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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45138	The middle-way in one paper of election & redemption, with indifferency between the Arminian & Calvinist / by Jo. H.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1673 (1673)	Wing H3689; ESTC R20384	34,415	44

the Grace of God is not given according to mans merit Another is that there is no man how great soever his righteousness be that lives without some sins The third is that men are born liable to the guilt of Adams first transgression De bon persev c. 2. The consequent of the second opinion that Election is ex praevisa fide of fore-seen faith is That although our good works are indeed the fruit onely o● Gods Spirit and to be ascribed to Gods grace yet must our frith upon which the Spirit or this grace is given or by which it is impetrated as that Father speaks be both in our own power and from our own will as being that and that alone in man that makes the difference between one and another or the reason why God should choose such a one to give him his grace and pass by the other And this doctrine with the Consequent of it must be acknowledged to be St. Augustine's in his first writings which he chose no doubt as the most moderate then in the Church which as we may judg by Prosper and Hilary's Epistles to him was never used to define election otherwise than secundum praescientiam according to foreknowledg till his dayes And this was the reason that those of Marsilia ad quorum authoritatem non sumus pares sayes one of those Epistles quia multum nos et vitae meritis antecellunt sacerdotis honore were so offended at that Father for his change And from hence does Arminius professe some-where Non stamus Augustino We stand not with Augustine for which this also as I remember is his reason Quia sibi ipse non stetit because he stood not to himself The Consequent of the other two doctrines which belong to Absolute election and come in this repect I have said bat to the same is on the contrary hand That neither our good works nor our faith it self nor indeed any good that is in man is of our selves but of the operation of God or of his Spirit who does at first excite our wills to Faith and a holy life by his continual assistance carry us on in perseverance unto the end that we may be saved so that the whole business of our salvation first and last must be ascribed to Him alone And if any ask the reason then why he gives not the same grace to others as to his Elect he shall find these words still in St. Augustine's mouth And who art thou that repliest aga●nst God May he not do what he will with his owne Hath not the Potter power over his clay O the depth of the knowledge and wisdome of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his wayes past finding out It were but jniury to quote a sentence or two out of the Father for this which is the designed contents of severall of his last books See de Praedestinatione gratia De correptione gratia De praedestinatione sanctoram De bono perseverantiae to name no more The great difficulty now in this Consequent of Election which appears does undoubtedly lye here If neither the faith nor good works of man do spring from his own free will but from the grace of God and Election then may the unbeliever and wicked excuse themselves and say It is not long of themselves that they believe not nor obey but the cause is in God who gives them not faith and obedience and they cannot help their own reprobation They will not say that Reprobation is any other than a negative decree which infuses no malice in them but it denyes them that grace which Election gives others and if it be not in their power to beleeve and repent without that grace How can they be condemned for their not beleeving and repenting This difficulty I am assured did stick so fast upon this Father in his first writings that I do hardly think him quite out of the gravell in any of his last Let us turn to his book De spiritu littera In his one and thirtieth Chapter he offers the question Whether faith be in mans power and determines that it is and must be so Upon this in his thirty third chapter he comes to another question which is put to the quick Whether the will whereby he believes be therefore of himself or of God If it be not of our selves sayes he but of Gods gift then may man say according to the objection proposed that he beleeved not because God gave him not the will If it be of our selves How can that text of the Apostle what hast thou O man thou didst not receive be true seeing this will to beleeve he hath of himself For the extricating us out of this distresse he yields to the first and seems convinced that faith must be both in our own power and of our selves for that reason Dicit Apostolus Idem Deus qui operatur omnia in omnibus nusquam autem dictum est Deus credit omnia in omnibus Quod ergo credimus nostrum est quod autem bonum operamur illius est qui credentibus dat Spiritum sanctum In his Exposition upon the Romans The Apostle sayes that God works all in all but never that he beleeves all in all That We beleeve therefore it is of our selves but that we do good works it is of him who gives his holy Spirit to them that beleeve To the last therefore he chooses to answer Liberum arbitrium naturaliter attributum a Creatore animae rationali illa media vis est quae vel intendi ad fidem vel inclinari ad infidelitatem potest Et idco nec istam voluntatem qua credit Deo dici potest homo habere quam non acceperit quandoquidem vocante Deo surgit de libero arbitrio quod naturaliter cum vocaretur accepit Vult autem omnes homines salvos fore in agnitionem veritatis venire non sic tamen ut eis adimat liberum arbitrium quo vel bene vel male utentes justissime judicentur The substance is that The will whereby we beleeve may be said to be received of God although it proceed from our selves because the faculty from whence it arises is received from him that is Because the nature we have is of our Creator the will which is of nature is of Him This does not satisfy me for these reasons 1. That which the Father sayes as to the voluntas qua credimus The will whereby we beleeve I take to be the same which Pelagius said as to the voluntas qua bene operamur The will whereby we doe good works But if this text and such as this be good against Pelagius they must be good against Augustine here that neither is our faith of our selves upon the same account The truth is The judgment of this Father while he wrot this book is this The Spirit is given to a man upon his beleeving This Spirit infuses grace charity or justification This

he would have bin damn'd first if it had not bin for the grace of God that wrought him over after he had stood so long out And this is a sad truth I grant which needs not the proof of one or two single texts when the scope of the whole Scripture which attributes our destructon to our selves and our life and help unto God does seal to it Who is it hath made thee to differ Of him we have the will and the deed By grace ye are saved You may say If the will then be of God why does he not give the will as well as the power to all seeing he would have all men to be saved I answer in the first place what Augustine hath before that God will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth but yet so as the free will of man be not destroyed My meaning though is not as I take the Father 's to be there as if the will in believeing could not be of God of unwilling making man willing but this freedome were lost when I doubt not but the case is the same in believeing as in well-doing where mans free will and Gods grace would stand together alwayes in his account I say farther God will have all to be saved in vouchsafing the means to all to be saved if they will This appeares in these three particulars 1. That he hath given his Son to dye for all the world 2. The Lord Jesus hath by his death procured the New Covenant or such termes upon which Salvation may be had as are possible to all the World This is a point to be known that there is this difference between the Covenant of Works under which we are by Nature and the Covenant of Grace unto which we are Redeemed that The condition of the one as to our falne Estate is Impossible and the condition of the other is Possible If it be not possible or in Mans Power to perform if he will then hath Christ done nothing for the World but died onely for his Elect. For To procure a Benefit on a Condition that is impossible is all one as to procure no Benefit at all 3. There is sufficient light by the Gospel or by other means from within and without to instruct all men so that if they be not wanting to that Light they may be saved And thus are we to make good this Truth God will have all to be saved if they will of themselves which yet doth not hinder but he may will the Salvation of some more than so that is not only if they Will of themselves but if they Will by his Grace which he gives or refuses to whom he pleases Cur autem illum adjuvet Deus illum non adjuvet Illum tantum illum non tantum istum illo illum isto modo penes ipsum est aequitatis tam secreta ratio excellentia potestatis But why He helps this man and not that this man so much and that man not so much this man one way that man another we must leave it to Him whose Power and Wisdom is above our reach De peccatorum meritis remissione l. 2. c. 5. I know indeed The Scripture speaks ordinarily of a Cannot but there is a Cannot which denotes an Impossibility and a Cannot which denotes an Indisposition onely In the Parables the Steward says be cannot digg and the Man in Bed he cannot rise In the same sense the Scripture says We cannot come to Christ unless we be Drawen and we cannot learn to do well that are accustomed to do evil When a man is so disposed against any thing as that he certainly never will do it under that disposition it is common for us to say he cannot as of the Idle person we say he cannot work of the Abstemious he cannot drink The Scripture accommodates it self to our Language He that is born of God cannot sin sayes the Apostle That is he is under that disposition through the New Nature that he can no more find in his heart to live in any deliberate course of sin than the Wicked can endure to come up to an Universal unreserved Resignation of himself unto God Thus are we to understand such Texts St. Augustine I remember in the book last quoted which he persues De spiritu litera is very wary of denying a Possibility to a man even of living without sin when he is industriously proving that none in Earth but do sin and there are some learned Divines stand much on this that we have our faculties and the object sufficily proposed and therefore a Natural Power to every thing which is our duty But the Father is more cautious who distinguishes between what we can do by Nature and what by Grace Without me sayes Christ ye can do nothing and through Him sayes the Apostle I am able to do all things By Grace he thinks it safest to hold that Possible which by Nature or to our bare natural strength and faculties he doubts-not to count Impossible There is a medium therefore between both They that dare say If it be the duty of a man that is without Grace to live perfectly it is possible or That it is in the power of man in the state of Nature without Grace to keep all Gods Commandements and live without sin because it is his Duty are too boysterous on the one hand for Augustine does manifestly account this to be the extreamest Pelagianism and the Father I count in framing this distinction for this purpose is too tender on the other It is true a man hath his Natural Faculties and the Object may be revealed but these faculties are corrupt and unsutable to the object There is Nature then and corrupt Nature The Scripture speaks of Man as he is and that is impossible to Falne Nature which to Original Nature was possible The Law it self nevertheless being founded in Gods Nature and Man as Created after his Image is unchangable and cannot cease to require of all men what it did at first of Adam when given in Innocency It is the duty consequently of every body whether he hath Grace or hath not To keep this perfect Law of our Maker entire but we are not to affirm it to be Possible or within the power of any whatsoever No certainly seeing the Scripture tells us so often and so flatly that By the deeds of the Law no flesh living shall be justified Seeing there is no man but is born in original sin which he cannot help and the Apostle calls Concupiscence sin and seeing the Grace of God or the Spirit is not given to any for their fulfilling the Law ef Works but the Law of Grace which is a point not considered on by Augustine I take it and most others we must choose rather to say that the whole duty indeed of man according to the Law of Works take it together is Impossible for so does the Apostle I account