we acknowledge of predestination both in the way of a meritorious cause on Christs part and in the way of a disposing cause on our part For God we say hath predestinated to bestow upon us both grace and glory for Christs sake where Christ is made a meritorious cause of grace and glory but not of the act of predestination And farther we say that God hath predestinated to bestow glory upon us as a reward of grace as a reward of faith repentance and good workes and to this purpose it is said that God by his grace doth make us meet partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Coloss 1. 12. But as for the bestowing of grace on any we say there is no cause thereof on mans part For he hath mercy on whom he will Rom. 9. 18. and he hath called us with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his own purpose and grace 2 Timoth. 1. 9. Now let us apply this to reprobation which is the will of God as well as predestination and if there can be no cause of predestination quoad actum Praedestinantis because there can be no cause of the will of God quoad actum volentis Who seeth not that by the same reason there can be no cause of reprobation quoad actum reprobantis And if it be a mad thing to maintain that merits are the cause of predestination quoad actum praedestinantis it must be as mad a thing to maintain that any merits of the creature can be the cause of reprobation quoad actum reprobantis And this doctrine Aquinas applies expresly to Reprobation it selfe upon the 9. Rom. Lect. 2 da at the end of these words Praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis but how ex parte actus reprobantis nothing lesse but rather ex parte effectus and what effect not the denying of grace but only as touching the inflicting of punishment thus Praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis ex parte paenae quae praeparatur reprobatis in quantum scilicet Deus proponit se puniturum malos propter peccata quae à seipsis habent non à Deo And farther we prove this both by cleare evidence of Scripture and cleare evidence of reason and thirdly by as cleare a representation of their infatuation that oppose this doctrine and particularly of the Author of this discourse First by cleare evidence of Scripture Rom. 9. 11. Where the Apostle proves that Election stands not of good works by an argument drawn from the circumstance of the time when that Oracle The elder shall serve the younger was delivered together with the present condition of Jacob and Esau answerable to that time thus Before the children were borne or had done good or evill it was said to Rebecca The Elder shall serve the Younger Therefore the purpose of God according to Election stands not of good workes Now look by what strength of reason the Apostle concludes this of Election by the same strength of argumentation may I conclude of reprobation in proportion thus Before the Children were borne or had done Good or Evill it was said to Rebecca The Elder shall serve the Younger therefore the purpose of God according to reprobation stands not of evill workes that is like as good workes are not the cause of Election so evill workes are not the cause of Reprobation to wit quoad actum reprobantis as touching the very act and eternall decree of God it selfe Secondly observe I pray whether my reason be not as cleare If God upon the foresight of sin doth ordain a man unto damnation thus I am content to propose it in the most rigorous manner then this is done either by necessity of nature or by the constitution of God Not by necessity of nature as it is confessed and the cause is evident for undoubtedly he could annihilate them and so he can the holiest creature that lives as all sides confesse Therefore it must be by the constitution of God but neither can this hold For if so then God did constitute that is ordaine that upon the foresight of sin he would ordaine men unto damnation Where observe that the act of divine ordination is made the object of divine ordination as much as to say he did ordaine to ordaine or he did decree to decree Whereas the objects of Gods decrees are alwaies things temporall as for example We say well God did decree to create the world to make man out of the earth to send Christ into the World to preserve us to redeeme us sanctify us save us But Gods ordination or decree is an act eternall and cannot be the object of his decree or ordination I challenge all the Powers of darknes to answer this and to vindicate the Tenent which I impugne from that absurdity which I charge upon it if they can O but some will say it 's very harsh to say that God of his meer pleasure doth ordain men unto damnation I am content to doe my endeavour to remove this scandall out of the way of honest hearts yea and out of the way of others also First therefore consider is it fit to resist the evidence of divine truth because it is harsh to mens affections Secondly Wherein consists this harshnesse Is it in this that nothing is the cause of Gods decree and will nothing temper the harshnes of it unles a thing temporall as sinne be made the cause of Gods will which is eternall and even God himselfe But let us deale plainly and tell me in truth whether the harshnes doth not consist in this That the meer pleasure of Gods will seems to be made the cause not of Gods decree only but of damnation also as if God did damne men not for sin but of his meer pleasure And this I confesse is wondrous harsh and yet no more harsh then it is untrue though in this jugling world things are so carried by some who will both shuffle and cutt and deale themselves as if we made God of meer pleasure to damne men and not for sin which is a thing utterly impossible damnation being such a notion as hath essentiall reference unto sin But if God damne no man but for sinne and decreed to damne no man but for sinne what if the meer pleasure of God be the cause of this decree what harshnes I say is this As for example Zimri or Cosby perished in their incestuous act and gave up both lust and ghost together so going as it were quick to Hell never fearing the judgements of God untill they felt them If we say God decreed they should be cut off in this sin of theirs and be damned for it What hatshnes I pray in this though God made this decree of meer pleasure For is it not manifest he did For could he not if it had pleased him have caused them to outlive this sin of theirs and given them space for repentance and
understandings purged from prejudice and false principles 5. My fifth argument is this If sinne be the cause of Reprobation that is of the decree of damnation then either by necessity of nature or by the constitution of God not by necessity of nature as all that hitherto I have known confesse But I say neither can it be by the free constitution of God for mark what a notorious absurdity followeth hence and that unavoidably namely that God did ordaine that upon foresight of sinne he would ordaine them to damnation marke it well God did ordaine that he would ordaine or God did decree that he would decree In which words Gods eternall decree is made the object of Gods decree Whereas it is well known that the objects of Gods decrees are meerely things temporall and cannot be things eternall we truly say God did decree to create the World to preserve the World to redeeme us call us justify us sanctify and save us but it cannot be truly said that God did decree to decree or ordaine to ordaine for to decree is the act of Gods will and therefore it cannot be the object of the act of Gods will Yet these arguments I am not so enamoured with as to force the interpretations of Scripture to such a sense as is sutable hereunto presuming of the purity of my understanding as purged from prejudice and false principles I could willingly content my selfe with observation of the Apostles discourse in arguing to this effect Before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it was said the elder shall serve the younger therefore the purpose of God according to election stands not of works In like manner may I discourse Before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it was said the elder shall serve the younger therefore the purpose of God concerning Reprobation stands not of works And like as hence it is inferred that therefore election stands not of good works so therehence may I inferre that therefore reprobation stands not of evill works 6. If sinne foreseen be the cause meritorious of reprobation then faith and repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto election For therefore evill works foreseen are made the meritorious cause of reprobation because evill works exsistent are the meritorious cause of damnation And if this be true then also because Faith and Repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto salvation then by the same force of reason faith repentance and good workes foreseen must be the disposing cause unto election But faith repentance and good workes foreseen are not the disposing causes unto election as I prove thus 1. If they were then the purpose of God according to election should be of faith repentance and good works which is expressely denyed by the Apostle as touching the last part and may as evidently be proved to be denied by him in effect of the other parts also by the same force of argumentation which he useth as for example from this anticedent of the Apostles before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it no more evidently followeth that therefore the purpose of God according to election is not of workes than it followeth that the same purpose of God according to election is not of faith nor of repentance For before they were borne they were no more capable of faith or of repentance than of any other good works And undoubtedly faith and repentance are as good works as any other 2. If God doth absolutely work faith in some and not in others according to the meer pleasure of his will then it cannot be said that faith foreseen is the cause of any mans election For in this case faith is rather the means of salvation then salvation a means of faith and consequently the intention of salvation rather precedes the intention of faith than the intention of faith can be said to precede the intention of salvation And to this the Scripture accords Acts 1348. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life making ordination to everlasting life the cause why men believed answerable hereunto is that Acts 2. last God added daily to the Church such as should be saved and that of Paul to Titus according to the faith of Gods elect So that according to Pauls phrase fides est electorum but according to the Arminians Doctrine the inverse hereof is a more proper and naturall predication as to say electio est fidelium But God doth absolutely work faith in some men according to the meer pleasure of his will denying the same grace to others which I prove 1. By Scripture Rom. 9. 18. God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth compared with Rom. 11. 30. Yee in times past have not believed but now have obtained mercy where it appears by the Antithesis that to find mercy is to believe that is to obtain the grace of faith at the hands of God in Saint Pauls phrase 2. By cleare reason for if it be not the meer pleasure of Gods will that is the cause hereof then the cause hereof must be some good workes which he finds in some and not in others whence it manifestly followeth that God giveth grace according unto works which in the phrase of the ancients is according to merits and for 1200 years together this hath been reputed in the Church of God meere Pelagianisme 2. I further demand what that good worke is whereupon God workes it in one when he refuseth to worke it in another Here the answer I find given is this that God doth work in man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle credere modo velit Now of the absurdity hereof I appeale to the very light of nature and let all the books that ever were written on this argument be searched and let it be enquired whether ever any did expresse themselves in the manner of so palpable and grosse absurdity as wherein the act of willing is made the condition of it selfe whence it followeth evidently that it must be both before it selfe and after it selfe for the condition must allwaies exsist before the thing conditionated Yet they are driven upon these rocks of absurdities in spight of their teeth so shamefull is the issue of their discourses who in hatred of Gods truth revealed in Gods word and in a proud conceit of their own performances in the way of argumentation dare prescribe rules to all others how to carry themselves in the interpretation of Scriptures as namely to be so warie as that they doe not deliver any thing repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles as if the word of God supposed them that are admitted to the studying thereof to have their understandings already purged from prejudice and false principles not that it is given by God for this very end namely to purge our understandings for what is the illumination or opening of the eyes of the mind other than the purging of
law but under grace Rom. 6. 12. Now what encouragement is this to the Souldiers of Christ to goe on chearefully and couragiously in fighting the Lords battailes against the world the flesh and the Divell seing we are assured the day of victory and the glory of it shall be ours in the end God keeping us by his power through faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1. And delivering us from every evill worke to wit either by obedience or by repentance and preserving us to his heavenly kingdome and that either by delivering us from the houre aftentation which comes all over the world Revel 3. Or delivering us out of it 2 Pet 2. 9. Or having an eye to our strength so to order it that we shall be able to beare it 1 Cor 10. 14. As for those that have not yet any comfortable evidence of their election yet considering that they may have it and albeit the number of the elect are by farre fewer then the reprobate yet considering how few have the Gospell in comparison to those that enjoy it not though Turkes Saracens and Heathens are without hope Eph. 2. 12. and 1 Thess 4. 13. Yet we Christians are not yea albeit of them that are called but few are chosen Mat. 20. 16. and 22 14. Yet considering how many corrupt wayes there are amongst Christians Nestorians Armenians Abyssines or Coptites who joyne circumcision with the Gospel as in Egypt and Ethiopia the Greek Church denying the proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the sonne and corrupted with many other superstitions Lastly considering how farre Antichristanity is spred and the abominable Idolatry of the Church of Rome we whom God hath delivered out of Babylon have no cause I meane any particular person to project that because the elect are but few therefore we are not of the number of them and thereupon give over all care of hearkening to Gods word which is the power of God unto Salvation and may shew its power upon us also we knowe not how soone but rather as our Saviour answered being demanded of his disciples whether there were but few that should be saved saying strive you to enter in at the streight gate plainly giving to understand that as the gate is said to be streight that leadeth unto Life so there be but few that enter thereat therefore they should strive so much the more to be of the number of those few For what if along time we have little or nothing profited what if we have cause to doubt whether we have any true faith or no such doubts maybe better signes then we are awar of otherwise why should the Apostle exhort the Corinthians to examine themselves and prove whether they were in the faith or no But however it fairs with us doth not the Apostle plainely teach us that God calls some at the first houre of the day some at the the third some at the last 2. Now I come to the consideration of his answer to the objection as himself hath formed it And first I observe that whereas he pretends to build his answer upon consideration of the number of Reprobats without comparison greater then the number of the elect yet the absurd reasoning which he brings hereupon doth nothing at all depend on that For albeit the number of the elect were greater then the number of such as are Reprobats and that without comparison yet the reasoning here deduced from the contrary proposition hath equally place as in the contrary case As namely to reason thus Either I am absolutely chosen to grace and glory or absolutely cast off from both Secondly the joyning of grace and glory together as this Author doth joyne them in this reasoning shaped by him is a miserable confounding of things that differ For to be absolutely chosen unto grace is to be ordained to have grace conferred upon him not according to any worke of his but meerely according to the good pleasure of Gods will answerably to that of the Apostle God hath mercy on whom he will but no man is so chosen unto glory as namely to be ordained to have Salvation bestowed upon him not according unto workes but according to the meere pleasure of God if we speake of men of ripe yeares For God hath ordained to bestow Salvation on such only by way of reward of their faith repentance and good workes So on the other side to be asolutely cast off from grace is to be ordained to have grace denied him not according to any worke of his but meerely according to the good pleasure of Gods will like as Paul professeth that the Lord hardeneth whom he will But no man is so castaway from Glory or unto damnation as namely to be ordained to be deprived of Glory and to be damned meerely for the good pleasure of God but altogether for his infidelity impenitency and evill workes Thirdly no such thing followes as here is inferred from the supposition of election unto Salvation For seing no man is elected to obtaine Salvation whether he believe or no but only in case he believe hereupon men are rather excited to labour for faith then to be carelesse thereof and farther we say that as God hath ordained to bring them to Salvation so he hath ordained to bring them hereunto by sanctification and faith 2 Thess 2. 13. And the word of God is a powerfull meanes to worke them hereunto even to the working out of their Salvation with feare and trembling that because they are given to understand that God is he who wroketh in them both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure On the other side if a man be ordained to damnatiō yet seeing no man is ordained to be damned but for despising the means of grace in case he heare the Gospel for ought any man knowes he may as well be ordained to salvation as to damnation this I should think is rather an excitement not to despise or neglect the meanes of grace then to despise or neglect them Suppose God should not damne any man but annihilate them and suppose this were known unto us by the same argumentation it would follow that a man should have no care of good workes But this consequent is notoriously untrue For seeing the perfection of my reasonable nature whereby I differ from brute Beasts consisteth in knowledge and morall vertues and there is no knowledge that doth more ennoble us then the knowledge of God and no better rule of morality then the law of God surely it stood me upon in reason to strive according to my power to know God and to be obedient rather then otherwise although I know for certaine that after certaine yeares both body and soule should be returned unto nothing Come wee now to the consideration of this reasoning in respect of grace Suppose God hath elected me unto grace yet seeing he bestowes not grace but by his word therefore there is no reason I should neglect the use
consolation which hath his course not only with the Devills but even with them that are already under the torments of Hell fire But let not the authority of the booke of Wisdome with thee weigh up and elevate the authority of Scriptures nor Philo the Jew be preferred before S t Paul or the Prophet Malachy by whom wee are taught that as God loved Jacob before he was borne so he hated Esau and before they were borne what difference was there betweene them Yet this passage out of the booke of Wisdome is in a Collect of the Papists Liturgy I conceive a good sence may be made thereof without any prejudice to absolute reprobation for of Papists we ate sayd to have learnt it and are reproached for it And what is that good sense they make of it Take it if thou wilt from Aquinas 1. q 23. art 3 ad 1. Dicendum quod Deus omnes homines diligit etiam omnes creaturas in quantum omnibus vult aliquod bonum non tamen quodcunque bonum vult omnibus In quantum igitur quibusdam non vult hoc bonum quod est vita aeterna dicitur eos habere odio vel reprobare Now if we take this Colect from them let us take also their good meaning with it and if we can let us make it better and not worse We commonly say that passions are attributed to God not quoad affectum but quoad effectum Now the effect of hatred is either the denyall of grace or the denyall of glory or the inflicting of damnation The two latter are executed only according to mens sinnes but the first to wit the denyall of grace proceeds meerely according to the good pleasure of Gods will like as the giving of grace as the Apostle not Philo signifies that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Now to shew mercy is to bring a man to faith Rom. 11. 30. And if grace be not given according to the meere pleasure of Gods will it must be given according unto workes which is as much as to say in the phrase of the ancients according unto merits which all along hath been condemned in the Church of God as meere Pelagianisme Yet hitherto tends all the consolation that Arminianisme can reach forth unto thee which is to afford thee no better consolation then can be afforded to a Reprobate 2. As for Adams transgression let not that affright thee who art borne within the pale of the Church and of Christian parents for the children of such are holy 1 Cor. 7. when all others are uncleane Yet why should any man find it strange that some of them who are guilty of eternall death should suffer eternall death And this Author hath formerly confessed that Adams sinne hath made all his posterity guilty of eternall death Now albeit God hates many whether as involved in Adams transgression or no what matters that to thy discomfort if he hate not thee And what ground hast thou to conceive that thou art in the number of them whom he hates rather then of those whom he loves He is no good Physitian that lookes not into the cause of the desease to remoove that nor he any good comforter that lookes not into the cause of thy discomfort to remoove them It is to be thought that such an one desires rather to feed thy discomfort then to cure it Such is the practice of this comforter otherwise he should not apply his arguments of comfort which he magnifies as the strongest with as much art and cunning as can be But understand him aright this art and cunning tends not to the furtherance of thy consolation but to the advantage of his owne Arminian cause and to this end I confesse he doth apply them with as much art and cunning as he can 2. And God hath a two-fold love a generall love which puts forth it selfe in outward and temporall blessings only and with this he loves all men And a speciall by which he provides everlasting life for men and with this only he loves a very few which out of his alone will and pleasure he singled from the rest Under this generall love am I not the speciall CONSIDERATION 1. As touching the distinction hold thee to it least otherwise thou never proove capable of more comfort then a Reprobate is capable of No Arminian hath the face to deny that God saves but a very few And the reason is because very few doe believe and repent in this we all agree Againe no Arminian denies that very few doe believe and repent and finally persevere therein Againe no Arminian denies faith and repentance to be the gift of God and that hereby alone men are singled out from the rest Now the question is Whether God singleth out some men from the rest by giving them faith and repentance according to the meere pleasure of his will or according to their workes We say according to the meere pleasure of Gods will for he hath mercy on whom he will Rom 9. 18. Arminians say according to mens workes and hereupon in the issue comes all their consolations to be grounded that is upon a notorious Heresy condemned above 1200 yeare agoe 2. But as touching the accommodation of this distinction unto thy selfe saing thou art under Gods generall love not under his speciall I pray the tell me what ground thou hast for that what one of Gods elect while they were in the state of nature had not as greate cause to be as uncomfortable as thy selfe and why maist not thou be in Gods good time in as comfortable a condition as any of them and to say as John doth see what love the father hath shewed us that we should be called the sonnes of God dost thou mourne for thy sinne or no if thou dost not Why shouldest thou looke to be partaker of those comforts which are peculiar to them that mourne If thou dost thy Saviour hath said Blessed are they that mourne for they shall be comforted Dost thou hunger and thirst after the favour of God and to be made partaker of the righteousnesse of Christ which alone can give thee assurance of thine election If thou doest not hunger and thirst after this why shouldest thou be cast downe because thou hast not this assurance If thou doest desire this assurance and to that purpose hast an hungry appetite after the righteousnesse of Christ thy Saviour saith Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousnesse for they shall be filled Or hast thou a desire to have thy sinnes pardoned and thy soule saved but not any desire that thy soule may be sanctified what comfort shouldest thou or any such expect at the hands of God Thou wouldest serve the Devill but thou wouldest not goe to hell with the Devill But I tell thee God hath decreed the contrary namely that all such shall have this doome Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angells Yet
his trust in himself with Gods concurrence as if otherwise a mans condition were uncomfortable and the way were open to desperation But what doth Austin answer to such like discourses of old de Predest sanct cap 22. An vero timendum est ne nunc de se homo desperet quando spes ejus demonstratur ponenda in Deo non autem desperaret si eam in se ipso superbissimus infelicissimus poneret Is it to be feared least a man despaire when it is proved that a mans hope is to be placed in God and that he is free from despaire in case he place his hope in himselfe most proudly and most unhappily As for that which he cites out of Melancthon it is every way as much to the purpose as that which he cited out of Calvin in the first Section Melancthon sayeth we must judge of Gods will by his Word so saith Calvin his words are these Qui recte atque ordine electionem investigant qualiter in verbo continetur eximium inde referunt consolationis fructum To enquire after a mans election in the Word is the way to reape singular consolation But they that enquire after the eternall counsell of God without the Word in exitialem abyssum se ingurgitant they plung themselves into a gulfe of perdition Yet when Melancthon sayeth multa disput antur durius the comparative there is not to be rendred as this Authour renders it more harshly but rather thus somwhat harshly And of Melancthons concurrence with Calvin in the doctrine of predestination as touching the substance of the doctrine I have formerly shewed out of his owne Epistle who professeth that he differeth only tradendi ratione in the manner of delivering it and of his owne professeth that they are of a popular nature thus Mea sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adusum accommodata as it were woven with a thicker thred and fited to use and practise No man doubts but that as Melanchton saith it is Gods immutable commandement to heare the Son and to assent to the promise and the promise is universall to wit that whosoever believeth shall be saved Therefore let us not seeke election besides the Word it is a grave counsell and well becomming Melancthon and Calvin gives the very same councell in the very Booke Chapter and Section last related by this Author But he saw it fitter for his turne to represent Melancthon professing as much rather then Calvin We nothing doubt but God will performe that he hath promised and therefore whosoever believeth shall be saved according to our doctrine not so according to the doctrine of Arminians who maintaine that a man may totally and finally fall away from faith Rogers upon the Articles of the Church of England Art 17. Not only acknowledgeth this universality of Gods promises according to the Tenor of that Article but concludeth herehence That they are not to be heard that say that the number of the elect is but small and seeing we are uncertaine whether we be of that company or no we will proceed in our course as we have begunne and accompts all such adversaries of this truth touching the universality of Gods promises and let every sober man judge whether this Author doth not justify this their discourse whom he accompts adversaries to the truth of that Article in that particular The same Rogers in his 8 proposition as touching the comfortable nature of predestination writs thus This doctrine of predestination is to the Godly ful sweet pleasant and comfortable because it greatly confirmeth their faith in Christ and encreaseth their love towards God But saith he to the wicked and reprobate the consideration hereof is very sower unsavory and most uncomfortable as that which they think though very untruly and sinfully causeth them either to despaire of his mercy being without faith or not to feare his justice being extreamely wicked whereas neither from the Word of God nor any confession of the Church can man gather that he is a vessell of wrath prepared to damnation What more contradictions to this Authors discourse of the uncomfortable condition of predestination according to our way yet who was this Authour was he at any time accompted an innovatour in this Church His books dedicated to Arch-Bishop Bancroft writing upon the Articles of the Church of England perused and by the lawfull authority of the Church of England allowed to be publick And because some choosing to play at small game rather then sit out may say that he speakes not a word of absolute election or absolute reprobation let his 5. Proposition be observed which is this Of the meere pleasure of God some men in Christ Jesus are elected and not others unto salvation this he prooves by that Rom. 9. 11. That the purpose of God might remaine according to election And that Eph. 1. 5. Who doth predestinate us according to the good pleasure of his will And that 2 Tim. 1. 9. Not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace And that Exod. 33. 19. And Rom. 9. 15. I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy And as touching the other part of not choosing others that of Solomon Prov. 16. 4. The Lord hath made all things for his owne sake yea even the wicked against the day of evill And Rom. 9. 21. Hath not the Potter power over the clay to make of the same lumpe one vessell unto honour and an other unto dishonour And comming unto the Errours and adversaries of this truth Hereby saith he is discovered the impiety of those men which think that 1. Man doth make himselfe elegible for the Kingdome of Heaven by his owne good workes and merits so teach the Papists 2. God beheld in every man whether he would use his grace well and believe the Gospell or no and as he saw man so he did predestinate choose or refuse him 3. Besides his will there was some other cause in God why he chose one man and cast off another but this cause is hidden from us 4. God is partiall and unjust for choosing some and refusing others calling many and electing but few The other place alleadged by this Author of Melancthon partly repeates the same matter concerning the universality of the promises no mention at all with him either of the universality of Gods love or of the universality of Christs death or of the universality of the Covenant of grace partly opposeth it to dangerous imaginations of predestination what are these but such as proceed without the word For without doubt it is to be understood in opposition to that which he formerly delivered advising us to judge of the will of God by his expresse Word and all one with seeking election extra verbum formerly specified of both which Calvin speakes more at large in that very place aleadged by this Author in the first Section of this last sort of Arguments And there Calvin commends the one as a
which he will and proper in the thing whereto he sends it And remove all vaine grounds of apprehensions of terrible things against themselves What if a great many be reprobated from grace and shall never have any part in Christ it doth not follow that this afflicted soule is any of them what one is there of the children of God which was not sometimes dead in sinne and if pangs of childbirth goe before the delivering of a child into the world of nature why should it seeme strange that pangs of childbirth are suffered before a man be brought forth in to the world of grace And these feares and terrours wherwith this poore soule is perplexed may be unto her as pangs of childbirth to bring her forth into a new world We say that by Gods Word we are to conceive that ye are elected upon our faith and repentance Thus Paul concluded the election of the Thessalonians 1 Thess 1. 3 4. And 2 Thess 2. 13. Thus Melancthon would have us seeke it but by the Arminian doctrine it is in vaine to seeke after it for as much as none can find it We acknowledge that as our Saviour saith Few are chosen therefore we admonish every one to strive to enter in at the straight gate This was our Saviours exhortation delivered by way of answer to a question made unto him by his Apostles Whether there were but few that should be saved We teach that Christ hath died for the people of God for the elect of God for his Church for his body not only to make satisfaction for sinne and to procure salvation for them in case they believe but to procure also the Holy Spirit for them to make them believe and repent c. And this is wrought by the word which is the sword of the spirit We take not the course he obtrudes upon us We make no such distinctions for the consolation of the afflicted as he faignes We deale plainly and spare not to professe that albeit salvation is open to all that believe and that by the ordinance of God yet that no man is able of himselfe to believe or repent for as much as the Scripture testifies that all are dead in sinne in the state of nature and led captive by the Divell to doe his will and that the very Law of God doth strengthen sinne such being the course of mans corruption that the more he is forbidden this or that the more it provokes him to transgresse taking occasion by the law to work in mans heart all manner of concupiscence this is our course to beat downe the pride of man and beat out of him all conceit of ability to doe any good as of himselfe and so to cast him downe at the feet of Gods mercy Yet God is able by his grace to quicken him and being brought up in the Church of God wherein is the balme of Gilead able to heale our waies be they never so sinfull and that that is administred not according to the vile workes of men as if they had any power to prepare them for the participation of Gods grace but of the meere favour and good pleasure of God Who calleth as the Apostle speakes 2 Tim. 1. 9. with an holy calling not according to our own workes but according to his own purpose and grace And that for the merits of Christ who hath merited not only pardon of sinne and salvation for all that believe but faith also and regeneration for all his elect and being as we are members of Gods Church we have no cause to despaire but sooner or later God may call us as continually he doth some or other and we know not how soone our turne may come And as for Gods purpose touching the performance of the condition of faith we plainly professe That God purposed to give faith and repentance only to his elect according to that Act. 13. 48. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life And Acts 2. last God added daily to his Church such as should be saved Now heare I pray their doctrine on the other side which set out our manner of consolation devised most ridiculously at their own pleasure so to expose our doctrine to scorne Doth God purpose to bestow faith and repentance upon any other besides his elect This they must avouch if they contradict us and that he purposeth to bestow it on all and every one but how Not absolutely on any that is not according to the meere pleasure of his will how then Surely conditionally to wit according to mens workes that so not Semi-Pelagianisme only but plain Pelagianisme may be commended unto Gods Church for true Christianisme And what is that worke in man whereupon God workes faith or repentance in them Surely the will to believe the will to repent So that if all men will believe will repent then in good time through Gods grace they shall believe they shall repent and if this be not to crowne Gods grace with a crowne of scornes as Christ himselfe was crowned with a Crowne of Thornes I willingly professe I know not what it is We utterly deny that God hath two wills one contrary to the other We acknowledge that in Scripture phrase Gods commandement is called his will as This is the will of God even your sanctification 1 Thess 4. 3. But this is not that will of God which the Apostle speakes of when he saith Who hath resisted his will Rom. 9. 19 For his will of commandement is resisted too oft But the will he speaketh off there is the will of Gods purpose and decree whereof the Psalmist speakes saying Whatsoever the Lord will that hath he done both in Heaven and earth Now suppose God command Abraham to sacrifice his sonne Isaack and yet decrees that Isaack shall not be sacrificed both which are as true as the word of God is true yet there is no contradiction For as much as his commandement signifies only Gods will what shall be Abrahams duty to doe not what shall be done by Abraham On the other side Gods decree signifies what shall not be done by Abraham Now what contradiction I pray is there betweene these It is Gods will that it shall be Abrahams duty to sacrifice Isaack but it is not Gods will that Isaack shall be sacrificed by Abraham for as much as when Abraham comes to the poynt of sacrificing Isaack the Lord purposeth to hold his hand In like manner God commanded Pharaoh to let Israell goe It was his will then that it should be Pharaohs duty to let Israel goe but withall he toâ—d Moses that he would harden Pharaohs heart that he should not let Israel goe whereby it is man iâ— est that God decreed that Israel should not be dismissed by Pharaoh for a while and that as is signified in the Text to make way for his judgements to be brought upon the land of Egypt whereby God meant to glorify himselfe as in the sight of Pharaoh and of his
nostrum Dei per praevenientem gratiam nostrum per subsequenteÌ„ liberam voluntatem The good that we doe is both God's worke and ours of God by Grace preventing ours by free will following To this Remigius answers and first he saith Hincmarus discoureseth after such a manner as if a good worke were partly God's worke and partly ours And againe as if the beginning of a good worke were God's but the effect thereof of man's free will although as he Hincmarus doth endeavour to temper this speech of his by the addition of grace not by the fulnesse of it gratiae adjunctione non etiam plenâ—tudine by the adjunction of grace not also by the fulnesse of it So he should have done saith Remigius cum verè totum sit Dei seeing indeed the whole is God's worke As the truth it selfe saith without me ye can do nothing And the Apostle what hast thou that that thou hast not received whence the blessed and glorious Martyr Cyprian hath so defined it saying we must glory in nothing seeing nothing is ours and concludes thus Bonum itaque nostrum totum Dei est quia totum est ex Deo nihil boni nostri nostrum est quia nihil boni nostri est ex nobis Therefore our good workes are holy God's and noe good of ours is ours because it is not of us and to reconcile this seeming contradiction in calling it our good yet denying it to be from us he concludes thus omne bonum nostrum totum Dei est donando totum nostrum est accipiendo Every good thing of ours is wholy God's in as much as he gives it and it becomes ours full and whole for as much as we receive it Fulgentius is plaine for it to lib. 1. ad Monium pag. 6. These whome God foresaw would dye in sinne he decrees should live in endles punishment I may take in Saint Austine and Prosper also who are judged to be the Patrons of he absolute Decree as it is set downe in the Sublapsarian way even they doe many times let fall such speeches as cannot fairely be reconciled with absolute Reprobation I will only cite Prosper for Saint Austine speakes in him he discoursing of some that fall a way à Sanctitate ad immunditiem from holinesse to uncleannesse saith they that fall away from holinesse to uncleannesse lye not under a necessity of perishing because they were not predestinate but therefore they were not predestinate because they were knowne to be such by voluntary praevarication Not long after speaking of the same men he saith Because God foresaw they would perish by their owne free will therefore he did not by any predestination lever them from the children of perdition And againe in his answer to the twelvth objection he hath these words God hath not withdrawne from any man ability to yeeld obedience because he hath not predestinated him but because he foresaw he would fall from obedience therefore he hath not predestinated him They are I confesse the wordes of Fulgentius in the 25 chapter of his first booke ad Monium and in the very next chapter he doth expresse himselfe in this manner on the point of predestination unto glory praedestinavit illos ad snpplicium quos à se praescivit voluntatis malae vitio decessuros praedestinavit ad regnum quos ad se praescivit misericordiae praevenientis auxilio redituros in se misericordiae subsequentis auxilio mansuros He predestinateth those untopunishment whom he foresaw to be such as would depart from him through the fault of a naughty will and he predestinated to the kingdome those whom he foresaw to be such as would returne unto him by the help of mercy prevenient and would persevere in him by the helpe of grace subsequent So that upon the same ground he may as well deny predestination unto salvation to be absolute in the opinion of Fulgentius as predestination unto damnation Now Vossius in his preface to the Pelagian Historie having first confessed that all Antients agreed in this That God did not ordaine any other unto eternall salvation then such who by his mere gift of grace should have the beginning of faith and good will and persevere in that which is good as it was foreseen by him In the next place acknowledgeth that Austine and Prosper and the Authour of the booke de vocatione Gentium and Fulgentius unto this common opinion of Catholiques did adde this That this praescience Divine did flow from God's absolute Decree to save them This I say Vossius writes though I see no cause to regard his judgment in this Argument His distinction is very well knowne of will absolute and will conditionall which will conditionate he examplifies thus as when God will have salvavation conferred upon a man in case he doth believe what one of our Divines doth deny a conditionall will in this sense in reference to salvation Now what one of the Antients the Pelagians excepted can this Authour produce that doth affirme any such will to be in God for the bestowing of faith upon a man For to maintaine this were in plaine Termes to maintaine that it was the will of God that grace should bestowed according unto workes But if the grace of God be bestowed merely according to the good pleasure of God as Saint Paule saith God hath mercy on whom he will By this it is aparent that this decree is absolute and consequently that predestination is absolute And thus Austine coupleth together the doctrine of the bestowing grace not according unto workes And his Doctrine of predestination as inseparable each to be granted or denied together with the other Because this Authour pretends it to be needles to cite Austine and sufficient to cite Prosper adding that Austine speakes in him to wit after he was Dead such is this Authours jugling course with his Reader therefore I will represent Austine himselfe proposing the objection made by the Massilienses against Austin's doctrine of predestination as it was sent unto him by Prosper and then answering it not leaving it unto Prosper to answer for him See the objection sed aiunt ut scribitis neminem posse correptionis stimulis excitari si dicatur in conventu Ecelesiae audientibus multis It a se habet de praedestinatione definita sententia voluntatis Dei ut alii ex vobis de infidelitate accepta obediendi voluntate veneritis ad fidem vel accepta perseverantia maneatis in fide c. But they say as ye write that none can be stirred up by the Goad of correption if it be said in the Congregation in the hearing of many such as touching predestination is the determinate sentence of the will of God that some of you receiving an obedient will shall come from infidelitie unto faith or receiving perseverance shall continue in the faith But the rest who continue in sinfull delights therefore you have not risen because the succour of
That God doth supply to all men sufficient and necessary meanes of salvation with an intention of saving them letteth downe this Antiâ—hesis God doth not administer to all men meanes needfull and sufficient to salvation and that with an intention of saving them And to this his Antithesis Polyander Walâ—us and Thyscus three other professours of Divinity in the Lowcountryes did set their hands It is a usuall course with this Authour to lay unto our charge that God hath immutably decreed this or that So that if we had said that all this were decreed by God not immutably but mutably we should not incurre the danger of his displeasure so immutably and unavoydably as we do Now to decree not immutably but mutably is a phrase that I no where meet with but among men of this Authours spirit the congruity whereof I willingly professe is so farre from mine understanding as no phrase more If they would in the name of common sense expound themselves unto us then we should soone consider what Answer we are to give in We willingly professe that all Gods decrees are unchangeable but of decreeing a thing unchangeably not any of our Divines discourse that I know of We say that God decreeth some things to come to passe necessarily and some things to come to passe contingently so doth Aquinas and we understand his language right well and approve his doctrine in this particular We willingly confesse that as God hath chosen some whom he meanes to deliver from that bondage of sinne and Satan whereinto all are cast by the transgression of Adam And how to deliver them Surely by bestowing the spirit of grace and regeneration upon them so to open their eyes and bring them out of darkenesse into light and from the power of Satan unto God In few words by bestowing faith and repentance upon them All others he hath from everlasting determined not to shew the like grace and favour unto For we see by experience that to many he gives not faith and repentance And looke how he carryeth himselfe towards any persons in time after the same manner he determined to carry himselfe from everlasting And the Scripture expresly tels us that even of them that are called but few are chosen and consequently the number of reprobates must needs be farre greater then the number of the elect Now as many as God hath decreed to deny faith and repentance unto we hold it impossibile for them upon this supposition to be recovered out of the bondage of sinne and Satan because the Scripture in divers places expresly tells us that faith is the gift of God repentance is the gift of God and therefore to whomsoever he will not be so gracious as to give faith and repentance we judge it a thing impossible upon this supposition that any of them should believe should repent And more then this as touching every particular here delivered we account it so apparently testified in holy Scripture that we wonder not a little with what face this Authour can deny it Nay we verily believe that he belives all these as well as we And the true point of Substantiall difference betweene us is conceled by him all along which is an argument of no ingenuity but yet I beare with him in following Lysanders counsell when the Lyons skin will not hold out to peece it out with a fox skin least otherwise his Pelagian tenet would be discovered in a most palpable and grosse manner For undoubtedly he believes that faith is the gift of God as also that it is impossible that they should believe to whom God will not give faith But his tenet is that God is ready and willing to give faith to all not absolutely but conditionally to wit in case they make themselves fit for it by performing somewhat on their parts Now this is as good as in expresse termes to professe that Grace is conferred according to merits or according unto workes For betweene works and merits in this controversy there is no difference as Bellarmine acknowledgeth And in the Epistle of Prosper to Austin they are taken promiscuously as of the same force and signification Now this doctrine is expresly contradictory to the word of God God hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our owne workes but according to his owne purpose and grace The like we have Tit. 3. 5. And in like manner this doctrine hat beene condemned in the Church of God as the sowre leaven of Pelagianisme from the Synod of Palestine above 1200 yeares agoe all along and Pelagius himselfe was driven to subscribe to the Canons of that Synod of Palestine wherein Anathema was pronounced upon them that do or shall maintaine that Grace is conferred according unto workes If God hath decreed not to bestow faith upon a man if he hath not decreed to bestow upon him the gift of charity it is impossible that any worke can be done by such a one proceeding from faith and love and consequently such a one hath no liberty from sinne and that no such liberty is found in a naturall man in an unregenerate is the doctrine of our Church by D. Potters confession a Cathedrall Divine I do not say by the constant doctrine of D. Fulke in his answer to the Rhemish Testament and if no liberty from sinne be found in such a one it followes that such a one remaines under a necessity of sinning not that every sinne whether of lying stealing whoring murther or in any other kind is necessarily committed by him For a naturall man may be as morall as any heathen hath beene many of whom have beene very famous and renowned in the world for their morality But whether they are exercised in vertuous actions or in abstaining from actions vicious yet still they sinne forasmuch as they neither performe the one nor abstaine from the other in a gracious manner out of faith and love And therefore Austin was somewhere bold to stile them Splendida peccata glorious sinnes For novimus non officiis sed finibus discernendas esse virtutes Vertues are to be discerned not by their offices but by their ends The Helen we fight for is nothing but the word of God and the truth manifestly contained therein namely concerning the prerogative of his grace as effectuall to every good worke and most Freely given to some and denyed to others not according to mens workes according to that of S. Paul God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth This is a part of Gods soveraignty And it stands all true subjects upon to maintaine the lawfull Soveraignty of their Princes how much more doth it become the creature to stand for the lawfull prerogative and Soveraignty of his Creator especially when he proceeds herein according to the tenour of Gods word cleare reason and the unanimous consent of all the orthodoxe in the Church of God clearely opposing Pelagius herein from the
have answered it and shewed the absurd interpretation that he makes of it He vaunts that he hath proved reprobation absolute to be unjust when he hath performed no thing lesse But making only a greate cracke he goes out like a squib and throughout meddles not with one argument that our Divines bring out of Scripture or reason to justifie their doctrine concerning the absolutenesse of reprobation And it is apparent that he denies the absolutenesse of election as well as the absolutenesse of reprobation and consequently must necessarily maintaine that grace is given according to works whereupon it was that Austin grounded his doctrine concerning the absolutenesse of Predestination And upon the like ground have we as good cause to ground our doctrine concerning the absolutenesse of reprobation it being every way as evident that Grace is not denied according unto works as that it is not granted according to mens works And the Scripture is equally as expresse concerning both where it is said that as God hath mercy on whom he will so also whom he will he hardneth Pag 75. 76. Treating of God's sincerity Sub-sect 1. There are two passages inserted taken out of Piscator before the passages alleadged out of Zanchy and Bucer For having said that Now God's meaning is by this doctrine that the most of those to whom he offereth his grace and glory shall have neither forthwith he gives instance in Piscator thus And so Piscator saith Grace is not offered by God even to those who are called with a meaning to give it but to the Elect only Gratia non offertur à Deo singulis â—licet vocatis animo communicandi eam sed solis electis In the same booke he hath such an other speech Non vult Deus reprobos credere liâ—etliâ—gua profiteatur se velle Though God in words protest he would have reprobates to believe yet indeed he will not have them they make God to deale with men in matters of salvation as the Poets feigne the Gods to have dealt with poore Tantalus They placed him in a cleare and goodly river up to the very chin and under a tree which bare much sweet and pleasant fruit that did almost touch his lips but this they did with a purpose that he should tast of neither For when he put his mouth to the water to drinke it waved away from him And when he reached his hand to the fruit to have eaten of it it withdrew it selfe presently out of his reach so as he could neither eate nor drinke Just so dealeth God with reprobates by their doctrine He placeth them under the plentifull meanes of salvation offereth it to them so plainly that men would thinke they might have it when they will yet intendeth fully they shall never have it withholding from them either the first grace that they cannot believe or the second grace that they cannot persevere Did not those gods delude Tantalus yes doubtlesse And if God doe so with reprobates what did he but delude them and dissenible with them in his fairest and likeliest offers of salvation that he makes them And this doe Zanchius and Bucer grant by evident consequence as appeareth by a speech or two of theirs which cannot stand with their conclusion and therefore I suppose fell unwarily from them This treatise of Piscator De praedestinatione against Schaffman I have the second editition printed at Herborne Anno 1598. But these words according to their quotations here are not to be found the severall distinct passages are distinguished by numbers which in all editions hold the same not so the pages Yet the latter passage quoted p. 143. I meet with in mine p. 128. According to the like difference I try whether I can find out the other but in vaine But yet I meet with such matter of discourse as whereunto this passage is very congruous to be there delivered if any where yet no such thing is there delivered as num 74. Schaffman's argument is this If God calls all to salvation then he will save all To this Piscator answereth The proposition is false But he calls with animo simplici atque vero a simple mind and true Sane saith Piscator as much as to say I grant that but so as that he calls them with condition of repentance and faith Therefore as he promiseth salvation seriously unto them that performe this condition and therefore performes this promise So on the contrary he doth seriously threaten death and damnation to them who doe not fulfill the condition and performes unto him that commination Then though God be not capable of hypocrisy yet he doth not alwaies will that what he commands shall be alwaies performed by him to whom he gives that command Whether by commanding he meanes to prove a man as to prove Abraham he commanded him to sacrifice his Son or because to him whom he commandeth he will not give grace to performe that command as he deales with reprobates And num 120. To Schaffman's objection which was this God is no hypocrite he answers thus But yet he gives not grace to all to performe what he commands theÌ„ For promiscuously he commands as well reprobates as elect to believe as many as he calls by the preaching of the gospell but he gives this grace to his elect alone according to that To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdome of heaven but to them it is not given So that undoubtedly God offers grace to wit pardon of sinne with a purpose to communicate it to all that shall believe according to the judgment of Piscator neither doth he offer it with a purpose to communicate it to any unlesse they believe But the grace of faith is not offered to any with a purpose to communicate it upon a condition For then grace should be conferred according unto works which is manifest Pelagianisme As for the other which I meete with p 128. num 120 take it at full and not as it is dismembred by this Authour who cares not how he calumniates so he might advantage his own cause Schaffman's objection was Deus est unius linguae voluntatis God is both of the same tongue and will Whereto Piscator answers thus Your meaning is that God look what he professeth with his tongue that he willeth But this saith he is not alwaies true nor in all particulars For by his tongue that is by speech uttered he professed that he would have Abraham to sacrifice his Son Isaac yet he would not have him sacrificed With his tongue he professed by his servant Ionas that he would destroy Nineveh within forty dayes yet he would not so doe With his tongue by the ministers of the Gospell he professeth that he would have the reprobates to whom he speaketh among his Elect to believe the Gospell in as much as he commands them so to doe yet he would not have them to believe in as much as he will not
death upon a sinner of meere pleasure but being provoked thereunto and that according to the purport of the first place Ezech 18. by the sinner himselfe and also according to the purport of the second place only in case of impenitency And I concurre with him in this And so I conceive it to be delivered in the same sense with that Lament 3. 32 33. For though he cause griefe to wit by reason of mens sinnes v. 39. yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies to wit in case he repents Ier. 18. 7. Iudg. 10. 16. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Mark I pray not willingly to wit in as much as he is provoked thereunto by sinne and by refusall to repent And this is in the former Scripture phrases not to take pleasure in the afflicting and grieving of men For if any work be such as wherein pleasure is taken we need not enquire after a cause why it is done but though no pleasure be taken in it yet for some benefit redounding thereby a man may doe it yea though it be grievous and bitter unto him As a sick man is willing to take a bitter potion for the recovery of his health Now come we to the argument God takes no pleasure in the death of any therefore he doth not of pleasure inflict death We willingly grant it in as much as he never inflicts eternall death on any that doth not dye in sinne unrepented of And as he doth not inflict death on any of meere pleasure that is without just cause on the part of him that dyeth deserving it So we willingly confesse that God did never decree to inflict death on any without just cause on the Malefactors part deserving death And this is the uttermost whereunto this Authors argument can be extended And all our Divines unanimously confesse that God neither decreed to damne any man of his meer pleasure but for his sinne wherein he died without repentance 3. Observe the cunning of this Disputer to deceive himselfe first and then to abuse his readers For whereas he should have proceeded in his argument by degrees thus God hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner therefore he doth not of his own pleasure inflict death and thence proceed if he had thought good to conclude the like of Gods decree thus if God doth not of his ownpleasure inflict then neither doth he of his own pleasure decree to inflict death and damnation This author leaping over the inflicting of death as a block in his way for the last consequence would have betrayed its own nakednesse flyeth at first to the application of it to Gods decree Now I willingly grant that Gods having no pleasure in the death of a sinner doth signify that God inflicts death on no man without a cause for that were of meer pleasure to inflict But dares he herehence inferre therefore God doth not of meer pleasure decree to inflict death and damnation on man for sinne for to this alone comes all the force of this argument Now to shew the vanity of this consequence consider I pray 1. It is as if he should argue thus in plain termes sinne is alwaies the meritorious cause of damnation therefore sinne is the meritorious cause of Gods eternall decree of damnation Now this Enthymeme hath no force any farther then it may be reduced into a Categoricall Syllogisme and this Enthymeme is reducible into no other Syllogisme then this Damnation is the decree of Damnation sinne is the cause of Damnation therefore sinne is the cause of the decree of damnation But in this Syllogisme the proposition containes a notorious untruth Or thus Sinne is the cause of damnation therefore the foresight of sinne is the cause of the decree of damnation But this Enthymeme is not reducible unto any categoricall Syllogisme at all for as much as it consists of foure termes all which must be clapt into the Syllogisme whereunto it is reduced and consequently make that Syllogisme consist of foure termes which utterly overthrowes the illative forme thereof 2. We may as well dispute thus Good works as well as faith and repentance are the disposing cause unto salvation therefore good works as well as faith and repentance or the foresight of them are the disposing cause to Gods election or to the decree of salvation But shall I tell you the chiefe flourish whereupon this Author and usually the Arminians doth insist in this his loose argumentation I conceive it to be this they hope their credulous readers unexpert in distinguishing between Gods eternall decree and the temporall execution thereof will be apt hereupon to conceit that we maintain that God doth not only of meer pleasure decree whatsoever he decreeth but also that he doth decree of meer pleasure to damne men which yet is utterly contrary if I be not deceived to the tenet of all our Divines all concurring in this that God in the execution of the decree of damnation proceeds according to a Law and not in the execution of reprobation only but also in the execution of election And the law is this Whosoever believes shall be saved whosoever believes not shall be damned And like as he inflicteth not damnation but by way of punishment so he conferres not salvation but by way of reward But in the execution of his decrees of election unto grace and reprobation from grace we willingly professe that God proceeds according to no law given unto men to prepare themselves hereunto but meerly according to his good pleasure having mercy on whom he will and hardning whom he will And this indeed is the criticall poynt of this controversy But neither this Author nor his complices some of them of my knowledge have any heart to deale on this I come to his Second pregnant place as he calleth it DISCOURSE SECT II. GOD hath shut up all in unbeliefe that he might have mercy on all Rom. 11. 32. in these words of the Apostle are two all 's of equall extent the one standing just against the other an all of unbelievers and an all of objects of mercy look how many unbelievers there be on so many hath God a will of shewing mercy And therefore if all men of all sorts and conditions and every man in every sort be an unbeliever then is every man of every condition under mercy And if every man be under mercy then there is no antecedent precise will in God of shutting up some and those the most from all possibility of obtaining mercy for these two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they cannot stand together TWISSE Consideration I Willingly grant the word all in each place is of equall extent but how in the Apostles meaning in this place that is look in what sense the Apostle takes the word all when he saith God hath concluded all under unbeliefe in the same sense he takes the word all when he sayeth that he might have mercy
sinne so he never decreed to damne any man but for sinne But as touching the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance in the granting and denying of this the Apostle plainly tells us he proceeds meerly according to the good pleasure of his will as when he saith The Lord hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth And here also God is as just in his decrees as in his executions For if it be just with him to give this grace to whom he will and deny it to whom he will it is as just with him to decree the giving of it to whom he will and the denying of it also to whom he will And why shall not the Lord take liberty to cure infidelity and hardnesse of heart in whom he will as he cured it in Manasses and Saul and leave it uncured in whom he will as he left it uncured in many a proud Pharisee and proud Philosopher notwithstanding all their Morality they boasted of Very seasonably he confesseth Gods will to be omnipotent and irrefistible when neverthelesse he makes him to will the salvation of all Reprobates though not one of them is saved But by that which followes by will omnipotent and irrefistible it seems he understandeth only will absolute which he distinguisheth from will conditionate which can be no other I suppose then this my will is that all and every one shall be saved in case he believe and repent Now seeing it is as true that 't is Gods will that they shall be damned in case they believe not and repent not let every sober man judge whether this deserve to be accounted a will of saving rather then a will of damning especially in case all men naturally are farre more prone to infidelity and impenitency then to faith and repentance As for a will conditionate in God like enough this Author carryeth it hand over head without distinction as he doth many other things besides whereas no such will is agreeable to the divine nature quoad actum volentis as touching the act of willing as both Bradwardine by clear reason and Piscator out of the word of God have demonstrated but only quoad res volitas as touching the things willed by him 4. I have shewed the poverty of his performances by the particular examination of every place alleadged by him and made it plain how he betraies his own nakednesse of interpretation of Scripture and of argumentation throughout and therewithall the vanity of this his boast that our doctrine of absolute reprobation doth contradict these plain Scriptures But he like a brave fellow well conceited of his atchievements and having thereby gotten some authority to himselfe is bold to give his word that it contradicts also the whole course of Scripture which I verily believe he is as well able to performe as he hath performed the former and very judiciously takes upon him to distinguish between the whole course of Scriptures and a few places pickt up here and there as if they were no part of the whole course of Scripture Belike by reason of their obscurity as he pretends no matter if they were expunged like as owles are offended with day-light Our Saviour tells us of some that loved darknesse rather then light because their deeds were evill None hate the light of Gods truth more then such as are possessed with errours as with familiar spirits especially when they have been found to play the Apostates from Gods truth Whether I have dashed my selfe upon the rocks of Austins censure by contradicting any Scripture that he hath brought or only his corrupt and vile interpretation and accommodation of them let the indifferent judge Yet what more plain then this Gods purpose of election is not of works especially compared with the manner how Saint Paul proves it What more plain then this God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth It is apparent he utterly declines the criticall point of these controversies which is as touching Gods giving grace even the grace of faith and repentance and of what spirit that savoureth let every one judge As for interpreting any place we doe not abridge his liberty in interpreting it after what manner he thinks good but we are ready to weigh it and if we find it too light to esteem of it as it deserves neither doe we refuse to take into consideration what he or any of his complices are pleased to insist upon DISCOURSE The Second sort of Arguments Convincing drawn from Gods Attributes SECT I. As touching the Generall SEcondly it fights with some principall Attributes of God therefore it cannot be true For God useth not to make decrees contrary to his own glorious nature and incompatible with those excellent Attributes by which he hath discovered part of himselfe to men Two things are here to be premised 1. That Gods chief Attributes are those perfections in the manifestation of which by acts conformable to them God is most glorified which are Mercy Justice Truth c. For God is more honoured by the exercise of these amongst men then by the putting forth of his unlimited power and Soveraignty as a King is more renowned among his Subjects for his clemency equity candid and faire dealing then for his Dominion and Authority or any thing that is done only for the manifestation thereof And there is good reason for it For 1. Power is no vertue but mercy justice and truth are acts of power are not Morally good of themselves but are made good or evill by their concomitants if they be accompanied with justice mercy c. they are good if otherwise they are naught For justum oportet esse quod laudem meretur 2. Power and Soveraignty may as well be shewed in barbarous and unjust actions as in their contraries Saul shewed his authority and power to the full in slaying the Lords Priests and Nebuchadnezzar in casting the three Children into the fiery furnace and Daniell into the Lyons Denne but no mercy nor justice nor any thing else that was good 2. The second thing that is to be preconsidered is that justice mercy and truth in God are the same in nature with those vertues in men though infinitely different in degree as light in the aire is the same with light in the Sunne in nature not in degrees and that which is just mercifull and upright in men is so in God too And by these vertues in our selves and such acts as are conformable to them tanquam ex pede Herculem we may safely measure the same in God For otherwise these things would follow 1. The common and received distinction of Divine Attributes into communicable and incommunicable would fall to the ground for against it this night be said that the mercy justice truth and other vertues that are in us are not Gods perfections in a lower degree communicated to us but things of a different nature 2. Men cannot be truly said to
things and for thy will sake they have bee and are created And albeit men faile in giving God the glory of his power and wisdome as they should will it follow herehence that God is not so much to be glorified for his power and wisdome as for mercy justice and truth yet who falles in this that failes not in the use of the Lords Prayer the conclusion whereof is this For thine is the Kingdome and power and glory And indeed albeit Power and Wisdome may be shewed other waies then in the way of mercy justice and truth yet Gods mercy justice and truth cannot be shewed without the simultaneous demonstration of his power and wisdome And therefore when God comes to make good his gracious promise for the delivering of Israel out of Egypt which cannot be denied to have been a singular work of mercy justice and truth the Lord professeth that then he would make himselfe known unto them by the name Jehovah by which name he was not known before The Incarnation of the Sonne of God was it not an admirable work as well in the way of power and wisdome as in the way of mercy justice and truth I am apt to confound Gods justice with his truth ere I am aware without having that awfull regard to the authority of this writer as perhaps may seem fit But I hope it is a pardonable fault considering my education hitherto in divinity whereby I have attained only thus farre to the acknowledgement of justice Divine for justice consisteth in giving every one his due now this due being either in respect of God or the creature Justice Divine in giving God his due Aquinas hath taught me that it is all one with Gods wisdome promoting his ends by congruous means justice Divine in giving the creature his due I have learnt to depend wholy on Gods determination manifested by his promises and threatnings and this is commonly called justitia fidelitatis which I take to be all one with truth But I am very willing to be better informed by this Author and I give my selfe to his contemplations to have my thoughts fashioned by them as they can and if hitherto they have not transformed me into a new Creed I cannot help that Now if it be so that Gods power and wisdome accompany the demonstration of his mercy justice and truth I cannot see how God is honoured more by the exercise of the one sort then of the other but rather on the contrary So that albeit a King is more renowned among his Subjects for his clemency equity candid and faire dealing then for his dominion and authority yet I doe not easily perceive how God is renowned more for his clemency equity c. then for his power c. yet again this seems to me a very poore argument to conclude Clemency to be a chiefe attribute of God because men doe more magnify him for that then for his Power For consider a Malefactor going to execution is called back and saved by the Kings pardon this man be sure will magnify the King more for his clemency in saving him then he would for his justice in putting him to death but will it follow herehence that Clemency is a more chiefe attribute of a King then justice Solomon the greatest of Kings hath said the Throne is established by Justice and it was wont to be said fiat justitia ruat orbis No such thing is said of Mercy Then again the King could not doe this but by vertue of his prerogative yet the Malefactor magnifies him not for his prerogative but for the favourable use of it for his good for that is all he respects yet aske I pray any man of judgement which is the chiefer attribute of a King and more glorious of the two his prerogative or his clemency Clemency is a very vulgar vertue but the royall prerogative is peculiar to one A Thiefe after a robbery committed on the high-way meeting with a begger that beggeth a penny if he astonish him with the gift of twelve pence the begger is very likely more highly to magnify him then any honest man going on the way that bestowes but an halfe penny upon him yet Whose liberality is the greater of the two Carnall men renowne others for the benefit they receive by them not according to their true worth yet there is a farther difference humane authority may be abused and Soveraignty on earth is not alwaies joyned with good Morality much lesse with Piety but in case a man could not sinne the more honour and authority is laid upon him the more glorious should he be as being backt with the greater power to execute his goodnesse Thus it is with God it is impossible he should abuse his soveraignty yea his mercy and justice are one and the same reality with his power what a vanity then is it to discourse as this Author doth in preferring one attribute of God before another as if God were more glorious in the one then in the other But he hath farther reasons for this let us consider them 1. Power saith he is no vertue nor morally good but mercy justice and truth are I answer Though it be so yet who will say the glory of vertue is greater then the glory of power 2. Especially considering that vertue is common to the meanest 3. A little vertue joyned with power shall bring forth farre better fruits then a great deale of vertue without power 4. Though it be so in man whose power may be abused shall we transferre it to God whose power cannot be abused his power and his goodnesse being all one 5. Morall vertues denote a goodnesse removeable where it is obtainable where it is not but no such goodnesse can be found in God and consequently no Morall vertue in proper speech whatsoever is in him that being naturall and essentiall unto him 6. Lastly to power only and soveraignty we owe obedience and not to goodnesse and jurisdiction is farre more glorious then subjection Yet by the way it is untrue in my judgement that acts of Power are made good by being accompanied with justice speaking of Morall goodnesse as acts of vertue alone they are morally good not as acts of power If justum oportet esse quod laudem meretur then justice if not alone yet chiefly shall be that whereby one is renowned yet herehence it followes that every act of Gods power shall laudem mereri because it is impossible that any thing he doth should be otherwise then just such a justitia condecentiae followeth all his actions otherwise we must grant that God hath power to doe that which is unjust 2. And accordingly though power humane and Angelicall may be shewed in barbarous actions yet power Divine cannot let him doe whatsoever he is able it shall not be unjust let God turne all the World into nothing another manner of destruction then that of Sauls slaying the Lords Priests or Netuchadnezzars casting the three Children into
Aquinas as touching the nature of God in resemblance to ours as the Antipodes are to us And withall I doe not find throughout his discourse following that he makes any use of these premises And indeed there is no need of them at all For if he cannot prove this Doctrine of ours repugnant either to Gods Mercy or to his Truth or to his Justice these premises will stand him in no stead and if he can prove it to be repugnant to those Attributes of his his argument shall stand in the same force as well without these premises as with them Now how well he makes good the repugnancy of our Doctrine to Gods mercy we are in the next place to consider DISCOURSE SECT II. As touching the First Speciall Gods Mercy 1. IT opposeth Gods mercy God is mercifull It is a great part of his Title Exod. 34. 6. Mercifull and gracious He is mercy in the abstract 1 John 4. 16. God is love A Father of mercies and God of all consolations 2 Cor. 1. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour of men 1 Tim. 4. 10. Two waies is the mercy of God spoken of in Scripture 1. absolutely 2. comparatively 1. Absolutely and so it is set out in lofty and stately termes it s called rich mercy Ephes 2. 4. Great kindnesse John 4. 2. Abundant mercy 1 Pet. 1. 3. Love without height or depth bredth or length or any dimensions love passing knowledge Ephes 3. 18 19. 2. Comparatively It is compared with his own justice and with the love that dwells in the creatures and is advanced above both 1. It is sometimes compared with his justice and advanced above that not in respect of its essence for all Gods excellencies are infinitely good and one is not greater then another but in other things that concerne the expressions of it particularly in these 1. In the naturalnesse and dearnesse of it unto God It is said of mercy Mich. 7. 18. It pleaseth him or he delights in mercy but justice and judgement is called his strange work alienum a naturâ suâ Isai 28. 21. He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. 3. 33. 2. In the frequent exercise of it selfe Exod. 34. 6. He is slow to anger but abundant in goodnesse Mercies are bestowed every day judgements inflicted but now and then sparingly and after a long time of forbearance when there is no remedy 2 Chron. 36. 15. All the day long have I stretched out my hands to a gainsaying and rebellious people Isai 65. 2. that is I have been patient a long time and in that long day I have not been idle but employed in exhortations promises and many mercies whereby I might doe you good God waits long for mens conversion as the Marriner for the turning of the wind 3. In its amplitude or objects to whom it is extended Exod 20. 5. Visiting the iniquities of Fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation but shewing mercy to thousands implying that his mercy is more largely extended then his justice and that look how much three or foure come short of a thousand so much doth his justice come short of his mercy in exercise of it 4. In the occasions that move God to exercise them It is a great matter that moves God to punish as we may see Gen. 6. 5 6 7 12 13. When the wickednesse of man was great upon the earth and all flesh had corrupted his way then God thinks of punishment He would not destroy the Amorites till their wickednesse was full Gen. 15. 16. Quoties volui saith Christ to Jerusalem Math. 23. 37. How often would I have gathered you that is I have not taken advantages against you nor upon the first second or third unkindnesse cast you off small matters have not moved me to destroy thee O Jerusalem But how small an occasion doth God take to spare man When God had examined Sodome and found their sinnes to be answerable to their crye yet then for tenne righteous mens sakes would he have spared Sodome Gen 18. 32. Nay he would have spared Jerusalem if the Prophet by searching could have found one man that did execute judgement and seek the truth Jer. 5. 1. What a small and slender Humiliation made him to spare wicked Ahab and his house a long time 1 King 21. 29. And the repentance of Neneve whose wickednesse cryed to the Lord for vengeance Jonas ◠2. did easily procure her a pardon Thus is Gods Mercy advanced above his justice 2. It is also compared with the affection of a Father to his Sonne of a tender mother to her child and of the most affectionate brute creatures to their young ones and set above them all It goes beyond a Fathers affection to his Sonne Matth. 7. 11. If you that are evill can give good gifts to your children how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to them that aske him What doth this quando magis imply but that Gods love outstrips a Fathers and so it doth a Mothers too Isai 49. 15. Can a Woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the Sonne of her wombe yea she may forget yet will I not forget thee Women are compassionate towards their Children because they are the fruit of their wombes and are a part of themselves but most indulgent are they toward those children to whom they are Nurses as well as Mothers to their sucking children and yet Women may forget their children their sucking children but as for God he can never forget his children And as if those comparisons were too small to expresse Gods affection to his creatures he proceeds farther and compares himselfe with one of the most affectionate Females among unreasonable creatures the Hen Math. 23. 37. O Jerusalem Jervsalem how oft would I have gathered thee as a Hen gathereth her chicken under her wings No bird saith August expresseth such tender love to her young ones as the Hen doth Videmus nidificare Passeres quoslibet ante oculos nostros herundines circonias columbas quotidie videmus nidificare quos nisi quando in nidis videmus parentes esse non agnoscimus Gallina vero sic infirmatur in pullis suis ut etiamsi ipsi pulli non sequantur filios non videas matrem tamen intelliges Ita fit alis demissis plumis hispida voce rauca omnibus membris demissa abjecta ut quemadmo dum dixi et si filios non videas matrem tamen intelligas No Fowles discover themselves to be Mothers so much as Hennes doe others when we see them in their nest with their young we know them to be Mothers but no way else but the Hen discovers her selfe to be so even then when her Chickens doe not follow her her feathers stand up her wings hang downe she clocks mournfully and goes feebly so that we may know her to be a Mother when yet we cannot see her brood He hath also
of a thousand so much doth his justice come short of his mercy in the exercise of it And upon this poore interpretation he grounds the only substantiall part of his reply to our answer to this his argument For to say that Gods mercy is rich abundant long suffering beyond apprehension is nothing to the purpose For all this hinders not but that the application of it may be and is made only to certain vessells who are called vessells of mercy in distinction from vessells of wrath Rom. 9. 22. 23. Therefore he addes That it surmounts his justice in its objects and expressions wherein what he means by its expressions I know not For I find no comparison made by him between Gods mercy and his justice in its expressions but only in respect of the objects and there the expression of justice seems more quick then the expression of mercy And as for the extention of mercy to more then justice is extended to he dispatcheth in three lines as I said of these three leaves of his discourse But let us see what force he finds in that comparison to serve his turne First he saieth the comparison is between three and foure on the one side and a thousand on the other as if the odds were a thousand to three or foure but how doth he prove that The Text compares three or foure generations to thousands not to a thousand generations but to thousands and he boldly conceives it to be understood of thousands of generations though it be much more then the World consists of from the beginning of the World to the end of it For suppose the World shall last seaven or eight thousand years how many years will he allow to a generation Suppose he allow but twenty to explode the custome of the Germans of whom Tacitus writes that Sera virginum venus which to this day is continued yet a thousand of such generations must make the World to consist of twenty thousand years But if it consist but of seaven or eight thousand years you must allow but seaven or eight years to a generation to make up one thousand generations Then againe the World was now two thousand years old when this was delivered so that it had not above six thousand years to continue and accordingly but six years was from thenceforth to be allowed to a generation And all this liberality of allowance is no more then will make the child a coat to compleat one thousand generations whereas the Text speaks of thousands in the plural number and the least of plurality is two thousand so that to help this we must allow but three years to a generation by which account they had need be married at two and have a child at three and who then should rock the cradle But leave we these fooleries and content our selves with the plain Text and not piece it out with our brainsick additions We know that for Abrahams sake who feared him and for the covenants sake he made with him he had mercy on thousands of his posterity to bring them out of Egypt six hundred thousand men from twenty years old to threescore and take them unto him to be his peculiar people which continued for the space of about 1600 years and now for 1600 years they have been cast off from being his people And of the goodnesse of God towards Abraham in choosing his seed after him even many thousands of them the Jewes had sensible experience that very day he spake unto them from Mount Sinai he did not mean to trouble their braines with any Algebra in counting up a thousand generations But suppose this were granted him yet these that feare him being only within the pale of his Church what a small handfull were these in comparison to all the world of heathens besides that hated him Marke what difference S. Paul puts between the Jewes and the Gentiles when he saith we Jewes by nature not sinners of the Gentiles Gal. 2. And the Psalmist before him Psal 147. He sheweth his word unto Jacob his statutes and ordinances to Israel he hath not dealt so with every nation neither have they known his judgements According whereunto the Apostle having demanded saying What is then the preferment of the Jew or what is the profit of circumcision Answereth thus Much every way and chiefly because unto them were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 1 2. And the same Apostle doth not acknowledge the Gentiles to have obtained mercy at the hands of God untill the time of their calling by the Ministry of the Gospell Rom. 11. 30. in these words Ye in times past have not believed God yet have now obtained mercy through their unbeliefe This might suffice for answer to this argument taking it in the full strength thereof But I am content to runne over the whole discourse and to take every part of it into consideration 1. He saith God is mercy in the abstract and Love By this it is apparent that the Attributes Divine are the very Essence Divine otherwise they could not be predicated thereof in the abstract and consequently they can no more be of the same nature with vertues Morall in us then the Divine Essence can be of the same nature with an accident 2. He is a Saviour of men true and it is as true that he saveth both man and beast and as for men though he be a Saviour of them all yet in speciall sort of them that believe 3. When he saith of the love of Christ that it is without height and depth and length and breadth he doth overlash for the Apostles prayer is in the place quoted by him on the behalfe of the Ephesians that Christ may dwell in their hearts by Faith that being rooted and grounded in love they may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth height For though the height of it be such as is incomprehensible by us in this World yet the Apostle supposeth an height depth length and breadth thereof rather then denies it 4. He saith Gods Mercy is advanced above his Justice not in respect of its essence for all Gods excellencies are infinitely good and one is not greater then another but in things that concerne the expressions of it Here we have words but can any wise man draw it to any sober sense What I pray is it to advance mercy above justice in things that concerne the expressions of it He saith it is more naturall and deare to God then his justice what reason is there for this if the one be equally as excellent as the other To make this good with some colour at least he alleadgeth Mich. 7. 18. Mercy pleaseth him or he delights in it The like we read Jer. 9 24. namely that God delights in mercy and in the same place the Lord professeth joyntly that he delights in judgement But Isaiah 28. 21. Judgement is called his strange worke Now three severall times
former Section this Author calls it and useth it as according to their own doctrine in opposition to ours but most indiscreetely and unlearnedly This conditionall will of God is to be understood quoad res volitas as touching the things willed by God so Vossius accommodates it in his History of the Pelagian Heresy as before I have shewed and makes it all one in effect with Gods antecedent will and D. Iaokson in his Book of Divine providence treating hereof professeth in plaine termes that the distinction of Voluntas antecedens and consequens is to be understood quoad res volitas as touching the things willed Now the thing willed here is the cutting off from glory now this Author togeather with his instructer will have the will of God concerning this to be conditionall to wit that it is Gods will that no man shall be cut off from glory but for sinne now we say so too and professe that like as God hath not ordained that any shall be damned but for finall perseverance in sinne so likewise God hath not ordained that any man shall be cut off from glory but for finall perseverance in sinne But whereas the Remonstrants maintained that there is no other decree of Reprobation but this and so likewise on the other side that there is no decree of Predestination but such as is properly opposite hereunto namely this That the decree by which God hath purposed in Christ and for Christ to save those that believe and repent to the end is the whole and entire decree of Predestination unto salvation On this poynt the Contra-Remonstrants opposed them and accordingly our Brittaine Divines make this the first erroneous opinion which they reject upon the first Article as touching election And likewise as touching Reprobation the first erroneous opinion which they reject is this That the decree by which God from all eternity and that irrevocably hath purposed out of lapsed mankind to leave none but the impenitent and incredulous in sinne and under the wrath of God as being aliens from Christ is the whole and entire decree of reprobation This I say is the first erroneous opinion which our Brittaine Divines reject which this Author takes no notice of but most unlearnedly discovers that he understands not the state of the question Secondly Now I come to Gods absolute decree of cutting off from grace this we willingly confesse is meerely absolute and unconditionall quoad res volitas as touching the things willed by God for the things willed by God herein are the denyall of mercy and grace to regenerate some the denyall of the grace of faith and repentance concerning which the Apostle professeth that God proceeds herein meerely according to the good pleasure of his will Rom. 9. 18. He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Rom. 11. 30. Even as they in times past have not believed God yet have now obtained mercy through their unbeliefe Where to obtaine mercy in the Apostles language is plainely as much as to believe Austin in many places justifies this Epist 105. ad Sixtum 〈◊〉 ille credat ille non credat cum ambo idem audiunt etsi miraculum in eorum conspectu fiat ambo idem vident altitudo est divitiarum sapientiae scientiae Dei cujus inscrutabilia sunt judici◠apud quem non est iniquitas dum cujus vult miseretur quem vult indurat And neere the end Audiat haec non contemnat quod si contempserit ut contemneret inveniat se obduratum Enchirid. 98. Quis porro tam impie desipiat ut dicat Deum malas hominum voluntates quas voluerit quando voluerit ubi voluerit in bonum non posse convertere Sed cum facit pre misericordia facit cum autem non facit per judicium non facit quoniam cujus vult miseretur quem vult obdurat Here misereri eujus vult is voluntates hominum quas vult in bonum convertere See lib. 1. De grat Christi contra Pelag. Caelest cap. 46. He cites this saying out of Ambrose Sed Deus quem dignatur vocat quem vult religiosum fecit And thereupon breakes out into this exclamation O sensum hominis Dei ex ipso fonte gratiae Dei haustum videte si non Propheticum illud est miserebor cujus misertus ero Apostolicum illud non volentis neque currentis sed miserentis Dei quia ut dicit etiam nostrorum temporum homo ejus quem dignatur vocat quem vult religiosum facit Here Misereri Rom. 9. 18. is all one with Vocare Religiosum facere And lib. 1. ad Simplician cap. 2. Unde datur intelligi quod infra utrumque posuit ergo cujus vult miseretur quem vult indurat ita sententiae superiori potest congruere ut obduratio Dei sit nolle misereri ut non ab illo irrogetur aliquid quo sit homo deterior sed tantum quo sit melior non erogetur quod si fit nulla distinctione meritorum quis non erumpat in eam vocem quam sibi objecit Apostolus dicis itaque mihi quid adhuc conqueritur nam voluntati ejus quis resistit conqueritur enim Deus saepe de hominibus sicut per innumerabiles apparet scripturarum locos quod nolint credere recte vivere So that the meliority of man which God workes sine meritorum distinctione doth by Austins judgement consist in recte vivendo recte credendo now here is the proper field of Scholasticall combate betwixt us Ecce Rhodus ecce Saltus let them try their strength to the uttermost to prove that the reason why God regenerates one and not another why God bestowes faith and repentance upon one and not on another is because man hath disposed himselfe by some good worke performed by him which another hath not and when they have proved this then will we truly confesse that Pelagianismus est vere Christianismus not Semi-Pelagianismus only as it was sometimes objected to Arminius But proceed we to the particulars following for by this Doctrine of Gods absolute decree in opposition to their conditionall decree this Author saith 1. Christ came not into the World to procure the salvation of them that perish I answere That look in what sort he came into the World to procure the salvation of them that perish by their Doctrine after the same sort he came to procure their salvation by our Doctrine For as it is their Doctrine that God decreed that for Christs sake salvation should redound to all that believe so is this our Doctrine also but we deny that this is the whole decree of predestination We farther say that God purposed to bestow Faith on some and not on others and accordingly to send Christ to merit faith and regeneration for them which the Remonstrants in the Censura Censurae doe now a daies utterly deny and if this Author together with his
sweetest and the surest truths revealed in Gods word to their own damnation Resp It cannot I confesse be denyed that many of this opinion are Godly men but it is no thankes to their opinion that they are so the true and naturall genius of which is to breed sloth to drowne men in carnall security and to countenance carnall liberty but to some thing else either to Gods providence who will not suffer this doctrine for his own glory and the good of men to have any great stroake in their lives or to mens incogitancy who think not of reducing it ad praxim or drawing conclusions out of it but rest in the naked speculation of it as they doe of many others or lastly to some good practicall conclusions which they meet with in the word of God and apply to their lives as they doe not the former deductions such as these are for example Be ye holy as I an holy Without holinesse no man shall see God If ye consent and obey ye shall eat the good things of the land Godlinesse hath the promise of this life and of the life to come and such like And hence we may learne to measure this opinion not by some few of the men that hold it but by the sequels which the Logick even of simple men if they should apply their braines to ponder and consider it would fetch out of it No man that hath thoroughly suckt it in and understood the force of it but will either relinquish it or live according to the naturall importment of it that is licentiously 2. Secondly it is said that albeit this Doctrine doth teach that men are absolutely elected or absolutely rejected yet it tells no man who in particular is elected who rejected that must appeare by themselves and their lives and so it doth not stifle holy endeavours in any but rather encourage them in every man because it makes them to be signes whereby men must and may get the knowledge of their election Resp For answer to this in my judgement or the present the ignorance of a mans particular case doth not alter the case a jot For he that believes in generall that many and they the greatest company without comparison are inevitably ordained to destruction and a few others unto salvation is able out of these two generall propositions to make these particular conclusions and to reason thus with himselfe Either I am absolutely chosen to grace and glory or absolutely cast off from both If I be chosen I must of necessity believe and be saved If I be cast off I must as necessarily not believe and be damned Therefore what need I take thought either way about meanes or end My end is pitched in Heaven and the meanes too my finall perseverance in faith and my salvation or my continuance in unbeliefe and my damnation If I lye under this necessity of believing and being saved or of dying in unbeliefe and being damned in vaine doe I trouble my selfe about meanes or end I have my supersedeas I may take mine ease and so I will it is enough for me to sit downe and waite what God will doe unto me And in this manner it is to be feared doe too many reason in their hearts and by this very ground though they will not perhaps acknowledge it encourage themselves to prophanenesse Though men cannot hide their wickednesse yet they will hide their grounds which flesh them in it either through modesty or to avoyde some farther ignominy The foole hath said in his heart there is no God Psal 40. Suetonius de Vita Tiberii c. 69. p. 180. Saies of Tiberius that he was circa Deos religiones negligentior quippe addictus Mathematicae persuasionibus plenus omnia fato agi TWISSE Consideration I have already made answer to his objections after my maner it remaines I consider what he delivereth in debilitating those answers which he takes in to consideration 1. This answer was made by our Brittaine Divines in the Synod of Dort upon the first Article but so as that they proposed it not by it selfe alone but joyntly with shewing that neither the Nature of our Doctrine doth any way prove any hinderance unto pietie as formerly I have made mention therof Whereas he sayth that many of this our opinion are Godly men but that is no thankes to their opinion that they are so I answer that neither doe we give the glory of our Godlinesse to our good opinion nor have cause to thanke it therefore but we give God the Glory both of leading us into this truth amongst many others and for that Godlinesse that is in us also For we acknowledge that God is able to convict our consciences of that trueth hereof and yet refuse to lead us thereby into any Holinesse at all Yet let every sober man judge who are in a fairer way to true Holinesse or who are more likely to be in the state of true Holinesse they that oppose the grace of God in working our wills to faith and repentance or they that acknowledge it They who maintaine that God of the meere pleasure of his will regenerates us endueth us with the spirit of faith and repentance or they who maintaine that God doth not give faith and repentance to whom he will Neither is it the meaning of S t Paul where he sayeth God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth but rather where he findes an absolute disposition or worke in one which he finds not in an other Againe consider I pray indifferently who are more likely to be partakers of Gods grace they who truly magnifie it as the Author of their faith and repentance and of every good worke performed by them and that in a preventing manner or they that pretend to make Gods grace to be the Author of their faith and repentance and every good worke only by giving them power to believe if they will which we are able to prove both by the judgment of Austin and by cleare reason to be meere nature and not grace and accordingly exhorting them to believe and last of all concurring with them to the producing of the act of faith in them in case they will And seeing grace proves effectuall only by this subsequent manner of operation whether they doe not plainely mocke God in making him the Author of grace seing in respect of this effectuall operation they might as well make him the Author of every sinfull act as of every gratious act For it is agreed on all hands that God concurres as well to every sinfull act as any gratious act Whereas he sayth The true and naturall genius of our Tenet is to breed sloth and to drowne men in carnall security and to countenance carnall libertie I answer these words of his are but wind his reasons I have already considered and proved them to be of no weight For they depend partly upon a vaine supposition as if we maintained that God hath
of them that are called but few are chosen Yet might that Synod well admonish Maccovius to take heed of such words as might give offence to tender yeares and be carefull to expresse the same truth in as inoffensive way as we can And accordingly having a digression in this very Argument in my Vindiciae Gratiae I proposed it in this manner Whether the holy one of Israell without any injurie to his Holy Majestie may be said to will sinne after a certaine manner and I maintaine the affirmative after this manner Deus vult ut peccatum fiat ipso permittente God will have sinne to come to passe by his permission and Bellarmine confesseth that Malum esse Deo permittente bonum est It is good that evill should be by God's permission which was also the saying of Austine long before And that non aliquid fit nisi Omnipotens fieri velit vel sinendo ut fiat vel ipse faciendo Not any thing comes to passe except God Omnipotent will have it come to passe either by suffering it or himselfe working it And the eleventh Article of the Church of Ireland framed in the dayes of King J'ames runnes thus God from all eternitie did by his unchangable Counsell ordaine what soever in time should come to passe yet so as there by no violence is offered to the to the wills of the reasonable Creatures and neither the libertie nor the contingency of second causes is taken away but established rather And Arminius himselfe professeth that Deus voluit Achabum mensuram scelerums uorum implere God would have Achab to fill up the measure of his sinnes and what is it to fill up the measure of his sinnes but to adde sinne unto sinne And this he delivereth without all qualification By these instances it appeareth That they of the first side can easily beare one with another in this difference And to say the truth there is no reason why they should quarrell about circumstances seeing they agree in the substance for which they both contend 1 That the moving cause of Reprobation is the alone will of God and not the sinne of man originall or actuall 2. That the finall impenitencie and Damnation of Reprobates are necessary and unavoidable by God's absolute Decree The difference which this Authour takes into Consideration is about the object of Predestination and the difference in opinion thereabouts is usually to be observed threefold though this Authour is pleased to take notice of a secondfold difference for some conceive the object of Predestination to be man-kind as yet not created others conceive the object thereof to be man-kind created but not yet corrupted A third sort maintaine the object thereof to be man-kind both created and corrupted Now D. Iunius hath endeavoured to reconcile the three opinions making place for each consideration in the object of predestination And Piscator after him adventured on the like reconciliation and hath performed it with more perspicuitie and with better successe in my judgment then Iunius And that according to three different acts concurring unto Predestination The first is saith he God's purpose to create man-kind in Adam unto different ends now this Act doth clearely require the object thereof to be man-kind not yet Created The second Act he conceives to be God's Decree to permit all men to fall in Adam Now this Act he conceives as clearly to suppose the object thereof to be man-kind created but not corrupted The third last Act he conceives to be God's decree to choose some to shew compassion on them in raising them out of sinne by saith and repentance and of Reprobating others leaving them as be findes them and permitting them to finish their dayes in sinne to the end he might manifest the glorie of his grace in saving the one the glorie of his Justice in damning others Now this third Act he supposeth manifestly to require the object thereof to be man-kind both created and corrupted Now the Authours of these severall opinions have no reason to go together by the eares about these three opinions but with Brotherly love to entertaine one another First because the difference herein is not so much in Divinitie as in Logick and Philosophie difference in opinion about order in intentions being meerly Logicall and to be composed according to the right stating of the end intended and of the meanes conducing to the end it being generally confessed that the intention of the end is before the intention of meanes conducing thereunto And that look what is first in intention the same must be last in execution Secondly the Authours of these severall opinions about the object of Predestination doe all agree in two principall points 1. That all men before God's eternall predestination and reprobation are considered as equall in themselves whether as uncreated or as created but not corrupted or lastly whether created or corrupted 2 That God's grace only makes the difference choosing some to worke thē to faith repentance perseverance therein while he rejecteth others leaving thē as he findes them permitting them to finish their dayes in sinne whereby is upheld and maintained 1. First the prerogative of God's grace as only effectuall to the working of men unto that which is good 2. And secondly the prerogative of God's Soveraigntie in shewing mercy on whome he will to bring them to Faith and true repentance and hardning others that is not bestowing of grace and repentance upon them And seeing they all agree in these momentous points of Divinitie they have no cause to take it offensively at the hands of one another that they differ in a point of Logick Now I have adventured on this argument to find out to my selfe and give unto others some better satisfaction then formerly hath been exhibited and that by distinguishing Two decrees only on each part to witt the decree of the end and the decree of the meanes As for example 1. On the part of Predestination and Election I conceive the end to be the manifestation of God's glorious grace in the way of mercie mixt with Justice on a certaine number of men And the Decree of the meanes is to create them and permit them all to fall in Adam and to bring them forth into the world in their severall generations clothed with originall sinne and to send Christ into the world to dye for them and for Christ's sake first to bestow the grace of faith and repentance upon them and finally to save them 2. On the part of Reprobation I conceive the end to be the manifestation of God's glory in the way of Justice vindicative And the decree of meanes to be partly common and partly proper the common meanes are to create them and permit them all to fall in Adam and bring them forth into the world clothed with originall sin the speciall meanes are to leave them as he finds them and permit them to finish their daies in sinne and so not
Jewes and Gentiles did oppose Christians even unto bloud for preaching Christ crucified which was a scandall to the one foolishnesse unto the other And shall the truth of Christianitie be any whit the worse thought of for this why then shall our Doctrine of predestination and reprobation be suspected as untrue because the Lutheran partie doe also bitterly oppose it especially considering that we with Austine no otherwise maintaine predestination then as it depends and is grounded upon this that grace is not given according unto workes as Austine professeth to have been his opinion de bono perseverantiae cap. 14. And we are ready to renounce whatsoever contradicteth this and the Lutherans themselves professe concurrently with us that grace is not given according unto workes And by the way observe the Lutheran spleen is exercised not only against the predestinary pestilence as they call it but the Sacramentarie pestilence also That is against their doctrine who oppose their ubiquitie and consubstantiation yet in the very next page the same Knight affirmes that all the Lutherans are not carried with the same sterne humour but they only who are called Lutherani rigidi that the greater part perhaps which are the molles Lutherani are quiet enough neither accompt they otherwise of the Calvinists then as of erring brethren whom the rigids have as is said threatened to excomunicate as Schismitiques and Heretiques 3 The Grecians are said to oppose the doctrine of Calvin in the point of predestination yet we know our English Divines subscribed unto the same Doctrine in the Synod of Dort together with all the forraigne Divines there assembled and the summe therof is but this that God both in the election of some and preterition of others had noe respect to the personall goodnesse of the one and personall naughtinesse of the other And that this was the very doctrine of Austine and of Saint Paul also in the opinion of Austine Vossius acknowledeth and Austine professeth that this doctrine herein is shaped merely according to the rule so generally received in the Church of God against Pelagians that grace is not given according unto merits de bono perseve cap. 15. 4. Concerning the Jewes this doctrine of ours this judicious not Sir Edwin Sandes thinks it probable that doth hinder their conversation And indeed that learned Knight doth professe that they are opposite to the doctrine here recited by this Authour and in the same sentence he professeth them in like manner opposite to our doctrine in maintaining that the divell and his Angells shall be cast into everlasting fire for thus goes Sir Edwin's relation as they thinke it a bad opinion which some men seeme to hold that God in his everlasting and absolute power should affect the extreame miserie of any of his Creatures as here it lyes so contrarie wise they think with Origen that Hell in the ende shall utterly be abolished and that the divells themselves after a long course of bitter repentance and punishment shall find mercy at his handes that did create them But as touching our difference from this in this particular This Authour doth not expresse ought so much as probable to hinder their conversion as touching the former he hath for that served his turne this doth not and his wit and wisedome being so nere of kinne noe mervaile if he makes the one to performe service of love to the other But let me say something concerning the opinion it selfe here related as in the first place That God doth not effect the extreame misery of his creatures in his absolute pleasure what is the doctrine opposite hereunto but this namely that God decrees to damne no man but for sinne and not according to his absolute pleasure Now what one of our Divines was ever knowne to contradict this and to affirme that God intends to damne many of his creatures not for their sinnes but of his owne absolute pleasure for my part I never read any that maintained this But we generally say that God in electing some and passing by others as touching the conferring of grace proceeded and decreed and that from everlasting to proceed not according to mens workes but according to his absolute pleasure now this was Austin's judgment as well as ours and Saint Paul's too in the opinion of Austine as Vossius acknowledgeth in the place formerly cited And Saint Paul speakes plainly when he saith God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth and as plainely in saying That before the Children were borne or had done good or evill that election might stand not of workes but of him that calleth it is said that the elder shall serve the younger As it is written Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Rom 9. 11 12. And I durst appeale to every sober man 's consciencewhether one of these Jewes in reading this would not as redily condemne Saint Paul himselfe as they condemne us As for the other part of the doctrine here proposed namely that the damnation of some should redound more to God's glory then the felicity of them all I answere that it is as cleare as the light that the glory of God in the way of vindicative justice had not at all appeared if all had been saved no nor the riches of his glory upon the Vessels of mercy whom he had prepared unto glory if God had not suffered with long patience some vessells of wrath prepared to destruction if we believe Saint Paul Rom 9 22 23 rather then the Jewes and it is apparent that the Lord God who made allthings for himselfe tooke this course namely to make even the wicked against the day of evill and accordingly as to shew mercy on whom he will so to harden whom he will also Rom 9. 18 otherwise as I have often said grace should be conferred according to merits that is according unto workes which is expresly contradictory both to the word of God 2 Tim 1. 9. Tit. 3. 5. And to the decrees of Synods and Councells all along against the Pelagians ◠5. I willingly grant that the determination of the end doth necessarily involve the meanes that not only preceed but procure the end But I will utterly deny that sinne is the meanes of dānation we say rather that permission of sinne is the meanes whence notwithstanding it followes not that sin shall come to passe unavoidably but rather avoidably whether we consider the free will of man or the decree of God for every particular sinfull act is a naturall thing and undoubtetdly man hath free will as to doe so to abstaine from doing any particular Act and albeit God hath determined that these particular sinfull Acts instance the particular outrages committed against the holy Sonne of God by Herod Pontius Pilate together with the Gentiles and people of Israel Acts 5. 28. shall come to passe by his permission yet seeing withall he hath ordained thē to come to passe contingently that followes
eternall life by way of reward and inflict eternall death on the other by way of punishment yet in conferring the grace of regeneration of faith and repentance upon the one and denying the same graces unto the other the Lord carrieth himselfe not according to mens workes but merely according to the pleasure of his owne will shewing mercy on whom he will and hardning whom he will in which respect he is said to make men in what condition he will as Rom 9. 20. Shall the thing formed say to it that formed it why hast thou made me thus Though indeed he makes but one sort of them after a new fashion leaving the other in the state of naturall corruption wherein he findeth them And likewise is compared by the same Apostle to a Potter who out of the same lump makes one vessell unto honour and an other unto dishonour But to returne I have I trust sufficiently shewed that in all this which he hath delivered when things are rightly understood and duely considered ther 's nothing found alien from the holy nature of God no more then it is repugnant to his holy nature to decree and execute vengeance condigne vengeance even the vengeance of damnation on men for their sinnes in such sort that it shall unavoidably overtake all those that breake not off their sinnes by repentance before their death Nothing more agreeable to Scripture nor to the nature of God revealed unto us in holy Scripture then this and consequently nothing more agreeable to Christian reason But as for naturall reason God forbid we should make that the rule of our faith as concerning the resurrection of the dead and the powers of the world to come the rewards of heaven and the torments of hell where the worme never dieth and the fire never goeth out And may it not seeme very strange that a Christian and a Divine and one magnified by the Arminian party for great abilities should undertake to prove this doctrine to be contrary to Scripture to the nature of God and to sound reason Well let us proceed to observe how well he performes what he undertakes And here he saith 1. That the Scripture makes man the principall nay the only cause in opposition to God of his owne ruine We answer the Scripture makes man the only cause of his owne ruine in the meritorious cause thus man's destruction is of himselfe But this nothing hinders God from being the cause why vengeance destruction and damnation are executed upon man for he is the God to whom vengeance belongeth he delights as well in shewing judgment as in shewing mercy Indeed did we maintaine that God damnes the Reprobate whether man or Angells of his mere pleasure this Argument of his were seasonable We know full well that God of his free grace shewes mercy but judgment only upon provocation and herein he proceeds slowly too for he is slow to wrath and easie to be intreated Yet God's afflicting is not alwaies for sinne neither doth it alwaies proceed in the way of punishment when we suffer for Christ we have cause to rejoyce that he counts us worthy to suffer for his name neither were the afflictions of Iob brought upon him for his sinnes but for the tryall of his faith and to make him an example of patience to all succeeding generations and as for that of Ezech I will not the death of the wicked It is the usuall course of men of this Authours spirit thus to render the wordes whereas our last English translation renders them thus I have noe pleasure in the death of the wicked Now as a man may will that wherein he takes noe pleasure as a sick-man takes a bitter potion sometimes for the recovery of his health so God may will that wherein he takes noe delight And whether it be meant of first or second death it cannot be denied but God wills it for he workes all things according to the councell of his owne will Then againe if we consider the infliction of death as an execution of judgment God not only willeth this but delights therein also as it is expressed That of Prosper is nothing to the present purpose we treating here of the cause of damnation not of sinning we say God is the God to whom vengeance belongeth not to whom sinne belongeth Besides sinne as sinne hath noe efficient cause at all but defficient as Austine hath delivered many hundered yeares agoe It is true it is in Gods power to preserve any man from any sinne it is in his power to take any man off from any sinfull course by repentance if he will but he is bound to none he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth and in all this he is not culpable In the next place he tels us It is contrary to God's nature but what To damne men for their sinnes neverbroken offby repentance for all our divines maintaine that God is Authour of damnation to none but such and to such God is not mercyfull nor gratious nor suffers them any longer nor shewes any goodnesse towards them while they lived he did yea much long suffering and patience inviting them thereby to repentance yea and by his word also inviting many but after they dye in sinne therewithall an end is sett to the dispensation of Gods gracious proceedings with them Much lesse doe we deny him to be good and mercifull and of great kindnesse to all that call upon him For Gods mercy doth not exercise it selfe by necessity of nature but by freedome of will yet he heareth the cry of Ravens and not a Sparrow falleth to the ground without the providence of our heavenly father and the very Lyons roaring after thir prey doe seeke their meat at the hands of God These mercyes are temporall but as for spirituall mercyes for the working and cherishing of Sanctification these are not extended unto all but to some only even to whom he will And accordingly the elect of God are called vessels of mercy Yet to the execution of damnation on any he proceeds not till after death and stayes no longer so slow to wrath he is towards the worst and no more slow to the best of them Who is a God like unto thee saith Micah that taketh away iniquity here this Authour out of wisdome maketh a stoppe leaving out that which followeth and passing by the transgressions of the remnant of his heretage That restriction belike he did not so well brooke but having leapt over that he is content to take in that which followeth he retaineth not his wrath for ever because mercy pleaseth him to witt towards the remnant of his heritage of his people But I hope nought of this can hinder God from being the Authour of damnation to all that dye in sinne without repentance without any prejudice to his holinesse though he retaineth wrath for ever against them We come to his reason which he calls soūd saying that it
hath a being and by consequence some thing that is good Now this argument cometh nerest to Maldonats discourse upon that of our Saviour speaking of Iudas It had been good for that man he had not been borne Some saith he dispute subtilly more then enough how it could be better for Iudas not to have been whereas not to be is no good to be damned is some good For he that is damned is somewhat And every thing that is as it hath a being is good And we know that man's being is no common good but a speciall one as being made after God's owne Image and likenesse And looke with what judgment this Author extenuates being humane calling it a poore little entitative good with the same judgment he might extenuate Angelicall being For even among Angells some have their portion in hell fire But now he comes to his first proposition that unavoidable damnation of so many millions can not be absolutely and antecedently intended by God without the greatest injustice and cruelty The question is of the suffering of hell paines whether it be worse then to be annihilated This Authour runnes upon the terme damnation which is a civill and judiciall act Is there no difference between these They that say Christ sufferd the paines of hell doe they say Christ was damned Then to speake with a fuller mouth he puts in the damnation of so many millions whereas if the damnation of one may be intended by God without injustice after what manner soever undoubtedly the damnation of never so many millions may Then he helps himselfe with the Epithite of unavoidable added to damnation and the terme absolutely affixed to God's intention to no purpose that I know but to abuse himselfe and others by confusion for feare least the truth should break forth to their conviction To intend damnation avoidable what is it but to intend it conditionally And to intend damnation not absolutely is all one with to intend it conditionally Now to intend the damnation of any man conditionally is with this Author as much to intend his salvation as his damnation Yet this he calls the intention of damnation And Bradwardine hath long agoe maintained and demonstated by evidence of reason that there is no conditionate will of God And this Authour will not say I suppose that God did intend that Christ should suffer hell paines conditionately or that if he did intēd it absolutely he was unjust in so doing Now both D. Iackson expresly confesseth that the distinction of will antecedent and consequent in God is to be understood not as touching the act of willing but as touching the thing willed And Gerardus Vossius acknowledgeth that after the same manner must the conditionate will which is ascribed unto God be interpreted Now we willingly confesse that the thing willed and intended by God to Reprobates namely damnation befalls none but in case they dye in sinne without repentance And as already I have shewed not any of our Divines maintaine that God intended to damne any man but for sinne Only the maine point of difference between us is as touching the conferring denying grace even the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance Herein we willingly confesse that God carrieth himselfe merely according to the pleasure of his own will according to that of the Apostle He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth Now on this point this Authour keeps himselfe close and earthes himselfe within his own concealements lest he should betray the bitter Leven of Pelagianisme in maintaining that grace is conferred according unto workes which cannot be avoided by him if once he comes to deale on this Argument He thinks he hath great advantage in the point of Reprobation and very free he is here but declines the point of election and point of conferring grace which argueth a naughty disposition practising by indirect courses to circumvent and suppresse the truth rather then conferre any thing for the clearing of it yet see his confused carriage in the very point For when he speakes of damnation avoidable and unavoidable he takes no paines to manifest in what sense he takes it to be avoidable as whether by power of nature or power of grace Is it his meaning that any man's damnation is avoidable by grace We deny it not Or is it his meaning that it is avoidable by nature we utterly deny this But this man counts it his wisedome not to speake distinctly but worke his advantage upon confusion of things that differ but let all such take heed least utter confusion be their end But if it be his meaning that all men have power to avoid damnation if they will to wit in as much as they have power to beleive if they will to repent if they will I would he would deale fairely once and come to this The Scripture is expresse That they that are in the flesh cannot please God that the naturall man discerneth not the things of God that they are foolishnesse unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned That they cannot beleive cannot repent Of the Children of Israel in the wildernesse that God had not given them eyes to see eares to heare nor hearts to perceive fourty yeares And truely we take faith and repentance to be the guift of God And the habits of them not to be a power to beleive and repent if a man would but an habituall and morall inclination of them to believe to repent And habits as it was wont to be said Agunt ad modum naturae doe worke after the manner of nature And it is very strang that supernaturall grace should not And long agoe I have learnt in Austin that to doe good and obey God if a man will is rather nature then grace For the will alone is all in all as touching acts morall good or evill and till the will be changed we are as farre off as ever from performing any thing that is pleasing in the sight of God This is the peculiar glory of God's grace To make us perfect to every good worke and to worke in us that with is pleasing in his sight through Iesus Christ and this he doth according to his good pleasure For grace is not conferred according unto workes That was condemned as a pestilent doctrine long agoe in the Synod of Palestine and all along in divers Councells against the Pelagians How gladly should I imbrace any delineation of this Authours opinion in the point of grace and free will the rather because I seem to smell who he is by this which followeth For I remember sometime under whose hand I read it namely that Plutarch speaking of the Pagans who to pacifie the anger of their gods did sacrifice to them men and women should say It had been much better with Diagoras and his fellowes to deny the being of a God then confessing a God to think he delights in the blood
him 3. It is untrue that by our Doctrine Reprobates doe unavoidably sinne I have already demonstrated the contrary For as I said Malum semper habitat in alieno fundo every actuall sinne is a naturall act a worke of grace may be supernaturall as touching the substance of the act so is not the worke of sinne but allwaies naturall Now no Christian that I know affirmes that a man in the state of sin is bereaved of free will in things naturall Nay we generally confesse he hath free will in things morall only as touching things spirituall he hath no freedome left therein therefore as I said before Iudas might have naturally forborne to betray his Master naturally forborne to destroy himselfe If some object the common opiniō of Divines is that in a state of nature there is noe libertie for sinne I answer first out of Aquinas that this is to be understood of sinne in generall not of any in particular Licet aliquis non possit gratiam adipisci qui reprobatur à Deo tamen quod in hoc peccatum vel illud labatur ex ejus libero arbitrio contingit Though a man that is reprobated of God cannot obtaine Grace for how should he obtaine it if God will not give it will they say that Grace is given according unto workes yet that he falls into this or that sinne this is a contingent thing and proceeds from his own free will So say I every sinfull act committed by man in the state of naturall corruption is committed freely in such sort that he might have abstained from it but I doe not say that he could abstain from it in a gracious manner But whether he doth that which is good he doth it not in a gracious manner so that still he sinneth more or lesse and all by reason that as yet he hath neither faith in God nor love of God which are the fountaines of all gracious actions both in doing that which is good and in abstaining from that which is evill As for Zanchi's saying That God holds Reprobates so fast that they cannot but sinne This act of God is no other then his denying them grace to breake of their sinnes by repentance and to turne unto God Now the Apostle professeth that as God hath mercy on whom he will so he hardeneth others even whom he will in denying this grace unto them And marke what objection he shapes hereupon thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine to wit of men's disobedience for of nothing else doth the Lord complaine For who hath resisted his will Observe the chaines wherewith God holds them fast irresistably to wit the chaines of obduration Let the Authour therefore charge St. Paul as well as Zanchy for making God the Authour of sinne and indeed he might have abounded in passages out of holy Scripture alleadged to the same end whereunto he alleadgeth these out of our Divines yea and Papists too But Piscator Zanchy and Calvine these are his proper markes to shoote at ever since he learnt in his age to correct the errours of his youth in taking frivolous exceptions against Bellarmine As for a necessity of sinning brought upon all by the sinne of Adam Arminius acknowledgeth it and this Arminius is acknowledged by Corvinus in his answer to Lilenus Only God takes it away from his Elect at the time of their calling and regenerating and leaves it upon the rest and who can say black to the eye for this Will we not give him libertie to have mercy on whom he will and harden whom he will Then let us fly in the face of Paul as well as Calvine Zanchy for so plainly teaching this The hardnesse of men's hearts is the immediate cause why they obey not God's word But there is another cause also that our Saviour takes notice of and that is this That God doth not regenerate them or hath not elected them Of this our Divines may well take notice because Moses before hath done the like The Israelites profited neither by hearing of God's word nor by the seeing of his mighty workes I say by none of these did they profit unto repentance and what was the reason hereof Surely the hardnesse of their hearts as Moses signifies Thou art a stiffe-necked people Yet he takes notice of another cause and that is this Yet the Lord hath not given our hearts to perceive nor eyes to see nor eares to heare unto this day So our Saviour in the Gospell He that is of God heareth God's words ye therefore heare them not because ye are not of God Now to be raised up in Calvin's Phrase to illustrate God's glory in their damnation is no other then to be brought forth into the world and not to be borne of God that is to have the grace of regeneration denied them and consequently to be suffered to goe on in their sinnes and lastly to be damned for their sinne to the manifestation of the glory of God's justice Solomon saith as much The Lord made all things for himselfe that is for the manifestation of his glory even the wicked against the day of evill And St. Paul Rom 9 by shewing mercy towards some signifies how God formes some after one manner by hardening others he formes them after another manner comparing the 18. v. with the 20. And in the 21. He justifies God in this and that in reference to different ends which are the manifestation of his glory different waies saying Hath not God power over the clay of the same lumpe to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour And verse 22. What if God to shew his wrath and to make his power known suffered with long patience the vessells of his wrath prepared to destruction v. 23. And that he might declare the riches of his glory upon the vessells of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory What one of our Divines expresseth himselfe in this argument more fully or more liably to carnall exceptions following the judgment of flesh and bood then St. Paul doth in this Here by the way as touching Piscator I must fetch after mine answer in his behalfe to that which in the entrance to this Section was delivered of him and overseen by me For this Authour confessing that our writers have never said directly in terminis that God is the cause of sinne which introduction of his is the very same which Bellarmine useth opposing our Divines on this very argument lib. 2. Deamissione gratiae statu peccati cap. 4. Afterwards by a parenthesis brings in an exception of Piscator and some other of the blunter sort without naming one of them And though he name Piscator yet he quotes no place for if he had he should withall direct his Reader to the grounds whereupon Piscator affirmes this namely that God is the cause of man's fidelity And it is the very place formerly mentioned in these words He that is of God heareth God's
upon the foresight of faith But predestination proceeds upon the good pleasure of God's will ergo The Major proposition I prove thus This phrase according to the pleasure of God's will excludes all outward causes And no wise man will referre the cause of a man's absolution to the good pleasure of the judge when a man's innocency is the cause of it For that is the cause of a thing whereby answere is made to the question why such a thing is done And this is the perpetuall phrase of Scripture as Is it not lawfull for me to doe what I will with mine own And All these things worketh the same spirit distributing to every man severally as he will and He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth It pleased the father that in him should all fulnesse dwell It is so ô father because thy good pleasure was such It is God that worketh in you both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure The Lord loved you because he loved you Deut 7. 7. They inherited not the land by their own sword neither did their own arme save them but thy right hand and thine arme and the light of they countenance because thou diddest favour them 2. My second argument is Therefore God gives faith because he did predestinate them As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life and God added daily to the Church such as should be saved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appeares by the equipollency of both sentences Now hence I inferre Therefore God gives not faith because he hath not ordained them to everlasting life For if the affirmation be cause of the affirmation the negation is cause of the negation And the Scripture as ordinarily subjoyneth the deniall of grace to reprobation as the granting of grace to predestination For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as perish is opposite to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as shall be saved And as the consequent of the one is said to be Faith so the consequent to the other is the deniall of the same or like grace As for example All they that are of God heare God's word so others heare them not because they are not of God as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such as shall be saved are added to God's Church so in whom is the Gospell hid only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in them that perish Among whom doth Antichrist prevaile by all deceivablenesse only in them that perish Like as for the Elect on the contrary 't is not possible they should be seduced Mat 24. 24 and 2 Thes 2. 13 3. If predestination were upon the foresight of faith then it should be only upon the foresight of such a faith as perseveres to the end whence two inconveniences follow 1. That no man can be assured of his election untill his death which is quite contrary unto Scripture For Paul was assured of the election of the Thessalonians by observation of the works of their faith the labour of their love and the patience of their hope 2. In this case none can be strengthened against the power of temptation by the assurance of their election But thus we are strengthned by Chist Mat 24. 24. by St. Paul Rom 8. 29. 2 Thes 2. 13. 4. Election is absolute therefore reprobation is absolute The antecedent I prove If it be neither of faith nor of works then it is absolute but it is neither of faith nor works Not of works expresly Not of faith as appeates by the same reason whereby Paul proves it is not of works For the reason is this Before the children were borne or had done good or evill it was said the Elder shall serve the younger Therefore election is not of works Now say I we may as well conclude therehence therefore it is not of faith forasmuch as before they were borne they were as uncapable of faith as of works The consequence I prove thus Looke by what reason St. Paul proves that the election of Iacob was not of good works because before they were borne 't was said The Elder shall serve the younger by the same reason it is evident that the reprobation of Esau was not of evill works the subjection of Esau unto his younger brother as lively representing his reprobation as the dominion of Iacob over his elder brother represents his election 5. Predestination is defined by Austin to be Praeparatio gratiae the preparation of grace therefore reprobation which is opposite thereunto must be the not preparation of grace that is God's decree not to give grace like as the opposite is Gods decree to give grace Now God gives grace not according to works For he hath mercy on whom he will And hereupon Austin builds his doctrine of predestination Now by his doctrine predestination is absolute as Gerardus Vossius confesseth in his preface to his history of the heresy of Pelagius How can it be otherwise For if God conferres grace not according to mens works but according to his own purpose and grace How much more did he decree to give it not upon any foresight of works but of his mere pleasure And the Scripture as clearely testifies that as God hath mercy on whom he will so whom he will he hardneth that is of mere pleasure he denieth grace to some as of mere pleasure he grants it unto others And therefore reprobation grounded hereupon must needs be as absolute as predestination grounded upon the other 6. Like as in Scripture phrase Faith is said to be the faith of God's elect election is not said to be of those that are foreseen to to believe So the worshippers of the Beast are said to be those Whose names are not written in the booke of life They that are not written in the booke of life are described to be such that admire and worship the beast And the not writing of mens names in the booke of life doth as significantly represent their reprobation as the writing of mens names in heaven Luc 10. 20. Rev 20. 12 doth represent their election Thus as formerly I gave six reasons to justifie the absolutenesse of reprobation because he pretended the absolutenesse thereof was repugnant to reason so here I have given six more derived out of the word of God to prove that this doctrine is the revealed will of God to stop his empty mouth that clamoureth and only clamoureth that it is no part of God's revealed will And that this doctrine is not only conformable to right reason but by convincing arguments in right reason demonstrable I have already shewed And that all the absurdities this Authour blatters of they prove to be no better then the mere imagination of a vaine thing That which here he discourseth of a reasonable service comes out of it's place it belonged to the former reason in M. Hord's treatise and there I
right accommodating it for your words are these If any decree be concerning the working of a certaine effect in such a subject as cannot possibly exist without the producing of that subject then we may suppose that he doth first decree thus you would say though indeed you say otherwise to produce that subject and afterwards to worke such an effect thereupon which in plaine tearmes is to argue thus The permission of Adams sinne presupposeth the creation of Adam therefore the decree of peâ— to create Adams sinne presupposeth the decree of Adams creation Now this is the Resp â—gh way to Arminianisme and Pelagianisme in the highest decree as I shewed you in my first the evidence whereof as it seemes drave you to acknowledge it and to devise some other course for maintenance of the Tenet of massa corrupta yet thro ghout all the reason you give is resolved into this for as there I said herehence it will follow in like manner that because damnation presupposeth all actuall sinnes therefore the decree of damnation presupposeth the decree of permitting of all actuall sinnes and consequently the foresight of them In like manner because salvation presupposeth all manner of good workes in men of ripe yeeres therefore the decree of salvation presupposeth the decree of giving effectuall grace for the performing of all manner of good workes and the foresight of them which is direct Pelagianisme in the highest degree And these considerations perswade me better than heretofore that the maintainers of massa corrupta for the object of predestination must be cast upon the maintenance of Arminianisme and Pelagianisme in the highest degree whether they will or no. 5. Conclusio quinta Gods decree to permit Peter to sinne in Adam is before his decree to manifest his mercy in Peter by occasion of this sinne ex Thes 9. Resp 1. Your Thesis Nona I have already answered 2. Gods decree to permit Peter to sinne in Adam is no more before his decree to manifest his mercy by occasion of that sinne than Gods decree to permit Peters personall sinnes all his life long is before his decree to manifest his mercy in pardoning them And what place you make for these decrees whether in election or out of election you have no where shewed 3. God doth manifest his mercy by occasion of Peters sinnes both originall and actuall not onely in the way of pardoning sinne but in the way of saving his person in despight of sinne whence it followeth by the course of your argumentation that the decree of permitting all Peters sinnes throughout the whole course of his life precedes the decree of manifesting Gods mercy in his salvation 4. And because Gods decree of saving Peter is a decree of doing somewhat by occasion of Peters faith and repentance and good workes it followeth by your manner of reasoning that the decree of saving Peter presupposeth the decree of giving Peter faith and repentance and good workes 6. Conclusio sexta Gods decree to produce the person of Judas is before his decree of manifesting his justice in Judas his person Thes 8. Resp This is all one with Conclusio quarta and admits the same refutation 7. Conclusio septima Gods decree to permit Judas to sinne in Adam is before his decree to manifest his justice in Judas by occasion of that sinne Resp 1. This is all one with conclusio quinta and admits the same answer 2. Why doe you say by occasion of that sinne and not by reason of that sinne perhaps you will say because that sinne is not the cause of Judas his damnation for I cannot devise any other reason but this is not sound for that sinne is the meritorious cause of Judas his damnation For though he be damned for actuall sinnes yet is he damned for originall also Againe many thousand infants are damned onely for originall sinne 3. May you not as well say that Gods decree to permit Iudas his personall sinnes is before his decree to manifest his justice in Iudas by occasion of those sinnes and consider I pray how little agreeable that is to your Tenet 4. And if the decree of permitting Iudas his personall sinnes be before Gods decree of punishing him with damnation why should not the decree of giving faith and repentance and good workes be before Gods decree of rewarding with salvation 8. Conclusio octava Gods decree to manifest his mercy in Peter or to make Peter a vessell of mercy which is properly decretum electionis is before his decree to call Peter to give him faith and repentance c. because that is a decree de fine this de medio Resp 1. I doe not dislike the order of these decrees but I say there is no congruity between them such as should be between the ends and the meanes For there is no shew of mercy expressed in giving faith and repentance but onely implyed in as much as both faith and repentance implies a state of misery preceding the permission whereof alone hath congruous reference to the shewing of mercy as the meanes stand in congraity to the end Faith and repentance and good workes are means tending to another end namely to the manifesting of Gods remunerative justice for as much as God meanes to bestow salvation on men of ripe yeares by way of reward of their faith repentance and good workes And it is without all contradiction that in Peter and every elect appeares not onely Gods mercy but his justice also and that in the highest degree both in the pardoning of their sinnes and saving of their soules for the merits of Christ Jesus And God hath ordained his sonne to give salvation Iob. 17. 2. 2. And I wonder not a little that you should subordinate any Medium tending to the demonstration of Gods mercy rather than the permission of misery 3. Especially considering that God when he purposed to shew mercy on Peter he purposed to shew mercy on him 1. In pardoning not onely his sinne originall but all his actuall sinnes also 2. In saving him not onely in despight of sinne originall but in despight of all his actuall sinnes also Neither have you any way to avoid this but by saying that God made Peter a double vessell of mercy and that by two decrees which I thinke was never heard of since the world began 9. Conclusie Nona Gods decree to manifest his justice in Judas or to make Judas a vessell of wrath which is properly the decree of reprobation is before his decree to deny Judas faith and repentance c. by the same reason Resp Here againe you erre marvelously in making a Medium most incongruous to the end intended To deny faith and repentance what is it more than not to give it and by faith you meane I doubt not faith in Christ crucified c. But it is cleare that God gave no such faith and repentance unto the elect Angells yet farre be it from us to thinke that this was a medium tending
body or the decree of advancing a subject by way of reward doth presuppose his service or the decree of a Patron to present his sonne to a benefice doth presuppose his fitnesse for it or the decree of Solomon to bring Shimei his gray haires unto the grave in bloud did presuppose the offence for which this was brought to passe but rather from these decrees and intentions each Author in his kind proceedeth to bring to passe every thing that is required to the accomplishment of that end which he requires As I prove by instance in every particular 1. I have knowne one that to shew the power of his balme hath wounded his owne flesh and pouring his balme into it hath cured it in the space of twenty foure houres Aske wherefore he wounded his flesh every one seeth that both he wounded it and healed it with his balme to make the vertue of his balme knowne So that his intention of manifesting the vertue of his balme did not presuppose the wound but drew after it both the making of the wound and the pouring of balme into it as the meanes tending to the demonstration of the power of the balme 2. So we have knowne another to take poyson and afterward his cordiall against it both the one and the other joyntly tending to the manifestation of the vertue of his cordiall 3. A King intending to promote a favourite but withall to doe it without envy of the Nobility may resolve to doe it by way of reward which purpose presupposeth not good service but rather hereupon he will imploy him in service as in some honourable Embassage or in the Warres to the end that he may have occasion to advance him upon his service without envy of the Nobles 4. A Patron having a young sonne may entertaine a resolution to bestow a living upon him when time serves This intention doth not presuppose his fitnesse without which he cannot be admitted but because he hath a purpose to preferre him thereunto therefore he will take order to bring him up like a Schollar and send him to the University to make him fit 5. Last of all Solomon you know upon Davids admonition on his death bed entertained an intention to bring Shimei to his grave in bloud yet not for his cursing of David but for a new transgression therefore he takes a course to ensnare him and bids him to build him an house in Jerusalem and not to passe over the Brooke Kidron upon paine of death Now it was not indeed in Solomons power effectually to ensnare him and so certainely to bring upon him the execution of death But this is in the power of God For let him but expose any creature unto temptation and derelinquish him therein without giving him his grace to support him that creature shall certainely fall into sinne otherwise if any creature can keepe himselfe from sinne without Gods grace then Gods grace shall not have the prerogative of being the cause of every good action But this prerogative of Gods grace must and by Gods grace shall be maintained unto the end And upon this foundation the prerogative of his soveraigne power also over his creatures in disposing of them as he thinkes good and making some vessells of mercy and some of wrath which Arminius himselfe professeth he dares not deny to be in the power of God to wit to make vessells of mercy and vessells of wrath and that ex massa nondum condita in his Analysis of the ninth to the Romans But I proceed to the forme of your Syllogisme 1. The reason you say may be laid downe Syllogistically thus 1. God could not intend to pardon any without supposition of that which is necessarily required to make them capable of pardon But sinne is necessarily required to make them capable of pardon therefore God could not intend to pardon any without supposition of sinne 2. God could not intend to punish any without consideration of that which is in justice required to make them punishable But sinne is required in justice to make any person punishable therefore God could not intend to punish any without consideration of sinne Resp 1. In both Syllogismes the Minor we grant the Major we deny as being in effect the very same proposition which is in question and all the evidence it carryeth with it consisteth in the parts which have a shew of an Enthymeme thus 1. Sinne is necessarily prerequired to the pardoning of sinne therefore it is necessarily prerequired to the decree of pardoning sinne 2. Sinne in justice is prerequired unto punishing Ergo 'tis in justice prerequired to the decree of punishing Now this is the very proofe which formerly I laboured to disprove by shewing the inconsequence thereof yet the proposition whereon you rely either must depend upon this proofe or upon none at all But I will proceed with you a little farther upon these Syllogismes you propose 2. Sinne you say and that truly is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon And this generall truth brancheth it selfe into two specialls 1. Sinne originall is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon for sinne originall 2. Sinne actuall is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon for sinne actuall Now because God doth intend to pardon all the sinnes of his elect not onely originall but actuall committed throughout the whole course of his life it followeth that God could not intend to pardon these actuall sinnes without the presupposition of them 3. By the same reason of yours I dispute thus 1. God could not intend to bestow salvation upon any man by way of reward without supposition of that which is necessarily required to make him capable of reward But the obedience of faith repentance and good workes is necessarily required to make a man capable of reward Ergo God could not intend to bestow salvation on any man by way of reward without supposition of faith repentance and good workes 2. As God cannot intend to punish any without consideration of that which in justice is required to make him punishable so God cannot intend to punish any in such a degree without that which is required in justice to make him punishable in such a degree Now not onely sinne originall but all actuall sinnes of every Reprobate together with their finall impenitency therein is required in justice to make every one of them punishable in such a degree Ergo could not God intend to punish any Reprobate in such a degree without consideration of all their actuall sins And as mens actuall sinnes are the meritorious causes of their damnation so the consideration of them shall be the meritorious cause of their reprobation or at least of that decree whereby God doth decree to inflict damnation upon them in such a degree And by just proportion of reason like as faith repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto salvation so the consideration of faith repentance and good workes shall be the
follow that because faith precedes salvation and sinne damnation therefore the foresight of faith is antecedanious to the decree of salvation and the foresight of sinne is antecedent to the decree of damnation For no Enthymeme of this nature is sound but so farre forth as it is reducible into a good Categorical Syllogisme whereof these Enthymems are uncapable For Enthymems reducible unto good Syllogismes must agree either in their Subjects or in their Predicates but these doe not Again all the termes in a good Enthymeme must be expressed in that Syllogisme whereunto it is reduced But each of these Enthymemes consisteth manifestly of four termes as in the first theâ—e Faith and the Foresight of faith Salvation and the Decree of salvation Of the second these Sinne and Foresight of sinne Damnation and the Decree of damnation and consequently that Syllogisme whereunto either of these quaternary of termes is clap'd cannot be good For no Categoricall Syllogisme is good that consisteth of foure termes As for the reducing of them into a Syllogisme Hypotheticall such Reductions were never heard of in the Schooles of the learned and that for just reason because that is no course to justify the soundnesse of the Enthymemes but a meer begging of that which is in question As in case a man should reduce it thus If faith be precedanious to salvation then the foresight of faith is precedanious to the decree of salvation But faith is precedanious to salvation Therefore it is precedanious to the decree of salvation In this Hypotheticall Syllogisme the consequence of the Major is the very Enthymeme which is in question for the substance of it and consequently no proving of it but a meere begging of it Yet notwithstanding we doe not deny but that God did decree that no man should be saved but such as being of ripe years should be found to persevere in faith unto death none should be damned but such as should be found finally to persevere in sinne The other execution of these decrees consists as I said in the bestowing of the grace of faith and repentance on some and denying it unto others Now the question is Whether God be indeed the author of faith and repentance yea or no and because the Arminians dare not professedly deny this though lately they are come so farre as professedly to deny that Christ merited it therefore let the question proceede about the manner how God bestowes it as namely whether he bestowes it of his meer pleasure on some denying it to others or Whether the reason why God bestowes it on some and not on others be because God findes some good work in one which he findes not in another This question being decided it will clearly appeare whether predestination proceeds upon the foresight of ought in man yea or no. For if God of his meer pleasure doth bestow faith on one and not on another it followes undeniably that God predestinated him hereunto absolutely and of his meer pleasure without consideration of any future work of man But if God bestowes faith on man upon consideration of some precedent work of his which was not the work of God then and not otherwise neither it will follow that upon the consideration of that future work of man God did elect him unto faith or predestinate faith unto him So that if we desire sincerely and ingeniously to inquire what was the opinion of the Ancients about the absolutenesse of predestination we should state the question as touching Predestination unto faith and not as touching Predestination unto salvation For we all confesse that God predestinated no man unto salvation but such as he foresaw coming unto ripe years would believe sooner or later And therefore the main question between the Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants was whether this decree were the whole decree of Predestination and whether there were not another decree of Predestination besides as namely whether God did not decree to bestow faith on some and deny it unto others And secondly to inquire Whether this decree of bestowing faith on some did not proceed according to Gods good pleasure without consideration of any different work in man And the most compendious resolution hereof is to inquire of the manner how God carrieth himselfe in the bestowing of faith and repentance on some and denying it unto others as namely Whether on his meer pleasure he hath not mercy on some giving them faith and repentance and of his meer pleasure denyes the gift of faith and repentance unto others Now let the Fathers whosoever thinks good be admitted to bring in their suffrages on this Article and remember what was decreed in the first Synode that was gathered to make peace in the Church after Pelagius had disturbed it namely Gratiam non dari secundum merita that is as Bellarmine acknowledgeth Gratiam non dari secundum opera Lastly all of us now a daies consent as touching Gods concourse to the substance of every act of the creature whether good or evill Now let this Author or any other represent unto us what footing he finds in Antiquity concerning this But I come to answer particularly according to this Authors text He cannot find absolute and inevitable reprobation to have any footing in Antiquity Belike he can find reprobation evitable a strange phraise either way These attributes applied to damnation doe carry a faire sense with them damnation being a work of God wrought in time and undoubtedly may be avoided may be incurred for the time to come But reprobation is eternall as God himselfe and how that should be fancied to be of an avoidable condition for the time to come I cannot comprehend unlesse this Author be of their opinion who desire to shape Gods decrees of a revocable nature as being both to impute unto him an impotent immutability as some are pleased to phraise it But leave we reprobation unavoidable take we the absolute nature of it into consideration this he cannot find in all Antiquity But consider I pray he pretends these motives as inducements to change his former opinion so then belike he stood sometimes for reprobation absolute but did he find any footing in Antiquity for it what time he embraced it if he did formerly embrace it notwithstanding he found no footing in Antiquity for it why should he now relinquish it for finding no footing in Antiquity for it Belike the older he waxeth the more he groweth in love with Antiquity Again when formerly he did embrace the doctrine of absolute reprobation upon what grounds did he embrace it was it because he was in hope he should hereafter find Antiquity for it or was it only for the authority of them who brought him up in this opinion What sorry grounds are these to build a mans faith upon Yet this is not our course to impose Articles of faith on any but rather to endoctrinate them out of the word of God If then a mans Christian faith be built upon the Word
in signo rationis the foresight of finall impenitency yet concurring with us in this that all are fallen in Adam and so brought forth into the world in damnatâ Massà as Austin calleth it God of his meer pleasure cures this naturall corruption the fruits whereof are infidelity and impenitency in some by regenerating them and bestowing the grace of faith and repentance upon them and leaves it uncured in others by refusing to regegenerate them to bestow faith and repentance upon them We give the hands of Christian fellowship and brotherly amity one unto another without all exception notwithstanding some nice differences which in the issue I hope will prove to be meerly Logicall and nothing Theologicall Lastly however this poynt of unwillingnesse in some to come to conferre in the poynt of reprobation might cast some colour of suspicion to the prejudicing of their cause yet least of all did it become this Author to take advantage hereof considering that it is his own case as who declineth not one poynt only but all the rest in this his discourse and cleaves only to that of reprobation nothing answerably I presume to your expectation who put this task upon him and whether it be any thing answerable to the promise he made unto you your self are best acquainted therewith Yet because the Remonstrants hereupon to wit upon the Contra-Remonstrants declining this Controversy have taken liberty to oppose the doctrine of the Contra-Remonstrants in this poynt so farre forth as they made construction of their opinion hereupon by their doctrine concerning election therefore I will not spare even here to digresse so farre as to take notice what they delivered and to addresse an answer hereunto the rather because I find this discourse of theirs inserted in their Relation of that Conference at Hague Now whereas first by a long deduction upon consideration of the Contra-Remonstrants doctrine in the poynt of election they doe inferre Colloq Hagh Bertii p. 120. that like as faith is made by them a fruit of election so infidelity is by them to be made a fruit of reprobation this consequence we utterly deny It only followes herehence that like as faith whereby mans naturall infidelity is cured is by them made the fruit of election so the denyall of faith that is the not curing of mans infidelity or the leaving of it uncured is the fruit of reprobation And indeed considering the means must be his work who intends the end wherehence it followeth that look what end God doth intend in mans election the means tending thereunto must be Gods work as namely faith in like sort whatsoever be the end which God intends in reprobation the means tending thereunto must be his work which cannot be infidelity or sinne but the permission of sinne rather and infidelity or the not curing of that corruption and infidelity which is naturall unto us all Hereupon they proceed to propose two things to be questioned in congruity to the doctrine of the Contra-Remonstrants 1. Utrumne Fides in consilio decreto Dei de electione ad salutem eam ipsam electionem ordine praecedat an verò consequatur 2 Ex alterâ parte An Infidelitas in eodem Consilio Decreto Dei de reprobatione ad exitium eam ipsam reprobationem ordine praecedat an sequatur The latter of these is only pertinent to our present purpose yet seeing they handle them both so farre as to dispute against the opinion of their opposites in both and carry themselves herein Magnificentissimè I am content to weigh their arguments in the ballance of Scholasticall consideration least some such as this Author should affect to seem judicious in suspecting my declining of them to savour of some inability to encounter them Thus therefore they beginne If faith followes election unto salvation then also the decree of sending Christ as a Saviour into the World must necessarily follow that election But this consequent is absurd and pertains notably to the ignominy of Christ To this I answer First out of mine own opinion Thus. Faith is supposed to follow Election unto salvation upon no other ground then because the intention of giving faith is supposed to follow the intention of giving salvation But this I should deny and that for this reason because this subordination is grounded only upon supposition that salvation is the end which God intends and faith the means tending unto that end but this I deny First because the end of Gods actions is not the salvation of man but the manifestation of his own glory For he made all things for himselfe Pov. 16. 4. and reason justifies it For God being the supream efficient must be the supream end and being Optimus as well as Maximus he must needs be both most lovely and most loving of that which is most lovely that is of himselfe But because some may conceive that though Gods glory be the supream end yet mans salvation may be the intermediate end therefore to this I answer First let such shew then what is the glory of God which salvation of the creature setteth forth and I doubt not but if that glory be stated right it will appeare that not salvation alone but something else is required to be joyned with it as namely the mission of Christ yea and faith in Christ to compleat that means which tend to the procurement of such an end that is to the setting forth of such a glory Secondly the end whether supream or intermediate is alwaies such as being rightly understood doth break such a means but salvation is not so in respect of faith for it doth not bespeak it as is apparent in the salvation of Angels of Infants as also in this that it was absolutely possible for God to save even sinners without Christ as may be demonstrated and I have demonstrated in my Vind. Grat. Dei by variety of evident reasons In a word if Gods supream end were the manifestation of his glory on some considered as meerely possible in doing them good in the highest degree and that in the way of mercy mixt with justice and that ex Condigno ex Congruo it is apparent that the means required hereunto and bespoken hereby is a body consisting of divers particulars all together compleating the integrall means required hereunto For herehence it followeth that they must be both created without which no glory of God at all can be manifested upon them and permitted to sinne otherwise God could not doe them good in the way of mercy which supposeth misery but also that a Saviour must be sent and he no lesse then the Sonne of God to deserve the pardon of their sinne and salvation otherwise it could not be in the way of mercy mixt with justice de Condigno and faith and repentance must be bestowed on them otherwise the good done them could not be by way of reward and lastly salvation otherwise good could not be done them in the highest degree
ponderous consideration But as touching Papists their dislike of us he confines it only to the Supralapsarian-way And indeed that distinction of the Supralapsarian and Sublapsarian-way was brought in meerely to get thereby some more elbow roome For if they agree with us in the poynt of Gods absolute and irrespective decrees how improbable is it that the doctrine of any of our Divines in stating the object of predestination to be humanum genus nondum conditum will prove odious unto them considering this is a meer Logicall difference as I have shewed in my Vindic. Grat. Dei cap. 1. pag. 1. De Predestinatione digress 1. Yet as touching the Supralapsarian-way that opinion is imputed unto Junius by Arminius as also to Thomas and his Followers Collat. Armin. cum Juni pag. 4. and if so how improbable is it that such an Opinion should be so odious to the Papists as this Author upon his bare word avoucheth And Alphonsus Mendoza spares not to professe that supernaturalls were intended by God before naturalls and his discourse hereupon was taken with admiration by his Auditors in Spaine and he was urged as himselfe professeth to set it forth in Print And the Quatuor signa Francisci Mayronis mentioned by M r Perkins De Praedest Modo Ordine doe manifest that he took the same way and these quatuor signa Franciscus Mayro received from the doctrine of Scotus It is well known that in the Synod of Dort there met Divines different in this poynt who yet neither hated one anothers doctrine nor persons for this difference like as so it is amongst us as in the place above mentioned I have shewed Nay it is apparent that Junius took upon him to reconcile all three opinions there abouts and Piscator after him who also hath discharged his part herein farre more clearely then Iunius And no marvail Iunius having first broken the ice But that the truth may not be carried in the clouds of ambiguities as they desire who are in love with errour All the question between these our Divines consists in this Whether it were the will of God that Adam should fall by his permission so to make way for Gods glorious ends to wit the manifestation of his glory in the incarnation of the Sonne of God as also in the way of mercy in the salvation of some and in the way of justice in the condemnation of others The Supralapsarians maintaine that such was the will of God least otherwise way should be made for the manifestation of Gods glorious works by accident rather then by Gods providence Other Divines that take the Sublapsarian way had rather decline this nice poynt as difficult then oppose it as odious But say I the doctrine wherein both Jesuits and Arminians doe agree will abundantly serve us to justify us in the positive and affirmative part of so nice a poynt as this For by their doctrine of Scientia Media God did foresee that upon such an administration of his providence about Adam as was used Adam would fall and more then this that God could have brought forth other administrations of his providence in very great variety some whereof were such that if God had used Adam would not have fallen Now being pleased to make use of such an administration of providence divine upon the purpose whereof he foresaw Adam would fall and not being pleased to use such a providence upon the purpose whereof he had foreseen Adam would not have fallen I call here all the indifferent of the World to judge whether it doth not manifestly follow herehence that it was the will of God Adam should fall by his permission Again throughout our doctrine nothing is more harsh then that of Gods determining the will of the creature to every act of his as touching the substance thereof Dares this author betray such ignorance as hand over head to professe that this doctrine is odious unto Papists Whereas the most learned in the Church of Rome are well known to maintain it in expresse termes whereas our Divines course is to keep themselves to the phrase of Scriptures And as for the Jesuits who oppose it and in the place thereof bring in Scientia Media and Gratia Congrua shaped after the genius of Scientia Media I can shew an expresse acknowledgement under the hand of a zealot for the Arminian cause that between the Gratia praedeterminans of the Dominicans and Gratia congrua of the Jesuits there is no such materiall difference at all but that the absolutenesse of predestination and reprobation doth follow as well upon the one as upon the other To conclude I would this Author would be so wise as once more to consult with his Oracle and enquire Whether Papists are more ready to joyne with Lutherans in their doctrine of Christs Ubiquity as touching his Manhood then with us in the poynt of Reprobation or of Gods concourse For suppose we held as Suarez is pleased to state our Tenent namely Quod Deus omnipotenti voluntate nobis necessitatem imponat yet the same Suarez saith that in this very poynt we are not reprehended of them as if we affirmed ought Quod vel in re ipsâ contradictionem involvat aut Dei omnipotentiam superet I presume no Papist is so well conceited in the Lutherans doctrine in the poynt of Ubiquity From that which he affirmes of Papists I come to that which he affirmes of Lutherans And what one instance hath he given of any Lutheran speaking against our making the corrupt Masse the object of predestination or reprobation Surely not one either out of Sir Edwin Sands nor out of Osiander Nay what cause is there why either Papist or Lutheran should in case the object thus stated or in a more rigid forme of the Masse Uncorrupt doth no way constraine us to maintaine that God doth intend the damnation of any man in any moment of nature before the consideration of him as departing out of this World under the power of sinne no nor to maintain that God doth intend the salvation of any man in any moment of nature before the consideration of him in finall perseverance in faith and repentance provided God suffer him to live untill the use of reason as I have shewed and endeavoured to justify and make appeare in my Vindic. Grat. Dei in the digressions concerning Predestination For indeed not any of our Divines was I think ever known to maintain that God did intend to damne any man but for sinne Neither doe I maintaine that God intended to bestow salvation on any man of ripe years but by way of reward of his faith and repentance The true and principall reall not verball only difference between us and the Arminians is about Gods bestowing of faith and repentance and his purpose thereof Now let any learned Lutheran deliver his mind on this namely upon the foresight where of it is that God gives faith and repentance unto some and denyes it unto others When
of any Against this Scripture therefore fights this absolute reprobation and hatred of men TWISSE Consideration BE it the whole lump of man-kind if that Lettice like his lipps I should think by World is meant homines in mundo degentes men at any time living in the World without any restraint But herehence it followeth not that God doth not absolutely hate the greatest part of man-kind which this Author should have proved but he doth not therefore I will not only deny it but disprove it First therefore consider this love is only secundum Quid in reference to mens persons namely so farre forth as in case they believe they shall obtain everlasting life through the Sonne of God But if there were no farther love of God towards man they might be damned yea every Mothers sonne for all this Secondly if faith it selfe be a gift of God and God gives it not to all but to some only and those but a few for even of them that are called few are chosen and withall if God hath absolutely decreed to bestow this grace only on a few and deny it to the greatest part of the World will it not manifestly follow herehence that if absolutely to decree the denyall of faith be to hate then surely God absolutely hates the greatest part of men notwithstanding this love here mentioned albeit we extend it to all and every one Therefore it became this Author to prove that God is indifferent to give Faith to one as well as to another and that either absolutely whence it would follow that all and every one should both believe and be saved or conditionally and therewithall represent unto us what that condition is whereupon God bestowes faith on one and for the want thereof he refuseth to bestow faith on another This is the very criticall poynt about the controversies of Gods decrees Here therefore he should have shewed his strength For as for Gods purpose to damne we willingly professe that as God damnes no man but for sinne so he purposeth to damne no man but for sinne But as for his purpose to give or deny the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance we as readily professe that not the purpose only but the very giving of faith and repentance for the curing of infidelity and hardnesse of heart in some and the denying of it unto others so to leave their naturall infidelity and hardnesse of heart uncured proceeds meerely according to the good pleasure of his will according to that of the Apostle He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth And by a cloud of testimonies out of Austin we can prove that in this very sense he understood the Apostle in that place And indeed no other interpretation of that place can with any modesty be devised or obtruded upon us As for the redeeming of all and every one by Christ distinguisheth that which the haters of Gods truth doe delight to confound There is a redemption from the guilt of sinne and a redemption from the power of sinne For we are redeemed from our vaine conversation Christ came into the World to dissolve the works of the Devill No greater works of Satan then blindnesse of heart 2 Cor. 4. 3. and hardnesse of heart Ephes 2. 2. and 2 Tim. 2. last The pardon of sinne and salvation God bestowes only on believers and upon condition of faith Now like as God is ready to bestow these benefits on all and every one and that for Christs sake in case they believe so Christ hath merited pardon of sinne and salvation for all and every one in case they believe Such is the sufficiency of Christs merit that if every one of Adams race should believe every one should be saved and this present Text proceeds upon this namely upon the sufficiency of Christs merits But enquire farther whether Christ did not merit for us the grace of faith and if he did whether absolutely of conditionally if absolutely then all must believe de facto and be saved if conditionally then faith is a grace which God bestowes on man conditionally Now let this Author shew us what that condition is upon performance whereof by man God will give him faith and let him try whether he can carry himselfe so warily herein as not to plunge himselfe into plain Pelagianisme This poynt is a break-neck or Crevecoeur unto all Arminians they generally avoyd the delivering of their minds clearly hereupon as a man would avoyd a precipice It is true some Divines doe interpret the word World here of the Elect as Piscator Rolloc doth not making no mention of the Elect hereupon And Piscators meaning is no more then this viz. that this love of God in respect of every gracious effect I mean in the way of sanctifying grace determins only upon the Elect for in all likelihood he followed Calvin in this Universalem notam apposuit saith Calvin tum ut promiscuè omnes ad vitae participationem invitet tum ut praecidat excusationem incredulis To the same purpose saith he pertaines nomen mundi quo prius usus est And again se toti mundo propitium ostendit quum sine exceptione omnes ad fidem vocat But here he subjoynes a caution thus Caeterum meminerimus ita communiter promitti omnibus vitam si in Christo crediderint ut tamen minime communis omnium sit fides Patet enim omnibus Christus expositus est solis tamen Electis oculos Deus aperit fide ipsum quaerant So that this gracious promise is generall to all and every one whosoever believes shall be saved But yet notwithstanding if it shall appeare that God gives the grace of faith to none but to a certain number which are his Elect it followes that the effect of this love of God to wit Salvation shall in the issue redound to none but Gods Elect. 1. As for the designing a place where the World is taken for the Elect we need no such place as I have shewed yet Piscator conceives that so it is taken Iohn 3. 17. That the World might be saved by him But what think you of Rom. 11. 15. Where the casting away of the Jewes is said to be the reconciliation of the World And that 2 Cor. 5. 19. God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himselfe I say the reconciled World is only Gods Elect for the reconciled are all saved as I prove by the Apostles argument Rom. 5. If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne how much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life Ioh. 1. 29. The Lamb of God that taketh away the sinnes of the World Are their sinnes taken away that are damned for them And Ioh. 6. 33. He gives life to the World Is life given to any but to the Elect 2. The second reasons why in this place it cannot be so taken are in effect but one and that a
another man made theirs only By Gods order and pleasure 2. In their inevitable destination to destruction under a shew of the contrary The Devills as they are decreed to damnation so they know it they expect it they look for no other but men even those that are appoynted unto wrath are yet fed up with hopes of Salvation and made to believe that the whole businesse is put into their hands so as that if they doe perish it is not defectu misericordiae because God hath no mercy on them but defeclu voluntatis propriae because they will not be saved when yet there is no such mercy Now if it be worse to be deluded in misery then simply to be miserable then the condition of men in this respect is made by this decree to be worse then the state of Devills 3. In their obligation to believe and the aggravation of their punishment by not believing The Devills because they must be damned are not commanded to believe in Christ nor is their punishment encreased by not believing but poore men who by this decree can scape Hell no more then the Devills must yet be tied to believe in Christ and must have their torments encreased if they believe not These things being so I think I may conclude that this decree of absolute reprobation overthrowes the mercy of God in generall and toward mankind Nor doth that quiet my mind which is usually answered to these objections viz. That God by this decree doth fully manifest his justice and his mercy too his justice towards the Reprobates and his mercy toward the chosen vessells and that it is necessary that his decrees shall be so ordered as that both these may be clearly manifested by them This I say doth not satisfy for 1. Gods mercy is revealed to be rich mercy abundant long suffering beyond apprehension and surmounting his justice in its objects and expressions Now such a mercy as this set forth with such glorious titles cloathed with such lovely properties and exceeding the ability of any mans conception such a mercy I say is not manifested by this decree 2. Neither is the pure and spotlesse justice of God set forth by this absolute decree as I now come to shew this being my second argument drawn from the Attributes of God against absolute reprobation TWISSE Consideration HEre we have a great deale of noyse and the most wastfull discourse that ever I yet met withall in the enlarging of a most hungry argument the answer whereunto himselfe perceives and sets down as he thinks good in a few words after three large leaves spent in the enlarging of his opposition namely to this effect that whatsoever he can say in the advancing of Gods mercy we willingly acknowledge but withall we say this mercy of God which makes God so glorious is peculiarly manifested towards the vessells of mercy whom God hath prepared unto glory in distinction from the vessells of wrath as we read Rom. 9. 23. and that in a higher degree then he hath mentioned this being one speciall end why God suffereth with long patience the vessells of wrath prepared to destruction Rom. 9. 22. namely That he might declare the riches of his glory upon the vessells of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory v. 23. And after so much froth of words spent to no purpose unlesse to beguile his reader and dull him with verbosity that he might not attend and observe how accurately he performes in the issue that which he intends Consider I beseech you what a meager and starveling reply he puts to this Gods mercy saith he is revealed to be rich mercy abundant long suffering beyond apppehension we grant all this and adde that it is glorious also and makes the partakers of it to rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious but this belongs only to them that believe and to certain who are called vessells of mercy in distinction from vessells of wrath Rom. 9. 22 23. which vessells of mercy in distinction from vessells of wrath must needs be the elect only in distinction from Reprobates with what face can he deny that such a mercy is manifested on the Elect by our Doctrine 2. I farther adde that such a mercy is not manifested by his Doctrine as by ours for the glory of Gods mercy consists in this that it is of free grace pardoning our sinnes regenerating us changing our hearts giving faith and repentance to some when he denies it to others all this I say is of meere grace by our Doctrine without respect to any preparation or qualification in man according to that of the Apostle He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth this is not their Doctrine if it were I see no cause of any materiall difference between us 3. And I find it strange that men should grow to such a degree of immodesty as to affect singularity and to shew a dexterity in such sort to advance Gods mercy as to obscure and deface his grace as this Author doth for all along you shall not find him to magnify Gods free grace whereas Mercy shewed to one rather then to another in respect of his being better disposed for the receiving of it more then another is rather of the nature of justice then of Mercy distinct from justice 4. And to this purpose he takes no pains to set down wherein this mercy consists which he so much amplifies but carryeth it throughout in hugger mugger and in the clouds of generality that it might appeare the more likely to be indifferently extended to all and albeit sometimes he expresseth it to be the love of a Father towards his children yet it is too too probable that he extends this to all and every one as the children of God by creation And therefore particulates not wherein it consists as namely whether in mercy temporall or spirituall and as touching mercy spirituall whether this be not the pardoning of mens sinnes together with the illumination of the mind sanctification of the will change of the heart and giving of faith repentance obedience and finall perseverance therein For had he particulated those he had apparently marred his own market and been driven to loose that in retaile which he hoped to gaine in grosse For these mercies are not extended to all But their meaning is God offers these to all and that any faile of them it is because man disposeth not himselfe for the receiving of them This is the issue of his advancing Gods mercy utterly to disparage the freedome of Gods grace Now of the Divine mercy in this sense to wit as freely extended to all he hath not one word throughout as I can remember in so vast premises all that he speaks of the extention of Gods mercy to variety of objects is dispatched in three lines of these his three large leaves as where he saith his mercy is more largely extended then his justice and that look how much three or foure come short
have I received this from three severall hands of Arminians each giving the same interpretation of it as if it were called a strange work because it is alienum a naturâ Dei I know none but Papists doe justify them in this interpretation in my judgement a most unreasonable exposition the Lord taking unto himselfe the execution of judgement as his peculiar saying vengeance is mine and I will repay And Magistrates are but Gods Ministers for this And he professeth his delight in this as well as in the execution of mercy It is true he doth not inflict judgement without cause for that were not a work of judgement in proper speech but of power and absolutenesse rather as in turning a holy and innocent creature into nothing And in that respect he is said not to afflict willingly sinne alwaies deserving it Mercy is of another nature and supposeth free grace though I find little or no notice this Author takes of this throughout his discourse Neither doe I find that he or any Arminian acknowledge that the change of a mans heart is wrought in a man of the meere grace of God without any motive cause in the creature Neither doe all Papists concurre in this interpretation for Lyra and Burgensis are together by the eares hereabouts and our Divines as Junius and Piscator doe render it opus insolens terribile an unusuall and terrible judgement interpreting it of bringing the Babylonians upon them so strange a worke that they should wonder at it And as Moses foretold that God should bring upon them Wonderfull judgements Deut. 28. So the Prophet Abakuk sets it forth in like manner Abak 1. 5. Behold among the Heathen and regard and wonder and marvaile for I will worke a worke in your daies you will not believe it though it be told you For loe I raise up the Caldeans that bitter and furious nation which shall goe upon the breadth of the Land to possesse the dwelling places that are not theirs And Jer. 19. 3. Behold I will bring a plague upon this place which whosoever heareth his eares shall â—ingle For seeing Gods lawes are strange things unto them Hos 8. 12. God would bring such judgements upon them that should be as strange unto them And in the same phrase it is said that destruction is to the wicked and strange punishment to the workers of iniquity Job 31. 3. Yet be this granted him it is nothing to the purpose For be it never so deere unto God yet if he restraineth his chiefe mercy which consists in changing the heart whereof this Author seems unwilling to take any distinct notice only to the Elect called accordingly in Scripture vessells of mercy in distinction from vessells of wrath which are the Reprobates this nothing prejudiceth the absolutenesse of reprobation And as for the frequent exercise thereof we read Zeph. 3. 5. That every morning God bringeth his judgements to light and as for the mercy which consists in regenerating man which alone is to the present purpose it is apparent that it is farre lesse frequently shewed then the contrary judgement in obduration And certainly the vessells of mercy are by farre fewer then the vessells of wrath and as for temporall mercies the more frequent they are the worse where the spirit of regeneration is wanting through the corruption of man that makes him thereupon the more obdurate The vanity of the next as touching the amplitude of the objects whereto mercy is extended though this alone is to the present purpose I have already sufficiently discovered it being apparent that in Scripture phrase only the Elect are counted vessells of mercy and all the rest vessells of wrath As there be examples of Gods long suffering and patience so we have fearfull examples of the suddainesse of Gods judgements taking Men and Women away in the very act of sinne Thus the Israelites in the Wildernesse when the flesh of Quailes was in their mouth the heavy wrath of God came upon them and sent them to the graves of lust Zimri and Cozbi perished in their incestuous act and gave up both lust and ghost together Balshazzar a King cut off in his drunken revells to make good the Prophecy of Isaiah The night of my pleasures hath he turned into feare unto me And in like manner the wrath of God seazed upon Herod in his pride But above all this appears in Gods dealings with his Angells who sinned once and fell for ever without all hope of recovery And as for Gods sparing a man in case God gives not repentance what will be the issue but filling up of the measure of their sinnes For to speak in Austins language Contra Julian Pelag. lib. 5. cap. 4. Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis agit paenitentiam Now the case is cleare God gives repentance to a very few who are in Scripture called vessells of mercy which nothing at all prejudiceth the absolutenesse of reprobation 5. Of the riches of Gods mercies to his children we nothing doubt but what doth this prejudice the absolutenesse of reprobating those whom he never meaneth to make his children But here it is to be suspected that this Author accounts all and every one the children of God for forthwith he confounds this notion with the notion of creatures quite contrary to the most generall current of Scripture not of the New Testament only which teacheth us that we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Gal. 3. and if children then heires even heirs of God and heirs annext with Christ Rom. 8. But of the old Testament also Gen. 6 2. The sonnes of God saw the daughters of men that they were faire c. Exod. 4. 22. Thou shalt say to Pharaoh thus saith thè Lord Israel is my Sonne my first borne wherefore I say let my Sonne goe that he may serve me if thou refuse to let him goe behold I will visit thy Sonne even thy first borne Deut. 14. 1. Ye are the children of the Lord your God 2. Thou art an holy people to the Lord thy God and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a precious people to himselfe above all the people that are upon the earth That of the Hen though we give him liberty to amplify her naturall affections as one of the most affectionate Females among unreasonable creatures yet doth it nothing profit him for it represents Gods love appropriated to his Children which nothing prejudiceth the absolutenesse of his power reprobating others Nay rather as it justifies his absolutenesse in electing them if we consider the meere grace of God to have made the difference as the Scripture sheweth Deut. 7. 7. The Lord loved you because he loved you and Deut. 9. at large he beats them out of all conceit of any righteousnesse in them moving the Lord to plant them in the Land of Canaan so by consequent it justifies the Doctrine of absolute reprobation also for as much as the Apostle
professeth that like as God hath mercy on whom he will so also he hardneth whom he will Yet hereis much matter made of the Hen like as D. Jackson hath done it before him but he betrayes no such authority for it out of Austin as this Author doth to whom he is beholding for it himselfe best knoweth If the pedegree be enquired into their conceits may be found to be of kinne yet give me leave to say somewhat of this similitude also And first this Author commits a very great Anomaly in entring upon it with such state as proves nothing answerable to his own profession anon after almost in the same breath Marke the state I pray of his entrance hereupon thus And as if these comparisons were too small too expresse Gods affection to his creatures he proceeds farther now the comparisons preceding were taken from reasonable creatures as namely from Fatherly and Motherly affections amongst men towards their children and these comparisons he signifies to have been to small to expresse Gods affections to his creatures and that therefore the Lord proceeds farther and compares himselfe to a Hen which he saith is one of the most affectionate females among unreasonable creatures not daring to say t is more affectionate then creatures reasonable yet most improvidently carried away with affectation of a Rhetoricall flourish he faignes a gradation from creatures lesse affectionate to creatures more affectionate and presently himselfe beats out the braines of his invention before he is aware as soon as it is borne As for Austins amplification of the affectionate nature of an Hen above other creatures we may consider that Austins Tractates on John are of the nature of Sermons and therein the ancients doe accommodate themselves to popular amplifications It is true we doe not know Sparrowes Swallowes Storkes Doves to be Mothers but when we see them in their nests but what is the true reason hereof Is it not because their young ones are wild and as soon as they are apt to fly one flies one way and another flies another way they come together no more it is not so with chickens which are tame creatures and we see the carriage of the Hen towards them we doe not see the carriage of other fowles towards their young ones Yet we read not the like of a Hen as of a Storke that when her nest was on fire out of a desire to save them with her wings from the fire hath not forsaken her young ones till shee was burnt her selfe And we have seen also how a Hen hath sometimes peckt her young ones and driven them from her when they would have roosted under her And in my judgement our Saviour doth not represent his tender affection to the Jewes by the generall affection of an Hen to hers but to that particular carriage of hers in desiring to gather her chickens under her wings Neither doe I think that he who invited those mighty men but unto what unto a Hen was to expresse his singularity of affection towards them be it that God is more mercifull to man then to all other creatures whence I pray proceeds this is it not meerly from the good pleasure of his own will and if so why may he not out of the meere pleasure of his own will restraine his saving mercy to some few who are accordingly called in Scripture expressely vessells of mercy distinguished from all the rest who are called vessells of wrath Whereas he saith that with such a mercy cannot stand such a Decree as absolute reprobation We answer neither doe we say any such decree doth stand with such a mercy it is rather absolute election stands with such a mercy then any reprobation The Scripture plainly giving us to understand that they on whom reprobation passeth are not vessells of mercy but vessells of wrath But like as God though he spared not Angells when they fell nor left any way open unto them for repentance whereby to returne to his grace and favour yet he spared man and left a way open unto him to returne to his grace and favour by faith in Christ In like sort though God were pleased absolutely to elect some amongst men yet this nothing precludes him from dealing as absolutely in reprobating others that is in purposing to deny them the spirit of faith and repentance whereby they might rise after they were fallen which grace most freely and absolutely he decreed to bestow and as freely and absolutely he doth bestow on others according to that of the Apostle Rom. 9. 18. he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth By this I pray judge of the insipid nature of this discourse yet see the foulenesse of his mouth unlesse God be indifferent unto all and make all vessells of mercy he is a Father of Cruelty and more properly so to be called then a Father of mercies and the very name of the Devill for so he takes upon him to interpret that name in the Revelation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Destroyer is good enough for him And the conscience of his own piety no doubt expert in Paraphrasing and shaping some Rhetoricall flourishes and passionate expressions bears him out with such confidence as to feare no Blasphemy It is very likely he hath a high conceit of these performances that he is so bold as to professe in effect that if the contrary be true then will he be guilty of as great Blasphemy as to have called God Satan yet see the absurdity that throughout he may be like himselfe of his discourse whatsoever God be accounted by him in respect of reprobates doth this any way hinder him from being the Father of mercies towards his elect who alone in Scripture phrase are called vessells of mercy His hatred of Esau doth it any way hinder his love to Jacob If to damne be to destroy and no creature hath power to damne but God only can any be a destroyer in this kind but God as the efficient cause of Damnation and destruction But in case our Doctrine holds doth he damne any but for sinne and shall he in this case be stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense it is delivered in the Revelation What thinks he If many thousands even all the Infants of Turkes and Sarazens dying in originall sinne are tormented by him in Hell fire is he to be accounted the father of cruelties for this And I professe I cannot devise a greater shew and appearance of cruelty then in this Now I beseech you consider the spirit that breatheth in this man dares he censure God as a Father of cruelties for executing eternall death upon them that are guilty of it Now hath not he himselfe professed that all borne in originall sinne are borne guilty of eternall death his words are these Fol. 2. p. 2. That all mankind is involved in the first sinne and the fruits thereof which are corruption of nature and the guilt of eternall death And
loose and dissolute discourse is most suitable with his Genius 1. Adams sinne was no mans personall sinne but Adams true for there was no man then but Adam but all men being the posterity of Adam were then in Adam in that one person of Adam and in him all have sinned saith the Apostle Rom. 5. and without consent to sinne they could not sinne 2. When he saith this sinne of Adam was not the sinne of our nature by generation it is so wild an expression that I professe I cannot devise any tolerable sense of it That we were in Adam when he sinned it was fully sufficient to bring upon us that corruption that depth of corruption wherein we are all conceived and borne and not by imputation What Divine amongst Papists or Protestants is he that maintains that Adams sinne was the sinne of our nature by imputation This is undoubtedly one of Arminius his flowers which this Author takes up among the rest to make himselfe a nosegay to smell unto It was Gods will that all should stand or fall in him For if it had pleased him he could have destroyed Adam for his transgression and made a new stock from whom to derive the World of Mankind But resolving all should descend from him he must withall resolve that upon the sinne of Adam and of them all in him they must take from him such natures as Adams nature and therein all our natures were made corrupt by sinne excepting Gods grace to provide better both for Adam and his posterity as he thought good So that look in what sort Adams nature was corrupted by sinne in such sort must we receive corrupt natures from him Here Calvin is brought in with a robe of commendation as an excellent servant of God But God knowes his heart and the hearts of all that oppose Gods truth in these poynts T is true that Calvin saith both in respect of Gods power to have propagated Mankind from another originall then from Adam as also in respect of his power to reforme corrupt nature in whomsoever it pleased him But did Calvin think it possible for corrupt nature to propagate any other nature then it selfe is God made man after his Image and likenesse but afterwards we read that Adam brought forth a sonne after his Image and likenesse who can bring a clean thing out of that which is uncleane saith the book of Job And that which is borne of flesh is flesh saith our Saviour But doth it herehence follow or doth Calvin or any Calvinist or Lutheran or Papist say that Adams sinne is made ours only by imputation The case is not alike of other parents For Adam was created in grace and endued with the spirit of God this holy condition was lost by the sinne of Adam and we receiving our natures from him in the state of his corruption must therewithall receive natures bereaved of grace and of the spirit of God No such detriment to our pure nature was wrought or could be wrought by the transgression of any other progenitor no nor by any other sinne of Adam besides the first 3. God did pardon it in Adam upon his repentance so is he ready to pardon it and all actuall sinnes also of all men upon their repentance And God renewed Adam too of his free grace after he was corrupt and regenerated him by shewing mercy upon him But this work proceeds according to the meer pleasure of Gods will as the Apostle witnesseth saying He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth 4. Christ came into the World to take away the sinnes of the World that is by satisfaction for sinne to merit the pardon of it nor pardon of sinne only but salvation of soule also but for whom surely for none but such as should sooner or latter believe in him for God hath ordained that these benefits of Christs death and obedience should not be distributed absolutely but conditionally to wit upon the condition of faith But as for the benefits of faith and repentance these are not benefits communicable upon a condition for what condition can precede them but a worke of man and it was condemned 1200 years agoe to say grace is given according unto merits that Bellarmine interprets simply of works though Papists are apt enough to stand for merits and the Apostle saith in plain tearmes that God doth not call us according unto works these therefore are communicated according to the meere pleasure of Gods will He might have given faith to all but he would not I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion Exod. 33. These things he saith being well considered will make any man as he thinks to conclude in his thoughts that if there be any such decree God is not mercifull to men at all A most unshamefac't pretence and savouring of a spirit that hath expectorated all naturall ingenuity doth not every one perceive that all this nothing at all hinders the incomprehensible nature of Gods mercy towards his Elect Dares he himselfe in plain termes deny this namely that it nothing prejudiceth the course of Gods mercy towards his Elect For what if by the sinne wherein they are borne they be made guilty of eternall death yet if God be pleased to pardon this sinne nor this only but all actuall transgressions of theirs yea and break the yoake of their corruption and as he seeth their wayes so to heale them yea to heale their rebellions and backslidings to subdue their iniquities to rule them with a mighty hand to make them passe under the rod and bring them unto the bond of the covenant and when he hath brought them thither to hold them there to perfect the good work he hath begun in them As he hath laid the foundation of his temple in their hearts so to finish it to be the Author and finisher of their faith and as of their faith so of their repentance to hold them in his hands so that none shall take them therehence to keep them by the power of God through faith unto salvation to build them upon a rock that the gates of hell shall not prevaile against them either to deliver them from the howre of temptation or to deliver them out of it or so to order it that it shall not be above their strength to be with them when they goe through the water and through the fire that the floods shall not overwhelme them the fire shall not burne them but as he leads them into it so he will support them in it and lead them through it as he led the Children of Israel into the red sea and in the red sea as an horse in the Wildernesse that they should not stumble and out of the red sea into the Wildernesse and in the Wildernesse and out of the Wildernesse In a word to fulfill the good pleasure of his goodnesse towards them his grace in them
second generall reason against it TWISSE Consideration THat Salvation and that by the ordinance of God is only obtaineable by men of ripe years by faith and repentance as also that in case every one should believe and repent every one should be saved is without question For hath not our Saviour professed that whosoever believeth shall be saved and doth it not undeniably follow herehence that it is Gods will that whosoever believeth shall be saved Neither is this any wish as this Author faigneth neither doth any of our Divines say that ever I read or till now heard of that God wisheth that all that believe shall be saved this being a most absurd speech and contradiction to the ordinance of God For those things which God or man are said to wish are such which doe not alwaies come to passe but this ordinance of God whosoever believeth shall be saved is more stable than the covenant which God hath made with day and night Not any Arminian that ever I read doth expresse himselfe in so prostitute a manner as to say God seriously wisheth the salvation of Reprobates in case they believe For he hath not wished but ordained and made it a positive law that whosoever believeth shall be saved and herehence it followeth that if all and every one from the beginning of the World to the end shall believe in Christ all and every one of them shall be saved But when they speake of velleity in God or wishing the object thereof they make not to be the salvation of men in case they repent but absolutely the salvation of men which kind of velleity is resolved indeed in the issue into a conditionate will thus Gods will is that all shall be saved in case they repent not thus I doe wish that all may be saved in case they repent according to the most absurd fiction of this Author At length he grants that God will have all men to be saved only upon condition they will believe and repent and that conditionall promise may be serious as well as an absolute but then saith he the condition must be possible to them to whom the offer and promise is made and the performance of the condition must be a part of Gods will as well as the salvation promised or else the promise cannot be candid and sincere Whereto I answer that it is confessed on both sides that God hath ordained that all that believe shall be saved and consequently it must be granted that the promise of salvation hereupon to wit upon faith must needs be candid and sincere it being the promise of God Now shall we herehence inferre hand over head that therefore the condition must be possible unto all in spight of all other evidences to the contrary though never so plainly and expressely laid downe unto us in holy Scripture as namely that a naturall man perceives not the things of God they are foolishnesse unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. That they that are in the flesh cannot please God Rom. 8. 8. That they who are accustomed to doe evill can no more doe good then a Blackemore change his skinne or the Leopard his spots Jer. 13. 23. This is the immodest course of this Author to set up one piece of Scripture by his paltry consequences to outface another nothing lesse evident Notwithstanding this Scripture discovereth unto us how this impotency of doing good is contracted unto us all by sinning in Adam as whereupon we were bereaved of grace and of the spirit of God yet if he would deale fairely and deny originall sinne he should erre no more then Pelagius did and withall he should have as much ingenuity as Pelagius had But now though equall to him in the one yet is he inferiour to him in the other But come we nearer to him than so What one of our Divines denyeth the performance of this condition to be possible to al men But is it fit that he should talke of possibility as he doth at large without any reference to the grace of God And dares he say that it is possible to any man whether elect or reprobate without grace I say he dares not say so much though like enough he and all the Sect of them have a good mind to it What then is the issue of all this Controversy between us but to enquire what manner of grace that is without which it cannot be that any should believe Is it only such a grace as gives only power to believe This is no better than plain Pelagianisme as appears by Austin de grat Christ cont Pelag. coelest c. 6. and in the end where he comes to make an overture for the compounding of the Controversy between them Or Is it some other grace prevenient working only Morally by way of perswasion This also appears clearely to have been the opinion of Pelagius in the same book of Austin cap. 10. And he challengeth him to the acknowledging of another manner of grace if he will not only be called a Christian but be indeed a Christian Or Lastly is it only grace subsequent by way of concourse as to say that God workes in us the act of believing provided that we will believe This this is that Helena that our homeborne Arminians are inamoured with meere Pelagianisme for who seeth not that thus the grace of faith is conferred according to the acts of willing in men which is as much as to say t is conferred according to works Then marke yet farther absurdities for thus God hath not mercy on whom he will in giving faith but on whom man will and what colour is there in this case for any such objection to be made hereupon as is devised by the Apostle Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine for who hath resisted his will Further consider Doth not God in this manner concurre to the most sinfull act that is commited in the world And why then doe we not as well say that the commission of sinne is not possible without grace subsequent for certainly t is not possible without divine concourse Lastly say farther what is the grace required to the very act of willing Doth God work this also by grace subsequent As much as to say God works in us the act of willing provided we worke it in our selves Such morsells as these can easily goe downe with these stomacks which are apt to tumultuate upon the hearing that God hath power to make whom he will vessells of mercy or vessells of wrath man must be the crafts-master of his own fortunes and it were neither agreeable to Gods mercy nor to his justice nor to his truth unlesse their free-will hath the greatest glory of their conversion and God be admitted no more to the working of that act of faith and of repentance than to the working of the most sinfull act that is committed in the world But I find it nothing
that they may be without excuse and that the Preachers of the Gospell were unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish without putting any difference according to this Authors Gemora that this is to be understood of the one occasionally of the other intentionally But to ransack this also and to speake distinctly What is the good that God hereby intended them Was it Salvation And how did he intend that unto them Was it intended to be their portion whether they believed in Christ or no Undoubtedly his meaning can be no other then this he intended they should be saved by him provided they did believe in him Now what Christian was there ever known to deny this namely that as many as believed in Christ should be saved by him But let me aske another question Did God intend they should believe in him Yes surely in the opinion of this Author but is not faith the gift of God They are ashamed to deny this at least in concione populi whatsoever they doe consessu familiari Why then did not God give them faith Why surely because they refused to believe in him so that had they believed in him then God would have given them faith as much as to say had they bestowed faith on themselves then God would have bestowed faith on them this is their sobriety that oppose the grace of God and such be their sobriety still that fall away from the truth of God If Physick doe the Patients harme through the distemper of their bodies this must be through the ignorance of the Physitian who either knowes not the distemper of their body or else knowes not how to master it But spare I pray to make God obnoxious to the like ignorance or impotency when the Lord saith I have seen his wayes and will heale them Isai 57. 18. When was it ever known that such a patient was not healed What greater distemper of the soule than back-sliding or Rebellion Yet when God saith I will heale their back-sliding and I will heale their Rebellions Hosea 14. vers 4. When was it ever knowne that any of his Patients were not the better for his operation but the worse rather At length that breakes out of this Author that formerly stuck in the way like a burre in his throat as when he saith that God intends the chearing of men by the shining of the Sunne but that some are scorched by the heat of it some hurt by the light of it is accidentally as if these effects were not intended by God as much as to say that God doth not intend that the sunne should scorch in Zona torrida though the sunne works by necessity of nature and cannot but scorch there as the Abissines felt to their smart who were wont to pray unto the sunne as he was rising to spare them but after he was passed and going downe to curse as fast for his scorching of them whence it is conceived that proverbe came plures adorant solem orientem quam occidentem as naturall it is to the light to scatter the sight and if by scattering the eye be ill affected this is as naturall to the sunne like as to make sweet flowers send forth their odoriferous savours as a dung-mixen to exhale an unsavoury smell but suppose a man should loose his sight by the light as some have by the light of the sunne being kept long in some darke place before shall this be accidentall unto God wheras the Prophet professeth there is no evill in the City which the Lord hath not done Like as Gods blessing it is that neither the sun scorcheth him by day nor the influence of the Moon or any other planet hurt him by night But come we to the Apodosis of the simile He renewes his coccismes of Gods blessings out of his abundant goodnesse bestowed on men for their good which is a generall speech and in the generality nothing to the present purpose we know God saveth both man and beast he makes his sunne to shine and his raine to fall on the just and on the unjust but as for the knowledge of God revealed in his creature whatsoever is brought forth according to it we doubt not but God intended it as civill society and some naturall feare of God and civill conversation where any thing is done contrary unto it the Apostle hath discovered unto us the end of naturall revelation is that they might be without excuse they connot say si scissem fecissem that excuse is taken from them As for the dictates of supernumerary Apostles we have no cause to regard them especially when they are cantradictitions to the word of God and Christian reason the Gospell is unto God throughout a sweet savour in Christ both in them that are saved and in them that perish It is true that it is through the corruptions of mens hearts that men doe not yeeld obedience to it but that corruption God can cure and doth cure where it pleaseth him that men doe obey 't is also through the good temper of their hearts but through the grace of God curing that corruption in them that he leaves uncured in others And we willingly grant that he intends their salvation in whom he means to cure this corruption to bring them to the obedience of faith but most absurd it is to say that he intends their salvation on whom he never meant to shew any such mercy but rather to harden them where the honest and good heart is wanting the word proves not fruitfull but only where such an heart is found Now it is Gods work I know alone to take away the stony heart and to give an heart of flesh But this Author carryeth himselfe so throughout that he would have this worke to be the work of mans free will not of God any other way than by perswasion admonition exhortation and concourse many talke of Robin Hood that never shot in his Bow and this Author talkes of the anticedent will of God which I doubt whether he understands either the meaning of Damascen herein or of Crysostom either Vossius reduceth it as I have shewed before to Voluntas conditionata thus God willeth that men should be saved if they believe is it not as true that his will is they shall be damned if they doe not believe this is the only gratious will this Author magnifyes but God give me experience of another manner of his gratious will towards me namely as he seeth my wayes so to heale them yea and to rule me with a mighty hand so he make me to passe under the rod and bring me unto the bond of his covenant But yet see I pray whether this Author be yet come to the sobriety of his sences in speaking here of Gods severity in the way of a will judiciary as when he gives wicked men up to the lust of their hearts and permits them to dash against Christ and other meanes
did invite them to no other end than this namely to take away these excuses surely these excuses were clearly taken away and consequently so farre they should prove unexcusable But I guesse they take the denomination of inexcusable not according to the signification formall as it signifyes bereaved of excuse but rather according to the signification materiall connotated thereby which is faultinesse and in this sence I confesse it is ordinarily taken togeither with the condition of being without excuse and thus in this sense I willingly subscribe unto them and therewithall shew what I take to be their meaning namely this that if God making shew that if they believe he will accept them and that they shall be Saved did not indeed meane that he would in that case accept and save them then there were no reason why they should be accounted faulty and condemned for their not believing Thus in a desire exactly to conforme my selfe to the judgement of these worthyes of our Church made choyse of by our Soveraign to be sent in so Honourable an Embassage to countenance that famous Synod of the most reformed Churches I have made bold to interpret them and to shew my concurrence with them although I have not consulted with any of them upon that poynt which if I had like enough I might have received better satisfaction And I hope they will not disdaine that without consulting them I have adventured thus to interpret them and what doe I know whether their judgement may not prove to be the very same and that in deed they had no other meaning 2. My former answer will serve for this Gods Ministers doe offer Salvation conditionally to wit upon condition of faith neither are any ordained to be condemned but in case of infidelity yet I see the cunning carriage of this Authors instructer for he would faine fly from the absolutenesse or conditionality of Gods decree as touching the things willed quoad res volitas unto the absolutenesse or conditionality of it quoad actum volentis as touching the act of willing although both Uossius practise and this Authors also in expressing his owne meaning of Gods conditionall will and Doctor Jacksons profession is to the contrary namely that it is to be taken quoad res volitas only and not quoad actum volentis but withall we teach that Gods Ministers doe not only teach upon what tearmes on mans part God will either bestow salvation or inflict damnation but also they teach that upon no tearmes on our parts but meerely according to the good pleasure of his own will doth God shew mercy unto some bestowing faith and repentance upon them and by denying the same grace harden others and they are the true witnesses of God equally in both 3. Neither is there any iust excuse hereby left to Reprobates yet I confesse this were a very plausible pretence if we had no Oracles of God at all to be the rule of our faith concerning God and his providence but as we have so we faile not therein of a direct answer hereunto Rom. 9. For after the Apostle had professed That God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth v. 18. Forthwith he brings in this ojection upon the stage v. 19. Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine for who hath resisted his will And both Bellarmine and Arminians confesse that where obduration hath place there is no power of obedience And the Apostle himselfe implyes no lesse in that place Now what doth the Apostle answer hereunto but this v. 20. O man who art thou which disputest with God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou formed me thus 21. Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lumpe to make one vessell to honour and another to dishonour as much as to say if God be acknowledged to be our Creatour we must give him leave to doe what he will with his creature for doth not every creature doe what he will with the worke of his hand Every tradesman in his trade takes as much liberty to doe with the workmanship of his hands as this comes to And Medina hath not spared to professe and that tanquam ex concordi omnium Theologorum sententiâ that if God should inflict the very paines of Hell upon an innocent creature he shall doe no unjust act though herein he should not carry himselfe as Judex Judge but as Dominus vitae mortis as Lord of life amd Death And we all know what power God giveth us over inferiour creatures to strangle some to cut the throats of others to knocke downe others not with reference to the moderation of their paine but only to the wholsome condition of their flesh unto us And we know what power God executed upon his own deare Sonne to break him for our iniquityes on him to lay the chastisement of our peace that so by his stripes we might be healed But let that passe let us try another way that may be answered unto this Suppose not one shall be condemned for want of faith but only left to be judged by the covenant of workes who seeth not but that the same plea hath place here as well as in the former case and God may be as well chalenged for injustice in condemning men for breach of the law who have no power to keepe the law And who sees not how ready this Author is to justifye this plea and consequently acknowledge that every man hath power to keepe the law and so to bring us back againe to the covenant of works or to confound the covenant of grace with the covenant of works which indeed is their course throughout For they maintaine that every man hath universall grace for the enlivening of their wills whereby they are inabled to will any spirituall good whereto they shall be excited and who doubts but obedience to the law and that in all perfection is a spirituall good againe they maintaine that they can believe if they will and so accordingly doe any good thing that they will and indeed were not the will in fault I know no naturall power defective in the performance of any good that a man hath a will unto this I can shew under the hands of one of them in a manuscript sent unto me And I have good reason to conceive there are more hands in it than one Thirdly consider dost thou complaine thou hadst no power to believe but I pray thee tell me hast thou any will to believe If thou neither hast nor ever hadst any will to believe what a shamefull and unreasonable thing is it to complaine that thou hast no power to believe Saint Paul had a most gratious will but he found in himselfe no power to doe that he would but what is the issue of this complaint To fly to the face of God Nothing lesse but to confesse his own wretchednesse and flee unto God in this
to have that to exist which before had no being And why may not the will of God be sufficient for the existence of the motion of each creature after it hath existence But supposing these determinations of the creatures wills to be necessary if God will not determine them to good what will follow herence Surely nothing but evill unlesse man can determine himselfe to that which is good without God For as for simple concurrence without subordination in working as I said before that cannot be affirmed without palpable and grosse contradiction as I have proved in the digression formerly mentioned proceed we yet farther I know nothing doth more intimately concerne God's secret providence in evill then the hardning of the creature to disobedience Now the Scripture which is the very word of God and the dictates of the Holy Ghost doth plainly and expressely teach that albeit God commanded Pharaoh to let Israell goe yet withall he hardened his heart that he should not let Israell goe for a long time which refusall of his was wilfull and presumptuous disobedience In like sort as touching obedience and disobedience to the Gospell the Apostle tells us plainly that God hath mercy on whom he will to performe the one and whom he will he hardeneth thereby exposing them to the other And hereupon this objection is made Why then doth God complaine to wit of man's disobedience for who hath resisted his will And we know what answer the Apostle makes hereunto O man who art thou that disputest with God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power of the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour another unto dishonour Now will any sober Christian conclude herehence that because God hardned Pharaoh that he should not let Israell goe therefore he is the Authour of sinne The Lord hath bid Shimei to curse David Consider what Austine writes upon this Quomodo dixerit Dominus huic homini maledicere David quis sapiens intelliget Non enim jubendo dixit ubi obedientia laudaretur sed quod ejus voluntatem proprio vitio suo malam in hoc peccatum judicio suo justo occulto inclinarit ideo dictum est Dixit ei Dominus How said the Lord to this man that he should curse David Who is wise and he shall understand For he said this not by commanding Shimei so to doe in which case his obedience had been commanded but in as much as Shimei's will through his own vitiousnesse being evill the Lord inclined it to this sinne by his just and secret judgment Thus saith he The Lord useth the hearts of the wicked to the praise and benefit of the good so he used Iudas betraying Christ so he made use of the Jewes crucifying Christ And how great good did he procure therehence to all believers Who also useth the Divell who is worst of all yet he makes best use of him to exercise and prove the faith and piety of the godly So he wrought in the heart of Absalom to refuse the counsell of Achitophell and make choice of that counsell which was nothing profitable Who may not well tremble in the contemplation of those Divine judgments whereby the Lord workes in the hearts of wicked men whatsoever he will yet rendring unto them according to their merits Then he proceeds to give other instances of Scripture to manifest God's working in the hearts of men and when he hath done he concludes in this manner His talibus testimoniis divinorum eloquiorum satis quantum existimo manifestatur operari Deum in cordibus hominum ad inclinandas eorum voluntates quocunque voluerit sive ad bona pro suâ misericordiâ sive ad mala pro meritis eorum judicio utique suo aliquando occulto semper autem justo By these and such like testimonies of Divine Scripture I take it to be sufficiently manifested that God doth worke in the hearts of men to incline their wills whithersoever he will either to those things that are good of his mercy or to such things that are evill for their deserts in the way of judgment which is sometimes known sometimes secret but alwaies just And all this he shewes to be wrought by God without prejudice to the freedome of their wills And why should David pray after this manner Lord incline mine heart to thy testimonies and not to covetousnesse If it were not in God's power to incline the hearts of men to covetousnesse Yet I trust no sober Christian will conclude from this prayer of David that God by executing such a power is the Author of sinne Lastly this argument is drawne from God's justice so is the third which is to confound rather then to distinguish the reasons produced by him We say that God cannot possibly be the Author of sinne the necessity of his nature stands in opposition thereunto For first sin hath no cause efficient but deficient only as long agoe it hath been delivered by Austin 2ly a cause deficient or defective is either in a culpable manner or in a manner nothing culpable As for example that Agent is defective culpably that either omits the doing of that which he ought to doe or omits to doe it after that manner which he ought to doe it now I say it is impossible that the divine nature can be defective either of these waies and consequently it is impossible that he should be the Author of sin whereas he saith this is Prosper's argument it is untrue He saith indeed it is against reason that God who damnes the Devill should will that any man should be a Servant to the Divell but forthwith he expounds himselfe 1. Expounding what that cōdition is of being the Devills servants whereof the objection did proceed Now the objection was this That the greatest part of men were created for this that they should doe not the will of God but the will of the Devill Now this objection saith Prosper proceeds from the Pelagians Qui Adae peccatum transiisse in omnes diffitentur who deny the sin of Adam to have passed unto all So that to doe the will not of God but of the Divell is to be in the state of naturall corruption and under the power of originall sinne whereby they are not God's servants but the Devills this is not the condition of God's children in the state of Grace Now Prosper shewes how originall sinne passeth over all not by the will of God and secondly how it passeth over all by the will of God Not by the will of God instituente but by the will of God judicante His words are these Haec servitus non est institutio Dei sed judicium This slavery of sinne which came upon all by Adam's sinne is not God's institution but his judgment As much as to say it came not upon a man by God's first creation but by his judgment upon him because of his
ad ignem aeternum deputatum posse salvari etiamsi optimè vivat se itaque velle pro suâ libidine vivere Ut ut enim sollicite lahoret non tamen posse decretum Dei infringere Respondet hic Christus Omnem palmitem c. qnod dicitur Quid ad te de occultâ Dei praedestinatione Hoc tu videris ut tu in me maneas fructum feras reliquae dispensationi prudentiae Dei committenda sunt Nam etiamsi videar is ad aeternam salutem praedestinatus non tamen fructum feras abjicieris in ignem tanquam infructuosus palmes He instances in Saul then whom there was not a better man in Israel That which is here cited out of Marlorat his Expositio Ecclesiastica it is set down as in Calvin's Commentary but no such thing is found in Calvin And it may be that is the fault of the Printers mistaking And Marlorat's own exposition succeeds in a few words thus Quae ideò dicuntur non ut fideles inde ansam arripiant de suâ salute dubitandi sed ut carnalis securitas ignavia ab hominibus tollatur And the next sentence whence this question is taken seems to cohere with this though a great C. as if it were Calvin's comes in between and it begins thus Certum est enim dècretum Dei à nemine infirmari posse quia Deus non est ut homo qui poenitentiam agat retractet sententiam semel decretam Then followes the passage here alleadged and at the heels of it these words Time igitur in solam Domini eligentis manum respice ut salutem per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum assequaris Undoubtedly Marlorat approves of Brentius his exposition otherwise he would not have placed it in his Expositio Ecclesiastica Now Brentius brings in the very saying for which Maldonat is criminated as the objection of some carnall person Therefore when Marlorat seems to justifie such a saying it must be in another sense and that either of good workes in shew of which Brentius also observed that such might have been found in Saul Or of workes in distinction from faith And accordingly he concludes with exhortation feare that is not to be secure how good soever his workes are but to have an eye to God and trust only to him that so he may obtain salvation through Jesus Christ Calvin in Ioh. 15. 6. Arescere dicuntur instar emortua sarmenta quae à Christo resecta sūt quia sicuti initiū vigoris ab ipso est ita continuus tenor Non quòd ex electis aliquem contingat unquam execari sed quia multae hypocritae in speciem ad tempus florent virent qui postea in reddendo fructu spem domini frustrantur They are said to to wither like a branch cut off such as are cut off from Christ because like as the beginning of their vigour is from him so also their continuance Not that at any time it falleth out that any of Gods Elect is cut off but because many Hypocrites carry a faire shew for a time as if they were green and flourishing who afterwards in rendring fruit make void the Lords Expectation 2. The decree of Reprobation as touching one part of it cannot be executed without sin For it is a decree of inflicting damnation for sin so that there is no place for damnation where sinne and that as a meritorious cause preceeds not I had thought this Authour needed not to runne out to Piscator and Maccovius for proofe of this neither Arminius nor the Authour is of any other opinion I am confident then that the decree of damnation cannot be executed on any without the precedency of sin in the party who is to be damned But there is another part of Reprobation For as Aquinas speakes it includes the will of permitting sin Now the execution of this decree which consists in the permitting of sin doth not require the precedency of sinne For when God first permitted the Angels to fall this permission of his did not require any precedency of sinne in them nor the permission of Adam to fall it cannot be said without manifest contradiction that it did For before the first sinne there was no sinne Piscator saith that God created men for this very purpose that they might fall he saith hoc consilio which is as much as to say with this purpose not for this purpose to wit to permit them to fall And God purposing this purposed that they should fall by his permission For Arminius confesseth that in case God permits a man to will this or that Necesse est ut nullo argumentorū genere persuadeatur ad nolendum It must needs be that no argument shall perswade him to will that which God permits him to will And that it is good that evill should come to passe by God's permission both Austine hath affirmed Bellarmine subscribed And shall it not be lawfull for God to will that which is good Undoubtedly neither justice punishing nor mercy pardoning can be manifested without sin either to be punished or pardoned or both neither is it credible to me that this Authour thinks otherwise And is not the manifestatiō of God's mercy on some and his justice on others the supreme end of God's providence towards mankind and consequently by the most received rules of Schooles first intended even before the permisson of sinne For if the permission of sinne were first intended then by the same rule of Schooles it should be in the last place executed that is God should first manifest his mercy and justice in pardoning some and punishing others and afterwards suffer them to sinne such is the learning and judgments of these Divines And as for the foresight of sin it is apparent that it presupposeth God's purpose to permit it and more then that it presupposeth the fruition of it Now it is well knowne that sinne in its own nature is meerly possible How comes it to passe that from the condition of a thing meerly possible it hath passed into the condition of a thing future This cannot be done without a cause and that cause must be eternall for the effect was eternall For from everlasting sinne was future for from everlasting God knew it to be future Now there is nothing everlasting but God himselfe therefore he must needs be the cause of this transition whereby a thing meerly possible in its own nature became future And therefore either by his knowledge he was the cause thereof or by his will and decree Not by his knowledge for that rather supposeth thē to be future then makes them such It remaines therefore that the will of God and that alone makes every future thing to passe out of the condition of a thing meerly possible into the condition of a thing future and that from everlasting Let this Authour satisfie this argument and I will ease him of all further paines and lay down the bucklers before
unto him another counsell Yet though we disswade a brother and so not leave him in the hand of his own counsell yet we still leave him to his own free will Both these I have insisted upon more at large in the second book in my Vindiciae Sect 2. Digres 3. It is true God hath noe need of setting forth his own glory noe more then he hath need of making the world but the existence of sin may be and is necessarily required to the setting forth of God's glory in some attributes of his For neither can the glory of God's mercy appeare in pardoning sinne nor the glory of his vindicative justice called in Scripture his wrath Rom 9. 23. in punishing sinne unlesse there be sinne to be pardoned and sinne to be punished Nor the glory of his power and wisedome in working good out of evill unlesse God give way to the committing of Evill And if upon God's permission of sinne it be not necessary that sinne exist then it is not in the Allmighty power of God infallibly to procure the manifestation of his glory either in the way of mercy pardoning it or in the way of justice punishing it But seeing these reasons are not considerable with this supercilious Theologue it should seeme likely that looke what he substitutes in the place thereof will prove substantiall and satisfie such understandings as his own And that he represents out of Tertullian namely because man is made by God a free creature This reason was represented by Arminius before him and that out of Tertullian Arminius his huskes are pleasing to him Such was the condition of the prodigall child when he forsooke his Father the provender of Swine was acceptable to him Yet he could not have enough of that Is not man a free creature to performe naturall acts as well as morall and morall good as well as evill Nay are not the Children of God made free by Christ to the performance of actions spirituall What therefore must God only permit them to performe them and by noe meanes worke them to the performance of faith and repentance and all manner of obedience yea and keep them from sinning against him as he kept Abimelech Gen 20 See how this Authour displaies himselfe ere he was aware and withall what the reason is why he affects to deale upon reprobation only not upon election or grace least his vile opinion miserably defacing the glory of God's grace might appeare with open face in ' its proper colours Yet it breakes forth more then he could wish in setting down the end why God permits sinne to wit because men are free creatures therefore it becomes not God to worke their wills to this or that but only to permit them to doe what they will if they will sinne to permit them if they would doe any good worke whether it be faith or repentance or any other good worke or to abstaine from sinne to permit that also whereby it is apparent that God by his opinion hath noe more hand in working a man to any good worke excepting the act of commanding and perswading the one and not the other then in working them unto evill For because they are free creatures therefore it becomes God to leave them unto themselves and permit them to doe what they will whether it be good or evill otherwise God should nullifie his own institution in making them free Agents Yet consider farther how herein he contradicts the very principles of his own side both Arminians and Iesuites For Arminius maintaines that God can hinder a man effectually from the committing of sinne without any prejudice to the liberty of their wills The like doe the Iesuites maintaine in their doctrine of grace effectuall in the way of congruity namely that God can bring any man to faith to obedience to any good worke and accordingly preserve him from any sinne by vertue of grace effectuall which is shaped by them in such a manner as to be noe way prejudiciall to the liberty of their wills But Tertullians authority hath abused his fancy and exposed him to lay open himselfe in so shamefull a manner Yet Tertullian will not serve his turn any more then it doth serve Arminius his turne as I have shewed in my answer to Arminius lib. 1. part prima de praedest Sect 7 and that at large Secondly the reasons he brings for the contradistinction of decree permissive from decree operative are very vaine For 1 the decree operative is extrinsecall to the sinner as well as the decree permissive Secondly neither hath it any influence at all upon the sinne as which admits noe efficient cause thereof being of a mere privative nature but upon the substance of the act which I presume this Authour will not deny Thirdly the decree permissive is not an antecedent only but such as being put sinne followes of necessitie as well as upon the position of the decree operative that is of necessitie by supposition not necessity absolute For as Aquinas hath delivered and proved not only the things themselves come to passe by vertue of God's decree but modi rerum severall conditions of them As for example necessary things necessarily contingent things contingently free actions freely And that thus the things permitted do alwaies come to passe not only Piscator with our Divines as Mr. Perkins Doctor Whitaker and Pareus doe avouch but Vorstius also and Arminius as I have shewed in my Vindiciae lib. 2. digres 3. Arminius his words are these if God permits a man to will this or that necesse est it must needs be ut nullo argumentorum genere persuadeatur ad nolendum that no kind of argument move him to will it Navarettus the Dominican professeth the same in quaest 19. pag. prima art 6. pag. 65. col 1. 1. That this destinction is rejected by our Divines this Authour brings no tollerable evidence As for Beza here it is confessed that he acknowledgeth God to permit sinne and whereas he addes that he wills it too it is nothing contradictory to the former For to permit sinne speaking of permission divine is to will that sinne shall come to passe by God's permission And Austin hath professed of those things that come to passe by God's permission that they come to passe Deo volente God willing them And the Scripture acknowledgeth as much that the Kings in prostituting their Royall authority to the executing the pleasure of the Beast did herein fulfill the will of God So that God's permissive decree is as effectuall in its kind as the operative decree in ' its kind thus farre that like as what God meanes to worke shall come to passe so look what God meanes to permit that also shall come to passe Neither doe I know any Arminian or Jesuite that denies God's operative decree as touching the very act of sinne by way of concurrence in the producing of it When Calvin will have the evill of sinne come to passe Deo volente
declaring God's justice in mens punishments God doth not predestiminate men to sinne as it is sinne but as a meanes of their punishment He is not therefore say they the Authour of sinne 1. A good end cannot moralize a bad action it remaineth evill though the end be never so good Bonum oritur ex integris â—end manner yea matter too must be good or else the action is naught He that shall steale that he may give an almes or commit adultery that he may beget Children for the Church Or oppresse the poore to teach them patience Or kill a wicked man that he may doe no more hurt with his example or doe any forbidden thing though his end be never so good he sinneth notwithstanding And the reason is because the evill of sinne is greater then any good that can come by sinne forasmuch as it is laesio divinae majestatis a wronging of God's majesty and to Divino bono opposita directly prejudiciall to the good of Almighty God as much as any thing can be This Saint Paul knew very well and therefore he tells us plainely that we must not doe evill that good may come thereof Whosoever therefore willeth sin though for never so good an end he willeth that which is truly and formally a sinne and consequently God though he will sinne for never so good ends yet willing it with such a powerfull and effectuall will as giveth a necessary being to it he becommeth Authour of that which is formally sinne 2. The members of this distinction are not opposite for sinne as sinne and in no other consideration is meanes of punishment If God therefore willeth it as a meanes of punishment he willeth it as a sinne his decree it determinated at the the very formality of it 3 This distinction fastneth upon God a further aspersion and loadeth him with three speciall indignities more 1. Want of wisedome and providence His counsells must needs be weak if he can find out no meanes to glorifie justice but by the bringing in of sinne which his soule hateth into the world and appointing men to commit it that so he may maaifest justice in the punishment of it 2. Want of sincerity and plaine dealing with men Tiberius as Suetonius reports having a purpose to put the two sonnes of Germanicus Drusius and Nero to death used sundry cunning contrivances to draw them to revile him that reviling him they might be put to death and herein is justly censured for great hypocrisie And so if God having appointed men by his absolute will to inevitable perdition doe decree that they shall sinne that so they may be damned for those sins which he decreeth and draweth them into he dissembleth because he slaughtereth them under pretext of justice for sinne but yet for such sins only as he hath by his eternall counsell appointed as the meanes of their ruine 3. Want of mercy in an high degree as if he did so delight in bloud that rather then he will not destroy mens soules he will have them live and dye in sinne that he may destroy them like to those Pagan Princes of whom Justin Martyr Apol 2 two or three leaves from the beginning saith They are afraid that all should be just least they should have none to punish But this is the disposition of Hang-men rather then of Good Princes And therefore farre be those foule enormities and in particular this latter from the God of truth and Father of mercies And thus notwithstanding these distinctions it is in my conceit most evident that the rigid and upper way makes God the Authour of mens sins as well as punishment And so much for the first generall inconvenience which ariseth from this opinion namely the dishonour of God I willingly professe I am to seeke what that Divine of ours is that saith God doth predestinate men to sinne as a meanes of their punishment Here this Authour is silent names no man quotes no place Like as in the former he carried himselfe in this manner The Ancients generally take predestination in no other notion then to be of such things which God himselfe did purpose to bring to passe by his own operation not of such things as come to passe by God's permission Neither can I call to remembrance any Divine of ours that talkes of God's predestinating men unto sinne But the Scripture affords plentifull testimony of God's will ordination and determination that the sins of men come to passe by God's permission Was it not God's will that Pharaoh's heart should be hardened so as not to let Israel goe for a while when he told Moses that he would harden Pharaoh's heart that he should not let Israel goe Was it not God's appointment that Absolom should lye with his fathers Concubines when he denounced this judgment against him that he would give his wives unto his neighbour who should lye with them before the sun Was it not his will that the ten tribes should revolt from Rehoboam when he protested of that businesse that it was from him Was it not God's will that the Jews and Gentiles should concurre in crucifying Christ when the Apostles professe that both Herod Pontius-Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israel were gathered together to doe what God's hand and counsell had before determined to be done Doth not Saint Peter professe of some that stuÌ„bled at the word being disobedient that hereunto they were ordained And that the ten Kings in giving their Kingdomes to the beast did fullfill the will of God as touching this particular But that God should will or ordaine it as a meanes of punishment as if the end which God aimed at were the punishment is so absurd and contradictious unto Scripture that in my opinion it cannot well enter into any judicious Divines heart so to conceive And marke how this Authour shuffles herein for first he saith that sin may be considered either as sinne or as a meanes of declaring God's justice in punishing it And why doth he not keep himselfe unto this especially considering that not permission of sin only but the punishment of sin also are jointly the meanes of declaring God's justice And where King Solomon professeth that God made the very wicked against the day of evill in the same place he manifesteth what is the end of this namely in saying that he made all things for himselfe that is for the manifestation of his own glory And this glory is not only in the way of justice but in the way of mercy also which this Authour as his manner is very judiciously conceales this attribute of mercy lying not so open to this Authours evasion as that of justice And is it possible God's mercy and the demonstration thereof should have place where there is no sin considering that no other evill or misery had entred into the world had it not been for sin according to that of the Apostle By one man sin entred into the world death by
himselfe confesseth to be the worke of God's providence in his Theses of providence and which in Scripture phrase is stiled the leading into temptation against which our Saviour taught his disciples to pray Thirdly the giving them over to the power of Satan And lastly God's generall concourse in moving all creatures to worke agreably to their natures necessary things necessarily contingent Agents contingently and free Agents freely But my answer to this I have prosecuted at large in more sheets then here are leaves in my answer to M. Hoord 3. As for want of mercy we willingly confesse according to the tenour of God's word as this Authour delivers himselfe without all respect thereunto that God shewes no mercy in hardning them For to harden in Scripture phrase is opposite to God's shewing mercy And as he is bound to none so he professeth that He will shew mercy on whom he will shew mercy and will have compassion on whom he will have compassion And this the Apostle takes hold of in prosecuting the doctrine of election and concludeth from hence in part in part from God's hardening of Pharaoh that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth by hardning meaning such an operation the consequence whereof is alwaies disobedience as appeares by the objection derived therehence in the words following Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine now he complaines only of disobedience For who hath resisted his will Manifestly implying that when God hardens man unto disobedience it is his secret will that he shall disobey Like as when God hardned Pharaoh that he should not let Israel goe It was God's secret will that he should not let Israel goe for a good while Secret I say in distinction from the will of command which is alwaies made knowne to them who are commanded But it pleased the Lord to make this will of his knowne to Moses though it was kept secret from Pharaoh yet afterwards he told Pharaoh to his face by his servant Moses saying And indeed for this cause have I appointed thee to shew my power in thee and to declare my name to all the world though Pharaoh believed it not as appeares by that which followeth yet thou exaltest thy selfe against me and lettest them not goe But this Authour together with M. Hoord goeth by other rules which his own fancy suggest's unto him he will have God's love and mercy extended to all and every one Christ's redemption to extend to all and every one the Covenant of grace to comprehend all and every one and upon these universalities he grounds his transcendent consolations whence it comes to passe that Abraham the father of the faithfull was of no more comfortable condition then the grand Signior among the Turkes And the grand Siginior had as good grounds of consolatiō as Abraham himselfe Yet this not shewing of mercy on the vessells of wrath prepared unto destruction tends to the greater demonstration of his mercy on the vessells of mercy prepared unto glory As the Apostle testifies Ro 9. 23. And let this Author tell Saint Paul if he thinks good That this is the disposition of hang-men rather then of good Princes And this is the perpetuall tenour of this Authour's discourse to conforme God's courses to the conditions of courses humane Man is bound to shew mercy on all God is not God is free to pardon whom he will man is not If we permit men to sinne in case we can hinder them we shall be guilty with them but how innumerable are the sins committed in the world which if God would hinder could never be committed As Austin discourseth lib. 5. contra Iulian Pelag cap. 4 In nothing did Nero's cruelty shew it selfe more then in prolonging the lives of men that he might torment them the more What then Shall we taxe God for crueltie in keeping mens bodies and soules alive for ever in hell fire to torment them everlastingly without end See what a doore of blasphemy is opened against the just God that will doe no iniquity by this Authour 's unshamefast discourse By this let the indifferent Reader judge of this Authour 's present performance withall take notice of that which himselfe hath dissembled all along touching his own tenet namely that of every sinfull act committed by the creature God is the efficient cause as touching the substance of the act as for the sinfulnesse thereof we hold it impossible that God can have any agency at all therein or any culpable deficiency forasmuch as he neither doth ought which he should not doe or after what manner he should not nor leaves undone ought which he should doe or after what manner he should doe all which are incident to the creature who is subject to a law but not at all to the Creatour who gives lawes to others but himselfe works according to the counsell of his own will in all things The summe is whatsoever we deliver as touching God's secret providence in evill we have expresse scripture for us nothing but pretence of carnall reason against us which when it comes to be examined is found subject to manifest contradiction both as touching their feigning things future without the decree of God And as touching their conditionall decrees and conditionall concurrences ours is not in any particular The greatest shew of contradiction on our parts is in the point of necessitie and libertie Now to cleare this as others have taken paines so have I in my Vindiciae proving divers and sundry waies that these two doe amically conspire to wit the necessitie being only upon supposition the liberty and contingency simply so called only it is not to be expected that there should be no difference between the liberty of the creatures and the liberty of God the Creator Or that the creature in her operation should be exempt from the operation of God The second cause exempt from the motion of the first whereunto this Authour addresseth not the least answer As for the difference which this Authour puts between the upper way and the lower in making God the Authour of sinne compare this with Arminius his profession Namely that the same twenty reasons which he objected against the upper way may all of them be accommodated against the lower way all of them admitting of the same distinctions which this Authour invades to cleare God from being the Authour of sinne The second inconvenience Section 1. The second inconvenienceis the overthrow of true religion and good goverment among men To this this opinion seemeth to tend for these reasons 1. Because it maketh sinne to be no sinne indeed but only in opinion We use to say necessity hath no law creatures or actions in which necessity beares sway are without saw Lyons are not forbidden to prey birds to fly fishes to swimme or any bruit creatures to doe according to their kinds because their actions are naturall and necessary they cannot upon any
so with Prosper as that he calls him no Catholique who is of this opinion Whosoever saith that men are urged to sinne and to be damned by the predestination of God as by a fatall unavoidable necessity he is no Catholique They did also make the Arausican counsell denounce a curse against such That any are predestinated by the divine power to sinne we doe not only not believe but with the greatest detestation that we can we denounce Anathema to such if there be any such as will believe so great an evill Thus farre of my â—easons against the upper and more harsh and rigorous way 2. Undoubtedly if sin cannot be punished temporally it cannot be punished eternally We have no need I should thinke of the Authority of any fathers to justifie this Where doth this Authour find that we maintaine that a man is good or evill not freely but by necessity that Tertullian is brought in as opposing us here Yet we thinke this is worthy of distinction For was not Adam made by God habitually good Durand I am sure maintaines that in his creation he was endued with all Morall vertues this we read in Scripture that all things which God made were very good as other things were made very good in their kind So I presume man was made very good in his kind and how this could be unlesse he were made vertuous I cannot conceive So likewise man being brought forth in the corrupt masse when afterwards he is made good either in the way of justification or in the way of regeneration these are no free acts of Man but rather the free acts of God I presume this Authour dares not say that man regenerates himselfe But as for the denomination of goodnesse and badnesse in man that ariseth from any actions of his I willingly grant all such goodnesse or badnesse is acquired freely not necessarily And as Tertullian takes necessity to wit in opposition unto liberty So I presume doth Hierome too otherwise these two Fathers were yoaked together unequally in this place Now we know no such necessity domineering in man as stands in opposition to liberty Much lesse doe we maintaine any necessity over the will of man depending upon fatall constellations And as Epiphanius and Austin discourse thus of necessity in reference to fatall constellations So it seemes likely that Hierome and Tertullian did discourse of necessity in the same sense To sinne by the will of God in Prosper is to sin by the predestination of God as appeares both by the Objection it selfe and Prosper's answer thereunto throughout Now predestination in the fathers meaning is of no other things theÌ„ such as God purposed to worke And accordingly we answer that no evill in the world as evill comes to passe by God's will to worke it but only by God's will to permit it And it is Austin's expresse professioÌ„ that Non aliquid fit nisi omnipotens fieri velit Not any thing comes to passe unles God Almighty will have it come to passe but how Not all after one manner but after a different manner some by working them others by permitting them vel sinendo ut fiat vel ipse faciendo either by suffering it to come to passe in case it be evill or himselfe working it in case it be good Fulgentius justifies this sense in his sentence here alleadged For to sinne by God's will in Prosper is all one with being made an offender or made to sinne by God in Fulgentius Now we say God makes many a man good by regeneration but he makes none evill only he doth not cure that naturall or habituall viciousnesse which he finds amongst men in all For He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth and indeed he is bound to none St. Bernard clearely maintaines that there is noe liberty from sinne in any naturall man and consequently every naturall man is cast upon a necessity of sinning and therefore that liberty from necessity which he grants to man can be no other then liberty from compulsion And so Dr. Fulke usually makes the distinction run between Liberty from sin and liberty from coaction denying the one he grants the other That the Antients did call that necessity which ariseth from the will of God upon the will of the creature by the name of destiny This Authour brings not the least colour of proofe neither do I thinke he is able to bring any save only of the Pelagians who traduced Austin's doctrine of predestination by the name of destiny And so they traduced his doctrine in denying that grace was conferred according to mens workes whereupon it was that he built his doctrine of predestination as is apparent De bono perseverantiae c. 15. In the second I wonder this Author observes not how he contradicts himselfe For if they used these words Necessity compulsion promiscuously doth it not evidently follow that they distinguished them not but alwaies tooke them of equivalent signification But I doe not find that Austin tooke necessity of the same signification with compulsion when he distinguisheth of necessity saying some necessity is such as whereby a thing befalls a man whether he will or no as the necessity of death and to such a necessity he saith the will is not subject Another necessity there is as when we say It must needs be that this or that come to passe and he confesseth plainly that the will may be subject to such a necessity without danger or prejudice to the liberty thereof 3 And well they might hold that God's judgments were not just on sinners if they were held by any absolute necessity under the power of their sins We say that nothing hath either existence or continuance by absolute necessity save God alone But I guesse this Authour calls that necessity absolute which flowes from God's absolute decree Now if he will have God's decrees to be conditionall it stands him upon to prove it not boldly suppose it Especially seeing Aquinas hath professed that never any man was so mad as to say that there is any cause of God's predestination as touching the act of God's predestinating and that there can be no cause hereof he proves because there can be no cause of God's will as touching the act of God willing as formerly he had proved And Doctor Iackson in his booke of providence confesseth that the distinction of God's will into a will antecedent and a will consequent is not to be understood as touching the act of God willing but as touching the things willed And accordingly seeing reprobation in it 's kind is the will of God as well as predestination in it's kind it followeth that as there can be no cause of the will of God as touching the act of God willing no cause of predestination as touching the act of God predestinating so neither can there be any cause of Reprobation as touching the act of God reprobating And looke how mad
his will to be regusated thereby can the will be said to be the rule of justice to the will without contradiction The rule propounded was this God's will is the rule of all righteousnesse but the other rule is the rule corrupted by this Authour when he talks of a will as a rule of justice to the will 2. But whether things are therefore just because God wills them or that therefore God willeth them because they are just undoubtedly that which here is proposed is a truth namely that whatsoever the Scripture sets downe to be the will of God that must needs be just Neither have we any need to improve it any farther then thus For it is well known that our Divines in their doctrine of predestination and reprobation doe depend on nothing so much as the evidence of God's word As this Author throughout this discourse of his depends on nothing lesse And therefore he hath cast himselfe upon a strange practice in the former passage namely to evacuate all our reasons drawn out of the word of God to confirme our doctrine pleading that the interpretations we make of Scripture are all false because the contrary doctrine which he maintaines is justified before the tribunall of humane reason purged from prejudice and false principles corrupt affections and customes Which is as much as to professe in plaine termes that to find out the truth concerning the decrees of predestination and reprobation we must leave the oracles of God and hearken to the oracles of reason provided that it be purged from prejudice and false principles from corrupt affections and customes Now I had thought that the spirit of God alone could purge us from such prejudice and false principles corrupt affections and customes And that this spirit of God worketh only by the word herein which is called in Scripture the sword of the spirit Yet this Author tells us not where this reason thus purged is to be found save that in generall he saith that is just or unjust which is so esteemed in the judgment both of best and worst that stand indifferent to the entertainment of any truth as is to be seen in the former reason according to M. Hord's discourse Now who these best are but the Arminians in this Authours fancy the worst but Anabaptists or heathens or both I know not Sure we are none of them in his understanding purged from false principles and prejudice from corrupt affections and customes because we doe not stand indifferent to the entertainment of his tenets which he calls Truths 3. Where can he shew that I have made use of any such principles to answer any argument of his against us I doe not find that any where he can drive me to this though this be the Apostles course as we may see Ro 9. Is there any injustice with God God forbid how doth he prove it but thus because the Scripture attributes such a course to God I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy and I will have compassion on whome I will have compassion 4. But where hath he learnt to be so audacious as to say that Things are not therefore just because God wills them but that his justice is rather a rule of his will and works Before he told us that justice in man and God were of the same nature Now that justice which is the rule of our will is Justitia obligans justice binding us to doe this or that and is Gods justice obligatory likewise to bind him In making the world I doe not doubt but God did that which was just but was there any justice in God obliging him to the making of the world who seeth not what an Atheisticall conclusion followeth herehence namely that the world was from everlasting if not necessarily by necessity of nature yet necessarily by obligation of justice otherwise for an infinite space of time wherein the world was not made which must needs have been if the world were not from everlasting God had been and continued to be unjust The Schooles have taught me that there is a justice of condecency consequent to all the actions of God noe justice of obligation precedent to it And whereas St. Paul tells us that God works all things according to the counsell of his will both Alvarez and Suarez though School Divines of opposite families yet concurre in this that this Counsell is à libera voluntate acceptum accepted of Gods free will And it is observable that the Apostle calls it not the Counsell of his understanding but the counsell of his will And Vasquâ—z and Suarez both Jesuites but very opposite about the nature of justice in God yet both concurre that there is no justice in God towards his creature but upon supposition of the determination of God's will It is most true that supposing the end which God intends the wisedome of God directs in the right use of congruous meanes and no other justice then this his wisedome doth Aquinas acknowledge in the Divine nature And great is the wisedome which God manifests in the goverment of this world yet the same wisedome as great as it is doth not equall the infinite wisdome of God But of this I have disputed more at large in my Vindiciae Where this question is discussed Whether the will of God be circumscribed or regulated by justice To no parcell whereof doe I find the least savour of an answer in this Authour But let us examine how well he proves his own Tenet And that is first by the authority of Hierome in his preface to his commentaries on Hosea 2. By the authority of Zanchy whereto I answer 1. That if the interpretations of Scripture must be judged of before the Tribunall of reason purged from prejudice and false principles from corrupt affections and customes must not the opinions of such as Hierome and Zanchy be judged of before the same tribunall also 2ly touching Hierome himselfe 1. It is true Hierome in that preface understands that command given Hosea to be only in a Type and for the reason here mentioned but in his Commentary he interpreteth it secundum historiam litterally Neither was the Prophet as he saith to be blamed in this For he was not the worse but he made her the better Praesertim especially he was not to be blamed because he did this not luxuriously or lustfully or of his own will but in obedience to the command of God Now let the indifferent judge whether Hierome be not as much for us upon the text as for our adversary in the preface 2. Observe that Hierome is nothing for him in the preface For Hierome speakes there of God's will of command but we treate of God's will as it signifies not his command given to man but his own purpose and decree to doe this or that himselfe Judge of the extravagancy of this Author by this and whether his understanding be sufficiently purged from prejudice and false principles from
gift of God Him God raised to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance unto Israel forgivenesse of sins Then hath God also unto the Gentiles given repentance unto life If so be God may give them repentance What then Shall this Authour 's not Logick but Rhetoricke whereinto his Logick is transform'd to the wonder of all that know him in the University like some Medusa's head turne us into stones and in spight of Scripture evidence drive us to deny that either faith or repentance is the gift of God For if it be the gift of God is not somewhat else required to the working of faith in us over and above all these enforcements Not one Arminian hitherto have I found daring to deny that faith is the gift of God Yet ever since I read them in their Censura Censurae to deny that Christ hath merited faith and regeneration for us I looked when they would come to deale seriously and sincerely And if they have any such meaning clearely to professe as much namely that faith is not the gift of God But if this Authour's meaning be that God gives it to all that have it and is also ready to give it to them that have it not próvided that they will doe their own part seing he chargeth us to make God's waies void of truth and syncerity how comes it to passe that this Authour carrieth himselfe so subdolously shewes so little sincerity and clearenesse in dealing plainly telling us that this is his meaning Is it because we are ready to conclude upon him that he is as errand a Pelagian as ever was in maintaining that grace is conferred according to works Why doth he carry himselfe and his opinions in huggar muggar if he be of that mind and doth not plainly shew himselfe to be a Pelagian and prove to the world that Pelagianismus est verus Christianismus Pelagianisme is true Christianity and in the next place oppose Paul also in saying that God saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace and that he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth 2ly Consider further the strange infatuation of this Author more waies then one For 1 inquire of him whether after all this worke of the ministery performed by him unto reprobates he thinks not himselfe bound to pray unto God for a blessing upon his labours whereby it may become effectuall unto them and that upon this ground because Paul may plant and Apollo may water but God is he who gives the encrease And let him expresse what the encrease is which he beggeth at the hand of God whether it be not the performance of those duties whereunto he hath exhorted them in the most emphaticall manner that the word of God doth afford any example of And if no more be required for the working of man's will to that which is good having as this Authour supposeth a power to performe obedience if they will then these enforcements which he so much amplifies whereto tend his prayers after all these enforcements are used is it that God will afford his concourse to the act Why is this a worke of grace Doth not God afford this to the most sinfull act that is without all prayers And is it decent to maintaine that God of himselfe is forward enough to afford concourse to such acts as are evill be they never so abominable but to concurre with us to that which is good he stands off and must be entreated and sollicited by our prayers earnest and fervent otherwise he will be slacke to concurre to that which is good though nothing slack to concurre to that which is evill Nay is it possible that man should will ought or doe ought and God not concurre with him to the producing both of the will and the deed Now I had thought prayers tended to the procuring of works of grace such as concourse is not as which is performed of God 1. To sinfull acts as well as to pious acts 2. And that necessarily upon supposition that the reasonable creature doth ought Consider farther if his prayers tend only to the procuring of God's concurrence and this concurrence is upon supposition of mans concurrence let the indifferent I say consider the genius of this man's prayers For albeit the forme of them runnes thus that God will convert his hearers to faith to repentance and to work in them that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ yea to worke in them both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure to circumcise their hearts to love the Lord their God with all their hearts with all their souls to heal their backslidings yea as he seeth all their waies so to heale them to cause them to walke in his statutes and to keep his judgments and to doe them yea to put his feare in their hearts that they may never depart away from him For thus he must pray if he pray in faith built upon God's promises we having speciall promises for all these particulars yet his meaning is no more then this that as many of his Auditors as he findes willing to doe ought of this that God will concurre with them to make them willing And as many as doe performe it he will concurre to the performance of it as for those that are unwilling he will not pray that God will make them willing though that hath been ever the Lords course towards some as Austin often professeth And as for that prayer of Austin Da Domine quod jubes jube quid vis Lord give me to doe what thou commandest and then command what thou will Like enough he spights it as much as ever Pelagius did But if any are forward to hate to despite God's word or the professours of his truth he will not pray unto God to concurre with them thereunto For he knowes God's forwardnesse to concurre to the performance of every abominable act without his prayers Nay in despite of any prayers to the contrary And doth he not thinke it in vaine for the holiest man that ever was to pray for this 3. Againe observe he saith that by our doctrine the whole ministery is a mere imposture why because it is in shew hearty and serious but in truth nothing so But what moves him to say this doth not God procure hereby the conversion salvation of millions vea of many of those who have crucified the Son of God who have persecuted his Church Do we not believe that a time shall come wherin the Jews shall be cōverted in spight of all their former obstinacy in despight of all their blasphemies powred sorth against the Son of God But he will say that grace is shewed only to the Elect by our opinion But here let every indifferēt person judg between us of the equity of this his discourse The whole
of evill for himselfe But by the way I observe how you mistake the opinion of your opposites as when you say that this decree of manifesting Gods mercy or justice is a decree of working an effect in that subject for this is utterly untrue This were to make the decree of salvation of the one and of damnation of the other to be before the decree of creation And although some such thing may be conceived out of a superficiall apprehension of it as proposed by Beza and Piscator yet both in true account of that opinion in generall and mistaking of it in speciall no such thing is avouched Nay whereas your selfe maintaine that the decree of damnation is before the decree of permission of finall impenitency a point no way congruous to your Tenet about massa corrupta you have often read in my writings that I account the decree of damnation in no moment of time to precede the decree of permission of finall impenitency Then the case of Angells is utterly against this unlesse you maintaine the one to be elected upon the foresight of their obedience the other reprobated upon the foresight of their disobedience which I am perswaded you shall not find any Orthodox Divine in the point of mans election to maintaine 3. Conclusio tertia Gods decree to permit sinne is before his decree to manifest either his mercy in pardoning sinne or his justice in punishing sinne because that is a decree de eventu this a doing of something by occasion of that event Resp 1. To your reason here mentioned I have answered before 2. There is no priority or posteriority in intention but onely in respect of finis and media ad finem 3. It is untrue that the former decree is a decree of an event and the latter of doing something by occasion of this event For what is Gods permission the event you meane If so then Gods working grace may be accounted an event also and so Gods decree of salvation upon his working grace shall follow upon his decree of working grace which is manifestly Arminianisme Is the sinne permitted the event First why should you call it an event is it because you conceive it to fall out besides Gods intention Arminius himselfe professeth the contrary The articles of Ireland professe that God from eternity did by his unchangeable counsell ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe your selfe acknowledge that Gods decree of permitting sinne is a decree de eventu your selfe acknowledge that God did foresee that man would sinne in case he did permit him to sinne which is as much as to say stice food did intend that sinne should come to passe by his permission which is 〈…〉 and expresse profession of Austin where he saith Non ergo aliquid fit nisi omnipotens fieri velit vel sinendo ut fiat vel ipse faciendo so that whether things come to passe Deo faciente as good things or Deo sinente as evill things still they came to passe Deo volente as Austin professeth Now this sinne is apparently the cause of the damnation of many thousands for as much as many thousand infants are damned onely for sinne originall And therefore like as upon this sin existent God doth not take an occasion onely but a cause of damning many thousands so if the decree of permitting this be presupposed before the decree of damnation you may say as well that God upon the foresight of this sinne doth not onely take occasion but a cause also of decreeing their damnation And this may be applyed to the reprobation not onely of infants but of all that are damned forasmuch as all that are damned are damned for originall sinne onely here is the difference such reprobates as dye in their infancy are damned onely for originall sinne but others are damned not only for originall sinne but for their actuall sinnes also Againe it is manifest that the decree of permitting sinne originall is no more a decree de eventu and Gods decree to manifest his mercy in pardoning it is a decree of doing something by occasion of that event than Gods decree of permitting all actuall sinnes of his elect from the first to the last is a decree de eventu and Gods decree to manifest his mercy in pardoning actuall sinnes is a decree of working something by occasion of that event and I cannot but wonder this being againe and againe put to your consideration that you doe not take notice of the equipollency of these whence it manifestly followeth that the decree of pardoning sinnes shall presuppose massam corruptam as well with actuall sinnes as sinnes originall Againe if Gods decree of shewing justice in punishing sinne is but a decree of taking occasion of doing something then Gods decree of damnation for mens actuall sinnes is but a decree of taking occasion of doing something and consequently by what reason the decree of punishing sinne presupposeth the decree of permitting sinne originall by the same reason the decree of damnation shall presuppose the decree of permitting not onely sinne originall but all actuall sinnes also By the same reason the decree of salvation is but a decree of doing something upon the occasion of faith repentance and good workes For if sinne deserve not to be accounted a cause moving God to resolve to punish a man with damnation but rather an event by occasion where of he resolves to punish with damnation much lesse shall faith repentance and good workes be accounted a cause moving God to decree to save any man but onely an event by occasion whereof God doth decree some mens salvation Yet looke by what reason the decree of punishing with damnation doth presuppose the decree of permitting sinne by occasion of which event punishment by damnation is decreed by the same reason the decree of salvation doth presuppose the decree of giving faith repentance and good workes by occasion of which events salvation is decreed for why should not faith and good workes be accounted an occasion of the decree of salvation as well as sinnes are the occasion of the decree of damnation 4. The fourth conclusion is this Gods decree to produce the person of Peter is before his decree to manifest his mercy in Peter by the reason aforesaid Thes 8. Resp That eighth Thesis aforesaid made no mention of priority in decree or intention but onely of priority in execution by vertue of Gods decree for the words of that eighth Thesis are these God decreeth first to produce that subject and afterwards to worke such an effect thereupon Not that God did first decree to produce the subject but onely that God did decree first to produce the subject manifesting hereby that your intent is onely to reason from the order of execution and therehence to inferre the like order in intention which is the ordinary course of Arminians at this day And you signifie your meaning to be this in that eighth Thesis though in the issue you faile of
disposing causes of their election unto salvation But you proceed and I am content to go along with you 3. And this reason especially for the latter part of it which concernes the manifestation of Gods glory per mâ—dum justitiae punientis may be farther confirmed thus That which tends not to Gods glory simply but onely upon supposition if sinne be could not be intended by him simply but onely upon that supposition For so farre and no farther doth God intend any thing as it makes for his glory But to punish men or any other creatures is a thing that tends not to Gods glory simply but onely upon supposition if sinne be Ergo it could not be intended by God simply but onely upon that supposition Resp You need not have mentioned the tending of this to Gods glory your argument is in force and greater force without it For I hold that to punish without supposition of sinne implyeth contradiction paena being properly opposed to praemium and as reward formally hath a respect to obedience going before so hath punishment unto sinne 1. Now first to follow you in your owne course I reason thus That which tends to Gods glory not simply but onely upon supposition of obedience in faith repentance and good workes cannot be intended by him simply but upon that supposition but to reward with salvation and everlasting life tends not to Gods glory simply but onely upon supposition of faith repentance and good workes Ergo it could ot be intended by God simply but onely upon faith and repentance 2. But to your Major I answer No man saith that God doth intend to punish any man but for sinne Now hereupon many not onely Arminians but some Orthodox also are apt to be deceived and to thinke that these words but for sinne are to be referred to the Antecedent removed which is Gods intention But it is not so those words are onely to be referred to the Antecedent next before which is to punish And I prove it thus When any man saith God intends to punish man for his sinne the meaning can be no other than if he had said God doth intend that punishment shall be inflicted on man for his sinne where it is manifest that sinne is noted onely as going before the punishment not as going before Gods intention But as soone as this confusion of sense is opened by distinction then they flye to this kind of argument sinne goeth before the execution of punishment therefore the consideration of sinne goeth before the intention of punishment which is the argument I formerly proposed and the inconsequence whereof I presume you doe manifestly perceive Now to that which followeth 4. Although the reason which you alledge on our behalfe be inconsequent as you have framed it yet I suppose it may be reduced to a true Syllogisme thus The decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinne election is the decree of liberation from sinne Ergo election presupposeth sinne If you deny the Major I prove it thus That which presupposeth sinners presupposeth sinne The decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinners Ergo the decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinne you will perhaps yet deny the Minor but I prove it thus The decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth some that have need to be delivered for else it were vaine and to no purpose Onely sinners have need to be delivered from sinne Ergo the decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinners The like argument and in the like forme may be framed touching the decree of dereliction in sinne Or if you take reprobation for the decree of damnation it may be said thus The decree of damnation presupposeth some persons justly damnable for otherwise it were either an unjust or at least and unwisean indeliberate decree But onely sinners are justly damnable Ergo the decree of damnation presupposeth sinners and conse quently sinne For peccatum is de formali ratione peccatoris qua peccator est as you know Resp Every one indeed knowes that peccatum is de formali ratione peccatoris and hereupon it is manifest that the second Syllogisme gives no mite of proofe unto the first For seeing formalis ratio of any thing cannot be separated from the thing it selfe and consequently neither peccatum from peccator you may easily perceive that when we deny that the decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinne we must therewithall necessarily deny that it presupposeth sinners Your third Syllogisme addeth as little force unto the former being meerly identica probatio For every man knoweth that to be a sinner and to have need to be delivered from sinne is all one in such sort as whatsoever is denyed of a sinner must be denyed of him that hath need to be delivered from sinne forasmuch as every sinner hath need to be delivered from sinne Thus while you decline that proofe which in my observation alone hath course and the implication whereof in the Major proposition is all the evidence of it you fall upon no sound proofe at all The truth is if you observe you may perceive your Major proposition involves this Enthymeme Liberation from sinne presupposeth sinne sinners such as have need to be delivered from sinne Ergo the decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth both sinne and sinners and such as need to be delivered from sinne Of any other force of proofe that you give I am not conscious 2. If the argument formed touching the decree of dereliction in sinne be of the like forme it will admit no doubt the same answer 3. The Major of the last Syllogisme hath a clause annexed unto it as a reason of it thus else it were in vaine and to no purpose If this reason pleased you you might have relyed upon it in the first Syllogisme of the three whereas now you may perceive they containe no proofe but identicall 2. Your course of argumentation tends to prove that it is impossible it should be otherwise than you conceive which is more than to say it were otherwise onely vaine and to no purpose Thirdly I answer that which is vaine and to no purpose is either to no end or to no good end But the decree of liberation from sinne whether it presuppose sinne as you say or not presuppose sinne as I say still it tends to the same end and that a good end to wit the manifestation of Gods mercy But I erre your meaning seemeth to be this it is vaine in respect that it cannot obtaine the end it aimes at unlesse it presuppose sinne But how doe you prove that Gods decree of liberation from sinne cannot take effect except it presuppose sinne you have no meanes to prove it but this Liberation from sinne cannot take effect without it presuppose sinne Ergo the decree of liberation from sinne cannot take effect without it presuppose sinne And while you decline this way of proofe you light upon no proofe at all 4. Touching your last Syllogisme
and bind men unto what he will have to be their duty but it doth not at all signify the will of Gods purpose concerning what shall come to passe actually it doth not signify Gods will of operation or permission i. e. it doth not reveale what good God hath decreed to worke what evill he hath decreed to suffer or permit in all those to whom his commands are given briefly it signifieth or revealeth mans duty and Gods will of obliging unto it Mic. 6. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to doe justly and to love mercy and to walke humbly with thy God Obad. 12. 13. 14. It doth not reveale the event or issue of things what shall actually be by Gods working or permitting providence This you have asserted by Durand an ancient Schooleman Praeceptum saith he non semper indicat voluntatem praecipientis qua praecipiens velit rem praeceptam fieri sed illam qua praecipiens vult obligare illum cui praecipit ad faciendum quod praecipitur hoc semper And a little before in the same place Praeceptum non est directè semper signum quod praecipiens velit rem praeceptam fieri sed solum quod velit subditum obligare ad faciendum illud quod praecipitur hoc clarum est in praeceptis divinis per quae Deus vult simpliciter nos obligare sed non vult simpliciter rem praeceptam fieri alioquin semper fieret Lib. 1. dist 47. Qu. 3. Gods command unto Pharaoh that he should let Israel goe signified only his duty that he was bound to let Israel goe not the event that he should actually consent unto their departure Gods command of Cain Judas c. to believe and repent did not signify that God did will the actuall existence of their faith and repentance but only that it was his purpose to bind them to faith and repentance as a duty And thus you have a confirmation and cleere explication of D. Twisse his meaning against which your discourse in this Section if it were reduced unto Syllogismes would not conclude with the least shew of probability M r GOODWIN BUt yet that will wherewith or out of which God willeth or commandeth us to doe that which is our duty to doe is as properly his will as that whereby he willeth or decreeth things to be done IEANES FIrst here you make to will and to command termes equivalent or Synonimous as you doe afterwards to will and to injoyne which is very unreasonable for 't is the very thing in question and D. Twisse affirmeth that to command is to will only improperly and therefore equivocally For you then to use to Will and Command as words of the same import and signification before you have proved them to be so serves for nothing but to breed confusion distract the Reader and disturbe the course of Disputation Secondly I confesse that the will wherewith or out of which God commandeth us to doe that which is our duty to doe is as properly his will as that whereby he willeth or decreeth things to be done for they are one and the same will really distinguished only ratione ratiocinat◠by their objects in regard of our manner of conceiving And if any one in imitation of your subtilty in the following part of this Section should object that acts are differenced and distinguished by their objects therefore if the object of that will wherewith or out of which God commandeth us to doe that which is our duty to doe be really distinguished from the object of that will whereby he decreeth things to be done unpossible it is but that these two wills of his should be also really distinguished I shall for answer referre them unto Ferrariensis upon Aquinas contra gentes lib. 1. c. 77. Adverte quod ex ista probatione viz. that actus secundum objecta distinguntur vult habere S. Tho. quod distinguibile proportionatum objecto est actus ideo si plura objecta faciant aliquam pluralitatem illa erit actuum pluralitas Non autem intendit quod per quaecunque plura objecta plurificentur actus Unde sensus illius propositionis est quod actus est id quod proprie primo plurificatur quando pluralitas objectorum aliquam pluralitatem inducit The sence of this proposition Acts are differenced and distinguished by their objects is that if many or different objects doe inferre any plurality or distinction 't is only of acts not that every plurality or distinction of objects doth alwaies argue a plurality or distinction of acts 3. But thirdly this concession will not in the least degree advantage you for the inference that you make afterwards That if the precept of God be not properly his will neither can any other will of his be properly such for no rationall and Scholasticall Divine will deny Gods decree of things to be done to be properly his will and I have made it good that Gods commandement is not properly his will and you bring nothing like an argument to prove the contrary but in the next place you illustrate this by a comparison from the acts of willing proceeding from the principle or faculty within man of willing let us heare what you say Mr GOODWIN Mr will or desire that my Child should obey me or that he should prosper in the World is as properly my will as that whereby I will or purpose to shew the respects of a Father unto him in providing for him being as proper naturall and direct an act of that principle or faculty of willing within me whereby I will the latter as that act it selfe of this faculty wherein I will the latter is For the principle or faculty within me of willing how numerous or different soever the acts of willing which I exert by vertue of this faculty may be is but one and the same And this faculty being naturall there can be no such difference between the acts proceeding from it which should make some to be more proper and others lesse though some may be better and others worse but this difference can have no place in the acts of the will of God IEANES FOr answer I shall distinguish betwixt the Flicite acts of the will which proceed from the will as their only and immediate principle and such acts of the will as are only imperate that is performed at the beck and command of the will but proceeding immediately from other faculties v. g. the understanding loco-motive faculty the parts and members of the body c. as walking speaking writing and the like Now I confesse there can be no such difference between the elicite acts of mens wills which should make some to be more proper and others lesse But yet notwithstanding this I affirme that the imperate acts of mens wills such as their injunctions and precepts whether by tongue penne or otherwise to give an instance