permissor sed effector â—jus mali Prorsus invalida consequentia Apparet enim non necesse esse ut Deus sit effector omnis Boni in genere conducibilis N. B. Vix enim datur aliquod peccatum quod non sit alicui conducibile Neque necessâ— est ut Deus sit author omnis boni jucundi magis quam ut sit author peccati Nam certissimum est extra omnem controversiae alâ—am positum peccatum esse bonum in genere jucundi etiam in genere conducibilis potest enim peccatum nobis cedere in salutem Vind. Grat. li. 1. p. 1. sect 7. p. 133. But whereas the Doctor upbraideth Arminius for confusion in not distinguishing the three sorts of Good in this controversie An â—â—li existentia bonum sit viz. the bonum honestum utile jucundum I must desire the Reader to avoid also the Doctors confusion and to be so much more accurate than he as to remember that this distinction is but de Bono Creaturae whose pleasure profit and honesty are distinguishable But that above these God Himself is the absolute and simple Good and that things are first Good as related to him the Prime and Ultimate Good And that the highest formal notion of Goodness in the â—creature is none of those three but the conformity of things to the Will of God the absolute Rule of Goodness And therefore when we ask An bonum sit ut sit malum we mean not an sit bonum hominis secundum quid but an sit bonum simpliciter viz. conforme Voluntati Divinae And if they can prove that Deus velit â—â—â—â— fieri we will confess it to be Good But 3. Yet I deny it to be bonum utile seeing it doth the sinner no good For Bonum jucundum in genere is not sin God would have men have more Pleasure than sin bringeth and not less But it is hoc minus jucundum sensibile preferred before hoc magis jucundum spirituale which is sin Now the prelation of a Less Pleasure to a Greater is no Pleasure So that sin is neither utile nor jucundum And the Doctor is quite out in calling â—ccasio a medium conducibile and confesseth that sin is no otherwise conducible to Gods Glory but as occasio Whereas occasio as such is no medium at all no more than possibilitas est ens unless you take Medium very largely Their chief argument is that the moral specification of an Action is an Entity and to say that any thing can cause any Entity without Gods first causing it is to deifie that creature making it a first cause Answ 1. The comparative Order of Actions as the terminating them on this object rather than that and at this time rather than that c. is but the modus modi entis and so is no proper entity 2. Or if the Name be the quarrell it is no other Entity than what God is Able to make a creature Able to cause without his predetermining Causality 3. This power is the excellency of the creature and the honour of its Creator § 5. As for their argument that there is no effect without a cause nor difference in effects without a difference in the causes and that an undetermined cause cannot produce a determinate effect I answer 1. God is the cause of all differences without any diversity in himself And he is the Free cause of all things necessary in the World 2. The soul is Gods Image 3. The Will when undetermined hath a self-determining power Therefore this is but petere principium 4. But there are many sub causes that are a reason of the determination As objects opportunity knowledge the removing of competitors c. § 6. Therefore Gibieufs Guil. Camerarius c. way of predetermination by the Causa finalis is nothing to our question that being no efficient but a Material objective or Moral Causation § 7. When they say that else God dependeth on the creature and is determined by it as to his Concurse I answer 1. How can Gods free upholding the power of a free agent be his dependence on it when it expresly speaketh its dependence on him without whom it cannot be nor act 2. No creature determineth Gods Immanent acts nor his transient as to the meer Impress and first effect and so not Gods Act at all unless Terminating be Determining It is only its own Act which the creature determineth which is a secondary effect of Gods act as proceeding from the second cause Gods Influx maketh all that Impress on the soul which God intendeth absolutely But whether by that Impress the sinner will consent the will determineth and is the chief determiner in Evil. § 8. Saith Dr. Twisse Vindic. Grat. lib. 2. p. 2. Digres 9. The second cause non agit in primam c. Hoc faceret vel volendo vel aliâ—d agendo c. Answ It 's granted God is not passive nor doth any second cause act on him as passive Who is his Adversary in this § 9. He addeth Neither on the Influx of God do we act for an Act is not the subject of an act Answ 1. If by Gods Act and Influx he mean not the Effect on the soul it is a false supposition that Gods Influx or Act is any other than his Essence But if the said effect be meant I have shewed you that both Indisposition in the Recipient and a contrary Act may resist it § 10. Against our Passive determination of the effect he saith that God is denyed to act by physical action on mans will which if he did he would rather determine it than be determined by it because it cannot resist him c. Ans 1. The will doth not resist by reaction on and against God but by Indisposition and by its own not acting when it can c. 2. Who dare deny all Physical Action of God on mans will when it is quaedam natura 3. The will doth not Determine Gods will nor reject his Impress but only determine its own Act. 4. If God would act ad ultimum posse the will would never disobey or fail of the due effect § 11. He saith ib. Doth God move only to the Act in genere or also to this species of action The first cannot be said For Suarez Hurtado say that God determineth the Agent to this Individual act And the creature hath as much need of help to the species of motion which is perfecter than the genus as to the genus And Gods Influx is singular and not determined to Generical nature c. Answ Gods universal motion as the Suns doth necessarily make its Impress on the creature and giveth him sufficient help ex parte sui to Act yea necessarily continueth the soul in some Action And that Action is singular and not a non existent universal But it is only the General Nature of a singular Act which Gods Natural Influx necessarily causeth And the Moral species what need soever we
him But it followeth not necessarily that this will be done because it 's possible no nor because it is easie or not difficult to be done 150. * * * Ruiâ— de praedet Tr. 2. diâ—p 12. §. 1 2. p. 172. so defineth Permission as I confess so it is positively decreed viz. Increatam permissionem Deus non praedâ—finit Creata permissio simul complecâ—itur quâ—rundam rerum productionem aliarum rerum negationem quibus positis peccatum permittitur And if by permission they will mean quid positivum it must have a positive Will and Cause but what 's that to the Negative or meer non impedire Thus still all our wranglings shall be but about ambiguoâ—s words His reason §. 2. is Permission of sin is good 1. Negatio Volitionis essicacis qua Deus impediret peccatum And he said that permissio increata is not decreed 2. Negatio motivorum c. 3. Prodâ—ctio Constitutio circumstantlarum 4. Generalis concursus Ans 1. Nothing is not Good meer Negations are Nothing 2. Moral Negations or Logical that is Denyal and restraints are something and have a Cause 3. Production and Concursus are something and have a Cause but so is not a meâ—r non-impedition which is proper permission But the Case differeth as to permitting of a propense agent and an indifferent agent and a contrarily disposed agent To permit a stone to ascend will not make it ascend To permit the Air to move will not make it move But to permit a stone in the Air to fall I think with Durandus is enough to make it fall supposing the continuation of the Nature of it and all circumstances And so is it in permitting some sinners to sin 151. But yet here we must distinguish 1. Between a necessary and a free agent 2. Between Adams sinning and ours 3. And between the sin of a man strongly inclined or but weakly or that hath many disswasions or but few 1. Though a bad man be under a moral necessity of sinning in the general that is of not living innocently yet he is not under a necessity of committing every sin that he committeth nor is it a valid consequence He is a bad man Ergo he will do this and that and the other Sin Because a free agent oft acteth contrary to his habits 2. And some Sinners have so great impediments in sinning that they stand long in aequilibrio before the act 3. And Adam had no more propensity to his first sin than to the contrary So that bare permission will not inferr the Certainty of all sin atleast and therefore will not here serve turn 152. But saith Rada it is not common permission but also a withdrawing of effectual helps against sin Answ 1. God did not so by Adam at first 2. But are sufficient or necessary helps also withdrawn as well as effectual If so then Adam was as much necessitated to sin by God as he was to dye by Gods withdrawing his Vital influx or sustentation and it would have been as naturally Impossible for him not to sin as to live without God But if not so then while Necessary Grace called sufficient is continued the withdrawing of any other inferreth not a necessity of sinning But indeed it is an unproved and improbable fiction that God withdrew from Adam any Grace which he had given him till Adam cast it away It is therefore no good Illation Deus permittit aliquem peccare ergo peccat unless by permitting you mean withholding necessary help which is more than proper permission 153. And it must be remembred that God is far from a total permission or non-impedition of sin He alwayes hindereth it so far as to forbid it to threaten damnation to affright men from it to promise salvation and all felicity to draw men from it He tells men of the vanity of all which would allure them to it And his daily mercies and corrections should withhold men from it Only by doing no more nor effectually changing or restraining sinners but leaving them to their own choice under all these moral restraining means he permitteth sin 154. But it is also confessed that when by great sin these means themselves are forfeited some of them are oft-times withdrawn or not given And so some are without that Teaching those mercies or those corrections which others have But yet they are still under a Law of Grace 155. And it is still supposed that God as the first Cause of Nature upholdeth man in the Nature which he gave him and concurreth with it as the first Mover and Universal Cause And therefore that mans Inclination to Felicity Truth and Goodness which is Natural doth continue Otherwise it is confessed that Permission would inferr sin materially but no sin formally if by permission be meant Gods withdrawing Reason Free-will or executive power 156. But I easily confess that if the Dominicans predetermining Premotion * * * Or Bradwardines Effective Volition as necessary and productive of all that cometh to pass in sinful actions could be proved that would certainly inferr the event of sin And if God decreed so to pre-determine the will sin may be fore known in that decree And if Scotus or the rest had been of that mind they had never omitted that easie solution of the Case How God fore-knoweth sin But this I have elsewhere confuted and shall add a little here 157. But first having disproved all these presumptions of Gods way of fore-knowing future sin I shall in a word tell you the answer which may and must satisfie us which is That Gods Understanding is Infinite and therefore extendeth by its own perfection unto all things intelligible But How his understanding reacheth them what Idea's he hath of them how they are Intelligible to him with such like are sinful presumptuous questions of blind men who know not their own ignorance And no manner of understanding is properly Divine which mortals can comprehend SECT IX Of Predestination and Free-will of which see more Sect. 20. against Mr. Rutherford 158. THough Pre-determination belong to Gods Execution and be after his Volitions in order yet because I am now only to speak of it as a pretended medium of his knowledge of sin and as quid decretum I shall touch it here It is confessed that there is no substance which God is not the Maker of besides himself Nor any Action of which he is not the first Cause 159. God may well be called the perfect first Cause of humane Actions in that he giveth man all his Natural faculties and a Power to Act or not act at this time or to choose this or that and as the Fountain of Nature and Life and Motion doth afford his Influx necessary to this free agency So that when ever any Act is done as an Act in genere God is the first Cause of it For it is done by the Power which he giveth and continueth and by his Vital Influx And there is
no Power used to produce it which is not given by God 160. An Act as such hath no Morality in it but is quid naturale And so it is from God as he is fons naturae But the Morality of an Act is formally the Relative Rectitude or obliquity of it referred to Gods Governing Will or Law and to his amiable Goodness or Will as it is mans End And Materially it is not the Act as such but the Act as exercised on an unmeet object rather than on a meet one or to an undue End rather than a due End or else the Omission of the Act as to the due End and Object which is the sin and the fundamentum of the sinfulness and so è contra 161. This Comparative mode of exercise addeth no proper Physical Entity at all to the General nature of the Act as such In Omissions of Loving Trusting Fearing Serving God there is no Natural Act but a privation of it In committed sins to Love this Object rather than that hath no more Natural Entity than to Love that rather than this and no more than is in the general nature of Love as such A modus Entis is not Ens But this Comparative choice is but the Modus Modi entis For an Action is but Modus Entis and this is but a modus actionis 162. It is therefore an invalid argument which is the All of the Dominicans that Man should be a Causa prima and so be God if he could determine his own will without Gods pre-determining pre-motion and there should be some being in the world which God is not the Cause of For this morality and modality is no proper being above the Act as such 163. If any will litigate de nomine entis let them call it Being or no-being as they please but it is such as God can make a Creature able to do And he that dare say that God Almighty who made all the World is not Able to make a Creature that can determine his own will to this object rather than to that under Divine Universal Influx without Divine pre-determining pre-motion on pretence that his wit doth find a contradiction in it is bolder against God than I shall be And if God can do it we have no reason to doubt whether it be done 164. Men seem not in denying this to consider the signification of the word * * * It is a contradiction therefore of Dr. Twisse who oft saith that God denyed to Adam no grace ad posse but he denyed him grace necessary ad agere For he hath not the Power who hath not that which is necessary to the act Vid. Rad. li. 1. Cont. 29. art 1. pag. 457. POWER when they confess that God giveth man the Power to choose or refuse and yet say that it is Impossible for him to Act by it without the said pre-motion If so It was only a Power to Choose when predetermined to it He that hath a proper Power to Choose is Able to Choose and Can Choose by that Power 165. God therefore is truly the first Cause of the Act by Giving the Power and doing all that belongeth to the fons naturae to the exercise And he is the first Cause of our Liberty in making us free-agents and he is the first Cause of the Moral Goodness of our actions by all that he doth by his Laws Providence and Grace to make them good But he is no way the first Cause of them as evil 166. When we say that God causeth the Act of sin as Causa universalis * * * Bellarmin's Universal Cause seemeth the same wiâ—â— what Durandus meaneth And Pennottus denying Durandus's opinion saith l. 4. c. 16. p. 212. Non quod evidenter sequatur ex hac opinione dari duo prima rerum principia Multi enim Philosophi ut Plato Aristot â—gnoverunt unum primum principium omnium tamen non agnoverunt istud primum principium essâ— causam immediatam omnium esseâ—luum Causarum secâ—ndarum the sense of this word must needs be opened by this distinction A Cause is called Universal 1. In praedicando Logically And so Artifex is causa universalis rei artificialis Statuarius est Causa particularis Polycletus est causa singularis hujus statuae 2. In causande as to the effect And so that is an Universal Cause whose causality extendeth to many effects And this is two-fold 1. When it is the cause of some-what common to all those effects but not of all that is proper to each unless its causality be otherwise as by the dispositio recipientis determined And so the Sun is causa universalis of the sweetness of the Rose and the stink of the Dunghill c. And so God is the Causa universalis ut fons naturae by his common sustaining and moving Influx of all sinful actions 2. When it is the Cause of those actions not only as to that which is common to them all but as to that which is proper to each by which they differ from one another and that of it self and not as determined by the dispositio recipientis or by any other cause And so God is the Universal Cause of all that is meerly physical in all beings and actions As in Generation c. which is properly to say that he is at once both Cause universalis particularis singularis And how far he is thus also the Cause of all the moral Good of all Actions I must open to you more distinctly in the third part But of the sinful morality of Actions he is not such a Cause but only a meer Universal as aforesaid 167. They that denying our self-determining power do make Volition and free-Volition to signifie the same and Cogency to be nothing but to make men willing and unwilling both at once in the same act do seem rather to jeast than seriously dispute And to define Free-will to be only Lubentia vel Volitio secundum rationem is no other For Velle juxta rationem is no more than Velle the Will being the Rational Appetite distinct from the sensitive And if Velle and Libere Velle be all one why do we blind the World with words and do not plainly put the case whether man hath any will and not whether his Will be free And if to take away its Liberty or constrain it be nothing else but to make the same numerical act which is a Volition simultaneously to be no Volition or not the Volition of another thing the question whether the will may be constrained is ridiculous If the will be not forced as long as it willeth or willeth juxta rationem then to question whether it can will by constraint is to question whether it can at once will and not will †††Of this see Ie Blanks excellent Theses de lib. arbitrio absolut The definition of Alvarâ—â— of Free-will is lib. arbitrium est facultas voluntatis
be thy duty we use to say It is Gods will that we should obey him And so when we do not obey him we are said to Violate his will But this is but metonymically For that which is Gods will indeed is but that we shall be bound to obey whether we do or not And the event whether we shall or not de facto is not at all determined by the Law 351. Therefore if it were proved that God did Decree one thing and command the contrary it would not prove two contrary wills in God nor is there any great shew of a contradiction in it For to say I forbid Judas to hang himself and I decree that he shall hang himself are no contradictions It is but to say It shall be his Duty to preserve his life and Eventually he shall not preserve it All that is a mans Duty doth not come to pass And to determine of Duty is not to say It shall come to pass Otherwise Gods word were false whenever man sinned Nay in reality Augustine truly judged that by Gods Law Hell was Due to Paul unconverted and yet then he was a chosen Vessel and God Decreed to save him He thought that Perseverance was the Duty of some that after fell away and that Heaven was their Due on condition of perseverance till they fell away though not presently to be possessed and yet that God decreed that ipso permittente eventually they should fall away and perish 352. If a King made a Law that no man shall murder another and yet knoweth that a certain Traytor that hath broken Prison is like to fall into the hands of some Thieves or Enemies that will kill him If he be secretly willing that he be killed by them it is no contradiction The Law maketh it their duty not to Kill But it saith not that they shall not de eventu by way of Prognostication 353. But yet indeed God never doth command an act or forbid an act â—nd yet Decree that the same Act immediately commanded shall not be â—one or that the act directly forbidden shall be done Because sin is a thing â—hat God cannot decree or will of which anon 354. But the effect of the commanded or forbidden act is sometimes said â—o be commanded or forbidden And this may be contrarily decreed of God And men that think not truly of the matter think that this is to Decree a thing forbidden and so they err by such confused thoughts E. G. Gods command is that I shall relieve a poor man and not let him faâ—ish and that I shall heal the sick c. and yet God may decree that this â—oor man shall be famished and this sick man dye And yet no contradiction For indeed Relieving in effect is but the End of the Act which is commanded me and not the act it self I am bound to offer him â—elief But if one cannot take it and another will not yet I have done my duty And so in the other instance So God commanded Abraham â—o sacrifice his Son and yet decreed that he should not be sacrificed And â—his without any contradiction For the act that under that name was commanded Abraham and made his duty was not actual eventual sacriâ—icing For then it had been a duty to resist the Angel and do a thing â—mpossible But to consent and endeavour on his part to sacrifice his Son which he did So the preservation of our own and others lives is commanded us by God and yet at the same time mens death decreed Because the thing indeed commanded is not Preservation as it signifieth the effect and success but only Preservation as it signifieth our true endeavour So the Jews were forbidden to kill Christ and yet God decreed that Christ should be killed For the thing forbidden them was their own Consent and wicked act But the thing that God willed and decreed was only the effect without any Will of their Act that caused it unless in genere actus but only a permission of it Men of gross brains that cannot distinguish and judge accurately may blaspheme God in their ignorance in a case that to a discerning judgement is very plain 355. * * * Of which see Amyraldus against Spanhem de Grat. Universali The next distinction of Gods Will is into Absolute and Conditional which some Divines use and others condemn and say that God hath no Conditional Will The common answer which most Schoolmen and other Papists agree with the Protestants in is that there are Conditions rei volitae of the event of the thing Willed but no Conditions of the act of Volition in God As Aquinas saith of Causes †††De Vol. Conditionali authoritatibus rationibus pro eadem Vide Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 20. But his assertion that Una creatura est Ratio movens tanquam objectum materiale secundario ut Deus velit aliam producere is a fiction though he lay his stress on it about the ordo decretorum For movere is causare and nothing doth cause or move God to act There are Rationes effectuum eorum ordinis but none of the efficient Acts of God in him If you say It is absurd to say that God had no Reason to will the creation of this world rather than another I answer That is an Act of efficient Wisdom above all Reason But to fetch Reasons from the object and thereby to be moved to Act is the part of the imperfect creature Reasoning properly is below God much more to be moved by extrinsick objective reasons Yet on this Ruiz disp 24. layeth a great fabrick and so men may draw twenty Schemes of Gods Reasonings as they variously fancy Deus vult hoc esse propter hoc non autem propter hoc vult hoc 1. There are both Causes and Conditions of the event willed of God 2. Denominatione extrinseca ex connotatione objecti his Will is hence called Conditional meaning but a Volition of Conditionals 356. That God willeth Conditions and Conditional Propositions and Grants is past all controversies For he willeth his own word which is his work But his word hath conditional promises and threats And as his word also may be called his will he hath a Conditional will because a Conditional word 357. Gods eternal Omniscience proveth that at no instant he had a will properly Conditional quoad actum Because he that at the same instant fore-knoweth whether the Condition would be done or not must needs have his will to be thereby absolute But yet if it had pleased God to suspend the Act of his own Volition upon a humane Condition it would not have exposed him at all to the charge either of mutability or dependence which is very clear For 1. It is presupposed his Will as Voluntas Essentia is unalterable and is not that of which we speak 2. But only his Volition as terminated on this or that object and so as haec volitio
528. 3. Others say as Camero that the Intellect necessitateth the will and the Objects and temptations necessitate the Intellect and God causeth the Objects and Laws and permitteth the Tempter 529. 4. Others say that God only as the Cause of Nature 1. By Support and Concurse necessary to all agents causeth the Act as an Act in general 2. And giveth Power also to act or not act freely 3. And as Governour of the World doth that which he knew men would make an occasion of their sin 4. And also by his Providence causeth many effects of which mens sins are also a cause 5. And after bringeth good out of their evil 6. But as to the sin it self he is no cause of it either as sin or punishment either of the form or of the Act as morally specified that is as it is about this Forbidden object or End rather than another And this opinion I take to be the undoubted truth 530. Let it here be noted 1. That the five things here granted are all certain truths 2. And that they are as much as is necessary on Gods part in respect to the events which we see And unnecessaries are not to be asserted 3. That they fully shew God to be the perfect Governour of the World and all therein 4. And yet to be no Author of sin Let us consider of the particulars 531. I. It is certain that God as Creator hath made man a Vital Agent and therefore a self-actor under him and an Intellectual Agent and therefore is not tyed to follow the perceptions of sense alone And a Free-willing Agent and therefore hath a Power to Act or not Act hic nunc or to choose or refuse or to choose this rather than that as far as consisteth with his Necessary Volitions which I acknowledged and enumerated before which is part of Gibieufs and Guil. Camerarius Scot. meaning by their servato ordine finis Though I think that Annatus doth not unjustly accuse Gibieuf of confusion and unskilfulness in the managing of that matter 532. II. It is certain that as Motus vel Actio is quid Naturale it is of God as the first Cause of Nature * * * Vid. Gregor Arim. in 2. d. 28. q. 1. a. 3. ad arg 8. 12. whose judgement many Schoolmen follow Vasquez thus abbreviateth and reporteth him in 1 Tho. q. 23. d. 99. c. 4. Mâ—tionem Dei ordine causae priorem esse co-operatione determinatione nostra in operibus bonis at in operibus peccati etiam secundum substantiam seclusa malitia priorem esse nostram determinationâ—m codem ordine baec inter se comparari in aeternitaâ—â— Ex quo inserunt Deum praefinisse opera bona ante detâ—rminatiâ—nâ—m nostram ullo modo praevisam sed mala secundum substantiam nequaquam nisi praecognita determinatione nostrae voluntatis Vid. Marsil in 1. q. 45. ar 2. post 4. conclus And so when a sinner acteth it is not without this Universal first Cause Whether God do it only as Durandus thought by the meer continuation of the nature of all things Active and Mobile or by any superadded concurse besides is nothing to our present business which only sheweth that God is the Cause 533. III. It is certain that Governing Providence by doing good doth set before men that which they make an occasion of all their evil Every thing is turned into sin by sinners †††Titus 1. 15 16. and to the unclean all things are unclean through the uncleanness of their own minds and consciences As to the pure and holy all things are pure and sanctified Bad stomachs corrupt the wholsomest food All Gods mercies are abused to sin 534. It is certain that God fore-knew this And yet that he is no way obliged to deny men life or take it away lest they abuse it or deny men all those mercies or remove them which he foreseeth that they will turn to sin 535. IV. It is certain that God often concurreth to the causing of the very same effect which sin also causeth and so is as a concause of it with sin And this effect is so near to the Act of sin as that the sin it self is ost called by its name as if it were its nearest matter which it is not And this is the occasion of the Great mistake of men in this case that cannoâ— distinguish Of which more anon in the instances 536. V. And it is certain that God as the Governour of the World doth do much good by the occasion of mens sin But this is not to turn the sin it self into good 537. VI. And to these five operations of God I add as to his Volitions that all this which he doth he willeth or decreeth to do And he hath no contrary will at all 538. But that which we deny is that He is any proper cause of the sin it self efficient or deficient culpable or not culpable Physical or Moral For the opening of which we must enquire what sin is and what goeth to its being or constitution 539. All grant that God is our Ruler by a Law and also our ultimate End as he is Optimus Amabilissimus and that he is our absolute Owner And that as rational free agents we that are his own are also his Subjects and Beneficiaries and made capable of Loving him as our ultimate end and of obeying his Laws And that sin is our Disobedience to these Laws with our denying God our selves as his Own and withholding or perverting the Love which we owe him as our End 540. As Logick hath confounded us in most other cases by arbitrary unsuitable second notions making us a Shoo not meet for the Foot so that it 's easier to know Things without those unfit notions than with them so hath it done here Men may more easily know what sin is and what it is to disobey a Law and that either by doing what we should not or by not doing what we are commanded than they can know by what Logical or Metaphysical name it should be called Whether a privation or a relation an act or no act c. But it is not only for Logicians that God made his Laws nor is it only a Metaphysical Conscience that will accuse men or condemn them and torment them for their sin 541. No Act meerly as an Act in genere is forbidden of God For the soul is an Active nature and can no more cease all action than to be though it can forbear a particular act as to this object and at this time And God is the Cause of Acts as such 542. I have shewed before that as Action it self is no substance but the mode or motion of a substance so to choose this object rather than that hath no more of Action in it than to have chosen the other or than Ex to verb quod Dâ—us concâ—â— at nobiscum ad actum peccati prout facultas liberi
soever that God is not the Cause of sin except some odd presumers who are condemned by the generality One or two spoke some hard words that way in Belgia whom the Synod of Dort rejected Mr. Archers Book was burnt for it by the Parliament or Westminster Synod Beza himself in Rom. 8. 28. passim abhorreth it as intolerable blasphemy But this Doctrine in question plainly maketh God the Willer and Cause of sin Yea more very much more than wicked men or Devils are which is not true 578. For they make Men and Devils to be but a second pre-moved predetermined Cause of the Act of Volition and Execution whence the formal obliquity necessarily resulteth But 1. God is certainly the Cause of the Nature which is the Agent 2. He is the Cause of the Law which maketh the act in specie to be sin His saying Thou shalt not commit Adultery or Murder maketh Adultery and Murder to be sin when they are committed which they would not be without the Law 3. God causeth and ordereth all the objects and occasions 4. And now they also say that God willeth ut peccatum fiat and is the first predetermining Cause even the total Cause of all that is in the act and all its circumstances without which predetermination it could not be So that man doth but will what God first willeth and act what God first moveth him unavoidably to act as the pen in my hand 5. And the Law and the Act being put in being the Relative obliquity is but the necessary result and hath no other cause 579. And note here what Estius before cited after Aquinas saith that to Will that peccatum sit vel fiat is all that the Sinner himself doth when he willeth sin And therefore it 's a vain thing here to distinguish between willing sin and willing the event futurity and existence of it ut peccatum fiat vel eveniat Though I confess I was long detained in suspense if not deceived by that distinction For he willeth sin who willeth the existence of it or that it be or come to pass 580. And note that it is both matter and form Act and obliquity which they say God willeth ut fiat For it is sin And forma dat nomen It is not sin but by the form of sin But if they had said otherwise it had been all one For he that willeth the fundamentum relate and correlate Saith Twisse Vindic. Graâ— li. 1. P. 1. Sect. 7. p. 137. Posito quod velit perâ—ectiones istas manifestare necesse est non impediat ingressum peccati sed permittat 1. As if he had proved that God was not able to manifest his Mercy and Justice by Laws and Illuminating men to know them without execution by the occasion of sin 2. Yet doth he make Christs death unnecessary and his satisfaction to Justice so far as that God could have accomplished our pardon and salvation another way if he would And is sin better or more necessary than Christs satisfaction 3. And methinks they that lay so little on Moral means and operations of Grace in comparison of Physical should not give so much to sin which were it a means as it is not but a Passive and opposite occasion is but a moral means And himself saith page 136. Permissio peccati proprie medium est assequendi â—inem à Deo praefixum At peccatum non est Medium proprie dictum sive manifestandae Dei misericordiae sive justitiae Media enim ejus sunt naturae ut ad ea facienda movâ—atur quis ex intentione finis Would the Reader have a better confuter of him than himself But he there addeth that it is Materia etsi non medium as stone and Timber to an House And yet sin they say hath no matter besides the subject and object but is a meer Privation of moral Rectitude But if it be to the Devils Kingdom loco materiae it is not so to Christs Rather if a beggar Want a house is that Want the Materia domus no nor the Materia of his mercy or bounty that buildeth it Thus the defectiveness of the subtilest wits abuseth God and his Church when the Christian simplicity of modest souls with a holy life would honour him So Sect. 9. pag. 137. Peccatum mihi videtur propriâ— dicendum esse materiam manifestandae Dei sive misericordiâ— sive iâ—stitiâ— potiâ—s quam medium Permissionem vero peccati medium esse ejus manifestandae proprie dictum But 1. how oft elsewhere doth he forget and contradict this 2. Permission it self is nothing being but non-impedire And is nothing or non-agere a proper means But especially I intreat the Reader to observe that in that very place Twisse and Arminius are herein professedly agreed that it is the Permission of sin and not the sin that is the Divine medium only one saith Praedestinationis and the other providentia And yet they will differ while they agree And I that differ from both would agree with both willeth the Relation 581. There is nothing left to be said then but that God willeth that sin be done but not as sin or because it is sin But this is nothing For 1. Either none or few of the Reprobate do will sin because it is Sin but because of the pleasure of sense or imagination or for seeming good 2. And if a man or Devil do maliciously Will sin as sin because it is against God so doing is but one of their sins which they say God willeth ut fiat before they willed it and predetermined them to it so that here is nothing in it but what is first and chiefly of God 582. If they say that God willeth it for the Glory of his Justice and so do not wicked men but for wicked ends or in enmity to God I answer That proveth that God hath a will which the wicked have not but not that the wicked have any will which God hath not For that Will and that Enmity to God still is but one of their sins which they say God first willeth ut fiat 583. Obj. But it is only ut fiat ipso permittente non faciente Answ The hypocrisie of that addition maketh it but the worse in the assertors For 1. They usually make Gods will effective of the thing willed 2. They maintain that there is nothing in the act as circumstantiated which God is not the total first efficient Cause of 3. They confess that the formal relation necessarily resulteth from the act and Law And why then do they put in the word permittente Would not that deceitfully insinuate to the Reader that the sinner doth something which God doth not do but only permit when they mean no such thing For that is my second reason against them 584. 2. By their doctrine God never permitteth sin which is false For that which he Willeth and Causeth as the first total Cause he cannot be said to Permit To do a thing and
but rather than another 603. As the Wind hath its natural course and so hath the Water and the Miller Causeth neither of them but supposing them doth so set his Mill to Wind and Water that by the meer receptive qualification of the patient they shall fulfil his will and he is the Cause of the effect viz. that they turn his Mill and grind his Corn so is it easie for God to use mens sins permitted to his ends without willing them * * * Even Vasq in 1 Tho. q. 23. d. 49. c. 8. pag. 758. saith that Of mens non respondere vocationi God is Causa per accidens ut removens prohibens dum negat auxilium efficax congruum But this is but a Controversie about a Logical name causa per accidens which Gibieuf and many others do with as good reason deny to be fitly applicable to God as to mans sin 604. Next the Doctor cometh with Reasons And the first is because †††Pet. Alliac Cam. 1. q. 14. A. Secundum Bradward alios qui tenent quod Deus vult mala culpae quod respectu cujuslibet rei habet Velle vel nolle nec habet solum non velle Deus illo modo non permittit mala culpae fieri sed ideo secundum hunc modum dicitur permittere quia non approbat ea neâ— impedit ea fieri cum possâ—t sed secundum Magistrum Deus permittit ea quia nec vult ea fieri nec vult ea non fieri quia si nollet non fierent sed solum non vult per consequens non habet actum voluntatis respectu hujus quod est malum culpae fieri Saith Bonaventure that plain and honest Schoolman li. 1. dis 47. dub 2. Diâ—â—ndâ—m quod non est sigâ—um quod Deâ—â— velit illud quod â—â—â—â—â—iâ—â—itur sed quod velit illud quod ex â—o elicitur Alliâ—co â—â— q. 14. A. 1. Permittit qui. nec prâ—cipit nec â—â—â—â— nec consulit sed indulâ—â—t talis Permissio est signum Voluntatis Dei quia aliquem actum significat in siâ— permittente ita Deuâ— non permittit mala culpae â—â— Permittit fieri quia nec habet Velle nec habet nolle sed solum non Velle ut flat Et talis Permissio non est signum Divinâ— Voluntatis quia â—ullum actum Volendi significat in sic permittente isto modo secundum Mag. Deus permittit mala culpae Permission is a sign of Willingness as well as command And what is permitted and that for good infallibly cometh to pass Answ All this is before confuted * * * If he really holâ— with Bradward li. 1. c. 33. that God willeth all that he permitteth why is it denyed that he willeth the formale peccati as much as the materiale seeing he permitteth it But his citation of Bradwardine I think not my self obliged to regard nor do I coâ—sent any more to that doctrine in Bradwardinâ— than in him See Alliaco before of Bradward It 's false that non impedire efficaciter is a sign that one wills the thing The King that only forbiddeth drunkenness or murder by a Law with penalties could also lock up or guard some men and effectually keep them from the sin And doth he Will it because he doth not so And it 's false that all cometh to pass that is not hindered 605. His second argument is spoken very plainly and grosly viz. Both sides confess that the substrate act is done God not only willing it but effecting it v. g. Absalom 's congress with his Fathers Concubines Yea not only the congress as an exercised imperate act but that the Volition of congress the internal elicite act was efficiently and Principally of God why then should it be denyed that the very evil and deformity of the act was done God willing it though not effecting it or any way failing of his duty Especially when the Malice and Deformity doth necessarily follow the substrate act in respect of the Creature though not of God Answ Hobbes could desire little more But we vehemently deny that the substrate act is of God as it is morally specified that is as it is exercised on this forbidden object rather than another lawful one ex parte eligentis God did not as a principal efficient cause Absalom to Will that Congress with his Fathers Concubines nor to Act it The nature of the Wind and Water and God as the Cause of Nature cause the wind and water to act and to act as they do on their own part But that they turn this wheel and milstone and run in this Channel rather than another is long of the Miller Absalom's Motus qua motus and qua cupido ordinata was natural from God but not as acted hic nunc towards this object And the Reception of the Act by that Object supposing his lust and action might be morally and penally from God 606. If you here bring forth the common Medusa's head and tell me that It is injurious to God that his act be determinable by a Creature and so dependent I confidently answer you for God 1. No man is injurious to himself And God did not wrong himself when by making a Creature with free self-determining Power he resolved so far partially to suspend his own operation so as not to necessitate the will no more than he wrongeth himself by a Greater suspension in making no more Worlds or Creatures 2. You quite mistake We do not at all alter or limit Gods Acts or influx nor determine it but terminate it and determine of that effect which requireth both Causes God and Man and cannot be ordinarily by one alone because God hath otherwise appointed And again I beseech the adversaries to note How great and innumerable changes are made in the world by the various Disposition of Recipients The Rose and Vine and Weed and Dunghill do not at all Change the Action of the Sun but their various Reception and co-operation is the Cause that its Act hath such various effects And it is the Millers work in making a various and special Receptivity in his Channel Wheels c. which causeth the variety of effects And God hath enabled men Variously and freely to Receive his Influx 607. His third Argument is God giveth not that effectual Grace without which he fore-knoweth sin will not be avoided ergo he is willing that it be done Answ I deny the Consequent It only followeth that he doth not Absolutely and effectually Nill it If the King have several subjects inclined to eat a luscious poyson And his Children he effectually keepeth from it one he locketh up another he committeth to a Keeper another he keepeth the poison from But to a Traytor he saith I once forgave thee and saved thy life and I now command thee that thou avoid this poison and if thou do not it will torment and kill thee but if thou wilt take
Holiness The Holiness of Christs Humane Nature and of Angels and Saints in Heaven is as much the Creators as is his Works of Mercy and Justice And Gods glory shineth as much in them And it is the glory of his Goodness if not of Mercy which preventeth sin and misery yea and of Mercy too For though mercy relate to misery it is as well to possible misery prevented as to existeâ—â— misery removed And if he speak not of Subjects but Proprietors the Boâ—um Creaturae is also Creatoris SECT XIX The same doctrine in Rutherford de providentia confuted 625. I Have been too long in confuting this Digression of Dr. Twisse which is contrary to the commonest doctrine of Protestants and The summ of their opinion I think soundeth not well in Christians ears The summ of which is this Neither God nor Devil do will sin as it is evil but God is the first willer of its existence because it is in its own nature summe unice conducibile to the manifestation of his Justice and mercy And willing and Loving being all one in God he thus singularly Loveth the existence of sin above its contrary holiness for this end And by Predetermining premotion which he much more largely writeth for elsewhere he causeth as the first total Cause all that man Causeth But it is sin in man because forbidden him but not in God because not forbidden him And therefore God is not to be said to cause sin though he cause all that is caused but to permit it because he causeth it not in himself nor is he to be called a Deficient cause of our omissions because he is not bound to Actuate us but man is to be called the efficient and deficient cause because he is under an obliging Law Though God made that Law And though he can no more than a stone act without physical predetermination nor forbear acting when so acted yet he is to be called free because he is actually willing or his will doth act and because he is predetermined by none but God This is the true sence of their opinion as opened by themselves I shall now briefly consider what Rutherford saith to the same sence 626. Cap. 15. pag. 186. To Annatus charging Twisse as denying Gods permission of sin because he maketh him the * * * Nec omnino negari potest Voluntatem Dei esse Causam rerum omnium quas fieri velit Twiss recitante etiam Rutherf de Prov. c. 15. p. 186. See all their Reasons for Gods causing sin or willing its existence answered by Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 26. p. 262 263 264 265. As also against Gods predetermining to the immediate materiale peccati disp 27. p. 270 c. disp 28 29 30 c. usque ad p. 580. As to the common saying that God willeth not sin as sin all men will confess Dr. Twiss often that neither doth a wicked man do so Peccans ut sic non intendit peccatum quoad illud quod est formale in peccato seu carentiam conformitatis sed intendit actum ut est in genere moris inquit Aureolus in 2. d. 42. a. 3. pag. 319. I will not conceal a more difficult argument than most of theirs which may occurr to others God caused e. g. in Nathanaâ—l Peter c. this act of saith before Christs coming the Messiah is to come hereafter When Christ was come this was false and so evil God still caused the faith which he gave them Therefore he caused an untrue belief and evil and that supernaturally But I answ 1. God caused the habit of their faith and the act The nature of the habit was in general A belief of all divine revelations and in special A belief in the promised Messiah The termination of the act on the Messiah as future rather than as Incarnate required nothing positive in the Habit The same Habit served to both acts unless the latter being for the nobler act had some addition but the former needed none 2. And that this Habit might bring forth the act in that circumstance no more was necessary but 1. Gods word Christus venturus est 2. And Gods influx on the habited faculty to cause it to act according to that habit So that when God had reversed that word Christus venturus est he was no longer the cause determining the mind to believe that word but only the cause that the habit of faith was still towards Christ But not at all sub ratione venturi For the determining word was called in and it was an imperfection not to know so much where it was not a sin Cause of the Act the Liberty and the Prohibition and to Cause is not to Permit he hath no better answer than to say that God doth not permit the Act nor the Evil of the Act but he permitteth the evil act and 2. To say that the Dominicans and Jesuits hold the same as he Which is to jest with holy things and not to argue As if he said God made neither the soul nor the body and yet he made the man What! is it as it 's said that non animased unio est vita so Doth God permit the Union of Actum and Malâ—m No that he pretendeth not 627. To prove that God willeth the existence of sin he bringeth the instance of Joseph's case Gen. 45. To which I say that the text saith not at all that God willed the Will or Act or Sin of Joseph's brethren but only the Venditio passiva or effect and the consequents Nay only the consequents are mentioned in the Texts His replyes to the answers prove no more than the five things which I before asserted about sin Nothing so much deceiveth them as not distinguishing between the sinful act and the effect or passion when they are called by the same name as Selling Killing c. 628. His next instance is of Christs death of which I said enough before But 1. He understandeth his adversaries as ascribing only the Consequents of Crucifixion to Gods will which is his mistake It is Crucifixion it self passivè sumpta which they ascribe to it some of them at least And let men too wise against God deride it as much as they will God can will and Love that Christ be Crucified and yet hate and not will the will and act of the Crucifiers but only foresee it as aforesaid And let them jeer God as Idle or asleep if he neither will nor effectually nill the sin we will believe it to be his perfection and liberty which they so deride 2. And whereas he addeth that Active Verbs are used as Gen. 45. Misit me Deus Isa 53. Deus voluit eum conterere Zech. 13. Ego percutiam Pastorem and God delivered Christ to death I answer It is too too gross to perswade us hence that any of these Texts say that God willeth the sinners will or Act. God sent me speaketh Gods act that is his disposal
power to keep rectitude so it is not equally in all For this Power is in God of Himself and in the Creatures received from God And it is more in the confirmed than the nonconfirmed and in the good than in the bad And seeing to be able to sin is a diminution of Liberty therefore according to Anselm to be able to sin is no Liberty nor part of liberty taking Free-will according to the Common Reason of it But to have power as to the Act which deformity is annext to may well be a part of Liberty not simply but of Created Liberty And so the deformity in the Act more agreeth with free-will as it is a Creature or as it is of Nothing than as it is Free. Dub. 3. Can free-will be compelled Answ God can destroy it but not force it for that is a Contradiction But he can well effectually incline it and make it move it self freely to which part God will * * * But to sin he will not so incline it I think this is as high as you can desire And yet there is nothing in all this but what both parties may well bear with and it hath indeed much soundness in it But here he treateth only about equality of Liberty but how much of it the unsanctified have he elsewhere sheweth and I have oft told you how much the most are agreed in it 708. To conclude The heart and summ of all our differences is how to make God the total first Cause of all Good and not to make him the Cause of sin and the damner of man for that which he himself insuperably causeth I hope both sides hold fast both the conclusions that our sin and destruction is chiefly of our selves but in God is our help and our good and happiness is all from Him And if they both hold this it is not the difficulty of joyning them together and opening Gods unsearchable methods that must disjoynt us and draw us to withdraw our Love or contemn each other or disturb the Churches peace and unity 709. Gregory Ariminensis and Gabr. Biel have come so near the rigid Dominicans that the Reader may think that they plainly say the same of Gods Causing all the Act of sin as Alvarez Twisse and Rutherford say But let the Learned Reader note these things 1. That over and over they affirm that though God Cause all the Act of sin yet he is but the Causa partialis I like not the phrase my self for the reasons before given but by this they do greatly differ from the aforesaid Authors see Greg. 2. d. 34 35. ar 3. frequently saying that God is Causa partialis And in answering Aureolus ad nonum he thus fully explaineth it Dicendum quod Causa dupliciter potest accipi Totalis Uno modo Totalis totalitate relata ad Causam id est sufficiens Causare effectum absque concursu alterius Causae praecise causando sicut Causat sic neganda est ista Consequentia Quoniam nec Deus nec Creatura est sic Totalis Causa actus mali Nunquam enim talis actus fieret si Deâ—s non Causaret â—um Neque etiam si Creatura non causaret Deus non aliter causaret quam nunc de facto causat concurrendo cum Creatura Alio modo Totalis totulitate relata ad effectum id est totum effectum causaus Et ejusdem possâ—nt esse plures totales Causae ejusdem enim Volitionis secundum totum est Causa Notitia etiam Voluntas Here note that 1. He taketh not Causa totalis for the same with Solitaria 2. That he asserteth only that God causeth the Totum of the Act but not by a total Causation of it And that Gods way or sort of Causation is not sufficient to cause it if man concurred not which they say he freely doth and could do otherwise 710. So that these mens way of freeing God from being the cause of sin is like Scotus his As if as I before made the similitude a Father to try his Childs obedience bids him lift up a Stone which he cannot do of himself and the Father holdeth his hand and joyneth his strength yet not ad ultimum posse but with a purposed restraint so far that if the Child will not put forth his degree of strength it shall not be done But who can comprehend the wayes of Divinè concurse 711. And it is to be noted that when Aureolus argueth that if God immediately concurr either he determineth mans act or man determineth Gods act or neither which are all absurd here Biel citeth Scotus as holding the third and answering Neither as no absurdity But Greg. Arim. that seemeth to go higher yet saith * * * Ubi suprae ad 8. Juxta modum loquendi arguentis dico quod Deus sequitur determinationem Voluntatis non quâ—â— determinatio Voluntatis fit aliqua Entitas distincta à Voluntate actâ— ejus quia primo fiat à voluntate nec intelligendo quod prius natura Viluntas agat actum quam Deus proprie loquendo de priori natura Quoniam tunc sequeretur quod posset illum agere Deo non coagente Sed ad hunc sensum dico Deum sequi Determinationem Voluntatis Quoniam ideo Deus agit illum actum quia †††I think it should be Eum. cum Voluntas agit Et non ideo quâ—â— Deus agit ideo Voluntas agit ideo magis proprie dicitur Deus coagerâ— Voluntati in talem actum causandi quam Voluntas dicatur coagere Deâ— You see that these Nominals do toto coelo differ from Alvarez Tâ—isse and Rutherford And yet Alvarez would fain be moderate in that one Disputation which Dr. Twisse in a peculiar Digression oppugneth 712. And note that the thing which moved Gregory to go so far as he doth is Lest God should be denyed to be the Cause of all Natural Entity But if you set before the will the Creator or Chief Good and the Creature or sensual pleasure the Act in genere as a Volition is an Entity or modus entis But who can prove that comparatively as it is terminated on the Creature rather than on the Creator it hath any Natural Entity more than the act in genere or any modality which God is not able to give a Creature power to cause or not cause withoâ—â— predetermination from God or any other 713. Yea Ariminensis seemeth to mean this himself when ibid. d. 34 35. a. 2. ad 5. he saith Deus â—potest solus actum illum causare actâ—â— odiendi id est qui est odium Dei mendacium etiam potest causare Non tamen potest causare actum odiendi Deum seu odium Dei neqâ—â— potest Causare Mendacium vel mentiri neque potest causare actum â—â—lum Quare quemcunque actum causaret solus licet ille nunc sit Odiâ—â— Dei vel mendacium vel aliquis actus malus
is less than a good habit 10. That every man hath a moral proper power to do more good than he doth and forbear more evil 11. That every man is commanded to use some means in order to his salvation which he is morally able to use 12. That God useth to bear long with the abusers of their Power before he forsake them 13. That many have many perswasions and helps to use their power that abuse it 14. That it 's just with God to forsake such 1â— And great mercy to the elect not to be so forsaken All â—â—â—â— will be made cleareâ— in their due â—â—â—â— which I shall now here offer you § 2. AS for the five Articles I. The Article of Predestination II. And the Article of Redemption contain no difference between the parties but only as they relate to the Articles of Free-will and effectual Grace as is aforesaid For all must agree that God Decreed and Christ procured all that Grace or Mercy for men which he giveth them Of which the Conditional gift of the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Spirit in the Covenant of Grace with a Commission to his Ministers freely to offer it to all Believing Consenters and to seal it and deliver it by Baptism is a great part And many mercies teachings perswasions and motions tending to draw them to Consent is another part God decreed not to deny men that which he giveth them and Christs Death procured them all that he giveth them To which add what elsewhere I have opened that there is no necessity of ascribing to God any Positive Decrees of Negations or nothings Else there must be a Decree against the existence of all the myriads of possible animals atomes names words c. And remember that to Permit is not-to hinder and so is a meer negation or a doing nothing and that not-to-give faith repentance grace the Gospel c. is a negation or a nothing and so need no Decree seeing a not-decreeing to give c. is sufficient so that the whole of the Controversie about these two Articles is clearly devolved to the Controversies of Grace and Free-will III. And concerning Free-will it cannot be denyed but that Natural Free-will is part of that excellency or Image of God by which man is differenced from bruits and that it is such a faculty by which man can in some instances determine his own will to this rather than that without Divine predetermination which is certain in the â—ase of sin yea and of some good For Adam's will could without any other grace than he had have forborn his sin Or else still all is but resolved into Gods meer will And it is agreed on as is said before that all men can do more good than they do and forbear more evil than they forbear and that without any more grace or help than they have when they use it not so that it is not abhorrent from the nature of Free-will for a man to make a good use or an ill of the same measure of grace at several times or for several men to make several uses of the same measure Therefore it is no unjust answer to the question Why did he forbear this sin to day and not yesterday or Why did this man forbear sin and not that supposing them to have the same measure of assisting grace to say Because this man at this time used that power which God had given him in stirring up his own will to concurt with grace and the other man or this at another time did not what he could Not that this answer is good in all cases where more grace is necessary to the effect but in this forementioned So that it is no Deifying of the will of a Rational free-Agent to say that it is essentially a self-determining faculty made by God in the Image of his Liberty and depending on him and not able to Act without him as the first Cause but yet on supposition of his Natural preservation and universal concurse and of his directions and Laws it is able to make choice hic nunc to will or not will to will this rather than that without Divine necessitating predetermination and without any more Grace or help than sometime it hath when it doth the contrary All which shewing the natural power of mans will and its liberty must be readily acknowledged by all sides that will not say that Adams first sin and every sin of all men else are all resolved into Gods causation in case of commissions and Gods non-causation in case of omissions and into Gods will in both and that man can no more do any thing but what he doth than he can be God or overcome God or live and act without God And as we must thus agree that natural Liberty consisteth in a self-determining power peculiar to Rational free agents so we are all agreed except the Pelagians that mans nature is vitiated by Original sin and therefore that the will which is naturally free from force and necessitation except from God who never necessitateth it to evil is yet in servitude to our own concupiscence and is not free either from the enticements of sense or the erroneous conduct of a blinded mind or from its own vicious habits averseness to God and holy things and proneness to things sensual and seeming good And therefore that this Holy or Moral Liberty of the will must have the Medicinal Grace of Christ to heal it of which next IV. And as to the Article of Effectual Grace it is agreed on and cannot I speak not of Grace as it is Gods favour but the effect â—e gratia data non de gratia dantâ— with sobriety be gainsayed without subverting the main doctrine of the Scriptures that whereas besides the Preparatory or Promeriting Grace of Christs own performance there is yet a three-fold Grace necessary for the application or conveyance of the Benefits purchased by Christ in the measure hereafter mentioned all this is common I. The first sort of Grace lyeth in the enacting of a new Law of Grace called also in several respects The new Testament the new Covenant and the Promise And as to this it is agreed 1. That God made this Law Covenant or promise in the first Edition with Adam and Eve after the fall Gen. 3. 15. the seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head and did by Actual Remission of their sin and not-punishing them as the first Law threatned yet more plainly manifest to them the pardoning Grace of this Covenant And that he made this new Law or Covenant to all mankind in and by them And that he again renewed the same Covenant of Grace with all mankind in Noah after the deluge Those few inconsiderate persons that deny this are not so valuable as to be an exception to our Concord It is an intolerable conceit of any to think that the tenour or sence of the
the Natural power in it self but by so doing formaliter relativè it maketh it no power ad hoc to the contrary in that instant Of which more anon § 10. Such grace of God as cometh from his Absolute Will or Decree of the due Event is never overcome For Gods decree is not frustrate § 11. Gods gracious operations are never overcome by any contrary Act but what he himself is the Agent Cause of as an Act For in Him we Live and Move and Be. Yet man is the only Cause of the Inordination of that act by which it is set in opposition to Gods other acts For God doth not militate against himself § 12. The case lyeth thus God antecedently to his Laws framed Nature that is the Being and Natural Order of all the World and so he became the Head or Root of Nature the first Cause who by his wise decree was to concurr to the end with that Natural frame and to continue to things their proper forms and motions And man is one of his creatures having a Nature of his own to which God as the God of Name doth Antecedently concurr By this natural concurse of God the fomiâ— cator the murderer the thief c. are naturally able to do those acts But being free agents that can do otherwise God maketh them a Law to restrain and regulate them And when they break this Law they resist that gracious concurse which suitable to the organical cause God conjoyneth with the means But they do this by their Natural power and activity not used as God requireth them but turned against his own Law So that if God would withdraw his sustentation and destroy mâ—ns Nature they could not resist his grace But that he will not do being his antecedent work and so God is resisted by his own-given-power and act disordered and turned against his grace § 13. The Will of God which is thus resisted is only 1. His Preceptive or Legal will de debito 2. And his will of purpose to give man so much help and no more by which he can and ought to believe and Repent is said to be resisted or frustrate so far when by mans fault it doth him not that good which it might have done § 14. Gods Grace and Spirit are said to be resisted when the Word and other Means are * * * That God doth govern inseriora per superiora and work by means not for want of them but from the abundance of his Goodness so as to communicate to his creatures the dignity of causality See Aquin. 1. q. 103. a. 8. q. 104. a. 2. Alexand. 1. p. q. 26. m. 5. a. 2. 3. m. 7. Albert. 1. p. q. 67. m. 4. a. 1. Richard 1. d. 39. a. 2. q. 3. d. 45. a. 2. q. 2. Agid. Rom. 2. d. 1. p. 1. q. 2. a. 6. ibi Gabritl d. 1. q. 2. resisted which call him to his duty For these themselves are gifts and acts of grace § 15. But it is not the barâ— Word or Means alone but the Spirit working in and by those means which is so resisted For though no moâ—tal man can clearly know just how the Spirit concurreth and operateth by the Word and Means yet we may know that God doth limit his own operation to the aptitude of the means ordinarily and that he worketh with and by them not according to his Omnipotency in it self considered but according to the means or organs And as in Nature he operateth nor quantum potest but agreeably to the order and aptitude of Natural Causes so in Grace he operateth non quantum potest but according to the aptitude and order of the sapiential frame of Governing-means of grace § 16. When the preaching of the Word Education Company and other visible Means seem equal God hath innumerable means supernal internal external invisible and unknown to us by which he can make all the difference that he maketh in men So that we cannot prove that ever he worketh on souls without any second cause or means at all though we cannot prove the contrary neither And therefore he that resisteth all means for ought we know in so doing resisteth all Gods gracious operations on his soul § 17. * * * I know not how to find both sense and concord in the words of your Alvarez de Aâ—x l. 7. disp 59. p. 264. Eadâ—m contritio que est ultima dispositio ad gratiam in genere cause materialis antecedit illam In genere tamen causae formalis efficientis est effeclus ejusdem gratiae propterea quamvis non sit meritoria gratiae est tamen meritoria vitae aeternâ— Et p. 265. Contritio qua penitens disponitur ad infusionem gratiae habitualis est meritoria vitae aeternae ut Thom. 1. 2. q. 112. a. 2. ad 1. Ergo est effectus gratiae habitualis Nulla enim operatio hominis est-meritoria vitae aeternae nisâ— procedat à gratiâ— habituali ordine saltem naturae sit ea posterior How can the Act be the ultima dispositio to the infusion of that habit which it floweth from Unless he mean eadem specie and not numerically which yet is false For it is not eadem or else he falsly supposeth that the same Love of God may go before Grace Whereas Dr. Twisse so frequently asketh Whether Gods condional will and so his operation be Volo te velle modo velis or credere modo credas to give us faith if we believe and so maketh non credere or non velle to be the only resistance and the Arminians to be ridiculous in making the effect antecedent to the cause as a condition of the causation and itself This semi-subtilty though it beget voluminous confidence must cry peccavi if a little more subtilty do but detect the defectiveness of it We are not now enquiring of the Rationes fidem habendi but of the Rationes non habendi nor are we enquiring Whether God have made a Covenant or formal Promise of giving faeith upon antecedent conditions But whether he deny or give-not grace for actual faith effectual or sufficient to any but those that resist and wilfully omit the preparatory acts which they were able to perform even preparatory Volitons Or if you will make the question to be de ratisnibus fidem habendi not de causis Actus donandi Whether God do not ordinarily give or produce the act of faith in that soul which doth not wilfully resist and omit such preparatory acts as it could do even Volitions And so I answer 1. It is not I will give thee faith if thou wilt believe or I will make thee willing if thou be willing of the same thing But it is 1. If by resisting common preparing grace thou so harden â—hy heart or increase the privation of receptive aptitude in thy self as that the same degree of grace means help impress will not change thee which otherwise would
to make a difference 3. The means much differ which several men have And God usually operateth according to the means upon the soul § 5. If the question be either of the Act or Habit it is no question For that were but to ask Whether all men have equal faith love and other graces which common experience denyeth § 6. Whereas some will stick at my mentioning a Divine Impress on the soul in nature antecedent to Act and Habit I would have them remember that either there is such a thing or not If there be I rightly mention it If not we are instantly at an end of all this sort of Controversies and Calvinists and Arminians cannot differ if they would For then the question must be only about that which is past question viz. 1. Either about Gods Act as in Himself which is his simple Essence 2. Or about the Act and Habit of Faith Love c. in Man which all the World knoweth is not equal For all men have not faith For as for pre-disposition the question will be revolved to the same point It is certain that all are not equally disposed and it is certain that Gods Acts as in him are his Essence SECT X. Whether the said Operation be Physical or Moral § 1. THis paltry question is worthy but a few words though â— make too much stir Of the sense of the words Physical and Moral having spoken before I will not repeat it here 1. If the question be de operatione ut est actus agentis before the effect it were but to ask Whether Gods Essence be Physical or Moral which is unworthy an answer § 2. 2. If the question be of the Action of second Causes as the Preacher c. if truly Acts they are both Physical as they are really actus naturalis and moral as they are the acts of free intellectual agentâ— But the Acts of Laws and other objects meerly as objects on man are called Moral Acts because they are but nominal but indeed are no Acts and therefore neither Physical nor Moral For they are but signa and significare is not agere but is only an objective aptitude by which an Intellectual agent can â—difie it self All the Books in my Library teach me without any Action by being signa objectively to my active Intellect § 3. 3. If the question be of the Divine Impress on the soul it is quid reale and therefore physicum And it is moral as it is the principium actus moralis The same is to be said of our own Acts and Habits They are physical and moral accidents And they cannot be moral unless they be physical § 4. But it must be known that to be quid naturale and quid morale formally differ as Actus qua talis and ordo qua ordo do differ ab ordine seâ— Relatione ad Legem ad finem morum and Moralitas est actus Physici vel privationis Relatio viz. ad Regulam finem morum § 5. But if the question be not of the Morality of the Act but the Morality of the Cause viz. Whether Grace or divine action do cause Physically or Morally I answer plainly that There is no true Cause which is not Physical A moral Cause not physical is but Causa reputata vel â—â—minalis Objects are usually said to Cause morally But if they be meerly objects they cause not efficiently at all but by termination only materially constitute the Act in specie But some things vulgarly called objects as Light Heat c. are Active and so effect And he that doth proponere objectum doth indeed effect by speaking or doing But he doth not effect any thing by the object on the mind as it is a meer object But the Vox loquentis doth more than present an object It doth by agency suscitate the Spirits and operate on the organs of sensation And many mercies afflictions and other means forementioned have their several wayes of active operation But it is readily confessed that nothing corporeal can by any direct efficiency operate on a soul but only Active Spirits like it self Remember therefore that I take the word Physical here as the Schools do largely as comprehending Spiritual or hyperphysical And I plainly say de nomine that Gods operations of Grace are to be called Hyperphysical in respect to God the Agent and Physical as they are Physical effects on man and Moral as the same are in instanti secundo also moral effects And that they are called Moral in two usual senses 1. In that it is Morality or Virtue that is produced by them 2. And in that objects being much of the Means the operation or efficiency of objects as objects is properly none at all They do but materially as it were constitute the Act and terminate it and occasion it as sine quibus non which many call a Moral Reputative Metaphorical Causation And yet diversification is much by objects § 6. If this stumble any who look not at the greater inconveniences on the other side and occasion them to think that it is little efficient operation which we own in the collation of faith and conversion I desire them to consider well 1. That it is no new substance at all that is to be produced but a pre existent substance and faculty to be actuated 2. That it is not an Act as such in genere that is to be caused by Grace but the due ordering of acts as to right objects c. 3. That the soul as such is an Active Spirit not indifferent between Action and cessation but as naturally prone to Act as the earth to rest and as a stone in the air to descend and as the Sun to move and shine so that it is never one minute out of Action even in this earthen tabernacle from its first being to the last breath day or night Though in different manner 4. That God as the God of Nature doth uphold the soul in this Active Nature affording it that Concurse or Influx necessary thereto which in Nature he made due to it As he doth to the Sun in its action and to the souls of Brutes So that Activity as such distinct from the due order of it is given by God in Nature 5. And God hath placed the soul in the Universe as a wheel in a Watch where it must needs have some effects of the co-operation of Concauses or superiour agents 6. And Angels and Devils who have very much to do with our souls do work as Voluntary Agents in Political Order though not without the regulation of Gods Law or Will 7. And God can do what he will on souls without any second cause though whether he do so or what we know not 8. All this being supposed for Efficiency objects duly qualified may do much for the Order of Acts though properly they do nothing so that though they be but ut Materia ad formam occasions sine quibus non yet the reasons
circumstantially but by the Immediate Physical efficient adequate predetermining Premotion of Gods Omnipotency as the first Cause besides his Influx by which he sustaineth their natures and concauses and affordeth them his general Concurse or premotion to the act as an act in genere only And it is Impossible for any Agent so predetermined by physical premotion not to act in all the circumstances that it is so moved to act in II. To say that any creature can act without this physical predetermination to all the circumstances or can forbear to act when so predetermined is by consequence to say that such a creature is God the first cause For it is as impossible as to be God or to make a World III. Yea the creature that will forbear any act which God so predetermineth him to must be stronger than God and overcome him or do contradictions IV. And if God had not decreed so to predetermine by physical efficient premotion he could not have known any future acts No though with Scotus we say that he willed all those Acts antecedently to his prescience it would not serve unless he willed so to predetermine the agent in causing them V. Yet we will say that the Will is free but we mean only that to will and to will freely are words of the same sense For a man is said to will freely in that he willeth and his Willing is not a Nilling VI. Free-will then is nothing but Facultas Voluntatis rationis â—d utrumlibet agendum vel non agendum ad agendum unum vel alterum sed tantum prout à prima causa physice praedeterminatur That is it is such a faculty as God can predetermine to act which way he will by making it will yet its Indifferency is not only objective or passive but also Active because it is an Active Power of the will which God predetermineth God predetermineth the will to determine it self VII We will call this the wills Power but it is but hypothetically a Power viz. It can act if God physically predetermine it else not at all As the Wheels of the Clock can move if the Poise or Spring move them or rather as the hand can move if the Will and the Spirits in the Nerves do move it VIII The will is said to be free partly by reason that its active power is capable of being determined by God and then by it self ad utrumlibet and partly in that it is not lyable to coaction IX The will that is by Omnipotent physical premotion efficiently predetermined by God is not constrained because it willeth not unwillingly that is so far as it is willing it is not unwilling and reluctant X. Yet the will that was one way enclined habituated and acted in the precedent instant is oft physically premoved and predetermined by Omnipotency to the contrary act in the next instant which it could not resist As he that in this instant wilâ—eth Chastiâ—y may in tâ—e next instant be predetermined by unresistible Omnipâ—tency to will fornication or he that Loved God may be predetermined and premoved by God to hate him the next moment But we will not call this irresistible efficiency coaction because it is ad Volendum and so in ipso actâ— there is no reluctancy or resistance XI When God hath given man a Power with liberty to will or nill or not will to will this or that and also giveth him all necessary objects and concauses and also as the first cause of natural and free action giveth him all that Influx which is necessary to an Act as such yet the moral specification of that Act to this proposed object rather than that as to hate God rather than to hate sin or to this Act rather than to that as to hate God rather than to Love him or to speak a lye rather than the truth hath so much Entity in it that it is a blasphemous deifying man to say that man can do it without Gods fore-described unresistible predetermining physical premotion XII God made the Law which forbiddeth sin and God made mans nature Intellectual and free to be ruled by Law and God made and ordereth all the objects temptations and concauses and God by the said efficient physical premotion causeth irresistibly every act of sin in all its circumstances As when David was deliberating Shall I do this Adultery and Murder or not God first by omnipotent motion determined his will to it or else he could not possibly have done it And sin in its formale is nothing but the Relation of Disconformity to Gods Law which can have no cause but that which causeth the subjectum fundamentum terminum nor can it possibly be but it must exist per nudam resultantiam hisce positis And yet though God make the man the Law the act the object and all that is in the world from whence sin resulteth as a meer relation we are resolved to say that God is not the Author or Cause of sin XIII Yea though the Habits of sin are certain Entities and therefore God must needs be their first cause in their full nature according to our principles who account it proper to God to be the first and principal cause of any such entity yet we are resolved to say that God is not the Cause or Author at least of sin XIV Yet we will say that he is an enemy to Gods Providence that holdeth that man can possibly do any wickedness unless God thus predetermine both Will Tongue Hand and every active part to every act which he hath forbidden with all its circumstances XV. Sin is caused by God as to the circumstantiated Act which is the materiale but not as to the formale And yet we must confess that the Relation is caused by causing the subject foundation and term all which God principally doth and can be caused no otherwise XVI But the formale of sin is but a defect or privation which is nothing Therefore man and not God is the cause of it For God cannot be a deficient cause nor have any privation And yet we cannot deny but that 1. There is as much positivity of Relation in disobedience as in obedience in curvity as in rectitude in disconformity as in conformity 2. Nor that God can be a Cause of Privations such as death is though not a subject of them even such a cause as they can have 3. Nor that some of ours even Alvarez say that sins of commission and habits are positive in their formale 4. And sin is such a Nothing as is mans misery and he is damned for and by And if it be such a Nothing as can have no cause man can no more be the cause of it than God 5. And that the Reason of non existences negations or privations is as notoriously resolved into the will or non-agency of the first necessary cause of the contrary as existences and positives are resolved into his will and agency And if a man cannot
of all true profit to us no more true natural entity in my choosing the forbidden one than in my choosing the commanded one To hate God and love sin hath no more natural entity than to love God and hate sin To speak an Oath or Lye than to speak Truth and Holily To will a forbidden Act than to Nill it and to will a good one So that it is no deifying man to make him a first cause of that which hath no natural entity that is of an Act not as an Act but comparatively as rather this way than that way exercised And Dr. Twisse hence saith That moral specification of Acts is no true specification of them And it 's true that it is not a Physical specification 2. If you say that we have a Liberty ad exercitium as well as of specification or of Contradiction as well as of Contrariety Even to will or not will do or not do And in this case to do or will when forbidden is more than not to do or will I answer 1. The Soul is naturally an active vital power and it is as natural to it to be in act as to a stone to lie still And the Cartesians will tell you that Action needeth no more cause than Rest But I rather say that God never forbiddeth Action in general to the Soul but only this or that Action upon this or that Object at an undue time So that no man ever sinned by meer Action as such whether Vital Intellectual or Volitive The Action which God commandeth he willeth The Action which he forbiddeth is but this or that upon an undue Object Adam had this liberty of contradiction to will or not to will this particular Act of eating the forbidden fruit but not to will or not will simply Now for Adam to will to eat that fruit instead both of nilling it and of willing to please God by nilling or refusing it had no more natural entity in it than if he had not willed it but willed somewhat else at the same time 3. An Action it self is not properly Res but modus Rei and if any should say that God is not able to make a Creature that supposing God the cause of its Power continued shall be the first cause of its own Act or exercise of that Power he saith that which no mortal man can prove The Glory of Gods Works is their likeness to Himself And as Intellection and Free-will are parts of this likeness we know not just how far God can go in such Communications I see no contradiction in it to say that a faculty maintained by God in its natural force with necessary though not determining concurse can determine it self without any more causation And if it be not a Contradiction God can do it 4. But this is all prevented by considering that mans Soul is never out of Act. It s active force is never idle though it act not always the same way nor with the same extension or intension so that to reduce it into act is not to reduce it from a meer potentia in actum but from a power acting one way or slowly to act another way or more intensly 5. Yea this is all answered by considering that as I said while God continueth the Soul in its nature it continueth a naturally active force or power inclined essentially to activity So that though I say that Action needeth more cause than non-action that is here done in God still causeth the active disposition But supposing that upheld I say that there is oft more need of other causality or strength to keep it from Action than to cause it to act Whatever the world talketh against Durandus they are never well able to answer à Dola though in sense they that factiously oppose him mean the same as he And if a Rock hanged in the Air by something that might be cut off or removed as a threed supposing God to continue the nature of it and all things else there is more strength and causality needful to hold it from falling than to make it fall when the threed is cut It was a work of Gods Power to keep the fire from burning the three Confessors Dan. 3. and the Lions from devouring Daniel Dan. 6. and the Sea from flowing on the Israelites and the Sun from moving in Joshuah's fight 6. And yet consider that it is not so much as an Action which is but modus rei that is in question but only the comparative circumstantiating of that action so that it is but modus modi rei 7. And lastly The denial of the matter of our power and liberty in this I have else-where proved overthroweth the certainties and fundamentals of all our Religion Now whether any man should deny all our Religion and certain necessary Truths for such a metaphysical uncertain notion as this that God is not able to make a Creature that can cause a modus modi in determining its active nature to this Object rather than to that without Divine predetermination let sobriety be judge C. But thus you make man the specifier of his good acts without Gods determination as well as of the evil B. Jansenius is in the right in this we have more need of Divine help to the willing and doing of good than of evil We cannot do evil without his natural support and concurse But we cannot do good especially spiritual saving good unless we have moreover his medicinal special Grace To the specifying of good actions there must ever concur Gods natural help Gods gracious help and mans free-will or self-determination It is not two or three determinations of the Will which are made by these several Causes but one determination So that under God man is the specifying determiner of his Will to good or else he were not a Believer nor rewardable or punishable And that he cannot determine his Will to good as well as to evil proceedeth not from the Original nature of the Will for with that such a determination was consistent but from its Pravity or Corruption But how Grace and Free-will concur is after to be handled C. Dr. Twisse Vindic. Grat. lib. 2. p. 190. Vol. minoris hath a full digression 4 to prove that God willeth that sin shall come to pass he permitting it and saith Nostri Theologi affirmanâ— Arminiani â—ontificii negant * This Digression of Dr. Twisse is answered in the first Book His Friend Alvarez de Aux li. 11. disp 110. p. 442 c. discusseth the Qu. An detur ex parte nostra causa reprobationis and concludeth that Reprobatio qua Deus statuit non dare aliquibus vitam aeternam et permittere peccatum eorum non est conditionata sed absoluta nec praesupponit in Deo praescientiam demeritorum ipsius reprobi 2. In Angelis qui ceciderunt nuâ—la datur causa reprobationis ex parte ipsorum quantum ad integrum effectum c. 3. Et ita de reprobatione parvulorum
much as that the form exist C. Dr. Twisse saith No. B. And if it were but the Act that existed doth not Gods Law make it sin by forbidding it and so cause the Essence C. Yes B. And if you say that God willeth the existence of the form of Sin why say you that he doth not cause it Is not his Will effective or is it any more contrary to his Holiness to cause it than to will or love it C. He causeth the existence but not the form or existence B. What jugling is this in such tremendous matters 1. What is it to cause the form but to cause that it exist To cause it to be is all the causing that it can have 2. And you confess that Gods Law by forbidding it maketh it sin in specie when it existeth Remember that you say that it is not only the matter but the form of sin which God willeth and causeth to exist And is it not a contradiction to call it evil and yet say that God willeth it when his Will is the Rule of Goodness C. It is not evil to God but to us B. So Dr. Twisse saith And to be evil to us even mans sin or damnaâ—â—â—n is not evil to God And so God is the great Lover of Sin and Damnation But why then is he said to hate it And is it not an Enemy to God and contrary to his Holiness Why did Christ die for that which God so loved C. Sin is nothing and therefore God causeth it not B. 1. Relations and Privations have their Causes and so hath Sin 2. Else man cannot be condemned for causing it The Synod of Dort and Reformed Churches teach no such Doctrine But it â—â— such as you that tempt the Arminians to revile them and say that you describe God in the shape of the Devil and much worse as loving and causing sin and misery more than he that so the love of God may be extinguished C. I think we must leave these Mysteries to God B. But good Brother though I have stopt your mouth and censures of your Brethren in this and such matters do you expect that every â—onest Christian must be able to discuss all your Logical Fallacies or else go with you for unsound and heterodox And have you dealt fairly by the Church of God to borrow from the School-men such snares for mens Consciences And must every man be perswaded that God is the greatest lover and willer from eternity of every wicked Act that is not able to answer your smoaky Sophisms about futurition and its eternal cause with such like I tell you the Serpent hath beguiled us as Eve and turned men from the simplicity that is in Christ C. I pray briefly give me the sum of what you drive at B. The sum is That though every Party and almost every person of each Party have odd notions of his own and peculiar weapons to wound his Brothers Reputation with and militate against Love and Concord and manifest the Pride of his self-conceited Understanding yet all sober Christians I think are agreed in all this Controversie of Gods Decrees in all that is truly necessary to our brotherly love and peace That is All grant that God decreed to do all that he doth and to give all the Grace and Mercy which at any time he giveth whether to all or some And that he absolutely and properly decreed no more But improperly he may be said to will an event in tantum when he willeth only to do so much or so much which naturally conduceth towards it though he know that it will never come to pass But what it is that God actually doth or giveth in time is all the controversie which is to be spoken of in the third Chapter And were it not for your tenaciousness of contentious notions I needed to have said no more than these few words here of Gods Decrees THE Third Days Conference With an ARMINIAN of Universal and Special REDEMPTION A. The second Article of our Difference is so fundamental and â—omen tous and our distance so great that I cannot believe that you can say any thing sufficient to reconcile us B. They that study Controversie as such are apt every where to finâ— matter of Quarrel and weapons of Contention but they that seeâ— peace do find out the terms and means of peace as sure and easie in them selves which Contenders cannot see Tell me in a word Are not all Parties agreed that Christ by his Merits and Sufferings procured for men all mercies which he giveth them â—â—â—â— and no more but as he may be said to procure them that which he offereth and bringeth to their choice which is properly to procâ—re them that offer or the benefit as offered A. Yes I think both sides will grant this that he purchased all that he giveth and absolutely or fully no more B. Why then all the Controversie is what he giveth men and that belongeth to the third and fourth Articles And so I might dismiss this at the beginning but for your expectations But what is it that maketh you think the difference so great The first Crimination A. 1. The Calvinists and Synodists deny Christ's very Office as he is the Saviour of the World and the second Adam the Redeemer of Mankind and the Mediator between God and Man And all this they confine to a small part of the World * Malderus in 1. 2. q. 111. a. 3. d. 5. m. 1. p. 487. Non existimo opinionem illam Calvinisticam quae negat pro omnibus singulis Christâ—m mortuum esse tolerandam esse nec inter studiosos varitaris debere obtinere locum opinionem qui non perinde admittunt quod omnibus in Adamo lapsis iterum sit via salutis facta possibilis per Christum quod habeant per Christum in actu primo paratum vel in actu secundo datum sufficiens auxilium gratiae quo saltem media'e salvari possint c. B. Have you never read what Musculus hath written in Loc. Commun and Bullinger in his Decades for universal Redemption Have you not read the plain words of Calvin cited by Amyraldus in Defens Doct. Calvin though Petavius rail at him for it most furiously Have you not read the writings of Joh. Bergius Conrad Bergius Lud. Crocius Calixtus of Camero and his Followers at Saumers of Testardus Dallaeus Blondel's Preface c. for Universal Redemption Have you not read in the writings of Bishop Rob. Abbots Bishop Carelton Arch-bishop Usher Bishop Hall Dr. Sam. Ward c. their judgments for it Have you not read Bishop Davenant's excellent Dissertation for it de morte Christi Know you not that it was the judgment of Dr. Preston Mr. W. Whateley Mr. W. Fenner and many excellent Divines among us Know you not that Dr. Twisse himself I believe twenty if not forty times over in his Works saith That Christ so far died for all as to procure and give them
rationis ad utrumlibet agendum vel non agendum agendum unum vel alterum which Rivet resteth in and fitteth the doctrine of necessitation but I think expresseth not Liberty strictly taken It may be ad utrumlibet if Satan had a power to move it as I move my pen. Bellarmine's is lib. arb est libera potestas ex his quae ad finem aliquem conducunt unum prae alio eligendi aut unum idem respuendi vel acceptandi pro arbitrio nostro ad magnam Dei gloridm concessa which Paraeus dissenteth not from But all defining is vain â—ill the ambiguous word Freedom be distinguished and the sense accordingly variously stated yet is this description only of Liberty and constraint too common with some 168. But if this were so then ☞ 1. The suspension of the will might be nevertheless by force or restraint which is a non velle And so when they say Voluntatem ab ipso Deo non cogi posse because when it acteth it acteth willingly that is when it willeth it willeth the consequence holdeth not because it may be forced from all action unless they mean that it cannot nolle non agere at once 2. And if this were so then either they mean that God cannot naturally necessitate the will to act or that such a natural necessitation consisteth with its Liberty If the first they destroy their doctrine of Predetermination For what is that but Gods Physical irresistible efficacious premotion determining the will to act And what is natural necessitation if this be not If the latter then they contradict their own definition of Liberty which they oft give us that it is Liberty from natural necessity which Twiss calleth Libertas naturae distinct from Libertas conditionis vel civilis And what more natural necessity than that which refulteth from that premotion of God as the first cause of all action without which no agent natural or free can act and which none can resist 169. Their opinion of Liberty also leaveth no difference between bruitish appetite or spontaneity and free-will save only that this doth follow reason which indeed is a difference of Guides but not of Liberty 170. And according to this opinion if God gave Satan power to move any mans will to sin by as true a physical motion and as unresistible as I move my pen it were no constraint nor loss of natural Liberty because it is moved to be Willing 171. And if they lay all on the Acts congruity to the Habit or Inclination then if Satan could infuse unresistibly into the Will an Inclination to hate God or to any sin and then physically determine it according to that inclination it were no force or loss of natural liberty 172. But I think he that by irresistible efficiency makes a mans will wicked both in its Inclination and Acts doth incomparably more against him and his liberty than he that could force his tongue or hand against his will or he that only tempted and perswaded him 173. The grand Reasons why we cannot receive the Dominicans doctrine of predetermining premotion are elsewhere given I now name but these three 1. Because whatever vain talk is used to blind men it maketh God the sole-total-first-necessitating cause of all the sin that is committed in the world or can be 2. It unavoidably destroyeth the Christian faith For if God be really the said determining Cause of all lyes and other sins in the world then his Veracity which is the formal object of faith is gone And no mortal man can tell whether Prophets and Apostles are predetermined to speak true or false nor when God moveth them to the one or the other For to Call their motion by the name of Inspiration will satisfie no man that Gods Inspiration can do any more at least to interest himself in the act than his necessary physical premoving determination 3. Because it feigneth God to damn most of the world for not-conquering God who insuperably predetermined them to the forbidden act that is for not being Gods or greater than God And that he sent Christ to die only for those sins which he thus pre-moved us to irresistibly and it was as impossible to forbear as to touch the Moon 174. In the issue of all these Controversies the sharpest contenders seem agreed whether they will or no Arminius granteth that all events of sin or damnation are from eternity necessary necessitate consequentiae * * * Bonavent in 1. d. 38. q. 1. Resol Praescientia Dei rebus praescitis necessitatem non imponit cum â—o modo res cognoscat quo futurae sunt Duplex est necessitas Absoluta quae opponitur Contingentiae dicitur necessitas consequentis Respectiva dicitur necessitas consequentiae haec non opponitur contingentiaeut si ambulat movetur In praescito non est necessitas absoluta sed solum consequentiae Nicol. D'Orbellis 1. d. 38. dub 1. Duplex est necessitas Consequentiae consequentis Bene sequitur necessitate consequentiae Deus novit me cras sessurum ergo sedebo consequens tamen est contingens ut homo currit ergo movetur Nos concedimus Liberum arbitrium in â—o quod agit liberum esse ab omni necessitate ut proprie non possit necessario agere quoad exercitium sui actus quamvis respectu Divinae ordinationis certo infallibiliter agat Ames Bellarm Enervat To. 4. l. 4. c. 1. He meaneth it of a caused physical necessity no doubt which is as is said but a Logical necessity in ordine probandi that is It is a good consequence This God fore-knoweth ergo it will come to pass And it is only the necessitas consequentis which he denyeth which Rob. Baronius Metaph. calleth necessitas causata and I had rather call necessitas effecti which is in ordine productionis And Dr. Twiss doth sharply reprehend him for feigning that he or any others do assert any more than necessitas consequentiae And bringeth in the testimony of many Schoolmen professing concordantly that there is no more than this which also fore-knowledge it self will inferr It 's worth the reciting Vindic. Grat. Li. 2. p. 1. Digres 5. Quid quod ab eruditis eadem statuitur necessitas ab utraque profluens tam à praescientia Dei quam ab ipsius Voluntate Nam licet Arminius voluerit necessitatem à Dei voluntate profectam esse necessitatem Consequentis à praescientia verò promanantem duntaxat Consequentiae aliter tamen visum est magnis Theologis Sic enim Durandus Non bene dicunt illi qui dicunt quod omnia de necessitate eveniant per comparationem ad Voluntatem divinam quia omnia respectu Voluntatis Divinae eveniunt libere ideo absolute loquendo possunt non evenire Expressius Bonaventura Dei voluntatem absolutam necesse est impleri conditionalem verò minime sed advertendum quod est necessitas consequentiae sicut praedictum est
de praescientia Ipsa enim non habet necessitatem consequentis sed consequentiae Quia necessario infertur sequitur Deus praescivit hoc Ergo hoc erit Sed tamen non necessario praescit quia in actu praesciendi frequenter notatur effectus contingens Sic intelligendum est quod Voluntas Dei absoluta connotat eventum rei ideo est ibi necessitas consequentiae sed non consequentis quia non mutat eventum rei unde sicut praescientia quia necessario infert effectum non potest falli sic voluntas absoluta quia necessario infert that is in arguing non potest impediri Annatuâ— de scient Med. cont Twiss de Libertate cap. 6. seemeth not to understand him as to this Necessity consequentiae which is not at all Causal of the event but of the Conclusion in arguing Leaving it out from whence the event is Ita Trigosius in sum Theol. Bonav Effectus contingentes liberi si comparentur ad scientiam providentiam Voluntatem Dei dicuntur necessarii secundum quid sive ex suppositione quae necessitas vocatur conditionalis consequentiae non tamen absoluta consequentis Quoniam istae consequentiae sunt optimae Deus praescivit hoc futurum Ergo erit Deus vult aliquid fieri Ergo fiet eo modo quo voluerit quando voluerit Quia non stat dari antecedens verum consequens falsum Istis ad amussim congruentia sunt Aquinatis illa Quamvis Voluntas Dei sit immutabilis invincibilis non tamen sequitur quod etiam effectus sit necessarius necessitate absoluta sed solum conditionata sicut de praescientia dictum est But the word effectus here is more than the rest say And more fully ibid. sect 18. pag. Vol. min. 230. Quid quod Scholastici nominatim vero Aquinas Durandus nec quenquam novi aliter sentientem N. B. non aliam agnoscunt necessitatem rerum ratione Voluntatis Dei quam quae dici potest necessitas consequentiae And yet plainer ibid. sect 18. pag. 332. c. 2. At ea necessitas quam juxta nostram sententiam oriri putat Arminius ex Decreto Dei revera non tam ex Decreto Dei fluit quod monuit Perkinsius vere quam ex suppositione decreti divini in Argumentatione scilicet quoties scilicet posito decreto Dei de re aliqua futura legitime infertur necesse esse ut suo tempore futura sit At hujusmodi necessitas nihilo minus evincitur ex suppositione actus liberi cujuscunque quam ex suppositione decreti Divini etenim posito quod existat actus liber necesse est ut existat 175. We are all agreed then what Necessity it is that fore-knowledge decree and providence inferr as to the acts of sin viz. of Logical consequence Let them now but make it good that their Physical efficient predetermining premotion causeth no other and I will contradict it no more 176. But whereas they constantly say that God predetermineth mans will to the mode as well as to the act that it be done freely as well as that it be done if Willingness and freedom were all one I would grant it on their grounds But if an Immediate-Physical-predetermining efficient premotion and an invincible causation of Habit and Act by the first Cause bring no other necessity but of Logical sequel and be no real cause of the thing it self I confess I understand not what they mean nor know what Liberty is if the will have not a Power to act without such a Predetermination 177. The same I say of Camero's and others way of predetermining by Vid. Bellar. de lib. arbitr l. 3. c. 8. prop. 6. Pennot propug li. 1. c. 23. p. 46 47 c. Scot. 2. d. 25. Henric. quodlib 1. q. 16. Bannes 1. p. q. 83. a 1. dub 2. Cont. 2. Suar. Met. q. 19. sect 6. Vasquez 1. p. d. 67. n. 14. a chain of necessitating Causes viz. that God by the object necessitateth the act of the Intellect in specie 2. And that the Intellect necessitateth the will For all cometh to one if all sinful Volitions be necessitated Nor will it satisfie any man well that Camero doth resolve all mans sin into the Devils temptation as a necessitating cause till he know into what to resolve the Devils sin And he may turn Manichee in time that can believe that God gave the Devil power to necessitate innocent man to sin and bring all sin and misery on the world much more he that saith that God did all this himself 178. As there is Libera Voluntas and Liberum arbitrium or Libertas Voluntatis Libertas hominis so there is a coaction or constraint of the Co-action in sensu composito is a contradiction and impossible but not in sensu diviso to be forcibly or by unresistible power made willing of unwilling Yet in a large sense I confess that Voluntarium quà tale est liberum Will and of the Man I should take my Will to be constrained if by an unresistible power it were suddenly made impious in act and habit or either But the man is not said to be constrained so long as he hath his Will 179. The unhappy descriptions of free-will which I mentioned Jansenius hath To. 3. li. 6. de Grat. Salvat cap. 5. 6. And Annatus de Incoacta Libertate confuteth them at large As Implicat contradictionem ut Voluntas seu Volitio non sit libera sicut implicat ut Volendo non velimus Latet Contradictio in eorum dictis qui dicunt Voluntatem id est Volitionem esse posse quae non sit libera Apud Augustinum esse liberam esse aliquam hominis Angeli Voluntatem seu Volitionem pro iisdem prorsus usurpantur Voluntas seu Volitio libera Voluntas idem est sicut Velle libere Velle Impossibile est ut Velle non sit liberum Lege etiam Annatum Petavium Cont. Vincent Lerinens Pennoti propugnacul haec plenius tractans 180. The Liberty of the will consisteth not in such an Indifferency as Leg. Guil. Camerar Scot. Disp. Philos Moral qu. 4. for Gibieâ—fs sence of Liberty as not involving defectibility leaveth it in aequilibrio equally inclined to this or that As Macedo against Tho. White confesseth with others For then all Habits or Inclinations to this rather than that destroyed Liberty But in an Indetermination with a Power of self-determining which power is called Indifferent because it is a Power to this or that and not because it is equally inclined no nor equally a Power to either For there may be inequality 181. When Dr. †††Twiss de Scient Med. l. 2. c. 3. p. 265. Annat de Scient Med. Disp. 1. c. 6. §. 5. p. 135. Twisse with Bradwardine * * * Vid. Bradward l. 3. c. 10 11. passim about the definition of free-will which
212. It is no true Power ad hoc which is put to overcome a Greater opposing Power We never had Power to overcome God or to act against his pre-moving pre-determination as Bradwardine truly saith 213. A man may be Able mediately to do that which he is not Able Immediately to do I mean he that can write with a Pen or move things with an Engine and so act but as a partial though Principal Cause may not be Able to write without a Pen nor to do the same alone as a Total Cause 214. And a man may have Power to do that Mediately and Hypothetically hereafter which he Cannot do Immediately that is at the present time He can learn to write and after can write who cannot write till he hath learnt Thus Infants have a remote Power of speaking and Infidels of believing 215. No man Doth all that he is truly and properly Able to do 216. No man doth all that he is Disposed and Habited to Sudden objects oft carry us againt strong Habits 217. A man ordinarily Willeth and Acteth according to the predominant Habits of his soul if he have objects and means 218. A man alwayes willeth that which he is soley disposed to will or most disposed to will at that moment and which he apprehendeth sub omnimoda ratione boni Much more if he were perfectly Habited to it in his Vitality Intellect and Will 219. No man acteth without the Essential fundamental Inclination to Good and to Natural felicity But a man may by sudden instigation and occasions will that which before he had no particular disposition to A Power may be without a Habit. 220. No Good mans Habits here are perfect in goodness 221. No Bad man here is at the worst nor destitute of all Moral Power to all things commanded him of God 222. A bare Moral Power which cometh not up to be an Inclination or Habit determineth not the Will of it self 223. Habits tend to the Wills determination per modum naturae ut appetitus But they are not sufficient to it or necessary determiners de eventu 224. Weak Habits are oft born down Strong ones rarely yet sometimes 225. An unholy soul is much more Impotent as to the great Internal Acts of Loving God delighting in him c. than to any meer external Act which the Natural Power extendeth to And so are the regenerate in that measure as they are unrenewed 226. But we are more able to Love or Will aright than to Work and Do aright because here both must concurr which requireth more Power than one alone E. g. to Rule the Thoughts aright requireth more Power than to be Willing to rule them 227. Yet in that measure that a man is Willing to do Good he is Morally able and more than able Because Morality being first seated in the will it is no farther Morally Good or Bad than it is Positively or Privatively Voluntary He that is sincerely Willing is sincerely Abole and he that is Perfectly Willing is perfectly able and more 228. Every mans Natural faculties may be called Moral Powers as to the Obligation as being obliged by God to Moral Good 229. And because Obligation presupposeth some true Power to obey mediately or immediately present or former when the Law was made therefore mans Natural faculties though undisposed are thus far called a moral power to the commanded act SECT XI Whether God bind Men to Impossibilities 230. THis leads us to the question Whether God bind men to Quaudo praeceptum supernaturale obligat non potest vitari peccatum contra illud absque auxilio gratiae Pet. à S. Joseph Thes Univers Theol. de auxiliis p. 83. Alliac Camerac 1. q. 14. R. saith 1. We cannot be bound to a simple impossibility 2. We may be bound to Will an Impossibility as that his sin past had not been though he doubt of this 4. He may be bound to that which is not in his power to do of himself So every one is bound habere gratiam quilibet viator fidem infusam tamen non est in creaturae potestate activâ things Impossible Where we must needs distinguish 1. Of disability Antecedent to the Law and Consequent 2. Mediate and Immediate 3. Between Impossibles as such and as Things Hated or Nilled 4. Between Primary and Secondary Moral acts And so I answer 231. 1. No Law of God or just men bindeth to things Naturally Impossible before the Law was made and broken by an Immediate obligation 232. A just Law may antecedently bind us mediately to that which is immediately impossible So he that cannot Read may be bound to Read mediately that is first to Learn and then to Read And Paul requireth men to work with their hands that they may have to give to him that needeth and then to give which yet before they have got it is impossible 233. The obligation of a Law ceaseth when the thing commanded becometh Impossible without the subjects fault 234. Every sin is Voluntarium-prohibitum And so far as Impossible things may be Voluntaria-prohibita which is all the doubt so far they may be sins 235. Gods Law is Antecedent to our practice and mediately ex parte sui bindeth us at once to all that we must do to the End of our Lives As if a Master in the Morning command his servant his work till night Therefore as if that servant purposely break his Spade or other Tools that he may not work he is not therefore so disobliged as to be guiltless even so when man by sin disableth himself to his commanded duty the Law is not changed but is still the same nor is he thereby excused 236. Here the Primary sin is that which contracted the Impotency The Secondary sin is the Impotency it self thus wilfully contracted and seated in the will The third rank is the not doing of all that was first commanded and the doing of all that was forbidden 237. But if it be not only a Moral Vicious Impotency that is contracted such as the habitual unwillingness in question but a Physical Impotency as if a man drunk himself stark mad or blind c. this is a sin and the consequent acts and omissions not simply in it self considered but secundum quid and participatively as it partaketh of the first sin which is described it self to be a Voluntary forbidden act disabling us to future duty and That a necessity contracted by our own fault as by drunkenness excuseth not from guilt see August l. de Natur. Grat. c. 67. Aquin. n. 4. d. 50. q. 2. a. 1. virtually containing a sinful life to the end 238. But if it be this Physical Impossibility that is contracted then though the Law change not yet the Subjects capacity being changed strictly and properly God is not said after to Oblige him by that Law because he is not Receptive and Capable of such new obligations And yet he is not disobliged as to his benefit For no man
subject de quo of which it is truly said They are without the Gospel 520. 2. Gods not converting effectually some that have the Gospel is no Act and hath no object But the subject of the Privation called the Object is Some part of those men who have forfeited the helps of special Grace by their abuse or neglect of the Gospel and the Commoner grace which was given them 521. 3. Gods not Pardoning Justifying Adopting and Sanctifying men is no Act and hath no object But the subject of the Privation and object of the Laws contrary sentence is Impenitent Unbelievers or the non-performers of the condition of Justification c. in the Covenant 522. 4. Gods not Glorifying men is no Act nor the damnation which consisteth in sin as aforesaid is none of Gods act But the sentence of condemnation is Gods Act and no doubt some other Positive Execution And the object of these is All finally Impenitent Unbelievers and unholy ones that is who performed not the Condition of that Edition of the Covenant of Grace which they were under 523. And it being past all denyal that these are the objects of the Executive Acts we must say that these also are the objects of the Decrees accordingly where a Decree is proved and when we speak of them only juxta ordinem executionis and not Intentionis which I laid by before 524. And lest you recurr to it once more I will recite more of Davenants words de ordine Intentionis De Praed Reprob cap. 1. p. 107. 1. Sciendum tenendum est si Dei naturam perfectionem in se consideremus illum non prius unum videre deinde aliud neque prius hoc decernere aut velle deinde illud sed unico simplicissimo actu c. 2. Ex parte tamen Rerum quae decrevit signa quaedam prioritatis posterioritatis distingui possunt Hic tamen observandum est inter ipsos Scholasticos non admodum certam constantem esse hanc doctrinam de hisce signis seu instantibus prioritatis Scotus qui primarius est ad haec signa fabricanda artifex videtur non-nullis non solum eadem posuisse priora posteriora secundum nostrum intelligendi modum sed etiam statuisse unum esse in ipso Deo prius naturâ alio But from this he vindicateth him Ex adversa parte Occamus noster haec signa quocunque modo considerata negavit in 1. d. 9. q. 3. Et Biel ejus sententiam amplexus haec signa oppugnavit in 3. d. 2. q. 1. dub 3. Prioritates in Divinis non sunt ponendae sicut nec pluralitates actuum ordinatorum Unus est enim Actus in Divinis re ratione indistinctus qui est ipsa essentia Divina ne secundum nostram quidem considerationem talem ordinem Prioritatis posterioritatis concipi posse in decretis Divinis ut talis consideratio non sit falsa speculatio If this hold our Controversie of the order is at an end 525. And he added the words even of a rigid Thomist Domin Bannes quamvis non omnino explodat haec signa cum Biele perpendens tamen discordiam Theologorum in his assignandis Animadvertendum est inquit quam pro libito in negotio praedestinationis reprobationis multiplicentur instantiae à Theologis quam parum illa conferant ad assignandam rationem differentiae inter praedestinatos reprobos Liceat itaque hic paucis monere non esse nimis confidendum aut certo dogmati adhaerendum ulli certo ordini decretorum divinorum sive à Protestantibus sive à Pontificiis assignato cum difficile sit duos reperire sive inter nostros sive inter adversarios qui ad amussim per omnia consentiant in hac serie decretorum divinorum describenda Caveat it aque unâ—squisque ne talem considerationem praedestinationis reprob inducat quae vel Divinae justitiae vel gratiae gratuitae adversetur tâ—m non multum refert quo ordine prioritatis c. SECT XVII Of Gods Causing and Decreeing Sin 526. BUt because it is the avoiding of Gods Causing and Willing sin Of too many such enquirers it may be said with Augustine de Utilit Credâ—ndi cap. 18. Dum nimis quaerunt unde sit malum nihil reperiâ—nt nisi malum Obj. Omnis determinatio diâ—ina est immutabilis Omnia siuâ—t Deo determinante Ergo omnia siunt immutâ—hiliter Respondet Mâ—lanâ—th Ad maj Est immutâ—bilâ—s necessitate conseqâ—entiae Ad minor Dissimilâ—s est determinatio in bonis malis actionibus Mala siunt 1. Deo praesciente non impediâ—nte non autem adjuvante vel impellente Item Deo sustentante naturam suum opus Item Deo eventus certos decernente Strigel in Melancth pag. 296. Carbo Compend Thom. 1. q. 19. a. 9. Malum ut malum nullo appâ—titu potest appeti nisi per aâ—â—idâ—ns Deus â—ullo modo vult malum Culpae Deus neque vult siâ—ri malum â—â—que non vult sed permitti Ruiz de praedesin Tr. 2. disp 13. §. 3 4. would prove a decree to permit mortal sin in the unjust and just ex destitutione circumstantiis And d. 16. §. 3. he tellâ—th us of many wayes by which God maketh sin the occasion of his Grace without causing or willing sin in form or nearest matter which is a great reason of these Controversies I shall say somewhat more particularly of that About which there are various Opinions 1. Some think as Hobbs that no acts of the will are so free as not to be necessitated as the motions in an Engine though unobserved by our selves who see not the Concatenation of Causes 527. 2. Some Dominicans and our Dr. Twisse and Rutherford held that no act natural or free can be done by any creature without the Predetermination of Gods Physical efficient immediate Premotion as the first total Cause of that act But yet that this standeth with Liberty because God causeth contingentia contingenter fieri And that he so causeth every Act of sin in all its circumstances and the totum materiale peccati and all that the sinner causeth But yet that he is not the Author of sin nor causeth the form Because 1. They say that sin hath no efficient cause but a deficient which God is not being not obliged to act And sin is nothing but a privation 2. Because God is under no Law and therefore though he do the same things that man doth it is sin in man but not in him And saith Holkot he is the cause of sin but not the Author because he commandeth it not by his Law 3. At other times they say that sin is formally a Relation of disconformity to the Law of God and God causeth the whole act as circumstanced but not the relation which resulteth from it 4. And God causeth not sin as sin but as a means to his Glory or as a punishment of former sin
Creatures and their various species of being is after by PROVIDENCE to manage them as Active or Passive in their several Capacities And the ACTIVE Natures are threefold which he hath made to operate on the threefold Passives viz. INTELLECTUAL SENSITIVE and IGNEOUS or VEGETATIVE in its proper matter upon AIR WATER and EARTH § 12. GOD is so Active as not to be at all PASSIVE All the Active Creatures are first Passive as receiving the Influx of the first Cause and Inferiours from the Superiour second Causes But they are Naturally Active in that dependence and supposing that Influx § 13. The works of Providence about the Existent Creatures are MOTION causing Motion GUBERNATION causing ORDER and ATTRACTION or meet objective Termination satisfying their Appetites and giving them their Ends. * * * Cyprianus sie explicat Act. 17. In ipso sumus movemur vivimus In Patre sumus in Filio vivimus in Spiritu Sancto movemur Pater est sons omnis essentiae Filius est Vita Spiritus Sanctus est agitator seu motor unde apud Hebr. nomen habet Ruah quod significat endelechiam continuam perennem agitationem Vid. Strigel in Melanct. Loc. com pag. 294. § 14. MAN being endowed by his Creator with his Image in Vital-Active-Power Intellect and Free-will a Threefold Virtue in One as the formal Essence of his soul is peculiarly fitted for such acts of Providence as he must be under § 15. As the higher and Nobler Natures are under God the Immediate 1. Movers 2. Governours of the Inferiour so also are they 3. Their Immediate or nearest End having a Goodness in them fitted to attract terminate and satisfie the Appetites of the Inferiour God is not the only end of Appetites § 16. The Acts of Divine PROVIDENCE about MAN-existent are 1. Action or Motion 2. Special Government 3. Love From whence God is Related to Man the fundamental Relation of CREATOR supposed †††I hold with Bradwardine li. 1. c. 2. cor 3. Quod necesse est Deum servare quamlibet creaturam immediatius quacunque cansa creata Et c. 3. cor 3. Quod nulla res potest aliquid facere nisi Deus faciat illud idem immediatius quolibet alio faciente Et c. 4. cor 3. â—adem de Deo Motore â—aking immediation for proximity and facere movere for the action as such and not for the meer moral specification and comparability 1. As ACTOR vel MOTOR 2. As RECTOR 3. As AMICUS vel FINIS Lover Benefactor and End 1. ACTION as such is from God in the first relation 2. Action as ORDERED is by him in the second 3. Action as TERMINATED FINALLY and in perfection is in him in the third § 17. Creation inferreth Propriety and making us Good and inter bâ—na and ad bonum inferreth that God is our Benefactor So that ab origine he standing in these three Relations to us from what is past he is to dispose of us by Providence accordingly § 18. Gods Omnipotence is most conspicuous in Creation propriety and Motion His Wisdom in Governing and Order and his Good will in our Benefits efficiently and our Perfection finally in mutual Love § 19. MOTION is caused by Moving â—â—â—ce impressed ORDER moral by LAW or signification of Gods Will de debito And PERFECTION by attingency and union with our END § 20. From the first resulteth NECESSITY properly so called From the second Moral RECTITUDE In the third is FELICITY as to single persons § 21. From the first viz. God as Actor upon Many or the Universe ariseth CO-OPERATION or Concurse All things work together as the Wheels in a Watch. From the second Divine ORDERING ariseth HARMONY and from the third UNIVERSAL PERFECTION and Melody of the whole Creation and to man perfect Love § 22. Motion is unresistible unless by a greater or unequal Contrary Motion or passive impedition and its effect as such not free but Necessary Government by Law is resistible and obedience free Final Goodness or Love do perfect and felicitate necessarily and freely not effecting for so they are not now considered but satisfying so far as they are enjoyed § 23. The Creation being past and Beings existent except what Generation and Composition make unfearchably and Gods fundamental RELATIONS setled we shall confound and be confounded if we distin-guish not Gods after-actions according to the Relations in which he worketh them and their foresaid differences in themselves SECT II. The Order of Divine Operations § 1. GOD is the Immediate Cause of all things and actions caused * * * Bradwardine ib. p. 172. seemeth to favour Averrois saying that God is Forma omnis formae forma maxime essentialis principalis cujuscunque formati and so acteth all things And indeed when we deny him to be the form of any creature we mean that he is More and not Less And that we have not a fitter Analogical conception of God than that he is eminently more than the soul of the world And c. 14. p. 210. he calleth Necessarium the most proper name of God But when he saith c. 17. that Gods Essence Omnipotence Intellect Naturally precede Gods Knowledge and cause it and so putteth Causes and Effects in God he is too bold by him as to the Proximity of God to the effect For he is every where present in Essence and as near to every Being and Action as it is to it self We must not conceive of Gods using means as we do of mans where the Pen the Saw the Knife c. is between the hand and the effect God is as near and as total a Cause of what he doth as if he used no second cause § 2. They that say God is thus Causa Immediata Immediatione Suppositi seu Essentiae Virtutis speak true but not aptly because it ill insinuateth as if Gods Virtus were not his Essence when as in God they are all one only as inadequate conceptions we may distinguish suppositum à virtute but not otherwise And it is not as quid creatum that we speak of Virtus § 3. Since the Creation in the Motions of Providence God who at first made the Universe to be One by conjunction and co-operation of parts as truly as a Clock or Man is one hath setled a course of second Causes that one thing may act upon and move another and though he work upon the Highest of these Causes immediately without any other subordinate Cause yet on all the rest he ordinarily worketh by superiour created Causes which are some of them Necessary and operate in one constant course and some of them Voluntary and Free and operate more mutably and contingently § 4. The course of Necessitating Causes is commonly called NATURE and the Influence of Angels and other Voluntary Causes distinguished from Natural But they all operate as second Causes under the Influx and Government of God upon us that are here on earth § 5.
is oft not Actually effectual for want of that Voluntary Reception and self-excitation § 27. As to the various effects of Grace fore-mentioned 1. As to the preparation of Means and Gracious medicine Christ the Covenant c. Grace is efficient of it self and doth it 2. As to the first Impulse or Impress on the soul God certainly effecteth it in some degree wherever his spirit worketh on the soul 3. Some Urgency and some degree of disposition to the act is constantly contained in this Impulse And usually it giveth a moral power to the Immediate Act-required 4. The Act of faith sometimes followeth this Impulse through its invincible force And sometime it followeth it through its sufficient force and the due Reception * * * Omne agens requirit de necessitate aliquam dispositionem in suo passo Maximè si illud pà ssum habeat dispositiones actionâ— illius agentis contrarias ut patet de igne c. Ergo cum Gratia non sit minus inmo magis quam naturalis forma Certum est quod Gratia requirit majorem dispositionem in passo Et voco illam dispositionem Libertatem arbitrii sui Deo submittere se ad alteram partem declinare scilicet ad volendum Gratiam recipere dolere de culpa commissa voluntarie libere per attritionem Brianson in 4. q. 8. cor 3. fol. 152. This is just the doctrine of our Protestant Preachers supposing that Common Grace must make this preparation which the Papists grant of the subject And sometimes it followeth it not at all through the Recipients indisposition 5. The Habit of faith ever followeth a special Act through the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost But usually it goeth not before the Act Man hath not a fixed Habit to promptitude and facility of believing before he believeth but after 6. The Habit ordinarily procureth following acts by the way of Inclination but not necessarily nor alwayes For by strong temptations Habits are oft born down § 28. If the question then be Whence Gods Grace is Aptitudinally and Potentially efficacious able and fit to effect It is because God is God that he is Able and his Impulse is such because he maketh it such And if the question be Whence Grace is Actually efficient of its first effect the Impulse It is because God will so do and his will hath no Cause being the first Cause And if the question be Whence Grace is Actually efficient of mans faith It is by its Impelling man to believe But if you ask Whence faith it self is or of what cause is it an effect I answer of God as the first cause and the Means as his Instrument and of the Believer as a free second Cause And if the question be Why sufficient Grace which is Effectual ad Posse is not effectual ad agere It is because being but sufficient mans Indisposition and wilful neglect or opposition maketh him an unfit Receiver § 29. There being nothing then but Gods essence and the means antecedent to the first effect on the soul and that effect ever following where God worketh and the second effect being the effect both of God by the first and of man as a free agent the questions unde efficatia Gratiae and unde effectus are thus healingly answered § 30. Obj. But the will of God is the first differencing and effectual Cause And that not as it is his essence but as it is terminated on the Creature and decreeth such an effect Answ 1. It is no will but his essence which is so terminated or decretive 2. That termination maketh no difference at all that 's real in the will of God but only in the effect or object 3. What is the difference then between Gods will simply in it self and as willing from eternity a thing not yet existent None really at all And that which is not yet being Nothing what Relative Connotative and Denominative difference such Nothings can make on the will of God besides the variety of imperfect notions in mans frail Intellect let the wise consider § 31. From whence it is that School-divines after Augustine say that with God there is no futurum velpraeteritum no fore-knowledge or fore-decrees properly because no difference of time but only knowledge and will of things as present § 32. Yet Gods Vital Activity Knowledge and Will as he himself is the object of them have a Greater distinction because to be self-living self-knowing and self-loving are his Essential Acts on himself the eternal object which made many Ancients account them the Trinity of persons And also to Will an existent Creature is an extrinsick denomination from existence But to will that which is not that man shall be that he shall believe hereafter c. as it is nothing really different from Gods essence so it is but an extrinsick denomination of his essence from nothing SECT XVI Of Infused Habits and the Holy Ghost Given us The Schoolmen that speak most for the necessity of Infused Habits cannot agree what use they are for Aureolus supposeth chiefly for the right circumstantiating of Acts rather than for promptitude to them and pleasure in them And when all is said they give men but small comfort from them saying as Aureolus Brianson c. that no man can be sure that he hath them seeing acquired Habits may do the same things that Infused do Utrum Beatitudo supernaturalis hujus vitae sit magis in Habitibus quam in operationibus vid. Suarez Metaph. disp 44. sect 8. n. 18. Molina 1. p. q. 12. ar 5. disp 2. ar 2. pro habitibus Sed contra inquit Aegid de Sancta Praesentatione Li. 4. de beatit q. 5. a. 3. pâ— 471. His non obstantibus oppositum affirmant omnes Theologi qui bac de re scripserunt nec videtur posse de hoc dubitari And yet Alens 2. p. q. 104. m. 3. Aquin. 1. 2. q. 51. a. 2. ad 3. q. 63. a. 2. ad 3. Valentiâ—â— To. disp 4. q. 3. punct 2. c. are for preferring Habits Idem Aegid de Praesentat li. 4. p. 443 444. tells us that by Grace God is Present in the soul as his Temple otherwise than by Immensity and sustentation But his praesentia Amicitia can mean nothing but the special effects of Gods Love Nostrâ tempestate non solum est temerarium periculosum sed ferè hareticum habitus insusos negare Nam Concil Vienens c. universi Theologi uno consensu affirmant dari habitus insusos Medina in 1. 2. q. 51. a. 4. 282. But Soto li. 2. de nat grat c. 17 18. saith that the Concil Trid. purposely forbore to define the case of infused habits Let the Reader note that Jansenius proveth that Pelagius himself asserted infused Habits given in baptism and that without merit Jans Aug. To. 1. li. 5. c. 22. p. 126. § 1. EVery operation of the Holy Ghost is not the Giving
comparativa ita de adultis 4. Non solum comparative sed etiam absolute loquendo nulla datur causa reprobationis quantum ad omnes effectus Where note that he granteth that there is in man a cause of Reprobation as to some effects viz. punishment For by a cause he meaneth any prerequisite condition For no doubt there is no efficient cause of any thing in God And all his stress is laid on this that the permission of the first sin is the first effect of Reprobation and this permission hath no cause in man Ergo Reprobation quoad omnes effectus hath no cause in man But the truth is 1. A man may put such a sence on the word Reprobation as to include what he please But it 's usually taken for Gods Decree to damn men and to deprive them of somewhat necessary to their salvation and so is 1. A positive Act as a Volition 2. And privative objectively and 3. Some unfitly extend it to that which is objectively negative and not privative 4. And some most ineptly extend it to that which is negatio actus no Act that is to nothing And so a man that will play with words may say that 1. Gods non-agere nonâ—igere is an Act. 2. That his non-impedire is an effect which is nothing and therefore no effect And Alvarez utterly faileth iâ— this proof either that non-eligere is an Act or permittere vel non impedire an eâ—â—ect or that it is fitly called Reprobation which hath â—â— privation but a negation for its Object e. g. that Judas shall not be an Angel nor iâ—â—eccabilâ— but have natural free-will is no act of his Reprobation And so of the permission of the first sin Arminius himself exam Perâ—ins pag. 568. saith Voleâ—et Deus Israelem punire Achabum mensuram scelerum suorum implere Propria â—mmediata adâ—quata causa cur permiserit ut Achaâ— iâ—â—â— cadem perpetraret est illa quam dixi mensâ—ra sâ—elerum implenâ—â— erat â—â—â—â— Dâ—â—â—â—â—tra peccatum hominis per aliam â—â—em Nabothum ad se evocare Which Dr. Twisse useth through all his Writings against him ad hominem in stead of argument â—â—-thinks this concession should seem enough which is too much And I conjecture that Arminius wrote it by over-sight and woâ—ld have said that God permitted Ahab to kill Naboth because he would â—â—â—â— him to â—â—â—â— up the measure of his sin making permission the res Voâ—â—ta But all theiâ— assigning Causes of Gods â—â—â—â— are â—â—â—â—â—â—ld God being above all causeâ— B. I wonder not that Dr. Twisse holdeth that God willeth it when he holdeth that he efficiently premoveth and predetermineth the Will to every forbidden act clothed with all its circumstances That which God causeth he must needs will But when he saith Nostri Theologi affirmant he must mean but some few such as Maccovius Spanhemius Rutherford and perhaps Piscator or Beza of his own mind But the generality of Protestants either are against him or meddle not with it He that will read Davenant and such others shall find the difference I remember but few English Divines at all that own it besides the forenamed and Mr. Norton But having written both an answer to this Digression of Dr. Twisse and to his and Alvarez and other mens Doctrine of physical predetermining premotion I may pretermit that here C. But by this they make God an idle Spectator of sin in the World and so deny a great part of his Providence or Works B. 1. This belongeth not directly to the Point of Reprobation but of Gods Works 2. Take heed of such unreverent words of God Who will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain Dare you reproach God as Idle if he do not all that your shallow thoughts will cut out for him C. The blasphemy is theirs that give the cause by their unsound Doctrine and not mine that do but denominate their consequents B. Let us try that Do you believe that God doth as much as he can do that he made the World as soon as he was able and could have done it no sooner or that he is able to make no one Man or Beast or Plant or Atome more than he hath made nor to do any one action more than he doth C. No I hold no such thing For God is Omnipotent and Free B. I pray you then study it and tell me if God be not to be blasphemed as Idle for such a total Non-agency or Free-suspension of his own Acts as to all such possibles why should you call him Idle if by the same Wisdom and Free-will he only suspend some degree of his co-operation with man in the case of sinning And if God freely decree that man shall be made a free Agent able by Gods common generical concurse as the cause of nature to determine or suspend his own Volitions without any predetermining efficiency of God If God will delight himself in making such a Creature will you dare to say that he is Idle because he moveth him not in another manner you will not so reproach a Watch-maker for not moving the Watch all day with his finger C. I confess I cannot answer that But how then is God the Governor of the World if so much sin be done without his Will and Operation B. The Work of a Governor as such is only 1. By Legislation to make the Subjects Duty 2. And by Judgment to try and decide the case of each Subject whether he do that Duty 3. And to see to the execution of that Judgment But not to be the determining cause of all the Subjects Volitions and Actions C. It is so with man because he can do no more but not with God B. Indeed God governeth all meer Naturals and Bruits by physical motion as Engins are moved as a Clock or Watch by natural necessitation And so he doth the meer naturals of man As his Concoction Pulse circulation of Blood generation in the Womb c. But God having made man an Intellectual free Agent ruleth him as such agreeably to his nature even by moral Agency by Laws and Judgment And this is that Regency of which we speak If you believe not that God is thus the moral Ruler of Mankind or King of the World you deny him to be God and overthrow all Religion and Morality C. But what say you to all the Texts that tell us that God willed and caused that which wicked men did as in the case of Pharaoh Sihon Rehoboam Absolom the death of Christ and many others B. One of the greatest over-sights of them that thus Object is that they distinguish not between the sin and the effect of the sin or the forbidden Will and Act of the Sinner as of him and the reception of this Act in passo in the recipient God can many ways concur to the causing of the reception and the effect without causing the Volition or Act as Agents by a specifying determination Especially
but meer power For morality consisteth formally and primarily in the Will or Voluntary And to be able to do Good or Evil as such is not formally any moral Good or Evil but natural But Disposition is 4. Power is called Moral Analogically and Reputatively as causa finalis is said to cause when it is called a moral cause and the operation metaphorical or as he is called a moral cause who perswadeth to the End or Object And so we take the word Moral Power in our question And so the received Impress or Influx of Divine Agency as also the habits of Grace in the Soul are an Analogical Power because they are necessary to the natural powers performance of the Act And so the suscitation as received of a dormant active power may be called Analogically a Power And the right disposition of a power may be called a power And the deep fore described Action of the Soul may be called a power to other sensible Acts. XXVII Next to this moral power is potentia logica which is but the name of Power given extrinsically from some other thing without which the effect will never be though it be possible and the Causes have power sufficient And the name of Impossibility de effectu is oftner and more tollerably here used than of impotency as in the cause So we say that whatsoever God willeth or decreeth is possible and what he nilleth absolutely is impossible And thence some say That God can do it because be will and he cannot do what he will not And so we say that in sensâ— composito an undisposed or averse Will cannot love or will aright when perhaps no more than a Logical impotency is meant viz. That these two Propositions cannot possibly be both true Judas is undisposed to Love and Justice and Judas at the same time doth exercise Love and Justice speaking of a predominant disposition And this is but a denomination of the same sense as necessitas consequentiae vel logica is as distinct from necessitas consequentis vel effecti And so we say that he that is fore-decreed yea or fore-known to be good cannot be bad The meaning is not that he wanteth true power to be bad But that in ordine dicendi these two cannot possibly be true Peter is decreed by God or fore-known to be a Saint and Peter will not be a Saint And this logical impossibility is meant oft in Scripture as Joh. 12. 39. Therefore they could not believe because that Isaiah saith c. not that this hindered them but logically de consequentia both these could not be true that Esaia's Prophecy should be true and yet that the Person prophesied of should be Obedient And so the words the Scripture must be fulfilled and that the Scriptures might be fulfilled are oft used as to the inference XXVIII Thus by extrinsick denomination and connotation impotency is oft imputed to the Agent from the incapacity of the Recipient As it is said Mark 6. 5. That Christ could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief When as this was not from a disability in Christ to have done it if he would But here it is first supposed that God hath ordinately fore-decreed to do no such Works but where the persons were so qualified as to be capable of them And then that the persons there were unqualified And so the Effect was logically impossible in sensu composito Thus we say That God cannot save Unbelievers he cannot hear the prayers of the Wicked he cannot forsake the Faithful that is His Ordination and Decree supposed logically such a thing cannot consist with it in verity XXIX When something else and not impotency doth ascertain an event by omission or something besides Power ascertaineth the contrary efficiently yet the effect is oft denominated possible or impossible and ascribed to Power or Impotency by a conjunction of this moral and logical denomination So we say That God 's pure eyes cannot behold Iniquity that God cannot love the Workers of Iniquity as such Not for want of Power but by reason of his perfect Will and Nature So God cannot lye Tit. 1. 2. And it is impossible for God to lye God cannot deny himself 2 Tim. 2. 13. God cannot be tempted with evil Jam. 1. 13. So Joh. 10. 35. The Scripture cannot be broken Isa 1. 13. Your Assemblies I cannot away with No wonder also if this be said of men As 1. Joh. 3. 9. He cannot sin because he is born of God Not for want of power but partly he will not and partly logically these cannot consist So of the wicked Joh. 7. 7. The World cannot hate you XXX Oft times the word Cannot is taken politically I cannot that is I must not or I cannot lawfully Quod turpe impossibile Gen. 19. 22. I cannot do any thing till thou be come out Act. 10. 47. Can any man forbid water c. that is lawfully 2 Cor. 13. 8. We can do nothing against the Truth that is by Authority from God XXXI Oft times in Scripture the word Cannot is meant only of that which a man cannot do without suffering or loss or difficutly So Act. 4. 16. We cannot deny it that is without the shame of falshood Luk. 14. 20. I cannot come that is without such inconvenience as I am unwilling to bear Jer. 29. 17. They cannot be eaten that is without loathing 1 Sam. 25. 17. He is such a Son of Belial that a man cannot speak to him that is without inconvenience by it 2 Sam. 23. 6. They cannot be taken with hands that is without hurt Gen. 34. 14. We cannot do this thing that is without God XXXII Oft times this inconvenience procuring unwillingness this unwillingness is named like impotency and it is said Men cannot because they will not And so it is in divers of the last cited instances Joh. 3. 9. They cannot sin that is They will not Luk. 14. 20. I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come that is I will not because I cannot without this inconvenience Neh. 6. 3. I cannot come down that is I will not Gen. 44. 26. We cannot go down Josh 24. 19. Ye cannot serve the Lord for he is a holy God that is you are not disposed to do it holily and then he will destroy you Joh. 6. 60. This is a hard saying who can hear it that is willingly Isa 49. 15. Can a woman forget her sucking-Child that is will she forget it Jer. 2. 32. Can a Maid forget her Ornaments Mar. 2. 19. Can the Children of the Bridegroom fast c. Mar. 9. 39. Can ye drink of the Cup that I drink of and be baptized c. 39. They said unto him we can that is Have you Wills disposed for such sufferings and will you go through them And this unwillingness when it is habitual and prevalent is it that is commonly called mans moral impotency as to believe love obey c. XXXIII This impotency which is
thank himself too for all the good he does that Being as much of him as the other c. Answ It follows not For 1. Of all the good that man doth God is still the moral Cause egging on to it by all c. 2. And the same Almighty Hand that barely upheld while Sin was done doth over and above further the thing that good is by enlightning the Mind renewing the Will healing the spring in man of that all which inbred Sin hath brought upon it and in a word making it every way more it self God must be more an Owner than man And thence the thing done falls in with the Divine Will because it flowed from Divine Goodness That which is good in man by way of Off-spring being so in God by way of Well-spring Ibid. p. 10. the same degree of impress or influx or force which causeth one man to believe or act is not sufficient to cause any other worse disposed man to believe or act nor the same man when he is more ill disposed and hindered 4. If we put the case of men equally disposed it is impossibly to prove that any two men in the world are equally disposed Nay it is most probable that they are not Their minds having far greater variety of thoughts to cause a difference than their countenances have of particles making the wonderful diversity which we see Nor is the same man long equally disposed 5. Men equally disposed if such there were may have unequal impediments without and in their bodies and temptations which may cause them to need unequal help of Grace 6. The same individual Impress which causeth no more than a Power causeth not the Act also For that is a contradiction to cause the Act and not to cause it 7. But a less degree of impulse or help may cause the act in one when a greater degree causeth it not in another 8. A wonderful difference therefore is made in this as well as in â—ll other diversities in the World by the diverse receptive dispositions of the Patient Which made Johan Sarisberiensis in Nugis Curial and many School-men to liken God with some acknowledged difference in his Operations to the Sun which by one invaried efflux of motive illuminative and calefactive power causeth innumerable varieties of effects as all the particular Creatures have various Natures and receptive Dispositions 9. But all good disposition or preparation is of God But by such ways of operation as we are searching after But all ill disposition is from our selves 10. To conclude God giveth men sometimes as much power to Will or Act when they do not as they have when they do But usually not an equal predisposition some having more indisposed themselves which is to be changed by contrary acts But whether de facto men equally enabled predisposed helped and hindered do yet without any cause but their own free-will it self act or will variously is a question that these Controversies need not come to That such were there such in the World could do it I take for granted what-ever they do The Controversie is well known which Hobbes hath raised in the World who saith That to be free and to be willing is all one and that every act of the Will is as truly necessitated by physical premotion as the motions of any Engine are And that we talk of liberty and contingency in the dark not that there is any such thing indeed but when we know not the train of Causes we use those names which signifie but our ignorance And that the first Cause and other superior Causes do by premotion as much necessitate each Volition as the Archer doth the motion of his Arrow And the Dominicans predetermination and Camero's necessitation by a train of second Causes is the same I think But I think God hath made a very good use by his over-ruling ordination of the Doctrine of Hobbes learnedly and timerously or cautelously seconded by Gassendus and improved by Benedictus Spinosa an Apostate Jew in his Tractatus Politico-theologicus For the goodness and learning of such worthy men as were Alvarez Twisse Camero in all other points moderate and admirably judicious hath been the grand temptation to the Church to receive that Doctrine which Hobbes and Spinosa having plainly and nakedly propounded is now detested by almost all good men For from thence they have plainly inferred the subversion of all morality as distinct from physical motion and consequently of all true Religion I deny not that I find my self the Controversie in it self exceeding difficult and that I have not been without temptations to their Opinion nor yet am And that indeed all pretended middle ways between Hobbes his Necessitation Physical and true Free-will are but fancies as far as I can perceive And if I leave true Free-will I must turn to their necessitation I confess their arguing is very plausible that there is no Effect without a Cause and that when ever the Will chooseth one thing and refuseth another there is some antecedent Cause in the power disposition or external things and that the same Cause in the same state and mode having no difference in it self doth always produce the same effect Otherwise the diversity should have no cause And that the Will being in the same disposition and having all the same objects helps impediments and other circumstances will have the same acts All this is plausible But 1. If I receive it I must let go almost all Religion as well as Christianity of the truth of which I have a better proof than they can give for their Opinion And we must not reduce certainties to the obscurest unsearchable uncertainties 2. And in God himself their foundation is confuted For he that is the first Cause eodem modo se habens sine ulla diversitate unicus plurima immo omnia causat Therefore their Principle is false 3. And finding man made after the Image of God not only as holy but as man Gen. 6. I have great reason to think that Free-will is part of his natural Image and that as God is a causa unica plurimorum so may Free-will be And that as a God is causa prima entium so Free-will may be a kind of causa prima not actionis qua talis but of the comparative moral species of its own acts as choosing this thing rather than that which is no addition to real entity but a wonderful mode of it which man cannot tell whether he should call something or nothing 4. I say therefore that here is no Effect without a Cause Free-will may be the cause of various Effects without a various predisposition C. Doth not the Will act as it is disposed to act B. That it acteth not always according to Habits which are more than dispositions is certain by experience For objects oft prevail against habits and habits do not necessitate C. That is because the Will is otherwise disposed by some contrary stronger habits As either
other and giveth real Grace to both But because the intellect is in the natural order the first in acting and the will but second and because the act is commonly and reasonably supposed to go before the Habit though not before all Divine Influx ad actum therefore men are uncertain whether God who first acteth the Intellect do not by its act first operate on the will But this dependeth much on the Physical Controversie whether the Intellect determine the will ad speciem actus or at least really and efficiently move it or rather only present the object to it and so work but in subserviency to the material cause which is constitutive indeed of the act in specie but not efficient and the perception of it goeth to the conditio objectiva without which it is no object to the will This I incline to with Scotus and suppose that the Intellect moveth not the will per modum naturae by necessitation But while we know not the order and nature of the operations of our own souls how shall we know the unsearchable way of the operations of the Holy Ghost The seventh Crimination C. They make Gods Grace a resistible thing which man can frustrate and so God worketh at uncertainties * Mans ignorance of the way of Gods operation on second causes told us by Christ himself Job 3. should end such quarrels and teach us all with judicious Davenant to prosess uncertainty and with judicious Jos Placeus de lib. arb p. 174. speaking of the dependance of the second cause on the first and the Papists digladiations about concurse and predetermination to say Nos quidem qua reverentia erga infinitam Dei majestatem ducimur non audemus definire quanta sit dependentia causae secundae a prima Nobis sufficit modo ne Deo ullam peccatorum nostrorum vel minimam labem aspergat non posse nimiam statâ—i To which also the very judicious Lt Blank subscribeth Thes 51. de concursu c. The Remonstrants Syn. ar 3 4. p. 15. c. do profess that Gods operation of the Intellect Affection and Will do thus differ that the converting work on the will is more resistible than the other And to the question An conversâ—o contingens sit et in certa an vero necessitate causae aut eventus insallibiliter sequatur in â—o qui convertitur Respondent conversionem esse contingentem quia Libera est nec tameâ— Dâ—o incertam quia praecognita est nec sequi necessitate causae sive consequentis quia resistere poterat homo sed necessitate consequentiae c. Et pag. 17. Declarat Quare dicimus hominis voluntatem ad volendum bonum non necessitari sed hominem posse resistere hoc est non-velle et saepe actu non-velle et resistere gratiâ— sufficientis operationibus B. I have said so much of this before that I need not tire you with much more Quest 1. Do you know of no way for God to work with certainty of success if Grace be resistible C. I will not say so I know what you have said to this before B. Why then do you speak that which is not valid in your own judgment Quest. 2. Dare you undertake to justifie all the world against the accusation of having resisted the Grace of God C. No I dispute not on such hard terms B. Quest. 3. Did you never repent your self for resisting Grace C. Yes in some sense but not as I now mean it B. How is that C. To resist the Gospel and Ministry is a resisting of Grace and the Holy Ghost Acts 7. and so I have done But I speak of immediate resisting God B. 1. Remember that here you confess that the Gospel is Grace even to them that resist it 2. God himself cannot be resisted immediately where he worketh not immediately 3. But where he doth so he is said to be resisted 1. Not by any repelling of his strength 2. Much less by opposing a greater strength 3. Nor by acting by any strength but what he giveth 4. Not by causing any difficulty to him 5. Not by frustrating any absolute will of his But 1. Passively by being ill disposed to the reception of that Grace which he offereth and that operation which else might effect it 2. And actively by doing that which rendereth us yet more ill-disposed both naturally and morally by commerit 3. As also in that we do that which is contrary to Gods actions in their tendency to the effect When he moveth us to hear read meditate pray love trust c. and we do the contrary this may be called a resistance C. If God intend the effect it will be done but if he intend it not how is he resisted in that which he never intended to do B. You know the Scripture speaketh not at these rates but when men will set their silly wits against Gods Word thus they will seem subtiler than he But it 's but a dream 1. God may be resisted when he intendeth not the effect in that his Law is resisted and with it that necessary measure of Grace by which the effect might have been wrought Though his Decree be not resisted yet his Law and his Grace and help which had a tendency to the effect and a sufficiency on its part may be resisted 2. And he is ordinarily resisted in that which he doth both intend and do For he seldom doth us any good without resistance though he overcome But he that overcometh resistance is resisted C. But I mean by Resisting Overcoming B. Why then did you not speak as you meant None dreameth that Omnipotence is overcome by a greater strength much less by the derived power of us worms But the Case is weighty which you and others perilously overlook C. Let me hear your explication of it B. God doth not work like necessary agents to the utmost that he is able His Wisdome hath diversified Creatures and his Wisdome hath appointed even in the works of Grace a stablished order of second causes and means which he will use for the effect And his Wisdome and Free will hath fixed a certain degree or proportion of his concourse suitable 1. To the nature of man 2. And to the nature and use of all those means 3. And to the effect as it is to be ordinarily accomplished Even as in nature he concurreth with all causes agreeably to their stablished nature and use Now though Omnipotency cannot be overcome yet the same creature that hath a certain stated proportion of natural activity and Gods suitable concourse e. g. to a healthful body which hath strong appetites and also a congruous proportion of Gracious means and concurse and helps of Grace by which he can rule the foresaid appetite may yet by neglect of that help and by wilful indulging of that appetite make the appetite stronger than his ordinary degree of help and so overcome the Grace of God though he overcome not Gods Omnipotence or Decrees
by it self anon Before we come to that these things I here conclude of 1. That the Diversity of Nature or Receptive Dispositions being presupposed God hath an established order of means and a congruous established universal Concurse which quantum in se as far as belongeth to it to do worketh equally on all 2. That this established measure of aid or concurse recipitur ad modum recipientis and operateth variously as to the effects according to the various disposition of the Recipients from whom the ratio diversatis is to be fetcht and not from it 3. That this established measure of Concurse or aid may by the greatness of the Passive and Active Indisposition and Illdisposition of the Recipient be both resisted and overcome or frustrate 4. That as Adam did resist and overcome such Grace so do all wicked Hi praecedanâ—i effectus virtute verbi spiritusque in hominum mentibus producti rebellis voluntatis vitio suffocari penitus extingui pâ—ssuâ—t in multis solent adeâ— ut nonnulli in quorum mentibus virtute verbi spiritusque impressâ— fuit aliqualis notitia veritatis divinae c. mutentur plane in contrarium c. And even Alvarez Disp 18. n. â—0 saith Si non operatur actione qui est in praeceptâ— imputabitur illi ad culpam eo quod suâ— culpa se impedivit ne dareter illi auxilium efficax quod necessarium erat ut actualiter operaretur sicut si Deus imponeret homini prâ—ceptum volandi quantum est ex parte sua offerret illi alas adjutorium necessarium uâ— volaret ipse autem responderet Dâ—mine nec vâ—lâ— alas accipere nec volâ—re meritâ— reputaretur reus etiamsâ— non possit absque alis volare qâ—ia sua culpaâ—se impedirit ne illi dâ—narentâ—r a Deâ— men in some cases now And so do all godly men in most of the sins if not all which they commit 5. As God rarely worketh Miracles and we hardly know when he violateth his established course of nature though we may know when he worketh beyond the power of any second cause known to us and when he leaveth his ordinary way but ordinarily keepeth to his established course and use of the second causes even in his wonders So it is very probable that in the Works of Grace Recovery and Salvation he ordinarily keepeth to his established order his Ordinances and fixed degree of Concurse 6. Yet as God is still above all his Works and a free Agent and is no further tied to one constant order and measure of Concurse than he tieth himself by his Wisdom and Free-will so God is free in the conveyance of his Grace and can when he please forsake that order and work Miracles by Grace as well as on natural things above nature He can strike down Saul and convert him by a voice from Heaven and in a word can do what he will 7. And as in most wonders its past our power to know whether and when God doth indeed forsake his established order and work contrary to it or without such second causes as are unknown to us though we can tell when he acteth unusually So is it in this case about his works of Grace A Comet or Blazing Star is an unusual thing whose necessary antecedent cause we know not And yet it is but a natural effect of second causes operating in their established course so are ecclipses better known and unusual Tempests and terrible Lightnings c. So great and sudden unusual and wonderful changes may be made by Grace on sinners and yet all in Gods established course of working and by those second causes which are to us unknown C. But God is not a natural but a voluntary Agent and Grace is hiâ— immediate work or off-spring B. 1. He is a voluntary Agent in Creation Preservation and in all the works and changes of nature and yet he operateth constantly in his appointed course 2. It s unknown to us what means he useth out of our reach in his operations upon souls as well as in nature 3. We find that Grace keepeth a harmony with nature yeâ— as morality is but the modality of things natural so we may conceive that God may possibly work it by the modifying of physical Agents and their actions and the recipients 4. Immutability and constancy is one of Gods perfections and the expression of it in the constant order of his Works is part of his glory in the world Though our mutable Free-wills are better than the fixed or necessitated appetite of Bruits that is not as they are mutable and the acts contingent but as they have a higher object But the fixed unchangeable wills of the Glorified Angels and Saints are far better than ours And why should we think unsetled mutability of efficiency to be the best discovery of Gods Immutability 5. But yet we grant that God is free to do what he please C. But it is by fixed second causes that God keepeth a fixed order of natural productions and alterations in the world But you can name no such universal second cause of Grace affording under God a resistible Influx as the Sun doth in Nature B. What will you say if I name you such a second universal cause though if I could not it followeth not that therefore there is none such I think I can name you one that all Christians should know and yet it seems is not well by Divines themselves considered JESUS CHRIST as MAN and MEDIATOR is Gods Administrator General of the humane world and is compared to the Rising Sun which illuminateth all the world with a light suitable to it and them So Christ is the light of the world the Sun of Righteousness that ariseth with healing Grace and enlightneth every man that cometh into the world or as Crotius and Hammond render it which coming into the world enlightneth every man supposing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the Nominative Case and Neuter Gender and not the Accusative Masculine In him was Life and the Life was the light of men not only to the sanctified who received but uneffectually though quoad se sufficiently the light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not The world that was made by him knew him not He came to his own and his own received him not yet he came to them But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God John 1. 3 10 11. It is apparent in Scripture that all power in Heaven and Earth is given to Christ Matth. 28. 19 20. that all things are delivered into his hands John 13. 3. and God hath given him power over all flesh John 17. 2. and he is head over all things to the Church Ephes 1. 22 23. C. We all grant that Christ is an universal light and Saviour 1. Objectively 2. And as to his Doctrine Covenant and Example But what 's that to internal efficient Grace which is immediately from God
imputed to us for righteousness If it be only the object and not faith why is it so often called faith believing being perswaded c. Will you say that It is not faith as an act of ours only Whoever dreamt it was For à quatenus ad omne If as an act then every act even plowing and walking and sinning would justifie us Will you say that It is not Faith as a Moral Virtue or Good act only Who saith it is For then every moral good act would justifie men Do you say that It is not by faith as faith in genere It is granted you For else à quatenus ad omne any act of faith would justifie even believing that there is a Hell Will you say that it is not any other species of faith besides our baptismal faith We grant it you But if you will also say that It is not this species even the Christian faith neither that is meant but only the object of it then 1. Why say you that it is Faith as connoting the object contradicting your self for if be not faith at all it is not faith as connoting that which is not doth not connote 2. And why say you that it is not faith it self essentially Is not the object essential as an object to the act in specie Is it not essential to our Christian faith to be a Believing in Christ 3. But what sober unprejudiced Christian that readeth the Text throughout and hath not been instructed to pervert it can choose but see that it is Faith it self that the Apostle speaketh of and that it is our personal Relation of Righteousness that it is said to be imputed for And who can believe that this is the sense Abrahams faith was imputed to him for Christs Righteousness or this either His faith that is Christs Righteousness and not his faith was imputed to him for Christs Righteousness Undoubtedly by faith is meant faith and by Righteousness is meant our own Relation But it is most easie to discern that the plain sense is Christ being presupposed the Meriter of our Justification and Salvation which he hath given the world conditionally by a Law of Grace or Covenant Donation by which now he ruleth and judgeth us all that this Covenant Gift or Law requireth on our part to make us Righteous and entitle us to the Spirit and everlasting life is that as Pâ—nitent Believers we accept Christ and life according to the nature ends and uses of the gift and this also by his grace Reader hold close to this plain Doctrine which most of the lower sort of Christians know who have not faln into perverters hands and youâ— will have more solid and practical and peaceable truth about this point than either Dr. Thomas Tullie or Maccovius or Mr. Crandâ—â— or Dr. Crispe or the Marrow of Modern Divinity * Written by an honest Barber Mr. Fisher as is said and applauded by divers Independent Divines or Paul Hobson or Mr. Saltmarsh or any such Writers do teach you in their learned Net-work Treatises by which being Wise or Orthodox overmuch being themselves entangled and confounded by incongruous notions of mans invention they are liker to entangle and confound you than to shew you the best method and grounds for the peace of an understanding dying man Christs Righteousness is Imputed or Reckoned to be as it is the total sole Meritorious Cause of all that Grace and Glory given us in and by the Conditional Law or Covenant of Grace and of our Grace for performance of the Conditions and it needeth nothing at all of ours to make it perfect to this use nor hath our faith any such supplemental Office But this condition of our part in Christ and of our Right to his Covenant-gifts must be performed and the sentence of Absolution or Condemnation life or death must be passed on us accordingly it being not Christ but we by this very Law that are to be Judged Justified or Condemned And this is the Condemnation that light is come into the World and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil But to as many as Received him he gave Right to become the Sons of God even to them that believe in his name And there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For being perfected he is become the Author of eternal Salvation to all them that obey him And it is not they that cry Lord Lord that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of our heavenly Father For Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is and of that to come CHAP. X. Whether Gods justifying those to day that were yesterday unjustified signifie any change in God P. IX OF this also I have said so much in my Apologie to Dr. Kendall and in the two first parts of this Book before that I shall now put you off with this short notice 1. There is nothing changed or new in God That which on his part is in God the Cause of our Justification is his eternal simple essence 2. But Gods Essence Understanding or Will considered simply in it self is not to be called Mans Justification But the effect produced by it And partly the extrinsick object as terminating Gods act and so by extrinsick denomination or connotation Gods Essential Intellect and Will is said de novo to justifie But it is only man that is really changed 3. The New effect in man from which God is said de novo to justifie him is 1. A new Right or Relation to Christ pardon and life and to the Father and the Holy Ghost 2. A new objective termination of Gods estimation acceptance and complacency And 3. A new heart hereupon at the same instant given us I think none of this is from eternity And that as God did de novo make the world and judge it existent and love and order it as existent without any change in him as also millions of creatures proceed from his simple Unity so is it here And this needeth no more words with knowing or teachable men And to others there is no end CHAP. XI Whether a Justified man should be afraid of becoming unjustified Lâ—b THis fear of losing our justification which you teach men is most injurious to Gods free grace and immutability and a rack for Conscience to destroy mens peace P. I have said so much of this before about Perseverance and Assurance as forbiddeth me tedious repetitions Here needeth no more but this explication of the matter which you confound 1. Fear is either Causeful or Causeless 2. Fear is either such as hindereth comfort or such as helpeth it 3. Fear is either a Duty or an unavoidable natural passion or a sin of unavoidable infirmity or a more deadly or heinous sin 4. It 's one thing to cause and cherish Fear and another thing to teach men that cannot avoid
tempted to doubt of the certainty of this or that Book words or reading it followeth not that he must therefore doubt of the Christian Faith 11. A thousand Texts of Scripture may be not known and understood by one that is Justified but all the Baptismal Articles and Covenant must be understood competently by all that will be saved 12. Those Church-Tyrants Dogmatists or superstitious ones who deny the sufficiency of this Test and Symbol made by Christ and his Spirit to its proper use to be the Symbol of such as in Love and Communion we are to take for Christians do subvert the summ of Christs Gospel and Law and do worse than they that add to or alter the lesser parts of the Word of God 13. Therefore our further Additional Confessions must be only to other subordinate ends As 1. To satisfie other Churches that doubt of our right understanding the faith 2. To be an enumeration of Verities which Preachers shall not have leave to preach against though they subscribe them not 14. Object Hereticks may profess the Baptismal Creed Answ 1. And Hereticks may profess any words that you can impose on them taking them in their own sense All the Councils are not large enough to keep out subscribing Hereticks We must not make new Symbols Rules and Laws as oft as Knaves will falsly profess or break the old ones there being none that may not be falsly professed and violated 2. Many subscribe to the whole Scriptures that yet are Hereticks 3. Church Governours are for this to cast out those or punish them who preach teach and live contrary to the certain and sufficient Rule which they profess Judicatures are not to make new Laws but to punish men for breaking Laws A heart-Heretick-only is no Heretick in foro Ecclesiae He that teacheth Heresie must be proved so to do and judged upon proof which may be done without new additional Symbols Rules or Laws of faith So that all this contradicts not the sufficiency of the Baptismal Creed as the Symbol of Christian Love Communion and Concord I thought meet to add this more fully to what I said in the Epistle to convince men of the true terms of Union and of the heinous sin of all the sorts of Adding and Corrupting overdoers that divide us THE PREFACE AGAINST CLERGIE MENS Contentions AND Church-distracting Controversies THAT the Churches of Christ are dolefully tempted and distracted by Divisions no man will deny that knoweth them That the Clergie is not only greatly culpable herein but the chief cause cannot be hid But which part of the Clergie it is and what be their dividing Errors and Crimes and how they should be cured is indeed easie for the truly faithful and impartial Spectators to perceive but exceeding hard as experience tells us to make the Guilty throughly know and harder to do much effectually for the cure For the error and sin which is the true cause is its own defence and repelleth and frustrateth the Remedies And so each party layeth it from themselves on others and hate all that accuse them while they are the sharpest and perhaps most unjust accusers of the rest I shall here freely tell the Reader the History of my own Conceptions of these matters and then my present thoughts of the Causes of all these Calamities and the Cure I. I was born and bred of Parents piously affected but of no such knowledge or acquaintance as might engage them in any Controversies or disaffect them to the present Government of the Church or cause them to scruple Conformity to its Doctrine Worship or Discipline In this way I was bred my self but taught by my Parents and God himself to make conscience of sin and to fear God and to discern between the Godly and the notoriously wicked For which my Parents and I were commonly derided as Puritans the Spirit of the Vulgar being commonly then fired with hatred and scorn of serious godliness and using that name as their instrument of reproach which was first forged against the Nonconformists only And the Clergie where I lived being mostly only Readers of the Liturgie and some others that rather countenanced than reproved this course I soon confined my Reverence to a very few among them that were Learned and Godly but Conformists and for going out of my Parish to hear them my reproach increased About eighteen or nineteen years of age I fell acquainted with some persons half Conformists and half Non-conformists who for fear of severities against private Meetings met with great secresie only to repeat the publick Sermons and Pray and by Pious Conference edifie each other Their Spirits and Practice was so savoury to me that it kindled in me a distaste of the Prelates as Persecutors who troubled and ruined such persons while ignorant Drunkards and Worldlings were tolerated in so many Churches yea and countenanced for crying down such persons and crying up Bishops Liturgie and Conformity Before I was aware my affections began to solicite my understanding to judge of the Things and Causes by the Persons where the difference was very great But yet my first Teachers kept my judgement for Conformity as Lawful though not Desirable had we Liberty till I was ordained But soon after a new acquaintance provoked me to a deeper study of the whole Controversie than I had undertaken before which left me perswaded that the use of Liturgie and Ceremonies was lawful in that case of necessity except the Baptismal use of the Cross and the subscription to all things c. But in 1640. the Oath called Et Caetera being offered the Ministry forced me to a yet more searching Study of the case of our Diocesane Prelacie which else I had never been like to have gainsaid At a meeting of Ministers to debate the case it fell to Mr. Christopher Cartwrights lot and mine to be the Disputers and the issue of all that and my studies was that I setled in the approbation of the Episcopacy asserted by Ignatius yea and Cyprian but such a dissent from the English frame as I have given account of in my Disputations of Church Government My genius was inquisitive and earnestly desirous to know the truth my helps for Piety were greater than my helps for Learning of which I had not much besides Books sickness helpt my seriousness keeping me still in expectation of death All my reverenced acquaintance save one cryed down Arminianism as the Pelagian Heresie and the Enemy of Grace I quickly plunged my self into the study of Dr. Twisse and Amesius and Camero and Pemble and others on that subject By which my mind was setled in prejudice against Arminianism without a clear understanding of the case whereupon I felt presently in my mind a judgement of those that were for Arminianism as bad or dangerous adversaries to the Church and specially of the then ruling Bishops which yet I think I had not-entertained had I not taken them withal for the great Persecutors of Godly able
Ministers and serious Christians not only for Ceremonies but for holy practices of life Being under these apprehensions when the Wars began though the Cause it self lay in Civil Controversies between King and Parliament yet the thoughts that the Church and Godliness it self was deeply in danger by Persecution and Arminianism did much more to byass me to the Parliaments side than the Civil interest which at the heart I little regarded At last after two years abode in a quiet Garrison upon the Invitation of some Orthodox Commanders in Fairfax's Army and by the Mission of an Assembly of Divines I went after Naseby Fight into that Army as the profest Antagonist of the Sectaries and Innovators who we all then too late saw designed those changes in the Church and State which they after made I there met with some Arminians and more Antinomians These printed and preached as the Doctrine of Free Grace that all men must presently believe that they are Elect and Justified and that Christ Repented and Believed for them as Saltmarsh writeth I had a little before engaged my self as a Disputer against Universal Redemption against two antient Ministers in Coventry Mr. Cradock and Mr. Diamond that were for it But these new notions called me to new thoughts which clearly shewed me the difference between Christs part and Mans the Covenant of Innocency with its required Righteousness and the Covenant of Grace with its required and imputed righteousness I had never read one Socinian nor much of any Arminians but I laid by prejudice and I went to the Scripture where its whole current but especially Matth. 25. did quickly satisfie me in the Doctrine of Justification and I remembred two or three things in Dr. Twisse whom I most esteemed which inclined me to moderation in the five Articles 1. That he every where professeth that Christ so far dyed for all as to purchase them Justification and Salvation conditionally to be given them if they believe 2. That he reduceth all the Decrees to two de fine de mediis as the healing way 3. That he professeth that Arminius and we and all the Schoolmen are agreed that there is no necessity consequentis laid on us by God in Predestination but only necessity consequentiae or Logical but in Election I shall here suspend 4. That the Ratio Reatus in our Original Sin is first founded in our Natural propagation from Adam and but secondarily from the positive Covenant of God 5. That Faith is but Causa dispositiva Justificationis and so is Repentance These and such things more I easilier received from him than I could have done from another But his Doctrine of Permission and Predetermination and Causa Mali quickly frightned me from assent And though Camero's moderation and great clearness took much with me I soon perceived that his Resolving the cause of sin into necessitating objects and temptations laid it as much on God in another way as the Predeterminants do And I found all godly mens Prayers and Sermons run quite in another strain when they chose not the Controversie as pre-engaged In this case I wrote my first Book called Aphorisms of Justification and the Covenants c. And being young and unexercised in writing and my thoughts yet undigested I put into it many uncautelous words as young Writers use to do though I think the main doctrine of it sound I intended it only against the Antinomians But it sounded as new and strange to many Upon whose dissent or doubtings I printed my desire of my friends Animadversions and my suspension of the Book as not owned by me nor any more to be printed till further considered and corrected Hereupon I had the great benefit of Animadversions from many whom I accounted the most judicious and worthy persons that I had heard of First my friend Mr. John Warren began next came Mr. G. Lawson's the most judicious Divine that ever I was acquainted with in my judgement yet living and from whom I learned more than from any man next came Mr. Christopher Cartwright's then of York the Author of the Rabbinical Comment on Gen. chap. 1 2 3. and of the Defence of King Charles against the Marquess of Worcester Answers and Rejoinders to these took me up much time next came a most judicious and friendly MS. from Dr. John Wallis and another from Mr. Tombes and somewhat I extorted from Mr. Burges the answers to which two last are published To all these Learned men I owe very great thanks and I never more owned or published my Aphorisms but the Cambridge Printer stole an Impression without my knowledge And though most of these differed as much from one another at least as from me yet the great Learning of their various Writings and the long Study which I was thereby engaged in in answering and rejoyning to the most was a greater advantage to me to receive accurate and digested conceptions on these subjects than private Students can expect My mind being thus many years immerst in studies of this nature and I having also long wearied my self in searching what Fathers and Schoolmen have said of such things before us and my Genius abhorring Confusion and Equivocals I came by many years longer study to perceive that most of the Doctrinal Controversies among Protestants that I say not in the Christian World are far more about equivocal words than matter and it wounded my soul to perceive what work both Tyrannical and unskilful Disputing Clergie-men had made these thirteen hundred years in the world And experience since the year 1643. till this year 1675. hath loudly called to me to Repent of my own prejudices sidings and censurings of causes and persons not understood and of all the miscarriages of my Ministry and life which have been thereby caused and to make it my chief work to call men that are within my hearing to more peaceable thoughts affections and practices And my endeavours have not been in vain in that the Ministers of the Countrey where I lived were very many of such a peaceable temper though since cast out and a great number more through the Land by Gods Grace rather than any endeavours of mine are so minded But the Sons of the Coal were exasperated the more against me and accounted him to be against every man that called all men to Love and Peace and was for no man as in a contrary way And now looking daily in this posture when God calleth me hence summoned by an incurable Disease to hasten all that ever I will do in this World being uncapable of prevailing with the present Church disturbers I do apply my self to posterity leaving them the sad warning of their Ancestors distractions as a Pillar of Salt and acquainting them what I have found to be the cause of our Calamities and therein they will find the Cure themselves II. I Have oft taken the boldness constrainedly to say that I doubt not but the Contentions of the Clergie have done far more
move another to do it will not stand with proper permission 585. Obj. But God preserveth our own Liberty in acting Answ 1. By Liberty you mean nothing but Willingness as such that God doth not make mens Nilling to be a Willing or contra in the same act Which is but to say that God causeth me to Will sin and not to Will-nill-it 2. If you mean more I deny that ever God gave Power to the Will to Will or Nill contrary to the Volition and phâ—sical premoving predetermination of the first cause 3. But if all this were so it 's nothing to the present case and doth not prove that God is not the Cause of the sin but only that man is a Cause also caused by the first Cause and that God Willeth and Causeth us to sin willingly and freely 586. 3. By this means they make God equally to Will and Cause our Holiness and our sin For they cannot possibly tell us what he doth more to Cause our Holiness than to Will it and to predetermine the will of man to it besides commanding it which is a moral act and we speak only of proper efficiency He doth but will that Holiness be and cause all that hath any entity in it And so they say he doth about sin 587. Obj. He loveth our Holiness for it self and so he doth not sin Answ The first is denyed by themselves if you speak of Gods end For they confess that God only is his own end for which he loveth all things 2. And his Love is either his efficient or complacential Volition 1. The efficient which is all that is now in question they must confess is equal to both if he equally will the existence of both Object But he hath a Complacence in Good only Answ 1. He hath a Complacence in the fulfilling of his own will as efficient Therefore if sin be the fulfilling of his Will he hath a complacency in it The formal reason of a pleasing object to God is as it is the fulfilling of his own Will And to break his Law they make to be such ergo pleasing 2. But if it were not so that 's nothing to our Case of the efficient Will 588. 4. To avoid tediousness in sum This opinion seemeth to me to leave very little or no place for the Christian Religion For 1. It overthroweth the formale objectum fidei which is Veracitas Divina and leaveth no certainty of any word of God For if he do will and predetermine by premotion ut fiat omne mendacium quod fit then we have no way to know that he did not so by the Prophets and Apostles 2. It maketh the Scripture false which saith so much of Gods hatred and unwillingness of sin 3. It obliterateth the notion of Gods Holiness which is made the great reason of our holiness 4. It maketh mans Holiness to be no Holiness but a common or indifferent thing 5. It maketh sin so little odious as being a Divine off-spring as will destroy the hatred of it and care to avoid it 6. It will thereby nullifie all our Godly sorrow repenting confession and all practice of means against any sin 7. It will hardly let men believe that Christ came into the world and did and suffered so much to save men from sin and to destroy it 8. Or that it is the work of the Holy Ghost to sanctifie souls and mortifie sin 9. It will hardly let men believe that there is any Hell and that God will damn men for ever for that which they did upon his prevolition and predetermination unavoidably 10. It seemeth to give Satans description to God and more For Satan can but tempt us to sin but they make God absolutely to will that it be and physically to predetermine us to it And so Christ that came to destroy the work of the Devil the father of lies malice and murder should come to destroy the work of God 11. It taketh away the reason of Church discipline and purity and of our loving the Godly and hating wickedness 12. It would tempt Magistrates accordingly to judge of vice and vertue good and bad in the Common-wealth 589. Now to their arguments 1. Rev. 17. 17. God put it into their hearts to do his will and to agree to give up their Kingdoms to the beast Answ 1. He that readeth Dr. Hammonds exposition applying this to Alaricus sacking Rome with the effects will see that the very subject is so dubious and dark as not to be fit to found such a doctrine on 2. It was the effect of the sin that God willed and not the sin 3. He is not said to put the sin into their hearts whether pride covetousness cruelty c. but only to do his pleasure and agree or make one decree to give up c. which he could most easily do by putting many good and lawful thoughts into their hearts which with their own sins would have that effect which he willed If a thief have a will to rob God may put it into his heart to go such or such a way where a wicked man to be punished will be in his way 590. But for brevity besides what is said I shall farther direct the â—mpartial Reader how to answer all such objections And withall let the â—onfounding cavillers against distinguishing see what blasphemy and subversion of Religion may enter for want of one or two distinctions which â—onfused heads regard not 1. Be sure to distinguish the name of sin from the nature 2. And â—emember that no outward act is sin any further than it is Voluntary by privation or position of Volitions 3. Distinguish between the Act as it â—s Agentis and as it is in Passo 4. And between the Act and the effect 5. Between the effect of a single cause and of divers causes making a compound effect 6. And between a forbidden object compared with the â—ontrary and one forbidden object compared with another 591. And then all this satisfying Truth will lye naked before you 1. That the same name usually signifieth the sin and the effect of sin or the Act as Acted and as Received Adultery Murder Theft usually signifie the Acts of the Adulterer Murderer Thief as done and as received â—n Passo and as effecting 2. That the former only is the sin viz. first the Volition Nolition or Non-Volition and secondarily the imperate act as animated by the Will And no more The reception of this act in Passo is not sin as such nor the most immediate effect of this act It is but the effect of sin 3. And you will see that the same effect may have several causes a Good and bad And so God may be a cause of that effect which mans sin also concurreth to cause And God doth not therefore Will or Cause the sin 4. And you will see that God may morally cause the effect as it is on this object rather than another forbidden though both make the act sinful and yet