exhortations whereunto some yeeld and some resist And I pray who deserves to be accounted the author of my faith the author of my repentance he that exhorteth me hereunto or rather I my selfe that doe beleeve and doe repent though upon anothers exhortations For exhortation may thus farre bee performed by a reprobate for such plead at the day of judgement Have we not prophesied in thy name and S. Paul observed that some preached Christ not chastly but upon pretence and that with foule intentions even to adde affliction to Pauls bonds yet howsoever he rejoyced in this that Christ was preached which hee would never have done if by their preaching none were likely to be brought over to Christ by faith and repentance Againe to inspire them with good desires and with conformity to Gods will this is no other in your language then to exhort them hereunto And thus it is that God workes in us both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure Now this speech bewrayeth you as much as ever Peters speech bewrayed him but with this difference Peters speech bewrayed him to be a follower of Christ but your speech bewrayeth you to be a follower of Pelagius and as like him as if you were spit out of his mouth for thus did Pelagius discourse Operatur Deus in nobis velle quod bonum est velle quod sanctum est dum nos terrenis cupiditatibus deditos futurae gloriae magnitudine premiorum pollicitatione succendit dum revelatione sapientiae in desiderium Dei stupentem suscitat voluntatem dum nobis suadet omnem quod bonum est Now see to what acknowledgement of grace Austin putteth him if so be he will be a true Christian. Nos eam gratiam volumus isti aliquando fateantur qua futurae gloriae magnitudo non solum promittitur verumetiam creditur speratnr nec solum reveletur sapientia verumetiam amatur nec suadetur solum omne quod bonum est verumetiam persuadetur Hanc debet Pelagius gratiam consiteri si vult non modâ— videri sed esse Christianus Now what followeth upon this your doctrine touching the nature of election namely that it must bee upon the foresight of mens obedience to Gods exhortations and perswasions which here you call placid inspirations Now because God exhorts us to faith repentance and all manner of good workes the foresight of our obedience hereunto must bee it whereupon our election must depend and so you are ready to shake hands with the Apostle not of fellowship but to bid him adieu as who plainly professeth that Election is not of workes but of God that calleth us and he proves it by this that before they had done either good or evill Iacob was elected and Esau reprobated which must exclude not only the pre-existence of works but the pre-consideration of them otherwise hee could not therehence conclude that election is not of workes and the circumstance of not being as yet borne doth evidently exclude as well faith as good workes For a man unborne is as unable to beleeve as to performe any other worke And notwithstanding this foule injury you offer unto God in robbing him so shamefully of the glory of his grace and absolute prerogative to dispose of his creatures as he thinkes good in making whom he will vessels of mercy and whom hee will vessels of wrath yet you thinke to pacifie him with an hungry base and meere verball amplification of the streames of his goodnesse the issue whereof is to injurie him afresh in like manner by robbing him and adorning man with the spoiles of his glory For increase of joy and happinesse shall be you say unto a man from the streames of life proceeding from God as a fountaine of life provided that man gives free passage to their current And what is this current but Gods spirations formerly mentioned whereby he exhorts us to profit by the examples of his judgements on others and also to patience when we are injuried by others Now if we doe yeâ—ld to this and doe profit by the consideration of Gods judgements upon others and doe patiently beare the wrongs that are done us by others then increase of joy and happinesse shall be unto us from the fountaine of goodnesse who as he hath some streames of life whereby hee exhorts us unto that which is good so he hath other streames of life and happinesse wherewith he rewards us for our obedience so that whatsoever shew you make of honouring God the issue is to bestow all the honour upon the obedience of man So that the amends you make herein for former injuries is as if a man having given his neighbour a box in the eare should make shew of making him amends by kinde stroaking of him and in stead of stroaking him give him another box in the eare Thus Ioab tooke Amaza by the beard as though hee would have kissed him but indeed stabd him to the heart You are willing to make God the author of glory but by no means can you be brought to acknowledge him the author but onely the orator of grace like to the Panims who were wont to say Det vitam det opes animum mihi ipse parabo You are given so much to painting that it is a hard matter to discerne the native countenance of your discourse the proper face of your meaning What meane you by the current of life Is it a gracious current or a glorious current if gracious that is the same with spirations before spoken of and these are exhortations and perswasions But how I pray doâ— these when they are refused by some the more overflow to others They that heare the same Sermon have never a whit the more for others resisting it they that heare it not have no part of it though all resist it As for the currrent of glory how hath any man the more for that others are wholly deprived of it yet it is true that even the reprobation and damnation of some tends to the increase of glory to the elect in contemplation of the mercy of God towards them in comparison of others and of the sorrowes from which God hath freed them as both the Apostle signifies Rom. 9. 22. And is maintained both by Didacus Alvares and Alphonsus Mendosa But I doe not finde you have any such meaning But when you have taken up a metaphor by the end you play upon it and make as good musicke with it as pigges doe in playing upon Organs What are the miseries which wicked spirits suffer are unknowne to us we reade that they beleeve and tremble Iam. 2. that they are kept in chaines to the judgement of the great day They aske our Saviour whether he be come to torment them before their time they pray him not to send them into the deepe And therefore a man may very well be ignorant of any good which their miseries work upon us seeing that
What the Church of England doth teach concerning the extent of Gods love Of the distinction of Singula generum and Genera singulorum Of the distinction of Voluntas signi and Voluntas beneplaciti WHat you meane by a course of Compromising contentions betweene some other reformed Churches in certaine points of religion I know not neither am I acquainted with any such course I conceive our Church to be as absolute and entire in maintaining the prerogative as of Gods grace effectuall to every good action so of his soveraignetie in electing whom he will according to his good pleasure and passing by others as any Church in Christendome which I do not speake upon snatching of a clause here and there to be found in the litturgie of our Church whereunto I shape at pleasure an interpretation as I thinke good as your fashion is but this I speake upon consideration of that doctrine which is positively set downe in the articles of religion manifestly containing the profession of the Church of England Yet you would perswade your Readers the Church of England concurreth with you in extending the love of God towards all But you manifest a faint heart in the maintenance of your cause by walking in the cloudes of generalities as if you feared to come to the light and had a purpose rather to circumvent your reader then to endoctrinate him You talke of Gods unspeakable love towards mankinde but you define not in what kinde but keepe your selfe a loose off for all advantages Wee acknowledge Gods love to all in respect of conferring upon them blessings temporal and that in an unspeakable manner But the question onely is whether God doth bestow or ever did intend to bestow grace of sanctification upon all or salvation upon all If Gods love in these respects in your opinion doth extend to all say plainly that God hath elected all with Huberus and predestinated all For predestination in Austines divinity is but praeparatio gratiae gloriae Now the Church of England in her publicke and authorized doctrine plainly professeth that God hath predestinated none but those whom he hath chosen in Christ as vessells of honour If you say that the reason why God did not predestinate all nor elect all in Christ proceeds not from the meere pleasure and free disposition of God but that onely upon the foresight of the obedience of the one and disobedience of the other he elected those and reprobated these for hereunto the Genius of your Tenent carrieth you though you are loath in plaine termes to professe as much let any man judge whether this bee suitable to the seventeenth Article of religion in our Church whereupon Rogers in his Analesis thereof published by authority and dedicated to Archbishop Bancroft observes in his fifth proposition that In Christ Jesus of the meere will and purpose of God some are elected and not others unto salvation And he just fieth it by holy Scripture Rom. 9. 11. that the purpose of God might remaine according to election not of works but of him that calleth Ephes. 1. 5. Who doth predestinate us according to the good pleasure of his will 2 Tim. 1. 9. Not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace Exod. 33. 19. Rom. 9. 15. I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy Prov. 16. 4. The Lord hath made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill Rom. 9. 21. Hath not the potter power over the clay to make of the same lumpe one vessell to honour and another to dishonour But consider the Article it selfe They which are indued with so excellent a benefit to wit as election and predestination is are called according to Gods purpose by his spirit working in due season they through grace obey their calling they be justified freely they be made sonnes of God by adoption they be made like the image of his onely begotten Sonne Jesus Christ they walke religiously in good workes and at length by Gods mercy they attaine to everlasting felicity Whereby it appeares that election and predestination is made the fountaine and cause of obedience and perseverance therein even unto everlasting life whereas if God did elect and predestinate any man unto salvation upon foresight of obedience and perseverance our obedience and perseverance should be the cause of our election and predestination rather then our election and predestination the cause of our obedience and perseverance Againe consider these alone whom God hath elected in Christ and predestinated are noted to bee made in due time the sonnes of God by adoption But you make all to bee the sonnes of God and Gods infinite love in unspeakable maner to be enlarged towards all and every one even towards them that have hated God all their life Lastly onely the elect are here noted to bee those vessels whom God hath made unto honour not that any others are made unto honour which is nothing answerable to your tenet But proceed we along with you You undertake to prove that Gods love is extended to mankinde which no Christian ever called in question but your meaning is that it extends to all and every one of mankinde and that so farre forth as to will the salvation of all and every one as appeares by the sequele and all this out of the publique and authorized doctrine of our Church And yet you insist onely upon certaine passages and prayers in the Liturgy of our Church The Liturgie I hope is not the doctrine of our Church though it be not contradictory to our doctrine But therein wee have beene content to conforme unto the practice of the Chuch so farre forth as it might seeme tolerable and such as might be performed with a good conscience which yet if in any particular it be found dissonant from the Articles of Religion it is rather to receive correction from the Articles then the Articles to receive correction from the Liturgy But consider wee what is that which you plead for your selfe You enter upon it after your course with great state discovering unto us a wonderfull providence of God in drawing those Articles for you tell us that No Nationall Councell though assembled for that purpose could fit their doctrine more expresly to meet with all the late restrictions of Gods love then the Church our Mother even from the beginning of reformation hath done as if she had then foreseene a necessity of declaring her judgement in this point for preventing schismes or distractions of opinions amongst her sonnes Here we have a pretty Comedy towards and you have a poeticall wit for fiction Had our Church foreseene a necessity of declaring her judgement in this point where I pray was it fit that she should doe this but in the Articles of Religion But you finde no place where she hath fitted her doctrine to meet with the restrictions of Gods love but in the Liturgy and Catechisme Was that think you a fit place to fit
meaning comes to this that God would never have suffered them thus to have walked in their owne wayes and to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath if so be they had repented Now the question is whether they had power to repent or no you seeme to imply they had but you dare not expresse so much because you see how manifestly contradictious that were to the text it selfe where it is expresly said But thou after the hardnesse of thine heart which cannot repent treasurest up wrath against the day of wrath So that you what by taking up pieces of Scripture at pleasure and leaving out pieces as you list make up a patcht coat contrary to the Scripture which yet you commend unto us as Scripture it selfe Nay what will you say if God did not so much as admonish them to repent Doth not the same Apostle plainly signifie so much Act. 17. 30. where hee saith And God regarded not the time of this ignorance but now hee admonisheth all men every where to repent Againe consider I pray you what is to be accounted the time when this ceasure deserved to be fastened upon them namely of despising the riches of his bounty It seemes by your former discourse it is not till they have filled up the measure of their iniquity for till then Gods infinite love was towards them according to your opinion and hee did not give them over to their owne lests Now I pray consider did hee not even afore this time suffer the Gentiles to walk in their own waies according to the Apostles meaning Act. 14. 16. although as the same Apostle saith even at that time Hee left not himselfe without witnesse giving them raine and fruitfull seasons filling their hearts with food and gladnesse And this you take hold of in the next place and tell us that these were unquestionable earnests of Gods everlasting love and to prove it you adde by way of reason for thou so lovedst the world still holding up your deyout Soliloquies as if you would enchant your Readers with an affected straine of devotion that thou gavest thine onely begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish If this be not like capping of verses I doe not know what is for will it follow by any Logicall method that because the giving of Christ for everlasting life to all that believe in him is an evidence of Gods love to all therefore the giving of raine from heaven and fruitfull seasons is an unquestionable earnest of Gods everlasting love to all Yet I grant it is an evidence of Gods love as touching the preservation of their state temporall but you urge it as an evidence of Gods love as touching the state of their soules spirituall and eternall otherwise your discourse were nothing to the purpose Yet to speake according to the Apostles drift in that place hee proposeth them not as witnesses of his love but as of his providence which wee know extends even to bruit beasts and to the very lillies of the field Onely man is capable of deserving this testimony of divine providence and so accordingly should be moved to seeke the Lord and to worship him as God who governes all and provides for all and not as a corruptible thing thus wee interpret the Apostle Act. 14. 16. according to the Apostle Act. 17. 27. and Rom. 1. 23. and not at randome as you doe fashioning his meaning in such a manner as may best accord with your extravagant opinions Lastly who seeth not that if these be unquestionable earnests of Gods love towards them then notwithstanding they have filled up the measure of their iniquity yet Gods love continueth towards them the same still and therefore cannot be said to give them over to their owne lusts and to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath For these and the like temporall blessings they enjoy still and that in greater measure then is usually the portion of Gods owne deare children To conclude this wee make no doubt but that if all and every one should believe in Christ all and every one should bee saved by Christ. But the question is whether God gives faith to all it is apparant he doth not but onely to those whom hee hath predestinated Rom. 8. 30. to those whom hee hath ordained to everlasting life Act. 13. 45. to such as shall be saved Act. 2. last Perhaps your meaning is that though God doth not give faith to all but only to some the reason is because some fit themselves for faith and others doe not And I verily believe this is your opinion but it seemes you are ashamed to professe it and speake it out plainly Yet the texts mentioned are directly against you which confine the giving of faith not to mans disposition but to Gods predestination like as those other also Rom. 9. God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will hee hardeneth and it is not of him that willeth or of him that runnes but of God that sheweth mercy and 2 Tim. 1. 9. the Apostle professeth that God calleth us not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace To the prosecuting of every which place and making it good against any exceptions that you shall bring I shall be willing to condescend so long as God affords mee life and opportunity But as yet you dissemble your Tenet and play least in sight and discover your meaning onely by insinuation I know there is no greater argument of Gods love then the giving of his Sonne whence it manifestly followeth that unlesse Gods love to reprobates bee as great as his love to his elect Christ was not given to the reprobates like as our Saviour signifieth that Hee sanctified himselfe unto his death and passion not for the world but for those for whom he praied which were partly those whom God had already giuen him and partly those who hereafter should believe through their word Yet I confesse you are audacious enough to resist this argument and openly to professe that Gods love to the reprobate is as great as his love to the elect which no Arminian was ever yet knowne to professe yet you take upon you to prove that this love was tendred to all A strange phrase which I thinke was never heard of before as if love were like an ointment in a box that might be offered and received if a man would Of tendering grace I have heard to wit the grace of remission of sinnes and salvation upon our beliefe but of tendring love I never heard And of the tendring of this grace in Christ unto all that heare it preached who ever doubted For this is no more then to say that It is tendred unto all to whom it is tendred And are you well in your wits to addresse your selfe to the proving of this with some notable argument which should be like a thunderbolt and therefore no great marvell if some great noise preceed it But
nisi credamus periclitatur ipsum nostrae fidei confessionis initium qua nos in Deum Patrem omnipotentem credere consitemur Neque enim veraciter ob aliud vocatur omnipotens nisi quia quicquid vult potest nec voluntate cujusquam creaturae voluntatis omnipotentis impeditur effectus The other tenet as foule as the former is this that God changeth For undoubtedly at this time he hath no purpose to save the Divells and damned soules of men therfore if ever he had any such purpose it is now changed and consequently God is changed himselfe You have no way to avoyde this but by saying that Gods purpose you speake of is not absolute but conditionall as before you upbraided your opposites for maintaining Gods decree of electtion to be absolute Yet the Arminians at the conference of Hage utterly declined the maintenance of Gods decree of election to be conditionall Yet the shifre will not serve your turne being too narrow a leafe to cover the shamefull nakednesse of your assertion For to purpose conditionally is no more a purpose of salvation then of condemnation which is no way an evidence of Gods love to any man in particular the issue wherof is indifferent to be condemnation as well as salvation But you hitherto in this respect have insisted upon the maintenance of Gods love to all and every one The beginning which God found out for mankind was a being indifferent to stand or fall which indifferency fitted him no more for salvation in case he stood then for damnation in case he fell save that God was withall resolved to provide him of a Saviour upon his fall that should be as tabula post naufragium but to whome only to these whome he loved as he loved Iacob not unto those whome he hated as he hated Esau. For as he made all thinges for himselfe so also he made the wicked against the day of evill and ever that for himselfe also Why Gods love in respect of creation should be accoumpted his infinite love I know no reason considering that the meanest creature was partaker of that love as well as man And as he gave being unto all things so he maintaynes being to Divells and damned men and ever will doe We are knit unto God by faith as well as by love and of the two faith is the more noble as being the Fountaine and cause of love If God out of love be sayd to make us what we are it may as well be sayd that out of love he made all other creatures what they are If you reply that they were made out of his love to us for as much as they were made for our use and service In like sort I answeare that it was out of love to himselfe that he made us for as much as he made us for his owne use and service yea and all things else that were made For he made all things for himselfe In like sort if God made us what we are because he was lovinge to us he made also all creatures what they are because he was loving to them Yet by your leave He made all things for himselfe And this is the foure and twenty Elders acknowledgment Revela 4. 11. Thou art worthy o Lord to receive glory and honour and power For thou hast created all thinges and for thy wills sake they are and have bin created You say true where faith and love is found there is assurance of Gods favour towards us to set both his wisdome power on worke to make all things worke together for our good and so to preserve us to his heavenly Kingdome But the question is whether this faith and love be the workes of nature and wherof all are capable by power of nature or whether they are the meere fruites of Gods grace afforded to some denyed to others according to the good pleasure of his owne will as who hath mercie on whome hee will and whom he will he hardneth CHAP. XIX How God of a most lovinge Father becomes a severe and inexorable judge NOw because you cannot but perceave how this pincheth sore upon the unchangeable nature of God Therfore you spend two chapters in the clearinge of this difficulty wherin if you satisfie your selfe it is well As for my part I am so farre from receaving satisfaction that I am utterly to seeke in understandinge the course you take to give satisfaction Whether anger hate or jealosie have any seate in the omnipotent Majestie is litle to the purpose But to shew how God of a most loving Father becomes a severe and inexorable judge without any change this alone is to the purpose For the very māner of proposing it doth imply the ceasing to be a loving Father which he was but becomes a severe inexorable judge which he was not For to bee a loving Father and a severe judge all at once is not of a lovinge Father to become a severe judge And though this were granted you yet it is not congruous to your tenet to maintayne that God was an inxorable judge to any before the measure of his iniquity be full And as then he first begines to become an inexorable judge so it is requisite that then he ceaseth to be a loving Father And albeit you are loath to acknowledge this because it doth so manifestly imply a change in the nature of God yet you must be driven hitherto whether you will or no unlesse you maintayne that still God continueth a most loving Father unto the Divells and ever shall be both unto them and to all damned persons notwithstandinge the wrath of God continue upon them to everlastinge damnation And it is a very strange dialect to acknowledge that God is a most loving Father unto damned persons especially considering that in Scripture phrase we are sayd to be the Sonnes of God by faith in Christ Jesus Gala. 3. 26. And indeede if you can make good that to inflict everlastinge damnation doth consort with infinite mercy then you shall obteyne not that God of a most loving Father doth become an inexorable judge but that at once he is both a most loving father and a most inexorable judge also As for anger whether it be in God or no or whether Lactantius hath carryed himselfe well or no in this Argument it is nothing at all to this present businesse The question is whether God ardently desiring the salvation of any man doth at length cease to desire it or whether still he continueth to will and ardently desire a mans salvation notwithstandinge that he purposeth to inflict or actually doth inflict upon him condemnation For this seemes to be the intended issue of your discourse as when you undertake to illustrate how extreame severitie may stand with the fervency of fatherly unfeyned love As much as to say that God loves the Devills and loves the damned and continueth the fervency of fatherly unfeyned love towards them notwithstanding that he doth inflict everlasting condemnation
law God might allowe the Israelits in robbing the Egyptians Abraham in sacrificing his sonne Sampson in sacrificing himselfe we may not allowe any in the like God hath power to expose men unto sinne to harden mens hearts we may not take any such courses but rather doe all we can to keepe our bretheren from sinne Now from your discourse it no more followeth that God cannot be unjustly mercyfull then that he cannot be unmercifully just especially towards those whom he loves more dearely then any man doth himselfe as you speake And if you would be pleased to take notice by the way of the oracles of God and not follow still the course of your owne inventions you might find that God hath mercy on whome he will and hardneth whome he will Yet is not he either unjustly mercyfull in the one or unmercyfully just in the other Neyther should he be though the case were altered and he were mercyfull to those whome now he hardneth and hardned those whome now he comiserateth satis contraria fata reponens But let us goe with you along the coast of Barbarie Gods love you say extends it selfe unto our nature so polluted with corruption It is true and that not only in respect of corruption by sinne orginall but by sinne actuall For he gave his sonne to dy for us when we were his enimyes and when we were dead in sinne and walked after the Prince of the ayre and fashions of the world he quickned us Ephes. 2. 29. The effects of this love you say are limited towards men by the correspondency which they hold or loose with that absolute goodnesse or with those rules of equity in which his will is to have man made like him This manner of limitation is unsound and fowly unsounde as that which apparantly excludeth our correspondency to Gods goodnesse and unto Gods love out of the number of the effects of Gods love as much as to say that faith and repentance thankfulnesse and obedience are no effects of Gods love but merely works of nature as if it were not God that worketh in us both the will the deede according to his good pleasure As if regeneration were but the imagination of a vayne thing For I presume you will not say it is in the power of man to regenerate himselfe And how can it be a work of God if not an effect of his love and correspondency unto Gods goodnesse you make to prevent the effects of Gods love Agayne the effects of Gods love the Scripture teacheth us are limited according to the good pleasure of God both as touching graces of edification for he distributes to every one as he will 1. Cor. 12. and as touching the graces of sanctification For he hath mercy on whome he will Rom. 9. And according to his purpose and grace he hath saved us and called us not according to our works 2 Tim. 1. 9. And of his owne will hath he begotten us c. There is a condition of morall goodnesse which God doth accept to reward with glory but there is no condition of morall goodnesse which God doth accept to reward with grace For then grace were of works and consequently no more grace And then God should call us accordinge to our works which he expresly denyeth Tit. 3. 5. and 2 Tim. 1. 9. There is no condition of morall viciousnesse that excludes Gods mercy in calling men unto faith and salvation Austine coumpts it impiety and madnesse to thinke otherwise as I have often alleaged him Enchirid. 96. He calls some at the first houre of the day some at the last And what absurde conceyte is it to require some mitigation of sinne or morall good qualification to make correspondency unto mercy in pardoning sinne and curing it As no disease of the body is uncurable by God so no disease of the soule or simfull course is unpardonable or uncurable by the mercy of God the Father the merits of God the sonne For each are infinite but the sinnes of all the world are finite God himselfe may limite the demonstration and exercise of his mercy as he thinks good Now as touching the limitation hereof nothing is revealed unto us but only this that the sinne against the Holy Ghost shall not be pardoned and cured no small infidelity and impenitency All other limitations are merely revelations of flesh and blood and the inventions of idle Braines that impugne the prerogative of Gods grace and in the place thereof advance the operation of nature as that which first commends us in some sort unto Gods grace you are apt to discourse of Gods inviting men unto God and of the riches of his bounty that way but of Gods working men unto God and of the riches of his bounty that may never any Arminian or Pelagian spake lesse then you Yet the despising of Gods goodnesse shewed eyther in his word or in his works shall indoubtedly increase mens condemnation But God can breake of these their contemptiouse courses in whome he will and when he will and where he will as Austine professeth with such confidence as that he censureth him of impiety and dotery whosoever he be that denyeth it A silly course it is to inferre that vicious courses doe exclude men from Gods mercy because God hates filthinesse or uncleanesse For God undoubtedly hates all manner of filthinesse and uncleanesse whether the measure of it be filled up or no For did he not hate Manasses his idolatry and his bloody courses and his using them that were given to sorcery and witchcrast Yet all this excluded him not from the participation of Gods mercy And if for this reason to wit because God hates filthinesse men are excluded from Gods favour so as to be uncapable of his mercy then every man shoulde be a reprobate and incapable of mercy and abandoned as a vessel of wrath unto everlasting condemnation And you consider not that to be uncapable of mercy is to be uncapable of Gods love even in your owne discourse whence it followeth that God must after a certayne time cease to love them as in reason it should be acknowledged by you according to the tenour of your opinion and that when the doore of repentance is shut upon them as your selfe have phrasified it most of all when God condemnes them to everlasting torments in hell fire he must needs cease to love them And consequently you must necessarily admit mutability in the nature of God which is directly contrary to the perfection of God delivered unto us in holy Scripture I the Lord am not changed and you sonnes of Iacob are not consumed Mala. 3. 6. And with God is no variablenesse nor shadow of change Iac. 1. 19. This rocke you have in your eye labour to keepe your Tenet from dashing it selfe desperately against it Wherin how well you have carryed your selfe we are to consider in the next place CHAP. XX. Whilst God of a loving Father becomes a severe
should he have to doe with governing of States Our Saviour would not meddle with dividing of inheritances and professed his Kingdom was not of this world Peter is commanded out of his love to his Master to feede his sheepe not with any civill coercâ—tive power and authority to governe them Yet Popes have layd title I confesse to both swordes but the unfittest that ever were to manage either such abominable abuses and corruptions have beene found amongst them in the managing of both as I think are without example But that rule of the Canonists Papa â—nquam sibi ligdt manus doth much inamour you and greate zeale â—oth inflame you to applye it unto God to free him from impotent immutability as hereafter you call it and that his decrees may not oblige him and indeed they doe not for how can he be sayd to be tyed or restrayned that is confined to nothing against his will but to every thing according to his will But to free God from an impotent immutabilitie you would have his decrees not alterable for you dare not professe so much but something els I know not what which you call reservation of liberty and to be still as it were in making decrees but not having decreed any thinge till the time of execution or afterward mysterious inventions of your owne braine which if perhaps you seeme to understand your selfe I assure you I doe not but hence it is that you discourse so much of the Pope in this 3. In this Section you beginne with telling us that God passeth no act to the prejudice of his absolute and eternall power of jurisdiction This is a truth and will nothing serve the turne of your reaches By the way you deliver unto us the object of Gods foreknowledge and that you say is whatsoever will be and the object of Gods decree and that you say is whatsoever may be which later is a most absurd position Looke we upon the decrees of men the wisest of men were they ever knowne to decree that a thing may be done But rather supposing many things may be done they make choyse to decree the doing of such courses as seeme most convenient Things are possible without any reference to the decrees of God but only in reference to his power That is possible unto God which God can doe or which he hath power to cause that it be brought to passe As for example before the World was made it was possible that the World should be made was this by vertue of Gods decree Did God decree it to be possible If he did seeing his decrees are free it followeth that he might have chosen whether the World should have been pâ—ssible or no. Againe was not the creation of the World is not the end of the World decreed by God the rewarding of the godly the punishing of the wicked are they not decreed by God What moves you then to make only things possible the object of Gods decree and the things that will or shall be onely the object of his foreknowledge This witt of yours is able to make us a newe World of Divinity and Phâ—losophy both if it be let alone to runne a wilde goose race at pleasure Well God passeth no act to the prejudice of his absolute and eternall power of jurisdiction What of this In the next place you tell us that what grant or promise soever he makes cannot binde the exercise of his everlasting libertie for a moment of time they last no longer then Durante bene placito seeing gracious equitie and only it is his everlasting pleasure Be it so that gracious equity is his everlasting pleasure and will it not follow herehence that seeing all his promises doe proceed from his gracious equitie and this you say is his everlasting pleasure and his grants and promises must last you confesse during his good pleasure is not this enough to assure us that whatsoever grants and promises God doth make they doe so farre bind God to performance that we may assure our selves they shall stand good for ever and never be reversed Onely you discourse that they shall last no longer And what sober man would expect or desire that they should last longer then for eternity Or what wisedome is found in such discourse as laboureth to prove that Gods grant shall last no longer then during pleasure and withall confesseth that his pleasure is everlasting But no promise you say bindes the exercise of his everlasting libertie for a moment of time It is fit to consider this To my judgement Gods promises binde him as much as our promises bind us the force of which obligation is not to bind our liberty but to keepe our honestie For what promise soever he makes he is still free naturally whether he will performe what he hath promised or no but if he breaks his promise he shall be untâ—ue In like sort God if he should doe otherwise then he hath promised he should be untrue though never a whit the lesse free And in doing what he hath promised he is both true and never a whit the lesse free For even men doe freely keep their promises though not alwayes willingly because when they promised they might be of one judgement and disposition and when they come to performance they may be of another But all such change and alteration is not to be found in God Every honest Magistrate is free to recompence every man according to his evill wayes for it becomes him not to make any such promise that whatsoever he committs he will not punish him And looke what a good Magistrate resolves upon when facts are committed eyther good or evill the like may God decree from everlasting For no Magâ—strate knowes so well what man hath committed as God from everlasting knows what he will commit And more then that God knowes how to keepe man from evill courses or to expose him to evill courses by having mercy on whom he will and hardening whom he will which power and wisedome is not incident to a creature Besides all this a Magistrate is bound by duty to recompence every man according to his works But God is not bound by any such duty to any such course He can pardon one and pâ—nish another have mercy on one and deale severely with another Of many men taken in the same transgression he can give repentance to some deny repentance unto others And if he hath made any such promise as this If his children forsake my lawe and walke not in my judgements if they break my statutes and keep not my commandements then will I visite their transgressions with the rodd and their iniquity with strokes yet my loving kindnes will I not take froÌ„ him neither will I falsify my truth they to whome such promises are made may be assured hereby that God is bound to perform as much bound I say by morall obligation in such sort as it is impossible he should doe otherwise
not how the nature hereof hitherunto can be sayd to hinder the entire possession of our selves whether contemplation be vaine or not vaine whether it be used as a pledge of a better life to come or no I see no reason why it hindreth or furthereth the possession of our selves though it hinder or further our possessing of God Certainly that life to come is no part of our selves like as eternall death is no part of the damned selves But eternall life is a condition that God bestowes upon us and everlasting death is a juste recompence which God inflicts upon others Yet in what sense contemplation may be used as you say as a pledge of a better life to come I am to seeke The Spirit of God and the fruits of sanctification are the pledges and earnest penyes hereof but contemplations are not How Angells are sayd entirely to possesse their angelicall natures and men not to possesse their natures entirely hath neede of explication Angells have no bodies and consequently are not capable of augmentation as we are In this sense I conceave how we by degrees attaine to a fulnes of age Angells doc not There is a growth of our soules in knowledge also Eph. 4. 13. in grace 2 Pet. 3. last This fulnesse of age is not all at once in us you suppose it is so in Angels but without distinction for there are Angels of darknesse as well as Angels of light What thinke you of Angels of darknesse doe they entirely possesse their Angelicall nature or no I should think they differ not in nature Angelicall though their accidentall condition bee much different As for the elect Angels doe you thinke they doe already possesse all that may belong unto them either in respect of knowledge or glory It appeares Eph. 3. 10. that the verie Angels themselves doe encrease in knowledge and that by the Church It seemes also that though they are void of sinne and so void of sorrow in respect of themselves yet that all teares are not wiped from their eyes in respect of us for if there bee joy in heaven for one sinner that repenteth what is there in respect of the falls of Gods children No question but the nature of man at best is inferiour to the nature of an Angell And on the other side as little question is to be made I should thinke whether man shall not be as happie in his kinde as the elect Angels in their kinde in the 20. of Luke our Saviour professeth that the time shall come when we shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like unto the Angells Gods infinity is nothing pertinent to the comparison of men and Angels from whom Angels as well as men are infinitely distant as the creature from the Creator yet this infinity of Gods joy is vainly amplified by saying he wanteth no moment of time to enlarge or perfect it by continuance whereas time is no measure suitable with the being of God no nor with the being of Angels Yet God hath continuance it cannot be denied both without beginning and in respect of being without end which is an essentiall perfection of God as much as any as being but the interpretation of his necessary being whereas all the being of a creature is meerly by the free will of God and yet continuance to the creature addes no perfection For will you say that the Angells and Saints of God in heaven doe grow more and more perfect by continuance In this world for a while we grow more and more perfect by continuance But then againe it is as true that by continuance we decay more and more both in body and minde Aristotle hath said that Bonum non ideo melius quia diuturnius But of the transcendentall goodnesse of God you say you now intreat not but of the transcendentall goodnesse of the creature which you make to consist in doing good to others and withall you deliver another maxime namely that amongst visible creatures the better every one is in its kinde or according to its entitative perfection the more good it doth to others And I confesse this latter stands in much congruity with the former But I have already shewed my dislike of the former and given reason for it and I see no reason to embrace the latter A Lyon is the king of beasts but of more good hee doth to others then the inferiour beasts whereon he preyeth I am nothing conscious An Eagle is the king of birds yet we commonly say that a Larke is better then a Kite What creature more profitable then the Sunne yet I pray consider doth not a Mouse or an Emmet or a Fly in entitative perfection go beyond it for these are animate the Sun is not though God sends him forth as his most conspicuous and goodly messenger every morning like a bridegroom bedeckt with light comelines as you are pleased to expatiate or take the aire breath your self in a rhetoricall flourish God himselfe to the contemplation of whom the Sunne you say doth invite us though from the boundlesse Ocean of his internall joy and happinesse as you say sweet streames of perpetuall joy and comfort more uncessantly issue then light from the Sunne to refresh this vale of misery Yet I hope you will not say his entitative goodnes consists in doing good to others For before he made the world he was no lesse good then since the creation and though he had never made it yet had he continued every way as good as now he is And in that dispensation of this his goodnesse which proceeds not from his joy and happinesse though you say so but from the counsell and freedome of his will though as touching the comforts of this life God maketh his raine to fall and Sun to shine as well upon the wicked as upon the righteous yet as touching the dispensation of his grace though he be most good that way also yet it is but towards whom he will for that Oracle of God I will have mercy on whom I will and againe He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth must sway more with us then any vaine conceit or imagination of man to the contrary And why doe you call this world a vale of misery is it not in respect of Gods jugements as well as in respect of sinne which judgements of God have their course as well as mercies how then doth perpetuall joy and comfort more uncessantly issue from him then light from the Sunne to refresh this vale of misery Surely as the Prophet said his song should bee of mercy and of judgement so doth God also sometimes mourne unto us that we may weepe as well as at other times draw us to dance after his pipe You conclude with telling us the causes why men are not so happy as they might be The one is you say That they doe not beleeve the eternall happinesse of their Creator to bee absolutely infinite as his other
as well that it is extended to frogges and toads to Angells and Devills as well as to mankinde This is onely to professe that it extends to all Now this is a very improper interpretarion of infinite love for lesse love and lesse liberality may extend to more then greater love and greater liberality for he that gives ten shillings to one person is more liberall then that divides five shillings amongst threescore persons in giving them a peny apiece Lastly the fruit of this love can be but being and is it not a proper commendation of Gods infinite love towards mankinde to say that he gives being unto all And doth Gods love to man appeare more herein then to the vilest creature that is 2 In the next Section you discourse at large after your manner of the amplitude of Gods love in comparison which is nothing at all to your purpose whose chiefe aime is to insinuae that Gods love is alike to all Yet having proceeded thus farre my resolution is to go on and to consider what you bring What thinke you of Adams love in the state of innocency was it perfect or no Though without sinne awhile yet hee fell into sinne so did the Angells before him so should wee though as perfect as they if God should not uphold us Yet our love in greatest perfection could not be so much as a shadow of Gods love there being no resemblance betweene them our love being a love of duety Gods love to us of meere grace and mercy Besides betweene the fruits of Gods love to us and the fruits of our love towards God no colour of resemblance Man is bound heartily to desire the good of all but God is free and hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth Many widowes were in Israel in the daies of Elias when heaven was shut three yeares and six months and great famine was throughout all the land But unto none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta a city of Sidone unto a certaine widow Also many lepers were in Israel in the dayes of Elesaeus the prophet yet none of them was made cleane but Naaman the Syrian And if Gods will had beene to doe the best that might be hee could have cured no doubt all other lepers as well as Naaman and succoured other widows as well as the widow of Sarepta Yet I confesse Gods good will exceeds ours not intensively onely but extensively also for not a sparrow falleth to the ground without the providence of our heavenly Father hee saveth both man and beast and heareth the young Ravens that call upon him the eyes of all doe wait upon the Lord and hee gives them their meat in due season And as touching the conferring both of grace and glory therein hee saveth more then wee know or are acquainted with The number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea that cannot bee counted for multitude As touching temporall blessings all partake of his goodnesse therein in their naturall preservation and consolation therein wee must imitate him in doing good to all as it lieth in our power though chiefly to the houshold of faith yet not to them onely but to others also But though he causeth his sun to shine and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust yet pronounceth not the sentence of salvation on all promiscuously whether they be just or unjust And whereas all are equally corrupt in state of nature yet he doth not equally shew mercy on all or bestow the meanes of grace on all or where he doth bestow these meanes of salvation he doth not make them effectuall unto us He blindes the eyes and hardens the hearts of some that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts and be converted that he might heale them Whereby it comes to passe that the word of God though it be the savour of life unto life unto some yet it is the savour of death unto death unto others and the Ministers of God are a good savour unto God in both even both in them that are saved and in them that perish For God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill Mercie you say is not restrained from ill deservers in distresse so long as the exercise of it breeds no harme to such as are more capable of bountifull love and favour This is a consideration which I confesse hath place among men sometimes and in some cases Yet hardly can I devise how to suit with a fit instance For no states for ought I find doe take notice of any such distinction of times wherein the exercise of mercy will not breed harme and wherein it will but they execute condigne punishment upon malefactors according to the lawes that all may see and feare to doe the like not be encouraged malorum facta imitari but rather eorum exitus perhorrescere God doth not so His patience and long suffering is exceeding great yet if hee should give every man repentance in his death bed and save their soules what one in the world should be the worse for this And though the wicked many times spend their daies in mirth and sodainly goe downe to the grave yet by the grace of God we shall be nothing the worse for this nor provoked hereupon to condemne the generation of Gods children Yet what is it that makes one man more capable of bountifull love and favour then another I know not what makes him more capable of love in the execution of reward I know but what makes him more capable of love in the communication of grace and in shewing mercy towards him I know not Sure I am that woman who had many sinnes forgiven her loved so much the more the ninety nine just persons that thinke they need no repentance like enough love so much the lesse It is true the lawes of States take order for the just execution of punishment upon offenders for the common good yet by your leave Kings on earth by their absolutenesse doe give pardons to whom they will respecting more their own pleasure then the common good And withall I thinke Princes doe lesse offend if at all offend in refusing to pardon malefactors then in granting pardons unto them As for God to whom you say the execution of justice is unnaturall he being the Father of mercy I pray consider if God should give repentance to all on their death-beds and consequently save all what common good of mankinde would be hindred by this And as God is the father of mercy so is he also the Iudge of all the world and I conceive the execution of justice punitive to be as naturall to him as he is Iudge of all the world as the execution of mercy is naturall unto him as he is the Father of mercy Yet you seeme to have a place of Scripture to prove a
A DISCOVERY OF D. IACKSONS VANITIE OR A perspective Glasse wherby the admirers of D. IACKSONS profound discourses may see the vanitie and weaknesse of them in sundry passages and especially so farre as they tende to the undermining of the doctrine hitherto received Written by William Twisse Doctor of Divinitie as they say from whom the Copie came to the Presse Iob 38. 2. Who is this that darkeneth counsell by words without knowledge Imprinted ANNO M. DC XXXI To the understanding Reader TWo sorts of men there are to passe by the meer Politicians ready to serve the times and their owne turnes without any fear of God or man which now undermine that doctrine of grace which formerly they themselves have beleived and by the preaching wherof they have receyved the grace wherby they are what they are in any true good Some under a shew of modestic and simplicity hold off themselves and others from admitting so high poynts as not willing to beleive that which is above their comprehension But others take up the cause a clean contrary way and would bear the World in hand that the failings of our divines in this doctrine came from shallownesse and want of profound knowledge in Metaphysicall speculations Of this later ranke Mr. D. Iackson is the ringleader This man doubteth not to professe that he hath found no character of the incomprehensible Essences ubiquitary presence no not in the Holy Prophets and Apostles writings from which he hath receyved so full instruction or reaped the like fruits of admiration as from one of Trismegist an Egyptian Priest part 1. pag. 55. So that the sentence which he passeth upon Vorstius whom he seemeth more to aemulate in overturning the divine attributes then any other doth shreudly reflect upon himselfe The evaporations of proud phantastick melancholy hath ecclipsed the lustre of glorious presence in this prodigious Questionists braine which would bring us out of the Sunne-shine of the Gospell into old Egyptian darknesse From the same Aegyptian learning thorough Plato and Plotinus he taketh his draught of the divine decrees For he acknowledgeth no decree of God concerning humane actions good or bad no not of those which God promised to effect either concerning his mercy in Christ and Christians or concerning his judgements to be effected by the wicked but onely disjunctive that is by his owne instances part 2. Sect. 2. cap. 17. Aut erit aut non erit it shall eyther raine all day tomorrow or befaire all day tomorrow in which example of a false disjunction he may seem to teach that Gods decrees may also be false the Sunne will eyther shine or not shine this day at twelve of the clocke Surely from this character of a divine decree though we can receyve no good instruction yet have we as much fruit of admiration as D. Iackson himself receyved from the former of ubiquity For what Christian can satisfie himself in wondering how erit illa die which is the usuall expression of Gods decree in the Prophets phrase can be interpreted by erit aut non erit how all the promises which declare Gods decree of dispensing his grace upon all nations by the ministery of men as ra ne or dew upon hearbs should be so glossed it shall eyther raine or not raine or how all the decreed promises concerning the prevayling course of the Sunne of righteousnes in by his his servāts activitie should be flouted with this disjunction it shall shine or not shine It would bring some fruit of admiration if any Prince or Law maker should make no other decree about such things as concerne their and their subjects good but meerly disjunctive eyther men shall doe so or not so eyther they shall doe good or suffer evill For though men have not power of determining absolutely future actions yet they come neerer to that then the indifferencie of an even-weighing disjunction doth import They putte so much weight as the efficacie of their will can bear to that scale wherin they place this shall be But Plato and Plotinus conceyved or rather in some of their discourses expressed no more then this All Christians therfore are by D. Iackson called back agayne to this as if by the Prophets and Apostles they had been caried too farre It can not indeed be denied but the Platonists did commonly so decipher their humane ideas of divine decreeing as D. Iackson doth For Alcinons de doctrina Platonis cap. 12. hath the same relation in plaine termes which D. Iackson hath turned into his strong lines of Oxford Sic fatum ex sententia Platonis pronunciat quaecunque anima talem vitam elegerit hujusmodi quaedam commiserit consequenter talia patietur Libera ergo est anima in ejus arbitrio vel agere vel non agere ponitur quod autem sequitur actionem ab ipso fato perfinitur Veluti ex eo quod Paris Helenam rapiet quod quidem in ejus erat arbitrio sequetur ut Graeci de Helena decertent Indeterminatum atque indifferens natura sua libertate nostra in utram placuerit statere lancem quodam modo declināte mox aut verum aut falsum ex possibili sit But if D. Iackson had not too much been caried away with admiration of these ideas he might have receyved a double inctruction from this Alcinons 1. That Plato did overthrow his owne idea by granting a fatall decree of the Grecians fighting against Troye in which warre were conteyned so many thousands of humane actions as there were soldiers in the Grecian army in exemplifying the liberty of humane actions from fatall decree 2. That Plato went before Aristotle of whom he was forsaken in better notions in denying upon that libertine ground any contingent especially free actions to come to be true before they be acted Which Swarez himselfe in his Metaphysicks confesseth to be no lesse an error then the overturning of Christian faith doth amount to libertate nostra mox aut verum aut falsum ex possibili sit Had not the same passion of admixation stood in the way he might have learned out of Marsilius Ficinus to whom he is beholding for other Platonicall notions that Plato himself was by fits of another minde For so sayth this Author de Theol. Platon cap. 13. Deus naturarum omnium temperator dum regit cuncta singula pro singulorum regit natura Quoniam vero motor primus praevalere debet dominari ideo sic animos ut Plato vult quasi cogit ad bonum ut bonum ipsum nolle non possint And that these secōd thoughts of Plato were more agreeable to Christian faith the same Marsilius Ficinus is witnesse Epist. lib. 2. Epist. cui tit Homo quam difficile extra habitum naturalem posilus felicitatem sequitur tam facile hanc in naturalem habitum restitutus assequitur where treating of the like question he saith Quid respondebimus Magi Pythagoraei Platonici Peripatetici forsan sic
judgement then invention though formally it is a quality of the will as all morall vertues are and not any habitt of the understanding But suppose he miscarry in all then a mans patience must needes bidd farewell to invention to support it and it is high time to relye upon judgement Yet I trust patience which must have her perfect worke Iam. 〈◊〉 may have course in this case allso though it be an hard matter you say to keepe from fowle play if the game whereat a man shootes be fayre and good and most of his stringes allready be broken It is good they say to have two stringes to a mans bowe A vertuous man hath more then two you suppose as much for you suppose many to be broken yet not all And surely vertue is not vertue if it keepe not from foule play The Stoickes mainteyned that a vertuous man might descend into Phalaris bull without the interrupâ—ion of his happines We Christians are taught and disciplined to rejoyce even in tribulation and marke well our bow stringes because tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayth S. Paule I am able to endure all thinges by the power of Christ that enables me and herupon he exhorts Timothy to be partaker of the affliction of the Gospell to witt by the power of God The power of Christ and the power of God are two such stringes to our blowe of patience as can never be broke We know his grace to be sufficient for us and when his power is made perfect in our weakenes we shall have cause to rejoyce in our infirmities For when we are weake then are we strong In a mans owne strength no man shall be strong But blessed art thou o people who art the saved of the Lord who is the sheild of thy strength and the sword of our glory He can make us to be as a Gyants sword and he is a wall of fire round about Ierusalem All that sight against it theyr fleshe shall consume away though they stand on theyr feete and theyr eyes shall consume in theyr holes and theyr tongues shall consume in their mouthes But to returne The contingency of the issue is within the horizon of our fore sight As for horizons of contrivances let such as fancy them make themselfes merry with them All this while the matter of your discourse being of Gods infinite wisedome and to that purpose preluding of the imperfect wisedom of man I have wondred what you meant to enter upon the consideration of patience unlesse it were to prepare your reader therby with a more willing entertaynment of your discourse But now I perceive you desire to gratify God with a commendation of his patience which that it might seeme the more congruous you pretend that the infinitenes of his wisedome carries him herunto And this patience consists in bearing with sinners which as you say every minute of theyr life 's violently thwart and crosse some particular meanes ordeyned for his glory and theyr good Gods patience in forbearing us and our sinnes in provoking him are greate enough in theyr proper colours they neede no inconsiderate amplification to bombast them by saying that every minute of life we violently crosse them For surely eyther you must suppose man every minute of his life to be waking or els you delivered this as it were slumbering But to touch upon something more materiall I pray remember that you treate of the wisedome of God as exercised in intending a right end and prosecuting a right choyse of meanes for the effecting of it Now would you be so good as to consider what is the end that God aymes at in this and particularly whether it be all one in bearing thus with all and that of an ambiguous nature thus that in case they doe at length repent and turne unto God he may magnify his mercy in theyr salvation if still they stand out and dye in impenitency he may magnify himselfe in theyr just condemnation And withall I pray consider whether this be the course of any wisedom finite or infinite in God or man to intend ends after this ambiguous manner I mention no other end of Gods patience and long suffering because I know no other end agreable to your opinion That which followeth tendes rather to the commendation of the goodnes of Gods will then the wisedome of his understanding therfore so much the more heterogeneall and extravagant as when you say out of the Apostle that He is light and in him is no darknes and that He distingvisheth the fruites of light from fruits of darknes before they are even before he gave them possibility of being An amplification partly idle partly unsound For God must eyther distinguish them before they are or not at all For there is no change in his understanding unsound in saying God gives them possibility of being The being of things is from the gift of God but not the possibility of being But you proceede in the same stringe As impossible it is for his will to decline from that which he disernes truly good as for his infinite essence to shrinke in being God indeede cannot shrinke for he is indivisible and you well know what thereupon you have wrought for the amplification of his power in the former chapter But I would you had told us what is that truly good discerned by God from which you say his will cannot decline I cannot be satisfied with your concealments in this particular What I pray is more truly good then the setting forth of Gods glory eyther in his patience and long suffering or in ought else whatsoever And is it impossible thinke you for Gods will to decline this If so then it were impossible that God should decline the making of the World Is not this a faite way to Atheisme Many thinges you say may and every thing that is evill doth fall out against Gods will but nothing without his knowledge or besides his expectation In Scripture phrase we find that many thinges fall out not onely besides but contrary to Gods expectation as Esa. 5. where God complayneth of the house of Israel that while he looked for grapes they brought forth wilde grapes And Arminius urgeth this as if it were spoken in a proper speeche By the proposition in this place it must be sayde that God expects sowre grapes as well as sweete for otherwise they shoulde fall out besides his expectation which you here deny So then God did expect that Shimei should rayle on David that Absolon should defloure his Fathers Concubines that Iudas should betray his Master that David should defile his neighbours wife and cause hir husband to be slayne by the sword of children of Ammon and that the Iewes should crucify the Holy Sonne
of nature with the deitie For what conformity can there be betweene the nature of a creature and the nature of his Creator But Saint Peter telleth us we are made pertakers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have observed some to have rendred this passage thus We are made partakers of a godly nature and the godlinesse of our nature undoubtedly consists in obeying the will of God according to that of the Apostle This is the will of God even your sanctification And what godlinesse can be greater then for a man to obey the will of his Creator and that is the will of Gods commandement though it may fall out to be contrary to Gods purpose For wee are bound to pray for the life of our parents and princes though it maybe God will not have either the one or the other to live And God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac he arose early about this businesse though it appeared afterwards that Gods purpose was Isaac should not be sacrificed But let it be that we are partakers of the divine nature in this sense I nothing doubt but that it proceedeth in respect of the holy Spirit wherewith God hath endued us and which he hath given us to dwell in us and whereby God the Father and God the Sonne are said to dwell in us But let us proceed inwashing away this painting which makes errour appeare with a face of truth We are bound by the law of God to forgive our enemies and to pray for them even to the last as our Saviour did and Steven did But is God bound to forgive his enemies and that alwaies as we are we know he may and doth sometimes forbeare long according to the pleasure of his will but If once he whet his glittering sword and his hand take hold of judgement he will execute vengeance on his enemies and make his arrows drunke with bloud Againe Magistrates must not suffer a witch to live being once discovered God knows them when man doth not yet suffers them to live as long as he thinkes good and sometimes very long Wee are bound to have mercy on all according to our power God hath mercy on whom he will and hardeneth whom he will Lastly wee may not suffer any man to sinne if it lie in our power to hinder it But God suffereth all manner of all abominations to be committed before his eies and in all these hee carrieth himselfe without blemish to his holinesse Nos cerâ—è saith Austine si cos in quos nobis potestas est ante oculos nostros perpetrare scelera permittemus rei tum ipsis erimus Quam verò innumerabilia ille permittit sieri ante oculos suos quae utique si voluisset nullaratione permitteret tamen justus bonus est quod praebendo patientiam dat locum paenitentiae nolens aliquem perire That wee are bound to conforme to Gods revealed will the Scripture teacheth us Secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed are for us and our children to doe them But that therefore we must be conformable to his will that wee may be conformable to his nature the Scripture teacheth not and therefore give us leave to take this superfoetation of yours to be but a revelation of flesh and bloud In the book of Iudges wee read that Manoah enquired after the name of the Angell that appeared unto him whom good Divines upon pregnant circumstances doe collect to have beene the Lord but he answereth Why askest thou after my name which is secret God verily dwelleth in the darke cloud and though sometimes againe it is said that he dwelleth in the light yet forth with it is added that this is such a light that no man can approach unto As groundlesse is your following dictate that without conformitie to his nature we cannot participate of his holinesse it being the imodiate consequent of his nature And what I pray will you make gods of us or shall our glorification in the kingdome of heaven be a deification as it must be if it be a participation of the divine happinesse But this is an usuall libertie of discourse which you take to your selfe I hope you will not say that formall glory which God hath provided for us shall be a glory increated though in the way of an efficient cause it shall proceede from the increated glory of God but created rather And all created glory I hope bee it never so great is no part of Gods happinesse which is you say an immediate consequent unto his nature wherin notwithstanding I doubt much you speake as Peter sometimes did when he spake he knew not what as namely in distinguishing Gods happines from his nature as an immediate consequent thereof You doubt of Lactantius his consequence as neither certaine nor authentique as if it might be authentique though not certaine in your opinion Yet you embrace the same consequence applied to another matter that serves your turne and you swallow it with great facility it never stickes by the way like a Burre in your throat as if consequences were but ceremonies and you the master of them But you put a difference Lactantius his inference is sometimes doubtfull you say but out of all question yours if we may take your word is not But you take too great liberty to your selfe to put things at your pleasure out of question We should have a mad Church and a mad world if you had power to put out of question what you list But let us consider your inference God doth bid us unfainedly blesse our persecuoors therefore he doth unfainedly tender his blessings to such as persecute him in his members This then belike is that conformity to Gods nature which we must aspire unto But by your leave I finde no conformity herein For first wee are bid to blesse our persecutors not to tender our blessings unto them upon condition they will admit them but you doe not say God doth blesse his persecutors you onely say hee doth tender his blessings unto them Againe God biddeth us blesse them that persecute us you doe not say that God doth blesse or tender his blessings to them that persecute him but to them that persecute others to wit his members Thirdly and chiefly God bids us to blesse all our persecutors for hee exhorts us to be mercifull unto all as you confesse in the next words but you dare not say that God doth blesse or tender his blessings unto all but here you lispe and speake indefinitely saying God doth tender his blessings to them that persecute him in his members and that Hee she weth kindnesse to them that are most unkinde Indeed he doth so to some but not unto all but unto whom he will for so himselfe professeth unto Moses I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion And I pray consider
But Magistrates when a malefactor is arraigned and convicted and condemned of some capitall crime though he doth repent yet may not they spare him That wherein our Saviour exhorts us to imitate our heavenly Father and to be perfect as he is perfect is in a particular case namely in loving not onely our friends but our enemies For so God not onely loveth his children and his friends but his enemies also as appeares in the pardoning of their sins and changing of their hearts as many as belong to his election And it is false to say that this is the onely reason why wee must love our enemies and not our friends onely for the commandement of God is another reason and a more chiefe reason and we may not take inducements from Gods actions to encourage us in the doing of any thing unlesse in such cases as when the actions whereabouts we set our selves are agreeable to the law of God God determined the crucifying of Christ but neither Iudas nor the high Priests nor Pilate nor the people of Israel were the more free from sinne for this while they determined to bring him to his crosse God turnes not onely the evils of some to the good of others but a mans owne sins also to his owne good according to that of Austin Utile est superbis in aliquod apertum manifestumque cadere peccatum 6. I wonder what glory of God doth appeare in the punishment of the reprobate not the glory of his mercy certainly nor say I the glory of his justice For vindicative justice whereof this is spoken hath onely place in reference unto sinners It is absurd to say that Gods dealings throughout are to be imitated by us and you have no ground for this but the saying of our Saviour Matth. 5. 48. which is applyed to a speciall case And will it follow that because wee must imitate Gods actions in a speciall case therefore we must imitate his dealings generally To intend evill to some before they have committed sinne admits a double interpretation either this to intend that evill shall befall some in which sense it is manifest that God doth intend the evill of punishment to befall none before they have sinned Or thus the very intention of evill unto some is not untill sinne bee committed in which sense it is notoriously untrue For sinne is not committed but in time but Gods intentions are everlasting Of intending the destruction of any as meanes of others good I have already spoken that which is sufficient Why should your tautologies draw me to the like absurdity The last clause is new and therefore we will consider it If God did absolutely ordaine some to eternall inevitable misery for the advancement of his owne glory we should not sinne but rather imitate the perfection of our heavenly Father in robbing Iudas to pay Paul c. Ridetur chorda qui semper oberrat eadem This argument was in the close of the former section proposed and the inconsequence thereof discovered The consequence is this God did ordaine to punish some therefore we may rob them God did ordaine this to the advancement of his glory therefore we may rob to pay our debts No proportion is to bee found in any part of this comparison For if God take away the life of any man will it follow that therefore we may doe soe also It is well known â—od may doe such a thing without all respect to sinne but it is not in our lawfull power to doe so though with respect unto their sinne And what a senslesse collection is this that because God may doe this or that to advance his glory therefore we may doe the like thing for our profit and advantage We say God intends to punish no reprobate but for his sinne yet I hope you will not say it is in any private mans power to robbe or take any mans goods from him by reason of his sinne Wee are beholden to you for your counsell in the next place when you teach us to guesse at the perfection of Gods Iustice towards the wicked and of his bounty towards the godly by the commendable shadow or imitation of it in earthly gods A proper course to search out the goodnesse and justice of God in the courses of heathen men Yet it is a rule of State Better a mischiefe then an inconvenience And by warres is procured peace but is it without intention of harme to any Can warres bee managed without harme even as well as the Fryar could bee satisfied with a goose livor and a pigges head albeit nothing for him were dead And in making Sodom and Gomorrah examples of his judgements did he not intend our good and was this without intention of harme to any And though they of ripe years amongst them had committed abomination and God tooke them away as hee thought good yet what I pray became of infants some in their mothers wombe some hanging at their mothers breasts And will you challenge God for injustice in this because we doe not finde the like course in the commendable shadow or imitation of Gods justice in earthly gods as you are pleased to phrasifie it In distribution of rewards upon the obedient and execution of punishment upon the disobedient God failes not as he will manifest at the day of judgement And as he executes so he intends to execute and no otherwise But God hath a peculiar power no shadow whereof appeareth in man or Angell and that is of giving grace of giving repentance and this he distributes to whom he will and denies to whom he will You are content to leape over this and no marvell for the grossenesse of your opinion would bee too clearly manifested to the world if you should deale on this Yet God you say drawes men to repentance by gracious promises of inestimable reward And where I pray are these herbes of grace known to grow is it any where but in Gods word And was Gods word afforded to all in the daies of the Old Testament or is it so in the daies of the New And where he doth afford his word is this all the mercy he shewes namely to perswade men to repent or is this to give them repentance And doth not Gods word manifestly teach that repentance is the gift of God Againe doe we maintaine that God damnes any but impenitent sinners T is true we say if all the world should beleeve and repent all the world should be saved notwitstanding all their sinnes and not Cain onely What more severe punishment then damnation and what precedent loving instructions or good encouragements to doe well were afforded by God to all those infants who perish in that sinne which they drew from the loynes of their parents And will you challenge God of unnaturalnesse for this or will you deny that any infants perish in originall sinne as Pelagius did And what loving instructions doth God minister to those
notorious untruth as namely that the execution of justice punitive is unnaturall unto God and that is out of Lament 3. 33. He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Thus you take Scripture hand over head to serve your turne But I pray consider is it possible that God should doe any thing against his will men may have reluctations and conflicts in them and doe things volentes nolentes is such a condition possible to be found in the nature of God Yet in this case Aristotle hath defined the action to be simply voluntarie and done willingly If God be represented sometimes unto us as it were fluctuating like men betweene different resolutions of executing either mercy or justice as in the Prophet How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel how shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim mine heart is turned within me and my repentances are rowled together like as he is represented unto us as well in the shape of the members of our body as of the passions of our minde we have cause rather to take notice hereby of the goodnesse of God in condescending thus far to our infirmities to make us the better acquainted with him and the more sensible of his favour then hereby to take occasion to fashion God like unto our selves either in body or minde Yet the meaning of the Prophet is plaine enough namely that God comes not to afflict his children unlesse he be provoked by sinne and herein he differeth from earthly parents who sometimes chasten their children for their owne pleasures but God as hee doth not but in case he is provoked so he doth it for our profit as the Apostle telleth us in the same place To doe a thing willingly hath the same signification with the Latine phrase animi causa that is when nothing is the cause thereof but a mans owne will as Causabon observes out of Seneca de beneficiis 4. whose opinion was Neminem adeo à naturali lege descivisse hominem exuisse ut animi causa malus sit You further say that Nothing can provoke good men to execute punitive justice upon offenders but the good of others deserving either better or not so ill which might grow worse and worse through evill doers impunity I pray consider doe parents chastise their children for the good of others and not for the good of the children themselves God himselfe chastiseth his owne children all manner of wayes and is this for the good of others that deserve better or not so ill and not rather for the good of those his owne children themselves No chastising for the present is joyous saith the Apostle but grievous but afterwards it bringeth forth the quiet fruit of righteousnesse to them that are exercised thereby Marke I pray To them that are exercised thereby he doth not say that this fruit is brought forth to others As for the torments in the world to come who is the better for them unlesse they tend to the improvement of joy in those blessed ones while they behold in others that miserie which onely by the grace of God themselves have escaped For as for any other welfare of the Saints of God or any welfare at al of the damned crew or avoidance of grievances that is procured by the damnation of the wicked if you know it is well but I assure you it is more then I can divine of Yet doe we not say that God hath pleasure in the torture either of men or devils but onely in the demonstration of his owne glorious justice towards them and in the magnifying of his mercy so much the more toward his Saints You say It goeth against the nature of God to punish the workes of his owne hands A vile speech and withall senselesse and no marvell if when men prostitute all honesty and the feare of God in opposing manifest truth they lose their wits also and fall upon most unsober meditations For what a vile speech is it to say that any worke of God goeth against his nature who as the Apostle professeth worketh all things according to the counsell of his will Then againe what a senselesse speech is it to insinuate that it were not so contrary to GODS nature to deale thus with those creatures which were not the workes of his owne hands but being the works of his owne hands you say it is against his nature to punish them A wonderfull assertion and wherat the most barbarous people might be astonished in the consideration of the impiety shall I say or the insulsity thereof or both rather namely that it should be against Gods nature to punish sinners For it is well known that God punisheth none other nor ever did Christ Iesus the Sonne of God onely excepted And what a field have you here to expatiate in if you list to aggravate the unnaturalnesse of any action in God And with as little sobriety doe you amplifie that unnaturalnesse in God by the consideration of man especially as who you say is more deare to him then any childe is to his Father So then to punish others you are willing to grant not to be so unnaturall an action in God as the punishing of man And I pray what are those other creatures Are they inferiour as Oxen and Sheepe and all these never sinned yet is it not unnaturall to punish them if punishment may have place as being taken for the afflicting of them where there is no sinne For God gives us leave to weare them out with plowing carying riding for our necessity for our dâ—light yea to set one creature upon another the greyhound upon an hare upon a deere the hauke upon a partridge or phesant or wilde fowle No unnaturalnesse doe we exercise in all this such is the liberty which God hath given unto us But yet to punish man though a sinner for he punisheth no other this how greatly say you doth it goe against the nature of God It seemes you cannot tell how greatly neither can I helpe you herein For I doe not see how it is against his nature at all But you seeme to give a reason in saying that God is loving kindnesse it selfe But I pray consider is he not justice it selfe also as well as loving kindnesse and is it against the nature of Iustice to punish sinners no nor against his loving kindnesse neither For I hope that no attribute of God is contrary to another though according to their different notions some actions are more suitable to the one then to the other And why man should have more speciall consideration here then Angels I know no reason For if you say that God is the father of man in as much as he hath created him by the same reason he may be the father of the ignoblest creature that is To say that God is the father of man in as much as hee made him after his
for him to repent I know no such state nor any rule that God hath given to himselfe to confine his grace Nay to the contrary we reade that neither continuance in sinne nor greatnesse of sinne doth preclude the grace of God but that Gods grace as it can so it doth many times prevaile over both But you love not to speake distinctly but to carie your selfe in the clouds of generalities They that maintaine a weake cause had need play least in sight wee say plainly that God well knowes no man can repent except he gives the grace of repentance the Scriptures in divers places expresly testifying that repentance is the gift of God though you love not to heare of that eare nor are well pleased as it seemes with the musique that riseth upon the touching of that string On the other side God knowes that every man at any time can repent if God will be pleased to give him the grace of repentance yea and that he shall repent also the habituall grace serves for the one and the actuall and effectuall motion of Gods Spirit is requisite to the other I come to the second parallell of Iesuiticall equivocation or rather the deification of it as you are pleased out of glorious spleene to calumniate your opposites The protestation is on Gods part I will not the nonrepentance of him that dieth the reservation with purpose to make this part of my will knowne unto him But where I pray doe you finde any such protestation on Gods part Ezekiel hath none such In him it is said I will not the death of him that dieth But no where doth he say I will not the non repentance of him that dieth This is a tricke of your owne device as if you followed the counsell of Lysander and where the Lyons skinne will not reach you are content to patch it up with some piece of a Fox skinne Wee professe in plaine termes that as God hath mercy on whom he will so he hardneth whom he will and as he will give the grace of repentance unto some so he will not give the grace of repentance unto others Notwithstanding that he bid all in the ministery of his word I meane all those that heare it To repent and beleeve the Gospel So he did bid the Iewes and that with great earnestnesse to keepe the covenant Deut. 30. 19. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing therefore chuse life that both thou and thy seed may live By loving the Lord thy God by obeying his voice and cleaving unto him for hee is thy life and the length of thy daies that thou maiest dwell in the land which the Lord did sweare unto thy fathers ' Yet I hope you will not say this could be done without grace though of the nature of grace what you thinke and of the universall extention thereof I should be very glad to understand and that therein you would speake your minde plainly As for the reservation here it is most ridiculous neither is any equivocation of Iesuites I trow answerable hereunto for by reservations a sense is raised contradictious to the sense of the protestation but by this reservation no contradiction ariseth to the former as it lieth but onely it denyeth a certaine purpose to be joyned with it but be it that Iesuits allow such artifice what Divine of ours doth Did we say that God wills not the non repentance of any we would say hee willeth it not in as much as hee forbiddeth it And Gods prohibitions and commandements are usually though improperly called the will of God And here voluntas signi hath proper place enough Like as God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his sonne yet his determination was that Isaac should not be sacrificed Some may have said that God willeth not the death of him that dyeth in case he repent But was ever any heard to affirme that God wills not the non repentance of him that dieth to wit with purpose to make it knowne unto him What madnesse possessed you to ascribe so incredible a thing to your opposites so contrary to the rule of fiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Callimachus hath set it downe Your addition here likewise which drawes a long taile after it hath no conformity to the patterne And as for the substance of it as touching Gods resolution never to grant some repentance or the meanes of it if thereby you meane the Gospel we acknowledge it to be truth for the arme of the Lord is not revealed unto all neither doth he give repentance or faith to all but hath mercy on some onely even on whom hee will and hardenneth othersome even whom he will that is denieth them repentance and consequently they cannot repent which interpretation of obduration your selfe make in the seventh section following and consequently they cannot live this I doubt not but you will acknowledge with us And therefore the vanity of your discourse is not at an end you proceed to talke of Gods oath in giving assurance that he will not the death of them that are damned built meerly upon a translation which you follow different from the most authorized translation of our Church and that contrary to evident reason for seeing God doth inflict death and damnation upon the impenitent so hee must needs will it for hee doth all things according to the counsell of his owne will Ephesians 1. 11. And yet according to your reading of it a good construction may be given without all reservations as plainly enough deduced out of the word of God it selfe And what God hath manifested unto us in his word I hope is not to bee accounted a reservation but a revelation rather I am not of your minde to thinke that the keeping of an oath is a branch of perfection or to keepe a mans word either which yet is a better point of morality then to keepe an oath Such justice is to bee found amongst heathen men yet workes of mercy go beyond workes of justice yet no great perfection neither but to be mercifull to our enemies When they are hungry to feed them when they are thirsty to give them drinke this is the perfection that our Saviour calleth us unto and sets before our eyes the goodnes of our heavenly Father in suffering his raine to fall and his sunne to shine on the bad as well as on the good And here withall how well your calumniation hath sped imputing to us the deification of Iesuiticall equivocations let the indifferent Reader judge 6 Here you proceede learnedly to distinguish betweene somethings determined by oath and somethings else and in the accomodation of your distinction you tell us that Voluntas signi and beneplaciti can have no place in things determined by divine oath but well it may in other things What is the other member of your distinction opposite to things determined by
Iohn and Christ damneth the contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent Those the Scripture excludeth from the generall promise of grace It may seeme that The contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent in master Hoopers phrase are the same in your judgement with those whom you account to have filled up the measure of iniquity But what ground have you for that Master Hooper saith not that all such whom he accounts contemners of God and such as willingly continue and sinne and will not repent have hereupon filled up the measure of their iniquitie or that hereupon all possibility of amendment is taken from them these are your assertions they are not master Hoopers Again all contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent master Hooper saith the Scripture excludes from the generall promise of grace and this he utters without any distinction as well he may to wit for the present and so long as they continue in this their contempt and hardnesse of hart For as much as the promise of grace both for the pardon of sinne and salvation of our soules belongs to none but such as breake off their sinfull courses by faith and repentance But you distinguish betweene such contemners of God and presumptuous sinners and tell us that some of them have arived to the full measure of their iniquity and that there is no possibility of their amendment such as Pharaoh was after the seventh plague others though contemners of God c. yet in this their course of contempt have not filled up the measure of their iniquity such as Pharaoh was before the seventh plague who undoubtedly was a contemner of God before that time and one that willingly continued in sinne and would not repent and of all such you professe that God doth unfainedly love them Now there are no tracks or footsteps of such strange assertions as either of these to be found in Bishop Hooper Of all contemners of God he professeth according unto Scripture that they are excluded from all promise of grace to wit for the present he doth not say God unfainedly loves any of them but as for the time to come he doth not affirme that all possibility of amendment is taken from them Had hee thought so then he should acknowledge them to bee in a desperate condition But hee is so farre from this that hee accounts Desperation to bee a principall let and impediment unto godlinesse chap. 18. fol. 90. The first let saith hee or impediment is desperation when as men thinke they cannot be saved but are excluded from all mercy and a little after Of the contrary nature to presumption is desperation it taketh from God his mercy For when they offend and continue in sinne they thinke there is no mercy left for them and that as in the next sentence he sheweth specially because of custome and long continuance in sinne Then he proceeds saying This discourse and progresse in that knowledge of sinne beareth him in hand that it is impossible to returne unto God This is as much as in your phrase to affirme that all possibility of amendment is taken from him But doth Mr. Hooper justifie this Nothing lesse for this is a maine let or impediment to repentance which he desires to remove out of the way of sinners and to that hee proceeds in this manner Moses saith he like a good Physitian teacheth a remedie against this dangerous disease and sheweth the way unto God declareth that God is full of mercy and ready to forgive and beginneth his oration in this manner unto such as bee afflicted and oppressed with sinne When there commeth upon thee all those things when God hath afflicted thee for thy sinnes and thou returnest unto him with all thy heart he shall deliver thee from captivity and receive thee to his mercy againe Of the which text learne this doctrine that God will alwaies forgive how many and how horrible soever the sinnes bee and learne to feare presumption and to beware of desperation So that hoe acknowledgeth no just cause of desperation no not in respect of custome and long continuance in sinne The next sentence in Mr. Hooper transcribed by you in this eighth Section of yours conteines no more then that which wee all acknowledge Thou seest saith he by the places before rehearsed that though wee cannot believe in God as undoubtedly as is required by reason of this our naturall sicknesse and disease yet for Christ sake in the judgement of God wee are accounted as faithfull believers for whose sake this naturall disease and sicknesse is pardoned by what name soever Saint Paul calleth the naturall infirmity and originall sinne in man This is something concerning the nature of originall sinne in the opinion of Mr. Hooper nothing at all touching a certaine state of sinne wherein all possibility of amendment is taken from a man to which purpose Mr. Hooper is alledged by you in this place Yet because I doe not know what reaches you have in this also I answer that Mr. Hooper speakes of originall sinne as it is found in the regenerate and as it is in them hee calls it onely A naturall sicknesse and disease And indeed when wee are once regenerate wee are no longer dead in sinne no longer estranged from the life of God But herehence it followeth not that Mr. Hooper was of opinion that originall sinne was even in the unregenerate to bee accounted onely A naturall sicknesse and disease and not rather a death in sinne especially considering that the holy Apostle acknowledgeth A law in his members rebelling against the law of his minde and leading him captive to the law of sinne and calleth it A body of death crying out against it and saying Who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7. 1. The last clause as I take it makes more for your present purpose as when hee saith And this imperfection and naturall sicknesse taken of Adam excludeth not the person from the promise of God in Christ except wee transgresse the limits and bounds of originall sinne by our owne folly and malice and either of a contempt or hate of Gods word wee fall into sinne and transforme ourselves into the image of the devill Then wee exclude by this meanes ourselves from the promises and merits of Christ who onely received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his law This passage I confesse is somewhat strange and of my knowledge hath troubled some concâ—iving it as an assertion of yours and not so much as dreaming that it was delivered by Mr. Hooper I answer therefore First of all that this serves not your turne for the present that in two respects First you distinguish the contempt of Godsword and of his law according to different degrees eithersuch as was in Pharaoh before the seventh plague or such as was in
from temptations And indeede lust usually enters into the heart by the windows of the eyes Yet the Poet tells us also of one Qui nunquam visae slagrabat amore pâ—ellae So then it had beene a mercy of God that their eies had beene pulled out of their heads in your divinity I doe not deny but the greatest temporall blessings may bee cursed unto a man by the power of God and the greatest temporall â—nrses blessed unto him But I never heard or read before that blindenesse should bee considered onely as a mercy and such a mercy as whereby wee are guarded from temptation But were a man never so lustfull yet I thinke in just reason he should rather desire to enjoy his eies then to lose them that so hee might be partaker of Gods word by private reading which hath more power to his salvation then the sight of any Cocatrices to his destruction And if Democritus had beene acquainted with this word of God I doe not believe hee would have pulled out his eyes in pretence as if they hindred his meditations Alas what had the Sodomites beene the better for the blindenesse of their eyes if God had not corrected the lusts of their hearts Especially considering that fancy can supply the want of sight for the provocation of lust in any degree upon any unknowne object For a man can fancie him as hee lusteth Say rather God could not in justice change their hearts seeing they had wilfully contemned his goodnesse and abused his long suffering and loving kindenesse Yet this saying of yours should bee farre enough off from truth and sobriety Who hath not wilfully contemned his goodnesse and abused his long suffering All out of the state of grace doe so for Libertas sine gratia non est libertas sed contumacia Yea and too often wee doe so in the state of grace also Then againe a yeare before this sinne of the Sodomites was not so obstinate lesse a yeare before that and so the farther we descend to times passed they were lesse and lesse obfirmate Why did noâ— God then change their hearts or if you wil have this to be a fruit of mercy why did he not blind their eyes in mercy to keepe them from these temptations But you put it out of question that to have prevented the Sodomites former contempt and abuse of his long suffering and loving kindnesse did imply contradiction to his goodnesse and eternall equity A most unreasonable assertion For I demand Hath God prevented your wilfull contempt of his goodnesse yea or not your abusing his long suffering and loving kindnesse yea or not If he hath not prevented it then either your selfe have prevented it without his grace or you are guilty or have beene guilty of wilfull contempt of his goodnesse and abusing his long suffering and loving kindnesse which if it be so what would become of you if God should deale with you according to these immutable and eternall rules according whereto you professe he deales with all I perswade my selfe you have a good opinion of your owne sufficiency to prevent these foule symptomes of humane corruption otherwise you should make but a bad reckoning The reason you give to enforce this assertion is in part nothing for you in part against you For though all his wayes are truth yet this is nothing for you unlesse you can prove that in such a state of sinne as the Sodomites God hath determined to use no effectuall meanes to the curing of them But how will you prove this for hitherto you have not You might as well say God could not cure â—he sin of those Iewes to whom our Saviour said It shall be easier for Sodome and Gomorrah in the day of judgement then for you If this were granted you yet herehence it followes onely that God cannot cure them because he will not for hee hath determined the contrary But you undertake to prove that God cannot doe it in point of justice although hee would doe it out of his love to mankinde But when you say that all Gods waies are mercie that is directly rather against you then for you For mercy doth rather incline to pardon sinne then not to pardon it and withall we are given to understand that as touching the execution hereof God will have mercy on whom hee will and therefore surely he can have mercy on whom he wll You talke after your fashion of an eternall rule of goodnesse appointing his justice to debarre the fruits of his mercy But you are a meere talker and prove nothing Who is not wilfull in the state of nature in contemning Gods goodnesse Yet doth not he by his grace and holy Spirit ex nolentibus volentes facere Doth not Austin professe that God hath converted not onely aversos à vera fide but adversus verae fidei voluntates also and bindes it with a Novimus we know it to have beene so Was it not so in Saul Doth not God professe of his wilfull and stubborne people that he will rule them with a mightie hand and make them passe under the rod and bring them under the bond of his covenant Ezech. 20. 37. Doth he not call some at the first some not till the last houre of the day Neither can it be made good by any tolerable colour of reason that because a creature cannot be impeccabilis from his creation therefore God cannot cure mens wilfulnesse in the way of his mercy towards them as you most incoherently discourse as if you were in potting verses rather then upon meditating a coherent and methodicall course of argumentation yet the maxime here mentioned though brought in with some state of selfe conceit is very preposterously contrived by you We commonly say a reasonable creature cannot be impeccabilis per naturam uncapable of sinne by nature he may be impeccabilis per gratiam uncapable of sinne by grace as the elect Angels are elect men shall be in the state of glory but of being so some while after the creation and not immediately from the creation of being so absolutely and of being so not absolutely I know no sobriety in these conceits neither doe I thinke you have any authority to countenance them The Sonne of God I doubt not but you will confesse that hee was impeccabilis from the first So might Angels have beene so might men have beene by grace had it so pleased God to make them I see no reason to the contrary yet had not this beene absolutely impeccable but meerly upon the supposition of the will of God Such is the impeccability of the elect Angels at this present such shall bee ours in the world to come God indeed without supposition out of his own absolutenesse is no way obnoxious unto sinne If Angels are or we at any time shall be free from this obnoxious condition it is and shall be by the meere will and good pleasure of God whereby yet I meane not to exclude all
any particular good therefore what good in particular soever he did did it freely So doe the Angels so shall we in the kingdome of heaven Hitherto under colour of consequence which yet indeed was no tolerable consequence you did stride very wide from the matter you had in hand to wit of Gods obligement in justice to make men taste of the fruits of his mercy after their wilfull contemning of it into an aliene matter farre removed touching impeccability Now you seeme to returne to your former discourse but in such a manner as if you meant utterly to overthrow it for here you give us to understand that so long as man doth lesse evill then he might doe he may be confirmed in goodnesse and translated unto happinesse Now I pray as bad as the Sodomites were yet were they not lesse evill then they might be For if God had suffered them longer and left them destitute of his grace had they not profited in pejus growing worse and worse And yet I confesse hereupon to bee confirmed in no better goodnesse then they had had not beene much seeing this their goodnesse had beene never a whit but you say not onely this that they that doe lesse evill then they might may hereupon not onely bee confirmed in that goodnesse which they have which may be very farre off from any goodnesse at all but also translated to everlasting happinesse Since mans fall you say wee are not capable of mercy but by free abstinence from some evills Now I demand whether this free abstinence from some evills be of grace or no If of grace whether this grace be not a fruite of mercie If so then it appeares that before we abstaine from any evill wee are capable of mercy thereby to obtaine grace to abstaine from evill I know no state that makes a man uncapable of mercy in this life but onely the state of sinning against the holy Ghost I doe not like your distinction of doing good and doing it naughtily for whatsoever we doe naughtily therein we cannot be said to doe good but evill rather for therein we sinne and in sinning wee doe not any good but evill rather Yet I confesse wee may be said to doe good imperfectly but not naughtily in my judgement Though we doe both lesse evill and the good that we doe lesse naughtily then possibly we might doe God still you say diminisheth the riches of his bounty towards us I professe at first sight I tooke this to bee a notorious untruth but when I considered a claw of your sentence which is this lesse evill then possibly we might doe I reverse my judgement and finde it to be a most vulgar and despicable conceit though in the way of truth For the contrary proposition to your supposition is a thing impossible For how is it possible that a man can doe at once all the evill that he can doe Now if he doth not doe all the evill that possibly hee can doe there is some comfort in your paramutheticall contemplations and hee neede not feare lest God proceede to diminish the riches of his bounty towards him And so might the Sodomites comfort themselves at the worst for certainly they had not done all the evill that possibly they might doe Now it was well worth the having to heare you explaine unto us what you understand by the influence of Gods gracious providence which you say God restraines and by restraining suffers men to fall from one wickednesse to another suffering the reines of our unruly appetites to bee given into our uâ—ieldie hands Here be good phrases which if you would bee pleased to interpret unto us in plaine termes I doubt not but wee should finde good matter to worke upon But to the comfort of all profane persons bee it spoken God doth never deal thus with any by your computation but such as have done as much evill as possibly they can doe To be capable of well doing is to be capable of Gods mercy and you have already told us to our comfort that to do lesse evill then possibly wee can doe doth make us capable of Gods mercy yet here you say this cannot bee done without Gods love and favour Now to my judgement no person is so profane or impious but that hee doth lesse evill then possibly he might doe whence it followeth that to this state of impiety considered as lesse then possibly might be he is arived through the love and favour of God Yet what you meane by the love and favour of God I know not and throughout I finde cause to doubt that you meane nothing lesse then to advance the honour of Gods grace but onely your scope to advance the power of mans free will And I wonder you consider not how you enterfare and crosse your owne shinnes in your discourse when you conceive the love and favour of God as a meanes to make us capable of the mercy of God you might as well say that the mercy of God makes us capable of his mercy for love and favour shewed unto him that is in misery is in the way of mercy So when you make a great difference betweene withdrawing a mans selfe from the extremities of mischiefe and the doing of such good as may make a man capable of well doing you contradict your selfe for to do lesse evill then possibly might bee what is it other then to withdraw from extremities of mischiefe yet that is enough to make a man capable of well doing as you have signified in this very page more then once as namely both in the first sentence and in the third yet this is wilde enough to say A man must doe good to make himselfe capable of well doing By the sentence following it seemes that this good that is to be done to make us capable of well doing is to repent and this you say cannot be done without the attractions of infinite love yet usually you make a worke of nature to bee a preparation to grace and sometimes you call that worke of nature humility sometimes the doing of lesse euill then wee might doe And what you meane by the attractions of infinite love I know not for you make it incident to men without the Church who are not so much as drawne hereunto by the word so that as it seemes it can be no other then Gods patience in sparing them and so leading them to repentance that you meane in this place Yet see into what absurdity of conceit you cast your selfe while you make shew to honour the grace of God as namely when you say since Adams fall our love to sinfull pleasures is so strong that we cannot repent without the infinite attractions of love implying thereby that before Adams fall wee could repent without infinite attractions of love But I pray consider what need was there of repentance before Adams fall Yet such obedience as then was congruous to innocent and undâ—filed nature could he performe without speciall grace Yes you
thinke he could this is a bit you can swallow easily and digest with as great facility And so belike your opinion is of the Angels to wit that the good Angels stood by the meere freedome of their owne wils having no other adjutorium gratiae then the reprobate Angels had directly against Austin de Civitate Dei l. 12. c. 9. You beginne to discover the mystery of your meaning when you say that Many whom this infinite love doth daily imbrace because they apprehend not it are never brought by the attractions of it to true repentance So then the attractions of Gods infinite love are the causa sine qua non but what is the cause qua posita ponitur effectus O this is our apprehending of it And I pray what stile doe the learned give to that causa sine qua non doe they not commonly account it causam fatuam So then you make shew to magnifie the attractions of Gods love and the efficacy thereof but t is onely in a fatuous manner and you make but a fatuous efficacy thereof but mans will alone in the apprehending of it hath the true efficacie of repentance in the course of your Divinity Now I pray what is this love you speake of and what manner of attraction is it and wherin doth it consist and how are we said to apprehend it and wherein doth that consist By the place alledged out of Rom. 2. 4. you signifie that this love of God is no other then that goodnesse whereby he leadeth unto repentance and that goodnesse there mentioned seemes to bee no other then Gods forbearance and long suffering Call you this the attractions of his infinite love Yet notwithstanding Austin was bold to professe Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisâ— Deus dederit quis aget poenitentiam Though God affords never so much patience yet who shall repent except God gives repentance your present discourse preacheth unto us another doctrine to this effect Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi homo apprehenderit quis aget poenitentiam Though God affords never so much patience yet who shall repent except he apprehends it And I pray what is it to apprehend Gods patience or his leading of us to repentance by his goodnesse and patience Can it be any thing else then the taking of the opportunity offered and to repent indeed So then your meaning is this in plaine termes Many whom this infinite love of God doth embrace to wit in leading them by his goodnesse and patience unto repentance yet are never brought by the attraction of it to true repentance and all because they doe not apprehend it that is because they doe not repent Is not this issue of your discourse very grave and Theologicall yet when you say the reason why by this love they are not brought to repentance is because they doe not apprehend it you seeme to imply that they may apprehend it if they will Yet because the Text alledged by you is expresly against this therefore you are contont to nicke your former assertion your selfe with a crosse blow that so your selfe may have the first credit of contradicting and confuting your selfe as when you say of whom speakes he thus of sueh onely as truly repent A mad question as ever was proposed as if there were any colour that the Apostle should say of them that repent that they despise the riches of Gods goodnesse leading them to repentance yet that you may have some matter to worke upon having erected an enemy of straw you foile him most valiantly by answering Nay but of them who for hardnesse of heart cannot repent Not considering how fondly herein you contradict your selfe Nay by the way I note an aknowledgement of yours to wit that a man may despise the goodnesse of God leading him to repentance though through the hardnesse of his heart he cannot repent at all 4. You demand in the next place whether the riches of Gods bountie were fained or whether hee did onely profer but not purpose to draw them to repentance which repented not I answer it was not fained neither doe I finde any thing that he profered at all in this passage of the Apostles But that this is a meere fiction of yours ut recto stet fabula talo and that hee did truly draw them to repentance but how as by patience and long-suffering he may be said to draw them and no other goodnesse of God drawing them to repentance is mentioned in this place Like as opportunity is said to draw and invite men to the doing of something in season In like sort the judgements of God invite unto repentance the mercies of God provoke unto obedience to thankfulnesse But yet Austin was bold to say Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis aget poenitentiam So that this is a tacite exhortation and invitation to repentance by Gods workes And much inferiour to the power of the exhortations of his word yet God doth exhort by the ministery of his word many whose hearts notwithstanding he hardneth As is apparent in sending unto Pharaoh and commanding him to let Israel goe yet withall made knowne to Moses that hee would harden Pharaohs heart that hee should not let Israel goe And dare you professe this course of his so plainly testified in holy Scripture to be no part of Gods protection no fruit of that wisedome which is from above but a point of earthly policie devoid of honesty a meere tricke of worldly wit to whose practise nothing but weaknesse and impotency to accomplish great designes can misinâ—line mans corrupted nature And the truth is in this course of God nothing is profered at all but onely something suspended to wit the execution of just vengeance In his word something is profered but what is that Not repentance as you misconceive that rather is required and commanded onely upon repentance remission of sinnes and salvation is profered And if repentance were profered I pray upon what termes you will say in case they would apprehend it This have I already shewed to be all one as if you should say In case they did repent and of the sobriety hereof let any man judge Againe you professe that this is profered to such men as through the hardnesse of their hearts cannot repent and judge whether the same incongruities which you charge upon our Tenet are upon any other ground then this and while you maintaine this whether they doe not reflect upon your Tenet also Now on the contrary whereas we object against you that if God willeth and so ardently as you speake that all men should repent and be saved how comes it to passe that they doe not repent Considering that the Apostle professeth that Gods will cannot be resisted and that it manifestly implies an impotency or weaknesse in God in not being able to bring to passe what he so ardently desires Now to the latter objection of these you answer by deniall that it
infinite Now of Gods infinite will I never heard before his power we say is infinite because hee can doe every thing that is possible to bee done his knowledge is infinite because hee knowes all things that may bee knowne but God doth not will all things that may bee willed by him Nay his power receives limitation and restriction by his will as touching the execution thereof for hee doth no more then what hee will Likewise wee say Gods love is infinite in the way of extention for it neither had beginning neither shall it have end But such is not Gods love towards them that perish for it ceaseth by your doctrine when the measure of their iniquity is filled up but such as it is you say it layeth no necessity upon their wills A most ridiculous speech as much as to say it doth not make men repent necessarily whereas concerning them that perish it is apparant that it neither makes them repent necessarily nor contingently And as for the elect hee gives them repentance which he doth not to the reprobates as Austine long agoe professed Istorum neminem adducit Deus ad salubrem spiritualemque poenitentiam qua homo reconciliatur Deo in Christo sive illis ampliorem patientiam sive non imparem praebeat Nyither doe wee say that to whom God gives repentance he gives obedience he makes them to repent necessarily to obey necessarily but freely For it is manifest that grace takes not away the power of disobedience but onely prevents the act of disobedience and that not in all particulars neither for the children of God sinne too often And as for those which want this grace which God bestowes on his elect they have not onely liberty left them unto sinne but also this liberty turnes into wilfulnesse according to that of Austine Libertas sine gratia non est libertas sed contumacia Liberty without grace is not liberty but wilfulnesse But yet wee say upon supposition that God will give any man repentance and that at such a time that man shall repent at such a time and t is impossible hee should not repent yet in repenting hee shall repent freely and not necessarily Like as God ordaining Christs bones should not be broken upon this supposition it was impossible it should be otherwise albeit the soldiers abstained from breaking of his bones not necessarily but deliberately and freely It is true the Lord saith Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it but his people would not hearken unto his voice And now the question is onely as touching their obedience whether God did any otherwise will that then by commanding it in respect of those that perish wee say hee did onely command it in respect of such wee say hee did not resolve to give them repentance to give them obedience though he could have done this and doth doe this unto his elect making them to passe under the rod and bringing them under the bond of the covenant not onely seeing their wayes but healing them also healing their rebellions and subduing their iniquities and treading Satan under their feet opening their eies and bringing them out of darkenesse into light and from the power of Satan unto God quickning them when they were dead in trespasses and sinnes creating a new heart and renewing a right spirit within them Doe you but acknowledge this as you must unlesse you will renounce the Scriptures and wee will never quarrell with you for saying God doth all this contingently and not necessarily 2 The Apostles move a question to our Saviour concerning him that was borne blinde Ioh. 9. whether hee had sinned or his fathers that he was horne blinde this was in respect of judgement corporall you apply this to a judgement spirituall that judgement was positive to bee bereaved of sight which in course of nature is otherwise then onely permissive in suffering them to be such as hee found them That was spoken in respect of some not common but extraordinary sinne for though there bee sinne common unto all yet this judgement is not and therefore they might well thinke if sinne were the cause it must bee some extraordinary sinne but our Saviour signifieth that it befell him in the course of Gods providence not so much in respect of sinne as in respect of a certaine end whereto God had ordained it But I hope neither the Apostles nor any sober man would imagine that some extraordinary sinne was required unto this that God should leave men as hee findes them without bestowing some supernaturall grace upon them And in despight of sinne God doth afford this grace to many thousands for God hath mercy on whom he will like as on the other side in despight of mens civility and naturall morality whom hee will he hardeneth Yet to the question by you proposed at pleasure you make no answer but adde hereunto out of Ion. 2. 8. They that follow lying vanities forsake their owne mercies as if you had a minde to imply that there is something in man that makes a difference why some are suffered to walke in their owne waies some are not wherein you doe but corrupt the state of the question after your usuall manner For the question is not about the consequent of lying vanities or not observing them but about the observing of lying vanities it selfe or not observing them that is how cometh it to passe that some are suffered to goe on in the course of their lying vanities some are not but rather are taken off from those ungodly courses wherein they have beene brought up as many thousands were taken off thus in the Apostles daies wee say it is the meere good pleasure of God that puts this difference having mercy on some and hardning others you take another course as when you say in your familiar and soliloquiall meditations with God Never hadst thou given them up to their owne hearts lust to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath had they not despised the riches of thy bounty Here you mixe different courses of God together for when you talke of giving them over to their owne hearts lusts Which scripture applieth to Gods dealing with his own people Israel upon the despising of his grace offered them in his word but the rest as this also being accomodated unto the heathens you seeme to referre to the despising of the riches of Gods bounty declared to them in his workes for as for the riches of Gods bounty declared in his word the heathen were not pertakers of this untill the dayes of the Gospell and whereas by the phrase of speech used you seeme to have an eye to that of the Apostle Rom. 2 3. 4. the riches of Gods bounty in that place is specified onely to consist in patience and long-suffering And how did they refuse it but in refusing to repent For the bounty there mentioned is noted to be a bounty leading unto repentance So that in the issue your
intimations You seeme to mee to imply that this will of God is accomplished in Iudas his damnation Because looke in what measure of love God would have saved him in such a measure of wrath he doth damne him and so accordingly looke in what measure Gods delight would have bin in Iudas his salvation had he bin saved in the same measure God doth delight in his damnation he being damned Vous avez thus have you the interpretation of this riddle And by the same reason you may proceede to make other riddles and aske how is the will of God as touching Peters damnation and Gods delight and pleasure therin accomplished to every dramme and scruple and answere that this is accomplished in his salvation For looke in what measure God would have delighted in his damnation had he bin damned in the same measure God now delights in his salvation he being saved And thus the delight and pleasure that any man takes in his childes salvation may be sayd to be accomplished in the delight and pleasure which he shall take in his childes condemnation For the Saints shall judge the World even the Godly Father joyne with Christ in pronouncing the sentence of condemnation upon his ungodly Sonne c. God delights in our obedience and in our repentance when it is but where there is no repentance or obedience how is it probable he or any should delight in that which is not 1 Sam. 15. 22. Hath the Lord as greate pleasure in burnt-offrings and sacrifices as when the voyce ef the Lord is obeyed Perhapps you will say yet his will is that all should repent I answere his will commanding is so to all that heare it but his will decreeing is not that all shall repent that are commaunded to repent For then all should repent To say that God will have any thing come to passe which yet never comes to passe Austine hath long agoe professed to be as good as to deny Gods omnipotency And whereas repentance is the gift of God as the Scripture plainly testifieth it is apparent that God doth not give repentance unto all and therefore neyther did he will or determine to give repentance unto all God is sayd to love persons in as much as he willeth good things unto them God may be sayd to love things morall as repentance and obedience in as much as he will reward persons for theire repentance and obedience Neyther of these loves is accommodable to punishment no more then unto reward Yet looke in what respect God may be sayd to love the one so may he be sayd to love the other And the Apostle professeth of himselfe and his fellows that they were the good savour of the Lord even in them that perish And every man knoweth reward to be a fruite of justice remunerative as well as punishment is of justice vindicative and each presupposeth the will of God as well one as the other For God is not bound to punish sinne he may pardon it Nay how is he not bound to pardon all sinne of all men if so be Christ hath made satisfaction for the sinnes of all And with these Tenets of yours you are growne so farre in love that because some schoole poynts doe not beare such faire wether towards them as might be wished you woulde put the maintayners of them upon some better explication of such Tenets The Tenet is that God doth punish sinners in the life to come citra condignum The Moderne divines as it seemes by your margent are Calvin Zanchy that maintayne this against whom you oppose Coppenius a Lutheran I guesse I doe not thinke he is a Papist Sure I am Bradwardine and Gerson maintayne the same and as I remenber it is most generally receaved amongst the Schoolemen And as for Coppenius his reasons when he demaunds whether God doth remit ought for Christs satisfaction or no I answere it is not for Christs satisfaction but merely according to the good pleasure of his owne will And when he urgeth that of Iames Iudgement mercylesse shall be to him that sheweth no mercy I answere that like as when the Apostle prayeth for Onesiphorus that he may find mercy at that day his meaning can be no other then this that his sinnes might be pardoned and his soule saved so likewise in just proportion they may be sayd to tast of judgement mercylesse whose sinners are not pardoned and whose soules are not saved As for your reason it is grounded merely upon a fiction of your owne that subjecteth the delight of God unto degrees whereas his simplicitie freeth him as well from composition of degrees as from any other kind of composition as also unto change even there where you undertake to cleere God from change If Iudas had bin saved and Peter damned God had still bin the same and no other then now he is as touching will and delight and every thinge that is in God But by the way let me tell you you corrupt the state of the question in supposing that by this Tenet which you dislike the punishment of reprobation is lesse then divine justice exacts For they maintayne no such thing but rather the contrary that no degree of punishment is exacted by any justice in God but left indifferent to the determination of Gods will And therefore Bradwardine distinguisseth betweene meritum actuale and meritum potentiale Meritum actuale is in reference to such a degree of punishment or reward which the will of God hath determined But meritum potentiale is in reference to any degree of reward or punishment which God might have determined And Gerson professeth that when a sinne is committed it is merely in the good pleasure of God to inflict what kinde or degree of punishment he will 2. Your text is to proove that Gods nature admitteth no change albeit of a loveing Father he becomes a severe judge albeit his tender love be turned into wrath And for proofe of this you thinke it enough to say that the change is in man and that Gods wrath kindles not but out of the ashes of his love despised To this you take on an other poynt nothing at all to the purpose that Gods wrath is in proportion to mens sinnes neyther lesse nor more and this you prosequuâ—e a whole leafe and more that what you want of solid answere you may supply by silling mens eyes with an idle discourse Well we have considered what your discourse hath bin on the by touching this that mens punishments are not lesse then theire deserts Now let us consider your following extravagancy in shewing that mens punishments are not more then theire deserts And here you tell us that to thinke God should punish sinne unlesse it were truly against his will or any sinne more deeply then it is against his will and pleasure is one of those 3. grosse transformations of the divine nature which Saint Austine refutes For thus to doe is