nothing but God as Agent vel in hoc modo as a Creature in motion differeth modally from the same quiâ—sant But God hath no Modus which is not Himself though not an adequate Conception of himself You must not conceive of God as of a Creature which first by self-motion altereth it self or is moved by another and then moveth another thing But God diversifieth things without diversity and changeth things being himself unchanged § 8. V. As to the Controversie Whether God make and move things only Volendo as Bradâ—ardine and many others say or also Executive agendâ— by excited Power Quoad reâ—â— both are true because Power and Will in God are really the same But as to our Conception and Expression it is a fuller expression to say that he doth it by Will and Power because our Conception of mâ—er Volition is as of quid immanens which doth not efficiently go forth of it self but command in Man the executive Faculties and so conceiving of God after the manner of men Volition is not an adequate conception of his causing Efflux without Active Power But they that conceive of Volition as transient and potently efficient do mean the same thing and really differ not from others § 9. VI. God's Will as it is his Essence hath really no parts no division no change no priority or posteriority but perfect Simplicity and Eternity § 10. VII God's will as it is himself hath no Cause but is the Cause of every Creature And to ask a Cause of the first Cause is absurd § 11. VIII All the effects of God's Will ad extra have their divers natures orders and seasons priority posteriority or simultaneity which we may sobeâ—ly enquire after § 12. IX God's will though but one as related to the objects and effects may by us be diversly denominated And so we distinguish of his Creating will and his Redeeming will his will to Save and his will to Damn his will to save Peter and his will to save Iohn and so of all the rest of the Objects In all which we mean not a Diversity of Essences or Faculties in God or Acts ex parte agentis really differing but only one and the same Will diversly conceived of and denominated by reason of the diversity of objects or effects to which it is related and so by Connotation the Will it self is thus distinguished § 13. X. This distinction and denomination of God's will hath extrinsick Reasons which some call Causes from the various termini as the same Light shining into several Rooms the diversity being real only ex parte recipientis And so God's Will may be said in this Sence to begin and to end to have diversity priority and posteriority of Acts which are all to be judged of by the Order of the Objects § 14. XI The great question which the Schoolwits trouble themselves with and Vasquez with abundance more pronounce unsearchable and past our reach is What is the Cause that God's Will is terminated thus or thus on this Object rather than on that To which I take the boldness to answer for the ending of that Dispute By the Reason of Termination you must mean either 1. The Reason of the Being of that Object or Terminus rather than another or 2. The reason of the Relation of God's Will to that terminus rather than another and so of the denomination or 3. The reason of the being of that Act of God so terminated 1. For the first the cause of all the effects of God's Will is his Will it self And so of all the diversities effected 2. The reason of the Relation of God's Will to those effects and so of the connotation and denomination is the Will and the Effect as from which the relation doth result 3. And the Being or Act of the Will thus terminated is God's essence which hath no Cause And what would you have more § 15. But this satisfieth not Men that still think of God as of themselves but they go on still and ask What is the Cause that God's Will 〈…〉 to make this World or Creature rather than another or to give the first grace rather to one than to another that his Will is terminated rather on Peter than Judas in election c. But I must but call you back to consider again distinctly of what was answered before 1. The Cause of all the effects of Creation c. is God's Will 2. The cause why his Will is related to that effect à posteriore is the position of the effect with God's Will 3. The cause why God hath such a Will is not to be asked for God's Will hath no Cause And if you add But what is the cause that à priore his Will is thus related and denominated as decreeing this or that I say A priore there is nothing in God's Will but it self which hath no Cause we dream of priorities and posteriorities and varieties in him when we think of the following effects But when there was nothing but God really to terminate his will there was no ground for any real relation and relative difference And to talk of Relationes rationis in God himself as to non-existent Creatures and ask the cause of them is â—ash presumption while we know that there was nothing in God but God who hath no Cause And the question respecting nothing but what was eternally in God himself whatever you will call his Essential Will fore-related to the future Creature you must needs say that it had no Cause § 16. But if the question go further Why God willeth not other Creatures or other effects and so his will is not effectively terminated on such it is after to be fullier answered and now it is enough to say that Nothing hath no Cause § 17. And when we say that God's will may be denominated as divers prior and posterior and changeable as related to Objects that are such this is to be understood only of those acts which are to be denominated by Connotation of what is divers and mutable ex parte termini still remembring that ex parte Dei there is really no diversity or mutation And therefore such denominations are given of God's will chiefly as related to existent Objects which are his Acts called Love and Hatred or Complacency and Displacency e. g. we may say that God is displeased with Paul or Manasseth unconverted and he is pleased with them when converted the change being only in them Yet the same denomination may be used also of God's purposing Will. As e. g. we may say that before Christ's Incarnation God had this Decree I will send my Son to be incarnate and die for Man's redemption But now it is not fit to say that God hath yet such a Decree when the thing decreed is past nor a Decree that He will create Adam and the rest of the World which is created § 18. But whoever liketh or disliketh any of these modes of Speech must still
necessary part of our Religion so must we resolutely do still or else we shall be worse than the Light of Nature teacheth Heathens themselves to be § 14. God hath many waies to cause the Effects of Sin without causing the Sin it self as by impediments to other waies by altering Recipients Objects Concauses and many others which I have elsewhere enumerated He can will and procure that Christ shall die by the sinful malice and action of the Iews without willing or causing their malice will or action as bad As he can procure a man to be in the way where a Murderer cometh with a disposition to murder and can direct the Bullet c. § 15. When one and the same word doth signifie both the Sin and the Effect of the Sin it occasioneth the error of men that cannot distinguish And so if the Scripture should say That God is the Cause of it they think it includeth the Sin with the Effect So Murder signifieth both the will and action of the Murderer and the death of the man murdered as the effect Absolom's Constuprations signifieth both his sinful will and action and the effect of both The revolt of the Israelites from Ieroboam the giving up of Kingdoms to the Beast and many such-like in Scripture are ascribed to God as the Cause not as the words signifie the sinful will and action of the Malefactor but only the produced effect of both saving when God's permission only is understood § 16. They that deride it as absurd that God should decree will and cause the Effect and not the Wills forbidden Act are too bold with God in measuring his Counsels and Actions by the rule of their vain Imaginations Yet many give us instead of Scripture and Reason but such a confident derision and say How absurd is it to say that God willed decreed and caused that Christ should be murdered and yet willed decreed or caused not that any should murder him That God should will and cause David's Concubines to be defiled and not will or cause that Absolom should defile them That He should will and cause the Kingdom to be rent from Rehoboam and yet not cause any one to will or do it c. But is all false that is not agreeable to their imagination Or is this a convincing way of reasoning It is not from imperfection but perfection that God doth not will or cause mens Sin But it is from his perfection that he causeth the effect as being the Lord and Ruler of the World Sin is not a capable Object of God's Volition or an effect which he can cause But the effect is God cannot love or cause Iudaâ—'s will or act in specie of betraying Christ nor the Iews will or act in murdering him But God can will and cause that Christ shall be betrayed and killed by such individual persons as he foreknew were by their wickedness disposed thereunto § 17. All good men have so deep a hatred of Sin and zeal for God's Holiness and confess that Sin is of the Devil and it is his special character to be the Author of it that when zeal against an Adversary in Disputation can yet make many put that character on God yea as the prime Efficient which is more than a Tempter and this as a part of the Honour of his Providence and think they serve God and his Truth by bitter reviling the contrary-minded it is a dreadful instance how far Faction and Contentious Zeal may carry men And yet when we see how carefully many avoid Sin when they have thus honoured it as God's work it is a notable instance how far good men may err in notions and yet practically hold the contrary truth and what great notional Errors must be pardoned to each other as they are pardoned of God § 18. God punisheth Sin with Sin without causing that Sin at all that is 1. He justly demeth his Grace to the rejecters of it and their Sin is the consequent of that Privation as a drunken man's wandering is to ones denying to lead him 2. God maketh it a punishment when man hath first made it a Sin q. d. If thou wilt commit such a Sin it shall have this penal nature and effect As if in the Law of Nature God decreed that excess of Drink or Meat should breed Sickness that taking a sweet Poison should torment you that Venery should bring the Pox that Prodigality shall impoverish men c. Here Man first maketh it a Sin and then God maketh it a Punishment And Sin it self being the deformity and misery of the Soul hath two relations at once in time the first in order of Nature is the sinfulness caused by Man and the second the penal relation caused by God whose Act indeed was antecedent in his Law of Nature making Nature such that it should so suffer if it will so do and yet the Effect is consequent to mans Act. CHAP. IX Of Natural Power and Free-will § 1. THE Glory of God on his Works is their expression of his Perfections by the Impression of them which he hath made And He hath communicated Being and Substantiality as the substratum and therein the Virtues of Vital Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love and these are his Image upon Man § 2. The more Power therefore a Creature hath the more he glorifieth the Power of God And the most powerful Creatures as the Sun do more shew forth his greatness than the most impotant Therefore to deny or extenuate any Power given of God is to dishonour him in his works So absurd is it to think that the Power ascribed to Man is dishonourable to God as if you took from the Workman all the Praise that you give to his Works § 3. All Man's Power is passive from GOD and superiour Causes but it is naturally active as to things inferiour and in it self § 4. God endued man at first with a threefold Power 1. Natural 2. Moral 3. Political which is a Ruling Power over Inferiours § 5. Man's Power was partly essential or inseparable and partly accidental or separable 1. To have the three Powers or Faculties of Vital Activity Intellection and Will is essential and Man cannot be a Man without them But to have these in promptitude and strength is but as health or strength to the Body a separable thing 2. To have some moral Power to know and desire and practise some moral Good it seemeth is inseparable from Man in via for all men naturally have some notitiae communes and differencing sense of moral Good and Evil Else men should be as bad as Devils But to be truly Holy was separable as Health and so was lost 3. To have some superiority over Brutes and Parents over their Children it seems is inseparable or is not separated for it continueth in Nature But the true Majesty of this superiority was lost by Sin § 6. No Creature hath any Power but what is totally derived from God and
Impotency Pravity or ill Disposition by which it is averse to Holiness and prone to Sensuality must be cured by Grace where common Grace and special cause common and special Effects in the Cure § 13. The moral Power given by Grace consisting in the right Disposition of the Will is not of the same kind with the Natural Power or Faculty And the Words CAN and CANNOT used of both sorts have not the same signification but are equivocal otherwise Sin and Grace should change mans Species Those Disputants therefore that confound them for the sounds sake deceive the Auditors § 14. We must say then That quoad vires vel potentiam naturalem every man can believe who hath the use of Reason Objects revealed and extrinseck necessary Causes that is He wanteth not the natural Faculty or Power nor needeth another natural Faculty but only the Excitation Illumination and right Disposition of that which he hath But as to the said right Disposition or moral Power no one can truly repent and believe without that Grace which must so dispose him Common Grace must dispose him to a common Faith and special Grace to a saving Faith § 15. It is more proper to say That an Unbeliever and unholy Sinner will not repent and believe than that he cannot though that also may be truly said if well explained But the meaning is not that he cannot though he sincerely would Nor yet that he cannot be willing for want of the natural Power of willing But 1. That he hath a Logical and 2. A moral Impotency that is an Indisposition he wanteth both Disposition Habit and Act but not the Faculty § 16. It is an abusive miscarriage of those Disputants who in the Words CAN and CANNOT use to confound not only as aforesaid natural and moral Power but even Logical also which is neither and signifieth no more but that in ordine probandi such Premises being put the Conclusion Can or Cannot follow For so it may be truly said That no man can do speak or think any other than he doth and nothing can ever come to pass but what doth come to pass even from Gods fore-knowledge this will follow For seeing nothing ever will be otherwise than God foreknoweth it will be a Disputant will say It can be no otherwise but he must only mean that posita praescientia divina the Conclusion cannot be true that the Event will be otherwise when yet as to the nature of Causation we must say sensu physico morali that it Can be otherwise oft-times though it will not be otherwise § 17. These things considered it appeareth that we are commonly agreed as followeth 1. That all Men have natural Powers and Free-will to good even spiritual good that is Whenever such good is chosen or willed it is done by the natural Power or Faculty and when it is not willed it is not for want of a natural Faculty but its due Disposition § 18. 2ly That as to Civil or Law-power and Liberty all men have much more than Liberty granted them by God to repent and believe For Helps and a Command are more than Leave or Liberty But Liberty from the Penalty for sin belongeth only to the pardoned § 19. 3ly That as to Ethical Power and Liberty which lieth in a right Disposition of mans Faculties every man hath it so far as Grace hath prevailed and wrought it in him and none any further § 20. Or as Liberty is denominated from the Evil which we are free from 1. All mens wills are free from being constrained to sin 1 By natural inclination of the faculties themselves 2. Or by the senses 3. Or by Objects 4. Or by Men 5. Or by Devils 6. Or by God Because the rest cannot and God will not no not physically premove and predetermine it thereto § 21. 2. The wills of all men are free from any Commands to Sin that is God cannot command it for else it were no Sin and if men command it their Commands are null and lay no obligation on the will to obey them § 22. 3. We are free from sinful Dispositions so far as Grace freeth us and no further Therefore by common Grace men have common Liberty and by special Grace saving Liberty but none perfect Liberty here and no unsanctified man hath saving Liberty of Will that is such by which he is duly disposed to such acts as have a flat Promise of Salvation And where now doth our difference remain § 23. Obj. The difference is Whether a bad man can change his own will Ans. Your can meaneth the natural Power or the due disposition As to the first he can that is he hath those faculties which want not natural Power to act better But as to the latter he cannot without Grace that is through indisposition he will not § 24. Q. But is not Grace the only cause of the Change Ans. Grace only causeth the first Impress on the Soul which moveth it to act but the Soul or will it self is a Cause of the Act else it were not Man but GOD that doth repent believe obey c. § 25. Q. But is it Grace or Free-will that is the chief Cause Ans. Grace no doubt Which is commonly acknowledged by the several Parties § 26. The very marrow then of all the question about the Power and Liberty of the Will is that so often before mention'd Whether Man's Will be made of GOD such a self-determining Power as can truly do any more good than it doth or forbear more evil without any more Grace from God than that which it hath while it doth no more And whether ever the Will can and do make a various use of the same degree of Divine Assistance And this as is said is confessed of the Angel's Case and Adam's For if Adam had not Power to have stood when he fell by the same Grace that was given him but fell because God withdrew or with-held such necessary Grace without which he could do no other than he did we may then lay by these Controversies and think how to answer Infidels § 27. Those persons that make others odious by their revilings for holding Free-will or denying Free-will without telling men what Freedom it is that they mean natural ethical legal or logical Freedom from Coaction necessitating Premotion natural Inclination or viâ—ious Disposition c. should be rebuked by the Lovers of Truth and Peace as the Peace-breakers of the Church and World that presume in their proud ignorance to reproach others for that which they understand not § 28. They that say That the Liberty of the Will as natural is not violated but by Coaction and that Coaction is nothing but making a man will against his Will in the same respect and act and so that to will and to will freely is all one and that to will by Coaction is a contradiction viz. to will and nil the same and that God predetermineth all mens wills to all sinful
their Office nor how our Souls do use the Corporeal Spirits c. And when Christ hath told us That the Wind bloweth where it listeth and we hear the sound of it but know not whence it cometh and whither it goeth and so is he that is born of the Spirit Ioh. 3. 8. Should not this with the experience and consciousness of our Ignorance suffice to keep us from bitter Contendings about that which is certainly beyond our reach and from presumptuous boldness with the unsearchable things of God § 11. Whether you will with Bradwardine and many others say That it is God's meer Volition that effecteth all things ad extra or whether you will say with the most That it is not his Will alone but his Will as operating by his executive Power the meaning seemeth to be the same and the difference to be but notional as is aforesaid For they that speak in the first manner mean That it is not God's Will as in it self immanently considered but his will as going forth to produce an effect which emanation or exertion is from the effect called by those that speak in the second manner God's Executive Power § 12. The prime Reason of the Effect is God's Wisdom Will and Power as the Cause And so the prime reason why Means and Grace become effectual whenever they are effectual must be from God the prime Cause § 13. The first Impress on the Soul moving it toward the Act e. g. Faith is the first Grace internal sub ratione effecti And this God himself worketh on man as on a meer Patient tho' not antecedently to all former acts of Man or all preparative dispositions usually yet antecedent to that Act of Man to which it moveth So that as to this 1. Man is passive 2. and the Divine Operation or the powerful Will of God is not only sufficient but effectual for that Impress or Motus is effected § 14. Though God being a Spirit moveth not by such Contact as Bodies do on each other yet must we conceive of his motion and the motion of all Spirits on Bodies as analogous to corporeal Contact and as a motion by Efflux and eminent Contact of Virtue and Essence according to the more excellent nature and operation of Spirits or else we cannot conceive positively of them § 15. It is already proved that God useth various degrees of Impress or Motion on Souls of which some do by their proper power or degree so ascertain the effect that the Argument is alwaies good as a causa where-ever God doth so move there the Effect that is the Act e. g. Faith or Consent followeth And this Grace is effectual ex propria vi vel virtute But that God sometime operateth by a less Impress or Motion which doth not from its own force inferr the effect but so far disposeth the Mind or Will to the Act that the man can do it without any more grace which is it that is called Sufficient Grace as aforesaid § 16. It is a thing not to be believed that this latter degree of Divine motion is never eventually effectual to the Act Seeing 1. it is granted that there is such a Power in Man's Will as câ—n act in some cases by that degree of Grace called Sufficient And frustra fit potentia quae nunquam reducitur in actum 2. And it 's granted that the Angels and Adam did act by such help Therefore as to acts preparatory before special Faith few do affirm that they are all done by such Grace as is necessarily effectual ex propria vi alone but that sufficient Grace leaveth them often to Man's Will § 17. Therefore all that remaineth is to resolve what is the reason of the certain effect when we believe To which I say 1. It is ever an effect of two Causes at least God's motion and man's faculty and so both must be said to be the Cause of the effect 2. But man's will is no Cause save a recipient Cause of God's Part or Impress 3. God sometimes at least maketh so powerful an Impress as doth necessarily determine man's will by a Necessity consistent with his Liberty 4. It cannot be proved by any man that no man believeth by that sufficient Motion which doth not necessarily determine his will seeing many preparatory acts are done by such a motion And it 's probable that it is oft so 5. But the certainty of this or when and how oft it is so no man can know § 18. But by which degree of Grace soever the effect be produced still God's Will is the chief cause of it which can procure the effect infallibly when it doth not necessitate Yea and his premotion or impress called Sufficient is incomparably more the cause than Man's Concourse is though God leave some part of the Causation to man's Free-will § 19. But when the Effect doth not follow that is when men believe not it is man's will by omission and resistance that is the chief cause and culpable and not God's omission or non-determination § 20. The same degree of divine Impress or Motion which prevaileth with a Soul predisposed by common Grace is not enough to prevail with some others that are ill or indisposed Though God's Absolute Will and Answerable Operation would prevail with any how bad soever CHAP. XVI Of the State of Heathens and others that have not the Gospel § 1. THE opening of the several Laws or Covenants of God before hath taken up most that is necessary to be said about this point The question Whether any but Christians are saved is agitated on both sides by so much the sharper Censures by how much the nearer it seemeth to concern the Fundamentals of Religion § 2. On one side some say That nothing is more fundamental than God's Nature and Government and Beneficence and the Attributes which belong to him in respect to each And they say That for God to be the Ruler and Benefactor of the World and to be also gracious and merciful and Love it self and a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him are our Fundamentals which are not consistent with this That all the World since Adam except a few Believers or Jews and Christians that were born from Adam under as absolute a necessity of being remedilesly damned as of dying § 3. Here they use first to consider of the number viz. 1. That it is not past the sixth part of the World that are called Christians 2. That the far greatest part of these perhaps twenty to one have not competent means to understand what that Christianity is which giveth them their name and which as to the name they profess The Circassians Mengrelians and other Georgians the Armenians the Muscovites the Cossacks the most of the Greeks and Abassines yea and Papists besides the Copties Syrians Nestorians Iacobâ—tes Maronites Christians of St. Thomus c. and too many Protestants are bred up in so great ignorance that multitudes of them never are
willeth them to be future or because they are future from the free Agent 's Will Ans. 1. God's Knowledge ex parte sui is his Essence and hath no Cause for it is no Effect God's Understanding Will and Power are essentially One but as various inadequate conceptions they only make up perfect Unity and are not Causes and Effects to one another much less caused by any Creature 2. But Futurity is caused by that which causeth the thing future And therefore the futurity of Sin is caused by Man that causeth Sin so far as it is capable of a Cause of which more in due place But as Futurity is not Existence so it needeth not an existent but sometimes only a future cause 3. And God's Intellect is terminated on things as Intelligible and that is as they are And so on things that are future by his own will as such and on things future by Man's Will as such as far as Futurity is an object of an eternal mind § 9. The many Disputes de scientia simplicis intelligentiae purae visionis mediae I think best abbreviated according to the forementioned Principles God's essential Understanding is but One Things intelligible are many God's simple Intellect may be variously denominated as related to and terminated on various intelligible Objects and so according to their Order But this signifieth no real diversity at all in God but in the things known Nor must we dream that Scientia simplicis intelligentiae is like man's a knowledge of certain Logical Notions or Propositions by way of Thinking as to know that This is possible and the other is possible and that is convenient as if God needed such second notions to know by but it is infinitely above Man's mode of knowing His Knowledge is first effective and then intuitive and this without diversity or change in God § 10. It is a great aggravation of the Presumption and Prophaneness of many voluminous School-Disputes about the unsearchable nature of divine Intellection that the certain Knowledge of our own great ignorance even about every silly Creature and of God's incomprehensibleness and infinite distance do not prevail to repress such audaciousness and bring men to more Modesty and Reverence of God And how much more learnedâ—y and wisely doth he answer abundance of their Questions who saith I know not than they that by presumptuous conclusions take on them to know what they do not nor ever will do in this World CHAP. V. Of ELECTION § 1. ELECTION in Scripture sometimes signifieth God's actual choosing or taking one Man or People from among others to himself either for his special Complacency and Service by Sanctification or Conversion or to some special Office as David was chosen from among his Brethren And sometimes it signifieth God's eternal Will or Decree so to choose call or sanctifie and save men at a determinate time as in Eph. 1. and elsewhere § 2. God will convert justifie adopt and save some men by his Grace § 3. Therefore it is certain that God from Eternity did will or decree so to do For the event in time maketh it fit so to denominate God's eternâ— will Though there was nothing before the Creation really but God and so real existent Man was not the Object of his Will and Man in esse cognito was nothing but God himself there being nothing else from Eternity except as Eternity comprehendeth Time § 4. In the same manner as God bringeth men to Grace and Glory he willeth or decreeth to do it For his Decree to do it is no real Act of God distinct from his Essence but it is his simple essential will denominated from the effect related to it Therefore the Controversies about Election â—re resolved into those about the giving of Grace â—nd Salvation and there will be clearlier opeâ—ed § 5. Glorification Perseverance Adoption â—ustification Sanctification Faith and Repentance â— or Vocation preparatory common Grace and â—he Gospel and other means of Conversion are â—everal Gifts of God's Grace through Christ Therefore God's Decrees to give them may be â—liversly denominated from relation to the effect The Decree to glorifie may be distinguished from the Decree to convert to justifie â—c And yet where all these are really conjoined and are but as the parts of one Engine the several gifts which make up One Salvation as the object â—or effect is in that sence One so may God's Decree be called One as related to it So that they that say God's Decrees about our Salvation are many and they that say They are one do both speak Truth and disagree not § 6. They that will denominate God's Volitions or Decrees according to the Order of Intention must not mean that Ex parte Volentis God hath really many thoughts Volitions or Decrees and that the first is de fine and the next de mediis But only that in the order of real Causation one of God's Gifts or Effects is made to be a Cause or Means to the production or attainment of another and so the latter is to be Man's End intended in the use of the former and so Man is first to intend the End before he useth the Means But no Gift Work or Creature is to be called God's End except when we speak Vulgarly after the manner of Men that which we will not defend as proper Speech § 7. Yet God may be said to will and nâ—â— One thing to produce or Cause another whicâ— importeth only that it is a second Efficient Causâ— of that Other and the other an intended Effect and also that the other is to man to have rationâ—â— finis and so may be called finis operis operanâ—â—â— secundarii § 8. God is not an Efficient Cause of Himself or any thing in Himself and therefore not properly an End to Himself because there is nothing in Him Caused But if any will speak otherwise as if there were in God himself Eternal Causatioâ— Efficient and final and Eternal Effects and thereby explain the Doctrine of the Trinity let them remember that they venture on singular Expressions and such as favor of Imperfection but we hope that they differ from the Commoner way but in a Logical Notion rather than in a real Conception § 9. If we may not say that God is his owâ— End for every End hath a Means and there is no Means to God's Beings or Perfections then he is not properly said to have any End For nothing but Himself can properly be his End § 10. Yet when by an End we mean but improperly the ultimate Effect and not any thing which to God is Causa agendi and so declare that we take the words End and Intention equivocally as to God and Man the phrase may be used And in that sence we must say that God's will as Efficient being the Beginning of all things God's will as fulfilled and pleased is the End of all which yet signifieth not any diversity or change in God for his
of the aptitude of your Phrase I suppose we differ not about the thing intended as long as you hold no eternal Accidents or Composition in God and that nothing is eternal but himself which I must think you do in Charity If you take futuritio rei for the modus or relation of a humane Conception or Assertion de futuris I suppose we shall not differ de re nor will you say that it is eternal 3. If you speak but suppositively that if there had been such a conceptus or Assertion from Eternity it would have been true we differ not 4. If you take Futurition extra mentem to be any thing Substance Mode Accident or any Reality or aliquid rei and that from Eternity I deny it and say That they that make an universal Spirit and they that make Matter and Motion to be eternal with God are more excusable than they that make a thing called Futurity distinct from God yea the Futurity of Sin to be eternal and God the eternal Cause of that eternal Effect I purposed at the first glance to have answered the second Paper also about God's decreeing Sin but when I had read it I was unwilling 1. Because it is but too largely answered materially in my Book already and more fully in old Papers that lie by me which I cannot transcribe 2. Because I hear so much Good of the worthy Author that I am not willing to be drawn to dispute a Case which cannot be handled justly without opening so much Evil in that which I must oppose as will sound harsh towards one that I so much honour Men are so apt to feel that as touching themselves which is spoken to their Cause If Hobbes who wrote the Treatise of Necessity against Bishop Bramhall had sent me that Paper I should readily have answer'd it But here I fear it Only I tell the Author that I have been as strongly tempted that way as most others and do acknowledge that it is the greatest difficulty in all these Controversies to conceive how free will can act otherwise than God doth predetermine it But I am satisfied in the Solution and fully satisfied that the Predeterminant Opinion which I oppose doth certainly inferr the Religion of Hobbes the denial of Christianity and leaves us no Religion but that Good and Evil Happiness and Misery are Differences all made by God himself as Light and Darkness Angels and Serpents are made to differ by him And I am not willing to let go Christianity 〈…〉 such Objections as these And it had been m 〈…〉 that he had answered what I have said to Alvarâ— Mr. Sterry c. on this Subject and taken notice of my Answers to the most of his His talk of Casualty is his sum by which if he mean that which had not a predetermined Cause Sin is casual till the Sinner determine his own will But if he mean that which is unknown to God it is not casual And the Assertion That such things are not knowable to God I have confuted at large which he here taketh no notice of If I shall find that Necessity make it my duty to give any such Paper a particular Answer if I have time I may do it But I think enough is said of that already and my leisure from better work is small RI. BAXTER CHAP. VII Of God's Providence and predetermining Premotion and Miracles § 1. THE word Providence is variously used by Writers Sometimes as comprehending God's fore-knowledge and decrees themselves Sometimes as comprehending all his Works Sometimes as comprehending all his works which follow the Creation And sometimes as signifying only his effective disposal of Persons and Things in Motions and Alterations as dictinct from Legislation which only maketh Duty and Right § 2. In CREATION God Glorified his Three Essential Principles or Attributes 1 His Omnipotency eminently in giving BEING to all things 2. His Wisdom eminently in the ORDER and Composure of all 3. His Love or Goodness eminently in the GOODNESS and Wellfare of all For he made them Good and then Rested Yet so as that all these Attributes were glorified in each part of the Effect § 3. From hence a posteriore he is in the one Relation of CREATOR Related triply to the World and specially to the Rational part That is 1. As the MAKER of things which is Creator in the narrow sence 2. As ORDINATOR 3. As BENEFACTOR And thus he is the Author of NATURE § 4. From this fundamental Relation of CREATOR and the nature of the Creature made and continued by Conservation which is a continued Creation or Efficiency there resulteth a threefold Right and further Relation to God 1. A Ius Dominii or Right of PROPRIETY and so he is our OWNER and may do with all things what he will and must be the disposer of Events 2. His Ius Imperii including Doctrine or Right of Government which to things meerly Natural is Natural Government and to Moral Agents it is Moral Government by Doctrine Laws and Executions And so he is our KING or RULER 3. His Ius Amoris ut finis or Right to be the end of all and by the Ratiâ—nal Creature to be chiefly Loved and absolutely for Himself as the Best and most Amiable and so he is our ultimate END Where LOVE is considered not only as an act of Obedience to a Rector as all other duties are but eminently as it is the final perfective Act of man closing with the final Object and so above the common nature of meer Obedience § 5. All God's after works and all our Duties to him must be observed as respecting all these Relations of God to us and our answerable Relations to him For therein is the Nature Order and Harmony of them discerned to be Glorious And unskillful confounding them is a spoiling and prophaning or dishonouring of them And thus the various acts of Providence must be set each in its proper place § 6. God being the fons naturae and having settled the frame of Nature or created Beings and second Causes in a fixed state and order in which one thing is united to another and adapted to its proper work in concurrence with the whole we must not expect that God do ordinarily violate this his established Course For his Works shall shew somewhat of his Constancy and Experience telleth us that really thus He doth § 7. But we must not dream that God is involuntarily tied to his own Work or hindered by second Causes or the course of Nature from doing what He would but His free-will delighteth it self in this Constancy and ordered Course of Nature and use of second Causes which have still all their being force and order continued by Him § 8. And the number and operations of second Causes are so unknown to us that when things seem Miracles to us it is hard for us to say that God useth no second Cause in effecting them But it is enough to the use of Miracles to
know that their extraordinary production hath an answerable extraordinary use and signification of God's Will § 9. And no doubt but Nature and all its parts are absolutely in the Power and Government of God's Will And He can and doth turn things up and down as He pleaseth without making any breach in his established Order If the Husbandman can turn the course of Rivers to water his Grounds by meer Impediments and Receptivities without any alteration of the natural motion of the Water how much more must we ascribe to God in using Nature without overthrowing it § 10. It is Atheistical or absurd to set God and Nature in opposition competition or separation and to say as some Philosophers This or That natural Causes can do without calling in God as the Determiner Whereas natural Causes are nothing and do nothing but by God And there is no less of God in the effects of Nature than if He did the same himself alone In Him we Live and Move and Are. § 11. And it is no better in them that say that God doth not operate proximately and immediately where Nature or second Causes work but only remotely As immediately signifieth without any medium or second Cause so God doth not then work immediately But as it signifieth proximately He doth For an infinite being cannot be essentially distant from any Creature or Effect Nor is it possible that the second Cause can be nearer to the Effect than God who is as near as if he used no such Cause § 12. And the Dispute Whether God do proximately effect immediatione suppositi or only virtutis seemeth to have a false supposition viâ— That God's Virtue is not his suppositum and that the virtus divina may be where the suppositum is noâ— If by suppositum they mean God's Essence as Essence existing and by virtus they mean his Essence under the formal notion of Power Wisdom and Love then they are but two inadequate Conceptions of the same simple Being and therefore God thus ever operateth immediatione essentiae virtutis essentialis But if they mean that God hath â— virtus which is neither his Essence nor a Creature we believe them not § 13. The Controversie between Durandus and his Followers and the Jesuites and Dominicans about the necessity of a moving Concourse besides the support of Nature seemeth to me thus reconcileable 1. God as he is fons naturae is the Living God the prime Active Principle who by constant vital Activity is the Spring of all the Action in the World and is not to be dreamt of as one that had made the World and then left it to it self and withdrew his hand and is fallen asleep 2. But the Living God moveth not all things alike but every thing according to its nature and place for his Influx is received ad modum racipientium 3. The Nature of some Creatures is essentially Active and so inclined to act that they will act if their Nature be not by others or want of concurrent Necessaries hindered Such is every Soul or living Principle and Fire And other Creatures are naturally Passive only ex se or at least principally So that for God to continue Fire or Souls or any naturally-active Principle is to continue a nature essentially inclined to move or act 4. It is supposed that these Natures are not solitary but parts of the universe and are continued with all necessary circumstant Beings and Objects and that the whole frame of Nature and cooperating Causes are continued e. g. That the Sun doth not stand still while the Life of a Plant or Brute is continued 5. All this being supposed by Durandus Aureolus a Dola and all sober men the Question debated is Whether there be further necessary another immediate Divine Motion or Concourse to every motion of a Creature natural or free besides all this aforesaid And 1. Let it be consider'd that God's Essence being but one his Act which ex parte agentis is his Essence is not distinguishable saving ex connotatione effectus And if this be all that is meant That as ipse motus distinguitur a causis so God's Will Power and Agency may be distinctly denominated 1. As from the second Causes and 2. also from the Motion it self as more than the Causes this none can deny nor is it a Controversie But if the question be of the necessity of another distinct way of Divine Causation of the motus besides that by second Causes before mentioned they can prove no such necessity For is it mediate or immediate Causation or Efficiency which they mean we speak not of immediate as it signifieth proximate which is granted but as signifying sine causis secundis If it be mediate by second Causes that God must further concurr those are natural Causes or some other if natural it 's a contradiction to say that Besides God's moving by natural Causes which is granted he must also move by natural Causes as if Ideâ— were not Idem Unless they will say it must be by some other natural Causes which they do not nor can assign nor yet any other that are not natural But if they mean that to every motion there must be an immediate operation of God to it withoâ—â— that which he doth by second Causes even by God alone without any second Cause I then ask Doth God move any thing in the World by any second Cause or not If not then not by the Sun not the Coach by the Horses the Arrow by the Bow the Stone by the Hand the Pen by the Writer c. If yea then is it the whole or part only of that motion which is made by second Causes and God by them If the whole habetur quaesitum If part how prove you that God cannot make the whole motion himself by second Causes as well as part but must needs leave the other part of the same motion to be done without second Causes And it would follow that no second Cause no not the noblest in the World as the Sun and God as acting by it hath and exerciseth à vis adequata to the smallest motion even of a Leaf Whereas God in Nature maketh natural Power with his own as he is fons naturae adequate to its Actions And let unbyassed Reason judge Whether if a Rock should be held up in the Air if God conâ—inue the natural Gravity of it with all the rest of the frame of Nature could not that Rock fall without another motion of God which is without any second Cause to thrust it down If He continue the nature of Fire was it not a greater Miracle that it burnt not the three Witnesses Dan. 3. than to have burnt them or than its ordinary Action Why else should there need ten thousand fold more natural Power to hold up the said Rock or to quench a City on fire or to stop a River or the Winds than to move them supposing natural Causes if there need an
Miracles Therefore a Servant of Christ may most comfortably suffer Martyrdome for his testimony to the Deity Christianity the Life-to-come or Charity and Justice against Malice and Persecution and Cruelty which even a Miracle would not justifie more than for a disputable Opinion § 20. It 's a great Question How a true Prophet might be known antecedently before his Prophecy was fulfilled And it 's of great moment to consider the difference between a Legislative Prophet and a meer particular Message Moses and CHRIST the Legislators confirmed their Laws and Word by multitudes of uncontrouled Miracles For Life and Death lay upon mens Obedience or Disobedience to them And if a Prophet did reprove any Sin against that Law the Miracles that confirmed the Law did justifie them But if it were but a Prophecy about some other temporal Event as Ieremy's of the Captivity it needed no Miracle for it was but a temporal Suffering that followed the not believing them The Law of God which should here be handled I shall speak of afterward CHAP. VIII Of God's causing or not causing Sin § 1. HOw certainly the Doctrine of the necessity of immediate efficient physical predetermining Premotion doth make God the principal Cause of all Sin I have so oft shewed and so fully proved that I shall here be very short upon that Subject § 2. To say that God is the principal determining Cause of every sinful act with all its Objects and Circumstances called the materiale peccati and also the Cause of the Law that forbiddeth it and the Person that committeth it is to make him the chief Cause of Sin as far as it is capable of a Cause even of the formal Cause § 3. To say That such a Cause is the Cause only of the Act but not of the Obliquity is absurd because the obliquity is a Relation necessarily resulting from the Law and Act with all its modes and circumstances And the obliquity can have no other Cause § 4. To say That God willeth and loveth and causeth Sin not as Sin but for good ends and uses is to say no more for God than may be said for wicked men if not for Devils save only that God's Ends are better than theirs § 5. To say That God willeth not Sin but the Existence and Futurity of Sin is but as aforesaid to say that He wills not Sin as Sin or sub ratione â—ali but that it exist for better ends or else it is a contradiction For to will or cause Sin is nothing else but to will and cause the existence of Sin § 6. They that say That God willeth the Existence of Sin as it is summe conducibile to the Glory of his Justice and Mercy yea and that per se and not only per accidens do wrong the Glory of God's Holiness and Wisdom A Physician can love his own skill and compassion and the honour that cometh to him by curing a Disease without loving or willing the Disease it self but only supposing it as an Evil which he can turn to Good § 7. They that say That God is the Cause indeed of our Sin but is no Sinner himself because he is under no Law say nothing in the latter but what all grant and nothing in the former but what God's Church doth commonly abhorr excepting some few singular presumers § 8. They that hold That God doth by immediate physical efficient predetermining Premotion principally and unresistibly cause every sinful act with all its modes and circumstances do certainly deny all certainty of Faith and so subvert all Christianity For the formal Object of all Divine Faith is God's Veracity that God cannot lye if God could lye our Belief could have no certainty Now God speaketh to us but by inspired men and not by an essential voice of his own And if God cause as aforesaid all the Lyes that ever were spoken by Men or Devils in the World then no man can be sure that he doth not so by Prophets and Apostles or that ever they say true And God's Veracity then is gone § 9. They that think â—o evade this Evidence by the difference of Predetermination and Inspiration and say God inspireth no Lyes though he predetermine all by physical Premotion do labour in vain For 1. No man can ever prove that any Inspiration doth interest God more in the Act or Lye than physical Predetermination doth For how can God be more the Author of any Act than by effectual premoving the Creature to act it and that by immediate physical Predetermination What doth Inspiration do but so move the Mind Will and Tongue of a Prophet No man can name more that Man is capable of 2. But if there were a difference we are not capable of understanding that difference so well as to prove that God can cause all the Lyes in the World by predetermining Premotion and yet can cause none by Inspiration shall none believe him that know not this difference 3. And were it intelligible it would be only to inspired men themselves So that I am past doubt that we must part with all Certainty of Christianity and of all Divine Belief if we receive this Doctrine of Predetermination because the objectum formals fidei is then gone § 10. They that say that if we make not God the Predeterminer to every act in specie morali and in every comparative respect and mode we shall make Man a God by making him a Causa prima do thereby as much conclude God to be the first and principal predetermining efficient Cause of every wicked Habit as of Malignity or Hatred of God c. because a Habit hath as much Entity as an Act Therefore if it deifie Man to make him the first Cause e. g. of a Lye or Murder in specie then so it will do to make him the first Cause of the Habit. § 11. If it be as impossible for Man to do any thing but what he doth or not to do all that he doth without God's foresaid predetermining Premotion as it is to be Gods or to overcome God or make a World then if Men are counted Sinners and condemned it is for not doing such impossibilities for not doing what God alone can do or for not overcoming Almighty premoving Power § 12. â—t cannot rationally be expected that they that believe that God is the chief Cause and Willer of all Sin should think it very bad or themselves bad for it or that when God hath unresistibly made all men to sin he yet hateth it and sent his Son into the World to testifie his Hatred by dying for it and that he is serious in all that he saith against it in his word nor that such men should hate it and rather die than sin § 13. Therefore as the Church of God hath ever abhorred to make God the Cause of Sin and kept up the sence of the Evil of Sin for our hatred of it and departing from it and our Humiliation as a
Word of God And I think that I have elsewhere proved that Generative Traduction of Souls and yet God's present yea immediate Causation of their Essence which may be called Creation are here Consistent Which here I must not now repeat Vid. Meth. Theol. and Reasons of Christian Religion CHAP. XI Of our Redemption by Christ. § 1. SIN having made Man guilty and depraved unfit for duty and felicity odious to the most Holy Righteous God and lyable to his Justice the eternal Wisdom and Word of God did interpose and by Mercy did save Man from the deserved rigour of Justice promising Actual Redemption in the fulness of time and on that supposition giving fallen Man a pardoning and saving Law or Covenant of Grace with answerable help of his Spirit and Means and outward Mercies fitted to his Recovery and Salvation § 2. But God would not have this Recovery and Salvation to be perfect at the first but gave Man a certain proportion of Common Deliverance and Mercy binding him to a Course of Duty in the performance of which he should receive more by degrees till he were perfected As Phisicians cure their Patients § 3. Therefore God did enter into Judgment with fallen Man and did sentence him absolutely to some degree of Punishment even to Labour Pain the penalty of the Cursed Earth and finally to Death which Temporal Punishment God would not remit nor give him a Saviour to procure the pardon of it but only to the Faithful to turn all this unto their Benefit and to deliver them from the greater everlasting Sufferings § 4. And their own sinful pravity and privation of Holiness and communion with God which also was their greatest punishment by Consequence God would not at once nor in this Life perfectly save them from and therefore accordingly pardoned them their punishment but by the forementioned degrees For he is not perfectly pardoned or saved who is yet left under so much penalty § 5. Some thinking it hard that for 4000 Years the World should have no Existent Mediator and that an Existent Faith in the future Mediator should be more necessary than an Existent Mediator and his Work and thinking withal that it would solve many Textual Difficulties objected by the Arians and explain the Appearances of Christ to the Patriarchs have conceived that Christ hath a threefold Nature viz. The Divine Nature a created Super-Angelical Nature to which the Divine Nature was united before the Incarnation and the Humane Nature assumed at the Incarnation and that so we had an Existent Mediator from the time of the Fall But whatever conveniences this Opinion may seem to have I find no satisfactory proof of it in Scripture nor that the Christian Church did ever hold it And it is overmuch boldness to take up so great a Doctrine as a third Nature in Christ which the Church of Christ was never acquainted with And the Texts that seem to be for it are capable of the common Exposition § 6. If any think that this was the Judgment of abundance yea the most of the Antient Writers before the days of Arius because they have such unhappy expressions of Christ which the Reader may find truly Collected to his hand by Petavius de Trinitate and that it is fitter to Expound them as speaking only of Christ's second Nature than to account them all Arians or to honour the Arians by making them on their side I answer I leave every Man to his own judgment upon perusal of the Fathers words allowing all Charity that hath sufficient ground But I cannot perceive that these Writers talk of any more Natures in Christ than two and pious ends must be served by no Fictions and Untruths I think that we must rather gather with Petavius there that the Votes in the Nicene Council tell us that then the greater part of the Church were against Arius and therefore they were so before because they held in so great a point the Faith which they had received from their Fathers And that the greater part of Writers might differ from the greater part of the Church And withal these Writers having more than other men to do with the Heathen Philosophers and Orators who were prejudiced against the Doctrine of the Trinity did shun their Offence by too much stretching their speeches to that which they thought they could easilier digest which gave Arius his advantages The Conclusions either way are harsh and sad but I leave others better to avoid them § 7. The Deity it self may not unfitly be called our REDEEMER before the Incarnation though not so fitly a MEDIATOR and though Redemption by Christ's Death and Merits in the Flesh was not then wrought Because the word Redeeming is oft taken for a merciful Delivering though without a price and also because the Price was promised from the beginning But thus the word REDEEMER is equivocal signifying either the Deity as a promising undertaking Saviour or the Mediator who was promised and who performed the undertaken means § 8. The MEDIATOR himself being purely the Gift of the Divine Love and Mercy it was no inconvenience that God then had all the Glory and that Faith then acknowledged no other existent Saviour but God himself the infinite Good § 9. It troubleth men much to open how Christ was any true Cause of our Pardon and Salvation as a Mediator before his Incarnation And what his merits sacrifice and intercession could do before they did exist And the common Answer is That Moral though not Physical Causes may cause before they exist and so operate as foreseen foredecreed or willed But these Logical notions must not be used to put off the Question instead of satisfactorily answering it This tells us not whether by a Moral Cause they mean a True Cause of some moral Being or something morally called a Cause which indeed is not so but quasi causa Nor yet whether they mean a Cause efficient final or constitutive Nor yet whether they mean a Cause of any thing in God or only of some following effect § 10. It must be concluded that Christ's merits sacrifice and Intercession make no real Change in God his Understanding or Will and therefore have no such Causality § 11. But God's Promise first and Christ's Merits and Sacrifice next make a Change in the state of things laying that Ground-work or necessary Antecedent and Condition upon which it becometh meet right and just for God to give the rest of his mercy which this is the Condition of and the true meritorious Cause And so the Change was neither on GOD nor immediately on Man but for Man on the state of things which God and man were both concerned in It is a causa ordinis while that is done first which is prerequisite to what is to follow And it is a causa rei benefici◠while it not only removeth moral Impediments of our Pardon and Salvation but also setteth matters in such a state in which it becometh congruous
meet right and just for God to pardon and save us which is a remote disposing the fall'n sinner to be a due Recipient of God's following promised Grace And thus it is in both senses a moral Cause as it is a Cause of our Right and of Congruity and as it is though not indeed yet morally reputatively or Quasi causa physica realis of our Pardon Grace and Salvation by making them become just right and due And being thus far a Cause of the effects ad extra per extrinsecam denominationem ex connotatione relatione ad objectum it may be called with cautelous sobriety a Cause of God's own Intellections and Volitions For though in themselves they are God's Essence yet for God to know us to be redeemed and to will our present Pardon and Salvation as Redeemed ones are words that speak more than God's Essence as in it self and include the termination of his Acts on these Objects as such and so denominate God's Essence distinctly from the Objects which else would never be distinguished nor have but one name being really but one § 12. Yet all these diversifying distinguishing denominating Causes of God's Intellections Volitions and Operations must not even denominatively or relatively be counted or called Efficient Causes of God's Acts nor strictly final but objective And therefore here it must be considered what Cause an Object is which Philosophers are not well agreed in But I think I may safely say That as to moral acts the Object is to be reduced to such a cause materialis or constitutiva as they are capable of not of the Act as an Act but as this act in specie denominated from the receptive terminating matter or object And though to Man to know this or that and to will this or that ad extra seem somewhat really different or modally at least from knowing and willing our selves or some other Object yet in God it is not to be called ex parte sui a real or modal difference at all § 13. Yet I assert not that the Ratio prima of all these Diversities of the Divine Acts is ex terminis seu recipientibus For the first Reason is in and of God himself For it is God that maketh all diversities of Effects and Changes and so it is from those divers Effects of his own Will that his Will is relatively ex connotatione termini diversly denominated But that in God which is the Ratio prima diversitatis is not divers but his one simple essential Will so that it is the diversity of Objects which is the immediate Reason of distinguishing God's acts of which before § 14. These things premised I come nearer to the Question if that which existeth not do truly cause it must be either efficiently constitutively or finally The two first are denied by the common Reason of Mankind That which is not cannot effect Nothing can do nothing And to say it is not is to say it constituteth not And as it is certain that causa finalis non efficit yea is but causa metaphorice operans so it is certain that no Creature causeth any thing in God no not finally § 15. Those that say That Christ and his death and merits did not cause before Existence in esse existenti but in esse cognito as constituting the Divine Idea's 1. Must remember that the esse cognitum as they call it is no esse rei cognita at all Therefore if only the esse cognitum do cause then it was not Christ and his Merits that caused 2. In Man for an esse cognitum to cause his further acts is but for one Thought to cause another Thought or a Volition or Nolition And these Thoughts and Volitions are really divers and constituted by reception of intromitted Objects But God is no Recipient nor knoweth any Object as we do by intromission Nor hath he any such Thoughts or Idea's of Creatures as are really divers ex parte Dei but only by extrinsick denomination § 16. If it be said That then God should know nothing till it is because a denomination must be from something and nothing can be no Object or terminus and so of his Will I Ans. 1. God doth not know any thing as existent now which doth not exist now But our Now is in his Eternity and his Eternity without partition comprehendeth all our Times prae and post ab and ad are Prepositions of no signification in and of Eternity but only In And therefore as Augustine saith his Prescience is but his Science so denominated from the Order of Objects but noteth not any difference in him who hath neither prae nor post How this is to be understood without making the Creature eternally exist I have elsewhere fully opened § 17. That plain truth therefore which must here satisfie us is That God who is the first efficient and ultimate final Cause of all things and caused by none did of his free abundant Mercy undertake the saving of sinful Man and notwithstanding his Threatning and Man's Defect resolving to make advantage of our Sin and Misery for the Glory of his Wisdom Love Mercy and Justice he promised that the Eternal Word should in due time assume Man's nature and therein do and suffer that which should glorifie him more than Man's Perdition would have done and which should make it just and meet for him to save the Guilty both inceptively at the present under the Promise for 4000 years and afterward more fully at Christ's Incarnation and finally to perfect all in Glory So that the Work of our Salvation is one entire frame composed by Divine Wisdom and Love where one part is the Reason of another though none be the Cause of any thing in God And Christ's Mediation though coming after 4000 years yet was then to do that which should make it meet and right and just for God to pardon Sin before Even as in a Building the several parts may be the reason of each other because they must be all compaginated and fitted to their relative places and uses And though the Foundation make not the Superstructure it upholdeth â—itâ— And as Aquinas briefly faith Deus non propter hoc vult hoc sed vult hoc esse propter hoc nothing is the Cause of God's Will but it is God's Will that one thing shall be for another And when all his Work must be one Frame the part last made may be a reason of the former And so Christ's merits and sacrifice though after 4000 years perform that for which it became just and meet before for God to pardon Sinners For though it was not then existent yet besides the Decree the Promise Prediction and Publication made it useful to its ends in respect to GOD and Man § 18. So then though the Cause be not truly a Cause till it exist and though all the Pardon and Salvation given for 4000 years was before the existence of the merits and sacrifice of
man can do any more good than he doth and so That he hath no meerlysufficient Grace to any one act in all his life § 28. The Controversie about sufficient Grace is the same in the true meaning of it with that of the Power of Mans Free-will For when by sufficient Grace we mean nothing but the enabling a Man to the act or giving him Power to do it the stress of the Question is Whether Man hath truly any Power to do more than he doth For if he have such a Power Grace hath given it him if it be for a Work that Grace is needful to So that indeed were it not for Custom and Expectation this Question should be handled under that of the Power and Liberty of Man's Will § 29. No man hath at the present Grace sufficient for his Salvation if he have longer time to live Because the Grace or help of the present hour is not sufficient for the next but there must be continual Supplies from God supposing that we distinguish of Grace by the distinct numerical acts and hours for and in which we need it But if you distinguish of Grace by the species of Acts for which it is needful and not by the numerical acts then it may be truly said that the same Grace in specie which a Believer hath to day may be sufficient to his Salvation or to his life's end § 30. But if you speak de gradu that Grace may be sufficient to one thing which is not sufficient to another And so 1. An Infidel may have Grace sufficient to forbear some Sin or avoid some Temptation or use some means that tendeth to Faith and Repentance who hath not Grace sufficient to believe and repent unto Salvation 2. A man may have Grace sufficient to enable him to believe and repent unto Justification and yet not have at that instant Grace sufficient to enable him to love God above all as God with a fixed habitual Love and to live an holy life for the Spirit and Sanctification are promised on condition of Faith and Repentance 3. A sanctified man that is yet but weak may have Grace sufficient to live to God a holy life at present and yet not have Grace sufficient for greater trials of Duty and Temptation And therefore Augustine and all his Followers still say That the Grace of Perseverance is a Gift over and above the Grace of meer Sanctification in the weakest degree § 31. By all this it is evident that he that disputeth of the sufficiency of Grace must first distinctly tell us 1. Whether he mean extrinseck Grace or intrinseck 2. If extrinseck Whether he mean it comprehensively of all extrinseck Grace together or only of some particular part of sort 3. If the latter Whether he speak of the sufficiency of Christ's Death and Righteousness Sacrifice Merit Intercession c. or of the sufficiency of the Gospel-Covenant or Promise or of the sufficiency of Preaching Praying and other means or of the Scripture-Records c. 4. If he speak of intrinseck Grace Whether the Question be of Sufficiency ex parte Dei agentis which none must question or ex parte effecti 5. If the latter What is the effect whose sufficiency he questioneth 1. Is it a Grace or Power to do some more common good use some means forbear some evil as the Unregenerate may do 2. Or is it a Power truly to repent and believe 3. Or to love God habitually and live holily 4. Or to overcome greater Temptations and persevere 6. And he must tell you whether he speak 1. De specie whether the Grace or Power sufficient to this sort of Acts or Duty be sufficient to another or to all 2. Or de gradu Whether this degree be sufficient against a greater degree or sort of Temptation 3. Or as men use to distinguish Grace and Help by numerical Acts and Hours Whether the Grace of this Hour and Act be sufficient for the next or for all The sence of all these Questions is distinct 7. But his last and greatest difficulty will be to tell you truly and plainly what is that Grace which is the subject of his Question of its sufficiency in the general nature of it and as related to the thing which it is called sufficient to § 32. For by Grace he meaneth 1. Either somewhat ex parte Dei agentis 2. Or ex parte effecti or 3. Quid medium 1. Grace as it is in God the Agent 2. Or as it is in Man the Recipient 3. Or as it is somewhat between both § 33. I. Grace as it is in God is nothing but his Essence not as Essence but as an essential Power Intellect and Will denominated by Connotation from the effect This is commonly agreed on God doth operate per essentiam and not by Accidents § 34. II. If they mean any mediate thing between God and the Effect either they speak of the first effect or a second and so on If they speak but of secondary effects and the meaning be only whether one effect be a sufficient Cause for another they mean either an outward or an inward Grace or Effect If an outward then the sence of the Question is Whether some other Work of God be sufficient to move the Will of Man And then it must be told what other Work you mean Whether an Angel or the Planets or the Word or Preacher or an outward Mercy or Affliction or what it is But if you speak of the very first effect then the fancy is almost proper to Aureolus among the Schoolmen to think that there is something from God antecedent to the Creature and Motion which may be called Action or Energy or Efflux which is neither the Creator nor a Creature neither Cause substantial nor Effect but Causation As if some Beam of Virtue or Force went from God to produce every Creature and Motion which is neither God nor the Creature or Motion But this is commonly and justly rejected as feigning a third sort of Entity between God and the Creature which it passeth the wit of Man to conceive of what it should be ☞ And if God do immediately per essentiam cause that middle Entity or Action or Force which he saith is no Creature why may he not as well immediately per essentiam cause the Creature and motion it self This therefore cannot be the thing meant by Grace in this Question To question the sufficiency of God's Essence is intolerable To question the sufficiency of a mediate divine Efflux or Action which is between God and the Creature and Effect is to dispute in your Dream of a Chimera an unproved and a disproved and commonly-denied Entity To dispute of the sufficiency of Angels Scripture Sermons c. to work Grace is not the thing commonly intended in this Controversie of Grace Each several sort of means may be sufficient in its own kind and to its own use but no one of them is sufficient to the
out of their Churches which should be the Porch of Heaven is the way to be shut out themselves of the heavenly Jerusalem If those that have long reproached me as unfit to be in their Church and said ex uno disce omnes with their Leader find any unsound or unprofitable Doctrine here I shall take it for a great favour to be confuted even for the good of others excluded with me when I am dead Jan. 21. 1691. Richard Baxter THE CONTENTS Chap. 1. HOW to conceive of GOD. Pag. i. Chap. 2. How to conceive of the Trinity in Unity p. vii Chap. 3. How to conceive of the Hypostatical Union and Incarnation p. xxiii Chap. 4. How to conceive of the Diversity of God's Transient Operations p. xxx Chap. 5. Whether any point of Faith be above 〈◊〉 contrary to Reason p. xxxii Chap. I. Prefatory Who must be the Iudge of Controversies The true Causes of the Divisions of Christians about Religion p. 1◠Chap. 2. The Doctrines enumerated about which they chiefly disagree p. 22 Chap. III. Of God's Will and Decrees in general Th. Terms and several Cases opened p. 2◠Chap. IV. Of God's Knowledge and the Differenc◠about it p. 4◠Chap. V. Of Election and the Order of Intentio◠and Execution p. 3◠Chap. VI. Of Reprobation or the Decree of Damnation the Objects and their Order p. 4◠An Answer to Mr. Polhill of Futurition p. 4◠Chap. VII Of God's Providence and predetermining Premotion Of Durandus's way p. 7◠Chap. VIII Of the Cause of Sin What God doth and doth not about it p. 82 Chap. IX Of Natural Power and Free-will p. 89 Chap. X. Of Original Sin as from Adam and nearer Parents p. 94 Chap. XI Of our Redemption by Christ what it doth how necessary p. 89 Chap. XII Of the several Laws and Covenants of God p. 99 Sect. 1. Of the Law or Covenant of Innocency made to Adam Divers Cases p. 113 Sect. 2. Of the Law of Mediation or Covenant with Christ When and what it was p. 121 Sect. 3. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the first edition What it was p. 126 Sect. 4. Of the same Law with Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Iewish Law of Works p. 132 Sect. 5. Of the Law or Covenant of Grace in the last edition the Gospel Divers Cases about it opened p. 138 Chap. XIII Of the universality and sufficiency of Grace What Grace is How far universal and sufficient p. 154 Chap. XIV Of Man's Power and Free-will since the Fall Adrian's Saying That an unjustified man may love or chuse God's Being before his own What to ascribe to Grace and what to Free-will in good p. 173 Chap. XV. Of Effectual Grace and how God giveth it Doubts resolved p. 181 Chap. XVI Of the state of Heathens and such others as have not the Gospel What Law the Heathen World is under and to be judged by Whether any of them are justified or saved The Heathens were the Corrupters of the old Religion and the Jews of the Reformed Church Mal. 1. 14 15. and Sodom's Case c. considered p. 188 Chap. XVII Of the necessity of Holiness and of Moral Virtue p. 203 Chap. XVIII Of the necessity of Faith in Christ where the Gospel is made known p. 212 Chap. XIX Of the state of Infants as to Salvation and Church-membership p. 216 Chap. XX. Of the nature of Saving-Faith its Description and Causes p. 226 Chap. XXI Of justifying Righteousness Iustification and Pardon The several sences of the words and several sorts of them Our common Agreement about them p. 238 Chap. XXII Of the Imputation of Righteousness Christ's righteousness in what sence ours and imputed and in what sence not p. 256 Chap. XXIII How Faith justifieth and how it is imputed for Righteousness Several questions about it Repentance c. resolved p. 267 Chap. XXIV Of Assurance of our Iustification and of Hope What Assurance is desirable What attainable What Assurance we actually have Who have it The nature and grounds of it Whether it be Divine Faith p. 279 Chap. XXV Of Good works and Merit And whether we may trust to any thing of our own 1. What are Good Works 2. Whether they are necessary to our Iustification or Salvation 3. Whether they are rewardable or meritorious 4. What is their place use and necessity 5. Whether to be trusted to p. 282 Chap. XXVI Of Confirmation Perseverance and danger of falling away 1. Whether all Grace given by Christ be such as is never lost 2. Whether that degree be ever lost which to Infants or Adult giveth but the posse credere 3. Whether any lose actual justifying Faith 4. Or the Habit of Divine Love and Holiness 5. Whether some degree of this may be lost 6. If Holiness be not actually lost is the loss possible 7. Whether there be a state of Confirmation above the lowest Holiness which secureth Perseverance 8. Or doth Perseverance depend only on Election and God's Will 9. Whether all most or many Christians are themselves certain of their Perseverance 10. I◠such Certainty fit for all the justified 11. Is it unfit for all and doubting a more safe condition 12. Doth the Comfort of most Christians rest upon the Doctrine of Certainty to persevere 13. Doth the Doctrine of eventual Apostasie inferr Mutability in God 14. Why God hath left the point so dark 15. What was the Iudgment of the ancient Churches herein 16. Is it of such weight as to be necessary to our Church-Communion Love and Concord p. 300 Chap. XXVII Of Repentance late Repentance the time of Grace and the unpardonable sin p. 314 BOOKS Printed for and Sold by Iohn Salusbury at the Rising Sun in Cornhil A Rational Defence of Nonconformity wherein the Practice of Nonconformists is vindicated from promoting Popery and ruining the Church imputed to them by Dr. Stillingfleet Bishop of Worcester in his Unreasonableness of Separation Also his Arguments from the Principles and Way of the Reformers and first Dissenters are answered And the case of the present Separation truly stated and the blame of it laid where it ought to be and the way to Union among Protestants is pointed at By Gilbert Rule D. D. The Christian Laver Being two Sermons on John 13. 8. opening the nature of Participation with and demonstrating the necessity of Purification by Christ. By T. Cruso Six Sermons on various occasions By T. Cruso in 4◠The Conformists Sayings or the Opinion and Arguments of Kings Bishops and several Divines assembled in Convocation A new Survey of the Book of Common-Prayer An END of Doctrinal Controversies c. CHAP. 1. How we may and must conceive of GOD. § 1. A True Knowledge of God is necessary to the Being of Religion and to Holiness and Glory No man can love obey trust or hope beyond his knowledge Nothing is so certainly known as God and yet nothing so defectively known Like our Knowledge of the Sun of which no man doubteth
remember that Controversies about them are not about any real change in God which all deny but only about the connotative and respective denomination of his Will from the changeable Creature And while that is confessed sober men will not be forward to fall out about it § 19. Suffer not the Quaerist to confound the three forementioned Sences of the Will of God and you may resolve almost all the ordinary questions about it as is before intimated without any more ado As e. g. Qu. Is God's Will resistible Ans. 1. God's Will as it is his Essence cannot come into the Question as not being passive and so not properly resistible 2. As God's Will is taken for the objects and effects of his will many of them are resistible As his Commands when they are violated are resisted morally so one effect of God's will or one Creature moved by him naturally may resist another 3. If the question be only whether the respective Termination of God's will and the Denomination of it as thus or thus terminated can be resisted I answer 1. Not by any resistance upon the Essential will of God so terminated 2. Not by making God to be willing and not willing of the same thing in the same respect at the same time for that is a contradiction and were to make the same Object to be and not to be at the same time Contra necessitatem existentiae 3. Not by preventing or destroying any Object or Effect which God's will so produceth as that no Creature hath power to hinder 4. But when he will cause one sort of motion and himself cause a greater contrary motion or enable a free Agent so to do this contrary motion resisting the other motion which was the effect of God's will his will is denominated as resisted respectively The same may be said of Passive Resistance § 20. So if the Question be Whether God gave any Conditional Will Ans. 1. There is no place for the Question about God's Essential Will in it self 2. Many Objects of God's will and effects are antecedently conditional 1. Quoad â—ormam as his conditional Promises 2. Quoad â—ventum as when he suspendeth any Right or Benefit on a condition to be done by a free Agent as e. g. Adam shall live if he sin not and die if he sin But here Conditionality implieth no uncertainty as to God's Knowledge 3. Therefore if the Question be only whether â—b objecto any Will of God may be relatively or connotatively called Conditional 1. Remember that the Question is but de nomine 2. The same will of God may be called Conditional as quid conditionale is the Object of it and also Certain and Absolute as the same thing is to him certainly future which yet was in the Order of Causing conditionally future But this supposeth the certo futurum to be quid volitum and not Sin which is certo futurum and non volitum CHAP. IV. Of GOD's Knowledge § 1. AS we must not think of God's Will as having various and mutable internal acts as Man's hath but as One Essential Act only variously denominated from the relation of extrinsick Objects even so must we think also of his Knowledg § 2. God knoweth not by Reception of any Light or Species or Idea from the Object without him but as beseemeth the perfection of the Infinite Intellect and first cause even partly by a productive act of Intellection and partly by termination on the Objects known N. B. I am faiâ— all along to use the name of Extrinsick Objects to signifie that the Creature is not God though it is improper to say that any thing is extra Denm but we want better words § 3. Many of the Church-troubling Disputes about God's Knowledg are raised from that prophane supposition That God knoweth cogitandâ— by many distinct Cogitations as Man doth and by Idea's or received Species of the Creatures And on the false Supposition that Man can comprehend God's way of Knowing or at least hath formal conceptions of it and must speak accordingly From whence there are such rash Disputes which Act is first and which cometh after § 4. Most of these Controversies are ended by the right applying the foresaid distinctions to God's Understanding which I before applied to his Will As e. g. Qu. Hath Gods Knowledg any Cause Ans. 1. Not as it is his Essence 2. The Objects of it have their Causes 3. The denomination of his Knowledg as such from the Objects respectively hath its cause such as a Terminus may be called And as in Man the Object is really the quasi materiale and constitutive cause of the Act not as an Act but as this Act in specie vel individuo thus terminated so as to the meer connotation and relation and denomination though not as to â—ny real reception we may speak of God § 5. So if the question be Whether God's Knowledge â—ave many Acts and whether one be before or after â—thers Ans. 1. God's Essential Knowledge is simply one 2. The Objects of it are many 3. Therefore as denominated ab extra from respect to the Objects we may distinguish his simple Knowledge and mention priority and posteriority but such only â—s resulteth from the Order of Objects And these being but Conceptions and Denominations necessitated by our weakness without any real diversity â—n God we must fear and abhorr presumptuous boldness and contentiousness hereabout § 6. So if the question be Whether God's Knowledge be mutable Ans. 1. His Knowledge essential it self is not 2. The Objects are 3. And therefore the Denominations of his Knowledge ab extrae oft are As we may say That God knew from Eternity that the World would be created and Christ incarnate as future But now he knoweth that they were so ut praeterita God doth not now know that Christ will be born that Christ just now is crucified that Paul is preaching on Earth but once he knew all these Yet here all the Change is in the object and none in God's Knowledge as there is on mans § 7. If the question be How God knoweth future contingents Ans. 1. God's Essence is Knowledge and is Infinite and therefore extendeth to all that is intelligible And if they be not objects intelligible it belongeth not to a perfect Intellect to know them But if they are it is rashness to ask any other reason of God's knowing them besides his Perfection and their Intelligibility But all Contingents that are future are Certainties to God as well as Contingencies in several respects and accordingly known But the shallow Brain of Worms doth little know what Futurity signifieth in Eternity to God 2. But we know what future Contingents are to us 3. And thence we know that God's Intellect may be denominated by imperfect Man as in its perfection comprehending our Futurities and Contingencies and human Measures tho' not as Measures to God § 8. If the question be Whether God know things as future because he
no Cause nor Dependance upon any Creature § 12. But there are other Acts of God's justice which are comprized in Reprobation or Rejection as the word is commonly understood As 1 Cutting off a sinner untimely in his Impenitency 2. Denying him some inward helps of Grace which once he had or was fair for so far as that is quid positivum and depriving him positively of some Means of Grace for his sinful refusal or abuse or for abuse of other Means and Mercies And all these punishments God so far decreeth as he Executeth which is upon none but such as by sin against the Law of Grace deserve them § 13. But where Negations are no Punishments nor Privations they fall not under the notion of Positive Effects or Objects and so are not fit to denominate a Positive Decree or Will Therefore when it is not a Punishment Not to give Faith Repentance Preaching c. is no act of Reprobation As not to give that Faith Repentance and Pardon which he needed not to Adam in Innocency not to give them in act to Infants c. § 14. Yea when a Penal Privation is only the consequent of God's not Acting and not of any Positive Act there the Ratio Poenae is of God and is quid positivum and God causeth it by that Law which did make the debitum poenae But yet the Negation or Privation in which it consisteth is Nothing or nothing of God's causing and therefore not fit to denominate a distinct Decree e. g. Not to give special Grace Pardon Iustification Glory to Iudas is nothing and so as nothing not the object of a positive Decree But both the positive acts by which any Mercy is withdrawn and also the relation of Punishment which is in these Nothings or Privations is caused by God and therefore Decreed by him As if God say This shall be his punishment that will not Eat that he shall die of Famine Here not eating is nothing but the penal reason which is in Famine which is but the privation of Meats resulteth from the Law of Nature and will of God § 15. By all this it appeareth that Election and Reprobation go not pari passu or are not equally ascribed to God For in Election God is the Cause of the means of Salvation by his Grace and of all that truly tendeth to procure it But on the other side God is no cause of any sin which is the means and merit of Damnation nor the Cause of Damnation but on the supposition of Man's sin So that sin is foreseen in the Person Decrâ—e'd to Damnation but not Caused seeing the Decree must be denominated from the Effect and Object But in Election God decreeth to give us his Grace and be the chief Cause of all our Holiness and doth not elect us to Salvation on foresight that we will do his Will or be Sanctiâ—ied by our selves without him Therefore Augustin Prosper and Fulgentius still make this difference That the decree of Damnation goeth on foresight of sin but the Decree of Salvation containeth a Decree to give that Grace that shall certainly Save us An ANSWER TO Mr. Polehill's Exceptions about Futurition SIR IAm much chidden already for writing many Books and Answering so many that object and am told That if the Case well Stated will not satisfie men no Answer will do it bâ—eause it is for want of their Receptive Capacity which long and right Studies must help them to and not a meer Answer to their Objections I very highly value the worthy Gentleman whose Papers you sent me hearing of few if any among us more commended for Knowledge and Piety The question is but whether it be he or I that by half confused conceptions of the matters in question speaketh in the Dark or which of us hath the more ripe digested and ordered thoughts hereof And must others be troubled with such Cases It is those that he pleadeth for that have made the edge of the Razor so thin that they or I do Cut our Fingers with it and have spun such subtile Notions which if their wits when they have done be not subtile enough to manage they will oft slip through or be as Spiders Webs As to the first Controversie of Futurity or Possibility this Gentleman's method will do me no good being no whit fitted to that which I expect I should expect from him that he had taken notice of my Distinctions and Explications â—f Futurity and that he had directly pleaded only for that sort or sence which I deny and had Answer'd the Reasons which both in the First and Second Part I bring against it But it is not so And to Dispute at such rates is but to try who shall live longest to have the last word it being easie at this rate to talk against one another as long as we live which I cannot expect and therefore shall give any man herein the best All that he hath said against me is materially Answered in the Book already and if he perceive it not how can I help that More Books are not like to do it nor have I leisure for such tasks Yet briefly I return I. As to my sence of the words Future and Possible 1. As they are predicated of the thing future or possible they are termini diminuentes quod realitatem existentem and futurity as it is rei ipsius futuritio is nothing 2. Whether Time be any thing distinct à re durante or Nothing is a Controversie which I conjecture Mr. P 's Pen and mine are never like to decide It is enough for me now to say that I take it for nothing Distinct 3. Yet shallow man that seeth not uno intuitu the Universe as God doth nor hath his essential Eternity is in motion where there is mensura motus and must think of things by partial Conceptions and must make past present and future his differing Notions in Duration 4. The internal Conceptâ—â— in man of a thing as future that it will be is quid reale for it is an act of the mind and a Verâ—um mentis and an act dâ— niâ—ilâ— A mental Negation is a real act To think and say in the mind the World was not from Eternity Darkness Death c. are nothing are real thoughts 5. The verâ—â—â— prolatum ore vel scripto sin will be c. the Suâ— will rise c. is quid reale It is a Word a Proposition 6. The fundamentum or premises from which such a Conclusion may be fetch'd iâ— quid reale e. g. God's Will or Knowledge or any necessitating Cause 7. God that knoweth man knoweth all his mental Conceptions and his Propositions de futuro without Imperfection knowing our Imperfection and so knoweth whether they are true or false 8. God's willing and knowing that things were are or will be are all one ex parte Dei being nothing but his simple perfect Essence thus knowing and willing But ex parte rei cognitae aut
bound or conquer'd that can turn Nothing into Something at his pleasure Non-futurity is nothing therefore it hath no Cause Is this Nothing the Ruler of God and All things because he causeth not that which is not causable Alas that good men should keep up dividing Controversies at this rate of reasoning You say If it have no Cause it can have no Impediment and so there is Fatum Stoicissimum We all talk at the rate that we understand The World was nothing before it was made and so had then no Cause in the esse causae as being no effect Relations in esse being simultaneous Doth it follow that God was subject to Fate There was no Impediment indeed to Nothingness it is not necessary that Nothing be hindred lest it become Something God can make somewhat where there is nothing at his pleasure and can make a future Nothing to become an existent Something And what should be the medium I wonder that tempted you to think otherwise Did the nothingness of Angels before their Creation hinder God from making them Or can nothing have a ruling Power Ad 6. Again you stick not at the repeating of the contradiction of a self-originated Future or Nothing and think God's Decrees endangered by nothing because it hath no Cause What a dreadful thing is this Nothing To be self-originated is to be Something of it self And if Futurity be nothing then it is something of it self And you offer not a Syllable to prove these Contradictions You add To what purpose shall Decrees be Ans. To produce the thing decreed in its proper time and place and not to make them something before they are any thing nor to make an ens Rationis to be a real extrinseck Entity You strangely say To decree such a Futurity is a nullity for it can never come to pass What can never come to pass Futurity Say also To decree Non-futurity or that there shall be to us but one Sun but one Saviour is a nullity because Nothing can never come to pass What is it for Nothing to come to pass It is come to pass without a Cause that there is but one Sun to us but one Saviour and other Nothings The Decree or Will of what shall come to pass is no nullity for it shall all come to pass and yet the Decree made not the word shall be to signifie a real Entity distinct form or model of the thing that shall be The Decree that there shall be a World was fulfilled and yet shall be was not a being before t 〈…〉 World unless it was God's Essence You Phrase importeth as if Futurity must come to pass as a thing Decreed and question whether there was a futurity of that futurity and so in infinitum For the word Coming to pass importeth futurity of futurity and not eternity You say To decree in compliance with it is below God over All for it will come to pass whether God decree it or no. Alas that Speaking should be so hard an Art What iâ— it to decree in compliance with nothing Hath it any sence How is it that Nothing will come to pass It 's true that Nothing will be Nothing without a Cause and therefore without a Decree And therefore let the reverence of God make you consider whether it be meet for us in the dark to ascribe to God such Decrees of nothing and to number Nothings and make as many Decrees Such a dance and game of notions we may more boldly use about our selves than about God till we know him better You add God in decreeing doth not decree the thing into being in the instant of decreeing but He decreeth the Futurity of it and if that be nothing he decreeth nothing Ans. Wrong thoughts will have wrong words All that you should have inferred is That His Decree effecteth nothing till the time come which is true For He decreed only to effect it at such a time But doth it follow that God decreeth nothing but Futurity because the thing decreed is not presently done Thus you must say That God decreed not the World nor CHRIST nor Salvation but Futurity only The Decree or Will of God was That the World CHRIST Resurrection c. shall be at such a time shall be is no being and yet it is a being when existent which God decreed but his Decree maketh it not a being till it exist Dr. Twisse will over and over tell you that God's immanent acts do nihil ponere in objecto And I have oft told you truly that you or I little know what we say when we divide God's Eternity into parts and assign him his praeteritum futurum And it would put you hard to it to tell me clearly and surely what God's Eternal Decree is before the effect exist our present common-received School-Divinity will call us Blasphemers if we say that before the Creation there was any thing but God and any thing in God but God and that God had any real accidents And therefore it saith that he doth operari per essentiam and not per accidentia And therefore that God's Decree before the effect was nothing but his Essence But it is his Essence denominated not as such but as related to the things decreed though yet they be not If you will forsake this common Theology and place acts in God which ex parte agentis are but Accidents and not his Essence and say This is consistent with his Simplicity and Perfection you will let in a Body of new Divinity and we shall not know when we have all God's Accidents noâ— how to order them His freest Acts are his Essential Will freely acting but those free acts themselves before the effect are nothing but God himself We must not place in God a number of Thoughts Images Notions Accidents as we do in Man But your Phrase savoureth of other Thoughts Ad 7. Here you are for yea and nay you will suppose no Propositions in God and yet you argue that then what will remain of a Decree I said But that God knoweth not by Propositions bâ—â— yet that he knoweth Propositions If you hold That God knoweth by Propositions and Argumentations say so that I may know what to speak to If you hold That He hath no Decrees what is it that you plead for But to answer your Question God's Decree is not a forming of Propositions in his mind or any change in himself or addition to his Being But it is His simple will that such and such things shall be emanative communicative productive of them in their season There are some that think that as Time-Divisions are the measures of imperfect Creatures and God's Eternity hath none such so that it is an ascribing Imperfection to God to say That he hath Decrees de futuris distinct from a productive Volition which in the most proper sence should be denominated from the produced Existent as such But in this I interess not my self as knowing that we
Infinite Power moreover to the act and none to the cessation And by this Rule it would follow that all Motion in the World is supernatural For if God cause it ut sons naturae he causeth it in the natural course if he do not it 's all supernatural and miraculous Moreover if all this satisfie not Disputes if it be worth the Cost they may try the Case thus Supposing that God hath told no man his Secrets when he will immediately move any thing without second Causes and that no second Causes nor his own Operation by them can move any thing without another immediate Motion Let them cut down the Pillars or undermine their Houses and say that by meer natural Causes the House cannot fall Let them set fire on their Houses and say that by meer natural Causes they cannot be burnt Let them drink Poison and say By meer natural Causes it cannot hurt us Or let them cut their Flesh c. For God never told them that he will immediately concurr and then there is no danger Perhaps they will say That Experience telleth us that God doth usually concurr with them I answer And is not that because he worketh by them What Experience or Reason have you that God should still work immediately with them and yet not by them We can prove that He worketh as the first Cause But if you will prove that He doth it not as the first Cause moving the second Causes but by immediate concomitancy let us hear your proofs Lastly let it be noted that when they that affirm all Motion to be by immediate concomitant Concourse or Predetermination do pretend that they do it lest God's Causality should be denied or extenuated it is a meer deceit For all are agreed that there is no less of God in the Operations done by second Causes or Nature than in immediate Operations without second Causes such as God exerciseth on the first created Motor and how else he please God is as much in one as in the other § 14. For the understanding of the nature and use of miraculous acts of Providence it must be considered 1. That God that made the World of Natural Agents and things Passive moved by the Active is not to be feigned without good proofs to alter any of the Works which he hath made which we see he continueth in the course that he made them without any mutation of their Natures § 15. God can change and cross and use as he pleaseth the Actions of Natural Agents without changing their natures and inclinations One Natural Agent or moved Passive may be resiâ—ed and turned back or overcome by another â—nd yet there may be nothing but natural motiâ—n in them all A stronger Stream may drive â—ack a weaker A Canon may cross the ordiâ—ary motion of the Air As a great Dog may â—aster a little one or a Woolf devour a Lamb â—nd a Bird a Worm or Fly and yet there be â—one but natural and sensitive motion So God â—an dry up or stop the Red Sea or Iordan and â—y Winds carry Caterpillars to and from Aegypt and such like and by one natural â—otion overcoming another It 's hard for us â—n most Miracles to say that God doth more than this § 16. But it is certain that God hath a rank of free Agents that act arbitrarily and that these have a great measure of power over natural and necessary Motions As man is a free Agent and driveth his Sheep to what Pasture he pleaseth and guideth his Horses and Oxen in their way and furrow to do his will by their natural and sensitive necessitated motion and as a Miller can make the natural course of the Wood and Water and Mill-stones and Horse all to serve his intention without changing the nature of any one of them so much more can God and free Agents under God attain their freely chosen ends by Ordering and not Changing Natural and Sensitive Movers § 17. We so little know what Arbitrary Free Agents that are invisible Spirits God hath set over this Passive World and what power he hath given them to use Natural Agents as they themselves freely will that it greatly disableth us to resolve all the Difficulties of the Cause of Sin and Misery and about the nature of Miracles But it is a clear truth that it is by such Free Arbitrary Agents primarily that natural Agency is crost and overcome in Miracles the one Natural Agent be employed to resist another as to quench the heat of Fire to stop the course of Winds and Water c. Yet it is some voluntary free Agent that thus useth natural Agents against each other Scripture tells us that God useth Angels as Rulers and Protectors of lower Agents And that there is a kind of a war between these and Devils And how far the prevalent Wills of good and bad Angels or voluntary Agents may be the Cause of Evil or be the Actors of Miracles by setting one moved Agent against another and yet all but Natural motion that is caused by these free Agents Mortals do not know and therefore should not be peremptory in judging § 18. But though we know not that in Miracles God useth not second Causes some natural and some free in waies unsearchable to us yet may we be assured by Miracles of his will and attestation when we find that things are done quite out of the way of his ordinary Providence in the uncontrouled confirmation of some prophetical Revelation For God is the Governour of the rational World and his moral Government must be by the intelligible signification of his will de debito what shall be due from us and to us And if Miracles be used to deceive us they cannot be done without him whatever second Cause there be And if he should use them tho' by second Causes to deceive us we are utterly remediless and therefore guiltless And God that 〈…〉 at h neither impotency ignorance nor badness cannot need a Lye to govern Man when he hath 〈…〉 de it part of his Image on Man and needful to Mens Justice to each other to hate Lying § 19. A Miracle controuled by contrary Evidence is no notification of God's Attestation It may be permitted for several good ends For God by controuling it giveth us sufficient remedy against Deceit And there are two waies by which a Miracle may be controuled First by greater conquering Miracles used for some contrary Doctrine or Cause so the Aegyptian Magician's Miracles were controuled by Moses Secondly when it is some unquestionable Truth or Duty or Word that is already better proved which that Miracle pretendeth to contradict As if a Miracle were done by a Deceiver to prove that there is no God no Life-to-come or against Mercy or Justice or to disprove Christianity the greater Miracles which have confirmed the Gospel and the evident Light of Nature which proveth the Deity and Life-to-come and the Duty of Love and Justice do controul such deceiving
dependent on him and still upheld by him and used under him § 7. Though some would have more Power ascribed to Nature and others appropriate more to Grace yet in this it is no Controversie How much is to be ascribed to God For both Nature and Grace and the Powers of both are totally from God But all the question is Which way God giveth it to man § 8. In general we should be most cautious 1. That we disparage not any Power or Endowment which is God's own Work whether natural or gracious 2. That we give not too much to any Work that is proper to Man § 9. Natural Power of Vital Action Intellection and Volition is supposed by God as Lawgiver in his Subjects that is that we are Men. § 10. Every act of Knowledge Faith Repentance Love and Obedience is done by our natural Powers or Faculties and none without them § 11. The word Moral Power signifieth 1. Sometimes a Power to moral actions and so natural Power in Man is also moral in some degree 2. Sometimes a Holy Disposition especially in the Will to such holy moral actions which is the Rectitude of our natural Powers or the Health of them in a saving degree or sort and is the Gift of Grace since Sin departed 3. Most frequently I use the words for such a degree of God's helping or healing Influx or Grace as is short of a Habit for promptitude and facility but yet puts the soul in such a disposition by which Man can do the Act and it may come to pass without more Grace whether it do or not which the Dominicans call Sufficient Grace and I rather call Necessary Grace 4. Sometimes it is meant as causa moralis for that which is Power Reputatively § 12. Power hath several degrees some can act easily yea is hardly restrained some can act with difficulty yet constantly some difficultly and very rarely some can act but the Impediments are so great and its weakness such as that it never will do what it can And these we call a moral Impotency as being reputative impotency in these three last degrees § 13. Sin hath debilituted Man's very natural Vivacity and Activity to things spiritual and also darkened and undisposed his Understanding to them but especially disâ—ffected him and perverted his will with an indisposition averseness and enmity to God And none of these are cured but by the Grace of Christ quickening or strengthening and awakening illuminating and converting the Soul Of which more after in due place § 14. Adam had Power to have stood when he fell God took no power from him nor let out such a Temptation as he could not resist But Sin entered at his Will and corrupted it before he lost his Power § 15. There is therefore in 〈…〉 such a thing as a true Power to do more good and less evil than we do § 16. And there was such a Power in Adam's Will by which he could have willed what he did not â—ill and by which he could have rejected the Temptation And this without any other Grace than that which he then had and used not § 17. Otherwise all the sin of Adam and the World would be resolved into the necessitating Will and Work of God and so all Faith would be subverted § 18. Therefore Man's Will was such a Faculty as could be a causa prima of the moral modification or specification of its own Acts Not a causa prima simpliciter but thus secundum quid For else God must be the causa prima of Sin which is the ill modification of that Act. § 19. I know that to Nature the Reasonings of our late Infidels to prove That every Act of the Will is as truly necessitated as the motions of a Clock do seem plansible and hard â—o answer because it seemeth strange that in any mode of Action Man should be a first Cause of it and that a Creatures Act should have no superiour Cause in any mode But on the other side the Evidence is cogent 1. That God is able to make a self-determining Power that can thus do For it is no contradiction 2. That it is congruous that below the happy Race of confirmed Spirits there should be a Race of such undetermined free Agents left much to their own self-determining Power 3. And Experience perswadeth us de facto that so it is 4. And they that deny it must unavoidably make God the prime Cause of all Sin in a higher degree than it is or can be ascribed to Satan And is all this with the rejection of Christianity more eligible than the Concession that God can and doth make a Creature with such self-determining Free-will as can as a first Cause of its modified act sin without God's Predetermination And by his help could forbear Sin when he doth not The Contest is Whether GOD or Man shall be counted the causa prima of Sin we say Man is the first Cause and GOD is none at all Some say God must be the causa prima of all that can have a Cause in it and rather than deny him the Honour which is given to Satan they will deny Christianity and deny him to be holy and to be GOD. § 20. GOD made this natural Free-will that Man might be a governable Creature fit to be morally ruled by Laws and rational Motives and as part of God's Image on Man CHAP. X. Of Original Sin § 1. BY one man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all in that all have sinned § 2. We were not in Adam distinct Persons really for our Persons then existed not and therefore did not inexist § 3. God doth not repute us to have been what we were not for he judgeth truly and is not mistaken Therefore he judged not Peter and Iohn to have been those Persons in Adam then nor Adam's person the same with theirs § 4. Therefore we were not then when he sinned persons guilty in Adam for Non existentis non sunt accidentia § 5. We were Seminally or Virtually in Adam when he sinned Which is but that he had that Virtus generativa from which we naturally sprang in time But to be Virtually in him is Not to be personally in him but Potentially it being as to Existence terminus diminuens § 6. As soon as we were Persons we were Persons derived by Generation from Adam Therefore with our Persons we derived Guilt and Pravity For he could beget no better than himself § 7. When Adam sinned his whole Person was guilty and no part innocent Therefore his very Semen prolificum had its part in the guilt according to its Capacity And though it was not a guilty Person it was a part of a guilty Person and a part that was the Semen personae so that when that Semen became a pâ—rson Cain it became a guilty person the guilt following the subject according to its Capacity And so downward by Propagation
effect But if you will put the Question as of All together it must be so explained § 35. III. The Grace therefore meant in this Question can be no other than either some effect on the Soul as tending to a further effect or the aforesaid comprehension of necessary extrinseck means If the former be meant as it is by almost all Schoolmen and Disputers of this Case then 1. It must be enquired Whether such a thing be and 2. What it is if it be § 36. 1. Bradwardine and some that go his way do deny the being of any such thing as we now dispute of and say That God's essential will as a will is the immediate Efficient and the Act of Man is the Effect e. g. Faith and because God willeth that Act it doth immediately exist as the World did by his creating will And so here is no place for the Dispute of Sufficient Grace For God's Will is certainly sufficient to cause what he will cause And Man's Act either is existent or not And there is no Grace antecedent to it to be called insufficient unless you will vainly say that Gods essential Will is sufficient to nothing but what he preduceth which is a Dispute unfit for sober men § 37. 2. But because the contrary Opinion is far more common that there is an inward Grace e. g. to believe or consent antecedent to our Act whose sufficiency is questioned it poseth the Wits of all the Schoolmen much more is it above many Contenders that never so much as studied it to say what it is The Notions of Alvarez who calls it motus and of Vasquez and others I have elsewhere considered and here pass by And I have shewed that I take it to be so far past man's reach as to be unfit for hot Contention But so far as we may conceive of it it must be in this twofold notion 1. As it is some Divine Impress on the Soul which is Analogus to the Vis impressa received from the Mover in the Patient in corporal Motion 2. That this Impression received doth in primo instant◠put the Faculty into such an immediate Ability to the Act or such a state of Disposedness to the Act as may be called a Moral Power the natural Faculty being supposed and puts the Will in such a state as to the act of Consent as that it can do it but is not necessitated to it nor actually determined but can forbear And this is called sufficient Grace 3. And in the next instant when the Will doth consent God and Man are both Causes or Agents and the Grace is effectual by both Causes God the first and Man the second § 38. 2. The Pelagians and some others seem to think that God doth not operate immediately on mans Soul as to proximity of Causation but immediately on superiour Causes and Means as Angels Word Objects c. and that when all means are duly ordered man may be said to be able in his meer natural powers for the Act because those means are now Grace sufficient to excute it And that when one Means of an hundred is wanting it is insufficient Grace § 39. We all confess that God worketh by means and we cannot name an Act on us which he always or ordinarily doth without any means or second Cause And we acknowledge that there are gracious means and that ordinarily these must have a sufficiency in their kind But withal we must say that God worketh immediately as to proximity of Causation when he worketh not so immediately as without second Causes And that whether by means or without means as he pleaseth there must be such a Disposition communicated to a depraved undisposed Soul as shall be a moral power and put it into an immediate capacity to consent or act And to dispute the sufficiency of the means is one thing and to dispute the sufficiency of this inward Disposition or Power is another And this must be the question § 40. The common disputed question is Whether all men have Grace sufficient to believe which must be negatively answered They have not Those that never heard the Gospel have not § 41. But 2. have all that hear the Gospel sufficient Grace to believe Ans. No many of them are hardened by former sinning so as to be set at a greater distance and enmity than many Heathens § 42. But 3ly All the World hath Grace or merciful Help sufficient to enable them to do less evil and more good than they do and to use some means better than they do which tend to further Grace And they that do not this are justly denied further Help § 43. 4. But the sticking difficulty is Whether any men in the World have Grace sufficient to repent and believe savingly who do not To which I answer 1. The Question is of less moment than it 's commonly made to be seeing those are unexcusable who use not that Grace which was sufficient to their foresaid use of means and less resistance to God's Grace 2. But certainly to answer the question negatively or affirmatively I cannot as not knowing any more of Gods working on mens Souls than he himself hath told us of 3. But if we may conjecture upon Probabilities it seemeth to me most likely that there is such a sufficient Grace or Power to repent and believe savingly in some that use it not but perish For 1. if Angels had and used such a sort of Grace 2. And if Alam had such a sort of Grace and used it a while 3. And if unregenerate men have such a grace for lower Acts which tend to Faith 4. And if the Faithful have such a grace to do more good and less evil than they do 5. It seemeth very improbable that only to the fifth Instance to repent and believe none in the World should have such a sufficient grace § 44. And though Iansenius seem very singular in denying that there is now any such sufficient grace of Christ in the World which is not effectual either to believe or to do any other good that is That Christ's grace enableth no man to do any more good than he doth yet indeed it is most in two ambiguous Words that Iansenius differeth from others though many unskilful Disputants suppose it to be much more material a difference viz. 1. In one Syllable GOOD For he will call nothing good in man's Actions but Holy Love and its Effects and so saith That no unsanctified Man doth good and therefore hath not Grace sufficient to do it But moral Good is taken in three Sences or Degrees 1. Good secundum quid in a degree not predominant And so Infidels and ungodly Christians have some good 2. Good secundum quid vel imperfectum but in a degree predominant And so the Godly do good though mixt with evil 3. Good in perfection and unmixt with evil and so none do good till they are perfected in Glory To say nothing of essential simple Good
habits and acts in specie as circumstantiated by immediate necessitating or unresistible premotion and yet taketh not away their Liberty because he maketh them will and not nil the sin These do but play with the name of Free-will and are confuted as aforesaid from the instance of Adam and from the scope of Scripture and do subvert the Foundations of Christianity To will is the proper act of my will and if he that moveth me by prime physical efficiency to will the circumstantiated act of Sin deprive me not of my Liberty because it is willing that he maketh me do then if Men or Devils had Power to make me will Sin as I cause my Pen to write or the Fire to burn this or that it would be no loss of Liberty But of this more largely elsewhere CHAP. XV. Of Effectual Grace and how God giveth it § 1. AS I said before about Sufficient Grace so here about Effectual the first thing to be done by Disputers is to agree what that is which they here call Grace as the Subject of the Question And as I there shewed 1. It cannot or must not be God's essential Will or Power for that is simple and immutable and not in it self save relatively distinguishable into sufficient and effectual 2. An Efflux or vis which is neither God nor the Effect there is none or none proveable 3. It is not Faith it self that is meant here by Grace for it is the Grace that effecteth Faith and it were absurd to ask what Faith is effectual to make or cause it self This is true both of the Act and Habit. The meaning is not what Habit of Faith is effectual to the Act nor what Act to the Habit or it self but what Grace of God is effectual to cause both Act and Habit. 4. Therefore there is nothing left to be meant by Grace but the two things before mentioned viz. 1. The gracious Means or second Causes appointed by God to cause our Faith 2. The first moving Impress on the Soul as it is antecedent to Act and Habit supposing that such there is though some deny that there is any such thing § 2. And for the first all means will be uneffectual without God's inward Operation by his Spirit He must work on the Speaker and on the Hearer to make means effectual as is agreed on But whether as God worketh in Naturals according to the aptitude of natural second Causes so he work Faith and other Graces by a settled proportion of Concourse agreeable to the Aptitude of gracious second Causes or Means of Grace is a Question too hard to be boldly and peremptorily determined by us that are in so much darkness § 3. But it seemeth to us that God would not have made it so great a part of his Government to establish a Course of Means if he did not intend to work ordinarily by them and according to their fitness Christ is the chief Means and instituteth the rest Scripture Ministers Example good Company merciful Providences Afflictions Meditation Books Prayer Sacraments c. are all appointed for such effects And if God would ordinarily work immediately without means what need all these This teacheth Infidels to say that he may do it without Christ. The Spirit first indited the Word as we cut a Seal to be the instrument of Impression and then by that word doth work on Souls § 4. But if God did tie himself not only ordinarily but alwaies to apt means no mortal could say what means is sufficient and what is insufficient and what is more than sufficient even necessarily efficacious For the means 1. are very many and more than we can take notice of and if one be wanting it may render the rest insufficient or uneffectual how excellent soever in themselves 2. And that means is fitted to one Hearer that is not fitted to another All have not the same temptations hindrances prejudices objections weaknesses nor obstinacy And God only knoweth when means are adequately fitted to the desired effect upon mens Souls § 5. And though many of the means operate ex parte sui necessarily yet so do not all For Preachers and Instructers are free Agents and so it must be other effectual means that must first move them to do their Duty for a Sinner's good Which who can judge of § 6. But God is the Arbitrary Absolute Lord of all means and therefore he can change and dispose of them as he pleases and yet work by them So that the Effect is nevertheless from God's free or arbitrary Volition though he never went beyond the aptitude of means When even a silly man can turn the natural course of Water and Wind to move his Mill or Sails at his pleasure without any alteration of their natures A Fisher can use his Bait as may serve his end and a Physician can vary his Medicines to cure the Disease without changing their nature or curing without them § 7. But there is no question but God can work without means and Intellectual Souls being so near to the first Cause it is utterly uncertain to us whether in Works of Grace God have not a double operation on the Soul one by his appointed means and another by immediate Influx and if it be so how these concurr to one and the same effect and also how God doth immediately move Souls are all past Man's reach and should be acknowledged above our Disputes § 8. II. God hath more inward operations on Man's Soul than one or two whether with means or without to bring us to Faith and Repentance The mind must be enlightened the dull faculties must be excited especially Conscience and Will and the Will must be touched with the gust of Divine Love to breed a holy Complacency in good and many Impediments must be removed some by outward acts of Providence and some by inward Grace And where Impediments are not removed no doubt but there needeth more of the other Acts of Grace to bring such a Soul to Faith and Repentance than in one where there is less resistance § 9. And seeing that Recipitur ad modum recipientis and the disposition of the Recipient hath so great a hand as common Experience telleth us in almost all the Changes in the World what wonderful variety of Effects doth the same Action of the Sun produce throughout the World by the diversity of receptive dispositions Therefore no mortal man can say when the efficacy or success of Divine Grace is more to be ascribed to the Preparatory Disposition of the Recipient by a former act of Grace and when more to the present moving Influx nor what proportion these alwaies bear as comparable And what man dare say that he can search out the waies of God § 10. When we know so little of the secret Energies of natural Principles nor how God produceth Animals in the Womb nor how he causeth our Food to nourish us nor how any of our Senses do
Slave and also promiseth him great Possessions and Honours in a Kingdom in the East Indies or at the Antipodes if he will leave his Servitude and his Country and all that he hath there and go with him in his Ship and patiently endure the Sea-trials till he come thither Here he must 1. believe that the Prince hath paid his ransome 2. That he is a wise man and knoweth what he promised and skilful to conduct him safely through all the perils of the Seas 3. That he is an honest man and intendeth not to deceive him 4. That he is sufficient or able to perform his word 5. And if upon this belief he trust him he will let go all and venture in his Ship and follow him And here one tells him that the Ship is unsound another tells him that the Prince is a Deceiver unable to perform his Word or unskilful or dishonest and some way untrusty and another tells him that small matters in his own Country are better than greater with so much hazard and sets out the dangers and terribleness of the Seas Now if the man be ask'd Do you believe or will you trust me or will you not here every one by believing and trusting knoweth that a practical Trust is meant which lieth in such a confidence as forsaketh all and taketh the promised Kingdom for all his hope Such is our Saving Faith § 12. As many Acts and many Objects go to constitute Saving Faith so if you will logically anatomize it all these following must be taken in § 13. 1. The principal Efficient Cause is God the Father Son and Holy Ghost respectively according to their several operations § 14. 2. The Instrumental Cause is the Word of God and the Preaching and Preachers of it or Parents Friends or some that reveal the Word unto us § 15. 3. Subordinate auxiliary means are Providential Alterations by some awaking Judgments or inviting Mercies or convincing Examples c. § 16. 4. The Soul of Man in all its three Faculties Vital-active Intellective and Volitive is 1. the Recipient of the Divine Influx and then 2. the immediate Efficient or Agent of the Acts of Faith § 17. 5. Preparatory Grace and Duty is ordinarily Man's Disposition as he is the Recipient of God's Grace and the Agent of believing But God is free and can work on the unprepared but it is not to be taken for his ordinary way § 18. 6. The formal Object of the assenting Act of Faith is veracit as Dei revelantis the Veracity or Truth of God revealing his Will § 19. 7. The formal Object of the accepting and receiving Act is the Goodness of the Benefits offered us by the Covenant as offered § 20. 8. The formal Object of our Trust or Affiance is God's fides Fidelity because of his aforesaid Veracity in promising and his Power Wisdom and Benevolence as a Performer and this full Act comprehendeth all the rest It is God's Trustiness § 21. 9. The material Objects of the assenting Act in genere are all God's Assertions or Revelations More especially the Gospel or the Christian Faith objective according to the Edition of the Covenant which we are under § 22. The Essentials of our objective Christian Faith constitute the Essence of our active Saving Faith and the Integrals of it constitute the Integrity § 23. And it is of great importance to distinguish here as to the Word and Objects between 1. the signa or words 2. the signification or sence 3. the things matter or incomplex objects as distinct from words and sence viz. God Christ Grace Heaven Goodness Iustice Men c. And to hold 1. That the words are not necessary for themselves but for the sence and therefore Translations or any words which give us the same sence may serve to the being of Saving Faith 2. That the sence it self is not necessary for it self ultimately as if Holiness lay in notions but for the things which that sence revealeth viz. God to be loved and obeyed Christ to be received the Holy Ghost to be received and obeyed Holiness and all Grace to be received loved used encreased our Brethren to be loved Heaven to be desired c. All sence will not bring us to the reception of the things for all is not apt but any that doth this which must be divine and apt will constitute us true Believers § 24. 1. The material Objects of our acceptance and consent are the Word of God commanding offering and promising and the good of Duty and Benefit commanded offered and promised that is All that is given us in the baptismal Covenant God the Father and his Love the Son and his Grace and the Holy Ghost and his Communion The Father as reconciled and adopting us the Son as having redeemed us to teach rule justifie and save us the Holy Spirit to sanctifie comfort and perfect us § 25. 11. The material Object of our Trust or Affiance is God himself the prime Truth Power and Good and Christ as his Messenger and our Saviour and the Holy Ghost as the Author of the Word and the Word as being the Word of God You must pardon us as necessitated to call God a material Object analogically for want of words § 26. 12. The ultimate or final Objects of Saving Faith are 1. God himself the ultimate ultimum that is the perfect Complacency of his will in his Glory eternally shining forth in our Glory and the Glory of Christ with all the Church triumphant 2. Next to that This Glory it self which is a created thing and the Perfection of the Universe and of Christ's Church and our selves in which it consisteth And therein our own Perfection and our perfect sight love and praise of our glorious God and our Redeemer 3. And next under that the first fruits of all this in this World in the foresaid love of the Father and Grace of the Son and Communion of the Holy Spirit and the Church § 27. If therefore we were put to give a full description of Saving Faith we must be as large as this following or such-like in sence viz. The Faith which the Adult must profess in Baptism as having the Promise of Justification and Salvation is a sincere fiducial practical Assent to Divine Revelations and especially to the Gospel revealing and offering us God himself to be our God and reconciled Father Christ to be our Saviour viz. by his Incarnation meritorious Righteousness and Sacrifice Resurrection Doctrine Example Government Intercession and final Judgment and the Holy Ghost to quicken illuminate and sanctifie us that so we may live in the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Spirit and of the Christian Church being saved from our Enemies Sin and Misery initially in this Life and perfectly in eternal perfect Glory With a fiducial acceptance of the Gifts of the Covenant according to their nature and a sincere federal Consent and with a sincere
Believers or consent to the Covenant of Grace if at age 3. These penitent Believers sins are pardoned virtually before they are committed supposing them but Sins of Insirmity but this is properly no Pardon nor so to be called because it is but the position of those things which will cause Pardon hereafter To be only virtual is not to exist but to be in causis But it is too grosly inferred hence by some That it is not God then that actually justifieth but Man that performeth the Condition as if the Condition which is but a suspension of the Donation and the performance a removal of the suspending Cause were the donative Efficient and so the Receiver were the Giver As if he that opened the window were the Sun or efficient Cause of the Light or he that lets off a Crossbow by removing the Stop were the spring that effecteth the motion of the Arrow § 62. Neither Pardon nor Justification are perfect before death For there are some correcting Punishments to be yet born some Sins not fully destroyed some Grace yet wanting more Sins to be forgiven more Conditions thereof to be performed The final and executive Pardon and Justification are only perfect CHAP. XXII Of the Imputation of Righteousness § 1. THE great Contentions that have been about this Point tell us how needfull it is to distinguish between real and verbal Controversies The opening of the Doctrine of Redemption before Chap. XI hath done most that is needful to the solution of this Case we are commonly agreed in these following Points § 2. 1. That no man hath a Righteousness of his own performance by which he could be justified were he to be judged by the Law of Innocency that is all are Sinners and deserve everlasting Death § 3. 2. That Jesus the Mediator undertook to fulfil all the Law which God the Father gave him even the Law of Nature the Law of Moses and that which was proper to himself that thereby God's Wisdom Goodness Truth Justice and Mercy might be glorified and the ends of God's Government be better attained than by the Destruction of the sinful World and all this he performed in our Nature and suffered for us in our stead and was the second Adam or Root to Believers § 4. 3. That for this as the meritorious Cause God hath given him power over all Flesh that he might give eternal Life to as many as are drawn to him by the Father and given him Joh. 17. 2. He is Lord of all and all power in Heaven and Earth is given him Matth. 28. 19. and he is made Head over all things to the Church Eph. 1. 22 23. Rom. 14. 9 And for these his Merits a Covenant or Law of Grace is made to sinful Man by which all his sins are freely pardoned and Right to Impunity and Life is freely given him if he will accept it and penitently turn to God § 5. 4. Whenever a man is pardoned and justified or hath Right to Life this Law of Grace doth it as God's donative Instrument And whoever is so pardoned and justified it is for and by these Merits of Christ's Righteousness § 6. 5. But Christ doth initially pardon and justifie none by this Covenant but penitent Believers and therefore hath made it our Duty to repent and believe that we may be forgiven and have right to life as the Condition without which his donative and condonative Act shall be suspended § 7. 6. God never judgeth falsely but knoweth all things to be what they are And therefore he reputeth Christ's meritorious Righteousness and Sacrifice to be the meritorious Cause of all mens Justification who are justified and of the conditional Pardon of all the World 2 Cor. 5. 18 19 20. and as sufficient and effectual to the assigned ends as our own personal righteousness or suffering would have been and more though it be not so ours as that of our own performance would have been nor so immediately give us our Right to Impunity and Life but mediately by the Covenant § 8. 7. And as God reputeth Christ's Righteousness to be the prime meritorious Cause for which we are justified by the Law of Grace as afore-said so he truly reputeth our own Faith and Repentance or Covenant-consent to be our moral Qualification for the gift and our Holiness and Perseverance to be our moral Qualification for final Iustification and Glory which Qualification being the matter of the Command of the Law of Grace and the Condition of its Promise is so far our righteousness indeed and oft so called in the Scripture as is aforesaid § 9. 8. Therefore God may in this Sence be truly said both to impute righteousness to us and to impute Christ's righteousness to us and to impute our Faith for righteousness to us in several respects § 10. Thus much being commonly agreed on should quiet the Minds of Divines that are not wise and righteous overmuch and it beseemeth us not to make our arbitrary Words and Notions about the Doctrine of our Peace with God to be Engines to break the Church's Peace seeing Angels preached to us this great Truth That Christ came into the World for GLORY to God in the highest and for PEACE on Earth and for GOOD-WILL or LOVE from God to Man or mutual complaâ—ency and his Servants should not turn his Gospel into matter of strife § 11. That which we are yet disagreed about is the Names and Notions following As 1. What is meant by the Phrase of Imputing in several Texts of Scripture as Rom. 4. 11. That righteousness might be imputed or reckoned to them also Ans. The words seem to me to have no difficulty but what men by wrangling put into them To have righteousness impuâ—ed to them is to be reputed judged or accounted as righteous Men and so used the cause being not in the Phrasâ— it self but fore-described § 12. So what is meant Rom. 4. 6. by imputing righteousness without works Ans. Plainly reputing or judging a man righteous without the works which Paul there meaneth § 13. So what is meant by Not imputing sin Psal. 32. 2. 2 Cor. 5. 19. Rom. 5. 13. Lev. 7. 18. 1 Sam. 22. 15. 2 Sam. 19. 19. Rom. 4. 8 Ans. Not-judging a man as a Sinner guilty of punishment not charging his sin upon him in Judgment which is as 2 Sam. 19. 19. c. because he is not truly guilty or as Rom. 4. 8. c. because he is forgiven § 14. 2. What is meant by imputing our Faith to us for righteousness But of that more purposely anon § 15. 3. Whether imputing Christ's righteousness to us be a Scripture-phrase Ans. Not that I can find § 16. 4. Whether it be a fit or lawful Phrase and whether in so great matters departing from Scripture-phrase and pretending it necessary so to do be not adding to God's Word or the cause of Corruptions and Divisions in the Church and an intimation that we can speak better than the
Flesh and the Devil and take God and Glory for thy all § 18. Christ's own righteousness being not essentially given to us in it self but given for us and to us in the Effects to say That the receiving of that which is not given is the only justifying act of Faith is to say That we are not justified by Faith at all But if they mean the Effects of Christ's Righteousness then it is but to say We are justified by no act of Faith but by consenting to be justified by Christ's Merits Which is not true § 19. They contradict themselves that make Christ's Priestly Office the only Object of Justifying Faith and yet make his whole Righteousness and Merit that Object For who knoweth not that all Christ's Righteousness was not performed by him only as Priest § 20. And Christ's Priesthood hath many other actions belonging to it besides his Merits offered for us Even his present Intercession Which must be excluded if Christ's Righteousness here as under the Law were the only Object of this Faith § 21. II. The second Question I had never troubled the World about so much as I have done had I not found too many Protestants scandalize the Papists by laying too much on the Nation of Instrumentality ill explained But the judicious are here all in sence of the same mind § 22. For by an Instrument they mean not 1. an instrumental efficient Cause of Justification 2. Nor of making Christ's Righteousness ours For we give it not to our selves 3. But they take the word Instrument mechanically or less accurately and tell us that they mean a receiving Instrument as a Boy catcheth a Ball in his Hat But so as that it is a moral Instrument that is both materially a moral act and the Instrument of a moral not physical reception § 23. But when they have all done they do but entangle and trouble themselves and others with an unapt Logical notion For as it is so easie to confute the gross Conceit That Faith is an instrumental efficient Cause either God's or Man's of our Justification which I have done so oft that I will here pretermit it so this Notion of a Passive Instrument is unapt because 1. The Act of Assent is essential to this justifying Faith as well as Acceptance and so is Trust which yet are no more Instrumental in reception than many other Acts even Love Desire Hope 2. Because our Consent to other things as well as to be justified and our Faith in God the Father are as truly the Condition of our Iustification as our Consent to be justified 3. And because this Metaphorical use of the Word Instrument leadeth people to dream of proper Instrumentality and misleadeth them from the apter Notions The Covenant-Donation is the justifying Instrument § 24. I conclude therefore summarily 1. Faith as Faith in the Father Son and Holy Ghost in the Sence of the Baptismal Covenant is the apt Matter to be the Condition of our Justification by the Gift of that Covenant 2. If Justification be taken for making us just Performers of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace so Faith justifieth us 1. Constitutively initially as it is the beginning of that Righteousness it self 2. And by a moral efficiency as it is a cause of Love and Obedience 3. If Justification be taken for the Gift or right to Impunity and Life in and with Christ so Faith is the Condition of it and no otherwise justifieth 4. But if any will call this by the name of a Submerit with the Ancients meaning but that it meriteth Justification as a Child meriteth a piece of Gold from his Father by putting off his Hat and saying I thank you and humbly taking it instead of scornful or neglectful refusing it I will not quarrel with any such § 25. But remember that as wise men seldom make any thing a Condition of a gift which hath no worth in it to please them so God saw and put such a worth or aptitude in Faith or else he had not so much as commanded it § 26. But yet a Condition simply as such signifieth neither Merit nor Causality at all but only the terms on which the gift shall be suspended till they be performed And so the performance of a Condition as such is no efficien 〈…〉 of the gift but a removing of the suspending impediment § 27. Therefore Dr. Twisse oft calleth Faith Causam dispositivam justificationis which belongeth not to the efficient but material or recipient Cause and the true Legal Notion of its next Interest in our Justification is its being Conditio praestita and the true Logical Notion is to be Dispositio moralis materiae sive subjecti recipientis call it Causam vel Conditionem dispositivam as you please And I think this Question needs no more § 28. III. As to the third Question the truth is obvious That Christ's righteousness is imputed and yet Faith is imputed to us for righteousness in several Sences that is each is reputed to be to us what indeed it is Two things make up the Sence of Faith's being imputed to us for righteousness 1. Faith is really the Condition of the Covenant of Grace which whoso performeth he is righteous against the Charge of Non-performance of that Condition and it is reputed our subordinate Evangelical personal righteousness 2. And supposing Christ's Merits and our Redemption by him this Gospel-righteousness is all that is required of us on our parts instead of all that perfect Obedience which the Law of Innocency required So that our Faith taken in the Scripture-sence is our real righteousness related to the Condition of the New Covenant and instead of a more perfect righteousness of Innocency forasmuch as after Christ's Redemption is required to be performed by our selves § 29. This no Christians that are sober can deny as to the thing And as to the Name it is plain to the impartial that will see that Paul Rom. 4. 22 23 24. and Iam. 2. 23. by Faith means Faith it self indeed and not only Christ the Object of Faith as some affirm with too great Scandal read over the Texts and try what Sence it will be if you put Christ instead of Faith § 30. Obj. But it is not Faith in and of it self that 's meant but as connoting the Object Ans. The latter clause is true it is Faith as connoting the Object Christ But the former is a contradiction For Faith it self essentially connoteth the Object If you speak not of Faith in genere for it is not any kind of Faith that is our righteousness but of the Christian or New Covenant Faith in specie who knoweth not that the Object specifieth it And therefore if it be Christian faith as connoting the Object it is Christian faith as Christian faith § 31. But will any sober Christian deny that 〈…〉 ur righteousness in one sence and Faith 〈…〉 inate 〈…〉 in another and that both are accord 〈…〉 ed to us
How fain would some men differ if they could or seem to do it when they do not § 32. IV. As to the fourth Question I answer 1. We are all agreed That God will not pardon justifie or save any without both Faith and Repentance and Desire as necessary moral Qualifications of the Receiver And this shall serve turn if any like not the term Condition and be willing to be quiet § 33. 2. Faith in a narrow Sence as signifying meer Assent is distinct from Repentance but Faith in that sence as is meant in Baptism and hath the Promise of Justification and Life is more the same with Repentance than many perceive For Repentance is the change of the mind from evil to good And the Good necessary to our Salvation is a fiducial practical Consent to the Covenant of Grace or a practical Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost And to turn to this is to repent and be converted even to turn from the contrary Acts and Objects to this fiducial consenting Belief in God the Father Son and Spirit and what else is repenting but this Change § 34. 3. It was never Paul's meaning under the name of Works to exclude Repentance and all Acts of Faith save one and Thankfulness and Desire and Hope and Prayer c. while they keep their place in subordination to Christ They do but confound sacred Doctrines and mens minds that so imagine § 35. And the same Spirit that saith He that believeth shall be saved saith also He that calleth on the Name of the Lord shall be saved Rom. 10. 13. And we are saved by Hope Rom. 8. 24. and we are saved by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3. 5 6. and by believing the Articles of the Creed 1 Cor. 15. 2. and blessed are they that kee◠his Commandments that they may have right to the Tree of Life that right is our righteousness and may enter in c. Rev. 22. 14. By taking heed to himself and to Doctrine Timothy was to save himself and his Hearers 1 Tim. 4. 16. Many such Texts I have elsewhere cited which are all true § 36. V. As to the fifth Question it is answered before in the Description of Faith As the Father Son and Holy Spirit are one God so Faith in them is one Faith and no man can truly believe in Christ that believeth not in the Father our belief in God as God and Love to him is that Salvation to which Christ is to bring us And the Consent to use the remedy includeth the consent to have Health or to be saved And our Belief in God as our Redeemer even Christ is the chief part of our mediate Faith In a word all that Belief which is necessary to the Baptized is necessary to our Iustification But that is our Belief in Father Son and Holy Ghost in the measure that they are revealed CHAP. XXIV Of Assurance of our Justification and of Hope § 1. ASsurance of Perseverance and Salvation is not here to be spoken of but only of our present Iustification And they are distinct Questions 1. What Assurance is desirable 2. What Assurance is attainable 3. What Assurance we actually have and who have it 4. What is the nature and grounds of this Assurance § 2. I. Some pleaded so much for the usefulness of Uncertainty and Doubting as if it were the safest condition to keep us humble and watchful as excited Luther and other Reformers to take them for utter Enemies to Christian Comfort And certainly Assurance is a most desirable thing it kindleth in us the love of God it maketh Duty sweet it maketh Sufferings easie and Death less terrible and Heaven more desired and consequently cureth an earthly Mind and leadeth man to a heavenly Conversation and putteth Life into all his Endeavours Whereas a man that is still utterly in doubt of his state of Salvation and right to Life will be loath to die and therefore love this present World and have less thankful and loving Thoughts of God and his Redeemer and so all sin will have advantage and Holiness a great impediment An Infidel will confess that such Assurance is exceeding desirable § 3. II. And no doubt but a comfortable degree of Assurance is attainable or else God would never have so fully differenced the Righteous and the Wicked and commanded all to examine and try themselves and to make sure But this I have often elsewhere proved § 4. III. But all true Believers have not Assurance of their Justification because they are not certain that their Faith is such as hath the promise of Justification He that believeth perceiveth that he believeth but yet may be uncertain that his Faith is so sincere as no unjustified man can have § 5. Their Justification is real or true or certain in it self but the Evidence of it may be dark and their perception of the Evidence defective from whence it is to them uncertain that is not known with that full satisfaction of mind which we call Assurance § 6. Yea Experience telleth us That it is but a small part of the most religious Christians who will say themselves That they are certain of their Iustification and of those few that are forwardest to say so all have it not § 7. Therefore justifying Faith is not Assurance that we are justified otherwise all should have assurance that have Faith and justifying Faith in order of Nature goeth before Iustification but Assurance that we are justified followeth it we cannot be assured that we are justified but by being assured that we believe But it 's absurd to say I am assured I am justified because I am assured that I am justified But this is only against the Antinomians § 8. No man hath perfect Assurance that is the highest degree in this Life For if all our Graces be imperfect our Assurance must needs be imperfect § 9. IV. This Assurance then is not properly Divine Faith or a Belief of God's Word but it is a clear and satisfying perception of our own Justification because we are clearly satisfied that God's Promises are true and that we are true Believers § 10. This Certainty is not by an immediate Word or Revelation of the Spirit in us but yet the Spirit is all these ways the cause of it in the Faithful 1. The Spirit working us to God's Image and Will is our assuring-Evidence or the Minor in that Argument whose Conclusion we are assured of as the Spirit in the Word is the Major 2. The Spirit in Believers helpeth them to perceive his own Works in them and know their Evidence 3. And also to rejoyce in that perception This is the Witness of the Spirit which we mean and not immediate Revelation § 11. Though Hope be sometimes about things certain yet it is often also about that which we are not certain of And more have true Hopes of Salvation than have Assurance of it or of their Title
the power of the Devil to deceive men These men rejecting the last convincing means of Faith are left by themselves remediless § 20. But 2. the Papists and many Ancients say That by not forgiven is meant only very hardly and rarely but most Protestants expound the words absolutely as they run which the Reader will think most probable I leave to his consideration § 21. Some think that the Novatians denied all pardon to such as committed any great sin after Baptism but Albâ—spinaeus Petavius and others have truly proved that it was not so but only that they denied Power in the Church to pardon such Backsliders which yet no doubt was their Error seeing as God on his part pardoneth men as oft as they truly repent so the Church must pardon as far as belongs to them such as seem truly to repent But frequent gross sinning doth so much disprove mens verbal repenting that such mens credit being forfeit their words are not to be taken till they amend their lives THE END Vid. Vit. Georg. Anhalt Buchaltrin in Mâ—lc Adam Such a noise do the Histories of Church-Faction make about Nestorians Eurychians Monothelites c. that will not permit â—s to pass by these points ☞ These five preceding Chapters were on Emergent Occasions written about Twenty years after the rest of the â—ook save one Chapter Chap. 5 Pardon the disorder of not handling the Law before Sin It is for young Readers sake who would have all God's Laws opened together â—â— give Light to each other Of the divers sorts of Freedom of Will and the fuller opening them see my Methodus Theologiae and Cath. Theol. Dr. Twisse frequently well openeth this * Of this I have published a Disputation which proveth it Mr. W. Fenner put his Opinion for the Traduction of Souls into his Catechismes But the Publisher left that out And where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken for a Testament the Parts and Acts are the same with the Relation of it to the Death of the Testator who as his last Will giveth such gifts on such Terms And Christ did put his Commands unto his Testament John 14 15 16. * John 12. 32. John 7. 39. 6. 60 61 62 63 54. Joh. 5. 22 23 24 25. Joh. 10. 2 3 4 7 8 11 14 15 16. 2. 16 c. Heb. 13. 20. Joh. 6. 33 34 35 48 51 53 63. 8. 12 13. 10. 10. 11. 25. 14. 6 7. 20. 31. Rom. 5. 17 18 19 20. 8. 1 2 3. Col. 3. 3 4. 2 Tim. 1. 1. Tit. 1. 2. 2 Pet. 1. 3. Joh. 12. 25. 17. 2 3. Tit. 3. 5 7. 1 Joh. 1. 2. 2. 25. 5. 11 12 13 20. 1 Tim. 1. 16. Joh. 4. 14. Gal. 6. 8. †Mat. 28. 19. Joh. 17. 1 2 3. Rom. 14. 9 10. Eph. 1. 20 23. Phil. 2. 7 9. Joh. 5. 22. Col. 1. Joh. 3. 16 38. Mat. 28. 20. Eph. 4. 7 8 c. Rom. 8. 9. 2 Tim. 1. 7. Rom. 8. 1 â—o 28 34. Heb. 7. 25. Rom. 8. 30 35. John 3. 18 19. Matth. 28. 20. Heb. 10. 29 2. 3. Acts 15. 10. Gal. 5. 1. Rom. 7. 8. 3 4. Gal. 3. 4. 5. Heb. 7. 10. Rom. 3. 4. 5. Mat. 5. John 17. 2. 13. 3. Matt. 28. 19. Rom. 14. 9. John 5. 22. Eph. 1. 23. * Though this be said before a new Case here causeth me to repeat it Of Sufficient grace See of this my Discourse of Saving Faith * Some say that God's meer will causeth man's act as willing it without any other Influx or Impress on Man's Will save our Act it self effected But though it be only God's essential will which is the first Cause yet the thing received by us from God seemeth to be a certain Impress Impulse or vis or Disposition to act in order of Nature before the act it self which Impress sometime is made uneffectual by a prevalent Indisposition or Resistance of the Will * Though before I shewed that this seemed not necessary to all acts of Man will not overthrow Durand Exod. 34. 5 6 7. Heb. 11. 6. Act. 13. 48. Mark 16. 16. Joh. 3. 36. Joh. 14. 6. Ro. 10. 10. c. Mat. 11. 27. Luk. 10. 22. Mat. 16. 17. Rom. 1. 16 17. 1 Cor. 2. 10 c. 2 Cor. 4. 3. Rom. 8. 1 9 13. Luk. 19. 10. Luke 24. Zech. 14. 20 21. 2 Tim. 1. 9. Heb. 3. 1. 1 Pet. 1. 15 16. 2. 5 9. 2 Pet. 3. 11. Exod. 19. 6. Deut. 7. 6. 26. 19. 28. 9. Isa. 62. 12. Rom. 11. 16. 1 Thes. 5. 23. Eph. 1. 18 19. Act. 26. 18. 1 Cor. 3. 17. 7. 14 34. Luk. 14 26 27 31 33. Heb. 12. 14. Col. 1. 22. Eph. 1. 4. 5. 27. 1 Peâ— 1. 16. Eph. 5. 27. 4. 16 c. * Col. 1. 10. 1 Thess. 2. 4. 1 Iohn 3. 22. Heb. 13. 21. Col. 3. 20. Heb. 11. 5. †Luk. 1. 75. Eph. 4. 24. 1 Thess. 4. 7. Heb. 12. 10. Rom. 8. 1 9. Phil. 4. 8. 2 Pet. 1. 3 5. Pro. 12. 4. 31. 31. 29. See the full proof in my two Disput. of Original Sin ☜ In two Treatises for Infants Church-membership and in my Review of Infant-Baptism ☜ Gen. 6. 9. Hos. 14. 9. Heb. 10. 38. 12. 23. Luke 1. 17. 2. 25. 14. 14. 15. 7 Matth. 10. 41. 2 Pet. 2. 8. 1 Tim. 1. 9. Rom. 5. 7. Mat. 13 17. 1 Jo. 3. 7. 1 Pet. 3. 12. 4. 18. Heb. 11. 4. Mat. 13. 43. 25. 37. 46. Rom. 10. 6 10. 8. 4. 10. 6. 13 16 19 20. 5. 17 21. Rom. 2. 26. Act. 10. 35. Luk. 1. 75. Mat. 5. 6 20. * Against Dr. Tully's Accusations * Dr. Kendal Act. 12. 21. Of this more before How far Infants Grace is loseable ☜ See Mr. Hales of the sin against the H. Ghost and Paraphrase on Matth. 12. lately published
agreed what will be the event that I think the Controverfie not worth the handling but made among other snares of Satan to trouble the Church and draw us to vain Janglings about words that edifie not from the Simplicity that is in Christ. § 14. Q. VII Whethâ—r there be a state of Confirmation here Ans. 1. Undoubtedly there are some Christians that are strong rooted settled established and some that are weak and like Children toss'd up and down Rom. 4. 20. 15. 1. Heb. 5. 12 14. 1 Ioh. 2. 14. 1 Cor. 16. 13. Eph. 6. 10. 2 Tim. 2. 1. 1 Cor. 15. 58. 1 Pet. 5. 9. Col. 2. 5. Eph. 3. 16 17. Col. 2. 7. There is a need of strengthening Grace 1 Pet. 5. 10. Luk. 22. 32. Rev. 3. 2. Act. 9. 22. Col. 1. 11. 2 Tim. 4. 17. Psal. 138. 3. Phil. 4. 13. § 15. 2. It is agreeable to Scripture Reason and Experience to judge that strengthened Christians stand faster than the weak and that it is in it self more unlikely that they should be seduced and forsake Christ. § 16. Seeing it is so doubtful whether any that are sincere fall away we have great reason to think that it will hardlier be proved of the Confirmed I know that Strength hath several degrees and it 's hard to determine just what this Confirmation is but I am perswaded that abundance of confirmed Christians there are who have taken hold of Christ by Faith and Love and have clear light and great experience and so much Grace as that from that Confirmation it may be inferred that they never fall away and perish and consequently that Certainty of Salvation and not only of present Justification is attainable in this Life And some of the Papists themselves are of this mind though others of them say That even a state of Confirmation may be lost § 17. Q. VIII Whether Perseverance depend on meer Election Ans. It was Augustine's Judgment and his Followers That Election is the ascertaining Cause of Perseverance giving the special Grace of Perseverance but what that Grace was besides Divine Volition and Preservation whether any special confirming degree or kind it is not easie to gather out of him And I think it past doubt That God doth elect some to Perseverance and all persevere whom he so electeth and because he electeth them and no other But whether many also are truly sanctified and justified that are not elect and so do not persevere as Austin held I said before I do not know § 18. Q. IX Are all or most Christians certain that they shall persevere Ans. No For 1. most Christians in the World hold that Perseverance is uncertain to the godly and how can they be certain of it to themselves 2. Most that hold otherwise hold it but as uncertain and are not themselves certain that it is true though they call it certain I am uncertain And I find not by other signs that the most have more knowledge than my self And he that is not certain of the Premises is not by them certain of the Conclusion 3. Most Christians are uncertain that they are sincere and justified And such cannot be certain to persevere in that which they are not certain that they have § 19. Q. X. Certainty of their present state of Iustification is not fit for those that sin as much and are as bad as ever will stand with sincerity till they repent Therefore certainty of Perseverance must needs be unfit for them And therefore God never giveth it to such § 20. Q. XI Certainty of Grace Iustification and Perseverance and Salvation is a most excellent desirable thing above all the Treasures of the World and to be earnestly sought by all and tendeth not of it self to carnal security but to fill the Soul with holy Love and Thankfulness and Joy and make our Lives likest to Heaven on Earth O blessed are they that do attain it And woe to them that dispraise it and perswade men to causeless doubting It is the height of our attainment here in it self and the improvement and maketh us live a Heavenly Life and long to be with Christ But we cannot therefore say that those have it that have it not But all should promote and seek it § 21. Q. XII They that are certain that all true Believers persevere have one great help towards their own Consolation But if they be uncertain that they themselves are true Believers this will not comfort them As they that are perswaded only that all Confirmed Christians persevere must know that they are confirmed before this can give them the comfort of Assurance § 22. But I have elsewhere fully proved 1. That most Christians have not the comfort of their own certain Perseverance for want of the Certainty of their Sincerity if not of the Doctrine it self 2. And that thousands and millions of Christians live and die in Peace and Comfort that have not a proper Certainty of Salvation 3. Much more may such live in Joy that are sure of their present state of Grace though not of their Perseverance § 23. For Experience telleth us that though most of the Christian World are against the Doctrine of Certain Perseverance of all true Believers yet many of them live and die in Comfort § 24. And Church-History and the Ancients Writings tell us That though for many hundred years the Christian Doctors commonly held That some lose true justifying Faith and perish yeâ— multitudes lived and died in Joy and went with boldness through the flaâ—es § 25. And we see in all things that men are affected according to what is predominant and he that hath far more Hope than fear and doubting will have more joy than sorrow though he be not certain but some doubting do remain § 26. It is certain in it self that God's Promises in the Gospel are all true But every one that truly believeth it is not properly certain of it past all doubt And he that hath the least doubt of the truth of the Gospel must needs doubt as much of that Salvation which is expected on the Gospel-Promise And yet such Believers may have Peace and Joy according to the measure of their Faith and Hope § 27. We see among men no Wife is certain one day or night that her Husband will not forsake or murder her no Child is certain that his Father will not kill him nor any one of his dearest Friend And yet we can have Love Peace and Comfort in our Relations without such certainty For it 's melancholy folly to live in fears of things utterly unlikely and to cast away the Comforts of great probability § 28. Yea no godly man is certain that he shall not fall into such hainous Sin as Noah Lot David Peter did or that he shall not kill his dearest Friend or himself And yet when a man is conscious that his Nature his Reason his Experience and his Resolution do all make him hate such a wicked act and that there
is no probable cause to move him to it and when we know God is ready with his Grace to help us how few lose the Comfort of their Lives by fear of such improbable things Certainty therefore is very desirable but a hope of great probability may give us joyful thankful Hearts or else few Christians would have such § 29. And the Doctrine of Perseverance hath its difficulties too as to mens comfort For he that holdeth That no man falleth from a state of Grace and seeth many that to all possible humane judgment were once excellent persons fall quite away can himself have no assurance that he is so much as justified at the present unless he be sure that he is better than the best of all those persons ever were which doubt the other side are not cast upon § 30. Q. XIII Whether the Doctrine of Apostacy infer any mutability in God Ans. No there 's no shew of it unless you hold that his absolutely Elect fall away It was no change in God when he gave us grace and justified us and it would be no more if he cease than it was to begin It was no change in God when I was born and it will be no more when I die The Change is only in Man and his receptive Disposition Even the Law of the Land without any Diversity or Change doth virtually condemn a thousand Malefactors and justifie the Just and will cease to justifie them and begin to condemn them if they cease to be just and begin to be Offenders The Changes that God himself maketh in all the World are made without any Change in him Therefore what man doth or undoth cannot change him § 31. Q. XIV Why did God ledve this Case so dark Ans. It is not fit for us to call for any reason of his doing but what he hath given us But while he hath made it sure to us that he will cause all his Elect to persevere and will deny his Grace to none that faithfully seek it and will save all that do not wilfully and finally reject it and giveth us no cause to distrust his Mercy his holy Ends are by this attained in his Peoples Uprightness and Peace And he seemeth by leaving the rest so obscure to tell us that it is not a matter of so great use to us as some imagine and that it is not a point fit for to be the measure of our Communion or Peace § 32. XV. What was the judgment of the ancient Churches of this Point Ans. Vossius in his Pelagian History hath truly told you and copiously proved it in the main Before Augustine's time it was taken commonly as granted That men might fall away from a state of Grace and that many did but the Case was not curiously discussed But some thought that confirmed Christians never fell But upon Pelagius his Disputes Augustine defending the honour of Grace laid all upon Election and maintained That though the Non-elect did fall away from the Love of God and Justification and a state in which they had been saved had they died yet none of the Elect did fall so as to perish but that the preservation of Grace in perseverance was the fruit of Election Thus Prosper and Fulgentius after him and some Passages in him and Macarius and some others intimate that they thought there was a confirmed degree of Grace which was never lost but they all took it for granted that some fell from a state of Iustification and perished And I remember not oâ—â— Writer that I have read and noted to be of the contrary mind for a thousand years after the writing of the Scriptures nor any mention of any Christian that was so unless Hierome be to be believed of Ievinian who saith that he held That the godly could not sin which Report is much to be suspected on many accounts § 33. What Use is to be made of this I leave to others but it beseemeth no good Man to deprave or deny the Truth of such History And some great Divines are to be blamed for reproaching Vossius for a true Historical Report when they neither can confute him nor attempt it Two or three Sentences out of Austin are cited by some but meerly mistaken as if they spake that of all the Justified which he speaketh only of the Elect. § 34. Q. XVI By all that is said it is past denial that Certainty of perseverance should be most earnestly sought and that state of Confirmation which is likest to obtain it but that few have it eâ—en of the truly godly and that it is not the common ground of Christians Peace and Comfort but Hopes upon great Probability do sustain the most and that the difficulty of the point is such as that it should in all Churches be left free and neither side made necessary to our Christian Love Peace Conâ—ord Communion or Ministery CHAP. XXVII Of Repentance late Repentance the time of Grace and of the unpardonable Sin § 1. REpentance as a Pain and involuntary is part of the Punishment of sin by the Law of Works but Repentance as a returning to God and a recovery of the Soul is a Grace and Duty proper to the Subjects of the Redeemer under the Law of Grace § 2. Yea it is a great and excellent part of the Law of Grace to give Repentance unto life and to admit of Repentance after sin which the Law of Innocency did not admit of § 3. Therefore Iohn and Christ himself did preach the Gospel or Law of Grace when they preached Repentance which was a great part even of Christ's own preaching § 4. Therefore the Antinomian Libertines know not what they talk of when they call it Legal Preaching and set Repentance as in opposition to Faith as if Faith were all that the Gospel did command or Repentance did not belong to Faith § 5. Yet it must be confessed that of late times many have laid more upon the sorrowing weeping and fearing part of Repentance than was meet and said too little of the turning of the Soul from worldly and fleshly sinful Pleasures to the delightful Love and Praises of God and willing Obedience and Conformity to his Will which is the principal part of true Repentance And I think God permitted the Antinomians to rise up and cry up Free-Grace and call the Ministers Legallists to rebuke our Error in this point and to call us to preach up his Grace more plentifully and to consider better that Gospel-obedience doth chiefly consist in Thankfulness Love and Ioy and in the words of Praise and Works of Love I am sure this use we should make of their Abuses § 6. Repentance is either general or particular General or Universal Repentance is a turning of the Understanding Will and Practice with repenting Sorrow from the inordinate Estimation Love and seeking of temporal Things for the Pleasure and Prosperity of the Flesh or sensual powers to God his Will and Service and the Hopes