Tim. 2. 1 2. prayers and intercessions and giving thanks for all men For Kings and all that are in authority c. which hath been so understood by some as if he had intended here to distinguish and establish a co-ordination of Governours over the same people but there is no necessity at all of such a consequence and St. Peter expresly distinguisheth their relations 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. not to be co-ordinate but subordinate saying Submit your selves to every ordinance of man that is not as some weakly and presumptuously would interpret the Apostle as if Kings and Princes were mens creatures and by them constituted but humane Creature which is the word in the Original doth signifie such Persons as have authority over men as men and not as Christians such as were then Civil Governours amongst the Gentiles which the phrase of the Jews commonly called Creatures barely and Humane as having no such Divine Graces conferred on them as had the Jews for the Lords sake whether it be unto Kings as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well Here Governours are said to be of two sorts not co-ordinate and subordinate but Supream and Subordinate such as have authority immediately and absolutely in themselves without dependence upon others and such as are of an Inferiour order and under the said Supream rule and execute Justice So that nothing can be more absurdly and sediciously taught than to make such as are constituted by another to have any authority at all over their Founder and Lord the author of their power I know infinite instances may be brought of Common-wealths which have admitted and been governed by such a Co-ordination or at least a power reserved in store in the hands of certain persons whose proper office and care it should be to regulate and reduce to a safe mean the extreams which single and absolute Monarchs may easily fall into But all these varying so exceedingly from the natural form of Government sway not much with me For that which is natural and of Divine Ordinance and Institution cannot possibly be uncertain and mutable so that no man shall be able to know where to place his duty of Obedience which God requires to be paid to such as are in Authority And obedience being due only to the Supream himself immediately or to those that derive authority from him how is it possible to understand but by the sad effects of power pressing and afflicting a man where he is to yield his obedience Therefore surely God can have no hand in such modellings of States which shall perplex a man in rendring his subjection For it is not a great empty and ridiculous Title which maketh a Supream but entire power and absolute freedom at least from subjection to others especially of his own Dominion All Titles without this are honourable Mockeries but the real Supremacy is actual I say not how justly or injuriously in those Tutours of Princes and Keepers of the Liberties of the people as is commonly given out and in this case supposing that Right and Power are not separated not these Proveditors or Senatours who thus chastise Princes are rebellious but they who bearing the name of Kings and Princes being in truth but meer subjects refuse to submit to the decrees of their Superiours But if possession giveth not Right which is the most Christian as well as rational opinion it may be doubted how a just title can be acquired by any Persons in co-ordination to the Supream power when as we have shown the People never had any such themselves and therefore can transferr none nor such select persons had any of themselves who assume this nor is it to be conceived how any natural Right should descend upon many persons as the Paternal power doth upon one from whence Monarchical Power and Right may flow And If Senatours as they call them or suck like States-men cannot regularly found their title in nature or Divine Writ or revelation It was no act of Rebellion that greatest act of Hostility in Julius Caesar to reduce the Roman Common-wealth to Monarchy For there are two things to be considered in Civil Authority The Government it self in its form and kind and the Governour invested with this The Person Governing may doubtless offend notoriously though I dare not say forfeit to any other his Authority but the Government it self being abused cannot be in fault or for any miscarriages of the Person lapse to other The Government is religiously to be observed and secured from adulterations and corruptions even when the Monarch is irreligiously discarded and dethroned So that the Tyranny of a single person invading the Government administred by States and arrogating the Supremacy to himself alone must needs be less criminal than for many conspiring into a Common-wealth to change both Person and Government from the Natural to the Artificial and meerly of Humane invention and pleasure Now that Possession doth not alwayes include a Title nor Might Right in Civil Affairs is both most reasonable and Christian to believe Reasonable from several heads First from the notoriousness of the mischiefs which croud in upon all Societies of Men where this Tenet is received For what a powerful motive will it be to all discontented persons to invade others and dispossess them when there lies no other difficulty before them but the means to attach successfully whom they intend to destroy but having overcome that by whatever villanies they shall be reputed as legal owners of what they are become Masters as the most innocent and just person of all But can ever any peace or security be expected by that Society wherein it shall be lawful for any man to intrude himself into Power No say some Power acquired and possessed doth give Right to hold but not justifie the Act of inordinate acquiring the same But if it be true in Logick That the Conclusion doth alwayes partake of the weakness of the Premisses and in Nature That an evil cause be it but of the nature of a Circumstance corrupteth the whole effect is it not altogether as rational that such an hainous act in the acquiring such Power here should quite marr the effect Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one saith holy Job 14. 4. Recte factum est ut id quod male caeptum est Autoritate publica destrucretur Damasus Epist Acholio Eurydico c. apud Holstennii Collectionem pa. 40. Part. 1. Job So not one can by an unrighteous Act produce a righteous effect Neither can the inveterateness of an Evil any wayes mitigate the same nor tract of time wipe away that Guilt which was at first acquired For prescription in such cases never gives just Title but where other Titles are extinguished which is by accident Then indeed Possession it self giveth not a good Title but hath less evil and inconvenience
one way which such self-determination being known to God renders him truly Prescient and Omniscient and that without errour But this will not stand the encounter For Gods knowledge about the Creature being wholly conditional as we have shewed supposing the application of natural Causes in natural Effects and free Causes to free Effects there will be no Cause to be found or imagined in nature why two equally by nature Free shall extreamly differ in their choice of the same object How can that be known which neither hath a being in it self nor its Causes But the Case in hand is such For the Object being the same to both and the Subject being the same in both Freedom of Will to chose it is not intelligible how it should be fore-seen that one will certainly tend this way and the other the Contrary And if there be a difference in the Wills St. Augustines question so often and pressingly urged against the Pelagians out of St. Paul will put them hard to it to answer viz. Who made thee to differ and what hast thou that thou hast not received Comes it from a mans self as free If so then it should come from all alike where all are alike free and if all be not alike free then there is difference made to their hand and not by themselves Again the common Argument will be of no ordinary force upon them which layeth this undeniable and unshaken foundation That God is the Cause of all Causes and the First mover in all natural actions and motions but here as some of the Schoolmen and amongst others Suarez by name hath it God should stand still look on Suarez in 1. 2dâ— Thom. Disput 6. Tract 4. and await for a time the first self-motion of the Creature without any prae-moving vertue effectual to the end and see whether he will turn to the right hand or to the left before he knows any thing of certainty concerning that But they proceed farther and say That God having indued the Free Agent with sufficient abilities to Act the original cause of Acting must be himself and so his universasity of Cause â—aâ—ved to him But to this we reply That three things are to be considered in indifferent Actions The Power to Act which is indifferent The Determination of this power to one which takes off the indifferencie and the Action it self which in the execution is necessary because as the Axâ—ome hath it Every thing when it is necessarily is Now the latter indeed may be ascribed to God as likewise the first as the true Author upon general concessions of power but the second cannot because what I think hath not been considered there is a distinction to be made between the power of Acting or not Acting and Acting this or the contrary to it and the power of determining it self to one rather than the other For if as in an equal ballance the two Scales of mans Free-will are so evenly posited that they are no more propense to one than the other side the Affirmative or Negative doth it not necessarily follow there must be the help of a finger or such thing to make a difference though the least touch will do it So that the power of moving up or down is plainly one thing and the power of determining the same quite another here and so likewise in mans Free-will made free and thus indifferent by Grace which they call sufficient though this will not be allowed by such as require a particular and immediate converse of God to all Actions as did likewise the most Philosophical Heathens as I could show From whence we may collect that God seeing nothing but what has a real being in it self or Causes and the Power of Acting being not sufficient to give a being to an effect but the Execution of that Power if this Execution hath no cause it cannot be known and it hath no immediate cause until man hath actual being according to that opinion that makes man the absolute cause of determining his actions and not God For surely man cannot determine before he hath existence and therefore it cannot be and therefore neither known to be so much as future For man before he is can give no causality to this determination and they say God doth give none Therefore it is not at all and cannot at all be known of God Neither can it be said That things future are Real Beings though not Actual and Present and so may be known of God because that which is future cannot be actually known but as it is actual and not simply future and therefore is the knowledge of God by more accurate speakers truly called Vision rather than Praevision And those things that are future as to their proper Existence are present as to their Causes in Gods counsels but if there be no such to be found with God then can there be no such Causes at all For that cannot be said to be the Cause of a thing which at the same time is the Cause equally of the contrary or contradiction to that thing but the undetermined will of Man is indifferent to both sitting still or walking at the same time no cause inclining to one more than other which should found a certain knowledge of one and not of the other CHAP. X. Four doubts cleared concerning the Knowledge and Decrees of God and Free Agents and Contingent Effects How man that infallibly acts is responsable for his Actions The frivolous Evasion of the said difficulties by them of Dort TO the vindicating the former Discourse from just reprehension it will here be expected that we explain our selves in answer to these following Quaeries First Whether the knowledge of God be the Cause of things future or things future the Cause of his knowledge or otherwise Whether God knows a thing because it shall come to pass or It shall come to pass because God knows it In answer to which we must distinguish a twofold knowledge in God An Ideal knowledge and a Real knowledge as we may be allowed to speak after the manner of Men reserving still to God his absolute simplicity The Ideal knowledge of God is that whereby he perfectly knows all things in their proper forms which are possible and intelligible And this doth not depend at all upon his Decrees which we make the Cause of all Existence in the Creature but the Decrees of God depend upon this God decreeing nothing to be future which he first by simple intuition beholds not in its proper Nature and Circumstances as men of Contemplation first weigh the nature means and ends of things before they resolve upon them But the Real knowledge which we signally so call because it relates to the Real Existence of the thing so known does certainly depend upon the antecedent Decree of God no possible reason being to be rendred why God should know a thing to be but because it is certainly and not fallibly to him to be And no
of no personal concurrence to such deformity Yet not so neither but that it justly is denominated Sin from the very nature and effects of it For seeing whatever is in the Will must be good or evil and if the Will be found crooked perverse or averse to that it ought to incline to this is contrary to Gods institution and Law and whence ever this proceeds from an immediate act of our own or by traduction from others seeing it is found in the Will it must needs be contrary and consequently odious to God and in conclusion sinful Again as the fountain poisons and corrupts all streams flowing from thence so the Will being thus corrupt and naturally thus ill inclined all the other defects even in his body as well as soul contracted by this fall are as so many deformities in man which render him deservedly hated of God seeing such disparity and unlikeness to the worse to that which he first fram'd Thirdly Original sin in Man hath this more of disorder in it that it not only is a corruption of the will and thereby a deformity and vitiosity in the inferiour parts and faculties but it is of ill consequence For if this depravation went no farther than that evil born with us if it stand there and wrought no more evil the nature of it had been less sinful and more tolerable but being of an active nature and having taken up the chiefest room in the soul of Man it disposeth and impelleth to more mischief in actual transgressions As a Garrison held by a Rebel doth not only offend Sacred Majesty by standing out against him it self but when it finds it self strong enough and hath opportunity sallies out and makes invasion upon its proper Soveraign and offers actual and active violence against him So by this Original Evil first possessing the Soul doth Concupiscence stir and act by outward practises contrary to the Law and Will of God And therefore when St. Austin saith alledged by the corrupters of this Doctrine of Original Corruption They are born not properly but originally evil he no wayes contradicts his own Doctrine whereby he most of all farther explained and maintained this Original sin being the first that gave the name Original to that Pravity in man For true it is that that only is called properly Original Sin which Adam and Eve in person committed and were not subject to by nature as their Posterity are because it was the first in respect of mankind as well in order of time as nature and causality Again though this be traduced unto us his Off-spring and be the cause and fountain of all other sins actually committed afterward and for the same causes may rightly be called Original yet considering that this Evil thus vitiating our nature had no consent of our personal will we neither understood it nor any wayes affected it it cannot be so properly called sin as others which we act knowingly and willingly our selves For nothing is in strict way a sin which we do not consent unto in some manner either immediately or in its remoter causes And this doth yet farther appear because no man is bound to repent properly of Original sin Proper Repentance being an Act contrarying and reversing so far as in us lyes some evil by us done and not suffered involuntarily But Original sin is rather suffered than acted by the children of Adam Yet though in the severst sense we cannot be said to repent of Original sin we are bound to exercise some Act of Repentance for the same As grief and sorrow of mind and heart for the evil we lye under Confession and Recognition of our sad state before God Imploration of his mercie and favour to remove the same from us and restore us to our pristine innocencie and integrity For this those many places of Scripture describing this Evil do seem to require at our hand And no where doth the Scripture more fully declare this unto us than in the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans which because Socinus and such as plough with his Heifer and are tickled with his pretty phansies in eluding the Apostles meaning and the constant interpretation of the most Ancient and Modern Expositours we shall more particularly consider It is undeniable that St. Paul Rom. 5. amplifying the grace of God and benefits unto mankind even the Gentiles by Christ Jesus doth there make a comparision from the Twelfth verse to the end of the Chapter of the first and second Adam and of the Evil we sustained by the first Man Adam and the benefits we receive by the second Man Christ To this he supposes the ground of his Comparison which is this that By one v. 12. man Sin entred into the world and death by Sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned This is made no more of than that Adam being the first Man in the world and sinning Sin must needs enter first into the world by him if he sinned first and that death followed upon that sin of Adam But if this be all how come the effects to exceed the cause and death to extend farther than sin For it is not only said that death entred into the world in seizing upon that single Malefactour Adam but So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned where two things are to be noted First the note of dependance and consequence So. For if St. Paul had meant that Adam by himself and only for himself introduced death wherefore serves the tearm So which is a certain indication of the manner how death came into the world upon all persons and as much as if it had been said Adam first sinning and bringing death into the world so it was that this death fell upon all men for that all have sinned Now it is certain that all that dye have not sinned personally and therefore Secondly the Note So must also ralate to the Cause of that death which was sin and is as much as Adam sinning his Posterity also sinned and became obnoxious to death For to say as some eminently learned and useful otherwise in their Doctrine of Repentance Death passed upon all i. e. say they Upon all the whole world who were drowned in the floud of Divine vengeance and who did sin after the similitude of Adam is as much as if another Scholiaâ—t like him had said That is upon all Senacheribs Armies before Jerusalem in the dayes of Hezekiah or Upon all the Romans in the battle of Canna with Hannibal For it is certain that all men dye and it is no less certain that all men without exception died not in the floud And therefore what is added upon these words In as much as all have sinned that by them is meant All have sinned upon their own account we have already shown that it is not absolutely true and therefore cannot be St. Pauls meaning For all that dye have not as did Adam or following Adams
shalt not kill thy neighbour or another man but simply Thou shalt not kill And though indeed about the earliest dayes of the Persecution of the Church of Christ some men and more especially young women to prevent the abuses of their bodies cast themselves away and this was connived at by the Church yet upon more mature discussion and consideration of the notoriousness of the Fact it was condemned expresly by the Church nay for men needlesly and voluntarily to declare and publish themselves to be Christians and so to offer themselves to the Sword of the Magistrate was judged wicked and the practisers of it denyed to be Christians any farther than in name as appears in Clemens Alexandrinus And those Noble Persons Clem. Alex. l. 4. Strom. p. 481. 504. who are recorded in Scripture to have affected such deaths can be no more presidents for to justifie this sin than others other scandalous sins unless as St. Austin inclineth to believe answering the furious Donatists who out Aug. 1. c. 26. Civ Dei of mad zeal rather against the Church than for God were wont to destroy themselves they had some special instinct so to do from God as Sampson might be thought to have in that he was divinely assisted above his ordinary strength to pull down the house And besides his intention was not out of weariness or discontent of his life principally to destroy himself but the Enemies of God of himself and the people of God And there seems no great difficulty or inconveniencie to grant that a man may run himself into apparent danger of his life to bring a most notorious dammage to the Enemies of God and his Country though not upon his own head but by just Authority So that I make no doubt but Voetius determined the Voetius Select Disp Part 4. p. 256. Case of Conscience amiss denying that a man in desperation of saving himself and his ship of War from falling into the hands of his Enemies may with a good Conscience blow it up and all in it For all his arguments prove no more than that this a man may not do of himself because no man must slay himself but they prove not that a man may not do this by command and injunction of his Superiours in whose power his life is and to whom belongs his Vessel And what is said against a mans destroying his own life or his neighbours makes also against any maiming or mutilation of the body of himself or others though not ending in death The true reason of all which Recte dicitur inquit Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Plato in Phaedone is First because it is against a Law of Nature imprinted deeply by God himself in the minds of men yea all living creatures to study and endeavour their own preservation which Law is hereby directly broken Secondly No man is absolute Master of himself but first as Plato hath noted is as it were the Goods of God and then a Servant to his Country and therefore without Gods consent or his Countries by the Soveraign power discharges him of his duty and service towards it he is an Offender against both And hereunto pertains the high Crime of causing Abortion and Miscarriages of Women to hide their former sin And as the Fact it self is forbidden so all ordinary Causes tending thereunto as all evil and provoking language All evil affections as hatred anger malice and such like All assistance by conspiring counselling or acting outwardly are certainly forbidden Lastly as the thing it self and all evil acts and offices are forbidden so because the Righteousness of Christians must exceed that of Scribes and Pharisees as our Saviour Christ saith in St. Matthew therefore Christians Matth. 5. are obliged hereby to all reasonable and charitable acts of love friendship piety as well as justice conducing to the support and preservation and comfort of their brethren especially in Christ as St. Paul advises to the Galatians As we have therefore opportunity let us do good unto all men especially Gal. 6. 10. unto them who are of the houshold of Faith And herein he followed the Precept of Christ I say unto you Love your enemies bless them that curse Matth. 5. 44 you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you That ye may be the Children of your Father which is in 45. heaven for he maketh c. And therefore by this Commandment are requiâ—ed of us all acts of Mercy as Visiting the sick and imprisoned Feeding the hungry Clothing the naked Ministring assistance by counsel and action to the oppressed Comfort to the dejected and such like Knowing and considering that they who as Goats stand at the Left hand of Christ at the last Day of Judgment shall not be condemned only for injuries and injustices done to others but because Christ in his members was an hungred and ye gave him no meat was thirsty and ye gave him no drink Matth. 25. 42 43. Was a stranger and ye took him not in naked and ye clothed him not sick and in prison and ye visited him not The Seventh Commandment interdicteth all uncleanness in these §. VII words Thou shalt not commit Adultery Which Philo Judaeus following herein the Septuagint and having no skill in the Hebrew or Original Tongue as hath been observed by learned men and is easily to be discerned by any Reader placeth before the Commandment Thou shalt not kill though in the Fifth Chapter of Deuteronomy where the Decalogue is repeated the order of the Original is observed which implyeth some Errour happening in Exodus For neither is the reason of Philo or Grotius inclining to that opinion valid viz. because Adultery is the greatest sin a man can commit against his neighbour For undoubtedly Murder is more heinous There is some variety in the New Testament in the reciting of this Command For Mark 10. 9. and Luke the 18. 20. the order of the Septuagint in Exodus is kept Matthew 19. 18. the order of Deuteronomy is followed which teaches that the diversity was ancient and that not stood scrupulously on But the putting of Thou shalt not steal before Thou shalt not commit adultery in Exodus 20. not approved by Philo or his Followers should make that place of Exodus more suspected of alteration than that of Deuteronomie But the matter not being great and that only concerning the Greek Translation the End and Contents of this Law are more seriously to be attended which may be conveniently reduced to these following heads First unclean thoughts and inward motions and dispositions and most of all Resolutions to offend in act being not hindered For this Christ our most pure President and holy Doctour condemns for adultery in the Heart Matth. 5. I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust Matth. 5. 28. after her hath committed adultery with her in his
of it And first of Prayer the chiefest act of Gods worship contrary to Sectaries who are enemies to it in three respects And first by their vain conceit of Preaching wherein consisteth not the proper worship of God as in Prayer Chap. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not especially in Prayer by opposing Setforms of publick worship Reasons against extemporary Prayers in publick The places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered Chap. IX A third abuse of the worship of God by Sectaries in neglecting publick Prayers without Sermons censured That Prayer in a publick place appointed for Gods worship ought at all times to be offered to God Scripture and Universal Tradition require it above that in private places The frivolousness of such reasons as are used against it The Reasons for it Chap. X. A fourth Corruption of the worship of God by confining it to an unknown Tongue Scripture and Tradition against that custom A fifth abuse of Prayer in denying the People their Suffrage contrary to the ancient practise of the Church Chap. XI Of the Circumstances of Divine worship and first of the proper place of Divine worship called the Church the manner of worshipping there Of the Dedication of Churches to God their Consecration and the effects of the same That no man can convert any part of the Church to his private use without profanation of it and Sacriledge Against the abuse of Churches in the burial of dead bodies erecting Tombs and enclosing them in Churches or Chancels Rich men have no more Right to any part of the Church than the Poor The Common Law can give no Right in such Cases Chap. XII Of the second Circumstance of Gods worship Appointed times Of the Sabbath or Seventh-day how it was appointed of God to the Jews but not by the same Law appointed to Christians Nor that one day in Seven should be observed The Decalogue contains not all moral duties directly Gentiles observed not a Seventh day The New Testament no where commands a Seventh day to be kept holy Chap. XIII Of the Institution of the Lords Day That it was in part of Apostolical and partly Ecclesiastical Tradition Festival dayes and Fasting derived unto us from the same fountain and accordingly to be observed upon the like grounds Private Prayers in Families to the neglect of the publick worship unacceptable to God Of the Obligation all Priests have to pray daily according to their Office Of the abuse of Holy-dayes in the Number and unjustifiable occasions of them Of the seven Hours of Prayer approved by the Ancient Church and our first Reformers Mr. Prins Cavils against Canonical Hours refuted Chap. XIV The third thing to be considered in the worship of God viz. The true object which is God only That it is Idolatry to misapply this Divine worship What is Divine worship properly called Of the multitude and mischiefs of New distinctions of worship Dulia and Latria though distinct of no use in this Controversie What is an Idol Origen s criticism of an Idol vainly rested on What an Image What Idolatry The distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon divers reasons rejected The Papists really Idolatrous notwithstanding their good Intentions pretended Intention and Resolution to worship the true God excuses not from Idolatry Spalato Forbes and others excusing the Romanists from thence disproved That Idolatry is not always joyned with Polytheism or worshipping more Gods than one How the Roman Church may be a true Church and yet Idolatrous Chap. XV. Of Idolatry in the Romish Church particularly viz. In worshipping Saints Angels Reliques and especially the supposed Bloud of Christ No good foundation in Antiquity or the Scriptures for the said worship Chap. XVI Of the fourth thing wherein the worship of God consisteth viz. Preaching How far it is necessary to the Service of God What is true Preaching Of the Preaching of Christ wherein it consisteth Of painful Preaching That the Ministery according to the Church of England is much more painful then that of Sectaries The negligence of some in their duty contrary to the rule and mind of the Church not to be imputed to the Church but to particular Persons in Authority Chap. XVII The fifth general Head wherein the exercise of the worship of God doth consist Obedience That Obedience is the end of the Law and Gospel both That the Service of God principally consisteth therein Of Obedience to God and the Church The Reasons and Necessity of Obedience to our Spiritual as well as Civil Governours The frivolous cavils of Sectaries noted The severity of the Ancient and Latter Greek Church in requiring obedience The folly of Pretenders to obedience to the Church and wilfully slight her Canons and Laws more material than are Ceremonies Chap. XVIII Of Obedience to the Church in particular in the five Precepts of the Church common to all viz. 1. Observation of Festival dayes 2. Observation of the Fasts of the Church Of the Times Manner and Grounds of them Exceptions against them answered 3. Of the Customs and Ceremonies of the Church 4. Frequentation of the publick worship 5. Frequent Communicating and the due preparation thereunto Chap. XIX A Preparation to the Explication of the Decalogue by treating of Laws in General What is a Law Several kinds of Laws Of the obligation of Laws from Justice not Force only Three Conditions required to obliging Of the Ten Commandments in special Their Authour Nature and Use Chap. XX. Of the Ten Commandments in Particular and their several sense and importance Chap. XXI Of Superstition contrary to the true Worship of God and Christian Obedience AN INTRODUCTION TO THE Knowledge of the true Catholick Religion Part the First Book the First CHAP. 1. Of the Nature and Grounds of Religion in general Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious RELIGION is the supream act of the Rational Creature springing from the natural and necessary Relation it beareth to the Creatour of all things God Almighty Or a due Recognition of the Cause of all Causes and Retribution of service and worship made to the same as the fountain of all Goodness derived to inferiour Creatures For there being a most excellent order or rather subordination of Causes in the Universe there is a necessary and constant dependance one upon another not by choice but natural inclination And the Perfection of all Creatures doth consist in observing that station and serving those ends and acting according to those Laws imposed by God on all things Thus the Heavenly Bodies moving in a perpetual and regular order and Psal 148. the Earth being fruitful in its seasons and the course of the Waters observing the Laws given them by God may be said to worship and obey him Which worship being performed according to that more perfect state of the Rational Creature and the prescriptions given to it may
that none can without another extraordinary confirmation rest satisfied that so it is really with him Lastly for our clearer proceeding We are herein to distinguish between the attaining to the true sense of Scripture and the decision or determination of Controversies according to the Scripture And that the most important Query is not so much Whether a man hath the Spirit or not or whether he hath the truest and most genuine meaning of the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures or not but how this should be made known and manifested so far unto others as that they should rationally and soberly rest satisfied in the opinions of the said pretenders to such truths For it s well and smartly said in this doubt The Question is not Whether the Spirit in a Man or Church or the Scripture though this last way is very improperly expressed be the best Judge of the Sense of Scripture but where it resides to such purposes And what a great stir is made to little purpose while the former is so easily granted on all sides and there is nothing done at all to convince a sober man or Christian That such or such persons are they we ought expect the dictates of Gods Spirit from For Judgement properly so called can never be separated from Autority or lawful presiding over others joyned with power to oblige to such sentence as shall be passed but how this should be competible to single or many Persons agreeing in the same thing in their private capacity yea though enabled with the spirit more than ordinary cannot well be understood So that at most they can be judges of controversies only for themselves and that at their own peril and can do no more than perswade advise and exhort not oblige others to think as they do But Judges must and ought to do more or they had as good do nothing So that that which hath found great acceptance and applause by too many doth upon examination prove very insignificant and impertinent to the resolution of the difficultie in hand viz. That things that are necessary are obvious in Scripture and Every man is Judge to himself granting I say This which is yet really untrue yet scarce any thing is said to the purpose which enquired not so much How a man might perswade himself but how and with what influence he may proceed to the conviction and reducing of others so that the essential to a Church be not destroyed as it certainly must be where no communion is and there will infallibly cease all communion where it is meerly arbitrary for Christians to believe and judge and walk and worship as they please For this it is for every man to judge for himself Will it be yet farther said That we should bear with one another and live peaceably and charitably one with another and not molest each other for his Judgement If it be as I know it is I reply first That this plausibility without possibility is not true according to the opinions of them who use it For they certainly hold That Heresie and Schism are not to be endured or born withal Christ and God must not be blasphemed by unsound opinions or prophane or superstitious actions and this diversity yea contrariety of judging must needs find these faults in one another very often and consequently be of opinion That they are not to be suffered and Charity must not be so far mistaken or abused as to licentiate such enormities But What if after all this contention for the Spirit it be not judge at all as in truth it is not in any proper sense For the Spirit is only the due qualification of the Person or Persons not simply to judge for that descends upon them by being ordinarily and orderly constituted over the Church of Christ but to judge aright and to give faithful and unerring sentence in matters under debate and question And the same may be in proportion affirmed of Reason termed by some who would seem to excell others in reason most improperly as well as unreasonably Judge of Controversies For all judgement disquisition and expositions are made by Persons not by things Reason indeed is the Instrument whereby a Person is enabled to judge or find out the truth unto which unless there be a due accession of Autority and Power such reason though very exquisite and happy must keep within its own doors and judge at home for it self and not for others nor contrary to more publick and autoritative determinations without the peril of being taxed of Arrogance and it self justly condemned if not for the Inward errours of the mind for the outward errors in ill managing truths If it were so That Reason in men were infallible we ought not to stand upon nicities of terms or improper language But for men to deny others the Seat and Power of Judicature because they may err and to take it to themselves as if the spirit of Error had no power over them is at the same time a grievous though pleasing error both against Reason and common justice too And if it be said That every man is bound by the Law of nature being indued with reason to use that reason and not bruitishly to suffer himself he knows not or cares not whether to becarried by others Reasons and not his own I retort And every man is obliged by the Law of Nations which is a more refined principle than that of gross Nature properly taken to contain himself in the order of Community he is placed and to submit to the reason of common Judgement no less than his own For undoubtedly until every man in private and particular be unerrable which is not to be expected on this side heaven there will diverse inconsistent judgements prevail and divide one from another and cause such a breach as the society whether divine or humane will soon perish and come to nothing But granting what was before demanded That every man must act according to his reason above the nature of beasts this doth not conclude That therefore he must be let alone and not brought even by force to submit to others against such reason First Because it is not resolved by any but a mans own deceitful opinion That it is really reason which is so presumed to be Secondly Because he that is so constrained to submit his reason is not thereby denyed either the nature or use of his but still much transcendeth the capacity of beasts For He discusses he discourses he judges rationally after the manner of men even when the effect of all these Acts are contrary to reason And lastly In wise men and good humble Christians there is a superior principal of reasonableness to that of meer direct nature For That he that has most reason on his side and when that it self is controverted he that according to appearance of Circumstances may lay the fairest claim to that is to be followed no rational man can deny Therefore should a Mans
inconditionate and absolute on mans part is to blaspheme the immutable Justice of God and withall destroy the use of Faith in order to our Justification For it is impossible any thing bearing the name of a cause or condition as Faith certainly doth when we say We are Justified by â—aith should be posteriour to the thing it so relates unto The promise indeed of pardon and Justification of a sinner is actually made to those who do not actualâ—y believe and repent but promise answerably and covenant to believe and repent Non enim ut fâ—â—â— eat ignis cal facit sed quia fervet Nâ—c ideo benâ— currit roâ—a ut rotunda sâ—t sed quia rotunda Aâ—g ad Simplic Qu. 1. but the Execution and performance of this promise is not made before there be an actual fulfilling of our Covenant with God But then on the other side there must be perfect Justification before there can be that perfect Sanctification which we all aspire unto and God expects from us For then are we truly Sanctified when our works are holy and acceptable unto to God which they are not untill they proceed from a person so far Justified as to be accepted of God Whence may be resolved that doubt about Gods acceptation of the person for the works sake or the work for the persons sake For wisely and truly did the wife of Manoah inferr Gods acceptation of their sacrifice from the favour and grace he bore unto their persons and at the same time prove the favour God bore to their persons from the Acceptance of their sacrifice saying If the Lord were pleased to kil us he Judg. 13. 23. would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these That God therefore accepted their Burnt-offering it is a sign he approved their persons but the reason antecedent of Gods acceptation of their sacrifice was because he first approved their persons And yet notwithstanding the goodness of the person is the original of the goodness of the work nothing hinders but the goodness of the work may add value favour and estimation unto the person As to use Luthers comparison and others after and before him the tree bears the fruit and not the fruit the tree And the goodness of the tree is the cause of the goodness of the fruit and not the goodness of the fruit the cause of the goodness of the tree Yet the fruit doth procure an esteem and valuation from the owner to the tree and endears it to him to the cultivating the ground and dressing it and conferring much more on that than others In like manner the Person Sanctified and Justified produces good works and not those good works him but some actions accompanied with Gods grace antecedent and inferiour to the fruit it self Yet doth the fruit of good Works add much of esteem and honour from God to such a person and render him capable of an excellent reward for St. Paul to the Philippians assureth them and us when he saith I desire fruit that may abound to your account Phil. 2. 7. CHAP. XVIII Of Justification as an Effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and How The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the Principal Cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ. TO the informing our selves aright in the much controverted point of Justification which whether it be a proper effect of Good works or not doth certainly bear such a relation â—o them as may well claim this place to be treated of it seemeth very expedient after we have distinguished and illustrated it by Sanctification explained to proceed to distinguish it likewise from Justice For as Righteousness or holiness the ground of Sanctification is to be distinguished from Sanctification it self so is Justice the ground to be distinguished from Justification its complement and perfect on This being omitted or confusedly delivered by diverse hath been no small cause of great obscurities For Righteousness or Justice seems to be nothing else but an exact agreement of a mans actions in general to the true Rule of Acting and that Rule is the Law or word of God For he that offends not against that is undoubtedly a Just man of himself by his own works and needs nothing but Justice to declare and ackowledg him for such no mercy nor favour As that thing which agrees with the square or Rule is perfect But notwithstanding such supposed perfect conformitie to the Law of God be perfect righteousness yet is not this to be Justified Neither can any man in Religion be said more to Justifie himself than in civil cases where it is plainly one thing to be innocent and to be an accurate unreproveable observer of the Law in all things and to have sentence pronounced in his behalf that so indeed he really is For this is only to Justifie him though in pleading his own case in clearing and vindicating himself a man is vulgarly said to Justifie himself And no otherwise if we will keep to the safe way of proper and strict speaking is it in Religion Supposing that which never happen'd since Christ that a man should have so punctually observed every small as well as great precept of Gods Law that no exception could be taken against him yet is he not hereby Justified though he may be said to be the true Cause of his Justification and that he hath merited it Which St. Paul seems to implie unto us saying For I know 1 Cor. 4. 4. nothing by my self yet am I not hereby Justified For in truth Justification is an act of God only as Judge no less then author of his own Laws upon the intuition of due Conformitie to it or Satisfaction of it And as a man may possibly be just and yet never be Justified taking things abstractly so may a man be unjust and guilty and yet be justified doth not the word of God as well as common reason and experience certifie so much He that Justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the Just even Prov. 17. 15. they both are abomination unto the Lord. This then surely may be No man then can be justified by himself or any Act or Acts of him no not through Christ But though he cannot thus Judicially and formally Justifie himself it is not so repugnant to reason or Scripture to be said Materially and Causally to act towards his Justification Nay he cannot come up to the rigour of the Rule nor excel so far in Justice and holiness as to demand at Gods hands his absolving sentence yet that he cannot contribute towards it is not only false but dangerous doctrine leading men into a sloathfull despondencie and despair so that they shall do nothing at all because they cannot do all that is required of
Sanctified by the word and â— Tim. 4. 5. Prayer But the word and Sanctification there are no preaching or consecration but only signify that God by the Gospel which is his word proper removed the sentence of uncleannesse from things so judged to be under the Law and set them as free as other reputed Clean But prayer's proper Act and Office it is to bring down a special Benediction upon Sacramental and Familiar food On the other side the difference being so vast and Sacred between Common Creatures of bread and Wine and the Sacramental it was lookt upon as a thing of greatest use and concernment to all believers to know whether such consecration was performed or not But where the form was so loose and indetermined as it must needs be consisting in the various and Prolix office belonging thereunto how could it possible be diserned when the Host was consecrated and whether seeing neither the whole Canon could be said thereunto absolutely necessary nor could it be assigned what part thereof essentially and essectually performed he Consecration Hereupon the Latine Church hath taken upon them to define the Conversion of the Elements into Christ for that they make Consecration to a very few precise words used by Christ at the First Institution of his Holy Supper viz This is my Body and This is my Blood And I have not found how the Arguments on either side can be well answered while the Opinion of trans-elementation or such supposed conversion stands Good and is accepted but otherwise it is no hard matter to answer Both. For supposing not a change of the proper natures and substances of the Elements into the Body of Christ naturall What inconvenience would it be to be undetermined by a certain number of words when the mystical change was wrought granting that this change Relative is made by the word and Prayer as the change of water in baptism is made not by any special number or form of words but by the Office whether longer or shorter And therefore the necessitie of putting the whole virtue in those few words recited was received presently upon the doctrine of Transubstantiation which is an argument that the Greek Church never admitted it in the Latin sense however I know they would not in their Councels contend with them about that but kept themselves to the tradition of their Predecessors who restrained not the Consecration to such number of words but must have with the like prudence and necessity have done so had they so apparently and expresly received such a simple conversion as being true all Christians ought to be so punctually assured of and venerate that nothing in their Creed could be more necessary and not contented themselves with the Relative change only of the things themselves which precisely to know stood them not so much in hand seeing the Reverence given to the Visible objects could not exceed that communicable to Creatures It may be granted therefore that the words of Christ are so necessary that Consecration cannot rightly be performed without them but yet denied to be so operative that upon the plain recitation of them they should presently effect that great alteration of them as the Story I make no doubt feigned to beget belief of this new opinion implieth telling us That certain Shepheards while it was the custom to pronounce the Canon of the Mass openly having learned it Henorius in Gemma Animae 1. 103. and recited it over their bread and wine which they had before them in the field as they were at their ordinary Meal the bread was turned visibly into Christs body and the Wine into his Blood and that the Shepheards were struck dead from heaven Whereupon it was decreed in a Synod that from thence forward no man should rehearse the said Canon Audibly or out of Sacred Places or without Book or without Holy Vestments or without an Altar A tale as likely to be true as the thing they would prove by it And so let them pass together while we proceed to the CHAP. XLVI Of the Participation of this Sacrament in both Kinds The vanity of Papists allegations to the Contrary No Sacramental Receiving of Christ in One kind only How Antiquity is to be understood mentioning the receiving of one Element only The pretended inconveniences of partaking in both kinds insufficient Of Adoration of the Eucharist SECOND Thing formally necessary to this Sacrament which is Celebration in both Kinds or Bread and Wine In treating whereof we must do so much Justice to the Cause as to acknowledge a reasonable distinction between the Sacrament it self and the Communicants in it To the former I suppose it is agreed that indispensably both Elements are necessary and Essential and that there can be no Sacrament without them both whatever solemnity may be acted to the eye or ear For the Sacrament noâ— being a thing of natural force or vertue but instituted the very formality of the Institution consisting in the joint concurrence of both Elements the Removing of One is the Adulteration of the Whole and destruction neither can that be said to be a Sacrament of Christs Institution but if at all of mans devising Neither do I see how the argument should not hold in the Participation of that Sacrament as well as Consecration viz that as consecration in one Kind only maketh not a Sacrament so communication in one Kind where both are in being should be receiving the Sacrament For the natures of things as Aristotle hath it are like numbers which with the addition or Substraction of one change their kind We do not make Bread of the Nature of Wine or on the contrary but we make them both equally of the nature of that Sacrament which by Christs own Institution was an Aggregate thing constituted of both and therefore to withdraw or deny one is in effect to deny both And the Evasion to salve this is both ridiculous and prophane which saith The blood is contained in the Body of Christ and therefore in taking one both are received But 't is nothing so For the Blood of Christ in the Sacrament is no more contained in the Body than the Body in the blood And besides we say that he who not at all receives the Cup cannot at all receive the signified body of Christ but only the signifying Again How can this assertion consist with the opinion of an Incruent Sacrifice For either the Sacramental Body of Christ hath Blood in it or it hath not If it hath then is it a Bloody and not Incruent Sacrifice For I think there is no ground for a man to say a Sacrifice was called Bloody or Cruent because only Blood was shed before it was Sacrificed and not because even at that time it contained blood in it For Cruent and Incruent are the same in the Law from whence the Gospel borrows this Phrase as Animate and Inanimate Sacrifices If it hath not how can it be said to have the blood
possible reason being to be found why a thing should so infallibly be to him but because he hath resolved decreed that so it shall be From whence may be reconciled the frequent sayings of the Ancient and some Modern Divines who have said That God fore-sees a thing because it is to be and not that it is because God sees it For the seeing of a thing absolutely and the seeing it to be are vastly distinct notions And most true is that observation to be found as I remember amongst Philosophers concerning the difference between the Understanding of God and its Object and the Understanding of Man or Angel and its object For in the Intellectual Part for I use the word Understanding now and not for the Act as even now of the Creature Understanding is caused from and by the Object to the faculty represented and the Object makes the knowledge and not the knowledge the Object But on the contrary the Understanding of God is many times operative and makes its object A Second capital Doubt will be How such a perpetual and infallible Causation in the Creatour upon the very Understanding and Will of the Creature Rational can consist with the native Prerogative of Liberty of Will given by the same hand to it The Answer to this hath cost many a Volume with no great satisfaction and therefore how little may be expected from this Compendium every equal Judge will easily see I shall forbear Citations of other mens opinions and autorities for brevity sake And endeavour first by a description of Liberty of Will and next by a Distinction of Necessity which is commonly lookt on as the cut-throat of Liberty to contribute something to the easing this difficulty And first we are to distinguish of Free-will as in Mankind in General from that which may be found in any one Individual man For when the noted place of Ecclesiasticus which I will not quarrel at because it is only Ecclesiasticus tells us God made man from the beginning and Eccles 15. 14. left him in the hand of his Counsel What doth it more say Then that God dealt not so straitly with mankind as with other kinds of Creatures inferiour to him He left it undetermined in the nature of man to do this or that And humane nature had such a measure of Wisdom Understanding Reasâ—n and Counsel put into it of God that there was such a power of choosing and refusing as no other Creature could claim and there was not the like natural restraint upon Mans will as upon Beasts will considered still in the general Notion And surely this is no small difference whereof man may glory above beasts which is not wholly lost to man though in particular there should be found a determination of Mans will to one Secondly Liberty is made up of two things necessarily the Acts of Reason and the Acts of Will If any such determination were made of Mans actions in the Individual that Reason were lockt up and could not stir or move in man or when reason out of its native power remaining did argue and debate things variously there were no power left in the Will to follow the Dictates of it but was driven like an horse in a Cart by the fierce voice and whip of the stander-by then indeed all pretense to true Liberty must needs perish because here were a Co-action of the Agent moving him to one thing Co-action as hath been granted by the strictest defenders of Grace is against Liberty and they show by most numerous Autorities and sufficient Reasâ—ns that this is the only enemy to Freedom For as St. Austin hath it This a man is said to have in his Power which if he wills he may do Aug. de Spiritu Litera cap 31. If he wills not he may not do And Hugo de Victore doth yet more expresly define Liberty to be An Ability of the Rational Will whereby through the Co-operation of Grace it chooseth Good and it deserting it Evil. By which it should appear that there is no inconsistencie with the Co-operation of God though infallibly moving to one and the Election of the Will as will yet be more clear in the second thing here principally to be distinguished viz Necessity which I make either in Co-ordinate or Subordinate Causes and directly deny That Necessity in Causes subordinate one to another doth quite destroy Liberty or Free-will especially if we subdivide Necessity of things in subordination into subordination to the first Cause of all and of second Causes I grant that in Causes co-ordinate as Man and Beast or Man and Man acting upon distinct principles and ends Necessitation from the One quite ruins the Freedom of the other and is unnatural and violent being purely an external cause giving no power to the Will to move but exciting and impelling it against the judgment and more rational conclusion of the understanding to accept the terms given But Necessity proceeding from the First and Supream Cause God himself to whom all inferiour Causes are subordinate doth not take away the native Freedom of Man The Reason whereof is because the concurse of the First Cause is not extrinsecal to the Natural Agent but really intrinsecal to it and essential And therefore the division of Causes by Logicians into Internal as Matter and Form and External Efficient and end holds good only in secondary Efficients and not in the first and universal Agent For though it be most true that the Absolute nature and Being of God is quite distinct from created being and extrinsecal yet it is not so as he is a Cause The reason of this will make it undenyable because as is agreed by Christian Philosophers the act of Creation in God is essential to the Creature so produced and the act of Conservation is a perpetuation of that act creative in God and therefore also must needs be intrinsecal to the Creature and the act of Gods concurse moving the Creature and so determining it is no other but a branch of that conservative act in God and so is intrinsecal to the Creature that what the Creature doth by vertue of such influence it may no less be said to do of it self there being a Coalition of both acts created and increated in one than it may be said to subsist of it self by its matter and form of which it consists And this St. Pauls doctrine declares to us where he puts no difference between our living moving and having our being in God all alike depending on him Acts 17. 28. and be equally intrinsecal to all And therefore Gods action terminated in man becomes his as much as those which we conceive to proceed from his own being and notwithstanding to this act of God primarily may be ascribed the turning as it were of the Scales of the Will yet may man also be said herein to determine himself the reason whereof is That both the first Cause and the second are
here total Causes But here I call to mind a Maxime amongst Logicians and others teaching of Natural Causes That it is not possible that Two total Causes should be subordinate as principal and instrumental Cause one to the other but must alwayes be Co-ordinate as two horses moving a Chariot no otherwise than one might well do alone and two Candles giving but one light to the same place I might question this Axiome and the Instances both because in the first though both Horses are the Causes equally of such a motion and so total yet the immediate causes are not total For it is certain that the same force which is used by one not rising to that of both would not in like manner move the Chariot that both actually do though there be nothing more easie then for one so to move it Neither are two Candles total Causes of that degree of light which is in the Room though of light they may be But whethen these mine exceptions against the presumed Rule be rational or not it matters not at present it being to me certain that it holds only in secondary Causes jovntly working and not in the concurrent motions of first and secondary Causes because of the essential dependence the second Cause hath upon the first So that St. Basil saith highly and truly The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Hexaen Hom. 8. Divine word and that is here as much to say as the Divine vertue is the nature of things produced There remains yet one more difficulty to be here touched to which many may be reduced and that is That Man being thus determined and lying under this necessity of Acting he cannot in justice be responsable for his Actions whether good or evil He cannot be the subject of praise or dispraise All preaching by Exhortation and Dehortation All reward of Punishment and Benefits Lastly All Prayers and the use of it must needs cease To these in order briefly And first in general denying the reasonableness or validity of such consequences upon this common ground That if indeed this were a necessity from a Co-ordinate Cause not natural to the Agent moved by it then it were to be lookt on as no act proper and free in the Creature but strange to it and violent and by consequence refunding all praise and dispraise upon the unresistible impulse of that external Cause but this is internal natural and one act really of the first and second Mover and so properly principally as any Creature can be said to be principal Agent under the Creature and totally is the act of the second Cause which in external motions otherwise than from God it is not And if it be said that from hence would follow The Creature acting evilly that this Evil might be equally imputable unto God and to the Creature It may be replayed that two things are to be consider'd in Actions the nature of the Action it self and the morality of it And that all things being good in nature the act it self is good and may be imputed to God though the morality of the act be otherwise But it may be demanded yet further Have not this morality it self a Nature and consequently upon the grounds laid imputable to God as well when the act offends against justice and honesty as when it agrees with both To this Nature indeed as hath upon another occasion been shewed is sometimes taken very largely for any thing that hath a being but here we take it only in the physical sense whereby things are said to have a proper being But Good and Evil are rather modi reales as they speak in Metaphysicks then res Manners of Being rather than proper Beings of themselves Again we must and do hold with Austine that Evil morally taken hath not such a real being as Good hath but is only the absence or privation of Good being no real Entity and we pity rather than fear such an argument as we have found against this that if Evil be nothing then God should be angry for nothing when he is offended at sin For surely there is a great difference between Gods being angry for nothing and Gods being angry with nothing What would they say I marveil when the Father in the Gospel commanded his Son to go work in his vineyard and he would not go might he not be angry even because there was nothing done And must this be called being angry for nothing So surely God may be angry with mans doing nothing Here in order to a more full account may be given of the objection we leave in pawn this distinction of the Act of Sin and the Sin of the Act And that God may concur to the former constantly and never have a singer in the latter which is properly the sinfulness Now to the matter of praise or dispraise of which they are only said to be capable who act freely and upon election and not upon necessity I make no seruple directly to deny the truth of it as famous as it is amongst the Fathers Philosophers absolutely taken Nothing is more plain than the contrary every day For we praise handsome Horses and handsome Men and infinite other things when there was not the least concurrence of the will but God and Nature did all to such a laudable state much less any act conducing thereunto And do we not in our Judgments discommend the disproportions of natural monsters and creeples though we out of affection and pity declare not so much to their reproach And this seems to have deceived Aristotle in his Ethicks who laid it down for a current Rule that he distinguished not these two For certainly Commendation and Discommendation rightly used are the effects of our Judgment and Will and Affections But more nearly to the case we answer That such Praise and Dispraise are only vacated by such a necessity as is extrinsecal to and contrary to the will but where the Act is affectedly done there a supposed necessity doth not exempt from such Rewards of Praise and Dispraise or Punishment or Benefits But it is certain a man may strongly affect that which he cannot choose but do And the like may be answered to that of Instruction Exhortation and Dehortation all which they say ought to cease and would become unnecessary if mans will were so immoveably determined to one thing Yea all Prayers and Deprecations were to no purpose And why so because it is not in mans power to relieve himself and whatever he saith believeth or doth nothing can do any good if the Decree be so against him and nothing of all these omitted or the contrary committed hurt or endanger him such a Decree being for him And what grounds of comfort to a troubled mind may be laid the Case thus standing This is the sum of all we are here at least bound to take notice of And this were much more than it seems to be were it so that they who hold the contrary opinions were
to him as were his Disciples for whom he there particularly prays the argument would be of the greater force but it is not so any more then it is true in all respects what Christ saith of himself in St. Matthew I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel So Matth. 15. 24. that as Christ before his resurrection shewed himself very nice how he dealt the Word of Life to the Gentiles so might he at the same time declare a more special desire of the salvation of his elected Servants than of others For we know which is another answer how the Scripture frequently by a note of Denyal doth not intend an absolute exclusion of a thing but comparative only as where God says I will have mercy and not sacrifice Christ prayed not for the world so intensly and particularly or at that time Therefore he prayed not at all is no good consequence And no more is that which is made from an adequateness of the Death of Christ to the actual application of the merits of the same death by such intercession as Prayer So that though Christ did not actually pray for all yet he might dye for all according to the distinction of a twofold Quantum in Medico est sâ—nare merit aegrotum Ipse se interimit qui pâ—aecepta Medici â—â—servare non vult Aug. in Joan. cap. 3. 17. Exhibition of Christ abovesaid For Christ was exhibited as an efficacious Means of Salvation and as an efficacious Cure A precious Antidote or Salve is in its own nature and the intention of the Compounder equally operative and effectual to all Persons in like manner affected All men naturally were involved in the same evil alike affected and infected And Christs Death and Passion alike soveraign to all persons and ordained for all And the difference in the first Case and the second is only in the actual Application thereof For as many as receive that are certainly cured And the Scripture tells us As many as receive him Christ to them gave John 1. 12. he power to become the Sons of God to them that believe in his name Therefore the main enquiry is much more about the difference and variety outward then in the means it self And how and whence it comes to pass that the Death and Passion of Christ are so applyed to one above another that to one they become actually efficacious and to another in aptitude and general institution only If in answer to this doubt we shall say That by Faith and Repentance we are made partakers of Christ we shall answer most truly but not sufficiently because the same difficulty returns upon us How some believe and embrace Christ and are made partakers of his benefits and not others seeing so great salvation is tendered to all Here it is absolutely necessary to take in the Grace of God and his free love towards Mankind in some sense at least by all that will be accounted Christians and not by wisdome make void the Cross of Christ For supposing that God hath made a free and general Covenant with Mankind which Covenant neither is nor can as it is a Covenant be simple and inconditionate so far as nothing should be required thereby of Man to the being capable of the benefit of it it will of necessity follow that the knowledge of this Covenant of Grace must be had by such as receive any benefit thereby For else how is it possible that they should fulfill in any manner the Condition required were it no more than some will make it to receive it by Faith without any more ado then to believe themselves into Gods Grace and Favour by a tacite internal act And this and no more being supposed that such love and gracious purpose for which no natural Cause can be found out to certifie or satisfie any man in the truth thereof were ordained for any specially it must be known by Revelation and not Ratiocination And all extraordinary Revelations besides and above what Nature can discover are purely Acts of Grace and not of Work And therefore why God doth reveal his Gospel to one people or person and not to another can have no other original Cause then the Beneplacitum Good pleasure of God as is plainly Matth. 11. 27. affirmed by Christ himself Neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him And before I thank v. 25. thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid those things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes And in St. Peters Matth. 16. 11 1 Cor. 2 14. case Flesh and bloud hath not revealed this unto thee And St. Paul saith The Natural man cannot know the things of God because they are spiritually discerned From whence it is manifest that though God hath decreed the Salvation of a man by Christ yet this general intention cannot possibly take effect without a super-added Act of Free Grace whereby this Reparation is made known Again it follows That there is no obligation upon God antecedent to his own will and inclination moving him to reveal the same and that only out of Congruity not of Justice or Necessity as supposing a decree given to Man which would be wholly unprofitable and vain without such revelation But why one Man or Nation should be blessed with this gift rather than another there is not so much as congruity to be fairly alledged or reasonably offered And as this is the first act of God on the understanding of Man towards his restitution so is the second act of Man flowing mixtly from his Will and Understanding both altogether owing to Gods Grace and that is believing what before he knew For that this is necessary no doubt can be made or that this is the true cause of being profited or not by Christ St. Paul thus writing For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them Hebr. 4. 2. but the word preached did not profit them not being mixed with Faith in them that heard it This diversity is very great but what is the cause of it is not agreed upon For if any shall say It comes from the difference found in Christ as Mediatour he is known to be mistaken by what is said If any one shall say It proceeds from the will and free Election of Man he falls into a worse absurdity for the will of man as free acts or works nothing at all but as determined either by its self or by some other And if by it self either simply and absolutely or joyntly with another cause And this cause must be either taken from somewhat outward as the object duly propounded or inward by way of efficiencie But it cannot be any outward object presenting it self only as a final cause which hath only a moral and not natural influence For if it be demanded to what end such an inward act of the will
most certain and inevitable event even not inferiour to any of those necessities we have touched and the reason is plain because here is supposed the same will and same power to effect this as them and the variety and uncertainty of the means whereby a thing is brought about makes nothing at all against this because this proceeds only form the relation such means have to our understanding and apprehension which not being able to descern any connexion natural between the Cause and the Effect do look upon the effect as meer chance For instance that a fly should kill a man by choking him is as contingent a thing as can ordinarily happen And who could believe it that should be told that such a fly moving lightly and wildly it knows not whether it self perhaps a mile off from the place where this falls out and many dayes before the fact should certainly be the death of such a man yet no man of reason and conscience can deny but Gods providence and decree may impose an inevitable necessity upon this creature so opportunely and fitly to move as that it should certainly kill him and that at such a time and in such a place And if any should hereof doubt the express asseveration of our Saviour Christ in the Gospel may satisfie him herein saying One Sparrow shall not fall on the ground without your Father If any should so Matth. 10. 29. contrive our Saviours words as to understand without Gods will to be contrary only to Gods will and not of Gods will concurring and his knowledge noting the same St. Luke will instruct him otherwise who renders Luke 12. 6. the same speech Not one is forgotten which implies Observation and Providence That therefore those things which seem to us most free irregular and contingent may have a tacit and unknown determination from God which should fix and infallibly limit them to some special ends I may presume no man can piously doubt and especially after that great Opposer of Gods Providence over humane actions hath been constrained to acknowledge so much I mean Socinus who granteth God the liberty and power so to determine Praelâ—ct car 6. the Salvation as well as the acceptation and improvement of Grace offered to Peter and to Paul that the effect should inevitably follow which being allowed all the arguments usually brought by him and others not of his rank of the inconsistency of such inevitable decrees with the freedom of Mans will will lie as heavy upon him to solve or answer in his cases as on any other who should extend the same to many more than he pleases to do For can we any more conceive that Gods good will to them should first make them brutes before it made them Saints in limiting their choice and determining the same to one side rather than others or that he should extinguish a natural humane principle in them to bring them to salvation but secure it to others I hope not Therefore if a necessity destroyed not their humane Liberty how can it be concluded that it doth it in others Oâ— that there is no possible concord between Necessity and Contingencie Indeed in the same respect it must necessarily be true whether we regard God or Man For neither to God nor to Man can the same thing be allowed to be necessary and contingent at the same time but there appears no reason why the same thing which is necessarily to follow on the part of God may not be said on the part of man to be fortuitous free and chance as it is called For we indeed vulgarly call that only necessary where there appears a necessary connexion in nature between cause and effect and according to the degree of evidence and assurance to us we hold a thing necessary or contingent in which sense we hold it necessary that an heavy body out of its natural place should left to it self descend to it and possess it And we hold it not so necessary that the Sun going down in a cleer red evening towards the West should portend the day following to be fair and cleer Our Saviour when he affirmed this spake after the observations and opinion of men which generally herein fail not So that the being of a thing reaâ—y and the appearing of it so to be being so far different in nature it follows not at all that so it is intrinsecally and of it self because we can make no other judgment of it than in such a manner and that because we perceive no natural connexion between the cause and effect necessitating it therefore there neither is nor can be any Some things God hath ordained so openly inseparable one from the other that we easily and readily infer the one from or by the other and this is all we call necessity in nature But if God more covertly and subtilty hath likewise ordained the like connexion not by a Law of constant Nature but his singular will for which we can find out no reason this we presently call Contingent though it be as certain as the other And names being given to things by man according as they are apprehended the distinction of things into Necessary and Contingent is very reasonable and serviceable to man as signifying to him such a diversity of Effects in the world that some have apparent natural necessary cause to produce them and these things we call Necessary and some things have no such natural causes but more immediately are ordered by God bringing causes by his special Providence together besides their nature to produce such an Effect and that certainly though not naturally and this we call Contingent That this manner of proceeding of the Providence of God is possible is impossible to be desired And in many things seeming to us as casual as may be that actually they are all granted For to us considering all circumstances it was a thing meerly indifferent and undetermined whether Peter should believe unto Salvation or not but considering the resolute Providence of God disposing certainly outward causes it was certain and infallible The great question must then be about the General viz. Whether God hath two immutable Laws whereby a necessity doth attend all effects as well such as we tearm free and contingent as such as are necessary with this difference only that on some things he hath laid a Law natural which ordinarily and necessarily moveth to one certain effect and end as are seen in natural generations and corruptions as that as St. Paul saith Every seed should have its own body i. e. produce it And 1 Cor. 15. that whatever is so generated should by a Law of Nature also incline to dissolution again And that by a private invisible Law which reserves to him or particular decree he certainly bringeth to pass even those things of which we can give no reason and there appears to us no connexion or order of causes but causes are by his special hand brought to
effect such things as in their general nature they had no tendencie unto The distinction common amongst Philosophers of Fortuna and Casus i. e. Fortune and Casualty and calling that Fortune which contingently falls out to free Intelligent Agents acting and that Casualty which besides natural intention happens to fall out may seem to clear this For if we should affirm that in natural things there were no such indifferencie really but all things were precisely and particularly determined by God in his private counsel however a wide latitude seemeth to us to be left them to move and act or not to act or to move and act thus or not thus but contrariwise no great absurdity or inconvenience would follow For what absurdity could be inferred if a man should say That the Eagle letting fall a Tortoise upon the bald head of the Philosopher of Syracuse walking in the field and so beating out his brains was determined necessarily so to do of God or that the tree that fell down in a wind and killed him that walked out to preserve himself from the fall of his house which he feared was inevitably appointed so to do These effects did not proceed from the nature of these causes themselves but a Superiour hand and yet might be no less necessary than such effects of which the common reason of man can give an ordinary and easie account And if this be granted in some things it doth lye upon them who deny it in all to render a reason of the difference and not on them who affirm a paritie by infinite instances to prove it being sufficient to say There can nothing be shown to the contrary But in things rational and endowed with a power of Election and Rejection it must be confessed that the difficulty is much greater because there seems to be a repugnancie to free will in such tacit necessity and God should seem to take away with one hand what he had given with the other And therefore of this in a more convenient place after we have spoken somewhat preparatory thereunto concerning the Decrees of God which are internal acts of the Providence of God CHAP. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Vnderstanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinencie of this Middle knowledge invented in God How Free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent Actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All Vision in God supposes certainly in the thing known IF the Holy Scriptures leaving us many precedents have thereby warranted or at least permitted us to speak of God after the manner of Mans body ascribing unto him head eyes mouth hands and feet and the better to perceive the things of God much more may we be allowed if at all to search into Gods nature to regulate our enquiry of God from the nature of mans mind and the more supream acts of his soul The first Act of which is his apprehension and knowledge with judgment following thereupon The next in order is the Act of his will and this Order we may best follow in the enquiry into Gods Providence which is constituted according as we can judge of knowledge and will whose proper act it is to decree And here first It is requisite that we take notice of the folly and gross impiety of Vorstius a late Pragmatick in Divine Mysteries who would needs distinguish God from himself and taking him at his word wherein speaking after the manner of men such diversity is mentioned concludes that God and his Attributes are really distinct in nature one from another And why did he not by the same rule conclude that Gods very Being his Essence was distinct really from it self as well as from the supposed Accidents he Epicurean-like feigns to God For God is no less affirmed to have heart hands and feet than to have Understanding and Will And if it be granted there is a figurative and no proper sense in the one case why may it not be in the other And that God is all these things Eminently but not after the formality of mankind The matter will be cleared better by examining his prime arguments taken from the Decrees of God our present subject First sayes he The decrees of God are various and many but the Essence of God is but one therefore they must be really distinct To which the answer is as obvious as the argument presumptuous That if the Decrees were really many they must of necessity be really distinct as well from themselves as God But their plurality is rather Relative than Absolute All the Acts of God being but one pure simple Act as in him but denominated divers from the event or relation they bear to the Creature This is one of the first principles in his Christian Catechise and why did he pretending to reason leap over this and not first disprove it and then proceed to his arguments It was a great piece of folly therefore in him to prove a real distinction of Gods Attributes before he had proved that the Nature of God was compounded or would admit of any such opposition For they who deny this will certainly deny that Another of his reasons is The decrees of God are free because they might have not been as well as have been But Gods nature is not so Answ There is a twofold freedom in the Decrees of God The one in respect of the Nature of God as God is precisely considered which abstracting from all Acts was indifferent to others as well as those Decrees made And the other in respect of the Creature or object which was capable of other Decrees and therefore were Gods Decrees said to be free but we all know that distinction of Instants in Order and Nature do not infer a necessary distinction in duration but that both Nature and Decrees might be coequal in eternity Now all things that are eternal are in some case necessary And the Schools have such a distinction of Decrees as they have of nature viz. Decretum Decretans and Decretum Decretatum meaning that the Decrees of God are sometimes used for the Act of God decreeing and sometimes for the thing decreed And of this latter it may be said That the Decree of God is produced and made which is a third special argument of Vorstius but of the other it cannot so be affirmed but it may flow from him by an eternal Law or Volition within himself and not at all occasioned by the Creature And it is therefore said to be free because it was not imposed upon him and therefore necessary because not accessary to him or contingent but proceeding from him as a natural and necessary yet voluntary Agent For we must not look upon God as subject to the condition of the