to the work of Redemption his notions are too floridly or ambiguously delivered for me to undertake with confidence to unriddle But this seemeth the summ 1. That God is the fountain of Being by Emanation as the Sun of light And that his eternal Wisdom is Jesus Christ in the first instant or nature 2. That the first â—reature that he made or emaneth from him is a perfect universal mind the platform of all the rest of the Creation such as the old Philosophers called the soul of the world or an universal Intelligence And that this is Jesus Christ in his second nature and notion which Arius knew but did ill deny his divine nature 3. That this Universal Spirit or Mind maketh all the world besides and is in them all And so the whole Creation else was Christs first shadowy Image or body 4. That the Angels are the noblest parts of this and that the Deity first and Christs superangelical nature next is one in them all and they one with him as the beams with the Sun and as the lower part of the Sun-beams with the parts next the Sun 5. That the soul of man is the next part of Christs shadowy Image into which he descended 6. And so into all Bodies 7. And as into a special Branch into that Body born of the Virgin Mary 8. And in that and in other Bodies he dyeth and descendeth to his lowest state and 9. Then as the Sun doth rise again and bring all back to the state of pure spirituality in his superangelical nature whence all sprang And this is their Redemption which is most floridly set forth § 13. This doctrine seemeth to reconcile Philosophy or Gentilism and Christianity For what is it almost but names that are left in difference That which a Philosopher will call an universal Intelligence or soul of the world he calleth Christ And if such a soul there be no one will deny but that it floweth into all particular souls and bodies and is united to them or is to individuals as the soul in the head to the soul in the hand and foot § 14. And if I did believe that sin death hell and holiness life Glory are in the world but as Winter and Summer Night and Day and as Origen that the wicked are but in a state of Revolution and shall come about again into a state of hope or as he here seemeth that their sin and misery is but like the dying of a flower in the fall that shall in the Spring again be as before or rather another in its stead and that it is but the retiring of Christ from the Creature as the spirit of the Tree in Autumn from the Leaves I should then be ready to receive his Necessitating Predetermination to sin and fit all the rest of my opinions hereunto § 15. There is among many others one Joh. Jessenius à Jessen Doctor Eques Hungarus who in a Tract de Anima Corpore Universi hath written much to the like purpose save as being a Peripatetick he differeth from the Platonists viz. The world is one Animal and hath one soul and body which all Creatures are parts of That Stars are Intellectuals or Angels and all intuitively know each others minds loving the good and hating the evil here and are our chief friends and Keepers That Death befalleth only us lower Creatures Mors continua singulis nulli tamen aeterna Nam post longissimum temporis excursum quem Plato triginta insuper aliquot annorum millibus determinare ausus est removebitur factâ iterum aliquâ secundùm naturam solutione redintegratione And the Intellectus Agens he describeth as Mr. Sterry doth Christ in his second or middle nature pag. 165. Intellectum agentem substantia primae atque Dei fulgorem esse Non accidens sed substantiam Intelligeâ—tem quaeprimò propriéque Intellectus dicitur agens Primae substantiae adhaerens ab ea excurrens indivisus indivisibilis non aliter ac Lumen à Lucido emanat and so in many other particulars § 16. To all this my short time will allow me to give you but these short observations following 1. The doctrine of Redemption is so much of meer supernatural Revelation as that we must not easily receive that concerning it which is not in the Scriptures And where Christs person hath such a description in Scripture as he giveth I am not satisfied e. g. in pag. 232. where he thus saith The Word made flesh is the whole Tree of Being Uncreated and Created the Root the Body with all the Branches putting forth themselves into one little top branch now withering that through its death they may renew all to a fresh and flourishing spring I am loth to say that the Universe is Christ that his Divinity is the soul and the world his body and every Man and Beast and substance part of it and that he dyeth in all that dye and that his body born of the Virgin Mary was but one top branch of the Tree which Christ thus animateth and so that all other bodies are as truly personally united to the Word as that § 17. I will not deny that the Opinion of a Threefold nature in Christ looketh very plausibly viz. that the Divine eternal word the first nature produced and united it self to the prime created superangelical Mind the second nature and that this second nature in the fulness of time produced and united it self to the humane third nature 1. There are many texts which seem to countenance it 2. It seemeth to give Christ the greatest honour as being the most excellent of all Gods Creatures which is not so easily believed of him as Man 3. It seemeth to expound those texts of the Old Testament which mention such appearances of God to Adam Abraham and others which many of the Ancients say was Christ And it seemeth to some more probable that some pre-existent created nature should assume a body than the Divine nature only and immediately 4. And it smileth on us as an opinion likely to reduce and reconcile the Arians once too great a part of the Christian World as called Christians as not only Philostorgius and Saudius shew but also Petavius de Trinit who holding the prime-created super-angelical nature and denying the Divine it 's like would the more easily be brought to acknowledge the Union of the Divine Nature with the super-angelical if the super-angelical it self were first granted them For they might the sooner be convinced that the eternal wisdom or word which made that first creature was intimately united to it I know some pious worthy persons who upon such reasons incline to this opinion of a threefold nature in Christ Though some of them think that this second nature was the humane soul assuming only a body and others that it assumed both soul and body I am not forward to take men for unsufferable Hereticks that differ from me or hold that which seemeth to me hard and
saith is not willed by the sinner himself § 33. So far as God Causeth not sin he willeth it not and they that say that he Loveth and Willeth the existence of it as a means to his glory abuse Gods Moliness and are confuted before Par. 1. § 34. How God overruleth sinners and the effects of sin and procureth his own ends not by the Means or Causality but Occasion of it I have so largely there opened that I must refer the Reader thither SECT XX. How far God and how far Man himself is the Cause of Hell and other punishments THough somewhat be said of this in the Conclusion of the second Jo. Major in 4. sent d. 50. fol. 289. q. 1. inquit concl 3. Sive actus damnatorum dicantur mali culpâ— vel peccata non patientur aliquam poenam inflictam ratione illorum actuum Quia non sunt in statu merendi demerendi sed addit Signanter de poena inflicta loquor quae à culpa distinguitur ejus est reordinativa per cruciatum De poena enim acta non est possibile dare culpam quin suam poenam habeat annexam eo modo quo idem potest habere se Ipsa scilicet peccandi continuatio est poenae miseriae continuatio Nec mihi probabile videtur quod Demerendi ratio cessat apud inferos Praemium quidem mereri non possunt At quare non Poenam commereri sunt putandi Nonne adhuc sunt subditi etiam ipsi daemones sub quadam Lege ideâ—que peccandi adhuc capaces nonne omne peccatum suâ naturâ meretur poenam Ipsius scilicet Joh. Majoris ibid. Conclus 1. Est Damnati habent multos malos actus in inferno libere An opâ—abilius sit damnà tum esse an non esse vide quae ibidem sequuntur ubi concludit Itaque tenco si daretur viro optio vel non esse vel esse in perpetua flamma quod licitè posset vel alterutrum eligendum est non esse Nam minus malum habet rationem boni See Aureolus in 2. d. 31. a. 2. pag. 301. shewing ten wayes how one sin causeth another and so multiplyeth and continueth it self in the wicked Part I think meet to say more here because I find that the not understanding it doth tempt many to unbelief and others to hard repining disaffected atheistical thoughts of God § 1. Again here consider that God made man such as he is in Nature before either Laws or sins or punishments had any being so that if you can but forgive God for making you men that is Rational Free-Agents you can have no fair pretence of quarrel with him As will appear by these considerations following § 2. Mans Body and sensitive soul are of such a nature as that things inconvenient will be his pain He that will take poison shall be griped and tormented by it and he that will eat unwholsome meat or will surfeit shall be sick and he that will cherish diseases by sloth or excesses or abuses of nature will have the pain of them And he that will wound himself or break his bones will be his own afflicter And he that cuts his throat or hangeth himself must dye And all this without any doing of God besides the making him a man and continuing such a nature under his Government in and with the world § 3. Not only positive hurting but omissions will bring mens bodies unto pain and death As not eating not exercising not keeping warm c. And consequently such a life of prodigality or sloth as tendeth to such wants § 4. The inward senses Imagination and Passions are so constituted as that their inconveniences will be a pain and torment as well as the inconveniences of the outward senses 1. Cares and Melancholy thoughts are distracting 2. Desires breed such care and are themselves like a thirst or hunger to the soul 3. Fears are tormenting 4. Sorrows if deep and long are as a living death 5. Anger is a vexatious feaver of the mind And revengeful malice and envy do prolong it 6. Despair anticipateth eternity of misery c. 7. And Love it self how pleasing soever at first is the strength of them all § 5. The superiour faculties as they are more noble are capable of greater misery and their corruption and disorder is the worst To have an ignorant erring mind that taketh evil for good and good for evil To have a carnal malignant wicked obstinate froward Will and sinful Affections and by these to have mens actions misguided and so the sensitive soul it self brought into the foresaid misery through bad government is a misery to man in the Nature and immediate effects of the thing § 6. Man liveth among multitudes of fellow Creatures in the world which will all be tormentors of him if he will make them such As a post will hurt him if he knock his head to it The fire will burn him if he touch his flesh with it The water will drown him if he will leap into it over-head The Sun will scorch him the frost will pain him if he expose himself to them A Lyon or Mastiff will tear him if he avoid them not His neighbours will hurt him likely if he hurt them and cross their interest Men in power will hurt him if he offend them And all things will be to him as he behaveth himself to them § 7. All this being Natural let us now consider what sin doth to the sinner here and you will find that almost all his calamity consisteth in his very sin it self and the natural effects of it But yet it is sin as mans and it is punishment as from God when yet God is no Cause of the sin § 8. This is plain if you consider that Gods Act by which he maketh sin a Punishment was Before the sin though the Relation of a Punishment come after the relation of sin Here are two Agents 1. God making Nature and a Law therein 2. Man disordering his actions by transgressing 3. Hence Immediately followeth Guilt or the form of sin 4. And with it even in the change or after it the natural pain of loss or hurt 5. And this is Related to man as a punishment for the sin in the last place For instance God made man and God made meat wine and poyson God telleth Man in Nature I have made thee such a Creature as that excess of Meat will make thee sick excess of Wine will make thee mad and Poyson will torment and kill thee I have given thee self-love and command thee that thou avoid all these and I will not deny thee necessary help But if thou wilt not it will be thy pain which I will that thou suffer for and by thy sin I need not further apply it here the application is obvious § 9. All this I speak only of natural punishments which by the Law of nature follow sin what is supernatural is after to be considered §
same help that is now sufficient to salvation as then 2. Consider the great difference between perfect Innocency and some one commanded act And 3. Consider that the helps afforded by grace are very great and that Habitual Grace doth in some measure heal lapsed nature or else what is it He that is Habitually Prompt to Love and duty hath some cure and some ability For to be prompt is more than to be able And therefore it is an incredible thing and a reproach of habitual grace that Adam was more able to live and persevere without any sinful thought word or deed than a Holy soul is to think one good thought or speak one good word or restrain one blasphemy or other sin Therefore it is as credible that Christs repairing habitual Grace enableth godly men and his commoneâ— grace common men to think or do somewhat better than they do as that Angels and Adam had no other grace and could without other live without any sin Therefore I take Jansenius to do well in opening Original pravity and the power of Gods grace and his special intent to save his chosen But I think he so earnestly studied for that side alone that he injuriously overlooketh the whole frame of sapiential Government and the common grace which is presupposed to the special and greatly wrongeth Christ and his grace by denying him to give to men in common that which our experience assureth us they possess Ad X. When he maketh uneffectual Velleities to be Christs unresistible grace either he thinketh that men are saved with such only or not for he speaketh not his mind plainly in that that I can find If yea then he abaseth the grace of Christ to think that many are saved by it that love a Whore or any sin much better than God and Grace and Glory If not as I think he held then he holdeth that most that have the effectual grace of Christ are damned and had no possibility properly of escape And why doth he make so harsh a thing of mens asserting a sufficiency of some uneffectual grace and say to what purpose is it and yet assert that to most men the grace of Christ had not so much as any sufficiency to save them nor put them into any true possibility of life Ad XI I. It seemeth to me a contradiction to say as in the second branch of his distinction that Homo potest Velle and yet that aliud adhuc adjutorium necessarium est ut de facto velit For necessarium est sine quo res esse non potest Therefore the non potest is present wherever the necessarium is wanting But if they talk only of a passive or obediential power and say Man can believe because God can make him believe and so denominate man Able to do that which they mean God is able to make him do this is but to play with words II. His saying that now there is no sufficient grace is before disproved and by him not proved That it is the same with that of the state of Innocency is vainly said It is the same in general as man is the same and Intellect and will the same But to be able to live without sin and to be able to forbear one sin or to hear a Sermon or do one commanded act are not the same And to hold none but this with Pelagius is not all one as to hold this with a more special grace And that it is pernicious to the lapsed is rashly said For in the reprobate it doth them no harm but good and in the elect it tendeth to higher grace And he mistaketh in saying that it supposeth nature sound For if it were proved that nature without grace hath no good inclination yet why may not unsound nature receive grace ad posse Is not that grace some cure of its unsoundness and tends to more III. But as to his saying that the more men have of it the more miserable they are and the more damnable and that no man ever used sufficient grace or will do I answer 1. The good man it seemeth forgot that all the same may be said as truly of his special Grace both in them that come short of faith and Justification and them that apostatize from it as he holdeth many do 2. But it is not true that having it maketh them damnable any more than having life health and riches but it 's the abusing it 3. That never any used sufficient grace by his leave and the School-mens is unproved viz. that no man since the fall ever did any good or forbore any evil obediently by such grace as left him able to have done otherwise in the instant before the act or as inferred not his volition as necessary exviillius causae 4. And that all that which cometh short of the effect is none of the Grace of Christ is unproved unless he mean only the adequate immediate effect The Law doth make Duty and so hath its effect And Gods motions make their various Impressions on the soul and so have their effect But whether a Godly mans will could not by that same motion have produced a better effect in his will than was produced by it he must better prove Ad XII I. Whereas Paul opposeth the Law of works and the Grace of Christ he opposeth or too far distinguisheth the Law of Christ and the Graâ—e of Christ Just as Sir H. V. in his Meditations He taketh all spoken and written precepts or Laws to be the Law which is distinguished from Grace which is meer Alteration of the soul But this is confusion and subverteth true Theologie For the Law is the instrument of signifying Gods mind and the Spirit worketh with and by it on our minds And both go together both before the fall and under Christ And both are Grace now even as body and soul are one man The Gospel is oft called Grace in the New Testament It 's true that a Law meerly as a Law may be distinguished from the Spirits operations on the soul And so Paul and Augustine oft shew that the Jewish Law as a Law could not make men righteous without grace And we deny not but the Law of Christ meerly as a Law is insufficient without the Spiritâ— Grace But to conclude hence that this is the difference between the Old â—ovenant and the New and the Righteousness of each of them of men under them that one is obedience to a written Law and the other is the effect of the Spirit is not sound For under each Covenant there was both Law and Spirit though with difference Adam had Grace as Jansenius confusseth And the Fathers before the Flood had Law and Spirit And the Godly â—ews had Law and Spirit And all Christians are subject to Christ their King and obey his Laws though by the Grace of his Spirit And it is not two Righteousnesses that relate to Law and Spirit but one as an effect of two concauses The
hath oft times disowned Popery among us and would make that less odious which God by wonders hath oft called us to abhorr P. You still mistake It is only your strengthening them or sinning against God by false and ignorant accusations and calumniating wiser men as favouring them that I speak against God hath oft marvellously preserved us from their attempts But if you will use untruths against them they will repay you two for one and with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you Little know you how odious they render us by lyes abroad where they are believed and I would have no honest man to imitate them I will instance to you in a few of their Stories Saith Thom. Waldensis a Learned man against Wickliffe citante Tympio pag. 104. I will tell you a Story which I saw with my own eyes in the Cathedral of St. Paul in London where Tho. Arundel a Venerable Prelate of happy memory a Son and Brother of Earls the Bishop of Norwich and others assisting him sitting in judgement proposed some questions of the Eucharist to a certain Taylor of Worcestershire taken in Heresie and when he could not be moved and would call the most Sacred Host nothing but Blessed Bread at last being commanded to do reverence to the Host he blasphemously answered A Spider is worthier of Reverence And presently a great and horrid Spider descending from the top of the room by his thread made directly to the Blasphemers mouth and laboured to get in while he spake The Illustrious Prince Thomas Duke of Oxford then Chancellor of the Kingdom saw the prodigie which so confirmed them of Gods revenge that they burnt the man Saith the same Tympius Theatr. p. 148. Oecolampadius an Apostate married Monk an 1528. was strangled by the Devil in Basil as Luther reporteth in his Book of the private Mass a death worthy his life Luther writeth that he had proved it explor atissimum esse that Oecolampadius was killed by the fiery weapons of the Devil Carolostadius an 1530. strangled by the Calvinian God went quickly to Hell as Erasmus Albertus reporteth John Calvin was consumed of the lowsie disease the Worms eating through all his body with blaspheming words cursed God and called on the Devil and committed his soul to him an 1567. saith Bolsec in vit Calv. c. 22. Beza writeth that Calvin tormented four years miserably at last eaten with swarming Lice dyed unhappily and filthily Pag. 154. Luther having supped daintily and gone merry to bed was strangled in the night Th. Bozius de sig Eccl. l. 23. sig 96. â— 3. saith that he was certified by a Boy that served Luther and turned to them that Luther hang'd himself but they swore all the house to conceal it Ibid. id They say saith Bozius that when Bucer was dying a horrid Devil stood by and almost frightned all present to death of whom he Bucer was stricken that he might carry away his soul for being pull'd out of the bed his bowels being scattered all about the Bed-chamber and he killed with many torments did expire How like you such work as this such horrid lyes of things fully known Should not the detestation of them make us afraid of coming near them by any imitation and to take heed what we believe or say of others Abundance more such Stories Miracles and Progidies you may find in Tympius and Caesarius besides many others Read but those two Books and you will see who be the great pretenders to Prodigies and Miracles and readiest to proclaim Gods Judgements on others when they that think they do it for the honour of God alas are unawares moved to it by the interest of that Cause and Party which is so much their own as that it may be called Their own Interest S. Well for all this I take it to be Gods Mercy to possess the unlearned Professors themselves with so great a zeal against all that savoureth of Popery so that were it not for them the Ministers themselves would comply further than they do But when they see that it is the sensus communis fidelium and they must lose all the good people if they comply it holds them in Many that cannot dispute against Popish errors and practices can hate them P. No doubt but the habit of Divine Love doth hold many good Christians much faster to God and the certain Essentials of Christianity and Piety than the strongest disputing Reason would do without it But if you will say the same of doubtful disputations you will much mistake In many such things the stricter professors go with the stream of their party and follow them that carry it for the reputation of most godliness or those leaders or friends that have most advantage on them And do they not use the very same argument as you in different Countreys for different and contrary causes In Germany the Communis sensus fideliuâ—â— is one thing and in England another and in France another in such matters Yea in the same Countrey in several times I can remember since among the Religious stricter party it was abominable to wear long hair even to cover the ears and now these twenty years they many of them exceed those that then were accounted Ruffians It was then a crime with them to take Tobacco and now it is none and thus custome changes the matter with them And now in some Congregations they will not sing Psalms in others they will not read the Scripture In others these can be endured but not the use of the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue In others that much but no Forms of Prayer of mans devising In others the Ministers own self-imposed Form but none imposed by Superiours In one Congregation they are commonly for Universal Redemption and Free-will and in another commonly against it And why then would you perswade us that in such things as these the common sense of the faithful goeth all one way when they usually are carryed down the stream of pious reputation where they live And indeed you have small reason to be glad that Ministers have the temptation of popular esteem or censure to conflict with or that so many are conquered by it Is it a lovely thing to hear silly women ever learning or rather hearing but never coming to a competent knowledge of such matters to cant out against their Teachers Antichristian and Popery upon words or actions not understood which suit not with their vain conceits S. It is one of the artifices of the Papists which you have learned when they would draw men to set light by the purity of Religion and the Worship of God to cry up Love and Concord and Peace instead of it and so to tye all mens tongues and hands from resisting their wicked Church-pollutions by the fear of Schism or being uncharitable to the polluters And so you will draw men to an indifferency in Religion on pretence of Peace and Charity P. I am certain that
will be an universal Concord in very MANY or UNCERTAIN UNNECESSARY things And O that I could write it on all mens hearts or doors at least that The Christian world will never have Concord but in a FEW CERTAIN NECESSARY things Therefore Paul said to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 11. 2 3. I am jealous of you with Godly jealousie For I have espoused you to one husband c. But I fear lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled Eve though his subtilty so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in or towards Christ O mark these words all ye contentious Church TYRANTS DOGMATISTS and SUPERSTITIOUS ones Read and study them well God laid down the terms of the Churches Concord in seven Unities 1. One Body or Church Catholick 2. One Spirit or Holy Ghost as the soul of that Church 3. One Hope or Heavenly felicity hoped for 4. One Lord of the Church our Head and Saviour 5. One Faith or Creed or Symbol of our belief and Belief thereof 6. One Baptismal Covenant 7. And one God and Father of us all who is above all through all and in us all Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. And it is the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace that on these terms we are charged to keep v. 2 3. with all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love But now cometh the Serpent note 1. The author and by subtilty 2. Note the means even as he beguiled Eve 3. Note the precedent which was by promising her more knowledge and exaltation to be as God and he corrupteth mens minds 4. Mark the effect though it is knowledge and advancement of mind that he promiseth and pretendeth Even by drawing them as to higher POWER KNOWLEDGE or HOLINESS from the Christian simplicity 5. Mark what the Corruption of Religion is And what is this Christian SIMPLICITY which they forsake and how are they thus Corrupted from it I. The Church TYRANT departeth from the SIMPLICITY of Church Government first and will not hear Christs vehement charge Luk. 22. With you it shall not be so He cannot understand such Texts because he would not Hence how unlike is the Secular-Papal and Patriarchal state to the Ministry appointed and described by Christ To reduce them to that they think is to be enemies to the Church And do they not then take Christ for their Capital enemy because they are enemies to humility mortification and the Cross Phil. â— 18. To cross bearing not to cross making The Papists think that Greg the seventh that took down Princes was the most glorious instrument of the Churches exaltation And by turning all to corporeal Glory they lose hearts and destroy the souls whom they profess to save And having first corrupted GOVERNMENT from the Primitive simplicity and made Princes their Lictors as Grotius speaks in that excellent Epistle newly translated by Mr. Barksdale they next corrupt DOCTRINE and WORSHIP consequently For TYRANTS must have their Wills in every thing and numerous and needless Laws and Canons must be made to shew their power and fulfil their wills that they may be Law-givers and a Rule to all the World And when they have made a seeming Necessity of doing things unnecessary then to plead the Necessity which they have made is the summ of all their arguments And they that are against strict and precise adhering to the Scriptures or observance of Gods own commands are yet so strict for obedience to their proud imperious wills that they perswade themselves and others that without it there can be no order no unity no peace but rebellion and confusion And so they cry up Obedience Obedience that their Idol wills may be bowed to by all without controul And when they are meer Usurpers and use no Power given them by God they yet get the advantage of making all odious that obey them not in the least and greatest matters by the names of schism unruliness or such like O say the Papal Usurpers The Church must be obeyed or there will be no order Disobedience in small matters is no small sin when they have set up an Idol power against Christ as if to disobey him whose Laws they make void by their Traditions and Usurpations were a lesser fault And when they have departed as far from the Christian simplicity in Doctrine Government and Worship as their voluminous Councils and Decretals and Missals differ from the ancient simple Christianity and have made as many snares and engines to divide and tear the Church of Christ as there are noxious that I say not Needless Laws Canons and Decrees imposed as necessary to peace and concord then no mens mouths are more opened against schism when they have unavoidably caused it yea are the greatest schismaticks And no men call so loud for Unity and Concord as they that have first made it a thing impossible Let none think that I am speaking against any true Church-Government or faithful Pastors But I appeal to the Consciences of these Papal Tyrants 1. Whether it would not be far easier for Christians to Agree in A FEW PLAIN and NECESSARY things of Christs own Institution than in a multitude of humane decrees and articles composed in words more lyable to Controversie Will not more subscribe to the Creed than to all the Councils 2. Have they not room enough to shew their Power and work enough to do in seeing to the execution of Christs own Universal Laws and preserving meer Order and Decency in undetermined circumstances that all may be done to edification 3. Doth not every needless Oath and Subscription by which they would tye men faster to themselves in controvertible cases plainly tend to undermine themselves and keep up still a conscientious party against them For while men have nothing to do but live quietly under a Government they will be glad of peace But when they are put to Subscribe Declare Covenant and Swear that all this is good or lawful or that they will never be against it it sets men unavoidably on the deepest studies of the case and so all the people are set on trying and judging of that which else they would never have meddled with For what honest man will say swear or promise he knoweth not what Even as some crafty Rebels would undermine Princes by drawing them to put the controverted parts of their Prerogative into the Subjects Oaths that so they may make all the people Students and Judges of the cause and unavoidably make factions and dissenters that else would have lived quietly if they might so do the Papal Clergie ruine themselves by such over-doing impositions I remember Lampridius tells us that Alexander Severus that great enemy of injustice was so severe that he would have made a Law to regulate mens Apparel But Ulpian changed his mind by telling him that Many Laws cause Divisions and make occasions of disobedience They cry out There will be no order if Ministers and people be
do Gods will and yet pray Let thy will be done are heard in that which is Gods will that the imitaters of the Devil be judged with the Devil For they that have despised Gods inviting will shall feel his revenging will SECT XXII The words of Fulgentius to the same sence 663. I Must crave of the Reader that he remember that my reciting the Judgement of these Fathers for the falling away and perishing of many that were in a state of Life is not at all as declaring my own judgement but Theirs none then that I read of thinking otherwise * * * Except Jovinian be truly accused by Hierome the brevity and obscurity of whose accusation and confutation leaveth us very uncertain what it was that Jovinian held But we are sure that the spirit oâ— uncharitableness and concention though in a good â—â—â—â— learnâ—d man had no â—â—all hand in the stigmâ—â—zing of him and Vigilantius as Hereticks I shall for the End sake be yet a little more â—edious in citing some of the sayings of Fulgentius Fulg. l. 1. de Verit. praedest cap. 6. To good men God giveth what good they have and keepeth it But to the wicked and ungodly God neither ever could prepare or give evil works which they should damnably serve nor did he ever put into them evil wills by which they should culpably will things unjust but he prepared for them the punishment of Hell that they might feel revenging justice in endless fire An evil will is not of God And therefore the just Judge doth punish it in men because the good Creator findeth not in it the order of his Creation And perseverance and contumacy in sin and pride because it is not of Gods giving is condemned by God revenging Et l. 1. ad Monim c. 26. He will punish in the wicked that they are bad which he gave not nor did he predestinate them to any iniquity and that they willed unjustly was none of his gift And because the persevering iniquity of an evil will ought not to remain unpunished he predestinated such to destruction because he prepared just punishment for them Observe that God predestinated wicked and ungodly men to just punishment not to any unjuâ—â— work to the penalty not to the fault to the punishment nâ—â— to the transgression to the destruction which the anger of a just judge requiteth sinners with not to that destruction or death by which the iniquity of sinners provoketh Gods wrath against them The Apostle calls them Vessels of wrath not Vessels of sin Cap. 27. The wicked are not predestinated to the first death of the soul but to the second death they are That which followeth the sentence of a just Judge not that which preceded in the evil concupiscence of the sinner Ibid. c. 23. It beseemeth believers to confess that the good and just God fore-knew indeed that men would sin for all things to come are known to him For they were not future if they were not in his fore-knowledge But not that he predestinated any to sin For if he predestinated man to any sin he would not punish man for sin For Gods predestination prepareth for men either the godly remission of their sins or the just punishment of them God therefore could never predestinate man to that which he had resolved both to forbid by his precept and to wash away by his mercy and punish by his justice God therefore predestinated to eternal punishment the wicked who he foreknew would persevere to the death in sin Wherein as his fore-knowledge of mans iniquity is not to be blamed so his predestinatioâ— of just revenge is to be praised That we may acknowledge that he predestinated not man to any sin whom he predestinated to be punished deservedly for sin And ad Monimum li. 1. pag. edit Basil 68. reciting Augustiâ—â—â— words he saith He taught that only pride was the cause of mans iniquity and that God predestinated not men to sin but to damnation and that they are not helped by God the cause is in themselves and not in God The same he reciteth again ex lib. 2. Aug. de baptis parvul that their wills be not helpt by grace the cause is in themselves and not in God The same he again repeateth pag. 69. 70 71 72. and that Augustine's mind was that good works God both fore-knew and predestinated But evil works that is sin he foreknew indeed but did not predestinate or decree For there is not Gods work but his judgement Therefore in sin Gods work is not because that sin should be done was not decreed by him But therefore there is his judgement because it is not left unrevenged that an evil man worketh without God working And ib. li. 1. pag. 15. That which is not in his work never was in predestination Therefore men are not predestinated to sin So p. 29. And p. 31. and forward And p. 29. No man justly sinneth though God justly permit him to sin For he is justly forsaken of God who forsaketh God And because man forsaking God sinneth God forsaking man keepeth justice 664. I am loth to weary the Reader with more Should I do the like by Augustines words it would be too wearisome His judgement is the very same as theirs I will only cite one passage out of him about mans Power to believe Tract 53. in Johan having shewed that God only foreknoweth mens sin and foretelleth it as the Jews but causeth it not he cometh to answer John 12. 39. They could not believe c. If they could not how was it their sin saying You hear the question brethren and see how deep it is But we answer as we can Why could they not believe If you ask me I quickly answer Because they would not For God foresaw their evil will and foretold it by the Prophet He blinded their eyes c. And I answer that their own wills deserved this also For God blindeth and hardeneth by forsaking and not helping which he may do by a judgement secret but not unjust This all religious piety ought to hold unshaken Far be it from us then to say that there is iniquity with God If he help he doth it mercifully if he help not he doth justly 665. By all this the Reader may see past all doubt that Augustine and his two disciples than whom none known to us in the whole world then went higher for Predestination and Grace did plainly take up with this that 1. GOD NEITHER CAUSED OR WILLED SIN no not ITS BEING or the forbidden ACT. 2. That OUR SIN was of OUR SELVES 3. That ALL GRACE and perserverance was OF GOD. 4. That ELECTION was ABSOLUTE of GOD's meer will and not upon his foreknowledge of any merits of mans 5. That God predestinated none to sin but predestinated men to Punishment ONLY ON THE FORESIGHT of their wilful sin 6. That he hardened men but by deserting them 7. That he never forsook them till they forsook him first
but so far yield to as they can have a tendency to thâ—â—â— recovery All these twenty sorts of means and mercies Christ giveth to all or to more than the Elect. 96. It being certain de re that Christ so far died for all as to procure them all such Benefits as he giveth them the question remaining iâ— de nomine whether it be a fit phrase to say that Christ died for all And this is put out of question by the Scripture which frequently useth it as is proved by the fore-cited Texts We may well speak as God ordinarily there speaketh 97. There are certain fruits of Christ's death which are proper to the Elect or those that are in a state of Salvation As 1. Grace eventually Rom. 8. 30 31. Act. 26. 18. 1 Joh. 5. 11 12. Joh. 15. 1 2 6. Eph. 1. 22 23. Col. 1. 19. Eph. 3. 17. Act. 5. 31. 13. 38 39. Col. 1. 13 14. Rom. 5. 1 c. Tit. 3. 5 6 7. 1 Pet. 1. 3 4. Psal 50. 15. 46. 1. Rev. 22. 9. Heb. 1. 14. effectual working them to true Faith Repentance and Converâ—â—on 2. Union with Christ the Head as his true living members 3. The actual forgiveness of sin as to the grand spiritual and the eternal punishment Rom. 4. 1. 7. 8. 1. 33 34. 4. Our actual Reconciliation with God so as to be beloved as his peculiar people 5. Our Adoption and Right to the heavenly Inheritance Psal 4. 6. 8. 16 17 18. 6. The Spirit of Christ to dwell in us and sanctifie us by a habit of Divine Love Rom. 8. 9 13. Gal. 4. 6. Col. 3. 10. 1 Pet. 1. 16. 2 Pet. 1. 4. 1 Joh. 4. 15. Joh. 3. 5 6. 1 Cor. 6. 19. Gal. 5. 17 18 22. 2 Cor. 6. 1. 7. Imployment in sincere holy acceptable Service where they and their duties are pleasing to God Heb. 11. 5 6. 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. 8. Access in prayer with a promise of being heard in all that 's good for us in Gods measure time and way through Christ Joh. 14. 13 14. Heb. 10. 19 20 22. 9. Well-grounded hopes of Salvation and peace of Conscience thereupon Rom. 5. 1 2 3 4 c. 10. Spiritual communion with the Church-mystical in Heaven and Earth Heb. 12. 22 23 24. Eph. 2. 19 20 21 22. 1 Cor. 3. 22. 11. A special interest in Christ's Intercession with the Father Rom. 8. 32 33 c. 12. Resurâ—ection unto Life and Justification in Judgment Glorification of the Soul at Death and of the Body at the Resurrection Phil. 3. 20 21. â— Cor. 5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Rom. 8. 17 18 30 32 35 36 37 c. All these Benefits Christ hath made a conditional Deed of Gift to all the world But only the Elect accept them and possess them From whence we certainly infer that Christ never absolutely intended or decreed that his death should eventually put all men in possession of these Benefits And yet that he did intend and deâ—ree that by his death all men should have a conditional Gift of them As Dr. Twisse doth frequently assert 98. Christ therefore died for all but not for all equally or with the same intent design or purpose So that the case of difference in the matter of Redemption is resolved into that of Predestination and is but Gods different Decrees about the effects of Redemption 99. The particle For when we question whether Christ died For All is ambiguous 1. It may mean In the strict representation of the â—ersons of all as several so that they may be said to have died or satisfied â—n and by him as civilly in their own persons though not naturally And thus Christ died not for all or for any man which yet is in some mens conceits who thence say that Christ died not for all because he did not so personate all 2. It may signifie to die by the procurement of all â—ens sins as the assumed promeritorious cause And thus Parâ—â—â— himself in his Irenicon saith That the sins of all men lay on Christ and so he died for all that is for all mens sins as the cause of his death And you may tell any wiâ—ked man Thy sins killed Christ what-ever the deniers say to excuse them 3. Or it meaneth that Christ died finâ—lly for the good of all men And that is true as afore explained He died for the good of all but not equally that is not with the same absolute Will Decree or Intention of attaining their Salvation 100. But the conditional New Covenant without any difference in the tenor of it doth equally give Christ Pardon and Life to all Mankind antecedently to mens rejecting the offer on condition of acceptance And Christ equally satisfied Gods Justice for all the lapsed Race of Adam so far as to procure them this Gift or Covenant and the other foresaid common mercies But not equally as to his Decree of the success For there Election differenceth 101. It is a thing so contrary to the nature of Christianity and the Spirit of Christ in his Saints to extenuate Christ's Merits Purchase Interest or Honour or rob him of his due that doubtless so many sincere Christians would never be guilty of such injurious extenuations and narrowing of Christ's successes but that they cannot reconcile special Grace with universal and mistakingly judge them inconsistent Nor durst opprobriously reproach his universal Grace as they do by calling it vain lame imperfect a mockery c. if the conceit of their defending some truth by it did not quiet and deceive their Consciences Whereas indeed universal Grace and special do as perfectly and harmoniously consist as Nature and Grace do and as the foundation and the building and as any generical and specifick Natures And so doth a general Decree that All who will believe shall be saved and that this Promise shall be made to the world with a special Decree that Paul shall believe and be saved But on two accounts I pass by all the rest about the extent of Redemption 1. Because I must give you a special Disputation or Tractate on that subject 2. Because the most Judicious of English Divines so far as I can know them by their works Bishop Davenant hath said so much in his two Posthumous Dissertation de Redempt Praedestinat Published out of the hands of Bishop Usher as might suffice to reconcile contenders on these two points were not men slothful in studying them or partial or incapable in judging of these matters SECT VII The Antecedent and consequent Will of God c. 102. The distinction of Gods Antecedent and Consequent Will used by Damascene is by many applyed to this controversie but by none that I have read sufficiently explained which is the cause that so many good men reject it because they misunderstand it It 's truly said that by his Antecedent Will God would have all men to believe repent and be saved but by his Consequent Will
There is no Place where any Corporeal being is where some Active created Nature is not with it so that considering the proximity and the natures we may well conclude that we know of no corporal motion under the Sun which God effecteth by himself alone without any second Cause § 6. Joh. Sarisburiensis and some Schoolmen liken Gods presence with the Creature in operation to the fire in a red hot Iron where you would think all were Fire and all Iron But the similitude is too low The SUN is the most Notable Instrument in visible Nature And GOD operateth on all lower things by its virtue and influx God and the Sun do what the Sun doth and we know of nothing that God moveth here on earth that 's corporeal without it § 7. But the Sun moveth nothing as the Cartesians dream by a single Motive Influx alone but by emission of its Threefold Influx as every Active Nature doth that is Motive Illuminative and Calefactive which are One-radically in Three-effectively § 8. This Efflux of the Sun is universal and equal ex parte sui But causeth wonderful diversity of effects without diversity in God the prime Cause or in it self The same Influx causeth the Weed and Dunghill and Carrion to stink and the Flowers of the sweeter Plants to be sweet some things to live and some to dye some things to be soft and some hard c. In a word there are few changes or various actions below in bodies which the Sun is not the Cause of without difference in it self But not the specifying Cause § 9. The reason why one equal Influx causeth such wonderful diversity of motions is the DIVERSITY of RECEPTIVE DISPOSITIONS and natures Recipitur ad modum recipientis So one poise maketh various Motions in a Clock c. § 10. God operateth on second Causes as God Omnipotently but not ad ultimum potentiae but Freely as he pleaseth § 11. God worketh by second Causes according to the said Causes aptitude so that the operation of Infinite power is limited according to the quality of the second cause which God useth § 12. There is a superiority and inferiority among Spirits as well as Bodies And whether God work on all our souls by superiour Spirits as second Causes is unknown to us It is not improbable according to the order of his providence in other things But we know little of it certainly § 13. But certain we are that superiour Voluntary Agents Angels and Devils have very much to do with our souls and operate much upon them It is a wonderful power which wise observers perceive Satan hath upon the Imagination or Thinking faculty of which I could give some instances enough to convince a rational Sadducee And it is not like that good Angels have less power skill or will § 14. And we are sure that God hath ordained One Great Universal second Cause to convey his Spirit and Grace by which is JESUS CHRIST As the Sun is an Universal Cause of Motion Light and Heat to Inferiour creatures and God operateth by the Sun So is Christ set as a Sun of Righteousness by whom God will convey his spiritual Influx to mens souls and there is now no other conveyance to be expected § 15. Christs Humane Nature united personally to the Divine and Glorified is by the Office of Mediator Authorized and by Personal Union and the Fulness of the Holy Spirit enabled and fitted to this communication of Gods Spiritual Influx to mankind § 16. Object A Creature cannot be a Cause of the Operation of the Holy Ghost who is God the Creator Sending is the Act of a Superiour But Christs humanity is not superiour to the Holy Ghost Answ 1. Christ as a Creature is no Cause of any Essential or purely Immanent Act of God for that hath no Cause But 1. He is a Cause of the Spirits operation as it signifieth the effect 2. And so the cause why his Act is terminated on the soul and 3. Of the ordering of these effects why rather on this soul than on that and at this time measure c. And 2. This Christ doth not as a superiour sender of the Spirit but a Ministerial and a second cause As a Master payeth his servants as his Steward determineth § 17. It is certain that Christ is the Political Cause or Head of this spiritual Influx on souls that is As Mediator is Authorized to determine of the Persons measure time conditions of the Communication of the Spirit But whether he be a Physical Head of this Influx by proper efficiency giving the Spirit from himself as the Sun giveth us its Influx is all that is disputable That is Whether the Spirit be first given Inherently to Christ and pass from his person as his unto us as the Spirits do from the Head to the Members § 18. This question may be put either of all Natural Being and Motion or only of Spiritual Motion in the soul of man Whether Christ be so the Head of Nature as that all Nature in Heaven and Earth is sustained and actuated by him as the physical efficient Cause or whether this be true of this Lower World which was curst for sin or whether it be true at least of Humane nature or whether it be true only of Gracious operations § 19. 1. That Christ hath the Political dispose of the whole Universe contained in the words Heaven and Earth the Scripture seemeth to assert 2. That he hath the Political disposal of humane nature and of all other creatures that belong to man so far as they belong to him Angels Devils Sun Air Earth c. is past dispute 3. That the real â—hysical effects acts and habits of the Spirit on mens souls are caused by Christs Moral Causation by his Merit and his Political Mission is past dispute 4. That besides all this the Spirit it self by Baptism is in Covenant with all the members of Christ and that as they are such and is in a prior Covenant first Related to Christ himself and so by this Covenant given us in relation as we are united to Christ is past dispute 5. And that Christ himself doth make such Physical changes on our souls by Means and by the foresaid Political Mission of the Spirit by which we are made Receptive of more of the Spirits operations is past dispute 6. But whether moreover any Action of Christs own Humane soul glorified do physically reach our souls or whether the Holy Ghost may in its own essential Virtue which is every where be said to be more in Christ than elsewhere and communicated to us as from the root or the Spirits effects on the soul to come by Reflection from the first effects on Christ as Light and Heat from the Sun by a Speculum or Burning-glass are questions not for me to determine § 20. Christs spiritual Influx on souls is not single but is ever Three in One as the Sun 's aforesaid which are according to
have done it and will change another not so self-hardened thy gracelesness and destruction both absolutely and as compared to others that are converted is imputable only to thy self 2. And if thou be unwilling to use the Means as thou art able to hear read or meditate on that which should affect thee and unwilling Privatively to hear and receive the inward motions of my Spirit which should convince and turn thee and wilt not either by previous Cogitation or immediate conatus and suscitation of thy Intellect to Think and of the will to its act actively concurr to receive my gracious motions and influx thy gracelesness absolutely and comparatively is imputable not to me but to thy self 3. Much more if when thou canst do otherwise thou run the contrary way and turn thy thoughts and affections eagerly after vanity and hate and oppose my help and grace because it is against thy lusts 2. Or if you will take it in the form of a half promise or encouragement from God thus 1. If thou wilt not by wilful progress in sin and custom so increse thy Privation and obdurateness as that the same measure of Gracieâ—s Means and Impress will not convert thee as would do one that hath not so abused common grace 2. And if also thou wilt at the present do what thou canst in stirring up thy own will to concurr and thy Intellect to consider and wilt but Consent that my Grace shall help thee and that thou wilt wait for it in the use of means 3. And if thou wilt not hate and resist my motions as enemies to thy lusts and turn wilfully after vanity in such a degree as thou art even Morally able to forbear Thou shalt find that I am gracious and merciful abundant in goodness and truth and forsaking none before they forsake me and have not appointed thee these means in vain To whom thus prepared did I ever deny the grace of faith Name him if thou canst So that Volo si velis hoc is one thing and Volo si velis aliud si ad hoc volendum quantum potes teipsum suscites Gratiam non oppugnes nec contraria prosequaris quando pravas Volitiones frâ—nare possis is another thing § 18. That God giveth his gracious operations sometimes in a Resistible limited degree besides what is said is most evidently proved 1. In that all Divines confess that in making the World he hath not done quantum potest but quantum voluit 2. In that there are innumerable Possibilia quae non sunt aut existentia aut futura God could have made the World sooner or made more Orbs Earths Trees Men Brutes in specie numero and done more acts and made more alterations than he doth 3. There is certainly some Divine operation with and by his instituted means which is limited to their instrumental aptitude § 19. And it is no dishonour to Gods Omnipotency to work thus limitedly and resistibly For 1. Else he should be the Author of his own dishonour who freely diversifieth Instruments Receptivities and effects throughout the World in wonderful variety 2. If the total Non-Volitions Non-operations or forbearing to do what he could as in all the innumerable Possibles aforesaid be no dishonour to him then to will only in tantum and to operate hoc hactenus limitedly and resistibly is no dishonour being more than not to Will and Work at all SECT VIII What that Operation of God on the soul is which is the subject of our many questions as Whether it be equal on all Whether it be resistible Whether it be moral or physical Whether it be sufficient when it is not effectual c. And what the various opinions about it are and how uncertain they are YOU may think this should have come first but for some reasons I have reserved it to this place § 1. I think the Ignorance of this in a great measure is common to all mankind But the Ignorance of mens Ignorance and presumptuous contending about what we understand not pretending even to triumphant scorn of dissenters that we do understand it is the very life of most of our contentions about these points § 2. My own judgement is that our own Intellection and Volition in the body are Acts that take in so much of the sense imagination and corporeal spirits into that of them which we perceive and denominate as that we cannot tell how far the Acts even of our own separated souls will differ from these which we here perceive and from perception call Intellection and Volition And much less do I know the difference between Gods Vital-activity Intellection and Volition and ours Some likeness there is or else ours were not his Image But all Schoolmen and Divines agree that the names are not Univocal and that it is not the same Thing in God as in man which these names signifie And that no man can have a formal conception of them I am satisfied that a glow-worm or the fire in a flint yea or in a stick or clod is incomparably liker the Sun than Man 's poor Life and Intellection and Volition is like to Gods And if so how unfit are we unnecessarily to dispute of these acts of God with curiosity or at all so as implyeth a nearer likeness The Lord knoweth that I would with reverence withdraw from this consuming fire and no further meddle with it than the Glorifying of God and the pacifying of the contentious and the healing of divisions and calling off the presumptuous doth require § 3. * * * The great difficulty is what it is which we must conceive to go between Gods essence and mans act or inclination given Dr. Twiss accuseth the Jesuits for denying Intellection and Volition to be instantaneous Acts sine motu And yet his friend Alvarez holdeth the Divine Act antecedent to be properly motio and would have his predetermination so described quâ praeviâ motionâ— actuali causis secundis praesertâ—m liber is inharente illas applicâ—t â—d operandum c. But it is either God or an effect of God which he calleth motio If an effect it is so called as it is in the receiver And what motio antecedent to mans Act can be imagined in man when motion is an Act though every Act be not motion Therefore they voluminously dispute de non ente or of they know noâ— what If we must have a distinct conception of it I think Viâ— impressâ— fitter By Divine Action or operation must be meant 1. Either something in God or something caused or Created by him 2. If caused or created it must be either something in the second Causes or something in the Recipient soul I think the distribution is sufficient § 4. I. In GOD there is nothing but GOD His Life Knowledge and Will are no accidents but his essence And therefore invariable and no subject for any of these questions To ask whether Gods Essential Knowledge Will and Activity
Some of you will grant that as motion causeth motion by contact of bodies so the first effect on the soul can cause the second And others of you will deny it and say that Gods Actions being diversified only by the diversity of effects and objects that which causeth the second effect is to be denominated a second Action and not the same numerically which caused the first no nor specifically if the effects specifically differ And so as scholastick wits here exercise their curiosity without respect to Arminianism or Calvinism you will here fall into notional Controversies in the way § 20. 2. But granting that the first effect is that efficacious Grace which must cause the second how shall we know what the first effect is and what the second Gods Grace like the Sun is still shining though we are not still receiving it When it worketh but the commoner sort of effects these tend to more and more The first Gracious effect may be forty years before Conversion But this is not your meaning But I suppose you will say that it is the first special effect or gratia operata that is proper to the saved which you mean But to pass by that Augustine Prosper Fulgentius much more their predecessors held that sincere faith Love holiness Justification present right to Life if they so dyed are not proper to the saved but that some lose all these If you say but proper to the Justified or Sanctified or Converted or it be the first effect which is proprium Justificandis which you mean Are we agreed what that is § 21. Either the first effect on the soul or the first Gratia operata is the Act of faith it self or somewhat antecedent If the Act as many subtilly maintain then it were a foolish question to ask Whether the Act of faith be Effectual to cause it self and How Therefore it must be somewhat antecedent or we can find no matter for our Controversie de efficacia Gratiae ad credendum § 22. If somewhat antecedent to the Act it is either a Disposition or Infused Habit or an Impression Impulse or Influx which is neither Disposition nor Habit. * * * Dico 1. Non certo constare ex divinis literis esse hujusmodi Habitus supernaturales 2. At baptizatis infunditur Gratia â—o sensu quod efficiuntur Dâ—o grati consortes divinae naturae renati 3. Conceditur Dei adjutorium ut credamus velimuâ— diligamus per inspirationem infusionem spiritus sancti 4. Dei adjutorium desuper infusum est omnino necessarium ut credamus diligamus c. non tantum ut facilius credamus Medina in 12. q. 51. p. 282. See many definitions of a Habit confuted in Medina 1. 2. p. 271. and that which he resteth in is Aristotles Qualitas quâ rectè vel malè afficimur § 23. 1. A proper Habit of faith it is not Though Mr. Pemble singularly seem so to think yet he meaneth but a seminal disposition And it 's commonly held that the Habit is given by sanctification after the Act given in Vocation 2. But if it were otherwise the Habit is not alwayes sufficient to ascertain the Act. For holy men oft sin against a Habit and believers do not alwayes exercise it Habits Incline per modum naturae but do not certainly determine to the act 3. And of a Disposition it must be so said much more § 24. 2. And if it be an Impulse or Influxus Receptus as I think we must affirm this is but a general notion of which our understanding is very crude or small A meer Motus it is not For as was said in the beginning the Divine Influx is threefold viz. From Vital-Activity or Power Wisdom and Love to Life Light and Love in man Now as I said if there be no such Impulse besides the Life Light and Love produced our Controversie is at an end For these are not efficacious or efficient of themselves But if such a different Impulse there be it 's hard to know what it is in man I conceive it best expressed by all these inadequate notions conjunct 1. An inward urgency to this threefold act which is called in the Schools both auxilium concurse and Influx 2. By which Urgency the soul is more Disposed to the Act in hoc ordine than it was before 3. Which Disposition containeth in it a Moral Power to that Act so ordered and somewhat more even some Inclination to perform it If any man can tell me better what that Divine Impulse is which is antecedent to mans Act I am willing to learn § 25. Now if this be the question Whether this Divine Impulse which is the first effect of Gods spirit be of its own nature efficacious to produce According to Jansenius the first Grace is Necessary Delectation or Love in act before that which is free and full And if so then there is no grace causing this grace and so none to be the subject of this question Whether it be more or less sufficient or effectual operating or co-operating grace which maketh one man love God initially rather than another For it is no Grace bâ— Gods essential will this Love be the first Grace and no received Impulse antecedent to it our Faith Love c. as the second effect I answer 1. Sometimes Gods Impulse is so Great as propriâ vi doth change mind and will and overcome resistance and procure our act 2. Sometimes it is so strong as that it prevaileth against the contrary ill-disposition so far as to give man a Moral Power to the Act with some Inclination which yet contrary habits and temptations do overcome and the Act doth not follow which yet was not for want of Power to have done it And this is called sufficient Grace 3. We have great reason to believe that as in some Instances Gods greater Impress is the chief differencing Cause so in other Instances an equal Impulse of God on unequally disposed subjects doth produce the Act of faith c. in one of them which it produceth not in the other through the incapacity of the recipient 4. Therefore there is a double degree of efficacy or Vis One which only so far moveth and helpeth the will as that it can do the act and sometime doth it without more Another which is so strong as that the second effect alwayes followeth it 5. But whenever the Act of faith is produced by force or Impulse more or less God is the first and principal cause of it and man but the second and the praise of it is accordingly due And I think this decision accommodateth both sides of our contenders § 26. The foresaid Impulse or first effect is only the work of God and the means and not ours But the Act of Faith Love c. is Gods work and ours and ours as Free-agents Therefore that Impulse of God which is Aptitudinally efficacious on supposition of mans due reception and self-excitation
be an Active Spirit * Indifferentia Voluntatis in ordine ad auxilium praevium est indifferentia passiva caeterum in ordint ad actum liberum quâ—m producit praedeterminata tali motionâ— praevia indifferentia Voluntatis est activa libera Alvarez de Aux disp 23. pag. 115. and therefore what ever it receiveth it receiveth it as it is in that nature 2. But the same soul is Passive as well as Active and that in the prior instant of nature For it must receive from God the first cause which made the Greek antient Doctors and many of the Latines say as Damascene in sense though in grosser words that the soul in respect to bodies was immaterial or incorporeal but it was material in respect of God § 2. Not only in its Receiving the Spirits first Impulse to Believe the soul is Passive before it is Active but also in its Reception of every sort of Divine Influx even to every natural act So that in this there is no difference between Conversion and any common act For the soul is first passive in allâ— even in receiving that Natural Influx by which we Live and Move and Be. § 3. But the soul which is passive in Receiving Gods Impulse to believe the first effect is Active in the producing of its own Act of believing which is the effect of many Concauses And as I said It is not the Habit of faith properly so called which it passively Receiveth before the Act. SECT XVIII Whether the first Grace and the New and Soft Heart be Promised and Given Absolutely or on any Condition on our part And so of faith it self Answ § 1. BY the first Grace is meant either simply the first or the first special renewing Grace on the soul proper to them that shall be Justified Of the first Grace simply there is no Condition for it is given Universally to all viz. a Reprieval a Law of Grace a Redeemer c. And after this there is much common personal mercy given conditionally and much absolutely to all or some * * * And as to the first moving inward Grace see how copiously the Jesuit Ruiz as Vasquez and others proveth that it hath no initium in us no not an occasion or disposition much less merit for which it is given And he reasoneth from the Names Creation Generation by the seed of God resuscitation and Gods being found of them that sought him not and from the Cause of the difference between man and man De pradest Tr. 3. disp 18. â— 4 5 6 7 8 c. p. 227 228 c. Even Medina 12. p. 596. is so hesitant as to say Esse probabilem sententiam Doctorum quod facienti quod in se est ex facultate naturae Deus ex sua misericordia nunquam denegat gratiam Sed dico quod probabilius est magis consentaneum sanctis patriâ—us praeclpuâ— Augustino non esse Legem infallibilem quod homini pâ—â—atori facienti quod in se est ex facultate natura continub conferatur gratia Nam si esser Lex infallibilis certè initium bona pars justificationis esset à nobis c. Thus the Papists herein differ as much as the Protestants among themselves § 2. It seemeth to me an error which by oversight I was long entangled in my self to think that by the new and soft heart is meant the first special Grace For most Divines agree that it is proper sanctification which is meant by it as distinct from antecedent Vocation Vid. Ames Medul de Vocat Rolloc de Vocat Bishop G. Downame against Pemble Hookers Souls Vocation Joh. Rogers of faith and many others In Vocation they suppose the Act of Faith and Repentance suscitated by the Spirit and thereupon a Covenant-Relation to Christ and to the Holy Ghost with Regenerating Sanctifying Habits â—o be given And I see no reason to be singular herein § 3. That faith is by the Law of Grace made a Condition of this Sanctification and the Spirit promised us if we will believe and so the Spirit given to us by Covenant in Baptism when we believe is plain ill Scripture and the commonest doctrine of all Divines § 4. Therefore if it be this Spirit of Sanctification that is meant by the New the Tender the Circumcised heart it is not promised and given absolutely but on condition of faith § 5. Let us peruse the several Texts where it is promised Dent. 30. 1 2 3 6. When thou shalt call to mind among all the Nations and shalt return unto the Lord thy God and obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day thou and thy children with â—â— thy heart and all thy soul that then the Lord thy God will turn thy câ—â—tivity And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou maist live Here it is a Grace consequent to a condition even to much obedience which is described And Deut. 10. 16. it is a command Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts and be no more stiff-necked Jer. 32. 36 37 c. I will gather them out of all Countreys whither I have driven them and will bring them again into this place and I will cause them to dwell safely and they shall be my people and I will be their God and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever So Ezek. 11. 16 17 18 19 20. And Ezek. 36. 25 26 27 28 29. In all which there is a promissory Prophecy how great a deliverance God would give the Nation of the Jews both for body and soul And their temporal return and liberty is promised and prophesied in the same manner as a new heart is But here is not a syllable to prove that this is the first special Grace any more than perseverance is which in the same manner is promised in Jer. 32. 40. I will put my fear in their hearts and they shall not depart To say nothing how far in the first sense this was National to the Jews nor how the performance did expound it For doubtless it is performed the Text it self premiseth I will be their God and they shall be my people with other mercies And no doubt but Faith and Repentance go before this Covenant-Relation to God and therefore before the following gift of the Spirit ver 9. and Ch. 11. 19. And Ezek. 18. 31. the same is commanded Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit § 6. The promissory Prophecy of Jer. 31. 31 c. is recited by the Penman of Heb. 8. 8 c. to prove the cessation of the old Jewish Câ—venant and that a better should succeed And this much is easily proved out of both 1. That God would certainly have a holy people among the
is the natural consequent of it which is caused by the sinner himself As 1. That God doth not complacentially Love him which is no change in God whose Nature is to Love Good and Hate Evil but in the sinner himself who hath made himself uncapable 2. And that Gods Hatred is terminated on the sinner is his own doing Even as he that would open his naked breast to the scorching Sun or cold Frost is hurt by himself When God hateth a sinner and delighteth in a Saint there is no Diversity in Him but in Them 3. The loss of Right to Heaven and all Gods special benefits is their own work and not by any change in God God made a Deed of Gift of Heaven to the faithful And if they be unfaithful it is their own doing to cast away or refuse that right 4. Abundance of temporal mercies mens sins cast away For § 15. Sin doth here torment even mens bodies The slothful and the prodigal bring want upon themselves The glutton drunkard fornicator and the idle breed painful diseases in their own flesh And most men dyâ— by some sinfully contracted maladies § 16. Besides the Natural consequents and the natural effects on the Body there are natural calamitous effects of sin on the soul As 1. The consciousness of a mans sin called An evil Conscience 2. The shame that ariseth from the guilt 3. The Conscience and sense of Gods displeasure a tormenting thing 4. Sadness for our folly in hurting our selves 5. And fear of all the after miseries All hitherto mentioned men do themselves against themselves § 17. Yea more men themselves make other men their tormentors The angry stir up others to hurt them The offenders stir up Magistrates to punish them The fornicator chooseth a filthy disease under the name of a pleasure and kindleth a putrid fevor in his own soul The covetous and unjust make all men their enemies and so do many of the proud tyrannical and oppressours The froward will not give themselves rest in their own families but make Wives Husbands Children Servants and every thing to be their own vexation And O what work do bloody Tyrants by Wars and persecution make to themselves and others in the world and what Calamities doth miserable mankind bring by folly and wickedness on themselves § 18. In a word shall we not believe that there is a Hell and know much of the nature of it when we see a Hell already begun on earth and the whole world walloweth in folly filth impiety and woe As Heaven is known here by its first-fruits of the spirit so Hell may be I think more known by its beginning as more notorious Men are almost Devils already conceive them but all turned fully into Devils by themselves and not by God and you will know much of Hell § 19. And for the Life to come consider that God made mans soul Immortal before man made it sinful And who can expect that God should alter or destroy his work Live we must because we have Immortal souls And must not men look to Live as they are Such then as the wicked make themselves no wonder if they continue § 20. And then exceeding wickedness will make them Devils and all that they here initially brought on themselves will be there in eminency Their Minds will be blind as to Good and Evil though not as to meer notional Truth Their wills set against Gods will Their hatred of God and goodness increased Their Intellects memories and thoughts will be the treasury of pain Their wills and affections the seat of miseryâ— And their invigorated power will make all lively § 21. And a mind thus blinded cannot see God as Good but only as hurtful by Justice A Will that hath no Love to God and holiness can take no delight in them Heaven must be to them as a feast to a sick stomach They turn their own Hearts from God and Heaven and deprive themselves of all its joyes They hate the Heavenly society and so â—an be none of their companions in delight They deprive themselves of Innocency of Divine Love of the Grace of the Holy Ghost of part in Christ of peace of Conscience by wilful diversion opposition and incapacity as he that shuts his Windows against the Sun-light It is themselves that turn themselves thus out of Heaven § 22. And it will be their own Lusts that will tantalize or torment them For God did let them know that this world and its pleasure must soon forsake them They cannot expect that God should give them wealth meat drink and carnal pleasures after this life If they will needs contract a fleshly thirst God is not bound to follow them with satisfaction § 23. Even their malignity like Satans will be their torment filling them with envy at the felicity of the Saints or hatred of their holiness And when we are in Heaven Devils and devilish men will be in subjection to the Saints so low and base as will encrease their rage § 24. It is likely that their very nature or substance will be much more base than that of the Glorified as their place and condition will be For God is not bound to make them Naturally Glorious Devils dwell in the aire and earth And inhabitants use to be connatural to their Regions and Elements However it is a groundless fancy of too many that think that the sensitive faculties shall cease The Organs and manner or sorts of sensation may be altered But the soul will be still sensitive as well as rational notwithstanding their vain objection about bruits And therefore the condition they put themselves into will as necessarily give them sensible torment as poyson will in the stomach and as despairing men now torment and make away themselves § 25. At least when they have bodies they will have sense § 26. Devils and wicked men with them will objectively torment them § 27. I deny not but besides all these there may be punishments more efficiently from God But all this alone which sinners not only Deserve but Inflict upon themselves will make a Hell of unspeakable misery The Conclusion Summing up the several wayes of the Contenders I Shall conclude with a further Explication 1. What the Judgement of the Protestants was in the Synod of Dort about the nature of Grace besides what I have cited of theirs before 2. I shall give you some Animadversions on the Epilogue of Alvarez 3. And of the Jesuites way of Scientia Media 4. And of Aureolus and Durandus's way 5. And of the Scotists and Nominals Causa Partialis 6. I shall fullyer give you the summ and Consectaries of the Dominican Predetermination and the reasons which alienate me from their way 7. I shall Epitomize Jansenius with some Animadversions on his way 8. And summ up in few words what sober minds may rest in § 1. AND that you may see how little difference there is even in this point of Effectual Grace where all
morally attracting even inwardly but also efficaciously and truly effecting that the will moved and excited of God determine it self and act well Answ We know what mans perswading and moral operations are a little But the difference between these interiour acts of God named by you no man knoweth You cannot prove that his Interiour swasion is not truly efficient of the act nor know you how God proâ—ureth our determination as to the mode of his interiour operation Your arbitrary names have no signification of your true formal conceptions of the matter This Controversie therefore is vain XVI The efficacy of the help of preventing grace and the infallible connexion of it with the free co-operation of the will is totally founded and taken as from its first root from the Omnipotency of God and from the absolute and efficacious decree of his will willing that the man whom he moveth be converted and work piously nor doth this efficacy any way depend no not as on a condition sine qua non on the future co-operation of the created will though the free act by which man persevereth depend effectively on his will moved by God Answ 1. I grant that all the good that cometh to pass is fore-decreed by God 2. But Gods meer will effecteth it not without his Power 3. His power effecteth it not from eternity before it is effected 4. You leave out one of the causal Attributes The effect of Grace is as well from the Wisdom of God as from his Will and Power 5. Gods act dependeth not on mans will But mans co-operation which is his own act you must confess dependeth on his will as the effect on the nearest efficient 6. The non-efficiency of sufficient Grace dependeth on the sinners will It was not meerly nor principally from an absolute efficacious Decree or predetermination of God that Adams will omitted his duty first or committed sin first And if any run to the common shadow that sin hath no efficient cause and man only is deficient I answer 1. He is the first Reputative Deficient though not culpable because under no Law who must be the first efficient of the contrary and is not As if Adams body had never had a soul God was the first Non-efficient Cause that is into whose will and non-agency the whole ratio defectus is to be resolved 2. Forget not that Alvarez himself saith lib. 6. disp 45. p. 210. Licet peccatum originale non sit pro formali aliquid positivum sed privativum peccatum tamen actuale est pro formali aliquid positivum causat in anima habitum vitii XVII Supposing effectual Grace in free-will it infallibly followeth that free-will will consent and act piously so that these two are incompossible that effectual Grace be in a man and that he actually dissent Answ True because it is not called properly effectual unless either 1. Because it effecteth 2. Or as it cometh from an absolute decree of effecting 3. Or is of such a nature and degree that it cannot but effect And in all these cases it is true But such Grace may be eventually uneffectual which had a sufficiency ex parte sui to effect XVIII The gift of perseverance as such and the efficacy of it dependeth not no not as on a Condition sine qua non on the co-operation of our free-will but on the absolute decree of God effecting mans perseverance Answ This needeth no other explication or observation but as aforesaid Only that the Jus ad gratiam quâ ad finem perseveremus is given on condition in the Gospel from how absolute a decree soever it proceed XIX Effectual aid and a Power of dissenting are compossible in the same subject and consist in the same will Answ True And remember that a true Power is that quâ verè possumus and not that faculty which could do this or that if God will predetermine it and otherwise cannot no more than the Sun can shine without him When God withholdeth the Influx necessary to action such a faculty is no true power as to that action in that State XX. By preventing Grace efficacious as aforesaid the Liberty of the will is not destroyed nor the actual use of it hindered but is wonderfully perfected and roborated Answ There is a Liberty that is perfected by some even necessitating Free-will in name is owned by you all I say as August Enchir. c. 105. Sic oportebat prius hominem fierl ut bene velle posset male nec gratis si bene nec impune si male postea vero sic erit ut male velle non possit Quia ordo praetermittendus non suit in quo Deus voluit ostendere quam bonum sit animal rationale quod etiam peccare possit quamvis sit melius quod peccare non possit predetermination of God And there is an inferiour Liberty of Imperfect Viators which some efficient Divine predetermination feigned by you would destroy And if God did by that insuperable premoving influx which omnipotently moveth all things predetermine all men and Devils to all the wicked Volitions and actions that ever were done with all the circumstances and as respecting every object comparatively so that no creature ever did nor can resist such a predetermination any easier than make a World this were to destroy the true Liberty of that Creature with his innocency and felicity however you may at pleasure put the name of Liberty on and deny the name of Necessity to such an absolutely necessitated Volition and act and then may say that they are premoved and predetermined to do the Act of all sin freely or constrained to do it without constraint and so the liberty of the will is established For I see not but cogere ad Volendum is as apt a phrase as cogere nolentem ad agendum when a will formerly innocent is irresistibly predetermined by physical efficiency to all those comparate circumstantiate acts which are forbidden in Gods Law and that on pain of mans damnation But note how wisely Alvarez left out the great difference about predetermining to the acts of sin from this summary of his disputations §. III. Of the three other wayes and I. Of the Jesuits way Quest AS you have past your judgement on Alvarez and his Dominican way tell us how much you think well or ill of in the other three wayes mentioned by Alvarez and recited by you sect 8 Answ I. I have said enough before to answer this Briefly as to the Jesuits way de scientia media 1. It is certain that God knoweth all that Vasquez in 1. Tho. q. 22. d. 99. c. 6 7. after the rejection of many opinions holds this the only way of Concord 1. Gods preventing operating grace is Vocatio Congrua with good cogitations and the primus motus voluntatis ante actum liberum 2. Gods co-operating Grace ad consensum liberum is neither before nor after our act but concomitant simul And so
And who it is that erreth indeed the Light must discover and the studious impartial prepared Children of the Light must discern and the Father of Lights must finally judge Note that in the first part I speak as in the name of the Predeterminants till I come to the Questions and thence-forward I speak as in my own name which the Reader may easily perceive §. VII Of Jansenius his way of reconciling Grace and Free-will § 1. BUt after all these cometh Jansenius and justly blaming Philosophy as the great occasion of our heresies and errours which misled the Schoolmen Jesuites and others he goeth to Augustine alone as Lombard thought he had well done before him and disgraceth his cause by saying that Augustine first taught it to the Church as if Grace had been unknown by the former ages And because many will not be at the labour to know his mind by reading so big a volume I shall briefly select what concerneth the matter in hand and animadvert upon it 1. His first Tome describeth the Heresie of Pelagius wherein he proveth that Pelagius held all this that followeth concerning grace 1. The Remission of sins containing 1. Conversion to God 2. The abstersion of the blot and filth 3. Reconciliation or remission of Gods offence 4. And of the eternal punishment Jansenius Aug. To. 1. l. 5. c. 22. p. 126 127. 2. That Pelagius owned the Infusion of habitual grace And that God in Baptism did blot out all sins purge cleanse and expiate them save and renew the soul restore nature deliver from the body of this death and from the contracted custome of sinning He held that Grace doth Regenerate Illuminate cause Faith Justifie even Infants Sanctifie make us new Creatures incorporate us into Christ as his members give us the anointing of the Holy Ghost not only restoring us to the state that we were in in Adam but to a better and to be adopted sons of God and saved cap. 24. And 25. as to the Relative effects that Grace Reconcileth man to God maketh him an adopted Son of God and the Temple of the Holy Ghost an Heir of God and co-heir with Christ So that they acknowledge not only Habitual Infused Grace but more even in Baptism As also the Assisting motions of the spirit to good acts making them possible Also that after Pope Zozymus had condemned the Pelagians they went further and that their design was but to lay mens salvation or damnation on free-will lib. 6. c. 7. c. And when he cometh to characterize Pelagius he doth it as he doth elsewhere the Protestants and as Malignants do Religious persons by presumptions viz. that he was indeed as Augustine saith Temperate and of a good life but singular and very proud which he proveth by his opinion and because he was against Swearing and said that Gods servants mouths should vent no bitter thing but only that which is sweet and that Christians must be so patient as readily to let go what is taken from them and that gallantry and gay cloathing is contrary to God and that enemies must be loved as friends and yet not believed and that Riches must be forsaken c. as holding nothing mean and moderate that he affected novelty and yet his â—rrours were old coming from Origen â—uffinus Palladius Evagrius Jovinâ—an and the Philosophers that he affected fame admiration hypocrisie pretending to more holiness than others under the garb of poverty c. over-â—alued Reason Logick Syllogismes Philosophers c. All which I mention not to abate any mans dislike of any one errour of Pelagius but to shew that it is so usual for dissenters to make one another seem odious and to feign or aggravate faults and to vilifie or deny Gods grace in others that he that would not be tempted into malice uncharitableness and slander must take heed what he believeth even of men accounted most abominable hereticks Doubtless Pelagius his denying original sin and his laying too much on mans will and too little on grace are things to be detested II. Jansenius asserteth that the Angels and Adam had such Free-will as could obey or disobey and so could determine it self to good and persevere therein without any more grace than they had when they did it not And that by this Free-will some Angels stood and some fell and Adam fell when he might by it have stood and thereby fell from a nobler sort of Free-will which consisteth in a due subservience to God and fell to the Love of Himself not primarily of external things instead of God and to selfdependency and dominion De Grat. primi hom c. 6. p. 40 41 42. c. 7. Nos hic asserimus tanquam sine dubitatione verissimum juxta doctrinam sancti Augustini ecclesiae omnia hujusmodi opera adeoque ipsam fidem dilectionem Dei ab eo potuisse per arbitrii libertatem fieri sic ut ea non donaret ei gratia Dei vid. c. 7 8 c. The reason of this was sanitas Voluntatis Adami c. 9. III. Yet Grace was necessary to man and Angels both to perseverance and to every good act c. 10 11. And c. 12 13 c. this Grace necessary to all was not Habitual Grace for that they had nor general concurse which none denyed but it was Actual Adjuvant Roborating help But the Grace given to Angels and Adam was Adjutorium sine quo non giving the will power to determine it self but not Adjutorium quo which ever determineth it One giveth the Power and the other the Act. The same that is meant by the common distinction of Grace sufficient and effectual by the Dominicans Yet this Adjutorium sine quo non did with free will procure the Act in the standing Angels and Adam while he stood But that made it not Adjutorium quo because it is not so called efficax only ab eventu but because it so helpeth that illo praesente continuo fiat id propter quod datur illo absente nunquam fiat p. 63. c. 14 15. One is like Light and the visive faculty ad videndum the other ut ipsa visio such as all formal causes are and Gods simultaneous efficiency The difference is c. 15. that Adjutorium sine quo non doth but perfect the power and the chief honour belongeth to the will that useth it and could choose But contrarily the adjutorium quo is the principal cause of the Act and leaveth not the event to the will but useth it effectually to the act intended Therefore merit and perseverance in Innocency were no special gifts of God IV. That without or before faith no good work is done but lies and sins l. 3 4. c. 1. p. 223. no nor without true Godliness p. 261. passim To think that Infidels and ungodly have any true virtue is dotage c. 17. V. The first sin had no necessity being meer sin and no punishment and so easily avoidable and wholly voluntary Other sins
he will not cause cannot be And this is the beautiful variety and harmony in the Universe In God himself is nothing but perfection but the Greature being the shadowy Image of God defectibility and imperfection is essential to it so that he reduceth Morality to the frame and necessity of physical motion and maketh Moral Good and evil to be indeed as much natural good and evil and of the same kind except as in another subject as Summer and Winter heat and cold day and night health and sickness life and death animate and inanimate the unavoâ—dable diversifications of the will and work of God And that every permission of his will is accompanied with a positive volition of the thing permitted And yet that Will is not properly in God but so called after the manner of man That sin is considered as related to the Principle of action which is God and so it is good or as in the terminus Man and so it is horrid devilish odious evil as blindness death darkness caused all by Gods desertion or not operating otherwise than he doth § 7. To the quieting of the mind that cannot digest this but thinketh God is thus dishonoured being made more than Satan the cause of sin and misery for sin which the Scripture contradicteth and that man is excusable at the barr of Justice that could no more in innocency forbear to sin than to make a world To them that think it hard that no one in all the world could ever possibly do more or less Good or Evil than they do but that is all done by physical motion as in an Engine c. he hath a great deal to say and more than ever I elsewhere met with and with great modesty proposed § 8. As to the Law whose transgression is sin he supposeth that Whatsoever imposeth on us any thing to be done by us as an antecedent condition to any consequent good is the Law opposed to the Gospel Pag. 173. Yea that the proposal or pressing of any Truth or Goodness on us in a literal or moral way only or the word as written in Letters is the Law and the spirit operating the thing it self on the soul is the Gospel the first is the old Covenant and the second the New That the proper and next ends of the Law or letter are sin condemnation death and the Divine wrath To let in sin and heighten it that it might abound and to bring on us spiritual death These flow not from the Law of it self but by accident from the weakness of the flesh and creaâ—ure But both Law and sin are brought in ultimately for good viz. God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils sin death wrath The evil in this scene is carryed on to its utmost extent and height Thus the variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its greatest Glory God in his Infinite wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of the flesh and of the creature to spring up as an overflowing flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest birth This Law is to convince us of the frailty and mutability in mans primitive state c. viz. that he is a creature For Pag. 175 176. man is composed of the light of God and his own proper darkness These two the Schools call the Act and Potentiality the form and the matter being and not being which constitute every Creature The darkness or nothingness which is the Creatures own is the proper ground of sin The Law comes and distinguisheth the Light from the Darkness Pag. 177. so that to see sin is to see that we are Creatures God withholds his Pag. 178. Divine presence appearances and influences from man and so the darkness discovereth it self in man and predominateth and captivateth him entirely and becomes his choice and Lord. so that sin is but an Imperfect Creature and the Law to cause and shew it § 9. Pag. 113 114 c. He saith The Immediate cause of the first change made in the understanding at the fall was the Divine Glory withdrawing or withholding it self Darkness is the privation of Light Privations have no proper Causes but accidental only Thus the Divine Glory retiring from the understanding or ceasing to shine in it is by accident the cause of the darkness there as the Setting or departing of the Sun is the cause of Night which is not a blemish to the Sun but its glory that in its presence are all the beauties and joyes of light in its absence all the disagreeableness and melancholies of night and darkness Pag. 115. All evil is from the absence of God c. P. 117. The fault in man is the deficiency which ariseth from the defectibility or nothingness of the Creature in its shadowy state in the purity of its first Creation Pag. 122. The fall springs from the Harmony of the eternal design in the Divine mind being comprehended in it as a part of it § 10. And yet he makes man Guilty and unexcuseâ—ble and God just iâ— this because Guilt is but our being really bad And he that cannot deny himself to be bad is unexcuseable And the opening of this causeth shame And Justice is to Judge and use all creatures as they are § 11. To be short he maintaineth that man can have no freedom from necessitating predetermination If he should it would cross the nature of God of the creature of the soul and the unity and harmony of all things But that God causeth all sin negatively as necessarily as he causeth darkness or any natural privation But then he doth with a torrent of Rhetorick so Praise Gods design in it and the beauty and harmony of all things made up of good and evil unities varieties diversities and contrarieties and sheweth so largely the glory that cometh to God by sin and the good to the Universe and that it 's but our narrowness and weakness of sight that maketh us take it to be any other than a part of the glory of the universe though bad in and to the person that sinneth that I confess I never found my self more tempted to Love sin or to cease my hatred of it than by his florid Oratory § 12. And withall as he resolveth all the rest of Morality into Physical conceptions so he seemeth to judge suitably of Hell and of Redemption supposing that all this darkness that God brings on sinners is but to prepare for their resurrection to a life of unity and glory and that it shall go well with them in the end § 13. And as
Enemies and Unbelievers Christ died not for them as such but as in their antecedent recoverable pardonable sin and misery THE Fifth Days Conference WITH AN ARMINIAN Of mans natural sinfulness and impotency to good and of FREE-WILL A. You have hitherto perswaded us that all the Controversies of the Decrees and Redemption between the Synodists and Remonstrants being resolved into those of the Execution we should there expect the solution of all To this therefore we are next to come And first about mans Sinfulness Impotency and Free-will And there all these things following offend me The first Crimination That some of them deny all true Free-will and others deny all Free-will to good and others to all spiritual good by which man is made uncapable of being a moral Agent and so uncapable of moral Good or Evil any more than a Tree or Beast seeing Free-will is the seat of moral Virtues and Vices which necessitated Natures are uncapable of B. I hope you are willing to understand your self and to be understood Tell me then what mean you by Free-will A. I know that the true nature of Liberty is much controverted but I mean that Qua positis omnibus ad agendum requisitis possumus agere vel non agere * Alvarez hath these conclusions hereof de Aux l. 12. d 115. p. 469. 1. Ad liberum arbitrium necessario requiritur quod positis omnibus antecedenter secundum ordinom rationis vel temporis ad actum praerequisitis possit operari vel non operari Ita viz. ut cum iisdem praerequisitis stet simul in libero arbitrio facultas potentia qua possit operari si velit vel non operari si velit But the question is de posse velle 2. Non est de ratione aut definitione liberi arbitrii quod positis omnibus secundum ordinem causalitatis antecedenter praerequisitis ad operandum talem actum possit eundem actum non operari in sensâ— composito si compositio fiat inter hujusmodi requisita carentiam talis actus seu actum contrarium 3. Legitima liberi arbitrii definitio ita se habet lib. arb est facultas voluntatis rationis ad utrum libet agendum vel non agendum ad agendum unum vel alterum But I suppose his predetermination inconsistent with his potentia ad contrarium in the first proposition Because it is antecedent to the wills self-determination and the Will is not able to determine it self against the predetermining causality of God nor as he holdeth without it neither and so hath no true power but on supposition of the premotion of God predetermining B. 1. Do you mean by agendum imperate Acts only or also Volitions A. Both All moral Acts of Body and Soul B. That which is requisite to extrinsick moral Acts is that they be commanded by a determined will You mean then that it is Liberty for the Tongue or Hand to be able to Act when the Will forbiddeth it and not to Act when the Will commandeth it A. I mean it only of imperate Acts as voluntary for it is the Will and not the executive power that is the seat of Liberty B. 2. By Agere what Action of the Will do you mean you know that mans Soul is an active nature and can no more cease all action than cease to be You may as well say that fire with fuel can forbear to burn as a Soul to be active A. I mean only moral Acts of Virtue and Vice B. All that a man doth by Reason is Actus humanus a moral Act either good or bad And a man at the use of Reason liveth among thousands of intelligible Objects necessarily presented to his Intellect by sense and among thousands of Objects good for us or bad for us desireable or hateful And is it possible for such a sensitive intelligent Creature to live continually with intelligible amiable or odible Objects and to suspend all rational apprehensions Volitions and Nolitions of them A. I mean it not of all moral Action in general but of this or that singular Act â—ic nunâ— B. I will not entangle you with an enquiry whether he that câ—n do every particular good act cannot do all universally and whether he that can forbear every singular evil or good act cannot forbear all when all is nothing but all singulars But 3. What mean you by requisitis All things of meer necessity to the Act sine quibus non Or also all things that can possibly be put to ascertain the Act A. Of the first I am most fully resolved Of the second there is much doubtfulness If I include it I know you will ask me whether it be impossible for God so to determine the Will as to make the contrary act impossible without taking away its Liberty And whether Christ could commit every sin or else was not free And whether Heaven take away all Liberty if it make sin impossible But briefly I answer you that the Libertas Viatoris differeth from that in Heaven and that Ours still supposeth a possibility of the Contrary but Theirs doth not B. But if it be their Liberty to be past a posse peccare why should it not be ours to come as near it as may be especially when we have the fore-tasts and first-fuits of Heaven on Earth and Grace is the seed of Glory A. It is our Liberty to be as far from sin as may be But this is another kind of Liberty and not to be confounded with that which is a meer power of doing or not doing B. 4. But that a man can act positis omnibus ad agendum requisitis is no wonder so can a Stone or Bruit but how say you potest non agere when non-agere is not an effect or exercise of Power There needs no Power ad non agendum A. Yes when Nature or Vice and Temptation draw us to a forbidden Act it is a work of Power to resist them and forbear it B. But sure Nature Vice or Temptation do not so draw us to love God perfectly to hate all Sin perfectly to be heavenly-minded to consent to suffer Death for Christ c. as that we should need any power to resist such drawings or forbear such acts How then do you make this a part of your power A. But when the Spirit of God draweth us to love him it is an act of natural abused power to resist him And also in this and the former case I say that by possumus here we do not mean a moral or physical power always but in this instance only a logical power And our meaning only is that we are not necessitated to Act or not Act to love God or to hate him or not to love him As Privations are reduced to Entities in Descriptions so are Impotencies to Powers B. The word Posse then in your definition is equivocal and signifieth both Power and No Power What a definition is that But
Which privation is the greatest punishment here 2. They are hereupon left to the power of their own Corruption which desertion is a grievous punishment 3. They have pain and sorrow 4. And they die And if they have all this suffering here it is unlikely that they are wholly free hereafter if not pardoned Because 1. They have immortal Souls that are capable 2. And future as well as temporal death or misery is the wages of sin And that their suffering is for sin is undoubted from Rom. 5 c. And the Pelagians scarce deny but that Adam's sin caused it And if it be proved that they have moral pravity or sin of their own then it is for their own sin And if so it is their own punishment All the doubt then is Whether all Infants are forgiven And for that 1. We see that the temporal punishment is not forgiven them 2. We see as soon as they come to action that to many at least the foresaid penal desertion and privation of the Spirit of Sanctification is not forgiven them And 3. Without holiness none can see God 4. They that affirm it must prove it which they neither do nor can do There is no word of Scripture which telleth it us How then should that be part of our Faith which is no part of Gods Word If you say that Christ being the second Adam saveth the World from all the sin and misery brought on them by the first Adam I answer 1. Conditionally he doth He hath purchased Salvation to be given men on the terms of the Covenant of Grace and all that perform the Conditions shall have Salvation But 2. His bare Sacrifice it self without such application saveth none any further than to bring them under the terms of the said Covenant It is apparent by experience that Christ doth not undo all the hurt that Adam did immediately to all or any one in the world no not till death no nor till the Resurrection Sin and misery is still upon us Infants shew as soon as they come to the use of reason that they were not brought to the Innocency that Adam had before the Fall You your selves distinguish the Impetration from the Application of Salvation as to the adult and the reason is the same as to Infants though the condition be not the same Shew us a promise of the Salvation of all Infants and we will believe it 5. Indeed they are saved conditionally as the adult are and the condition is expressed in Scripture That they be the Children of the Faithful dedicated to God The Parents and their Seed are in the same Covenant And this is all that God revealeth of them * Saith Twisse Cont. Corvin pag. 136. c. 2 De Infantibus infantia sua morientibus falsum est quod nobis obtrudit Neque enim dicimus ullos Infantes credentium foederatorum Dei in infantia decedentes ad exitium destinatos Sanctos enim eos pronunciat Apostolus Et una cum parentibus fidelibus in foedere Dei comprehenduntur But I doubt he befriendeth the Anabaptists more than he was aware of when he addeth Obsignant Sacramenta credentibus remissionem peccatorum vitam aeternam At Infantibus quoties administratur Baptismus non tam credentibus quam credituris obsignat promissiones istas Non credituris autem nihil obsignant If so then to them that die in Infancy or yet are Infants no pardon is delivered and sealed by Baptism which is not sound Of our guilt of nearer Parents Sin Let them that reject me in this hear Augustine in Enchirid. c. 46. Paâ—entum quoque peccatis parvulâ—â— obligari non solum primorum hominum sed etiam suorum de quibus ipsi nati sunt non improbabiliter dicitur Illa quippe divina sententia Râ—ddam peccata patrum in filios tenet hos utique antequam per regenerationem ad testamentum novum incipiant poenitere Reperiuntur plura peccata alia parentum quae etsi non ita possunt mutare naturam reatu tamen obligant filios nisi graâ—uita gratia miserecordia divina subveniat But whether God do also without a Promise save any of the Children of the Heathen World or of wicked Parents and how many and with what Salvation and also what degree of punishment they have in the life to come we take for unrevealed things which we are so far from making Articles of our Faith that we take it to be presumptuous arrogancy to dispute it and meddle with the Secrets of the Almighty The Papists themselves are not agreed whether Infants have only the poenam damni as shut out of Heaven or also poenam sensus Jansenius and many more yea most have written for the first and Petavius and others for the latter But secret things belong to God A. We cannot prove that all Infants are saved nor do we presume to tell you what Salvation it is that they shall have But we hope the best And I am glad to find that you take the Salvation of true Believers dying Infants to be sure by the same Covenant which pardoneth their Parents and that you do not peremptorily condemn all the rest B. You know that the Synod of Dort have said the same that I do of true Believers Children Art 1. Sect. 17. and the rest they meddle not with A. But I pray you tell me your thoughts Whether Infants themselves do perish for Adam's sin alone And what remedy is provided for them B. The whole tenor of the Scripture putteth me past doubt that Divines have strangely erred by over-looking the common Interest and Communion of all Parents and Children and appropriating our Original Guilt to Adam's sin alone But this requireth a larger Disputation by it self At present consider 1. That no Text of Scripture doth so appropriate it or make Adam only the Corrupter of our Natures But only maketh him the Original of our Guilt and Pravity as he was the Original of our Nature And so he only is the Original of our Death and Punishment 2. That the whole scope of Scripture containeth Promises and Penalties to Children with the Parents for and by the Parents sins more plainly than any was antecedently expressed of Adam's Posterity as his Yea the very Moral Law in the Second Commandment and in the Proclamation of Gods Name and Nature to Moses Exod. 34. 6 7. which nothing but prejudice and partiality can deny to be a valid proof of a secondary Birth sin derived to us And he that will read the Sacred History from the Curse on the Seed of Cain and Cham of the Case of Ishmael Esau Moab Amnon Sauls Grand-Children hanged and so on to Matth. 23. 38. On this Generation shall come all the righteous blood c. And His blood be on us and on our Children with all the Promises to the Seed of the Righteous only and Threatning to the Houses and Seed of the Wicked with the reason of Infant-Baptism it self 1
arbore scientiae boni mali transgressus est propter quod nos omnes peccatores constituti sumus rei facti condemnationis mortis B. 1. Mark that he expresly maketh us by Adam's sin to be Peccatores rei constituti 2. So in the next Thesis An peccatum Originis sit tantum carentia justitiae Originalis sanctimoniae primaevae cum inclinatione ad peccandum quae antea in homine fuit licet non ita vehemens aeque inordinata ut nunc est propter amissum favorem Dei maledictionem ejusdem amissionem ejus boni quo in ordinem redigebatur An vero contrarius quidam habitus justitiae sanctimoniae infusus vel ingressus acquisitus post peccatum perpetratum Dub. Here he confesseth also a positive Original Sin in the inordinateness of the sensual inclination 3. When he denieth Adam's Act to be our Original 1. He denieth not for no Christian denieth it to be the Original Sin that is the first sin and the cause of ours 2. And he seemeth but to mean that Adam's Sin individually was not ours which is most certain For the same Accident cannot be in two distinct Subjects If our persons be not every one Adam's person it is impossible that the same individual sin or guilt should be his and ours any more than the same individual Soul If God did arbitrarily meerly because he would do it impute Adam's fact to all Mankind and to every one personally this would make it as many sins as there be persons One mans Original Sin would not be anothers and none of theirs the same quoad formam numericam with Adam's Adams is Adams and yours is yours and mine is mine We cannot therefore be heretick men for such doubtful forms of speech in which we differ among our selves The plain truth is the matter is not so well opened commonly among us as to allow us to condemn others till we have better done our own parts My thoughts are these 1. That we were seminally and virtually really in Adam having the very essence of our Souls derived from him not being in him only as the House is in the head of the Architect but as an essential form is in the generater though we call both esse in causa 2. That we were not personally in Adam though seminally that is we were not natural persons in him when he sinned 3. God supposeth no man to have been what he was not or done what he did not For he erreth not 4. God is not the Author of Sin Therefore he doth not by arbitrary imputing of Adam's act and reputing us to have done what we did not make all men Sinners which Adam could not do 5. But God doth truly repute us to have been seminally in Adam and to have no Essence but what is really derived from his Essence And as when a man is guilty no part of him is innocent neque semen neque sanguis though they have not a distinct guilt but participative qua partes rei so we were Sinners in that act and guilty of that act so far as we were partes Adami and in him 6. This was not to be at that time guilty as distinct persons for we were not such 7. But we that were then only seminally inexistent after became real distinct persons and then that guilt even of Adam's fact adhering still to us became reatus personae because the Subjects of it are personae Even as if Eve had been made after the Fall of Adam's Rib that Rib at first was guilty not by another but the same numerical guilt that Adam was as part of a Sinner For it was a capable Subject of no more But when that same Rib was made a person it would be a guilty person For it lost not the guilt by that change But then it is not only or chiefly our Bodies which are from Adam which are from the elements in our daily food but our Souls And therefore the adherence of the guilt to a rational spirit essentially flowing from anothers essence is more easily understood and defended than that of the corporal Rib could be 8. I do contrary to excellent Jos Placeus suppose that in primo instanti this our participation in Adam's guilt is in order before our qualitative pravity And that God doth therefore deny us his Spirit first to make us originally holy not only because Adam but because we in Adam as aforesaid did forfeit and expel it 9. I think that mens assertion of a Decree or Covenant of God that if Adam fell any more should be imputed to his Off-spring than they were thus really guilty of themselves is the bold addition of mens invention of greater audacity than the addition of Ceremonies to the Worship of God which yet some are more sensible of 10. I think that if Adam had not sinned that same first sin but had sinned another sin the next hour or day or moneth or year or any time before Generation it would have been equally ours as this first was because we were equally in him and no Scripture-Covenant makes a difference 11. I think that whereas Adam's sin had twenty particular sins as parts of the whole we were guilty of all as well as of the first act or part else we should not be guilty of his eating the forbidden â—ruit for doubtless that was not the first His incogitancy and non-Nolition and sinful Volitions were before it Yea I doubt not but we are guilty of all the sin that Adam committed from his first sin till the making of the New-Covenant at least 12. I doubt not but if Adam had never sinned yet supposing the same Covenant to stand if his Sons after him had sinned we should have been guilty of it as we are of his sin yea had it been but our nearest Parents 13. I doubt not but that we are still so guilty of our nearer Parents Sins further than as the introduction of the new pardoning Covenant and the oft pardons by it and the incapacity of nature to bear any more punishment may make a difference This is not a place voluminously to prove all this But if any Arminians be tempted to speak doubtingly of this Original Guilt while they confess Original sinful pravity 1. Blame your own additions to Gods Covenant and your obscure writings of the thing 2. And say not that they deny Original Sin but express the matter as it is It seemeth that Arminius by Peccatores rei constituti sumus meaneth as we do C. I must confess your explication is rational and concilatory But how can you excuse Corvinus B. See but how he defendeth Arminius against Tilenus as holding our Original Sin to be truly Sin and a punishment for Sin and you will think that he denieth it not himself See also what Twisse supposeth him to grant Cont. Corvin p. 253 254. Indeed he doth two much obscure and extenuate the formalem rationem peccati in
nearer Salvation and do better than they do though not immediately to do all that is necessary to Salvation And he that can do it if he will and also hath power to will it is said to have sufficient Grace which if he use not the fault lieth in his wilfulness 2. The Act nor the just Disposition or Habit they have not But that is their own fault who had those Means those Objects and that Power by which they could and might have attained them C. Is any one ever converted by this sufficient Grace or not If not frustra fit potentia c. If yea then it is effectual Grace B. Now you have brought the Controversie to the parting point where the two Parties use to part As you may see in Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Hamond's Letters I will first answer your Consequences 1. Non frustra fit talis potentia though it never act For 1. It attaineth other good ends though it attain not their Salvation 2. If one of a thousand should not use their power or if a thousand to one do use it that varieth not the case For it is still as much vain to that one man as if no one used it But 2. So far as it is vain that is to their own Salvation they make it vain themselves and must blame themselves 3. I ask you whether you think not your self that 1. All wicked men by common Grace 2. And all godly men by special Grace have power to do more good and forbear more evil than they do If so Do you hold that all that power which they never use to any of those omitted acts is vain If not why should this in question be accounted vain But to the great difficulty it self I answer 1. You must not forestall the Truth by any of these false suppositions 1. That there is any man to whom God giveth a meer Power neither disposed nor provoked to the Act. For 1. Mans natural faculty it self besides natural power hath all these aptitudes to the Act. 1. Man hath self-love and a desire of felicity and an unwillingness and fear of Hell and Misery and of all that he knoweth doth tend to it as such He can seek for Glory Honour and Immortality Rom. 2. And therefore God thus argueth with men Ezek. 33. Turn ye why will ye die And 1 Pet. 3. 10. He that loveth life and would see good days c. as making use of a common principle 2. Man hath reason to understand what is told him of Good and Evil in some sort and Nature containeth a Law written in the heart Rom. 3. by which the Heathens did much of that which was written in the Scripture 3. Man hath a Conscience to accuse and excuse 4. He hath misery and necessity to move him which may be known to him by common light and experience 5. Sin as sin is in common disgrace in the World And Nature teacheth Mankind to distinguish moral Good and Evil so that the worst do not love and own sin as sin And did not Satan hide it with some vail of goodness he could not draw them to it Even those that murdered Christ did it on a false pretence that he was a Sinner 6. Mans nature hath an enmity to Devils and a fear of them And therefore will fly from evil so far as they perceive the Devil in it for the most part For he is their known Enemy 7. Lastly All do known that they must die and that this World will serve them but a little while And they have great experience of its vanity and vexation And Nature teacheth most and the Gospel much more that mans Soul is immortal and therefore that there is a Reward for the Good and Punishment for the Bad hereafter 2. And as depraved Nature it self hath certainly all these advantages for good so God addeth by his Works and Word many vehement Motives Perswasions and urgent Exhortations Examples Mercies and Corrections And all these may give the Soul much more than a bare power to many good acts For many such are really done by bad men And to others they are almost perswaded when they disobey 2. You must not suppose that just the same degree of means or help is necessary to one man as to another or to the same man ever at several times For one mans Soul may be more undisposed and ill disposed than anothers And the same mans more at one time than at another And temptations and impediments may be greater at one time and to one man than another Experience assureth us that less teaching will inform one mans understanding than anothers C. Have not all men the same degree of Original Sin What can be said more of any than is said of all that they are dead in sin B. 1. The same word Dead may be used of all if it were words only that you plead for But that word proveth not that all are equally either guilty or corrupted For though Adam's sin be the same to all yet I have before told you and shewed you besides Scripture Augustine's judgment for it that there is also a participation of Guilt of nearer Parents sins by Infants And consequently of Pravity Were it but the ill temper of body which many Drunkards and Adulterers convey to their Children experience telleth us that it doth much in hindering the Soul And all are not equal in this derivation of Original Sin 2. And Adam's sin with all other being pardoned to faithful Parents is in them pardoned to their Infants dedicated to God And we have reason to think that where the Guilt is pardoned the Vice is not equally transmitted as to others that are not pardoned in their infancy 3. And it is not only Original Sin but much additional Pravity and particular habits of sin contracted by practice which is the impediment of Conversion 4. Yea and actual sin it self which temptations stir up as well as those habits 5. And also the great guilt which all those acts and habits do contract by which Gods Grace is yet more forfeited All these are a great disparity and shew that more Grace is necessary to some than others C. Well! Go on with your Answer to the main Question B. My Answer is that if you will not turn Vorstians but will receive the common metaphysical School Divinity about God to deny which is commonly called Blasphemy by all Parties I do not yet see any place for a disagreement For the Question Whether the same measure of Grace which we call meerly sufficient is ever effectual is meant either 1. Of Gods Agency or Influx as it is Agentis 2. Or of the Means 3. Or of the Objects 4. Or of Effects in the Soul * Malderus in 1. 2. q. 111. a. 3. d. 8. Omnis gratia excitans est efficax rata respectu sui effectus formalis quo homo excitatur quem sine consensu libero in homine ponit non enim potest gratia
proportion of gracious means * Protestant Divines do commonly conjoyn the operation of the Spirit and Word as well as Papists and in some cases more Thom. docet q. 22. de Ver. a. 8. Deum inclinare Voluntatem ad aliquid appâ—tendum eam â—fficaciter physice praedeterminando non solum immediate sed etiam mediate aliqua entitate recepta in voluntate ex mente D. Tho. Deus movet omâ—â—s causas secundas eas applâ—â—a ' ad suas operatioâ—â— ita ut etiam quando â—â—â—â—â—t voluntatem aliquid â—â—â—imit in illam per moâ—â—â— transeuntis Alvaâ—ez de Aux disp 23. p. 114. and helps than to others but leaveth them under the common helps which convert the more prepared Souls Not that God always doth so For oft times to his Elect he doth as he did by Paul or the Eunuch vouchsafe them extraordinary means For as a Benefactor he is free and may do with his own as he list and may make Vessels of Mercy and Honour of them that deserved worst And the case of the Tyrians and Sidonians compared with theirs of Capernaum and Bethsaida doth prove that less means are proportionable to some as being less ill-disposed when greater to others may be uneffectual III. And then as to objective Grace it being the same God the same Heaven the same Christ and the same Promise which is set before all that have the Gospel this cannot be the Controversie Though the revealing means be divers with many so is not the Object nor the Means to all IV. All that remaineth then to be questioned is the Effect which is subjective Grace whether that Grace in one man which is but sufficient be efficient in another or in the same man at several times And here by this subjective Grace is meant either 1. The vis impressa 2. Or the Power 3. Or the Act produced 4. Or the Disposition or Habit. The two latter are shut out of the question which is not whether the Act or Habit be sufficient and effectual but whether the Grace be so that is to cause them Whether this vis impressa be always caused by means with Gods Power set home as the impress of a Signature by the Arm and Seal or be caused immediately by God without any proper means the word being but a Concomitant and not mediate Operator is made a Controversie by some But he that well considereth the Scripture here abouts and the experience of man will be likelier to think that it is God by means that ordinarily maketh the impress on the Soul and that the same impress is the effect of both though extraordinarily God can do without means For 1. It is most likely that God should work on man most agreeably to his nature and to his subject state under God his Governor 2. And Christ himself as our Teacher and Example and all his Gospel are appointed to this use 3. The Ministry and Ordinances are appointed to the same end And Ministers commanded to fit their teaching to that end 4. No man can prove that ever any came to actual Knowledge Faith or Love but by some means Experience telleth Gods Servants that he worketh by them 5. The most apt and powerful usually have best success and those prosper most in Grace that use means best and those speed worst that use them least 6. God strictly commandeth the use of the means as means for that end that his Grace may be wrought by them 7. God promiseth his blessing on the means Act. 26. 17 18. 1 send thee to open their eyes c. Rom. 1. 16. The Gospel is the Power of God to Salvation 2 Tim. 4. 16. Thou shalt save thy self and them that hear thee Jam. 6. last He that converteth a Sinner saveth a Soul from death c. 8. When God forsaketh a Nation by taking away the means he usually forsaketh them as to further Grace 9. The Devil seemeth to know this by his earnest opposition to a holy powerful Ministry and other means throughout the World so that we may say with Cypriam Epist. 69. ad Pupian Ut etiam qui non credebant Deo Episcopum Constitâ—enti vel Diabâ—lo credebant Episcopum proscribenti But whether it be by means or not it must be somewhat different from Gods own Essence which is imprinted or communicated And to get a formal conception of it what it is if it be not the Power Disposition Act or Habit is past mans reach Whatsoever it is this is certain 1. That God doth not give an Act as a thing pre-existent but giving Faith is but causing us to believe or do that act our selves which was none till we performed it 2. That quoad effectum disposed Power and Act also are more than Power and Disposition without the act 3. Undoubtedly Dr. Fairfax Of the Bulk c. of the World pag. 5. 6 7 c. Though God be the Maker of every Being that is physicaly so it follows not that he is so of every Being that is morally so It is enough that God is the Maker of the Power to do evil which being good may spring from him c. All that God doth towards sin is to leave us to our selves to bring it forth if we will and instead of driving on to it as a fellow-helper or procatarktick cause he draws from it and towards the good with unspeakable endearments of wooing and drives from it by forbidding the Evil with all that earnestness of threatning which may beget in man the utmostness of dread Nor is he any nearer the physical cause of it than to give that good power which is not the cause at all as it looks towards him for by giving this power he is at the same time the evil is done as much the cause of the good that is not done therefore he is not the cause at all Besides this power is not only good but also needful For though the the perfection of the Will in the next life will not be in a wavering alike towards Good and Evil but only in a selfwillingness to Good yet in this life I think it mainly does and must For this is a life of doing or believing as it looks on to reward in that to come and that is a life of rewarding as it looks back to doing or believing here c. Hence we may answer the old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For â—s sin is a moral thing c. unbounded Wisdom and Goodness having â—aid out endless happiness as a reward for Obedience and endless wretchedness as punishment for sin without this Obedience there could be no Heaven without Sin no Hell And without a power not to do in both there could be neither So then that God may have leave to make man happy for holiness man must needs have power to make himself wretched for sin That evil should always flow from evil in a chain of Breeders is a great misunderstanding Object Then man may
by the habit of sensuality or the natural inclination to felicity as such which may bear down weaker particular habits or inclinations B. No doubt but the Will is quaedam natura and hath its natural inclination to good and felicity which is its pondus and radical disposition to its acts from which every act is caused that is done But I say not that ever it goeth contrary to these radical necessitating inclinations to goodness But de mediis it may have inferior particular habits which it oft goeth against C. That is because the Understanding conceiveth that another thing is best and so it is necessitated by the Understanding B. The Understanding guideth but doth not necessitate That we Will rightly is caused by the Understanding as that I hit the way is by my eye-sight but not that I exercise the Act it self Though we Will not without or against the last strongest dictate of the practical Intellect yet 1. Note that the Intellect hath divers perceptions at once which is not commonly noted It doth at once act a deep simple apprehension that e. g. bonum sensible is pleasant and good and amiable and that bonum spirituale which cometh into competition is yet better may be at the same time perceived with so low dull and weak an apprehension as that the Will may tenaciously so adhere to the first simple apprehension by a strong simple Volition as that the second weak comparate apprehension may not move it to Election 2. For we find that it is not the objective truth of an apprehension which turneth the Will without some answerable clearness and liveliness And as a Preacher that dreamingly speaketh of great things uncontroulably but coldly moveth not the hearers so is it with the Intellect it self And 3. The Will being principium exercitii can hinder the Understanding from perceiving truth by hindering it from thinking of the evidence 4. And the Will it self can suspend its own act contrary to the understandings fluggish dictate And not acting when it can towards God and true goodness is the beginning of all the disorders of the Soul C. But saith Camero c. the Will is appetitus rationalis And if it act against reason it acteth not as a Will And so also if it act without reason Therefore it cannot forbid the Intellect to think by nolition unless the Intellect first say Non cogitandum est Nor can it choose but velle cogitare if the Intellect say cogitandum est Otherwise the Will were a bruitish and not a rational appetite B. 1. The Will acteth by reason when it cleaveth to that good which is simply apprehended by the Intellect The simple apprehension goeth first e. g. That this Fruit offered Eve is good and desirable This is true and here the Will adhereth to it as good Then should the understanding think comparatively of a greater Good and say This is evil as forbidden and as it hindereth a greater Good And this it performeth not because the Will is here the beginner of the Sin not perhaps by a positive nolition or forbidding the Intellect the comparing Thought for that it doth not without shew of reason but by neglecting or omitting to excite the Understanding ad exercitium which it is brought to in Adam and Eve 1. By diversion being before taken up with the Creature 2. By voluntary neglect or sloth For the Will can omit its act without reason and yet be a rational appetite And the beginning of the Sin may be this omission of the Will or it s over tenacious adhering to sensible good apprehended truly by the Intellect 2. And we have not so much acquaintance with the faculties of our own Souls as to be sure that sense and passion and phantasie can do nothing immediately on the Will to help or hinder it We find that the Will easily followeth Passion and very hardly goeth against it 3. Nay we are not certain but there may be more bruitishness and less reason in many Sins than most imagine and that the violence of the sensitive appetite and passion may not prevail both with the Will to forbear the excitation of the Intellect and with the Intellect to omit its opposite Judgment though neither Will or Reason in the first instant give consent There are some also that think that we are scarce sure that the Will and the sensitive Appetite are two several faculties rather than one between two guides I say not as they But this I will say that I grow daily more confident that they that make the rational and sensitive Soul in man to be two and their Brethren that without all shew of proof magisterially face us down that the Soul at death puts off all sense because it exerciseth it not by the same Organs which were adapted to the Bodies use do both of them hainously wrong the Church and darken many Truths and open the way to Infidelity C. But you cannot lay the beginning of sin on the Wills omission to put the Intellect on the comparing thoughts for the Intellect can understand against our Wills as many know that which they had rather be ignorant of And therefore needs not the Will ad exercitium B. The Intellect may be forced But it is not so always Things sensible and near at hand may force the Intellect But things unseen and distant must be voluntarily thought on and studied or else they will not be understood C. If e. g. Eves Will had said to the Intellect Cogita Comparative either the Intellect must first have said to the Will Comparative cogitandum est or not If not then that Will would have been no rational Will If yea then the Will must have consented or else been unwilling against reason and so be bruitish still Therefore Sin must begin at the Intellect B. 1. The Intellect did not say Comparative cogitandum est not only because it was not commanded so to say by the Will but because the Will was so entangled before by the simple Love of the Creature as diverted the thoughts from the Creator 2. Suppose the Intellect did say coldly Comparative cogitandum est the Will did neglect it being not necessitated thereby and so the Intellect went no further C. If the Will do velle bonum qua bonum necessario it must needs necessarily velle bonum cognitum and so must follow the Intellect B. It doth necessarily velle bonum quando vult i. e. non malum but it doth not necessarily velle hoc vel illud bonum inter plurima Nay though the Intellect say nothing against it yea something for it the pre-engaged Will may neglect it And yet possibly Eves Intellect did perform one comparative act which occasioned her further sin viz. If thou turn thy thoughts towards Gods prohibition thou wilt lose the pleasant good before thee And this was true C. But if Eve's Will first over tenaciously stuck to the forbidden Creature when the Understanding never said It must do so In
And the sum of his opinion about the nature and cause of our holy actions is 1. That Gods universal influx or causation is necessary on our will to make them acts 2. That Free-Will is the cause that they are these particular acts about this object rather than another 3. That Gods particular or special influx of Grace is the cause that they are supernatural acts And that preventing Grace doth give men good thoughts and the first motion of the affections before deliberation and choice or liberty as Vasquez also saith which seemeth the same with the Doctrine of Ockam Buridane and the rest of the Nominals who call it Complacency as antecedent to Election yea and Intention To be pleased with the thing simply on the first apprehension they call a necessary natural act Though the Scotists say that quoad exercitium actus vel libertatem contradictionis even that is free And it seems the same which Augustine and Jansenius call primam aelectationem But converting Grace it self Molina takes to be a habit wrought by Gods special help in and with the word or means His words are of men that are hearing Gods Word or thinking on it Influit Deuâ— in â—easdem notitias inâ—luxâ— quodam particulari ac supernaturali quo cognitionem illam adjuvat tum ut res melius dilucidius expendatur peâ—etret â—umâ—etiam ut notitia illa jam limites notitia supernaturalis ad finem supernaturalom in suo ordine attingat Inde oritur in voluntate motus affectionis c. Yet no Jesuite is supposed to go further from the Calvinists than this man In truth I cannot perceive but that Jesuites Arminians Lutherans and all such are willing to ascribe as much to Gods Grace as they think consistent with mans Free-will and Gods not being the cause of sin which is the same thing that the Calvinists also endeavour thoughâ—hey seem not to hit on the same names and notions to do the thing desired save themselves and those that hear them 1. Tim. 4. 16. And that he that converts a sinner doth save a soul from death James 6. ult And that the word is the immortal incorruptible seed by which we are begotten again and which remaineth in us Are you now in doubt of this C. It is one thing for God to work with the Word and another thing to work by the Word The first we confess But if God work by the Word then he must operate first on the Word which is the Preachers act and so by that Word on the soul and not immediately Therefore I rather think that the word is a concomitant than an instrumental cause B. 1. You wrong your self and Christ in that you will not believe him John 3. that we mortals know not the way and manner of the Spirits accesses and operations on the soul any more than the cause of the wind whose sound we hear Do you not know that you do not know how Gods Spirit moveth our intellect and wills and how he maketh use of instruments except secundum quid in some particles revealed 2. An hundred Texts of Scripture which I omit lest I be tedious tell us that the Word is a means or subordinate cause to God of his informing and reforming operations on mens souls And it 's dangerous to dream of any second cause that is so concomitant as to be but co-ordinate with the first cause and not subordinate to it And the word is not only subordinate to God as Instituter by Legislation and Declaration but also to God as efficient operator 3. God can work two ways by the Word which are within our reach besides others 1. As it is the act of the speaker by exciting and illuminating him 2. As it is the species as they call it received by the senses and imagination which God can by his power set home to the attainment of the due effect 4. And yet I know not any or many of your Adversaries that deny that besides this Divine operation by the VVord God hath another immediately on the soul exciting it to operate upon the VVord as the vis plastica vitalis materna operatur in semen jam receptum But I will here forbear to trouble you with the physical difficulties whether the VVord heard be only objectum intellectus or also causa efficiens as light is both to the eye And whether it be operative on the intellect or only terminative with other such like C. Well I must grant you that all Infused Faith as to the act is Acquired But all Acquired Faith not Infused but infusion is added to our own endeavours like the creation of the humane soul B. I am glad that we are got so far on towards peace But Quest. 4. What mean you by Infusion Is it not a Metaphor C. Yes and we mean that immediate perswasion of God which you even confess to be besides his operation by the Word and by our Cogitations Even a Creation of an act or habit B. Quest. 5. Is it the name Infusion or the thing that you plead for C. The name though I confess Metaphors must not be used unnecessarily in Disputes is yet convenient but that I leave indifferent B. Quest 6. Do you not think that the act of Faith is the act of mans own Intellect and Will or Soul and that immediately C. Yes that cannot be denied B. If so then when you say that our act is Infused I hope you will confess the term to be none of the plainest and you only mean that Gods Grace doth so operate on the faculty as to excite it so to act and consequently that the thing first and properly infused is not the act of Faith it self but the vis impressa facultatem before described by which the act is caused And so in a secondary sense the act may be called Infused but not most immediately C. I confess it is the habit which we commonly take to be Infused and therefore we use to distinguish habitus infusos ab habitibus acquisitis rather than actus infusos ab actibus acquisitis B. Is that Habit before the Act or after it C. You know that it is a Controversie among our selves Mr. Pemble saith it is before and the common opinion is that it is after the first special Act. B. 1. I once received that from Mr. Pemble ignorantly But that cometh to us by not distinguishing the vis impressa or first received influx of the spirit from a Habit when as Amesius well saith it is fitter called semen fidei vel dispositio quaedam than a Habit of Faith For 1. no man can prove such an antecedent habit and therefore none should assert it 2. The true nature of a Habit consisteth in a promptitude to perform that special act with facility But that we should have such a promptitude and facility not only while we are Infant Christians but no Christians as having not yet believed in Christ is not probable according to our
Whether God Actually in his mind thus Compare men and prefer one before another and say I will cause this man to believe rather than that I answer 1. There is no Act in God but his Essence which is invariable and indivisible 2. But because his operations as terminated and productive ad extra are various and have objective material causes of their diversity in the recipients therefore we usually thence denominate Gods volitions as various And so when we see that one man hath Grace given him to believe when another hath not we hence say that God mentally and by Decree preferreth one before the other when the difference is not at all in God not his Act ex parte agentis but only of and by God in the Recipients C. But come yet nearer the heart of the case and tell me plainly 1. Whether the difference of Effects be more from the will and action of God or from mens different Receptive dispositions And 2. Whether all these different Receptivities be not of God B. Order bids me begin with the latter 1. The different Dispositions are of two sorts Good and Bad. God is not the cause of the Indisposition or illdisposition of any And as to the good disposition or Preparation of Souls no doubt but he is the principal Cause of it all but not the sole Cause nor always at least the necessitating Cause but oft giveth men that necessary help by which they might have been prepared for more when yet they are not through their wilful resistance or neglect For few men will deny that men have sufficient uneffectual Grace for some preparatory acts though not for faith Ad. Q. 2. I told you that the difference in the effects resulteth from the Causes in both Subjects and not in one only That which maketh one a believer and the other an unbeliever maketh them differ And I have told you what these Causes are But further I suppose as aforesaid a certain established order and degree of universal help external and internal by Christ to the Soul as the Sun affordeth to inferior Bodies This stablished order of Grace universally affordeth such a degree of Divine Influx and help as will cause faith in a prepared Soul and will not cause it in some much unprepared Souls For if as little help would serve the unprepared as the prepared to what use is preparation quomodo recipitur ad modum recipientis In this case now the efficient of Grace is God and not Man but * That even Jesuits confess in their way of scientia media that the Ratio discriminis why one person rather than another hath Grace is from God initially and principally and not from any beginning in man See Ruiz proving it at large in all his Tract 3. Disp 18. 19. De Praedest exordio So that this is no difference between us Yea more he maintaineth that ante fidem niâ—il est dispositionis meriti aut impetrationis Sect. 3. Disp 19. 24. And one would think that this should satisfie even the Antinomians But he meaneth only that this disposition is not always necessary He that will in brief see what the Schoolmen say of preparative Grace may find abundance of them cited by Ruiz ibid. d. 21. per totam and what nature can do in preparation Greg. Armin in 2. d. 28. q. 1. a. 1. speaketh most like the Reformed Aug. de bono persever c. 8. Sed cur Gratia Dei non secundum merita hominum datur Resp Quia deus miserecors est Cur ergo non omnibus Et hic respondeo Quoniam Deuâ— justus Judex est the Ratio proxima of the difference in the event and effects is the Diverse disposition of the Recipients But here mark well that it is not the good disposition or preparation of one party that is the only and I think not the chief reason of the difference but the Privative and Positive indisposition of the other party is as much if not the chiefest reason If one man shut his eyes against the light when another doth not the Ratio discriminis why one man differeth from another in seeing and not seeing is on both parts but principally on his part that shutteth his eyes because the other doth but what he was made to do and all living creatures should do But the other absurdly crosseth nature So that under an universal Influx and help the said Influx is the efficient of the action or effect but the disposition of the Recipients are the Occasions and Reasons to be assigned of the various effects but especially the incapacity of the defective party As the reason why the Sun doth make a Tree bear fruit and not a dead stock is because the Tree is an apt recipient of its influx but the stock or stone is not 2. But Note that in case that God operate not by such an universal Influx only but also by superadded special or extraordinary degrees of particular Grace which by a difference from the universal Influx or degree is peculiarly apt to procure the effects here the ratio discriminis is principally to be ascribed to that special Grace and not to the preparations on the Soul C. Tell me then what you think whether God works by such an universal Grace or by such a special Grace 1. How far doth he work by universal Grace 2. Is that universal Grace ever effectual of it self on prepared Souls 3. How far doth he also use the special particular Grace which you mentioned B. I. To your first Qu. I answer 1. God in the beginning made mankind upright in Adam and Eve and made no difference as to the present case 2. Eve having first sinned did make a difference between her self and Adam which God made not nor altered first his universal Grace 3. Adam next without Gods alteration by Sin did difference himself from himself as he was before 4. God then set up a new universal Grace even Christ with the new Covenant and Recovering means to give out universal help suited to his Covenant and means to be the Giver of the Spirit and the Light of the world we cannot have time now to open the difference between Christ's administrations before and after his Incarnation There was at first an universal sufficiency in this Recovering help of Grace 5. Cain that could have done otherwise wilfully sinned against this universal Grace and Covenant and so made a difference between him and the rest of mankind when God made none 6. Whether Abel did offer his acceptable Sacrifice by this same universal Help alone or by any special extraordinary Grace ex parte mediorum vel Influxus primi recepti is a thing unknown to us because unrevealed 7. The Posterity of Cain as of Adam at first because Seminally in him and personally from his very guilty essence were justly deprived of some of that Grace both Subjective and Objective which Cain had deprived himself of Their natures were more vitiated and so
arbitrii postulat sive prius sive posterius sive simul non sequitur malitiam Deo esse tribuendam cum illa solum ex modo operandi creaturae sequatur Vasquez in 1 Tho. q. 23. d. 99. cap. 4. the general nature of action when existent hath So that this Moral specification addeth not to the natural generical entity 543. It is therefore 1. Acting 2. Not acting 3. Moral disposition which are Commanded and Forbidden by God And not any one only and these not in themselves but about the Materials commanded or forbidden Objectively in the Law To Act on a forbidden object Not to Act on an object when commanded and to be viciously disposed to either is a sin 544. You may see then that sin is a Connotative notion yea and a Relative notion It connoteth a Ruler a Law and End a Subject and is thus variously Related 545. As Subjection is the Root of Obedience and all obedience Virtually being A Consent to obey and Love is the Root of benefits so to forsake God simply as our Rector or our End or our Owner is Atheism practical and all sin in one But to violate only a particular precept de mediis is but a particular sin 546. God is the Cause of the Law which commandeth and forbiddeth and God is the Cause of Nature and Objects and Action as Action That therefore which he hath made mans part is to Love God and Holiness and not to over-love the creature nor to love it as our End or in his stead and to do all that he commandeth and not to do the particular acts about such particular objects as he forbiddeth 547. The remote subject or relatum then of sin is the person sinning But the nearest is the Act Omission or disposition The fundamentum or ratio referendi is the said Acts Omissions or dispositions as such or such about such or such objects commanded or forbidden which is a Relation And the form of sin is the Moral Relation of Disobedience or Disconformity to the Law So that if you must needs have it in Logical notions Sin is a Moral Relation resulting from a Physical relation of Actions Omissions or dispositions of Gods subjects which are modified contrary to his Law 548. It is a Moral Relation as it is Disobedience found in a Moral agent against a Law and Rector as such It is a Physical Relation as the Act c. is prius naturâ quid naturale about an object that is quid naturale It s fundamentum of both relations And one Relation may be sounded in another is the Mode of the Act Omission or disposition as to an undue object c. as it is forbidden by the Law Of the subjects and relatum I have spoken before 549. So that the form of sin being Relative can have no Cause but that which causeth its fundamentum and cannot possibly but result when that is laid 550. It were an injury to God to feign him to make such a Law as should say Though thou hate me see that that hatred be not Related formally as a breach of my Law or I forbid thee not to commit Adultery but only forbid that thy Adultery be quid prohibitum or a sin For if God forbid not the act it cannot be a sin and if he forbid it it must needs be sin And so of omissions 551. They therefore that tell us that sin is nothing but a Privation speak not satisfactorily nor altogether truly It is no substance indeed nor any such Reality as Man cannot Cause without Gods Causing it supposing his Universal Natural Support and Concurse But the thing forbidden is often Acts and Dispositions as well as Omissions and the form of sin is a Moral Relation which hath so much reality as a Relation hath if that be any And that Relation hath a positive name It is not only a meer Non-conformity but also a Disconformity becaused founded in See Dr. Wallis against the Lord Brooke of this very well Actual Volitions and Nolitions as forbidden and not only in Omissions 552. Subtile Ockam Quodl 3. q. 15. disputing Utrum rectitudo deformitas actus differant à substantia actus denyeth it and after a Confutation of the common saying that Deformitas est carentia rectitudinis debitae distinguitur ab actu quod in peccato Actus est materiale carentia justitiae debitae inesse est formale concludeth Quod deformitas non est carentia justitiae vel rectitudinis debitae inesse actui sed est carentia rectitudinis debitae inesse voluntati Quod non est aliud dicere nisi quod voluntas obligatur aliquem actum elicere secundum praeceptum Divinum quem non elicit ideo rectitudo actus non est aliud quam qui debuit elici secundum rectam rationem But I conceive 1. That the rectitude of the Will can be nothing else but the rectitude of its acts suspensions and dispositions 2. That Ockam here describeth only sins of omissions whereas the Rectitude of the Will is ofren also materially in not doing or willing what is forbidden And with these two animadversions I am reconciled to Ockam who addeth Ad aliud dico Quod illud dictum de Materiali Formali est falsum Quia aut est peccatum commissionis aut omissionis si primo modo est Materiale sine formali quia ibi non est carentia rectitudinis debitae inesse actui si secundo modo tunc est ibi carentia quae est formale sine materiali Resp 1. To the first I add that It had been true if it had been the Act as an act that had been forbidden or else the species of the act as quid naturale But it being the Act not as an act in genere but as this act thus modified or specified by an undue object that Act with its Relation as quid physicum are presupposed as the relatum to the moral relation of Pravity or Disconformity And to the second I say that it 's true that Omission is not Materia Physica but it is an inadequate first conception of sin and so is materia moraliter dicta vel loco materiae And the Omission being considerable 1. Quatenus Non-agere 2. Qua privatio naturalis 3. Qua Privatio disconformitas moralis these three inadequate conceptions take up the whole nature of the sins of omission 553. The same Ockam Quodl 1. qu. 20. Utrum actus exterior habeat propriam bonitatem vel malitiam moralem even as dependent on the Will And he denyeth it against Scotus who affirmeth it I will not trouble the Reader with their reasonings not doubting but Ockam erred and that it 's true 1. That no exterior act is Morally good or evil primarily 2. But that secondarily and participatively as it is voluntary there is a morality in the acts Words and deeds and passions are under Law next to the Will and in dependance on it As the body conjunct with
the soul is a secondary part of the man so are our exterior acts of sin 554. The conceit that making sin a meer nothing doth seem to justifie God as not Causing it is a meer vanity For 1. It justifieth the sinner more who no more is the Cause of nothing than God 2. Either man is able to do that Something or Act which sin is the privation of without any other Power than he hath or not If he be then even the Act of sin is not imputable to God If he be not then every sin is like our not making of a Sun or Moon or World which if it be a culpable defect they make God the first deficient 555. He that would see more of this question of the essence of sin may read Rada lib. 2. contr 16. who first ingenuously confesseth that Tho. and Scotus differ but in words and not in sense and then layeth down eleven conclusions of little use And Marius Scribonius Cosmo disp 18. Scotus in 2. d. 37. Bonavent in 2. d. 35. dub 6. Henric. Quodl 1. qu. 25. Almâ—in Moral tract 3. cap. 17. Richard in 2. d. 34. ar 1. qu. 7. Alex. Aleâ—s 2. q. 94. memb 2. Durand 2. dis 31. q. 2. Medin 12. q. 71. ar 6. Specially Vasquez 12. disp 95. cap. 9. Guil. Camerar Scot. Disput Philos Part. 1. Mor. q. 3. pag. 162 c. Argent in 1. d. 35. q. 1. ar 2. Gabriel Biel 2. d. 36. q. unica Valent. 1. 2. d. 2. q. 14. p. 3 c. Suarez 1. 2. tract de act hum d. 2. sect 2. Azor. li. 4. c. 24. Tanner 1. 2. disp 2. q. 5. dub 2. 3. disp 4. q. 1. dub 1. Vega in Trident. 6. c. 39. li. 14. c. 13. Cordub l. 3. q. 10. Cajet Zumel Curiel alios in 1. 2. q. 19. ar 4. q. 71. ar 6. And who is usually sounder than most of them Lombard himself Dist 35. Ripalda opening him and citing others dist 34 35. But the ordinary Christian that understandeth but what Disobedience signifieth needeth none of them all 556. * * * It is not only Dr. Twisse after confuted that supposeth sin to be willed of God as conducible to the perfection of the World but even Ruiz the Jesuite de Provid dis 2. secâ— 4. p. 27. maintaineth that Minus perfectus evasisset Mundus si nulla permitterentur peccata nune autem â—â—asit perfectior occasione peccatorum and citeth Aquin. Alexand. Albert. Bonav Richard Agid. Caiet Ferrar. Marsil for the same But 1. An occasion is no cause nor medium as such and therefore never the more willed if that were true 2. But I have before briefly confuted the Schoolmen on both sides about this question viz. Particular Creatures would be to themselves better were there no sin but whatever possible alterations were made by God the Universe would be neither worse nor better than it is as to that proper Goodness which must absolutely denominate it For the Goodness of all Creatures is to be conform to the Creators Will which is the denominating measure of fundamentum And so they are and so they would be were they altered But sin is disform to his Commanding Will and not conform to his Complacence or Efficient Will He argueth Had there been no sin there had been no such exercise of Liberty no Saviour c. Answ And are tâ—e Angels worse than man And had not all this been as good if God had willed it Though the five acts of God forementioned about sin are as far as we need to go to the common Ends which we agree in yet many objections are made against this much as not sufficient but God must have a greater hand in sin And 1. They object that to make God but an Universal Cause is to put something in being viz. the Act in specie morali which God is not the Cause of And so 1. To make Him idle and unactive as to that 2. To deifie man by making him a first Cause of that moral species To which I shall lay down such answers as I think will satisfie the considerate to this Objection which is indeed their All But I am sorry that the subject occasioneth me to repeat what I said before 557. 1. Remember that even an Act in genere is not a substance And that the moral specification is less as to natural entity than it indeed making no addition of Entity to it as was shewed And Dr. Twiss asserteth that this moral specification is not a proper specification of acts 558. 2. Note that few dare say that God is not Able to make a free agent with Power to choose or refuse without Gods further predetermining premotion And if God can do it we have no reason to debase his work and think he did not 559. 3. Note that for God to make a self determining agent that shall act without his predetermination is but to put forth his own Active Power with limitation or suspension that is To Will and Act or Operate so far and no further 560. 4. And note that this restriction of the Divine operation is not from any finiteness of his power as if he could do no more but from the freedom of his Will and the Conduct of his Wisdom who seeth it good to do no more 561. 5. Above all note that as all Divines agree that God doth not Act ad ultimum posse as natural agents do so the truth is most evident in the finiteness of the World and the effects of his Power For God doth not make as many men or other creatures as he could do He doth not make every man as strong or wise or good or long-lived as he could do He doth not make every Stone or Clod or Tree as Active as he could do nor move every thing as swiftly as he could do Now all that is undone which God could do all possibles which are not existent or future do tell us plainly that God doth freely suspend the action or operation of his Power totally as to them which is much more than to suspend it but in part with free agents and to give them a Natural self-determining power without further pre-moving predetermination of them If all the World tell us that he hath the far greater suspension why should we think the less absurd 562. 6. And Reason telleth us what the Schoolmen oft say that God who sheweth us that he delighteth in wonderful variety of his creatures doth very fitly thus beautifie the Universe by a middle rank of creatures that stand between Confirmed Angels and the Brutes viz. Intellectual-free-agents left to a natural Power of free choosing or refusing without necessitation in the midst of various objects to prepare them by tryal for a better state 563. 7. And note too that we say not that Gods predetermination of mans will destroyeth its best Liberty God can predetermine the will to Good as he doth the Angels as a great
37. Sect. IV. Of the Law of Grace or New Covenant in the last Edition The Nature Conditions and yet free Donations of it pag. 42. Sect. V. Of the giving of the Holy Ghost His common and special Works The extent of the New Covenant Of the state of those that have not the Gospel And what Law they are under pag. 45. Sect. VI. How far Christ died for all and how far not pag. 51. Sect. VII The antecedent and consequent Will of God explained Of Justification by Faith What faith it is and what it doth pag. 54. Sect. VIII Of Justification by Christ's Righteousness imputed The false sense of Imputation opened and fully confuted The true sense asserted Whether Christ paid our Idem or Tantundem Whether he made his Satisfaction to God only as to a Rector or as Dominus vel pars laesa or how pag. 59. Sect. IX Of the sorts of Justification And first of constitutive Justification Of Righteousness How far it is or is not in our own habits or acts What Right the Covenant giveth the baptized to following helps and degrees of Grace Further what must be in our selves Mans holiness is no dishonour to Gods Grace How far Christ strippeth us of our own Righteousness More against the false sense of Imputation Objections answered pag. 69. Sect. X. Of Merit The case plainly and briefly decided The Gospel-Condition or Merit is but the accepting a free Gift according to its nature Whether we may trust to our own Faith Repentance Holiness The last Argument for the false sense of Imputation answered pag. 79. Sect. XI How Faith justifieth whether as an Instrument pag. 82. Sect. XII How far Repentance is a Condition of the Covenant And what it is Whether Faith or it be first How Faith and Love differ pag. 83. Sect. XIII Of the degrees of Pardon and Justification Whether losable And whether future sins be pardoned pag. 85. Sect. XIV Of Justification by Sentence of the Judge What it is ibid. Sect. XV. Of initial executive Pardon or Justification in Sanctificatiâ— How far necessary yet imperfect pag. 86. Sect. XVI Of assurance of Pardon Of doubting Whether it be Dâ—â—â— Faith to believe ones own Justification or Salvation The Spâ—â— Testimony pag. 88. Sect. XVII Of love to God as the end of Faith and foretast of Heâ—â—â— pag. 91. Sect. XVIII Of Perseverance and its certainty in order to the comfortâ—â— certainty of Salvation Few certain of Justification and â—â—â—â— of Perseverance The words of the Synod of Dort The â—â— ther 's Judgment about certainty of perseverance pag. 93 Sect. XIX Of mortal Sin or such as will not stand with the love of Gâ—â— and a state of Justification pag. 103. Sect. XX. What Repentance for particular sins is necessary to parâ—â— pag. 106. Sect. XXI Some solution of all the former difficulties in twenty Propâ—â—ons 108. Sect. XXII Few certain of Salvation The reconciling consequents of â—â—â— pag. 112. Sect. XXIII The case of Perseverance further opened and applied pag. 113. Sect. XXIV The sum and scope of this Discourse of Certainty pag. 116. Sect. XXV Degrees of falling and danger pag. 118. Sect. XXVI Of final Justification at Judgment More of the Agreemâ—â—â— Paul and James about Justification by Works pag. 119. Sect. XXVII Of the number of the glorified and the damned pag. 123. A PREMONITION MY work at present is but to lay down so much of the Christian Doctrine briefly as is necessary to be understood for the reconciling of the Controversies about Predestination Providence Grace and Free-will And therefore pass over â—any other weighty Points and must not stand largely to prove all â—s I go which carrieth its own evidence The true nature of the first â—aw or Covenant deserveth a more accurate discussion than I can here â—ake and much passeth as certain with some which hath but little â—roof And here I meet with these different Opinions 1. Some say that the â—ondition of the first Covenant was not Innocency but sincerity And â—at Innocency was only a Duty necessary necessitate praecepti but not â—edii or that it was ut medium necessary ad melius esse or to some cerâ—â—in degrees of felicity whereof it was a condition but not to felicity it â—â—lf And that the Covenant of Grace doth herein agree with it both â—f them damning man only for mortal sin and punishing them tempoâ—â—lly only for venial sin And he seemeth to be of this mind who saith â—â—at Do this and live or Innocency or Works was the Condition only â—f Moses Law but that Adhere and Vanquish was the Condition of the â—rst Covenant But these are ambiguous unsatisfactory terms If the â—eaning be Adhere to God and his Law by perfect Innocency and vanâ—uish all temptations to Sin this is the same with that Innocency which â—e say was the Condition But if he mean only Adhere to me sinâ—erely by love as thy Ultimate End and vanquish all temptations which â—ould draw thee from me to another Ultimate End or God this is â—he same with the first opinion which many Papists seem to hold 2. But the more common Opinion is that which I assert That Innoâ—ency was the Condition not only of Life eternal but of all the beâ—efits of Gods Covenant and the least sin the forfeiture of all They that are for the first Opinion think that if Adam had committed â—ut a small or venial sin as a sinful thought or desire after the forbidden â—ruit without the act or full consent it had been against Gods natural Goodness and Justice to have condemned him to Hell for it And conâ—quently that Christ died not to pardon the pains of Hell as due for such â—â—ttle sins but only temporal smaller punishments But God best knoweth his own Nature And nature telleth us That â—ll sin deserveth punishment And he that sinneth so far removeth his â—eart from God and forfeiteth his Spirit or Grace And he that hath â—nce so turned from God in the least degree cannot of himself return â—or heal himself and had no promise of Gods Grace to do it And â—herefore it is not to be supposed that he should sin no more but such a â—inute sin for greater will come in presently at that breach unless God â—ecover him which he was not in Justice bound to do And no one knowâ—th so well as God how much malignity is in the smallest sin And it was as â—asie for sinless Adam to have continued sinless as for carnal men now â—o forbear gross sin And he that sinneth deserveth not Heaven or Life â—nd there are divers degrees of punishment in Hell according to the degrees of Sin And Christ died for all our sins therefore they dâ— every one deserve death which consisted not with a right to Life therefore not with a right to Heaven And an immortal Soul was not naturally to be annihilated therefore to live in some punishment as separated And Rom. 3. 9. all were under Sin yet all had not gross Sâ—â—
Rom. 6. 23. The wages of Sin is Death Rom. 5. 12. Death passed on alâ— for that all have sinned Rom. 2. 12. As many as have sinned withâ—â—â— Law shall perish without Law And we must pray for the pardon of aâ—â— Sin And unpardoned Sin will damn men These are the reasons â—â— this side They of the other Opinion say That the Gospel-Covenant sheweâ—â— Gods Nature as well as the first Law That God had not been unjust iâ—deed if he had permitted him to fall into great Sin and so to periâ—â— who committed the least for he so permitted Adam to commit the first that was before innocent But the Justice of God bound him not so it do nor would have damned a Lover of God for a small Sin no more than now That we must not feign a Law which we cannot prove That God changeth not his holy Nature and therefore not that Law which is the expression of it That Christ died for all Sin and all needs pardon but that proveth not that the least deserved death much less Hell but that by Christ's Death the deserved punishment must be remitted that all even Infants are guilty of mortal Sin in Adam The Death is the wages of that Sin which brought it but not of the least That Adam's Law was not severer than that by Moses which saith Dâ— this and live and yet condemned not men for smaller sins That God proclaimeth pardon of some Sin in the very Law of Nature as from his Nature Exod. 34. and the Second Commandment That Nature teacheth all the World to believe it That God said not to Adam â—â— the day that thou thinkest a vain thought but That thou eatest c. That mortal Sin is pardonable by Christ which else could not by the first Law but God could otherwise have pardoned a vain thought if he would That no Text of Scripture saith that every Sin deserveth Hell nor is threatned with Death And as the condition of the Penalty so the condition of the Promise to Adam is here also controverted by Divines 1. Some say that the condition of Life was personal perfect perpetual Obedience till â—â—â— change which God would make as he did by Henoch when it pleased him which seemeth to me the probablest Opinion 2. Others think that Adam was to have continued in Eden for ever under that same conditional Law which is less probable 3. Others think that had he over-come the first temptation but so far as to adhere and vanquish that is to continue the love of God and not to eat that Fruit or commit any other mortal Sin which of its nature killeth Love he had been confirmed as the promised Reward 4. I have lately met with an exceeding ingenious M. S. written partly against my self after others which asserteth 1. That the Glory of Justice is the end of Gods Government 2. That Do this perfectly and live or Sin at all and die are the constant terms of Justice under every Covenant 3. That if Adam had performed but one â—â— of Obedience by that Law he should have been rewarded with confirmation or the Holy Ghost as the Angels and with everlasting life 4. That now all our Reward is only the Act of Gods Justice giving â—â— life as merited by us in Christ on the terms of the Law that saith Do this and live Sin and die in whom we are perfectly innocent and rewardable and we have no rewardable Righteousness nor any to justifie us but perfect Innocency imputed because as not to be a Sinner is no merit of a Reward so pardon of Sin is no Title to a Reward c. It is not my present task to clear up all these Difficulties having done more towards it in my Methodus Theologiae but only so much as our present conciliatory work requireth But yet because I and the matter in hand are nearly concerned in the M. S. I shall briefly animadvert on all the substance of it having first said of the condition of the penalty but a few words I. I am loth to confound the certainties with the uncertainties in this matter 1. It is certain that Gods Law of Nature was mans first and principal Law to which the supernatural Revelations were added and comparatively few 2. It is certain that Gods Law was perfect and that both as the impress and expression of Gods perfect Wisdom and Holiness and as the Rule of Perfection to Adam And therefore that it obliged him to perfection 3. But this Perfection to which he was obliged was not at first all that his nature would be capable of at last It was not his duty the first hour of his life to Know or Do as much as after the longest time and experience and as much as in heavenly perfection But he was bound to Know and Love and Do at first as much as at that time his nature was capable of supposing necessary Concauses and Objects 4. This is summed up in Loving God with all the Heart Mind and Might But the All in maturity and after full experience and in Glory is more than the All in unexperienced juniority To know love and obey God to the utmost intention of his present natural Power supposing due Objects media and concauses was Adam's duty and all defectiveness herein was culpable or sin 5. All sin of its own nature deserveth punishment Therefore so would the least culpable thought or word in Adam or the least culpable defect in the extent or intention of any holy affection in him 6. It is certain that Adam's eating the forbidden Fruit or any one such sin as consisteth not with the predominancy of his Love to God as God in habit such as is now inconsistent with true Grace and is called mortal was to be punished with death temporal and eternal according to the Justice of that Law 7. They are different questions 1. What God might do 2. What he would do as decreed 3. What he must do as necessary because of Justice or Veracity to the breaker of that Law And it is clear that God might as an Act of Justice punish the least culpable thought or remissness of degree of Love with Annihilation or with any pain-everlasting which to the Sinner were no worse than Annihilation Because 1. Antecedently to his Law he might have done that much as an affliction without sin 2. And after he did no way that I know of oblige himself to the contrary to a Sinner before the Covenant of Grace 3. And having threatned punishment in general he might choose what punishment he saw fit 8. What God would do as decreed the prediction or the event only can tell us 9. That God must by necessity of Justice and Truth punish the least sinful thought or remissness with some degree of punishment according to that Law seemeth to me somewhat clear 1. And yet it is more clear that it is various degrees of punishment which are comprized in the word Death or Filius mortis