that believeth and it is most true that in like manner Christ hath procured the salvation of every one that believes so that here is a truth to feed upon and they that oppose it are strengthned in their vaine confidence by a meere mist of confusion which they raise unto themselves and others that so they may set the better face upon that lye which they hold in their right hand wherewith they are so enamoured that they had rather forsake their own mercies then forgoe it And so I come to the third and last reason in generall drawn from Gods justice DISCOURSE SUBSECT III. THe third reason why absolute Reprobation infringeth Gods justice is because it will have him to punish men for the omission of an act which is made impossible unto them by his own decree not by that decree alone whereby he determined to give them no power to believe having lost it but by that decree also by which he purposeth that we should partake with Adam in his sinne and be stripped of all that supernaturall power which we had by Gods free grant bestowed upon us in Adam before the fall These are my reasons which move me to think that this absolute decree is repugnant to Gods justice TWISSE Consideration I Have already shewed how Gods decree and impossibility arising upon supposition thereof doth no way prejudice the liberty of the creature as by pregnant passages of the Scripture is made plaine unto us And as for the other decree here spoken of First it is untrue which he supposeth that God by a speciall decree decreed all mankind to be made partakers of Adams sinne and therein to be stripped of all supernaturall power which before the had by Gods free grant For if it were just with God to decree that Adams nature upon his sinning should be bereaved of all supernaturall power which formerly he enjoyed this and this alone should suffice to bereave all his posterity of supernaturall power to doe that which is good For seeing all his posterity did receive their natures from Adam after his fall they must therewithall necessarily receive their natures from him bereaved of all supernaturall power unto that which is good untill such time as God be pleased of his free grace to restore it by regeneration 2. Is it not good reason that God for Adams sinne should bereave us of all supernaturall power in Adam as of his meere grace he did adorne us all with supernaturall power in Adam 3. Notwithstanding this depravation of supernaturall power in Adam yet we acknowledge that neverthelesse whatsoever sinne a man commits he committeth freely and the Schoole hath taught it before us Aquin. p. 1. q. 23. art 3. ad 3. licet aliquis non possit gratiam adipisci qui reprobatur a Deo tamen quòd in hoc peccatum vel illud labatur ex ejus libero arbitrio contingit undè merito sibi imputatur in culpam DISCOURSE SUBSECT IV. TWo things are usually answered First that there are many things delivered for truths in Scripture among which this is one which are above the reach of humane capacity and therefore are we quietly to submit as to other revealed truths so to this and not to be so bold as to examine the justice of this decree or any thing else in it by our shallow and erring understandings But this answer takes not away the arguments for I have these things to reply 1. That though there be diverse things revealed in Gods word which are above reason viz. That there are three Persons and one God and that Christ was borne of a Virgin that the world was made of nothing that the dead shall be raised c. to all which we must captivate our understandings and yeeld a firme assent propter authoritatem dicentis yet there is nothing revealed therein abhorring from and odious to sound and right reason for it cannot be that the most excellent gifts of God Faith and Reason Nature and Scripture should overthrow one another and that the wise God who is the fountain of all right reason should discover any thing to us in his word or enjoyne us any thing to be believed which is vere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly and properly unreasonable Our faith is an act of our service of God and Gods service is cultus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service Rom. 12. 2. and Gods word is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 milk reasonable and without guile they are so called no doubt to shew that there is a sweet harmony between faith and reason things revealed and mens understandings though there be a disproportion yet there is no contradiction between them 2. That therefore all those Doctrines which are adverse and repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles are not to be taken for doctrines of Scripture but devices of men corrupting Scripture by false glosses and interpretations and consequently that this absolute reprobation of so many millions of miserable men out of Gods only will and pleasure because it is most irkesome to the eares and understandings of all sorts of men best and worst that stand indifferent to the entertainment of any truths that may appeare to be so is no doctrine of the Text no part of the word of God 3. That howbeit some things in Scripture which are peculiar to the Gospell are above our understandings and must without hesitation be believed yet there are many things there which have their foundation in nature and may be apprehended by the light of nature and demonstrated by reason and among these things the justice of Gods waies is one as I have shewed before out of Isaiah 5. 3. and Ezek. 18. and it is but a meer evasion when the absolute decree is proved by sound reasons to be unjust to say reason is blind and must not be judge but the Scripture only for God offers the justice of his waies to the tryall of reason TWISSE Consideration THis Author seems to swell in the conceit of his rationall performances as if never any fly sitting upon a cart-wheele in a Sommers day had made such a dust as he had made And fashioning to himselfe a victorious conquest as if all his adversaries were but Pigmies to this Anakim glad to runne into corners or into Acorn-cups to hide themselves there For his reasons like some hobgoblins doe so fright them more then all the spirits that stand by the naked man in the book of Moones And therefore all the help they have if we believe this Pyrgopolinices is to charme them by saying that many things are delivered in Scripture which are above the reach of humane capacity among which this is one c. And I take this to be sound For otherwise why should the Doctrine of Godlinesse be called a mystery of Godlinesse And the Schooles teach that Fides est assensus inevidens and Cajetan who was no gras-hopper as great an Anakim as this Author or
upon all And accordingly in case when he saith the one he meaneth by the word all no more but Jewes Gentiles it followes that when he saith God hath mercy on all by the word all he understands no more then both Jewes and Gentile and that is certain nations of men only not all men of all sorts and conditions And therefore although it were granted him that all men of all sorts are unbelievers yet unlesse he can prove that in this sense the Apostle speaketh of all in saying God hath concluded all under infidelity let any one that is indifferent judge whether this argument be of any force Thus our Divines understand it to wit of Jewes and Gentiles Thus Aquinas and Sasbutius Popish Divines interpret it Aquinas his words are these omnia id est omne hominum genus tam Judaeos quam Gentes in incredulitate conclusit ut omnium misereatur id est ut in omni hominum genere misericordia locum habeat And again non est extendendum ad omnes homines sigillatim sed ad omnia genera hominum Fit enim hic distributio pro generibus singulorum non pro singulis generum So Cajetan Conclusit permissive omnes tam Judaeos quam Gentes in peccatum infidelitatis The Text it selfe doth cleerely justify this as appears by the two verses immediatly preceding wherewith this coheres v. 30. For even as the Gentiles in times past have not believed God yet have now obtained mercy through the Jewes unbeliefe 31. Even so now have they the Jewes not believed by the mercy shewed to you Gentiles that they also that is the Jewes may obtain mercy This construction was embraced of old by Austin as appears by Beda upon the Romans alleadging August de Civit. Dei lib. 21. Conclusit Deus omnes in infidelitate ut omnium misereatur Quos omnes nisi de quibus loquebatur tanquam dicens vos illos Deus ergo Gentiles Judaeos quos praescivit praedestinavit conformes fieri imagini filii sui omnes in infidelitate conclusit de amaritudine infidelitatis suae paenitendo confusi ad dulcedinem misericordiae Dei credendo conversi clamaret c. And anon after Omnium itaque miseretur vasorum misericordiae Quid est omnium eorum scilicet quos ex Gentibus eorum quos ex Judae is praedestinavit 2. Observe how he hides himselfe under an ambiguous phrase least he should come with his foule opinion to the light As when he saith every man of every condition is under mercy The Apostles phrase on Gods part is misereri to shew mercy on mans part as partaking hereof is to obtain mercy v. 30. 31. and to obtain mercy is to believe v. 30. as appears by the opposition for to obtain mercy and not to believe are there made opposite therefore to obtain mercy and to believe are the same For to believe and not to believe are formally opposite Now dares this Author avouch that every man of every condition doth believe Again the Apostles word ut misereatur that he may shew mercy is not spoken of the time present for as much as for the time present the Lord had mercy only on the Nations of the Gentiles But the time should come that God would also have mercy on the Jewes and consequently on all But when should this come to passe Surely not 'till 1600 years after to wit when the time cometh which is appoynted for the effectuall and generall calling of the Nation of the Jewes So that the foundation being most rotten no marvail if the edifice he builds hereupon must needs totter For the Jewes were thus to be shut up under infidelity for many hundred years to wit untill the time came which the Apostle prophesyeth of And so were the Gentiles also before them 'till the time came of their calling And thus Sasbutius interpreteth the Apostle in this very place Sensus est saith he sic visum est Deo dispensare utriusque populi salutem Iudaeorum videlicet Gentium ut permitteret utrumque populum suo vitio concludi sive constringi sub incredulitate damnatione Concludi inquam ne ullâ ratione poscit ex incredulitate suâ vinculo se liberare ut ipsius misericordia gratuita locum habere agnoscatur in utroque populo tam Iudaeorum quam Gentium Thus we see that both his all 's are not worth a Bodkin and to give him two all 's more to encrease his store we may justly say that all this is nothing at all to the purpose DISCOURSE SECT III. IOhn 3. 16. God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Sonne that whosoever c. God loved the World that is the whole lump of Man-kind therefore God did not absolutely hate the greatest part of Man-kind God loved it fallen into a guilt of sinne and misery for he so loved them as to send his Sonne to redeeme them and a Saviour presupposeth sinne He did not therefore hate the most of them considered in the fall for love and hatred are contrary acts and cannot be exercised about the same Object Many expositors I know doe take World here in a restrained sense and understand by it the company of the Elect or the World of believers only but they have little reason for it in my opinion for 1. I think there can be no place of Scripture alleadged wherein this word World especially with the condition of whole as in 1 Epist of Iohn 2. 2. which is a place equivalent to this for the matter of it and a comment upon it I say I think no place can be produced where World doth signify only the Elect or only believers but it signifies either all men or at least the most men living in some certain place and at some certain time but without distinction of good and bad or if it be used any where more restrainedly it is applyed only to the wicked and Reprobate men who are wedded in their affections to the World and the transitory delights thereof and therefore doe most properly deserve this name 2. Suppose it be granted that World in some Scriptures is restrained to the Elect yet it cannot bear this signification here because 1. The words then would have a bad and senselesse construction for thus would they runne God so loved the Elect that whosoever believed in him should not perish c. And if they runne thus then this would follow there are two sorts of the Elect some that doe believe and shall be saved others that doe not believe and shall be damned which is a division or distinction unknown in Divinity 2. Believers and Vnbelievers damned and saved comprehend all Man kind for there is no man but is one of these Now World in this place includeth believers and unbelievers the saved and the damned as appears most plainly to him that considers the words therefore it signifieth here all Man kind without exception
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
make them confident and insolent and in a word Magnas Tragoedias excitare But take a way the confusion of things that differ their combes are cut their locks are shorne and they are but as another man Now having shewed in what sense every hearer is bound to believe that Christ died for him and in what sense not let us consider of what worth this Authors arguments are breathing nothing but smoak and fire I will not say like the great Potan but like fell Dragon but I nothing doubt we shall pare his nailes and make him calme enough ere we have done with him so that a little child shall be able enough to lead him Now that they cannot be justly bound to believe if they be absolute reprobates he takes upon him to prove by three reasons 1. The first is because it is Gods will that they shall not believe because it is his peremptory will that they shall have no power to believe I answere it is indeed the will of Gods decree that is he hath decreed not to give any Reprobate a justifying faith but hence it followeth not that therefore they cannot believe thus farre the contents of the Gospell namely that both Christ hath merited and God hath ordained that as many as doe believe shall be saved For this as I take it is not usually accounted by our Divines a justifying faith but rather it comes within the compasse of such a faith as is commonly counted faith historicall Secondly I answer it followeth not that because God hath decreed to deny them the grace of faith therefore they are not bound to believe which I prove by Scripture For was not Pharaoh bound to let Israel goe when Moses was sent to him from the Lord to command him in the name of the Lord to let Israel goe Yet the Scripture plainly teacheth us that the Lord told Moses that he would harden Pharaohs heart and that he should not let Israel goe What I pray is now become of his reason compared with the light of Scripture And what have we to doe to enquire into Gods counsells as whether he hath decreed to give us grace or no Is it not enough to bind us to obedience for God to command this or that unto us Did Abraham enquire in his thoughts whether it were his purpose yea or no that Isaack should be sacrificed Nothing lesse but upon the Lords command he forthwith addresseth himselfe to the worke rising early in the morning and going forward in the Lords businesse Then again we find by common experience that naturall men are too to confident rather and presumptuous of their power then diffident and distrustfull dicere solet humana superbia saith Austin si scissem fecissem it were better for them if they did acknowledge their impotency and by what means this corruption of theirs is brought upon them that would bring them nearer to the Kingdome of God But if I have a debtor whom I know to be a Bankerupt but he knowes it not but having many bagges of Brasse or Copper pieces which he takes to be Gold conceits himselfe able enough to pay all his debts and more too shall I be said to commit any indecent thing by urging him to pay that he oweth This argument is as old as Pelagius but what was Austin his answer In mandato cognosce quid debeas habere in corruptione cognosce t uo te vitio non habere in oratione cognosce unde possis habere 3. Lastly if God cannot justly command and by command bind man to obey in case he hath no power to obey in like sort God cannot justly complaine of their disobedience who being hardned by God cannot obey him And indeed as this Author argueth against the justice of Gods commands in this case so the Apostle brings in one arguing the injustice of Gods complaints in the like case For having delivered this Doctrine that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth forthwith he brings in one tumultuating against it in this manner Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine for who hath resisted his will And if any man be not ashamed to argue as he did saith Austin let us not be ashamed to answer as the Apostle did and how was that Surely only thus 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 over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour And albeit this I trow should be sufficient to satisfy a Christian yet we observe farther how this Author confounds impotency Morall which consisteth in the corruption of mans powers naturall and impotency naturall which consisteth in bereaving him of power naturall The Lord tells us by his Prophet Jeremy that Like as a Blackamore cannot change his skinne nor a Leopard his spotts no more can they doe good that are accustomed unto evill Now if a man taken in stealth shall plead thus before a Judge My Lord I beseech you have compassion upon me for I have so long time inured my hands to pilfering that now I cannot forbeare it will this be accepted as a good plea to save him from the Gallowes Again it is observed that men are naturally prone to runne upon the committing of things forbidden them Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas nitimur in vetitum yet this is no just excuse Lastly as for faith it is well known that Divines distinguish between fides acquisita and fides infusa that we may call a faith naturally acquired which is found in carnall persons whether prophane or Hypocriticall and this is a faith inspired by Gods spirit The object of each is all one and a Man may suffer Martyrdome for the one as well as for the other which manifesteth the pertinacious adherence thereunto And it appears that all professions have had their Martyrs Ucali Fartax a Calabrian borne endured the Gallies fourteen years rather then he would turne Turke yet at length he became a Turke and only in spleen to be revenged on a Turke who had given him a boxe on the eare and became a great man amongst them And at the famous battell of Lepanto he alone maintained his Squadron entire and beat the Christians But to returne albeit it be not in the power of nature to believe fide infusâ yet is it in the power of nature to believe the Gospell fide acquisitâ which depends partly upon a mans education and partly upon reason considering the credibility of the Christian way by light of naturall observations above all other waies in the World And when men refuse to embrace the Gospell not so much because of the credibility of it but because it is not congruous to their naturall affections as our Saviour tells the Jewes Light came into the World and men loved darknesse rather then light
prduce a vitall act hath life in him and consequently whosoever hath power to produce any act of the life of grace hath the life of grace in him But the acts of faith and repentance are the acts of the life of grace therefore whosoever hath power to produce these hath in him the life of grace But this is not true of all for the Scripture testifies of some that they are dead in sinne Ephes 2. 1. Are strangers from the life of God Ephes 4. 18. Againe then all should be regenerated but that is untrue for regeneration is signified Psal 19. in Scripture to be wrought by the word of God 1 Peter 1. 23. Iam. 1. 17. But all have not the word of God 4. If a man hath power to believe and repent then the reason why a man doth not believe and repent is not because he cannot but because he will not so that in the issue it comes to this that a man may believe if he will repent if he will But such a power is not grace but nature rather as appears by Austin l. 1. de Gtnesi contra Manich. cap. 3. where he professeth that omnes possunt credere si velint now compare this with that he hath in the same place where though he saith that omnes credere possint si velint yet posse credere simply taken ariseth meerely out of the gift of charity which he professeth to be gratiae fidelium de praedest Sanct. c. 5. But there he professeth that posse habere fidem is naturae hominum the very naturall condition of all men I farther prove it by reason thus Look by what power I can believe if I will by the same power I can refuse to believe if I will Now such a power is no other then whereby a man is indifferent to doe good or evill but such a condition is not grace for grace is goodnesse now goodnesse doth not dispose any either to good or evill indifferently but precisely to that which is good like as naughtinesse disposeth a man only to that which is evill He sleepes so sweetly upon his Arminian pillow that his very dreames make him confident of the evidence of his deductions And he gives reasons for it and that of most force for conviction namely the confession of his adversaries the maintainers of absolute reprobation for even they he saith doe not deny this but ascribe unto God sanctam simulationem duplicem personam duplicem voluntatem But he names none content to sing to himself his Muses throughout when he relats what our sides answer to his profound discourses And I commend his wisdome more then his honesty in this for if he had quoted his Authors herein it may be something might have bin discovered that would be little pleasing unto him yet herein he confounds things much different for as for a double will ascribed unto God all the Learned doe acknowledge so much and the Scriptures testify it as namely that his decree is called the will of God as what the Lord willeth that hath he done both in heaven and in earth and who hath resisted his will as also that Gods commandement is called usually the will of God as This is the will of God even your sanctification that every one should know how to possesse his vessell in holinesse and honour and not in the lust of concupiscence as the Gentiles doe which know not God 1 Thes 4. 4 5. as for duplicem personam that is a phrase which I never read before yet the phrase of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is usually in the Holy Scripture as when God takes unto him both the members of a mans body and the passions of his mind and so speakes in the way of condescension to our infirmities as to put upon himselfe the person of a man and this is undenyable by all that are not Anthropomorphites And as touching our blessed Saviour we acknowledge in him duplicem naturam a double nature though not duplicem personam a double person and accordingly sometimes he both speakes of himselfe and is spoken of as touching the nature of his God-head and sometimes as touching the nature of his Man-hood As for the first that alone is materiall to his present purpose namely as touching Sancta Simulatio ascribed unto God by our Divines Now it were worth the while to know who is his Author in this and that of the passages alleadged by this Author doth professe that they doe represent in God an holy kind of simulation How could he exspect that this should give any satisfaction seeing he conceales the Author of it And what reader would not be moved with a very greedy desire to know the Author of such an interpretation of the passages alleadged by this Divine that he might consider whether it be rightly alleadged or no and if rightly with what sobriety they deliver it Now I remember well to have read in Piscator that the Scripture attributes in a certaine place Simulation unto Christ not in any passage of this nature wee treat of as namely Luke 24. 28. Where it is said he made as though hee would goe farther like enough to irritate their devotions and to provoke their zealous desire so much the more to retaine him a little longer And I willingly professe not the Simulation but the Dissimulation of this Author in this case hath stirred up a desire in me to be satiâ—fied as touching the Author of this Sancta Simulatio Now I find in Piscator his answer to Vorstius his Parascâ—uen the first part pag. 29. both that place of simulation attributed unto Christ out of Luke 24. 28. And also how that in the examples of Gods messages sent to Hezekiah that he should dye and not live And to the Ninevites by Jonah Yet forty daies and Nineve shall be destroyed his opinion is that therein God doth signify care se velle quod non vult His words are these Adhaec etsi Deus interdum significet se velle quod non vult non tamen propterea hypocriseos insimulandus est for this Vorstius objected unto him Sed potius sapientia ejus agnoscenda in hominibus ad serias preces seriam poenitentiam adducendis ut liquet in exemplo Begis Ezekiae recuperantis sanitatem Ninivitarum conservatorum and whereas Vorstius laies to his charge that in saying God commands one thing and purposeth another he doth impute unto God Hypocrisy which is the very substance of this Authors answere in this place See I pray how he answers it without attributing any holy simulation at all unto God in this case Ad praecepta vero quod attinet non statim sequitur Deum agere Hipocritam si quid praecipiat quod fieri nolit etenim hypocritam is demum agit qui simulat pietatem quâ caret Sane quicquid praecipit Deus id vult voluntare approbante si fiat nisi interveniat praeceptum contrarium ut factum est in
our answers thereunto which formerly were but two but now are inlarged with the addition of a third The first whereof is for the forme of it changed throughout The comparison of the waies of God with the mysterious attributes of God is changed not only as touching the forme but as touching the matter here is no pleading for a reasonable service of God as there was His making man's understanding purged from prejudice and false principles as it was proposed there purged from prejudices corrupt affections and customes as it is proposed to be the Tribunall according to whose judgment interpretations of Scripture concerning what is just in the courses of God must be allowed or disallowed I have sufficiently canvased there Let the Reader be pleased to turne to it and compare my answer to this Sub-section and observe how little spirit he had so much as to question against any one peece of my answer Here he addes a reason of his former uncouth paradoxe to wit that Iustice in men and God are for substance but one and the same thing though different in degree as the greater and lesser light I have sufficiently profligated this in the first Section concerning God's attributes For this very rule he premiseth in generall to the ensuing discourse of his most congruously wilde premises and grounds to wild discourses The difference he puts between the wayes of God the mysteries of godlinesse I have there also refuted shewing that albeit some wayes of God's justice are agreable to the judgment of man as these mentioned Es 5. and Ezek 18 yet all are not as there I shew at large And lastly because he likes rationall discourse so well I am contented to deale with him at his own weapon by six rationall demonstrations justifying the absolutenesse of God's decrees in answer whereunto he is content to carry himselfe very judiciously even as mute as a fish The second answer of ours which he brings in to reply upon is inserted a new that I come to consider in the next place as I find it set down pag. 10. 71. 72. It is answered that these decrees are set down in Scripture to be the will of God and therefore they must needs be just For God's will is the rule of all righteousnesse To this answer I have these things to reply 1. This rule in divinity is much abused by the maintainers of absolute reprobation and may not be admitted in their sense and meaning For God's will is not a rule of justice to himselfe as if things were therefore just because he willeth and worketh them but his justice rather is a rule of his will workes which are the expressions of his will He therefore maketh decrees and executeth them because they are agreable to that justice which dwells in the Divine nature as he maketh nothing which hath not potâ—nitam objectivam a power of being created without implying contradiction to himselfe or any thing in him So he willeth and doth nothing but that which may be willed and done salvá justitiâ— without wrong to his justice St. Hierome speaking of the Prophet Hoseas taking a wife of fornication Hos 1. 2. Saith it was done in typo typically not â—â—ally quia si siat turpissimii est because if it had been dâ—ne indeed it had been a most foule thing But thou wilt answer saith he Deo â—ubente nihil turpe est God commanding it nothing is dishonest Thus much we say saith the father that God commandeth nothing but what is honest but he doth not by commanding dishonest things make those things honest which are abominable plainly giving us to see what he thought viz that God doth not will a thing of make it good but willeth it because it is in it selfe good antecedently before the act of God's will about it And thus much doth Zanchy though a rigid maintainer of absolute reprobation not obscurely confesse in his treatise De naturá Dei where he letteth â—all such speeches as make God's justice antecedent to his will and therefore the rule of it rather then a thing regulated by it Neither can God will any thing saith he which is not just And againe The Princes pleasure hath the strength of a law is a Rule saith he among the Canonists But this is true where the King is just and a 〈◊〉 nothing but what is just In which words he plainly maketh the justice of the King amâ—â—edent to that will of his which must be a law Many more speeches he useth there to the same purpose God's will therefore is not a rule of justice to himselfe To whom then To us For by it we are first to â—quaâ—e all our thoughts words and deeds Secondly to examine them when they are spoken and done Primum in aliqâ—o 〈…〉 regula â—ostcricrum supremum inferiorum 2ly I reply that theâ—â— absolute accrces of mens inâ—vitable salvation and damnation are no parts of Gods revealed will The scriptures teache us no such matter And therefore to say that they are is but a mere begging of the question It hath alwaies been ordinary with false teachers to make Gods word a father to their false opinions that they may stand the faster and winne the greater credit The Papists ground their Transubstantiation the Lutherans their conâ—ubstantiation and obiquity upon the Scripture Hoc est corpus meuÌ„ This is my body And the defenders of absolute reprobation doe so too They make their cause to be Gods and entitle his word to it because they see it is the surest way to defend it being herein like to some contentious people who being in law and having a bad cause which they are like to loose they entitle the King to it that they may the better uphold it 3ly Absolute Reprobation can be no part of Gods revealed will The reason is because it is odious to right reason begetteth absurdities For nulla veritas parit absurda no truth begetteth absurdities Divers truths are revealed in Scripture which are above but not contrary to right reason whether they be matters of faith or life Faith and reason nature and Scripture are both Gods excellent gifts And therefore though there may be a disproportion yeâ— there can be no repugnancy between them The worship which God requireth is Cultus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable 〈◊〉 And the word of God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 milke reasonable and without guile These things therefore being laid together it will appeare to be but a mere shift and evasion when absolute reprobation is prâ—ved to be unjust and therefore unworthy of God to say Gods will is the rule of justice this is part of Gods revealed will and therefore most just whatsoever reason may cavill and say to the contrary Doth not this Authour observe the contradictious nature of this proposition Gods will is a rule of justice to himselfe For a rule of justice to any one is a rule to
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
is sufficient to disparage his cause with all that are indifferent and judicious The Scripture plainly professeth that faith is the gift of God repentance is the gift of God But as he carrieth the matter nothing lesse appeares then that this is his opinion Yet I know he dares not in plaine termes oppose the cleare evidence of Scripture in this Now if faith be the gift of God withall he gives it without difference to all thē all must believe which is notoriously palpably untrue If he gives it only to some thē all the rest are mocked by God according to this Authours discourse as often as he saith unto them believe and ye shall be saved And to whom he saith this to them he saith also Oh that there were such an heart in them to feare me c. If he saith he gives faith absolutely to none but conditionally and upon the same condition he is ready to give to all this is clearely to confesse that the grace of God is given according to man's workes Againe 't is God that worketh in us both the will and the deed and that according to his good pleasure if according to his good pleasure How can it be said that it is according to the preparation of the creature Then what condition can be devised whereupon God workes in us the will If he say the grace which God gives to all and whereby to believe to repent is made a thing possible unto all For thus we must proceed groaping after his meaning he affecting nothing more then to sculke and earth himselfe in his concealements I answer first The Scripture makes no mention of any such power given to any but to the contrary professeth of all persons unregenerate that they cannot please God that They cannot discerne the things of God 1 Co 2. 14 that They cannot believe that They cannot repent Ro 24 that they are not subject to the law of God nor can be 2ly The Scripture plainly saith that faith is the gift of God repentance is the gift of God It doth not say that the power to believe if they will is the gift of God If he saith by faith is meant such a power whereby a man may believe if he will I prove the contrary then all men should have faith For in this mans opinion all men are indued with this power But the Apostle plainly saith that All men have not faith Againe faith is described to be The faith of God's Elect but a power to believe if we will this Authour makes common to the Elect with Reprobates Moreover if to give power to believe if a man will be to give him faith then in as much as God gives power to sinne if he will he may be said as well that God gives sinne Adde to this that to have power to believe if one will is rather nature then grace For it is no more then posse fidem habere and this is the nature of man as Austin testifies Posse fidem habere naturae est hominum fidem habere gratiae est fidelium 'T is the nature of man that he may have faith but it is of the grace of the faithfull that a man hath faith And indeed if faith given us of God did only inable us to believe if we will it were farre inferiour to a morall vertue which doth not give man power to be vertuous if he will or to performe a vertuous act if he will but makes him vertuous and disposeth the will to vertuous acts only and leaves him not indifferent whether he will performe vertuous acts or no. To returne then if no other grace be required to free God from mocking and deriding his creature surely we are as free as our adversaries from making God to deride and mocke his creature For we are ready to grant that all men may believe if they will repent if they will with Austin l. 1. de Gen cont Man cap 3. De spiritu liter â ad Marcellin cap 32. De praedest in Sanct cap 5. And our reason is this Not to be able to doe that which a man will doe is impotency merely naturall but the impotency that we speake of which is hereditary to all mankind by reason of the fall is impotency morall and resident in the will of man For who doubts but that the will to believe is to believe For credimus si volumus So the will to repent is to repent For repentance in the root thereof is nothing else but the change of the will And Pelagius of three things proposed Posse Velle Agere he willingly granted the first to wit Posse bonum to be from God but he denied the other two to be the works of God but of our free wills which if he had acknowledged to be the workes of God as well as the first Austin tells him that ab Apostolicâ doctrinâ abhorrere non videretur he should not seeme to vary from the doctrine of the Apostles And for ought I see this Authour goes not one step beyond Pelagius He acknowledgeth that God doth perswade and exhort to believe so did Pelagius ibid. cap. 10. He saith also that God doth concurre to the act but so he doth in his opinion to every sinfull act so that this is but a generall concourse and what Pelagian was ever known to deny but that God might have as great an hand in any good act as in any naturall act Now since we acknowledge all this as well as he what colour hath he to impute unto us that we by our doctrine so fashion God's providence as to make him deride and mock miserable people Though the Jebusites did mock David as this Authour gives his word for it though I doe not find that Ribbi David Kimhi or Piscator count it any derision but a plaine representation of their confidence that David was never able to take it such was the strength of the tower◠that the weakest even the blind and the lame were sufficient to defend it Though withall Kimhi acquaints us with a strange story out of the Jews Darashe of a Covenant made between Abraham and King Abimelech and that concerning not him alone but his Son and his Nephew to suffer them quietly to enjoy their own And that the Nephew of that Abimelech was alive at that time when David came to besiege that fort And that therein the Jebusites had erected two Images the one blind to represent I saack who in his old age was blind and the other lame representing Jacob who by wrestling with God became lame and in the mouthes of these Images was kept the Covenant which was made between Abraham and Abimelech The instance he gives of a proclamation which takes up the greatest part of this supplement as a great part of this Authour's discourse is spent in such insicete representations is most incongruous not only to the matter whereunto it is applyed but to
diverse of my Brethren in both the Universities in the City of London have I should apply my selfe with an undeniable importunity to perswade them unto so good and great a Worke which will Purchase them a precious Memory with the Godly and Learned in all future Ages of the Church I have but one thing more to say of the Booke before I take my leave of Thee If any Arminian whatsoever will give a Just Full and Scholasticall Answer unto It I shall by God's helpe returne him a Reply For 't is De Causa Dei as Bradwardine Entitles his Booke And in defence of God's Cause I shall feare no Colours But if the Ignorant Paper-blurrers of the Time shall Snarle and Snap only at some few Passages they are not to expect that so much as any serious notice should be taken of them Thine In all the obligations of Charity and Truth HENRY JEANES THE FIRST BOOK IN TWO PARTS WHEREOF THE FIRST Containeth a Consideration of those Reasons for Which Mr HORD as he pretended First questioned the truth of Absolute Reprobation THE SECOND Examineth those Arguments against the Absolutenesse of Divine Reprobation which M. HORD took to be of a Convincing Nature OXFORD Printed by LEON LICHFIELD for THO ROBINSON Anno Salutis M. DC LIII A Table of the Principall Matters contained in this Treatise wherein the Answer unto Mr. Mason's Additions is referred in such order as that it is made aptly to cohere with the refutation of M. HORDS DISCOUERSE AN examination of the Epistle to the Reader lib. 2. p. 1 2 3 4 5. The maine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Question in these Controversies propounded and stated together with the different opinions of Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants both Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians concerning it examined lib. 1. pag. 1 2 3. c. usque ad p. 14 and p. 32 33. usque ad p. 40. l. 2. p. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. The absolute decree cleared from M r Hord's reasons both inducing and convincing 1. And first to begin with those for which as he pretended he first questioned the truth of absolute Reprobation where the absolute decree is vindicated from the charge 1. Of Novelty lib. 1. p. 40. c. usque ad p. 60. l. 2. p. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19. 2. Of Unwillingnesse to abide the tryall lib. 1. a p. 59. ad 84. l. 2. p. 19. 20. 21. 22. 3. Of Infamie lib. 1. a p. 83. ad p. 91. l. 2. p. 22. 23 24. 4. Of Affinity with the old and exploded errors of the Stoicks and Manichees lib. 1. p. 92 93. c. usque ad p. 102. 2. Those arguments against the absolutenes of Divine Reprobation according to both the upper and lower way which M r Hord tooke to be of a convincing nature are examined 1. M r Hord's or M r Mason's arguments against the upper or Supralapsarian way are answered lib. 2. p. 25. c. Where 1. The upper or Supralapsarian way is vindicated from the dishonouring of God in two particulars 1. It doth not charge him with mans destruction lib. 2. a p. 25. ad p. 51. 2. It doth not charge him with mens sinnes lib. 1. a p. 14. ad 28 l 2. a p. 51. ad 116. 2. The upper or Supralapsarian way is cleared from the overthrow of Religion and holy Life and that in foure particulars 1. It maketh not sinne to be no sinne lib 1. p. 10 28 29. l. 2. a p 110. ad 121. 2. It taketh not away the conscience of sinne lib. 1. p. 29 30 l. 2. p. 117 121 122. 3. It taketh not away the desert and guilt of sinne lib. 1. p. 10 30 31 32. l. 2. p 122 123 c. usque ad p. 131. 4. It maketh not the whole circle of mans Life a meere destiny lib. 2. p. 127 128 130 131 132 133. 2. Those pretended convictive arguments against absolute Reprobation which proceed as it is stated according to the Sublapsarian or lower way lib. 1. p. 103. c. And it is fully and clearly evinced that the Sublapsarian Doctrine is not repugnant unto 1. Testimonies of Scripture 2. Attributes of God 3. End of the Word and Sacrament with other excellent gifts of God to men 4. Holy and Pious endeavors 5. The Grounds of comfort whereby distressed consciences are to be relieved 1. The Sublapsarian Doctrine concerning absolute reprobation is not repugnant to Scripture lib. 1. p. 103 104. c. Particularly not to Ezek. 33. 11. As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turne from his way live turne ye turne ye from your evill wayes for why will ye dye o House of Israel lib. 1. p. 103 c. Nor to Ezek. 18. 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth saith the Lord God wherefore turne your selves and live ye lib. 1. p. 103 104 105 106. Not to Rom. 11. 32. For God hath concluded them all in unbeliefe that he might have mercy upon all lib. 1. p. 107 108. Not to Iohn 3. 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son c. lib. 1. p. 108 109 110. Not to 1. Tim. 2. 4. Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the Truth lib. p. 111 112 113 114 115. Not to 2 Peter 3. 9. not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance lib. 1. p. 115 116 117. Not to those conditionall speeches which are in 1 Cron. 28. 9. And 2 Cron. 15. 2. And Gen. 4. 7. And Heb. 10. 38. lib. 1. p. 117 118 119 120. 2. The Sublapsarian Doctrine c. is not contrary unto Gods Attributes to the clearing of which a discourse premised concerning Gods Atributes in generall is refuted lib. 1. p. 121 122 c. unto p. 128. This done our Author comes to shew in speciall how that the Sublapsarian Doctrine doth not oppugne 1. God's Holinesse lib. 2. p. 133 134 c. unto p. 147. 2. God's Mercy lib. 1. p. 128 c. unto p. 145. l. 2. p. 147 148. 3. God's Justice lib. 1. a p. 145. ad 171. l. 2. a p. 149. ad 156. 4. God's truth or sincerity lib. 1. a p. 171. ad 187. l. 2. a p. 156. ad p. 167. 3. The Sublapsarian doctrine not contrary to the use and end of God's gifts to men lib. a p. 187. ad 222. l. 2. p. 166. 167. 4. The Sublapsarian Doctrine not prejudiciall to piety and a Godly life lib. 1. a p. 221. ad 255. l. 2. p. 167 168 169 170. 5. The Sublapsarian Doctrine no enemy to true comfort lib. 1. p. 255 256 c. usque ad finem By this Table Reader thou maist correct the mistitleing of pages as lib. 1. p. 86 87 88 89. 90. lib. 20. p. 22 23 24 25 26 27. p. 52 53 58 59. a p. 133 ad p. 147. READER I would advise thee
lamentable ends to which he had from eternity appointed them and so by good consequence it makes the pure and holy God to be unholy and ascribes unto him farre greater cruelty then can be found in the most bloudy and barbarous Tyrant in the World Suetonius in the life of Tiberius one of the veryest Butchers of all the Roman Emperours reports of him that having a mind to put the two sonnes of Germanicus Diusus and Nero to death Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur He used cunning contrivances to draw them to reproach him that so he might cover his cruelty in their death under a pretext of justice And a little after he saith of the same Emperour that because it was not lawfull among the Romans to strangle Virgins he caused certain little maides to be deflowred by the Hangman that so they might afterwards be strangled This cruelty of Tiberius exceeded the bounds of humanity and yet it comes as short of that which this way laies to the charge of God as a temporall death comes short of an eternall and the power of man in drawing men to offend comes short of that irresistable power which the Almighty is able to use in the producing of sin Besides it takes from men all conscience of sin and makes sin to be no sin We use to say Necessitas non habet legem Necessity hath no law Actions in themselves evill if an absolute necessity bear sway in them are transgressions of no law and consequently are no sin for sin is a transgression of the law and men when they doe them they have no reason to be forry for them The Tragoedian could see this where he saith Fati ista culpa est Nemo fit fato nocens when one evill action is done the doer is not in fault but the decree that necessitates him to doe it It takes away likewise from good and evill actions that defect which they naturally carry with them of Rewards and Punishments as Saint Hierome tells us Liberi arbitrii nos condidit Deus nec ad virtutes nec ad vitia necessitate tranimur alioqui ubi necessit as est nec damnatio nec corona est Where necessity domineers there is no place for retribution and therefore none are drawn by the adamantine chains of necessity to virtues or vices but left free to the choyce of their own wills When Zeno his servant was punished by him for a fault that he had done he told his Master out of his own grounds that he was unjustly beaten because he was Fato coactus peccare constrained so to doe by his undeclinable destiny and certainly if malefactors could not chuse but play their rude prankes they could not be justly punished for them For all just punishments suppose a possibility of avoyding those offences of which they are the punishments TWISSE Consideration THis Authors pretence being only to oppose that Tenent which maintaines that the decree of denying grace and glory and of inflicting damnation doth not presuppose the foresight of final perseverance in sin you may well marvaile to what purpose this comes in about the different condition of man considered by God either as before the Fall or after the Fall in Adam it being a question of another nature and meerly Logicall to wit about the ordering of Gods decrees of Creation Permission of the fall of Adam giving or denying Grace Salvation or Damnation The resolution whereof depends upon the right distinction of these decrees in reference to the end and to the means tending to that end For this being Resolved according to the rules of Divinity the order between them must consequently be determined according to the rules generally received in the Schooles namely thus The intention of the end is first then the intention of the means so that if Salvation be the end and Creation and Permission of Adams Fall and Raising therehence by Faith and Repentance to be the means it must be confessed that the decree of Salvation must be first then the decree of Creation permission of sin and of raising out of sin So if the damnation of any be the end that God intends and creation and permission of sin and of finall perseverance therein be the means it must be acknowledged that the decree of damnation was before the decree of creation c. But if salvation and damnation be no ends intended by God but means rather as well as creation and permission of all to sin in Adam together with the raising of some therehence and leaving some therein tending to some farther end namely the Manifestation of Gods glory in a certain kind as the Scripture together with manifest reason doth justify For God being the supreame efficient must necessarily be the last end And even there where the word of God doth testify that God created the wicked against the day of evill it doth therewithall give to understand that what is signified by To the day of evill doth not denote the end of Gods actions that before being expressed to be God himselfe God made all things for himselfe not for acquiring ought unto himselfe for he is so perfect that nothing can be added unto him but for the manifesting of his own most glorious nature so that if God be pleased to manifest his glorious beneficence on man in the highest degree and that in the way of mercy mixt with justice this end requires and bespeaks both creation no glory at all being manifestable without this and permission of sin otherwise it could not be manifested in the way of mercy and satisfaction for sin otherwise this mercy could not be mixed with justice exactly and faith and repentance otherwise the good which God intends could not be bestowed by way of reward and last of all Salvation under which we comprehend the highest and most blessed condition that the nature of man continuing a meere man is capable of And herehence we conclude that in case the end is such as hath been specified and all these actions following congruous means tending to that end therefore the decree of manifesting Gods glory as above specified is first with God and secondly the decree of the means which means although they are many materially yet they come all under one formall notion of means tending to a certain end which according to the severall parts thereof bespeaks them all and consequently they are all to be considered as making up the object of one formall decree called the decree of the means and the intention of none of them is before another but all intended at once as means tending to that end which is first intended In like manner if God shall be pleased to intend the manifestation of his glory in Man or Angell in the way of justice vindicative the means necessarily required hereunto are Creation Permission of sin and Damnation unto punishment and all three makes up the object of one formall
decree which is to be called the decree of the means So that like as God doth not intend the creatures creation before he intends his damnation in the same respect he cannot be said to intend his damnation before he intends his creation or the permission of his sinne And this rightly considered sets an end unto all quarrell about the different consideration of Man in election and reprobation which yet is about a Schoole point only touching the right stateing of the end and the means and the right ordering of Gods decrees concerning them And doth it not set an end also to all aspersions of cruelty cast upon the holy providence of God from the guilt of which kind of blasphemies nothing can free them but confidence in their own way as if it were the way of truth and that by convincing evidence of holy Scripture Whereas it appears how little direction they take from the Word of God throughout for the shaping of their Tenent in this Yet neither is any such confidence able to free them from the guilt of such blasphemies which they utter well it may free them from the conscience of it yet if it doe that is more than I know And only to these two ends doth this aliene discourse of our different opinions thereabouts tend as I conceive namely to shew the difference of our Divines and to give vent to those aspersions of blasphemy on the first way as also to make way for a third in part which comes to be considered in the next Section in the manner how they fall upon the relation of the second way Yet Arminius in his Conference with Junius might have informed him of three opinions concerning the object of Predestination dividing the fruit of these into two The condition of man before the Fall being considerable two waies either as before the Fall but after Creation which they call the Masse created but not yet corrupted or as not before the Fall only but before the creation also which we commonly call the Masse not yet created or Mankind not yet created As touching the most harsh way of these three upon examination of Arminius his twenty arguments against it I find nothing worth the speaking of but meere suggestion of flesh and bloud which yet being duely pondered doe discover most shamefull nakednes His arguments against the making of Mankind not yet created the object of predestination I have proposed and answered in my Vindiciae gratiae Dei lib. 1. De Praedestin digress 5. if this Author hath any mind to be doing with them I shall be ready to consider what he saith as God shall give opportunity And in Junius you shall finde how he laboureth to reconcile them but very obscurely Piscator also sets hand to the same work and carryeth himselfe therein as his manner is very clearely by distinguishing three acts in Predestination The first whereof he will have to presuppose Mankind not created for it is the decree of creating man to different ends The second he will have to presuppose Mankind created but not corrupted for it is the decree of permitting Adam to fall and all Mankind in him The third and last he will have to presuppose Mankind both created and corrupted for it is the decree of raising some out of sin wherein they are conceived and borne and leaving some therein As for the Angells it is without question that election and reprobation divine had course concerning them as well as concerning mankind and as certain it is that no corrupt Masse could be the object of divine Predestination in their election and reprobation As for Arminius his ordering of Gods decrees in opposition to these waies taken by our Divines that he hath communicated unto us in the Declaration of his opinion before the States pag 47. where leaving out the decree of creating mankind in Adam and the decree of permitting all mankind to fall in Adam he takes into consideration only the divine decrees of saving sinfull man 1. The first whereof is Whereby he decreed to make his Sonne Christ a Mediator Redeemer Saviour Priest and King by his death to abolish sin by his obedience to obtain Salvation formerly lost and by his power to communicate it And this decree he saith is absolute 2. The second is Whereby he decreed to receive into grace such as believe and repent and those persevering unto the end to save in Christ for and by Christ but such as believe and repent not to leave under sin and wrath and to damne as aliene from Christ. Where observe 1. This decree of saving such as believe and repent he calleth a decree absolute yet this decree passeth upon no particular persons such a decree is reserved for the last place 2. God with him receives none into grace and favour unles they believe and repent Whereby it is manifest that with him faith and repentance are no fruits of Gods grace and favour for they must be performed before they are received into Gods grace and favour 3. The third is Where by he decreed sufficiently and efficaciously to administer the means which are necessary to faith and repentance This decree whether he conceives it to be absolute or no he doth not specify nor whether he decreed to administer them unto all nor by whom whether by men only or by men or Angells nor whether by means he understands the Gospel only and we have cause to doubt thereof And lastly which is most obscure he doth not explicate what he means by sufficient and efficacious administration Only he adds that in this administration he carries himselfe according 1. To his Wisdome which shewes what becomes his mercy andseverity and 2 ly to his Justice whereby he is ready to follow the prescript of his Wisdome 4. The fourth and last is Whereby he decreed to save and damne certain particular persons Now whereas our Divines generally what way soever they took had a care out of their Logick and Philosophy which they had by light of nature to order the decrees divine according to the common Rules of Art concerning intentions as they are found to be either of some end or of some means tending to an end this seems to have been no part of Arminius his care This order of his I have ransaked in my Vindiciae lib. 3. digress 2. And if this Author think good he may answer thereunto and doe his best to qualify the absurdities wherewith I charge that order of his But as touching the embracers of this first way whose names he expresseth he had need to prove it For divers think otherwise of Calvin and they represent their reasons for it out of his own words such as these De aeternâ Dei Praedestinatione pag. 970. speaking of Pighius Augustinum ridet saith he ejusque similes hoc est pios emnes qui deum imaginantur postquam universalem Generis humani Ruinam in personâ Adae praesciverit alios ad vitam alios ad interitum destinasse
makes use of all his creatures in what condition soever he finds them even of Devills and wicked men to serve his turne by them either in the way of judgement or in the way of mercy and sometimes for triall of the faith and patience of his children is in Scripture phrase called Gods bidding or commanding And indeed it is farre more effectuall then his commandment And Austin by pregnant passages of holy Scripture convicted of this truth spareth not to professe as much in these words His talibus testimoniis divinorum eloquiorum quae omnia commemorare nimis longum est satis quantum existimo manifestatur operari Deum in cordibus hominum ad inclinandas eorum voluntates quocunquè voluerit sive ad bona pro suâ misericordiâ sive ad mala pro meritis eorum judicio utique suo aliquando aperto aliquando occulto semper autem justo De Grat. lib. Arbitr cap. 21. And touching this particular case of Shimei inquiring about the interpretation of it see I pray how he resolves concerning it 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 inclinavit Ideò dictum est dixit ei dominus Nam si jubenti obtemper asset Deo laudandus potius quam puniendus esset sicut ex hoc peccato posteà novimus esse punitum And he proceeds farther to shew the reason of this divine providence Nec causa tacita est cur ei Deus justo modo dixerit maledicere David hoc est Cor ejus malum in hoc peccatum miserit vel dimiserit ut videat inquit dominus humilitatem meam retribuat mihi bona pro maledictio ejus in die isto And hereupon concludes Ecce quomodo probatur Deum uti cordibus etiam malorum ad laudem atque adjumentum bonorum Sic usus est Iuda tradente Christum Sic usus est Iudaeis crucifigentibus Christum quanta inde bona praestitit populis credituris Qui ipso utitur diabolo pessimo sed optimè ad excercendam probandam fidem pietatem bonorum non sibi quia omnia scit antequam fiant sed nobis quibus erat necessarium ut eo modo ageretur nobiscum But let us proceed to provocations unto other sins not in the way of exasperation but in the way of allurements Achan was a covetous person at the sacking of Jericho it was his hap to light among the spoyle upon a goodly Babylonish garment and two hundred shekells of silver and a wedge of gold of fifty shekells waight Was not so faire a prey a sore temptation to a covetous person How was Demosthenes taken with a rich bowle that was shewed him by Harpalus but there was great danger in it I confesse yet if desire of prey doth sometimes overrun the sent may it not as well overcome the feare of danger especially considering the opportunity of secrecy to convey it closely into his Tent and hide it there I saw saith he and I coveted them and took them and behold they lye hid in the earth in the midst of my Tent and the silver under it Now can it be denied but that God by his providence brought him into this temptation and consequently into this provocation for to tempt is to provoke 1 Chron. 21. 1. And is it not just with God to bring any man into such temptations of what kind or in what degree soever seeing no temptation or provocation in this kind or degree bereaves a man of the liberty of his will If not what meant our Saviour to teach his Disciples and in them us to pray unto God that He will not lead us into temptation And what cause hath Achan to complaine of this temptation We do not read he did was it not the condition of many others as well as himselfe Was this prey that he ceazed on the only spoyle of that great Citty Were there no Babylonish garments but that one no more silver or wedges of gold but that Achan lighted on Yet they refrained some out of the feare of God that restrained them in a gracious manner and kept them from sinning against him others though not out out of a feare of God yet out of the feare of punishment were moved to beware how they transgressed For albeit Libertas sine gratia non est libertas sed contumacia as * Austin writes yet feare of punishment oftimes restraines from committing capitall crimes though this restraint be not gracious and considerations of lesse force then these doe prevaile many times with carnall men both to abstain from evill and to doe that which is good though not in a gracious manner As we read in the Gospell of a wicked Judge that neither feared God nor reverenced man yet he would doe the Widdow justice to ease himselfe of her importunate sollicitations where with she molested him Come we to provocations unto sinne of another nature in satisfying the concupiscence of the flesh David arising out of his bed at eventide and walking upon the roof of the Kings Pallace from the roofe he saw a Woman washing her selfe and the Woman was very beautifull to look upon we know what followed hereupon Now was it not God that lead him into this temptation into this provocation Surely if this were not just with God it were in vaine for us to pray that God will not lead us into temptation for we need not feare any such temptation which cannot befall us without violation of Gods justice in the course of his providence Paul the Apostle least he should be exalted out of measure through the abundance of revelations made unto him which were very dangerous to puff a man up and make him swell in the conceit of his own worthinesse being admitted into the secrets of God was sometimes exercised with a thorne in the flesh the messenger of Satan sent to buffet him But the feare of God was alive in him and stirred up his faith to pray unto God three times that it might depart from him and the Lord made him a gracious answer not as yet to deliver him but to support him in this conflict and give him the victory over it For the Lord said unto him my grace is sufficient for thee for my power is made perfect in thy weaknesse This answer put heart into Paul Therefore saith he will I very gladly rejoyce rather in mine infirmities that the power of Christ may dwell in me Mark I pray Rahter in mine infirmities He would not blame God for thus exercising him but rather rejoyce to be thus exercised for as much as this same should doe him no harme for by vertue of Christs power dwelling in him he should have the victory Secondly it should doe him good in preserving him from being exalted
Deum out of God Therefore if any cause hereof be to be found it must be within God otherwise it must be confessed that all things became future by absolute necessity of nature If to help this they will devise something within the nature of God to be the cause hereof let them tell us what that is Not the Science of God for all confesse that secluding the divine will Gods knowledge is the cause of nothing If they say the will of God they concurre with us in embracing the same Opinion which they so much abhorre Nothing remaines to fly unto but the Essence of God If they plead that I demand whether the Essence of God working freely be the cause of the futurition of all things or as working necessarily If as working freely that is as much as to confesse in expresse termes that Gods will is the cause thereof But if they say the divine Essence is the cause hereof as working necessarily hence it followes that all things good and evill come from God as working by necessity of nature See I pray and consider the abominable and Atheisticall opinions that these Arminians doe improvidently cast themselves upon when they stretch their witts to overthrow Gods providence as it is carryed in the 11 th Article of Ireland which is this God from all Eternity did by his unchangeable Counsell ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe yet so as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures and neither the liberty nor contingency of second causes is taken away but established rather In the Conclusion that which he vaunts of as touching the Fathers is meer wind for he gives you nothing but his word for it which of what credit it deserves to be I leave to the indifferent to judge And as for the plucking up of the rootes of vertue which he fables of Consider I pray what Sect of Philosophers were ever known to be more vertuous then the Stoicks and how was Zeno himselfe honoured by the Athenians for his grave and vertuous conversation Hath not Erasmus delivered it as out of the mouth of Hierome that Secta Stoicorum was Secta simillima Christianae Yet I no where find that they brought in any necessity that was not subordinate to the Will of the supream God But these Arminians bring in a necessity of nature from without God to make him to doe this or that if he doth any thing or at least to make God himselfe a necessary Agent devoyd of all liberty and freedome contrary to that of Ambrose concerning the manner of Gods working namely that it is Nullo necessitatis obsequio but solo libertatis arbitrio But according to these Divines it must be quite contrary Nullo â—ibertatis arbitrio solo necessitatis obsequio And thus much as touching the first sort of this Authors Reasons which he accounts only Inducing I come to the other sort which he esteemes convincing THE SECOND PART OF THE FIRST BOOK Wherein are Examined those Arguments against the Absolutenesse of DIVINE REPROBATION WHICH M r HORD Took to be of a CONVINCING NATURE OXFORD Printed by Leonard Lichfield Printer to the Vniversity M. D. C. LIII The Second Part of this Discourse consisting of ARGUMENTS CONVINCING whereof there are Five sorts The First sort of Convincing Reasons Drawn from Scripture DISCOURSE SECT I. THOSE of the Second sort by which for the present I stand convinced that absolute reprobation is no part of Gods truth are drawn from these five following heads 1. Pregnant Testimonies of Scripture directly opposite unto it 2. Some principall attributes of God not compatible with it 3. The end of the Word and Sacraments with other excellent gifts of God to men quite thwarted by it 4. Holy and pious endeavours much hindered by it if not wholly subversed 5. The grounds of comfort whereby distressed consciences are to be relieved are all overthrown by it It it contrary to pregnant places of Scripture even in terminis as will appeare by these instances 1. Ezech. 33. 11. As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner but that the wicked turne from his waies and live And least men should say 't is true God wills not the death of a repenting sinner the Lord doth in another place of the same Prophet extend the proposition to them also that perish Ezech. 18. 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth In this Scripture we may note three things 1. Gods affection to men set forth 1. Negatively I have no pleasure in his death that dyeth 2. Affirmatively But that the wicked turne 2. The persons in whose destruction he delighteth not wicked men such as for the rejecting of grace dye and are damned If God have no pleasure in their death much lesse in the death of men either altogether innocent or tainted only with originall sinne 3. The truth of this affection as I live cupit sihi credi saith Tertullian Lib. de paenit cap. 4. God would faine have us to believe him when he saith I will not the death of him that dyeth and therefore he bindes his speech with an oath O beatos nos quorum causa Deus jurat O miserrimos si nec juranti Domino credimus Happy are we for whose sakes the Lord vouchsafeth to sweare but most unhappy if we believe him not when he swears Now if God delight not in the destruction of wicked men he did never out of his own pleasure take so many millions of men lying in the fall and seale them up by an absolute decree under invincible damnation for such a kind of decreeing men to everlasting death is quite opposite to a delight in mens eternall life TWISSE Consideration TO say that this or that opinion is untrue because it doth in terminis contradict places of Scripture is a very superficiary consideration yet it is not the first time that I have found it to drop from an Arminians penne But that it is a very superficiary consideration I prove thus For to deny God the Sonne to be equall to the Father is in terminis to contradict a pregnant place of Scripture Phil. 2. Where it is expressely said of God the Sonne that he thought it no robbery to be equall to the Father yet notwithstanding it is agreeable to that of our Saviour where he saith the Father is greater then I and so vice versâ In like manner to say that God cannot repent is in terminis to contradict pregnant places of Scripture again to say that God can repent is in terminis to contradict other as pregnant places of Scripture yet neither of these is unsound because each phrase is agreeable to Scripture in some place or other And the reason hereof is because in terminis only to contradict the Scripture is not to contradict the Scripture But when we contradict the meaning of Scripture then and not till then are we justly said to contradict
the Scripture And the reason hereof is because the word of God consists not in the outward barke or bone of the letter but in the inward pith and marrow of the meaning And as for contradiction unto Scripture in terminis it may easily be proved that to deny Gods delight in the destruction of obstinate sinners is to contradict a very pregnant place of Holy Scripture as namely Prov. 1. 24 25 26. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded but ye have set at naught all my counsell and would none of my reproofe I will also laugh at your calamity I will mock when your feare cometh when your feare cometh as desolation and your destruction as a Whirlewind And yet never a whit the more is any contradiction found in Scripture for this because though they contradict each the other in terminis yet there is no contradiction if we consider the true meaning As for example it is both true that the Father is greater then the Sonne as touching the Sonnes Manhood And the Sonne equall to the Father as touching his Godhead So of repentance it cannot be attributed to God as it signifies change of mind or counsell but it may be attributed unto God as it signifies change of sentence according to that of Gregory Deus mutat sententiam consilium nunquam So as touching Gods pleasure or delight in the death of a sinner as it is the destruction of the creature he delighteth not in it but as it is a just punishment of the impenitent creature he delights therein Thus Piscator reconciles it on Ezech. 18. v. 23 32. Surely God delights in the execution of justice as well as in the execution of mercy as Jer. 9. 24. I am the Lord which exerciseth loving kindnesse judgement and righteousnesse in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. 2. Here first the Author declines from the former phrase of having no pleasure in the death of a sinner to not willing the death of a sinner which phrases have no small difference as Piscator observes upon that in Ezech. 33. 11. for saith he potest homo velle id quo non delectatur ut aegrotus potest velle potum amarum quo non delectatur potest enim eum velle non perse sed propter aliud nempe ad recuper andam valetudinem And to deny that God willeth the death of as many as dye is in terminis to contradict a pregnant place of Scripture as where it is said that God worketh all things according to the counsell of his will Ephes 1. 11. And therefore seeing the inflicting of death is Gods work he must will it But this Author is more happy for invention then his fellowes For whereas others of his opinion work upon the place as it is rendred in the vulgar Latine Nolo mortem peccatoris this Author hath found out an argument from the very phrase of our last English translation to advantage his cause as when from Gods having no pleasure in the death of a sinner he quaintly inferres therefore God doth not of meer pleasure will or decree their death But how superficiary this is also and how fouly it falls in the issue upon the Author himselfe as usually it falleth out with men that affect new and quaint inventions I hope to discover in due place Farther observe that place Ezech. 33. 11. I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked according to our last English translation and that Ezech. 18. 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye doe differently render one and the same phrase in the Hebrew in the death of the wicked Ezech. 33. 11. which is word for word according to the Hebrew that the wicked should dye Ezech. 18. 23. which being not according to the precise termes of the originall it followeth that hereby our Translators did expound the sense of the Hebrew which is word for word in the death of the wicked and so accordingly that phrase Ezek. 18. 32. in the death of him that dieth importeth as much as this that he who dyeth should dye And as for Tertullian that which he alleadgeth out of him neither makes for him nor against us we all believe what the Prophet delivereth but we enquire about the sense of it But in the same place Tertullian interprets the place not absolutely but comparatively thus Vivo inquit Dominus paenitentiam malo quam mortem and indeed thus it is accommodated more then once in the Book of Common prayer as first in the generall absolution then in one of the Collects upon Good-Friday There is a double pleasure that God may be said to take in the one but a single pleasure only in the other For in the death of an impenitent sinner God delights only in the execution of justice but in the conversion of such a one that he may live God delights both in the execution of mercy which is equivalent to his delight taken in the execution of judgement and over and above he delights in their repentance For like as of such as fall from God it is said His soule hath no pleasure in them so of such as turne unto him it is as true that his soule hath pleasure in them 3. But give we him leave to enjoy the interpretation he affecteth yet consider I pray whether he doth not enjoy it tanquam Diis iratis and to his bane for marke I pray his argument and consider whether I doe not from the same argument most strongly conclude against him 1. His argument runnes thus If God delighteth not in the destruction of wicked men he did never out of his own pleasure take so many millions of men lying in the fall and seale them up by an absolute decree under invincible damnation Now from the rule of contraries I herehence dispute thus If this be a good consequence which he makes then on the contrary it followes that seeing God doth take pleasure and delight in mans eternall life as this Author expressely acknowledgeth therefore he did out of his own pleasure take so many million of men lying in the fall and seale them up by an absolute decree under invincible salvation Now this conclusion is as directly opposite unto him in the poynt of election as his conclusion is opposire to ours in the poynt of reprobation And my argument must be of the same force and validity with his because Contrariorum contraria est ratio Yet I will not content my selfe with this answere 2. Therefore consider I pray in the next place the true meaning of this phrase I have no pleasure in these places of the Prophet the Author himselfe though he doth not plainly professe what is the meaning of it as it became him to doe and not to depend upon colour of words suitable yet by his drift he manifests the meaning of it to be this that God doth not bring
must needs be because he cannot save them this was Austins argument 1200 years agoe Enchirid. cap. 96. and 97. handling this very place of the Apostle 3. If God did from everlasting will the salvation of all and every one then either at this day he doth continue to will the salvation of all and every one and shall continue for ever to will it or no if he doth continue to will it and ever shall then say that God doth will the salvation of the damned both Men and Divells albeit it is well known he damnes them If he doth not continue to will it then is God of a changeable nature directly contrary to the word of God as well as to manifest reason With him saith Iames is no variablenesse nor shadow of change I the Lord am not changed Mal. 3. 6. As for that which he thrusts in to help make weight saying that there is no let in God but that all men may believe and be saved this is a most improper speech for no man is said in proper speech to be let from doing ought but upon presupposition that he would doe it now we utterly deny that God hindreth any man from believing and repenting whose will is disposed to believe and repent But seeing all men have infidelity and hardnesse of heart naturall unto them as a fruit of that corruption wherein all are borne we deny that God câ—â—es it in all but only in whom he will according to that of Saint Paul He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth And our Saviour upon the same ground is bold to tell the Jewes saying Ye therefore heare not my words that is believe them not because ye are not of God 2. The first exposition here mentioned was given by Austin many hundred years agoe Enchirid. cap. 103. and he proves this his interpretation of the word all by the congruity of it to Scripture phrase in other places as where it is said of the Pharises that they tythe every herbe his words are these Iâ—to locutiâ—nis modo Dominus usus est in Evangelio ubi ait Phariseis Decimatis mentham rutam omne olus neque enim Pharisei quaecunque aliena omnium per omnes terras alienigenarum omnium olera decimabant Sicut ergo hic omne olus omne olerum genus it a illic omnes homines omne hominum genus intelligere possumus yet see the ingenuity of this great light of the Church of God for forthwith he gives leave to devise any other convenient interpretation provided that we doe not violate Gods omnipotency by saying that any thing that God would have brought to passe is not brought to passe his words are these Et quocunque alio modo intelligi potest dum tamen credere no cogamur aliquid omnipotentem Deum noluisse fieri factumque non esse qui sine ullis ambagibus si in caelo terra sicut veritas cantat omnia quaecunque voluit fecit profecto facere noluit quaecunque non fecit This interpretation is generally received by our Divines because of the congruity thereof to the Text it selfe for as much as the Apostle having first admonished them in the generall to pray for all forthwith he descends to specialls as Vossius acknowledgeth Generi speciem subjicit now look in what sort the Species is to be understood after the same manner is the Generall to be understood Now the Specialls mentioned are certain sorts or conditions of men as Kings and such as are in authority therefore the generall all must in like manner be understood of all sorts and all conditions of men upon this consideration also it was that Austin did insist in the place before alleadged Praeceperat saith he Apostolus ut or aretur pro singulis hominibus specialiter addiderat pro Regibus iis qui in sublimitate sunt qui putari poterant fastu superbia seculari a fidei Christianae humilitate abhorrere Proinde dicens hoc enim bonum est coram salvatore nostro Deo id est ut etiam pro talibus oretur statim ut desperationem tolleret addit qui omnes homines vult salves fieri in agnitionem veritatis venire Hoc quippe Deus bonum judicavit ut orationibus humilium dignaretur praestare salutem sublimium Now I come to consider what this Author hath to say against this exposition for he gives us very gravely to understand that it gives him little satisfaction we are therefore to expect some better satisfaction from him It is true that all is so used in Scripture not only some times but very frequently let him come to instance in his sense we are ready to instance with him for ours But the Text saith he shewes we are to understand the individualls and not the kindes Where first I doubt his ignorance in understanding the distinction aright is his best ground of opposition When Austin urgeth for his interpretation that of the Pharises tything omne olus every hearb who doubts but they tythe Individuall hearbs In like sort when Peter saw in a vessell let down unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every foure footed beast no question but Individuall beasts were let down unto him not every one of every kind but of every kind or of most kinds or of many kinds some so that the meaning of the distinction is not to exclude all individualls as this Author seems to carry the matter but only to exclude a necessity of understanding all individualls of all sorts It is enough if God will save some of all sorts that is of all conditions some individualls Then seeing he undertakes out of the very Text to give us better satisfaction then either Austin or our Divines have hitherto received it must needs be a shame for him to leave the present Text and fetch grounds elsewhere for the clearing of Pauls meaning here Now let us observe how congruously or incongruously to his own undertakings he carryeth himselfe in this businesse of the duty enjoyned and of the motive annexed there is no question but whereas he shapes the coherence thus and makes Paul in effect to speak after this manner our charity must reach to all to whom God extends his love to God will have all to be saved and therefore we must pray for all Though all this were granted him it makes nothing for him but over and above here are causelesse errours more then enough For first our charity must extend farther then Gods love was not Jacob bound to carry himselfe charitably towards his brother Esau though Gods hatred of Esau we know was as ancient as his love to Iacob 2. We are not bound to extend our charity so far as God extends his love for many thousands there be in the World not to speak of the Elect departed this life towards whom it may be God extends his love which yet are unknown to us are we bound to
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
and every good work that he hath appoynted for them in such sort that the beast shall not prevaile over them untill they have finished their testimony and in which respect Saint Stephen even when the stones flew about his eares as thick as haile seems to have gone to his death as composedly as a man goes to his bed having ended his Sermon first his prayer for them in the next place and lastly the commending of his own spirit into the hands of God this mercy this rich mercy this unspeakable mercy this Author most virulently and most unconscionably in cunning and crafty carriage labours to obscure and deface and to dispute us out of the faith of it if it lay in his power which lies not in the power of the Devills themselves as much as himselfe and his informers scorne to apprehend any hope of it And all this as unsipidly and unscholastically as profanely by generall and indefinite termes saying by this Doctrine of ours God is not mercifull to men at all wherein I guesse his lurking hole is in the indefinite condition of the terme Men for dares he say that by this doctrine of ours we make God unmercifull to all men even to the very Elect Yet when he saith to men at all the face of his discourse in the common understanding of it should look this way But if his meaning be that he is not made mercifull to all hath himselfe any farther improved the mercy of God then by enlarging of it unto the children of God And if he by children of God understand all men created by him and we only those whom God hath adopted in Christ and regenerated I pray consider which of us delivereth himselfe in best congruity to the Scripture phrase and meaning Can he be ignorant who they be whom the Scripture stiles vessells of mercy Or that these are set in opposition to vessells of wrath and would he have us as brainsick as himselfe to put no difference in the accommodation of Gods mercy between vessells of mercy and vessells of wrath As for the comparison between men and other creatures he is like himselfe throughout in the execution thereof 1. He undertakes to shew that God is not so mercifull to men as to bruit creatures most men are determined by Gods omnipotent decree to such a being as is a thousand times worse then no being at all To let passe the absurdity of the comparison comparing things incomparable to wit being with no being and ascribing a betternesse to no being which is as much as to ascribe a better being to no being Doth not he himselfe acknowledge that as the elect are but few amongst them that are called so the number of Reprobates is farre greater then the number of the Elect Doth not himselfe maintaine that God hath determined all reprobates that is the most of men by his omnipotent decree to such a being as is a thousand times worse then no being at all according to his judgement and that this determination Divine is everlasting or though he dare not in plain tearmes deny that God hath determined most of men to damnation Doth he not here bewray the disposition of his heart namely either to maintaine that Gods decrees are not everlasting nor determined concerning men untill their deaths or that they are of a revocable nature Or will he fly to the qualification of the Divine decree here mentioned and say that albeit the most part of men are destinated to damnation by the decree divine yet not by an omnipotent decree I guesse his meaning is not by an absolute but by a conditionall decree for as for any distinction of Divine decrees into decrees omnipotent I never yet read or heard but this Gentleman being of a phrasifying spirit we must permit him sometimes to overlash otherwise we shall not have occasion to say of him as Augustus said sometimes of Haterius Haterius noster sufflaminandus est But if by a conditionall decree only God hath reprobated those whom he hath reprobated then the decrees of reprobation cannot be eternall but must needs be temporall for res conditionata the thing conditionated cannot exsist before the condition it selfe whereupon it depends hath exsistence Now the condition of reprobation is meerly temporall to wit finall perseverance in infidelity or impenitency 2. What if the condition of other creatures be better then the condition of reprobates For what sober man should expect that the condition of impenitent sinners should be better in the end then the condition of beasts who have made themselves worse then beasts But then he will say what shall become of all those amplifications of Gods mercy towards men commended to us in holy Scripture I answere they all have place concerning Gods children Gods elect the Scripture phrase acknowledging no other vessells of mercy and counting all others in distinction from them vessell of wrath and one end whereto tends Gods providence towards these vessells the Apostle signifies plainly to be the amplification of his mercy towards the vessells of mercy Rom. 9. 22 23. Which may be unfolded thus that by seeing the miserable conditions of vessells of wrath they may be more sensible of Gods mercy towards them in putting so gracious a difference between them 3. It cannot be denied but God foresaw what the condition of most men would be if they were brought forth into the World What then did God mean to bring them forth Where was his mercy in this Were it not a thousand times better for them not to be borne And by being borne was it not infallible that their condition would be a thousand times worse then the condition of beasts according to this Authors grave and Philosophicall discourse 4. Consider though God foresaw that being so dealt withall as God meant they should be they would never repent nor believe yet seeing God had other means and motives in store which he knew full well would prove effectuall to bring them to faith and repentance were he pleased to use them as Arminius acknowledgeth as I have often cited him and it cannot be denied by the maintainers of scientia media Where was Gods mercy that would both have them brought forth and use only such means to bring them to faith and repentance which he knew would prove ineffectuall and resolved not to use such means with them which hee knew would prove effectuall thereunto I appeale to the judgement of every sober man whether this proceeded not meerely from Gods absolute decree to make them vessells of Wrath that is fit vessells in whom should shine the glory of his vindicative justice even to shew the riches of his glory towards the vessells of mercy whom he had prepared unto glory as on whom he was pleased to bestow such means of grace as he knew full well would prove effectuall to bring them to faith and repentance and finall preseverance that so their soules might be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ
Marke I beseech you an evident demonstration from invincible grounds of the truth which this Author by base and superficiary considerations labours to deface and exstinguish if he could For what if in the state of nothing they were so intelligent as this Author faines them as to know to what end God made them and thereupon would not accept of life What if afterwards they should curse the day of their birth and wish they had been made Toads or Snakes What shall God be therefore straitned in the exercise of his power to make what creatures he will and to what end he will For qui dedit esse good reason quo fine sint habeat potestatem What if the clay were so intelligent as to know that it should be fashioned into a vessell for a close-stoole or chamberpot when his neighbour clay shall be fashioned into a drinking cup to serve at the table of King Agathocles and it out of the clayey stomack and pride thereof shall repine and grudge to be so basely used and say in one of Aesops Fables that it had rather continue clay still shall therefore the potter forgoe his soveraignty in making of the same lumpe one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour What if God should tell Nebuchodonosor that after he is dead his scull should be turned to some such base use and that some common jakes should have the bottome of it pitcht with his bones and he thereupon should wish he had never been rather shall this be sufficient to derogate from the Soveraigne power of God or restrain him from the like or from giving Jehoiakims body no better burying then the buriall of an Asse Or cause stately and proud Jezabells body to be eaten of doggs O what base manner of discourses are these to deflower the Power and Soveraignty of the Almighty but I wonder not if after men have prostituted all honesty in opposing the grace of God they are soon found to loose their witts also Yet I have not done I must not pretermit to answer his Scripture passage What if it had been good for Iudas he had never been borne it were as true if there were no absolute decree of God for his damnation but foreknowledge only that he would be demned but shall God therefore be forbidden upon the forfeiture of the reputation of his goodnesse to bring forth Iudas into the World But by the way our Saviours words doe not import hereby that it were better for him he had not been for a being he might have had though never borne into life as many a one hath had that never saw the light of the Sunne their wombe being their grave But because some mens tongues runne ryot against me for the interpretation of this passage which I make in my Vindiciae not sparing to professe they will turne Atheists when that is true and as ready they have been to professe under their hand that they will sooner deny there is a God then concurre with the Contra-Remonstrants in their Doctrine of Reprobation I pray let them be enquired of whether they or any wise man else was ever known after such a manner to outface the interpretation that Maldonate gives of that very place which here I will subjoyne for speciall reason thus then Maldonate De quo verbo nimis fortasse subtiliter quidam disputant quomodo melius Iudae fuisset natum non esse cum non esse nullum damnatum esse aliquod bonum sit aliquid enim est qui damnatus est omne autem quod est qua est bonum est Hieronymus judicat existimasse aliquos Iudam fuisse antequam nasceretur Christumque certo consilio non dixisse melius fuisset homini illi si numquam fuisset sed si natus non esset quasi etiamsi non nasceretur futurus fuisset ideoque naturalia bona sine malis habiturus Suspicor D. Hieronymum Originistas notare voluisse qui omnes animas initio creatas fuisse crediderunt pro suo quamque merito aut expertem manere corporis aut in corpus tanquam in carcerem mitti vero Origines ipse ita hoc loco scribere videtur ut non longe ab eâ sententiâ abhorrere videatur Eodem fere modo Enthymius interpretatur at length he addes his own interpretation of the place in the words following Sed non sunt hujusmodi Scripturae locutiones ad Scholarum excutiendae subtilitatem sunt enim proverbiales sumptae de vulgo in quibus quidam plerumque hyperbolicum esse solet ut apud Job cap. 3. 11. Quare non in vulvâ mortuus sum Egressus ex utero non saltem perii Et cap. 10. 18 19. Quare de vulvâ aduxisti me Qui utinam consumptus essem ne oculus me videret fuissem quasi non essem de utero translatus ad tumulum Et cap. 3. 3. Et Jer. 20. 14. Pereat dies in qua natus sum Haec enim omnia non tam deliberato animi judicio quam per querimoniam quae mala sua amplificare solet dicta sunt Christus ergo ita de Juda loquitur quemadmodum credibile erat ipsum de se in suppliciis positum esse loquuturum Erat autem credibile eum dicturum esse utinam nunquam natus essem melius mihi fuisset non nasci quam ista pati cum Job Jeremias viri sanctissimi multo minor a passi idem dixerint Adde quod Christus non dicit melius futurum fuisse ut Judas non nascitur sed melius futurum illi esse id est ejus opinione judicio quemadmodum multis res adversas patientibus accidere videmus ut corrupto dolore judicio mortem vitae anteponant cum dubium non sit melius esse vivere quam mori 2. I come to the comparison he makes between men and Devills objecting that our Doctrine makes God lesse mercifull to men then to Devills In one thing saith he this decree makes most men and Devills equall utrisque desperata salus they are both sure to be damned Now I say this is most untrue What man living is in a worse state then Manasses was when he made his Children passe through the fire to Devills gave himselfe to Witchcraft and Sorcery and filled Jerusalem with bloud On Saul when flesh'd with the bloud of Stephen and Ferox scelerum quia prima provenerant he got a commission from the High Priest to goe to Damascus and bind all that called on the name of the Lord Jesus yet it appeared in the issue that both these were the elect of God Doe not they themselves professe that reprobation is upon finall perseverance in infidelity or impenitency So that there is no sufficient evidence of reprobation but this finall perseverance in sinne In like sort by their Doctrine none can be sure of his election untill he be dead because they constitute it upon foresight of finall perseverance in faith and repentance It is true
coherence of the words with that which goes before it appears to be spoken upon Gods dispensing and denying grace to whom he will and when he will As for example like as there was a time when God had a Church in the World without distinction of Jewes and Gentiles so afterwards the providence of God was to display it selfe after three severall waies the first was in gathering a Church unto himselfe out of the World from out of the posterity of Abraham these were called the Jewes in distinction from the Gentiles who for a long time had not obtained mercy as the Apostle speaks Rom. 11. 30. In as much as they believed not And this dispensation of grace peculiar unto the Jewes with rejection of the Gentiles continued for about 1600 years Then God gathered a Church among the Gentiles with rejection of the Jewes as the Apostle signifies in the place before alleadged saying now you have obtained mercy through their unbeliefe And this dispensation of Gods grace peculiar unto the Gentiles hath continued now for about 1600 years And we believe a time shall come for the calling of the Jewes and then the Church of God shall consist both of Jewes and Gentiles and the generall calling of them as the Apostle signifies Rom. 11. 12. If the fall of them be the riches of the World and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles how much more their fulnesse and v. 15. If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the World what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead and v. 31. Even so have these also now not believed that through your Gentiles mercy they also the Jewes might obtain mercy For God hath concluded them all under unbeliefe that he might have mercy on all And hereupon it is that the Apostle breaks forth into admiration of this various providence of God and different dispensation of his grace saying O the depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God how unsearcheable are his judgements and his waies past finding out So that albeit the justice of God be apparent to the understanding of man in some of his waies yet not in all Neither doth it follow that because God offers the justice of his courses to the triall of humane understanding in some particulars therefore he offers it to the same triall in all or that the understanding of man is able to comprehend it in all Not only carnall men cry out sometimes Where is the God of judgement Mal. 2. 17. Again it is in vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his commandements that we have walked humbly before the Lord of hosts But even the children of wisdome which are apt to justify her are yet sometimes offended through weaknesse of faith or want of judgement to comprehend the depth of Gods providence when they have considered the strange prosperity of the wicked as Job 21. 6 7 8. and David Psal 73. and Jeremy Jer. 12. But to consider punctually the instances here particulated First not one of them treats of Gods decrees though this Author boldly claps then in amongst the waies of God And these places throughout entreat not of the decrees themselves but of the executions of Gods decrees As that Isaiah 5. 3. Judge I pray you between me and my vineyard yet this was meere grace and not justice but the laying of it wast as there he threatneth for the unfruitfulnesse thereof was just even in the conscience of man So likewise the waies of God mentioned Ezech. 18. 25. are most equall as namely in rewarding the obedient and punishing the disobedient In like sort there is no question to be made of Gods decrees concerning the rewarding the one and punishing the other And it is as true that all this is nothing to the purpose The main question being touching Gods decree to give the grace of obedience to one and deny it unto others and of the execution hereof in shewing mercy on whom he will and hardning whom he will No reason hereof can be devised by man without falling into manifest absurdity or manifest heresy or both It is true God will not slay the righteous with the wicked for the Infants of wicked Parents untill God be pleased to regenerate them are not to be accounted righteous as being borne children of wrath Ephes 2. 3. And therefore as in the conflagration of Sodome God took a course to save righteous Lot yet the Infant children of the Sodomites were consumed in the same fire with their Parents And in like manner I answere to that of Moses Num. 16. 22. Shall one man sinne and wilt thou be angry with all the congregation You know though Korah might be and in likelihood he was the principall instigator yet Dathan and Abiram the sonnes of Eliab and On the sonne of Peleth the sonnes of Reuben joyned with him in the separation and with these were joyned no lesse then 250 Captains of the assembly and they famous in the congregation and men of renowne Nor did those alone perish in this their separation but their families also So that whereas when Moses exhorted all the rest to depart from the tents of those wicked men and thereupon Dathan and Abiram came out and stood in the doore of the Tent with their Wives and their Sonnes and their little Children all these were swallowed up and went downe quick into the pit and doe you think their little Children were partners with them in this conspiracy And is not this judgement strange What can justify this but the power of God is Lord over his creature together with that originall corruption that is found in every one when they come into the world Guesse I pray how happy this Author is in his observations This makes me remember how at my first coming into this place having to deale with certain Brownists being willed thereunto by our Diocesan An old man among the rest was willing to conferre so we would give him liberty to open his mind at full we willingly condescended unto him and thereupon he began to alleadge places of Scripture to justify his separation and wheresoever he found the word seperate that he took up for an argument on his side like him that did set downe every ship that arrived in the harbour at Athens as one of his shipps and amongst the rest this 16 chapter of Numbers afforded him one authority v. 21. where the Lord speaks unto Moses and Aaron saying separate your selves from among this congregation whereunto I answered here indeed is a separation commanded but from whom Surely from those who rose up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron Now if you can prove us to be such as rise up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron then in the name of God separate your selves from us But if we are not the men that rise up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron but you rather then are not
his familiar spirit takes himselfe to be spares not to professe that about the reconciling of Gods predestination with the liberty of mans will a poynt that comes so neere to this in hand as a poynt can doe there are many distinctions devised by the learned but yet he saith of them that they did not qutetare intellectum and therefore that he did captivare suum in obsequium fidei and Alvarez no dwarfe neither in Scholasticall that is rationall Divinity addeth that herein Cajetan piissimè doctissimè loquitur But who they are that have taken notice of those arguments here specified and at the sight of them were so ston'd as at the sight of some Medusas head and thereupon came to this course of incantation or pacification he doth very wisely conceale and like a man of authority puts it upon us to take it upon his word Yet I doe not remember that I have rested my selfe upon any such course though the holy Apostle thinks it sufficient to cleare any course of God from injustice by proving that Scripture doth attribute such a course unto God as I have shewed out of Rom. 9. 14. It is true the spirit which this Author breaths is the right Pelagian spirit according to the Pelagians in Bradwardines daies for their vaunt was that they could not be refuted by any reason Philosophicall but only by certain naked authorities Theologicall as I have heard of a Schollar sometimes challenged by a friend and kinsman of his for being given as he heard to the Arminian Tenet made a ready answer with protestation that that opinion was very plausible but that S t Paul was against it And therefore Bradwardine undertakes to confute them by reason Philosophicall so farre off was he from being cowed with their vain boasts and braggs His words are these Sicut antiqui Pelagiani ventoso nomine secularium scientiarum inflati consistorium Theologicum contemnentes Philosophicum flagitabant ita moderni Audivi namque quosdam advocatos Pelagii licet multum provectos in sacris apicibus affirmantes Pelagium nusquam potuisse convinci per naturalem Philosophicam rationem sed vix arguebatur utcunque per quasdam authoritates Theologicas maxime autem per authoritatem Ecclesiae quae Satrapis non placebat Quapr opter per rationes authoritates Philosophicas ipsos disposui reformare And for my part though I affect not in those poynts to goe beyond Scripture and Christian reason yet I am content to be led whethersoever my adversary thinks good to lead me And as a Schollar of my acquaintance being left handed and accordingly casting his cloake over the right shoulder was answered by a Cittizen observing it when he enquired his way saying when you shall come to such a place you must turne on your right hand meaning indeed on the left so likewise I am nothing afraid of this mans Philosophy nor his Abettors neither nothing doubting but as many as I find opposing this divine truth which we maintain their best dexterity in Philosophicall and rationall discourse will prove but a left handed Philosophy and in this very field of argumentation I purpose to lay upon him ere we part But let us first consider the things that he replies 1. He saith There is nothing in Scripture abhorring from sound and right reason he addes Odious too as if his Philosophy had taught him that it is the part of reason to hate and not rather of affections This rule when we were initiates in the University we were soon acquainted with Yet this Author to vent his fulnesse casts himselfe upon an unnecessary proofe thereof and the mischiefe is that his proofe maketh his cause worse then it was before For having formerly made the comparison between the word of God and sound and right reason in his reason he states the comparison between faith and reason nature and Scripture not distinguishing between nature corrupt and uncorrupt reason corrupt and uncorrupt Our service of God is reasonable in as much as it is performed by reasonable creatures and the rule thereof is not naturall reason but meerely the word of God In whom was naturall reason more eminent then in Philosophers Yet were they wont to be called Haereticorum Patriarchae and the Apostle hath professe of all such that the things of God seem foolishnesse unto them 1 Cor. 2. 14. Now I pray consider soberly how reasonable such courses are judged to be which are accounted foolishnesse and what a sweet harmony there is between things revealed and mens understandings and whether reasonable and foolish be not a plain contradiction as well as wise and foolish If we enjoy a more pure and refined reason then they let us give illumination Divine the glory of it and say with him in Job verily there is a spirit in man but the illumination of the Almighty giveth understanding And seeing the word of God is the only means of Divine illumination let us thank Gods word for all I come to the second Materiall of his reply 2. And that is this that all those Doctrine which are adâ—erse and repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles are not to be taken for Doctrines of Scripture but devices of men corrupting Scripture by false glosses and interpretations No marvaile that when men oppose the misteries of Godlinesse they fall upon the mysteries of iniquity Here we have a rule given to try whether a Doctrine proposed be to be taken for a Doctrine of Scripture yea or no And mark it well I beseech you and I desire that every sober man will mark it well and judge whether it deserve not to be numbred amongst the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the depths of Satan And withall judge whether the pretended Author of this discourse can in any probability be the Author of this and whether it becomes not rather some old beaten Souldier in Arminianisme that takes upon him to be the Master and Dictator of Sentences About Regula fidei the rule of Faith there is much question between us and Papists the meaning whereof is what that is whereinto must be made the last resolution of our Faith We say it is the word of God contained in the Books of the Old Testament and the New Papists say it is the voyce of the Church This Author deviseth a new way which I think was never heard off before except among the Socinians namely that it is the judgement of understandings purged from prejudice and false Principles For albeit the Doctrine of Faith we judge to be contained no where but in Gods word yet notwithstanding as touching the meaning of it nothing must be taken to be the true meaning of Scripture how fairely soever grounded thereupon in shew unlesse withall it seem nothing repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles Into this therefore must be made the last resolution of our faith Again where shall we meet with these judges as they are here
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
they made profession of their faith and as for Infants they were also anciently said to be Baptized in fide Parentum Gods patience Rom. 2. 4. And the goodnesse of God manifested therein leadeth a Man to repentance so doe his judgements also Hos 5. In their affliction they will seeke me early and so doth Gods word and all this only in the way of a moving cause and exciting to repentance every morning God brings his judgements to light he faileth not yet will not the wicked be ashamed Zeph 3. 5. But it is the duty of all to be moved by his word by his works by his mercyes by his judgments to turne to the Lord by true repentance But God alone is he that workes them hereunto without whose efficacious grace none of all these courses will prevaile as Isai 57. 17. For his wicked covetousnesse I was angry with him and have smiten him I hid me and was angry They wanted neither admonition from his word nor from his corrections yet they profited by neither as it followeth yet he went away and turned after the way of his own heart yet what is Gods resosolution but to overcome their stubbornesse by the power of his grace as there we read I have seen his waies and will heale them now who are these whom he leads so as to bring them to repentance let Austin answer Contra Julian Pelag. l. 5. c. 4. Bonitas Dei te ad poenitentiam adducit verum esse constat sed quem praedestinavit adducit and he adds a reason Quamtamlibet enim praebuerit poenitentiam nisi Deus dederit quis agit poenitentiam And in the same Chapter professeth touching the Non-praedestinate that God never brings them to wholsome and spirituall repentance whereby a man is reconciled to God in Christ whether God affords them greater patience than he affords his elect or nothing lesse His words are these Istorum neminem adducit ad poenitentiam salubrem spiritualem qua homo in Christo reconciliatur Deo sive illis ampliorem patientiam sive non imparem praebeat God intends by this his patience that it is the duty of all to repent that is that they should repent ex officio but did he intend they should de facto repent what then could hinder it Then he would afford them efficacious grace to heale them as he promiseth Isai 57. 18. Then would he rule them with a mighty hand and make them passe under the rodde and bring them unto the bond of the covenant So then to the poynt in particular here observed 1. God leads all to repentance by his goodnesse manifested in his forbearance and long suffering by way of admonition that it is their duty to turne unto God by repentance while he gives them time and space for repentance 2. But as for those whom he hath elected he not only thus leads but also effectually brings them to repentance in the time he hath appoynted before which time they are found sometimes to despise the riches of his goodnesse and to have hard and impenitent hearts as much as any Reprobate who more foule in the committing of horrible abominations than Manasses Who more furious in persecuting the Church of God then Saul Yet God took away the stony heart and what is harder then stone out of their bowells and so he doth to all whom he regenerates 3. As touching a finall contempt of Gods patience that is peculiar unto Reprobates as for the elect though some are called at the first houre of the day some not till the last yet all are effectually called before they drop out of the World To say that God intends the everlasting good of Reprobates is to deny the first Article of our Creed even Gods omni potency as Austin hath disputed 1200 years agoe we find in our selves that whatsoever we will doe if we doe not it it is either because we cannot doe it or because our will is changed but to ascribe either mutability or impotency to God is intollerable in a Christian and it cannot be denied but God did from everlasting intend their everlasting damnation so that to say he did intend their everlasting good is flat contradiction neither is there any way to charme it but by saying God intends their everlasting good conditionally but to intend it after such a manner is apparently no more to intend their salvation than their damnation nay lesse rather considering the conditions of salvation are utterly impossible unto man unlesse God correct and cure his corrupt nature but this grace he dispenseth according to the meere pleasure of his will as the Apostle signifyeth in saying he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth As for that 2 Pet. 3. 9. He is patient towards us not willing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any of us to perish it hath been already considered but here he interpreteth towards us as if it had been said towards us men and I hope the elect are men as well as others but what ground hath he for this liberty of interpretation Why may he not take the liberty in interpreting of Iohn as well as Peter both were pillars Gal. 2. where he saith They went out from us but they were not of us for had they been of us they had continued with us and still swalloweth a palpable absurdity following hereupon even to the denying of Gods omnipotency in as flat contradiction to the Apostle where he professeth that God hath mercy on whom he will which is not to have mercy on all but on some only hardening others as Rom. 11. The election hath obtained it but the rest are hardned DISCOURSE SECT V. IN the last place those other gifts of God whereby mens understandings are enlightened and their soules beautifyed which are knowledge repentance fortitude liberality temperance humility charity and such like are bestowed upon all them that have them among whom are many that may prove Reprobates in the end that by the exercise of them and continuance in them they might be Saved The Reprobates are adorned with many of those graces as apears plainly by many Scriptures especially Hebr. 6. 4. Where the Apostle sayes that it is impossible for those that have been enlightned tasted the heavenly gift been made partakers of the Holy Ghost tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come if they fall away should be renewed by repentance and the graces which the Apostle speakes of here are not ordinary and common but speciall graces illumination faith relish of the sweetnesse of Gods Word and the tast of Heaven The persons spoken of are Apostates such as are under the possibility of falling away for upon a dainger not possible cannot be built a solid exhortation and if Apostates then Reprobates and the thing intimated is that upon Apostates and Reprobates are these gifts bestowed The Like speech we have Hebr. 10. 26. For if we sinne willingly after we have received the
c. at large Now seeing God brings them no farther as he doth his elect with what sobriety can it be said that God intends their salvation And as for the poynt of sanctification which here is attributed to them other Divines doe not goe so farre as to interpet it of any inward sanctification as Paraeus Erat autem saith he Sanctificatio Apostolorum non interna sed externa in professione fidei participatione sacramentorum externa consistens erant sanctificati hoc est a Judaeis Paganis professione segregati pro veris Christianis habiti Loquitur enim secundum judicium charitatis quae omnes de doctrina for is consentientes habet pro sanctificatis licet non omnes cordibus vere sint sanctificati Non eergo hinc sequitur Apostatas Vere fuisse regeneratos Pro quibus enim Christus ne or are quidem dignatus est eos multo minus sanguine suo sanctificavit ideo Johannes Apostatas de Ecclesia renatorum fuisse negat ex nobis egressi sunt quia non erant ex nobis Et Petrus vocat eos canes porcos redentes ad vomitum volutabrum canis vero etiam post vomitum est canis sus lota est sus canem vero suem se semper mansisse ille ista per reditum ad vomitum volutabrum declarat Cameron likewise in in his Myroth p. 334. Dupliciter sanctificantur homines alii absolute ut soli fideles cum scilicet non tantum ab aliis hominibus segregantur hoc enim verbum sanctificare saepe significat in Scriptura a Deo sed remissione peccatorum apprehensa Spiritus Sancti virtute sanctificati in sanctitatis studio permanent Alii comparate qui scilicet separantur quidem ab aliis hominibus externa fidei professione aliqua fortè vitae instituti immutatione at non sanctificantur absolute ut fideles ad hoc posterius sanctificationis genus pertinet hoc Apostoli dictum in quo sanctificatus fuit But albeit they were truly sanctified to suppose that for the present yet if God purposed not to give them perseverance therein undoubtedly he intended not their salvation Nay no Arminian denies but that God did from everlasting intend the salvation of all such Apostates and to say that he had a velleity to save them is to dash a mans selfe against the rock of absurdity as to deny Gods omnipotency unlesse he will say Gods mind is changed and to talke of a conditionate will intending their salvation is no more to say that he intends their salvation in case they doe believe than to say he intends their damnation in case they doe not believe And as for his allegation out of the suffrages of our Divines in the Synod of Dort that is very wild neither mentioning the Article nor rightly quoting the page though the things here proposed are mostly taken out of the first and second Thesis concerning the Non-elect upon the fifth Article but no glimps doe I find there of any such end of Gods granting these dispositions as that thereby they might be brought unto salvation though as in the elect such like dispositions are so in the Reprobate they might be preparations to farther grace if it pleased God so to ordaine as to bring them on forward to justification and true sanctification conjunct therewith and thereby unto salvation As for the ends which God doth intend thereby to wit by bringing them so farre look whatsoever God doth bring to passe hereby that God doth intend For nothing can fall out casually unto God If they doe persevere in this condition to wit as touching the outward emendation of their life it is ut mitius puniantur as Austin expresseth himselfe somewhere which now doth not come to my remembrance if they fall from it whereupon they shall be more grievously punished this also was intended by God Or if others are bettered by them undoubtedly this also was intended by God as also to teach all others not to content themselves with superficiall renovation superficiall obedience and so likewise illumination clearely takes away that excuse which some are apt to make as Austin observes namely Dicere solet humana superbia si scissem fecissem Which how well this Author infringeth we are to consider in the next place DISCOURSE SECT VI. BUt there are some Scripturs which seem to say the contrary v g. Rom. 1. 20. Where God is said to reveale himselfe to the Gentiles by the creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might be without excuse Luke 2. 34. Simeon said of Christ that he is appointed for the falling and rising againe of many in Israell and. 1 Cor. 1. 23. I preach Christ sayth Paul to the Jewes a stumbling blocke 2 Cor. 2. 16. We are the sweet savor of death unto death and it seems by these places that God gives these things to some that they may stumble and be left without excuse What shall we say therefore to these places Of all these Scriptures in generall I may say this that they are to be understood of the end which is many times effected by these gifts of God and not of the end that is primarily intended in them and they shew what Christ the Word Preached and the gifts of nature and grace are occasionally to some men through their voluntary rebellion against God and his Ordinances and not what they are intentionally in Gods first thoughts and resolutions He intends them for them for their good though many times they receive them to their hurt it is with Gods Ordinances and gifts and that very often too as it is sometimes with Physick it is given by the Physitian for the Patients good many times through the distemper of his body it doth him hurt And as it is with the Sunne God intends by the shining of it the enlightning and clearing of men and other creatures in this inferior World others are hurt by the light of it accidentally by reason of the climates wherein they live or the ill affectednesse of their eyes and bodies So the blessings of God which out of his abundant goodnesse are bestowed upon men for their eternall good through the ill frame and temper of their heart doe effect their hurt partly because lighting upon naughty hearts they loose their force and edge for quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis and partly because of the severity of God who as he hath an antecedent and gratious will to doe men good so he hath a consequent and judiciary will of giving up wicked men to the lusts of their hearts and of permitting them to dash against Christ and other means of eternall life and so to fall into endlesse misery and mischiefe as we may see Psal 101. 11 12. and Rev. 22. 11. He that is filthy let him be filthy still Now if this be the meaning of those Scriptures then they thwart nothing that hath been said of Gods
of eternall life Now I pray consider who are those wicked men whom God thus gives over to their lusts Were we not all such Did not God find us all weltering in our bloud Ezek. 16. Had not we all stony hearts Ezek. 36. Were we not all blind lame deafe nay were we not dead in sinnes Ephes 2. 1. Did not the Gospell find the Ephesians so Did not the Word of truth find the Jewes so James 1. 18. How then comes this difference that Christ is a stumbling blocke to some and not to others We say the difference is because God hath mercy on some and hardens others Rom. 9. 18. Because some are borne of God therefore they heare Gods Word others are not borne of God and therefore they heare not Gods word Ioh. 8. 47. The Arminians say God giveth power to every one by an universall grace to will any good whereto he shall be excited So when the Gospell is Preached every one hath power to obey it if he doth obey it then Christ is a precious stone to him but if it disobey it then he is given up to the lusts of his heart and permitted to dash against Christ and other meanes of eternall life Here we have a phrase but we are to seeke of the meaning thereof what is it to dash against Christ It must needs be to commit some sinne or other for that is the object of Gods permition for of all other things God is acounted the Author not the permitter the object of permition is nothing but sinne now what sinne can that be whereby we are said to dash against Christ and other meanes of salvation but disobedience to Christ and to the meanes of grace so that from the first to the last the sence comes to this as many as disobey Christ and the meanes of grace they are given over to the lusts of their hearts and permitted to dash against Christ and other means of eternall life that is are permitted to disobey Christ and to resist other means of eternal life So that their disobedience to Christ and the Gospell is very punctually and juditiously set downe to precede by two degrees their disobedience to Christ and his Gospell Some may thinke that this Arminian prosilite doth not carry himselfe well in his businesse and for betraying the nakednesse of his cause may be in dainger to be excommunicated out of their Synagogue But Sir you must believe it this is the very leprosy of their Doctrine that over spreds it from the crowne of the head to the sole of the foot and they are in love with it accounting it not only sanity but perfect beauty God indeed is said in Scripture to give men over to their lusts when he forbears either courses of admonition and reproofe by his word or by his judgements in his workes or when he forbears to restraine Satan as formerly he did but disobedience to the Gospell undoubtedly is hoc ipso a dashing against Christ although God may continue to admonish and exhort even to the end as to prophane and hypocriticall persons in the Church he gives not over this course of his untill the end I have often represented the absurdity of this Authors conceit of a gracious intent in God of promoting the eternall good of Reprobates whereas it cannot be denied that God hath from everlasting intended their damnation and as for our saying that God intends they shall be without excuse that Christ is set up for their falling that the Gospell is unto God a sweet savour in Christ not only in them that are saved but in them that perish This Author is so farre from overthrowing the truth of it that besides other absurdities delivered by him in the way the Author himselfe hath no heart to deny it only saying that God intends it not primarily which is rather to grant that he intends it though not primarily as whereabouts there is no question than to deny it and that occasionally they are so whereas no man but himselfe hath said in saying that they doe effect this end that Christ or the Gospell are the cause hereof but only that they are the occasion But this hinders not Gods intention of them For undoubtedly God intends as well things occasioned as things caused though not in his first thoughts and resolutions which belongs rather to the end than to the meanes to wit to be first intended So that in plaine tearmes he hath not hitherto dared to deny that God intends them though he manifests a good mind to maintaine that they come to passe accidentally and casually in respect of God For he spares not to professe that the scorching of men and the hurting of weake eyes falls out accidentally and that to God for he proposeth this by way of distinction from that which God intends which he saith is the chearing of men by the light of the Sunne like as here he denies that mens stumbling at Christ is a thing intended by God like as in saying a sinnefull event is not properly under Gods will and decree but under his prescience only or at most under a permissive decree And this I confesse is a very plausible doctrine in the judgement of flesh and bloud save that this Authors faint carriage in the delivering of it is enough to make a man suspect it as plausible as it is yet it is hardly true and sound For he dares not say that a sinfull event is not at all under Gods decree only that he saith it is not properly under Gods decree But Saint Peter speaking of them that stumbled at the word of God through disobedience professeth in plaine termes that hereunto they were ordained 1 Pet. 2. 6. And all the Apostles there assembled Acts 4. 28. Doe professe that both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israell were gathered together against the Holy Sonne of God to doe what Gods hand and Gods counsell had determined before to be done And ere I part I hope to prove that any sinfull act that comes to passe in the world is as properly intended of God as any good act whatsoever although there be a vast difference in the bringing of them forth God causing the one only permitting the other as it is evill And that because it comes under Gods prescience it is well they are not so Atheistical as to deny Gods prescience but I doubt not to make it good that either they must deny that every thing comes under Gods prescience or they must grant that every thing comes under Gods decree For consider nothing can be foreknowne of God as future unlesse it be future Now let us quietly enquire how any thing becomes future and if any cause hereof can with reason be devised without the decree of God let us all become Arminians and deny God either at all to be or to be a free agent but working by necessity of nature For if future things be future of their own
contrary vices And therefore they turne not their backs from these meanes but industriously embrace and prosecute them 1 Iohn 3. 3. Every man that hath this hope in himselfe purifyeth himselfe even as he is pure Esay 38. 5. When Hezechiah had received that promise from God of an addition of fifteen years to his life he did not therefore neglect the use of medicines or meat but that this promised event might be brought into act he applyed for the cure of his body the plaister which was prescribed unto him by the Prophet The Apostle doth altogether reiect this consequence of carnall security imputed to this Doctrine and that with a kind of indignation Rom. 6. 1. Shall we continue in sinne that grace may abound God forbid How shall we which are dead to sinne live any longer therein As if S. Paul would intimate unto us not only the incongruity but also the impossibility of such a sequel 2. As touching the event true it is that any the most wholsome truth of God may be perverted by the abuse of men But upon this doctrine we cannot acknowledge that there groweth any such inconvenience no not de facto that is in the event it selfe Let us take a view of the reformed Churches in which this confidence of perseverance and inviolable adoption is believed and maintained Doe we find that thereupon the bridle is let loose unto ryot That piety is trampled downe We give thankes unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ that amongst ours who enjoy this full perswasion of spirituall comfort and are confident that there is an inheritance which cannot be lost laid up for them in Heaven there is not found lesse care of Godlinesse nor lesse endeavour so farre forth as mans infirmity will suffer to live an unblameable life then is to be found among any sort of these who pinne their perseverance on their own free will and will not grant it to flow from any foregoing election of God This may suffice for answer to the generality of the crimination From the generality he descends to specialties And in the first place he urgeth It takes away hope and feare He beginnes with hope and enlargeth himselfe in the commendation thereof out of Scripture By this hope of Heaven did our Saviour stirre up himselfe to endure the crosse and despise the shame Heb. 12. He could not alleadge a more pregnant passage to cut his own throat and mortify the vigour of his argument For in this place it depends upon such a notion of hope as signifies only a possibility of obtaining a future good and not a necessity of obtaining it as afterwards himselfe accommodates it and so he will have the hope which here he insists upon such as is mixed with feare as if our Saviour were in doubt of obtaining a Crowne of glory By this he heartned his Disciples to suffer for his sake Math. 5. 12. Rejoyce and be glad for great is your reward in heaven Here also we have no hope mixed with fear whereupon he heartens them but the very assurance of faith grounded upon Christs promise and what greater assurance then this The like promise for assurance of faith is made Math. 10. 32. And indeed hope in the Scripture phrase though in these places there is no mention thereof is but an expectation of enjoying that whereof we have a certain assurance by Faith The object of faith being Verbum rei of hope res verbi as Luther is said to distinguish them Such is the hope signified by our looking for the Saviour Phil. 3. 20. For therefore we look for him because we are perswaded by the assurance of faith that he shall come and that as a Saviour unto us as there 't is expressed in these words Who shall change our vile bodies and make them like to his glorious body Such is the hope mentioned Col. 1. 5. as grounded upon their true knowledge of the grace of Christ v. 6. And upon their Faith v. 4. For upon believing we rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious 1 Pet. 1. And this joy is in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5. 2. Of the same nature is that hope Tit. 2. 13. So Abrahams looking for a City whose builder and maker is God Heb. 11. 8 9 10. But was not this hope of his grounded upon assurance of faith to enjoy it So Moses his seeing of him that was invisible was by the eye of faith And the scope of that whole Chapter is for the commendation of faith a faith therefore they had of a better resurrection and the certainty hereof was the certainty of faith Now let every sober reader judge which of our doctrines doth more tend to the justifying of a certainty of salvation the Arminians or ours That which followeth of the Husbandmen Merchants Souldiers is farre of another nature their hopes of their ends have no ground of faith many times it comes to passe that spem mentita seges though aliquis pendens in cruce vota facit yet most commonly it proves but a vaine hope Merchants many times prove bankrupts and Souldiers when they are most erected with hope of victory doe sometimes most shamefully take the foyle What a proud message did Benhadab send to Ahab 1 King 20. 10. The Gods doe so to mee and more also if the dust of Samaria be enough to all the people that follow mee for every man an handfull But Ahab answered him saying Let not him that girdeth his harnesse boast himselfe as he that putteth it off At the battle of Lipsich upon Tillies defeating of the Duke of Saxony word hereof was dispatched with post hast to the Emperour together with some of the Dukes Ensignes and scoffes upon the Duke himselfe they were confident of beating Sweden and that so all Germany should be theirs but herein that old Lad reckoned before his host the same Post brought heavy newes to Vienna at length of a great discomfiture to the Imperialists and of the victorious Army of the King of Sweden Yet a hope not only upon weake but sometimes upon very vaine grounds stirres up the spirit how much more upon certain grounds of good successe as that of the Apostle Rom. 6. Sinne shall not have the dominion over you for yee are not under the Law but under grace therefore let not sinne raigne over you as much as to say Play the men fight valiantly the Lords battailes against sinne and Satan for yee shall have the victory in the end The feare of Hell is a curbe to hold men in from wickednesse I willingly confesse but the knowledge hereof is not naturall but by revelation divine which to carnall men who live by fight is of little force Witnesse the story of the Welch-man who robbing an honest man upon the high way and being told by him that he should answer for it at the day of judgement saist thou me so quoth the thiefe and wilt thou trust me till that day then give me thy
the flesh with the affections and lusts For they that walke in the spirit shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh their faith shall give them the victory over the world and God in his good time will tread Satan under their feet DISCOURSE SECT III. TO be exercised in fruitlesse affaires it is both a folly and a misery 1. A folly for de necessari is nemo sapiens deliberat saith the Philosopher And our Saviour speaking of things above our power Cur estis solliciti saith he to his Disciples Mat. 6. 27. Luke 12. 25 26. Why take ye thought about such things Which is as much as if he had said It is an argument of folly in you to trouble your selves about such things as lye not in your liberty 2. A misery in the opinions of all men as the fable of Sysiphus implies who as the Poets feigne is punished for his robberies in hell with the rolling of a great stone to the top of a sharpe hill where it cannot rest but presently comes tumbling downe againe The Morall of that fable is that it is a torment and a torment fit for Hell for a man to be set about any worke that is fruitlesse and vaine Men will rather be exercised in high and hard imployments that produce proportionable ends then pick strawes play with feathers or with Domitian spend their time in flapping or killing of flies or doe any other easy workes which end in nothing but ayre and emptinesse except they be fooles or selfe-tormentors And therefore when Balaam once saw that the Lord had fully determined to blesse Israell and that all his Sorceries could not effect the contrary he presently gave over and set no more enchantments And reason teacheth every man to doe the like If any man were fully possest with a perswasion that this temporall estate were determined in Heaven and that he should be worth just so much neither more nor lesse he would conclude that his care and paines could not profit him nor his idlenesse impoverish him and so would be quickly perswaded to take his ease And if it were evident that every Common-wealth had a fatall period beyond which it could not passe and short of which it could not come and that all occurrences good or bad were absolutely preordained by the Almighty then the King would call no Parliament use no Privy Counsell for there would be no use of them at all As once a famous Privy-Councellor told our late Queene Elizabeth men would neither make lawes nor obey them but would take the Councell of the Poet. Solvite mortales ammos curisque levate Totque supervacuis animum deplete querelis Fata regunt orbem certa stant omnia lege From these three premises laid together it followes directly that the doctrine of an absolute decree which determines mens ends precisely is no friend to a Godly life For if events absolutely decreed be unavoydable if mens actions about unavoydable ends be unprofitable it in unprofitable imployments men will have no hand willingly men that know and consider this will have nothing to doe with the practice of Godlinesse For their ends being absolutely pitched and therefore unavoydable they will conclude that their labour in Religion will be unprofitable and so will not labour in it at all That which hath been said may be yet farther confirmed by two witnesses The one of them is by two witnesses The one of them is our Calvin who in his Institutions hath these words Si quis it a plebem compellet si non cred it is ideo fit quia jam divinitus exitio praedestinati estis is non modo ignaviam fovet sed etiam in dulget malitiae If any man saith he should speake thus to people If there be any among you that believe not it is because ye are ordained to destruction this man would not only cherish slothfulnesse but wickednesse also Which is as much to say me thinkes as this If a man should set out the doctrine of absolute reprobation in its colours and explaine it to a people in a cleare and lively fashion he would hereby open a doore to liberty and prophanenesse The other witnesse is a man of another stampe the miserable Landgrave of Turing of whom it is recorded by Heisterbachius that being admonished by his friends of his vitious and dangerous conversation and condition he made them this answer Si praedestinatus sum nulla peccata poterunt mihi Regnum Coelorum auferre si praescitus nulla bona mihi illud valebunt conferre If I be elected no sinnes can bereave me of heaven if I be a reprobate no good deeds can help me to heaven I conclude therefore that by this opinion which is taught for one of Gods principall truths Religion is or may be made a very great looser which is my fourth generall reason against it TWISSE Consideration DE necessari is nemo sapiens deliberat This is true of things necessary by course of nature not of things necessary meerely upon supposition of Gods decree For such things are as often contingent as necessary For as he decreeth that some things shall come to passe necessarily so he decreeth that other things shall be brought to passe contingently As the buying of the Prophets bones by Josiah Cyrus his dimission of the Jews out of Babylon to goe to their own Country the contumelious usages of Christ by Herod and Pontius Pilate together with the Gentiles and people of Israel were necessary in respect of Gods decree it being expressely testified by the Apostles with one mouth that all these were gathered together against the holy Sonne of God to doe what Gods hand and Gods Counsell predetermined to be done Act. 4. 28. Yet who is so impudent as to deny that all these did freely whatsoever they did against Christ In like sort you know what was the course of proceedings against Protestants in Queene Maries daies when they were convicted by Ecclesiastiques of such opinions which they accounted hereticall and which were made capitall by Law of the Land then they were delivered over unto the secular power to be put to death So that herein to wit first in making such bloudy Lawes Secondly in executing them for the establishment of Popish Religion The Kings gave their power to the Beast that is implyed their Regall power and authority to the countenancing of Romish Religion this undoubtedly was a contingent thing Yet was this determined by God as the Scripture testifies Revel 17. 17. God hath put in their hearts that is in the hearts of the tenne Kings to fulfill his decree and to be of one consent and to give their Kingdome unto the Beast untill the word of God be fulfilled Againe suppose God hath determined my salvation yet if he hath determined to save me no other way then is revealed in his word namely by growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ If he hath made known unto
of his word but rather good reason why I should embrace it and that with all earnestnesse Like as in case God hath ordained I shall have Children doth it hence follow that I neede not use the company of a Woman because seeing God hath decreed I shall have Children therefore I may be sure to have them whether I company with a Woman or no belike right as Capons come by Chicken On the other side suppose God hath not ordained me unto grace yet hence it followeth not that I should neglect all care of morall vertue yea or the use of Gods word First not of morall vertue for next unto grace morall vertue commends a man and like as many heathens were famous for morality without any sanctifying grace so may I be in the same kind of reputation also And seeing no better rules of morality are to be found then in the Scriptures therefore may I well be moved to give my selfe to the study thereof And Austin telleth us that some even of reprobates by the word of God may Proficere ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quò mitius puniantur Last of all consider how the like objections were made against that destiny which was maintained by the Stoicks Carneades was a great oppugner of the Stoicks yet was ashamed of such a kind of Argumentation as this Author affecteth For it was commonly accounted ignava ratio and thus Turnebus writes of it Ignava autem ista ratio captiosa cum esset calumniae plena a Carneade non probabatur alioque argumento factum sine ulla captione oppugnabat He had other manner of reasons to oppose Fate Stoicall then by so sorry an argumentation as this And this is delivered by Turnebus upon that passage in Cicero's book De Fato Where he sheweth how Chrysippus did make answer unto this very argument in effect above 1600 yeares a goe Take the words as they lye in Cicero Nec nos impediet illa ignava ratio quae dicitur Appellatur enim quidem a Philosophis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cui si pare amus nihil est omnino quod agamus in vita Hic enim interrogant now I beseech you marke the argument well si fatum tibi est ex hoc morbo convalescere sive medicum adhibueris sive non convalesces Item si fatum tibi est ex hoc morbo non convalescere sive tu Medicum adhibueris sive non non convalesces If it be destined that you shall recover out of this disease whether you use the help of a Physitian or no you shall recover Againe if it be destined that you shall not recover out of this disease whether you use a Physitian or no you shall not recover Now compare this I pray with this Authors argumentation in this place If I am chosen I must of necessity believe and be saved What need therefore to take thought either about meanes or end as much as to say either of believing or of salvation Againe If I be cast off I must as necessarily not believe and be damned In vaine therefore doe I trouble my selfe about meanes or end as much as to say about labouring and endeavouring for Faith whereby I may avoyd damnation And judge I pray whether there be one hayres breadth of difference between these argumentations For like as it is unreasonable to conceive that man is destined to recover out of sicknesse but by use of meanes such as is the use of a Physitian in like sort as unreasonable it is to conceive that God hath destined any man of ripe yeares to be brought to salvation but by faith in Christ or that God hath appoynted any man to be damned but for want of faith or want of repentance Observe I pray the censure that is passed upon it in Cicero Rectè hoc genus interrogationis ignavum atque iners nominatur quod eadem ratione omnis è vita tollitur actio And farther he sheweth how that the same argument if there were any force in it might have place without all mention of Fate Licet etiam immutare saith he ut Fati nomen non adjunges eandem tamen teneas sententiam hoc modo si ex eternitate verum hoc fuit ex iste morbo convalesces sive adhibueris medicum sive non convalesces Itemque si ex aeternitate hoc falsum fuerit ex isto morbo convalesces sive adhibuer is medicum sive non adhibuer is non convalesces deinde caetera In the next place there it is shewed how Chrysippus made answer to this argument Haecratio a Crysipo reprehenditur Quaedam enim sunt inquit in rebus simplicia quaedam copulata simplex est moretur eo die Socrates Hinc sive quid fecerit sive non fecerit finitus est moriendi dies At si ita fatum sit Nascetur Oedipus Laio non poterit dici sive Laius fuerit cum muliere sive non fuerit Copulata enim res est confatalis sic enim appellat qui a ita fatum sit concubiturum cum Uxore Laium ex eo Oedipum procreaturum Then he illustrateth the absurdity of the deduction in another manner thus Ut si esset dictum luctabitur Olympiis Milo referret aliquis Ergo sive habuerit adversarium sive non habuerit luctabitur erraret Est enim copulatum luctabitur quia sine adversario nulla luctatio est And he concludes all of this kind to be but captious argumentations and that they admit the same solution Omnes igitur istius generis captiones eodem modo refelluntur Sive tu medicum adhibueris sive non adhibueris captiosum tam enim fatale est medicum adhibere quam convalescere Haec ut dixi confatalia ille appellat And this manner of solution was so sufficient that Carneades disdained to presse the Stoicks with this kind of argumentation though opposite enough to their opinion as forthwith Cicero expresseth it Carneades hoc totum genus non probabat minùs inconsiderate concludi hanc rationem putabat itaque premebat alio modo nec ullam adhibebat calumniam So that he condemned this as a calumnious argumentation against the Stoicks though himselfe were a sore adversary of theirs And therefore if any Christians doe reason thus either in their hearts to countenance them in prophane courses or justify such reasoning thereby to oppose Gods free grace in election the unreasonablenesse thereof being thus set forth and acknowledged on both sides by the very light of nature let them take heed and feare least heathen men rise up in judgement against them As for Tiberius his opinion and perswasion Omnia fato agi it is apparent what he understood by Fatum for there it is said that he was Mathematicae addictus whereby it seems he went no farther then the starres for the originall of his fate But it Tiberius was circa Deos religiones negligentior were the Stoicks so too I had thought that
like as none were more opposite to the Epicures then they so none were more religious and devout among the Heathens then they Yet there is no opinion so true or good but by a prophane heart may be abused But as for the efficacy of Gods will we are so farre from maintaining that it takes away either the liberty of mans will or the contingency of second causes that we professe with Aquinas that the root of all contingency is the efficacious will of God and with the Authors of the Articles of the Church of Ireland Artic. 11. That God did from all eternity ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe and yet neither the liberty nor the contingency of second causes is thereby destroyed but established rather DISCOURSE The Fift and last sort of Reasons It is an Enimy to True Comfort SECT I. I Am come to my last reason against it drawn from the Vncomfortablenesse of it It is a doctrine full of desperation both to them that stand and to them that are fallen to men out of temptation and in it It 1. Leads men into temptation 2. Leaves men in it And therefore it is no part of Gods word for that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good newes to men a store-house of sweet consolations for them that stand and such as are fallen These things are written saith the Apostle Rom. 15. 4. That by patience and consolation of the Scriptures we might have hope implying that therefore was the word written and left to the Church that by the comforts contained in it those poore soules that look towards heaven might never want in any changes or chances of this mortall life a sweet gale of hope to refresh them and carry on their ship full merrily towards the Haven It leads men into temptation and into such a one too as is as sharpe and dangerous as any the tempter hath The Devill can easily perswade any man that makes absolute reprobation a part of his creed that he is one of those absolute Reprobates because there are more absolute Reprobates even an hundred for one then absolute chosen ones and a man hath a great deale more reason to think that he is one of the most then one of the least one of the huge multitude of inevitable castawaies then one of the little flock for whom God hath absolutely prepared a Kingdome Such a man is not only capable of but framed and fashioned by his opinion for this suggestion which is a very sore one if we may believe Calvin Bucer and Zanchius Calvin tells us Quod nulla tentatione vel gravius vel periculosius fideles percellit Satan that the Devill cannot assault a believer with a temptation more dangerous And a little after he saith It is so much the deadlier by how much commoner it is then any other Rarissimus est cujus non interdum animus hac cogitatione feriatur unde tibi salus nisi ex Dei electione Electionis autem quae tibi revelatio Quae si apud quempiam semel invaluit aut diris tormentis miserum perpetuo exeruciat aut reddit penitus attonitum So ordinary is the temptation that he who is at all times free from it is a rare man we are to conceive that he speakes of those that believe absolute reprobation and so dangerous it is that if it get strength he which is under it is either miserably tormented or mightily astonished And a little after this he saith againe Ergo si naufragium timemus sollicité ab hoc scopulo cavendum in quem nunquam sine exitio impingitur He that will not wrack his soule must keep from this rock Bucer also hath a passage like to this Vt caput omnis noxiae tentationis saith he repellenda est quaestio sumusnè praedestinati Nam qui de hoc dubitat nec vocatumse nec justificatum esse credere poterit hoc est nequit esse Christianus This doubt whether we are predestinated or no Must be repelled as the head of every pernitious temptation for he that doubts of this cannot be a Christian Praesumendum igitur ut principium fidei nos omnes esse a Deo praescitos Every man therefore must presume it as a principle of faith that he is elected This very speech of Bucers Zanchy makes use of to the same purpose We see then by the restimony of these worthy men that this temptation is very dangerous and ordinary too to such as think there are absolute reprobates The truth of both will farther appeare by the example of Petrus Hosuanus a Schoolemaster in Hungary who intending to hang himselfe signified in a letter which he left in his study for the satisfaction of his friends and Countrymen the cause of it in that writing he delivered these three things 1. That he was of Calvins and S. Austins opinion that men are not dealt withall secundum bona or mala opera according to their works good or evill but that there are occultiores causae more hidden causes of mens eternall condition 2. That he was one of that woefull company of absolute castawaies Vas formatum in ignominiam a vessell prepared to dishonour and that therefore though his life had been none of the worst he could not possibly be saved 3. That being unable to beare the dreadfull apprehensions of wrath with which he was affrighted he hanged himselfe For these are some of his last words there recorded Discedo igitur ad Lacus Infernales aeternum dedecus patriae meae Deo vos commendo cujus misericordia mihi negata est I goe to those infernall lakes a perpetuall reproach to my Country commending you to God whose mercy is denyed mee Out of this example we may easily collect two things 1. That men who think that there are many whom God hath utterly rejected out of his only will and pleasure may be easily brought to think by Satans suggestion that they are of that company And 2. That this temptation is very dangerous I conclude therefore the first part of my last Reason that absolute Reprobation leads men into temptation TWISSE Consideration AS I remember when this Author first had resort unto some prime stickler for the Arminian way to conferre with him there about it was told me that this Authour should alledge that our doctrine of election was a comfortable doctrine but then on the other side it was alledged that granting that yet with all it did expose to dessolutenes of life And therefore I little expect any such argument as this to be proposed least of all to be ranged amonst the nūber of those that are taken to be of a convincing nature Yet is it the lesse strange because the Apostle telleth us of some that their course is proficere in pejus to growe worse and worse But let us consider whether he speeds any better in this then in the former And whereas he saith It is a doctrine full of desperation both to them that stand
such words as might give offence to tender eares and could not well downe with those who are uncapable of such mysteries For all this the Authour quotes AntidotuÌ„ RemonstrantiuÌ„ pag 32 this booke I have not seen much lesse have I it at this time in my possession and therefore I must take it all upon trust And seeing this man was declared in the Synod of Dort as this Authour writes to be pure and Orthodox it seemes they did not censure these speeches of his as unsavorie speeches but rather justified them though with acknowledgment that they might give offence to tender eares and could not well downe with those who were as yet uncapable of such mysteries so that this Authour censureth these speeches of Maccovius for unsavory speeches without the least disproofe of them yet is Maccovius and then was a Professor of Divinity in the University of Franekar In like sort by consequent he censureth the judgment of the Synod as an unsavory judgment and their approbation of Maccovius as an unsavory approbation Let the Reader judge of what Spirit this Authour is and whether it may not be said of him as Moses said of Corah and his complices ye take to much upon you ye Sonnes of Aaron Nay what if this censure of his reflects upon the very Phrases of the Holy Ghost The two first phrases namely to will sinnes and to ordaine men to sinne are all one For to ordaine men to sinne is but to will that such men shall sinne or that there shall be such sinnes of men Now the Scripture frequently justifies this for the 10 Kings to give their Kingdomes to the Beast what is the meaning of it But to imploy their Regall power in supporting the Pope-dome Now was not this a great sinne Yet the Scripture expresly professeth that is was the will of God it should be so Rev 17. 17. For God hath put in their hearts to fullfill his will and to doe it with one consent for to give their Kingdome to the Beast untill the words of God be fulfilled As expresly doth Saint Peter testifie of some men that they are ordained to stumble at God's word and to be disobedient Christ is a stone to stumble at a Rock of offence even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient unto the which thing they were even ordained and by whom could they be ordained hereunto but by God In like sort we know the abominable Outrages committed by Herod Pontius Pilate together with the Gentiles and people of Israel against the Holy Sonne of God for Iudas betraied him the high Priests suborned witnesses against him Herod with his Herodians despitefully used him Pilate condemned him the Romane Souldiers scourged him spit in his face buffeted him arraied him like a King in scorne and crowned him with a Crowne of thornes and last of all Crucified him between two theeves yet of all these the Holy Ghost testifies That in this doing against the Holy Sonne of God they did what God had determined to be done The words of the Text are these and that as delivered with one accord by the Apostles and their fellowes for when Peter and Iohn were let goe they came to their fellowes and shewed all that the High Priests had said unto them And when they heard it they lift up their voices to God with one accord and said O Lord thou art the God which hath made Heaven and earth the sea and all things that are therein which by the mouth of thy servant David hast said why did the Gentiles rage and the people imagine a vaine thing The Kings of the earth assembled and the Rulers came together against the Lord and against his Christ for doubtlesse against thy Holy Son Iesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israell gathered themselves together to doe whatsoever thine hand and thy Counsell had determined before to be done Now every one knowes that to determine to be done and to ordaine to be done and to will to be done are all one why doth not this Authour censure these speeches for unsavory speeches as well as those of Maccovius Why doth not he expose this Synod of the Apostles and others to the same censure whereunto he exposeth the Synod of Dort Nay can it be avoided but that already he hath done so and that these censureâ— of his must necessarily prove the powring forth of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost Seeing the speeches are used by the Apostles which he censureth for unsavorie being utteredly Maccovius Is it not apparent that whosoever renounceth those speeches most also renounce the word of God And shall it be a reproach to us that we cannot keep our owne ground unlesse the Holy Ghost keepes his ground and maintaine his owne Diâ—lect to be savorie in spite of the vise aspersions that this Authour or any other of his Spirit doth usually cast upon it not sparing to terme such speeches unsavorie speeches As for the last phrase That God would that all men should be saved this is no Scripture nay it doth imply a man fest Blasphemy namely that God cannot save them It is true the Scripture saith that God willeth that all men should be saved but what is meant by this note of universalities in Scripture let Scripture it selfe be Judge The Pharisees did Tâ—the omne olus as Austine observes not every particular her be to give the Tâ—th thereof but every kind of herbe to give the Tenth thereof so Peter saw in a vessell let downe from Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not every fower footed beast in particular but all manner of fower footed beasts see Mat 3. 5. It is said all Iudea went forth to Iohn and all the region round about Iordan what can the meaning of this be but that from all parts of Judea and the Region round about Jordan of all sorts some went forth to Iohn not that there was not one man left behind in all Judea and in all the Region round about Jordan And accordingly Saint Austine interpreted this place above 1200 yeares agoe namely that God will that of all sorts some be saved even of Kings and Nobles some though but few of such 1 Cor 1. 27. Now this is not denied either by Maccovius or by any other of our Divines only they deny it to be the will of God that all and every one shall be sayed for if this were his will it would follow first that God is not able to save them which is to deny the first Article of the Creed as Austine in this very particular disputed many hundred yeares agoe Secondly it would follow that God is changed for certainely when he damnes men he hath no will to save them And what is Election Divine is it any other then the will of God ordaining unto salvation Now who dares say that all are Elect Hath not our Saviour expresly told us that even
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
hell hath a being and by consequent something that is good If therefore God may take away a man's being that is innocent and turne him into nothing for his pleasure much more may he torment him in hell I am glad to see my name so often remembred by this Authour in his margent for a long time I desired to know his way by certaine evidence for I would not suffer my selfe to be carried away with rumours and withall I found some contradiction in the relations I received from different persons but at length I was so happy as to see it under his own hand and there to observe not his judgment only but the strength of his affections also Now let the Reader observe the cunning carriage of this Authour and how farre off it is from all ingenuitie For what I discourse being drawne thereunto by Arminius his excursions that this Authour obtrudes upon me as if the defence of the cause I tooke in hand had drawn me thereunto notwithstanding that I have professed the contrary For thus I write l. 1. pag. 1. De electione Sect 4. pag. 127. In the canvasing of this section Arminius runs out at large saving that most of these things which here he heapes up are aliena and nothing pertinent to the present purpose as pertaining rather to the decree of reprobation then to the decree of election And a little after I write thus Hence it is that Arminius expatiates and transfers his disputation from the point of election to the point of Reprobation too unseasonably Yet wisely affecting the incolumity of his wavering cause By that right saith he which God hath over his creature he cannot ordaine any man to the suffering of pain without the foresight of sinnne To wit that his cause might stand upright and that this examiner might omit nothing that tends to the making of his opinion plausible with his propitious reader it was needfull that he should make use of some such transition though never so unreasonable but seeing such are the wiles and artifices of our Adversaries to confound all Scholasticall method it shall not be unseasonable for me to weigh what he delivers as briefly as I can Therefore after I had refused Arminius on that point where he denyes that God can doe that injustice which he can doe by power after this manner I enter upon a new digression concerning this point Hitherto have I followed Arminius in his extravagants For M. Perkins hath not proceeded so farre as to affirme that God hath power to afflict an innocent creature neither hath his Adversaries objected any such thing unto him as justly inferred from ought delivered by him So that all such have well hardened their foreheads who faigne that our opinion cannot well subsist without the help of so horrid and so harsh an assertion to wit That it is better to be miserable then not to be at all It is true some may conceive that though this were a truth it were to be suppressed rather then affirmed by reason of the harshnesse of it Let every one consider aright that I undertake the defence of M. Perkins and it is he that hath uttered this harsh assertion namely That God can inflict hell paines without any demerit in the creature out of Cameracensis And it stood me upon to defend M. Perkins so farre as I had reason for it Now finding the maine argument whereby Arminius maintaines the contrary to that other yet more harsh proposition to be most unsound and even this assertion which sounds most harsh in the eares of many not only to be maintained by Austine himselfe and and divres Schoole-Divines but answered by many arguments the solution whereof was never expedited by any have I deserved so sharply to be censured for representing all this in the way of justifying M. Perkins whose defence I undertook against Arminius 1. My words are these translated God can annihilate the holiest creature which Arminius confesseth how much more is it in his power to afflict an innocent creature and that for ever considering that not only according to Schoole-divines but also according to Austine yea according to the truth it selfe it is more to be desired to have being under any pain then to have no being at all And afterwards I propose not one argument of mine own for the justifying of this but only represent the discourse of Austine hereupon as it is analized by Durandus that Schoole Divine Now why are not the School-men censured as men speaking unreasonably and against common sense Nay why is not Austine censured as one that had rather speak unreasonably and against common sense then lay downe the conclusion which he hath once undertaken to maintain as well as my selfe Yea and much more considering that the discourse proving this is Saint Austin's and had I not added on the by these four words etiam secundum ipsam veritatem there had been no place at all for any censure to be past upon me If a man finding himselfe convicted by Austin's discourse shall confesse that what he writes is true is it equity to censure him as one who had rather speak unreasonably and against common sense then lay down the conclusions which formerly he hath undertaken to maintain When in the mean time no censure is at all passed upon Austine who alone is the player of the game he that stands by professing only in his judgment he playes his game well 2. If Austine hath spoken unreasonably and against common sense how comes it to passe that this censurer hath not taken the paines to represent unto the world the unreasonablenesse of his argument This authour spends his mouth frankly in censuring but takes no paines to free his Reader from errour by solving arguments produced by Austin for the proofe of that wich this Authour conceives to be an errour 3. Nay he doth not so much as answer that one argument which here is proposed by me An argument which the Scoole-men use as sufficiently convincing the truth as Durandus and Ricardus Yet considering the unreasonable condition of such adversaries who take no course to convince or confute their opposites but imperiously to cry them down I have taken the paines to call to an account both Austin's arguments and others proposed by Schoole-Divines and to devise with my selfe what answer might be made unto them so to performe that for my adversaries which they shew no hart to performe for themselves and I was borne in hand that such a digression of mine should be extant long ere this 4 Yet by the way I wonder not a little that one thing is pretermitted For if I mistake not this very Authour is the man that heretofore hath been very full mouthed in censuring not so much the doctrine it selfe as a certain answer I made to an argument brought out of Scripture against it namely from those words of our Saviour It had been better for that man if he had never been
born My answer was that it was spoken according to the judgment of man though indeed erroneous and that after this manner phraseologies of Scripture doe proceed I there shewed Now this Authour hereupon spared not to professe that if this were true he would turne Atheist I wisht that Friend of mine to whom he spake this to perswade him the next time he met with him to enquire and consider well whether Maldonat the Jesuite doth not imbrace the same interpretation And indeed if such protestations would carry it this Authour would prove a very potent and formidable adversary I have seen the like under his own hand namely this As Plutarch said of the old heathens who sacrificed men that they might pacifie their gods that it had been better with Diagoras to say There is no god then to think that God is such a one that delights in the blood of men And hereupon he adds this Protestation I protest unto you I think it less dishonourable to the blessed Trinity to say with the Atheist there is no god then to feigne such a God as the decree of Reprobation maintained by the Contraremonstrants maketh him to be This man I find is resorted unto and consulted with by the Arminians as if his judgment were an oracle and I willingly confesse he deserves to be in some great place unto them and no place in my judgmentmore fit then to be unto the à protestationibus Yet I doe not prescribe but leave it to their discretion to prefer him as they think good but how comes it to passe that here he is silent in reviving the reproaches he cast upō my answer to the Scripture before mentioned Is it because Maldonat the Jesuite hath been since found by him to embrace the same interpretation And he is loath to fall so foule in censuring such as he is Yet here he falls foul on me for professing my approbation not of Schoole-men but of Austin's discourse This makes me call to mind what was delivered of him sometimes by a London Minister as that he should perswade a young Divine to study Bellarmine as also what censures others have passed upon some writings of his And it hath been my hap to see under his own hand such a counsaile as this givē to a friend of his These things have I represented unto you the rather because I would give you occasion to learne that in your younger dayes which I have learned by late and long experience in my selfe and that in these two things First in reading Bellarmine and other adversaies to our Church I have divers times noted such speeches in them as to my thinking involved contradiction or had shew of absurdity or might either give advantage to our selves or breed prejudice unto them but when afterward I came in cooler blood to weigh the words better and to consider the circumstances more narrowly I found that I did mistake their meaning and that an itching desire to find an advantage made me to take shadowes for substance And the like mistake in my selfe I observed when I read the fathers or the Scriptures ready to interpret every thing either in favour of mine own cause or in prejudice of the adversaries And concludes sententiously thus Nimirum ita est ingenium nostrum facile credimus quae nimium volumus If such be the genius of this Authour though he thinks not good to spare me for Austin's sake yet methinks he should spare me for Richardus sake or at the least for Maldonat's sake This calls to my remembrance an Epigramme which D. Hoskins my chamber-fellow in New-Colledge sometimes made upon the fleas that sore troubled him as he lay in his bed And the conclusion was thus But if ther 's nothing that can slack Your rage and your correction Yet ô remember you are black And spare me for complexion So we proceed Sect. 5. To the first part of this reply namely that it is more desirable to be in hell then to be nothing I oppose three things 1. The speech of our Saviour concerning Judas Woe be to that man by whom the Sonne of man is betraied it had been good for that man if he had never been born Two things especially are set forth in these words of our Saviour First the misery of Judas the betraier of the Lord. Woe be c. Secondly the greatnes of his misery It had been good c. It is as much as if the Lord had said Judas the traitour shall be damned and therefore so woefull will his condition be that it had been good and happy for him if he had never received a being good in earnest as the Interpreters doe generally expound it not in the opinion and esteem of weak minded faint-hearted-men only as some few understand it For first let it be granted that Scripture speaketh of things sometimes according to men's opinions yet without reason to fasten such an expostiō upon any Scripture is to doe as dunces doe in the Schooles who being not able to answer a place in Aristotle wherewith they are charged shift it off and say loquitur ex aliorum sententiâ he speaks according to the opinion of others 2. This scripture cannot in reason be thus expounded First because it is an argument and ground by which Christ declareth the truth and greatnesse of the misery of Judas Woe to the man c And why woe Because it had been good c. But it were no argument to shew his woefull estate by to say that it had been good for him that he had never been born in the opinion of men who mistake the case but not in truth 2. because this exposition would teach and encourage men to be Atheists and Epicures In the second of Wisdome we read how voluptuous men doe stirre up one another to enjoy the good things that are present to fill them selves with wine and ointments to leave some token of their jollity in every place and to practise all manner of wickednesse And what is their motive a false perswasion that their soules shall dye with their bodies and that they should have noe being after death If this conceit would flesh them thus in their opinions and voluptuous courses how freely and eagerly may we thinke would they pursue their carnall and sinfull delights if they could be but once perswaded that after all their pleasure they should be in better case then if they had noe being Secondly I oppose common consent Where shall wee pick out a man but will say if he speak from his heart that he were better to vanish into a thousand nothings then to be cast into hell What is the reason why men are so afraid of hell when they are touched to the quick with the conscience of their ungodly lives and the expectation of eternall vengeance that with Job they curse their birth day and wish an hundred times over that they had never been or might cease to be that so they might
on earth and makes him the Authour not of the sinne only that entred by Adam into the world but of all other sinnes that have been are or shall be committed to the worlds end No murthers robberies rapes adulteries insurrections treasons blasphemies persecutions or any other abominations whatsoever fall out at any time or in any place but they are the necessary productions of God Almightys decrees The Scripture I am sure teaches us another lesson Thou art not a God saith David that hast pleasure in wickednesse And the Prophet Esay tells the people that when they did evill in the sight of the Lord they did choose the things which he would not Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God For God cannot be tempted with evill neither tempteth he any man but every man is tempted when he is drawen away with his own concupiscence And St. John when he had referred all the sinnes of the world to three heads the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life tells us that they are not of the Father but of the world To which speeches let me adde the speech of Stracides though not of the same authority Say not thou it is through the Lord that I fell away for thou oughtest not to do the things that he hateth Say not thou he hath caused me to erre for he hath no need of the sinfull man 2. Pious antiquity hath constantly sayd the same and prest it with sundry reasons some of which are these as follow If God be the Authour of sinne then he is worse then the Devill because the devill doth only tempt and perswade to sinne and his action may be resisted but God by this opinion doth will and procure by a powerfull and effectuall decree which cannot be resisted This is Prospers argument who to some objecting that by St. Austin's doctrine when Fathers defile their own Daughters and Mothers their own Sonnes Servants murther their masters men commit any horrible villanies it cometh to passe because God hath so decreed Answereth that if this were layd to the Devills charge he might in some sort cleare himselfe of the imputation Quia etsi delectatus est furore peccantium probaret tamen sc non intulisse vim criminum Because though he be delighted with man's sinnes yet he doth not he cannot compell men to sinne What a madnesse therefore is it to impute that to God which cannot be justly fathered upon the Divell 2. He cannot be a punisher of sinne For none can justly punish those effences of which they are the Authors This is Prospers argument too It is against reason to say that he wich is the damner of the Devill would have any one to be the devills Servant This reason Fulgentius useth likewise illius rei Deus ultor est cujus Auhor non est Tertullian also before them hath sayd He is not to be accounted the Author of sinne who is the forbidder yea and the condemner of it 3. He cannot be God because he should not be just nor holy nor the Judge of the world all properties essentiall to God And this is Basil's reason who hath written a whole Homily against this wicked assertion It is all one saith he to say that God is the Author of sinne and to say he is not God 3 Upon these and the like considerations I may well conclude that the opinion which chargeth God with the sinnes of men is neither good nor true It is first layd to the charg of our Divines that by this their opinion they make God the Authour of sinne not of the first only that entred by Adam into the world but of all other sinnes that have been are or shall be committed in the world as murthers robberies rapes adulteries insurrections treasons blasphemies heresies persecutions or any other abominatiōs But in all these wastfull discourses not a word of proofe The charge is made in the first place the proofe last All that he labours to prove here is that God is not the Author of sinne Bellarmine hath bestowed or rather cast away a whole book on this crimination to him Arminius referrs Perkins telling him that he should have answered Bellarmine I have taken some paines to performe that taske upon that motion of Arminius I would I could receive from this Authour a reply to any materiall particular thereof the rather because I understand in part his Zeale for Bellarmine in his age correcting the harsh exceptions he hath made against him in his younger dayes And let every indifferent Reader compare this Authors discourse with that discourse of Bellarmine and judge indifferently what an hungry peece this is in comparison to that of Bellarmines And whether his paines had not been better bestowed in replying upō my answer thereunto then to adde such scraps as these to that full table of Bellarmin's provision and whether these deserve any answer that whole discourse of Bellarmine being refuted throughout Bradwardine disputes the question Si quomodo Deus vult non vult peccatum I say he disputes it indifferently on both sides and let every Schollar judge and weigh whether it be not a very ponderous argument and consider well his resolution and where he differrs any thing from our Divines in this Calvin observing how frequent the Scripture is in testifying God's hand to be operative in abominable courses thereupon writes a Treatise De occultâ Dei providentiâ in malo in all which he exactly conformes himselfe to Scripture expressions And these and such like vile Criminators may as well taxe God's word for making God the Author of sinne as Calvin who most accurately conformes himselfe to the testimonies of Divine Scripture I remember to have heard a disputation sometimes at Heidelberge on this Argument where Copenius the President or Moderator made manifest that look upon what grounds they criminated Calvin for making God the Authour of sinne upon the same grounds they might criminate the very word of God to make him the Author of sinne For Calvine throughout in his expressions conformes himselfe to the language of the holy Ghost Yet what one of our divines can he produce affirming that God takes pleasure in sinne Piscator confesseth that God taketh no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth upon that place in Ezechiel how much lesse in wickednesse And he illustrates it in this manner For albeit it cannot be denyed but that God willeth the death of him that dyeth For he is the God to whom vengeance belongeth yet he takes no pleasure in it Like as a sick-man would be content to take a bitter potion for the recovery of his health yet he takes no pleasure in that bitter cup. And in like manner albeit God hardened Pharaoh's heart that he should not let Israel goe and as the Apostle speaks hardeneth whom he will Whereby it comes to passe infallibly that they doe not obey
the Gospell as appeareth by the objection following Why then doth he complaine For who hath resisted his will And albeit the Saints of God expostulate with him in this manner Why hast thou caused us to erre from thy wayes and hardened our hearts against thy feare Yet we know that God takes no pleasure in disobedience or in the hardnesse of any mans heart nor can be the Authour of evill with Sir Francis Bacons distinction in the booke formerly mentioned by this Authour Non quià non Author sed quià non mali So that albeit he hardens whom he will unto disobedience in the prophet Esayes phrase causeth men to erre from his wayes Yet the Lord himselfe we know is righteous in all his wayes holy in all his workes though we are not able to dive into the gulfe and search out the bottome of his judgments and no marvaile For they are unsearchable Yet we make no question but through Gods mercy convenient satisfaction may be found without any such shaÌ„efull course of dismeÌ„bring scripture and taking notice only of such passages as represent Gods displeasure against sin sinners and dissembling all other passages which drave Austin to confesse occulto Dei judicio by the secret judgement of God fieri perversitatem cordis the perversity of mans heart hath its course much lesse by setting theÌ„ together by the eares And I nothing doubt but the issue will be on the part of such as are of this Authours spirit either wholly to deny originall sin or so to emasculate the vigor of it as to professe that it is in the power of maÌ„ to cure it or notwithstaÌ„ding the strength of it to beleive repeÌ„t if he will which though they preteÌ„d to be wrought by a certain universal grace Yet I nothing doubt but we shall be able to prove that such a power is mere nature and no grace Be it so that wicked men in their wicked courses do chose the things that God would not Who would thinke that this Author who makes such a florish should content himselfe with such beggarly arguments or that the world should be so simple as to be terrifyed with such scar-crowes For is it not apparent that in scripture phrase there is voluntas praecepti a will of commandement as well as voluntas propositi a will signifying Gods purpose and decree So theÌ„ though they chuse the things that God willed not in reference to his will of commandement yet it might be Gods will that is his purpose that even such sinnes should come to passe For was it not the will of God that Pharaoh should not let Israel goe for a while Did he not harden him to this purpose that so he might make himselfe knowne in the land of Egypt by his judgemeÌ„ts did he not reveale this to Moses to the coÌ„fort of the childreÌ„ of Israel keepe theÌ„ from despaire in conteÌ„plation of the obstinacy of Pharaoh's spirit when they were assured that God had an haÌ„d in hardening Pharaoh to staÌ„d out And doth not Bellarmine professe that maluÌ„ fieri permitt sin Deo bonuÌ„ est it is good that evill should coÌ„ to passe by Gods permission And shall it be unbecoÌ„ing the divine nature to will that which is good And where is it that Bellarmine affirmeth this even there where he opposeth the same Doctrine of ours which this Authour doth but with more learning an 100 fold then this Authour betrayeth and withall carryeth himselfe with farre more ingenuity For he takes notice of those places of Scripture whereupon our Divines do build and accommodates himselfe to aswer them by some intepretation that he thinks good to make of them which this Authour doth not 2. But what if there be no such text as this Authour builds upon For looke what the word is used in the originall Ps 5. 4. the same is used Es 66 4 Now that in Ps 5. 4 This Authour renders not that wouldest not iniquity but that hast no pleasure in iniquity And why then shall not that Es 66. 4. be accordingly rendred thus They choose the things wherein I had no pleasure or wherein I had no delight and not as he expresseth it the things that I would not Hereupon I imagined our Enlish tranlation had thus rendred it but consulting that I found the contrary For thus they render it They choose the things wherein I delighted not It is true the Geneva renders it thus But doth it become him to preferre and follow the Geneva translation before the last and most authenticall translation of the Church of England In like manner the practise of Geneva must be of authority to cry us downe in the point of the morality of the fourth commandement Were not the man well knowne to be sound at heart his favourites might well suspect him to praevaricate in making so great a cry and yet yeilding so little wooll In the next place he alleadgeth that of Iames. Let no man say when he is tempted that he is temptedof God For God tempteth no man But every man is tempted when he is drawen away with his owne concupiscence Now Peter Martyr on the first to the Romans deales at large upon this place and disputes strangely indiscoursing of Gods providence in evill I would this Authour had taken the paines to answer him at least that he might performe somewhat tanto dignum hiatu worthy of the great gaping he makes It is true Bellarmine hath taken him to taske after a sort in his eigth chapter of his second book de Amiss gratiae statu peccati And I have replyed upon Bellarmine at large in my Vindiciae in that large digression wherein I take Bellarmine to taske in that book of his whereunto I referre the Reader Yet to say somewhat of this place befor I passe It is apparent that the Apostle in this place doth not so put off from God the workes of tempting as to cast it upon Satan but onely so as to shew that whatsoever the divine providence is there about either by the ministry of Satan who is God's minister in hardening men to precipâ—tate courses I Kings the last or otherwise yet still the sinner is unexcusable for as much as he is then only tempted effectually For so it is to be understood otherwise it were not true as it appeares in the case of Joseph tempted by his Mistris when he is drawen away by his own concupiscence It is true the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and pride of life is not of the Father but of the world they are the members of that body of sin which we brought with us into the world This is propagated unto us all by naturall generation Holy Iacob the Son of holy Isaak a Patriach of holy Rebeccah a Prophetesse was borne in sin as well as Esau and Seth as well as Cain and this seemeth to be called the image of Adam
doe choose the things that God would not 2. If God doth will it but not by a powerfull and effectuall irresistable decree let him shew what that decree is whereby he wills sins Now this is commonly accounted a decree conditionall and let him speak plainely then tell us upon what condition it is that God doth will and procure sin in the world and I am verily perswaded he is to seek what to answer 3. If God doth will and decree it it cannot be avoided but it must be by a powerfull and effectuall decree which cannot be resisted seeing the Apostle saith plainly speaking of his decree that it cannot be resisted Upon these considerations I am perswaded that this Authour doth utterly deny that God doth at all will sin or decree that any such thing shall come to passe in the world that these attributes of powerfull and effectuall irresistable are used by him not for distinction sake but meerly for amplification that so he might speake with a full mouth Now having brought this Authour home to himselfe and delivering himselfe and his meaning plainely I am very willing to cope with him on this point Yet what need I having so fully disputed the point in a certaine digression in my Vindiciae lib. 2. Digrees 4. The title whereof is this Whether the holy one of Israel without any blot to his Majesty may be said to will sin And forthwith I answer that God may be said thus farre to will sin in as much as he will have sin to come to passe And for explication sake it is added that whereas God will have all the good things of the world whether naturall morall or spirituall come to passe by his working of them Only evill things he will have come to passe by his permitting them But this Authour affects to worke upon the ignorant and he doth not affect to trouble their braines with answering my reasons least thereby he should raise many spirits and afterwards prove unable to lay them And this discourse of M. Hord's some of that sect thought good to have it coppied out and communicated to people in the Country as accommodated to their capacities and so more fit to promote their edificatiō in the plausible way of Arminian religion well therefore in the proofe of this tenet namely that God will have sin come to passe by his permission I prove first by Scripture God hath put in their hearts that is in the hearts of the 10 Kings to fulfill his will Now marke what is the object of God's will in the words following and to agree and give their kingdōes unto the beast untill the words of God shall be fulfilled now by giving their Kingdomes unto the beast is not to depose or dethrone themselves or to part with their Kingdomes but only to submit their regall authority to the executiō of the beasts wrath against the Saints of God Like as in the dayes of Popery when the Saints of God were by Popish Prelates condemned for heresies then they were delivered into the hands of the secular powers the sherifes to burne thē at a stake Now this the holy Ghost makes the object of Gods will and their agreement thus to execute the Popes Antichristian pleasure is said to be Gods worke For God is said to put it into their hearts to doe this evill of his Of disobedient persons the Apostle professeth that they are ordained to stūble at Gods word wherein undoubtedly they sin Paul likewise testified of some that God sends thē strong delusions that they should beleive a lye of others that God gave them up to uncleanes through the lusts of their owne hearts to dishonour their owne bodyes betweene thēselves And to a Reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient Now let every sober man judge whether when God blinded the eyes of the one and hardned the harts of the other it were not his will that those foule things which were committed by them should come to passe by his permissiō Then consider what the Apostles with one consent testifie concerning those abominable acts committed against the holy son of God namely that both Herod Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles people of Israel were gathered together to doe what Gods hand his coūsell had before determined to be done This the Apostles deliver to the very face of God in their prayers holy meditatiōs And let every Christian consider whether it the Scripture had not made mention of this any one of us had used the like prayer meditatiō this Author all that are of his spirit would not have beene ready to spit in our faces cry us downe for notorious blasphemers Yet the Apostles indued with the spirit of God feared not to be found guilty of violating the Lords holinesse in all this Hence I proceeded to the passages of the Old Testament for the confirmation of the same truth As namely that whereas the desolatiō of the holy Land begun by the Assyrians finished by the Babylonians could not cōe to passe without many enormous sins Who can deny that it was Gods will that these things should come to passe considering that Assur himself is acknowledged by God to be the rod of his wrath and the staffe of his indignation whom God would send against an hypocriticall nation against the people of his wrath would he give him a charge to take the spoyle to take the prey to tread them downe like the mire in the streets Hence I proceeded to shew how that it is Gods usuall course to punish sin with sin Now when God exerciseth his judgments shall not those things justly be said to come to passe by his will which are punishments of foregoing sinnes See the judgment of God denounced against Amaziah the Preist of Bethell Thou sayst prophecy not against Israel drop not thy word against the house of Isaac Therefore thus saith the Lord Thy wife shall be an harlot in the Citties thy sons thy daughters shall fall by the sword And in like manner Solomon saith The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit he that is abhorred of the Lordshall fall therein The incest of Absolom defiling his fathers cōcubines in a shameles manner came it not to passe by the will of God whose word is this Behold I will raise up evill against thee out of thine owne house I will take thy wives before thine eyes give them unto thy neighbour he shall ly with thy wives in the sight of this sun The defection of the ten tribes frō the house of David came it not to passe by the will of God when God himselfe testifies that it was his worke not his will onely Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel I will rent the kingdome out of the hands of Solomon give ten tribes to thee speaking to Ieroboam here we have Gods will for it And
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
holy Ghost himselfe whose expressions are the same for substance with the expressions of Piscator It is farther observable that Piscator saith That Reprobates by reason of this Divine ordination doe sinne necessarily I answer Piscator was an excellent Scripture Divine but noe School-divine and therefore noe marvaile if he want the accuratenesse of Scholasticall expression Yet I salve him thus They sinne necessarily upon suspicion that God will have them to sinne by his permission but this is noe necessity simply so called but only secundum quid But God decrees the manner of things comming to passe as well as the things themselves as before I shewed out of Aquinas Soe that all be it it must needs be that sinne come to passe in case God hath decreed it shall come to passe yet if the question be after what manner it shall come to passe I answere not necessarily but contingently and freely that is not onely with a possibility of not comming to passe but with a free power in the creature to abstaine from that sin which is committed by him For God ordained that every thing that doth come to passe shall come to passe agreably to the nature thereof and accordingly moves every creature to worke agreeably to their natures Necessary agents necessarily contingent agents contingently Free agents freely And as formerly was mentioned every sinfull act is a naturall act and a man hath free power even in the state of corruption either to doe or to leave undone any naturall act And Piscator in other places dealing with Vorstius clearely professeth as I well remember though the the place come not to my memory that wicked men doe commit those things freely which are committed by them And it is an excellent saying of Austine that Libertas sine gratiâ non est libertas sed contumacia Liberty without grace is not liberty but wilfullnesse indeed they shew too much will therein rather then too little and in denying liberty to them that want grace he speakes of liberty morall which is only unto true good not of liberty naturall which hath place only in the choice of meanes and is inseparable from the nature of man But true morality sets a mans soule in a right condition towards his right end 4. It may be this Authour could not be so inconsiderate as not to perceive that even those expressions concerning Gods decree which he criminates in our Divines are Scripture expressions therefore to helpe his cause here he imputes unto them that they maintaine that God decreed this immutably as if himselfe could be content to grant that these things are decreed by God but not immutably And would this Authour have the will of God to be of a mutable condition like unto ours I am confident he dares not professe so much for albeit he licks his lips at a conditionall decree yet how doth he conceive this to be mutable For to resolve to save men upon condition of faith and repentance and perseverance and damne others in case they continue in infidelity and impenitency if accordingly none be saved but such in whom faith and repentance and finall perseverance therein is found none damned but such as persevere in sinne unto death what change is there in all this Unlesse this be it that God did not resolve to save any particular person untill his finall perseverance was accomplished And so God may be said in processe of time to change from not willing to willing one man's salvation and another man's damnation In which case God's decree also should not be eternall but begin in time Againe as touching that which followes of of God decreeing that Reprobates shall live and dye in sinne I answer to decree not to regenerate Reprobates is to decree that Reprobates shall not be regenerated for they are not able to regenerate themselves and to decree that they shall not be regenerated is to decree that they shall live and dye in sinne by God's permission he resolving never to shew such mercies to take them of from their sinfull courses by repentance And so long as they are not borne of God they will not heare his words as our Saviour testifies saying Yee therefore heare them not because ye are not of God As for sinne procured by the hand of God which he obtrudes upon our Divines not one passage doth he produce for that Yet as I remember I have read such an harsh expression in Piscator dealing against Vorstius which at this time doth not come to my remembrance but withall I remember that Piscator being charged therewith by Vorstius forthwith represents certaine passages of Scripture concerning Gods's providence in evill and appeales to the judgment of every sober Christian whether to do that which therein is attributed to God be not to procure sin It is apparent that Joseph acknowledgeth that the Lord sent him into Egypt yet was this brought to passe by the parricidiall hands of his brethren And it is no lesse plaine that God hardened Pharaohs heart that he should not let Israel goe And by Arminius his Definition of effectuall grace it is evident that by Gods denying it sin doth follow infallibly And so likewise upon Gods permission of willing this or that he professeth that it must needs be that by noe kind of argument shall such a one be perswaded to nill it I come to the meanes whereby he is said to procure it The first is by withdrawing grace necessary for the avoyding of sin Now of this he gives no instance out of any of our Divines 2 I know no grace which this Authour accounts necessary that any of our Divines teach to be withdrawen by God 3 God indeed doth not determine their wills to that which is good but this Authour doth not account any such determination necessary to the avoyding of sin 4 Prohibition denuntiation of judgment dehortation and such gracious actions God doth neither withdraw nor withhold from the wicked who are partakers of this grace as well as Gods children as often as they meet in the same congregation for the hearing of Sermons 5. An effectuall restraint from sin I know none but the feare of God yet this he withdrawes not from the wicked for they never had it nor from the children of God only he doth not stirrre it in them at all times so often as he suffers them to sin which yet may be to gracious ends As I for the confirmation of their faith that nothing no not sin shall separate them from the love of God when they shall find the goodnesse of God minding them of their errours and bringing them to repentance 2 As also to make them smart for their former security and wantonnesse in beholding the uncomfortable issue of it 3 To provoke them to walke more carefully and circumspectly for the time to come standing upon their guard and keeping the watch of the Lord. 4. To cure their pride according to that of Austin Audeo dicere
Utile est superbis in aliquod apertum manifestumque cadere peccatum I am bold to speake it It is good for a proud man to to fall into some open and manifest sin I come to the second stay whereby he objects to our Divines that they maintaine that God procures the sinnes of men and that is by his moving and inclining them by his irresistable and secret workings on their hearts to sinfull actions To which I answer first that not any of the passages alleadged by him out of Calvin who alone makes totam paginam in this of his makes mention of Gods irresistable working or of moving or inclining unto sinfull actions And let every sober man judge whether a bridle is fit to urge men to action and not rather to restraine from action and this is the force of the first Quotation But this Authour through heat corrupting his imagination tooke a bridle for a spurre His second testifies only this that man doth nothing but what God decreed and by his direction appointeth and this also upon pregnant testimonies of scripture never undertaking to shew Calvins interpretation to be false or his accommodation of them to be incongruous In the third he grants that God workes in the mind of men In the 4. he saith that God stirrs up the wills and confirmes the purposes of wicked men for the execution of his judgment by Satan the minister of his wrath Where consider he doth this by Satan that is he gives them over to Satan for this so that 't is Satan that stirres up their wills and confirmes their endeavours by Gods permission without restraint either immediate or mediate by the ministry of his good angells and all this is but to execute Gods judgments And that it is just with God to punish sin with sin both scripture testifies in divers places and Austin confirmes with variety of Scripture testimonies in his lib. 5. contra Julian Pelag cap. 3. The last is that God's worke it is to harden mans heart and thereby prepare him to destruction And let every sober reader that is not willing to be cheated both of his faith and honesty all at once examine these places in Calvin and the Scriptures whereby he proves that which he affirmes and let him but aske the Authour these questions If Calvin delivers nothing in all this but what he proves out of Scripture why is he found fault with more then the word of God If Scripture be mis-alleadged and mis-understood by him why do not you confute him 2 Though Calvin in all this makes no mention of Gods inclining wicked men to sinfull actions yet Austin doth as before I have shewed and that by variety of Scripture testimonies And if this be to make God the Authour of sin why hath he not so much ingenuity as to confesse at least in the close of all that Calvin makes God the Authour of sin no more then Austin doth and neither of them more then the word of God doth and therewithall renounce the Scriptures and turne Atheist 3 As the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh to his destruction so did he the heart of Sihon also Nowsee what Cardinall Caietan writes upon thisvery place Utramque homines partē spiritum cor hoc est superiorem inferiorem male dispositam à Deo intellige negativè penes dona gratuita positivè autem quoad judicium inclinationem prosecutionem bòni sensibilis Ita quod Deus spiritum Regis durum hoc est non cedentem petionibus reddit non dando ei gratiam acquiescendi coo operando eidem ad affectum securitatis boni proprii similiter roboravit cor ad affectum boni victoriae hujusmodi Each part of King Sihon his spirit and heart that is the upper and lower part being ill disposed by God understād this negatively as touching guifts of grace but positively as touching his judgment affection and prosecution of a sensible good So that the Lord made the Kings heart hard that is not to yeild to the request made both by not giving grace to rest satisfied and by cooperating with him to the affecting of security and his own good And in like manner he hardned his heart to the affecting of victory and the like I have not heard that this my opposite hath been ever ready to censure Caietan for making God the Authour of all this yet noe passage I am perswaded throughout all Calvin's works can be found comparable unto this Yet was Caietan noe Jesuite he need not spare his censures I come to the sum of that which he hath delivered in a whole leafe The first whereof is this that we teach That God appointed many miserable men from all eternity to unavoidable torments Now that God appointed many fom eternity to everlasting torments this Authour acknowledgeth as well as we As for the avoidable condition of them it is confessed on both sides that they are avoidable only by breaking off their sinnes by repentance before their death and by this we acknowledge them to be avoidable of all and every one as well as they But we say God doth not grant this grace to all For he is not bound to give it to all noe nor to any but he vouchsafeth this grace to whom he will and he denieth it to whom he will and this St. Paul hath taught us where he saith God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth The second is that we teach that God to bring about their intended ruine decreed that they should without remedie live die in a state of sin To this I answer that it is a most absurd conceite to make the tormenting of any man God's end We have learnt of King Solomon that God made all things for himselfe here is the end of his actions the manifestation of his own glory And albeit he made the very wicked also against the day of evill yet the end thereof was for himselfe as formerly specified that is for the manifestation of his just wrath and that God hath power without any difference in the matter to make some vessells of wrath and some of mercy as he thinkes good The Apostle plainely teacheth us where he saith Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour And if any man's wicked proud heart make insurrection against this truth the Apostle hath taught us to stop his mouth with this shall the the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Shall not God have as much power over the masse of mankind as the Potter hath over the clay So that this is God's end not man's damnation but his own glory Haec loquendiratio saith Calvin this manner of speech finem creationis esse interitum aeternum the end of man's creation is his everlasting destruction nusquam apud me occurret shall never be found
sight of this Sun For thou did'st it secretly but I will doe this thing before all Israel and before the Sun It is utterly untrue which this Authour obtrudes upon us as if we thought it unlawfull for God by reason of his justice to put to death men innocent and without blame Was any more innocent then the Son of God yet he gave him to suffer somewhat more then the death for the sins of men Neither must we be gull'd with his phrases of the Devills deflouring of men when by him they are carried away into abominable courses so as to oppose Scripture blaspheme God the language of the holy Ghost being this that all the outrages committed upon the holy Son of God by Herod and Pontius Pilate the Gentiles and people of Israel were such as God's hand and counsell had before determined to be done And the like cruelties or worse were executed upon the Saints of God by their Kings who imploied their soveraigne power in executiō of the beast's behests yet this is called the will of God God hath put into their hearts to fullfill his will and to agree to give their kingdomes to the beast untill the word of God be fulfilled And the truth is if God permit such abominable courses and hardens men's hearts occasion being offered they will commit them according to the common proverbe He must needs goe whom the Devill drives And the very definition of the permission of sinne given by Arminius doth convince this though he carrieth himselfe very superficiarily explicating God's providence in this and the nature of obduration which I have prosecuted at large in my Vindiciae in answer to Bellarmine especially where I treat of the abduration of Pharaoh chap 11. Neither doe we make damnation the end whereunto God permits sinne but both permisson for sinne and damnation for sinne we make the meanes tending to another end namely the manifestation of God's glory in the way of justice vindicative which in Scripture phrase is called the declaration of his wrath And to make God the Authour of sinne by these courses is clearely to charge the holy Ghost with blasphemie seing the holy Ghost gives cleare testimony to all this in the word of God Sect. 5. That God is the Authour of men's salvation and conversion all sides grant and yet he doth noe more in the procuring them then these men report him to doe in the Reprobates impenitency and damnation The salvation and conversion of the Elect say they he hath absolutely and antecedently without the foresight of any deserving of theirs reselved upon and by irresistable meanes in their severall generations draweth them to believe repent and indure to the end that so they might be saved and his absolute decree accomplished On the other side the damnation the sinnes and the finall impenitency of Reprobates he hath of his alone will and pleasure peremptorily decreed this his decree he executeth in time drawing them on by his unconquerable power and providence from sinne to sin till they have made up their measure and in the end have inflicted on them that eternall vengeance which he had provided for them What difference is here in the course which God taketh for the conversion and salvation of the Elect and the obduration and damnation of the Reprobates And therefore what hindereth but that God by their grounds may as truely be stiled the prime cause and Authour of the sinnes of the one as of the conversion of the other The Fathers thought it a plaine case and therefore they did make sinne an Object of prescience and not predestination and bent the most of those arguments by wich they refuted this foule assertion against an absolute irresistable and necessitating decree as I could easily shew but that I feare to be over long Only I will cite some few of those Authour's words whom the learned reverend Bishop hath alleadged in favour and for the defence of the Predestinarians and the maintainers of Gotteschalk's opinion The Church of Lyous in their answer to the positions of Johannes Scotus which he framed against Gotteschalke hath these words Whosoever saith tthat God hath laid a constraint or necessity of sinning upon any man he doth manifestly and fearefully blaspheme God in as much as he maketh him by affirming that of him to be the very Authour of sinne Remigius Arch. Bishop of that Church explaining the Churches opinion in that point of prescience and predestination in seven severall rules in the fift of those rules he hath these words to the same purpose God saith he by his prescience and predestination hath laid a necessitie of being wicked upon noe man For if he had done this he had been the Authour of sinnes And thus in my iudgment doth it plainly appeare that by absolute Reprobation as it is taught the upper way God is made to be the true cause of men's sinnes Observe the false carriage of this Authour That God is the Authour of men's salvation and conversion he saith all sides grant as if there were noe difference between Arminians and the Orthodox between him and us in this We say God workes faith and regeneration in us and that for Christ's sake The Remonstrants in their Censura censurae in expresse termes deny that Christ merited faith and regeneration for us and judge by this indifferently whether they make faith and regeneration to be the guift of God Or when they doe in termes professe this as Epicurus verbis Deos posuit re sustulit whether they doe not equivocate Aske this Authour in what sense he makes God to be the Authour of man's conversiō whether any otherwise thē 1. In giving men power to believe if they will to repent if they will 2. In perswading unto faith repentance 3. In concurring with man to the act of faith repentance Now as touching the first that mere nature not grace Deo credere ab amore rerum temporalium ad divina praecepta servanda se convertere omnes possint si velint saith Austin All men can if they will believe God and from the love of temporall things convert themselves to the keeping of God's commandements Now this is noe more then posse fidem habere posse charitatem habere to be capable of faith of charity and this is naturae hominum of the nature of man As Austin testifies in another place where he saith posse fidem habere posse charitatem habere naturae est hominum fidem habere charitatem habere gratiae est fidelium To be capable of faith and charity is the nature of man but to have faith and to have charity is the grace of the faithfull Consider in reason supernaturall grace is not in reason to be accounted inferiour to a morall vertue but so it will prove if it be but a power to be good if we will For morall vertue doth not give a man a power only to doe
of Adrumetum were the Authours of it And this Interpolatour takes Vossius his part and labours by certaine arguments to make it good against he judicious observations of that most reverend and learned Arch-Bishop of Armagh It may be I shall represent my answer thereunto by waâ—â—â— digression but first I must dispatch my answer to this I have in hand Sect 6. Many distinctions are brought to free the Supralapsarian way from this crimination all which me thinks are noâ— better then mere delusions of the simple and inconsiderate and give noe true satisfaction to the understanding There is say they a twofold decree 1. First an operative by which God positively and efficaciously worketh allthings 2. A permissive by which he decreeth only to let it come to passe If God should worke sinne by an operative decree then he should be the Authour of sinne but not if he decree by a permissive decree to let it come to passe and this only they say they maintaine It is true that God hath decreed to suffer sinne for otherwise there would be none Who can bring forth that which God will absolutely hinder He suffered Adam to sinne leaving him in the hand of his own counsell Ecclus 15. 14. He suffered the nations in time past to walke in their own waies Act 14. 16. And dayly doth he suffer both good and bad to fall into many sins And this he doth not because he stands in need of sinne for the setting forth of his glory for he hath noe need of the sinfull man Ecclus 15. But partly because he is summus provisor supreme moderatour of the world and knoweth how to use that well which is ill done and to bring good out of evill and especially for that reason which Tertullian prelleth namely because man is made by God's own gracious constitution a free creature undetermined in his actions untill he determine himselfe And therefore may not be hindred from sinning by omnipotency because God useth not to repeale his own ordinances 2. It is true also that a permissive decree is noe cause of sinne because it is merely extrinsecall to the sinner and hath noe influence at all upon the sinne It is an antecedent only and such a one too as being put sinne followeth not of necessitie And therefore it is fitly contradistinguisht to an operative decree And if that side would in good earnest impute noe more in sinfull events to divine power then the word Permission imports their maine conclusion would fall and the controversy between us end But first many of them reject this distinction utterly and will have God to decree sinne efficaciter with an Energeticall and working will Witnesse that discourse of Beza wherein he a verreth and laboureth to prove that God doth not only permit sinne but will it also And witnesse Calvin too who hath a whole section against it calling it a carnall distinction invented by the flesh and effugium a mere evasion to shift off this seeming absurdity that that man is made blind Deo volente jubente by Gods will and command who must shortly after be punished for his blindnes He calleth it also figmentum a fiction and saith they doe ineptire play the fooles that use it By many reasons also doth he indeavour to lay open the weaknes of it taxing those who understand such Scriptures as speaks of God's smiting men with a Spirit of slumber and giddinesse of blinding their minds infatuating and hardening their hearts c. Of a permission and suffering of men to be blinded and hardned Nimis frivola est ista solutio saith he it is too frivilous a glosse In another place he blameth those that referre sin to God's prescience only calling their speeches argutiae tricks and quirks which Scripture will not beare and those likewise that ascribe it to God's permission and saith what they bring touching the Divine permission in this businesse will not hold water They that admit the word permissive doe willingly mistake it and while to keep of this blow they use the word they corrupt the meaning For 1. Permission is an act of God's consequent and judiciary will by which he punisheth men for abusing their freedome and committing such sins day by day as they might have avoided and to which he proceedeth lento gradu slowly and unwillingly as we may see Psal 81. 11. 12. Israel would none of me so I gave them up c. Ezeh 18. 39. Goe and serve every one his Idoll seeing ye will not obey me c. Rom 1. 21. 24. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God therefore God gave them up unto their hearts lusts to vile affections and to a Reprobate mind Rev. 22. 11. He that is unjust let him be unjust still In these places and many more we may see that persons left to themselves are sinners only and not all sinners but the obstinate and willfull which will by noe meanes be reclaimed But the permission which they meane is an act of God's antecedent will exercised about innocent men lying under no guilt at all in God's eternall consideration 2. Permission about whomsoever it is exercised obstinate sinners or men considered without sinne is no more then a not hindring of them from falling that are able to stand supposeth a possibility of sinning or not sinning in the parties permitted but with them it is a withdrawing or withholding of grace needfull for the avoiding of sin and so includeth an absolute necessitie of sinning For from the withdrawing of such grace sin must needs follow as the fall of Dagon's house followed Sampson's plucking away the Pillars that were necessary for the upholding of it Maccovius in two disputations expounding this word Permission circumscribes it within two acts The first of which is a Substraction of Divine assistance necessary to the preventing of sinne And having proved it by two arguments that none may thinke he is alone in this he saith that he is compassed about with a cloud of witnesses and produceth two The first of them is our reverend and learned Whitaker some of whose words alleadged by him are these Permission of sinne is a privation of the aid which being present sinne would have been hindred The second is Pareus for saying that that helpe which God withdrew from Adam being withdrawen Adam could not soe use his endowments as to persevere And this doctrine saith he is defended by our men as it appeareth out of Pareus lib de grat primi hominis c. 4 p. 46. Their permission therefore of sinne being a substraction of necessary grace is equivalent to an actuall effectuall procuring and working of it For Causa deficiens in necessariis est eficiens a deficient cause in things necessary is truely efficient and so is but a mere fig-leafe to cover the foulenesse of their opinion Here we have a very demure discourse proceeding in a positive manner proceeding from one that takes upon him to
but the thing willed by him is good by the confession of Bellarmine even then when he is opposing us in this very argument Malum fieri Deo permittente bonum est it is good that evill should come to passe by God's permission And it was avouched by Austin many hundred yeares before Bellarmine was borne And he professeth that God would never have suffered sinne to have entered into the world had he not knowne that it appertained to his almighty goodnesse rather to work good out of evill then not at all to suffer evill Compare the judgment of Austin with the judgment of this Authour and consider whether they differ not as much as light and darknesse And what wisedome were it for God to permit sinne when it is in his power to hinder it as this Authour acknowledgeth in the sixt Section if it be a greater evill and that to God as it appeares by his expression of it Laesio divinae majestatis the hurt of the Divine majesty then the good that can come thereby can be So that the crucifying of Christ was greater in the kind of evil then the redemption of the world that came thereby was in the kind of good No man of common discretion will permit ought if it lye in his power to hinder it to his own disadvantage unlesse he can make thereby not only an equall advantage but a greater But let us farther consider the superficiary speculation of this Divine more becomming children in the Church of God then a grave and learned Divine Sinne he saith is laesio Divinae majestatis the wronging of the Divine majesty but in what sense I pray Is God any thing the worse for any man's disobedience and transgression of God's law Surely like as he is no way advantaged by our obedience so is he as little disadvantaged by our disobedience Yet I affect not to carry that I deliver by the authority of mine own bare word which is this Authours course most usually I represent Scripture for it If thou sinnest what doest thou against him yea when thy sins are many what doest thou unto him If thou be righteous what givest thou him or what receiveth he at thy hands Thy wickednesse may hurt a man as thou art and thy rightousnesse may profit a Son of man And in reason looke of what nature the benefit is that redounds from the creature unto God of the like nature is the detrement Now God by making the world acquires no internall perfectiō unto himselfe but only makes his glorious nature known and accordingly if the world should have an end this manifestation should cease but his glorious nature should still continue the same And as he manifests his glory by the world so some creatures he hath made intelligent fit to take notice of his glory and accordingly requires at their hands they should acknowledge it and that not in word only but by their dutifull obedience and that for the farther manifestation of his glory to their good and wonderfull happinesse if they obey and their extream sorrow and misery if they continue rebellious against him So that whereas the end of all God's actions being but the manifestatiō of his glory he doth not loose so much as this by the sins of men For he can glorifie himselfe in their just destruction Nay he can manifest his glory another way namely both the glory of his mercy in pardoning their contempt of his majesty done unto him which men so proud many times they are can hardly doe but in such a case prove implacable Likewise of his grace in curing it as also his power and wisedome in procuring a strange satisfaction to be made for it in a wonderfull manner and that by his own blood That so way may be made for the manifestation of his not royall only but Divine magnificence in bestowing the kingdome of heaven upon them So farre is he from being any way hurt by the sins of men in any true reall account And accordingly as he permits sins dayly so he offers his free grace dayly for the pardon of them and to this tended the dayly sacrifice among the Jewes of a lamb every morning and a lambe every evening But why then is sinne said to be laesio Divinae majestatis I answer this is to be understood not of any hurt done to his majesty in it selfe but as in the minds of men who hereby manifest their contempt of the divine majesty And they that doe contemne him would put him out of his throne if they could wish that there were no God the foole would faine bring his heart about to thinke so But though earthly Kings may be dethroned sometimes have been yet he that sitteth in heaven laughs all them to scorne that rise up against him And bids the potsheard strive with his follow potsheards not with his maker Who will set the thornes briars against me in battells I would goe through them burne them together For God is a consuming fire It is true we must neither do evill that good may cōe thereof nor permit it neither if itlye in our power to hinder it God neither will doe any iniquity nor cā doe but yet is lawfull for him to permit evill that good may come thereof Yea will or decree that evill shall come to passe by his permission as I have proved at large in a digression to this purpose therewithall discovered the Sophisticall arguments of Aquinas Durandus to the contrary not to speak of Valentianus not one part of all which large digressiō do I find āswered by this Author I have often alleadged pregnant passages of Scripture to this purpose Arminius confesseth expresly that God would have Ahab to fill up the measure of his sin which could not be done but by adding sin unto sin Yet this is made the object of God's by Arminius This will of God to have sinne come to passe by his permission is effectuall For whensoever God permits it it comes to passe as both Arminius and Vorstius acknowledge not Piscator only And amongst Papists Navarettus Alvarez as before I have shewed Yet God hath no efficiencie in the sinne but only in the act whereunto sinfulnesse adheres and the saying of Austin is well knowne Non aliquid fit nisi omnipotens fieri velit Not any thing comes to passe but that which God will have come to passe And the eleaventh Article of Ireland is most expresse for this I am driven to repeat the same things often this Authours frequent Tautologies urge me thereunto 2. Though the members be not opposite it matters not it is sufficient they are disparate the purpose of it being to shew not that God doth not will sin but only to shew under what notion he willeth it Yet it is false and absurd to say that sinne is a meanes of punishment For to him it belongs to worke the meanes who intends the end but sinne
the parts of it selfe 1. To the matter whereunto it is applyed For it is proposed in such a case as men could not obtaine a certaine incorporation though they much desired it Now such a thing is not incident to Reprobates namely that they cannot believe though they would For had they a will to believe undoubtedly that would be accepted of God Then 2 it is incongruous to the parts of the Simile it selfe For incorporation only is precluded unto Germans by the unrepealable law he feignes without common understanding For undoubtedly all lawes of men are repealable by the same authority whereby they are made And afterwards the condition of obtaining certaine bountifull gratuities by vertue of the foresaid incorporation is proposed most undecently not of their being incorporated into that society but of their will to be incorporated Now it is apparent that by the case feigned their incorporation only is precluded unto them not their will to be incorporated In the accommodation he saith God hath made a decree by our doctrin that such men shall never believe Now what one of our Divines can be produce to justifie this We say God hath decreed not to give them grace to work them unto faith but to leave them unto themselves And is not this Authour of the same opinion Nay doth he not extend it farther then we doe even to the Elect as well as Reprobates We say not so but that his elect he doth not leave unto themselves to worke out their faith if they can but workes them by his grace and holy Spirit thereunto Himselfe seemes to be conscious of the falshood of this his imputation dealing upon the point of God's justice Sub-sect 2. For having there proposed three causes why Reprobates cannot justly be bound to believe The second of them was this in M. Hord's discourse Because it is impossible that they should believe because God hath decreed they shall have no power to believe till their dying day This reason is changed in this Authour 's refining of that discourse as indeed all these reasons are changed by him more or lesse without replying upon ought that I have answered thereunto but only putting out or putting in at his pleasure to cast a shew that the former discourse of M. Hord's is not answered such is his subdolous cariage to undermine that truth which he is not able to oppose in a faire manner with any sound reason least of all by evidence of Scripture that flying in his face at every turne and therefore his best wisdome is to shut his eyes against it And here he sayth not in representing his second reason that God hath decreed they shall have no power to believe to their dying day but thus rather Because it is not God's unfeigned will they shall believe But now againe in this supplement of his he returnes to the first and saith that by our doctrine God hath made a decree that such men shall never believe Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo But I confesse it is an honour to God's truth that it cannot be opposed but in so vile a manner Yet I have already shewed that we deny not unto reprobates a power to believe if they will We deny not the ministery of the word unto them exhorting them to believe We deny not but that whosoever hath a will to believe or doth believe God must necessarily concurre to the producing of that will and that act of his All this we grant which is the uttermost whereunto this Authour comes but over and above we say that God doth not only give his elect a power to believe if they will and perswade them to believe but that also he works them to believe and not only concurres with them in producing gracious acts but makes them to concurre with him also this is the grace and this alone that he denies to reprobates Pag. 85. Treating of the use and end of God's gifts the Authour hath an addition of some seven lines concerning the Lord's supper but nothing at all to purpose Pag. 87. Of the fift Section next following The passages out of the suffrages of our Brittain Divines in the Synod of Dort quoted by M. Hord here they are expressed namely that there are certaine internall workes preparing a man to justification which by the power of the word and Spirit are wrought in the hearts of men not yet justified such as are the knowledge of God's will and sense of sinne feare of punishment Now I have shewed that these our Brittish Divines goe much farther and yet in their fift Article and fourth position they professe of all such as are none of Gods Elect that it is manifest they never really and truly attaine that change and renovation of the mind and affections which accompanieth justification nay nor that which doth immediately prepare and dispose unto justification And therefore the preparation that this Authour speaks of as out of them must needs be a remote preparation And withall they adde that They never seriously repent they are never affected with hearty sorrow for offending God for sinning neither doe they come to any humble contrition of heart nor conceive a firme resolution not to offend any more Now let every sober person judge whether God proceeding no farther with them then this can be said to intend their conversion and salvation The other position of theirs is this Those whom God by his word and Spirit affecteth after this manner those he truly and seriously calleth and inviteth unto conversion I make no question but whom God calleth he calleth seriously and whom he inviteth unto conversion that is as I take it unto repentance he inviteth truly seriously thereunto But that God intendeth either their conversion or salvation I utterly deny For did he intend it undoubtedly he would worke it For certainly this is in his power Faith is his gift and repentance is his gift and perseverance in both is his gift And unlesse he gives faith and repentance we hold it impossible that any man should believe or repent And what a monster is it in Divinity to maintaine that God's intentions are frustrated which cannot be maintained without denying God's omnipotency For no man's intentions are frustrated but because it lyeth not in his power to bring to passe the things intended by him Pag. 88. In the next section following is inserted a sentence of Prosper which no man denies It is this They that have despised God's inviting will shall feele his revenging will but it is rightly to be understood namely of despising his inviting will all along and finally Otherwise if they break of their contempt by repentance there is mercy enough in store with God to pardon them and his revengefull hand shall not be felt by them Pag. 89. And seventh section concerning the use and end of God's gifts divers passages of our Divines are mentioned shewing the end of God's providence in affording his word unto reprobates As first
illud obtinendum quia si adhiberet aliquod medium jam vellet illud voluntate efficaci at qui orat adhibet aliquod medium ad obtinendum nempe ipsam orationem ergo qui orat non vult voluntate inefficaci sed tantum efficaci Although in Christ there ought to be distinguished a two-fold will one effectuall another uneffectuall yet notwithstanding prayer ought not in the like manner to be distinguished for there are not two sorts or kinds of Prayer one proceeding from an effectuall the other from an uneffectuall will for prayer if it be truly prayer alwaies proceedeth from an absolute and effectuall and never from an uneffectuall will of the party praying For he that petitioneth for the doing of any thing doth effectually desire it and therefore useth Prayer as a meanes for the obtaining of that which he requests Hence it is wont to be said that Prayer is in its own nature usefull or profitable for obtaining or procuring Whence I conclude thus He who willeth any thing with an uneffectuall will applyeth or useth no meanes for the procurement thereof because if he should make use of any meanes to procure it he should will it with an effectuall will but he who prayeth makes use of a meanes for the obtaining of what he Praye's for to wit Prayer it selfe therefore he who Prayeth willeth that he prayes for only with an effectuall and not with an uneffectuall will He goes on in the confirmation of this opinion Haec sententia est probabilior pro quâ nota aliud esse orare aliud simplex seu inefficax desiderium proponere quod facile in nobis ostendi explicari potest Nam nostra oratio debet esse conjuncta cum certâ spe seu fiduciâ consequendi id quod petimus Iacobi 1. 6. postulet autem in fide nihil haesitans Et Math. 21. 22. Omnia quaecunque petieritis in oratione credentes accipietis Quando autem proponimus seu manifestamus alteri simplex seu inefficax desiderium nostrum non facimus id cum certâ spe seu fiducia consequendi illud sed potius cum contrario affectu ut si dicam O mihi praeteritos referat si Jupiter annos This opinion is the more probable for the opening of which we must marke that it is one thing to pray another thing to propound a simple or uneffectuall desire which may easily be shewen and explained in our selves for our Prayer ought to be conjoyned with a certain hope or assurance of obtaining that which wee pray for Iam. 1. 6. Let him aske in faith nothing wavering or doubting Math. 21. 22. And all things whatsoever ye shall aske in prayer believing ye shall receive But when we propound or manifest a bare simple uneffectuall desire we doe not doe it with a certain confidence of obtaining what is so desired but rather with assurance of the contrary A seond testimony shall be taken out of Doctor Ames an acute and learned Protestant Coron art 5. c. 5. Juxta sententiam Arminii c. nulla propria est oratio quae non sit absoluta quae etiam sententia non est temerè damnanda cum inniti videatur rationibus non contemnendis praesertim illà quae deducitur ab orationis natura Oratio enim est submissa repraesentatio voluntatis nostrae apud Deum ut ab ipso perficiatur Explicatio velleitatis quâ quid vellemus si aliud non obsisteret non est oratio proprie dicta jam vero nihil volumus proprie quod non absolute volumus atque adeo nil petimus quod non absolute petimus Quamvis in dispositione precantium conditionis ratio virtualiter saepe contineatur Petimus quidem nonnunquam ut unum fiat si alterum contingat cujus quidem consequentis rei futuritio ut conditionata sit rogamus Sed ipsa tamen petitio est absoluta quoniam absolute petimus ut posito uno ponatur alterum According to the opinion of Arminius there is no proper prayer but what is absolute which opinion is not rashly to be condemned seeing it seems to be grounded upon considerable reasons especially that which is drawn from the nature of prayer for prayer is a submisse and lowly representation of our wills before God to the end it may be performed by him The unfolding of a velleity whereby we would will a thing if something did not hinder is not prayer properly so called But now we will nothing properly which we doe not absolutely will and therefore we pray for nothing properly which we doe not absolutely petition for although the nature of a condition be often virtually contained in the disposition of the parties praying who may be ready to submit their wills unto Gods Indeed we sometimes pray that one thing may be done if another thing come to passe and here we pray that the futurition of the following thing be conditionall but the prayer it selfe is absolute because we pray absolutely that one thing doe exist upon the positure or existence of another If this which these men say be true then Christ prayed for the justification of all his crucifiers as a private man only improperly and not in the proper and strict acception of Prayer for which improper notion of the word we have warrant from Scripture when Christ said Father if it be possible let this cup passe from me Non oravit saith Becanus sed simplex naturae desiderium proposuit He did not pray but propound the simple bare and naked desire of his nature but though this his expression of his naturall desire and love of life be not a prayer in regard of either a criticall or Phylosophicall use of the Word yet you see t is agreeable enough unto the language of the holy Ghost in scripture to inlarge the signification of the Word so farre as to apply it thereunto for Mathew saies expresly that he prayed Math. 26. 39 42. But here for mine owne part I must freely professe that I better like Aquinas his interpretation of the place that Christ prayed not for all his Crucifyers but only for those of them that were predestinate unto the obtaining of eternall life by and through him And of this prayer what a fruitfull and plentifull Harvest he reaped you may read in the 2 3 and 4. Chapters of the History of the Acts of the Apostles There you shall read that the Lord daily added to the Church such as should be saved at one time three Thousand and another time five thousand of whom a great and considerable number denyed the Holy one and the just and desired a murtherer to be granted to them and crucified and killed the Prince of life Acts 2. 36. Acts 3. 14 15. Rivet on Psal 2. quotes a testimony of Austin favouring this glosse videbat quosdam suos inter multos alienos illis jam petebat veniam a quibus accipiebat injuriam In making good this to be the sense and meaning of the place