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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54842	An impartial inquiry into the nature of sin in which are evidently proved its positive entity or being, the true original of its existence, the essentiall parts of its composition by reason, by authority divine, humane, antient, modern, Romane, Reformed, by the adversaries confessions and contradictions, by the judgement of experience and common sense partly extorted by Mr. Hickman's challenge, partly by the influence which his errour hath had on the lives of many, (especially on the practice of our last and worst times,) but chiefly intended as an amulet to prevent the like mischiefs to come : to which is added An appendix in vindication of Doctor Hammond, with the concurrence of Doctor Sanderson, Oxford visitors impleaded, the supreme authority asserted : together with diverse other subjects, whose heads are gathered in the contents : after all A postscript concerning some dealings of Mr. Baxter / by Thomas Pierce ...	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1660 (1660)	Wing P2184; ESTC R80	247,562	303

c. But let us hear Dr. Iackson also § 9. The Hypothesis for whose clearer Discussion these last Theses have been praemised is this Whether it being once granted or supposed that the Almighty Creator was the cause either of our mother Eves desire or of her actual eating of the forbidden fruit or of her delivery of it to her husband or of his taking and eating it though unawares the same Almighty God must not upon like necessity be acknowledged to be the Author of all the obliqui●ies which did accompany the positive acts or did necessarily result from them This is a case or Species Facti which we cannot determine by the Rule of Faith It must be tryed by the undoubted Rules of Logick or better Arts. These be the onely perspective Glasses which can help the eye of Reason to discover the truth or necessity of the consequence to wit whether the Almighty Creator being granted to be the cause of our mother Eves first longing after the forbidden Fruit were not the cause or Author of her sin Now unto any Rational man that can use the help of the forementioned Rules of Art which serve as prospective Glasses unto the eye of Reason that usual Distinction between the Cause or Author of the Act and the Cause or Author of the Obliquity which necessarily ensues upon the Act will appear at the first sight to be False or Frivolous yea to imply a manifest contradiction For Obliquity or whatsoever other Relation can have no cause at all besides that which is the Cause of the Habit of the Act or Quality whence it necessarily results And in particular that conformity or similitude which the first man did bear to his Almighty Creator did necessarily result from his substance or manhood as it was the work of God undefaced Nor can we search after any other true Cause of the First mans conformity to God or his integrity besides him who was the cause of his manhood or of his existence with such qualifications as by his creation he was endowed with In like manner whosoever was the cause whether of his coveting or eating of the Tree in the middle of the Garden was the true cause of that obliquity or crooked deviation from Gods Law or of that deformity or dissimilitude unto God himself which did necessarily result from the forbidden Act or Desire It was impossible there should be one Cause of the Act and another Cause of the Obliquity or Deformity whether unto Gods Laws or unto God himself For no Relation or Entity merely relative such are obliquitie and deformity can have any other Cause beside that which is the cause of the Fundamentum or Foundation whence they immediately result It remains then that we acknowledge the old Serpent to have been the first Author and Man whom God created male and female to have been the true positive Cause of that obliquity or deformity which did result by inevitable N●c●ssity from the forbidden Act or desire which could have no Necessary cause at all and more to this purpose p. 3013. c. § 10. Diotallevius doth also prove that they who make God the Author of the positive act of hati●g God do make him the Author of the obliquity Because saith he God himself cannot effect what doth imply a contradiction that the moral obliquity of an Act which is intrinsecally evil and freely exerted by the creature shall not follow or rather attend the positive entity of the act which is such as hath been said and so exerted For it implies a contradiction that an act intrinsecally evil to wit the act hating God should be freely exerted and yet not evil or that it should not have a moral pravity conjoyned with it 2. They who hold all positive entities to be effected by God himself must needs believe him to be the cause as much of the worst as of the best actions in the world both because hating is as positive when it is fixed upon God as it can possibly be when it is fixed upon the Divel And because an obliquity is as vnavoidable to the one as rectit●de or conformity can be possibly to the other 3. If an immediate working of the formal obliquity be required to make an Author of anothers sin then neither Man nor Divel in perswading another to do wickedly can possibly be the Author of it because they are not any otherwise the causes of the obliquity then by tempting to that act to which the obliquity is annexed And for the very same reason no creature could be the cause of any such sin within himself because he doth not produce the moral obliquity of the act but by producing the act to which the obliquity is annext 4. When we do absolutely and simply inquire after the cause of another mans sin we do not inquire after the cause which immediately reacheth to the obliquity of the act but after the inducing or moving cause by which he is led to such a voluntary act whose object is repugnant to the rule of Reason That is the method of Aquinas De malo quaest 3. art 1. 3. 1.2 q. 75. per totam from whence it follows that if God doth induce us efficaciously to an aversion from himself and so to a hatred of his Divinity it is every whit as true that he is the Author of our sin as that he induceth us efficaciously to that aversion and hatred which is intrinsecally evil And therefore Mr. Hickman must recant the first or contentedly smart for the Impiety of the second § 11. Doctor STEARN is very severe and upon very just ground to the use that is made of the same Distinction For he doth not content himself to say that to be the cause of the action from which the obliquity cannot be separate is to be the very cause of the obliquity it self because the obliquity is annexed to the entity of the Action and th●t in a manner unavoidable Nor doth he onely add this That man himself is no otherwise the author of his sin then as he is author of that action to which the obliquity is annexed But he saith yet farther That if God well-knowing the absolute inseparability of the obliquity from the action doth w●llingly produce that very action he is so far from being free from the obliquity of the action that he is môre guilty of it then the man himself in whom that action is ●o produced as who does seldome or never think of the obliquity annext quam Deus nunquam non cognoscit animadvertit Nay he chargeth the Adversaries with a higher blasphemy then that even with making God more guilty then the divel which how they can answer let them consider whom it concern's I shall onely for the present subjoyn his words Immo Daemones hominem ad peccandum tentantes minori jure Authores peccati sunt censendi quam Causa Libera Actionis illam producens non tantùm sciens malitiam esse

illi annexam Nam Daemones non producunt Actiones quibus malitia est annexa sed tantum solicitant c. multo itaque magis Malitiae reus est qui sciens volens non tentat aut solicitat sed actionem reipsa producit cujus malitia ut ab ea prorsus inseparabilis ipsi quàm clarissimè patet What kind of Adversaries they are whom the Doctor thus handles and how much Mr. Hickman becomes concern'd he gives us to know by his two instances in Twisse and Zuinglius § 12. A whole Colledge of Remonstrants men of renown for their piety and learning too thought fit to shame the common subterfuge by these two wayes of Argumentation 1. Whensoever a superiour and omnipotent cause doth so move and determine the inferiour and impotent that it being so moved cannot choose but sin Then must the guilt of that sin be wholly transferred on the superiour and omnipotent cause But according to those men who affirm the positive acts of all the very worst sins to be the creatures and works of God the inferiour cause is so moved by the omnipotent and superiour as that it cannot choose but sin Therefore according to those men the sin is wholly to be transferred on the superiour cause 2. When two causes do concurr to one action to wit the action of hating God whereof the one act 's freely and the other of necessity then must the cause which acts freely sustain the whole fault of its coming to pass But according to the men aforesaid God acts freely in the producing of such an action which M. Hickman reckons amongst Gods creatures and the inferiour cause of necessity Therefore according to those men God sustains the whole fault of its coming to passe And we know in the whole fault is included the obliquity as well as the act § 13. The Apologist for Tilenus doth make this Answer to the distinction 1. That man doth seldom or never entertain sin or consent to it with a designe to oppose himself to the divine Law but to enjoy his P●easure and satisfie his appetites 2. He supposeth that a man should consent to sin with such a set purpose to oppose Gods Law And then infers that according to Mr. H.'s Doctrine that consent and that purpose being positive entities and acts of the soul are from God and of his production from whence it followes either that man doth not sin when he commits such an act or that the fault is imputable to God who is called by Mr. Hickman the first cause of that Act. I wonder when Mr. H. will give that Author a Reply § 14. But after all and above all I commend to consideration the words of the Reverend Dr. HAMMOND who having shewed how those Doctrines which are commonly called Calvinistical are so noxious to the practice and lives of men as to be able to evacuate all the force of the Fundamentals of Christianity those I mean by him forementioned And coming to speak of the Distinction betwixt the act and the obliquity which the Assertors of those Doctrins have commonly used as an Artifice for the avoiding of those consequences by which their Doctrines are rendred odious at last proceeds to make it appear That this is no way applicable to the freeing of God from being the Author of that sin of which he is said by those men to predetermine the act For 1. Though a free power of acting good or evil be perfectly distinct and separable from doing evil and therefore God that is the Author of one cannot thence be inferred to be the author of the other yet the act of sin is not separable from the obliquity of that act the act of blasphemy from the obliquity or irregularity of blasphemie the least evil thought or word against an infinite good God being as crooked as the rule is straight and consequently he that predetermines the act must needs predetermine the obliquity Nay 2. if there were any advantage to be made of this distinction in this matter it would more truely be affirmed on the contrary side that God is the author of the obliquity and man of the act for God that gives the rule in transgressing of which all obliquity consists doth contribute a great deal though not to the production of that Act which is freely committed against that rule yet to the denominating it oblique for if there were no Law there would be no obliquity God that gives the law that a Jew shall be circumcised thereby constitutes uncircumcision an obliquity which had he not given that law had never been such But for the act as that differs from the powers on one side and the obliquity on the other it is evident that the man is the cause of that To conclude this Chapter It is a thing so undeniable that the Author of the act of hating God must needs be the Author of the obliquity that as the men of the Church of England affirm man to be the Author and the sole author of both and God of neither so the rigid Presbyterians as well as Papists affirm God to be the Author not onely of the act but of the obliquity of the Act. Witness Mr. Archer so much commended by Thomas Godwin in his Comfort for believers p. 36.37 Mr. Whitfield also and Mr. Hobbs Occham in sent 3. q. 12 cited by Dr Field p. 128. and Mr. Hickman in effect when he saith that God is the Cause of all Beings p. 78. and p. 95. and Pet. Mart. in 1 Sam. c. 2. CHAP. V. § 1. THE positive entity of sin is so clear from Scripture and from the writings of all the Fathers both Greek and Latine that as Mr. Hickman hath not attempted to give us Scripture for his opinion so the FATHERS are very few whose very figurative speeches do look that way And their meaning is so conspicuous by what the same Fathers say before and after that if he drank out of the Fo●ntaines as I see he hath done out of several Cisterns I admire the greatness of his delusion His performance being no better then mine or any mans would be who should prove that an Idol hath not a positive being although the work of mens hands and made of Massy Gold or silver because it is said by the Apostle an Idol is nothing in the world Or that the Planters of Christianity had not onely no positive but not so much as a Real Being because it is said by the same Apostle that God hath chosen the things that are not to bring to naught things that are Yet this ad hominem is a strong way of arguing very much stronger then Mr. Hickmans by how much that of the Scripture is the greatest Authority in the world Now though it is said by the Holy Ghost that Circumcision is nothing that the foreskin is nothing that wicked men are of nothing that every man is but vanity yea and

that sin is nothing which is but non-ens in English why not figuratively spoken when they say that sin is a privation especially when there are testimonies out of the very same Writers not onely for the reality but positivity also of sin 2. The little Greek he produceth hath so very many faults in so very few lines not observed in his Errata that I conceive he did he knew not what with an implicit Faith in the skill of others from whom he borrow'd at second hand which I believe so much the rather because I find his own Authorities do overthrow the very errour for which he b●ings them Witness the words of A●hanasius which prove that sin hath no substance in opposition to those Greeks who contended that sin had a subsistence of it self whereas to the having a positivity there is nothing more required then that it be some kind of Accident Witness also those other words affirming no evil thing positive or privative to proceed from God who being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gives occasion to the expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which evil things may be called as not derived from him who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So when it is said by St. Austin ex uno Deo esse omnia quae sunt he explains his meaning to be of all good things and of none besides because he presently adds tamen non esse peccatorum auctorem Deum And if when Austin doth elsewhere say Peccatum nihil est he means according to the letter that sin is nothing in very deed first 't is a gross contradiction to what he saith in other places and secondly 't is the worst of his many Errours 3. The meaning of Aquinas I have elsewhere shewed And yet if I say with Dr. Iackson that Aquinas and his followers have sometim●s spoken u●excusably concerning God I shall but speak to the dishonour of Popish Writers by whom the rigid Presbyterians have been unhappily corrupted in these affairs Lastly whereas he saith that hea●h●n Philosophers did see this giving an instance in Salustius and no one else a man that shall affirm the eternity of the world may urge Aristotle for it and say the Heathens themselves discernd this truth Thus I say a man may argue who can find in his heart to argue no better then Mr. Hickman But be it that a heathen is of the Presbyterian judgement the Christian Fathers and Schoolmen are still of mine unless when they speak in such a manner against me as to speak as much against themselves too § 11. His second Reason is because he knows no other way of defining what ens primum is but this that it is such a Being which is not from any other being and which is the cause of all the Beings that are p. 78. First I observe from these words that the Libertine advanceth more and more to a clear discovery of it self For if he thinks that any sin as hating cursing blaspheming God hath any being in the world he professeth to believe that God himself is the cause of it And the cause is the Author of any being And so he is caught in the act of that very crime which himself had confessed to be the worst of all blasphemies and which is the Quintessence of all blasphemy saith Theophilus Churchman which is thought to signifie three men of which number Master Hickman himself is one in the rationall conjectures of all I meet with If he thinks that sin hath no being and by consequence that it is nothing then his words are most impertinent and prove him besides a meer Carneadist Secondly In saying God is the cause of all beings meerly because he is the first he seems to think there is but one way of priority whereas a Freshman in Logick could have told him there are five Is it not enough that God is the first of all Beings and was from eternity without beginning whereas all things else began to be and so was before the being of sin and of all things else in four respects but he must also be before it as the ●ause of its being Thirdly It may suffice to the defining of ens primum to say it is that which alone did neve● begin to be or that than which there is nihil prius and which praecedeth all others as much as eternity praecedeth time Or if the word cause must needs be added let it be said he is the cause of all good things that have a being whether naturally and necessarily or voluntarily acting But not the cause of those acts or actions which cannot but argue in the causer either wickedness and guilt or imperfection § 12. His third Reason in effect is but the same with the second as the second is the same with what he call'd his second Argument p. 77. And so I referr it for its answer both to the Section before going and to what I have said in my whole fifth Chapter especially to § 5 an● 6. Onely I add my observation that whilst God is by him affirmed to be the fountain of all essences p 79. who yet ascribeth one essence unto sin whilst he saith the action of hating God is essentially evil p. 94. he affirms God to be the fountain of all the sins in the world and that not only of the act but of the very essence of sin it self And because he seems to stumble most at the common axiom in Philosophy which is found urged by Mr. Barlow severall times upon one account to wit that the cause of the cause is the cause of the effect I will first send him back to what I have said in Answer to it chap. 5. § 5. num 2. Next I will set him down at large Aquinas his Answer unto the same effectus causae secundae procedens ab eâ secundum quod subditur causae primae reducitur etiam in causam primam Sed si procedat à causâ media secundum quod exit ordinem causae primae non reducitur in causam primam Sicut si minister faciat aliquid contra mandatum Domini hoc non reducitur in dominum sicut in causam Et similiter peccatum quod liberum arbitrium committit contra praeceptum Dei non reducitur in Deum sicut in causam § 12. His fourth pretended reason is most ridiculously pretended He believes no medium because forsooth Mr. P. hath not been able to find any for whereas I told him the works of the Divel are a medium he saith I could not sure but think he would distinguish in blasphemy lying c betwixt the vital act and its deficiency c. p. 79. The folly of this being discovered throughout my whole fourth chapter and in the beginning of this sixth and I may say throughout my fifth too but most expresly in my third chapter § 6. which is too long to be here repeated I shall onely

then the Scripture meanes when it saith the old man and the body of sin thereby expressing most briefely all the works of the flesh all unhallowed desires and vitious habits which are contrary to the law or spirit of God For so I gather from Dr. I. p. 3039. where he also gives notice that Illyricus his book was commended to him upon very high termes by the Reverend Dr. Field then Dean of Gloucester § 25. Next for the Reverend DOCTOR HAMMOND who ever occurs to my Remembrance when I hear or speak of judicious Hooker or Dr. Iackson he hath prov●d as well as taught that the Act of sin is not separable from the obliquity of that act the act of Blasphemy from the obliquity or i●regularity of blasphemy the least evil thought or word against an infinite good God being as crooked as the rule is straight consequently he that predetermins or makes the act must needs predetermine or make the obliquity so far is the act of sin which is granted by all to have a positive being from being one of Gods Creatures as Mr. Hickman feareth not to say that ●o all acts of sin saith Dr. Hammond God doth not so m●ch as incline and the Devil can do no more then perswade any man For his demonstrating of these and other things as that the men of that way which Mr. Hickman walks in do unavoidably make God the Author of sin confu't the latter part of his 16 Chapter of Fundamentals And now for the Reverend Dr. SANDERSON he hath abundantly inferred the positive entity of sin even in that very Sermon which he preached in his younger years before he changed his judgement as to the 5. points in cont●oversie I mean that Sermon which Mr. Hickman would have wrested to serve his turn For the Doctor there teacheth as St. Paul doth to Timo●hy 1 Ep. c. 4. v. 4. that every creature of God is good And therefore to hate God wich is an action intrinsecally evil can be none of Gods creatures in his opinion though it hath in the Devil a positive being and existence for that there is goodness in hating God is the sole opinion of Mr. Hickman and his Instructers 2. Common reason taught the Maniches saith Dr. S. that from the good God could not proceed any evil thing no more then Darkness from the Suns Lustre or gold from the scalding of the fire But the pos●●ive act of hating is wholly evil and so a sin notwithstanding its having a positive entity 3. God hath imprinted some steps and footings of his goodness upon the Creatures saith Dr. S. but in hating God there cannot be any such therefore he hold● it to be a sin though a positive entity 4. Look upon the workmanship and accordingly judge of the workman saith Dr. S. but we cannot judge of God by the positive being of hating God therefore he holds it to be a sin although it hath a positive being 5. Doctor S. saith we must not blame Gods creatures or say why was this made or why thus what good doth this or of what use is that it had been better if this or that had never been or if it had been otherwise But there are many positive entities which we may blame as Blasphemy pride hypocrisy hating of God and we may very well say why did David contrive the murder of Uriah and why thus treacherously what good did that murder of so loyal a subject of what use is the Divels hating God it had been better there had been no such thing therefore those are all sins as well as positive entities in the opinion of Dr. SANDERSON § 26. VASQVEZ inquiring into the formal part of sin divides his Disputation into thirteen Chapters The subject of the first is the opinion of Cajetan that the moral obliquity doth consist in ratione positivâ The subject of the third is the opinion of sundry modern Writers that it consists of a privation and something positive besides The subject of the fifth is to shew how they vary and disagree among themselves who are against its positivity about the assigning of that privation in which they suppose it to consist In the tenth he gives the judgement of subtil Scotus that obliquity sometimes is positively contrary to Rectitude Then adds his own in these words Ego tamen existimo omne peccatum commissionis sive fiat defectu circumstantiae debitae sive habeat circumstantiam contrariam semper esse peccatum ex relatione extrinsecâ oppositionis inconvenientiae cum Naturâ rationali Vtroque autem modo actus contrarius est In the eleventh Chapter he answers t● the Authorities alledged for its consisting in mere privation In the twelfth he answers to the Reasons offer'd for that opinion In the thirteenth he considers what was the Judgement of Aquinas in this affair which though at first he seemingly conceives to be somewhat doubtful Aquinas speaking in diverse places as if he had been of diverse minds too yet he proves his true Judgement to have been this That sin according to its Formality hath a positive being Affirmat malum in moralibus esse differentiam Actus moralis non quâ ratione est privatio debiti finis sed quatenus est entitas quaedam positivum cui privatio conjungitur Idem docuit 3. contra Gent. c. 9. Praeterea in hac primâ secundae q. 18. art 5. ad 2. q. 72. art 1. affirmat species peccatorum non ex priva●ione sed ex ordine ad objecta desumi Eo quod privatio per accidens se habeat cum peccato objecta vero per se. Cùm igitur supra q. 19. art 1. dixit malum bonum esse per se differentias actus in ratione actus Intelligi debet non de malo quod in privatione consistit quia privatio non potest essentialiter per se in actu aliquid constituere sed de malo positivo Quare ex hac parte aut nostrae aut Cajetani sententiae favet Our late Apologist for Tilenus who is very much consider'd by knowing Readers hath so far asserted the positivity of sin and so baffled M. Hickman even upon some of his own Grounds that instead of some Answer which M. Hickman by promise had obliged himself to give he hath given no more then a Tergiversation That MEDINA held sin to have a real positive absolute Entity And that Vasquez would have it to be a positive Relation M. Barlow did acknowledge in his dissent from both Exer. 2. p. 53 54. Timplerus held sin to have an efficient cause per se and so by consequence a positive being Reprehending Suarez for allowing it no more then an efficient per accidens Durandus A Dola are acknowledged by Churchman as Mr. Hickman is conceived to stile himself in that Pasquil to deny Gods concurrence to sinful acts and by consequence to hold the positive entity

being subordinate and determined by the first to that Numerical and particular Action which hath its specification from the influx of God either the action of hating God cannot possibly be a sin or not imputed as a sin to the second Cause thus acted by the first as hath been said But whatsoever it is must rest upon God as its Cause and Author If Mr Hick for an escape from this impiety shall rather say it is from God as the Immediate Cause his case will then be so much worse as it is worse by some odds to make God a sinner then only the cause of his Creatures sin Now besides that God is said to make the action which he forbids and at the Instant that he forbids it we know the obliquity to the action is so inseparably annexed that the Author of the One must needs be the Author of the other the inseparability is granted by Baronius § 5. p. 50.52 and not denied I think by any But I am truely so much in pain whilst Mr. Hick makes it my duty to expose him thus to publick view that I will onely refer him to the several parts of my ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the applying of this to his Distinction and choose to shew him the Danger of it out of other mens writings partly that Reason may not be slighted for want of Authority to commend it and partly to shew him I am no sharper then the necessity of the Case doth make it needful Because no sharper then other men who yet are famous for moderation I will begin with Dr. Field and the great Divines by him alledged and then proceeding to Dr. Goad one of the Synodists at Dort to Dr. Iackson and Diotallevius and other valuable Writers I will conclude with Dr. Hammond whom nothing but love to the truth of God and perfect zeal to his Honour could make to utter the least word that looks like sharpness to a Dissenter § 4. This distinction saith Dr. Field will not clear the doubt they move touching Gods efficiency and working in the sinful Actions of men Whensoever saith Durand two thins are inseparably joyned together whosoever knowing them both and that they are so inseparably joyned together chooseth the one chooseth the other also Because though haply he would not choose it absolutely as being evil and by the way no sinner doth so choose sin yet in as much as it is joyned to that which he doth will neither can be separated from it it is of necessity that he must will both The case appeareth in those actions which are voluntary and mixt As when a man casteth into the Sea those rich commodities to save his life which he would not do but in such a case Hence it followeth that the act of hating God and sinful deformity being so inseparably joyned together that the one cannot be divided from the other for a man cannot hate God but he must sinne damnably if God doth will the one he doth will the other also § 5. This of Durand is confirmed by Suarez who saith He shall never satisfie any man that doubteth how God may be cleared from being author of sin if he have an efficiency in the sinful actions of men that shall answer that all th●t is said touching Gods efficiency and concurrence is true in respect of the evil motions of mens wills materially considered and not formally in that they are evil and sinful For the one of these is consequent upon the other For a free and Deliberate act of a created will about such an act and such circumstances cannot be produced but it must have deformity annexed to it § 6. There are some operations or Actions saith Cumel that are intrinsecally evil so that in them we cannot separate that which is material from that which is formal as it appeareth in the hate of God and in this act ☞ when a man shall say and Resolve I will do evil so that it implyes a contradiction that God should effectually work our will to bring forth such actions in respect of that which is material in them and not in respect of that which is formal § 7. And this seemeth yet more impossible saith Dr. Field if we admit their opinion who think that the formal nature and being of the Sin of commission consisteth in some thing that is positive and in the manner of working freely so as to repugne to the rule of Reason and L●w of God so that it is clear in the judgement of those great Divines that if God hath a true reall efficiency in respect of the substance of these sinful actions he must in a sort produce the deformity or that which is formal in them And again the Dr. saith If God doth determine the will of man to work repugnantly to the Law he must needs move and determine it to sin seeing to sin is nothing else but to repugne unto the Law p. 125. § 8. It s a hard case saith Dr. GOAD when they have but one frivolous distinction to keep God from Sinning And then he confutes the evasion thus That which is a principall ●●use of any action is a cause of those concomitants which accompany that action necessarily This Rule is most certainly true Therefore if God by his Decrees do force us to do those actions which cannot be done without sin God himself I am afraid to rehearse it must needs be guilty of sin He gives an Instance in Adam's eating the forbidden fruit And I will gratifie my Reader with a Transcript of it because the Doctors Disputatio● is not commonly to be had If God decreed that Adam should unavoidably eat the forbidden fruit seeing the eating of that fruit which he had forbidden must needs be with a gr●ss obliquity I do not see saith the Doctor how this Distinction will justifie God For Adam sinned because he ate that fruit that was forbidden But they say God decreed that he should eat that fruit which was forbidden necessarily unavoidably The Conclusion is too blasphemous to be so often repeated The Reader may see as the Dr. goes on by which t is plain he intended his Disputation for the Press how wel that common distinction holds water Yea if this nicety were sound man himself might prove that he committed no murder although he stabbed the dead party into the heart For at his arraignment he might tell the Judge that he did indeed thrust a dagger into his heart but it was not that which took away his life but the extinction of his natural heat and vital spirits Who seeth not the wilde phrenzie of him that should make this Apologie yet this is all our Adversaries say for God They say his Decree was the cause that Adam took the forbidden fruit and put it into his mouth and eat that which he had commanded he should not eat yet they say he was not the cause of the transgression of the Commandment

Hypochondres as much as Fame hath affirmed it to have had dominion over his own I never was so inhumane as to upbraid my greatest enemy with any such bodily indisposition and have rather afforded my utmost help But since Mr. Hickman unprovoked could not abstain from objecting a sicknesse to me and such a sicknesse as I have ever by the blessing of God been exempted from it is his own fault onely though my misfortune that I am forced to expose him in this point also And for the future I do beseech him not to meddle in matters of which he hath not any knowledge nor to have so little mercy upon himself as to scourge his guilty self upon an innocent mans back but rather to conceal his great infirmities or onely reveal them to his Physician and apply himself to the means of cure I might in favour and mercy to him have prompted his Readers to believe that it was but his spleenative Conceit which made him say in his Epistle wherewith he dedicates his collection that the Doctrines printed before my birth were the meer chimaera's of my brain For which prodigious Adventure he is not capable of excuse unlesse his flatulent Hypocondres made him a kind of Pythagorean so as to fancy a transmigration of Calvin's soul into my body I am sure Pythagoras is reported to have thought himself to be Aethalides the son of Mercurie and that Aethalides being dead he became Euphorbus and that Euphorbus being departed he passed also into Hermotimus and that Hermotimus dying he lived in Pyrrhus the Fisherman And after Pyrrhus his decease he again survived in Pythagoras Sure 't were better for Mr. Hickman to think that my soul was once in Calvin or Zuinglius or Dr. Twisse then to call their writings the meer chimaera's of my brain or wilfully to deny what hath been read by thousands and may be seen in those Writers by all Mankind who can but read them The former I say were so much better then the later by how much better it is to be sick then sinfull And so 't were charity to imagine if that were possible to be done that this was one of Mr. Hickman's Hypochondriacal conceits § 76. It may be taken for one at least that he should charge me with Impudence against the Supreme Authority of the Nation p. 45. For if he deals syncerely as well as simply he hence inferr's the Oxford Visitors Mr. Cheynel and Mr. Wilkinson and such like things to have had the Supremacy in his opinion They alone being the men by whom I complaind I had been injur'd in their Transgressing the Prescriptions of those that sent them And loosers by a Proverb have still had liberty to complain I did but modestly hope Mr. Hickman would pay me my Arrears when again and again he tells his Readers I am impudent p. 45. and 47. so impudent I am as to own my Right though not so simple as to expect it And it is strange that Mr. Hickman should thus revile me for onely presuming to hope well of him or for refusing to dissemble what was so visibly my due So when the owner in the Parable sent for fruits of his Vineyard the Husbandmen abused his severall Messengers as well as sent them away empty I will not say of Mr. Hickman that he is impudent because his manners are none of mine but I must needs admire the strange nature of his modesty when he denyed a matter of Fact however attested by all mens eyes Sect. 77. If he means the two Houses by the Supreme Authority of the Nation as he seems to do pag. 47. he contradicts the fundamental Laws of the Land the Canons of the Church the Oathes of Allegeanc● and Supremacy and implicitely censures all the Members of the House of Commons by whom the Visitors were sent in the year 1648. as guilty of willful perjury when they took those oathes b●fore they sate or could sit as members in the House of Commons 1. The members of Parliament did even sw●ar in taking the Oath of Supremacy That the Kings Highn●ss is the onely Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Dominions and Countreys as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiasticall Things or Causes as Temporal 2. The King was ever acknowledged in the Prayers of the Clergie before their Se●mons to be the Supreme Head and Governour in all Causes and over all P●rsons Ecclesiasticall and Civill Nor may we think that the Clergie were either taught o● commanded to lye to God in their Publick prayers Nay 3. he was utt●rly testified and in conscience declared as well by the members of Parliament as by other subjects upon oath to be not onely the Supreme which shews that none can be above him but Solus Supremus Moderator as Dr. Sanderson observes the Sole and Onely Supreme Head and Governour which shews that none can be so besides him or that none can be equal to him 4. In the generall judgement of knowing men and of Dr. Sanderson in particular The Kings Supremacy is imported by the stile of Dread Soveraign and Soveraign Lord and that of Majesty expressions used by the two Houses of the late long Parliament in their h●mble Petitions and addresses unto the King nor need I here tell my Reader what an humble Petition is set to signifie and as well in the most solemn establishment of Laws as in actions and forms of Jurisdiction 5. Magna Charta was first granted in effect by King Iohn and confirmed with that Title by Henry the third of his mere free will and so the liberties of the subject cannot with reason be presumed to lessen the King of his Supremacie 6. Other Statutes which have the force of Acts of Parliament are known to be directed as private Writs with a Teste Meipso And the common stile of most others is found to run in this strain The King with the advice of the Lords at the humble Petition of the Commons wills this or that so the form of passing Bills is still observed to be this L● Ro● le veult The King will have it And s●it faict comme il est desiré Let it be done as it is desired plainly speaking by way of Grant to something sought or petitioned for From whence by some it hath been gathered that the R●ga●ion of Laws does rightly belong to the two Houses but the Legislation unto the King That their Act is Prepar●tive his onely Iussive 7. That Supremacy of Power which the Law hath invested the King withall is not onely over all particular persons but also over all states which all the subjects of this Realm and the Members of Parliament in particular are bound by oa●h both to acknowledge and to maintain And which they grant to be his Due when they desire him to protect them in their priviledges and call him alwayes in their Acts Their onely Soveraign Lord or their Royal Soveraign 8. The

Master Hickman denyes it to be an Accident Inseparable because forsooth 't is a propriety As if he should say it is not because it is and cannot possibly be otherwise The cause of his miscarriage must needs be this that he know's not the difference betwixt a praedicable and a praedicament Because Accidens and Proprium do make two praedicables he thinks that that which is proprium as Risibility cannot therefore be Accidens forgetting that accidens is divided into proprium commune and so does make a twofold praedicable Now let the Visitors consider what Reformation they have made when a titular Fellow of a Colledge and a titular Master of Arts is found not fit to be a tolerable Pupil whilst he stands in need of such Logick Lectures Is not Cicero a name because it is a proper name Or is not Mr. Hickman so much as a man because he is not a learned man no nor an animal by his reasoning because not Animal irrationale The blackness of a Crow he will grant to be an Inseparable accident but not the Crow's crocitation because the later is not less but more inseparable than the former I will not say blush but pity him all yee that have any respect for Magdalen Colledge § 93. He goes to prove that an Accident may be the subject of Inhaesion to an Accident because fides is either in Intellectu or in voluntate p. 51. And thus he takes it for granted that these are accidents which are known by all Scholars to be substantial faculties Aristotle calls the Intellect a part of the soul. A part I say not as if it had quantity but secundum rationem as he explains his own words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ochamus Gregorius Ariminensis Gabriel Biel Thomas Garbiu● Bonaventura Parisienses complures alii inquit Berigardus dicunt animae facultates esse ipsummet ejus essentiam quae prout variis in organis obit varia munera ipsa quoque diversis ●acultatum appellationibus nuncupatur Ostendi inquit Hurtadus Gratiam imitari Conceptus Naturae ac propterea esse in substan●îa animae Fides est in Intellectu id est in Animâ ad efficiendos actus intelligendi sub quo conceptu Anima est Intellectus This comes home to Mr. Hickman's Instance Nay Hurtadus is of opinion that no vital faculty is accidental Sed esse adaequatè idem vel cum animâ si est spiritualis vel cum toto composito si materialis Ita Greg. Arimin Henr. Gandavensis Gab. Biel universa Nominum schola quibuscum consentiunt non pauci Saint Austin saith that those Faculties are the Soul it self as existing in several parts of the body And again Anima est intellectus Anima est m●moria Anima est voluntas And again Intellectus non est aliquid aliud quàm Anima sed aliquid animae est Intellectus quomodo non aliquid aliud quàm caro est oculus sed aliquid carnis est oculus c. In animâ Tria intueor Rationem Memoriam Voluntatem haec Tria eandem esse animam N●c dissentit Scotus cum suâ scholâ quem adducit Pat. Valentia pro eadem sententiâ inquit Hurtadus Videtur ea sententia quod facultates animae sint secundum Rem ipsa substantia Animae alterâ longè proba●ilior 'T is true that some Confuted men are of another mind but they confess that their opinion cannot easily be proved and as I said before they are confuted However for their sakes though 't is likely Mr. Hickman doth not know with whom he err's I hold our Malefactor the more excusable § 94. But he is utterly unexcusable when he saith that sin is not acknowledged by any to be Complexum Quid except by Complexum we mean Complexum ex genere Differentiâ p. 53. For first that ' ●is complexum quid is so acknowledged by all by Doctor Sanderson in particular who is himself a great many that 'till I heard of one Mr. Hickman I heard of no man that e're deny'd it Next he affirms what he denyes by saying it is complexum ex genere differentiâ more than which he could not possibly have said for my advantage For first Mr. Hickman is but Animal rationale if we grant him the most that he can desire And what is Animal Rationale but onely genus differentia Next he clearly here confesseth the positive entity of sin though 't was more then he knew until I told him For every good Definition must be ex genere Differentiâ And every thing must be considered as under some species when so defined And 't will be granted by all the world that all the species in the world must needs imply their individuals to be positive Entities Which whensoever we say of sins we must needs understand it of Individuals Such as Murder Adultery Pride and Filching And any otherwise understood then as an Individual man Mr. Hickman himself hath no positive entity And yet he is not a sin but onely a very great sinner O the praevalence of Truth over the Advocate of Errour For as Balaam was overruled to bless that people against which he intended to pour out Curses so whilst our Rhapsodist endeavours to plead for errour the truth drops out at his Fingers ends A POSTSCRIPT Touching some late Dealings OF Master Baxter A POSTSCRIPT Touching Mr. Baxter condemned out of his own Works and proved excellently scandalous in Life and Doctrin § 1. HAving concluded with Mr. Hickman I should gladly have ended my Readers Trouble but that I finde Mr. Baxter hath dealt with Me and my Writings as the Synagogue of the Libertines once dealt with Stephen and his Oration when having nothing to Answer in the Defense of their Rebellion or for their Murder of Gods Anointed which Stephen had laid unto their charge they were so cut to the heart as S. Luke tells us the story that they gnashed upon him with their Teeth But finding him still to use the Liberty of his Tongue they were transported with greater Fury and so impatient of his words that that they stopped their ears and ran upon him with open mouth and with violent hands disputing him out of the Citie they flung their arguments at his head Arguments as hard as the hardest stones that He might not fail of a Confutation § 2. That Mr. Baxter is neer of kin unto the Synagogue of the Libertines I have evinced out of his writings in my New Discoverer Discover'd Where I have shewed in what degree he hath strengthened the hands of Evil Doers and encouraged the people in all the Villanies to be named even by striving to perswade them with all the Artifice he could use that if a man be once Regenerate Sanctified or Godly it is not Murder or Adultery or Drunkennesse or Incest or