence is it that by a Synecdoche generis or a Metonymy of the Efficient Tropes familiar in all Writers all the Acts of Piety and Mercy and Charity and Vertue are called the Love of God because they flow from it § 21. And now that this is no new-coined distinction invented on purpose to salve the present sore will appear from the Scriptures themselves where we have it in express termes § 22. For though to English eares this phrase The Love of God seems especially to import the prime and more principal Love that has God for its immediate Object yet in Scripture-phrase Tertull. cont Marcion l. 4. c 27. p. 548. A. B. ex edit Rigalt Vide Bezae major Annot. in loc Luc. Brugens tom 2. in Evangel p 802. Piscator Maldonat Theophylact. alios in loc it frequently does not And therefore saies our Saviour as we find it S. Luke 11. 42. Woe unto you Pharisees for ye tithe Mint and Rue and all manner of herbes and pass over Judgement and the Love of God these ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone It is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judicium charitatem Dei. So Beza and the Vulgar Latine But in the vulgata vetus in use in Tertullians daies it is vocationem dilectionem Dei and accordingly we translate it the Love of God The true meaning of the place Tolet methinks has fully reached Majora mandata praeteritis nempe Judicium Charitatem Judicium quidem nocendo aliis rapiendo aliena contra leges Justitiae Charitatem verò non miserendo proximi nec eleemosynam pauperi conferendo Non solum ergo rapinas injustitias non recompensatis eleemosynis sed illas perpetratis contra judicium eleemosynas non facitis contra charitatem quae sunt majoris momenti quam decimas dare tales Addit Dei quia charitate Deus diligendus est proximus Pharisaei autem nec Deum nec proximum diligebant qui enim non diligit proximum non diligit Deum 1 Jo. 3. Qui viderit fratrem suum necessitatem habere clauserit viscera sua ab eo quomodo Charitas Dei manet in illo 1 Jo. 4. Qui non diligit fratrem quem videt quomodo Deum quem non videt diligere potest Tolet. in Luc. 11. 42. p. 690. in Commentar I know the place is otherwise expounded by * Vide Erasm in loc H. Grot. in Annot. ad Matth. 23 23. divers and we have no need of doubtful places S. John the beloved Disciple whose argument is Charity and the Love of God whose Text and Sermons were as Ecclesiastical Story testifies nothing else but this does in one short Epistle afford us instances sufficient beyond all exception 1. Ep. John 2. 5. But whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the Love of God Charity as Saint Paul or Love as the same Apostle and Saint John himself often indefinitely and generally stile it perfected Hereby 1 Cor. 13. Rom. 13 10. Gal. 5. 14. 1 Tim. 1. 5 14. know we that we are in him It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So again 1 Joh. 3. 17. But whoso hath this worlds good and seeth his Brother hath need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how dwelleth the Love of God in him So again 1 Joh. 4 20. If a man say I love God and hateth his Brother he is a lyar for he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen And therefore in the close of his Epistle 1. 5. vers 3 thus he describes the Love of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this is the Love of God that we keep his Commandements and his Commandements are not grievous Plain then it is that in Scripture-language the Love of God is put for the Grace of divine Charity in general extending it self to that Love that is immediately centred on God himself and on our neighbours for Gods sake This is that Love which the Apostle tells us is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13. 10. 1 Tim. 1. 5. and the end of the Commandement § 23. And therefore sure it can be no
sect 1. §. 35. which was seated in the Acts of Love and trust tanquam modus in re modificata but only the heightning gradual advancement of the Acts of love trust in God For is not ardency or intension the modus of Love Trust that are the things modificated by this intension or ardency Can modus in re modificata signifie any thing here but the gradual heightning and intenseness of his Love and Trust And what else can you mean by that other Ardency which respected the matter against which he prayed but a gradual heightning of his Fear and his Grief which gradual heightning was the modus of the res modificata the Acts of Fear and of Grief for those evills with which he encountred For gradual intension without doubt is nothing else but the modus of the same numerical Quality that is intended because intensio as your own Master * Scheibler Metaph. l. 2. c. 8. §. 204. Scheibler will truly tell you formaliter consistit in co quod est ejusdem formae eductio ulterior è potentia subjecti consequenter est per majorem radicationem ejusdem formae in codem subjecto quae major radicatio fit per unionem plurium graduum ejusdem formae in subjecto Nor will the word Ardency help you any whit For Ardency precisely and in abstracto considered is nothing else but the vehemence and gradual heightning of any thing whatsoever that is capable of gradual intension and is the very same with Zeal and as that comes from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the other comes from the Latine word Ardeo both which signifie to burn and be inflamed Zeal then and Ardency being properly nothing else but the heightning and gradual intension of any thing and therefore we read of a zeal for God and a zeal for Sathan a zeal for good and a zeal for mischief and hence it is that the Apostle tells us Gal. 4. 17 18. That it is good to be zealous in a good thing intension and Zeal and Ardency being either good or bad or indifferent as the Qualities are that are modificated and intended by them consequently they must be when in abstracto expressed understood alwaies according to the subject matter that is treated of and with respect to the thing that is intended and heightned by them which here can be nothing else but the Acts of Love and the Acts of Trust the Acts of Fear and the Acts of Grief And is not this arrant non-sense now even to the most ordinary understanding For first are the inward Acts of Love and trust both one and the same Is not Trust in God an Act of Confidence and well-grounded Hope and is not that as well a distinct Theological grace from Love and holy How and in what sense Hope and Trust in God might be in Christ Vide Aquin. 3. p. q. 7. art 4. Suarez in Commentar ad loc tom 1. p. 296 297. and the other Commentators on the question in Thomas Estius lib. 3. Sent. d. 26 §. 8. p. 88. col 1. C. D. E. F. Pet. Lombard l. 3. Sent. d. 26. C. Durand ibid. q 3. art 2. Charity by infusion seated in the Will as Love and Hope are two distinct passions naturally seated in the inferior Faculties Nay are not Fear of Evils impending and Grief for Evils now suffered two distinct Passions both naturally seated in the inferior sensual Part and as truly distinct in themselves as the Passions of Grief and Fear Why then did you not rather say there was a four-fold Ardency in Christs Prayer an Ardency of Love and an Ardency of Trust in God an Ardency of Fear of the Evils now impending and an Ardency of Grief for the Evils he now laboured under Nay might you not with as equal reason have said there was a manifold Ardency in Christ's Prayer an Ardency of the inward Acts of Obedience of Religion and Piety of Patience and Fortitude and love to God and our Neighbours of Justice and Mercy and all other Christian Graces For all these were as truly in Christ at the time of his bloody Agony and conflict as an Ardency of Love and Trust and an Ardency of Fear and Grief and were all as much the Ardency of his Prayer as these that you have named For fervency in Prayer the inward Acts I mean is an Act of Religion and though it be rooted and founded in Charity yet it is not formally but effectively only an Act of Love and shall with Faith and Hope and all other Christian Graces cease when Charity shall last unto eternity The Saints in heaven do now no more pray for themselves then they can suffer or want And then for the heightning of his Fears and Griefs these were the natural issues of the inferior sensual Part of his Soul and the Passions there implanted whose natural motions he would not now hinder to testifie as well the infirmities as the truth of his Manhood And though the heightning of this Fear and Grief in the inferior Part of Christ's soul were the Causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inward moving Cause as the present and approaching growing Miseries Afflictions were the Causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the outward moving cause of the Ardency of the inward Acts of his Piety Devotion and Prayer yet the Cause and Effect being really distinguished impossible it is that the Ardency of Christ's Fear and Griefs should be the Ardency of his Prayer It is true indeed that there was a most heightened Ardency of the Acts of Piety and Patience Magnanimity and Fortitude and all other Christian Graces as well as an ardency of Love and a heightning of Fears and Grief in Christ when in his bloody Agony he prayed but these were not the ardency of his Prayer The ardency of all these several Acts were all now in the same subject Christ but then though one Accident in concreto may be predicated of another disparate Accident as when we say of milk this white is sweet yet in abstracto they cannot for this whiteness is not sweetness § 13. And therefore when in the application of what you call your second answer you say JEANES I Readily grant the heightning of this latter ardency so that there was in his Agony an addition of degrees unto his fear of and grief for those evils against which he prayed above either what there was or what there was occasion for at other times but as for the former ardency regarding God and placed in the inward Acts of his love of God c. that was uncapable of further heightning for his actual love of God was in termino as they say was alwaies at the highest and most intense § 14. You herein speak nothing to the purpose For Christ's Fear and Grief were natural Passions and the heightning them in his Agony was but the heightning of the Acts of those Passions but the Ardency in Christ's Prayer was the
Jeanes and others guilty of this Propositio malè sonans as well as the Doctor The piouslycredible Proposition of the Schoolmen as the Refuter calls it much prejudices an assertion of his own in his Mixture but no whit the Doctor JEANES A Second argument is drawn from the perpetual and vn-interrupted happiness of Christ It is resolved both by Aquinas 3. q. 34. art 4. Scotus lib. 3. disp 18. and their followers that Christ in regard of his soul was even here in this life from the first moment of his conception all his life long unto his death perfectus Comprehensor and therefore he injoyed in his Soul all that was necessary unto heaven happiness And I find learned Protestants herein consenting with them Now 't is the unanimous opinion of the Schoolmen that a most intense actual Love of God an actual Love of God for Degrees as high as ardent as fervent as is according to God's ordinary Power possible unto the humane nature doth necessarily belong to the heaven-happiness of men The Scotists place the very formality of Happiness solely herein and Suarez with others think it essential unto happiness though he supposeth the essence of happiness not to consist wholy or chiefly in it And for the rest of the Thomists who hold that the essence of Happiness stands only in the Beatifical vision of God why even they make this actual most intense Love of God a natural and necessary consequent of the Beatifick vision § 1. To this I answer That it is most true as these Schoolmen determine that Christ by virtue of the hypostatical union was in the superiour part of his soul the mind Perfectus Comprehensor from the first Moment of his Conception and so he did love and enjoy God more perfectly then all the Saints and Angels did in heaven This was a necessary Consequent of the hypostatical union and the fulness of divine Grace Manifestum est saies Aquinas truly Quod Christus in primo instanti suae conceptionis accepit non solum tantam gratiam quantam Aquin. 3. p. q. 34. art 4. in Corp. Comprehensores habent sed etiam omnibus comprehensoribus majorem Et quia gratia illa non suit sine actu consequens est quod actu fuerit Comprehensor videndo Deum per essentiam clarius caeteris creaturis § 2. But then it is as true that Christ at the same first Moment wherein he was Comprehensor in respect of his Soul was also in respect of the inferiour Faculties of that and the frail mortal passible condition of his Flesh a Viator too And this the same Aquinas has as expresly determined in the same 3 part of his Summes q. 15. art 10. And this is a most clear Scripture-truth in it self For ought not Christ to suffer saies he Luke 24. 26. himself and then to enter into his glory And therefore for the joy that was set before him saies the Apostle to the Hebrews he endured the Cross and despised the shame and is now set down on the Heb. 12. 2. Philip. 2. 6 7 8 9. right hand of God For though he were in the form of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God yet he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and humbled himself to death even the death of the cross wherefore God also hath highly exalted him In this state though he were a son yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered In this state Heb. 5. 8. he prayed for his own after-exaltation as well as ours saying Father the hour is come glorifie thy Son that thy Son may also John 17. 1. glorifie thee In this state he merited as Suarez and some other of the Schoolmen determine his own exaltation in the flesh how truly or in what sense I now determine not but most certain it is and no man but the Socinian denies it that he merited ours And this is so clear a truth that I think not any of the Schoolmen that write upon the third of the Sentences or the third part of the Summes but acknowledge it And our Refuter himself if he had but consulted the places in Thomas and Scotus that here he referrs to might have found it For Aquinas in the very next words in his answer to the first objection saies Ad primum ergo dicendum quod sicut supra dictum est q. 19. art 3. Christus non meruit gloriam animae secundum quam dicitur Comprehensor sed gloriam corporis ad quam per suam passionem pervenit The answer in the Body of that article tert part q. 19. art 3. is long the summ is this Dicendum est quod Christus gloriam corporis ea quae pertinent ad exteriorem ejus excellentiam sicut est Ascensio Veneratio alia hujusmodi habuit per meritum And then immediately in his answer ad primum he saies Dicendum quod fruitio quae est actus Charitatis pertinet ad gloriam animae quam Christus non meruit ideo si per Charitatem aliquid meruit non sequitur quod idem sit meritum praemium Nec tamen per Charitatem meruit in quantum erat Charitas Comprehensoris sed in quantum erat Viatoris Nam ipse fuit simul Viator Comprehensor ut supra habitum est q. 15. art 10. Et ideo quia nunc non est Viator non est in statu merendi And then as for Scotus who in the 18th distinction most admirably disputes this question Vtrum Christus meruerit in primo instanti suae conceptionis he founds his whole discourse upon it § 3. This subtile School-man having first proposed divers arguments against the possibility of Christ's Merit which are all founded upon the fulnesse of Christ's happinesse as Comprehensor and to the very same purpose with this of our Refuter in the next place he proceeds to determine the question And having acknowledged the difficulty of it he goes on to define what Merit is and having Difficile videtur salvare quod meruerit Christus cum fuit beatus perfecte conjunctus fini secundum voluntatem in primo instanti Scotus l. 3. Sent. dist 18. q. unica § 4. p. 131. cleared that he proceeds to resolve that though the Saints and Angels in Heaven because they are Comprehensores were incapable of Merit yet Christ in the dayes of his flesh being not only Comprehensor but Viator too in this respect he was capable of meriting at Gods hands by Particular Covenant and Contract and that he did indirectly at least de facto merit his own exaltation in the flesh I shall for the Reader 's satisfaction transcribe one short passage and refer him to the Author for the rest Alii beati à Christo quia secundum totam voluntatem conjuncti sunt ultimo fini sc Deo affectione justitiae perfectissimae etiam habent summum commodum conjunctum
when Mahomet who has commanded his followers to oppose and persecute his worshippers has yet in his very Alcoran declared him to be a most holy man and the next great Prophet sent from God and therefore condemnes his own followers that blaspheme him for us Christians that acknowledge him our Saviour either directly or indirectly to pull the glorious Crown of Righteousness from his head is most hideous and protentous blasphemy And therefore I shall as readily as cheerfully as our Refuter pronounce Anathema to all such Conclusions that cast the least Umbrage and suspition of guilt upon our ever blessed Saviour And so I undertake shall Doctor Hammond and I am bold to promise our Refuter his thanks and most grateful acknowledgement if at any time he shall reclaim him from any such dangerous though by himself undiscovered Inferences § 9. But then secondly I must adde that because Christ was absolutely impeccable and could not sin therefore of necessity the Inward Acts of his Love and holy Charity could not be of the same equal Intenseness but must differ in gradual Perfection according to the Order of Charity that Gods Law requires and the different Participation of the Divine goodness in the several Objects of this Love § 10. Thirdly I grant that the first and great Commandement enjoynes us the most intense Actual Love of God that is possible command us it does to love God tanto nixu conatu quanto fieri potest with our utmost force and endeavour and with as high a degree of Actual Love as is possible for us to reach unto § 11. But then fourthly I must deny that it will follow that even the Acts of this Love this high transcendent Love that is immediately fixed on God are all equally intense though the Ardor of them must be still as intense as we are able For since as St. Austin and Bernard Aquinas and Scotus say truly that this commandement in that sense cannot perfectly be fulfilled in this life but it shall be then only in Heaven when man shall be totally united and joyned to God by virtue of the beatifical vision when God shall be all in all since also it is evident that this first and great Commandement obliges us to love God only with all our strength and not with more then ever we had at first in Adam before his fall and since it is also evident that Adam in innocency had not the same Abilities to love God in Paradise as the soul of the same Adam and the Spirits of all just men now made perfect have in Heaven and since it is also as evident as I shall also by and by and beyond all exception further demonstrate that Christ as considered in the state of a Viator had not the same Abilities to know and love God as he had at the same time as considered in the state of a Comprehensor and fully possessed of heaven happinesse and the full sight and Vision and enjoyment and fruition of God it will undenyably follow that even in the Acts of this high transcendent Love of God there was and must be acknowledged a Gradual difference in respect of Ardor and Intensenesse according to the difference of his Abilities as considered in the state of a Viator and as considered in the state of a Comprehensor § 12. Fifthly I grant that Christ as Man had in his humane soul as considered in the state of a Comprehensor in the superiour part of it the Mind farr greater abilities for the Actual Love of God then Adam had in Paradise because from the first Moment of his Conception and Birth by virtue of the hypostatical Vnion he had greater Abilities for this Love then all the Saints and Angels in heaven And therefore I do also grant that the inward Acts of this his Love as Comprehensor were alwaies One without any Interruption or Gradual Variation these were alwaies at the height and the same equal intensenesse because they were alwaies in Termino and not free Acts of the Will but Necessary effects of the Beatifical Vision § 13. But then sixthly I must add what our Refuter ha's in his Mixture of Scholastical Divinity with Practical told us Jeanes mixture pag. 261. concerning our blessed Saviour as considered in the state of a Viator That it is not to be denyed but that by special dispensation there was some restraint of the influence of his happinesse or beatifical vision in the whole course of his humiliation and particularly in the time of his doleful passion But though truly as he addes immediately it seemes very improbable and no waies sortable unto the state of Christs blessednesse for his grace and holinesse the Image of God in him his love of God c. to wit in the habit as these Phrases signifie to be lyable to perpetual motion and augmentation yet because let me add his Abilities during this restraint of the Influence of his happinesse and as considered in the state of a Viator were not the same as now they are in the state of a Comprehensor the Intensenesse and Ardor in the Acts of his Love now must be higher then they were during that Restraint But much more must this be allowed that there was a Gradual difference in the Acts of his Love if as our Refuter in his Mixture undertakes to demonstrate that Jeanes his mixture p. 250 our Saviour did as truly increase in the inward Acts of Wisdom and Grace as he did in Stature § 14. But then seventhly let me add that if the Inward Acts of this Love of God were not alwaies equal but did Gradually differ because they did Gradually increase it will not therefore follow that our Saviour must be concluded guilty with all humble reverence be it spoken of the breach of the first and great Commandement For he that alwaies loves God with all his Soul and might and strength that loves him to the utmost of his ability that he ha's by Gods gift and not weakened by sin nor impaired by his own fault loves him pro praesenti statu as much as that Law does require and if as his Abilities do increase his Love does constantly still increase he still loves God according to that duty and measure which that Law does require though the Acts of this Love are now more intense than they were formerly And thus it was in Christ at least as compared in the state of a Viator with himself as considered in the state of a Comprehensor The Acts then of this his Love were alwaies holy and most conformable to Gods Law and still in suo genere perfect though they were not all equal in Gradual Intensenesse and all simply and absolutely perfect as now they are where he sits at the Right hand of God And therefore even in respect of these Acts it will not follow that though they were not alwaies equal in gradual perfection his Obedience to this Commandement was therefore imperfect
and Scotus and other of the old School-men say is required by this Law And is not this denyed by Bellarmine and is it not therefore justly charged upon him by Protestants And yet does not the Doctors exposition in this comply with Bellarmine § 30. To this I answer by degrees First that true it is that the learned Chamier does thus conclude against Bellarmine But then plain it is that these are none of that Veterum Sententia quam nos tenemus but only Inferences and Deductions from it And if our Refuter will allow me what he cannot reasonably deny that the Doctors exposition is exactly conformable to this of the Ancients which Chamier acknowledges that the Protestants maintain I shall not envy him those advantages he can make by these Corollaries § 31. Secondly though it were †Vide Davenant de Justit habit actual c. 46. p. 529 550 in sol ad 2. granted that these Inferences were good and forceable against Bellarmine that maintaines a man may not only keep the Law to that height that he may merit at Gods hands but also supererogate and be more holy and righteous then the Law does require yet they no waies concern the Doctor that speaks not of a sinlesse perfection but of the sincerity of this or that vertue in this or that Performance which though it exclude not all mixture of sin in the suppositum the man in whom it is yet may by the grace of God in Christ exclude it in this or that Act. The truth of which assertion as it is acknowledged by Chamier in the Case of David and Josiah so is it so farre different from Bellarmine's assertion against which these Corollaries of Chamier were directed that it is even opposite and contrary to it § 32. Thirdly I acknowledge that Bellarmine grants that Saint Austin and Bernard and Aquinas and other of the old Schoolmen do speak of such a Perfection required by this Law that advances our Love to that height that we must do nothing else but think of God nothing else but love him and this not only in the Habit but in the Act. This Love he acknowledges does so wholly possess the soul that no idle vitious Thought can obtrude or press in upon it nothing either contrary or besides this holy love can have any the least admission into the heart but that of necessity God is and must be all in all But then he addes that this Love is proper only to the Saints in Bliss and that we whilst we are in the flesh as we are not capable of it so it is not it cannot be enjoyned us but it is only proposed that we may know what we are to aim at and hope for and desire in heaven and that this is the meaning of Saint Austin Bernard and Aquinas and the Schoolmen when they say this Perfection is not attainable in this life But of this more in due place and let Bellarmin stand and fall to his own Master § 33. But then Fourthly be it granted that those Corollaries of Chamier are rightly inferred against Bellarmine's doctrine of the several states of Perfection and works of supererogation and the possibility of fulfilling the Law yet neither of them will any whit advantage our Refuter in the present controversie depending between him and the Doctor For though God should require of us by that Law that we love him totis viribus naturae non tantum totis viribus corruptionis yet the †Vide Doctor Hammonds Account of Mr. Cawdrey's Triplex Diatribe c. 6. sect 8. §. 6 7. p. 204. Doctor has most irrefragably demonstrated against Mr. Cawdrey that even the sinless Perfection of Adam in Innocence was a state of Proficiency and that he and all his posterity had even in that first Integrity and Holiness wherein they were first created been in statu merendi till the time of their translation and consequently had been obliged as well as we are now to grow at least in Actual Grace and the knowledge and the Love of God § 34. And Mr. Cawdrey in effect grants it For Christ being Heb 7. 26. Cawdrey's Triplex Diatrib p. 116. holy harmless undefiled and still perfectly continuing in that first innocent estate wherein Adam was created he saies did more then the Law required and did supererogate in many his Actions and Passions and so in the degree of affection in Prayer if not in the Prayer it self § 35. It is true that for a Salve he saies that Christ was above the Law § 36. But then this is nothing to the purpose For though 1 Tim. 6. 16. as he was God the King of Kings and Lord of Lords he were the supreme Lawgiver and the absolute Soveraign and so in this Philip. 2 7. Gal. 4. 4. sense was not under but above the Law yet as he took upon him the form of a servant as he was made of a woman so the Apostle expresly saies he was made under the Law and as he was born Gal. 3. 16. Gen. 17. 9 10 11 12 13 14. Gal. 5. 2. the Son and Seed of Abraham so bound he was to be circumcised the eighth day and being thus circumcised the Apostle plainly testifies that as every man that is circumcised so he was a debter to do the whole Law and consequently in this sense he was not above it And therefore nothing hinders but that Adam if he had persevered in his first Innocence might notwithstanding the Obligation of that first great Law of Love to which Christ also was subject as Man supererogate also in some such like Actions and Passions so in the degree of Affection suppose in Prayer if not in the Prayer it self § 37. If here it be replyed that as Christ according to his Divine Nature was above the Law so by virtue of the Hypostatical Vnion as Man he had the fulness of Grace which Adam had not whereby he was enabled to such supererogating Performances § 38. For answer indeed I grant that he had the very †John 1. 16. c. 3. 34. Coloss 1. 19. Fulnesse of Grace But then this solves not the Doubt For the Question is not now concerning the Measure of Grace but the Extents and Obligation of the Law and whether that admits of any vertuous o◠holy or pious performances above what Man is in particular obliged to by it And in this respect the first and second Adam are equall because both as Men were equally made under the Law But then Adam though he were created in a mutable Condition as Christ was not though he had not a fulnesse of Grace as Christ had yet if he had not fallen from his first innocence he had such a Measure of Grace and Original Righteousnesse bestowed upon him that would not only have preserved him in his integrity but also enabled him to do whatsoever the Law required and whatsoever other vertuous holy pious performances could by Man
respectu ad hanc vel illam particularem personam hisce particularibus donis a Deo ornatam hâc particulari vocatione ad talem statum excitatam atque sic non permittitur liberae electioni voluntatis humanae quia male agit qui donum Dei vocationem particularem ad hoc opus particulare negligat 1 Cor. 7. 17. Ibid. p. 501. Once more Quod affirmat Basilius Deum noluisse virginitatem esse praeceptam Respondeo Loquitur de communi praecepto Legis Divinae quod omnes mortales ex aequo obliget Agnoscimus virginitatem hoc sensu non esse sub praecepto si enim itase res haberet peccarent omnes qui matrimonium inirent Ibid. c. 45. p. 521. If any be desirous to see more to this purpose I shall intreat him to peruse the Treatise from Chap. 39. to the 47. wherein he shall find an exact harmony betwixt the Doctor and this Orthodox Reverend Bishop § 79. Nor is the Bishop singular in this Doctrine but herein he has the Concurrence of the most eminent of our Church and in the Controversies with the Papists § 80. For my part saies our excellently-learned Bishop Mountague in his answer to the Gagger I know no Doctrine of our Mountague Answ to the Gagger of Protestants c. 15. p. 103 104 English Church against Evangelical Counsels Private resolutions this way or that way are but Opinions and may aswell be rejected as admitted I willingly subscribe unto antiquity for the point of Counsels Evangelical For quod ex voluntate est laudis est amplioris saith Philastrius God putteth the yoke of virginity upon no man but leaveth it to those that can and will undergo it Therefore Nazianzen well resolved We have lawes among us that binde of necessity others which be left unto our Free choyce to keep them or not so as if we keep them we shall be rewarded if we keep them not no fear of punishment or danger to be undergone therefore But I deny thereupon works of Supererogation to be laid up in store for imployments c. For although a man may do more then is exacted in many other things he doth much less then he should do c. § 81. With him agrees that very Reverend Doctor White to Bish White against Fisher Point 8. §. 3 p. 527 528 531. whom our Refuter in this argument appeals Touching the distinction of Precepts and Counsels I answer That if according to the Fathers we understand Free-will offerings or spontaneous actions exceeding that which Augustin Enchirid. c. 121. Gregor Nazian contra Julian Orat. 1. Chrysost in Matth. Hom. 2 in Rom. hom 14. in 1 Cor. hom 22. the ordinary bond of necessary duty obligeth men unto and which are acceptable to God in respect of their end the Doctrine of Counsels proveth not works of Supererogation according to the Romish Tenet In his answer to the second Section of the Jesuite he addes Haimo and venerable Bede affirm that some men do that by vow or voluntary choice to wit in some particular actions which they are not obliged unto by strict Precept and that at the day of Judgement they themselves not souls in Purgatory shall reap the benefit hereof to wit an accessory augmentation of Blisse But from a Partial supererogation to a Total and General it followeth not And in the following section he grants that the Fathers Fulgentius Paulinus St. Fulgent Proleg in lib. con Monimum Paulm Ep ad Severum Augustin lib. 2. 4 Evangel c 30. ibid. c. 19. de Adulterin conjug l. 1. c. 14. Optat. lib. 6. con Parmen Hieron l 1 advers Jovin c. 7. Chrysost hom 8 de poenitent Nazianzen Orat 3 Cypr. de habit virgin prope finem Origen in cap 15. ad Rom. Ambrose de Viduis ultra mod Augustine Optatus St. Hierom St. Chrysostom Gregory Nazianzen St. Cyprian Origen and St. Ambrose mention works of Counsel and one of them saith it is possible to do more then is commanded But this Father as he addes speaketh not thus in respect of all the Commandements of God for then he must free just persons from all sin but in respect of some particular Actions to wit whereas the Law of Charity commandeth to distribute a Portion of goods to the Poor a man may bestow half his goods nevertheless he which performeth this may be deficient another way And then presently after he addes that First Ambrose teacheth that there is a difference between Precepts and Counsels Secondly that the observing of Counsels is not required of all but of some Thirdly They which besides Precepts observe Counsels are more profitable servants and shall receive a greater reward Thus he § 82. I shall conclude with Mr. Hooker Finally some things although not so required of necessity that to leave them undone Hooker Eccles Pol lib. a. n. 8. mihi pag. 78. excludeth from Salvation are notwithstanding of so great dignity and acceptation with God that most ample reward in heaven is laid up for them Hereof we have no commandement either in nature or Scripture which doth exact them at our hands yet those motives there are in both which draw most effectually our minds unto them In this kind there is not the least action but it doth somewhat make to the accessory augmentation of our bliss For which cause our Saviour doth plainly witness that there should not be as much as a cup of cold water bestowed for his sake without Matt. 10. 42. reward Hereupon dependeth whatsoever difference there is between states of Saints in Glory hither we refer whatsoever belongeth unto th highest perfection of man by way of service toward God hereunto that fervour and first love of Christians did bind it self causing them to sell their possessions and lay down the price at the blessed Apostles feet Hereat Saint Paul undoubtedly did aime in so far abridging his own liberty and exceeding that which Act. 4. 35. 1 Thessal 2. 7 9. the bond of necessary and enjoyned duty tyed him unto Wherefore seeing that in all these several kinds of Actions there can be nothing possibly evil which God approveth and that he approveth much more then he doth command c. § 83. More might be added from S. Augustin l. de sancta virginitate c. 30. p. 344. Et de verbis Apostoli Serm. 18. p. 136. in Enchirid. c. 121. p. 85. Eusebius lib. 1. de demonstrat Evangel c. 8. p. 29 30. edit Paris Gregor Magn. l. 15. Moral c. 9. p. 82. F G. Epiphan haeres 48. Athanasius lib. de incarnatione verbi Basil l. de virginitate and others of the Antients as also from Bishop Morton's Appeal l. 5. c. 4. sect 3. n. 11. Bishop Andrews cont Apol. Bellarm. cap. 8. p. 196. Muscul in 1. Cor. 7. Hiperius in 1 Cor. 7. 25. Selnecer ibid. and others of the modernes § 84. But this is abundantly sufficient if not more then enough to acquit the
must be in the increase nor has any limits to fix and bound its growth § 27. But then this love because it is a thriving thing of necessity must admit of a latitude and endless degrees because as the Schools determine it must be increased in infinitum And thus the Doctor acknowledges that we must love God with all our strength c. § 28. This is that Love in the height that Grotius and †Concedimus Charitatem simpliciter insinitam hoc mandato non requiri quia Creatura sinita non est capax qualitatis infinitae sed negamus huic mandato satisfacere ullum certum gradum charitatis qui subsistit infra metas ultimae possibilitatis humanae Nam mandatum totas vires nostras requirit in Actu diligendi Deum nullamque earum partem sub consilio relinquit ut ex Augustino ipso Aquinate rectissime statuit Gerson Davenant de Justitiâ habit Act. c. 44. p. 504. others speak of nay that which M. Cawdrey himself acknowledges cannot be denyed though he sayes not without a Contradiction that more then this is required and that not onely growth in grace is required which of necessity implyes a latitude and degrees but perfection also which he sayes has no degrees Nay this our Refuter in a lucid intervall does seem to import though he long continues not in that sober mood But I doubt not but upon better consideration he may be drawn to persevere and continue in it Otherwise Nauiget Antyciras for me I shall sooner expect to cure his Intellect by a Potion of Hellebore then a demonstration This is that Love that is opposed to Lukewarmness that is opposed to partiall and divided Love or service that Love that is the way to perfection in heaven there onely attainable and not Perfection it self This is the Love the Doctor speaks of and contends to be required by this commandment the Love that the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not that Love that consists in a sinless perfection that our Refuter contends is now required of the Christian This Love admits of a latitude and has degrees it is like the grain of mustard-seed though as considered in semine it is very small yet by the endeavour of Paul the Planter and Apollos the waterer and the richness of the soyle now manured and fitted by Grace and the benefit of the Climate the Church where it onely growes and Gods blessing that still gives the increase it growes up and multiplies into a tree so big that the fowles of the Aire may lodge and the blessed Spirits and Angels may be delighted in it § 29. But then thirdly man may be considered according to his future state and the Abilities God shall either de facto give us to love him at the last day when not onely the Spirits but the bodies also of just men shall be made perfect or * Vid. Davenant de Justit habit Act. c. 4. 7. p. 532 533. may now by his absolute omnipotent Power bestow upon us for nothing hinders but that he might again create man in innocence and blesse him with the same Abilities of Originall Justice which Adam had or else he might translate us immediately soul and body into heaven as he did Enoch and Elias This this as it is the height of our happiness and holy ambition so it is the utmost height of love that we shall de facto ever arrive at § 30. But then I must adde that this Love is but like the Physitians Temperamentum ad Justitiam not like that which they call Temperamentum aequale ad pondus There is no one indivisible point and measure of love to which all arrive but Vid. Aquin. 2. 2 que 28. art 3. in corp respons ad 2. proportionable still it is to our works and the reward and the happinesse God shall bestow All the vessels of this new Jerusalem shall be full as full of love as they can possibly hold but yet the love in all will not be equally one and the same because the vessels are not all of one equall capacity For as one star differs from another star in glory so shall it be also at the Resurrection of the dead and as there be degrees of Angels whether Thrones or Principalities or Powers Angels and Arch-angells Cherubins and Seraphins whose very name imports a higher and more ardent strain of love and zeal so shall there be also degrees among Saints in respect of Glory and happiness and consequently of Love Christ the first in Glory as the first-fruits from the dead and afterwards they that are Christs I doubt not but the blessed Virgin and the Mother of God as she was saluted by the Angel Gabriel Luk. 1. 28. with an Hail thou that art highly favoured the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women so she is blessed among Saints as she bore our Saviour in her womb so she is next to him in glory And then as for the Apostles our Saviour has promised that they shall sit with him on twelve Thrones And Mat. 19. 28 29. Luk. 22. 30. Jude 14. if they and ten thousand of his Saints with whom he shall come to Judgement shall be admitted to be Assessors with him in his Throne of Judgement I cannot but conclude they shall have a higher state of Glory And if our Love of God must of necessity bear a correspondence to our knowledge and sight and enjoyment of God in heaven and that knowledge and that happiness must be proportioned according to our works on earth then it will necessarily follow that according to the difference of our Love and grace and improvement of our Talents and stewardship here so shall our glory and happiness and sight and knowledge and Love of God be in heaven A love this though it be not equall in every man yet it is as high as any man shall for all eternity ever enjoy The love shall be still one in every man as the Crown of glory shall eternally be the same A love at the utmost height that the lover of God whosoever he is shall ever eternally obtain A love perfect because without sin a love constant because without interruption and not in habit but in Act a love where God shall be all in all § 31. This is the love we all hope for and aim at and must endeavour after and it will be our sin and our misery if we do not attain to it But then it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Christian as we have already noted the mark he must aime at the crown and the kingdome and not the Race it self and the way to the kingdome This is that height that Perfection of Love which S. Austin and Bernard Peter Lumbard and Aquinas and others of the old Schoolmen speak of when they say it is not attainable in this life but is the Perfection of heaven and adde that the Commandment
This most intense Love of God is due unto God by an obligation of gratitude for hereby as Doctor Francis White against Fisher out of Bernard we are indebted and owe to the Almighty omne quod sumus omne quod possumus whatsoever we are and whatsoever we are able to do § 2. To this I answer First that this is not the Conclusion that he undertook to make good For he promised to evince by these following Reasons That this commandment enjoyneth a love of God with as high a degree as is possible unto the humane Nature which this Proof no way reaches For it is one thing to love God with our utmost forces and endeavours and as much as we can and another thing to love him with as high a degree as is possible to the humane nature The former may be and is obligatory to the Christian though this latter is not § 3. Secondly I therefore answer That all is granted that this Argument contends for § 4. Obliged we are not onely by an obligation of congruence and gratitude but also by many other obligations not here named to love God with a most intense love with the utmost of our forces and endeavours The Doctor grants and expresly proves it by the Testimony of the son of Syrach Ecclus. 43. 30. When you glorifie God the Lord exalt him as much as you can and when you exalt him put forth all your strength for you can never go far enough i. e. sayes the Doctor how far soever you exceed the Particular command you are yet within the compass of the generall one of love he means and in respect of that can never be thought to have done enough though the Particular Act or the degree of it be somewhat that you are not particularly obliged to The words are full and high and to all the Argument pretends to § 5. Because God is infinite in perfection infinitely good and infinitely amiable we that are finite in our Natures and Operations can never love him enough and as much as he deserves and because all our sufficiency is from God Naturall gratitude if there were no other Rule and Law would oblige us to imploy all that strength and sufficiency in his service from whom alone all is derived And because when we have done all we can we should yet be short of loving him sufficiently and to the height of his worth and Perfection still labour we must that we may yet more and more love him and because this life is too short endeavour we may and must to be admitted into heaven where we may love him to the utmost height we can or shall ever attain and because we cannot love him infinitely as his goodness deserves we yet may love him eternally Ratio diligendi Deum est Deus ipse modus sine modo saies S. Bernard sweetly that never speaks otherwise The onely Reason and Motive to our Love of God must be his own Goodness and the onely Measure of this Love must be Love without Measure Because God is Infinite in Perfection our Love must also be Infinite not absolutely as God is but onely in a sort that befits our finite condition Our Love must be infinite Syncategorematicè as they speak in the Schools though Categorematicè it cannot That is though the word Infinite cannot be predicated of our Love in casu recto yet it may in casu obliquo though it cannot be Positively infinite yet Negatively it may and must though still it will be finite yet it must have no set no determinate bounds and limits Though our love cannot be infinite yet we must infinitely love him love him in infinitum and never think we can love him sufficiently and unto the utmost height beyond which we neither can nor need to go Our work and labour of love must be like to the Arithmeticians Operation in Progressive Multiplication The further he goes on in his work the more is the Product and the greater still his Task And if this will content our Refuter he has mine and the Doctors free grant and I hope in this we shall be friends § 6. Nay if it were of any concernment I undertake that Vid. Bellar. de aetern Foelicit l. 3. c 8. de Gemit Columb l. 2. c. 3. c. 10. Fran. de Sales of the love of God l. 3. c. 1. l. 10. c. 1 2 3 4 5 6. alibi passim Jo. Euseb Nierembergius de Adorat in Spiritu veritate l. 1. c. 9. l. 3. c. 6. l. 4. c. 4 5 9 10 12. alibi passim Bellarmine at least in his Meditations and Prayers will acknowledge it whatsoever he does or shall do in his Polemicks and if I find not this and much more then this in F. Sales of divine Love and Nierembergius the Jesuite in his book de Adoratione in Spiritu and all the rest I have seen that write Sermons and Commentaries I am very much mistaken and I shall not believe what I read with mine own eyes and think that in a waking dream I read mine own Protestant Phansies and not the writings of Jesuites and Papists But because magna est veritas praevalebit It is much for the honour and Justification of the Protestant Doctrine that even its adversaries and opposers in their modest sober thoughts in their more humble and mortified considerations do approve and acknowledge what we so eagerly contend for § 7. If our Refuter shall here reply that he has gained all he desires in this one concession and that then there can be no Nidabah no free will offerings no uncommanded degrees of Love § 8. I shall answere that I am very glad I have pleased him and hope he will think that I am no enemy to him but onely an opposer of Errours a Lover of Truth and a defender of its Advocates and Patrons whether Master Jeans or Doctor Hammond But then withall I must adde that there must and will be free-will offerings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be found in the Law of Moses which if he can reconcile with his Argument and Principles I doubt not but to reconcile this very argument to the Doctors Exposition and Concessions And indeed we have already done it or let our Refuter call in his School-abilities to help me For he I am sure as a Divine and Expositor of Scripture is bound to reconcile the seeming contradictions of that as well as the Doctor is bound to give an answer to all Objections that may or can be brought against his doctrine § 9. Indeed I am half perswaded that upon a serious review and more setled thoughts our Refuter himself will acknowledge that it is no very difficult Task For though it be granted that a most intense actuall Love of God is due unto God by an obligation of gratitude because hereby as Doctor Francis White against Fisher out of Bernard we are indebted and owe to the Almighty omne quod sumus
against the Popish Doctrine of Merit ex condigno Justification by works and supererogation and the fulfilling of the Law according to this perfect rule of Righteousness and the Covenant of works they are unanswerable and I must also say with Chamier Magnum hoc inevitabile telum est senserunt adversarii momentum Itaque omnem movent lapidem ut eludant Chamier tom 3. l. 11. c. 14. § 1 2 3 4. § 48. But then I must adde that this nothing concerns the Doctors opinion and as little the Schoolmen and that there is little or no difference between theirs and Saint Austins and Bernards opinions as the Reader will soon perceive if he be pleased to compare them § 49. All that is said in those passages or that as I conceive can be rationally inferred from them I shall briefly summ up in these Theoremes 1. That the Law of God is the perfect Rule of Righteousness 2. That Perfection of Righteousness consists in an exact and sinless obedience and conformity to this Rule 3. That no man can be Justified by this Law according to the Covenant of works that does not thus perfectly observe it 4. That our Saviour has briefly summed up this Perfection of Righteousness and the whole drift of the Law in these two precepts Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. and our neighbours as our selves 5. That he that perfectly keeps these has fulfilled all Righteousness 6. That in our lapsed condition we do not we cannot so observe it because experience and Scripture teach us that in many things we offend all 7. That though we do not we cannot now observe it yet by Faith and Repentance promised in the Gospel according to the tenor of the second Covenant we shall find mercy and grace 8. That even Adam in innocence though he had persevered in that state could not have arrived to the utmost perfection of Love that is contained in those precepts because 9. This utmost perfection of love depends upon a clear intuitive knowledge of God 10. That here we walk by Faith and hereafter only in heaven we shall walk by fight where onely we shall know as we are known 11. That since our Love depends upon our knowledge of God and the more that increases the more will our Love then so much must be wanting to the perfection of our Love as is wanting to this knowledge 12. That though the utmost perfection of Love that a Saint now in viâ and in his Pilgrimage to heaven can arrive at consists as our Saviour himself testifies in laying down our lives for the faith and the Brethren yet that perfection of love that the Saints now injoy in heaven and we hope and patiently look for far exceeds this and all else that we can pray for or understand And yet 13. This love of the Saints now made perfect in heaven is no more then what is contained in this Precept it is no more then a love of God with all the heart c. Because nothing can be added to that which is perfectly the whole and if any thing might be added as yet it were not the whole And therefore 14. This of loving God with all the heart is the first great precept of that all full all perfect righteousness and the second it like unto it and they shall both then be perfectly fullfilled by us when we come to heaven where we shall see God face to face 15. That this perfect Rule of righteousness and love though it cannot be fullfilled in our lapsed estate according to the perfection of innocence much less according to the perfection of glory yet it was imposed upon us for this end that we might know what to aim at and hope for and endeavour after as much as we can and forgetting what is behind we might earnestly press toward the mark set before us 16. That this love in this utmost height and perfection which the Saints now enjoy belongs not to sinners but Saints not to this frail mortall life but that other which is immortall 17. That the righteousness and Perfection of Charity that belongs to believers in this life is that we strive against sin and suffer not sin to reign in our mortall bodies that we should obey it in the lusts thereof And therefore 18. Since this sinless perfection of Charity much less that Perfection of glory is not possible to be attained by us in this our lapsed estate God imposed this impossible command on us who well knew our frailty and the moment and weight of this Law not to judge us by it as transgressors at the last day but onely to humble us and that every mouth might be stopped and the world be convinced that by the works of the Law no flesh can be justified but that reading our own weakness and frailties and miseries and sins and wants in this perfect Law we might come to the throne of Grace to find Grace to help in time of need from him in that day who then not by works of righteousness which we have wrought but according to his mercy must and will save us 19. That God saw it reasonable even in this lapsed estate to prescribe us this rule of Perfection though no man can attain unto it that we might know the end of our race and the crown and reward of our endeavours which awaits us at the end of the Goale and to what perfection of righteousness and holyness we should aim at and endeavour and labour after and consider not what we yet have attained and then lazily sit down as if we had done sufficiently but still look forward and consider what yet we want 20. That he is the greatest proficient in this School of Perfection and has arrived highest to it that considering the excellency of the mark set before us does humbly acknowledge how much he is short of it and still labours to go higher so long as he continues in the race and way to it so long as he is a stranger and Pilgrim on earth and a traveller toward heaven § 50. This is the utmost those two Fathers drive at and I desire our Refuter to sit down and consider whether he can possibly make more of them then here I have done And if this will content him I shall here subscribe to the truth of every Theoreme and so will the Doctor Indeed there is nothing here but what is fully contained in the Doctors writings especially in the Practicall Catechism as the Reader will soon perceive if he be pleased onely to review the places already quoted And if Bellarmine or any Papist else deny the truth of any one of these or maintain any thing contrary to them I shall lend our Refuter my helping hand if he will accept of such poor assistance to oppose him in his errours § 51. But then for all that I must tell him that he will never be able to prove that S. Austin or
that is in debate betwixt you and your adversary You need not have spent so much time in proving that Christ as Comprehensor did love God to the utmost height possible It should have been granted you for asking It is a known undoubted truth in the Schools a Perfection that de congruo follows from the Hypostaticall union and therefore questioned by none but the Socinians and those that deny the divinity of Christ § 3. But I see by experience that Gold the most solid most ponderous of Metalls may be beaten so thin that it may be moved with a breath and broken with a touch And our Refuter is so unhappy as to weaken an undoubted truth by his overmuch proving it For if the inward Acts of Christs love were alwayes at the utmost height because this most intense love is a naturall and necessary sequele of the Beatificall vision then it necessarily follows if his love were alwayes thus intense that then he alwayes enjoyned the Beatificall vision the sole and necessary cause of such a love For it is an undoubted Maxime That Positis aut sublatis effectu causâ necessariis ponuntur tolluntur causa effectus And if so what then shall we say to the Author of a mixture of Scholasticall divinity with Practicall Henry Jeanes of Chedzoy For sayes he not expresly That it is not to be denyed Mixture of Scholast with Pract. p. 261. but that by speciall dispensation there was some restraint of the influence of this happiness or beatificall vision in the whole course of his humiliation and Particularly in the time of his dolefull Passien And now if his fervour of love were a naturall issue of the beatificall vision it will necessarily follow that as that his happiness and clear intuitive sight of the divine Essence was restrained so the fervour of his love was proportionably abated also § 4. But not to trouble our selves much with any contradictions of our Refuter I suppose he meant well whatsoeever he sayes It was truly said by Saint Leo and all Antiquity has approved it that at the time of our Saviours Passion Non dissolvit unionem sed subtraxit visionem And hence it comes to pass that we read of our Saviours saying My soul is exceeding sorrowfull unto death and his crying upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And I believe our Refuter is not ignorant what M. Calvin has said of that expostulation § 5. And why then might not this be a fit season for the heightning of the Ardency of our Saviours zeal and devotion when he prayed for the restoring of those comforts and Joys that flowed from the Influence of the Beatificall vision which now was restrained The more comfort and happiness he formerly enjoyed from this clear intuitive knowledge the more earnestly now without doubt he would long for it And had not now our blessed Saviour in this extremity and bitterness of his Passion and sufferings when the manhood was left naked without any beams of comfort streaming from the Godhead which now by speciall dispensation our Refuter grants as indeed it is most evident from Scripture also were restrained had not now I say our blessed Saviour occasion enough for the heightning of his fervour in prayer had he not now grounds and motives sufficient to induce him to advance his ardency and zeale when he prayes for the restauration of those joyes For who so ardently longs for a Repossession of happiness as he that has once been satisfied with the ravishing contentments of it The loss of those comforts which David formerly enjoyed was it that made him so earnestly cry out Psal 51. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoyce The Iron that has once been touched with the Loadstone and enjoyed the benefit and sweetness of that magnetick Love and Influence does more earnestly desire and move stronger to a Re-union with that Loadstone then it did before the touching And this is abundantly sufficient to demonstrate the utmost of the Doctors pretences in his Ectenesteron who there undertakes onely to shew that the fervency of Christs zeale and devotion in Prayer was in his Agony encreased But then because it is an Act of Piety and devotion and consequently of Charity and love to God as that is commonly taken in the Scripture of which Love alone does the Doctor speak and so is not that Love that high transcendent Love which flowed from the Beatificall vision which our Saviour as Comprehensor enjoyed and that which our Refuter here speaks of plain it is that by this Argument if all were granted he opposes not the Doctor § 6. But then this is not onely sufficient to acquit the Doctor but also to destroy all the truth in his Argument For if now especially in the time of our Saviours dolefull passion the Influence of the Godhead and beatificall vision were restrained then it evidently follows that now at least there was more occasion then formerly even for the heightning of his love of God as that is properly taken For our Love of necessity must bear a proportion and correspondence to our knowledge and therefore we shall love more infinitely more when we see God face to face then now possibly we can when we see him onely in aenigmate in speculo by Faith as in a glass darkly And consequently so must it be with our Saviours love also at least during this restraint And therefore to grant to our Refuter what he adds in that Treatise immediately after though surely it seems very improbable and no wayes sortable unto the state of Christs blessedness for his grace and holiness the image of God in him his love of God in the habit to be lyable unto perpetuall motion and augmentation yet even there he himself expresly grants that his Actuall grace and wisdome and consequently his acts of divine love did encrease and gradually differ and if he should here deny it this argument we have urged from his own concessions will necessarily enforce it § 7. The truth is he met with a common received truth but for want of skill and a right understanding of the Schoolmen in whose shop this divine truth was first strook out and discovered he has almost destroyed it by his manner of proof and labouring to defend it § 8. First then I grant That Christ in the dayes of his Flesh was not purè viator but also Comprehensor 2. That as Comprehensor he enjoyed a clear intuitive knowledge of the Divine Essence 3. That from this clear intuitive knowledge issued a Love answerable to it an Actuall love most perfect and in the utmost height alwayes uninterrupted alwayes the same because as Suarez truly erat simpliciter necessarius tam respectu Dei Vid. Suarez tom 1. in 3 par Thom. disp 37. Sect. 4.
sufficient cause alwayes to Love God at the utmost height possible to the humane nature to wit a clear intuitive knowledge of the divine Essence yet he had no more Grounds and Motives to this love then he had occasions because he alwayes loved naturally and necessarily to the utmost height and it was impossible for him to do otherwise Will any man read a Morall Lecture of Persuasion to excite a Stone to move downwards or labour by Grounds and Motives to induce the Fire to burn A pair of bellowes are worth all the Suasories in Seneca or the Declamations of Quintilian The glorified Saints and Angels have Cause sufficient to love God the beatificall vision and therefore as they need no Grounds and Motives to induce them to love God so they have none used to them in heaven because there they naturally and necessarily love God and it is a part of their happiness and a necessary fruit of their glorified natures to do so Grounds and Motives as well as Occasions are proper onely to those that are in viâ that are in the way to heaven to stirr up their spirits and flagging dull Motions and quicken them in the Race as also to dehort them from those things that may be an occasion either of their fall or slow motion § 17. But then this nothing hinders but as considered in the state of a viator he might have both Occasions to heighten his Love and ardency in Prayer as the Doctor affirms he had and we have already demonstrated the Truth of his assertion and shall by and by further clear it and also Grounds and Motives to strengthen and confirm him in his love and magnanimity and Patience in the midst of his bitter agony For we have already observed from the Schoolmen and best Interpreters that the Angell that was sent to Comfort our blessed Saviour and strengthen him in his bitter Agony did it by Morall Arguments and Suasories and Rationall Grounds and Motives Remonstrating him the transcendency of his Love to Mankind and the Glory of the Acquest his obedience to God his Father and the Crown and Reward laid up for him The Advancement of the honour of Gods Mercy and the magnifying his Name in the salvation of mankind and the like § 18. But then secondly by this Confusion he falls upon the Rock of palpable contradiction and one part of his discourse confutes the other For if Christ had alwayes sufficient Causes Grounds and Motives to induce him to love God c. then he did not love him naturally and necessarily as he sayes he did Or else if he alwayes loved God to the utmost height naturally and necessarily then he had not alwayes sufficient Causes Grounds and Motives to induce him to love God to the utmost height For Causes Grounds and Motives to love suppose an absolute freedome and liberty of indetermination and indifferency to love which is perfectly contrary to an absolute necessity of loving and therefore incompossible with it Let him chuse which part he will and avoid the Rock if he can § 19. If he sayes that Christ as viator had sufficient causes grounds and motives to induce him to love God to the utmost height because as Comprehensor he enjoyed the beatificall vision and naturally loved him I deny his sequele because then it would also follow that he had sufficient causes grounds and motives to love God in that height which was incompossible with his state of viator to wit with as heightned degrees of Actuall love as the humane nature could reach to which is the state of a Comprehensor and consequently implyes a kind of contradiction in adjecto § 20. And then thirdly he not onely speaks contradictions but palpable Tautologies For he sayes Christ naturally and necessarily loved God to the utmost height of Actuall Love and then adds in the close by way of proof For if we speak of a liberty of indifferency and indetermination he had no more liberty towards the intension of the inward Acts of his Love than he had towards the Acts themselves It is just as if I should affirm the Aethiops skin to be black and then adde for a further confirmation For if we talk of any colour in his skin that was disgregative of the sight he had none which were a most ridiculous tautologicall argumentation and prooving idem per idem § 21. And therefore having now shewed the weakness and very inartificiall proceeding of our Refuters discourse I am at leasure to tell him what were the occasions of heightning our Saviours Love of God at the time of his Passion more then he had at other times which the Doctor intimates and our Refuter out of his great Scholasticall modesty and profound Christian humility and tenderness to our blessed Saviours honour I suppose he means will not undertake to guess at But first I will tell him what Love it was the Doctor means that so all occasions of Cavill may be avoided § 22. The Schools ordinarily distinguish of a twofold Love of God one they call Amor Concupiscentiae or Amor desiderii The other they call Amor Amicitiae or Amor Complacentiae The first is a Love of God for the benefits we hope and are to receive from him and arises out of an apprehension and sensibleness of those wants and needs that he alone is able to supply The other is a Love of God purely for his own goodness This is the most genuine and transcendent Love but the other more naturall For Nature it self teaches us in all our wants to have recourse to God or something we mistake for God And hence it is that the most acute Father Tertullian Vid. Suarez tom 1. in tert part Tho disp 39. sect 2. p. 542. col 1. C. Et ibid. disp 34 sect 3. pag. 457. col 1. F. 2. A. makes use of this Argument and in contemplation of it cryes out O Anima naturaliter Christiana This is proper onely to the viator The other in the most transcendent manner agrees to the Comprehensor and in a lower degree also to the viator according to the Perfection and excellency of his habituall grace Yet these two sayes the most incomparable Bishop Andrews though they may be distinguished yet Pattern of Catechist Doctrine at large com 1. c. 12. pag. 155. are not alwayes divided For the one oftentimes is the beginning of the other both in our loves to God and man For those that have been beneficiall to us though we love them at first for the benefits we receive by them yet afterwards we come to love them for themselves The first ariseth from hope because a man being cast down by fear conceives hope upon Gods promises then sending forth prayer receiveth fruit and saith Praised be the Lord for he hath heard the voyce of my humble petition And Psal 28. 7. 21. thou hast given me my hearts desire which fruit stirreth up the first love and this Amor Concupiscentiae the
of Grace to find help in time of need Our Saviour in this has left us an example and he has further given us instruction that though nature teaches without any other Tutor that we now especially should multiply our Prayers and heighten our ardour and fervency yet from his great example and Precept and instruction we should also learn still to close up our most ardent most heightned devotions with a submission to Gods will though in such an Agony as this of our blessed Saviour we may pray the more earnestly for the removall of this bitter cup yet still when we cry out Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me we must add with him yet not mine but thy will be done And this is the entire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Perfect clear demonstration of all that the Doctor undertook in Reference either to M. C. or this Refuter And I wonder how he should not see it and if he did see it why he so should cavill at it § 7. We go on then with our Refuter JEANES I suppose the antecedent to the relative is in these words May it not be a season for that pious mans ardency to receive some growth for his zeal to be emulous of those waves and poure it self out more profusely at such then at a calmer season And then there be two things that you affirm that I deny not of the Person of Christ 1. That a tempestuous time a time of affliction was a season for Christs ardency to receive some growth 2. That 't was a season for his zeal to poure it self out more profusely at such then at a calmer season As for the first sentence a time of affliction was a season for Christs ardency to receive some growth if by Ardency you understand the ardency of his Love of God I deny that it did receive any growth for to ascribe growth unto it is to charge it with imperfection Charitas quamdiu c. § 8. I wonder Sir that after so long a dispute with the Doctor you should yet be to seek of his meaning Review the whole section and tell me whether the Doctor has not fully cleared his intention The Ardency he speaks of is the Ardency and fervour of Prayer which he sayes in this so proper season as now our Saviours bloody Agony did receive some heightning and growth And this he affirms from the Authority of Saint Luke This is the utmost he ever undertook to demonstrate from the first to the last of this discourse and his very title-Page will make it good And therefore here Sir you oppose not the Doctors position but another of your own framing For though Ardency in Prayer be an act of Piety and devotion and consequently of Charity and the Love of God as that is commonly taken in scripture because by a Metonymy it is an effect and fruit of our Love of God yet the Love of God properly and formally taken for that transcendent Love that is immediately fixed on God is formally and really distinct and clean another thing from Ardency in Prayer as properly and formally taken Of the last and such like Acts of Charity as these the Doctor speaks of of the former onely our Refuter And therefore though it were granted that the Acts of this Love as properly taken were not could not be gradually augmented yet this notwithstanding Christs Ardency in Prayer might upon a just occasion be heightned The opposition here as it is plain is not ad idem § 9. But then I deny that to ascribe growth or rather graduall heightning and increase even to the Acts of this love in respect of his state of viator will argue any imperfection in this love as respecting this state or derogate any thing from the Perfection of his habituall fullness of Grace as has most evidently been already demonstrated and I shall further instantly confirm from our Refuters own assertions § 10. But though he has very little reason on his side yet at last he has met with great Authority the Authority of S. Austin JEANES For to ascribe growth unto it Christ Love is to charge it with imperfection Charitas quamdiu augeri potest saith Austin profecto illud quod minus est quam debet ex vitio est § 11. The words I acknowledge to be Saint Austins but I observe they be diversly quoted by learned men Chamier Chamier tom 3. lib 11. c. 14. §. 1. Davenant de Justit habit Act. c. 17. p. 286. et c. 24. p 327. Master Cawdreys triplex Diatr p. 110. and Bishop Davenant both cite it from the 29. Epistle of Saint Austin and rightly as we shall see anon But M. Cawdrey he quotes it from the 62. Epistle of S. Jerome But there it is not and I believe not in any part of that volume that contains the genuine Epistles of that Father And therefore I conceive that he might possibly take the place upon Trust unless he followed some more antient edition For I find in Marianus victor's censure of the ninth Tome among S. Jeromes works that all those pieces there digested which were formerly ascribed to S. Jerome were put heretofore in the fourth volume of his works and read in another Order then now they are Doctor Hammond in his Account to the triplex Ham. Account c. 6. Sect. 8. §. 33 34. Diatribe he quotes it from the ninth Tome of S. Jerome page 159. and rightly as to the place for in my Colen Edition of 1616. I find it in that page 159. col 2. G. § 12. But then I must withall acknowledge a mistake of the learned Doctors For the place is not in Jeromes Epistle to S. Augustine as he supposes and sayes all along § 13. For first this appears by the Inscription of the Epistle Hieron Tom. 9. epist 44. p. 157. edit Colon as it lyes in the ninth Tome among S. Jeromes works For it is Augustinus Hieronymo de eo quod scriptum est Qui totam legem observaverit And the inscription of Augustinus Hieronymo is to be found in the top of every leaf all along that Epistle in that very edition Secondly it appears from the very beginning of that Epistle quod ad te scripsi honorande mihi in Christo frater Hieronyme quaerens de Animá humanâ c. Thirdly it is evident from the body of the Epistle For the Author twice quotes S. Jeromes treatises against Jovinian Quam eorum vanitatem in Joviniano illo qui hâc sententiâ Stoicus erat de Scripturis sanctis dilucidissimè convicisti ibid. 158. Col. 1. D. Nam tu quidem in eodem ipso opere splendide contra Jovinianum etiam hoc de Scripturis sanctis diligenter probasti ibid. p. 159. Col. 1. A. and highly commends them § 14. The truth is the Epistle is S. Austins and extant in the second Tome of his works his Epistles those which by Erasmus and all are censured and acknowledged
to be genuine Aug. tom 2. Ep. 29. p. 42. Paris 1635. And this and the former de Origine Animae as they were written by him to Saint Jerome for his resolution in two such high and difficult points so they are owned by him in his Retractations and stiled not Epistles but books And he gives this account of the Scripsi etiam duos libros ad Hieronymum Presbyterum sedentem in Bethleem unum de Origine Animae bominis alterum de sententiâ Jacobi Apostoli ubi ait Quicunque totam legem servaverit offendat autem in uno factus est omnjum reus de utroque consulens eum sed in illo priore quaestionem quam propofui ipse non solvi in posteriore autem quod mihi de illâ solvendâ videretur non tacui sed utrum hoc approbaret etiam ille consului Râ—scripsit autem laudans eandem consultationem meam sibi tamen ad rescribendum oâ—ium non esse respondit Ego vero quousque esset in corpore hos libros edere noluâ— ne forte responderet aliquando cum ipsâ responstone ejus potius ederentur Illo autem defuncto â—d hoc eâ—idâ—priorâ—m ut qui legit admoneatur c. Posteriorem vero ad hoc ut quaestionâ— de quâ ibi agitur etiam quae nobis visa est solutio ipsa noscatur August Retract l. 2. cap. 45. writing and publication of them That in both he had a desire to provoke S. Jerome to declare his resolution and Judgement and though he himself had not solved the former Question yet he thought in his own Judgement that he had sufficiently done the latter and though he had proposed his own Judgement by way of doubt and enquiry to gain Saint Jeromes opinion and resolution yet it was that which he conceived was proper for the unriddleing the doubt And therefore now since S. Ierome was dead and had not answered it he had published it to the world to declare his own opinion how that difficult place was to be solved § 15. The words then are not Saint Ieromes but S. Austins But the mistake is not materiall and that which any man might be guilty of I suppose the ground and occasion of it might be this For the Doctor minding his answer to M. Cawdrey and finding the quotation not among S. Ieromes Epistles as M. Cawdrey had cited it but in the ninth Tome of Ieromes works he minded not these minute circumstances but addressed himself to the business of the Epistle and finding it not to satisfie the pretence of his adversary but aiming at another thing he took out what was fit for his turn and writing in haste and having much business before him and the ninth Tome of S Ieromes works now in his eye he might easily forget the inscription of the Epistle and put down S. Ierome for S. Austin among whose works he now found it Or else which I rather believe the Doctor having formerly read this Passage in this volume of Ierome and considered the full purpose of it he might extract and put down in his Adversaria that part in short which might serve as a Clavis to unlock the meaning of the whole and for brevity sake as the custome is set down the place thus Hieren tom 9. p. 159. which Passage he reviewing in his Adversaria upon this occasion and finding it quoted thus from S. Ierome and M. Cawdrey agreeing also with him without further consideration and a new recourse to the place he might take it for the writing of Saint Ierome § 16. But be the occasion what it will the most that can be made of it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either a lapse of memory or hast and inadvertencie For plain it is from the Doctors answer to M. Cawdrey that he had read the Epistle and has given the true and genuine sense of the place except in one particular wherein I differ from him and shall shortly give my reasons for it which he could not have done unless he had read it all over and well considered the purport of it And therefore since the Doctor is not deceived in the meaning of the place except in that particular the mistake in the Authours name is not materiall to the present business and argument he had in hand and therefore the lapse is but veniall Ipsa enim re as Marianus victorius in his censure of this Tome of S. Ierome sayes very well non scriptoris nomine veritas aut probatur aut adulteratur And now let our Refuter himself when the names are changed of Ierome into Austin and Austin into Ierome sit in Judgement upon the Doctors account of that place and condemn it if he can § 17. But to come to the place it self and the use our Refuter makes of it The conclusion and inference he makes from it is this To ascribe growth to the ardency of Christs actuall Love or say that one Act of his Love of God was gradually heightned and more intense than another Act of the same Love is to charge it with imperfection because Saint Austin sayes Charitas quamdiu augeri potest profecto illud quod minus est quam debet in vitio est The words I acknowledge but the Inference or sequele I deny because it supposes clean an other thing then Saint Austin ever meant which thus I prove § 18. The Father writes in that Epistle to S. Ierome to resolve him in a difficulty of some concernment and which it Jac. 2. 10. Quae res talis ac tanta est ut quod hinc tibi jam non olim scripsi multum me poeniteat De agendâ namque praesenti vitâ quomodo ad vitam perveniamus aternam non de praeteritâ perscrutandâ haec vertitur Quaestio Aug. Ep. 29. p. 42. Col. 2. D. Ib. p. 44. Col. 1. C. D. repented him that he had not long since consulted him about It is concerning the sense of that place in S. Iames c. 2. 10. Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all The ground and rise of the difficulty was this because the same S. Iames c. 3. 2. sayes in many things we offend all Non enim ait offenditis sed offendimus omnes cum Christi loqueretur Apostolus And S. Iohn also 1. Ep. 1. 8. sayes the same If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves And this S. Ierome also himself had observed against Iovinian that pleaded for absolute sinless perfection And therefore since we all sin in many things and as S. Iames sayes he that offends in one is guilty of all how then can any believer of the many thousands that truly and in simplicity of heart acknowledge their own sins have any thing of goodness and sanctity in them But then he subsumes Absit ut dicamus tot tantos fideles pios homines Dei non habere pietatem quam Graeci vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
with imperfection because Austin sayes Charitas quamdiu augeri potest profecto illud quod minus est quam debet ex vitio est § 33. And now not to trouble the Reader with our Refuters Lurking and hideing himself under the Covert of the Ambiguity of this Phrase The Love of God Plain it is that the place in Saint Austin is wholly mistaken by him and will never serve his interest nor prove his conclusion § 34. For first the Charity S. Austin speaks of is a habit now our Refuter speaks of the Acts of Charity which differ at least specie but he himself maintains though falsly do differ toto genere and so the attributes of the one unless they be genericall cannot agree with the other 2. The Charity S. Austin speaks of is not a single Grace but an universall Virtue such as the Philosophers universall Vid Aristot Eth. l. 5. c. 1. §. 9 10. Justice that contains all virtues and graces in it as appears from his own definition But this of our Refuter is a single Act of divine Love a single Act of one branch or habit of this universall Charity or virtue And this makes the difference greater then formerly 3. The Charity which S. Austin sayes cannot be increased is Perfectissima quae quamdiu homo hic vivit est in nemine That absolute sinless perfection of Innocence and compleat obedience to all Gods Commandments Of this the Doctor declares himself expresly not to speak but onely of the sincerity of this or that virtue or grace in this or that performance And it is of the graduall difference of the earnestness in Christs prayer in his Agony beyond what it was at other times that our Refuter here disputes against by this Authority of S. Austin How fitly now let any man Judge 4. The Augmentation of that more imperfect habit of Charity of which S. Austin speaks is extensive to the acquisition of more graces as of Piety Patience Chastity and the like as well as intensive a growth in all Grace as much as we can towards a sinless perfection and exact conformity to all Gods Commandments But then the Doctor has declared that he speaks of another thing and onely of the graduall advancement of the Acts of those Graces above the Particular Commands which a man in some cases and at some times may fullfill though he have not the habit of sinless Perfection § 35. And therefore though none in this life may be absolutely free from sin as the good Father constantly maintains against the Pelagian and though that righteousness which is still in the growth falls short of such Perfection yet thence it will not follow that a man can do no one Act in it self agreeable to Gods Law or that he may not in some particular Act do something more in respect of graduall intention and fervour then what any particular Law at all times and in all Cases and from all persons requires And as this was all the Doctor undertook in that place to make good so it will never be convinced by this saying of S. Austins For we have already most clearly demonstrated that Gods Law requires a greater fervour and height of Ardency in some Acts and towards some Objects then in others and also at some Times as to instance in our Acts of zeal and devotion in a time of more then ordinary trouble or Calamity Then not onely David has his Psalm de Profundis but every Christian must else This is a season when signally God calls for it and we sin if we do not now in obedience to his thundring voyce as well lift up our Hearts as our cryes and tongues to him And this is so far from being contradicted by S. Austins Charitas perfectissima as that it supposes and requires it as the same * Et haec est perfecta Justitia quâ potius potiora minus minora diligimus Aug. de verâ Relig. c. 49. vide eund lib. 1. de Christiana Doct. c. 27. Father determines because unless the Acts were now intended our Charity would fall short of what Gods Law requires § 36. Fiftly whereas M. Cawdrey understands this Passage Profecto illud quod minus est quam debet ex vitio est thus That Charity whether in the Act or Habit that comes not up to the highest degree or point of graduall intension is imperfect and faulty and so thence concludes that there be set degrees to the Perfection of the Habit and the Act and our Refuter upon the same score that there are eight degrees of graduall intension for the Acts and that the Perfection and sinlessness of every single Act of divine Charity consists in this highest degree this is most erroneous in it self as we have already demonstrated and clear besides the meaning of S. Austin § 37. For here the phrase ex vitio est is not to be understood in a formall sense as if the Father meant that the growing Charity were it self a sin or faulty for then it should be in vitio est but in a Causall sense Thus That most absolute righteousness and Legall sinless perfection beyond which in that Fathers sense a man cannot go for let him do all that is required he can be but innocent and keep Gods Commandments is not in any man in this life but as long as we are growing on to it the Cause why by the Evangelicall dispensation of Grace we attain it not arises onely from our Originall Corruption or inbred Concupiscence and proness to evill the Law in our Members which though for the Reatus it be done away in Baptisme yet not to the Fomes of it as here immediately and elsewhere †Vid. Aug. l. 1. de Peccat merit remiss l. 1. c. 39. l. 2. c. 4. 7. de nupt concupis l. 1. c. 25 31. con duas Epist Pelagian l. 1. c. 13. he frequently determines For it follows Ex quo vitio non justificabitur in conspectu Dei omnis vivens Propter quod vitium si dixerimus quod peccatum non habemus nosmet ipsos seducimus veritas in nobis non est Propter quod etiam quantumlibet profecerimus necessarium est nobis dicere Dimitte nobis debita nostra cum jam omnia in Baptismo dicta facta cogitata dimissa sunt § 38. That this and this onely is his meaning of Ex vitio est will appear from two other places even in the very same Epistle where he Paraphrases the word Vitium as we have done The one preceeds our Refuters quotation thus Quis autem sine aliquo peccato Quis ergo sine aliquo vitio id est fomite quodam vel quasi sine radice peccati cum clamet qui supra Domini pectus recumbebat si dixerimus quia peccatum non habemus nos ipsos decipimus veritas non est in nobis And thus also our learned and judicious * August Ep. 29. Quis
proportionably intended aff p. 253 254 255 256. Whether the multiplication of the outward acts of prayer and a longer continuance in them and a repetition of the same words argue a greater ardency of inward affection and true devotion aff 257 c. Whether though the merit of every act of Christ were infinite in regard of his person yet it were finite in regard of the real physical value of the works themselves And consequently Whether one work of his might in this respect be more valuable and meritorious then another aff p. 270 c. 574 580. Whether the English Translation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he prayed more earnestly be just and best aff 279 c. Whether the ardency of Christs inward devotion were heightned in his agony aff 283 c. 322 c. 328 c. 543 c. VVhether Christ in the state of his humiliation was both comprehensor and viator aff 292 346 347 c. 525. VVhether Christ being alwayes comprehensor upon earth were in a capacity to pray aff 293 c. VVhether Christ being still God as well as man it were convenient for him to pray And God had so decreed And Christ de facto did pray And for himself as well as others And with a difference aff p. 296 297 298 299 300. VVhether Christ in truth and reality and not in shew did pray for a Removal of that cup of his passion which he knew his Father had determined he should drink and when himself came into the world for that very purpose aff p 301 c. VVhether Christs agony and prayer for a removal of this bitter cup implyed any unwillingness in him to suffer or contrariety of desires in himself or repugnance to the will of God neg p. 306 c. VVhether Christ and consequently we from the authority of this great example might lawfully and rationally pray for a removal of that cup which God had absolutely decreed he should drink aff p. 315 316 317 318 319. Whether as the greatness of our Saviours agony in the garden exceeded all his former sufferings so his ardency in prayer for a removal of it were proportionably intended aff 322 c. 537 538. Whether affliction be a fit season for the heightning our devotion and more then ordinary fervour in prayer And God now calls for it And Christ by his own example has instructed us what to do in such cases aff 327 328 522 523 528 542 543 544 545. Whether the inward acts of Christs habituall grace were alwayes in termino and at the highest and belonged to him as comprehensor neg 3â—7 338. Whether Aquinas Capreolus Scotus assert that the inward acts of Christs habituall grace were all equally intense in gradual perfection neg 334 c. Whether Aquinas and Scotus assert the contrary and that which the Doctor maintains aff 342 343. Whether it were possible for Christ to merit and only as viator aff 348 349 525 526 527 626 627 628 And by what acts 365 366 367. Whether he that affirms that the inward acts of Christs love of God or holy charity were lesse intense at one time then another does deny Christ to be happy in his soul at those times neg 351 c. Whether he that affirms that the acts of Christs love or holy charity were more intense at one time then another does by consequence make him guilty of the breach of the first great law of love neg 361 c. Whether Christ as viator had the same abilities to love God as he had as comprehensor and the charity of the Saints on earth can possibly equal in perfection the charity of the Saints in heaven neg 369 c. Whether he that makes use of any Scripture exposition to be found in Bellarmine or other Popish writer is eo ipso guilty of a complyance with Papists neg 378 379 380. Whether D. Hammonds exposition of the first great commandment of love be the same with Bellarmines neg 386. Whether the Doctors exposition be agreeable to that of the Fathers and most learned of Protestants aff 400 401 402 c. How reasonable it is 433 434. Whether the state of Adam in innocence were a state of proficiency aff against M. Cawdrey 421 456 612. Whether the Saints and Angels in heaven all love God to the same indivisible degree neg 423 466. Whether the Saints and Angels in heaven differ in degrees of glory aff 423 424 425 466 467. Whether Christians are now bound sub periculo animae to that degree of innocence and prudence and perfection of Adam in paradise neg 425 426 429 430 446 447 605 606 607 608. Whether Christians are now bound by the first great law of love to all the degrees of love either in this life or the next so that whatsoever falls short of the utmost height is sinful as Chamier asserts neg 431 432 486 487. Or to as high a degree as is possible to the humane nature as the Refuter Neg. 433 445 446. Whether the first great law of love excludes all possibility of freewill-offerings neg 442 443 c. And consequently Whether there be certain acts of religion and degrees of piety to which no man by any particular law is obliged which yet when spontaneously and voluntarily performed are approved by God and accepted of him as freewill-offerings over and above what any law in particular requires as the Doctor maintains aff 383 442 c. 446 447. Whether this Doctrine of Gospel-freewill-offerings inferrs the Romish Doctrine of supererogation neg 448 c. And whether the Doctor has freed it from this charge aff 436 437. Whether the Doctor asserts lukewarmness in love neg How it differs from sincerity And whether Christianity be a state of proficiency and growth aff 438 c. 455 456. Whether God is to be loved above all things objective appretiativè intensivè And whether the Doctor approves all aff 442 443 444 496 c Whether the Christian is bound to aspire to and endeavour after the loving of God according to the perfection of the Saints in heaven aff 446 447 448 467 472. Whether the modus of virtue and charity falls under the precept neg 453 454. Whether charity may be increased in infinitum aff 458 468 469 502. Whether the creature may be obliged to love God as much as he is lovely neg 459. Whether we are bound to love God as much as we can in this life and infinitely and without measure aff 460 464 465 474 475 476 505 619. Whether the quality or grace of divine charity or holy love admits of an eight or any set highest degree to which all are bound to arrive at neg 467 468 469 470. Whether Aquinas maintains that the first great commandment of love requires of Christians by way of Duty that perfection of love that is onely attainable in heaven neg 485 c. Whether perfection of state according to Aquinas admits of uncommanded acts and