so one man may have the relative Person of a King a Husband a Father a Captain General a Physician an Astronomer c. And though I hold not this Relative Personality is all that we are to acknowledge in the Trinity yet I see no reason but in the second place it is included that is 1. The Relations which the Divine Vitality Intellect and Will have to the substantiality and to each other 2. And the Relation which they have ad extra to Effects And whereas it may be objected that so God hath thousands of Relations to thousands of his Works I answer But he hath three grand Relations which comprehend all the rest as he is the God of Nature Grace and Clory Creator Redeemer and Perfecter As he hath the three grand Attributes which comprehend the rest But undoubtedly this Trinity of essential Attributes which are said to be related to the substantiality and to each other is here in the prime Conceptus § 25. He that placeth Personality in the Trinity in SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS leaveth us to enquire of him Q. 1. Whether it be by him presupposed or not that there are the three foresaid Attributes called Essentialities or Formalities in one Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we commonly call Substance or Spirit Q. 2. Whether Conscire being scire is not the proper Act of an Intellect and not of a Will or executive Power as such Q. 3. Self-perception indeed is a first and essential Act of every sensible Agent But doth not that among men only prove sensible Life which is in many Faculties and is as numerous as the Acts and not prove many persons seeing he must be first a Person who shall thus act By seeing I perceive that I see and by hearing that I hear and by tasting smelling touching that I taste smell and touch I know these by Intellection but I perceive them first by essential Sensation and so by understanding I immediately perceive that I understand and think And by willing I immediately not know but by a sort of eminent Sensation perceive that I will And by vital Action I perceive that I act Yet these are not distinct Persons but the acts of one Person Perception is essential to Vitality or Sense but not constitutive of Personality Q. 4. Is it knowing ones self or knowing another or another's knowing me that constituteth Personality I know not my self to be what I am in priâ—◠〈◊〉 I first perceive my acts and by the Acts I know that I have an active Power and by that I know that I am a Substance c. Which of these maketh me a Person 2. God knoweth the Acts of every Creature better than each knoweth his own yet that is not God's Personality as distinct from his Life And that the Creature doth not equally know God can be no privation of Personality to God whatever it be to the Creature And God's Personality was before there was any Creature Q. 5. To say That they are three Minds or Spirits or Substances that do invicem conscire is to say That they are three Gods And because every mental Substance hath its own active Power Intellect and Will it supposeth three Trinities instead of one Q. Though God be said to be purus Actus it is Actus entitâ—tivus including potentiam seâ— virtutem agendi and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Substantiality is a necessary prior fundamental Conception for it doth superare captum humanum to conceive of an Act that is not alicujus actus He that causeth all substantiality and existence is eminently existent Substance Many have made it a Dispute Whether the Creature have any Entity or be a Shadow but none whether God be so Obj. To be self-conscious proveth Personality and to be conscious of the act of another proveth one the same Person with the other Ans. To be self-perceptive is a good proof of a Vital Act and to be self-conscious is a proof of an Intellect Indeed in GOD the Substance and Act and so the Personality and Self-perception are not two things but the same But yet inadequate Conceptions must be orderly and so the act conceived as the act of a Power and of a Person And as is said every act or faculty that hath self-perception is not a Person 2. And God's consciousness of the acts of Iudas Herod Nero proveth him not to be the same person with each of them though he be infinitely more § 26. GOD being essential Life in â—ure Act without any passive Power meant by the word PERSON by the Orthodox may be better spoken of his Essential Acts the active Virtue included than of Mans. If it be the Essence why may not the proved Trinity of objective Conceptions as formal be called Persons or Hypostases Though many wise Men wish that a Name less liable to mistake had been used § 27. But though I am past doubt that in God is this Trinity of essential formal inadequate Conceptions or Primalities and that the impress of them is on the Soul of Man which is his image and on the whole frame of Nature and Grace yet far be it from me to say That nothing else is meant by the Trinity of Persons thus much we are sure of There may be more to constitute that personality than is to us comprehensible and I doubt not but there is more because thus much is so intelligible seeing the Divine Nature is so infinitely far above the Comprehension of us poor Worms But what we know not we cannot describe or notifie to others § 28. There are of late some of great Wit and Learning who have adventured upon another sort of Description of the Trinity Men whose parts I greatly value Peter Sterry Dr. H. More Mr. John Turner of St. Thomas Hospital and before them some in Germany went some such way They say that from the prime Being emaneth say some or is created say others the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the second Hypostasis or person and Matter which is the third and this caused Life and Matter the Son and Holy Ghost are one indivisible though distinguishable Being there being no Spirit saith Dr. M. save God that is not a Soul to some Body Some of them tell us not whether this first produced LIFE and MATTER be the Universal Matter of the World animated by an universal Soul or whether they mean only some prime Soul and Matter that was made or caused before the rest But others let us know that it is the universal that they mean And if so they must needs hold the World as to all its Spirit and Matter to be eternal though in Particles alterable and to be God himself The prime Entity the Life and the Matter being the Father Son and Spirit But they that hold not this universal Life and Matter do think that God by a most eminent Life and Spirit that was eternal did create all the rest as inferiour to them Dr. More 's Book of
solve the difficulty that hath stalled the School-Doctors That if the Creature have no Entity distinct from God's it is either part of God or nothing But it is not nothing or no Substance though some call it a shadow And it is not a part of God for to be pars is to be imperfect and so to be no God And if it have a real Entity distinct from God's Entity then there would be more Entity in God and the Creature than GOD alone For two is numerally more than one and two Entia have more Entity than one how small soever the lesser be And then God should be put part of Universal Entity which is Imperfection To say that the Creature hath part of Created Entity but not of Divine Entity seemeth to yield that God is but part of Universal Entity To avoid which many Philosophers take up the Opinion that the whole being of all Worlds is GOD the material Part being his Body and the eternal Spirit the Soul What shall we say to this To silence it will not silence the Objectors And sure we must not grant them That the World is God or that it is part of God or that God is but a part of Real Substance or Entity or that to be so is no Imperfection Is there no other sounder way Though Divines say that Dei non sunt accidentiae and it 's true That God is all Essence and per essentiam operatur yet I dread to assert but humbly ask Whether rather than fall into any of the former Opinions it be not less dangerous to say That as God hath made his Works in his likeness and no Substance is without all Accidents so the World be not quasi accidens Dei And if so it is no Part of Him essential or integral And as its Substance is not univocally such as God's so such as it is it is so totally caused by and dependent on God's continual Creatingwill and Emanation that its Substance and Being is more GOD's though not GOD than its own and so is no Addition of Being to God's Being but contained in him and flowing from him A man's actual thought words or sensation is no Addition to a man's substance as such and yet they are not nothing A man's Hair and Nails that have no life but vegetative are substantial Accidents and yet no part of the man And yet are so wholly his own caused by his Soul as heat and moisture that we use not to call them any addition to the man's being § 5. Q. But wherein then lieth the Hypostatical Union if God be equally near to all things Ans. He doth not equally operate on all As the God of Nature he sustaineth and operateth on all his Creatures As the God of Grace he worketh Holiness on Believers Souls As the God of Glory he is present demonstratively and gloriously to the Blessed But he worketh on none as he did on the humane nature of Christ These three differences I conceive make this proper sort of Union 1. Some Works God doth though by essential Proximity yet not without the use and operation of second Causes But Christ's assuming the humane nature by the divine was by Conception by the Holy Ghost as the immediate Efficient without the Causality of Man or Angel the Mother affording Matter and Aliment to the foetus 2. Divine Operations being various the Divine Nature did that on the Humane Nature of Christ which it did not on any other Creature He having such Work to do as no other Creature was to do the divine nature fitted the humane for its part No Angel was to be Mediator between God and Man and to work Miracles as he did and in our nature to fulfill all Righteousness and be a Sacrifice for Sin and to rise from the Dead and to send down the Spirit and ascend to Glory and there to reign and to judge the World Therefore he was qualified for all this work 3. And so there is also a relative difference in that the Divine Nature by a fixed Decree and Will united it self for this work to this one humane nature even for all futurity It may be some that are wiser can better tell wherein the Hypostatical Union consisteth § 6. As to the Question Whether the divine and humane nature be two or one it is to ask Whether the nature of God and his Creatures be two or one They may be called one as we are one with Christ as conjunct related and consenting But not one and the same essential nature § 7. But the great difficulty is whether the two natures constitute one Person or two Nestorius is accused Derodon saith falsly citing his own plain words to have held That Christ was two Persons divine and humane But what is to be held the School-Doctors make a difficult question that is whether the humane nature be either a Person or any part of the Person of Christ. 1. They say that Christ was a divine Person from Eternity and therefore began not to be such at his Incarnation 2. That the divine nature cannot be pars personae for that would be to be imperfect and not divine Therefore that the humane nature is no part but an adjunct to the Person of Christ. And if the humane nature be an Accident to the divine in Christ why must we deny Creatures to be Accidents of God But most plain Christians would be starâ—lâ—d to hear a Preacher say that the Humanity is no part of the Person of Christ. § 8. I have no answer to the difficulty unless I may distinguish of the sence of the word PERSON and say that in the sence as it signifieth a Person in the Essence of God the humane nature is no part of it But as to a Relative Personality as a King a Priest a Prophet c. as a Husband a Father c. are Persons so there is one Mediator between GOD and Man the Man Christ Jesus And the humane is not here excluded But is the Divine a part of the Person of a Mediator I handle such things with fear The Lord pardon our weakness But we are called to handle them by men's Presumptions 1. As God is not a part of the World or universal Substance and yet is eminenter more than a part what if it be so answered here 2. But if as great Doctors now maintain Relations may be ascribed to God without any Composition because they have no proper reality but a meer objective comparability why may not the divine nature have a relative part in the Relation of Mediator as assuming and advancing the humane and operating in it without composition And as according to this ambiguity Christ may have two persons not univocally divine and mediatorial so the divine and humane may make one Mediator And in the one Person of a Mediator are contained many Relative Persons of Christ as King Priest Prophet Son of Mary c. The Lord pardon what is amiss in these
Whether it be a glorious igneous Substance endowed with the Power of Motion Light and Heats And yet what is less comprehended And no man hath an adequate knowledge of it or of the least part of it § 2. There are three things that must concurr to our Conceivings of God 1. Our General Conceptions 2. Our Metaphorical Conceptions by way of Similitude 3. Our Negative Conceptions what God is not § 3. I have opened this as distinctly as I am able in my Methodus Theologiae Cap. 4. in the Table called Ontologia the beginning to which I must referr the Reader that would be accurate and clear I. We must conceive of God as a Substance lest we think him to be nothing And as a spiritual transcendent Substance not univocally the same with created Substance nor such as Man can reach to any sensible or immediate or formal Conception of But by the Similitude of created Substance our Conceptions may get some help This we call the Fundamental Conception but it is but a Conception partial and inadequate yet necessary fetcht from the Similitude of the Creature whose Matter or Substance is the first constitutive Conception § 4. II. We must conceive of God as the prime Essential LIFE And though God be not compounded of Substance and Form yet from Similitude of Creatures we must as inadequate Conceptions think of his being LIFE as the form of his Substance not divisible or compounding but as a distinguishing Conception And formadat esse noment § 5. III. Though in God's Essence there be no Parts Degrees or Accidents yet to answer the Similitude of Parts Degrees or Accidents in Man we must put in general Transcendent Perfection And this includeth abundance of his Perfective Attributes as that He is One infinite eternal necessary independent uncompounded unchangeable and all the rest that are contained in Absolute Perfection § 6. IV. When we say That God is the prime essential LIFE we mean a Life of Eminency above all that is created But yet such as must be known by Creature-similitude And therefore from the Similitude of Man we must think of the Formal Divine LIFE by a threefold Conception 1. As Vital Power in Act 2. As Eminent Intellect and Will called Omnipotency in Act Wisdom and Goodness or Love Whether these be the FATHER SON and HOLY GHOST is after to be opened But as FATHER SON and HOLY GHOST the Scripture teacheth us to conceive of God As Three in One God and One God and Substance in these Three § 7. V. God is to be conceived of in relation to the Creation in general as OF HIM and THROUGH HIM and TO HIM are all things As He is the Divine Efficient the more than Constitutive and the final Cause of all § 8. VI. He is especially to be conceived of in his Relations to the Reasonable Creatures as their absolute Owner supreme Ruler and chief Benefactor and amiable attractive Good and End § 9. VII He is especially to be conceived of â—s related to Man As our Creator and Conserver as the God of Nature 2. As our Redeemer by Christ and the God of Grace 3. And as our Perfecter by his Spirit and the God of Glory And as related to his Kingdom of Nature Grace and Glory § 10. VIII He being without Passivity a pure Act must be conceived of as 1. In virtute seu potentia Activa 2. In his Acts objectively immanent 1. Self-living 2. Self-knowing 3. Self-loving 3. In his transient Acts or Works considered both ex parte agentis and as the Effects § 11. IX He is negatively to be known by the dâ—nial of all that noteth Imperfection § 12. X. When I say that God is to be known by Similitudes I mean that though nothing be fully like to God yet somewhat in which he may be partly known appeareth on the whole frame of Nature but especially on the Soul of Man which is his Image Therefore he that would know how to conceive of God must first know himself and what his own Soul is The true Conceptions of your Souls must be the prime Helps to conceive of God by similitude And here you first find Intellective Volitive and Executive Acts. 2. And by these you know that you have the Power so to act for no one doth that which he cannot do 3. And hereby you know that your Souls are Substance For all Power is the Power of some Substance Nothing can do nothing 4. And by this you know that an intellectual Spirit is a Substance so impowered And that others are such as well as you And knowing what a Spirit is you know what God the Father is transcendently and eminently And though all God's Works notifie him you have thus the most intelligible Similitude within you § 13. Therefore I know not how you can better conceive of God than as MORE THAN A SOUL TO ALL THE WORLD but especially to Saints I say More than a Soul For a Soul is but a Part and Câ—â—â—â—iâ—utive but God can be no Part and is more than Constitutive The World is finite but God is infinite therefore he is more than a Soul of the World â—assâ—ndus calleth the World Indefinite but seemeth to mean Infinite and so to make God but the Soul of the World But that cannot be proved Not but that there be created Souls under God But while God is more than a Soul to all those Souls he is more than a Soul to all the World § 14. It is lawful and useful to think of God by such similitudes as he hath used of himself in his Word how low soever Even by his particular Works Three Names he assumeth Life Light and Love He is the Living God He is Light and with Him is no Darkness God is Love saith the beloved Apostle GOD is said to cloath himself with LIGHT as with a Garment And a man will say I have seen the KING to day who saw him but in his Garments And if he saw the Skin of his Face how little of the King did he see In Scripture they that have seen Angels are said to have seen God and heard his Voice by them When we see the Glory of the Sun that diffuseth its Beams to all the surface of the Earth and uniteth it self with every Eye even of the smallest Worms and quickeneth every thing that liveth this giveth us by similitude some low resemblance of the Divine Life and Light and Glory When he is called Our FATHER and he is said to love us as a FATHER his Children this is some help to our Conceptions of him When we read of all those Visions which Iohn had in the Revelations of Christ's glorious Appearance as before on the Mount and of God on the Throne with the four Beasts and seven Spirits and the thousand thousands of glorious Attendants and of the metaphorical Description of the Heavenly Ierusalem It is not unlawful nor unuseful to us to make use of such Spectacles of
Transubstantiation and Mr. Tho. Beverley's drew me to write some Animadversions on this Doctrine as moderating between Extreams but on further consideration I am very Ioth to be so venturous in a Case of such tremendous Mystery as to meddle for or against them left etiam vera dicere de Deo si incerta sit periculosum Though I doubt not but their exposition of Ioh. 6. is unsound while they make the Flesh and Blood of Christ which is Transubstantiated and eaten and drunk to be the eternal Flesh and Blood of Christ a Man from Eternity § 29. The difficulty of the Controversie which this leadeth to Whether the World be an eternal Effect of an eternal Cause or God from all Eternity till the forming of this lower World and Adam had no Being but Himself Doth deterr me from meddling with it lest I be blinded by presuming too nearly to gaze on the Light that should guide me and God that is Love should for my boldness be to me a Consuming Fire Things revealed only as for our search § 30. But the Conclusion which all this prepareth for is this That whatever else besides the Trinity of Primalities before described doth constitute the Trinity of Persons it is rendred altogether credible to an implicit Faith by the full Evidence and Certainty of the aforesaid Trinity of Faculties or Primalities which are God's Image on Man's Soul and the like imprinted on the whole Creation which certainly is not done in vain § 31. I pass by the rest because I have so largely handled it in Method Theolog. And among the numerous Authors there cited I desire the Reader especially to peruse the words of Guitmundus A. B. Aversanus Edmund Cantuariensis Richardi ad Bernard Pothonis Prumensis with whose words I will conclude cited pag. 103. There are three invisibles of God Power Wisdom and Benignity of which all things proceed in which all things subsist by which all things are ruled The Father is Power the Son is Wisdom the Holy Ghost is Benignity Power createth Wisdom governeth Benignity conserveth Power by Benignity wisely createth Wisdom by Power benignly governeth Benignity by Wisdom powerfully conserveth As the Image is seen in the Glass so in the state of the Soul by Humane Nature c. To this Similitude of God against Man approacheth nearly to whom God's Power giveth Power to Good and his Wisdom to Know and his Benignity â—iveth to Will This is the threefold Force of the Rational Soul posse scire velle to be able to know to will which co-operate to Faith Hope and Love or Charity § 32. Among all the Attempts that are published for our Conceptions of the Deity and Trinity I know of none that give us their Notions with greater Confidence and Pretence of Revelation than I. P. M. D. Dr. Pordage and his Leader Iacob Behmen Many other of the German Prophets going near the same way as C. Beckman describeth them I. P. his Mystica Theologia pretendeth to far greater discovery of the Deity and Trinity and the World than ever Christ Prophets or Apostles gave us First In his Globe of Eternity or the Divine Essential World pictured by 1. An Eye the Father 2. A Heart the Son 3. And the Effluvia or breathed Beams the Holy Ghost with the innumerable Progeny of such Eyes flowing from that pregnant Essence differing from it only as lesser from greater each an Individual yet making no Composition but Unity in the Deity Secondly In his Abyssal Nothing or World of Potentialities Thirdly In his Eternal Nature and the septenary included Worlds c. But 1. I consess there are many things in him and in Peter Sterry which Reason left to its conjectures would think plausible but short of Aristotle and Plato 2. And he is so high in his Description and Defence of Trine-Unity that even where I consent not I dare not call him therein unsound 3. But many Passages in his Description of Eternal Nature are apparently the effects of Ignorance and erroneous 4. And he goeth further in his making this Nature eternal and a World that is the Body of God than I dare do 5. And though I would not be too forward to contemn men that pretend to know such Mysteries by Vision and Revelation yet I resolve to take Christ for my sufficient and infallible Teacher and to pretend to know no more of the Deity and unseen World than he hath thought meet to reveal For no man hath seen the Father at any time but the only begotten Son nor doth any else know him but he and those to whom he revealeth him And what Christ hath not revealed of God I think it is because it is fittest for us to be yet ignorant of it as a necessary difference between our present and our future state To search for more will but confound and lose us and resting practically in what Christ hath revealed and for the rest trusting our selves fully in his Knowing for us his Love to us and his Promise for us may safely and sufficiently quiet the Mind that can be well quieted no other way CHAP. 3. Of the Incarnation and Hypostatical Union § 1. NO wonder that it seemeth hard to Man to understand how the Divine Nature assumeth the Humane into Union when it is so far beyond our reach to conceive how God is near to all his Works and how he operateth on every man Christ hath told us That we know not how a man is born of the Spirit no more than we know whence the Wind cometh and whither it goeth And can we easilier know how God became Man § 2. It is certain that God being infinite is as near to us as is possible our Souls can be no nearer to our Bodies nor perhaps to themselves And though Philosophers dispute Whether Spirits be in loco and whether God be in us or we in him and whether he be quasi locus spatium to the World yet it is past question that he is omnipresent and intimately proximus to all things § 3. It is not therefore his meer Presence or Proximity of being that is this Hypostatical Union else it would extend to all the World It is harder therefore to prove that God is not as nearly united to all than to prove that he is not so united to the Humane Nature of Christ. Which caused Peter Sterry and such others to hold That Christ hath three Natures that is That the Divine Nature first produced the prime superangelical emanant Nature by which he seemeth to mean an universal Soul to the Matter of the World and that this superangelical Nature did unite it self to all but eminently to the humane Nature of Christ which he calleth One top-Branch in the Tree of Beings Some say the superangelical Nature being Christ's only Soul assuming but a Body others that it assumed a Body and Soul § 4. The grand difficulty about God's Unity with the World and the World with God is how to
must speak improperly of God or not at all You say that It shall be is a Futurity Ans. What 's that A shall be is a Futurity and a futurity is a shall be Ergo a shall be and a futurity is a being Would I knew what But to hope for that from you is too great Presumption You add A futurity a nothing and to decree nothing is not to decree Ans. Say you so I am glad you say no worse Then if those be in the right as most that think Sin is nothing no more than Death or Darkness you will grant that God decreed it not And if I prove that Futurity ex parte rei is nothing you will grant that it needeth no Decree as such But seeing you are so much on my side I crave your help to confute those that otherwise you defend who make innumerable Nothings the Objects of God's Decrees But yet I would not follow you too far Not to give Grace to an Infidel is nothing Not to give the Gospel not to end the World till the time not to take away Grace Gospel Life c. You say here in your general that none of these can be decreed But then prepare an Answer to your Friends that will take this ill of you I have fully opened my sence of it elsewhere You say Abstract futurity from the Decree and it will be nothing Ans. If you abstract not Futurity as a real Entity from the Decree you will abuse God by presumptuous false Conceits But if you abstract the word shall be from the humane Conceptus of it it will not differ from a Conceptus de praesente And though I more reverence you I may say of some other Objecters that quibble with arbitrary notions that if you except Fatuity and Futility from what they say for the entity of Futurity it is all nothing You add That if in time only the thing actually exist by virtue of the Decree the Decree is something in time but eternally it was nothing That is God's will to effect any thing is nothing till it do effect it Yes 't is God's Will so to do and is that nothing It is nothing but God's essential will denominated from the res efficienda but that is not nothing if God be nothing there is Nothing There is nothing indeed but God from Eternity If you think otherwise tell us what it is Aureolus indeed pleadeth That Actus Dei creantis is neither Creator nor Creatura but quid medium but few second him and many confute him It seems you think of Futurity as our Epicureans and our new Infidels do of matter That it is an eternal effect of God as an eternal Cause I will give you many thanks if you will peruse and answer Raymundus Lullius's Arguments against tâ—â— Eternity of any Creature where he argueth That whatsoever hath the perfection of Eternity must needs have other suitable Perfections and so be God Is Futurity a more excellent Being thaâ— Spirit Matter and Motion to be capable of this Divine Attribute I pray what is the Verity that you say resulteth eternally Can you forgive me for not loving Confusion Is it 1. The veritâ— rei futurae 2. Or the veritas conceptus Divini de rerum futuritione 3. Or the Verity of a Proposition Are these all one with you The first being a Metaphysical Verity is Affectio entis aâ— unum and bonum are And quod non est non est unum verum aut bonum 2. As to the third is it a divine Proposition or a humane If a divine prove that God had either concept as vel prolatas eternal Propositions if he had and you prove it I never denied the truth of such propositions If humane when there was no man there was no humane propositions All that you can say is but what I oft said That God's Volitions were a ground that would have made such propositions These things will be certainly true if there had been any such eternal propositions And as to the second it is not denied as before explained God's Will and Knowledge were certain but they were but himself who gave no Being to eternal Futurition out of himself You ask How are the Promises being Propositions true signs of the Divine Will where there are none Ans. How is the World and signa naturalia the signs of God's Will and how are Writings and Voices signs of it if there be no World Writings oâ— Voices in God God willeth that which is not 〈…〉 himself eternally God willeth Creatures and God willeth Propositions And these are the â—roducts of his Veracity when he sendeth them â—y Revelation and true because they come from â—im When his Will is to give the world an 〈…〉 carnate Saviour may not the promise of this â—ruly signifie his will though he have no Proposition in his mind but only a will to give him â—nd an intuitive Knowledge But I say again â—f you can prove that God thinketh reasoneth â—r talketh eternally and knoweth by terminos simâ—lices Propositions and Syllogisms I will easily confess that all these are true and yet not grant that ex parte rei Futurition or Non-futurition Possibility or Impossibility are any Beings Ad 8. You meet with a distinction of Futurity as nothing and a Proposition de futuro as something with an how so It signifieth only futurity and that is just nothing Ans. You should pardon a man in my condition if he be â—oth to write new Books to answer all Objecters that know not that a Proposition de nihilo is something If Atheists say There is no God They shall know that they say something If I say that there are no other true Gods I say something They that say Datur vacuum say something You say But was it not true before what is your it The Proposition was not true before it was a Proposition Concepta vel prolatâ— Futurity had not the Metaphysical or Physical verity of an Entity for it was nothing The res futura had no such truth for it was not res dum futura tantum What mean you then by it I say still if you can prove that there was an Eternal Proposition de future in God it was true and was God's Essence which is nothing to our question You add Not true before nor knowable as true Ans. You seem by thiâ— to intimate that God cannot know what will be by his production without making Mental or Oral Propositions and knowing them to be true Must God's Prescience be deplorate if he know not by your Meâ—ns and Measures You may neâ—â— say It must be by Sense Fantasie and Species as our Souls work in these muddy Brains God s Knowledge receiveth not a constitutive Object from without as ours doth It first concurreth with his Will and Power in making all things what they are All flowing from it and it receiving from none And in sâ—cundo instanti it discerneth all things to be what they are And wheâ—
Word of God And I think that I have elsewhere proved that Generative Traduction of Souls and yet God's present yea immediate Causation of their Essence which may be called Creation are here Consistent Which here I must not now repeat Vid. Meth. Theol. and Reasons of Christian Religion CHAP. XI Of our Redemption by Christ. § 1. SIN having made Man guilty and depraved unfit for duty and felicity odious to the most Holy Righteous God and lyable to his Justice the eternal Wisdom and Word of God did interpose and by Mercy did save Man from the deserved rigour of Justice promising Actual Redemption in the fulness of time and on that supposition giving fallen Man a pardoning and saving Law or Covenant of Grace with answerable help of his Spirit and Means and outward Mercies fitted to his Recovery and Salvation § 2. But God would not have this Recovery and Salvation to be perfect at the first but gave Man a certain proportion of Common Deliverance and Mercy binding him to a Course of Duty in the performance of which he should receive more by degrees till he were perfected As Phisicians cure their Patients § 3. Therefore God did enter into Judgment with fallen Man and did sentence him absolutely to some degree of Punishment even to Labour Pain the penalty of the Cursed Earth and finally to Death which Temporal Punishment God would not remit nor give him a Saviour to procure the pardon of it but only to the Faithful to turn all this unto their Benefit and to deliver them from the greater everlasting Sufferings § 4. And their own sinful pravity and privation of Holiness and communion with God which also was their greatest punishment by Consequence God would not at once nor in this Life perfectly save them from and therefore accordingly pardoned them their punishment but by the forementioned degrees For he is not perfectly pardoned or saved who is yet left under so much penalty § 5. Some thinking it hard that for 4000 Years the World should have no Existent Mediator and that an Existent Faith in the future Mediator should be more necessary than an Existent Mediator and his Work and thinking withal that it would solve many Textual Difficulties objected by the Arians and explain the Appearances of Christ to the Patriarchs have conceived that Christ hath a threefold Nature viz. The Divine Nature a created Super-Angelical Nature to which the Divine Nature was united before the Incarnation and the Humane Nature assumed at the Incarnation and that so we had an Existent Mediator from the time of the Fall But whatever conveniences this Opinion may seem to have I find no satisfactory proof of it in Scripture nor that the Christian Church did ever hold it And it is overmuch boldness to take up so great a Doctrine as a third Nature in Christ which the Church of Christ was never acquainted with And the Texts that seem to be for it are capable of the common Exposition § 6. If any think that this was the Judgment of abundance yea the most of the Antient Writers before the days of Arius because they have such unhappy expressions of Christ which the Reader may find truly Collected to his hand by Petavius de Trinitate and that it is fitter to Expound them as speaking only of Christ's second Nature than to account them all Arians or to honour the Arians by making them on their side I answer I leave every Man to his own judgment upon perusal of the Fathers words allowing all Charity that hath sufficient ground But I cannot perceive that these Writers talk of any more Natures in Christ than two and pious ends must be served by no Fictions and Untruths I think that we must rather gather with Petavius there that the Votes in the Nicene Council tell us that then the greater part of the Church were against Arius and therefore they were so before because they held in so great a point the Faith which they had received from their Fathers And that the greater part of Writers might differ from the greater part of the Church And withal these Writers having more than other men to do with the Heathen Philosophers and Orators who were prejudiced against the Doctrine of the Trinity did shun their Offence by too much stretching their speeches to that which they thought they could easilier digest which gave Arius his advantages The Conclusions either way are harsh and sad but I leave others better to avoid them § 7. The Deity it self may not unfitly be called our REDEEMER before the Incarnation though not so fitly a MEDIATOR and though Redemption by Christ's Death and Merits in the Flesh was not then wrought Because the word Redeeming is oft taken for a merciful Delivering though without a price and also because the Price was promised from the beginning But thus the word REDEEMER is equivocal signifying either the Deity as a promising undertaking Saviour or the Mediator who was promised and who performed the undertaken means § 8. The MEDIATOR himself being purely the Gift of the Divine Love and Mercy it was no inconvenience that God then had all the Glory and that Faith then acknowledged no other existent Saviour but God himself the infinite Good § 9. It troubleth men much to open how Christ was any true Cause of our Pardon and Salvation as a Mediator before his Incarnation And what his merits sacrifice and intercession could do before they did exist And the common Answer is That Moral though not Physical Causes may cause before they exist and so operate as foreseen foredecreed or willed But these Logical notions must not be used to put off the Question instead of satisfactorily answering it This tells us not whether by a Moral Cause they mean a True Cause of some moral Being or something morally called a Cause which indeed is not so but quasi causa Nor yet whether they mean a Cause efficient final or constitutive Nor yet whether they mean a Cause of any thing in God or only of some following effect § 10. It must be concluded that Christ's merits sacrifice and Intercession make no real Change in God his Understanding or Will and therefore have no such Causality § 11. But God's Promise first and Christ's Merits and Sacrifice next make a Change in the state of things laying that Ground-work or necessary Antecedent and Condition upon which it becometh meet right and just for God to give the rest of his mercy which this is the Condition of and the true meritorious Cause And so the Change was neither on GOD nor immediately on Man but for Man on the state of things which God and man were both concerned in It is a causa ordinis while that is done first which is prerequisite to what is to follow And it is a causa rei benefici◠while it not only removeth moral Impediments of our Pardon and Salvation but also setteth matters in such a state in which it becometh congruous
habits and acts in specie as circumstantiated by immediate necessitating or unresistible premotion and yet taketh not away their Liberty because he maketh them will and not nil the sin These do but play with the name of Free-will and are confuted as aforesaid from the instance of Adam and from the scope of Scripture and do subvert the Foundations of Christianity To will is the proper act of my will and if he that moveth me by prime physical efficiency to will the circumstantiated act of Sin deprive me not of my Liberty because it is willing that he maketh me do then if Men or Devils had Power to make me will Sin as I cause my Pen to write or the Fire to burn this or that it would be no loss of Liberty But of this more largely elsewhere CHAP. XV. Of Effectual Grace and how God giveth it § 1. AS I said before about Sufficient Grace so here about Effectual the first thing to be done by Disputers is to agree what that is which they here call Grace as the Subject of the Question And as I there shewed 1. It cannot or must not be God's essential Will or Power for that is simple and immutable and not in it self save relatively distinguishable into sufficient and effectual 2. An Efflux or vis which is neither God nor the Effect there is none or none proveable 3. It is not Faith it self that is meant here by Grace for it is the Grace that effecteth Faith and it were absurd to ask what Faith is effectual to make or cause it self This is true both of the Act and Habit. The meaning is not what Habit of Faith is effectual to the Act nor what Act to the Habit or it self but what Grace of God is effectual to cause both Act and Habit. 4. Therefore there is nothing left to be meant by Grace but the two things before mentioned viz. 1. The gracious Means or second Causes appointed by God to cause our Faith 2. The first moving Impress on the Soul as it is antecedent to Act and Habit supposing that such there is though some deny that there is any such thing § 2. And for the first all means will be uneffectual without God's inward Operation by his Spirit He must work on the Speaker and on the Hearer to make means effectual as is agreed on But whether as God worketh in Naturals according to the aptitude of natural second Causes so he work Faith and other Graces by a settled proportion of Concourse agreeable to the Aptitude of gracious second Causes or Means of Grace is a Question too hard to be boldly and peremptorily determined by us that are in so much darkness § 3. But it seemeth to us that God would not have made it so great a part of his Government to establish a Course of Means if he did not intend to work ordinarily by them and according to their fitness Christ is the chief Means and instituteth the rest Scripture Ministers Example good Company merciful Providences Afflictions Meditation Books Prayer Sacraments c. are all appointed for such effects And if God would ordinarily work immediately without means what need all these This teacheth Infidels to say that he may do it without Christ. The Spirit first indited the Word as we cut a Seal to be the instrument of Impression and then by that word doth work on Souls § 4. But if God did tie himself not only ordinarily but alwaies to apt means no mortal could say what means is sufficient and what is insufficient and what is more than sufficient even necessarily efficacious For the means 1. are very many and more than we can take notice of and if one be wanting it may render the rest insufficient or uneffectual how excellent soever in themselves 2. And that means is fitted to one Hearer that is not fitted to another All have not the same temptations hindrances prejudices objections weaknesses nor obstinacy And God only knoweth when means are adequately fitted to the desired effect upon mens Souls § 5. And though many of the means operate ex parte sui necessarily yet so do not all For Preachers and Instructers are free Agents and so it must be other effectual means that must first move them to do their Duty for a Sinner's good Which who can judge of § 6. But God is the Arbitrary Absolute Lord of all means and therefore he can change and dispose of them as he pleases and yet work by them So that the Effect is nevertheless from God's free or arbitrary Volition though he never went beyond the aptitude of means When even a silly man can turn the natural course of Water and Wind to move his Mill or Sails at his pleasure without any alteration of their natures A Fisher can use his Bait as may serve his end and a Physician can vary his Medicines to cure the Disease without changing their nature or curing without them § 7. But there is no question but God can work without means and Intellectual Souls being so near to the first Cause it is utterly uncertain to us whether in Works of Grace God have not a double operation on the Soul one by his appointed means and another by immediate Influx and if it be so how these concurr to one and the same effect and also how God doth immediately move Souls are all past Man's reach and should be acknowledged above our Disputes § 8. II. God hath more inward operations on Man's Soul than one or two whether with means or without to bring us to Faith and Repentance The mind must be enlightened the dull faculties must be excited especially Conscience and Will and the Will must be touched with the gust of Divine Love to breed a holy Complacency in good and many Impediments must be removed some by outward acts of Providence and some by inward Grace And where Impediments are not removed no doubt but there needeth more of the other Acts of Grace to bring such a Soul to Faith and Repentance than in one where there is less resistance § 9. And seeing that Recipitur ad modum recipientis and the disposition of the Recipient hath so great a hand as common Experience telleth us in almost all the Changes in the World what wonderful variety of Effects doth the same Action of the Sun produce throughout the World by the diversity of receptive dispositions Therefore no mortal man can say when the efficacy or success of Divine Grace is more to be ascribed to the Preparatory Disposition of the Recipient by a former act of Grace and when more to the present moving Influx nor what proportion these alwaies bear as comparable And what man dare say that he can search out the waies of God § 10. When we know so little of the secret Energies of natural Principles nor how God produceth Animals in the Womb nor how he causeth our Food to nourish us nor how any of our Senses do
their Office nor how our Souls do use the Corporeal Spirits c. And when Christ hath told us That the Wind bloweth where it listeth and we hear the sound of it but know not whence it cometh and whither it goeth and so is he that is born of the Spirit Ioh. 3. 8. Should not this with the experience and consciousness of our Ignorance suffice to keep us from bitter Contendings about that which is certainly beyond our reach and from presumptuous boldness with the unsearchable things of God § 11. Whether you will with Bradwardine and many others say That it is God's meer Volition that effecteth all things ad extra or whether you will say with the most That it is not his Will alone but his Will as operating by his executive Power the meaning seemeth to be the same and the difference to be but notional as is aforesaid For they that speak in the first manner mean That it is not God's Will as in it self immanently considered but his will as going forth to produce an effect which emanation or exertion is from the effect called by those that speak in the second manner God's Executive Power § 12. The prime Reason of the Effect is God's Wisdom Will and Power as the Cause And so the prime reason why Means and Grace become effectual whenever they are effectual must be from God the prime Cause § 13. The first Impress on the Soul moving it toward the Act e. g. Faith is the first Grace internal sub ratione effecti And this God himself worketh on man as on a meer Patient tho' not antecedently to all former acts of Man or all preparative dispositions usually yet antecedent to that Act of Man to which it moveth So that as to this 1. Man is passive 2. and the Divine Operation or the powerful Will of God is not only sufficient but effectual for that Impress or Motus is effected § 14. Though God being a Spirit moveth not by such Contact as Bodies do on each other yet must we conceive of his motion and the motion of all Spirits on Bodies as analogous to corporeal Contact and as a motion by Efflux and eminent Contact of Virtue and Essence according to the more excellent nature and operation of Spirits or else we cannot conceive positively of them § 15. It is already proved that God useth various degrees of Impress or Motion on Souls of which some do by their proper power or degree so ascertain the effect that the Argument is alwaies good as a causa where-ever God doth so move there the Effect that is the Act e. g. Faith or Consent followeth And this Grace is effectual ex propria vi vel virtute But that God sometime operateth by a less Impress or Motion which doth not from its own force inferr the effect but so far disposeth the Mind or Will to the Act that the man can do it without any more grace which is it that is called Sufficient Grace as aforesaid § 16. It is a thing not to be believed that this latter degree of Divine motion is never eventually effectual to the Act Seeing 1. it is granted that there is such a Power in Man's Will as câ—n act in some cases by that degree of Grace called Sufficient And frustra fit potentia quae nunquam reducitur in actum 2. And it 's granted that the Angels and Adam did act by such help Therefore as to acts preparatory before special Faith few do affirm that they are all done by such Grace as is necessarily effectual ex propria vi alone but that sufficient Grace leaveth them often to Man's Will § 17. Therefore all that remaineth is to resolve what is the reason of the certain effect when we believe To which I say 1. It is ever an effect of two Causes at least God's motion and man's faculty and so both must be said to be the Cause of the effect 2. But man's will is no Cause save a recipient Cause of God's Part or Impress 3. God sometimes at least maketh so powerful an Impress as doth necessarily determine man's will by a Necessity consistent with his Liberty 4. It cannot be proved by any man that no man believeth by that sufficient Motion which doth not necessarily determine his will seeing many preparatory acts are done by such a motion And it 's probable that it is oft so 5. But the certainty of this or when and how oft it is so no man can know § 18. But by which degree of Grace soever the effect be produced still God's Will is the chief cause of it which can procure the effect infallibly when it doth not necessitate Yea and his premotion or impress called Sufficient is incomparably more the cause than Man's Concourse is though God leave some part of the Causation to man's Free-will § 19. But when the Effect doth not follow that is when men believe not it is man's will by omission and resistance that is the chief cause and culpable and not God's omission or non-determination § 20. The same degree of divine Impress or Motion which prevaileth with a Soul predisposed by common Grace is not enough to prevail with some others that are ill or indisposed Though God's Absolute Will and Answerable Operation would prevail with any how bad soever CHAP. XVI Of the State of Heathens and others that have not the Gospel § 1. THE opening of the several Laws or Covenants of God before hath taken up most that is necessary to be said about this point The question Whether any but Christians are saved is agitated on both sides by so much the sharper Censures by how much the nearer it seemeth to concern the Fundamentals of Religion § 2. On one side some say That nothing is more fundamental than God's Nature and Government and Beneficence and the Attributes which belong to him in respect to each And they say That for God to be the Ruler and Benefactor of the World and to be also gracious and merciful and Love it self and a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him are our Fundamentals which are not consistent with this That all the World since Adam except a few Believers or Jews and Christians that were born from Adam under as absolute a necessity of being remedilesly damned as of dying § 3. Here they use first to consider of the number viz. 1. That it is not past the sixth part of the World that are called Christians 2. That the far greatest part of these perhaps twenty to one have not competent means to understand what that Christianity is which giveth them their name and which as to the name they profess The Circassians Mengrelians and other Georgians the Armenians the Muscovites the Cossacks the most of the Greeks and Abassines yea and Papists besides the Copties Syrians Nestorians Iacobâ—tes Maronites Christians of St. Thomus c. and too many Protestants are bred up in so great ignorance that multitudes of them never are
of Grace and Pardon which he committed to his Ministers to proclaim 2 Cor. 5. 19. But 2. on mans part it is not the knowledge and belief of this Iesus incarnate personally that was made necessary to all before his coming and therefore not to all after No man ever came to the Father but by the Son's Merit and Spirit nor without a consenting Belief and Affiance in God's redeeming or recovering pardoning saving Mercy and true Repentance and a sanctified Soul which is in love with God and goodness And whatever was absolutely necessary in the terms of the first Edition of the Covenant of Grace even to all the World before Christ's Incarnation But Christ never meant that no man before his Incarnation or since that heard not of him did come to the Father without believing that which the Apostles themselves long believed not after they followed Christ. § 27. The rest of the World were not bound to know so much of the Messiah as the Iews as having not the same Revelation § 28. 1. Having proved that it is a Law of Grace that all the World is to be ruled and judged by it remaineth to be enquired Whether any of them that have not the Gospel do keep the Conditions of this Law and so are justified by it and saved To which I answer 1. That being a matter of fact it is not of so great Importance for us to be certain of it as some imagine And who can be certain of the Affirmative unless the Scripture affirm it when if we knew all the World one man cannot be certain of anothers Sincerity And much less can any be certain of the Negative without Scripture Negation seeing no man can know every man in the World and every Heart § 29. 2. But it is exceeding probable at least That God would never govern many hundred parts of the World compared to the Iews before Christ's Incarnation and five sixth parts since his Incarnation by a Law of Grace which yet no person should ever have effectual Grace to keep as far as was necessary to his Salvation Every Law of God is a Means and appointeth the Subjects the use of much Means for their own Salvation These means they are bound to use and shall be condemned if they use them not and that none should ever use them savingly is an Assertion so unlikely that he that hath the boldness to affirm it should bring certain Proof of it which the Scripture I think doth not afford him § 30. But what numbers do perform the Condition and are saved no mortal man can tell But in general we know that God usually worketh in Congruity to his appointed means and consequently that far fewer are saved where less means is vouchsafed than among Christians who have herein the unvaluable pre-eminence above others § 31. For as the Jews had both the common Covenant of Grace and also the Covenant of Peculiarity setting them above all others so the Christian Church hath both the common Covenant of Grace and by the second edition of it a Covenant of Peculiarity both sealed by Baptism and the Lord's Supper as the Jews Covenant was by Circumcision and the Passover Yea our Covenant Privileges set us above the World incomparably higher than the Jâ—ws were § 32. Yet should we take warning by the example of the Jews Pride who were so confident that none were saved or beloved but themselves that they despised the rest of the World and provoked God to cut them off and call the Gentiles into higher privileges So some Christians so trust to their Gospel-Peculiarities as the Jews did to their Law that they despise all the World besides themselves and can easilier believe that God will damn a thousand millions that never heard the Gospel than one of them who have no more real Holiness than many of those whom they despise But it is our Duty to be thankful both for our excellent Peculiarities and also for the commoner Mercies unto others And I wish the impartial Reader to study Mal. 1. 10 11. whether even this be not the sence Nor will I accept an Offering at your hand for from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same my name is great among the Gentiles and in every place Incense offered to my name and a pure Offering For my name is great among the Heathen saith the Lord of hosts but ye have polluted it Our Translators have as Expositors thrice at the least added the future Tense shall be But all the old Translations Syriack Caldeâ— Paraph. Greek Latin c. put it in the present Tense is great is offered I do but desire the Reader to study it It 's strange that all the ancient Churches should misunderstand it It seems more probable by the Context that the Hebrew Text understood the present Tense none being expressed § 33. If we might imitate our Father Abraham who yet saw Christ's day and rejoiced we should suppose the number of the saved through the world to be very considerable For as I said elsewhere though God had told him that Sodom was so much worse than the rest of the World that God would destroy it yet Abraham thought there might be fifty righteous persons there It 's like he thought not worse of the rest of the World § 34. Obj. You seem to make the rest of the World happier than the Iews for they had a Law that would justifie them and so had not the Iews Ans. The second assertion is false The Jews were under the Law of Grace which Paul calleth the Promise and might be justified by it and had greater helps to know and keep it than the rest of the World had But when they foolishly separated their Mosaical Law from the Promise or common Law of Grace Paul tells them by the Deeds of that Law no flesh could be justified § 35. Obj. Do you not thus confound the World and the Church Ans. No I ask you Did he confound them before Christ's Incarnation who thought that more than the Jews were saved Certainly no No more do I now § 36. The word Church is sometime taken so properly and strictly as to signifie only those that are under the Covenant of Peculiarity And so the Jews before Christ's Birth and Christians since make up the Church and some few perhaps before the Iews Covenant But sometimes it is taken more largely for the Kingdom of God For all that are in a state of Salvation under the several editions of the Law of Grace And so Iob and his Friends and Melchizedeck and many others before and all now that love God and Holiness sincerely are of the Church Accordingly by the World is meant either 1. All Men as under the Redeemer's Law of Grace antecedently to their Consent and so all the World belong to God's Kingdom as subditi obligati 2. Rebels that refuse Consent And so they are of the Kingdom by obligation but condemnable for Rebellion And
these are the World in the worst sence 3. Consenting Subjects under the Common Law of Grace who yet were not Iews nor are not in the Covenant of Peculiarity And such are in a state of Salvation though not in the Church of the peculiar as the Subjects of Melchizedeck Sem c. and so are both in the Church and in the World in several sences § 37. Having delivered that in this great Question which seemeth to me agreeable to God's Word I advise those that use to assault such things with reproach which they find reproached by their Party to remember that God is Love and Christ is the Saviour of the World and the Pharisaical Appropriators of Mercy and Salvation do seldom know what spirit they are of CHAP. XVII Of the Necessity of Holiness and of Moral Uirtue § 1. HOLINESS is our Dedication Separation or Devotedness to God and alienation from all that stands in competition or contrariety to God § 2. It is our Separation to God as the Creator of our Nature and our Redeemer and the Author of Grace and our Felicity and the Cause of Glory As the first Efficient supreme Dirigent and ultimately final Cause § 3. It is our separation to God as our Owner by Resignation as our Ruler by Obedience and as our Benefactor and ultimate End by Thankfulness and Love in the acknowledgment of his infinite power wisdom and goodness as essential to himself and related to his works § 4. Holiness is our dispositive actual and relative separation to God 1. When our Souls are habitually inclined to God and to his Will 2. When we actually give up our selves to God and to his will by Consent first and Obedience and Love after 3. It signifieth the relation of the Person as thus habitually and actually separated A holy Priesthood 1 Pet. 2. 5 9 11. § 5. Holiness is the Habit and Act of all the three Faculties of the rational Soul viz. 1. Of the vitael Active Power by Quickening and Strength 2. Of the Intellect by Illumination 3. Of the Will by Conversion Love or Complacency § 6. The Soul as sensitive and the body it self are said to be sanctified so far as they are dispositively and actually subject and subservient to a holy Soul in Holiness and related accordingly as separate to God § 7. Our Holiness is no alienation from the Creature as a Creature in its due place and subordination to the Creator but contrarily containeth our Honour of and Love to all God's Creatures for his sake and impress and a devoting of all that is ours to his use But it containeth a renunciation of that which is against his Honour and Government and Love as such § 8. As God communicateth Holiness really and relatively to Man so holy persons communicate such Holiness to Creatures below them as consisteth in the use and relation of things separated to God by a due separation of them by their dedication and holy use and that in various degrees § 9. True Holiness is the Health the Rectitude the Honesty the Justice of man's Soul and therefore necessary as his Duty by God's Law even of Nature and to his Happiness both in the very nature of the thing and by the determination of God's Law It is a contradiction to be happy and unholy Rev. 20. 6. § 10. Holiness is the end or perfection of our Nature and God's chief Interest in man and is begun by Grace and perfected in Glory § 11. The Fear of God and his Iudgments and a Care of our own Souls and a Sorrow for Sin and a desire of Happiness may be not only Preparatives but lower parts of Holiness but the true formal specifying nature of it consisteth in a love of God's infinite goodness and a Will addicted to obey his Will or a Pleasedness in pleasing Him This is Holiness § 12. Because a man is denominated according to the predominant bent of his Will or Soul he is not to be called Holy who hath some slight inclination to please God and more to please his own carnal Appetite and Will or greater love to the Creature than to God § 13. Christ himself came into the World to recover sinful Man by Holiness to God and disdained not to be a means of Man's Sanctification and to make this the notable operation of his Holy Spirit on us § 14. Whatsoever Law Men are under before Christ or since Jew or Gentile Works or Grace no man can be saved and happy without Holiness that is unless they be devoted in Obedience and Love to GOD and Goodness § 15. No man can be damned that is holy while such nor can God hate and make miserable those that truly love him and his governing Will. § 16. Yet a person that is holy may deserve Damnation by deserving to be denied that help of the Holy Spirit by which his Holiness must be continued And as to be saved is to be perfectly sanctified so to deserve Hell is to deserve to be forsaken to the â—oâ—al loss of Holiness And so though it be hard for us to know whether Adam's first loss of Innocency was a total loss of Holiness yet if it were not it was a forfeiture of divine help and so a mediate loss of it And so a man that loveth God sincerely may by great Sin deserve to be deprived of the Spirit and therefore we must pray for the pardon of such desert for the sake of Christ though we cannot be damned or miserable while holy § 17. Obj. But how doth God love a holy Soul if he forsake him and with-hold his Spirit And if he be not loved of God he is miserable If he be loved he will not be forsaken Ans. Answer this your self as to the Case of the Angels and Adam God loved them and yet not so as to secure them from the loss of Grace But he so far loved them efficiently as to give them that grace by which they could persevere but not that by which they necessarily should persevere and he loved them complacentially according to the goodness which was in them and yet they lost it § 18. Obj. That is because they were left to their Free will and had but sufficient Grace and not efficacious determining Grace But it is now otherwise with all true Believers Ans. True Believers have not determining efficacious Grace to prevent all sin nor all such sin as Noah Lot David Peter did commit And that sin deserveth an answerable desertion of God it being a deserting him first so far And though God pardon it yet the desert is presupposed to the pardon for it is desert of punishment that is pardoned § 19. Quest. If a man were holy that is an obedient Lover of God and Goodness without Faith in Christ would that save him Answ. 1. The Covenants of Grace requireth various degrees of Faith according to its several editions and promulgations It is not the same degree of
Faith as to the Objects extensively which was required of Jewish Believers before Christ's Incarnation as is now of us nor the same degree that was required of all the rest of the World as of the Jews 2. But such a Faith in God our Redeemer as that Law which men are under maketh necessary to Salvation is necessary to Holiness And to ask what God will do with a man that is holy without Faith is to talk of a non-existent Subject There is no such man for without Faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him notwithstanding original and actual Sin and the Law of Innocency condemning us and therefore that he is under a pardoning and rewarding Law of Grace Heb. 11. 6. No man can be sanctified without the Merit Doctrine and Spirit of Christ nor without that degree of Faith which the Covenant which he is under requireth § 20. Quest. What if a man that was sanctified by believing should retain his Holiness or Love and Obedience and lose his Faith in Christ Answ. It is a thing that never was nor will be and not to be disputed of § 21. Moral Virtue in the proper sence of the word is the same thing as Holiness taken comprehensively as containing our Love and Duty to God and to man for God's sake But as Holiness is taken narrowly for our Love and Duty to God as distinct from our Love and Duty to Man so Moral Virtue is the genus and Holiness the chief species of it And thus we take Moral Virtue and Moral Action and so all Morality as contradistinct from Physicks or things meerly natural not falling under the genus moris And so Virtue and Vice or Sin are all that is Moral that is Moral Good and Moral Evil And this is the first and most notable sence of the word But some of late have used Moral as contradistinct from Holiness or Grace or from infused Habits or from Faith and Christianity and some tell us confidently but falsly That this is the most fit and famous sence and the word so to be taken when not otherwise explained It 's the sad case of Mankind that we have no words but what are liable to ambiguity And it 's the unhappiness of the Church that hath so many Teachers that will dispute write and wrangle about words unexplained and in the end shew that under divers terms they mean the same matter in which they are agreed and know not their Agreement § 22. As Holiness is sometimes taken so largely as to comprehend all that God commandeth and sometimes for the natural part of our Duty Love and Obedience as distinct from Faith in Christ which is the mediate Grace and of supernatural revelation so is Morality or moral Virtue distinguished § 23. They that take moral Virtue so narrowly and improperly as to mean no other moral Virtue than Heathens had or than is taught in Aristotle's Ethicks should first tell us That this is their sence and then they may boldly declaim against those Preachers that take this for sufficient or that preach no other For Scripture and Christianity were to little purpose if they taught us no more than the Writings of Philosophers do § 24. And no doubt but it is a pitiful sign and an odious Crime in a Minister of Christ to say little to the People of the Mysteries of Man's Redemption the Person and Offices and Works of Christ the Covenant of Grace and the special Blessings given by it our Union with Christ Justification Adoption and the special Works of the Spirit on Mens Souls and all the Duties and Pleasures of a Heavenly Conversation in the love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Spirit and all this under pretence of magnitying and preaching up the Love of our Brethren and Charity to the Poor and Iustice and Temperance as if Man were our God and to wrong man were the only Sin and to wrong God were none or God could be no otherwaies wronged § 25. But Covetousness and Pride contradicteth their own Doctrine For among their good works those of Piety are first extolled and those are the enriching of the Church and that is themselves and why them more than the poorer People about us Because they are sacred persons and belong to God and serve at his Altars Very good And is Piety to a sacred person and such as they so great a Duty and yet our Piety as immediately to God himself an indifferent thing in comparison of our Duty to Man Yea some usually make that part of their Piety which consisteth in the observance of their own Traditions and unnecessary Injunctions to seem of great weight while the holy observance of God's own Laws is perhaps accused as too much preciseness or hypocrisâ—s when indeed the Hypocrite is he that instead of the life and serious practice of true Christian-Holiness sets up and resteth in the Image of Holiness and certain formalities that are lifeless to deceive himself and others § 26. Where there is no Faith and Love to God nor Duty done in obedience to God there is no true moral Virtue but somewhat equivocally so called whatever good such may do to the Common-wealth or to their Neighbors for it wanteth the principle end and object that should inform it § 27. An Hypocrite may be said to have moral Virtue as he may be said to have Holiness that is only secundum quid yea but analogically yea but equivocally in that he hath no other sort of Faith and Love and Obedience § 28. An Infidel's moral Virtue and all unsanctified Heathens or other persons is of the same sort only with this described of the Hypocrite And they err not that say They have no true moral Virtue but analogical § 29. Yet Nature and common Grace do give men that which is truly good and not only minus malum and may do much good to others and some to themselves and is truly laudable and amiable considered without the mixture simply in it self But because the contrary evil is still the predominant part in all the unsanctified it will not properly denominate them good men nor the whole action a good action save equivocally analogically or secundum quid because the form denominateth which is here wanting § 30. But if any one think otherwise that the name of moral Virtue yea or Holiness is due to the best actions or habits of Heathens Hypocrites or any unsanctified men it is but a Controversie de nomine and no otherwise to be regarded while we agree of the things signified by that name § 31. It is certain that now there is no moral good in any man on Earth that is not the effect of some Grace of God common or special for even Nature now as reprieved and maintained is an effect of common Grace much more further