Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	accidental_a	act_n	act_v	18	3	7.9613	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90680	Autokatakrisis, or, Self-condemnation, exemplified in Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Barlee, and Mr. Hickman. With occasional reflexions on Mr Calvin, Mr Beza, Mr Zuinglius, Mr Piscator, Mr Rivet, and Mr Rollock: but more especially on Doctor Twisse, and Master Hobbs; against whom, God's purity and his præscience ... with the sincere intention and the general extent of the death of Christ, are finally cleared and made good; and the adversaries absurdities ... are proved against them undeniably, out of their own hand-writings. With an additional advertisement of Mr Baxter's late book entituled The Groatian religion discovered, &c. By Thomas Pierce rector of Brington in Northampon-shire.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing P2164; Thomason E950_2; ESTC R210640	233,287	279

it p. ●6 And gaping so wide as he does nay wider then all this as shall be shewed in due time how can we fail to know his meaning by his gaping Let us then contemplate the large Dimensions of his swallow that at last we may demand what it is will stick with him 3. His now contradiction about the manner of Gods working 3. First an huge Contradiction goes down very glibly for as soon as his ignorance is acknowledged as to the manner of Gods working p. 19. he describes the manner of it and sets it down as dogmatically as if he had been an eye-witness and of counsel to that secret and hidden will of God which the men of his way are wont to oppose to his revealed one He saith consentingly out of * Negari non potest illum aliquo modo procurare negotium cujus consilio decreto genotium geritur Piscat ad Am. Collat. Vorst sect 17. Piscator but blusht to put it into English that God doth procure the business of sin by whose counsel and decree the business is managed or carried on p. 21. my more distinctly as to the manner in another shred of Latine which he calls a true Rule but puts it not into English The true English of it is this That * Deus agit in peccato non tanquam causa moralis sed tanquam causa naturalis God doth act in sin not as a moral but as a natural cause p. 25. that is to say He doth not so act as to perswade onely which yet is bad enough of it self and the worst that the Devil can arrive unto but in such a natural way as to necessitate the sinner which is infinitely worse then to perswade him Nor will it advantage him to say that God decreeth and procureth and is the natural cause of the positive act of every sin but the accidental cause onely of the sin it self as He and Mr. Barlee shall be shewed to say in plain terms For Davids lying with Bathsheba was the positive act of Adultery and sin it selfe but Davids lying without Bathsheba was no sin at all either in whole or in part which if Mr. Wh. cannot deny as I am sure he cannot and do challenge him to do if he thinks he may or dares to do it then must be confess it to be his Doctrine that God was the natural cause of Davids lying with Bathsheba and that that positive act of Adultery was Gods work and his Creature because of positive acts he saith that God is the proper efficient cause p. 24. This lies on him unavoidably unless he can separate the positive act of Davids lying with Bathsheba from Davids sin of Adultery which was his lying with Bathsheba and nothing else which I shall shew he cannot do if so gross a visible needs shewing when I discover how Mr. Hicks betrayed Mr. Barlee into a Blas● hemy no less then sins being God if a pos●tive act and hovv Mr. B. vvas even vvith him by sending his Treachery to the Press So much for Mr. W's nevv self-contradiction 4. His downright Libertinism 4. Next Mr. W. must be observed to speak the language of the Libertines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a syllable as I lately intimated but novv shall openly express Saint Paul having said God worketh all things Eph. 1.10 meaning all the Graces of the Holy Ghost of vvhich alone he there speaks as Calvin himself confesseth the Libertines concluded as * Efficit omnia id est omnia sine exception● Beza in locum 1. Facinus puta Adulterium aut homicidium est Dei Auto. is Motoris Impulsoris opus Zuing. de Prov. c. 6. 2. Deus videri potest causa non modò humanarum actionum verùm etiam D●fectuum atque Privationum quae ipsis inhaerent Pet. Mart. in 1 Sam. c. 2. 3. Deus efficit ea quae peccata sunt Sturm de Praedest Thes 16. 4. Idem facit Deus scilicet procurat adulterium maledicta mendacia Piscat resp ad Apolog. Birtii p. 143. 5. Omnes peccatores flagitiosi vi voluntatis Dei faciunt quicquid faciunt Id. Resp ad Tauffr p. 65. 6. Deus efficaciter agit seu efficit suâ efficacitate perag●t omnia sine ullâ prorsus quantulâcunque exceptione Beza contra castel Aphorism 1 6 7. Beza did and as Mr. W. novv doth that all their sins vvere Gods works For that vvas their rule vvhich is novv Mr. Whitfields that what the Scripture both plainly and positively asserteth that God doth we ought not to deny that he doth it p. 19. not admitting any Hebraisms or other figures of speech or restrictions and limitations of universal terms but taking all by the Letter to serve their turn as Mr. Wh. doth to serve his p. 23. Hence are those ordinary Doctrines amongst the men of that batch 1. That adultery or murder is the work of God the Author 2. That God may seem to be the cause not of humane actions only but of the very defects and privations which cleave unto them 3. That God effects those things which are sins 4. That God procures adultery cursings lyings c. 5. That all wicked men do all that they do by the force of Gods will 6. That God efficaciously acteth or effecteth and by his efficacity performeth all things without any the least exception From vvhich very saying being pronounced by the Libertines Mr. Calvin discovers tvvo horrible but unavoidable sequels 1. That there is not any difference betwixt God and the Devil 2. That God by this Doctrine is transmuted into the Devil Calv. ad e●s Libert cap. 13. 14. Novv vvhen the Calvinists and the Libertines do teach the very same thing vvhy shall not I hate it in the Calvinists as Calvin hated it in the Libertines nay vvhy not more since a Blasphemy is the worse not one vvhit the better for proceeding out of a learned and a leading mans mouth Tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto melior qui peccat habetur Nor doth it move me that some Calvinists vvill take it ill at my hands vvhilest others not rigid vvill take it vvell for no doubt but the Libertines took it as ill of Mr. Calvin The Treasure that I covet is not their Favour but their Amendment Let this precede and that vvill follovv unavoidably I therefore ask Mr. Whitfield * A Dilemma as a touch-stone to try his meaning Is his meaning the same vvith Beza's and Peter Martyr's and the rest in my margin vvhen he saith we must not deny that God worketh all things or is is not If he say Yes he is a Libertine and Mr. Calvin shall be my witness and then let him renounce the Christian name and Religion that the * Rom. 2.24 Name of Christ be not blasphemed among the Gentiles For we who are Christians do assert that God worketh not all things without exception good or bad but all things only which

are good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things vvhich become him All the rest are the † 1 Joh. 3.8 works of the Devil and of his genuine Children vvho are resolved to do their * Job 8.41 44. Fathers works This vvas Christs Doctrine this vvas Saint Johns and Saint John believe me vvas a Christian All Gods works are done in (a) Psal 33.4 Truth therefore lyes are none of his and so * Piscat loco paulo superius citato Piscator vvas out The Lord is (b) Psal 145.17 holy in all his works Adultery and Murder are therefore none of Gods vvorks * Zuing. loc jam citat Zuinglius therefore vvas deceived by his Doctrine of Decrees and Mr. W. by Zuinglius The Lord shall (c) Psal 104.31 rejoyce in his works but hath (d) Psal 5.4 no pleasure in wickedness therefore Martin Borrhaus spake very madly when he dared to say that * Borrhaus in Exod. cap. 4. p. 448. sins do please God and Mr. Wh. more madly when he saith that God doth will sin with a perfect will p. 22. We see what must follow if Mr. W. shall answer yes to my Dilemma But if his answer shall be No then he must burn his own Books and all those Books from whence he made up his Cento and publickly subscribe to the truth of mine If he shall say his meaning is p. 22. that Gods will of which he speaks is onely objected on the wise permission or patient suffering of all sins and not upon the sins themselves why then did he entitle his book against me and not against Mr. Barlee or against his unconverted self He and I will shake hands if he will say he meant thus and not as Doctor Twisse who * See the place cited Correct Copy p. 10. saith that the will of God doth pass not onely into the permission of the sin but into the sin it self which is permitted Utrum horum mavelit accipiat Let him now take his choice and speaking distinctly to my Dilemma let the world know what he is for without any Tricks or Tergiversations But I will tell him for his security that he were better be tryed by the waters of jealousie if his meaning shal be found in the former part of the Dilemma by how much a lesser evil it is for * Num. 5.21 the thigh to rot and the belly to swell then for a man but to mean or say in his † Psal 14.1 heart that adultery and murder are the works of God And therefore timely let me advise him to use the * Num. 19.13 waters of separation that the uncleanness of such Doctrines may not be on him 5. The Determination of mans will to wicked actions is not Gods work 5. In the next place let us consider what he means by those words God worketh most determinately certainly and infallibly in the various and mutable motions of mans will I do but passingly take notice of his unscholar-like use of the word Infallible as if he knew not its meaning or did not consider its Derivation the fault is too small to be observed in a Writer of his bredth and thickness I will rather try him by another Dilemma Doth he mean that God doth so work on the wills of men as to determin them of necessity to all their objects and actions both good and evil or doth he not mean this but rather grant that mans will doth determine it self If the later all is well he hath no more to do next but to abandon his * Especially Mr. Barlee and his brother Hickman who say that whatsoever positive thing is not from God is God c. 3. p. 112. The apex of Blasphemy as shall be shewed hereafter party and burn his books whereas if the former is his meaning as hitherto it hath been I know not what to do for him to lighten the weight of his calamities which will press him down deeply do what I can For first he implyes a contradiction as I demonstrated to a person of greater worth And therefore here I repeat it not but refer him to the * See The Divine Purity defended ch 8. sect 2. p. 80 81 82. sect 5. p. 86 87. place where he cannot fail of it Next it inferreth unavoidably that God is the natural cause of all the wickedness in the world For example suppose a wicked man hath conceived Adultery in his mind or committed it in his Heart as our † Mat. 5.28 Saviour speaks If God did predetermin that wicked man to that physical Act of Concupiscence and the will of that man to a consent as well as the appetite to a complacency he was not onely the cause but the sole cause of the Adultery Nay farther yet if the inward intention of the end is the determination of the will to the first act of sin as the subtilest of them do say and if that Inten●ion or whatever else is the Determination of the will and the Determination it self is a positive act which none can deny and if God is the Creator or Maker or proper cause of whatsoever thing is positive as these precious ones do affirm He is not onely concluded the sole cause of the Adultry in his Creature Verum etiam id ipsum quod dicere nolo but also that which is worse and ineffably blasphemous And here I ask Mr. Wh. was that adulterous thought or intention so determined to its object in that respect evil or was it not If in that respect evil he accuseth God if not evil in that respect he acquitteth the wicked man and unavoidably inferreth that there was never any Adulterer Murderer or the like but was carried to the doing of all his wickedness with a good intention a good desire a very good determination of his will And reason good too For the Determination of mans will they say is Gods work or Gods share in the procurement and accomplishment of sins And Gods part in the business they say is good But then they leave man no share at all in his impieties if they do let them name it which they never yet did Indeed they talk in the general that God is the * Note this distinction which Mr. Barlee makes ch 3. p. 55. natural cause of the meer Act of sin and a meer Accidental Cause of the obliquity of the act of sin But bid them instance in some particular then they see that they are blind and quickly speak themselves speechless VVhen a man hates God or † Levi● 24.15 curseth God or any otherwise blasphemes against him let Mr. Wh. or Mr. B. or Mr. Hick be asked which is the act of that sin and which is the obliquity of the act of that sin you shall have them as mute as three dead Fishes If the cursing of God is a whole sin it is an act of sin or an obliquity of an Act or both together and that

speaking to his Chimaera's throughout my first Chapter and will now be shorter to make amends 1. He is at odds with D. Twisse First I observe 't is his opinion that though God worketh not in the same manner in evil actions as he doth in good or as evil men themselves do yet me must not deny that he hath any work at all in evil actions since himself doth so often and so expresly affirm it p. 23 24. Dr. Twisse and Mr. W. are at odds for the Doctor * See Correct Copy p. 10. saith undauntedly that Gods decree is no less efficacious in the permission of evil then in the production of good 2. To make men sin is a sin of the worst size 2. To say that God doth not work in sin as sinful men themselves do is no more then to say that God doth nor sin or is not a sinner but onely makes men sinners as * See Correct Copy p. 10. Zuinglius expresly speaks whom Mr. W. defendeth p. 24. but to say that God did decree sin and praedestine men to sin and work sin in men as a physical cause and compel men to sin so as they cannot but commit it is worse then truly can be said of any sinner neither Man nor Devil can compel any one to sin Tarquin could ravish Lucretia but could not compel her to be lascivious The Devil could torment and plunder Job but not compel him to be impatient Now that those men do teach that men are compelled by God to sin besides my † Div. Philanth ch 3. Sect. 34. p. 132 c. Catalogue of examples I can prove by the * Quoties quenquam impelli à Deo aut cogi dicunt rhetoricè potiùs loquuntur c. Twisse Vin. Gra. l. 2. part 1. sect 1. Crim. 3. c. 1. p. 29. confession of Doctor Twisse who doth acknowledge and excuse that very expression in his own party Besides Jeroboam did not work in Israels sins in the same manner that they did because he was not them but 't was the worst part of his Character that he made Israel to sin 2 King 15.18 24 28. yet he neither did nor could compel them It was the worst part of the unbelieving Jews that they stirred up the Gentiles and made their mindes evil affected against the brethren Act. 14.2 yet they proceeded not to compulsion Nay it was reckoned by Nathan as the worst thing in David that by the sins he had committed he had given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme 2 Sam. 12.14 which was far from coaction or compulsion the very terms applied by those men to God And therefore Deodate himself though the chief Minister of Geneva denies that God is so much as the * Deodat in Prov. 16.4 occasion of sin much lesse could he judge him to be the cause or the coactor 3. Yet ascribed unto God by that sort of men 3. Though it is said by M. W. that the manner of Gods working in sin is secret not to be apprehended p. 23. yet he and his predecessors have described the manner of it in the most plentiful manner that any description can be made in They say he tempts and prostitutes and acts and operates and works and wills and seduceth draws and commands and compells and moves and drives and stirrs up to sin as a natural cause say some as a moral cause sayothers as an efficient cause of the sinful act as an accidental cause of the obliquity of the act as a man puts spurrs to a dull Jade and as a man is excited to enjoy his own wife c. All these expressions I have met with in Mr. W. partly and partly in Mr. B. yet these are far from being All they are but All which I can remember in the present haste that I am in But whosoever shall examine my several Catalogues in other books and compare them with what they find in this which now I am upon will say that all this is truth yet not the whole truth Sect. 3. 1. The easie and ordinary perversion of the Scriptures But Mr. W. proceedeth thus But all those Scriptures mentioned it may appear what little reason Mr. P. had to make such a clamour against those our Protestant Divines as if they made God to be the Author of sin when he knows that they positively professed and some of them strongly proved the contrary p. 24. So he saith and saith onely But 1. I have proved in my Sect. 1. of this Chapter that the abuse of those Scriptures is a great portion of the impiety Suppose that some Lucian should make a Cento out of the letter of the Scriptures as Ausonius did out of Virgil would the impiety of the thing be any whit the more excusable because he could shew that his expressions were all from Scripture or would it not rather be so much the worse 'T is known that Proba Falconia composed a history of the Life of Christ and a good part also of the Pentateuch of Moses from out of the works of Virgil a Heathen Poet. And out of the very same Virgil however so chast in his expressions that he hath won the Title of the Parthenian Poet Ausonius very wittily but yet most * Ingeniosum sed adeo foedum ut neque Scriptore nec Auditore dignum sir Scaliger l. 6. p. 825 detestably made up the filthiest Fescennine that hath been read Again the Empress Eudoxia writ the life of our Saviour in the words of Homer a blinder Heathen then Virgil was And were it not every whit as possible to patch up the life of Achilles in a Rhapsodie collected from the holy Pen-men of our Gospel If Mr. Wh. will know what may be done in this kind let him consult the Capilupi both Laelius and Julius set out by Henry Meibomius and Otho Gryphius of Ratisbon or Lilius Greg. Gyraldus or whom else he pleaseth Let me mind him also of this that all the Heresies in Christendom have suck't out a nourishment to themselves from the sincere milk of the word although immediately flowing from the breast of truth So great a difference is to be found amongst the several digestions of the very same meat 2 Mr. W. mistakes the Errors for the Persons of some Protestants and confounds them with the Papists 2. I did not clamour against Protestant Divines but against the heathenish asseverations which had been published in the writings of Presbyterians and Papists not only Dominicans but Jesuits also for which I * S●e Div. Phil●n ch 1. sect 5. p. 27 28. produced the confessions of Doctor Twisse and Mr. Barlee But being a Protestant my self I had by so much the greater reason to declare against the blasphemies of any Protestant Divines that I might not be accessary so much as by my silence and that some Papists might cease to say what they commonly have done that those horrible

is consisting and from whence alone sins Denomination ought to be taken p. 55. This is his wary way of speaking and this he tells us is his Belief 1. That God is the cause of sin both of that which he calls the material * p. 11. part of sin or the positive act of that which he calls the formal * Ibid. part of sin or the obliquity of the act God saith Mr. B. is the cause of both parts and so of the whole sin of which they both are components But 2. he tells us that God is not the natural cause of both but the accidental cause of the one and the natural cause of the other A fair confession of his Faith For Cain's killing Abel and David's lying with Bathshebah were positive acts and each of them saith Doctor Twisse materiale peccati so that of them Mr. B. believeth God to be the natural cause And supposing it possible to separate their obliquities he believeth God to be the cause of them also For although he calls it accidental he cannot mean that it is none for then he would have said that God is no cause at all of the obliquity of the act whereas he now saith the contrary that God is a cause of the obliquity because an accidental cause nor will the known * Pōsito uno Conjugatorum ponitur alterum Et si Conjugatorum unum uniconveniat alterum etiam conveniet alterit Rule of Conjugates allow him any the least evasion The Question is not what kind of cause of the obliquity they affirm God to be natural or moral per se or per accidens but whether or no he is a cause And to this Mr. B. makes answer in the affirmative Nor can he be imagined to argue thus God is not a natural but an accidental cause therefore no cause at all For that were to argue that a thing is not because it is and that a proposition is false because it is true We may argue by such Logick that Mr. B. is not a man because he is not a patient but an angry man And to deny that God is the Author of that obliquity of which he affirms him to be the cause is the same thing as to say he is indeed the Author of the obliquity but the Author of the obliquity he is not for whatsoever is the cause of any thing in any kind of causality is so far forth the Author of it as it is the cause according to the use of the word Author in all Classick Writers as I shall shew in due time How Mr. B. makes God the natural cause of sin it self And if that which he calls the Act of sin as the act of cursing or hating God of David's lying with Bathshebah and the like is nothing else but the sin it self in its whole essence as indeed it is and I have demonstrated before then his beliefe must needs be this that God is the natural cause of sin which is worse then to believe him the moral cause onely by how much it is worse to necessitate any man to wickedness then onely to tempt and perswade him to it He who necessitates being the sole cause of it and he who perswades the concause onely I will say no more here because I have enlarged so much * Look back on ch 2. sect 5. already on an occasion offered by Mr. W. I will onely adde a word to Mr. B's citation in his Margin If he is to be judged a moral cause of any sin who moves any one to it by help or counsel favour or perswasion as † Dominicus à Soto doth truely speak * In moralibus prorsus est judicaturque causa qui lege ope consilio favore vel persuasu movet quempiam sive ad bonum sive ad malum Domin à Soto de Nat. Gra. l. 1. c. 12. how falsly soever in some other things then God is also accused of being the moral cause of sin by Mr. B. and his party who have publickly taught that God doth tempt men to sin and so far favour the regenerate in the very worst sins they can commit as that they cannot fall totally much less finally from grace I have shewed the former in the third Section of this Chapter and the later long ago in the Div. Purity defended ch 14. sect 2. p. 128 129 c. Sect. 15. Mr. B's most signal and most desperate attempt from p. 111. to p. 121 Now I proceed to that part of Mr. B. which will save me the labour of saying more and make him wish ere it be long that he had said nothing at all but that he had rather been born dumb For 't is that wherein he engageth not his own credit onely if he can possibly imagine that he hath any yet left him but the credit of his friends too amongst whom Mr. Hick of Mag. Coll. is branded by him for a chief Nor onely so but he engageth very deeply his soul and conscience which ought I am sure to be dearest to him Now that himself and his Abettors may not fail of comprehending the breadth and depth of the Calamity into which he hath ingulphed and plunged himself and to the end that he may find it much the most for his Interest to make a publick Recantation and to act * 2 Cor. 7.11 revenge upon himself I will as briefly as I am able premise the state of the affair betwixt him and me that so the life of his unhappiness may at last appear in the greater lustre 2. The state of the case from its Original 2. I had proved in my † Ch. 3. p. 110. to p. 116. Defence of the Divine Philanthropie that the sinner is the efficient cause of sin in confutation of Mr. B. who denied that sin had any efficient cause at all but onely forsooth a deficient cause I say I had proved the efficient of sin by a great number of Arguments whereof each was so cogent that neither Mr. B. nor M. W. nor Mr. Hick had the courage to venture on a solution I do heartily wish that my Reader will here peruse those seven pages in my D. Philan. Defended from p. 110. to p. 116. where he will find my Thesis proved by so many convincing Demonstrations as have not left the Adversary the least colour for a Reply And because some Readers may not have that Book in their possession whilest others are unwilling to neglect the work they are upon I will here recapitulate but very briefly what there is proved in ample manner 3. Proof● that sin hath an efficient cause 3. 1. If man is the cause of sin and not efficient he is the material formal or final cause if the Deficient is none of these as none will say it is it is no cause at all If sin hath no cause it hath no real being much less can it be the cause of punishment and so God is

Look forwards on the 27. sect num 4. of this ch which accompanies the action of which God is the Author and so distinguishable from it and that God doth but make the lame horse go which was lame before he made him go and so is the cause of his going but not of his lamenesse that will be found to be a Reed which will run into the elbow of such as shall dare to lean upon it for when Adam was yet innocent he was not as a lame horse and yet he ceased to be innocent or if you please he grew lame by eating that which was forbidden So that if God was the cause of his eating that forbidden fruit he was also the cause of the sin which was nothing else but his eating the fruit forbidden if he made him eat he made him lame Besides if a horse which goes not and hath onely an aptitude to go lamely will of necessity go lamely if he be made to go at all he who shall cause that horse to go will also cause him to go lamely so will God be concluded the cause of sin if having first given us the power to act against his law he shall also reduce that power into that act so as that positive act shall be his creature yet so it must be saith Mr. Hick if a positive act And Doctor Twisse doth say as bluntly * Damus Deum esse causam uniuscujusque actûs Vin. Gr. l. 2. par 1. p. 40. we grant that God is the particular cause of every act Wherein this differs from that of the Libertines let him tell us who can 5. God hath forbidden in his law the positive acts of Stealing Adultery Murder and the like for which positive acts he will also cast into Hell It will be ill pleading for Cain that God alone was the Author of the positive act of his stabbing Abel and of the law which forbad it from which two the obliquity was an unavoidable resultance And if the sin of blasphemy is distinguishable from the act of speaking against God then did God forbid something besides the sin which implies a horrible contradiction and there may be a good act of speaking against God as well as an evil one which again implies another contradiction 6. When Mr. Hick.'s Masters are wont to say that God praedestin'd men to sin as the means of damnation they do and must mean to sin as sin because sin is no otherwise the means of damnation and divers of them do use that very reduplication Now because they teach also that God decreed the means as well as the end they infer sin as sin to be a positive act and therefore not distinguishable from it I have now done with Mr. Hick as to this particular which Mr. B. calls his second Argument u●on which I have the more enlarged because I perceive it to be the great block at which those men are wont to stumble and at which the Libertines have fallen down headlong Again I find it to be the block out of which Mr. B. hath hewed so many chipps and little splinters which having flown into his eyes have made him rageful as well as blind This will very much appear by the following Sections which for that very reason shall be so much the shorter Sect. 19. Mr. B's first chip hewn out of Mr. Hick.'s Block Mr. B. thus debauched by his leading friend as hath been shewed sticks not to say in plain termes He must either maintain God to be the Author of sin or else he must speedily renounce the very first Article of his Christian Creed and say that God did not make heaven and earth and all real things visible and invisible therein That in him we do not live move and have our being Act. 17.28 That every good and perfect gift in its kind is not from God Jam. 1.17 p. 113. Though this is a chip of the old block and might be sent for its reception to the former Section yet in order to his cure I will make him feel his infirmity 1. He foists the word real into the Creed and makes it to stand in the place of good and infers God the maker of all sins 1. The word reall is in neither Creed but foisted in by M. B. and if he intends it as exegetical of all things visible and invisible in the Nicaene Creed he makes a Creed for the Ranters who finding by experience that blasphemies and adulteries are real things and having been taught by whom think you to believe that God is the maker of all things real without exception conclude those things to be very good Such domestick Libertines must be taught that when God is said to be the maker of all things it is onely meant of all things that are good which alone are possible to be made by God not of all things that are real whereof many are evil and onely made by Men and Devils 2. The different methods of our reasonings and what comes of it 2. Mark Good Reader before thou goest any farther the different methods of our reasoning and the different effects I lay it down as my Principle that God is not the maker of sin therefore not of David's adultery therefore not of that action called his lying with Bathshebah therefore not of every positive and real thing But Mr. Hick and Mr. B. and the Libertines do build backwards thus They lay it down as their Principle That God is the maker of all things that are real without exception therefore of David's lying with Bathshebah acknowledged by all to be a real and positive thing therefore of his Adultery unless his Adultery can be differenced from his lying with Bathshebah therefore of his sin unless his sin can be differenced from his Adultery Again the Libertines argue thus God doth decree sin therefore it is good But I argue thus Sin cannot be good therefore God cannot decree it Of so great concernment it is that they be beaten out of their methods and wayes of reasoning and taught to begin at the right end 3. They ascribe all positive entities however filthy unto God 3. I who prove sin to be a positive entity do also prove it to be the work of men and Devils onely whereas 't is he and Mr. Hick who do impute it unto God on supposition of its positive entity What he saith from Act. 17.28 is wholly impertinent unless he thinks it to be a sin to live and to move and to have a being For that innocent liberty and power which we have from God we alone do determine to the doing of evil Much less pertinent is that from S. James c. 1. v. 17. unless he thinks that sin can be a good and a perfect gift or that every positive entity is such 4. They are convinced by the Assemblies confession of faith ch 9. Artic. 1. 4. It is part of the Assemblies confession of faith God hath endued the will of man

then so many curses the man who said he never cursed doth pour at once upon himself and upon the chief men of his way on supposition that they still do what I have proved them to have done If their opinion is contrary to their words which is the onely excuse he can pretend to it doth but aggravate their guilt and speak them wilful He who shall deny his having aspersed his neighbour with the ignominie of Theft because he did but charge him with having invaded another mans goods will onely make himself capable of so much a greater condemnation I am sorry that Mr. B. hath put himself under a curse but am heartily glad he dares not own what he hath written because I hope he will find it needful to hate those principles which led him to write such Poenitenda 2. The like confession of his owned Masters together with their Commissions of the crime confessed 2. The like Confession hath been made by Mr. Calvin and Dr. Whitaker and many more whose words do rise up in judgement against themselves and their party as they do justifie my charge in the severest part of it throughout my Books which that the stomachfullest Adversary may not be able to deny I will confront their own words to their own words and to the words of their friends in two parallel Columns setting down on the left hand the Adversaries Confession that it is indeed a horrid Blasphemy to say that God is the Author or Cause or Necessitator of sin and linking with it on the right hand the Adversaries Commission of the very same crime confessed by them Mr. Calvin's Confession De maleficiis Deo Authore perpetratis locutus Certe inquit ut quidvis contra tam prodigiosam Blasphemiam dicatur libenter patiar modò ne immerito immisceatur nomen meum Calv. de occult Dei Providentiâ p. 736. Idem Calvinus in Libertinos cap. 13. ait ex hoc Articulo Deum scilicet omnia operari Tria admodum horrenda consequi quorum primum hoc est Nullum inter Deum Diabolum discrimen fore Et porrò cap. 14. in eosdem Ipsum à se abnegari oportet in Diabolum transmut ari Et cap. 4. Execrabilis Blasphemia dicitur Remigius although a Patron of Gotteschalc's Cause concludes against the whole party in these following words Nulli necessitatem imposuerit ut malus esset Hoc enim si fecisset ipse utique esset Auctor malorum c. Hist Gottesch cap. 11. p. 173. Mr. Calvin's Commission of the Crime confessed Et jam satis apertè ostendi Deum vocari eorum OMNIUM AUTHOREM quae isti Censores volunt otioso tantùm ejus Permissu contingere Calv. Inst l. 1. c. 18. sect 3. p. 70. De Assyriis praedatoribus iniquissimis locutus apparet inquit certâ destinatione Dei fuisse impulsos fateor Satanae operâ interpositâ saepe Deum agere in reprobis sed ut ejus IMPULSU Satan suas partes agat A Deo ipso manat efficacia erroris ut mendaciis credant c. Vindictae suae projectionis scilicet in foedas cupiditates praecipuus est AUTHOR Satan tantùm minister voluntas Dei rerum omnium causa Reprobos in obsequium cogit Id. ib. sect 2. fol. 69. Idem facinus Deo Satanae homini assignari absurdum non est Ibid. l. 2. c. 4. sect 2. p. 95. Obstinatio cordis Divina fuit ad ruinam praeparatio Ib. sect 3. p. 96. Frustra de praescientiâ lis movetur ubi constat ordinatione potius nutu omnia evenire Ib. l. 3. c. 23. sect 6. fol. 324. Hic scilicet peccator justo illius scilicet Dei IMPULSU agit quod sibi non licet Id. l. 1. c. 18. sect 4. fol. 71. Idem consulatur contra Pighium de aeter Dei Praedest p. 118. ubi Deum peccati Authorem facit Doctor Whitaker 's confession in reference to the whole party without exception Si Calvinus aut Martyr aut Quisquam nostrûm affirmet Deum esse Authorem causam peccati non repugno quin simus OMNES HORRENDAE BLASPHEMIAE scelerisque Rei Whitak l. 8. contra Duraeum sect 1. p. 524. Doctor Fulk confesseth the same in his Defence of the English Translation p. 500. Mr. Whitfield himself doth now confess it to be a Crime and a great Crime to make God the Author of sin p. 2. l. 2. And Mr. Barlee multiplies his Curses on all that do it as hath been shewed and calls it a sottish unholy opinion c. 3. p. 132. although they both are deeply guilty not onely by approving it and defending it in others but by doing it also themselves in the most open expressions in which an Author of sin can be described The Parties Commismission of the Crime confessed Unum atque idem facinus puta Adulterium aut Homicidium Dei AUTHORIS motoris Impulsoris opus est Zu●ng in Serm. de Prov. c. 6. Deus Angelum vel Hominem Transgressorem facit Id. ib. cap. 5. Dictis hisce Zuinglianis D. Twissus patrocinium suum commodat Vin. Gr. l. 2. par 2. p. 37. Aliter Satan malorum quàm Deus five de malo quod in culpâ sive de eo quod in poena cernitur loquamur AUTHOR judicatur esse Borrhaus ad Isa cap. 28. Fatemur Deum non modo ipsius operis peccaminosi sed intentionis malae AUTHOREM esse c. D. Twiss Vin. Gr. l. 2. par 1. p. 36. Deus homines ad suas pravas actiones incitat seducit jubet indurat trahit deceptiones immittit quae peccata gravia sunt efficit Martyr in Jud. 3. vers 9. p. 45. Ad peccatum quà peccatum praeordinati sunt tam electi quàm reprobi Trigland Defens fol. 87. Mr. W. and Mr. B. have equall'd all the rest if not out-done them as my Reader hath partly seen and will see yet farther in the several Sections of my second and third Chapters where I have faithfully exhibited and shall exhibit their words and pages It were a task too easie to write a just volume in confronting the Confessions to the Commissions of that party But of things so nauseous I think it enough to let every Passenger have a taste And I am call'd away by Mr. Barlee's next words affirming God to be the cause of the very obliquity of the act of sin in his very attempt of an Abstersion That I may not possibly do him wrong I will transcribe his own words and make them the top of another Section Sect. 14. His confession of Faith touching Gods commerce with sin His Apology for himself and for his Creed is verbatim thus I do every where make it evident that I do onely believe God to be a Natural Cause of the meer Act of sin without which it is impossible that any sin can be committed but that he is onely a meer accidental ●ause of the obliquity of the act of sin wherein alone the formality of sin